《Badge in Azure》


 Chapter 1: Star of Magic

    <h4>Chapter 1: Star of Magic</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At the north pole of the Metatrin Maind, a massive sheet of ice upon the frozen sea had grown to a thickness greater than five miles. On top of this ice sheet was a town made entirely out of ice. In reality, this town was the well-functioning Mage Guild.


    To have built a guild in such a freezing cold ce must have been nothing short of arduous. The average temperature year round was below freezing ¨C twenty degrees below freezing, to be exact. On sunny days, no signs of greenery could be seen. Even the most tenacious magical nts did not want to grow here.


    The only exception was at the center of the Mage Guild. At the bottom of the magical tower was a huge statue. Surrounding the statue was a small garden.


    This was a forbidden ce within the Mage Guild. The statue was rumored to have been built in the likeness of the Lord of the Metatrin Maind, Saleen. He was also the first ever dean of the Mage Guild. However, none of the students had ever seen him. Right from the initial establishment of the guild, this Dean had be a legendary figure.


    The perimeter of the garden surrounding the statue was only a hundred meters wide. The temperature in the garden was above the freezing point, and because its surroundings were always foggy, only the face of the statue was visible. Within the garden, a little girl in her teens was watering the nts with a jade bottle. Hundreds of droplets sprinkled out evenly onto the soil as the water was poured out of the bottle. The barefooted girl, d in a long skirt, stood out prominently in this icyndscape.


    In the distance, whenever students walked past, someone wouldment, ¡°How pitiful.¡±


    A prerequisite for admission to the Mage Guild was that those who were grade-9 mages or higher had to continue their pursuits of the secrets of the world of magic. In the Metatrin Maind, being a grade-9 mage did not mean much aside from signifying that one was a determined person who possessed strong perseverance.


    The little girl¡¯s wordless movements attracted the pity of many mages, but none of them were aware of the impact it had on their own mental state.


    Each time such a situation urred, a hint of a smile would appear on the little girl¡¯s lips.


    And afterwards, a beautiful youngdy would appear to berate her. ¡°Myers, do your work properly!¡±


    The girl, whose name was Myers, would bow her head pitifully and continue her work.


    Myers was indeed quite pitiful like this, but nobody dared rebuke that youngdy, for whoever did so would suffer bad luck. Being left naked and freezing in the icy parade square was considered the lightest punishment. Some people just disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again. Those people had been punished for their disrespect towards the youngdy.


    The youngdy was a notorious devil within the guild. It was rumored that she had close ties to the Dean.


    There was no shortage of courageous beings on the Metatrin Maind. It was just that it was rumored that Myers contained a devil sealed in her body, and that the one to cast this spell had been a mythical beast hidden in the frozen sea.


    The guild released numerous missions every year, and there was only one mission that none of the students had been able to aplish: to expel this devil, which involved the killing of that beast and the collection of its blood to purify the little girl.


    Ding¡­ dong¡­


    The melodious bell rang. The guild became lively as many mages from the lower grades rushed excitedly to Water Element Hall to join in the fun.


    The grade-9 mages ¨C the students of the lowest grade ¨C behaved like chattering little girls. It was not surprising, for since the guild¡¯s establishment a few thousand years ago, a Star of Magic had appeared less than ten times. There had not been a single one in thest three hundred years.


    A Star of Magic not only needed to possess a unique bloodline and the ability to inherit powerful magic, but also needed to have powerful abilities in control, be skilled in alchemy, and make equipment by themselves in order to aplish twelve different guild missions. These criteria by themselves were only the beginning of the selection of a Star of Magic, and many students were able to meet them. The outstanding masters found by this process were subsequently enrolled into the Arctic Guild.


    This time, the manner in which the magic bell rang was unique. It rang three times in session, with thirteen tones each time. This meant that the newly emerged Star of Magic was a grade-13 student.


    In the Arctic Guild, the regr grade-9 students could graduate uponpleting grade-12. However, they had the option of not leaving the guild and advancing their education as seniors instead. The seniors were in grade-13 to grade-15, with grade-13 being the lowest.


    That being said, the Star of Magic this time was a grade-13 senior. So far, the highest grade toplete all the Star of Magic missions, as well as the final selection, had been grade-15.


    There were not many people in the hall, only about three hundred. The dean appeared in the middle of the tform.


    Francis was a grade-16 mage. It was said that Francis¡¯ aptitude had been average, but since he had followed the first Dean Saleen and received meticulous guidance, he had made significant achievements today.


    However, this had not hindered Francis from bing the idol of the students. He had lived for thousands of years and had participated in many great battles to bring peace to the Golden ins.


    It was said that the evil mage of the Golden ins was very powerful, and because he had offered his soul to the devil, he had a body that feared nothing.


    With a head of short golden hair, Francis looked like he was thirty-something years old. He looked at the young girl standing in front of him and said, ¡°Mephisto, you are the first grade-13 student since the establishment of the Arctic Guild to have been awarded the Star of Magic. Here is your badge.¡±


    The youngdy mage, Mephisto, dly received the badge. On this badge, there was a blemish in the shape of a lightning bolt.


    Why was it broken?


    Frances noticed Mephisto¡¯s puzzled look and said, ¡°Mephisto, the history of this seal dates back to the ancient times of the First Empire. In addition, the honorable mage Saleen used this badge as a symbol to represent his Metatrin n.¡±


    Mephisto held on tightly to the badge in shock, fearing that Francis would confiscate it.


    Although the Metatrin n had bowed out of the historical stage, Metatrin City still existed as the holynd on the maind. Items that Saleen had used at the beginning of his journey had be treasures to mages. There were many legends regarding this badge, and the most astounding one was that hidden in this badge was great power. The mighty Saleen had used this badge to y countless evil gods in order to make the Metatrin Maind and of freedom.


    Surely, that was just a legend. Mephisto regarded Saleen as her idol. The meaning behind this badge far outweighed its power a million times over.


    There were whispers amongst the people in the hall. Everyone envied Mephisto, a talented youngdy who had in ten years progressed from grade-10 to grade-13. She was considered to be the most outstanding master over thest few hundred years. Despite the fact that her grade was still considered low within the Arctic Guild, her power was equivalent to that of a grade-12 mage master during the Fifth Dynasty.


    ¡°Mephisto, do you have any requests?¡± Francis looked at the youngdy, pleased. Despite her inherent ws having limited her to the practice of Water Magic, she had attained such astounding results so early on. As her perseverance had enabled her to acquire the highly challenging Element Conversion skill, it was a most appropriate time for her to have progressed to this point.


    ¡°Request?¡±


    ¡°Yes. As you are the winner among the twelve students, you have the privilege of making a request.¡±


    Mephisto was ecstatic. She knew that although only she had received the Star of Magic, the other eleven students would also be honored. She was merely the lucky one.


    ¡°I wish to enter the Magical Element Tower to practice!¡±


    ¡°Sure, not a problem!¡±


    ¡°Hmph¡­¡± A cold voice was heard. It came from a student waiting behind her. He had been defeated by grade-13 Mephisto in the battle. It had been by ident. He was very depressed ¨C a grade-15 master having been defeated by a grade-13 master. To others, it was an honor to be a runner-up, but to him, it was pure humiliation.


    ¡°Congrattions, Adam! You have achieved the good result of being the runner-up in the Star of Magic selection. The guild has decided to award you with this. Please treasure it.¡± Francis was not bothered by Adam¡¯s attitude; mages were better off as mage controllers if they did not have their personality.


    Frances took out a magic wand. Upon seeing the wand, Adam was appeased. Francis had not been lying. The reward for the runner-up, actually, was better than that of the winner¡¯s. It was aposite magic wand which had been refined using mysterious means and held arge dragonshard within it. The dragonshard had not been polished, but its sixty-four-facets were evenly distributed. This was indeed a huge dragonshard, usually meant for only grade-16 or above.


    ¡°Adam, you may also make a request.¡±


    Adam was taken aback, and then replied happily, ¡°Dean, sir, I hope to set the little girl free.¡±


    ¡°Little girl?¡± Francis was momentarily dumbfounded.


    ¡°Yes. Myers, the pitiful Myers.¡± Tears almost welled up in Adam¡¯s eyes as he thought of the pitiful damsel imprisoned within the garden, allegedly for a few thousand years now. The devil in her body had been none of her business. The devil within her had nothing to do with her.


    ¡°This is impossible!¡±


    ¡°Dean, you said that I could make a request without restriction.¡±


    ¡°Adam, your request should not be against my will, right?¡±


    Adam looked at the Dean, puzzled. He could not understand why for the Dean, this was a difficult matter to resolve.


    ¡°That Myers is not under my custody. She is someone else¡¯s personal property,¡± Francis said with a smile.

 Chapter 2: The Last Metatrin (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 2: The Last Metatrin (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The northern port of the Sikeqinya Empire: Ceylon City.


    A sudden rainstorm was pouring down through the gap of the fort. The sky was darkened as though it had been tinted with dragon¡¯s blood ink. Inside the harbor, the fishing boats cowered as huge waves forcefully struck the dam. With a crashing sound, the waves also created mist over ten meters tall


    As the rainwater umted and spread rapidly to the slums, the water on the streets deepened. The drainage system, which had not been maintained for at least five years, was inadequate; in an instant, the slums became a vast ocean.


    Ceylon City¡¯s Magnolia Bay was no longer how it had been in the past. The withering fishing industry provided limited ie, and the lord was powerless, unable to help. To improve the drainage system, they would need a mage well-versed in alchemy, as well as many of his numerous disciples. It would cost thousands of gold coins just for them to prepare the drawing. No mage had appeared in Ceylon City in thest two hundred years, and the municipal services department had nearly be just for show.


    Lightning tore across the sky, followed by rolling thunder. As the lightning danced in the sky, it illuminated the stormy city. On the empty streets, a youth about ten years of age was struggling to move forward against the water.


    This youth, who was very skinny and weak, had short brown unruly hair. The rain sshed past his eyshes, causing him to keep his eyes closed. As he breathed out a faint white vapor from his nose, his legs trembled nonstop. He hugged an oil-paper packet tightly; it contained all the food he had begged for that day.


    Bang!


    A loud p of thunder. The youth could no longer hold on and fell to the ground. With his face submerged in the water, he immediately started to choke and cough. He struggled vehemently, desperately wanting to stand up again. However, his thin weak body could no longer withstand it. He turned over and passed out. In his unconscious state, his hands still gripped the oil-paper packet tightly.


    The sky finally cleared after two hours of the intense rainstorm. As the flood water slowly receded, pedestrians began to appear on the streets. The unconscious youth was flushed over to some eaves under a roof, his body against the stone.


    The door pushed open. A person dressed like a servant saw the unconscious youth, ran up to him, and gave him a forceful kick. He shouted angrily, ¡°Beggar, get lost. Don¡¯t die here!¡±


    His voice was sharp and chilling, closely resembling that of a Tanggsi Empire pce eunuch who had been castrated. The kick caused the youth to wake up moaning. This was followed by a bout of severe coughing. He felt warm and realized that he had a fever. Subconsciously, his hands were still holding onto the oil-paper packet tightly. He heaved a sigh of relief and turned over before crawling two steps away. Then, he struggled to open his oil-paper packet.


    The oil-paper packet contained aged rice that had turned moldy. He had nned to cook it at home before eating it. However, he could not wait any longer, because if he still did not eat anything, he would not have energy to even walk.


    The aged grains tasted like sand in his mouth, disintegrating as they were chewed and swallowed into his stomach.


    ¡°Unlucky!¡± The fierce-looking servant saw that the youth really could not get up on his feet and spat at him forcefully before turning around and going through the door.


    The youthid on the ice cold ground and forced himself to wolf down the remaining half portion of raw rice. Then he got back onto his feet unsteadily, and without turning back, walked towards the east of the city. His house was situated at the outskirts of the city. If he did not reach his home before the sky turned dark, a subsequent rainstorm could cause him to freeze to death on the streets.


    A plump businessman walked out of the bright red door behind him. He was wearing poor quality silk, and his hair was oiled. He looked like he had been drenched in the rain.


    ¡°Wait, isn¡¯t that the kid from the Metatrin n? What was his name again?¡± The plump, sharp-eyed businessman looked at the back of the youth as he asked this to the two servants behind him.


    ¡°Saleen, Master. His name is Saleen.¡± The servant gave a toad-likeugh, sounding like a chicken being strangled. The wretched looking trio of master and servants looked at the youth in an unfriendly manner.


    ¡°Why is he not dead?¡±


    ¡°Who knows? No idea which jerk was willing to give him food,¡± the other servant answered angrily.


    ¡°Hey, you two, monitor him closely. Should he die, buy the house immediately, lest anyone else takes the opportunity,¡± the plump businessman instructed. He twisted his heavy body and walked in the other direction.


    ¡°Noted, Master,¡± the servants replied as they carefully followed behind him. The two of them were almost able to hide in the shadow of the plump businessman.


    In the chilly night, the youth named Saleen dragged his exhausted body out of Ceylon City. He carried the oil-paper packet, left the main road, and limped back to his ancestral home.


    This enormous stone house was thest asset of the Metatrin n. Saleen pushed the door open and entered the house shakily.


    The stone walls, covered with green moss, exuded a wintry feel. All the windows in this two story house had no ss in them, making the lonely stone house seem eerie and deste.


    Saleen gasped for air; he was finally home. He practically crawled up the stairs to his bedroom andy his head against the bed board. The bed board was like the wall ¨C wet, cold, and stiff.


    His clothing, which had been drenched by the rain, had been half-dried by the strong winds on his journey home. It was now stuck to his body. It was Saleen¡¯s one and only piece of clothing. Saleen struggled to push himself up, removed his clothes, andy on the bed board. The oil-paper packet was ced next to his head. He felt a sharp pain at his waist and turned his head to take a look. It had been badly bruised.


    This had been from the kick from that servant. Saleen grit his teeth as hey down. The pain would disappear if he was asleep.


    The moonlight and cold breeze that trickled into the room were hardly poetic. Saleen felt as though his body was burning, and there was a splitting pain in his head. It was possible that he would lose his life if the fever persisted. He struggled to climb out of his bed and pulled out a box from beneath the bed.


    The lock on the box had long since been dismantled. The silver lock had been traded for a week¡¯s worth of food. No one had been willing to buy the pest-proof camphor wooden box, and Saleen had every intention of using it to start a fire one day.


    In the box was a messy pile of collection slips, most of them being debt-rted documents. Saleen fished out a metal badge and stuck it onto his forehead. The coolness seeped through his forehead and he felt as though his headache was waning. Saleen sat on the floor and wept as he looked at the box full of collection slips.


    The Metatrin n had been a noble tribe, and the honorable name had been a sign of fortune in the northern part of the empire. By the time of Saleen¡¯s generation, the Metatrin n had been left with nothing. The pile of collection slips had be useless pieces of paper. The debtors who had owed money back then had since passed away, and major shifts of power and wars had caused the gradual decline of the Metatrin family.


    If the debtors had still been alive and had repaid him the amounts indicated on the collection slips, Saleen would have been able to buy Ceylon City ten times over.


    The badge, which was pressed upon Saleen¡¯s forehead, was a symbol of the Metatrin n. Saleen had not attempted to sell the palm-sized badge, as like the collection slips, it had been left to him by his father.


    Saleen¡¯s parents had both died when he was six years old, leaving him the box and ancestral home. Saleen had not been able to make a living for himself at the tender age of six, and had needed to sell the things in the house in order to feed himself. Scheming businessmen had taken advantage of his situation to make money. What would a six-year-old boy know? Within half a year, Saleen had sold almost everything in the house.


    Although Saleen was already twelve years old, he looked more like a ten-year-old since he was malnourished, skinny, and weak.


    Saleen had not sold the ancestral home. It was not that he had not wanted to, but property transactions needed to be processed at city hall and could not be falsified. The greedy businessmen who were eyeing his property preferred to wait until Saleen starved to death. Upon his death, the property would not have an owner. Then, they would be able to buy thend for next to nothing.


    Saleen¡¯s will to survive was very strong, and he had managed tost to the age of twelve through begging.


    Saleen fell onto the bed. The family badge had sent coolness through his body, enough that the pain at his waist had lessened. Saleen fell asleep, not knowing if he would wake up this time.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    Saleen forced his eyes open and sat up. Sunlight streamed into the house through the window, the dirt on the floor evident.


    It was strange to have someone knocking on the door this early in the morning. Saleen¡¯s ancestral home was not near any main roads, and was instead situated at the foot of a mountain across a spot of forest. Ever since he had sold everything in his home, no one had called upon him.


    Bang, bang, bang!


    The knocking at the door persisted. Saleen jumped out of bed, feeling healthier and much lighter than before. He put the badge back into the box and shoved it under the bed before going downstairs to answer the door.


    Having been in a daze the night before, he had forgotten to lock the door. Fear suddenly gripped Saleen. There were beasts in the area and he could have been devoured in his sleep if they had entered.


    The door opened with a shriek. Saleen felt the warmth from the sun¡¯s rays as they streamed in. A middle-aged man was standing among the shadows of the trees. He had long ck hair, wore a long grey robe, and held a wooden staff in his hand.


    This man could not have been more than forty years of age. He had long, straight eyebrows that pointed upwards, and no beard. The hand holding the wooden staff was wearing a huge silver-ck ring which was engraved with manyplex symbols. Saleen felt a little lost. The man had an odd appearance; could he have been a high priest from the Roman Curia?


    His expression was very genial, but he had the air of a nobleman, as if that was simply how he was and it had nothing to do with anyone else.


    Life as a beggar had made Saleen more sensitive ¨C he knew the types of people he could approach versus the types he should avoid. But this man who had knocked on his door was different from the people of Ceylon City. He was standing right in front of Saleen, and yet the youth could not feel his presence.


    The man smiled and asked Saleen, ¡°Where are the adults of the home?¡±


    This man must havee from a foreignnd, because the people of Ceylon City knew of him as a jinx. Saleen¡¯s inner voice quieted down as he rubbed his temples and answered, ¡°There is no one else here. Sir, may I know what is the matter?¡±


    Saleen asked this politely, trying to appear at ease. To keep his life, he knew that he needed to get into the good books of the other party. This had been Saleen¡¯s mantra in his twelve years of life experience.


    ¡°Oh.¡± The man looked at Saleen, baffled. Saleen had dashed down, topless and d only in his shorts. He had a palm-sized mark on his forehead, left behind by the family badge.


    ¡°This house is yours?¡± the man asked gently.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen looked down at the ground as his brown irises contracted. Could this man have been a bandit?


    ¡°The thing is, I would like to buy this house. May I enter for a discussion?¡±


    Buy the house? Saleen tried to reconcile with what he had just heard. He had long since nned to sell the house and then find a job in the city. He would not have minded work processing fish, as long as he could fill his stomach. However, he knew that apprentices were mostly given lodging instead of meals. If he had found work, he would have starved to death by the end of the first month. Saleen turned to his side nkly and said, ¡°Pleasee in.¡±


    As the man stepped into the stone house, the dust beneath his feet disappeared, not leaving any imprints. There was a soft breeze, and the dampness in the living room instantly disappeared. Saleen¡¯s heart fluttered with excitement, carefully calcting how much to sell the house for as he closed the door.


    The man nced around the house, taking everything in. There was nothing in the house aside from its four walls, and there was nothing to admire. The man looked satisfied. He turned to Saleen and asked, ¡°You mentioned that this house is yours? Do you have the deed?¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± Saleen nodded his head, but he did not return to the bedroom to retrieve the deed. As he had grown older, he realized that he had previously been cheated by those businessmen, and had learned to be more vignt.


    The man smiled as he reached out his hand to stroke Saleen¡¯s head, saying, ¡°You need not worry. I am a mage and will not cheat you. Tell me, how many gold coins do you intend to sell this house for?¡±


    Gold coins! Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up. He had never seen gold coins, even after he had begun to sell the things in the house. The person who had taken his four-foot oil painting had only left him a silver coin. The gold-tedmpstand, which had been exchanged for two silver coins, was considered a fair transaction. When he was six, the businessman who had moved away the full set of cupboards had left Saleen only two loaves of bread.

 Chapter 3: The Last Metatrin (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 3: The Last Metatrin (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    However, Saleen reacted very quickly. He widened his eyes and shouted, ¡°Mage! You are a mage!¡±


    His voice revealed excitement coupled with fear. He had nearly swallowed thest few words back into his throat.


    Saleen had never thought that a mage would ever appear before him. Ceylon City had not seen a mage for over two hundred years, and everyone would have known of their existence if there had been one.


    Mages represented mystery, power, fear, and distance. Normal people did not have the opportunity to encounter mages; only noblemen, emperors, the army and the wealthy, etc. would have the honor of being acquainted with mages.


    Mages were very wealthy people. While they chose to live in istion from others, they possessed great powers. A single mage could destroy an entire city. Mages did not even need to bow before the emperor¡­


    In other words, mages were living legends. They built magical towers and practiced inside of them. There were no limits to their power. Even if there was a war, all armies, regardless of the forces they possessed, would need to detour around magical towers. If a nobleman won a mage¡¯s favor and gained the opportunity to support them, his status would be elevated immediately.


    Saleen was confused. He astutely understood that the appearance of this mage would change his life, but he was unsure how to seize the chance. Should he ask for more money? Would it incur the mage¡¯s displeasure?


    Gold coins! Gold coins! Bread¡­


    ¡°How about a hundred gold coins? I shall buy you a small house in town which will be sufficient for you to live in.¡± The mage looked at the child with pity. Saleen¡¯s body was so thin that a person could count the number of ribs he had. There was also a bruise on his ribs, which made him look even more pitiful.


    Saleen doubled over from the weight of the hundred gold coins. He almost wanted to agree immediately, but the pain in his ribs suddenly struck, and he took a deep breath of cold air, frowned, and bent over further.


    ¡°Oh, let me take a look.¡± The mage held Saleen with one hand and used the other hand to release a spell. A shiny green glow shrouded Saleen¡¯s body.


    Saleen felt as though he had been submerged in warm water. The green glow prated his skin, and the pain in his body disappeared.


    A thought entered Saleen¡¯s head, and like the temptation of the devil, it could not be dispelled.


    ¡°I do not want the gold coins!¡± Saleen straightened his body and said, ¡°Mage sir, please ept me as your student.¡±


    Saleen did not know how to salute, so he raised his head and looked straight into the mage¡¯s eyes. In that moment, he was ovee by nervousness. What would the mage¡¯s reaction be? Would he think that Saleen had insulted the profession of a mage, and turn hostile and kill him instead?


    The mage¡¯s dark eyes deepened. They looked bright like obsidian, as though there were more veins within them. He looked at Saleen thoughtfully. ¡°You would like to be my student?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I would like to learn magic,¡± Saleen said resolutely. Despite his fear, the pain in his ribs had stirred his heart. There was no use in selling the house for a lot of money, as it would be depleted one day if he did not have any survival skills. If he met with bandits, it was possible that he would even lose his life.


    ¡°It is difficult to learn magic.¡± The mage prevented Saleen from interrupting him and continued, ¡°Nine out of ten can be students of magic, but only one or two out of a hundred can be mages. Students of magic do not have strong powers; it can only be a means of livelihood. If you be my student, you will not be allowed to switch upations without my permission.¡±


    Saleen kneeled down on the floor with a thump. Bending his head down, he said, ¡°I am willing to be your student.¡± He tried hard not to use unrefined words, but had learned to include honorifics.


    ¡°Get up.¡± The mage¡¯s voice turned icy. He said with a firm tone, ¡°Even apprentices of magic should not go down on their knees.¡±


    ¡°You must remember: if you are to be my student, this shall be thest time in your life that you are on your knees.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Teacher.¡± Saleen stood up with joy, for he knew that this meant that the mage had agreed to his request.


    ¡°What is your name, and how old are you?¡± The mage¡¯s voice softened.


    ¡°I am Saleen, Saleen Metatrin. I am twelve years old,¡± Saleen replied respectfully, but disappointingly, his stomach rumbled.


    The mage smiled. ¡°Go get changed and eat something. I will be waiting in the living room.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± Saleen promised and sped upstairs. He returned to his room, put on his jacket, and headed down the stairway to the kitchen. The half-packet of old rice was still there on the stove. He opened the oil-paper packet, grabbed a handful of rice, and stuffed it into his mouth.


    ¡°You are eating this?¡± the mage¡¯s voice boomed at the doorway. Saleen jumped in fright. He froze in embarrassment, not knowing what to say. The mage sighed, took out a piece of meat jerky, and handed it to Saleen. Saleen¡¯s tears, unable to remain in his eyes for even one more second, streamed down his face.


    He used his sleeve to wipe away his tears. Instead of eating the meat jerky, he told the mage, ¡°Teacher, I will not cry in future, lest I bring you shame.¡±


    The mage watched wordlessly as the youth shed tears while wolfing down his food. In reality, given his status, even if he were to be gifted ten thousand gold coins, he may not have been moved enough to ept a student. But when he had first seen Saleen, he had immediately been unable to bear it. There had been no life in Saleen¡¯s eyes; they had only showed the hopelessness of someone on the verge of death.


    The mage did not have Saleen do anything. He took out more meat jerky and bread, and put them in the kitchen. Saleen did not know how these items were conjured, but he had no doubts, for in his heart, the mage was omnipotent.


    The mage had Saleen rest first. He watched as Saleen got onto the bed before casting a Hypnosis spell. Saleen¡¯s eyes closed and he immediately fell into a deep sleep.


    When he opened his eyes next, he felt hungry again.


    The mage¡¯s voice was heard, ¡°Take a look around you to familiarize yourself with your surroundings, thene to the living room.¡±


    Like mystical magic, this sound was delivered directly into his ears, neither soft nor loud. Saleen sighed as he jumped off the bed. His shoes were almost dry. He put on his shoes and found that his room had an additional door. The interior of the house had also changed ¨C there was a table and chair, as well as a cab. On the cab was an enormous dressing mirror.


    The whole room looked as if it had been cleaned, not a single speck of dust to be found. The furniture was not new; there was a mattress, and a quilt and pillow had been added to the bed. Having slept like a log, he had not detected anything amiss. When he opened the door, he saw that the corridor was unusually spotless. A few of the rooms now had doors attached to them, and there were some paintings on the wall. Everything was like when his parents had still been alive. Saleen had the urge to cry again, but this time, he resisted.


    There were eight rooms on the second story ¨C fourrge ones and four small ones. The one Saleen owned, at the end of the corridor, was small. He looked through all of the rooms. The fourrge rooms had beenpletely transformed into study rooms, while one of the three smaller ones was a bedroom. The doors of the other two rooms could not be opened.


    What had surprised Saleen was that the entire floor of the second story had been renovated. The doors and windows had been repaired, and numerous mysterious symbols had been added to them. The walls appeared to have been repainted as well, and even the ceilings were clean, with not a single spider in sight.


    The house had be unfamiliar. Saleen walked down the stairway uneasily. There was furniture in the main hall of the first story, and the kitchen was filled with kitchenware. Saleen did not venture into the basement. He went to the living room, and pushed the door open. Although he had mentally prepared himself, he gasped in surprise at thepletely transformed living room.


    A huge table, made from some unknown material, had been ced at the center of the living room. On the rectangr table were many tools of all shapes and sizes which Saleen did not recognize. There was also a crucible burning a ck me. There was a chair near the table, and the few cabs against the wall were filled with things.


    There was not a single item that Saleen recognized. He only saw mysterious symbols everywhere. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but under its soft glow, there were no shadows to be seen.


    The mage raised his head and said gently, ¡°Saleen, you are awake. Fix yourself something to eat and we shall speak after.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, please speak first. I am not hungry yet,¡± Saleen primly stood by the table, anxiety in his heart.


    ¡°Alright, then I shall speak first. My name is Jason Statham. I am of the Qin Empire, and a grade-5 mage. I am unable to give you, my student, much guidance, as I do not have that much time. First, I will impart to you reading magic. This is a level-0 magic, and if you can master this, then I will impart to you the method of meditation. After that, you will be able to read books on magic by yourself to gain knowledge on magic. Before you be a grade-10 apprentice, I will not give you any additional guidance.¡±


    ¡°Grade-10 apprentice?¡± Saleen asked cautiously. He did not know what ¡°grade-10 apprentice¡± referred to.


    ¡°There are ten grades to being an apprentice of magic. At the apprentice stage, you can only master level-0 magic. Level-0 magic does not require the use of magic chords for the magic to be cast. As long as you have sufficient mental power and corresponding affinity with the elements, you will be fine. The level of your mental power determines your ability to control magic, while your affinity with the elements determines how many sets of spells you will be able to release consecutively. Should one of these not be satisfactory, you will not be able to be a real mage.¡±


    ¡°How does one advance?¡±


    ¡°A grade-1 apprentice can continuously release two sets of level-0 magic; a grade-2 apprentice can continuously release four sets of magic, and so on. When you are able to release twenty sets of level-0 magic, I will then guide you on how to be a mage. Alright, I shall now impart to you the first set of level-0 magic,¡± the mage said. He recited a spell with a strange sounding rhythm.


    ¡°Follow this, and you will be able to learn the characters and magic knowledge from books.¡± Jason recited the spell repeatedly as Saleen followed along over and over.


    After three rounds, Saleen was not only able to recite the spell without missing a word, but he had also mastered the hand gestures.


    ¡°Alright, go ahead and practice this on your own. When you have seeded, I will impart to you the method of meditation. After that, you can read the books that I have prepared for you. Start from the first room and do not go to the next room until you have finished all the books in that room.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Teacher,¡± Saleen bowed, just as a person did in Ceylon City when they were meeting with a noble.


    Mage Jason shook his head, and made a mental note to revisit the matter of etiquette in future. He did not correct Saleen¡¯s behavior this time and waved his hand, indicating for Saleen to take his leave.


    Saleen left and walked to the kitchen briskly. He found the box in which the rice had once been stored. He was famished, so he simply grabbed the meat jerky now hanging there and happily ate it along with white bread and water.


    As he ate, he recalled the magic he had just learned. He had found neither the spell nor the hand gestures difficult to master, especially the spell, which he hadmitted to memory after repeating it just once. The subsequent two times had been to correct his pronunciation. It appeared that he did have talent; at the very least, he was not stupid. At this thought, Saleen felt that his future was indeed bright.

 Chapter 4: The Apprentice meets the Soldier – Unexplainable (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 4: The Apprentice meets the Soldier ¨C Unexinable (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the following ten days, Saleen repeated the spell continuously, but never once managed toplete it. Regardless of how perfect his incantation was or how skilled his hand gestures were, he just could notplete this simple level-0 magic.


    During this time, Mage Jason had appeared only once. The rest of the time, he was in theboratory, which had been transformed from the formerrge living room. It appeared as though he did not need to eat anything, and was continuously conducting magical experiments in the house.


    Saleen was a little anxious, but it was useless to be anxious when learning magic. Hence, he could only practice over and over again. Finally, on the thirtieth day, Saleen mastered this magic.


    He dashed to Jason¡¯sboratory excitedly. Jason saw the excitement on Saleen¡¯s face and sighed as he said, ¡°It took you thirty days to learn level-0 magic. This shows that your aptitude is extremely poor. I suggest that you do not continue, or you will probably remain an apprentice for the rest of your life.¡±


    Saleen was stunned. ¡°Teacher¡­¡±


    ¡°Not convinced? Let¡¯s do an experiment then,¡± Jason took out a crystal ball, ced it on the table, and said, ¡°Face this andplete the spell.¡±


    As instructed, Saleen hurriedly cast the Reading Magic spell, but there was no change in the clear crystal ball.


    Jason put the crystal ball away and said, ¡°This is worse than I expected. You have great mental power, but your affinity to the elements is too weak. ording to this assessment result, you will probably only be a grade-1 mage when you are a hundred years old. Saleen, if you are willing, I will give you a sum of money. You can find a swordcraft hall in a city of the Sikeqinya Empire. You should do quite well learning swordcraft at your age.¡±


    Saleen felt as though he had been drenched by cold water. If it had not been for this opportunity, he probably would have epted Jason¡¯s suggestion. However, having practiced for thirty days, he was now obsessed with magic. When he hadpleted the level-0 magic, the sense of euphoria that he had gotten from being in control could not be diminished from his core.


    Be a swordsman? Like the armed escorts of Ceylon City, who patrolled the streets every day and blocked the city gate to collect taxes? Or like the useless mercenary ones who, at thirty years old, could not even find themselves wives?


    ¡°Teacher, is there no other way?¡± Saleen asked as he struggled with his inner self.


    ¡°It is not that there is no other way, but I cannot afford to pay the price. This is not a problem that gold coins can resolve. You would need nine grade-9 mages willing to help you to reform your body¡¯s constitution. Even so, your future achievement would be that of a lowly mage at best, and it would not get you to grade-4,¡± Jason replied helplessly.


    ¡°Teacher, I would like to give it a try. I would rather be a one-hundred-year-old apprentice than a swordsman. Please teach me the method of meditation,¡± Saleen said, gritting his teeth. He had a bad impression of swordsmen. None of the swordsmen in Ceylon City were up to standard. In addition, there was no knowing what would happen after he took Jason¡¯s money to learn swordcraft. After having been deceived by many from a young age, Saleen was disheartened with this world.


    ¡°If you insist, alright. But you are not allowed to leave after you have mastered my method of meditation until you have be a qualified mage.¡±


    ¡°I am willing to persist.¡±


    ¡°My method of meditation is very valuable, even in the Qin Empire. If you ever reveal it to others, I shall take your life. Do you understand?¡± Jason said this calmly. Saleen felt a chill at the bottom of his heart. He knew his teacher was not taking this lightly, and if he ever went against this request¡­


    ¡°So where do we start?¡± Jason mumbled to himself. He was at a loss, as this was his first time ever having an apprentice. In the past, he had been a grade-2 apprentice with a strong foundation in knowledge when his teacher had taught him the method of meditation. Saleen obviously did not know anything.


    ¡°The method of meditation is basicallyprised of meditation skills, absorption of the elements, hypnosis, and spiritual resonance. The average mage only learns meditation skills. The full method of meditation can only be learned from a mage master. The books only offer simple meditation skills. Based on self-learning, one can never be a mage master¡­¡±


    Jason patiently conducted lessons from scratch for Saleen, and imparted every single piece of knowledge he possessed to him. Saleen took merely half an hour to memorize everything that Jason had said. Jason was speechless at Saleen¡¯s intelligence, but felt sad for him at the same time. He was such a bright child, but possessed such an unusually low affinity to the elements.


    ¡°Alright, I have told you all about the method of meditation. You are very bright. Read the books upstairs ording to the sequence. Meditating at least once a day will probably benefit you. Remember to prepare a meal for me once a week, and go to the city to get some bread if it runs out. I will give you a gold coin. After you havepletely mastered the method of meditation, I will have jobs for you.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Teacher,¡± Saleen bowed his head and exited the room. He was still young and did not know that he had chosen an exceptionally tough route. He only felt tion, as though the door to another world had opened up for him. What he did not yet know was the price he had to pay for entering this door.


    Saleen immediately went to the first room filled with books and began his learning. The first bookshelf coverednguage study. Saleen was illiterate and could only take it one step at a time. Reading magic was mystical in that it enabled him to self-learn words. The only trouble was that after he had used reading magic once, he would need to rest for half an hour before he could use it again.


    Because of this, it took Saleen a month before he finally learned themonnguage of the maind, which was thenguage he had been speaking. He had wanted to move onto the next book in advance, but noticed that the types of magic books in the house were much too varied. In addition, not all of them were written in themonnguage. There were at least twentynguages in the books on those bookshelves. Saleen had no choice but to finish the books on the first bookshelf before moving on to the next one.


    Mages were learned men. Without reading magic, it was impossible for one to fully practice magic.


    It was fortunate that Saleen mastered the method of meditation within a month, at a much faster pace than before. He could now deploy reading magic twice and fully recover in ten minutes.


    The magic elements found in apprentices of magic were usually pitifully low in number. Saleen had even less than the average apprentice. Despite this, he was very content. Each of the fourrge rooms had dozens of big bookshelves amounting to tens of thousands of books in total. It was more than enough for him to read!


    He was no longer anxious about progression. Instead, he yearned to acquire more information. Saleen patiently conducted his learning ording to the sequence of the books. Language studyprised of more than a thousand books ¨Cmonnguage, Myersnguage, magicalnguage, Qinnguage, Sikeqinyanguage, Tanggsinguage¡­ Saleen even learned the Caucasusnguage. There had never been a mage in Caucasus. The area was very primitive and only had priests. Saleen was now obsessed with learningnguages. It took him half a year to master the content of more than a thousandnguage books.


    It had been a slow start at the beginning, but as he started to recognize more words, the speed of his learning increased.


    By the time hepleted thest book, he was able to deploy reading magic three times in scession. This signified that he had attained the grade of a grade-2 apprentice. Saleen was unaware that because his mental power was very strong, he had only exhausted a small amount of it while controlling his magic. As it had been used on level-0 magic, its usage had been pathetically low. In reality, the magical elements stored within his body were onlyparable to that of a grade-1 apprentice.


    Such speed was not only unique, but absolutely unheard of. An average person with such speed would have been kicked out long ago. Saleen indeed possessed a most amazingw of meditation, and he had used only half a year¡¯s time to learn it. However, he did not even have any stored energy to work on his element magic. Jason was not positive that Saleen was suitable for learning magic.


    The next topic was the knowledge of magic, which could simrly be found on a bookshelf of over one thousand books. Since he had discovered the mysterious world of magic, Saleen had no idea how much he would be able to learn, but he believed that his hard work would pay off.


    The year in which magic had originated was unknown. Many believed that the magic in the Myers Maind possessed over thirty thousand years of history. It was not until about ten thousand years ago, during the Second Dynasty, that it had been properly categorized into six parts. These parts were namely earth, water, wind, fire, light, and darkness. From then on, the calendar in the Myers Maind had been improved. A year was divided into twelve months; each month had thirty days; six days formed a week. The sixth day of each week was considered the dark day, and was the day of rest for all trades. Even with the fall of Myers Goddess, the Goddess of Nature, and the rise of the Holy See, this practice had remained unchanged.


    The Holy See¡¯s calendar had been tooplicated. It had thought that there should be seven days in a week. After one hundred years of implementation, out of the entirety of the maind, only within the Holy See did anyone make use of the new calendar. In the end, they abandoned it as well.


    It was not that apprentices were limited to deploying level-0 magic before they became grade-1 mages. After progressing to grade-6, magic apprentices were generally allowed to learn level-1 magic andplete it. This was known as the method of eleration within the magic form. There was only one chance to use the method of eleration, but it was not unusual for mages to seed in it.


    However, after a mage elerated, they would be weakened. It would be almost impossible for them to recover on their own. Only by relying on meditation could they recover their expended magic chords.


    Magic chords were the cornerstone of magic. Without them, an apprentice would not be able to progress to being a proper mage. The formation of the magic chords required strong mental power and a strong affinity to the elements. Saleen¡¯s affinity to the elements was extremely low, thus Jason had said that he would have to wait until he was one hundred years old to be a mage.


    Based on Saleen¡¯s current speed of progress, this had been no exaggeration.


    Regarding what magic chords were, there were detailed descriptions in various books but they were not universal. What Saleen understood was that they were the base for the deployment of elemental power. The apprentices, through their continuous practice, would umte magic elements in their bodies. The volume of the magic elements would eventually change their qualities as well. This was the process in which magic chords were formed, simr to how an apprentice would progress to bing a true-blue mage.


    Saleen was dismayed that he had not seen any book mentioning other ways to form magic chords. If he were to depend on umtion, he had very little hope of ever bing a mage.


    Within half a year, the food stored in the kitchen had all been eaten, and Saleen knew that it was time for him to go into the city to stock up. He went to Jason¡¯sboratory, and told him that he needed to go to the city.


    ¡°How is your practiceing along?¡±


    ¡°I am able toplete three reading skills in session.¡± Saleen emphasized the word ¡°three¡± in the hopes that it would attract his teacher¡¯s attention.


    ¡°That¡¯s great. Go ahead.¡± Jason did not say much but gave Saleen five gold coins as he usually did. Saleen¡¯s speed of progress was slightly faster than what he had predicted. However, Jason knew that it had only been due to Saleen¡¯s strong mental power. He judged that since Saleen still only had the capabilities of a grade-1 apprentice, it was meaningless for him to deploy any additional level-0 magic; it would not help Saleen umte enough magical elements to form any magic chords.

 Chapter 5: The Apprentice meets the Soldier – Unexplainable (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 5: The Apprentice meets the Soldier ¨C Unexinable (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen took the gold coins and put on the robe that Jason had prepared for him. This robe had not been tailor-made. Although Saleen had been eating well, he was still just a twelve-year-old child and was not that tall. Even if the hem were to be cut off, it would still not fit Saleen well.


    The six gold coins that he had with him were arge sum of money. In the past, he would not have spent this much even in an entire year.


    There had been no change to Ceylon City. Thezy soldiers guarding the city gate did not even bat an eyelid at Saleen. Even though he had not visited in thest six months, the soldiers were still able to recognize him. Collecting an entry tax from a beggar? They would be aughing stock if the other cities got wind of this.


    Saleen walked along the road and stopped at a restaurant. Since it was still early in the day, he was not in a hurry to go to the grain store. Even when he had been penniless, he had always wanted to dine here. With the six gold coins on him, his dream could finallye true.


    It was not a small restaurant. To its right, there was a courtyard for horse carriages to be docked. Although Ceylon City was no longer in its prime, there were still a few nobles and businessmen left. Sikeqinya was an empire of trade; its four main trades could be found throughout the Myers Maind. Ceylon City, being a port city, had not diminishedpletely. Even though it was declining, it still had some life left in it.


    The restaurant enjoyed high patronage, as the wealthy in Ceylon City often chose it as a venue for entertainment.


    Saleen was no longer illiterate. He looked up at the inscribed board above him. Written on the board above the main door was a line in the Myersnguage ¨C The Whale of Ceylon.


    When Ceylon City had been flourishing, the signature dish in this restaurant had been whale meat. Now that few fishermen were willing to fish for whales, the restaurant had hired a chef from Qin Empire to hold the fort. However, this board had not been reced for hundreds of years. If one were willing to fork out a sufficient number of gold coins, there would be fishermen willing to risk their lives at sea.


    Saleen could not afford whale meat, but it would not cost him more than two silver coins for two dishes on the first floor.


    He walked into The Whale of Ceylon, found himself an empty seat, and sat down. To his surprise, the server saw him, hurried to his table, and hollered at him loudly, ¡°Beggar, get out of here quickly. There is nothing for you to eat.¡±


    Saleen fumed, his whole face turning red. He had previously been a beggar, but now he was an apprentice learning magic. Even an apprentice had dignity. He fished out a gold coin from his pocket and mmed it hard on the table. He looked at the server from the side of his eye and asked, ¡°Who were you calling a beggar?¡±


    The server was astounded, and quickly put a smile on his face. He bowed as he nodded his head and said, ¡°Oh, young master, I must have mistaken you for someone else. There was a young boy that did not pay for his food yesterday. That certainly was not you. Please pardon me, I shall bring you the menu now.¡±


    He turned and walked off, fearful of hearing Saleen¡¯s reply. Saleen did not feel appeased, but since the server had apologized, it would be uncivilized of him to continue to rant.


    Saleen did not notice that a few patrons hade down from the second floor. Leading the way was that one plump businessman, and next to him was the servant who had previously nearly killed him with his kick.


    The businessman was surprised at the sight of Saleen, especially the gleaming gold coin on his table. At one nce, he could tell that it was a genuine Sikeqinya Empire oak gold coin.


    The businessman maintained hisposure and left The Whale of Ceylon. After he had stepped out of the door, he said to the servant next to him, ¡°Thatd looked like he was that jinx from the Metatrin n. How is he still alive?¡±


    ¡°Master, I am puzzled as well. If no one helped him, he should have starved to death by now. I thought I saw a gold coin with him just now,¡± replied the servant, his brows furrowed.


    ¡°Strange. He is a beggar; where did he get the gold coin?¡±


    ¡°Master, I heard that there has been a gang of bandits in the city recently, and they have adopted some children. Do you think that¡­¡±


    ¡°So what if he was? Worm, go to the city guard department and call for a few soldiers. Inform them that we have lost money, and get thisd arrested and killed off. Take this gold coin with you, and do as I told you¡­¡± the businessman told him carefully. Then, with a few other servants, he returned to The Whale of Ceylon.


    Saleen had no idea of the catastrophe that was ahead of him. He ordered two inexpensive dishes costing less than two silver coins altogether. As he was still underage, he did not dare consume alcohol. Hence, he ordered a pot of tea, and enjoyed it immensely. Then, he realized that his attire was not all that suitable for The Whale of Ceylon, as he saw that the other diners were well-dressed. Some were even dressed in clothes tailored-made with silk from the Qin Empire.


    His robe looked like it had been picked up somewhere. It was no wonder that the server had wanted to chase him out. He decided that he would buy himself proper attire once he had the money to do so, so that he would not be so looked down upon.


    The first dish that Saleen had ordered was served. Before he even managed to pick up his cutlery, four soldiers dashed in through the door and held him down at once. Without a word, they chained him up.


    ¡°What are you all doing?!¡± Unable to fight back, Saleen was both terrified and livid.


    ¡°What? Lad, you havemitted a crime and still have the nerve to dine here. Bring him back!¡± The soldiers who seized him were behaving savagely like wild tigers and wolves. They were from the city guard department, and were responsible for maintaining the security of Ceylon City. As there was rarely additional revenue to be made and someone had lodged a report today, they had kept the gold coin, regardless of the truth. They had not had such an unusual transaction for thest two years.


    ¡°Bullsh*t!¡± Saleen¡¯s face was pinned to the hard table top, and he began to lose hisposure. He had done nothing, and struggled to resist. A city guard soldier lifted his leg and gave Saleen a kick in his ribs.


    ¡°Ouch!¡±


    Saleen made a sound that did not sound human. This kick had been so harsh that his bones had cracked. That kick brought back memories of his days as a beggar. Back then, he had felt nothing when he was hurt by such random kicking. But now, Saleen felt humiliated. He turned his face to the side, and spat hard at the other soldier¡¯s face.


    The soldiers retaliated with a series of punches and kicks. The vicious soldiers resorted to using an iron chain to bridle Saleen¡¯s mouth. The four soldiers then dragged Saleen out. The businessman sneakily followed behind them. The server pursued them, shouting, ¡°Master, that person has not paid.¡±


    The soldierughed, ¡°His money is stolen. Do you want stolen money?¡±


    ¡°I would not dare,¡± the server replied submissively, feeling unlucky. He should not have attended to thisd, looking at his improper attire. The cost of his meal would be deducted from his sry. Damn! He had done half a month of work for nothing! He hurriedly turned around and brought the dish on the table back to the kitchen. He was hoping that the second order had not been prepared yet, which would save him from needing to pay for it.


    Saleen was brought to the city guard department. Without interrogation, he was thrown straight into the dungeon.


    Saleen had recovered some of his energy. Using all his might to knock on the metal bars, he shouted, ¡°Why did you arrest me?!¡±


    The four soldiers turned around and grinned. ¡°If you hadn¡¯t mentioned it, I had nearly forgotten that we have not searched for the stolen money on your body!¡±


    ¡°The money is mine!¡± Saleen¡¯s six gold coins were removed from his body; it was futile to resist.


    ¡°Now it is ours.¡± The soldier locked up the metal gate, ignoring Saleen¡¯s cries. They did not even hear the critical information that Saleen shouted in a hoarse voice, ¡°My teacher is a mage!¡± In fact, even if they had heard it, the few soldiers would not have believed it. What kind of mage would take this beggar as an apprentice? Not even the lord had the opportunity to invite a mage home.


    Saleen was beginning to feel frightened and even a little despondent. He had absolutely no idea what was happening. Jason usually did not venture out of his room, perhaps only once every two weeks or so, and did not even eat the weekly meals Saleen prepared for him.


    It was pitch ck in the dungeon, and in Saleen¡¯s fears escted in his heart. He opened his mouth but did not know what to shout anymore. There was pain in his face, especially in his jaw. The bone there might have been broken. His lips were swollen. Although Saleen could feel tears welling in his eyes, he resisted them.


    I am an apprentice of magic now. No more crying, not now, not ever!


    As night fell, Ceylon City quieted down, and the city gate was locked. Under the moonlight, a shadow quickly approached the city gate, with speed as fast as lightning. This man came to the outside of the gate with his eyebrows furrowed. With a lift of his arms, a pair of wing-like attachments opened up on his back. He flew into the air, over the city wall, and headed into the city.


    The guard on patrol discovered the shadow and yelled, ¡°Who is there!?¡±


    The man did not pay him any attention. His silhouette had appeared against in the moonlight and then disappeared at the end of the street. Soon after, the man arrived at the City Guard Department. Under the moonlight, his gray magic robe gave him an air of mystery, as smoke enveloped him. This person was Jason Statham, who had made a magic mark on Saleen¡¯s body. As Saleen did not return, Jason knew that something must have happened. He followed the directions from the magic mark and came to Ceylon City.


    The magic mark could direct the mage. Even though Saleen had been locked underground, it was not a problem for Jason.


    ¡°Who¡­¡± the soldier on duty had barely shouted out his question before Jason had grabbed his throat and raised him up in the air. A Grade 5 mage¡¯s body was powerful and could not be defeated by any ordinary soldier.


    ¡°Where is that boy you captured today? Bring me to him,¡± Jason said coldly, with none of the gentle demeanor he usually used on Saleen.


    ¡°What boy?¡±


    Jason drew the soldier¡¯s face closer and stared straight into his eyes, ¡°Bring me to where you lock up the convicts, and call everyone out here.¡±


    The soldier was so terrified that he felt as though his spirit had left his body. He had seen a demon in the eyes of this middle-aged man who was grabbing him, and it was drawing its tongue out from its eyes to wrap it around his neck to constrict his breathing. His legs softened, and whitish foam appeared at his mouth as he dropped onto the ground. Jason scowled ¨C he had probably overused his shock tactic. The soldier was, at most, a junior swordsman and could not withstand this.


    Jason decided to follow the directions by the magic mark to locate the dungeon. With the use of illumination magic, the dungeon was aglow. Upon seeing that Jason had appeared, he grabbed the metal bars with both his hand ¨C speechless. He had lost his voice entirely.


    Given themotion caused by Jason, all the soldiers on duty had already blocked the exit to the dungeon. One of the soldiers hollered, ¡°Bold ouw! How dare you break into jail, put down your weapon this instance!¡±


    As he was about to continue speaking, another sharp-eyed soldier pointed at the brightly-lit dungeon and stammered, ¡°It looks like.. looks like¡­


    ¡°Magic? You must be joking!¡±


    ¡°Really, look!¡±


    Jason ignored them and tugged at the lock with one hand. All it took was a gentle yank, and the lock opened. Saleen pushed the metal gate opened and dashed out, almost crashing into Jason¡¯s embrace. His lips moved slightly, but even he could not also tell what the sound that wasing out from his own throat was.


    ¡°Who was the one who had captured my apprentice?¡± Jason asked expressionlessly.


    The soldiers looked at each other ¨C no one had dared to answer. One of them cursed in his heart: which death-seeking a*shole got us into trouble? To think he captured a mage¡¯s apprentice.


    ¡°If no one knows¡­¡±Jason did not say much. He stretched his hand out, and a fireball appeared, suspended in his palm.


    Fireball skill was only a Grade 1 magic, but to have evoked and suspend it from release would be something just a Grade 4 mage can do. However, these ordinary soldiers could barely afford to offend any mage, no matter the grade.


    ¡°Mas¡­ter¡­ sir, please do not be angered. I will help you with the search,¡± a savvy soldier said, as he turned and ran towards the exit.


    Looking solemn as he pulled Saleen along, he walked out from the dungeon to the main hall of the City Guard Department and took a seat in there.

 Chapter 6: The Mage’s Principle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 6: The Mage¡¯s Principle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The guards did not dare leave, and stood nervously to one side.


    There were not many of them in the city guard department of Ceylon City. The real army troops were under the control of the House of the Lord, forming his private army troop. Given the episode that had urred at the city guard department, many people had already gone to inform the troops at the House of the Lord.


    Before long, out on the streets were the thunderous sounds of horses¡¯ hooves galloping and charging towards the soldiers. More than one hundred swordsmen surrounded the soldiers. Ten of them jumped off of their horses and walked through the door of the city guard department. Earlier on, Jason had blown up the door with a fireball.


    The leader of the group, who was wearing the armor of a swordsman, drew his sword and walked into the main hall. The swordsmen behind him all drew their weapons. The armored swordsman saw the situation in the hall and pointed at Jason angrily, ¡°Who are you, and how dare you break into jail to rescue a prisoner? Let¡¯s fight!¡±


    ¡°Scoundrel,¡± Jason berated, as he raised his finger. A green glow appeared and a jet of acid shot out towards the swordsman¡¯s face. A sizzling sound could be heard and white smoke emerged. The acid had instantly corroded this swordsman¡¯s face. He screeched in pain and copsed to the ground.


    After Jason had done this deed, he told Saleen softly, ¡°Even if we are enemies, he should not have insulted us mages. Even the emperor must not have a mage bow his head. There was no need to give such an ill-mannered man any courtesy.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Teacher,¡± Saleen answered in a low voice. Everyone in the hall who had heard what was said shivered more than once.


    ¡°Drag him out. He is very noisy,¡± Jason told the soldier opposite him. Having received amnesty, a soldier who had barged in hurriedly dragged his injuredpatriot out.


    ¡°I do not have time for this. Who was responsible for arresting my student? Bring him to me within half an hour.¡± Jason took out a magical hourss, turned it over, and ced it on the table.


    At this point, another two armored swordsmen walked in. Their suits of armor showed their positions of higher rank, and they were possibly officers. The two of them looked simr in stature and were well-built. One had red hair while the other was blond. The blond swordsman raised his head to look at Jason, who was still maintaining an illumination, and felt a chill in his heart.


    He was not an ignorant soldier. Jason¡¯s grey mage robe had two lines of mage symbols, indicating that he was a grade-5 mage. Which fool had infuriated such an important person?


    Mage robes had three colors ¨C white for grade-1 to grade-3, grey for grade-4 to grade-6, and ck for grade-7 to grade-9. The symbols on the robes represented the mage¡¯s grade. The grey-robed master was considered a mage master and such a figure was someone that even the lord could not afford to offend.


    The red-haired swordsman bowed silently to Jason, and told the soldiers around him, ¡°All of you, arrest the men who were connected to this matter at once. If any of them are left out, you will take their ce.¡±


    These soldiers nced at Jason, who was expressionless but did not seem to object, then left in an unruly manner.


    The red-haired swordsman spoke carefully to Jason, ¡°Mage sir, is there anything else you need me to do?¡±


    ¡°Em¡­¡± Jason hesitated and said, ¡°Do not let the lorde by. I do not wish to see him.¡±


    The red-haired swordsman was momentarily surprised. He bowed his head and said, ¡°Yes. Mage sir, this young master is hurt. May I get a holy master toe?¡±


    ¡°Not necessary. He can bear this little pain,¡± Jason rejected the red-haired swordsman¡¯s kind offer. He was not anxious to treat Saleen since it was not a serious wound. It could stay, so that Saleen could be reminded of what had happened today. Had Saleen done something to get himself arrested? No matter if he had been right or wrong, the lesson could prevent simr situations from reurring in the future.


    The red-haired swordsman spoke briefly to the blond swordsman and thetter walked out of the hall with his head lowered. The red-haired swordsman stood at one side waiting. Saleen had thought he was doomed and had not expected his teacher toe. Things were looking up for him. It appeared that his teacher was not interested in responding even to the lord.


    Only now did Saleen truly understand what it meant to be a mage. The books had often depicted how mages were held in high esteem, but it had been difficult to imagine as Saleen had not witnessed it himself. He recognized the red-haired swordsman as someone from the House of the Lord. He was not a bad person, asst midautumn, he had given Saleen a small extra bag of flour when he had gone to collect the flour that the lord was distributing.


    It took less than half an hour to capture the four soldiers who had arrested Saleen, as well as the businessman and his servants.


    The six of them did not know what had happened. The businessman saw Saleen standing next to Jason and knew that something was amiss. He was the first to kneel on the ground, and his servants followed suit.


    ¡°Who arrested my student?¡± Jason asked coldly.


    The four soldiers looked at each other, and then looked at the red-haired swordsman standing to the side. The red-haired swordsman did not appear to see them, his eyes looking upwards.


    The four soldiers had no choice but to put on a bold front and answered, ¡°It was us. We received a reported case about him¡­stealing Master Zhanbu¡¯s gold coins.¡± The soldiers pointed at the businessmen, feigning innocence.


    ¡°Zhanbu? That is you, I assume. Why did you malign my student?¡± Jason red at the businessman, questioning him strictly.


    ¡°Sir, it was a misunderstanding. I had the wrong person¡­¡±


    ¡°You are lying. I will give you another chance,¡± Jason interrupted him.


    ¡°Sir, it is the truth. I did not have any enmity with him. Why would I frame him? I¡­¡±


    The businessman was going on and on. Jason impatiently cast a spell. A white glow shed and an ice pick pierced through the businessman¡¯s head, leaving a gaping bloody hole.


    ¡°Do not be so idiotic: mages can detect lies. You, tell me. Why was my student framed?¡± Jason asked the servant after killing the businessman. He was not pursuing the matter to prosecute someone, but wanted to know if Saleen had invited trouble.


    The servant had already wet his pants in fear. He flung himself onto the ground and wailed, ¡°Sir, it was not my idea. My master had wanted to buy Master Metatrin¡¯s house but wanted to avoid the procedures at the city government office. Master Metatrin had all along managed to escape death so my master thought of this idea. It was really not my doing¡­¡±


    ¡°I know it has nothing to do with you,¡± Jason said and flung a wind de at him. The light green wind de instantly sliced off the servant¡¯s head. Blood spluttered and the head, along with the mucus and tears, rolled over to one side.


    After Jason had done this, he told Saleen who was next to him, ¡°Saleen, it was indeed not your fault. Come back with me. The four of you, I am not pleased with your propensities for arresting people. I had better chop off your hands, in case you arrest the wrong people in future and end up losing your lives.¡±


    ¡°Sir, your student was unharmed. How about¡­¡± the red-haired swordsman began to plead on their behalf.


    Jason stood up and pulled Saleen out of the hall without ncing at the red-haired swordsman. His voice rang out in the hall, ¡°I have spared them because my student was unharmed. If he had died, all of you would have joined him in burial. Tomorrow, sort out that Zhanbu¡¯s assets and send them to the outskirts as an apology to my student. I will kill one person for every gold coin omitted.¡±


    The red-haired swordsman shivered coldly. There was not a single mage in Ceylon City, and if this grade-5 mage were to wreak havoc, it was possible that a massacre could ur.


    With Saleen in tow, Jason walked out of Ceylon City. The soldiers at the gate who had already received word of what had happened earlier opened the city gates hurriedly, hoping for the departure of the ¡°troublemakers¡±.


    Back at the ancestral home, Jason used rain magic to treat Saleen¡¯s injuries. While treating Saleen, Jason questioned him on the details of the happenings of the day. Saleen carefully rted the details so that Jason could understand what had happened.


    He did not me Saleen. Being a child, he would not know the deviousness that some people could have. This lesson would be sufficient to help Saleen understand that in this world, strength was the absolute principle.


    After being treated, Saleen returned to his room to rest, recollecting what had happened that day. If it had not been for his teacher, his gold coins could have caused him to lose his life instead.


    He must be stronger. He must, he must!


    His eyes remained open as hey on the bed, unable to fall asleep. It was dark in the room, reminding him of his time in the dungeon. The heart palpitations and feelings of desperation had yet to diminish, and the fear of death had eroded his young soul. Saleen felt his way out of his bed and lit the candle on the table. Only then was he able to close his eyes and slip into slumber.


    The next morning, the red-haired swordsman came running with the gold coins. It appeared as though he had had a busy night tabting the assets of the deceased. Jason did not say anything to him and had Saleen attend to him.


    The red-haired swordsman sat uneasily in the front hall as Saleen came running down from upstairs. The red-haired swordsman hurriedly stood up and greeted Saleen, ¡°Master Metatrin, you are up.¡±


    Saleen was unused to the other party¡¯s warm greeting. Previously, when he had walked along the streets, the lord¡¯s swordsmen treated him as though he were invisible. The red-haired swordsman might have been a kind person at heart, but if it had not been for his teacher¡¯s request, the only kind thing he would have done for Saleen was give him an extra bag of flour during the festive season. It was likely, but had he forgotten about this incident?


    ¡°Master Metatrin¡­¡± the red-haired swordsman called out to Saleen, who was lost in his own thoughts.


    ¡°Um, what is it?¡±


    The red-haired swordsman answered somewhat embarrassedly, ¡°Zhanbu¡¯s assets have been tabted. There are about two thousand two hundred gold coins, as well as two properties and some livestock worth about four hundred gold coins. It is a bad time to sell the properties so they will have to be kept pending. After they have been sold, I will send the gold coins over. Here are bank notes worth two thousand gold coins, and here are two hundred gold coins.¡±


    The red-haired swordsman put four bags of money on the table, each one of them packed to the brim.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes could not stop twitching. In spite of the previous day¡¯s suffering, he did not pounce forward to count the gold coins. Instead, he said solemnly, ¡°Those two properties are yours if you are able to raise three hundred gold coins. If it is convenient, send the money over this afternoon, and also bring me half a year¡¯s supply of rice, flour, seasonings, and dried meat. Is that possible?¡±


    ¡°No problem!¡± The red-haired swordsman was delighted. It would have been a challenge to sell both properties for four hundred gold coins. He had been fearful about Jason¡¯s warning ¨C I will kill one person for every omitted gold coin. Now that Saleen was willing to sell them to him at a discount, he could gain tens of gold coins and not worry about any shortfalls.


    After sending off the red-haired swordsman, Saleen brought the four money bags and two Qin Empire bank notes to Jason¡¯s magicboratory.


    ¡°Keep them with you. If your magic skills improve, you will need a lot of money. Get more from me when you have used it up,¡± Jason did not take Saleen¡¯s money. He could not have cared less about this meager amount of gold coins. He had simply been a little bothered by the night before, when an unimportant businessman had insulted his dignity and lied to him. This was why he had taken the chance to seize Zhanbu¡¯s assets, aspensation for himself and Saleen.

 Chapter 7: The Mage’s Principle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 7: The Mage¡¯s Principle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Thank you, Teacher,¡± said Saleen with a heart full of joy. He picked up the bags of money and returned to his room, putting the bags of money and the Qin Empire bank notes into the box which still contained the outdated collection slips, documents, and his family badge. Saleen tried to stuff the money into the box but felt that it was not right, so he took it out again, unsure of where to ce it.


    After wavering for a short while, Saleen felt that he was being a little ridiculous. What thief would dare sneak into the house with Jason around?


    Recalling how his teacher had released one spell after another at the city guard department without chanting, Saleen felt his excitement mounting. If he was able to do the same, no one would dare harass him!


    Magic was the only principle in this world. Those who possessed abilities in magic were above thew.


    At the thought of this, Saleen could not sit still. He put the money on top of his bed and headed to a room containing magic books.


    Looking at the rows of bookshelves in the room, Saleen was impatient and wanted to read each and every book there. He walked to the back and stood before the shelf containing the level-0 magic books.


    The shelf for level-0 magic was thergest, and yet it did not have thergest number of spells. There were less spells than there were in level-1 magic. Despite this, there were four books to a series titled ¡°Principles of Level-0 Magic¡±, and each was extremely thick.


    Saleen took a book and sat himself down on the ground. Leaning against the shelf, he began reading.


    Reading magic, illumination magic, burning magic, detection magic, poison detection, invisible shield¡­


    Reading on, Saleen was a little overwhelmed. He realized that without the support of a theoretical system, he did not even know how to decide on what to learn. As he leaned on the bookshelves in a daze, Saleen felt like he had lost control. Even if a person was eager to increase their strength, they could not be overly ambitious. His teacher had asked that he conduct his learning in order. If he skipped over his foundation, it might cause unknown issues in future.


    At this thought, Saleen ced ¡°Principles of Level-0 Magic¡± back onto the bookshelf, returned to the beginning, and started to gather basic knowledge on magic in a systematic manner.


    Magic was categorized into six types, but in practical terms, when learning magic, most people conducted their learning ording to its uses. The six types included the attack series, protection series, therapy series, alchemy series, potions series, and one other type. In addition to the six types, there was also the summon series, which was not a popr form of magic. It had originated in recent times, beginning no more than ten thousand years ago, but it had declined some five thousand years ago. The deployment of each magic spell had three stages ¨C the preparatory stage, thepletion stage, and the release stage.


    The preparatory stage referred to the chanting of spells, use of gestures, pooling of elements, and resonance of magic ¨C all of which required the mage¡¯s use of their mental power to control. With practice, the mage could shorten the time needed to prepare their magic by chanting silently and omitting the hand gestures.


    Thepletion stage referred to the spell being formed and readied for deployment. This stage could be extended. The mage could keep the prepared spell on standby while preparing a second spell to achieve an intensive attack. For example, after a mage had prepared a Fireball spell, they could choose not to deploy it while preparing a second Fireball spell. When the second Fireball spell was ready, they could deploy both at the same time. This skill was known as double release, and was a methodmonly used by mages to magnify their attacks.


    Simrly, double release required the mage to have powerful mental power. Without strong control, the mage could cause severe harm to themselves if the elements emerged in a disorderly manner.


    The release stage was about more than just the deployment of a prepared spell. This stageprised of locking onto the target, the final cutting of the elements, and time control.


    These three parts all relied on mental power to bepleted, with locking onto the target being the most basic ability. Without tracking abilities, a mage was no different from an archer. The final cutting of the elements was the key to expending the spell. Without this ability, the mage¡¯s expenditure would always be at the maximum. Lacking good control, a grade-1 mage could use up their magic chords by simply releasing two level-1 spells instead of the usual twelve.


    Time control referred to the continuous control that was exerted while magic was being released, allowing the magic toplete its release at the most appropriate time. This skill was also known as level-2 execution. Senior mages could skillfully use level-2 execution to control the momentum of the battle. Simrly, level-2 execution was also used in the making of magic scrolls and alchemy.


    Mastery of these abilities was the absolute minimum for one to be a qualified mage.


    Saleen also understood that the values of the basic attributes of each spell were not fixed.


    Execution time, execution distance, and energy units were three variableponents. The execution time of a spell was not measured in seconds, but in frames. Each frame was equivalent to one-sixtieth of a second.


    Instant execution was not done at a speed of zero frames, but at a speed of two frames. While it wasmonly said that magic was instantaneous, this essentially meant that it took two frames for the three stages to bepleted ¨C preparatory,pletion and release ¨C which was two-sixtieths of a second. No matter how powerful a mage was, they could notpress this time further.


    The cause of the zero frame illusion had been the double release, meaning that a mage would not release a spell after it had beenpleted, but would store it for release at the same time as the second spell. Basically, the postpletion release stage of this spell took ce concurrently with the release of the second spell. This required the mage to have resilient mental power.


    Such a skill was considered high order control, which was a very dangerous action.


    Saleen read on, and realized that he had indeed been ignorant to have thought that magic was merely a powerful means of attack. He had never imagined that the basic knowledge of magic would be soplicated. If he did not put in the effort to learn it well, his future progress would be unusually problematic.


    Without this basic knowledge, not only would the abilities of a mage be confined, but they would also be unable to judge the abilities of others.


    One would not be able to determine whether the numerical value for the execution time should be at its minimum or maximum, the numerical conversion between the execution distance and the power of the attack, the rtionship between units of energy and the cutting of elements, and so on¡­


    Senior mages could make the calctions instantly to determine the effects of their releases of magic instead of leaving things to fate.


    Control! The power of magic depended on control!


    Saleen patiently read on and began to acquire mathematical knowledge such as how to calcte these magic forme. This mathematical knowledge was critical to the creation of a magic array.


    In a sh, another three months had passed. Saleen, aside from taking his meals and relieving himself, had essentially not stepped out of the room. As he carried on, he began to feel depressed. His intellect and mental strength were perfect, but his affinity to the elements wascking. If his affinity to the elements had just been of normal standard, it would have been sufficient for him to have been an outstanding mage.


    It was evident that where affinity to the elements was concerned, he was useless. This made it very difficult for him to form magic chords. Without magic chords, all of these were simply castles in the air.


    A year passed, and Saleen was only at the standard of a grade-1 apprentice with the abilities of a grade-2 apprentice. He had learned five types of level-0 magic, namely Reading Magic, Poison Detection, Acid Sputtering, me Combustion, and Blending of Elements. He had mastered the method of meditation, and through meditation, he could quickly restore the loss of magical elements.


    The reason for this oue was because the amount of magical elements that had been deposited into Saleen¡¯s body were too small. Even while relying on self-healing and not doing anything, he needed ten minutes to recover.


    What was the use of having three types of level-0 magic? Nothing could be achieved with them. Rather than have him use magic during battle, it would be more beneficial to give Saleen a knife instead. At the very least, after a year of being nursed back to health, Saleen¡¯s body was much healthier. Although he still looked thin and weak, his strength had, in fact, increased.


    Since the food previously delivered by the red-headed swordsman had been finished off, Saleen needed to go into the city again. Now, he no longer harbored the ridiculous thoughts he had half year ago of exquisite clothes, trendy hairstyles, and nice horse carriages. Such things were all so stupid and ridiculous when mages were concerned. Knowledge was the only thing that mages relied on.


    Wearing theical robe and ck boots that Jason had bought for him, Saleen bid farewell to Jason before leaving the ancestral house. Jason had given him two bags of gold coins totalling one hundred pieces as well as a list of items to buy. Mages¡¯ experiments requiredrge quantities of low-grade materials, and Jason¡¯sboratory was perpetually in operation. His basic materials had almost been exhausted within a year.


    Ceylon City was a port city where items from overseas could be ordered, and it took only a week to receive the goods. This was why Jason had chosen to remain here in a rtively remote ce where one could still buy necessities. Entering Ceylon City again, this dpidated city lookedpletely different in Saleen¡¯s eyes. Having spotted Saleen on the road from afar, the soldiers guarding the city hastily straightened up.


    The soldiers at the city gate were affiliated with the House of the Lord, and were not linked to the city guard department.


    The two soldiers¡¯ expressions were a mix of wariness, envy, jealousy, and fear; they immediately put on fawning smiles.


    ¡°Master Metatrin, good morning!¡±


    Saleen nodded, not knowing how to reply. To be honest, soldiers from the House of the Lord were much better than those from the city guard department. In the past, when he had visited the city, they had not made things difficult for him. He had been like a mass of air with no scent. As long as he did not request otherwise, no one had noticed him.


    Master Metatrin? Half a year ago, Saleen probably would have been pleased. After the incident with the city guard department, Saleen had be more mature and understood that these people feared his teacher, a grade-5 mage who would make their heads explode.


    Saleen followed the sunshine and walked along the road leading to the pier. There was a long street in front of the pier lined with all kinds of shops. Ceylon City¡¯s only equipment store was situated here. As Saleen entered the store, he nearly collided with a youth.


    The youth opposite to Saleen was about the same age as him. He seemed to have been frightened and nearly fell, but caught himself in time. Although Saleen was just an apprentice of magic, his mental power wasparable to that of a real mage. With keen perception, he realized that the youth¡¯s hand was touching his money bag.


    It was a well-concealed hand. Saleen was amused; it must have been an unlucky year for him to have bumped into a thief the moment he was out.


    He gently nudged the hand, and a sh of fire pressed onto the juvenile¡¯s hand. The youth felt a sharp pain on the back of his hand, as though he had been scalded by a hot rod. He was stunned and gave a sudden shout, ¡°Is that you, Saleen?¡±

 Chapter 8: Magic Pharmaceutics (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 8: Magic Pharmaceutics (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The youth called out Saleen¡¯s name as he withdrew his hand. Saleen had possessed no intention of hurting him; otherwise, the level-0 me Combustion spell used in such close proximity would have burned his skin and flesh.


    Da?


    Saleen recognized the youth in front of him and felt conflicted. Da, also an orphan, was someone that Saleen had known when he was a beggar. Back then, they had been down and out, being equally skinny and filthy. By their chance meeting here today, Saleen¡¯s demeanor hadpletely changed, and the same was true for Da, who looked nothing like the street urchin from those days.


    Da smiled in embarrassment, as he had known about Saleen but had not recognized him earlier. He knew that Saleen had be the apprentice of a mage; he was unsure if he would be still be acknowledged as the friend he had made when they were both poor.


    ¡°Wait for me at the entrance,¡± Saleen said as he gave Da a pat on his shoulder. Saleen appeared to have grown much taller than Da in this one year.


    Feeling his warmth, Da turned to his side and exited from the door. He then waited in the shadows across the street.


    There was no professional union in Ceylon City, thus the equipment store appeared to be deserted. The adventurers were all gathered at Xinjiang in the southern part of the Empire, though there were fewer pirates at the northern coast. Saleen approached the counter and shouted for the owner.


    The counter was about one meter high. The owner was drowsy and had been dozing off on the counter. He heard the shout, but did not see anyone when he opened his eyes. He then stood up and saw Saleen, who was much shorter than the counter.


    ¡°Hey, Master Metatrin!¡± The owner saw Saleen and instantly perked up.


    Saleen waved his hand, indicating for him not to be so noisy. He passed him the list that Jason had given him and asked, ¡°How much deposit do I need to pay to order these?¡±


    The owner gave a quick nce at the list and grinned. This was not a small deal and was worth at least a hundred gold coins. It probably would not have meant much in the bigger cities, but it was definitely a rare business deal in Ceylon City.


    ¡°Master Metatrin, please wait a moment.¡± The owner retrieved his abacus and started to calcte with some cracking sounds.


    Saleen saw the owner calcting the price of the items and decided to walk around the inside of the store. The size of the equipment store was not small, but there were no shelves in the center. All of the goods were disyed in the cabs against the walls. The most striking items were two suits of armor near the entrance.


    These were two fully enclosed suits of knight armor which even had polished crystals set into the segments for the eyes. This type of armor was rarely worn nowadays because the knight rank ss had died out during the Fourth Dynasty. Now, only the Holy See still maintained a pool of ten thousand knights; the other four empires had done away with their bodies of knights.


    The two suits of armor had been made in an ancient style, and the sheets of metal looked as if they had been repolished. They looked to be antiques; the value of these cultural relics exceeded the value of their use. Admiring the armor, Saleen ced his hand onto them.


    His mental strength could not prate them! They seemed to be truly authentic. It was virtually impossible for his level-0 magic to be able to break through the armor. This metal armor was better than ordinary leather armor, though Saleen was well aware that it was still not as good as magic armor. He knew that his level of battle power was stillcking against swordsmen in armor.


    If he needed to deal with two soldiers, he would practically stand no chance.


    Magic sometimes made him depressed, and other times it made him excited. With the momentary contact, he had been able to calcte the defensive capabilities of the armor and knew which levels of magic could be used to destroy it. Unfortunately, he did not have any hope of bing a qualified mage anytime in the foreseeable future.


    ¡°Master Metatrin!¡± The owner replied with a smile, havingpleted the calctions. ¡°The total is one hundred and eighty gold coins. See if you can pay a deposit of one hundred gold coins. As I am only running a small business here, I do not have a good cash flow.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen turned, threw two bags of gold coins onto the counter, and asked, ¡°When can we get the items?¡±


    ¡°The same time next week will be fine. Will you need them delivered?¡±


    ¡°Not necessary. Teacher does not like to be disturbed by others.¡±


    ¡°Please wait while I issue you an invoice.¡± The owner put away the gold coins. Saleen asked casually, ¡°Are we able to order anything and everything here?¡±


    ¡°Master Metatrin, I import my goods from Yaoyang City. Whatever Yaoyang City has can be ordered from here. If you need special items, you will have to order them from Holy Rock City. It will be slower, and I am afraid you will need to wait a month for these items.¡±


    ¡°Alright, noted.¡± Saleen took the invoice that the owner had issued him, turned, and left the equipment store.


    ¡°Da,¡± Saleen called out to the other side of the street, waving as he stepped out through the door. Da appeared from the shadows and faced Saleen, not knowing what to say.


    ¡°Let¡¯s find a ce to eat.¡± Saleen was feeling hungry. He would not go to The Whale of Ceylon this time. As the pair walked north along the pier, they found a small shop. It was still morning and there were not many diners. They sat next to the window, and Saleen ordered two bowls of fish noodles.


    Using their forks to twirl the noodles, the pair ate in silence. When they had nearly finished their meal, Saleen put down his fork and asked, ¡°Da, why did you¡­¡±


    ¡°You mean why did I steal?¡± Da also put down his fork, pondered for a moment, and replied in a low voice, ¡°There was a bandit gang that came to the city around this timest year. They took in a batch of children and I was one of them. No one forced me to join. As you know, children like us could starve to death on the streets at any time.¡±


    ¡°Bandit gang?¡± Saleen frowned. The reputation of ¡°bandit gangs¡± were not good. Once caught, the majority of nobles would kill the bandits without even interrogating them.


    Da saw Saleen¡¯s worried look and consoled him, ¡°It is nothing. This bandit gang does not do red cases.¡± Seeing that Saleen did not understand, Da exined, ¡°We merely take things; we do not kill. Generally, we do not rob, and we mainly cheat. If the matter is brought to light, then we walk away. It is rare that anyone pursues us.¡±


    ¡°It is not suitable for the longterm,¡± Saleen could not help saying. Because they were bandits, very few of them would die natural deaths. For senior bandits who made money, it was hard for them to withdraw during their prime.


    ¡°I have no choice; it is toote for me to withdraw now,¡± Da said in a low voice as his gaze swept across the door.


    ¡°How do I find you in the future?¡±


    ¡°It is easy to find me. How about we go back to the hideaway and meet with my gang leader?¡±


    ¡°Huh,¡± Saleen¡¯s face turned stony. His two distinct eyebrows raised almost at the same time. He looked intently at Da and said, ¡°This was your gang leader¡¯s idea? You need not say anything more. Go back and tell him not to make me his target if he still wants to live.¡±


    Da felt a shiver run through his body. Saleen¡¯s re was as sharp as a sword, making him subconsciously want to reach for the dagger in his boots. But as his wrist shifted slightly, he felt a pain in his hand. The scald on his hand had reminded him of Saleen¡¯s identity.


    ¡°Saleen, I cannot help it. Actually, during winter, the gang leader will have me look for you.¡±


    ¡°I have no interest in the bandit gang. If my teacher learns about this matter, I may not able to protect you. Da, you had better take good care of yourself,¡± Saleen finished what he wanted to say, retrieved a gold coin and ced it on the table, and left without turning back.


    Da sat there stunned and out of sorts. Saleen was no longer the innocent child he had been before. He had simply made a vague suggestion, and was immediately seen through. Could this be the power of magic?


    Saleen walked out the door, feeling the breeze blow past him. The pent-up emotions in his heart were finally released. To think that a bandit actually wished to connect with a mage! His teacher had not even wanted to be bothered with the lord.


    This person did not know what was good for him. The best solution was to kill him and prevent him from being a burden to Da. He was the only friend he had left in Ceylon City.


    Saleen had not realized that he had be more decisive after the incident half a year ago. He had also be more alert to danger. Jason had not done any additional coaching with him; he had merely read books, cooked for Jason, and eaten with him. Gradually and subtly, Saleen¡¯s demeanor hadpletely changed.


    He found the grain shop, ced the order, and made the payments. Saleen had purchased enough food tost them half a year. He then left Ceylon City dispirited. More than once, he had fantasized about living wealthily in the city, wearing the best clothes and indulging in wine and music. Now that he finally had money, he realized that his thoughts had been na?ve. As dark clouds gathered across the horizon, Saleen quickened his pace, knowing that the summer rain in Ceylon City was unpredictable.


    Upon returning to the ancestral house, Saleen went to see Jason and told him about the collection date of the goods.


    Jason suddenly asked, ¡°Saleen, how long have I been here?¡±


    ¡°A year and six days.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Bring this along when you collect the goods next week,¡± Jason gave Saleen a huge leather sack. Then he added, ¡°Starting next week, on the first day of every week, you will join me as I conduct experiments.¡±


    ¡°Teacher!¡±


    ¡°From today on, you are officially my student.¡±


    Saleen was thrilled. Jason had never allowed him to watch his experiments before. He had never thought that he would receive his teacher¡¯s personal guidance, nor had he ever thought that this day woulde so quickly. He was not aware that Jason had followed him from a distance during his trip to the city. In fact, Jason had even heard his conversation with Da.


    Saleen had passed this test. If there had been something amiss in his conversation with Da, Jason would have needed to give him up as an apprentice. To groom a student required energy as well as emotion. As for Saleen¡¯sck of affinity with the elements, he would have to think of a solution in the time toe. Jason smiled and looked at his student. He took out a bottle and passed it to Saleen, saying, ¡°There is medicine in here. Take one pill daily to improve your body¡¯s structure. Get more from me after you run out.¡±


    Saleen touched the palm-sized porcin bottle, not knowing how to express his feelings.


    ¡°Go read your books. I hope that you will continue to be this diligent in the future.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Teacher!¡± Saleen answered, joy and cheer in his heart. He returned to his room, removed his boots, and took off his robe. He then threw the remaining gold coins on the table and took a breather.


    After being epted by Jason, Saleen was even more diligent. On the first day of each week, he was with Jason in theboratory as he conducted magic experiments. Jason would exin the principles of magic rting to the experiments. On the fifth day of each week, he would enter the city to ce orders and collect the materials he had ordered the previous week.


    He had ced Da at the back of his mind. There was an underground bandit group in Ceylon City which had be a headache for the lord. Saleen had epted the teachings from the books. Mages were detached from the outside world, and aside from when they were hired, they were not to interfere with the lives of ordinary people.


    In another half a year, Saleen had mastered the sixth level-0 magic, Magic rm. This was an enchantment magic, andsted for two hours with each release. Depending on the method of release, the resulting magic rm could be either audible or inaudible.


    An audible rm was beneficial for team protection as everyone could hear it. An inaudible rm could only be detected by the mage themselves, and even the person who had triggered the spell would remain unaware.

 Chapter 9: Magic Pharmaceutics (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 9: Magic Pharmaceutics (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were two reasons for Saleen¡¯s slow progress. The first reason was that hisck of affinity to elements did not improve. Even though he had been taking the pills from Jason daily, he still was unable to perceive elements clearly. The second reason was that Saleen would learn the next magic only after he had perfected the current one.


    That was to say, Saleen could now skillfully carry out Double Release, as well as control the Double Release. He could continuously release four Grade 0 spells, with the four spells being released separately, at the same time, or in sequence. When released in sequence, thest three spells were in an instantaneous state.


    Because of his innate deficiency, he needed to put in more effort on his skills. Saleen believed that as long as the magic strings were formed, he would be a perfect magician.


    Through this six months of practice, Saleen gradually knew that Jason¡¯s actual age and how old he looked were the same ¨C thirty-five years old. It was very rare to have a thirty-five year old Grade 5 magician in the Qin Empire.


    Jason was not only talented, but also possessed formal magic lineage. His teacher was a Grade 9 magician. Jason had left Qin Empire, because his practice was stuck in a bottleneck as he was about to progress to Grade 6.


    As they advanced from Grade 5 to Grade 6, the magicians would form their own unique style. Only when they reached Grade 7 could they develop the magic string to perfection. Jason was a very confident person, so he left the Qin Empire, away from his teacher¡¯s guidance. He had wanted to be a unique magician.


    Saleen was lucky. A regr magician would not have the ability to provide so many magic books. Even if there were one, one may not have been able to carry them into Ceylon City. That required arge space prop.


    An ordinary space prop was only a few cubic feet, and would definitely not fit the books in these few rooms.


    Jason had travelled a long way, and came to Ceylon City when Saleen had almost starved to death. Where Saleen was concerned, this was a miracle of fate. Saleen¡¯s earnest learning attitude was a good fit for Jason¡¯s temper. Saleen was also smart enough, which was why Jason had decided to formally guide him after testing him a yearter.


    A regr apprentice of magic would receive his teacher¡¯s guidance only after he had passed Grade 6 apprenticeship. Saleen had spent a year to attain the Grade 2 apprenticeship. If it were other magicians, they would have long agopletely given up on him. This was because Grades 1 to 3 apprenticeships were the simplest. Normally, they would enter Grade 4 apprenticeship in the second year.


    Saleen finallypleted reading through the basic knowledge of magic. The bookshelves in the back began to contain more in-depth content on principles of magic. These could not be simply learned through memorization, and Saleen started to make his choices.


    The principle of magic required abination of brief understanding and Jason¡¯s guidance. For the rest of the time, aside from practicing new magic, he could also gain more knowledge ¨C Alchemy, Magic Pharmaceutics, Magic Array, Summon Skill and so on.


    Summon Skill was excluded by Saleen, as this type of magic was extremely unstable. Too many possibilities could ur when summoning living creatures. It was said that during the second dynasty, magicians could arbitrarily summon the designated creatures. Unknowingly, the Summon Skill had be a type of random magic in the third dynasty, which was five-thousand years ago.


    During battle, thest thing Saleen would want was to summon one grass-grazing rabbit after another. It could even be a housefly at times.


    Magic Array was also abandoned. One needed powerful affinity to elements to learn Magic Array. Saleen¡¯s learning had been hindered by this limitation. His body¡¯s magic elements were not even sufficient for him create a Grade 0 Magic Array.


    Between Alchemy and Magic Pharmaceutics, Saleen finally chose Magic Pharmaceutics. Although Alchemy was profitable, it would be of little help in his own battle. After Saleen understood the importance of power, he had nned for himself clear learning goals. He needed to be stronger, even stronger.


    Magic Pharmaceutics was undoubtedly the most practical for Saleen; even the cheapest material could produce boosters. As long as one had sufficient mental strength to control the blending of the pharmaceuticals, the chance of failure would be reduced. After determining his direction, Saleen started on the arduous learning process.


    To manufacture magic medicine, tens of thousands of materials could be used. They were mainly nts, with minerals making up ten percent. The rarest of all were materials from living creatures, such as the blood, hair and horn of a magic beast.


    Saleen asked Jason for a set of equipment to be used to refine medicine, and built a small-scaleboratory in his bedroom. Saleen¡¯s ancestral home was an aristocratic building with a fortress-like structure, such that explosions from experiments would not destroy the walls. This was the reason why Jason had eyed Saleen¡¯s house.


    As he could continuously cast the Reading Magic four times, Saleen¡¯s speed of learning had also quickened. He had used three months to memorize the tens of thousands of pages of material maps. During this time, he did not sleep and depended solely on meditation to recuperate his energy.


    After he was done with the material maps, Saleen did not systematically learn the forme. Beside themonly used medication, he began to search for some rare forme.


    On one day, Saleen sat on the ground with his back against the bookshelf. He was reading ¡°Summary of Magic Pharmaceutics¡± when suddenly, he felt the top of his head throbbing. He looked up. A huge book came hammering down andnded on Saleen¡¯s nose. Blood spluttered.


    Saleen had not learned the Invisible Shield spell. He had read continuously for a long time and his energy was somewhat depleted. Even if he had felt danger, he could not hide.


    Oh¡­


    Saleen covered his nose as he looked for the hemostatic agent in his pocket. This time, it was a hard smash and that book had weighed more than 10 kilograms. Saleen felt that the bridge of his nose was almost broken.


    After he had tilted his head and applied medication, Saleen felt a buzzing sound in his head and his vision became blurred. Could this be a symptom of a concussion as described in pathology? He had better not have knocked himself dumb.


    He picked up that thick book and held it in both hands. It felt unusually heavy.


    This book was almost squarish, a meter wide and half a meter thick. There were no words on its ck cover, which was lined with dark golden patterns. Saleen was pretty familiar with magic patterns. The pattern on this cover was very unfamiliar, and he could not tell which era¡¯s style it was.


    Opening the thick cover, on the title page was ¡°Ridiculous Magic Pharmaceutics,¡± written in Myers Language.


    Saleen was attracted by the book title. Magic Pharmaceutics was a very normative science. It was very perfect from its principle to operation. Using the word ¡°ridiculous¡± to describe Magic Pharmaceutics was an absurd notion.


    Flipping to the first page, the preface was handwritten by the royal organization. Saleen turned to the back of the book, but could not find any writer¡¯s inscription. He then began reading from the beginning.


    This book¡¯s author had negated the structure of the Magic Pharmaceutics in his introduction, and deemed Magic Pharmaceutics as a skill of experience which had many loopholes in its guiding theory. Only through constant experiments could Magic Pharmaceutics continue to improve. Otherwise, it would lead to a dead end.


    Up to this point, Saleen felt that the author was spouting nonsense and ying to the gallery. Magic Pharmaceutics had a history of tens of thousands of years, even before Magic Formation. This author was definitely insane.


    However, he got more terrified as he read on; the author was able to pinpoint the error in the logic of Magic Pharmaceutics. The author pointed out that even the purest mineral could not possibly solely correspond to one element. It was even more so for herbal and animal materials. Magic medicine was invented ording to the pharmaceutical form in the Magic Pharmaceutics and was the mostmon medicine, but it was far from being formted perfectly.


    The purification in Magic Pharmaceutics was an even bigger mistake, as the real development direction in Magic Pharmaceutics should beboratory science. It should entail the investigation of magic to determine the structure of the pharmaceutical material, followed by continuous experimenting in order to achieve the perfect form. There would be slight variations when using the same material in different ces. A real pharmacist should be able to distinguish this.


    Saleen continued to read on, and he discovered that not only was the author gifted in the Magic Pharmaceutics, but his aplishments in magic were also pretty great.


    In the element agglomeration medicine, the author pointed out the mistake of this medicine and even gave three examples of three spells. He pointed out how to match with actual medicine when using the three spells, and eliminate the damage caused by the medicine.


    Saleen had never heard of these three spells. Since they were advanced magic, he made use of Reading Magic to memorise them and keep them for future validation. However, Saleen was getting a headache from looking at the forme the author had provided; there were more than 600 kinds of basic materials. Alternatives were listed for more than 50 kinds, with the medicinal properties and analysis of the proportion for most included.


    Saleen simply flipped to the front of the book and used the Reading Magic to memorize everything from the beginning. From afternoon till nightfall, by the time Saleen was at thest page, he felt his eyelids twitching.


    Thest page was written in magguage, in such small handwriting that It could hardly be read. Everything was in red as if it were a warning. Saleen was so shocked by the miniscule title that his mind wentpletely nk: The Form of Magic String Medicine!


    In this world, nine out of ten people could be an apprentice of magic. But among 100 apprentices, only one or two could advance to being a qualified magician.


    This was because the formation of magic strings was too difficult. But the author of this book unexpectedly contributed a magic pharmaceutical form. This form could help apprentices form their magic strings.


    Saleen thought that he was overly eager and hallucinating. He read it carefully again to ensure he had not read it wrong. This form really was specially designed for creating magic strings. Regardless of the apprentice¡¯s grade, he would immediately form magic strings after taking this medicine.


    Saleen¡¯s hands were trembling, his breathing becameboured, and his nose was about to bleed again.


    It felt as though one had starved for half a month, and suddenly received a sweet-smelling bread. Saleen sneakily sandwiched the book ¡°Ridiculous Magic Pharmaceuticals¡± and returned to his bedroom. After careful thought, he felt that such form was against nature and a little unrealistic. If magic strings could be formed through this method, then why did all the magicians not know this these tens of thousands of years?


    He cast a Detection Magic spell on the opened page. Sure enough, ayer of golden words emerged among the red words. Saleen broke into a cold sweat as he continued to read word by word.


    The golden words were the real form for the magic strings. If one had consumed the medicine formted ording to the red words, even a Grade 9 Magic Beast would die from the poison. Was the author joking? Someone so malicious would probably be hated when he was alive, which was why he had not left his name on the book.

 Chapter 10: Magic String Medicine (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 10: Magic String Medicine (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The golden words that had recorded down the form for the magic chord medicine listed the details. There were a total of seventy-two basic materials, with the attributes of each one listed in detail in the annotations at the back of the book. At the end of the form, the author had included a sentence that made Saleen wary.


    ¡°The magic chord medicine can change the body of a mage disciple and produce special magic chords, but this nature defying method will cause the mage disciple to pay an unknown price. I hereby remind whoever takes this medicine that the price you pay will exceed whatever gains you get.¡±


    The price you pay will exceed whatever gains you get!


    An unknown price¡­


    Saleen hesitated. He had great respect for the author of this book but he could not ignore the warning that they had left behind.


    What price would he have to pay?


    Death? Impossible.


    If any magic medicine had the potential to cause its user danger, the creator of the form would make a detailed note of it. For example, the elderly should avoid it, junior mages should not consume it, those with heart conditions should not take it, and so on. Any side effects the magic medicine could result in would also be noted at the end.


    What could it be if it was not the threat of death? The author had used a severe cautionary tone in their warning. Saleen could not figure it out; besides death, what could be the heavy price that would apany the formation of the magic chords?


    Saleen searched his brain but still could not understand exactly what the author was hinting at. He closed the book and silently recited the names of the seventy-two types of materials, estimating the rough cost of it all.


    The cheapest material would cost only one silver coin, while the most expensive material would cost two hundred gold coins. About one thousand gold coins would be enough for a set of materials for the magic chord medicine. The gold coins Saleen had were not enough for three sets of medicine materials. The form did not include any mention of a sess rate. Normally, the sess rate of such a form would be very low, not exceeding ten percent.


    In terms of the configuration of magic medicine, there was no rtion between the sess rate and luck. Experience and mental power were more important. Saleen had adequate mental power, but his experience wascking. He had only three months worth of knowledge on magic medicine. The sess rate for producing even the easiest form of magic medicine was only about half.


    That cost only one gold coin¡¯s worth of materials, and Saleen could ept the failure if it happened. Magic chord medicine was different; its failure would cost a thousand gold coins.


    Ever since Saleen had discovered this form, he had never even thought of giving it up. He could not forget those days of poverty, not to mention the asion when he had been behind bars and almost lost his life. If Jason had not arrived, he would have died in the prison. Jason would not appear every time. Therefore, he needed to possess his own power in order to live on.


    To be a genuine mage was the only path that Saleen knew. However, he could not be excessively wasteful. Jason did not give him pocket money, so to get the materials for the magic medicine, he needed to think of ways to earn money. Where could he earn money?


    The bandit gang! Da!


    Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up; it had to be him then. For thieves tomit crimes, it was essential to have various medications. Regr equipment stores would not sell dangerous medication. To get the magic medicine that bandits required, they needed to know a familiar mage who was willing to help. Saleen smiled; it seemed like a bad thing to know a bandit.


    A weekter, when Saleen was in the city, he left a message with the owner of the equipment store to look for a person by the name of Da. Half a monthter, he was in contact with the bandit.


    This time around, Da did not ask why Saleen had called for him, but simply waited for Saleen to express his intentions. One should never y the fool with a mage. Last time, when Saleen¡¯s message had been passed to the chief of the bandit gang, he had immediately abandoned his n to rope in Saleen.


    ¡°I have magic medicine for sale.¡± Saleen did not beat around the bush.


    ¡°Great, I shall take it,¡± Da replied without hesitation.


    ¡°I do not trust your chief; is there any way to kill him?¡± Saleen¡¯s second sentence frightened Da.


    ¡°Saleen, absolutely not. There are more than twenty of them,¡± Da replied hurriedly.


    ¡°Last time, you mentioned a hideaway. I went back to check the books. There used to be a traditional practice. I am thinking, since you gather on thest day of every week, I have a kind of poison that can kill by just one touch. I will give you a week¡¯s time to consider it. If you are willing to do it, you will soon be the bandit gang chief of Ceylon City.¡±


    Saleen picked up his huge leather sack and left smiling.


    Would Da reject his suggestion? If he rejected him, he would report to his chief what Saleen had said. Then, he would probably need to face the anger of the mage.


    Da did not dare reject Saleen¡¯s suggestion. A monthter, the soldiers of the city guard department discovered corpses at the hideaway. There were a total of twenty-four of them, and every one of them had died of a fatal poison.


    That was the first time Saleen had killed ¨C not by his own hands, but by his poison.


    The fake magic chord form was indeed useful, and it caused immediate death for the targets. Saleen was secretly fearful, reminding himself to be cautious of this method in future. Any sort of negligence could cost him his life.


    After getting rid of any foreign bandits, Da quickly rounded up the bandits amongst the local youth. There were secured sales for Saleen¡¯s magic medicine, and the gold coins increased each day. In a year¡¯s time, Saleen had earned three thousand gold coins in total.


    There was not a big market locally in Ceylon City; Da was clever in that he customized Saleen¡¯s medication for use by bandits. Besides the portion he used, arge quantity was sold to foreignnds. He had taken merely half a year to create a steady sales channel. The members of the neighboring bandit gangs all knew that there was special medication being sold in Ceylon City. Da also earned a little from this.


    After umting over five thousand gold coins, the standard of Saleen¡¯s production of pharmaceuticals had improved by leaps and bounds. He finally reached grade-3 apprenticeship and could continuously release five level-0 spells. At the same time, he possessed seven types of level-0 magic ¨C Reading Magic, Poison Detection, Acid Sputtering, me Combustion, Blending of Elements, Magic rm, and Detection Magic.


    After boosting his health, Saleen¡¯s body had also be stronger. Although he still looked a little thin and weak, he could now walk briskly while carrying a leather sack that weighed hundreds of kilograms. He had to go to the city to make purchases every week, and Jason always filled therge leather sack.


    The n was approaching its final stage little by little. Saleen could put together three sets of materials for magic medicine. Having inherited business acumen, Saleen did not spend all of his gold coins, in case he was sessful in his first few attempts.


    The weather was so stiflingly hot in the first week of June that it was sweat-inducing. Saleen had just turned fifteen years old and decided to start making the magic medicine. Saleen felt uneasy. He had even wanted to kneel down to pray, except he did not have a faith.


    Despite the fact that the high priest of the Holy See had said there would be favoritism for those who showed provisional grace, Saleen did not believe so, even deep in his bones. It would be easier to make the people of Qin Empire give up their pride than make the people of Sikeqinya into believers.


    Saleen pulled out the box from beneath his bed and dug out his family badge. The things that his father had left behind had all been sold. This was the only item that he had kept by his side.


    The shield-shaped ck metal badge was palm-sized, extremely thick, and heavy. The dark green magic patterns represented that the family was the one and only, and had been designed by a great mage. Anyone that imitated this type of badge would be challenging the mage¡¯s dignity.


    Saleen had understood the significance of this only after he had joined Jason.


    The badge was as thick as a thumb, with a deep lightning-shaped mark in the center. This deep mark had destroyed thepleteness of the magic patterns. Hence, Saleen could not deduce the identity of the mage who had designed the badge.


    A great mage had worked for the Metatrin family. What an honor that must have been!


    ¡°Father, please bless me in bing a powerful mage.¡± Saleen touched the badge and felt the uneven hidden patterns on its surface. There was another group of magic patterns which had been destroyed by the deep lightning-shaped mark in the center of the badge.


    Creak?


    Saleen suddenly discovered that a touch of faint blue light had shed deep within the lightning-shaped marks. He rubbed his eyes, but that tinge of blue had dissipated.


    What was that? Was it a magic imprint? His own family had declined this far, and even if there had initially been a magic imprint, it probably would have disappeared by now.


    Saleen had some worries. The more books he read, the more he understood how wide and profound the world of magic was. Simrly, this world was full of danger. One¡¯s carelessness could result in them being smashed into pieces beyond redemption.


    Saleen instinctively released detection magic at the badge.


    A faint light masked the badge in Saleen¡¯s hand. Time seemed to have stood still. To Saleen¡¯s panic, detection magic could actually be interrupted, like a person hovering midfall while falling off a cliff.


    This pause was not as long as a frame of time. If Saleen had not already begun to grasp the principles of instantaneous magic and had not possessed astute mental power, he would not have noticed the pause.


    Then, the magic light that had enveloped the badge was sucked into the badge within an even shorter period of time. The power of the elements surged crazily towards the lightning-shaped mark in the center of the badge. The mobilization of elemental power of level-0 magic was not sufficient for such absorption. Saleen felt that the hand holding the badge had be ice cold, as though his elemental power, mental power, and blood had been drawn away in that moment.


    Emptiness. Saleen¡¯s body immediately felt like an empty shell. His eyes became expressionless, his life was extinguished, and his heart stopped beating.


    Saleen felt himself sinking into darkness. There was nothingness in his surroundings. It was colorless, soundless, scentless, nothing at all. Every memory from birth to his fifteen years of age seemed to have disappeared.


    Was this death? Saleen was left with this only thought, the purest response in the face of death.


    Saleen¡¯s body fell backwards onto the floor. The blue light appeared again in the deep lightning-shaped mark on the badge in his hand. The fine, undetectable lightning did not enter through Saleen¡¯s body, but entered directly into his heart.


    Saleen¡¯s heart had stopped beating, but in that moment, it began to violently spasm from the sudden strike of the current. His blood was squeezed by the intensepressive force applied to all of his body.


    Bang! Bang! Bang!


    Saleen¡¯s body was revived and he regained his awareness. The nothingness in his surroundings had disappeared. Saleen¡¯s body bounced up from the floor, nearly hit the ceiling, and then fell down heavily.


    This fall made his mouth and nose bleed; the blood was purple and contained clots. Saleen could not describe the pain he was in. When his body had restored its awareness, all kinds of negative symptoms were felt throughout his body ¨C weakness, pain, coldness, burning¡­


    These frightful feelings kept repeating over and over again. Aside from that first bounce in the beginning, Saleen did not have any energy to struggle. He did not even have the strength to lift his fingers. He shut his eyes tightly, and his mind nearly broke down.

 Chapter 11: Magic String Medicine (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 11: Magic String Medicine (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The passage of time slowed down significantly. Every minute felt as long as a day. Such suffering trulysted for twenty-four hours. Only when the sky darkened again did Saleen regain control of his body.


    Argh¡­


    Saleen felt as though his vocal cords were not his; the pain had not disappearedpletely. He struggled, loosened his hand first, and then threw aside that scary badge.


    Demonic tool! Demonic tool?


    Saleen was roaring inside. This damn badge must have been a demonic tool; just now, he felt as though he had been swallowed and digested along with his soul.


    What was a demonic tool? During the First Dynasty thirty thousand years ago, human beings had still been a powerful species. They could arbitrarily tear into space, pass through nes, and capture demons for rearing. The demons that could not be tamed were made into magic props. The magic props made using powerful demons were called demonic tools. Despite the fact that it had initially been done for entertainment, mankind had since then fallen and lost their tyrannical power after only ten thousand years.


    These types of magic props had instantly be valuable. As they could not continue to pass through nes to capture demons, these magic props, which could also enve the demons¡¯ souls, had been collected by powerful mages. Until the Fourth Dynasty more than one thousand years ago, with the exception of powerful grade-9 mages, no one else had been able to enve the demons¡¯ souls in the demonic tools.


    Demonic tool became a scary term. Mages below grade-7 possessed no means of resisting the power of a demonic tool. These defiant demons would not sign contracts with humans even if all they had left were their souls. Eating up each person they came across was a unique characteristic of demonic tools.


    Wrong! If this thing was a demonic tool, he probably would have lost his body. Saleen touched his hands and legs, finding them still full of flesh and blood; they were real.


    Saleen finally regained his wit in the midst of this scare, and quickly realized that he was losing his mind. If this had been a demonic tool, even his master would not have been able to survive it, let alone he, an apprentice, be revived after losing his resistance.


    What could it be if not a demonic tool? Saleen used his hands to push himself until he was sitting upright and checked his body¡¯s condition. Aside from feeling very weak, everything was fine. Even the pathetic amount of magical elements in his body had increased a littlepared to before.


    Hmm¡­


    There really was a little more, despite the fact that the additional magical elements were still a pathetically small amount. However, for people like Saleen who cherished every tiny increase in the level of their elements, he would have been aware of it even if the increase had been just one-tenth of an element unit. The increase in his mental power was even more obvious. Saleen¡¯s mental power had originally already been strong. Jason had said that his mental power would be enough to use, even if he became a qualified mage.


    Now, Saleen¡¯s mental power had be even more pure and unified. There were even signs of a breakthrough.


    Saleen ignored the weakness in his body and quickly climbed beneath his bed to retrieve the badge he had thrown. There was nothing in the dark lightning-shaped mark anymore and that faint blue tinge had disappeared. Saleen stroked the badge but did not dare release any detection magic.


    That had been such a painful experience earlier. Even though he had been tortured during his childhood, he was still not able to bear such pain. Change was much harder to bear after one had gotten used to things. His threshold had been reduced since he had been livingfortably in the past few years.


    Should he show it to his master? No. If his master were to be messed up by the badge like he had been, that would be¡­


    Saleen actuallyughed out loud when he pictured Jason lying on the wooden floor, feeling weak and enduring all of the negative effects. Forget it. He needed to examine it slowly. As long as he did not use magic with this item, things should be fine.


    Saleen experienced three failures in the next month. Three thousand gold coins worth of magic medicine had been exhausted and be a pile of waste. This was a big blow to him, because the oue had not corresponded to the mental power he had been so proud of. It had been very difficult to control the use of the materials for the magic medicine.


    What could he do about his inadequate mental power? Saleen remembered his family badge. He retrieved the badge from the box and stroked it gently in his palm. Fight it out! No matter the pain, it would be worth it if it could increase his mental power.


    This time around, Saleen paid more attention to the details. He thought he would experiment and try to see the specific conditions of the badge which led it to generate such effects.


    He ced the badge on the wooden floor and released detection magic from three meters away. A hazy magical light enveloped the badge which had previously been shrouded in darkness. There was still a short pause, but the light was quickly drawn into the deep lightning-shaped mark.


    In the end? Nothing happened!


    Saleen moved the badge a little closer to two meters away and repeated his experiment. There was still no response. In the end, he decisively found a set of gloves and continued with the experiment.


    In the end, Saleen concluded that the badge was safe as long as there was no contact with his bare skin. It seemed like there would be no issue if he carried it around with him. Saleen finally felt reassured. Otherwise, this thing would have to be stored away in the box.


    Saleen began to train arduously. From Tuesday to Thursday, he would use the special power of the badge to abuse himself, then endure the torture for twenty-four hours. His mental power improved significantly. Three monthster, Saleen had a breakthrough with his mental power.


    From initially only having enough elements to release five consecutive level-0 spells, he could now painstakingly control his mental power to release seven level-0 spells. His magical elements, which had been slow to increase, had originally been at grade-3 apprenticeship level, but if Saleen was sparing in its use, he would be able to disy the abilities of a grade-4 apprentice.


    The changes to his body were obvious. Saleen still looked thin and weak, but his energy became better, and his tolerance of various negative effects became higher. Most importantly, the duration of the loss of control over his body after using the badge had reduced to six hours.


    Saleen no longer had to struggle to endure the six hours. Apart from the fact that his body could not move, he could use these six hours to think, recall the books he had read, and revise his magic knowledge.


    After surviving the most challenging period, Saleen had be more confident. He did not realize it himself, but his temperament had also undergone fundamental changes. He no longer had weak responses such as nervousness, indecisiveness, or fear. He smiled more, and they were smiles from the heart.


    Saleen decided to continue to train this way. He believed that as long as he persevered, he would have a body that was immune to all negative conditions of magic.


    The only thing left unchanged was Saleen¡¯s dedication to gold coins. He used the rest of his time to continue to produce magic medicine and sell it to Da. He had again umted more than three thousand gold coins in these three months. It was a pity that things could not be any faster. It was already too much for Da. The local spending power in Ceylon City was limited. After he had taken the position as the bandit gang chief, he had only had youth bandits with him and they could not undertake any big cases.


    Excess supplies of medicine needed to be umted in order to be sold to bandits in foreignnds. Da did not have much cash flow on hand. He did not dare owe Saleen money. He also did not have the influence to make the foreign bandits pay deposits.


    Saleen knew that these three thousand gold coins might not be able to manufacture the magic chord medicine. He grew anxious over the gold coins as the days passed. It was the weekend again, and he needed to enter the city to help Jason make purchases, and at the same time bring back the previous week¡¯s orders.


    There had been bad weather this weekend. The winds had lessened, but the cold rain did not stop. Rust-colored clouds hung over the harbor of Ceylon City.


    Two brightly-dressed swordsmen were hiding under the eaves, looking into the distance. They did not have armor, only daggers hanging at their waists. There were leaf-shaped badges embroidered on both of their chests. These badges symbolized that they worked for the lord and had a close rtionship with him.


    The stature of the two swordsmen were very simr ¨C broad shoulders and slender waists, and bodies that were big and tall.


    ¡°Chief, is that kid noting?¡± the red-haired swordsman asked worriedly. He looked at the rain which had gradually be heavier.


    ¡°No, Chris. It has been three years. He appears at this time every week, regardless of the weather.¡±


    The blond-haired swordsman touched his dagger and patiently stared at the stone pavement under the eaves. The rain blown in by the wind could not get close to his body. Chris, the red-haired swordsman, could only shrink inwards. He thought to himself: When will I be like chief and seed in calling the sword aura?


    The stone pavement, which had not been repaired for many years, began to flood. The raindrops pounded down like a curtain, sshed, and formed ayer of mist on the ground. There were not many people out and about in such weather. It was almost autumn, and Ceylon City was bing colder.


    The eyes of the blond-haired swordsman were like a torch, piercing through the curtain of rain to look at the end of the road. A skinny youth walked by unhurriedly. Not holding an umbre, he was wearing a funny long robe and carrying a huge leather sack on his back. The rain fell and bounced off of his body. Even the boots on his feet were still clean and dry, untouched by the rain.


    As the youth slowly walked closer, his face became clear. His hair and eyes were chestnut in color, and he had a slightly high nose ridge. His eyes were deepset, and he looked like he was of Southern aristocratic descent. His eyebrows were loose, as though he did not mind this dreadful weather. There was a tiny leather bag hanging from his slender fingers.


    This was a standard leather bag for gold coins; each bag could hold fifty gold coins. The youth had hooked it onto his fingers, rocking it with his pace. Security at the harbor was not very good. If not for the rain, the bandits might have been eyeing him.


    ¡°Mage Saleen!¡± the blonde-haired swordsman called out warmly, as he waved to the youth.


    Saleen tilted the corners of his mouth, pretending not to hear and continuing to walk in the rain. His name was Saleen, but he was not some mage. He was only a grade-3 apprentice.


    The swordsman felt a little embarrassed. He could not have possibly called Saleen apprentice. Such a greeting would have been truly disrespectful. The viscount wanted him to be polite as possible. It was indeed tough.


    ¡°Master Metatrin!¡± The blond-haired swordsman raised his voice. The other party had already gone past him, and he could only see his back now.


    ¡°Saleen, Saleen!¡± The blond-haired swordsman could only chase after him as he saw the youth¡¯s figure grow further. Chris followed helplessly and ran into the rain. The rain instantly soaked his striking clothing, such that only the insides of the tightly tied boots remained dry. Such freezing rain! Chris shuddered in chills.

 Chapter 12: Viscount Gugger’s Invitation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 12: Viscount Gugger¡¯s Invitation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I am Saleen. May I ask what is the matter?¡± Saleen paused and turned around. The two swordsmen were a head taller than him. He stared into their eyes without looking overbearing. He was not looking upwards, but they were looking at him with their heads lowered. He seemed to have an invisible cover from head to toe, blocking him from the rain and forming ayer of mist.


    This was the eighth level-0 magic that Saleen had learned ¨C Invisible Shield.


    ¡°It is not convenient to talk in the rain. This way please.¡± The blond-haired swordsman knew that Chris was drenched, and the viscount had repeatedly instructed them to be respectful to thisd.


    Saleen nodded, indicating for them to lead the way.


    One¡¯s environment affects his temperament while one¡¯s diet affects his health. Saleen was no longer the orphan from three years ago. His status had changed along with his temperament. As an apprentice, he might not have any fighting ability, but he had a grade-5 mage watching his back. No one, not even the most influential in Ceylon City, would dare to mistreat Saleen.


    When Jason had rescued him from prison, the viscount had not even dared to say a single word in response.


    Saleen¡¯s reserved attitude made the blond-haired swordsman worry that things could be problematic. After all, the viscount had been rejected by mages before. Thisd would probably be difficult to deal with too. Walking into a deserted bar, Chris shook off the water on his hair and called for the waiter.


    ¡°Two strong tequs. Um, Mage Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Give me a ss of water.¡± Saleen and the blond-haired swordsman sat opposite each other. He did not put down the huge leather sack he was carrying, but merely tied the money pouch at his waist. Swordsmen were very sensitive to weight. The leather sack on Saleen¡¯s back contained at least a hundred kilograms of items. Despite his not-yet-fully-developed body, he had been effortlessly carrying the leather sack.


    This was a body that was standard for a swordsman, but not a mage.


    An apprentice of magic with a strong physique? The blond-haired swordsman began to pay more attention to Saleen. Mages were indeed mysterious and powerful beings. Three years ago, this child was almost at the brink of starvation, and could not possibly have had any physique to speak of. The waiter delivered the alcohol and water, looking steadily forward. The moment Saleen entered, he had already noticed the long robe on this young man. When he heard Chris calling this youth ¡°mage¡±, he did not dare to utter a word.


    Chris passed him a silver coin, and said, ¡°Close the door, then go to the back. Do note out if no one calls for you.¡± Even if it were not raining, the patrons were typically sparse. Furthermore, as these two swordsmen were from the House of the Lord, no one would dare oppose them even if the boss were here. The waiter hurriedly closed the door,tched it, and obediently hid in the back.


    Saleen lifted the cup of water, and released a level-0 Poison Detection spell.


    The water was, of course, safe. Saleen was only casually practicing his magic. In any case, that pitiful level of magic could not be used in any battle. What¡¯s more, he himself was selling the highly toxic magic medicine in Ceylon City. If he were to be poisoned by his own medicine, he would be the most tragic apprentice in the world.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, Viscount Gugger asked that we call upon you.¡± The blond-haired swordsman¡¯s words did not make sense. It was obvious that he had stopped Saleen on the road. If it were a visit, they should have gone to the outskirts.


    Saleen smiled, not minding what the blond-haired swordsman had said. Now, nobody would dare go near to his house. His teacher disapproved, so even the Lord had to stay away.


    ¡°I do not have much time, as I have to rush back before it gets dark. Please get straight to the point,¡± Saleen replied, taking a sip of the water and closing his eyes.


    Viscount Gugger Freyne owned Ceylon City. While the Freyne n had always been rooted here, it had also declined along with Ceylon City. Reduced from being a second ss earl to bing a first ss viscount, Viscount Gugger had also lost arge amount ofnd through the years. The emperor no longer bothered himself with bulletins on Ceylon City. There were little earnings, and it had long been abandoned by adventurers and traders.


    Saleen¡¯s teacher, Jason Statham, was the first mage to stop by Ceylon City in thest two hundred years. In addition, being a grade-5 mage, he would be able to build a magical tower when he was promoted to the next grade.


    The moment Jason appeared, Viscount Gugger had expressed interest in soliciting him. Jason had promptly chased him away, and Viscount Gugger never attempted it again. The first time, one was chased off; the next time, one could be killed.


    After a span of three years, the viscount had contacted him. Could it not be a good thing? Saleen contemted to himself, looking steadily ahead.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, Lord Viscount would like to invite you to attend the mid-autumn festival sea sacrifice ceremony.¡± The blond-haired swordsman took a sip of the strong tequ, warmth instantly filling his entire body. Chris was using a towel to dry his hair on the side. Both of them looked at Saleen, awaiting his reply.


    ¡°That is all?¡± Saleen was a little disappointed. Although this invitation was important, what he had hoped for was hundreds of gold coins. Saleen was in urgent need of money, as Da¡¯s capability to receive goods had reached its limit. Even if he were in dire need, Saleen simply could not squeeze water out of rocks.


    The mid-autumn festival was a rtively important day in Northern Sikeqinya. The cities along the sea would hold sea sacrifice ceremonies to thank the sea for its blessings. This was the only memory left for the Myers Maind since the fall of the Goddess of Nature. It was a day for themoners, but nobility also used this day to show off to one another.


    Viscount Gugger knew very well that he would not be able to invite Jason, thus he focused attention on himself. For a mage to ept the invitation, it would give him much face value. Although Saleen was still young, he was able to understand the viscount¡¯s calcted move.


    ¡°Lord Viscount had requested your honor¡¯s attire to be more formal, as a form of gratitude.¡± The blond-haired swordsman had unknowingly used an honorific. Saleen¡¯s attitude was unpredictable for him. There was not a bit of response from this fifteen or sixteen year old young man. He had to take out a gift, put it on the table, and push it in front of Saleen.


    More formal? Saleen looked at his own robe, but did not feel anything was amiss.


    The blond-haired swordsman pushed over a small box. Saleen opened it to see a dazzling sight. Ten magic nucleiy neatly in the box, each the size of a thumb, gleaming under the dim lighting of the bar. Under the magic nuclei were several Qin Empire bank notes. From the color, he could see they were in denominations of a thousand gold coins each.


    Despite himself, Saleen¡¯s heart raced. The magic nuclei were probably grade-3. Each would cost more than one hundred and fifty gold coins. The bank notes were estimated to be four to five thousand. This was indeed arge sum of money.


    To hire an apprentice of magic to attend a ceremony obviously did not require so much money. Even if Saleen did not have much experience being out and about, given that there were so many soldiers in Sikeqinya, with such arge sum of money, one could definitely hire a mage sessfully. And that would be a qualified mage and not an apprentice. These principles came to Saleen when he thought about it.


    The viscount¡¯s motive was to win over his teacher. If he kept the money and his teacher got wind of it¡­ Seeing that Saleen had closed the cover gently without even blinking, the blond-haired swordsman felt uneasy. He said in a low voice, ¡°Mage Saleen, what Lord Viscount meant was to request that you temporarily dress as a mage. This has nothing to do with your teacher. Our Lord also has another favor to ask of you.¡±


    ¡°What is your name?¡± Saleen asked the blond-haired swordsman suddenly.


    ¡°Ulysses, Ulysses Coya.¡± The blond-haired swordsman did not know why Saleen had asked for his name.


    ¡°Ulysses, you go back and tell Viscount Gugger that I will pay him a visit at his house next week. Now, I need to head back. My teacher does not like to wait.¡± Saleen smiled, stood up, opened the door, and walked into the rain.


    He did not touch the wooden box, whichy quietly on the table. Ulysses did not dare to stop or chase after him. Saleen¡¯sst statement was to remind him that with a grade-5 mage backing him, all means of convincing him were useless.


    In the Ceylon City Lord¡¯s house, the perspiring Viscount Gugger was waiting on hisdy. The scars among the long hairs on his muscr chest were a testament of his hard work in his youth.


    ¡°Faster, faster!¡± Lady Viscount was young and enchanting, desperately writhing her luscious body. Gugger was helpless as he had, during noon, enjoyed a stolen moment with his personal maid. At this moment, his spirit was willing but his flesh was weak.


    ¡°Narsha¡­¡± The viscount slumped down, pressing on top of hisdy¡¯s body.


    Lady Viscount pushed Gugger away and caught her breath. She certainly knew that Gugger was cheating on her. However, to the noblemen, this was nothing unusual. Gugger still had his good points. At least he did note into contact with those dangerous women. The problem was insatiability; she needed to find something to vent about.


    ¡°Gugger, I heard that you took out five thousand gold coins to give that youngd?¡±


    ¡°Is an apprentice worth this much?¡± Lady Viscount was not an unworldly person. Her father was a chief trader, and she had travelled extensively, encountering many strange people and things.


    ¡°His teacher will be worth it,¡± Gugger perked up at the mention of this. He said to hisdy, ¡°I am financially strapped now. Get your father to pass me ten thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°What do you regard my father as?¡± Lady Viscount gave Gugger a gentle kick.


    Master Gugger appeared unperturbed,id his face down, and began to use his mouth to suck on hisdy. Lady Viscount moaned twice, pped Gugger¡¯s head and said, ¡°Get up. I want to ask you, what do you n to do with this money?¡±


    Gugger hugged hisdy, and said in a low voice, ¡°These few years, your father has spent tens of thousands of gold coins on the matter of my viscount title. There are no major issues over at the Presbyterian Council. But as I do not have many political achievements here, to restore the family viscount title and win back thends, I need to do something the emperor will take notice of.¡±


    ¡°What has this got to do with the apprentice?¡± Hisdy was still unable to figure it out.


    ¡°There is not much I can do if that mage is unwilling toe here. But his student is different. I heard that thatd Saleen is trying his darndest to earn money. As long as I give him money, he will naturally be willing to work for me.¡±


    ¡°An apprentice does not have any ability.¡± Lady Viscount was not an amateur. A senior apprentice of magic would be, at most, of the standard of an intermediate swordsman. There were no senior professionals in the house, but it would not be an issue gathering a group of eighty to one hundred intermediate swordsmen. Ulysses was, in fact, the youngest elementary swordsman in the area, and already possessed the sword aura.


    ¡°He is a lump of sh*t, and also represents that grade-5 mage¡¯s sh*t. When winteres, I will get him to go with me to eliminate the pirates. When we report to the emperor, I will say that the elimination was sessful with the help of the grade-5 mage. By then, the whole empire will know I have a powerful mage supporting me. No one would then oppose my attaining the baron title.¡±


    ¡°But it is so impoverished here. Where are the so-called pirates?¡±


    ¡°I have put away many offenders all these years. In fact, they are still alive. When it is time, I will throw them on board the ship. Who will know if they are pirates or offenders? The key is to get that Saleen to follow me. Get me that ship I lent to your father. I must do it personally this time around.¡±


    ¡°What happens if that magees to know about it?¡± The Lady was a little worried. If a mage were to be antagonized, even a viscount would have to be prepared to give up his life.


    ¡°I have spent much money just to make sure thatd keeps it a secret. If he does not reveal it, the mage will naturally not know. Even if he knew, he would attribute it to his student¡¯s greed. Why would it be linked to us?¡±


    ¡°Gugger, you are such a genius. Come, again!¡± Lady Viscount pressed on her husband¡¯s head and pushed him towards her crotch desperately. Her father¡¯s investment was truly spot on. This Gugger was indeed a clever and ambitious man. Such kind and ambitious noblemen were rare. If it were someone else, they would have just killed some fishermen to make up the numbers. Gugger was still conscientious enough to set aside some offenders as substitutes.

 Chapter 13: Viscount Gugger’s Invitation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 13: Viscount Gugger¡¯s Invitation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had no idea he was being described as the sh*t of a powerful mage. He was prepared to ept the invitation from Lord Viscount, but was worried about his outfit. Where could he get a mage¡¯s robe?


    Hey on his bed, tossing around. A token of five to six thousand gold coins in appreciation. Five to six thousand gold coins!


    Three years ago, when Jason appeared in front of Saleen, Saleen was about to starve to death. Besides the huge stone house itself, he had exchanged all the furniture and furnishings for food. However, no one would buy the house. The interested buyers understood the principle that the house would be even cheaper if Saleen starved to death.


    After joining Jason, Saleen used all his time to improve his strength. When he discovered that the badge could increase his power, he even suppressed the fear of pain within his heart to torture his senses each and every day, only for the slight increase in strength it offered. His suffering was in hope of the sess of the magic chord medicine.


    Saleen had no idea why it had to be so tough. He only knew that once he became a qualified mage, he would no longer need to live the life he¡¯d had before. No one understood the fear an orphan had. When Saleen had umted his first gold coin, he immediately bought fifty pieces of bread weighing five hundred grams each and hid them under his bed.


    That night, Saleen slept soundly for the first time, feeling blessed.


    The bread had turned moldyter. Saleen began to understand that bread could not be amassed, and even gold coins could potentially be grabbed by others. Only when he became a mage would he not need to seek approval from anyone. Even the Lord would equally need to show him due respect.


    Saleen could not reject this offer of five thousand gold coins. Five thousand gold coins represented five sets of materials for the magic chord medicine. Based on his current method, it would take him at least two years to earn these five thousand gold coins. Da had tried his best, and Saleen really had no better way. Taking the money to start a business? That required time. Saleen did not have time for such secr matters; he had ced all his energy into magic and acquiring knowledge.


    The problem was, what did Viscount Gugger have in mind for him to do? Saleen was not confident. No matter how clever he was, he was ultimately a youth who did not know the power games of the nobility. Surely, Saleen could not let his teacher know about this, so he felt apprehensive.


    He forced himself to stop pondering, dragged the box out from under the bed, and retrieved his family badge.


    The magic elements in his body were instantly exhausted, the debuffs flooding in. Saleen was already used to it, and treated his body as though it were not his own. He recalled the magic books and magic notes that he had read previously, steadily enriching his own knowledge on magic. Initially, he had lost control of his body for as long as twenty-four hours, but now he only needed six hours to recover.


    Saleen used these six hours to conduct his learning. Reading magic was like ¡°forced memorization¡±, but did not include the understanding of the words¡¯ meanings. As though ruminating, Saleen searched through what he had been forced tomit to memory and pondered them continuously. He did not notice that a tinge of blue had shed across the lightning-shaped mark on the badge in his hand. This tinge of blue was remarkably dark, and waspletely different from what he had seen the first time.


    ¡°He left the money behind, and left?¡± Viscount Gugger and Ulysses were having an in-depth conversation in the Lord¡¯s house.


    ¡°Yes, he did not bat his eyes even once, and had only one expression from start to finish.¡±


    Viscount Gugger paused to think, and then said, ¡°You did quite well. Wait for him at the city gate next week, and do not rm the mage.¡±


    ¡°Yes. But, what time should I go?¡± Ulysses asked this question specifically, not wanting to make any mistakes.


    ¡°Idiot, go and wait at dawn.¡± Viscount Gugger was obviously in good spirits, smiling as hemented without anger.


    Ulysses retreated unwillingly. To wait for the apprentice early in the morning, when he had always entered the city in the afternoon? He, an elementary swordmaster, having to wait for a mere mage¡¯s apprentice!


    Feeling satisfied, Viscount Gugger stretched his body. Although it was unexpected that Saleen had not taken the money, because he was willing toe over for a discussion, there was hope. Now he felt that his marriage to Narsha had been a very wise decision. If not for his father-inw¡¯s support, where would he have found the money to make this possible?


    Without money, there would be no way to feed those good-for-nothings at the Presbyterian Council, not to mention to entice this little apprentice. As long as he restored the nobility ranking of his family, this sum of money would be returned..


    One week passed quickly. Ulysses, along with Chris, had gone to the city gate early in the morning to wait for Saleen patiently. The weather was getting colder. The two of them put on the leather robes that Viscount Gugger had supplied, and stood at the entrance of the city gate, feeling a little silly. The soldiers on guard at the city gate collecting taxes had offered them the resting house as a bid to please them, but ended up being reprimanded by Chris.


    If they missed Saleen, they would definitely be reprimanded when they returned. They would rather stand there in the cold as a form of practice. The Ceylon City walls were very high, being almost ten meters. The city gate was wide enough to allow four horse carriages to move through side by side. Despite the decline of the city, there were still remnants of its former buzz.


    It had been many years since the Myers Maind had been at war with the four big empires. Ceylon City had been peaceful for such a long time that the trees outside the city had not been cleared. Both sides of the wide official road were full of tall and low scattered trees and shrubs. Over the years, the ruts on the te had be messier over time, having not been repaired or polished by anyone.


    Saleen appeared on this old official road. He was still carrying the huge leather sack on his back, with nary a change to his outfit.


    Ulysses heaved a sigh of relief. It would have been boring and torturous to have to wait until the afternoon. At the same time, he felt relieved that he had heeded Lord Viscount¡¯s instructions to wait here in the morning.


    ¡°Mage Saleen!¡± Ulysses went up to him quickly.


    ¡°So it is Swordmaster Ulysses,¡± Saleen smiled and cracked a neither serious nor light-hearted joke.


    Ulysses¡¯ face turned red but he was not too embarrassed. Saleen was warmer than thest time around. His expression was no longer cold and emotionless.


    ¡°Lord Viscount had asked that I wee you.¡±


    ¡°I shall go and collect my goods first, you see¡­¡±


    ¡°Let Chris take care of it.¡± Ulysses called out to Chris, and the red-haired swordsman meekly took over Saleen¡¯s leather sack, along with the store tickets.


    ¡°They have been paid for. You just have to inspect the packages. You know the ce, right?¡± Saleen reminded Chris.


    The economy in Ceylon City had declined, and there were limited shops. Gugger had actually specially studied Saleen¡¯s movements. Of course he knew which store Saleen had ced his orders at. Chris controlled his urge to beat Saleen up, and left quickly like a meteor.


    ¡°Swordmaster, let¡¯s go.¡±


    Ulysses gave a wry smile, and replied to Saleen, ¡°I will call you Saleen from now on. Please do not call me swordmaster. It is embarrassing.¡±


    ¡°I am d that you realize it.¡± Saleen had won the first round. He adjusted his robe and followed Ulysses onto the carriage. The exterior of the carriage was already old, but the fittings within were luxurious.


    The interior of the spacious carriage was covered with carpet from the Caucasus Region. The seats were wrapped in velvet from the Tangsi Empire, and the cushions were made simply with precious silk from the Qin Empire. In fact, the carriage body had been made in the Cloudflow Empire. There was almost no jolt when the carriage was in motion, in essence not affecting skilled shooters in battle.


    Although Ceylon City had declined, the Sikeqinya Empire was still flourishing. Thergest trading and mercenary groups in the entire maind were based in Sikeqinya, where one could buy anything they could think of.


    Saleen could not appreciate Lord Viscount¡¯s hospitality. He only thought that the fragrance inside the carriage was a little strange. He deployed a cleaning spell. With the cleansing of the fresh water vapor, the fragrance in the carriage quickly dissipated. Within six hours, he could release six level-0 spells. Could that Viscount Gugger have invited him to perform?


    Saleen leaned against the soft cushions, an indescribable feeling in his heart. Three years ago, he was hungry and freezing. Who would have thought that this day woulde when he would be received by the Lord in his very carriage? He felt gratified; all of this was magic, brought to him by Jason Statham. When would he have true glory?


    The more Saleen thought about it, the more eager he felt about the payment of those few thousand gold coins from the viscount. He did not speak to Ulysses, but began to meditate in his seat.


    Viscount Gugger did note out to greet him. Ulysses brought Saleen to a small sitting room to wait. This was not considered disrespect, as the small sitting room was used by nobility for extending hospitality to the people close to them. Common visitors would not have such a privilege.


    As Viscount Gugger had financial aid from his father-inw, even though tax revenues had not been profitable, his life was still veryfortable. Saleen was now sipping tea imported from the Qin Empire, and eating dried nuts from Baidi City. The maidservant who had served him was young and pretty, and was looking at him flirtatiously.


    Mages were rare. The maids did not care about Saleen¡¯s current grade. In any case, once they managed to seduce him, they would have very different statuses.


    Although Saleen was not reserved, he felt it was silly. It was fortunate that Ulysses was apanying him; the two maidservants did not dare to do anything.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, I heard that mages can fly in the sky, is that true?¡±


    ¡°Even a grade-5 mage would need the use of an aviation prop. I am just an apprentice. Only mages above grade-6 could own the sky.¡± Saleen straightened his clothes while sitting, and answered ording to the standard answer from the magic books.


    ¡°You must have read a lot of books. You speak just like a nobleman.¡±


    ¡°This is not apliment, even to an apprentice.¡± Saleen did not want Ulysses to treat this like a joke. He put on a stern look, with no intention of engaging the two maidservants any further.


    The maidservants covered their mouths and giggled, ¡°Do you intend to punish us?¡±


    Saleen did not reply; he was not angry. If Viscount Gugger were to punish the two maidservants, he would certainly agree with it. These two maids were obviously not worth a few thousand gold coins. But Saleen remembered how he had been in the past, and felt that such punishments were meaningless.


    The people at the lowest level would desperately climb their way upwards, regardless of what was at the top. They would be unwilling to turn back.

 Chapter 14: Trouble with a Lesser Nobleman (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 14: Trouble with a Lesser Nobleman (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Luckily, Gugger did not keep Saleen waiting for long. Although he was also from Ceylon City, Saleen had not seen him before.


    Gugger looked to be about thirty-four or thirty-five years old, with a face typical of a nobleman from the North. He had a wide forehead and his brown eyes were neitherrge nor deep-set, unlike that of those from the South. His blond hair was tied in a wavy fashion that resembled a me, making him appear even younger.


    He was more than a head taller than Saleen and almost 1.9 meters in height. His thick shoulders were quite obviously not made of fat, and his wide palms did not appear delicate. Both were testaments that the viscount had not given up his pursuit of the martial arts and practiced it asionally.


    ¡°Mage Saleen!¡± Gugger warmly enveloped Saleen in a hug. Saleen frowned. He realized what that strange smell had been; it was Gugger¡¯s cologne.


    ¡°Lord Viscount.¡± Saleen took two steps back and saluted.


    The two of them sat down. Gugger said, ¡°Sorry to have kept you waiting. I was meeting some people from the South.¡±


    ¡°Lord Viscount, please be forting about what you require of me. The payment you are offering is too much. I do not understand.¡± Saleen wanted to dispose of the formalities; he wanted those few thousand gold coins, no matter what it took.


    After a quick evaluation, Viscount Gugger decided not to beat around the bush with Saleen. He said, ¡°Then I shall be direct. I n to eliminate pirates during the winter. Your teacher was not willing toe along so I decided to seek your help instead.¡±


    Saleenughed. ¡°My Lord, you must be pulling my leg.¡±


    Gugger said solemnly, ¡°I know you are still an apprentice, but I am not asking you to kill any enemies this time. I just hope you can make some restorative water for the sailors on board. You may not have learned Grade 1 magic yet and I should not make this request of you. But with the troops at sea, many will be sick or even die during these two to three months. Hence, I hope you can help.¡±


    Saleen kept quiet. He was a Grade 3 apprentice and because of his strong mental power, he was just barely able to learn a Grade 1 spell. He had intended to learn the elementary Fireball skill, the mostmonly used method of attack among Grade 1 magic.


    Restorative water was a type of auxiliary magic, and about one hundred and twenty grams of medicinal water could be produced. Whether ingested or applied, it worked well, and while it did not work exceptionally fast, it had no aftereffects and was harmless.


    If Saleen were a Grade 1 mage, such a request would not be a tall order. But Saleen was only a mere apprentice and only could learn a single Grade 1 spell. Before he became a qualified mage, he would have no chance of learning another Grade 1 spell after this.


    If a mage skipped a grade to learn these spells, it would determine the direction of magic the mage progressed in during their future advancement. The earlier one learned a spell, the more familiar one would be with it. Upon advancement, the speed of release for the spell would increase.


    ¡°Saleen, I know this is asking too much of an apprentice, hence you must ept this payment for the request.¡± Gugger retrieved that small box, causing Saleen¡¯s heart to stir again.


    ¡°Why not hire a holy master?¡± Saleen had to question further.


    ¡°Senior holy masters are too costly. Besides, divine spells need to be released on the spot. If any problems were to arise, they may incur the wrath of the Holy See. It would be different for you. You can stay with me on thergest battleship and won¡¯t be at any risk.¡±


    ¡°When do we start?¡± Saleen took the box indifferently, and stuffed it into his leather bag without opening it.


    Gugger heaved a sigh of relief, and said with smile, ¡°The end of the year. It is still early. Today we have two guests visiting from other cities. Please stay for a meal.¡±


    Saleen was relieved as well. The money was finally in his hands; it had been unbearable for him up until now.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Lord?¡±


    ¡°I ordered an outfit to be made for you. Would you like to change into it?¡±


    Saleen looked at the robe on him, and finally understood. As the clothing was not made-to-measure for him, it was too big and worn out. Jason did not pay attention to such things. To him, people would respect you no matter what you wore. If Saleen were to stay for dinner, he would need to show the viscount proper respect.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, follow us,¡± the two maidservants giggled as they led Saleen out of the small living hall.


    Following the maidservants to the guest room, Saleen saw that the clothing prepared for him had been ced on the table. He shooed the two maidservants out, not allowing them to wait on him. Although the fifteen year old youth had some urges after looking at their bosoms, there were more important matters at hand.


    After bolting the door, Saleen immediately retrieved the small box from his leather bag and opened it.


    Light from the nuclei shot out, temporarily blinding Saleen. After putting the nuclei into the money bag he had prepared and attaching the bag to his waist, Saleen took out the stack of Qin Empire bank notes from the box.


    Each note was worth a thousand gold coins, and there were five of them in total.


    Saleen grasped the notes in his hand. He felt likeughing, but was afraid the maidservants would hear him. If only he knew a mute enchantment¡­ Saleen counted the bank notes a few times and then stuffed them into the inteyer of his belt.


    The two maidservants held their breaths and pressed their ears against the door. They could not hear anything. What was this little mage doing? Only then did Saleen remove his own robe and rece it with the clothing Viscount Gugger had prepared for him.


    It was a white robe, modeled after the style of a mage¡¯s robe. The belt was tucked around the waist on the inside of the robe. The robe was made with exquisite workmanship, using quality Qin Empire silk.


    It was a pity this was not magic silk, and could not help keep his magic constant. The fine, thick silk was indeed beautiful. Its base was silvery white, and embroidered with magic patterns.


    There was a magic staff on the table. It was an authentic piece. Saleen picked up the magic staff to feel its magic affinity but was slightly disappointed by what he found. Viscount Gugger had already exhausted it quite a bit, and although this magic staff was of the cheapest kind, it was worth at least a few hundred gold coins.


    Saleen gave it some thought, then took out a ck metal ring from his leather bag. It was not a piece of magic equipment, but more of a weight used when practicing magic gestures. It was for the purpose of deceiving the unknowing, as the simpler the item, the more difficult it would be for them to figure out what it was.


    He looked at his reflection wearing new clothes in the mirror. The skinny, sallow youth he had been had disappeared. The youth in the mirror had a pair of gleaming brown eyes and was taller than before. Using the magic staff, Saleen struck a pose as though he were releasing a spell.


    The two maidservants were eavesdropping behind the door but still could not hear a thing. After more than ten minutes, Saleen opened the door suddenly. The two maidservants, caught by surprise, fell into the room at the same time.


    Saleenughed, and pulled one of them along in each of his hands, saying, ¡°Come, let us go meet with Lord Viscount.¡±


    The two maidservants turned bright red in embarrassment, and dashed off before him hurriedly. They could not fathom what Saleen had been up to in the room; there was nary a sound made. Furthermore, this little mage¡¯s hands were warm to the touch.


    No matter how extravagant the lifestyles of the noblemen in the North were, they made sure to maintain certain traditions concerning food. Saleen entered the dining hall and saw arge table in the center. On the table was a copper brazier topped with an iron mesh, and surrounding the copper brazier were Qin Empire porcin tes. There was raw meat on a porcin te almost two feet long. Silver cutlery was ced next to each te.


    There was neither rhyme nor reason to such an arrangement, but even the particr Qin Empire folk would not object to this. The Sikeqinya people, being the nouveau riche, would probably take another two thousand years to develop refined tastes.


    The meat carving knife was razor sharp. In the Tangsi Empire, such cutlery could never appear in a nobleman¡¯s dining hall.


    Saleen casually nced at the guests who were already seated. The beautiful voluptuousdy must have been Lady Viscount. Although he had never seen her before, he had often heard about her. The two unfamiliar guests must have been the foreigners. Saleen¡¯s nose twitched. There was no smell of fish from them.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, allow me to introduce you¡­¡± The young Lady Viscount spontaneously volunteered to introduce the two foreigners, since by now Gugger was seated in the host¡¯s seat. Her tone made it sound as though the two of them were well-acquainted.


    ¡°This is Baron Rick from Krudya City, and this is Baron Minghui from Metropolitan City.¡± Lady Viscount was young and beautiful. Dressed in formal noble attire with her waist bound, she looked even more well-endowed. Towards the two young barons, she was far from shy and very lively.


    Rick pretended to look steadily forward, maintaining an elegant demeanor. His gaze would linger for an extra second or two when he looked at Lady Viscount¡¯s bosom. Gugger acted as though he did not notice. He was confident in his wife, who would not be attracted to a lowly baron.


    Baron Minghui appeared to disregard Lady Viscount¡¯s introduction, and looked at Saleen with his lips curled in disdain.


    ¡°Mage Saleen? Pretty young, huh. I wonder if you know how to release the Fireball spell?¡±


    Seeing Baron Minghui¡¯s attitude, Saleen was tempted to move forward and give him a few ps. This way, he could quell his anger and also save his magic power. However, as there was a stone-faced swordsman right behind the baron, Saleen would be on the losing side if there were a fight.


    Viscount Gugger gave hisdy a pinch on the thigh under the table. Lady Viscount understood the hint and interjected, ¡°Mage Saleen, please excuse Baron Minghui¡¯s impoliteness. We aremon folk and are very curious about magic.¡±


    ¡°Magic is not used for showing off,¡± Saleen said icily, not having understood Baron Minghui¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°Tsk¡­¡± Baron Minghui sneered, his triangr-shaped head resembling a type of gecko. He asked in a taunting manner, ¡°What showing off? Could Mage Saleen becking confidence in his own abilities?¡±


    Metropolitan City had flourished in thest two years. He hade to Ceylon City mainly to show off his wealth. Unexpectedly, Gugger had brought out a mage, causing him to lose face. Even the senior swordsman behind him paled inparison.


    ¡°Baron Minghui has arge ring,¡± Saleen sighed softly, not continuing his sentence but only touching his own ck metal ring.


    Baron Minghui¡¯s face swelled and turned red. The ring on his finger had a magnificentlyrge thirty-two-facet gem, but it could not bepared to a mage¡¯s ring at all.


    True noblemen would not attempt to anger a mage. Even if the mage was of a lowly grade, he could still bring about much trouble.


    Baron Minghui was from a small area, and had never seen a mage. He had few concerns, and after holding back for a long while, finally spoke, ¡°So as long as one has a white robe, one is a mage.¡±


    Saleen chuckled softly, and said, ¡°Baron Minghui seems to think that those who are able to release fireballs are mages. Although I can understand your ignorance, I cannot stand to ept it.¡±

 Chapter 15: Trouble with a Lesser Nobleman (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 15: Trouble with a Lesser Nobleman (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Baron Minghui clenched his fist and whispered something to the swordsman behind him. He was not furious, but was not content with letting a child insult him in this manner. Saleen¡¯s age did not suit the term ¡°mage¡± at all.


    ¡°The people of Sikeqinya always say that everything can be bought with gold coins. Mage Saleen, I would like to hire you to perform some magic for everyone here right now.¡±


    ¡°Sure, I can go to Metropolitan City tomorrow and register myself as a mercenary. You can send someone to go with me.¡±


    ¡°Why go to all that trouble? Mage Saleen, why don¡¯t I decide? Let¡¯s do it right now. Please name your price. Let us all gain some insight. Baron Minghui is a man of status, and he will not refuse you.¡± Lady Viscount settled the matter immediately. Baron Minghui¡¯s mouth fell in some distress, but he could not refute a beautifuldy¡¯spliment. That would be shameful.


    ¡°Make it two thousand gold coins. It will not be easy for the baron, since he is away from home.¡± Saleen looked indifferent but was delighted in his heart.


    ¡°I offer three thousand gold coins. You duel with my swordsman, and it is yours if you win.¡± Baron Minghui was now angered.


    The atmosphere at the table grew tense. Saleen¡¯s pupils shrank; he had forgotten one thing. Mages induced fear in most people, except for one group ¨C those from remote areas, who had not encountered much of the world. They would fear a mad dog but would certainly not fear a mage.


    Fearing a mad dog was understandable, but not mages who had never appeared.


    Saleen switched his gaze to the swordsman behind the baron, slowed down, and asked, ¡°Do you intend for this to be a fight of life and death?¡±


    There were neither emotions nor emphasis in what Saleen had said. The swordsman¡¯s cold sweat had already soaked his back. He was cursing his baron in his heart. He was only a senior swordsman, and could probably kill this youth. But mage apprentices and swordsmen were different. If you killed an apprentice, their teacher could get angry and take even more lives.


    He was a neer and did not know the mage grade of Saleen¡¯s teacher. If he was further along than Grade 4, the emperor would not be too angered if he were to kill the baron.


    He was still young. Could it be that his bright future was about to be ruined by the baron?


    Saleen kept looking at the swordsman¡¯s eyes, taking in the swordsman¡¯s emotional turmoil in his mind. Saleen was slightly relieved. This swordsman would not dare to kill him.


    Saleen¡¯s heart settled down. He looked at Baron Minghui, and said with a smile, ¡°Baron, I said it was two thousand gold coins for the performance of magic. To win the duel, it will cost extra. Forget about it if you cannot afford it. I do not care for these few thousand gold coins. This is on ount of the viscount.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s speech was befitting of his feigned identity. Baron Minghui gnashed his teeth helplessly.


    ¡°How about this? You may not have that much money on you. Use your ring as the prize, and if I win¡­¡±


    ¡°Sure!¡± Baron Minghui removed the eye-catching ring and ced it on the table.


    ¡°This is yours if you win. But if you get hurt, it has nothing to do with me.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s start.¡± Saleen waved his hand suddenly. The swordsman behind Baron Minghui reflexively drew his sword. The table stood between the both of them. He could not jump onto the table to attack Saleen, as that would be too ill-mannered.


    Saleen did not think so. He waved his hand and the me in the copper brazier at the center of the table soared instantaneously, nearly hitting the ceiling. The originally red me turned blue in that moment, dancing devilishly.


    At the same time, the swordsman felt pain in his eyes and nostrils. He could not see anything and immediately summoned the sword aura. The sword formed a field in order to protect him. He was filled with immense fear as he did not know what magic hade over him.


    Saleen was not using magic. He had thrown ¡°witch¡¯s sight¡± straight into the fire and everyone aside from him had temporarily lost their vision. Saleen jumped onto the table silently and used the magic staff in his hand to forcefully whack Baron Minghui¡¯s head.


    Unlike Viscount Gugger, Baron Minghui had no martial arts background. He was already shouting in panic after having lost his sight. His head received a solid whack. Seeing stars, the baron still did not know what had happened. Saleen gave his head another whack.


    ¡°Stop, don¡¯t hit me, don¡¯t hit me. I concede defeat!¡± Baron Minghui finally realized what he had been hit by after a few whacks. His throat was sore and his voice hoarse. He was almost in tears. Was that demon not a mage? Why would he hit me?


    Saleen stopped and bent over the table to pick up Baron Minghui¡¯s ring. He put it away and then crossed the now-extinguished me before returning to his seat.


    Everyone gradually recovered their sight. The swordsman saw the swell on Baron Minghui¡¯s head and red at Saleen in anger.


    Viscount Gugger did not know what to say. Saleen was, after all, his mage in name. He had beaten up his guest, and if word got out, Baron Minghui would be shamed.


    Saleen shrugged, saying, ¡°If your master is killed in battle, even if you kill all the enemies responsible, you will still not recover your honor, right?¡±


    The swordsman looked at where Saleen was pointing with a chill in his heart. A hole, the size of a face basin, had somehow appeared at the center of the table. The position of the hole was directly in front of Baron Minghui.


    He was aware of the Acid Sputtering spell and was not afraid of it. But if the baron was sputtered upon and did not die from it, he would still be ruined for life. The earlier spell had already made him lose his sight for thirty seconds. All it took was for the other party to release a Grade 1 spell, and he would perhaps be unable to survive it.


    He felt gratitude towards Saleen. He did not know that Saleen was incapable of any Grade 1 magic, or else he would have hurled a fireball at his head. Only dead enemies were safest. Anyone could understand this.


    ¡°I concede defeat.¡± The swordsman hung his head and put away his sword.


    ¡°The baron will not go back on his word, right? Two thousand gold coins.¡± Saleen held out his hand shamelessly.


    Baron Minghui, simmering with the loss of face, took out two Qin Empire bank notes and handed them to the maidservant behind him. Having received the bank notes, Saleen¡¯s look softened. He took out a small bottle and poured its contents onto the fiery coals. A light scent immediately permeated the house.


    ¡°Lord Viscount, I¡¯m sorry for damaging your table,¡± Saleen apologized to Viscount Gugger while dispelling the aftereffects caused by the ¡°witch¡¯s sight¡±.


    Viscount Gugger felt a chill in his heart. He knew that his martial arts skills were inferior to that of Baron Minghui¡¯s swordsman. If Saleen had wanted to kill him, it would have been a piece of cake. Mages were indeed evil creatures. Was his own n too risky?


    He had originally thought that it would be harmless to make use of Saleen, who was a mere apprentice. But now it seemed that even a mage apprentice could bring death without rhyme or reason.


    ¡°Saleen, to have seen such exciting magic, the loss of one table is nothing. Let us go elsewhere.¡± Gugger beckoned everyone to rise. He knew that it would be unbearable for Baron Minghui to stay in this house for a minute longer.


    Baron Minghui was filled with a belly of anger and wanted to make offensive remarks. Viscount Gugger whispered, ¡°Even I, a viscount, would have no control over a mage.¡±


    Baron Minghui deted. He might have been wealthy but he was three titles below that of Gugger. If even the First Viscount said so, it appeared that he would have no way of seeking vengeance on Saleen.


    Saleen passed through the city gates, feeling pleased with himself as he leisurely walked home. These days, when Saleen entered the city, there was no need to pay any taxes. It was the same for all cities on the maind; mages had special privileges.


    Saleen¡¯s mood improved significantly after thrashing Baron Minghui. He enjoyed the feeling of overturning the situation and emerging triumphant. From that point on, he was not the old Saleen. The name Metatrin no longer represented decline and poverty. He had beaten up the nobleman who led a city. Why wouldn¡¯t he be pleased with himself?


    Of course, the requirement was that he needed to be a qualified mage. If Baron Minghui were to learn that he was an apprentice, he might seek revenge on Saleen once he was not in Ceylon City.


    Now that he had ten thousand gold coins, he had better expedite his production of magic chord medicine. Once it was winter, Viscount Gugger would need his help eliminating the pirates.


    Saleen was not enthusiastic about the elimination of the pirates. His ancestors had never been fishing folk, and had started out as noblemen. Later on, when they had lost their titles, they were sessful traders travelling to and from the North on the maind. There was no animosity between Saleen and the pirates, but what Viscount Gugger had said about saving sailors and soldiers had changed his mind.


    Jason was engrossed with his magic experiments and did not question Saleen about anything. Saleen spent six thousand gold coins on six sets of materials in preparation for the magic chord medicine.


    He was unable to deploy the Magic me on his own, and had to rely on alchemy equipment such as the crucible. The procedure of the magic chord medicine did not go well. Saleen failed four times in session. Nothing was produced, except for dregs in the crucible.


    Four thousand gold coins were gone just like that. Saleen¡¯s heart ached. The more he invested, the harder it was for him to let go. The date for the mid-autumn sea ceremony was approaching. Saleen hoped to attend the ceremony as a qualified mage.


    It was another morning. Jason had taken his breakfast early and gone into hisboratory, keeping the door tightly shut. Saleen was in his own room. He was holding his crucible, into which he had added Magic me Medicine. He did not light it up. Instead, he took out his badge, held it in his hand, and released a Grade 0 spell, allowing the badge to exhaust his magical power.


    Each time he did this, Saleen¡¯s mental power would increase after he had recovered. If not for his poor affinity to the elements, he would have long since be a qualified mage. There would not have been any need for magic chord medicine.


    The mysterious badge exhausted all of the power within Saleen¡¯s body. Saleeny on the floor, quietly waiting to recover. A tinge of blue appeared in the lightning-shaped mark at the center of the badge, bringing about all sorts of negative effects. Saleen did not feel anything, and was instead rehearsing the procedures for producing magic chord medicine.

 Chapter 16: The Early Formation of Magic Chords (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 16: The Early Formation of Magic Chords (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The majority of the seventy-two types of materials were very inexpensive, and not difficult to buy. The most difficult was the maintaining of the time and heat. Saleen¡¯s mental power was extremely stable, yet he still failed seven times. These failures helped him gather much experience. He still had two sets of materials left for the medicine, and he did not wish to continue failing.


    Six hours had passed. The door to Jason¡¯sboratory remained locked. He usually conducted his experiments for three to five days. After he prepared the food, Saleen did not have any other things to do.


    Thest trace of the achy feeling left his body. Saleen sat up, feeling that the increase in his mental power this time was extremely obvious. He could even feel the minute movements of the air in the room. An insect had hit the window without making a sound. Saleen turned his head, looking at the insect as it shook itself before flying off.


    Saleen leapt up, and swiftly came to the front of the table. He lit the magic me, and began to add materials into the crucible. His current mental power was strong yet clear, such that he could quickly sense the minute changes to the medicine. He used his limited magic power to control the stability of the me while he stared attentively at the materials as they changed in the crucible.


    Ten hours passed, and Saleen did not even feel hungry. Thest portion of the stabilizer had been added into the crucible. The medicine in the crucible had alreadypletely melted into a liquid, and was emitting various colors.


    Sess was imminent! Saleen swiftly added the magic me medicine into the crucible to catalyze the me.


    A strong magic wave was emitted. Saleen¡¯s heart pounded violently. This had given him a big shock. There was no advanced magic array ornament in his room, and within three seconds, Jason would be able to discover the abnormality in his room.


    The conspiracy between Saleen and Viscount Gugger had been carried out behind Jason¡¯s back. If Jason found out that Saleen was making such medicine, he would certainly know that Saleen had collected money from Gugger.


    Saleen grabbed his badge and pressed it into the liquid in the crucible while releasing a Grade 0 spell. The mysterious badge drew in Saleen¡¯s magic power, and absorbed the new burst of magic wave at the same time. Saleen fell to the ground with fear in his heart.


    Being a mage¡¯s apprentice, he would not be able to clearly exin why he had received so much money from Viscount Gugger.


    Only when night came did Saleen climb up from the floor. As he looked at the empty crucible, he wanted to cry. There were no dregs left this time around. Sess had been so close! When he had been shaken by the powerful magic wave, he had destroyed the magic chord medicine with his own hands. That damn badge!


    Saleen picked up the badge, his eyes drawn to it.


    The dark green magic pattern on the ck-metal badge was now a luxuriant green. The center part of the crack exuded a blue liquid. He did not detect any magic wave within the translucent blue liquid. Saleen did not dare release a magic detection spell, lest he had to lie down for another six hours.


    What was it? Magic chord medicine?


    Normally, magic chord medicine was supposed to be colorful. Saleen looked at this blue liquid. He would not dare drink it immediately regardless of the circumstances. He retrieved a green jade bottle and stored the blue liquid in the bottle. That tiny jade bottle, shorter than a finger, had cost Saleen two hundred gold coins. It had originally been prepared to store the magic chord medicine.


    Saleen did not know what it was that he had made. He was also afraid that this strange medicine would evaporate so he contained it first. He cleaned the table and ate his dinner without even tasting it. Then, hey on his bed, thinking hard.


    It was two weeks to the mid-autumn festival. He was left with four thousand gold coins and two sets of materials for the magic chord medicine. At most he could prepare six sets of materials, but it was possible that he wouldn¡¯t seed with those six sets of medicine material, judging by his past failures.


    Gritting his teeth, Saleen decided to wait until the next day. If he could not seed with the two sets of additional materials, those four thousand gold coins needed to be saved. Once he progressed to being a Grade 1 mage, he would need to spend even more money. If he spent all of his gold coins on magic chord medicine, his future education would be arduous nheless.


    Saleen could not ask Viscount Gugger for money. This was different from when Viscount Gugger had hired him. Asking for money was the same as selling himself out to the viscount.


    In the next two days, Saleen exhausted thest two sets of medicine material. In the end, all he obtained were dregs. The feeling of sess in producing the medicine that he had previously experienced was not to be. Even an error-free procedure did not guarantee sess.


    With no other option, Saleen considered using the translucent blue medicine in the bottle.


    It was ten days to the mid-autumn festival. Saleen waited until Jason was conducting his experiments again before hiding in his room to drink the bottle of blue medicine in secret.


    A cool, refreshing feeling glided down his throat and entered his stomach. Saleen strictly followed the requirements stated in the magic book. He drank only milk the entire day and did not eat any solid food. He also took medication which removed impurities from his body. His famished body immediately absorbed the medicine that had entered his stomach. Saleen felt as though the medicine had prated the walls of his stomach, infiltrated his blood vessels, and flowed through his entire body.


    This oue was different from what the book had described! Saleen was a little nervous but it was toote for regrets.


    Now, Saleen¡¯s condition became a little strange. He was obviously feeling changed all over, but could not stop sweating. His sweat smelled very disgusting, and was a dark ck. After more than ten minutes, Saleen could feel that his body was extremely dehydrated. He used adle to scoop up at least half a kilogram of clear water from the wooden pail and guzzled it down into his stomach. Still, the feeling of dehydration worsened.


    Saleen knew that something was amiss, and he did not dare hesitate. If he did not act now, he could end up as a corpse in less than half an hour. He quickly put on his robe while trembling and dashed out of the ancestral house.


    His ancestral house was built in front of a mountain. Saleen ran desperately towards the back of the mountain where there was a small stream.


    Usually, it took half an hour to get there; Saleen had dashed there within five minutes. He dove straight into the stream and found a rtively deep area. He then threw off his robe, removed his clothing, and immersed his entire body in the water.


    The water of the stream entered Saleen¡¯s stomach and simultaneously passed through his nose into his lungs. Saleen did not feel as though he were choking. Every pore on his body was now respiring, inhaling the stream¡¯s clean water and expelling dirty bodily fluids.


    This was not a painful process, but a physically exhausting one. Saleen felt extremely hungry, but there was no food, and he dared not leave the stream. Although he had already immersed himself in the water, Saleen still felt as though there was not enough liquid in his body. It was not a feeling of thirst, but a sign of dehydration.


    The magic chord medicine flowed through Saleen¡¯s blood vessels, absorbing the water within his body and forcefully expelling the impurities from his body at the same time.


    This process continued for nearly six days. Saleen thought he was going to starve to death in the deserted wilderness. At this time, there was finally a new change in the magic medicine within his body.


    Saleen sensed the water element in the area, and his mental power immediately became active. Shutting his eyes, Saleen felt his body be transparent, and he seemed to be able to observe all activity within his body. The blue translucent medicine was diminishing, and was fine like gossamer. It was probably only as long as a finger. After it had flowed into the blood vessels throughout his entire body a week ago, the medicine entered his brain, and appeared to have exploded without warning.


    Saleen was startled. He thought he was doomed, but then he realized that the explosion was only an illusion.


    An empty space suddenly appeared in the middle of his brain region. A fine translucent blue line floated in this space, and continuously absorbed the water element between heaven and earth.


    Originally, when he had used his mental power to sense the water element, it had been formless. Now it seemed as though Saleen was watching from the sides. The formless element was objectified. Numerous transparent blue elemental bodies were closely lined up in the empty space, resembling a massive blue crystal. It was so enormous that there were no signs of any of its edges.


    Saleen observed the basic structure of the water element carefully. Before bing a Grade 4 mage, this was his one and only chance of sensing the element this way.


    The fment in the middle of the empty space of his brain region was absorbing the water element, but did not seem to get any bigger. It was still as long as a finger, and much finer than hair. This was the magic chord that the books had described. This elementary magic chord would eventually develop into awork ofplete magic chords.


    Theseworked chords would have six properties, representing the six core types of magic. The longer a mage¡¯s magic chords, the more powerful the magic he would be able to cast.


    Each time, the magic chords would automatically restore themselves after being exhausted during the deployment of magic. Mage apprentices could also use meditation to restore their magic power. However, the magic power that magic apprentices could store was very little, and was iparable to magic chords.


    With the use of magic chords, a Grade 1 mage could deploy one Grade 2 spell, ten to twelve Grade 1 spells, and almost a hundred Grade 0 spells. Fundamentally, the most advanced mage apprentice could only deploy one Grade 1 spell, and around ten Grade 0 spells.


    This was the power of magic chords; they were the cornerstone of the entire world of magic.


    Coupled with meditation, the restoration of the magic chords that the mage had exhausted would be swift. A powerful mage would only need one or two hours of meditation to restorebat effectiveness. For ordinary mages, six hours would be sufficient to restore all magic chords that had been lost.


    The magic chords in his brain finally began to grow steadily. They continued to grow until they were a foot long, before bing as thick as a thumb and then stopping. Thereafter, they began to grow branches. Saleen had no clue as to how much time it had taken. The senses in his body had disappeared, and all observational power was concentrated in his mental realm, observing the growth of his magic chords.


    The space formed in the middle of his brain was veryrge, as though it were a water droplet more than three meters tall. The branches that grew out of the foot-long magic chords were very tiny. They resembled the veins of tree leaves, and were mostly spread out throughout the brain region.


    Saleen carefully recalled the illustration of magic chords in the book. A foot-long magic chord was a special characteristic of a Grade 1 mage. He had bypassed the stage of being a senior mage apprentice and had advanced directly to being a Grade 1 mage. This was truly thrilling.


    However, there were two other problems regarding things that were different from what the book depicted.


    The first problem was that the book had mentioned that the space of a mage¡¯s magic chords would be about a cubic meter or so. But the space of Saleen¡¯s magic chords had exceeded what was recorded in the books by at least six times.


    This was not a big problem, though. When the space for one¡¯s magic chords was big, it illustrated that one could learn more elementary magic. But the second problem was serious.


    There were twenty-four branches of magic chords in the space. They were divided into six colors. Yellow represented Ground Magic, blue represented Water Magic, clear represented Wind Magic, red represented Fire Magic, ck represented Dark Magic, and white represented Light Magic.


    These six-colored magic chords represented the various magic types he could use, but all of Saleen¡¯s magic chords were translucent blue, without any exceptions. This meant that he would only be able to deploy Water Magic in the future. Until the magic chords had beenpletely formed, he had not sensed any other element.


    Saleencked some ability in releasing Grade 0 magic. Other than the six series of unpopr magic, he was now also unable to deploy the Invisible Shield.


    Saleen remembered the sentence in the book ¨C¡±Whatever you pay out will exceed what you receive¡±.


    Was that the payment? Saleen crawled ashore, feeling depleted of energy. Hey face down at the side of the stream, desperately gulping down water. Having starved before, Saleen knew that by filling himself with water, he could temporarily provide his body with a little energy, allowing him to rush home.

 Chapter 17: The Early Formation of Magic Chords (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 17: The Early Formation of Magic Chords (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    His body felt as though it weren¡¯t his. This was worse than torture, and worse than usage of the badge. But Saleen was smiling, because magic chords had been formed. He had finally be a qualified mage. He ran towards his home unsteadily. When he entered his room, Saleen saw Jason sitting on his bed, meditating.


    ¡°Teacher¡­¡±


    Jason opened his eyes and looked at Saleen for a while, then said, ¡°My materials are nearly used up. Make a trip to the city tomorrow.¡±


    Saleen was uncertain, not knowing whether he should tell Jason that he had formed his magic chords. Jason did not say anything else, and left Saleen¡¯s room straight after.


    Saleen did not know if Jason had discovered anything. He did not have time to ponder, his stomach was rumbling. He ran to the kitchen, yanked down the smoked meat hanging on the stove, and chewed it hungrily. He ate as he walked back to his room. He looked at the magic clock on his table and realized nearly ten days had passed.


    Tomorrow was the mid-autumn festival!


    Saleen had no energy, but desperately tried to stay focused in order to learn a Grade 1 spell ¨C Icicle Magic.


    He seeded in his first deployment; a white light appeared between his hands. A piece of icicle with the thickness of a finger flew out and hit the opposite wall. A hole was made in the stone wall. Saleen stood up, used his finger to reach in, and felt around the hole, but could not feel the end.


    He was astonished in his heart. The power of Grade 1 magic was indeed adventurous, iparable to Grade 0 magic.


    It was a pity that hecked proficiency, and needed both his hands to cast this spell. His preparation time was as long as six seconds. ording to the rules, he could cast such spells twelve times at most. It seemed like he needed to continue with the Grade 0 Acid Sputtering spell. Maghords were a mage¡¯s safety, and so should not bepletely exhausted.


    It was a pity that he would only be able to deploy Water Magic in the future. It would be great if he could learn the Fireball skill. It caused a smaller amount of magic depletion and required a short preparation time, but was still powerful.


    Facing the messy disy of his magical tools on the table in theboratory, Jason did not have the heart to continue with his experiments for now. He had felt the magic wave in Saleen¡¯s room, but did not know what Saleen had done. Had he showed enough concern for this student of his? Saleen was still young, and could easily be deceived if Jason did not pay more attention to him.


    Saleen¡¯s appearance had changed. Something that Jason could not guess was definitely happening.


    The whole night, Saleen practiced the Icicle Skill. He was surprised to find out that he could actually continuously release the Icicle Skill more than twenty times. That was to say that he had almost twice the magic chords of a Grade 1 mage. In addition, through meditation, the restoration of his magic chords was an exceptionally fast two hours.


    The two hour restoration rate was an ability which only genius mages possessed. Saleen knew his capabilities were average, but did not know that the magic chord medicine hadpletely changed his body structure.


    Only at dawn did Saleeny on his bed to sleep for a while. His nerves were too stirred up, and his sleep this time was hardly sound. Before noon, he jumped up from his bed and approached his mirror, nning to get dressed.


    At this time, Saleen was stunned to find that there were changes in his appearance.


    The youth in the mirror was slightly taller, and his hair had turned from brown to ck. The most noticeable thing was his pair of eyes which had be as blue as the sea.


    He was dazed for a while, recalling that his master had seen his appearance yesterday, and felt a little guilty. Hence, he did not bid Jason goodbye, but immediately picked up his leather sack and left his ancestral house in a hurry.


    No matter how many books he had read, Saleen was still a child. He did not know how to exin things, and so chose to avoid doing so instead.


    Feeling troubled, he came to the outside of Ceylon City where a joyous sight beheld him. Wreaths of green nts were hung outside the main doors of all buildings. Three kinds of nts had been bound together ¨C wormwood which ridded gue, millet sprays which represented bountiful harvests, and a branch of silk leaves.


    This was an ancient Myers Maind custom, and was the vestige left behind by the Goddess of Nature. Even though the Holy See had influenced more than half of the maind, it could not change the people¡¯s customs.


    Sikeqinya was an empire established by trade. There were squares of various sizes in each city, provided for small traders with no permanent stores to set up stalls. Today, these squares had been renovated, and Viscount Gugger had used his own money to invite some performance troupes to perform for the people of the city free of charge.


    Strictly speaking, Viscount Gugger was a traditional nobleman. During such a festival, his biggest expense was to distribute money and food to the poor. Saleen¡¯s life had once been saved by Viscount Gugger¡¯s flour. Hence, despite knowing that Gugger was making use of his rtionship with Jason, Saleen had still chosen to ept his proposal.


    Viscount Gugger had announced earlier that the taxes for this month would be waived. There was joy on the faces of the people,ing from the happiness radiating in their hearts. On the dpidated rooftop stage, the travelling performing troupes were putting in their best at their performances. Saleen felt a little unwell. All this felt a little surreal.


    Everyone¡¯s smiles and voices seemed to bear ayer of invisible film. This had nothing to do with him though. Saleen suddenly had a feeling of destion as he carried his leather sack and weaved through the various sized squares. His mood was abruptly dampened.


    Everyone who saw him deliberately kept a distance from him, as though Saleen were a demonic beast who had intruded into the city.


    Saleen suddenly understood why Jason did not live in the city. It was an ufortable feeling. The dignity of a mage was simultaneously a chain of shackles, separating mages frommoners into two types of beings. Themoners intentionally remained reverential, whereas mages had to be reserved, and maintained their dignified manner at all times.


    A group of people were walking up from afar. They were a troop of soldiers carrying a statue of a sea monster. The Goddess of Nature had instructed the sea monster not to disturb the fishermen near the sea. After the fall of the Goddess, the fishermen had decided to honor the sea monster, to pray for the safety of those out at sea.


    Saleen silently turned away. If he continued to walk in the middle of the road, this troop would probably turn away. As he was brooding, there was suddenly chaos amongst the soldiers. A youth dashed out of the crowd, having seen Saleen from afar, and shouted loudly, ¡°Saleen, save me!¡±


    Saleen frowned as that youth ran towards him, staggering. One of his sleeves was torn, the bloodied flesh of his left arm partially visible. This person was the young bandit that he had been peddling magic medicine with.


    ¡°Da, return their things to them.¡± Saleen knew what had happened.


    ¡°Returned. They want to kill me.¡± Da hade before Saleen. Saleen saw that the white bone of Da¡¯s left arm was visible. The bone was broken. This was an injury caused by the sword aura. The opponent was at least a junior swordsman.


    Saleen sighed. Should he deal with this matter or not? Da then noticed that Saleen¡¯s eyes had turned blue, and pointed at Saleen in shock speechlessly.


    ¡°The person up ahead, catch that little thief!¡± Four swordsmen emerged from the chaos of the crowd, fiercely shouting at Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s frown deepened. When he was young, he had not been short of scolding. Today, he had stored the fake mage robe in his leather sack, but hadcked the time to change into it. However, even so, the people in Ceylon City could recognize him and knew him as the mage apprentice whose teacher was a Grade 5 mage. No one had dared to even speak to him.


    This was a group of foreigners!


    Da had obviously acted because of this. In general, a senior bandit would not target the locals in case it caused a disturbance among the people and made future business tough. It was unfortunate that Da had met with trouble this time. The other party wasprised of four swordsmen, and Da had been unable to deal with them alone.


    The four swordsmen were dressed in fine metal armor; Da¡¯s small dagger would be up against the long weapons of the swordsmen. He was doomed. Saleen moved back and began to prepare magic.


    A whole night of practice had not only increased Saleen¡¯s release speed, but had saved him the step of chanting. After Saleen silently prepared three Icicle Skill spells, he started to speak, and said to the swordsman who had by now slowed down, ¡°Give him grace and let him off. Just name thepensation you are after.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s Icicle Skill was induced but not released, and continued to exhaust his magic chords. He did not dare act hastily, because Saleen was unsure whom Da had provoked.


    ¡°Kill him!¡± A young man dashed out of the crowd, his beautiful long robe ripped open in the front. His forehead was bruised, something likely caused by Da. This young man¡¯s extremely thin lips had been painted a faint green color.


    Saleen was in a serious dilemma. Da was considered a friend of his in Ceylon City. Was he worth starting a feud for? Based on the other party¡¯s attire, he must have been a nobleman.


    At this thought, he deployed the readied Icicle Skill. This was because the other party¡¯s swordsman had exhibited an attacking stance. Once they came close, Saleen would not have the magic to defend himself against four long swords.


    Saleen had previously learned the Grade 0 Invisible Shield, which was a form of Wind Magic. After the formation of his magic chords, this Wind Magic had disappeared. No matter how urately Saleen chanted, or how powerful his mental power was, he was no longer be able to cast any other magic besides Water Magic.


    ¡°Mage!¡± The swordsman opposite him hurriedly leapt away. Except for the swordsman in the middle who had used his sword to block Saleen¡¯s icicles, the other three swordsmen were struck in their abdomens. Fresh blood instantly spluttered out.


    The swordsman who had blocked the icicle was shocked. He had just developed the sword aura, which was why he had managed to block the magic attack. The long sword in his hand had be so unusually cold that he almost could not hold on to it. In addition, the force of the icicle was stronger than he could have ever imagined. It had shaken both of his arms, numbing them. The sword aura hadpletely dispersed.


    The worst part was that the extremely young mage opposite him had started to prepare his magic once again.


    The embarrassed young nobleman screamed, pointed at Saleen, and shouted, ¡°Little brat, do you not recognize who I am?¡±


    Saleen was suddenly filled with killing intent. It had been three years since anybody had berated him in such a manner. Those humiliating days had seemed non-existent. This young man instantly brought Saleen back to reality. He looked at the young nobleman coldly, and opened his mouth to chant a spell. The swordsman who was unhurt was unable to call upon the sword aura, and could only shout loudly, ¡°Young master, run!¡±


    As he shouted, he leaped forward with his long sword. He had experienced many battles, and could easily see in Saleen¡¯s blue eyes the intention to kill. Only one who was determined to kill the other would look at his opponents in that way.

 Chapter 18: In Exile After the Killing (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 18: In Exile After the Killing (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Da saw the other party rush forward. He disregarded his injury, lifted his dagger, and charged at the swordsman. Even though the other party had not called upon the sword aura, his sword still knocked Da¡¯s dagger into the air. Da¡¯s wrist bled profusely, and he was unsure if his muscles and bone were hurt.


    With this block, Saleen had finished chanting his spell. In his hand, a strong green light lit up, and a trace of a white line shot out into the air towards the swordsman¡¯s face.


    The swordsman lifted his sword with difficulty; the stainless steel sword was broken with the sound of a click. The icicle pierced his head, and exploded behind him. The chilly trail dispersed all around. The young nobleman was stunned momentarily.


    The green light in Saleen¡¯s hand did not disperse, a second icicle shooting out even more swiftly. The young nobleman opened his mouth, looked at the gaping hole the size of a bowl in his chest, and copsed.


    ¡°Stop!¡±


    A familiar voice sounded out, but it was toote. The heart of the young nobleman had ruptured, and not even deities could save him now. Saleen felt someone approach him from behind. Da fell to the ground. He struggled to get up but to no avail.


    Saleen turned around, the green light on his finger lit up again. However, it was not Icicle Magic this time around, as there was no time to prepare it. Saleen could only quickly prepare Acid Sputtering, but was not confident he could stop the person who was approaching.


    The sharp growl drew near, Saleen¡¯s wrist suffered a heavy blow, and the magic instantly dispersed. Someone grabbed Saleen¡¯s shoulder, and Saleen could feel pain in the muscles all over his body.


    ¡°Come with me.¡±


    Only now did Saleen see clearly that it was Ulysses, the swordsman from the House of the Lord, who had captured him.


    In the battle, Saleen had badly mauled three swordsmen. The procession had be a big mess. Ulysses kicked Da¡¯s waist. Da gave a grunt and looked at Ulysses as he got up.


    Ulysses looked at him coldly, then cast a nce at the three injured swordsmen lying on the ground before dragging Saleen off. Da broke into cold sweat, instantly understanding what Ulysses meant.


    Da withstood the pain as he produced a second dagger from his chest. He then added another stab to the necks of each of the three injured swordsmen.


    Ulysses brought Saleen into a pitch ck alley, let him go, and started by saying, ¡°Saleen, you are in trouble.¡±


    ¡°Who was that person?¡± Saleen asked in a low voice as he struggled to calm himself down. Da had stumbled into the alley by this time and stood in front of Saleen.


    Ulysses saw that Saleen¡¯s appearance had changed. His mind was racing as he thought about how to deal with this. Swiftly, he made a decision and said to Saleen, ¡°He was the son of Earl Sufonso from Yaoyang City. You had better leave the city. Your teacher will not be able to protect you. Buy a horse and go as far as possible.¡±


    Saleen felt as though his heart had been dealt a blow. He had killed the son of an Earl, and it was the Earl of Yaoyang City. Yaoyang City was considered the biggest city within these several thousand square meters. Earl Sufonso had arge army. Even worse, just outside of Yaoyang City was a magical tower with a Grade 6 mage.


    Regardless of whether this Grade 6 mage would help the Earl kill him, his own teacher would definitely not be able to protect him, lest he ended up angering another senior mage.


    There was chaos in Saleen¡¯s heart. He was unable to ept this truth. When he had nearly been on the proper path to begin practicing real magic, he had suddenlynded himself into such big trouble.


    Yaoyang City was certainly not a small ce like Ceylon City. There were many swordsmen there and at least a few hundred had attained the grade of swordmaster. While Saleen had just killed an elementary swordsman, their death had to be attributed to Saleen¡¯s precise control of distance. Ulysses was also an elementary swordsman, but had seized him with just one move.


    Da knelt down with a flop, and said with his head lowered, ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    Ulysses drew his long sword with force, intending to silence him. He had wanted to kill this bandit earlier, but as he had needed to flee the scene, he had left the dirty work to this bandit.


    Saleen extended his hand to block Ulysses, and said, ¡°This is my friend. I trust him.¡±


    Day on the ground, looked at Saleen, and did not get up for a long while. He forced back the impulse to cry. Saleen had said he was his friend. Since he was young, no one had ever looked him straight in his eyes, except for Saleen. After Saleen had be a mage¡¯s apprentice, he had thought that Saleen had be like the people of Ceylon City. Now, Saleen had not only stopped the swordsman from killing him, but had also said he was his friend.


    The term ¡°friend¡±, to many people, was used for betrayal. However, to others, friends were people to whom you could entrust your life.


    ¡°You go. I can¡¯t put all the me on you. I was too rash,¡± Saleen finished saying. He turned to Ulysses and bowed, then said, ¡°I am unsure why you are willing to let me off. One fine day, I will return to thank you. Please tell Lord Viscount that I am terribly sorry to have taken his money without being able to get the job done. I will not let his money go to waste. I shall set off now. What about you?¡±


    ¡°Earl Sufonso is currently a guest at the House of the Lord. You had better leave as soon as you can. I will go back to report that you killed someone. However, since your appearance has changed, I will only describe your past appearance since no one in the house knows about this. Before you go, it is better that you inflict it on me too.¡±


    Ulysses pointed at his own arm. Saleen knew that he could not dy any further, gnashed his teeth, and released an Acid Sputtering spell. Ulysses groaned as the acid instantly burned his arm, white smoke rising.


    After Ulysses left, Saleen said, ¡°Da, let¡¯s go.¡±


    Da lifted his head, guilt written all over his face. ¡°Saleen, if I had been caught, I would not have survived. I will not breathe a word regarding your affairs. If I escape, I will go to the Tanggsi Empire and never return to Ceylon City.¡±


    Da finished speaking, pressed his head hard against the ground, and then left.


    Saleen was distraught as he pulled out a face towel to mask his face before exiting the alley. He headed directly eastward, escaping Ceylon City in a hurry. Having rushed back to the ancestral house, Saleen stood outside Jason¡¯sboratory. He hesitated for a moment but still knocked on the door.


    Ulysses slowed down as he headed back to the House of the Lord. As he entered, he sped up, and dashed into the living hall straight away. He then shouted loudly, ¡°Master, something has happened!¡±


    Viscount Gugger had been speaking with Earl Sufonso when he saw Ulysses rush in with his clothing disheveled and his arm obviously hurt. Instead of reprimanding him, he asked gently, ¡°Ulysses, how did you get hurt?¡±


    Ulysses knelt down immediately, but faced Earl Sufonso. ¡°Lord Earl, something has happened to your son. I had arrivedte and was unable to protect him¡­¡±


    Gugger and Sufonso were both stunned. Earl Sufonso was not much older than Gugger, and was about forty years of age. However, he looked slightly younger than Viscount Gugger.


    Earl Sufonso had a pair of pitch ck eyes, his irises appearing as though they were masked with ayer of mist. This was a result of him acquiring a certain level of his family¡¯s traditional practice of the sword aura. Upon hearing that something had happened to his son, Earl Sufonso¡¯s body instantly red with powerful killing intent. If Ulysses had not knelt down earlier, he probably would have had to get down on his knees now anyways.


    ¡°What happened to him?¡± Earl Sufonso gave Ulysses a deadly stare, the mist in his eyes increasing.


    ¡°The young master was killed by a mage. I witnessed it when I went there, and also suffered a spell.¡± Ulysses fearfully pointed at his arm.


    ¡°Where did it happen?¡±


    ¡°The east entrance of square number 12.¡±


    ¡°Bring me there,¡± Earl Sufonso stood up, towering like a mountain.


    ¡°Lord¡­¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I know the mage who killed him.¡±


    ¡°What did you say?¡± Earl Sufonso grasped only empty air but had actually lifted Ulysses up. His ck irises quickly shrunk, and stared into Ulysses¡¯ eyes.


    ¡°Lord Earl, hear me out¡­¡±


    Ulysses was unusually shocked. Earl Sufonso¡¯s sword aura could not only overflow in vitro, but could control objects. Had he be a swordmaster? Had Ulysses chosen poorly in letting Saleen off? However, because it had already happened, he could only grit his teeth and endure it to the end. If they were seen through, he would need to shoulder the me and avoid implicating Viscount Gugger.


    He tried to narrate Saleen¡¯s background as quickly as possible. After Earl Sufonso heard that Saleen¡¯s teacher was a Grade 5 mage, he put Ulysses down gently, and pondered.


    He was no match for a Grade 5 mage. He had not brought along that many guards this time. If a conflict were to arise, he would be on the losing end. But if he were to return to Yaoyang City to request for the great mage to write a letter, that murderer would have escaped by then. Would Gugger be willing to offend a Grade 5 mage on his ord? If Gugger would help him gather Ceylon City¡¯s army and troops, it would be possible to kill that mage.


    A scowl appeared on Gugger¡¯s face. He was good at calcting. The moment Ulysses had said he was rted to the matter, he had nearly guessed what had happened. He did not think that a mage¡¯s apprentice could kill four swordsmen and then escape. However, as Ulysses had already let him off, he did not have to pursue the matter any further. Ulysses was doing him a favor.


    He coughed, disrupting Earl Sufonso¡¯s train of thought, and said, ¡°Let us not speak of this. Ulysses, go and manage the scene. Chris, bring all our people and lock the city gates. If you see Saleen, kill him straight away if he resists. Lord Earl, I will go with you to see the mage, and exin the situation to him.¡±


    Although that was what he said, because Ulysses had taken half a day with his narration, Saleen had most likely escaped from the city by now. He had redeployed his people so they would not have to face the mage directly. He would go with the Earl to see the mage. The mage had lived in Ceylon City for three years, and since Gugger had not offended him, it was unlikely that he would lose his life.


    The oue would not have anything to do with him.


    ¡°Many thanks. Snow, bring our men and follow me.¡± Earl Sufonso suppressed his anger temporarily as he called out to the person who had been standing behind him all this while.


    This man by the name of Snow looked pale, his eyebrows drooping. The ten fingers on both his hands were pitch ck. He was thin, and was not wearing any armor. Upon hearing Earl Sufonso, he turned and vanished outside the living hall. An experienced assassin! Viscount Gugger felt a chill behind his back, as well as an inexplicable uneasiness.


    In battles, there were not much use for assassins. However, during normal times, these assassins were most lethal. In a one-to-one face-off, a swordsman would be no match for an assassin, even if they were of the same grade.


    Viscount Gugger nonchntly followed beside Earl Sufonso as he weighed his gains and losses. If he helped the Earl apprehend Saleen, what benefits would he obtain?


    No! The few thousand gold coins from earlier plus Ulysses¡¯ favor would definitely reap more in the future. As long as Saleen was not an utter blockhead, he would certainly get his returns.


    If he killed Saleen, Mage Jason would likely vent his anger out on him. Even if Earl Sufonso were topensate him, he could not possibly move the magical tower over from Yaoyang City.


    It was still best to go with the current course of action. Viscount Gugger heaved a sigh of relief in his heart.

 Chapter 19: In Exile After the Killing (Part 2)）

    <h4>Chapter 19: In Exile After the Killing (Part 2)£©</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen burst through the door to theboratory. Jason saw Saleen in a dishevelled state and asked in surprise, ¡°Saleen, what happened to you?¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I am in trouble. I killed the son of Earl Sufonso.¡±


    ¡°Just an earl?¡± Jason was not very concerned about worldly matters. To him, it was not a big issue to have made an enemy of an earl. Having witnessed Saleen¡¯s growth these past few years, he knew that Saleen was not a troublemaker.


    ¡°Teacher, there is a magical tower in Yaoyang City!¡± Saleen replied in a panic.


    ¡°Oh?¡± This had gotten Jason¡¯s attention. If the other party had a powerful mage, he would not interfere directly. Based on Saleen¡¯s current level, offending the Earl would be punishable by death.


    ¡°How did you offend him?¡±


    ¡°I was only passing by, and saw him about to kill someone¡­¡± Saleen did not dare mention his rtionship with Da. What he had said was not wrong. Saleen had already agreed to the request forpensation by the other party, which had been quite low. If not for the tyrannical behavior and rudeness of the Earl¡¯s son, Saleen would not have injured or killed anyone. His first round of attack had not even been intended to be lethal.


    ¡°Saleen, even if you were in the wrong, I should still protect you,¡± Jason said as he sighed. ¡°However, should the other party¡¯s mage write me a letter, I will not be able to interfere with this matter. You have killed someone and must pay for it.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, have I caused you trouble?¡± Saleen asked the question that had been bothering him. He was worried that the other party¡¯s mage would be angered, and that he had implicated his teacher.


    ¡°No, this is between you and the Earl. That mage and I will not do anything. Saleen, you will not me me for not intervening in this matter, will you?¡± Jason looked at Saleen, and asked this somewhat guiltily. He had nned to start coaching Saleen in magic once he had advanced, but now there would be no such opportunity.


    ¡°Teacher¡­ this matter was due to my rashness. I must leave.¡± Saleen was very aware of his predicament. If Jason were unable to help, that furious earl would definitely tear him into pieces.


    ¡°Wait a moment.¡±


    Jason pulled out a few boxes from beneath the experimentation station and opened them, searching for a few items for Saleen.


    A white worn-out mage robe; a bva with some tears and a magic symbol near the chest; a ne, set with a long chain of smokey quartz. Smokey quartz could increase a mage¡¯s affinity to elements. A rugged leather sack that could be worn diagonally across the torso.


    Saleen¡¯s gazended on thest item. That item was a ring; a piece of clear white crystal had been set on the silvery grey-colored metal.


    White crystals were very precious, and could augment the restoration of magic chords. It was too advanced for a mage apprentice. Saleen did not know what to say, and did not know whether he should tell Jason that he had already be a mage.


    ¡°Saleen, this magic robe was given to me by my teacher. It can be worn from Grade 1 to Grade 3. There are three constant magics on it.¡±


    Jason touched the remaining few items, and continued, ¡°Your affinity to the elements is very weak. This smokey quartz ne will probably be of some help to you. There are some magic books I used to read in the sturdy leather sack and should be sufficient for you to read until you attain Grade 3. This ring with white crystal¡­ you will find it useful.¡±


    Saleen put on the magic robe in silence, donned the ne and ring, and slung on the leather sack. Jason said to him, ¡°Go pack your things. I need to prepare for the earl who should be appearing soon. You should set off immediately.¡±


    Saleen did not say anything else. Ulysses had let him off without anyone knowing. His teacher had let him go to face the earl¡¯s wrath directly. He hurriedly returned to his room, retrieved the family badge from his box, and tucked it into the inside of his belt. He also stuffed the stack of meaningless debt collection slips into his leather sack. They were useless but since they had been left behind by his father, he would keep them just out of remembrance.


    Four thousand gold coins worth of bank notes and ten Grade 3 magic nuclei, together with one hundred and eight gold coins in two money bags, were put into his leather sack. Spending money of eight gold coins was put into his money bag, which hung at his waist. He put on his new boots, and without bidding farewell, Saleen leapt out of the window and hurriedly escaped into the mountains.


    He did not have a horse. Even if he had one, he would not be able to outrun the Earl¡¯s troops.


    After threading through the wilderness in the mountains for more than half a month, the weather had be colder. Saleen had yet to spot any way out. He did not evene across a vige. It was a good thing that he had formed his magic chords, as his movement had be more agile. An ordinary wild beast would have required him to use a Grade 0 spell to deal with it, but he did not meet with any danger.


    He was alone and distinguished the directions based on the sun, moon, and stars. He walked towards the southeast; his destination was the Qin Empire.


    While Earl Sufonso was powerful, his power could not have extended all the way to the Qin Empire. Even the Holy See was unable to have any influence over the Qin Empire, failing to build a church even after operating for a hundred years.


    On this day, Saleen discovered a waterfall in between the mountains. White silk that resembled snow divided the mountain peak, pounding at a pool which emerged from the ground. The pool was cold; the torrent of the waterfall created a faint misty cover.


    Saleen could feel the potent intensity of water element here; it was full of energy. Although he could not detect the existence of any battle formations, the life of the water was unusually harmonious. Saleen jumped into the pool and began to meditate.


    To many people, the practice of magic was a boring matter. Firstly, one needed to acquire magic knowledge, chants, and gestures. Then, there was the constant exhaustion of magic chords, so as to be familiarized with operating the magic. When the magic strings were exhausted, one would need to meditate to recover.


    Saleen, however, did not find it boring. The joy he felt during meditation far exceeded many other forms of pleasure on this earth. That was when the mind entered a state of extreme rxation. During this time, one could feel the life within an element even without any chanting.


    His affinity to the water element was exceptionally perfect. Although he was unable to view his magic chords directly like the time they had first formed, he could feel the water element prate every cell of his body, nourishing his physical form.


    Particrly when he first entered the water, Saleen did not need to release the Water Breathing spell and could move and meditate in the water for a long time. The effects of meditating in the water far exceeded that of meditation done onnd. Saleen surmised that he had only taken one and half hours to recover the magic chords that had been exhausted.


    The small silvery-white fish in the cold pool surrounded Saleen, and looked at him curiously. Saleen reached out his hands to touch them, and instead of hiding, they weaved in and out of his palms.


    Saleen was, after all, a curious youth, and had a sudden thought. He opened his mouth and blew a chain of bubbles, trapping a few small silvery-white fish in the bubbles. The surface of these bubbles had been formed by magic, and hence they did not float in the water. The trapped fish struggled a little, panicking when they were unable to escape.


    There were a few thousand small fish in the vicinity. As though sensing the danger in unison, they immediately dispersed. Saleen used his hands to touch the bubbles, observing the small silvery fish within them. These small fish were about the size of a thumb, and had unusually fine scales. The fishes¡¯ eyes were golden, and there were actually magic waves within their bodies.


    They were in truth demonic beasts, albeit low grade ones that were barely Grade 1. Such mere demonic beasts, even if they had magic nuclei, would produce nuclei that were smaller than the tip of a needle. The effort of digging them out might not have even been worth a gold coin.


    Saleen was now at Grade 1, and was still unable to dispel the spell he had cast. He used his fingers to pinch the bubbles, hoping to release the small fish. Unexpectedly, as he had exerted force with his fingers, he had activated the power of his magic chords. These bubbles were instead pinched t, and did not burst at all.


    Saleen instantly realized that he had unknowingly created a new spell.


    He tried to recall how he had created these bubbles. At the very beginning, it seemed like he had cast a Water Shield, then used his mental power to control the magic shield bend created via the condensation of the elements. Then, he contained the air before the bubbles he spit out had floated up.


    Saleen gave up trying to control these bubbles, and let these bubbles that had trapped the small fish float up. He then spit out another bubble, and cast the Water Shield again. He discovered that he could not perfectly contain the air within the bubble no matter what he tried. The bubbles he spat out swiftly floated up, leaving ayer of faint green wave lines, and stayed in front of him.


    Originally, Saleen had no choice but to learn this spell. He was unable to learn the Grade 1 protection spell ¨C Magic Skin, and could only rely on the three constant magics in the magic robe. However, activating these magics required the usage of magic nuclei. Therefore, in terms of defensive powers, Saleen¡¯s standard was still that of an apprentice. He liked to practice in water, and had incidentally learned this spell which could be cast in water.


    There was no other way. The protection magic in the water series was very powerful, but none of it was rudimentary. Even the weakest skill, Ice te Armor, was a Grade 4 spell which was too far off for him to consider.


    The Water Shield was considered a spell of little value, as it had to be released in water. Additionally, the shortest duration for its release was nine seconds. In battle, using nine seconds to summon a magic shield meant that one could die more than ten times over.


    Saleen, due to his deficiency in magic chords, treasured every chance he had to practice magic. Thus he had learned the Water Shield.


    He persevered in his experiments, aware that this form-changing magic he had conjured up could be released quickly depending on the existence of air. With practice, it could be an instantaneous spell. If it really did work out, then he could possibly rely on this spell for his survival before he attained Grade 4.


    However, Saleen had lost the yful mood he had been in earlier, and just could not find that natural feeling again no matter how hard he tried.


    After more than ten attempts, almost half of his magic chords were exhausted. When the air in his lungs was nearly used up, Saleen finally managed to release a magic bubble. He took three seconds this time and was three times slower.


    This magic bubble was a little fragile. Saleen released an icicle and immediately burst the bubble. The bubble that had lost its magic quickly floated up.


    Saleen could only follow the bubble and swim to the surface. Theck of oxygen in his lungs would not cause him any harm, but merely prevented him from continuing his experimentation. Before his head had surfaced from the water, a shadow in the light jumped into the pool. Saleen twisted his body and easily avoided it.


    Itnded with a thump, the water sshing in all directions. Saleen broke through the surface and came face to face with a pair of pale white breasts.


    Saleen nearly sunk back down again. He separated his hands, thinking about his retreat, but then he heard an angry voice saying, ¡°Oh no, a wild pig!¡±

 Chapter 20: The Battle with the Girl from Caucasus (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 20: The Battle with the Girl from Caucasus (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was a lovely voice, crisp and clean. It was just that Saleen did not understand its meaning in saying ¡°wild pig¡±. He only saw a delicate fist growing bigger in his view, before he felt a pain in his eye and then passed out.


    Before passing out, Saleen had felt no fear. On his mind, instead, was the bright red mark leaping above that bosom, as though it held control over his heart. He did not have time to react to it, and had then been struck by the fist.


    ¡°Wake up. Quickly, wake up.¡± The lovely voice was heard again. With effort, Saleen opened one eye. It felt as though his left eye could not be opened. He managed to open it slightly but everything seen through it was a blur. A small soft hand was pping his face, intent on waking him.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m awake!¡± Saleen struggled to move backwards. The girl who was hitting him had put on her clothes, and was ring at Saleen ferociously. Saleen was relieved. The girl did not seem like she was going to kill him. He had killed before and could sense when killing intent was present.


    Saleen sat up, indicating that he meant no harm. He sized up the girl while she did the same to him.


    Both of them were about the same age. She looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old. Her choice of clothing shocked Saleen. She was wearing animal skins that were hardly sewn together with the fur facing out. Many parts were already worn out. The animal skins looked very rugged. Dried purplish-ck blood was all over her body.


    The main thing was that the animal skins were in two parts, revealing her midriff. Her pale translucent skin glowed, enough to cause a person¡¯s eyes to ache. Saleen had wanted to open his injured eyes wider but the pain caused him to grit his teeth.


    The boots on her feet were obviously not of Sikeqinya style. To think that the soles of her boots were made from the paw pads of demonic beasts! Even more shocking was the weapon she was carrying on her back. It was a long cudgel, thick on one end and thin on the other. It was as tall as her.


    The stick had a metallic sheen but Saleen recognized that it was made from the bone of a senior demonic beast. It was frightfully heavy. He was lucky that she had used her fists on him instead, Saleen thought to himself.


    The girl was very pretty, with a set of dark eyebrows, snow white skin, and a pair of pale blue eyes. She was simr in height to Saleen. Her body was well proportioned, and her look was natural. She seemed to have forgotten that Saleen had seen her naked, and showed no hint of embarrassment.


    ¡°My name is Saleen Metatrin. What about you?¡± Saleen did not know what to say, since he could not possibly keep staring at her with one big eye and one small eye.


    ¡°I am Sika. Tell me honestly, why were you hiding here to peep?¡± Sika pointed at Saleen¡¯s head with a slender finger, seemingly having recalled the earlier incident.


    Not knowing whether to cry orugh, he said, ¡°This ce is not a bathhouse. Such a cold, wintry day, and I am hiding here to peep?¡±


    ¡°Very logical!¡± Sika was easily convinced. She thought Saleen¡¯s point made sense and began to calm down. Feeling sympathetic after seeing that Saleen¡¯s face was twitching, Sika took out a bottle and handed it to him.


    ¡°What is this?¡±


    ¡°Holy water from the Holy See, for you to treat your eye. I am sorry if I used too much force,¡± Sika said apologetically.


    ¡°It is fine. You were only reacting ording to your instincts,¡± Saleen said, showing understanding towards Sika.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry. I wanted to take a shower but I was worried you would wake up, so I punched you again¡­¡± Sika looked at Saleen innocently. Saleen felt his anger rising. No wonder he could not open his eye.


    But¡­ forget it. He could not peek at people for free. There was a price to be paid for everything. Such was the case for obtaining his magic chords, and the same for looking at beautiful women. Saleen consoled himself as he opened the bottle and poured the holy water on his wound.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Saleen jumped up in pain. He had never used holy water before but had read that when used to treat wounds, it was warm and soothing, not painful as though being burned.


    He threw the bottle on the floor and said angrily, ¡°What is this that you have here?!¡±


    Sika was stunned. She picked up the bottle, looked at the image on it, and muttered to herself, ¡°It looks correct. Hang on and let me take a look.¡±


    If there was a wall nearby, Saleen definitely would have bashed his head against it. This girl¡¯s brain must have been short-circuited. The contents of the bottle, however, were indeed meant for healing. He had secretly tested it before use, and so could not me this on Sika.


    Sika removed the leather bag from her waist and looked inside it. Then she said with certainty, ¡°This was indeed the water from the Holy See. I spent five silver coins on it.¡±


    Saleen had his doubts, as his eyes now hurt even more. Although five silver coins could only buy inferior products, there should still have been healing properties, and should not have caused additional pain.


    He could not figure out the reason behind it. Saleen suddenly realized how stupid he had been. He removed the metal water sk from his waist, raised his head, and poured the liquid onto his wound. His eyes immediately felt much better. This was the restorative water he had produced himself.


    Restorative water was a healing liquid produced using Grade 1 magic. It could effectively repair wounds. While it took longer to take effectpared to simr spells, it did not have any side effects.


    Saleen had hundreds of spells in his head but could only learn a dozen or so at the moment. The practicality of restorative water was immense, especially for use within a team. The restorative water made by senior mages could even heal old wounds.


    ¡°This is the wilderness. Why would youe here for a bath?¡± Saleen said as he raised his head to let the restorative water enter his eyes and immerse his eyeballs. He was afraid that the blood vessels in his eyeballs would tear. That would affect his vision in the long term.


    ¡°I also do not know. I was intending to go Holzer City. As I walked, I somehow entered this mountain.¡±


    So she was a fool with no sense of direction. Saleen grew even more frustrated. The blows he had received were too uncalled for. To think that he could even bump into a lost wanderer.


    ¡°Why are you going to Holzer City?¡± Saleen wondered about how bold she could be to enter the water in such cold weather. It was possible that she was a swordsman who had already attained the sword aura, although what she was carrying was a cudgel. Hence, he had better not make her angry.


    ¡°It has not been easy to survive in the mountains recently. I am thinking of bing a mercenary,¡± Sika said, lowering her head.


    ¡°You are not from Sikeqinya?¡± Saleen had just then realized that there was something off about Sika¡¯s ent. Although she was also speaking themon maindnguage, her artiction was quicker and she ended her sentences in a terser manner.


    ¡°I am from Caucasus.¡± Sika unpretentiously sat on the floor, revealing to Saleen the portion of her legs uncovered by her boots.


    ¡°What is your grade?¡± Saleen thought that Sika was fairly amicable, and that people from Caucasus were simpler. He decided to befriend her. As a junior mage, he needed the partnership of powerful swordsmen.


    ¡°Don¡¯t know. In any case, whenever the demonic beasts near the vige saw me, they would run off,¡± Sika said, looking confused. Saleen was discouraged. It wasmon for Caucasus swordsmen not to know their own grade. He felt silly for asking.


    The Caucasus Region was neither affiliated with Sikeqinya nor any duchy. It remained a primitive mountainous region which produced high quality swordsmen.


    The regiment liked swordsmen from Caucasus, who were strong in both near and far ranging battles and were team yers. The male Caucasus swordsmen were at minimum skilled in the use of the axe, and could attack from a radius of a hundred meters away. The injuries they caused could be far worse than an archer¡¯s attack.


    The Caucasus Region was the only ce which had maintained the primitive profession of a priest. A priest¡¯s offensive capabilities were inferior to that of a mage¡¯s but their healing prowess was simr to a holy master¡¯s.


    ¡°You did not know the way and yet you still ventured out?¡± Saleen¡¯s eyes were better, although still swollen. To think that Sika¡¯s fingers looked slender, yet were harder than a hammer.


    ¡°What was there to be afraid of? Getting lost doesn¡¯t mean you will starve. There are more wild beasts around here than where I was from. I have been in the mountains for more than a month and nothing has happened so far.¡±


    Saleen finally understood that looks and intelligence were not mutually exclusive. Sika, being such a muddled Caucasus girl, had a high chance of being deceived. Perhaps he had better approach her first. If he had been toote, the unimaginable could have happened¡­


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go with me to Dean? There are more work opportunities there.¡± Saleen tried to entice Sika. Actually, he also only knew this from books. There had not even been a professional union in Ceylon City.


    ¡°Ok, but I haven¡¯t got any money. If we were to enter the city¡­¡±


    Saleen was exasperated. No money and yet still out and about. It also cost money to join the regiment. But this was fine as well. If Sika were unable to register as a mercenary because she had no money, she would have to follow him.


    ¡°Meals in the city are expensive. And you have this rule against ¡®eating humans¡¯. So troublesome.¡±


    ¡°Eating humans!¡± Saleen was frightened. Although the Caucasus Region was primitive, he had not heard they were cannibals.


    ¡°I do not mean we eat humans when we see them. Um, in Caucasusnguage, it means to eat everything your enemy has.¡± Sika made an attacking gesture with her hands. Saleen understood. She was referring to robbery. There had been records of tribes robbing one another. Saleen hardly came across such incidents and only knew vague details regarding them.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you be a lone adventurer first? It would cost less.¡± Saleen exined the difference between an adventurer and a mercenary to Sika. A mercenary would have to pay a deposit after they registered at the professional union. Should they fail at their mission, the loss would be deducted from their deposit.


    An adventurer, however, would only need to pay the registration fee. But they would not be allowed to undertake missions such as escorting the delivery of gifts, as they were the most frequent and most lucrative.


    This rule did not apply to mages. Even for Grade 1 mages, they did not need to pay any deposit to join the regiment.


    ¡°Saleen, what do you do?¡± Sika asked curiously, as she thought Saleen seemed very learned.


    ¡°I am a mage.¡±


    ¡°Oops, then I have been rude.¡± Sika bowed in a manner that baffled Saleen. Then she exined, ¡°When I left home, the elders reminded me that out here, mages are highly revered, just like priests.¡±


    She looked at Saleen¡¯s eyes still swollen eyes as she said this. Sika began to feel anxious. She had actually assaulted someone simr to a priest.


    Both of them had begun to feel guilty and so the conversation flowed more easily. Saleen encouraged Sika to go to Dean City, which was away from the sea. It was close to the border and at any point in time, one could cross the Saxon Principality to enter the Qin Empire.


    Saleen¡¯s calctions were very good. He would first take some professional missions at the border, to increase his grade and ability to battle, so as to avoid the type of trouble he had encountered in Ceylon City. If he could progress to Grade 3, then he would not be afraid of Earl Sufonsoing after his life. He could not possibly get a swordmaster to appear, could he?


    Even if a small probability of this existed, he could flee to the Qin Empire. Earl Sufonso¡¯s influence would not work there. In the Qin Empire, swordmasters counted for naught, as there were mages everywhere.


    It was said that every city in the Qin Empire had a magical tower. Judging from this, there were at least hundreds of Grade 6 mages. Although the number was small inparison to the billions of Qin Empire people, it meant that only one great mage emerged from tens of thousands of people. However, the Qin Empire was infallible with the help of these mages. Even the three powerful empires and the Holy See could do nothing about this.

 Chapter 21: The Battle with the Girl from Caucasus (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 21: The Battle with the Girl from Caucasus (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As they walked east, Saleen finally witnessed the strength of the Caucasus people. The cudgel that Sika was carrying was never used. She used a boomerang over one foot in length to hunt instead.


    The V-shaped boomerang had sharp edges on both its inner and outer sides. It was kept in a leather sheath when not in use. Sika would hold it in her bare hands, as though the razor-sharp metal edges were nonexistent. Be it wild beasts, demonic beasts, huge trees, or rocks, Sika¡¯s boomerang would hack them in half.


    Sika was not afraid of the cold. Her animal skins exposed her belly button and thighs. She did not change her outfit even in this autumn weather. The leather bag she was carrying was at least five times bigger than that of Saleen¡¯s, and waspletely filled. Luckily her appetite was not asrge, and was only about two to three times that of Saleen¡¯s.


    The two of them spent a month in the mountains. It was already winter before they found their way out. They had found out at a vige that they would reach Dean City if they continued to walk another two hundred miles east.


    Sika was full of admiration for Saleen. It was incredible that this person who did not have any maps was able to find the way directly out of the mountain to the city.


    Once they left the mountainous area, there was a more poptedrge in to the east. The total poption of the four empires was more than four billion. There were more than a billion people in Sikeqinya alone. There were hundreds of cities, and it was a pure coincidence that Saleen had ended up going in this direction.


    After more than a month, Saleen had developed a better understanding of Sika. Like most people in Caucasus, she had been born to a poor tribe. Although the tribe was poor, they were very brave. Demonic beasts had not been able to affect the tribe¡¯s increase in poption. Every year, many Caucasus warriors like her left the mountain area, just to seek a living.


    Sika was very intelligent, and simple. Although she was muddled in some areas, she was outstanding in terms ofbat.


    No matter how strong they were, such people would find it hard to earn money unless traders did not have bad intentions. Sika used her intelligence forbat. Her body was strong and robust like a magic leopard¡¯s. In terms of managing her money, she was as dumb as a pig. This had caused Saleen to drop his schemes, as he was worried about having to look after her once they were in the city.


    Sika was d to be following Saleen. She was illiterate. Being a Caucasus native, it was already an achievement for her to be able to speak themonnguage. In being able to follow a learned mage, Sika felt as though she had found treasure.


    Dean City¡¯s flourishing locale exceeded Saleen¡¯s imagination. The stores were filled with adventurers and mercenaries. It was already winter but the vibrant atmosphere made it seem like it was mid-summer.


    Saleen brought Sika around to a few stores, feeling as though he had a pathetic amount of gold coins. He could not even buy a decent piece of equipment. The goods meant to be used by mages cost a minimum of ten thousand gold coins. Those in the range of one to two thousand gold coins seemed crude to him.


    There was another pesky matter. Sika¡¯s looks drew attention from the adventurers. There were even some mercenaries who blocked their path, hoping to recruit Sika. It was rare for anyone to have such a beautiful Caucasus native who was both good-looking and strong, judging by the weapon on her back.


    It was fortunate that no one had made any moves. The people here had recognized Saleen¡¯s mage attire, only noting that it was odd to have such coarse speech coupled with his respectful expressions.


    Saleen, with a headache, said, ¡°Sika, you should change your outfit.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t got any money. Once I left the mountain, I spent all my money on that holy water.¡± Sika shook her head matter-of-factly.


    At the mention of holy water, Saleen¡¯s eyes started to twitch as though there were still pain. He was uneasy at how the holy water had not had any effect on him. After losing his concentration temporarily, he said, ¡°I will pay for you. You are drawing too much attention like this.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± Sika did not care for formalities. She was irritated by the mercenaries who had impeded them. She was not attracted by their abilities, but being in the city, she could not chase them off too harshly. She also understood that while she was popr with the junior troops, it was difficult for them to earn money. She wanted to earn a lot of money, so that she could buy many things to bring back to her tribe.


    Giving consideration to the experience he¡¯d gained in Ceylon City, Saleen brought Sika to a more deserted street and walked into a store at random. It was not arge store, about fifty meters in size, and had stairs leading to a mezzanine.


    Upon seeing a mage walk in with a Caucasus warrior, the proprietor weed them warmly in person.


    ¡°Master mage, what do you need? We can offer you a discount,¡± the proprietor said with a smile. He was warmer and less hypocritical than those in Ceylon City. It was easy to make money off of mages, as they usually carriedrge amounts of gold coins.


    ¡°I would like some leather armor, suitable for her.¡± Saleen pointed at Sika.


    The proprietor was a little disappointed that he was not here to buy mage equipment. He would be making much less money then. However, he did have quality leather armor and nevertheless, it was still a business deal. He maintained his smile, bowed, and gestured the way to go.


    After following the proprietor to the mezzanine, the proprietor asked his worker to bring tea and snacks. He then went with Saleen and Sika to retrieve the leather armor. Being a small store, their goods were not disyed at the counter.


    Soon after, two workers brought in a huge wooden case from the warehouse in the backyard. The wooden case had not been opened. There was apanybel on it, along with a few slips of paper with a symbol of the location, date, and store.


    Opening the case and its cover, a set of leather armor was unveiled under the light of the magicmp.


    Saleen¡¯s pupils shrank. He could sense a slight magic wave movement on the leather armor. This was leather armor that had been treated with magic. There was not constant magic on it but it was of very good quality. It could be converted to magic armor. Such equipment must have been very expensive!


    Sika¡¯s eyes lit up. The leather armor was grey, and ck floral patterns emerged where it had been treated with medicinal liquid. The patterns were suited for camouging in the wild, and were notpletely useless designs.


    The leather armor was made in Qin Empire style. Althoughplicated, it was very practical. Hair could pass through the inside of the helmet which protected the forehead. The portion for the chin had a sp for attachment, which also made it easy to remove.


    An additionalyer, possibly made of metal pieces or demonic beast bones, had been added to the chest portion of the leather armor.


    The arm portions only covered up to the elbows and were then followed by the wrist portions, unlike Tanggsi Empire armor which had gloves.


    There was no metal on the leather armor, and no pins could be seen. It could be bothersome to put on, but once worn, it would be malleable and not affect movement duringbat.


    This leather armor was simr to the armor made in the Qin Empire, but there were additional attachments in the case. A person could make repairs or changes. As it was a speciality store for adventurers, they also gave out aplimentary leather sack, nket, and daggers.


    Sika turned the leather armor over carefully. There was a leather ring at its back, affixed to the keel of the inneryer and meant for hanging weighty weapons such as sabres. Sika stroked the leather armor and looked at Saleen expectantly.


    She also knew that this thing was not cheap, and so was hesitant in asking Saleen to buy it.


    ¡°How much is it?¡± Saleen asked calmly. His eyes were sharp. It seemed as though the leather armor had been made for Sika, down to the size of the boots.


    ¡°Nine hundred and sixty gold coins. I have already given you a twenty percent discount.¡± The proprietor removed a slip of paper from the case and showed it to Saleen. On it was the location where the leather armor had been produced ¨C¡±Items from Jungle Arms Dealer are quality assured.¡±


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Although it was very expensive, he could still afford it. To think that the original price of the leather armor exceeded one thousand gold coins. He hadpletely misjudged it. Normal leather armors cost about one or two gold coins, with better ones costing tens of gold coins. Those that cost more than one hundred gold coins were magic armors. This leather armor was quite costly, most likely due to its unique material.


    ¡°You ept Qin Empire bank notes here, I assume.¡± Saleen picked up the small booklet in the case as he asked. The booklet included an introduction of the item. Blinking his eyes, he saw the name ¡°saltwater alligator¡± inside it.


    A Grade 6 magic beast! This leather armor was actually made of material from a Grade 6 magic beast! The saltwater alligator was usually very ferocious, and was frequently mentioned in books depicting magic beasts that Saleen had read.


    ¡°Of course, of course I ept them.¡± The proprietor was delighted. Since the mage had asked this, it meant he had decided to buy the leather armor.


    ¡°Um, I also need some materials for making scrolls.¡±


    ¡°Mage sir, if you are nning to use them for practice, the inexpensive kind will do. I will ask someone to prepare them. How much do you need?¡±


    The proprietor was an honest businessman. He could tell that Saleen was only a junior mage, and did not have use for superior scroll materials. Saleen hesitated for a moment. He did not have experience in making scrolls, and only knew the technical knowledge. If he bought too little, they would be useless to him. However, he did not have the money to buy too many.


    ¡°I will get fifty nk scrolls, and just one set of a magic brush and dragon¡¯s blood ink. Give me a better magic brush.¡±


    ¡°Eight hundred gold coins,¡± the proprietor quickly calcted the cost of these materials.


    ¡°I also need ten Grade 3 magic nuclei,¡± Saleen estimated how much he had, and said cautiously.


    ¡°One thousand gold coins.¡±


    Saleen felt as though something had been drained from his body, just like how he had bled after falling at some stone steps when he was young.


    A quick calction told him that he was left with four hundred gold coins, in addition to the one hundred and eight gold coins he had. He felt poor once again. He took out the ring he had obtained from Baron Viscount and asked, ¡°Do you ept this?¡±


    The proprietor took an experienced nce and said, ¡°We do not ept jewelry. The ring is gold-ted, though it was set with a diopside stone. Its size is worth one hundred gold coins. If you n on selling it, I will take it for one hundred gold coins.¡±


    Saleen was frustrated about having misjudged this. It was actually a fake. There wererge quantities of diopside stones, and this one had obviously been processed. If it had been a green soapstone, it would have been worth one thousand gold coins.


    That damn Baron Minghui. If he had known that this was a fake, he would have bashed his head into a mess.

 Chapter 22: Registering as a Mercenary (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 22: Registering as a Mercenary (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The proprietor nced at the ring with white crystal on Saleen¡¯s finger and said, ¡°Mage sir, if you are in need of money, you can pawn the ring on your finger to me. My offer is twenty thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°No need for that.¡± Saleen took off the ring with the diopside stone and tossed it at the proprietor. He then took out two bank notes worth a thousand gold coins each. ¡°Just give me back the change and get a room for my friend to change in.¡±


    Sika stood up as soon as she heard this, bending over therge wooden case and looking around. The worker held back hisughter and took Sika to get changed.


    After examining the bank notes, the proprietor had his worker provide eight full bags of money, with four hundred gold coins in total.


    Saleen took the gold coins, threw them into his leather sack, and asked, ¡°Proprietor, have you got a map?¡±


    ¡°No, I haven¡¯t got one. Mage sir, when you register as a mercenary, the professional union will provide one. It is a very useful magic map,¡± the proprietor said, realizing that it was probably Saleen¡¯s first trip since he did not even know this.


    Saleen turned red, and replied calmly, ¡°I am inexperienced. Thank you, proprietor, for the information. Which way to the professional union, please?¡±


    The proprietor took out a pen and some paper, drew a simple map, and passed it to Saleen. Sika, having changed into the leather armor, walked out after. Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up. In the leather armor, Sika looked less rugged and even more delicate. If she were not still carrying that huge cudgel on her back and holding that old torn animal skin bag, no one would be able to tell she was from Caucasus.


    The proprietor saw the two of them off warmly, and could not help but smile to himself. This was by no means a small transaction. That mage had actually bought a set of high quality leather armor. But he did not have good foresight, to have gone after a Caucasus girl. If he only knew how tough Caucasus women were¡­


    Saleen followed the map that the proprietor had drawn, and found the professional union.


    The entrance to the professional union was nothing to mor over. It had arge door, with the union sign depicting a sword piercing a wheel on its lintel. There was not even a mercenary standing guard at the door. Upon walking through the door, he saw arge pirless hall of about a few hundred square meters.


    It was crowded in the hall, with the majority of the people concentrated on the right side. The left side wasparatively deserted. Saleen looked at the directional sign and walked towards the deserted side.


    To the left of the hall was a room separated by a metal board. The side facing the hall was arge mirror which blocked noise but not sight. Upon seeing Saleen, a swordswoman approached him and asked with a smile, ¡°Are both of you here to impart a mission or to register as mercenaries?¡±


    ¡°I would like to make an inquiry first,¡± Saleen replied with a smile.


    ¡°Please follow me.¡± The swordswoman smiled sweetly, and led Saleen and Sika into a room.


    There were a table and eight chairs. Saleen sat down. The swordswoman handed him a book to read first. Sika pushed away the book the swordswoman handed her, and shook her head saying, ¡°I am illiterate.¡±


    The swordswoman gave a professional smile and gently retrieved the book saying, ¡°I shall go make some tea. What tea would both of you like?¡±


    ¡°Anything will do, as long as it is free,¡± Sika said outspokenly. She did not want them to spend money needlessly. Her leather armor had cost a lot, and she did not know when she would be able to pay for it.


    The swordswoman was used to seeing poor mercenaries. While Sika was d in a costly leather armor, in the swordswoman¡¯s eyes, she was not considered well off. Mercenaries usually spent all their money on equipment, and did not have much money left over.


    ¡°Saleen.¡± Sika used her pale finger to poke at Saleen¡¯s ribs.


    ¡°Ah¡­¡± Saleen acknowledged her, feeling the pain. He did not raise his head. Sika whispered, ¡°Look.¡±


    Saleen turned his head and looked out through the ss, in the direction of Sika¡¯s gaze. He saw the front of the hall. There was arge magic wall with a mosaic of dozens of magic screens set in it, projecting various magic images.


    The magic screen on the wall was worth millions of gold coins. If a person had the audacity tomit robbery here, they would not ever need to worry about their future sources of ie.


    Saleen was not thinking of such things. He looked at the screen and saw that his own magic image had appeared. He shivered. This ce was almost at the border of the Qin Empire. Would Earl Sufonso still have influence here?


    The reason his own image had appeared on the magic screen was because he was on the wanted list. Luckily, the image was drawn and while the technique had been very good, there were differences between it and the present Saleen.


    The image on the magic screen had brown hair and brown eyes. Saleen¡¯s hair had turned ck and his eyes blue. His body had be more muscr. If not for Sika¡¯s astuteness, a person would not have realized that the image had any connection to Saleen.


    Saleen had a lingering fear. If Sika had not seen this image, he would have been in big trouble.


    Whether one was registering to be a mercenary or an adventurer, they would need to leave behind their name and image. If he had used the name ¡°Saleen Metatrin¡±, he would have been discovered in no time.


    The name Metatrin was too rare. Even a fool would able to discover who he was through this name.


    The hated person in Saleen¡¯s heart had chased him from the seaside to the border. He had walked straight through the wilderness for three months but still could not avoid the Earl¡¯s relentless pursuit.


    Many thoughts passed through his head before Saleen calmed down. Earl Sufonso would never let the matter of him killing his son rest. Viscount Gugger had provided a dated image and with his change in looks, it only barely resembled him. The favor he owed Ulysses, he would have to return in the future.


    He had to temporarily change his name. At this thought, he waved his hand and the swordswoman soon entered the room with the tray.


    ¡°Will both of you please try this fog-tipped tea?¡±


    The swordswoman poured the tea into dainty teacups, each about twice the size of a gold coin. They were green, and made of porcin. There were no patterns on them, but they looked like they had been carved out of green jade. The green tea sat within the teacups, diffusing a light scent.


    ¡°We are nning to register as mercenaries,¡± Saleen changed his mind. Adventurers also had to leave their images behind but could not ess as much information from the professional union. Furthermore, mercenaries were protected by Qin Empirews. It would be more dangerous to be adventurers, who needed to be in the wild. The fighting amongst adventurers had gone on since ancient times.


    ¡°Do you n to register as frence mercenaries or to join a mercenary regiment?¡± The swordswoman¡¯s eyes wererge. The tone of her voice seemed to be a result of training and did not exude any pressure.


    Saleen was unaffected. In terms of looks, Sika was superior to this swordswoman. And it was only when he saw Sika¡¯s naked body that he had felt some palpitations. It seemed that since the formation of his magic chords, his state of mind had stabilized even more.


    This was normal. A mage who allowed his emotions to fluctuate from time to time could not be depended upon during crucial periods. The release of magic required the control of strong mental power. Many junior mages had remained below Grade 3 all their lives because they did not have sufficient mental power.


    ¡°A mercenary regiment. Um, the one of the smallest scale.¡±


    The swordswomanughed, realizing that Saleen was a newbie. She reminded him, ¡°The smallest mercenary regiment can only recruit eight people and cannot take on high-level missions. The difference between them and adventurers is negligible.¡±


    If Saleen had read the book the swordswoman had given him, which described the regime, and looked at the relevant chapter, he would have known what the smallest mercenary regiment was like. He shook his head and said, ¡°I do not have the money for the deposit.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± The swordswoman did not turn around as she waved her hand. In no time, someone brought a box and ced it on the table.


    In the box were two contracts. Saleen nced at them and nodded his head before asking, ¡°Where do we pay?¡±


    ¡°Both of you, follow me.¡± The swordswoman led Saleen and Sika out of the room to a small door at the corner of the hall. There was a passageway through the door and many small rooms on both sides of the passageway. The swordswoman pointed at a small room and said, ¡°Go and leave your magic images, and then sign the contracts before handing me the money.¡±


    It cost money to register as a mercenary. Each mercenary needed to pay a deposit, in case they failed a mission and the loss was unounted for. Saleen had registered for a Grade 1 mercenary regiment. It cost one hundred gold coins to register and each recruit needed to pay a deposit of fifty gold coins.


    If his eight-member regiment was full, they would need to pay five hundred gold coins. This was arge sum, which many could not afford. Many mercenary regiments were controlled by their leaders. As the poor mercenaries had no money, they signed separate contracts with their leaders and end up working themselves to the bone.


    This was not surprising, to say the least. How would an ordinary person be able to raise fifty gold coins for the deposit? If they had fifty gold coins, most junior mercenaries would rather return home to be farmers. Fifty gold coins would be more than enough for them to take wives and have two or three children.


    There were two of them. In addition to the registration fee of one hundred gold coins, Saleen would only need to pay another hundred as deposit. In this way, he would be able to take on escorting missions worth four hundred gold coins or less. Even if his regiment were full, he would only be able to undertake escorting missions worth a thousand gold coins or less.


    Like the swordswoman had said, such a regiment was not too different from the adventurers. Escorting missions worth four hundred gold coins would only pay twenty gold coins at most. They would take a month toplete. The value of killing a Grade 2 demonic beast was more than such a mission. Saleen was a mage. Twenty gold coins was, in fact, not very meaningful to him.


    If war broke out, these mercenaries would have to be deployed by their country. The junior mercenary regiment would be stationed at the most dangerous ce, without being paid much.


    Saleen did not ce any value on this. The reason he had set them up with the regiment was not to take on escorting missions, but to gain ess to information provided by the professional union. Only mercenaries were privy to such information. Othermon information could be bought cheaply with silver coins.


    He wanted to know what sort of person Earl Sufonso was and what power he had. Such information would not be readily avable to adventurers.


    After recording the magic images, the swordswoman had within ten minutes brought new contracts. On them were Saleen and Sika¡¯s magic images. Sika did not know how to write and so Saleen signed the contract on her behalf.


    Saleen did not leave his real name, and filled in the fake name ¡°Merlin¡± under the name category. They then made their respective fingerprints. After handing over the gold coins, Saleen also received the mercenary badge provided by the professional union.

 Chapter 23: Registering as a Mercenary (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 23: Registering as a Mercenary (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Grade 1 mercenary regiment had no name, only a serial number. One could alwayse up with a name but it did not matter how nice it sounded. It was best if it were not a name already used by another mercenary regiment, as otherwise one could be exterminated.


    The mercenary regiment was divided into nine grades; mercenary badges came in three different colors. The copper green one that Saleen had received was a badge for junior mercenaries. As Saleen was pinning the badge on his chest, loud cheers erupted from the center of the main hall. Saleen turned around but only could see hundreds of mercenaries crowding around the counter indignantly, unable to tell what was going on.


    Saleen looked at the swordswoman. She shrugged, not knowing what had happened. These mercenaries were usually very down-to-earth, and not boastful.


    ¡°Sal¡­¡±


    ¡°Please call me chief in the future. Come, let us take a look,¡± Saleen interrupted Sika, and dragged her up from the chair. Reluctantly, Sika finished her tea, even down to the tea leaves which she started to chew on.


    ¡°What are you doing? This is not meant to be eaten, spit it out.¡± Saleen patted her back.


    ¡°I know, gulp¡­ but this is expensive tea.¡± Sika forcefully swallowed the tea leaves down, turning a little red in the process.


    Saleen could not help but think that it was lucky she did not smoke, or else she would swallow the butt as well.


    The two of them approached the front of the crowd. It was noisy. ¡°Hey brother, what happened?¡±


    Saleen found a junior swordsman and questioned him. Seeing that a mage had spoken to him so politely, the junior swordsman was overwhelmed and hurriedly exined, ¡°The union has announced a new mission. A green dragon has been discovered at Kosan Prefecture.¡±


    ¡°Green dragon?¡±


    ¡°Yes. No dragon has appeared in the hintend of the Myers Maind for many years now. This time, the union has asked for the capture of this dragon, and is offering five hundred thousand gold coins as a reward. Mercenaries of any grade can take on this mission, which has no deadline.¡±


    The swordsman¡¯s eyes were gleaming. He was an intermediate swordsman, and far from being a swordmaster. Without the sword aura, he would not even be able to pierce the dragon¡¯s scales, so it was not clear why he would be so excited.


    ¡°The green dragon is a Grade 6 creature,¡± Saleen reminded him with good intent. Although the green dragon was the lower grade of dragons in the dragon family, the perception that they gave off waspletely different. Creatures like dragons had terrifying defenses, and they could fly. To kill a green dragon would require the help of at least a Grade 7 mage. Otherwise, the green dragon could take flight when defeated, and there would be no way for one to pursue it.


    Saleen¡¯s words fell on deaf ears. These mercenaries were illiterate and had not read a single book in their lives. Their understanding of the green dragon was naturally inferior to that of Saleen¡¯s.


    The green dragon had a bad temper and would attack anyone. But it was also intelligent and would observe its prey from the dark. Once it felt that its prey could be captured, it would make its appearance. Such a creature feared the strong and bullied the weak, and was more difficult to manage than the explosive red dragon.


    Saleen shook his head helplessly. The counter was swarmed. He did not have any space to sign up for a mission. Looking at the situation, he should probably not attempt it within the hour. Sika poked him again. Frustrated, Saleen asked, ¡°What is it?¡±


    He found a positive trait in Sika. She had only needed a brief reminder to know that she should not call him by his name. The bad part was that she liked to greet him with her finger, especially with a poke to his ribs.


    ¡°Chief¡­ I am hungry,¡± Sika answered pitifully. As if for added effect, Sika¡¯s stomach rumbled noisily, causing her to look embarrassed. Saleen felt that he had taken in the wrong person. This Sika could really eat as much as a bucketful of rice. However, Saleen was in a good mood, as it was fortunate that the green dragon had been discovered. At the very least, it meant that in the southeast, the mercenaries would focus on the green dragon instead of the mission to kill him.


    Green dragon, please do not get killed soon! Saleen prayed in his heart.


    ¡°Hey, gorgeous miss. May I know if you would be willing to join our regiment?¡±


    Saleen raised his head to see an unusually good-looking man who appeared to be in his twenties. His handsome brows and charming eyes did not seem to match his tall, straight nose. However, they came together in perfect harmony to give this man the juxtaposition of feminine and masculine appeal in each and every one of his expressions.


    He had purple eyes and light blond hair, as well as patterns in the hollows of his thin metal armor. This man did not look human, appearing as though he were from the legendary Asmodian tribe.


    ¡°Sorry, I already have my own regiment,¡± Sika finally replied after sensing that this man was notcking in power.


    ¡°Then just withdraw. I will pay the fees incurred,¡± this man persevered.


    ¡°Ask him.¡± Sika pointed at Saleen.


    ¡°Mister mage, may I know if you are willing to part with her, and will let her join my regiment?¡±


    ¡°You will pay?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course, name your price.¡±


    Saleen looked at Sika, stroking the new armor she wore as though it were a magic weapon. Saleen snorted and asked, ¡°You have a lot of money?¡±


    ¡°Grade 4 regiment. I¡¯ve got some savings,¡± the man said contentedly, not minding Saleen¡¯s mocking attitude. A Grade 4 regiment would cost more than ten thousand gold coins to register for, and being one of the main forces, could recruit more than a thousand men. Such a regiment could even have a mage in it.


    ¡°Since you¡¯re so well off, how about recruiting me?¡± Saleen was clearly being sarcastic.


    ¡°Oh, mages. We have two or three of them in the Falcon Regiment.¡±


    ¡°So you don¡¯t have many swordsmen?¡± Saleen grew impatient. This bloody man was too self-absorbed to be provoked.


    ¡°You have no intention of parting with her!¡± The man whom Saleen regarded as a demon said regretfully.


    ¡°You are wrong about one thing. Sika is not amodity. I do not have the right to decide whether she should stay. I am, however, her chief, so you¡¯d better give up on trying to poach her from me. Since you are well off, it should not be an issue for you to cheat many other Caucasus folk,¡± Saleen replied coldly.


    This was Dean City. No regiment would dare cause trouble here. Dean City was itself a property owned by a Grade 9 regiment. It was the one and only Grade 9 regiment ¨C the Dragons and Roses Regiment.


    ¡°I have been impolite. How about I buy both of you a meal?¡±


    ¡°I do not eat with strangers.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words had finally caused the demonic-looking man to react. Saleen quickly added, ¡°So I had better introduce myself. Merlin, chief of Regiment 1745360.¡±


    In the distance, a few men who were looking in their direction saw that the man had turned bright red, and burst intoughter all together. The demonic-looking man recovered, took a deep breath, and said, ¡°Yours truly, Canghong, chief of the 10th squad from the 10th camp of the Falcon Regiment. Thoseughing away are my men. ¡±


    The mercenary regiments were not like regr troops with a hundred men per camp. A squad had only ten men. The demonic-looking Canghong had a mere four men under him, and had yet to fully assemble his squad.


    As Dean City was flourishing, one could still find restaurants to dine at after midnight. There were no restrictions ced on mercenaries, behavior-wise. The city gates did not shut, even at midnight. Although it was near the border, it was adjacent to Lon Duchy which was under the jurisdiction of the Sikeqinya Empire. The Kaoshan Prefecture where the green dragon was found was within the boundaries of Lon Duchy.


    It was safe here, as no one wanted to offend the Dragons and Roses Regiment. This Grade 9 regiment had twenty thousand mercenaries, which vited the rules set by the Sikeqinya Empire. But even the emperor himself made no mention of this matter.


    The two chiefs of the Dragons and Roses Regiment were Grade 9 professionals. One was a golden grand swordmaster, and the other was a Grade 9 ck robe mage. With such powers, it would not be an issue for them to even set up a duchy.


    Only with strong powers could one protect their prosperity. The southeast frontline was almostpletely under the Dragons and Roses Regiment¡¯s sphere of influence. Dean City was in the center, nked by Didypus to its north and Willow County to its west.


    With much familiarity, Canghong led Saleen and Sika to a five-story restaurant. There were seven of them, including his four men, so he requested a single room.


    ¡°Mage Merlin, do try the pear wine here. It has been imported from the Qin Empire. One small ss costs a gold coin.¡± Canghong presented it warmly. His good looks, coupled with his narrow waist and broad shoulders, portrayed him as a man of strength.


    ¡°We mages only drink clear water.¡± Saleen declined his good intentions, emptied the ss, and took out his own metal sk to pour out some restorative water.


    Even if one did not have any injuries, it was still beneficial to consume restorative water. Most mages could only produce one hundred grams of it at a time, but Saleen could produce nearly three hundred grams. It was easy to store restorative water, but as it would lose its effect after a month, Saleen decided to drink it as though it were clear water.


    He remained guarded about Canghong. Being in Dean City, he may not have wanted to use his weapons, but there was nothing to stop him from using poison instead. Saleen had previously produced all kinds of magic medicine, which were useless on experts but could easily be used on Grade 1 mages like himself.


    ¡°What were youughing at?¡± Canghong¡¯s face turned stony, and he told his men off, ¡°Do you not know how to introduce yourselves?¡±


    The four of them then started to introduce themselves. The pale, tall, and thin junior swordsman was Pino. He wore a suit of clean leather armor and carried a long, thin sword on his back.


    The muscr one with a scar was amoner, whose weapon was concealed just like Canghong¡¯s. There was only a meaningless syble in his name ¨C Cook.


    Saleen had thought that thedy in a leather mask was a mage, but she was actually a swordswoman from the Qin Empire named Sarah. The youth with a symmetrical body was an archer named Lucas. Barely twenty years old, he was probably the youngest in this team, though his face did not show any trace of his youthfulness. Heughed uninhibitedly together with the rest, making it evident that they enjoyed a strong sense of camaraderie.


    Saleen was puzzled. There was no mage in this squad, but Canghong had wanted to entice Sika and hadpletely disregarded him. The archer could also attack from a distance but he could not rece a mage. A Caucasus warrior was valuable to have, but would never be more popr than a mage.


    Could this Canghong have some sort of special mission toplete?


    ¡°Both of you, I shall be direct. I had wanted to hire a Caucasus warrior for a mission. It is not a dangerous mission but it will encounter a rare creature. Only a Caucasus warrior will have the best chance of seeding.¡± Canghong noted Saleen¡¯s bored expression, and knew that if he did not tell the truth, he would not be able to rope in Sika.


    He had also predicted such a result. No matter how junior a mage, Saleen would not bother with a mere squad leader like him. Hmph, as long as he aplished this private mission, it would not be an issue for him to leave the Falcon Regiment and start his own squad.


    At this thought, Canghong¡¯s face revealed yet another charming smile. Although Saleen was inexperienced in his travels, he had been poor since he was young, and so was adept at analyzing people¡¯s emotions from their expressions.


    He was unsure of Canghong¡¯s motives, but he knew that Canghong was definitely withholding many things from them. Besides, as a squad leader of a Grade 4 regiment, it was definitely unusual for him to want to hire from another regiment

 Chapter 24: Relic from the Dynasty (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 24: Relic from the Dynasty (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    What a rare find! Saleen could not have imagined that he would be able to pick up such an appealing Caucasus warrior in the deserted wilderness


    ¡°What kind of contract is it? What kind of rewards are there? Name those first.¡± Saleen lifted up his cup to take a drink, not raising his head to avoid looking at Canghong¡¯s annoying smile.


    ¡°The reward is five hundred gold coins. We will distribute ten percent to you once the mission ispleted. For the official employment contract, I will pay a deposit of two thousand gold coins, and the professional union will be the guarantor.¡± Canghong listed out all the conditions in a single breath.


    ¡°Let us dig in first.¡± Saleen was not very satisfied with the conditions, and did not agree to Canghong immediately. In reality, a Grade 1 mercenary could not earn tens of gold coins within a year, even in good economic times. However, because Saleen was a mage who could produce magic medicine, a mission worth five hundred gold coins was not substantial to him.


    A sulent leg ofmb served on arge bronze te was brought to the table. Without waiting for the others to start eating first, Sika drew her dagger from her waist. With one leg on her chair and a chop by her dagger, she cut off half the leg ofmb.


    As though no one else was present, she started gnawing on themb. Everyone was stunned. They had known about the ruggedness of the Caucasus folk, but this beautiful young girl was eating as though she were no different from a bunch of hairy barbarians.


    Squelch squelch¡­.


    Sika felt that the taste was a little nd and shouted, ¡°Proprietor, did you not add any salt?¡±


    ¡°Proprietor!¡±


    Canghong gave an explosive shout, giving Sika a fright. She widened her eyes and looked at Canghong. Canghong resisted the impulses within him, gnashed his teeth, and shouted, ¡°Send some salt over.¡±


    Saleen grew more suspicious of this Canghong. Was there a need for this Grade 4 mercenary regiment with silver-colored badges to befriend two recently registered mercenaries this way? He extended his hand, grabbed the other half of the leg ofmb, and began to gnaw at it like Sika.


    Canghong and the others looked at the empty te, feeling troubled. Were these two really stupid or did they hold no regard for the mission at all? Amission of five hundred gold coins, together with the dividends, was a sum impossible for a Grade 1 mercenary to earn in two years.


    By the time the second dish of wild buffalo was presented, Sika had already finished her half of the leg ofmb. She moved the wild buffalo in front of her and continued to eat, disregarding the people around her.


    As Canghong watched her, he grew certain that this mage could not care less about a remuneration of five hundred gold coins. How could he entice him? He was not willing to increase the sum. The mage robe on Saleen indicated that he was just a Grade 1 mage. It was a reasonable offer. It would be entirely possible to instead hire a Grade 3 mage if they were going to raise the offer.


    Unfortunately, it would not be easy to control a Grade 3 mage. If the mage were to turn on them after thepletion of the mission, the whole troop would be in a crisis.


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t you name a price? As long as it is reasonable, I will agree,¡± Canghong told Saleen, who was still gnawing on the leg ofmb.


    ¡°Hmm.¡± Saleen put down themb. He had waited for these words for a long time. At this point, he said, ¡°I want to know what the mission is. The remuneration shall be calcted based on the number of days and is to be paid in advance weekly. It will be thirty gold coins per day, twenty for myself and ten for Sika. You will pay a deposit of five thousand gold coins when you sign the contract at the union. I want thirty percent upon the mission¡¯spletion. If this is agreeable, you may share details of the mission. If not, we will leave after eating.¡±


    ¡°Do you think you are some mage master?¡± The swordsman with a scar on his face red up. He was also starving, and was unhappy that the two dishes served had been finished by Saleen and Sika. Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s demanding terms, he could no longer control himself and thus exploded, pounding the table and jumping to his feet.


    ¡°If I were a powerful mage master, I would ask for seventy percent,¡± Saleen said. ¡°I have seen the price list at the union. Is my request too demanding?¡±


    Canghong was nearly going to vomit blood. It was true that mage masters would be able to get seventy percent of the ie, but Saleen was just a junior mage and was not even worth ten percent. He had given a good offer, and felt that Saleen¡¯s request was outrageous.


    ¡°Alright, I agree,¡± Canghong consented, gritting his teeth. If not for the fact that he had to keep this from the others in the troop, he would not have agreed to such ridiculous demands. He would empty his savings of five years for the deposit of five thousand gold coins.


    ¡°Then tell me, why are you so insistent on hiring Sika?¡± Saleen was nearly full, rubbing his stomach as he looked at Canghong.


    A faint redness appeared on Canghong¡¯s coy face as he said in a low voice, ¡°Now that you are going to hear about it, you must not go back on your words. Even though this is Dean City¡­¡±


    Saleen nced across the five of them, and saw each one looking at him nervously. Although he was only a Grade 1 mage, they were still afraid. Because Canghong¡¯s words had contained a threat, they did not know if this rash young man would fly into a rage.


    Naturally, Saleen was not angry. He was also from Sikeqinya, and possessed the calcting nature of a businessman. If the other party¡¯s request was reasonable, he would not feel that his pride had been damaged.


    ¡°Alright, you may tell me. Since I have agreed to be hired by you, there is nothing for you to worry about.¡±


    Saleen was a little impatient. It was a real chore to be a mercenary, and it was not as easy as producing magic medicine. However, he could only earn a thousand gold coins each year by making magic medicine, and that was given that he was the only mage apprentice in the entirety of Ceylon City. For this mission, he would get twenty out of thirty gold coins each day, and would, in less than two months, earn the same amount as he had earned the year before.


    Both Pino and Cook, without waiting for Canghong¡¯s instructions, had already left their seats to stand guard at the door.


    Canghong took a deep breath, and said slowly, ¡°It is a relic mission, and is not issued by the union.¡±


    ¡°I knew it. Otherwise, you would not need to hire outsiders,¡± Saleenughed happily. He was just a rookie mercenary, but he possessed the genes of outstanding businessmen. Therefore, his sharp observation had detected Canghong¡¯s secret. This mission was indeed profitable, and it would be a shame not to milk it for what it was worth.


    ¡°The mission venue is within the Chaotic Swamp, so I will need a Caucasus warrior to clear out the four hundred meter long passage filled with dinodemons. Their grades are low but there are many of them. Only a determined Caucasus warrior will be unaffected. Of course, the Grade 7 Spiritual Deterrence spell would be even more effective, but I cannot afford it.¡±


    ¡°Dinodemons? Those things are rare,¡± Saleen muttered, being overheard by Canghong.


    Canghong warned, ¡°They are only Grade 1 monsters, so I am unable to increase the offer.¡±


    ¡°Got it, got it.¡± Saleen calcted that Sika was at least a senior swordswoman or even a swordmaster. It would not be an issue to deal with Grade 1 monsters, even if there were hundreds of them. Every Caucasus warrior had been blessed by the Warrior Priest, receiving immunity against the dinodemons¡¯ spiritual attacks. As for the dinodemons¡¯ physical attacks, even there were thirty or fifty of him, he would be able to block them by depending on the constant magics of his mage robe.


    It was an easy mission. They had got it made.


    ¡°Then what are you waiting for? Let¡¯s head over to the union.¡± Sika wiped her mouth, and put down the now empty te.


    ¡°But¡­ we have not eaten anything.¡±


    ¡°Why did you not eat?¡± Sika¡¯s expression was puzzled. The faces of those of the Falcon Regiment were as ck as the bottom of a burnt pot, thinking in their hearts: You finished all of the food. Are we supposed to eat air?


    After Sika had eaten her fill, those from the Falcon Regiment quickly ate and brought Saleen to the union to settle the employment contract. There were asions when evenrge regiments with many mercenaries could be shorthanded. That was especiallymon when hiring low grade mercenaries. After the contract was signed and the deposit of five thousand gold coins was paid, even if Canghong and his men were wiped out, Saleen would still be able to get hispensation from the union.


    In order to speed things up, Canghong had reluctantly bought horses for Saleen and Sika. Saleen and Sika did not know how to ride, but because Saleen had strong mental power, he deployed a little elemental power and it was easy to stabilize the mounting. Sika possessed the innate ability to calm animals, so the group of seven quickly left the city and headed northeast.


    The Falcon Regiment¡¯s destination was Didypus. It was the closest ce to the Chaotic Swamp and offered all the supplies they needed. Because Didypus was under the control of the Dragons and Roses Regiment, it would be rtively safe to enter the Chaotic Swamp from there.


    The seven of them took three days to reach Didypus. Saleen had already earned sixty gold coins by then, and of course, Sika¡¯s thirty gold coins belonged to him as repayment for her leather armor.


    Canghong showed a smile when they saw the city wall of Didypus. It had grown a little deserted. The green dragon in Lon Duchy had led the majority of the adventurers southward. It was a godsend to have chosen this time to enter the Chaotic Swamp. He would rather have spent more money to sign the contract in Dean City than leave any traces in Didypus.


    There was not a single member of the Falcon Regiment here anymore. Canghong did not venture far into the city. He replenished some food and water at a ce right by the city gate, bought tents for Saleen and Sika, and left Didypus immediately.


    The expanse of the Chaotic Swamp was vast, and its exterior was mountainous. To enter the swamp, one needed to trek for more than two hundred miles along the mountainous route. Horses were, in fact, not suitable for such expeditions. After entering the mountains, everyone would need to dismount from their horses and trek by foot. The road became uneven as they faced the deste sights ahead of them.


    The early winter mountainous wind was already very chilly. Herbivorous magic beasts passed by asionally, but did not even look at the expedition squads. By now, they had grown immune to the sight of expedition squads. The magic beasts in the Chaotic Swamp were usually poisonous, the surrounding low grade magic beasts practically worthless, and most adventurers did not bother toy their hands on them.


    Deep in the mountains, Saleen finally felt relieved. They were away from the city, with no one trailing behind. It appeared that the attention of most had been lured to the green dragon. Would anyone be interested in the mission of pursuing him as a wanted person? He doubted so.


    Sika and the people of the Falcon Regiment became familiar with one another. Saleen never talked, but merely quietly observed this mercenary regiment. Although the contract had been signed at the union, Saleen still remained cautious. Since this Canghong hade to the Chaotic Swamp behind his chief¡¯s back, there was a possibility of him exterminating him and Sika after the expedition.


    The people of the Falcon Regiment were also observing Saleen. The few of them had seized the rare opportunity to hire Sika in a hurry, but had not expected her toe with a mage who added on to their costs.


    Generally, mages were very popr aside from their high prices. They held important roles in mercenary regiments. Even a Grade 1 mage had thebat capability of a swordsman who possessed the sword aura. In addition, an elementary swordsman whose sword aura could not leave his body,pared to a mage, would have fewer styles of attack.


    In this environment with many potentialplications, a mage was much more valuable.


    Everyone was satisfied with Saleen¡¯s performance. He did not have the arrogance of most mages. Aside from not speaking, he did not create any trouble for them. Even when trekking on the bumpy mountain roads, this young mage had notined once. This was a normal mage with a good constitution, which he had most likely inherited.


    Everyone formed their own opinions of Saleen, and were gradually reassured.

 Chapter 25: Relic from the Dynasty (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 25: Relic from the Dynasty (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was a reason Saleen was not speaking. He had realized that his intonation stood out too much. Those from the north who had travelled by sea would be able to tell he was from Ceylon City just by hearing him. A person often lost out when they spoke too much. It was inevitable that discrepancies would be revealed after increased interaction with these people. In the event that they held an arrest warrant, his real identity would soon be discovered.


    It was easier for the ever-carefree Sika to gather information. After a few days of interaction, Saleen already knew their ultimate target ¨C that was, a relic from the Second Dynasty.


    Before the fall of the Goddess of Nature, the Metatrin Maind had been unified by mankind four times. It had been twenty thousand years since the Second Dynasty, which had been an unusually glorious era of magic. However, not many relics remained in existence. Each time the maind had been unified, the wars had destroyed many cultural relics.


    Every single magical tool produced during the Second Dynasty had been borate; none of them were worth less than a thousand gold coins. Even the smallest relic with the slightest association to any mages would be sufficient for the squad to be wealthy.


    If their luck was good, everyone in the squad could receive more than a hundred thousand gold coins. They could then retire, return to their hometowns and have a castle restored, purchase the title of earl, and never again lead a life in the shadows of swords. As for Saleen, this money would be enough to sustain him until he became a Grade 4 mage and escaped to the Qin Empire to practice in safety. Sika could buy enough equipment and food to return to her vige and help her tribe. Perhaps this money could be used to create a new powerful tribe, and the tribe could evene into some duchy¡¯s favor.


    In this world, possessing power alone was not enough, and thus having money was essential. The people of Sikeqinya had long understood this logic, and hence they owned the most businesses on the maind, the biggest bank, and the most popr mercenary regiment.


    The wealthiest person in the Qin Empire was His Majesty the Emperor. Even if he waived all of the farmers¡¯ taxes, he would still be the wealthiest in the maind.


    Upon learning that this mission involved a relic from the Second Dynasty, Saleen understood why Canghong had not hired a holy master. The emperor of the Second Dynasty, who had unified the maind, had favored magic and did not believe in divinities. His extremeness had exceeded that of the current Qin Empire. The Holy See wouldpletely destroy everything here if they knew of this relic.


    The Second Dynasty was also known as the Unholy Dynasty.


    Saleen could care less about the beliefs of mages from twenty thousand years ago. He only knew that if he could get his hands on the magic props from the Second Dynasty, he would not need to be on the run for the next few years.


    After walking for six days, it suddenly began to snow in the mountains. The snow was fine and dense, and the road became muddier. Everyone had to abandon their horses. The road here was narrow and dangerous. Many ces were close to the cliff sides, making it impossible for horses to pass through.


    Sika carried both her and Saleen¡¯s sacks. The possessions of Canghong and the others were carried by Pino and Cook. Sarah, who donned a leather face mask, led the way while Lucas, the archer, crouched at the rear. The speed of the group did not slow down but instead sped up significantly. As evening neared, a mountain emerged before them. Sarah suddenly stopped and sent out two short twitters.


    The whole squad swiftly went into hiding. Speedily, Sarah retreated back.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve met with Vulture.¡± Sarah¡¯s expression could not be seen with her mask on, but the worry in her voice was obvious.


    ¡°Were you discovered?¡± Canghong grew cautious.


    ¡°What is a vulture?¡± Sika asked innocently.


    Canghong hesitated. He thought to himself that since he would be able to break free from the regiment upon thepletion of this mission and was indifferent about getting those five thousand gold coins, sharing a little information could express his sincerity to this mage of an unknown level.


    At this thought, he replied, ¡°Vulture is the code name of a mercenary regiment, but they rarely take on regr missions. This mercenary regiment are like vultures, preying on rotten food. They will track and pursue adventurers who are in danger until their deaths. This way, they can get the fortune of the adventurers without viting the rules of the union.¡±


    Saleen gave it some thought. If that was the case, unless they were in times of war, there was no obligation for mutual assistance between mercenary regiments. People were not allowed to attack other registered mercenary regiments, but could also refrain from offering assistance when they faced danger.


    ¡°What is the ranking of the Vulture Regiment?¡± Saleen finally said.


    ¡°Grade 4. Sarah, please continue.¡± Canghong had been interrupted by Sika, and did not reveal the rtionship between the Falcon Regiment and the Vulture Regiment. He did not fear the Vulture Regiment, but this mission absolutely could not be made known to the men of Vulture. It was already winter. Who was still running about here and being eyed upon by Vulture?


    ¡°There are three small Vulture squads, which should be all of them. In addition, there are two more groups of people. One of them is on the run, and the other batch is pursuing them. I am unable to deduce the number of people.¡±


    ¡°Are we able to route around them?¡±


    ¡°Impossible. The people on the run entered the tunnel and that is our only route.¡±


    ¡°Damn.¡± The five members of the Falcon Regiment looked grim. It would not work to keep waiting here, as the Chaotic Swamp was unusually dangerous in the winter and the starving senior magic beasts were even more frightful.


    ¡°Mage Merlin, do you have any good ideas?¡± Canghong turned to Saleen and asked.


    ¡°Map.¡± Saleen¡¯s reply was extremely short.


    Pained, Canghong cleared arge surface area, took out the map, and opened it. This was a detailed map of the Chaotic Swamp. Canghong pointed to the bottom left corner, and said, ¡°This is the tunnel that we will need to go through, that was discovered by me.¡±


    Saleen gave a slight smile. He cast a memory spell which was a Grade 0 spell with no special properties. As long as he had sufficient mental power, it could be used. After memorizing the map, Saleen then calcted the length of the tunnel.


    It was roughly twelve miles long. Saleen said hesitantly, ¡°If we meet with these people, how confident are you in obtaining victory?¡±


    ¡°I am only unconfident about wiping them all out.¡± Canghong noticed that Saleen understood what he meant, and did not hide his intention to kill. Although Saleen and Sika would not publicize this mission, it could not be made known no matter what.


    ¡°What is the configuration of the Vulture Regiment squad?¡± Saleen carefully recalled the mercenary manual using his memory magic, finding the key to the question in his mind.


    ¡°Five-two configuration. Heavily armored swordsmen, archers, assassins, gun swordsmen, and a holy master.¡±


    ¡°No mages?¡±


    Canghong smiled bitterly and did not reply to the question. He thought to himself: mages are not potatoes that can be dug up from the soil at anytime. Within the Falcon Regiment that was a thousand people strong, there were only three mages and the highest grade was of Grade 3.


    ¡°I can cast the Fog of Confusion which has a thirty mile wide radius and canst two hours. We will pass through with normal speed. In the tunnel, I will add a Fluorescence spell so everyone can have a visionary range of around ten miles without alerting the enemies. Of course, it will be different matter if the other party has a mage.¡±


    ¡°Fluorescence spell?¡± Canghong had never heard of this spell, but illumination magic was often mentioned.


    ¡°It is a Grade 0 Water Series magic. The light created is very dim so it is suitable for hiding in unlit environments such as caves and underwater ces. However, I cannot guarantee us absolute cover. If we are discovered, all of you will deal with the opponents¡¯ archers. I am confident in eliminating the assassins.¡± Saleen said this calmly, but was uncertain in his heart. After all, he possessed littlebat experience, and the only thing he could count on was the other party not having a mage.


    As long as they did not meet with a mage, it would be easy to kill two assassins with a covert attack.


    Canghong was thrilled. He was worried about the other party¡¯s assassins fleeing during the conflict. In a dark cave, it was most troublesome to have to deal with assassins who were apt at hiding. He felt lucky to have hired a mage. Otherwise, he would have been stranded.


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s go in. Mage Merlin, please prepare the magic. Lucas, you will go to the front with me. Sika, I will trouble you and Sarah to stay in the back. Cook, you will protect Merlin. We have to depend on him to get us through. You will kill anyone who attempts to get near him without hesitation.¡±


    Canghong gave Cook a special reminder, since it was possible they would meet with their acquaintances. Any hesitation would result in the mage meeting with danger. In the Falcon Regiment, the mages were allowed to only deal with important missions. In other times, they simply spent money to support the mages. Everyone was already used to protecting mages, and regarded them as the cores of battles.


    Saleen did not oppose it. His Invisible Shield was a constant magic on his mage robe. It could be deployed in as fast as a second, but was never instantaneous.


    Instantaneous meant that a spell was prepared, cast, andpleted within the shortest amount of time. This speed was generally one thirtieth of a second, and was many times faster than the release of sword aura.


    Only at Grade 4 would a mage have their second instantaneous defense magic ¨C Ice te Armor. Before then, there was the Invisible Shield under Wind Magic which was the start of defense magic, followed by the slightly slower Skin Fossilization and the unstable Ring of mes. Saleen had not finished studying that obscure Water Shield spell, which was even slower than constant magic when it came to deployment.


    The sky darkened, and Saleen began to prepare his magic. The Fog of Confusion was a Grade 0 Water Magic spell. He had hardly practiced it but took only three seconds to deploy it. With him in the center, the greyish fog diffused in all directions, and swiftly extended to cover fifty miles in diameter.


    While awaiting thepletion and stabilization of the spell, Saleen began to prepare the second spell ¨C Grade 0 Fluorescence spell. He had beenpelled to practice this magic because he was unable to learn the illumination magic of the Light Series and the me magic in the Fire Series. Night Vision was a major Grade 6 magic, and was unattainable for him. Thus, he was forced to work with such obscure magic.


    The Fluorescence spell had advantagesparable to those of the Illumination spell. Although it was dim, it would not create any magical waves that could arouse the attention of others.


    While the fog was spreading, the members of the Falcon Regiment had their hearts in their mouths. This was because they had suddenly lost their vision. They could neither see nor hear Saleen or Sika¡¯s breathing.


    Only when their sword auras revolved could they subtly detect the existences of the two. However, Canghong and the others were experienced mercenaries, and had dealt with mages before. Therefore, they knew that what they felt might not be real. If the young mageunched an attack at this time, only a ranged attack would be of any significance in this fog.


    Saleen himself was not disturbed by the fog. He could see the expressions of the five in the Falcon Regiment, and smiled to himself. I had wanted to give you a warning, in case you turned the tables after aplishing the mission.

 Chapter 26: The Holy Master (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 26: The Holy Master (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When the weak fluorescent light lit up, everyone gradually regained sight of their surroundings. They also saw Saleen¡¯s half-smile. Canghong was shocked. He had indeed harbored thoughts of burning bridges after the mission, but now suppressed them. It would not be wise to turn against a mage over money.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen deployed the second Fluorescence spell. The view of their surroundings was even clearer now. Canghong waved his hand and Lucas came forward to join him.


    Usually, no mercenary regiment would assign their archer to be at the front, especially since Canghong was not a heavily armored swordsman himself. But at the moment, it was more important to guard their backs. The sunset had passed. Before darkness fell, a mass of grey fog floated into the crevice at the foot of mountain.


    This tunnel was unusually wide, but had a narrow entrance which was not easy to find. Upon entering, the squad immediately slowed down.


    Lucas patiently observed the track marks on the road to calcte the distance between them and the adventurers ahead of them. They would definitely meet the Vulture Regiment first. Based on their habits, the three squads would be separated, so for the first encounter they would meet ten people at most.


    The fluorescent light was surrounded by the fog and did not seem to seep out into it. Concealed in the darkness, Saleen and the others moved forward slowly. Nobody saw Saleen open his mouth and gently release three air bubbles. These three bubbles were almost transparent, and kept growingrger until they were asrge as a face basin.


    The transparent bubbles which could hardly be seen with the naked eye floated past Saleen. Saleen felt much safer with this.


    He could control three Water Shields at the same time. Any more than that, and he would not be able to withstand the exhaustion. The mutated water shield was much safer than the Invisible Shield, and only a Grade 2 mage at minimum could destroy it.


    Saleen was also wary of the men from the Falcon Regiment. Cook, who had a scar on his face, was well built. Saleen could not see his weapon, and so deduced that he could be a martial arts exponent or a bandit-like assassin who used daggers. Regardless, it was a threat to have him in such close proximity to a mage.


    Cook was secretly surprised as well that the young mage could actually sustain six spells at the same time. Although they could have been supported by magic nuclei, it was evident that the mage had strong mental power. Was he really a Grade 1 mage?


    The inside of the tunnel was extremely gloomy. Under the re of the fluorescent light, an area with a radius of dozens of meters was illuminated with a soft green glow, as though filled with evil spirits. Canghong, who had been leading the way, suddenly stopped, and Lucas began to signplicated hand gestures.


    Saleen had no idea what he was gesturing but he sensed the presence of enemies.


    Hiding at the fork road ahead of them were two men. If Saleen had not cast the Fog of Confusion, he might not have perceived their presences. Nothing under the cover of the fog could escape Saleen¡¯s senses.


    Lucas removed the short bow from his back as Saleen tried hard to find his enemies among the fog, but to no avail. Suddenly, a sharp sound pierced through the air. The opponent¡¯s archer had fired an arrow.


    Usually, each squad would only include one archer, but the Vulture Regiment used the rtively rare five-two configuration, which had two archers. Instantly, six arrows were shot into the area covered by the fog, straight into the center of the mist.


    The opponents were not able to detect the mage¡¯s position and could only attack based on experienced judgement. The six arrows sealed off their entire range of movement. There were blue rays on the tips of the arrows. Poisonous arrow tips!


    Although Saleen did not have legitimatebat experience, he had read a vast amount. After each time he had used the mysterious badge, he had used the time during which he lost control over his body to review his knowledge. Jason had a wide collection of books, especially magic notes. Most of them collected the experiences of mages, including that of theirbat experiences.


    When Saleen had deployed the Fog of Confusion, he had adjusted the spell slightly, so that the ce he was standing was off-center. All six arrows went straight towards Pino. Saleen quickly moved to the front, his hands ready with a spell. His targets were the two enemies within the area of the fog.


    The two men had concealed themselves extremely well, possibly because they were assassins.


    A white light shed, and a giant ice ball flew out from Saleen¡¯s hands. Flying faster than the arrows, it shot towards the two men hiding at the fork road. His action had exposed his position, and six arrows came again from afar, heading towards him.


    At this time, Lucas took action. He half-opened his short bow, attaching two metal eagle plumes. Lucas stood right in front of the squad. Anxious to exterminate the mage, the two archers had chosen to attack Saleen at the same time. Lucas immediately found the position of the archers. A red glint appeared in his eyes and his pupils dted swiftly as the metal eagle plumes flew out of his hand with a explosive sound.


    Cook was now standing behind Saleen. The six arrows flew overhead, and he pounced towards the top of the tunnel. There were no people waiting to ambush them there, and with this leap, he had jumped out of the area covered by the fog.


    Two assassins hid in ambush at the fork road. If this squad were to move forward another three meters, they would attack. However, because Canghong who was leading had suddenly stopped, they could only wait. In the fog, they had heard the mage¡¯s uneven breaths.


    As long as the mage was dead, this squad of seven would not be a threat. After they retreated from their attack, they would let the other two squads follow up with their attacks and harassment. In less than three days, this squad would copse.


    At such wishful thinking, a huge ice ball flew over, and for some strange reason, it had not made any sound.


    The snow white ice ball was twice as big as a person¡¯s head. The two bandits jumped up in fright. Could this mage¡¯s aim get any worse? The ice ball was flying towards the space in between them. Even if they did not move, they would not get hit.


    It was a dyed release. The chilly ice ball exploded and out flew dozens of sharp icicles. Because the distance was so close, almost all of the icicles were shot into the chests of the two bandits.


    The temperature of the icicles froze the wounds. The two bandits felt their bodies turning numb. Amazingly, they did not die instantly but instead gave nk stares to theirpatriots who stood opposite to them.


    A Grade 2 spell! This rare term appeared in the minds of the two bandits before they died.


    If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen, the entire squad would have been exposed to the ambush. The five from the Falcon Regiment were not wearing any heavy armor, and would definitely have been harmed by the arrows¡¯ precise attacks. The Fog of Confusion had caused the archers¡¯ arrows to lose their uracy. Saleen had deflected these two rounds of attacks with ease.


    Pino, however, was flustered. When his sword had been knocked away by the first round of attacks, there had been a small explosion. The opponent did not have any magic archers, only self-exploding magic arrows. The scattered fragments were blocked by Saleen¡¯s bubbles and Invisible Shield, and were not of any threat.


    Saleen continued to traverse along the stone wall. Two brief cries were heard, the opponent¡¯s archers having been killed by Lucas. There were sounds of fightinging from behind him. Sika was shouting something in that distinct voice of hers. He could not make out what she was saying, as it was in the Caucasusnguage. There was a spurt of fresh blood from at least fifteen meters away, which was blocked by Saleen¡¯s Invisible Shield.


    The fresh blood spread out on the Magic Shield, making it a demonic shade of purple in the fluorescent light.


    The winner of the sh had been determined in less than twenty seconds. The assassins¡¯ attack had been thwarted by Saleen. The two rounds of attacks by the opponent¡¯s archers had not hit their mage target but had instead exposed their locations, and Lucas¡¯ two eagle plumes had been drawn back to fire shortly after their release.


    Although the archers had been in, there were still the swordsmen with heavy armor, spear swordsmen, and holy master. The swordsmen with heavy armor could be hammered into a pulp by Sika¡¯s cudgel. In terms of strength, Caucasus women definitely had the upper hand.


    Cook crawled against the ceiling of the cave and soon discovered the holy master, who was desperately trying to cast a divine spell to save the spear swordsman. Canghong and Lucas were dealing with the other spear swordsman. There was a long whip in Canghong¡¯s hand, whereas Lucas had swapped out his bow for a three-edged dagger.


    There was a hole asrge as a bowl in the injured spear swordsman¡¯s chest armor, which had likely been brought about by the three-edged dagger. The three-edged dagger had its uses on the battlefield, primarily against heavily armored foot soldiers. Regr weapons were not able to pierce heavy armor, but heavy armor could easily be prated by the three-edged dagger. The three-edged dagger was short and was usually used as a form of auxiliary arm.


    The three-edged dagger was a weapon that was much detested by mercenaries when they were inbat. Most mercenaries would not be protected by heavy armor, much less magic armor, and leather armor was useless against a three-edged dagger. Although the three-edged dagger was sharp, once it prated the flesh, it would tear the wound. This spear swordsman had suddenly attacked Lucas, but had ended up being the one attacked by the archer instead. The treatment by the holy master would not have any effect.


    Cook moved down from the ceiling, a metal glove on his hand. Using the sharp des on each of the fingertips, he pounced at the holy master. Although a holy master¡¯s attacking prowess was not strong, they were good at treatments and defense. It would be difficult to pursue him once he had escaped. Cook had a wealth of experience behind him. When he noticed that the holy master had not assisted in attacking and had gone to treat the wounded instead, he knew that it would be irksome to deal with these two men. Hence, he had decided to be ruthless and kill off this ceremonial figure.


    Although the spear swordsman¡¯s wound had stopped bleeding, he still looked pale. The holy master stopped his treatment and pointed his finger skywards. A white glow engulfed his entire body instantaneously. Cook¡¯s movement was obstructed, and he felt as though he was being pricked all over by needles. Instead of pouncing, he found himself falling downwards forcefully.


    He was shocked. This was a senior holy master, who did not need to say any prayers to release offensive divine spells.


    To fall from the ceiling of the cave which was ten meters tall without the protection of the sword aura would at the very least cause a fracture. In the midst of the white light, Cook took a good look at the holy master.


    He was in his thirties, middle-aged, and dressed in a white robe. He looked saintly against the white light. Cook was paralyzed with fear, seeing the holy master¡¯s finger point towards his head.


    Saleen did not dispel the Fog of Confusion. He leaned against the stone wall, carefully sensing and scanning for enemies who had fallen into his trap. Although Canghong had said that the opponent had only ten men, any slip up could be fatal. Thetent ability of the two men he had killed was almost at Grade 4. If they were of any higher level, he would not have been so confident of their true locations.


    If an assassin at the level of Grade 4 appeared, he would be in trouble. A shadow moved. It was Lucas who had appeared next to Saleen. Fresh blood was smeared on one side of his body. Sarah dashed to the front like a gust of wind, holding a Qin Empire flexible sword. Weapons such as the flexible sword were only used by swordsmen from Qin Empire, mainly because the use of it involved arduous practice.

 Chapter 27: The Holy Master (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 27: The Holy Master (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Lucas saw that Cook was in danger, he withdrew his three-edged dagger and charged towards the holy master without hesitation. Without even turning his head, the holy master waved his hand and a shield of light appeared behind his body. The shield blocked the three-edged dagger and brought it to the ground with a ng. Lucas jumped out of the battle zone and took out his short bow. At that moment, Sarah dashed forward, her snake-like flexible sword aimed at the holy master¡¯s ankle. However, when she curled up her body and positioned herself at a low angle, she had poised herself for defeat.


    Seeing Sarah, the holy master frowned. He pointed his finger downwards and a white light shot out, hitting Sarah¡¯s flexible sword. Sarah felt a scorching heat on the palm holding her sword, and practically smelled her flesh burning.


    Bang! Cook fell heavily to the ground, the impact of his fall greater than if he had fallen naturally. Even Saleen, who was far off in the distance, could hear the breaking of Cook¡¯s bones.


    Immediately, a shot of ck light aimed at the holy master¡¯s chest flew from Lucas¡¯ bow. Lucas, afraid that the holy master had killed Cook, repeatedly shot arrows at him. The holy master¡¯s white robe continuously emitted a bright light and with every arrow, he retreated half a step. However, none of the arrows pierced his white robe.


    Lucas withdrew, as Canghong had gotten himself into a precarious situation. Thest standing swordsman who was clearly the squad leader was dressed in magic armor. On some asions, he did not duck from the leather whip that was aimed at him by Canghong. Sparks of fire sttered out as though the strikes could hardly hurt his body. Despite this, he did not stop moving his sword, creating two gashes on Canghong¡¯s metal armor.


    Pino was already injured, as he had been shot by four of the arrows. Of the arrows, two had carried explosives. His face was full of scratches, and there were several metal arrows protruding from his leather armor. When it came to defense, he was not as capable as Saleen. It was his agility that had helped him escape from the most fatal attacks. The opponent had managed to cause such damage to their squad despite not being able to aim urately. If Lucas had not used those two eagle plumes against them, the squad would have been crushed.


    As the white light entered the fog, the holy master appeared in front of Saleen. Grade 1 magic was no match for senior divinity. This he already knew. Once the holy master emerged, there was no chance that their opponents wouldunch a surprise attack. The result of this battle was doomed.


    Saleen¡¯s magic had destroyed the opponent¡¯s archers and also killed two bandits. Sika had demolished the opponent¡¯s heavily armored swordsman, which prevented Canghong¡¯s squad from being attacked from all sides.


    Saleen felt that Sika was truly brutal. Her huge cudgel had hair attached to it, which he found disgusting. On the other end of the cudgel was the swordsman in heavy armor who had a steel helmet. If he hadn¡¯t been struck into pieces with one blow, the hair at the end of Sika¡¯s cudgel would not be there.


    On the other hand, Sika did not see anything wrong in what she had done, as she was only protecting Saleen. In her heart, his standing was equivalent to that of the priest in her vige. Protecting the priest was the responsibility of every Caucasus individual. In addition, she owed Saleen a few hundred gold coins. Therefore, whoever dared to touch Saleen would have their skull broken in one blow by her cudgel. It was the fear of every Caucasus individual to have his or her creditor die.


    Pino quietly dressed his wound. Saleen took his metal water sk and passed it to him.


    ¡°This is restorative water. There is poison in your wound. Give it a wash.¡± Saleen saw that Pino¡¯s flesh had begun to turn ck and purple, and could not stand by doing nothing.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Pino grit his teeth and took the water sk from him. He was now well aware that Saleen had ced him in the center of the fog to bait their opponent into firing. He did not hold any grudges towards him, for if it had been up to Canghong, he would have done the same. No regiment would be foolish enough to allow a mage to face off with their opponent¡¯s archers. As long as the mage was alive, the squad had a chance of reversing their fates.


    As expected, Saleen¡¯s restorative water worked better than medicine. It might have taken effect more slowly with internal injuries, but after a wash, the poison in the surface of Pino¡¯s wound had been cleared away.


    Sarah ran towards Canghong and he dodged, giving up his ce. As Sarah held her sword in her left hand, ready to attack, Canghong used his long whip to pull the injured Cook back.


    In less than a minute, this was followed by the sound of the Falcon Regiment grouping together.


    ¡°Stop!¡± The holy master shouted, having no ce to retreat. However, no one stopped as they had already killed eight people and it was toote for talks of diplomacy. The opponent hadid an ambush and had not had good intentions to start with.


    ¡°I am from the Holy See. Today¡¯s incident was an ident,¡± the holy master yelled in frustration. His power was greater than his that of his opponents, but hecked coordination. Attacking divine spells were, after all, not magic. It would be impossible for him to kill all of his opponents.


    Saleen narrowed his gaze and whispered, ¡°Sika, did you kill the holy master in the back?¡±


    ¡°Yes, he could not endure it. I killed him easily with my cudgel,¡± Sika said casually, as though she had stepped on an ant. Caucasus people liked mages but not holy masters, as thetter had been infiltrating the Caucasus Region to spread the glory of god. In the past few years, two to three tribes had begun to be controlled by the Holy See and as a result, the Caucasus people had declined and forgotten their basic dignity.


    ¡°Hmph.¡± Saleen huffed through his nostrils, ncing at Pino. He saw Pino¡¯s hesitation and knew that the Falcon Regiment would not risk offending the Holy See. However, Sika had already killed a holy master, and who could be sure if that unlucky fellow had not been someone from the Holy See?


    Pino felt the air turn colder by a few degrees and tried to hand the metal water sk back to Saleen. Saleen did not take it and instead walked a few steps forward, telling Canghong loudly, ¡°Leave that swordsman to me. If you still want to carry on with your mission, kill this person. We can¡¯t turn back now.¡±


    Canghong grit his teeth and nodded, as he knew that the dead holy master had probably had ties with the Holy See. Since the deed had been done, there was no room for regret, unless he was able to kill Saleen and Sika as well. However, it appeared that there was no reason to do so since both of them possessed unexpectedly strongbat power. He also needed recements for the two people who had sustained injuries, and thus had no reason to break ties with Saleen.


    The holy master saw that the mage had spoken and his eyes were filled with fear. Saleen did not even look at him, beginning to prepare his magic. At the battle earlier, Saleen had not even used up ten percent of his magic chords. But now, he was preparing a Grade 2 spell which he only had one chance with. That swordsman was wearing magic armor and a Grade 1 spell would not be sufficient.


    A Grade 1 mage would usually only be able to learn one Grade 2 spell. In addition, all it took was one use and the magic chords would bepletely exhausted. However, Saleen¡¯s magic chords were different and were double that of his peers. In situations where none of his magic chords were exhausted, he would be able to deploy two Grade 2 spells consecutively.


    In terms ofbat range and power, Grade 2 magic was an entirely different concept from Grade 1 magic. Saleen was not well versed in Grade 2 magic, and required the use of magic hand gestures and chants to release the magic. The opponent¡¯s spear swordsman started to panic, but he had been trapped by Sarah¡¯s flexible sword and could neither attack nor escape.


    In the midst of his low indistinct chanting, a white mark appeared between both of Saleen¡¯s hands. The white line extended through the air, straight towards the spear swordsman¡¯s chest. A bright red ray emerged from the de of the swordsman¡¯s spear as he tried to defend himself.


    He gave it his all, forcing all of his newly attained sword aura onto his weapon. This was equivalent to a self-crippling stroke. Even if he were able to defend against Saleen¡¯s magic, he would not be able to avoid being badly hurt. He had hope in his heart that if the holy master could settle this matter, his injuries would be inconsequential.


    His hope was quickly diminished. Once Sarah saw that Saleen was dealing with him, she released him from her sword and ran towards the holy master with no intention of attacking him.


    The white mark had been an ice arrow. Ice arrows and icicles were used simrly in attacks but were different in terms of power and the appropriate distance for usage. The spear swordsman¡¯s weapon had been frozen solid after blocking Saleen¡¯s attack. The blood flow in both his arms had nearly been frozen solid as well. If he were only a grand swordmaster instead of a junior swordsman, he could have broken out of Saleen¡¯s spell with a strike.


    Once Sika saw that Saleen had made his move, she leapt over ten meters in distance. In just a few steps, she had reached the spear swordsman and struck him with her cudgel.


    Her cudgel was thick in front and thin at the end, and was heavier than the war hammer used in battles. The spear swordsman had just taken a relieved breath when Sika¡¯s cudgel appeared before him. He could not dodge or raise his spear to protect himself. He was relieved that Sika was a female and that her weapon, while thick, did not appear genuine.


    ¡°Crack!¡± The spear broke into three pieces after being hit by Sika¡¯s cudgel. The cudgelnded heavily on the spear swordsman¡¯s shoulder. Sika herself was shocked by the impact andter realized that Saleen¡¯s ice arrow had frozen the sword and made it brittle. No matter how powerful her opponent was, they would not have been able to withstand her single blow. Looking at the bloody battleground, Saleen shook his head. As a delicate and beautiful girl, Sika¡¯s method of attack was too bloody. However, Sika herself did not seem to think so, wiping off the blood on her cudgel on the opponent¡¯s body before returning to Saleen¡¯s side.


    The Falcon Regiment had no more worries. Together with Cook, who had fractured his right shoulder, everyone began to head towards the holy master. If word got out that this incident had urred, everyone would be in big trouble. The inquisitors in the Holy See were not vegetarians, and were, in truth, maniacs. The thought of the legends involving the inquisitors sent chills down everyone¡¯s spines. The only way out would be to silence the holy master.


    The holy master¡¯s face turned fierce. He knew that a singlemand by Saleen would send him to his death. Knowing that there was no way out, the holy master suddenly knelt down. Saleen was shocked by his actions, thinking that he was perhaps asking for forgiveness. However, in an instant, the light rays from the holy master¡¯s body intensified andnded on everyone in a magnificent brilliance, causing piercing pain and making it impossible for them to open their eyes.


    He started to recite a prayer: God had said followers, you do not have to panic¡­


    Canghong felt a chill go through his heart ¨C he was actually summoning God! ¡®Summoning God¡¯ was what it wasmonly referred to as; the Holy See referred to it as the descent technique. In an instant, it could increase the holy master¡¯s power. Of course, after God had been summoned, the holy master would suffer a sorry fate. Usually, no holy master would do such a thing, unless he was a fanatic.


    The descent technique could not be used by just anyone ¨C only holy members of the Holy See could use it and minimally, only a high priest of Grade 1 level could deploy it. A Grade 1 level high priest of a formal position would own at least arge cathedral, with thousands of followers.

 Chapter 28: The One Who Should Not Have Been Killed (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 28: The One Who Should Not Have Been Killed (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This time, things had gone awry. If a Grade 1 high priest were to die here, the Holy See was bound to investigate. Canghong felt that either way, they were all dead. He made an featureless facial expression, straightened the soft whip he held in his hand, and pointed it directly at the holy master as though it were a gun.


    The lighting from the holy master¡¯s body intensified and it seemed practically as though his clothes were burning. A part of Canghong¡¯s soft whip suddenly transformed into a ck snake head and took a ferocious bite at the holy master¡¯s chest.


    After the snake head entered the holy light surrounding the holy master¡¯s body, it shrank in size. Its bite did not hurt the holy master, and he only jerked once and continued chanting his prayers.


    The metal eagle plumes shot by Lucas were deflected by the holy light, while Sarah¡¯s attacks with her flexible sword did not even pierce his clothes. Worst of all was Cook, who had twisted his wrist after trying unsessfully to use his steel ws to strike the holy master¡¯s stomach.


    ¡°Sika, you and Pino go¡­¡± Saleen said. He did not want Pino to stay at his side, but if Sika still did not act, it was possible that they would be toote. Once the holy master finished his prayers, everyone would die. As to whether there was another ambush waiting for them, Saleen could not care less. Without saying anything, Pino raised his long sword and charged towards the holy master.


    Sika followed after Pino. Once she saw that Pino¡¯s long sword was about to pierce through the holy master¡¯s throat, she sped up and raised herrge cudgel to strike the holy master. Boom!


    Both Sika and Pino had hit their target simultaneously. The long sword fell to the side, while Sika¡¯s cudgel bounced upwards, causing Sika to roll backwards. The light from the holy master¡¯s body faded, and fell forward lifelessly. His face hit the ground with force, as he gave out a frightening cry.


    As an archer with recent war experience and the one with bnced power within the squad, Lucas reacted quickly. He picked up the three-edged dagger from the floor and stabbed the holy master in the back of his head. The light surrounding the holy masterpletely extinguished. Everyone breathed a heavy sigh of relief and stopped their attacks in fatigue.


    The three-edged dagger had prated through the holy master¡¯s skull and struck the floor, forming arge palm-sized wound. Even if the oracle arrived, it would be impossible to treat such an injury. The holy master was still writhing on the floor, refusing to die. At this time, Sika stopped rolling and looked in amazement at the holy master who had been pinned to the ground.


    ¡°Good job, Sika!¡± Pino turned back to praise her.


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t me!¡± Sika said doubtfully, thinking that it was impossible for her cudgel to have broken the holy master¡¯s defense. It was only possible that she had slowed him down.


    ¡°Be careful!¡± Canghong yelled, his soft whip letting out a whistling sound as he struck.


    Lucas should have used his short bow to attack but it would not have prevented the following from happening. A shadow wormed its way into Cook¡¯s abdomen, causing Cook to bounce up violently to a height of almost three meters before he was forcefully dropped to the ground. There was a gaping hole in his abdomen, fresh blood dripping from the wound.


    ¡°What was that?¡± Everyone was at a loss. Cook was writhing about on the ground. While his abdomen no longer hurt, it had begun to grow numb. He felt that his life was fading away as the organism in his abdomen released poison profusely, absorbing his fluids at the same time. Soon, the wound in Cook¡¯s abdomen had widened to a chasm nearly one foot wide in diameter.


    Saleen clutched a Grade 3 magic nucleus in his hand, frantically trying to speed up the recovery of his magic chords. However, because only one minute had passed since the battle, the magic chords he had recovered were not sufficient enough to support a Grade 1 spell. Saleen regretted not having anticipated the dangers they would face. He should have bought a few magic scrolls as a precaution.


    ¡°Cook ¡­¡± Sarah knelt down, wanting to help. A ck creature leapt at Sarah,ing from Cook¡¯s abdomen. Sarah rolled away and Pino¡¯s sword struck this ck creature. It made a squealing sound and flew towards the stone wall. At this moment, everyone realized that it was a ck spider covered in ck bristles, with six revolving eyes.


    A simr spider appeared from behind the body of the dead holy master. Both spiders huddled together and did not attempt to escape.


    ¡°Witcher spiders!¡± Saleen eximed loudly. Canghong and the others were furious that it appeared Cook would not be able to survive. The holy master had also been killed by the witcher spider. Sika¡¯s attack on him had only paused his divine spell, allowing the witcher spider to find a gap to enter the holy master¡¯s body.


    While absorbing the magic nuclei in his hands, Saleen tried his best to control the threerge air bubbles and protect himself. In ten minutes, he would recover his fighting power. Canghong and the others seemed to have forgotten the danger and headed towards the two witcher spiders.


    Saleen sighed and whispered, ¡°Sika, go help them. I am fine here.¡±


    He knew that while it should not have been a problem for four people to deal with two spiders, the spiders were hard to kill because they were agile. And, if their attack was prolonged, idents could ur.


    The witcher spider was a Grade 4 creature and did not have a magic nucleus. However, it possessed lethal poison and was fast. It also had fangs that could gnaw at magic or holy shields. It was good at hiding and did not know how to spin webs. Instead, it preferred to roam within caves and hunt for magic beasts. It would enter the bodies of magic beasts and release venom, absorbing the mass of juices from the melted internal organs. Most of the time, the witcher spider acted alone.


    The eight ws of the witcher spider were usually sharp and could prate the skins of magic beasts before entering their bodies. This creature was the favorite pet of mages. However, given that Canghong and the others were intent on killing them, Saleen did not advise them otherwise. Oh, what a waste of two magic pets!


    Canghong¡¯s soft whip had caught one of witcher spiders. Its front w moved and cut through the whip, and then it retreated. Sika rushed over, taking two to three steps. Her cudgelnded on the witcher spider¡¯s body. The spider squealed upon being smashed but it did not die and instead spat out ck venom. Sika dodged the venom, and the ttened spider shook it ws and unbelievably stood up.


    Saleen felt that he had recovered some of his magic chords and attempted to prepare magic. After his chanting waspleted, a white light appeared from the ground and sessfully trapped the other witcher spider.


    Saleen¡¯s spell had caused the witcher spider to instantaneously be coated by ayer of white frost. Lucas¡¯s eagle plume shot out quickly enough to pin the witcher spider to the floor. Saleen knew he did not have any potent spells he could use. At first, he had intended to use two Grade 2 spells. However, in order to speed up the deployment when killing the spear swordsman, he had needed to exhaust his magic chords. After he had exhausted his magic chords, he had to rely on the magic nuclei to recover. As such, it was impossible to use Grade 2 magic. He could only use Grade 1 magic, which was his Water Magic with pathetically low capabilities.


    Without the support of the swordsmen, he would not have been able to kill the pair of witcher spiders. Likewise, without Saleen¡¯s magic, the swordsmen would not have seeded in killing the fast-moving Grade 4 creatures.


    Saleen began to understand why mages were so well regarded. Even a Grade 1 mage could change the oue of battle. He stopped Canghong and the others from destroying the spider carcasses. He said, ¡°I need aplete witcher spider¡¯s carcass to create a puppet. You can also sell the other carcass for money.¡±


    Canghong and the others calmed down, and realized that what Saleen had said made sense. Cook was already dead and even if they destroyed the bodies of the witcher spiders, it would not bring him back. All of them wordlessly went back to the inside of the cave to retrieve their baggage, and Saleen held onto the carcass of the spider that had been ttened. Currently, he could not even produce a scroll, much less a puppet which required even more profound knowledge in magic. However, the witcher spider, as an element, was hard toe by as they roamed alone and were hard to spot in dark caves. Even without a magic nucleus, the ws of a witcher spider could be used to break spells or defend against a holy master. It was one of the best elements to use in the creation of a puppet.


    cing the ck witcher spider in his leather sack, Saleen¡¯s magic chords had recovered by twenty percent. He was able to deploy four Grade 1 spells. At this moment, his water shields disappeared, the threerge air bubbles not existing anymore. Saleen silently made a calction; now that the water shield had mutated, it would notst any longer than three minutes. He reckoned that the spell could only support one battle and was not sufficient for a long, drawn-out defense.


    The remaining four members of the Falcon Regiment began to dig a hole to bury Cook. Saleen started to collect the loot. The people killed by Sika had their armorspletely broken, leaving no value for them to be collected. The opponent¡¯s archers did not have any magic arrows, and only had a few gold coins.


    After the bodies were gathered together, Saleen finally found a letter on the holy master, as well as his badge. The back of the badge had inscriptions in Tanggsi. Upon reading it, Saleen was speechless. The badge indicated that the holy master was a Grade 1 high priest from the Cathedral of El Salvador and his name was Kosian.


    To make matters worse, the writer of the letter had used an authoritative tone to ask that the Grade 1 high priest be allowed to enter the Chaotic Swamp to carry out a mission for the Holy See. There was only a code name, and no description on what the mission was.


    Kosian himself had not known what the code name referred to. He was a forerunner, making use of the Vulture Regiment to enter the Chaotic Swamp to await further orders. The author of the letter had a strange sign off ¨C Fycro. At the end of the letter, there was a seal. While Saleen did not know much about the Holy See, he recognized the seal. It represented that Kosian, the unlucky holy master, had received orders from the Holy See. Saleen passed the letter around and the mood in the cave turned even more somber.


    In the Myers Maind, the Holy See held control over the Tanggsi Empire. Having managed it for more than two hundred years, they had be a formidable entity. In addition, the sacred knights which patrolled the glorious ins and the inquisitors which were disassociated from the Privy Council were known to strike fear in the hearts of many people.


    And these were just the conventional forces. People feared the seven oracles under the Pope most of all. It was said that the seven oracles had received the grace of god and each possessed power that was out of this world. Each oracle possessed the power of a Grade 9 mage. Saleen and the team had killed the forerunner of the seven oracles. Thinking this, Canghong just about wanted tomit suicide.


    If it had been an unimportant high priest who had disappeared, the Holy See would note all this way to investigate. However, this high priest was on a mission and his sudden disappearance would definitely imply a mishap. While the Falcon Regiment had not left any visible traces at the professional union apart from hiring two low-level mercenaries, there would definitely be someone who had seen Canghong and the others appear at Didypus. If the Holy See were to investigate, Canghong and the team would not be able to hide this fact.

 Chapter 29: The One Who Should Not Have Been Killed (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 29: The One Who Should Not Have Been Killed (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What shall we do?¡± Everyone looked at Canghong. This devilishly handsome man had lost hisposure at the moment. He could not respond to Saleen¡¯s question.


    ¡°From what I see, since the deed is already done, what we need to do now is think about how we will escape from being killed by Holy See,¡± said Saleen who was unsurprisingly calm. He had nned to go to the Qin Empire anyway, so he simply needed to bring up his ns. He had registered as a mercenary only to earn some money to pay for his expenses while practicing magic.


    Canghong was speechless. He had family back home. If this matter were to leak out, the inquisitors would attack his family, regardless of whether they were involved in this. He would not be able to stay in the Sikeqinya Empire and if he ran away, he could only go to the Qin Empire where there were no unions. By doing so, the five thousand gold pieces would go down the drain along with his own savings, as they were all ced in the Sikeqinya Empire¡¯s bank. While the bank would not confiscate his assets because of his crime, he would be too afraid to return.


    All of his savings from the past few years and the deaths of five close-knit mercenaries in exchange for the status of a fugitive? The relics at the Chaotic Swamp would either be of some constion, or he would end up with nothing.


    ¡°Let¡¯splete the mission at hand first. Regardless of what we find in the relics, after we havepleted the expedition, Sika and I will go to the Qin Empire. All of you might as well take the boat to the Cloudflow Empire. If the Holy See cannot find any of you, it will not be impossible for them to conclude that it was done by you,¡± Saleen said eloquently, as though he had not been involved in the killing of the holy master.


    ¡°This is the way things have to be then,¡± said Canghong agonizingly. He could only hope that the relics from the Chaotic Swamp would not disappoint.


    ¡°Let me rest for twenty minutes. Once I have regained my magic chords, we can continue to advance,¡± Saleen said. He did not want to aggravate Canghong and the others but wanted to remind them that there could be unknown enemies up ahead. This was not the time to be upset and nervous.


    ¡°Everyone enter the fork road and get some rest. We will leave in twenty minutes.¡± Canghong gave a simple order, feeling a little dejected.


    While Saleen appeared to be calm on the surface, he was, in fact, panicking inside. The consequences of offending Earl Sufonso were nothingpared to those of offending the Holy See. It was bound to end badly. Even if he were a Grade 6 mage with a magical tower, the lunatics from the tribunal would still attack him anyway.


    Any contradictions involving religion only resulted in a situation without an end. The Holy See did not have any churches in the Qin Empire but the religious inquisition was everywhere, which would make it difficult for Saleen to practice in seclusion.


    Saleen continued to maintain his outwardly calmposure and focused hard on absorbing the magic nuclei to recover his magic chords. The situation had reached the point of no return. There was no use being vexed over it, and the only way forward would be to improve his abilities. After killing the son of Earl Sufonso, Saleen finally understood the importance of a person¡¯s capabilities.


    If he were a mage master, Earl Sufonso¡¯s son would have released Da on his ount. He would have not have needed to run away, would not have met Canghong, and of course, would not have killed the high priest from the Holy See.


    This was destiny ¨C an insignificant beginning had determined the oue. Canghong was influenced by Saleen and had unconsciously calmed down. It was very clear to him that from now on, he would not be able to return to the Falcon Regiment. While they were a Grade 4 regiment, they would not offend the Holy See over a squad leader like him. The most important thing right now would be to kill his way through this tunnel and eliminate everyone ahead of them so that his squad was not exposed. Once he obtained the relics from the Chaotic Swamp, he would leave and never return to Sikeqinya.


    The Cloudflow Empire had many inds and it would be impossible for the ws of the Holy See to reach any of them there, much less find him. However, there were four squads ahead of them, of which two were from the Vulture Regiment, one was a fugitive squad, and thest was a hunting squad. Thebined strength of these squads was more than that of his squad. In addition, Cook was dead; Lucas had used up half of his eagle plumes; Pino was hurt and one of Sarah¡¯s arms was injured. Would such a squad be able to reach the relics sessfully?


    Canghong looked at Saleen. More than half of Saleen¡¯s magic chords had recovered and the fluorescent light had returned along with the Fog of Confusion, cing the entire team under the protection of his magic. Canghong could not feel any fluctuations in the emotions of this young mage. It was as though the person they had killed was only a normal person, and not a Grade 1 high priest under the seven oracles. Canghong was relieved that he at least had a Grade 1 mage who could allow the squad to disy their extraordinary fighting capabilities.


    This young mage knew a thing or two about assassins. Therefore, the remaining four would only need to deal with the archers and holy masters, which wereparatively easier opponents. Saleen raised his gaze and looked at Canghong with his blue eyes, smiling and saying, ¡°Do not worry. If this were the wilderness, we would have no chance of winning. However, in this environment, unless there is a mage of a higher grade, we will not meet with any danger. Let us continue.¡±


    The remaining four people from the Falcon Regiment gathered in silence. This time, Sarah was in front, Lucas was at the back, and Pino and Canghong followed Saleen. Sika carried herrge cudgel and followed closely behind Saleen. Any sounds within the cave could be heard from afar, and Sarah did not dare go too far beyond the Fog of Confusion. The squad maintained a steady but slow pace as they moved forward.


    After about twenty minutes, Sarah stopped and waited for Saleen and the others to catch up before making some hand gestures. Canghong sighed silently. It seemed that luck was back on their side. There was only a small squad ahead of them. The Vulture Regiment did not seem to know that theirpatriots behind them had met with mishap, and were instead focused on the squads ahead.


    He knew that Saleen was only a Grade 1 mage and would not know the Mute Enchantment spell. He wrote on the ground with his fingers, ¡°Same spell as before, but at half the speed.¡±


    Saleen nodded his head, indicating that he had understood.


    In the fog, the entire squad reduced their speed to half of what it had been before and continued to edge forward. Saleen began to use his instincts to search for the opponent¡¯s assassins. For a junior mage, assassins were most troublesome. Without a high level magic shield, a mage would find it hard to anticipate the sudden attacks of assassins. If the assassin had mastered the sword aura, an attack out of nowhere would easily pierce the defenses of an invisible shield.


    Before a mage attained Grade 4, assassins were a mage¡¯s natural enemies, putting them at unease. Saleen did not have muchbat experience and most of his knowledge was from books. However, he hadmitted to memory the one experience shared by mages, which was that in a battle, the assassins should be killed as soon as possible. Regardless of how strong a swordsman was, his skills were bnced at best. As long as the mage did notmit any major errors, it would be easy to win the battle if their opponent was of the same skill level. Although assassins also practiced the sword aura, they were better at hiding. Their sudden bursts of power made them more lethal than swordsmen. The best way to deal with an assassin was to kill them before they could react.


    Fortunately for Saleen, while the Fog of Confusion was only a Grade 1 spell, it could not be countered by means other than magic. It was also difficult to determine if the fog was caused by magic or was a natural phenomenon. It was the autumn season, and there was a great deal of fog surrounding the Chaotic Swamp. Saleen found the locations of the two assassins in no time. They were in a crevice in between the rocks at the top of the cave. If Saleen¡¯s manufactured fog had not covered such arge area, it would have been difficult to spot the two assassins.


    While Saleen was initially happy, he suddenly wondered why the two assassins were at the back instead of in front of the squad as they typically would be. They could not have discovered his existence, because if they had known that the fog was created by a mage, they would have known that they had been exposed. If that were so, they would not still be hiding at that spot waiting for his magic to take effect.


    Saleen grabbed hold of Canghong¡¯s hand and held on to him. He steered his eyes towards the top of the cave, not knowing how to express his thoughts. He regretted not having learned more about mercenaries. Their hand gestures wereplicated and were good enough to rece signnguage. In desperation, Saleen controlled the Fluorescence spell and beamed a green fluorescent ray into the air to create a sentence: ¡°Assassins at the back, situation not good.¡±


    Canghong had more experience than Saleen and immediately understood what he meant. At the same time, he was full of admiration for this young mage. Canghong could tell that Saleen and Sika were rookie mercenaries and did not have much experience. However, throughout the journey, they had not created any trouble for him and had instead been the main forces duringbat. Without the young mage, the squad would have died at thest encounter. Even if they had killed the holy master, they would have been killed by the witcher spiders after.


    Canghong gestured his hand against his throat, indicating for Saleen to kill both of the assassins. Saleen nodded and a white light began to appear in his hands. Despite it being an old fashioned method, arge ice ball flew up towards the top of the cave, aiming for the area in between the two assassins.


    The two assassins were more powerful than the previous two. With this sudden attack, not caring whether the ice ball was aimed at them, both leaped out from the crevice.


    These werepetent assassins, the natural enemies of mages, given their acute sensitivity to dangers. In terms of mental power, a strong assassin was not weaker than a mage, and some assassins even used magical tools.


    Saleen sneered to himself: If you could escape this, I would not be a mage. He pursed his lips into a line and focused his mental power, bringing the flying ice ball to a stop right in between both assassins.


    To most people, a mage¡¯s magic and a bow and arrow worked the same way. Once a bow was released, there was no way for the arrow to be retracted. However, magic could be manipted. Such techniques that could pause a spell after it had been released were quite rare. However, not many mages were willing to spend that much mental power to control their spells this way. Given the current scenario, a senior mage would only need to release a magic spell for both assassins to be killed. A mage¡¯s usual consecutive attacks used a Grade 2 release coupled with an instantaneous release, creating the effect of a thunderstorm.

 Chapter 30: The Ascetic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 30: The Ascetic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was different from other mages in that he especially cherished his magic chords. As his mental power was always brimming and nevercking, he strived to practice his control of magic. This ice ball suddenly stopped in midair and exploded, causing tens of icicles to pierce the bodies of the assassins.


    These two assassins had mastered the sword aura, but the low temperature of the icicles had caused their blood to coagte instantly. If their blood was not flowing, they would not have any energy. Sika, who was beside Saleen, had been extremely alert, as her boomerang had already flown out of her hands.


    Saleen grew more reassured. Unless these two assassins had mastered the Dead Soul spell, they would not be a threat to him dead.


    The attack this time was efficient. However, the existence of the squad was exposed. In an instant, the battle before them had started. Saleen said to Sika in a low voice, ¡°You go up front and kill their holy master.¡±


    ¡°What about you?¡± Sika was a little worried. In the Caucasus region, the greatest honor for an outstanding warrior like her was to protect the priests. Sika was a muddled girl, but she held high regards for the word ¡®honor¡±. If she had not met Saleen, there was a high possibility that she would have been tricked by a mercenary regiment into performing hardbor instead.


    Saleen¡¯s face was green under the illumination of the Fluorescence spell. He grit his teeth and said, ¡°Go quickly!¡±


    Sika had no idea why Saleen was irritated. From what she had seen, she did not consider such a battle tough. The opponent¡¯s swordsmen possessed simr abilities, and the mage on their side would be sufficient in influencing the result of the battle.


    Sika was not to be med for not understanding Saleen¡¯s anxiousness. Saleen appearedposed, but he was, in fact, regretful of this expedition. His greatest regret was killing that holy master. In this group, he was one who read the most, and he understood the significance of the oracles of the Holy See.


    On the surface, the status of an oracle was below that of the religion. However, the capabilities of an oracle were superior to that of the religion. Since what was done was done, he could not turn back. Saleen wanted to kill all of the people who had seen him and try his best to escape to the Qin Empire before the arrival of an oracle.


    For a Grade 1 mage, it was not embarrassing to be on the run, especially in a situation where the forces of the enemy could bepared to that of a Grade 9 mage. Saleen¡¯s decision could be considered smart.


    Sika put her boomerang back into the leather case and removed the huge cudgel on her back. With a leap, she jumped out of the cover of the Fog of Confusion. Saleen was shocked by the distance of her leap; that was an unbelievably huge leap!


    Sika held some grievances in her heart and they could not be vented out on Saleen. Thus, she vented it all out on their opponents.


    The physiques of the Caucasus people were constitutionally stronger than that of standard swordsmen. Sika was from a warrior lineage; her humongous cudgel was made from the thigh bone of an exterminated magic beast and was a hundred times sturdier than a metal rod. She leaped out of the Fog of Confusion and had in one blow, hit the holy master on his head.


    With a titter, the holy master who had been attending to hispatriot had his head smashed into pieces like a watermelon by the cudgel. The hot fluids from his brain sttered everywhere. The spear swordsman, whom the holy master had been attending to, was instantly drenched by the white shiny liquid and some entered his mouth and nose.


    Without waiting for him to be disgusted, Sika¡¯s cudgelnded on his head in an instant.


    The defensive power of a spear swordsman was not lower than that of a shield swordsman. The problem was that Sika¡¯s cudgel was not something their heads could withstand. The blow instantly intensified the disgusting smell in the air. This spear swordsman had suffered incontinence just before his death, and the cave was filled with a strange smell as though a carnivorous beast had just passed through.


    After wiping out the wounded, Sika went in search of the other holy master. The battle ahead was very intense. Lucas¡¯ eagle plumes were used up, and he was using his three-edged dagger inbat. He was fighting the heavily armored swordsmen; two heavily armored swordsmen together attacking an archer. Even if Lucas had mastered closebat skills, it was not possible for him to be a match for the heavily armored swordsmen.


    Sika ignored him, because Sarah who wielded a flexible sword was in a more dangerous situation. Sarah was using martial skills from the Qin Empire which were more effective in a small scale battle such as this onepared to in a war. If the sword aura was not taken into consideration, Sarah would surely be the one with the strongest martial skills in this squad.


    Now, Sarah was being attacked by a short-haired, middle-aged man. Her right hand, which had been treated by Saleen earlier, was injured again, and there was blood seeping through her leather jacket.


    Canghong and Pino were in no better of a situation. The first round of sneak attacks had killed a spear swordsman and two archers. Now they were up against a heavily armored swordsman. Canghong¡¯s brilliant armor had lost its sheen of yesteryears and grown greyish. There were prominent cuts on his chest, one of which had almost caused his armor to be chopped into two.


    Canghong¡¯s armor, which appeared hardly substantial, was in fact a piece of magic armor. The heavily armored swordsman waved around a heavy sword that was as broad as a door nk, and was leading the battle despite fighting one-to-two. Both Canghong and Pino did not dare sh with the heavily armored swordsman¡¯s weapon and struggled to dodge it in the narrow cave.


    The soft whip held on Canghong¡¯s soft boot had already been cut, and Pino¡¯s thin sword had long since been thrown off. In his hand was a sword de that he had picked up. Sika nced around the battleground and discovered something amiss. The opponents had eleven people. Saleen had killed two of them, she had killed two, and three corpses were on the ground, but there were four more opponents on the battlefield.


    Sika did not find the second holy master, and thus ran straight towards the short-haired man whom Sarah was battling.


    This short-haired man had no expression. He wore a simple linen robe and was an extremely normal-lookingmoner without anything unusual about his appearance. However, his martial skills were extraordinary. Sarah¡¯s wealth of battlefield experience was ineffective before him. Her flexible sword was like a dead snake, no longer agile like before.


    ¡°Be careful, he is an ascetic!¡± Canghong had been shed thrice by the heavily armored swordsman¡¯s heavy sword. His body flew through midair, but he did not neglect to remind Sika of this. Sika was now their primary force, and Canghong realized that his gold coins had been well spent.


    What was an ascetic? Sika blinked as her huge cudgel flew sideways to block the short-haired man¡¯s attack on Sarah.


    On the short-haired man¡¯s hands were a pair of metal gloves which looked like the big hands used for constructing puppets. Sika¡¯s cudgel struck this big pair of hands with such a tremendous sound that Sika was dizzied by the vibrations.


    For the first time, she had lost to someone in terms of strength. In her tribe, even strongmen possessed less strength than her. This cudgel with a massive amount of kic energy had been blocked by a pair of normal-looking metal gloves.


    The short-haired man disyed an astonished expression on his face. This girl was strong. Without this pair of gloves, he would likely be defeated in no time.


    ¡°Mage,e on out.¡± The short-haired man was not bothered by Sika, instead calling out to Saleen who was inside the Fog of Confusion.


    Saleen refused to emerge. His awareness was exceptionally alert in the Fog of Confusion. This was a battle, not apetition of martial skills. Saleen was well aware that his skills would probably not do much harm to this ascetic. That pair of gloves was probably a high-level magical tool. This ascetic was practically indifferent to the lives and deaths of hispatriots. Saleen decided to kill the others first. As for this ascetic, things woulde down to his own luck.


    High-level magical tools required their users to be at least Grade 4. As this ascetic was of a much higher grade than himself, Saleen even had the urge to turn around and flee. However, Sika was holding the fort at the front, and he could not leave her behind.


    Sika gave her numbed hands a shake. With a grave look, she began to speak in the Caucasusnguage. Saleen also knew the Caucasusnguage, but Sika¡¯s dialect carried an intonation from a special region. He basically did not understand what Sika was mumbling. However, Saleen was certain that Sika was not scolding anyone. The rhythm of her voice was clear, and carried a mysterious energy.


    As Sika chanted, scale patterns began to emerge from her huge cudgel. The patterns were dark green in color, and faint shes of light seeped through the lines. The cudgel came alive, as though it had been filled with an aura.


    The ascetic¡¯s face grew ashen, and he yelped, ¡°Heresy! Put down your evil weapon and return with me. Obey Lord Oracle¡¯s instruction.¡±


    ¡°You are sick!¡± Sika replied to the short-haired man in the maind¡¯smonnguage. She took a high leap, and delivered a blow with her cudgel.


    The material of Sika¡¯s weapon hade from an ancient magic beast. She had chanted a spell which was only used by Caucasus priests. This meant that Sika had received the blessings of the most senior priests. Amon Caucasus warrior could not use any witchery.


    Such an ability could only be bestowed upon someone by others. Progression was difficult to achieve, but it did not mean that such an ability was not strong. The cudgel had been revived by the chanting, and gave out a bellowing whine like the sound of the wind. The ascetic felt as though the weapon in the girl¡¯s hand had suddenly be an evil monster volleying down upon him.


    The ascetic was vignt by nature. He bit the tip of his tongue, and spat a mouthful of blood on that pair of metal gloves. Blood red runes immediately appeared on the golden gloves. Saleen, who had been watching the battle, recognized them as holy prose.


    Holy prose was not the words of the gods themselves, but were the words used tomunicate between prose believers and the gods. Only devoted believers would receive the holy prose. In other words, such people did not need to visit a temple to pray, and had the ability to receive the blessings of the gods on their own.


    An ascetic who knew holy prose! No matter what, he was not going to let this fellow get away. Saleen had forgotten about his fear at this moment, or rather, his fear had reached its peak. He had not been careful and hadnded himself into one of the Holy See¡¯s ns. This n was obviously no small affair, since it had been entrusted to an oracle. If he did not get rid of the oracle¡¯s people immediately, he would not need to wait for the people sent to kill him by Earl Sufonso. He would be killed in the Chaotic Swamp.


    Out of their group of seven, one was dead, and there was no knowing how many of them in the squad would make it out of the Chaotic Swamp. Saleen began to chant a spell, trying to get his Grade 2 magic to reach its peak potential.


    The Grade 2 spell that Saleen knew was the Ice Arrow spell. Be it speed, degree of pration, or freezing capabilities, the power of an ice arrow was more than ten times stronger than that of an icicle.


    Ordinarily, Saleen could cast a Grade 2 spell twice, but his ice arrows had been induced without being discharged and his magic chords continued to be exhausted while he waited for the best chance to act. Such a high-level deployment method was not only demanding on his magic chords, but was demanding on his mental power as well.


    If a mage with low mental power attempted such a thing, the ice arrows would detonate directly in his hands, and the mage would freeze himself to death.

 Chapter 31: The Ascetic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 31: The Ascetic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Magic was a double-edged sword; when used improperly, it could cause harm to oneself. After all, Saleen was now maintaining three Fluorescence spells, four Water Shields, and one Fog of Confusion. He had never experienced such a depletion of mental power before.


    The ascetic had sensed the danger the mage could bring, but the female Caucasus warrior in front of him was equally dangerous. He told himself not to be distracted. He reached his hand out to clutch the air and the metal gloves suddenly held a short golden spear, which he threw at Saleen into the Fog of Confusion.


    The mental power of the ascetic was very powerful, and thus the Fog of Confusion was nearly ineffective on him. The golden spear headed straight towards Saleen¡¯s chest. Sika¡¯s cudgel had been lowered, the face of a magic beast appearing at its tip. The face was not particrly ferocious, but it carried an ancient prehistoric air and a force that towered like mountains.


    Roar!


    The cudgel let out a heart shaking growl, and struck at the ascetic¡¯s right hand. Fortunately for him, it was only the high-level magical tool golden glove which took the brunt of this cudgel¡¯s blow. The metal pieces flew about, revealing the dried, branch-like fingers of the ascetic.


    The ascetic turned pale out of shock, clenched his left fist, and hit the face of the beast on the cudgel.


    The prose flowed speedily. The beast¡¯s face released a chilly growl, and suddenly disappeared. As though she had been depleted of her energy, Sika released her grip and her cudgel dropped to the ground.


    Saleen¡¯s face fell like water. The short golden spear was about to stab through his heart. There was no time to hide. The shields of water instantly stacked up on their four corners and blocked the short golden spear.


    Puff! Puff! Puff!


    There were three continuous sounds, the threeyers of water shields instantly broken. The short golden spear had dimmed, glided off the fourthyer of water shield, and diverted its direction to strike Saleen¡¯s waist.


    Saleen felt as though he had been kicked by a sprinting horse. Although the short golden spear did not pierce into his waist, the blow churned his internal organs. He could no longer sustain his magic, the ice arrow in his hands was released, and a white line flew towards the space in between the ascetic¡¯s eyebrows at an even higher speed than the spear.


    The ascetic smiled bitterly. An end by magic was not something he cared for. The holy prose on the intact metal glove on his left hand started to flow again, and he caught hold of Saleen¡¯s ice arrow at once.


    Snigger¡­


    The ascetic¡¯s bitter smile was frozen onto his face. The ice arrow that he had crushed had be a pool of liquid which sttered around.


    The Grade 0 Acid Spluttering spell. That mage whom he had looked down on had actuallypleted hisbined spell despite his injury. The metal glove corroded into fragments, and with that, the holy prose also stopped flowing.


    Saleen was paralyzed within the Fog of Confusion. Sika kneeled on the floor with her weapons released from her grip. Pinoid on the ground, dead, because Sarah¡¯s attempt to save him had been toote. Canghong¡¯s soft whip was now wrapped around the body of the heavily-armored swordsman. He did not have any other weapons left. Lucas¡¯ three-edged dagger was up in the air. Sarah grit her teeth and did not assist Lucas, but continued to attack the heavily-armored swordsman whom Canghong had wounded up.


    If Canghong died, Lucas would also not survive. Other than the ascetic, their strongest opponent was this heavily-armored swordsman.


    The small Falcon Regiment squad was faced with the threat of beingpletely wiped out.


    The ascetic groaned in pain, burnt in one of his eyes by the sputtering acid. Letting out a squeaky sound from time to time, he doubled over in pain. Sika, who was kneeling in front of him, continued to chant in the Caucasusnguage. The boomerang at her waist flew out suddenly from its leather case, drawing an arc which no one took notice of, and flew past the left arm of the ascetic.


    The ascetic gave another painful whine. The boomerang had cut his wrist and with a ng, the metal glove in his left hand had dropped to the ground.


    Sika then slowly lifted her head and screamed at the ascetic, ¡°If you wish to kill the priest, kill me first!¡±


    She no longer had any energy left to attack, but her words were exceedingly determined. The ascetic with a broken hand and a single remaining eye was astonished by Sika¡¯s demeanor. His decades of practice and prayers seemed inferior to the simplicity and wlessness of Sika¡¯s one sentence. How could her heresy be so?


    The ascetic¡¯s source of power hade from his faith. However, in that moment, Sika had crushed his faith.


    The power of the magic beast on Sika¡¯s cudgel and her own power were intertwined in spirit. The magic beast had been defeated by the holy prose embedded in his glove. She should have been broken mentally. How could it be so?! Could it be that even the gods were unable to suppress this heresy?


    Saleen withstood the extreme pain. His extensive use of his mysterious family badge all throughout the year had given him a high pain threshold that far exceeded anyone else¡¯s. Even if he was struck by magic that was entirely negative, he would not lose his consciousness or mobility. He did not examine the injury on his waist, but instead brought out the witcher spider from his pocket, dispersed the Fog of Confusion, and walked slowly over to the ascetic.


    The ascetic¡¯s only eye seemed abnormal, as though he did not see the mage approaching him. Saleen grabbed the front limb of the witcher spider and stabbed the area between the ascetic¡¯s eyebrows with all his might. His hard skull was feeble before the w of the witcher spider, and the life slipped out of the single remaining eye of the ascetic.


    Saleen gasped for air. This attack had depleted him, but he did not have any time to recover. Lucas had been impaled by a sword de, but his three-edged dagger had killed an opponent. Judging from this, it was fine to fight one-on-one but the price to pay for fighting two opponents was death.


    Saleen raised his hand, and without chanting, used three Acid Spluttering spells to kill the spear swordsman. The face of the spear swordsman was corroded by the acid. As his skin and flesh dissolved, he dropped his sword de and struggled to cover his face, but he was simply unable to stop the acid from causing its damage.


    Thest heavily-armored swordsman had already loosened the grip of Canghong¡¯s leather whip. His heavy sword flew sideways towards Sarah, about to kill Canghong first, but he instead witnessed hispatriots dying one after another. To think that this mage still had enough strength to attack!


    ¡°Go to hell!¡±


    Saleen raved with madness in both of his eyes. A green raynded upon the body of the heavily-armored swordsman. The heavily armored swordsman was frightened, lost hisposure, turned on his heels, and escaped towards the back of the cave.


    Only a pair of legs had fled. The torso of the heavily-armored swordsman remained in the same spot. The green ray on his body remained for just a single second and then disappeared. The severed body had an injury with a crystallized surface and showed no signs of any fresh blood. When Saleen saw that his n had been effective, both of his legs went weak, and he sat down on the ground.


    His magic chords werepletely exhausted. This had been hisst Grade 1 spell ¨C Ice Ring spell.


    The Ice Ring spell was a unique spell in that it could only attack a specific target. The duration of the attack was only one second long. In this one second, the target would be encircled by a razor sharp ice ring. As long as there was no movement, this ice ring would simply disappear in one second.


    Despite the huge power of the ice ring with its extreme razor sharpness and ability to slice through any high-end magic armor, it was deemed a worthless spell.


    If the heavily-armored swordsman had not been startled and tried to escape from the spell¡¯s clutches as soon as possible, this ice ring spell would not have caused him any harm. If he had been too petrified to move, this would not have been the end result.


    This was all due to Saleen¡¯s nning. He had dispersed the Fog of Confusion and used the witcher spider to kill the ascetic to mislead his opponents into thinking that he had depleted his magic chords. Then, with the speed of lightning, he had cast three Grade 0 spells to stealthily attack the spear swordsman and deal a blow to the spirit of the heavily-armored swordsman. This was followed by the Ice Ring spell and had caused the heavily-armored swordsman¡¯s hasty getaway.


    The spear swordsman had not died, but his face was corroded to the point of exposing bone. He had also been blinded in both his eyes and no longer able to cause any damage to Saleen and the others. In a single fleeting moment, Saleen had devised a n to crush his opponents. That was the kind of power a mage could have.


    As long as he could control his opponent¡¯s soul, a mage would be undefeatable. Saleen recalled this sentence that Jason had told him, and only now understood its meaning.


    The sounds of breathing in the tunnel had bebored and could be heard from a distance. Everyone had been badly injured. Sarah was evenying on the ground, unable to get up and not moving an inch. If it hadn¡¯t been for her breathing, Canghong would have thought she was dead.


    Saleen suddenly lifted his head. He looked at Canghong, who was walking towards him, and asked, ¡°Canghong, do you n to kill me?¡±


    Canghong¡¯s footsteps suddenly stopped. He met Saleen¡¯s clear gaze, took a deep breath, and said, ¡°Let me take a look at your injury.¡±


    ¡°No need. You should go take a look at Sarah,¡± Saleen said as he removed a metal sk from his waist, helped Sika up, and poured a big mouthful into her mouth. The restorative water would be of great help to Sika¡¯s injury, but Saleen had no intentions of giving it to Canghong.


    He understood a little of how Canghong must have felt. If he hadn¡¯t insisted on killing the holy master, Canghong¡¯s squad would still have had room to maneuver through the situation, and would not have to risk their lives.


    Sika took a sip of the restorative water and the numbness in her limbs disappeared. She then retrieved her boomerang and inserted it back into its leather case. Canghong saw the humongous cudgel that Sika carried on her back, and knew that he was no match for her. He then turned and walked towards Sarah.


    ¡°Sika, are you alright?¡± Saleen had witnessed the scene where the magic beast on Sika¡¯s cudgel had been demolished and was exceptionally worried. Sika had regarded him as a priest. He had heard that sentence clearly. No matter how precocious Saleen was, he was still extremely touched.


    ¡°Yes. I just temporarily lost some strength.¡± Sika flexed her limbs, but did not go and clean up the battlefield. Instead, she stayed beside Saleen, able to tell that Saleen was exhausted and would temporarily be unable to deploy any magic.


    Saleen ruffled Sika¡¯s hair, smiled, and said, ¡°Sika, I am not a priest. Next time, do not risk your life for me.¡±


    He had said it in the Caucasusnguage. Sika lowered her head and whispered, ¡°Noted, chief.¡±


    Saleen drew back his hand in embarrassment. Sika¡¯s face was rosy and extremely beautiful. If it hadn¡¯t been for her slightly dirty hair which was rough to the touch like the fur of stray dogs, Saleen¡¯s heart would have fluttered.


    To a mage, this was not a good thing, especially since the battle before them had not yete to an end.


    Saleen suddenly had a weird question. When he had first met Sika, she had called him a wild pig, but not a lecher. What was that supposed to mean?


    Sarah¡¯s injury was serious and she was still unconscious. When Saleen saw that Sika had nearly recovered, he passed the restorative water to Canghong while he and Sika started to clean up the battlefield.


    Canghong¡¯s emotions had also stabilized. He bandaged Sarah¡¯s wound, fed her the restorative water, then took care of hisrades¡¯ bodies. It was not right to put all the me on Saleen. After all, Saleen had been hired by him. When faced with opponents, how could he spare any consideration for their positions instead of eliminating them?


    His earlier killing intent had gradually diminished. Canghong watched Saleen as he used a ck powder to ignite the bodies, and deployed the Fog of Confusion again. He began to consider the next steps he should take.

 Chapter 32: The Red Line Bandits (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 32: The Red Line Bandits (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°There are still three squads. We will not be able to fend them all off.¡± Canghong spoke to Saleen only after Sarah had woken up.


    ¡°I know, but there is no turning back. If we return, we will probably bump into people from the Holy See. It is not safe at Didypus. We want to leave Sikeqinya, and the only way out is ahead of us.¡±


    ¡°Sarah cannot engage in anymorebat,¡± Canghong¡¯s eyed were a little red. Coupled with his devilish appearance, he looked like a beautiful girl even more stunning than Sarah.


    ¡°Give me half an hour. We will charge through.¡± Saleen held a Grade 3 magic nucleus in his hand, without the slightest trace of innocence on his face. His words had the ability to reassure others.


    The four people sat in the field of the Fog of Confusion, a small amount of fluorescence light shining onto everyone¡¯s faces and giving them a pale green sheen. When Saleen realized more than half of his magic chords had recovered, he then worriedly checked on the injury at his waist. The spear that the ascetic had used inbination with his holy prose had burst through threeyers of his Water Shield, leaving Saleen with lingering fear.


    In reality, Water Shield was a Grade 1 spell. After Saleen¡¯s improvisation, its defensive capabilities were close to that of a Grade 2 spell at its peak. It possibly could have been passed off as a Grade 3 spell, but it had a w in not being instantaneous.


    The Water Shield formed a spherical shape, such that any form of attack would not be received directly. The short, gold-colored spear had glided off after breaking threeyers of the Water Shield. If Saleen¡¯s response had been dyed by just half a minute, he would have been dead by now. It was not only the mutated magic that had saved his life. Saleen checked his waist. His belt was damaged, but one item inside had blocked the short, gold-colored spear.


    Saleen dug into the hole in the belt with his fingers, hooking out an item. It was the ring that Earl Minghui had lost to him. He had sold the diopside stone on the ring for a hundred gold coins, and was left with a bare yellow-gold ring. Saleen had originally decided to keep this ring as it was ted with raw gold ¨C the kind that had not been refined ¨C and he could use it for magic medicine.


    There was now a faint scratch on the ring. The short, gold-colored spear had cut through the gold-tedyer of the ring but had been stopped by the material within. That was why it had not pierced through Saleen¡¯s waist.


    Saleen began to worry, as this item was made of a sturdy material that was much stronger than his magic shield. A person had to understand that a shield made from Grade 2 magic was much tougher than steel. The short, gold-colored spear had pierced through three consecutiveyers of magic shields before gliding off, but had only scratched off a trace of gold from the surface of this ring.


    It was a strange ring!


    Saleen did not know alchemy nor Fire Magic, but he still had ways to go about this. He retrieved his crucible from his leather sack and threw the gold-ted ring straight into it. Then, he added in the ck Magic me Medicine.


    The burning point of the gold was very low and the Magic me Medicine gave off an orange-red me. The gold slowly liquified, revealing the true colors of the ring.


    The ring had turned green; it was made of a metallic material, and had some spots on it. An inscription in ancient Myersnguage had appeared on the inside of the ring. Saleen was able to recognize every word, but was unable to understand the meaning. Based on simple deduction, it must have been an ancient natural magic mantra.


    Long ago, the majority of mages had worshipped the Goddess of Nature. After the fall of the Temple of Nature, this line of mages had also disappeared. Even if they existed now, they would not openly admit their convictions.


    This magic ring must have belonged to a mage who had been a believer of the Goddess of Nature. After being disguised, it had somehownded in the hands of Baron Minghui. Saleen had originally thought he had been cheated. He could not have imagined that after the gold had been smelted, he would be left with this magic prop with a history spanning at least twenty thousand years.


    Natural magic was no longer used by anyone. Even if that were not the case, Saleen would not be able to learn it. However, he felt far from discouraged and thought, How much would this item be worth?


    Without no potential for disappointment, Saleen casually recited the inscription on the inside of the ring.


    There were a total of twenty-four characters, and Saleen finished reciting it in four seconds. A green sh hardly visible to the naked eye illuminated from the inside of the ring and seeped into Saleen¡¯s palm. Saleen felt a hum in his brain, and was dizzied for a moment.


    Sika noticed that Saleen had suddenly entered a daze while holding the rubbish ring. His eyes were losing the aura they usually had. She instantly became worried and used her finger to poke at Saleen¡¯s rib, asking, ¡°Chief, what¡¯s up with you?¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Saleen let out a scream that made both Canghong and Sarah turn and look over. Saleen blushed, shaking his head and saying, ¡°Nothing. I am checking on my injury.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you drink a little of this?¡± Sika took out her precious holy water, which she had spent all her silver coins on after she had left her vige. Saleen pushed Sika¡¯s hand away. He could vividly remember his previous experience of trying to use the holy water to cure his injuries. Holy water was supposed to be very soothing, but when applied on him, it was stronger than alcohol and more dangerous than poison.


    Seeing Sika pout, Saleenughed. He felt happy from the bottom of his heart. In reality, this ring was spatial equipment. What made Saleen happy was that he could actually make use of this spatial equipment. He was merely a Grade 1 mage and could not even make use of normal magical tools. He could only evoke a scroll or the constant magic on the mage¡¯s robe.


    Spatial equipment was equipment that only mages of Grade 5 and above could make use of. However, the space within this ring had already, by this point, been expanded by him.


    There was an annulus space within the ring. Although it was not big, discovering it caused Saleen to quiver. This was because there were three items within the space of the ring. These three items were, without a doubt, ancient magic props.


    Saleen suppressed the excitement in his heart and slipped the ring onto his finger. He did not immediately retrieve the items inside to examine them. Canghong was still looking over, and Saleen was still a little afraid of him.


    During the Third Dynasty, mankind had been gradually losing its faith with the decline of the Goddess of Myers. The worth of this ring would probably far exceed that of in spatial equipment. Saleen was well-read, and he had an authentic teacher. By now, he had understood just how formidable Jason was. A regr mage would not be as wealthy as Jason to have owned so many books and memos.


    It would be very difficult for a mage without lineage to get his hands on even one book. Saleen had read continuously for a few years and had not even finished all of them. One also needed to understand that he had not used the normal method of reading, but had relied on memory magic to memorize them.


    The three items in the ring, were, namely ¨C a jade-green gourd which was smaller than one¡¯s palm and a ne which appeared to have been made of obsidian. Saleen was unsure of its material as he had not taken it out to examine it. Steel rocks, ck crystals, some smokey quartzs, and some tremolites could also be ck.


    The third item was a piece of leaf. This piece of leaf was a little yellow and wilted. Saleen was also unable to see its connotation. To be frank, the majority of Saleen¡¯s knowledge hade from his memorization. He had neither digested the knowledge nor achieved the ability to use it in the spur of the moment. Having discovered the secret within the ring, Saleen even considered abandoning the mission to search for the relic. The sale of any of these three items would be able to fund his practice for a few years.


    However, Saleen quickly dismissed the thought. If he had only offended Earl Sufonso, it would be understandable why he had done so. The problem now was that he was in deep trouble, having killed the Grade 1 holy master under the oracle as well as the ascetic. Saleen already knew that had no other alternatives aside from desperately improving his power.


    If he could find a suitable magic prop among the relics of the Second Dynasty, his survival would be a little more assured. Saleen no longer felt secure depending solely on money. The items in the ring were better left unsold. Since he could use the ring itself, it was probable that he could use the items in it.


    When Saleen had first begun practicing magic, he had only hoped to be able to eat his fill everyday and not suffer through anymore days of harassment.


    Now, this wish was growing more and more far fetched. His first priority would be to survive and not be caught by the people of the sacred Holy See.


    His magic chords were recovering quickly. With the Grade 3 magic nucleus in his hand plus the white crystal ring that Jason had given him, the recovery speed of Saleen¡¯s magic chords far exceeded that of a regr Grade 1 mage.


    Sarah also sat up. The restorative water was unable to cure her injurypletely, but it at least allowed her to move freely. However, she could not be counted upon to do any fighting.


    ¡°Canghong, how far are we from the relic?¡± Saleen could feel his internal injury improving significantly, so he stood up and went to Canghong¡¯s side. The Invisible Shield on his mage robe was activated, defending him in secret. In the event that Canghong turned on him, he would kill this devilish-looking man without hesitation.


    ¡°There are five hundred miles to go, at the very least,¡± Canghong was pale even though his injury was not serious. The deaths of hispatriots were the cause of his poor condition, and they had made him depressed.


    ¡°How long does Sarah need to recuperate?¡± Saleen was unconsciously beginning to take control. Despite the fact that Saleen had been hired by Canghong, Canghong was no longer able to overrule him and had to heed Saleen¡¯s advice in everything they did. Otherwise, if Saleen walked out on them, they would not be able to leave the cave.


    ¡°We do not have to pay attention to the squad ahead of us. By now, the people of the Vulture Regiment will probably have noticed that something is amiss. If we were to attack again, it would be difficult to win. Let Sika carry Sarah on her back. We will go through the Red Forest as quickly as possible. There are dinodemons as well as soul killers in the Red Forest, so our opponents will not choose to battle with us in that area.¡±


    Canghong drew in a breath of cold air, marking out a designated plot of the Red Forest on the map. Half of it was submerged in water. Since it was an extremely dangerous area, it was best for a person to trek along its perimeter. With a nce, Saleen had seen that it was a shortcut which they needed to risk taking to avoid direct confrontation with the squad ahead of them. This young mage had such a strong temperament.


    Even Canghong himself considered giving up the search for the relic. However, he was worried that if he gave up, Saleen would give up on Sarah as well.


    Seeing that Canghong remained silent, Saleen smiled and said to Canghong, ¡°The people whom we have offended this time cannot be defeated through strength alone. If we do not benefit from finding the relic, even if we escape from Sikeqinya, we will be like homeless dogs in the future with no futures at all. Do you want to be a farmer in some vige or be a nobleman¡¯s hired henchman?¡±


    Canghong bit his lip, and replied angrily, ¡°Sure, let¡¯s go.¡±


    The life Saleen described was not one he could ept. That was the sorrow of being a mercenary or adventurer. Once they had grown ustomed to their current lives, they would not be willing to lead dull lives. When the majority of mercenaries or adventurers registered, they thought they would save their money and eventually return to their hometowns to lead their lives just as they had before. However, once their adventurous journey began, none of them were able to turn back.

 Chapter 33: The Red Line Bandits (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 33: The Red Line Bandits (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Canghong¡¯s soft whip had been badly torn by the heavily-armored swordsman, and the remaining weapons he had were Lucas¡¯ three-edged dagger and a sword de which he carried on his back. Sika carried Sarah while also carrying therge cudgel she owned on her back. Sarah was ufortable with it, but there was no other option as Sika was the only one unhurt in the squad. Besides the fact that Saleen was also injured, it would also have been unrealistic to ask a mage to carry a swordsman.


    The Fog of Confusion drifted within the cave, concealing all four of them. They were about to reach the end of the cave, and the scenario that Canghong had worried about did not happen. The squads ahead of them had most likely already left the cave and entered the Chaotic Swamp. The Vulture Regiment¡¯sst squad had also not been inside the cave. Once they walked into the light, the faint fog escaped from the cave and everything became visible again.


    Saleen could only spread out the Fog of Confusion and walk carefully behind it. Walking towards the south, there were no traces of any battles. The Red Forest was ahead of them. As it waste autumn, the water in the Red Forest had dwindled and the rivers were mostly dried up, leaving only muddy ground. However, there were puddles scattered around and they could hear fish writhing around trying to breathe despite the low water levels in the river. Arge ck cat patiently waited to one side while a short-tailed eagle circled in the sky above, adding life into the forest.


    A strange feeling came over Saleen. After he had spread out the Fog of Confusion, he felt that he had not reduced his line of sight but had expanded it instead. Everything in a range of a hundred meters seemed to be much clearer. A caterpir emerged from the bark of a tree, spitting out some transparent slime. Leafcutter ants were busy using their jaws to bite through leaves, leaving leaf fibers behind. Saleen even saw a turtle on the ground. This low-level magic beast was good at hiding, as its slow breathing made it nearly undetectable. However, Saleen could actually hear its heartbeat, down to the rhythmic beating of all four of its hearts.


    A Grade 1 mage was able to perceive his surroundings within a range of roughly ten meters, but not with such rity. Even if Saleen had not been within the Fog of Confusion, he would still only be able to perceive a range of up to twenty meters. Saleen gave it some careful thought and then removed his green ring. Following this, his level of perception dropped sharply as though he had returned to his chaotic past.


    After putting on the ring again, his previous level of perception returned. Saleen smiled. This was an unexpected surprise. The ability to estimate distance and the rity one had of their surroundings would determine the distance in which spells could be cast and the oues they would produce. For example, in theory, a Grade 1 spell could be used to attack a target who was more than twenty meters away. To ensure uracy and to prevent the opponent from dodging, the spell was best kept within the range of perception. For the majority of Grade 1 mages, this would be up to ten meters. If it was any further than that, their perception would be unclear and they would need to rely on binocrs. A distance within ten meters was where swordsmen were the most powerful. However, if a mage was unable to extend his range of perception, he would not be able to hold any significant advantage over the swordsman. Relying on binocrs would not help with tracking, as agile swordsmen could hide from them with ease.


    Now that Saleen¡¯s perception had increased to cover a range of over a hundred meters, he would not need to worry aboutcking sufficient perception before he attained the level of mage master. Canghong suddenly stopped. Saleen followed suit and stopped advancing.


    Sounds ofbat wereing from up ahead. They could discern the sounds with just their ears. There were sounds of metal hitting each other,bored breaths, and shouts of pain. Saleen subconsciously moved to stand behind a tree, not caring that his shoes were dirtied by the mud into a ckish brown. Sika let Sarah down and got her to lean against a tree.


    What bad luck!


    Saleen felt very frustrated. To think that the fugitive squad had the same idea as him and had headed into the dangerous Red Forest. Both the fugitive and trailing squads did not have any holy masters or Caucasus warriors with them, and hence would not have a good chance of survival if they met with any dinodemons or soul killers.


    If he had known, he would have rather taken a detour.


    ¡°Who is that? Retreat!¡± A shout came from the front. At the same time, an arrow shot towards Saleen. Saleen hid behind the tree, remaining vignt as he had no time to deploy his water shields. He bent down, nearly lying on the ground. The arrow went through the tree trunk and flew over the top of Saleen¡¯s head.


    The arrow¡¯s track seemed to go up and down, making it difficult to dodge. If Saleen had been any slower, it would have pierced his head. Saleen discovered the archer at once, his joy at his increased perception having disappeared. His grade was still too low, given that he had not detected this fellow who was hiding fifty meters away.


    Saleen¡¯s face turned stony. A distance of fifty meters and his magic could not detect the person¡¯s location and counterattack. A mage grandmaster would be able to attack in a range further than two hundred meters. Now, he could only watch as the archer readied his bow and arrow and took aim.


    The archer pointed his weapon at Saleen and shouted, ¡°Red Line at work. Get lost.¡±


    ¡°Red Line who?¡± Saleen was well-read but was not aware of current affairs.


    Canghong¡¯s lips quivered and he said grudgingly, ¡°It is the Red Line bandit gang.¡±


    ¡°Strange, I seem to have an impression. Sika, do you remember?¡±


    ¡°Chief, the eighth on the bounty list. Each one of them is worth a hundred gold coins in reward. The Red Line chief¡¯s life is worth twenty thousand gold coins. You have spoken about this.¡± Twenty thousand? Is that not more than mine? Saleen thought about Earl Sufonso¡¯s pursuit of him. The amount offered was far less than that of this bandit chief. He felt that he had better not offend this Red Line bandit gang.


    Saleen took his time to deploy four water shields, letting the bubbles containing the magic shields surround his body. Then he turned around, pulling out the arrow behind him. He looked up at the archer in the tree provocatively, then broke the arrow in half with both of his hands.


    There was a snap and the arrow broke. Saleen threw the arrow on the ground and smiled at the archer.


    ¡°Mage Saleen!¡± Canghong panicked. Although the other party was aggressive, they were only trying to chase his squad away and had no real intentions of attacking. Even the entire Falcon Regiment may not have been able to afford offending the Red Line bandit gang, let alone him by himself.


    Saleen gave a chillingugh. ¡°His first shot was intent on killing me. If I had died, do you think he would have let you off? I am going to get back at him for that shot. If you are afraid, then just wait for me here.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he evoked the Potency spell on his mage robe and charged at the archer.


    The Potency spell was a Grade 1 spell and was abined spell. It could increase the user¡¯s strength and also increased their ability to counterattack. It was a type of Ground Magic, which Saleen had needed to deploy with the aid of a magic nuclei he was carrying.


    ¡°You¡¯re courting death!¡± the archer said ferociously. His vision was sharp and he saw the symbols on Saleen¡¯s mage robe indicating that he was merely a Grade 1 mage.


    As long as there was some distance between them, an archer¡¯s threat to a Grade 1 mage was greater than that of a swordsman.


    Saleen¡¯s footwork was clumsy since he did not possess the Wind Speed skill. His movements were only slightly faster than that of a normal person. The archer¡¯s bow was poised by the time he was halfway across, and a shot flew out. ¡°Puff!¡±


    A bubble had burst, the water shield disappearing. The archer had effortlessly caught up with the second arrow; the two arrows nearly formed a line, and burst the second bubble.


    Let me see how many magic chords you have! When the archer shot for the third time, he held three arrows between his fingers. Saleen looked solemn. A few bubbles of varying sizes appeared before him and blocked the archer¡¯s Rapid Arrow skill.


    Forty meters, thirty meters, twenty meters¡­


    Each time he moved forward by ten meters, the archer shot at least nine arrows. Each time the arrow had burst a bubble, they were immediately reced by a new bubble. The archer¡¯s face looked grim. Could this mage¡¯s true identity be that of a mage master?


    Impossible. He would not be able to burst a mage master¡¯s magic shields at all! Thinking about it, he realized that the situation was no longer in his favor.


    Saleen was only twenty meters away. The archer was still up in the tree, unable to leave even though he wanted to. This was the farthest distance that a spell could reach, meaning that Saleen could be a threat to his life if he were a truly dedicated Grade 1 mage. As he approached the archer, Saleen became calmer. He even recalled his past, thinking about how he had humbly approached a repugnant merchant at the market just to get half of a biscuit. He had withstood the beating silently because he had not known what resistance was.


    Until the day that he hadnded in the dungeon over a gold coin and Jason had came to his rescue, Saleen suddenly realized that his former life up until then had been hell.


    Never wanting to lead that type of life again, Saleen smiled as he cast a spell using both hands. He recited a magic mantra with a distinctive rhythm loudly. The archer touched his quiver, but there was nothing left as he had used up all of his arrows. After he had used hisst arrow, the mage¡¯s magic shields had not increased in number. It was as though he had known that the archer was depleted of weapons.


    The archer was not willing to wait for his death and put down his bow which was made of an animal¡¯s horn. He took out his dagger and pounced towards the bottom of the tree, doubting that the mage would have anybat ability. As long as he was within the ten meter range¡­


    Puff! An unusually dreary silence followed. An icicle thicker than an arm struck the archer¡¯s head, pulverizing it in an instant.


    Canghong was astounded. This attack was beyond his knowledge of magic. Being a mercenary from a Grade 4 regiment, he was notpletely ignorant about magic. Canghong could identify that Saleen was using Grade 1 magic, but this Grade 1 spell had been extraordinarily powerful. The speed of this huge icicle was so fast that it had even escaped Canghong¡¯s eyes. This meant that once Saleen had locked down his spell, even a Grade 4 professional would not be able to avoid it.


    After this attack, Saleen¡¯s state was at its peak. Second deployment; release of a Grade 2 spell; instant magic, he had perfectly blended these three high level techniques to give the Grade 1 spell the effect of a Grade 3 spell. As he looked at the pulverized head of the fallen archer, Saleen said with a tinge of regret, ¡°What a shame about those one hundred gold coins!¡±

 Chapter 34: Advancing (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 34: Advancing (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was no need for Canghong to consider it any further. When Saleen had killed the holy master of the Holy See, he should have gone his separate ways from him. Was it was toote to say anything now, since the person from the Red Line bandit gang had already been killed? There was no point in worrying. It was his destiny. In any case, since he would not be able to continue living in Sikeqinya, he might as well gamble and leave it to fate.


    He took the spear de from his back, took a deep breath of the blood-filled odor in the air, and said to Saleen, ¡°Mage Merlin, I will trouble Sika to protect Sarah while I protect you. From now on, we will split the earnings from the mission in half.¡±


    ¡°Very fair!¡± Saleen replied while searching for bank notes and gold coins on the archer.


    Canghong¡¯s squad was now down to the two of them, and theirbat power was not as strong as that of Saleen and Sika¡¯s. Now the only thing Canghong could count on was the fact that he held the secrets to the relic. What Saleen wanted most was this relic, after all.


    ¡°Should we rest a little?¡± Canghong had seen Saleen cast that spell. Despite their association being a one-time deal, he wanted to see it through to the end. If Saleen died, it would be unfortunate for him.


    ¡°Not necessary. Let¡¯s take a look.¡± Saleen was holding on to a Grade 3 magic nucleus in his hands again. These magic nuclei were losing their value after the repeated absorption and were nearing the point where they would need to be discarded.


    A piece of Grade 3 magic nucleus such as this one cost one hundred and fifty gold coins. Within the short time frame of half a day, Saleen had already used up one of them. It was easy to imagine how being a mage was a profession that burned up loads of money.


    The battle in the forest ahead was in full swing. This indicated that the capabilities of both parties were matched, or else it would have ended quietly. It was truly impressive that the squad being hunted down still had such strength at this point.


    This group of humans were engaged in a massive battle in the middle of magic beast territory, causing such a stir that the magic beasts nearby had all run away with no intentions of joining in.


    Corpses were everywhere!


    Saleen had not expected the battle ahead of them to be so intense. He could see one corpse for every few steps he took. Canghong¡¯s expression also looked odd. He bent down, carefully examined a corpse, and said to Saleen, ¡°Those from the Vulture Regiment have been wiped out. This person is the chief of the squad with a hundred members.¡±


    ¡°Find the body of the mage!¡± Saleen was most concerned about whether the mage hidden in the Vulture Regiment was dead. It would be fortunate if he had died. No matter who had killed him, this mage would be his scapegoat.


    ¡°This looks like him.¡± Canghong picked up a finger. There was holy prose tattooed on the finger, which had a long fingernail.


    ¡°Zealot!¡± Saleen finally said something of profound meaning, and such fundamental knowledge was not iparable to Canghong¡¯s. Most zealots had holy prose tattooed all over their bodies, even over their concealed areas. The cultivation of these zealots may not have been as assiduous as that of the ascetics, but the power of these lunatics were much more formidable.


    ¡°This side too,¡± Sika shouted.


    Obviously, this zealot¡¯s body had been smashed to pieces. His body parts were scattered everywhere, with none amounting to more than half a kilogram in weight.


    ¡°This is the regr army¡¯s doing.¡± Canghong¡¯s low voice did not match his appearance at all.


    ¡°Regr army?¡± Saleen was puzzled. The regr army referred to the army which only served the royalty of the four big empires. Thebat power of the regr army could not bepared to that of the mercenaries. The problem was, why had the regr army appeared in the territory of adventurers? There was neither anything of military value in the Chaotic Swamp nor did the territory belong to any royalty.


    ¡°Look.¡± Canghong ripped open the outer coat of a corpse, revealing dark ck armor.


    ¡°This is stainless steel scale armor. The use of it by any force other than the regr army is equivalent to a rebellion.¡±


    Saleen also bent over, tore off a piece of damaged cloth, and wiped the blood stains off of the face of the corpse. ck hair, ck eyes, and a somewhat in-looking face. The nose ridge was not very high, and while the features had been a little distorted, one could tell that they were different from the people of Sikeqinya.


    ¡°This person was from the Qin Empire!¡±


    ¡°Do we need to make a detour?¡± Canghong now knew that he had entangled himself with more than one single mishap this time. The Vulture Regiment had obviously had another mission, but had chanced upon a clue belonging to the Red Line bandit gang. The target of the Red Line bandit gang had unexpectedly been the regr army of the Qin Empire.


    Now that the Vulture Regiment had been wiped out, it seemed that it would no longer be necessary for him to proceed.


    Saleen also hesitated. The men under the oracle in the Vulture Regiment were all dead. If he turned back swiftly, he could shake off the Holy See¡¯s pursuit for the time being. However, after thinking that, he also thought that if he was able to help the regr army of the Qin Empire, he might not be without kith and kin when he reached the Qin Empire.


    ¡°Canghong, we may not obtain any benefits from the relic, but the real benefits are before us.¡±


    Canghong nodded and also began to search the corpses for money and equipment. Having grown ustomed to it, mercenaries did not face any psychological barriers in doing this.


    The members of the Red Line bandit gang were wealthy. It was more realistic to take advantage of the situation than search for the relic. After all, there was a chance that there would be nothing at the relic. The members of the Red Line bandit gang had plenty of bank notes with them. The average bandit gang would not do such a thing, so the Red Line bandit gang was considered unique in terms of this.


    Pocketing the spoils from the corpses, Sika ced Sarah in between two corpses and said, ¡°Bear with it. I will be right back.¡±


    Sarah nodded her head. Sika rubbed fresh blood on Sarah¡¯s face to disguise her as a corpse, and then the three of them, including Saleen, walked towards the location where the intensebat sounds wereing from.


    This was a clearing in the plot of forest, and the soil beneath their feet was more dried up. More than a dozen people were intertwined together, their sword auras moving freely. Canghong took the lead in charging into the group, his sword de immediately attacking a member of the bandit gang.


    Both parties were dressed in bright colors, but the difference was apparent at a nce. Those from the bandit gang were wearing leather armor while those being hunted down were d in fabric, with stainless steel scale armor within.


    There were still a dozen people left from the Red Line bandit gang, while the squad being hunted down was down to four swordsmen.


    Saleen¡¯s perception swiftly swept across the battleground and obtained rity of the situation. The Red Line bandit gang had an advantage in terms of numbers. The four swordsmen being hunted down, who had been split up by the Red Line bandit gang, were struggling to fight their own battles. The most powerful swordsman, who was holding a strange looking long sword, was fending off the attacks of six bandits by himself.


    This Qin Empire swordsman¡¯s long sword was four feet long like a heavy sword, but the entire de wasparatively average. The sword body had three sword ridges, increasing the power of the long sword. Was this the Qin Empire¡¯s most powerful eight-faceted Qin sword?


    This long sword was extremely sharp, and its sword aura was moving through the Qin swordsman¡¯s hand. The six bandits who were surrounding him were actually unable to get close. By this time, the swordsman who was holding the eight-faceted Qin sword was furious in his heart. He was being restrained by these six bandits, and had thus been unable to rescue hisrades. He felt helpless as he watched his subordinates being killed one after another.


    Canghong was even more furious than he was. After Canghong had charged into the group with his sword de, he realized that Saleen and Sika had not made any moves. Although the sword de was one of the weapons that every mercenary needed to learn, Canghong was not skilled at it. His opponent was a heavily-armored swordsman, and this bandit was the only person in the bandit gang who wore heavy armor.


    This heavily-armored swordsman turned and striked with his sword, cracking open Canghong¡¯s sword de. The heavy sword circled back and chopped its top off.


    Canghong held his sword de sideways, blocking the hacks made by the heavy sword. The handle of the sword which had been coiled with metal wire was nearly cut off by this hacking, and it could no longer be used. This heavily-armored swordsman was not watching his back as he lifted his heavy sword and attacked again. The speed of his strike was amazing. Canghong¡¯s weapon was unwieldy and did not allow him to make any counterattacks, forcing him to only continue taking hits.


    Was this young mage trying to harm him?


    A thought popped up in Canghong¡¯s mind and sent a chill down his back. He was a little regretful that he had had revealed his murderous intentions to the mage earlier. He recalled what his chief had once told him ¨C if you do not have the confidence to kill the mage, then never let him know your thoughts. This was because mages were people who held grudges. If you offended a mage, it would be far scarier than offending the emperor.


    Saleen was well aware of the situation. The most powerful person in the Red Line bandit gang was not participating in the attack, but stayed to the side. This bandit gang chief held a dagger in his hand. The dagger was slightly long, almost like a short sword. His face was masked with a ck cloth, and there was red trimming on the edge of this ck cloth.


    Saleen¡¯s perception swept across the field. Only this bandit felt it and looked over to this side, casting a deadly stare towards therge tree that Saleen was hiding near. Such sharp senses were equivalent to those of an intermediate swordsman.


    An intermediate swordsman was a Grade 5 professional who possessed a formidable sword aura. Theirbat power was equivalent to that of a Grade 4 mage.


    Swordsmen were not archers. If they were able to get close to him, he would be dead meat. Saleen had a hint of fear in him, but what he felt more than fear was excitement. To him, it was not impossible to kill this intermediate swordsman. He was a mage with lineage, and understood that such professional grading was just a point of reference.


    In the time that it took for the sword aura to leave the body to attack, a junior mage could kill a senior swordsman and swordmaster. Only a grand swordmaster would be undefeatable. Furthermore, Sika was next to him. Although Sika¡¯s grade was unknown, it would not be an issue for her to at least stop this swordsman. Half of Saleen¡¯s confidence came from Sika. As a mage who had a Caucasus warrior with him, hisbat strength had definitely shot up significantly.


    Saleen slowly walked out from behind the tree. Six bubbles were floating around his body. This was his utmost limit, supporting six water shields at the same time and using half of his mental power. If he increased it any further, he would not be able to control his attacking magic.


    The bandit holding the dagger saw this scene. The sides of his mouth quivered. A mage who could maintain six shield spells? Could he be a mage master?


    Although thebat power of an intermediate swordsman was considered parallel to that of a Grade 4 mage, an intermediate swordsman would not be a match for a mage master if he were toe face-to-face with one.


    Saleen smiled, lifted his finger, and pointed gently. A white line shot out and struck the heavy sword of the heavily-armored swordsman.


    Ding. The icicle had made a hole in the heavy sword, and at the same time enveloped it in ayer of frost. Canghong quickly threw his sword de down, drew the three-edged dagger, and threw it at the waist of the heavily-armored swordsman.


    The three-edged dagger by itself was meant to supplement the other weapons of the mercenaries, and was specially designed to cut through armor. With this strike, the armor of the heavily-armored swordsman seemed as weak as crumpled paper. With a puff sound, blood became visible at his waist.


    Saleen had not even chanted any mantras. The spells he had prepared earlier were deployed one after another without pause.


    A white round rim with a diameter of about four meters instantly appeared on the ground ¨C Frost Array, a Grade 1 Water Series spell.


    This was a semi-supplementary spell and could slow down the movement speed of its targets by eighty percent while producing a freezing effect. If a person without sword aura remained in the Frost Array for more than one minute, they would be frozen to death.


    Magic could not differentiate friend from foe. Saleen had exerted his utmost strength to deploy Frost Array. In an instant, the clearing in the forest had be silvery white. The swordsmen and bandits in the hunting squads were engulfed in it, their speedpletely slowed down.

 Chapter 35: Advancing (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 35: Advancing (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The bandit holding the dagger knew he had been duped. Saleen had appeared in an unforeseen manner. He had made a grave mistake in not attacking him immediately. Now that Saleen had finished deploying his spells, their tactics had failedpletely.


    The swordsmen that had been surrounded were wearing stainless steel scale armor. With their movements slowed, all they could do was fight recklessly with the bandits. It was advantageous for the swordsmen in stainless steel scales to be shing blindly, as the bandits had only leather armor. There were immediately screams heard everywhere, leaving only five on the battlefield ¨C the Qin swordsman holding the eight-faceted Qin sword, the chief of the bandit gang, Saleen, Sika, and Canghong.


    After the insane attack, there was blood all over the Qin swordsman. The most deadly attack on him had been a metal spike that was stabbed into his crotch. It was the bandit gang¡¯s unique weapon which wasced with poison. In an instant, he had killed the six bandits who had surrounded him, but had not been able to prevent this lethal strike.


    Canghong¡¯s condition was slightly better. A heavily-armored swordsman had kicked him in his abdomen and sent him flying into arge tree. He did not copse, but instead again exerted force and stabbed his entire three-edged dagger into the stomach of the heavily-armored swordsman.


    A vicious expression was disyed on Canghong¡¯s handsome face. He had attacked with all of his might. This kick had been a very hard one. The boots of the heavily-armored swordsman weighed more than ten kilograms, and there were metallic spikes on the surface. The swordsman had not put up any defense, and his aim had ensured the death of this heavily-armored swordsman.


    Saleen smiled at the chief of the bandit gang and said, ¡°So chief, will you run off or do you want to challenge me? I have more men than you.¡±


    The masked bandit suddenly removed his mask, revealing his face.


    ¡°Little mage. You have no magic chords left and you are trying to scare me?¡±


    This bandit was very experienced. He could tell that Saleen was just a Grade 1 mage and that based on the number of spells he had deployed, he had probably exhausted his magic chords. However, this youth was very courageous to actually try and scare him. It was a pity that such a promising mage¡­


    ¡°You¡¯d better remember whose hand you are dying by.¡± The bandit did not finish his sentence and had already charged towards Saleen.


    The Frost Array was practically ineffective on him. In the blink of an eye, he had moved more than ten meters and had his longish dagger at Saleen¡¯s throat. Saleen could nearly feel the razor sharp dagger cutting into his skin and causing blood to gush out.


    Sika¡¯s humongous cudgel swept over. Dang! The cudgel was knocked aside by the bandit¡¯s dagger. Saleen panicked, as Sika¡¯s impairment was more serious than he had expected. That holy master¡¯s attack had dispersed the soul of the magic beast in Sika¡¯s cudgel, and Sika¡¯s energy level had gone down ever since. For such a heavy weapon to actually be knocked aside by a dagger!


    He could ponder it no further and prepared to deploy his spell immediately. This was his only Grade 2 spell ¨C Ice Arrow.


    The bandit¡¯s dagger turned and blocked the path of the ice arrow. He had actually used a normal weapon to block the attack of a Grade 2 spell. Only a senior swordsman could possess such force.


    As the speed of the spell¡¯s deployment could not be captured by the naked eye, this block had been entirely based off of his sharp perception in deducing the route of attack in advance. He had also been given a bad scare, given that the mage had actually released a Grade 2 spell. His misjudgement caused him to suddenly back off.


    Given that the other party had a Grade 2 mage and the battle had just begun, he might have been in the more advantageous position. However, the other party also had a Caucasus warrior. Sika pulled out her boomerang at this time and looked at him fiercely. She could no longer lift up her huge cudgel, and depended on her boomerang to engage in battle.


    Saleen grunted, his body falling lifelessly to the ground.


    The bandit gloated. This little mage had seemed ferocious in appearance but was in fact feeble in essence. He had nearly been tricked.


    Toot¡­


    The boomerang cut through the air. The bandit did not retreat but instead advanced forward. The dagger was thrown into the air and struck the center of the boomerang. The boomerang could no longer fly and fell to the ground along with the dagger.


    The bandit gave a grim smile and pounced, his left hand already fitted with a glove. At the tip of the metal glove were three sharp juts, and they were headed straight for Saleen¡¯s throat.


    In close range battles, mages were always scum. The bandit felt ease in his heart. The battle was finally about to end. The most difficult opponent, the swordsman, was still standing but was unable to attack. As for that Caucasus warrior, she was not a match for him. As long as he killed the mage, his mission would be considered aplished.


    What could be more exciting than killing a mage?


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords were indeed almost exhausted, and he was unable to cast any Grade 1 spells. He was, however, not panicking, as his hand discreetly held onto his family badge and was ready to counter the bandit¡¯s blow.


    The bandit bent over with no intentions of changing his stroke. He wanted topletely destroy the mage with this strike. Competing with him in body strength? The bandit had already summoned the sword aura. This strike would break even a rock up into powder.


    Puff¡­


    The sound of a very dull impact. The bandit¡¯s fist hit Saleen¡¯s badge. Saleen had deployed a Grade 0 spell. Instantly, all of Saleen¡¯s remaining strength had been absorbed into the badge. The bandit had not escaped. Saleen¡¯s fingers were bleeding from the impact, and his gloves were stained red.


    Without any warning, his power was instantly absorbed into the seal.


    The two of them were stuck together. The bandit felt as though his entire body had been frozen solid. A fire burned in his body, and both his eyes had lost their vision. He felt drumming in his ears as well as visceral colic and muscle paralysis. There seemed to be tens of thousands of insects flying inside of his head.


    All of these negative conditions afflicted the bandit at the same time. Saleen had taken a few years to grow ustomed to it, but the bandit had not had the chance to do so. His body slowly weakened. Saleen shouted loudly, ¡°Sika!¡±


    Sika pursed her lips, retrieved her boomerang, and forcefully cut off the head of the bandit.


    This bandit had died unjustly. What was left of Saleen¡¯s magic chords could barely sustain a few Grade 0 spells, and would not have been able to cause him any harm at all. If he had only not touched that badge or let Saleen¡¯s blood stain his gloves, the ending would not have been as such.


    A fluttering sound was heard. Saleen and Sika startled. It was that Qin swordsman who had fallen. He had seen the bandit chief¡¯s head being severed and fallen to the ground, unable to hold on anymore.


    ¡°Help me over,¡± Saleen called out to Sika, bearing with the difort in his body. They came to the side of Qin swordsman, and Sika fed him with the restorative water.


    ¡°Master mage, I cannot hang on anymore.¡± The Qin swordsman opened both of his expressionless eyes. It was already a miracle that he had withstood the suffering from the Red Line bandit gang¡¯s lethal poison up to now. The restorative water had only been made by Grade 1 magic, and was inevitably not the cure for everything.


    ¡°What can I help you with?¡± Saleen allowed Sika to help him sit opposite to the swordsman.


    ¡°Master mage, can I trust you?¡± The Qin swordsman¡¯s voice was getting softer, the vitality in his eyes quickly fading away.


    ¡°Trust me. I am not saving you for money,¡± Saleen replied sincerely. He was truly not after the money. In saving this squad, his motive had been to connect with the people of the Qin Empire. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the strength of the Red Line bandit gang. These bandits had still been able to deliver fatal attacks after being struck by spells.


    The Qin swordsman could sense the sorrow in Saleen¡¯s eyes. He smiled sadly and said, ¡°Take my badge and box, and go to the Bitter Water Prefecture¡­ pass the box to the Viscountess and tell her I can no longer protect her.¡±


    The swordsman¡¯s head slumped down. Saleen grew anxious, and said, ¡°How about the reward? This, why are you dead¡­¡±


    The Qin swordsman¡¯s death had been swift. He bled from all his orifices, and the blood that emerged was ck.


    Saleen was speechless. He had done them a huge favor which now amounted to nothing. Looking at his appearance, this Qin swordsman must have been the henchman of a Qin royal. Based on Saleen¡¯s understanding of the nobility, if he carried out the favor for the Viscountess, it was possible that it would not mean anything. Should he pocket the swordsman¡¯s possessions or head to the Bitter Water Prefecture?


    Saleen hesitated, giving up the n to pocket the items. He was a mage, not a bandit. He should still have this little pride. If he pocketed the items of the swordsman and his teacher learned of it, he would regret having taken in such an apprentice.


    Furthermore, there would likely be good rewards in cleaning up the battlefield. It was a pity that he could not return to Sikeqinya. Otherwise, with so many bandits, the selling of their heads alone would have provided him with handsome rewards.


    ¡°Sika, go get Sarah. Don¡¯t let the beasts eat her.¡± Saleen closed his eyes after he finished speaking. He needed rest. Regardless of how well he could tolerate the negative effects of the badge, he had lost his ability to fight and thus needed to be cautious. Canghong¡¯s injury was not minor. They needed to leave this ce as soon as possible. If the men of the Holy See came near, all of them would be doomed.


    The sun¡¯s rays shone down through the treetops. Canghong could now stand straight. He saw Sika cing Sarah next to Saleen and felt a little reassured. This mage had no intentions of silencing them, and that was the only good sign.


    They had killed the oracle of the Holy See and wiped out a small squad of the Red Line bandit gang; these past two days had been more exciting than his life as mercenary before. Damn, I cannot believe I hadn¡¯t crossed this hurdle!


    The box of the Qin swordsman was removed along with his badge. These Qin Empire swordsmen were all donned in stainless steel scale armors which were worth a few hundred gold coins. Unfortunately, they were too cumbersome to be brought along. Saleen¡¯s ring could not store everything. The space in the ring consisted of only about a few dozen square feet. Sika and Canghong had each grabbed a bundle to be carried on their backs.


    There were numerous bank notes on the bandits. Altogether, there were more than two thousand gold coins. There was a bank note worth about one thousand and five hundred gold coins as well as some gems on the bandit chief.


    ¡°This box, do you really n to send it to the Qin Empire?¡± Canghong had finished searching the battlefield and grudgingly asked this to Saleen as he leaned against a tree to rest.


    ¡°Hmph, if you wish to leave, I will take your share.¡± Saleen dispelled Canghong¡¯s idea.


    Canghong licked the side of his mouth and said, ¡°At least open it up and see what is inside?¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, If you were not around, I would have opened it to take a look. He sighed. ¡°I¡¯m afraid that no one will be able to resist the temptation once the box is opened.¡± As he said that, there was a sh of white light on his hand and the box which had been the size of two books disappeared.


    Spatial magic!


    Canghong felt a chill in his heart. It was Saleen¡¯s warning to him. Since the mage had now recovered his magic power, Canghong lost all confidence in his chances of peeping at the treasure.

 Chapter 36: The Blessing of the Goddess (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 36: The Blessing of the Goddess (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After Saleen had used the power of his ring to give a warning to Canghong, he let Sika help him while Canghong helped Sarah and they made their way out of the battlefield in the Red Forest.


    Saleen did not bury these people¡¯s bodies. Burials in the Chaotic Swamp were meaningless; the various magic beasts would soon dig up the bodies from the ground.


    The four of them sped up, carefully avoiding the dinodemons. These small creatures were rare in the Red Forest but were more dangerous than the soul killers. An attack by the dinodemons could even cause a mage to lose theirbat power.


    When approaching the edge of the Red Forest, their feet encountered muddy traps. They had no choice but to stop and rest up in a tree, since Canghong did not have a map of the area and Saleen had yet to recover.


    Saleen had exhausted the power of the Grade 3 magic nucleus and had now reced it with a new Grade 3 magic nucleus. He leaned on a thick branch and looked down at Canghong from amanding height. The devilish-looking man now looked more pleasing to the eye, like a long-suffering wife, after losing his antagonistic air.


    ¡°Canghong, do you regret having hired me?¡±


    ¡°No. Such is life,¡± Canghong answered helplessly. The tides had changed, and he needed Sika and Saleen to protect Sarah. Sarah would need at least another day to recover her movement, much less fight.


    ¡°Life? Haha¡­¡± Saleenughed softly and asked, ¡°You know the status of the oracle in the Holy See, right?¡±


    ¡°Of course. There are millions of people under him, but only one above him. Offending the oracle is akin to offending the Pope.¡±


    ¡°It would be great if that were the case. Actually, the oracle does not have to obey the Pope¡¯s orders. The Holy See¡¯s poweres from three great courts ¨C the Privy Council, the Sacred Knights, and the Inquisition. However, in terms of holy attributes, the oracle is not within any of these organizations.¡±


    ¡°What does this mean?¡± Canghong, despite being a mature mercenary, had limited understanding on the Holy Seepared to Saleen, who was a mage with lineage.


    ¡°The Pope¡¯s poweres from the three courts and the Sacred Knights. As there is no war of gods at the moment, his power is dormant. The Privy Council is the core of the Holy See. The main forces amongst them are the deacons. The internal one is the red deacon, while the primary one for the Inquisition is the ck deacon which specializes in disreputable matters. The oracles, with their own powers and known as the white deacon, are scattered throughout the various parishes.¡±


    ¡°Is there a difference?¡± Canghong asked, not seeming to care.


    ¡°The red deacon is in charge of the Holy See¡¯s internal affairs, the ck deacon is in charge of the external affairs, and the white deacon is in charge of god¡¯s order. We have not just offended the Holy See. Actually, we have offended god directly.¡±


    Canghong nearly fell off of the tree. He looked up at Saleen apprehensively.


    ¡°I cannot let us all turn back, as we may bump into the white deacon. Handling an affair with the white deacon would require someone who was at least Grade 6. If we really encounter them, we will not even have the ability to escape. That is why, Canghong, I am asking you if you are regretful.¡±


    Canghong was indeed regretful. He had thought that even though they had marred the oracle¡¯s mission, they would not take immediate action to look for him, this nobody¡­


    ¡°Ha, look at how scared you are. There will not be any connection between the oracle¡¯s mission and the Qin Empire swordsmen. The Vulture Regiment must have been a spur of the moment asion. If I am not wrong, they should be heading in another direction. Once we have passed the few hundred miles of Chaotic Swamp before us, we should be safe.¡±


    Canghong looked at Saleen doubtfully; he did not understand why this young mage did not seem to be concerned that he had offended the oracle. It was not as though Saleen was ignorant. He was more familiar with the structure and power of the Holy See than he was. Was Saleen considered powerful? Perhaps, though not as formidable as the female Caucasus warrior next to him.


    It would be impossible for a Grade 1 mage to be a match for a Grade 6 professional.


    ¡°The sacred Holy See, while formidable, has not been in power for long. The only people who can be controlled by them are the people of the Tanggsi Empire. Their power iscking in Sikeqinya. The people we have offended are high-ranking, but it would not be possible for them to make any major moves in another empire, lest it lead to war. Hence, you do not need to worry. Once we leave Sikeqinya and enter the Qin Empire, we should be safe. The Qin Empire is referred to as the empire of magic and it has always had a low tolerance for theocracy. Ah, no point in telling you¡­¡±


    Canghong red at Saleen, not understanding the main point to all of this. He only knew that if they did not run away, they coulde under scrutiny by the white deacon at anytime. They were Grade 6 professionals, equivalent to a Grade 5 mage or a senior swordsman.


    ¡°Why are you telling me all of this? No matter which deacones after us, aren¡¯t we all dead meat?¡±


    ¡°It is different. If it were the red deacon, as long as you are willing to embrace god and choose to believe in god, you will not die. If it were the ck deacon, you could impress the inquisitors with your special powers and receive a chance of surrendering. If it is the white deacon, then you should just give up, because the oracle does not need anything.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were like a hammer mming on Canghong¡¯s heart. He had indeed harbored the same thought: to embrace god when worst came to worst, since it would be better than getting killed. Saleen seemed to have read his mind and his words had caused Canghong topletely give up on the thought.


    After Saleen had said these words, he closed his eyes and held the magic nucleus tightly to speed up the recovery of his magic chords. Canghong did not say more as he was a junior swordsman, equivalent to a Grade 4 professional. He had thought he would be able to lord over this Grade 1 mage. But now, it seemed as if he was not only inferior inbat power, but was also less intelligent than him.


    Canghong was frustrated. A Grade 1 mage was only equivalent to a Grade 2 professional. Why was he giving him so much pressure?


    After half an hour, Saleen¡¯s magic chords had recovered but the negative effects in his body had not disappeared. With much difficulty, he was able to let Sika help him along. Sarah had also regained some strength. The four of them entered the Chaotic Swamp again before the sky turned dark.


    The most dangerous things in the Chaotic Swamp were not magic beasts, but traps. Over tens of thousands of years,yers of mud had piled up and there was no knowing how deep it truly was. With Saleen¡¯s strong sense of perception helping them circumvent these traps, their ultimate threat would still be the magic beasts.


    This was originally meant to be the thrilling part of their journey. Sika had almost fully recovered and was leading in the front. She made a low howling sound from time to time. Even strong magic beasts, with Sika chanting her mantra from afar, would only take a look and then scamper off.


    Saleen now knew why Canghong wanted to hire a Caucasus warrior despite the high cost. Most Caucasus warriors who were able to venture out from their viges had received blessings from their priests and had the ability tomunicate with magic beasts. While they were unable to get magic beasts to serve them like the holy masters under the Goddess of Nature, if they expressed good intentions, mutual avoidance could be achieved.


    On this journey, besides Sika driving away a group of dinodemons with her cudgel, no other magic beasts had required her to take action. The four of them had walked about a hundred miles in the Chaotic Swamp from dusk until dawn, and while thoroughly exhausted, were almost at the halfway mark.


    While the dispirited foursome was making their way through the night, a youth in a white robe had just entered the cave leading to the Chaotic Swamp, the battlefield where Saleen and his party had just been, along with his four men.


    The youth was in his twenties. His wide and flowy robe resembled that of a mage¡¯s, but did not have any design on the inner waistband. Such a robe was unsuited for expeditions and was too cumbersome for battles. He appeared spotlessly clean, as if he had just taken a bath and was then blown dry by Wind Magic.


    Frowning slightly, he leaned against the wall in the cave. He was impatiently waiting for his men to gather information from the battlefield. His men were all wearing armor. These armors had almost no gaps and looked as though they had been sculpted out of whole pieces of metal. A leaf design could be seen along the edges of each piece of armor. Each leaf was imprinted with gold holy prose. Only warriors from the Holy See would dress in this manner, and those qualified to be wearing holy prose armor were at least at the level of Grade 5.


    ¡°Sir, the men are all dead. There is a mage among the enemies,¡± a warrior in holy prose armor reported cautiously. The white-robed youth furrowed his eyebrows and took on an icy expression.


    ¡°They deserved to die. These sons of bitches actually dared defy the oracle¡¯s orders and changed the route forward for some small gain.¡±


    The white-robed youth¡¯s use of vulgarities and his violent expression did not seem to match his status. The four men kept quiet out of fear, acting as though they had not heard him.


    ¡°Is it possible to catch up with them?¡± The white-robed youth seem to hate being in the cave. He cast a divine glow and surrounded himself with it, causing even his appearance to be blurred. Without waiting for an answer, he refuted himself, ¡°No, we must go forward ording to n. If we dy the oracle¡¯s affairs, we will have no redemption even at our deaths. Listen carefully. After thepletion of the mission, try and eliminate the Vulture Regiment. The thought of them makes me angry.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sir Picasso.¡± The four men in holy prose armor bowed.


    Saleen and his party were not aware of their near escape. If this group had caught up with them, Saleen could not have made any moves to escape them. The power of four Grade 5 warriors,bined with that of a Grade 6 Holy Master, would require his teacher¡¯s assistance to have even a chance at victory.


    The topography of the Chaotic Swamp wasplicated and even the weather was erratic. When Saleen and his party passed through the edge of a small swamp, they felt the weather be warmer. In front of them was the ins, the ground dry with nary a stalk of grass upon it. Only nts usually found in deserts could be seen stubbornly taking root on the ins.


    Aside from Saleen, the eyes of the other three were already closing. Upon seeing the dry ins, they could not wait to set up tents.


    ¡°Everyone bear with it. Rest only once we are behind that mount.¡± Saleen did not want to take any chances. His magic chords had recoveredpletely and he led everyone to the mount before letting them rest while he kept watch.


    ¡°Chief, I am going to sleep!¡± Sika said hesitantly, looking at Saleen,


    ¡°Sleep. I have recovered well.¡± Saleen patted Sika¡¯s shoulder, sat down, and prepared to inspect his takings from these past few days.


    Canghong and Sarah slept first. They had long since thrown away their tents, and so could only use their cloaks as covers while trying to curl their bodies up. Sika¡¯s expensive leather armor had the ability to adjust temperature. She spread out her limbs and fell into an unguarded slumber next to Saleen.

 Chapter 37: The Blessing of the Goddess (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 37: The Blessing of the Goddess (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Along the journey, Saleen had obtained a total of four thousand gold coins from various fallen opponents. Two thousand of them had been distributed to Canghong, and he was left with the other two thousand. The credit for getting more than a dozen of magic nuclei was Sika¡¯s, and they did not need to be distributed to Canghong. As these were only worth tens of gold coins, Saleen could use them as consumables.


    The witcher spider¡¯s carcass. Saleen was not yet able to make a magic puppet out of it. Hence, it was not of any use to him at the moment.


    The metal glove with holy prose. This was also useless to Saleen. If he met with an alchemist, it could be broken down into pretty good materials.


    The Goddess of Nature¡¯s ring. This piece of spatial equipment was Saleen¡¯s most valuable item. The space within the ring now included a box and a badge, as well as the Qin eight-faceted sword left behind by the Qin swordsman. Saleen had nned to send this remnant from the swordsman to the Bitter Water Prefecture. As for the three auspicious items in the ring, Saleen had taken all of them out.


    The lush green gourd, which was no bigger than his palm, grew warm like jade in his hand. The gourd was not equipment and did not have an opening. Saleen gave it a thorough look, and returned it back into the ring.


    The ck ne was made of twenty-four pieces of ck crystals strung together. Holding it in his hand, Saleen could not distinguish the kind of crystals it was made of. However, Saleen was very certain that these were neither obsidian nor cheap steel rocks.


    Lastly, there was that piece of leaf. Saleen felt that it was something extraordinary. Although the leaf had turned a bit yellow, it still contained a strong vitality. Saleen knew that his grade was too low for him to make sense of the function of this piece of leaf. He could only leave it forter consideration. It might have been mentioned in some of the books he had previously read.


    These three auspicious items had definitelye from a nature mage. The nature mages had already disappeared. In order to understand the origin of these items, he would need to check the books he had read before.


    Saleen wore the ne on his neck and returned the leaf back into the ring. Then, he began to examine the ancient Myers script engraved on the inner side of the ring.


    These twenty-four characters had been grouped together to form a loop, and there were no sentence breaks in between. Saleen had casually started from the middlest time, and by sheer luck, had unveiled the secret of the space in the ring after only one recitation. When he read it again, Saleen discovered that the twenty-four characters were, in fact, a type of ancient mantra, with every six characters forming a verse.


    ording to the description in the book, this was a blessing ring from the Goddess of Nature and could be used by any holy master or mage. These twenty-four characters could be recited in different ways to form four different nature spells.


    It was indeed an amazingbination. He wondered what the uses of the remaining three spells were. However, at this time, Saleen did not dare conduct such random experiments. His knowledge of magic was vast and also powerful. He knew that since he had been able to use the first mantra to open up the space of the ring, the remaining three mantras should definitely be usable too.


    However, if the remaining three mantras were for attacking spells, his magic chords would momentarily be exhausted and would take a few days to recover. In addition to not being able to gain new magic spells, he wouldpletely lose hisbat ability.


    ording to the hierarchal rules of magic equipment, Saleen deduced that once he reached Grade 5, he would be able to use these three spells without them backfiring on him. While the Goddess of Nature¡¯s magic was gentle, it was still restrictive in terms of its grading. This restriction in grading had only appeared after the fall of the Goddess of Nature. In olden times, there were not as many restrictions on mankind¡¯s power.


    It was a pity that for such powerful equipment, he could only make use of it as amon space prop. Saleen memorized the order of the twenty-four characters and wore the ring again. For the moment, he needed to protect his three sleepingpatriots. He could not meditate, and also could not rely on his badge to train his mental power. He could only recall some knowledge that he had memorized using memory magic and processed his thoughts repeatedly, converting the contents into his own.


    Memory magic referred to learning by rote. Mastering the contents of magic books and notes required continuous study. Although there were shortcuts in the journey to mastering magic, Saleen had merely been equipped with slightly more resources than others, and it was still impossible for him to aplish things overnight.


    Saleen¡¯s memories of the magic books were very concise. He searched for portions rted to Myers, the Goddess of Nature, and nned to look for the secret to the ring.


    Be it magic books or magic notes, descriptions of Myers, the Goddess of Nature, were few and far in between. Most mages heaped praise on the Goddess Myers. As information regarding the blessing ring was quite extensive, Saleen was quickly able to clear his doubts.


    The blessing ring had been created by the Myers Temple, and a total of two thousand one hundred and twenty four pieces had been created. Only twelve pieces among them possessed spatial magic. These twelve blessing rings had been created by four main temples and eight supreme temples, and thus were impossible to replicate. However, the Goddess of Nature was a fair deity, and the mantras on the two thousand one hundred and twenty four blessing rings were identical.


    The twelve rings with spatial magic required no consumption of the magic chords to open the inner space of the ring.


    The four mantras on the ring were namely the Opening of Space, Gift of Life, Protection of the Goddess, and Order of Nature. Opening of Space was a pure magic spell, Gift of Life was a half spell, Protection of the Goddess was a divine spell, and Order of Nature was unknown.


    Having studied it up to this point, Saleen was rather disappointed. The half spell Gift of Life appeared to be was like a holy master¡¯s healing spell, while Protection of the Goddess was purely a divine spell. Now that the Goddess had fallen, even if he were very devoted, he would not receive protection from the Goddess. The Order of Nature was unknown? If even the mages and holy masters from the past had not been able to understand thest mantra on the ring, it would be even more impossible for him to get to the bottom of it. It was fortunate that he had received a blessing ring of one of the highest grades, and that he, at Grade 1, could open up the space.


    What would be the grade of the three auspicious items in a blessing ring of the highest grade? Saleen touched the ck ne on his neck and was deep in thought.


    In chaotic moors duringte autumn, the magic beasts were irritable. Sika had fallen asleep, and when Saleen detected a magic beast peeping from afar, he had no choice but to deploy the Fog of Confusion. The rankings of magic spells were not determined by their high or low grades, but by their usage. The Fog of Confusion was not meant for attacking, but it could be used to mask scent, heightened the mage¡¯s senses, and was one of the most practical low grade spells in the Water Series.


    After the Fog of Confusion was deployed, the peeping magic beast lost its target for a moment, hesitated for a while, and then turned to leave.


    These were the magic beasts of the Chaotic Swamp. They did not have any concept of territory and only wanted to fill their stomachs. If they lost the trails of their prey, the magic beasts would not bother with them any further. Saleen patted his chest, feeling relieved that he had deployed the Fog of Confusion in time. The peeping magic beast, while not high in grade, had possessed a mighty body. No living creature that could survive in the Chaotic Swamp could be considered weak.


    Being able to deploy only Water Series magic had made him too weak. If he were able to deploy the six series of magic, he would easily trump even a Grade 2 mage.


    The longer it had been since Saleen had departed from Ceylon City, the more he discovered that he was different from others. This was, in fact, not because his grade was different from others and was not because he possessed any greater gifts. If a mage master were to judge, Saleen had definitely earned his advantage from his lineage.


    A mage without any lineage would definitely not possess such precise control. Grade 2 deployment, second deployment, and instant deployment were abilities that many mages yearned to possess knowledge of.


    When Saleen had started to learn magic, he had assumed that these were techniques that all mages had to master. This had resulted in him not mastering that many spells, but being able to deploy each and every of them with precision.


    Furthermore, although Saleen¡¯s magic chords were wed and only allowed him to deploy Water Series magic, in terms of quantity, they were double that of other mages of the same level. That meant that the time he could practice magic was also double that of other mages of the same level. In addition, because he did not care about exhausting magic nuclei, he spent even more time on practice.


    To increase one¡¯s magic¡¯s power, one needed to practice repeatedly. To shorten the preparation of a spell to two frames (two-sixtieths of a second) typically required up to thousands of rounds of practice. Simrly, being able to lock onto targets and dy deployment time also required repeated practice. A spell exploding in their hands was considered a mage¡¯s tragedy.


    If Saleen had practiced this way in the Holy See, he would definitely have attained the rank of an ascetic.


    Saleen sighed at his own weaknesses, unaware that if another Grade 1 mage saw his deployment ability, they would be inconsble. Being a Grade 1 mage like him, how could the discrepancy be so huge?


    This was not Saleen¡¯s fault. He had read the following description from some magic notes ¨C XXXX was amon method by which mages improved theirbat capability.


    He had only seen the wordsmon method and naturally assumed it to be such. In actuality, this so-calledmon method was only meant for extremely gifted, as well as wealthy mages with lineage like Jason. Saleen had always believed that all mages were like Jason, and could build their own magicboratories while owning hundreds of thousands of books and notes.


    Borrowing Jason Statham¡¯s magic notes for reading would cost hundreds of gold coins alone, not to mention their actual value. Such wealthy mages were beyond solicitation from noblemen. It would have been futile even if Viscount Gugger had spent more of his efforts trying to solicit him.


    After checking his own loot, Saleen retrieved the box that the Qin swordsman had entrusted him with. The box was around the size of two books and was unusually heavy. If it had not ced in the blessing ring, it would have been a burden to Saleen¡¯s movement. Saleen, who had from thirteen years of age often carried the leather sack that weighed up to few hundred kilograms between Ceylon City and his ancestral house, was definitely not weak. Even swordsmen of the same age might not have been as strong as him.


    What was inside the box? That swordsman had kept it in mind even before his death, asking for it to be handed to his Viscountess.


    Just one nce! Saleen thought to himself, I am not doing this out of greed. That swordsman did not say not to look. He took one nce at Canghong, who was in a deep sleep, and discreetly opened the box.


    A strong elemental wave was emitted from the box. Saleen only saw a patch of green light and closed the box immediately, hurriedly putting the box into the blessing ring. This had been terrifying for him. The box had contained a magic nucleus. Saleen had never heard of such a powerful magic nucleus, which could emit an elemental wave that could even be seen by the naked eye.


    In addition, it had been in the natural shape of a twenty-four-faceted crystal. Beside a the magic nucleus of a dragon, he had never heard of any magic beast possessing such an item of perfection.


    Sika sat up with a jerk, her hand already gripping her cudgel tightly. Her hair was almost standing straight up. She had been sleeping soundly, but had suddenly felt a powerful magic beast approach and instinctively entered battle mode.


    Canghong and Sarah had also awoken in shock. It was difficult for Saleen to exin anything. However, he had opened up the box and revealed the magic nucleus of the dragon. It might have lured a powerful magic beast, and even the people of the Holy See had been able to sense it.


    Saleen was very regretful. Curiosity killed the cat, indeed!

 Chapter 38: Into the Ruins (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 38: Into the Ruins (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen pulled up Canghong and motioned for Sika to carry Sarah. Without much exnation, they quickly left the mound. His instincts warned him that he was in danger. If they rested here any longer, he was afraid that they wouldn¡¯t be able to leave.


    From afar came the growls of magic beasts, some fearful, some excited, and others full of anger. Saleen realized for the first time that a magic beast¡¯s growl could contain such emotions.


    However, it was toote for regrets and he could only activate the enormous energy from the mage robe, which granted him tremendous speed with which to run away.


    He wasn¡¯t afraid of the magic beasts. Sika had the ability to tame them. He was afraid of the people from the sacred Holy See. If they realized that he carried the magic nucleus of the dragon, even if there were no animosity between him and them, would that guarantee that they would not take action? This was the Chaotic Swamp; any killings would go unnoticed.


    Saleen remembered clearly that back then, a single gold coin had almost cost him his life. The magic nucleus of a dragon was definitely something that had a much higher value and was worth stealing. Green dragon, green dragon!


    Damn it. The professional union¡¯s news had been purely lies. The green dragon had already been killed. This batch had caught the attention of the Red Line bandits after the dragon had been ughtered by the Qin swordmasters. It was highly likely that this mission had been posted by the Qin swordmasters to confuse mercenaries who were nearby.


    Green dragons were low ss dragons; however, the value of their magic nuclei could not bepared to those of normal magic beasts. A great number of mercenaries would forgo their work ethics and kill for this magic nucleus.


    ¡°Keke¡­¡±


    A strange noise appeared. What apanied this almost cough-like noise was the shaking of the ground.


    ¡°Boom! Boom! Boom!¡±


    The sounds of steady footsteps led Saleen to turn around. What greeted him was the sight of a hill-like beast charging towards them. This beast was evenrger than a giant dragon, and was at least thirty meters across. It had yellowish-brown skin with a single eye in the center of its forehead. It had a face simr to that of a human¡¯s, only its skin was filled with scars, its nose was caved in, saliva drooled from his mouth, and a disgusting aura wafted from it even from afar.


    Saleencked themon knowledge of a mercenary but had seen a lot of magic maps. This thing was too easy to recognize: a Grade 7 magic beast, hill cyclops.


    Legend had it that hill cyclops were the descendants of giants. During the reign of the First Dynasty, humans had still possessed brutal strength. They captured many strange living things, and giants had been one of them.


    Hill cyclops did not have the intelligence of giants, nor did they have their magic skills. However, because of their tough physical bodies, even the dragon n would not go through the trouble of offending them. This creature had no wits. When it encountered any opponent, no matter how strong they were, it would pounce and fight with it. For the dragon n, the hill cyclops were simr to gummy candies, because once theytched on there was no escaping. For Saleen and the others, this gummy candy would be their killer.


    Sika panicked. She had no means ofmunicating with the hill cyclops, because this creature could not recognize anyone. Even during its mating phase, it could bite its lover to death. This exined why there were so few hill cyclops around.


    Canghong was even more flustered, never having faced a Grade 7 magic beast before. Even a grand mage would not offend it, much less a small mercenary like him. Canghong realized sadly that being with this junior magician, he would forever encounter worsening things ahead of him.


    The Vulture Regiment, sacred Holy See, Red Line bandits, and now a hill cyclops. What was even more vexing was that he had hired Saleen for a price much higher than what the union offered. This was a typical case of getting what one deserved.


    The hill cyclops was not fast but its legs were over ten meters long. No matter how slowly it took a step, it was much faster than Saleen and the others. This location was a t in. There was no way Saleen and the others could hide.


    ¡°Canghong, how far away are the ruins!¡± Saleen shouted at the top of his lungs. At this point in time, he was no longer afraid of alerting the magic beasts.


    ¡°I have no idea. I can¡¯t link up with the map!¡± Canghong started to pant. He was only trained so much in the sword aura and he was injured. The healing abilities of restorative water were nowhere near as fast as holy water. Perhaps if he had been given a week to recover, he could outrun the beast behind.


    ¡°Right side!¡± Saleen voice cracked from all the shouting. At this moment, Sika gained a burst of speed and grabbed Saleen by his waist. They ran past Canghong and dove headfirst into the pond that Saleen had pointed at. Canghong couldn¡¯t have cared less about being angry. When fighting for one¡¯s life, what counted was a person¡¯s abilities. You couldn¡¯t me anyone for running faster than you.


    The four of themnded in the water and the hill cyclops gave an angry growl and chased them forward, circling around the pond. It tested the water with its gigantic feet and realized it was very deep. Even along the edge, it couldn¡¯t reach the bottom with its feet.


    The hill cyclops couldn¡¯t swim but wasn¡¯t ready to give up its prey like this. It dug out a giant rock from the ground and threw it at the pond. Canghong¡¯s head which was above the surface was nearly crushed by the giant rock. He immediately ducked his head back down in fear.


    Saleen could breathe naturally underwater. This was the moment where the advantages of his magic chords shone. Deep waters were the best protective environment for Saleen. It was a good ce for Sika, too, for she was good with water and it was nearly impossible to tell that she hardly showered. Only Sarah had not recovered from her injuries. Despite being more advanced with her sword aura than Canghong, she could hardly hold her breath any longer.


    The hill cyclops at the side of the pond was still angrily throwing giant rocks into the water. With the hill cyclops¡¯ strength, even if the rock was only the size of a fist, it would be fatal if itnded on anyone.


    Saleen watched helplessly and could only try to create a bubble. This time, he drew air from the Ring of Gifts and enclosed it within a water shield, attaching the water shield to the back of Sarah¡¯s head. He tried many times only to fail, as a new magic skill wasn¡¯t that easy to create. Sarah was already bleeding from her ears, and her eyes were bulging, looking nothing like a prettydy. Her bluish skin was thoroughly scary.


    Saleen was down to hisst resort, taking out all the air from the Ring of Gifts and creating arge bubble. He created the water shield directly around the bodies of Sika and Sarah. Saleen was highly focused and the water shield was finished almost immediately. He didn¡¯t even realize that these efforts had left him with only half of his magic chords.


    In the past, Saleen had only been able to create water shields the size of a basin. The magic released this time directly enclosed the bodies of the two, creating an all epassingyer of protection. This could only be achieved by defense magic of at least Grade 4.


    Sarah breathed in, the color returning to their skin. However, Canghong couldn¡¯t hold his breath and floated to the surface again.


    Saleen was worried about the speed with which he was using up his magic chords and had no way of helping Canghong. The moment Canghong¡¯s head appeared above the water, a rock flew past his forehead. The air current carried by the rock was practically a sharp knife, cutting open Canghong¡¯s tender skin. Canghong didn¡¯t even blink, taking in a deep breath as he sank back down into the water.


    A cloud of red spread in the water. Bone could be seen from the wound on Canghong¡¯s forehead, causing his demonic looks to appear quite eerie. Without even waiting for the blood to disperse, dozens of fish each the size of a fist swam over and surrounded Canghong.


    These fish did not have scales, but instead possessed a hard shell much like that of a turtle. Their mouths were abnormally big and contained razor sharp teeth. Canghong did not recognize these fish, but knew that there were no good living creatures to be found in the Chaotic Swamp. What was strange about this pond was that it was in the middle of an empty in and had no rivers flowing into it. It wasn¡¯t surprising that the creatures inside it were abnormal too. He unsheathed a thin sword and poked at the first fish that pounced at him.


    Saleen could breathe effortlessly in the water but could not say a word. He recognized this fish. It was a Grade 5 magic beast: diasik. This was a word from a tribalnguage meaning the jackal of the water. Even if Canghong had not been injured, he would not be a match for this magic beast in the water.


    Saleen wanted immensely to help Canghong, but he was in danger himself. Five diasik were swimming towards him. Saleen barely had a third of his magic chords remaining, probably enough to release another seven or eight Grade 1 magic spells. Even if the Grade 5 magic beast stayed put and let him attack, it was possible that he could not injure them enough to kill them.


    The only thing Saleen could count on now was his water shields. Diasik had small bodies and they were just the right size for Saleen¡¯s water shields topletely enclose them.


    Five consecutive streaks of water shieldster, Saleen¡¯s magic chords had nearly run out. They could no longer see what was happening with Canghong, a cloud of red having spread around and blocking their view.


    Sarah struggled within therge bubble, watching as the many mutated fish pounced on Canghong, tearing off pieces of meat little by little. However, even if Sika had released her, she would not even be able to escape the water shield, much less help Canghong.


    Sarah pressed both of her hands against the walls of the water shield. She opened her eyes, and tears began to flow from her blue eyes. She opened her mouth and screamed, but the water shield blocked out all sound.


    Saleen could no longer cast any more spells. With his remaining magic chords, he still needed to maintain the biggest water shield. This continuous use of magic chords was something that only Grade 4 mages and above could achieve. The diasik that were surrounded by the bubbles opened their mouths and released blue needles in a bid to break the water shield.


    Blue needles were the natural magic of this magic beast. A Grade 1 magic shield could not block a Grade 5 magic attack, but what was surprising was that the Grade 5 magic attacks could only pass through the water shield without breaking the bubble.


    Saleen quickly descended, ducking away from the attacks of the blue needles. He had nothing left to cast. The hill cyclops was still throwing rocks at the surface of the water, unwilling to leave, while underwater there were a swarm of Grade 5 magic beasts. This was the Chaotic Swamp, and was not a ce where a Grade 1 magician should be.


    Saleen was too flustered to care about anything. He twisted his body and floated upwards. In his heart, he was already repeating the words of the mantra on the Ring of Gifts. Using space to start this curse, breaking apart from the third node and rearranging it, that is the protection of the goddess. Who knew what this spell was used for, but Saleen was at his wit¡¯s end. He knew clearly that the Goddess of Nature had already fallen and that what he was doing was fruitless, but he wasn¡¯t ready to give up. Even if there was only a slim chance, he had to try.


    Myers Goddess, protect me!


    For the first time in his life, Saleen said a prayer. When his head emerged from the water¡¯s surface, he started reciting the curse. Rearranging the twenty-four characters, it was harder to pronounce. Saleen focused, not looking at the hill cyclops at the pond side that was searching for more rocks. He spoke each word clearly, rhythmically reading out the twenty-four characters.


    A green light shone on the Ring of Gifts for a moment, but nothing else happened. Saleen¡¯s heart fell. Praying to a fallen goddess was like chasing after a debt from the dead.


    In this world, one could only count on their own strength!


    Saleen had beenining in his heart about the gods when pain shot up his legs, his shoes already having been bitten apart. The hill cyclops by the pool side had dug up another giant rock and was about to throw it.


    This fool. It could easily have destroyed him by releasing any form of magic, but here it was throwing things at people. Saleen gave the hill cyclops a smile before diving back into the water.

 Chapter 39: Into the Ruins (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 39: Into the Ruins (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Just as Saleen was about to give up hope, a violent vibration erupted from the bottom of the pond. The pond began to bubble and arge whirlpool appeared, sucking Saleen and the others down to the bottom of the pond.


    Earthquake? Volcano?


    Saleen thought about it calmly as he tried his best to lean towards the giant bubble that was protecting Sarah and Sika.


    Even at the brink of death, Saleen was not flustered. Since he had been young, he had brushed with death many times. This feeling of nearly touching another world was familiar yet helpless.


    The whirlpool was unusually strong, and even the diasik were unable to escape. Saleen and the others were at the heart of the whirlpool. However, there was no pressure from their surroundings. The only thing they felt was the enormous suction from the bottom of the pond.


    It had onlysted ten seconds but Saleen felt as though he had gone through a ck hole. A surge of immense pain coursed through his entire body, as if the inside of the ck hole had been filled with countless des of ice. His body felt like it had been chopped up into millions of pieces and then reassembled. If Saleen had not constantly used his badge to train his mental strength, he would have fainted long ago.


    A booming sound appeared and Saleen caught a nce of a wounded Canghong falling in front of him. This man had in fact not died. Both of his eyes were open in a shocked expression, frozen into this moment.


    In this whirlpool, there was not a single drop of water. This was a ck cave, and if it had not been for theyer of light from the water shield that protected the falling Sika and Sarah, Saleen would not have been able to clearly see his surroundings.


    Saleen nced down at his feet,rge holes having appeared in the sides of his shoes. His feet weren¡¯t badly wounded and his walking was unaffected.


    The water shield that protected Sika and Sarah broke, the bubble bursting with a popping sound. Saleen released four Fluorescence spells and four lights flew upwards, slowly illuminating the cave.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika left Sarah¡¯s side and pounced forward. Saleen lost his bnce and nearly fell over.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Sika felt him up and down. How could he have been alright? He was hurting all over and was relying entirely on his willpower to continue standing there and not roll around the floor in pain. Sika¡¯s hands as they felt around his body were even more unbearable than a knife poking him.


    However, Sika¡¯s eyes were filled with worry and Saleen was too embarrassed to push her away. He unhooked the golden bottle from his waist and pushed the bottle into Sika¡¯s hands, saying, ¡°Treat Canghong, he¡¯s dying.¡±


    Chasing away Sika, Saleen turned his attention to Sarah. She was injured fairly badly but was not in danger of dying. Saleen took out a Grade 3 magic nucleus and held it in his hands, absorbing its elemental powers and restoring his magic chords. For a mage, it was a bad feeling to not have any magic chords, because there was no sense of security.


    Saleen also knew that even though Sika had reassured him that she was alright, the damage done to her by the ascetic had been extensive. Sika was neither a sacrifice nor a mage. Her mental injuries could not be seen.


    Sika¡¯s ability to tame magic beasts could no longer be used, her fighting ability had decreased tremendously, and even her cudgel had lost its former power.


    The area lit up by the Fluorescence spell was small in the vast area of the cave. While restoring his magic chords, Saleen observed his surroundings, but there was no end to the darkness. By his feet were t rocks of a ck color. Saleen crouched down and used his fingernail to scratch at the surface of the floor, feeling the friction of the rocks.


    It was a whole piece of steel rock.


    To say that steel rock had no mary value was to show respect to other gemstones, as this material was the main material used in building magical towers and magical gates. A single gold coin could purchase only a square meter of it. For most mages who did not possess such wealth, despite having trained until they had reached Grade 6, they could only use normal stone materials to build their magical towers.


    Saleen used his senses to observe a depth of one meter underground. In Saleen¡¯s observable sight, what was beneath his feet was all steel rock. What left him most surprised was that the steel rock under him was aplete piece with no cracks whatsoever. Had this cave been chiselled out from steel rock?


    These had to be the ruins of the Second Dynasty. Besides that magical empire, none had been asvish.


    Sika used the gold bottle to wash Canghong¡¯s wounds. He had hundreds of wounds on his body and Sika could only choose the bigger ones to treat. The remaining restorative water, she had Canghong drink.


    Canghong¡¯s face settled down, but his heart was anything but calm. He saw Saleen holding onto a magic nucleus with one hand, absorbing its powers, while the other hand used magic to light up the area as he observed his surroundings.


    Saleen was actually a mage with a powerful lineage!


    For a normal mage to restore their magic chords, they would usually have to be stationary. They could not even move a muscle, much less cast a spell at the same time. During that time, there was no need for a person to attack. If a mage was disturbed at that point, they would have be maimed by their own magic and crippled.


    Although Canghong was clueless about the rules of meditation, he understood the meaning of possessing magic lineage. Saleen¡¯s teacher must have been an unusually powerful person. What was strange was that Saleen¡¯s grade was still very low, so why had he left his training? This was a dangerous ce, especially a ce like the Chaotic Swamp. Wasn¡¯t Saleen¡¯s teacher fearful for their student¡¯s life?


    Saleen touched the floor, finally finding streaks of magic that had been hardly noticeable. At his feet, there was an enormous invisible magic array. The few of them had been sucked into the cave from the pond precisely because of the activation of the magic array.


    Saleen was not well versed in magic arrays. Even if his memory was filled with knowledge on magic arrays, he could not decipher anything about them. However, from theplexity of the magic streaks, this magic array must have had a diameter of at least a hundred meters. Legend had it that in the imperial city of the Qin Empire, there was arge magic array that had been built by a few generations of imperial mages all together. The diameter of that magic array had only been fifty meters.


    Saleen was happy. These Second Dynasty ruins certainly did not disappoint. The steel rocks beneath his feet by themselves were already worth a few million, maybe even tens of millions. This meant that even if the entire ruins were empty, he only had to dig up a few rocks and he would still be filthy rich. The only problem now was theck of space in his Ring of Gifts¡­


    If only his teacher were here. With Jason¡¯s spatial tools, he could definitely bring back all the steel rock.


    If Jason only knew how useless his student was, he would have surely disowned Saleen. It was just a pile of steel rocks. Once Jason broke through Grade 5, he would have the financial means to build an entire magic tower using many premium materials. For a teacher physically carry all these steel rocks? He would be better off without such a student. It was too embarrassing.


    After regaining half of his magic chords, Saleen created another portion of restorative water to clean Canghong¡¯s wounds and give to Sarah to drink. A ruin that was older than twenty thousand years was usually safe, but it was hard to say. Despite being built when the Second Dynasty had ruled their magical empire, the magic array he was standing on had still been able to activate, proving how powerful the mages had been back then. It was always good to have more help on hand.


    The air in this space was clean. With the exception ofcking light and sound, there were no imminent dangers present. The magic array he was standing on was also very stable and did not look like it would be activated again. After resting for around four hours, Saleen and the other regained some of their fighting spirit.


    Canghong¡¯s external wounds had healed with scars marking his body. However, funnily enough, his face was very clean. Saleen suspected that when he was faced with danger, the first thing he did was to protect his face. The current paleness of Canghong¡¯s face was the result of an extensive loss of blood.


    Restorative water could not replenish blood. Even magic could not do such a thing.


    Canghong¡¯s voice was soft and weak, making Saleen¡¯s hair stand on end.


    ¡°Mage Merlin, why don¡¯t you use illumination magic to survey the surroundings?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how to cast illumination magic.¡±


    Canghong was at a loss for words. All the words he had wanted to say went back down his throat. This mage of such powerful magical lineage actually had no idea how to cast illumination magic, which were spells that could not have been easier.


    Saleen ignored Canghong¡¯s embarrassment. An illumination spell might have produced a small area of brightness, but naturally, he had other ideas. He retrieved a giant gold stick from the leather pouch on his back and opened the cover on top of it. He lit up the Magic me Medicine hidden inside to create a magic torch.


    There were six small holes at the top of the gold stick. After the Magic me Medicine had been ignited, white mes began to spew out, emitting a bright light that was even stronger than the effects of an illumination spell.


    For a moment, everything had been silent. With the magic torch ignited, everyone could finally see everything within this space.


    They were standing on a ck tform. The entire piece of steel rock had aplex magic array carved into it, and at the edge of the tform were wide rock stairs. Twelve wide pirs held up this area. Below the tform was a wider spot of t ground where a beast lying down, asleep.


    This beast was ten over meters long and was not as big as the hill cyclops. It had a set of silver horns on its head, and its face was almost two meters long. ted armor grew all over its body, almost like that of a freshwater magic alligator. Because of how effectively Saleen¡¯s magic torch had lit up the space, everyone could clearly see all seven eyes on the beast.


    The magic seven-eyed Bafendier!


    Thirty thousand years ago, humans had loved to capture strange beasts from other parallel universes, including evil magic universes. There were many different types of evil magic beasts but there were only a few ways of ssifying them: supreme demons, demons, and imps and spirits.


    Supreme demons had powers that were greater than all of the nine sses, including mages.


    Bafendier was one of the more famous supreme demons. On the wall drawings of the various dynasties, a person could easily find a drawing of the Bafendier. However, after human powers had weakened after the Third Dynasty, they could no longer cross over to other parallel universes whenever they wished.


    Though once a tamed beast, Bafendier had be a greatly-feared one instead.


    How hadn¡¯t this thing gone extinct from this universe already?


    Saleen swallowed, ensuring that the legendary thunder chain was not on this supreme evil beast. Evidently, this beast was free. That only meant that it was not bound by anything. If it were to leave this space, it was possible that it would wreak havoc on the Myers maind.


    How? Demons had intelligence, and some even possessed anguage and words. Being locked in here for tens of thousands of years, wasn¡¯t this demon angry?


    Saleen and the others hoped with all of their heart that this demon would never wake up.

 Chapter 40: Supreme Demon, Little Imp (Part 1)

    Chapter 40: Supreme Demon, Little Imp (Part 1)


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Perhaps it was because Saleen and his party did not have a religion, and that was why their prayers had not been answered. Supreme demon Bafendier only opened one of his seven eyes, and looked at the tform behind the twelve pirs.


    Bafendier¡¯s eyes were filled with shock and doubt. It opened its mouth and said, ¡°£À£¦££€!¡è¡á¡â¡á¡ù?Humans!¡±


    Besides Saleen, no one else understood what Bafendier had said. This was ancient Myersnguage, which had previously been popr on the maind. Now, only the well-schooled among nobles and mages would know it.


    What Bafendier had said was ¨C Oh my devil, so small? These are humans?


    Unconsciously, Canghong and the party retreated, but because there was a wall behind them there was nowhere to retreat to. Saleen¡¯s eyes were closed as he carefully assessed the enormous demon. Sika tugged on Sarah¡¯s clothing in the back. Saleen, however, moved forward.


    Saleen walked along the stairs carefully and came before the supreme demon. And then, he did something that made everyone¡¯s eyes pop.


    Saleen deployed the Acid Sputtering spell to attack Bafendier.


    Sizzle¡­


    Something even more shocking happened. The supreme demon Bafendier¡¯s single silver horn was easily damaged by Saleen¡¯s Grade 0 spell. The supreme demon Bafendier was angered and rose up with a furious roar.


    Saleen raised his head and used his deep blue eyes to look at Bafendier, slowly speaking in ancient Myersnguage.


    ¡°Supreme demons are immune to spells involving mes, acids, poisons, and fear. Even for supreme demons who are deceased, I am not able to harm their bodies. There can only be one reason that you are so fragile. That is, you are a fake. Let me guess which type of spirit you are. To have the nerve to take on the appearance of a supreme demon, you must be a Tolu, the most foolish of spirits.¡±


    ¡°You are Tolu instead, like your whole family!¡± The demon that had turned into Bafendier exploded in fury, as though it had received the worst possible insult.


    ¡°Having been imprisoned for tens of thousands of years, could it be that you have no strength left?¡± Saleen lifted the lower hem of his mage robe, adjusted his belt, and grabbed onto the demon¡¯s horn with one hand. He then stepped on the scales of the demon¡¯s face and climbed onto it.


    ¡°What are you doing!¡± The demon started to panic.


    Saleen took out the carcass of the witcher spider from his leather sack and gestured in front of the demon¡¯s only opened eye, saying, ¡°I heard that a demon¡¯s transformation spell will be undone once its body is attacked. Will it work if I jab you with this?¡±


    The demon saw the witcher spider. Its arrogance dissipated, and it cried out in fear, ¡°Despicable human, you can¡¯t¡­¡±


    ¡°I can!¡±


    Saleen raised his hands and prepared to jab it with the w of the witcher spider.


    ¡°Please spare me, sir!¡± the demon suddenly cried. Tears flowed profusely from its single eye. ¡°I do not want to die. Please spare me. I will not dare oppose humans in the future!¡±


    Saleen paused and said in surprise, ¡°I had heard demons had dignity, especially those with a pure bloodline.¡±


    The demon transformed into Bafendier hesitated and decided to submit to Saleen¡¯s abuse of power. It said pitifully, ¡°Sir, I am about to starve to death. Please give that most ugly woman to me. I am willing to serve you loyally. A demon¡¯s dignity cannot bepared to your mighty glory!¡±


    ¡°Most ugly woman?¡±


    ¡°The one with a scar on the forehead!¡± The demon licked its lips, as though suffering from unbearable hunger and thirst.


    Saleen could not contain his smile and looked at Canghong who was on the tform. There was a scar on Canghong¡¯s devilish face, the work of the hill cyclops. Canghong saw Saleen looking at him and asked, ¡°Mage Merlin, what is that thing saying?¡±


    ¡°It said that as long as I feed you to it, it will be willing to sign a contract pledging its allegiance to me.¡±


    Canghong¡¯s sweat flowed freely. A demon¡¯s allegiance was very tempting for a mage. Was Saleen going to offer him up as food to the demon?


    ¡°That, Mage Merlin, I heard, demons like to lie¡­¡±


    Canghong moved backwards as he spoke, already leaning against the stone wall. Sika moved forward, grabbed Canghong by his neck, and lifted him up. Canghong did not have as much strength as her, and now that he had lost so much blood, he waspletely unable to resist.


    ¡°Sika, what are you doing!¡± Sarah was shocked and habitually wanted to draw her flexible sword. Unfortunately, her flexible sword had long since been destroyed by the men from the Vulture Regiment. The thin sword she had picked up had also been lost in the swamp. Sika took out her boomerang and pressed it against Sarah¡¯s neck.


    Saleen lowered his head and said to the demon, ¡°The one you want to eat is him?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir, please grant this woman to me.¡±


    ¡°Then tell me, will you eat or sign the contract first?¡±


    ¡°Of course I will eat first. I am out of energy and am unable to even remove this transformation spell to sign the contract with you!¡±


    Saleen held the w of the witcher spider and jabbed without hesitation. With a puff, ckish blood spurted out. Saleen jumped away as the demon cried out in pain. The image of Bafendier slowly disappeared as it curled up on the ground to reveal its true form.


    This was a demon that quite closely resembled a human, aside from the fact that it had blue skin and a sharp tail. The horn on its head was very short and was almost hidden in its hair. It had ck hair, and was naked. There was a thin gold vein along its back vertebrae which ended at the tip of its tail.


    There was a dent on top of the demon¡¯s head. It was very faint. If Saleen had used a greater amount of force, the w of the witcher spider would have jabbed straight into the demon¡¯s head. The demon, no matter how strong its vitality, would not have been able to withstand that.


    ¡°Huh? So it is an imp!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart rxed. He could not tell which species this imp was. Imps were not powerful. Having been starved for so many years, its limbs were probably devoid of any strength and it was unable to deploy any spells.


    ¡°Sir, please spare me¡­¡± The imp had been injured by Saleen andid on the ground in its original form. Its voice had be lower, as though it would soon cease breathing.


    ¡°It is true that demons like to lie. Tell me, you little imp, what use is there for me to sign a contract with you? I might as well make medicine out of you,¡± Saleen said solemnly.


    The imp seemed to know that it could not deceive Saleen and answered with tears in its eyes, ¡°Sir, I am the purest type of imp. Of all the nes within the crystal wall, only my transformation skill cannot be seen through¡­¡±


    ¡°Then how did I see through it?¡± Saleen was not letting up. He did not truly wish to kill this imp. While the imp was of a low grade, it was a real demon. It was rare to encounter demons in this ne. Saleen did not want to waste such a valuable living creature.


    It would be extremely difficult to get this cunning demon to sign a contract willingly. The main reason for this was that Saleen did not know any contract magic and needed this imp to take initiative. Saleen did not want to scare it.


    ¡°Sir, you had the protection of god. My transformation spell was worthless before you!¡± the imp said, ying up to him.


    ¡°Chief, have you finished negotiating?¡± Sika asked loudly, still holding the weakened Canghong in her hands. As soon as Saleen gave the order, she would slice Canghong up andy him before the imp.


    Saleen turned around to see this scene and said with embarrassment, ¡°Sika, let go quickly. I was joking with Canghong.¡±


    ¡°Only joking?¡± Sika put Canghong down gently and patted his shoulder saying, ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid. Chief is a good man. He will not harm you.¡±


    Canghong¡¯s heart reached the ground at the same time as Sika¡¯s actions. He did not know whether tough or cry. Was Saleen a good man? Maybe. But all it took was for a good man to have bad intentions and he would be dead meat. This female Caucasus warrior hadpletely obeyed the mage; he must have lost his head to have wanted to poach her from him in the beginning.


    Sarah red at Sika viciously. There was a bloody line on her neck caused by Sika¡¯s boomerang. Sika shrugged and said innocently, ¡°Sarah, you heard him. Chief was joking.¡±


    Sarah was resigned after hearing that one sentence. Was everyone from Caucasus so crude?


    Saleen had no time to take Canghong¡¯s and Sarah¡¯s thoughts into consideration. He squatted down and stroked the imp¡¯s head, asking gently, ¡°Then, would you like to eat a little something or sign the contract first?¡±


    The imp¡¯s eyes looked around. It was struggling in its heart. It realized that it could not deceive this human who was younger than it. If it could eat some bloody meat, even just a small living creature, it would regain enough strength to wipe out all these fellows. It was an unfaltering demon. Would it really have to sign a contract with this weak human?


    In the history of demons, nothing so humiliating had ever happened before.


    How long had it been locked in this space? Ten thousand years? Twenty thousand years? Or thirty thousand years? It had eaten everything there was to eat. When was thest time it had eaten? It must have been a hundred and fifty years ago. If it did not agree to this human¡¯s requests, it was possible that it would not have a chance to leave anymore¡­


    Saleen¡¯s face darkened. He spoke in ancient Myersnguage into the imp¡¯s ear, ¡°No need to think further. You have lived for so long that you should know that humans can be more evil than demons. I have many ways of dealing with you.¡±


    This line worked. Saleen had read about demons cursing humans in magic notes, depicting their deep-rooted hatred. If humans had not gone so far in the past, the demons would not have made suchughable remarks which sounded like they hade frommbs instead.


    ¡°Sir, I am willing to sign the contract. Please proceed.¡± The imp lowered its face as though surrendering. It was still struggling in its heart and had hoped to find a loophole in this human¡¯s contract. If it initiated the contract, based on its current strength, it could onlyplete the worst possible soul bond.


    If it signed the soul bond, it would lose its freedom forever. Even if this human died, the imprint on its soul could not be removed.


    Saleen gently stroked the imp¡¯s head. Its hair was very smooth, and was morefortable to the touch than Sika¡¯s. His finger stopped at the dent created by the witcher spider¡¯s w. He touched the inside and rubbed it passingly. The imp grit its teeth in pain. Saleen smiled and cast it an evil look, saying to the imp, ¡°My contract requires the use of a lot of fresh blood. It appears that this dent should be erged. If we were to fail, then it would be too bad for you.¡±

 Chapter 41: Supreme Demon, Little Imp (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 41: Supreme Demon, Little Imp (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The imp was crumbling, knowing that this human youth was indeed evil and would not give it any chances. It was certain that he was an expert in demons, for otherwise he would not have known its weaknesses so well.


    ¡°Sir, it is fine. I¡­I will manage on my own!¡±


    Saleen gently removed his finger from the dent on the imp¡¯s forehead and sucked the fresh blood off his finger, nodding in satisfaction. He said, ¡°It seems like you are more sensible now. Let¡¯s begin please. I am in a rush for time.¡±


    The imp reluctantly started chanting in a demonguage Saleen did not understand. While he had a whole library of magic books, including those covering variousnguages, there was no series for the demonguage. A small amount of demonguage could be found in summoning magic, but as Saleen¡¯s grade was low, he was not able to learn summoning magic. However, since his direction of study was quite specific, he had no intentions of doing so even if he were to be a mage master.


    The imp¡¯s expression turned solemn and a round magic symbol emerged from its forehead. As the chanting became faster, the symbol became clear. Although this was a humiliating contract, it was a contract that was bound with one¡¯s life. The imp concentrated on reciting the verses of the contract and was unaware that Saleen knew nothing about the demonguage.


    Saleen used the w of the witcher spider to prick his left index finger, drawing a drop of blood. He then used his index finger to touch the round magic symbol on the imp¡¯s forehead. The moment he did that, he felt that something was amiss. His finger felt as though it had been pulled by a huge ma towards the imp¡¯s forehead. The round magic symbol was like a ck hole which kept ingesting blood and flesh from his wound.


    The magic symbol soon became much fuller and grew a bright red. The whole of Saleen¡¯s left hand withered and turned grey, as though it had be a dead creature¡¯s w. At the same time, Saleen felt that his soul was moving around as if a door had opened. He could feel the imp¡¯s mood without even looking.


    Saleen did not get angry. He merely withdrew his hand and quietly looked at the imp. It almost cried out and timidly exined, ¡°Sir, this¡­ is because your strength is too weak. No no no, I meant that my body is too ¡­¡±


    Saleen saw that the red magic symbol on the imp¡¯s forehead had prated its skin and that the dent had disappeared. He reckoned that it might have been filled up by his flesh and blood.


    ¡°Does this have something to do with the sharing of the injury?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°No, sir. This is a condition for the fulfillment of the bond. It will only ur when the bond is signed, after which, it will not happen again!¡± The imp tried to exin it in a simplified manner so Saleen could understand.


    ¡°A soul bond?¡± Saleenughed. By using restorative water on a daily basis, his left hand would take half a year to recover at most. During this period, he would be unable to sustain a chant with both hands, but this was a small price to pay for earning a demon¡¯s allegiance.


    This was a demon with a pure bloodline. After the Fourth Dynasty had copsed, it was unheard of for a mage to own a demon. As the effects of the soul bond kicked in, Saleen no longer doubted the imp¡¯s honesty. He ced his left hand in his sleeve and said casually, ¡°Let¡¯s go, I will find you something to eat.¡±


    The imp heaved a sigh of relief and thought that Saleen was kind to have not been angry with him. Saleen removed a piece of jerky from his leather sack and threw it to the imp, who swallowed it in one gulp. Saleen still had many questions in his heart but did not know where to start. He lifted his head and said to the people on the tform, ¡°Come down. This has been resolved.¡±


    Although Canghong and Sarah held grievances in their hearts, they were unable to show them. Saleen had conquered a demon and Sika¡¯s fighting power was greater than theirs. Neither of them could say anything.


    Sika rushed off of the tform within two to three steps and came to Saleen¡¯s side. She rolled up his sleeve and saw his withered left hand. Her eyes reddened in anger and she removed the cudgel from her back, nning to attack the imp.


    While she was rash in her behavior, Caucasus folk were also not stupid. Saleen held out his hand to stop her and whispered, ¡°It is fine and will recover. Do not let Canghong and the others make this into aughing matter.¡±


    ¡°Hmph.¡± Sika lowered her weapon and red at the imp fiercely. The imp was eating a piece of jerky and did not react. Its food supply had stopped for more than a hundred years so even if the head of a hill cyclops had been given to it, it would still have eaten it. Upon seeing Sika¡¯s stare, the imp bowed its head. It was thinking that once its master was not looking, it would¡­


    The imp knew that its wild thoughts were quite far fetched. Thedy who was staring at it possessed a good rtionship with its master. If it ate her, it would be in a great deal of trouble. Its eyes searched the area and saw that there were a few things up on the tform. It swayed its tail and climbed over. Upon a closer sniff, it seemed that they could be eaten.


    These fist-like things were in fact the diasiks which had been absorbed by the magic array together with Saleen and the others. They had been wrapped up in Saleen¡¯s water shields in the space. Upon leaving water, diasiks would fall asleep. Their outer shells would close and would only reopen if they were exposed torge volumes of water. These magic beasts were very resilient and could survive in deserts. If there was rain, they would be revitalized.


    The imp used both hands to grab hold of the diasiks and looked at Saleen. He did not notice, and the imp immediately used its sharp teeth to pry open a diasik¡¯s outer shell, beginning to ingest its blood and flesh. The imp¡¯s thin long tongue had sharp thorns on its surface, and with a few sweeps of its tongue, it had swallowed all the flesh and blood. The poor Grade 5 magic beast had been eaten by an imp while in its slumber.


    Boom! The imp spat out the magic nucleus which it had broken into pieces in its mouth. It had felt the innate strength of the magic nucleus. It then ced the nucleus back into its mouth and used its teeth to grind it up into smaller pieces before swallowing it. After which, the imp lifted up the second diasik.


    There were five diasiks which had entered the area. The imp proceeded to swallow the flesh and blood of the remaining four after removing their magic nuclei. After feeling that some of its strength had returned, it returned to Saleen¡¯s side holding the four magic nuclei. It was only an imp and had limited abilities in swallowing the magic nuclei whole. It was a waste to grind them into pieces. By giving these to its master, he would be pleased and would probably not abuse it.


    An imp¡¯s knowledge of humans was limited to that from tens of thousands of years ago. Prior to that, imps had possessed no status, not even that of ves. If Saleen no longer wanted it at this point, the termination of the soul bond would mean that it would be a hollow demon, which was of an even lower grade than a spirit.


    ¡°You are sensible.¡± Saleen patted the imp on his head and took the four Grade 5 magic nuclei. These Grade 5 magic nuclei were valuable as they were rtively small, and could fetch thousands of gold coins.


    ¡°Mage Merlin, we have reached the relics. What should we do next?¡± Canghong asked. He did not dare act hastily lest he angered Saleen.


    Saleen thought about it and said, ¡°Do not worry. We are from Sikeqinya and we always adhere to contracts. Since you have hired me, I will not keep the wealth to myself.¡±


    Seeing that Canghong remained uneasy, heughed and said, ¡°The relics are huge. How would I be able to take away all the items here single-handedly? If it were not for you, I would not have reached this ce. Canghong, not everyone is like the Vulture Regiment.¡±


    Canghong looked at Saleen who was half a head shorter than him, and felt a tinge of sadness in his heart. Just to get to these relics, his own squad had nearlypletely died off, with only Sarah remaining. This was the fate of mercenaries, and good oues were rare. He hoped that what the little mage said was true. After searching for the relics, he would be rich and could eventually find a way to pass some money to the families of the deceased so that they would not be poor for the rest of their lives.


    ¡°Please have a rest while I ask about the full background of the relics,¡± Saleen said, before speaking to the imp.


    The imp was unclear on the origins of the relics. It only remembered that during those years, it had been captured along with many supreme demons by a few humans. The imp had not been valued, and had also not been bound by the lighting chains. After arriving on this ne, the humans who had captured them had been attacked, andter all the supreme demons had been rescued and left in this location.


    After that, there was a long period of captivity. This space which was initially only an underground cave was gradually transformed into a temple by their rescuers. It was only after a while that the demons realized that the humans who had built the temple had not removed the lighting chains, as though not bothering to enve them. After about four thousand years, the temple waspleted and the humans vanished.


    Over time, the demons started devouring each other, not knowing if they would survive. In the demonic ne, this was quitemon. As the imp had not been tied by the lighting chains and possessed a small body, none of the supreme demons had given it any trouble from the beginning.


    However, as the number of demons started falling, the imp started finding ces to hide. Luckily, the supreme demons had been bound by the lighting chains and could not move around easily. As such, it had not been in any danger. After ten thousand years of the demons feeding on each other, the remaining surviving demons had died of starvation. At that point, the imp had started feeding on the bodies of the supreme demons to survive.


    The imp still hoped that humans would return. It transformed into the likeness of a Bafendier supreme demon, hoping that the returning humans would be attracted to it and therefore prevent it from dying of starvation. However, no humans had appeared, and after it had eaten all the food, it fell into a deep slumber in the hopes of dying its eventual death.


    When it had been rudely woken up, the first thing it had seen was Saleen, the skinny human mage. The imp did not understand why this human had such weak strength, even below that of a spirit. As such, it had tried to scare Saleen. Unfortunately, Saleen¡¯s courage was more than a hundred times greater than his strength, and its n failed. After thousands of years of being under captivity, it had grown fearful of humans. After two to three shes, it had been defeated by Saleen.


    Saleen did not find any of this information useful. Instead, he asked one final question. ¡°In that case, I would like to know your name.¡±

 Chapter 42: Magic Books and Gemstones (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 42: Magic Books and Gemstones (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The imp saw that Saleen was asking it for its name and hesitated. It looked over at the others and said, ¡°Master, an imp¡¯s name cannot be let known to outsiders. Are these people your wives?¡±


    Saleen held back augh and said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. They do not understand yournguage.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Ajsi Sabisi Dikabulia Anduxisi Sagong.¡± The imp read out a name that was not that long, at least not for a demon.


    ¡°Um, now that you¡¯re following me, we need to give you another name. Are you male or female?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know yet¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not matured yet?¡± Saleen was shocked. This imp had been imprisoned here for tens of thousands of years and still hadn¡¯t matured. Some imps could only confirm their gender after they had matured. Saleen was sure of that.


    The imp was slightly embarrassed. Any demon, even those of the lowest grade, would take only one or two thousand years to mature. However, being imprisoned here had left it unable to grow.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you change into a human form,¡± Saleen instructed.


    The imp had ingested a few fish and had regained some of its powers. It began to perform the transformation magic. The spell cast by the demon hadn¡¯t been a mere illusion. Even if touched, it could not be differentiated. After ten minutes, the imp was left panting on the floor, havingpleted the transformation magic.


    The imp had transformed into a slender woman. She had long ck hair and eyebrows with sunken eyes and a long neck. She was wearing a simple robe, thin enough to see through the fabric to the skin. Below her waist was a skirt with an extrayer of beast hide surrounding it. Her clothes were simr to the ones that Sika had originally worn, and showed off her exquisitely tender waist.


    This appearance definitely looked very simr to drawings of humans that had existed tens of thousands of years ago. Saleen couldn¡¯t be bothered to change it as long as it looked human enough. However, this imp had pretty good tastes. This woman was ssy yet stern at the same time. She had attractive features and had be another unusual temptation.


    ¡°This is good.¡± Saleen did not wish to be surrounded by ugly people either. He had initially been worried about the imp¡¯s standards of beauty, but had nothing to worry now.


    ¡°Of course. I followed the appearance of the Myers Goddess while transforming.¡±


    ¡°Cough cough¡­¡±


    Saleen coughed violently. This imp had a lot of guts, disrespecting the looks of a goddess!


    ¡°Master, do you not like it?¡± The imp could feel the change in Saleen¡¯s mood. Saleen calmed himself down and thought: It has been so long since the fall of the Myers Goddess that this world no longer has any priests who worship the Temple of Nature. It is highly unlikely that anyone would remember how the Myers Goddess looked anymore. Forget it. The imp does not have enough energy to undergo another transformation.


    Looking at the imp lying on the floor, Saleen could not picture this scene with the Myers Goddess. He shook his head and said to the imp, ¡°This is fine, from now on you will be known as Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°Master, what is your surname?¡± The imp looked happy to be known as Nailisi. She had started calling Saleen her master, which was a good sign as it showed that she was quickly adopting her new identity.


    ¡°I¡¯m Saleen Metatrin.¡± A streak of darkness shed across Saleen¡¯s youthful face. When would this surname see the light of day again?


    ¡°Then from now on, I shall be known as Nailisi Metatrin. Master, is that alright?¡± The imp had seen that Saleen was not in a good mood and asked this carefully.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s fine. Tell me more about this space¡­ no, this temple.¡± Saleen surveyed his surroundings. His magic torch had not been extinguished and had been ced on the steps by Sika.


    ¡°This is the sacrificial altar, the heart of the temple. It has three stories and a total of twenty-four halls.¡±


    ¡°Oh, this is the Temple of Nature!¡± Saleen was both astonished and disappointed. He had thought that this temple had been built secretly by a disciple of some unknown god to snatch over the disciples of the Myers Goddess. If this was the Temple of Nature, there would not be any remains in the ruins. The Goddess of Nature admired simplicity and this ce had been abandoned right after it was built. There would not be any magic props lying around here, much less weapons. What shocked Saleen the most was that back in those days, the Myers Goddess had been themon faith of the entire maind. Why had she needed to secretly build a temple?


    Once an order was given by the goddess, even the First Dynasty¡¯s emperor wouldn¡¯t have refused it. The goddess could have chosen anywhere on the maind to build the temple. With the strength of humans back then, in no more than a week, a temple of an even bigger scale could have been built.


    History tended to unwittingly bury some truths.


    Saleen remembered a sentence from some magic notes. Without considering this unusual question, he said to Nailisi, ¡°If this is the altar, is the main temple in the back?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± The imp answered obediently. However, because she was lying on the floor, it had been somewhat ungraceful.


    ¡°How much longer do you need to rest!¡±


    ¡°Master, I just need another two hours. I¡¯m exhausted,¡± the imp hurriedly exined herself. She hadn¡¯t matured yet and casting a transformation spell would leave her weak for two hours. She was afraid that Saleen would find her useless and looked pitifully into his eyes.


    ¡°There aren¡¯t any dangers here, are there?¡± Saleen asked


    ¡°Nope. Every danger has been eaten up by me. It is just that this temple¡¯s surroundings have a constant magic array and I cannot leave. Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Call me chief next time. That¡¯s right, you should learn some new vocabry. Thisnguage is hardly used by anyone on the maind anymore. Since there¡¯s no danger, wait for me here. I shall take a look at the main temple.¡± Saleen exined this simply before saying to Canghong and the others, ¡°I doubt there are any valuables in these ruins, but it¡¯s hard to say. These are the remains of a temple of the Goddess of Nature, and it hasn¡¯t been used before. Let¡¯s go to the main temple. We might find something there.


    Canghong used the light from the magic torch to survey his surroundings. He was a mercenary that was always out and about and was familiar with this type ofyout. Hearing Saleen¡¯s words, more disappointment appeared on Canghong¡¯s face. This exploration had not only used up arge portion of his savings but had also lost him more than half of his men.


    ¡°Don¡¯t lose hope. This temple is very old. We might find some ancient ssics left in the main temple. Any book in there could potentially fetch tens of thousands of gold pieces.¡± Saleen tried tofort Canghong even though he knew it was unlikely to happen. From the imp¡¯s description, this temple had been given up by the humans.


    Canghong forced himself to lift his spirits and followed Saleen to the back of the altar. The stone wall at the center of the altar was, in fact, a pir. As it was a rectangr pir, it had been mistaken for a wall. A wall painting was carved into the pir, Saleen noticed that on the wall painting, there was a woman who looked exactly like the woman the imp had transformed into.


    After the fall of the Myers Goddess, most of the temples on the maind had slowly disappeared as time passed. However, in every empire, some ruins had been preserved. Mages had researched theyouts of such temples, making it unusually easy for Saleen to find what he was looking for.


    Behind the altar were six tunnels, each of them connecting to the main temple. Saleen took out a second magic torch and lit it. With reference to the pirs in the middle of the altar, a thin line appeared on the floor under the light and pointed to the third tunnel. The tunnel was long and was considerably wide, making the area less stuffy. The drawings on the two sides of the wall were very lifelike. Saleen knew that if he were to chisel down these wall paintings, they could fetch a decent price. However, he did not have that much strength. Besides, he was holding onto the Ring of Gifts which belonged to the Goddess of Nature, and defacing her temple would be rather despicable.


    Through the tunnel was anotherrge space. Saleen lifted his magic torch and turned his attention to the middle of the area, thanking his lucky stars. In the middle of the temple was a house. The house was carved entirely out of ck steel rock. The windows were slim while the pirs of the corridor had been fashioned into the appearance of a tree.


    This was the resting ce of the goddess. Back then, female pastors had stayed inside while waiting for the orders of the gods or theing of the Goddess. It seemed that this temple hadn¡¯t been given up halfway. The most important parts had been built, and there could be some loot inside.


    The Goddess of Nature had not erected any statues, and the rooms surrounding the main temple were where the disciples lived. The whole ce seemed quite empty andcked the secrecy of the sacred Holy See.


    ¡°Let¡¯s take a look around.¡± Saleen retrieved two more magic torches from his bag and passed his to Sika. He casted a Fluorescence spell and walked alone to the room in the center of the temple. Canghong hesitated and split from Sarah to search the rooms surrounding the temple, hoping to find something. He knew that even if he were to fight with Saleen, he would not be able to obtain anything. Saleen had been merciful enough in not killing him up to now, or perhaps he was too soft-hearted. If he wasn¡¯t clear on the current state of affairs and offended the mage, the Caucasus female warrior would immediately feed him to the demon.


    In the house of a goddess, there were usually six rooms: the bedroom, the prayer room, the preaching room, the ancient ssics coom, the magic room, and the basement. Saleen entered from the preaching room. This was the only room with a wide window, where the female pastors would face the many thousands of disciples located in the temple square and preach to them from here every weekday.


    The room was wide and had a wooden sofa in the center. The preaching session couldst up to a day, and every four hours, the female pastor would rest for a short while on the sofa. Saleen observed the wood and realized that it was just ordinary pear wood. It had not decayed with the passage of time simply because this ce had been isted from the outside world, making it seem as though time hade to a standstill.


    Behind the preaching room was the prayer room. Female pastors came here every day to do their work, for this was also the ce for them tomunicate with the Myers Goddess. Behind the prayer room was the ancient ssics room. It was simr to a study for the wealthy, with wide bookshelves.


    Saleen eyesnded on the center of the bookshelf. Three books were ced there. The inside of this room probably contained thousands of books in total, but on this shelf, there were only these three. Saleen walked up to it excitedly, casting detection magic.


    There were no traps or magic arrays. The three booksid quietly on the bookshelf, almost as if they had waited tens of thousands of years for Saleen to find them.

 Chapter 43: Magic Books and Gemstones (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 43: Magic Books and Gemstones (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    What excited Saleen about the three books were their covers. One was bronze, the other was silver, and thest was gold.


    Magic books. There were actually a whole set of magic books left by the goddess here!


    Magic books and magic literature might have seemed simr but could not have been any more different. Magic literature was used to hand down magic knowledge and was amon item. Magic books, on the other hand, were a high-grade magic prop.


    There were three sses of magic books: the bronze book was for mages of Grade 1 to Grade 3, the silver one was for mages of Grade 4 to Grade 6, and the gold book was for mages of Grade 7 and above.


    The magic books used constant magic to illustrate techniques for mages of various grades to learn, and even a mage without magical lineage could learn them. Magic books could store magic. However, unlike magic scrolls, they could store magic repeatedly and were not a one-time thing. All of these points were not even the best parts, for what made magic books so valuable were the fact that at the end of every magic book were tips on helping a mage advance in grade.


    From a mage to a grand mage, from a grand mage to a sorcerer, from a sorcerer to a grand sorcerer. There was a total of three major hurdles at Grade 3, Grade 6, and Grade 9. No matter how hard a mage worked, pure hard work could not get them past these hurdles. A mage had to grasp the true essence of magic before he could continue forward on his road down magic.


    The hints in these magic books were the key to the next grade.


    The rarity of magic books surpassed those of a magic nucleus of a dragon. A magic nucleus had a price tag attached to it, but magic books were something that could not be bought with money. A magic book usuallypiled the blood, sweat, and tears of a few generation of mages, and written within them were their most powerful magic and their journeys as they had graded up.


    Saleen took the bronze book off the bookshelf solemnly and used his hands to feel up and down the book for a moment. Then, he calmed his nerves and slowly opened the book.


    The book was empty without a single thing inside. Saleen nearly threw the book out the door in anger. Was the Goddess of Nature ying a joke on him? This was an empty magic book. It hadn¡¯t gone through the hands of any mages and the worth of this book was solely in the material that had been used to make it.


    With no learnable magic and no wisdom from any other mages, this thing was as good as an empty magic scroll with unlimited uses.


    Saleen calmed himself down but the unusual feeling floated back up to his ears again. Magic books had made an appearance around twenty thousand years ago. This temple had probably been built around thirty thousand years ago. Humans back then probably hadn¡¯t required magic books, as most of them had been born with horrifying strengths. Magic had only been one of them, and not a very important one at that. If that was the case, then what were empty magic books doing in the temple of the Goddess of Nature?


    Sadly, Nailisi was only an imp. She would not know the secrets behind this. Saleen stored the three empty magic books into his Ring of Gifts. These books were still valuable for their quality. Humans had no means of creating such high-quality magic books nowadays.


    Finding these three empty magic books, Saleen considered this mission to be a victory. Auctioning off any of these three books would leave Saleen with enough to live out the rest of his days infort and focus on his research on magic. However, he was afraid of selling them. It would be hard to exin where these books hade from, and if anyone paid attention to that, it was possible that he would lose his life.


    What Saleen needed most right now was something that could give him gold without attracting attention.


    Walking between the empty shelves, Saleen left the ancient ssics room to head to the magic room. During the reign of the Goddess of Nature, humans had not only practiced magic but also divinity. There was no difference between a pastor and a mage, and the magic room had been a ce for pastors to practice their magic. This room was empty and Saleen had known that it would be so beforehand. A temple that had not been opened meant that no one had practiced here before and no remains would be left behind.


    Behind the magic room was the bedroom. It was equally wide with a bed in the middle of the room. Besides the drawings on the wall, there was nothing else. Saleen did not care for superstitions and lifted up the bed. Unsurprisingly, there was a hidden space there. It seemed that it did not matter how much humans evolved; some practices would never change.


    The space was filled with items that were mostly clothes. Using his detection magic to examine them, he found that all of them weremon clothes. The magic nuclei and gemstones that Saleen had been expecting weren¡¯t there. These items were all brand new and had not been used before. Hence, they were of no value to Saleen.


    Saleen was left with no other options. He circled the bed three times before leaving the bedroom to enter the basement.


    The basement was something like a ce for maids to stay, but half of the basement in the temple was meant for the Temple Knights. During the era of the Goddess of Nature, they were known as the Temple Warriors. These warriors were not under the management of the religion and were only responsible for the safety of the pastors in the temple.


    What surprised Saleen was that the basement was filled with items.


    Compared to the other rooms before it, the basement was untidy. There were a few tables and cupboards together with a few boxes along the sides of the wall. Aside from that, the room contained a table with a map on it. Saleen took a nce and recognized it as a map of the temple. Saleen was familiar with theyout of the temple, and he picked up the map and turned it around. The back of the enormous map had twenty-five magic arrays drawn onto it.


    With the altar in the center, each hall possessed exactly one of the twenty-five magic arrays.


    Saleen carefully rolled up the map, which had been made from the hide of a magic beast, and stored it into his Ring of Gifts. The magic array drawn on it was three dimensional, done in a way that was simr to the legendary methods of producing a magic book.


    Even though Saleen had never systematically learned about them before, he understood that these twenty-five valuable magic arrays were of the utmost importance to mages in the construction of a magic tower.


    Having a high-grade magic array could ensure the safety of a magic tower. However, these magic arrays had long since been lost to time. What was slightly regrettable was that this thing could not be sold, as selling it was as good as telling everyone that he had found a secret temple.


    The cupboard and boxes by the wall became the focus of Saleen¡¯s search, and he found aplete set of armor in the cupboard. These armors were of a different style from any of those seen in the maind today. They only protected the important parts of the body and had no gold structures on them.


    Saleen gave up the idea of bringing the armor. He simply couldn¡¯t fit it into the Ring of Gifts. Looking back at Sika and Canghong, they likely had no energy to carry it either. If they didn¡¯t find anything else worth selling, this armor would also be able to fetch a good price.


    Saleen felt a bit better. In the end, he was still young, and after more than half of Canghong¡¯s men had been killed, he was constantly afraid that this mission would not reap anything. In the eyes of Canghong, Saleen was a little weak. However, who knew how much longer this innocence wouldst in him?


    Saleen smiled to himself and opened the box. In that moment, he felt all his innocence vanishing.


    The box was filled with various gemstones, shining so bright that they hurt his eyes.


    Calcite, chlorite, jade, zoisite, sapphire, benitoite, cordierite, kyanite, ruby, fluorite, rutile, amphibole, actinolite, nepheline, red halloysite, cmite, diopside, various quartz, pure crystal, tiger eyes, obsidian¡­


    Almost all the gemstones that Saleen could identify could be found in this box. Saleen sat on the floor, shocked by the sudden happiness that had been granted to him.


    Saleen grabbed a piece of calcite and observed it under the light, confirming that it was a colorless crystal. Calcite¡¯s special coolness rushed through his bones, yet did not make him feel cold.


    There was even tourmaline, the rare phantom-white and green quartz!


    Saleen stared at them in a trance before beginning to shove everything into the Ring of Gifts. There was only around ten cubic feet of space in the Ring of Gifts and near the end, Saleen could only pick out the less expensive gemstones and ce them in his pocket.


    Should he share these with Canghong? Of course not! He wasn¡¯t even a mage.


    Saleen felt ashamed, but this was normal. Any mage who saw this many gemstones would have gone crazy as well. Inside the box, there was still adamantine, thorium, mithril, and cuprite. However, all of these no longer mattered. Saleen¡¯s eyes were shining even brighter than the gemstones. He excitedly got down to work.


    Putting the most valuable gemstones into the Ring of Gifts, Saleen emptied out his bag and stuffed them full of gemstones. Even his sleeves and the spaces between his belt were stuffed full of gemstones. Looking at the remaining half of the boxes of gemstones, Saleen shouted.


    ¡°Sika!¡±


    Within thirty seconds, Sika came with his side and asked anxiously, ¡°Chief, what¡¯s the matter?¡±


    ¡°No, we¡¯re rich!¡± Saleen pointed to the open box and startedughing.


    Sika pounced on the box and grabbed a fistful of adamantine, shoving it into her bag.


    ¡°Take the gemstones first. The adamantine is too heavy!¡±


    ¡°I can carry them.¡± Sika disregarded Saleen and began her scavenging mission. What she wanted was gold, and after picking out most of the precious gold, she started taking the gemstones.


    Canghong had been alerted by themotion as well and rushed over with Sarah. Looking at the floor which was strewn with gemstones and precious gold, Canghong looked at Saleen. ¡°What are you looking at, pick them up!¡± Saleen shouted at him.


    Canghong and Sarah immediately sprung into action, taking out a big leather bag and filling it mindlessly.


    Saleen knew that there might not be another chance to return to this ruin. It was possible that the sacred Holy See was targeting the ce, so if he could not take it all, he could not leave it for others either. He might as well let Canghong and Sarah have it. Bye, Sikeqinya. I¡¯m off to the Qin Empire, and who knows when I¡¯ll return.


    In actuality, these gemstones had been worthless before the Second Dynasty. Back then, humans had been able to travel across parallel universes whenever they wanted, and some of these universes had contained a plentiful amount of gemstones. No mighty person would have thought of collecting these things, hence the abundance of gemstones being in the basement.


    The four of them filled their bags to the brim and sat in a circle on the floor. Sika asked suddenly, ¡°Chief, how are we going to get out of here?¡±


    This sentence left Saleen speechless. That¡¯s right, how are we going to get out? This temple had once imprisoned arge number of supreme demons, proving just how unusually sturdy it was. Those twenty-five magic arrays¡­


    Seeing Canghong looking expectantly at him as well, Saleen calmed down and said, ¡°We will ask that demon. It should know the exit.¡±


    Saleen could not be sure that the magic array at the center of the altar was a teleportation portal. Would they really be able to leave from there? And, even if they managed to activate the magic array, would the hill cyclops still be outside?

 Chapter 44: White Deacon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 44: White Deacon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Walking back from the corridor leading to the temple, Nailisi had already stood up. Her expression was no longer as listless. She obediently stayed with them and whispered to Saleen, ¡°Master, are you looking for the exit?¡±


    Saleen furrowed his brows. Nailisi knew why Saleen was upset and said, ¡°I will call you chief once I¡¯ve learned thenguage you are all speaking.¡±


    Saleen snorted. He was afraid that his heart wasn¡¯t strong enough and that he would be tempted by the imp instead. Even though a soul bond existed, it was hard to say that there was no danger.


    ¡°This altar is the exit. Back then, the people who built this temple could leave directly from here. That is why I¡¯ve been waiting here for thousands of years.¡± There was an unimaginable sadness in Nailisi¡¯s voice. Saleen knew he could not stop her, either, for it was the nature of an imp to be ready to seduce anyone at any moment.


    ¡°It seems like master doesn¡¯t have that much energy.¡± Nailisi stretched her back. Since transforming, she had lost her tail and it would take some getting used to.


    ¡°Is there no other way?¡±


    ¡°If there was, I would have escaped a long time ago.¡±


    Saleen kept quiet. He touched the Ring of Gifts on his hand and said, ¡°Canghong, when you first found the entrance to the ruins, what was it like?¡±


    Canghong¡¯s face turned red. He said, ¡°I don¡¯t think it was here. It was a magic tower, buried underground with only the peak of it showing.¡±


    He had actually gone the wrong way?


    ¡°Everyone disperse and look carefully. See if there¡¯s anywhere on the altar where a gemstone can be iid.¡± Saleen could only hope now that this ancient magic array had a simple method thatmoners could use to pass through. A teleportation portal was very rare and there were probably less than twenty teleportation magic arrays in the four empires all together. These magic arrays could be used bymoners, but arge number of gemstones were expended each time they were used, so the price for them was hefty.


    However, as long as they could get out of here, Saleen could afford it. He was no demon, and if he had truly been trapped here, it would not take tens of thousands of years. He would starve to death in a month.


    Canghong had unconsciously started listening to Saleen¡¯s orders. Comparing their abilities, Saleen was not as skilled as him in closebat. However, if the distance were to be increased, he would be no match for Saleen. In the beginning, Saleen had held back, but after everything that had happened, he had taken over as the leader of the team.


    ¡°Leader, there¡¯s a hole here!¡± Sika¡¯s voice was tremendously loud, echoing from the top of the altar.


    Saleen came to Sika¡¯s side, bent over, and touched the floor with his hand, feeling the magic streaks there. The hole that Sika had found was at the crossroad of all the magic streaks, and it was highly usible that a gemstone could be iid there.


    Saleen put his fingers into the hole, feeling its structure. He realized that this was a pedestal that could allow gemstones with twenty-four sides to be iid.


    There were two different gemstones that could activate a teleportation portal. The first was known as the white spirit crystal, and the second was known as chalcedony. From their heist, Saleen had both gemstones. A white spirit crystal had a constant value while chalcedony¡¯s was difficult to determine.


    While Saleen considered which gemstone to use to activate the magic array, Canghong and Sarah both found a hole in which to iy a gemstone and activate the teleportation portal. Usually, three gemstones would do the trick. Saleen felt that he was in a pinch, as these holes were not small and the iid gemstones could not be retrieved again.


    He decided on the white spirit crystal in the end. He only had two pieces of chalcedony and it would be hard to cut three out of them.


    Saleen dejectedly took out a white spirit crystal the size of a ball, feeling a little troubled. The white spirit crystal was very tough. He wondered how was he going to cut it into twenty-four equal sides.


    Once a mage reached Grade 4, they would learn a certain spell: Current Cutter. This magic could then be used to cut different kinds of gemstones. However, Saleen was only a Grade 1 mage. He could cut the gemstone by using heated rhenium gold silk. There was a piece of rhenium gold in his Ring of Gifts. However, he was not an alchemist and would be unable to cut the rhenium gold, which was a hundred times tougher than steel, into thin streaks.


    Sika, Canghong, and Sarah. The three of them did not seem like they couldplete such a meticulous task. Nailisi saw Saleen worrying and in her quick thinking asked, ¡°Master, is there any problem that I can help you with?¡±


    ¡°You? Do you have a way of dealing with this white spirit crystal? Cut it into three equal parts with each part having twenty-four equal sides. The bottom needs to be four centimeters across, just like the magic nucleus of a magic beast.¡± Saleen thought, This imp has survived for tens of thousands of years. She should have some talents and should be able to cast a few high grade spells.


    Nailisi took the white spirit crystal from Saleen. This was a more primitive crystal, and there were even impurities on the outside as it hadn¡¯t been processed before. She observed it for a while before cing the white spirit crystal to her mouth and beginning to bite it. With a loud crack, the tough crystal had been bitten apart by Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen was anxious. This thing had been meant to be used for their escape, and the imp wanted to eat it?


    Nailisi used her long fingers and dug around in her mouth, finding the fragments of crystal she had just bitten off. Putting them into Saleen¡¯s hands she said, ¡°Master, is each side this big?¡±


    Saleen was amazed. The imp was talented. With just one bite, the white spirit crystal had a t side that was four centimeters long. Her teeth were practically daggers. With such sharp teeth, even magic armor wouldn¡¯t be able to defend against it.


    ¡°Good work Nailisi, continue!¡± Saleen praised the imp. Nailisi held up the white spirit crystal and started munching and chewing on it. It was not a pleasant sight. Since she needed to separate the crystal into three pieces, when she opened her mouth to its widest, she looked like a crocodile. Her lower and upper jaw were open at an obtuse angle.


    Cutting gemstones would certainly produce fragments. The fragments that the imp bit off were very regr, with each side being t. Saleen kept each and every one of them, as these fragments could be used to iy a ring and some could even be used to create a magic prop of arger size. Saleen feared being poor and did not waste anything at all.


    After half an hour, three perfect twenty-four sided gemstones had been cut out by the imp¡¯s teeth and were iid into the magic array.


    Then came a question. How was the magic array activated?


    Activating a magic array required a spell. The back of the map that Saleen had taken had the spell for the magic array, but Saleen was only a Grade 1 mage and spatial magic was something that only a sorcerer could master.


    Saleen had a n all along. There was a reason that they had been able to be sucked into the magic array. The greatest possibility was that his usage of Protection of the Goddess had activated the magic array. This magic array might have contained residual energy that had sucked the four of them in.


    Besides that, Saleen couldn¡¯t think of any other reason. He adjusted his mage robe and walked into the middle of the magic array, waving the others over. Nailisi was the first to run to Saleen¡¯s side, then Sika, Sarah, and finally Canghong. Saleen started to recite the spell, and the Ring of Gifts began to glow green again.


    Before the divine spell was over, the magic array had begun to respond. The three gemstones iid in the magic array released a blinding white light, and the entire magic array began to light up.


    Saleen was secretly overjoyed. As expected, it was an automatic magic array and the person passing through had to be a disciple of the Goddess of Nature. So long as he could initiate the residual energy in the Ring of Gifts, he could be affirmed by the teleportation portal. If that was the case, he could return next time!


    Originally, Saleen had not wanted to leave the temple ruins. If he could have, he wished to stay inside the ruins to train for a while, at least until his left hand recovered. The injury on his left hand would require a long time to heal, and even though it didn¡¯t affect his movement, he wouldn¡¯t be able to cast any Grade 2 magic.


    However, there were still the people from the sacred Holy See in the Chaotic Swamp. He didn¡¯t know what those people were targeting but no matter what it was, it couldn¡¯t have been good for him. This temple¡¯s location was fairly well concealed, but after all they had been through, they had left quite a lot of traces and it wasn¡¯t guaranteed that the entrance wouldn¡¯t be spotted.


    White lights shot out from the magic array. They bent in mid-air,bining and forming arge shield and covering Saleen and the others with it.


    The teleportation this time was much easier than before. The feeling of being stabbed a thousand times was not there. Saleen felt much lighter and was slightly unbnced before reaching the pond before the temple. Following him were Sika, Nailisi, Canghong, and Sarah. Everyone had made it.


    Saleen was anxious, as there were still diasik lurking in the water and he was no match for them. Even with his magic chords full, he could only release twenty-four water shields and who knew how many diasik were in the pond. He struggled upwards, the imp able to feel his anxiousness and twisting her body to catch up to him with lightning speed. She was much better in the water than Saleen.


    The bloody aroma in the pond hadn¡¯t dispersed, and in the dark, dozens of diasik appeared and pounced towards Saleen. Saleen could not have been any unluckier. However, just as he was about to take action, the imp swam forwards excitedly. Using her two hands, she grabbed one in each and started biting them.


    Diasik had a tough shell that even low-grade magic could not prate. However, Nailisi¡¯s teeth were so sharp that they could even cut gemstones and after being starved for centuries, she was finally looking at living prey. Because of her excitement, she ate each one without even chewing and only sucked out the essence from each of them.


    Her magic abilities were far toomon for an imp like her. However, if closebat and fighting skills were taken into consideration, a Cascausus warrior like Sika who had the blessing of the priests would easily overpower her. Diasik might have been a Grade 5 magic beast, but they were incredibly stupid. Not a single one thought of releasing magic to attack the imp. All of them opened their mouths, wanting to bite a chunk of meat off Nailisi¡¯s body.


    They had ced too much faith in their outer shells and in less than a minute, dozens of diasik had been wiped out by Nailisi, their empty shells sinking down to the bottom of the pond. Seeing the way Nailisi ate, Saleen was shocked. If it hadn¡¯t been for her hunger, which made her weak, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to control her.


    The outer shells of these fish-like magic beasts were good materials for alchemy. It was a pity that Saleen¡¯s bag was full. Lacking the energy to dive down and pick them either way, he picked up speed and swam towards the light at the surface.


    Swoosh¡­


    Saleen exposed the top of his head above water and then immediately dived back down. The hill cyclops was still at the edge of the pond, but what worried him was the fact that it was already dead, itsrge head having rolled into the water. There was nobody in sight.

 Chapter 45: White Deacon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 45: White Deacon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Someone hade to the pool! This person had been able to kill a hill cyclops. Could it have been an oracle of the sacred Holy See? Saleen could continue pondering underwater, but Canghong and the others could not. They started to float above the water and Saleen had no choice but to follow. Because Canghong was also a smart person, upon seeing the dead body of the hill cyclops, he knew that the danger hadn¡¯t lessened but increased.


    Climbing ashore, Canghong went up to the head of the hill cyclops. Its head, which had been chopped off by a sharp de, was taller than his body. What kind of weapon could it have been to have caused such horrifying damage?


    Swordmaster!


    Canghong¡¯s heart trembled. To him, a swordmaster was even more terrifying than a grand mage. Grand mages were rare, but swordmasters had only grown in number. Under normal circumstances, unless a mercenary went near a magic tower to cause trouble, there was little chance that he would interact with a grand mage, much less a sorcerer. However, any Grade 7 mercenaries would definitely have a swordmaster.


    A swordmaster¡¯s sword aura could fend off magic abilities and could also attack from a distance like magic. What was most terrifying was that a bronze swordmaster possessed a sword aura that even allowed him to fly for a short while.


    The person who had chopped off the hill cyclops¡¯ head had to have been a swordmaster and not a holy master!


    Saleen walked over and circled around the head. The back of the hill cyclops had arge hole where evidently the magic nucleus had been taken away. Nailisi discreetly spat out twenty magic nucleirger than a finger and kept them at her waist. Since master¡¯s pockets are already full, he couldn¡¯t possibly care about these.


    ¡°Canghong, let¡¯s part ways here. You shouldn¡¯t go to your ruins either,¡± Saleen said


    Saleen didn¡¯t want to have anything more to do with Canghong. It had been a fruitful mission and if they split now, whoever was caught by the people of the sacred Holy See would be the unlucky one.


    Canghong naturally understood this. He nodded his head and did not say a word. Saleen unwove the golden bottle on his waist and passed it to Canghong. The bottle was filled to the brim with restorative water, the rest of the magic medicine and the items bought in Didypus having been thrown away. This gold bottle was the only thing he had that would be of help to Canghong.


    Time in the temple seemed to have passed differently from the time outside. It was evening, and the setting sun hung just over the horizon, giving an orange glow to the empty field and dissipating heat. This did not seem like an autumn scene that belonged to a ce like the Chaotic Swamp.


    Sika wasughing as she waved goodbye to Canghong and Sarah. This helped dull the emotions of parting.


    ¡°Mage Merlin, thank you for your hospitality all this while.¡± Sarah gave Saleen a bow, took Canghong, and left. Saleen watched their backs in the setting sun with an ufortable feeling in his heart.


    The two of them had not spent much time together and would not even have considered each other as friends. However, despite going through many rounds of fights together, he hadn¡¯t even told them his real name in the end. That feeling left Saleen feeling somehow dejected.


    Would he need to spend the rest of his life in hiding? The threat of Earl Sufonso might not have been as big as that of the sacred Holy See, but so long as his hatred existed, he would not be able to return to his hometown. He wondered how his teacher was doing. Was he upied with his own troubles?


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s go. Nailisi, you should really learn some maindmonnguage.¡± Saleen interrupted Nailisi and walked in the opposite direction. Canghong and Sarah were walking south, while Saleen was walking southeast. The southeast was where the Qin Empire was, and passing through the Chaotic Swamp, they would reach the Phoenix Duchy.


    The Phoenix Duchy was attached to the Qin Empire. It was small and surrounded by the Chaotic Swamp. Once they reached Phoenix Duchy, they would be under the protection of the Qin Empire and the people from the sacred Holy See could not dare enter as they wished.


    As Saleen and the others walked away, five shadows appeared at the other end of the pool. The first was a young man wearing a white robe, and he was a deacon of the Holy See, Picasso.


    ¡°That¡¯s interesting. We actually saved those heretics.¡±


    Picasso¡¯s words left the other four shaking in fear. If word of this reached the ears of the others, even with the oracle¡¯s protection, they would not have any pleasant days ahead of them. They would either be sent away to the Cloud Empire as spies or thrown to the tribunals and imprisoned.


    ¡°Are you all scared now? If you are all scared, do not mention a single word about today. You will all chase after the two mercenaries. I will deal with the mage,¡± Picasso said, not bothering to ask for the opinions of his subordinates. He took a step up and walked on air, quickly disappearing from the sight of the four Holy See warriors.


    Picasso was enshrouded in a divine glow. As he rose higher into the sky, his speed increased too. His white robes fluttered in the wind, his clothes apparently not being protected by the divine glow.


    As Saleen was advancing, he suddenly became alert. He stopped abruptly and turned around. There was nothing in the empty field behind him, not even the shadow of a magic beast.


    ¡°That is interesting. You can feel my presence!¡± Picasso was already directly above Saleen and the others. He stopped controlling his divine glow and the sky was instantly lit up. It was almost as though the sun had risen again.


    Saleen immediately activated the Invisible Shield on his mage robe and generated the Ring of Fire. Now that he was wealthy, he didn¡¯t care about running out of magic nuclei.


    ¡°Who is it? Come out!¡± White light appeared between Saleen¡¯s fingers. He was ready to cast a Grade 1 spell.


    Picasso slowly made his way down from above and the divine glow dissipated. He looked seriously at Saleen, not saying a word. This young mage was even younger, more cautious, and more powerful than he had imagined. But that was only for someone his age, and with his stature, how could he have killed High Priest Kosian?


    Nailisi had a natural hatred for any disciples of gods, but she was smart and knew that even she would be no match for this young man. Hence, she acted as though she were terrified and hid behind Saleen¡¯s back. Sika put on a cold look as she removed her weapon from her back. Gripping it in her hands, she stood ready beside Saleen, waiting for his orders.


    ¡°Why are you chasing me?¡± Saleen was not rash. His opponent could walk on air and was definitely at least Grade 7. If he knew magic, he was definitely at least a Grade 6 mage. Both him and Sikabined would still be no match for him. Using Grade 1 magic had, in fact, only served to remind this person from the Holy See that he was no threat to him.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t chasing you. You were running,¡± Picasso said calmly, almost as if he were conveying something entirely justifiable. Along with warmth and humility, there was a certain charm etched on his youthful face. Whenever he spoke, he seemed like a friend who was sharing his deepest feelings.


    Saleen was at a loss for words. If he had not killed someone from the Holy See, he would really have had no reason to be running away. The people from the Holy See were not ogres and were mostly easy to talk to. This man in white robes had stated what was happening here. He could stop chasing but Saleen could not stop escaping.


    ¡°Young mage, may I know your name?¡± Whenever Picasso talked to anyone foreign, he was always polite yet inescapable.


    ¡°Saleen.¡±


    Saleen couldn¡¯t believe he had said his real name.


    ¡°Well, Mage Saleen, I would like to ask for your help. I have apatriot named Kosian and I have no idea who murdered him. Could you tell me who would do that?¡±


    Saleen wanted very much to say he didn¡¯t know, but he had already guessed that this man might be of the white deacon of the Holy See, and a Grade 7 guy like him definitely knew how to use a prophecy magic. This was even more powerful than simply detecting lies, for if he lied, the other person would easily see through it.


    Was this the power of a deacon of the Holy See? Against him, one could not even lie!


    ¡°It seems you¡¯re involved?¡± Picasso sighed in pity.


    ¡°Can I bribe you?¡± Hearing this from Saleen left Picasso in shock. Saleen had said the word bribe as if it was something honorable. His two eyes showed no emotion, not even a single ounce of remorse.


    ¡°I did not murder the high priest. I just happened to go by the same route.¡± Saleen chose his words carefully, not leaving any ws. His mind was on overdrive as he continued, ¡°I had been hired to explore a ruin and at the entrance of a cave, I personally witnessed High Priest Kosian being killed by a witcher spider. I merely took the things on his body, and if you will drop pursuing me, I will tell you where the ruin is.¡±


    ¡°In the religious text, bribery is a serious crime,¡± Picasso said nonchntly. From the start, he had not disyed any killing intent, and yet Saleen was even more anxious than when he had met the hill cyclops.


    ¡°It is a Second Dynasty ruin, what you guys call the Profane Dynasty.¡±


    ¡°Oh? A Profane Dynasty ruin, that bribe I would ept. Mage Saleen, where is the general location of the ruins?¡± Picasso hid his joy, as the real reason that he hade to the Chaotic Swamp this time was to locate this ruin.


    Lord Fycro had already sent out many others to locate this ruin before the other oracles found out about it. However, the terrain in the Chaotic Swamp wasplicated, and even he could not guarantee that the whole ce could be searched before winter arrived. Whether this mage was killed or not was not important. So long as he could be the first to find the ruins, Lord Fycro wouldy out approbation and he would be up for a promotion in no time.


    ¡°Is that a deal?¡± Saleen¡¯s heart was close to bursting. Even with him, Sika, and Nailisi, they would not be able to defend themselves against the white deacon.


    ¡°I suppose so, but how do I trust you?¡± Picasso said, all the while maintaining his smile.


    ¡°Do you have a map? I¡¯ll point it out. To you, these ruins aren¡¯t far. If I am lying, you will have enough time to chase after me and kill me. If the ruins are real, you won¡¯t bother with a small mage like me, am I right?¡±


    Saleen had wanted to act ignorant, but it seemed like nothing would escape the eyes of Picasso. He was forced to be frank and direct.


    ¡°Well said. But once I leave the Chaotic Swamp, I won¡¯t admit to any of this. If I cross paths with you again, I¡¯ll take you back for a trial. If you were to resist then, perhaps I might even kill you on the spot.¡±


    As Picasso spoke, he took out a map from his sleeve. The thin map unfolded perfectly in the wind without a single crease in sight. Saleen smiled. Picasso had not really needed to show off his skills. He had only asked to leave in peace and would not point out any wrongs.


    After searching out the memory of the map that Canghong had shown him, Saleen started drawing lines on Picasso¡¯s map. Drops of acids appeared from his fingertips, corroding a clear path on the map.


    ¡°This is the path.¡± Saleen retracted his fingers and asked, ¡°Can we leave now?¡±


    Picasso rolled up his map and smiled ¡°Of course. But let me remind you, Lord Fycro was not the only one who sent people into the Chaotic Swamp. You could meet men who are under the other oracles. Count your blessings then.¡±

 Chapter 46: Escaping Phoenix (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 46: Escaping Phoenix (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not say much. He took Nailisi and Sika and left, not wanting to stay a second longer.


    Picasso watched Saleen¡¯s back as he left, sprouting curiosity for this young mage. However, this mage definitely hadn¡¯t lied. Kossain hadn¡¯t been killed by him personally.


    Even if it had been him, so what? Kossain wasn¡¯t a descendant of Lord Faka and he had been the one to make the decision to change the route forward. Served him right that he was dead. Picasso gave a cold smile before leaving in the direction of Canghong. Whether those two mercenaries were dead or not was not important. Since he already had the map, what was important now was finding the entrance to the ruins.


    Saleen and the others moved as quickly as they could for over ten kilometers before slowing down.


    ¡°Chief, that guy won¡¯t go back on his words, will he?¡± Sika continued holding onto her cudgel, ready to fight. She did not believe the words of the Holy See¡¯s high priests. Back in the Caucasus region, the Holy See had spent a great amount of manpower and money each year in corrupting numerous viges. This had led to her abandoning the natural faith.


    With more preachers, it was hard to separate the good and bad, and every underhanded method had been used. Hence, even innocent Caucasus people did not mix well with diviners.


    ¡°I have no idea. By virtue, he shouldn¡¯t. We are too insignificant.¡± Saleen¡¯s hand had been kept in his sleeve, his hand wound tightly over his family badge. This was the only weapon he possessed that could cause damage to the white deacon. Unfortunately, this had to be stuck on and Saleen had possessed no confidence at all, his hands full of sweat.


    ¡°Too bad the magic beast soul was killed. If not, we could control a few low-grade beasts to move faster.¡± Sika was a little dejected. She was too weak and could not help Saleen. Her eyebrows, like a pair of knives, furrowed. She looked miserable.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be sad, Sika. I¡¯ll help you find a new magic beast soul. I have memorized the map of that white deacon. From here to the Phoenix Duchy is about five hundred kilometers, and it is the narrowest part of the Chaotic Swamp.¡±


    Sika nodded in a daze. She was terrible at navigation and whatever Saleen had said was useless to her.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°What!¡± Saleen voice was stern. The imp could not change her ways and it was hard for him to be pleased about it.


    ¡°Do you want to move faster?¡±


    ¡°Yes. So what?¡±


    ¡°I can carry you and run. So long as thatdy can catch up, we can be about four times faster than now.¡± Nailisi gave him a pitiful look and Saleen could not help but feel sorry for her.


    He had taken advantage of the imp¡¯s misfortune to make it his. If it had been anyone else, they would have been unhappy too. Tempting a human into making mistakes was the nature of demons. He needed to treat Nailisi better.


    Saleen thought about it this way not because Nailisi was pretty. He had seen Nailisi¡¯s original appearance, and that image would have surely given many people nightmares. Moreover, Nailisi still was not sure of its gender. Even if Saleen had been yearning, he would not fantasize about it. And most importantly, they were running for their lives now. It was hard for him to express any youthful feelings.


    He was purely looking at things in the manner that a mage would look at their pet. This attitude had been influenced by Jason Statham. Even though the two of them had had little interaction, Jason¡¯s words were etched in Saleen¡¯s heart.


    Don¡¯te down with feelings for your pets. It will kill them.


    In the end, Nailisi picked up Saleen. She was much taller than him, and carrying someone as big as Saleen was nothing for her. The three of them sped up and fled towards Phoenix Duchy.


    Night descended upon the Chaotic Swamp. Nailisi¡¯s instinct for danger was much sharper than Sika¡¯s and from start to finish, they moved carefully, hiding from predators that roamed the night. Nailisi¡¯s long hair was caught by the wind and brushed against Saleen¡¯s face.


    Her hair was like silk, making Saleen¡¯s heart flutter.


    At the end of the day, he was still an insignificant person. When Saleen and Sika said had said those things, he had not felt much. However, as Nailisi carried him on her back and ran, he was touched.


    I must be powerful, just like teacher, Saleen thought as he rested his head on Nailisi¡¯s shoulder and curled up his body. He felt like he had been sent back to the time when he had been the beggar that cowered in the rain, and at that moment, he could no longer hold back his tears.


    Master is crying? Nailisi grew excited. Unlike humans, demons never wished for their masters to be powerful. It would be best if all humans were weaklings, and that was what creatures living throughout the many universes hoped too.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ll protect you,¡± Nailisi said softly as she sped up.


    Nailisi¡¯s voice had a certain magic that calmed Saleen down and eventually, he fell asleep. All this while, he had been trying to manage their situation as well as Canghong¡¯s team. While the others had rested, he had been responsible for their safety. While the others had fought, he had needed to deal with the most powerful opponents.


    Anyone, no matter how strong he or she was, would get tired, much less a Grade 1 mage like Saleen. If it had not been for the special training with his badge which granted him extraordinary endurance, Saleen would have broken down a long time ago.


    Sika tried her best to keep up with Nailisi. The imp seemed to know Sika¡¯s limit and was always a step ahead of her, forcing Sika to run as fast as she could to catch up. Despite her armor being very permeable, it was pooling with sweat and for the first time, Sika felt that it was unbearable to go without showering.


    After running for a full day and night, Sika was just about ready to drop dead onto the floor in fatigue. Nailisi stopped at this point as Saleen woke up.


    ¡°Nailisi, take a break. Sika can¡¯t go on any longer.¡±


    Sika sat on the floor gasping for breath. Back in her hometown, she had never felt that running was something this difficult. While chasing their prey, Caucasus people could go without rest for tens of hours until their prey ran out of energy. Using this method, they could overpower creatures that were stronger than humans.


    However, the imp ran too fast and by Sika¡¯s estimate, the imp could outrun any living thing on the ground with this kind of speed. Sika wordlessly brought out her boots. With a pillow under her head, it only took her a few seconds to fall into a deep sleep.


    ¡°Nailisi, how far have we run?¡± Saleen¡¯s ancient Myers was getting better and he waszy about nagging the imp to learn themonnguage. In any case, they had a long way to go and it seemed that they had escaped danger.


    ¡°Almost five hundred kilometers. By daylight tomorrow we can leave the Chaotic Swamp.¡±


    ¡°So soon?¡± Saleen was shocked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Nailisi did not continue the conversation. She was thinking about the times back at her home when she had always been prey forrger demons. In the times that she had been chased by them, it seemed as though she could run even faster.


    Saleen saw that Nailisi was done talking and went to sit beside Sika. He had slept enough and might as well have used the time now to manage his items.


    A green dragon magic nucleus to be sent to the Bitter Water Prefecture and a set of empty magic books for him to use in the future. The rest were all gemstones and minerals. Saleen reevaluated his loot, as all of the gemstones were primitive and had not been processed. Many of them still had an outer covering of mineral.


    ¡°Nailisi, are you tired?¡± Saleen was concerned.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not master.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Can you help me get rid of the outer covering from these gemstones? I only want the purest parts inside.¡± Saleen looked at Nailisi¡¯s snow white teeth and smiled. At least he could save money on processing gemstones next time. He had heard that cutting minerals was an expensive service that was only found in big cities.


    Nailisi realized then that Saleen was not concerned about her body. She sighed and sat beside Saleen, starting to use her teeth to process these gemstones. As a demon, she should not have expected anything of him. Humans were greedy creatures.


    These gemstones wererge and even the smallest ones were the size of Sika¡¯s fist. Once they were processed, they became smaller. Saleen ced the processed gemstones back into the Ring of Gifts and the fragments that Nailisi had bitten off into the leather bag. These fragments were impure, but to a normal mage, they were a dreame true.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯m hungry.¡± Nailisi saw Saleen attentively wiping the gemstones and carefully storing them away piece by piece. She was a little annoyed and wanted to find an excuse to take a break.


    ¡°Even I don¡¯t have anything to eat. What are you harping on about? Wait until we get to Phoenix Duchy.¡± Saleen¡¯s stomach growled. He had thrown out all his dried food back at the temple to fit the gemstones in the remaining space.


    Nailisi teared up as she continued processing the stones, not caring about Saleen¡¯s worries.


    Saleen certainly was a little dejected. Although Sika was pretty, she was a bulky Caucasus warrior and not many people would have feelings for her. This imp had transformed into the likes of the Myers Goddess and was naturally attractive. With this appearance, they could get into a lot of trouble in the future, and she certainly enjoyed creating trouble.


    ¡°Nailisi¡­¡±


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°Just continue and listen to what I have to say.¡±


    Crunch crunch.


    ¡°Nevermind. We will talk about this in the future.¡± Saleen was a little defeated. He didn¡¯t know how to mentor a demon.


    Crunch crunch¡­


    Sika had a beautiful dream where she dreamed that her magic beast soul had been revived. In her dream, she was waving her cudgel and beating the crap out of the Holy See priest she was chasing. In her dream, Sika giggled.


    ¡°Keke, I shall let you run. Go die!¡±


    Saleen was feeling more dejected by the minute. He revealed the left hand that he hid under his sleeve. The dried up left hand was almost like the body of a deceased creature. He carefully cast a Grade 1 magic: Restorative Water. Saleen patiently used the water to moisturize his injured flesh.


    He might have been rich now, but his skills had decreased tremendously. Before his left hand healed, he could not continue learning Grade 2 magic. From the start, he had needed to use both hands to hold the spell while casting it, and this process would allow him to gradually grasp it. Saleen carefully lifted the index finger on his left hand. The finger bent slowly, and even though it had not been entirely lost, it was possible that it would take up to half a year to heal.


    It seemed like a good idea now to look for the prefecture head of the Bitter Water Prefecture for support. Hiding among the wealthy, he could avoid any unnecessary trouble. Now that he had money, he no longer needed to go around risking his life.


    It was too bad he had to give up the magic nucleus of the green dragon to do so.

 Chapter 47: Escaping Phoenix (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 47: Escaping Phoenix (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Sika woke up, it was already morning. The surroundings were breathtaking and there were few magic beasts around. A forest appeared in front of them. Saleen recalled the map of the white deacon and said, ¡°This forest is fifty kilometers wide. Cross this and we will reach the borders of Phoenix Duchy. Sika, can you do it?¡±


    ¡°Chief, I¡¯m alright.¡± Sika energetically waved her fists and legs, filled with energy.


    ¡°Master, is she also a demon?¡± Nailisi looked at the speed of Sika¡¯s recovery in disbelief. She had intentionally run faster yesterday to make Sika¡¯s life harder.


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen didn¡¯t understand Nailisi¡¯s question.


    Nailisi cleverly kept her mouth shut. She knew that if she continued to question it, her pettiness would show.


    Saleen¡¯s team continued on their way. With an imp on their side, even if Saleen had not had a map, they would not have gotten lost. This time the imp slowed down, using half a day to get through the forest.


    In reality, this forest was also filled with danger. It had a rare magic beast known as the tree ho. Tree hos were naturally vicious and would attack humans for no reason at all. However, the imp easily went around the tree ho territory, walking arge distance around but making their way out unharmed.


    No matter how dangerous this forest was, it would not be as scary as the demon universe. Every living creature there was deadly. At least in this forest, the trees did not eat humans and the magic beasts were rtively friendly.


    Passing through the forest, they came across a small town. The architecture here was very different from that in Sikeqinya. The people in Sikeqinya liked to use stone to build their houses, as they fancied elegance and grandness. The buildings here were mainly made out of brick, and were very meticulous and elegant.


    Even though most of the people were dressed simply, they had a different energy from those in Ceylon City. The people here were clean and simple, and even though their clothes were old, they were washed clean. They had a look of bliss on their faces that Saleen couldn¡¯t understand.


    The town had a very high wall. Since this was the border and no war had taken ce here before, the simpleyout of the wall was meant to defend against the bigger magic beasts from the forest.


    The foreign vibes soothed the pain that Saleen felt from leaving his city. For a long time, he had read about how the Qin Empire had a lot of people, especially wise sages. From what he saw now, even a small town from the Qin Empire was much more powerful than Ceylon City. The guards protecting the city didn¡¯t ept the money that Saleen gave them and were oblivious to the mercenary badge he was wearing. Evidently, mages had special privileges here.


    Saleen loved the atmosphere here. Walking along the streets in his mage robes, no one paid any extra attention to him. Although he found it a little strange, Saleen figured that there must have been too many mages in the Qin Empire and everyone had already grown used to it.


    Saleen was right. The town was only a tenth of the size of Ceylon City with over ten streets and few stalls. Even so, walking into a bar, he rubbed shoulders with another mage.


    He was a Grade 2 mage wearing a white magic robe, and at his chest were two lines of magic imprints. Seeing Saleen appear before him, the Grade 2 mage nodded his head in acknowledgement.


    The bar in this town was also very different from the ones in Ceylon City. Many of the people drinking were mercenaries. This ce was close to the Chaotic Swamp and there were many missions to capture magic beasts. However, the mercenaries here weren¡¯t as uncouth as those in Sikeqinya, and they spoke politely. Saleen was even a little ufortable in this environment.


    Many paintings were hung up on the walls of the bar, with many being sketches of everyday life. In a ce this small, there were not any famous artists. These paintings had not been purchased by the bar but rather had been ced there to be sold by the artists themselves.


    Calling the waiter, Saleen passed a gold coin to him since he did not have any silver coins. The waiter immediately refused. He couldn¡¯t ept such arge tip.


    ¡°I want some smoked meat, takeaway. Tenrge breads and any side dishes,¡± Saleen requested politely. At that, the waiter epted the gold coin coyly.


    He lowered his voice and asked Saleen, ¡°Lord, is there anything else you need?¡±


    ¡°Do you have a professional union here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s two streets ahead,¡± The waiter answered fluidly. He had gotten used to interacting with people looking for jobs.


    Saleen was relieved. There was an professional union here and he could register himself as a mercenary. This would allow him to move around the Qin Empire freely. Nailisi¡¯s appearance was also a little eye-catching, dressed in an outfit from tens of thousands of years ago and barefoot, and Saleen decided to buy a new outfit for her. Most importantly, he had to sell away some of the gemstones for gold, as he had run out of gold. In the temple, Saleen had emptied out almost all his space for the gemstones. Besides the few gold coins he had lying around, he only had Sikeqinya bank notes.


    Nailisi seemed to understand Saleen¡¯s thoughts and ate quietly, not drawing any attention. After the three had hurriedly filled their stomachs, they left for the professional union that the waiter had directed them to.


    The professional union in Sikeqinya was not the same organization as the one in the Qin Empire. However, both had frequent contact and mercenaries from one could ept missions from the other.


    The union in this small town was small and from the outside, looked like a museum. The main door¡¯s wall had a red phoenix drawn on it, and this was the symbol of the Phoenix Duke.


    Entering from the main door, no one seemed to notice their presence. At the front was the counter and some staff were sitting behind, talking boredly in hushed tones. Staircases lined the two sides, leading to the upper floor. Saleen walked to the counter and tapped his fingers.


    Behind the counter was a young man with an honest face. The staff in this union did not have the swordsman get-up of those in Sikeqinya. Seeing Saleene to the counter, the young man gave a smile and asked, ¡°Lord, may I ask how I can be of service?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m from Sikeqinya. I want to register as a mercenary in the Qin Empire. Can I do it here?¡±


    ¡°Sure. Give me your name and your mercenary badge.¡±


    Saleen gave his fake name and handed over his badge. The young man helped him fill out the form earnestly and it was done within a minute. All he needed was for Saleen to sign it.


    ¡°That will be three gold coins.¡± The young man hadn¡¯t even asked for the names and upations of the other members in Saleen¡¯s team. The efficiency was amazing!


    ¡°Um, if I may ask, are there any escort missions here?¡± Saleen had no money after handing over the gold coins. He was afraid looking up missions here might cost an extra fee. Luckily, the young man happily gave Saleen an answer.


    ¡°If you¡¯re doing a mission on your way to somewhere, you may go to that board to search. If you¡¯re looking for something specific, we will take amission of five percent. We will provide aprehensive contract, ensuring no errors.¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary. Give me a map of the maind.¡±


    ¡°That will be one gold coin, my lord.¡±


    Saleen suddenly felt disgusted by the young man¡¯s smile. No matter how good the service was here, it was only a means for him to earn money for survival. Seeing no other option, Saleen took out a gold coin and put it on the counter.


    Saleen wanted to find a mission not because hecked money, but rather because he wanted to integrate into a group while travelling as to not attract attention. It was hard to say if the fanatics of the Holy See would enter Phoenix Duchy.


    Taking back his badge, it now had an extra gold stamp on it. With this, he could move around freely as a mercenary under the jurisdiction of the Qin Empire. Keeping a copy of the mercenary registration form, Saleen left the counter and went to the board. There were lots of paper notes stuck onto it, and many werest minute missions. Most of them were notices for buying magic nuclei, hides, herbs, and minerals.


    There were hundreds of notes but none of them were for an escort mission. Saleen did not have many gold coins left and had no choice but to leave the union.


    After getting some directions from people along the way, Saleen brought Sika and Nailisi to an equipment store. Like any border city, even a small city like this would have a decent equipment store.


    This equipment store¡¯s architecture was ancient, its signage bearing scars of time. The boss seemed to have been toozy to repaint it and let the wood show its age. The vines growing on the wall along the street had turned yellow as autumn approached.


    The words on the sign were in the Qin Language: Deep Wood Equipment Store


    Saleen walked in only to find the store empty. At the front was a ss cab, and there were shelves on the two sides. The shelves were made out of fine wood and had intricate flower designs carved into them. One look was enough to make people feel as though anything ced on the shelf must have been exquisite.


    ¡°Boss, boss!¡±


    Saleen called but no one answered. He shouted louder.


    Cough cough¡­


    Coughing sounds came from the door to the east of the shop and a weak voice replied, ¡°Sir, please keep quiet. Give me a minute.¡±


    The way he did business was indeed rare. Saleen remembered that back in Sikeqinya, whenever a customer walked in, somebody would be ready to serve them. He sat in front of the counter. The chairs provided werefortable unlike those of the stores in Sikeqinya which were mostly benches.


    The items in the ss cab were very exquisite indeed. Saleen even saw a rubidium iid dagger. This was a magic weapon as rubidium could store magic, and it did not require a mage to activate it. This particr gemstone did not fetch a high price and was mostly used as a recement for rutile.


    Cough¡­


    Following a soft cough, the east door opened and a sickly youth came out. He took a nce at Saleen and the others and said, ¡°Lord, sorry to have kept you waiting. What can I get for you?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the boss?¡± Saleen was shocked. This youth was probably the same age as him and he already owned a shop. This was pretty impressive.


    ¡°Can¡¯t say so. It¡¯s a family business.¡± The youth smiled modestly, his sickly face lighting up.


    ¡°I want to sell a few items.¡± Saleen was direct, seeing as he no longer had any gold coins on hand.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, my lord, we don¡¯t ept equipment. We only sell weapons produced by our family here,¡± The youth rejected politely.


    ¡°They¡¯re gemstones.¡±


    ¡°Oh, let me see!¡± The youth was energetic again, almost as if he were a dying person that had received a revival spell.


    Saleen retrieved a finger sized gemstone fragment from his bag. This was a fragment of fluorite and even though it had been a leftover material, it was still crystal clear. Anyone who could not tell would mistake it for calcite.


    ¡°Fluorite!¡± The youth¡¯s face regained even more color. The quality of this fragment was even better than those from some of the trade stores in big cities. From the quality, it seemed like this fragment had been cut off directly from pure fluorite. Even though it wasn¡¯t pure, it could still be used to make high-grade magic props.

 Chapter 48: Aini’s Family (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 48: Aini¡¯s Family (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were many different types of gemstones and many of them were simr in appearance. This sickly youth had merely taken a nce at the finger-sized fragment and had been able to identify it correctly. He must have had really good eyesight.


    ¡°How many do you have?¡± The youth looked up at Saleen, instantly having returned to hisposed self.


    ¡°How many do you want?¡±


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words, the youth frowned and walked out from behind the counter. He closed the door of the shop and hung a ¡°closed¡± sign on it. Walking back to Saleen, he said, ¡°Sir, if you have a lot of fluorite, that will be a problem. I own a very small shop and cannot buy everything, and if you sell it to someone else, you cannot be sure that it is safe.¡±


    ¡°Safe?¡± Saleen furrowed his brows and looked directly at the youth.


    ¡°Are you from Sikeqinya?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I could tell from your ent. You may not be very familiar with it but in the Qin Empire, all of the weaponry shops are backed byrge families and the threergest weaponry shops own a total of eighty percent of the trade. When you have power, it is hard to prevent such things from happening. In order to survive, the small weaponry shops are notcking in underhanded means. You¡¯re a foreigner. After processing, this fluorite could get you two thousand gold coins. The weaponry shop would want a forty percent profit, and that would supposedly leave you with one thousand two hundred gold coins. But, if you¡¯re lucky, you would get five hundred gold coins at most.¡±


    Saleenughed and asked, ¡°What about you?¡±


    ¡°Even if I intend to have you as a friend, I can only give you a thousand gold coins.¡± The youth answered honestly.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Sir, do you want to have me as a friend?¡± The youthughed, approachable yet cunning at the same time.


    Saleen tapped against the ss counter with his fingers, not in a rush to answer and looking nkly at the magic dagger within the counter. Even though this youth was sickly, he definitely didn¡¯t have the aura of amoner. If he made this friend, Saleen certainly wouldn¡¯t mind selling his goods here.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Have you thought about it?¡¯


    Saleen pretended to be deep in thought, waiting a while before saying, ¡°You can call me Saleen. Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    The youth broke into arge grin and said, ¡°I¡¯m Aini, Aini Clyde.¡± Seeing no reaction from Saleen after he had said his name, he grew certain that Saleen knew nothing about the Qin Empire. Over here, no one was clueless about the Clyde family.


    What an innocent youth! The two of them couldn¡¯t help but think the same thing.


    ¡°Who are these two?¡± Aini inquired politely. From Saleen¡¯s equipment, he could tell that despite being a low-grade mage, he might not have been someone of low status. At the very least he had a decent teacher, or perhaps even a powerful magic lineage. The white crystal ring on his finger was worth at least tens of thousands of gold coins, and not every mage could afford it. Saleen¡¯s magic robes were the same, keeping three constant magics and exceeding what a mage of his grade could own.


    Sitting beside Saleen, Sika kept quiet. Saleen and Aini were conversing in the Qinnguage and she couldn¡¯t understand a word. Nailisi was walking around the shelves, not looking back either.


    ¡°This is Sika. That is Nailisi.¡± Saleen diffused the awkwardness. ¡°They do not speak the Qinnguage.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk in the back, cough¡­¡± Aini covered his mouth and started coughing. His coughs were violent and the skin on his face turned a deep shade of red, reminding Saleen of Canghong. He wondered if that guy had made it out of the Chaotic Swamp.


    The room in the back was even bigger than the shop in front. What surprised Saleen was therge table in the center of the room, as it was simr to the one that Jason had and was covered in magic props. Was Aini an alchemist?


    The smell of sulfur in the room wasbined with a rare perfume: rosemary.


    Aini went into the room and coughed even harder, doubling over as his shoulders scrunched up in pain. Saleen took an empty gold cup from the table and created a portion of restorative water, putting half of it into the gold cup and absorbing the other half into his left hand.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Aini straightened his back upon seeing Saleen¡¯s gesture. He took the gold cup and drank it at once.


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t move!¡± Saleen saw Nailisi pick up a piece of metal from the table, about to take a bite to taste it. This gold part had been pieced together from hundreds of small parts. It was around a foot tall and was simr to a lego block.


    ¡°Sika!¡±


    Just as Saleen stopped Nailisi, Sika picked up a crystal beaker. The beaker was filled to the brim with a suspicious green fluid. The fluid was sticky with beads of gel in it that were almost like fish roe.


    ¡°Chief, it¡¯s a garuda!¡± Sika reluctantly put down the crystal beaker.


    ¡°Um¡­¡± Saleen couldn¡¯t hold it in any longer and said in embarrassment to Aini, ¡± I¡¯m sorry, they have never been out before.¡±


    Aini waved his hand and said, ¡°It¡¯s alright. I use these to pass the time. They aren¡¯t worth much. Saleen, sit.¡±


    Aini brought Saleen over to the bench at the corner of the wall and they both sat down. There were only two mats on the floor but they had been fashioned into a cloudlike shape.


    ¡°How long have you been injured?¡± Saleen could tell by now that Aini was not sick, but rather severely injured.


    ¡°Five, six years?¡± Aini smiled forcefully. He changed the topic and said, ¡°Saleen, how many gemstones do you have? I cannot buy all of them if there are too many, but I do not want you to sell them to other families either. Help me out. Wait until I raise more money¡­¡±


    Saleen extended his left hand from his sleeve and ced it on the bench.


    Aini gave a bitter smile and said, ¡°It seems like you¡¯re in need of money too.¡±


    It was possible for Saleen to use restorative water to treat his hand as it would recover but take a very long time. If he could buy some high-grade magic medicine, this amount of time could be greatly shortened and perhaps not affect his promotion.


    ¡°How much can you give?¡± Saleen and Aini were both bound by sickness, and there was a heartfelt connection. He had no family in the Qin Empire while this Aini seemed to be from a big family. Moreover, since this was such a small, remote area, it was definitely a good opportunity to make friends. Saleen had the instincts of a merchant and hadn¡¯t lost his childlike innocence. He had no reason to reject Aini¡¯s friendship.


    Aini was touched as well. Doing a quick calction, he answered, ¡°The amount of money I can transfer probably amounts to sixty thousand gold coins.¡±


    Saleen was counting in his heart, too. Sixty thousand gold coins wasn¡¯t a small amount, but his hand would require medicine every day. High-grade magic medicine all cost thousands of gold coins, and after curing his hand, it was possible that he would be left with nothing again. He still needed to buy magic nuclei and magic ingredients, and all of those would cost at least a hundred gold coins each day.


    ¡°Does your family have any good pharmacists?¡± Saleen asked another question.


    Aini understood immediately. Smiling, he said, ¡°My uncle is a high-grade pharmacist. However, he is in Phoenix. Your injury¡­¡±


    ¡°I have errands to run at the Bitter Water Prefecture. If it is on the way, I wouldn¡¯t mind.¡± Saleen had already made up his mind to sustain a friendship with the Clyde family. Just as they were deep in conversation, Nailisi held up the crystal beaker that Sika had picked up earlier. She stuck her tongue into the beaker and started licking.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s really alright. Garuda eggs aren¡¯t poisonous.¡± Aini found it interesting, Saleen was about his age yet here he was walking around with two beautiful women. He was only a Grade 1 mage, so it was surprising that his teacher actually felt at ease with this. Saleen was lucky that he had met him this time. If it had been a weaponry shop with ties to a bandit gang, he would have been a goner.


    Saleen was troubled too. He wasn¡¯t afraid of Nailisi getting poisoned. He was worried that if she broke anything, he would need to pay. Sika was better. After putting down the crystal beaker, she hadn¡¯t touched anything else.


    ¡°Aini, I have a gemstone worth sixty thousand for you, but looking at your injury, it doesn¡¯t seem to be something that is curable with magic medicine. If you want to take me as a friend, tell me about it. Maybe there is something I can do to help.¡±


    ¡°You cannot help. This is a curse.¡±


    ¡°Curse?¡± Saleen was shocked. It was a type of divine spell. Even though the name sounded evil, it was actually a rare ability from the sacred Holy See.


    ¡°Saleen, let me be frank with you. As a direct descendant of the Clyde family, I used to have a bright future back in Lon Duchy. When I was eight, I was a high-grade magic disciple, and by the time I was twelve, I was already a Grade 3 mage. Everyone thought I would be a grand mage by the time I was fifteen and would be transferred back to the Qin Empire and into the nucleus of the family. However, that winter, I saved a mercenary who turned out to be a criminal wanted by the tribunal. I ended up offending the Holy See and was secretly cursed.¡±


    Aini looked dejected as he carried on, ¡°As you would likely know, to curse a Grade 3 mage without being found out, that person had to have been at least a deacon in the Holy See. Because of this, my parents went berserk. Even though they didn¡¯t capture the person who had cursed me, they murdered all the missionaries who were in hiding in that city. Since they abused their family power and caused great losses, my parents were called back to the Qin Empire and are never to leave the family again. Although I wasn¡¯t in the wrong, I lost my bright future. My magic chords are disappearing day by day. Sooner orter I will be a cripple, and hence I was sent to the border to manage this shop.¡±


    Upon hearing this, Saleen grew agitated. The Clyde family was strong enough to take on the sacred Holy See. Even though Lon Duchy was part of the Qin Empire, the Holy See could not be involved directly. However, a religious tribunal was not something that anyone would dare offend. Those crazed fellows did not care for anything.


    ¡°If my curse could be lifted, my family wouldn¡¯t have abandoned me and allowed me to live out my days here.¡± At the mention of living out his days, Aini could not help but show his grievances on his face.


    ¡°You¡¯ve found a cure?¡± Saleen could not understand it. If even the Clyde family could not lift the curse on Aini, why did he need so much money?


    ¡°There are two ways. The first is to kill the one who cursed me, but with so many people out there and this person being at least Grade 7, there is almost no chance of this happening. The second way¡­¡±


    Aini looked into Saleen eyes and said, ¡°Since my magic chords are disappearing, I might as well learn death magic.¡±


    He observed Saleen¡¯s reaction. Death magic did not have a good reputation, and even in the Qin Empire, there were not many people who were willing to learn it.


    ¡°That is a tough road¡­¡± Saleen gave a long sigh. Thinking back to the time where he had been constantly worried about his magic chords, he could empathize with Aini. Back then, he had been willing to pay any price to gain magic abilities.

 Chapter 49: Aini’s Family (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 49: Aini¡¯s Family (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ainiughed and said, ¡°You really are a pure mage. Actually, death magic isn¡¯t that scary. The only things I need to figure out now are my body¡¯s condition and the money.¡±


    ¡°You can buy the death me?¡±


    ¡°Even though it may be short in supply, if you put in a little effort, it can still be found. If you need anything special in the future, let me know. I will help you think of a way.¡± Aini was starting to like this low-grade mage Saleen. Saleen was not prejudiced against any types of magic, he was knowledgeable, and they were of a simr age. Even if they had not had any business interactions, they got along well either way.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you help me price these gemstones.¡± Saleen started digging them out from his bag. Even though Aini was from arge family, he was amazed by the sight in front of him. Saleen stopped after taking out a hundred gemstones. These gemstones were all of good quality and were around the size of a finger.


    Aini separated the gemstones into four different types and said, ¡°You can take back these amphiboles as it won¡¯t be easy for me to price them correctly. If you were to sell them to me, you would probably lose out on a lot. You¡¯re a mage too. Keep them for your own use next time.¡±


    Saleen pushed them back and said, ¡°Take it as the money for my medicine. I¡¯m paying in advance.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Aini epted it without another thought and said, ¡°I will follow you to the Qin Empire and take care of the magic medicine.¡±


    ¡°What about the shop?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll close it. My family has no hope of striking it rich here anyway.¡±


    Saleen took out a dozen more gemstones and ced them on the bench, ¡°Can I choose some equipment with these?¡±


    ¡°Of course. This is my shop. Whatever I say goes. I can give you a twenty percent discount.¡± Aini used his special leather bag to store away the gemstones before giving Saleen sixty thousand gold coins. Saleen felt more at ease. If he were to train diligently, he would need at least one Grade 3 magic nucleus every day. That had be the present situation for a Grade 1 mage like him.


    A Grade 3 nucleus cost about a hundred and fifty gold coins, and a hundred and fifty gold coins each day would total fifty-four thousand gold coins in a year. If he didn¡¯t use any magic nuclei to restore his magic chords, his progress would be slowed by many times.


    There were many people who imed to be genius mages in the maind. However, not one was poor. If they relied purely on meditation for restoration, they would not have been able to do it so quickly either. These sixty thousand gold coins were enough to sustain him for a year of training; however, he should give some to Sika¡¯s vige too. Without Sika, he wouldn¡¯t have gotten a single gemstone.


    Seeing Saleen storing his money carefully, Aini asked, ¡°What equipment do you need?¡±


    Saleen also had no idea what gear Nailisi would need. Since they had spent most of their time escaping, he hadn¡¯t thought of asking her what skills she possessed. Saleen called over Nailisi, who had been ying with a magic puppet, and asked, ¡°I intend to rece a set of equipment for you. Do you need any armor or weapons?¡±


    ¡°Master, demons do not require this, but¡­¡±


    ¡°But what?¡±


    ¡°Master, I know how to use spatial equipment. Could you¡­¡±


    ¡°Spatial equipment?¡± Saleen was overjoyed. His Ring of Gifts was not limited to a certain grade but the space it possessed was too small. There did not seem to be any empty space left inside.


    Aini had no idea what Saleen and Nailisi were saying. He stood at the side watching, as Saleen was obviously speaking a very ancientnguage. Aini was from arge family, but that did not mean he had a powerful lineage and he had not had as many magic books as Jason either. When it came to the Myers Language, he waspletely clueless.


    ¡°Aini, do you have any better spatial equipment here?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words gave Aini a scare. High-grade spatial equipment was counted in millions of gold coins, and moreover, only a Grade 6 mage or above could use it. This prettydy with her weirdnguage, could it be that she was a grand mage? Or even a sorcerer?


    ¡°I do have one. I was nning to use it myself in the future¡­¡±


    Saleen removed his bag and opened it, pouring out the remaining gemstones.


    Aini stared in shock and it took him a while before he said, ¡°Saleen, did you rob a giant dragon?¡±


    Even though Saleen had not robbed a giant dragon, he had cleaned out a temple. Although these gemstones were the fragments that Nailisi had processed, they were worth something as well. Saleen had poured out almost a thousand pieces, enough to have made anyone dizzy. Aini drew a cold breath, holding in his cough.


    After keeping quiet for a while, Aini said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, this really isn¡¯t enough. My equipment alone cost a million gold coins, and it even has a constant Grade 8 magic on it. I was nning to exchange this equipment for gold coins to buy the death me. As you know how hard it is to activate the summoning portal to the death universe¡­¡±


    Constant Grade 8 magic? Even though it was not a prop like a scroll, it still required a Grade 6 mage or above to activate it. No matter what Grade 8 magic it was, it had required a Grade 9 mage to cast it on the equipment. For this, it was definitely worth a million gold coins. In reality, it was impossible to entice a Grade 9 mage with money. No matter how many gold coins one had, it was possible that others would simply not be willing to cast the constant magic.


    Saleen tipped the corner of the bag, and several hundred more gemstones came out.


    Aini clenched his teeth, his eyes red, and said, ¡°Deal.¡±


    As he spoke, he took off a bracelet from his wrist and passed it to Saleen. Saleen could not help but admire Aini, for even in the face of all these gemstones, he did not have any intentions to kill. Even if he was a descendant of arge family, he might not have seen this many gemstones in his life. Moreover, Aini had such a strong determination to practice magic that he would give away millions of gold coins for a chance. He was very simr to Saleen in this aspect.


    The bracelet was made of gold, and the dull silver at the bottom had a hint of blue to it. It probably had legendary seven-degree gold in it. Saleen had arge piece of seven-degree gold that he had obtained from the temple, and if he were to process it, it would probably only be enough for a ring.


    While it had been refined, the golden bracelet had a natural pattern etched into it. The inside had six indents which could fit a gemstone. This was probably to activate the constant magic, and if a simr grade magic nucleus or gemstone was iid in it, a Grade 6 mage and above would be able to activate the constant magic.


    There was a huge price to pay for casting constant magic. Unlike normal magic, after a mage cast constant magic on a prop, it would take up to three years to gain back the magic chords he had expended. Moreover, this expenditure of magic chords was cross grade, meaning that to cast a constant Grade 1 magic, a Grade 2 magic chord would be expended instead.


    This exined why very few mages were willing to cast constant magic, as a decrease in magic chords for an extended period of time was not as simple as a decrease in fighting skills, but affected the speed of their training too.


    For example, if Saleen helped someone else cast a constant Grade 1 magic, his magic chords would be halved. Before he could restore his magic chords, his training speed would be halved too. What would have taken him two years to promote to a Grade 2 mage would take at least a year longer now.


    This was with Saleen having twice the magic chords of mages of his grade. If it had been any other Grade 1 mage, they wouldn¡¯t even have had the ability to cast constant Grade 1 magic.


    ¡°What constant magic is on this?¡± Saleen held the bracelet gingerly. He was so full of respect that it seemed almost as though he were facing a Grade 9 mage who was casting a spell.


    ¡°Grade 8 mirror magic.¡± Aini looked reluctantly at the bracelet in Saleen¡¯s hands


    Saleen grabbed another bunch of gemstones and shoved them into Aini¡¯s hands without a second thought. Grade 8 mirror magic was powerful enough to reflect any damage, not just magic.


    Mirror magic was a magic that could be advanced with level. Any Grade 5 to Grade 9 mage could learn it. Grade 8 mirror magic could not only reflect any magic that was Grade 8 and below, but it could reflect also any sword aura from a silver swordmaster or below. Even when this skill could only be used once, it was unusually valuable, much less this bracelet which could be used repeatedly so long as it was iid with a Grade 8 magic nucleus.


    Saleen held Nailisi¡¯s hand and helped her put on the bracelet. ¡°Try it.¡±


    Nailisi ced her hand on the bench, grabbing a gemstone. A pale blue light shed across it and the gemstone disappeared. Seeing Aini¡¯s shocked expression, Saleen finally understood. The reason why Aini hadn¡¯t stolen the gemstones was because he was afraid of Nailisi.


    ¡°Master, I can use it. Why don¡¯t you pass me all the gemstones in Sika¡¯s bag?¡± Nailisi held Saleen¡¯s hand while acting like a spoiled child.


    ¡°And allow you to escape?¡± Saleen reprimanded.


    ¡°Master, we have a soul bond¡­¡± Tears welled up in Nailisi¡¯s eyes. Seeing this, Aini could not bear to look any longer. This Saleen didn¡¯t know how to treat a woman right!


    ¡°Hmm, you can give up now. Let me tell you that in the past ten thousand years, no one has managed to open the demon universe! If you want to escape back there and break the soul bond, no number of gemstones will do that!¡± Saleen thought back to his teacher¡¯s teachings as he spoke harshly to Nailisi.


    ¡°Master, master¡­¡± Nailisi burst into tears. Aini was shocked. He had no idea what Saleen had said to her.


    It was so hard to take care of a demon! He watched Nailisi cry in front of him. He didn¡¯t want to scold her in front of Aini. In reality, he had no idea how to punish a demon either, hence he said softly, ¡°Okay, Nailisi, don¡¯t cry. Those gemstones belong to Sika, so I can¡¯t take them by force.¡±


    Nailisi sobbed, ¡°I was only trying to help. She can¡¯t run as fast as me. It seems dangerous for her to carry that many gemstones¡­¡±


    ¡°That will have to wait until Aini isn¡¯t here. Nailisi, when there aren¡¯t any outsiders, I¡¯ll pass the gemstones to you.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Nailisi stopped crying and smiled, grabbing Saleen¡¯s hand and shaking it while looking more and more like a magic pet.


    Saleen started feeling egotistical, predicting that the problems with Nailisi were just beginning. A soul bond could only ensure that Nailisi was loyal to him. It couldn¡¯t change her habits or her way of thinking. However, what he needed most right now was a demon as a helper. Nailisi¡¯s fighting skills should have been greater than Sika¡¯s and she could use spatial equipment, so he was definitely reluctant to give up on her.


    Whatever. His teacher had used to say to him: Whatever one owns, one will need to pay the same price for. It seemed like a saying that all mages should understand.


    What was the price of owning Nailisi? Saleen couldn¡¯t figure it out, but it likely wasn¡¯t a greater price than what he had paid to obtain his magic chords.

 Chapter 50: Sleepless Night (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 50: Sleepless Night (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen and the others decided to stay the night at Aini¡¯s shop. The shop had two stories. The first story sold weapons while the second story was meant for people to stay in. The basement was a storehouse.


    This was not usually a ce that entertained guests, and the second story had three bedrooms meant for servants and no guest rooms at all. Aini was a little weird. He had no reason to have servants seeing how he tended to the shop alone.


    Saleen had initially nned for Nailisi and Sika to sleep together, but Sika had refused. She had seen the original form of Nailisi and was afraid that the imp would wake up in the middle of the night and tear out her throat.


    Seeing that he had no other choice, Saleen and Nailisi stayed in the same room.


    Aini watched awkwardly as Saleen got into an argument with the other two women before walking into a room with the woman who was scantily d. He couldn¡¯t figure out the rtionship of the three.


    Nailisi entered the bedroom and immediately climbed into the soft bed. Saleen kicked off his shoes and pushed her off of it.


    ¡°You will sleep on the floor.¡±


    ¡°Master.¡±


    ¡°Sit down!¡±


    Nailisi obeyed and sat on the floor. Saleen¡¯s legs hung over the edge of the bed as he looked down at the imp he had justmanded.


    Nailisi wasbing her ck hair to one side, her long fingers running through between her hair with her chest out and her legs crossed to the right side. Her slightly tall forehead made her eyebrows seem especially high, nearly reaching her temples. Her eyes were slightly pink, almost as if she had just woken up.


    Her looks that were supposed to have been elegant and beautiful had changed to ones that were petite and cute out of herziness.


    However, to Saleen, the most important thing for a bound creature were itsbat abilities. Looks came second. ¡°Nailisi, what abilities do you have?¡±


    ¡°Do I have to say everything?¡± Nailisi leaned forward, her toes curling and shining under the light.


    ¡°Yes, all of it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m very good at capturing magic insects. Magic insects were the mostmon living creature in the demon universe and were usually worth quite little. However, these creatures were very crafty and it wasn¡¯t easy to catch them. Among all the magic insects, the hardest to catch was a shiny aphid. Shiny aphids that had not matured were usually apanied by magic ants for protection, and when they matured they could fly. There were many different types of magic ants, too. The hardest to deal with were the fire magic ants.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Saleen did not want to hear Nailisi¡¯s lecture on entomology in the demon universe. He wanted to know what Nailisi could do on the Myers Maind. Fire magic ants? If they came across fire magic ants, it would be better tomit suicide. Fire magic ants kept their prey in their nest, keeping it alive while eating it at the same time. They were very frugal creatures.


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi looked at Saleen in confusion. He was the one who had told her to say everything and she had said the one thing she was best at. Imps had little fighting skills in the demon universe and kept themselves alive by eating magic insects, or sometimes, by hunting their own kind. Even though she had a rtively good bloodline, that was only byparison between imps.


    ¡°What do you think of Sika¡¯s fighting skill?¡± Saleen also knew that he could get impatient at times. The imp had been kept imprisoned since she hade to the Myers Maind, so she wouldn¡¯t understand how power was divided among humans. He could onlypare Nailisi¡¯s strength to those around him to get a good gauge.


    ¡°She barely has any fighting skill!¡± Nailisi couldn¡¯t understand Saleen. It seemed her master had little fighting skill too. Thinking about this, Nailisi became a little too happy. There was a legend in the demon universe that stated that if a demon ate its master, the demon¡¯s bloodline would change and it would gain unexpected powers.


    However, since humans had arrived in the demon universe, not a single demon had been able to eat its master. How reliable was this legend? Nailisi licked her lips, looking at Saleen¡¯s neck.


    ¡°How about you? How many of Sika could you take down?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say, master. Sika has a sickening energy around her and her blood has a weird smell. I can¡¯t be sure what would happen if I took action. Should I silently go up to her and take a bite?¡±


    Saleen took a deep breath. Nailisi waspletely clueless about the power systems in the maind. She only knew how topare fighting skills, but he couldn¡¯t possibly let her fight with Sika, could he?


    ¡°How about the white deacon that we met at the Chaotic Swamp that day? How are youpared to him?¡± Saleen could only slowly chip his way in and asked this, hoping he could identify Nailisi¡¯s powers.


    ¡°Not much. He was pretty weak, and not even there amongst themon demons.¡±


    ¡°Does that mean you couldn¡¯t have won against him?¡± Saleen wasn¡¯t easily fooled. Even though Nailisi spoke nonchntly, Saleen still noticed that she hadpared the white deacon to demons. Demons were of a higher grade than imps and that meant that Nailisi felt that she couldn¡¯t have won versus the white deacon.


    Nailisi pouted and shrugged, answering Saleen¡¯s doubts in a very human way.


    It was hardmunicating with demons, even those bound by their souls. Humans were not demons and would never know what demons were thinking.


    How big was the space in the bracelet? Saleen decided to ask something more substantial. He roughly knew that Nailisi had slightly better fighting skills than Sika but was weaker than the white deacon. Using the union¡¯s way of categorizing, she was between Grade 4 and Grade 6.


    No matter what grade she was, she wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat the swordmaster.


    Nailisi looked around the room and quickly said, ¡°It¡¯s around one out of a hundred and twenty-four times the size of this room.¡±


    No matter how good Saleen¡¯s mathematics were, he couldn¡¯t immediately calcte how big that was. He gestured with his hands and said, ¡°This is one cubic foot, how many cubic feet is the space in the bracelet?¡±


    ¡°Approximately seven hundred and seventy-five cubic feet.¡± The imp¡¯s calction skills impressed Saleen. Her answer was as quick as instant magic.


    This answer was something that Saleen could visualize easily. Seven hundred and seventy-five cubic feet. That was around twenty times the size of the Ring of Gifts. Aini¡¯s bracelet was certainly a high-grade one. He hadn¡¯t been lying.


    ¡°Master, why do you trust that kid so much?¡± Nailisi wasn¡¯t wrong in calling Aini a kid, as she had lived for tens of thousands of years.


    ¡°Go to sleep.¡± Saleen yawned. He could tell that Nailisi wasn¡¯t ready to disclose her abilities to him yet. The greatest possibility was that she wasn¡¯t of age and hadn¡¯t discovered many of her abilities yet.


    It was a shame that he had read too few books on demons, or else he would have been able to tell which pedigree Nailisi belonged to and what abilities she would possess as she grew older.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Seeing Saleen lying down on the bed, Nailisi stopped talking. Sheid sprawled out on the floor, looking at the wall in front of her in a daze.


    ¡°Nailisi¡­¡±


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°Catch.¡± Saleen took out a gemstone from the Ring of Gifts and threw it down from the bed. Nailisi smiled as she caught the gemstone and hid it in her bracelet.


    Saleen couldn¡¯t sleep. He chose the moremon gemstones from the Ring of Gifts and threw them down. Nailisi caught each one of them, quick as lightning, and ced them in the bracelet.


    Clearing up space in the Ring of Gifts, Saleen thought about Nailisi¡¯s question. Did he trust Aini? The two of them had only recently met and they definitely did not have a deep trust. However, when it came to something like trust, time was required. If there was no trust from the start, it would be very hard to be close with the person forever.


    However, there was some risk this time. The deal he had made with Aini was worth more than two million gold coins.


    Back then, he had nearly lost his life for one gold coin, and now the amount was two million gold coins. Comparing it this way made Saleen nervous.


    Although Aini feared Nailisi, once they entered the Qin Empire and were in the territory of the Clyde Family, this fear would no longer exist.


    Saleen could not sleep and neither could Sika. She took the gemstones and minerals and some things she couldn¡¯t recognize out of her bag and piled them up on the bed.


    She was rich! Sika held the cold minerals in her hand, her heart filled with warmth.


    With this money, she should make her way home and not risk her life anymore. The outside world was too chaotic and dirty. However, without her, would Saleen be alright? He had another discontented imp by his side.


    Sika¡¯s heart sank. Thinking back to how she and Saleen had met, what she remembered most clearly was not Saleen¡¯s embarrassed look when he had peeped on her while she was showering, but the time that she had injured herself and Saleen had said to her seriously, ¡°Sika, I am no priest. Do not risk your life for me again.¡±


    That¡¯s right. He was only a mage, not a priest. He didn¡¯t need her protection.


    Aini couldn¡¯t sleep either. Heid on his bed, a whole bag of gemstones by his side. These gemstones could fetch a higher price in his hands, enough for him to buy the materials he needed to be a death mage.


    However, he had sold away the bracelet his parents had given to him. At this thought, Aini felt saddened.


    Kill Saleen?


    No, that would be hical. Besides, Nailisi was powerful. She could even use a spatial prop of such high grade, so she was definitely at least a grand mage. No wonder Saleen¡¯s teacher would allow this Grade 1 mage to go out and train on his own. With a grand mage¡¯s protection, even within the Qin Empire not many people would dare to offend him.


    Aini was still young, and despite going through some hardships in life, he was considered innocent. He thought of Saleen¡¯s clean smile and the unintentional question.


    ¡°Can you buy the death me?¡±


    Aini¡¯s heart warmed. Since his parents had been pseudo-imprisoned, he had never seen such a sincere expression. Saleen was a mage with a powerful magic lineage and yet did not discriminate against him, someone who had lost his magic chords. How could he betray Saleen¡¯s trust?


    What did a few million gold coins matter? Once he became a mage again, even if he was a death mage, he could gain the respect of his family once more. Once he controlled arge city, he would have millions of gold coins passing through his hands each year. No matter how many gold coins a person had, could they be exchanged for a true friendship with a mage?


    Just as a heroic spirit was about to burst from Aini¡¯s heart, a piercing scream came from Saleen¡¯s room.


    It was Nailisi!


    ¡°Master, it hurts! Ahh¡­ it hurts!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t scream. Hold it in.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t, master. I know my mistake¡­¡±


    Aini and Sika were holding their breaths, listening from their rooms. From Nailisi¡¯s moans, it sounded like she was undergoing some form of torture. Aini¡¯s face reddened as he jumped into bed and covered his head with his nket.


    Sika¡¯s face sunk. That imp had actually tried to seduce Saleen?


    ¡°Ahh¡­ master, it¡¯s still ufortable!¡± Nailisi¡¯s scream was softer but still prated the walls and could be heard throughout the second floor. Sika angrily grabbed her cudgel and banged the wall, shouting, ¡°Keep your voice down. There are others who still want to sleep!¡±

 Chapter 51: Sleepless Night (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 51: Sleepless Night (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s room quieted down and Sika angrily put down her weapon. There was a new hole in the wall that had nearly pierced through to the other side.


    No, she couldn¡¯t go back home by herself. The imp by Saleen¡¯s side definitely wasn¡¯t nning anything good. Moreover, going home alone now didn¡¯t seem like a very safe thing to do. The bastard from the Holy See had seen what she looked like and it wouldn¡¯t be good if she implicated the vigers.


    Sika found a very strong reason for her to continue her adventures with Saleen. No matter what, she couldn¡¯t let the imp seed. Once she regained her strength, she would give Saleen some priest blessings, which would prevent him from being seduced by the demon.


    The tears from Nailisi were real this time. Saleen couldn¡¯t sleep and decided to carry on with his daily training. Taking out his family badge and casting a simple Grade 0 magic, the secret badge cleanly absorbed the magic chords in Saleen¡¯s body and a great amount of his energy.


    However, something was different this time. As negative states invaded Saleen¡¯s body, Nailisi felt the same. It was her first time feeling so and she couldn¡¯t help but cry out.


    Nailisi thought Saleen was punishing her and in that moment was terrified. The pain she was feeling was something she had never gone through before and she couldn¡¯t help but cry out in pain.


    ¡°Does master not want me anymore? That is good, but why am I crying? Is it pain? My heart hurts!¡±


    Surprisingly, Saleen could feel the despair in Nailisi¡¯s heart. Lying on the bed, he couldn¡¯t move, but with his long-term training, at least he could talk.


    ¡°Nailisi, I¡¯m training my magic. It might be because of the soul bond that you¡¯re feeling my pain too.¡±


    ¡°Master, I¡¯m going through the same¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes, don¡¯t worry. It will be over very soon,¡± Saleenforted Nailisi as he felt her soul palpitating in fear. Suddenly, he couldn¡¯t bear to see Nailisi in such pain.


    Since Nailisi had demon blood in her, she adjusted quickly to the pain and asked, ¡°Master, is magic training always like this? Why do humans put themselves through such pain?¡±


    ¡°No, only I do.¡± Saleen didn¡¯t know how to exin it.


    ¡°Master, do you want to be stronger? I have a way¡­¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, this form of training needs to be done whenever there is time,¡± Saleen interrupted Nailisi. Her temptation this time was too direct. A way to be stronger?


    On the path to bing stronger, there were no shortcuts.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Stop talking. If you¡¯re so free, read some books and learn to speak themonnguage.¡±


    ¡°I have no books to read.¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    ¡°Um, ah, oh¡­¡±


    With Nailisi continued moaning. Regarding the wall that Sika had made a hole in, Aini cried in his thoughts, My house!


    Nailisi finally quieted down and Saleen realized something then. Perhaps it was because Nailisi had shared the burden of his pain, but he had taken less than an hour to return to his original state.


    If this amount of time was reduced to zero, the family badge would make a great secret weapon. He held the badge in his hand to the moonlight that came in from the window, wanting to clearly see the magic lines.


    However, the lightning symbol at the center of the badge had destroyed the wholeness of the magic lines. Looking at it for a long time, Saleen still couldn¡¯t find any clues.


    ¡°Master, did Sika misunderstand us?¡± Nailisi couldn¡¯t sleep and continued teasing Saleen. Saleen didn¡¯t know it but demons required little rest unless they were severely injured. Or like Nailisi had when she had been imprisoned in a ce where she had no way of getting food, demons would also hibernate to reduce their use of energy.


    ¡°Misunderstand what?¡± Saleen was still young and although he knew about things between a man and a woman, he had never thought much about it. For a mage, there were no secrets between a man and woman and naturally there was not much to think about. Without secrecy, there was no need to pay attention to it, and only when Saleen grew older would he be more sensitive.


    Commoners felt that mages were usually distant and that was not without reason. Their knowledge greatly surpassed others and the way they looked at the world was more innocent and direct. However, when regardingmoners, they would protect themselves with lies. Without that power, their pure thoughts would only result in them being followers.


    ¡°Master, she obviously mistook us¡­¡±


    ¡°You mean sex? You don¡¯t even have a gender yet. What is there to misunderstand? I will let Sika know tomorrow.¡± Saleen turned impatiently, feeling a stir somewhere in his body.


    Nailisi could only ce her head back on the floor and continue daydreaming.


    Maybe tomorrow she should cheat Sika of her gemstones? Would Master use training as an excuse to punish her? What was wrong with her? Wanting to share her master¡¯s burden was not what a demon should have been thinking.


    Eat your master!


    A voice appeared in Nailisi¡¯s heart.


    Eat him and you¡¯re free!


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi called almost silently. However, Saleen was already in a deep state of meditation and did not reply to her.


    Nailisi lifted her head and looked at the bed, continuing to say, ¡°If, one day, I were to eat you, would you forgive me? I am a demon. I cannot follow you forever.¡±


    The moonlight shifted away from the window, making the room darker. Saleen¡¯s eyes were closed, and he did not hear a word from Nailisi.


    Aside from Saleen, none of the others rested well that night. Aini, in addition to being sick, was fatigued and seemed to be in low spirits.


    Nailisi became much more obedient. Without a word, she followed Saleen out of the room. She didn¡¯t even try to pick a fight with Sika. She had actually nned to do so, but for some reason as the sunlight had entered the window the next morning, she had given up that idea.


    Saleen stretched as he saw Sika walking out of her room. He suddenly didn¡¯t know how to exin to her what had happenedst night.


    Saleen turned away and left it at that. If he didn¡¯t bring it up, he doubted that Sika would either.


    ¡°Chief, where are we going to eat?¡± Sika had decidedst night that she wouldn¡¯t return to the vige for now. Thinking it through, she felt much better and had renewed her enthusiasm for food again.


    ¡°Aini?¡±


    Saleen turned to Aini. He rubbed his eyes and said, ¡°At the end of the month, the family¡¯s convoy wille here and collect the goods. Until then, I cannot leave. For these next few days, you can all stay here. I will hire a few people and we can leave at the start of next month.¡±


    Saleen understood what Aini meant. He had decided to continue this friendship. If not, he could have easily let him follow the Clyde family¡¯s convoy back to the Qin Empire, waving his hand and have nothing to do with Saleen anymore. Hiring a few mercenaries for protection meant that the promise between them still held.


    It wasn¡¯t a requirement for Saleen to buy the magic medicine from Aini¡¯s uncle either, but he wasn¡¯t familiar with the Qin Empire and was a little hesitant to travel alone. Staying at the Bitter Water Prefecture, he could wait for Aini to raise the money and return the remaining gemstones to him. He wouldn¡¯t need to run about before bing a grand mage.


    Saleen couldn¡¯t sell the gemstones that were in the Ring of Gifts. They were too pure and sizable, and selling them would cause trouble. Moreover, Saleen was a mage himself, and when he reached Grade 6 he would need to build a magic tower. These gemstones could still be of use to him. If he sold them, it was possible that he wouldn¡¯t be able to buy them back next time.


    Saleen remembered that there was a map of the temple within the Ring of Gifts. At the back of the map were twenty-five magic arrays. Once he researched the ways to use these twenty-five magic arrays, he wouldn¡¯t need the help of others to build his magic tower. Thinking about this, Saleen felt like he had a bright future ahead of him.


    Holy See, Earl Sufonso. He had forgotten about everything.


    Once he built his magic tower, unless the Holy See brought the whole contingent of Sacred Knights over, he couldn¡¯t be bothered with the few deacons that woulde over.


    A magic tower was a mage¡¯s castle. Killing a mage who possessed a magic tower would require a price that was a hundred times its worth.


    Having had breakfast, Aini went to the professional union to put up a hiring notice and prepared to return to the Qin Empire with Saleen and the others. Half of this shop belonged to him while the other half was meant to be used as a stronghold for his family in the Phoenix Duchy. There were many such strongholds in the Phoenix Duchy and Aini wasn¡¯t required to check on them every day.


    Once the family¡¯s convoy came, he could leave after getting someone from the family to stay and watch over the stronghold.


    This town was too small. If it hadn¡¯t been close to the Chaotic Swamp, the Clyde family wouldn¡¯t have bothered to set up a stronghold here.


    In theing days, Saleen found out a lot about the current situation in the Qin Empire. Although Aini had been thrown to the border by his family, he still received information every month. He wasn¡¯t quite exiled, but was now disrespected.


    This kind of situation would only happen in the Qin Empire. If it had urred in any other empire, a person like Aini would have disappeared off the face of earth out of consideration for the Holy See¡¯s powers.


    Aini¡¯s parents had been imprisoned in the Qin Empire. At the same time, the people from the Holy See had their hopes of seeking vengeance on them dashed. Both sides had suffered tragedies and had to leave it at that. If the Holy See had intentions of getting back at the Clyde family, they would need to send arge number of people into the Qin Empire. This would definitely anger the emperor and result in an unhappy ending.


    The Clyde family did not sell only weapons. Like the other big families in the empire, their business involved almost everything. Weapons were not even the biggest business of the family.


    Grain, spices, silk, tea leaves, animals, construction¡­


    The Clyde family was like a giant enterprise empire surviving sessfully under the emperor¡¯s reign. There were only four families as big as this in the Qin Empire and each head of the family was named a baron by the emperor.


    This naming had no political purpose. The Qin Empire had much less power inparison to the other three empiresbined. The rich¡¯s privileges had been weakened severely. Moreover, a baron was a middle-ss noble and therefore, besides reducing the taxation for these four families, the name served no other purpose.


    Aini reminded Saleen that in the Qin Empire, the real power rested in the hands of the royal family. As a mage, he could afford to offend the rich families but he should avoid conflicts with the royal family.


    This was because the royal family had been founded off of magic and the number of mages the royal family possessed was far greater than the mages in the other three empires¡¯ armiesbined.


    The Qin Empire¡¯s pce housed threerge Grade 9 magic towers. Hence the Qin Empire¡¯s other name: the Magic Empire.

 Chapter 52: Nut Mercenary (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 52: Nut Mercenary (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini was a free man. However, if he wanted to leave, he would have to wait for someone from his family toe since he was still tasked with collecting information in this town. This might have been the easiest mission in the family, but someone still needed to be ced here.


    Another four days and it would be the end of the month. Saleen and the others made some preparations. The road from Phoenix Duchy to the Qin Empire wasn¡¯t a smooth one, and bandit gangs could appear in the empty fields.


    The first thing to do was to choose their horses. Those with money usually prepared three horses, taking turns riding two of them while thest was used to carry goods. A normal mercenary was lucky to have even one horse. Aini had bought eight horses and left them in someone else¡¯s care.


    How an adventurer chose his horses was a lesson in itself. First, they couldn¡¯t choose a standard army horse, as those horses were very demanding when it came to the standards of the grass they ate and any wild grass would cause their stomachs to be upset. They had to choose the short horses that came from the Wusu River. Even though they couldn¡¯t run fast, they weren¡¯t afraid of heat or cold and could survive on anything. Their stamina was much better than the army horses, which were better at sprinting. If need be, they could be used to pull a cart.


    After that, it was time to pack their luggage. Saleen and the others had long since lost their tent back in the Chaotic Swamp. Saleen had also given his gold bottle to Canghong, and Sika¡¯s water bag had a hole in it. All of these needed to be reced.


    In regards to weapons and armor, Saleen was a mage and did not need any of that. There were no holes in his magic robes. Sika¡¯s armor was of a decent quality, and even after many rounds of fighting there was no damage to it. This was something worth a few thousand gold coins.


    However, upon seeing the brand on Sika¡¯s armor, Aini made a very obvious pout. Sika¡¯s armor was from the ¡°Forest Weaponry Store¡±. This weaponry store was from the Williams Family of the Qin Empire. The Williams and Clyde families werepetitors, especially in the business of weaponry, and had been so for the past century.


    Aini chose a pair of gloves for Saleen and put one on his left hand, covering it to make it less frightening. These magic gloves were a magic prop as well. They werepletely white and had been handmade using alchemy. The material was not normal snow silk. A snow silkworm was a Grade 1 magic beast that could be reared and its silk was not expensive. What was expensive about these gloves was the handiwork.


    Putting on these gloves did not seem to affect a mage¡¯s magic, but they in fact increased the effects of water based magic. Snow silk was also used to make soft armor that was incredibly tough. When a mage put on these gloves, they could effectively protect their precious hands. Some bandits who specialized in using daggers would dye this glove ck to rece the leather they used to protect their hands.


    Aini even helped Sika change out her leather bag. The bag that had been given to her at the Forest Weaponry Store had nopartments, and shoving everything inside had made it a mess.


    After two days of preparations, a suitable mercenary regiment came knocking at the door. This was an eight member mercenary regiment, and upon receiving the mission at the union, they hade immediately to Aini¡¯s shop.


    Seeing that Aini had not said a word with his brows furrowed, the mercenary leader gave a loudugh and pointed to his badge. He said to Aini, ¡°We are a Grade 5 mercenary regiment. It¡¯s just that we¡¯ve beenzy in recruiting anyone.¡±


    This mercenary had arge body. He looked impressive, and had short ck hair and a typical Qin face. He was d in heavy armor that simultaneously did not appear cumbersome. His green cape was filled with holes, but his armor, on the other hand, had been polished until it shone.


    ¡°I¡¯m menco, the leader of the Nut Mercenary.¡±


    menco took off his glove and extended his hand, giving Aini a firm handshake.


    ¡°Nut Mercenary? The one that defeated the Squirrel bandit gang?¡± Aini¡¯s face changed color. Originally, he had nned to hire more mercenaries to escort him and Saleen back to the Qin Empire. They were carrying too much money with them and needed to hire many mercenaries with good credentials.


    The Nut Mercenary had a reputation cleaner than restorative water, and their skills were above average too.


    The Squirrel bandit gang had been a lower than average bandit gang but had been very infamous. They had not had a lot of people in their gang but had stayed on the wanted list for the past hundred and twenty years. Since the gang had been established, they had taken up many cases that were neither too big nor too small. They had been incredibly cunning and had never failed before.


    Legend had it that the Squirrel bandit gang had a high-grade mage with them, and even the existence of a sphemer.


    Two years ago, a newly registered mercenary regiment took the mission to eliminate the Squirrel bandit gang. It had been the Nut Mercenary. At that time, the entire mercenary world had treated them as a joke, not only from their name since a nut was meant to be eaten by a squirrel, but because this mercenary regiment had only eight members. They had too few people.


    At that time, when the Nut Mercenary epted the mission, they had needed to pay a deposit of ten thousand gold coins. If the mission was notpleted within the time limit, then the ten thousand gold coins would be forfeited.


    Half a yearter, the Squirrel bandit gang waspletely defeated and the Nut Mercenary immediately jumped to a Grade 5 mercenary regiment. They became a legend that inspired many low-grade mercenaries. As for the name ¡°nut¡±, it stuck with them and was no longer just a temporary name for some nameless mercenary regiment.


    Saleen had only registered to be a Grade 1 mercenary and had only been given a number. Even if he were to give them a name, it wouldn¡¯t be recognized in the mercenary world. If a Grade 4 mercenary and above wanted to use the name, Saleen¡¯s mercenary regiment would have to give it up.


    Only with a name could a mercenary regiment be considered a true one.


    This was an unspoken rule of the mercenary world, and hence the ones who really earned money were always the high-grade mercenaries. The lower their grade, the poorer the mercenaries were, and some even ended up as bandit gangs.


    Aini¡¯s shop could not host that many people, hence they returned to the inn that the Nut Mercenary were staying at before both sides sat down to talk about the general terms of employment. Even though the Nut Mercenary had epted the mission, without Aini¡¯s approval, other people could still take up this mission.


    ¡°It will just be the four of us. Send us to Karen prefecture. It¡¯s a five-star mission with food and lodging provided and amission of five hundred gold coins.¡±


    ¡°Karen Prefecture is too far. With only amission of five hundred gold coins, not many mercenaries will ept it, am I right?¡± menco was a little unhappy. The road to Karen Prefecture was long, and even with horses, it would take them three months to get there. That amounted to around a hundred plus gold coins per month. They might as well fight some magic beasts in the Chaotic Swamp and sell their magic nuclei.


    Moreover, failing a five-star mission came with a hefty punishment, and menco would still need to pay arge deposit. If they had been low-grade mercenaries, a five hundred gold coin mission would have caused a stir, but the Nut Mercenary did not care about this meager money.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you another piece of phlogopite once we reach Karen Prefecture,¡± Aini said confidently.


    menco was enticed and asked cautiously, ¡°How big is it?¡¯


    Phlogopite had little meaning to a mage, but for a swordsman, it was a fantastic material for creating weapons. This item by itself was rare, and if itnded in the hands of a mage, there was a high chance that it would be casually used up. It was rare for a swordsman to possess it.


    ¡°This big.¡± Aini gestured with his hands and said, ¡°It can add an entire magic pattern onto a heavy sword.¡±


    menco thought for a while. Llooking at his teammates, he asked cautiously, ¡°Could I have two? I don¡¯t want the five hundred gold coins anymore, and I can still give you another five hundred gold coins for it.¡±


    Aini took a nce at Saleen who nodded his head. The phlogopite had been suggested by him. For this, mercenaries would put in their utmost effort and even if someone else offered a higher price, they would not betray their employer. However, Aini didn¡¯t have any phlogopite on hand and needed to ask Saleen for his opinion.


    ¡°Alright. We will leave at the start of the month. I will take care of your expenses for the next two days.¡±


    mencoughed and said, ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary. Have you all packed your luggage? Do you need our help?¡± Seeing his forthrightness, Ainiughed, ¡°We have prepared already. We have eight horses too. All of them are Hetao short horses.¡±


    Saleen kept quiet throughout their discussion, his eyes on a person from the Nut Mercenary. He was dressed in a white robe and was the mage that he had crossed paths with beforeing to the inn.


    There was nothing unusual about a mage in a Grade 5 mercenary regiment. What was unusual was that the mage was only Grade 2. Saleen thought that this was too much of a coincidence¡­


    The mage was watching Saleen as well. He found it strange that when menco had asked about the phlogopite, Aini had needed to consider Saleen¡¯s opinion. Could this Grade 1 mage be the person that they would actually be protecting?


    After looking at each other for too long, the atmosphere had taken an awkward turn. Luckily, the mage didn¡¯t have an entric temper and took the initiative to talk to Saleen. ¡°We meet again. Hello, I¡¯m Walnut.¡±


    ¡°Saleen,¡± Saleen replied. He had a general judgement already. This was amoner who hade from a poor background. Since mages did not have nicknames, Walnut was his real name. This mage might even not have had a surname. From such a poor background, he had managed to rise to a Grade 2 mage. He must have been a genius.


    menco said, ¡°Let¡¯s introduce one another when the team sets off. Mr. Aini, could we leave for a day? We need to make a trip to the forest.¡±


    Aini nodded in agreement. ¡°Sure. Let¡¯s meet at the start of the month.¡±


    Saleen kept his paranoia to himself. That mage could not have been here for him. Since they had escaped from the Chaotic Swamp, no one here could have known of him beforehand. Also, what had happened within the Chaotic Swamp could not have leaked out. He was worrying too much. If Aini had wanted to find someone else to scheme against him, he wouldn¡¯t have found someone that Saleen had already seen.


    Beside the inn was a restaurant, and the two establishments were joined together. The day before they set off, everyone gathered for a meal to get to know each other.


    Getting a private room, the twelve of them sat around arge table. This arrangement was only possible in a restaurant meant for mercenaries.


    However, the mercenaries in the Qin Empire seemed much quieter than the ones in Sikeqinya. Even though the people of the Nut Mercenary were still wearing their soft armor and held their weapons in hand, ready to fight, they weren¡¯t as rowdy and everyone spoke in hushed tones.


    Saleen happened to be sitting beside that mage, and the two made eye contact andughed. Saleen now realized that he was being oversensitive. There were many mages in the Qin Empire, and meeting a few was nothing out of the ordinary.


    ¡°I¡¯m Saleen.¡±


    ¡°I remember. You¡¯re from the Qin Empire?¡±


    ¡°Nope, I¡¯m from Sikeqinya.¡±


    ¡°Ha, you have a pretty pure ent.¡± Walnutughed and Saleen followed suit. The past few days, he had been correcting his ent with the help of Aini. For a mage, learning anguage was a very important skill. If a mantra¡¯s pronunciation was wrong, it would be twice as hard to learn new magic.

 Chapter 53: Nut Mercenary (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 53: Nut Mercenary (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After dinner, everyone became more familiar with one another. The arrangement of the Nut Mercenary was an interesting one. There were no assassins and no swordsmen who specialized in thin swords. Aside from the mage, everyone was d in heavy armor.


    Out of the eight of them, two used a heavy sword, four used an eight-sided sword, one used a spear, and then there was the mage. This arrangement would have been terrible for a low-grade mercenary regiment. Even for a powerful team like the Nut Mercenary, it wascking because there were no people suitable for being the scout.


    Everyone¡¯s armor was heavy, but wouldn¡¯t it also be strange for the mage to scout at the front?


    Saleen was not someone who was chatty, at least not inparison to Aini. Aini was chatting away happily with menco and the others while he could only discuss some technical problems with Walnut to pass the time. Sika couldn¡¯t speak the Qinnguage and Nailisi couldn¡¯t even speak themonnguage. The mercenaries soon realized this problem after speaking to them for a few sentences and had been quick to give up.


    ¡°Mage Saleen. If you don¡¯t mind me asking, who is your teacher?¡±


    ¡°Just call me Saleen.¡± Saleen paused before sighing. ¡°My teacher won¡¯t let me speak his name until I be a grand mage.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Walnut didn¡¯t find this strange, as many mages had this rule when they passed on their magic lineage. If they did not reach certain standards, the teacher would not acknowledge them as students. This was a means of encouraging the student to improve themselves. Walnut took no notice of it and said, ¡°Saleen, why haven¡¯t I seen you use a magic staff?¡±


    Saleen was a little embarrassed. He had possessed a magic staff but had thrown it away. Since leaving the Chaotic Swamp and having handicapped one of his hands, he had no need for a magic staff.


    A magic staff was used to increase the effects of magic and preserve some mental strength as well. Saleen didn¡¯t know much magic and had mastered all the magic that he knew. He didn¡¯t have much need for a magic staff, and since he had a much higher mental strength than other mages of his grade, he hadn¡¯t thought of buying a new staff at Aini¡¯s shop.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t found a magic staff that is suitable. Anyway, Walnut, who is your teacher?¡±


    Saleen wasn¡¯t familiar with the pedigree of mages. Even though Jason had owned a lot of books, none of them had touched on this.


    ¡°I have no teacher.¡± Walnut seemed a little dejected.


    ¡°You¡¯re impressive. If I didn¡¯t have a teacher, I wouldn¡¯t be anything now,¡± Saleenforted Walnut. For a mage without guidance, it was almost impossible to be a grand mage. Walnut was gifted. If he had a teacher, he might have been simr to Jason and be a grand mage at the age of thirty.


    ¡°I¡¯m too poor. I can¡¯t afford a teacher.¡± Walnut caught a nce of the white crystal ring on Saleen¡¯s hand and felt conflicted. He had mistaken Saleen for a rich kid, thinking that was how he afforded a magic teacher. Looking at his ring, it had to be worth tens of thousands of gold coins.


    ¡°How much did it cost to hire a teacher?¡± Saleen was confused. Jason had never talked to him about receiving money. He had even given him money.


    ¡°Any registered student has to pay a hundred thousand gold coins every year.¡±


    ¡°So much!¡± Saleen was shocked. He was very sensitive to money. A hundred thousand gold coins? Even Viscount Gugger from Ceylon City couldn¡¯t produce that much gold. And that was only a year¡¯s worth of fees! Moreover, this was for a registered student. Saleen didn¡¯t know his teacher¡¯s fees, but he did know what a registered student was.


    Before Jason had acknowledged him, he had been treated the same as a registered student. Jason had not given him any guidance and had let him figure things out on his own. After he had gained the recognition of Jason, only then did he have a chance to attend weekly magic tests. Sometimes he would pass on some wisdom to Saleen and Saleen could ask him anything that he hadn¡¯t been able to understand from the books.


    This difference was too big.


    Seeing Saleen be shocked, Walnut was confused. Could it be that his teacher was passing on their skills for free? At this thought, Walnut couldn¡¯t help but disy his jealousy on his face.


    It wasn¡¯t an obvious expression, and if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Saleen had been a sensitive person since he was young, he wouldn¡¯t have noticed it.


    Aini, for one, would have never had this expression. In that instant, Saleen felt a growing distance between him and Walnut. Jealousy was poison to a mage, and even though Walnut was gifted, his disposition wasn¡¯t firm enough. Probably because of this, no grand mage had taken a fancy to him. To many mages, money was a small matter.


    My sess has nothing to do with you.


    This was a saying from a very powerful mage. This mage had been born amoner, and without any guidance from anyone, he had reached Grade 9 before he was forty.


    Saleen had the fortune of reading the magic diary of this mage when he was a youth and had nothing but respect for the personality of this mage. Despiteing from a poor background, he had persevered and gone down the path of magic one step at a time. Such was the life journey of that mage.


    Saleen had not seen anything worth unting in the diary, nor any words of grievances.


    Even though Saleen felt disgusted with Walnut, they still needed to spend the next three months together and hence he did not disy it. Instead, he said enthusiastically, ¡°If a chancees up in the future, I¡¯ll introduce my teacher to you.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Walnut was ecstatic. This was precisely the reason he had gotten close to Saleen.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Saleen answered sincerely. In his heart though, he was afraid that would never happen. Once he reached the Bitter Water Prefecture and trained in peace there, by the time he became a grand mage, his teacher probably would have already surpassed Grade 6 and returned to the Qin Empire to build his magic tower.


    For a mage, the promotion from a Grade 6 to a Grade 7 mage was an important checkpoint in their lives. Once they crossed over, they would be a sorcerer. If they were not able to cross over, there was nothing left in their lives worth pursuing.


    Though a sorcerer¡¯s life would be greatly extended, a Grade 6 mage could only live a few decades longer than amoner. A few decades were too short in rtion to the vast world of magic.


    At that point, his teacher would most definitely not meet with anyone, including himself. You can wait!


    ¡°Saleen, do you have any leftover gemstones? Sell them to me.¡±


    Saleen was starting to despise Walnut. This was standard greedy behavior. Walnut did not seem like a mage at all. Rather, he was like a Sikeqinya merchant. If Saleen said he had any, Walnut would definitely shamelessly bargain with him or even offer to pay in credit. Saleen had seen too many people like him. Half the people in Ceylon City were just like this.


    ¡°I still have some biotite left. These things are very hard to price.¡± Saleen put on an embarrassed expression, and as expected, Walnut stopped pestering him about the gemstones.


    Even though biotite had poor uses, it had a special property. After being processed by a powerful alchemist, it would have simr properties to chlorite. However, if one paid an alchemist to process them, the most likely oue would be that the biotite would turn to ash and one would not get anything out of it.


    If it were not processed, biotite had nothing special about it and was worthless.


    Many mages had gone bankrupt because of biotite and had not processed a single chlorite in the end. These mages had been mocked as miser mages.


    Even though Walnut was greedy, he didn¡¯t dare bet on it. His father was a gambler and had been hacked to death by others when he was young.


    ¡°Your ring, it¡¯s made of crystal, am I right?¡± Walnut changed his target. His eyesight was keen, not missing anything.


    ¡°Yes. It was from my teacher.¡±


    Walnut felt a fire raging in him. Saleen¡¯s teacher had actually given his student a magic ring worth tens of thousands. Why hadn¡¯t he met a teacher like that?


    Life was unfair. People with wealth could get anything they wanted while amoner like him could only suffer miserably. At this thought, Walnut clenched his fist, unable to say a word. Because his teeth were clenched so tightly together, he was having a hard time holding it together.


    Saleen held up a cup to block his view and drank a cup of restorative water. He couldn¡¯t stand this any longer. Saleen even wondered if it had been a mistake for Aini to hire the Nut Mercenary in the first ce.


    ¡°Master.¡± Sika was seated between Nailisi and Saleen. The voice was not too soft and everyone could hear it, but no one could understand a word.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen ced the cup down.


    ¡°That mage has ill intentions towards you,¡± Nailisiughed softly. From her expression, no one could tell what she was saying. They only knew how melodious her voice sounded in their hearts.


    ¡°Quit talking nonsense. Shut up.¡± Saleen was worried that Walnut could understand ancient Myersnguage. After all, Walnut was a mage too.


    ¡°I¡¯m worried for my master¡¯s safety.¡± Nailisi covered her face and smiled, almost as if she were whispering to Saleen.


    It was then that Walnut began to grow excited. It wasn¡¯t that he hadn¡¯t noticed Nailisi¡¯s beauty before, but his thirst for magic had led him to focus on Saleen the entire evening.


    ¡°Saleen, who is thisdy?¡± Walnut hadn¡¯t been able to get anything from Saleen and thus shifted his target.


    menco coughed angrily. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that mages were hard to find, he would have kicked Walnut out a long time ago. He was simply too greedy. However, even though there were many mages in the Qin Empire, not many were willing to join a mercenary regiment. Walnut¡¯s abilities were decent and since he was of a low grade, it didn¡¯t take much to make him stay. Hence, menco had been patient with him. However, now that Walnut had suddenly lost his cool as a mage and was looking strangely at that woman, menco naturally grew angry. What was most important to a mercenary was their credibility, and even if one were a mage, they should not have been giving flirting nces to their employers.


    Walnut suddenly felt a surge of horniness rush past him. He ignored menco¡¯s anger and couldn¡¯t stop looking at Nailisi. Saleen couldn¡¯t help but think: If only you were to see how she really looks. Would you still be like this? Despite thinking that, Saleen said, ¡°This is Nailisi. She is a ve that has followed my family for many generations.¡±


    Aini looked over in shock. He had always assumed that Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s protector. Who would have thought she was a ve? He knew that Saleen wasn¡¯t one to joke, but Nailisi was someone who could use a spatial prop!


    It turned out Saleen was from a big family too, and he must have had powerful forces backing him up. He was lucky he hadn¡¯t had any despicable thoughts or else he would have gotten himself into big trouble. Sometimes, offending a family was worse than offending the Holy See.


    At least the men from the Holy See couldn¡¯t enter the Qin Empire, but for vengeance, a family could get close to the royal family and earn the power for revenge.

 Chapter 54: Paper Puppet and Scarecrow (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 54: Paper Puppet and Scarecrow (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen wasn¡¯t sure how the others saw him. He cast another Grade 1 spell and filled his cup with restorative water, drinking it.


    Squanderer!


    Walnut thought to himself. Casting a magic spell expended magic chords, and Saleen had cast a Grade one spell just to quench his thirst. Upon seeing that, even menco, who had regarded Saleen as a ritzy mage, felt a sense of pity.


    The mood turned awkward as everyone turned their attention to Nailisi. Only then did Walnut realize his misdemeanor and give an awkwardugh. Raising his wine ss, he gulped it down to hide his uneasiness.


    After dinner, Saleen and the others went back to their own rooms. However, the Nut Mercenary team gathered in menco¡¯s room for him to give the orders for this mission.


    ¡°This mission, we will not be earning gold coins, but will instead earn two pieces of phlogopite. Walnut, you are a mage and this reward is not significant to you. How would you like to be paid?¡±


    Walnut understood the leader¡¯s temperament and replied directly, ¡°Just give me the same as usual one-eighth of the rewards.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I estimate the two pieces of phlogopite to be worth around two thousand gold coins. If you have no objections, that will be one hundred and sixty gold coins.¡± Seeing no disagreement from Walnut, menco nodded his head in satisfaction and said to the others, ¡°This mission is not difficult. The people we are protecting already possess fighting skill aside from Aini. But nheless, Aini is from the Clyde family and there is definitely some value in preventing him from being killed. The one we need to keep an eye on is the mage, Saleen. ¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Walnut couldn¡¯t help but ask.


    ¡°Because the reward of this mission might be in his hands. A Grade 1 mage doesn¡¯t have much closebat fighting ability. Wachowskis, the two of you will be responsible for sticking by his side and protecting him. Take care of the Caucasus warrior Sika too, and if need be, defend her as well. The Caucasus people have decent fighting skills and I¡¯ve seen the boomerang at her waist. She has decent long-range fighting abilities and if a fight truly breaks out, we will need her help as well.


    ¡°Yes, chief.¡±


    The Wachowskis were the heavy swordsmen in the team and had the thickest armor. They usually supported Walnut in battle.


    ¡°Javelin, you will be the scout.¡±


    ¡°What about me?¡± Hearing menco assign the role of scout to the only marksman, Walnut was confused. Usually they used his puppet as a scout. Why had the leader change their roles this time?


    ¡°You will be with me. We will be in charge of support.¡±


    Thinking about it, Walnut began to understand his chief¡¯s intentions. By supporting the battle, he could avoid expending arge amount of magic nuclei or magic scrolls. The reward for this mission was notrge and if he used too many of them, he would be creating a loss for them. If he had to control puppets, he would need to continuously expend Grade 2 magic nuclei. For three months, this was no small sum.


    ¡°Raul, the four of you will protect Aini. We do not have any cars this time and the entire journey will be on horseback. Be careful of arrows from bandits and it should not be too much of a problem.¡±


    ¡°Yes, chief.¡±


    ¡°If Aini¡¯s health allows, we will walk an extra hour every day. Everyone will go back and check on their equipment. Is that understood?¡±


    ¡°Understood!¡±


    ¡°Walnut, you will stay. The others are dismissed.¡± menco waved his hand and dismissed the team, leaving the mage behind by himself.


    On this night, Nailisi¡¯s moaning came from Saleen¡¯s room again, confirming the thought in everyone¡¯s minds. Saleen had definitelye from arge family, and had used his wealth and authority to be a mage. How could a real mage still engage in physical pleasure, much less with his maid?


    A mage like him wouldn¡¯t go far.


    How much of an upstart were the people from Sikeqinya? He definitely brought shame to the ss of mage.


    Saleen did not consider these problems. Once they began their journey, he would not be able to use his badge for training. He had to make full use of the time he had now. Every time he used the badge, his concentration would increase a little and its effect was much stronger than meditation. Who would resent more concentration as a mage?


    The breathing in the room slowed down. As Saleenid in bed, he suddenly grew alert. Outside the window, a shadow the size of a palm entered the gap in the window. It was a paper man.


    The face of the paper man had been filled in using red ink, the color bright yet menacing at the same time. Entering the window, it tried to follow the wall and sneak onto the floor. Saleen immediately sat up, nearlyunching the bright light that was now his hands.


    Saleen¡¯s icicle magic was the magic that he was most familiar with, and it had also been the first Grade 1 magic spell he had learned. The w of this magic, however, was that it had too short of a range. When Saleen had been in the Red Forest, he had needed to use a water shield for protection, and only after closing the distance with the archers could he make use of the powers of this spell.


    The room in the inn was not big and there was no problem with the range of the magic. The icicle urately pierced through the paper man¡¯s body, pinning the paper man to the wall. It struggled and let out a low chirping sound, attempting to use its hands to tear itself away from the icicle and escape.


    Nailisi sat up from the floor and pounced on it like a leopard. She ripped the paper man off of the wall and crushed it in her hands. The paper man looked menacingly at Nailisi¡¯s face. Its eyes, which had been drawn on with red ink, were still moving. Nailisi ced it under her nose and sniffed it. Suddenly, she opened her mouth and swallowed it.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen was shocked, afraid that Nailisi would be put under some evil curse.


    Nailisi returned to the bedside. Sitting on the floor, she said softly, ¡°It is a paper puppet, an ancient magic trick.¡±


    ¡°How do you know?¡± Saleen grew suspicious. Ever since she hade to the Myers Maind, she had been stuck in the temple of the Goddess of Nature. How would she have known any human magic?


    Nailisi pointed to her brain and said, ¡°It¡¯s in here. I can¡¯t exin it either.¡±


    ¡°Do you know how to use it?¡±


    ¡°I only have an impression.¡±


    Saleen did not feel that Nailisi was lying and thus believed her words. Many abilities of many demons were passed down through magic lineage and did not require any guidance from a teacher. This was where demons were superior to humans. However, it seemed that a long time ago, humans had also possessed this ability. But, after the fall of the Second Dynasty, this ability had slowly waned. By this time a few thousand years ago, it hadpletely disappeared.


    From a room not far away, Walnut gave a snort, fresh blood flowing from his mouth and nose as hey gingerly on his bed.


    He had not expected Saleen to be this perceptive and even break past the stirring mark of his puppet magic. Without even allowing him to clearly see Saleen¡¯s room, his puppet had been destroyed.


    Walnut¡¯s face contorted. His expression was even more menacing than that of his paper man. menco had asked him to stay behind earlier specifically to remind him not to offend Saleen.


    Walnut had appeared to listen, but could not have been angrier.


    It just so happened that you were richer than me. If I had been born into a rich man¡¯s family, I would have be a grand mage a long time ago. Hiding his anger in front of menco, Walnut had returned to his room and grown even more agitated and sleepless from the noiseing from Saleen¡¯s room. Once an evil thought arose in him, he could not control it.


    Hence, he had secretly released a paper puppet and waited until Saleen was tired before taking action. Even if he could not kill Saleen, perhaps he could use this opportunity to steal something from him.


    If he was able to steal the crystal white ring, even if he had to retire from the Nut Mercenary, it would be worth it. With this item in hand, he would flee to a faraway ce. Even if menco was angry, what could he do? Walnut would have quit by then.


    Walnut rubbed the blood off of his face, not caring about his injury. He grabbed his bag, slung it behind his back, opened the door, and snuck out.


    Since Saleen had discovered his paper puppet, he could not stay in the Nut Mercenary any longer. If this matter were to leak out, menco would kill him.


    The professional union hated it most when a mercenary betrayed their employers. Once something like that urred, if the chief did not take care of the matter, the mercenaries would be removed and ced on the wanted list.


    menco would not give up the entire mercenary regiment just for him. Walnut knew clearly that if it were not for the fact that he possessed such special skills, a Grade 5 mercenary regiment would not have taken in a Grade 2 mage like him. The situation now did not leave him any room for regrets, and he could only quickly leave this ce and never again appear within the Qin Empire.


    Taking advantage of the night, Walnut left the inn and escaped for the outskirts of the town. As he got further away from the inn, he felt increasingly wronged. Why didn¡¯t he have as good a life as Saleen? Moreover, he had to leave this country where he had lived for so many years for some foreignnd, all for this ritzy mage.


    He didn¡¯t stop to think that throughout all of this, Saleen had never offended him. The only thing that had brought about this ending was his own jealousy.


    ¡°Who is it!¡±


    Making his way to the gate, the soldiers on night patrol spotted him. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that this small town was on a border, it wouldn¡¯t have been this heavily guarded. This ce was too close to the Chaotic Swamp, and magic beasts constantly appeared on the outskirts of the town.


    ¡°It¡¯s me,¡± Walnut replied thoughtlessly. His two hands, however, were already casting a spell. While the two soldiers were still lost in their confusion, he had alreadypleted it.


    ¡°Go and die!¡±


    Two spears made from rock rose from the ground and pierced the two soldiers between their legs right through to their guts. At this moment, Walnut had taken the two soldiers who obstructed him for Saleen and had not been able to control his killing intent at all.


    The two soldiers weremon people, and under the assault of Grade 2 magic, they had possessed no means of defending themselves. They were killed almost instantly.


    Walnut still wasn¡¯t appeased as he threw two small fireballs onto the bodies and let them burnpletely into ash. Only then did he cast a strengthening spell, opening the door and going on his way.


    After killing the soldiers, Walnut grew afraid as well. He didn¡¯t dare walk along the main roads and went east using small routes. He didn¡¯t dare walk west as the forests to the west were not a ce for a Grade 2 mage to enter. If he wanted to leave the Phoenix Duchy, he would have to take an alternate route and exit from Kroraina Duchy by cutting through Laiyin Duchy.


    As he walked faster, he was suddenly pleased with himself. Thinking back to how he had ended the lives of the two soldiers, he let out a lowugh,pletely entranced. He did not notice that after he had crossed a maize field, a scarecrow in the field had turned around and followed him behind.

 Chapter 55: Paper Puppet and Scarecrow (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 55: Paper Puppet and Scarecrow (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What did you do to Walnut?¡± Saleen did not disclose to anyone the matter of the paper puppet and instead stayed in the room to question Nailisi. There were only two mages in the entire inn. It had not taken much analysis from Saleen to figure out where the paper puppet hade from.


    Even though Walnut had been envious of him, he had promised Walnut that he would introduce his teacher to him. That should have been enough to allow Walnut toplete the mission in peace, and not suddenly turn against him.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything.¡± Nailisi¡¯s innocent look was quite attractive. Saleen saw her put her hand to her back and thought for a moment about her tail. Demons, they loved to tempt humans!


    ¡°Nailisi, Walnut was a potential enemy, but there would never be a need for me to see him in the future. I don¡¯t know how you did it, but since you¡¯ve angered him, that means extra trouble for me.¡± Saleen toned it down. He wasn¡¯t so crazy as to berate Nailisi over Walnut.


    ¡°Master, I just wanted to do it. There was no reason¡­¡± Nailisi had seen Saleen¡¯s attitude change and for some reason, spilled out her true feelings. She was secretly shocked. Was this because of the soul bond? This is bad. This bond is influencing me more by the day¡­


    Instinct?


    Saleen furrowed his brows and thought about this word that he had seen on magic notes regarding biology.


    ¡°Master, this mage was very dangerous. He had the scent of the demon on him.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a demon!¡± Saleen was shocked. There shouldn¡¯t have been any demons left on the Myers Maind.


    ¡°No, no. What I mean is, he was like a demon.¡± Nailisi thought hard but she couldn¡¯t figure out a way to describe Walnut.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. You¡¯re not to make any decisions yourself next time. This is thest time, understood?¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Nailisi looked down, secretly ted. Master had not punished her after all. Next time, she would just keep her thoughts from Master.


    Before Saleen could fall asleep, amotion broke loose outside of the inn as a group of soldiers surrounded the building.


    Although there had been no eyewitnesses when Walnut had murdered the soldiers, the soldiers at the border were very familiar with the abilities of adventurers and were quick to recognize that their partners had been killed by a mage. There were very few mages in town right now and it had not taken long for the soldiers to search for this inn.


    When menco realized that Walnut was missing, his heart was filled with rage. He had helped him when he was at his poorest. Who would have thought that he would bring him so much trouble.


    He calmed himself down and started negotiating with the soldiers. Seeing the Grade 5 badge that he carried, the soldiers did not dare arrest anyone. A Grade 5 mercenary was someone that even the baron of the town would be careful with. Many high-grade mercenaries were in fact supported byrge wealthy ns. Since the emperor had dictated that the wealthy could not raise too many personal soldiers and controlled the numbers tightly, they had begun enlisting the help of mercenaries.


    This town was everything to the baron. Even though it was close to the border and was beside the Chaotic Swamp, rarely did murders like this ever happen. The mercenaries or adventurers who came here seldom caused trouble and bandits would not have their eyes on a ce this small. The baron had grown rich from the taxes collected from the adventurers and the two parties had always had a harmonious rtionship.


    menco had no choice but to meet with the baron personally. The baron was greatly displeased but did not lose his temper immediately. With the loss of two soldiers, he would need to receive apensation of at least twenty gold coins. However, the other party was a Grade 5 mercenary, and if he really offended him, there would be hard times ahead.


    menco was also afraid that the baron would lodge aint to the professional


    union. If that happened, his mercenary regiment would be given a major disciplinary record and have their status dropped to a Grade 4 on top of paying a huge sum of gold coins as punishment.


    The two finally came to an agreement. Thepensation would be paid by the Nut Mercenary and they would use their best efforts to capture the wanted mage, Walnut. For every day that Walnut was alive, the Nut Mercenary would need to pay a day¡¯s worth of reward fees.


    Until now, menco could still not understand why Walnut would have done such a thing. Taking all of this in, Saleen waited until menco returned to the inn before calling him into his room and showing menco the hole in the wall.


    Under the control of Saleen, the icicle had only pierced halfway into the wall, leaving a mark around the depth of a finger. Stuffing the curtains into the small hole and giving it a good wipe, Saleen pulled out the curtain to reveal a dark red color smeared onto it.


    ¡°What is this?¡± menco didn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°It¡¯s abination of red sand and dragon blood ink, key ingredients in the making of a puppet. Walnut must know some simple puppet magic, as earlier on, a paper puppet tried sneaking into my room¡­¡±


    Saleen hadn¡¯t even needed to finish before menco understood. He took a deep breath, suppressed the anger in his heart, and asked, ¡°Mage Saleen, such an atrocious thing has happened. Why didn¡¯t you inform me?¡±


    If Saleen had informed menco, menco would have gathered the others, captured Walnut, and executed him on the spot. It was better now that Walnut had escaped, leaving a dirty mark on the Nut Mercenary at the same time.


    ¡°I wanted to let this matter go and had no intention of doing anything to him. Everyone makes mistakes and as a mage, I should understand the weaknesses of others.¡± Saleen couldn¡¯t have said it more sincerely. In that moment, he seemed more like a preacher from the Holy See than a mage.


    menco clenched his teeth while Saleenforted him, ¡°You don¡¯t have to take it to heart. I trust you. I won¡¯t bring up this matter to the union.¡±


    menco sighed in relief. If Saleen were to bring this up to the union, his brand would bepletely destroyed. For mercenaries, credit was of the utmost importance and once it was gone, it would be very hard to progress in the future.


    No mistakes would be tolerated in this line of work. Many mercenaries had destroyed their futures due to a moment of folly and had needed to be bandits instead.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, thank you so much. Regarding thepensation¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be silly, I didn¡¯t lose anything. Our contract still stands. You will send the four of us to Karen Prefecture, and I will pay the two pieces of phlogopite. Just don¡¯t forget to give me the five hundred gold coins,¡± Saleen joked. This made menco feel much better.


    Following a silent night, the next day, the Nut Mercenary went to the professional union to put up a wanted notice and kick Walnut out of their team before setting out with Saleen and the others.


    Everyone in the Nut Mercenary had two horses, and they were much better than the Hetao short horses that Aini had bought. The mercenary named Javelin was right ahead of everyone, acting as the scout. Aini, Saleen, and the others were sandwiched between the rest of the mercenaries, protected. They slowly increased the speed of their horses and left the town.


    As Saleen was leaving, he hurriedly turned back and took onest look at the words inscribed on the town¡¯s gate: Deep Forest Town.


    The Nut Mercenary had a lot of experience and always kept a constant speed with the horses, conserving the most energy. The four mercenaries in charge of protecting Aini observed his reactions from time to time. This youth¡¯s sickness was written on his face, and the Nut Mercenary would not let their employer die of exhaustion just to save some time.


    Saleen¡¯s horsemanship was decent but Sika¡¯s was the best. With a little cajoling from her, her horse was immediately tamed and under her control. This was a strength of the Caucasus, who didn¡¯t need any bonds to control even magic beasts, much less a horse.


    Nailisi was the worst. The horse that she was riding was the most irritated and seemed to see through her cover. It was good that she had great strength, even more than the horse. She kicked the horse on its belly and finally got the horse to obey her.


    As they weren¡¯t travelling very fast, Saleen had the time to enjoy the view along the way.


    The view in Phoenix Duchy was very different from the one in Sikeqinya. The soil here was arable and there were many fields that were suitable for nting crops. Even though it was on the border, there were many viges along the way and the authorities had maintained the entire area very well. The roadsides were farnd and since it was well into autumn, the wheat had been harvested and numerous fields had left the harvested crops lying out.


    Inparison, Sikeqinya¡¯snd was poorer. No wonder Sikeqinya people were best at doing business. Saleen remembered that Ceylon City had few viges nearby and when natural disaster struck, even the rich could sometimes not get any harvest.


    What amused Saleen were the many scarecrows in the fields. As the wind blew, the cloth on the scarecrows pped in the wind, rming the birds that were eating the crops.


    However, there was one bird that wasn¡¯t scared away. It was the silver-beaked raven. This bird was very clever and could easily see through a human¡¯s ruse. A flock of silver-beaked ravensnded on the many scarecrows, seeming to mock the foolishness of humans.


    However, silver-beaked ravens preferred to eat meat during the autumn, which minimized the losses of the farmers.


    Snap!


    A silver-beaked raven stood on the hat of a scarecrow and curiously surveyed the group of men on horseback that were riding in from a distance. As they passed by the field, Nailisi cocked her head and shed her teeth at the raven.


    Fear shed past the ck pupils of the silver-beaked raven as it spread its wings, attempting to fly but seeming somehow unable to move.


    As the Nut Mercenary rode past, the raven was still struggling in fear. The scarecrow suddenly lifted its hand, grabbed the unlucky raven, and shoved it into its mouth.


    Fresh blood streaked down the face of the scarecrow as the dying groans of the raven could be heard all around, alerting the rest of the silver-beaked ravens.


    Blood dripped down as the scarecrow¡¯s features became even clearer. It turned around and looked at the mercenary regiment in the distance. In the nearby fields, more scarecrows came alive, facing towards the east.


    The wind blew past the field and the scarecrow¡¯s clothes made a fluttering sound. After some time, the scarecrow that had eaten the raven started jumping with all its might, bouncing away and leaving the field.


    ¡°Master, I don¡¯t feel well.¡± Nailisi willed the horse to Saleen¡¯s side as they travelled together. Her horse had been tamed with violence and did not dare do anything.


    ¡°What do you want now¡­¡±


    Saleen said without much energy. He had already figured out Nailisi¡¯s temperament. This was a very energetic imp who could not be held back. If he did not let her do something, she would go looking for trouble.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I just don¡¯t feelfortable.¡± Nailisi furrowed her brows and got even closer to Saleen. She was unusually confused too. Since leaving the temple, she had realized that the humans in this universe were weaker than what she had expected and were not always dangerous as the legends had described. However, the uneasiness in her would still arise from time to time. Was she sick?


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t be silly.¡± Saleen steered his horse away from Nailisi. Nailisi looked dejected as she secretly took a piece of fresh meat from her bracelet and began to chewing.


    Maybe she was hungry. That would exin her feelings. Nailisi triedforting herself.

 Chapter 56: The Evil Eagle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 56: The Evil Eagle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were not manyrge cities in the Phoenix Duchy and after walking for a day, the team had only gone past a few slightlyrger estates. They had not even seen any small towns like Deep Forest Town.


    Resting four times along the way and eating some dry rations, Aini was in a better condition than expected and did not dy their progress.


    Nightfall approached, and the Nut Mercenary increased their speed.


    ¡°Mr. Aini, there is a castle twenty kilometers ahead. Is it fine to rest there for the night?¡± menco sought the opinion of Aini.


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who knows the way. I won¡¯t interfere with your n,¡± Aini replied coolly.


    Saleen did not say anything as he pretended to not have heard what menco said. He and Aini were carrying a lot of gemstones on them and it was hard to trust the Nut Mercenary entirely. However, the two of them had their ways of hiding the gemstones out of the Nut Mercenary¡¯s sight without them noticing, and this had stopped them from harboring any evil thoughts.


    If Saleen started showing his anxiety, they would definitely catch on.


    The team immediately turned north and sped off, entering a small path. The two sides were no longer farnd and were lined with dense forest. The branches on the two ends extended above the road and the sky seemed to have darkened.


    Twenty kilometers took the team less than thirty minutes to travel, and before they knew it, they had arrived at the castle.


    This was an old castle with a distinct Fourth Dynasty style. It had a tall peak and an elegant stone statue. There were no battlements on the castle and instead, there were v-shaped teeth-like openings at the top. It had even kept the barbette of the magic cannons.


    During the Fourth Dynasty, only a marquis could have owned a castle like this.


    There were many goshawks flying in the sky overhead. Saleen lifted his head but couldn¡¯t make out the details of the eagle. At the front of the castle, Javelin was talking affably to two other guards who were fully d in armor. It seemed the two of them knew each other.


    Saleen thought: The Nut Mercenary must have decided to rest at this ce long ago. Discussing it with Aini was only a formality.


    ¡°Baron Cook is my friend,¡± menco exined. He had brought Aini and the others here to rest to ensure their safety. Even though this ce was far away from the border, it was still deste. If they decided to camp outside, it would be troublesome if they met with any bandits.


    Entering the castle, it was arranged nothing like the crudely designed castles in Sikeqinya, nor was it as gloomy and cramped as the ones in the Taggsi Empire. Lining the wide corridors were many stone rooms that could amodate four soldiers each, and it was spacious enough that it didn¡¯t seem like a battle fortification.


    In the hall of the castle, Baron Cook was there to ept menco and the others.


    ¡°Old friend! How long you have not visited me!¡± Baron Cook was well-built and the silk he was wearing could not hide his muscles. He was thirty years old and in his prime. As he spoke, he gave menco a big hug, seemingly not afraid that menco¡¯s armor would pierce through his expensive silk robes.


    Saleen could not help but think of Viscount Gugger, as he was of the same age and was equally energetic.


    Only after Baron Cook and menco had exchanged greetings did they acknowledge Saleen¡¯s presence. ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m so sorry. Here I was busy catching up with my old friend.¡±


    ¡°Baron, your wealth is astonishing!¡± Saleen was direct. This castle was far toovish for a baron like him.


    Baron Cook was not embarrassed. Heughed candidly and said, ¡°Saleen, you must be from Sikeqinya.¡±


    ¡°How did you know?¡± Saleen was surprised. Truthfully, Baron Cook was a little impolite. Since the others had entered the hall, he had not asked menco for any introductions and had only focused on catching up with menco himself.


    ¡°Because you would have be clueless about the small secrets we have here. I did not buy this castle with a lot of money. Actually, it was more of a gift,¡± Baron Cook said smugly.


    ¡°Such a thing exists!¡± Saleen looked at the interior of the hall. It had the same style of the castle, so evidently, it had not been redecorated after that. He was not entirely clueless about the wealthy and could at least differentiate the good from the bad.


    ¡°It was merely a stunt by the lords. All of this is nothing to a mage.¡± Baron Cook stopped at an appropriate ce and did not make fun of Saleen¡¯s superficial knowledge.


    Aini stood in the cornerughing to himself. He was very aware of what was happening. It was merely a case of two willing parties, and wasmon in big families.


    Baron Cook was a cheerful person and it seemed like he was skilled inbat. If these had been times of war and he had led an army to fight alongside the emperor, his promotions would have been astounding. It was a pity, however, that the maind had enjoyed peace for too long, and the low-grade wealthy like him and Viscount Gugger could only find means of currying favor with the higher-ups or living out their days.


    The inside of the castle was spacious, and a dozen guests were nothingpared to the thousands of soldiers it could hold. After they had settled down into their rooms and everyone had freshened themselves up, the night banquet began.


    The night banquet was an eye opener for Saleen. Even though they were still in Phoenix Duchy, there were many practices of the rich that were the same as those of the Qin Empire¡¯s. There were little metal cutleries on the table and even the bowl for the soup was made out of porcin more delicate than jade. Large crystal chandeliers hung above the dining hall. These decorative crystals had no developmental value or were made from magic crystals that had already been expended. Even so, the three crystal chandeliers had cost more than a thousand gold coins all together. The expensive lighting perfectlypletmented the elegant handpainted ceiling.


    Thinking back to Viscount Gugger¡¯s dining hall, Saleen could not help but think that it had been a pig sty inparison.


    Before the main dishes were the appetizers and all the mercenaries were hungry. In order to get here before the end of the day, everyone had forgone their lunch and had not eaten anything to replenish their strength. The appetizers were gone in an instant, but Saleen had not touched any.


    Next up was the alcohol. It was served in a small wine cup meant for gurgling and getting rid of the sweetness in the mouth. The mercenaries were thirsty and had wanted to gulp down the alcohol, but there was none left in their cups.


    Saleen, however, focused on the details. If he were to survive in the Qin Empire in the future, he would need to deal with the wealthy. He realized the wealthy in the Qin Empire were very detail oriented, even people who were as easy going as Baron Cook.


    The maids were prim and proper. They carried light smiles and were not clumsy, quietly serving the guests. What puzzled Saleen was that even the high-grade maids were dressed in silk.


    Once he had built his magic tower, he would want it to be the ssiest magic tower in the entire maind too.


    Saleen set his mind to it and gave himself a goal. He had forgotten which grand mage had said it, but a mage¡¯s training was not for the sake of enduring hardships, but for leading a good life. Even though he did not really approve of this, he had had enough of being poor. If he could really be a grand mage or a sorcerer, he would probably not be an upstart either.


    Baron Cook was smiling brightly as he chatted with menco and the others. Now that he had found out that Aini was from the Clyde family, he had no intentions of currying favor with him. Firstly, Aini had been sent to the Phoenix Duchy and hence could not have been any important member of the family. Secondly, since Baron Cook had voluntarily left the Qin Empire to be an informant for the emperor, he had already cut all improper ties with the lower houses.


    As someone who was determined to be in good favor with the emperor, he would not go and lick anyone else¡¯s boots.


    Every dish presented only consisted of a few small bites. Even though Saleen was a mage, he was growing and happily ate everything. After eighteen courses, thest was the soup and sweet wine. They were still in the middle of a mission and thus the mercenaries did not dare drink any hard liquor.


    After eating, Saleen did not drink any alcohol but instead made a portion of restorative water for himself. Even though the Nut Mercenary thought that Saleen was ritzy, in their hearts, they admired him. The restorative water that mages produced had no side effects and was much better than the holy water from the Holy See. It was a pity that mages would not waste their magic chords to create restorative water for others.


    However, Saleen was not satisfied. If he really became a sorcerer in the future, he would be able to drink magic liquid every day.


    That was a Grade 7 magic and even though it had a much shorter shelf life, its effects however were amazing and could even treat persistent ailments. It could drastically improve one¡¯s body condition. Many magic medicines with unique healing properties usually had some magic liquid mixed into them.


    Whatforted Saleen was that Nailisi had not been brought to the table but rather had been kept in his room and ate alone as she was his maid. That was a good idea and it could save him a lot of trouble in the future.


    ¡°Baron.¡±


    ¡°Mage, just call me Cook. This is Phoenix Duchy, not the Qin Empire. There aren¡¯t that many rules.¡±


    Cook¡¯s words left a good impression on Saleen and Viscount Gugger even seemed pretentious inparison.


    ¡°When I first arrived, I saw many eagles on the castle. I¡¯ve heard that the Qin Empire specializes in rearing these animals. Are these eagles magic beasts?¡± Although Saleen¡¯s senses were sensitive, he wished to own a magic beast like that too. At least when there were no swordsmen protecting them, he could discover any danger in advance.


    ¡°No, those can only be reared by the royals.¡± Baron Cook was confused and immediately spoke a few hushed words to a servant behind him. The servant left the dining hall and called a swordsman, who was fully d in armor, to the doorway.


    ording to Qin Empire rules, a baron had to have at least ten armored guards by his side. These guards had to be at his beck and call at any time.


    ¡°Master.¡± The guard saluted handsomely. He turned out to be a beautiful female. Her armor hadplicated floral patterns fashioned out from its hollow parts, and it was very different from the armors that were made in the Qin Empire. Saleen could tell that it was magic armor, far more expensive than the crystal chandeliers.


    ¡°Sijia, go to the tower and take a look at the situation.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± The female swordswoman named Sijia stood proudly, almost like a peacock. She was not amoner, and even though she would not inherit anything from her family, since joining the army she had aplished many feats and there was a definite possibility of her bing part of the female wealthy.


    Sijia hurriedly left the dining hall and passed through the sky garden, heading straight for the tower. The soldier guarding the tower greeted Sijia upon seeing her in a bid to win her over.


    ¡°Leader Sijia¡­¡±


    ¡°Open the door at the top,¡± Sijia replied coldly. At the top floor of the tower, there was a piece of alchemist equipment: a telescope.

 Chapter 57: The Evil Eagle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 57: The Evil Eagle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Since its invention by alchemists, the telescope hade into fashion immediately. However, a normal telescope could only observe a small region and many wealthy people had only bought it out of curiosity.


    On the other hand, in the army, an alchemy telescope was something a scout needed. A small but expensive telescope could also be installed on a high-grade magic crossbow, and this allowed a magic archer to kill a target from a kilometer away.


    Once this method had been developed, it had been banned in many countries by the royals and the wealthy. An archer had to be at least Grade 8 before he could reach this level. However, an assassin that switched over to being a magic disciple could use something this horrifying even at Grade 1.


    A mage could detect the elemental fluctuations of an alchemy telescope. However, the wealthy and the royals did not possess this ability. This made assassinating them very easy.


    Even the Holy See did not approve of such an equipment. Since then, the alchemy telescope was unable to be downsized any longer and was instead upsized, being installed at the top of towers to observe an enemy¡¯s movements from a few kilometers away.


    Opening the door at the top of the tower, the corridor here was already very narrow and Sijia had reached the roof. All four sides of the roof were wide windows, but the edges of the windows were very tall and if any archers were to shoot an arrow from below, they would be easy to defend against.


    The sky above the top of the castle could be seen clearly. Even though it was the middle of the night, with the alchemy telescope, every single detail was visible.


    Sijia searched carefully. The moon in the sky appeared much bigger through the alchemy telescope, the mountain ridges on the surface almost able to be differentiated. Mages on the Myers Maind believed that the moon¡¯s surface was another maind, only it was too far away from the Myers Maind.


    Just as Sijia was about to give up her search, a ck shadow entered her field of view. She shuddered as she saw a set of massive wings with ck feathers, two heads, and four eyes.


    A double-headed eagle! Sijia groaned, her legs bing a bit jellylike. She clenched her teeth and pressed her hand against the ground to stand. Outside the tower, the moonlight spilled onto the castle¡¯s wall, casting a silver glow on the cold stone. Under this light hid many ck lines, almost as if the walls of the tower had numerous cracks added to them.


    Sijia had no idea how she travelled down the tower. Her thinking was muddled as she instinctively walked towards the dining hall. She had to report this as soon as possible to the baron.


    All the cutleries in the dining hall had been brought away and reced with fruit and wine. Baron Cook had told a joke and just as Aini wasughing heartily, Sijia entered the dining hall despondently.


    ¡°Sijia?¡± Baron Cook immediately noticed that something was wrong. After she had be a swordswoman at the age of sixteen, he had never again seen this expression from her. She was a genius swordswoman, who all the people in the capital believed would be a swordmaster before she turned thirty. Someone with a greater determination than most men, what could have happened?


    ¡°Master, I saw a double-headed eagle.¡± Sijia felt as if a fire in her heart had been suppressed and could not be vented. For a moment, her voice was hoarse.


    The dining hall was silent. Only Sika was munching loudly on a pear, almost as if she had no feelings. The noise of her chewing was unimaginably loud. She couldn¡¯t understand the Qinnguage, and even if Sijia had said something more shocking, she would still not have had any reaction.


    ¡°Baron, I will need to discuss things with Aini first.¡± menco was the first to say something.


    ¡°Go. I¡¯ll be waiting for you all in my study.¡± Baron Cook stood up, havingpletely lost his style as he left on his own without addressing anyone.


    There was a room beside the dining hall and it was meant to be a ce for any guests that arrived without notice to wait for the master to finish eating. The Nut Mercenary, Aini, and the others went into the room and closed the door behind them.


    ¡°Mr. Aini, Mage Saleen, I will not be able toplete this mission,¡± menco said calmly. ¡°However, we will still ensure your safety.¡±


    Aini was frustrated but he did not say a word. Saleen said, ¡°menco, are you talking about ck magic?¡¯


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Is it serious?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t even know if I will make it out alive,¡± menco answered honestly. If the legends about this ce were true, he had walked into a trap that he had set for himself. If only they hadn¡¯t spent the night here¡­


    Saleen still was not anxious. Looking entirely steady and calm, it was hard to tell that he was only a youth fifteen years old.


    ¡°Aini, what do you n to do?¡± Saleen turned his gaze to Aini.


    Ainiughed bitterly. ¡°What can I do? We cannot sit here and wait for our deaths.¡±


    ¡°What if we were to leave now?¡± Saleen and Baron Cook had no rtion at all, and obviously his first thought was to leave everything behind. Even though Baron Cook was likeable, Saleen had no intentions of risking his life for him.


    ¡°You may all leave, but I cannot. Not because Baron Cook is my friend but rather because ording to thews of the empire, when such a thing urs, I will be called on and must assist the baron in fighting,¡± menco said in a defeated manner. He turned to Saleen and said in a serious tone, ¡°Mage Saleen, now that a double-headed eagle has appeared, it is proof that the Dark Sky Devil has revived. It will be safer for all of you to stay in the castle. If you were to leave, you might be attacked at any time.¡±


    Saleen touched his Ring of Gifts, trying to reason things out in his heart. At this point, he was not familiar with Baron Cook¡¯s situation. If he were to leave now, Baron Cook might not entirely tell the truth and might even use him as a sacrifice to test the abilities of the enemy. Aini definitely wouldn¡¯t choose to leave. Himself, Sika, and Nailisi. The three of them had no idea what kind of enemy they would be facing.


    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll stay.¡± After much consideration, Saleen knew Baron Cook would wee him to stay. Even though he was only a Grade 1 mage, when it came to battling in a castle, mages could unleash great powers. It was a pity he couldn¡¯t create a magic array. If not, he could have altered the castle to be imprable.


    Stay, and his position would be elevated, being protected by all the swordsmen. Leave, and he would be destroyed. Did Saleen have any choice?


    After much discussion, the group opened the door and menco said to the guard at the door, ¡°Bring us to see the baron.¡±


    Baron Cook was pacing around his room. Upon seeing that everyone turned up, he heaved a sigh of relief. If menco really had the intention of leaving, he had no way of making him stay either. Even though it was the empire¡¯sw for a mercenary to follow the instructions and be dispatched by the wealthy in such situations, when it came to a suicide mission, how many mercenaries would actually abide by thew?


    The mage had stayed too. Baron Cookughed as he got a few of his servants to bring in some extra chairs. Once everyone was seated, only then did he say, ¡°Since everyone is staying to battle, let me tell you all everything in detail.¡±


    Saleen was d that they had stayed. It seemed what was happening was not something as simple as a ck mage appearing. If he had left hastily, who knew what dangers they would have faced.


    ¡°Everyone should be familiar with ck magic, right?¡± Baron Cook surveyed the room. Sijia had returned to normal while the people from the Nut Mercenary had a steel-like expression on their faces. Aini was deep in thought while Saleen was sitting upright, waiting for what he had to say. As for the Caucasus warrior¡­


    Sika was munching on a melon seed. As they were leaving the dining hall earlier on, she hadn¡¯t forgotten to grab a bunch and stuff them into her pocket.


    Sika¡¯s fighting abilities were the strongest, and even though she knew that the others were discussing something terrible, she was a warrior and was not thinking about anything else besides protecting Saleen.


    For Caucasus people, death was only a cycle to return to nature and was not something to be afraid of. Hence, the Caucasus people were usually the bravest warriors and deserters were unheard of.


    Saleen knew what ck magic was, and if death magic was something that was prejudiced against, ck magic was definitely something that was universally hated by everyone. Every country had banned the existence of ck magic. That could likely have been the only viewpoint held inmon between the Qin Empire and the sacred Holy See.


    The religious text discriminated against death magic but there were death mages in the religious tribunals. The emperor of the Qin Empire did not allow death mages to build magic towers, but he still granted death mages the same immunity.


    However, if anyone dared practice ck magic, it did not matter whether it was the Holy See or the emperor. Either would send out strong forces to eliminate that person.


    Legend had it that ck magic had originated from divinity. The Holy See obviously denied this saying vehemently, and mages even refused to acknowledge it as magic. Mages believed that ck magic at its core did not involve any elemental powers. Instead, it was through sacrifices and the torture of a living soul that a god was created from nothingness. This gave ck mages their secret powers, and hence, ck magic belonged to the realm of divinity.


    However, the Holy See believed that whether it was the fallen Goddess of Nature or the current God of Light, they would never torture a living soul or require such a sacrifice. Hence, ck magic was witchcraft.


    Wizards were a dying upation and if anything tainted their reputation, there would not be a strong reaction.


    Saleen knew however that ck magic was just ck magic. It did not belong to any category, but was a brutal skill, enough so that it wasn¡¯t epted by anyone.


    However, all this did not deny the strength of ck magic.


    A mage with normal gifts could take up to a lifetime to advance to Grade 4, bing the lowest of the grand mages. However, so long as he had enough ingredients, a ck mage could rapidly ovee any obstacles and gain superhuman strength.


    A double-headed eagle was created using ck magic. By forcefullybining the bodies of a few magic beasts and a soul together in a container and burning them using a ck me, the souls would kill themselves out of the bitter pain. ck mages would then use a technique simr to alchemy to rbine the bodies of the magic beasts and form a life that should not even have existed in this world.


    Any ck mage that could create a double-headed eagle must have had horrifying powers. This proved that he could create headless riders, evil dragons, and an infinite number of ck puppets.


    Double-headed eagles were the followers of ck mages, and wherever they had their sights, a ck mage wanted a bloodbath to take ce. Hence, the double-headed eagle was also known as the evil eagle.

 Chapter 58: Alchemy VS Magic Medicine (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 58: Alchemy VS Magic Medicine (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°As everyone should know, the Fourth Dynasty fell apart shortly after it was established. It took centuries of war for the current situation on the maind to form. The current location of the Phoenix Empire used to be the ce where the Fourth Dynasty banished its offenders. Even though thend there is fertile, it is too isted and only two roads link it to the outside world.¡±


    Saleen listened to Baron Cook recount history while he referenced it with knowledge from his memory. Very soon, he understood how everything had begun.


    The fall of the Fourth Dynasty had to do with the Phoenix Empire. This used to be a ce where offenders were banished; they were abandoned to survive on their own. Before long, this fertilend experienced a massive poption growth and slowly became a region that was uncontroble.


    The Fourth Dynasty possessed the entire maind and were therefore uninterested in this small ce until the emergence of the ck mages. This led to them growing cautious. The ck mages went around setting up altars, executing all who rebelled against them in the name of upholding justice. They repeatedly attacked, expanding their reach to the other regions. At that time, the Sacred Holy See had not yet been built, but many had already given their faith to the God of Light and gained magical skills.


    A prophet warned that the maind would eventually crumble due to the existence of the ck mages. The Fourth Dynasty did not believe in the God of Light, but the kingdom had a great amount of mages, alchemists, and astronomers.


    The astronomers gave a simr prophecy. The kingdom started fearing for its existence and decided to send an army to end the rebellion.


    This clean-up was the first of many defeats for the Fourth Dynasty. After consecutive failures in the clean up, ck magic had extended its reach, already controlling arge portion of the Qin Empire¡¯s present daynd. The Fourth Dynasty¡¯s powers waned, leading to the rise of many lords and numerous rebellions.


    The Fourth Dynasty struggled and survived for another century, but could no longer control the entire maind. Thus, they had no choice but to acknowledge the existence of ten independent states. This, however, did not stop the tumultuous times on the maind. Princes from many fragmented states did not cease their efforts in trying to suppres ck magic.


    In this period, a particr house rose to power. It swiftly destroyed the many ck mages and seized control of the eastern maind. This was the beginning of the Qin Empire. This house had possessed a great number of mages who had great ambitions of creating a Fifth Dynasty to unite the maind.


    At this time, the sacred Holy See had also increased its might during the many years of conflict. Oftentimes, when humans were desperate, they would seek emotional gratification to prevent themselves from mentally breaking down. The pastors of the sacred Holy See rapidly expanded their army and supported the Taggsi Empire.


    The Sikeqinya Empire came into power with its army. The Taggsi Empire had the support of the sacred Holy See. The Qin Empire obtained its power from magic along with the remaining powers of the Fourth Dynasty. Together with the formation of the Cloudflow Empire, the Myers Maind was formed. Adhering between the four empires were ten independent states which formed a neutral zone.


    The only difference was in the Phoenix Empire. This had been the birthce of ck magic and the lords of the Qin Empire had no desire to rule this ce. Finally, the Qin Empire decided to enfeoff a state out of this area, forming the beginning of the Phoenix Empire.


    The duke of the Phoenix Empire had been a favourite general of the Qin Emperor. He had never lost a battle and was named the Undying Phoenix. Under his rule, ck magic disappeared within decades.


    ¡°I have been summoned here by the king, in reality, to survey ck mages. This castle used to belong to a ck mage and many unsolved deaths have urred in this ce over many years, with many suspicious people moving about. The duke reported them to the emperor, who ced much emphasis on this matter and has sent arger number of troops to defend the inside of numerous castles. ¡±


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t there any mages?¡± Saleen asked in surprise. To defeat a ck mage, the best method was to use a mage to suppress them. The Qin Empire was notcking in mages, but in this castle, Saleen had not seen any sign of them.


    Baron Cook gave a bitter smile. ¡°There used to be a powerful mage here. However, around this timest year, he brought his student to Sun City saying we could look for him if anything happened. You know, I¡¯m only a baron¡­¡±


    ¡°How about us? Can we only wait for death toe?¡± Aini asked indignantly.


    ¡°Let¡¯s listen to the baron¡¯s opinion first,¡± Saleen interrupted. At this point, there was no point inining. He understood Aini¡¯s feelings, as he too was an unlucky person.


    ¡°There are six hundred soldiers, a hundred and twenty strong servants, and three hundred women, children, and artists in this castle. Those who can fight do not even make up a thousand. We do not have enough strength to attack, only defend. A hundred and twenty miles from here lies another castle; there is more manpower and a mage stationed there. He can send a distress signal. We can only wait for help from Sun City,¡± Baron Cook remarked despondently.


    The number of soldiers he currently possessed already exceeded the empire¡¯s standard and this was with special permission from the emperor himself. If he had not been in the Phoenix Empire, he would have been impeached by the lower House of Commons. Even so, he wasn¡¯t confident in dealing with ck mages, especially those who possessed a double-headed eagle.


    ¡°Baron Cook, how is the strength of these soldiers?¡± Saleen saw the defeat in Baron Cook and was afraid that he would give up on mounting a defense. If the baron were tp be captured, there was a chance that he would not die since he was of value. However, if Saleen were to be captured by the ck mages instead, it was over. To a ck mage, a mage¡¯s soul was worth ten thousand times more than any othermoner¡¯s.


    ¡°Sijia is an intermediate swordmaster with nine beginner swordmasters under her. Out of the six hundred soldiers, arge portion of them are beginner swordmasters; only the officers are slightly stronger.¡±


    ¡°Baron, there is still us,¡± menco uttered.


    Baron Cook¡¯s eyes lit up. That¡¯s right, Saleen might have only been a Grade 1 mage, but this was not a battle in the wild. In the castle, Saleen¡¯s powers would be amplified greatly. menco and the others were swordmasters too, so this would multiply the great powers in the castle.


    ck magic might have been powerful, but unlike normal magic, it could not control elemental powers. A normal soldier could kill a ck puppet, but with this many swordmasters, defeating a headless rider was possible. As to whether the ck mages would personally strike, all of that would be left to fate.


    Baron Cook was not rubbish; he too was a hardworking swordmaster. As long as the enemy was not targeting the castle, there was still a chance of victory.


    ¡°Baron, are there any magicboratories in the castle? Sir Aini is an alchemist, and I know how to refine some magic medicines as well,¡± Saleen wondered. Since the original mage had left for Sun City, he wouldn¡¯t stand by ceremony. They should use up any remaining things the original mage had left behind.


    Baron Cook pondered for a second and agreed to Saleen¡¯s request. At the brink of death, he couldn¡¯t care less about offending some great mage anymore. Even if this reached the ears of the emperor, he would be in the right. If he died, there wouldn¡¯t be any trial to fight.


    ¡°Sijia, bring Aini and Saleen to theboratory.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    Saleen stood up and followed Sijia to the doorway before abruptly turning around and addressing Baron Cook.


    ¡°Baron, I hope you will not let the soldiers know about the double-headed eagle. Only let them know of the emergence of the ck puppets.¡±


    Baron Cook nodded in agreement; he had expectations of Saleen. This was a very traditional mage, unfazed in the face of danger. If he hadn¡¯t been reminded by Saleen, the news might have spread. He immediately realized that if the soldiers knew about the existence of the double-headed eagle, it could destroy their morale.


    ¡°Sijia, besides your people, no one else is allowed up the tower. Is that understood?¡±


    Sijia nodded without a word and left the study with Saleen and Aini. Sika looked left and right and departed with Saleen. She did not understand a word from the others and hence saw no point in staying.


    The magicboratory was not locked. As the great mage saw it, no one in the castle would dare step in even half a foot. Despite how flourished magic was in the Qin Empire, for amoner, it was still too cryptic. Towards cryptic things, humans were usually respectful but distant, and from a certain perspective, mages had overstepped the boundaries of humans.


    Mages carried a curious attitude towards experimentation, analysis, and returning things to their original states. Since the passing of the Goddess of Nature, the number of mages believing in the gods had gradually decreased. By present day, no mages believed in anything anymore.


    A mage¡¯s existence was for uncovering the truth of the world.


    This motto had been etched into every mage¡¯s heart.


    Sijia led the three to the doorway of the magicboratory. With one foot through the door, Saleen turned to Sijia and said, ¡°Actually, there¡¯s nothing to be afraid of with ck magic.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a mage. Of course you can say that.¡± Although Sijia had regained her fighting spirit, she couldn¡¯t dispel her fear of ck magic. If it had been ck puppets, she definitely wouldn¡¯t have been afraid, but the enemy had ck mages who had been able to create a double-headed eagle. Headless riders and evil dragons had once been the nightmare of the entire maind, and hundreds of millions had died because of them.


    ¡°You¡¯re afraid because you do not understand it. If you had a chance to be near a ck mage, even if you were only a beginner swordmaster, you would still have a chance of killing him,¡± Saleen finished, and without waiting for a reply from Sijia, took a step back and closed the door of theboratory.


    Sijia stood dazed along the corridor for a second, her eyes giving off a determined look atst. She was a genius swordmaster. No matter the problem, she could use the sword in her hands to settle it. Retreating blindly was a sign that one was staying in the same spot without advancing. She was grateful for the guidance from Saleen, and giving a salute to the door, she turned and left.


    Theboratory was very big, with three tables and a small study area in the back. However, there were no valuable magic books inside, only somemon books found in the Qin Empire.


    All theboratory tools were presented on the table. Evidently, the great mage had not had enough space to store them. Empty spaces lined the four walls, and a great amount of magic ingredients were ced on the wooden shelf. Saleen nced at them: they were cheap items. The precious ingredients must have been taken away by the great mage.


    Aini was slightly disappointed. Saleen patted his shoulder and remarked, ¡°Aini, even if there were any precious ingredients, you wouldn¡¯t have been able to use them anyways.¡±

 Chapter 59: Alchemy VS Magic Medicine (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 59: Alchemy VS Magic Medicine (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini couldn¡¯t hold back hisughter. That was right. He didn¡¯t even have any magic chords left and could only use Grade 0 magic or perhaps Grade 1 magic by force. Even if he had the thorough knowledge, he could only create some simple alchemy props.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m so sorry to have led you into danger,¡± Aini told Saleen when no one else was around.


    ¡°Aini, things are already like this. Let¡¯s think about how we¡¯re going to live first. How about we do aparison between your alchemy and my magic medicine to determine which is better?¡± Saleen decided on a friendlypetition and surely enough, Aini was still young and immediately got worked up. His worries about the ck mages faded.


    ¡°Sure, but there must be a prize.¡± Aini scanned the bag on Saleen.


    ¡°Sika, stop touching things. This ce is dangerous.¡± Saleen stopped Sika from throwing a metal ball that she had just picked up. He was d that he hadn¡¯t brought Nailisi to theboratories. If not, he wouldn¡¯t have had the focus to create magic medicine.


    ¡°Then what should I do?¡± Sika was bored, tiredness shing across her clear eyes. It seemed like she was of no help to Saleen despite having followed him.


    ¡°I ampeting with Aini. You will be my assistant. When I ask you to do something, you will do it.¡±


    ¡°Sure!¡± Sika smiled.


    ¡°Aini, even though a mage should not gamble, we are both mages. Between us, this is only a friendlypetition to learn from one another. As for the prize, what do you want?¡±


    Aini wanted the bracelet back badly, but he didn¡¯t have anything of simr value in hand. He winked and said, ¡°Do you have any ck crystal?¡±


    ck crystal was a type of crystal that could increase a mage¡¯s control. At the same time, it was something a death mage needed to have. ck crystals could store death magic and among the gemstones that Aini had received, there were no such crystals.


    Saleenughed, Aini was a decent friend and would not make any preposterous demands. He nodded and said, ¡°No matter the results, I¡¯ll give you a piece of ck crystal. I want to know, what is the criteria for thispetition?¡±


    ¡°Quantity. The two of us cannot create any high-grade props or medicines. The best way to kill a ck puppet is to create an arrowhead using alchemy. If this arrowhead also has magic medicine on it, it can instantly kill a ck puppet. I will create an arrowhead while you create five grams of Magic me Medicine. If I lose, I will ede to one of your request.¡±


    Saleen couldn¡¯t hold back hisughter and said, ¡°You¡¯re sure to lose this.¡±


    ¡°We shall see.¡± Aini lifted his eyebrows, a hint of pride on his sickly face.


    Saleen did not think that he would lose either. Back in Ceylon City, he had created so much low-grade magic medicine that it had taken up almost all of his free time. Magic me Medicine happened to have been his main source of ie and was one of the magic medicines that he had the greatest rates of sess with. Even though the sess rate was not a hundred percent, he had no problems achieving eighty percent.


    ¡°Anyone, anyone!¡± Aini started shouting. Very soon, a soldier answered at the door. Aini opened the door and said to the soldier, ¡°Tell Baron Cook that I want to create arge number of alchemy arrowheads. He can send for how many arrowheads he wants.¡±


    Baron Cook rushed over excitedly upon hearing the news. Hemanded the soldiers to bring the arrowheads over from the warehouse to the magicboratories. Saleen felt that something was amiss. In creating his Magic me Medicine, he could produce at least five hundred grams each time. It should be able to be used on a hundred arrowheads. However, Aini¡¯s alchemy was evidently not the same, as he was going to use premade arrowheads and modify them. If that was the case, so long as Aini had a fixed alchemy array, he just had to put the materials in and he was done. If his alchemy array was big enough, with such low-grade equipment, he would be able to make a few hundred of them at once.


    The problem was that it took a very short time for the alchemy array to create props while his magic medicine needed more time and any small mistake would render the entire batch useless.


    At this moment, Aini took out a metal box from his bag and opened it. Walking to the metal table in front of him, he started assembling it, and it was almost as if the alchemy tool had been taken from the table in the first ce.


    He had been conned¡­


    Saleen was not familiar with alchemy, but he knew that no two alchemy arrays could be pieced together to form a new alchemy array unless the two alchemy arrays had been one piece from the beginning. This table was specifically used to create alchemy arrows and had just been missing its core. What was most surprising was that Aini had actually carried the core of the alchemy array that was used to create alchemy arrows with him.


    Aini iid six magic nuclei on the holes around the table and started throwing materials into the alchemy array. Saleen could only gather the ingredients needed to create the Magic me Medicine from all the magic ingredients before separating and weighing them.


    He chose an ingredient and handed it to Sika, saying only two words: ¡°Crush it.¡±


    Thepetition between the two had begun. Aini held a magic nucleus in one hand, speeding up the alchemy array as he restored the elemental energy within his body. His magic chords had been destroyed by the curse, but he was still able to absorb elemental energy. However, a disciple grade absorption speed was far too slow and the amount his body could store was far too little. He had to use a magic nucleus to replenish it and it was definitely a big waste.


    A few hundred arrowheads floated in the alchemy array. Countless golden streaks of light beamed into the radius of the alchemy array, carving out a rough magic array on the arrowheads.


    These arrowheads were weapons used by the Qin Empire army and definitely had no problems in terms of quality. The arrowheads had a hole carved into them and a simple me pattern was formed. After half an hour, hundreds of arrowheads had beenpleted. Aini rested for less than a minute before creating the second batch of arrowheads.


    Aini looked at Saleen smugly. In the Qin Empire, when an alchemist had been called upon by the army, it was typical for them to do such mass production work. Such crudely fashioned alchemy products were usually made at thest minute and if not used for a long time, the magic patterns would disappear. Saleen was not from the Qin Empire and hence had no idea about all of this. No matter how good he was with magic medicine, he could not have been faster than he was.


    ¡°You¡¯ve lost.¡± Saleen started mixing the medicines, throwing different powdered ingredients into a crucible.


    ¡°Impossible. The most you can create at once is five hundred grams, and I can create three hundred arrowheads in the same amount of time. I¡¯m thrice as fast as you,¡± Aini said confidently. He held a magic nucleus to replenish the elemental energy that he had lost and almost could go without any rest.


    Saleen smiled drily and said, ¡°There¡¯s a limited number of arrowheads in this castle. We didn¡¯t set down a rule as to when thispetition ends. Once you run out of arrowheads, I will surpass you.¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Aini was distracted and almost lost control of his alchemy array, letting out the golden light. In his moment of agitation, he said, ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re going back on your word!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who set the rules. How am I going back on my word?¡± Saleen continued smiling as he put in more ingredients and patiently created his medicine.


    Aini didn¡¯t know if he shouldugh or cry, but he didn¡¯t stop. This was not only apetition, but concerned the life and death of the people in the castle. As long as they had enough arrowheads, the threat of the ck mage would be reduced tremendously, and at the very least it would prevent the soldiers from being involved in brawls with the ck puppets. Nobody knew what a ck puppet looked like, and if the numbers were too massive and the brawl too brutal, it would be a matter of hours before the castle fell.


    After all, there were too few soldiers in the castle. The numbers of ck puppets were counted in the tens of thousands.


    Saleen admired Aini. Although using an alchemy array to create crude alchemy equipment was rtively easy, doing it for a long period of time required an enormous amount of focus to be able to control it. Measuring carefully, Aini¡¯s focus might be even have been greater than his own. He was a genius mage as expected. If he hadn¡¯t been cursed, he would probably have been one step away from being a grand mage.


    The sky started to brighten as Aini and Saleen had not stopped to rest. The craftsmen in the castle were busy too, some of them fixing the alchemy arrowheads onto arrow shafts as this was something that they were familiar with and was easy to do. The rest of the craftsmen were dismantling the remaining arrows. This was a tedious job as no materials could be lost.


    The arrowheads that had been dismantled were sent to the magicboratory for Aini to turn them into alchemy arrowheads before they were fixed back on.


    Everyone worked quietly but busily. The news of a ck mage appearing was like a giant boulder pressing on everyone¡¯s hearts. If everyone knew that this ck mage possessed a double-headed eagle, they might not even have had the courage to fight back. A distance from the castle, many unusual shadows appeared under the glow of the morning light. These shadows had stiff movements, leaping closer to the castle. They were scarecrows that weremonly seen in the fields of the Phoenix Duchy.


    Many of the scarecrows had facial features and four limbs. However, their movements were still cumbersome.


    Tens of thousands of scarecrows started congregating towards the castle. The scene could not have been any creepier, as many of the scarecrows had fresh blood on their faces. It seemed the culling had already begun.


    Behind the scarecrow army were hundreds of war horses. They trudged along slowly behind the scarecrows, the riders on the horses silent.


    These riders were unable to make any noise even if they wanted to, for there were no heads attached to their necks. ck steam permeated the air above these riders. The majestic ck war horses were covered in corroded armor, and a beheaded head hung beside their saddles.


    These heads had ferocious looks on them, bearing tortured expressions. Some of the eyeballs were still moving, observing the surroundings.


    They were the legendary headless riders who possessed destructive capabilities. These headless riders were controlled by ck magic. The head and the body existed as two separate entities, and unless the ck mage released them, these headless riders would forever live on in pain and killings.


    Only by destroying their enemies would the pain alleviate. For these headless riders, there was not much of a choice.


    On the other side of the saddle were the headless rider¡¯s weapons. Hammers, ils, half-moon battle axes, heavy swords¡­


    All of the weapons had been corroded by ck magic and purplish-ck blood stains were all over them. These weapons seemed to emanate a shrill cry whenever they shed with the armor on the war horses. These were the souls that the ck mage had imprisoned, and only by continuously absorbing fresh blood would these souls gain temporary peace.

 Chapter 60: God’s Left Hand (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 60: God¡¯s Left Hand (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Your honor, enemies have been discovered.¡± The soldier in Qin armor had a worried look on his face as he reported to Baron Cook. He was the baron¡¯s personal guard. Like Sijia, he had been specially selected for the baron by the emperor.


    ¡°How many are there?¡± Baron Cook¡¯s eyes were a little bloodshot as he had only slept for two hours.


    ¡°No fewer than fifty thousand.¡± There was a quiver in the soldier¡¯s voice. He had been even more fearful when he had seen the scarecrows on top of the tower,pared to now.


    ¡°ck puppets¡­ what do they look like?¡± Baron Cook forced himself to stay calm. ck puppets were not really powerful, but when their numbers wererge, only the heavily armored mercenaries of the Qin Empire could be their match.


    ¡°They are scarecrows.¡±


    Phew¡­


    Baron Cook and the soldier heaved a sigh of relief at the same time. They were thinking that they were lucky it was not the legendary stone statue. ck puppets made from scarecrows could be killed by a regr soldier, but there were too many of them. There were only six hundred soldiers in the castle, but their enemies had more than fifty thousand ck puppets.


    ¡°How many alchemy arrowheads have the mages made?¡±


    ¡°A hundred and ten thousand pieces¡­¡± the soldier replied, not convinced of this figure himself. In only a night, the two pathetically graded mages had been able to make a hundred and ten thousand alchemy arrows.


    ¡°So many!¡± Delight appeared on Baron Cook¡¯s face. If there were sufficient alchemy arrowheads, therge number of ck puppets would no longer be an issue.


    ¡°Your honor¡­¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°They also exhausted six Grade 5 magic nuclei, and need you to write them off.¡±


    Baron Cook was dumbfounded, and then relieved. A low-level mage would never be able to create that many alchemy arrowheads no matter what. The consumption of the high grade magic nuclei had been necessary. The six magic nuclei had cost about thirty thousand gold coins. One hundred and ten thousand arrows, when divided out, had cost only a few silver coins each.


    ¡°Your honor¡­¡± the soldier called out nervously.


    ¡°What else?¡±


    ¡°And¡­ it looks like they have damaged the equipment in theboratory.¡±


    Baron Cook clenched his fist. Damage to the equipment of the mage master? The baron said withposure, ¡°Do not tell anyone about this matter. I will take care of it. Where are the mages?¡±


    ¡°The two mages are dead tired and are resting.¡±


    ¡°Have the weapons been distributed?¡±


    ¡°All done.¡±


    ¡°Let Sijia direct the battle. You guys will coordinate with her. I will be with menco. Do not worry about my safety.¡±


    The soldier hesitated for a moment, heeded the order, and left. The nine soldiers that Sijia were leading were the swordsmen who were usually in charge of Baron Cook¡¯s safety. However, he was more familiar with menco who was a senior swordmaster and at least a Grade 5 professional. Compared to himself, these people were mightier, and the baron should safer being with these mercenaries.


    Saleen was not tired at all. Manufacturing low-grade magic medicine did not exhaust his magic chords, it only depleted his mental power. He was energized, and so naturally the recovery speed was faster. Once night had fallen, it had been Aini who had been unable to withstand it. If the materials for the Magic me Medicine had not been used up, Saleen had nned to continue.


    He was now naked and soaking in the big wooden bathtub. He appeared to be reclining back with his eyes closed. Nailisiid at the edge of the barrel bored, and was using her fingers to fiddle with the flower petals in the water.


    Saleen had not needed to take a bath. He had Grade 0 magic ¨C Cleansing Magic. However, he loved to practice in the water. When he was in the water, be it the speed ofpleting magic or the recovery speed of his magic chords, things were much faster.


    Take the mutated water shield, for example. He was already able to cast it instantly in the water. Within two-sixtieths of a second, he couldplete three stages: preparation,pletion, and deployment of the spell. If he left the water, the deployment speed of this spell would be slowed by more than one hundred times.


    Currently, there were twenty water shields stuck onto Saleen. These water shields had beenpressed by him until they were very small, smaller than the size of a palm. This did not reduce the ratio of the consumption of his magic chords. In reality, Saleen was only left with a low level of magic chords at this point in time, and the maximum he could deploy was three Grade 1 spells.


    Saleen was practicing the movement of water shields. He discovered that the defensive capabilities of the water shield were strongest at the core and weakest at its surroundings. However, such a scenario did not exist for the mutated water shields; the defensive capabilities of the water shield with air bubbles were the same at any spot.


    The only w of the water shield was that it was not a holistic protection spell. Even if it were a mutated water shield, its size was only half a meter in radius.


    Saleen also discovered that if hepressed the water shields, their defensive capabilities would double. He hadpressed them to smaller than the size of his palm now, and their defensive ability had increased tenfold.


    However, the smaller the magic shield, the bigger the openings. Saleen hoped to perfect this mutated spell, so he needed a hundred percent control of the water shield. It was just like what he was doing now, using his mental power to control the nonstop movement of the water shields.


    Saleen¡¯s mental power was strong, but it was very taxing to control the movement of the magic shields. Upon formation, each magic shield had a fixed coordinate. Even if the movement was only an inch, movement was not an easy feat. The coordinate was generally a certain point on the mage or a point on another object.


    Elemental energy was centered on this point for the spell to bepleted. Any movement required the constant movement of the magic coordinate at the same time, and this was unusually taxing.


    Saleen had not created them out of nowhere. He had known that it was possible, because mage masters handled their low-grade spells in this way while sorcerers were able to control their mid-grade spells freely. Although what he had done was ahead of his time, he had not done the impossible.


    Phew¡­


    Saleen¡¯s head emerged from the surface of the water and saw Nailisi¡¯s face.


    ¡°Nailisi, what are you doing?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m watching you taking a bath.¡± Nailisi used her finger to draw circles in the water, forming ripples. The flower petals were sinking and floating with her movement.


    ¡°I am practicing.¡± Saleen stared at Nailisi.


    ¡°I know, but magic is not this way¡­¡± With her body still hidden, Nailisi stretched out her arm and used her finger to poke at the water shields beside Saleen¡¯s body. Her long ck hair drooped down, spreading out in the water softly like smoke.


    Saleen twitched his mouth. He now knew that Nailisi was still unable to deploy any demonic magic. He was not keen to hear an outsider¡¯s view; a mage had their pride, or as some said, arrogance.


    ¡°I remember¡­¡±


    Saleen was suddenly alert, having heard this sentence from Nailisi. Although Nailisi was a little underaged imp, she had nheless met powerful human beings tens of thousands of years ago. She would definitely know some secrets.


    ¡°What do you remember?¡± Saleen was so worked up that he nearly stood up. Human beings tens of thousands of years ago had been able to transcend nes. Such power actually exceeded that of a Grade 9 mage.


    ¡°I remember that the magic that human beings deployed was full of energy, as though it were alive. I saw it with my own eyes then. A pair of hands pulled the air and tore into a space, stuffing more than ten supreme demons into it. All the elements were maneuvered by those hands. It was trust, as well as devotion,¡± Nailisi recited this as though she were a poet, with a glimmer of awe in her eyes.


    Saleen listened patiently, and felt it in his heart. It was impossible to get such a valuable recollection anywhere else anymore.


    ¡°That demonic hunter, even with a twitch of his eyebrow or a blink of his eyes, could make the surrounding elements oscite together.¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice was getting softer and softer as she remained immersed in the memory she was capturing.


    Elemental resonance?


    That was not correct. Elemental resonance was not reversible. But going by what Nailisi had described, the movement of the elements back then could be changed at anytime. Such control was something even a sorcerer could not do.


    Could Nailisi be luring him intomitting wrongdoings?


    That was not possible. Nailisi could not be lying. She could not even get rid of her nightmares from back then on her own.


    Magic resonance that had life? Saleen remembered the mysterious leaf in the Ring of Gifts. That piece of leaf had a type of vitality hidden inside it. He made a decision in that moment, as he could no longer suppress the thought of experimenting with it. The second mantra of the Ring of Gifts slowly flowed in his heart, and Saleen began to recite it aloud.


    Gift of Life. This was the half spell that the Goddess of Nature had created. The green ray on the blessing ring lit up again but faded away quickly. Saleen had been able to feel the motion of the elements, but could notplete this half spell.


    Would help from divinity be needed? Saleen suspected that this spell wasbined with divinity. If this was so, he would neverplete it. This was because with the fall of the Goddess, he would probably need to pray to the Lord of Glory?


    Even if he were to pray, he would probably not receive any response, for he had killed the oracle from the Holy See, the ascetic, and the zealots.


    Saleen had no ill intentions towards the people of the Holy See. He was, after all, the one who had started the fight. The holy master had not taken any initiative to attack him. After he had heard Aini¡¯s story, he realized that he had taken the Holy See too lightly. He had no delusions of receiving redemption, and could only try to run as far as he could so that the people of the Holy See would have no chance of catching him. Saleen did not give up hope. He retrieved that piece of leaf with hidden vitality from the Ring of Gifts. This piece of leaf was withered and yellowish, and was far from appealing in terms of looks. Saleen held the leaf in his palm and recited the Gift of Life mantra again. This time, a green light shone in Saleen¡¯s palm. A mysterious energy emanated from the leaf and formed a green ball of light which infiltrated the water shield specified by Saleen.


    Saleen immediately felt that this water shield had formed a mysterious rtionship with him. He attempted to use his mental power to nudge this water shield. The bubble-like water shield left Saleen¡¯s body, flew up, and was moving in the air ording to Saleen¡¯s will in an increasinglyplicated path.


    Saleen was thrilled. If the water shield could be controlled like this, his own security would be much higher. He could not wait and deployed the second Gift of Life. The second water shield left his body and flew upwards.


    Nailisi grabbed the second water shield immediately and put it into her mouth to bite it. Saleen was furious. Without waiting for him to say anything, Nailisi spit out the water shield which was still a whole bubble.


    ¡°Master, it can¡¯t be broken. You have seeded,¡± Nailisi said tactfully, as though she had not tried to eat this magic shield filled with life just a moment ago.


    Saleen was disheartened. This little imp was getting more cunning.


    Shaking his head, Saleen wanted to continue deploying the Gift of Life. The remaining eighteen water shields broke one after another. He then recalled that he had been in the water for an hour. The water shields could remain in the water for a long time but the maximum was one hour. What surprised him was that the two water shields with life had not disappeared and were still dancing actively in front of him.

 Chapter 61: God’s Left Hand (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 61: God¡¯s Left Hand (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi¡¯s eyes were staring straight at the leaf in Saleen¡¯s hand without concealing her greed. That was something really great! If she ate it, would she evolve?


    Saleen was also staring at the leaf in his hand. What was this thing? Could it have been a legendary leaf from the Tree of Life?


    The Goddess of Nature had possessed four trees: the Tree of Life, the Tree of Elements, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Tree of Taboo. The descriptions of them were seen in many magic notes. Mages had not concealed their envy of these four trees. It was a pity that after the fall of Goddess of Nature, these four trees had withered too.


    Possession of the Tree of Life would give one eternal life. Possession of the Tree of Elements would allow one to master powerful magic. Possession of the Tree of Knowledge would allow one to grasp this world¡¯s past and future. Andstly, possession of the Tree of Taboo would allow one to be a deity.


    ¡°Master.¡± Nailisi subconsciously licked her lips. As her tongue had been stuck out far enough, its tip had touched her nose.


    ¡°What do you want to do?¡± Saleen warily held onto the leaf in his hand tightly, fearing that Nailisi would swallow it into her stomach. If it were eaten by Nailisi, it would be futile to even cut open her stomach. The digestive powers of a demon were scarier than any acid created by mages.


    It was said that the saliva of some supreme demons could even corrode mithril.


    ¡°Master, you can try to heal your hand!¡± Nailisi suppressed the desire in her heart and said something insincerely.


    It suddenly dawned upon Saleen that since this leaf was so precious, its vitality would be exhausted sooner orter. It would not be a long term solution to use it to improve his magic; he might as well use it to heal his hand.


    He stretched out his left hand. His left hand was withered like a dead branch in the winter, and he could not even curl his fingers.


    If this hand did not heal soon, it would be meaningless even if he advanced. Newly learned spells required two hands to sustain their mantra. Otherwise, he would not be able to master them efficiently, not to mention practice them.


    At this thought, Saleen ced the yellowish leaf in his left palm and deployed the half-spell Gift of Life. A soft green light diffused from within the leaf and enveloped Saleen¡¯s left hand.


    Saleen felt a pain in his palm and was thrilled. If he had felt pain, it meant that he was beginning to regain sensation. He observed it carefully and was shocked to see the yellowish leaf shatter without any sound, leaving behind only webbed leaf veins. The shattered leaf turned into a glorious green light andpletely seeped into the center of his hand. The remaining leaf veins started to move and dove into his hand.


    Saleen hurriedly used his right hand to try and grasp them, but the silky veins had led the stalk into the palm of his left hand in the blink of an eye.


    Saleen stared at his left hand nkly. His left hand was no longer like a lifeless creature. It had turned green in color, and its structure was transparent. The muscles had firmed up again and were no longer disgustingly shrivelled. After the leaf veins had entered his palm, they had continued to prate into the bones of his palm. It was not painful this time around, but was rather itchy instead.


    The leaf veins prated his bones and then continued to spread to the middle section of his arm before stopping. The green debris in the muscles of his left hand began to absorb his bones, seeping through them before slowly fading away. They were no longer transparent, having turned a pure white instead.


    Saleen noticed that his palm was now soft like a baby¡¯s and grew suspicious. Although his palm was not transparent anymore, Saleen was able to feel the leaf veins continuously changing the bone structure of his hand.


    A trap?


    This ring of his had been won from Baron Minghui and had not been a necessity. He had only discovered the secret of the ring when that ascetic had shot at it and revealed the truth behind the Ring of Gifts.


    Even after giving it careful thought, Saleen had absolutely no idea what his rtionship with the Ring of Gifts was. Everything that had happened had been idental, but why would this leaf prate his body?


    If this was a leaf from the Tree of Life, would there be any awful side effects since it had now merged with his body?


    Nailisi saw the leaf enter Saleen¡¯s body, and the voice in her heart came up again ¨C Eat master up, and not only will you receive freedom, but you will also acquire great power¡­


    Time gradually passed. The leaf vein finally stopped changing his bone structure and the feeling of itchiness disappeared. Saleen gently curled his left hand, feeling for the changes that the piece of leaf had brought.


    It did not feel too bad. His left hand and left arm felt as though they were connected by blood veins, and had not been transformed into something else by the leaf veins. Saleen¡¯s fingers and wrist were rotating and curling in a nimble manner with no difort. It was just that deep in his bone marrow, Saleen could feel that familiar sense of vitality.


    There were no simrities between this vitality and elemental energy, for it was even moreplicated and difficult to replicate.


    If elemental energy could be described as a singr thing, then this vitality could be described as extremelyplicated. It was as though all the elemental powers had been merged together,pletely removing the repulsion between elemental energies.


    Saleen thought nkly, was this hand still his?


    He searched for the books and notes that he had previously read, hoping to find an answer.


    The number of books that Saleen had previously used memory magic to read was numerous. He had not been able to digest thempletely, and could only use the time he had when practicing with the mysterious badge to revise the contents he had memorized. Just like now, when he wanted to search for knowledge rted to something, he could only recall things book by book and was unable to instantly bring to mind the answers he sought.


    This was the limitation of reading magic. A person could only memorize things by rote and could not immediately make the knowledge their own.


    After thinking for a long time, Saleen still could not find the answer. He had only discovered simr contents. During the time of the Goddess, the swordsmen who believed in the Goddess could, through prayers, use divinity to transform their bodies and make their bodies divine. If a mage did that, they would be able to deploy divinity.


    The differences between mages and priests back then had not been great. The powers that human beings could make use of were plentiful, for instance, enving demons, spirits of the dead, and even some sacred magic beasts. Therefore, such a method had not beenmon and had only used by those who were not gifted and needed to resort to trickery.


    These people had been called the warriors of god, Holy Magus. However, their transformations were gradual, and their entire bodies needed to transform. But Saleen¡¯s transformation was only in his left hand, and he did not believe in any gods.


    Saleen calmed down, retrieved the glove at the rim of the tub, and put it on. Even if this really were a god¡¯s left hand, with the fall of Goddess, it could only be used by him. There was no point in worrying about it too much. He might as well think about his current situation instead.


    ¡°Master? Look!¡±


    Nailisi used her long, slender finger to fiddle with the two water shields in front of her. Saleen then noticed that the two water shields which had been deployed with the Gift of Life had not disappeared. After such a long period of time, they were still floating in the air.


    Saleen deployed perception to check the structure of these two magic shields. He was astonished to discover that these two magic shields seemed newly deployed and showed not even the slightest signs of crumbling.


    If these two water shields continued to exist, it would be a good thing for Saleen. That was equivalent to him saving two deployments of Grade 1 magic with his magic chords. Even if he exhausted his magic chords, he would still have the two water shields around to ensure his safety.


    Despite these two water shields being very tiny, their power had exceeded that of the normal ones by ten times. By controlling them with mental power, these two water shields could be manipted freely, as though they were a part of Saleen¡¯s body. Saleen extended his left hand and let the water shieldsnd on his hand. The water shields passed through the glove, went directly into Saleen¡¯s left hand, and disappeared.


    Saleen was not surprised. The water shields still existed. His mental power felt them. Now as long as he had the thought, these two water shields would fly out from his hand.


    ¡°Nailisi, keep this matter a secret!¡± Saleen used a forceful tone.


    ¡°Master, can I not tell Sika either?¡± Nailisi gave him a shocked look.


    Saleen suddenly remembered that Nailisi only knew ancient Myersnguage and his instructions had been redundant. However, Nailisi¡¯s inquiry had obviously been to sow discord. He gave a snort and said, ¡°Sika is a warrior and would not understand these matters. If you were to tell her, what use would it be?¡±


    Whenever Sika was concerned, Saleen felt trust. Such a trust was not because Sika had once risked her life to rescue him, but he was unsure how to describe the feeling. In any case, Saleen knew that while Nailisi would harm him, Sika would not.


    Nailisi snickered, pleased with herself. She stood up and brought Saleen his clothes. Master had seen through her once again, but it was alright. As long as she stayed by her master¡¯s side long enough, it was a matter of time before she would drive the others away, and Master would only have her left. Then, if she were to think of escaping, her master would feel heartache.


    Saleen was not even dressed properly and the person at the door had been waiting impatiently. He called out softly, ¡°Mage Saleen?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s bath time had taken too long. Aini had already woken up, and Saleen had still notpleted his bath. Were the little mage and his maid¡­


    The soldier at the doorstep was imagining the vivid scene within the room, but did not dare peep into the gap of the door. If it was really so, the strength of this little mage was admirable! If not for Lord Baron having chased him numerous times, he would not have dared to call out to him. He would be digging his own grave if he disturbed the mage master¡¯s enjoyment.


    ¡°What is the matter?¡±


    Saleen put on his mage robe. Nailisi helped him tie his belt in a gentle manner as though she were his maid.


    ¡°Lord Baron would like you to go see him.¡±


    The soldier at the door heaved a sigh of relief. As Saleen was not angered, he reckoned the deed had been done.


    ¡°Coming.¡±


    Saleen tidied his clothes, and Nailisi said, ¡°Master, your hair is a little messy. Let meb it for you.¡±


    ¡°No need. Just wait in the room,¡± Saleen used his fingers to haphazardly tidy his hair, pushed open the door, and walked out. Nailisi sat down helplessly and wondered why she was unable to speak morenguages.


    Baron Cook was pacing around the study room restlessly. He had now put on his armor, which was stained with filthy blood. The attack of the ck mage had begun. Those scarecrows were harder to deal with than expected. During crucial moments, Baron Cook had climbed up the city wall and participated in the battle himself.


    What worried the baron was that these scarecrows were much more powerful than he had imagined. When their long swords had stabbed them, it felt the same as stabbing real bodies which bled. The movement of these scarecrows was stiff, but their strength was not weaker than that of regr soldiers. If not for the alchemy arrowheads that Aini had constructed, the castle would have already been invaded.


    However, the headless riders of the enemy had not struck back back. They were relying only on these ck puppets who had already caused the defending troops of the castle to suffer great losses.


    ¡°Mage Saleen!¡±


    Seeing that Saleen had walked into the study room, Baron Cook quickly walked up to him and said worriedly, ¡°Many of the soldiers have been poisoned. Could you make them some restorative water?¡±

 Chapter 62: Lustful Hands and Alcohol (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 62: Lustful Hands and Alcohol (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ck puppets were poisonous, but their venom was not particrly potent. Both the Holy See¡¯s holy water and a mage¡¯s restorative water could restore a person¡¯s health drastically aftering into contact with them.


    However, there was a shelf life for both liquids. Restorative water usuallysted for ten to fifteen days before slowly losing its powers while holy watersted a little longer but also could not exceed a month.


    The grand mage in the castle had left more than a year ago and the restorative water that he had left behind had long since lost its effects.


    ¡°Baron, restorative water has a better effect. However¡­¡±


    Baron Cook could not have been bothered with anything else and asked, ¡°Do you need magic nuclei?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m only a Grade 1 mage. If I have magic nuclei to restore my magic chords, I can create arge amount of restorative water.¡± Saleen was thinking. Since Aini had gotten something out of creating the alchemy arrowheads, he needed to get his hands on some Grade 5 magic nuclei to avoid losing out.


    ¡°Alright. Send ten magic nuclei for the mage,¡± Baron Cook shouted


    Saleen was shocked and immediately understood. Baron Cook had long since been prepared and had been waiting for him to make his request. Saleen looked at Baron Cook¡¯s angr face. He was starting to despise this wealthy man.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, besides the restorative water, I desperately need some healing medicine too. You can use theboratories however you like; any losses will be on me.¡±


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Send arge water jar to theboratory and do not disturb me. It will be enough for Sika to apany me.¡±


    It did not take long for everything to be prepared. Saleen shut the doors to the magicboratory, stored the ten Grade 5 magic nuclei in his Ring of Gifts, and got down to work making the restorative water.


    Restorative water was a Grade 1 magic and a typical mage would be able to make five hundred grams each time. Since Saleen¡¯s magic chords had been altered, he could now create four times that amount. In addition, he had twice the number of magic chords of a normal mage and hence was equivalent to eight Grade 1 mages making restorative water at the same time.


    Rapidly making eight times the amount, it was only right that he kept a little reward for himself. Saleen was secretly happy with himself. Even though his magic chords had ws, he also had advantages that others did not.


    Saleen only required a Grade 3 magic nucleus to restore his magic chords. He cast his magic consecutively, creating a whole jar of restorative water at once. Grabbing a magic nucleus, he began to restore his magic chords.


    He did not have many Grade 3 nuclei left and besides those that he had bought for himself, the rest that had been given to him by Viscount Gugger had been used up. The Grade 5 magic nuclei that he had on hand had been given to him by Nailisi.


    A Grade 1 mage using a Grade 5 magic nucleus was a waste and hence Saleen was reluctant to use them. Even though he owned a countless number of gemstones, he was still living life frugally. The trauma from his childhood was not easy to erase. If one had needed to go with a hungry stomach for more than ten years, once he became rich, he would either waste all of it or be as stingy as he could.


    Saleen could cast twenty-four Grade 1 magic spells in session but stopped after creating twenty portions of restorative water, saving some of his magic chords to use to defend himself.


    This was a practice that all mages abided by and it was not only Saleen. Unless they were in their own magic tower, a mage would rarely use up all of their magic chords.


    Sika carried the full jar of water to the doorway and opened the door, letting the soldiers who were waiting outside carry it away.


    One of the soldiers waiting outside turned out to be a swordmaster under Sijia. At first, he had been a little upset. Saleen was only a Grade 1 mage and Baron Cook was being too generous with him. On top of that, Saleen and Aini had also created a mess of the magicboratories and if the grand mage were to return, there would not be pleasant times ahead.


    However, upon seeing the speed at which Saleen was creating the restorative water, the swordmaster felt that everything had been worth it. He immediately ordered the rest of the soldiers to ce the jar in a metal box and send it to the infirmary to treat the poisoned soldiers.


    The castle had an infirmary. It wasrge and there were already hundreds of soldiers lying wounded in there. Dozens of strong servants had been poisoned by the ck puppets as well.


    Although a ck puppet¡¯s poison was not fatal, it could cause severe pain and even the most experienced soldiers were unable to endure it. The room was filled with the sounds of pained moaning. In the olden days, the army of the Fourth Dynasty had fallen because of this. Many of the soldiers had lost their fighting spirit after seeing theirrades screaming in pain.


    Most of the soldiers were not afraid of death. They were, however, afraid of endless torture.


    Up on the walls of the castle, Sijia wasmanding the battle. She had already defended against dozens of the enemy¡¯s assaults and was both physically and mentally exhausted. The scarecrows came in like ocean waves. Their actions were clumsy, but as soon as they reached the foot of the castle, they could leap over the walls with one jump.


    The crudely made alchemy arrowheads could effectively kill these ck puppets. As long as the arrowsnded, the scarecrows¡¯s bodies would explode and the ck mes would instantly burn them to ashes.


    There were enough arrows in the castle, but not enough archers. A normal soldier ran out of energy after shooting a few dozen arrows. Hence, even though the scarecrows moved slowly, the soldiers could only shoot five rounds. There were two hundred soldiers on the castle walls and five rounds only amounted to a thousand arrows.


    After five rounds, the scarecrows would reach the foot of the castle and jump, getting into a brawl with the soldiers. Behind the thousands of scarecrows were hundreds of headless riders who stood from afar and faced the castle, all prepared to attack.


    Sijia was not worried about the ck puppets. There were not even a hundred thousand of them and the castle would be able to keep them all out. She was worried about the hundreds of headless riders. These headless riders had a fighting ability simr to that of a beginner swordmaster, and some were even as good as an advanced swordmaster.


    Even a bronze grand swordmaster would have fled at the sight of a hundred headless riders.


    The only thing she could rely on now were the four alchemy crossbows in the castle. At the top of the castle around a tower was a huge tform, and on it were four alchemy crossbows that had been fixed in ce. These giant alchemy crossbows had a range of over two kilometers and the arrows were thick and longer than a spear. Even a high-grade magic beast would be pierced through cleanly by an arrow like this.


    Thousands of scarecrows rushed to the foot of the castle again, jumping straight up. A soldier used his shield and mmed it fiercely onto the first scarecrow that reached the top of the castle wall. At the same time, he took the broken sword in his hand and chopped off the head of another scarecrow. His fighting skills were fairly decent.


    The two other soldiers supporting him grabbed a spear and flung away the scarecrows on his two sides before pulling him back to the team. This soldier had a ferocious look on his face as he had transformed his fear into fighting spirit. He threw away his broken sword and it stabbed a scarecrow nearby. He caught a spear that hisrade threw to him before charging back into battle.


    The scarecrow with its head chopped off spewed dirty, ck blood from its neck. The smell of its blood was like rotten eggs, a sulfur smell emanating all around. The servants behind the soldiers were distributing weapons and armor. They took a four-meter-long spear and flicked the headless scarecrow down the wall, afraid that it would revive again.


    A few soldiers had been killed by such headless ck puppets. There were no rules as to how the ck puppets revived and since the battle had begun, both the soldiers and servants had grown numb to it. The initial fear they had of the ck puppets had turned into hatred.


    The Qin Empire¡¯s regr army had a strong fighting ability, but the number of enemies was too high. Sijia gazed nervously at the headless riders with the telescope, not giving any orders to kill using the alchemy crossbow.


    These headless riders were less than two kilometers away and were perfectly in range of the alchemy crossbows. However, there were only twenty-four specially made crossbow arrows and Sijia was afraid that once they used those up, the ck mage would send out the evil dragon.


    Sijia had not seen any evil dragons but she knew that they were the perfect weapon for attacking the castle. Without the alchemy crossbow, the evil dragon would break past the castle gates and the headless riders would be able to ride their way in. The hundreds of soldiers they had were no match for the headless riders.


    The sun started to set in the west. After battling the entire day, even though the soldiers had taken turns fighting, they were exhausted. Half of the scarecrows had been eliminated but there were still forty to fifty thousand of them standing outside the castle walls.


    Although the ck puppets did not know what exhaustion was, the humans needed to rest. Almost a hundred soldiers had perished and holes were appearing in their defenses. Sijia had no choice but to adjust her battle strategy and have the soldiers fight two separate battles instead. This had given the soldiers even less time to rest.


    If only they¡¯d had a death mage who could call upon skeleton soldiers, then they would have been able to defend against therge number of ck puppets. Sijia and two of her men stood at the spacious ce on the castle wall. Watching what was happening outside the castle, there was unspeakable agitation in them. If only the grand mage had been here. A low-grade fireball would have been the best weapon for countering the scarecrows. That damned grand mage actually ran away to the Sun City. If we survive this time, I must definitely report this to the emperor.


    Back in the olden days, the Qin Empire had sent two death mages to the Phoenix area to join in the efforts of eliminating the ck mages and the effects had been visible. It was a pity that death magic was hard to practice and was discriminated against bymoners, deterring many from practicing this form of magic.


    This wave of attack finally stopped and the sky grew increasingly dark. The evil dragon still hadn¡¯t appeared, and Sijia said in a low voice, ¡°Baisha, have the first team of cavalry prepare. The defense at night will be even more difficult.¡±


    Baisha was Sijia¡¯s best swordmaster and he left to carry out his orders. Before long, ten fully armored cavalry followed the pathway to the castle wall. The armor on them weighed over fifty kilograms in total. Their majestic war horses were also fully draped, and even if they were to be caught in a shower of arrows, it would be tough to injure them.


    The castle wall was five meters wide and the cavalry split themselves onto both sides of the wall, holding halberds in their hands. A halberd was a weapon with a wide de and was much heavier than a spear. Even with just a single cavalry, dozens of ck puppets could be knocked down the wall by their impact. These cavalry had been meant for dealing with the headless riders, but Sijia had no choice. Since nightfall was approaching, there was no way the castle could be defended with the infantry troops alone.


    Once the castle walls were breached, the headless riders would not even need to be part of the action. The scarecrows alone would be able to wipe out everyone in the castle.


    ¡°Baron, why are you up here again!¡± Sijia said anxiously as she saw Baron Cook fully d in armor, holding a heavy sword in his hand.


    ¡°Go take a rest, Sijia.¡±


    ¡°Baron!¡±


    ¡°Let me be with the soldiers,¡± Baron Cook said calmly.


    These had been the famous words of the emperor who had created the Qin Empire. Sijia hesitated, seeing the faces of the soldiers light up in renewed spirits. She knew that she could not stop Baron Cook, or else the morale that they just regained would fall apart.

 Chapter 63: Lustful Hands and Alcohol (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 63: Lustful Hands and Alcohol (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Someone who was not courageous was not worthy of being part of the wealthy. Even though the Qin Empire was built upon magic, most of the wealthy chose to practice swordcraft and could personally kill enemies on the battlefield.


    Even though Baron Cook was not particrly skilled, he was also an intermediate swordmaster. Since he had been young, he had set his mind on repaying the country through force. Or perhaps, he just wanted to win battles to rise even higher in rank. Whatever it was, the baron wasn¡¯t useless.


    If they survived this time, Baron Cook would be able to promote at least two ranks, bing a third-ss viscount. No matter how much the elders of the lower house hated him, they would not be able to erase his achievements.


    ¡°Sijia, go find Mage Saleen. Let him restore your energy,¡± Baron Cook said before turning to the soldiers and shouting. ¡°Soldiers of the Qin Empire, out there are the ck puppets. I know you are all afraid and many of ourrades have died. But, will the soldiers of the Qin Empire lose their courage?¡±


    ¡°No!¡±


    All the soldiers answered loudly. This was an instinct they had kept since their training.


    ¡°Will we retreat?¡±


    ¡°Fight! Fight! Fight!¡±


    ¡°Will we surrender?¡±


    ¡°Never!¡±


    ¡°Good! I swear on the honor of the Qin¡¯s wealthy, I will be with you until the end, never giving up.¡±


    As Sijia walked down the castle wall with tears in her eyes, she saw menco walk over with four other mercenaries. She stopped, and using her hands to touch her chest, she said in a low voice, ¡°The baron¡¯s safety is in your hands.¡±


    Baron Cook¡¯s promise had not been empty. Byw of the Qin Empire, if a wealthy person broke their promise, they would lose everything they had. The emperor could not have been happier to ept whatever the wealthy left behind: gold coins,nd, estates.


    So could a wealthy person go against their words? Do not forget that in this world, there existed a magic known as detection magic. Baron Cook had made a promise which meant that he would rather die on the battlefield than escape.


    menco did not answer and only bowed.


    Sijia dragged her exhausted body to the magicboratory and knocked on the door. She was still very grateful to the mages. If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen and Aini, the six hundred soldiers on the battlefield would have already died. Those scarecrows would have taken over the castle wall and opened the castle gates. If the headless riders made their way into the castle, everyone would be prisoners of the ck mage.


    ¡°Come in.¡±


    Inside theboratory, Saleen was still making restorative water. He needed more time to make the healing medicine and had entrusted that task to Aini. Aini seemed to be learned in magic medicine as well and there were little ingredients involved in simple healing medicine. They were all avable in theboratory shelves and had been left behind by the grand mage.


    Sika and Nailisi were by Saleen¡¯s side. Saleen had not been able to do anything, for Nailisi had run to himining about her hunger. Saleen knew that if she was confined in her room alone again, it was possible that she would really snatch up two people to eat.


    She wasn¡¯t really hungry. She just didn¡¯t like it when Saleen left her alone.


    ¡°It¡¯s Sijia. How are the injured soldiers doing?¡± Saleen asked in a fairly concerned manner upon seeing Sijia.


    ¡°Thank you for your help.¡± Sijia loved the way Saleen spoke. This mage did not put on any airs. She had not noticed that out of nowhere, for everyone who interacted with Saleen had grown ustomed to the way he spoke. Whether it was Aini, menco, or even Baron Cook, they all already regarded Saleen as someone important.


    Since the discovery of the double-headed eagle, Saleen had been the calmest and was not flustered. Even the mercenaries from the Nut Mercenary had to admit that this ritzy mage had a lot of guts. His courage was admirable.


    ¡°Sit down. Does Baron Cook have any instructions for us?¡±


    Sijia sat in the seat that Saleen had directed her to, looked at the busy Aini, and said, ¡°No, he only asked me to rest for a while.¡± She had a good education and was not as direct as the mercenaries when she spoke. Saleen understood, smiling and asking Nailisi to remove her armor for her. He stopped whatever he was doing.


    Sijia was embarrassed. As to avoid hindering her in battle, she only wore a blouse under her armor. She was not even wearing any undergarments. The premium cotton material was soaked in sweat and her body was revealed,cking concealment.


    This mage seemed to be lecherous. Sijia closed her eyes and tried to rx, not knowing what Saleen was about to do. She was an intermediate swordmaster and was equivalent to a Grade 5 professional. Saleen was only a Grade 1 mage and a Grade 2 professional. She did not understand why she felt so anxious.


    She felt Saleen walking towards her. He was getting closer. If it had been someone else, even with her eyes closed she would have been confident in being able to punch the teeth out of them. However, her fingers were stiff now and she could not even close them into a fist.


    The mage¡¯s breathing was right in front of her. Sijia felt two hands on both her breasts, pinching lightly. She immediately stiffened, her body bing sluggish, and she felt her energy leaving her.


    She heard an angry voice shout, ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Nailisi retracted her hands from Sijia¡¯s breasts and said innocently, ¡°Master, I was just curious¡­¡±


    ¡°Curious? Do you not have them?¡± Saleen was furious. Sijia might have misunderstood and thought that he had told Nailisi to do it.


    ¡°Master, mine are fake!¡± Nailisi replied seriously.


    Sijia could not understand the conversation between Nailisi and Saleen but knew that the one who had touched her was not Saleen. She rxed her body, but for some reason, she felt an unspeakable sense of loss.


    ¡°Sess!¡± Aini shouted, startling everyone. Sijia opened her eyes and saw Aini dancing excitedly in front of the table. A portion ofpleted magic medicine was on the table.


    ¡°What medicine have you concocted?¡± Saleen quickly changed the topic to diffuse the awkwardness. Nailisi rubbed her fingers,ughing mischievously at Sijia as her eyes did not move away from Sijia¡¯s chest. Sijia¡¯s sweat had made the cotton translucent and herrge breasts were perked up.


    Sijia was not angry, but was a little shocked. Before Nailisi¡¯s hands had touched her, she had not felt anything at all. If she had been holding a dagger¡­


    This maid was not simple. Sijia felt Nailisi¡¯s gaze and a chill went up her spine


    ¡°Huichun alcohol, Saleen. I have made Huichun alcohol.¡±


    Sijia flushed. This master from the Clyde family was no upstanding person either. He still had time to make aphrodisiacs at a time like this!


    ¡°That¡¯s awesome!¡± Saleen pped.


    Sijia realized then that Huichun alcohol was not only an aphrodisiac. If taken with hard liquor, it could restore energy and increase fighting ability. Although this had little effect on a swordmaster, if it was given to a normal swordman, fighting throughout the night would not be a problem.


    The only problem was that the effect of this magic medicinested longer than others, and if the affected were unable to find a female to vent their frustrations on, it would be hard to tell how long the soldiers would stay excited. Hence, the Qin Empire did not allow this medicine to be included in the purchase n for the army. Once a soldier drank it, the problems it could cause were serious.


    ¡°Aini, you did well,¡± Saleenplimented him. Aini and his grade were too low and were of limited help to the soldiers. Aini¡¯s weird antics had created this medicine, and even though it had its side effects, their survival took priority right now.


    Sijia frowned. If the battle ended and the effects of the medicine did not, the soldiers in the castle would not be easy to control. However, if the soldiers did not take the medicine¡­


    Sijia thought about all her weary soldiers as she had been leaving the top of the castle. In this situation, even with Baron Cook¡¯s supervision, the problem could not be solved.


    There was a saying in the Qin Empire: if a person was dying of thirst, they would not care if the water was poisoned.


    Just as Sijia was pondering this, Saleen turned around and cast a magic spell without warning. It was restorative water magic.


    The magic that he had cast wasplete magic and not the half-magic that he usually cast for collection. A vapor appeared in the air and before it could condense, it started seeping into Sijia¡¯s body and entered her lungs through her mouth and nose. Sijia felt her body warming and a wave of tiredness rolled over her. Her whole body rxed and less than ten seconds passed before she fell asleep.


    Any kind of magic was assaultive in nature, even healing magic.


    Saleen could only cast Water Magic and hence had researched it more deeply than anyone else. Having used this asion as an experiment, the hypnotic effects of his restorative water would definitely be much stronger than holy water if his enemies were caught unaware.


    Hypnotic magic was a healing spell that required the cooperation of the other party, while the hypnotic effects of restorative magic could not be controlled. Even a Grade 5 professional like Sijia could not stop them.


    Aini was shocked. Never had he imagined that restorative water could be used in this way. What kind of a person must Saleen¡¯s teacher have been to have created a freak like him?


    If Aini knew that Saleen had researched this method of using restorative water on his own by only following a saying, he would have been even more ashamed of himself. In reality, Jason had barely given Saleen any direct guidance in magic. He had only opened up Saleen¡¯s thinking so that he would not be limited to any forms of logic.


    Saleen was pleased with himself as well. The effect of this magic had been greater than he had expected. Normally, all means of defensive magic were aimed at negative effects, but restorative water was a healing magic. In other words, most magic armor would not be able to defend against this magic, a swordmaster¡¯s sword aura included.


    Who would create magic armor that rejected the effects of healing magic? That was madness. A swordmaster¡¯s sword aura was able to protect the body with a simr principle. Any power which destroyed the body¡¯s structure would be negated by the sword aura. Restorative water happened to not fall under these powers.


    ¡°Aini, do you think releasing Huichun alcohol and restorative water together would create a stronger effect?¡± Saleen was deep in thought, considering the possibility of this question.


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t work!¡± Aini was terrified. If the soldiers absorbed vapor created out of Huichun alcohol, it was possible that they would all be lecherous perverts. Even if the enemies were scarecrows, they might pounce on them to relieve themselves first. If such a thing happened, even if they survived, they would have no face left.

 Chapter 64: A Mage’s Dignity (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 64: A Mage¡¯s Dignity (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Aini!¡± Theboratory¡¯s door was thrown open with a bang. A fully equipped soldier charged in and pointed his sword de at a still excited Aini saying, ¡°What is your rtionship with that ck mage? Why are you setting us up!¡±


    Sika removed the cudgel on her back and used it to block Saleen¡¯s front. Nailisi moved to hide behind Saleen instead.


    Sijia was awoken with a start. She stared at the soldier, stunned. Then she said, ¡°Ken, you are mad. Put down your weapon!¡±


    The soldier named Ken said angrily, ¡°Master, he is a spy. Quinn has died in battle. Those arrowheads¡­


    Quinn was dead?!


    Sijia was stupefied. Quinn had been a promising swordsman under her charge. In another three months, he would have be an intermediate swordsman. He had been the best in Chinese martial arts among her nine men. How could such a swordsman have been the first to die in battle?


    ¡°What was wrong with the arrowhead?¡± Saleen asked calmly, feeling uneasy.


    ¡°See for yourself!¡± Ken removed a quiver from his back and threw it across the room. Sika caught it and drew an arrow from it. She saw that the metal arrowhead had split. She flicked it with her finger, crack, and the arrowhead crumbled.


    Saleen understood at once. In order to speed things up and put all of his energy into catalyzing the array, Aini had used a Grade 5 magic nucleus to add the magic patterns onto the arrowheads. This was something that he, as a moronic mage without any magic chords, had not been able to control.


    If someone of mage apprentice standard could produce a hundred and eleven thousand arrowheads within a day, then what use would there be for alchemists?


    ¡°Ken, no need to panic. How many arrowheads need to be discarded?¡± Saleen had no reason to suspect Aini. There was no reason for Aini to associate with the ck mage. If he had done so, he would have caused him harm a long time ago.


    Sijia stood up and put on her armor as she spoke to Ken, ¡°Where is Lord Baron?¡±


    Since arge number of the arrowheads were to be discarded, the city walls would not be well-guarded. Saleen was not a spy, Sijia deduced. Otherwise, he could have easily killed her earlier. Once she had died, the four of them would have been able to control thisboratory. With the help of magic medicine, the castle could have been controlled from within, and the outside could have been destroyed with a single attack.


    Ken wanted to kill Aini immediately but Sijia did not give any orders. He could only wait for Aini and replied, ¡°The Lord had brought someone to the tower.¡±


    Sijia put on her helmet and turned around to tell Saleen, ¡°Mage Saleen, the tower is thest foothold of the castle. Will you go?¡±


    When Saleen heard that the city gate had been conquered, his heart turned ice cold. The tower was a dead man¡¯snd to defend, as there was no ce to retreat to. If he did not go, even if Sijia trusted him, the baron would not.


    Kill Sijia and escape? There were still tens of thousands of ck puppets outside.


    ¡°Aini?¡± Saleen called out softly.


    Aini¡¯s face had turned blood red, his illness getting more serious. He started to cough heavily. He put the magic medicine on the table into his leather sack, looked at Ken coldly, and said, ¡°I am going to the tower. This was only an ident. If there is a need, I will die with you.¡±


    ¡°Okay. I will go too.¡± Saleen indicated for Sijia to lead the way while he followed carefully behind Sika, not letting Kene close. He had just lost a brother and might not have been mentally stable. Saleen did not want to die a wronged death.


    Aini walked in front with an icy smile, ignoring Ken¡¯s ferocious re.


    This had been his mistake. Once the castle was broken into, everyone would die. Why would he care anymore?


    Nailisi sensed that something was amiss and whispered from behind Saleen, ¡°Master, are the enemies here? How about we escape?¡± For Nailisi, escaping from demons was amon urrence. If there was a chance of running away, it was preferrable over going to battle.


    ¡°If it is a must, then you can run off on your own,¡± Saleen did not agree to Nailisi¡¯s request. If he ran away and there were survivors in the castle, he would be suspected of having been a spy sent by the ck mage. Then, no one would listen to his exnation. Where could he escape to now anyway?


    He could not return to Sikeqinya, and the Tanggsi Empire was the home of the Holy See. Could he go to the Cloudflow Empire? The Cloudflow Empire had previously been the Fourth Dynasty, which ck mages had hated the most. If he went there, the ending would not be positive anyway.


    Ken suddenly drew the dagger from his waist and held it against Aini¡¯s neck. Aini continued to smile icily, taking long strides as he walked towards the tower.


    Nailisi put on a frown as she followed behind Saleen. If she had been able to run away, she would have. She had a soul bond with Saleen. If Saleen were killed, she would have an even more miserable ending. To demons, death was not the end.


    There was a spatial corridor between theboratory and the tower, so there was no need to go by ground. Looking down from the wide stone bridge, the scarecrows had already entered the swamps and were moving towards the tower.


    A total of four spatial corridors could ess the tower. If there had been sufficient soldiers inside of the castle, there would have been less of a hurry to enter the tower. Surrounding the tower were four huge buildings which could be used against intruders. However, given the severe shortage of soldiers, they could only concentrate their forces and use the tower as theirst line of defense.


    The ground level entrance of the tower had already been sealed shut by the metal gate. If the scarecrows wanted to attack, they would need to climb up the inside of the four buildings and cross the stone bridge to enter the tower.


    At the end of the stone bridge was a tform, and on it were the alchemy crossbows. Four alchemy crossbows were turned and aimed at the stone bridge. Whoever wanted to cross the stone bridge would have to pay a hefty price for doing so.


    Upon entering the tower, Saleen saw that Baron Cook¡¯s body was covered with blood. He was seated on the ground, surrounded by a group of soldiers, and evidently injured.


    There were not many soldiers left in the tower. Probably less than a hundred of them remained since arge number of them had surely fallen at the city wall. menco¡¯s Nut Mercenary regiment was short two people. He and four of the mercenaries who were using eight-faceted swords had been protecting the baron as well. They would lose their lives if the baron were to die.


    In reality, it was thanks to the habits formed from their training that they had held up. As long as Baron Cook was not dead, these soldiers would feel that there was still hope.


    Upon entering the tower, Ken gave the back of Aini¡¯s waist a kick. As Aini fell to the ground, without hesitation, Saleen deployed a previously prepared spell ¨C Frost Array.


    Ken was frozen to the ground. He struggled, but since he had already exhausted his sword aura, he had shockingly low defenses against even a Grade 1 spell. This move by Saleen had shocked the soldiers next to Baron Cook. They raised their weapons and were about to dash over.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Saleen yelled. He told Baron Cook coldly, ¡°Baron, we are not criminals. By doing this, are your soldiers belittling the dignity of a mage?¡±


    There was none of Saleen¡¯s former amicable demeanor left, as he knew that if he did not suppress the situation, he and his people could be prisoners. It was possible that Baron Cook did not care whether he was a spy so long as he could increase morale among his men. Only if he stayed tough could he reverse the situation.


    As he spoke, a white light emerged from his hands, stimting the three spells on his robe ¨C Invisible Shield, Potency spell and Fire Ring of Resistance. The magic nuclei in the iy of his belt were now Grade 5, which were sufficient for him to call upon thunder.


    At this time, Sika struck the ground with the cudgel in her hand. With a booming sound, the dust from the ceiling fell as the ground cracked.


    Sijia frowned and Baron Cook was silent. Saleen suddenly smiled and said to Ken who was still under the Frost Array spell, ¡°Do you know how foolish you are? None of you will be able to live without me. Do you think you can defend the tower and will manage to wait for reinforcements?¡± Ken red at Saleen in anger. Ignoring him, Saleen continued, ¡°A grown man can only survive seven days without water. During battle, one perspires and blood coagtes, speeding up death. If I were a spy, I would have need not followed you here. You would die trapped in here in no time.¡±


    Upon hearing Saleen, the expressions on the faces of the previously zealous soldiers changed as they put down their weapons. Saleen was a mage and could produce water. It had been said that mages could even produce food. If they killed Saleen, there would be nothing to eat in the tower.


    ¡°Even more foolish was that you kicked someone from the Clyde n. If you had killed him and word got out, your entire family would have been wiped out. If my guess is not wrong, would your home be in the imperial capital?¡±


    Ken looked at Saleen stubbornly. He was unable to speak and was using thest bit of his sword aura to resist the freezing effects of the Frost Array.


    ¡°Or perhaps the baron would have helped you conceal the secret, although I don¡¯t think the Nut Mercenary regiment would have needed to offend the Clyde n over a soldier like you? Unless you n on killing everyone to shut them up?¡±


    If Ken had not been frozen, he would have been sweating. Saleen had finally said the most important point, which was that he could not possibly have killed everyone there, and could therefore not kill Aini. If he had killed Aini, he would not only have lost his life, but also caused his family to suffer.


    ¡°Even more foolish was that you believed this was the end. Is this hopeless? Are you giving up? To think that it was no big deal offending a small mage like me?¡± Saleen spoke aggressively as he looked at Baron Cook.


    Baron Cook remained silent, and Saleen said coldly, ¡°I am a mage. Even if I were to die here, I could make sure you get your just desserts. Baron, if you do not trust me, you had best make your move now. If you let me make my move first, then you will be the most foolish one.¡±


    Sika had drawn her boomerang with her other hand. As soon as Saleen gave the order, she would chop off someone¡¯s head for the baron to understand that Saleen was not to be trifled with. She could not be bothered to understand what Saleen and the baron were speaking about, but it could not have been anything good given the tension and drawn swords.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Baron Cook asked inly with no expression. He had wanted to control Saleen into helping him escape, but now it appeared that the little mage was too smart and had dared to challenge him. Under such circumstances, it would do him no good to fall out with him.


    ¡°I only wanted to ask, Lord Baron, had you nned on silencing me?¡±


    ¡°Silence? Mage Saleen, you must be kidding.¡± Baron Cook suppressed the impulse in his heart. This little mage did not understand the severity of the matter, and if he continued to force his hand, he would have no way of getting out of this predicament.


    Saleen took two steps forward and helped Aini up, saying, ¡°Aini is a descendent of the Clyde n. Even if he had done something wrong, he should not have been dealt with by outsiders. Baron Cook, did you think he was someone of no importance?¡±

 Chapter 65: A Mage’s Dignity (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 65: A Mage¡¯s Dignity (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Baron Cook¡¯s face suddenly changed as he looked at menco. menco nodded his head slowly. He had a vague understanding of Aini¡¯s background. Saleen was not lying. The Clyde n would not stand for any harassment from outsiders.


    ¡°I do not care how you want to manage your soldiers, but I cannot tolerate anybody challenging the dignity of mages before me. Aini is a mage, and in my country, there is only one oue for humiliating a mage,¡± Saleen said, remembering the scene when Jason had saved him from the dungeon. A murderous look shed in his eyes.


    Aini lifted his head and smiled sarcastically, saying, ¡°Saleen, I have not done wrong in having you as my friend. menco, I have employed you. Now that someone wants to kill me, what do you intend to do?¡±


    menco looked unusually embarrassed. He looked at Baron Cook, whose expression was stiff as he also did not know how to handle this matter. To kill Ken? What would the soldiers think? Kill Aini? Saleen was obviously not easy to persuade. That female Caucasus warrior with him was very intimidating. If he made any moves, the people around him would suffer.


    ¡°Baron Cook is also my friend,¡± menco said with much difficulty.


    The mocking look on Aini¡¯s face deepened. He said coldly, ¡°Great, so the contract between us is useless. I hope that you do not regret it, as it is not a good thing to go against a contract with a mage.¡±


    Saleen was filled with resentment. Aini had been too harsh with his statement. Originally, menco¡¯s people could have been won over. Wouldn¡¯t saying that push the Nut Mercenary regiment towards Baron Cook?


    menco let out a legitimately loudugh and said, ¡°Alright, so what? I am willing to ept the punishment for breaking the contract. I will never go against Baron Cook.¡± He had now secretly formed a murderous n to go all in and kill everyone here. Would any of the soldiers dare reveal anything?


    Just as he said that, a red light shed on everyone in the Nut Mercenary regiment. Then, a magic pattern appeared on each of their foreheads. This red pattern was very small and looked as though fine threads were seeping into their skin.


    Aini wiped off the bloodstains on the side of his mouth and said happily, ¡°menco, you are the one willing to ept the punishment for breaking the contract. I did not force it on you.¡±


    As he said that, he pointed with his finger, and the red magic pattern on menco¡¯s forehead suddenly became extremely vivid. menco gave a loud, painful groan, dropped the heavy sword in his hand, and fell to the ground tossing about continuously as he clutched his head.


    As Aini used his finger to touch each mercenary gently, the magic patterns on the foreheads of the mercenaries became eerie-looking, as though prating their brains. Instantly, the five of them tumbled onto the ground.


    Because the scene was so sinister, none of the surrounding soldiers around them dared to make any moves. Aini, who was a mage apprentice, could already control the five swordsmen of the Nut Mercenary regiment.


    ¡°Contract magic?¡± Saleen said softly without much suspicion. Agreement magic was considered an unpopr magic, and the soul bond between him and Nailisi was also a form of it. However, those like Aini¡¯s were definitely rare.


    It was actually possible for amon employment contract to be turned into contract magic. The Clyde n was not to be underestimated.


    He had been staring throughout and had not even noticed when Aini had made the alterations. It was no wonder that Aini had entrusted his safety to these mercenaries. Even if this matter had note up, should the people of the Nut Mercenary regiment have harbored any bad intentions during the journey, they would have probably been killed by Aini.


    Aini waved to menco. menco stood up involuntarily. While his head no longer hurt, the fear he held in his heart was bing increasingly uncontroble.


    Aini coughed a few times, looked at menco, and asked, ¡°Now do you understand the price you must pay for going against the contract?¡± menco nodded his head. Aini smiled and said, ¡°Now, let me ask you. Lord Baron is thinking about killing me. What do you intend to do?¡±


    The magic pattern on menco¡¯s forehead had spread out, and even both of his eyes now showed red veins. He answered in a coarse voice, ¡°Kill him.¡±


    ¡°Then go ahead,¡± Aini said. He retrieved a metal cube from the leather bag on his back and twisted it with his hands. It became a weapon in the blink of an eye. The four mercenaries who had fallen onto the ground climbed up, lifted their eight-faceted Qin swords, and charged at Baron Cook.


    Saleen was stunned. Although he had been aggressive, it had only been to take control of the situation. He had only wanted to reach an agreement that Baron Cook wasfortable with. Since this fight had started, they were heading towards the point of no return.


    Sijia hesitated for a moment, then drew her sword, nning to go around Saleen to attack Aini. Because the distance between her and Saleen was so close, Sika did not bother with what Sijia was thinking. As long as she wanted to get close to Saleen, she would need to get through her first. As Sika¡¯s cudgel struck right away, it brought along the sound of a ghost howling.


    With the few days of rest coupled with the healing from Saleen¡¯s restorative water, she had finally fully recovered from her injuries. Aside from the loss of her magic beast soul, she had almost fully recovered her battle power. Sijia tried to raise her sword to block, but Sika¡¯s strength was too strong and she dropped her sword. The boomerang in Sika¡¯s left hand took advantage of this and went straight for Sijia¡¯s throat.


    The weapon in Aini¡¯s hand was extremely peculiar. It looked like a staff, but had four edges at both ends. It was hollow, and had magic patterns all over it. The middle part resembled the rapier used in a sword for chopping horses; it was slender, smooth, and just right to hold. This weapon was twirling in his hand while the hollow parts at the two ends began to spurt out fire.


    He walked in front of Ken, looked into his eyes, and said, ¡°If I do not die here, I will let your family off.¡±


    As he said that, Aini¡¯s weapon swept over and smashed into Ken¡¯s neck. mes spurted out from the hollow parts of the four-edged metal. Ken was suddenly rooted to the ground, his whole head engulfed in mes.


    Saleen felt a chill over Aini¡¯s strong murderous intent.


    The situation was out of control. The eyes of the people from the Nut Mercenary regiment were bloodshot. Under Aini¡¯s directions, they charged at Baron Cook. Baron Cook was very regretful now. He had never thought that a Grade 1 mage and a mage apprentice would cause such serious trouble.


    It was no wonder that before his death, his father had reminded him repeatedly to never offend any mages. If he made it out of here alive, Baron Cook would definitely pass down this advice to his son. However, the people of the Nut Mercenary regiment were already charging at him, and there was no soldier of swordsman rank protecting him. Swords crossed, and suddenly, more than ten soldiers were lying in a pool of blood.


    Sijia¡¯s long sword had been knocked away by Sika. With a leap, Sika¡¯s boomerang flew out of her hand, the sharp de eyeing Sijia¡¯s throat as though it would not give up until she had chopped off her head.


    Saleen had already killed before, and knew that this was a fact he could not overrule. Aini had the backing of his n, and was not afraid of Baron Cook. Saleen, however, was alone, and if he did not kill these people, he would be in big trouble in the future.


    At this time, the scarecrows had already climbed up the surrounding buildings and were charging towards the tower, passing the stone bridge. The soldiers on the tform were helpless, not knowing which side to deal with first.


    Saleen ruthlessly deployed the Fog of Confusion. The Fog of Confusion swiftly dispersed. The soldiers lost their targets, and could no longer stay calm. They dashed out of the tower in session.


    The fear was uncontroble when they could not see anything with both their eyes.


    It was just that even if they fled beyond the range of the Fog of Confusion, they would be killed by the scarecrows anyways.


    ¡°Aini,¡± Saleen whispered.


    ¡°I¡¯m here,¡± Aini answered steadily. The me of the weapon in his hand extinguished.


    ¡°Do not kill the baron yet. He surely knows the route to retreat.¡±


    ¡°It could only be below,¡± Aini said calmly. Both of them had powerful mental power and were perceptive in the Fog of Confusion. Furthermore, Saleen could treat the fog as a part of his body, aware of every happening within its range like the back of his hand.


    Baron Cook had already left the tower under the protection of his soldiers, and had retreated to the tform. It was foggy inside the tower, leaving only the people of the Nut Mercenary regiment, Saleen, and the others.


    Saleen sighed and grabbed Sika, who had been about to charge out. He said to Aini, ¡°Since you said so, you will be able to find a way out. Let¡¯s escape before the ck mage appears.¡±


    Saleen released the Fluorescence spell to illuminate their surroundings. Aside from the corpses in the tower, there was not a single soldier present. The spot in the center was a metal board leading downwards. Aini used his weapon to hack at the metal board a few times, mes shooting out. The metal board was very thick, and was locked from below. Saleen and Aini exchanged a nce, knowing that there may have been soldiers lying in ambush underneath.


    Sika watched Saleen deploy some magic to create a massive amount of acid which which to corrode the metal board. She cleverly picked up a round iron shield and stowed away the cudgel she always used. Picking up a sword de from the ground, she stood beside the metal board. She was waiting for it to be broken open, prepared to be the first to go down.


    Saleen signalled Sika to wait. He outstretched his hand to Aini and said, ¡°Pass me a poison pill.¡±


    Aini did not understand how Saleen had known that he had poison pills. Without bbering, he took out a waxed pill and passed it to Saleen. Saleen carefully examined the magic pattern on the waxed pill. It was amonly used magic pattern of detonation. Come to think of it, this was necessary because Aini had no magic chords, and thus naturally needed to make simple tools.


    The acid speedily corroded a big hole in the metal board. Saleen injected a little elemental energy into the poison pill and threw it into the hole. The quarter below surely housed Baron Cook¡¯s cronies. Nothing more needed to be said. Just poisoning them to death would do.


    There was a crisp sound of an explosion below, the poison pill exploded, and the poisonous fog dispersed. With the exception of grand swordmasters, nobody would have been able tost more than ten seconds in that enclosed environment.


    In less than ten seconds, Saleen could hear footsteps approaching the metal board from below. He moved aside while Sika came to the top of the metal board, listening carefully. Suddenly, the sword de in her hand was thrown into the corroded hole in a sh.


    Only a dull groan and the sound of metal cutting through bone were heard. This shot from Sika had immediately gotten rid of their enemies.


    Saleen did not hurry downwards despite the sounds of battle on the tform outside of tower bing unusually intense. He said calmly, ¡°Aini, are we friends?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Aini gave a definite answer.


    ¡°Then tell me. What, exactly, is below this?¡±

 Chapter 66: Out of Control (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 66: Out of Control (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even though Saleen did not know anything about alchemy architecture, he was an expert on the principles of magic. The surroundings of the tower obviously had not fit in with the architecture of the original castle. Even though there had been some attempts to make it appear old and some signs of corrosion due to magic, Saleen could still tell that these constructions had been builtter.


    The fourrge constructions that had been built at ater time had made the tower a fortress that was easy to defend and difficult to attack. There must have been some secret hidden within this tower.


    If Aini had dared to take action against Baron Cook, he must have known some things about what was happening below.


    ¡°Altar.¡± After saying this word, Aini started coughing violently.


    ¡°Is it dangerous?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Aini stopped coughing and said, ¡°I will have menco go down first.¡±


    The metal te had almost finished corroding. A soldier fell into the dense fog andnded beside Saleen. He wasn¡¯t moving and waspletely dead. menco waved his heavy sword and cut an entrance out of the metal te. Saleen released two Fluorescence spells to light the way ahead.


    Under the blueish green light, arge body was lying in the middle of the stairway, his head below and his legs above. A spear had pierced through his heartpletely, pinning him to the floor.


    With the Nut mercenaries in front, Aini walked in the middle while Saleen was at the back. After about ten meters, just as they were about to reach the bottom floor, Aini stopped.


    ¡°Saleen, the effect of the poisonous pill is still present.¡±


    Saleen hurriedly released a cleaning spell, a Grade 0 magic. Saleen usually used this to clean his body, but in reality this magic had not been created for showering or cleaning clothes, but rather to disperse poisonous gases. Just like the Grade 1 Fire Magic, Fire Washing spell, the cleaning spell was used as magic in daily life.


    The poisonous gases at the bottom floor were quickly removed by the cleaning spell. Aini was no longer surprised that Saleen¡¯s knowledge of magic surpassed his.


    This level was connected to the surface, but the road to the exit had been sealed shut by a metal gate, forming an enclosed space. There were a table and chairs in the room. Ainimanded menco to push aside the table and expose the metal te below. Complicated magic streaks appeared on the metal te.


    Magic lock? Saleen furrowed his brows.


    A magic lock was Grade 0 magic; however, its effect varied with the grade of the mage that casted it. This was the same as alchemy. Saleen saw Aini sprawled on the ground, studying the magic streaks. He felt a tinge of regret. If he had known Aini had such a character, seeking revenge for petty grievances, he wouldn¡¯t have insulted Aini at all.


    Now that he was in the same boat as Aini, it was toote. Since they had already offended the baron, it would be wise not to offend the Clyde family now.


    There was no way ahead and he wanted to turn back! Saleen thought of another magic saying.


    Saleen liked to be in control of the situation, and that was a must for any excellent mage. Aini, however, had let the situation spin out of control. A mage who knew how to shoot fireballs was not the best mage, nor was he the worst. The worst mage would make a mess of a situation. If Aini hadsted until Saleen had taken care of the situation, it would not have been toote for revenge.


    ¡°How much longer?¡± Saleen was a little anxious. He didn¡¯t know how long Baron Cook would be able tost up top.


    ¡°Luckily, it¡¯s a Baldur¡¯s Gate.¡± Aini smiled and took out a key, inserting it into the small hole at the center of the magic pattern. He lightly twisted the key and the magic pattern split from the center into three parts, revealing the entrance.


    ¡°menco, you¡¯ll wait here and kill anyone whoes close.¡± Aini instructed while letting the rest of the people from the Nut Mercenary enter the hole first. menco had entirely lost his will to fight back. Answering in a daze, he carried his heavy sword and faced the stairway leading to the top of the tower.


    Entering underground, a cold wind blew, carrying a smell of decay along with it. Saleen immediately cast a cleaning spell, trying his best to get rid of the foul air before casting two more Fluorescence spells to extend the radius of the glow.


    The stairway was wide and long. Saleen counted a thousand and four hundred steps before their group reached t ground.


    This was a natural underground cave, gloomy and wide. At the center of the cave was a four-sided altar.


    At the center was a stone tform that was one meter high. ck magic symbols were carved onto the stone tform. There were curved patterns in between these symbols that were etched deeply into the stone, forming a connected trough. Saleen could smell blood. Nailisi was even more sensitive and swallowed her saliva. It was almost as if she could see the offerings that had been ced on the tform in the past.


    ck mages loved to cut open people¡¯s blood vessels,ying them on that altar and letting the blood run dry. This blood would flow through the trough between the symbols into a magic array, and was part of the offerings.


    ¡°How do we leave?¡± Saleen surveyed the surroundings, not seeing another entryway.


    ¡°Provide the offerings and naturally there will be an exit,¡± Aini replied calmly. He was much more familiar with the Qin Empire¡¯s history than Saleen and was more knowledgeable when it came to the altars of ck mages.


    Offerings?


    Saleen¡¯s turned his attention to the four mercenaries, feeling a sense of despair for them. However, Saleen would not plead for the lives of these people. Baron Cook was more likely dead than alive by now, and once the scarecrows made their way in, he would not be able to survive either.


    Ainimanded the four mercenaries toy on the stone tform of the altar and took out a small knife. Turning his head suddenly, he asked Saleen, ¡°Do you think I am too cruel?¡±


    Saleen looked into the eyes of the four mercenaries. They hadn¡¯tpletely lost their minds and there was a sense of fear through their confusion. It was an attachment to life itself.


    ¡°Nobody is innocent in this world,¡± Saleen answered nonchntly.


    ¡°What if my offerings increase the power of the ck mage and call upon the devil?¡± Aini ran his fingers lightly along the mercenary¡¯s neck, finding his pulse. Under the light of the Fluorescence spell, his sickly face seemed slightly sinister.


    ¡°It sounds better than dying in here.¡± Saleen voice was stern. Aini was too cautious and was still testing his limits.


    ¡°Once the devil is called upon, misery will be bestowed upon all of us¡­¡±


    Aini¡¯s knife had a chilly gleam, pressing against the mercenary¡¯s neck. Aini nced at Saleen.


    ¡°Aini, if you¡¯re going to take so long to do this, we might not live to see that day.¡± Saleen looked into Aini¡¯s eyes. The sounds of a soldier¡¯s weapons shing could be heard even from here. menco is already fighting the enemy. I wonder if Baron Cook or the headless riders havee down.


    Saleen eyes were clear and cold, his heart free of struggles. He was no martyr, and even if the devil really was revived this time, Saleen had no intentions of giving up.


    Dying or escaping, this was not a problem. However, he had not dared to answer Aini¡¯s words directly, as he was not entirely sure of all the secrets of contract magic. Learning from the experiences of the Nut Mercenary had made Saleen more cautious.


    Aini smiled. The knife in his hand slit the artery of the mercenary. Fresh blood poured out into the trough, slowly umting onto a magic array on the stone tform. Aini¡¯s hands were unusually calm. One by one, he slit the throats of the mercenaries and threw the knife down in disgust. He had a sort of hatred deep down in his heart for ck magic. But for the sake of survival, he had no choice but to use fresh blood to open the doors of the altar.


    Fresh blood flowed increasingly into the stone trough. A dim light glowed from the magic array, covering the entire stone tform. A low metal machine sound was emitted and the stone tform split into two halves to expose a dark, gloomy hole.


    ck magic did not rely on the powers of elemental energy. Hence, when ck mages wreaked havoc, many alchemists were caught to service these ck mages. Even though most alchemists refused to work for them, many were more afraid of death and had helped create such mechanisms for the ck mages.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t seem too troublesome.¡± Aini acted rxed and held up his weapon, swinging it around twice. mes spewed out from the two hollow sides of his weapon and lit up the hole below.


    ording to the Book of Taboo, the passageway behind an altar was where a ck mage would enter and exit from. Those who believed in ck magic would use fresh blood to open the doors of darkness, and a ck mage would appear, giving these disciples magic powers.


    Hence, mages refused to ept that this was magic and were certain that it was a form of divinity.


    Suddenly, an intense vibration urred in the hole. The stone walls around them started shaking and cracks began to appearing on its smooth surface. Pieces of huge rocks fell apart andnded on the floor. These rocks grew hands and legs and began to crawl up, slowly forming a stone figure.


    ¡°Run, it¡¯s a golem!¡± Saleen shouted. Aini did not dare stay any longer. No matter how dangerous the tunnel was, it was safer than staying here with the golems.


    Aini ran into the tunnel with Sika following right behind, separating Aini and Saleen. She felt that Aini was a dangerous person and even though he, like Saleen, was a low-grade mage and had no magic chords, Sika did not drop her guard.


    Behind the short tunnel was a stone room. It was spotless without any sign of ruin. This was where a ck mage waited for the offerings of his disciples back in the days. Behind the stone room was another tunnel used for escape. The fact that ck mages did not understand the principles behind teleportation portals had allowed Saleen and the others to escape sessfully.


    The tunnel was dark, and under their feet came crackling noises. Saleen could not help but nce below and found the floor scattered with crushed bones. These bones did not give off any dim light and had evidently been processed by ck mages.


    ¡°Aini, why is there a road of bones here?¡± Saleen was not familiar with ck magic but roads of bones were infamous. It seemed as though this altar really could call upon the devil. Saleen started bracing himself. Why hadn¡¯t a ce like this been destroyed? Leaving it here was certainly a disaster.


    ¡°How would I know? It wasn¡¯t written in the books!¡± Aini¡¯s face was paler than before. The appearance of the road of bones had led to him losing his confidence.


    This setup was definitely a high-grade ck magic altar.


    There were many crossroads on the two sides of the road of bones. All of them led to a dead end and were used to hide soldiers. The four of them sped up and walked for over ten minutes beforeing to a huge cave. They must have left the radius of the castle.


    The weapon in Aini¡¯s hands spewed mes, lighting up the whole cave. As the wind blew, the mes fluttered. Everything in the cave could be seen clearly and even Sika¡¯s face changed color.


    In front of them were hundreds of headless riders, and in the middle of all the headless riders was an enormous beast. Unmoving, its pair of eyes reflected the light from the mes.

 Chapter 67: Out of Control (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 67: Out of Control (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen held his breath. His hands and feet were icy cold.


    Aini voice was trembling as he said softly, ¡°It¡¯s alright. They¡¯re dead.¡±


    Only then did Saleen notice that the beast¡¯s eyes were unmoving and nk. The headless riders did not have their war horses. They stood quietly, their heads not in sight.


    ¡°Aini¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s really alright. These headless riders require arge amount of fresh blood to be revived. Let¡¯s follow the wind to the exit.¡± Even though Aini said that, he was not that confident deep down. Mages believed in the truth, while all of his knowledge hade from books.


    Just as Aini finished speaking, a swishing sound could be heard from above, and what followed was the sound of flowing liquid. Everyone looked up just to see that the top of the cave was a chimney-like opening. The wind wasing in from there. The opening was very long, and almost as wide as two people. Since it was nightfall, there was no light shining in, and it seemed especially deep and gloomy.


    Arge amount of red liquid spewed down from the opening into the cave. Saleen could smell blood.


    ¡°It¡¯s a blood pond. Move!¡± Saleen lost hisposure again. The offerings at the altar had, in fact, activated an entire chain reaction in the cave. The blood pouring down from the blood pond would cause the headless riders to be revived in no time. As for the giant beast in the center, it was the legendary evil dragon.


    This was a simple set-up. If someone made an offering, it would mean that the ck mage had descended. The blood pond was activated and hence the headless riders would be revived. If this setup was everywhere, the Phoenix Duchy was in trouble.


    As the blood rained down, it seeped into the armor of the headless riders and a shrill noise emanated from within them, almost as if countless people were killing each other. Aini looked anxiously ay Nailisi.


    He thought that Nailisi was a Grade 6 mage, or at the very least a Grade 5 one. If she could fly to the cave¡¯s opening, a rope could allow everyone to escape.


    Nailisi ignored Aini. She grabbed Saleen and carried him on her back.


    ¡°Master, hold on tight,¡± Nailisi said as she jumped, cing both of her hands on the stone wall. She was barefooted and used both her hands and feet to climb upwards. Aini was shocked beyond words and he knew deep down that he had been wrong. A grand mage, even if imprisoned, would not have been a servant for anyone.


    Sika¡¯s movements were not slow either. She took out a pair of gloves from her bag and started climbing towards the opening with Nailisi.


    Nailisi was a demon and her fingers easily slipped into the crevices of the stone wall. At the parts where it was smoother, she was even able to slip her fingernails in. Sika was a Caucasus and since she had been young, she had learned how to climb such walls. Her gloves had also been specially made, and with Nailisi leading the way, she encountered no difficulties in climbing to the top. Only Aini was in trouble.


    Nailisi had been even faster than a lizard and her silhouette disappeared through the opening. Aini felt a sudden fear grip him and he started shouting, ¡°Saleen! Saleen!¡±


    Aini¡¯s shouting echoed throughout the cave. The evil dragon¡¯s eyes turned and faced him. Aini immediately stopped shouting. The evil dragon had not revivedpletely yet and could only feel the vibrations of the sound waves. If he were to continue shouting, it would only attract the remaining headless riders.


    Nailisi became faster and faster, the stone wall almost like the ground to her. Saleen felt as though he were riding on a horse. After a height of over twenty meters, Saleen saw a dozen magic arrays etched onto the stone wall. In the middle of the magic arrays was a ck hole, and blood was gushing out from there.


    It was not long before Nailisi brought Saleen out of the cave. The surroundings were wild grass, and as Saleen took it in, he realized he was on a mountaintop.


    There were not manyrge mountains in Phoenix Duchy and the peak of the mountains near them were only three hundred meters tall. As Saleen looked out over the view, Baron Cook¡¯s castle was far away. What shocked him was that the field had been lit up with fire torches all throughout.


    There were back-up troops counterattacking from the outside. ck mages had no need for fire torches and these fires must have meant that it was a human army. Saleen even heard an explosion. For the explosion to have travelled this far, it could not have been any ordinary fireball magic.


    This army had a high-grade mage!


    Saleen started cursing in his heart. Baron Cook had been bait, and the defense of the castle had merely been to lure the ck mage into attacking. This must have been the case for the empire¡¯s army to have reached them so quickly. He had been so dumb and finally understood where Baron Cook¡¯s courage hade from. The back-up soldiers would be arriving soon, hence why Baron Cook had been so staunchly righteous.


    He had offended Baron Cook and wondered if the baron had been killed by the headless riders. If he was not dead, would Saleen himself be in trouble?


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika crawled out of the hole. It was only then did Saleen realize that Aini had note up. He looked at the hole by his feet and started thinking.


    To save or not to save?


    Aini¡¯s motives had been horrifying but in the event that Baron Cook was still alive and Aini was dead, he would be the best scapegoat.


    Saleen clenched his teeth. He had already invested far too much on Aini. If he were to give up now, he would be being overly cautious.


    ¡°Sika, the rope.¡± Saleen said simply as Sika took out a rope from her bag, unravelled it, and threw it down. The rope was very long but it was not three hundred meters. Saleen took out his own rope and tied it onto Sika¡¯s rope.


    This was equipment for adventurers that Aini had prepared for Saleen and the others. A normal rope was around fifty meters, but Aini had been generous with his money and had given Saleen and Sika the best ropes in his shop. These ropes had been made from spider silk, and even though the knot was thinner than a finger, it could withstand the weight of ten people.


    It seemed that these things had all been fated. If Aini had given Saleen a normal rope, only Nailisi would have been able to save him, and if that was the case, Nailisi might have just unexpectedly eaten Aini up.


    Aini was dragged up in poor condition, his body full of bloodstains. He saw the fire torches from afar and was stunned.


    Most mages were intellectually gifted and Aini was the cream of the crop. He understood immediately that Baron Cook had been a bait.


    Saleen did not say anything to me Aini. He only gave a bitter smile and said, ¡°You understand too?¡±


    Aini clenched his fist, his face pale. He grit his teeth and said, ¡°I have gotten you into trouble. I will take responsibility for this.¡±


    ¡°Responsibility for what? Let¡¯s release the evil dragon. These back up troops might not be able to manage the situation. Also, there are the golems. If those golems regain their freedom, they might be as powerful as a headless rider.¡±


    Regret shed past Aini as he said, ¡°Since it has already been done, there is no point in regretting it.¡±


    ¡°We need to leave Phoenix now. If the ck magic gets out of control, the situation in the duchy will fester. There are so many ck puppets and there is no telling how many people have been killed by the ck mage. You and I, we can¡¯t take responsibility for this.¡±


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Enough. Take it that I was unlucky to have made a friend like you. The baron wanted you dead and I could not have done nothing. We could not have predicted what wasing afterwards, and now we can only hope for the baron¡¯s death to be more thorough or else we will be in trouble.¡±


    Saleen could not have been more grateful either. Now that things had progressed to this predicament, things had gotten ridiculous. He was really unlucky to encounter something bad wherever he went.


    He could only me himself for always wanting to win. Why had he needed to bet with Aini for no reason? If the arrows hade out perfect, the castle could have definitely held off a one day attack. They had just needed to get over that period. Once the reinforcements came, without the evil dragons and the ancient headless riders, defeating the ck puppets would not have been a problem. If that had been the case, he might even have been rewarded by the emperor.


    A true mage would not fight for a meaningless win. Saleen finally understood that saying. It was just too bad that the price he had paid this time was so great.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t worry. Even if Baron Cook hasn¡¯t died this time, I won¡¯t let him return to the Qin Empire alive.¡± Aini¡¯s eyes had a coldness to them as he announced Baron Cook¡¯s death penalty.


    ¡°That simple?¡± Saleen was not sure where Aini had gotten that confidence from.


    ¡°The Clyde family is loyal to the emperor and has ties with the upper house. Although Cook is in the same camp as the Clyde family, he has a weak foundation and the emperor would not risk offending the Clyde family for him. So long as he does not speak in front of the emperor, it will not matter if he is dead.¡±


    Saleen did not understand talk about politics. However, he understood that the Clyde family had much stronger forces backing them.


    ¡°Aini, is it a fortune or a misfortune to know you?¡±


    Ainiughed aloud and pped Saleen on the back, saying, ¡°If I can sessfully be a death mage, it will definitely be in your favor. I will return to my family¡¯s core and be in control of more resources.¡±


    Saleenughed. If Aini could adjust his mentality this quickly, he was definitely the descendant of a big family. His nature could not bepared to that of amoner.


    ¡°Hopefully. But for now, what is important is escaping. We do not have any horses.¡± Saleen raised a realistic question.


    Aini furrowed his brows. Taking out two scrolls from his bag, he said, ¡°I have two Windspeed scrolls with me, but we have four people¡­¡±


    He knew Saleen was a Grade 1 mage and could only cast Grade 2 magic at best. Someone else needed to run with only their legs.


    ¡°How far is the nearest town from here?¡± Saleen was overjoyed. Two scrolls would be enough. One for Sika, another for Aini, and as for himself, he would need to trouble Nailisi. There was a trend in this imp bing someone else¡¯s ride.


    ¡°Over a hundred kilometers.¡± Aini was not sure where Saleen¡¯s joy wasing from.


    ¡°Then we can leave.¡± Saleenughed as he let Sika secure the rope on a rock, the four of them gliding down the mountain top.


    In the distance, the castle started shaking as mes rose above the bright sky. Thousands of torches dimmed in color, and Saleen¡¯s heart stopped. He knew that it must have been the doing of the grand mage.


    He did not have much time to think about it. Saleen opened the scroll and focused on initiating the Windspeed spell, casting it on Aini. A scroll, which was one-off equipment, was something only a mage could use. Saleen could only use a Grade 2 scroll at best, and luckily, the Windspeed spell was Grade 2 magic. If not, he would not have been able to use it.


    He cast the second Windspeed spell on Sika. After doing so, he climbed onto Nailisi, and with a weird nce from Aini, rode towards the south.

 Chapter 68: The Headless Riders (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 68: The Headless Riders (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Grade 2 magic Windspeed spell was a very practical technique; it gave a very low-grade mage the ability to move quickly, as fast as a galloping stead.


    The Windspeed spell could be sustained for as long as an hour, and within this hour, the person with the Windspeed spell could run at a speed of sixty kilometers an hour.


    The best war horses could possibly run faster than this but would not be able to sustain the speed for so long. If they wanted to run at a constant speed, it would not be at this speed.


    What Aini could not tolerate was that Nailisi, who did not have Windspeed spell and was carrying Saleen on her back, was running ahead of him and Sika.


    Nailisi exposed her pale, slender calves, her crystal-like toes making faint marks on the ground. The explosive power from her muscles wasparable to that of a senior swordsman.


    The theory was the same. To run as fast as them, a senior swordsman would need to depend on the movement of the sword aura and could not sustain it for too long of a duration.


    The stiff wind blew onto Nailisi¡¯s face. It was pleasant to her. She thought she could go even faster, without any need for other demons to be chasing her.


    Usually, after a demon had deployed a high-level transformation skill, its power would decline. Nailisi had no such feeling. She even felt that after the transformation, her muscles had been continuously regted and had even produced more power.


    This was the effect upon thepletion of the transformation skill. Since the transformation skill was connected to a demon¡¯s pulse, could she have be of age already?


    Wide, boundless fields came into view as the four of them quickly left the battle area behind. The ancient castle was far behind them, and the sounds of killings and explosions could no longer be heard. Instead, they felt wind passing their ears and were under the moonlight, offering them a refreshing view.


    They did not suffer any ambush attacks along the way. The ck puppets seemed to have been focused on the attack of the castle. One hour passed quickly, and Nailisi slowed down and stopped. The Windspeed spell on Aini and Sika had disappeared.


    Saleen was too ill at ease to continue leaning on Nailisi¡¯s back, despite it beingfortable and helping conserve his energy. He jumped down and asked, ¡°Aini, how far away is the city?¡±


    Aini caught his breath and looked at the starry sky to determine their location. Although Nailisi had always run ahead, she had not swayed from their direction. He made a calction and then answered, ¡°About thirty kilometers. We have yet to walk along the main road.¡±


    Saleen was somewhat relieved. They were near the city and there would berger viges or even the manor of some nobleman. Saleen looked at the still panting Aini and asked, ¡°Can you go on?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Aini answered with grit teeth. Thirty kilometres, without the help of the Windspeed spell, would take six hours on foot. He also knew that it was not yet safe to take a rest.


    Because it was autumn, the dry weather of Phoenix Duchy helped reduce Aini¡¯s suffering. Otherwise, his sickly body would have copsed from fatigue after a few kilometers of walking on the muddy ground. After more than an hour, Saleen saw a manor.


    Under the moonlight, startling bloodstains could be seen on the manor¡¯s walls.


    ¡°Protect Aini,¡± Saleen ordered Sika. He quickened his footsteps as he walked towards the manor¡¯s main door with Nailisi.


    The mud, which had been soaked with blood, had turned a ckish purple. There was a stink in the air, but not one corpse could be seen. What was surprising was that there was not a single being, not even a housefly. Saleen squatted down and dug up a pile of mud, giving it a sniff. There was no life, only coagted blood in the mud. There was nothing to search for, not even the usual bugs.


    The ck mage had been here. Saleen stood up and retreated. He did not know if there would be an ambush in the manor. Aini saw Saleen retreat from the manor¡¯s main door, shaking his head. He knew that the situation did not look good. If the ck mage had caused a bloodbath here, what about the town not far from here?


    That town only had a poption of about ten thousand people. The ck puppets which had appeared at the castle had numbered around a hundred thousand. This meant that their range of activity had been greater than expected and had killed even more people. They were still quite a long way from the border of Phoenix Duchy. If they could not find horses to travel the distance for them, it would be difficult to move out of the ck mage¡¯s range of activity. It would be a challenge to find any life within the ck mage¡¯s range of activity.


    As he hesitated whether to enter the manor for a rest, the sound of hooves clopping some distance away could be heard. Turning his head to take a look, he saw five stallions galloping wildly on the road in the distance. The riders on the horses¡¯ backs were lying low and could not be seen clearly. Chasing behind these five horses were two headless riders on their horses, closing the distance between them. Those being chased were fatigued and were slowing down.


    ¡°Go into the manor,¡± Saleen saw the situation and did not offer aid. The headless riders were at the level of swordsmen at minimum, and as they usually carried out their attacks on war horses, he would not be able to defend against them using his magic shields. Besides that, Saleen did not know if those behind them possessed the power of the ck mage. If more headless riders were to appear on these vast ins, a dozen of them could easily wipe out a regr mage.


    Those escaping from the pursuit had seen Saleen and his party as well. As though they had seen hope, they kicked the horses¡¯ bellies more forcefully and got off the main road, charging towards the manor.


    The manor¡¯s door was wide open. Saleen had not asked Sika to close the door, so the riders entered the manor. The headless riders behind them were going to arrive soon.


    The wall surrounding the manor was made of stone even though it was not a militarized building. The main door was wide open, and beyond the door, there was no fortress meant for hiding. If the headless riders were to charge in, they could only retreat towards the back.


    Saleen was deep in concentration, his hands readying his spells. Sika stood by the door, awaiting the right time to swing her cudgel at the headless ridering through the door.


    The headless rider who was leading was holding a huge spiked club. He was ready to smash it down on Sika¡¯s head. This spiked club was full of metal spikes like the teeth of magic beasts. The entire club was made of metal and weighed more than a hundred kilograms. Inparison, the cudgel Sika that was holding was much smaller.


    On a battlefield with thousands of soldiers and horses, such an assault would have been fearsome, causing even heavy metal shields to fly off with a blow. The door of the manor had evidently not been wide enough, and without a double-barrel attack from another headless rider, Sika dodged the club¡¯s attack. Instead, her cudgel had hit the chest of the headless rider¡¯s horse.


    As the headless rider¡¯s horse was draped with thick heavy metal armor, this blow had bounced off upon impact with the horse. Sika had made half a turn at the same spot to avoid being hit.


    The five who had dashed into the manor appeared to be mercenaries. They jumped off of their horses and drew their long swords, blocking off the door. They were not apt at fighting on horses and knew the importance of guarding the main door. They knew they had to participate in this battle. They saw a young low-grade mage standing behind that female warrior. If the young mage also died, then they would have no chance of surviving.


    Before they could even make their moves, Saleen had already released his spells in session. The mercenaries stared with gaping mouths. They had battle experience, but had never seen a mage deploy so many spells consecutively. These spells seemed to have no breaks in between, and had instead been deployed at a rapid speed.


    Saleen had first deployed an Ice Ring spell. At the same instant when Sika¡¯s cudgel had hit the headless rider¡¯s horse, this Ice Ring spell had been put on over one of the horse¡¯s forelegs.


    Sika¡¯s blow did not cause any harm to the headless rider¡¯s horse but because her strength was quiterge, the horse had paused immediately. Saleen¡¯s Ice Ring spell had used this chance to urately lock onto his target.


    Saleen¡¯s Water Series magic had some mutated attributes, the most evident of which were their extended duratiosn. However, ice ring magic onlysted for one second. If the enemy did not move, it would not cause any harm. This was a useless spell. Who would stop midbattle to let someone put the ring on, and then continue on, so that the ice ring could cut them?


    Saleen was different from other mages. He could not learn many spells at this grade and had only been able to explore the uses of his spells topensate for his shortage in magic chords. In reality, now would have been the best time to release a Ground Magic spell. A rock spikes attack would have caused the headless rider to tumble onto the ground. Even the Swamp spell would have been a more powerful targeted spell. Saleen had instead chosen another method. He had made use of this one-tenth of a second toplete this useless spell. After the headless rider¡¯s pause, the war horse had charged forward and could not really stop.


    Only a Grade 3 spell would be able to make use of the offensive capabilities of the Ice Ring spell. One of the forelegs belonging to the headless rider¡¯s horse was cut off instantaneously. At the same time, four icicles urately shot through the headless rider¡¯s hands at the palms and wrists. The right hand holding the spiked club froze and became unusually weak. It could not withstand the weight of the spiked club and with a ¡°crack¡±, it broke off.


    The five mercenaries were extremely intelligent. For such small-scale battles, the battle power of mercenaries was no less than that of the Qin elite soldiers. They immediately dropped their long swords and drew their three-edged daggers to stab the headless rider¡¯s joints. The armor covering the joints was thinner, and since the three-edged daggers were designed to prate armor, the tendons at the headless rider¡¯s four limbs were cut. At the same time, Saleen¡¯s acid also spluttered on the headless rider¡¯s body.


    The other headless rider had wanted to bypass his fallenpatriot. Sika leaped up and bashed her cudgel onto the headless rider¡¯s neck. She did not know where the headless rider¡¯s weak spot was, but was trying to create an opportunity for Saleen. The headless rider who had fallen off his horse was struggling to retaliate, but his four limbs had been broken. The five mercenaries held on to their three-edged daggers tightly, preventing him from exerting any strength. They did not dare pull out their three-edged daggers, worried that the headless rider¡¯s joints would be able to restore themselves. The acid had already corroded the headless rider¡¯s heavy armor. Aini brought his peculiar weapon before the fallen headless rider and struck it down forcefully.


    His peculiar staff was hollow at its two squarish ends, and was spurting mes. If not for the acid having caused a hole, based on Aini¡¯s strength, he would not have been able to cause the headless rider any harm. It was different now. His weapon had gored into the headless rider¡¯s chest. With a pow, the me spurted fiercely into the wound. A pitiful sound emerged from within the headless rider¡¯s body as it twisted even more vigorously.

 Chapter 69: The Headless Riders (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 69: The Headless Riders (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini pulled out his weapon and swiftly retreated. On the chest of the headless rider, was an additional charred wound about half a foot wide. A ck water ball spurted out of the wound and exploded violently. It sttered on the bodies on all five mercenaries.


    Only now did the body of the headless rider stop struggling. The mercenaries who were spattered by the ck liquid saw darkness in their eyes and sank to the ground limply. This ck liquid was very poisonous, and it was toote to consume an antidote, if any existed.


    One of the mercenaries had obviously attained the level of swordmaster and possessed the sword aura. He did not faint immediately, but red angrily at Aini. If Aini had given a warning, he and hispatriots would definitely have had time to hide.


    Aini smiled coldly, ignoring the re of this mercenary. He lifted his weapon and approached the main door, preparing to find a chance to help Saleen. If these five mercenaries did not die, where would they get the horses from? Now it was much easier with four people and five horses. Nailisi did not even need to ride a horse. These five horses could be rotated among three of them, and were enough for them to journey through the day and night.


    Aini knew that Saleen was ruthless but not heartless. For matters that had already happened, Saleen could ept them readily. It was not like Saleen to kill people for horses. If Saleen had left him behind, it would have been easier for him to escape.


    The headless rider did not know what fear was. Hispatriot had been killed, and yet the second rider still waved his weapon and charged forward instead of retreating. Or rather, for the headless riders, death was also a cherished source of relief.


    In the hand of this headless rider was, however, a wide-ded battle axe. The crescent-shaped de was actually almost a meter long. Even a huge supreme demon could have been chopped into two. The difference between a battle axe and halbert was that the axe did not have a spear and could only be used for hacking. Sika leaped up high. The headless rider lifted his weapon, nning to cut Sika into two.


    This action had exposed his chest.


    After Saleen hadpleted hisst spell, he had used less than a second to prepare his ice arrows.


    This was the only Grade 2 spell he could deploy with speed. A white sh of light shot out of his hand, and fatally struck the chest of the headless rider.


    A loud dang resounded. The ice arrows pierced through the thick, heavy metal armor, but did not go through the body of the headless rider. They had stopped after prating more than half a foot. A violent howling sound came from within the headless rider¡¯s body. The hand slowed down and did not hit Sika¡¯s body. Instead, the huge battle axe met with Sika¡¯s cudgel.


    Sika could not hold back the force, and her entire body was knocked into the air. She continued to fly more than ten meters away before falling to the ground. She turned over and sat up. There was flesh blood in her mouth and nose. Her left hand drew her boomerang and cast it out.


    In reality, Sika had never practiced the sword aura and relied on her extraordinary innatebat ability. Now, without the supplementary help of her magic beast soul, herbat ability had dropped significantly. Otherwise, she would not have been so badly hurt by the headless rider¡¯s one strike.


    The energy contained in the headless rider¡¯s battle axe had been transferred onto her body and hurt her internal organs. Sika strenuously threw out her boomerang, but could no longer lift her cudgel.


    Saleen saw that his ice arrows had killed the headless rider and shouted loudly, ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Aini heard Saleen¡¯s loud shout, then realized that Nailisi had disappeared. As Saleen¡¯s voice cried out, a ck shadow appeared on the back of the headless rider. There was no knowing when Nailisi had actually gotten onto the headless rider¡¯s war horse.


    Nalise¡¯s slender limbs held onto the headless rider. She opened her mouth, and with all her might bit into the headless rider¡¯s shoulders.


    The headless rider continued to advance, and Saleen retreated. Sika¡¯s boomerang cut directly into the chest of the headless rider. The headless rider¡¯s chest had already been frozen and weakened. This was the damage that the ice arrows had created.


    Aini was astonished to see such a frightful scene. Nailisi stretched open her mouth. Those bright red sexy lips continued to expand, and finally turned into an enormous bloody mouth which bit into the full shoulders of the headless rider.


    The sound of metal splitting apart could be heard. The steel armor that had been clipped onto the headless rider¡¯s shoulders was bitten into by Nailisi¡¯s enormous mouth. Together with its shoulders, it was crudely snapped off.


    Aini had previously been envious of Saleen¡¯s fortune in love affairs. This particr scene, however,pletely petrified his mind. Just what had Nailisi evolved from?


    The headless rider was severely injured, but still charged forward. His weapon fell off along with his broken arm. His war horse, however, went on a rampage, and was charging directly at Saleen.


    Saleen retreated calmly, and as he retreated, he deployed his spell.


    Aini had been frightened by Nailisi and did not even notice that Saleen still possessed the residual energy from deploying a Grade 2 spell. Saleen deployed a Grade 1 spell ¨C Frost Array. This was a suppressing spell, and was not very effective where headless riders were concerned. It was not able to freeze the headless riders or their horses to the spot.


    The speed of his deployment had been too fast, and Saleen hadpletely exhausted his magic chords in an instant. However, he was still unable to stop the headless rider from heading towards him. Saleen felt as though he had a splitting headache as the magic chords in his body were nearly depleted. He desperately gathered thest bit of his magic chords. His magic chords were trembling as though they could no longer withstand any expenditure, and suddenly burst at their core.


    Saleen himself had not known that his remaining magic chords would allow him to deploy seven Grade 1 spells. Now, he had already continued by using twelve frost arrays.


    The ground of frost was behind the headless riders. The temperature within the walls of the yard decreased sharply.


    Nailisi saw that she could not bite the headless rider to death. Both of her hands swiftly curled inwards, grasping the open wound on the chest of the headless rider. The chest of the headless rider had first frozen by the ice arrows, then cut open by Sika¡¯s boomerang. Now there was a one foot long wound that could not be closed up.


    The ten fingers of Nailisi hooked tightly onto the two sides of the wound. Using all of her strength, she ripped open the chest of the headless rider. The bones in its chest slowly broke apart, revealing a ck heart. Nailisi used her hand to grip this heart, and forcefully gave it a pinch.


    The headless rider leaned backward with a thump, nning to knock Nailisi off of its war horse. Nailisi wrapped both of her legs around its waist, rendering it unable to exert any force. Nailisi¡¯s hand kneaded the headless rider¡¯s heart, tugging it with all her might. Atst, the ck heart which was being kneaded and tugged could not withstand the great damage, and broke into pieces with a snap.


    At this moment, the war horse of the headless rider also knocked into Saleen¡¯s body. The mage robe on Saleen shed with red light, and the Fire Ring of Resistance red up.


    Saleen was knocked aside, but not injured. The inside of his body was now undergoing an upheaval of changes.


    The shattered core of his magic chords had rebuilt and were beginning to grow quickly. Originally, these magic chords had possessed over twenty branches that had beenpletely exhausted. Now, the magic chords had not only rebuilt new branches, but had also grown more than forty longer subbranches. It was just that some of these magic chords were as thin as strands of hair, and Saleen could not make use of them in deploying magic.


    Saleen had never believed that mages could advance whilst in battle. However, such a matter had indeed happened to him. Not only had the subbranches of the magic chords increased, but the main branches had also be longer. If he used meditation to recover, these magic chords would be thicker than before. Then he would be able to use them to deploy Grade 2 magic.


    Saleen fell to the ground. The Invisible Shield and Potency spells on his mage robe were still functioning. He had only rolled once to stop his body¡¯s movement. He pressed on the ground with one hand and stood up.


    Saleen¡¯s body training and the pills he had taken daily had taken effect. Saleen¡¯s body was not weaker than a swordsman¡¯s, it was just that he could not practice the sword aura. His strength and bnce were much better than the average person¡¯s.


    A frail mage would not live long. Only when he could live long would he have the opportunity to advance to a higher rank.


    The headless rider¡¯s heart shattered. The ck liquid sttered and stained one of Nailisi¡¯s hands. Nailisi was not bothered by it, and casually pushed the body of the headless rider off of the war horse. The war horse reluctantly continued to charge forward, wanting to use its hooves to stomp on Saleen.


    Nailisi hugged the war horse¡¯s neck and used her might to twist it. The dull sound of bones breaking could be heard. The thick neck of the war horse had been broken by Nailisi with a snap, and the horse¡¯s head was twisted to the left and could not distinguish its direction anymore.


    Sika had seen everything and felt uneasy. Twisting a war horse¡¯s neck was something that she could do too. But to do it with such ease, and to twist it while the war horse wore armor, was definitely not something that she was capable of. This demon had formidable battle skills, and with her around, she would probably be of no use to Saleen.


    Nailisi jumped off of the war horse in midair and let it dash towards the manor.


    With a loud bang, the war horse crashed into a wall. It finally stopped moving forward and fell to the ground. The battle power of a headless rider¡¯s war horse was strong, but it was merely a living creature with the grade of a ck puppet. It normally relied on the protection of its armor as it dashed about. Now that its neck had been snapped off, it had lost its bnce and could no longer control its body.


    The manor was in a deep silence once again. Thest mercenary could not hold on any longer. The poison had attacked his heart as hey on the ground. Even upon death, he did not let go of the three-edged sword in his hand. Facing death, he finally understood that the morbid youth holding the magic weapon had wanted them to die, all because of their five horses.


    Nailisi vigorously ran over to Saleen and pulled at his sleeve. Her gentle gaze fraught with worry, she asked, ¡°Master, were you hurt?¡±


    Saleen shook off Nailisi¡¯s ck blood stained hand, feeling despair in his heart. If Nailisi had struck earlier, Sika would not have been hurt. He took the water pouch from his waist, came to Sika¡¯s side, removed the cover, and fed Sika a mouthful of the restorative water. Sika gave a small cough, spitting out a clot of ck blood.


    Saleen felt relieved that her internal injury had been dispelled. Based on Sika¡¯s body structure, she would likely recover very soon.


    Nailisi stood in her ce pitifully and nced at Aini. Aini shivered. Nailisi was bored and licked her lips before spitting out the rotten flesh stuck between her teeth. Then, she looked at the five corpses of the mercenaries.


    The bodies of the mercenaries were rotting at a speed that was perceivable by the naked eye. Even if they had not been rotten, she assumed that Master would not have let her eat them.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    Aini finally spoke up. He had killed the five mercenaries indirectly. This time around, it had purely been to rob them of their horses. Although he had feltpelled to do so, he was unsure if Saleen would develop ill-feelings towards him.


    Saleen helped Sika stand up, sighing as he said, ¡°I understand. The killing of people requires their beheading, and the cutting of grass, its uprooting. Even if they had not met us, these five people would not have lived anyways.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he nced at the corpses of the five mercenaries. The postures of the five were very simr. All of them were tightly clutching the handles of their three-edged daggers. He could not bear it, and said, ¡°Burn them all. Just in case the ck magic mage discovers them.¡±


    Death should happen on a clean te, without any concerns.

 Chapter 70: Bitter Water Prefecture (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 70: Bitter Water Prefecture (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini patiently burned the corpses of the five mercenaries. He quelled his magic weapon and stored it back into his bag.


    ¡°Saleen, we cannot stay here for long. The town up ahead isn¡¯t safe.¡± He was afraid that Saleen was not aware of the situation in the Qin Empire and the surrounding duchies and exined patiently, ¡°Even if the town has been destroyed by the ck mage, if we meet with the army, we might be forced to fight with them. We need to avoid everyone.¡±


    Saleen did not dare stay for long after hearing that. He took the five horses from the mercenaries and the four of them went on their way.


    Aini¡¯s body was not in good condition. It was lucky that he had been well trained in horsemanship since he was young, or else he might not have held on for long. The group of them did not dare take the main road. After hiding about and travelling for almost five days, they neared the borders of the Phoenix Duchy.


    There were only two roads from Phoenix to the Qin Empire. Looking at the city from afar, Aini stopped his horse.


    He jumped down from his horse and walked over to Saleen. Taking out a badge, he passed it to him. Saleen took it in his hands and observed it. The badge was silver and felt heavy in his hands, but was smaller than his badge.


    In the center of the badge was a lion totem, the symbol of the Clyde family. This silver symbol was only given to those who were blood descendants, and anyone with this silver badge could enter the core of the family and even be the next elder.


    Even though Aini had lost his magic chords and had no foreseeable future, his blood line could not be erased and his family had not confiscated the badge.


    Saleen was a little displeased. If Aini had taken out this badge earlier, the Baron might not have found it necessary to kill him.


    Ainiughed and said to Saleen, ¡°This badge is only a memento to me now. Once I be a death mage, the family will make a gold one for me. The badge has my alchemy imprint on it. Take it and go to Karen Prefecture. Everyone there knows my uncle¡¯s name, Rance. He will give you some magic medicine once he sees the alchemy imprint on the badge.¡±


    Saleen furrowed his brows and jumped down from his horse. Holding Aini back, he asked, ¡°With your body¡¯s condition, why not follow us?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t do. I have family in this city. I need to stay and prevent Baron Cook from returning to the Qin Empire. The three of you should ditch your horses and cross over the mountain range to avoid any trouble.¡±


    Saleen kept quiet for a while before heughed, putting away the badge that Aini had given him and taking out a gemstone. The gemstone was crystal clear and shone under the sunlight. The ck streaks inside the gemstone were like wisps of smog, making it seem as though the gemstone was lightly fluttering.


    He forced the gemstone into Aini¡¯s hands and patted his shoulders, saying, ¡°Take care.¡±


    Aini was a little dumbfounded. Watching Saleen and the others leave, he grasped the perfect ck crystal. Suddenly, a voice shouted in the direction that Saleen had left in, ¡°Saleen, after bing a grand mage, remember to find me¡­¡±


    Saleen heard Aini shouting. Without turning back, he only waved to him.


    If Aini had been older by another ten years, Saleen would never have gotten close to him. However, Aini¡¯s skinny body and sickly face reminded him of his childhood. The two of them were so simr.


    Crossing over ten mountains, Saleen and the others arrived at the Qin Empire. The town bordering with Phoenix was small, but the Qin Empire had stationed arge number of soldiers here. It was not that the emperor did not trust the grand duke of Phoenix, but these army corps had been left behind since the founding of the empire and their main purpose was to prevent the ck mages from reviving.


    This city was huge. Since leaving Sikeqinya, it was the first time that Saleen had seen such a majestic city gate.


    Looking at it from afar, the city gate shone with a bronze purplish color. The top of it wasid with seven colored ss. Saleen was shocked, but there was a reason they had spent so much on it. Seven colored ss was an alchemy item, andying the entire city gate with it would prevent any mage that was below the grade of a sorcerer from being able to use a magic lock.


    The city wall was ten over meters high and had been built entirely withrge green steel bricks. Under the setting sun, they shone brightly, To keep them from getting corroded, they were constantly being washed.


    As they walked closer, Saleen could feel the intense pressureing from the city walls. There was definitely a magic array within these castle walls. There were not any magic nuclei iid within them, or else they would have immediately activated the defense magic of Saleen¡¯s mage robe.


    Being so grand in scale, even hundreds of thousands of ck puppets would not have been able to do anything.


    Saleen suddenly understood why the Qin Empire had dared to oppose the Holy See, and not allowed the Holy See to build any churches within its borders. Even pastors would not dare enter the empire.


    The insides of the magic empire ran far too deep, and even a city was this terrifying.


    It seemed like the disaster in the Phoenix Duchy had not spread to the empire, and the grand duke of Phoenix had the situation under control. The city here was still open, although there were more soldiers patrolling on top of the city wall.


    If the grand duke of Phoenix had not asked for the emperor¡¯s assistance, the Qin Empire would not have sent so many soldiers to the border.


    At the city gate were soldiers on the lookout for people doing business, but it was fairly quiet now since not many merchants were willing to take such risks. On the other hand however, there were quite a few mercenaries.


    Being a mage allowed Saleen to sessfully enter the city. The soldiers waived his tax for entering the city and merely took a nce at his badge. The soldiers at the city gate were all dressed in intricate armour, and held Qin Empire eight-sided swords. Saleen felt grateful at this sight. Inparison, the soldiers in Ceylon City had been piles of dog shit.


    Guderian City. Saleen memorized the name. This was likely someone¡¯s name. A city that was named after someone was amon thing in the maind. This person must have been a hero of his time who had contributed much to the history books.


    Saleen did not intend to stay in Guderian. He went straight to the professional union and hired ten mercenaries, even renting a carriage this time. They did not even stop to rest, passing through the city and leaving the border as quickly as they could.


    The carriage was big and the price had not been cheap.


    Saleenid on thefortable chair. Sitting opposite to him were Nailisi and Sika.


    ¡°Nailisi, how is your studying of themonnguage going?¡±


    ¡°Master, I have no time to study.¡± Nailisi held the book Saleen had given her. There were pronunciations scribbled all over it. Sika held onto her cudgel tightly, nearly falling asleep. The carriage was oddly stable and had likely been fitted with some parts made by an alchemist.


    ¡°I will give you three months to lean it. If not, you are not to speak in the future.¡± Saleen was not giving her any chances. When they had been fighting the headless riders, Nailisi had beenzy and had almost gotten Sika killed.


    ¡°Yes, Master,¡± Nailisi scrunched her face up and replied. Saleen felt a tinge of regret. If only the imp had matured, then he could have used memory magic on her and they would not have needed to expend so much effort. However, it seemed that Nailisi was still far from maturing. Who knew what being imprisoned for tens of thousands of years had done to her?


    There was peace within the empire, and after travelling for over two months, the group had not met any bandits. The mercenaries that Saleen had hired were professional and hardly talked to their employer. They were dutiful in protecting the carriage, and even while resting in the big cities, they were fully alert.


    In those two months, Saleen had been cautious about everything and had not dared to use the badge to train. The secretive badge could increase his focus; however, he would lose control of his body after using it and Saleen did not dare trust the mercenariespletely. Sika had been nursed back to perfect condition and was getting fidgety from being kept in the carriage all day.


    On this day, just as they were waking up, a mercenary knocked on the window of the carriage. He said in a low voice, ¡°Sir, we have reached Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    Saleen opened the windows. The sun outside was shining brightly, but it was still a little chilly. It was nearing winter, and since this was around the central part of the empire, it was about to snow.


    ¡°We are early by nine days. Let¡¯s make it ten,¡± Saleenughed.


    ¡°Thank you, sir.¡± The mercenary was extremely polite.


    ¡°Why? Will you not follow us into the city?¡±


    ¡°Nope. It is hard to take up any missions here and we would have to pay taxes to enter. Sir, it is safe from here. We will¡­¡±


    Saleen knew that these mercenaries had no intentions of entering the Bitter Water Prefecture. He jumped down from the carriage and raised his head. From afar, an old and solemn city loomed ahead.


    ¡°My brother, let me ask you something. If I wanted to meet the viscountess, what would I need to do?¡± Saleen did not want to force the mercenaries to do anything if they did not want to enter the city. It would have been just few minutes ride away anyway.


    ¡°You¡¯re a mage. You can just enter.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, take this.¡± Saleen took out a check from the Sikeqinya Bank and said, ¡°I have nothing else on me. You can take this.¡±


    It was a check for a hundred gold coins. If exchanged in the Qin Empire, it would be worth ny gold coins. Even though the loss was rtively huge, the two parties had agreed on a price of fifty gold coins and there were an extra forty. Saleen had promised the mercenaries before hiring them that for each day they were early, he would increase the reward by four gold coins. The ten mercenaries had worked for less than three months and could get nine gold coins each. For a low-grade mercenary, it was a fairly sizeable ie. Moreover, there was peace within the empire¡¯s borders and an escorting mission such as this one was easiest. Even if there were any secret bandit gangs, they would not have targeted a party like them anyways.


    The mercenary dly epted the gold coins while Saleen and the others walked towards the city.


    This city was strange. Having been built against a mountain, it was a dangerous ce. If an assault were to take ce, capturing the front would be enough to trap everyone in the city. Of course, it was easier to defend the city, and a quarter of a typical army¡¯s strength would be enough to defend against the enemy¡¯s attack.


    What was even stranger was that the castle walls had not been built with bricks. They were vertical and the surfaces were shiny like a mirror, without any cracks to be seen. There were no battlements at the castle top either, beingpletely t.


    The city gate, however, had been constructed beautifully. The wooden door opened towards the inside and the patterns on the door had been corroded with magic. However, a door like this could be easily smashed apart with a battering ram.


    Saleen and the others had walked into the city with their heads held high when a thick arm stopped them from advancing. A thunder-like sound boomed.


    ¡°Hey, mage, pay your taxes!¡±

 Chapter 71: Bitter Water Prefecture (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 71: Bitter Water Prefecture (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Taxes?¡± Saleen was shocked. Since putting on a mage¡¯s robe, he had not needed to pay any taxes when entering a city.


    ¡°Of course. The three of you together are even bigger than me, so of course you will all need to pay taxes.¡±


    Saleen observed this soldier carefully. He was not very tall, yet he was strong. He was not wearing any metal armor, and the leather armour on him had been stretched to its limit. He was growing a moustache on his face. His eyebrows were long too, causing him to look like an ape.


    ¡°How much?¡± Saleen did not fight back. He had to follow the rules while on other people¡¯snd. So long as others needed to pay too, he would not care even if it was thirty or fifty gold coins.


    ¡°You¡¯re a mage, that makes for double the taxes. One silver coin. The other two add up to another silver coin.¡±


    Saleen was very sensitive when it came to money. A silver coin was a lot to him and in many other cities, they would only charge such high taxes for a carriage. It would be one or two bronze coins at most for a group of people.


    Was this viscountess stupid? She was actually charging such high taxes to enter the city. No wonder the mercenaries had not wanted toe near the city. How did they do business like this?


    Saleen had no silver coins on him, only gold coins. He took one out and passed it to the soldier.


    The soldier threw the gold coin into a box and waved, saying, ¡°Go, go.¡±


    Saleen looked at the box, not saying a word. A gold coin was equivalent to ten silver coins. He had been cheated of eight silver coins. Instead of arguing with the soldier, it would be better to use the time to meet with that idiot viscountess.


    He had not even gone after the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus. What were these few silver coins to him?


    ¡°May I ask the way to the Viscountess¡¯ residence?¡± Saleen smiled to show his friendly intentions.


    After putting away the money, the soldier had be friendly. Using his fingers to point out the way, he said, ¡°Walk ten streets down from here and make a right turn. Then walk another two streets before turning left, and you will be able to see it.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡± Saleen nodded his head. Dragging Sika and Nailisi with him, they departed from the city gate.


    Sika and Nailisi had been forced by Saleen to learn the Qinnguage in the past two months. Nailisi had to learn themonnguage as well. By now, both Sika and Nailisi had made huge progress, and Sika could speak while Nailisi could write.


    ¡°Saleen, it seems like we have been cheated of eight silver coins,¡± Sika said, unsatisfied. When she had first left her vige, she had barely had any silver coins on her. Now that entering the city had led them to losing so many silver coins, she could not help but feel stingy.


    Nailisi stuttered and said, ¡°Ma¡­Master, n¡­n¡­no, let me g¡­g¡­go bite him.¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡± Saleen was infuriated. Even though there were not many people on the streets, those walking past would be able to hear what Nailisi was saying. If her words caused any trouble, he would not know how to handle it either.


    Bitter Water Prefecture was very sinister looking. The streets were spotless and the people around seemed to be very carefree, dressing elegantly. The houses on the two sides of the street were simple looking yet had a lingering charm to them. If one stopped to observe, they would notice the magic decorations on most of the houses.


    This ce was as quiet as a vige, yet as luxurious as a wealthy person¡¯s castle.


    As they walked further along, Saleen became even more shocked. There were so many mages along the way. Even though they were all white-robed mages, he found it hard to believe.


    In Sikeqinya, only flourishing cities had mages. Back in Saleen¡¯s hometown, a magic disciple would have been impressive. The mages here were as numerous as flies.


    It was not only mages, but there were many swordsmen too. These swordsmen were obviously not mercenaries, as all of them were in long robes, a Qin Empire eight-sided sword at their waist. They had smug expressions on their faces, not showing any humility to the mages.


    Saleen loved cities for their bustle and prosperity. They made his heart feel full, and among the crowd, any loneliness would be washed away. However, in Bitter Water Prefecture, he could not feel any city vibes.


    The whole ce was neat and everyone hardly made any noise. It was eerily quiet.


    The roads were long and only after several kilometers did Saleen and the others reach the end of ten streets. Turning right, the streets became even quieter with hardly anyone in sight. The two sides of the road had growing trees that were big and upright, their leaves lush. The sunlight was almostpletely blocked out, and the stone road beneath their feet felt almost cold under the shade of the trees.


    A carriage came towards them. The hoof noises were hurried and it was moving very fast. As it drew close to Saleen and the others, the golden bell on the outside of the carriage rang, producing a crystal-clear sound.


    In that instant, Saleen understood what it was that made him so ufortable. This city was beautiful and every detail was captivating, but it was unbearably proud. This pride was not directed at anyone, and it did not bother itself with who anyone was.


    This pride was like the sound of the bell from the carriage. It had no intentions of being high and mighty, and yet pricked at Saleen¡¯s inferiority that he had tried so hard to hide.


    The roads were wide and the carriage could not possibly have bumped into Saleen. However, he unconsciously stepped aside.


    The carriage driver was d in an ancient cotton robe. He cocked his head slightly, seeming to thank Saleen. Saleen looked away, slightly miffed. You¡¯re just a driver. Is there a need to dress so obnoxiously? Viscount Gugger couldn¡¯t even have beared to wear an ancient cotton robe like that. Damn it, the Qin people must have too much money to spend.


    However, Saleen had money too. He touched the Ring of Gifts on his hand. There were still a pile of rare gemstones in the ring. This thought made him feel more at peace.


    Walking two streets and looking to the left, the Viscountess¡¯ residence could be seen from afar. There were no other buildings nearby.


    Nailisi expression had been rxed until she saw the building. Her expression immediately stiffened. The building gave her the same feeling as the prison that had imprisoned her for tens of thousands of years. Once she entered, it was possible that nothing would remain in her control.


    The entire residence had been modelled in the style of the Fourth Dynasty, mostly being made out of bricks and ss with high walls surrounding the house. Tiles with diamond shaped holes in them lined the top of the wall. The front door was shut and there was only a side door opened about a hundred meters to the right. The fallen leaves on the stairway were left untouched while the stone statue outside had been corroded over time, the original patterns lost.


    It was precisely this antiqueness that could not be bought with money.


    There were no guards at the door, which was something different from Sikeqinya. Every wealthy person in Sikeqinya could not wait to station thousands of troops at the doors of their ce of residence to disy their might.


    After entering from the stairs, to the left of the door was a sentry room. Saleen and the others had barely stepped through the door when a voice inside said, ¡°Who is it?¡±


    Saleen was confused. This was a viscountess¡¯ residence. Why was the sentry so rxed?


    Saleen was still unsure of the rankings of the wealthy throughout the country. The Viscountess in the Qin Empire could only have been the Emperor¡¯s daughter. After bing a viscountess, she had possessed a simr rank to a marquis. Any taxes collected within a radius of a hundred kilometers of the Bitter Water Prefecture belonged solely to the Viscountess, and the number of towns she controlled could be greater than ten. This was not like the position of baron that had been given to the Clyde family. This was true control and power.


    If war broke out, the Viscountess would be in control of tens of thousands of soldiers, just like a grand duke.


    With his heart beating, Saleen opened the shut door and entered the sentry room. It was not big and the window had been half opened. There was a table, and behind the table sat a young man reading a book. Seeing Saleen enter, he raised his head and asked, ¡°Is there anything I can help with?¡±


    ¡°I wish to meet the Viscountess.¡± Saleen looked at the youth and realized there was elemental energy vibrating within his body.


    A magic disciple? Moreover, he could already produce elemental energy vibrations. He must have been a high-grade magic disciple. A high-grade magic disciple could be a Grade 1 mage within a few years. Wasn¡¯t it a waste having him as a sentry?


    ¡°Do you have your visiting card?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Do you have an invitation?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Then why are you here? Get out.¡± The youth could not have cared less about Saleen being a mage. He raised his voice slightly and began to chase them away.


    ¡°I am under the orders of someone else.¡± Saleen took out the badge that he had received from the Qin swordman as he said this, and ced it on the table.


    The young mage took a look at the badge and grew serious. Picking up the badge, he said, ¡°Wait here.¡±


    With that, he left the sentry room and headed out.


    Saleen did not dare move around either way and could only wait in the small room. He took a nce at the book that the mage disciple had left on the table, but there was no title. He flipped the book over, and it turned out to be a book on magic knowledge that was written in the Qin tanguage.


    ¡°Don¡¯t run around,¡± Saleen reminded Nailisi and Sika. Finding himself a chair to sit in, he started reading this magic book. The book was old and had been written on ordinary paper. Every page was filled with words and there were notes written in red ink between the lines.


    As expected, it was a book on standardmon knowledge. The experiences described were only Grade 1 magic at best. Saleen quickly skimmed through it. Thest few pages were on meditation.


    To Saleen, this meditation spell was crude, and yet it had more notes written on it. Most of the notes were wrong and only a few had actual ties to the meditation spell.


    The disciple returned quickly with a mage behind him. Seeing Saleen reading his book, the disciple was not angry and said to Saleen, ¡°Just follow him.¡±


    Saleen put down the book. The mage nodded to Saleen and said, ¡°Follow me. The Viscountess is waiting.¡±


    Saleen took a look at the magic symbols on this mage¡¯s white robes. They were identical to his, belonging to a Grade 1 mage as well. The mage brought Saleen and the others away from the sentry room and deep into the residence.


    After many courtyards, Saleen was brought to a room that faced the water. It was unusually spacious and the side facing the water had no wall, only an open window.


    Waves rippled on the water outside the window. The wind blew in, bringing with it a cold chill.


    At the center of the room was a table that was half a meter tall. Behind the table, a woman sat on the floor with a few maids beside her, waiting to serve her. There were only four simple ceramic utensils on the table.


    The woman had her back towards Saleen. Her long hair reached her waist, ck and almost silk-like. Saleen¡¯s chest tightened. He had no idea why he was feeling this anxious. The woman¡¯s face could not be seen, and yet he found it hard to breathe.


    She was wearing a silk dress that was also known as a luoshan. The long dress was made of cotton and had no decorations or patterns on it. From the back, it seemed a little simple. Saleen could not help but feel a sense of pity. It was not because of the chilly wind blowing in from the window, but rather, it was because of the woman¡¯s back. There was an inexplicable sense of loneliness.


    ¡°Viscountess, I¡¯ve brought them.¡± The mage tried to lower his voice, almost as though he were afraid of breaking the tranquility in the room.


    ¡°Yes, you may leave.¡± The woman opened her mouth. Her voice was mellow, yet full of richness. Saleen held his breath, not knowing how to respond.

 Chapter 72: Viscountess Lex (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 72: Viscountess Lex (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Your Highness,¡± Saleen called out after a while, no longer able to stand the silence in the room.


    Thedy, who seemed out of sorts, smiled gently when she heard Saleen. ¡°Your Highness? Ah, it¡¯s been a long time since I¡¯ve heard that title. You¡¯re not from the Qin Empire, are you? Come forward.¡±


    Saleen did not dare make any sudden movements. He simply turned to face the table and obediently sat down.


    Saleen set his gaze on the table after taking a quick nce at thedy. That was the viscountess, the daughter of the emperor. Even though Saleen had not managed to take a good look at the viscountess, he vaguely felt that the viscountess was even prettier than the Goddess of Nature that Nailisi had transformed into.


    The viscountess fiddled with the badge that Saleen brought before her, but did not speak a word, so Saleen could only wait. Nailisi and Sika were also waiting by the door, at a loss for what to do.


    From the moment that Saleen entered the residence of the viscountess, he had vaguely felt that there was danger all around them. Even though there were only four people in the room, Saleen felt as though there were many more pairs of eyes scrutinizing him. And yet, he could not sense their positions. He only knew that even if he used instantaneous magic against the viscountess, it would not cause her much harm.


    ¡°Loki is dead, isn¡¯t he?¡± The viscountess finally spoke, her eyes filled with regret. The viscountess¡¯ cheeks were slightly skinny, and she had crystal clear skin.


    ¡°Your Highness, if you are talking about the owner of the badge, then yes, he has died. However, I did not know his name,¡± Saleen replied. Just as expected, all these royals do not care that one of their subordinates has died, Saleen thought to himself.


    The viscountess was not the least bit sad. When Saleen thought of what the Qin swordsman had told him before dying, he felt slightly depressed.


    ¡°What were hisst words?¡± the viscountess asked nonchntly.


    Saleen had possessed the intention of keeping the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus, but when he realized that the Bitter Water Prefecture could protect him from danger, he said, ¡°The swordsman asked me to pass this to you.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he took out the box containing the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus from his pouch. He dared not use the Ring of Gifts in front of the viscountess. The Qin Empire had many hidden talents and the Bitter Water Prefecture had many experts, so Saleen felt that keeping a low profile would therefore be best.


    ¡°What is this?¡± the viscountess asked curiously.


    Saleen ced the box on the table, faced it towards himself, and opened it. Intense magical waves flooded into the room, and yet none spilt out the window. As the box was opened, Saleen felt minute changes in the surroundings of the room. There was at least one person hiding in every corner of the house, even the roof.


    The person on the roof was particrly prominent and was bursting with ferocious vibes. Saleen believed that if he had opened the box towards the viscountess, that man would have killed him immediately. Saleen had never felt such an intense sensation of doom before, and was unable to shake that feeling.


    Such a strong sword aura! Could the person on the roof have been a grand swordmaster?


    If Saleen were to go up against a swordmaster, he would be able to defeat him with the help of Sika and different variations of magic. However, if he were to fight a grand swordmaster, he would be killed the moment their sword was drawn. Saleen would not be able to retaliate at all.


    Sika and Nailisi were very sensitive to danger. Nailisi¡¯s felt goosebumps rise on her skin, and she then took half a step back and leaned against the wall. Sika held on tightly to her boomerang and her muscles were as hard as steel, but she could not draw her weapon.


    The murderous vibe was locked onto those three people at once, but it disappeared in an instant. Saleen had an idea, and turned the box towards the viscountess. The brilliance of the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus shone on the viscountess¡¯ wless face, making her appear a bit demonic.


    The viscountess sighed and said, ¡°A green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus? His death was not worth it at all.¡± Saleen remained silent, as he also felt that Loki¡¯s death had not been worthwhile. A lifetime of loyalty had ultimately yielded only a sigh.


    ¡°What is your name?¡± the viscountess asked Saleen, appearing to have no interest in the magic nucleus.


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Metatrin? That seems like it is an ancient lineage,¡± the viscountess said. She thought about it as though she had remembered reading about it in the imperial library. ¡°Hmm. Do you n on staying or going back to Sikeqinya?¡±


    ¡°Staying?¡± Saleen pretended that he did not understand the viscountess¡¯ words.


    The viscountess closed the box and said, ¡°Stay here and be my personal mage. You will get to learn many things. Take it as a token of my appreciation to you.¡±


    Damn it, she had made the reward sound so touching. Saleen stared at the viscountess¡¯ mellow and shiny crystal nails, feeling an urge to reach out his hand and touch them. However, he knew that if he really did so, the person on the roof would immediately descend and chop off his arm.


    Saleen had very strange thoughts. He did not know if it was because he particrly liked the looks of the viscountess or if it was because of their special circumstances that he wanted tomit sphemy. Fortunately for Saleen, he had undergone the badge¡¯s training. It had given his muscles the ability to not quiver under any sort of provocation, and allowed him to always maintain a poker face.


    ¡°Your Highness, I have twopanions.¡±


    ¡°As a mage, what is your grade?¡± the viscountess suddenly asked.


    ¡°I am in Grade 2.¡± Saleen had begun to learn Grade 2 magic during this period. However, he had been unable to practice throughout their journey. Even though hisbat ability was higher than that of a Grade 1 mage, he had not yet reached the pinnacle of Grade 2.


    ¡°Two followers is fine for a Grade 2 mage. I have three groups of mages around me. Try not to be too low of a grade, or else you will not be able to enter the group ofbat mages. I do not think you want to be a follower either, so you shall be a lifestyle mage.¡±


    Saleen did not know what a lifestyle mage did, so he had some doubts.


    ¡°Your Highness¡­¡±


    ¡°You shall call me viscountess from now on. Saleen, despite your young age, you are already a Grade 2 mage. Do you have a teacher?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°In that case, I will not be able to teach you. You may borrow any of the books belonging to the lower rank of the magic book series.¡±


    Saleen was very surprised when he heard what the viscountess said. She had actually wanted to teach him. Could it be that she was a mage master? She was only a little older than Saleen. Perhaps all people from the Qin Empire were gifted in the magical arts?


    ¡°My name is Lex, and when you talk about me in public¡­ nevermind, I am the only viscountess in this empire. Liki!¡±


    A Grade 1 mage who had been waiting by the door entered. He lowered his hands and greeted her, ¡°Viscountess.¡±


    ¡°Bring the three of them to the backyard, and tell Faerun to give them a position.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I will.¡± Liki bowed his head in obedience, afraid that the viscountess would see the jealousy in his eyes. Saleen had only entered the pce recently and already got to work under Faerun, causing Liki to feel dejected.


    Viscountess Lex took a sip of soup from her bowl and waited for Liki to bring Saleen and hispanions out of the room. She stared at the box containing the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus, and fell deep into thought while gently rapping the table with her finger.


    ¡°Bain,¡± Viscountess Lex called out gently, and a man slowly emerged from the shadows under the window.


    He had been hiding in the shadows all along. Even when the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus had released the waves of magic, he had kept still and had no reaction. Saleen may have discovered the person hiding on the roof, but he had not discerned Bain¡¯s presence at all.


    ¡°Tell me, do you think this mage is a spy?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Lex arched her eyebrows, making her seem more mild-mannered.


    ¡°You already know the answer. Why ask me?¡± Bain had a pale face and was d in tight fitting ck clothes. It was the standard makeup of an assassin. However, he did not have any daggers and was only wearing two rings like any other mage.


    ¡°Just tell me, please,¡± Viscountess Lex said cheerily. The whole room seemed to have grown brighter in that instant.


    Bain seemed to recall his past and answered, ¡°People from Sikeqinya cannot be spies, as their beliefs are easily swayed by money.¡±


    ¡°But my father says that money is a type of belief as well.¡±


    ¡°If the viscountess finds them suspicious, I can go and kill them right now,¡± Bain answered in a manner that was both solemn and blunt.


    Viscountess Lexughed and answered, ¡°There¡¯s no need for that. Let¡¯s wait and see. A mere mage would not be able to do much anyway. But¡­ do you recall anything about the surname ¡®Metatrin¡¯?¡±


    Bain contemted the question seriously and answered, ¡°The Metatrin family should have been around during the Fourth Dynasty, but they have since declined.¡±


    ¡°Send someone to investigate this matter. Saleen¡¯s teacher must be a very powerful mage.¡±


    To have been described as ¡°powerful¡± by Viscountess Lex, Saleen¡¯s teacher must have been an incredible talent. The viscountess was smarter than Bain. Even if Saleen was truly a spy, a thorough investigation needed to be done before killing him. Being a Grade 2 mage at such a young age, Saleen was certainly not your average person on the street.


    ¡°Bain, how old is your daughter?¡± Viscountess Lex asked, changing the topic of conversation.


    ¡°She is eight years old, my viscountess.¡±


    ¡°Do you intend for her to be an assassin too?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Bain replied after a brief period of silence.


    ¡°In that case, get her a teacher and let her be a mage. Give this to her.¡± Viscountess Lex pushed the little box across the table, wanting Bain to ept it. She looked tranquil, as if she had just given away a huge rock. Bain put away the box and said hesitantly, ¡°My Viscountess, I heard that the ck mages are in Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°I know about this. What about it?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we have the people from the swordsmen¡¯s campe back?¡±


    ¡°There won¡¯t be a need for that. The ck mages are no longer what they used to be, and yet they still want to attack the Bitter Water Prefecture? What a joke.¡± Viscountess Lex said this monotonously, yet there was a certain air of arrogance in her words.


    ¡°But if the emperor were to¡­¡±


    ¡°Atrocious!¡± the viscountess rebuked. There was a sh of coldness on the viscountess¡¯ face as her demeanor of indifference disappeared. Bain felt that his whole body had been pinned down by the viscountess¡¯ dominance, and he could not release the cold sweat trapped beneath his skin. Bain had be a Grade 7 assassin ten years ago, but whenever Viscountess Lex berated him, his sword aura would instantly dissipate.


    This was neither magic nor martial arts. It was a secret technique handed down within the imperial family.


    Viscountess Lex grew warm again and said, ¡°I know you are all worried for my safety, but the ck mages would have harmed me a long time ago if they had wanted to, and I would not have made it to the Bitter Water Prefecture. With teacher around, there is nothing to worry about. Bain, you have a family now. You should mind your words.¡±


    All the cold sweat was finally released from Bain¡¯s body and Bain regained his freedom. Viscountess Lex waved her hand and said, ¡°I¡¯m tired. I won¡¯t be going to the ssroom. You may take your leave.¡±

 Chapter 73: Viscountess Lex (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 73: Viscountess Lex (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even though Saleen possessed precious treasures and massive knowledge about magic, he was still a country bumpkin at heart. Liki led him through various courtyards. After several turns, Saleen was already feeling a little dizzy.


    The viscountess¡¯ residence was much too big. It was even bigger than the harbor in Ceylon City.


    After a while, the buildings around them were no longer as neatly arranged as the ones they had seen earlier, and there were signs of dpidation. Liki led Saleen into arger courtyard and announced, ¡°Lord Faerun, the viscountess has asked me to bring someone to you.¡±


    ¡°Is that you, Liki?¡± A voice that sounded young came from inside the house.


    Liki was ted. Lord Faerun actually remembered his name! Liki grew very respectful and in a voice that quivered with excitement, he immediately replied, ¡°Yes it¡¯s me, Lord Faerun.¡±


    ¡°Let theme in, but do not enter through this courtyard again,¡± the young man replied curtly. Liki¡¯s delight was instantly extinguished by that curt reply. He was in a bit of a daze and dared not show any displeasure. Liki merely bowed his head and left the courtyard.


    ¡°The rest of you,e this way.¡± The young voice sounded through the air once more. Saleen followed the voice and led Sika and Nailisi through an empty room, finally arriving at an enormous magicboratory.


    Theboratory only contained a single table. That table was over ten meters long and had a metallic luster despite being made of wood. The wooden tabletop had a fine texture, and was filled with numerous carvings of magic patterns. Arranged neatly on the tabletop were magic props and alchemy equipment.


    Sitting next to a piece of alchemy equipment that had been made entirely out of gold was a middle-aged man.


    The middle-aged man wore a grey magic robe with three magic symbols on it.


    A Grade 6 mage!


    Saleen felt a sudden and unexpected excitement inside him. That was the first time that he had seen a Grade 6 mage, and it was every mage¡¯s dream to be able to see a Grade 6 mage. Only a Grade 6 mage could build a magical tower and then use it evolve their magic chords. With their magic chords, they could then be a sorcerer. A sorcerer would enjoy longevity, and a Grade 7 sorcerer could live for at least three hundred years!


    To a mage, time was extremely precious. The magical knowledge to be learned was as vast as the ocean, as though it were inexhaustible. Generations of mages had used their finite lives to chase after limitless knowledge, and this had cast mages into glory.


    Just as Saleen was excitedly admiring Faerun, Faerun suddenly pointed his finger at Saleen and a fireball of faint blue mes flew towards him.


    The fireball was only the size of a meatball and Saleen could not even feel its heat, but he knew that if the fireball were to hit him, it would definitely cause more than just a hole in his shirt. His body might have disintegrated instantly.


    Saleen did not dodge, as the fireball had the ability to follow its target and Saleen could not have been faster than the fireball. Furthermore, this fireball hade from the mage master, which meant that there was a high level of magic concentration in it. Even if Saleen had tried to escape on a horse, he would not have been able to escape in time. Instead, Saleen cast a Water Shield spell without any hesitation.


    A chain of gigantic bubbles blocked the path of the fireball. Pop, pop, pop¡­ The blue fireball easily broke through the Water Shield spell. With every bubble that the fireball hit and burst, the fireball grew one size bigger. Furthermore, there was an impression of a human face on the surface of the fireball.


    Saleen did not have time to think. His Water Shield spells had all been cast off of the top of his head. If he had not been promoted to a Grade 2 mage, he would never have managed to do this.


    But so what if he was a Grade 2 mage? In the face of a Grade 6 mage, Saleen¡¯s water shields could not have been weaker.


    Within a second, Saleen cast the Water Shield spell thirty times. But, the mage master¡¯s fireball managed to break through the Water Shield spell thirty times as well. The speed with which Saleen was casting those spells was actually fairly terrifying. However, the fireball was not blocked at all and continued to growrger in size.


    All of a sudden, two bubbles the size of a palm appeared on Saleen¡¯s left hand. These were the results that Saleen had produced when he had cast his magic shields with the Gift of Life spell. The two shields had never disappeared all this while. It was truly amazing.


    The two bubbles coated the blue fireball and shrank down to half of their original sizes. The two bubbles then started to float up.


    Even though the fireball had not been blocked, it had actually slowed down. Saleen¡¯s heart was filled with fear, and the badge appeared in his hand.


    At the heart of this heavy and tough badge was a w in the shape of a lighting bolt. Saleen had run out of ideas with which to counter the fireball, and thus ced all his hopes on the badge.


    Just as Saleen was about to cast a spell to release the power of the badge, the fireball that had been right in front of him disappeared into thin air.


    Saleen had long since guessed that the mage master was testing his powers and capabilities. However, when death had been in his face, it had felt extremely real. Saleen heaved a sigh of relief as the fireball disappeared, and felt as if he had just been drained of all his concentration. At this point, the two magical bubble shields, now smaller, returned to his left hand.


    The entire process of the fireball attacking Saleen and then disappearing had taken just a little over a second. However, Saleen felt as though he had just died and been revived. Sika and Nailisi, who were standing behind Saleen, had not moved an inch and did not react to what just happened. Saleen did not manage to see what methods the mage master had used to suppress them. Even if Sika¡¯s powers had been diminished, Nailisi still possessed a soul bond with him. However, despite their abilities, they had no reaction to what just happened.


    ¡°Well done. Your foundation is extremely solid.¡± The mage masterughed and praised Saleen.


    ¡°Please show me guidance, master,¡± Saleen replied respectfully. He bowed, not daring to be rash.


    ¡°What you just did was the best you could¡¯ve done. Your powers are a little imbnced, but your technique was good. The water shields were actually instantly deployed. Who is your teacher?¡± The mage master asked with intrigue.


    The Water Shield spell could never be instantly deployed. This meant that even at the highest level of mastery, a water shield could never be cast instantly. However, Saleen had made some tweaks to the spell. This had raised its defensive ability and allowed the water shield to be cast instantly.


    ¡°My teacher has forbidden me from revealing his name. I figured this out myself,¡± Saleen answered honestly.


    ¡°What great talent. Your teacher was lucky to have you as a student.¡±


    When Saleen heard the mage master¡¯spliments, he grew a little depressed. In the past, his own teacher had even said that it was possible that he would never be able to promote. But, his teacher had still given him an opportunity. In this moment, Saleen wondered whether Earl Sufonso was making his teacher¡¯s life unnecessarily difficult.


    ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°So, the viscountess asked you to look for me, but do you know what the job of a lifestyle mage entails?¡±


    Saleen shook his head.


    ¡°A lifestyle mage takes care of the viscountess¡¯ daily life. Do you understand now?¡± The mage master answered Saleen cheerily.


    Saleen could not help but show his disdain.


    Take care of her daily life? So that was how Viscountess Lex was using her mages. They were no more than just servants!


    ¡°Are you angry?¡± The mage master asked.


    Saleen nodded. He did not want to hide his feelings. In fact, you could not really hide anything from a Grade 6 mage.


    ¡°Saleen,e over and take a look at this,¡± The mage master called to Saleen. Saleen walked over to the pure gold alchemy equipment and began observing closely.


    That pure gold prop had been made by stacking numerous solid gold squares, causing it to resemble some sort of building block game. The gold squares were scattered, forming a base that resembled the Figaro form.


    Suspended in midair inside of the gold prop was a blue gem whose texture was pure and extremely clear. ck magic rays shot out from the insides of the gold prop and into the gem in a sequential manner, causing corrosion on the rock and forming magic patterns.


    ¡°This is Youlian rock!¡±


    ¡°What good eyes. Most people would have thought that this was sapphire. Do you know what this rock is used for?¡± The mage master asked Saleen.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Saleen answered honestly. Youlian rock could be used to fuse different items and create various magic props. Even the mage master could not decipher what the magic array carved into the rock meant. After all, that would have affected the period of time the rock remained useful.


    ¡°This is a magic pendant, and it can be attached to a ne. The pendant is able to lower the surrounding temperature of the user, and the viscountess uses it because she likes cool weather.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s it.¡±


    Saleen was speechless. The gold prop must have required at least three thousand solid gold pieces to be built, and it was extremely expensive. All of these gold pieces had been stacked by the mage master to form the Figaro form and shoot dim rays to corrode the rock. Following this, the mage master would control the distance and carve a magic array into the rock.


    How could a mage master be satisfied doing such a job?


    ¡°When I decided to follow the viscountess ten years ago, I was only a Grade 3 mage,¡± the mage master said, causing Saleen to be astonished.


    Climbing through the ranks of mages was extremely onerous. At the beginning, it was not so bad. An average human would take around a year or so to be a high ranking magic apprentice, and another two or three years to be a Grade 1 mage. As long as a person had enough money, this would not be a problem.


    But for a Grade 1 mage to promote, it would take the average human at least five years to do so. The higher the grade, the more time one would need to spend in order to be promoted. Once a person became a mage master, the effectiveness of money would be greatly minimized.


    However, the speed of training would decrease without the use of money. Thus, many high ranking mages were very wealthy.


    Mages were extremely willing to spend money since they raced against time their whole lives. As long as a mage was able to be promoted to a sorcerer before they died, they would be able to restructure their constitution and extend their life, and thus be able to work towards a higher stage of mastery.


    As soon as a mage became a sorcerer, money would be meaningless to them.


    Their money was only used to purchase raw materials to help create magic equipment that was unique to themselves.


    For the mage master to have been promoted from Grade 3 to Grade 6 within ten years, the speed of his promotions was truly horrifying. Furthermore, Faerun was only middle-aged, meaning that he would definitely be a sorcerer before he died.


    ¡°How many ways are there to arrange the Figaro magic form?¡± The mage master suddenly asked Saleen.


    ¡°Eight thousand one hundred and ny-two ways,¡± Saleen replied without any hesitation.


    ¡°In order to create the pendant, I have experimented with every single arrangement, and I now possess the knowledge of all the alterations the different forms would bring. Also, the spell of Corroding Rays has no more research value to me,¡± the mage master said thoughtfully.


    Huge waves of emotions welled up in Saleen. The mage master actually knew all the changes to the Figaro form!


    What did this mean? It meant that the mage master had already bolstered his foundation in preparation for his promotion to a sorcerer.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m guessing that you know what the most renowned motto for all mages is?¡±


    ¡°The existence of mages is to gain insight into the truths of this world,¡± Saleen said word for word. As Saleen said those words, he unexpectedly became upbeat.

 Chapter 74: Third Grade Magic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 74: Third Grade Magic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The grand mage extended his hand and pushed aside the alchemy prop made from over three thousand metal parts. His hand was clearly protected by ayer of magic shield. It was the simplest invisible shield.


    This shield had problems defending against magic that was Grade 2 and below, much less from the corroding rays that were being shot out from the alchemy prop.


    However, the way in which the grand mage positioned his hand while pushing the prop away from him was amazing. The entire alchemy prop seemed to be a ne without its string,ing apart instantly like dominoes and falling apart in a bnced and elegant manner.


    The corroding rays disappeared instantly, while the zoisite floating within the prop fell with a plop and disintegrated into dust.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes popped. Even though the zoisite hadn¡¯t been big, it had been worth more than the white crystal on his ring. Even if it had been haphazardly altered by the corroding rays, it would still have been worth tens of thousands of gold coins. Although it had been destroyed in the grand mage¡¯s hands, he did not seem the least bit upset. He did not even bother to care whether the pendant was created sessfully. Did the viscountess actually let him squander away money like this?


    ¡°I have already grasped the Figaro form. There is no more meaning to this experiment.¡±


    Saleen had many questions but had no idea where to begin. The grand mage naturally saw Saleen¡¯s confusion. Smiling, he said, ¡°There are three different kinds of mages in this residence. A hundred and twenty-eightbat mages, seventy lifestyle mages and thirty-two entourage mages.


    Saleen was shocked. Even though he had heard about the number of mages in the Qin Empire and how every big city had a magic tower beforeing here, having more than two hundred mages in the viscountess¡¯ residence was surreal. Mages were not cabbages that could be harvested in the autumn after nting.


    The one hundred and twenty-eightbat mages stood out in particr. It seemed like they were of a higher grade than Saleen. Whatever their grades were, once they were together, killing a swordmaster in seconds wouldn¡¯t be a problem.


    How did the viscountess¡¯ residence have so many mages? Wouldn¡¯t the emperor have gotten suspicious?


    Although a viscountess was of a lower rank than a princess, she still owned arge amount of estates, armies, taxes, and was simr to a grand duke. Most importantly, even in countries of religious authority like the Taggsi Empire, females had the chance to inherit the throne.


    ¡°The viscountess was chased out of Holy Rock City. Back then, the Bitter Water Prefecture was barren and was one of the poorest ces in the empire. Only after ten years of reign do we finally have what we see today. There are so many people who wish to seek the patronage of the viscountess now. Saleen, do you think these people are wrong?¡±


    Saleen shook his head. What was wrong with that? Training to be a swordsman was meant for helping the country and aplishishing feats. Then, what about mages? Not many were as lucky as him, and many ended up doing mercenary missions for dozens or hundreds of gold coins. It seemed like the viscountess was not stingy with her mages when it came to money. A sentry could borrow magic books and a grand mage could destroy a piece of zoisite as he wished.


    ¡°So, do you still feel wronged?¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment and answered cautiously, ¡°I do notck money, and I have my own magic lineage.¡±


    ¡°Behind this courtyard is a magic tower eight stories high.¡± The grand mage¡¯s words were shocking. Saleen¡¯s throat dried up. He had not seen any magic towers yet but he knew that grand mages would usually use various methods to hide their magic towers. Mages at his grade would not be able to notice anything.


    An eight story magic tower. That meant that there was a Grade 8 sorcerer in the viscountess¡¯ residence. Even if Saleen did not need money or ingredients, to get the guidance of a grade eight sorcerer was very rare to say the least, and would allow him to spend less time on the wrong path in his magic training. However, would the sorcerer guide him?


    Saleen was still considering this when the grand mage answered his question


    ¡°Teacher appears at the study hall every week to impart his magic knowledge for an hour.¡± Without waiting for Saleen to say anything, the grand mage continued, ¡°Only mages in the residence are allowed to listen. Do you understand now why the viscountess has so many mages seeking her patronage?¡±


    ¡°I do,¡± Saleen said with much difficulty. Even he would not be able to resist such a temptation. Guidance from a Grade 8 sorcerer, and it was once a week for an hour. Moreover, he had caused so much trouble, and yet no one would find him here.


    Attacking anyone in the viscountess¡¯ residence was as good as challenging a Grade 8 sorcerer. What was even more extreme was the fact that the sorcerer¡¯s magic tower had not been built outside the city, but was right here in the viscountess¡¯ residence.


    It seemed like only the emperor¡¯s pce was safer than this ce. It was said that the pce had three Grade 9 magic towers in it.


    ¡°What do I need to do?¡± Saleen rxed. He already intended to stay at the viscountess¡¯ residence to train, and now that he had been shown this temptation, it would be hard to chase him away.


    ¡°There are people taking care of the food and lodging. You wouldn¡¯t be missed. You shall be my assistant.¡±


    Saleen was overjoyed. Even with Jason, he had only been allowed one day of experiments with him each week. To be able to train beside a Grade 6 mage was practically a gift from god!


    ¡°Thank you, my lord.¡± Saleen bowed. He was not someone who was unable to differentiate good from bad. The mage must have seen something in Saleen to be willing to let him be his helper, and to guide and support him. If Jason were to have put up a notice for helpers in Ceylon City, wealthy people from hundreds of miles away would have thought of any means to get the youth in their family to sign up, regardless of the costs.


    ¡°I¡¯m Faerun. Even though I cannot be your teacher, please do not call me lord. Sir would be fine.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart skipped a beat. In the Qin Empire, calling someone sir was the same as calling them a half-teacher. He hadn¡¯t expected his luck to change this quickly, from escaping for his life to having a Grade 6 mage as his half-teacher.


    Faerun took a look at Saleen. He was delighted with him but kept his emotions to himself. He had no students, and if it Saleen had not mentioned that he already had a magic lineage, he would not have minded letting Saleen be his true disciple. Saleen¡¯s background would not be difficult to check and the viscountess would be sending someone to his hometown soon. They would soon know everything about him even from the times he had been young.


    Faerun was a grand mage with much experience. Looking at the white crystal ring on Saleen¡¯s hand, he knew Saleen¡¯s teacher was not just anyone. He was definitely someone equal in level to him.


    Someone like Saleen would be good if he were not a spy.


    Thinking this far, Faerun spoke softly to Saleen, ¡°Do you know why I did not allow Liki into the yard?¡±


    Saleen shook his head again. He would not have had any idea about this. It had barely been an hour since he had entered the viscountess¡¯ residence. How would he have known what was going on here?


    ¡°Because he wasn¡¯t worthy.¡± Faerun¡¯s voice was calm and yet a sense of pride oozed from him. ¡°Since entering the residence two years ago, he has been finding ways to win us over, but has neglected his training. In another year, the viscountess will chase him away. You¡¯re good, unlike him.¡±


    Saleen blushed in shame. If it wasn¡¯t for Jason and the gemstones at the ruins of the fallen goddess, he might have had the same thoughts as Liki.


    The less temptation one has, the purer their soul. Saleen thought about this saying and felt it even more strongly.


    ¡°Who are those two?¡± Faerun asked.


    ¡°This is Sika, my partner. This is Nailisi, my servant,¡± Saleen answered simply. Even though he was not lying, he hid the fact that Nailisi was an imp. Faerun did not ask for more. Saleen¡¯s magic props were all high-grade. He must have been from a wealthy family and it was normal to have a servant with him.


    He had much better eyesight than the people from the Nut Mercenary. Even though he could not figure out Nailisi¡¯s identity, he could tell that she was a powerful warrior. A mage like Saleen together with two warriors was surely a perfectbination.


    ¡°What did the viscountess say about them?¡±


    ¡°She allowed the two of them toe with me.¡± At this point, any worries in Saleen had vanished. If the viscountess was someone who loved to enve mages for fun, why would she have allowed him to have two people serving him?


    ¡°There are two more rooms in this court. You may all stay here. Do not disturb me in the morning. I conduct my experiments after lunch. You maye and help then.¡±


    Saleen finally had a ce to settle down. The three of them would be staying in Grand Mage Faerun¡¯s court. Although the court was big, only two rooms were left. Since Sika and Nailisi were not willing to room together, Saleen had no choice but to let Nailisi sleep beneath his bed.


    To be honest, since he had seen Nailisi open her jaws and chew on the headless rider, Saleen had grown a little unsettled. However, he knew that so long as the soul bond was still in effect, she would not attack him.


    On the two sides of the court wereteral courts. They were smaller, and only after staying for two days did Saleen find out that they housed the servants of the mages. Faerun¡¯s court had sixteen rooms all filled with mages, and the servants staying in theteral courts were meant to service these mages. These servants had been following the viscountess since they were young and hade over from Holy Rock City. They were even more prim and proper than most of the wealthy. Since Saleen already had Sika and Nailisi, he was not assigned a servant and had no problems with that.


    There were eight mages among the remaining fourteen rooms. Five were female and three were males. They were all very young and none were grand mages yet. The remaining six rooms were empty and Saleen had no idea who stayed in these rooms. Saleen did not ask, and every day after lunch, he would make his way to Faerun¡¯s room to conduct experiments with him.


    These experiments opened up a new world for him. Faerun did not teach him any new content and only allowed him to continuously familiarize himself with the Figaro form.


    This form was used to calcte the points of bnce between magical elements and was especially important to a mage like Saleen.


    Since everything he practiced was high-grade content, hisbined magic was extremely dangerous. If one was not familiar with the theories of the rtionships between magical elements, thebined magic could cause fatal explosions.


    Even though Saleen could only move water magic elements, they were still an important topic for him.


    A powerful mage would be able to find even the smallest w in an enemy¡¯sbined magic. Usually, an imbnce of elements would not cause much magic chaos. An explosion of magical elements required time, and during this period, so long as a mage released the magic and did not keep it in their hands, they would be fine.


    However, if the enemy noticed a critical point of elemental imbnce, Grade 1 magic could even take down a grand mage.


    A sorcerer would have no ws in theirbined magic as long as theypletely understood the theories behind elemental bnce.


    In a few days, even though Saleen had not learned any real magic, he had improved immensely in theory and felt as though he had been reborn. Being fully prepared and focused with Jason and not wasting a single moment had definitely paid off now.

 Chapter 75: Third Grade Magic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 75: Third Grade Magic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were six days in a week on the Myers Maind. The seventh day that Saleen had been at the viscountess¡¯ residence happened to be the day that the lessons started.


    Sika and Nailisi were both not mages and had no right to listen to the lessons. Even if they had been there they would not have understood anything. Faerun personally escorted Saleen to the hall, causing the other low-grade mages to turn red with envy.


    The architecture of the study hall was nothing like the schools for the wealthy. It had open space architecture, almost like an altar. It was spacious and clean, and many pirs lined the hall, a stone tform at the center.


    Faerun¡¯s position was closest to the center. Saleen sat right beside him, causing the other mages to specte amongst themselves.


    ¡°Who is that guy?¡±


    ¡°No idea, never seen him before.¡±


    ¡°Could he be Mage Faerun¡¯s student?¡±


    ¡°Nonsense. You know his standards too. If he was epting anyone, he would have epted someone earlier.¡±


    Saleen had sensitive hearing and even though he heard everything, he did not take it to heart. He understood how these mages felt. Even though they were able to listen to a Grade 8 mage give them guidance every week, it was not the same as having a grand mage by their side coaching them.


    The stone tform was filled with intricate magic patterns and an elder sat on top of it. Saleen knew this elder whocked a beard was the Grade 8 mage. The elder had his eyes closed, resting. Just as Faerun took his seat, the elder opened his eyes. They were blue and piercing, clear as water, and there was no air of authority being emitted from them.


    Saleen took a seat beside Faerun, not saying a word and quietly waiting. The sorcerer¡¯s gaze lingered on him before he shut his eyes wordlessly.


    The hall immediately quieted down as Saleen heard soft footsteps.


    A figure walked onto the stone tform as all the mages waited quietly. Saleen saw Viscountess Lex in a mage robe, her footsteps light as she approached Faerun¡¯s side, sitting to his right.


    She opened her mouth and said, ¡°It is time. Teacher, please begin.¡±


    Even though Saleen was used to the authority that Viscountess Lexmanded, seeing the magic robe she wore, he still found it unbelievable. She was d in a grey magic robe, two lines of magic symbols on her chest.


    A Grade 5 mage?


    ording to what Faerun had said, Viscountess Lex had left Holy Rock City when she was seven. She couldn¡¯t have been older than seventeen.


    A seventeen-year-old grand mage?


    Saleen could not understand it. He could understand that the royal family had the greatest amount of resources on the maind and could afford to nurture a mage however they wanted. However, the viscountess had been chased out of Holy Rock City. Why had she been treated so generously?


    If the emperor didn¡¯t like her, he could have left her to fend for herself. Why had he given her a Grade 8 sorcerer as a teacher?


    However, the sorcerer was about to start his lecture and Saleen did not dare ask Faerun about it now. The elder on the stone tform opened his eyes and gave a slight smile. He slowly opened his mouth and said, ¡°Today, I will impart Water Magic to you. Grade 3 Ice de magic.¡±


    Nobody dared make a noise, but Saleen heard the breaths of the hundreds of mages. It was an amazing feeling. Many could not hide the disappointment in their hearts. Only a few quickened their breathing, obviously excited. Only one person¡¯s breathing remained calm and the same, and that was Viscountess Lex¡¯s. As for Faerun, even though he sat beside Saleen, he could not feel Faerun¡¯s breathing or heartbeat.


    Ice de magic was an ordinary Grade 3 magic and was nothing special. This magic could create various crescent shaped water elements to use to attack. Comparing their attack strengths, it was not as strong as the Phoenix spell of Fire Magic.


    Saleen had been able to learn it by himself. He had memorized the magic spell, including the hand movements and some of the important elements of casting the spell. However, he knew that what the sorcerer was about to impart was definitely not about the content. Those mages who had grown excited definitely understood that too.


    ¡°As everybody knows, the Fireball spell is the mostmon offensive magic and is the most powerful magic among magic of the same grade. If studied further, the Fireball spell can be upgraded alongside a mage¡¯s level and can be high-grade magic. However, as the saying goes: A mage who can only shoot fireballs is not a good mage.¡±


    The sorcerer¡¯s voice was calm and slow. Saleen listened intently, afraid that he would miss out on even a single word.


    ¡°From the magic spells already known, most of them have already gone through thousands of years of tempering and cannot be reced. The Fireball spell is one of them. Today, I want to let you all know that the Fireball spell is not the only one. Faerun, please demonstrate.¡±


    Faerun nodded and he flicked his finger lightly. A blue fireball rose from the sky and rushed in the direction of the stone tform, towards the sorcerer.


    There was a shocked gasp from everyone in the hall. A blue fireball spell was already stronger than what most of them knew. This fireball moved in a curve and was almost like a ball of me that had gone out of control.


    The sorcerer instantly gathered a crescent shaped de and threw it into the air, smashing it into Faerun¡¯s fireball. It was almost as if the fireball had curved and collided into it. The ice de had not been upgraded and was not more powerful just because it had been cast by the sorcerer. However, it shocked Saleen to see that after being struck by the ice de, the blue fireball silently dispersed. The ice de on the other hand, did not. It came rushing down towards Faerun¡¯s head.


    Faerun was too shocked to react and the ice de disappeared at his forehead. The magic elements dissipated but did not create any intense fluctuations. The gasps were gone. Faerun¡¯s fireball skills had definitely been shocking, but the sorcerer¡¯s ice de magic was beyond what most mages could understand. The sorcerer was phenomenal at creating ice des and had destroyed a high-grade magic with only a Grade 1 spell. His precision was sharp. If Faerun had been an enemy, the ice de would have sliced open his head and would not have disappeared into thin air.


    Most of the mages started getting excited. If they could learn this magic, they could possess immense offensive powers even at a lower grade.


    ¡°Can anyone tell me how I did it?¡± The sorcerer did not perform anymore magic and started asking questions.


    Saleen did not raise his hand. Although he had been able to vaguely make out the sorcerer¡¯s technique, he could not exin it in detail.


    ¡°Master, Lord Faerun¡¯s Fireball spell is reserved magic and continuously gathers power. The further along it is, the stronger it bes. It could even swallow up the power of a low-grade magic shield. A magic structure like this is loose and there are too many holes in between the elements that have gathered. So long as the holes are targeted, the fireball can be destroyed.¡±


    A Grade 3 mage had answered boldly. The sorcerer nodded his head and said, ¡°Andreas, good. Who else?¡±


    ¡°Master, Water Magic is fluid and unstable, but it is still stronger than Earth Magic. The low temperature of the Ice de spell causes the fire element to instantly be less active, exposing its weaknesses.¡±


    ¡°Scott, you¡¯re partially right as well.¡± The words of encouragement from the sorcerer were taken well by the mage named Scott as he bowed deeply, feeling good about himself.


    ¡°Saleen, give it a try. What do you see in this magic?¡± Being called upon by the sorcerer left Saleen in shock. He had no idea how the sorcerer knew who he was.


    Faerun gave a light smirk and Saleen understood that Faerun must have said something to the sorcerer. He said cautiously, ¡°Master, this must have something to do with the calctions for the arrangement of the elements. I cannot answer.¡±


    The entire study hall was silent. Who exactly was this Saleen? Being called upon by the sorcerer himself, this little guy didn¡¯t know how to appreciate it. Any answer would have sufficed, and yet he had chosen to say nothing. What a dumb fellow.


    The sorcerer looked at Saleen and suddenly raised his hands, slowly releasing a Fireball spell. The fireball flew slowly towards Saleen, the reddish-orange mes evidently being controlled at Grade 2 power. Moreover, the speed of the fireball couldn¡¯t have been any slower, and there was no homing ability on it.


    Even a normal swordsman could avoid an attack like this.


    Saleen raised his hands and released a series of icicles. He was so familiar with his icicle magic that he no longer needed to think about it and could instinctively release them.


    The first icicle struck the fireball and disappeared upon impact. The second icicle encountered the same fate, and so did the third and fourth ones.


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords had fully evolved, and he could now release fifty Grade 1 spells in session. He was calcting rapidly in his brain. The icicles seemed to be never ending, and in the short span of a second he had already released thirty of them.


    Another gasp erupted from the crowd. The speed with which Saleen was releasing his magic was at the theoretical limit. Was he even human? The control of his focus was astounding.


    Instant magic could theoretically bepleted within two seconds. However, when releasing it continuously, what mattered was how one prepared for the next spell while controlling the attack of the magic that had been released previously. Once one had released three spells continuously, most people would slow down their magic speed. It was too dangerous and difficult to control; the magic could easily explode in one¡¯s hands.


    The theoretical limit was something that few people could achieve, and those who could were usually mages around Grade 6 like Faerun. Now that something like this was happening with a Grade 2 mage, there was no doubt that this was a student of Faerun¡¯s. He must have known the test question beforehand ande fully prepared.


    Even so, Saleen¡¯s skill left the mages in awe. Even if he had known the test question beforehand, they would not have been able to reach this stage anyway. It required one to have much training, a clear mind, and arge amount of focus as backing.


    The fireball slowly approached Saleen and atst was pierced apart by the forty first icicle, dissipating into thin air. Saleen¡¯s icicle disappeared as well. Saleen let out a long gasp. In the veryst second, his brain had been working at maximum capacity and he had finally found the fireball¡¯s weakness.


    The sorcerer let out a smile and said to the mages in the hall, ¡°Look. Once you have grasped the calction, even a Grade 1 magic can stop the advance of a Grade 2 magic. A grade is not the only measure of one¡¯s magic skills, and given enough time to calcte, even I could split a gold swordmaster in half.¡±


    Saleen was barely listening to the sorcerer. He was still deep in his calctions. Even without the sorcerer¡¯s current exnations, Saleen understood how the sorcerer had defeated Faerun¡¯s fireball.


    Figaro¡¯s form! The weakness of any magic could be calcted using the form. However, a battlefield was always changing and the magic of any mage would be different. Instantly calcting a spell¡¯s weakness required so much talent!

 Chapter 76: Figaro Formula (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 76: Figaro Form (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    If it hadn¡¯t been for the sorcerer¡¯s demonstration, Saleen would have thought that it was impossible for such a thing to happen. A lower level offensive spell had actually managed to counter a higher level offensive spell.


    However, that very situation had just taken ce right before Saleen¡¯s eyes. A sorcerer had managed to do just that.


    Most people would always feel regretful that they would never be able to achieve what a sorcerer could. Strong mental calction capabilities needed to coordinate with one¡¯s concentration. A mage¡¯s concentration was precious. It was needed to control magic throughout the entire casting process. Concentration would always grow after every round of meditation, but its rate of growth was almost undetectable.


    Viscountess Lex looked across Faerun to catch a glimpse of Saleen, but she did not speak. Saleen felt her gaze as though fire had just scalded his face. The viscountess¡¯ gaze had disrupted Saleen¡¯s thoughts, and then he heard the sorcerer who was standing on the stage say, ¡°That¡¯s all for today everyone. Saleen, you stay back.¡±


    No one dared to marvel at the sorcerer¡¯s instructions, as that would have meant disrespect to the sorcerer. The rest of the people stood up, bowed to the sorcerer, and left the hall quietly. Saleen did not move at all, wondering why the sorcerer had asked him to stay behind.


    Viscountess Lex and Faerun walked side by side as they left the hall. After several moments, she asked, ¡°Faerun, do you intend to pass down the teachings of the Figaro form to Saleen?¡±


    ¡°No, I have only told him some fundamental things. However, he has a good foundation in magic, so he realized that on his own.¡±


    ¡°Do not teach him just yet.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, in the past, you said that I have the authority to pass down my teachings to whoever I want,¡± Faerun replied firmly. He did not sumb to the pressure from the viscountess as they had been taught by the same teacher. If it had not been for the difference in their backgrounds, they would have been of the same ranking.


    ¡°Do you like him very much?¡± Viscountess Lex asked Faerun out of curiosity.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Wow. In the past ten years or so, thousands of people have tried to make you take them as your apprentice, but you were never moved until now. Does that mean that you intend to keep Saleen as your student?¡±


    ¡°The exact number is twenty six thousand and twenty-four. But only about one percent of them eventually stayed. These people were all talented, but no one were as hardworking as Saleen. You have seen his Icicle spell before. Could you have done it when you were his age?¡±


    The viscountess narrowed her eyes, causing her eyebrows to be arched, and exhaled deeply. The weather had be frosty, turning the exhaled air into clouds that came from her mouth.


    ¡°Indeed, I was unable to do that when I was at his age. But if he wants to be a Grade 5 mage at my age, that would also be impossible, right?¡±


    Viscountess Lex was still young andpetitive. Faerun smiled and said, ¡°Saleen¡¯s teacher must be very powerful, and I should not force Saleen to be my disciple. I only want to give him some help.


    ¡°That is why I do not want you to teach him the Figaro form just yet. Bain has sent some people to investigate Saleen¡¯s background. Judging from his ent, he must be from northern Sikeqinya. Give me three months to gather concrete information about him. If he is proven to be free from suspicion, I will not stop you anymore.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, you think there is something wrong with Saleen?¡± Faerun inquired. Faerun did not wanted to be involved in the affairs of the viscountess, but he was not clear about Saleen¡¯s background either.


    ¡°When Saleen came before me for the first time, he brought Loki¡¯sst words. Do you still remember who Loki is?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I do. He has died?¡± Faerun said regretfully.


    ¡°Yes. If Loki had not died, he would have been able to be promoted to a grand swordmaster in two years¡¯ time at most.¡± Viscountess Lex sighed, and then continued, ¡°Saleen brought Loki¡¯s badge which I gave to him personally. If Loki were still alive, the badge would not have been in other people¡¯s hands. In the beginning, there was nothing to be suspicious about, but Saleen brought the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus that belonged to Loki.¡±


    When the viscountess saw that Faerun was deep in thought about her words, she continued, ¡°Even though the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus is the weakest out of the dragon family, any nucleus from the dragon family is extremely rare, and not even a Grade 6 magic beast would be able to match it. Saleen is only a Grade 2 mage. Wouldn¡¯t he have been tempted to keep the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus for himself?¡±


    ¡°Maybe Saleen didn¡¯te for you,¡± Faerun replied straightforwardly.


    ¡°Perhaps he came here to seek refuge. That is why we must conduct a thorough investigation into him. You must understand that I will be reaching adulthood next year. I wouldn¡¯t want any trouble to happen before that. If Saleen is here to seek refuge, I am fine with that. My only worry is that he may be rted to the Holy See.¡±


    ¡°The Holy See¡­¡± Faerun¡¯s eyebrows plunged as he frowned. Even though he did not believe that Saleen was working for the Holy See, this matter concerned the safety of the viscountess, so all precautions needed to be taken.


    ¡°Alright, I understand now. Until Bain¡¯s mene back with concrete information, I will not teach Saleen anything about the Figaro form.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. I want to exercise my lower body today. Get your men and apany me in hunting,¡± Viscountess Lex said while stretching her body. Behind her, the eyes of the young mages lit up with excitement when they saw her do that. These young mages hade here to learn magic, but who could have turned a blind eye to the viscountess¡¯ wealth and beauty?


    When Saleen returned to the courtyard, he realized that no one was there. Only Sika was there, waving her weapon about and practicing her fighting technique. Actually, the sorcerer had not really had anything special to tell Saleen when he had asked Saleen to stay behind. The sorcerer only demonstrated the spell and hand movements for the Ice de spell. Saleen was puzzled by this, because the spell itself had been memorized and was holistic, and the teacher had already demonstrated it before. In fact, money could buy the execution method for any magic that was Grade 3 and below, and this did not pose a problem for Saleen in the short term.


    ¡°Where is Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°Sleeping,¡± Sika replied as she stuck up her mouth. Sika could not understand how Nailisi could sleep for over ten hours every day without getting bored. Aside from mealtimes, she never saw Nailisi appear. As for Sika herself, she was too used to running around the mountains all day. This courtyard seemed too stifling for her even though it was already so enormous.


    Sika remembered what the vige chief had told her before. No matter how ferocious a beast was, as long as it was captured and fed for two years, it would also be a pig. Sika felt exactly that way now. She was just doing nothing and living every day awaiting her own doom.


    ¡°Getting homesick?¡± Saleen asked. Looking at her expression, Saleen was able to guess that Sika was in a bad mood.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Sika grew even more confused after Saleen asked her that question. It was already winter. Would there enough food stored for the vige? If there was not enough food, the Holy See woulde and wreak havoc, and then dupe some youngsters into going away with him. Sika wondered whether the vige chief would have been disappointed in her, now that she didn¡¯t want to return despite being richer than before.


    ¡°Actually, it would have been best if we had returned to Caucasus, but we have crossed paths with the Holy See¡¯s deacon and our murder would be exposed. The Holy See¡¯s underlings are active in Caucasus, and if we met them we would be facing a lot of trouble. I¡¯m just afraid of implicating your vige, and I¡¯m worried about Aini as well. If the baron is still alive, then we will definitely be in trouble once we leave the Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Sika had just learned the Qinnguage recently and was still unfamiliar with it, so she did not know what had really transpired. She had only known that the baron was a bad guy. When she heard what Saleen said, she actually calmed down.


    ¡°But the viscountess is very smart. She¡­ will help me do an investigation into the problem. Once we receive more information, we will decide whether to leave or stay.¡±


    Even though Saleen loved living under the sorcerer¡¯s teachings and training, he did not want to make Sika suffer. When Saleen had been at his weakest, Sika had used her weapon and beliefs to protect him. Training wise, he would take the initiative to look for a teacher to continue training once he advanced to Grade 4. Even if Earl Sufonso really despised Saleen, he would not dare to attack him again.


    Even though Jason was only a Grade 5 mage, he was the most powerful mage in Saleen¡¯s heart. Whatever questions Saleen had, Jason had been able to answer them without much thought. As Saleen¡¯s ambitions had grown, he had finally understood what this meant.


    Session.


    Only the strongest of sorcerers would possess this kind of inheritance, leading to the cultivation of a mage master like Jason.


    The Figaro form did not need to be learned here, at the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    ¡°Saleen, that actually won¡¯t be necessary. We can just get people to deliver the money to the vige next year. It¡¯s just that I no longer have the magic beast soul so I¡¯m having difficulty practicing my fighting technique. I would like to buy a magic beast. May I?¡±


    ¡°Why not? As long as we can get one, the money is not an issue.¡± When Saleen learned that Sika had been vexed over this matter, he actually became more at ease. It was pretty cheap for mercenaries to purchase a magic beast, because the value of a magic beast was in its magic nucleus. As long as a person did not purchase the magic nucleus, even if they were to get a Grade 6 magic beast, it would only cost a few thousand gold coins.


    For a low-level mage, this was a huge sum of money. However, Saleen had taken sixty thousand gold coins from Aini and still hadn¡¯t spent it yet.


    When Sika heard that Saleen was supporting her decision, she grew more cheerful and said, ¡°I shall go bathe now. You must be busy. Please go and do whatever you need to.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen was surprised by Sika¡¯s response. He had already grown ustomed to Sika being very messy. She could even make new leather armor very dirty. But just then, he realized that Sika had cleaned her leather armor. Her hair had also beenbed very smoothly, with a hint of fragrance.


    Saleen shook his head and made his way to Faerun¡¯s room. It was already noon, and Saleen was Faerun¡¯s assistant. It was bad to skive. Not everyone managed to get an opportunity like this.


    Faerun was not in the room and Saleen felt bored. He looked around the room and realized that there was an obvious difference between Faerun¡¯s room and his teacher¡¯s room. Faerun did not keep a collection of magic books. The wholeboratory was spick and span, and the tools on the table were neatly organized with the exception of the stack of gold pieces on the table.


    The gold pieces remained in the same position that they had been in the other day when they were shoved around. Saleen had a sudden urge and walked towards it, beginning to observe it closely.


    The more than three thousand pieces of gold possessed a kind of mysterious aura that Saleen could not put his finger on. Despite the alchemy having being destroyed by Faerun, the gold pieces had not fallen to scraps, but had kept their miraculous arrangement.


    Saleen tried casting recollection magic but it did not work. The magic patterns on the gold pieces rendered him unable toplete the memory. Saleen grew even more intrigued now that the magic had not seeded.


    The Figaro form was a phenomenally difficult puzzle in the study of magic. There were a total of over eight thousand arrangements, and each arrangement was intertwined so that a starting point could not be identified. If a mage was able to understand this form, then he would be able to deduce the original arrangement. The original arrangement was said to contain the fundamentalws of magic.


    However, the oddly amazing thing was that every single mage who had understood the Figaro form had deduced a different original arrangement. This, in turn, had caused the study of the Figaro form to be unable to be published into an educational book. Even if a mage shared his experiences, a person would still need to learn bit by bit from the beginning.


    The individual could only digest the guidance of others slowly. It was impossible to attain all the knowledge at once. Hence, Saleen was not very passionate about the Figaro form. He had a teacher, so he was not afraid of not receiving any pointers.


    But the pile of gold pieces were obviously a challenge that Faerun posed to him, since it was an amazing arrangement.

 Chapter 77: Figaro Formula (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 77: Figaro Form (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen simply pulled over a chair and sat down. He began observing closely, memorizing it bit by bit. Every single one of the three thousand odd gold pieces had a different magic pattern on them. Saleen would have to remember the positions of the gold pieces and their magic patterns, as well as thebinations between the patterns.


    It was the perfect ending for the form. As long as the arrangement could be reversed, the original arrangement would be formed. Even though Saleen would not understand the meaning of the original arrangement, he would be able to learn a lot about the Figaro form while attempting to reverse it.


    Without the help of recollection magic, it would be an arduous task trying to remember all the magic patterns of the gold pieces. Time flew by quickly. Before Saleen had realized it, it was already nighttime. He felt that his concentration was sapped and began to give up. Saleen grit his teeth and pressed on. Faerun was still not back. He must have been sleeping already since he had not stepped into theboratory after such a long time.


    Saleen withdrew his family badge from the Ring of Gifts. With the badge in his hand, Saleen released detection magic.


    The badge exhausted his energy as usual, as well as the magic chords that had been upgraded. Saleen slumped into the chair and continued to stare at the gold pieces on the table.


    It was the first time that Saleen had used the badge since being promoted to a Grade 2 mage. From Phoenix to the Bitter Water Prefecture, Saleen had always been careful not to use the badge to train his concentration.


    Even though the badge would only cause Saleen to lose control for less than an hour, it was still too dangerous to him. Saleen waspletely vulnerable during the period after the badge had been used.


    Saleen suffered aches, burns, tingling sensations, dizziness, and all sorts of negative symptoms. He was not even able to blink. He then slowed the speed of his memorization, and waited for his mental strength to recover back to normal.


    Saleen only took half an hour to regain his mental strength. Maybe his body had grown ustomed to this kind of torture. Furthermore, his mental strength had increased even more than before. He straightened his posture and continued memorizing diligently.


    As Saleen¡¯s memories increased, a lengthy magic form gradually formed. Even though the form was very messy, the intrinsically regted arrangement was still present. Saleen was overjoyed. All the magic patterns on the gold pieces transformed into magic symbols and became etched in his mind.


    The messy form was not able to provide any information. However, Saleen only needed to continue his deductions in order to familiarize himself with the calctions needed to bnce various elements. Practicing magic was a never ending process of familiarization. As long as Saleen persevered, his speed of calction would be increasingly fast, and eventually he would reach the same level as the sorcerer who had cast the ice de.


    What Saleen really needed to do was continuously improve his capabilities and not just daydream about bing a sorcerer instantaneously. Even if he did not manage to deduce anything, he would still have his ability to calcte.


    Eventually, Saleen managed to form aplete memory of the Figaro form. Only then did he quietly leave Faerun¡¯s room. By then, it waste into the night and the moon was shining marvelously in the night sky. The light from the moon shone onto the courtyard, making it seem as if the ground was filled with ayer of frost.


    The next afternoon when Saleen arrived at Faerun¡¯sboratory, all the gold pieces that had originally been on the table were missing. Faerun did not seem to know what had happened, and he asked Saleen to manage a single gold piece. This particr gold piece was only as big as fingernail, and Saleen¡¯s task was to continuously use Frost Array upon it to lower its temperature.


    ¡°Sir, what kind of gold is this? I have never seen it before,¡± Saleen asked Faerun, continuously casting Frost Array without putting much concentration into it.


    ¡°This is natural alloy. We have to dig deep into the earth to extract it. As for its attributes¡­ you need to have extensive knowledge of alchemy in order to fullyprehend them,¡± Faerun said, as he held a carving knife and carved patterns onto that gold piece.


    ¡°Why do I have the feeling that this gold piece will disrupt the stability of magic?¡± Even though Saleen had just started his self learning of the Figaro form, he had already roughly grasped the arrangement of the elements.


    ¡°It will not disrupt the stability of magic, but rather, offset the elements.¡±


    Faerun did not continue exining, but Saleen had already understood what Faerun was trying to say. Offsetting elements was a skillful way of casting magic, but that method was reserved for mage masters. If a mere Grade 2 mage like him wanted to learn it, it was possible that the magic would cause bacsh and kill him instead.


    Offsetting the elements would not ruin the various stages of magic, but would affect the magic that would eventually be released. By using the offsetting method, it was more difficult for enemies to figure out one¡¯s weakness.


    If special natural alloy was used to create a magic prop, it would be much safer for a mage to use the offsetting method, and there might even have been no need to control it at all. As long as they had constant practice, a mage would grow ustomed to using the method of offsetting elements.


    The magic prop created by the gold piece would have had an extremely high value, because the method of offsetting elements exhausted a great amount of mental strength. But with the help of some props, the mage would be able to control their magic more precisely, and less mental strength would be used.


    Saleen watched patiently as Faerun carved out the magic patterns one stroke at a time. The cooled gold piece was slightly crisp, and its toughness had been reduced by the coldness. That way, the magic patterns would not be distorted. If pure gold had been used, its internal structure would have been spoiled and its attributes would have changed.


    This type of cold refining method required a great deal of perception from the mage themselves. The edge of the rhenium gold knife used was razor sharp. During the carving process, the mage would need to slow down the rate of their blood cirction so that their hands would be able to keep still. There was no room for even the slightest of quivers.


    Saleen knew all of this knowledge from the books he read. However, no knowledge coulde close to a Grade 6 mage personally doing it in front of his eyes.


    From that day on, Faerun no longer assigned tasks to Saleen with the sole purpose of having him learn. He only had Saleen assist him. Saleen was already satisfied with this chance he was getting. Since his foundation in magic was solid, Saleen was able to learn new things even if Faerun did not explicitly say them aloud. Furthermore, when Saleen helped Faerun, Faerun would give Saleen a Grade 3 magic nucleus to recharge his magic chords.


    That was equivalent to letting Saleen pick up various types of low-level magic. Saleen actually did not mind spending money to purchase magic nuclei, but he could save over a hundred gold coins each day when he received them for free, so he felt that helping Faerun was well worth it.


    As the days went by, Faerun gradually realized that Saleen only used Water Magic, but he never asked the reason why and continued giving him mundane tasks toplete. Whenever Saleen had fully mastered a certain low-level magic, his tasks were changed to enable Saleen to start familiarizing himself with another type of magic.


    As for practice, Saleen had only one request for Faerun. Saleen asked Faerun whether he could purchase a live high-level magic beast.


    Faerun thought about it and said, ¡°You¡¯re getting it for the Caucasus female warrior, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen did not bother to hide anything. A magic beast soul was considered to be an extraordinary skill by swordsmen, but was not perceived to be mysterious by mages. Although, this skill was rted to death magic.


    ¡°Wait for a little while. There will be winter hunting at the end of the year. You will be able to encounter some great magic beasts, and if you go and purchase one now, it will be difficult to find a suitable one. A high-level magic beast is very hard to rear, so most people will just kill it to extract its magic nucleus,¡± Faerun patiently exined to Saleen.


    Saleen felt helpless, but what Faerun had said was true too. He then went to convey this message to Sika. ¡°Actually, there is no rush. I was nning to spend more time reading anyway,¡± Sika consoled Saleen.


    ¡°You actually read books?¡± Saleen¡¯s expression made Sika dejected. But it was not surprising, as Saleen had never heard of a Caucasus person who loved reading. Fighting was in their blood. Even a female from Caucasus would not have had the patience to read.


    Seeing that Sika had grown depressed, Saleen quickly reassured her, ¡°Just go ahead and read then. All the books in the viscountess¡¯ residence are free anyway. You will be able to learn some new words as well.¡±


    ¡°Learn, learn to recognize words?¡± Nailisi stuttered in Qinnguage. Nailisi had been in the room all this while, but no one knew just when she had entered.


    Nailisi and Sika were exact opposites. Sika had eloquence, but could not really write. On the other hand, Nailisi could write very well, but always stuttered.


    ¡°Learn, learn, learn¡­¡± Sika grew frustrated and starting imitating the way Nailisi spoke.


    Nailisi bared her teeth and made a face at Sika. As Nailisi showed her fangs, Sika could not help but clutch her boomerang. Saleen sighed. Even when they couldn¡¯tmunicate with each another, they got along just fine. Now that they shared amonnguage, fights were moremon. Had Saleen known that beforehand, he would have continued to let Sika be illiterate and let Nailisi remain indigenous. Then life would have been easier.


    Life was dull. Saleen would attend ss every Monday and then spend the rest of his time in the courtyard. Viscountess Lex sometimes skipped ss. After the first time the sorcerer personally taught Saleen the Ice de spell, it had never happened again.


    Saleen used the badge every night and underwent training. Hence, his mental strength grew at an incredible speed.


    Advancing the magic chords was a tough process, as this process required the umtion of time. Saleen was focused on growing his mental strength, because in order to familiarize himself with the entirety of the Figaro form, he needed to keep making deductions. This was tougher than just practicing magic, which used less mental strength. For Saleen, the way he learned magic was by mastering all magic, which caused a great exhaustion of his mental strength.


    Without the help of the mysterious badge, Saleen would have do it in an orderly manner like any other low-grade mage. But with the badge, he could regain his mental strength to its peak state within half an hour. Saleen had begun to try controlling Grade 3 magic.


    Saleen¡¯s fluctuating magic chords caused him to be both depressed and upbeat. Saleen was sad that he was not able to learn the other five branches of magic. But Saleen was also happy because he possessed twice the quantity of magic chordspared to other mages of his grade. This meant that Saleen could cast one more Grade 3 spell over other mages of his grade.


    Saleen could now consecutively cast two Grade 3 spells, twenty-four Grade 2 spells, or forty-eight Grade 1 spells. However, he never tried casting Grade 0 spells as he did not know many Grade 0 spells. Aside from the Acid Sputtering spell, the rest of the Grade 0 spells were supportive spells.


    One afternoon, it suddenly began to snow. Saleen came to Faerun¡¯sboratory wearing an unlined piece of clothing. Faerun did not assign any tasks to Saleen as he usually did and also did not look too good. Faerun told Saleen, ¡°The viscountess wants to see you. Kasiya will bring you there.¡±


    Kasiya was a lifestyle mage working under Faerun, and she also lived in the courtyard. She was a beautiful youngdy who was also a Grade 2 mage, and her talent in magic wasparable to Saleen¡¯s.


    Saleen noticed that Faerun¡¯s expression was odd and grew perturbed. But still, he left with Kasiya, wondering why the viscountess was looking for him.


    Saleen returned to the room where he had first seen Viscountess Lex. Viscountess Lex had fur wrapped around her neck. She wore a white shirt lined with fur which made her face appear rosy and delicate. When Saleen entered the room, she was gazing at the snow by the window.


    ¡°Viscountess, I understand that you were looking for me?¡±

 Chapter 78: Winter Snow, Sudden Thunder (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 78: Winter Snow, Sudden Thunder (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The water outside the window had not frozen. The window was open, and yet the wind did not enter the room. A snowkended in the water and melted instantly. Viscountess Lex looked out the window at the snow nkly and softly asked, ¡°Saleen, did your hometown have snow like this too?¡±


    Hearing Viscountess Lex speak about his hometown, he knew that she must have sent someone to check on him. However, it had only been such a short while. How had someone from the residence gone to Ceylon City?


    ¡°Bigger than this. When I was young, my room didn¡¯t have any windows and I had to use a grass curtain to cover it. Sshing water and freezing it, I made sure the wind couldn¡¯t enter the room before sleeping. When I woke up in the morning, the doors and windows were frozen shut and I had to chisel my way out.¡±


    ¡°I have sent people to Ceylon City. However, tell me what happened in Phoenix.¡±


    Saleen stood behind the viscountess, looking out of the window as well. The room and the scene outside the window seemed to be two different worlds. It was snowing heavily outside while the room remained pristine and warm. At the corner of the wall were flowers held in a vase.


    Saleen did not answer her. He did not even move a finger. There were people all around the room waiting to ambush him. Anyone plotting against the viscountess would be killed by these hidden assassins. Saleen did not want to cause any misunderstandings even though he was nowhere near the skill level of Viscountess Lex.


    ¡°Saleen, do you know Aini O¡¯ Clyde?¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± Even though it was his first time hearing Aini¡¯s full name, he knew the viscountess could not have meant anyone else. He was a little nervous. The viscountess¡¯ residence had such strong influence, being able to directly pinpoint Aini. It went without saying that she must have known what he and Aini had done.


    ¡°Aini has done something stupid. He had set traps at Central City but Cook returned to the Qin Empire using another route instead. Hisrades did not manage to stop him.¡±


    Saleen listened quietly. She certainly was not here just to tell him these things. Using this to scare him would have been pointless. For a low-grade mage, there was no way of resisting in a ce such as this residence. If the viscountess had wanted to capture and acquit him, she would not have needed to say so much.


    The person who killed Loki must have been trying his best to cover his tracks.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Cook will not be able to return to Holy Rock City.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart sank a little. He had assumed that on ount of Loki¡¯s magic nucleus, the viscountess would spare him and not have the empire¡¯s people capture him. He had not imagined that she would kill him and end things cleanly.


    That was atrocious. Usually when Saleen killed someone, it was because he had been forced to do so. Aside from the one time he had been rash, Saleen was not one to offend anyone. Compared to Viscountess Lex, Aini was a mere child. The viscountess would not be troubled about something like this, and so what if they were a baron? Once killed, he would be gone.


    Saleen had no idea why the viscountess would do such a thing. All of this just for a small mage?


    ¡°Allow him to return and he would only spout lies to my father,¡± Viscountess Lex said inly. It seemed that when people of higher positions killed anyone, it was all done with brief thought. Saleenmitted that to his memory. He would need to be careful if he met any important people in the future, for even if he did not offend them, he could find himself getting killed.


    ¡°Saleen, it would not be a problem if you stayed in the Qin Empire. However, back in your hometown, some things have happened.¡±


    Saleen started getting uneasy. He hesitated and said, ¡°Viscountess¡­¡±


    ¡°My people haven¡¯t seen your teacher. They¡¯ve only heard that he went to Yaoyang City. After arge battle with a mage from Yaoyang City, he has been missing ever since.¡±


    Saleen felt his heart being strung like a bow, all his muscles tensed. Why had his teacher gone to Yaoyang city to find trouble with Earl Sufonso? A mage in Yaoyang City could be as high as a Grade 6 one with a magic tower. His teacher would not have been a match for them. He felt that something was amiss, yet did not dare believe it. He only hoped that whatever the viscountess was about to say was not what he imagined.


    Viscountess Lex let out a sigh and turned around. Looking at Saleen, she said, ¡°Earl Sufonso destroyed your family grave to vent out his anger when your teacher was not around. However¡­¡±


    Upon hearing this, Saleen felt his blood boil and any self-control he had disappeared. He felt a ringing in his ear and a wave of dizziness rushed past him. His heart felt like it had been stabbed.


    Sufonso, if I do not kill you, I am not a man!


    Initially, Saleen had felt apprehensive about killing Sufonso¡¯s son. He had been wrong in doing that and could not argue for it. However, he had no idea that Sufonso would be this vicious as to even involve the dead.


    Saleen¡¯s face was scarily pale and he felt his magic chords vibrating madly, almost as if they were disintegrating. In this moment, the ck ne on his neck emitted a soft coolness that entered his body. The invisible chill flushed through every part of his body, cooling and calming down the magic chords which were vibrating crazily. It was only then that Saleen regained a little rity.


    His family grave had been ruined a long time before and had never been touched up. Some of them had even been destroyed by gravediggers. However, Saleen¡¯s parents were buried there and without this grave, that ce would not be home.


    Viscountess Lex was shocked as well. She felt something amiss with Saleen, but he calmed down quickly. He was clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, a streak of blood at the corner of his lips.


    If his magic chords were to disintegrate, even if he did not die, he would be mentally retarded.


    Viscountess Lex waved her hand and the invisible screen lining the window beside the water disappeared. The wind brought the snow with it as it blew in, hitting Saleen in his face and chest.


    The temperature in the room immediately dropped as Saleen looked down, not saying a word.


    Some anger could not be calmed with reason. No matter how cold it was, the fire in his chest could not be put out.


    Viscountess Lex said slowly, ¡°If what you want is revenge, you will have time. My men have checked. Sufonso has already trained to the level of swordsmaster. He will live long.¡±


    Only then did Saleen raise his head and gave a coldugh, saying, ¡°I was afraid he would die too early and would not wait for my return.¡±


    Viscountess Lex looked at Saleen¡¯s face. It was a face that had been stripped of its innocence. He did not look like a youth at all. Saleen¡¯s blue eyes were like two frozen ponds, freezing everything in his sight.


    A loud boom resouned as sounds of thunder came from outside the window


    Winter snow, sudden thunder.


    ¡°Viscountess, is there anything else?¡± Saleen could not control his anger and could only ask questions to distract himself from the sinking feeling in his heart. He knew that with his current abilities, he would not be a match for Earl Sufonso at all. However, this hatred needed to be dealt with by himself and he would never ask for the help of anyone else.


    Even his teacher could not defeat Earl Sufonso. If he wanted to exact his revenge personally, he would need to be at least a sorcerer. However, with his feelings of frustration, how could he continue training? If this hatred was not quelled, it would be impossibly difficult to be a grand mage, much less a sorcerer.


    ¡°There¡¯s even more bad news. Do you want to hear it?¡±


    Saleen nodded. What could be worse than this?


    ¡°This isn¡¯t something that simple. Saleen, your teacher is from the Qin Empire. It could be a small or big matter that he went to Yaoyang City to kill Sufonso. If it was something small, then he went after him to exact revenge for you. If It was something big, then it is the same as a mage from the Qin Empire assassinating a wealthy person from Sikeqinya. Sufonso had already convinced the emperor of Sikeqinya to send troops over to the Qin Empire.


    ¡°That is impossible.¡± Even though Saleen was mad, he had regained some sense. Going to war with another country for an earl?


    ¡°It is impossible. That¡¯s what makes it troublesome. Think, why would Sufonso do something that dumb?¡±


    Under the guidance of Viscountess Lex, Saleen thought of the unimaginable.


    ¡°There is a someone inciting all of this?¡±


    ¡°Manipting. This is nothing out of the ordinary.¡± Viscountess Lex¡¯s expression was somber as she said, ¡°The one manipting all of this definitely isn¡¯t from Sikeqinya. Yaoyang City is a harbor city with prosperous trade. Sufonso has money and troops, and this makes him a good target to manipte. Even though there is no concrete information, only one force would be able to do something like this.¡±


    The sacred Holy See!


    The answer was right in their faces and Saleen needed to be dumb to not have thought of it. A third of the trade between Sikeqinya and Taggsi was by sea routes. Yaoyang City had arge volume of trade with the Taggsi Empire and it would not have been difficult for Earl Sufonso to gang up with the Holy See.


    If the Holy See was involved, it would be harder for him to exact his revenge. Saleen thought back to the white deacon that he had met at the Chaotic Swamp. He seemed impossible to surpass. Every time he had thought back to Picasso, Saleen had not been able to stop himself from feeling frustrated. This time, an immense strength filled his heart instead.


    Magic. Only magic can be depended upon. Saleen thought back to what the sorcerer had said: Give me enough time, and I can even split a gold swordsmaster in half.


    Viscountess Lex was appalled to see the coldness leave Saleen¡¯s eyes. It hadpletely disappeared, and had not been disguised. Even though Saleen was no longer as gentle as he had been in the past, he now possessed an air of determination.


    ¡°Saleen, do you intend to stay or leave?¡± Viscountess Lex asked cautiously. She did not want to use this opportunity to impose anything onto him. Even though Saleen was a gifted mage, Viscountess Lex had her own pride as well.


    ¡°If I stay, what do I need to do?¡± Saleen was well aware that the viscountess had never trusted him before this. Only now was she truly letting him join her team of mages. If he wanted to quickly improve his skills, he could not do it without any guidance. His teacher was missing and there were no one else he could turn to for guidance, aside from Faerun and the sorcerer.


    ¡°Actually, I don¡¯t need you to do anything. For all these years, Bitter Water Prefecture has been open to all mages.¡±


    Saleen gave a forcedugh and said, ¡°I cannot stay here for free, can I?¡±


    ¡°That magic nucleus is enough to feed you for a few years.¡± Viscountess Lex¡¯s voice was gentle and yet it disgusted Saleen. That must have been the style of the wealthy. No, Lex was not a member of the wealthy, she was a royal.


    ¡°Actually, I just have a small request, or perhaps you could call it a wish. If you do stay, if any trouble befalls Bitter Water Prefecture in the future, I hope you all stand on our side.¡±


    ¡°You all?¡±


    ¡°Yes, us. All the mages in Bitter Water Prefecture swear an oath to protect this city.¡±

 Chapter 79: Winter Snow, Sudden Thunder (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 79: Winter Snow, Sudden Thunder (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Protect Bitter Water Prefecture?


    Saleen could not quite understand. Who would have the audacity to cause trouble in Bitter Water Prefecture? However, this request was in line with Saleen¡¯s thoughts. He would not have wanted to be tasked with protecting or following someone.


    Magic training was greatly rted to how pure a person¡¯s mind was.


    ¡°I¡¯m willing to stay and be Faerun¡¯s assistant. If someday Bitter Water Prefecture is met with an assault, I will protect it together with all of the other mages in this city,¡± Saleen replied carefully.


    If one wanted to gain something, he would need to pay something of the same value.


    Saleen thought about this saying and he put aside any worries he had in the past. If he wished to receive help from someone, he certainly needed to give something. He believed in this wholeheartedly.


    ¡°Yes, Saleen. Come.¡± Viscountess Lex smiled as she took out a silver badge.


    Saleen took two steps forward and received the badge in his hands. The badge was cold and heavy, the viscountess¡¯ hands warm and soft.


    ¡°This badge does not have many uses. By the time you reach Grade 4 and want to leave Bitter Water Prefecture, you will have better grasped the essence of magic. With this badge and your identity as a grand mage, you¡¯ll be pardoned for any mistakes you make.¡±


    Viscountess Lex blew on her fingers. Her smile was so innocent, almost like a wealthy teenager who had no idea of the atrocities happening around them.


    ¡°Viscountess¡­¡±


    ¡°Saleen, if you have any other questions, ask Faerun. I have told him everything I have gathered. What you need now is rest. Do not interrupt your magic training because of this. If you need anything else in the future, you can find me. However, the mages in the residence cannot help you take revenge. I will not allow that.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, viscountess.¡± Saleen gave a mage¡¯s bow and swallowed whatever he was about to say.


    He really had wanted help from the mages in the residence. Even though he wanted to dispose of Earl Sufonso himself, he wanted to hire someone to kill the mage in Yaoyang City. With his wealth, he definitely had enough money to hire a few mages. However, since Viscountess Lex hadn¡¯t forced him to do anything, the other mages must have received the same treatment.


    If the viscountess did not say anything, these mages would not want to leave this ce no matter how much money Saleen offered.


    ¡°Saleen, I admire your teacher a lot, to actually challenge a grand mage in his magic tower. You need to work hard and not disappoint your teacher.¡± Viscountess Lex possessed no air of authority as she said this, her eyes even gleaming with yearning.


    She was a mage too, and upon hearing the news from Bain¡¯s men, her heart had swelled. If it had been her, would she have had the courage to challenge a Grade 6 mage with a magic tower?


    A feeling of warmth coursed through Saleen. Jason had done something so shocking for his sake. It was a pity that he had fallen into Earl Sufonso¡¯s trap and had been taken advantage of.


    Saleen left the room. From the shadows of the window, Bain slowly appeared.


    The snow continued blowing into the room. Just before it reached Bain, it would silently disappear.


    ¡°Bain, chaos is descending. Call back all the people from the swordsmen¡¯s camp. Their training is over.¡± Viscountess Lex spoke with a heavy tone. She knew far more than what she had told Saleen.


    Seeing how determined Earl Sufonso was this time, it seemed that he was fully prepared to side with the Holy See. Sikeqinya would plunge into chaos and the ck mages in Phoenix Duchy had not yet been wiped out. There were only two roads leading from the Phoenix Duchy to the Qin Empire and they were easy to defend. Even if the situation in Phoenix were to worsen, it would not affect the Qin Empire directly.


    However, there were many small roads from Phoenix to Lon Duchy, and it would be hard to stop the spread of ck mages. Lon Duchy was the first line of defense for the Qin Empire and if chaos were to ensue there, it would affect the surrounding duchies. These duchies were the buffer zones for the four empires and if a conflict were to break out, every country would be involved.


    The news from the Cloudflow Empire had not been positive either. The emperor was determined to strive for the well-being of his citizens and had being thinking up of ways to expand the number of grand mages they had. Now they were taking up a more active position and had started chasing away pastors from the sacred Holy See like the Qin Empire.


    All of these things had not happened by chance. It was almost as if an invisible hand was controlling everything.


    ¡°How about the team of mages?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no rush. If Bitter Water Prefecture is in danger, they will return.¡± Viscountess Lex said confidently.


    ¡°But you¡¯re turning eighteen next year¡­¡±


    ¡°Bain, if I were to give an order, they would return immediately. However, this would interrupt some of their training. With all of you around, I am relieved. What¡¯s more, I am a grand mage as well.¡± Viscountess Lex stopped whatever Bain had been about to say.


    Saleen returned to Faerun¡¯s court and took a look at theb. He did not knock on the door and went back to his room instead to wake up Nailisi. ¡°Go prepare. I want to take a shower.¡±


    ¡°Master, you don¡¯t seem to be in a good mood.¡± Nailisi still spoke the ancient Myersnguage when she was alone with Saleen. For some reason, she still stuttered when she spoke any othernguage.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing. I will be fine after a few days.¡± Saleen found it strange as well. Since the chill from the ne had coursed through his body, he felt his mind clearing up and his anger was easier to suppress.


    The three items in the Ring of Gifts were very cryptic and he had no idea what purpose the cbash served. If he could figure it out, it could help tremendously in advancing his skills.


    Saleen took off the glove on his left hand, revealing it.


    The hand was whiter and more tender than Viscountess Lex¡¯s hand. If the veins did not feel as connected as they did, Saleen might even have mistaken it for someone else¡¯s hand.


    Saleen was not clear what use this hand was of, and as of now, it could store two strange looking magic shields. These magic shields could be summoned with just a single thought and even after a few months, they had not disappeared. Having gone up against Faerun¡¯s fireball previously, these water shields had be much smaller. Since then, they had been returning to their original size.


    Earl Sufonso was a swordmaster and his water shields were low-grade magic at best. They would not be able to defend against a swordmaster¡¯s sword aura. Did he really have to wait until he was a sorcerer to exact his revenge?


    If only his water shields could be upgraded like the Fireball spell. Saleen thought back to the blue fireball from Faerun. Besides being envious, he had a vague idea. If he used the Figaro form to make some calctions, the Water Shield spell could be tweaked. Could he use this method to upgrade his water shields?


    The water shield itself was strange on its own. It was a Grade 1 magic prop, yet it possessed Grade 2 defenses.


    While Saleen was thinking about it, a servant had already prepared a hot water bath for Saleen under the instructions of Nailisi. Saleen removed his clothing and dipped himself into the water.


    ¡°Everyone¡­ get out.¡± Nailisi chased the servant away and left Saleen alone. She sat by the doorway, looking at the snow outside the courtyard.


    Master is in a bad mood. He must be thinking about home. Home¡­


    She had no home. Since the day she could first form memories, she had been living a life of chasing and killing. Capturing weak magic insects and spirits, and hiding from devils and demons. That had been her life.


    Nailisi extended her hand and caught a snowke. It melted rapidly in her hand and turned into a cool droplet of water.


    This was a good universe. And yet, why was she missing the demon universe with its volcanoes? The air in the demon universe had always been filled with smoke and dust. Corrosive gases umted and were everywhere. Sturdy nts had usually been poisonous and even demons needed to be careful.


    The fondest memory she had was the moment she tore open a magic insect¡¯s case and the smell of the flesh wafted into her nostrils. Nailisi withdrew a piece of fresh meat from the bracelet and began to chew on it, but she could not taste anything no matter how hard she tried.


    The wooden tub used for showering wasrge and if it had not been in a ce like the viscountess¡¯ residence, it would have taken forever to prepare this much hot water. Saleen immersed himself in the tub. He did not follow the order of magic training.


    The temperature was a bit high and the chill within his body did not go away. Saleen gathered up his senses and focused on the ck ne. The ck ne was made up of twenty-four ck crystals. Saleen had tried experimenting countless times but he had not found any secrets to the ne. This time, the ne released its aura on its own and joined to his body, letting its energy spread.


    This was an unbelievably pure crystal. Without much effort from Saleen, he had finished probing the twenty-four ck crystals. There was nothing in the crystals. No space, no magic symbols, and no signs of it being processed.


    So why had this crystal automatically bnced his body¡¯s condition? Saleen remembered clearly that his magic chords had been nearly out of control. His focus had been chaotic, he could not release any magic, and he had only been able to wait for death.


    Only now did he understand that the ws of his magic chords were not solely limited to the fact that he could only cast Water Magic, but they were unstable as well. Once his focus became chaotic, these magic chords would start behaving erratically. This was a fatal w, and without this ne, he would be in constant danger.


    High-grade magic could attack a person¡¯s focus and cause an enemy to lose their consciousness. However, if he were to be attacked by this magic, he would die. After much searching, Saleen still could not find anything hidden within the ne. Was his grade too low?


    Saleen recalled closely that moment when he had lost control. The coolness from the ne had coursed through his entire body immediately. It did not seem like divinity nor magic. There were no clues and the elemental energy was unusually bnced. There was no beginning and no way for him to calcte anything using the Figaro form.


    Saleen directed his senses entirely onto the ne and stopped trying to search for anything. He rested quietly, and after a while, the low voice of thunder sounded outside the window.


    This sound of thunder struck Saleen¡¯s heart directly, and with a loud boom, the space within the ne opened up entirely.

 Chapter 80: The Meaning of Equipment (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 80: The Meaning of Equipment (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt as though he had entered arge empty space. He eyed his surroundings and indeed, it was a ck space in the shape of a square. There was no light shining into the ck space, and yet, Saleen could easily perceive all of the changes happening within the space.


    Saleen felt as though he had returned to the day his magic chords had begun. It was just that he saw many more elements being arranged into an orderly manner inside the space, and they were all undergoing changes.


    Since Saleen had previously observed the Figaro form, he had already realized that the elements that were being arranged in this space were in fact a kind of form too. However, this form was much moreplicated, and he was not able toprehend it.


    Once he had calmed his mind down, Saleen realized that his physical body was not in this space. Or rather, that he had taken on a virtual form inside the space. The elements in the space were able to pass through him. Furthermore, his virtual self was three-dimensional, and had been made out of countless elements.


    On the left side in the ck space was a door. Saleen thought about walking towards the door, and before he knew it, he had teleported in front of the door.


    On the other side of the door was another ck space, identical to the first one. The two ck spaces seemed identical to one another, but Saleen could already see the arrangement of its elements and quickly realized that this second ck space contained anotherplicated form.


    Saleen became deep in thought and looked in front of him. At the end of the second ck space was another door.


    But how would he get out of this?


    Saleen had never done any research on these magic forms, but he walked towards the second door. Past the second door was yet another ck space, and the elements in there were arranged to show a third magic form.


    Saleen kept going forward. He went through twenty-three doors and finally came to a space that looked familiar to him.


    Indeed, Saleen felt that this space was very familiar, thinking that he had seen that collective form before. Wasn¡¯t¡­ wasn¡¯t this the Figaro form?


    Except that the form he was looking at right now seemed to be moreplete and perfect than the one he had seen in Faerun¡¯s ce. The arrangement of the six great elements seemed to be clearer too.


    Oh, so this was what happened.


    Saleen had thought of a piece of information that he had once read in a book.


    Soul projection!


    Soul projection was a magic dating back to the First Dynasty. People at the time had only used their bare hands to engage inbat, and there was no need for props. They could tear through space and traverse through the vertical and horizontal nes of space. Soul projection was an ability that everyone had.


    As Saleen was thinking about soul projection, he realized that his virtual body was slowly diminishing, as the elements began to separate. Saleen did not try to stop this process. He actually took it calmly and started observing the changes closely.


    The elements within the ck space began swirling. Saleen¡¯s virtual form starting floating and was sucked into the vortex. As he was spun about furiously, Saleen felt that he was being thrown about repeatedly.


    Ker, ker¡­


    Saleen started coughing violently, and his head came out of the water. He realized that he had still been bathing in the wooden tub. There were no changes to the room, and the temperature of the water remained the same.


    Ever since Saleen had obtained his magic chords, this had been the first time he had choked on water.


    Ker¡­


    Saleen coughed out the water that had gone into him, and could not help but startughing. He did not understand how he had been able to execute soul projection. But Saleen did not need to understand. He just needed to know the effects of the ne that he possessed.


    The ne contained twenty-four magic forms. As long as a person had sufficient mental strength, they could use soul projection to enter the ne to observe and learn. Right now, Saleen¡¯s mental strength was inadequate. Therefore, he had been unable to continue projecting his soul into the ne and had been expelled from it.


    Twenty-four pieces of crystal made up the ck ne. Each of the twenty-four pieces contained a magic form inside, and one of the pieces contained the Figaro form.


    To a mage, this ne was priceless.


    In this day and age, it was almost impossible for someone to be self-learned and seed in magic. Without a teacher, a mage would find it difficult to understand the truews of magic. And this ne was one of the best teachers a mage could ever find.


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Saleen called out. Nailisi stood at the door weakly and replied, but she did not enter.


    ¡°How long has it been?¡±


    ¡°Seventy-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-four frames, Master.¡±


    Upon hearing Nailisi¡¯s answer, Saleen did not know whether to be happy or sad. A frame was a unit of time for mages. One frame was only 0.6 seconds. Seventy-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-four frames might have seemed daunting, but was in fact only twenty minutes. However, in these twenty minutes, Saleen had managed to memorize more types of arrangements than what he had in ten hours in Faerun¡¯s room that day. All of the different arrangements had been deeply etched in Saleen¡¯s mind and had be part of him. Therefore, Saleen would never forget the arrangements.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes became very enthusiastic. Training like this would enable him to grasp the Figaro form quickly. The gap between Earl Sufonso and him was also narrowing rapidly. If a person were to fully grasp all twenty-four forms, what would be the consequences?


    The existence of mages was to gain insight into the truths of this world¡­


    Subconsciously, Saleen¡¯s desire for vengeance had greatly diminished. The coolness in his body had dissipated, his magic chords stopped tossing about, and everything went back to normal. The two water shields revolving around Saleen had also stopped in their tracks. Saleen had exhausted too much of his mental strength, which had caused all of these effects to be terminated as well.


    Furthermore, the two water shields had undergone a miraculous change. They had grown to twice their original volume. The water shields no longer looked like bubbles, and there were now elements actively circting within them. They were also nearly transparent now and were no longer light blue.


    Saleen had just then regained some of his mental strength and noticed these changes. He knew that his magic was undergoing new changes, and as long as he used the Figaro form to calcte derivations, he would be able to gain a new mantra.


    No, if he was able topletelyprehend the Figaro form, there would be no need for mantras in the future. Saleen would be able to skip the tedious learning process and directly cast his magic.


    With sufficient time, a person could acquire the ability to learn just by observing how others cast their magic. Without any mantras nor hand signs, one only needed to cultivate magic until it became a part of their instincts.


    Was this how people in the First Dynasty used to improve their magic?


    Forget it. That had been tens of thousands of years ago and there was no point to thinking about it. For Saleen, the most important thing right now was to grow his power as soon as possible. Now that his mind was clear, Saleen started reanalyzing what Viscountess Lex had said, and began to feel that something was going to happen. This matter superseded Saleen¡¯s own revenge. However, he possessed limited ess to information and was unable to infer anything.


    Saleen did not meditate. He only habitually took out his family badge and held it in his hand. Saleen cast a Grade 0 spell, and began training.


    This time around, as the badge sapped his magic chords and strength, Saleen was not clueless. He could feel that the badge had not only taken away his strength, but had also removed some impurities from his body.


    Mages believed that everything in the world was formed by elements, and the same was true of the body of humans. Through eating, humans absorbed elements from the other forms of life in order to maintain the bnce in their bodies. Out of all of the elements that were absorbed, most were useless and would be expelled from the body. Some elements that were absorbed could not be transformed into energy, and all of these elements were the impurities of the human body.


    In turn, the impurities would affect the growth and development of a human and cause different kinds of illnesses.


    The reason why mages lived a longer life than the average human was because mages could closely observe and control the elements, and methodically get rid of the impurities.


    Back in the courtyard, the snow had stopped falling, but the sky remained dark. Sika was practicing herbat skills while Nailisi sat on the steps of the stairs. Nailisi looked on restlessly as Sika waved her cudgel about and ruffled the snow on the ground.


    Faerun grew suspicious when he saw that Saleen waste ining to theboratory. Didn¡¯t he know what had happened in Ceylon City? The boy wouldn¡¯t be so rash as to leave immediately, right? Faerun was worried for Saleen. Given the strength Saleen possessed right now, Saleen would not even be able to get close to Earl Sufonso if he returned to Sikeqinya, let alone exact revenge on him.


    If a genius like Saleen died young, everyone would feel remorse and pity.


    When Faerun thought of that, he could not help but stand up and head out into the courtyard.


    ¡°Master.¡± Sika stopped training and lowered her arms to greet Faerun.


    Faerunughed. Given Sika¡¯s aplishments, she would definitely supersede other fighters such as Bain if she were to learn swordcraft. It was too bad that had chosen another path, rendering her sword aura inconsequential.


    It seemed that Faerun had been a bit too rude. Everyone had the freedom to choose whichever path they wanted. How Saleen wanted to settle his affairs were entirely his own business, and Faerun should not have tried to interfere. It was just like how Sika did not need to try and alter her life.


    At this point, Faerun felt regretful. Why wasn¡¯t Saleen his student?


    ¡°Sika, where did you learn those skills?¡± Faerun began to chat with Sika. It was extremely rare for Faerun to do that. A few other mages in rooms on both sides of the courtyard overheard Faerun talking and were bewildered, but the mages were not usually such busybodies. Saleen was so lucky. Faerun always gave him advice, and now Faerun was even starting to care for hispanions as well. Sika shyly kicked the snow beneath her feet and replied, ¡°I learned it from the vige chief.¡±


    ¡°Can I take a look at your weapon?¡±


    ¡°Sure,¡± Sika said, and handed Faerun the cudgel. Faerun waved his hands and a gentle wave of wind engulfed the cudgel, pulling it upwards. The wind brought the cudgel before Faerun, and it continued levitating in midair.


    This was the Binding Magic of Grade 4 Wind Magic. Faerun had already fully interpreted and understood magic, and was extremely powerful. One needed to understand that normal Binding Magic could only trap its target to the spot, and there was no way to move the target about.


    ¡°It seems like the damage is pretty serious. Sika, do you mind if I help you repair it?¡±


    ¡°About that¡­ how much would it cost? Sika replied naively. The expressions of the other mages listening in on the conversation grew very queer. The Caucasus warrior was actually treating Faerun as though he were a magic craftsman! God, she was so stupid!

 Chapter 81: The Meaning of Equipment (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 81: The Meaning of Equipment (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Sika!¡± Saleen shouted as he barged through the door. He had heard what Sika had said and could not take it anymore.


    Faerunughed unexpectedly and replied, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I won¡¯t charge you.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Sika¡¯s eyes grewrger as she stared at Faerun. Faerun saw his reflection in Sika¡¯s eyes. It was so pure and clear.


    ¡°Yes, really,¡± Faerun said. He then turned around and started walking to theboratory. As Faerun walked, he said, ¡°All of you shoulde too.¡±


    Faerun¡¯s voice resounded throughout all of the rooms and the mages rejoiced. To be able to witness a mage master repairing weapons firsthand was much more important than participating in an experiment. By the time Faerun stopped talking, the other mages had already run out of their rooms, having no concern for their appearances at all. Some had not even bothered to put on their magic robes.


    The courtyard became empty in a sh, leaving Nailisi alone. She continued standing barefooted in the snow, devoid of any heat. Snow started to fall again. Somended on Nailisi¡¯s face and arms, but the snow did not melt.


    These humans were so boring.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel was ced on the tabletop. The cudgel was swarthy, and it was almost as tall as Sika. Recently, Sika had be more particr about hygiene, so she had cleaned the cudgel until it shone. There were also no more dried bloodstains on the cudgel.


    Faerun did not say a word, his gaze fixed on Sika¡¯s weapon. The cudgel had been crafted from the bones of an ancient magic beast and was tougher than refined steel. However, Faerun could tell that cracks were beginning to form on the natural patterns on the cudgel¡¯s surface. Even if he did not use the Figaro form to make a deduction, it was easy to tell that the internal structure of the cudgel was falling apart.


    It required a long time for a structure like this to be broken. The cudgel may very well have broken in her next fight. No matter how tough a weapon was, it would definitely break if it was not repaired or maintained for a long period of time.


    Faerun swiftly inspected the internal structure of the cudgel and gained a rough understanding of this weapon. He then cast Binding Magic again, causing the stick to levitate in midair. Thereafter, Faerun took a gold piece and ced it under the stick. This gold piece was one of the three thousand odd pieces that Faerun used to practice the Figaro form.


    After the first piece was in position, Faerun proceeded to meticulously ce the second piece in a new position.


    The rest of the mages knew that Faerun was doing it so slowly so that they could observe it more urately. The mages closely observed Faerun¡¯s every action, afraid that they might miss out on some details.


    In Saleen¡¯s eyes, every single action that Faerun made held meaning for him. The gold pieces that were stacked up formed a branched alteration that belonged to the Figaro form. As the form was graduallypleted, the arrangement of the elements that surrounded the cudgel also gradually changed. This was no magic array nor alchemy. This was pure restoration. It was simr to someone drinking when they were thirsty and eating when they were hungry.


    Of course, a repair like this was not as fast as what a magic array would have been, but this process would not alter the weapon¡¯s attributes or structure. Everything would proceed naturally.


    Faerun spent an hour or so positioning all three thousand gold pieces. The mages were confused as they were unable to understand the entire process, and yet they had managed to find answers that they had never thought they would have at some point during the process.


    Saleen did not bother trying to deduce the original arrangement of this form. If he wanted to learn, he could simply use soul projection to enter his ne and learn since it was much much more effective than observing how Faerun worked. He was busy perceiving the changes taking ce on Sika¡¯s cudgel.


    Once Faerun had finished putting the gold pieces in ce, he started bringing out materials and adding them to the module.


    The eyes of the mages grew evenrger at the sight of Faerun adding precious materials. They felt that Faerun was wasting precious resources.


    That¡­ seemed like the horn of a dragon turtle, right? And that calcite, they had never heard of it before. Why was it colored? And this powder? Where had this bone been taken from, a magic beast? No, this was powdered bone marrow, and it was even gold in color.


    Saleen was also surprised. The materials that Faerun were adding were too precious for a warrior¡¯s weapon. It was not worth it at all. These materials could be used to create more advanced magic props, and some could be even used in holy equipment.


    The materials required no control to be used. They were transformed into their basic elements within the space of the module, and entered the cudgel via the cracks on its surface, slowly fixing the scars on the weapon.


    Actually, the cudgel had a life of its own as well. Saleen suddenly understood why Sika was able to control such a heavy weapon as though she were waving a strand of grass. The weapon had already fused with Sika, and was simr to a part of her body.


    If other methods had been used to repair the weapon, the cudgel might have be even stronger, but it would no longer be one with Sika.


    Even the strongest equipment could not beat a person¡¯s own hands. If the wielder could not fully understand their equipment, they would gradually be reliant on the power of the equipment. Eventually, the wielder would lose themselves, because they would be assimted into their equipment.


    If a mage was too reliant on a certain prop, they would eventually be blinded. Although the magic equipment might not have been perfect, the mage would think that its power was just right and would thus lose their inquisitiveness. To a mage, this would cause fatal harm.


    The materials that had been broken down into their elements were swiftly absorbed into the cudgel. Then, Faerun did something that Saleen found intolerable. Faerun gently tapped on a gold piece, causing a chain reaction to ur throughout the whole module. All of the gold pieces began to break down and attached onto the cudgel, causing the cudgel to now appear as though it had ayer of armor.


    There was silence in theboratory as every mage felt the tug on their heartstrings. It was as though a meteorite had crashed onto the earth and caused such a huge impact that it had shaken all of their souls.


    The gold pieces formed a chunkyyer of elements over the cudgel andpressed it. The cudgel had not even assimted the elements, and yet it was already beingpressed by this additionalyer of elements. The weapon then split and burst outwards.


    The forces acting inwards and outwards actually did not cause the stick to be broken down. Instead, the two antagonistic forces were miraculously fused together and swallowed up the immense strength of the elements.


    Peng!


    The repaired stick crashed onto the table and Faerun sat down out of exhaustion. The state that Faerun was in looked just like Saleen after using his family badge, without even an ounce of strength left. However, in Faerun¡¯s eyes, there was a hint of surprise.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    The rest of the mages grew frantic as they worried about Faerun, and only Saleen remained calm. It turned out that Faerun had actually understood the secret to element conversion while he had been helping Sika repair her weapon. It seemed like the viscountess¡¯ residence would be producing a new sorcerer very soon.


    Saleen grew embarrassed at the thought of feeling pity for the gold pieces. To a mage, all these things were merely worldly possessions. Faerun must have thought of the same logic, and that was why he had been able to utilize those gold pieces without hesitation.


    To ruin a precious prop in return for enlightenment was something that Saleen would have done as well. However, it was too bad that Saleen could not understand those skills. Faerun¡¯s actions just now had opened his path to advancing to a sorcerer.


    Saleen looked around the room and noticed that the other eight mages were looking nervously at Faerun, not caring about the weapon on the table. Saleen was filled with emotion as he realized why Faerun had allowed them to live with him in his courtyard. Even though the mages were at least Grade 1, their hearts were very innocent and pure.


    But mages like Liki would never have the right to even step into the courtyard.


    ¡°Lord Faerun!¡± Sika called out apologetically. She anxiously looked at Faerun, who sat on the chair in a state of exhaustion.


    Faerun took a deep breath. Heughed heartily, and said, ¡°I am fine. How much did you all learn from this?¡±


    The mages stared at Faerun awkwardly. Even though Faerun had done the actions slowly, his actions had been tooplicated. Everyone had learned a thing or two from the process, but they had not managed to learn anything from Faerun¡¯s actions.


    Faerun realized this and reassured them. ¡°You may all be far from the truth, but you are heading in the right direction. As long as you do not lose your character, you will only get closer to the truth¡­ Sika, please take a look at your weapon.¡±


    ¡°Ok,¡± Sika replied. She picked up her weapon joyously. The cudgel had not changed its size or patterns, but it had be bronze in color.


    As soon as Sika touched her weapon, she became at ease. The weapon still had a familiar touch to it, and Sika held it as though it were very light.


    ¡°Sika, the texture of the weapon has changed, but its attributes remain the same. Even if there is no magic beast soul helping you, you will still be able to unleash the weapon¡¯s power.¡±


    ¡°Oh, really?¡± Sika heard what Faerun said and began waving her weapon about. The rest of the mages quickly stood clear of Sika, knowing that her weapon was mighty and that a low-level magic shield might not be able to block its blow.


    ¡°Wow, it¡¯s true!¡± Sika cried out excitedly. Sika was still unfamiliar with the power her weapon contained, but she felt that it was much stronger than it had been with the magic beast soul. Faerun looked at Sika happily. He liked people with a pure heart. At this point, Saleen¡¯s heart was not as pure as Sika¡¯s.


    ¡°Sir, Sika¡­¡± Saleen said shyly. Even though Faerun had also benefittedrgely from helping Sika, the materials he had used were far too expensive. Faerun might not have cared about such things, but Saleen could not turn a blind eye to it. Perhaps Saleen needed to reciprocate.


    But the value of those gold pieces could not be measured in terms of money.


    ¡°Saleen, take it as a gift from me to your teacher,¡± Faerun replied cheerily.


    When Saleen heard Faerun¡¯s words, a feeling of warmth welled up in him. In this world, there were still people who cared about him and protected him. These people were people like his teacher, Sika, and Faerun. Money could never buy these things, and these gestures could not be measured by any means.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t worry too much. Your teacher will be fine. A magical tower may be dangerous, but it will not be able to trap a powerful fighter like your teacher. Earl Sufonso may only be slightly injured, but he has offended your teacher so he will definitely suffer many sleepless nights. It will be difficult for Earl Sufonso to advance his magic. Don¡¯t fret over matters like this, or else you will end up like Earl Sufonso.¡±


    ¡°I understand, Sir¡­¡±


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s good that you understand. All of you shall stay. Do not waste this opportunity. I shall go and rest,¡± Faerun said, as he stood up from the chair sleepily and left theboratory.


    When the eight mages heard Faerun¡¯s reminder, they were strongly shaken. All the gold pieces may have disappeared, but the vibrations of the elements on the tabletop had not. They could take this chance to experience them. No matter how much they encountered, it would surely be a precious experience.


    ¡°Master, master!¡± Nailisi shouted from the courtyard, making Saleen frustrated. People were busy experiencing the mysteries of magic, and it was truly rude of Nailisi to interrupt that moment. Saleen left theboratory hastily and saw Nailisi curled up on the stairs, looking at him pitifully.

 Chapter 82: The Value of a Magic Disciple (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 82: The Value of a Magic Disciple (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nailisi, are you alright?¡± Saleen did not reprimand her as he helped her down from the tform. After seeing all the snow on her body, his anger had instantly faded away.


    He still had his teacher and Sika. Nailisi, on the other hand, was alone. Even if her master scolded her for every small thing she did, no one else in the Myers Maind would have concern for her.


    ¡°I¡¯m hungry.¡±


    Saleen lowered his voice and asked, ¡°What about the meat we bought along the way?¡±


    ¡°I have eaten all of it.¡±


    Saleen was in a difficult position. Nailisi had arge appetite and loved to eat fresh meat. It was not that he could not afford it, but he was living in the viscountess¡¯ residence and it was difficult to move around. Moreover, buying arge amount of fresh meat would prove to be too strange. A mage and two women, what would they need all that meat for?


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk inside.¡± Saleen pulled Nailisi into the room before asking her, ¡°Besides fresh meat, what else would you like to eat?¡±


    ¡°Master, I¡­I have been very hungry recently. My stomach feels empty. I won¡¯t die of hunger, but I think I¡¯m growing a body.¡±


    ¡°Growing a body?¡±


    Saleen thought back to how Nailisi had originally looked. She had indeed been a little skinnier. In the books, it was said that before a magic beast evolved, it consumed arge amount of food. Could it have been the same for a demon? It seemed that Nailisi was maturing and that he needed to think of a way to purchase arge amount of food. This could not wait any longer.


    Nailisi had been able to ambush a headless rider even before she had matured. If she were to mature, there were high expectations for her fighting abilities. Moreover, demons could also study magic, and even though it was sparse and their magic was different from the magic of humans, for Nailisi who only knew how to brawl, even an Icicle spell could double her fighting abilities.


    ¡°I will get them to prepare more food. Regarding the fresh meat, I will think of a solution,¡± Saleenforted her. She nodded and agreed, not resorting to any small tricks like before.


    Nailisi was about to evolve, Sika¡¯s weapon had also been restored, and he had gained the twenty-four magic forms. Saleen felt himself calming down, almost as if Faerun¡¯s words were at his ears.


    Earl Sufonso had been attacked by teacher and it seemed that he would need to live in constant fear from here on. He was a swordmaster and could not receive protection from the magic tower forever. The gap between them would be lessened.


    However, Saleen felt discontented in staying at the viscountess¡¯ residence doing nothing. Where could he hire an assassin? Even if he could not kill Sufonso, he could at least turn his life upside down. He really should have gotten Aini¡¯s help. Aini would have found a powerful assassin.


    Whatever. Sufonso had to be dealt with personally. If the assassin had identally killed him, Saleen would not have been able to take it lying down.


    The snow fell intermittently for three days and the turn of the new year came. The Qin Empire and Sikeqinya had a simr calendar that had originated from the Second Dynasty. Many customs had been passed down from the time of the Myers Goddess.


    The viscountess¡¯ residence was decked out with decorations, the atmosphere was warm, and even Faerun¡¯s courtyard had a festive vibe to it.


    Since receiving the badge from Viscountess Lex, Saleen had begun to get closer to the people around him and gained a better understanding of the viscountess¡¯ residence. Contrary to what he had thought, the number of mages at Viscountess Lex¡¯s side was kept below three hundred. The six empty rooms in the courtyard had previously belonged to mages that had already reached grand mage status.


    The six of them had followed Faerun in their studies but had not been his students. Since bing grand mages, they had ventured out to train.


    The mages by Viscountess Lex¡¯s side were mostly low-grade mages, and once these mages be grand mages, they would leave the residence. In the past decade, more than thirty grand mages had emerged from the viscountess¡¯ residence.


    If danger did not befall Bitter Water Prefecture, it was possible that these grand mages would never return in their lifetime.


    Saleen began to admire Viscountess Lex. This was something that other members of the wealthy would never have done. However, he was curious. To nurture this many grand mages, the amount of money necessary must have been horrifying. Even with the number of gemstones he had now, it might not have been enough.


    Where did Viscountess Lex get so much money?


    Saleen had some understanding of the ie of the wealthy and royals. Even though Viscountess Lex was the only daughter of the royal emperor, she would not be specially taken care of. Since she had already been given feudal estates, any ie given to her woulde from them.


    Arge city like a prefecture could have ten to twelve other small cities under it, and the radius of control would be less than two hundred kilometers. The entire area definitely could not bepared to a duchy. Moreover, Viscountess Lex was still considered a teenager, and did not have full control of all the taxes of the surrounding cities.


    Only after bing of age would these cities be under her jurisdiction. Before that, any officials in these cities were appointed by the lower house.


    It had been said that Bitter Water Prefecture had once been a barren old city, but now it was prosperous, solemn, and had the appearance of a capital city. Where had all this moneye from? Even if the viscountess had a sorcerer for a teacher, she could not have been this wealthy.


    A high-grade mage was certainly wealthy, but the cost of building a magic tower was much less than that of building a city.


    There was something funny going on in this Bitter Water Prefecture.


    ¡°Saleen, Saleen!¡± A clear voice sounded from outside. Saleen opened the windows and saw a female mage, who stayed in a room opposite to him, standing in the courtyard calling for him.


    ¡°Narnia, what is it?¡±


    Narnia had brown hair, and was small like the people of the Cloudflow Empire. She held her hands together and said, ¡°Do you have time to help me?¡±


    Saleen looked with difficulty at Faerun¡¯sboratory. Narniaughed and said, ¡°Sir will not be here for a while. He told me to let you know. You can still use theb, and ingredients can be taken from the viscountess.¡±


    Saleen suddenly realized that Faerun was about to level up and must have gone to the magic tower to train for a period of time. It was safe in the tower and his focus and the speed of recovery of his magic chords would be faster than usual.


    ¡°Give me a minute.¡± Saleen put on his robes. They were new and made of green silk. Even though they were not as good as the ones his teacher had given him, they were a rare item. The mages in the residence were treated well. Just like him, they were able to pick up a Grade 3 magic nucleus every day.


    These magic nuclei were very small and were not worth as much as those sold in equipment stores outside. However, they had a simr effect. A mage¡¯s training could not bepared tobat and there was no need for such expensive magic nuclei. However, this was not easy either. There were over two hundred mages within the residence and the daily expenses for these low-grade magic nuclei could amount to thousands of gold coins.


    Saleen walked out of the room and asked, ¡°Narnia, what do you want me to do?¡±


    Viscountess Lex had already discovered everything about Saleen in Ceylon City and was no longer secretly worried about him. This had allowed Saleen to rx himself and talk easily with the mages here.


    Narnia¡¯s face was slightly red, perhaps from the chill of the wind. She lowered her voice and said, ¡°The tailor cannot cope any longer. Would you go down with me for a trip? It will only take an afternoon.¡±


    ¡°Tailor?¡± Saleen found it odd. He was a mage and already found it difficult to create things for the viscountess. He was even more unfamiliar with tailoring.


    ¡°It¡¯s for my brother. The people at the swordsmen¡¯s camp are returning, and ording to customs, the viscountess will inspect the troops on the sixth day of every new year. Hence, I¡¯m in a rush to tailor a cotton robe. The rest of the mages have followed the viscountess on her winter hunt. I¡­¡±


    It was only then that he remembered that since Sika¡¯s weapon had been fixed, he had not requested to join the winter hunt and the viscountess¡¯ residence had suddenly be empty yesterday. Narnia must also have been concerned for her brother to have missed out on the winter hunt.


    Moreover, Faerun¡¯s circle of friends was strange and Saleen did not like many of them. All of them had gathered in the courtyard and Narnia had also not been too familiar with them.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen contemted things to himself. Since Faerun was not around, there was not much for him to learn anyway. Helping out would not require too much effort.


    Narnia must have needed some magic help to havee looking for him.


    Narnia smiled, showing off her white teeth. She happily left Faerun¡¯s courtyard with Saleen.


    Walking out of the courtyard, Saleen realized that apart from the surroundings of this location, the other ces within the viscountess¡¯ residence had been swept clean. There was a new sheet of snow covering the ground.


    Having stayed at the viscountess¡¯ residence for some time, Saleen was already used to its elegance. Seeing this architecture no longer left him in awe. Perhaps one¡¯s elegance was brought up in a certain environment. If Saleen were to visit a wealthy person¡¯s house now, he would likely not give off an expression of surprise any longer.


    Thinking back to Viscount Gugger¡¯s invitation, that residence had been¡­ unimpressive.


    As they moved past various courts, Saleen and Narnia walked side by side. Walking past a garden, they saw a few servants toiling thend.


    ¡°What are they doing?¡± Saleen asked curiously. Mages were all full of curiosity and even the actions of a servant could spark many questions.


    ¡°They¡¯re burying bamboo shoots.¡±


    ¡°Bamboo? In this season?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re from Sikeqinya. You have no idea what the Bitter Water Prefecture used to be like. The winters were cold and the summers were dry. The water from the wells used to all be bitter too. Before the viscountess came, this ce could not have gotten any more barren. However, besides grains being difficult to grow here, the resources here are plentiful. What they are growing is a type of ice bamboo that can only grow in the winter. Now that everyone from the swordsmen¡¯s camp will be returning, the viscountess will hold a banquet for them. These bamboo shoots are delicious, and to ensure their freshness, they have to be buried underground. They will be dug out just before cooking.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s borate¡­¡± Saleen did not finish his sentence. Even though he had been poor since the time he was young, he knew it was not possible for the viscountess to have lived out her days eating moldy bread. If she had eaten the same way he had while growing up, it would have been hrious.


    ¡°How is this borate? If there is a battle, these swordsmen will be at the forefront. This is a small gesture from the viscountess. The food that we eat every day might not be any less borate than this,¡± Narnia exined to Saleen.


    ¡°Battle? There isn¡¯t much of a need to fight here in the Bitter Water Prefecture, is there?¡± Saleen was careful as he asked this matter-of-factly.


    ¡°I am not sure either, but my brother has mentioned that the tailors are rushing an order of armor for a battle and have asked for the help of hundreds of magic disciples. If they were not so busy, I would not have asked for your help as well. Thank you so much.¡±


    Saleen was shocked. Hundreds of magic disciples were being appointed to rush out an order of armor? Did that mean that these armors were to have magic adhered to them? Even if it was the lowest grade of magic, once a soldier put it on, their defensive abilities would multiply. A battle was not a personal feud and an armament effect on such arge-scale could make a great difference.


    Was a war truly about to break out? However, Bitter Water Prefecture was nowhere near a border and was far from Lon Duchy. There were hundreds of kilometers of mountain ridges separating the two, and would be impossible for armies to pass through.

 Chapter 83: The Value of Magic Disciples (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 83: The Value of Magic Disciples (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not press any further. In his heart, however, he was thinking that if a battle really were to break out in Lon, it would not concern him too much. On the other hand, if Bitter Water Prefecture were to be in trouble, he could not just walk away.


    Hopefully things will turn out fine. Saleen gave a silent prayer, being so concerned with peace for the first time.


    Passing the gardens, they reached a row of buildings made entirely out of granite. There was a menacing air to this ce. In front of the door were pirs with two fully armed soldiers standing nearby. Seeing Narnia and Saleen, the two soldiers bowed.


    ¡°Mage, you¡¯re here.¡±


    The soldiers on duty clearly recognized Narnia, giving a smile to Saleen at the same time. Saleen took notice of the soldiers¡¯ equipment and realized they were not that different from that of Baron Cook¡¯s elite soldiers. They were high-grade swordsmen at best and had not reached the level of a swordmaster. These two soldiers, however, were clearly more confident and sinct. When they bowed, there was only respect in their eyes and no spite.


    The elite of the Qin Empire were not to be belittled and if thirty to fifty of them were to surround any Grade 1 mage, the mage would be annihted. Even a Grade 2 mage had to be careful if the soldiers donned armor with magic abilities. Inparison, the private soldiers belonging to the wealthy of Sikeqinya were nothing much and were not as powerful as the mercenaries from arge mercenary regiment.


    It had been said that Viscountess Lex owned up to ten thousand elites. Once she received authority over the surrounding cities, if war broke out, it would not be a problem to recruit hundreds of thousands of reinforcements. With the mages and disciples from Bitter Water Prefecture, this city would not be in much danger. At this thought, Saleen was relieved. He was overthinking things. If any armies had been able to advance their way over here, the entire Qin Empire would have already been in peril.


    That was impossible. There were already millions of soldiers under the control of the Holy Rock City that were scattered around the various states. Including the private soldiers from the wealthy, the Qin Empire was as sturdy as steel.


    Narnia led Saleen through therge door. There was a corridor inside, and the two of them took the stairs to the second floor. A young mage came out to greet them. He had short blond hair and a single line of magic symbols on his white mage robes.


    ¡°Sis, you¡¯re here.¡± The young mage was slightly older than Saleen, but was barely twenty.


    ¡°This is Mage Saleen. This is my brother, Kendrick.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen, many thanks to you.¡± Kendrick heaved a sigh of relief.


    ¡°No need to stand by ceremony. I¡¯m good friends with Narnia.¡± Saleen replied with a smile.


    Kendrick brought them both into his room. It was a strange room with a bronze railing in the center that surrounded a ten square meter hole in the center of the room. At the bottom of the hole was another floor with a bigger room and a dozen alchemy tables lined up neatly. Hundreds of magic disciples were busy processing some metal tes.


    Saleen recognized those metal tes as the ingredients for armor. The disciples were processing the armor with the alchemy machines on the alchemy tables, the green scales burning under the light of the magic mes and showing beautiful patterns.


    At the other end was a rectangr alchemy table with more disciples attending to the tendons of a magic beast.


    The tendons of a magic beast had many uses, the mostmon of which was the production of bows. A normal wild beast¡¯s tendon took a long time to process and stitch before it could be made into a bow. A bow¡¯s quality was considered decent if it could be used for three years. On the other hand, the tendon of a magic beast was much tougher and could withstand more stress. It did not cause problems with fatigue or fracturing and would not be brittle due to ack of moisture.


    The magic disciples were hacking the tendons of the magic beast into thin pieces, using it to string together pieces of armor.


    Besides the armor of ancient knights, the armor of most warriors needed to be strung together from many pieces of armor using various kinds of ropes. Inferior armor was strung together by hemp rope that had been soaked in glue water. Even thought these were resistant to friction, they could not withstand much stress and were quick to fall apart when faced with the sword aura.


    Superior armor would use hair, metal strings, or rubber to form a tougher rope to string the armor together. Using a magic beast¡¯s tendons was considered one of the most expensive options.


    In the other corner, Saleen saw a magic disciple affixing magic onto an ancient cotton robe.


    The Qin Empire was wealthy and evenmoners could afford to wear cotton and silk. Only ves who had lost their freedom were unable to enjoy this privilege. However, ancient cotton was reserved solely for the wealthy and the army. This material was heavy in the hand. It was brightly colored and was suitable as formal attire. The ancient cotton robes that the magic disciples were handling had already been stitched with silk and processed with magic, and they were now doing a second processing.


    There werebs on the second floor of the room but they were much smaller andcked theplicated alchemy machinery found below.


    Over twenty magic disciples saw Saleen and Narnia walk in and hurriedly bowed. These disciples had sultry looks on their faces. There was aplete set of machinery on theboratory table, including crystal tubes, beakers, stands, and crucibles. Inparison to the machinery, this was a more traditional alchemy setup.


    On the other side of the circr room was Kendrick¡¯s room. In his room was yet another alchemy table.


    ¡°Kendrick, is this armor meant for the generals?¡± Saleen looked at the enormous alchemyb and could not help but gasp in disbelief.


    ¡°No, the viscountess¡¯ swordsmen¡¯s camp has ten thousand people and every one of them has two of such armor and several back up essories. The armor meant for the generals is not something a small mage like me could be responsible for.¡±


    Twenty thousand armors of such quality!


    Saleen could not be bothered to calcte it. In any case, it was arge sum of money. Even though this was the power of the viscountess, with the forces of such an elite army, could the emperor let his guard down? One needed to know that without a prince, a viscountess would be able to ascend the throne and be the empress.


    Viscountess Lex definitely was not inspecting the troops. She was preparing for war.


    ¡°Ken, you called me here in such a rush. What¡¯s the trouble?¡± Narnia finally spoke.


    Kendrick took a nce at Saleen before saying, ¡°There are still more than two thousand beltscking for the armor. They are nearly finished, but we do not have enough restorative water. The mages aren¡¯t around, and I alone¡­¡±


    Saleenughed and said, ¡°No worries. How much restorative water do you need?¡±


    Creating restorative water had now be too easy for Saleen, and with the growth of his magic chords after bing a Grade 2 mage, Saleen could create forty-eight portions of restorative water in session. Each portion consisted of two thousand grams of restorative water. Such an amount was enough to shower in, much less drink.


    ¡°We need a lot. With the three of us creating it consecutively, it might take up to a day.¡±


    ¡°So much?¡± Saleen thought hard. Narnia was a Grade 3 mage and even though she was far from advancing another grade, creating restorative water was not too technically difficult. The amount of restorative water she could create wasparable to his.


    ¡°We have no choice. These belts have been corroded by magic. They need to be continuously washed with restorative water, and soaking them is futile. If we are not quick enough, these belts will be useless.¡±


    Saleen was not familiar with alchemy but he knew that these belts were magic equipment. The patterns etched onto them must have contained some magical properties too.


    ¡°No problem. Prepare the container.¡± Saleen did not want to shock the others and decided to use this opportunity as practice. If he were to produce it at his maximum capability together with Narnia, they would not even need a day to produce a sufficient amount.


    Metal sks were brought in one by one. They were not small and had shallow holes on their bases. Magic patterns covered the entire body of the metal sks.


    Saleen calcted the standard amount that a mage of his level could create, released twelve consecutive Restorative Water spells, and stopped. This had been equivalent to a normal Grade 2 mage creating twenty-four portions of restorative water in session.


    Narnia was hard at work as well, creating ny over portions of restorative water in session. Kendrick was overjoyed. His sister and this Grade 2 mage were creating much more restorative water than he had expected. He was confident of finishing this task now.


    He quickly retrieved magic nuclei and ced them into the hands of Saleen and Narnia to restore their magic chords. Saleen had only used up a quarter of his magic chords but he did not refuse Kendrick¡¯s good intentions. The money woulde from the viscountess anyway.


    One by one, the metal sks were carried out and ced within the alchemy machines. They were fixed in a nted position and the restorative water flowed rapidly through the crystal tubes. It split into ten different currents, washing the belts that had been ced into a ss bowl.


    The belts had initially been ck. After a good wash, they revealed their true greenish brown color and the magic patterns that had been etched onto them. The restorative water was collected at the other end of the ss bowl, ck in color and unable to be reused.


    Saleen quickly restored his magic chords and was getting bored. He had expected it to be aplicated job but it had turned out to be the casting of a few Grade 1 spells. Looking out of the window, the magic disciples were busy processing the clean magic belts.


    Every disciple was young but serious, almost as if they found nothing shameful in doing such menial tasks. Those who could work the alchemy machines were at least Grade 6 magic disciples. All of them were barely twenty years old and bing a mage was only a matter of time.


    Saleen sighed. The number of mages in Sikeqinya was not considered little, yet there were definitely fewer magic disciples there. Magic disciples might have been useless on the battlefield, but considering all of these menial tasks in front of Saleen, mages could not be bothered to do them and could only rely on magic disciples toplete these things.


    Possessing arge number of magic disciples allowed for the creation of arge amount of magic armor. Once the basic alchemy procedures werepleted, mages would only need to activate a magic array to transfer the magic powers and the entire magic armor would be ready to go.


    Even the lowest grade magic armor would still be able to defend against a swordmaster¡¯s sword aura. Some could even protect against low-grade magic such as Acid Sputtering, Icicle, and a Grade 1 Fireball spell.


    Putting ten thousand of these armors onto swordsmen would certainly produce a barrage of metal. Those mercenaries with weak structures already had problems defending against swordmasters, much less the private soldiers of the wealthy.


    Saleen finally understood why the Qin Empire had been named the magic empire. Even though the situation in Bitter Water Prefecture was unique, the wealthy in the empire, with the permission of the emperor, could hirerge numbers of magic disciples to do such tasks.


    Out of one hundred magic disciples, one would be able to sessfully be a mage. Every disciple in this alchemy factory possessed this potential, as they were the elite of all magic disciples.


    Perhaps only with such means could the viscountess attract numerous elite disciples to stay in Bitter Water Prefecture. Everyone had a chance, and for the magic disciples, how attractive was that? Back then, if such a ce had existed in Ceylon City, Saleen would have sold his body to be able to work for the viscountess.


    The work was training, and every ingredient expended was on ount of the viscountess. Something like this had never been seen in any other part of the maind.


    A sacrifice like this from Viscountess Lex would be worth it. Given ten more years, she would have many more mages, grand mages and sorcerers.


    That was because she understood the value of magic disciples.

 Chapter 84: Lex’s Past (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 84: Lex¡¯s Past (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not bother to disy his true abilities when he was working that afternoon. However, Narnia was already very impressed by him. She knew that even though she was a Grade 2 mage, she still had difficulties handling Grade 1 magic unlike Saleen who could control his magic perfectly.


    It showed that Saleen¡¯s foundation was strong, and no matter how high a person¡¯s grade was, such things could not bepared.


    Kendrick was a cheerful and enthusiastic person unlike the other mages who were more solemn. During their break, he chatted happily with Saleen, and Saleen managed to gather more information.


    Many mountains surrounded the Bitter Water Prefecture. Over twenty miles to the west of the prefecture was and basin which was suitable for agriculture. All the food supplied to the prefecture came from thatnd basin, and people did not need to buy their food from anywhere else. The swordsmen¡¯s camp had been set up in thatnd basin, and many castles, big or small, surrounded thend basin. The smallest castle could fit up to two hundred people whereas thergest castle could fit over three thousand.


    The Bitter Water Prefecture did not employ war horses, hence the number of cavalry made up only one-tenth of the entire army in the swordsmen¡¯s camp. Because of that, these soldiers needed to have better and tougher equipment. Even their boots had been enhanced with magic. Less than ten armies from the maind could achieve this standard of armor.


    Saleen now had a rough understanding of the strategic military position the Bitter Water Prefecture held. If one did not factor in the twisting cryptic mountain roads, the Bitter Water Prefecture would not be considered strategd. An army¡¯s primary forces could not cross these roads, and even if smaller units wanted to cross, they would first need face the magic beasts in the mountains.


    As long as the Bitter Water Prefecture sent hundreds of elite soldiers to guard those roads, the prefecture would be safe. So why did Viscountess Lex and Saleen still feel worried?


    Ten thousand soldiers from the swordsmen¡¯s camp had been called back to the prefecture. Who was Viscountess Lex protecting herself against?


    ¡°Saleen, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°The viscountess is returning to Holy Rock City in May. Will you being along?¡± Narnia asked.


    ¡°Why is she going back to the imperial capital? For what?¡±


    ¡°The viscountess is reaching adulthood so she will be granted power. In the future, she will be able to confer royal titles to other people.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the time, and I won¡¯t be of much help either,¡± Saleen remarked casually.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to go at first, but Lord Faerun is going and he will be there for six months. I can¡¯t bear to be away from Lord Faerun,¡± Narnia said helplessly. The sorcerer might have imparted his knowledge during the weekly lessons, but as for Faerun¡¯s followers, they learned so much more by staying in the courtyard.


    Saleen possessed the ne of Goddess Myers so he was able to learn many things by himself. Even after Narnia¡¯s persuasion, he was indifferent. Six months was the perfect amount of time for him to fullyprehend the Figaro form. But why was Viscountess Lex taking Faerun with her to the imperial capital?


    The two times that Saleen had gone to meet the viscountess, he had been able to sense powerful figures hiding in the darkness, protecting her. With those people around, the viscountess should have been very safe. Moreover, the viscountess herself was a Grade 5 mage. She did not need Faerun¡¯s protection.


    Saleen worked until the evening and managed to produce enough restorative water. Then, Saleen and Narnia were discharged from the alchemy factory. The sunset in the distance was as shiny as gold, giving the frosty winter a hint of warmth. The two of them walked through the garden. As they walked, it was suddenly silent. Then Narnia whispered, ¡°Thank you, Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you are too formal. Right, I just want to take a walk outside the residence. There should be no issues, right?¡± Saleen said. Then Saleen thought of Sika, who was trapped in the house all day long, and had the urge to bring her along.


    Narniaughed and looked at Saleen curiously. She said, ¡°I thought you were familiar with the rules. Didn¡¯t the viscountess brief you?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask.¡±


    ¡°If you will not being back for the night, you need to inform the residence. It is best to give the residence notice one day before, because the kitchen usually spends at least a full day preparing the food. If you just disappear, their efforts would have been in vain. Also, whenever you exit the residence, bring along your badge and the guards can let you pass. If you¡¯re going to leave for more than a month, you need to inform the viscountess personally, and will stop receiving the supply of magic nuclei,¡± Narnia exined patiently. Saleen and Narnia walked through the garden, leaving a trail of footprints as their feet pressed into the soil.


    In the back of the courtyard, Faerun manipted and twisted a space that shielded over everything. In the middle of the opennd stood a huge magical tower. Steel rocks had been stacked up to form the eight stories of the tower. The ground surrounding the magical tower was also made of steel rock, and magic symbols had been carved into them.


    In addition, there were distinct lines on the surface of the rocks. The lines were filled with red powder produced from grinding gems. All of these things together formed an enormous magic array.


    The sky above the magic array was overcast, and snow could not find its way into that expanse of sky. Even though it was narrow, it gave off an aura of vastness and scarcity. There were no nts or buildings around the magical tower. With the help of the magic array, this tower was shielded from other people so they could not peep into it.


    However, if one were to look out from the highest level of the magical tower, they would be able to view the entirety of the viscountess¡¯ residence.


    On the seventh floor of the tower sat Viscountess Lex. She had returned to the residence early, before the winter hunt had evene to an end.


    The space inside the magical tower was much bigger than how it appeared outside. Viscountess Lex sat at a table, and seated across the table were the Grade 8 sorcerer and Faerun. Viscountess Lex wore her grey magic robe and looked respectfully at her teacher.


    The sorcerer slowly opened his mouth to speak, ¡°All that splendor will eventually die down. All the histories are merely myths. Lex, why can¡¯t you let go of your wealth? For you, your life would be prolonged, and this worldly power is the obstacle that prevents you from moving forward.¡±


    When the sorcerer called Viscountess Lex by her first name, his eyes were endearing. Viscountess Lex was his best student. If she dedicated her life to practicing magic, it would only be a matter of time before she became a Grade 9 sorcerer. The sorcerer¡¯s lifetime aplishments would pale inparison to Viscountess Lex¡¯s.


    ¡°Teacher, I left the imperial capital when I was seven years old. At that time, I did not understand why father did that. Did he not love me anymore? If he did not love me, why would he have had you be my teacher? But once I came to Bitter Water Prefecture, I understood why he¡¯d done that. I realized that there was such a ce on earth, where a person¡¯s life could be so bitter. I heard that thirty thousand years ago, humans dominated every aspect of life. And now, they have dwindled to this state. That is so heartbreaking.¡±


    The sorcerer sighed gently. The student he possessed had too much talent, and had matured early due to her intelligence. By the time she was seven years old, she had already thought about the question of eternity.


    ¡°Then I received these remains, and gained riches that many people will never obtain. That is fate. Fate has helped me find my direction in life.¡±


    ¡°You are but one person. You cannot change the world,¡± the sorcerer tried to advise the viscountess.


    ¡°Teacher, please take a look.¡± Viscountess Lex said this as she pointed out the window and continued, ¡°There are over three hundred mages in this residence and almost a thousand students. If it hadn¡¯t been for my hard work, ny-nine percent of them would have been enved their whole lives. Only the remaining one percent would have been the lucky ones. I may not be able to change the world, but I will be able to change the city.¡±


    ¡°But Lex, the goddess has fallen.¡±


    Viscountess Lexughed and said, ¡°Teacher, you told me before that in the world of magic, there are no boundaries. Even so, a mage has to keep fighting and moving forward until the day they die. What I am currently doing is meaningful, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°The prince will not be happy.¡±


    ¡°He was already unhappy when I was seven. One more time makes no difference.¡± In front of her teacher, Viscountess Lex finally revealed her true feelings. It was unlike the times she spoke to Bain, where she minded her words and actions. In the magical tower, the conversation between her and her teacher would forever remain a secret.


    ¡°In that case, I will say no more. Lex, your father gave this to me in the past. Now, I will hand it over to you,¡± the sorcerer said. As he spoke, he took out a ring and then conjured a breeze to carry it before the viscountess.


    The ring was golden, yet had no shine. On top of it was a mosaicked gem. The tiny gem had been cut to have twenty-four facets. It was incredibly perfect and wless.


    Viscountess Lex took the ring and was a little astonished. The ring had been made from pure rhenium gold. The magic patterns that had originally been on the surface could only detected if one tapped into their mental strength. There was Qinnguage engraved on the inner side of the ring. Without looking, Viscountess Lex already knew the words that had been engraved.


    ¡°His Majesty told me many years ago that you would choose your own path. I didn¡¯t think that he would be right, but you actually chose this path,¡± the sorcerer said regretfully. He then continued, ¡°Yes, this is the god¡¯s ring. With this ring, you will have power. If the prince tries to disrupt your n, you can use this ring and establish your own county. With independence, you can do whatever you wish to.¡±


    Father!


    Viscountess Lex clutched the god¡¯s ring and suddenly felt a wave of sorrow and grief. She had always tried to understand, but after so many years, she was rarely sentimental.


    ¡°Lex, don¡¯t be sad. A person will always pay the price for what they want to obtain.¡±


    ¡°I understand, Teacher. But I really want to return to Holy Rock City and take a look at him.¡±


    ¡°Then go. Faerun will keep youpany. Remember what I said. Don¡¯t get into a conflict with the prince.¡± The sorcerer reminded Viscountess Lex, ¡°You must know that he is already a golden grand swordmaster.¡±


    A golden grand swordmaster! That title weighed heavily on Viscountess Lex¡¯s heart. Of course, her uncle would not really try to kill her. After all, there were three Grade 9 mages in the pce controlling the entirety of Holy Rock City. But it was possible that he would make her disfigured. Her uncle was already controlling the lower house, and if the upper house did not support her either, would that mean that she needed to rely on the god¡¯s ring to establish her empire?


    Father had his own difficulties. It was not going to be easy trying to settle this matter.


    ¡°Lex, there was this person you summoned previously. His name is Saleen. He is fairly skilled,¡± the sorcerer mentioned suddenly. Viscountess Lex was taken aback and nodded. ¡°Yes, he is good. I have let Faerun give him guidance.¡±


    ¡°When you return to Holy Rock City this time around, bring him too. Let Master Roy take a look at Saleen, and just say that it is my rmendation.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t¡­ it too early for him?¡± Although Viscountess Lex admired Saleen¡¯s talent, Saleen was still a mere Grade 2 mage in her eyes. If his abilities were forcefully boosted, it was possible that he would be destroyed.


    ¡°He has some underlying troubles. It would be better to settle this early.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Saleen¡¯s teacher must be from Alchemy City. It will do no harm to the empire.¡±


    Viscountess Lex nodded. Alchemy City was one of the pirs that supported the empire. If Saleen¡¯s teacher had really originated from Alchemy City, then there was nothing for her to be worried about. However, she did not understand why her teacher thought so highly of Saleen, even going so far as to rmend him to Master Roy.

 Chapter 85: Lex’s Past (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 85: Lex¡¯s Past (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Saleen and Narnia returned to Faerun¡¯s courtyard, a servant came forward and asked whether they wished to eat dinner. Saleen was not hungry, but he recalled that Nailisi had gone hungry for the past two days so he discussed it with the servant and received some barbecued meat.


    The food the mages ate was better each day, and Saleen had not thought much of it. But after Narnia¡¯s exnation, he finally realized that the servants put a great deal of effort into making it. He just hadn¡¯t been appreciating it and had taken it for granted.


    Even a simple te of barbecued meat had been seasoned for several days, coated with ayer of honey and refined oil, and turned over a fire for many hours.


    Nailisi was very happy eating the meat. Even though the barbecued meat did not appeal to her as much as fresh meat, it was much better than any of the borate meals. She knew that it was strange for a human to consume fresh meat every day, and and that she needed to learn to behave like a human in order to keep her true identity a secret.


    During this period spent in the courtyard, she had read some books. Saleen had also exined to her that her own kind had be extremely rare. If the humans found out that she was a demon, it was possible that she would be buried alive, used for magic experiments, or even used as a resource for producing some kind of equipment.


    This fact had caused Nailisi to be more humble. Even though the strength of humans was not as great as legend made it out to be, she had seen some very powerful people and knew she could not defeat them. One example was the person who had been d in a white robe back at the swamp, and another was Faerun. She also realized that it would be difficult for her to try to attack and eat the viscountess.


    When Saleen saw that Nailisi had calmed down, he heaved a sigh of relief. He approached the front of Sika¡¯s room and knocked on the door.


    Sika invited him in. Saleen saw Sika holding onto her weapon. She was very focused, as though she had been practicing some kind of secret skill.


    ¡°How¡¯s your weapon?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s great. Even though I don¡¯t have a magic beast soul with me, my training is not affected at all.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I will go and help you ask Faerun whether there are any special attributes to your weapon. I am unable to find them out myself.¡±


    ¡°No need. The attributes do not matter to me. As long as I canmunicate with my weapon, I will be able to create my own power,¡± Sika answered seriously. Her eyes were filled with the pride of the Caucasus people.


    People from Caucasus rarely trained their sword auras. They only needed to rely on their fighting techniques and intrinsic strength to be great warriors. Furthermore, Sika had previously received blessings from a high priest, and she had some inborn power inside of her. Her path wasid out before her. No matter what attributes her cudgel might have possesed, she had never tried to understand it.


    As long asmunication between the wielder and the weapon was good, the weapon¡¯s attributes would naturally reveal themselves. One did not need to try and control them. Every priest had secret skills that allowed them to wield the same power as the Goddess of Nature, and Sika was no exception. As long as she continued on this path, she would eventually be a warrior priest.


    If Sika had picked up the sword aura or some other magic, it might actually have caused her to deviate from the right path.


    ¡°Is the mage named Saleen inside?¡± Someone was calling for Saleen from outside. Saleen left the room and saw Liki standing outside of the courtyard. Indeed, Liki had not dared to step foot into the courtyard since his previous experience.


    ¡°Are you looking for me?¡±


    ¡°The viscountess is looking for you. Please follow me.¡± Saleen could tell that Liki felt uneasy but Saleen only smiled kindly. Saleen felt that there was nothing wrong with Liki¡¯s pursuit of power. At least Liki was more powerful than Walnut, and had not developed the same kind of twisted jealousy that Walnut had.


    ¡°Why is the viscountess looking for me?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea either.¡± As Liki led Saleen away from Faerun¡¯s courtyard, an inexplicable feeling that welled up in him. Liki hade from a poor family. After Liki had be a magic disciple, he had epted the viscountess¡¯ help ande to the Bitter Water Prefecture. Otherwise, given his family¡¯s situation, he would never have been able to be a mage. Only by bing a member of the magemunity would one be able to acquire more benefits.


    Liki did not know why, but it had been two years since he had entered the residence and the viscountess had still not let him join the magemunity. Days like this were tough, but at least Liki was able to see the viscountess frequently. It served as a form of constion for him.


    Their conversationpsed into silence as there was not much they could talk about, and Saleen was once again led into the same room.


    It was already deep into the winter. The water outside the window had frozen, but the window remained open. The cold air was kept outside using magic.


    Viscountess Lex was sitting on the floor as usual, and there was a simple tea set on the table in front of her. Saleen entered the room and saw only shadows, as usual.


    ¡°Please take a seat.¡± Viscountess Lex pointed to the opposite side of the table. Saleen grew perturbed. He saw that Viscountess Lex had lowered her head and had begun to pour green colored tea into the cdon tea set. Her neck was slightly curved, forming a snow white arc. Saleen felt a tug at his heart and grew frustrated.


    That arc was truly beautiful, and a little hazy. He made his way around the table and sat down, his heart beating quickly. This feeling he had was like the first time he had touched gold. He had held onto that gold tightly, afraid he might lose it.


    Strange. Could it be that Saleen had fallen in love with the viscountess? Saleen felt it was unbelievable. He remembered a book saying that things like love only happened after a person reached adulthood. He picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea.


    Viscountess Lex carefully observed the youngster before her. Saleen was not very tall, being almost the same height as herself. His hair was ck, and his eyes were as blue as an icy coldke. This youngster who hade from a poor family was holding onto his teacup steadily, not showing any signs of fear. He was always ready to cast magic if the need arose.


    Viscountess Lex looked at Saleen patiently, but she could not find anything wrong with his body. She was, after all, also a mage master, and her judgement should not have been too bad. So why had her teacher said that Saleen¡¯s body had underlying troubles?


    ¡°Saleen, I will be returning to the imperial capital in May. I want you toe with me,¡± Viscountess Lex said frankly after thinking for a long time.


    Saleen hesitated. He really did not want to go to the imperial capital. What was good about that ce? Saleen could practice his magic in peace at the viscountess¡¯ residence. As long as the speed of his training remained constant, he could be a mage master very soon. But Saleen owed the viscountess a favor. Without the viscountess¡¯ help, Saleen may have needed to escape to the Cloudflow Empire if Baron Cook had decided to nder him in front of the emperor.


    Being alone was not a good feeling, and Saleen would always remember that horrible experience clearly.


    ¡°I know that you don¡¯t want to go there, but trust me and make this trip. My teacher suggested that you go. Take it as¡­ you returning me the favor.¡± Viscountess Lex felt strange speaking like that, as though she were begging Saleen. But if Saleen¡¯s teacher was truly from Alchemy City and he was still a Grade 5 mage, it would be advantageous for her. Saleen might have been returning her favor this time, but once she rmended him to Master Roy, Saleen would owe her yet another favor.


    When she thought of that, Viscountess Lex secretly giggled. After all, she was not an adult yet and still possessed her adolescent character. She felt good, as though she had sessfully pranked Saleen.


    Saleen felt very puzzled. Why would the sorcerer suggest that he go to the imperial capital? He could not understand, but the viscountess had made it very clear that she would take it as Saleen¡¯s returned favor if he went to the imperial capital. As for the information on his hometown, Saleen had used the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus to return that favor. When Saleen thought of the freedom he would regain once he had paid back all the favors, he nodded and said, ¡°Alright, I will go.¡±


    Viscountess Lex was stunned for a while. She hadn¡¯t expected Saleen to agree so readily. She had even wanted to chat with Saleen about magic knowledge, hoping to find out what kind of a person his teacher was.


    Saleen stared intensely at Viscountess Lex¡¯s finger as she refilled his cup with tea.


    Saleen noticed that there was a new golden ring on the viscountess¡¯ finger. He remembered that he had not seen it the previous time they had met. But what made Saleen so surprised was that he could not recognize the gem that was mosaicked onto the ring.


    Saleen had a vast knowledge of gems. Many gems could be made into equipment and used in medicines. He had memorized the characteristics of all gems, but he could not tell what type of gem that was. This gem was too perfect, blending perfectly into itspartment on the ring. Also, the twenty-four facets of the gem had not been cut out, but had been formed naturally.


    That gem was so perfect that Saleen could not stop staring at it.


    ¡°Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Saleen replied. He realized that he was being rude. He smiled awkwardly and sat upright.


    Viscountess Lex found it interesting that although Saleen had never learned the imperial customs and practices, he was more polite than the other mages who lived in the residence.


    ¡°I am very curious. What kind of a person is your teacher?¡± Viscountess Lex asked. She knew Saleen¡¯s temper, and knew that Saleen was not as simple as he looked. It was better to ask him things directly than beat around the bush.


    ¡°My teacher?¡± When Saleen heard the viscountess¡¯ question, he immediately thought of the scene in the prison and the moment of brightness when he had seen Jason. A simple illumination spell had allowed Saleen to return from the prison to the outside world.


    ¡°My teacher is a very kind and friendly person,¡± Saleen answered solemnly, as images of him framing Zhanbu and using the Icicle spell shed in his mind. The Icicle spell had pierced Saleen¡¯s forehead and caused him to bleed profusely. It was because of that incident that Saleen had learned the Icicle spell as his first Grade 1 spell.


    A kind and friendly person? Viscountess Lex did not buy it. Saleen¡¯s teacher had actually dared to attack other person¡¯s magical tower. He was definitely not a kind and friendly person. But Saleen¡¯s teacher might have possessed the silver magic book since he had actually managed to escape safely from the battle at the magical tower.


    ¡°My Viscountess, what is your teacher like?¡± Saleen suddenly asked.


    ¡°He was¡­ also a kind and friendly person,¡± Viscountess Lex replied. As she gave her answer, she realized what Saleen meant. No matter what a teacher did to others, they would always be like a parent to their students.


    Viscountess Lex had been stumped by a simple sentence from Saleen, and was too embarrassed to continue probing. She simply said, ¡°I will be bringing the group ofbat mages to the imperial capital. You may not need to use your powers, but just prepare yourself.¡±


    Group ofbat mages? Saleen could not quite understand. If even the viscountess was worried for her own safety, then what could a few hundredbat mages do? Thebat mages might have been able to protect the viscountess from bandits or enemies, but if there was a sorcerer then they would be rendered useless. The sheer number of sorcerers in the imperial capital must have been quite frightening already.


    ¡°Prepare for what?¡± Saleen probed.


    Viscountess Lex did not know how to answer Saleen. She did not want to tell him that he had problems inside of his body. Once Saleen knew the truth, it would be a great obstacle in his practice of magic.


    ¡°Prepare for battle. You must prepare your twopanions as well.¡±


    ¡°Will we need money?¡± Saleen asked worriedly. The viscountess could not help butugh, and her downcast mood disappeared. She had known since long ago that Saleen was in no need of money, but it was simply a natural reaction to be worried about money.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. The prefecture may be short ofnd and water, but we have plenty of money.¡±

 Chapter 86: Bitter Water Army (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 86: Bitter Water Army (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not take Viscountess Lex¡¯s words to heart. The Qin Empire was strict but they were generous with mages. In the capital, it was hard for mages to meet with any danger.


    Moreover, Bitter Water Prefecture was not close to any borders, and even if they met with any bandits on the way to the capital, they would be mere small fry. Any who saw the viscountess¡¯ army would have fled a long time ago, and a mage would not be necessary.


    However, Viscountess Lex seemed to be taking this very seriously. She sent people to measure the body sizes of Saleen and Sika and carefully asked for the needs of Sika and Nailisi. Hence, Saleen did not stand by ceremony. If a war truly was about to break out, for the sake of self-defense, he could not do nothing either. Since Bitter Water Prefecture had plenty of money, he might as well help himself.


    Saleen received a new set of magic robes. The white robes had patterns fashioned out of green magic silk, and a belt that was suitable for battle and hidden out of view. There were no signs of stitching throughout the entire robe and Saleen knew that this robe must have been created using alchemy. It might not have been high-grade enough for him, but it had definitely taken a lot of time to make. Splurging like this might not have been entirely bad. A magic robe was meant to stabilize the elements in the space surrounding a mage, and wearing this magic robe could prevent him from needing a magic wand.


    The belt that had been fashioned out of the horns of a magic beast had an empty space carved into it to iy magic nuclei, forming six beautiful patterns.


    Aside from the robe, his shoes were alchemy equipment as well. The soles of the shoes had ayer of magic beast¡¯s armor and the shirt inside had been made of fine cotton put together with magic powder.


    This magic robe was incredibly useful and Saleen stored the magic robes that his teacher had given him into the Ring of Gifts. He could not bear to wear them any longer and changed into his new robes.


    Aside from the magic robes, Viscountess Lex had given them all an inventory so they could obtain some scrolls. These scrolls were not free, but they were incredibly cheap. A Grade 3 magic scroll cost only fifty gold coins. On the market, they could fetch up to two hundred.


    Even if a person did not use them, selling them away would a profit. However, Saleen was quite certain that no one would be willing to sell them away. Saleen thought for a while before spending a thousand gold coins to purchase twenty Grade 3 scrolls.


    He was a Grade 2 mage and the use of a magic scroll could only extend one grade further. He would not be able to use any magic scrolls above Grade 3. Because he had a vague understanding of Figaro¡¯s form, Saleen only chose Water Magic spell scrolls, and they were the few that he had been practicing with.


    Usually, learning magic that was above one¡¯s grade was not advisable as it could wipe out a person¡¯s magic chords with just one cast. Saleen had twice the number of magic chords than other mages of his grade and possessed much greater focus too. It would take him less than half of the usual time to master Grade 3 magic.


    Beforeing to the viscountess¡¯ residence, Saleen had a few near-death experiences. He knew fully that even though magic was not only used for battle, a mage who did not know how to fight would die much too early. Hence, he had put more effort into studying, and whenever he was presented with an opportunity, he would improve his focus using his badge. Now with Nailisi sharing his burden, using his badge, Saleen only needed half an hour to return to his original state.


    By now, Saleen already possessed a basic understanding of three Grade 3 spells: Ice de, Swamp Illusion, and Acid Rain.


    Out of these three spells, one was a burst attacking spell, another was a control spell, and thest was a sustained attacking spell.


    Ice de spell was a very powerful single object spell as demonstrated by the sorcerer. This Grade 3 spell was purely meant for attacking single objects and was much sharper than a Wind de spell. Swamp Illusion was a sinister control spell. It could create a three-dimensional space and control the objects within this space. The targets would feel as though they were drowning in water element, and would perceive it as high-grade magic.


    Despite having a short duration, this magic was still powerful low-grade magic.


    Acid Rain was not anything out of the ordinary but it had many uses on the battlefield like causingrge scale destruction to the enemy¡¯s armor. Saleen chose this magic because he could not harm himself with it. Moreover, duringbat in narrow spaces, acid rain would not disappear from a loss of focus. It couldst for a long time, sometimes up to an hour.


    If Acid Rain was cast in an entirely enclosed space and gathered andbined with Swamp Illusion, it would be a hundred times more powerful than the Swamp spell.


    Saleen was not bothered by the limits of a particr spell. He had not had many choices to begin with. Before bing a grand mage, he could only learn less than a hundred Water Magic spells. The spells with a wide range of uses barely amounted to twenty.


    The twenty magic scrolls that Saleen had chosen were all one of these three spells. Using Figaro¡¯s form, Saleen knew vaguely that even if the magic was cast using these scrolls, they would still be controble. Moreover, the magic from the scrolls could allow the user to more clearly understand the workings of these spells, allowing them to master these spells even more quickly.


    Which was to say, with enough money, one could buy arge number of scrolls to continuously cast and understand them. This would allow one to master the spells in the fastest time possible.


    Hence, Saleen had not chosen magic scrolls of various types, despite the fact that they would have allowed him to have a thrill and try out spells that were not water based.


    Twenty scrolls would not be of much help in his study of these three spells but Saleen believed that the practice of any spell happened through the umtion of experience. Even if there was only a one in a thousand chance of aplishing something, he would not let it go.


    Saleen was grateful that Sika¡¯s weapons had been fully reced.


    Her main weapon had been upgraded by Faerun and there was not much to say about that. Her secondary weapon was a boomerang, amon short-ranged weapon among the Cascausus people. Not only could she throw it out to injure enemies, but she could also use it for closebat fighting.


    In reality, the swallowtail-shaped boomerang was even harder to defend against than the dagger of an assassin. Even in closebat she could cast it out and control it with ease. Her boomerang had also been made from the bones of magic beasts and wasparable in its capabilities to her cudgel.


    Viscountess Lex had fashioned an entirely new boomerang based on Sika¡¯s requests. It had been made with materials from Saleen and effort from Viscountess Lex. This new boomerang was the exact size and weight as herst one but it had been fashioned out of thebination of seven different rare metals.


    Receiving her new weapon, Sika could not put it down. The first time she yed with it, she nearly took down an entire wall. It also gave the mages in the courtyard some renewed confidence. This weapon of the Cascausus warrior was evidently magic equipment, but it did not have any special properties aside from being unusually sharp. A low-grade magic shield would have trouble shielding against it as well.


    The most expensive item was Sika¡¯s armor. Even though her old armor had been made out of high-quality leather, the downside was that it did not have any real magic to it and in the face of any heavy weapons, it would not provide much defense. Viscountess Lex had processed the leather and added magic to it, and now it could not only defend against magic attacks, but also had properties that made it resistant to physical attacks.


    Saleen saw the solidifying magic on the armor and immediately gave Viscountess Lex a check for ten thousand gold coins.


    Solidifying magic was fairly harmful to a mage and the damage done to their magic chords could take up to two years to recover. Viscountess Lex did not reject Saleen¡¯s gold coins. The clearer he drew the line with her, the happier she was.


    Someone who could not be bought over with money would either be an enemy or friend. Even though she was the viscountess of the empire, not many people were willing to stay loyal to her. However, she liked her own magemunity greatly. These mages had pure hearts and had not yet been tainted by the realities of the world.


    Nailisi begrudgingly changed into her clothes and shoes, no longer showing off her skin. The set of clothes had not been cheap, yet Saleen had not paid any money for them. Nailisi was contractually bound to Saleen, but now many things that she had epted had nothing to do with him.


    This set of clothes included a long fur coat. The snow-white fur wrapped snugly around Nailisi¡¯s neck and entuated the color of her face, making her look less wild. The small pair of shoes had been made precisely with the standards of an assassin, and walking in them made her incredibly silent.


    Nailisi changed into the expensive set of clothes but did not put on any appearances, continuing to sit on the tform and look at the snow.


    Without Faerun, Saleen was not in the mood to do anything aside from studying and religiously practicing new magic. Even though Grade 3 magic was more powerful, for Saleen, Grade 2 magic was still the most useful.


    Since advancing to a higher grade, Saleen had always been travelling and was not yet entirely familiar with Grade 2 magic. Seeing the performance by the Grade 8 sorcerer, Saleen knew that these low-grade spells would still be useful in the future.


    A Grade 8 sorcerer could cast twelve Grade 8 spells. After using them, their magic abilities would be the same as a magic disciple¡¯s. Hence, even for high-grade mages, high-grade magic was not necessarily used inbat all the time. Mastering every spell was the key to survival.


    For example, there was the time that Saleen had faced the headless riders. Eight people had been helping him, but he had still depleted his magic chords by the end of the battle. If another headless rider had appeared then, the oue would have been disastrous. Besides Nailisi, all five mercenaries had been killed by then, and both Sika and Aini had not been able to fight.


    Without Faerun, the mages met more often in the courtyard, and aside from training they would discuss each other¡¯s experiences with magic. Saleen had a stronger foundation than these few mages but had much less hands-on experience than them. After discussing it with them, he realized that he had underestimated these mages.


    The nine of them began discussing excitedly in Faerun¡¯sboratory. Gone were the days where everyone had been quiet and strict.


    In addition to the topic of their conversations, their research on magic regarded being hands-on too. With the equipment in theb, they did not actually need to battle. Instead, they just needed to cast the spells so they could use the magic props to analyze them.


    Saleen noticed a male mage by the name of Hu An the most prominently. He was around twenty years old, one of the oldest people there, and already a Grade 3 mage. Hu An was evidently stronger than Narnia and it would take him no more than two or three years to advance to a grand mage.


    Of course, this was if Hu An received continuous guidance from Faerun.


    Saleen had noticed Hu An because of his leadership abilities. Without Faerun around, the team had naturally taken to having him as the leader during all of the magic experiments and training sessions. Saleen had seen many magic notes and within them were many paragraphs on the techniques ofbat and cooperation between mages. Hu An was evidently very familiar with them. The nine of them split into three groups and under his guidance, they managed toe up with many astounding forms of cooperation training.


    ¡°Saleen, your Icicle spell was released too early. Narnia is only a Grade 2 mage and is a little slow at controlling the Phoenix spell. You need to make use of the impact of your Icicle spell and give her more time to prepare.¡± Hu An did not go easy with his criticism. Saleenughed and did not disagree.


    The nine of them formed a circle with nine dummies in the middle, representing each of them individually. If the dummies were destroyed, the strategy had failed and was disqualified. Saleen was paired with two female mages. Earlier on, Narnia¡¯s dummy had been destroyed by an enemy¡¯s fireball.

 Chapter 87: Bitter Water Army (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 87: Bitter Water Army (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Narnia¡¯s face turned red as she said, ¡°I was nervous. Actually, I have already released the phoenix in under ten seconds before. Saleen knows.¡±


    Seven pairs of eyes turned to look at Saleen, and that only made Narnia¡¯s face redden even more.


    Saleen shrugged. He said, ¡°Actually, with long term cooperation between mages, a person needs to consider the rate of growth of their partners. The Phoenix spell might be a bit too stressful for Narnia. Give her five months, and she will be able to decrease her casting time to eight seconds. By that time, even if she is nervous, such mistakes will not happen.¡±


    Hu An remained silent for a while before nodding and saying, ¡°Saleen is right. In cooperation training with our partners, we need to consider each other¡¯s rates of growth. I have been too rigid.¡±


    Saleen was not surprised. The people that had caught the eyes of Faerun must have had a certain ir to them. Sadly, such ir was useless to him. For him, what mattered most was quickly improving his abilities, returning to Sikeqinya, and exacting revenge on those who had destroyed his family grave.


    The Metatrin family grave had essentially been destroyed a long time ago. However, Saleen¡¯s parents had been buried there and no matter what Saleen told himself ¨C that his abilities were too far off and he needed to be patient if he wanted revenge ¨C the fire within his heart was only ever temporarily suppressed and could not possibly be extinguished.


    Killing Earl Sufonso would be easy. Even though Sufonso was a grand swordmaster, so long as he reached the level of his teacher, it would not be difficult for Saleen to beat him. A mage¡¯s power was not something that a swordsman couldpete against. The only problem was the magic tower in Yaoyang City. The gap between a Grade 5 and a Grade 6 mage was not very big. However, a mage with a magic tower would have their powers increased tenfold.


    His teacher had managed to escape alive, but he had not killed nor injured the Grade 6 mage. If Saleen wanted revenge, besides bing a Grade 6 mage, he would need some powerful magic prop such as a golden magic book. It was a pity that the three volumes of books that he had obtained werepletely empty. If there had been magic stored within them, he would have had much more confidence.


    Hu An could not have had any idea what Saleen was thinking, and while waiting for the others to replenish their magic chords, a few of them continued discussing questions on magic.


    In the next four months, not only did Faerun not appear, but even Viscountess Lex had disappeared. The residence was much quieter than usual, and upon asking around, Saleen found out that Viscountess Lex had led a group ofbat mages out to the camp.


    Saleen knew that something was wrong. These mages might not have been suitable forbat alone, but together with a swordsman, they would have immense powers. Viscountess Lex did not seem like she was going to the capital to im her reward. It seemed like she was preparing for battle. However, Saleen could not figure it out. If Lex was the emperor¡¯s daughter, who would be audacious enough to attack her?


    The Qin Empire had hundreds of millions of citizens, countless mages, and millions of elite soldiers. Even the Holy See could not do anything against them. Could there possibly have been an internal conflict within the royal family? The real question was, if the viscountess needed legitimate help, why had she found him? Could the sorcerer truly have taken notice of him?


    The mages living together with him could not possibly have had any inside information either. Otherwise, Viscountess Lex could not possibly have kept it a secret either.


    Whatever. The viscountess possessed many elites and there was Faerun as well. He would not be required to fight. Moreover, Viscountess Lex herself was a Grade 5 mage. She did not need the protection of a Grade 2 mage.


    Just treat it as a free trip, Saleen reassured himself.


    After a few more days, the viscountess returned to her residence and everyone grew busy. In the past, there had not been many tasks for the mages in Faerun¡¯s court, and they had mostly done as they pleased. This time, however, all of them were instructed to createrge amounts of restorative water and magic medicine. These two items had an expiry date. Once it passed, the items could not be used any longer.


    Just one day before they were to set off, Faerun appeared. All eight mages in the court were going to the capital, and Saleen was no exception. A total of twelve of them journeyed overnight to the camp outside of the city. Upon seeing the camp, Saleen felt that he had been cheated.


    It seemed that the road ahead would not be smooth sailing, or else the viscountess would not have been so thoroughly prepared. In addition to the few of them who followed Faerun, Viscountess Lex had gathered a hundredbat mages and a thousand swordsmen.


    The numbers did not seem like a lot. For a viscountess, moving around with a ten thousand strong army was not a problem. However, this was for a trip to the capital. Was every swordsman getting two war horses for themselves?


    All of the swordsmen were d in armor, and were waiting at the camp gates to wee Viscountess Lex. She was not wearing her magic robes, instead having donned some formal attire that was meant for the wealthy. She stood on a chariot, entering the camp.


    No matter how dumb Saleen was, he knew what that meant. This ceremony wasmon throughout the Qin Empire. The wealthy would bring a chariot to stay the night in a camp if they were heading out on an expedition.


    Although Viscountess Lex had not started a war with anyone, her attitude was telling everyone that this time, she needed them to fight for her.


    The people from themunity of mages slept in a separate location within the swordsmen¡¯s camp. After months of training, they were ustomed to the inside of an army camp. However, Faerun brought Saleen and the others to the viscountess¡¯rge tent.


    On the outside, her tent was no different from any of the other tents. It was made of ck leather that had a pattern embroiled onto it. The space inside, however, was muchrger. In addition to four swordsmen, there were four maids attending to her.


    Saleen had developed a much better eye for things and he could now tell that these four maids were swordsmen too. Aside from the eight of them, the elites must have been hiding somewhere and were protecting the safety of the viscountess as well. Thinking of these dangerous people caused Saleen to feel uneasy.


    There were no chairs in the army camp so it was a good thing that mages were familiar with sitting on the floor. A few soldiers brought in some tables and joined them together. Viscountess Lex allowed everyone to take a seat and had some people send for some snacks to serve as supper.


    ¡°It is a one month journey to the capital, and during this time, things will be hard for all of you. Thank you.¡± Viscountess Lex raised her ss of wine, expressing her gratitude to everyone.


    Even though there were many questions in Saleen¡¯s heart, he did not take the initiative to ask them. Instead, the viscountess said, ¡°Naturally, I have brought this many swordsmen along because there might be danger along the journey. You have all been training behind closed doors and may not know that the ck mages have already reached Lon Duchy. There are too many ways to go from Lon to the capital and two waterways ovep with our path forward as well. Everyone should be cautious at all times, and it will be best if you all stick with me. All food should be checked with magic before it is ingested.¡±


    Saleen furrowed his brows and asked, ¡°Viscountess, why didn¡¯t the border army in Phoenix cross the border and wipe them out? I remember that there was such aw during the founding of the Qin Empire. If any ck mages appear, Guderian City has the power to immediately send down soldiers.¡±


    Saleen thought about the Qin Empire elite soldiers he had seen in Guderian City, a little confused. If that army were to enter Phoenix, with the cooperation of the duke of Phoenix, the ck mages would definitely be no match for them.


    ¡°The duke of Phoenix is dead and his son is a failure. He abandoned state affairs to go to Holy Rock City and plead for his father¡¯s mistakes. This has resulted in the ck mages surrounding them from three sides, and allowing some important people to flee. Father took over a decade to lure these fellows out and everything was brought to naught because of him. Father is truly unlucky.¡±


    Viscountess Lex¡¯s face was filled with anger and Saleen was the first to understand why. ck mages were not only a threat to the royal family. More importantly, ck mages paid their sacrifices with fresh human blood. The unluckiest were not members of the wealthy, but themoners. The festering of the situation in Phoenix would lead to thousands facing iing danger.


    Themoners were the root of a country. One or two dead would not make a huge difference, but if thousands lost their lives, the base of the country would be shaken. Viscountess Lex took a deep breath, massaged her temples, and said,¡± Let¡¯s not talk about this anymore. We will only be in danger for about a fortnight. Most importantly, I am afraid that the soldiers willl be poisoned, hence I have no choice but to bring so many mages. Head-onbat does not scare me. Bringing you all to the capital this time is not a big deal, and for my efforts in Bitter Water Prefecture, nurturing so many mages, my father will reward me. All of you represent the mages, and the benefits for you all will be good.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, what are the benefits?¡± A female mage asked, ted. These lifestyle mages had a good rtionship with Viscountess Lex and did not care much for pleasantries. At most, they offered a bow when they came across another mage.


    ¡°It should be the usual magic nucleuses or gemstones. Perhaps there will be some magic equipment, but do not expect any holy equipment. All of you are still fairly low-grade, and father will reward you with some higher-grade equipment at most.¡±


    Viscountess Lex had put it that way, but everyone was still happy. The Qin royal family was essentially a magic family and simultaneously had a powerful fighting background. It was rumored that the royal warehouse contained a countless amount of magic equipment and that every item inside was something rare.


    To earn the means for such equipment, normal mages had no choice but to join mercenaries and earn money. These high-grade pieces of equipment, however, were thus left in the dust, and decades passed with no one having interest n them.


    That was not to say that these pieces of equipment were bad. It was simply the fact that the royal family had umted them for too long. Seven hundred years had already passed since the forming of the four empires, and peaceful times hadsted for the past four hundred years. With such a long period of umtion, even a normal family would have collected many supplies.


    Viscountess Lex cautiously reminded them of some important things to keep in mind while they were with the army. These included not training how they had back at the residence and to keep at least half of their magic chords intact each time they practiced. They also needed to keep their magic scrolls somewhere essible and were not to act alone, always to stay close to the swordsmen near the doors.


    Saleen found her reminders boring. All of these things could be found in books and were well journaled in magic notes. However, Viscountess Lex seemed like she could not wait to use magic to imprint them into the brains of Saleen and the others.


    Even so, Saleen could understand that aside from him, the others had lived the majority of their lives in the viscountess¡¯ residence and did not have experience in this area. Even though they might have read it in books, unless they went through such near-death experiences, they would not be able to fully understand it.


    When he saw Faerun leave the viscountess¡¯ tent, Saleen made up an excuse and left as well. By the time he was out of the tent, Faerun had already disappeared. Saleen did not dare go far as he did not want to break any martialws. He could not fly either, and thus could only walk around nearby.


    Under the moonlight, the camp looked solemn, and from afar there were soldiers patrolling the night. They held long spears in their hands, giving them a menacing look that was difficult to describe. They were soldiers who had umted countless battle experiences and were a part of the Bitter Water Prefecture Army.


    Many emotions arose in Saleen. He could not help but think that if he had epted his teacher¡¯s gold coins back then and studied swordcraft instead of magic, the furthest he could have gotten would have been the level of these soldiers.

 Chapter 88: The Power of the Royal Family (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 88: The Power of the Royal Family (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen,¡± Faerun suddenly popped out from behind and called out to him, frightening Saleen.


    ¡°Sir,¡± Saleen answered respectfully. Faerun was now a sorcerer, and Saleen realized that Faerun¡¯s appearance had changed. It seemed like Faerun had be younger.


    ¡°Why did you leave the tent? The viscountess was talking about something very important.¡±


    Saleenughed embarrassingly and pointed to his head. He said, ¡°It¡¯s all in here.¡± From the day that Saleen left Ceylon City, he had been assimting information that he had previously read and was not a rookie to the ways of survival. What the viscountess was talking about was all from the books. Furthermore, he had experienced what it was like living outside, so he had more experience than those mages in the tent.


    ¡°Alright. Regarding the Figaro form, you cane to me if you have any questions. But don¡¯t go around spreading the knowledge to others.¡±


    Saleen did not understand what Faerun had said. Viscountess Lex was clearly trying to spread the knowledge of magic far and wide, and she was never stingy when it came to grooming new mages. But what Faerun had just said showed that he did not share the viscountess¡¯ views.


    When Faerun saw Saleen¡¯s doubtful look, he said, ¡°Not everyone has the right to control magic. If magic falls into the wrong hands, it bes a destructive power. You will be a mage master and then a sorcerer in the future. You must remember this point.¡±


    ¡°I heard that when I was not around, Hu An had you practice magic coordination?¡±


    Saleen was stunned when Faerun mentioned this all of a sudden. He answered, ¡°Yes, and it went quite well.¡±


    Faerun looked carefully at Saleen and said, ¡°I know you have not done anything wrong, but you have Sika and Nailisi with you. You should spend more time with them. To a mage, a warrior is reliable. Have you seen those warriors?¡±


    Faerun pointed at the sentry standing guard from afar. The dark green armor that the Bitter Water Army wore gave off a dark glow under the moonlight. The armor engulfed the warrior¡¯s body like ayer of fog. The warrior gripped their weapon, standing as still as a rock.


    ¡°To a warrior, a mage is their key to victory. As long the mages are alive, then there is a chance of victory. A mage is akin to the heart, while the warriors are akin to the hands. They rely on one another.¡±


    When Saleen heard what Faerun said, he realized that in recent times he hadn¡¯t spent much time with Sika and Nailisi. He had either been too engrossed in magic, or he had been busy having discussions and training with the other mages.


    There was a whistle from afar. It hade from a golden whistle. It was a sign that there were magic beasts, and the whistle was used to scare them away. As the tents were set up near the Bitter Water Prefecture, there would not be any powerful magic beasts and the soldiers could rx. Saleen calmed himself down, and began perceiving the atmosphere of the army camp. By the time his mind had calmed down, he could sense a kind of power emanating from the camp.


    That power was neither magic nor the sword aura. It had nothing to do with supernatural power either. This was an air of annihtion. The hundreds of tents and thousands of soldiers had produced a sight to behold. Saleen had never seen soldiers like this before. The soldiers from the Bitter Water Prefecture were like swords that had been drawn out of their sheaths.


    Even though a majority of the soldiers were sleeping soundly, people still would have felt afraid of approaching them. Saleen was in the center of therge tent, and he felt as though he were being protected by a thickyer of gold metal. If anybody wanted to harm him, they would need to break down the gold first. That invisible gold was the determination of those soldiers.


    Dead, alive, enemy, myself!


    Saleen was not able to get that type of feeling from other mages. However, being around all of these warriors made him feel abnormally serene. This kind of peacefulness could not be brought about by magic.


    Saleen¡¯s perception was not strong enough to search the entire tent. He could only search a few hundred meters to his left and right. However, he could feel that there was a strong and mighty fortress within the tent, made up of the cores of a hundredbat mages.


    These one thousand elite soldiers were like a great wall that could not be destroyed, forming a tight system.


    What sort of power was that? Saleen triedmunicating with this power, and fell into a state of chaos. His magic chords quieted down, and the power of the elements surrounding him stopped surging. It was as if there was a mage master controlling everything.


    Saleen seemed to have touched on something. Sika and Nailisi had not cultivated their sword auras, so Saleen had never practicedbat together with them. However, all the soldiers within the tent also did not have a sword aura even though the majority of them were high-level swordsmen. Even so, Saleen could clearly feel this invisible power.


    That meant that even if a warrior did not be a swordmaster, the help they could give to a mage would not really change.


    All this power is shared! Saleen thought of this unassuming phrase. He had been thinking along the wrong lines the entire time!


    Faerun saw Saleen deeply engrossed in a state of enlightenment, so he did not disturb him and simply returned to his own quarters. Once Viscountess Lex finished her briefing, Sika and Nailisi went out to look for Saleen. All they saw was Saleen standing quietly outside the tent with a look of confusion, as if he was dying.


    Sika was shocked. She was about to shout out to Saleen when Nailisi covered her mouth. Nailisi whispered, ¡°Master, Master is, practicing. Don¡¯t, don¡¯t disturb.¡±


    Sika twisted her body and freed herself from Nailisi¡¯s grip, her heart beating furiously. Sika had not had the strength to react when Nailisi had grabbed her. If Nailisi had been attacking her instead, she would have ended up like the headless rider in Phoenix whose chest had been torn open.


    Nailisi simply smiled widely at Sika, showing her teeth. Nailisi did not try to mock Sika, because she always stammered when trying to speak the Qinnguage.


    Because they wanted to apany Saleen, they decided to stand there and wait for him. Little did they know, they would stand there throughout the night.


    As a low pitched horn sounded throughout the tents, Saleen¡¯s eyes suddenly regained their sharp gaze, and then his mental state and strength recovered. Under the dawn, Sika and Nailisi stood behind Saleen as Saleen looked towards a tent situated at the far end of the camp. The soldiers had woke up and were inspecting their weapons and armor. The support troops had woken up earlier as they were responsible for putting the armor tes onto the war horses and feeding them.


    All of these processes were happening in an orderly and systematic manner. Saleen took a deep breath. He had understood the sorcerer¡¯s words while he had been immersed in that amazing state throughout the entirety ofst night. As long as he was given enough time, he could y a golden grand swordmaster.


    The powers were interconnected. A magic attack could find an opponent¡¯s weakness, and so could the sword aura. In fact, any kind of power could also do that. They were all governed by certain rules.


    Saleen could not believe that he had actually found the path towards progress in an army camp. He would never again be lost in life.


    Every single mage had their own direction in their education. They would not follow in the footsteps of their teacher. This was the reason why Jason had left the Qin Empire and gone to a foreign city to try and find his direction. Only by finding one¡¯s own direction could they be promoted to a sorcerer. The earlier someone was enlightened, the smoother their advancement would be.


    A case like Saleen¡¯s was rare. He was only a Grade 2 mage, and was still far from bing a sorcerer.


    ¡°Sika and Nailisi. Thank you to the both of you.¡± Saleen smiled gently, turned around, and gave them each a pat on their shoulders. It was only while he was patting them that he realized he had grown taller sinceing to Bitter Water Prefecture a few months ago.


    Time passed so quickly. If Saleen had been on the road all this time, there was no way he could have improved so quickly. The race against time was a challenge in a mage¡¯s life.


    Breakfast was simple, consisting of in bread and smoked meat. The number of soldiers and mages amounted to over two thousand people, but they did not take up much space. With a sorcerer like Faerun around, the effectiveness of spatial equipment was finally being disyed.


    By the time the sun had risen high into the sky, the soldiers had finally gotten ready and continued their journey along the main road. Saleen and Faerun got into a carriage with Viscountess Lex. The carriage belonged to the viscountess. It was spacious andfortable, and had six wheels.


    In addition to Viscountess Lex, the mages following Faerun were inside as well. Altogether, there were over ten people in the carriage. The carriage was not sealed from the outside, and cavalry nked both sides of the carriage to protect it. The cavalry soldiers were vignt, and the army gave off a domineering vibe. With the exception of the sounds of the horses¡¯ hooves, Saleen could not even hear the sound of armor tes rubbing against one another.


    At this point in time, Hu An lost his air of leadership. He was in front of a sorcerer and a Grade 5 mage, he had no experiences he could speak of. What was more, the Grade 5 mage was the empire¡¯s viscountess, and she controlled tens of thousands of soldiers. Saleen noticed that and felt that Hu An was actually quite adorable.


    Saleen was sandwiched in between Sika and Nailisi. Narnia was slightly unhappy, but she could not show it. She liked Saleen, but the twodies beside Saleen were extremely pretty, especially Nailisi, who had an air of sacredness about her beauty. Furthermore, Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s maidservant.


    Most mages either remained single or got together with another mage. However, this was not the case for Saleen, as he was quite close to Sika and Nailisi. By the looks of it, it seemed that Narnia would not stand a chance.


    Narnia looked at the soldiers marching beside the carriage and was slightly angry. Thepetition had not even started, and she had already lost to a warrior and a maidservant. It was such an embarrassment.


    Saleen did not notice that Narnia was angry, because he had just been made aware of a new rule of power and wanted to test it out. He leaned back in his seat and hid himself between Sika and Nailisi. Then, he started searching for the people who were secretly protecting Viscountess Lex.


    Saleen began to detect four types of terrifying auras around the carriage. He found those auras familiar, as those four people were always hiding in the viscountess¡¯ room. The one on the roof was the person who had hid on the roof of the viscountess¡¯ room the very first time Saleen had met Viscountess Lex.


    Very soon, Saleen discovered a fifth person. This person¡¯s aura was unknown to Saleen and was extremely obscure. If Saleen had not understood the powers outside of the elements, he would not have been able to discover the fifth person. This person was more dangerous than the other fourbined, because Saleen realized that if he tried to use magic to lock onto this fifth person, he would lose their position.


    This person might not have been that powerful and he was definitely not as powerful as the viscountess¡¯ teacher. But the degree of danger this fifth person possessed was unlike anything Saleen had seen before. Saleen had not been this nervous even when he had faced the white deacon.


    No wonder Aini had warned him not to anger the royal family. If faced with a person like the fifth person, one might not even know how they died.

 Chapter 89: The Power of the Royal Family (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 89: The Power of the Royal Family (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The viscountess was chatting away happily, but Saleen never spoke a word. He was hiding in between Sika and Nailisi, busy sensing the person¡¯s aura.


    This person brought with them a powerful mental pressure, and this pressure was being concealed. However, the pressure was not directed at Saleen.


    Saleen had been very proud of his mental power all along, but he now realized that although his mental power was more than ten times stronger than that of other Grade 2 mages, his mental power seemed to crack under this mental pressure. If the fifth person tried to attack Saleen with all their might, Saleen might not even be able to retaliate with a Grade 0 spell.


    Mental power was needed to cast spells, in the same way that a swordsman needed to use his sword. If the swordsman did not have the strength to wield his weapon, then he might injure himself first.


    Saleen did not give up and continued sensing that mental pressure. Because the mental pressure was not directed at him, Saleen¡¯s mental power did not crumble. Instead, Saleen¡¯s mental power gradually became more cohesive.


    Saleen could not sense the auras of anybody aside from the mental pressure from the fifth person. It was all around him, and it was tempering his mental power.


    The fifth person was Bain. He had been hiding in between the carriage driver and the viscountess. When Saleen started searching for Bain and his team, Bain was amused. But when Saleen found him, he was very surprised. Even a mage master was hardly able to discover him. How had a Grade 2 mage managed to do that?


    Bain grew very curious and found out that Saleen had been observing him all along, using his power to undergo growth.


    The guts of Saleen. He was not afraid of sustaining a breakdown in mental power!


    Bain secretly increased the magnitude of his mental pressure, and this time he directed it at Saleen. Saleen immediately felt the impact. Saleen felt as though he had been tossed into the ocean in the midst of a raging storm filled with huge waves. Saleen felt like he was a helpless little bird engulfed inside of a huge wave, and could be disintegrated at any moment.


    The power was monumental. Saleen had no choice but to stop his training and turn defensive. Bain¡¯s power greatly exceeded that of Saleen¡¯s. If Bain had just slightly increased his power, Saleen would have died, and even a death mage would not have been able to save him.


    Saleen did not give up. He knew that if he had really persevered, he could have hidden inside of the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne. Inside the ne, all external power would also be subdued regardless of its strength. No matter how strong the person was, they could never control the ne. But the power had not seemed like it was trying to kill Saleen, it had been more like it was ying a game with him.


    Saleen should have been angry since someone was teasing him. But to Saleen, it was a precious opportunity. As long as Saleen persevered, his mental power would eventually undergo a revolutionary change. If Saleen ran away from this situation, then this training session would leave a traumatic scar on him and haunt him forever.


    That being said, Saleen could not just mindlessly resist the mental pressure. His mental power had been engulfed by such a power that he could take this chance to do an in-depth analysis on the rules governing this power. He recalled that the first time he had entered the space within the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne, the powers within the space had felt like that too. Thus, Saleen began to analyze the mental pressure.


    The moment Saleen entered a state of learning, his heart and mind began to totally rx. The continuouspression and scouring had lessened as well. At the same time, Saleen started absorbing this energy and added it to his own mental power. Even though he had only absorbed a small amount, it could already greatly increase the studiness of his mental power.


    Bain noticed this change and immediately concealed his power. That power was too invaluable for Bain to allow Saleen to absorb it, even if it was only a minute amount. What had astonished Bain was that Saleen was merely a Grade 2 mage. How was Saleen so familiar with the rules of his power? Had Bain known this earlier, he would not have teased Saleen. The tiny loss of power this time around would require Bain to train for a few months in order to get it back.


    As Bain withdrew his power, Saleen also heaved a sigh of relief. If other mages had been in Saleen¡¯s shoes, they would have used the Meditation spell immediately to recover their lost mental power and stabilize their condition. But, Saleen would never have done that.


    Instead, Saleen secretly took out his family badge and cast a Grade 0 spell.


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Nailisi whispered. She leaned against Saleen. By now, Nailisi had already grown ustomed to the negative effects that urred whenever Saleen used his family badge. But, Saleen had used his badge too suddenly just now, and Nailisi had been caught off guard and let out a whimper.


    ¡°Ker¡­¡±


    Seeing Nailisi slumped against Saleen in a way that their bodies were nearly entangled, Viscountess Lex intentionally coughed to warn Saleen to be more discreet. If they wanted to be intimate, it was best to do it when nobody was around.


    Saleen could not even obey the viscountess, as he could not speak. Only his left hand could still move, and the rest of his body wasx and immobile. The badge had absorbed a lot of strength from Saleen¡¯s magic chords and mental power. Saleen could only flutter his eyelids, hoping that all these things would pass quickly.


    That family badge hidden in his sleeve had drained all of Saleen¡¯s mental power and caused the lightning shaped scar to be lit in an azure color. This time, the azure glow did not disappear immediately, but became like a liquid and was slowly being absorbed by the badge. Saleen¡¯s body shook. The badge seemed to havee alive in that instant, but more urately, it had be a part of Saleen¡¯s body.


    However, that sensation of it was too blurry. It was not like Saleen¡¯s left hand, which had a pulse. Saleen could only feel a familiar energy being bounced back by the badge, and this energy entered his body. This energy was from the power Saleen had absorbed from Bain just now. Originally, it would have been extremely dangerous for Saleen to absorb the power forcefully because it could not fuse together with his mental power.


    However, the power that had bounced back could actually fuse perfectly with his mental power. The fusion had its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage was that from now on, Saleen¡¯s mental power would contain this natural aggression. It had also be strangely intense and tough. The disadvantage was that if Saleen wanted to analyze this power, then he would need to enter the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne in order to do so.


    The mental power of a mage could not be split. The reason had something to do with the study of the soul. Once a person¡¯s mental power was split, their soul would be damaged as well. In order to observe one¡¯s own mental power, the space within the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne could be used like a mirror. The only other method that Saleen could use was observing his own mental power duringbat. But that would be a long and slow process.


    Saleen felt helpless as he still could not figure out what exactly this badge was. Aside from using it to increase his mental power, the badge had one new attribute. The badge could purify Saleen¡¯s mental power, and then fuse it with other powers. When Saleen had read his collection of magic books, there had been little information regarding souls. Usually, only a sorcerer could learn a few secrets about interacting with other souls. Even a death mage did not have this privilege.


    Saleen opened his eyes and realized that Viscountess Lex was staring at him. Viscountess Lex nodded at Saleen when he woke up. Bain had been too naughty in using his power to disturb Saleen. Fortunately, Saleen had not died, or else she would have been in trouble. Who knew what sort of status Saleen¡¯s teacher held in Alchemy City?


    Viscountess Lex grew worried as she did not know whether Saleen had suffered any damage to his mental power. If Saleen had sustained serious damage to his mental power, then it would be very hard for him to be promoted in the future. If that was the case, then how could she ever find peace of mind?


    Once a person chose the way of magic, there was no turning back. Harming a talented mage could cause severe consequences to one¡¯s own mood. When Viscountess Lex thought of this point, her gaze became queer.


    If Saleen sacrificed himself during battle, then she would not feel guilty since that would be his choice. However, if Saleen had be useless because of Bain¡¯s actions, then she would feel extremely guilty. To a mage, knowing the truth superseded life itself.


    When Saleen saw the concerned look on the viscountess¡¯ face, he smiled and nodded at her. He had nearly lost his life just now, but he had gained tremendous benefits as well. However, he could not tell the viscountess that if she truly cared about him, she should give him magic nuclei as rpense. Saleen daydreamed about this conversation instead of meditating. He simply leaned against Nailisi in exhaustion, and waited for everything to return to normal.


    Saleen had not realized that the changes that had urred to his body were of such great importance. In the past, after the badge sapped his mental power, Saleen needed to wait for his mental power to recover before he could meditate to regain his magic chords. However, from now on, his mental power would immediately be reflected back to him from the badge and he would no longer need to wait before entering a state of recovery.


    Throughout the journey, Saleen never spoke a word, and the viscountess was too embarrassed to probe him further. The entire convoy traveled west. Six monthster, the convoy came to a wide river. The flow was not fast, but the river was at least two hundred meters wide. The current wasfortable and slow, and the water was sparkling clear. A metal bridge that was a few meters wide stretched across the river.


    The convoy stopped, and the soldiers outside the carriage whispered, ¡°My Viscountess, there is someone blocking the way.¡±


    ¡°Oh really? Did the forward troops reveal my identity?


    ¡°Yes, they did. They even shed the badge.¡±


    ¡°Then why are you still telling me this? Just cross the river,¡± the viscountess replied nonchntly. The troops obeyed her, and began to advance.


    There were thirty soldiers d in armor blocking the convoy¡¯s way. The thirty of them stood guard at the entrance of the bridge. These soldiers seemed proud and looked at the oing convoy with contempt. At the end of the bridge were two groups of one hundred light cavalry soldiers staring at the other end of the river. These soldiers held double-bow crossbows.


    Themander sneered and drew his sword, pointing it towards the entrance of the bridge. Themander thought, ¡°What damned viscount is this. I reckon they¡¯ve got the guts to cross the bridge. I have two hundred crossbows with me, and I can fire six hundred arrows at once. No matter the broadness of the bridge, I can definitely cover its entire width. The bridge belongs to the earl. If you dare trespass, then I will kill you.¡±


    The Bitter Water Army had just over a hundred forward troops. All of them sat upright on their horses, ignoring the looks of provocation from the soldiers on the bridge. Soon, the soldiers from the back of convoy rushed forward on horseback and announced, ¡°Lord Tenesee, the viscountess has given the go ahead.¡±


    Lord Tenesee¡¯s eyes lit up and answered, ¡°Yes!¡± Lord Tenesee was themander of the forward troops.


    He kicked the abdomen of his horse and wrapped the reins at the front of his saddle, shouting, ¡°My brothers, let¡¯s advance!


    ¡°Onward!¡±


    Over a hundred soldiers answered in unison. Themander named Tenesee drew his sword from the side of his saddle and was the first to charge forward. The soldiers behind him drew their swords as well. The sounds of nking metal were so loud that they dealt a huge blow to the hearts of the opposing forces. A few of them even jumped off of the backs of their horses and ran off. The rest of them were at a loss for what to do. Before they could think up a countermeasure, the viscountess¡¯ troops were already right in front of them.

 Chapter 90: Tanggulasi Assassin (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 90: Tanggsi Assassin (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Viscountess, why are there people preventing us from advancing?¡± Hu An asked, confused. On Qin Empirend, who would dare make life hard for the emperor¡¯s daughter?


    ¡°Across the Lancang River is Hadisai City, the territory of Earl Mokri. This fencesitter has finally sided with the lower house. Sadly, someone like him doesn¡¯t have any guts. If he had really wanted to butter up my uncle, he should have sent cavalry to lockdown this bridge. I would have been forced to take a different, longer route. Do you understand now, Hu An?¡±


    Hu An shook his head in shame. His family was not any great worldly family and he had no chance of gaining the rank of a noble. These inner workings of the wealthy were something that he had only read in books. Since leaving his home, he had been studying in Bitter Water Prefecture, focusing solely on the research of magic. He might have been able to fight, but was unable to understand whatever Viscountess Lex had just said.


    ¡°To put it into simple terms, someone is trying to make me lose face. If even an earl could obstruct me and force me to take a longer route, it would take me an extra half a month to reach Holy Rock City and in addition, the upper house would be disappointed in me. I think Mokri is not ready to shed blood.¡± As Viscountess Lex said this calmly, Saleen had already understood.


    This was not a conflict between the old and new wealthy people of the empire. The emperor dominated the upper house and held control over the hereditary members of the wealthy. The prince dominated the lower house, controlling the new members of the wealthy. What was tragic to Saleen was that this had obviously been a move from the royal family to weaken the wealthy, and yet the old and new wealthy had never cooperated before and had not been able to resolve their conflicts.


    The four empires had been built around the same time, but only the Qin Empire had gone for seven hundred years without the amount of the wealthy increasing to a dangerous number. The other three empires possessed serious problems. Sikeqinya faced corruption, Tanggsi was being controlled by the Holy See, and the Cloudflow Empire had forgotten the glory of the Fourth Dynasty and now took part in the buying and selling of titles.


    As for the Qin Empire, the two houses had been involved in a struggle, but the royal rights were still unbelievably firm.


    The battle at the bridge was bing incredibly bloody. Tenesee was at the forefront of a hundred cavalry who were charging forward in a wedge-shaped formation. Tenesee¡¯s cavalry sword was four feet long, but near the sword¡¯s handle was not a standard open de. Instead, it was shaped like a rectangle. A golden magic array had been etched into it, and both sides had magic nuclei iid.


    A few meters away, Tenesee single-handedly swung his sword, charging forward.


    The enormous cavalry sword shot out a burst of dark purple me. It was over ten meters long andnded right between the more than thirty soldiers at the foot of the bridge. Five soldiers were cut directly by this burst of me, their entire bodies producing a burning smell as green smoke emerged from their armor. All five of themnded on the floor with a thud.


    ¡°It¡¯s a magic sword, run!¡±


    Swoosh¡­


    Another burst of light emerged from the sword as the people screaming had their heads chopped off. Blood spurted towards the sky from their necks, which gave off a sizzling sound.


    The cavalry of the Bitter Water Army had sessfully split the formation of the enemy, and without looking back, they started charging onto the metal bridge. By the time their war horses crossed over, they had left over thirty bodies in the dust.


    With the sound of a swoosh, a crossbow arrow came flying towards them. The light cavalry from the opposite side had been too anxious and had released a crossbow arrow too early. This arrow was shot from over two hundred meters away, and without even blinking, Tenesee increased the speed of his charge. At the front of his horse was a wind shield and since the crossbow arrow had been shot from too great of a distance and had insufficient energy to it, a light gust from the wind shield had sent it flying towards the river.


    ¡°Hmm, what a bunch of losers.¡± Tenesee did not even bother to pull down his metal mask. Looking at the over two hundred light cavalry soldiers across the other bank, he swung his cavalry sword, ready for a second attack.


    The army general on the foot of the bridge was shocked. Although Hadisai City¡¯s soldiers had undergone tough training, in the seven hundred years since the empire had been formed, they had never seen such horrifying killings so far ind. Even before the hundred cavalry soldiers could charge towards them, an aura of death had already enveloped the two hundred light cavalry soldiers to the east of the bridge.


    The hooves of the horses stepped onto the metal bridge, giving off a hurried thudding sound. The army general did not even stop to consider it before he took off and fled. Even though the opponents were not truly heavy cavalry, all of their armor seemed to be magic armor, especially the sword which seemed like a fire dragon. His confidence had been utterly destroyed.


    The earl had only nned on humiliating them. Who would have expected such an oue?


    Without theirmander, all two hundred light cavalry soldiers instantly scattered in all directions, as if they were an ant nest that had been disturbed.


    Tenesee had lost his cool. He had possessed no intentions of ughtering the enemy. The enemy to the west of the bridge had been disrespectful to the viscountess. Hence, he had killed them. However, the people on the eastern side had not even tried to defend their territory. They were the shame of all soldiers.


    It did not cross his mind that these soldiers had trained in sheltered environments. How could they bepared to the Bitter Water Army? The swordsmen of the Bitter Water Army had undergone their training outside, some even as far out as the Tanggsi Empire. They had blood on their hands. Killing bandits did not even need to be mentioned, and some had even killed high-grade magic beasts and possessed an unbelievable wealth of experiences inbat.


    Even for thete Loki, the team that he had led had managed to kill a green dragon. Even though they were the weakest of the dragon n, dragons could fly and there was a certain difficult when it came to killing them. Many mercenary groups with mages had also had trouble defeating the crafty green dragon.


    Tenesee gently kicked the belly of his horse, and the horse cocked its head and started charging towards the escaping soldiers. Tenesee gave his cavalry sword another swing and another column of me ten meters long spewed out again. This kind of attack was very effective against a direct defense formation. However, it was rtively ineffective against escaping soldiers. Having expanded the magic of his cavalry sword, Tenesee gave a loud cry and the cavalry behind him spread out, moving towards the sides.


    Against enemies that had already given up, strategy did not really need to be discussed. So long as they had a chance of living, these light cavalry soldiers would never have the guts to stop and fight back. The over hundred cavalry soldiers sheathed their cavalry swords, taking out their short spears and throwing them instead.


    Only after chasing for a few miles and killing over fifty men did Tenesee stop. Even though he despised the enemy, Tenesee did not dare chase them too far. In any case, Hadisai City was too close by and the enemy was a Grade 1 earl. He still had the ability tomand thousands of swordsmen.


    After regrouping the army, Tenesee returned to the foot of the bridge, letting the soldiers retrieve the crossbows that the light cavalry soldiers had abandoned and securing the foot of the bridge. Only then did he blow a whistle. The shrill metal sound could be heard from over a mile away, and only then did the entire Bitter Water Army begin to advance towards the metal bridge.


    This was actually arge road with many pedestrians, but upon seeing that a battle had ensued, all of them had run away. Even so, the Bitter Water Army was still cautious as they escorted Viscountess Lex¡¯s carriage over the metal bridge.


    Viscountess Lex¡¯s carriage slowed down. The two sides were nked with cavalry who were protecting them, almost as if an enemy were approaching. These soldiers had a great deal of experience in battle and knew to be cautious even after a victory, as once they let their guard down, they could be attacked by the enemy.


    Crossing the foot of the bridge, Viscountess Lex saw the many corpses on the ground and let out a soft sigh.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t the time to be soft-hearted,¡± Faerun suddenly blurted. He was well aware that this trip back to the capital would be fraught with dangers that were worse than the one here.


    ¡°I was just thinking. These soldiers died without any value. Even Lon is about to get messy. The ck mages are spreading towards the border, and counting on the mages alone, it would be impossible to eradicate all of them. These are the empire¡¯s soldiers¡­¡±


    ¡°If they had considered themselves the empire¡¯s soldiers, they shouldn¡¯t have stopped the viscountess,¡± Hu An said coldly, looking at the bodies.


    Viscountess Lex tapped on the carriage window and said to the soldiers outside, ¡°Leave a hundred men to clean up the bodies.¡±


    Saleen looked at Viscountess Lex¡¯s tightly knit eyebrows and was not sure how sincere her act of pity was.


    The carriage had just reached the center of the bridge when suddenly, a dark shadow appeared from the river beneath the bridge. It broke past the nks of wood that made up the bridge and charged towards them. This ck shadow was sharp as an arrow, and was attempting to assassinate Viscountess Lex from the bottom of the carriage.


    Boom!


    The river exploded in this instant. The mist that spread up to the sky enveloped the entire carriage.


    Perhaps the assassin had not chosen the best time, but their skills were unbelievably precise. As the thin sword in their hand headed towards the bottom of the carriage, the mist that had been created blocked the vision of the surrounding soldiers.


    The assassin¡¯s sword was as ck as night and was only as wide as a finger. The de of the sword glowed with a green light. This was a sword aura waiting to be released. Even if they were not a grand swordmaster, they were the pinnacle of a swordmaster.


    The driver of the carriage seemed to realize that someone was about to assassinate Viscountess Lex and sped up abruptly. The assassin¡¯s shot had already been diverted away from the seat of Viscountess Lex. Simultaneously, the bottom panel of the carriage had given way. Faerun extended his hand, and grabbing hold of the assassin¡¯s thin sword, he pulled the assassin up. The sword aura from the thin sword was extinguished by Faerun.


    Over ten spells swamped the assassin all at once, along with a boomerang. A few more holes appeared on the body of the assassin. There was not a single drop of blood flowing from any of these shocking wounds. After making one round around the assassin¡¯s neck, Sika¡¯s boomerang returned to her hand.


    The bottom of the carriage was reassembled together. As Faerun released his grip, the body of the assassin tumbled to the ground. They had died a clean death.


    The mist outside the carriage had dissipated and everyone looked a little embarrassed. Saleen had not done anything. With Faerun there, there was no need for his help anyway. Faerun had managed to grab the thin sword with his bare hands. Naturally, he had not been afraid of whatever counterabilities the assassin could have had.


    Viscountess Lex burst intoughter as she said, ¡°He could have been a good source of information. It¡¯s too bad you all had to kill him. Sigh¡­¡±


    The mages¡¯ faces turned red. During their normal training, they had only been taught how to kill the enemy. Theirbat coordination was fairly good, and they had been quick to strike. Almost all of them had cast two instantaneous spells. The problem was that like what Viscountess Lex had said, this person had been killed so cleanly that they had been given no chance to ask him anything.


    ¡°He isn¡¯t an insider. The assassin doesn¡¯t know about your grade advancement, nor does he know¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes. Even though we hadn¡¯t stopped at any cities, we have been walking a straight route. It would have been easy for someone to guess when we would arrive here. This assassin had been waiting for less than half a day. It is going to be hard for Mokri to get out of this. This is good as well, Viscountess, lest he bring up the death of some soldiers to the lower house.¡± Faerun talked to Viscountess Lex as he grabbed the thin sword in his hand and analyzed its details.


    ¡°It seems we will need to camp outside again.¡± Viscountess Lex looked at the dead body in disgust, shifting her legs away from it.


    ¡°Viscountess, why don¡¯t we me this on Molokari and¡­¡±


    ¡°Hu An, I don¡¯t have the time.¡± Viscountess Lex closed her eyes. Leaning against the cushion, she did not say another word. Hu An was slightly embarrassed, still a little troubled in his heart.


    ¡°This is too far away from Bitter Water Prefecture. Even if we med Mokri, it is not under the jurisdiction of the viscountess,¡± A male mage beside Hu An said as he poked him, hinting to him not to say anymore. Hu An understood and turned away.

 Chapter 91: Tanggulasi Assassin (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 91: Tanggsi Assassin (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The carriage quickly crossed the metal bridge. Faerun set down the thin sword in his hand and said, ¡°He isn¡¯t an assassin. He must be from the west.¡±


    The west meaning the Tanggsi Empire. The Qin and the Tanggsi people had always treated each other as enemies. They were never willing to call each other¡¯s countries by name.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. We should be fine now that we¡¯re past the bridge.¡± Viscountess Lex did not even open her eyes, simply saying this calmly.


    Hu An and the rest of the mages were slightly quieted. They had not noticed the assassin earlier on and if it hadn¡¯t been for Faerun, this assassin could have killed anyone they wanted. Aside from Viscountess Lex who possessed somebatability, the other mages were practically like meat on a chopping board.


    The metal bridge had been the most suitable ce to ambush the carriage. Once they reached the main road, it would be much harder to get close to the carriage.


    Saleen was not worried about this at all. The people waiting around the vicinity of the carriage had not taken any action. This assassin had only been there to test them. If there had been any true danger, the person who had toyed with him would have taken action long ago. At the very least, there were a ck metal grand swordmaster and an assassin whose grade was unknown by Viscountess Lex¡¯s side. With Faerun the newly upgraded sorcerer, whoever wanted to kill her would surely have a very tough time trying to do so.


    This was an old tactic, sending out a strong assassin and getting someone to spy on them afar with an alchemy telescope or magic. After determining the abilities of the people they were dealing with, they would then prepare another assassin. Hence, the people who were hiding around Viscountess Lex had not moved. Faerun had only needed to extend a hand to gain control of the entire situation.


    All of these people possessed a great deal of experience! Although Saleen understood this reason, if it was his first time witnessing something like this. It had not been easy for him to remain calm, and his first instinct could have potentially been to show off his true skills. After all, the strike from the assassin earlier on had meant to be fatal, and in the face of death, who could be so calm?


    Perhaps only that person with a heart like steel.


    Inparison, he had actualbat experience, Sika had an exceptional gift forbat, and Nailisi could not be bothered with the life of the viscountess. Hence, the three of them had not embarrassed themselves.


    After this rite of passage, there was no doubt that the other eight mages that Faerun was nurturing would have matured. So long as one was not rash, there was no need to stand out. Looking at Hu An, one could already tell that he wanted very badly to show off to Viscountess Lex.


    Saleen would not waste time on things that were hopeless. He had a vague idea of Viscountess Lex¡¯s temper and he knew that the more a person wanted to impress her, the less they would catch her attention. However, If one followed the rules strictly, she would not abandon them either. A person just needed to do as they liked and not attempt to hurt her; and the viscountess would definitely be fair to them.


    Someone who did not have any desires would have the purest heart. Since Saleen had never tried to suck up to anyone, this had actually made Faerun like him more.


    As the carriage left the metal bridge, the Bitter Water Army regrouped,pletely cutting off any chances for the assassin toe close. Only then did the mages in the carriage rx.


    Viscountess Lex gave the order to setup camp and the body of the assassin was brought into Faerun¡¯s tent. Faerun took out a stripped-down alchemy machine from his spatial equipment and built a magicboratory. The assassin¡¯s body was ced t on theboratory table. They had been stripped clean.


    Faerun called the mages into the tent. He pointed at the corpse on the table and said, ¡°Actually, the dead can speak. The following scene may get bloody. If any of you cannot handle those things, you are free to leave.¡±


    Not a single mage left. Nailisi licked her lips and moved forward, then was pulled back by Saleen. If she could not control herself and started biting the corpse, things would get tricky to exin.


    ¡°Let¡¯s start with something simple,¡± Faerun said as an icicle appeared from his nails. He patiently took apart the skin and muscles on both of the assassin¡¯s hands, exposinjg the bone.


    ¡°A high-grade assassin won¡¯t bring any items that can identify him when he is on a mission. However, their bodies cannot be changed. Take a look at the thumb on his right hand. It is rtively thick. This means that he started training his sword aura rtivelyte, before his bones had settled, and he must have practiced some crude martial arts.¡±


    As he spoke, Faerun cut off a piece of the finger bone with the icicle and threw it into a ss beaker. He moved on to the head of the corpse and cut out a line from the chin to the back of the ear before moving behind the skull. He hooked a metal hook onto the wound on the chin, and with a pull, the entire face was stripped by Faerun.


    Bleugh¡­


    A female mage could not handle the sight and puked on the spot.


    Faerun took a few strands of hair and ced it into another beaker filled with transparent liquid. He said, ¡°Humans have very little facial muscles and do not train their muscles under the skin. We can see the expressions he usually makes. This man is very strict,¡± Faerun joked, but the faces of the females mages remained just as pale. Another female mage could not hold it in anymore and puked.


    ¡°The bones cannot fool anyone.¡± Faerun used the icicle and expertly carved away the facial muscles, revealing the bones of the skull.


    ¡°He is an assassin who lies low for long periods of time and has always been in the Qin Empire. Look, his cheekbones have been grinded t, and his nose bridge has been ttened too. This causes him to seem more like he is from the Qin Empire.¡± As Faerun spoke, he brought over the beaker containing the hair, and gave it a shake. The clear liquid turned ck. He took a needle and fished out the strand of hair. It had turned gold.


    ¡°His hair was dyed as well.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I¡­¡± The female mage who had puked first could not continue speaking. She covered her mouth and ran out of the tent.


    ¡°Usually, the color of the eyeballs are hard to manipte. It would affect the vision of the assassin. Thus, I will not dig them out to check.¡±


    Everyone in the tent heaved a sigh of relief. Faerun said, ¡°To know who he is, we need to see his diet too. Luckily, you all didn¡¯t destroy his stomach.¡±


    Upon saying that, Faerun used the icicle to open up the assassin¡¯s body, revealing the contents inside. The smell inside of the tent grew harder to stomach, Faerun did not use any cleaning magic. Instead, he used his hands to lightly shift the stomach before opening it up with the icicle and saying, ¡°Luckily, there is still undigested food. These are green beans, these should be noodles, and there is cucumber as well. He isn¡¯t a vegetarian, but he must have been abstaining from meat up until the date. Green beans are amon food but the price of cucumber is a little expensive. He must have had some kind of identity. At the very least, he wasn¡¯t amoner.¡±


    ¡°Um, ugh¡­¡±


    Another two mages ran out. Aside from Saleen and the other two, even Hu An had a disgusted expression, forcing himself to stand beside the table.


    ¡°His ribs have been injured as early as ten years ago or as recent as this past year This was not his first mission. With luck, I might be able to find some clues. However, we don¡¯t have the time for that now. We just need to confirm that he is from the west,¡± Faerun exined patiently while Nailisi held on tightly to Saleen¡¯s back, holding back her urge to eat a feast.


    She had not seen fresh meat for so long, and this person had just died. Even their blood had notpletely clotted.


    Dispelling his Icicle spell, Faerun put on a pair of gloves and took out a small hammer, knocking out one of the assassin¡¯s teeth.


    ¡°The tooth is real and is not hiding any poison. This shows how confident this man was. Even if we had caught him alive, we wouldn¡¯t have been able to ask him anything.¡±


    Faerun put down the hammer, took out a saw, and said, ¡°We need to saw open his leg so we can see his bone marrow and determine his age.¡±


    Upon Faerun saying that, even a male mage ran out. Only the three of them were left in the tent. Faerun said in disappoinm, ¡°If the corpse wasplete, I could even make some art.¡±


    ¡°Sir, did you ever think of bing a death mage in the past?¡± Saleen couldn¡¯t help but ask.


    ¡°I did. But my father didn¡¯t allow it and I didn¡¯t have the money to buy the death mes. I had already learned the basic knowledge of a death mage. It¡¯s really interesting.¡±


    ¡°This¡­¡± Saleen used his hand to point at the corpse and thought depressingly, Could Faerun have made everyone suffer just for his enjoyment?


    ¡°After bing a sorcerer, I can predict certain dangers, although they are unclear. By collecting more information now, even if danger were toe again, I can more quickly determine what methods I should employ to manage it. This person must have lived in the Qin Empire for at least ten years. Determining his legitimate age, position, diet, and religion, I will be able to predict the next attack with higher uracy. For a mage, everything can be calcted.¡±


    ¡°Just like the Figaro form?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Saleen. You¡¯re smart.¡± Faerun smiled satisfyingly.


    Hearing thepliment, Saleen started whispering in his heart. Certainly only stubborn maniacs can be sorcerers. Even though Faerun¡¯s eyes were calm, his heart was unusually passionate.


    What a pity for the assassin. If his faith was with the God of Light, with his body having been hacked apart like this, it would be hard for him to rise to heaven.


    Although only Saleen was left to appreciate the show, Faerun excitedly sawed apart the assassin¡¯s thigh. He was not using the icicle spell this time and fresh blood spilled everywhere.


    ¡°If I wanted it to be cleaner, I would use the Grade 4 Current Cutter spell so that we could see directly the parts of the skeleton. However, using a saw, I can urately feel the strength of his skeleton to determine his true grade. Do you want to try?¡± Faerun extended his hand, wanting Saleen to saw the other leg.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I will.¡± Even though Saleen looked calm, asking him to do this was a little hard for him.


    ¡°How about I try it?¡± Nailisi whispered into Saleen ear as he red at her.


    ¡°Actually, any human who has trained their sword aura is not much different from a magic beast. This person wasn¡¯t even a grand swordmaster yet and his bones are already this tough. Look.¡± Faerun had Saleen observe the teeth of the saw. They had nearly been grinded t. Thest few cuts werepleted with Faerun¡¯s magic.


    ¡°Hence you must remember, if you meet a grand swordmaster, even if they have expended their sword aura, your low-grade magic will not be able to hurt their bones.¡±


    Saleen might have read a lot of books but he had no idea about this. After hearing so, he started bing cautious. He had killed a few swordmasters and assumed that magic was invincible. This thought was hrious. Without Sika and Nailisi, he would have died a long time ago.


    ¡°What if I am forced to face a grand swordmaster?¡± Saleen asked in a serious manner. Earl Sufonso was a grand swordmaster, and Saleen would never forget this hatred.

 Chapter 92: Silver Grand Swordmaster (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 92: Silver Grand Swordmaster (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, a mage should never let himself fall into desperation.¡± Faerun used some mist from a spray bottle to wash the site of amputation on the corpse, revealing the whiteness of the bone.


    ¡°Is there really no other answer?¡±


    ¡°Once you be a sorcerer,e and ask me this question again. Sika, test out your weapon,¡± Faerun said to Sika, who had been silent.


    Sika drew her boomerang and shed the thigh whichid on the tabletop. With a crack, the strong thigh bone was sliced through cleanly by Sika¡¯s boomerang, causing no resistance whatsoever.


    ¡°Not bad at all. Even though you don¡¯t use the sword aura, the way you control your strength is no different from any other swordmaster. Saleen, you will try now.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Saleen used his hands to cast the Ice de spell. He carefully controlled the ice de, and with a crisp sound, the ice de pierced the thigh bone.


    ¡°The attack power is sufficient. I am very surprised that you are able to achieve that. But in actualbat, you may have to train to a higher grade before you can execute this spell as perfectly as you just have. If you face a high level swordmaster, you will weaken yourself if you cannot kill him in one attack. It won¡¯t be a good choice.¡±


    ¡°I will use the Swamp Illusion spell to control the enemy, and let Sika deal the finishing blow.¡±


    ¡°But what if you needed to fight against two high-level swordmasters?¡±


    Faerun had asked Saleen a simple technical question. Saleen was a Grade 2 mage. He could only cast a Grade 3 spell once and his magic chords would be exhausted. Without his magic chords, Saleen would be a burden to Sika on the battlefield. Of course, Saleen knew better that he could actually cast two Grade 3 spells, but the crux of the problem was that his enemy might have been a Grade 3 swordmaster.


    ¡°I¡¯d use Acid and Poisonous Fog spells to control the enemy¡¯s breathing, and then use Frost Array to disrupt his tempo.¡±


    ¡°But that would require calctions from the Figaro form¡­¡±


    Saleen was thinking that he only needed six more months of practice to be able to utilize the Figaro form in actualbat. To defeat Earl Sufonso, Saleen definitely needed a partner, and his grade was still vital to victory. As long as his grade remained stagnant, he would never have enough magic chords to use. The best solution currently would be to umte magic chords. There were not many alternatives that could be used against a grand swordmaster.


    When Faerun saw that Saleen had stopped rebutting his arguments, he continued, ¡°Escaping may be the best choice, but if you have enough money, then using magic scrolls is the best solution.¡±


    Saleen was speechless. A grand swordmaster would never be able to defend himself against ten thousand Grade 3 magic scrolls. However, the problem with magic scrolls was that a single scroll cost two hundred gold coins. A gold arrow only cost one gold coin, and even better quality arrows only cost ten gold coins. With that much money, Saleen could have already hired some mercenaries. No matter how strong the grand swordmaster was, they would also die from all the chaos that would ensue during the battle.


    Faerun smiled and said, ¡°Well, it seems like you¡¯ve finally understood what I was trying to say. No matter how strong a person is, teamwork will still be stronger.¡±


    Saleen was extremely grateful to Faerun. Faerun must have noticed that he was so homesick that he might have acted on impulse and sought revenge on Earl Sufonso. The earl could potentially have had thousands of soldiers, and if these soldiers hadid an ambush for Saleen, then Saleen would have lost his life. If Saleen were to die, the Metatrin bloodline would be extinct.


    Roar!


    As Saleen and Faerun were speaking, there was a roar from a magic beast from afar. Faerun¡¯s face immediately changed, and without warning, Faerun cast a Haste spell and sped out of the tent. That was the first time Saleen had seen a mage running so quickly. He was even faster than a headless rider charging forward.


    The soldiers had surrounded the camp with just horses and had not even dug moats. At the entrance of the camp, a man and a beast were speedily killing soldiers as they made their way in. The Bitter Water Army had over a hundred soldiers acting as sentries, but they were all scattered around thepound so they could not stop the intruder¡¯s attack.


    Saleen came out of the tent and witnessed a horrendous sight far ahead of him.


    An adult thorned dragon had rammed into three cavalry soldiers and sent them all flying. The dragon was roaring angrily, and had crushed a tent under its foot. The soldiers beneath the tent were all crushed, spilling out buckets of blood. There was a man d in heavy metal armor beside the dragon. He wielded a meteor hammer, and was taking big steps towards the viscountess¡¯ tent.


    The intruder¡¯s target was obviously not Saleen, but Saleen felt that all the blood in his body had coagted and prevented him from being able to move, let alone cast magic. The intruder exuded so much power that the thorned dragon seemed like a cute kitten beside him. Every step the intruder took gave off a rumble through the ground. Dust and gravel were kicked up under his feet, forming a dust cloud as if there were thousands of soldiers and horses charging forward.


    His target was the viscountess¡¯ tent. Saleen had merely felt his aura and hadpletely lost the will to fight. Sika and Nailisi followed Saleen out of the tent, and discovered that there was something wrong with him. Sika hugged Saleen¡¯s waist and began to retreat. Nailisi was very anxious as well. She stood in front of Sika defensively and stared nervously at the man d in heavy armor.


    The man was like a demon to Nailisi. There was no way she could resist his attacks. If Saleen had not been behind her, Nailisi would have run away long ago.


    Saleen¡¯s face was flushed. The huge mental pressure had reduced slightly, and his left hand could now move. Saleen immediately cast the magic on his magic robe, and the invisible shield opened up. Even though Invisible Shield was a spell of the lowest grade, it had relieved most of Saleen¡¯s distress.


    He watched the intruder obsessively. The intruder was d in ck metallic armor. The armor was in one piece, and with the exception of the joints, there was no exposed skin. The same went for the intruder¡¯s face guard. There were no iid crystals covering the eye region, only triangr eye masks.


    The parts of the armor covering his shoulders, elbows, knees and other joint areas had sharp metal thorns. His meteor hammer let out whines as it swung from his hands while he walked. Over ten javelins were thrown towards the intruder, but he used his meteor hammer to deflect all of them. The javelins were tossed into midair andnded behind the intruder.


    Two soldiers rode on horseback and charged forward, driving their spears into the intruder¡¯s chest.


    There was the sound of metal being broken. The spears had broken into two pieces, and the soldiers on horseback fell to the ground and rolled several times beforeing to a stop. Saleen had not managed to see how the intruder had done that. Then, the viscountess said calmly from her tent, ¡°Tenesee, back down.¡±


    Tenesee, who by then had gathered more than a hundred soldiers, held the reins on his horse. He grew anxious as he watched the intruder make his way towards the viscountess¡¯ tent.


    Four people came out the viscountess¡¯ tent and blocked the intruder¡¯s path.


    These four men were d in cotton robes and did not have any armor. They only held a basic Qin eight-sided sword. The intruder d in heavy armor stopped in his tracks. He had not anticipated the appearances of these four men. There had been an error in their intelligence. The viscountess actually had four ck metal grand swordmasters with her!!!


    Retreat? He was not willing to do so!


    Continue? The viscountess still had two mage masters who had not taken any action yet. If he was injured, then the soldiers would not be like ants anymore. They would be his executioners and destroy him.


    Hmph!


    The intruder d in heavy armor seemed to have been angered by his own hesitation, and he bellowed in a chaotic manner. The dragon which was stepping on a tent turned around and started charging towards the four men guarding the viscountess¡¯ tent.


    The thorned dragon was the strongest among all dragons who traveled on foot. This dragon did not know any magic, but its four meter tall body and metallic thorns were its strongest weapons. Magic attacks against the dragon could not consistently do damage either. Even though the dragon could not be ridden, it could already be considered the strongest weapon in the battle.


    Once a thorned dragon charged forward, even a grand swordmaster could not stop it. The intruder started advancing with the dragon, beginning to swing his meteor hammer again.


    The four swordmasters holding the Qin eight-sided Sword stealthily moved out of the dragon¡¯s way, sliding past the sides of the dragon and beginning to lunge at the intruder. It seemed like they had already practiced this action tens of thousands of times. Their footwork was organized as they slipped past, mere inches away from the dragon.


    The thorned dragon had lost its targets and could not have been more furious. The dragon then began to charge towards the viscountess¡¯ tent.


    If the tent was crushed by the dragon, the people inside would surely die. When Saleen saw such a vicious attack, one phrase came to mind ¨C magic beast warrior.


    Taming a magic beast and bringing it to battle was not umon. However, in order to have full control of the beast, the beast¡¯s grade had to at least be two grades lower than that of its controller. Since the thorned dragon was a Grade 6 magic beast, that meant that the intruder had to be a¡­


    Silver grand swordmaster!


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t go over. We won¡¯t be able to provide much help,¡± Saleen interrupted Sika. Sika was at most a mid-level swordmaster. If faced with a silver grand swordmaster, she would not even be able to retaliate. If they really wanted to fight, then Saleen needed to be the one to go. After all, magic could be used to attack from a distance. Even if the enemy could not be damaged, at least he could be contained.


    Sika did not attempt to counter Saleen. Even though the viscountess treated her well, most of the help she had received hade from Saleen¡¯s mary support. If Saleen did not give her the go ahead, then of course she would not go and fight a frightening person like the intruder. People from Caucasus valued unity. In Sika¡¯s team, there was only Saleen, who was her leader. As for the other people, Sika did not feel that they had warranted her help.


    All of a sudden, a bright light shot out from within the tent. This light split into six streams, targeting the dragon. The thorned dragon lowered its head and managed to prevent the lights from shining into its eyes. The dragon did not slow down. It was bent on destroying the viscountess¡¯ tent. The six streams of white lightnded on the dragon¡¯s body and sliced through a few of its thorns like a razor sharp sword. But the effect was only that. Grade 6 Light Magic could never have done much against a Grade 6 magic beast possessing strong magic resistance. Furthermore, the thorned dragon was a magic beast that was nearly immune to magic.


    Immunity to magic referred to the reduction of more than eighty percent of the magic damage from spells which were of equal or lower grade than one¡¯s self.


    Saleen calmed down when he saw the Light Magic. The Grade 6 spell was only the beginning, acting as a marker on the dragon. Otherwise, Ground Magic could have been used to stop the thorned dragon in its tracks.


    Peng!


    The thorned dragon crashed headfirst into a stone pir in the tent.


    Earth Totem, a Grade 6 spell.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up. The function of the earth totem was not for blocking, but to give mages a temporary holistic boost in their magic abilities. Earth Totem was much more useful than Magic Staff. Within a hundred meter radius of the earth totem, the defensive and offensive capabilities of a mage would increase several times over. And within half an hour, the stone pir would be almost indestructible.


    Despite the strength of the thorned dragon, it simply could not destroy the earth totem. When it struck the stone pir, the thorns on its head cracked and the dragon stopped in its tracks, dizzied. Then, two fire serpents slithered out of the ruined tent. In a short while, they had wrapped their bodies around the thorned dragon. The two serpents were very agile. One went into the dragon¡¯s nose while the other went into the dragon¡¯s anus. Since the dragon was in a state of partial consciousness, it did not realize what the serpents were trying to do.


    The thorned dragon drew deep breaths, trying to regain its alertness. While the dragon had been breathing, the serpent had taken the opportunity to slither into its nostrils.


    Ow!


    The thorned dragon leapt up in extreme pain. This ten ton gargantuan beast twitched and jumped up in pain, and then crashed towards the tent.

 Chapter 93: Silver Grand Swordmaster (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 93: Silver Grand Swordmaster (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was dazzled by the scene unfolding before him. The earth totem had been set in ce beforehand, and if any danger appeared, it would be activated. Also, the two fire serpents had not been cast by Faerun. They hade from magic scrolls.


    Because a single attack was extremely powerful and controlling the fire serpents was Grade 8 magic, Faerun could not possibly have cast the two fire serpents on his own.


    After a loud boom, the thorned dragon fell onto the viscountess¡¯ tent and rolled about in pain. The other fire serpent had slithered into the dragon¡¯s anus. Because the snakes had been formed by magic, they could not be extinguished. Despite the high magic resistance that the dragon possessed, its intestines could not withstand the burning pain.


    Actually, Faerun had not needed to use the magic scrolls to y the dragon. However, the magic scrolls had been the best solution for killing the determined beast quickly. Faerun still needed to face a silver grand swordmaster, so he had used the magic scrolls in order to conserve his precious magic chords.


    A Grade 7 sorcerer and a silver grand swordmaster had a difference of one grade between them. A ck metal grand swordmaster was two grades below. Even though there were five of them, the intruder might not be defeated. So, Faerun was naturally very cautious. He had used two Grade 8 magic scrolls, which cost tens of thousands of gold coins, just to conserve a littlebat power.


    There was no one in the tent. Viscountess Lex had disappeared. The areas of the thorned dragon¡¯s body which hade into contact with the fire serpents started to char and crack. The internal and external injuries acted together, causing the dragon to roar wildly. The thorned dragon spit purple mes and rolled a few times before its actions ceased for good. The hard scales on its surface also cracked into more than ten pieces each, exposing the burned meat beneath.


    The battle had gone on for over ten seconds, and hundreds of soldiers had already put on their armor and mounted their war horses. They surrounded the intruder from afar, waiting to inflict the final blow onto him. These soldiers were only swordsmen or swordmasters, but they still formed a decisive power. As soon as the intruder was injured, they would charge forward and swarm him.


    The intruder d in heavy armor secretly regretted his decision. He had trusted the intelligence reports blindly, but it turned out that the viscountess had a sorcerer with her! Even though the sorcerer was only Grade 7, the intruder¡¯s sword aura would be drained as long as the sorcerer possessed a sufficient number of magic scrolls. Then, the four ck metal grand swordmasters would deliver the killing blow to him, and the soldiers would not even need to help.


    Peng!


    One of the ck metal grand swordmasters was struck by the meteor hammer and blown away. The sword auras from both parties had shed, and the meteor hammer had given off a purple glow, crushing the Qin eight-sided sword into small pieces. The intruder had raised his power to the maximum level and he had finally managed to break through his enemy¡¯s trap. The meteor hammer then followed up by breaking another ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s sword.


    The other two ck metal grand swordmasters managed to pierce the intruder¡¯s waist, but they only drove the swords half an inch into him before they could go no further. The intruder d in heavy armor took a big step forward and his body began to tremble violently. This action caused the sword auras from both of the swords to be dispersed, and the two swords broke.


    The thorned dragon had died, and the target was missing as well. The intruder did not want to continue the fight, and began to have thoughts of retreating.


    Woo¡­woo¡­


    The swinging of the meteor hammer caused sounds in the wind. The intruder rushed with immense speed towards the corpse of the thorned dragon. His intention was to go through the tent. He did not want to turn back even though he was retreating.


    Facing the intruder were the bunch of cavalry soldiers that Tenesee led. The war horse Tenesee sat on was so frightened by the aura of the silver grand swordmaster that it could no longer withstand it. Tenesee tried to control the horse forcefully, but the war horse was anxiously trying to back away.


    The other four ck metal grand swordmasters whose weapons had been destroyed then quickly took the swords from the surrounding soldiers and gave chase.


    The intruder d in heavy armor suppressed his anger and did not turn back, but continued charging forward even more quickly. If the intruder had only been fighting against the four men, he certainly would not have escaped in shame. But the sorcerer was not around, and this made him uninterested in the fight. It seemed like the viscountess was not ruthless enough. If she had ordered the soldiers to surround and attack him, he would have ultimately been killed even though hundreds of soldiers would have died too.


    The intruder saw that the soldiers had made way for him to pass, and he waved his meteor hammer in the air to send the tent in front of him flying. The soldiers immediately raised their metal weapons to block the attack.


    The lone intruder with the hammer was far more powerful than the thorned dragon.


    ¡°Please stay,¡± Faerun¡¯s voice rang across the camp. At the same time, numerous teeth made out of stone emerged from the ground as though a gaping maw, and bit at the intruder d in heavy armor.


    The intruder was daring enough to sh head on with a sword, but he did not dare sh head on with Grade 7 magic. There was a boom from the meteor hammer and several stone teeth were shattered. The intruder had jumped over two meters into the air to dodge any attacksing from behind. The height of his jump was coincidentally the maximum height the stone teeth could rise. In the same instant, the meteor hammer again gave off its purple glow. The intruder¡¯s sword aura had been fully unleashed as he defended against the mage¡¯s attacks.


    The stone teeth rose up two meters and stopped their assault. The intruder d in heavy armor stepped on one stone tooth with a great amount of effort and he sped up and leapt out of the camp with his meteor hammer. A silver grand swordmaster could use their sword aura to fly in the air. However, this intruder¡¯s armor was too cumbersome and heavy. Besides, there was the threat of the sorcerer, so the intruder did not want to take flight.


    That single leap covered a distance of over ten meters. As the intrudernded on the ground, his surroundings darkened all of a sudden. He was shocked that he had been covered in darkness. This was extremely rare Dark Magic, and it was a Grade 8 spell. The intruder did not dare hide anymore. The purple colored sword aura shone through his armor and exploded like a sun. In an instant, the darkness had been extinguished by the purple light.


    That magic had definitely note from a magic scroll since it was so urate. The mage must have run out of magic chords!


    The intruder dispelled the darkness around him. Before he could catch his breath, a leaf fell just in front of him. This caused the intruder to be a little confused, and he fell into a trance. He felt some pain in his ankle as a shadow took off behind him.


    The intruder fell to the ground as he lost control of one of his feet. He could no longer support the weight of his heavy armor and his head leaned towards one side. In that instant, the tendon of his heel had been cut. As the intruder put one hand on the ground to support himself, he turned around and saw a shapely middle-aged man holding a dagger andughing at him mockingly.


    The Dark Magic had only been used to confuse his senses, in order to provide a cover for the assassin¡¯s assault.


    In a head on battle, the assassin would have had no chance of harming the intruder. But the assassin had found the weakest point on the intruder¡¯s feet with only a single attack of his dagger. Saleen saw all of this happen and knew that the intruder would surely die. Surrounding the intruder were hundreds of soldiers and low-grade mages. This intruder had no way of escaping anymore. Without his speed, the hundred low-grade mages could cast their spells continuously and torture the silver grand swordmaster to death. What was more was that the four ck metal grand swordmasters had caught up with the intruder and had surrounded him.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± the intruder asked the assassin who had injured him, staring at him fiercely.


    Bain looked at the silver grand swordmaster whom he had assailed and answered expressionlessly, ¡°I am¡­¡±


    Peng!


    A blue fireball appeared in front of the intruder without any warning and exploded in front of his metallic face guard. The four ck metal grand swordmasters then attacked him at the same time, and their long swords that were drenched in sword aura pierced into the intruder¡¯s limbs all at once. This time, the armor could no longer protect the intruder. The swords prated through the areas of his joints and were stuck into the ground.


    ¡°Who I really am is unimportant. You will die anyway,¡± Bain replied. He then turned around and left.


    ¡°So much nonsense,¡± Sika mumbled as she watched the fight from afar.


    ¡°Sika, under normal circumstances, there should be no sacrifices during a battle. Without that nonsensical conversation, the fireball also could not have ended his life. The intruder was just trying to lure the viscountess out. Even if he had lost a leg, he could have possibly still killed a Grade 5 mage. It¡¯s just too bad that he didn¡¯t understand how precious the viscountess¡¯ life is. She would nevere out and meet him in person. The viscountess doesn¡¯t need to know who he is, and wouldn¡¯t have wanted to persuade him to surrender. So, the intruder¡¯s plot was ultimately useless. He actually harmed himself in the end.¡±


    As Saleen was exining this to Sika, he actually grew rmed. After Faerun had cast a Grade 8 spell, he had still had enough strength to cast a Grade 7 fireball. It seemed like Saleen¡¯s magic chords were not the only ones that were special. There were so many mages on the Myers Maind. Surely there were bound to be others who were special too.


    Calcting the enemy¡¯s remaining magic chords was something that the Figaro form could never do. Saleen needed to quickly master the secrets inside of the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne.


    A scalded face had been revealed after the metallic face guard of the intruder had been blown off by the fireball. His limbs were now broken, so he was no longer a threat. Faerun walked out from behind the cavalry soldiers. He walked in front of the intruder and simplyughed, saying, ¡°Silver grand swordmaster? I only have one question. Tell me, were you sent by the people from the western region?


    ¡°Such delusion!¡±


    The intruder was filled with contempt. He knew that he would never survive this ordeal, so he merely stared ferociously at Faerun. He wished he could devour this cunning mage.


    ¡°If you won¡¯t speak, then I¡¯ll cut you up slowly. Then, I believe I¡¯ll surely get my answer,¡± Faerun said calmly. Even the four ck metal grand swordmasters shivered when they heard what Faerun had said.


    ¡°Lord Faerun, Lord Faerun!¡± Nailisi suddenly shouted. Saleen berated her quietly, ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t make trouble.¡±


    Nailisi pulled on Saleen¡¯s sleeve and begged, ¡°Master, I need that person¡¯s body.¡±


    Saleen was stunned. He found himself with a dilemma. Nailisi was going to be an adult soon so she required lots of nutrition. The flesh from this silver grand swordmaster would be very useful for a little demon like Nailisi. But it did not seem like a good idea to allow his contracted creature to eat human beings.


    That being said, she was not going to eat their own people. Nailisi was a little demon, and thus it was normal for her to eat just about anything.


    Faerun turned and looked in Saleen¡¯s direction. Even though the distance between them was at least a hundred meters, Saleen knew that Faerun could see his expression. Then, Faerun nodded hesitantly. After this, Nailisi walked over happily and said, ¡°Sir, I have a way of making him talk.¡±


    Following this, Faerun waved to the four ck metal grand swordmasters. The four men lowered their swords. The intruder¡¯s joints had beenpletely shattered. Even if the pope had been here, they would not have had any means of fixing his joints.


    Nailisi leaned over and grabbed the intruder by one of the thorns on his heavy armor, picking him up. She looked around and found a tent, and went into the tent with the intruder.


    With a crash, Nailisi dropped the intruder onto the ground. The intruder¡¯s expression had not changed, and he said indifferently, ¡°Are you going to use your beauty on me? I am afraid I am going to have to disappoint you.¡±


    ¡°Beauty? Am I very beautiful?¡± Nailisi pointed to her own face and asked curiously.


    ¡°You are not too bad. Even though I do not engage in prostitution, I remember a b*tch who looked a lot like you.¡±


    ¡°Like me? Was it like this?¡± Nailisi¡¯s innocent expression suddenly transformed. Her mouth opened wider and wider, exposing the razor sharp teeth inside her mouth. Soon, Nailisi¡¯s mouth had opened to a spanrger than the intruder¡¯s forehead. The intruder became extremely terrified, and with a shaking voice, he shouted, ¡°A, a demon!¡±

 Chapter 94: Demon Trick (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 94: Demon Trick (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi stuck out her tongue. It was over a foot long and she licked the burned face of the silver grand swordmaster, taking a deep breath. For some reason, with a delicacy in front of her, she was no longer stammering at all.


    ¡°Young punk, I haven¡¯t had anyone to eat for ten thousand years. I remember that it¡¯s best to start from the legs. You have a strong will to live, so by saving your heart and brain forst, you won¡¯t die so quickly.¡±


    The silver grand swordmaster¡¯s face was licked clean by Nailisi. His face was twitching. He was controlling his fear, and still had not begged for mercy.


    ¡°Actually, I don¡¯t want you to confess anything either. Only then will I have a reason to eat you. I know my master doesn¡¯t want me to do that. Hence, I need you to cooperate with me. When I start eating you, you need to scream helplessly. Let everyone outside know that I tried to force you to confess but you were too strong willed, okay?¡±


    Nailisiughed as she said this. Her pair of dark green eyes were looking at the silver grand swordmaster as though he were food.


    ¡°You, you have a master!¡± The silver grand swordsman hated the person who had given him information. Everyone around Viscountess Lex was so strong, but his information had said that there would only be four low-grade bronze grand swordmasters. For someone to have reduced a demon to submission, they must have been at least a Grade 8 sorcerer.


    ¡°It seems like you¡¯re willing to talk?¡± Nailisi was disappointed.


    ¡°If I talk, will you let me go?¡±


    ¡°No, I will pass you to my master. Even though your end will not be any better, he is a benevolent person. You can choose a clean death or stay loyal to my master. If you follow my master, we will be partners. How could I eat you then?¡±


    Seeing Nailisi lick her lips, the silver grand swordmaster had no courage left in him.


    ¡°Even if I died, you wouldn¡¯t eat me?¡± The silver grand swordmaster could not understand what he was saying either. He was only afraid of being eaten by the demon. If that happened, his soul would not be saved.


    ¡°If you speak the truth, I cannot inhale your soul directly. I can tell if you¡¯re telling the truth or not.¡± Nailisi said sincerely, ¡°If you don¡¯t believe me, how about I make a pledge?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    Anger shed past Nailisi¡¯s eyes but she quickly covered it up. She ced her hands on her chest and said, ¡°In the name of my master, I swear that if the person before me does not lie, I will let his soul return to his religion. If I break my promise, I will fall into a deep abyss to suffer in eternal me.¡±


    The silver grand swordmaster heaved a sigh of relief. The feeling of despair had lifted. He was not afraid of death, but when one was face to face with a demon, death was merely the beginning.


    ¡°I have an aplice in Hadisai City. Whether you all attack Hadisai City or not, he will kill the earl and me it on all of you¡­¡± The silver grand swordmaster felt a little ashamed after saying this secret. This was akin to him betraying his god, and the sin for betrayal was a grave one. However, god should be lenient and understand my pain. God of Light, oh my father, forgive me. Let my soul be saved.


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± Nailisi asked seriously, having listened quietly to the silver grand swordmaster¡¯s words.


    ¡°This is all I know.¡± The silver grand swordmaster waspletely rxed ¡°Could I die now?¡±


    ¡°Onest question. Am I pretty?¡± Nailisi kneeled down, her hair falling over her shoulders. Her eyes seemed to have been enveloped with ayer of mist, making them dazzling with just a nce.


    ¡°Yes, you are pretty.¡± The silver grand swordmaster had desired his release and answered without much thought.


    ¡°You¡¯re lying!¡± Nailisi suddenly turned savage. Using both her hands to grab the silver grand swordmaster¡¯s neck, she tugged with all her might and the already broken armor broke into two pieces. The silver grand swordmaster gave a loud cry as Nailisi sat down beside him, patiently stripping away the armor at his neck. She opened her mouth and bit down hard.


    The silver grand swordmaster was shocked beyond belief. Only then did he realize that Nailisi¡¯sst question had been to deceive him.


    ¡°You¡­tricked me!¡±


    Nailisi stopped chewing and answered in surprise, ¡°Of course. Does that need further exnation?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Despair filled the eyes of the silver grand swordmaster, as well as a small amount of anger. How could her master allow her to do something like this? He had chosen betrayal for the chance of salvation.


    Nailisi was even more surprised than him and asked, ¡°Do you not know that demons naturally love to trick others?¡±


    The silver grand swordmaster gave a bitterugh and asked, ¡°Can you kill me first?¡±


    ¡°Hah.¡± Nailisiughed softly and said, ¡°Don¡¯t you understand? I don¡¯t care about the information you¡¯ve given me. I was just ying a game with you to make you feel even worse than you already did. Tell me, do you think I¡¯ll still kill you first?¡±


    He felt a chill run down his spine. He really should not havee this time.


    Nailisi ate away at a hand before turning to his legs. She said, ¡°Your flesh is really good, so your soul must be delicious too. However, I will give you another chance. If you are loyal to me and give me your soul, I will spare you. How about it? It is but a small contract.¡±


    The silver grand swordmaster steeled his will and answered firmly, ¡°I won¡¯t believe you any longer.¡±


    Nailisi grabbed his legs and pulled with all her might. He grit his teeth, not making any noise. He knew she loved torturing him and she wanted to hear his cries of pain.


    Nailisi did not think much of it. Removing the armor on his legs, she said, ¡°You can choose not to agree to this contract, but once I start eating you, you¡¯ll think about it. Having a choice makes it harder for humans, doesn¡¯t it?¡±


    Despair could no longer be used to describe his feelings. He had finally understood just what a demon was.


    Saleen and Sika were waiting patiently outside. First came a loud cry before everything fell silent. Saleen did not know what Nailisi was doing, but no matter how badly he wanted to, he was not going to go in and take a look. After half an hour, Nailisi came out of the tent.


    ¡°Ugh.¡±


    She burped and quickly covered her mouth, running hurriedly to Saleen¡¯s side.


    ¡°Master, I have managed to find some things out.¡± Nailisi took Saleen¡¯s hands in her own, almost as though she were sucking up to him. Saleen sighed and cast some cleaning magic, removing the bloodstains on Nailisi¡¯s clothes.


    ¡°Has it all been cleaned up?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I didn¡¯t leave anything behind,¡± Nailisi carefully answered. The silver grand swordmaster had been delicious. It was a pity that humans like him would be hard toe by in the future. Looking at master¡¯s attitude, he had not minded this time. Maybe she would get another chance? If only master were stronger and had more enemies.


    While Nailisi was deep in her fantasy, Saleen lightly pulled on her hand and said, ¡°Come, let¡¯s go tell Faerun.¡±


    Seeing Nailisi recoil in fear, Saleen patted her shoulder and said, ¡°Think about Faerun¡¯s hobbies. Even if he were to know, he wouldn¡¯t hold it against you.¡±


    Nailisi turned her head to look at Sika. Sika turned away, not showing any emotion. What was this? Even though Cascausus people were not barbarians, they would often use the corpses of their enemies as fertilizer. The fertilizer was used as nutrients for the fruit trees whose produce was then consumed by humans. This was a natural process and Nailisi had only simplified it. She thought she could scare me? Hmph!


    Nailisi thought about the calmness and passion of Faerun as he had exined human anatomy to everyone, and felt that Saleen had a point. Only then did she follow Saleen to Faerun¡¯s tent.


    Viscountess Lex was inside as well and her face was very pale. Saleen took a nce at Faerun as he shook his head and said, ¡°Twenty-six soldiers and a hundred and thirty-three reserve soldiers lost their lives.¡±


    Twenty-six soldiers! Saleen felt a sense of pity. If these soldiers had attacked him, he might not have had much of a chance to survive. However, in the face of a silver grand swordmaster, they were nothing much. Without Faerun, even if the silver grand swordmaster had not killed the viscountess, he would have ravaged the entire ce.


    ¡°Nailisi, tell Sir what you managed to find out.¡± Saleen was anxious to know what Nailisi had found out and did not ask further about the casualties.


    ¡°He had been sent from a ce known as the sacred Holy See and had been waiting for over a decade.¡± Nailisi was no longer stammering and recounted in great detail what she had gathered. The faces of the people in the tent turned pale.


    ¡°Who would have known they have been after me for ten years. Nailisi, you mentioned that there is still a Grade 8 professional in Hadisai City waiting to assassinate Earl Mokri?¡±


    ¡°Yes. That person was not lying.¡± Nailisi nodded repeatedly.


    ¡°A Grade 8 professional. Won¡¯t that mean the death of Earl Molokari?¡± Viscountess Lex furrowed her eyebrows, no longer understanding what was happening. If they went to save the earl, it would not just a matter of pride. It was possible that the earl would not believe them and it would be hard for them to enter the city. However, if they went around the city and the earl died, their enemies would definitely have someone waiting to push the me onto them.


    ¡°Although there are many experts among the Holy See, they wouldn¡¯t send two Grade 8 professionals to the territory of an earl.¡±


    ¡°Who cares how many there are? If we could kill this one, we can kill the other one too,¡± Nailisi said heartlessly. She was still reminiscing about the feast she had just had. If the other silver grand swordmaster was defeated too, the energy she would be able to collect would be enough for her body to undergo its changes.


    Faerun and Viscountess Lex shook their heads in disappointment. A suggestion like this was akin to daydreaming.


    Killing the other silver grand swordmaster was too difficult, and even getting into the city would be a problem. Faerun could fly in alone but the rest of them would have no other way of entering. Unless they sent the army for the expedition into Hadisai City? If that were the case, it would no longer be a conflict between the upper and lower house. It would be the royal family attacking a wealthy person for no reason, and would shake the very foundation of the empire.


    Killing a few soldiers in the wild and attacking a wealthy person¡¯s city were two different things altogether. This was something that Nailisi had yet to fully understand.


    ¡°Sir Faerun, that warrior¡¯s armor is still here. You can fix it,¡± Nailisi reminded them nonchntly.


    Viscountess Lex¡¯s eyes brightened. That was a good idea. She could have someone from her side pretend to be this silver grand swordmaster from the Tanggsi Empire. With a surprise attack, they might still stand a chance.


    Saleen felt that something was amiss but he restrained himself. These were the internal affairs of the Qin Empire, and he was only an outsider. He pulled Nailisi to his side and looked quietly at Faerun.

 Chapter 95: Demon Trick (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 95: Demon Trick (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Faerun¡¯s body was covered entirely by ck magic robes. He was deep in thought.


    Whether it was Nailisi or Saleen, they would not lie to him. Their grades were too far from his and his detection magic would be inescapable.


    The news Nailisi that had gathered was too shocking. The sacred Holy See had sent arge number of men into the Qin Empire over a decade ago, and before this there might have already been more spies sent to wait in ambush. The few batches of people could not havemunicated with each other, and each batch had a special task assigned to them. This silver grand swordmaster that had been ambushed by Bain had been hiding in the Qin Empire for Viscountess Lex. The problem was that even before the viscountess had reached Bitter Water Prefecture back then, those two people had already been in Hadisai City.


    Even if there had been Tanggsi spies by the prince¡¯s side, they would not have been able to receive the news so quickly. There were no teleportation portals between the two empires and there were only a few of these in the big cities of the Qin Empire. Each time they were used, it was recorded down. The intense magic vibrations could never have been kept a secret.


    The two countries were separated by thousands of miles of rivers and mountains. Even if the Holy See had learned of the information immediately, they could not have sent someone in advance.


    Was this a prophecy spell? However, this had been a prophecy ten years into the future. It was too absurd. Could a god have descended? However, gods could no longer exist in this dimension.


    ¡°Faerun, do not think about the affairs of the Holy See. Let father contemte them. What should we do about Hadisai City?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s avoid Hadisai city and continue on our way ahead.¡± For a moment, Faerun felt as though he could not clear his head. If they continued to entangle themselves with Hadisai City, their enemies would definitely have some other tricks up their sleeve. They might as well just leave it be. So long as the viscountess could reach Holy Rock City, decisions regarding the other affairs could be left to the king and prince.


    And as for the framing of the viscountess? With the Ring of Shinra, even if the matter of the feudal estates were to fall through, the viscountess would still have capital. The one that they needed to be cautious of now was the Holy See. The spread of this incessant scheming was the most frightening thing of all.


    Saleen wanted to say something and without caring about the looks from other people, he stared fiercely at Nailisi. Faerun¡¯s choice made sense. Leaving Hadisai City behind would mean thwarting any ns the enemy had here. Nailisi was still thinking about the other Grade 8 professional who was surely filled with human essence.


    If they stayed in Hadisai City to solve these problems, he would be able to benefit from the shadows. However, it was likely that at least one of the four ck metal grand swordmasters would lose their life. Saleen could not allow Nailisi to do as she wanted. Demons were very skilled in confusing people.


    Nailisi could feel Saleen¡¯s anger and did not dare continue giving any more ideas.


    Viscountess Lex thought for a while. She also knew that if they were to stay, there would definitely be more casualties. If Nailisi¡¯s n failed, the silver grand swordmaster could target her soldiers purely in a moment of anger, and that would spell trouble. Earl Mokri? Since he had already decided to side with the lower house, she did not need to care about his survival.


    Something that wasplicated could be simplified by giving up.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s continue on our way.¡± Viscountess Lex took a long look at Nailisi. Then, standing up, she left Faerun¡¯s tent. She had realized the ws of Nailisi¡¯s n. Even though there was a chance it could seed, many lives would be lost.


    The Bitter Water Army increased their speed and quickly made their way around Hadisai City, moving rapidly towards the east. If they had not been elites, an arduous journey like this would have exhausted the soldiers long ago and caused them to lose their will to fight.


    At the gate of Hadisai City, a middle-aged person in a linen robe looked at the army that was moving further away with his alchemy telescope. He gave a coldugh and turned to leave, holding a long sword in his hand. The gate of the city was dyed red with blood, and littered everywhere were the corpses of soldiers.


    This middle-aged person lifted his hood and covered a part of his face. Jumping down from the city gate which was over ten meters tall, he travelled towards the residence of the city. His long sword was thin and was etched full of patterns. It was kept hidden in his robes. There were many people on the streets and as the man walked past them, the people around him involuntarily let him pass.


    He did not exert any authority and only walked forward quickly. As he did so, an invisible road was formed among the crowd.


    The city¡¯s residence wasrge and mighty with over a dozen soldiers outside the door. The middle-aged man did not slow down, and as he walked towards them, the soldiers felt their vision blurring before they grew dizzy, losing their memory for a period of time. Only when the man had disappeared did they regain their senses. They looked at each other and started shouting in a panicked manner.


    The man went past the front yard. Walking confidently past the main hall, he headed straight for the study room.


    Walking in deeper, there were high-grade swordsmen d in soft armor. Barely a sh appeared from the middle-aged man¡¯s clothes, and he did not stop walking as he left a dozen soldiers in his wake.


    ¡°Stop!¡±


    A loud noise resonated and arge heavy metal shield made its way towards him. This metal shield was taller than the average person by around twenty centimeters. A human¡¯s head appeared from behind the shield. He had short hair that stood upright and a beard as messy as wild grass. He had a pair of rounded eyes that were difficult to focus on because of their movement. He was practically like a homeless drunkard.


    A ck light emerged from the heavy shield, clearly being the sword aura. If this were tond on anyone, it would hack even a heavily armored swordsman into a meat patty.


    The middle-aged man lifted his brows. Withdrawing his left hand from his sleeve, he pressed it against the metal shield.


    It was almost as if a giant beast had been stopped by a mountain. The metal shield let out a low shing sound. The giant behind the shield nearly had his eyes shaken out of his skull as blood flowed from all his orifices.


    The middle-aged man¡¯s right hand grasped onto his thin sword as he gave off his own white light. The white light entered directly into the shield, almost as if it were entering a child¡¯s toy puppet.


    Boom!


    As the middle-aged man pulled out his sword, the metal shield fell onto the floor and a row of tiles cracked into numerous pieces.


    The giant could not believe that he had been defeated like this. The middle-aged man had not used any tricks, but had managed to break apart his toughest defense. The giant stared at him, wide-eyed.


    He saw the look of defeat on the giant¡¯s face. Giving a coldugh, he said, ¡°That was hardly any sword aura. You thought you were a grand swordmaster already?¡±


    With that, the man gave him a light push and the giant fell heavily onto the ground. The heavy shield pinned him down as fresh blood spilled everywhere.


    ¡°Victor, what are you doing?¡± From the study, a wealthy man dressed as though he were in his forties emerged. Behind him was a mage in grey magic robes.


    ¡°Earl Molokari, I must apologize. I need to borrow your head.¡± With that, he gave a kick and the heavy metal shield flew into the air, heading straight for the earl.


    Buzz¡­


    The air throughout the entire court vibrated and a green shield that could be seen with the naked eye blocked the path of the metal shield. The mage behind Mokri had instantly released a Grade 5 spell. The metal shield shed with the magic shield and the sound of an explosion filled their surroundings. The magic shield was broken apart by the impact and the metal shield flew to the side too.


    The color on the mage¡¯s face changed. Although the wind shield was only a Grade 5 spell, it was special in that even if it was shattered, it would reform until the spell was over. However, after shattering from the impact with the heavy shield, the wind element throughout the court would not obey hismands any longer and the wind shield was destroyedpletely.


    White grand swordmaster!


    The mage was ovee with fear. He was only Grade 5 and could barely make use of a magic prop to fly. If the enemy was a white grand swordmaster, his speed could not hold a candle to him at all.


    ¡°Training is tough. You should leave.¡± The white grand swordmaster known as Victor looked at the mage, his eyes cold. If the earl fought back, he would not mind things being a little troublesome. In any case, it would take at least half an hour for all the soldiers in Hadisai City to gather, and that was enough time for him to kill an earl who was only a swordsman.


    The mage hesitated and backed away. He was only a guest of the prince and there was no need to give up his life.


    Mokri was about to shout for help. At the back of the court were some of his soldiers.


    ¡°Earl, if these soldiers are killed by me, your son will be gone in the future.¡± Victor was mocking as he walked towards Earl Mokri.


    Mokri was at a loss for words. In order for his son to get the rank of an earl, he had chosen to offend the viscountess and side with the lower house. If this white grand swordmaster only killed him and spared his son, the family¡¯s bloodline would be able to continue. If all of these soldiers were to die, however, his son would naturally lose his supporters. It would be hard to gather these many elites within the household; all of these soldiers were swordmasters.


    Pfttt¡­


    A white sh of light cut across him. Victor was holding onto Mokri¡¯s head, the body beginning to spew fresh blood.


    The mage was already gone by the time Victor lifted the head and said to the earl¡¯s deceived face, ¡°Great father, do not worry. I will spare your son.¡±


    Just as Victor finished his words, Mokri¡¯s body fell to the ground. Heavy footsteps approached from the rear as Victor took the head and flipped over the high walls. He drew a white line across the sky as he flew away from the city¡¯s residence. It was only after he left that chaos ensued within the city residence. A handsome youth with long ck hair brought over a dozen soldiers to Mokri¡¯s body. He bent down and looked in a daze at the familiar clothes, feeling the fire within him being suppressed as his vision went ck. He fell onto the floor and lost his consciousness too.


    Hadisai City was an important city with five thousand elites. There were over ten thousand reserve troops as well. However, the news of the earl dying had not yet spread. Victornded and left the city gracefully, without a single person stopping him.


    Only after Victor left the city did the ck-haired youth regain consciousness. Tears filled his eyes as he shouted, ¡°It must be Lex! That bitch, killing my soldiers wasn¡¯t enough. She actually hired an assassin to murder the empire¡¯s wealthy. Regroup my troops immediately. I must chase after her and kill those despicable men from Bitter Water Prefecture!¡±


    ¡°Master Jay!¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    The soldiers ran over and held him back, snatching away his spear. The master was but a beginner swordmaster. Chasing after the enemy was as good as throwing his life away. These soldiers were the fellows of the household and would not let their master die.


    ¡°Baron, calm down. The earl is dead but Hadisai City still needs your guidance. All of you will stop the news from spreading. Has anyone found the mage?¡± The leader of the soldiers held back the ck-haired youth as he went to question the city¡¯s sentries.


    The ck-haired youth shook off the leader¡¯s hand and kneeled on the floor. Holding the corpse in his hands, tears started flowing again.


    ¡°You guys carry on. I wouldn¡¯t be so rash. Send someone to those people from Bitter Water Prefecture. I want to see mage Sebastian.¡± The ck-haired youth held back his pain, knowing that if his opponents had been able to kill his father even under the assault of a Grade 5 mage, chasing after them would be futile. He might as well have sought help at the magic tower outside of Hadisai City. Having supported Sebastian for over ten years, he would not reject this request.

 Chapter 96: Entering the Imperial Capital (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 96: Entering the Imperial Capital (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The viscountess¡¯ convoy consisted of over ten carriages. With Faerun around, the rations did not need to be stored in the carriages, and the carriages were all carrying the items for the tents. The structure of the carriages were delicate. Their speed was only slightly slower than the horses on the roads of the Qin Empire.


    Trackers from Hadisai City tracked the convoy for two hours, but could not find even a single trace of the Bitter Water Army.


    All forty of these trackers, who were all light cavalry soldiers, grew demoralized and started to return to Hadisai City. They crossed a bend and saw three men standing in the middle of the road blocking their way. These forty soldiers might have beencking in actualbat experience, but even their lousiest warrior was a high-level swordsman. The soldiers immediately spread out and drew their swords, surrounding the three men.


    The three men wore linen shirts of the same color and did not wield any weapons, only wearing metallic boxing gloves. The leader of the trackers sneered and began to charge towards them on horseback. Judging by the clothing of the three men, it was obvious that they were from the western region and that they harbored ill intentions in trying to block the trackers.


    The three men all had short hair, high noses, and deepset eyes. When they realized that someone was charging towards them on horseback, they slightly shifted their positions. Then, two of the men punched him from sides. The man on the left punched his sword directly. There was a crisp sound as the one-finger-thick sword broke. On the other side, the man on the right punched the thigh of the light cavalry soldier. The sound of shattering bones filled the air. The war horse also could not withstand the power from that punch and fell onto its side.


    The war horse fell down and blood began to flow out of its mouth. Then, one of the men stomped on the soldier. With a bursting sound, the brain matter from the soldier¡¯s skull shot out of his orifices, but his skull remained undamaged.


    The other light cavalry soldiers immediately drew their cavalry swords and rushed forward when they saw their leader had been killed. The length of a cavalry sword was suitable for fighting on horseback. As long as there was sufficient strength it was easier to wield than a sword, and the cavalry sword could prate armor when it was pierced straight into it. The three men had no armor on, so techniques used for beheadings would be adequate to kill them.


    The three men were not anxious at all. They stood back to back against each other. When three cavalry swords were shed against their heads, the three men each took one step away and used both of their hands to grab the swords and pull the soldiers off their war horses. The three war horses blocked off the soldiers who were trying to attack from the rear. At that moment, more than ten arrows shot out from the forest and knocked all of the soldiers off of their horses


    The three men then exploded with a tremendous amount of power, and their bodies gave off a white glow. Their silhouettes became blurry while their metallic gloves projected holy prose. The holy prose floated in midair.


    Then, the sound of metal being struck filled the air. The three cavalry soldiers had not even been able to see what had happened and had already been punched in their ribs. The three men then jumped vertically into the air and killed the other ten soldiers in the blink of an eye.


    The remaining light cavalry soldiers realized that the odds were not in their favor and began to turn around and escape. The situation had beenpletely reversed. The three men were now the attackers while the soldiers were the defenders. The three men in linen shirts quickly grabbed the cavalry swords lying around, hopped onto the abandoned war horses, and gave chase.


    The three men gave chase for about ten miles and managed to execute the remaining cavalry soldiers. Then, they rode the horses towards the north.


    About an hourter, more than a hundred cavalry soldiers had arrived from the main road leading to the west. All of them saw the corpses lying about. A few soldiers jumped off of their horses and inspected the bodies, and said to theirmander, ¡°It¡¯s Gaia and his team.¡±


    Thismander saw that the heads of hispanions had been chopped off and had rolled off to the sides of the road. He became very depressed and heartbroken.


    ¡°Bitter Water Army, I shall see how you will answer to His Majesty. Clean this ce and bring all the bodies back. There¡¯s no need to give chase anymore.¡± Themander knew that if he continued chasing them, he and his team would also be killed. The Bitter Water Army was much too powerful. His own team of cavalry soldiers would not be able to defeat them.


    As that team of cavalry soldiers slowly advanced, they came to the vicinity of the forest where they saw the rest of the bodies and the numerous arrows, and became more certain that these had been the actions of the Bitter Water Army. These arrows were the standard-issue equipment of the empire¡¯s army. They were all razor sharp stainless steel arrows which could prate armor. The feathers on these arrows were also of a higher quality.


    Mercenaries and private armies of noble families were not allowed to use the green feathered arrows. Only the main army of the empire had ess to these arrows.


    The Bitter Water Army did not know that they had been framed. They had only doubled their movement speed. To the east of Hadisai City there were not any high mountains, so it was easy for the cavalry to traverse that area.


    Viscountess Lex had intentionally gone around the cities in order to avoid interaction with any members of the noble families. In less than ten days, she had arrived at the Holy Rock City.


    The convoy came to a small town fifty miles outside of the capital. The empire¡¯s troops were using the small town. In that area, the Bitter Water Army could no longer travel on horseback. With the exception of the cavalry soldiers protecting the viscountess¡¯ carriage, the rest of them had to dismount from their horses and walk on foot.


    Most of the people inside the viscountess¡¯ carriage were mages. They did not need to dismount either and simply sat inside of the carriage as it made its way into the small town.


    There were no civilians in the small town, as only the empire¡¯s troops lived there. Once Saleen entered the town, he felt that something was off about the town¡¯s atmosphere. When he traveled with the Bitter Water Army, he felt as though he were being protected by thickyers of metal, and he felt safe and assured. However, in this small town, even though there was no murderous atmosphere, he felt a kind of pressure that was directed at anyone who entered.


    The soldiers patrolling the streets wore heavy armor and wielded short spears. They even had golden crossbows hanging on their waists. This town was responsible for defending the empire so security was especially tight. Themanders in this town were swordmasters at minimum.


    The person who received the viscountess was a young member of a noble family. He had a n badge etched onto the chest region of his armor. He should have been the heir to one of the ns, but instead he was working here receiving other people.


    This young man was handsome and capable. He calmly instructed his subordinates to arrange for the Bitter Water Army to stay in one of their army camps.


    Saleen and the others followed the viscountess as she alighted from the carriage. Saleen realized that when the viscountess had entered the town, her demeanor had changed. In the Bitter Water Prefecture, the viscountess was reserved and elegant. She could joke and chat with other mages, and there was no sense of dominance about her.


    But now, the viscountess possessed an air of dominance and supremacy even though she was still the same person.


    ¡°It has been tough for you, Baron.¡± The viscountess¡¯ voice when she spoke had changed. Her tone was no longer as blunt as it had been in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Her voice was now clearer, and she tended to drag her words. It was a little dreary and ethereal. Her voice was soothing to the ears, but it had be much more formal.


    ¡°Your Highness, this is my job.¡± The young man had not even inherited the title of ¡°baron¡±, but the viscountess had addressed him that out of habit. He did not dare to be informal, and also called the viscountess ¡°Your Highness¡± to build a good rtionship with her. The empire¡¯s army was solely controlled by the emperor. Everyone knew that there was a conflict between the viscountess and the prince, but the prince held no authority over this ce. So, the young man only needed to fulfill his responsibilities, or else he could even face problems trying to inherit the title of ¡°baron¡±.


    ¡°I am tired. Arrange for these people to stay with me.¡± Viscountess Lex pointed at Faerun and the rest of the people who sat with her in the carriage. That young heir took a nce and bowed respectfully, without saying any unnecessary words. He would not have wanted to offend that group of mages even if a sorcerer like Faerun had not been around. A few of the mages who followed the viscountess around were going to be promoted soon. A mage master by themselves possessed such strong power. And in addition to grand swordmasters, the army needed the advantages they provided in order to secure victory.


    Aside from guarding the empire, the town was also responsible for receiving any noble family members who were entering the imperial capital from the east. But a person like the viscountess who brought along thousands of soldiers was rare. The Bitter Water Army needed slightly more than half an hour to settle in.


    Art was appreciated in the empire, but in this military town, toughness and durability took priority over anything else. The viscountess¡¯ lodging was only a two storied small building. Granite formed the foundation of the building, and the green bricks were almost two feet wide. The building had a simple and solid style to it.


    Once everything was settled down, the viscountess called out to the young heir who was about to leave and asked, ¡°Is your father Earl Kant?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± the young heir answered with no change to his expression and no intentions of ttery.


    ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Scott. Scott Frio, Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°How long have you been in this town?¡±


    ¡°Just two years,¡± Scott replied respectfully. He was a little happy. If the viscountess asked for his name, it meant that she would try to give him opportunities to shine. Even though it was not a problem for the young heir to be conferred the title of baron, he still had a younger brother. And, ording to thews of the empire, it would be difficult for him to be an aristocrat by inheritance. At most, he would be an average baron.


    ¡°I met Earl Kant many times when I was a child. How is he now?¡±


    ¡°He is still fine. It is just that he doesn¡¯t lead troops into battle anymore. The emperor has let him handle the affairs in the imperial court, and in a few years time, he will enter the upper house.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I understand. Come over when I enter the capital tomorrow afternoon.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness.¡± By this point, Scott had a grin on his face. The viscountess had asked him over to learn more about the happenings in the imperial capital. It was obvious that he had built a good rtionship with the viscountess, because the viscountess did not necessarily need to learn about the imperial capital through him.


    ¡°You are dismissed,¡± Viscountess Lex said, and yawned. Scott bowed and stepped out of the room. He nearly could not hold back hisughter. Yawning in front of someone was a very rude thing to do, and the viscountess had done that intentionally to show Scott that they were friends.


    In Saleen¡¯s room, Nailisi had already lied down because she was extremely exhausted. She had eaten the flesh of the silver grand swordmaster and absorbed the power from his soul, so she needed to digest all the nutrients.


    Saleen said to Sika, ¡°Tomorrow we are entering Holy Rock City, and I need to remind you of certain things. That ce is the imperial capital of the Qin Empire, and there are many highly skilled people there. If anything happens, don¡¯t act impulsively. We have the backing of the viscountess.¡±


    ¡°But what if you are harassed by someone else?¡± Sika asked seriously.


    ¡°Nobody will be rude to a mage in the imperial capital of the Qin Empire. The weapon you have may create some problems. You can keep the boomerang, but give me your cudgel.¡±


    Thew in the imperial capital was that a sword could not be longer than three feet. The sword in the context of thew did not just refer to de-type weapons, but included any weapon that was elongated. They could not be carried around unless the person had received special authorization by the imperial capital.


    Sika nodded and handed her cudgel over to Saleen. Saleen stored it into the Ring of Gifts.


    ¡°Go and get some rest. The viscountess will brief us on certain things tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Ok, be careful.¡± Then, Sika left reluctantly. Saleen tapped on Nailisi, whose eyes were closed, and said, ¡°Sleep on the floor.¡±


    ¡°Master? The floor is freezing,¡± Nailisi replied as she struggled to lift her heavy eyelids. She had removed her jacket and was in her original clothes. She lied on the bed and projected a pitiful image.


    Saleen looked down at the frigid stone floor, thenid down helplessly beside Nailisi. Even though Saleen knew she was a demon, he was not so heartless as to force Nailisi to sleep on the stone floor.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    Woo¡­


    Saleen waited for Nailisi¡¯s response, but all he heard were her snores.

 Chapter 97: Entering the Imperial Capital (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 97: Entering the Imperial Capital (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    However, Saleen could not sleep. He took out his family badge and began to caress it. Saleen had left Ceylon City almost one year ago, and so many thrilling events had happened since then.


    Saleen could no longer return home, but staying with the viscountess was not a long term solution either. Also, he did not have the power to look for his teacher yet. His teacher had outright offended the royals and mages of Sikeqinya, so his teacher must have returned to the Qin Empire. But Saleen did not know where to start looking for him since the empire was enormous.


    Saleen had originally thought that once he became a mage, he would have everything. But when he saw the numerous mages around the viscountess, he realized that his original thinking had been incredibly na?ve andughable. If he had never left Ceylon City, he would have never learned this lesson.


    The moonlight shone through the window into the room. This room was so much like Saleen¡¯s ancestral home with its stone walls. However, it did not seem as cold and lonely now that Nailisi was sleeping beside him.


    Sika¡¯s problems also needed to be settled as soon as possible. Sika¡¯s intention in following Saleen had been to earn some money to support the people back in her vige. But now that she had money, Saleen had caused her to be afraid of returning home. They would not have been in so much distress if it had not been for the Holy See. Damn that Holy See.


    The more Saleen thought about the past, the more he could not sleep. He decided to sit up and practice magic instead.


    Since the time that Saleen hade to know the sorcerer, he had learned the technique for dissipating magic. It was used to dissipate magic after a spell had beenpletely cast. This technique had no purpose inbat, and was only used to increase a mage¡¯s ability to control magic more precisely.


    Saleen was a perfectionist when it came to the practice of magic. After grasping a technique, he would always revise it whenever he started training again. Saleen started from Grade 0 magic and went through the spells one by one. He carefully controlled the speed of their castings and then dissipated them.


    Saleen only knew less than ten Grade 0 spells. They were Reading Magic, Toxin Detection, Magic rm, Underwater Breathing, Fluorescence, Fog of Confusion, Acid Sputtering, and Cleaning. He was not able to cast burns using Fire Magic or the Invisible Shield of Wind Magic. His magic chords only supported Water Magic.


    Saleen had a greatprehension of his Grade 1 spells. These spells were Icicle, Frost Array, Restorative Water, Ice Bomb, Ice Ring, and Water Shield.


    From that point on, Saleen had learned Grade 2 and Grade 3 magic at the same time. Of the spells in Grade 2 magic, Saleen had only mastered Ice Arrow. Then he had moved on to control spells such as Winding Water and prolonged damage spells such as Poisonous Fog. There was not much Grade 2 and Grade 3 Water Magic that could be learned together, so Saleen had spent most of his energy on three Grade 3 spells.


    They were Ice de spell, Swamp Illusion, and Acid Rain.


    These three spells demonstrated the toughness, versatility, and sustainability of Water Magic. In the hands of a sorcerer, an ice de could counter a Grade 6 fireball. Swamp Illusion could be sustained for more than half an hour. Even though the spell¡¯s effective area was not big, its containment capabilities were better than that of some high-grade spells. For Saleen, he could prolong Swamp Illusion for more than an hour.


    Acid Rain was a spell that could cause damage over arge area. It was a spell that was rarely found in Grade 3 magic, as it usually only appeared in Grade 4 magic. At first, Saleen had learned this spell because he had limited choices, but heter realized the importance of having coordination with warriors during battle. Thus, he had begun learning this spell more seriously.


    A white magic light shed continuously in Saleen¡¯s hand, causing the room which had been in pitch ck darkness to light up. Saleen knew that he possessed no talent, so he needed to work more and work harder than the others to win the race against time and be a sorcerer. When his magic chords had been drained, Saleen channeled his mental power into the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne and began studying the Figaro form. When his mental power had also nearly been fully exhausted, he then used his family badge topletely drain his body of energy.


    The negative effects resulting from the use of his family badgested for only half an hour before disappearing. Then, Saleen held onto a Grade 3 magic nucleus and began meditating.


    Saleen spent the night undergoing many cycles of training followed by meditation to regain his mental power. Before he knew it, it was already the next morning. He opened his eyes and water for washing up had already been delivered to the door. Nailisi stood guard by the door and prevented anyone from entering.


    ¡°Master, the rest of the people have started eating,¡± Nailisi said and licked her lips. She was feeling hungry.


    Saleen pped his forehead. He had been so engrossed in practice that he had forgotten his manners. Fortunately, he knew that the convoy would only be entering the capital in the afternoon. Saleen quickly washed his face and wiped his hands dry before having the soldiers lead him and Nailisi to the canteen.


    The canteen had never been a small ce to begin with as it was the ce where themanders ate their meals. Viscountess Lex was in charge of one hundredbat mages and had filled up the entire canteen. The mages had already finished their main courses, and Scott was talking to the viscountess. When Viscountess Lex saw Saleen entering the canteen, she waved at him.


    Saleen smiled and walked over calmly.


    ¡°Have a seat.¡± Viscountess Lex pointed to the space beside her, and someone immediately brought over two chairs.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Sika?¡± Saleen and Nailisi sat down. Ever since Nailisi had managed to get the information out of the silver grand swordmaster, no one regarded her as a maidservant anymore. Saleen did not see Sika, and could not help but ask the viscountess about it.


    Viscountess Lexughed when she heard Saleen¡¯s question. Scott could only lower his head as he was shaken by the viscountess¡¯ugh.


    ¡°Sika was so bored that she went to practice with the soldiers.¡±


    Saleen frowned, but then he remembered that nothing would happen to Sika. Saleen could tell that Scott was trying to get into the good books of the viscountess. It was just that he was able to hide his motives very well. Although there were many skilled people in the imperial capital, thews in the capital were very strict as well, and it seemed like Saleen was already making himself too nervous.


    ¡°Great Mage, what would you like to eat?¡± Scott asked Saleen warmly. He had noticed that Saleen was sitting nearby the viscountess and thought that it would be good to get to know him too.


    ¡°There are rules in the army camp. I will just have some dim sum,¡± Saleen said, as he pointed to a te that belonged to a mage sitting opposite him. Saleen did not want any preferential treatment. Mages were respected not because of their pride, but because of their powers and knowledge. Since everyone had finished eating, Saleen felt that it was fine to simply eat dim sum and drink some tea.


    ¡°Scott, please tell me more about the Monitor Lizard Business. What happened after that?¡± Viscountess Lex continued with her question, interrupting Scott¡¯s greetings to Saleen.


    Scott coughed awkwardly and replied, ¡°The Monitor Lizard Business has managed to spread to the imperial capital. Naturally, the four big ns couldn¡¯t tolerate them. As you know, violence wouldn¡¯t have solved any problems in the imperial capital. Then, in a rare turn of events, the four big ns teamed up and organized the biggest auction in the history of the capital. The purpose was to cause the Monitor Lizard Business¡¯ auction to fail. In the end, no one turned up to the Monitor Lizard Business auction.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s ears perked up when he heard Scott¡¯s words. The four big ns? The Clyde family, which Aini was in, was one of the four big ns Scott was talking about. So even families of businessmen could call the shots in the Holy Rock City?


    ¡°The people who were bribed by the Monitor Lizard businesspeople let them cause so much trouble?¡± Viscountess Lex asked.


    ¡°Of course not. This matter eventually went up to His Majesty.¡±


    ¡°What did my father say?¡±


    ¡°His Majesty said that the capital wasn¡¯t like Sikeqinya, and that the Monitor Lizard businesspeople shouldn¡¯t interfere with business in the capital. These businessmen eventually left the imperial capital in shame, and lost everything.¡±


    ¡°Lost everything? I don¡¯t think so. The Monitor Lizard businesspeople had already made the necessary connections to the lower house. In less than five years, the n behind these people will be conferred royal titles. There is an advantage to dealing with people in the lower house. As long as they are paid, they will finish the job. On the surface, my father may have seemed like he was protecting the four big ns, but in his heart, he was actually secretly unhappy with them. The four big ns have profited too much from the spending sprees on weapons these past few years. They have forgotten who has been supporting them all along,¡± Viscountess Lex rebutted.


    ¡°Actually, the sale of weapons hasn¡¯t been that important. In the past few years, the four big ns have groomed many mages.¡±


    ¡°They had no choice. The empire forbids the keeping of private armies. Furthermore, the businessmen needed to roam the maind to do business. If they wanted topete with the people from Sikeqinya, then they would need somebat power for protection. After this incident, were there any changes in the seats of the lower house?¡±


    ¡°The Duke of Burgundy has died, leaving an empty seat in the lower house, but there are no nominations so far. Rumors have said that there were a few nominations, but His Majesty was not pleased with them.¡±


    ¡°My father doesn¡¯t interfere with the affairs of the lower house. It must be my uncle. He wants to use this seat to attract indecisive people. Scott, if you want to survive in the imperial capital, you must learn to look beyond the surface.¡±


    Scott simplyughed but did not reply. Viscountess Lex could say these words, but he could not. It was taboo for military personnel to be involved in politics. Even if he were to inherit his father¡¯s title and be a baron, he still would not be considered anyone important in the capital.


    Saleen had listened in on the conversation but had gotten very confused. He only possessed a rough understanding that not everyone could survive in the imperial capital.


    As Scott and the viscountess were speaking, amotion could be heard outside. Scott shouted for a soldier, and a soldier came. Scott asked, ¡°What is happening outside?¡±


    ¡°The female warrior who was traveling with the viscountess is pitting her strength against Wild Bear.¡±


    ¡°Atrocious!¡± Scott was a little angry. He had met with Sika yesterday and had gained a good impression of this petite female warrior. He thought that she was a bed warmer for the mages. Pitting her strength against Wild Bear? If Sika got hurt, he would have trouble exining this to the viscountess.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. Saleen, go and take a look once you are done eating.¡± Viscountess Lex did not let Scott continue berating the soldier. She knew that Sika had immense strength, but this soldier called Wild Bear must have been the strongman amongst all of the soldiers. It would be a rare sight to see a petite beauty sparring against a strongman. The viscountess¡¯ agenda for going to the capital this time around was to influence people into being loyal to her. She could use this opportunity to familiarize herself with the troops guarding the empire.


    The spar took ce in the square where soldiers usually did their drills. Now, there were thousands of people surrounding the square. When the viscountess arrived, the soldiers quickly made room for her. In the square, Sika was sparring with a warrior who was two heads taller than her.


    Sika was already considered tallpared to other females. Saleen had grown quite a bit, but he was still about the same height as Sika. The burly warrior called Wild Bear was half naked and his hands were empty. His hands were ced on Sika¡¯s arms. Sika and this warrior were purely pitting their brute strength against one another. The warrior had bulging muscles, wore a pair of shiny leather shorts, and was barefooted, resembling a chef.


    At first, the soldiers were roaring and cheering for both parties, but when Viscountess Lex arrived, everyone immediately quieted down. That warrior became distracted and took a nce outside the square. Sika did not care why and exerted her strength. The warrior lost his bnce and Sika took a step forward. She raised his arms and went under his armpits, and with just one punch, the burly warrior flew out of the square.


    Sika had not executed her finishing move. That warrior hadnded and struck the ground with a great amount of force and said angrily, ¡°This doesn¡¯t count!¡±


    Sika arched her eyebrows and asked, ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ I will never lose to you!¡± This burly warrior was obviously not eloquent, and the soldiers who were watching burst out intoughter. Viscountess Lex alsoughed. Sika was good at managing her strength. Not bad. But she did not know that Saleen had reminded Sika to rein herself in. Otherwise, Sika¡¯s punch would have caused Wild Bear to vomit blood.


    ¡°The man called Wild Bear,e over,¡± Viscountess Lex said gently, as she gestured to the burly warrior who was lying on the ground.

 Chapter 98: The Bell of Holy Rock City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 98: The Bell of Holy Rock City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Wild Bear crawled up from the floor, regaining his bnce. Although Sika did not know how to use the sword aura, the punch had caused him to feel dizzy. He was a crude fellow and as he walked up to Viscountess Lex, he gave an improper bow.


    ¡°Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°What is your role here?¡±


    ¡°I cook for them.¡± Wild Bear shook his head in embarrassment.


    Viscountess Lex¡¯s heart skipped with joy. A chef was not an official military position. An assessment would not be needed to change his position. ¡°I have just been nicely in need of a chef. You will follow me in the future.¡±


    Wild Bear averted his eyes and started looking around. Scott shouted, ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to thank the viscountess?¡±


    ¡°So, Viscountess, how many silver coins would I receive as your chef?¡± Wild Bear asked courageously.


    ¡°Hahaha¡­¡± Viscountess Lex could not hold back herughter. Wild Bear had never trained a sword aura before and unlike Sika, he did not have the blessings of a priest like a Cascausus person. He naturally had the build of a fighter. It must have been because he was poor that he had not even be a normal swordsman. Someone like him, with a good teacher, would easily be a high-grade swordsman or even a swordmaster in a few years. If she was lucky, she would perhaps even have another grand swordmaster in thirty years.


    ¡°Wild Bear, I do not have any silver coins. From now on, I will give you two gold coins every month.¡±


    Wild Bear scrunched up his face and replied, ¡°Your Highness, I can¡¯t spend all of two gold coins. I think it¡¯s alright.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I will change all of them into silver coins for you. You will be able to spend all of them,¡± Viscountess Lex said jokingly. She had not expected Wild Bear to nod vigorously and say, ¡°When do we leave?¡±


    The soldiers around all startedughing upon hearing Viscountess Lex¡¯s words. Saleen nodded in agreement silently. Viscountess Lex might not have been any bigger than him but she was much smarter. Moreover, every word she said had the potential to influence people. Could this be what they call the aura of the wealthy?


    Sika shook off her limbs and went back to Saleen. Looking at Wild Bear, she said, ¡°Big fellow, you are quite strong.¡±


    Wild Bear was slightly embarrassed. Sika had a petite figure and he would have been embarrassed even if he had won against her, much less lose.


    It was not much trouble to reassign a chef and Scott helped Viscountess Lex settle everything quickly. He even helped Wild Bear change into a dry set of clothes and gave him a pair of shoes.


    All of these were trivial things as the messenger for the capital had arrived in the small town and handed over the documents. Viscountess Lex was about to enter the capital in the afternoon and now it was time to set off.


    Even though she was a viscountess, Lex was not allowed to bring any soldiers into the capital. However, the mages with her were allowed in. A hundred low-grade mages were a little too ostentatious and in the end, they selected fifty mages and fifty swordsmen to follow her into the city.


    A distance of fifty kilometers would have taken a normal person one day to travel, but now that the viscountess¡¯ carriage had been light-fitted, the journey took less than two hours. Aside from Faerun, the lifestyle mages such as Saleen also needed to ride horses. All of them wanted to get a good look at the majestic view of Holy Rock City. As the city known as the Myers Maind¡¯s miracle, it had kept that sense of longing.


    The First Dynasty of the Qin Empire had taken seventy-two years to build this city. Back then, the royal family had led ten Grade 9 sorcerers and hundreds of grand mages. A normal mage and their disciples could have formed an army of mages. That was how powerful they had been. To have taken so long to build this city under those circumstances, any mage would have been shocked, curious, and yearning.


    Even though Alchemy City had risen to prominenceter on, Holy Rock City was still the irreceable holy ground for mages.


    Perhaps Alchemy City had more mages, magic towers, and sorcerers. However, it did not have history and had never really fought against the Holy See, hence it was not the pride of the mages.


    During the chaos of the maind, the Holy See had conquered their way east and hundreds of thousands of warriors had died fighting for the pride of mages at Holy Rock City. The battle at Holy Rock City was the turning point of history and since then, there had not been any unification and centuries of peace followed.


    Any peace was exchanged with blood and without sacrifice. Humans did not know that they had once been able to fight against the gods, and they did not know that in history, they had once had a glorious past.


    Saleen had seen all of these things repeatedly in magic notes and every mage had not been stingy with their praise for Holy Rock City.


    Who said that mages had no faith? Every mage, before getting their lineage, was told that for a mage, everything needed to be obtained by oneself and no prayers were necessary.


    The roads from the town to the capital were unusually wide and after every few kilometers, a majestic castle could be seen peeking through the leaves of the forest. These castles had long since lost their capabilities for battle and were mainly vis for the wealthy. The capital¡¯s messenger was riding in front, leading the way, but they could not ride too fast as Saleen was appreciating the scenery.


    This road that stretched along the east-west direction was not crowded and there were mainly carriages along it. Commoners and merchants were rarely seen. Viscountess Lex¡¯s convoy might have gotten smaller but the fifty mages were not fake and anyone who approached them stepped aside to show respect.


    The low-grade mages might not have been respected in the capital. However, seeing so many mages protecting a carriage, the person inside must have been of great importance.


    From over ten kilometers away, Saleen spotted the front of Holy Rock City. It was a majestic city that was well above sea level. The lush forest had not been enough to block Saleen¡¯s view either.


    Saleen¡¯s body felt a little stiff. Facing such a majestic city, he could have never imagined its appearance, much less that he would see it one day. This city was a miracle built by mages. Saleen had never imagined that seeing a city from this distance could be so shocking to his soul.


    The city was growing closer, and even without magic, it was as clear as day. It was almost as if this city had been carved out of the mountain. The ck castles had no regr lines and had been intricately carved. The higher portions were shaped like a fortress while even the lowest parts were over ten meters tall. Some low-grade magic could not even be fired in. Saleen did not observe the magic patterns on the castle walls. He could not believe that this entire city had been built with granite.


    There had not been any details mentioned in magic journals and even the asional details had been sparse. Saleen had thought that Holy Rock City would have been built with arge amount of magic materials. Who would have thought that the entire city was a magic prop in itself!


    A city like this would increase any and all magic powers. The holy warriors back in the day, charging towards Holy Rock City with the support of holy masters, what a brutal scene that must have been!


    A city like this could probably only be destroyed if a god descended.


    Boom¡­


    The sound of the clock seemed to bang on a person¡¯s heart. There must have been at least a hundred clocks chiming in unison. This clock was not like the one found at the Holy See. Rather, it was an ancient magic clock from the Fourth Dynasty that was made entirely of bronze. The sound could travel over eighty miles. This was to say that Holy Rock City¡¯s clock could be heard clearly even in the towns surrounding and protecting the capital.


    Boom¡­


    Viscountess Lex started smiling. Father, I¡¯m home


    The messenger at the front was shocked. He had never imagined that the emperor would wee the viscountess home with such high regards. How many years had it been since the empire had used the magic clock? Could the emperor be nning to abolish the crown prince and have Viscountess Lex take over the throne? This would not be advantageous for the empire. The prince had chased the viscountess out of the empire all those years back. Could it be that the emperor still bore that grudge against him?


    Although the crown prince might have been young, did the emperor not see the support he had been garnering throughout the lower house?


    The sound of the clock steadily sounded out and the messenger¡¯s face grew paler. He did not have much of an opinion of the viscountess. So long as she stayed in Bitter Water Prefecture, he could not have cared less if she caused any trouble. This was something small that the empire could handle. However, if she came back to take over the throne, wouldn¡¯t that cause chaos?


    Saleen did not understand the meaning of this clock sound but his focus was shaking along with it. It had already been near the limit of condensation and yet it began to condense even further, nearly taking on a physical form.


    It was a pity that he was only a Grade 2 mage. If he had been at the peak of a Grade 3 mage, under the cleansing of the clock sound, breaking past the barrier to Grade 4 would not have been a problem. His magic chords were too weak. He had an enormous ability to focus, and yet he was unable to promote.


    Viscountess Lex had a vastly different feeling. She had been practicing not just magic but a secret royal art. This clock sound had been prepared for her by the emperor and involved the power of three Grade 9 sorcerers. For a normal mage, this clock sound might have only increased their focus slightly, but all the energy within Viscountess Lex¡¯s body had been activated and was repeatedly strengthened. The mages within the team could feel the benefits as well, and even the war horses they were riding on were refreshed and increased their speed.


    The messenger gave a bitter smile. This small stunt by the emperor for the viscountess would benefit all the mages within the city. Using the energy that has been stored up for over a decade to wee your daughter? Emperor, you have made a mistake.


    The clock sounded twenty-four times, and not only the messenger, but everyone within Holy Rock City was shocked. Even the wealthy that were loyal to the emperor were stunned. The emperor was usually a smart person. What was this for?


    Saleen was a little unstable on his horse. It was good that his focus was condensing, but he could not control his body. Nailisi suddenly ditched her horse and jumped up. Landing behind Saleen, she held his waist and kept him steady.


    ¡°Master are you okay?¡± Nailisi asked anxiously. She could sense that something was wrong with Saleen. Their souls were vibrating intensely together, almost to the point of breaking down.


    Saleen could not say a word. His focus hadpletely entered the ne of the goddess, atst blocking out the assault of the clock. There was a limit to which a Grade 2 mage could overcondense their focus, and once it was thrown out of bnce, Saleen had genuinely be afraid that he was about to die. Something like that had never happened before and it was the first time he had encountered this.


    Within the space of the ne, the Figaro¡¯s form secret arrangement was shown beneath his heart. He greedily absorbed all of the knowledge, minimizing the damage done to his focus. He was not as weak as before, when it had nearly seemed like a gust of wind could have knocked him over.


    ¡°Viscountess, viscountess! Saleen cannot hold on anymore,¡± Nailisi cried.

 Chapter 99: The Bell of Holy Rock City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 99: The Bell of Holy Rock City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nailisi, Saleen is alright. Bring him over,¡± Faerun¡¯s said next to Nailisi¡¯s ears.


    Upon hearing that, Nailisi picked up Saleen and stood up on the horse, jumping down from it and onto Viscountess Lex¡¯s carriage. This took only an instant and they did not hinder the progress of the team.


    Saleen wasid t in the carriage, his eyes closed. Nailisi asked anxiously, ¡°Sir, how is Saleen?¡±


    ¡°He has overused his focus. He will be alright after a short rest,¡± Faerun said as he took out a small bottle and handed it to Nailisi. ¡°This is magic liquid. Let him have some after he has regained conscious.¡±


    The effects of magic liquid were a hundred times stronger than restorative water. It was a Grade 7 Water Magic and was even more effective than the Holy See¡¯s holy water. However, the holy water from the Holy See could be created by a slightly higher-grade priest. On the other hand, there were not that many sorcerers.


    Saleen had definitely been through dangerous times and sometimes, crisises did not requireplex methods to be resolved. The Myers Goddess¡¯ ne could block out any external attacks and since his focus had entered inside, it had been studying the Figaro form intently. Nailisi had not done wrong either. If Saleen had fallen from his horse, he might have broken his neck.


    With his focus condensed again, the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne began to shine with an intense bright light. This showed that his focus had reached the level of a grand mage and was more or less the same as that of Viscountess Lex. Only then did Saleen understand why only grand mages could begin to study the Figaro form.


    This form was much tooplicated. There were eight thousand six hundred and forty symbols at the its principal level, not the over three thousand that Faerun had created at the start. These over eight thousand symbols were different from any othernguage, and all of them possessed independent meanings which exined the original meanings of worldly substances. No elemental magic would be able to fall outside this pattern.


    Ground, Water, Wind, Fire, Light, and Darkness.


    The six elements had four different faces and these formed the twenty-four basic symbols. These twenty-four basic symbols were constantly changing and each one of them had three hundred and sixty stages of changes which revealed the truth of the entire world.


    The tens of thousands of years of human history on the Myers Maind were insignificant in the face of these elemental changes. All of the drastic changes in the world were merely the cycle of life and death.


    Within the space of the ne, Saleen¡¯s focus transformed again. Beginning with his left hand, it shifted into the form of a human, extending to his arm, followed by his body, limbs, head, hair, bones¡­


    In reality, the human body was created by these six elements and not by some god. Saleen now understoodpletely why mages did not ce their faith with the God of Light. It was because they understood the truths of the world.


    The Myers Goddess was the true mighty goddess. She told her believers that humans hade from nature and would eventually return to nature. Any prayers were only for peace when it was time for them to return.


    Saleen raised his arm and released an icicle. This icicle did not shoot out but began to spin in his hands. The water element¡¯s structure was clearly recognizable through Saleen¡¯s eyes. He controlled the icicle¡¯s structure as it changed, and before he knew it, it had be an ice ball. Everything was so natural.


    Sturdy ice changing into flowing water. Saleen was deep in thought as he continued to control the changes of the water ball. Before long, the temperature of it rose as it turned into a massive gaseous body. The water element was changing into gas. Saleen¡¯s heart leapt. If water could be turned into gas like this, so what if he could not use the powers of the wind element?


    So long as he rearranged the sequence of the water element, he could gain powers simr to that of the wind element.


    The six elements were actually one! If he erged an icicle or even an ice spear,bined with the powers of the earth, wouldn¡¯t that be a rock spear?


    Fire power? Since rock could be melted intova, could water do the same?


    Saleen carefully controlled the ball of gas in his hand. As the ball grew hotter, hepressed it with a great amount of force, making it even hotter. However, he could not get the ball to alight in me. The water element started showing signs of solidifying instead. He could not find the energetic feeling of the fire element.


    Zzzzz¡­.


    Saleen could no longer control the ball of gas as it was on the verge of breaking down. He had no choice but to release it. The ball of gas started disintegrating into hundreds of bullets of air which emitted a sharp sound as they pierced through the air.


    If he was able to control the shape, it would be a pseudo Wind de spell! A Wind de spell was not as powerful against an individual target as an Ice de spell, but it was everchanging and several of them could be released at once. Following the increase of a mage¡¯s grade, the number of wind des released together increased too. What was important was that the number of magic chords it depleted was still the same.


    The Wind de spell was known as the multiple target spell with the smallest amount of energy usage. This was not without any reason.


    Saleen was not satisfied giving up like this. He froze another icicle in his hands and started heating it up. This time, he did notpress the ball of gas, but instead, he allowed the water element to continue to break down.


    Inside the space of the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne, Saleen could control the elements at will. Even so, it was unusually difficult to break down the water element. Saleen had not yet figured out how to reverse Figaro¡¯s form and could only count on his intuition, allowing the familiar water element to wobble so he could find the spaces between the elements.


    The water element was forcefully broken down into wind element. Saleen could not control it and the gaseous ball dissipated. However, he had already developed a feel of the rules. The wind element was not only energetic but violent too, as if it were about to burst into mes. Saleen believed that if he had continued controlling it, this ball of elemental magic would have exploded in his hands with strength much greater than a Fireball spell.


    This was a dangerous thing that was also extremely challenging. If he seeded, he would be able to control four types of elemental magic: ground, water, wind, and fire. Once he was extremely aware of the rules of these four types of magic, the light and darkness types would be separatable and would appear before him.


    Saleen had always been disappointed by the ws of his magic chords. Now that a vast road was before his eyes, he needed to walk on it no matter how difficult it was.


    The sounds of the clock had stopped a long time ago and Viscountess Lex and her team arrived outside of Holy Rock City. Holy Rock City had twenty-four city gates and the main door was the widest one. It was opened to reveal that there was no one on the streets. A guard of honor was waiting. As Saleen slowly opened his eyes, he heard a sharp voice speaking in an odd tempo outside the carriage. ¡°Emperor¡¯s decree: Bitter Water Prefecture Viscountess, empire¡¯s royal, Lex De Grukos, having stayed in Bitter Water for ten years with many achievements, please enter the capital.¡±


    We¡¯re already at Holy Rock City? Saleen looked outside the carriage as it entered the city gate. He saw that the inner walls of the city gates had a magic array etched into them and were more than two meters across. If a Grade 5 mage was stationed here, the city gates could be sealed shut by the magic array and would be even harder to break down than the city wall.


    Just as he was looking intently at the magic array, a head blocked the carriage window. Sika stuck her head in and asked, ¡°Saleen, are you feeling better?¡±


    The neat rows were thrown into disarray and the solemn mood was disrupted. Saleen said weakly, ¡°Sika, I¡¯m alright. Just follow us from the back.¡±


    Nailisi supported Saleen and held him in her arms. Waving to Sika, she said, ¡°Go, go. Don¡¯t make things hard for the viscountess.¡±


    Sika stepped aside unhappily, thinking in her heart, Wait until you show your true colors. I will chop off your tail.


    Now that Sika knew that Nailisi possessed immense fighting strength and special abilities, she could only think about revenge in her heart and could no longer think about killing her. After all, Nailisi could be of great help to Saleen.


    Saleen had no energy to mediate the fight between Sika and Nailisi. He barely had any energy left and could only lean against Nailisi to rest. He did not meditate, since he would have many other chances to do so. Taking in Holy Rock City for the first time was a one-of-a-kind experience.


    After passing through more than twenty meters of thick city gates, there was an enclosure. A design like this had never been seen before the Fourth Dynasty. Surrounding the enclosure were fourrge fortresses with an alchemy crossbow on top of each of them. Even if enemies tried to enter through the city gates, they would be shot by these crossbows from all four sides. The entire enclosure did not have the murderous vibes of the army camp, but rather, an immense power that was simr to fortified metals. It prevented any form of exploration.


    A normal person walking by here would not have felt anything. They would only have been able to see the elegant city gate tower of Holy Rock City which was etched with patterns on its stone and surrounded by an artistic air. The tidy streets were peaceful and quiet.


    After passing by the enclosure, what appeared in their vision was a sea of green. Wooden construction lined the streets, hidden behind giant trees. This was a ce for trading that was barely two hundred meters away from the enclosure.


    Thriving. Saleen felt that he now understood the true meaning of thriving. Although Bitter Water Prefecture was elegant and wealthy, it did not have the thriving atmosphere of the capital. Almost a thousand years of wealth had umted here and built this city.


    The carriage slowed down considerably and Saleen had the chance to observe things in detail. This was the main gate. It was not usually opened and was only opened during important asions such as the emperor departing for an inspection or generals setting out on an expedition. The people who lived in this area were wealthier than the others in the capital. What caused Saleen to frown was that all the servants walking around were adorned in silk, velvet, and fur.


    It was already midsummer, and anyone in a fur coat was either sick or a powerful swordsman who could not care less about the changing seasons.


    These servants were humble on the surface but domineering on the inside. It seemed like the wealthy in the capital were no different from those outside. Saleen sighed. Inparison, he liked Bitter Water Prefecture more.


    Saleen felt his heart be at peace as he came to ept that that was how the world worked. Back in the days when those mages had created this miraculous city, they certainly had not expected things to turn out like this. There was too much greed here, and the city was filled with tyranny, not pride.


    Saleen had no idea why he was having such feelings but since having opened the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne, he had be unbelievably sensitive to different types of energies and emotions. It was almost as if he had been born with such insight.


    Even so, Saleen was still excited. The city was basically a giant magic array, and this was something he could feel. This magic array was unusually precise and could control every street and building. Under the nourishment of the magic array, the trees within the city possessed elemental energy, and if the goddess had not fallen, her holy masters would have been able to cast their divine spells freely here. The powerful essence of life overpowered the atmosphere of corruption. This was the City of Miracles.

 Chapter 100: The Worries of the Empire (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 100: The Worries of the Empire (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The city possessed a long history, but the streets were extremely smooth. There were not any gaps nor holes in the roads, and the horse carriage was unusually stable as it traveled on the road. Viscountess Lex had just recovered. The sounds of the chimes from the clock had created the biggest impact on her, and she disyed some faint signs of having had a breakthrough.


    The promotion of a mage was usually gentle and cumtive. Viscountess Lex still needed at least one month before she could find the opportunity to advance to a Grade 6 mage.


    Even so, the methods used by the Qin Empire were very well known. All the mages in the city would be promoted, and only the Descension spell cast by the Holy See wasparable to it. The Descension spell was disyed once just before the pope died. However, the magic clock in the Holy Rock City only needed to umte ten years of power before it could cast this spell.


    Saleen had just been promoted recently and his magic chords were alreadyrger than the rest of the mages of the same grade as him, so it was difficult for him to advance. Saleen had lost a golden opportunity this time around. Otherwise, with the magnitude of his mental power, Saleen would not even have needed a resting period and his promotion would have been guaranteed.


    ¡°Saleen, are you better now?¡± Viscountess Lex took a nce at Saleen, who was leaning against Nailisi.


    ¡°I am much better now.¡±


    ¡°Get down from the carriage, lest other people get jealous.¡±


    Saleen nodded his head. If I was a sorcerer, I couldn¡¯t care less about what other people think, Saleen thought to himself. Aye, even though Saleen knew what he wanted to be in the future, he still had to bow down to reality in the end. Saleen jumped off of the slow-moving carriage and got back onto a war horse again. Additionally, Saleen saw fiftybat mages who were very cheerful and excited. He could not help but marvel at the strength of the empire.


    The emperor must have been more powerful than a sorcerer even if he did not practice his skills. For this round of promotions, fivebat mages and eight lifestyle mages had been promoted and the viscountess would thus have one more batch of mage masters.


    It was easy to groom low-level mages. But it was the dream of every member of the noble families to be able to attract a mage master into their team.


    The streets of Holy Rock City were very straight and the houses on both sides of the street were covered in flowers and greenery. It was already close to June, so there was a refreshing fragrance on the streets. Saleen analyzed the nts he saw on the streets, and discovered that many of them could be used to manufacture magic medicine.


    The pce could be seen from afar. Everyone began to dismount from their horses, as nobody was allowed to travel on horseback within the pce. It was not clear how much space the pce upied, as the white structure spanned several miles. Parts of the structure were made from white rock, while others had been covered with magic powder, concealing the original colors.


    The giant pce doors were a huge tower by themselves, rising all the way into the clouds. Because the body of the tower was simply too enormous, it looked like the fortress that had once belonged to the Fourth Dynasty. The viscountess¡¯s convoy stopped, and a pce eunuch came out to be the new messenger leading the way. At this point, Viscountess Lex alighted from the carriage.


    ¡°Viscountess, His Majesty is waiting for you in the great hall.¡± The pce eunuch was a fair-skinned man. He spoke in a reserved manner and had an air of arrogance about him. Saleen did not like the eunuch. People like him would have definitely been castrated in the Cloudflow Empire. Unbeknownst to Saleen himself, he had long regarded Viscountess Lex as his family.


    Viscountess Lex ignored the way the eunuch treated her. After all, it was natural for them to form factions as these eunuchs were mostly children of aristocrats. If he had been capable, he would have been a swordsman in the pce. But obviously he was not, so there was no point in being angry with him.


    ¡°Lead the way.¡± The viscountess¡¯s voice was cold, literally frosty, and her body started to emit cold air. The eunuch shivered and nearly slipped. Saleen secretly chuckled. Lex was, after all, a Grade 5 mage. It had been quite ignorant of that eunuch to try and y tricks around the viscountess.


    ¡°The rest of you shall follow him,¡± the eunuch said while gesturing to Saleen and the others. They were to be led by another eunuch.


    Viscountess Lex looked back and said, ¡°Those few of you shalle with me. Thebat mages shall go and take a break.¡±


    She hadpletely disregarded the instructions of the pce eunuch. Viscountess Lex allowed the Bitter Water Army soldiers andbat mages to rest, while the lifestyle mages would follow her. The eunuch wanted to rebut Viscountess Lex, but he saw Faerun, who was d in ck robes, staring at him coldly.


    Viscountess Lex had her doubts. Why did her father want to meet her in the great hall? That was a ce for politics and governance. If father wanted to confer a title upon her, then she would need to do a walkabout in the upper house. Royal knighthoods could be easily conferred, but more than half of the cities surrounding the Bitter Water Prefecture were currently under the control of the lower house.


    A reason and an agenda would be required in order to snatch those cities back.


    The eunuch stopped being disrespectful when he saw Faerun staring at him, and obediently led Viscountess Lex and the rest of the people towards the inner pce. He had thought that since the viscountess was so young, it would be easy to step over her, but the eunuch had not realized that there would be a sorcerer beside the viscountess.


    The patterns within the pce were more stringentpared to the city outside. The corners of almost every building had lines which corresponded to the arrangement of a magic form. Saleen noticed these details and felt powerless. No matter how strong a person was, he could never be stronger than an entire country. Even if a Grade 9 sorcerer came to wreak havoc here, he would not be able to cause much damage given the type settings in this pce.


    On the way to the great hall, the group met two teams of soldiers patrolling the grounds. These soldiers wore magic armor and were quite imposing. Although they did not possess the aura that the soldiers in the small town had, they were not weaklings either. They were at least beginner swordmasters. Saleen knew very well that it was impossible for everyone in the pce to be a swordmaster, but he was still on guard.


    The soldiers wearing magic armor would definitely not have a problem defeating a low-level mage, and these were only the patrolling soldiers. The whole empire was surely filled with unassuming experts.


    Saleen had thought about what to expect countless of times. But when he finally entered the great hall, everything that he saw was still greatly above his expectations.


    The great hall looked majestic from the outside. But inside the great hall, the space was at least twice of what it looked like from the exterior. Furthermore, the architecture of the great hall fully imitated the style of the First Dynasty. There were colossal stone beams and the ceiling seemed to reach the skies. There was a magic array that was spinning from the ceiling, allowing equal amounts of sunlight to shine into the great hall.


    The whole space seemed transparent and spacious, without any unnecessary fittings. There were many giant sculptures on the stone beams. They looked majestic and were in d in ancient clothes. Saleen did not realize that these sculptures were actually the sculptures of past emperors. And the current emperor would carry out his duty of managing the empire diligently and faithfully under the watchful eyes of these past emperors.


    In the center of the great hall was a gigantic table. Usually, nobles from the upper house would be seated at this table, managing one-third of the Qin Empire¡¯snd.


    Now, there was only a single person at the table. He was seated in a wide chair, with an arm on the armrest. He had a pair of wise eyes, and he looked over thirty years old. He had fairly average looks, with thick eyebrows and a short mustache on his chin.


    This man was simply seated right there. There was nothing else in the great hall that could have attracted any more looks. Saleen could not stand it and looked at the man, and he could not take his gaze off of him.


    The middle-aged man did not give off any sort of power, and yet Saleen had the urge to worship him.


    He was at the center of this great hall, and he was also the center of the whole of the Qin Empire. The Qin Emperor had helmed the throne for the past thirty years, and yet he still looked so youthful.


    ¡°Lex, my daughter, you are back.¡±


    The Qin Emperor stood up. He wore a cotton robe, and looked like a hermit schr. A tinge of hurt shed in his eyes as Viscountess Lex could not control herself and started walking over before stopping in front of him.


    ¡°Father, I am back.¡± Viscountess Lex seemed slightly choked. She very much wanted to hug her father, but she knew that there were many hidden pairs of eyes in this great hall, and her every move would eventually reach the streets.


    ¡°Lex, I should have kept you by my side¡­¡±


    ¡°Father!¡± Viscountess Lex quickly interrupted her father, as she knew that the stability of the empire would be affected if certain words were spoken.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. Your brother is much better now. When I am done settling your affairs, I will make him Crown Prince.¡±


    The emperor did not be overwhelmed with emotions from his daughter¡¯s homing. After a short pause, he continued, ¡°Faerun, all these people are your students?¡±


    Faerun was slightly agitated. When he had first left, he had only been an average Grade 3 mage, but he was already a sorcerer now. It seemed like that the emperor had surpassed his own limits as well. He must have sessfully mastered all the royal secrets by now.


    Ten years had passed by in an instant. Faerun had thought that he would never return to the imperial capital when he left with the viscountess. The words the emperor had said at that point in time were still ringing in his ears¡­


    ¡°They are all the viscountess¡¯s lifestyle mages. I am in charge ofmanding them,¡± Faerun answered respectfully after quickly suppressing his emotions.


    The Qin Emperor frowned and said, ¡°Lex, the mages should enjoy freedom. How could you let them wait on you? I don¡¯t care about the other nobles, but you are my daughter. You should understand how this empire was built.¡±


    The Qin Emperor was straightforward and honest. He was not pretentious at all.


    Viscountess Lex blinked, but she did not attempt to talk back to him. She knew that her father was saying this as to cate other people. Many nobles were displeased with her doings in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Grooming arge number of mages had posed a threat to these nobles.


    ¡°Figo!¡± the Qin Emperor raised his voice and a warrior responded. The warrior came out and stopped beside the emperor.


    This warrior wore a set of borate armor, but he was not the kind of person who dressed well without possessing real capabilities. Saleen actually saw the ice ind rock on his armor. This small rock could not even be bought for tens of thousands of gold coins. He did not wear any helmet, and a long sword hung by his waist. This handsome warrior looked less than thirty years old.


    ¡°Bring Faerun and these mages to my storage building and let each of them pick a set of equipment for themselves.¡±


    Figo was a little astonished, but he did not say anything. He simply bowed and led Faerun and the others out of the great hall. Saleen knew that the emperor just wanted to have some alone time with his daughter so he needed to make up a reason to get the rest of the people to leave. But judging by the viscountess appearance, there must have been some more experts that he had not discovered. When the viscountess finally became emperor, it would be like she was imprisoned.


    The good thing was that the emperor was generous, and Saleen could get some treasures. The emperor¡¯s storage building must have had some good items in it, right? Since the Qin Empire was a magic empire, the equipment for mages should not be too lousy.


    Figo walked ahead with light footsteps. He recognized Faerun. When Faerun had left for the Bitter Water Prefecture, he had only been a mere pce swordsman. By the time they met again, they had already be exceptional experts in their own fields.


    Back at the great hall, the viscountess sat down at the table. Only the viscountess and her father were there.


    ¡°Lex, even though I regret my decision, I am still extremely proud of your achievements.¡± The Qin Emperor did not look too good, and his face was filled with worry.


    ¡°Father, did something happen?¡± Viscountess Lex might have had a lot to say, but when she saw her father so worried and speaking so oddly, she began to get worried too.

 Chapter 101: The Worries of the Empire (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 101: The Worries of the Empire (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°The things that Merlin said all came true. Last year, your brother¡¯s condition suddenly improved and he was no longer dying within the magical tower. However, at the same time, ck mages appeared in Phoenix Duchy. The people that I have kept by my side did not manage to resolve the situation, and this has resulted in ck magic spreading to the Lon Duchy. The son of the Grand Duke of Phoenix is still in the imperial capital. He doesn¡¯t dare to go back. This imbecile. It would be good if he had just one-tenth of his father¡¯s capabilities.¡±


    Merlin¡­


    Viscountess Lex continuously repeated his name in her heart and grew uneasy. Merlin had been thest astrologer in the empire. The words he had said before dying were too frightening.


    ¡°What else?¡± Viscountess Lex became solemn as well. If Merlin¡¯s prophecy wasing true, then not only would the Qin Empire face a crisis, but the entire maind would be in turmoil.


    ¡°Dragons have appeared in the Cloudflow Empire. These creatures are extremely rare, but more than ten of them appeared at once. Then, these dragons disappeared. If what Merlin said was right, then there will be a huge change in the Cloudflow Empire. Dragons will not be exterminated even if humans gang up on them. However, in this case, the dragons disappeared soundlessly, so how did that empire get so many mages on their side?¡±


    ¡°What is the worst thing that has happened?¡± Viscountess Lex knew that such a matter would not frustrate her father. It would be alright even if everything else in the prophecy came true, so long as thest piece did note true.


    ¡°The Holy See has dered that death mages are just heretics using the third code.¡±


    The viscountess stiffened up when she heard that. It was a bolt from the blue. The four big empires had lived together in peace for over seven hundred years. That being said, the Holy See had just caused irreversible destruction to this peace using the third code.


    This was because there had been many death mages when the Qin Empire was first constructed. It could be said that without the death mages, there would have been no Qin Empire. Furthermore, the death mages contributed arge amount to the extermination of ck mages. In the Qin Empire¡¯s code, the prestige of death mages in their society was clearly listed.


    Even though there were not many death mages left in the empire, the code should not be changed. The code was the bedrock of the Qin Empire.


    The actions of the Holy See were equivalent to telling their followers that the entirety of the Qin Empire had been founded on heresy.


    Was the One Thousand Year Holy War really going to erupt?


    ¡°All these events were correctly predicted. I don¡¯t think there will be an exception for thest one, right?¡± the emperor said, looking very glum.


    ¡°No, Father, all of this was just a coincidence!¡± Viscountess Lex lost herposure. This was because thest prophecy Merlin had given her was that the emperor would die in the Holy War, and the empire would crumble into dust.


    ¡°Be it a coincidence or not, all these things have already happened. The Holy War is imminent. Are you going to stay here or go back?¡±


    Viscountess Lex was stunned for a while, and said, ¡°Since my younger brother has recovered, I shall go back.¡±


    She knew that if she stayed behind, her father would pass the throne to her. The Myers Maind had produced a few female emperors in the past, but that was only because those emperors had raised no sons. Since her brother had recovered, some people were bound to be unhappy if she were still the one to ascend the throne. Viscountess Lex very much wanted to spend some more time with her father, but the prophecy¡­


    She might have been the reason the empire would crumble.


    ¡°You are a mage. You shouldn¡¯t believe in these things.¡± The Qin Emperorughed warmly. His mood had lifted the moment he saw his daughter.


    But Viscountess Lex was a little depressed, and fell silent. She hoped that the prophecy was false, but at the same time, she did not have the courage to stay.


    ¡°Lex, when Merlin made his predictions, he couldn¡¯t have been sure of my future achievements. I really can¡¯t think of anyone who can harm me now,¡± the emperor announced proudly.


    ¡°In that case, I have to go back. Since the Lon Duchy is in trouble, I am afraid that the ck mages will infiltrate the Bitter Water Prefecture using small roads. If that happens, then Bitter Water Prefecture will be in trouble as well. As long as we do not lose Bitter Water Prefecture, then the Holy See will not be able to attack the imperial capital. The Holy See will not use other roads since that would provoke the other two empires. I don¡¯t believe the Holy See will be able to fight three countries at once.¡± Viscountess Lex arched her eyebrows, and her voice was filled with emotion.


    The Qin Emperor roared withughter, which added morepassion to his average looks.


    ¡°That¡¯s my daughter. But don¡¯t rush to go back. This time, I want to make sure that you establish your own county,¡± the Qin Emperor said firmly, staring at the god¡¯s ring on Viscountess Lex¡¯s finger.


    Establishing a county was a bigger deal than establishing a duchy. A county was almost like an independent country, and only a member of the royal family could establish one. Also, once a county was established, the transfer of powers within it would no longer need to be approved by the lower house. A county had the freedom to appoint or dismiss its nobles and officials. As long as the county did not rebel against the empire, its sovereignty would be in ce forever.


    ¡°Father, you don¡¯t have to do this¡­¡±


    ¡°Lex, in the past, I had difficulties mastering the royal secrets so I could only listen to Merlin and let you leave. But if anyone wants to object to this today, I will show them my wrath. You don¡¯t have to worry about your uncle. His two sons are useless, so I can only pin my hopes on your younger brother. If your uncle were to oppose this, I will reappoint the Crown Prince,¡± the emperor said stubbornly. He only had one thought in his mind, which was to make up for his daughter¡¯s losses all these years.


    When the emperor saw that Lex was going to continue arguing, he continued, ¡°I have to finish this matter. With the imminence of the Holy War, the empire must choose an ally from between the Cloudflow Empire and Sikeqinya. If you don¡¯t establish your county, then someone will propose a marriage. Do you want me to send you out of the Qin Empire? If you have your own county, then your husband will be the king of the county. No one will be able to ask me for your hand in marriage then, or else it would mean separating the Qin Empire. Do you really want your marriage to be a business deal?¡±


    ¡°Father, marriage is still early¡­¡±


    ¡°Early? The ambassador from the Cloudflow Empire is already on his way here.¡±


    Aye, Viscountess Lex sighed. Her joy at being reunited with her father had greatly diminished. She had also received some intelligence when she was in the Bitter Water Prefecture, but it had not been as detailed as what her father had just told her. She had not known about the changes in the Tanggsi Empire, much less about the ambassador from the Cloudflow Empire. It may as well be true that the Cloudflow Empire was going to ask for the viscountess¡¯s hand in marriage since the ambassador wasing around this time. If the two empires were united through marriage, then they would be able to oppose the conditions set by the Tanggsi Empire.


    But if she established her own county, would the prophecye true? Astrology was not like divine spells or magic. If the predicted events were intentionally prevented, then the prophecy might note true at all.


    Figo led Faerun and the others to a storage room. This was not the only storage room the imperial family had. This room was not too big, and it would really be a joke if the Qin Emperor possessed so few assets.


    They had to pass through a guardroom filled with soldiers wearing heavy armor before entering the storage room. After inspecting Figo¡¯s badge, the guards let them pass. These were the rules. Even if the guards knew who Figo was, they still needed to inspect the magic seal on his badge. The badge would lose its effect the moment its owner died. This was to prevent any demons who could transform into another person using ultimate transformation magic from infiltrating the pce.


    A mage in grey robes led the group to the door of the storage room. The door was secured by a magic array and four magic locks. Both sides of the passageway had concealed arrow holes. Even if a grand swordmaster had been here, he would have been killed by the rapid fire arrows from the metallic crossbows.


    There must have been treasures here since security was so tight. Saleen was very satisfied, and the eight mages following Faerun were also very excited. Even though the viscountess was very generous, high-level magic equipment was very rare. Since Saleen was able to choose a set of equipment this time around, he would not need to worry anymore about when he became a sorcerer.


    The mage in grey robes did not dare to be arrogant in front of Faerun. He took out four magic keys and put them into the locks. There a magic nucleus embedded into the grooves of the door. When the four magic keys were wound at the same time, the door silently opened.


    Saleen took a look at the door. The door was coated in metal, and had a thickness of half a meter. Brute strength alone would not be able to knock it down.


    There was no light in the storage room. The mage weed them in and cast an Illumination spell, leading the way inside. Figo was walking beside Faerun and began to chat with him.


    Saleen did not listen in on their conversation. He concentrated on releasing his mental power and started surveying the room.


    The mage was a little shocked and took a nce at Saleen but did not say anything. Sika and Nailisi followed Saleen and walked towards the corner of the room.


    There was a metal rack that was as tall as the room¡¯s canopy carrying various kinds of equipment. Most of it was for mages, while a few items were for swordsmen, but they also possessed some magic attributes to them. There was a single rack leaning against the corner. Saleen cast a Fluorescence spell and made a detailed examination.


    This metal rack was special. If Saleen was right, it had been cast from rhenium gold. The price of this alone had been enough to purchase half a castle. Of course, Saleen could not just take this rack with him as the rack was fused with the ground. The metal pirs had magic patterns carved into them, forming a tiny magic array.


    The magic array was used to prevent the aura from leaking out from the rack, and the entire rack was engulfed by the magic array. A set of mage equipment was disyed on the rack, and Saleen pointed to it and said, ¡°I want this one.¡±


    ¡°This one cannot be given.¡± The mage was anxious. This set of equipment was extremely valuable. Even though it was not suitable for anyone, it was the one and only set in the storage room.


    This set of mage equipment had belonged to some mages from the Second Dynasty. There were no magic robes, only a bunch of belongings. The ck inner wear had an unrefined feel, and it seemed to be made of linen. There was also a bracelet that contained nine gems in its grooves, a ring, and a magic book that was ck in color. Gloves and shoes were also present.


    All of the items were ck. At that time, the different grades had not been differentiated by color, but people in theter dynasties worshipped the powers that the mages in the Second Dynasty had, so they had made their sorcerer¡¯s robes ck. This set of equipment was definitely extremely valuable.


    ¡°Alright, then I don¡¯t want it,¡± Saleen said. He did not want to waste his time talking and turned around and left.


    ¡°You can choose another set,¡± the mage said apologetically.


    ¡°I am not choosing anymore,¡± Saleen replied as he shook his head vigorously.


    The mage in the grey robes had a headache. That rack had been hidden behind a magic array. How had a Grade 2 mage managed to get past it? Even for him, he was not able able to do so without using some special tools. That was sure unsettling.


    ¡°You¡¯d better choose one set,¡± the mage advised politely, but he did not notice the sly look in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°No need. When His Majesty asks about this, I will help you hide the truth,¡± Saleen replied cheerfully.


    Hide the truth? The mage¡¯s face immediately looked very grave. At this point, he realized that it would not be easy to deal with Saleen. Furthermore, Saleen was talking and walking towards the door at the same time. He was going leave the room very soon. The mage grew very anxious. If Saleen said anything to His Majesty, the mage would be in trouble.


    ¡°This¡­mage,¡± the mage in the grey robes shouted from the back. Saleen looked back and asked seriously, ¡°Are you calling me?¡±

 Chapter 102: Demon’s Magic Book (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 102: Demon¡¯s Magic Book (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Seeing the look of honesty on Saleen¡¯s face, the mage in grey robes did not know what to say. Saleen looked at him while he looked at Figo. Figo was talking to Faerun and was not looking at him.


    ¡°Youe back. This set of equipment shall be yours.¡± He had been defeated by Saleen. If Saleen wanted to fight with him with reason, he had many ways of luring him into making a mistake. Once a fight broke out, the emperor would naturally not side with an outsider. If Saleen did not take the bait, his actions now would seem suspicious to the emperor.


    The storage room was under his management, yet the things inside were not his. No matter how much he liked this set of equipment, he could not keep it for himself.


    A mage could understand another mage best and Saleen had definitely seen past him. He did not have to use any other tricks.


    Saleen had no idea what was up with this set of equipment and had only judged it based on his newly gained intuition. In this storage room, the most valuable item had been this set of equipment, and moreover, he had seen a magic book.


    There were already three magic books in his Ring of Gifts. However, all three of them were nk and served no use inbat. This ck magic book should have been able to give him a surprise. He took down the ck book, which was half the size of a normal magic book, from the shelf and opened it gingerly, almost as if it were a holy item.


    On the ck pages, words had been written in red ink. These words wereplicated, almost like a music score. Each line was split into three levels and was even more confusing than the Figaro form.


    Saleen could only recognize less than one percent of these words. This was demonnguage, and it had been written out ording to the demonic form. If it had been twenty or thirty thousand years ago, this magic book would have been amon item. Truly powerful magic was written out in ancient Myersnguage.


    However, in present day, even a small demon like Nailisi was a powerful warrior, and this knowledge had been left behind by a supreme demon.


    Demon magic book!


    Humans had not enved demons for a short period of time. Back then, when humans had captured living beings from other dimensions, aside from using them as coolies, they had also used them to fight. Demons were a n of sentient beings and could learn magic, and the masters of demons would create equipment for them to increase theirbat abilities.


    The demon magic book had been created around then. Until now, demons had disappeared in the Myers Maind and the demon magic book had be a decorative object as well. No matter how powerful a mage was, they would not be able to grasp demonnguage, and since it had been too long ago, this meaningless heritage had been stopped as well.


    Saleen maintained hisposure. He might not have been able to fully understand the demonnguage, but Nailisi could. Once she matured, she would be able to obtain the demon¡¯s memory. Then, he could have Nailisi trante for him and the magic book would be able to demonstrate its true usefulness. Seeing how unwilling the grey robed mage was, he must have been able to understand a little of the demonnguage.


    Perhaps the knowledge in this book had not been much to humans back then, but for humans now, it was a powerful instrument.


    Flipping through the pages towards the end, only then did Saleene across a nk page.


    The ck page was slightly thicker than usual, almost like metal. Aside from the magic patterns on it, there was not a single trace of words. Saleen rubbed it between his hands and the mage in grey robes could feel his heart bleed. Saleen looked up at him and gave a smile, thinking: This magic book is definitely weird. It has some space reserved for magic but does not have any elemental properties.


    With the exception of silver magic books, a normal magic book would leave eighteen pages nk for storing magic. From Grade 4 to Grade 6 magic, every grade could store six spells. It was for one of each of the spells of the six elements.


    This demon magic book had only six pages of space to store magic and had not been separated by the elements. It did not leave behind any fixed magic forms and there was not a single word of spells or magic arrays.


    Could it store any kind of elemental magic within its pages? Saleen did not dare to experiment. Before grasping demonnguage, he could not fool around with something so precious. If the magic that he stored was fixed, it would be such a waste.


    Saleen extended his hand and took the ck ring, putting it on. Using his focus to give it a quick scan, he released the secrets of the ring. It was an ancient spatial ring. The space was tiny, much smaller than the Ring of Gifts and less than ten square feet. The only difference it had from a present day spatial prop was that the space was definite, almost like a box. The interior had magic patterns etched onto it.


    It was said that a demon ring could not store any magic. Its value was very different from the bracelet that he had gotten from Aini. The space inside of it was too small, but for now, it was a rare toy for Saleen. Since it was a spatial prop that was not controlled by the grade of the user, he would be able to ept its small size.


    Saleen stored the demon magic book inside of it and took another bracelet from the shelf, putting it on his wrist.


    There were nine troughs on the bracelet to iy gemstones. There were no magic arrays etched on it and the quality of the metal was unknown, so it might have been a special metal found only in the demon dimension. Putting the demon bracelet on his wrist, Saleen could naturally feel the changes in the bracelet.


    The nine troughs on the bracelet were inplete contact with Saleen¡¯s body. It did not matter if there were magic nucleuses or gemstones iid within. Either of their powers could be used directly.


    It was something simple and practical, just like the white crystal ring that Jason had given him. Once a gemstone was iid, the bracelet would possess a function that was appropriate to it. For example, iying a white crystal could allow magic chords to be restored rapidly. Iying a ck crystal would enable it to store death magic. Iying benitoite would increase the powers of divine spells¡­


    Saleen smiled as he carefully stored the clothes, shoes, and gloves from the shelf, thanking the mage in the grey robes. Seeing his items being taken by Saleen, he looked away, not caring about him.


    Saleen heart skipped a beat. Even though this set of equipment had not been the most valuable in the room, it was definitely the rarest. He could understand the pursuit of knowledge of another mage, something that money and power could not bepared to. He had understood this after staying in Bitter Water Prefecture for some time. Not many mages had seen as many books as him. The number of books that Viscountess Lex provided for the low-grade mages was considered a lot, but they barely numbered in the hundreds. If he took away this demon magic book, this mage in grey robes would never be able to continue his research.


    Demonnguage was different from humannguage and the words themselves carried magic. Every time they were read, there was a chance of learning from them. It was no wonder that the grey robed mage was this upset. If it had been him, he would have been upset too.


    ¡°Mage?¡± Saleen said softly


    ¡°Yes?¡± The mage turned back and Saleen said respectfully, ¡°I am slightly knowledgable in the field of demonnguage, and even though I really want to stay and ask for your advice, I think I will be leaving soon. Could you leave your address? I will write to you.¡±


    The grey robed mage was momentarily stunned before he understood what was happening. This young mage was a regr mage and had a proper lineage. He was used to exchanging ideas and not keeping knowledge to himself. This could be seen from how he immediately found the demon equipment. He definitely knew what he was doing. A regr mage would not chase after power blindly. He would be curious about any and all knowledge.


    The grey robed mage immediately changed his impression of Saleen and said softly, ¡°If you are knowledgable in the field of demonnguage, then this equipment will not be wasted on you. My address is here. I won¡¯t ever leave this ce. What¡­what is your name?¡±


    ¡°Saleen. Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Sith¡­ Saleen, before you leave, you cane find me again. I will give you what I have discovered in the past few years,¡± The grey robed mage said in a serious tone.


    Saleen was a little embarrassed. He had eyed the demon magic book for itsbat ability. Sith, on the other hand, was a fanatic for the knowledge inside of it.


    ¡°Master Sith, I¡¯m honored¡­¡±


    Saleen had not expected that a small act of charity could have won the grey robed mage over. It seemed unbelievable. However, with much thought, he could understand why it had happened. For a royal mage, the price of equipment did not matter. With an enormous empire backing them, the only thing they required was the pursuit of true knowledge.


    In the time that Saleen and the mage were having this conversation, the rest of the mages had already found equipment that they were satisfied with. Saleen did not know whether tough or cry when he saw that Nailisi and Sika had each taken a set of magic equipment too. Nailisi had put on an expensive set of magic robes. Twirling in front of Sika, she asked, ¡°Are these clothes pretty?¡±


    ¡°Disgusting.¡± Sika was wearing magic armor. Magic armor was a rare item as it was difficult to gather the materials for its creation. Each individual material was not expensive, but when it came together in a set, a lot of time was required and its effects were simr to that of magic robes.


    In any case, for a heavy weapon, thin magic armor was like paper. The only advantage it had was that it was easier to move in, but what sort of mage wouldpare their physical capabilities with anyone else?


    Keeping a distance and using magic to control the tempo ofbat. That was the way mages fought. Once they let a warriore close, even a beginner swordmaster¡¯s sword aura could kill a grand mage.


    Saleen did not stop the two. In any case, the Qin Empire had money, so they might as well take it. The only regret he had was that besides the demon equipment, there was no other equipment that included a magic book.


    Narnia had chosen equipment that included a dainty magic wand with chlorite iid in it. This magic wand could also store magic and was a rare item. The other mages gained much as well, and at least everyone had managed to get a piece of spatial equipment for themselves.


    Spatial equipment was something that usually only grand mages could open, and moreover, it was not cheap. These lifestyle mages had a good eye for things, and had chosen all of the more expensive items.


    Faerun did not take any equipment, but he took a set of scrolls.


    The six magic scrolls contained six Grade 8 spells in them. These scrolls had been the most expensive items. Saleen was slightly envious. However, he could not have done anything with them anyways. Only a Grade 7 mage or above could activate them.


    After they had chosen their items, the grey robed mage named Sith sent them out of the storage room and looked regretfully at the empty shelf at the corner. Even though he had used memory magic to memorize the contents of the demon magic book, he would never be able to experience its ever-changing demonnguage ever again.

 Chapter 103: Demon Magic Book (Part 2）

    <h4>Chapter 103: Demon Magic Book (Part 2£©</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Viscountess Lex and Saleen and the others were arranged to stay in the pce. As they were brought to the ce to stay, Saleen found out that all of the soldiers and mages who followed Viscountess Lex had received some form of reward by the emperor.


    In Bitter Water Prefecture, Saleen had thought that Viscountess Lex was very rich. Sinceing to Holy Rock City, he immediately felt that Bitter Water Prefecture had only been just that. The equipment that Viscountess Lex gave out was counted precisely, but the emperor carried out sets upon sets of equipment out from the storage room.


    These new pieces of equipment had an ancient look to them, almost as if they had been sealed away for many years.


    It was a pity that there was not some form of royal banquet. Their dinners were sent directly to their rooms. After eating, the servants took away the cutleries and sent up some tea before disappearing. Saleen spread himself out on the bed. The ceiling was very high and if he had not possessed have the sharp eyesight of a mage, he would not have been able to make out the drawings on the ceiling.


    Saleen was not excited. Even though he had risen from a beggar to a mage and he even had the chance to stay in a pce for a few days, this massive change in position had been hard to ept.


    His teacher had disappeared and he had no home to return to. Others might have been able to pursue knowledge freely, but he could only store up his energy. Even if he did manage to kill Earl Sufonso, so what? He had a country but no home. No matter howrge the Myers Maind was, he was but a guest. Saleen did not begin practicing magic as he usually did. Instead, he took out the badge and some receipts his father had left behind.


    The oldest receipts were at least seven to eight hundred years old. Back then, the Metatrin family had not yetpletely declined. Perhaps after exacting his revenge, he could find the people whose names were on the receipts to recollect their money.


    Saleen folded his legs and took a look at the family badge by his side. There was a lightning shape mark etched deeply into the ck badge, almost as if it had just been formed.


    ¡°Master?¡±


    Saleen lifted his head, seeing Nailisi standing at the doorway. Her elegant magic robe was missing and she was back in her dazzling attire. Saleen had explored much of the outside world and naturally, this set of clothes was a little too eyecatching. It was simply that he was toozy to bother with Nailisi any longer. She would always have her reasons, and perhaps these clothes would stop her from causing so much trouble.


    ¡°Come in.¡± Saleen waved at her. Nailisi smiled and ran to the bedside, jumping onto it. The bed was big and had no problems sleeping four to five people. Nailisi leaned against Saleen. Looking at the receipts on the bed, she asked, ¡°What are these? They don¡¯t seem to be worth much money.¡±


    ¡°My father¡¯s belongings,¡± Saleen replied nonchntly.


    ¡°Master, are you sad?¡± Nailisi blinked, resting her hand on his chest.


    ¡°Nailisi, do you miss home?¡± Saleen pushed her hand away and asked.


    ¡°No,¡± She replied straightforwardly.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because I can¡¯t go back anyway.¡±


    Hearing this from Nailisi nearly made tears flow from Saleen¡¯s eyes. Because I can¡¯t go back anyway. They were such simple words. How was he any different from a demon that had been enved? They both had nowhere to go. Without hope, there was no reason to talk about despair. Everyone had a family, even Aini. Viscountess Lex had left her father when she was young, but at least she could return to visit.


    Seeing Saleen saddened, Nailisi straightened up and gave him a hug, saying softly, ¡°Master, do not be sad. Nailisi will apany you.¡±


    ¡°But you are a demon. All the books say that demons constantly fantasize about their masters getting into trouble, hoping that they will be lonely and miserable.¡± Saleen did not push her away. In this moment, he was dazed.


    ¡°Why does that matter? I do not hate you. Even if no one cares about you, you are still my master.¡± Nailisi was expressionless, almost as if she were talking to herself.


    ¡°Do you want freedom?¡± Saleen asked suddenly.


    Nailisi released him and sat up again. Now she was the one dazed.


    ¡°You still want your freedom¡­¡±


    ¡°If the contract is annulled, I will eat you first.¡± Nailisi looked even sadder than Saleen. She turned away, pulling her knees up, and ced her chin on her arms.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°So long as you are alive, I will never be free. Was this not mentioned in the books?¡±


    Saleen sighed. This had been written in the books. He had just wanted to know if Nailisi would speak the truth. Nailisi had spoken the truth, but he was not happy at all. So long as he was alive, she would never be free.


    ¡°Master, do not think about such unhappy things. Take that thing out,¡± Nailisi pointed at Saleen¡¯s demon ring.


    ¡°Do you understand this?¡± Saleen put away the receipts and badge and took out the demon magic book.


    Nailisi took the magic book and opened it, caressing the words on its pages. ¡°As I have said, I may be a small demon, but my blood is pure. Demonnguage¡­ it is not something that any demon can understand.¡±


    ¡°What is written in it?¡± Saleen was very concerned about the contents of the demon magic book.


    ¡°This is a diary.¡±


    ¡°A diary?¡± Saleen was disappointed. Had the demon who had written this book had problems? This was such a rare magic ingredient and it had used it as a diary?


    ¡°The owner of the demon was a powerful human. He brought it along to countless dimensions. At the fifth dimension, they stopped to find the me elf. Elves have elemental protection and survive like the gods of the warm abyss¡­¡±


    Saleen slowly quieted down, reading along with Nailisi and going into the story of this demon.


    Being different from every other human book that described demons, this demon magic book was a true reflection of the feelings of a certain demon. This demon had respected its master a great deal and had eaten anything that disrespected its master. During their travels through the various dimensions, the demon had transformed from abat warrior into a powerful mage and gained the ability to control the elements. Everything that it learned from the various dimensions was tranted to magic, and it created many unusual spells.


    However, the lifespans of humans were too short. A demon could survive for tens of thousands of years while a human could only survive for around three thousand years. So that its master could survive, the demon distorted the coordinates of the dimensions so they coulde to the fifth dimension.


    ¡°You mean humans can live for three thousand years?¡± Saleen was shocked. Why could humans now only live for hundreds of years? Even a sorcerer could not live for more than a thousand years.


    Nailisi did not bother replying to his question as she flipped through the ck pages of the magic book, exining the rest of its contents.


    me elves had survived in the lowest level of the abyss. In addition to the various living things within the abyss, fire elements protected them as well. Beneath the fire of the abyss, fire elements would never wither. The demon and the master had needed to separate temporarily and researched ways to deal with the Fire Magic. Different ways to counter fire magic were found, but this magic only had a temporary advantage in the abyss. Unless the abyss itself was destroyed, the fire elements would not bepletely destroyed.


    The demon crossed to other dimensions and collected arge amount of water elements, condensing them to create magic that had never been seen before. All of the water elements from that dimension were gathered andbined at the demon¡¯s side. The demon overlooked the entirety of the abyss, until all the water element in the dimension had dried up and formed argeet which crashed into the abyss.


    The huge impact caused the destruction of the abyss. The two dimensionsbined into one, and the me elves died.


    The chaotic elemental storm caused a mass extinction of all the living things in the two dimensions, and at the same time, destroyed the coordinates of the dimension. The human and his demon were trapped there and as time passed, the human started aging and dying a hundred times faster.


    The demon was distressed. After ten thousand years passed, the elemental storm stopped and the dimension¡¯s coordinates returned to normal. The demon came to the Myers Maind to search for any traces of its master.


    The Myers Maind had been cruel, and as the demon travelled across thend, he found that all traces of its master were gone.


    The gods were gone too and its master¡¯s soul was nowhere to be found. Revival became a longlost hope. Could it be that a demon should not have any faith? The depressed demon destroyed everything its master left behind. The only thing it kept was the first set of magic equipment its master had ever prepared for it.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a story,¡± Nailisi closed the book and said to Saleen.


    ¡°Did the book perhaps include anything rted to magic techniques?¡± Saleen did not want to talk about anything depressing and moreover, he could not understand the pain of the demon. Could a demon fall in love with a human? A human that had enved it?


    ¡°Yes, however you wouldn¡¯t be able to learn it.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a Grade 10 or above spell.¡±


    Saleen was truly disappointed. A Grade 10 spell could even be used to defend against the gods. Even the grand sorcerers would not be able to cast such magic. The Myers Maind of today was not the same as it had been before.


    ¡°However, you can still use this magic book. It can store six unlimited spells.¡± Nailisi closed the demon magic book.


    Unlimited spells referred to restorative spells that were not separated by their elemental types. At the same time, this magic book had no grade restrictions. Once a spell was used, it could still store another spell and would not form a fixed memory.


    Even though a magic book like this was harder to use and the number of spells it could store was considered little, for Saleen, it was enough.


    Other magic books could store eighteen spells but Saleen was only able to use three of them. Even if he had mastered the secrets of the elements, he could only activate spells consisting of water elements.


    In essence, even though Saleen had allowed his water element magic props to possess the properties of the other five elements, he had not mastered the magic of all six elements, but rather, only understood the meaning behind these magics.


    Understanding something was not equivalent to possessing it. Magic chords determined everything, and before ingesting the magic medicine, he had not expected that he would need to pay such a price. If he had not possessed the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne and used it to understand the rtionships between the elements, he would have forever remained as a Grade 3 mage who could never improve.


    Saleen was not exceptionally pleased. Whenever humans wanted to gain something, they needed to give up something of an equal price. Having gained the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne, he would definitely need to give up something in return. However, at this point in time, he had not yet figured out what he would need to give up. Even if he figured it out, he would not be able to turn back time. Unless he was content with being a normal mage forever?


    Saleen touched the Ring of Gifts. Thinking back to how he had obtained it, he still could not find anything amiss. cing a bet with Baron Minghui had been a spur of a moment decision. However, his experiences with it had been puzzling. This ring had actually led him to the temple that Nailisi had been trapped in.


    Saleen refused to believe that a goddess that had fallen tens of thousands of years ago would have any motives towards an orphan.


    What did someone like him have that was worth coveting?

 Chapter 104: A Hidden Disease (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 104: A Hidden Disease (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was so engrossed in his own world that he did not realize that the viscountess¡¯ homing had caused a huge stir in Holy Rock City.


    The Qin Emperor had struck the magic clock for the first time in ten years to wee his daughter home. The next day, the emperor announced that Lex De Grukos would be the first county queen in the history of the Qin Empire.


    The emperor had conferred a county queen before he had even appointed a crown prince, and this led to unrest among the nobles of the upper house. The Lon Duchy was going to be in chaos, and everyone knew this. In fact, Bitter Water Prefecture was not very far from Lon Duchy. If the Lon Duchy fell into chaos, Bitter Water Prefecture would have the right to capture it using military force and could even absorb the duchy into the Qin Empire.


    If the soldiers made their way into the neighboring duchies, Bitter Water Prefecture would be able to control thousands of miles ofnd, provided that their army was powerful enough. This would implicitly make the Bitter Water Prefecture a prototypical empire.


    The prince¡¯s health had never really been in its best condition and he had just recovered from a big illness. Although he enjoyed the support of many, it had all been due to the Qin Emperor. Now that the emperor was supporting his daughter in establishing a county, how many nobles would flock over from him to the viscountess?


    The prince¡¯s power would be weakened once Lex¡¯s power increased. Even though he would be the crown prince, the Qin Empire would still be split into two political factions.


    A county queen had the power to confer titles upon nobles, and this would cause many people to be tempted into joining and following Lex. When the viscountess had been born, the emperor had personally given her a masculine name which made many people uneasy. Now that the worries of the people wereing true, the atmosphere in the imperial capital would be tense.


    There were twenty avenues that spanned the empire¡¯s northern and southern areas. The fourth avenue closer to the eastern side had a magnificent building. This building had the style of the Fourth Dynasty with a mixture of brick and wood in its architecture. There were images of animals and birds carved onto the green bricks, just like a picture scroll.


    The walls of this house were not very tall, but they separated the house from the street. There was a stone pir at its front door. The stone pir had been weathered over a long period of time, yet it had not been fixed with magic. However, the ancient Qin words on the stone pir were still recognizable. There was no punctuation separating the words, making them appear like a long poem that could have been recited by a poet.


    The door was shut. On the door were ancient beast patterns painted in gold. The streets surrounding the house were abnormally quiet and empty, and there were no patrolling soldiers at all. Just outside the house was a colossal magical tower. This eight story tower was not concealed at all, and gave off an undeniable sense of majesty.


    This was the house of empire¡¯s prince. However, it was not a big deal that there was a magical tower with eight stories in the prince¡¯s house. After all, there was a thirty-nine story magical tower in the pce, so this could not be considered overdoing things.


    Usually, there would be many horses and carriages at the door as well as many guests. But ever since Viscountess Lex had returned to the imperial capital, Prince Safilos had shut his doors. He did not even host the lower house meetings anymore.


    No one could guess what Prince Safilos was trying to do, and nobody dared step foot near his house either. For three consecutive days, his doors remained shut, and his house grew more and more deserted. Then, a ck crow came flying towards the prince¡¯s house. When the crow passed the perimeter of the wall, it was as though it had gone through an invisible water barrier. There was a ripple in the air and the crow disappeared.


    There was ake in the park behind the house. There was a blue stone by theke, and on it a game of chess was being yed. There were two middle-aged men ying against each other while three young men spectated the game. The crow appeared right beside the blue stone, and the most handsome young man stretched out his hand and grabbed it. Then, the crow spit out a miniature scroll from its mouth.


    The game of chess was at its climax. The ck pieces which represented mages were trapped, while the red pieces were hot on their heels. The red pieces represented troops, and these troops were closing in on the king of the ck pieces.


    The middle-aged man controlling the ck pieces wore a long cotton robe, and there was not a single valuable essory on him. This man looked a little like the Qin Emperor, except that he was slightly younger and there was an air of arrogance between his eyebrows.


    The other middle-aged man in the game was dressed like a general, and he was much more handsome than his opponent. He had a short mustache and looked very determined. The two men were extremely engrossed in the game, and did not care about the letter that the young man had received.


    As the king piece of the ck side was about to be killed, the middle-aged man controlling the ck pieces suddenly moved a cannon piece and immediately eliminated a red piece. This red piece represented a pce swordsman.


    This move of retaliation had been devastating. If the red pieces tried to bring in reinforcements, the mages would be able to kill any troops that came close to the king.


    With a shove, the general with the short mustache messed up the chess pieces and said, ¡°In this game, the power of the mages is too strong. There¡¯s no fun in it.¡±


    ¡°No matter how strong they are, themander of these pieces are still the deciding factor between victory and defeat.¡±


    The general roared withughter and said, ¡°You are the prince, of course you can say that. I am just a general. On the battlefield, mages will always be the priority.¡±


    The man who had average looks and a long cotton robe was in fact the only prince of the Qin Empire, Safilos. He did not only look like the Qin Emperor, but his sense of fashion was also simr. Both of them did not like extravagance.


    ¡°That is of course, guaranteed. Magic is the bedrock of the empire. Vincent, tell me your thoughts on my elder brother.¡± Prince Safilos had changed the topic of their conversation. He had asked a question that would have stumped anyone, because the brother of the prince was the Qin Emperor.


    ¡°What is there to be said? Lex is also a member of the royal family. I cannot say anything.¡±


    ¡°Stanney is also a royal family member. Why are you distancing yourself from them now?¡± Safilos said as he pointed to the most handsome young man.


    Vincent looked at his own son, and said with a sigh, ¡°You also know that your younger sister is inclined towards His Majesty. I am not really in charge at home.¡±


    ¡°Stanney, what did the letter say?¡± Safilos did not continue with the conversation. Even though his brother-inw was a duke in the empire and led half of the empire¡¯s garrison troops, he did not dare point fingers at the emperor. All these things were domestic affairs. Safilos¡¯ sister had been against the emperor¡¯s decision to send away Lex all along, so Vincent could only avoid this topic or else there would be chaos in his household.


    ¡°Uncle, this is an urgent message from Lon.¡± Stanney was not only handsome, but he looked capable too. The two other young men beside him did not have an aura like him.


    ¡°Lon, aye. My brother is nning for Lex. Since he is establishing a county now, it may mean that he is going to reim thend of Lon already.¡±


    ¡°Father, the Holy See of the western side is going to dere war soon anyways. We should just let Lex do the job. It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± another young man who was also wearing a long cotton robe interrupted.


    Safilos looked at his own son without any expression. The atmosphere was a little tense. After a long while, he said, ¡°If you were only half as capable as Lex, would I be frustrated? The two of you¡­¡±


    Safilos could not continue talking. Even though he was extremely influential, he had no idea how to manage his sons. The blood rted royal members of the Qin Empire were already very scarce, so every single member was extremely precious. If the prince¡¯s two sons hade from an average family, they would have been considered talents. However, in the imperial family, they were too much to handle.


    The nature of a person¡¯s talents could not be changed. Safilos sighed, and said to Duke Vincent, ¡°My elder brother is using the issue of the crown prince to suppress me, and he is insistent on helping Lex establish her county. This is not a wise move. If the lower house objects and I suppress them by force, all these years of efforts will go down the drain. And, soldiers are going to be mobilized soon. My brother is just adding to the chaos by doing something like that.¡±


    When Safilos said those words, there was a hidden tinge of hatred in them. The prince was contributing to the country, but his two sons did not hold any important positions. The prince had not even once thought of seeding the emperor. However, as the emperor, his elder brother was making such an absurd decision simply because he wanted to pamper his daughter.


    But the prince had no solutions. If he became the emperor, the empire would surely be more chaotic.


    ¡°Uncle,¡± Stanney called out after amassing his courage. He could tell that his uncle¡¯s mood was worse than usual.


    ¡°Stanney, just say it. What does the letter say?¡±


    ¡°There was an assassination attempt on the Grand Duke of Lon, but his life is not in danger anymore. However, the situation on the border has already be unusually tense, and the Holy See will start the war during the autumn. The ck mages were not exterminated and they have destroyed more than ten towns so far. The Grand Duke is requesting assistance from the empire.¡±


    Safilos and Vincent looked at each other, unable to maintain their cool. Both of them stood up and Safilos said, ¡°Vincent, you will go back to the eastern town. I cannot hide from my brother anymore. There is something strange about this matter. There is only a small number of ck mages in Lon, but it is definitely not by chance that they are able to advance so quickly. If I continue staying here, my brother may have Lex lead the troops. No matter how smart she is, she will not be able to handle this situation.¡±


    ¡°Stanney, you will stay here and go with me to see His Majesty.¡± Prince Safilos stopped their unnecessary talks and left the park. He brought his soldiers and rushed to the pce in a carriage.


    Prince Safilos had every reason to be anxious. Lon was the barrier to the empire, and they had strong soldiers and good war horses. The fact that they had to ask for reinforcements showed just how dire the situation was.


    By this time, Saleen had left the pce. Viscountess Lex had changed into her magic robes and brought Saleen along with her to the southern part of the capital.


    ¡°Viscountess, where are we headed to?¡± Saleen felt very uneasy and unsafe without Sika and Nailisi by his side. Furthermore, the viscountess and him had snuck out secretly. If the emperor were to be angry, the one to be punished would certainly not be the viscountess.


    ¡°To see someone.¡± When the viscountess had changed into her magic robes, her appearance had returned to its original state. She was now a harmonious mage, without the airs of a royal family member and the dominance that she possessed when talking to a soldier.


    ¡°Viscountess¡­¡±


    ¡°Call me Lex, but only for now. Once we get back¡­¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± Saleen became depressed and fell silent.


    There was a sh of naivety in the viscountess¡¯s eyes, and she asked Saleen, ¡°Are you angry?¡±


    ¡°No, I just feel that rich and powerful people like yourself are very fickle.¡± Saleen was not afraid of offending Lex. She must have had something important in store for Saleen to have brought him into the imperial capital. So, she would not be angry just because Saleen had spoken the truth. She was a viscountess as well as a mage. There were no benefits to lying.


    ¡°It is not just people. In this world, everything is in a constant state of change.¡± The viscountess¡¯ answer sounded like a typical proverb a mage would say.


    The imperial capital was bustling. The further south they went, the more civilians they met, and there were shops everywhere. Nobody disturbed them as they walked on the streets in their magic robes.


    ¡°This ce is so nice. There were less people in the entirety of my hometown than the number of people on this street. Saleen stared at the crowds on the street, and felt that it was unreal. The feeling of solitude had disappeared, and in its ce was an inexplicable warmth. A book he had once read had said that humans were social beasts. Once they were separated from the herd, they would get depressed and might even die.


    ¡°We are going to get there soon. When you meet the master, remember not to spout nonsense.¡± Viscountess Lex led Saleen into an alley. The alley was sparkling clean, unlike the ones in Ceylon City which had stagnant water everywhere. There were huge trees on both sides of the alley. The trees provided shade, and whenever there was wind, they were unusually cooling.

 Chapter 105: A Hidden Disease (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 105: A Hidden Disease (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen nodded. He was very solemn, because the viscountess looked more pious than when she had gone to see her own teacher. Viscountess Lex was going to be promoted to Grade 6 very soon and yet she was in awe of the person they were going to meet, so Saleen needed to be respectful.


    Passing the shaded area, they came before a small door. There was a simple magic array painted onto the door. Lex rubbed her hand against the door, and signaled for Saleen to wait patiently.


    Not long after, footsteps could be heard and the door opened. A seven or eight year old child stood at the door, wearing a ridiculous robe. The robe was so long that it touched the ground. The child had an intelligent appearance to him and said cautiously, ¡°Can I help you?¡±


    Saleen was very embarrassed when he found out that the child was a high-level mage disciple.


    ¡°We are requesting an audience with Master Joey,¡± Viscountess Lex said without beating around the bush, handing over a letter at the same time.


    The child did not put away the letter and answered immediately, ¡°Follow me.¡±


    Saleen doubtfully followed the child through the courtyard and around a small building. Even though the backyard was not very big, there were two trees in the backyard. These two tree were flourishing with leaves, their roots intertwined with one another, and their bark dark green in color. Saleen swallowed his saliva, having recognized them as the god¡¯s mulberry tree and the ghost oak tree.


    The best possible magic staff could be created by using alchemy to fuse these two types of rare wood together.


    These trees must have been at least a thousand years old. Their values must have been astronomical. How could they be trees? They were more like two giant gold bars growing in the ground. Saleen had seen countless rare items in the pce, but they had all been dead. The two trees he had just seen were actual live magic materials.


    A magic staff that was made from materials like these could store at least two spells. If three hundred to five hundred staffs were made, then any mage could use them to wipe out an entire army.


    Saleen restrained himself from climbing up the tree and plucking two branches. No one in the entire capital would dare to create trouble in a backyard like this with these two extremely rare trees.


    ¡°Go in by yourself. I am busy with other matters.¡± The child pointed to the two story building in front of them and ran off in the other direction, dragging the long robe along with him.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t he afraid that we¡¯re imposters?¡± Saleen was bewildered.


    ¡°If we came here and caused trouble, we would never be able to walk out from this ce again.¡± Viscountess Lex gave Saleen a warning stare. Saleen quickly nodded, signaling that he understood the viscountess¡¯ words. It seemed like the person in this building was vicious. Be it getting lost or creating trouble, the oue for anyone would the same.


    The interior of the building was clean and simple. Before they could even go up the stairs, a young voice came from inside the building, ¡°Is that Lex? I am downstairs. You don¡¯t have to go up.¡±


    A door opened automatically. There was pure darkness inside, and Saleen could not feel the fluctuation of elements inside. The light stopped at the entrance and could not shine in anymore. Lex pulled on Saleen¡¯s sleeve and led the way into the darkness.


    Saleen was in awe when he saw that Dark Magic was being used to such an extent.


    After crossing the barrier of darkness, Saleen had entered a magicboratory. There were no metals in thisboratory, and only a stone table that was entirely carved out from a piece of nephrite was there. The table was very clean and tidy, and it resembled a restaurant table before any dishes were served. Aside from six pieces of carved magic arrays, there was nothing else on the table.


    A young man appeared in front of Lex and Saleen looking like a ghost. He had a slender build, long green hair, green eyes, and very fair skin. The hairs on his skin were also white, like ayer of snow.


    ¡°Lex, you¡¯re back. You sure are famous. Why did you onlye to see me after three days?¡± In that moment, Saleen realized that even though this man appeared young, his real age must have already been immeasurable. When Saleen had taken a look at that pair of green eyes, it was as though he had fallen into an illusionary space. Inside this space, time passed at lighting speed, and Saleen felt that his body was gradually losing its strength as though he had be old in that instant.


    ¡°Master!¡± Lex was in shock.


    ¡°I remember that you used to call me Joey when you were a child.¡±


    ¡°I was immature in the past,¡± Lex said in embarassment. When she saw that Saleen had snapped out of that illusion, she heaved a sigh of relief.


    ¡°So now you are mature? Why did you bring a dying person to me?¡± the mysterious Joey asked Lex, as he pointed at Saleen.


    ¡°What?!¡± Lex and Saleen eximed at the same time.


    ¡°If he stops practicing magic now and finds a ce to wait for death, he will be able to live another three to five years. But if he continues practicing, you might only be able to bring his corpse along with you when you return. Lex, are you going to ask me to make a puppet out of him? I am not very skilled in death magic.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s body stiffened. He would not have believed those words if they hade out of the mouths of other people. However, these words hade from Joey. Joey had nearly killed Saleen just by meeting his eyes, without even casting any magic.


    Saleen would always remember the line on the back of the bottle of the magic chord medicine ¨C the magic chord medicine can change the body of a mage disciple and produce special magic chords, but this nature defying method will cause the mage disciple to pay an unknown price. I hereby remind whoever takes this medicine that the price you pay will exceed whatever gains you get.


    The price you pay will exceed whatever gains you get! Could it be that death would be the price for obtaining his magic chords?


    ¡°Master, my teacher has also realized this problem in him. Please save him.¡± Lex quickly regained herposure. Before she hade here, she had already knwon about the problem with Saleen, but she did not think that the disease was already killing him. If Joey was willing to help, then Saleen could be saved, even if his soul had gone to another dimension.


    ¡°Your teacher is too kind. Why should I save him?¡±


    When Joey saw that Lex was speechless, he continued, ¡°This man is neither your friend nor your subordinate. If I exhaust my powers to save him, he will not even thank me. How about I just leave him to die?¡±


    Saleen calmed down. While thinking, he said, ¡°Master Joey, what price must I pay for you to help me?¡±


    ¡°Price?¡±


    Joey looked at Saleen curiously and said, ¡°When you chose to consume the magic chord medicine, did you think of the price you would pay?¡±


    Saleen grew dizzy, as though his heart had just been struck by a war hammer. Magic chord medicine! Joey knew about the secret of the magic chord medicine! Thest bit of the illusion had also disappeared. Joey was not bluffing.


    ¡°Master, I am from Sikeqinya. People from Sikeqinya believe that there is a price to pay for everything.¡± Saleen ignored the look Lex was giving him. Saleen had many things with him that would be extremely tempting to a mage. He did not believe that Master Joey would not be tempted.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care for that. Lex, chase him away. If he still doesn¡¯t go, I will do so myself,¡± Joey said coldly.


    Saleen ignored Joey¡¯s words. He simply took a magic pen from the rack beside the table and started drawing a magic array on the table. The magic array was drawn messily because Saleen had never systematically learned how to draw magic arrays before. Saleen had learned this magic array when he had been in the temple of the goddess. There were twenty-five magic arrays in total. Based on his memory, he could only draw it to this extent.


    Joey did not stop Saleen. Joey only stood there and watched as Saleen finished drawing the magic array. Then, he said, ¡°You may leave.¡±


    ¡°You must be thinking that once I am dead, you will be able to take everything, right? There are twenty-five magic arrays altogether. If you save me, then I will give you the original picture. But if you leave me to die, I will burn all twenty-five magic arrays. Of course, you can snatch them from me. I have them with me right now.¡±


    ¡°Snatch them from you?¡± Joeyughed, and continued, ¡°This is the most precious magic array I have ever seen in my life, but I will not save you. I am not saving you because it is unfair to your teacher. You must have consumed the magic chord medicine behind his back. It is a pity for your teacher to have a student like yourself.¡±


    Saleen frowned all the way to his eyebrows, and his expression became very bad. Jason was like a parent in Saleen¡¯s heart. Saleen had never revealed how he had felt out of fear that he would lose it. Joey¡¯s words had hurt his innermost hidden feelings. Saleen¡¯s face turned glum, and he said, ¡°I know you won¡¯t even bother to kill me, but please take your words back. You are insulting a great mage master.¡±


    ¡°In front of me, no one can be considered great and noble,¡± Joey disagreed. His youthful face looked so despicable. Saleen badly wanted to punch him and break his nose.


    ¡°I will remember your words until the day I die.¡± Saleen bowed respectfully, turned around, and left. There was despair in his heart. The sorcerer had discovered the hidden disease in him and had been unable to help, so he had Lex bring him to Joey. But it turned out that Joey could see through everything and was able to resist all sorts of temptations.


    In this world, there really were some things that could not be bought.


    From the beginning, Saleen had made mistakes. Producing the magic chord medicine behind his teacher¡¯s back, dealing with bandits, epting the bribe from the viscountess, and killing Earl Sufonso¡¯s son. His teacher had kept forgiving him, but he had chosen to escape.


    The price you will pay will exceed whatever gains you get. Saleen finally understood the meaning of this sentence. Many things could not be reversed. He had always been so selfish and had never spared a thought for others before. Had Sika¡¯s hometown managed to survive thest winter? Saleen had thought about this question many times, but he had never offered to help even once.


    Then it would be good for him to die, so that Sika would not have to follow him around and live a life on tenterhooks. However, he had still done his teacher wrong.


    Saleen was in tears as he walked towards the door. It was not because he was afraid of dying, but because he realized that he was so weak and cowardly.


    In front of the door was the barrier of darkness. Saleen took a step in to cross it, but he entered a room with no directions instead. This room had no light, and the intensity of the darkness was at its maximum.


    ¡°Master!¡± Lex saw Saleen suddenly freeze, and knew that Joey had cast a spell on him.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like him,¡± Joey said as he smiled. His green eyes no longer looked unfeeling.


    ¡°Everyone makes mistakes. I have investigated his past¡­¡±


    ¡°Is he very important?¡± Joey asked Lex as he waited for Lex¡¯s answer with the curiosity of a mage.


    Lex nced at the magic array drawn on the table and said, ¡°I am afraid so.¡±

 Chapter 106: Joey’s Tricks (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 106: Joey¡¯s Tricks (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    How important was Saleen? Before this, this question would have been very easy for Viscountess Lex to answer. However, she had been unbelievably shocked by the magic array that Saleen had drawn. She also knew of a magic array like this, and it did not matter how ugly Saleen had drawn it. She could see the simrities within.


    ¡°You want to know his secrets?¡± Joey asked straightforwardly.


    If Lex was willing, he could easily extract Saleen¡¯s memory even though it was not something he would usually do. However, if it was Lex¡¯s request, he could not care less about what he himself wanted.


    ¡°No, I only hope he survives. Master, do you believe in fate?¡± Lex asked.


    ¡°Fate is but an arrangement by the gods. Of course, that is nonsense,¡± Joey replied andughed.


    ¡°Yes. Since fate has nothing to do with the gods, I hope he survives.¡±


    ¡°Lex, you are as stubborn as your father.¡± Joey shook his head, theughter gone from his green eyes.


    ¡°Joey, both Saleen and I have our own small secrets. These secrets might end up changing the Myers Maind, or perhaps they are just an arrangement by the gods. However, I am a mage and to know the results I will need to find them out myself,¡± Lex said seriously, looking at the immobilized Saleen.


    Saleen had once been just an investment to her and it had not mattered whether there was anything to gain from him. However, things were different now. Saleen¡¯s secrets had atst caught her attention.


    ¡°For me it is nothing but a small matter, but for him, it is a matter of life and death. What do you request?¡± Joey halfheartedly granted Lex¡¯s request. Saving the life of a Grade 2 mage was a small matter in his eyes, but that did not mean he would go around saving just anyone.


    For a person to gain, they needed to lose. This was a principal for all mages. If Saleen wanted to live, he would need to sacrifice something.


    ¡°I still do not know. Just let him follow me for now. Some things cannot be forced.¡± Viscountess Lex suppressed her longings and said this nonchntly.


    Kindness was something that could backfire if it was repaid too early. Moreover, Saleen¡¯s teacher was too secretive, and if she went too far, it would not do the empire any good. If his teacher had managed to be friendly with a Grade 9 sorcerer, it would not be good to offend him.


    Sigh. If only those people from Alchemy City had listened to the royal dispatch. Would the empire still have been in conflict with the Holy See for this long? They would have attacked a long time ago.


    Saleen entered a borderless darkness. The Darkness Screen spell was an interesting spell, but it was not so much fun to enter it. The effect of this magic waspletely reliant on the user¡¯s motives. Moreover, this magic definitely demonstrated the difference between grades.


    Many spells did not have a fixed grade. For example, the Fireball spell could be cast as soon as a person was Grade 2. However, in Faerun¡¯s hands, the Fireball spell had constantly been upgraded. The fireballs that Faerun now released had the strength of a Grade 6 spell.


    The Darkness Screen spell was a spell that started at Grade 4. Saleen did not know what grade Joey was, but to be able to solve a problem that a Grade 8 sorcerer could not solve, he must have been at least Grade 8.


    A Grade 8 Darkness Screen spell had a much deeper meaning to it. Saleen had learned the Figaro form and could easily analyze the sequence of a Grade 1 spell, and could try analyzing a Grade 2 one. If he had enough time, he could even analyze Grade 3 magic. As for Grade 8 spells, if he started now and analyzed it until he died, he would perhaps be able to analyze the tip. He could not see, could not hear, and could not feel. Even with the sensation of having his senses stripped from him, Saleen was not flustered. If Joey had wanted to kill him, he had more than ten thousand ways of doing so. Moreover, this was not something he had not experienced before. When he had first used his family badge, he had not been able to feel anything but pain. Some things became easier after getting used to them.


    At least Saleen could still feel his existence now, particrly with his left hand. His magic chords and focus had not disappeared, and he tried releasing a Fluorescence spell.


    The magic was released sessfully but Saleen could not see any light.


    Elemental counteraction¡­


    This was a property of Dark Magic; any Light Magic would demonstrate the characteristics of elemental rejection. These two types of magic were hard to control and Saleen had only been able to read up about them using magic notes. Usually, mages interacted with the four basic types of magic: ground, water, wind, and fire.


    Within this magic radius, any elemental magic below Grade 7 would be counteracted. This magic was so simple. It suppressed any magic under its grade and left one powerless.


    The simplier it was, the harder it was to deal with. Even if Saleen had been a Grade 7 sorcerer in that instant, he could have only forced his way in and used a Grade 8 spell to destroy the Darkness Screen spell.


    What was someone to do in eternal darkness? Saleen did not know what others would do, but after experimenting with a Grade 0 spell, he slipped into deep thought.


    Everything that he had done since beginning to study magic flowed through his heart, and he realized that his goal had always been so insignificant. It was either to live or live slightly better. That was all.


    Inparison to him, everyone else was living a better life. His teacher had left his country of origin to go to a foreign city to train and find his future on his own, Baron Cook had wanted to restore his family¡¯s glory, Canghong had wanted to excavate ruins to be rich, the holy masters did not even need to be mentioned, and even the dead Loki had wanted to bring back a dragon¡¯s magic nucleus to make Lex happy.


    What were Viscountess Lex¡¯s ambitions? Saleen thought carefully and realized that he did not really know Lex.


    Viscountess Lex had nurtured so many mages and yet had not asked for anything in exchange aside from wanting them to protect Bitter Water Prefecture. However, this was not even truly a request to the mages. If BItter Water Prefecture were ever to be in danger, even without any promises, Saleen would help in battle.


    There were traces of his life there. The teachings of the sorcerer had held¡­ a little warmth to them. He had never seen Faerun as his teacher, but if someone were to hurt him, what would he do?


    If someday he discovered that he hated a life of travelled, it seemed that he had only two ces to settle down. One was Bitter Water Prefecture, and the other was Sika¡¯s vige.


    Sika, Sika¡­


    This Caucasus warrior had been silently supporting him, never leaving him alone. It did not matter if it had been bandit gangs, holy priests, or the white deacon. Sika¡¯s reaction had been to swing her cudgel and create opportunities for Saleen.


    Sika, I¡¯m not a priest. Don¡¯t fight so hard for me.


    Sika lowered her head and said softly, ¡°Yes chief.¡±


    Saleen became a little choked up as the past shed through his head, clear as day. If he were to die like this, would he have too many regrets? At the very least, he needed to repay the concern that Sika had shown him


    If he were to live, there were so many things that he would be able to do aside from causing trouble for Earl Sufonso.


    Saleen slowly calmed down. Had Joey not said that he could still live for another three years? He needed to sell his gemstones to help Sika¡¯s vige, help Lex expand her powers, and find his teacher and give him whatever he had obtained. As for Earl Sufonso? Whatever he had done had been under the influence of the Holy See to throw Sikeqinya and the Qin Empire into conflict. If the Holy See got their way, he would not be able to do anything about Earl Sufonso either. If they failed, even if Saleen did not exact revenge, things would not turn out well for Earl Sufonso anyways.


    Slowly bending his fingers, Saleen realized that he could still move his left hand. With that, he released two water shields between his hands. These two low-grade spells managed to stickpletely to his hands, unaffected by the magic of the darkness screen.


    Saleenughed. Who said he was not talented enough? He immediately thought of a way to destroy the darkness screen, taking out the family badge from the Ring of Gifts and holding it in his left hand. A Grade 0 Poison Detection spell was released and the surrounding darkness elements rushed rapidly into the badge.


    Boom¡­


    Saleen fell with a loud thud onto the floor. The Darkness Screen spell had disappeared. Without the bnce of the elements, the Grade 8 spell could not sustain itself.


    Even Joey was shocked. Saleen had managed to break down the Darkness Screen spell. This was impossible. Being a Grade 2 mage, even if he possessed any godly equipment, he would not be able to use it. This was a rule.


    Saleenid on the ground. His left hand had almost fractured under his weight and his nose hurt terribly. However,pared to the pain caused by the badge, this was nothing.


    ¡°Lex, since you have requested it, I will save him. However, that depends on whether he is willing to ept the terms,¡± Joey said intentionally, finding it amusing too. It had been a while since he hade across such a peculiar low-grade mage. Anyone who came to find him was usually respectful and did not dare to say a word.


    Perhaps ten years back, had there been someone? He seemed to have been killed by him. The Darkness Screen spell could hurt someone if they were trapped inside of it for too long, as their life force would be sucked outpletely. This little mage might have been at the worst point of his life, and yet his will to live had not been sucked out. He did not know what Saleen had used to get out of the darkness screen.


    Once Joey was interested in something, he naturally would not let it go. He had already decided what he wanted to request. This little mage had much research value¡­


    Saleen had thought he was doomed. He had no idea that he had be a subject of Joey¡¯s research. Lying on the ground, he was looking a little shabby. However, he could not control his body and could only stay in a fixed position, waiting for the negative effects to disappear.


    Fortunately, Lex had a heart and she helped him up. Joey did not stop her, allowing her to carry Saleen to the stone tform.


    ¡°Lex, I have created a set of magic equipment. Go change into it and see how it looks.¡± Joey did not immediately attend to Saleen. Seeing the badge in Saleen¡¯s hands, he had a vague idea of how Saleen had managed to escape. Something was amiss. In the darkness screen, a Grade 2 mage had been able to use the powers of his equipment?


    ¡°Yes.¡± Lex took the ring from Joey¡¯s hands. Naturally, the equipment was inside.


    Seeing Lex leave theboratory, Joey walked over to the tform to look at Saleen. Saleen was calm, able to understand the passionate gaze from Joey. It was the same way Faerun had looked when he had been dismembering the enemy¡¯s corpse. However, his muscles were out of control and being calm was the only expression he could manage.


    Joey casually released a Grade 7 spell: Magic Liquid.


    The blue liquid entered Saleen through his body¡¯s surface, rapidly removing the negative effects. This was the first time since Saleen had used the badge that he had recovered so rapidly, yet he was not particrly happy. It seemed like magic liquid could immediately end such negative effects. Grade 7 magic was too far away.


    ¡°I can save you, but I have three requests in exchange,¡± Joey said to Saleen who was lying on the tform. Saleen was motionless, having a look of helplessness about him.

 Chapter 107: Joey’s Tricks (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 107: Joey¡¯s Tricks (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    For many people, in order to survive, they would stoop to underhand means. Saleen had once approved of such ways as well. However, in the present, he would not use some methods no matter what they obtained.


    ¡°Let me hear them.¡± Saleen sat up, realizing his whole body was weak. This stone tform had a strange power. It could control everything about him. Aside from opening his mouth to speak now, he could not do anything, even with his left hand.


    ¡°Lex had me save you, so the first rule is that if you survive, you will need to follow her for three years and listen to her instructions.¡±


    ¡°That is fair. What about the second one?¡±


    ¡°This is the first time I am saving someone who has taken magic chord medicine. I have no idea what your future holds. When you be a Grade 5 mage,e back and let me take a look.¡±


    ¡°You mean you want to analyze the results of the experiment? That is fair too. I will return.¡±


    ¡°Thest request¡­ I haven¡¯t thought of it yet.¡±


    Saleen looked at Joey¡¯s green eyes and said, ¡°Master, I am very grateful; however, my terms of exchange will not involve anybody by my side.¡±


    ¡°That will be good.¡± Joey was not frustrated as he said, ¡°Let¡¯s begin then.¡±


    Without giving Saleen a chance to protest, the six magic arrays on the stone tform were activated at the same time. The elemental energy seemed to be substantial as it threw Saleen into midair. Joey pressed his hand onto Saleen¡¯s forehead, and an unexinable energy flowed into his body.


    This energy easily controlled every part of Saleen¡¯s body. The torrent of elements shot into the air and entered Saleen¡¯s body, repeatedly washing it.


    Saleen already understood that a human¡¯s body was made up of the six basic elements. The elements that were shot out from Joey¡¯s magic array washed away the other five elements in his body, leaving only the water element behind.


    This process was nearly painless, but it left Saleen shocked. If he was left with only water elements, did not that leave him with an elemental life? Having listened to Nailisi recount the story in the demon magic book, Saleen knew that elemental lives existed. Pure elemental beings had powers simr to those of a god. However, he doubted that Joey had the powers to transform him into such an oddity. If he only had water elements in him, was he still human?


    The secretive powers that Joey had sent into Saleen¡¯s body were beginning to change. Water elements were recing the other five elements that Saleen had lost, and were modelling after the qualities of those elements. Saleen¡¯s clothes and magic equipment floated into the air, circling around the tform.


    Saleen felt some resistance from Joey. How many magic chords did it take topletely change someone? The torrent of elements from the magic arrays would not stop, but Joey¡¯s powers were finite.


    Joey was slightly shocked as well. He had imagined this transformation to be something simple, but Saleen¡¯s left hand seemed to be absorbing water elements at an absurd rate, almost as if it were a ck hole. He needed to control the bnce and prevent Saleen from transforming into a body of pure water elements.


    That would break thews of the world, and Joey did not know what would happen from that. His long green hair began to fly around, the torrent of elements from the stone tform splitting into half and flowing into his body. Elemental energy was transformed by him before being sent into Saleen¡¯s body, controlling the bnce within Saleen¡¯s left hand.


    Saleen did not lose control of his focus. He voluntarily helped Joey with the elemental transformation process. If he had relied solely on himself, he would not even have been able to transform a finger after a century of work. Joey was acting as a guide for Saleen to follow. Now that Saleen¡¯s body had the guidance of Joey, it underwent a three hundred and sixty degree change.


    Water elements flowed in, recing the other five elements and slowly changing his body¡¯s properties. Saleen¡¯s bones, muscles, organs, and nerves. They were all transformed.


    Finally, Saleen felt a crashing sensation as a miracle appeared before him, just like the day his magic chords had been formed. He saw the inside of his body, the blue magic chords appearing like the branches of a nt. The pure water elements were washing them, making them even purer.


    Magic chords formed through medicine were naturally weirdly shaped. After this transformation, their size had not reduced, but they had be more brightly lit and vibrant. The branches of the magic chords had gradually bnced. They had used to be able to influence the vibrations of the other five elements, but now they had changedpletely.


    Saleen could feel the surrounding water elements. It was different from before, and he could only use the magic chords within him to activate magic. This was something that only a grand mage could do.


    If Saleen had been at the peak of a Grade 3 mage, he would have definitely been promoted to Grade 4 now. It was a pity that his magic chords only grew through his own training. Joey could only clear the impurities within his magic chords, and he could not help him grow them. The improvement of magic knowledge could not rece everything.


    The transformation of the water elements became faster. Even though Joey was surprised that Saleen was helping him, he did not slow down. The entire room was filled with the torrent of elements. Without the darkness screen, the entire wooden tower would have copsed.


    Saleen gathered his energy to feel the transformation of the elements. The different changes of the water elements were locked into his memories, unable to be erased. If he had not understood the theory behind this beforehand, Saleen would only have gained more time in his life. Now, he had a better understanding of the various forms of the water element.


    Bam!


    Saleen fell heavily onto the stone tform. He did not even realize that his transformation wasplete.


    Joey saw Saleen¡¯s dazed look and did not disturb him. He knew that Saleen had grasped too many things, and if he interrupted him now, he might lose this opportunity. A mage¡¯s understanding was something that was very precious.


    Saleen sat up in a sh, an ice bomb in his hand. The ice bomb instantly evaporated, and still in ball form, it was shot forward. Just as this evaporated ice ball left Saleen¡¯s hand, it exploded, forming a fireball.


    Saleen was shocked. He could not control this fireball. He had not expected his first try to be a sess. If he destroyed anything, Joey would definitely want him to pay.


    Joey waved his hands and the fireball disappeared from the air. The temperature did not rise at all.


    ¡°Not bad. You have the wisdom of a grand mage and you understand the secrets of a sorcerer. Your teacher is impressive.¡± Joey gave a rarepliment.


    He was a little surprised. A Grade 2 mage had actually been able to understand the workings of elemental transformation during his healing process. With a gift like this, bing a sorcerer was a given. For him to have reached such a standard, Saleen¡¯s teacher must be an impressive mage.


    For a mage without any lineage, even if they had slowed down this process by ten thousand times, the mage would not have been able to grasp anything within such a short span of time. Saleen¡¯s foundational knowledge was both immense and strong. That was how he had been able to seize this momentary opportunity.


    Too many mages spent the rest of their lifes at Grade 3 because they did not have the right person guiding them.


    Joey had no idea that Jason had not given Saleen much guidance. However, Saleen had treated Jason like a god, remembering every single one of his words. This had helped guide him in the right direction. On the path to learning magic, Saleen had almost never strayed.


    Every time he grasped something, Saleen would recall Jason¡¯s views towards that type of knowledge and refine it. This attitude was something that other disciples did not possess. If Jason had been a normal mage, Saleen might never have gotten a chance to promote in his entire life. Luckily, Jason might have only been Grade 5, but he possessed an unimaginably powerful lineage.


    All humans held biased opinions towards things. Many people had not understood the views of their teachers and had tried to achieve breakthroughs on their own. Saleen had not done that from the start, as he trusted Jason too much.


    Seeing Joey casually dissipate his fireball, Saleen was a little embarrassed. He put on his shirt and came down from the stone tform. His left hand was a little strange. Joey must have known something by now, but this was not a big deal. Compared to his life, secrets did not matter. With Joey¡¯s status, he could not force him to do anything either. Saleenforted himself.


    Joey was certainly interested in Saleen¡¯s left hand, but just as Saleen had thought, he did not dare force anything upon him. Anyway, Saleen woulde looking for him after he was promoted to Grade 5. If Saleen did note back then, Joey would have reason to forcefully take him back and experiment on him.


    A Grade 5 mage¡¯s power was nothing in Joey¡¯s eyes.


    This transformation had been a losing deal for Joey. Saleen¡¯s left hand had absorbed more than ten times the amount of energy he had expected. Saleen did not dare mention anything either as he stood in front of Joey, not knowing what to say.


    Joey was perplexed as well, but just then Lex returned to theboratory, having changed into her equipment.


    She was wearing another set of colorful mage robes on her. It was made of thin material that seemed to dance in the wind. Even though it was colorful, the colors were muted and did not have any elegant feel to them. The cor and sleeves had foreign magic symbols on them, giving the entire magic robe a sense of bnce, and the elements were unusually stable.


    Saleen was immediately attracted to this set of magic robes.


    A normal magic robe would increase the strength of magic abilities while stabilizing the elements. This set, however, strived only forplete bnce. These colors represented the six types of elements.


    Wearing a magic robe like this, one would not need to worry about the elements in their body losing bnce, and did not need to worry about an enemy¡¯s control magic. This was simr to demon equipment. If an enemy was not much stronger than a person, then they would not be able to influence the person¡¯s magic in any way.


    Saleen had not been able to cast any magic within the darkness screen due to therge difference in grade between him and Joey. If he had not possessed some elemental energy within his left hand to move a Grade 0 spell around, he would not have been able to use the badge to escape. Moreover, Joey had possessed no ns to kill him. Otherwise, even if he had managed to escape, he would have been helpless.


    ¡°How does it feel?¡± Joey asked Lex.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ extraordinary.¡± Lex was even more shocked than Saleen. She had never imagined that a set of magic robes would allow her body to be so stable within the elemental space. This stability would allow for no mistakes in her magic.


    If the magic would not miss, it did not matter how strong it was. For magic, uracy was everything. In any case, Joey had given her a ring that could amplify the strengths of magic as well. Lex did not try it out, but she could feel that this ring could enhance her abilities by up to ten percent.


    This amount might have seemed small, but if it did not require any magic nuclei or the iying of gemstones, it was scary enough on its own. Moreover, this ring itself was a spatial equipment, the best that Lex owned.


    Stable!


    The magic props that Joey created possessed only one unique point, and that was their unusual stability. They would not cause any fluctuations under any conditions. Lex knew what that meant. Joey might have already broken the limits of his grade and was already at Grade 10.


    ¡°Lex, do you like my gift?¡± Joey asked with augh. He had prepared these few items after spending over a decade creating them. Many materials required patience to process. For example, this magic robe had made use of silk from silkworms that he had reared himself, consuming the leaves from the trees outside.


    Even if others possessed simr processing techniques, they did not have such materials with them. Those who did have such materials did not have his skills.

 Chapter 108: Not Evil (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 108: Not Evil (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex did not bother hiding her happiness, and said, ¡°I like it. It¡¯s just that I find this robe a little too conspicuous.¡±


    ¡°As long as you like it, you don¡¯t need to care about what others think. Lex, you may be the youngest sorcerer in the empire. You must get used to being different from the rest,¡± Joey said in an old-fashioned tonepletely unlike his youthful appearance.


    ¡°Alright, but I have to go back now. My father is going to a meeting and I have to be there too.¡± Lex became a little frustrated when she thought of the issue of establishing the county. She did not want to agree to it, but if she did not, then the Cloudflow Empire ambassador was likely to ask for her hand in marriage when he arrived. Then, things would get extremely awkward for her.


    Sacrificing her entire life for the empire? Lex had not thought about that before. As a mage, it would be very pathetic of her if she could not control her own destiny.


    ¡°You should go back. Saleen will follow you for three years. If there¡¯s anything you need, just say the word and have him do it for you.¡± Joey stared at Saleen through his green eyes, causing goosebumps to raise in Saleen¡¯s heart.


    ¡°Master, I will remember these promises.¡± Saleen quickly gave a bow and started to leave.


    ¡°Wait.¡± Joey took out a book, and said to Saleen, ¡°Since you have started to understand the logic behind element conversion, you should be able to understand this book. However¡­¡±


    Saleen understood what Joey wanted to say. He took out a gem the size of a fist and said, ¡°This is to thank you.¡±


    Joey nodded his head in satisfaction. The gem Saleen was giving him was extremely precious even though its value was notparable with that of the book. However, this gem was still a rare item. If Saleen wanted his book, then Saleen needed to pay an appropriate price for it.


    Joey epted the gem, handed the book to Saleen, and said, ¡°Remember toe back. Otherwise, I will go and look for you.¡±


    ¡°Got it,¡± Saleen answered weakly, and left Joey¡¯s house with Lex. Joey saw them leave, and fiddled with the precious gem that Saleen had given him in his hands.


    It was a piece of high-quality amethyst, and its cutting had beenpleted. Amethyst was not elemental and could be used to support prophecy spells. Mages were not good at prophecies, and only mages who were Grade 9 and above would be marginally involved in them. But a non-elemental crystal was extremely precious since it could contain the power of any type of magic.


    Amethyst could also contain divine power, just like chlorite. The Holy See described it as the rock of taboo. If one held amethyst in the Tanggsi Empire, they would immediately be captured and put on trial before the inquisition.


    Saleen followed Lex through the barrier of darkness, and this time there were no obstacles. There was no one in the courtyard. The two trees covered much of the daylight, causing the sun to lose its majesty.


    ¡°Viscountess, for this tree, may I¡­¡± Saleen looked at the two trees and was filled with envy.


    ¡°You want a magic staff?¡± Lex looked at Saleen. They had just left the building and he already had the audacity to ask such a thing?


    ¡°What a pity.¡± Saleen looked at the towering trees. He mentally calcted the amount of materials he could obtain from them.


    ¡°The next time youe, the master will give you one.¡± Saleen could not understand what Lex had just said. Such a valuable gift? Joey did not look so stupid to him.


    ¡°The master likes people who keep their promises,¡± Lex exined.


    Saleen mumbled in his heart. No wonder he had needed to exchange the amethyst for the book. It seemed like he had given Joey the wrong gem. Amethyst was indeed very rare, but at least Saleen still had two more with him.


    The two of them walked to the outside of the courtyard. Then Saleen said, ¡°Viscountess, the master had me follow you for three years, but there is something I need toplete as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Say it.¡±


    ¡°I would like to send some money to Sika¡¯s hometown, but I am afraid of running into the underlings of the Holy See.¡±


    Lexughed and asked, ¡°You like that female warrior a lot?¡±


    Saleen thought about it. He answered seriously, ¡°Sika is a trustworthy person, just like my teacher.¡±


    ¡°How much do you n to give them?¡±


    ¡°Sixty thousand gold pieces. That is all I currently have.¡±


    ¡°The viges in Caucasus will not be able to use so many gold pieces. I will help you change some into food and metals. They have their own smelters, so they will be able to build weapons for themselves.¡± Lex thought of a more wholesome n than Saleen had.


    ¡°Thank you very much.¡±


    ¡°Why thank me? You still have to follow me for three years. I have to help you solve your problems so that you can do my bidding.¡± Lex held a straight face while Saleen roared withughter. Saleen felt closer to Lex when she said that. If the viscountess had really wanted tomand the mages, there were many who would have done her bidding, but she had never done so before.


    ¡°Saleen, you sure had guts just now.¡± Lex did not allow Saleen to continueughing and said, ¡°I have already tried to stop you from talking. If I had insisted on asking Joey to save you, he would have eventually done it even if he didn¡¯t like you.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mouth twitched. He had originally wanted to say that he did not want to owe her too many favors, but he could not say that anymore, because he already owed her a huge number of favors and did not know when he would be able to finish repaying them. Instead, Saleen said, ¡°I was going to die anyway. He was the glorious lord who descended, so it would have been the same to me.¡±


    When they arrived at the courtyard in the front, the small child suddenly appeared. He sent Lex and Saleen off cheerily and closed the door behind them. When Saleen entered the alley once more, he was introspective. He had experienced life and death after entering and exiting through that door.


    Lex was in an upbeat mood. The ring that Joey had given her contained many items that she had needed. Items such as magic nuclei, gold pieces,bat equipment, and materials for refining magic armor.


    Joey must have heard that she was going to establish a county, so he had prepared so many items.


    Since things hade to this, she did not need to worry so much anymore. With the support of her teacher, Joey, and her father, she could just go ahead and establish her county. If war really started, she could take some of the burden off of her father¡¯s shoulders as well. However, Saleen was still overly cautious, and it seemed very difficult to get him to reveal his secrets. It was a sticky situation.


    ¡°Viscountess, are you familiar with the weapons of the Deep Forest? Saleen had suddenly thought of Aini while walking beside Lex. Saleen had wanted to keep a distance from a person like Aini, and had not wanted to get too close nor offend him. But now, he felt differently. At the very least, Aini had treated him well, so he wanted to show some concern.


    ¡°You want information on Aini?¡± Lex knew about Saleen¡¯s experiences, so she got straight to the point.


    ¡°Yes, when we split up, he was still at the standard of a disciple. I am afraid¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush these things. I had already nned to meet with the Clyde family when I finished with my affairs. By then, you will be able to represent the Bitter Water Prefecture and deal with them, and you will have plenty of opportunities to interact with Aini.¡±


    ¡°I will represent the Bitter Water Prefecture?¡± Saleen was shocked.


    ¡°Of course, you are a mage. You need to be able to handle matters alone. Do you think I let you follow me just because Ick runners? You are from Sikeqinya, so you should be talented in business, right?¡±


    Saleen smiled astringently because he had not received such affection before. Could his experience as a child beggar be counted as business experience? That being said, people from Sikeqinya had an intrinsic insistence, being the insistence towards contracts. If Lex asked Saleen to help her conduct business, he would definitely not steal any money from her.


    The business reputation of the Sikeqinya Empire was the best in the world. It even exceeded the reputation of the country.


    As the two of them spoke, they exited the alley and arrived at the main road. There was a convoy of carriagesing from the right, causing people walking on both sides of the road to dodge to one side. This convoy consisted of about fifty people, and possessed ceremonial beauty. Leading the convoy were two swordsmen. One of them wore golden armor which blinded people¡¯s eyes beneath the sun.


    Lex frowned, and said, ¡°Which family is this? To fancy galloping around the imperial capital, they must be tired of living.¡±


    The convoy had passed and Lex spoke very softly, so they could not have heard anything at all. But after moving for a certain distance, the convoy stopped. Two swordsmen in golden armors rode over on horseback and stopped in front of Viscountess Lex. They pointed their whips at Saleen and said, ¡°This mage shalle over. Our master wishes to speak to you.¡±


    Lex was expressionless while Saleen fumed. Wasn¡¯t the security in the imperial capital a little too lousy? Where had these guyse from, and how dare they point their fingers at the emperor¡¯s daughter? These two guys were in trouble. But, Saleen had just promised Joey that he would help the viscountess, so for now he needed to step forward and speak up for her.


    No matter how Saleen thought about it, he found it very abrupt. Thus, his temper became quite bad and he said, ¡°Ask your master to scram. This is Holy Rock City.¡±


    The swordsmen became furious when they heard that. Their murderous auras suddenly exploded, and they advanced towards Saleen.


    Saleen looked at them coldly, and said, ¡°I can guarantee that whoever has the guts to kill me will not leave Holy Rock City alive.¡±


    Saleen told them this in a ferocious and ruthless manner, venting all his anger on the two swordsmen. Saleen was right. If anyone dared to attack Lex, the Qin Emperor would absolutely shred them to pieces.


    The two swordsmen in golden armor sneered. They set aside their horse whips and drew two long slim knives. They shed their knives twice into the air and said, ¡°We shall see if a tiny mage like you can really make the things you¡¯ve just saide true.¡±


    Saleen had not expected the two men to really take action inside of Holy Rock City. Judging by the way they were dressed, they must have been mid-grade swordmasters. If Sika had been beside him, he would have had the confidence to be able to finish them off within ten seconds. But now, Viscountess Lex would have to fight. He truly was not suitable to be someone¡¯s underling. A single sentence had caused the simple conflict to escte.


    But Viscountess Lex actually felt that Saleen had put those words across nicely. This was Holy Rock City, and she was the emperor¡¯s daughter. The way the two swordsmen had behaved was sufficient for the emperor to give them both death sentences. It was their master¡¯s fault for not taking them into hand, since that was why the two swordsmen had dared to act wildly. Ten years had passed. Could all the nobles in the imperial capital be behaving like that now?


    ¡°The two of youe back,¡± a youthful voice came from within the horse carriage. When the two swordsmen heard that, they lowered their knives. Then they crisscrossed in front of Saleen and Lex, and rode on their horses back over to their master.


    Viscountess Lex frowned. These two swordsmen were obviously from the army, given their styles and the issued equipment from the imperial capital. It was likely that a person from the upper house was in charge of them. How could a noble from the upper house be so ostentatious? Someone was bound to get a hold on him sooner orter.


    Just as Lex and Saleen were leaving, the carriage doors opened. A young nobleman stepped out slowly and walked towards them. This young nobleman was about twenty years old, tall and fit. He had golden hair, and a red headband had been used to tie the hair together. He did not wear a hat. In between his high nose was a pair of dark brown eyes, and a smile that had a tinge of arrogance.


    ¡°Please stay.¡± Viscountess Lex became less angry when she heard the nobleman speak. He was not from the imperial capital. Even though he tried very hard to speak authentic Qinnguage, his words sounded very old-fashioned.

 Chapter 109: Not Evil (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 109: Not Evil (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Some short sentences in Qinnguage tended to have dragging, euphemistic endings. However, this young nobleman said them with a rigid manner and ended the sentences abruptly. It was obvious that this nobleman was from some faraway ce.


    Saleen was helpless, so he simply continued the conversation and asked, ¡°What is it?¡±


    He did not want to be entangled with the nobleman any further. The entire convoy looked like they were from a foreignnd. They might not have known the rules here, so it was possible that they would start a fight at anytime. If only Joey had been here here, he could have simply cast a Grade 9 spell. These foreigners might have been so frightened by it that they would have pissed their pants. The young nobleman had azy tone but he was not in a bad mood. Instead, he walked over enthusiastically.


    Saleen saw that the nobleman was running towards Viscountess Lex, so he quickly cast a Fog of Confusion with a small radius in order to separate the nobleman and Lex.


    Saleen had cast the spell too quickly. This caused the mages in the convoy to notice the elemental fluctuations and made them anxious. Then, over ten fireballs flew over. The nobleman simply waved his hand and extinguished all these fireballs while they were in midair. Saleen¡¯s eyes were a bit pained so he blinked forcefully. However, he just could not figure out how that nobleman had extinguished all those fireballs.


    If he had not experienced the torrent of elements from Joey, Saleen would have been hurt by the fireballs. But now, his horizons had broadened. The fireballs were only Grade 2 magic. When he became a sorcerer, he would also be able to dispel them.


    The nobleman was d in silk just like an actor. It was very messy and degrading to a mage. Saleen felt very repulsed upon seeing that nobleman. So, he took a step to the side and blocked the path of the nobleman.


    Saleen thought that as long as he was fighting a mage, his unarmedbat would definitely surpass them. No mage would waste their time on martial arts. Since Saleen had been beaten since he was young, he was not afraid of being hit at close range.


    ¡°Ey? Why are you blocking my way!¡± the nobleman asked in shock. It seemed like the nobleman had only now discovered Saleen¡¯s existence.


    Saleen was beyond angry. He had thought that nothing would go awry when he had snuck out of the pce with Lex, since the people in the capital were allw abiding citizens. He had never expected to meet with a foreigner. Saleen¡¯s hometown had been ruined by foreigners. He could not act on impulse now. He needed to be cautious. The emperor would definitely protect the viscountess, but he might not protect Saleen.


    Lex was amused. She had not asked Saleen to be her sidekick, but now Saleen was faithfully blocking the nobleman from her, like a fighter.


    The Fog of Confusion was very intense. Lex could not see the convoy at all. Saleen¡¯s magic control was truly amazing. He was already at the standard of a mage master. This area magic had been turned into a single magic. Saleen had used Lex as the target so the Fog of Confusion would move with her, and the area of effect was less than five feet in radius.


    ¡°You asked the two of us to stay. I am one of the two,¡± Saleen replied while pointing to his nose.


    The nobleman pped his head and looked like he had a moment of realization. ¡°Yes, it must be you. I want to speak to the female mage. Make way please.¡±


    ¡°The female mage doesn¡¯t want to speak to you. Please go back.¡± Saleen¡¯s reply had been like a poem recited in the pce. His answer was neat, but was not euphemistic at all.


    ¡°What right do you have to speak for another mage!¡± the nobleman roared. He was annoyed as Saleen had blocked his way multiple times. If that nobleman had been in his own country, he would have asked his underlings to beat Saleen up long ago.


    ¡°And what right do you have to make two mages stay behind?¡± Saleen simply replied, feeling a little frustrated. He had not even learned thews of the Qin Empire, so he did not know how to resolve these matters properly. But he knew that Viscountess Lex did not want to talk to him, otherwise she would have stopped him long ago.


    ¡°Hmph!¡± The nobleman breathed loudly through his nose, and stared ferociously at Saleen. Then the nobleman said, ¡°Mage, state your name, and let me have a duel with you.¡±


    Pu¡­


    Saleen burst outughing, causing saliva tond on the nobleman¡¯s face. ¡°The imperial capital forbids duels. Look, there are peopleing this way. If you want to create trouble, please find out more about thews in this city.¡±


    Saleen pointed at the other side of the main road, where a team of patrolling soldiers was making their way over.


    ¡°Mm, this tiny mage. You don¡¯t even dare tell me your name?¡± The nobleman was truly furious now. Saleen could feel his murderous aura.


    ¡°Sorry, I don¡¯t know you at all. If you love duels, you can go to the Tanggsi Empire. There¡¯s a colosseum there.¡± Saleen was very sensitive to murderous auras. He then turned and walked into the Fog of Confusion. He pulled on Lex¡¯s sleeve, and the two of them walked away from the nobleman in the opposite direction. The nobleman very much wanted to catch up to them, but he saw the soldiersing over to interrogate him and could not do anything.


    The nobleman had found out that the magic robe Viscountess Lex was wearing was special, so he had wanted to buy it for arge amount of money. However, the tiny mage had just had to spoil everything. In his heart, the robe was worth at least five hundred thousand gold pieces. He would have offered Viscountess Lex eight million gold pieces, and she would have definitely sold it to him.


    The nobleman turned around and walked towards his own carriage, thinking in his heart that the female mage had such outstanding looks and her magic robe was so conspicuous that it would not be hard to find her. When he saw her again, he would buy that robe at all costs. As for that tiny mage¡­ if he had the chance to meet him again, he would definitely make his life difficult.


    The patrolling soldiers were stopped by the convoy¡¯s swordsmen. The nobleman had entered his carriage and did not interact with the soldiers. Themander of the patrolling soldiers had not seen anybody causing trouble, and he also did not want to offend the nobles. Hence, themander only made sure that the convoy went far away before continuing on his patrol.


    Lex and Saleen had escaped that sticky situation. Saleen then asked, ¡°Viscountess, did not you say that the imperial capital was very safe? Those two men in golden shells actually wanted to hit you. You should find some people to teach them a lesson.¡±


    Saleen was not trying to bully others simply because he had the viscountess¡¯ backing. It was just that he had felt the murderous auras from those men and had immediately thought of retaliation.


    ¡°That was the envoy. Let¡¯s get back to the pce quickly.¡± Viscountess Lex did not look too good.


    ¡°Envoy?¡±


    ¡°From the Cloudflow Empire. Actually, it should have taken them six months to arrive. I don¡¯t know why they¡¯re here so early. They must have used the teleportation portal. It was just because there were so few of them that I couldn¡¯t tell from the start.¡±


    As Lex exined this to Saleen, she was vexed. She did not know why the Cloudflow Empire¡¯s convoy was in such a rush to meet with her father, because there was a huge price to pay for using the teleportation portal, especially when teleporting live humans. Each person entering the portal required six pieces of giant magic nuclei, and each piece cost up to tens of thousands of gold coins.


    There were about fifty people in the convoy just now. It would have been impossible to send them all here using the teleportation portal. This meant that the Cloudflow Empire had nned this movement long ago.


    When Viscountess Lex got back to the pce, there was a messenger who came immediately, saying that the emperor wanted to meet the viscountess. Lex did not go back to her residence. She went straight to the emperor¡¯s residence with Saleen. This time, the Qin Emperor was waiting in his study.


    ¡°Father.¡±


    The Qin Emperor took a look at Saleen and frowned.


    Lexughed and said, ¡°If I establish a county, then Saleen will belong to the Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    ¡°The envoy from the Cloudflow Empire is in the imperial capital now.¡± Aside from the emperor, Saleen, and Lex, there were a few pce swordsmen in the study room. Their auras werepletely concealed, and even Saleen could not figure out what powers they truly possessed.


    ¡°Saleen and I have met him. The envoy even stopped me¡­¡±


    ¡°Did you all get into a conflict?¡± the emperor asked nervously.


    ¡°No, he had self-control.¡±


    ¡°Mm, that¡¯s good. War has erupted in Lon, and Safilos has requested for the empire to send help. Even though the empire¡¯s strength is not just for show, I cannot allocate more troops to you. To establish a county, you need to improve and organize all of your equipment. You¡­¡±


    ¡°Father, I went to meet Master Joey.¡±


    ¡°What did the master say?¡±


    ¡°Nothing much. He just gave me some items.¡±


    ¡°Lex, I can put my heart at ease if the master supports you. Even though our empire boasts of having millions of elite soldiers, in reality, we can only mobilize about two hundred thousand troops. Safilos will lead one hundred thousand of them, while the other half will be stationed in the imperial capital. If the nobles from other cities were to send their troops, they would have to spend a lot of money, so I don¡¯t think they would be willing to do so. If you arecking soldiers, you might want to consider hiring mercenaries. I can give you money.¡±


    ¡°Father, mercenaries cannot be trusted. You can ask Saleen.¡±


    The Qin Emperor then turned to look at Saleen. Saleen was startled. The emperor¡¯s eyes were too terrifying, and the murderous aura in them was at least a hundred times more intense than that of the envoy. Saleen felt as though he had been exposed. Under the gaze of those average eyes, Saleen had nearly lost the courage to respond.


    ¡°Your Majesty, mercenaries are motivated by money. They are usually credible, but they cannot be the main force. The strong mercenary groups are all gathered in Sikeqinya. Smaller groups are weaker than the normal army. They will only stand a chance if it is three against one. If they lose the battle and the mercenaries go crazy, it will be scarier than facing bandits.¡±


    ¡°So it is like that!¡± The Qin Emperor was astonished. He had thought that since Sikeqinya was able to rely on its mercenaries for defense, they were nearly the same as the normal army.


    ¡°Your Majesty, mercenaries are only suitable for small battles. Minimal usage of the mercenaries would be okay,¡± Saleen had not intentionally supported what Lex had said. He had simply expressed his own opinion.


    ¡°Lex¡­¡± The Qin Emperor pondered for a while before painfully saying, ¡°The matter of Hadisai City is not easy to resolve. Earl Molokari¡¯s son strongly insists that it was you who sent people to kill his father. The lower house did not set a motion, but they obviously support him.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s obviously the Holy See¡¯s ploy!¡± Saleen blurted out, unable to help himself. He had experienced this himself, so he knew exactly what was going on.


    ¡°Safilos, myself, and more than half of the lower house are aware of that. However, everyone hopes that I will marry Lex off to the Cloudflow Empire so that the two empires will be united by marriage. We can then attack the Tanggsi Empire together, and a lot of trouble can be spared.¡± The emperor was very glum. There were many advantages to having an upper house and a lower house. At least within the context of the four empires, the number of nobles in the Qin Empire was very well controlled. It had been more than seven hundred years since the empire had been built, but the number of nobles had only doubled thus far.


    But there were now problems with this rtionship between the upper house and lower house. The emperor could not behave wantonly, because the marriage would be good for the country. However, it would mean that the emperor would need to sacrifice his own family.


    If the emperor did not protect the interests of the nobles, then why should the nobles continue supporting him? Even the upper house possessed this mindset.


    In that moment, Saleen began to realize just how smart the Holy See was. They had killed Earl Molokari but spared his son so that the nobles in the imperial capital would be thrown into turmoil. They should have spent more time in Hadisai City to solve this problem thoroughly.


    But the question was, how had the Holy See understood all of these internal affairs of Holy Rock City, and how could they have known what choices the Qin Emperor would make? Could there have been a spy beside the emperor? It should have been impossible. Since there were three Grade 9 mages living in the pce, nobody would have been able to hide from them. Also, the Qin Emperor did not look like an average person. He was at minimum a grand swordmaster, and the emperor¡¯s gaze had been as horrifying as Joey¡¯s torrent of elements.

 Chapter 110: Expedition (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 110: Expedition (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°It is quite a coincidence that the convoy from the Cloudflow Empire is here early.¡± Lex thought about the nobleman, a feeling of uneasiness surfacing within her again. Had they used the teleportation portal to the capital to make it in time and press charges on Mokri¡¯s son?


    ¡°My daughter, this problem can be solved easily. I have decided to personally lead an expedition to Lon.¡± The Qin Emperor¡¯s words were shocking. Saleen had not even realized that anything was amiss by the time the grand swordmaster¡¯s expression had changed.


    The crown prince and the lower house had put pressure on the emperor, causing him to possess a never before seen determination. A personal expedition! If the emperor were to lead an expedition, wherever he went, there would be voluntary troops around to assist him in battle. The number of troops would be at least half the number of troops stationed there. If they did not assist him, it would be considered treason.


    With the emperor away on an expedition, Safilos would need to stay in the capital. Lex would only need to follow her father and return safely to Bitter Water Prefecture.


    However, an expedition by the emperor involved a huge risk. In the capital, the emperor had the protection of three Grade 9 sorcerers. These sorcerers would not follow the army. They would stay in the magic towers at the pce, protecting the generations of people in Holy Rock City rather than just the emperor alone.


    The Qin Empire had long passed its stages of establishment. Not many sorcerers would want to follow along on an expedition. Many low-grade mages would want to go, but anyone wanting to assassinate the emperor would definitely be an elite of at least Grade 7 or above.


    ¡°Emperor, you cannot do this!¡± A strict voice resounded from outside the study. It had a tinge of anger to it.


    ¡°Safilos, you are here.¡± The Qin Emperor said this monotonously. The door to the study opened and the crown prince stood outside, a look of anger on his face.


    Only the crown prince himself would have the guts to burst into the study of the emperor.


    Safilos tookrge steps into the study and said loudly, ¡°Your Majesty, the emperor is the symbol of the entire country. It is unheard of for an emperor to personally lead an expedition while the empire is in chaos.¡±


    The emperor gave a coldugh and said, ¡°Is forcing the emperor to marry away his daughter a tradition of the Qin Empire?¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty has a crown prince already!¡± Safilos defended himself. He looked simr to the emperor, and in his fit of anger, he possessed a simr authority as him too.


    ¡°If my son had not died in the ident, would you have wanted to rece him too?¡± The emperor¡¯s voice was growing colder by the minute. Saleen backed away silently. He had realized that the surroundings of the emperor and the crown prince had begun to form an imprable screen. The two most powerful men in the empire had drawn their swords and were ready to attack.


    Safilos¡¯ hair was nearly standing on end at this point. He was so angry that he was at a loss for words at what the emperor had said. He took a while before saying, ¡°Chanake, my two sons do not strive for anything. What have I strived for?¡±


    ¡°My daughter Lex was good, but she was chased out by you for over a decade. She has been governing Bitter Water Prefecture perfectly.¡± Seeing his younger brother in a rage, the emperor decided to speak calmly. ¡°I have endured enough. This time, my mind is made up. I shall personally bring the troops out on an expedition. If you think that what I am doing is wrong, you may take over my position in the capital. The three masters in the pce will not make life hard for you. How about that?¡±


    Safilos had many things he wanted to say, but he was defenseless against the emperor¡¯s words. He looked harshly at Lex and said, ¡°Very good, Lex. The entire capital has been in chaos since your return. If you are thinking about establishing a county, you can forget about it. I will never agree to that.¡±


    Lex began to grow agitated. Raising her hand and showing him the god¡¯s ring on her finger, she said to Safilos, ¡°Uncle, do you recognize this?¡±


    Safilos stood rooted to the ground. God¡¯s ring. Brother actually gave the ring to Lex!


    Safilos pointed at the emperor and the viscountess. His voice was shaking as he said, ¡°You¡­ both of you¡­¡±


    ¡°Safilos, I have two proposals here which I have already prepared.¡± The emperor took out two documents and said, ¡°You can either let Lex set up her own duchy, or let her be the crown princess, which you can go back and tell the lower house.¡±


    ¡°You can go tell them yourself!¡± Safilos exploded in a fit of rage and turned to leave. A golden light shimmered from him and with a loud bang, the door of the study was turned into fine powder from the impact of his sword aura.


    Saleen¡¯s heart was beating rapidly. Safilos¡¯s sword aura was terrifying. Even though he had suppressed it, it had still destroyed the door of the study that had been filled with magic arrays. He had always looked down on swordsmen, and Lex had managed to kill a silver grand swordmaster using tricks and tactics. Who would have thought that even though a gold and silver grand swordmaster were only a single grade away, they were basically two different people.


    At the same time, Saleen¡¯s impression of the emperor had subconsciously be even better. The emperor treated Lex the same way as Jason had treated him.


    ¡°Father.¡± Lex saw her uncle destroy the door and did not know what to say.


    ¡°Lex, going on the expedition is something that I need to do. In addition to bringing one hundred thousand elites, I can bring with me two battalions of pce swordsmen. I will send you back to Hadisai City. We will walk a thousand more miles and I can hire more soldiers then. Safilos knows the importance of this. If I leave, he will support your brother.¡±


    ¡°Sigh¡­¡± Viscountess Lex could only sigh, knowing she could not change her father¡¯s mind. She was only able to ask, ¡°How many pce mages can you bring with you?¡±


    ¡°One Grade 8 and two Grade 7 mages.¡±


    ¡°So little!¡±


    ¡°Stephanie has gone to Alchemy City.¡±


    Alchemy City! This magic city was a ce that was both loved and hated by the Qin royals. A great number of mages had been attracted to Alchemy City and had not returned to the pce, but those mages had be the future of the city.


    With that said, Alchemy City guarded the most important port in the empire, and even the navy of the Cloudflow Empire could not do anything about it. Without Alchemy City, the empire¡¯s coastal regions would have beenpletely exposed to the invincible navy of the Cloudflow Empire, and they would have needed to spend arge amount of money in building magic cannons to protect these areas like the Tanggsi Empire had done.


    Moreover, even though the mages in Alchemy City were not required to obey the empire¡¯s instructions, during the tumultuous times in Phoenix Duchy, they had sent hundreds of mages over to the border to stop the ck mages from entering the Qin Empire.


    ¡°Father, have Faerun go with you.¡± Lex could not stop the emperor and needed to think of other strategies. At least with more sorcerers by her father¡¯s side, she would feel safer.


    The Qin Emperorughed and said, ¡°Lex, I may not be the strongest person in the maind, but even a Grade 9 sorcerer cannot do much to me. Faerun has always followed you. That puts me at ease.¡±


    Lex nodded silently. With her father going on an expedition, in addition to requisitioning the soldiers from the wealthy around that area, he would have full control over Lon Duchy. This was a great advantage he held over Safilos. Although on paper this would be considered an expedition, in reality, her father was going to regroup the powers of the wealthy through this trip.


    Her uncle would not hold him back. This time, everybody wanted to preserve the glory of the Grukos royals.


    Uncle wanted stability. However, father is using this opportunity to rejuvenate the empire again.


    The news of the empire going on an expedition spread quickly, and the capital was thrown into chaos again. The upper and lower houses stopped arguing about Lex establishing a county, and the troops were the ones who had the most positive reaction. If the emperor was going on an expedition, the powers of the army would naturally increase, and they would no longer be protecting just the capital. At the same time, so long as Lon Duchy secured a victory, the army would be even more wealthy. If they were able to expand thend, it would be easy for them to get some feudal estates as a reward.


    The wealthy families in the upper house of the empire were but the descendants of the people who had helped build the empire at its start.


    The goal of the Qin Empire was to build a unified Fifth Dynasty. What else could have possibly been more exciting?


    The turmoil in Lon Duchy was just the beginning. Once there was a direct conflict with the Tanggsi Empire, many opportunities to make contributions and sacrifices would spring up. The wealthy and glorious ins had been conquered by the sacred Holy See for far too long. Who wouldn¡¯t have gotten jealous?


    That afternoon, the Qin Empire gathered all of the cab ministers of the house at the pce. Saleen could not go this time, as he was not qualified. He called Sika to his room, not knowing what to say yet.


    ¡°Saleen, what do you want to say?¡± Sika had just been practicing her martial arts when Saleen had interrupted her. Hence, she was slightly annoyed.


    ¡°This¡­ Sika, I have talked to the viscountess. She will send some money and rations to your vige.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Upon hearing that, Sika was overjoyed. She had been worrying for the past few months. While she had been enjoying herself, she had not been sure what was happening back in her vige. She had many reasons for not going back, but none of them would change the fact that the biggest reason she had not left was because she did not want to leave Saleen.


    ¡°Really. The emperor wants to personally make a trip down to Lon, and the viscountess will be returning to Bitter Water Prefecture. She¡¯ll then be able to send someone to enter Cascausus from Lon, since by that time, there will definitely be an army there to eliminate the Holy See¡¯s forces.¡±


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t we go there?¡± Nailisi asked Saleen. Upon hearing about a battle, she licked her lips.


    ¡°I need to follow the viscountess for at least three years.¡± Saleen sighed. He had never nned to leave anyway, but it was just that he would not enjoy much freedom in the future. The more he was involved in the viscountess¡¯ life, the harder it would be for him to let go. If Lex truly made him responsible for establishing contact with the Clyde family, he could not just leave as he pleased after three years.


    Whatever. I will be training there anyway. If I am tied to Bitter Water Prefecture, I will still have a Grade 8 mage¡¯s protection. Before finding my teacher, he will be my only backing.


    If he had not had anyone backing him back then, he would not have dared gotten into a fight with the nobleman on the streets. That man must have also wanted to get his way with force.


    Saleen faced a small problem while Lex had a big issue on hand. The emperor deciding to go about his own way had led to the cab ministers venting their anger out on her. When Lex returned, she released a Ground Fire spell and burned everything in the room.


    At first, she had held little opinion towards forming a country, but the attitudes of the wealth had made her more determined. After releasing her anger, she called everyone to her side and reminded them not to leave the pce for the next few days. Once they returned to Bitter Water Prefecture, they could restock their equipment and enter Lon from the small roads.


    In addition to Saleen, thebat mages and swordsmen were excited. Building a county would increase their status to greater heights. The Qin Empire was made up of mages and swordsmen. The strength of Lex¡¯s army was simr to that of the Qin Empire when it was first established. One day, these people would be dukes or duchesses, or even build cities like Alchemy City.


    After increasing the spirits of her troops, Lex began to grow bored. She had destroyed her room and had been given Nailisi¡¯s room instead. She had Faerun gather the lifestyle mages together to discuss how they would deal with Hadisai City.

 Chapter 111: Expedition (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 111: Expedition (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°It was my mistake then. We should have eradicated the problems caused by the Holy See beforeing to the capital,¡± Faerun said regretfully.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. If we¡¯d stayed at Hadisai City, we would have reached the capital the same day as the convoy from Cloudflow Empire. We went past the city, causing the convoy to use the teleportation portal. This isn¡¯t a coincidence. Whatever we¡¯d done, it would¡¯ve had the same results,¡± Viscountess Lex analyzed calmly.


    ¡°Has Mokri¡¯s son assumed the position of earl yet?¡± Saleen asked an important question.


    ¡°It has already been passed by the lower house. Anyway, even if my father had tried to suppress the motion, the lower house wouldn¡¯t have bothered with him and that rascal would have started his battle for revenge. He is a first-ss baron and has thousands of private soldiers under him. It is normal for him toe after me along the way.¡± Viscountess Lex had a harsh look. She had had enough of the petty fights among the wealthy. They wanted to sacrifice her? Then their enemies shall die.


    ¡°Viscountess, something is wrong.¡± Saleen voiced his concerns.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Hadisai City might be far away from Bitter Water Prefecture, but it is on a essential road when moving eastwards. With the death of Earl Mokri, his son doesn¡¯t have much value anymore. The lower house must be using you to get rid of an earl so that they can ce a stronger person in Hadisai City. Once that happens, they will cut the road between you and the capital.¡±


    ¡°Eh?¡± Lex was shocked. Saleen had known about her background, and this analysis was spot on. Although Earl Mori¡¯s son might have been making a lot of noise, his actual powers were weaker than that of Bitter Water Prefecture. Some might even have said that they were much weaker. However, even if she killed him personally, she would not be able to gain thend of Hadisai City since thend would be returned to the lower house.


    If thend was given to a family with rank but no estate, their strength would increase greatly. The location of Bitter Water Prefecture was a little closed off, and Hadisai City was one of the two essential roads. If that road was blocked off, the development of Bitter Water Prefecture would be harder in the future.


    ¡°But even if I exin my case, the lower house will still use Hadisai City against me. This is a conflict that cannot be resolved.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, you are merely worried about the magic tower outside of Hadisai City. So long as that mage doesn¡¯t help, Hadisai City will not pose much of a threat to Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    Viscountess Lex nodded. The magic tower outside of Hadisai City could stop an entire army. Unless she called the master out herself, however, they did not have a sufficient reason to do so.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t very hard to solve this. Who do mages hate most?¡± Saleen asked instead.


    Lex finally understood. Holy masters. Mages hated holy masters the most. If Hadisai City lost the support of the mages, they would be nothing. Her thousands of troops and one hundredbat mages would be able to solve the problem easily. As to how they could do so, she did not need to ask Saleen these things. She naturally had such experts by her side.


    Spreading rumors, finding scapegoats, these were not any unusual tricks. Since Mokri¡¯s son was hell bent on using the lower house¡¯s orders to deal with her, she would not let him retain the support of the mages forever.


    Saleen¡¯s logic was conclusive. Given a few more years, he would have no problems running a city. What a pity that he was a mage. Lex found it regrettable that among the mages by her side, aside from Hu An, not many people were willing to do this.


    ¡°Since things have reached this point, this makes things easier. Saleen, all of you are mages, and the capital is not in danger yet. Have Sika and Nailisi be careful. Aside from me, they can refuse to meet with anyone else.¡± Lex reminded him cautiously.


    Saleen broke out into a cold sweat. He had not thought about that, but fortunately, Lex had given a reminder. Nailisi would not be tricked that easily, but the same could not be said for Sika. With that thought, he did not even wait for Lex to finish before he dashed out of the room and started pounding on Sika¡¯s door.


    After he had knocked for a long time, Sika still did not open the door. Starting to panic, Saleen raised his hand and released an icicle spell. The icicle pierced through the door, breaking apart the lock, and Saleen pushed opened the door and entered.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    Saleen rushed into the room and saw Sika wrapped in arge towel, foam around her mouth. She had been brushing her teeth. Seeing Saleen burst in, she could only say his name unclearly.


    ¡°Why did not you open the door?¡± Saleen heaved a sigh of relief, not realizing that Sika was naked.


    Sika put down her toothbrush and said in a daze, ¡°I was showering and brushing my teeth¡­¡±


    Saleen only then realized that the towel Sika had hurriedly wrapped around herself only covered her legs. Her top was still exposed¡­He had seen it when he had first met Sika too, only this time, his heart was beating furiously. He felt flushed.


    Sika was no longer dirty. Her hair was let down loosely, giving off a light scent. Her white skin was a little pink, and her fingers had the juices of irises on all ten of them. Her white silk towel was wrapped in a nt, only covering half of her chest. Saleen gave a dry cough and said casually, ¡°You have been showering diligently recently.¡±


    Laughter came from the doorway as Nailisi slipped in. Resting her head on Saleen¡¯s shoulder, she blinked her eyes and asked, ¡°Master, have youe to see Sister Sika shower?¡±


    Sika¡¯s face turned red, and the toothbrush in her hand flew towards Nailisi. Nailisi¡¯s eyes turned an eerie gold as she looked at the toothbrush. It turned and hit Saleen on his nose instead.


    Saleen felt tears welling in his eyes from the pain. He squatted down, and with his hand covering his face, started moaning.


    The muscles that he had trained were not fake, but they looked at most like those of a high-grade swordsman and his nose was much more fragile. He had no idea that Sika¡¯s toothbrush would change direction. It was not a boomerang.


    Nailisi quickly bent down. Helping Saleen rub his nose, she whispered in his ears, ¡°Master, Sika will not let you peek at her. Let¡¯s just rape her.¡±


    ¡°Go to hell.¡± Saleen certainly knew that Nailisi was not being serious. He lifted his leg and kicked Nailisi on her rear. However, his strength was nowhere near Sika¡¯s, much less Nailisi¡¯s. This kick was nothing to her and Sika had heard Nailisi words. Instead of turning even redder, she red at Nailisi and turned towards the bathroom.


    Saleen withstood the pain from his nose and shouted from behind, ¡°Sika!¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Sika turned around, her untied hair fluttering in the air.


    ¡°These few days¡­ aside from when you are with me, do not leave this ce.¡± Saleen felt his noise bing swollen.


    ¡°Just this?¡± Sika asked in astonishment.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen covered his nose and kept himself from panicking. A mage was standing at the doorway, looking at it curiously. His view had been blocked by the Fog of Confusion that Saleen had released.


    Nailisi followed Saleen and left Sika¡¯s room. She smiled secretly, hidden in the Fog of Confusion as well.


    When Saleen returned to his room, he looked in the mirror. His nose had arge ck mark on it and was already swollen. Depressed, he released a Restorative Water spell andy on his bed, waiting for the pain to subside.


    Sika had been seen by him twice, and he had been hurt those two times. It must have been fate. Last time, he had been punched twice, losing consciousness for at least an hour, and this time, his nose had almost been broken.


    No wonder so many mages could not find wives. If they needed to take a beating every day, who would ever be in the mood to train? Faerun did not have a wife and he had only taken a decade to rise from Grade 3 to Grade 7, which could be considered a miracle. His teacher did not seem to have a wife, nor did the Grade 8 sorcerer in Bitter Water Prefecture. Yes, even Joey did not seem to be married either.


    Saleen used the concepts of the Figaro form to analyze the rtionship between women and magic, but he could not erase the memory from earlier. Sika¡¯s breasts were still gorgeous.


    Nailisi could feel all of these things. Sheid by Saleen¡¯s side and asked, ¡°Master, why did not you let me help just now?¡±


    ¡°Help with what?¡± Saleen asked depressingly.


    ¡°Obviously rape?¡± Nailisi shouted in excitement, pounding the bed.


    ¡°What sorts of things have you learned? Aiya¡­¡± Saleen shouted. His nose became even more painful. He had not been afraid of pain to begin with, but he could not control how his tears flowed. A mage was not a grand swordmaster and they could not control the organs within their bodies as they wished.


    Nailisi hurriedly wiped away his tears and said, ¡°Master, if you don¡¯t like that, we can change methods.¡±


    ¡°Stop spouting nonsense.¡± Saleen moaned as he pushed Nailisi¡¯s hand away and said, ¡°The road back will not be smooth. You should quickly think of a way to improve your strength. Last time, I saw you steal many items from the storage room. What were they?¡±


    Nailisi had managed to use some underhanded means to hide from the grey robed mage in the storage room and steal some items into her bracelet. However, she had not been able to hide from Saleen, whom she was bound to.


    Nailisi pressed her lips to his ear and whispered as softly as she could, ¡°Master, not now. The others may find out. Anyways, it is something good.¡±


    Upon hearing that, Saleen could only pray that this item was not important to the emperor. Otherwise, the mage named Sith would be punished. What if they returned it? Saleen did not want to do this out of fear that Nailisi¡¯s identity would be revealed.


    In that moment, Saleen missed Joey¡¯s magic liquid. With the magic liquid, his nose would have been almost perfect by now. At the end of the day, restorative magic was only a Grade 1 spell. It was good for detoxification, but its effects were slow when it came to healing.


    With the bump on his nose, Saleen did not dare go out and meet anyone. He could only stay in his room and practice magic every day. The Qin Emperor was about to go on an expedition, and the entire capital was busy. An emperor could not go on an expedition on a whim. He needed to pick the soldiers, reserve troops, and mages that would be following along. The number of people involved exceeded three hundred thousand.


    One hundred thousand elites and two battalions worth of pce swordsmen. That was a total of one hundred and twenty thousand people. He needed twenty-four grand mages to provide logistical support as well. Otherwise, with the remaining reserve troops, they would not even need to talk about battle. They would not even be able to transport rations and weapons.


    Every battalion needed to choose a general and increase their number of war horses. However, many horses and carriages could only be sent over from the north of the empire.


    All of these things took at least a month to settle.


    It had been centuries since the empire had been involved in such arge scale war. If they lost the battle this time, the credibility of the Qin Empire would drop rapidly, and they would be food for the surrounding countries. With things havinge to this point, the upper and lower houses had no choice but to form an alliance to support the Qin Empire. Arge number of low-grade mages had gathered. Under Qin Empirew, any mage that joined a national battle would earn a reward many times of what they would usually receive.


    Not every mage had a means of earning money, and with this battle, many people saw a glimmer of hope.

 Chapter 112: Aini’s Parents (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 112: Aini¡¯s Parents (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen hid in his room and endured for three days before his injury finally subsided and he was ready to meet others again. Looking at a mirror, Saleen inspected his own appearance.


    He could no longer see that weak and frail youth he had once been. Now, Saleen¡¯s skin was fair and healthily moisturized, and his hair had changed from brown to ck. With his azure eyes and slightly higher nose, one could still see the slight differences in appearance between Saleen and a person from the Qin Empire.


    d in a brocade magic robe, Saleen looked spotless. Just like that, Saleen was now a widely envied mage. Who would have thought that just a few years ago, he had been an orphan who begged on the streets.


    Nailisi appeared behind Saleen, looked at Saleen¡¯s reflection in the mirror, and said, ¡°Master, do you really n to follow Lex from now on?¡±


    Saleen looked at Nailisi¡¯s reflection. Nailisi still had her original clothes on and possessed a hint of willfulness. But she looked so beautiful and elegant that people could not even tell that she was not human.


    ¡°Yes, I have made an agreement with someone.¡±


    ¡°Then aren¡¯t you just like me?¡± Nailisi had a look of sadness, as if she felt that such a thing was unfair for Saleen.


    ¡°Nailisi, this is an equivalent exchange.¡±


    ¡°What is an equivalent exchange?¡± Nailisi¡¯s green eyes resembled that of Joey¡¯s.


    ¡°Equivalent exchange means paying for something by giving another item of the same value.¡±


    ¡°But you did not pay a price for acquiring me right?¡± Nailisi asked doubtfully.


    ¡°How is there no price? If people discover your true identity, then I will have to abandon you. Otherwise, my life will be in danger. Too many people in this world will want to have you, and some people will not y by the rules.¡±


    ¡°But you won¡¯t abandon me right?¡± Nailisi leaned gently on Saleen¡¯s body, her expression bing that of a pitiful child.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, the viscountess asks that you go over.¡± The viscountess¡¯s swordsman knocked on the door.


    ¡°Coming.¡± Saleen pondered for a while, and said to Nailisi, ¡°Come along too.¡±


    When Saleen had confronted the envoy from the Cloudflow Empire earlier, he had felt unsafe. After all, he was only a Grade 2 mage who had not had a martial arts exponent with him at the time, so he had been perceived as a weak person.


    Lex was already dressed and waiting for Saleen, looking like she was about to go out. Faerun and the four ck metal grand swordmasters were following her. It had been several days since Saleen hadst seen her, and Lex was looking better now, not looking so depressed anymore.


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s go. We shall go and meet the people from the Clyde family.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, you are heading there personally?¡±


    ¡°Mm. They are earls after all.¡±


    Saleen nodded. Bitter Water Prefecture was a remote ce, but if the viscountess really wanted to do business, the Clyde family would certainly help her open up the necessaryworks. Since the viscountess was establishing a county, she would need to buyrge quantities of weapons and armor. The alchemists in Bitter Water Prefecture would not be able to fulfill these massive orders alone.


    The cities surrounding the prefecture would also need to be renovated, and all of the construction would expend arge amount of money. There were enough mages in the Bitter Water Prefecture, so necessities such as alchemy drawings did not need to be purchased. However, building materials such as stones and wood would need to be supplied by external contractors.


    Lex could use this business opportunity to build a longsting rtionship with the Clyde family. Additionally, if the Clyde family were the first to start a business in the new county, they would be able to enjoy tremendous tax benefits as well.


    When Saleen saw that Lex had brought all of herbatants with her, he asked Nailisi to get Sika toe along as well. He was worried about leaving Sika alone in the pce.


    This time around, Lex could not exit through the main gate since her carriages were waiting by the side gate. When they had just gotten into the carriage, it began to rain. The rain droplets were very fine, like a light fog. The swordsmen put on their cloaks and pulled up their hoods while the mages cast invisible shields, and the convoy advanced silently in the rain.


    When Saleen and the others had first entered Holy Rock City, they had turned around a bend and entered from the north. The Clyde family was staying to the west, and nicely enough, that was the same direction as the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Saleen noticed that the farther away they got from the pce, the more extravagant the buildings became. Even the lousiest house had a structure made up of green steel brick, and houses over three stories tall had been designed by alchemists. Less than three miles from the pce, a mansion could be seen from afar.


    The towering roof had the design of the First Dynasty, simple and solemn. There were two smaller doors beside the main door. They had curved domes and looked like they belonged to a fortress, but the building did not have the cramped feeling of a fortress.


    The front of the main door possessed arge depiction of a badge which contained a picture of a crouching lion. In that moment, Saleen thought of the badge that Aini had given him. That badge had depicted the exact same lion as the one on the image on the main door.


    There was a man who resembled a butler waiting by the main door. He was d in long robes and was holding an umbre, waiting for the viscountess. When Lex¡¯s carriage stopped in front of the door, the man came forward. He lowered his umbre and bowed respectfully towards the carriage.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am extremely sorry and very regretful that the earl is unable to wee you personally.¡±


    This butler had heard of the viscountess¡¯ story a while back and was feeling perturbed. Presently, no one in Holy Rock City wanted to trifle with Lex, nor get chummy with her. The butler did not know Lex¡¯s agenda for visiting the earl today. If she had just been passing by then it would have been fine, but Lex had even sent a card to notify them beforehand.


    ¡°Got it. Please lead the way.¡±


    Lex responded. Then, the carriage doors opened and she walked down slowly. The butler was a little startled. Fortunately, his professional habits persisted and he quickly bowed, weing the viscountess with a gesture of his hand.


    Lex came down from the carriage while rain droplets scattered around her. Her colored mage robe looked just like a flower blooming in the rain.


    Saleen and the rest of the lifestyle mages came down from the carriage too, and followed the butler into the earl¡¯s residence. There were more than ten servants waiting behind the door to wee the convoy and tend to their horses, but aside from that, their journey was silent.


    Saleen closely observed the earl¡¯s residence. The house was modest, unlike the other houses outside. Geometric lines filled the house, and rooms could be found on both sides of the walkway. The rooms hadrge doors and windows. The servants obviously possessed martial arts skills. They were no experts, perhaps only mid-level swordsmen, but for servants, that was already very good.


    Judging by the size of the earl¡¯s residence, it could easily house more than one thousand people. With so many swordsmen around, the earl could already form a small army. The butler did not look like he had any martial arts skills and he did not possess any elemental fluctuations either, so he must have been a mage disciple.


    Many mage disciples were unable to be promoted to mages, so they eventually gave up their pursuits of the knowledge of magic and changed their careers. Because mage disciples were literate, they could help people manage financial matters, be butlers, or be enlightenment teachers. Some mage disciples even went on to learn martial arts and became swordsmen.


    Most mages despised these disciples who switched careers, but Saleen could empathize with them. If a person had no money and no talent, they would only starve to death if they did not switch careers.


    At the other end of a colossal courtyard, a man dressed in noble clothing stood at the bottom of the stairs. It seemed like he had been waiting for a long time.


    From afar, the man could see Lex and her entourage, so heughed and projected his voice, ¡°Viscountess, I was unable to wee you personally. Please don¡¯t condemn me.¡±


    Was this the patriarch of the Clyde family? Saleen looked over at the man. This middle-aged man had ck eyebrows and a short mustache. He had a squarish face and wheat colored skin. His footsteps were steady and strong like those of Viscountess Grukos, unlike some nobles who were unfit and unhealthy.


    Lex simply nodded and did not disy much enthusiasm. There were many earls in the imperial capital. Lex was here to discuss business, so she did not need to bow down to him. Both of them were nearly of the same rank, and furthermore, Lex was a Grade 5 mage.


    From the time they entered to the moment they reached the living room, Saleen did not see any experts from the Clyde family. The living room was enormous, and there was a small, exquisite garden just outside its massive window. A green silk vine was hanging from above and had been soaked in the rain. Saleen had seen the chandelier on the ceiling before, in the castle where Baron Cook was stationed. Perhaps the Clyde family had sold Cook these chandeliers.


    There was a young man sitting next to the earl, keeping himpany. He looked a little like the earl, thus it was possible that this young man was the earl¡¯s son.


    As the servants were pouring the tea, two female mages who followed Lex around began tough. They took out their own tea set and tea leaves, and then created restorative water. Hu An cast a Burning spell and cooked the tea quietly. The earl grew a bit awkward, and asked the servants to hold onto the tea.


    Nobles usually brought many things such as their wine sets, smokes, and tea sets wherever they went. But it was the first time that the earl had ever seen an arrangement like Viscountess Lex¡¯s.


    Saleen watched from the side and learned a new trick. Under the surface, Lex had already used her energy to suppress the earl. The earl was now inferior to Lex even though she was not the empire¡¯s viscountess.


    The Clyde family had many mages as well, but they were not so extravagant as to ask their mages to make tea.


    ¡°Sebastian, actually, I¡¯d wanted to wait until you¡¯d entered the pce, but I will not be able to stay in the capital for long so I just made my way here. My father is going on an expedition and your n is busy with so many matters that I thought you wouldn¡¯t have had any spare time anyways.¡± Lex took a cup of tea from Narnia¡¯s hands and ced it under her lips before giving it a blow.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Earl Sebastian sighed. He then continued, ¡°Our n is currently busy with transporting the materials that the army needs. I have even stopped my businesses in the northern cities. What do you have for me this time, Viscountess?¡±


    ¡°You are my father¡¯s favorite. How could I order you around?¡± Lex took a sip of tea, and smiled faintly, behaving as perfectly as a wless magic form.


    Earl Sebastian¡¯s face turned red. He needed to rely on the emperor in order to sustain his family¡¯s honor and glory, and yet he had not even dared to personally wee Lex into his residence for fear of angering the other nobles. Lex was obviously lecturing him by saying those words. But Earl Sebastian was a smart person as well. He did not mention anything about the pressure from the Prince of Phoenix and simply replied, ¡°Viscountess, I had nned to enter the pce, but the other three ns were closely monitoring me so I truly could not seek you out.¡±


    ¡°What I really wanted to say is¡­¡± Lex put down the cup of tea and looked at Earl Sebastian. The earl felt as if his heart was in his throat. ¡°I have delegated the east side businesses in the Bitter Water Prefecture to Saleen. This is Saleen. Get to know each other,¡± Lex said indifferently.


    Lex pointed at Saleen and did not talk anymore. Her eyelids closed, as though she was meditating.


    Earl Sebastian was over the moon. Whatever Viscountess Lex had just said meant that she had allowed the Clyde family to go and do business in the prefecture. In the Bitter Water Prefecture, all business matters were controlled by the viscountess¡¯s residence. But once the county was established, business would expand by at least a hundred times. When Earl Sebastian heard the news, he knew that this would be an enormous business opportunity.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, I am Sebastian Feng Clyde.¡± Earl Sebastian was abnormally polite when introducing himself to Saleen. He did not possess even the slightest intentions of looking down on Saleen simply because he was young.


    ¡°I am Saleen, Saleen Metatrin.¡± Saleen was shocked. Lex had so easily introduced him. She truly believed that he would do a good job in settling business matters with the Clyde family.

 Chapter 113: Aini’s Parents (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 113: Aini¡¯s Parents (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mm, since you know each other now, I shall head back,¡± Lex said, setting her teacup down.


    Earl Sebastian was stunned. Lex hade over personally just to introduce Saleen to him? He looked at Saleen carefully, but could not find any clues. This young mage had aposure that was steady and stable, and a dull expression. The mage was clearly smiling, and yet his azure eyes did not disy any happiness.


    It was a look of nobleness. Earl Sebastian secretly evaluated Saleen.


    Saleen also stood up, but Lex waved her hand and said, ¡°The rest of the crew will follow you back. You can stay and talk to the earl.¡±


    The rest of the crew referred to the four ck metal grand swordmasters. Saleen knew that since the viscountess had created this opportunity for him, he needed toplete the task well. Given Lex¡¯s habits, since Saleen had such an important mission this time around, he would also be rewarded handsomely. Hu An¡¯s eyes were burning with rage. He must have been eyeing this position for a long time already.


    Saleen kept quiet and slowly sat back down.


    Even though Lex hade to the Clyde family¡¯s house with her own tea and had only spoken a few words, Saleen already admired her immensely. Lex was usually polite with mages, but when interacting with nobles, she had her shrewd means of handling them. No matter how many methods the earl may have had, he would not have been able to use them on Lex. On the surface, it may have seemed that the earl was fully in charge, but once there was a problem, Lex would simply kick him aside.


    The Clyde family would also face difficulties in trying to bribe Saleen, because no one knew the rtionship between Saleen and the viscountess.


    Saleen sat on the chair and grew bored, thinking of how to negotiate business with the sly and cunning earl. Unknowingly, Saleen picked up the teacup that Lex had left behind.


    There were a few pieces of green leaves left in the cup, and there was half of a red lipstick mark was on the interior of the cup. Nailisi giggled as she took the teapot and poured water into the teacup. Saleen was deep in thought and the water had gotten a bit cold, so he did not drink it.


    Lex had not left any instructions for Saleen and Saleen could not make decisions on his own. This session was purely forworking, to get to know the relevant people of the Clyde family. The details would have to be worked out and nned back at Bitter Water Prefecture. Saleen read a lot of books, so he understood that building a business rtionship and learning magic were the same in that both wereplicated affairs. Otherwise, there would not already have been so many impoverished low-level mages around.


    Right now, Saleen would not negotiate any business, but he needed to get to know Aini¡¯s parents. Aini was not exactly an easy person to interact with, but he valued rtionships. As long as Saleen built a good rtionship with Aini¡¯s parents, everything would be able to progress smoothly in the future.


    But Saleen did not know whether Aini¡¯s parents were imprisoned or under house arrest.


    After a long period of time, Earl Sebastian and his son returned to the living room. The four swordmasters did not even move, simply sitting in their chairs unwaveringly. That gave Saleen the confidence to talk to the earl.


    ¡°Earl,¡± Saleen called outzily. From Saleen¡¯s ent, it was very difficult to tell that he was actually from Sikeqinya.


    ¡°Mage Saleen.¡± Sebastian returned to his original seat, saw Nailisi serving Saleen, and did not know where to begin. Looking at Saleen¡¯s expression and the way he dressed, it was obvious that he did notck money. Nailisi was also very beautiful, so it would be hard for Saleen to be seduced by other women. Should he use his own authority to pressure Saleen? He was an earl, but Saleen took direct orders from the viscountess, and Saleen also had four martial arts exponent protecting him.


    This situation was like a tiger meeting a hedgehog and not knowing how to devour it. In this world, the hardest type of person to deal with was a mage who did notck money, and Saleen was exactly that type of mage.


    ¡°Actually for this trip, business is secondary. I am more interested in meeting someone.¡± Saleen knew that he would not be a match for the earl if he discussed business with him. Fortunately, the business was not urgent, and furthermore, there were three other ns in the imperial capital, so the earl would try to prevent Saleen from negotiating with them.


    ¡°Who does the mage want to meet?¡± Earl Sebastian was puzzled. Bitter Water Prefecture had always been isted. None of the ns had any businessworks there, and the prefecture could be described as a sealed-off world, so who did the mage want to meet with?


    ¡°Aini O¡¯ Clyde,¡± Saleen replied as he took a sip of cold tea. The tea had a hint of sweet fragrance to it, just like Lex¡¯s breath.


    ¡°Mm?¡± Earl Sebastian grew rigid, then relieved. Saleen could not have been the Holy See¡¯s subordinate, much less Viscountess Lex¡¯s.


    ¡°Aini is my friend. After we split up in Phoenix, I have missed him sorely,¡± Saleen replied as he put down the teacup.


    ¡°Aini¡­¡± Earl Sebastian hesitated. Aini had been a genius in terms of magic, but unfortunately, he had been destroyed by the underlings of the Holy See. Who would have thought that Aini would start learning death magic from the ground up again? The family was not ready to publicize this matter. Was this Saleen trustable and reliable?


    Saleen could immediately figure out Earl Sebastian¡¯s concerns. It was not because he was smart, but because he had already known what Aini was going to pursue. A death mage was still of great importance to the Clyde family.


    Saleen took a look at the earl¡¯s son. His son gazed the ground, as though he was not interested in the conversation, and Saleen could not tell what he was thinking about. If Aini became a death mage, would it affect this young man¡¯s status in the n?


    ¡°Earl, has Aini bought the death mes?¡± Saleen pretended to be surprised.


    Earl Sebastian did not answer Saleen¡¯s question directly. The earl was relieved. It seemed like Saleen and Aini truly were on good terms. Otherwise, Aini would not have told Saleen about the death mes. Earl Sebastian nodded and said, ¡°Aini is not in the imperial capital. It is not very convenient for him to practice his magic here.¡±


    ¡°It is truly regrettable. May I visit his parents? Aini asked me to pass something to his parents.¡±


    Earl Sebastian answered forthrightly, ¡°Not a problem. Aini¡¯s parents are right there, Mage Saleen¡­¡±


    Saleen stood up immediately. Smiling, he said, ¡°That is terrific. I shall go and visit them now.¡±


    Earl Sebastian was caught off guard when he saw Saleen looking so joyful. Saleen had already taken a few steps forward, and he was so excited that he was going to roll up his sleeves.


    Saleen was secretly thinking, ¡°This earl only has a business rtionship with me, but I have gone through life and death with Aini. It will be much easier interacting with Aini¡¯s parents than this old man.¡± Even though Aini¡¯s parents had gotten themselves into such an enormous mess, they were only under house arrest in the capital, so they must have held very high positions in the n.


    Lex would recall these four swordmasters sooner orter. It was better for Saleen to find a backer in the Clyde family. At least for future meetings, Aini¡¯s parents could look out for Saleen.


    ¡°Ok, ok¡­¡±


    Earl Sebastian could not ignore Saleen. Saleen pulled him along and walked towards the door. If Saleen had been an authentic noble, he certainly would not have done that, but he was no such thing. As Saleen walked, he looked back and told Sika and the others, ¡°All of you, wait here for my return.¡±


    Earl Sebastian could only follow behind him, asking his son to entertain the guests.


    Saleen pulled on the earl¡¯s sleeves. He walked and talked at the same time, rendering the earl unable to continue the conversation.


    Along the way, many people who saw them were shocked. They did not know where this young mage hade from. As the business deal had not been settled, Earl Sebastian did not want to push Saleen¡¯s hand away, so all he could do was tolerate it in silence.


    Not long after, the earl and Saleen came to a lone courtyard. This courtyard did not have style of the Qin Empire, and was a little like Joey¡¯s home. It had a lone perimeter wall and door, and the courtyard was not surrounded by other buildings.


    There were two guards standing at the door. With just one look, Saleen knew their levels. These guards were already high level swordmasters.


    ¡°Earl.¡± The two guards bowed but did not open the door. Saleen noticed that the door was not locked and the stairs were clean as though they were frequently swept. Since there had been a slight drizzle just now, the area of the front door looked exceptionally clean, without even a speck of dust able to be seen.


    ¡°Go and tell Fellett that Aini¡¯s friend is here to visit.¡±


    Saleen felt very strange. If Aini¡¯s parents were under house arrest, why was the earl not entering the courtyard straightaway? Did not he have the authority to do so? As Saleen continued thinking about this question, a swordmaster went in to report this matter. After a short while, the swordmaster came out and said, ¡°Earl, Lord Fellett asks the visitor to go in alone.¡±


    Saleen looked at the earl, but the earl simply shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands. Saleen then said, ¡°Earl, you¡­ you should go and take a look at your son. I am worried about my two subordinates.¡±


    Saleen had suddenly thought of Nailisi. Saleen hoped that Nailisi would not create any trouble, as it was possible that she would have some weird thoughts. The earl¡¯s son did not look as sharp and bright as his father, so it was possible that he would be pranked by Nailisi.


    Saleen ignored the stunned expression on the earl¡¯s face and walked up the steps into the courtyard.


    There was a stone path in the courtyard, and flowers were being grown in the soil on both sides of the path. The rain had just cleared, thickening the fragrance from the flowers and causing the moist air to smell very fragrant. There was a colossal two story stone house at the end of the path. In front of the door was a colonnade. Saleen walked up the steps and knocked on the door gently.


    ¡°Come in,¡± a gentle voice came from inside the house. Saleen pushed opened the door. In front of him was an enormous magicboratory.


    There were no walls inside of the stone house aside from the two staircases at both ends. There were more than twentyboratory benches and one hundred racks in the room. Facing Saleen was a gigantic ss window which allowed sunlight to shine into the room. The light shone upon one man and onedy.


    The man was tall and had red hair, while thedy was slender and had ck hair. They looked to be about thirty years old. The man and thedy did not wear mage robes, only simple linen shirts. Saleen could feel intense elemental fluctuationsing from the man, but less from thedy.


    Saleen felt like the man resembled Faerun. If the man had worn a mage robe, Saleen might not have been able to tell the difference between the two of them.


    Saleen stood by the door and waited. He did not approach them because the man waspletely concentrated on his magic experiment. On theboratory bench, there were six metal columns mosaicked with gemstones ced in a circr position, and a gemstone was levitating in the middle of this circle. The man was controlling the ck colored corrosion rays, carving the gemstone.


    The man was Aini¡¯s father!


    When Saleen thought of how this man had killed a lurker who worked under Holy See for his son, he teared up. Thinking carefully, Saleen could only vaguely remember the warm hugs of his mother and the face of his father.

 Chapter 114: Spider Puppet (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 114: Spider Puppet (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The man looked up at Saleen. Seeing the tears in his eyes, he was astonished. He waved his hand and said, ¡°Come over here. You are a friend of Aini?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Saleen said as he walked over. ¡°I¡¯m Saleen, Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    As he spoke, he took out the silver badge that Aini had given him, cing it on the table. At the center of the badge was the lion symbol belonging to the Clyde family.


    The man did not move. The golden-haired woman moved first and took Aini¡¯s badge into her hands, feeling it.


    Saleen had already calmed down and was looking at the man¡¯sboratory. Like Faerun, he was using corrosive rays to carve gemstones, but Faerun used an alchemy array made of over three thousand metal parts and his setup was much more intricate.


    The alchemy array on theboratory table was standard elemental alchemy. Although Saleen had not done much research on alchemy, with a little calction from the Figaro form, he could guess what the man was nning to do.


    This gemstone was a rose quartz and was one of the rarer rose quartz known as star rose quartz. With extreme precision, the man expertly carved out a hole inside of the star rose quartz. The special structure of the star rose quartz allowed the substance within to slowly spread towards the outer edges, almost as though it were a naturally hollowed gemstone.


    A star rose quartz could imprison souls. Saleen knew that since they were the parents of Aini, they must have known that he was learning death magic. This star rose quartz would be a piece of spatial equipment with a death contract. Of course, Aini¡¯s parents did not know death magic, and this prop was only a prototype.


    Aini would be able to quickly rise to the standards of a Grade 4 mage, and with the death mes, he would possess a coordinate in the death dimension. This coordinate would be connected to the Myers Maind, usually, and Aini would be able to use this coordinate to absorb energy from the death dimension. If any death creature walked past the coordinate, he could forcefully call upon them to fight for him in battle.


    This form of summoning was random and it was impossible to tell which death creature would walk past the coordinate. There was a limit to the time that the creature could be called upon and once the time was up, it would return to the death dimension. However, with the space of a death contract, the death creature would be able to stay in the Myers Maind.


    Before bing a sorcerer, the coordinate radius that a death mage could control was incredibly small and hence the creatures summoned would all be by chance. With this equipment, thebat abilities of a death mage would be greatly increased.


    Bang¡­


    The star rose quartz floating in the air exploded with a soft bang, and the elements within the six metal pirs were immediately thrown into chaos. The man sighed and stopped the motion of the alchemy array, carefully calming down the agitated elements on the verge of exploding.


    Even though it had failed, Saleen was still very impressed. To be able to calm down the chaotic elements, Aini¡¯s father was definitely a sorcerer. However, from the looks of things, he was not as solid as Faerun when it came to controlling energy. Otherwise, the experiment would not have failed in the first ce.


    ¡°Uncle Fellett,¡± Saleen called out.


    ¡°Yes?¡± Fellett looked in surprise at Saleen as he continued by saying, ¡°If you control an alchemy array nine times moreplicated and use a green spirit as an ingredient, the effect will be better.¡±


    ¡°Nine times moreplicated? Green spirit?¡±


    Fellett gave a bitterugh. He motioned to a chair nearby and said, ¡°Saleen, sit.¡±


    Saleen sat down, and Fellett said, ¡°Alchemy arrays even four times moreplicated are heirlooms that are passed down for generations. There are no such things among the Clyde family. For stability, I have used the mostmon alchemy array to process things. As for green spirits¡­they are too rare.¡±


    Before he could say finish speaking, there was already a green spirit the size of a fist in Saleen¡¯s hand. Seeing the pure green spirit in Saleen¡¯s hand, Fellett was shocked and shook his head. A green spirit was even rarer than a star rose quartz. With quality like this, it was the first time he had seen such a thing. If this had happened in the past, he would have epted it. However, he did not have any money now.


    Saleen thought in his heart: If this was something that could be found easily, I wouldn¡¯t have taken it out either. After taking the bracelet from Aini, something did not feel right. That was a gift that a father had given to his son for protection. Even though I had already traded it for something of equal value, seeing Aini in that state, it was certainly heartbreaking.


    ¡°Uncle Fellett, Aini and I have fought alongside each other.¡± Saleen ced the green spirit on the table and pushed it over. Continuing, he said, ¡°As for the alchemy array nine times moreplex, I happen to know of one. Moreover, it is also one used to control corrosive rays.¡±


    Saleen was speaking the truth. He could remember the alchemy array that Faerun had clearly. If it had been any other alchemy array, even if they were only twice asplex, he would not have known them either. This had been his choice from the start. Out of magic medicine, alchemy, or magic arrays, he had only been able to choose one.


    However, Saleen had never thought that after bing a mage, he would have even less time than before. He did not have the time to research other things, and he did not even have the energy to research mid-grade magic medicine.


    ¡°But, I have nothing to trade you for this,¡± Fellett said in disappointment.


    Saleenughed and stood up. Taking a piece of paper and pen, he began to write out the form for the alchemy array that Faerun possessed. Fellett wanted to stop him, but he was stopped by Aini¡¯s mother. Seeing this, Saleen felt even more touched.


    Aini¡¯s mother was a fighter as well. Now, for her son, she was willing to go against her conscience and ept Saleen¡¯s goodwill. However, this time, he was not doing it to get them to owe him a favor. He just wanted to simplify his rtionship with Aini. Who knew? Perhaps the two of them would cross paths many times in the future. After a great deal of time, he managed to write out the Figaro form and even drew hundreds of three-dimensional magic patterns. So long as Aini¡¯s parents were not too stupid, they would be able to make a set of alchemy equipment using his drawings.


    Saleen put down the pen and passed the entire stack of forms and drawings to Fellett.


    ¡°Uncle Fellett, if you do not mind, could you all help me with something?¡± Saleen said in embarassment with augh. He was very sincere.


    ¡°Speak.¡± Hearing Saleen make a request, the couple heaved a sigh of relief. Even if he was Aini¡¯s friend, this gift was too precious. They did not know that the bracelet they had given Aini for protection was now in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    Saleen took out the corpse of the witcher spider and ced it on the table. He said, ¡°I came across this by chance. I want to make it into a puppet, but aside from remembering that one alchemy array, I cannot remember any others and my grade is too low¡­¡±


    Fellett did not say anything this time. He took the corpse into his hands and observed it carefully.


    ¡°It is veryplete. If processed in a hurry, it would be waste.¡±


    Fellett¡¯s words were very urate. A witcher spider was not very rare, but it was not usually easy to find, either. Finding aplete one was an even rarer urrence. This creature could tear open any defenses that were simr to a magic shield. Obviously, this meant that it could break apart any divine spells that protected the user, as well as any sword aura.


    ¡°Uncle Fellett, I will only need to leave in half a month¡¯s time. Actually, the purpose of this visit was to talk business with the earl.¡±


    ¡°Where should I have it sent after half a month? Where are you staying?¡±


    ¡°The pce.¡±


    ¡­


    ¡°I will collect it myself,¡± Saleen said in embarassment, thinking about what a fool he was. The pce was not a marketce. Not anyone could simply enter and leave it as they wished.


    Just as he finished speaking, a soft voice came from outside the door, ¡°Master Fellett, time is almost up.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± Fellett answered. His look did not have any anger as he turned to Saleen and said inly, ¡°Saleen, I cannot stay with you any longer. Come and get the puppet after half a month.¡±


    He might have said it ambiguously, but Saleen understood. The two of them were still under house arrest and even if they had a visitor, there was a time limit to the visit. He nodded and stood up to leave.


    Aini¡¯s mother stopped him and took out a scroll. Pressing it into Saleen¡¯s hands, she said, ¡°I have nothing to give you. We only have these worthless ythings for you. Take it.¡±


    Saleen wanted to refuse, but Aini¡¯s mother said, ¡°This is a nk scroll. It can cast a spell that is two grades higher than you. Your grade is still low. It will be useful to you.¡±


    Hearing this, Saleen knew that this was something the couple had prepared for Aini. Now that he was a death mage, he would not need an elemental scroll like this any longer.


    A normal magic scroll could only cast a spell that was one grade higher than the user. This was a nk scroll that could cast two grades higher than the user. Its rarity was not any less than that of the green spirit. However, the green spirit was a gemstone and could be used for a long time, while this scroll was a one-time thing and its value was much less.


    Saleen had not expected Aini¡¯s parents to be this hospitable. They werepletely different from Aini. Giving a deep bow, Saleen left the massiveboratory. The swordmaster at the doorway said politely, ¡°Mage, the earl is waiting for you.¡±


    Saleen then remembered what he was here for.


    Rushing out of the court, a servant outside was running around anxiously. Seeing Saleen, he looked like he had been saved from his misery. ¡°Sir, follow me now.¡±


    His words were slightly impolite. Saleen was afraid that something was amiss and Nailisi had caused trouble again. He had only been gone for a little while and something had already happened. Taking care of a demon was so much trouble. Following the servant into the guest hall, many Clyde swordsmen were surrounding the doorway. Saleen grew frustrated. Could Nailisi have killed the earl¡¯s son? However, these swordsmen did not take much notice of him. There were the other four ck grand swordmasters. Any one of them could take care of all of these people.


    Seeing Saleen return, someone from the crowd shouted, ¡°It is this mage. His people were the one. Catch him!¡±


    Swoosh¡­


    The swordsmen parted, exposing the man who had shouted. The earl¡¯s voice appeared within the guest hall, ¡°Get the person who shouted and question him in the back.¡±


    Saleen calmed down a little, looking coldly at the man who was in a daze. In Holy Rock City, if a mage did not hurt anyone, you were not allowed to hurt him or her. With the sudden shouts, if the earl¡¯s swordsmen had not been thinking straight, not only would he have been injured but the earl would have found it hard to exin too.


    Luckily, the swordsmen had all been calm. The person who had shouted must have had some problems. The earl was quickwitted and immediately got someone to detain him for interrogation.


    Saleen looked at the slightly fat swordsman who had been pushed onto the ground by the people around him. Saleen walked past the crowd and into the guest hall. Viscountess Lex seemed to have known that he would meet with some form of trouble and had left the four ck grand swordmasters here. She truly possessed foresight. Saleen thought about all of these things as he took in what was happening in the guest hall, still a little dazed.

 Chapter 115: Spider Puppet (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 115: Spider Puppet (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The one who had stirred up trouble had not been Nailisi. Sika held her boomerang in her hands and red angrily at the son of the earl. His face was pale from blood loss. His entire arm was wrapped in bandages, his left hand clutching his sword, and there were two swordsmen behind him gripping their weapons as well.


    The four ck grand swordmasters were seemingly apathetic about the entire situation as they sat there without batting an eyelid.


    ¡°Earl, what has happened?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea why your men would injure my son.¡± Earl Sebastian was frustrated. He also knew what his son was like, but this was his house and that woman had nearly killed someone. No matter what had happened, he needed an exnation.


    Saleen gave a faint smile and said, ¡°Sika isn¡¯t one of my men. She¡¯s my friend, and if you have anything to say, you can direct it to me.¡±


    Hearing Saleen¡¯s words, Sika calmed down. Earl Sebastian¡¯s son, on the other hand, was furious as he said, ¡°This bitch. I will kill her today!¡±


    Saleenughed even harder. ¡°Haha, Earl. How about this? I shall wait here for two hours. Have your son call upon whoever he wants and allow him to do his killing. If I were to die idently, I am sure the viscountess would look after therger situation and would not seek out trouble with the Clyde family.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s so impressive about the viscountess¡­¡±


    ¡°Bastard!¡± Earl Sebastian was really angry this time. It seemed like his son had no chance of being a nobleman any longer. If what had happened today were to spread, the earl¡¯s few brothers would definitely oppose him from continuing to support his son.


    ¡°Bastard? I¡¯m a bastard, I¡¯m illiterate, I can¡¯t fight, and I can¡¯t do magic, so why are you all still forcing me to do these things? Let me enjoy my life and wait for death!¡± The earl¡¯s son threw his long sword aside in anger and turned to leave.


    Earl Sebastian was disheartened. ording to the rules of the fourrge families, he did not need to pass down the family business to his son. Moreover, the position of the leader changed every thirty years. He was sure this son of his had no hopes anymore. If Saleen was someone petty, he would tell the viscountess what had happened today. The earl was well aware of what position the viscountess held in the emperor¡¯s heart.


    Should he bribe Saleen and the others? What a joke. This was the capital. The Clyde family might have been able to buy their way out of everything that took ce outside, but in the capital, they needed to follow the rules of the wealthy.


    Saleen took a look at Earl Sebastian, many thoughts shing inside his head. The earl¡¯s son had possessed a vicious look on his face before he had left. That was not someone who wanted to enjoy his life and wait for death.


    ¡°Mage Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Earl.¡± Saleen interrupted the words of Earl Sebastian and continued, ¡°¡®What¡¯s so impressive about the viscountess,¡¯ these words I will let her know. I will not need to say much. Even if I did not tell her, these four people here would tell her too. How badly that will reflect on you, you should already know.¡± Saleen pointed at the four ck grand swordmasters and the earl had nothing to say.


    Saleen felt smug. He knew that the earl¡¯s son must have harassed Sika. If not, someone like Sika would not have used force. The entire mercenary world knew how sincere Cascausus people were. Since you¡¯ve angered Sika, don¡¯t me me if I¡¯ll now be dining above you. If this little guy has no chance of ascending to a noble position, does Aini have a chance?


    It was a pity he was about to leave the capital. It would have been hard for anyone else to use their authority to climb over other people¡¯s heads.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, what about the affairs regarding the viscountess?¡± Sebastian was someone who had experienced many things, and he knew that what mattered right now were the business matters of the Bitter Water Prefecture. It did not matter if his son was able to ascend to a noble position, for he would be able to be a wealthy person either way. The business with the viscountess, however, could be a fantastic opportunity for the whole family.


    ¡°We shall talk about it when Ie over in half a month¡¯s time.¡± Saleen did not even bother sitting down. He put away the tea set left behind by Lex and prepared to leave. Sebastian could not stop him and could only let him leave. The four ck grand swordmasters only then stood up and followed Saleen out of the guest hall. Just as he was about to step out of the doorway, Saleen said, ¡°Earl, wait a minute. The man who shouted just now¡­¡±


    Sebastian furrowed his brows and said, ¡°He must be a spy sent over by some other family.¡±


    ¡°Earl, I have heard that people from the Holy See are everywhere. They are a tough bunch, and if you do not manage to find out anything from him, you can hand him over to me. I have many ways of getting him to speak.¡±


    Earl Sebastian broke out into a cold sweat. Saleen was obviously implying that his son might have been dealing with the Holy See. However, this was a suspicious matter. It would be better to kill that person. Later, when he returned to speak to his son, he knew that he should avoid bringing this up. The Clyde family and the Holy See were in conflict. This was something that everybody knew. However, if they were truly to be bitten, the Clyde family could forget about doing business in the Qin Empire in the future.


    He had underestimated Saleen and thought he would be easy to deal with. Only now did he realize that Saleen was someone who could eat someone up very cleanly. No wonder Viscountess Lex had left him in charge of the business.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, I will give you a copy of the interrogation file.¡± Earl Sebastian expressed his desire to take a step back. In the face of business, everything was fake. Only gold coins were real.


    Saleen stopped putting pressure on the earl, knowing when to stop. With this short exchange, he had already gained an upper hand and Lex¡¯s mission had been aplished. When he came over here in half a month¡¯s time, Sebastian would most likely have the proposal drafted out and would be waiting to discuss it with him.


    A servant led them to the horses that Lex had left behind, and Saleen and the others departed. Seeing Saleen leave, Earl Sebastian clenched his teeth and shook his head in helplessness. Even without Saleen, his son would have caused trouble sooner orter. This time, the family had sent out a great number of men to deal with the resources needed for the emperor¡¯s expedition. He was afraid that his son would cause trouble, and hence, had left him at home. Who would have known that he would have still caused trouble for him?


    Saleen did not give too much thought to what had happened with Earl Sebastian. After returning to the pce, Lex sent someone for him and he truthfully told her what had happened. Viscountess Lex burst intoughter.


    Saleen waved his hand. He said, ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me exactly what to do, either. Hence, I decided to kill off some of his murderous vibes.¡±


    ¡°Yes, you did well.¡± Viscountess Lex held back herughter and said, ¡°Once we return to Bitter Water Prefecture, you can select some people to deal with these types of things things for you. Regarding these missions, it is best that you do not go by yourself. In half a month¡¯s time, the army will have gathered together. During this period, do not leave the pce. The capital has twelve dukes, and you cannot afford to offend them.¡±


    Lex¡¯s words went along very well with Saleen¡¯s wishes. If he needed to deal with such things on a daily basis, he would not have any time to practice magic.


    ¡°What about the matter regarding Sika?¡±


    ¡°The gold coins?¡±


    Saleen took out the check for sixty thousand gold coins from Aini and handed it to Lex.


    Lex did not even bother checking the amount, storing it directly into her ring and said to Saleen, ¡°I have already sent someone to handle it. If there are no idents, it will be settled in three to five months. Before winter, the entire vige will have enough rations to tide them over for winter.¡±


    Seeing something amiss in Saleen¡¯s expression, Lex said, ¡°As for the matter involving the green magic nucleus, I am very thankful. Since it was worth tens of thousands of gold coins, I can still trust you.¡±


    Saleen was speechless. If she trusted him, why did she need to mention the gold coins?


    The pce was separated from the world and Saleen practiced his magic every day. He was not able to instantly cast a Grade 3 spell, but when it came to Grade 2 spells, he grasped them quickly. However, his magic chords did not seem to be increasing and Saleen knew that such things could not be rushed. He had not spent much time with magic, and only through experience could he hope to advance.


    Half a month passed very quickly for a mage, and if Lex had not given him a reminder, Saleen would have nearly forgotten the day he needed to return to the Clyde family. Business matters would not be settled that quickly, but he needed to go back to retrieve the puppet made from the witcher spider.


    Sika could not be by his side forever, and a puppet was a decent weapon for killing.


    He came to the earl¡¯s residence with some expectations. This time, Lex allowed him to bring with him two ck grand swordmasters. Nailisi and Sika stayed behind. A maid went to greet Saleen and immediately asked, ¡°Mage Saleen, would you like to see Master Fellett or the earl first?¡±


    ¡°Bring me to Uncle Fellett first.¡± If he went to see Fellett first, the two grand swordmasters would follow him. If anything went wrong, he would not need to be afraid.


    Coming to the court where the couple were under house arrest, Saleen asked the two ck grand swordmasters to stay behind as he went in alone. It was the same narrow corridor with fresh flowers to the two sides. Saleen took a deep breath before walking up the steps and knocking on the door.


    ¡°Come in, Saleen.¡±


    Saleen pushed open the door, and what greeted him was a giant spider. Saleen did not have time to think as he released twelve water shields which floated out in front of him. At the same time, Saleen¡¯s hands positioned themselves into a unique stance, waiting to release a Grade 3 spell.


    Laughter came from behind. It was the voice of Aini¡¯s mother. Saleen knew at once that he had been tricked. The illusion in front of him disappeared and what was left on the floor was his witcher spider.


    Saleen gave a bitterugh. These two had been under arrest for so long that they had grown bored. They had actually decided to joke around with someone of a lower status like him. However, the illusion earlier on had seemed too real. Even with his own eyes, he had not been able to tell that it was fake. With such arge spider illusion pouncing forward, the smaller witcher spider had been even better concealed.


    Witcher spiders were known for their surprise attacks. If they were under broad daylight, even Sika could be tossed away by one. It seemed like the Fellett couple had spent a great deal of effort on this puppet.


    ¡°Saleen, are you satisfied?¡± Fellettughed too. Saleen waved his hand and the water shields disappeared. Fellett¡¯s smile was stuck on his face. Such powerful magic control. Who was Saleen¡¯s teacher? When he had been Grade 2, even releasing twelve spells in such a short time was unheard of, much less making them disappear.


    It was no wonder that despite Aini¡¯s proud character, he had been willing to be friends with Saleen.


    Saleen carefully carried the witcher spider in his hands. There had not been many changes made to it. Aside from some concealed magic patterns, there were now seven spaces on its belly in which to iy magic nuclei.


    Since the witcher spider provided by Saleen had beenplete, Fellett had also instigated a magic array inside of the spider¡¯s body. The witcher spider not only had a hard outer shell, but it had a certain toughness to it as well. The seven troughs to iy magic nuclei had been slowly carved out using corrosive rays.


    There were six magic nuclei within the troughs and one crystal. Fellett said, ¡°The crystal in the center has a spiritual imprint on it and can be used to control the puppet. If you have a nice ind rock, the illusion will look even more real.¡±


    Saleen was overjoyed. This was the easiest method for controling a puppet. It had a range that was rted to the grade of the mage. If the middle trough had a ck crystal iid within it, it could even be used to trap the soul of a magic beast, making the puppet even stronger.

 Chapter 116: Going for War (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 116: Going for War (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The stomach of the witcher spider was now mosaicked with a crystal that had a mixture of colors, a temporary substitute. Saleen then added a spiritual imprint which enabled him to have a mental connection with the puppet.


    A magic array appeared in Saleen¡¯s mind. This array consisted of simple lines, and Saleen could quickly deduce the magic principles behind it using the Figaro form. However, at the bottom of the magic array, there was an extremelyplex magic array. This array was used to stimte the phantom.


    After initiating the simple magic array using the power of a magic nucleus, Saleen could control the movements of the witcher spider. At the same time, theplex magic array was also initiated, releasing the phantom.


    Fellett and his wife had specially designed the magic arrays for Saleen since his level was too low. It had not been an easy task designing these magic arrays.


    After controlling the witcher spider and manipting it into doing a few actions, Saleen stored the spider into his demonic ring. It turned out that in order to stimte the phantom, mental power was used, so when there was insufficient mental power, the phantom could not be activated.


    ¡°That¡¯s truly not bad.¡± Saleen was convinced. The puppet could be controlled easily, and the spider¡¯s counteracting magic effect had been unleashed to its fullest extent. Furthermore, the magic arrays had been refined internally, so there had been no damage to its material. If Saleen did not like it in the future, he could easily redo the refining again.


    ¡°Saleen, I heard that you¡¯re representing the Bitter Water Prefecture and doing business with the Clyde family?¡± Aini¡¯s mother spoke gently. The way she looked at Saleen was the same way she looked at her own child.


    ¡°My name¡¯s Lanny. You can call me Aunt Lanny.¡±


    ¡°Yes, the viscountess is going to establish her own county so she wants to expand trade.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, when Aini bes a mage again, he will never go and manage the family¡¯s business¡­¡±


    ¡°Aunt Lanny, I was forced to do this. I have no other choice because I owe them a favor.¡±


    ¡°Alright, that¡¯s good. A mage should never bother themselves with these mundane affairs. The right path is one that focuses on cultivating magic.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Saleen felt a warmth in his heart as he was lectured by Lanny.


    ¡°Saleen, this is for you.¡± Fellett took out a book and handed it to Saleen. He said, ¡°These are some business notes. Use memory magic to memorize all of this information. Commerce is moreplicated than magic. Don¡¯t waste too much time on it.¡±


    Lanny patted Saleen¡¯s shoulders and said, ¡°Go and see the earl. When you are in the imperial capital in the future, you cane and look for us. By then¡­¡±


    By then, you will have regained your freedom, Saleen thought to himself. Fortunately, he had not fallen out with Aini in the past. Aini¡¯s parents were both experts in magic. There must have been more experts like them within the Clyde family. On just a notion to visit Aini¡¯s parents, Saleen had gained two more backers.


    Fellett and Lanny were apologetic. They had caused great losses to the n, and had needed to give away all their assets aspensation. Hence, they had nothing valuable to gift Saleen. People whom Aini gave his badge to were reliable. Saleen had certainly had no desires to steal Aini¡¯s badge, because the badge contained Aini¡¯s spiritual imprint.


    While Saleen was being entertained in the earl¡¯s residence, in the pce, the Qin Emperor had convened a meeting with his officials.


    ¡°Once I set off for war, the government in the imperial capital will be managed by the crown prince and the prince will assist him. The war on the frontlines is too urgent. I cannot wait any longer. The soldier town at the border has contributed twenty thousand troops to help exterminate the ck mages. In the middle of July will be the day of god¡¯s descent, so the Tanggsi Empire will definitely deploy their troops and embark for war on that day. The situation ispletely different from what we had thought. The Qin Empire must contain the war within the Lon Duchy.¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, what do you n to do with the Cloudflow Empire?¡±


    The emperor looked at the person who had posed the question and saw that it was the minister of finance of the empire. ¡°Trade will go on as usual. The price of metals will not increase.¡±


    The minister of military affairs then asked in exasperation, ¡°Then what about the coordinatedunch of troops from both empires?¡±


    The Cloudflow Empire had premium iron ores and the Qin Empire continuously purchased them inrge amounts. However, this did not mean that the Qin Empire did not possesss any iron ore, it was simply that the Qin Empire ced greater emphasis on agriculture. The mines were controlled by the royal family, and these mines were not actively mined. It would be impossible for the Cloudflow Empire to enjoy a fortune during the war, because the Qin Emperor could easily open his mines to depress the price of metals. What the minister of finance had been hinting at were the troops from both empires, but the emperor had answered him nonchntly. Thus, the minister of military affairs had only been able to ask the question directly.


    ¡°If the Cloudflow Empire does not deploy their troops, will the Qin Empire not go to war?¡± the emperor chided.


    Seeing that the ministers were speechless, he continued, ¡°The Qin Empire has over one thousand hereditary nobles and billions of citizens. When the empire was first established, we had only a few thousand miles ofnd and a few million citizens. What is wrong with all of you now? Are you afraid of the cavalry soldiers from the Tanggsi Empire, or the glorious lord?¡±


    These ministers were even more speechless now. Indeed, the Tanggsi Empire had a fearsome cavalry force, but the Qin Empire had many more mages. When it came to what they feared, no one feared that sort of meeting. As for the glorious lord? The powers of the nobles were greatly weakened in the region under the control of the Holy See. In the Tanggsi Empire, even the coronation of the emperor required consent from the pope.


    If their nobles needed to live like that, how interesting could their lives be?


    The Holy See possessed huge business. The taxes they paid wereparable to that from the entirety of the Tanggsi Empire. Everyone¡¯s assets would shrink by at least half even if the Holy See surrendered during the war. Also, the Holy See possessed a great deal of authority, so they could drive many people to insanity.


    ¡°Your Majesty, even if the Cloudflow Empire doesn¡¯t help us, they will also not assist the Holy See. But we should be on guard against Sikeqinya. I have heard that the Holy See have business in northern Sikeqinya and are trying to influence Sikeqinya into dering war with us,¡± Prince Safilos said worriedly.


    ¡°Sikeqinya¡­¡± The emperor did not continue his sentence, thinking about what Saleen had told him. Large mercenary groups whose capabilities wereparable to the Qin¡¯s elite army were in Sikeqinya. There, mercenaries were motivated by money, so they could be disloyal at anytime. If they were bribed by the Holy See, it would mean huge trouble for the Qin Empire.


    ¡°Are there any movements from Laiyin Duchy?¡±


    ¡°No, their troops are still stationed at the border to prevent infiltration by the ck mages.¡±


    ¡°Troops?¡±


    ¡°The Laiyin Duchy has two swordsmen camps that consist of about fifty thousand mercenaries.¡± Safilos was in charge of external military affairs, so he had known about the military situation in the vicinity of Lon Duchy since long ago.


    ¡°Seventy thousand people. With the support troops added in, the number will exceed one hundred thousand. Lex, can you handle these people?¡±


    The twelve dukes uniformly cast their gazes onto Lex. Lex answered calmly, ¡°If I get into a head on sh with them, I won¡¯t have enough manpower. But it will not be difficult to defeat them.¡±


    Lex was not boasting at all. Her swordsmen camp was filled with various experts, and the camp had more swordmasters than swordsmen. The ten thousand strong force would be able to withstand the twenty thousand swordsmen from Laiyin Duchy. Furthermore, the emperor had gifted Lex with countless weapons and armor, and with her many years of umting and storing supplies, she would be able to expand the size of the army to thirty thousand so long as there were enough people.


    The Bitter Water Prefecture had an advantage, which was the strong cohesion between its mages. In the past ten years, the prefecture had groomed more than ten mage masters. Even though these mage masters might not have been staying in the prefecture anymore, they would definitely return if Lex needed their help. With hundreds of mages and thousands of disciples, the Bitter Water Prefecture had possessed the resources to establish a county long ago.


    ¡°Alright, then I will grant you the power to lead ten camps of troops. You will recruit the soldiers yourself, and if youck in weapons or armor, you can take them from the empire¡¯s storage facilities. I will face one hundred thousand troops from Laiyin Duchy when I go the western region, so it won¡¯t be easy for me. You can station two camps at Lon and help me defend against Laiyin.¡±


    The faces on the ministers changed. Ten camps of troops meant one hundred thousand soldiers. Even the prince could only lead ten thousand soldiers during peacetime. The authority he was giving her was too great, but the ministers did not argue, because it was not good for the emperor to face any underlying trouble when he was about to set off for war. The dukes could onlymand ten thousand troops. Should they use their private armies? But that would be too distressing for them. After all, the war with the Holy See was still far away. If the Holy See came to the Qin Empire, all of them would not mind fighting until theirst breaths.


    No one felt that the emperor would lose the war. The confidence of the Qin people was being disyed at this moment. Around three thousand low-level mages had rushed to the imperial capital for the Holy War. For these poor mages, it was a golden opportunity. They would be able to kill maniacs like those from the Holy See while being able to grow rich at the same time.


    Thebat ability of a low-level mage was not that strong, and a little over ten swordsmen could take out a Grade 1 mage. If there were enough swordmasters, a Grade 3 mage would not even pose a threat whatsoever. Since there were around three thousand low-level mages, they could providebat support for at least two swordsmen camps.


    The Qin Empire had a unique strength ¨C mage camps. For every ten swordsmen, one low-level mage would be paired with them to form a formidable force. Also, not only were there many mages in the empire, but the citizens were robust too. The support troops were made up of farmers, lone swordsmen, and asionally, a few swordmasters.


    ording to Saleen, the power of these support troops wereparable to that of the small mercenary groups.


    Seeing that the ministers had stopped objecting, the emperor heaved a sigh of relief. If Lex established her empire with one hundred thousand soldiers, she would have no problem absorbing Lon Duchy. The few duchies under the control of the Qin Empire were in terrible political situations. If the empire had not supported them, they would have crumbled long ago. Rather than allowing them to be destroyed, it would be better to absorb these duchies into the Grukos family.


    Safilos secretly sighed. Even after the war ended, the issue of Lex establishing a county would perhaps once again ignite a conflict within the government. But since the situation was so dire right now, they could only look after the empire and prevent the outsiders from causing ruin.


    What Safilos really wanted to protect was the honor and glory of the Grukos family.


    Unfortunately for Safilos, both of his sons were not capable of bing mages. Otherwise, the emperor would not have only been biased towards Lex.


    ¡°If that is so, I shall personally lead the troops into battle in Lon Duchy in three days¡¯ time. Safilos¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I will need to trouble you to take care of affairs in the imperial capital,¡± the emperor said solemnly. The crown prince had just recovered from his illness. Thus, he did not have enough knowledge and power to control the upper house. If only Lex had been the crown prince. Now, the emperor could only rely on his younger brother to take care of things.


    ¡°Your Majesty, for the honor and glory of the Qin Empire.¡± Safilos stood up, put his hands to his chest, and bowed respectfully.


    In the great hall, all twelve of the dukes and over thirty marquises stood up and turned towards the Qin Emperor. They said, ¡°For the honor and glory of the Qin Empire.¡±


    The Qin Emperor looked at the various officials before him and thought to himself, Do all of you truly remember the honor and glory of this empire? The dream of the Grukos family was to unite the Myers Maind and be the Fifth Dynasty. If all of you still remember this dream along with its honor and glory, then why has the maind remained separated after a thousand years?


    No matter what the astrologer had said, the emperor was going to do things his way this time around!

 Chapter 117: Going for War (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 117: Going for War (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    For hundreds of years, the Qin Empire had not had an emperor who would personally lead troops into battle, and the imperial code had been covered in dust. But today, the code had been uncovered once more, and some traditions had also been dug out along with it. One example was tonight¡¯s banquet inside the pce for various officials.


    How many nobles were there in the imperial capital? No one knew, but Saleen and the other mages would not be participating in the banquet. All of them would stay in their rooms and practice.


    Saleen asked Sika toe over to his room and stay with him and Nailisi, so that they could observe how he controlled the witcher spider.


    First, Saleen cast twenty-four water shields and arranged them in front of the witcher spider in the shape of a distorted snake. Then, the witcher spider jumped before lunging at the water shields. A phantom image shed from the front legs of the spider and silently tore down the water shields.


    The witcher spider and the water shields were both controlled by Saleen. Ever since Saleen had learned the Figaro form, he had been able to control the water shields and enable their toughest defenses against the attacks by the witcher spider. However, he could not use the Figaro form in battle yet. In reality, the water shield had already exceeded Saleen¡¯s grade, with its defenses being that of Grade 4.


    Magic shields had their weak points, but Saleen had directed the witcher spider to attack their strong points and the spider had still been able to destroy the shields.


    ¡°That¡¯s brilliant!¡± Sika drew her boomerang and threw it towards one of Saleen¡¯s water shields. With a ¡°chi¡± sound, the boomerang slid past the bubble-like water shield. The shield shrank a little but did not break.


    Saleen had not been able to calcte the angle from which the boomerang would strike the water shield, and he also had not been able to adjust the point of contact on the shield in that instant. Sika was not a puppet. To her, the water shield only had Grade 3 defenses.


    The boomerang flew out and turned around in midair, striking the same water shield that had shrunk. A dim light appeared and the water shield shrank by more than half, nearly destroyed.


    Saleen was astonished. Sika¡¯s boomerang did not have the ability to counteract magic and his water shield had been transformed so it was no longer rted to the original magic. The bubble-like water shield could negate most of the impact and had only absorbed less than twenty percent of that strike.


    Even so, Sika could already nearly destroy a water shield with just two attacks.


    Nailisi pounced on another water shield. She tried scratching the shield but her fingers simply slid past it. Nailisi stared at her fingers in shock and extended her fingernails, displeased that she had not been able to break the shield. The razor sharp nails tried to tear at the shield, but they slid past the shield once again.


    Saleen was relieved. After grasping the Figaro form, he had made changes to the water shield. Its Grade 1 defenses were now equivalent to Grade 3 defenses. This spell was Saleen¡¯s lifeline. Testing the water shield, its effectiveness was great. Sika and Nailisi did not have the capabilities to destroy the shield.


    Saleen stopped controlling the witcher spider, realizing that the witcher spider exhausted arge amount of magic nuclei. After the witcher spider had broken more than ten water shields, three out of the six magic nuclei had been used up.


    Nailisi stared at the water shield levitating in front of her. The shield wasrger than her face and was translucent, with mist inside of it. Under the light from the crystalmp, there were mysterious magic patterns in the shield which looked abnormally beautiful.


    Suddenly, Nailisi opened her mouth, her rosy red lips transforming into a gaping maw in that instant. She bit down on the water shield.


    Kacha!


    The crisp sound of the shield being broken filled the room. The shield had been destroyed by Nailisi¡¯s teeth. Nailisi was overjoyed and reverted to her normal form, snorting her nose towards Sika proudly. Nailisi thought to herself, If I were an adult, my fingers would be stronger and wouldn¡¯t slide past that weird thing. But even now, nothing can stop my teeth.


    Sika held out her hand and told Saleen, ¡°Give it to me!¡±


    Saleen took out Sika¡¯s cudgel from his Ring of Gifts and walked over to her, giving her the cudgel. The cudgel was extremely heavy, and it was not easy for Saleen to carry it and walk. If other mages had tried it, they would have definitely fallen to the ground straightaway.


    Sika took the cudgel, waved it about easily, then ferociously struck an undamaged water shield with the cudgel.


    As the cudgel raced through the air, it emitted a strange whimper. This whimper was not the sound of the magic beast soul, as the beast soul had disappeared. This was the natural strength the cudgel now possessed after its transformation.


    Poo¡­


    The water shield broke, releasing a cloud of mist into the air. Saleen was stunned. Had the cudgel reached the standard of a piece of holy equipment? This was no surprise. After all, Faerun had be a sorcerer because of the cudgel¡¯s transformation, so the cudgel definitely possessed some unique power.


    What level of warrior was Sika considered to be now? She did not practice the sword aura, and all of her aplishments relied on her inborn strength. If things continued like this, would Sika eventually reach a teau?


    ¡°Sika, how old are you this year?¡± Saleen recalled that Caucasus people shared a special bloodline. In their lifetime, they would go through a few evolutions. If Sika had not evolved yet, she would experience an increase in power at least three more times.


    ¡°Sixteen. Why?¡± Sika stared at Saleen. She did not like people asking about her age. If other people had asked her that question, she would have hit them with her cudgel long ago.


    Saleen was visibly stunned. Only sixteen? But she looked older than Saleen. If Saleen had not grown taller this past year, people might have thought that Sika was his sister whenever they walked together.


    ¡°Sika, Nailisi, the spell I just cast had the defensive capabilities of Grade 3 magic.¡±


    Nailisi did not react, but Sika¡¯s eyes widened. Then, in shock, Sika said, ¡°I broke a Grade 3 spell just now?¡±


    ¡°It was Grade 1 magic, but it possessed the power of a Grade 3 spell. However, you are right. If you get close to a Grade 3 mage, you will be able to attack him.¡± Saleen recalled the witcher spider back into his hand and turned it over for an inspection. The colors of the six magic nuclei had dimmed a great deal. When Saleen took a closer look using his mental power, he realized that the spider had used up a much greater amount of energy than he had originally thought.


    Because the witcher spider was a tiny puppet, only one-third of an average magic nucleus was needed to manipte it. An average sized magic nucleus could be cut into two pieces and mosaicked into the finished puppet. As Saleen had used a Grade 3 magic nucleus, he had needed to use three nuclei in order to cut out six pieces.


    The shards produced by cutting the magic nuclei had no value on their own, meaning that the witcher spider required at least four hundred and fifty gold pieces to be activated. The spider could only be used for short periods of time inbat, and on the battlefield, there would be thousands of enemies, so the effect of the witcher spider would perhaps not be that pronounced.


    In order to survive on the battlefield, a mage needed to be constantly protected by warriors.


    There was a way to solve the problem. The witcher spider had been constructed using Grade 4 materials so it could withstand Grade 4 magic nuclei as well. However, Grade 4 magic nuclei were very expensive. So, unless they were under special circumstances, Saleen would not activate the phantom since its activation was the primary reason for its exhaustion of the magic nuclei.


    Saleen was not disappointed when he reevaluated thebat powers of the puppet. Fellett and Lanny possessed very limited resources, thus they had not been able to use better materials for the witcher spider. If the witcher spider had been refined using better materials, it would be able to hold magic nuclei of higher grades and its fullbat potential could be unleashed.


    Unfortunately, it was very difficult to capture witcher spiders because they lived in caves and did not appear above ground. Even if humans tried to enter such caves, it was difficult to spot them. Magic beasts like witcher spiders, which did not have magic nuclei, liked to move between the crevices of rocks. Only during their hunts for food would they stealthily jump out and deal a fatal blow to their prey.


    ¡°The two of you, the viscountess will be departing for war with the emperor and this time they will go around Hadisai City. If we approach from the northern side, we will be at risk of being attacked as well. Hence, the viscountess has agreed to allocate tenbat mages and one hundred swordsmen to me. In the future, the two of you will no longer need to charge to the front. Focus on protecting each other.¡±


    Sika already knew that Lex had sent people to look for her vige. Thus, she was not worried and simply nodded at Saleen¡¯s instructions. But, Nailisi said worriedly, ¡°Master, I may be¡­¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I may be bing an adult.¡±


    When Saleen heard that, he became worried. While magic beasts were undergoing advancement or maturing into adults, they would enter a weakened state or deep sleep. If that was going to happen to Nailisi, there would be trouble. And it would be worse if she revealed her true form.


    Nailisi looked at Saleen sadly. She said, ¡°Master, tell me. Should I be a male or female?¡±


    Saleen was relieved. Demons were wise creatures so their process of adulthood was not so troublesome. Nailisi was only fretting about the issue of its gender.


    ¡°Be whatever you want to be,¡± Saleen replied. Saleen said that, but in his heart, he was afraid that Nailisi would transform into a masculine bearded male. If that became the case, then it would be extremely appalling to live with Nailisi. But what if Nailisi became a female? Would it cause Nailisi to be more fickle and get into trouble more easily?


    Sika stood at the side and listened to their conversation. She thought to herself, If you be a male, I will make sure to chop off your penis. Otherwise, things will be too nasty. Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s contracted creature. Sika did not want Saleen to be stuck with a bearded man every day for the rest of his life.


    Three days flew by quickly. The security at Holy Rock City was watertight. The twelve streets that connected the northern and southern parts of the capital had been cleared, and the pce swordsmen were opening the doors from the inside. The houses that lined both sides of the streets were crowded with civilians who were jostling each other to catch this glorious moment that had not happened for hundreds of years. The owners of some of these houses even rented out their homes, managing to make a fortune quickly.


    Following the roar from the cannons, fireworks filled the skies. A gigantic totem had appeared in the sky above Holy Rock City. This totem was called the six-winged flying snake, and had three pairs of wings.


    This was the trademark of the Grukos family. Legend had it that the ancestors of the Qin Emperor had once owned over hundreds of these creatures, which wererger than dragons with their abnormal bodies. And, when the Qin Empire was first built, the founding emperor had possessed a six-winged flying snake beside him. Thousands of yearster, these unusual surface creatures no longer appeared, and so the six-winged flying snake had be a totem in the hearts of the Qin people.


    ves of the past were now symbols of the present. What brilliant satire on the decadence of mankind.


    The magic clock in Holy Rock City emitted a sudden roar. The Qin Emperor stood on his battle carriage, wielding his saber, while themanders of the royal swordsmen camps walked in front of the carriage one by one. The emperor tapped his saber on all of their shoulders, presenting them with the power to go to war.


    This symbolic presentation of power gave themanders the right to forge new ground and carry out killings on foreign soil. The sound from the magic clock could travel almost one hundred miles. Other than the camp in the northern town, the rest of the pioneering soldiers had officially set off for the war. These pioneering soldiers who had few logistics would be the first people to set foot on thend of Lon Duchy.

 Chapter 118: The Power of a Scroll (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 118: The Power of a Scroll (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen sat in his own carriage. The Qin Emperor had not only gifted Viscountess Lex with authority over ten camps of troops, but he had given her one thousand swordsmen as well. The Qin royal swordsmen were simr to the sacred knights of the Holy See in that they were bound for life. Their everyday necessities were provided by the country, and the sole purpose of their lives wasbat.


    No matter their background, a swordsman could be a middle-grade officer if he trained to be a high-grade swordmaster. If he became a normal swordmaster, he would be a low-grade officer, and his children would be looked after by the country. For manymoners, this was a huge incentive.


    However, the process of selecting a royal swordsman was unusually strict and their number had always been maintained at one hundred thousand or below. In the past four hundred years, it had almost always been kept below fifty thousand.


    Aside from having resources, loyalty to the country was very important too. Typically, the son of a royal swordsman could easily be part of the next generation of royal swordsmen. For amoner, the chance was slim. Because many children of the wealthy did not have the right of session to serve the royal family, joining the royal swordsmen was a decent alternative.


    Saleen¡¯s war carriage had been specially designed for mages, and was simr to the one that Viscountess Lex had. A person could look out and see everything around them, and it could fit up to ten people. Since the expedition had officially started, Lex could not allow Saleen and the others to be in her carriage. Soldiers had been arranged to protect her instead.


    For Saleen, this was decent treatment. Aside from Sika and Nailisi, there were six other swordmasters in the carriage. One of them was Tenesee. Around Saleen¡¯s carriage, a small team of one hundred swordsmen had been arranged for their protection. Saleen had no idea why he was suddenly being treated so well, but he believed it had something to do with Joey.


    Tenbat mages followed behind the carriages. Due to the special designs of the war carriages of the Qin Empire, they could bebined to form a simple fortress if enemies were encountered. Even a magic beast swordsman from the Cloudflow Empire would find them difficult to break.


    The one thousand swordsmen that Lex had brought along were already moving towards the town up north. When they reached it, the Bitter Water Army would be expanded to two thousand people. Together with the reserve troops, that made almost three thousand troops in total.


    Withbat power like this, they would not need to be afraid of any attacks by the wealthy from Hadisai City. The Qin Emperor had nned it out well. The elites from Hadisai City did not exceed five thousand people. With half of them having been called upon by the emperor, only two thousand five hundred of them were left. At least two thousand would be left to defend the city, and the remaining five hundred would not pose a threat to the Bitter Water Army.


    Even if there were any assassins, there was no need to worry. An assassin¡¯s strengths were in hiding and burst attacks. However, in an army, an assassin¡¯s function was very little unless they were one like Bain.


    Saleen had not expected Lex to entrust Tenesee to him. Tenesee was a high-grade swordsman. He was not old and did not look older than thirty. Someone like him would be the limb of Lex in the future. Saleen now knew the importance of a swordsman to a mage. He did not take this time to practice his magic. Instead, he struck up a conversation with Tenesee.


    ¡°Tenesee, where have you been these past few years?¡±


    ¡°Cloudflow.¡± Tenesee did not say more than he needed to. His answer was unusually simple.


    ¡°Have you seen any magic beast swordsmen?¡± Saleen was unaffected. He would be able to find ways to interact with Tenesee. As expected, upon hearing this, Tenesee began talking more.


    ¡°Yes. Cloudflow doesn¡¯t have many ces with war horses. There are quite a few magic beast swordsmen.¡±


    ¡°Swordsmen aren¡¯t mages. How do they form a bond with these magic beasts?¡± Saleen asked curiously.


    ¡°There is no bond, so long as they can defeat and tame the magic beasts. Hence, a magic beast swordsman isn¡¯t that scary. Their magic beasts are usually rtively low-grade.¡±


    Saleen thought back to the silver grand swordmaster that had been captured with Lex¡¯s tricks. The magic beast he had with him had only been a Grade 6 one. This only confirmed his thoughts. A bond of magic was only used on intelligent creatures. For low-grade magic beasts, a bond would be a waste of a mage¡¯s focus.


    No wonder so many mages would rather create a puppet than tame a magic beast. A puppet did not need to eat or drink. It did not need to be taken care of and could be discarded whenever one wanted. However, a magic beast was a living being and bringing it around could prove troublesome.


    The Qin Empire¡¯s army did not have official infantry troops. Even the infantry troops were required to ride horses, and their movement speed was very fast. Forbat purposes,rge number of mages could cast a Haste spell on thousands of cavalry. This allowed the Qin Empire¡¯s cavalry to be one of the fastest among all of the countries.


    Before long, the entire army had left the capital and was moving towards the north. One hundred thousand people could not move together, and the forward troops of ten thousand soldiers were in front by at least one hundred miles. Following them were the main armies. They were separated into three groups, with each group consisting of thirty thousand people. At the back, there was a group of ten thousand people serving as rear-side sweepers.


    Even with a group of ten thousand people, they would not all gather together at once. They were split into ten smaller groups. Two of those groups were mages camps, and two hundred mages were arranged there. These two groups were the main groups of the entire swordsmen camp. One of them consisted of support troops while the other consisted of reserve troops that were made up by cavalry.


    The one that affected the speed of the army were the reserve troops. They usually only had war horses, and some even needed to ride on carriages. Within the Qin borders, this would not be a problem, as they had sufficient roads to choose from. In ces where cities were sparse, however, the roads would be treacherous and the support troops would affect the speed of the entire army.


    However, there was no other choice. When taking down a city, the support troops were at the forefront and they had a high rate of fatalities. No army would have their elite troops be in the first wave to attack a city. Additionally, the support troops were responsible for taking care of the war horses and swordsmen, allowing the elites to maintain rtively higher abilities inbat.


    The armies that hade on this expedition would be able to reach the border in one month¡¯s time. However, if they wanted to go past Lon, they would need one additional month. In that time, more of the wealthy would answer the emperor¡¯s call and send armies into Lon. By that time, the entire Lon Duchy would have almost two hundred thousand Qin elites and more than five hundred thousand support troops. If they counted the militia that were called upon in Lon, the army would reach almost a million troops.


    The emperor not only needed to consider the situation in Lon, but he also needed to invade Cod Crace Duchy. So long as thebat affairs went smoothly, more wealthy from the Qin Empire would join them in order to snatch thatnd.


    In the past two centuries, the number ofmoners in the Qin Empire had exploded, and many members of the wealthy were looking to expand their influence. It was the same for other countries, and the seeds of instability had been nted since long ago. The chaos from the ck mages had simply been a means of ignition. Innds such as Phoenix which were separated from the rest of the world, conflict did not matter that much. However, if Lon were to break out into chaos, all of the countries would not be able to stand by and do nothing.


    Saleen quickly became familiar with the other six swordsmen. Viscountess Lex had not been discreet about him bringing the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus to Bitter Water prefecture, and everyone had a good impression of Saleen.


    Saleen described the time he fought against the Red Line bandit gang, and even Tenesee was impressed. At that time, Saleen had only been a Grade 1 mage. Against the bandit gang, there had been a high chance of him losing his life.


    Following the army forward, Saleen interacted with the swordmasters in the morning and practiced magic fervently while they were resting at night. He was at the edge of Grade 3 and would soon be able to break past the barrier.


    Saleen knew it was because he possessed too little experience and had too little time to practice. However, Joey had helped him modify his body, and the jump between Grade 3 and Grade 4 was minimal. There was not even what mages would call a threshold.


    Hence, Saleen was not anxious. It was only a matter of time before he became a grand mage. In the meantime, he wanted to grasp more Grade 3 magic.


    When mages fought, they would not always release magic of the highest possible grade. In reality, many grand mages fought using low-grade magic. If a person could use an Acid Sputtering spell to kill their enemy, why would they use an Elemental Storm spell instead? Magic chords were limited, and using the smallest amount to get the greatest effect was the way to go in magicbat.


    Saleen was not stupid enough to charge to the forefront of a battle. He already had six Grade 3 spells in his demon magic book, and if he really needed to attack, that was what he was going to use. He had also researched the bronze magic book that he had found in the temple. Regrettably, he had found out that unless he became a grand mage, he would never be able to use the bronze magic book as a weapon.


    This proved the value of the demon magic book. It was not limited to any grade, and so long as one could release a certain spell, they could store it in the book for future use.


    As for the magic scroll that Lanny had given him, Saleen could not bear to use it. He was only a Grade 2 mage and this odd looking scroll could release magic that was two grades higher. This meant that even if he had someone sessfully process this empty scroll, he would only be able to release a Grade 4 spell.


    The scroll was a one-time item and Saleen had a n. The next time he saw Joey, he would have him process a Grade 10 scroll for him. That way, when he reached Grade 8, he would be able to release a Grade 10 spell a single time.


    So long as a person used it correctly, a Grade 10 spell could kill any elite under Grade 9 in the Myers Maind. Even for a Grade 9 mage, it was unusually dangerous to encounter a Grade 10 spell.


    The troops had started turning, and Viscountess Lex¡¯s troops began separating from the expedition army, moving southwest. The emperor¡¯s expedition army moved directly west into Lon Duchy.


    Bitter Water Prefecture hadrge roads on both its eastern and northern sides., however, on its western and southern sides, there were only small, treacherous paths between the mountains where the terrain was unfavorable. The Bitter Water Army went around Hadisai City. Even though it showed weakness, it saved them a lot of trouble. If the Hadisai City Army wanted to attack the Bitter Water Army, they would need to travel at least five hundred miles. Moreover, the emperor had sent away more than half of the elites from Hadisai City, so they would only be able to send out less than a thousand troops. Lex was not worried at all.


    Saleen, on the other hand, was slightly worried. Had the silver grand swordmaster that had killed Earl Mokri returned to Tanggsi? If not, would he attempt another assassination? If he made another attempt, even though Lex had many soldiers by her side, the silver grand swordmaster would also be more cautious and would not easily fall into any traps.


    The only ones who could really fight against the silver grand swordmaster were Faerun and the others. For a mage like Saleen, the most he would be able to do when it came to fighting the silver grand swordmaster was put out fires.


    However, it seemed that Faerun had taken quite a few Grade 8 magic scrolls from the emperor¡¯s storage room. Magic scrolls that could be stored for long periods of time were rare items. If the silver grand swordmaster were to face Faerun, he could not be confident that he would win.

 Chapter 119: The Power of a Scroll (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 119: The Power of a Scroll (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The sun began to set. Even with the magic maps from the royal pce, the scouts still did their reconnaissance diligently. Once they had ensured the area was safe, the Bitter Water Army set up camp. There were many mountains north of Bitter Water Prefecture, and thisrge road seemed as though it had been parted by the gods who lived amongst the mountains. The three thousand strong troops set up two different camps near the roads.


    If they had been outside of the Qin Empire, setting up camp like this definitely would have been unwise. However, this ce was deep within the empire and there would not be any troops from the enemy¡¯s army. Bandits who saw them would also steer clear of the empire¡¯s army.


    The emperor had many rewards which he had stored in wooden boxes on the carriages. These wooden boxes were filled with magic equipment and the spaces inside of them could store even more items. Even though this spatial equipment was extremely shabby, it could only be used by grand mages. The horses pulling the supplies needed to stop and rest, so the carriages were ced into a formation which protected the mages¡¯ tents.


    Thebat mages set up arge number of magic rms while the officers arranged the patrols. The support troops were responsible for cooking.


    As smoke rose into the air, Saleen sat at the entrance of his tent, watching the soldiers busy themselves. The journey between Bitter Water Prefecture and the capital was not an expedition, but a journey. This time, Lex was evidently more nervous, as she had followed everything ording to war regtions. The one hundred swordsmen who were assigned to Saleen set up the carriages and began preparing food.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, why aren¡¯t you resting?¡± Tenesee walked over. Seeing Saleen sitting in front of his tent, he found it a little weird. He had brought his men over to this area to patrol and check the defenses. Usually, a mage would take this time to rest while the soldiers prepared the food.


    Saleen was physically well. The pill that Jason had given him had improved his stamina, and after meeting Joey and solving the trouble that he¡¯d had with his magic chords, he felt physically better than before. If he had a sword in his hands, Saleen felt that he could at least spar with a high-grade swordsman for a while without getting tired.


    It was a pity that with his magic chords, he would not be able to practice the sword aura. No matter how physically strong a mage was, they would not be able to win against a swordmaster in pure physicalbat.


    ¡°I¡¯m not tired. I want to learn some army knowledge,¡± Saleen confessed. In the books that he had read, many mages had joined the army, be generals, and led troops. This was not something surprising as mages possessed arge wealth of knowledge. After bing grand mages, many left theirboratories and tasted life in their own unique ways.


    Even mages who were notcking in money would do so. Only by understanding the meaning of life could a mage find the path they needed to take. Jason had left the Qin Empire for this very reason. In the process of promoting from a Grade 5 to a Grade 6 mage, many formed their own styles in preparation for advancement to a sorcerer.


    The feeling of this stage was something a teacher could not hand down. If a person possessed few expectations of themselves and constantly followed their teacher, they would be destined to be a normal sorcerer at best.


    Even someone as strong as Joey had chosen to live in Holy Rock City to interact with themoners. Normal sorcerers built their magic towers outside of cities and did not iste themselvespletely from crowds.


    After Grade 6, magic was not as simple as the mere arrangements of the elements.


    Saleen had felt the power of an army before. It was an invisible force that was unrted to the elements, and yet it had a real effect on his training.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you resting?¡± Saleen asked Tenesee in return. Tenesee was still d in his armor. An entire day had passed, and even a grand swordmaster would be tired.


    ¡°The army is most vulnerable to enemy attack when setting up camp. Even though the scouts have checked the area, it will not be possible to stop an enemy that has a flying magic beast. On the battlefield, smoke is a signal. If the enemy constantly harasses an army and does not let them eat in peace, their morale will drop.¡±


    It was only then that Saleen realized the men following Tenesee were carrying an alchemy crossbow with them.


    When deploying troops, caution is of the most importance. When he had read that in the books, Saleen had not thought too much about it. At that time, he had only been a simple magic disciple and was only interested in magic knowledge.


    Just as they were talking, the sound of a whistle appeared from afar. By now, Saleen understood that it was a warning for approaching enemies.


    ¡°Tenesee, go protect the viscountess. I have Sika here.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Tenesee said confidently. ¡°The viscountess won¡¯t allow me to be away from you for too long. This is just harassment from our enemies. If they¡¯re the asional bandits, they¡¯ll retreat after seeing the army. If someone nned this a long time ago, there are people waiting at the viscountess¡¯ side.¡±


    Saleen touched the demon ring on his finger. There were over twenty Grade 3 scrolls inside of it. If he utilized them properly, he would even be able to defeat a bronze grand swordmaster, and he still possessed the witcher spider as well. With that said, with Tenesee by his side, he felt even safer.


    A bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s sword aura could attack a person from afar, but did not have the ability to do so for a sustained period of time. Saleen was confident that his magic chords could now release forty-eight water shields in session and that they would be enough to counter an attack from the sword aura.


    It was a pity the Figaro form was soplicated. If he had enough time, he would be able to use an Icicle spell to pierce the sword aura. Currently, if he tried to calcte the weaknesses of the sword aura, it would take him at least thirty minutes. The speed of the sword aura was slightly slower than magic. Hearing the rm, Sika and Nailisi came out of their tents, and most of the soldiers preparing food put on their helmets and took up their weapons too. Only the support troops continued with what they had been doing.


    It needed to be said that the troops of the Qin Empire were of superb quality. Even though they had been attacked just after settling down, everyone down to the support troops had not been affected.


    Seeing this, Saleen understood why the Qin Emperor had desired an expedition. Despite having had peace for centuries in the empire, their people had not ckened and were always looking to expand. The crisis in Lon was an opportunity. If the emperor did not utilize such a strong army, any ambitious person would find it a pity.


    Saleen even suspected that the emperor might have intentionally allowed the spread of the ck mages. Otherwise, sending troops down to quell Phoenix would not have been a difficult thing to do.


    Inside of Lex¡¯srge tent, four ck grand swordmasters were beside her. She was eating,pletely unflustered.


    The enemy was too far away to pose a threat to therge tent, and it was possible that their real enemy would simply descend from the skies. Even though a silver grand swordmaster could not fly as they pleased like a mage, they could make use of magic beasts.


    Therge tent was set up sturdily, and any attack from its outside would trigger a magic rm and shoot out arrows. Even if a silver grand swordmaster was able to trample over the magic traps, they would be severely slowed. A massacre like the previous incident would not happen again.


    Saleen looked at the night sky. There was a full moon, round and clear, almost like it had been carved from a crystal. In the sky, a ck shadow approached rapidly. Saleenughed. If only one person was here, they must have underestimated the strength of a sorcerer.


    A Grade 7 sorcerer might not have been a match for a silver grand swordmaster on their own. However, if they had enough Grade 8 magic scrolls with them, they would be able topletely neutralize whatever advantage the silver grand swordmaster had.


    The ck shadow grewrger beneah the moonlight. It was revealed to be an eagle, and on its back was the shadow of a person.


    Even a double-headed eagle conjured by the ck mages would not have been able to support the weight of a grown man. Whoever could stay on the back of the eagle must have been at least a ck grand swordmaster.


    The silver grand swordmaster had sent people to cause amotion outside while they themselves headed straight towards the mouth of the enemy. Saleen did not know whether they were courageous or dumb. Such a poorly thought out trick was easy for even mercenary groups to defend against. He¡¯s already lost arade, but he still dares toe?


    The shadow pounced down from the sky at a point almost a hundred meters in the air. Hundreds of crossbow arrows shot out from the surroundings of Lex¡¯s tent like a storm, enveloping the shadow of the silver grand swordmaster.


    The eagle pped its wings and a giant whirlwind appeared in the air, pulling in therge number of arrows. The rest of the alchemy arrows were knocked aside by the silver grand swordmaster, who had not been slowed down in the slightest.


    Magic beast!


    Saleen stood up roughly. The eagle the silver grand swordmaster had ridden on was not a normal giant eagle. It was a magic beast that was at least Grade 5. If the two silver grand swordmasters had not split up back then and had attacked the viscountess at the same time, the four ck grand swordmasters would have definitely lost, and not a single one of them would have been left.


    The giant eagle circled the air at an altitude of over two hundred meters. Saleen¡¯s magic could not evene close to reaching it. A witcher spider could not fly, and the puppet did not have wings or a magic array for flight on it. If the giant eagle came down, Saleen was confident he could control it using the Swamp Illusion spell for a few seconds, allowing the witcher spider to attack its belly.


    The silver grand swordmaster went straight for Lex¡¯srge tent. A sword aura visible to the naked eye appeared in front of their body, several times longer than a spear. On impact, any magic shield that was Grade 8 or below would not be able to block it.


    The sword aura, together with the magic beast¡¯s aura, was swift, decisive, and urate.


    Boom!


    The silver grand swordmaster rushed into the tent, and right in front of Saleen¡¯s eyes, the tent disappeared. It became a giant rock weighing hundreds of tons.


    A Grade 8 Light Magic: Realistic Projection


    This magic could onlyst for an hour, and if cast with a scroll, its effects would be even weaker. Lex seemed to have known that someone woulde ambush them tonight and had set it up immediately. She had used tens of thousands of gold coins to wait for a silver grand swordmaster. If they had note, this scroll would have been wasted.


    That was not sufficient. The surroundings of the giant rock began to light up in a magic hue. The momentum from the silver grand swordmaster had been too strong, and they had flown straight into the rock. In that moment, the magic around the rock was activated and Faerun appeared above it, calmly opening his scrolls one by one and releasing the magic within.


    The enemy was a silver grand swordmaster and he had no intentions of taking pity on them. Each time he opened a scroll, at least fifty thousand to one hundred thousand gold coins disappeared.


    Saleen watched from afar, finally understanding why Aini had warned him not to offend someone from the royal family. They had too much money, and even if they could not win on their own, they would use their money to crush their opponents.


    The silver grand swordmaster sunk deeper within the enormous rock. Their sword aura was ready to explode to allow them to emerge. However, the magic arrays around the rock were not there for nothing. The rock grew tougher by ten times. The hole that the silver grand swordmaster was in had be a prison, and they could not even move their limbs.


    A booming sound resounded, a Grade 8 Meteorite spell having been released. A red sh descended from the skies.


    The silver grand swordmaster emerged from the rear. However, the meteorite had already struck the back of their head. Although it was Ground Magic, the temperature of the meteorite was not any cooler than that of a fireball. The long wavy hair of the silver grand swordmaster immediately caught on fire. Their sword aura could protect their body, but it could not cancel out the vibrations of the Meteorite spellpletely.


    Saleen sighed. A silver grand swordmaster had been defeated with money. If the people from the Holy See were this dumb, then he had nothing to worry about.

 Chapter 120: Genesis, the God’s Envoy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 120: Genesis, the God¡¯s Envoy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The silver grand swordmaster used their sword aura to resist the Grade 8 spell, though they became slightly dizzy after being hit by the Meteorite spell. The sword aura exuded from within their body and exploded on the surface of their skin. Then, a red shadow pounced on the swordmaster and gripped him. This red shadow was a fire puppet, a Grade 8 spell.


    Grade 8 Fire Magic could already melt metal, so that grip immediately destroyed the sword aura of the silver grand swordmaster. The swordmaster could feel that death was near as they remained dizzy. The sword in their hand was no longer swinging as ferociously and freely as it had been before.


    The fire puppet simply gripped tightly onto the silver grand swordmaster, producing an endless sizzling noise. When the swordmaster finally became void of life, the fire puppet shrank quickly. By then, the silver grand swordmaster¡¯s skin had already been burnt beyond recognition.


    In the face of that intense pain, the silver grand swordmaster had roared and howled like a magic beast. However, Faerun had been unmoved and had continued opening his scrolls.


    A bright white light filled the night sky in that instant. Saleen squinted his eyes and saw a beam of light as thick as a rice bowl shooting out from the scroll and hitting the swordmaster¡¯s head.


    Aurora of Destruction!


    This Grade 8 Light Magic that could not be locked onto a target had urately struck the head of the silver grand swordmaster. Their half bald head was no longer protected by the resilient sword aura, so half of their head had simply melted silently. All of their head had melted away except for their mouth.


    Until now, the silver grand swordmaster¡¯s hand had looked like the sun, emitting a sword aura that was golden in color.


    The fire puppet and the giant rock beneath their feet disintegrated into smoke and dust after the final explosion. The magic arrays surrounding the enormous rock could also only resist the impact for a short while before they disappeared as well.


    With a crash, the swordmaster¡¯s body fell from the sky. When they had delivered their final strike, they had almost advanced to the next grade. But since they had lost half of their skull, they would not be able toprehend those secrets and mysteries anymore.


    The flying magic beast in the sky gave a shriek and turned around to escape. Faerun did not bother giving chase. After all, since the swordmaster had died, the beast would regain its freedom from this point on. Furthermore, that magic beast would not be able to fly faster than those beasts which were gifted in wind power. It would not be worth it to waste a Grade 8 scroll on a Grade 5 or 6 magic beast.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go over and take a look,¡± Saleen said to Tenesee. Saleen suppressed the excitement in his heart and ran towards Faerun. This time, there were no ck metal grand swordmasters around. Faerun had dealt with the silver grand swordmaster alone by using the power of the scrolls. Bain had kept hidden in the shadows all this while. This incident had allowed the capabilities of magic prowess to be disyed to their fullest extent.


    Lex slipped out from a tent to the side. Nailisi pulled on Saleen, and Saleen stopped walking and turned around. Nailisi shook her head and said to Saleen in the ancient Myersnguage, ¡°His soul has disappeared. He is not of much value to me.¡±


    Indeed, Saleen had wanted to take possession of the body, but when he heard Nailisi¡¯s words, he slowed his pace.


    The Aurora of Destruction could actually destroy the soul itself. Even though this spell could not be locked onto a target, its power was unfathomable. Saleen had discovered that all spells were bnced. If one had some shorings, there would bepensation in its other aspects.


    The Aurora of Destruction could not be locked onto a target, instantly cast, or cast a second time. Thepensation for all of these shorings resulted in the spell having a tremendous lethality.


    For seven hundred years, the Grukos family had owned a countless number of royal mages. When these mages practiced, they also producedrge quantities of magic scrolls, and some of these scrolls could store spells that were Grade 7 and above for a very long time. In reality, the real motive of the emperor had been to gift the mages these high-level scrolls. The rest of the presents had just been added out of convenience. In turn, this allowed Faerun to have thebat capabilities of a Grade 8 sorcerer.


    A silver grand swordmaster would never be able to withstand centuries of an empire¡¯s umted magic. Saleen suspected that Lex still had some tricks up her sleeves. Even if she were to fight against a golden grand swordmaster, it was possible that the swordmaster would very likely die. Also, the ring on Lex¡¯s finger was very strange. Saleen found it very familiar, but he could not pinpoint it to any of the contents of the books he had read before.


    It was too strange. His recollection magic had failed him.


    ¡°Go and pursue the people who caused this disruption. Capture a few of them. I want some statements,¡± Lex gave her orders word by word, staring at the body of the silver grand swordmaster with a stern look on her face. The cavalry who had already prepared themselves then gave chase on horseback towards the south.


    The sentries to the south needed to surveil the main road. There were one hundred infantry soldiers and twobat mages, so they could only harass their enemies at the moment.


    Jitters lingered in Lex¡¯s heart. If Faerun had not insisted on using the Grade 8 scroll, the silver grand swordmaster might have killed her when he descended and attacked from the sky. The aura of that sword had already reached the pinnacle of silver grand swordsmanship, and when the swordmaster had been dying, their sword had even exploded into a golden sword aura.


    It would have been almost impossible to defend from that silver grand swordmaster¡¯s long distance attack if Lex had not been prepared.


    Faerun had exhausted a great amount of his mental power when he repeatedly used the scrolls as he was falling from the sky. Furthermore, for his final blow, Faerun had used the Figaro form to calcte the trajectory of the Aurora of Destruction, which had not only used his mental strength, but his physical strength as well. Since the Aurora of Destruction could not lock onto a target, the angle at which the scroll was opened was crucial. Without the fire puppet hugging onto the silver grand swordmaster, that sluggish final blow would not have had much effectiveness.


    ¡°Viscountess.¡± Saleen had arrived at the battlefield and was astonished when he saw the smithereens of the giant rock that had been crushed by the silver grand swordmaster. Normal magic would definitely not have been able to withstand such an impact. Saleen would need at least eight to ten years to even roughly figure out the weaknesses of that sword, as the difference in grade between him and the swordmaster was simply too great.


    Lex nodded at Saleen. The sounds of a raging battle could be heard from afar, and the second group of cavalry had already left the camp. This time, they had brought tenbat mages with them.


    The body of the silver grand swordmaster was carried over to Lex. Half of their brain was missing, and the surface of their body had been burnt beyond recognition. Only the dagger in their hand remainedpletely undamaged.


    Lex took the dagger and ced it in her palm. The dagger was about one feet long, with a white body. However, the dagger did not reflect light, and it was not made from metal. Lex looked at it carefully but could not find any clues as the dagger had no symbols or markings on it.


    Saleen could not identify it either. To be able to withstand the golden sword aura from the swordmaster, this dagger was certainly of the best quality. However, there were no assassins with Saleen, so he had no use for the dagger. Lex, however, had a horrifying character beside her, so it looked like the dagger would belong to him from now on.


    Just as Saleen thought of this, Lex tossed the dagger into the darkness at random, and the white dagger disappeared. Saleen could feel a faint presence from Bain which appeared and disappeared in a sh.


    ¡°Allow me to take care of the body,¡± Saleen said, pointing to the silver grand swordmaster. Even though the effect would not be great, Nailisi had already eaten one man and there was no need to act noble anymore. This body would be food for Nailisi.


    ¡°Alright, he¡¯s yours.¡± Lex did not say anything as Saleen stored the body into his Demonic Ring.


    ¡°Tenesee, do you know why this man braved such a huge risk to attack me?¡± The fear in Lex¡¯s heart had gradually disappeared, and she remembered to give a reminder to her subordinate.


    ¡°This man was on the brink of a breakthrough, so he only needed one more round of battle.¡± Lex was only a year or two older than Saleen, but her tone was that of an old woman. ¡°You are a swordmaster already. You cannot back down from the path of swordsmanship.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Tenesee stored Lex¡¯s advice into his heart. He had been a swordmaster for quite some time already, but no matter what he did, he had not been able to make any further progress. Now, he had suddenly realized that the reason was because he had not had a real fight yet, so now he needed to find apetent swordmaster in order for him to sharpen his skills.


    The sounds of the raging battle had drawn increasingly closer. It turned out that the two batches of reinforcements had not been able to resist the advances of the enemy. Tenesee frowned and said, ¡°Viscountess, I shall go.¡±


    Lex nodded and replied, ¡°Bring the heavy cavalry with you.¡±


    Saleen was skeptical. Since the time the silver grand swordmaster had died, the enemy had actually been advancing instead of retreating. It was not a good sign. Could it be that the enemy had other hidden trump cards? Tenesee had led the troops of the Bitter Water Army into battle, leaving only the pce swordsmen and some support troops in the camp.


    Faerun suddenly took out a water bottle, took a few gulps of magic liquid, and said to Lex, ¡°Something is wrong. Someone ising¡­¡±


    Before Faerun couldplete his sentence, the sky suddenly lit up as though a sun had appeared in the camp. Within the blinding light, three silhouettes floated in midair, and they brought with them a sacred and invible vibe.


    Saleen took two steps back and the three silhouettes became clearer. One of them was the white deacon named Picasso, whom Saleen had met back at the Chaotic Swamp. With Faerun around, Saleen was not afraid of Picasso. However, in the middle of the trio was a man whom Picasso was standing next to in a position of respect. This man was obviously of a much higher level than Picasso.


    Inside of the holy light, the young man¡¯s face disyed a look of astonishment. He said, ¡°Sm is dead? That was fast. Lex, were you the one who killed him?¡±


    His voice was full of vigor and could be heard clearly throughout the camp. The rays from the sky were extremely intense, and the soldiers could not even open their eyes whereas the swordmasters and mages were straining to open their eyes and take a closer look at the man.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Lex looked unusually dejected. This man was so powerful that Lex felt like she was looking at her uncle, Safilos. Safilos was a golden grand swordmaster, and was the only one in the Grukos lineage who had a high chance of bing a grand swordmaster. This man who called Lex by her name with that irksome vibe, it had to have been the holy light from the Holy See.


    ¡°I forgot to introduce myself. I am Genesis. You must have heard of me before. Right, little viscountess?¡±


    ¡°You¡­¡±


    Viscountess Lex was startled and furious at the same time. She was shocked because Genesis was one of the seven envoys of god within the Holy See and possessed the strength of god. And she was angry because this envoy of god had trespassed into Qin borders, and that symbolized the start of the Holy War. However, the Holy See had not issued such a holy decree.


    Genesis did not care about Lex¡¯s feelings. He was engrossed in himself and said, ¡°Lex, if I had known that you had so many tricks up your sleeves, then I would have sent more fools from the Pivotal Council. If more people from the Pivotal Council are killed, then the pope will not be so indecisive. If I capture you and kill your emperor, then the pope should have a decision, right?¡±


    Without any warning, the four ck metal grand swordmasters leapt up into the air. With them were the ck glow from their swords, and they lunged at Genesis who had been talking incessantly. The four of them knew that they were no match for Genesis, but their attacks were meant to buy time for Faerun so that he could cast his magic scrolls.

 Chapter 121: Genesis, the God’s Envoy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 121: Genesis, the God¡¯s Envoy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°As long as you remain beneath god, all of you are ants. Begone!¡± Genesis simply pointed a finger and the four swordmasters became motionless in midair before smashing to the ground.


    There was only a window for a single breath. In that period, Faerun had already taken out a scroll and opened it.


    A boundless darkness slowly spread and soon covered more than half of the army camp. Genesis burst out intoughter and said, ¡°Darkness is never permanent. In the name of my lord, disperse!¡±


    A sky full of light overwhelmed the darkness and the darkness was quickly eliminated. However, what was terrifying about this was that the light formed a physical screen which engulfed the camp. The Bitter Water Army had three thousand troops, and the camp spanned arge area. Genesis had single handedly taken control of the camppound. Soldiers outside the camp tried to break through it, but were bounced back.


    Aside from the Bitter Water soldiers who were already outside of the camp, the soldiers in the camp could not leave at all.


    The darkness was melted by the light. Faerun had just finished chanting a spell. Twelve scrolls levitated around Faerun, and these scrolls all opened simultaneously. When Lex saw this scene, she covered her mouth to prevent herself from shouting.


    Saleen was also staring nkly at Faerun with his mouth agape. Using the Figaro form, a person could arrange their magic scrolls and open them sequentially. Saleen himself could control twelve Grade 1 magic scrolls, but would not be able to control twelve Grade 3 magic scrolls.


    Faerun was burning away his own life. Faerun had not hesitated to discard his own life when facing an envoy of god. He wanted to unleash all of his potential to kill that youthful envoy of god with long golden hair.


    Genesis managed to disperse all of the darkness and was about to say something when he saw the shocking scene. Without any dy, Genesis started saying a prayer loudly. ¡°Glorious lord, my father, please allow me to use your strength¡­¡±


    Genesis¡¯ voice could not be heard as the twelve scrolls opened up and twelve fireballs rocketed towards the sky. These were the purest fireballs Saleen had ever seen in his entire life. He could not even tell what grades they were of. There were trails of pale green mes burning vacuums into the air.


    Saleen remembered Faerun¡¯s words ¨C a mage who only knew how to cast fireballs was not a good mage. But in this situation, Faerun looked very somber. He had used a simple Fireball spell in order to fully utilize the power of the fire element.


    The twelve fireballs kept expanding as they rocketed upwards, and each fireball expanded to a diameter of more than one meter. The fireballs were ascending at a slow speed, and as they absorbed the strength of the fire elements from the surrounding atmosphere, their diameters quickly approached two meters. Faerun¡¯s face could be seen extremely clearly on all of the fireballs.


    Genesis had never expected the mages from the Qin Empire to be so brutal as to sacrifice themselves to kill their enemies. The fireballs were now fully loaded with the essence of Faerun. Even if Genesis escaped to the ends of the earth, the fireballs would still be able to kill him. Moreover, the further the fireballs travelled, the stronger their damage would be. The sky of darkness that had urred earlier had only been a cover for Faerun to make his necessary preparations.


    Saleen was even more horrified than Genesis. Saleen had studied the Gift of Life before, so he knew exactly what Faerun was trying to do. Faerun had channeled all of the life energy inside of him into the fireballs. As long as the fireballs themselves were not destroyed, they would continue to burn until all life was drained from Faerun.


    But before that happened, the fireballs would pursue their targets closely.


    There were countless ways for sorcerers to fight aggressively. And Faerun¡¯s method was the one which many sorcerers were opposed to. That was because it required the sorcerer to sacrifice their life. Regardless of whether the spell seeded or not, the sorcerer was doomed.


    Saleen felt as though something was stuck in his chest as anger and sadness overwhelmed him. Even though Faerun had continuously given Saleen advice, Saleen had never called him ¡°teacher¡± even once. Saleen felt that his life had been the mostfortable during the time he lived in the Bitter Water Prefecture. He had not needed to worry about going hungry or enemies appearing. Furthermore, there were many mages like him who had kept himpany and whom he had learned magic with.


    Lex had supplied him with the consumables he needed for magic practice while Faerun had patiently provided him with guidance.


    All of that was going to end today. Saleen knew what an envoy of god entailed. A envoy of god was not merely a Grade 9 upation. An envoy of god was also able to temporarily utilize the powers of the glorious lord. This would enable the person to conserve almost all of his power, and was way better than a witcher spider fused with six pieces of dragon magic nuclei because the envoy had an nearly unlimited supply of energy.


    That was why even though an envoy of god possessed the same capabilities as a Grade 9 mage, their job was regarded as a Grade 10 career. In the short period of time that the envoy tapped into god¡¯s power, they could cast divine spells freely.


    It was difficult for Faerun¡¯s magic to kill an envoy of god Even if Lex made a breakthrough now, she would only be a Grade 6 mage, and there was still arge gap to a sorcerer. Thus, she would not be able to harm Genesis at all.


    Saleen was expressionless and took out his family badge. Genesis was looking down on them from the skies, so Saleen would not stand a chance. Saleen only needed a short moment of contact to drain the scumbag of his energy, but he could not fly, so it was impossible for that to happen.


    Faerun stood in his spot silently. He had already lost his life, but he would not copse. The twelve fireballs were approaching Genesis and the faces on the fireballs possessed a ferocious look. Genesis¡¯ eyes were looking in different directions, and he sang a prayer softly. Then, a nket of thick light epassed his body as the fireballs that carried Faerun¡¯s determination smashed into him.


    The twelve fireballs fused together and engulfed Genesis. Divine Protection was the Holy See¡¯s toughest divine spell. Since Genesis had borrowed god¡¯s strength, he would not be harmed for the time being. However, the fireballs were burning with life, so even Divine Protection would not be able to block them. Every inch of Genesis¡¯ skin, flesh, intestines, and skeleton felt as though they were burning. Even though it was just a hallucination, it felt very real.


    The two white deacons that stood beside Genesis had long since escaped, having been scared out of their wits. Even in their wildest dreams, they would never have expected a Grade 7 sorcerer to possess such immense power. Just a tiny bit of contact with that fireball would cause them to be totally incinerated.


    The fireball continued to burn. The light that enveloped the camp was still present, and Saleen knew that the envoy of god was still alive, or else the light would have disappeared. However, there was a time limit to which Genesis could borrow god¡¯s strength As long as Faerun¡¯s life was not fully exhausted, the fireball would keep burning and Genesis¡¯ soul would eventually be destroyed.


    In the process of sacrificing his life, Faerun had boosted his power to that of a Grade 8 mage, and these twelve fireballs belonged to the realm of Grade 9 magic.


    Almost every mage knew how to cast the Fireball spell. But in Faerun¡¯s hands, this spell was unparalleled.


    The mages that were in the camp stared nkly at the sky. All of them had the same emotions as Saleen. There was anger in their sadness, and within that sadness was pride.


    But the angriest of them all was Genesis. The fools from the Pivotal Council hade to assassinate Lex. He had known that they would fail, so he had not bothered helping them, wanting to capture Lex alive so that he could hold the Qin Emperor hostage. But Genesis had never expected a mere Grade 7 sorcerer to be so aggressive and wield such strange magic.


    Genesis could only tap into god¡¯s power for an hour. Even if the fireball did notst that long, he would still sustain serious injuries. Furthermore, Picasso was not his subordinate, and Picasso had been forced to lead the way. Fycro must have been fuming. It was possible that arrogant fellow would take the opportunity to kill him if Picasso was seriously injured.


    Genesis had defied the Pope¡¯s will bying to Holy Rock City, so many people would support Fycro if he decided to kill him. Hence, he had no choice but to use the taboo divine spell.


    When Genesis thought of that spell, he began singing a prayer while trapped in that huge ball of fire.


    ¡°God, you say you are my messenger, mypassion, my hymn, my sword. You lead your followers through darkness towards the heavens. Those who believe in you will be the new followers while those who obstruct you will rot. I give you the majesty of god, and in my name, execute god¡¯s punishment.¡±


    Lex stared unwaveringly at the sky as the bright blue fireball slowly split open and a bright stream of light descended from the sky. Wails could be heard from within the fireball.


    Lex raised her left hand and said, ¡°Shinra!¡±


    The god¡¯s ring on Lex¡¯s slender, white finger exploded in a myriad of colored rays, forming a gigantic shield. The shield provided protection over a radius of more than ten meters. There were not even gaps between her feet and the soil.


    The Grade 9 fireball was destroyed by god¡¯s punishment and twelve different souls screamed in pain at the same time. The spear from god¡¯s punishment struck the colorful shield directly. Saleen felt himself sink into the soil and fell into total darkness.


    The airtight shield was pushed forcefully into the ground and its speed of descent was faster than what magic could achieve. Then, the spear suddenly split into two, and one shot into the air directly at Genesis, who was under Divine Protection.


    ¡°Your Excellency!¡± the two white deacons eximed at the same time. They could not believe that god¡¯s punishment could be replicated and even had bacsh. But hidden in Picasso¡¯s voice was a hint of surprise. Even if Genesis did not die, he would still be gravely injured since he had been struck by god¡¯s punishment. Therefore, Picasso was safe for now. When Picasso thought of that, he then shouted to the other white deacon, ¡°Quick, save him!¡±


    The spear easily broke Divine Protection and prated Genesis¡¯ abdomen, creating a huge wound. Genesis fell towards the ground. The white deacons gave chase and caught his body in midair. On the ground, countless Grade 3 and Grade 4 mages cast their attack spells at the trio. The white deacons did not dare to retaliate, simply using a divine spell to protect themselves and escaping towards the sky.


    With Genesis¡¯ strength, he could have easily massacred the bunch of mages. However, if he was injured, he would not be able to protect Picasso. After all, Picasso was Fycro¡¯s subordinate, and he had taken Picasso with him. Given Fycro¡¯s temper, he would not let the matter slide so easily.


    The colorful shield produced by the god¡¯s ring continued protecting Saleen and the others, and kept sinking into the ground.


    Their surroundings were in total darkness. Suddenly, there was vigorous shaking beneath their feet. Saleen used the Fluorescence spell to light up the area and discovered that he hadnded in deste wilderness. Aside from Nailisi and Sika, there were only two other swordsmen with Lex and Saleen.


    What kind of ce was this! Saleen looked up, but could only see a patch of grey.

 Chapter 122: God’s Hell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 122: God¡¯s Hell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What is this ce?¡± Saleen could not recall a ce simr to this scene in his memory. He felt a little lost.


    ¡°God¡¯s hell.¡± Lex had tears in her eyes, and she wiped them away with her hand. Faerun had been one of her men, but he had also been her teacher. In their many years, Faerun had always taken good care of her. Knowing that Faerun was definitely going to die, she found it hard to believe.


    A mage who had fought so hard to make it to the position of a sorcerer. It had not even been a year, and he had sacrificed his life this willingly.


    ¡°Viscountess¡­¡±


    ¡°Call me Lex¡­ there is no viscountess here.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen was a little lost, Lex said, ¡°God¡¯s hell is actually a deste interdimensional space that surrounds the Myers Maind. Without the protection of the god¡¯s ring, the god¡¯s punishment from earlier would have sent our corpses here to slowly decay.¡±


    ¡°Can we still go back?¡± Saleen asked with a sinking feeling.


    ¡°Theoretically, yes.¡±


    Theoretically¡­


    Saleen understood what Lex meant. Theoretically, he could use an ice de to pierce an attack from a gold grand swordmaster. However, that would take at least eight to ten years of calction, and he would need the cooperation of the swordmaster to do so.


    ¡°Viscountess!¡± The two swordmasters were more anxious than Saleen.


    Lex waved her hand and said, ¡°Don¡¯t call me that. I am only a mage here.¡±


    The two swordmasters hesitated before nodding in agreement.


    As his eyes grew ustomed to the light in this area, Saleen dispersed his Fluorescence spell. Thend here was t and in his sight were a few purple nts. The air was a bit thin, but that was nothing to mages. Without any wind, everything was silent.


    ¡°This is pretty good. At least there are some living things here.¡± Saleen pointed at the sparse nts.


    ¡°I would rather there be nothing here,¡± Lex said. She was already holding up a magic shield. It was the fire ring of resistance, a low-grade magic. Even though it had been practiced by Lex to the highest grade, its red glow was unusually dim as it circled Lex¡¯s body.


    Saleen activated the invisible shield and magic skin on his magic robes at once. At the same time, he released two water shields which floated behind him.


    The two swordmasters drew their Qin eight-sided swords, Sika took her cudgel from her back, and Nailisi hid behind Sika¡¯s back.


    A low humming noise came from afar and Lex provided the others with an additional invisible shield, releasing some illumination magic at the same time. Saleen took a quick look at where the noise wasing from and saw a dark cloud flying over, made up of numerous giant mosquitoes.


    Saleen understood in an instant what Lex meant. In an interdimensional space where living things could not survive, they would not have met with such dangers. If living things could survive here, they would surely be some ferocious and evil things.


    What god¡¯s hell? It was merely using the power of god to banish people into the interdimensional space. If there were not any living things, they could still survive with the rations in their spatial equipment. As for now¡­ they could only do their best!


    Contrary to Saleen¡¯s worries, these giant mosquitoes appeared ferocious, but some of them were afraid of light. Right as they approached them, many of them flew slower. After circling around them at a distance for a while, they could no longer resist the temptation of flesh any longer and pounced forward.


    Saleen said in a low voice, ¡°Sika, use your boomerang.¡± At the same time, an ice bomb appeared in his hands. This time, he threw the ice bomb directly into the crowd of mosquitoes. The air instantly turned cold and the mosquitoes rushed to hide. However, the ice bomb began to abruptly evaporate and expand.


    Dozens of mosquitoes were hurt from the heat, but Saleen was not done. The giant ball of gas started burning, forming a giant fireball which was over thirty meters in diameter.


    Boom¡­


    The explosion caused a vibration that rocked the earth. The magic that Saleen had invented had cleared the entire area. Hundreds of mosquitoes had been burned to death, and those that had not died were severely injured.


    The strength of this magic was not high, but it was enough for the giant mosquitoes which barely had any magic defense. Moreover, the vibrations that this magic created could cause a great deal of physical damages, and since the mosquitoes were not high-grade magic beasts, their limbs and wings were rtively weak and stood no chance against the destructiveness of Saleen¡¯s magic.


    Saleen was slightly relieved. The living things in this interdimensional space were almost the same as the ones on the Myers Maind. They wererge in number, but weak alone.


    Sika¡¯s boomerang drew a beautiful arc in the sky. Wherever it went, the giant mosquitoes were hacked in half. At the same time, Lex released a rain of fire. This Grade 2 magic was limited in its killing ability, but she had already analyzed the defenses of the giant mosquitoes. As the mes rained down, hundreds of giant mosquitoes were burned to ashes. Many of them lost their wings in the ensuing heat, falling to the ground.


    However, there were at least tens of thousands of mosquitoes. If they continued casting their magic like this, Saleen would definitely not have enough magic chords.


    Lex had no choice. She took out a scroll and opened it without hesitation. A green whirlpool instantly appeared in the air, dozens of whirlwinds flying out into the air and sweeping ferociously through the giant mosquitoes.


    The whirlwind instantly grew to a span of over ten meters, forming a chaotic storm. Within the chaotic storm were countless wind des, and more than half of the giant mosquitoes were sucked into therge scale magic. The others had seen that the situation was not in their favor and had turned to escape.


    Seeing the mosquitoes escape, Saleen¡¯s panic became even stronger. Insects that know how to escape? Could there be intelligent lives in this interdimensional space?


    The two other swordmasters had the palest faces of all. These living things that moved around in groups were the most dangerous things for a swordsman. Without a mage with them, the two of them would have been sucked dry by the giant mosquitoes.


    Looking at the giant mosquitoes running away, Lex did not give chase. She did have ways of catching up to them, but she was worried about the others. She was the strongest among the team now. Without her, the others could encounter danger at any time.


    Nailisi ran to where the giant mosquitoes were and picked up two of their corpses, looking at them curiously. These things looked like magic insects but were not as strong. She ced one in her mouth, and with a crunching sound, bit off the shell of the giant mosquito. They had a metal-like shell, only it was very thin. As for the taste, Nailisi spat it out. It was disgusting.


    Saleen picked up the corpse of a mosquito and took a closer look at it as well. It was not simr to any of the magic beasts found on the Myers Maind. The blood from its wound was blue, and using magic to examine it, he discovered that it was not toxic.


    Its thin mouth was shiny and he tried using it to impale a nearby rock. It was like piercing a piece of rotting meat. The sharp mouth entered the rock with ease.


    ¡°Mage¡­¡± A swordmaster walked over, taking out a piece of armor from his leather bag. It was a piece of back-up armor that he had prepared. Qin Empire armor was an interwoven work, unlike ancient knight¡¯s armor. Once it was damaged, the entire thing needed to be repaired.


    Saleen used the mouth to strike the armor which was at least half a finger thick. With a crushing sound, the mouth snapped, but half of it was pierced within the armor. The swordmaster¡¯s face turned even paler. If these mosquitoes came near him, without a magic shield, his metal armor would notst for long. Although these giant mosquitoes had weak bodies, they were not weak at all when it came to attacking.


    ¡°Master, what do we do?¡± The other swordmaster asked Lex.


    ¡°The retaliation from the god¡¯s ring will kill the oracle. My army won¡¯t be destroyed. So long as father hears about this, he will find a way to save me.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t we think of a solution ourselves?¡±


    ¡°If you are a Grade 10 mage, then I have a solution now,¡± Lex said calmly. Saleen, on the other hand, looked defeated.


    Even if he was able to be a Grade 10 mage, it would take hundreds of years. In this interdimensional space, he had no way of purchasing any magic nuclei to use for practice. He did not need to think about bing Grade 10. Even bing a sorcerer was a daydream.


    ¡°Let¡¯s find somewhere safe first. The god¡¯s ring will require at least a year before it can be used again. If father wants to build an interdimension teleportation portal, he will need at least one to two years as well.¡± Saleen understood what was wrong with Lex¡¯s words. The magic nucleus needed to power an interdimension teleportation portal would need to be at least Grade 9 or above.


    A white spirit crystal would work too. However, the white spirit crystal he had could only be cut into four pieces. For an interdimension teleportation portal to work, they would need at least one hundred pieces. As for the map of said teleportation portal, he was notcking one. There had been one behind the map of the temple. Saleen suddenly remembered that the teleportation portal was an independent one. If he could confirm the coordinates, there was hope that they could return.


    However, he was unsure if the teleportation portal was capable of interdimension teleportation. He possessed too little knowledge when it came to arrays.


    Living things were prohibited from entering the space between dimensions, and if something went wrong with the teleportation, they would be dead for sure. It would be better to wait for the Qin Emperor to save Lex. A two-way portal was very safe. At the very least, no one would be sent into the chaos of outer space.


    Lex took out a piece of heavy crystal rock, added a magic brand onto it, and buried it underground. She released a fossilized spell to fossilize the ground, giving her an urate coordinate.


    There was no night and day in the interdimensional space, and a starting point would be required for them to not lose their way. Lex created another four of such magic coordinates and buried them at the four corners of their original coordinates. She pointed in a direction and said, ¡°From now on, this direction will be north. Saleen, you must remember this coordinate. If we get lost, we will follow the magic imprint and gather to the north.¡±


    Saleen nodded before Lex said, ¡°We will walk north for five hours. Does anybody need to rest?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Good, let us move forward then.¡± Lex took a look at the magic coordinates at her feet. Taking a deep breath, she walked in the direction that she had directed. The terrain here was t, and if they encountered any danger, they would need to fight their ways out. With a Grade 5 mage leading these people in the dangerous god¡¯s hell, the most important thing was to first find a safe ce.


    The God of Light was not benevolent, and god¡¯s punishment would not send a person anyce happy.


    Saleen, along with Nailisi and Sika, followed up near the front. He was secretly d that the elements in this interdimensional space were stable and were far from breaking down. His magic was not affected either.


    However; god¡¯s punishment had only been able to send them to this interdimensional space. Humans from tens of thousands of years ago had been able to travel across dimensions at will. Could it be that the abilities of the God of Light were not as powerful as those of the ancient humans?

 Chapter 123: God’s Hell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 123: God¡¯s Hell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After only a few minutes, Lex could not take the speed and provided everyone with the Windspeed spell.


    The magic she used was Grade 3, and after applying it to each and every one of them, they barely needed to expend any energy to move. Saleen lifted his leg lightly and could travel over five meters in a single second. A normal person would have walked five kilometers in an hour, but they were walking at a rate of almost twenty kilometers per hour.


    Lex was a Grade 5 grand mage, and adding a Grade 3 magic for six people had not been a burden for her whatsoever. The Windspeed spell could onlyst for thirty minutes. With the quality of Lex¡¯s equipment, even without meditation, she would naturally regain her magic chords during those thirty minutes.


    Saleen felt wind elements flowing across his entire body. As long as he made the action of walking, the currents formed from those wind elements would push him forward. As Saleen hurried along, he took the time to experience the effects andws of the wind elements.


    Theplexity of this support magic was rtive high, and after continuously analyzing it for over three hours, he could only determine around twenty percent of the principle behind this Grade 3 Windspeed spell. Saleen was very satisfied. If he could calcte itpletely, he would be able to use Water Magic to replicate the Grade 3 Windspeed spell.


    Once he was able to replicate it, the Grade 4 and Grade 5 Windspeed skill could be calcted ordingly.


    Saleen was not very concerned about this, but was instead concerned about Grade 6 flying magic. When a mage reached Grade 5, they could make use of higher-grade equipment to fly. Once they reached Grade 6, they would be able to learn flying magic.


    Saleen could not control wind elements and would not be able to learn flying magic. However, he would be able to replicate it with water-based magic. So long as it was a ce with water elements, he would be able to evaporate them to replicate Wind Magic. Using the same theory, by freezing Water Magic, he could attain the same effects as Ground Magic.


    Being able to fly in the skies would greatly increase the chances of a mage¡¯s survival. Unless one had arranged a trap, it would be difficult to kill a Grade 6 mage. Although many mages released their magic onnd for the sake of safety, when a person was in possession of strong magic equipment, it was not impossible to release magic while flying.


    For example, since Lex had received her colorful magic robes, the elements around her had been unusually stable while she was flying and did not affect her release of magic at all. Saleen had a set of demon equipment that worked in a simr fashion.


    Every five kilometers Lex travelled, she left a coordinate to prevent them from going off course. Without any objects around for reference, it was easier to get lost on a inpared to a forest.


    The scenery became richer as they travelled and the terrain became bumpier as more nts appeared. These nts had a special characteristic to them, not having any shades of green.


    Saleen and Lex understood that since the interdimensional space had no sun, the colors of these nts were perfectly normal. Nailisi was from the demon universe and had seen stranger looking nts. Most of the nts there consumed meat. Saleen was a tough person, and so long as the nts did not attack her, she would not have minded even if they ran around. The most nervous of the group were the two swordmasters at the back.


    If it were closebat, these two middle-grade swordmasters hadbat abilities simr to those of a Grade 4 mage. Even though their sword auras could not leave their body, their destructive strengths were fairly horrifying. If the weapon was tough enough, a Grade 3 magic shield would not be able to stop an attack from a middle-grade swordmaster.


    The terrain grew higher, and in this interdimensional space, there were none of the tall trees found in the Myers Maind. The dark blue and purple nts had no lush crowns to speak of, and they looked like hundreds of thick vines coiling around each other.


    Lex stopped and one of the swordmasters took a crossbow from his back. Loading a standard arrow, he fired it at a thirty meter tall nt.


    Even after a while, there were no signs of retaliation from the giant nt and the swordmaster heaved a sigh of relief. The arrow that had been shot into the branches came falling down onto the ground. A tiny hole could be seen on the arrow, and a dark red liquid was seeping out from within it. This nt had such corrosive powers that a pure metal arrow could be corroded away just by being inside of it for a short while. If this liquid was able to be shot out, it would be more powerful than the acid rain cast by mages.


    The trees up ahead were lusher, and evidently, the ¡°trees¡± in this interdimensional space were dangerous. They had walked over eighty kilometers and the terrain here was different. There were slopes and giant rocks, and even a mountain range in the distance.


    ¡°Get some rest,¡± Lex sighed. She did not dare dash into the ¡°forest¡± like this. Every kind of nt in this interdimensional space was extremely strange and was evidently different from the living things on the Myers Maind. Whatever prior knowledge they had was useless, so a mage¡¯s advantages were severely weakened here.


    After much examination using magic, Lex chose a ridge between tworge rocks to set up camp in. This ridge was narrow and the entrance was only around half a meter wide. The interior gradually grew wider and was over ten meters wide inside. The other exit was tilted upwards and gradually became smaller, being around two meters wide.


    The two swordmasters cleared the ground while Lex brought out a tent from within her ring, having the swordmasters settle down. She began to ce magic arrays at the entrance of the ridge. Having already ced simple magic arrays on the two sides of the rock, what surprised Saleen was that she had designed troughs on these two simple magic arrays for her to put gemstones inside.


    After setting up the entrance, Lex walked to the other end of the ridge and released Ground Magic: Stone Steps. Arge stairway appeared on the steep floor. Lex stood on the stairway and started setting up magic arrays at the other exit.


    Saleen felt fortunate to be in thepany of a Grade 5 mage. The ridge had been made incredibly safe by Lex. Even if other living things like the giant mosquitoes were to attack them now, with the terrain, even the two swordmasters would not be in much danger.


    After setting up the two exits with magic arrays, Lex returned to the tent and took a nce above them. At the top of the ridge, the two rocks at the side had closed together, leaving a small gap.


    Lex flew up with a great deal of effort, the colors on her robe shimmering. She stopped after ascending five meters above the others and took out two metal disks, iying them on the two sides of the stone walls. These two metal disks had solid magic arrays on them, each with six magic nuclei iid.


    The magic arrays were rapidly activated and a thin ck curtain enveloped the surrounding space of the tent. From within, they could see everything clearly. However, from the outside, all one could see was darkness.


    Lex¡¯s actions were a ssic example of a true mage. In a foreign ce, mages were unusually cautious.


    After setting everything up, Lex called everyone into the tent. She brought out nkets and gave them to everyone. The temperature in this interdimensional space was not high, and they had not noticed it while they had been hurrying along. However, once they had stopped, the chilly air had seeped up from the ground and silently invaded their bodies.


    Lex¡¯s tent had evidently been crafted with alchemy, and the temperature within was slightly higher. Everyone covered themselves with their nkets and could no longer feel the chill. They sat around Lex as she said, ¡°We¡¯ll need to live in this ce for at least a year. Let¡¯s get to know each other. Saleen, tell us what you¡¯ve brought that can be of some use.¡±


    The two swordmasters introduced themselves. One of them was known as Holzer, while the other was known as Baimeng. They were both mid-grade swordmasters and had a great deal of experience surviving in the wild. They had spent many years travelling between the four countries. Holzer was also skilled in archery. Baimeng was not from the Qin Empire, and half of his ancestry was from the Cloudflow Empire. In addition to the spear, he was skilled in daggers and underwaterbat.


    Lex spoke of her abilities. She was a grade 5 mage that was about to promote to a Grade 6 mage at any time. She had mastered one hundred and eighty four spells that were Grade 5 and below. She was skilled in alchemy, magic arrays, magic medicine, and puppet magic, and she knew some death spells as well. However, she possessed magic chords and hence could not learn death magic.


    Aside from the set of magic equipment she was wearing, she had arge amount of resources in the god¡¯s ring that the Qin Emperor had prepared for her. Equipping tens of thousands of troops would not be a problem. The ring that Joey had given her had arge amount of magic ingredients and high-grade magic nuclei as well. Gold coins were useless in the interdimensional space and would have only been a burden. Whatforted the others the most was that she had brought along arge number of rations as well.


    Mages could create restorative water to drink, and since there were only six of them, water would not be a problem. What they were worried about was food. If it was not for the fact that the Qin Emperor had wanted Lex to build a new county and had given her countless army supplies, they would have been worrying about food by now.


    ¡°I am trained in closebat,¡± Nailisi said simply.


    ¡°Cascausus warrior.¡± Sika¡¯s words were even simpler. Her cudgel was resting on her knees. The two swordmasters nced at each other. Even though they could not feel a sword aura from Sika, her cudgel still sent chills down their spines.


    Sika was not in a good mood either. The weapon she had with her had been created by Faerun, and now that he was dead, she was sad. This was the purest feeling possible. Saleen had treated Faerun as his teacher, while Sika had taken him for a vige elder.


    In the Cascausus region, a vige elder was like the protector of the vige. They were like everyone¡¯s father, protecting everything within the vige.


    When it became Saleen¡¯s turn to introduce himself, he thought for a while before saying, ¡°I am a Grade 2 mage that will promote to Grade 3 at any time now. I can only use Water Magic, and with a suitable magic nucleus, I can recover my magic chords within half an hour. I know basic magic medicine and with me is enough food to feed one hundred people for a month.¡±


    Before Saleen could finish speaking, the earth began to shake and everyone in the tent was nearly thrown off of their feet. Lex was the first to leave the tent. Beneath the darkness, everyone looked out at the gap outside of the ridge. The once grey interdimensional space had turned a dark red. This red grew brighter, and following it was a low booming sound that came from afar, almost as if two mountains had crashed into each other. The ground shook even more vigorously.


    Volcano!


    Lex activated the magic arrays on the stone walls without hesitation and crystal-like walls appeared at the exits, almost two meters thick.


    It was a Grade 6 restorative spell: Crystal City. It was known as the most powerful ground type defensive magic and could even withstand a Grade 9 attack. The activation of these magic arrays had cost Lex two high-grade gemstones.

 Chapter 124: The Free Wind (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 124: The Free Wind (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were no volcanoes in the Qin Empire. In the entirety of the Myers Maind, volcanoes were only found in the Cloudflow Empire. Even so, everyone knew how scary volcanoes could be.


    The eruption of a volcano was like a mage with limitless magic chords repeatedly casting Fire Magic. No one would survive if they were in the vicinity of an erupting volcano.


    From afar, a red stream of air appeared and rushed ferociously towards the rock crevices where Lex and the others had sought refuge. As the red air advanced forward, all of the giant trees in its path withered and burned.


    Everyone there looked horrified, but relieved at the same time. Lex had chose their direction of travel at random. If she had chosen the opposite direction, the group would have walked towards a volcano that was soon to erupt.


    This interdimensional space was so strange. Volcanoes could erupt with no warning whatsoever. Had they walked in the wrong direction, they would have been dead long ago. It was no wonder then that there were no giant nts in this space and the only animals the group had seen were giant mosquitoes. The volcano must have been erupting regrly, hence this ce could not support life at all.


    The high-level creatures in the interdimensional space must have been used to this phenomenon. That was why the group had not been able to see any other creatures along the way, as these creatures had been hiding somewhere safe.


    Most of the nts withered swiftly and then began to burn. Only a small number of them were fossilized quickly, resisting the vicious assault of the red stream of air.


    Nailisi found this scene quite familiar. There were many volcanoes in the world of demons, and the nts there were fireproof. Obviously, the nts in the demon world were far stronger than the ones in this space, but they still shared many simrities.


    Perhaps a demon had nted many demonic nt seeds on a whim.


    Even without the sun, the demonic nts could survive by absorbing heat and elements. Inside of the caves, many nts were dark green and purple, and some were even ck.


    Obstructed by the Crystal City spell, the red stream of air could not reach the ckened space. Lex waved her hand and put away the tent, as the temperature in the rock crevice had already risen by at least ten degrees. If the magic arrays had not been setup beforehand, Lex would not have been able to sustain the spell against the attack by the red air even if she had absorbed a magic nucleus.


    A mage¡¯s magic chords were finite. A magic shield alone would not be able to protect five of theirrades.


    The temperature remained at a high heat. Thankfully, everyone could tolerate the heat. Additionally, the ground beneath their feet tremored constantly, and the red air had spread throughout the space that could be seen.


    ¡°This ce is like hell,¡± Saleen said, breaking the silence. He saw that Sika¡¯s expression had changed, so he did not want the atmosphere to be so repressed.


    ¡°We were lucky. Fortunately, my instincts told me to go this way,¡± Lex said.


    A woman¡¯s instincts¡­ were most unreliable. Saleen thought of a magic diary written by a sorcerer. There had been aint in that diary, but he did not say it out loud. However, it was now proven that a woman¡¯s instincts could sometimes save lives.


    ¡°If we want to return to the Myers Maind, will we need toe back here?¡± Saleen asked worriedly. He had thought of the fact that Lex¡¯s magic coordinates must have been ruined by now.


    ¡°No need,¡± Lex answered as she caressed her god¡¯s ring. Lex was d that she was establishing a county, or else she would have needed to return the ring. Then, Genesis would use god¡¯s punishment to kill her. If that happened, only Lex¡¯s body and broken soul woulde to this interdimensional space.


    The red stream of air was blocked by the crystal city. The high temperature was lowered by the space of darkness. The six of them could only cower in the rock crevice and bear this raging power of nature.


    Lex rested the least. She needed to cast a Breeze spell every hour to rece the heavily polluted air that umted in the space of darkness. The scenery could no longer be seen. There was only a sea of red and whimpersing from the flowing air. The ground tremored continuously for about seventeen hours before gradually settling down.


    The red stream of air gradually diluted, but the temperature outside would still be too hot for all forms of life. Saleen felt that he had faintly touched the initial stage of Grade 3. This stage was growing closer, but he did not know how to ovee the leap into it.


    After about half a month, the temperature of the air outside the rock lowered to an eptable level. Lex had already changed out the magic nuclei six times. Even though the danger was over, nobody dared to leave. On the Myers Maind, a volcano¡¯s eruptions were intermittent. If they left now and the volcano erupted again, there was a chance they would die.


    After another half a month, Lex then took down the two metal discs that were sustaining the ck space.


    ¡°Let¡¯s continue advancing north. This ce is too close to the volcano,¡± Lex proposed to everybody. No one objected to her suggestion. The ce they were at had only been at the edge of the eruption site, so there was no volcanic ash or volcanic stones. Even so, the red air had already nearly killed them. If they advanced towards the volcano and discovered more volcanoes, then they would surely die.


    As the group made their way north, Saleen stopped Lex from blessing him with the Windspeed spell. Instead, Saleen chanted a long spell. When Saleen finished chanting, a gigantic bubble appeared and levitated in midair. The bubble engulfed Saleen, looking kind of amusing. Saleen had been working on this spell for the past month, and now he had cast it perfectly in front of everyone else.


    Beautiful magic patterns flowed on the surface of the bubble. Sika and Nailisi looked at Saleen curiously, not knowing what he was trying to do. This spell was an upgraded Grade 2 Water Shield. This time, the water shield could protect the entirety of Saleen¡¯s body, and even his feet were separated from the ground.


    Then, the bubble began to shrink as the magic patterns flowed on the surface of the bubble in a regted movement. The bubble shrank until it was the same size as Saleen¡¯s build, but it was not what Saleen had expected it to be. Saleen had wanted the bubble to fit to his silhouette, just like the ice te armor, but now he was in a circr bubble. Fortunately, his height and the length of his fully extended arm were the same, so the bubble would not be affected even if he made exaggerated motions. In addition, Saleen could still feel the earth even though he was somewhat levitating. As Saleen took two steps forward, the water shield rolled forward like a wheel.


    ¡°Saleen, it will be easier for you to go down the mountains from now on,¡± Sikamended.


    Saleen blushed. Not only was the result different from what he had expected, but he had also lost all of his coolness. Furthermore, he looked like he was rolling now. Saleen quickly cast a Grade 2 spell, causing the surface of the water shield to vaporize and mist to surround the bubble.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice came from inside the misty bubble and he rushed out of the crevice without any warning.


    The simtion of Grade 3 magic had been a sess! Although the result was not very refined, Saleen was overjoyed. Without a horse, a mage would never be able to outrun a swordsmen unless he could at least cast a Grade 3 Windspeed spell. Furthermore, he had the protection of the water shield, thus it seemed to be closer to perfection than a standard Windspeed spell.


    The only regret Saleen had was that he had exhausted more than half of his magic chords. The water shield had used a standard magic nucleus meant for Grade 2 magic while the simted Grade 3 Windspeed spell had used up half of his magic chords. If Saleen never became a mage master, this magic would have no practical value. It would only be an innovative idea.


    Watching Saleen¡¯s bubble roll as he moved, Lex also felt that it was hrious but she greatly admired Saleen¡¯s creativity. Understanding the Figaro form was not enough. A mage still needed to be able to create their own things. Theplex magic that Saleen had cast the previous time had obviously been his own creation.


    It was not amazing for a Grade 2 mage to create Grade 1 magic. But it was shocking for Saleen to create Grade 3 magic while he was still a Grade 2 mage. Lex blessed the remaining four people with the Windspeed spell and caught up to Saleen.


    As Saleen walked, he began to experience the elemental changes happening within the bubble. His whole body was engulfed in the bubble, and he realized that only water elements were inside of the bubble and the rest of the elements were blocked outside. Under such conditions, he could cast spells at higher speeds even if he had notpletely mastered them.


    In this space, it seemed like he could reuse the water elements and his magic chords, and those were abilities that only mage masters possessed. Even though Saleen could not cast Grade 4 magic yet, he had experienced what mage masters felt, and this would be greatly beneficial to his future advancement.


    There was a huge obstacle hindering his advancement from Grade 3 to Grade 4. Saleen had sufficient mental power, but he wascking growth in his magic chords andprehension of elemental control.


    Losing the ability to learn the other five sses of magic in order to gain twice the amount of magic chords was something that Saleen had felt would never be worthwhile. Now, he has finally achieved a bnce between the two, so his advancements would be much easier than those of other mages.


    Saleen was excited and ran increasingly faster, exceeding the limit of the Grade 3 Windspeed spell. The mist at the exterior of the bubble was more powerful than the wind element and was easier to control as well. Lex was following behind and realized that Saleen was running faster and faster, so she had to bless the remaining four people with Grade 4 Windspeed spells. Only then were they able to catch up to Saleen.


    One needed to know that the average horse could run at twenty miles an hour and its sprinting speed was roughly sixty miles an hour. The Grade 3 Windspeed spell allowed a human to run at roughly twenty miles an hour, while one of Grade 4 allowed a human sprint like the average horse.


    Saleen was running at roughly fifty miles an hour. If thend in front of him had not been razed to the ground, he would have already crashed into some kind of nt long ago.


    When Saleen felt like he had reached maximum velocity, he began practicing directional change. The road ahead of him was filled with obstacles such as the remains of giant nts, burnt gravel, and some animal bones. These bones were ck and shiny, so Saleen could spot them from afar and avoided running into them.


    Saleen ran more than thirty miles in one sprint, and he could see a giant rock in front of him. However, he did not try to go around the rock. Instead, he mustered his strength beneath his feet, controlled the vaporized mist, and jumped high into the air with all of his might. Saleen was like a polo that had been struck with a bat. He jumped over the giant rock that was over ten meters tall. He did not even have time to begin rejoicing when he realized that he was fast approaching a fossilized tree, and his face simply smashed into the tree.

 Chapter 125: The Free Wind (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 125: The Free Wind (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not try to dodge it. Even though he was travelling at a high speed, he was fortunately under the protection of the water shield so he would not be injured even if he crashed into a mountain. He manipted the air flow such that he slid past the giant fossilized tree just before he came into contact with it. That slide came about so naturally and was so instinctive that it was just like how a grand swordmaster controlled their sword aura.


    Saleen waspletely at ease. He was not as nervous as he had once been whenever he faced a crisis. He could clearly see that the other fossilized branches had been broken to pieces and there were tentaclesing out from them, attempting to grab him.


    The Haste spell was different from the Flying spell. The slide that Saleen executed was easy, but it would be difficult for him to avoid these tentacles now. The slender tentacles held onto Saleen¡¯s shield and the fuchsia suckers on them slid past the mist on the shield. These restrained Saleen for less than one second, after which he managed to break free from the tentacles¡¯ grip and fell towards the ground.


    Ga ga! The sound of branches being broken filled the air as the fossilized branches broke apart. Then, over ten tentacles appeared in midair and intercepted Saleen. Saleen did not look at them, only sensing the vaporization magic flowing on the exterior of the water shield. Saleen could not really move, so he could only allow the disgusting tentacles to touch him before they were deflected by the magic.


    The wind could not be caught. Saleen understood this concept during this period of time. If he had been protected solely by the water shield, the suckers on the tentacles would have easily been able to capture him. However, with the mist on the surface of the shield, the tentacles could not grip him so Saleen continued to fall.


    Lex and the others who arrivedter saw Saleen being attacked by the numerous tentacles. The swordmaster named Holzer immediately drew his sword and leapt up, sticking to Saleen before charging upwards. Then, he used his Qin eight-sided sword, which bore a frosty sword aura, to sever the tentacle closest to him.


    Pu! The tentacle was chopped apart and dark green liquid spurted out from it. Not a single drop of the liquidnded on Holzer as his agitated sword aura blocked it all. In a swift session of moves, Holzer bent down,shed out with his sword, and severed another tentacle which had been pursuing him. The sticky liquid sprayed in all directions, producing creaking noises in the canopy.


    Saleennded on the ground but stood there nkly. The experience of those feelings of freedom were still lingering in his heart. The feelings that Saleen had felt like he had been taking a leisurely swim, and by the end of it, he had forgotten about the existence of the water around him.


    Sika was a little worried. Lex waved her hand and looked up at the tentacles near the forest canopy. An icicle condensed onto her hand, and Lex fired it towards the tree trunk.


    It was very difficult to aim the icicle at a target and it could only travel a short distance, but the Icicle spell was a good method of destroying armor. Lex¡¯s icicle was about one feet long, and it easily pierced the fossilized trunk after leaving her hand.


    A sharp creaking noise came from within the huge tree. The fossilized skin began to break down, exposing the monster¡¯s true appearance.


    It was a giant tentacle with scales and was as thick as two people hugging each other. Lex inhaled a mouthful of cold air. Along the way, she had seen many of these fossilized trees, but she had never thought much of them. However, if all of these trees were alive, then¡­


    The Icicle spell was a Grade 1 spell. It could pierce the scales on the tentacle, but it would not cause any real damage to the monster.


    Baimeng and Holzer gripped their swords and attacked from the left and right sides of the tentacle. The gigantic tentacle bent over forcefully, hundreds of branches disyed at its top like a gianting down.


    Sword auras exploded ferociously from the swords of the swordmasters. The blinding sword auras formed two huge spheres as they followed the dances of the swords, strangling the tentacle.


    The swordmasters possessed the same offensive capabilities of Grade 4 magic. As the tentacles were fractured, Lex cast the Wild Wind spell, blowing away the liquid which spurted from the tentacles. She then calmly watched the swordmasters¡¯ attacks on the monster.


    The chopped tentacles twisted and turned on the ground. Lex noticed that these tentacles were trying very hard to drill underground.


    Nailisi stretched out her hand and grabbed a tentacle that was about two feet long, observing it with a great deal of curiosity. Indeed, the tip of the tentacle had a mouth, and its razor sharp teeth were as small as the tips of needles.


    But the tentacle was not a magic insect, so Nailisi was a little disappointed. No matter how delicious the food on the Myers Maind was, it would never taste as good as the magic insects from the demonic dimension. Just as Nailisi was about to toss the tentacle aside, the mouth on the tentacle opened ferociously and tried to bite Nailisi¡¯s face.


    Nailisi was overjoyed. With an eye for an eye, Nailisi bit off the end of the tentacle and caused the dark green liquid to flow out. She licked the liquid off of the side of her lips, and felt that its taste was far more appetizing than that of the giant mosquitoes. That tentacle twisted in Nailisi¡¯s hand and tried to break free from her grip after losing its mouth. Nailisi had no desire to eat it, so she simply tossed it aside and spat out the piece of tentacle in her mouth.


    There was only a faint taste of magic insects. This meant that there were no demons in this interdimensional space. Nailisi was disappointed and happy at the same time. Even though it was regrettable that there was nothing delicious here, they would not encounter any powerful demons as enemies either.


    Saleen snapped out of his thoughts when Lex cast the Wild Wind spell. He widened his eyes and saw that the two swordmasters had chopped the monster into hundreds of pieces.


    Such violence! The sword aura was used less than magic, so the swordmasters could fight for a longer duration. A mid-level swordmaster could already control the usage of their sword aura, and also would not use it when it was unnecessary. The swordmaster only needed to use the weapon in their hands to attack, and this was an aspect that was far superior to mages who needed to use their magic chords with each and every strike.


    The Qin eight-sided swords that Holzer and Baimeng wielded were rare and potent weapons. As the fight progressed, the two of them managed to limit the usage of their sword auras to the lowest level. They only needed to use their swords to sever the weak tentacles.


    The thickest tentacle of them all twisted and turned vigorously, as it could not escape after losing the smaller tentacles with their mouths. The monster¡¯s body was buried underground, so it was helpless and could do nothing to stop the swordmasters¡¯ onught.


    More dark green liquid sprayed out from the tentacle, and a faint fishy smell began to fill the air. Then, Lex said, ¡°I think we should leave. This will attract trouble.¡±


    At least half of the chopped tentacles had drilled into the ground. The tentacles did not initiate attacks, they only drilled into the ground stubbornly like seeds awaiting germination.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. This ce is unsafe,¡± Saleen agreed. He felt disgusted at the sight of the tentacles. If it had not been for his new magic, these tentacles would have devoured him already.


    ¡°Do you need my help?¡± Lex noticed that Saleen¡¯s spell had not disappeared and was worried that Saleen did not know the duration of control forl his new magic.


    ¡°No need. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Saleen looked into the distance. Under the grey skies and hot earth, there were countless branches which had been left behind by the withered and fossilized nts. It appeared as though there were giant magic ws extending from the ground, portraying a horrifying sight.


    They were still in the volcanic region. They did not know how big the volcano was for it to affect such arge area.


    Using the air flow that had been formed by the eruption, Lex deduced their new direction of travel, which was to continue advancing north. Saleen followed Lex¡¯s deductions and began to quicken his pace, managing to reach his maximum speed in no time.


    This time around, Saleen did not try to provoke the fossilized nts. He maintained his speed and avoided the nts from a distance. Sika and Nailisi followed behind Saleen. Sika readied her boomerang. She was not going to let Saleen face danger alone if another ident happened.


    Very soon, Saleen felt that the magic was going to disappear. More than an hour had passed, and the water shield had disappeared while theyer of mist was thinning, causing Saleen to slow down.


    Maintaining his bnce, Saleen cast the water shield and the Grade 2 spell at the same time. When the new water shield appeared, it was already of Saleen¡¯s height. In addition, the mist began to thicken.


    Saleen felt carefree. He made sure that he was not too far from the people behind him. However, his magic chords were nearly fully drained. The demonic bracelet had nine magic nuclei iid, and as long as Saleen stopped to meditate, he would be able to regain all of his magic chords within half an hour.


    After a distance of fifty miles, the number of fossilized nts they saw decreased in number. The group was leaving the area that had been affected by the volcano, but it also meant that there would be dangerous creatures around here. For the third time, Saleen chanted his spell. Under the rhythm of his chants, his obscure magic chords vibrated and suddenly split before expanding.


    Saleen¡¯s remaining magic chords were only sufficient for casting a Grade 2 spell, but he had cast a Grade 3 spell instead. Since he was so close to a promotion, Saleen did not want to waste this chance despite being in a dangerous environment. Sika and Nailisi knew how to protect themselves, and Lex would not allow herself to die. That feeling Saleen experienced whenever he was going to be promoted had now reappeared, only this time, his magic chords had expanded quickly and the magic nuclei on the bracelet had abruptly been reduced to ashes.


    Nine pieces of Grade 6 magic nuclei were destroyed simultaneously, and all of the magic power entered Saleen¡¯s body to rebuild his magic chords. Saleen continued running. He could not stop, because the moment he stopped, he would lose control over his magic, the water shield would break, and there was a chance that the elements would be thrown into a state of chaos.


    Such excruciating pain! Saleen did not know how other mages advanced, but the pain he was experiencing this time around had exceeded the pain caused by his n badge. Also, this pain was not in his soul, it was physical, so Nailisi would not be able to feel it.


    His magic chords expanded slowly, and theyer of mist outside had grown extremely thick, causing Saleen to be unable to see his surroundings clearly. His face twisted in pain, but he persevered and maintained his speed. If his mental power was not strong enough, he would not be able to see the road ahead.


    The wind magic formed by the vapor carried Saleen forward. The ground was not smooth, but Saleen went past it like the wind. He did not need to adjust his pace anymore.


    There was a roar in his head. Saleen felt that his mental power was increasing, only it was too dense so it was not increasing by much. Following the roar, Saleen gradually lost his five senses, so he could only rely on the magic ball to bring him forward. Two water shields also appeared on his left hand and circled around his body.


    It was as if the two water shields were alive as they helped Saleen achieve stability in his magic. The fist-sized water shields grew darker in color and now had a light blue hue. The magic patterns on the surface were pulsating as though they were breathing.

 Chapter 126: Magic Beasts from Hell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 126: Magic Beasts from Hell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords began to vibrate and slowly started to pulsate at the same rate as his heartbeat. His magic chords had grown by more than four times, and after absorbing the magic power from the magic nuclei on the demonic bracelet, they continued to absorb the powers of the water elements outside of Saleen¡¯s body.


    The water elements from the water shields were continuously sucked away, and they began to stick to Saleen¡¯s body, undergoing another unusual change.


    The patterns on the bubble-like water shield multiplied by a hundred times and became even moreplicated, the shield no longer in the shape of a ball. It began to turn transparent and the magic patterns became lighter as water elements started pouring in. The thickyer of water vapor on the outside of the water shield began to disappear as well. Sika and Nailisi were only able to see the magic outside of Saleen¡¯s body disappearing, but he did not slow down.


    The light wisp of water vapor circled around Saleen¡¯s body. He opened his eyes with a start and frigid-looking light shot out from his blue eyes.


    The amount of pain that Saleen had experienced was less than he had expected and his magic chords began to stabilize. His sight seemed to pierce everything from the air, to thend, to the the skies. Just as everything started returning to normal, Saleen once again saw the elemental world.


    Ground, water, wind, fire, darkness, and light. They formed the building blocks of everything inside of god¡¯s hell. Everything within a kilometer was clearly reflected in his eyes. Saleen stopped andughed.


    Sometimes while a mage was training, they would gain special abilities that were rted to magic. This was what was happening to Saleen now. It was a Grade 4 magic: Icy Sight. This magic seemed to have been imprinted onto Saleen, and he would not need to consume any magic chords in the future to use it.


    Even though it was only a Grade 4 spell, it was more useful than the Grade 7 Magic Eye spell. The only drawback of this spell was that it was not instantaneous and needed up to a minute to charge up.


    However, the advantages of the Icy Sight spell were more obvious than its drawback. It was even assaultive in nature, able to rece simple magic gestures and rearrange the elements within a space. Most importantly, this magic could help a mage while they calcting the Figaro form, enabling them to see the trajectories of the energy present.


    The earliest Grade 4 magic that Saleen had intended to practice was ice te armor. Once he had learned the Figaro form, he had been nning to learn the Icy Sight spell. With the Icy Sight spell, the Figaro form could be used in actualbat. At least with magic under Grade 2, Saleen was able to analyze them in a very short time, using a Grade 1 or even a Grade 0 spell to block and retaliate.


    Once a mage promoted, low-grade spells used up even fewer magic chords than before.


    Now he could release twenty-four Grade 3 spells, forty-eight Grade 2 spells, ny-six Grade 1 spells, and one hundred and ny-two Grade 0 spells. As for Grade 4 spells, he could release one additional spell over other Grade 3 mages.


    Compared to the other five types of magic, Water Magic only truly became powerful when it reached Grade 4.


    In Grade 4 alone, there was Ice te Armor which could be replenished continuously, the Ice Totem spell which was simr to puppet magic and could move around to attack, the Chunlin spell that wasparable to a divine spell, and the Current Cutter that could be continuously upgraded.


    Regarding ranged magic, there was the Darkness Mist spell which was simr to a dark type spell. A Grade 0 Fog of Confusion could easily be seen through by a high-grade mage. However, the darkness mist could even fool a sorcerer sometimes. Under the nket of the darkness mist, a sorcerer could only see where the danger was within the mist. They would not be able to identify it.


    For other people, advancing to Grade 3 did not mean much. However, Saleen had the demon magic book which could store six spells. In other words, so long as he had learned them, he could continuously release six plus two Grade 4 spells, and hisbat abilities would be vastly improved.


    ¡°Congrattions, Saleen.¡± Lex and the other two swordmasters caught up to him. Seeing that Saleen had stopped, Lex realized that he had advanced. She could not contain her joy. In this dangerous interdimensional space, Grade 3 was a world of differencepared to a Grade 2 mage.


    ¡°Ha!¡± Saleenughed lightly. He had not felt any moment of weakness during this promotion, and if he continued training, he knew that he would be able to reach the peak of Grade 3 soon.


    He had gained too much experience while in Grade 2 and had spent all of his free time on magic training and the Figaro form without seeing any breakthroughs. Now that the breakthrough had happened, he realized that the road to Grade 4 was not that far.


    In addition to being happy, Saleen was cautious as well. As long as he had a good foundation for Grade 3, the promotion to Grade 4 should not be that hard. At the very least, it would not be like his advancement to Grade 2. Most importantly, he was already beginning to grasp some of the secrets of a grand mage.


    Low-grade magic was only the usage of the magic chords. Mid-grade magic, however, was able to move the elemental energy in a person¡¯s body. No wonder it had a muchrger impact than a low-grade magic.


    Now that he possessed icy sight, his water shield seemed to have evolved again. Its defensive capabilities wereparable to ice te armor. Hence, he needed to focus on offensive magic for his first Grade 4 spell. The current cutter that was able to be upgraded was his best option for now.


    Lex had a sharp eye and saw that the magic nuclei on Saleen¡¯s demon bracelet had been wiped clean. She immediately took out nine Grade 6 magic nuclei and handed them to Saleen. Saleen took them in his hands and carefully iid them into his demon bracelet.


    In the past, he had not epted many gifts from Lex as he did not want to owe her favors. Now that he would need to spend a few years with her and help her inbat, he would not stand by ceremony anymore.


    A Grade 6 magic nucleus was the highest-grade magic nucleus one could buy with money. A Grade 6 magic beast was considered easy among the magic beasts that one could hunt and kill. This rtive ease was inparison to a Grade 7 magic beast. A Grade 7 magic beast had offensive capabilities equivalent to Grade 7 magic.


    ¡°Lex, I want to stop and learn some Grade 4 magic first,¡± Saleen said to her, looking at a purple forest from afar. Lex nodded, Saleen had just promoted and this was the time when he would grasp new magic the fastest. If it had been her, she would not have chosen to hurry along either.


    They had evidently left the vicinity of the volcano and the nts here were lusher, stronger, and did not seem to die and revive on a weekly basis.


    Lex looked left and right before choosing a slightly higher spot of ground on which to set up camp.


    There were no longer anyrge rocks in this area and there was no cover surrounding the camp. Lex brought out some army resources from the inside of her god¡¯s ring and everyone began to help out, putting together hundreds of metal pieces to form a hexagonal fence.


    nting the structure firmly into the mud, Lex then solidified the mud, making the camp more secure.


    Nailisi held up the alchemy binocrs that Lex had given her and suddenly started shouting, ¡°Magic beast! Magic beast!¡±


    Lex took the alchemy binocrs from her and directed them in the direction that Nailisi was pointing to. To the north were stretches of forest. The trees were lush unlike the nts that had been in the volcanic area, and they were more like the living things on the Myers Maind. There was no sunlight and the leaves of the trees were not too dense. The way it grew seemed to have been arranged using some magic form. Outside of the forest, a lone magic beast was scrunching up its nose and breathing heavily.


    The magic beast had a leopard-like head. The red fur around its neck was a little long and was almost like the feather of a bird, flowing along with the movement of the magic beast. Its body was quite long and the fur on the other parts of its body was dense yet short and bright, giving off a metallic shine. Lex noticed that the magic beast had a steel-like tail. It had a sharp tip and its joints were protruding, moving along with its body.


    It was too far away and Lex did not recognize this magic beast, unable to tell what grade it was. The magic beast moved about and gave off a low roar. From the forest behind it, another six simr magic beasts appeared.


    The other six magic beasts did not have red fur on their necks like the first one. They were respectful as they surrounded the first magic beast, seeming to interact with it.


    Lex handed the alchemy binocrs to Saleen and said, ¡°You will be in charge of guarding us.¡±


    She did not look at the magic beasts any longer. There were at least three kilometers between them and the beasts, and the most important thing now was to quickly build up their camp. Therge amount of resources she had in her god¡¯s ring were sufficient to build a castle, let alone a small camp.


    Once they had built their camp, they would not need to be afraid of any attacks by the magic beasts.


    Even more important was that Lex felt that she was about to advance as well. The elements in the interdimensional space seemed to be thicker than the ones on the Myers Maind. The difference was negligible and she could not be sure of their thickness either. However, so long as the elements were active in one ce, a mage¡¯s promotions would be hastened.


    The reason a Grade 6 mage built a magic tower was for the purpose of bing a sorcerer. The amount of elemental power necessary was immense, and without a magic tower, a Grade 6 mage would find it difficult to advance to a sorcerer.


    Saleen took over the alchemy binocrs and scanned the outskirts of the forest for the seven magic beasts. The leader gave a deep growl and the other six followed suit. Following their growls, a patch ofnd near them burst open and a ck animal came out from a burrow, escaping towards the forest.


    The leader of the magic beasts did not move while the other six magic beasts pounced upon it. Their speed was evidently faster and in a sh, they caught up with the ck animal, surrounding it.


    Only now was Saleen able to clearly see the appearance of the ck animal. It was a magic beast as well, sharp on both ends and plump towards the center. After being trapped, its entire body curled inwards and its ck fur stood straight up. Dozens of hairs bunched together to form spikes which protected its body.


    The six magic beasts swung their tails like iron chains. They were about to pounce, seemingly unafraid of the spikes. The ck magic beast began to vibrate its body and the spikes violently shot outwards. Even from a few kilometers away, Saleen could hear the sound of explosions.


    The six magic beasts fanned out the long fur on their necks and enormous magic shields protected them. Saleen was shocked. These magic beasts could control wind elements with such speed. It seemed that they were high-grade magic beasts. There were seven of them in total, and the leader must have been even stronger. Magic beasts had a keen sense of smell, and it was possible that they would easily spot this camp.

 Chapter 127: Magic Beasts from Hell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 127: Magic Beasts from Hell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A dozen of the spikes from the ck magic beast managed to pierce through the magic shields and shot into the bodies of the six magic beasts. Saleen could not tell how they had managed to break the magic shields through the alchemy binocrs, but he knew that they must have had simr abilities to a witcher spider. However, the spikes did little damage to the magic beasts that were surrounding it. One of them began to growl furiously and opened its mouth, shooting out a giant fireball.


    The fireballnded directly on the head of the ck magic beast, burning the top half of its body into ashes.


    ¡°It¡¯s a Grade 4 magic beast,¡± Saleen said to therade setting up camp beside him as he watched on. The fireball had obliterated any defensive powers of the low-grade magic and had killed the ck magic beast instantly. It could not have been released by any magic beast that was of Grade 3 or below.


    Magic beasts were not like humans. Whatever grade they were, they could only release magic of that grade. That meant that they could not control the depletion of their magic chords. Hence, humans could use weapons and tactics to hunt them down and kill them. Through continuous harassment and depletion of the magic beast¡¯s powers, even a swordsman could kill a Grade 4 and above magic beast so long as they could outrun it.


    Seeing that its prey had arge part of itself burned away, the leader of the magic beasts pounced forward angrily and used its front w to shoo away the magic beast that had caused trouble. The dead ck magic beast did not have arge body, and now that half of it was burned away, there was even less of it for the other magic beasts to eat. The leader of the magic beasts bared its fangs and the magic beast that had been shooed away flew over ten meters and was knocked against arge tree.


    Therge tree started shaking violently as its tree bark split from the impact and began spewing ck juice. The magic beastnded on the ground and stood up with a hiss. It also bared its fangs and gave a low growl, but it did not dare cause trouble with the leader.


    Lex and the others continued building the camp. This time, Lex did not dare have the others stay in a tent and began to build a barrack. She was building a general¡¯s barrack where even the roof was surrounded with metal. She was not afraid of a Grade 4 magic beast. However, if there were too many of them, she might not be able to avoid casualties.


    If there were giant mosquitoes in god¡¯s hell, there were likely to be even scarier flying creatures. The Myers Maind had simr insect-like magic beasts and these magic beasts were never at the top of the food chain. Arge number of giant mosquitoes could be prey for even scarier insect-like magic beasts, and even though they were only simr to Grade 1 beasts, she had been forced to use her magic scrolls.


    This ce was barren and was close to a forest. Insect-like magic beasts would be abundant. If they did not construct a sealed barrack, no one would be able to sleep well at night.


    Saleen observed carefully. These leopard-like magic beasts had a strict hierarchy. The leader opened its mouth and ate the half of the magic beast that had not been burned, quickly swallowing it. The other six magic beasts stood around, not approaching to fight over it.


    There were magic leopards in the Myers Maind as well, but they moved around alone. These magic beasts were more like the magic wolves of the savannahs, moving around in orderly groups. However, magic wolves lived in savannahs while these magic beasts were active in the forest. They were obviously more dangerous.


    ¡°Saleen, do not worry.¡± Lex heard Saleen¡¯s breathing speed up andforted him. ¡°I still have enough magic scrolls with me. Once the camp has been built, so long as a Grade 8 magic beast doesn¡¯t appear, we should be rtively safe.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s breathing slowed down. When the leader had been eating his prey earlier, he had turned and looked in the direction of Lex¡¯s camp. In those purple-red eyes, Saleen had seen hunger and brutality. The magic beast had seen the camp. It had not just looked over by chance. Saleen was unusually sensitive to danger, and as he saw the magic beasts retreat into the forest, he had thoughts of turning back.


    ording to his knowledge of the Myers Maind, there should not have been any high-grade magic beasts on the edge of a forest. Moreover, this area was close to the volcanoes and there would be less prey here. However, even if magic beasts that were simr to magic wolves had appeared here, his knowledge of the Myers Maind might not have been applicable here.


    If they turned back, it was possible that the volcano would explode again. If they continued forward, a vast forest awaited them. There were innumerable dangers in the forest. Staying here was not realistic either, as they would be caught between the volcanoes and forests. If the volcanic activity continued shifting north, it would be dangerous here as well. Moreover, it was possible that the magic beasts would not stay in the forest waiting. The magic beasts from earlier mighte back for them.


    ¡°Lex, I think the magic beasts have noticed us,¡± Saleen said dryly.


    ¡°I know.¡± Lex began cing traps outside of the camp. The two swordmasters, Nailisi and Sika¡¯s powers were great, and what would have taken dozens of people to build was quicklypleted by the four of them.


    A wind blew across the forest. After the volcanic explosion, the currents in god¡¯s hell had grown more erratic. Beneath the grey skies, dark clouds began to gather.


    Kaboom! Boom!


    A bolt of lightning shed down and disappeared into the forest in the distance, and what followed was the sound of thunder. Saleen nearly threw the alchemy binocrs onto the ground. If he had been amoner, he would not have naturally been afraid of the sound of thunder. However, mages possessed a wealth of knowledge. Without the sun, where had the thundere from? Inside of his books, Saleen had read that the formation of lightning was due to clouds absorbing the energy from the sun and releasing it. Could the magic books have been wrong? There is no sun in the interdimensional space. Just now¡­


    Boom! Swoosh¡­


    The loud sound of thunder caused the earth to shake. It was almost as though the sky was breaking apart. Saleen stared dazedly at the forest. He was going through a major psychological transformation. What the books said would not always be correct.


    Without a sun, there were still nts in this interdimensional space that could stay alive by directly absorbing the energy of the elements, and there were still powerful magic beasts active in the area. The volcanoes provided a good source of thermal energy to create clouds and rain. The natural lightning was not caused by the sun.


    Many mages could fly, but not many dared to go deep into the clouds for the purpose of research. Lightning that formed naturally was too scary and even a Grade 9 sorcerer would not be able to stand a chance against lightning.


    A desire arose within Saleen¡¯s heart. He wanted to uncover the truth about lightning. If he did be a sorcerer in the future, he would find a way to look within the clouds to discover how lightning was formed. Clouds were formed by the condensation of water vapor. If he could grasp the secrets of the formation of lightning, he would be able to control such powers. Even if the powers of that lightning were minimized by a few thousand times, it would still be powerful magic.


    As the heavy downpour approached them, Saleen did not hide inside of the barrack. Since gaining his special magic chords, be it water elements or water in nature, he had gained a sense of closeness to them. Saleen did not even need to cast an Underwater Breathing spell to be able to move around freely in the water like a fish.


    As the sounds of thunder continued, Saleen stood under the rain and felt the water elements in god¡¯s hell thickening. Slowly, he felt as if his body was gaining a special connection with the storm. It was almost as if he was standing within a Fog of Confusion, his senses magnified to the point where they nearly reached the forest.


    Saleen focused his senses up into the clouds. Before he had gone two kilometers up, an unknown burst of energy attacked him, breaking down his senses. He broke out into cold sweat; this energy was immense, but it was not gathered and had not been targeted towards his senses. If this energy were to reach the ground, it would easily destroy the camp that Lex had created.


    Any magic shield, scroll, or array would not protect them against such an assault. It was almost like a giant hammer was within the skies and the six of them were like the desserts from the pce, sweet and crispy.


    Saleen calmed himself down, his desire not extinguished. However, he knew that without adequate protection, breaking down the mysteries of lightning would only be a dream. From outside of the clouds, he had not even been able to defend himself from the burst of energy deep within them. Perhaps only the gods could do it. He did not know if Joey could, but at least for now, he dropped the idea.


    He turned back and took a look at the barracks behind him, thinking about the god¡¯s ring on Lex¡¯s finger. The god¡¯s ring could defend against the power of god¡¯s punishment. He wondered if it could defend against the lightning. If it could, would Lex be able to take him for a walk among the clouds?


    Saleen had not spent a lot of time with Jason, but he had learned the most from him. His desire for magic could not be considered crazy, but his determination was the same as his teacher¡¯s. He was not one to give up.


    Out of one hundred people, one person could be a mage. This seemed to be a lot, but how many of them would give up everything to practice magic? When a mage practiced, they needed to be alone and would need more gold coins than even the wealthy. Along the way, they woulde across many dangers as well.


    Many mages lost their way and struggled solely for money and power. How many could be sorcerers in the end? The sessful would always be the minority. Many gave up when they were only magic disciples to learn swordsmanship, medicine, or arts. Some even became ountants, or worse, bandits. Low-grade mages joined mercenaries to earn money and satisfy their desires for knowledge. Even when a person became a grand mage, they would need to prepare to build a magic tower. Some epted the help of the wealthy, but they could not choose the location of their magic towers and could only be mages for the wealthy.


    Only those like Jason and Lex who had a great deal of money could race along the path of magic. This wealth did not only consist of gold coins, but knowledge as well.


    Even if he had the chance to study magic, a poor man like Saleen would probably have stayed a disciple and spent his life helping other mages if it had not been for the help of Jason.


    The stormsted for over two hours before the clouds began to disperse. Saleen felt much better and was no longer as unsteady and erratic. Without the rain, he could not expand his senses as much as he had been able to earlier, and they soon returned to normal. His magic robes were still dry, not a single drop of rain seeped through. The temperature that had been raised by the volcanic explosion had cooled down rapidly, and a satisfyingly cool breeze blew past.


    Saleen picked up the alchemy binocrs and thoughtlessly looked at the forest. After the rain, the forest seemed to resemble a giant magic beast, absorbing the powers of the water elements, ready to expand to a shocking size at anytime.


    A magic beast appeared within Saleen¡¯s field of vision. Its gaze was set directly on the camp, appearing cold and brutal.


    It was the red furred magic beast from earlier. It cocked its head and growled, and hundreds of purple eyes appeared within the lush forest. One by one, magic beasts of the same type appeared, following their leader and starting to gather towards the camp.

 Chapter 128: Hell’s Magic Nucleus (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 128: Hell¡¯s Magic Nucleus (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Three hundred, no, three hundred and fourteen of them!


    There were roughly three hundred and fourteen Grade 4 magic beasts in total. Even though Lex imed she had enough scrolls, Saleen remained apprehensive. These beasts could spit fireballs, and only the two of them were mages. Even if they released all of their scrolls, they would not be able to defeat the beasts.


    ¡°Lex!¡± Saleen shouted.


    The hell that had been brought about by god¡¯s punishment had no day or night, and everyone had adapted to these conditions. Whenever Lex released the space of darkness, the others took it for nightfall.


    It was nighttime now. But under these perilous conditions, the two swordmasters slept with their armor on as they did not want to remove it.


    Saleen passed the alchemical binocrs to Lex. He knew that they had gotten themselves into huge trouble. These beasts were not hunting. They had regarded Lex¡¯s group as intruders upon their territory.


    That was why those beasts had left their nests. If it had only been for food, only around ten beasts would have been needed.


    Magic beasts would fight until theirst breaths when faced with intruders. Escape? With the exception of Lex, perhaps only Nailisi could carry Saleen on her back and escape to safety.


    But even if Lex was prepared to sacrifice Holzer and Baimeng, Saleen would not abandon Sika. Saleen had seen how fast these beasts could move. In addition to possessing fire elements, these beasts might have possessed the powers of the wind elements as well.


    The storm had just ended, so there was still flooding present on the ground. More than three hundred magic beasts slowly closed in on the campsite, giving the swordmasters time to put on all of their armor. Lex ced the binocrs down and said, ¡°Prepare to fight.¡±


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. If Lex had chosen to escape, he would not have had a reason to stop her. Lex took out the scrolls silently and passed them bundle by bundle to Saleen. Saleen stored them into the demonic ring. These scrolls were mostly Grade 3 and some were Grade 4, but all of them possessed Water Magic.


    As Lex handed the scroll to Saleen, she sighed secretly. Her father had asked the pce mages to preparerge quantities of magic scrolls for Lex to use in Laiyin Duchy. But now, they were going to be used on the beasts. Her father must have reached the frontlines by now, yet she was stuck here and could not guarantee his safety on the battlefield.


    The camp had been built on high ground, so Lex¡¯s group had a vantage point to observe things from afar. Very soon, the silhouettes of the magic beasts could be seen without the use of the alchemy binocrs.


    In total, Saleen received twenty bundles of scrolls, and each bundle contained twelve scrolls. These scrolls were originally meant to be given tobat mages, and now that Saleen had them, he felt more assured. He then released the witcher spider. The nucleus on the puppet had been changed to a Grade 6 magic nucleus, so it wouldst longer in battle.


    The hexagonal camp was like a hedgehog that was surrounded by metal, giving off a chilly glow. The six of them did not guard every side of the hexagon. They split into two groups ¨C Holzer and Baimeng stood beside Lex, while Nailisi and Sika protected Saleen.


    The magic beasts advanced slowly, and eventually surrounded the camp.


    Saleen frowned. The distance between him and the beasts was no good. It was the maximum effective distance for Grade 4 magic. Aside from Lex, no one else had a way of dealing with these magic beasts.


    Lex did not want to waste her magic chords, so she said to Holzer, ¡°Get the alchemy crossbow in position.¡±


    Holzer nodded, went into the barracks, and brought out a colossal alchemy crossbow. This crossbow was already assembled, and it was almost as tall as a man. Holzer set the crossbow into its triangr frame, moved the wheels, and began loading arrows onto it.


    The differences between various levels of magic had effects on the effective distances of spells. The effective distance of a Grade 0 spell was very short, and Grade 1 to 3 spells had effective distances of less than fifty meters. No matter how gifted Saleen was, the effective distance of his spells would never exceed more than ten percent of the current maximum effective distance.


    Once magic reached Grade 4, the effective distance would be raised to roughly one hundred meters. Unless they were faced with archers, mages would try to cast their magic from about fifty meters away under most circumstances. With the exception of special magic such as Faerun¡¯s Fireball spell, there was more elemental decay when spells were cast from a greater distance. Thus, the effectiveness of the attack would decrease. More importantly, a higher amount of mental power was drained when spells were cast from a further distance.


    There was a self-activating magic array on the alchemy crossbow which could increase the crossbow¡¯s range. The maximum range was more than three miles, and under Holzer¡¯s control, arrows could be shot about five hundred meters. If Lex had more troops with her now, she would only have needed a few hundred crossbows in order to defeat those magic beasts.


    Holzer spent thirty seconds loading all of the arrows onto the crossbow. Then he asked, ¡°Viscountess, do I fire now?¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Lex replied. Then, she took out five metal bottles and gave them to everyone. She then continued, ¡°This is magic liquid. I don¡¯t have much left. If you feel that you have exhausted too much physical strength, take a sip.¡±


    Magic liquid was produced from Grade 7 magic. Lex was only Grade 5, so she could not produce it yet. These bottles of magic liquid had been left behind by Faerun. When Saleen took a bottle from Lex, he felt a pang of sadness.


    ¡°Aim for the targets that are further away,¡± Lexmanded Holzer. Holzer patiently adjusted the firing angle, and steadily depressed the crossbow¡¯s trigger.


    The triangr metallic frame that was holding the crossbow shook violently for a while. Then, the arrows wereunched and pierced through the sky.


    The metallic arrows had magic patterns on them and an arrow was as expensive as a Grade 3 magic scroll. The arrow that was over one meter long gave off an intense sound of sting air, and a golden glow shed in the sky. One of the beasts groaned and fell to the ground. A sharp barb popped out from the back of the arrow¡¯s shaft as the arrowhead pierced the neck of the beast. The barb then forcefully nailed the beast to the ground.


    This beast howled in great pain while Holzer calmlyunched the second arrow. A low roar came from the crowd of magic beasts. That roar hade from the leader. The leader stood up and retreated more than twenty meters before squatting back down.


    ¡°The wisdom of these magic beasts¡­ so that¡¯s how they are,¡± Lex sneered. She continued, ¡°Holzer, continue firing.¡±


    The alchemy crossbow was originally used to kill cavalry soldiers who wore twoyers of heavy armor. The holy cavalry sent by the Holy See had thick tes of armor and also wore metal leaf armor inside. Without this crossbow, it would be very difficult to break their armor. In addition, the arrowheads which possessed counteracting magic effects were produced with the intention of breaking magic armor. A single application would render the arrow useless, and the arrow would not be able to be reused anymore.


    The strategy of these magic beasts was to surround their targets in order to tire them out so that their targets would reveal their ws. But this time around, these beasts were facing humans. Humans who wielded alchemy weapons.


    The intense sound of sting air filled the air once more. The second arrow had prated the head of another beast and did not enter its body. The beast that was hit flipped onto the ground silently and twitched several times before it stopped moving altogether.


    The leader of the magic beasts grew restless and uneasy, and began retreating again. The herd of beasts had already retreated one hundred and fifty meters. This distance was the maximum effective distance of Grade 5 magic. Once it exceeded one hundred and fifty meters, it would be difficult for Grade 5 spells to lock onto their targets. The spells would then be simr to arrows, which could be dodged.


    ¡°Holzer, take a one minute break,¡± Lex calmly instructed.


    Holzer adjusted his breathing and began to take aim at a third target after loading another arrow. Saleen was shocked to see such a strong crossbow. It definitely had the ability to kill an unprepared Grade 4 mage.


    Following the unique sound of sting air from the alchemy crossbow, the third magic beast was shot just below its neck.


    The leader of the magic beasts began roaring furiously. It had realized that the distance the arrows could travel were beyond its ownprehension. Magic had not killed its subordinate, so retreating further would not salvage the situation at all.


    The rest of the beasts joined in and howled together with their leader, as though they were bidding farewell to their fallenrades. The roars from those beasts travelled several miles across the vast grasnd. And in the forest, an unknown magic beast also gave out a boisterous roar.


    The beasts could no longer tolerate this standoff, so they changed their strategy. Since this tactic of surrounding their targets had not worked, the fur on their necks stood up and massive magic shields appeared in front of their bodies. Then, the beasts began charging towards the camp.


    The lone camp was about to be attacked from all directions. Saleen took out a Grade 3 scroll ¨C the Swamp Illusion scroll. His calctions were extremely precise. As the beasts were charging at high speeds, three magic beasts had already entered the illusion just as the swamp illusion waspleted.


    At a distance fifty meters away, a virtual translucent space appeared. Within this space, the intense water element magic had lowered the charging speeds of the beasts to their lowest points, and these three beasts panicked when they realized they were sinking. Even though it was just an illusion, the beasts were literally sucked down to the ground.


    The fist-sized witcher spider climbed down a high slope stealthily and hid inside of a water puddle. Saleen cast another swamp illusion, trapping four more magic beasts. This was his limit. It was not difficult to use the Figaro form to deduce the path of travel of the beasts, but the effective area of swamp illusion was very limited.


    Saleen then opened a scroll with the Phoenix spell, and this wasplex magic. More than ten phoenixes flew into the air at the same time, heading for the swamp illusion to contain the beasts.


    Saleen was only able to activate scrolls with Fire Magic. He was not able to take aim with them. If those beasts had not been trapped by the swamp illusion, Saleen would not even have been able to aim. He was aware of this defect. Fortunately, he had enough scrolls and he only needed to defeat one hundred and fifty magic beasts. These Grade 4 magic beasts had not used spitting magic yet, so Saleen needed to try his best to kill them using the scrolls before they could spit.


    More than ten phoenixes struck the beasts which were trapped in the swamp illusion. The magic shields on the beasts had been disrupted by the illusion long ago, so the shields were destroyed by the phoenixes. The phoenixes pounced onto the beasts, causing the seven of them to roll about in pain, but they did not die just yet.


    Knowing that the battle had just started, Saleen cast Spears of the Earth from a Ground Magic scroll, causing the remaining beasts to crash into the sharp stone spears that grew out of the ground. These stone spears were not really stone. They were conjured by the elements. The first few beasts flew back after crashing their shields into the stone spears.


    The beasts charging behind them reduced their speeds, but their shields were also destroyed by the stone spears. Saleen then took this opportunity to open a Wind de scroll. He could feel the operatingws of the elements in this magic, but he had never learned them before so he could not control them or take aim with this magic.


    More than ten wind des appeared and shed the bodies of those magic beasts who were still in midair.

 Chapter 129: Hell’s Magic Nucleus (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 129: Hell¡¯s Magic Nucleus (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Most of the wind des missed their targets and Saleen could not salvage the situation, so he instinctively opened another wind de scroll. He could not control Wind Magic yet, so he could only use therge impact area of the wind des to stop the enemy¡¯s advance.


    The stone spears in the ground wouldst for at least half an hour more, and those magic beasts had begun to jump over the spears. Saleen cast more than ten wind des in one go, and because he could not take aim, more than ten beasts had alreadye as close as twenty meters from him.


    Then, Saleen calmly cast three swamp illusions in session, and the used scrolls formed a stack at his feet. Without any restraining magic to weaken the beasts, the usage of the wind des returned a horrible result. Most of the wind des were blocked by the magic shields on the beasts and only a minority of them were struck by the wind des due to the angles of incidence which allowed the des to go around the shields. Even so, the beasts that were hit were only injured on the surface.


    Using the magic in the scrolls would not deplete magic chords, but if a person wanted to control the magic inside, they needed to have a certain level of familiarity and practice with that particr magic.


    Saleen arranged the three swamp illusions in a triangr formation, thus blocking the path of the beasts. There was a gap of roughly one meter between the swamp illusions so the magic beasts could squeeze through that gap. However, to get through this gap, the beasts would need to cleverly maneuver past it. The beasts needed to turn into that narrow gap and reduce their speed in order to advance forward.


    Saleen had killed more than forty magic beasts with the scrolls. He had finally experienced what it was like to use money to kill someone. A cheap Grade 3 magic scroll also costed around three hundred to five hundred gold coins. Those scrolls which were special or had a longer duration of spell storage might have even cost more than one thousand gold coins.


    Within the short span of three minutes, Saleen had used more than fifty scrolls. If he had not been mentally strong, he would have fainted. Just like that, more than twenty thousand gold pieces had been spent, and Saleen felt wonderful. When the speed of money expenditure reached a certain level, a person would begin to realize the power of money. With enough money, one could truly look down on sentient beings.


    Saleen was just a Grade 3 mage. Under normal circumstances, when a Grade 3 mage was faced with hundreds of Grade 4 magic beasts, the only thing to do was to wait for death. However, Saleen calmly opened the scrolls and concentrated on attacking the beasts which managed toe through the gap between the three swamp illusions.


    The situation was not looking too good for Saleen. Perhaps the scrolls would help him ovee this crisis, but the Grade 4 beasts worked together in groups. This meant that there were many powerful beasts in this interdimensional space. On the Myers Maind, magic wolves were only Grade 2 or 3 creatures, and there were less than ten of them in any single group. However, the beasts in this hell attacked together in the hundreds. On the Myers Maind, only Grade 1 beasts moved together in such huge groups.


    The leader of the beasts walked in circles outside of the swamp illusions. It must have realized that this strategy was not working on its enemies. The leader red ferociously at the mage casting spells from inside the tent and roared restlessly. The magic beasts who were attacking stopped immediately. Then, they began to spit fireballs from their mouths towards the camp.


    More than two hundred fireballs were fired in total, creating an exceedingly spectacr scene. Saleen squatted down without hesitation. Some fireballs destroyed the swamp illusions, while othersnded on the magic barrier surrounding the camp.


    The magic array at the heart of the camp was activated and a nket of darkness epassed the camp. The two hundred fireballs appeared as though they had entered water, and at least half of them were extinguished before the darkness was destroyed.


    In the instant when the darkness was destroyed, Saleen opened a Grade 4 scroll which contained the Stone Wall spell. The stone wall was not as tough as the crystal city, but it exemplified the sturdiness of Ground Magic. More than ten fireballs struck the wall before it was destroyed.


    Saleen continued casting magic. Acid rain fell from the sky, and Saleen continued by opening three scrolls which caused the different patches of acid rain to merge into one huge cloud. The beasts who were closest to Saleen had white smokeing from their bodies, with melted fur and bloody wounds.


    The injured beasts pounced aggressively, but Saleen remained calm and continued opening the scrolls. Sika gripped her cudgel andshed out in a sweeping motion. Sika managed to strike the forehead of one of the beasts. She was much faster than before. That beast had made its way over to the thorny wall to have its forehead crushed in midair.


    Sika controlled her strength with great precision. The beast did not fly all the way back. It simply fell straight down and was pierced by one of the metal thorns on the ground. All of the power from Sika¡¯s strike had gone into the beast¡¯s head, and none of it had been wasted.


    The magic beasts only seemed to be able to spit fireballs once, as they had stopped spitting fireballs. Instead, they took the opportunity to jump over the obstacles that Saleen had set before they spread out and moved at an astonishing speed.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel did not make any noise as it cut through the air. Instead, it produced phantom cudgels which the naked eye could not differentiate from the real one. Saleen had put all of his energy into the scrolls. More and more beasts were getting past the wall, so as Saleen was casting the magic, he hollered, ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s body was trembling, and Saleen thought that she was scared out of her wits. Actually, Nailisi was simply excited because these magic beasts tasted much better than the tentacles back in the forest. The temperature of her blood started to rise, and a golden glow shed in her green eyes.


    Food! All of this was food! This was the taste of food in the demonic space!


    A low pitched snore came from Nailisi¡¯s throat. Then, Nailisi suddenly leapt up and over the camp¡¯s wall and rushed out from her spot beside Saleen. Saleen grew a little distracted by this, and a beast seized that window where Saleen had not cast any magic and pounced towards him. Sika threw her boomerang, slitting the neck of that beast, and dark purple blood spurted out. Saleen was stunned, but another beast was already in front of him.


    Nailisi was out of control. She was supposed to have stood beside Saleen to guard him against any beasts which managed to slip in, but now, she had vigorously charged into the herd of beasts. She clutched onto one of their necks, and twisted it forcefully. A cracking sound could be heard, and the beast¡¯s head was pulled off by Nailisi, blood gushing out quickly. She opened her mouth in glee and sucked on the blood.


    Nailisi felt as though she were in the demonic space chasing after a magic worm or demon. She tossed the head aside and pounced to her left. Her nails, which were coated in flower juice, sank into the neck of the beast on her left. That beast twisted its body in great pain, and its metal-like tail swung towards Nailisi¡¯s face.


    Nailisi¡¯s mouth was still dripping with blood. She simply opened her mouth and bit the metal-like tail off of that beast. She applied more strength into the hand that was inside of its neck and turned the beast¡¯s head around before plowing her other hand into the eye socket of the beast. In an insane move, she moved her hand about inside of the head and found the magic nucleus. Thereafter, she yanked the magic nucleus out and simply swallowed it whole while it was coated in all of that brain matter and blood.


    The magic nucleus had been the size of an egg and tasted delicious. Nailisi could feel a warm current flowing in her chest, and at the same time, her strength increased. She quickly spun around and used her hands to clutch a beast that had pounced on her from behind. With a boom, that beast¡¯s head was smashed and a blue magic nucleus flew out. Nailisi jumped up and caught the nucleus in her mouth, then started to chew it.


    The rest of the magic beasts that surrounded Nailisi were shocked. Against Saleen¡¯s magic, they had been able to put up a relentless fight. However, the aura that Nailisi gave off was too horrifying, and this aura was too simr to that of the powerful beasts which lived in the depths of the forest.


    Saleen also felt Nailisi¡¯s excitement, and his emotions were stirred as well. His mental power became more intense and focused, thus increasing his speed in opening the scrolls. This was the first time that Saleen had felt like this. It felt as though he were a swordsman who had entered abative mode.


    Mages were concerned with bnce whereas swordsmen were concerned with explosive power. Every strike that a swordsman made contained the peak of an explosion of power so that they were able to have the same attack power as mages. Right now, Saleen possessed this explosive feeling. He ced down three swamp illusions nearly at the same time and resealed half of the area of the camp. Then, he cast the Ice Arrow spell with his bare hands.


    It was extremely difficult for Grade 2 magic to harm Grade 4 magic beasts, but Saleen noticed that these beasts had slowed down, so it became easy for him to identify their weaknesses. Magic beasts never knew martial arts. They could only depend on speed and brute strength to win their battles. So when these beasts lost their advantage in speed, Saleen was finally able to put the Figaro form to good use.


    The ice arrows began prating the beasts. Once the arrows had entered the bodies, the freezing effects exploded in the bodies. The area in the vicinity of the prating wound would already be frozen. Sika only needed tounch her boomerang to easily execute those beasts.


    Lex used Grade 4 or Grade 5 scrolls, and each of those scrolls were able to take out one beast. She did not want to be distracted, so she was oblivious to what was going on behind her. Hence, she instructed Holzer and Baimeng to assist Saleen. Holzer and Baimeng turned around and saw Nailisi fighting in the center of the herd of beasts, her entire body drenched in dark purple blood.


    Holzer and Baimeng were astonished. They knew that if it had not been for the protection of the mages and the camp, both of them would have been torn to shreds the moment they entered the battle. The beasts around Nailisi had obviously grown too afraid to get any closer, but Nailisi regarded them as prey and was hunting them!


    The leader of the herd of beasts did not escape when it saw that almost all of its subordinates had been massacred. Instead, it went around the area that was under Lex¡¯s control and charged towards Saleen¡¯s area.


    Saleen had been paying attention to the movements of the leader all along. Saleen then connected to his puppet when he saw the leader appear. The leader pretended to charge towards Nailisi, and Nailisi tried to grab its trail. But in a sly move, the leader managed to dodge Nailisi¡¯s attack and charged towards the camp.


    The gorgeous red hair on the leader¡¯s skin was raised, and its body projected a shadow as it flew through the air. In front of its body was a small puddle of water, and a ck shadow jumped directly upwards. This ck shadow was none other than the witcher spider that had been lying in ambush for a long time. When the witcher spider did not move, it looked totally lifeless and there was no way of detecting it. With that jump upwards, the spider hung from the leader¡¯s abdomen using its legs and tore open its stiff belly before crawling inside.


    The leader of the beasts mmed against the ground. By now, Nailisi had caught up and she leapt onto the leader¡¯s back. Then, she inserted her hand into its brain and yanked out the magic nucleus before stuffing it into her mouth. When Holzer and Baimeng saw that scene, they felt goosebumps all over their bodies. Such a woman, her background must have beenplicated!


    When they saw that their leader had died, the over thirty remaining beasts stopped the offensive and started retreating while roaring into the sky.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi bellowed in demonguage as she fell off of the back of the leader of the beasts. Saleen was shocked and he stood up, jumped out of the camp, and ran towards her. Sika followed behind anxiously, not knowing what had just happened.


    Saleen came to Nailisi¡¯s side. She was moaning weakly while lying in muddy water. Saleen squatted and asked anxiously, ¡°Nailisi, what¡¯s wrong?¡±


    ¡°Master, go and dig for magic nuclei. The more you get, the better¡­¡±

 Chapter 130: Nailisi’s Abilities (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 130: Nailisi¡¯s Abilities (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was violently reminded that the nuclei of the magic beasts in god¡¯s hell would be useful to Nailisi. Back on the Myers Maind, Nailisi had a great influence over Saleen¡¯s gemstones and magic nuclei. She would eat the smaller pieces sometimes and did not touch the magic nuclei again after eating them once. The magic nuclei here would be helpful to her growth.


    ¡°Sika, go dig out all of the magic nuclei.¡±


    Saleen said this as he went ahead first. The skulls of the magic beasts were still tough even when they were dead, and he decided to use an Ice de spell to cut through them. Holzer and Baimeng¡¯s mouth twitched as they watched Lex walk over without stopping Saleen.


    The main reason the magic beasts had been defeated were because of therge number of magic scrolls provided by Lex. Otherwise, they would have definitely had casualties. Within half an hour, Lex and Saleen had used up two hundred thousand gold coins worth of magic scrolls. These magic nuclei were the spoils of war and by right should have belonged to Viscountess Lex.


    Even if a single Grade 4 magic nucleus was worth over five hundred gold coins, it would not be enough to make up for the loss of all of the magic scrolls.


    Sika looked at Nailisi lying in the dirt. She picked her up and brought her into the barrack before using her boomerang to start cutting open the heads of the magic beasts.


    Lex did not ask Saleen for his reasons. She had Holzer and Baimeng gather up all of the corpses of the magic beasts and began using a Wind de spell to help Saleen collect the magic nuclei.


    He gathered over two hundred magic nuclei and ced them all inside of his demon ring. Saying a word of thanks to Lex, he went over to Nailisi¡¯s side as quickly as he could.


    ¡°Master, let me be alone¡­¡± Her voice was very weak.


    ¡°Yes. Sika, stand guard outside,¡± Saleen said softly to Sika. He brought out all of the more than two hundred magic nuclei from inside of his demon ring, cing them beside Nailisi.


    ¡°You too, Master.¡± Nailisi started twisting her body, taking off her shirt. Her skin had started growing scales, and due to her extreme weakness, she could no longer maintain the transformation magic.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright, Nailisi.¡± Saleen gave it some thought before taking out a fist-sized chalcedony, cing it by the bed.


    ¡°Master, do you want me to be male or female?¡± Nailisi gave a weird smile. The color on half of her face was growing darker and turning green. Her hair was beginning to fade, turning from ck to grey.


    Saleen watched her transformation as her beautiful looks turned demonic. Her jade green eyes had turned entirely golden, and her skin had be green with natural dark red magic patterns on it. At the tips of her fingers, her once painted nails had turned into razor sharp ws.


    Nailisiid t on the bed. A row of spines had grown from her back, and they were ck and had a shiny glow to them. Towards the end of her back, a long tail had grown, and like the row of spines, it too was ck and at the end of it was a sharp tip.


    Saleen thought about the magic liquid that he had not drank. He took out the bottle and gave it to Nailisi. Her teeth were sharp and even scarier than those of piranhas. She painfully cocked her head as Saleen brought out a magic nucleus and pushed it into her mouth.


    With a gulp, she swallowed the egg-sized nucleus. Some energy returned to her golden eyes and she stretched out her hands and pulled all of the magic nuclei that Saleen had ced on the bed towards her. She opened her mouth and began to swallow the magic nuclei.


    As they disappeared one by one into her mouth, Saleen heard a clear sound emanating from Nailisi¡¯s body. Before his eyes, her body began to twist, growing taller by nearly a foot.


    Hmm¡­


    Saleen gave a low hum. He could feel the pain that Nailisi was going through. Even though it was much less than what he had felt before and his body was fairly ustomed to pain, he found it hard to stomach. It felt like his bones were being crushed and reformed.


    As it turned out, a demon¡¯sing of age was quite a difficult process. As Nailisi increased her speed of consumption of the magic nuclei, the bones beneath her skin grew even quicker, making her body proportionate and suitable forbat again.


    With the changes in her body, the scales on her body started falling off. Saleen could feel a sharp pain as he pushed the fist-sized chalcedony over to her.


    She had a dazed look in her eyes as she gripped the chalcedony, not putting in directly into her mouth. Instead, she carved out a hole using her sharp ws. Jade green fluid flowed out from the core of its nucleus as a breath of fresh air came from within and dissipated, carrying with it a cool breeze. Saleen¡¯s pupils contracted. This was a real piece of chalcedony. The liquid inside of it had not hardened, and its value was immeasurable.


    ¡°Drink it, quick!¡± Saleen said as he bit down on his lip. This was something that humans could not ingest as their bodies could not take it. However, some magic beasts or demons could absorb itpletely. If Nailisi absorbed this while she was transforming, it would lessen her pain and make the process less dangerous.


    Nailisi¡¯s body scrunched up in pain as she continued to grow.


    ¡°Drink!¡± Saleen said loudly.


    Nailisi brought the hole of the chalcedony to her mouth and sucked hard, tears flowing down from her eyes. She had no idea if they had been caused by the pain. She had no concept of growing up and had no idea that a demon with pure blood would go through so much pain in order to grow up. If it had not been for the fact that Saleen had constantly trained with his badge and caused her to share the burden of the pain, she would not have been able to hold on for so long and would have fainted long ago. She would not have been able to take in so many magic nuclei or even drink the pure chalcedony.


    If that had been the case, even if she made it to adulthood, she would have just been a normal demon. Many of the inherited powers from her bloodline would have remained dormant.


    Saleen felt the pain that was deep within his soul be bearable, almost as if he were training with the badge again. The sounds of crunching bone within Nailisi¡¯s body could still be heard, however, her body had stopped growing and was now shrinking a little. Saleen carefully touched and gathered the scales that had fallen from Nailisi¡¯s body.


    Her skin had started bing darker, and her hair was turning ck. Her green eyes now had a few streaks of gold in them and her ws had retracted. Her dark green skin was turning white, and ces where scales were supposed to have been had green patterns instead. The spines on her back had retracted too, even though the crunching sounds from her body continued.


    Saleen looked at Nailisi¡¯s tail. It was a powerful weapon for a demon, and now, it had grown even slimmer, the color changing from ck to a dark silver. The tip at the end glowed with a shine only found in metals, and it not only looked sharper, but had small saw teeth on it as well.


    The pain within Saleen¡¯s soul disappeared as Nailisi jumped up suddenly, pouncing onto Saleen. Saleen was shocked as she extended her tongue and licked his nose,ughing as she did so.


    ¡°Master, I seem to have turned into a female. Take a look¡­¡±


    ¡°Look your ass!¡± Saleen pushed her away violently. What Nailisi had just done had seemed dangerous to Saleen. Her sharp teeth had been inches away from his head, and the two sides of her tongue had sawtooth-like bumps on them. If her tongue had twisted around his neck, it would have been mangled off.


    Saleen silently picked up the outer shell of the chalcedony that Nailisi had left on the bed. The shell was also a good ingredient and its price was not any less than a piece of amethyst. However, having Nailisi drink the liquid in the center seemed to have been a waste now. He had only had one doubt on his mind back then. Could a person not have feelings for something they were contractually bound to?


    The lightning in this interdimensional space had already defied Saleen¡¯s knowledge, and seeing Nailisi¡¯s pain, an idea sprouted in Saleen¡¯s mind: Why did he need to follow what the books said when it came to raising a demon?


    Nailisiughed as she went back to Saleen¡¯s side. She easily cast a transformation spell, returning to the appearance of the Myers Goddess.


    ¡°Put on your clothes.¡± Saleen looked at Nailisi¡¯s naked body without feeling any desire. He had seen Nailisi¡¯s appearance clearly earlier on, and no matter who they were, a person would not have any fantasies about that creature.


    Nailisi¡¯s body was tall and fit. Her breasts were slightly bigger than Sika¡¯s, yet tighter. She copied Saleen and shrugged her shoulders, saying, ¡°Making clothes appear will waste a lot of energy, just like a mage constantly using a magic shield.¡±


    ¡°Your¡­ your bracelet has some.¡± Saleen waspletely defeated. Despite having grown up, Nailisi had not changed in character. He could only wish now that Nailisi had gained some special abilities to help them survive in god¡¯s hell.


    Nailisi looked at her breasts and shrugged her shoulders again, her nipples moving up and down along with her. Saleen instinctively looked away. Seeing that Saleen was not looking at her, Nailisi took out some clothes and put them on in disappointment.


    ¡°Master, do you want to see my new abilities?¡± Seeing how Saleen was frowning, she decided to make him happy.


    There was no point in fighting with a creature that one was contractually bound to. Saleen turned around and nodded. He shouted towards the outside, ¡°Come in, Sika.¡±


    The barrack had been separated into six rooms. Lex and her two swordmasters were on the other side. Holzer had been sent to observe the forest with the alchemy crossbow while Baimeng was preparing food for Lex.


    The over two hundred magic beasts had their hides skinned off. As Baimeng used a dagger to chop up the meat, heined, ¡°Viscountess¡­¡±


    ¡°Baimeng!¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, why did you let Saleen take away all the magic nuclei? More than two hundred of them are worth over one hundred thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°Baimeng, am I in need of gold coins?¡±


    ¡°But the magic scrolls Mage Saleen used were all from you!¡±


    ¡°Baimeng, if I killed Saleen, he would have at least few million gold coins on him. Do you think I should kill him?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, Viscountess. With your rank, why would you do something like that?¡±


    ¡°Then stop talking about the gold coins. Saleen is a mage too. If he is helping me now and I can¡¯t even give him some magic nuclei, why would I spend so much money nurturing that many mages? Baimeng, if you really feel sorry about the money, I have another idea.¡± Viscountess Lexughed as she spoke.


    ¡°What idea?¡±


    ¡°Grade 4 magic beast hide is a good ingredient when ites to making magic scrolls. Help me skin them all.¡±

 Chapter 131: Nailisi’s Abilities (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 131: Nailisi¡¯s Abilities (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex¡¯s words left Baimeng a little disheartened. Skinning off hides was considered a physically challenging task. Whenever he brought his swordsmen out, he had used to do a great deal of these things. A Grade 4 magic beast¡¯s hide was worth around fifty gold coins. If these magic beasts had not been destroyedpletely by Nailisi, they would be able to fetch ten thousand gold coins altogether.


    ¡°Baimeng, this will be hard on you. These magic beast skins are a good material when ites to making magic scrolls.¡± Lex smiled as she took over the dinner preparations from Baimeng.


    ¡°Master!¡± Baimeng was slightly shocked.


    ¡°Sigh. Baimeng, we don¡¯t have much time,¡± Viscountess Lex said with worry. Upon hearing this, Baimeng immediately left the barrack to skin the hides.


    Seeing Baimeng leave, Lex was a little dazed as she stared at the kitchen. The Qin Empire¡¯sbat mages, mid-grade officers, and anyone above them used magic to heat up their food in order to prevent smoke. Sometimes, smoke would attract attacks from mages. Lex knew that she did not have much time, and even with optimal results, they would still need at least a year before they could leave god¡¯s hell.


    The god¡¯s ring had taken the brunt of the attack from god¡¯s punishment and required a great deal of time to recover before it could be a coordinate for a teleportation portal to the Myers Maind. Without a teleportation portal, even if she reached Grade 10, It would be impossibly difficult to return.


    She was not bothered by the usage of the magic scrolls. So long as they could survive, the gold coins could be earned back. The question was, could they survive? The location of this camp was not ideal, being sandwiched between volcanoes and forests. The volcanoes needed no exnation. Going back in their direction could spell death at anytime. The edge of this forest was filled with groups of Grade 4 magic beasts. Now that the first wave had appeared, a second one would soon follow.


    If they did not have enough scrolls, it was possible that casualties would soon ensue if they were attacked by another wave of magic beasts. Her father had given her plenty of scrolls this time. However, a scroll was a one-time item and there woulde a time when they would run out. The best idea was to go far away from this forest and find a safe dwelling.


    The problem was that they would probably only find safety on the other side of the forest. It was a tough choice. If they stayed at their current camp, they would likely use up all of their magic scrolls and die ater death. If they crossed the forest, there were unknown dangers within and it was possible that they would not all survive.


    To die a slow death or fight for a chance. If the situation had nothing to do with her, the choice would have been obviously simple.


    Saleen and Sika looked expectedly at Nailisi as she said, ¡°Master, release a bubble.¡±


    Release a bubble? That sounded like she was about to punish someone. Saleen released a water shield and the defensive ability of it was now already close to that of a Grade 4 one with its diameter reaching two meters. Even if it was not used to enclose one¡¯s body, it could block a direct attack.


    Nailisi waved her hand, her fingers crooked as though she were ying a guitar and moving her fingers about. Saleen could suddenly feel her thoughts. She was about to attack.


    Nearly simultaneously, a ck mark appeared on her nails as she brought all five of her fingers together, viciously piercing the water shield that Saleen had created. Her white hand had passed through the shield easily, almost as if the Grade 4 magic had been nonexistent.


    A person needed to know that even at a close distance, a crossbow might not be able to pierce through a Grade 4 magic. Only a high-grade alchemy crossbow could cause any damage to a magic shield.


    Saleen held his breath. Did this not make Nailisi a human-like witcher spider? A golden light shed past Nailisi¡¯s green eyes as she suddenly opened all of her fingers and five ck streaks urately pierced the weak spots of the water shield. With a loud pop, the water shield broke apart.


    Piercing magic! This was true piercing magic, which was able to structurally destroy things using magic. Saleen knew clearly what ws his water shield had. However, that was because he had studied the Figaro form and the magic had been released by him, hence he was familiar with it. Nailisi had only pierced the water shield with her hand and could immediately find the weak spots of the magic shield, destroying it. This ability was even stronger than the sword aura.


    Sika watched from the side and suddenly asked, ¡°Nailisi, can you still¡­bite someone like that?¡± Sika opened her mouth and made a chewing action.


    Nailisi¡¯s face turned red. Her strongest weapon in the past had been her teeth, and she did not particrly enjoy biting things with her mouth. Seeing Nailisi nod, Saleen asked again, ¡°What else can you do?¡±


    ¡°Soul ability.¡± Seeing that Saleen looked confused, Nailisi tried to exin it simply. ¡°Essentially, I can make use of the contract with you and gain some of your energy. For example, my eyes can see some of the workings of the elements.¡±


    ¡°You can cast magic now?¡± Saleen thought back to what had been written in the demon magic book. The supreme demon had even been able to walk across dimensions, bing a rare elite.


    Nailisi shook her head and moved her fingers, saying, ¡°With this ability, I can no longer learn magic. However, my focus is the same as yours and I can release scrolls.¡±


    Hearing this, Saleen was satisfied. A demon that could release magic scrolls and had the ability to break magic shields was strong enough for him.


    ¡°What grade of magic scrolls can you release?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Master, whatever grade magic scroll you are able to release, I am able to too,¡± Nailisi answered obediently, despite having hidden a secret from them. Her strongest ability now was her tail. It was just that after maturing, she would not enjoy turning back into her demon form while inbat.


    Master doesn¡¯t seem to like the demon form very much. He even violently pushed me away just now. If I hadn¡¯t been afraid of Master, would I be very sad? Why would I need to be sad? Could it be that I have fallen in love with Master?


    Nailisi was torn, Saleen, on the other hand, was overjoyed. He no longer cared that the chalcedony had been wasted. Nailisi seemed to have gained more power than what had been written in the books, and it was possible that she still had even more abilities lying dormant. At the very least, she appeared closer to a human now. Her lightened skin with its jade green magic patterns seemed to indicate that she was going to be a unique demon.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen returned to his senses. He had just begun analyzing what the green magic patterns on her skin meant.


    ¡°I¡¯m a little hungry¡­¡±


    Sika¡¯s stomach started to growl as well. Saleen remembered that he still had the corpse of the silver grand swordmaster inside of his demon ring. Since Nailisi had already eaten one, another one would not be too big of a deal.


    ¡°Sika, let¡¯s go find Lex.¡± Saleen pulled Sika along as he tossed the corpse to Nailisi. The two of them rushed out of the barrack, afraid of the horrifying scene they would witness.


    Nailisi had wanted to reject it in order for Saleen to change his opinion of her. However, she was too hungry and the soul of the silver grand swordmaster had already been destroyed. The remains still had a special energy to them and once they were eaten, she could be even more simr to a human.


    Saleen and Sika moved sneakily to Lex¡¯s room. Seeing the two of them, Lex asked, ¡°Where is Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°She is a little tired. She wants to take a nap,¡± Saleen said without flinching


    ¡°Okay. Come give me a hand.¡±


    Lex took out arge piece of ck bread and ced it on the table. Sika took out her boomerang and used it to slice the bread, cing the slices on a te. Lex took out another metal container and opened it. It was filled with fats. When a soldier was fighting, bread alone was not sufficient. These fats had been purchased from the Cloudflow Empire and were mainly whale oil and some fish gel, which could rapidly replenish a soldier¡¯s strength.


    Spreading the fat on the ck bread, Lex removed the lid from the wok. The strong smell of meat filled the air as Sika swallowed her saliva, controlling herself.


    She knew that the way she ate was not elegant, and even though her behavior was eptable in the Cascausus region, in the Qin Empire, doing so would only drawughter and embarrass Saleen.


    ¡°Have Nailisie and eat.¡± Lex filled everyone¡¯s bowls full of meat soup and began to cut up some fruits. Only a mage could store fruits for an extended period of time. During a six month long expedition, it was not only fruits, but even vegetables would rot quickly.


    Saleen could feel a sense of satisfaction deep within his soul. It wasing from Nailisi and he knew that the silver grand swordmaster must have nearly been finished by her. He shook his head and said, ¡°She isn¡¯t hungry. Have Baimeng and Holzere and join us.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Lex nodded. Sika called Baimeng and Holzer to Lex¡¯s room before Lex said, ¡°There is something that I cannot decide. I need to discuss it with all of you.¡±


    ¡°You want to cross the forest?¡± Saleen¡¯s words left Baimeng and Holzer in shock as they turned to look at Lex. She nodded.


    ¡°What is there to discuss? If we stay here, our scrolls will be gone sooner orter. We both aren¡¯t sorcerers. Relying on magic forbat is impossible when dealing with that many magic beasts.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± Holzer was about to protest when Saleen waved his hand and cut him off.


    ¡°I have heard that in the Cloudflow Empire, the wealthy love to eat frog meat. The meat is tender, but once the frog dies, it will quickly rot and not even magic can preserve it. Hence the Cloudflow people thought of a method. They would keep the frogs in clear water for a while until their innards were clear. Then, they would ce the frogs in a pot to cook, using only warm water, and the frogs would not notice any danger. They would not jump out of the pot or struggle. As the water temperature rises, the frogs will not feel anything until the water start to boil, at which point the frogs no longer have the energy to jump out of the pot.¡±


    Holzer did not say another word. He could understand what Saleen was saying. If their group stayed here now, they would be just like the frogs in the pot. The loss of their scrolls was akin to the pot bing hotter. Once their scrolls were all used up, it spelled death for all of them.


    ¡°Actually, crossing the forest isn¡¯t that scary. Even the strongest magic beasts have their own territory and these territories do not ovep. We just need to avoid the dangerous areas. I still have some magic scrolls with me. It should be enough for low-grade magic beasts.¡±


    Lex¡¯s words had been meant tofort them. Danger was everywhere in the forest, and it was not the same as hiding in a camp with a wall around for protection and the advantage of high ground. Moreover, the nts in god¡¯s hell were not safe either, and setting up camp was a huge problem in itself, let alone in a forest. The Windspeed spell would also be affected and they would not be able to move forward at their fastest speed.


    Saleen did not want to take the risk either. However, when it came to advancing, he had already given it some thought. Staying in the camp was more dangerous for him. Lex still had the ability to fly, and if they could not hold the camp, she would still be able to escape.

 Chapter 132: The Dangerous Forest (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 132: The Dangerous Forest (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without Saleen, Lex¡¯s chances of surviving would not be reduced by a great deal. However, without Lex, it would be almost impossible for Saleen to survive. Furthermore, Saleen did not have any idea how to get back to the Myers Maind.


    Even if Lex were to chase Saleen away now, Saleen would still cling to her like a parasite. He needed to protect Sika, and Lex would want to make sure Holzer and Baimeng lived on.


    The new Water Windspeed spell that Saleen had acquired would allow him to travel at fifty miles an hour. And with more practice, he would be able to travel at this speed on any terrain. If Nailisi carried Saleen and ran, their speed would certainly be faster, but Sika could not travel that fast. Even if Saleen blessed her with the Windspeed skill, Sika¡¯s maximum speed could not be increased any further, and her speed would vary ording to different terrain.


    Sika was only a warrior. She would never be able toprehend the secrets of the wind.


    After eating dinner in silence, Holzer returned to his sentry position and used the alchemy binocrs to observe the forest for any movement while keeping the alchemy crossbow for protection. In wet environments, the usage life of this crossbow would be shortened, but making sure that everyone stayed alive was the top priority. That was why Holzer would use the alchemy crossbow like any other crossbow instead of holding back and preserving its ammo.


    Baimeng resumed his work and used his dagger to skin the beasts. The skins of the magic beasts needed to undergo refinement before they could be used to produce scrolls. Their skins were superior to any other type of magic paper used for preserving magic. With over two hundred bs of skin, three hundred high-level nk scrolls could be produced.


    Lex was a Grade 5 mage, so she could only produce scrolls that were Grade 4 or below. If she tried to produce a Grade 5 scroll through force, the sess rate would be less than twenty percent. Additionally, producing a Grade 5 scroll would drain too much of her mental power. Lex would not be able to take it, and she would only be able to produce one per day. Even if she were to produce ones that were Grade 4, she would only be able to make two to three of them in a day since she was in such a perilous environment.


    As long as there were enough materials, they could realistically produce scrolls from these skins.


    In Lex¡¯s room, Saleen was using powdered magic medicine to tan the sterile beast skins while Lex brought out various magic materials, wanting to make a puppet.


    There were many different types of puppets. The paper puppet that Walnut made was powered solely by his strength. It was used to gather intel and assassinate enemies over short distances. However, the materials that Lex had gathered were used to build a puppet which ignited wars.


    The Qin Empire had many mages, and low-level mages who could not fly were not used to attack cities. That job would be left to magic trebuchets. Both the magic trebuchets and stone artillery were enormous in size. The purpose of war puppets was to support the movements of these machines, and at the same time, fight inbat.


    A fully assembled war puppet would be over five meters tall, and arge quantity of magic nuclei was needed to power it. Such a huge puppet would not be able to move through the forest. Lex needed to modify it to make it closer to the size of a human. War puppets were perishables and were very expensive, so none of the empires were willing to use them to rece traditional soldiers.


    In terms ofbat power, a war puppet that was worth five hundred gold pieces might only possess the capabilities of a mid-level swordsman. Furthermore, they consumed magic nuclei, so the cost of using war puppets was too high.


    Lex did not care about that right now. What she needed at this moment was cannon fodder. As long as there was something to die in ce of her group, price was not an issue.


    On the table was a simple alchemy magic array. Lex was arranging the skeletons of the beasts to build the structures of the war puppets. War puppets could not cast spells, but their internal operating systems were based on the principles of magic, so it was best to use less metal in their structures.


    Saleen did not have much knowledge in puppetry. Puppetry contained contents from the six elements, and this was the case for low-level puppetry as well. However, Saleen understood the Figaro form, so he could still assist Lex in building the internal structures of the puppets once the bones had been refined.


    ¡°Saleen, once we enter the forest, there is still a high chance we will lose our lives.¡± Refining the bones was an easy job, so Lex could still afford to chat with Saleen.


    ¡°Even if we make it through the forest safely, there may be other dangers ahead,¡± Saleen replied casually as he inserted magic medicine into one of the skins.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid?¡±


    ¡°There is nothing to be afraid of, since you will protect all of us,¡± Saleen replied matter-of-factly.


    ¡°I see that you have a puppet.¡±


    ¡°It is a witcher spider.¡± Saleen knew that there was nothing to hide. It would be best for them to understand each other¡¯s capabilities since it would be beneficial for coordination inbat. If Lex wanted the witcher spider, Saleen would give it to her willingly.


    ¡°How many you can control? I mean, given that they don¡¯t interfere with your ability to cast spells.¡±


    ¡°Three, mm, maybe four,¡± Saleen gave a conservative answer after a short analysis.


    ¡°Alright, then I will allocate three war puppets to you. Use them freely and don¡¯t hold back. As long as all of us survive, it will not matter even if all of the puppets are destroyed.¡±


    ¡°If only you were Grade 6,¡± Saleen sighed. Within Grade 6, there was a certain Water Magic spell that could form a water puppet made up of water elements, and this puppet could engage in battle. The puppet would be as powerful as a Grade 6 mage. It was too bad that Lex was still at Grade 5 after a long period of time and she could only cast one Grade 6 spell for now. As a result, the water puppet would only be as powerful as a Grade 5 mage.


    In truth, Saleen was wishing that he was Grade 6. He had transformed many Water Magic spells, so it would likely be the same case for the water puppet. Additionally, he had learned elemental conversion from Joey, so he could make the puppet look more like a human and have it possess magical powers as well. However, the road to advancement for Saleen was still far away. Bing a Grade 6 mage was still an elusive point for him.


    ¡°If only you were a Grade 4 mage,¡± Lex sighed as well. If Saleen had been a mage master, the both of them could havebined their efforts and delivered many strong attacks. But Saleen had only just advanced to Grade 3, so she may as well have counted on her own advancement rather than pinning her hopes onto Saleen.


    Saleen and Lex smiled wryly to each other. Even if they left this hell, their days ahead would be equally tough. The envoy of god had been struck by the bacsh of god¡¯s punishment, so he must have been dead already. For the one thousand years that the Holy See had existed, nobody with the rank of an envoy of god had been killed yet. The death of Genesis would spark a full blown war, and if Lex and Saleen did not be sorcerers, they would end up as small fry.


    Communication between mages was simple. Once Lex had prepared an adequate amount of materials, she passed a drawing to Saleen. Saleen stopped tanning the beast skins and started to help Lex build the structures of the war puppets.


    Lex then took out numerous pieces of magic armor and began to reconstruct them. The upper half of the war puppet was human, but its lower half had four limbs. In order for the puppet to wear the armor, the human armor needed to be modified.


    After the two hundred odd beast skeletons were demolished and then refined, there were enough materials to build at least ten war puppets. When Saleen finished constructing the structures of the war puppets, his mental power was starting to be insufficient, and he himself was exhausted. He thought for a while before saying to Lex, ¡°I need to meditate for a moment.¡±


    Lex nodded, and Saleen climbed onto the bed and sat properly before clutching his n badge in his hand. He then cast a Grade 0 spell. The magic chords Saleen now had were many times more than what he had when he was still a Grade 2 mage, but in less than a second, the n badge still managed to drain all of those magic chords.


    Various negative effects began to take ce in the deepest depths of his soul. This was unavoidable, and Saleen had learned to withstand them. He kept his eyes open and observed Lex¡¯s actions.


    Lex closely observed the thirteen structures that Saleen had built. She discovered that Saleen had made some minute changes to the original structure shown on the drawing, and these had made the structure appear more logical. Even without the injection of magic, these hundreds of bones that had beenbined together already gave off a feeling of life.


    It seemed like Saleen had a deepprehension of the Figaro form, or else his mental power would not be depleted so quickly either.


    Lex had an abundance of materials with her, but she did not have a suitable magicboratory so she could only create low-level puppets. She had originally felt that these materials had been wasted on the puppets, but when she saw the adjustments that Saleen had made to their structures, she decided to remake the magic array she had been using for refinement after giving it some serious consideration.


    Saleen sat quietly to the side and watched Lex make a new magic array. Lex focused all her attention onto it as though Saleen was not in the room. From the side, Saleen could see her long eyshes, upright nose, and delicacy.


    Under the light from the magicmp in the room, Lex¡¯s skin seemed to glow and gave off a hint of fragrance as well.


    Saleen became a little distracted. It would be great if he was able to dedicate his life to the study of magic without all of this conflict and danger. Unfortunately, even a sorcerer could not decide their own destiny.


    Saleen had no way of backing out now. His name would be on the Holy See¡¯s cklist by now, and he was a person that absolutely had to be killed. If Saleen had remained a Grade 1 mage, the Holy See might not have even cared about him. But once he became a mage master, the Holy See would regard him as a threat.


    The event that had taken ce in the Chaotic Swamp could not remain hidden forever. Sooner orter, Picasso would learn that Saleen had been the one to kill his men.


    Saleen did not regret his actions. If he had not put up resistance back then, would the Holy See¡¯s underlings would have treated him kindly? In the western region of the Tanggsi Empire, there was an ind in the sea. Rumor had it that the Holy See sent captured heretics to that ind.


    The judges would not necessarily sentence the heretics to death. The heretics could choose to repent on the ind until they received a pardon from the glorious lord.


    Repentance? Forgiveness?


    Every mage would surely sneer when they heard those two words.


    There was not a single noise in the entirety of the camp. Holzer manned the crossbow and stood there like a sculpture. Baimeng had finished separating the beast skins and bones, so he was now in a deep sleep. When a mid-level swordmaster slept, they did not make a single noise, and their breathing would be so soft that a person could not even hear it.


    Sika hugged her cudgel and stood at the door in a daze. She could not help with affairs of magic, and Holzer and Baimeng were doing the sentry work. Thus, right now, she was full of energy, but she did not have a channel through which to use that energy.


    Nailisiid on top of the barracks. She squinted her eyes and twitched her nostrils, trying to pick up any dangerous vibes in the air. She liked this interdimensional space, as this space had the same air as the demonic realm. Also, the magic nuclei and blood in the magic beasts were very simr to the ones found in the demonic realm. Furthermore, the devils which she greatly feared were not found here, and the weather here was better than the irksome climate found in the demonic realm.

 Chapter 133: The Dangerous Forest (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 133: The Dangerous Forest (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The sky within the hell of the god¡¯s punishment was always overcast. There were no days, no nights, and no seasons. Whenever a volcano erupted, the glow from theva would light up the sky, and the nts would absorb the energy aggressively as they tried to grow as fast as they could. There was a forest at the edge of the volcanic region. This forest was able to absorb the most energy, and thus thrived the most. This ce was extremely simr to the demonic realm, only there was no crimson sun.


    Nailisi stretched her bodyzily. Her white leather top had grown greyish, and had soon ovepped with the colors in the interdimensional space. Her silhouette became unclear, and from afar, one could not even tell that there was a demon hiding on the roof of the barracks.


    Producing war puppets was not a difficult task, and a Grade 4 mage could already do it very well. What was more, Lex was at the pinnacle of Grade 5, so it was not a problem for her to produce thirteen war puppets at once. However, the room was tiny. Being themander¡¯s room, it could fit up to ten men, and these thirteen war puppets had already nearly filled up the whole room.


    Sika had been waiting by the door for a long time before Saleen and Lex came out.


    ¡°Saleen, how was it?¡± Sika asked. She had grown anxious after waiting for so long.


    ¡°They¡¯re done.¡±


    Saleen had not even finished speaking when a column of war puppets walked out of Lex¡¯s room. These puppets were shorter than two meters, and the upper halves of their bodies had human features with heavy metal armor whereas their lower halves had features belonging to wolves. They had four legs and razor sharp ws. As these puppets were perishable and their ws were long, their ws would go through a massive amount of friction while gripping onto the ground for an extended period of time.


    The lower halves of these puppets had armor as well. Their helmets were sealed and they had metal gloves on both of their hands to cover their fingers. The puppets only had four fingers so that each finger could be stronger and wield more power.


    They held metal shields on their left hands while their right hands held curved knives with wide des and serrated ends. Each puppet also carried one javelin on its abnormally strong back. The javelins were less than one and a half meters long, and had been made solely from metal. If the javelins had been given to humans, only warriors like Sika who possessed inborn strength would have been able to throw them.


    All thirteen war puppets walked in an orderly manner out to the perimeter of the camp. They would take up the task of being the security guards for the camp.


    ¡°Everyone, let¡¯s take a break tonight. We shall set off tomorrow,¡± Lex announced. Then, she took the alchemy binocrs from Holzer and flew up into the air. Lex flew up into the air for more than four hundred meters before she was no longer able to control the air flow. A Grade 5 mage was able to use magic props to fly, and Lex was using the colorful mage robes she wore in order to do that.


    In order to cross the forest, a path that was rtively close to them needed to be found. Lex raised the binocrs and started looking around in midair. In the Myers Maind, it wasmon for forests to span over one hundred miles. Lex was not trying to find the end of the forest. Instead, she was trying to find a road that all of them could take.


    The growth of nts in this hell were highly regted, and even the arrangement of their leaves seemed to follow the principles of magic forme. Since there was no sunlight here, the leaves on the nts were ustomed to absorbing elemental energy. Lex silently noted the arrangement of the trees from every angle beforending back on the ground. She then began her analysis using the Figaro form.


    The thirteen war puppets loyally stood guard around the camp. The camp was covered in darkness, and everyone could have a good rest tonight. Once they entered the forest, it was possible that nobody would be able to sleep peacefully, even if the war puppets stood guard.


    When everyone had rested for ten hours, Lex dispersed the space of darkness and put away the two metal discs in her god¡¯s ring. Saleen had slept well, and it was only now that he receivedmand over three war puppets. Then, he worked together with Lex to tear down the camp. As he tore down the structure, Saleen familiarized himself with the controls of the puppets at the same time. He realized that it was fortunate that he had modestly said that he could only control four puppets. Because of that, Lex had only given him three war puppets after taking the witcher spider into ount.


    It was much more difficult trying to control war puppetspared to the witcher spider. The spider was small and the magic array inside of it was simple, and achieving victory with it waspletely reliant on the attributes of the materials used in its creation. Even though the war puppets had four legs, it was extremely difficult trying to maintain their bnce.


    Saleen felt ashamed. The task that he had thought would be very simple to aplish had now be a burden to him. All of a sudden, Saleen lost control of one of the puppets, and he grew frightened. He immediately felt Nailisi take control of that puppet.


    Soul ability?


    This technique was brilliant. Saleen was extremely relieved, as it was far easier controlling just two war puppets.


    The war puppets would not be tired as they relied on magic nuclei for power. Very soon, the camp was broken down into various sizable spare parts, and Lex stored all of them into her god¡¯s ring. Thereafter, Lex took out five cloaks and gave them to everyone.


    ¡°If anyone gets lost, just pull the hood over your head. It will open a magic array that transmits sound. However, in the forest, I can only detect sounds up to a distance of roughly five hundred meters away. That means that when two magic arrays are opened at the same time, sound will travel for one mile.¡±


    Saleen took the cloak and put it on. The texture of the cloak was pleasant, but strictly speaking, this was not a piece of magic equipment, so its only function was that it would not affect spell casting. Saleen¡¯s magic robe had three permanent spells on it: the Invisible Shield, the Fire Ring of Resistance, and the Potency spell. These three were not Water Magic, so they needed to be activated by Saleen¡¯s belt which was fused with magic nuclei. If Saleen wanted to cast the Fire Ring of Resistance, this normal cloak that Lex had given him would be destroyed by the fire.


    Lex demonstrated the usage of the magic array once. Then, she pulled her hood up and said, ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    The six of them did not split up. The thirteen war puppets formed a security bubble around them. Lex walked in front while Saleen and Nailisi walked at the back, controlling the three war puppets.


    Now that Saleen understood how precious his magic chords were, he only activated the Invisible Shield spell found on his magic robe to guard against any unexpected events. It was not really possible to travel quickly within the forest, so there was no point in casting the Windspeed spell. The person with the weakest physique in the group had to have been Saleen, but even so, he could still walk twice as fast as the average human.


    The purple forest grew closer and closer to them as they advanced forward. The wind was weak, and there were no chirps from bird or insects. Only the rustling of the giant tree leaves could be heard. The six people and thirteen war puppets took around twenty minutes to get to the fringe of the forest.


    The trees in this forest did not have vines unlike the ones they had seen before, and there were many more leaves in the tree canopy. Almost every tree was as thick as three to four people hugging, while the thickest one was as thick as ten people hugging one another.


    Lex sent four war puppets into the forest first while she stopped next to arge tree. Then, she bent down and grabbed some soil, rubbing it in her palm. As the soil fell from her hand, her white magic glove remained as white as it had been before.


    ¡°How is it?¡± Saleen knew that Lex was investigating the special characteristics of the forest.


    ¡°The moisture is adequate. There must be frequent rain in here. There are also traces of feces from magic beasts and insects. Be careful, the insects in this forest must berger than normal.¡±


    Larger? Everyone thought of the giant mosquitoes. Even though the giant mosquitoes had been weak, their razor sharp mouths could pierce through metal.


    ¡°I just hope that there are no man-eating ants here,¡± Saleen joked, but Lex turned around and red at him.


    Saleen also felt that his words had been uncalled for, as Holzer and Baimeng now looked terrified. Man-eating ants were special creatures in the Myers Maind, and they were found in the Purgatory Desert. These ants were considered Grade 1 magic beasts, but even a Grade 6 magic beast could be swallowed up by an army of man-eating ants.


    Lex turned and entered the forest. The lighting in the forest was still dim. Lex did not use illumination magic, instead casting a Fluorescence spell. This was a Grade 0 spell that was Saleen¡¯s forte as well. This spell would cause almost no elemental fluctuations at all, and the area of illumination was notrge.


    Apart from the four war puppets who were scouting in front, there were three war puppets to the left, right, and back who were on guard. The six of them did not slow down their speed of advance. Also, the growth of the nts at the edge of the forest could not have been considered flourishing at all.


    The four war puppets had advanced for about two miles when a bobcat-sized magic beast sprang out in front of them. This beast had the face of a wolf and had bristles all over its body. Its metal-like tail was simr to that of the beasts that had appeared back at the camp. This beast then charged into a bush on the other side of the path and vanished in a sh.


    ¡°The magic beasts are beginning to appear,¡± Lex warned softly. Holzer and Baimeng immediately drew their swords and gripped them in their hands.


    As the six of them went deeper into the forest, all kinds of bushes began to appear. asionally, they also saw those nts which could be tentacles. Lex controlled the puppets and carefully nned their paths of advance, making them go around the dangerous trees.


    After advancing for about ten miles, they could only see shrubs, vines, and long grass around them. The war puppets began using their curved knives to create a path for Lex and her team.


    The serrated edges on the curved knives could easily cut the tough vines and weeds. With the puppets opening a path, everyone felt more rxed. However, Lex had to cast a ck fog in order to conceal the forward scouts.


    With a whoosh, a colorful tiny snake pounced from a treetop and sank its fangs into the neck of one of the war puppets. That war puppet had a helmet, and its neck had ayer of metal that was as thick as a finger. A single bite from that snake had destroyed half of that metalyer, and a hole had formed via corrosion.


    The snake twisted its body, trying to slither into the hole. A war puppet to the side swung its curved knife and chopped the snake into two. The snake then fell onto the ground. If the snake had bitten into the neck of a human, that human might have been dead by now.


    The war puppets traveling to the side had met trouble too. The three puppets had been facing difficulty trying to move forward between the groves, so the first puppet had tried to open a way by shing apart a vine. In front of the vine had been an empty space, and in the middle of it was a puddle of water. The puppet had taken a step into the puddle and caused tens of thousands of minute bugs to fly up. These bugs had then charged towards the puppets.


    These bugs had disgusting dark red bodies, and their bodies had awork of protruding structures which squirted sticky liquid. These bugs lived beside the puddle and survived on animals who came forward to quench their thirst. The first puppet was very soon engulfed by those bugs.


    The other two puppets did not try to help. Instead, they turned around and ran away. Then, there was a sh on the surface of the first puppet, and a fire started burning.


    This was a Grade 0 magic array, burning magic. Real magic arrays could not be added onto the bodies of low-level puppets. The attack power of the burning magic was very low, and if these bugs had high magic resistance, this magic would not even cause any harm to them.

 Chapter 134: The Powers of the Behemoth (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 134: The Powers of the Behemoth (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The burning magic on the war puppet did not kill a single insect. It was only Grade 0 magic, and like the Fire Washing spell, its effects were best shown when dispersing toxins or heating up food.


    The insects immediately pounced on the body of the puppet and began chewing on it, their razor-sharp teeth biting through the puppet¡¯s armor. The war puppet waved its sword around and started bashing them randomly with its shield, each strike killing dozens of insects. However, there had been at least hundreds of thousands of insects near the puddle, and it did not take long before an entireyer of armor had been gnawed off of the war puppet.


    The burning magic stopped the corrosive toxins of the insects but could not stop the attacks from their teeth.


    Amid the nking sounds, a small square hole appeared in the chest of the war puppet, and from this hole a thick smoke began to spray out. The red insects that were sprayed fell to the ground. This smoke was poisonous and quickly killed thousands of insects.


    Lex did not dare call back the war puppet, and once the smoke had been used up, the puppet¡¯s four legs were revealed to be in the puddle. More red insects pounced onto the puppet¡¯s body. By the time it crossed the puddle, the entireyer of metal armor had been chewed off from it, revealing the white, gel-like material within the armor.


    This gel-like material was the muscle of the war puppet and served to reduce the impacts upon it as well. Even if its armor was dealt a huge impact, it would not cause any damage to the puppet¡¯s internal structure. Lex was prepared to abandon this puppet and only had it continue pushing forward, crossing the puddle. There was a lush patch of forest ground ahead and the war puppet carried the red insects on its body with it as it ran towards it.


    So long as the core of the puppet was not destroyed, it would be able to continue fighting. The puppet continued rubbing its body on the branches and leaves of trees, intentionally running into them. Even though most of the red insects on its body had been crushed, even after it had squeezed its way deep into the forest, hundreds of red insects were still gnawing at its muscles.


    The bones were showing on many parts of the bottom half of the puppet. These bones were the bones of the Grade 4 magic beasts that had been processed and were tougher than metal. As the number of red insects was reduced, the war puppet did not stop hacking at its body viciously as though it had gone crazy.


    Lex was slightly taken aback. The war puppet had not been eaten awaypletely by the insects, and only its armor had been eaten away. If it was met with another enemy, its defensive abilities might have been reduced to less than half of their original amount, but it still had its offensive abilities.


    The red insects seemed reluctant to be too far away from the puddle and allowed the puppet to move a distance away. No other insects attempted to attack it.


    Lex was even more careful now. If she lost all thirteen war puppets, the team would be directly exposed to all the dangers in the forest. The puppet which had been attacked had helped drive away all of the red insects and took a long way around to regroup with the other two puppets. Lex lowered their speed and kept the distance between two puppets under one hundred meters.


    ¡°There is a magic beast following behind us.¡± At the back of the team, Saleen became aware of their situation and lowered his voice as he reminded Lex.


    ¡°Master, they do not intend to attack,¡± Nailisi said softly. She was not as nervous as the others. Dozens of magic beasts were following the team from the back, and they were those that had survived despite attacking the camp. Their leader had died and they had given up attacking the camp, instead slowly dispersing and retreating into the forest.


    The dozens of magic beasts followed behind Lex¡¯s team from afar, patiently remaining at a distance of over five hundred meters. Saleen was not Lex and could not observe what was happening through a puppet. He instructed a puppet to turn around and stopped it. The magic beast following behind them stopped as well, andid on the ground.


    A war puppet certainly could not fight against a dozen magic beasts, and even though Saleen could not see exactly what was happening, he was able to recognize this difference in strength. Since his advancement, his senses had be equivalent to those of a grand mage. Seeing how the magic beasts were not attacking the puppet in the back, Saleen could only trust Nailisi and had the puppet continue with the team.


    As the puppet in the back moved, the magic beasts moved along with it, staying about five hundred meters away.


    The team¡¯s speed had dropped to roughly five kilometers an hour and Lex transferred the war puppet that was nearly destroyed to the front, leaving it in charge of clearing the way. It was fortunate that the road ahead was smooth and did not have many fallen leaves. They did not have a hard time walking and were able to preserve their physical strength.


    After travelling for a few kilometers, the nts within the forest became less dense and there were even some clearings to be found. As they lifted their heads, they could now see the grey skies of god¡¯s hell.


    ¡°It¡¯s been a while since we have seen anything. Something is wrong,¡± Sika began muttering to herself. From her experience, she knew that this could mean there was something around here that did not like to be disturbed, and it was strong.


    Powerful magic beasts had different ideas of territorypared to low-grade magic beasts. They did not like to have much interaction with other magic beasts of the same type. The team had already advanced deep into the forest. By this point, they should havee across many magic beasts.


    Even though Lex did not often leave her home, she was a mage and knew a lot about magic beasts from books. Hearing Sika¡¯s words, Lex grew a little unsettled as well. Just as she was about to stop and alter their course of movement, a loud growling sound emitted from the air in front of them.


    Boom! Crack!


    There was the sound of an enormous impact apanied with the sound of breaking branches and the growl of a magic beast. A massive magic beast appeared in front of the war puppet that had been clearing the way. Its head alone was over three meters tall, and it had four eyes arranged in a trapezoidal formation. It had knocked aside a row of trees and was directly in front of the puppet. As it swiped its w, the war puppet raised its shield to block.


    With a swooshing sound, the war puppet was flung into the air by the giant w and crashed directly into a tree, its entire body being embedded into it. The armor of this puppet had been entirely stripped away by the insects earlier, and with this swipe, the bone structure of the puppet was broken. Only now did the behemoth show its true colors as it dashed directly towards Lex and the others.


    Despite posessing superhuman strength, seeing the beast charging from afar, Sika did not dare step forward and try to defend against its attack.


    The three war puppets came forward under the control of Lex and took the spears from their backs, throwing them with all their might. With a ssh, the three spears pierced right into the behemoth¡¯s body. The puppets had thrown the spears with a great deal of strength, and it was enough to even pierce through rock. However, the scales on the behemoth¡¯s body had shifted, and the spears had pierced barely half an inch in before they had stopped.


    The behemoth was shocked and started growling angrily. Its tail, which was over ten meters long,shed forward, and one of the war puppets did not have the time to dodge before it was struck by it. The puppet was chopped into two halves. The sharp des on the beats¡¯s tail were prominent and were even sharper than the curved knives of the puppets.


    Sika had been at the back of the team, and yet she was the first to attack. She threw her boomerang out in an attempt to gouge out the behemoth¡¯s eyes. It opened its mouth, and with a curl of its tongue, it swallowed Sika¡¯s boomerang whole.


    Sika¡¯s boomerang was unusually sharp, but swallowing it down seemed to have no effect on the beast whatsoever. It cocked itsrge head and growled proudly, almost as though it were showing off to Lex and the others.


    They were barely more than ten meters apart from each other. Lex immediately released a Windspeed spell onto everyone.


    ¡°Don¡¯t confront it!¡±


    Even without Lex¡¯s words, no one would have dared to fight it head on anyways. In front of this behemoth, humans were as weak as ants. One stomp of the beast¡¯s ws was enough to turn Baimeng into mincemeat. So what if one had trained their sword aura? Could it ovee the pressure that came from hundreds of tons of weight? A tree as thick as two to three humans had easily been felled by an impact from the huge beast, and the processed bone structure of the war puppet had also been destroyed in a single flick. There would only be one result if they confronted it. The behemoth would be like a meteor, destroying everything that stood in its way.


    Lex flew up and stood on top of a giant tree. She had decided that this tree was sturdy enough, being wider than the behemoth by a few times and making it more likely to be able to withstand any force from the beast. Being able to release magic from high ground was an advantage of mages, and those on the ground had to find ways to avoid it.


    Holzer and Baimeng took out their swords and jumped, finding branches from a tall tree to stand on. These jumps from them had at least been over ten meters, and they had been counting on the fact that since this beast had such scary defenses, it would not be able to release any long-range magic. Otherwise, they would be most vulnerable when they jumped.


    An extrayer of mist appeared around the surface of Saleen¡¯s body, and with the activation of the water shield, a giant bubble enclosed him entirely. His movements became quicker and with a burst of energy from beneath his feet, he jumped straight up andnded high up in the tree. At this height, even if the giant tree was damaged, it would not hurt Saleen.


    Sika gave up on attacking and escaped to the side. She was no match for the behemoth at all and did not know any magic, rendering her useless at this point in time.


    Nailisi had disappeared. No one had any idea when she had fled the scene, but Saleen could feel vaguely sense that she was approaching the behemoth even though he could not pinpoint her location.


    Boom!


    The behemoth lowered its head and struck the tree that Baimeng was hiding on. Baimeng was horrified as the behemoth¡¯s tongue curled towards him and he unconsciously used the end of his sword to help him escape. However, the behemoth released a nauseating smell at that moment, causing Baimeng¡¯s body to go soft and dissipating his sword aura. He let go of his sword as he fell straight towards the ground.


    Lex could see everything clearly from the tree, and seeing that the beast was about to stomp on Baimeng with its w, she could not care less about harming the wrong targets on ident as she released a Grade 6 scroll. An eight-meter long red fire serpent appeared from thin air and wrapped itself around the behemoth¡¯s neck. If it had been on another creature, the fire serpent would have been long enough to wrap around its opponent many times.


    This behemoth had a neck that was horrifyingly thick and the fire serpent could not wrap itself around the neck whatsoever. Moreover, the beast was unbelievably tall and as the Grade 6 fire serpent burned its scales with a sizzling sound, the scales on the beast¡¯s neck only turned a shade darker.


    The sword aura within Baimeng¡¯s body surged and he coughed out the nauseating gas. The behemoth¡¯s w was already stomping down and he had no time to dodge. In that moment of life and death, Baimeng instantly released all of the energy inside of him and a silver dagger appeared in his hands. The sword aura from the dagger shot out upwards viciously and in this moment, he had activated all of his life energy, jumping two grades and releasing an attack equivalent to that of a bronze grand swordmaster.


    Swoosh!


    As the behemoth¡¯s wnded, Baimeng¡¯s sword aura was shatteredpletely and blood and flesh spewed out everywhere from the gaps between the ws of the beast. With a single stomp, it had killed a swordsman who had just be a bronze grand swordmaster.

 Chapter 135: The Powers of the Behemoth (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 135: The Powers of the Behemoth (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Holzer could not believe his eyes. Baimeng was his good friend and they had lived together since bing swordsmen. They were the first batch of swordsmen to follow Viscountess Lex when she had been sent to Bitter Water Prefecture. After that, the two of them had been sent for further training and had gone through life and death together to hone their swordsmanship.


    His friend of over a decade had just been crushed beneath the ws of the behemoth. Holzer could not control his emotions and he took out the short bow from his back and strung a golden arrow. This arrow had been given to him by the emperor and he had never had the heart to use it.


    His sword aura began to surge violently as Holzer reluctantly pulled back the bowstring with his fingers. With a swooshing sound, the golden arrow was lost from sight and when it reappeared, it was right in front of the behemoth. The finger that Holzer had used to pull back the bowstring was severed by it, and fresh blood began to spew.


    The power of the short bow was so immense that even his sword aura had not been able to save his finger.


    With the golden arrow¡¯s sudden emergence, the behemoth did not have the time to react and could only shut its eyes. A golden light was emitted from its eyes and the arrow was stopped by it. The arrow started to revolve vigorously as numerous magic symbols began floating around it in the air. The golden arrow pierced into the eye with a swoosh, emitting light all around.


    Boom!


    The end of the arrow formed a cross as it pierced directly into the eye of the behemoth, crushing its eyeball. Fresh blood and bits of the crushed eyeball spewed out as the behemoth violently shook its head. The head of the beast which was over three meters wide knocked into the tree that Holzer was hiding in and sent it crashing down.


    Despite having injured the behemoth in its eye, Holzer was shocked. This golden arrow was of the highest grade of magic arrows, and yet it had not managed to pierce through the head of the beast after being shot into its eye.


    His finger had been cut off and he used his left hand to draw his long sword. With a backflip, he avoided the razor-sharp tongue of the behemoth. From above, Lex released another spell.


    A stone with a diameter of more than five meters appeared from the sky. This was a Grade 4 spell: Falling Rock.


    Seeing how Grade 6 magic had not been able to harm the behemoth at all, Lex had needed to think of another solution. Even though the Falling Rock spell was only Grade 4 magic, it was a purely physical ability. No one could control a rock weighing hundreds of tons as it fell from the sky. Even a swordsman could avoid the rock, as the attack speed of the Falling Rock spell was much slower than other magic.


    The behemoth did not give the rock a single thought. He had been hurt by the golden arrow, and in a fit of rage, gave a deadly re towards Holzer.


    Seeing Holzer in danger, Saleenmanded the witcher spider to pounce forward. The witcher spider was smaller than one of the beast¡¯s eyes, and with a sh of a dark shadow, it was already climbing up the beast¡¯s leg. The witcher spider stabbed the beast¡¯s leg harshly with its front legs, but after a sh of fire, only a faint mark could be seen on the scales of the behemoth.


    Seeing that the attack was ineffective, hemanded the witcher spider to move to the belly of the beast where there were often lower defenses. The scales on the behemoth¡¯s legs were at least half a foot thick, and if the witcher spider tried to hurt the beast from there, it would take forever.


    Lex¡¯s falling rock magic could not be controlled and as the behemoth pounced towards Holzer, the rocknded directly on its back. This impact halted its movement and after a sh of fire, the giant rock rolled off to one side.


    The strength and defenses of the giant beast were impossibly scary and the falling rock barely stopped it for three seconds before it went for Holzer, opening its giant maw. The Windspeed spell had been cast on Holzer, and yet he could not outrun the massive beast.


    Lex was anxious, and yet she could not do anything. This behemoth seemed to be nearly immune to everything. Even a rock weighing hundreds of tons had not been able to hurt it. The spear from the puppet had only been able to pierce its scales, but even then, no blood could be seen. Would she really need to abandon the others and escape by herself?


    Just as she was fretting about what to do, a shadow appeared behind the behemoth. It was Nailisi. Lex had no idea how she was able to jump onto the beast without it noticing.


    Nailisi had already kicked away her shoes, and all the toes on both of her feet gripped tightly onto the scales on the behemoth¡¯s back as she stood sturdily on top. Her back was arched and with her fingersing together into one point, she pierced down with all her might.


    Lex was anxious. The back of any magic beast was its toughest area, and no matter how strong Nailisi was, attacking with her bare hands would not do anything to the behemoth.


    As expected, her entire arm pierced through the back of the beast. However, as she withdrew her hands, there was not a single drop of blood on them. The scales on the beast¡¯s back were unimaginably thick and despite Nailisi being able to pierce through the scales, she had not been able to reach the insides of the beast.


    Using magic fog to conceal her body, golden light shot out from Nailisi¡¯s green eyes and a long tail emerged from behind her, piercing through the hole in the scales that she had made.


    The tail was over two meters long and unimpededly pierced through into the beast¡¯s body. The beast bit Holzer¡¯s sword into two halves and swiped forward with its ws, hitting Holzer in the shoulder. Holzer¡¯s shoulder was ripped apart by the massive ws, and even the magic armor could not protect his body.


    Just as it was about to open its mouth to swallow the now unconscious Holzer, the beast felt a sharp pain on its back. Nailisi¡¯s tail was only getting longer and longer, and as she found the beast¡¯s spine, Nailsii pierced down with even more force.


    With a boom, Nailisi¡¯s sharp tip of her tail stirred within the beast¡¯s back. It lost control of its body andid on the ground, paralyzed. Nailisi withdrew her tail and silently returned to her human form.


    Sika was afraid that the magic beast could still move and took a risk, pulling the conscious Holzer aside and escaping towards the back.


    Saleen was momentarily relieved. The magic beast was paralyzed and no matter how much energy it had, it could not move. He directed the witcher spider to the head of the beast, aiming straight for its eyes. Opening the wound on its eye, the witcher spider made its way inside.


    The remaining eleven war puppets blocked the magic beastsing from the rear. Lex did not dare let her guard down. She released a Grade 5 spell: Ice Attack.


    Thin shards of ice fell from the sky and covered the entirety of the beast¡¯s head as its scales began to freeze. Aside from being an assaultive spell, it was also a restraining one. The behemoth¡¯s defenses were too great and this form of restraint was merely for psychologicalfort.


    Fresh blood continue to spew from the beast¡¯s eye as the witcher spider caused widespread destruction within. Only when the spider¡¯s magic nucleus was nearly expended did it emerge from the wound.


    Seeing the beast twitch involuntarily, Nailisi pounced forward to its neck. The ck ws appeared on her fingers again as she started tearing through the scales on the beast¡¯s neck.


    By this time, the behemoth no longer had the ability to retaliate. Nailisi patiently pried awayyers andyers of scales and pierced her arms into the beast¡¯s neck, crushing any bones inside.


    Lex carefully observed the magic beasts to the rear. All of them were lying on the ground, waiting patiently. They were still staying at a distance five hundred meters away from the puppets.


    The more than twelve Grade 4 magic beasts were not threatening. Lex could handle them alone. She was only afraid that if her team was worn out, these magic beasts would be dangerous.


    The behemoth finally died under the torment of Nailisi. She was tired as well and jumped down from its back,ing to Saleen¡¯s side. Saleen brought out a water bottle and had Nailisi drink some restorative water.


    Sika carried Holzer and brought him before Lex. Lex looked at Holzer¡¯s injuries, her heart turning bitter as she did so. Holzer was not going to make it. The swipe from the beast¡¯s w had not only taken away his entire arm, but his scap was gone as well. His tendons were crushed and within the membrane was his heart. With an injury like this, only in the capital with Joey¡¯s help could his life have been saved.


    Lex released a Chunlin spell and the green mist seeped into Holzer¡¯s body. He opened his eyes, his gaze off to the side.


    ¡°Viscountess. I¡¯m going to die, aren¡¯t I?¡±


    Lex nearly shook her head before nodding. At this time, lying would be of no use. Holzer was a swordmaster and he could assess the damage to his body very well. The sword aura had protected his heart; however, the rest of his body had essentially been destroyed.


    Holzer slowly closed his eyes and with a weak voice said, ¡°Mage Saleen, can you promise me something?¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡± Saleen¡¯s heart was heavy as well. He thought of Loki, who had also asked him for a favor before dying. The current situation was so simr to that time.


    ¡°Viscountess¡­ is a good person. You must protect her¡­ I know she can¡­¡±


    Holzer¡¯s words were in pieces and Saleen was unable to hear what he was saying to the end. Tears began to flow from Lex¡¯s eyes. In god¡¯s hell, she did not need to hide her emotions.


    Everyone remained gathered around Holzer¡¯s corpse for a long time before Lex said, ¡°Saleen, do not take Holzer¡¯s words to heart. You are a mage, not a swordsman. It isn¡¯t your duty to protect the wealthy.¡±


    ¡°I can understand Holzer¡¯s feelings. Moreover¡­you are the one protecting us now.¡± Saleen¡¯s expression was unusually bitter. If the one to die had been Sika, what else could he have said?


    Baimeng¡¯s body was crushed and Lex used magic to create a hole in the ground, cing Holzer¡¯s body inside. As for Baimeng¡¯s body, they did their best to gather what they could find and buried it together too. Afterwards, Lex cast a Fossilization spell to harden the rocks and prevent any carnivorous animals from destroying the corpses.


    Baimen¡¯s silver dagger and Holzer¡¯s short bow were kept by Lex, and she handed Saleen another six magic nuclei to swap out on the witcher spider. The witcher spider had fairly good assaultive strength and the only downside was that it expended its magic nuclei fairly quickly.


    ¡°Take the magic nuclei.¡± Lex did not take any action; the beast had been killed by Nailisi and Saleen, and she did not want any spoils of war. If she¡¯d had a choice, she would have rather wanted Baimeng and Holzer to still be alive.


    Nailisi restored her energy and did not stand by ceremony. She approached the front of the beast¡¯s corpse and took out its teeth. Its teeth were a hundred times tougher than steel and had bitten Holzer¡¯s eight-sided sword into two halves with a single bite.


    After removing its reeth, Nailisi jumped onto its head and took out the eyeballs one by one before finding the golden arrow. Nailisi threw the arrow to Lex and looked patiently for the hole in the beast¡¯s neck. Not long after, she found the entrance. Using her nails to slowly cut away the skin and scales of the beast¡¯s head, she gripped onto the edges of the bone and revealed the entire skull of the beast.


    Colorful beams shot out from the beast¡¯s skull as sixrge magic nuclei floated up, formed a circle, and spun around naturally.


    Lex and Saleen watched in a daze. It was not surprising that this magic beast had a few magic nuclei. What was surprising was that these six magic nuclei had formed a magic array. The two of them had never heard of something like this before.


    Magic arrays were human creations and were not formed naturally. Could this magic beast have been a human creation?

 Chapter 136: The Ten Story Magic Tower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 136: The Ten Story Magic Tower (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Every piece of magic nuclei was the size of a pumpkin, and they were several times bigger than the magic nucleus of a dragon. This was an anomaly, because even though the magic resistance and defenses of the beast had been high, they still would not have been as high as those of a dragon.


    Lex and Saleen finally understood that the powerful defenses the beast had were a result of the magic array that had been formed by the six magic nuclei. Otherwise, the Grade 6 Fire Serpent spell would have burnt more than just its scales, and the javelins of the puppets would have definitely hurt its flesh and not just pierced through its scales.


    Every inch of the beast¡¯s body had possessed the same defensive abilities, and any external attacks had been mitigated by the magic array.


    Saleen was well aware that if the beast had been protected solely by tough scales, Nailisi would not have been able to kill it using such a simple method. Saleen and Lex looked at each other. If this beast had been created by humans, then there had to be some abnormality in its skull. With that said, even if he and Lex cast the Potency spell on themselves, Nailisi and Sika would still be stronger.


    ¡°Turn over the skull. I want to take a look,¡± Saleen said to Sika and Nailisi.


    Nailisi stretched out her hand and ced the floating magic nuclei into her bracelet. Then, she cut through the scales that were connecting the neck to the flesh, and the beast¡¯s skull rolled onto the ground. Sika went up and flipped the skull over.


    Lex cast a Cleaning spell and thoroughly washed the insides of the skull. Saleen got down onto his stomach next to the edge of the skull and looked inside. There was a pale green magic pattern on the inside walls of the skull.


    Saleen and Lex looked at each other again, noticing that a magic array was hidden within the magic pattern. Something like that would have never grown inside of a magic beast. But the magic array was clearly part of its body, and it had not been drawn at ater time nor carved using alchemy.


    This magic array had grown inside of the skull, and then it had connected with the six magic nuclei to form aplex magic array. That had resulted in the behemoth possessing such astonishing defensive abilities.


    ¡°Lex, put it away for now.¡± Saleen knew that it would be no easy feat for the two of them to figure out the principles behind this magic array in such a short time. However, their current surroundings were not safe for studying it.


    ¡°Saleen, my boomerang¡­¡±


    Sika looked at Saleen. Her weapon had been the first one to be swallowed by that behemoth, and Faerun had helped her transform that weapon in the past.


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Saleen called out. Nailisi helplessly returned to the corpse of the behemoth and began to think about how she would dissect that beast. The materials on the behemoth¡¯s body were of top quality, and even though those scales were not the toughest in the world, they were already much thicker than a dragon¡¯s scales. Furthermore, the defensive abilities of the scales had been reinforced by the magic array. If these scales were torn off and sold, each piece would be able to fetch a good price.


    Lex put away the skull of the beast into her god¡¯s ring and said, ¡°There shouldn¡¯t be any more powerful magic beasts around here. Let¡¯s continue moving after we get enough rest.¡±


    Nailisi began dissecting the body bit by bit. She started from the toughest scales which were on its back and tore the scales off piece by piece. After the behemoth had died, it had lost the support of the magic array, so the scales could be removed much more easily now.


    A single scale was twice the size of a wheel and its thickness was close to one meter. In regards to the rules of proportionality, some scales might have been a little deformed. Nailisi helped herself to those scales and stored them inside of her bracelet. Fortunately, the bracelet that she had taken from Aini had enough space. If she had relied on Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts or his demonic ring, she would have only been able to store very few of the scales.


    The behemoth was over twenty meters long. Nailisi went down its body, tearing off the scales. When she had finished removing all of the scales, she began skinning it. The skin on its back was of the best quality. If the skin was used to produce scrolls, the scrolls would be able to contain magic that was Grade 7 or above.


    Nailisi cut out a rectangle from the behemoth¡¯s skin. Then, she started tearing pieces from its neck, and then bundled the skin up before storing it into her bracelet. Only Nailisi possessed the immense strength to be able toplete a task like this, and even Sika might not have been able to do it.


    Sika asked for a short knife, then jumped onto the behemoth¡¯s back and cut out more than ten pieces of flesh. She then slung all of that meat over her shoulder.


    ¡°Sika, what are you doing?¡± Saleen was bewildered. Had Sika learned from Nailisi and started eating raw meat?


    ¡°I am going to feed the dogs,¡± Sika said, walking towards the back.


    ¡°Be careful!¡± Saleen had wanted to stop her, but Sika simply waved him off and walked past the eleven war puppets towards the magic beasts that were following them. ¡¡¡¡¡¡These beasts had originally been lying on the ground, but when they saw Sika approaching them, they stood up and arched their backs, slowly backing away.


    As Sika tossed the meat over, those beasts retreated even more rapidly. Sikaughed, knowing that her guess had been right. These magic beasts were trying to scavenge, not attack her. This was amon sight in Caucasus, especially with the magic mountain wolves who loved to follow Caucasus hunters.


    Many hunters who had killed behemoths could not bring them back and were only able to take the most valuable parts, and the mountain magic wolves would devour the rest of the remains. Some wolves were so intelligent that they would even help pursue and frighten the hunter¡¯s targets.


    The leader of the beasts had been killed, and without their advantage in numbers, the rest of the beasts had naturally chosen the safer way to hunt for food. Following Lex¡¯s team had also been a good choice.


    Sika went back by herself to Saleen. She told Lex, ¡°You can put away some of the puppets. Those beasts are here to scavenge. As long as we keep showing off some trophies in battle, they will not assault us.¡±


    When Lex heard that, she heaved a sigh of relief. She then brought out the tent, and recalled six war puppets to secure the perimeter, leaving Nailisi to work alone. The rest of them took that opportunity to rest.


    When Nailisi saw that everyone had gone to rest, a cunning smile appeared on her face. She tore open the muscles on the back of the behemoth and dug a bloody hole in between its ribs. Then, she crawled inside. Nailisi found its heart quickly. She thrashed about crazily until she was able to split open the heart, and then she went inside, searching for something.


    Very soon, she touched something hard. This object was irregr in shape and was a little smaller than an egg. Nailisi swallowed it whole before proceeding to the other parts of the body and causing destruction throughout the insides of the entire body.


    The behemoth had a colossal stomach that was so big it was like a room. Since the behemoth had died, acid was no longer being secreted in its stomach. Even if there had been acid, Nailisi was not afraid at all. She found Sika¡¯s boomerang before crawling out the same way she had entered.


    Creatures in the demonic realm possessed tremendous strength, and the ability of their hearts to withstand stress was astounding. The object that had been condensed in the creature¡¯s heart was something that demons loved to eat. Those Grade 4 magic beasts and the ones found in the demonic realm had many differences, but Nailisi felt very familiar with this behemoth. From its external appearance, this behemoth resembled the Kol beast that was found in the demonic realm. It was just that it was many times bigger than the Kol beast.


    Nailisi was now certain that the creatures in the hell of god¡¯s punishment were rted to the creatures in the demonic realm. It was just that these creatures were not considered strong, and in the demonic realm, they would have merely been prey for the demons.


    Nailisi felt satisfied after swallowing part of the essence of the behemoth¡¯s heart. If she was able to eat more, her strength would surely grow rapidly. Often times, a demon was not strong enough because its heart had not been fully developed yet. Nailisi had just transformed into an adult, and if she had been in the demonic realm, this would have been the time for her to go on a hunting spree.


    Nailisi plucked out the razor sharp ws from the behemoth¡¯s feet, but she was not interested in its long tail. She then climbed on top of its back andid on the bloody muscles, sniffing the fragrance of the blood before starting to napping. She had not gotten the chance to enjoy this kind of happiness back in the demonic realm. In the demonic realm, little demons like her were always shuttling between being the hunters and the hunted. One moment they might have been the predators, and in the next moment, they could be the prey.


    Lex was the first to wake up as she had a profound mastery of meditation, thus her mental power recovered the fastest. Walking out of the tent and seeing the badly handled corpse of the behemoth that Nailisi had been in charge of, she could only shake her head helplessly. Lex called over four war puppets and gave them alchemy saws so that they could break down the remaining scales and skin on the behemoth.


    Not long after, Saleen and Sika woke up as well. Saleen did not meditate, having slept well. Before sleeping, he had used his n badge once. After waking up, he felt energized, and the fatigue caused by his anxiety these past few days had all disappeared.


    The corpse of the behemoth had been fully broken down, leaving only the muscles and intestines behind. Most of the bones were disassembled by the war puppets, and then Lex put them away into her god¡¯s ring.


    Lex put away the tent and took a look at Holzer¡¯s and Baimeng¡¯s burial ground. Then, she said, ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    ¡°Sika, you shall follow Lex,¡± Saleen instructed softly. At Lex¡¯s level, Sika would not be of much assistance, but if there were unforeseen dangers, the instincts of a Caucasus warrior would allow her to be more dynamic and agile than a mage with their perception.


    Sika was reluctant, but she still followed beside Lex. On the other hand, Nailisi stuck happily to Saleen. She was overjoyed, because after eating the essence of the behemoth¡¯s heart, her strength had slowly begun to grow.


    The war puppets continued to walk in front while Lex led the team in their predetermined direction to the depths of the forest. Once they had started moving away, the magic beasts also sprang into action and pounced excitedly onto the corpse of the behemoth.


    The team walked for five days straight. While carefully avoiding any powerful magic beasts, Lex finally led everyone out of the forest. Of the eleven remaining war puppets, five more were lost, leaving behind six with injuries. In thest two days, the team had run into a giant moving tree and Lex had nearly been devoured by this man-eating giant tree, not to mention the various type of magic beasts they had found in the forest.


    Everyone¡¯s mood rxed once they were out of the forest. But the mood grew tense again when they saw the sight in front of them.


    There was a structure with broken walls and ruins, as though bandits and dragons had descended upon this vige at the same time. Additionally, there was a path filled with wild grass and what appeared to be human bones.


    Beneath the overcast skies, this scene appeared even more deste. In the far distance, there was a mountain. On the mountain, human structures could vaguely be seen.


    Lex took out the alchemy binocrs and looked toward the mountain. After a long while, she let out a long sigh.


    ¡°What¡¯s there?¡± Saleen asked nervously, unable to see too far with his vision.


    ¡°A magical tower. A ten story magic tower.¡± Lex¡¯s voice sounded rigid and stiff. In the Myers Maind, the tallest magic tower was nine stories tall, and even if a mage exceeded Grade 9, they would not build a ten story magic tower. Such a thing was considered taboo.


    Whoever had built this ten story magic tower must have been filled with contempt for the gods. This was a form of provocation. Even though the people of Alchemy City also had contempt for the gods, they were not so explicit in their behavior.

 Chapter 137: The Ten Story Magic Tower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 137: The Ten Story Magic Tower (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The glorious lord was not able to descend upon the Myers Maind, but the Holy See was extremely powerful. As long as the Holy See¡¯s underlings did note to the Qin Empire and cause trouble, Alchemy City would not provoke them either.


    Had the people of Alchemy City built this ten story magic tower, they would not have been able to maintain a peaceful rtionship with the maind for the past hundreds of years.


    Saleen took the alchemy binocrs and looked towards the mountain. It was a stone mountain with steep and angr terrain. At the base of the mountain, there were steps leading to the top, and those steps were arranged in an organized manner, just like how the elements were arranged. There was an enormous ancient magic symbol on the body of the mountain. It was simple, and the magic words on it were recognizable. Those magic words had originated from the Fourth Dynasty.


    The peak of the blue mountain had a wide opening, and in it was a forest. Standing in the midst of the forest was the ten story magic tower.


    The magic tower was an unusual shade of ck. Its color was identical to that of the body of the mountain, which was a dark blue. Saleen started counting from the top down to the bottom of the tower, and each story of the tower was at least ten meters tall. When Saleen had counted to the ninth story, he finally believed Lex. The tenth story was faintly visible. Saleen continued to make observations. He found that the magic tower was very clean and was not mottled despite its age.


    Was anyone still inside of that tower? Saleen lowered the binocrs and looked at the ruins in front of him, feeling that the possibility was low. If there were mages in the ten story magic tower, they would never have allowed the vige to be torn apart like this. A person need to know that a magic tower had a radius of protection which exceeded ten miles. The mages did not even need to exit the tower to be able to use magic to deter any aggressors.


    ¡°No one is up there anymore.¡± Lex pointed to a pile of bones on the path and continued, ¡°This person¡¯s magic robe has been turned into ashes, leaving only the belt behind. They must have been like this for nearly a thousand years already.¡±


    Saleen only noticed those bones after hearing what Lex had said. The waist bones even had a rotten belt on, and only a few pieces of beast horn that had been used for polishing remained. There were no clothes or magic equipment in that pile of bones. That was why Saleen had overlooked it.


    If there were mages in the magic tower, they would not have allowed this skeleton to be exposed in the wilderness. Saleen looked at the magic tower in the distance, and suddenly, a rush of enthusiasm welled up in him.


    A ten story magic tower like this would not be any less valuable than the temple of the Goddess of Myers. A temple was built by believers, while a magic tower was built on the possessions and life of a mage.


    Saleen and Lex were very sure that even though the mage was no longer around, the magic tower was still lethal.


    ¡°Do we go up?¡± Saleen questioned Lex. Saleen could not go up by himself at all as his understanding of magic arrays was too scant. Even though he understood the Figaro form, he might not even be able to unlock the lowest level if he analyzed it for hundreds of years. A magic array belonging to a Grade 10 mage was too onerous for Saleen to handle.


    ¡°We¡¯ll go up,¡± Lex answered with determination. Since this magic tower had ten stories, the items in there had to be invaluable. Even though Joey had broken the limit of Grade 9 magic, he would never dare tobel himself as a Grade 10 mage. Furthermore, the owner of this magic tower had obviously possessed a lot of hatred for the gods. Now that the Qin Empire was at war against the Holy See, it was possible that the magic tower would contain some equipment or knowledge that could be beneficial to the war.


    Saleen inhaled a deep breath of air and said, ¡°We might die.¡±


    Lex simplyughed and replied, ¡°Don¡¯t the people of Sikeqinya have a saying? If there is two hundred percent profit to be made, it is still worth it even if it means going to the gallows.¡±


    Saleen nodded in response. To him and Lex, this ten story magic tower was more than just two hundred percent profit. Once they seized control of the magic tower, it would mean that the two of them would inherit all of the possessions that had belonged to a Grade 10 mage.


    The four of them walked towards the blue stone mountain and the magic beasts followed them out of the forest. But when the beasts saw the mountain from afar, they stopped following Lex¡¯s team, as though they had a phobia of that mountain. When the team had gone a distance away, these beasts then slowly turned around and went back into the forest.


    Nailisi followed behind Saleen and was a little nervous, while Sika looked reverent and was calmer than Saleen. The closer they got to the mountain, the more nervous Saleen became. To a mage, a ten story magic tower was as special as a temple to religious believers.


    When the team reached the base of the mountain and saw the nearly vertical body of the mountain, they felt an oing pressure. This pressure did not originate from magic, but was formed naturally. Saleen and Lex bowed respectfully, which was customary to mages, and then they started walking up the steps towards the peak of the stone mountain.


    Lex walked in front with an invisible shield, and Saleen also activated that spell. Grade 0 magic was not considered to be disrespectful to the mage of the magic tower. Instead, it was considered humble behavior. Furthermore, Grade 0 magic would not attract retaliation from the magic tower. Sika and Nailisi had never cultivated sword auras before, so Saleen did not need to remind them of any customs.


    The stone steps spiraled upwards and there were at least ten thousand steps. These steps, which were wide enough to fit one man at a time, were unusually regted. There were also magic patterns on them so a person would never slip from the steps. Even though Lex knew how to fly, she did not want to be careless so she stuck to the walls of the mountain and walked up step by step. The stone steps were reversed, and the wall of the mountain was on the left side. As these four people went higher and higher, after an hour, they finally reached the mountain peak.


    Saleen then realized the brilliance of this Grade 10 mage. The stone steps were, in fact, aplex magic form. When a person walked on the steps, they would not be able to cast any magic nor wield a sword aura, and the person would only be able to rely on their physical strength to ascend the mountain. Everyone¡¯s speed would be equal. Even if a person wanted to speed ahead, they could not.


    This also meant that anyone who wanted to get to the peak would surely have to spend an hour doing so. The peak of this mountain had a massive surface area. Purple trees surrounded the colossal magic tower. These trees grew in a regted arrangement, naturally forming an enormous magic array.


    When Lex and Saleen saw the magic array in front of them, they beganughing bitterly. Simr to the stone steps, this magic array had a simple function, and it was to slow down the climber¡¯s speed.


    This magic array was still widely used now, but only Grade 9 mages were able to set it. The magic array had been named after a mage. It was called Pan¡¯s Maze.


    Pan¡¯s Maze was not an offensive magic array, but if a person did not follow the clues given, the magic array would undergo various types of transformations. Lex did not even dare to fly up directly, as this would likely cause the maze to instantly transform into a gigantic killer array.


    The legend said that Pan was a peaceful and harmonious mage until someone tried to mess with him.


    ¡°We shall walk slowly then.¡± Lex shook her head helplessly. Pan¡¯s Maze was the only maze which could not be undone. In terms of magic forme, this maze was designed to be a death cycle. The death cycle was a passive feature, so unless Lex was confident that she could counter the reprisal from a Grade 10 mage, she could only get through the maze by doing it honestly andpleting it fully.


    The forest surrounding the magic tower was one of the mostplex mazes in existence. Lex and her team searched for magic symbols within the maze and advanced ording to its rules. They walked for three days. In the end, Sika was the first to give up, so Nailisi had to carry her on her back and follow behind Saleen.


    In the maze, a person needed to maintain a certain speed. Once they stopped, the maze would immediately transform. A person might need to restart from the beginning, or they could be sent into the death cycle or even another perilous magic array.


    After the team had gotten out of the maze formed by the forest, Lex immediately sat down on the ground and began meditating. Saleen still had some energy left, so he had Nailisi and Sika rest. He only drank some restorative water while at the same time observing the ten story magic tower from a short distance away.


    Saleen had entered a magic tower that was eight stories tall before. That had been in the Bitter Water Prefecture, in Lex¡¯s residence. Compared to this ten story magic tower, the one in Lex¡¯s residence seemed a little skinny.


    This blue magic tower had six faces. Each face was twenty-four meters wide, and each level was twenty meters tall. It had six doors, unlike the usual three. With the exception of the first level, every other level had six windows on each face. The blue magic tower was spotless, and the edges of the windows had clear magic symbols on them. These symbols seemed like art decorations.


    The tower gradually narrowed as it progressed upwards, but this was not obvious. All the way up to the tenth story, each face still maintained that width of twenty-four meters. What Saleen felt was astounding was that the tower did not have any cracks. It had been carved out from the body of the mountain. Saleen crouched on the ground and touched the blue rock beneath him, but he could not identify the material of the rock.


    The materials that were employed by a Grade 10 mage would definitely possess better qualities than those of steel rocks.


    The windows on the magic tower were mosaicked with crystals, but Saleen did not feel amazed by them. He was filled with an immense respect which came from his heart. This tower could be said to have been built from the essence of magic. Theyout of the tower was so perfect that there was not even a single tinge of redundancy.


    The six faces represented the six great elements, and the area of each level must have signified the corresponding magic chord ratio of the different grades. Being able to open six doors at once meant that this Grade 10 mage had been able to maintain elemental bnce throughout their training process.


    Between Grade 1 and 3, it was easy for a mage to maintain their elemental bnce, but once a mage became a mage master, most of them would choose paths that were suitable for themselves and forgo some magic knowledge.


    After all, the lives of humans were finite. If they did not be sorcerers quickly, they would be just like any other human. They would live up to a maximum age of one hundred and twenty years before dying.


    Not everyone possessed the same wealth as Lex, and not everyone had a teacher like Saleen. Because many magescked money, they could only rely on the natural recovery of their magic chords. Their training speed would thus be at least ten times slower than mages like Lex. If the difference in talent was considered, then the ratio would be multiplied by tens of times.


    There were also many other mages who could not get an inheritance like Saleen, so they looked for answers in the wrong concepts and ended up wasting most of their lives.


    The owner of this magic tower had been the perfect mage. Theirprehension of magic had reached the pinnacle stage. Just like the magic tower itself, the owner had gained a deep understanding of a certain level of magic before advancing to the next level.


    This magic tower surely held the most invaluable magic knowledge in existence.

 Chapter 138: Badge in Azure (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 138: Badge in Azure (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even though the flooring of the field in front of the magic tower had been made out of granite, the temperature was not low and there was no trace of chill to it. Lex did not bring out the tent and everyone rested on the floor. Sika hadid down for less than an hour before she sat up and began looking around.


    ¡°Sika, what¡¯s up?¡± Saleen asked.


    Sika¡¯s face was red as she pressed her mouth against Saleen¡¯s ears, saying as softly as she could, ¡°My¡­ stomach isn¡¯t feeling well.¡±


    Saleen felt a tinge of embarrassment. Both he and Lex were mages who could reduce their bowel movements as much as possible. Three days was easy for them, and at most, they would experience a decrease in physical strength. Sika, on the other hand, could not. Her natural self-control must have been amazing to have been able tost until now.


    However, this had caused some inconvenience. Defecating in front of the magic tower? That seemed disrespectful to the owner of the magic tower, and who knew what it would cause. However, such things could not be controlled and Saleen used a finger to point to the other side of the magic tower, saying, ¡°Go to the other side and stick close to the forest. Do not enter it, or else you will not be able toe out.¡±


    Lex suddenly opened her eyes and said, ¡°Sika, I will follow you.¡±


    Sika nodded in gratitude. If she had known that going up the hill would be so much trouble, she would have stayed at the foot of the hill. Lex had a great amount of army resources with her and taking care of her bowel problems would not be a problem.


    The four of them rested for ten hours before Lex and Saleen began to discuss where they would enter the magic tower from.


    ¡°From this side.¡± Saleen pointed at the door in front. It had arge symbol on it that represented the element of water. Saleen was most familiar with Water Magic and his affinity with water elements surpassed even that of grand mages. Entering from here would likely be less dangerous.


    ¡°Yes. Sika, Nailisi, do not go too far. Stay within five steps of us.¡± As Lex finished speaking, she was the first to walk towards the door.


    The style of the magic tower was not considered to be too ancient, as the Fourth Dynasty had been within the past few thousands of years. The ruins from the Fourth Dynasty were everywhere in the maind and there were still magic towers from that era. Lex¡¯s research on magic towers had obviously been much better than Saleen¡¯s, and even though Saleen had a great deal of knowledge in his brain, he hardly had a thorough understanding of them. Most of his knowledge hade through pure memorization.


    Lex walked to the front of the door and raised her hand. Just as she was about to touch the magic symbol, the wooden door slid open from two sides. Lex jumped in shock and quickly retracted her hand. She had used her body to shield Saleen and was already prepared to release an Ice te Armor spell.


    Lex was able to release perception magic too, but there could not have been any living things within this magic tower. It was impossibly difficult for an empty tower to continually maintain revolving magic arrays. It did not matter if there were magic nuclei or special gemstones. They would all be expended sooner orter.


    Hence, Lex had dared to test her luck. Especially after navigating through Pan¡¯s Maze, she had be even more certain that the mage within the tower had passed away. Otherwise, had things been under the control of a mage, they would not have made their way through in only three days.


    Nothing appeared from within the doors. There were no spells, nor puppets, nor strange magic beasts.


    Saleen poked out his head from behind Lex and looked at the interior of the magic tower. He did not see anything either. The space behind the door was empty and had a feeling of emptiness to it.


    This was a magic test!


    Saleen and Lex did not know whether tough or cry. The master of this magic tower had actually been a proud and heartless person in their own mind. They were someone who had dared to build a magic tower ten stories tall to provoke the gods, and yet they had left a test at the entrance of the magic tower for others to solve. If a person could not solve it, he or she would never be able to enter the magic tower. If a person did manage to solve it, he or she would gain the mage¡¯s approval.


    They must have been a rtively gentle mage who had been fond of interaction. However, this was on the condition that a person needed to be a true mage and speak the samenguage as them.


    This did not mean that the magic test was safe. There were no emotions when it came to magic, and if one did not solve this puzzle, there was a possibility of dying at the entrance of the tower.


    How? Nothing could be seen beyond the door. There were no signs of magic arrays or magic symbols. There was not even any end in sight. They could not see the floor or the ceiling. This was a question that was unsolvable. The only thing that Saleen and Lex could discern was that it was a magic test rted to water elements.


    ¡°Can we use the god¡¯s ring to solve this?¡± Saleen walked out from behind Lex. Lex had been shielding him from the front, and he felt ashamed of that. Despite the difference in their grades, he was also a mage, and yet, he had needed another mage to use their body to protect him.


    ¡°No. If we use the powers of the god¡¯s ring again, we will never make it back to the Myers Maind again.¡± Lex immediately refused Saleen¡¯s preposition. The god¡¯s ring had already used up more than half of its powers in reflecting god¡¯s punishment and needed a year to return to normal. If they used it again, it was likely that it would be destroyed, and if that happened, no one on the Myers Maind would be able to find the coordinates for this interdimensional space no matter how hard they tried.


    ¡°Let me try.¡± Saleen contemted for a while before deciding to use the powers of his n badge. He had considered keeping it a secret. After all, the powers of this badge were a little ridiculous. Even for sorcerers, sticking this onto a person¡¯s body would render them useless. Moreover, this badge could increase his focus, and this was a great temptation for mages. Sorcerers were no exception either.


    However,pared to the ten story magic tower, the badge did not seem nearly as impressive. Especially now that Lex had unconsciously protected him, Saleen knew that she was not putting on a guise.


    A mage¡¯s reactions were limited and took roughly two milliseconds. Lex had not taken any time to think when she had chosen to use her body to defend him. Saleen was a little ashamed, but was more so touched.


    ¡°Is it dangerous?¡± Viscountess Lex looked at Saleen. This genius of a young mage rarely spoke and was rather low-grade. And yet, after just staying at Bitter Water Prefecture for half a year, she had seen him rise above the rest. Among all those that Faerun had taken the effort to guide, Saleen was the first to have learned the Figaro form on his own.


    Those who were qualified to stay by Faerun¡¯s side were gifted. However, the rest of the mages did not have the determined mindset that Saleen possessed. Such a thing felt simr to the drive she had possessed back when she had been pursuing magic too.


    ¡°Learning magic is naturally a dangerous thing.¡± Saleenughed as he said, ¡°However, give me some magic liquid. I will use up my focus and will need to replenish it quickly.¡±


    Lex took out a crystal bottle. The palm-sized bottle was filled with green magic liquid. She only had this much left with her and unless she became a Grade 6 mage, she would not be able to create it herself.


    Saleen took the bottle and opened the cap, tilting his head back and keeping the liquid in his mouth. Afterwards, he took out his n badge, and holding it in his hand, he turned and walked through the doors of the magic tower.


    Saleen knew that this was a risky move, but he knew even better that if a person wanted something, they would need to give up something of equal value. If he counted on Lex for everything, he would not be able to improve in this interdimensional space. The value of a ten story magic tower was priceless, and seeing that Lex was a Grade 5 mage, she would definitely get a greater share of its rewards.


    This was the case everywhere on the maind. A Grade 3 mage did not have any power during negotiations. Only if he contributed too would he be able to get what he deserved.


    Saleen walked through the doors of the magic tower as Lex and the others watched him disappear. Sika covered her mouth, nearly screaming. Nailisi, on the other hand, was calm. Saleen was still alive and was not in danger. If not, she would have been the first to sense it.


    Saleen entered a muddy space. The surrounding water elements were so thick that they were nearly about to condense and materialize. There was no ground beneath his feet and no skies above his head. His body was stiff and he could not even blink his eyes.


    The only thing he could move was his left hand, the god¡¯s left hand.


    After preparing to release a Grade 0 spell, the n badge within his hand began crazily sapping away at all of the energy. Saleen¡¯s focus was the first to be sucked away, but he realized in shock that the badge had not continued to siphon away the water elements within the space. The water elements had started flowing into his body just like the torrent of elements that Joey had used. They passed through every corner of his body.


    The water elements that had entered his body did not stay for long and were soon sucked away by the badge.


    The water elements in the space that were keeping Saleen prisoner seemed to be limitless as they passed through Saleen¡¯s body and were sucked into his n badge. The entire process did not cause the nauseating feeling that Saleen had whenever he used the badge, and it even made him feel at ease.


    Lex waited outside the door. Even after more than ten hours, there were no signs from Saleen. She was beginning to grow anxious when Nailisi said, ¡°Saleen is alright. Let¡¯s wait a while longer.¡±


    Lex took a look at Nailisi and for the first time was suspicious of her identity.


    The space behind the door had stolen away any senses she had. Could this maidservant have had senses that were even more sensitive than those of a Grade 5 mage at her peak? She had already witnessed Nailisi¡¯sbat powers, and knew that she was a dangerous woman. If she got close enough, even a grand mage¡¯s life would be in danger. How could a woman like her only have been a maidservant?


    Saleen was still enjoying the thrill the water elements were bringing him. However, the water elements around him were bing less dense and the speed at which the badge was siphoning them in was nearly a hundred times faster than usual. At the center of the thick badge inside of the lightning symbol, a blue light grew increasingly clear. At this time, it was like Saleen was creating magic chord medicine again. The shade of blue umted and slowly became a pool of liquid.


    Finally, the energy absorbed by the badge reached full saturation and Saleen felt the entire space vibrate. The water elements gathering within his body were no longer being sucked into the badge. The fatal part was that the water elements in the space did not stop flowing into Saleen¡¯s body just because the badge had stopped absorbing them. The water elements within his body grew denser, and he felt himself expanding like a ball. The water elements continued to flow in, and he felt as though his body had expanded a countless number of times.


    Saleen was not flustered. In the face of death, he was still able to enjoy this wonderful feeling with ease. As a mage, being able to see such an amazing sight before death was a spectacle in itself.

 Chapter 139: Badge in Azure (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 139: Badge in Azure (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In Saleen eyes, the water elements within the space had been arranged clearly and were moving around in aplicated sequence within the space. Even though they had already be more than a hundred times less dense, their enormous strength still left Saleen immobile.


    Saleen quietly appreciated them. He began to remember the contents of the book that Joey had given him. The different forms of the water elements had been imprinted within his brain, and whatever he had not understood in the past now became much clearer.


    Joey¡¯s book had been intricate and many of its words had needed to be analyzed with magic forme to make them easier to read. Otherwise, Saleen would not have been able to understand anything. However, right now, the water elements before his eyes were the best teachers, using the most direct method to allow Saleen to understand the truths of the water element.


    Moreover, in these forms, a horrifying energy was concealed within. It was not energy of the light or dark type, but was something stronger. Saleen still could not figure out what this energy was, but he knew that this seventh type of energy was not something beyond his imagination.


    If he was able to live through this, sooner orter he would be able to grasp this form of energy. Saleen knew that so long as he became a sorcerer, his focus would continue to grow and he would be able to analyze thews behind this form of energy.


    His thirst for survival was revived and Saleen¡¯s heart began to beat faster, the badge within his hands giving off a blue light as well. Within the bolt of lightning etched into the center of the badge, a pool of blue liquid moved along with the rhythm of Saleen¡¯s heartbeat. Just as Saleen began to feel that he would not be able to handle the elemental powers flowing into his body, this blue liquid began to vibrate intensely and tried to escape from the bolt of lightning, directly entering Saleen¡¯s body.


    After the blue liquid entered his body, Saleen could move his arms and legs again. Moreover, the magic chords within his body continued to expand and were crazily absorbing all of the water elements within the space.


    This feeling was something that Saleen was familiar with. He¡­ was about to advance again.


    This time, he did not notice the true changes going on inside of his body. As the blue liquid flowed directly into his magic chords, it dyed them an azure blue color.


    Every mage worked towards controlling a bnce of all six types of elements, and even though they had preferences when it came to researching them, the magic chords inside of their bodies would still possess all six colors.


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords were an azure color that had never been seen before. If he had been able to look inside of his own body, he would have seen branched magic chords as pure as Youlian rock. These pure magic chords were over ten times thicker than when he had only been Grade 3, and the twenty-four branches had even more branches spreading out from them. This was where humans and magic beasts differed. Magic beasts could not control the depletion of their magic chords and Grade 4 magic beasts could only release Grade 4 magic. However, through their branched magic chords, humans could deplete their magic chords in the most logical way possible.


    Saleen was clueless about all of this and only felt the enormous force of expansion within his body lessening. The growth of his focus had left him speechless. Only now did Saleen understand the gap between a grand mage and a low-grade mage. This had to do with the growth of one¡¯s focus and their magic chords. Once there was a breakthrough in the magic chords, advancing from Grade 3 to Grade 4 would lead to an explosive growth in focus. Even without the help of the badge, the extent of his growth had been pretty terrifying.


    When he had been Grade 3, Saleen had not even been able to calcte an attack from a Grade 1 mage during an actual battle. Now, however, he had never felt his focus so energized, and his senses had be more acute with their growth.


    With a gulp, Saleen swallowed the magic liquid that he had been keeping in his mouth, and his body¡¯s energy starteding back to him.


    Moving his limbs, Saleen looked left and right. The space made up of water elements had not broken down, it just could not control him any longer. Saleen walked forward more than ten meters, and at the front was a shimmering screen. This was a wall of energy that had been created by the water elements.


    A blue light shimmered within Saleen¡¯s eyes as he began calcting the weak spots of this wall of energy.


    After a while, Saleen realized that he could not calcte any weak spots in the movements of these water elements. They were moving so fast that even an instantaneous spell would not have been able to capture them. Even if he did manage to calcte the weak spots of the energy wall, he would not be able to break through it.


    He did not give up. If it had been in the past, he would not have even been able to calcte these weak spots. Since promoting, Saleen had not gained any new abilities, but the effects of his icy sight had greatly increased to a terrifying extent. He could even see past the energy wall that had been created by a Grade 10 mage.


    Saleen also knew that if it had been an energy wall created by any other type of element, he would not have been able to see anything. Even so, this ability was incredibly useful.


    Most defensive magic was concentrated in Water Magic and Ground Magic, and when a mage added magic to a swordsman, most of them added Water Magic. Water-type defensive magic would not affect the movement of a swordsman.


    In future battles, Saleen would encounter water-type defensive magic at least forty percent of the time.


    Saleen took out the witcher spider and ced it at his feet. It pounced onto the energy wall and moved around its front legs. Traces of lines were stirred along the energy wall, but not a single hole could be torn in it for the spider to climb through.


    Saleen knew that no matter how extraordinary the witcher spider was, it would not be able to surpass Grade 4 and would cause little to no destruction on a spell Grade 7 or above. However, he did not stop manipting the witcher spider. The energy wall was activated from a magic array and was almost like a giant enclosed magic shield, being very simr to the water shield that he had modified.


    Seeing how the witcher spider had no effect on the energy wall, Saleen had already been able to learn something from that. It was impossible to shift the motion of a magic array onto an independent spell, as the two had different principles of activation. However, the movement of the energy could still be calcted. Saleen observed the vibrations of the water elements that were created from the witcher spider¡¯s attacks andmitted the defense mechanism to his memory.


    Saleen believed that given half a year, he would be able topletely modify the water shield. Creating a new spell would allow the underlying principles of the water shield to be the same as those of the energy wall. Even a weapon that could pierce through magic would not be able to break down the water shield, as the shield would only absorb the energy. Saleen had started growing cautious after seeing the golden arrow from Holzer that had hurt the behemoth¡¯s eye. There were many magic weapons in the world and they had thousands of properties. If they were not careful, a grand mage could be assassinated by an assassin under Grade 4.


    Saleen only put away the witcher spider once it had used up its magic nucleus. Being confined in this space, the only solution that Saleen could think of was to use his n badge again. He had no idea why the badge had reacted differently earlier. However, if he was trapped in here, he would starve to death sooner orter. There were no disadvantages to experimenting.


    Holding the badge in his left hand, Saleen stuck the badge onto the energy wall and released a Grade 0 spell. This time, the blue light from the badge shone in front of Saleen¡¯s eyes and he saw damage on the invisible wall. What surprised Saleen was not the fact that he could now escape, but rather, he realized that this time the badge had merely absorbed his physical strength and half of his focus and magic chords.


    Lex had been waiting anxiously outside of the magic tower when suddenly, the space within the doors disappeared. She saw Saleen standing there exhausted, his shoulder slumped.


    Lex immediately released a Chunlin spell and a green mist was absorbed into Saleen¡¯s body, helping him recover.


    ¡°How are you?¡± Lex asked in worry. However, she quickly realized that something was different about him. His exhaustion was not fake. Even with the help of the Chunlin spell, he was still too weak to move. The elemental waves from his body did not escape her eyes, even with the concealing abilities of the demon equipment. However, Saleen was too weak to fully activate the powers of the demon equipment, and to Lex¡¯s surprise, he had promoted again.


    Promoting two grades in session in less than two months, from a low-grade mage to a grand mage. Something like this had been unheard of in the entire history of the Qin Empire.


    For the first time, Lex was unable to hide her shocked expression, looking at Saleen with a dazed look.


    She was one of the most gifted mages and had the best resources and wealth, yet she had taken nearly three years to promote from Grade 3 to Grade 4. This threshold was a lifelong obstacle for many, and was even harder than the formation of magic chords.


    Forming magic chords was a matter of constitution. However, from Grade 3 to Grade 4, there were many difficult obstacles to cross.


    ¡°Lex, I think I need to sleep for a while.¡± Saleen wearily took a step forward as Nailisi supported him. Heid down softly on Nailisi¡¯s body and closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep.


    Lex did not have much to ask anyways. She looked curiously at the sleeping Saleen. He had a rxed expression, and the youthful glow on his face waspletely gone. He no longer had a fake smile on his face, and was no longer the inexperienced youth he had been before.


    This change was not sudden; however, he had just experienced the threat of death, and that had destroyed whatever innocence he¡¯d had left and caused him topletely mature at heart. This small change had led to him appearingpletely different.


    If a person was able to stare death in the face without any evil thoughts in their mind, it showed that such a person hadpletely matured.


    Lex brought out a carpet andid it on the ground as Nailisi ced Saleen down and sat beside him. She could feel Saleen¡¯s abilities increasing and was also overjoyed. With Saleen¡¯s promotion, her focus would increase too. It would not take long for her to awaken another ability, a trait that only demons possessed.


    Lex took a look at the door in front. Once they went through the second door, it would be the first floor of the magic tower. She held back her urge to rush in and brought out two other carpets. Giving one to Sika, sheid down as well.


    The door had been opened by Saleen and she did not want to enter alone. Since she had been young, she had always strictly followed the fair rules of mages. This perseverance had led to her having a very pure focus with few imperfections. The legacy her father had chosen for her had allowed her to promote to a Grade 5 mage in less than ten years.


    Saleenid on the carpet, sleeping soundly. He was still holding onto the n badge, and on the lightning symbol at its center, the blue light had disappearedpletely, almost as if it had never existed.

 Chapter 140: The First Story (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 140: The First Story (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ce where Saleen and the team were resting was in fact a pathway in the magic tower, and there was a staircase leading to the next story between two doors. Even if the magic array on the ground floor had been broken, the path to the next level would not be fully opened yet. It was possible that there would be another magic array waiting for them just beyond the staircase. However, that flight of stairs would have only been used by disciples. The Grade 10 mage would have most likely used a personal staircase or a transportation array.


    This type of magic tower with a doubleyered structure was unusually strong. The walls were at least three meters thick, and even a magic trebuchet might not have been able to destroy it.


    When Saleen woke up, he saw Lex standing at the entrance of the staircase to the left, looking upwards. Nailisiid next to him, sound asleep. Sika, on the other hand, was seated on the ground, and was using her boomerang to cut a piece of ck bread.


    ¡°Saleen, you are awake!¡± When Sika saw that Saleen had woken up, she felt more assured. Nailisi raised one of her eyelids and took a look around before going back to sleep.


    ¡°Mm, I am awake.¡± Saleen rubbed the back of his neck and stood up before doing some stretching. He had thought that Lex would ascend the magic tower alone, but it turned out that she had been waiting for Saleen to wake up.


    Saleen silently put away his n badge. By now, Saleen had built an ambiguous rtionship with the n badge that was simr to the soul contract between him and Nailisi. Words could not urately describe this rtionship.


    Saleen could only feel that the n badge possessed tremendous power. This power would not hurt him, but he was unable to tap into it as well. Even with Saleen¡¯s current immense mental power, he still did not have the capabilities of exploring the secrets of the n badge.


    ¡°Lex,¡± Saleen called. Lex looked back and smiled. Saleen might have belonged to a different grade than Lex, but he was also a mage master now, and ording to the traditions of the Qin Empire, they would enjoy the same status. Right now, thebined powers of Saleen, Nailisi, and Sika were not any weaker that of a Grade 5 mage. Once Saleen mastered Grade 4 and Grade 5 magic, thebat power of the three of them would be close to that of a Grade 6 mage.


    ¡°Let¡¯s head in. I can¡¯t wait any longer,¡± Lex said, pointing to the door leading to the next story.


    Sika quickly stuffed the ck bread into her mouth and pped her hands, saying unclearly, ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s go.¡±


    Nailisi opened her eyes and reluctantly dragged herself up. Getting a good rest was a rare opportunity for her, and now she was going into battle again. Nailisi did not believe that the next level would be any safer. Setting a second trap behind the first was something that little demons like her loved to do.


    Lex came before the door. This door was small. Lex pushed, and although the door opened lightly, it felt heavy. Beyond the door was pure darkness, and Lex felt more at ease seeing that. She cast an Illumination spell, and the ce lit up.


    The floor was bigger than expected. It was a hexagonal hall, and each side was nearly twenty meters wide. In the center of the hall was a metallic instrument. This instrument was about twelve meters tall and reached the ceiling. In the center of this instrument was a cylinder with a diameter of less than two meters. This bronze cylinder was filled with magic patterns. Additionally, there was a ring-shaped alchemy bench at the base of the bronze cylinder.


    With the bronze cylinder as the main part, six mechanical arms extended out from it to its surroundings. Each arm had three joints, allowing them to twist and move freely. At the top of the cylinder, there were hollow metal cabs of various sizes. A mage could control the mechanical arms using the alchemy bench and could use them to take items from the cabs.


    Building an alchemyboratory in a magic tower was amon thing for mages to do. But to use the entire floor to house an alchemy machine such as this was unheard of.


    Lex continued to cast the Illumination spell and nced upwards. At a height of roughly six meters, metallic branches extended from the bronze cylinder, and on those branches were minute tforms. On the tforms were sealed rooms of various sizes, and all of these rooms were transparent and mosaicked with giant crystals. There were mini alchemy tforms inside of those rooms.


    The rooms of different sizes upied all of the space in the upper part of the room. Saleen was astounded and a term came to his mind ¨C mechanical alchemy tree.


    This had been amon instation during the Second Dynasty. A mechanical alchemy tree allowed numerous mages to work together at the same time and carry outrge scale alchemy experiments. However, this instation had a strict operating requirement, which was that every mage had to be a sorcerer at minimum. This empty alchemyboratory was a testament to how lively things had been in the past.


    At least ten sorcerers had once worked in this ce, and they must have carried out many terrifying alchemy experiments.


    On four of the walls, there were crystal cabs which were six meters tall. The arrangement of thepartments inside of the cabs was unknown, but Saleen knew that it would just be anotherplex magic form. In fact, thosepartments could be moved around at anytime, not being fixed to the spot.


    On this story, the entire area was an alchemyboratory filled with machines.


    Various magic materials and alchemical products were disyed in the crystal cabs, and Saleen even saw a fully constructed puppet that was over three meters tall in one. The fully constructed puppet was the true danger. Compared to a war puppet, a fully constructed puppet was over one thousand times more expensive to build. Additionally, the difference in theirbat power wasparable to that between a swordsman and a grand swordmaster.


    Above all, the fully constructed puppet did not require a mage to control it. As long as a mage cast a magic imprint on a target, the puppet would automaticallyunch attacks against that target.


    Furthermore, magic arrays could be set in the body of the fully constructed puppet. Through mosaicked magic nuclei within the magic arrays, this puppet could even cast spells. Magic nuclei that were Grade 7 or below were not able to activate such a monster. In the entire Myers Maind, such puppets were only found in the Cloudflow Empire, and they were all hidden inside of the pce.


    The entirety of this floor in the magic tower was like a treasure vault. Various types of valuable materials had been ssified into differentpartments and stored into the crystal cabs, making people feel the pain of envy.


    Since there was no danger, Nailisi¡¯s mental power became very powerful as well, and she surveyed the entire floor. The magic array in the magic tower had stopped functioning as the magic nuclei in its core area had long since been exhausted.


    ¡°It¡¯s safe.¡± Lex also heaved a sigh a relief. She did not bother looking at the objects in the crystal cabs. She merely gave a deadly stare towards the mechanical alchemy tree in the center of the room.


    If she had a way of moving it to the Myers Maind, she would be able to create another Alchemy City. The material used to build a mechanical alchemy tree had gone extinct on the Myers Maind long ago. This material was part metal and part nt, and it only grew in certain dimensions. This material was hard to acquire and even harder to refine.


    Tens of thousands of years ago, humans had collected a lot of it and had wanted to cultivate it on the Myers Maind. Unfortunately, the nts withered in about ten years and had not bore fruit, so humans were unable to obtain their seeds.


    The material that was extracted from the nt was only the size of a finger. So in order to produce such a big mechanical alchemy tree, an astronomical quantity of the material must have been required.


    The tree could definitely be stored in the god¡¯s ring. However, there were some restrictions with using the space to store equipment. Lex could break down the tree and store it in smaller pieces in the god¡¯s ring.


    Breaking down a mechanical alchemy tree? Even if Lex had been a Grade 9 sorcerer, she would not have had the means to do it.


    Saleen felt regretful, as the space in his Ring of Gifts and demonic ring were too small. Nailisi¡¯s bracelet had arger space, but it would also not be able to fit everything in this room.


    Those crystals were not elemental, and their values were not any lower than the items in the cabs. Howeer, just like the mechanical alchemy tree, the crystal cabs could not be stored directly into the space of their equipment as it was toorge. If the cabs were broken, then their value would depreciate.


    What could be worse than being unable to keep the treasures that one had seen?


    Saleen took a deep breath and said to Lex, ¡°Do we go up, or do we split the loot first?¡± Saleen tried to maintain hisposure. The crystal cabs and mechanical alchemy tree could be left here for now, but the items in the cabs could be split among themselves. Saleen kept reminding himself that he should already have been satisfied with such a harvest, because in most cases, such a situation would not have urred at all.


    In most cases, the remains would not have been so valuable. But in this case, just one fully constructed puppet alone would already be worth a huge fortune.


    ¡°Let¡¯s split the items first,¡± Lex replied,posing herself. Though the mechanical alchemy tree could not be brought with them as aplete item, it could also be broken down into smaller pieces and then stored in the god¡¯s ring. Perhaps Lex would not be able to replicate this set of alchemy equipment when she returned to Myers, but the value of these materials had already exceeded the total worth of a duchy.


    ¡°How will we split them?¡± Saleen was not going to be passive. He had opened the magic tower, so he was not going to let Lex take the big piece of the pie.


    ¡°Since there are four of us, each of us will take one share,¡± Lex replied decisively. In any case, the most precious item could not be taken away, and the remaining items could not be found on the Myers Maind.


    When Saleen saw Lex¡¯s generosity, he rubbed his fingers together and said, ¡°Since the Qin Empire is at war, I will only take two of these fully constructed puppets. If you manage to discover their production method, you can give the remaining puppets to me.¡±


    Saleen knew that these fully constructed puppets were more useful than grand swordmasters on the battlefield. There were twenty fully constructed puppets in total, and he and Nailisi could only control one each, so it would not be meaningful for him to take more.


    ¡°Alright, thank you,¡± Lex replied, but she did not say much. Everyone began moving items out from the crystal cabs and categorizing them.


    Lex put away ten fully constructed puppets first. On the other hand, Nailisi took out the beast skins from her bracelet and threw them away. Then, she put away the other two puppets. Even though the space in her bracelet was big, it was not as big as that of the god¡¯s ring. Those beast skins were obviously less precious than the items in the crystal cabs, and Nailisi was a petty person, so she did not want to get the shorter end of the stick.


    Lexughed and said, ¡°Don¡¯t throw them away. Those are good materials.¡± As Lex spoke, she removed a bracelet from her wrist and gave it to Nailisi, saying, ¡°Here, use this.¡±


    Nailisi looked at Saleen and Saleen nodded. ording to their equal allocation, Saleen was supposed to have received nine puppets, so he had actually given seven to Lex. The research value of these puppets was tremendous, not to mention the cost of their production. Lex had ten fully constructed puppets, and if her luck was not too bad, she would only need to disassemble five puppets at most to conduct her own research.


    When she saw that Saleen had nodded, Nailisi then epted the bracelet joyously and put it on her wrist. This bracelet had been carved out of anonymous tremolite, and the value of this tremolite was not any less than those ten fully constructed puppets.


    (Notes: Tremolite, also known as nephrite, has many variants. It is used in many alchemy tools, and is the most expensive stone in the amphibole family of minerals.)

 Chapter 141: The First Story (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 141: The First Story (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi carefully observed the space in the green bracelet and discovered that its size was many timesrger than that of Aini¡¯s bracelet. The only thingcking was that the texture of the tremolite was not sturdy enough, and even if it underwent magic reinforcement, it may never be as solid as Aini¡¯s bracelet. Furthermore, Aini¡¯s bracelet contained a Grade 8 defense spell. Nailisi could not deploy that spell now, but it did not mean that she would not be able to do so in the future.


    The following tasks were simple. The four of them split the materials, followed by the alchemical products.


    Most of the materials could also be found on the Myers Maind and were split into four portions. Saleen took three portions, while Lex took one. When it came to the alchemical products, Saleen said, ¡°Lex, take all of the swordsmen equipment.¡±


    Saleen was not doing this out of generosity. Since the Qin Empire and the Holy See were at war with each other, the alchemical swordsmen equipment would have a significant effect on the battlefield. In small scale battles, just one or two high-level weapons could decide the oue of a battle. Saleen also had a deep grudge against the Holy See, so the more enemies the Qin Empire could kill, the more assured Saleen would feel.


    Lex was even more blunt. Once she returned, she would establish a massive army in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Lex did notck the money to feed her soldiers, shecked high quality weapons. Firstly, there was the time constraint. A stainless steel sword required six months to be produced, from the mining process all the way to the production line. In addition, alchemical weapons needed to be managed in alchemy arrays and polished by mage disciples in order to be high quality weapons.


    The second concern was manpower. A sorcerer only required two to three days¡¯ time to produce one alchemical weapon. But sorcerers were umon and they could not be confined to simply producing weapons for swordsmen. This job would be left to the low-level mages or mage disciples. The Bitter Water Prefecture had arge poption of low-level mages and mage disciples, but the number was still insufficient for therge scale production of alchemical weapons.


    In addition to the swordsmen equipment, there was many a great deal of mage equipment as well. But Saleen unintentionally saw other types of equipment such as equipment for archers and assassins as well. There was also equipment for ancient professions, such as astrologers and wizards.


    Sika¡¯s eyes lit up. She pointed to a ne and called out, ¡°Sa, Saleen!¡±


    ¡°You want this?¡± Saleen picked up a ne. This ne had been produced entirely from the bones of magic beasts. Each segment was rectangr and white, and faint totem symbols could be seen on it.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Sika replied in only one word.


    Lexughed. She had no use for this ne. Out of the hundreds of thousands of people in Bitter Water Prefecture, there was not a single wizard or priest. These professions existed in very small numbers and were only in a small number of ces on the maind. As the Holy See¡¯s activities spread across the region, these professions were also gradually going extinct.


    Saleen passed the ne to Sika. The ne looked a little ghastly and creepy, but once it was ced around Sika¡¯s neck, it began to give out a hint of vitality. It suited Sika¡¯s masculine face and looked natural on her.


    ¡°What is that?¡± Saleen had a perceptive and cold gaze, and he had seen the changes to the ne. The bone ne had only just been put on by Sika, and it had already made a faint connection with Sika as though the ne was alive and was calling out to her.


    ¡°This is a heirloom from a warrior priest. It¡¯s been a long time since an item like this has appeared.¡± Sika caressed the bone ne, unable to control the emotions of her heart.


    Saleen and Lexughed and continued splitting the loot. This Grade 10 mage had not even treated the gods with respect. Naturally, they would not have cared about the heirloom of a warrior priest either. Lex¡¯s main concern was to get items which would be useful for the war, while Saleen just wanted Sika to be happy. As for the value of the ne, he had not thought about it yet.


    ¡°I want these nk scrolls, while those mage sets will go to you. What do you think?¡± Saleen said, pointing to a stack of nk scrolls.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Lex had wanted those scrolls too. Those nk scrolls were premium items as they could store magic in them for long periods of time. However, the mage sets were of greater importance to her. Her army would have arge number ofbat mages, and with these mage sets which contained unique attributes, thebat power of the army would grow by numerous times.


    Saleen immediately stored these hundreds of nk scrolls into the Ring of Gifts. Saleen did not have an official identity, so it was crucial for him to increase his ownbat power. These scrolls could only be used once, but their value was not any lower than that of the mage sets. Scrolls which could store Grade 7 or above magic were scarce because there were not many high-level magic beasts to begin with and these beasts were difficult to kill.


    If Saleen had gotten the mage sets, at best, he would have only been able to sell them off and receive gold coins in return. But it would be impossible for him to use the gold coins to purchase those exceptional scrolls. Furthermore, the fourrgest businesses in the Qin Empire would not be able to produce so many scrolls for Saleen.


    ¡°Then these shall belong to you.¡± Lex pointed to the hundreds of pieces of equipment meant for archers and assassins. Lex had these people of these professions working under her, but those pieces of equipment were either easily produced or there was a low demand for them. Hence, those pieces of equipment could be considered some form ofpensation for Saleen.


    Nailisi did not wait for Saleen¡¯s response and began gathering that equipment.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go up and take a look.¡± Saleen shook his head silently. Nailisi was a caring contract creature and it was not a bad thing. The way she ate might have been a little appalling, but at least she was not wasteful. Anyway, the items on this floor could not have been the most precious things here. Those on the higher floors would be the main attraction. If they could find the notes left behind by the Grade 10 mage, then none of the items in this magical tower would be as valuable as those.


    This floor was an entirely independent space. If they wanted to go up to the second story, they would need to use the mezzanine. Lex and Saleen came before the mezzanine, and Saleen said, ¡°Bless me with ice te armor.¡±


    Lex pursed her lips and startedughing. Saleen finally had a bit of a temper. It had to have been his ego, as he did not want Lex to be walking in front anymore. She raised her hands and blessed Saleen with ice te armor while Saleen cast a water shield. Out of magic that was Grade 6 or below, these two spells were the strongest solo defense spells despite the fact that they were only Grade 4.


    Saleen cast the Fluorescence spell and went up the stairs. Nailisi was thest to leave the first floor. She was behaving a little sneakily, so she must have found something else. When Nailisi saw that no one had noticed her actions, she silently followed behind Sika. The four of them had a distance of two meters between one another as they ascended the stairs.


    Saleen was feeling perturbed as he did not know whether the second story also had a simr magic array as the first, so he decided to take out his n badge and held it in his hand. At the same time, he cast two miniature water shields on his left hand.


    The two water shields erged a little, each of them bing the size of two fists, and they energetically encircled Saleen. The water elements had transformed Saleen¡¯s body, helped him advance and transforming the two water shields. More specifically, these water shields absorbed a little more than one-third of Saleen¡¯s energy. Additionally, the way the elements flowed within the water shields had silently changed. They were now extremely simr to the energy wall that Saleen had broken.


    The staircase was narrow and circled upwards. The Fluorescence spell gave off a green glow, and this green glow shined on the walls to both sides, making them look a little eerie. In such a narrow environment, if there was a trap like the torrent of elements, no one would be able to escape. They would only be able to rely on the defenses of the magic shields.


    Each story was about twelve meters tall, but the length of the staircase was a little weird. Saleen walked about two hundred meters before reaching the second story. The setup of the second story was identical to the first, minus the horrifying magic array.


    Saleen was relieved, but he did not dispel his defenses. With the n badge still clutched in his hand, he pushed on the door.


    On the second story was another hall. In the center of the hall, there were dozens of gigantic crystal test tubes. These test tubes were ced on arge metal rack. They were sealed, and in them were liquids of various colors. Saleen entered the hall and came before the gigantic crystal test tubes, beginning to look into them.


    The test tube in front of Saleen was filled with red translucent liquid, and in the liquid was a specimen of a magic beast. This magic beast was not too big. Its eyes were closed and it had a long tail. The beast had a disproportionate brain that had fine scales on it. Its front legs were slender while its hind legs were thick and muscr. This beast looked a great deal like a dragon shown inside of biology books.


    When Lex and the others entered the second story and saw all of these test tubes in front of them, Lex and Saleen finally understood that those magic beasts outside had indeed been transformed by mages.


    As Saleen inspected each test tube, he saw dozens of creatures that he had never seen before. These creatures resembled some very powerful magic beasts, but had ring differences.


    The owner of this magic tower had indeed been perverted, actually having nurtured so many rare magic beasts. There was a high possibility that there were magic arrays that could grow naturally in the skulls of these beasts.


    Lex cast her gaze upon their surroundings. There was a shelf against the wall which contained a copious amount of books. Lex could not contain her excitement and walked over, taking one book and opening it.


    The book was written in Myersnguage, using ink made from dragon¡¯s blood. This premium ink could preserve words for thousands of years.


    Saleen walked over as well and randomly selected a book. The book he picked was filled with pictures. These pictures contained the anatomy of various magic beasts, and there were many magic forme written beside the pictures.


    Saleen grew excited. These pieces of information contained instructions on how to create magic beasts with special abilities. If these books were brought back, they would definitely send shockwaves through the Myers Maind.


    The Grade 4 magic beasts which had attacked the camp in the past must have been transformed too, otherwise they would not have been able to spit fireballs and cast magic shields. Even if those beasts could not control their actions, their reproductive value alone would already be astounding.


    Saleen could still remember the egg-sized magic nuclei in those magic beasts. The magic nuclei contained immense energy. In addition, the behemoth in the forest had possessed six magic nuclei each the size of pumpkins, and even the ones in dragons were notparable to them.


    The magic beasts in captivity had magic nuclei as well, but they were all too small and the beasts had lost theirbat power. The magic nuclei provided by Lex back in the Bitter Water Prefecture to be used for training were exactly like that. They were small in size, cheap, low in energy, and were not suitable forbat. Those inferior magic nuclei were highly unstable and could not power magic arrays.


    But how would they split these books? Saleen desired this information, and Lex had a pressing need for them too. Behind her was the Qin Empire. The empire could provide sufficient financial backing and materials for therge scale cultivation of such magic beasts.


    If this shelf had been flooded with magic nuclei or gold coins, Saleen would not have been in such a dilemma. But all of these books contained so much knowledge, and a mage could not resist the temptation of knowledge.

 Chapter 142: Gamble (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 142: Gamble (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen and Lex looked at the tens of thousands of notes, both unwilling to give them away. These notes from the mages had arge amount of information on magic beasts in them and described more than one hundred thousand magic forme.


    The Figaro form was the basic theory behind all magic. However, that did not mean that by learning the Figaro form, one did not need to learn the others. There were over ten thousand basic sequences in the Figaro form alone, and they were even moreplicated than the changes in the stars.


    A mage could study for all of their life and still not learn all of the forme, much less create so many of them. However, all of the magic notes in this hall carried rted information, and if they were separated, their value would drop steeply. Seeing that Lex was not saying a word, Saleen knew that she was unwilling to give them up.


    ¡°How about this? You can choose to take everything from either the second or third story.¡± Saleen proposed a solution, something that Sikeqinya merchants often used. They were used to dealing withrge trade deals, and if a merchant wanted to take all of the goods from a certain month, aside from paying for them, they would need to give up the next month¡¯s goods to the other party as well.


    The prices of goods fluctuated, and thus, taking everything first could lead to either massive losses or massive profits. It was a gamble, and aside from needing a merchant¡¯s eye, one needed luck as well.


    Lex said without hesitation, ¡°I want the second floor.¡±


    The value of the items on the third floor might have been greater. That was usually the case for magic towers like these. However, Lex was not about to give up knowledge on the modification of magic beasts. For a mage, this information might have all seemed the same, but for a country, there was apletely different meaning.


    Saleen took onest look at the books and notes on the second floor and called out for Sika and Nailisi before turning to leave. He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would regret his decision.


    Lex continued gathering the information on the second floor while Saleen went up the stairway to the third floor with his ice te armor and water shields.


    Opening the door tentatively, a killer aura struck him. The water shields on his body seemed to expand vigorously into a giant ball, blocking the entryway. At the same time, he released another water shield as the water shield which had blocked the entrance was crushed by the killer aura. He released a third spell without hesitation.


    Now that his magic chords had grown, he could release nearly one hundred Grade 2 spells. Sika and Nailisi were behind him and he could not retreat. He could only release spells one by one to counter the aura.


    Thankfully, the defensive abilities of his water shields had reached Grade 4 and water-type defensive magic was the strongest type, making them hard to destroy. The killer aura was stopped by the magic shield for a short while, and using this time, Saleen was able to release a Grade 2 magic shield.


    Retreat was not an option; however, the killer aura did not seem to be stopping. While releasing over ny-six spells, Saleen could only back up a few meters at most.


    Saleen toughly persevered. On the exterior of his body, a giant transparent bubble repeatedly expanded. He had no idea of the properties of the killer auraing from inside the third story of the magic tower, and his magic shields were unusually weak under its attacks.


    Saleen broke out into a cold sweat. He had been too careless. There were so many things that were unknown in this world. He had just advanced to Grade 4 and he had already be so full of himself. Even if Lex realized the danger, she would not be able to rush here in time. The water shield would barely be able tost for half a second before breaking.


    Sika had already grabbed her cudgel from her back and Nailisi was clenching her teeth nervously, wanting to revert to her demon form. However, all these things could not help Saleen. His body no longer carried the strength of the water shields and once his magic chords were depleted, his body would instantly be crushed.


    Saleen held the n badge in his left hand. At this moment, he could only fight with all his strength. If the badge¡¯s method of absorbing energy ended up being the same as it had been on the first floor, he would die.


    Just as the ny-fifth water shield was crushed and Saleen was about to use the unknown energy inside of the badge, the killer auraing from the door suddenly disappeared.


    Saleen¡¯s body shook. Consecutively releasing all of those spells had nearlypletely depleted his magic chords. He might have done so during training, but his life had not been in danger during those times and he had not been as nervous as he was now. The pressure of imminent death had ced a lot of stress on his body and if he had not constantly used the badge to train, his body would have fallen apart first, even before his focus or magic chords.


    The scene of the third floor of the magic tower came into view. It was also a hall and was empty except for a skeleton at its center. The skeleton was almost eight meterss long and half of it consisted of the bones of its tail. It had an interesting structure with two sets of wings. Aplicated magic pattern had naturally formed upon its abnormally elongated skull.


    The entire skeleton of this magic beast was not too big and the bones of the tail were thick. Without the tail, it was probably a meter longer than the Grade 4 magic beasts in the forest.


    There were no other items on the third floor and Saleen began to regret his choice. He had almost given up his life earlier. Would he only obtain this magic beast skeleton in exchange for all of the magic notes on the second floor?


    ¡°Saleen, it was this thing just now,¡± Sika said, pointing at the skeleton.


    It was then that Saleen understood. There were no offensive magic arrays on the entire third floor, and the only thing present was this pile of bones. This magic beast had probably died over a thousand years ago. Otherwise, it would have still had its skin and fur. After thousands of years of decay, it could still almost kill a grand mage like him. How strong must this magic beast have been when it was still alive?


    Sika walked forward cautiously and carefully touched the skeleton¡¯s skull. She said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, give me this skeleton.¡±


    ¡°Me too,¡± Nailisi said with inappropriate timing.


    ¡°What¡¯s yours is mine as well.¡± Saleen red at Nailisi and said, ¡°Think of a way to put this away.¡±


    The skeleton of this magic beast was long but not wide. Its size was not considered big either. Upon closer inspection, it was roughly the same size as one of Lex¡¯s war puppets. Nailisi begrudgingly put away the magic skeleton.


    It was then that Saleen asked, ¡°Sika, what do you want to do with this?¡±


    ¡°The magic beast soul is still inside this skeleton. Once I be a true warrior priest, I can ride it.¡± A joyful glow was in Sika¡¯s eyes. Saleen had never seen her this happy before.


    Saleen felt much better after this. Despite losing the magic notes, he had managed to gain the smile of Sika. It seemed like a good trade. He owed her too much. At least he did not care about her too much.


    As for the riding that Sika had mentioned, Saleen did not think too much about it. This magic beast had been powerful when it was alive, but it was only a pile of bones now that it was dead. Even if he could use alchemy to make it into something simr to a puppet, it would not be able to fly. Thinking about it dragging its four wings and running on the floor made Saleen happy. This skeleton was likely very tough. The entire third floor had only contained this magic beast, and anything that a Grade 10 mage raised was at least Grade 9. If this skeleton was used to process a magic prop, it would be a top-grade material.


    ¡°Saleen, the magic beast soul within this skeleton is very powerful and will be incredible in the future.¡± Sika was afraid that Saleen would be regretful and exined it to him patiently. Saleen felt his heart flutter. Sika¡¯s cudgel had not been processed by Faerun in the beginning, and using the magic beast soul within, she had managed to block a divine spell from an ascetic. That magic beast had not beenplete and had been of a lower grade than the magic beast she had obtained now. Looking at it this way, this magic beast skeleton of at least Grade 9 must have had a pretty high value. Even though they were not the magic notes from the second floor, if Sika had note here, she likely would not have been able to obtain such a strong magic beast soul in her lifetime.


    ¡°I understand. We did not lose out.¡± In his heart, Saleen thought that the magic nucleus of this magic beast must have still been here. If there was no other way, he could dig it out and sell it for an astronomical price.


    Seeing how Saleen was still bothered, Sika became a little depressed. However, thinking about how she would be able to roam the world with this magic beast soul once she became a warrior priest, she felt much better. The number of warrior priests among the Cascausus people were very few, and one that possessed a flying magic beast soul had been unheard for a few centuries.


    At that time, she could use the opportunity to fashion a convenient weapon and she would no longer need to use this cudgel. The more she thought about it, the happier she became, beginning tough softly.


    Nailisi did not get anything and bared her teeth towards Sika¡¯s back, thinking in her heart: You canugh for now. I hope you choke the next time you eat something.


    If Saleen had been able to read Nailisi¡¯s thoughts, he would have discovered that she had be kinder. If this had been the past, she would have poisoned Sika¡¯s bread or secretly backstabbed her.


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords temporarily could not be restored and hence he waited for Lex on the third floor. Holding a magic nucleus in his hand, he sat on the floor and started meditating. The feeling of losing his magic chords was horrible, and for a mage, one¡¯s magic chords were more important than their limbs. Without his magic chords, Saleen felt difort throughout his entire body.


    When Saleen opened his eyes, Lex was already waiting beside him.


    ¡°You met with danger?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Seeing Lex, Saleen shuddered at the thought of what had happened. If Lex had been beside him, he would not have embarrassed himself. Lex surely possessed some special magic props with her or would have been able to release a Grade 6 magic scroll to aid him. In that case, at least he would have been able to escape.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not travel separately.¡± Lex did not say much. Seeing the third floor empty, she knew that there was not anything on this floor. It seemed that she had won this gamble. Once she returned to the Myers Maind, she could use the powers of the country and start creating these special magic beasts on arge scale. They could be used for battle or for their magic nuclei.


    ¡°Hopefully the fourth floor doesn¡¯t disappoint.¡± Saleen stood up, having Lex go ahead. Lex burst out intoughter. Saleen seemed to be quite well psychologically, and whatever he had lost on the third floor could easily be made up for on the other floors. It was possible that they would even get a chance to gamble again on the next floor.


    They already had an enormous loot from the first three floors and even for a wealthy mage, he or she might not have gain so many resources in their lifetime. Saleen had epted it and did not count his losses any longer. He followed Lex towards the fourth floor and released a water shield for her at the same time.


    If a mage could not keep a positive outlook, they would walk further away from the crossroad and eventually lose sight of their goals.

 Chapter 143: Gamble (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 143: Gamble (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex approached the fourth floor of the magic tower. She turned her head and said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, want to do it again?¡±


    ¡°Again?¡± Saleen looked at the fourth floor¡¯s door, stunned. It took him a while to understand what Lex was saying. ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°The fourth and fifth floor are one section together, and the sixth floor is another section. You choose.¡± Lexughed, in a good mood. In any case, she was satisfied with what she had gotten on the second floor, and even if she lost this time, she would not care. She wanted to see what Saleen would choose.


    ¡°Then I shall pick the sixth floor.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t regret it.¡± Lex winked, showing off her youthful side.


    Saleen gave a snort. What was there to regret? He had already absorbed the energy of the magic array that had been protecting this ten story magic tower and learned the essence of water-type magic. He had even promoted to a grand mage. All these things were enough to satisfy him.


    Lex extended her hand and opened the door to the fourth floor. She released an Illumination spell. Inside was a tunnel in the shape of a cross. She walked into the tunnel and realized that it had been the room of a disciple.


    The daily necessities of a mage were taken care of by their disciples. For example, Lex was a Grade 5 mage, and even if she had not been a viscountess, she would have been able to find magic disciples or even low-grade mages to follow under her. Even Saleen currently had that privilege.


    For some reason, looking into this room, Saleen felt sorry for Lex. There would not be anything valuable on the entire fourth floor, and if the disciple living here had still been alive, they would have been the ones with the greatest amounts of wealth. To have been epted as a student of a Grade 10 mage, their talents must have been one in a million.


    Lex gave a lightugh and said, ¡°Let¡¯s go to the fifth story.¡±


    It was possible that there were valuable things in the disciple¡¯s room, but they were too sparse and Lex did not even bother looking for them. Saleen nodded. Lex¡¯s attitude was much more stable than his. Back on the third floor, he had not been this calm.


    Walking up to the fifth floor, Saleen began to feel nervous and had to readjust his breathing using the guidelines of meditation.


    Lex opened the door without hesitation and even Saleen had to respect her luck. At least in these two stories, Lex had not met with any danger. On the other hand, he had nearly been killed by a magic beast from thousands of years ago.


    The fifth floor was also separated into rooms. In this moment, Saleen realized that on the fifth floor, despite having expected it to be smaller, there was the same amount of space as the other floors. He had heard that Grade 9 mages were able to create such spaces, but he was a little shocked seeing them for the first time.


    There were four rooms on the fifth floor and all the people who had lived here must have been grand mages at minimum. This time, Lex did not even bother walking in. She cocked her head and said to Saleen, ¡°Looks like fate is fair. Let¡¯s go to the sixth floor.¡±


    Fate is fair? Saleen thought back to his childhood.


    Saleen had yed the right cards with this gamble. As Lex opened the door to the sixth floor, the interior glowed with a soft light. This light was a magicmp.


    At the center of the hall was an enormous magic array. There was nothing inside, but on four of the walls to the side were bookshelves. This must have been the ce where the owner of the magic tower had imparted their knowledge to their students.


    The bookshelves were filled with books, and as Saleen walked over, he picked up a book and started flipping through it. It turned out to be a book on magguages.


    When mages learned a new spell, they had to go through a phase where they recited the spell. The pronunciation and focus of the mage determined the uracy of the adjustment of their magic chords. This technique was incredibly important, as it determined the speed with which a mage could familiarize themselves with a new spell.


    If the notes on the second floor contained targeted knowledge, then those on the sixth floor contained the guiding principles and foundations of magic. The more knowledge a mage possessed, the greater his or her achievements would be.


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Saleen called out softly. Nailisi understood what Saleen wanted as she started putting away the books. These books may not have been as numerous as the ones which Jason possessed, but they were notcking in quality. The wealth left behind by a Grade 10 mage was even able to entice Lex.


    Nailisi moved quickly while Lex and Saleen waited. Sika had no interest whatsoever in these magic books and she had already gotten what she wanted the most. A skeleton ne would allow her to be a warrior priest, and the remains of that magic beast had provided her with a magic beast soul. She took out a piece of jerky from her bag and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing roughly.


    ¡°Sigh¡­¡± Lex let out a sigh. Her teacher already had enough books in his collection, however, looking at the books on the sixth floor, she could not help but feel her heart flutter.


    ¡°Lex, again.¡± Saleen was in a good mood, and with these books, he would go back and search for his teacher so he could share all of them with him. Now that he feltpletely bnced again, even if there was not anything on the other floors, it would not matter to him any longer.


    ¡°How shall we split it?¡± Lex immediately regained her rity. Both her and Saleen had noticed that with their ascension up the magic tower, in addition to gaining unexpected wealth, they had also managed to train their wills. Lex was d that she had managed to control herself today and she would not be tempted in the future. They were merely magic books, and even without them, she would be able to reach the peak of magic.


    ¡°Same rules. The seventh and eighth floors will be one section and the ninth floor will be another. This time, you choose.¡±


    ¡°I will take the seventh and eighth floor.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t regret it.¡± Saleen realized that since he had be a grand mage, he had felt more rxed speaking to Lex. Saleen had been able to disregard Lex¡¯s position in the royal family in the past, but he had not been able to ignore the fact that she was a grand mage. Now that he was a grand mage as well, some of the boundaries between them had disappeared. If this had been the past, he would not have cracked a joke like this.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never done anything regrettable in my life.¡± Watching Nailisi finish putting away the magic books, she led Saleen towards the seventh floor. The staircase between the two floors was still as cold and narrow as before. Lex gave Saleen another ice te armor while Saleen continued with his water shields.


    The seventh floor represented the position of the sorcerer, and both of them had thoughts of escaping if danger arose. Even though the previous sixth floor had been rtively calm, nobody was able to read a mage¡¯s temper.


    At the entrance to the seventh floor, Lex carefully prepared to push open the door. Saleen held his n badge in his hand as well, waiting to provide aid at any time. He realized that this badge of his was a weapon that could be used to break down magic arrays. Even a magic array that had been set by a Grade 10 mage had been unable to escape the fate of having its energy sucked away by the badge. When they returned to the Myers Maind, at least he would not need to worry about being trapped in a magic array.


    Lex stood at the door to the seventh floor and pushed.


    The door did not budge. Lex stared in surprise. There were no elemental vibrations on the door and it seemed no different from any of the other doors. And yet, she could not push it open.


    Saleen gave augh. Standing behind Lex, he reminded her in a low voice, ¡°This door needs to be pulled.¡±


    Lex grew red in embarrassment. Even a grand mage could make such an elementary mistake. The past few doors downstairs had been opened with a push, but the one on this floor was reversed. She should have thought of that. Lex ced her hand on the door, and with a light pull, the door to the seventh floor of the magic tower opened without a sound.


    The room glowed brightly, engulfing the outside of the door entirely. Saleen stared directly into the room, seeing nothing within the room. The only thing present was a colorful light that seemed to move around like a cloud.


    Lex closed the door with a loud bang.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen could not understand. The energy in this room was simr to the one in the goddess¡¯ ne. However, standing outside the room, he could not uncover the secrets in the room.


    ¡°It is a space for mages to train; however, it is meant for sorcerers. We are not allowed inside.¡±


    ¡°A six element space?¡± Only then did this unfamiliar term pop into Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Should be. It is impossibly difficult for a sorcerer to advance, and if they are inside the six element space¡­¡± Lex did not finish, suddenly having a thought. In ancient times, the strength of humans had been incredibly powerful, as everyone back then had possessed magic knowledge. ces like the six element space could have easily been set up by anyone.


    If they could create a permanent teleportation portal between the Myers Maind and this interdimensional space, would they not be able to make use of this long forgotten magic array?


    A six element space had been rare even during the Third Dynasty, and there were no such things in the records of the Fourth Dynasty.


    Lex even entertained the thought of training in this ce. Once she advanced and became a sorcerer, she would be able to enter the seventh floor and train at a speed six times faster than normal.


    However, she needed to go back. The Qin Empire was at war, and with her father personally leading an expedition, she could not abandon everything to stay here.


    She had to find a way to create a permanent teleportation portal! At this thought, Saleen said a little hesitantly, ¡°Let¡¯s go to the eighth floor. We can only take a look at this ce.¡±


    Saleen did not have as many thoughts as Lex. He was only Grade 4 and was at least decades away from bing a sorcerer if he was lucky. Someone like Faerun had the backing of the entire royal family and had received the guidance of Grade 8 mages on a daily basis.


    Lex made her way to the eighth floor with great difficulty, and with her hand on the door, pulled. Saleen understood this time. A vacuum existed on Lex¡¯s palm and all the air had been sucked away. The suction on her hand was even stronger than that of a lizard. Mastering this skill, even if a mage could not fly, he or she would not be defeated by their terrain.


    This skill was much more useful than a zipline used by a bandit and it did not seem to consume too many magic chords either.


    This floor was thest of the gambles the two would make. Even if Lex made no mention of it, Saleen would not split the things on the tenth floor by the number of people. The essence of the magic tower was on the highest floor.


    In the center of the hall was a cubic pir that reached straight to the ceiling. Around the metal pir were six giant magic arrays that were embroiled within the stone floor. The pir itself was four meters wide and was a dim silver color with colorful magic patterns on it. The rich colors had been formed with various types of metal.


    There were numerous small holes on the thick pir and they were of varying diameters. None of the magic arrays surrounding it were activated, and there were no elemental vibrationsing from the surface of the pir.


    ¡°What is this?¡± Lex asked Saleen. She did not understand. Saleen shook his head as well. The cement of this pir on the eighth floor of the magic tower showed that it was certainly not something ordinary.


    Hundreds of thousands of small holes lined the metal pir, and yet Saleen¡¯s senses could not sense anything inside of them. His focus had been blocked out, and this metal pir that seemed to let air pass through from all directions was, in fact, an entirely independent existence, almost as though it were not part of the magic tower.

 Chapter 144: The World is a Cheese (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 144: The World is a Cheese (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°This is the first time I have seen metal made out of cheese.¡± Saleen looked at the metal pir that he could not understand, giving it apliment. Lexughed. The pir was in the shape of a cube, and with the many holes on its surface, it did indeed look like pieces of cheese that had been stacked on top of each other.


    ¡°Since it is cheese, we need to taste it to find out how it is,¡± Lex said, walking through the door. Just as she stepped in, an incredible sucking force appeared from the metal pir in the center of the hall, pulling Lex¡¯s body towards it.


    Saleen had acute senses, and the moment this force appeared, he was already aware of it. Seeing Lex¡¯s body move, his hand had already grabbed her hand. His other hand reached back to try and hold onto Sika. So long as Sika and Nailisi held onto him, with their strength, he would definitely be able to hold Lex back.


    However, he caught nothing but air, and with a rush of air against their ears, both him and Lex disappeared inside of the pir. Sika, who had been standing outside and had not managed to hold onto Saleen, took the cudgel from her back and prepared to rush in. Nailisi grabbed her hand. Sika shouted angrily, ¡°Let go!¡±


    ¡°There is no point in you going. You will die.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to care!¡± Sika raised her cudgel, about to strike Nailisi on the head.


    ¡°If you die, Master will think I was the cause.¡± Nailisi released her hand. No matter how strong she was, she did not want to get hit in the head by Sika. Even if she did not die, her skull would be broken.


    Master?


    In her moment of anxiety, Sika had forgotten Nailisi¡¯s rtionship with Saleen. Only then did she realize that if Saleen had currently been in danger, Nailisi would have been the first to rush in. Having been bound together, if their master died, the contracted creature would suffer a fate worse than death.


    ¡°Then what do we do?¡± Sika ced the cudgel on the floor as she red at Nailisi, hoping to find an answer from her face.


    Nailisi did not even bat an eyelid as she sat on the floor and said, ¡°Rest. If Saleen dies, find a ce to bury me. I don¡¯t want to stay in the tower and be a puppet for someone else.¡±


    Sika¡¯s mmed her cudgel against the floor before sitting down indignantly.


    ¡°If I were you, I would use this opportunity to research the ne.¡± Nailisi bent her back backwards, lying on the ground as she strained to keep her eyes open.


    Sika was not in the mood for research at all. Seeing her anxiety, Nailisi closed her eyes and said, ¡°Then I shall go to sleep. If I suddenly die, that means Master is in danger. Do not wait then.¡±


    Saleen had gripped Lex¡¯s hand without a second thought, not daring to let go. The enormous force sucked them directly into the holes on the metal pir. This was not an illusion as Saleen felt himself slide through a bright tunnel, gliding forward. The magic shields on the exterior of his body rubbed vigorously against his surroundings and were depleted rapidly. Saleen felt nauseous. The tunnel was not straight and had many curves to it. If he had not been able to control his heartbeat, having his body thrown around like this definitely would have led to his blood vessels bursting.


    If this continued, the depletion of his magic chords would not be slow either. At this thought, Saleen pulled hard with his hand and brought Lex beside him. Just at that moment, the tunnel curved and the two of them came together in a ball. Lex was shocked, releasing a fire ring of resistance which enclosed both her and Saleen together.


    Lex was a Grade 5 mage and the fire ring of resistance was a Grade 2 spell; she could release it many times. Even though they had both cast a defensive spell, the effects were not doubled. Saleen could use this moment to restore his magic chords, and if the two of them continued taking turns releasing spells, so long as there were no other attacks from this tunnel, they would be able to hold on.


    What angered Lex was that Saleen was embracing her tightly, pushing their bodies together. Whenever the tunnel curved, the two of them were squeezed together forcefully. Saleen was already taller than her, and the belt on his magic robe was pressing right onto her stomach. The tough belt made her skin sear with pain.


    Saleen, on the other hand, had apletely different experience. He could feel Lex¡¯s breasts pressing firmly against his chest, and as the tunnel curved, they became soft and firm. He could not see Lex¡¯s expression but he did not dare move his neck around either, fearing that any movement would cause their heads to smash into each other.


    This was a wonderful feeling and Saleen was not nervous at all. In fact, he was a little rxed. Any concepts he had of women hade from magic books, and most of the descriptions of women by mages had not cast them in a favorable light. Whatever Saleen had been able to learn had to do with knowledge of certain techniques.


    This knowledge was not helpful in the pursuit of magic and many mages had written down warnings in red in their magic notes.


    Women were the greatest roadblock to mages on their journeys in magic; theplexity of women wasparable to the Figaro form; a woman was equivalent to a holy master and a magic beastbined. Most of the warnings had been like this and there had been very fewpliments. Even though Saleen had always regarded thesements with a neutral stance, they still had an influence on him.


    Now, he felt as though as if he could not control his heartbeat, something that also happened when he saw Sika fresh out of the shower. All of his blood rushed up to his head, and his heart went soft while his limbs became stiff.


    Just as Saleen was internally debating on whether he should use magic to stabilize the changes inside his body, Lex started puking all of a sudden.


    The fire ring of resistance could prevent their bodies from rubbing against the metal tunnel and getting injured, but this did not change the fact that they were being hurled around. Lex¡¯s body was not as tough as Saleen¡¯s, and atst, she could not take the churning in her stomach and puked all over Saleen¡¯s back.


    Under normal circumstances, a Cleaning spell would have solved this. However, the two of them were within the fire ring of resistance and around their body was an enclosed magic space. Under these intense revolutions, Saleen saw a sticky liquid hurling towards him.


    St¡­


    Saleen could not take it either, puking onto Lex¡¯s back.


    However, the sensual feelings did not disappear and Saleen continued embracing Lex tightly, not neglecting to release a water shield when the fire ring of resistance was about to disappear.


    Lex did not have as much control as Saleen. He had stopped after puking once, but Lex puked until there was nothing left inside of her, her stomach beginning to hurt.


    She had no way of releasing magic urately in her condition, and Saleen could only repeatedly release his water shields in order to protect their bodies.


    With a booming sound, they emerged from the tunnel andnded heavily on their rears. To protect the two of them, Saleen¡¯s water shield had expanded fully, forming a giant spherical shape. As theynded on the ground, it quickly rebounded into the air andnded on an even tougher material as it was deflected once again.


    Saleen did not dare stop the water shield. Despite having a tough body, he would not be able to take such a beating. After all, he was only a mage and not a swordsman.


    After being bounced around over thirty times, they finally stopped, and only then did Saleen dissipate the water shield. Lex shouted angrily, ¡°Are you not going to let go?¡±


    Lex had never been this dishevelled before. Her chest was aching and her body was covered in her own vomit. Where would she ever have experienced something like this before?


    Saleen released her slowly and said in his softest voice, ¡°Do not move around. Prepare the scrolls.¡±


    Lex took a moment to regain her senses and took a look behind Saleen. The sky was blue and some white clouds were floating aboutzily in the air. In the distance was a mountain range and a forest. Pressing her back against Saleen, she saw dozens of magic beasts staring wickedly at the two of them.


    Seeing the enormous bodies and wide armor of the magic beasts, Lex realized what they had been bouncing off of. They had fallen into a pack of magic beasts and bounced off of them several times. Even if they were not typically carnivorous, they would be agitated by now.


    Saleen looked behind Lex and saw even more magic beasts. There were at least a hundred. They had killer res on them, their red eyes staring at the two of them.


    Saleen said in a hoarse voice, ¡°Are you prepared?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Lex had unconsciously begun to cooperate with Saleen.


    ¡°Now!¡± Saleen took out a magic scroll from his demonic ring and released it rapidly.


    ¡°Close your eyes!¡± Lex released her magic scroll more slowly than Saleen, and her Grade 6 magic scroll only opened after Saleen¡¯s poisonous gas had beenpletely released.


    Saleen closed his eyes, and with a tug from Lex, a white light shot up into the skies.


    Grade 6 Light Magic: Light Explosion.


    The Light Explosion spell not only caused illusions to fade but could counter Dark Magic. It could destroy an enemy¡¯s eyes, and once the spell was shot directly at them, a person would be blind.


    These magic beasts were not small and Lex did not n on killing them individually. Under the attack of these magic beasts with no swordsmen at their side, a mage¡¯s chances of survival were slim.


    Lex took Saleen with her as she flew up unsteadily. She had not had much time to practice her flying skills. Otherwise, with the grade of her equipment, flying around with Saleen would not have been a problem.


    The herd of magic beasts growled angrily. The Light Explosion spell had damaged the eyes of most of the beasts and the ones surrounding Lex and Saleen began to run around frantically. A few of them banged into each other, giving out earth-shattering roars.


    Lex fell onto the ground and released a Windspeed spell onto Saleen. They were not hurrying now, but rather, were escaping for their lives. A Grade 3 Windspeed spell was too slow and as Lex shouted for them to run, the two of them began to escape in the direction with no magic beasts.


    The ground behind them shook as the magic beasts that had not been injured started chasing them. The two of them did not dare look back as they ran with all their might. Arge river appeared before them, and while Lex was still hesitating, Saleen had already jumped into it.


    Lex followed him and released an Underwater Breathing spell. This river was at least several hundred meters wide and luckily, the current was not strong. Afternding in the water, Saleen was nearly like a fish swimming in the river. With a twist of his body, he came to Lex¡¯s side. He held onto her magic robe and made a gesture.


    Lex dissipated the Windspeed spell and Saleen released another water shield, encasing the two of them in a bubble.


    ¡°Do not go up for now.¡± Saleen controlled the water shield. At that moment, the sound of an enormous object falling into the water came from above. The magic beasts that had chased them to the river bank were not about to give up and had released a Falling Rock spell.

 Chapter 145: The World is a Cheese (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 145: The World is a Cheese (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The attacksted for more than half an hour before the magic beasts along the river bank went away. Saleen felt that he had been too nervous. He was able to manipte the water shield into going down even deeper, and yet he had chosen to wait patiently here.


    Floating up, they made sure the coast was clear and that there was no danger waiting to ambush them before they climbed ashore.


    Lex released a Cleaning spell to clear the puke off of her and Saleen¡¯s bodies before feeling slightly better.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Do not breathe a word about today.¡± Lex rarely spoke this harshly to Saleen.


    ¡°If we can get out of here, I promise I won¡¯t.¡± Saleen¡¯s words were depressing. Get out? She did not even know where they were. Like Saleen, her brain was filled with an enormous amount of information, but it had not beenpletely internalized and when she needed it, it did not instantlye to her.


    However, Lex knew that not even a god could create a perfect world inside of a pir.


    Saleen crouched down and grabbed a handful of dirt. There was enough moisture inside of it that he could use his icy sight to analyze it carefully. Even though he could not see beyond this world, Saleen knew that within this dirt, the six types of elements were coexisting.


    Lex crouched down as well and plucked a small piece of grass. Removing a hairpin from her head, she used its sharp end to cut lines within the de of grass.


    The veins within the grass could be seen clearly. It was real.


    The skies began to turn dark. Saleen pointed towards the horizon and said, ¡°Lex, look.¡±


    The mountain rage in the distance had white clouds swirling above it and the greenery there was lush. Having stayed in god¡¯s hell for so long, this felt like the heaven described by disciples of faith. At the peak of the mountain, the sun was slowly setting, and its golden-red light spread out and gleamed on the water¡¯s surface. Along the river bank, a white fish leapt up and sshed back into the water. The wind blew, bringing with it some vapor and a hint of coolness.


    If this was an illusion, it was too real.


    ¡°I have no idea where this ce is.¡± Lex shrugged her shoulders slightly, feeling helpless for the first time. If this was an illusion, even if she took the risk ofpletely destroying her god¡¯s ring, they would not be able to leave this ce.


    ¡°Let¡¯s think carefully. You can set some magic arrays so that we won¡¯t be ambushed by any magic beasts.¡± Saleen knew that waiting was fruitless, and he had too much information in his head. He needed to look through it carefully, and perhaps they might find a lead.


    ¡°Yes, go think.¡± Lex took out two metal discs from the god¡¯s ring and set up a space of darkness. She took out the war puppets again to patrol their surroundings. Once everything was set up, she began to rummage through her memories for anything rted to realistic fantasies.


    The air seemed to grow quiet, and only the sound of river flowing could be heard. Saleen searched through his memories carefully, not only for knowledge on illusions but for anything rted to magic spaces.


    Only when he began to feel hungry did he stop. Saleen opened both his eyes and saw that Lex had already released an Illumination spell. Between the two of them was an oil cloth with ck bread and smoked meat on it.


    ¡°What have you found?¡± Saleen asked Lex, taking a cup and creating some restorative water as he did so.


    ¡°A little, but not enough. You?¡±


    ¡°Me too.¡±


    ¡°Tell me.¡±


    ¡°In my memories, there aren¡¯t many things rted to illusions. Most of my knowledgees from magic notes that are more than a thousand years old, but I have found a sentence that seems to be rted to our current predicament.¡±


    Lex began to butter Saleen¡¯s ck bread while she listened. She was a little surprised. The mages in Alchemy City were certainly wealthy to own magic notes from more than a thousand years ago.


    ¡°In one of the magic books, there is a description of the world. The mage says the world is a cheese.¡±


    Lex perked up. Saleen was definitely smarter than he looked. She had not considered it from this perspective. However, the things she had thought of were definitely rted to this seemingly ordinary sentence.


    The world is a cheese. This sentence had been said by a legendary sorcerer. This sorcerer had been famous throughout thends a thousand years ago. Back then, the Holy See had just begun to rise, and the holy knights had swept over nearly half the Maind and only faced defeat at Holy Rock City. However, the conflict between mages and the Holy See had not started then. Even before that, a legendary sorcerer by the name of Raphael had been going against the Holy See. Among the students he¡¯d had, more than twelve of them were sorcerers, and on the Myers Maind, these sorcerers foiled the attacks of the Holy See again and again. Out of the seven oracles then, four of them died by the hands of Raphael.


    The remaining three oracles died in battle at Holy Rock City. The might of the Holy See decreased, and in the end, the Tanggsi Empire only obtained a quarter of thend on the Myers Maind.


    The world is a cheese. This was an unassuming sentence from a horrifying speech that Raphael had given. As mages had possessed a minimal understanding of spaces, Raphael had wanted to use the simplest and most easily understood method to exin what a dimension was.


    Mages believed in magic forme and were ustomed to deducing conclusions from basic knowledge. This theory by Raphael had been a top-down approach and had not provided any basic theories.


    Raphael believed that every dimension was a piece of cheese with countless holes in it. Anyone inside the cheese would have no concept of the external structure of the cheese. From any hole, one could reach another dimension, and one could even reach the same dimension from different holes. This all depended on the fixed angles and periods of revolution between the dimensions.


    In reality, dimensions were as fragile as cheese. If a mage wanted to live forever, they would need to create an eternal dimension. This dimension was known as the dimensions of the gods, and was what the Holy See had known as the heavens.


    Aside from these things, Raphael had said many things which had sphemed against the gods, and worst of all, he had included the Myers Goddess. Most mages had hated the God of Light, but when it came to the Myers Goddess, she was someone who mages had generally respected.


    However, because of that, despite having contributed the most to the fight against the Holy See, many mages did not like him and his theories were looked down upon. Even when the Holy See captured Raphael, not many mages attempted to rescue him.


    At that time, dozens of sorcerers were killed in the rescue attempt, and the second batch of oracles that the Holy See had nurtured were not spared either. Raphael was not saved, and the sacred Holy See had him executed in the Glorious Square.


    Everyone believed that this legendary figure had died, as before this, the second pope of the Holy See, Duncan, had suddenly passed away. The head of the Holy See had fallen as well, and many people believed that all of these things were the price for capturing Raphael.


    The pope had been the leader of the Holy See and had possessed three mythical weapons with him. The head of the Holy See had possessed one too. To say that two strong young men who had been Grade 9 elites had died from sickness, no one would have believed that.


    Raphael disappeared and all of his theories were erased from the magic notes on the Myers Maind. His disciples disappeared as well, never to be seen again.


    The world is a cheese. This sounded like a joke, and yet to Saleen and Lex, it really seemed as though they had been sucked into a giant metal cheese.


    The holes of the dimensions and the perfect independent space. There were the six elements, nights and days, rivers and mountains, nts and magic beasts.


    The interdimensional space outside the metal pir had beencking but there was life within the pir. All of these conditions fit what Raphael had said in wanting to create an eternal dimension. This pir might have only been in its infant stages, and if the outside of the magic tower was destroyed, nothing would function properly within this magic pir either. The existence of the magic tower depended on the lifespan of the interdimensional space.


    Saleen and Lex had no idea if the god¡¯s hell was slowly growing or being destroyed, but whatever the case was, this interdimensional space had a set lifespan. Raphael¡¯s cheese idea had still only been a theory, but it was astounding enough. He had created a partially independent world that had exceeded all the powers of humans.


    If a cheese was fragile, then it could be broken from the inside. Back then, humans had been able to cross through dimensions as they pleased because their strength had been greater than the toughness of the cheese. The cheese had just been too weak for them and had not been able to contain their bodies.


    Lex understood this as well, but the problem was that both her and Saleen did not have enough power to cut open the cheese.


    If they did not have such power, it was possible that finding the hole of the cheese would be a shortcut. The question was, would theory and reality be vastly different? It was just like Saleen¡¯s study of the Figaro form. If he was given enough time, he would be able to break down the sword aura of a golden grand swordmaster. However, the preparation time was far too long. Their current situation was exactly like that. Saleen and Lex looked up at the skies at the same time. It was already dark, and stars dotted the night sky. Each and every one of them could be a tunnel.


    If they found the hole that had sucked the two of them in, it was possible that they would be able to find a way back. But how were they going to fly up to the skies?


    In using the powers of her magic robe, Lex could only fly up a few hundred meters at most. This space was incredibly wide, and it was possible that she would not find the entrance even after flying tens of thousands of miles.


    ¡°Lex, what do you think of this world?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s very bad,¡± Lex answered begrudgingly. She had already been angry enough, being trapped in god¡¯s hell. Now, it felt as though she had been trapped in a doubleyered cage. Getting back to the Myers Maind had just be even harder.


    ¡°I meanpared to the outside.¡± Saleen was not in a rush either. Seeing how Lex was a little unstable, he began to reason with her patiently.


    Only then did Lex calm down and think carefully. ¡°It¡¯s just like this. The six types of elements in this world seem bnced, but there aren¡¯t as much of them as there are in the interdimensional space. For a mage, training here would not be as good as training outside.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. This might have only been a toy of the owner of the magic tower.¡±


    ¡°A toy?¡± Lex did not understand.


    ¡°Yes, a toy. If you were unable to return to the Myers Maind, would you rather spend your time in the horrible environment of the interdimensional space, or would you rathere here?¡±

 Chapter 146: Raphael’s Wealth (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 146: Raphael¡¯s Wealth (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was not any stupider than Saleen. It was just that she had not had a real childhood, hence she felt distant when toys were used as an analogy. However, she immediately understood the meaning when Saleen exined it to her.


    The creatures in this interdimensional space seemed to have been manmade. The interdimensional space was deste, and there was no day or night. Also, the volcano erupted from time to time, causing the sky to be permanently overcast. A person¡¯s psychological state would be adversely affected in such an environment, and this mage, who had been a grade higher than Grade 7, had possessed abnormally high expectations for all of these disappoints.


    Mages always chose the location of their magic towers very meticulously. Firstly, a magic tower needed to be near a town so that it would be convenient for the disciples to purchase necessities. Secondly, a magic tower needed to be built in an environment that was abundant in elements. That way, the mage could save on materials and perishables. Lastly, the mage needed to like the environment. Whether it be the city or the wilderness, the environment needed to match the emotional state of the mage in order for them to train.


    Obviously, the Grade 10 mage had not had much of a choice in this interdimensional space. There were no cities here, and the people in the vige at the foot of the mountain must have been brought here by the mage. From the looks of the vige, there were at most hundreds of people living in the vige.


    The environment of the wilderness was harsh. The volcanic region was just beyond the forest, and Lex had not gone to investigate the other side, but it must not have been too good. Without the sun and the moon, there would be no seasons and no day and night, causing the interdimensional space to be dreary.


    Indeed, the world inside this metallic cheese could have cheered people up. At least this ce had a high degree of resemnce to the Myers Maind.


    When Lex finally understood the concept, she said, ¡°I have finally understood why we can¡¯t seem to get out. There¡¯s a connection between the outside and here. The six magic arrays need to be activated, and then we can leave at anytime. But¡­¡±


    There were six magic arrays surrounding the metallic column. However, the magic nuclei in the grooves of the magic arrays had been depleted. Now, the only function of those magic arrays was to stabilize the space in the eighth story. If they wanted to leave, they would need to restart the magic arrays.


    ¡°Nailisi will think of something,¡± Saleen said calmly. He understood the crux of the situation when he heard Lex¡¯s solution. This world had not been produced to trap enemies inside of it. It was an evaluation site. The mage who had created this ce would not have wanted to destroy the structure of the metallic cheese whenever they wanted to leave, so they would definitely have left a channel for entering and exiting.


    ¡°Nailisi?¡± Lex asked doubtfully. She had observed Nailisi closely. That girl was not a mage, but she could use spatial equipment. The problem was, how would Nailisi know that she would need to fuse magic nuclei into the magic arrays?


    Saleen did not reply. He could not confirm whether Nailisi could hear him calling out to her in his heart. The connection between Nailisi and the soul bond had be more intimate after her advancement, but it had not reached the level of soulmunication. Saleen and Nailisi could feel emotional changes in each other, including the happiness and pain in their souls, and some vague thoughts. What Saleen was hoping for right now was that Nailisi was intelligent enough to know what to do.


    He only need to transmit two phrases to Nailisi ¨C magic array and magic nucleus. However, the method of transmission was troublesome. Saleen¡¯s soul connection with Nailisi was already very frail. Additionally, it would not be useful to repeatedly send vague messages, thus the safest method would be to use pain.


    Saleen took out his n badge. He thought, If this doesn¡¯t work, then I can only wait for Nailisi to have an epiphany.


    Outside the eighth story, Sika kept caressing her bone ne, thinking of how she could continue the legacy of the war priests. Nailisi suddenly sat upright, and her green eyes flickered.


    She could feel Saleen trying to initiate contact with her, and this method was excruciating. Her brain felt as though there were needles continuously piercing it, and there were several messages constantly jumping about.


    Nailisi grit her teeth and extended her finger. Then, she carved a few symbols on the ground.


    The pain then suddenly disappeared, and Nailisi rxed. Those symbols were a secret magguage. A mage used it when they wanted to record obscure information.


    Every mage created their own unique secret magguage, but Nailisi did not need so much magic knowledge. She cast her gaze on the magic arrays which surrounded the metallic column.


    Magic array? Magic nucleus? Did Master want me to activate these six magic arrays?


    Nailisi¡¯s knowledge of magic was painfully scant, but she knew how to fuse magic nuclei, and she could cut the embryo of a magic nucleus. But what if her understanding was incorrect? Nailisi looked at the magic arrays and hesitated.


    She looked at the secret magguage on the ground. It was too simple, and there were no redundant messages. In fact, Saleen could not even transmit too many messages. The arrangement of this message had been from Saleen¡¯s memory. He had ryed a scene from when he had first met Nailisi.


    The magic array from the temple, and the magic nucleus that she had eaten.


    ¡°Nailisi, what are you doing?¡± Sika asked nervously, taking out a bundle of beast skins.


    ¡°Master wants me to activate the magic arrays. Come give me a hand.¡±


    ¡°Help with what?¡± Sika put away her weapon. She had been anxious all this time, and now that Nailisi said that Saleen had ryed a message, she would ede to Nailisi¡¯s request even though she detested Nailisi.


    ¡°Cut up some skins and tie them to make a rope. The thicker the rope, the better.¡±


    When Sika heard that, she immediately understood what was going on. Nailisi was going to fuse the magic nuclei, and she did not want to get sucked into the metallic column. Hence, using the rope to hold Nailisi back would be the simplest method.


    Sika did not waste any more time talking. She took out her boomerang and the beast skins and began cutting away. Meanwhile, Nailisi took out several magic nuclei from her bracelet, and used her teeth to cut the magic nuclei.


    On the first story of the magic tower, Saleen had managed to get arge amount of high-quality magic nuclei. The only problem was that those magic nuclei were unrefined.


    Only the magic nuclei of some special creatures had natural facets. One example was those from the dragon family, as their magic nuclei came with twenty-four sides. As for the rest of the magic beasts, the shape of their magic nuclei was irregr no matter their level. In order to use magic nuclei like that, the magic nuclei needed to be cut and polished in order to be fused with a magic array.


    Presently, Nailisi¡¯s teeth were sharper than ever, so it was a straightforward task for her cut out a magic nucleus with twenty-four sides. As she bit down continuously, a sense of achievement suddenly welled up inside of her. I am going to save my master. That means he won¡¯t distance himself from me anymore in the future, right?


    The thoughts of humans were strange. Even though Nailisi had established a subtle soul connection with Saleen, she still could not decipher Saleen¡¯s thoughts. Saleen seemed to be interested in Sika, and yet, he did not mate with Sika like a demon would have. Nailisi felt that even if Saleen forced himself on Sika, Sika would not be offended either way.


    If Saleen had been a demon, he would have been the least cunning of them all. In the demonic realm, when two demons developed an attraction for each other, they would start a family. Once they had offspring, the family would stabilize. Sika looked to be at the peak of health, and Saleen was also stronger than the average human.


    After multiple asions of sexual intercourse, they would be able to produce offspring to carry on the bloodline. My master won¡¯t even do such great things. It¡¯s really worrying.


    As Nailisi thought to herself and cut the magic nuclei, she looked at Sika.


    Nailisi knew how strong Sika could be when enraged. She simplycked endurance. Sika was bent down, carefully using her boomerang to cut the beast skins that were spread out in front of her. Cutting the skins of beasts was a task that required skill. The skin was tough and its texture was intricate. In order to make the skin strong throughout, one¡¯s hands needed to be deft.


    Fortunately, Sika was from Caucasus, so she was used to doing tasks like these. Sika paid close attention and patiently cut the skins. Sika bent her waist, causing her buttocks to tilt and form a mesmerizing arc. Since she had fought from the time she was young, the structure of Sika¡¯s body had be abnormally perfect. It was not just human beauty. It was a kind of beauty that abided by the sequences of nature.


    Sika¡¯s limbs and body were in a harmonious ratio. Her bones were in good proportion and the amount of muscle she had was just right. All these things enabled her to be able to swiftly explode with tremendous strength whenever she needed it. At this point, Sika¡¯s body proportions were very simr to that of Nailisi¡¯s. It was just that Sikacked a tail and her butt was slightly bigger.


    Ka cha¡­


    Nailisi continued biting on the magic nuclei while thinking of ways to help Saleen rape Sika. If Sika gave birth to a son, Saleen¡¯s family would be stable. Then, Nailisi could take care of the child and teach him how to be a demon. As long as she fed him a mouthful of demon¡¯s blood, then¡­


    Nailisi felt some memories pour out. It was something from the bloodline of demons.


    Of course, Sika was unaware of the evil thoughts that Nailisi was harboring about her. Sika cut eighteen beast skins before putting away her boomerang and weaving the rope. Weaving rope was a task that required knowledge. The Caucasus people had a weapon called the flying axe. A genuine flying axe was astonishingly heavy, and there was a rope attached to the end of it. It was one of the Caucasus people¡¯s favorite weapons.


    Sika¡¯s strength was still inadequate, so she could only use a boomerang for now. But she had learned the technique for weaving rope when she was young.


    After about an hour, Sika had weaved a rope that was even thicker than her wrist. Even though the rope had never undergone reinforcement, its strength was already astounding. Nailisi looked about, then she attached one end of the rope to a stone pir in the mezzanine¡¯s passageway and the other to her own waist.


    ¡°Sika.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡±


    ¡°Control the distance. If I lose my bnce, just pull me back with all your strength.¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± Sika ced her boomerang back into its sheath. Presently, she needed to rescue Saleen, so she would let Nailisi order her around just this once.


    Nailisi removed her shoes. She would have Sika assist her as a precaution. In truth, Nailisi had thought of a solution long ago. The ground of the hall had been made from rock so it was very tough. If she had not needed to fuse the magic nuclei with the magic arrays, then she would not have had to be so cautious.


    A pair of delicate white feet stepped into the hall. All of a sudden, the metallic pir in the center of the hall burst with strong suctioning force. Nailisi¡¯s body shook violently, and her toenails dug deep into the stone ground. Sika watched from outside the door with her heart in her throat.


    Nailisi walked towards the magic arrays. Her clothes had expanded and were shaking violently. There was a clear scratch mark on the ground beneath Nailisi. Using both hands, Nailisi pulled at her clothes, causing her clothes to be shred into pieces and thrown through midair before they were sucked into the metallic column.

 Chapter 147: Raphael’s Wealth (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 147: Raphael¡¯s Wealth (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika gripped the rope tightly, helping stabilize Nailisi¡¯s body. Nailisi approached the first magic array, took out six magic nuclei, and went around installing the magic nuclei into the magic arrays.


    Whimpers came from the holes in the metallic column. The remaining clothes on Nailisi were also pulled by the force of the suction, producing tearing noises. Nailisi¡¯s expression did not change as her toenails gradually grew longer, digging even deeper into the stone ground.


    Sika was very anxious. The five magic arrays to the front and sides of the metallic column had been taken care of. There was only one more magic array remaining behind the metallic column. The rope was going to be extended to its full length. When the rope was fully stretched, Nailisi looked back at Sika. Then, with a scratch of her finger on the rope around her waist, Nailisi cut the taut rope.


    Nailisi bent down and began crawling on the ground. Her fingernails had fully extended and were embedded in the ground as well. The ground was very hard, so Nailisi tried her best to stay close to the ground while crawling towards the back of the metallic column.


    Without the assistance of the rope, her physical exhaustion increased. In addition, Nailisi was going in a direction where she needed to use all of her might to resist the force of the suction, and there was nothing for her to draw strength from. The pain from her toenails and fingernails was increasing, and Nailisi wondered whether she had be a frail magic beast.


    Nailisi could feel the bones of her fingers fracturing, so her tail swiftly extended and gave her support until she could continue crawling forward. When Nailisi reached the edge of the magic array, she spit out a magic nucleus and installed it in the magic array. Then, she went to the other corner of the magic array. Her tail flew in the opposite direction and anchored itself deeply in the ground, providing resistance to the suction from the metallic column.


    Even a grand swordmaster might not have possessed as great of a body strength as Nailisi. Presently, Nailisi felt like her skeleton was going to be ripped apart, and her strength was quickly diminishing.


    Pu¡­


    Nailisi spit out thest magic nucleus and used her remaining strength to press the magic nucleus against the groove of the magic array. Before she could even think of how to activate the magic array, a magical light shined throughout the eighth story.


    The mighty suction from the metallic column disappeared abruptly. Nailisi¡¯s legs rxed, causing her body to fly to the other side. However, she had been held down by her tail, so she mmed directly into the ground instead.


    Nailisi knew that the danger had passed so she happily withdrew her tail. Her entire body was in pain, so Nailisi decided to just lie down on her back with her limbs facing upward. The colossal metallic column was just like a grand swordmaster at their peak who had exploded with all of their power. The suction had almost torn through Nailisi¡¯s bones.


    The magic array began to turn endlessly. The magic nuclei in the magic array retracted automatically, in equilibrium with the magic arrays. The ground which had been dug into by Nailisi even reverted to its original state. The magical light gave off an abnormally serene glow, causing Nailisi¡¯s vision to blur. In her trance, Nailisi saw Saleen walk towards her and put clothes on her.


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°Go to sleep.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice rang in Nailisi¡¯s ears. Nailisipletely rxed, not knowing how she had managed to aplish that. In any case, her master had returned, so she would not need to bear the pain that woulde with Saleen¡¯s death.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±


    Sika rushed into the eighth story and hugged Saleen tightly. Nailisi was stuck between the both of them and gave a moan, but did not wake up.


    ¡°Sika, I¡¯m going to be crushed!¡± Saleen called out. Sika possessed too much strength, and Saleen¡¯s body could not withstand all that force.


    Sika released her hands and smiled at Lex who was standing beside Saleen, not bothering to hide her euphoria. Lex sighed and said, ¡°We¡¯d better leave this ce. These magic nuclei won¡¯tst for long.¡±


    As Lex spoke, Saleen had already noticed that the turning speed of the magic arrays had slowed down considerably and the magical light had grown dimmer. The turning of magic arrays was an activity that exhausted a great deal of materials, and a person needed to know that the magic nuclei that Nailisi had kept had been at least Grade 5.


    Saleen carried Nailisi in his arms and the four of them hastily left the eighth story. Just before the door closed, the magical light in the room vanishedpletely. Saleen feared that if they had stayed in that room any longer, they would have all been sucked into the metallic column. This time, there would not be anyone left behind to save them.


    The four of them stayed outside to rest. Sika was fine, but Nailisi had depleted almost all of her physical strength. Nailisi would require at least a few hours to regain all that strength. Lex had also used up her magic liquid. It would not be enough to rely on the Chunlin spell alone for Lex to regain her physical strength.


    Inparison to divine spells, magic spells had no side effects. However, spells below the level of a sorcerer took a longer time to take effect. The magic liquid produced by a Grade 7 sorcerer would be able to recover all of a person¡¯s physical strength within a minute or two, while a Grade 4 Chunlin spell was more for therapeutic effects. If a divine spell was used instead, a person would regain all of their physical strength the moment the divine light appeared, but the person would need to sacrifice their vitality.


    Such a sacrifice was not reversible, but the user had a choice in who to sacrifice. The user could either exhaust their own vitality or exhaust the vitality of the target who had received the spell. In most circumstances, the user would not sacrifice themselves.


    Saleen made the most of his time and began training using his n badge. Currently, his magic chords and mental power had increased in quantity because the n badge no longer depleted his energy. Saleen¡¯s magic chords and mental power would be left with half the original amount whenever he used the n badge, and the speed of his recovery was not hindered anymore.


    Nailisi slept for four hours. In that time, Saleen trained eight times in total. Each time, he needed half an hour to recover. Lex also meditated during this period, because she had been in awe when she saw how hardworking Saleen was. It was no wonder Saleen advanced so quickly. Saleen might likely have been the most diligent mage Lex had ever known.


    For a mage to achieve sess, many conditions needed to be met. Firstly, the mage needed to be in a conducive environment. They would also needrge amounts of money with which to purchase training materials. Next, a good teacher was mandatory. If a mage only relied on books, they might never be able to advance to a mage master, not to mention a sorcerer. Lastly, a mage needed talent. But talent could not be guaranteed, thus the only thing a mage could guarantee was their sheer hard work.


    People could live for a hundred years. A disciple without money, a teacher, or a conducive living environment could still advance to a sorcerer before dying if they tried hard enough.


    Saleen had nearly fulfilled all of the conditions to being a sessful mage. He had a teacher, money, rare materials, and sufficient magic knowledge. Even so, he still dedicated every second possible to training.


    Mages believed that sess did note by chance. Some mages conducted thousands of experiments and copied thousands of words just to perfect a form. Only mages who possessed this type of zeal would be legends.


    Nailisi turned around and sat up straight before secretly touching her bum to check whether her tail was still extended. Nailisi did not want Lex to find out her real identity, and Saleen had kept reminding her as well, so she was particrly careful about her tail.


    Lex opened her eyes. A mage¡¯s meditation could not be stopped at will, and some mages had been paralyzed because they did notplete their meditation. Lex¡¯s secrets and Saleen¡¯s legacy were of the same level. Lex¡¯s guidelines for meditation had originated from the Grukos family, and they had a thousand year old legacy which had groomed many royal mages.


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s go and take a look.¡± Lex reverted to her normal self, which had warmer and more intimate mannerisms than those of noble families. But Saleen felt regretful, as Lex had looked more adorable when she had been in the metallic column. Even though the barrier caused by their differences in grades had disappeared and the current Lex was also easy to talk to, she was inevitably a member of the royal family who was going to establish a county, so certain intrinsic characteristics about her could not be changed.


    Lex was actually overjoyed. The harvest on the eighth story had been more than what she had expected. She had just experienced a world created by a mage, and that was as amazing as the gods themselves. Now more than ever, Lex was firm in her beliefs. She wanted to create a permanent teleportation portal between the Myers Maind and this interdimensional space. With the six element space and the independent world, she would be able to fulfill her ambitions.


    No matter what Saleen obtained from the ninth floor, she would not be tempted anymore. Never before in her life had Lex felt that her spirit was soplete and her heart so whole. But it was not because Lex had gained a massive fortune. It was because she finally believed that she could pioneer an unprecedented path.


    In that instant, Lex felt that the doors to Grade 6 had been opened to her. Her mental power had exceeded Grade 5 even though her magic chords had not yet grown. As long as her magic chords underwent some minute changes, a chain reaction would take ce and Lex would be able to advance to Grade 6. Once Lex became Grade 6, she would be able to start unraveling the secrets of sorcerers.


    If a sorcerer was said to be an ocean, then a Grade 6 mage was like a river that would soon merge with that ocean.


    This time around, Saleen took the lead. Aside from the entrance to this magic tower, all the other floors had not had offensive magic arrays. On the fifth story, the dead magic beast had merely given off itsst bit of aggression, while on the eighth story, the metallic column had not been controlled by the six magic arrays around it. With that said, all of these events had not been intentionally caused by the owner of this tower, meaning that aside from the entrance, there were no other defenses inside of this magic tower.


    On the Myers Maind, the ninth story of a magic tower was where a Grade 9 mage lived. It contained the essence of the magic tower. This magic tower had ten stories, so Saleen was looking forward to the ninth story. What kind of special items would there be on the ninth story?


    The six element space and the independent world were very astounding already, so Saleen believed that there would definitely be something on the ninth story.


    Saleen came before the door to the ninth story and did a deep mage¡¯s bow before opening the door. A cloud of vapor appeared on Saleen¡¯s palm, and he put his palm to the door and pulled. The door opened slowly, and a dim light could be seen behind the door. Saleen saw the window at the opposite side of the room and broke out inughter.


    The mage had lived on this floor. It seemed like Saleen had been pretty lucky. This Grade 10 mage had lived on the ninth story, so if he had left any items behind, they would also be here.


    The previous eight stories had been isted, but as for the ninth story, the mage had used spatial magic to connect it to the outside world.


    ¡°Saleen, you are very lucky,¡± Lex said as she smiled. Lex had gotten what she wanted, and now, it seemed like Saleen had also gotten what he had wished for.


    ¡°Yes, this is what I really want.¡± Saleen stood at the door, feeling fearful. A Grade 10 mage¡¯s living quarters whose assets were unguarded.

 Chapter 148: Raphael’s Wealth (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 148: Raphael¡¯s Wealth (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Rays of light shot through the window. In the hell of the god¡¯s punishment, there was no day or night, so the light was always greyish and obscure. The setup of the room on the ninth story resembled that of an average person. The bed was ced beside the window, and a desk and bookshelf were on the other side. Leaning against the wall was an enormous cupboard. There was no alchemy bench at the center of the room, and in its ce was an antique cab which was frequently seen in the rooms of nobles. The upper part of the cab was mosaicked with crystals. These crystals were different from the ones on the first story, possessing attributes which allowed magic arrays to be carved directly into them.


    There were few decorations in the room, making it appear spacious. Saleen walked to the window and looked outside. From the window, Saleen could observe the forest in the distance. When he looked from top to bottom, the rules of the arrangement of the trees in the forest became even more obvious to him. Each and every spot where the trees were growing was in line with the rules of arrangement of the elements.


    Saleen then made his way to the cupboard. It was filled to the brim with clothes when he opened the doors. However, even after opening all the doors of the cupboard, Saleen never saw a proper magic robe. In fact, these clothes were not in the style of the Fourth Dynasty. They were ancient, and apart from their special materials, their style was extremely simple.


    There were eight antique cabs in the center of the room, positioned into a circle. Saleen stood in the center of the room and used a Fluorescence spell. Through the crystal, Saleen could see the objects inside of the cabs.


    The objects were antiques and there was no magic equipment. Inparison, the materials of the antique cabs were more valuable than the objects themselves. If it had not been for the airtight crystal cabs, the antiques inside of them would have been rotten by now.


    Saleen then went over to the desk. The desk and chair were alchemical items so they were very sturdy. He sat down and began studying the gigantic desk. It seemed like it could fit into the spatial equipment. There were a few pieces of paper made from beast skins and an ink bottle. Even though the ink had dried up, it still gave off a faint fragrance. A magic pen was ced in the ink bottle, and beside the ink bottle was an miniature obsidian water tub which was used to wash the magic pen.


    A few magic books were also on the desk, and Saleen was most attracted to one book containing magic notes.


    This book had a ck cover with dark gold magic patterns, and was buckled to the desk. Beneath the illumination of the Fluorescence spell, the dark gold patterns on the cover seemed to flow about.


    Saleen held those magic notes in his hand and flipped to the first page. And on the title page, there was a phrase:


    The existence of a mage is to gain insight into the truths of this world. Raphael Jabba.


    Practically every mage had heard of this motto before, but very few knew where it had trulye from. When Saleen saw the signature after the motto, he then realized that it was indeed Raphael who had owned this ten story magical tower.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Nailisi eximed, causing Saleen to snap out of his thoughts. When Saleen turned around, he saw that Nailisi had pulled the curtain of the bed away. Nailisi stood rooted to the ground stiffly and gave a deadly stare at the bed as though someone had cast the Fossilization spell on her.


    Saleen then put away Raphael¡¯s magic notes into the Ring of Gifts and made his way over to the bed. He lifted the curtain and cast a Fluorescence spell, exposing a skeleton lying on the bed. The bones of this skeleton gave off a pale green glow, and it was lying on its back.


    These had been Raphael¡¯s magical tower, Raphael¡¯s room, and Raphael¡¯s bed, so it must have been Raphael who was lying on the bed. A mage eventually passed away. That was not surprising. Saleen was astonished because in the legend, had Raphael not been burned to death by the Holy See in the Glorious Square?


    Saleen¡¯s throat twitched, and he cast icy sight. Saleen¡¯s control over his body had already exceeded that of Grade 3. Once his icy sight was activated, every single detail of the skeleton would be disyed in his vision.


    The strength of the bones was terrifying, and Saleen could not imagine how a mage had managed to aplish that. He also knew how to harness the power of elements to transform his body, but the transformation needed to abide by the rules of nature. Currently, the strength of Saleen¡¯s body still had not reached the standard of a swordmaster. However, lots of improvement would be needed to be stronger than a high-level swordsman.


    Despite that, the skeleton on the bed possessed a level of strength that had already exceeded that of a grand swordmaster. A grand swordmaster used their sword aura to train their body, hence the toughness of their body could easily withstand low-level spells, but training like that could not extend their longevity. A Grade 9 grand swordmaster¡¯s life would never be able to be two hundred years long unless they broke the limits of Grade 9.


    The strength of a mage¡¯s body was constrained, but the advantage that was gained was an extended lifespan. The skeleton lying on the bed had obviously ruined that bnce.


    Nailisi¡¯s saliva nearly dripped out of her mouth. She quickly licked it up using her tongue, and a grunt came from her throat.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was low, and he put a stop to Nailisi¡¯s ns. Obviously, Nailisi wanted to devour that skeleton. If the skeleton was truly Raphael, then Saleen would not want a dead Grade 10 mage to be disrespected.


    ¡°Master, a mage does not care about what happens after they die,¡± Nailisi argued. There was still energy flowing within the skeleton and it could be absorbed by her.


    Saleen looked back and saw Lex standing by the window, gazing outside. Saleen then said softly, ¡°You cannot eat this.¡±


    Seeing that Nailisi was annoyed and had a childlike expression about her, Saleen softened a little. Many mages chose to end their lives in an extreme manner when they knew that their time was up. For example, using fire elements to incinerate themselves or drown themselves. On second thought, mages really did not care about their remains after they died.


    But Saleen was reluctant, he was hoping for Raphael to be buried. Since he had gained Raphael¡¯s assets, Raphael could also be considered half a teacher to him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t destroy his bones.¡± Saleen tried his best to make his voice sound gentler.


    Nailisi¡¯s eyes lit up and she said, ¡°Master, are you saying that if I don¡¯t destroy the bones, then I can¡­¡±


    ¡°Mm, don¡¯t destroy it.¡±


    ¡°Then I shall bring it back to the Myers Maind and look for a ce to bury it, okay?¡± Nailisi said thoughtfully.


    ¡°Alright, wait a moment.¡± Saleen stopped Nailisi and gingerly removed a ck ring from a finger bone of the skeleton. The ring did not have any magic patterns and was extremely rustic. There were no muscles around the finger, making the ring appear big. Other than that, the skeleton did not have any other magic equipment on it.


    ¡°Keep it.¡± Saleen put the ck ring on his finger, now having four rings. If he had one more ring, he would reach the limit of a mage¡¯s control capacities.


    Magic equipment could not be stacked indefinitely. Currently, Saleen had the Ring of Gifts and the demonic ring. With the white crystal ring that his teacher had given him, there were no more slots for equipment on his left hand. Saleen named the new ring Raphael¡¯s Ring and put it on his right hand.


    Nailisi cautiously moved the skeleton and prepared to put it away. When the skeleton was touched by Nailisi, a crack resounded and the ribcage of the skeleton broke. Nailisi covered her mouth and looked at the broken skeleton inplete horror.


    The strength of the bones was terrifying. Even if Nailisi wanted to break it, she would need to use her teeth.


    ¡°Master, it was not me.¡±


    Saleen ignored Nailisi. He was stunned when he saw an object roll out of the skeleton¡¯s chest. This object was a pale gold seal. The seal was very unique and was like a short arrow. On one end, there was a sharp arrowhead, and on the other end was a ring. The arrowhead had four sides, and there was holy prose carved on the seal.


    This arrow-shaped seal looked just like any other ordinary object, yet it had prated Raphael¡¯s chest and stayed inside. What was more unbelievable was that the position where the seal had stopped was where Raphael¡¯s heart had been.


    Saleen took the pale gold seal. The seal was unusually heavy and was wless to the touch. The holy prose which looked like it had been carved on was only an illusion. It was an illusion that had avoided the detection of his icy sight.


    ¡°This item belongs to the Holy See. You won¡¯t be able to use it,¡± Lex¡¯s voice came from behind.


    Saleen did not even turn around, only fiddling with the special seal. He then held onto the circr end of the seal and asked, ¡°Do you recognize this object?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Most mages would not do research on this, but I am a Grukos.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen secretly spected as he waited for Lex¡¯s revtion.


    ¡°The Seal of Divine Power, one of the three weapons that the pope possesses.¡± Lex¡¯s answer was astounding. Fortunately, Saleen had not tossed the seal away.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. The seal is in a slumber. In this interdimensional space, it will not be able to respond to themands of the Lord of Glory,¡± Lex consoled Saleen.


    Saleen took a deep breath and said, ¡°Don¡¯t scare me. I have a great deal of conflicts with the Holy See. If this is a divine weapon, then I¡¯d better destroy it.¡±


    ¡°We do not possess that kind of power.¡± Lex regretfully looked at the Seal of Divine Power in Saleen¡¯s hand. This item could only be wielded by holy masters who were at least at Grade 9, and it was an item symbolic of the pope. Even though the seal contained formidable power, it was a bad item for a mage.


    Saleen thought for a moment before putting the Seal of Divine Power into the Ring of Gifts. The Ring of Gifts had been crafted by the Myers Goddess, so as long as the Lord of Glory did not descend upon the Myers Maind, no one would be able peek into the secrets of the ring. The goddess might have fallen, but her divine rules would not be vited so easily.


    Since this item could not be destroyed, it would be best to put it away. The Seal of Divine Power could not be consideredpletely safe in this interdimensional space either, as there was always the risk that the people of the Holy See would be able to find the coordinates of this space. When Saleen and Lex returned, this interdimensional space would not hold as many secrets as it had before.


    ¡°No wonder the Holy See had not made any big moves all these years. It was because they had lost one of their divine weapons.¡± When Lex saw that Saleen had put away the Seal of Divine Power, she could no longer feel the existence of that weapon, so she did not stop Saleen.


    At this point in time, Saleen understood something. The Holy See had not killed Raphael back then. They had only dealt a heavy blow to Raphael, but the Seal of Divine Power was then lost, so in order to maintain stability, the Holy See had not exposed their own failure. Either way, Raphael had taken a fatal hit, so he would certainly die. It was a safer move to look for a scapegoat to die in ce of Raphael and then cover up all of the news regarding the lost seal.


    Since this item had fallen into the possession of Saleen, the Holy See would never get it back. If Saleen could not destroy this divine weapon, there was surely someone out there who could.

 Chapter 149: Crystal Ring

    <h4>Chapter 149: Crystal Ring</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There had once been many divine weapons in the Myers Maind, but that had been tens of thousands of years ago. Back then, humans had still been able to create magic equipment that was simr in strength to these divine weapons. These pieces of equipment had been passed down and known as half-divine weapons. The Holy See considered them fake weapons.


    The Holy See only considered the weapons that had been created by the God of Light and gifted to his followers to be divine weapons, and this Seal of Divine Power was one of them.


    The Bramble Crown, God Grace Staff, and the Seal of Divine Power. These three divine weapons belonged to the Holy See. Without them, the pope would not have been able to control the seven oracles who had simr powers. If the pope fell by chance, there would be no appointed pope who would take over, and the leaders of the Holy See would need to take over the duties of the pope until a new pope was chosen.


    The pope had been at the peak of Grade 9 power, and with three divine weapons, he had naturally been able tomand the oracles, cardinals, and the tribunal. Without the three divine weapons, the pope would have been like an emperor without his army. Aside from his symbolic meaning, he would not have any power.


    The divine weapons of the pope were not simple piece of divine equipment. They possessed the ability tomunicate with the gods. Having gained this Seal of Divine Power, it felt as though Saleen were holding onto a melting gold coin. It would not be wise to hold onto it, and yet he could not throw it aside either. If he brought this back to the Myers Maind, it would surely be noticed by the God of Light and they would send out a divine decree. The Holy See would pay any price to get back this small seal.


    Leaving this behind in the interdimensional space did not seem right either, and this was something that Saleen was sure of. The fact that Viscountess Lex had been banished to the god¡¯s hell was not something that could be concealed, and once she returned, the Holy See would find this interdimensional space that was connected to the Myers Maind.


    Once the Holy See found their way here, the Seal of Divine Power would likely return to them. Hence, Saleen wanted to hide this divine weapon in his Ring of Gifts, for only the equipment of the Myers Goddess could mask the scent of the God of Light.


    Saleen had a deep hatred for the Holy See. If he could not use it himself, he would not let them use it either.


    Nailisi stored the remains of Raphael and Saleen returned to sit beside the table. Six magic arrays were hidden under the table and each belonged to a different type of element. Saleen tried to activate the water element magic array, and a drawer beside his left hand suddenly sprung open.


    Within the drawer was a cubic box and on its surface was a snowke pattern formed naturally in the metal. Opening the box, there was a magic book and a ring inside. The crystal-clear ring was ced atop the book, and Saleen could not feel any powersing from inside it.


    The only thing Saleen could confirm was that the quality of the ring surpassed his own knowledge of materials. He knew that even the spear of god¡¯s punishment would not be able to destroy it.


    Saleen put away the ring and picked up the book below. It had a white cover with no title, and on the lower right corner was a small signature: Raphael Jabba.


    Saleen flipped through the white magic book and quickly scanned through it, unintentionally realizing that it was abat magic book.


    Although magic books andbat magic books differed by a single word, they were twopletely different things. A magic book was used to note down magic knowledge while abat magic book was assaultive equipment and could be used to pass down magic as well.


    Combat magic books were incredibly hard to make and the special materials within the pages of the book could allow the release methods and effects of a mage¡¯s magic to reach their full potential. Even if a person did not have a teacher, they could still study by following the contents of abat magic book.


    Abat magic book usually marked a stage of a person¡¯s lineage.


    Like the bronze magic book, eighteen spells were written within. From Grade 1 to Grade 3, each grade had the methods of study for six different spells. These six spells each belonged to one of the six types of magic elements. With a bronze magic book, even without a teacher, a magic disciple could follow the knowledge written within the book to advance all the way to a Grade 3 mage.


    At the same time, the bronze magic book had eighteen spells that were the same as the eighteen spells from Grade 1 to 3 of the six different elements. Most importantly, within a bronze magic book, the mage who created it would leave their experiences of advancing to a grand mage.


    With a bronze magic book, one had the opportunity to be a Grade 4 mage. Although this promotion process would take a very long time, for many magic disciples without a teacher, even spending decades on the promotion was worth it. Without a teacher, they had no chance of bing a mage.


    The whitebat magic book only recorded Water Magic and did not have the ability to store any spells. Saleen flipped the book back to the first page, and on it were some words written in the Myers Language: Crystal Ring, the Beginning of Grade 6 Magic.


    Flipping to the next page, Raphael had not recorded anything strange, and just like anybat magic book, it listed the meaning of this Grade 6 magic and anything one should avoid when it came to these spells.


    Crystal ring was a spell that not many people would use and just like the Ice Ring spell, it had an unusually short effective range. For mages, a distance like this could nearly be considered closebat. The advantages of this spell were unusually striking too, for it not only had incredible assaultive powers, but it could continuously be stronger and evolve. In fact, thebat magic book had the methods for learning the Crystal Ring spell from Grade 6 to Grade 10.


    This spell had side effects even though it had unparalleled assaultive strength. In addition to depleting more than twice the magic chords of spells of the same grade, it would cause extreme pain within a mage¡¯s head.


    Once a person released the crystal ring, the spell¡¯s assaultive powers would retaliate on the mage¡¯s body. When Raphael had created this spell, he had already modified his body and even his strong bones had not been able to ensure his safety, only reducing the pain on his body.


    Hence, regardless of whether it was a scroll or a magic book, nothing could withstand the strength of the crystal ring.


    In the end, Raphael created a tough crystal ring to withstand the bacsh of this spell. This was the ring that Saleen had taken. This allowed the assaultive strength of the crystal ring to not be restricted by the physical condition of the mage. However, this reduced the effective range of the magic even more.


    Because the depletion of a person¡¯s magic chords were twice that of other spells of the same grade, only mages who had reached Grade 3 could learn the Crystal Ring spell. This spell could be upgraded and would reach the peak of its abilities along with the increase in the grade of the mage.


    Behind it were contents on how to go about studying the spell. Saleen was only a Grade 4 mage and had not grasped Grade 6 magic yet. He put away thebat magic book without any regret. During this time where he would have no guidance from any teachers, he finally had the ability to study on his own.


    Even though the crystal ring did not have much use inbat, it was a spell that could be upgraded. Through continuous study, even without the guidance of any teacher after Grade 6, Saleen would be able to find the path to a promotion through this magic.


    Saleen had his icy sight and together with the Figaro form, he was already able to study magic on his own. However, this required him to continuously observe the magic that others released or to release magic on his own with magic scrolls and observe how those spells were formed, analyzing and breaking them down. This method of studying magic was too slow and a great deal of time was needed in breaking down the secrets of a spell. Furthermore, studying it at ater time required it to be adjusted ording to the condition of one¡¯s own body. If a person possessed abat magic book, they could understand the feelings immediately using their focus.


    The other five drawers must have contained knowledge of the other five types of magic. Saleen did not open the drawers. Instead, he checked the size of the table again and stored it into his Ring of Gifts.


    During the time they had spent in god¡¯s hell, Saleen and Lex had trained their wills far more than they had in the past decade altogether, and had be more mature as well. In the past, Saleen had only been able to hide his emotions, but now looking at the secrets of the crystal ring, he only put it away and would wait until he had advanced to study it. The joy in his heart was barely noticeable.


    While others could not learn the crystal ring while they were Grade 5 since they did not have enough magic chords, Saleen had twice the amount of magic chords as mages of the same grade. Hence, he would be at the perfect grade to learn this spell.


    Originally, Saleen had obtained fourbat magic books. Three of them were nk, and the demon magic book was missing its main contents. Now, thisbat magic book had filled in the nks nicely.


    For Saleen, what was most important was reestablishing a firm foundation. He had advanced from the Grade 1 to Grade 3 too quickly and had only grasped more than ten Water Magic spells. He still did not have aplete understanding of the elements. When he had been Grade 4, this had not been too much of a problem, but once he reached Grade 6 and was about to be a sorcerer, this would be a problem.


    It was time to start filling in the bronze magic book. Saleen was vaguely aware of the changes in his journey down the path of a mage.


    If he continued advancing in this fashion, even if he managed to break the limits of Grade 6 and be a sorcerer, he woulde across an unbreakable obstacle once he reached Grade 9. He had gained a great deal of experience but had not been able to digest them all. If his teacher learned of this, he would be very disappointed.


    ¡°Lex, let¡¯s go to the tenth floor.¡± Saleen did not look at the books. Since the ninth floor belonged to him, he would use this ce as a temporary training shelter before they left.


    Lex hesitated. The nine floors earlier had been split equally between the two of them. What would there be on the tenth floor? Saleen did not propose any ways to split the tenth floor and hence Lex did not say anything either.


    Saleen was not her subordinate and his teacher had originated from Alchemy City. Hence, ever since Saleen had be a grand mage, Lex had begun to view Saleen as her equal.


    Saleenughed and pointed upwards with his fingers. He said, ¡°What¡¯s yours will be yours and what¡¯s mine shall be mine.¡±


    Lex understood. What Saleen meant was that if the item could be used by the country, it would be hers. If it was only equipment that a single mage could use, it would be Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°What if they aren¡¯t easy to split?¡± Lex said without much thought, regretting her words almost immediately. She was not a petty person. It was simply that this magic tower was too important, and if she could establish a permanent teleportation portal, this ce could be a vast supporting area for the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Bitter Water Prefecture did not have much harvest and the matter of forming a county was not too important. The fields that had been established were enough to feed the people in the city, but once a county was established, the surrounding cities would be her territory as well and the number of citizens under her management would increase by a hundred times. Then, Lex would need to consider the issue of her harvests.


    ¡°If they are not easy to split, then they can be ours together.¡± Saleen did not put much thought into his words and Lex¡¯s face turned a rare shade of red. Hmph, this brat has just been promoted. Could he already have some ideas of his own?

 Chapter 150: Each Other’s Mentor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 150: Each Other¡¯s Mentor (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The way Saleen and Lex exited the magical tower was simr to the way they had entered. They were required to pass through a long metallic passageway. Lex was prepared for the journey back, and she did not vomit. Both of them squeezed against each other, causing Lex to feel more awkward than she had when they had entered. Saleen spoke to her in an intimate manner, causing Lex to be speechless and she did not respond.


    Saleen and Lex walked up to the tenth story in silence. At the end of the staircase, there were no doors and walls, and the entirety of the tenth story was an open hall. The light here was gentle, and the windows on all six sides were expansive. As they looked out through the windows, they could clearly see the forest miles away.


    What shocked everyone was the sight in the middle of this gigantic hall. A magic light shot from an enormous,plex magic array on the ground onto the ceiling. This magic light was thicker than the metallic column back on the eighth story, and in the middle was a three-dimensional mirage.


    A magic mirage was not anything extraordinary. In fact, the four biggest empires had many theaters which used magic mirages as backdrops in shows. But this magic mirage was not imaginary at all. It was actually a miniaturendscape of the hell in god¡¯s punishment.


    In the middle of the mirage was the mountain with the ten story magical tower and the forests that surrounded it on all four sides. What surprised Saleen and Lex was the degree of intricateness the mirage possessed. Saleen only needed to employ a little perception to be able to closely study every detail in the mirage.


    In the forest, a bug with two pairs of wings was flying above the surface of the water. Meanwhile, in a dark green puddle, a fuchsia toad was bobbing up and down. Suddenly, the toad stuck out its tongue and pulled the bug into its mouth.


    If a person were to walk inside such a mirage, they would definitely be trapped inside of it. Furthermore, there were twenty-four mini magic arrays engulfing the outer magic array. This mirage was not just an imaginary phenomenon, and if Saleen remembered correctly, there had been a book of magic notes which had recorded the descriptions of such magic arrays.


    Shinra¡¯s Mirage, a spell that originated from the First Dynasty.


    Lex thought about this spell and caressed Shinra¡¯s Ring on her finger. That ring had also been handed down to her from the First Dynasty. The history of the Grukos family reached much further back than what most people though. The First Dynasty had also had another name ¨C the Shinra Dynasty.


    The powers that the royal family of the Shinra Dynasty had possessed were close to that of the gods, and yet, they were not as restrained as the gods. They controlled the Myers Maind for at least ten thousand years before the dynasty went into a gradual decline.


    Lex possessed an even deeper understanding of Shinra¡¯s Mirage. It was rumored that there had been a colossal magic array in the pce during the Shinra Dynasty, and by using the magic array, the emperor had been able to spy on all of the maind.


    The Shinra¡¯s Mirage in front them was obviously used to surveil the hell of the god¡¯s punishment. To humans of the present civilization, this was an unimaginable power.


    Even though this device was still active, the vital magic array that was used for control was not being powered by magic nuclei. At least twenty-four sorcerers were needed to power it. Otherwise, the Shinra¡¯s Mirage would not possess any offensive abilities and could only be used as a telescope with an infinite range.


    Who would have thought that Saleen¡¯s words would be true. This single magic array on the tenth story was more valuable than thebined value of everything from the first to the ninth story. Lex did not know how to use it, and Saleen was equally clueless. Perhaps they could share it?


    Saleen did not think too much about it. It was definitely impossible for him to use the Shinra¡¯s Mirage. Even if Saleen became a sorcerer, he would still not be able to activate it, and Lex had no way of using it either. It was possible that Holy Rock City would be able to squeeze out twenty-four sorcerers, but not many of them would be affiliated to the Grukos family.


    Only Alchemy City possessed such capabilities.


    The Shinra¡¯s Mirage had been active for the past thousands of years without any form of control over it. If someone took control of it now, that person would be able to control the entire space within god¡¯s punishment. To Saleen, this was not a temptation. It was a delusion.


    Saleen had been confident enough to advance and be a sorcerer through his diligence, but he did not have the ability tomand his fellow sorcerers. This thing had been nothing in the prestigious First Dynasty, and even Raphael managed to aplish it.


    But for the past one thousand years, the powers that humans had possessed had continuously weakened, so the number of sorcerers were decreasing.


    ¡°Saleen, what do you n to do?¡± In her heart, Lex was calcting how many mage masters she had groomed. Out of those mage masters, almost all of them had the potential to be promoted into sorcerers. If they could be transported to the hell of god¡¯s punishment once they advanced to Grade 7 and then trained in the six element space, it would only be a matter of time before they reached Grade 9.


    Twenty-four Grade 9 sorcerers were needed to effectively control Shinra¡¯s Mirage. Saleen could not do it, so Lex hoped that she would be able to aplish it.


    ¡°Let¡¯s leave this ce first. If we can¡¯t return, then this device will only be a white elephant.¡± Saleen looked at the scenery projected by the Shinra¡¯s Mirage. None of those ferocious magic beasts dared toe near the mountain. The other side of the forest was barren, as the regr eruptions by the volcano had caused any life on thend to be very short-lived.


    When Lex heard what Saleen said, she decided to temporarily shelf the idea of controlling the Shinra¡¯s Mirage. This idea was still too distant right now, and she would need at least ten years before she could achieve it. Saleen was right. They needed to return to the Myers Maind before making any decisions.


    ¡°Let¡¯s make our way down.¡± Lex took her eyes off of the bizarre mirage and went down the stairs first.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go down too.¡± Saleen noticed that Nailisi was observing the magic array with keen interest, so he pulled on Sika¡¯s skirt and went down the stairs with her first.


    ¡°Master¡­¡± Nailisi said, catching up to Saleen.


    ¡°Say no more. Find an opportunity to absorb the power in Raphael¡¯s bones and don¡¯t sustain any more damage. I need to train for a period of time so I can¡¯t take care of you. Sika, try to be a warrior priest as quickly as possible. When we return, our troubles will only be just beginning.¡±


    ¡°What troubles?¡± Sika asked in confusion.


    ¡°We are not dead, but the oracle is. Also, Lex is missing, so the matter will have been exposed already. The oracle defied his orders and went to the Qin Empire to kill someone. The mages from the Qin Empire will definitely go to the Tanggsi Empire to seek revenge. This is no longer a war between the empires, and this matter might anger Alchemy City. One year is too long. I don¡¯t know what might happen, but the conflict between the mages and the Holy See will be greatly intensified, so there won¡¯t be any safe havens on the maind anymore.¡±


    ¡°At worst, I won¡¯t go to the Cloudflow Empire,¡± Sika replied without an ounce of concern.


    ¡°Sika, if holy masters went to Caucasus to kill the elder priests, what would your vige do?¡± Saleen rebutted.


    ¡°All the warriors will be deployed, and the holy masters will¡­¡± Sika did not continue. She was not stupid. It was just that she had been toozy to think of theseplicated affairs. There might have been a handful of mages in the Cloudflow Empire, but they were all concentrated in the imperial family. Since the Cloudflow Empire had inherited part of the Fourth Dynasty, the empire held their mages in high regard as well.


    The conflict between the mages and the Holy See was bound to affect the attitudes of the imperial family in the Cloudflow Empire. Originally, the Cloudflow Empire had been able to sit on the sidelines and watch, but now they had also been implicated.


    Saleen was right, the oracle was definitely doomed. His actions hadpletely ruined the Holy See¡¯s efforts in having a cordial rtionship with the Cloudflow Empire. Even without the bacsh from the god¡¯s ring, the pope would not have spared him either way.


    When Saleen arrived on the ninth story, he saw that Lex had cleared a space andid out her nket. It seemed like she was going to stay here. Saleen wanted to advise Lex to stay downstairs, but he held that thought back.


    Saleen wanted to learn Grade 1 to Grade 5 magic, and the only one he could turn to was Lex.


    The god¡¯s ring needed ten months to regain its abilities, and Saleen and Lex knew that it could not be rushed so they could only stay in this magical tower to train. The magical tower was extremely safe, as none of the magic beasts in the forest dared to go near it. They only needed to have the puppets guard the entrances to be able to practice without worries.


    Saleen felt that he was quite fortunate. If he had been in the Myers Maind, he might have never had a chance to advance two grades in session like this. He might also never have gotten to keep Raphael¡¯s treasures. Thergest coincidence was that Lex had brought along huge quantities of materials. Those materials had been given to her by the emperor to help set up her county¡¯s army.


    Saleen did not need to search for food either. Being in this barren interdimensional space had been the best possible oue for him.


    Lex did not put on any airs. Saleen had a great wealth of magic knowledge as well, so the two of them exchanged information and time flew by quickly. Saleen felt that he had restarted his journey, learning everything from Grade 1 to Grade 5. At every grade, he needed to master five water-type spells, and an additional five spells belonging to the other element types.


    Learning water-type spells was easy to Saleen. The spells of the other element types were more troublesome. Saleen used the water elements to simte the spells of other elements. He needed to understand all of the details of the spells he wished to simte.


    Lex repeatedly demonstrated and exined the spells in order to shorten Saleen¡¯s process of deduction with the Figaro form. Saleen needed much more time than other mages to simte a new spell. For Saleen to cast these spells with ease, he needed at least ten times the original amount of time necessary to achieve it.


    Fortunately, such matters were never boring to these two mages. Lex even became addicted to it, spending as much time as possible teaching Saleen. She discovered that her speed of calction was slower than that of Saleen, who was a Grade 4 mage, and Saleen¡¯s thoughts were unrestrained, which in turn gave her more inspiration.


    For example, Saleen converted a Grade 5 earth spell into a Grade 4 water spell. The offensive power did not decrease, but the casting speed increased. This Grade 4 spell produced a totem that was formed by the condensation of ice crystals, and the totem would charge in a straight line and collide into enemies. In addition, the effects of frost array would ur on whatever ground the totem touched.


    The totem from the earth spell had a slower activation time. It needed forty frames of time, whereas the Grade 4 ice totem only needed about twelve frames of time. The earth spell dealt stronger physical damage and could even crush rocks, but the ice totem had a freezing effect. When the ice totem was cast in a narrow space, warriors below the grade of a swordmaster would potentially have trouble dodging it.


    While imparting magic skills to Saleen, Lex also learned many things. Her teacher was a Grade 8 sorcerer, which was an advantage, but it had potentially restricted the range of her thinking. For Saleen, once he had begun learning magic, Jason had always had him think on his own. Aside from reminding Saleen of some optional methods, Jason had not truly restricted Saleen.


    After teaching Saleen for three months, Lex was actually able to advance naturally to the next grade.

 Chapter 151: Each Other’s Mentor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 151: Each Other¡¯s Mentor (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex had been stuck at Grade 5 for quite some time. A situation like this had only happened once when she had been in the process of advancing from Grade 3 to Grade 4. Even though she was in no rush, Lex still felt a bit uncertain.


    This time around, Lex went into meditation after demonstrating twenty-four Grade 4 spells for Saleen, but she had not expected to meditate for two whole days. While she was meditating, her magic chords grew silently and Lex did not even feel anything. But when she opened her eyes, she realized that she had advanced to Grade 6.


    Saleen fiddled with a tiny fireball in his hand, finally able to simte the Fireball spell. Saleen needed to vaporize an ice bomb and then break it down before igniting it. This spell required at least twelve frames of time, unable to be instantaneous. The power of the Fireball spell was much stronger than that of the ice bomb, but the depletion of mental power while controlling the spell was also many times more than that of the Ice Bomb spell.


    However, Saleen loved practice like this. In the past, whenever he hadpletely exhausted his magic chords, his mental power would still be more than ny percent full. Saleen thought that he would be able to gain strength from his badge, but his badge only depleted about half of his mental power. Thus, he had lost the pleasure and satisfaction of total rejuvenation.


    There was a great deal of mental power depletion when Saleen used water elements to simte spells of other elements. He could begin to try and naturally maintain the bnce between his mental power and his magic chords.


    During an actual battle, Saleen would not need to use the other five branches of magic unless he was under special circumstances. However, if Saleen only learned spells involving water elements, he would never be able to understand the secrets of this world.


    Lex¡¯s promotion had attracted Saleen¡¯s attention. He quickly extinguished the fireball and looked at Lex in astonishment.


    Lex also looked at Saleen in shock. She had never thought that an advancement could be so smooth, free of any tumultuous moments. The previous advancements had not been so smooth. Lex had faced some obstacles, but with her teacher¡¯s help, she had managed to get past them.


    ¡°Congrattions.¡± Saleen grinned. Perhaps Lex¡¯s secrets were unique. Everyone had their secrets. Lex¡¯s smooth advancement might have been one of the secrets of her family, so it was perfectly normal for Lex to not reveal it to Saleen. They were just like Saleen¡¯s guidelines for meditation. His teacher would track him down and kill him if he ever revealed it to outsiders.


    Lex nodded and stopped thinking about how she had managed to advance so wlessly. She suddenly said, ¡°Saleen, have you ever thought about staying in the Qin Empire?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the intention of leaving.¡± Saleen did not know what Lex meant.


    ¡°I mean, staying and bing a citizen of the Qin Empire.¡±


    At this point, Saleen realized that Lex was trying to ask him to remain in the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    ¡°You want me to be one of your mages?¡± Saleen asked cautiously.


    ¡°I would not dare. I don¡¯t want to offend your teacher,¡± Lex replied, bursting out intoughter. Saleen¡¯s teacher had gone to attack a Grade 6 mage who owned a magical tower because his pride had been hurt. Lex did not want to trifle with someone like that, especially since Jason was from Alchemy City, so it was possible that he had a formidable background or backing.


    ¡°Then why do you want me to stay? Frankly speaking, I don¡¯t think I will be able to return to Ceylon City for a long time,¡± Saleen dered honestly. Saleen¡¯s thoughts were much clearer now, and he figured that Earl Sufonso would not be so stupid. If Saleen really returned to Ceylon City, it was possible that he would just be walking into a conspiracy orchestrated by the Holy See.


    It could not have been the bad blood between Saleen and Sufonso. If Saleen wanted to kill Sufonso, he needed to be a sorcerer and required a powerful backer.


    Bad blood could not be resolved so abruptly. Earl Sufonso had lost his son. Even if Saleen wanted to abandon the ordeal, Sufonso would not agree either way.


    ¡°Join the Bitter Water County. I need a real mage.¡±


    ¡°How do I join?¡± Saleen was tempted. Lex¡¯s invitation was abnormally straightforward, and Saleen found that agreeable.


    ¡°I want to establish a mages¡¯ state. Perhaps only one percent of the poption will be mages, but I hope that everyone will learn magic knowledge, even if only a little.¡±


    ¡°You want to rebuild the First Dynasty?¡± After hearing Lex¡¯s vision, Saleen found it too unrealistic.


    ¡°No. I just want to be that person repairing the road and bringing hope to others.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll be the next Holy See then,¡± Saleen replied, bursting out intoughter.


    Lex stated formally, ¡°As if I¡¯d require anyone else to have faith. And gods? Hmph¡­¡±


    ¡°By doing so, you will incite countless wars,¡± Saleen replied just as seriously.


    ¡°So? Alchemy City did not even build a ten story magical tower, but the Holy See has already started attacking mages. For the moment, the Holy See is pursuing death mages, but very soon, it will be the elemental mages¡¯ turn.¡±


    ¡°Many people will die,¡± Saleen reminded her.


    ¡°Do you care?¡± Lex looked at Saleen and asked him this in an emotionless tone.


    Saleen was speechless. He did not care. Even if Lex did not carry out these activities, the current peace in the Myers Maind could not be sustained anyways. It was just that if Lex carried out her vision, everyone would cast their gazes upon the Bitter Water County, and that would not be a very wise move.


    ¡°Just join me. I don¡¯t want to build another Alchemy City, you must understand.¡±


    Saleen sighed and asked, ¡°What benefits will I get?¡±


    ¡°As many as the costs you will have to bear.¡± Lex brainstormed thousands of reasons but ultimately decided to be forthright. ¡°Once you join us, there will be no backing out. You might have an independent and free life, or you might be tossed into battle straightaway. Like Alchemy City, you can still stay on the sidelines of this war, but once the sacred knights set foot on the soil of the Qin Empire, all the mages will be deployed. If you agree with my vision, you will have to give it your all.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t put it so seriously. You¡¯ll scare me.¡± When Saleen saw that Lex had tensed up, he immediately softened his tone. Saleen did not want to discuss their visions or work in such an atmosphere.


    ¡°If you agree, I will tell you a secret. This secret might have something to do with you.¡±


    Saleen was unusually sensitive and his body tensed up quickly. Inquisitiveness was a necessary quality of an outstanding mage, but it also brought them many unnecessary troubles. Lex¡¯s secret must have been extremely obscure. Saleen had a premonition that once he listened to the secret, it would be difficult for him to back out.


    Saleen and Lex were sitting on the floor and facing each other. There was a long period of silence. Then, Saleen said slowly, ¡°I used to long to be a mage, but I was barred out and could not find a way in. I used to think that if everyone was a mage, then the world would be a fair ce. These thoughts might sound ridiculous, but I have never tried to forget them. I don¡¯t know why you harbor such thoughts. We have too many differences.¡±


    ¡°Because I used to think that mages could escape their fates. But¡­¡±


    Lex looked at Saleen through her blue eyes. Saleen shook his head, then nodded. He said, ¡°I am willing to help, but not because of Master Joey. As for whether or not I will join the Bitter Water County, I must ask my teacher.¡±


    Lex heaved a sigh of relief. When a person like Saleen agreed to a request, they would go all out to fulfill it. A person who made light promises would only break them easily. Lex was not just optimistic about Saleen¡¯s future, but Saleen also held the secrets to this magical tower. Thus, Lex desperately wanted Saleen to join her.


    As for the more significant reason, Lex decided to reveal it to Saleen then and there. If Lex waited until they returned to Myers, it would potentially suggest a threatening connotation to Saleen.


    ¡°You went to the temple of the Goddess of Nature before, right?¡± When Saleen heard Lex¡¯s words, he nearly lost hisposure. The elements within his mage robe vibrated viciously, nearly casting an offensive spell.


    Nailisi, who was lying on the bed sleeping, froze when she heard what Lex had said.


    ¡°I went to a temple like that too. Otherwise, even with my father¡¯s help, I would not have been able to raise so many mages when I was a child.¡±


    The sentence Lex had just said caused Saleen to be even more astounded. Lex had gone to the temple of a goddess before and had gained her riches that way. This was indeed a secret that could not be shared easily, and Saleen began tough bitterly.


    ¡°You could recognize the magic arrays that I drew?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there are twenty-five in total.¡± Lex did not conceal anything. At this point, Saleen understood how Lex had learned of his secret.


    ¡°I gained a mountain of gems.¡± Saleen did not mention Nailisi¡¯s origins. He roughly knew that there were various types of remains in a temple left behind by a goddess. Furthermore, it was an ident that Nailisi had survived, so it was better for Saleen to hide this matter from Lex.


    ¡°I gained many minerals, magic nuclei, and gold. At the core of the temple, I also found a nk magic book.¡±


    ¡°Same here.¡± Saleen brought out the three magic books without any hesitation and ced them on the ground.


    Lex also brought out a magic book and ced it in front of her.


    ¡°Saleen, ever since I saw you draw those magic arrays, I have been thinking to myself. There might be many other secrets left behind by the goddess. When the goddess first fell, the power of humans diminished swiftly. If we can find those temples, we might be able to discover the secret behind the decline of humanity.¡±


    Saleen took the bronze magic book from Lex. The book was not nk. Eighteen Grade 3 spells had been written into it. Saleen also possessed these powers now. It was just that he had not had a chance to use them..


    The texture of this magic book was simr to the one that Saleen himself had obtained from the core of the temple. Hence, he believed that Lex was telling the truth.


    Lexughed and said, ¡°Actually, if you had not agreed to my request, I would not have been able to do anything either. This ten story magical tower is going to be part of the Bitter Water County. I can¡¯t just let you go like this, so I might have needed to enlist the help of Master Joey.¡±


    Saleen thought about it for a whil, and finally understood what Lex meant. Lex could not kill nor imprison him, as doing so was tantamount to offending his teacher. Saleen had never thought that his teacher would have held such an important position in Lex¡¯s heart, so much so that she would go to the extent of asking Joey for help.


    If Saleen had just been an average mage without Nailisi and Sika, who were two fearsome warriors, it was possible that Lex would have abandoned him in the metallic column and left him to die.


    ¡°Lex¡­¡±


    ¡°Mm?¡±


    ¡°I think, regarding the issue with the Holy See, I don¡¯t want to implicate my teacher.¡± Saleen did not want to implicate Jason anymore. If the Holy See¡¯s sacred knights managed to breach Lon Duchy and attacked Bitter Water County, Saleen would rather not have Jason know he was there than allow Jason to risk his life.


    ¡°Saleen, this matter concerns every single mage. Do you not know that?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that serious yet. Let¡¯s rely on ourselves for now,¡± Saleen replied helplessly.


    Rely on ourselves for now? Lex looked at Saleen¡¯s face. This young mage did not seem to understand that if the Bitter Water County could not get any reinforcements, then the county would be smashed to smithereens by the Holy See. There was only one Grade 8 sorcerer left in the county, and this sorcerer would never be able to deal with the Holy See on their own.

 Chapter 152: Return (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 152: Return (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let¡¯s not talk about this, Saleen. We are going to learn how to write magic books today,¡± Lex said. She knew that even if Saleen was able to sway his mentor and subsequently make an impact on Alchemy City, the ce where Jason had been trained, now was not the time to discuss it.


    Speaking of magic book writing, it was an area that Saleen was not well-versed in. People who possessed the ability to write magic books were likely those who had inherited the knowledge through their magic lineage. Needless to say, it would be very hard for Saleen or even anyone at all to find a book on this subject. Had Jason stayed in Alchemy City, Saleen would have been able to learn it alongside Jason. However, when Jason left, he had merely been a Grade 1 mage and was thus unqualified to teach Saleen.


    Lex erased the magical texts in her own bronze magic book page by page before coaching Saleen in the art of magic book writing. Writing a magic book and transcribing a magic book were twopletely different things, even though they both required dragon¡¯s blood ink.


    A person should not have been fooled by the name. The original dragon¡¯s blood ink had indeed contained the blood of a dragon. However, dragon¡¯s blood had be increasingly difficult to obtain because the number of dragons that existed in the present day were scarce. Even in ancient times, crossing over to the dragons¡¯ territory to capture these strong creatures had been very troublesome. Hence, in thest ten thousand years, ¡°dragon¡¯s blood ink¡± had actually evolved to the point where it was merely a mixture of dozens of magic medicines.


    Technically, to master the art of magic book writing, a student only needed to be extremely focused as well as careful so that they did not mispell the words. For a magic mantra to work, Wind Magic had to be incorporated as well. People who used the magic book could even control the way the mantra was to be pronounced. Next was the illustration of how the spell would work. The graphical portrayal of the spell execution was often three dimensional, and was tailored to thew of the elements involved. This was so that the reader could master it intuitively, which lessened the chances of any blunders.


    The process of recording the spells was very demanding on the average mage, but it was also the best way for any mage to hone their skills.


    Even for Grade 1 magic, the process of dissecting the spell, describing how it worked, and creating the graphical portrayal were very exhausting processes. This was further intensified by the necessity of incorporating Wind Magic.


    Saleen diligently followed Lex¡¯s step-by-step demonstration in an attempt to master the skill. Completing one bronze magic book alone took him over three months. Even in such a long time frame, he only managed to copy eighteen low-level spells. The highest magic spell recorded was probably of Grade 3.


    After transcribing all of the spells from the bronze magic book, Saleen felt that he was now able to perfect low-level magic spells. He understood every stage of low-level spell casting, and his understanding of magic overall had profoundly deepened.


    Previously, Saleen had only liked learning instantaneous spells; however, instantaneous spells almost always contained ws in them. For example, once a person chose to focus on speed, he or she would have to give up another special power of theirs in order to master the art of speed.


    After dissecting the spells so he could provide better descriptions for them, Saleen understood what was meant by magic rhythm.


    Nailisi had secretly absorbed the residual energy in Raphael¡¯s skeleton, and the only thing she did everyday was sleep. Meanwhile, Sika simply ran over to the open space outside of the magical tower to practice her magic. Saleen and Lex got along well, likely due to the face to facemunication that had been happening for around six months now.


    Saleen then began to systematically learn Grade 4 magic. This time, Lex had decided to use a different method to teach Saleen. She exined the workings of a Grade 4 spell to Saleen, and even after making sure that he hadpletely understood what she had said, Lex continued to demonstrate how the spell worked by using a nk magic scroll.


    Lex did not use the silver magic book because she had yet to reach the level of a sorceress and was thus unable to erase the contents written in a silver magic book. The good thing about these mid-level nk scrolls was that through the constant creation of the Grade 4 scrolls used in her demonstrations, she revised her Grade 4 magic once more.


    When Saleen would practice, Lex would hold a silver magic book in hand and study the contents of it by herself. Both of them had decided to dedicate their time to learning and practicing their craft, and they were desperate to make every second count.


    The reason behind their behavior was due to theck of free time they would both have once they returned to the Myers Maind.


    Saleen had no choice but to conduct selective learning. He had no time to thoroughly study Grade 4 and Grade 5 magic, as he needed to master his fighting skills first.


    Grade 4 spells, like the Chunlin spell, Ice te Armor, Poison Fog, and Current Cutter, were Saleen¡¯s main focus for now. He practiced diligently, and used his guidelines for meditation as a substitute for sleep. He also depended on magic nuclei and other equipment to quickly restore his magic chords.


    If Saleen solely focused on mastering his spell casting without delving deeper into the technical aspects of his magic, he would be able to speed up his learning process. This was not beneficial if Saleen wanted to advance, but it would be beneficial if Saleen wanted to know the fastest way to improve hisbat abilities.


    Lex did not push Saleen too hard either, because that would mean less time for her to learn Grade 6 magic. She was already able to cast a Grade 7 magic spell. That ability was only parallelled by sorcerers. Even though Lex was not a sorceress yet, she knew that Grade 6 mages were able to release Grade 7 magic scrolls. This was not a huge achievement for the average mage. However, for Lex, it meant much more because she had many magic scrolls which required higher levels of skill to release.


    When necessary, Lex would be able to use Grade 7 magic scrolls to finish off her enemies during a battle. Mages who were at the same level as her would definitely be no match for her. It was not because her capabilities far surpassed those of the others. In truth, it was solely because she had money, power, and resources at her disposal.


    Saleen stored six Grade 5 spells in the demon magic book and one Grade 4 and Grade 5 spell in the silver magic book. The spells that the silver magic book could store were limited. Saleen could only store one spell of each grade inside. The only way to properly utilize the silver magic book would be to possess the ability to switch between mid-level spells with ease. Saleen was able to do this with low-level magic.


    Lex was also doing her best to improve her strength. She knew that being promoted to the level of a higher grade mage would not guarantee the immediate acquisition of stronger offensive magic abilities. All the promotion would do was lengthen her magic chords and allow her to be better able to learn high-level spells. To improve her strength, she would have to depend on hard work.


    Both Lex and Saleen had rare magic robes in their possession. The robes ensured that even while they were practicing their magic, they would still be able to control the elements involved and there would not be any abnormal elemental waves. During their five months of practice, thanks to their robes, they never once made a single mistake.


    Saleen let out a deep sigh as he thought about the importance of being well-equipped. He realized now why someone would be willing to fork over tens of thousands of gold coins in exchange for the crystal white ring that his teacher had given him. The ring was able to speed up the restoration rate of his magic chords. After using his badge along with other equipment that drained him of his strength, he only needed half an hour to recover with the help of the crystal white ring.


    On the other hand, without the crystal white ring, other mages would require at least two hours to recover even with the help of other equipment. Furthermore, the magic robes that both Lex and Saleen wore provided exceptionally stable elemental spaces and thus created the most conducive environments for learning or practice. With the exception of the fact that the robes could not enhance theirbat skills, their magic robes were just like miniature magic towers.


    That very day, Lex wasposing a Grade 6 magic scroll. All of a sudden, the Shinra¡¯s ring on her hand suddenly lit up. That sh of light caused Lex to momentarily pause her writing. The half-written scrolls that were floating in the air burst into mes. Caught by surprise, Lex immediately threw the scrolls out of the window.


    Lex knew that the loud crashing sound that ensued momentster meant that the scrolls were nowpletely useless.


    Saleen, who had previously been meditating, immediately opened his eyes at the sound of the explosion.


    ¡°Has it been one year already?¡± Saleen asked, suddenly feeling a little dazed. In his mind, it did not seem like a bad thing to simply stay here and practice magic every day rather than head back.


    ¡°Yes, it has been a year,¡± Lex replied, also reluctant to leave. During this year, she had relived the experience of being a low-level mage. Just like low-level mages did, she had been improving every day, and her daily progress was very obvious. If she continued honing her skills, she would be able to be a sorceress in just seven to eight years. To be promoted to the level of a sorceress before the age of thirty was quite unheard of in the Myers Maind.


    ¡°We have to go back, don¡¯t we?¡± As Saleen spoke, he turned around and saw Sika already running down from the magic tower with a look of excitement on her face. Saleen suddenly felt a little selfish. If he continued practicing magic by himself, he would be able to extend his lifespan if he managed to reach Grade 7. From there, he could continue learning new skills. But what about Sika? She was just a warrior. Would she be able to handle being in this lonely interdimensional space until they grew old?


    ¡°How are we going to go back?¡± Saleen asked. He beckoned to Sika with a wave of his hand, asking her toe sit beside him. Nailisi had woken up by then. She raised her head for a bit before returning to rest her chin on the bed. Regardless of where they were, her lifespan would always be longer than Saleen¡¯s. This interdimensional space had the essences of demons, which had prevented her from feeling even a little bit sad.


    ¡°Help me clear this a bit!¡± Lex called. She had everyone clear the ground before solemnly removing arge number of stones from the inside of the shinra. Afterwards, she began piecing them together on the ground.


    Saleen looked at those stones and recognized them to be materials for creating a magic array. Most of them were steel, and there were also obsidian, pyrophyllite, muscovite, and other precious stones.


    Seeing that Saleen was slightly suspicious of the stones, Lex said, ¡°This is what my father prepared for me. At first, it would have been possible to build a teleportation portal to connect Bitter Water Prefecture to Holy Rock City, but now, we have no choice but to use it here.¡±


    The nine floors of the magic tower had mostly been cleared, aside from a bed. Apart from that, there was nothing else left. Nailisi, upon realizing that there was not enough space left, had no choice but to get up from the bed and dismantle it to prepare it for transport. The strength of Sika and Nailisi was astonishing. Each of them were able to dismantle, remove, and carry half of the bed.


    ¡°Are you sure this can be used for interdimensional teleportation?¡± Saleen asked hesitantly. Teleporting living, breathing people was very different from teleporting small objects. Even in ces like the Qin Empire where magic flourished, teleportation was only used to send emergency military information. Realistically, it was only able to transport boxes that were half a foot long at most. For people to teleport over long distances, not only would the magic nuclei need to be stripped of their energy, but the interdimensional portal would also experience a reduction in its lifespan.


    Lex gently stroked the god¡¯s ring on her hand before replying, ¡°Yes. About two, three times, maybe? Rx, we will be protected by the god¡¯s ring.¡±


    ¡°Is it true that the god¡¯s ring will take one year to recover every time we use it?¡± Saleen patiently asked. He knew that whenever he felt uneasy, trouble would soon follow. Thus, he had made a habit out of considering all potential danger whenever he felt this way.


    ¡°No. That happenedst time because it was resisting god¡¯s punishment. Thus, the energy that was expended was quite extreme. Divine punishment is actually equivalent to just one percent of the power that the gods possess.¡±


    ¡°Then I think you shouldn¡¯t make use of the god¡¯s ring. It¡¯s alright if the teleportation portal is ruined as long as we can still go back.¡±


    Lex smiled. ¡°Why are you so worried? We¡¯ll end up at the other end of the teleportation portal, which is the pce of Holy Rock City. Even if the people of the Holy See have already begun to attack the grounds of the Qin Empire, that ce is supposed to be imprable.¡±


    ¡°I am not worried about the Holy See,¡± Saleen said, causing Lex to furrow her eyebrows.


    ¡°Why would you say that?¡± Lex asked.


    Saleen replied curtly, ¡°Intuition.¡±


    ¡°Intuition?¡± Lexughed before continuing, ¡°Isn¡¯t a mage supposed to ce their faith in magic forme?¡±

 Chapter 153: Return (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 153: Return (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Simply piecing together the transportation portal would not get it to work, and Lex was aware of that. She took out the scrolls that she had prepared earlier and began her fusion magic. Fusion spells were considered to be Grade 7 Dark Magic. However, without being promoted to a higher grade mage, it would simply be impossible for Lex to activate the scrolls.


    The rocks that were used to piece the teleportation portal together had magic patterns found along their joints and bedding nes. With the dark fusion magic cast by Lex, they graduallybined to form a bigger rock. This principle was the basis for the construction of the teleportation portal, which would eventually be built from a grand total of forty-two grooves.


    Lex took out six cut white spirit gems and ced them in the center of the six grooves. Afterwards, she set the remaining thirty-six enormous magic nuclei into the surroundings of the six auxiliary magic arrays.


    Although Saleen was used to seeing gems, he felt his heart clench at the sight of the massive white spirit he knew he had to give up. The magic nuclei that were in the auxiliary magic arrays were Grade 7 magic objects, which were very valuable. The value of this teleportation trip could no longer be assessed in gold coins alone.


    The capturing and killing of magic beasts that were Grade 7 and above often came with a high price. If Lex had not acquired the treasures left behind by the goddess herself, she would not have been able to afford the magic nuclei.


    In fact, it was highly likely that no one would have been able to afford them. In a big city that did not contain mines or specialized alchemy factories, a person would be able to pull in slightly more than one hundred thousand gold coins a year. In ces like Ceylon City wherend was taxed, Viscount Gugger was only able to receive a fraction of the amount, which was ten thousand gold coins. This estimate had even taken into ount the fact that he could earn extra coins by smuggling items through the yacht left behind by his ancestors.


    For a nobleman of lower status, if he earned one to two thousand golden coins per year, he would be considered lucky. Taxes could even be collected from people who wanted to enter the big cities. However, since human traffic was scarce in smaller cities, the lords there were unwilling to collect the taxes as they wanted to attract more businessmen.


    In the four empires, it was not umon to see many noblemen in extreme poverty and destitution.


    After fusing together the gems and the magic nuclei, Lex signalled for everyone to stand in the center of the teleportation portal. A little whileter, the god¡¯s ring that was on her hand began lighting up again, and the magic tower emitted a bright glow. The remaining warrior puppets outside of the magic array were to be left behind in the interdimensional space. Lex issued the war puppets an exceedingly simplemand, which was to stand guard in case anything happened.


    As long as the teleportation portal was not damaged, she would still be able toe back. However, in the event that someone else came back, the war puppets couldunch a full scale attack while the teleportation portal was still starting up.


    Because of these orders, it paid to take some precautions when a person was entered the teleportation portal, lest they ended up with a dart or two in their bodies, courtesy of the war puppets.


    As the space was distorted, the six elements were forced apart, giving rise to a vacuum that formed a space tunnel. In a very short period of time, Saleen and the others, under the protection of Lex, managed to rapidly pass any obstacles they encountered during their time in space. Their bodies emitted a brilliant gold the entire time.


    The amount of time they spent in space was too short and Saleen only managed to get a glimpse of the secrets that it held. His mind was already creating a concept of space. He believed that as long as he could utilize the teleportation portal thirty to fifty thousand times, he would be able to understand thews of space without requiring any guidance.


    In just six frames of time, the teleportation process wasplete, and the four of them had already appeared in the center of another magic array. Saleen knew that he had already returned to Myers Maind. His mood at that moment was not of excitement, but anxiety. The surrounding elemental waves were too unstable. Hence, he did not hesitate to release four ice te armors all at once, making sure that every person on board had one before coating the exterior of his own ice te armor with a water shield.


    Bang!


    A loud, piercing sound filled the air and strong vibrations surged through the ground. Saleen and the others were flung into the air. The teleportation portal copsed immediately. Lex held onto Saleen and grabbed Sika with her other hand, while Nailisi chose to clutch Saleen tightly instead. The four of them continued hovering in the air before faltering and falling a distance away.


    Grade 6 mages were able to fly, but Lex was unable to do so while holding onto three people.


    Saleen was not harmed by the destruction of the teleportation portal. A gentle gust of wind had deposited the group gently onto the surface of the ground.


    ¡°Viscountess!¡±


    As cheers filled the air, Saleen took in his surroundings, rmed to find that they did not resemble those of Holy Rock City. In the distance, Saleen could see a sea of soldiers cheering, as well as the Grade 8 mages from the Bitter Water Prefecture casting Wind Magic. So it was the Wind Magic that caused us tond unscathed, he thought.


    ¡°Professor!¡± Lex gasped as shended, staring at the mage in front of her with a look of surprise on her face.


    Lex had not seen her mentor in over a year. He still looked the same ¨C gentle and calm. But why had he left Bitter Water Prefecture? Had something happened? Something¡¯s not right, Lex thought, remembering Saleen¡¯s words of premonition.


    As Lex looked around, she saw that the soldiers were all dressed in their uniforms, but they were all d in pure ck armor. Lex¡¯s heart sank as she stood there, at a loss for what to do.


    Saleen did not fully understand what was going on, but he could feel the change in Lex¡¯s mood. Knowing that something was up, he broke free from Lex¡¯s grip and walked towards Lex¡¯s mentor. ¡°What happened, Master?¡± Saleen asked politely, bowing deeply before the mage.


    The mage looked at Lex before replying calmly, ¡°His Majesty has died in battle.¡±


    What? Lex thought in disbelief.


    Even Saleen could not believe what he was hearing. He had met with the Qin Emperor before, and he had been scarier than the oracles from the Holy See. How could such a formidable person, under the protection of hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers, have died just like that? The Qin Emperor had been so strong that the oracles would have been defeated before they could even finish a spell. Launching such a powerful attack on the emperor and actually winning would have been nearly impossible.


    Saleen was even more certain that the strength of the Qin Emperor surpassed that of Prince Safilos. Thetter was already a golden grand swordmaster. An opponent like that would not be easily killed when alone, and with one hundred and twenty thousand elite soldiers and a five hundred thousand strong army constantly apanying the Qin Emperor, he should have been invincible.


    How could the Qin Emperor have died under the protection of so many mages and swordsmen?


    People dressed in pure ck when they mourned the loss of a Qin Emperor. As much as Lex wanted to believe that everything was just a joke, she knew that the more than three thousand soldiers in the distance would not dare joke about something as serious as this.


    Lex was still reeling in shock from the news. Seeing her dazed state, Saleen furrowed his brows in worry as he executed a Chunlin spell. Green droplets of water seeped through Lex¡¯s body. Instantly, Lex looked much more calm and was able to hold back her tears.


    ¡°When did this happen, Professor?¡± Lex croaked out, not bothering to push away Nailisi who was holding her up. Lex felt strangely weak. To her, the Qin Emperor had not only been her father figure, but also her pir of support.


    ¡°About six months ago,¡± the mage replied with no emotion in his voice.


    Six months! Lex¡¯s heart clenched. It felt like it had been pierced by thousands of ice picks, and in that moment, she saw red.


    ¡°Lex, let¡¯s focus on the matter at hand,¡± Nailisi urged, sensing a change in Lex¡¯s mood. Nailisi had noticed that Lex had been incredibly nice to Saleen for the past few months. Perhaps I could spice things up between them, Nailisi thought. Most demons usually only had one wife, but stronger demons were able to find a few females to breed stronger offspring. She had intentionally left out the ¡°viscountess¡± title when addressing Lex earlier. As expected, Lex did not sense anything amiss, and simply nodded her head as she looked around.


    This ce was not Holy Rock City, nor was it the Bitter Water Prefecture. She had arrived in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. The wilderness which had previously upied the area had now been reced by a huge pce.


    The pce looked big enough to amodate thousands of people. It had tall walls but narrow doors. It would put them at a disadvantage when attacking, but the tall walls provided excellent defenses against potential enemies. The gates of the pce looked bare, probably because they were not engraved with the pce¡¯s name.


    As Lex stared off into the distance, she realized that most of the people there were elite soldiers from Bitter Water Prefecture. Lex slowly walked towards the soldiers, casting an amplification spell that magnified her volume as she spoke, ¡°From today onwards, I, Lex De Grukos, shall im this country as my own. Its name shall be Lex County! His Majesty, Lord Chanake, was my father. I will end this feud for him once and for all. All of you here shall be my witnesses. I shall dedicate the rest of my life to ttening Tanggsi. Are you willing to aplish this quest with me?¡±


    As she reached the end of her speech, Lex did not know what else to say, but the words she had echoed out earlier had beenced with intense passion.


    Thousands of soldiers swiftly drew their swords in a synchronized motion. If this had happened on the battlefield, that very sound would have left their enemies either deafened or shaken to their cores.


    ¡°Lex!¡± the warriors chanted, the ones d in fully ck armor moving forward together. Their voices wereced with indignation. The fact that their emperor had died in battle was an insult to the army as well as the empire itself. The only thought on their minds was to obtain their vengeance. The blood of their enemies needed to be shed in order to restore glory back to the empire. There were no mages in the troop of soldiers. These soldiers had been taught since they were young to pledge allegiance to the empire, his Majesty, as well as Viscount Alex.


    As Lex suppressed her anguish, she began to think clearly again. As soon as she saw that her mentor had built the castle and deployed soldiers to stand guard, Lex knew that something major had happened to Holy Rock City. Thus, she had not hesitated to be the founder of this very county, even though it was very far from Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Even though Lex was next in line for the throne by right of birth, her father had passed away six months ago, and the position of ruler was now anyone¡¯s game. If she did not fight for it, she would lose everything.


    Lex took out the magic staff that Master Joey had given her and raised it up, effectively silencing the crowd. After everyone had quietened down, she uttered one word, ¡°Enter.¡±


    Their feelings of indignation as well as their loyalty were things that needed to be encouraged. But these emotions could disappear just as quickly as they had appeared if Lex was not careful. She was still very flustered and was afraid of saying something that would cause the soldiers to turn against her. Everything had to be discussed with her mentor before she decided upon her next course of action.


    As the gates of the castle opened fully, the more than three thousand soldiers marched in through the four doors. Lex watched everything from the side. At this moment in time, her mood was poor, and if it had not been for the thousands of people standing in front of her, she would have imploded. All she could do at this point was mount the ck horse that one of the soldiers had brought to her and enter the castle together with her mentor, surrounded by the thousands of soldiers.


    There were many interconnected corridors present within the castle¡¯s structure. Lex walked past the parade square to where Saleen was and said, ¡°Saleen, go to the study room with the professor for now. I still need to meet the generals.¡±


    Knowing that Lex was not exactly the most stable person right now, Saleen turned to Nailisi and replied, ¡°Mm, Nailisi, you go with Lex. Kill anyone that poses a threat to her.¡± He was not doubting Lex¡¯s ability to defend herself, but he knew that when a mage was unable to focus, their magic would not work as effectively. Before Lex could open her mouth to refuse Nailisi¡¯s help, her mentor nudged her gently and said, ¡°Just go.¡±


    Saleen followed the mage into the study room. While waiting for the mage to take a seat, Saleen said, ¡°Professor, I don¡¯t believe I¡¯ve asked you for your name yet.¡±


    Smiling, the mage remarked, ¡°Saleen, before I be a Grade 9 mage, my teacher has forbidden me from getting my own name. All students below that level were of the same caliber in his eyes! To him, since we were no different from each other, there was no need to distinguish us by name.¡±


    ¡°Your teacher?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°He¡¯s dead already, so I can¡¯t really reject his request,¡± the mage replied, without a hint of emotion in his voice.

 Chapter 154: Lex’s Decision (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 154: Lex¡¯s Decision (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, how is the situation in the imperial capital?¡± Saleen was extremely concerned about the capital, but the sorcerer simply shook his head. Saleen knew that the sorcerer was waiting for Lex to arrive before he revealed anything.


    Lex returned in a sh with Nailisi following behind her. Nailisi made a face at Saleen.


    ¡°Teacher.¡± Lex bowed at the sorcerer before taking a seat.


    ¡°How is my brother?¡± Lex did not directly ask who the current emperor was. The entirety of the imperial capital was under Safilos¡¯ control. Ever since he had been young, Lex¡¯s brother had been recuperating in the magic tower. He had not ever had the chance to experience power and authority. It would be a piece of cake for Safilos to take over the throne.


    ¡°Smi has ascended the throne, while Prince Safilos is acting as the regent.¡±


    ¡°What about my two cousins?¡± Lex was not anxious, her brother was still alive. Even though they were not close, Lex still heaved a sigh of relief. Lex¡¯s cousins had been very obedient when her father had still been alive, but now that her father had died, it was possible that the two of them would harbor ill intentions. They would have the authority to inherit the throne so long as Safilos eliminated Lex¡¯s brother.


    ¡°Safilos conferred them as county kings before chasing them out of the imperial capital.¡±


    Lex was taken aback when she heard what the sorcerer said. Her cousins held positions in the imperial court, but they had not been conferred any titles. Now that they had been promoted straight to county kings, it seemed like they had gained a massive amount of authority. In reality, unless all other members of the royal family died, they would never have a chance of bing emperor anymore.


    Was Lex¡¯s uncle truly content with just assisting her brother?


    ¡°What about the situation in Lon?¡± Lex did not continue probing, she was more anxious about the development of the war. She had been away for a year and her father had been dead for six months, so the Lon Duchy must have been in ruins now.


    ¡°Lex, His Majesty fell into the enemy¡¯s trap. He did not bring enough soldiers. The camp of the pce swordsmen lost more than half of their manpower, but the empire¡¯s elites were not quashed. There are still more than eighty thousand soldiers who have retreated to the Titan Duchy. Cloudflow has promised to deploy troops, while the rest of the noble armies have retreated from the frontlines. Half of Lon Duchy¡¯snd is still under the control of the Qin Empire.¡±


    ¡°A trap¡­ the Holy See must have used substantial manpower to do so. Teacher, what was the situation like at that point in time?¡± Lex had a furious look on her face. She could not believe that her father had died in battle. It could not have been possible unless there were spies, or the Holy See had amassed many experts and had been bent on killing the emperor at any cost. If there really had been spies, Lex would not mind using the power of the Shinra¡¯s Ring to eliminate them, but it was possible that they had already escaped to the Tanggsi Empire.


    ¡°The pope did it himself, with the help of twelve cardinals. Also, all of the sacred knights and the four kingpins from the tribunal were present. There were no traitors. The Holy See used a divine weapon¡­¡±


    Divine weapon! Saleen¡¯s eyelids twitched furiously. The Qin Emperor might have been wearing exotic equipment, but there had just been too many enemies. Furthermore, the emperor had only brought twenty thousand warriors along, and there had been a limited number of mages with them. A small force up against a muchrger one would never have the slightest chance of victory. Even a tenacious fighter like the emperor would have been defeated.


    ¡°What was the oue?¡±


    ¡°Two of the four tribunal kingpins and the twelve cardinals died. The pope was seriously injured, and forty thousand sacred knights were also injured.


    Saleen was stunned when he heard the sorcerer¡¯s words. The cardinals were equivalent to Grade 7 mages, and some of them even had the powers of a Grade 9 mage. If the pope died, the next pope would be chosen among the cardinals. Since the twelve cardinals had died, it could be said that the Holy See had killed the Qin Emperor at all costs.


    There were sixty thousand sacred knights and forty thousand of them had been injured. Of the forty thousand people, at least twenty thousand had died during the battle, while the rest might have been permanently disabled and would never be able to fight again.


    Saleen had known that the Qin Emperor was very powerful, but not this powerful. If the pope had not had a divine weapon, the Qin Emperor might have already been able to eliminate the obstacle between the Qin Empire and the Tanggsi Empire.


    ¡°Good kills. Was there any reaction from Alchemy City?¡± Lex was dissatisfied. Her father had died in battle. Were the mages of Alchemy City not ashamed of themselves?


    ¡°Alchemy City did not dere war, but the information I received was that over ten sorcerers left the city and infiltrated the Tanggsi Empire. It seems like they are going to carry out a major operation.¡±


    Hmpf¡­


    Lex snorted loudly. The actions taken by Alchemy City were still too insignificant for her liking. Those sorcerers might have been able to obliterate a single city, but they would still not be able to do any real damage to the Glorious City. The pope might have been injured, but his second inmand was still around. The second inmand had a functional divine weapon, so the sorcerers from Alchemy City would only dare to create a ruckus in the Tanggsi Empire at most. They could not do more than that.


    So what if the sorcerers killed the emperor of the Tanggsi Empire? That man was merely a puppet.


    ¡°Why did Safilos not use the teleportation portal in the pce to bring me back?¡± Lex could not take it any longer. After her father had died, the entire empire seemed to have lost its cohesion. The armies of the nobles had retreated, and the pce swordsmen had not even bothered to return. They were still in Titan Duchy. All of this must have happened because of Safilos¡¯ attitude.


    The death of Lex¡¯s father was definitely a huge setback, but the Holy See had sustained more losses. The twelve cardinals had died, and they would need at least six months in order to fill those empty seats. If the Qin Empire attacked now, there was a possibility that the soldiers would be able to invade thend of the Tanggsi Empire.


    Now, no one was willing to attack the God Grace Duchy, and even half of the Lon Duchy had been lost. The armies belonging to the nobles were not even willing to return to the Qin Empire. It was highly possible that they were all eyeing pieces of the Lon Duchy.


    Such was the shame of the Qin Empire!


    ¡°Lex, the treasury in Bitter Water Prefecture was emptied in order to build this teleportation portal. Safilos is currently building war puppets to use in the attack against the Tanggsi Empire, so he has forbidden anyone from using the resources in the empire¡¯s treasury. Furthermore, even I was not sure that you were still alive. The prince¡­¡±


    ¡°He is just a hypocritical fellow. If he seeds, history will never record the efforts put in by my brother. Only his name will be recorded. Teacher, I understand, but I cannot ept it.¡±


    ¡°Then what do you n to do? Start a war with Safilos?¡± The sorcerer could not persuade Lex, so he decided to use sarcasm against her instead. Legally, Lex¡¯s county was already independent, but it was still part of the Qin Empire. Lex might have possessed the capabilities needed to attack Holy Rock City, but none of the nobles would lend their support to her, not to mention Lex¡¯s ownck of power.


    ¡°What can I do? Safilos didn¡¯t want to use the empire¡¯s treasury since he thought I was dead. Since I am alive, he should give me what I deserve,¡± Lex said through grit teeth.


    ¡°Yes, of course. You can go back to Bitter Water Prefecture for now and send an envoy to Holy Rock City. I will personally make the trip.¡±


    ¡°Teacher!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. The prince won¡¯t harm me.¡± The sorcerer waved his hands, dismissing Lex¡¯s words.


    ¡°Then what about the Bitter Water Prefecture?¡± Lex knew that she could not dissuade her teacher. Additionally, her teacher would have the help of Joey, so there was no real threat to her teacher.


    ¡°The mages in the prefecture did not leave. In fact, more than ten mage masters have returned, and they are all waiting for you.¡±


    A sense of warmth welled up in Lex¡¯s heart. Her countless years of hard work had not been in vain after all. Even though Lex had been missing for a year, the Bitter Water Prefecture was still functioning normally. When Lex had disappeared, most of her fortune had been inside of the god¡¯s ring. Furthermore, in order to build this teleportation portal and the castle used for monitoring this portal, it was possible that the mages in the prefecture could not even have used their usual magic nuclei in their training.


    ¡°Teacher, I don¡¯t think you need to go to the imperial capital. I don¡¯t n on returning to Bitter Water Prefecture just yet.¡± On second thought, Lex felt that if she returned to the prefecture now, she would be under scrutiny, and that would impede her development. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going back? How could you!¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I want to spend some time in Alchemy City,¡± Lex said with determination.


    ¡°Lex!¡± Saleen suddenly shouted. He knew that Lex was nning to go to Alchemy City to seek help, and he did not want Jason to be implicated in this matter.


    ¡°Saleen, you also have a portion of the items from the hell of god¡¯s punishment. Don¡¯t you want your teacher to enjoy those items as well?


    ¡°I¡­¡± Saleen was at a loss for words. When Saleen had returned, he had really wanted to see his teacher, but he had not thought of a way to tell his teacher about the god¡¯s punishment honestly. Without Lex¡¯s help, Saleen would never have been able toe back. Furthermore, the six element space belonged to Lex, and if Lex did not give them her permission, his teacher would not be able to use it in the future.


    In addition, without Lex¡¯s help, it was possible that Saleen would not even be able to discover the whereabouts of his teacher.


    ¡°Saleen, no mage would be able to resist the temptation.¡± Lex did not need to y mind games with Saleen. They had spent a year together, and a simple sentence was able to convey many thoughts. Lex also knew that Saleen was a straightforward person, so if she beat around the bush, Saleen would surely reject her without any hesitation.


    When Lex noticed that Saleen was hesitant, she said, ¡°Alchemy City is aplicated affair. It cannot be decided by only a few people. Also, I don¡¯t dare to spread our secrets. I can only trust your teacher. Right now, I am leaving so as to avoid trouble because my uncle¡¯s people are all over the Bitter Water Prefecture. I would not be able to make any progress at all. If you stay, your days will be tough as well. Now that I am back, this news will not remain a secret any longer. If I go to Alchemy City, my uncle will think that I have given up my authority and am focusing on magic training.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Saleen did not understand.


    ¡°The mages in Alchemy City will never serve any nobles. They would not budge even if the emperor personally travelled down there.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re really going to Alchemy City?¡± The sorcerer looked at Lex. Lex¡¯s face was extremely pale, like frost in the winter. It was just that this strength and coldness were extremely fragile, causing others to feel a sense of pity.


    ¡°Yes, I hope to enlist help from Saleen¡¯s teacher,¡± Lex replied forthrightly. She had said everything that was on her mind.


    ¡°Will you be able to go back to the space you were in previously?¡±


    ¡°It is possible with enough sorcerers around.¡±


    ¡°Alright, then go. I¡¯ll help you manage Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    ¡°What about the soldiers?¡± Saleen asked from the side. If Lex left, would the soldiers not lose their direction?


    ¡°I have already made arrangements. There will be many battles in Lon Duchy, so I am going to open a small road andunch a direct attack onto Lon from the Bitter Water Prefecture. Since those nobles will not seek revenge for my father, thatnd does not belong to them anyways,¡± Lex said ruthlessly.


    Once her father had died, those nobles had immediately retreated. That was tantamount to betrayal. Lex could understand why her uncle was making all of these decisions, as Safilos wanted the empire to prosper and expand. However, those nobles were in it solely for their personal gain, and some would even sacrifice their reputations.

 Chapter 155: Lex’s Decision (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 155: Lex¡¯s Decision (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was a mountainous region towards the rear of the Bitter Water Prefecture, and there were two trails in the mountain roads which led directly to the Lon Duchy. However, these two roads were far too small. Some parts were just a single narrow valley road. War horses were able to force their ways through, but carriages carrying materials and supplies would not be able to cross it.


    Such terrain was not favorable for the deployment of troops. In the past, Lex had used them to send people to fortify wide open areas. There were four castles, so only an extremely limited number of troops were able to live in them. However, if those two roads were opened fully, assuming that bridges were built and the valley was cleared using explosives, then the duration of travel from the Bitter Water Prefecture to Lon Duchy would be decreased from more than one month to half a month.


    ¡°I will send Tenesee to Titan Duchy. He will lead my father¡¯s swordsmen camp back to the Bitter Water Prefecture. Teacher, we have sufficient mage masters, but weck sorcerers. Please help me set magic arrays along the road to the Lon Duchy. You must ensure that the prefecture remains safe.¡±


    ¡°You are leaving now?¡± the sorcerer asked in concern. The sorcerer only had two real students, and now that Faerun was dead, Lex had be his sole sessor.


    ¡°No, I am going to live in this castle for a few days. My father has left a substantial amount of materials with me. I still need your help to bring it back to the Bitter Water Prefecture. Also, the position of this castle is too important. Which noble owns thisnd?¡±


    This newly built castle coincidentally provided protection for the northern side of Bitter Water Prefecture. If enemies could not attack from the small roads, then with the exception of this castle, they would have no choice but to use the roads on the eastern side. The eastern side was in the direction of Holy Rock City, and if the aggressors decided to attack, they would certainly not go all the way around to attack the prefecture. With this castle¡¯s defenses, their enemies would face difficulties in deployingrge scale troops to invade the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    ¡°Just a first baron. He doesn¡¯t even have a castle.¡±


    ¡°Recruit him. I will confer him the title of a viscount and help him build castles.¡±


    ¡°Lex, that will cost you some explosives,¡± the sorcerer reminded her.


    ¡°Teacher, I have the money, I justck manpower. I have asked Tenesee. He said that to date, the Bitter Water County has already taken control of all the cities within two hundred miles, but the army has less than twenty thousand soldiers and this is sorely inadequate. This time, when you go back, do not leave the prefecture and let the people in my residence handle the ounts. I cannot trust the outsiders anymore.¡±


    Aye¡­


    The sorcerer sighed. He had watched Lex grow up, and she was not just his student, but also his child. Regarding matters such as ounting, any other sorcerer would have refused the task, and yet he could not bring himself to reject Lex¡¯s requests.


    ¡°Teacher, I will leave some materials for you that will be enough to create a permanent teleportation portal. This teleportation portal¡­ shall be built in your magical tower.¡±


    This teleportation portal that Lex was referring to was the one that was going to be connected to the hell of the god¡¯s punishment. The problem was that it was easy to exit that ce, but difficult to gain entry again. Lex had only left the war puppets there. She could not identify its exact coordinates. The coordinates outside of the castle could not be used anymore, as it was not safe here. If a permanent teleportation portal was built here, it would be very easy for other people to discover it.


    Even so, if Lex wanted to return to the hell of the god¡¯s punishment, she would need to spend a lot of time calcting new coordinates between the two nes and would require a massive amount of help from multiple sorcerers.


    After settling the rest of the matters, Lex stayed in the castle for another six days. During this time, she transferred most of the military resources, gold coins, magic nuclei, and magic equipment to the sorcerer. Aside from the items that Joey had given her, Lex only kept the fully constructed puppets and the scrolls.


    Fully constructed puppets needed to be activated by magic nuclei that were solely Grade 7 or above, and Lex had very little of them left. She did have many nk scrolls , but she did not want to remain here any longer. In these seven days, the sorcerer produced twenty-one Grade 7 scrolls for Lex. Combined with the remaining scrolls in her possession, Lex¡¯s safety could be secured.


    Saleen also gained a new batch of magic nuclei to replenish his stores. After carefully thinking it through, Saleen decided to hand over the maps that he had obtained from the temple to the sorcerer.


    ¡°Master, I don¡¯t think I will have the luxury of having enough time to study these magic arrays. Please use them for the construction of the Bitter Water County.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s magic knowledge was scarce. If he started from scratch, his studies would surelypromise his progress in magic. Even though these items were quite valuable and Saleen felt a loss in giving them away, the magic nuclei that Lex had given him were also of premium quality, especially the nine pieces of magic nuclei which were now fused with the demonic bracelet. Those magic nuclei were all of Grade 8 and they were already cut up nicely.


    Magic nuclei which were fused with other essories would naturally not be their usual size. They were mostly made up of leftover materials from the process of cutting up other magic nuclei. But once a magic nucleus was higher than Grade 7, its useless fragments were also extremely precious, not to mention the superior objects with twenty-four sides that were cut out from them.


    Saleen was not a greedy person. Perhaps he did not verbally say so when people treated him well, but he remembered everything they had done for him. Of course, the sorcerer had given him those magic nuclei in the hopes that he would protect Lex. But prior to that, Faerun had also taught him selflessly.


    For the past six days, Saleen had not done anything. He was busy practicing control of the fully constructed puppets. The fully constructed puppets were different from the war puppets that had been built by Saleen. Their insides did not contain skeletons, and there were just alchemy machines inside of them. All of their movements were controlled by magic arrays. Lex was able to control at least six fully constructed puppets, while Saleen had already begun to face difficulties controlling his second one.


    Up until the moment when Lex was preparing to leave, Saleen was still attempting to master the controls of a fully constructed puppet. But it could not be helped, as Saleen was extremely unfamiliar with the magic arrays used to control these puppets. They would be manageable for Saleen if the magic arrays could be naturally activated, but since they involved magic arrays which required constant control, the witcher spider puppet which had been created by Aini¡¯s parents would still be the most suitable puppet for him.


    The sorcerer wanted to assign some swordmasters to apany Lex, but she rejected the sorcerer¡¯s proposal without any hesitation. In Alchemy City, even grand swordmasters did not mean anything. However, people such as Sika and Nailisi, who had never learned the sword aura before, were not discriminated against either. Since Lex was going to Alchemy City on a mission, she could not possibly bring along an entourage of bodyguards with her.


    Saleen could not figure out Lex¡¯s way of handling her affairs. If she stayed in the Bitter Water Prefecture, she would still be able to practice in peace even if there was suppression from Holy Rock City. Given Lex¡¯s aptitude, she would be a sorcerer within ten years. Additionally, using the secret of the hell of the god¡¯s punishment to tempt other sorcerers toe forward was a very risky thing to do in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Jason was the only person Saleen was not worried about. His teacher must have been a Grade 6 mage master by now. Jason was still a fair distance away from being a sorcerer, so why did Lex believe so strongly that Jason would be able to aid her?


    Saleen did not see any problem in not bringing the swordmasters, because Nailisi and Sika were top quality warriors. Along with the fully constructed puppets, Saleen and Lex would not be in much danger as long as they did not leave the Qin Empire.


    The Qin Empire had the smallest number of nobles among the four big empires, but its nobles were also the most influential. Bandits could not survive in the Qin Empire, because the moment anyrge bandit groups appeared, they would quickly be snuffed out by the united power of the nobles. As the Qin Empire emphasized agriculture, the nobles provided sturdy protection to the farmers, and this in turn stabilized the security and peace within the empire.


    A mage¡¯s baggage was quite minimal, and this was especially true once a mage advanced to Grade 6, as by that point they would be able to use spatial equipment. Lex and her team took eight horses and left the castle as thousands of warriors watched them go.


    The castle was situated slightly to the northwestern direction of the Qin Empire, while Alchemy City was thousands of miles away in the southeastern direction. Once Lex left for Alchemy City, the sorcerer also departed soon after. The mage masters who hade from Bitter Water Prefecture began redesigning the structure of the castle and expanding it.


    This castle which was able to fit three thousand people was already enormous, but thend surrounding it was not spacious enough. Hence, even though this ce was a crucial defensive position, none of the nobles had chosen to build their cities here. The mages selected a site near the road and began building a second castle. They wanted topletely seal the road down south, and this could not be achieved with an army that had less than twenty thousand soldiers.


    This location was about one thousand miles away from the Bitter Water County, and thend in that gap belonged to over ten nobles. However, this direction was naturally quite far from Holy Rock City, so all of these nobles were bribed by Lex¡¯s subordinates and hence joined the Bitter Water County.


    Lex seemed to have stopped thinking about all these loose ends. The four of them did not rush their journey. They needed to go east and go around thousands of miles of mountainous region before they continued southeast.


    There were many mountains in northern Qin, and the empire had spent hundreds of years opening those roads which allowed people to traverse from the east to the west. Going along this road would lead straight to the Lon Duchy, and it was the most important transportation route in the north. The death of the Qin Emperor during the battle had affected much of the empire. When they passed by two cities, Saleen noticed that security was very tight.


    ¡°Lex, can you deploy your men?¡± Saleen rode on horseback next to Lex. Since the horse was traveling slowly, it was a good opportunity for Saleen to practice his horsemanship.


    ¡°What are you trying to do?¡± Several days after leaving the castle, Lex had begun talking more, and her expression was no longer as though she were being frozen by a frost array.


    Saleen heard her tone and realized that she could really deploy some people. Then, Saleen said, ¡°I am thinking of contacting the Clyde family.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, before we find your teacher, I think it would be best not to look for anyone else,¡± Lex objected to Saleen¡¯s request.


    ¡°I am not looking for Aini. Lex, we have arge quantity of nk scrolls with us, and with a few more gold coins, we can barter for scrolls with magic in them.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, unless we can gather at least one hundred sorcerers, these nk scrolls won¡¯t be filled up. Do you think the Clyde family has that type of power? The production of high level scrolls is onerous, and the Clyde family won¡¯t have that many resources.¡±


    ¡°At least intermediate level scrolls¡­¡±


    ¡°I will help you do it.¡± Lexughed. Saleen was far too paranoid. Saleen and Lex were a Grade 4 and Grade 6 mage respectively, so it was likely that they would note across any danger. This was because under most circumstances, a Grade 6 mage would choose to find a ce to train and build a magic tower. Hence, mages who were active outside were mostly Grade 3 and below.


    As for swordsmen, it was a serious offense for them to attack mages.


    Saleen was speechless. He had many nk scrolls, and even the lousiest one was of an intermediate grade and would require a Grade 5 mage to use. There were also restrictions on the production of scrolls. If Saleen wanted to guarantee sess, a Grade 4 mage like him would only be able to produce Grade 3 scrolls. If he insisted on producing Grade 4 scrolls, the sess rate would be reduced to only ten percent. And if Saleen tried to create Grade 5 scrolls, it would already be consideredmendable if he seeded just once out of a hundred tries.


    Only a Grade 9 sorcerer would be able to break this barrier. For now, Saleen could only sigh at the huge store of nk scrolls he possessed.

 Chapter 156: Master’s Horror (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 156: Master¡¯s Horror (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was summer, and rainfall was plentiful during this season. The rain drizzled for less than three hours after Saleen and his group had left a small town before slowly bing a downpour. Lex and Saleen were fine, but Sika and Nailisi becamepletely drenched. They had no choice but to seek shelter.


    Both Sika and Nailisi were tough and could withstand the torrential rain. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the horses they were riding. Thus, they sought shelter because there was no point in getting wet if they could not cover any ground. After travelling for a while, they found a wilderness shop.


    These roadside wilderness shops operated on a huge scale, and depended entirely on peddling goods or services in order to survive. Lex and Saleen created an invisible shield that sheltered them from the rain before rushing into the huge courtyard found within the shop. Instantly, a waiter wearing a raincoat appeared and led their horses to the back.


    Along the way, they saw many businessmen and mercenaries. Purely adventurous risk-takers and mages were a rare sight. The waiter spoke carefully, trying not to anger the four of them, ¡°My apologies, but it appears that we do not have any individual rooms avable¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. We¡¯ll just sit here,¡± Lex interrupted, pointing to the seats next to the window. This wilderness shop operated on a huge scale, but it had no decorations, and the furniture had all been made from unsightly logs.


    Outside the window wererge eaves, pirs, and walls that did a fine job of preventing the wind and rain from entering the building.


    The fact that two mages had arrived at this wilderness shop naturally caught the attention of the manager. Another waiter brought towels for the four of them to dry off. Saleen rejected his offer while Lex ignored him and immediately cast a Cleaning spell followed by a Fire Washing spell. Immediately, Sika and Nailisi¡¯s clothes became dry as all of the water droplets on them evaporated.


    Not daring to disturb these seemingly difficult customers, the manager quietly ordered the waiters to bring a new tea set and reheat water for them.


    Saleen and hispanions did not feel that they were difficult customers. In the past, whenever Lex had ventured out, she had turned it into some extravagant event where the many people apanying her would cater to her every whim. She was better now. At the very least, she did not have any grand swordmasters beside her to serve her. Out of her four ck metal grand swordmasters, two of them had been killed while the rest were nursing their internal injuries back at the magic tower. Moreover, because they were going to Alchemy City, she had not even brought any assassins with her.


    Other than Lex, the only people who knew about the trip to Alchemy City were Nailisi, Sika, Saleen, and her mentor. If it had not been for the fact that this trip was to be kept a secret, Lex would have had at least a few low-level mages apanying her for protection.


    Saleen retrieved a tea set from the demonic bracelet and began creating restorative water, ignoring the hot water that the waiters had put on their table earlier. The way that he cast the spell was simr to the way Lex cast her Fire Washing spell. When he was finished, he used that water to brew tea for Lex.


    Saleen¡¯s move did not cause any dissatisfaction amongst the many people who were in the wilderness shop waiting for the rain to pass. Even if it had, they did not show it. Everyone lowered their heads, afraid to make eye contact or do anything that might provoke the mages. These outbound traders were very good at reading people. Saleen and Lex exuded an aura vastly different from that of a normal low-level mage. Hence, no one dared to entertain the idea of striking up a conversation with them.


    Usually, low-level mages would be willing to serve these businessmen in exchange for gold coins. However, it was not the same for higher-level mages. Even if they did not have money, they had Grade 4 mercenaries who would support them in battle. In other words, they were way out of the leagues of these businessmen.


    At that moment, the entire shop was silent as everyone watched Saleen cast his spell. Lex looked out the window and felt herself bing very calm as she watched the pitter-patter of the raindrops.


    Going to Alchemy City had not been ast-minute idea. Lex had already thought of it when she had discovered the ten story magic tower in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. However, after she had arrived back at Myers Maind and found out about her father¡¯s passing, she had decided to bring forth her n.


    Bitter Water Prefecture had resources, butcked people. A Grade 8 mage was more than enough to ensure the peace and prosperity of the county. However, to be a real county without relying on manpower or the help of other counties, Bitter Water Prefecture needed to have at least some Grade 9 mages.


    Lex knew that if she could find a way to create a portal connecting Bitter Water Prefecture to the hell of god¡¯s punishment, her mentor would be able to be a Grade 9 mage with the help of the six element space. Once that was aplished, Bitter Water Prefecture would be a legitimate county.


    Furthermore, she needed more manpower in order to sessfully avenge her father. Lex knew that she would not be able to do it by herself. The number of formidable opponents in the Holy See rivalled those of Alchemy City, which meant that even if she was extremely gifted, relying on her own capabilities to defeat the Holy See would be a very stupid decision.


    Lex finally understood how Saleen felt. It was the feeling of knowing where your enemies were, but being unable to do anything about them. She eyed the tea that Saleen had brewed for her andughed. ¡°You still have this tea set?¡±


    She had left the teaset at the Clyde residence when she had gone to visit Holy Rock City. She did not know that Saleen had taken it with him.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s expensive. You know how poor my family was when I was young. It¡¯d be a waste to leave it at Holy Rock City,¡± Saleen replied, not feeling even the slightest bit embarrassed. The truth was that he disliked it when people used any items that had previously been touched by Lex. In the past, he had given it little thought. Now, he was certain about these feelings.


    Lex pursed her lips tightly to stop herself from calling out Saleen. Unlike other swordsmen, Saleen did not openly express his attraction for her. Lex also did not want to embarrass Saleen, lest thetter was a thin-skinned individual.


    Just then, a waiter arrived and ced some snacks on their table. Lex eyed the food but refused to eat it. Since she had been young, she had trained herself not to eat outside food, lest it was contaminated or poisoned. Nailisi, on the other hand, could not have cared less. Even if the snacks were poisoned, it would probably not be enough to kill her.


    As an adult, Nailisi had a much better appetite and preferred normal food over blood as a means of sustenance. As soon as Nailisi saw Saleen giving Sika the all-clear, meaning that the food was safe to eat, she did not hesitate to reach her greedy hands out and grab some food from the table.


    The four of them hade into the shop with the sole intention of seeking shelter from the rain. However, once the food was served, Sika and Nailisi began gobbling down the food in front of them. Saleen, who was not hungry, chose to watch from the side. They had insane strength, but even crazier appetites. They were like hibernating creatures. Once they ate a lot of food in one sitting, they would be able to withstand long periods of starvation. Like Sika and Naisili, the people from the region of Caucasus were indeed very poor, and their lifestyles closely mirrored that of the demons.


    The sounds of hooves hitting the ground suddenly filled the air. Sika shoved the snack she had in her hand into her mouth and wiped her face with her sleeve. After discreetly wiping her hands, she pulled out her boomerang and rested it on her thighs.


    Just from the frequency of the hooves hitting the ground, it was obvious that the horse was travelling at a very fast pace. This could not have been due to the fact that the knights who were riding them wanted to seek shelter. Everyone knew that even strong horses would not be able to take it when their bodies were pushed to their limits, and travelling this fast would cause them to die or be disabled in a matter of minutes. All battalion horses had to control their speeds during battle. Failure to do so could lead to their deaths.


    The fact that the knights were making their horses travel so fast meant that they were running for their lives. Sika was able to draw this conclusion because she possessed a great interest in military matters, which was unusual since she was generally apathetic to the things happening around her.


    ¡°And I was really beginning to enjoy the peace and quiet around here,¡± Lex grumbled as soon as she realized what was going on.


    ¡°Sika, do not strike yet,¡± Saleen whispered in Sika¡¯s direction. He did not want to be dragged into a battle he had no business with. He felt that it was not a serious matter since the empire had not dered war yet. To him, it would be best to let the nobles handle it.


    Sika nodded in understanding. If Saleen did not want her to interfere, she could not be bothered to take action either.


    The shop was filled with merchants and low-grade mercenaries. Their ears were not sensitive enough to pick up the noise over the sounds of the heavy rain. As soon as Saleen stuck his head outside the window to get a glimpse of what was going on, over twenty horses rushed into the courtyard. Despite the heavy rain, the knights still had blood all over their bodies that had not been washed away.


    From their faces, it was obvious that these knights had been chased for a while now. They looked very fatigued, which indicated ack of rest. Thest two knights even had dozens of arrows sticking out of them. Judging from the fact that the arrows had not prated their skin too deeply, Saleen concluded that they had been protected by the metal armor they wore.


    The Qin citizens prided themselves on their advanced casting technology. Their armor was even protected from arrows. Unless they were alchemy crossbows, it was very difficult for someone who wore this armor to be severely injured by arrows.


    As the more than twenty knights rushed into the courtyard, they immediately shut the door behind them. More than half of them smashed two carriages parked within the yard and used the material to bolt the doors shut.


    The yard was a ce intended for merchants to park their vehicles. These two carriages had belonged to a group of traders. Seeing that the knights had smashed their employers¡¯ vehicles, approximately a dozen mercenaries stood up at the same time, waiting for the merchants to tell them to attack.


    The fact that these knights had rushed into the yard and bolted the door shut in such a short period of time meant that they were nimble, skilled, and adept. Judging by their metal armor that seemed to be made of high-quality materials, they were no ordinary knights. These mercenaries did not want to provoke them, but since they were paid to protect their employers, if they did not intervene, their reputation would bepletely tarnished.


    Saleen was better able to differentiate the ranks of the two groups of people. Within the group of more than twenty knights, there were at least five swordmasters. However, the strongest mercenary was only an advanced swordsman. There was no way the mercenaries would win if they chose to attack.


    The two wounded knights were carried into the shop by theirrades, who rudely pushed aside the waiters who came up to serve them. The uninjured knights joined four tables together, and gently ced the injured knights on top. From there, they used a dagger to carefully sever the arrows sticking out of the armor before stripping it off of the wounded knights and plucking out the arrow-heads that had prated their skin.


    ¡°Hurry up! The arrows have poison in them!¡± someone barked.


    ¡°Yes sir!¡± the rest of the knights yelled in unison.


    While some of the knights were busy removing the arrows, others had opened up their pouches to retrieve some medication. From there, they started cleaning the wounds of their injuredrades before applying said medication. All of the knights had dismounted their horses by then. Onenky knight, d in blue armor, appeared to be themander. With a pistol in his hand, he strode into the wilderness shop.


    ¡°Who is the manager?¡± themander hollered at the top of his voice.


    ¡°Me,¡± came a soft, meek reply.


    The owner of the shop, who was situated behind the counter, reluctantly approached themander. He looked to be over forty years old and had a pretty round face. Overall, he looked pretty friendly, though he seemed apprehensive at the moment. He had operated this shop for over a decade, but this was something he had never seen before.


    ¡°I am a swordmaster in charge of Forest Enterprises. We have crossed paths with a bandit gang and need to seek refuge in your shop,¡± themander said gruffly, looking around. As soon as his eyes came across Saleen and the others, he gasped in surprise. He had not been expecting any mages to be present. Immediately, the tone of his voice became much gentler as he reached the end of his little speech.


    Without warning, one of hisrades shouted in Saleen¡¯s direction, ¡°You! Go over and help them!¡±


    Although Saleen¡¯s demon outfit had been custom-made, he had put on a white robe that his teacher had given him earlier over the outside, meaning that ordinary swordmasters would not be able to recognize his true strength. They would only view him as a Grade 2 mage. Lex, on the other hand, had donned a colorful robe that looked fake. Only advanced mages that were Grade 4 and above would understand what the robe represented.


    Sika and Nailisi were not swordsmen. They were pretty, but they were not pushovers either. Under pressure, the swordmaster, unable to control his emotions, had spoken very harshly.


    Themander¡¯s heart sank but he did not immediately reprimand his subordinate. He wanted to see the reaction of the young mage. In the Qin Empire, mages were highly respected. However, because there were so many low-grade mages, if Saleen ended up being one of them, he would not need to grovel at his feet. After all, he was a highly-skilled swordmaster and would be of higher status than an ordinary mage.


    Saleen only shook his head. He had no intention of helping, but he did not want to hurt the knights either. Themander had made it clear that it was a bandit gang who wanted to kill them, and he did not want to get involved.


    This wilderness shop was not very far from a small town. It would take about an hour to reach there by horse. The town belonged to a baron, who was a prominent figure. He had about ten cavalrymen and more than thirty swordmasters at his disposal. They helped maintain thew and order in that area. If the support troops were counted, the town had an army that was two or three hundred strong.


    With so many reinforcements within reach of the wilderness shop, the bandit gang would not dare start a fight here. If they were unable to break into the courtyard, they would leave the knights alone.

 Chapter 157: Master’s Horror (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 157: Master¡¯s Horror (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex furrowed her eyebrows as she attempted to analyze the situation at hand. The Qin Empire had not dered war on any country, so why would a formidable bandit gang being after their people? Furthermore, the knights werebat-ready and it would take at least a hundred people, most of whom were swordmasters, to be able to kill them.


    Technically, the bandit gang could not be considered an army. Even so, they must have reached a certain number of members to have forced the knights to retreat.


    ¡°You!¡± The knight who had shouted at Saleen earlier continued bellowing.


    Themander immediately held him back to prevent his subordinate from exploding with anger. As he did that, he turned towards Saleen and said, ¡°I¡¯m deeply sorry, sir. Please excuse my subordinate¡¯s rude behavior.¡±


    Lex knew exactly what themander was doing. He had risked his subordinate¡¯s life to test the waters. If Saleen had been angered, not only would themander have been afraid of offending the mage, but he would have also allowed his subordinate to be Saleen¡¯s punching bag. Although it was a smart decision, Lex despised people like him who dly risked the lives of their men just to preserve their own lives.


    Instantly, there wasplete pandemonium. Everyone simply panicked. ¡°Bring all your guests to a safe ce and have them hide. After that, find somebody to assist my men in bolting the back doors shut. Not to worry, the bandit gang will not harm your people. I will be responsible for any losses incurred by this shop,¡± themander told the manager.


    His tone was sickly sweet, which turned Lex off even more.


    Just then, Nailisi suddenly spoke up. ¡°Master Saleen, would you like me to kill the knight who was rude to you just now?¡±


    Her voice was neither too loud nor soft. However, it was loud enough for everyone present to hear.


    Saleen let out augh before replying, ¡°Why would I be mad? If I picked a random person off of the streets, they would probably be just like that blockhead. Dealing with him isn¡¯t worth the time. Just eat your food.¡±


    His answer was enough to make themander hopping mad. However, he knew better than to pipe up, so he tolerated Saleen¡¯s sarcastic remark. He was good at reading people, and he knew that Saleen was not a lowly mage. The four of them emitted an intimidating aura that scared people off.


    What had aroused his attention even more was the fact that the girl with her back towards him was carrying a huge club. Anybody withmon sense would know not to provoke people, especially women, who knew how to use heavy weaponry.


    The diners stood up one by one and were led into the back rooms by the waiters. The traders whose carriages had been destroyed did not dare have their mercenaries pursue the matter. The room had about a dozen open windows, which was a bad thing because it was an invitation for the bandit gang to put their arrows to use. Once the arrows beganing in through the windows, the knights, along with the other customers, were done for.


    Once his men were finished treating the wounded knights, themander stalked towards Saleen and his friends.


    ¡°Great mage,¡± themander greeted respectfully.


    ¡°Mm¡­¡± Saleen replied without even shooting a nce in his direction. He sipped his tea calmly.


    ¡°My name is ke, a mid-level grand swordmaster from Forest Enterprises. Could you help us defeat the bandit gang? Forest Enterprises would be happy to give youpensation for your efforts,¡± themander said with an awfully polite tone to his voice. The respectful demeanor on themander¡¯s emaciated face was not fooling anyone. In fact, it made him look even shadier, if that was even possible.


    Lex had wanted to say something but was beaten to it by Saleen. ¡°We¡¯re here to discuss business with Clyde Enterprises. If you want my help, you need to take the amount of remuneration you¡¯re thinking of now and multiply it by many, many times.¡±


    As he answered themander, he listened for the sounds of trotting horses. As expected, the sounds were growing louder, which meant that their enemies were getting closer. In fact, if Saleen had judged correctlly, they were about a kilometer away. His five senses could actually be magnified while the rain continued to fall. However, he could not be bothered to activate even one of them in order to observe the bandit gang¡¯s movements.


    ¡°Great mage, the bandit gang is our enemy. As a member of the Qin Empire, you are obligated¡­¡± themander said, desperation clear in his voice.


    However, before he could finish his sentence, he was cut off by Saleen, who rudely replied, ¡°Sorry. We are not members of the Qin Empire, and neither are the three women apanying me. Since you¡¯ve pissed me off, you¡¯ll need to pay four times the normal amount in order to utilize our services.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he took out a scroll and ced it on the table. Themander was on the verge of attacking Saleen. Since Saleen was not a Qin citizen, he did not need to be too amodating to him. However, as soon as he saw Saleen¡¯s scroll, he reigned in his anger.


    It was very easy to tell if a scroll was a low-level one. Themander had seen low-level scrolls so many times that he had lost count. However, the scroll that Saleen had taken out was vastly different from the other ones he had seen. The scroll was fastened together with a leather rope that had intricate magic patterns. The scroll glowed a dark silver, indicating that it contained at least one mid-level spell.


    ¡°How much?¡± themander asked, gritting his teeth as he spoke.


    Themander had already cast aside his pride by the time he had asked that question. But Saleen, whose eyes were on the scroll, did not even look up as he replied, ¡°Ten thousand gold coins.¡±


    Themanderposed himself and stared at Saleen before saying, ¡°Great mage, with all due respect, please do not joke about something like this.¡±


    Saleen shook his head before replying, ¡°Well, I could always wait for the bandit gang to finish what they started. Perhaps I could even work something out with them. Perhaps I will be able to get more gold coins then.¡±


    Lex suddenly understood why Saleen was behaving so coldly. Yes, bandit gangs were known for their brutality, but they would not go so far as to murder more than twenty swordmasters. After getting what they wanted, they would leave immediately to avoid attracting the attention of the noblemen. Unless these knights had something very valuable with them, the bandit gang would not do something as extreme as killing people from a huge organization like Forest Enterprises.


    Forest Enterprises belonged to the Williams family. Like the Clyde family, they had many connections. The bandit gang would be courting death if they dared to provoke them. The only exnation for the bandit gang¡¯s audacity was that the Williams family had decided to start business outside of the Qin Empire.


    Saleen was not trying to extort themander. He simply did not want to be used like a fool.


    There were rules governing the hiring of mercenaries. A person¡¯s rank, strength, and reputation, among other things, would determine how much they could be paid. Since Saleen was a mage, it would naturally be more expensive to hire him. What Saleen could not stand was the fact that the intermediate swordmaster, who was perfectly capable of paying Saleen for his services since he was a Williams after all, had tried to use Qinw to force Saleen into helping him for free.


    Although themander had red up upon hearing that Saleen wanted ten thousand gold coins, Saleen knew that themander was faking it. He knew that whatever themander was protecting was worth far more than ten thousand gold coins. Otherwise, he would not have enlisted the help of Saleen, who looked like a junior mage with his white robe.


    To say that themander was angry was an understatement. In fact, he was hopping mad. His face contorted with anger as the thought of striking Saleen crossed his mind. However, he chose to resist his urges, not wanting to risk the possibility of provoking a senior mage. Plus, the girl who had the club behind her back had another weapon rested on her legs. It looked like some sort of Caucasus fighting equipment. Themander knew better than to act on impulse.


    As the neighs of the battalion horses filled the air, themander began to regret what he had said. If he had known that this young mage would be so shrewd, he would not have provoked him. Now that the mage was angry, he would probably wait for them to be killed before stealing from them. As long as the mage did not attack any Qin citizens, he would not be punished by Qinw even if he watched the bandit gang bludgeon them to death.


    ¡°Ten thousand gold coins and I¡¯ll scare them off. Twenty thousand gold coins and I¡¯ll kill them all. This is yourst chance. They¡¯re already here,¡± Saleen said, putting away his magic scroll. He already knew how strong the bandit gang was. There were forty-two battalion horses stationed outside of the wilderness shop, and among the bandits, the weakest soldier was a senior swordsman.


    As the storm progressed, Saleen¡¯s powers became stronger. He was so strong that he did not need to use too much energy to differentiate the abilities of his enemies, even those who were a few hundred meters away from him.


    Within the bandit gang, there were no grand swordmasters, nor were there any mages. Even if he was outnumbered by a longshot, Saleen knew that he would be able to take them all down without a problem.


    ¡°I did not bring so much money!¡± Themander nearly pulled his hair in frustration as he screamed. He knew that Saleen had meant what he said. If Saleen said that he was not going to get involved, he would be watching from the side as the bandit gang tore them to shreds. Themander knew that there was really no use negotiating with Saleen. Thetter was not going to ept anything less than twenty thosuand gold coins. Stupid mage! Themander thought furiously, as the realization that Saleen would not respect the Qinw even if he had lied about not being a Qin suddenly dawned on him.


    ¡°That box the knight over there is carrying seems to be the type to hold magic nuclei. I don¡¯t mind epting a magic nucleus as payment,¡± Saleen said, smiling as he pointed to the knight carrying the box on his back. Saleen did not actually want the magic nucleus. Heck, he was not even sure if the item inside the box was a magic nucleus. He just wanted to know what items the warriors from Forest Enterprises had brought along with them. If he had truly wanted to extort Forest Enterprises, Saleen knew that Lex would despise him forever.


    ¡°Okay, deal!¡± themander replied hastily, afraid that Saleen would change his mind. Themander knew that if he fought against the bandits without Saleen¡¯s help, he would only have a fraction of his men remaining by the end of the battle. He was already partially responsible for failing to ensure the secrecy of their mission. If his men perished, he would not be able to answer to his family.


    Bam!


    The bandits were trying to break in by destroying the door using heavy weaponry. Within minutes, thick cracks appeared on the door frame.


    ¡°I believe you said that you¡¯d pay for any losses this shop incurs?¡± Saleen asked with a calm look on his face. In fact, he would prefer it if the bandits rushed into the yard. That way, he did not have to waste his energy walking to the door to greet them. Another benefit was that once the bandits were in a far more confined space, it would be harder for them to escape.


    ¡°Yes,¡± themander replied, gritting his teeth. His men were already firing arrows towards the bandit gang in an effort to hold them off. If Saleen did not pitch in, they would have no more ammunition by the time the bandits scaled the walls.


    Watching Saleen leisurely toy with the intermediate swordmaster was a funny sight to see. Lex wanted tough, but chose not to. At the same time, she realized something. Whenever they were out and about, Saleen had much keener instincts than her. Lex was good at analyzing political and military matters while Saleen was more inclined towards studying the lives of mercenaries.


    ¡°Alright. I hope you don¡¯t go back on your word,¡± Saleen said. He stood up and walked into the yard with Sika following closely behind him.


    The rain would not be letting up anytime soon. Saleen used it to his advantage and created a shield made entirely of water. The spell was such that his entire body was protected. It was called the Water Shield spell, to be precise. However, he did not provide any protection for Sika. He knew that even if Sika did not specialize inbat using swords, casting a spell on her would affect the other aspects of herbat readiness.


    Before long, Saleen had reached the entrance of the courtyard, where he stood and waited. The swordsmen from Forest Enterprises had already scattered and were looking at the young mage apprehensively.


    Snap!


    A sharp object coated with a sword aura was used to break the door down. Part of a carriage that had been used to bolt the door shut was chopped through as well. In a matter of minutes, a giant hole appeared where part of the door had been, and standing behind said hole were the heavily armed bandits. Saleen simply stood there silently. The bandit that had broken down the door was the strongest over all of the other bandits. However, he was not too anxious to strike, since the oue would be the same regardless of how fast he dealt with them.


    The loud snapping of breaking wood filled the air once more. The bandit had seen the carriage through the giant hole and had broken it with just one swipe of his heavy sword. In doing that, he had created a hole big enough for his troops to rush in.


    Saleen found itmendable that the swordsmen from Forest Enterprises had been able to dy the arrival of the bandits for so long. Seeing that the entrance was too narrow, the bandits dismounted from their horses and made a beeline for the door.


    Saleen raised his hand, and immediately, the rain stopped as the surrounding temperature rapidly dropped. Lex was no longer shocked by the new tricks that Saleen had up his sleeve. In fact, she was pleasantly surprised to witness yet another rare spell cast by only the most skilled of mages.


    Instantly, numerous icicles appeared in the air and hurtled towards the bandits. What seemed like an insignificant Grade 1 spell had be much more powerful in the hands of Saleen. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Saleen hadpletely modified what the spell could do. Lex decided to count the number of icicles lingering in the air.


    One thousand and eighty icicles. That was stronger than a storm, or even a blizzard. Saleen had sessfully imprisoned the bandits with his spell. Not even a senior mage could have possessed that much control over a particr element. Each icicle had split into thirty-six smaller icicles. If Lex had done her math correctly, Saleen had fired thirty icicles towards the bandits using the Icicle spell. This was not something that could be done simply by expending energy from one¡¯s magic chords.


    Saleen had tapped into the water elements in order to create this hail-like weather. Lex had not heard of a single archmage that had gone back to study low-level spells after advancing to a higher rank. Not only had Saleen done that, but he had done it to the level of perfection. He had utilized this heavy rain to unleash the full capabilities of a Grade 4 mage.


    The swordsmen from Forest Enterprise grew pale as they watched Saleen. To be able to unleash such powerful magic in this environment was almost impossible. They dared not think about how miserable their fates would have been if the icicles had been aimed at them instead. Could it be possible that this young mage was actually a sorcerer?

 Chapter 158: The Grand Swordmaster in the Bandit Gang (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 158: The Grand Swordmaster in the Bandit Gang (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen released all of his perception, and every action that the bandits made became crystal clear to him. There were more than thirty bandits in the courtyard, while another ten were standing guard outside. Saleen¡¯s icicles epassed all of the bandits, and a loud crashing sound was heard six times.


    The over one thousand icicles split into six pieces, each of them thicker than the ice arrow from an average mage, and crashed into the ground.


    In the curtain of rain, the door and walls of the wilderness shop copsed at the same time. Most of the bandits were killed during the second round of barrage, and only three of them endured it to the end. One of the bandits was the man who had broken the door to the courtyard.


    Blood was spurting out from his body. He had used the sword aura to withstand the icicles, but his body could no longer take it. That bandit was still a distance away from bing a grand swordmaster, so he could only use his weapon to block magic even if the magic was of a low level.


    On the Myers Maind, the segregation between the professions was not standardized. Most people thought that a mid-level swordmaster was equivalent to a Grade 4 mage in terms of lethality. However, in terms of defensive power, the Ice te Armor spell of a Grade 4 mage already stumped most swordmasters. Furthermore, if a mage had learned the defense spells of Fire Magic, they would even cause ssh damage to their enemies in the process of defending.


    The bandit who wielded an epee knew that he would die, so all of his fury was unleashed and he began to walk towards Saleen with his epee in hand. Saleen had the water shield clinging to his body. There was ayer of vapor on the surface of his body, so he ignored the bandit who was approaching. Saleen took one step towards the destroyed wall. Upon seeing him, the two bandits who had been seriously injured whistled with whatever strength they had left, calling for their war horses.


    The rain descended mercilessly, and the thick raindropsbined to form a curtain. A slender, transparent water chain formed above the bandits¡¯ heads, and quickly twisted around their necks.


    The water chain was at least ten meters long, and simr to an alchemy saw, it had protruding serrated teeth. The water chain only twisted gently around the bandits¡¯ necks, but their heads immediately rolled onto the ground. Blood gushed out but was swiftly broken down by the rain, forming a mist of blood. The redness quickly faded into the rain.


    The swordsmen who had been conducting business in the forest were dumbfounded when they saw what Saleen had done. They had seen mages in battle before, but none had been as neat, decisive, ruthless, and instinctive as Saleen.


    That bandit wielding the epee had missed his target, so he now panted in the rain. He used the epee to support his weakening body as his back began to freeze. It turned out that an icicle had struck that bandit, and since his sword aura had not been able to disperse all of the magic, the freezing effects of the icicle had detonated on him. They caused the bandit to be gradually engulfed by ice, and he was frozen to the spot.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go back.¡± Saleen walked over to Sika, feeling extremely cid. That was the first time Saleen had cast spells so heartily since being promoted. During this round ofbat, Saleen had done his very best, whether it was in terms of his magic techniques or the choices he had made during the battle.


    Saleen still had the urge to continue casting magic. When he cast his gaze upon the businessmen, his eyes had a barbaric look to them. All his years of suppression were released in that moment. Saleen was now a mage master, no longer the small fry he had been in the past.


    The swordsmen lowered their heads when they saw Saleen nce at them. None of them dared to follow Saleen into the shop.


    ¡°Great mage!¡± The leader of the swordsmen walked up enthusiastically, knowing that he had been wrong about Saleen. This young mage was a rare mage master. It was not overbearing for a mage master to ask for more than ten thousand gold coins for a mission, and furthermore, Saleen had indeed saved their lives. There were more swordmasters in the bandit gang, so those businessmen would definitely have died if not for Saleen.


    ¡°I am wet again.¡± Sika did not seem to notice that themander of the knights was approaching. She shook her head vigorously, causing her wet ck hair to sway violently as water droplets flew in all directions.


    A Caucasus warrior could naturally hide in battle, but a Caucasus warrior did not have a magic shield like Saleen¡¯s. Since there was a heavy downpour, Sika was wet once again. She grumbled softly. If Sika had known that Saleen would be able to handle the bandits alone, she would have asked Saleen to bless her with a magic shield.


    Killing those forty odd bandits was not a big deal. The crux had been the many swordmasters in the bandit gang. The difference between a swordmaster and a swordsman was that a swordmaster could channel the sword aura into their weapon to break a magic shield or mitigate magic attacks. If Sika had been in Saleen¡¯s ce, she would have been able to kill many enemies as well, but she would not have been able to kill everyst one of them.


    Themander awkwardly stopped in his tracks since Sika was obviously hostile. Saleen had just finished with a battle, so as a mage, he needed a sufficient amount of rest. At such a time, a random swordmaster was approaching, so Sika would naturally be on guard even though she knew that Saleen was still in good shape.


    Saleen was also slightly rmed. As themander had approached him, he had been able to sense a weak murderous vibe from themander. Most of the time, Saleen was not able to detect this, but he had just finished a battle so he was still excited from all that adrenaline. A mage¡¯s excitement meant heightened perception and calmer control.


    Several thoughts swirled in Saleen¡¯s mind before he finally came to a decision. No matter what these forest businessmen were doing, it was best for him not to partake in it. None of the benefits would be superior to Lex¡¯s mission. Inparison, the motive of those bandits would not be superior to the six element space in the hell of god¡¯s punishment.


    In addition, there were the mechanical alchemy tree and Shinra¡¯s Mirage. With all these items, Lex truly possessed the assets to establish a county.


    ¡°Sika, keep the money, all those twenty thousand gold coins.¡± Once Saleen had straightened his thoughts, he stopped wasting time with themander and returned to Lex.


    Gold coins were still important to Saleen. Saleen could no longer rely on a Grade 3 magic nucleus to swiftly restore his depleted magic chords. Now, he required a Grade 4 magic nucleus at the very least. The most expensive Grade 4 magic nuclei cost one thousand gold coins, while cheaper ones cost roughly three hundred to five hundred gold coins. He would deplete his magic chords every day, and that would mean a huge amount of expenditures.


    When themander realized that Saleen did not care about him in the slightest, he actually grew at ease. After this round of trouble, themander could still avoid punishment if he delivered the items to the family. But if the items were taken by Saleen, themander would be stripped of all his money and status, and there was even the possibility of execution.


    Themander was afraid of incurring Saleen¡¯s wrath, so he gave vouchers worth three thousand gold coins each and forty Grade 4 magic nuclei to Sika. These magic nuclei were of average quality and each of them was worth around five hundred gold coins, but if they had been in a store, they could be sold for around seven hundred to eight hundred gold coins. Themander did not dare be so calctive. He took two boxes worth of magic nuclei and passed them to Saleen.


    ¡°I thought you would find fault with those people,¡± Lex said. She was surprised that Saleen had not done so.


    Saleen shook his head in response and said, ¡°It¡¯s not worth it. They are just smuggling things. The profits may be high, but so are the risks. In fact, some people might even have died earlier on. Those bandits came at a weird time. It would be good to let them go, lest we get targeted.¡±


    ¡°Where did you learn all of this stuff?¡±


    ¡°Books.¡±


    Lex did not believe Saleen¡¯s words. She had investigated Saleen previously, and she had not expected a mage from such a poor background to possess so much wisdom.


    The rain continued. The forest businessmen called out to the managers and customers who were hiding and gave them theirpensation. Two horse carriages and a courtyard wall. The courtyard wall had been destroyed by Saleen, but the forest businessmen were not about to have Saleen pay for it.


    After settling all of those affairs, themander sent a swordsman over to Saleen. This swordsman had seen what Saleen was capable of, so he asked respectfully, ¡°Great mage, if you have nothing else for us, we must get going.¡±


    Saleen thought about it. He said, ¡°Wait, leave after taking care of those bodies.¡± After he had finished speaking, Saleen took two bowls from a table and created two bowls of restorative water. Then he said, ¡°This water can help with detoxification. Give it to yourrades.¡±


    The swordsman was extremely grateful. He took the two bowls and gave the restorative water to hisrades. The two swordsmen who had been pierced by the arrows were no longer in danger after that.


    Saleen had used only a Grade 1 spell to resolve the minor conflict with the swordsmen. Lex finally put her heart at ease when she saw that. As Lex had not brought any swordsmen along with her, she had been worried that Saleen would cause trouble. But now, it seemed that Saleen possessed a great deal of self-control.


    The forest businessmen endured the torrential rain and moved the bodies out of the courtyard before burying them at a location far away. With the rain, those bodies would not be found even if particrly perceptive hounds were used.


    The forest businessmen did not dare stay any longer and left despite the heavy rain. Only once the sound of the horses¡¯ hooves had disappeared were the people in the shop relieved. All of them knew what had happened. The young mage had killed the bandit gang, helping the rest of them escape terrible deaths.


    A few businessmen discussed among themselves and decided to give twenty-four golden leaves to Saleen as a token of appreciation. The golden leaves were beautiful and thin. The total value of this gift was less than ten gold coins, but this gift represented an ancient etiquette.


    Lex saw the golden leaves and was overjoyed. Such etiquette was still practiced in the Qin Empire, but not in the other empires. Appreciation from suchmoners did not need to be very expensive, and more importantly, it needed to convey sincerity.


    Lex summoned the leader of the low-level mercenary group. This man was the leader, almost forty years old, and he was a high-level swordsman. Lex asked for the name of the mercenary group, but it turned out that this group did not even have a name. The group was identified by its serial number. It was a Grade 2 mercenary group, and it had less than one hundred members.


    Upon seeing that scene, Saleen thought of the mercenary group that had been formed by him and Sika. This mercenary group was only Grade 1, and it gave him a sense of nostalgia. Saleen gave some encouragement to the leader, and expressed that his team could travel east with the mercenary group.


    The speed of Saleen¡¯s team was almost as fast as that of a horse-led carriage. Saleen and the others did not intentionally keep track of their speed of travel. Thus, travelling with the mercenary group did not impede their time at all.


    Eventually, the rain died down and clear skies could be seen. The sun shone down onto the courtyard. The drivers in the business convoy began packing their carriages and prepared to set off.


    Saleen sat next to the window, reminiscing about the battle just now. He still had more than half of his magic chords remaining. The enemy had possessed many low-level swordmasters. If Saleen had killed them all individually, he would have used at least twice the amount of magic chords.


    Thest two Grade 4 spells had possessed great effects. Even though they had not been cast perfectly, they were used once the enemy had sustained serious damage so they still demonstrated the power of Grade 4 magic. The bandits wore soft armor, and the special paddings around their necks were there to protect their throats from being slit by assassins. The two water chains formed by the current cutter had only given gentle twists and had already been able to decapitate the swordmasters effortlessly.

 Chapter 159: The Grand Swordmaster in the Bandit Gang (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 159: The Grand Swordmaster in the Bandit Gang (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was also reminiscing about Saleen¡¯s fight. He had produced the offensive power of a mid-level spell using a low-level spell. That was not anything novel, a sorcerer could also do that, but Saleen had just be a Grade 4 mage.


    If Saleen could achieve that, then Lex would be able to do so too.


    Lex had thought that she possessed a solid foundation with her magic, but when she saw Saleen¡¯s skills, she realized that she was sorely inadequate. At least in terms of her grasp of Water Magic, she wasgging a great deal behind Saleen.


    The rain in the northern regions came as quickly as it disappeared. Everyone in the shop did not want to linger in the shop any further so they left. The horses belonging to Saleen and his team were also cleaned and brought out. The four of them then continued traveling south with the protection of the mercenary group.


    It would have been a perilous event for six transport carriages and forty mercenaries to travel like this in any of the duchies. However, the Qin Empire had enjoyed peace all this while, hence why the businessmen had been willing to travel with small mercenary groups for protection. This small mercenary group had been scared out their wits when they had seen those forest businessmen being pursued by bandits.


    If they had been the ones to be attacked, they might not even have been able to escape.


    No one could guarantee that there would be no more bandits along the way, so when Saleen had said that he wanted to travel with the mercenary group, the mercenaries were so excited they nearly cried.


    Of course, Lex and the others would not be able to empathize with the mercenaries. The four of them rode on horseback and followed behind the mercenary group, the convoy travelling at top speed. During times of war, the road they were travelling on permitted war carriages to travel at full speed, and the convoy¡¯s speed was not too slow either.


    The convoy traveled until noon before it stopped and everyone took a break. Due to the scare in the morning, the mercenaries were vignt and surrounded the carriages. In addition, a crossbowman was deployed to scout their surroundings.


    To Saleen, all of these precautions were meaningless. The mercenaries were simply too weak. A heavy cavalry group consisting of ten men from the Bitter Water Prefecture could easy obliterate the entire mercenary group.


    Saleen¡¯s team went to an open area by themselves. Lex used a Burning spell to dry the area before spreading oilcloths and nkets across the ground. She needed to eat some food.


    ¡°Lex, if we walk approximately one hundred miles each day, when will we be able to reach Alchemy City?¡± Saleen did not understand why Lex did not want to increase their speed of travel. At their current speed, they would require roughly three months to reach Alchemy City provided there were no unexpected situations along the way.


    If Lex used magic to proceed full speed ahead and travelled about five hundred miles each day, she would be able to reach Alchemy City within one month.


    ¡°Saleen, my heart is in a great deal of confusion. This is not beneficial to a mage, and I need the time to recover.¡± Lex used a small de to cut up some bread before handing it to Saleen.


    ¡°Would it not be good if we rented a carriage and hired a team of mercenaries?¡±


    ¡°I might as well deploy some troops from the Bitter Water Prefecture then. It would make me feel more at ease. Saleen, I will have to relearn many things. One example is the way you handled matters back there. I have nevere across that in my life.¡±


    Saleen began to understand Lex¡¯s intentions, but he still asked doubtfully, ¡°Then what about our matters? Aren¡¯t they urgent?¡±


    ¡°Alchemy City is veryplex. We cannot rush this matter. The Bitter Water Prefecture will need at least a year to settle down, so I must bepletely free from other worries before I can execute the next step.¡±


    ¡°The Lon¡­¡±


    ¡°It has been a year, but the Holy See has not gotten the Cloudflow Empire on their side, which is their mistake. At least three to five years will be needed to conquer the entirety of Lon. The nobles in the Qin Empire possess quite strong forces too. Right now, there must be at least a million soldiers in eastern Lon. Also, the Holy See is seriously injured and the sorcerers from Alchemy City have infiltrated Tanggsi, so the Holy See will not be able to do much anyways.¡±


    Speaking of that, Lex became very rxed and felt at home. Aside from learning magic at a tender age, Lex had also learned about politics.


    As Lex was speaking, a business convoy was approaching from a road in the distance. The size of the business convoy was not small, as it was made up of more than twenty carriages. Such arge convoy required about one hundred mercenaries to defend it.


    The leader of the mercenary group tensed up. He asked his underlings to take the bows and arrows that were hidden in the carriage and asked them to hide behind the carriages while he went to talk to Saleen.


    ¡°Great mage¡­¡±


    ¡°Is there a problem?¡±


    ¡°There is a convoying from the front, but the carriages are empty.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡± Saleen and Lex released their perception at the same time and discovered that something was wrong about those carriages. The carriages were not totally empty. At least two men were hiding inside, and there were no goods inside. A normal business convoy would not have these characteristics, unless they were¡­


    Bandits!


    This road was one the most vital ones in the Qin Empire. However, within a single day, Saleen hade across two powerful bandit gangs. Something was not right. Bandit gangs were just appearing out of thin air. Perhaps some people were disguising as bandits.


    ¡°Go back and take care of the carriages,¡± Saleen dismissed the leader of the mercenary group. Then, Saleen turned around and asked Lex, ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡±


    Lex thought for a moment before saying, ¡°Nothing much. Someone must be trying to control the transport of items. Now that Lon is at war, the profits must be huge. But for a noble to have such power, the noble must at least be a marquis.¡±


    ¡°Marquis?¡± Saleen frowned upon hearing that. In the imperial capital, a marquis was not a big deal, but in a ce like this, the status of a marquis was nearly equivalent to Lex¡¯s. A marquis controlled hundreds of miles ofnd and owned at least three to four cities.


    ¡°Can a conflict be avoided?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be a problem. Since they are in disguise, that means they don¡¯t want to expose their true identities. Once their identities are exposed, Holy Rock City will begin investigating.¡± Lex¡¯s words were filled with malevolence. The number of nobles in the Qin Empire had only doubled in the past one thousand years. Excluding the asional conferment of new nobles due to difficulties in inheriting titles, the empire still possessed manyws to control the nobles.


    For example, if a noblemitted a crime, then it would be an uphill battle to try and retain the honor and glory of the noble¡¯s family.


    ¡°Let me do it then.¡± This time around, Saleen prepared his scrolls. If he met with trouble again, he would not preserve those scrolls anymore. Saleen¡¯s Icicle spell could not kill more than one hundred people now that the rain had stopped, so it would be hard for him to replicate that moment of elegance again.


    The mercenaries ryed the current situation to their employers, and those businessmen followed the mercenaries and hid behind the carriages. The mercenaries had prepared their bows and arrows. The main road was about fifty meters away. If the people rushed over, the mercenaries would fire their arrows in order to buy the mage some time.


    The business convoy had also spotted the six carriages by the road, but they did not have any special reaction. The more than twenty carriagesing from the main road went past the spot where Saleen and the others were resting, and continued traveling west.


    Saleen was very nervous. He could feel something in those carriages. In each carriage, aside from the two people, there was also an alchemy crossbow.


    This alchemy crossbow had not been produced by the Qin Empire, and it could not fire alchemy arrows. However, itsplex structure still allowed this crossbow to fire arrows which could do real damage to mages.


    Which noble had the Williams family offended? The noble had deployed such massive powers to kill them.


    The convoy then disappeared into the distance. Just as Saleen began to unwind, the sound of a horse¡¯s hooves could be hearding from the west. A white war horse had turned around, and it was charging in the direction of Saleen.


    Riding on the horse was a middle aged man. He had a short mustache and brown hair bundled at the back of his head, and his expression appeared gloomy. This man was not wearing any armor, only wielding a Qin eight-sided sword.


    In a sh, the man reached the center of the road and held onto the reins of his horse. From afar, he shouted to Saleen, ¡°Mage, have you seen a batch of swordsmen passing by?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there were around forty people. They went west.¡± Saleen¡¯s expression did not change, but he was already holding onto a Grade 5 scroll in his sleeve. This middle aged man caused Saleen to feel unsafe. The feeling was not as dreadful as those caused by the four ck metal grand swordmasters working for Lex, but it was definitely worse than a high-level swordmaster like Tenesee.


    Could this man have been a zun grand swordmaster? Such a fighter was also known as a bronze grand swordmaster.


    The sword aura alone from a zun grand swordmaster could break Saleen¡¯s ice te armor. Even though Saleen had enjoyed the backing of Lex, he had never shed head-on with a fighter at the grade of a grand swordmaster before. Hence, Saleen gingerly cast an ice te armor, and cast one water shield on top of the armor.


    Seeing that Saleen was so nervous, the middle aged man burst out intoughter. He waved his sword in the air a few times, raised the reins on the horse, and prepared to leave.


    Lex suddenly interjected, ¡°The people you are referring to are all dead.¡±


    The middle aged man swiveled his horse around and looked at Lex, feeling extremely skeptical. He observed Lex in great detail, and realized that Lex was around the same age as the young mage. She was wearing a grizzled robe and had a calm demeanor. Could she have been a mid-level mage as well?


    A person needed to know that the two of them were least fifty meters apart. Lex had not shouted nor whispered, and yet the man could still hear her easily.


    Saleen noticed that Lex had the intention of killing this middle aged man, so he came to a decision in his heart. If this grand swordmaster attacked them from behind, Lex would be fine, but Saleen would not be. Since the carriages were not around, it would be better for Saleen to just execute him on the spot. Those twenty odd carriages contained heavy crossbows, and in such open terrain, it would potentially be difficult for a magic shield to protect Saleen.


    Saleen did not want to experiment now. If this grand swordmaster trapped him, he would definitely be turned into a hedgehog beneath the barrage of arrows.


    The man bared his teeth, his smile bringing a chill along with it. The man did not continue probing. He simply tugged on the reins and charged down the road. With only a distance of fifty meters, which even a swordsmen did not need much time to cover, the man reached them in seconds. The horse sprinted with astounding speed. Saleen quickly opened the scroll, and a gust of wind welled up from the ground. It was coincidentally at a point that the middle aged man would pass through.


    The man pointed his sword forward, and the wild wind was destroyed. His Qin eight-sided sword gave off a blinding light, the indication of a bursting sword aura. The Grade 4 wind was dispersed with a single stroke of the sword. Such was the power of a grand swordmaster.


    It was impossible for Saleen to deal with this middle aged man alone. By the time the second scroll was opened, Sika¡¯s boomerang had reached the man¡¯s throat. The second scroll contained a Grade 4 earth spell ¨C Quicksand.


    The front legs of the horse sank into the ground and the horse face-nted into the ground. Sika¡¯s boomerang was already in position. The middle aged man was not flustered in the least. He vibrated the sword in his hand and the sword aura shot directly upwards, deflecting Sika¡¯s boomerang. By then, the man¡¯s feet had left the stirrups. With a single jump off of the saddle, the man flew into midair and lunged at Saleen.


    Saleen grinned from ear to ear. Saleen had continuously opened scrolls in order to dull his enemy and trick him into thinking that he was merely a Grade 3 mage. Grade 3 magic was not able to break the protection of the sword aura, thus the man had be bold enough to make the jump. Saleen¡¯s n had been to force the middle aged man into abandoning his war horse, thus preventing him from escaping. Following that, Saleen opened his third scroll. At this point in time, Sika also charged towards the man with her cudgel.

 Chapter 160: Killing of the Grand Swordmaster (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 160: Killing of the Grand Swordmaster (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Leaping into the air was the most foolish thing a person could do when fighting a mage. The third scroll that Saleen unleashed was a Grade 5 scroll. Instantly, six huge blocks of ice surrounded the middle aged man and started to close in on him.


    The middle aged man was shocked that he had allowed himself to be caught in the center of the ice blocks. Judging from the humongous ice wallsing from all four directions, the man knew that it was not just a simple elemental attack. In fact, it was much more lethal than that. Even if he used his sword aura to break the ice, his body would not be able to withstand the violent impact. Before he knew it, he would be smashed into smithereens.


    Had this magic been used on the ground, the middle aged man would have been able to avoid the attack. This was because the spell required moisture to be drawn from all of its surroundings, and that included the ground. Drawing moisture from the ground was not only a lengthy process, but it also changed the texture of the ground and would have alerted him that something was amiss.


    Regardless of the medium of attack, Saleen had unleashed a very powerful Grade 5 spell ¨C Icicle st.


    As Saleen watched the grand swordmaster prepare to meet his doom, he decided that he was not going to waste another Grade 5 scroll. This was his first time battling a grand swordmaster. Until now, he had managed to keep his opponent a good fifty meters away from him. He had not always been this strong. In the past, his magic attacks would not have been able to reach such a far distance.


    Looking at the ice blocks that had surrounded him, the middle aged man suddenly shivered. He was so cold that he felt as if his blood had stopped flowing. Indeed, magic spells cast with the help of Grade 5 scrolls were much stronger than a Frost Array spell. With his life on the line, the middle aged man made the decision to face the ice blocks head on. He spun in the air for a while before pulling out his sword and stabbing the ice blocking up from beneath him.


    The bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s offensive attacks rivalled that of a Grade 6 mage. However, to instantly obliterate a Grade 5 spell was still too difficult for him. The spell had been cast so that there was no way out. Since he was only able to destroy one ice block at a time, he would have to submit to the impacts of the other ice blocks crashing into him. The middle aged man was left shocked as well as angry. His opponent¡¯s moves were calm and calcted. If he had not worried about the girl wearing the colorful robe, he would not have acted rashly and fallen into his opponent¡¯s trap.


    Crackle¡­ boom!


    The middle aged man used his sword aura to instantly crush the ice that wasing from beneath him. However, as expected, he did not have time to react before the other five ice blocks smashed heavily into him. The sword aura immediately dissipated from the force of impact. The middle aged man crashed onto the ground, his mouth dribbling with blood. If he wanted to be optimistic, at least he was out of range from Saleen¡¯s ice block attacks.


    If he had still been within range and had escaped unscathed, the six ice blocks would have continuously followed him like missiles until either the water evaporated or he died. He brandished his long sword in an attempt to protect his body. He just needed some time ¨C three breaths worth to be exact ¨C to recollect his sword aura and manage his injuries.


    With the sound of a plop, the middle aged man suddenly discovered that his limbs were moving sluggishly. It was as if he hadnded in a bucket of glue. Saleen¡¯s new spell had slowed him down to a snail¡¯s pace.


    What Saleen had unleashed was a Grade 5 spell ¨C Swamp Illusion. Unlike the Icicle st, this offensive attack operated on a smaller scale. If the grand swordmaster had not been injured, he would have been able to break the spell with the wave of his sword.


    At this point in time, Sika walked up to the bronze grand swordmaster who was still floating in midair and unable to escape the clutches of Saleen¡¯s Swamp Illusion spell. She brought down her club, hard. The way she executed the attack was simple, but effective. The club struck the middle aged man¡¯s thigh and sent him flying backwards.


    It happened so fast that he could not even stop to catch his breath. He choked on his blood as his eyes rolled backwards. He was in so much pain that he was nearly rendered unconscious. He felt as though his thigh bone had shattered. Even his muscles were destroyed beyond repair. The grand swordmaster was ovee with despair. He had lost a leg. Even if he miraculously survived, there would be no point in living. There were not many calls for one-legged swordmen, after all.


    He had never battled anyone stronger than a Grade 3 mage. As a bronze grand swordmaster, junior mages were insignificant to him. Even if he were fighting an archmage, he would be able to kill them with just a single sh of his sword.


    The middle aged man was shocked beyond belief; never in his wildest dreams had he thought that the archmage before him would be able to strike so viciously. His mighty sword aura looked patheticpared to his opponent¡¯s magic. Disheartened, he pointed his sword towards his throat in an attempt to end his life.


    Before he could bury the sword in his neck, a white, slender palm reached out to grab his long sword. The same hand then pinched down on it. The eight-sided sword, an object that could withstand even the most explosive of sword auras, shattered immediately. As he looked up, he stared into a pair of azure green eyes. They were filled with lust. Bloodlust, to be exact. At that moment, the grand swordmaster felt like prey, circled and eyed by a lethal predator just before it swooped in.


    ¡°So now you wanna die? Well, it¡¯s a little toote for that,¡± the green-eyed woman sneered before grabbing the swordmaster¡¯s shoulder and applying pressure. Almost instantly, the crunching sounds of his shoulder des being crushed could be heard.


    The mercenaries who had hid behind the carriages watched intently, their eyes following every move Saleen made. Saleen had disyed exemry skill and executed his moves gracefully. His movements seemed so fluid, natural, and graceful. First, he had used Wind Magic to provoke the enemy. Then, he had used quicksand to trap the war horses before distracting the enemy using a warrior¡¯s boomerang. Once he had tricked the grand swordmaster into jumping towards him, he immediately unleashed the more powerful spells he had kept hidden.


    Just one Icicle st alone had dashed the bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s hopes of leaving the battlefield alive. He should not even have been riding a horse, much less jumped from it. If he had chosen to travel by foot instead, he would not have gotten himself into this situation. He had ced so much faith in his sword that he had forgotten that one should never leave any room for a mage to attack.


    Even a golden grand swordmaster would not fight mages of equal caliber in the sky. They would much rather prefer for the fight to be on the ground. s, it was toote for regrets. Nailisi carried the now immobile swordmaster and ced him in front of Saleen. As Saleen eyed his heavily wounded opponent, he chuckled before saying, ¡°Ooh, a swordmaster. I¡¯m so scared now.¡±


    The middle aged man, hearing Saleen¡¯s mocking words, became so angry that he literally spat up blood. Saleen faintly nodded as he said coldly, ¡°Now, tell me what you were after. If you do as I say, I will grant you a less painful death. If you make me force it out of you, let¡¯s just say that you¡¯ll wish you had died during my Icicle st.¡±


    A person could literally see the anger ring in the middle aged man¡¯s eyes. He stared at Saleen with a dull re, before whispering in defeat, ¡°Does it matter how I go? When I was your age, I was not even afraid of death. So if you think you can get any information from me, think again. Do your worst.¡±


    Nailisi let out a smallugh before whispering softly into the swordmaster¡¯s ears, ¡°I was hoping you¡¯d say that. At least my master won¡¯t scold me for what I¡¯m about to do to you.¡±


    As Nailisi spoke, she simply set up a tent before slipping into it while carrying the middle aged man with her.


    Lex finally stood up after watching the battle unfold before her. As she looked at Nailisi, who had made her way into the tent, she turned to Saleen and asked, ¡°Is this really necessary?¡±


    ¡°Well, we¡¯ve already captured him. It wouldn¡¯t hurt to ask him a few questions. Even if we don¡¯t, his aplices will have assumed we did,¡± Saleen replied cheekily. Lex mulled over what Saleen had said for a little while before deciding that Saleen was right. Even if they did not interrogate the swordmaster, his partners, who were disguised as bandits, would be paranoid and thought that they knew their secrets.


    Lex already knew that the secret they were trying to keep under wraps was that they were smuggling goods. She was not too invested in finding out what the goods were. However, she knew that the bandits would not subscribe to the same train of thought, and that they would be plotting to kill her, along with Saleen, Nailisi, and Sika, in order to ensure that their secrets remained safe.


    ¡°Argh!¡±


    The golden grand swordmaster let out a howl of pain. In response, Lex immediately cast a Mute Enchantment spell to block out his screams. She sighed as she thought: Well, since Nailisi has already started torturing him, there¡¯s no point in stopping her now. She believed that Nailisi would be able to torture the answer out of him. Nailisi had proven to be an effective ¡°interrogator¡±, since the silver grand swordmaster had previously sung like a canary after spending some ¡°quality time¡± with Nailisi.


    Sika calmly walked towards the six carriages that had been assembled together in a shield-like formation. Behind them, the merchants and mercenaries trembled as they saw Sika pick up the boomerang that had fallen beside the vehicles before returning to Saleen¡¯s side.


    The mercenaries had be unnerved after witnessing Saleen¡¯s immense disy of power. It was perfectly normal for weaker people to feel uneasy around their stronger counterparts, even if thetter were trying to protect them.


    ¡°Saleen, do not be too obsessed with power¡­¡± Lex warned when she saw the smug look on Saleen¡¯s face. She was worried that this one victory might ruin the talented mage forever.


    ¡°Lex, I only used up two Grade 4 scrolls and one Grade 5 scroll. Did you see the amount of distance I managed to keep between me and the swordmaster? I¡¯m happy because I don¡¯t seem like a useless person anymore!¡± Saleen gushed, letting out the feelings that he had kept inside for years. In previous battles, he had only been able to hide in a corner and wait until the fight was over. In fact, he had only been able to put up some sort of fight against stronger opponents when his life was on the line.


    Ever since Saleen had left Ceylon City, he had felt like an absolutely useless, worthless, colossal failure. While Aini had been able to think quickly on his feet when the baron had formed intentions of killing them, he had been the exact opposite ¨C not only had he been indecisive, but he had also been naive. At that time, he had actually thought that he would be able to negotiate a peaceful ending for both parties.


    If it had not been for the fact that he had been thrown into desperate situations, he probably would not even have been promoted to a Grade 2 mage.


    Bing obsessed with power was a tragedy in itself. Butcking even the most basic skills to defend himself with was something that Saleen could not ept. Despite Lex being only two years older than him, her powers were so strong that they rivalled those of a sorcerer. Saleen, who had wanted to be a sorcerer for the longest time, did not even know how long it would take him to reach that level of power.


    This time, however, he had managed to defeat a swordmaster. Even if that swordmaster had only been a bronze grand swordmaster, defeating him was already one of Saleen¡¯s biggest achievements. The victory had allowed Saleen to understand the importance of power. If he had remained a Grade 2 junior mage, the bronze grand swordmaster would have been able to break his defenses with just one swipe of his sword. He would not even have had a chance to escape with his life.


    Lex was right. Losing yourself in the quest for power was not exactly desirable. But without power, Saleen knew he would have died a long time ago.


    Lex did not bother trying to give Saleen further advice. Instead, she released a Grade 4 spell ¨C ck Fog. Instantly, ck mist appeared and covered the entire area inplete darkness. Lex and Saleen had different reasons for wanting to hone their powers. The former did it to expose the harsh truths of the world, while thetter did it in an attempt to defy fate and escape his destiny without relying on help from other people.


    ¡°You need to be more cautious. Thoserge carriages coulde back at anytime. They¡¯re loaded with crossbows,¡± Lex cautioned.


    Saleen nodded. The ck fog that Lex had released covered much more ground than any other Grade 1 spell. Plus, since Lex was so powerful, even if she was standing at the very center of her own Grade 4 spell, her vision would not be hindered. This was what distinguished intermediate mages from junior mages. If thetter had executed the spell, it was highly likely that he or she would have been unable to see through the fog that they had created.


    At that moment, Nailisi lifted a corner of the tent p, revealing half of her face as she beckoned Saleen toe over. She shouted, ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Come in, quick!¡± Nailisi replied, her lips curling upwards to form a cunning smile.


    Knowing that Nailisi would not harm him, Saleen decided that it would not hurt to see what she had been up to. Upon entering the tent, he saw that all of the bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s limbs had been cut off. Pointing at the captive, who was now left with only the top half of his body, Nailisi turned towards Saleen and quipped, ¡°Master, I think he¡¯s in shock. The only thing he has to offer now is his sword aura. Perhaps you can experiment on him.¡±


    Oh, so he¡¯s in shock? Saleen thought.


    Being a mage, Saleen had learned that humans used their brains for everything, including thought. However, even if the brain was damaged, some parts of the body would continue to function in an attempt to keep that person alive. Simrly, although this bronze grand swordmaster had lost control over his body, his sword aura was still present and was ready to defend him from any threat. This would be the perfect time to use him as an experiment.


    ¡°Good job, Nailisi,¡± Saleen praised her as he looked at his captive, his eyes shining a brilliant blue. Saleen could tell that the sword aura, which was circting in the swordmaster¡¯s body around his lower abdomen, was very weak. In fact, it was circting in his body at a very slow speed. This would be a great time to observe the workings of the sword aura.


    For some time, Saleen had been hung up on the fact that the Figaro form that he had learned was not applicable in the battlefield. Now that he was presented with a chance to use the swordmaster as target practice, he was not about to pass it up. After all, who could resist the opportunity to study a method for defeating the sword aura?

 Chapter 161: Killing the Grand Swordmaster (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 161: Killing the Grand Swordmaster (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt neither remorse nor pity for what he had done to the bronze grand swordmaster. To him, the most important thing now was to study how the residual sword aura inside the swordmaster¡¯s body could be destroyed using only Grade 1 spells. Seeing that Nailisi was still standing beside him, Saleen said, ¡°Nailisi, whatever information you¡¯ve squeezed from this guy, tell it to Lex. Now.¡±


    ¡°But what about him¡­¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice faded out as she pointed her finger towards the bronze grand swordmaster. She had not tortured him just to set him free, after all. Understanding what she meant, Saleen nodded his head, eding to her request to use the swordmaster as a human dartboard.


    Nailisi made her way out of the tent, satisfied that she had gotten what she wanted. The ck fog was still present, shrouding the surroundings inplete darkness. Nailisi called softly, ¡°Lex?¡±


    ¡°So what did he tell you Nailisi?¡± Lex asked.


    Nailisi grinned and replied, ¡°Well¡­ it seems like we¡¯ve got the wrong person. It was Forest Enterprises that stole their goods. They were just trying to get them back.¡± As she spoke, she observed Lex¡¯s reaction.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Lex was not surprised, nor was she flustered. Even if Forest Enterprise had stolen the goods, the goods that they had been robbed of had probably been illegal anyway. This would exin why those people had needed to disguise themselves as bandits to try and get them back. To Lex, the matter of which party was at fault did not matter. She was not awyer representing the noblemen, nor was she a referee settling disputes. Even if they had killed the wrong people, it had been their own faults for dressing up as bandits.


    Seeing Lex¡¯s stony expression, Nailisi knew that she had failed to rile her up. She continued trying to fan the mes by saying casually, ¡°The goods that they were smuggling were emperor berries.¡±


    Emperor berries! Lex thought.


    Lex was surprised that they had managed to get their hands on such a rare fruit. The emperor¡¯s berry was a poisonous nt that only existed in small quantities over in the southern jungles of the Qin Empire. The strange thing about the berry was that it could not be artificially cultivated, no matter how hard other people had tried. The emperor¡¯s berry was simr to the opium poppy, in that the raw juice of the emperor¡¯s berry was addictive. However, for an opium poppy to achieve the same effect, its juices had to be refined. Even the strongest swordmasters would be hopelessly addicted to the fruit after identally ingesting just a single emperor¡¯s berry.


    However, the emperor¡¯s berry was not dangerous to mages. As long as the ideal ratio of one part berry to twelve thousand parts water was reached, the juice of the poisonous fruit was basically harmless. Any mages who were still skeptical about this golden ratio could use magic to find out the toxicity levels of the fruit before deciding whether or not to consume it.


    The most distinct feature of the emperor¡¯s berry, one that did not require magic to see, was the strong smell of alcohol which the fruit would emit. The smell could not be hidden, not even with magic. The emperor¡¯s berry could be used to refine medicine. Hence, it was one of the most important imperial medical supplies in the Qin Empire. Medicines prepared using the berry could get rid of gues and act as anti-inmmatory painkillers. In the hands of a mage, the berry was basically harmless. This was what distinguished the emperor¡¯s berry from the opium poppy, for thetter would still be poisonous even after being refined.


    Unfortunately, the emperor¡¯s berry was best known for being an active ingredient in some wines. The fruit was only about the size of a pearl, but it was enough to convert an entire bucket of water into hard liquor. Those smugglers possessed no knowledge on converting the berry into medicine. Therefore, any attempts at smuggling the berry were probably done with the intention of manufacturing inferior hard liquor for sale. This alcohol had a low toxicity level, and drinking too much of it was detrimental to one¡¯s health. What was even worse was the fact that a person could even get addicted to the drink.


    Nailisi continued, ¡°Six months ago, the Holy See proimed a ban on this alcohol. Those emperor¡¯s berries they had smuggled were worth nearly four hundred thousand gold coins in the Tanggsi ck market.¡±


    Lex was all caught up now. She could not believe her ears. They had gotten all worked up over a simple smuggling case. The only thing interesting about the case was how quickly the price of the berry had soared. Four hundred thousand gold coins. This amount was enough to ¡°inspire¡± noblemen to take risks ¨C to the extent that his men had needed to y dress-up in order to get ahold of the fruit.


    The fact that the Holy See had issued a liquor ban was the most important news Lex had heard all day. In all four empires, wine-rted businesses were always some of the most lucrative industries. The only difference was that each empire produced different-tasting wines.


    A person could say that the Tanggsi people were infatuated with hard liquor. In fact,rge amounts of grains were harvested every year solely for the purpose of being used for the refinement of wine. Contrary to popr belief, despite the huge size of the Tanggsi country, the amount ofnd suitable for the cultivation of these grains was very scarce. The fact that the Holy See had dered a ban on alcohol meant that they were trying to save up these grains for the future. Maybe they¡¯re nning an attack in the spring, Lex thought. In fact, with the amount of food they were saving up, they could even increase the scale of the war before winter started.


    The Tanggsi Empire had issued repeated alcohol bans, but to no avail. Now, with the Holy See joining in, the Tanggsi merchants would no longer have the guts to fight back. As expected, once the alcohol ban had been announced, the price of hard liquor had soared so quickly that it was nearly ridiculous. It was simple economics, after all.


    Under these circumstances, the smuggling of the berries was potentially a good thing.


    Not only would hard liquor made from the emperor¡¯s berry inflict mental harm upon the enemy, but the production and sale of these items was also very profitable. Had Lex known earlier that the Holy See had implemented such aw, she would have been tempted to do the same.


    As a Qin citizen, she could not give two hoots about the health of the Tanggsi people. In case anyone was wondering, she was not worried about how her n, if executed, could have backfired on the Qin Empire either.


    Hard liquor,pared to other businesses, did not bring in as much money in her country. The wines that sold well here were those that were fermented using grapes. All grapes were best grown in gravelly soils. Unfortunately, the type of soil in the country did not prove to be a suitable environment for the cultivation of grains.


    ¡°Who¡¯s behind all of this?¡± Lex asked. She was no longer concerned about the details. Smuggling was not exactly a rare urrence. The issue was that smuggling things into enemy territory, regardless of whether or not it would tilt the odds of the battle, had the potential of being used as political leverage. Even if the matter was escted to the imperial capital, it was possible that the officials there would not make this case their top priority.


    ¡°Marquess Gilya from Dragon Bone City.¡± Nailisi replied.


    ¡°Oh? He¡¯s something else,¡± Lex praised. Marquess Gilya was the head of the Goethe n and was also a prominent nobleman in the south. He was one of the few people who could grow the emperor¡¯s berry in his own fields. He had produced the fruit solely for the purpose of selling them to royal archmages. This time around, the smuggling had been an inside job, and he was the mastermind. The emperor¡¯s berry had always been produced in the Qin Empire. However, it could only be sold to the royal families.


    No wonder the mission had been kept so tightly under wraps. Lex shook her head. They had killed people that were not supposed to have been killed. If she had known these details earlier, she would not have hesitated to kill the swordsmen from the Williams family. Now, all she could think about was whether the swordmasters from the Williams family knew that themodities they had stolen belonged to the Goethe n. If the answer was yes, then they were knowingly dragging Saleen down with them.


    Lex was not afraid of Marquess Gilya. He could throw a temper tantrum for all she cared. She was a governor now, and was of higher status than him. Bitter Water Prefecture and Dragon Bone City were thousands of miles away from each other. Even if Marquess Gilya became infuriated, he could not do anything to her.


    The only problem now was that Dragon Bone City and Alchemy City were fairly close to each other. Lex knew that she needed to handle this matter with care.


    Inside the tent, Saleen repeatedly cast the Icicle spell onto the bronze grand swordmaster. He had maintained theplexity of the spell at Grade 1. In addition, Saleen had deliberately slowed down the speed at which the icicles were fired. The sword aura present in the swordmaster¡¯s body immediately activated its defense mechanisms in an attempt to ward off Saleen¡¯s attacks. Thetter observed patiently as he repeatedly shot icicles at his captive¡¯s body. However, just before each icicle was about to pierce through the bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s skin, Saleen would immediately release a counter-spell to disperse it.


    After some detailed observations, Saleen discovered that the sword aura was simr to a life force in itself. The holy masters in the maind used powers simr to this, which had been passed down from the Goddess of Myers.


    Saleen felt as if he had experienced the power of the goddess herself. It was very different from the sword aura. Thetter was more cohesive and full of explosive power whereas the former was much more magnificent overall. In fact, as an added bonus, divine powers tended to provide a feeling offort along with strength. The only thing shared between these two magic forces were their roots ¨C they both existed as forces outside of the six great elements.


    Even if the sword aura¡¯s strength did not originate from the six great elements, Saleen was still able to pinpoint its weakness. As long as the cirction of the sword aura was slowed by one hundred times, he could weaken it enough to destroy it easily.


    Regarding the bronze grand swordmaster, he was on the verge of death. He had survived for far longer than expected despite being severely injured. He had lost total control of his body, and the sword aura was circting in his body at a much slower speed. It was just the right time for Saleen to test his theory.


    At the moment, the bronze grand swordmaster had passed out from the pain. Had he been awake, he likely would have been so humiliated that he would be wishing for death. Saleen controlled each icicle with extreme precision. Every icicle was immediately dispelled beforeing into contact with the captive¡¯s flesh. Although Saleen was able to fire nearly two hundred Grade 1 spells, he decided to end his experiment after seeing that his magic chords had been depleted of energy.


    Since Saleen now understood the defense mechanisms of the sword aura, the bronze grand swordmaster was no longer needed. He let the next icicle pierce a hole the size of a small bowl in his captive¡¯s lower abdomen. The residual sword aura remaining in the body of the bronze grand swordmaster, having been struck in its weak point, immediately flew out of control. In an instant, his internal organs were torn to shreds by the now out-of-control sword aura. Saleen sighed as he stared at the dead man thatid before him.


    Thanks to the swordmaster, Saleen had been better able to grasp the workings of the sword aura. However, he knew that even if he was equipped with said knowledge, he would still lose terribly in an actual battle against warriors that had attained swordmaster status. There were just too many ways of utilizing the sword aura. More often than not, these methods were very unconventional as well. It would be too difficult to predict how they would utilize their sword auras, and thus, predicting their moves would be an uphill task as well.


    Saleen held a magic nucleus and observed his magic chords as they regenerated at lightning speed. The truth of the matter was as clear as day to him. With his current strength, it would be very hard to defeat a zun grand swordmaster. Plus, once he used up all his scrolls, he would be in even more danger. Lex had warned him earlier to never be obsessed with power. However, Saleen was actually more sensitive about this subject matter than Lex. He had learned nothing from Jason, just a little too much about the rules of bing a true mage.


    Just then, Saleen heard his name being called from outside the tent, ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s go!¡± The voice belonged to none other than Lex.


    She had no desire to stay here any longer. She knew the identity of the bandits as well as the mastermind behind the smuggling. Should the people from Marquis Gilya return, she did not want to be present to kill them, even if she knew they deserved it.


    What Saleen had done could still be tolerated by the Gilya n. A mage eradicating a group of bandits was not an umon event. However, now that Lex knew the identity of these bandits, she had to choose between two options:


    One, kill them. Or two, make her presence known.


    Neither of these options seemed appealing to Lex, so she had decided that it was time to leave. After calling Saleen out of the tent, Lex ordered Nailisi to put it away. She did not bother dispelling the ck fog. Sika, apanied by eight horses, approached them. The group of four, no longer caring about the group of merchants, mounted their horses and sped off towards the east.


    This time, Lex did not control the speed of the horses. The four of them switched horses every hour and had already covered a distance of nearly two hundred miles by sunset. However, even with the help of magic, the eight horses were too tired to carry any loads by the end of the two hundred mile journey.


    s, even though they had sped up, they were not at the town they had wanted to go to. The horses were too exhausted to move, and walking was not an option either. The four of them realized that they would have to camp out in the woods once again.


    After arranging a simple magic array to protect the eight war horses, Lex ced a few magic traps and magic rms outside of their camp before joining the others in preparing food beside a bonfire like ordinary mercenaries would do.


    In the northern part of the empire, the nights were always cold, even during the summer. Tonight was no different. In fact, if it had rained earlier, this ce would have been a bit chilly by now. Mages were able to adapt to all climates as long as they had their magic chords with them. Sika, meanwhile, was not afraid of the cold. Even deep into winter, she would still go outdoors wearing clothes that exposed her lower abdomen. As for Nailisi, because she was an imp, the Myers Maind¡¯s natural environment was like heaven to her.


    If anyone hade close enough, they likely would have been scratching their heads in confusion at the sight before them ¨C a group of three girls and one boy wearing starkly different outfits. Nailisi was dressed in clothing made of the fur of a Pixiu; Sika was decked in armor from head to toe; Saleen was wearing a simple mage robe, and Lex was wearing her rainbow-colored robe. Not only would any onlookers have witnessed their outrageous clothes, they would also have gotten to see them huddle around a bonfire started from pure magic medicine, not wood.


    The stars were glowing beautifully in the night sky. As Lex hummed a tune and watched Nailisi prepare food over the magic me, she gradually became more cheerful. She could get used to a life like this.

 Chapter 162: The Ship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 162: The Ship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex and her team had been travelling continuously for the past two days, and by now, they were thousands of miles away. Hence, the people sent by Gilya would never be able to locate them. The Potency spell, Chunlin spell, and Windspeed spell were repeatedly blessed onto the horses. But even the best war horse could not withstand such strain, and thus Lex decided to slow down their pace of travel after two days.


    Thend of the Qin Empire was limited in its eastern and western regions but expansive in its northern to southern regions, being second only to the Cloudflow Empire. Saleen and his team traveled on horseback throughout this entire distance and had gone around thergest mountainous region in western Qin, and they could now make their way towards the south.


    At the end of the day, Saleen was not a swordsman, he was a warrior. The past two consecutive days of travel had exhausted Saleen. Even though Lex practiced martial arts, she was a mage, and her physical endurance was only equivalent to that of a high-level swordsman.


    Lex possessed the most detailed magic map of the maind. She took out her map and discussed with Saleen which road they should choose. ording to the map, the four of them were currently situated in the central region of northern Qin. As long as they advanced forward for one more day, they would reach a road which spanned the north and south of the empire. If they chose to walk for two more days, there would be an enormous river where they could take a ship.


    Lex wanted to take the roads while Saleen wanted to take the ship.


    Noticing that Lex could not make up her mind, Saleen said, ¡°There will be plenty of opportunities in the future for you to encounter the survival experiences of the averagemoner. If we take the roads, there will only be another hintend of the empire. There won¡¯t be much you can learn. If we move using the river, we can hire a big ship with two groups of sailors. Though we¡¯ll need to pay extra money, we can travel without needing to stop and will be able to reach Alchemy City by next month.¡±


    Lex thought about it carefully. It seemed like the Holy See were bent on dering an all-out war, so it was not realistic for Lex to hope that she could drag her feet for another two to three years. Lon would be fully plunged into war by next year¡¯s spring at thetest. In order to be a sorcerer, Lex would need another eight to ten years.


    ¡°Aye, let¡¯s take the ship then.¡±


    Saleen was overjoyed when Lex agreed to his request. Since Saleen¡¯s forte was Water Magic, it would be safer for him to travel by ship. Furthermore, taking a ship would not affect their magic training, unlike travelling by horseback which was taxing on a person¡¯s bones.


    ¡°Lex, this map¡­¡± Saleen noticed that Lex¡¯s magic map was astounding, being just like arge magic scroll. Once the map was unrolled, one could observe the full view of the maind and magic could be used to unveil the minute details of the natural environment. All the mountains and rivers had magic markings on them, and the rivers even had varying markings to signify their width and water levels during the four seasons.


    ¡°This is Grade 9 magic equipment. There are only four of these in the entirety of Qin. It can¡¯t be replicated.¡± Lex then put away the magic map apologetically. The war horses had rested for quite a while, and Saleen continued riding alongside Lex.


    ¡°Lex, how was the map produced?¡±


    ¡°I am not too sure either, but it must have been made by having many Grade 9 sorcererse together to piece together all of that information.¡± Lex appeared to be somewhat clueless as well. The maps in the Grukos family had originated from the Second Dynasty, but that ancient history had been gone with the wind for quite some time. After pondering for a moment, Lex continued, ¡°I am just specting though. Thend in the empire undergoes constant changes, so this map is different from the original. Before the Qin Empire was established, many Grade 9 sorcerers participated in the revision of the map. At that time, the maind was in chaos, so nobody stopped them.¡±


    Even though Saleen had known about the glory and mor of the time when the Qin Empire was built, he was at a loss for words when he learned that many Grade 9 sorcerers had been involved in the making of this magic map. Nowadays, most magic maps werepleted by magic disciples after being mapped by alchemy props. The Qin Empire had been established for less than one thousand years, and the number of mages had already dwindled down to less than half.


    The deterioration in the power of humans seemed to be elerating. Magic had flourished in the Qin Empire, but for the past two hundred years, not a single mage hade from Saleen¡¯s hometown of Ceylon City.


    The war in Lon was too far away, and many nobles had deployed their troops in hopes of getting a piece ofnd from Lon. This, in turn, had caused the road linking southern Qin and eastern Qin to be bustling withmerce as businesses prospered as a result of the war. The armies of the nobles were essentially private armies, and they needed a great deal of resources in order to set up camps in Lon. During the journey, Saleen even saw two Grade 7 mercenary groups protecting some business owners. The offensive capabilities of a Grade 7 mercenary group were almost equivalent to those of the empire¡¯s elite soldiers.


    Since Saleen was a mage master now, it was not an issue for him to handle hundreds of heavy cavalry by himself. However, if they were surrounded by a camp of soldiers, even Lex would have to use Wind Magic to escape. If an army possessed alchemy crossbows, then a mage could not fly, otherwise they would be a human-sized hedgehog beneath that barrage of arrows.


    After another two days on the road, Lex finally understood what Saleen meant. The roads used by the empire for the war were fairly safe, and it had merely been a coincidence bumping into those swordsmen who were disguised as bandits. All the business convoys traveling west hired many mercenaries, and there were many swordmasters among the mercenaries. Hence, throughout their entire journey, the roads were as serene as the town of Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Therge canal had actually been transformed from a river that flowed from the south to the north. On the west bank was a colossal city. This ce was an enormous wharf in the north as well. Food that came from the Phoenix Duchy would be transported down south and would eventually reach thergest city in the central southern region of the empire ¨C Pompeii City.


    At Pompeii City, the canal merged with the Emerald River before flowing east out into the ocean.


    This wide canal stretched for thousands of miles and was a vital line of transportation for the Qin Empire. Hence, the city to the north of the empire had be extremely vital. However, since Saleen had been to Holy Rock City, this city named Ivantel seemed fairly standard to him. Even though this city was as beautiful as a piece of artwork, it did not have the atmosphere and heritage of Holy Rock City.


    As Ivantel had been built close to a body of water, it was different from most cities. Artificial rivers had been dug to surround the city walls, forming a perimeter of protection around the city. The thing that amazed Saleen the most was the bridge which spanned the canal. This bridge had a metallic structure, was over two miles long, and was so wide that eight carriages could travel side by side upon it. The pier was a single piece of steel rock, and this steel rock had not been polished so that it still maintained the appearance it had when it had first been extracted.


    Saleen could not figure out how such an enormous steel rock had been transported to the canal. Judging by the size of the rock, even a Grade 9 mage would not have been able to fit it into their spatial equipment.


    The bridgehead had two miniature castles. Going one mile south would enable a person to reach the city¡¯s wharf. There were docks to the south of the wharf, so Saleen and his team did not need to pay any extra money. They did not enter the city, and instead went looking for a suitable ship that they could hire.


    Saleen¡¯s identity as a mage enabled him to effortlessly obtain a suitable ship. Of course, it was also because Saleen was rich, so he had plenty of options. Saleen¡¯s destination was Alchemy City, and he would have to spend quite arge sum of money in order to get there. Furthermore, Saleen had also requested for the ship to travel through the night, so two groups of sailors were required. He needed to hire the sailors separately. Each sailor asked for one silver coin per day, while the boatswain demanded one gold coin per day. Amoner earned less than ten gold coins in a year, so this boatswain¡¯s sry was roughly four times that of amoner.


    It was only when Saleen saw the enormous ship he had hired that he understood why he had spent so much money.


    The ship was about twenty meters long with three stories, and the hull was covered in bronze. If this ship was further reinforced with some magic arrays, it would be as strong as one of the empire¡¯s warships, aside from the fact that it was slightly smaller in size.


    What caught Saleen¡¯s attention were the six giant concealed propellers ced on both sides of the ship which could obviously be powered by magic. This ship required a magic disciple at minimum to activate it, and only low-level magic nuclei were used. The enormous mast had been lowered and it leaned against the bow. When the ship was traveling in the direction of the wind, its sails could increase its speed even further.


    This ship was more advanced than the tattered fishing boats found in Ceylon City. Its controls were also moreplicated.


    In the past, Lex had seen images of such magic ships, but this was the first time she had ever seen one in person. ¡°Saleen, the ship that you¡¯ve hired is pretty good, and it¡¯s cheap too. If I had been in charge, I would have definitely spent at least ten times more than what you paid,¡± Lex said with a great deal of satisfaction.


    ¡°Lex, there are only four of us. And with the eight horses, we won¡¯t even take up that much space. Other people can still bring their goods along, and such a price is¡­¡±


    ¡°That is perfectly normal. There are only a few of us, and if the ship doesn¡¯t carry any other goods, then it would be aplete waste of the empire¡¯s resources. Sikeqinya might bebeled the empire of business, but us Qins are the richest.¡± When Lex said those words, there was a hint of pride. Furthermore, she had regarded Saleen as a Qin.


    Saleenughed bitterly in response. Since a long time ago, Saleen had heard that the Qin people regarded all mages as one of them, just like the people of Tanggsi regarded the gods as their own. Saleen was obviously from Sikeqinya, and even if he was now part of Lex¡¯s n, he should have been considered a person from Bitter Water County.


    Was this merely pride, or was it arrogance?


    The ship captain was obviously a normal person, while the second and third inmand were at least high-level swordsmen or perhaps swordmasters. Saleen was the only employer of the ship, so the captain brought Saleen to meet with the boatswain and the chef before allocating rooms to Saleen and his team.


    The rooms were on the third story, and this entire floor was connected. The decorations in the rooms were not considered extravagant, but meticulous thought had been put into their materials. The windows were mosaicked with multicolored ss. Multicolored ss was cheaper than purely transparent ss, and the advantage was that people would not be able to look into the rooms even if there were no curtains.


    The flooring in the rooms was wooden and lined with metal, and it was also resistant to corrosion. Additionally, the flooring had obviously been treated with magic before, so it would not be deformed even if it was soaked in water.


    It seemed like this ship was catered solely to nobles. There was even a tiny living room. The corners of the walnut wood table were shaped like petals, and there were no oil paintings on the wall. Instead, there were wood carvings. All these minute details were testament to the amount of thought and effort that had been put into the design of the rooms.


    Saleen was extremely satisfied with the rooms. Such an environment was suitable for practicing magic, and also, the second story was empty, so no one would disturb Saleen.


    Lex was pleased as well. The windows in the cabin could slide about. When they were all opened, the vast view of the river filled people with a sense of serenity. Lex habitually set magic rms at all of the entrances. Aside from the four of them, any other person would trigger the rms if they tried approaching.


    Saleen used his icy sight to check the walls, floors, and ceiling of the cabin. He discovered that there was a secret passageway under the table, but it was unidirectional, and a person could only go from the third story to the second. It was used by the passenger to escape in times of peril. The walls of the cabin were chunky. There were magic materials within the walls, making them very sturdy, thus heavy weapons would not be able to break them down.


    This was just a ship for civilian use, so the empire¡¯s warships must have been far more fortified than this. There were also the legendary indomitable fleets and sea dragons of the Cloudflow Empire. Were those ships like massive magic machines, then?

 Chapter 163: The Ship (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 163: The Ship (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen took an interest in the ship. He had been born near the sea, thus he possessed basic knowledge of ships. The ship¡¯s structure was not suitable for high speed sailing, and the way the sails were positioned was even worse. Without help from the propellers which were powered by magic, the speed of the ship would not even exceed twenty miles an hour.


    However, this ship had an advantage to it. It was stable, and the average human would not feel any vigorous rocking while on this ship. Such an environment was also beneficial for casting spells. Usually, a mage was not particr about their surroundings when casting spells that they were familiar with. The surroundings only needed to have elemental stability.


    But at times, some spells needed to be prepared for more than twelve frames of time, so the mage would need a stable environment. Events such as riding a horse, riding a boat, or flying would cause problems with the process of casting a spell.


    Many spells required more than sixty frames of time to be fully prepared. Within a mere second, a vigorous bump would be able to cause an error.


    Saleen¡¯s senses moved towards the bottom of the ship and passed by the cabin where the sailors worked. In the middle of the hull, Saleen discovered an alchemical machine which was almost as wide as the hull. This alchemical machine was about five meters wide with a height of about two meters. There were twenty sailors to the front and rear of the machine, and they were shaking a rocker attached to the alchemical machine.


    Aside from six magic arrays, there were also many gears and metal shafts within the alchemical machine. With the effects from the magic arrays, the sailors only needed to exert a minute amount of strength to be able to turn the propellers on both sides of the hull.


    Unfortunately, this alchemical machine was too bulky, or else it could have been used to produce a chariot. Saleen¡¯s perception could not be as clear as his own eyes. However, this instation aboard the ship had already been perfected, and if it could be shrunk and used on a chariot, the Qin Empire would have done that long ago. Saleen dismissed that thought and looked up to see Lex standing near a porthole. She was gazing off into the distance.


    ¡°Lex, does the Qin Empire have many ships like this?¡± Saleen felt that the magic arrays aboard this ship were extremely delicate. Only a single magic disciple was required to activate them, and with more than ten pieces of low-level magic nuclei as the driving force, the strength input by the sailors was being amplified by more than ten times. Had it not been for its colossal size, this alchemical machine would have been nearly wless.


    ¡°Let¡¯s sit down and talk.¡± Lex turned around and went with Saleen to her cabin, where they unconsciously sat down on the floor across from each other.


    ¡°Why? Are you interested in alchemical machines?¡± Lex then took out a piece of parchment and ced it on the floor. On that piece of parchment was aplex magic form. As Lex did her calctions, she chatted with Saleen. The two of them had always done that in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. In addition to training their magic together, they had also chatted about topics other than magic.


    ¡°I feel that this alchemical machine is very useful, and it can be used on the battlefield.¡±


    ¡°Haha, do you know how much this machine costs? At least twenty thousand gold coins. But it only takes one Grade 1 mage to paralyze this machine.¡±


    ¡°Then what about the indomitable fleets from Cloudflow?¡± Saleen grew slightly curious. Since this instation which required magic power had such a ring weakness, there had to be a reason why the Cloudflow Empire possessed a fleet of ships which was nearly impossible to destroy using mages.


    ¡°The smallest armored ship costs at least ten million gold coins. With arge surface area, a higher-level alchemical machine could also be installed. The way this ship functions is simr to the way puppets work. The Qin Empire iscking in construction ns and is not able to provide a substantial quantity of magic nuclei for a fleet. A true instation powered by magic is a gigantic defensive magic array in itself. Have you ever seen a puppet whose core was directly destroyed?¡±


    ¡°When it didn¡¯t have enough magic nuclei?¡± Saleen was more puzzled now. The Qin Empire was called the magic empire, so how could it be poorer than the Cloudflow Empire to the point that it could not even provide magic nuclei?


    Lex cracked up. Then, she said to Saleen, ¡°The two of us are notcking in magic nuclei, but there are many mages in the empire. There are many mages who have trained for over ten years, and they cannot bear to use their magic nuclei to restore their magic chords aside from when they are in battle. The more mages there are, the more expensive magic nuclei will be. Furthermore, the Cloudflow Empire definitely has the skills to breed magic beasts. Every year, the Qin Empire buysrge quantities of low-level magic nuclei from Cloudflow. Without their ability to breed magic beasts, their ships would just be scrap metal.¡±


    Ability to breed magic beasts? Saleen thought of the space in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. The world inside that metallic column seemed to have been a conducive environment for breeding. However, there had already been magic beasts in that world , and their levels had been fairly high. Those beasts had pursued him and Lex crazily, and Saleen shuddered when he thought of that.


    The sailors worked until noon before replenishing the necessities on the ship. Even though it was not a ship at sea, Saleen requested for the ship to sail through the night. The quicker they were, the better. Just as the ship left the docks, a drizzle began.


    Lex leaned against the bed and looked at the magic form on the parchment, seeming lost in her thoughts. Moisture drifted into the room through the window. It was cooling and refreshing, but did not feel excessive. Lex rested her cheeks in her hands and used her elbows as support. Her sleeves naturally slid back, revealing an emerald bracelet on her white wrist.


    Saleen looked at Lex, and he was in somewhat of a daze as well. Saleen felt that his heart was very rxed all of a sudden. In that moment, he did not want do to anything. He simply hoped that the rain would go on forever, and that the ship would never dock anywhere ever again.


    Nailisi and Sika were in the room next door. Sika clutched her bone ne and knelt on the floor with her eyes closed. Nailisi was lying on the bed. Nailisi looked like she was napping, yet her ears kept twitching, trying to detect any movement in the next room. For a few hours, there was not a single sound from the other room. What was her master doing?


    Pu! The rain was light, and a noise came from outside the window. A dark red bird hadnded by the window. It used its green eyes and observed the two people in the room with great curiosity. Saleen and Lex raised their heads at the same time and looked outside. At the same time, the serene atmosphere was destroyed. Under the eyes of two mage masters, the bird was startled and pped its wings, flying to the trees on the eastern bank of the river.


    ¡°Just now¡­¡± Lex nced at Saleen.


    Saleen continued, ¡°The bird was not scared of us!¡±


    ¡°That was a green-eyed fire crow, a Grade 1 magic beast. Strange. That creature is extremely sensitive to elemental fluctuations. What were you doing just now?¡± Lex could not help but ask Saleen that question. Magic beasts possessed inborn intuition. Aside from magic beasts that had been reared by humans, wild ones would not even dare to get close to human mages.


    Saleen and Lex were mage masters, and magic beasts which were Grade 4 and below would steer clear of them.


    ¡°I was just thinking, if the Holy See did not exist, it would have been nice to spend my days practicing magic in an environment like this.¡±


    ¡°If there was no Holy See, we would not even be on this ship.¡±


    Lex gave a weird smile while Saleen appeared normal. Then, Saleen asked, ¡°Then what were you doing just now? I can easily hide my aura since it¡¯s a rainy day. But you are a Grade 6 mage, so you cannot conceal it, right? That is, unless you have be a sorcerer already.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that simple. Even without any setbacks, I¡¯ll still need another eight to ten years. Back then¡­ I was thinking about some things during my childhood.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Saleen did not continue probing. When Lex was a child, the only people beside her had been her teacher and Faerun. Now that Faerun was dead, those memories might have be depressing.


    Both of them resumed their silence. This time around, Saleen and Lex were thinking about the feelings they had felt just now. These two mages had unknowingly entered a state where they had be one with their surroundings. Even the green-eyed fire crow, which was renowned for its sensitivity, had not realized that they were dangerous mage masters.


    ¡°Aye¡­¡±


    Lex and Saleen sighed at the same time. They tried returning to those states, but they just could not do it anymore. If they could stabilize that state, it would be greatly beneficial to their magic training.


    As night gradually fell, a magicmp lit up at the ship¡¯s bow, illuminating the section of water in front of the ship. As fine rain droplets fell past themp andnded on the surface of the river, they formed ripples which resembled fine scales. It became pitch ck in the cabin, but Saleen and Lex did not use magic to illuminate the room. The two of them sat across each other in the darkness and rxed their moods, repeatedly practicing the spells they were still unfamiliar with.


    The six great elements created a sudden intense fluctuation before calming down as quickly as they had fluctuated. Each time Saleen and Lex cast a spell, they would immediately disperse the magic in the shortest time possible.


    No two mages possessed identical mental power. Dispersing one¡¯s own magic was easy, but it was troublesome to do so for another mage. In the darkness, Saleen suddenly asked, ¡°Lex, what do you say we try to disperse each other¡¯s magic?¡±


    Dispersing magic was not a spell, but a skill. It was far more challenging for a mage to use this skill on others than to try and use magic to destroy the sword aura.


    The principles of the sword aura were fairly simple, whereas the principles of the formation of magic were bizarre. One example was the water shield. The moment Saleen cast a water shield, it had the defensive ability of Grade 4 magic. Even if another mage was also an expert in that spell, they would not be able to decipher a method of dispersing Saleen¡¯s water shield.


    Saleen had altered the way he chanted mantras in order to activate his magic chords. Even if other people were to learn and apply his transformation magic, they would still find it hard to disperse Saleen¡¯s water shield.


    ¡°Is it dangerous to do that?¡± Lex replied hesitantly.


    ¡°We can use our slowest casting speeds to release the spells, and we can start practicing from Grade 1 spells.¡± Saleen seemed extremely eager to try it out. Training like this was indeed dangerous. If one of the two mages harbored ill intentions, tragedies could happen very easily. Even if neither of them had any intentions of causing the other one harm, magic itself had no feelings, and a slight misstep would be able to hurt someone.


    The slowest speeds for casting magic were all the same. The most ridiculous spell was an earth-type spell which required more than an hour to finish its preparations. As for the fastest low-level spell, even with the Icicle spell, a beginner would be able to finish preparing it within three seconds.


    Between two frames and one hundred and eighty frames of time, a mage would be able toplete the preparation of a spell so long as they managed to finish chanting the mantra or used mental power to stimte their magic chords. Once the time exceeded one hundred and eighty frames, the elements would immediately disperse and then forcibly pool together. As a result, the elements within the mage¡¯s body would be in disorder, and the mage would either die or their magic chords would be rendered useless.


    Mages often researched ways of making spells instantaneous, but no one had thought of a way to slow down the preparation period yet. This was because during battle, there were specialized skills to dy spell casting, hence it was meaningless to extend the preparation time.


    ¡°It is pretty difficult!¡± Lex had taken interest in Saleen¡¯s suggestion. She had never tried slowing down her preparation period before. Since the first day that Lex had begun learning magic, she had been fixated on trying to shorten this time instead of extending it.


    ¡°Then let us begin.¡± Saleen blessed himself with ice te armor before casting an additionalyer of water shield on top of the armor. This was Saleen¡¯s strongest defense. As long as Lex did not cast any magic above Grade 5, Saleen would not be hurt at all.


    Lex bent her finger, and used her thumb to hold onto her index finger and middle finger. Following that, she cast a Grade 1 spell, and she did not need toplete any form of preparation. However, she now needed to dy her preparation time. The Grade 1 fireball still needed four more seconds of preparation time, and Lex found that somewhat taxing on her body. A faint blue fireball floated at Lex¡¯s fingertip, illuminating her face within that darkness.

 Chapter 164: Pompeii City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 164: Pompeii City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The farthest distance between the northern and southern borders of the empire was nearly seven thousand miles. Converted to Tanggsi measurements, and a person would end up with a grand total of over thirteen thousand miles. The canal that the group was on, which did not flow out from Phoenix, was nearly five thousand miles long.


    The ship that Saleen had hired was not exactly the fastest one avable¡ªit only went about twenty miles per hour. However, it could cover a distance of nearly five hundred miles each day. That was, if it was operated nonstop day and night. Other better boats could travel nearly one thousand miles a day, even if all they had were sails.


    To go from Ivantel to Pompeii, one would need to cover a distance of five thousand miles. Thankfully, the captain of the ship had sped up in thest few days. Otherwise, it would have taken more than ten days for the gang to arrive at Pompeii.


    During these ten days, Saleen had a whale of a time. Both he and Lex had somewhat honed their skills in dispersing each other¡¯s magic spells on thest day. The techniques that they used might not have had any noticable effects on others, but because of their chemistry, the effects that the duo could see with each other were exponentially higher.


    Not only was Pompeii City known for its size, but it was also known for its existing harbors, ports, and other maritime trade facilities. Pompeii was located at the intersection of the canal and the Emerald River. Both streams converged here to form an even wider river which flowed eastward into the sea.


    Pompeii¡¯s geographical location was very important as it facilitated the development of many industries, particrly maritime ones. The ship that Saleen had hired was to pass through the checkpoint in Pompeii before it could continue on its journey. Just as well, they needed a ce to replenish their water supply and vegetables anyway.


    The captain, who hade in to find Saleen, spoke once Saleen was in his line of sight. ¡°Young master mage, the Fon Duncan needs an overhaul before it can be examined. This ship was originally registered at Pompeii, so it may take around a day toplete everything. Would you like to spend the day in the city?¡±


    Saleen opened his mouth to reject the captain¡¯s offer, but was interrupted by Lex. ¡°Sure! I¡¯ve gotten pretty sick of this ship after spending ten days on it. Any longer and I¡¯d die of boredom. Come on, Saleen. Let¡¯s go see what Pompeii City is all about.¡±


    Since Lex wanted to explore, Saleen decided that there was no harm in following her. On the other hand, Sika did not want to leave the ship. She had spent the past ten days studying the bone ne and had no desire of interrupting her progress. No matter how much Saleen tried to assure himself that Nailisi would be fine on the ship by herself, he ultimately brought Nailisi with her, leaving Sika all by herself. With that, the trio exited the ship and made their way across the dock.


    Pompeii¡¯s piers were bigger than those of Ivantel. The empire¡¯s biggest ports were located to the east of Pompeii. To the west of Pompeiiy the southern border of the empire. Not just that, but the canal linked the northern and southern parts of the empire together. With these geographical advantages, it was not surprising that Pompeii was a bustling city filled with activity.


    Unlike Ivantel, Pompeii was an ancient city. It even had a history far longer than that of the Qin Empire. However, the Pompeii that people saw today was actually not the original one, for it had needed to be rebuilt from scratch after a series of historical events.


    Lex enthusiastically exined the history of Pompeii to Saleen. Apparently, this ancient city had originally belonged to a duke of the Fourth Dynasty. After the ck mages brought chaos upon Pompeii, there was no longer any control over the local noblemen. Hence, the leaders of Pompeii became tyrants. Before the Qin country was founded, Pompeii was one of the few cities in the south that had not immediately been defeated in the war against the ck mages.


    Countless soldiers died in Pompeii during the war. The founding emperor, in a fit of rage, sent eight Grade 9 sorcerers to different parts of Pompeii City to cast eight forbidden spells using magic scrolls. The ancient city that held thousands of years of history was destroyed in the blink of an eye. The present Pompeii only existed thanks to the seeding emperor who rebuilt the city from scratch based on the blueprints inscribed on seized alchemy drawings.


    During the year when the city was being rebuilt, millions of bones were excavated from the ashes that covered thend. One could only imagine how populous and bustling the city of Pompeii must have been before the descent of the ck mages.


    After Saleen listened to Lex describe the city¡¯s history, he was left in awe. Pompeii looked so magnificent now that it had been restored to its glorious state. Even if Pompeii had been rebuilt using the most inferior materials in the world, Saleen reckoned that the grandeur of the city could still rival that of Holy Rock City. The most notable feature of Pompeii was the main entrance which nked both sides of the city. Painted on the white city walls were magical images drawn on by mages. They looked absolutely lifelike and beautiful.


    These were actual depictions of the war. The scrolls pasted on the city walls described the time when the Qin armed forces attacked Pompeii in great detail. The huge pictures on the white stone walls thatplemented the scrolls had all been painted using dragon¡¯s blood ink. Although they were ck-and-white paintings, Saleen could visualize the carnage of the scene depicted on the walls, almost as well as if he had been there himself.


    In the drawing, the Qin soldiers, d in double-ted gold armor, were seen standing on top of chariots that were tens of meters tall. Some of them were seen leaping towards the walls of Pompeii. The creatures pulling the chariots were gigantic magic beasts. The Qin soldiers were fighting their enemies who had emerged from Pompeii¡¯s borders. Flying puppets had also emerged from Pompeii¡¯s walls, and were seen charging towards the chariots while braving the thick smoke.


    In the background, some Qin troops were assembling magic cannons. Within the city of Pompeii, trebuchets were seenunching boulders towards the mage apprentices who were scrambling to piece the cannons together. Huge chariots were destroyed in seconds after being struck by the boulders. War horses and magic beasts were rolling on the ground in pain after being struck by them as well. One soldier even had to end his war horse¡¯s life with a dagger in order to put it out of its suffering.


    The mage apprentices, focused on their mission, turned a blind eye towards the huge boulders that were being fired at them from the inside of the city.


    The picture was stagnant. However, it was so incredibly lifelike and detailed in every way that for a moment, Saleen was convinced that he had been a part of it. Although the mages from the Qin Empire had faithfully recorded the details of the battle, Saleen only saw bloodshed. To him, there had been just no justification for war.


    A barbican nked both sides of the city gates. A gold-ted bridge had been built above it. The bridge was riddled with arrowslits which allowed archers to attack their enemies from above. The barbican was huge, and a stone b had been erected smack in the middle of it. Many names were engraved on the white stone b which towered over the city walls.


    ¡°These were the Qin soldiers that died in Pompeii. If you look at the back of the stone b, you¡¯ll see the names of the soldiers from Pompeii that died in battle. Through this war, the Qin Empire was founded,¡± Lex raved, her toneced with awe and respect as she stood before the stone b. She not only respected her ancestors who had founded the Qin Empire, but also thete duke of Pompeii.


    ¡°I wonder how the noblemen from the Lon Duchy would feel after seeing this stone b. Heh¡­¡± Lex muttered to herself, her tone suddenly bing calm and cold. She was slowly beginning to exude the aura of a true Qin empress.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about Lon Duchy, but I do know for a fact that the people from Sikenqinya would definitely not react the same way,¡± Saleen spoke up. This startled Lex, who had been caught up in a flurry of her own emotions.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Lex questioned. What would they do then? Deny history? Lex thought.


    ¡°Those clowns would build a city around these monuments and charge at least one silver coin for anyone who wished to see them,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Hahahaha!¡± Lexughed loudly before saying, ¡°I never knew you were so good at making jokes.¡± Saleen¡¯s joke had been pretty dry, but it had done a good job of lifting her spirits.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know you couldugh like that either,¡± Saleen said as he looked around. Lex¡¯sugh had attracted the attention of many people. The fact that Nailisi and Lex were both overwhelmingly gorgeous did not help either. Lex ignored the stares of the onlookers and continuedughing. Saleen, on the other hand, did not appreciate the attention, especially when there were so many people giving it to him. Saleen tugged at Lex¡¯s sleeve, trying to get her to practice some social etiquette.


    The Qin soldiers that were guarding the monument, upon seeing the mage robe that Saleen was wearing, did not dare approach Lex and tell her off for behaving so inconsiderately.


    ¡°Let¡¯s enter the city. There are many brands in Pompeii that are from the Cloudflow Empire. Many people from Sikenqinya also do business here. Perhaps we can find the things we need,¡± Lex quipped.


    ¡°I think we should buy some proper clothes first. We do stand out in these outfits,¡± Saleen said, looking at Lex.


    Saleen had felt that something was very wrong with the way that they were dressed ages ago. He was a Grade 4 mage, and yet, he was donned in a white mage robe. Lex, on the other hand, was dressed in a mboyant rainbow-colored mage robe that was sure to attract the attention of onlookers. Nailisi, who was right behind him, was dressed in winter clothing even though they were now in the hottest part of summer. Perhaps Sika noting off of the ship had been a blessing after all. Her outfit was fairly shocking as well. Wherever the four of them went, they simply could not seem to blend in.


    ¡°Oh please. In Alchemy City, these outfits are the norm. There are even mages that wear fur clothing, just like the people of Caucasus,¡± Lex scoffed.


    Seeing the grumpy look on Saleen¡¯s face, Lexughed, ¡°Okay okay. Maybe we can get Sika the prettiest outfit that Pompeii has to offer. As for you, I can give you a magic robe. It¡¯s a robe that my mentor cast three permanent spells on. You can wear them until you¡¯ve reached Grade 6.¡±


    Lex was so used to being generous that she did not realize that the robe she was talking about was the one that she had been wearing for years now. Giving it to Saleen did not seem like a fantastic gift choice.


    It was probably a good thing that Saleen tended to forget about Lex¡¯s status and beauty after hearing anything rted to magic. Otherwise, he likely would have rejected the gift out of respect. If Saleen¡¯s memory did not fail him, the grey magic robe which Lex was talking about was a fairly useful piece of equipment. Furthermore, he could really use those three permanent spells that the Grade 8 sorcerer had cast on the robe.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we find a ce so I can put it on?¡± Saleen replied, not caring to include any formalities or words of gratitude. They possessed secrets between them that were overwhelmingly valuable. The gift of a magic robe was not really considered a bribe at this point.


    ¡°What¡¯s with the rush? If you put on the grey robe, would you still be so thick-skinned as to bargain with the sellers there?¡± Lex asked, leading Saleen towards the heart of Pompeii City.


    Although both Pompeii City and Holy Rock City were densely popted, the demographics of both cities were different. There were far too many foreign businessmen in Pompeii. There were people from the Cloudflow Empire who had travelled here by both sea andnd. There were also Sikeqinya people that came here via the northern canal. What was absolutely baffling for Saleen was the fact that there were even people from Tanggsi who were roaming the streets of the city.


    The two countries were at war. By staying in the Qin country, these businessmen must have thought that they had nine lives or something. They were tantly risking their lives for money. Did they not know that the Qin Emperor had died at the hands of the Holy See?


    ¡°Lex, you seem to be able to navigate your way around here. Have you been here before?¡± Saleen asked as he trailed behind Lex. They left the main road and walked through several alleys before arriving at a very old building. The shopfronts here were not big. However, each one had massive crystal windows. These crystal windows meant that the shops only sold specialty items. Not only did these shops sell expensive items, but they were also a ce forrge-scale trade deals. Hence, there was no need for a huge storefront to enticemon folk.


    This decorative culture had been inherited from the Sikeqinya Empire.


    ¡°I make an effort to mark down and remember cities that have poptions exceeding ten thousand people,¡± Lex said proudly. She did not do all of that for her own enjoyment. She did it to maintain her status in the royal family. By knowing everyst detail of every major city, she would be better able to control the noblemen of different areas. The cities in the Qin Empire had not been designed at random. For construction to proceed, there needed to be approval from the royal family along withplete alchemy blueprints and no more than thirty fixed cityyouts before construction could proceed.


    Although having more than twenty cityyouts seemed excessive, it was actually fairly useful. By constantly changing the designs of the cities, their enemies would never know how to construct the perfect n of attack, putting them at a clear disadvantage. To powerful mages like Lex, no matter how much Pompeii might change in the future, she would still be able to recognize the basic structures of the city.


    The three of them arrived at a small public square. The ground had been built using crimson bricks. There were a few sculptures built in the middle of the public square, and surrounding those sculptures were low-rise shops. Not a single one of them had more than two floors each. In a ce like Pompeii wherend was valued just as much if not more than gold, these types of buildings were very expensive.


    ¡°So, which one?¡± Lex asked as she looked around. There were more than forty stores to choose from. Being able to open a shop here showed that these businesses possessed a certain level of status and capability.


    ¡°Let¡¯s pick that one,¡± Saleen said, pointing at the slightlyrger store. This store in particr was bigger than three of the standard shopsbined. However, it only had one floor. The doors and windows of this shop were much bigger than the others and were screaming nouveau riche. However, Saleen knew that there were no nouveau riche here, just very intelligent businessmen.

 Chapter 165: Pompeii City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 165: Pompeii City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Wow, you do have good taste. This ce is run by the merchants from Cloudflow Empire,¡± Lex said thoughtfully.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a matter of taste. I just feel that since this store is bigger, it¡¯ll be easier to strike,¡± Saleen replied as he followed Lex across the public square. As soon as he said those words, he felt a bad feeling form in his gut.


    ¡°Strike? What do you mean, Master? Do you intend to rob this store?¡± Nailisi asked, trying to be as discreet as possible. Saleen red at her, effectively shutting her up. Nailisi gulped and slowed down as she trailed behind Saleen.


    Humans were strange creatures. Even powerful people like Lex needed to spend money whenever they needed something. In the demonic realm, robbing and stealing were the norm. As Nailisi mulled over what Saleen had said, an idea was already forming in her head. Master Saleen probably wants to steal something when no one¡¯s looking. Robbing is such an ugly word. Let¡¯s just go with stealing, Nailisi thought.


    Immediately after entering the store, Saleen noticed that the design of the shop was indeed unique. From the outside, the store looked like any other ordinary one story shop. Once he had entered, however, what greeted Saleen was a winding staircase that was located in the middle of the spacious store. The second floor was supported by pirs made entirely out of metallic dragon bones. Thick squarish windows were scattered throughout the entire building. Rays of light shone through the windows in the ceiling onto the counter on the ground floor.


    There was even a small staircase located to the right of the shop entrance inside of the store. This staircase led to a floor that was in between the first and second story. The only decoration there was a gigantic crystal counter.


    The crystal counter had a silvermp on top of it, making it more prominent. It would not take a genius to realize that the things disyed in this counter were likely more expensive.


    Just then, a beautiful young woman emerged from the back of the shop. She was wearing a high-waisted long dress manufactured in the Cloudflow Empire and her top barely covered her neckline. If a Qin person saw it, they would find the outfit ugly; if a Tanggsi person saw it, they would think it was tasteless; if a Sikeqinya person saw it, their first thought would be about how much fabric had been wasted in the creation of the hundreds of pleats that were on the dress she was wearing.


    The young woman had put on some light makeup and sprayed on some perfume. As Saleen inhaled the scent of the perfume, he realized that some magic potion had been mixed in with it. It was a cheap, low-quality healing medicine that was used to instantly cure anxiety, be it in patients or wounded people. However, the medicine did have some side-effects, one of which was that smelling it would cause people to lose their alertness.


    The beauty of the young woman, along with her medicine-infused perfume, would cause customers to be very agreeable and prone to spendingrge amounts of money here. However, to people from Sikeqinya, this was mere child¡¯s y.


    As the young woman saw the young mage sniff the perfume she had sprayed on, she blushed. She knew that a petty trick like this would not fool a mage, especially a powerful one like Saleen.


    ¡°Master mage, is there anything I can help you with?¡± The young woman spoke in Qinnguage, but did not bother to hide her Cloudflow ent. Even if she had not opened her mouth, her submissive bodynguage would have confirmed any doubts that she was not a Qin citizen.


    ¡°What is your name?¡± Saleen asked before Lex was able to.


    ¡°Gessica,¡± the young woman replied.


    ¡°Okay. Gessica, would you mind calling your boss over for me?¡± Saleen said, immediately rejecting Gessica¡¯s offer to assist him with a warm smile on his face.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words, Gessica had a disappointed look on her face. It caused her to look quite pitiful, but Saleen knew better.


    ¡°Master mage, the boss is still chatting with a customer. They won¡¯t be able to entertain you at the moment,¡± Gessica replied.


    ¡°Then we shall explore the store on our own,¡± Saleen said,pletely ignoring Gessica¡¯s disappointed expression. If Gessica had not put on that potion-infused perfume, perhaps he would not have minded asking for her help. He knew that a job like that did not bring in a lot of money. The main source of ie for these people were tips given by customers.


    Lex did not understand the hardships of these lower-ss people, nor did she bother trying to. What did bother her, however, was the scent of Gessica¡¯s perfume. As a Grade 6 mage, her sense of smell was much more keen than Saleen¡¯s. She threw a re filled with hatred towards Gessica before turning around and walking towards the staircase that led to the mezzanine.


    As Gessica¡¯s eyes darted back and forth between Lex¡¯s back and Nailisi¡¯s beautiful face, she understood why Saleen had been able to outright reject her. In terms of looks, she paled inparison to the twodies before her.


    Not only was Nailisi beautiful, but she also appeared meek and well-behaved. However, people who knew her personally would know that she was nothing like that.


    Gessica stood there awkwardly, at a loss as to what to do. Just then, two people emerged from the mezzanine and made their way downstairs. Gessica instantly cheered up and pointed at the fat middle-aged man before saying, ¡°Master mage, that is my boss.¡±


    Saleen pushed a silver piece in her hand to convey his appreciation. However, what caught his attention was not the boss, but the young male beside him. He looked about twenty-five years old and had long ck hair. His eyes were dark blue, and he had a broad forehead as well as pitch-ck eyebrows. He was d in a narrow-sleeved, brightly colored robe. If it had not been for his decent looks, the brightly colored clothing would have seemed silly on him.


    However, Saleen was not too caught up on those things. What caught his attention was the fact that the young man appeared to be skilled in swordcraft. He was about as strong as, if not slightly stronger than the bronze grand swordmaster he had killed.


    After having studied the sword aura present in the bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s body, Saleen had be more confident in distinguishing the ranks of different swordmasters. In this aspect, icy sight was much more effective than real eye, as the former allowed Saleen to judge an opponent¡¯s abilities in greater detail.


    Not only did the young man appear to be a powerful swordmaster, but he also appeared to be from a wealthy background. The jade belt secured around his waist had a flexible sword hidden behind it, though it was pretty obvious to Saleen. His boots had been made entirely from magic beast skins. From the high-quality materials to the young man¡¯s flippant gaze, Saleen was certain that he came from a rich family. Not only that, he was likely the type of person who only knew how to eat, sleep, party, and waste money. In other words, he was a waste of space and resources.


    These people were the hardest to deal with as they would never reveal their true colors. If they did reveal them, it meant that an unfortunate soul was about to be killed.


    Saleen absolutely detested interacting with such people. He would rather have spent time with Aini. He decided to continue exploring the store to avoid having to talk to him. All of a sudden, Saleen heard the young man shout from behind him, ¡°Master mage! Master mage!¡±


    Saleen sighed in resignation as he turned around, expecting the young man to be looking at him. He was wrong. As the young man called out to him, his eyes were fixated on Lex. His gaze was a little too bold, but it did not take a genius to figure out from the look in his eyes that he was attracted to her.


    Lex was ustomed to being sought after in Bitter Water Prefecture, so she did not feel ufortable. Saleen, on the other hand, did not like it. He coughed loudly, bringing the young man¡¯s attention back to him.


    ¡°You called?¡± Saleen asked, not wishing to utter any more words than he needed to.


    ¡°Ah, I forgot. Master mage, could you introduce me to yourpanion?¡± The young man spoke bluntly as his gaze slipped back onto Lex. Saleen had not expected him to be so direct. He had thought that the young man would be a bit more tactful.


    ¡°No, we don¡¯t have time for this,¡± Saleen replied, simmering with anger. Saleen did feel a little attraction towards Lex, but it was not love. However, as soon as the young man appeared, it felt as though Saleen¡¯s testosterone had gone into overdrive.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. I¡¯ll just get to know her myself,¡± the young man said as he walked towards the stairs.


    Saleen gave a loud huff as he simply took out a Grade 5 magic scroll. If Lex were to attack the young male, he would not hold back either. At that moment, he recalled the bad feeling he had felt back in the public square. He had not thought that it would be realized so soon. With my prophecy magic, I should really be a holy master, Saleen thought.


    Seeing Saleen take out the magic scroll sent the plump middle-aged man into a frenzy. Thetter strolled towards Saleen, bowed, and said, ¡°Master mage, please do not attack him. He is the mayor¡¯s son!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the mayor¡¯s son?¡± Saleen replied coldly. He did not give a care in the world about who the young man was. If Lex attacked him, Saleen was not going to just stand there and watch.


    ¡°Yes, he¡¯s the son of the Duke Dominic, the city mayor! ¡± The shop owner said, waving his hands frantically in an attempt to diffuse the situation. He was only a businessman and he could not afford to offend both sides.


    ¡°Oh? A duke, I see,¡± Saleen replied sarcastically. He did not put away his magic scroll. If anything, he paid even more attention to the young man.


    Ever since he had arrived in the Qin country and interacted with some noblemen, Saleen had realized that they werepletely different from his original impression of them. The Qin noblemen were mostly intelligent and powerful. It was apletely different story in Sikeqinya though. Even so, the higher the rank, the less likely they were to be stupid people.


    This was because the educational backgrounds of these noblemen were excellent. Even the children were considered geniuses, as they were far more intelligent and capable than other ordinary children.


    As a duke¡¯s son and a master of swordcraft, this young man could not possibly be that stupid, right? Saleen thought. Surely he was able to tell that Lex was a mage. If he were to strike up a conversation just like that, it was probably because he wanted something. Or it could have been because he was struck by Lex¡¯s beauty. But it couldn¡¯t be that simple, right? Saleen thought grumpily.


    When Saleen had first met Lex, they had still been little kids. Back then, he had not felt anything for Lex. As they slowly got to know each other, he had gotten used to Lex¡¯spany. Although Lex¡¯s looks were very appealing, Saleen knew that deep inside, he was more fixated on the Grade 6 status that Lex had attained.


    Lex turned around and told the young man who was slowly making his way up the stairs, ¡°Stay right there. I don¡¯t wish to talk to you.¡± Her tone was cold and firm.


    Lex had heard the boss¡¯s words loud and clear. This young man was the son of the Duke of Pompeii, but she could not have cared less. Her status was far higher than that. She was not going to amodate him.


    The young man simply brushed it off and asked with a yful smile on his face, ¡°My beautiful mage, may I have the honor of knowing your name?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Lex replied almost immediately.


    ¡°Then allow me to introduce myself. My name is a bit too long, so let me just tell you my nickname. Even though I am a very outstanding individual, I simply cannot shoulder the glory of all my ancestors¡­¡± the young man spoke narcissistically as his affection for Lex grew. The fact that Lex was dressed in such a ridiculous robe did not bother him in the slightest. In fact, he felt like itplimented his mboyant clothing perfectly.


    It was the first time he had seen a female mage with such good taste in clothing. This alone caused his heart to beat even more erratically as he continued staring at her.


    ¡°As a nobleman, you should know that your behavior is uneptable. The only reason I¡¯m holding back now is because of your father. If you don¡¯t stay in yourne, don¡¯t me me if you end up on the floor,¡± Lex snapped.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright, don¡¯t be so formal with me. I¡¯m sure that if we spent more time together, you¡¯d find that I¡¯m very generous towards the people that I like,¡± the young man said, unfazed by Lex¡¯s words.


    At that moment, Saleen began to question whether this young man was merely oblivious to the situation or was in stupid and unaware. He had heard through the grapevine that some noblemen, in an attempt to maintain the purity of their bloodlines, would only allow arranged marriages between their rtives. However, studies conducted by mages had found that offspring born through incest possessed many deformities. In fact, only a small percentage of these newborns grew up to be geniuses.


    However, that probability was even lower than the probability of a junior swordsman ying a giant dragon.


    ¡°Boss, do you know if this duke¡¯s son suffered some sort of brain damage when he was young?¡± Saleen could not help but blurt out.

 Chapter 166: The Admonition (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 166: The Admonition (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Great mage, please don¡¯t say that¡­¡± The boss stopped halfway through his sentence, not having the courage to continue rebuking Saleen.


    Lex was growing impatient. She shed a square emblem and said straight to the youth¡¯s face, ¡°Since your father is a duke, you must recognize this.¡±


    The flighty expression on the youth¡¯s face grew stiff. He certainly recognized that emblem. That was the symbol of the imperial Grukos family. Even though Pompeii City was a great distance from the imperial capital, the youth also knew what had happened in the capital. There were not many dukes in the Qin Empire. Additionally, Duke Dominic had deployed some men to Holy Rock City to gather intelligence, and he was also in close contact with the upper house.


    ¡°You are¡­ Your Highness, Lex?¡±


    Lex was fuming as she had not wanted to bring trouble to herself. Yet, she had revealed her identity in order to settle her problem with this youth. Otherwise, this youth would have continued doing things his own way, and she could not possibly have killed the son of a duke.


    ¡°That¡¯s me. You can leave now.¡± Lex¡¯s expression was as lifeless as a poorly made sculpture.


    ¡°Your Highness, please pardon my rudeness. Since you are here in Pompeii, you must meet my father no matter what, don¡¯t you think?¡± The youth became very polite all of a sudden.


    Lex had learned many new things by interacting with Saleen. From the words of the youth, Lex could tell that the youth was smug. It was very obvious that the nobles in Pompeii were well aware of the current situation of the imperial capital, and this youth also knew about the awkward circumstances that Lex was currently trapped in.


    The youth¡¯s words were equivalent to an invitation by Duke Dominic. If Lex rejected it, it would mean that she had refused the friendship of a duke, and that would not be a very wise move given the dire situation Lex was currently in.


    Then, Lex put away the emblem, and told the youth who was d in a colored robe, ¡°I am only staying for one day. It would not be convenient for me to meet with the duke.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, Bogan is one of us. He won¡¯t go around spouting nonsense. As for her¡­¡± The youth took one look at Gessica , then simply said, ¡°I will make that girl be one of us.¡±


    As he spoke, he blocked the stairway and looked at Lex.


    Lex already had her own county, and with her status as a direct descendant of the Grukos family, she could roam freely within the entirety of the Qin Empire, not even needing to give a notice to Holy Rock City. However, she was also a county queen at the same time. Thus, if Lex met with the duke, it would be deemed inappropriate if the meeting was publicized.


    Lex sighed in her heart. There were many things which could not be resolved using magic. If she rejected this invitation, Duke Dominic would be displeased. But if Lex epted the invitation and this was circted to Holy Rock City, the lower house would definitely use that as an excuse to criticize her.


    Whether or not the meeting would be publicized did not depend on the boss of this shop. It would be dependent on Dominic. Pompeii City had a seven story magic tower, so Lex would not be able cause much trouble here either.


    The feeling of being beneath someone else¡¯s thumb caused Lex to feel extremely distressed. So, she changed her expression into an extremely formal one, and replied to Dominic¡¯s son, ¡°Baron, I still have to purchase a batch of materials. I really don¡¯t have the time. Please convey my apologies to Duke Dominic.¡±


    In the Qin Empire, the process for nobles inheriting titles was draconian and full of rules. As long as Dominic was still alive, his son would never be a duke unless he was exemry on the battlefield. Lex addressing the youth as a baron had only been a formality. It did not truly mean that the duke¡¯s son had an official title. Lex had used that to remind the youth that he did not have the right to extend an invitation to her.


    ¡°Your Highness, even though this is an informal invitation, it is still imperative to Bitter Water County, isn¡¯t it?¡± A flighty expression appeared on the youth¡¯s face once more. He seemed to be extremely confident that Lex would not end on bad terms with him.


    Lex regretteding onto shore. Things would have been just fine had she remained on the boat. If Lex¡¯s father had still been alive, this youth would not have been so atrocious by now. A feeling of resentment welled up in Lex¡¯s heart. It was the first time in her life that she had felt so helpless.


    Saleen felt very uneasy as well. He did not dare offend this seemingly dumb youth. It was obvious that his stupidity was just an act.


    Pompeii was an enormous city. There were grand swordmasters, mages, and perhaps even a sizeable navy. The current situation was akin to a person causing trouble in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Unless that person was a master of their profession, they would not be able to escape at all.


    ¡°I can¡¯t ept such an invitation.¡± Ayer of flowing air had appeared on Lex¡¯s body out of the blue. The flowing air engulfed Lex, and she slowly flew into the air. Lex then said to Saleen, ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    The youth d in a robe had not expected Lex to fly. He was at a loss for what to do, and became greatly frustrated. The youth had long ago heard that the daughter of Emperor Chanake was not to be trifled with. He thought that he had definitely trapped Lex, but it turned out that his intelligence was already outdated. Lex could fly about freely. That meant that she was no longer a Grade 5 mage, so she must have already advanced to Grade 6.


    Since Lex was a Grade 6 mage, it was possible that the youth would not be able to defeat her.


    The youth d in a robe was so stunned by Lex¡¯s actions that he did not step forward to stop her. He simply shouted after Lex, ¡°Your Highness, do you want me to tell my father about what happened today?¡±


    ¡°Hmpf!¡± Lex could no longer hold back her fury. She threw open the door of the shop and rushed out.


    Saleen quickly went after Lex. Before he left, he suddenly turned around and said, ¡°We are going to Alchemy City. If you are brave enough, you can follow us. Grand swordmaster? Hehe¡­¡±


    Seeing that Lex had rejected the youth¡¯s invitation, Saleen did not bother to maintain his courtesy. Even if a person was a true grand swordmaster, they would not gain much respect in Alchemy City anyways. That city was the territory of mages. Saleen was reminding the youth that Lex was a mage master, and she could not be manipted by anyone.


    When Saleen and Lex had gone a distance away, the plump boss asked the youth anxiously, ¡°Master, it isn¡¯t too good to treat a mage like that. Will the duke¡­¡±


    The youth red at the boss ferociously and said, ¡°Mind your own business. I will settle the matter with her. Since she has alreadye here, she will not want to leave right away. Hm, you are Gessica?¡± The youth turned around and said amiably.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Gessica¡¯s heart trembled. She vaguely felt that she would soon be in a dire predicament.


    ¡°You are quite pretty. Come with me. Bogan, arrange for amodation for thisdy, but don¡¯t create any trouble.¡±


    ¡°Sir, please¡­¡±


    The youth interrupted Gessica and said, ¡°Stop talking. As long as you are obedient, I will set you free after two to three years. Regarding today¡¯s matters, I don¡¯t want to publicize them just yet.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I swear I won¡¯t say anything.¡± Gessica felt so anxious that she began to cry. She still had to take care of her parents back home. If she left with the duke¡¯s son, it would mean that her freedom would be lost forever, no matter how nicely the duke¡¯s son had put it.


    ¡°Only dead people can keep secrets. Gessica, learn to be contented. Your family is in Pompeii.¡±


    Saleen chased Lex all the way to the square. Lexnded back on the ground, but her speed did not decrease at all. Noticing that Saleen and Nailisi had caught up with her, she mumbled, ¡°Let¡¯s return to the wharf.¡±


    ¡°Are we leaving just like that?¡±


    ¡°That guy is full of evil intentions. If he had shed head-on with me, I would not be so worried. If we don¡¯t leave now, trouble might follow very soon.¡± Now, Lex regretted revealing her identity. She had not expected Dominic¡¯s son to harbor such ill intentions after learning of her true identity. This time, Lex was well aware of their crisis. The power of Pompeii was concentrated here. She would not be able to resist it all by herself.


    Lex ignored the shame. She simply used the Windspeed spell and led Saleen and Nailisi back to the wharf. When Lex found Saleen¡¯s hired ship, she was shocked, noticing that more than ten soldiers had board the ship and were surrounding Sika with their swords drawn and bows pulled back.


    ¡°What is going on!¡± Saleen walked up the nk. He was afraid that Sika would injure someone.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± When Sika saw that Saleen had returned, she regained her courage as well. The soldiers had wanted to search Sika after searching the ship. If Saleen had still not returned, Sika would have taken action.


    ¡°Great mage.¡± When the soldiers saw that Saleen was leading two beautiful women aboard, they did not dare to ignore him, so they bowed.


    ¡°This is my friend. Is there some misunderstanding?¡± Saleen questioned the soldiers immediately. He would not allow them to speak first.


    Themander pondered for a moment before replying, ¡°There was no misunderstanding. It was just that she could not produce any identification, so we wanted to investigate it further.¡±


    ¡°I will be her guarantor. Please leave.¡± Saleen noticed that Lex looked anxious, so he did not want to waste any more time.


    ¡°A mage¡¯s words are certainly credible. It is just that¡­¡± Themander looked uneasy. Saleen simplyughed and took out five gold coins before shoving the coins into themander¡¯s hands. He said, ¡°Get yourselves a beer.¡±


    Themander epted the gold coins calmly and nced at Sika. Then, he said, ¡°Great mage, Pompeii¡¯sws are quite strict. Don¡¯t leave her alone next time.¡± After finishing his sentence, themander waved his hand and led the soldiers off of Saleen¡¯s ship.


    Saleen gestured for a sailor who was looking off into the distance and asked, ¡°Where is the captain?¡±


    ¡°He has entered the city, sir¡­¡±


    ¡°No worries. Go and do your work.¡± Saleen dismissed the sailor before turning to Lex and saying, ¡°The ship cannot leave immediately. What should we do?¡±


    ¡°Prepare the horses. We will travel on the roads.¡± Lex was decisive. She was bing increasingly ufortable the more she thought about things.


    The sailors did not dare to stop Saleen and his team. They simply allowed them to lead the horses off of the ship, and watched as the four of them left on horseback. Less than an hour after Lex and her team had left, soldiers from the brigade arrived at the wharf. This time around, there was a seniormander among the soldiers. After interrogating the sailors, they realized that Lex and her team had already left an hour ago. Themander became fidgety, and instructed his men to get on their horses and chase after Lex.


    Lex kept pushing her horse to run faster. Saleen felt that she was overly paranoid. Could the owner of Pompeii City try to kill her? Emperor Chanake might have died, but Lex was still a member of the Grukos royal family, and her brother was the current emperor. If he tried to kill Lex, that would be an act of utter disrespect towards the royal family.


    Pompeii City. The duke¡¯s residence.


    Duke Dominic looked somber. In front of him was that youth who had kept pestering Lex.


    ¡°Since you said that, why did you still allow her to leave?¡± The duke was furious. His son had not done anything wrong in the beginning. His only mistake had been letting Lex leave. The duke had already received information from soldiers at the wharf that Lex and her three otherpanions had left an hour ago with eight horses in tow, and it would be very difficult to catch up to them now.

 Chapter 167: The Admonition (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 167: The Admonition (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Father, I did not expect her to be so perceptive,¡± the youth replied in an upset tone. The youth looked coy in front of his father, so his father did not know that he had been nning to use force on Lex.


    ¡°She might only be a grade-6 mage, but you did not bring any underlings with you?¡±


    ¡°She had a mage master with her as well, and I was not confident that I would be able to keep this matter under wraps.¡±


    ¡°You have underestimated Lex. Chanake did not favor Lex just because he pampered her. I will only allow you tomit this kind of mistake once, and if you repeat it¡­¡± Dominic stared at his son savagely, causing that youth to break out into a sweat. ording to the rules of the Qin Empire, the eldest son would not necessarily inherit the title of the duke, and the youth still had two more brothers.


    Seeing that his son was distressed, Duke Dominic softened his expression and said, ¡°You are right. If Lex could make a ce like the Bitter Water Prefecture flourish, then she might possibly possess more wealth than Pompeii. If we manage to manipte Lex, our power will only increase. Without Chanake at the helm of the empire, the empire might not be as strong as it used to be. We need to start thinking for ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Then should we send the ck Emblem Army after them?¡±


    ¡°We shouldn¡¯t be too conspicuous about it. Since they are going to Alchemy City, I have already deployed some men to go ahead.¡±


    ¡°The people from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town might not be very reliable.¡±


    ¡°I know. They are not serious in siding with us, so when something goes wrong, I will also shirk all responsibility. Imposa, if you were well versed in our family¡¯s swordsmanship, Lex would not have been able to escape. Don¡¯t interfere in this matter for now. When you be a ck metal grand swordmaster, I will then hand over control of the ck Emblem Army to you.¡±


    The youth d in robes was overjoyed. He had thought that he would be severely punished, but not only had his father forgiven him, he had even agreed to give him control over the ck Emblem Army. The ck Emblem Army was the duke¡¯s private army, and it could have more than ten thousand soldiers. But all this while, Dominic had wanted to avoid any taboos, so he had restricted the army¡¯s manpower to only three thousand soldiers.


    However, after Emperor Chanake¡¯s death, many nobles had begun expanding their private armies. Naturally, Pompeii was no exception. In the past six months or so, the ck Emblem Army had ballooned to five thousand soldiers, and it was now able to establish five emblem groups.


    Lex and her team kept travelling nonstop for two hundred miles. Then, the war horses grew exhausted and they had to take a break. Lex dismounted from her horse and took out her map, and she asked Saleen and the others toe over.


    ¡°We will not make it in time to cross the river. There is only one way to get to Alchemy City from the west side of the river.¡± Lex pointed to a town at the top of the map and said, ¡°Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. But, we will definitely run into trouble there.¡±


    ¡°Run into trouble? This is almost four hundred miles from Pompeii!¡± Saleen looked at the map. There was arge city two hundred miles west of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. It would not be easy for Pompeii to extend its sphere of influence all the way there.


    ¡°That¡¯s why we are in trouble. If we meet with a mishap there, Dominic can shirk all responsibility easily.¡±


    ¡°We can abandon the war horses and go through this mountainous region,¡± Saleen replied, pointing to a spot east of the road.


    ¡°Saleen, it was my mistake to reveal my identity. However, I really cannot tolerate such an insult. Don¡¯t you want to teach them a lesson?¡± Lex had already been forced to abandon the ship, and if she also needed to go around Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town now, it would be an undeniable insult to her.


    Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town only had a poption of approximately twenty to thirty thousand people, and it did not have a magic tower. Lex was not willing to run away anymore. She wanted to teach Dominic a lesson. Since Dominic had offended her, she would make sure that his days would be hellish.


    Saleen pondered for a moment and felt that what Lex had said made sense. If they did not even dare to go to Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, then other nobles would definitely climb over Lex in the future. If the Bitter Water County wanted to make progress, they could not suffer in silence. Pompeii might have had a magic tower and at least ten thousand soldiers, but Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town would at most have a few ns and just thousands of soldiers.


    ¡°So what should we do?¡±


    ¡°Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town is a distribution center for armor and weapons, so there aren¡¯t many mages around. Since we want to go through it, we have to go past the town. Without a magic tower, there will not be any threat of danger from other mages. After entering the town, there will be no more ins, and there will only be one road ahead of us. They will have us enter the town before taking any action.¡±


    ¡°How many people can Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town deploy?¡± Lex magnified the map of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, exposing the streets all over the city. The terrain was narrow, so it was not suitable for cavalry or mages.


    ¡°Everyone can be deployed, and there will be at least fourteen thousand people.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a lot!¡± Saleen¡¯s confidence was beginning to waver. He stood a chance against one thousand men, but if there were more than ten thousand soldiers, then the four of them would have to fight a serious battle.


    ¡°Saleen, we still have twenty fully constructed puppets with us. We can take this opportunity to test the capabilities of these puppets.¡± Lex was not worried at all. Without a magic tower, her fully constructed puppets could not be easily destroyed anymore. Even if there were many enemies, she only needed to look for their elites and use the puppets to carry out a massacre. This would cause the enemies to lose their will to carry on fighting.


    Saleen did not know this, but in arge scale war, once a side had lost more than ten percent of their troops, their morale would hit rock bottom. If the number was over twenty percent, the army would copse. If an army lost fifty percent of its men and was still fighting, then it would be best to stop the battle. But soldiers of such mettle would definitely not exist in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town.


    Saleen then recalled that those fully constructed puppets that he and Lex had acquired in the hell of god¡¯s punishment could participate in battle as well.


    ¡°Will the losses outweigh the gains?¡± In the end, Saleen asked a very strategic question. High-grade magic nuclei were required tounch the fully constructed puppets. In addition, he would use a huge quantity of scrolls during the battle. All of these expenditures could not bepensated with gold coins.


    ¡°Rx, I won¡¯t leave Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town so quickly. I will empty their treasury first. My only worry is that those people will not dare to fight us.¡±


    Saleen was disheartened. It seemed like Lex did not want to just teach Dominic a lesson, but she also wanted to get her hands on the town¡¯s armor and weapons. Since the Bitter Water County was expanding its military, it would be much faster for Lex to steal all of this equipment instead of purchasing it.


    ¡°Lex, during the battle, do you want me to kill the enemies or cripple them?¡± Sika asked solemnly. After all, Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town was a city on the empire¡¯s soil, and it belonged to a certain family so it was under the protection of thews of the Qin Empire.


    ¡°Don¡¯t show any mercy. This kind of battle will only stop when the other party is dead. As long as someone on the other side refuses toy down their weapons, we will keep fighting.¡± Lex¡¯s response was ruthless. It waspletely unlike the usual kindness she disyed when she spoke.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be too cruel?¡± Nailisi asked delicately. Saleen only red at her. It was perfectly normal for someone to ask such a question, but it was quite amusing to see that the person to ask had been Nailisi.


    ¡°Yes, it would be.¡± Lex paid no mind to Nailisi¡¯s instigation. Lex simply brought out the puppets and began swapping out their magic nuclei. The original magic nuclei had been grade-7, but since there were going to be more enemies present, the grade-7 magic nuclei might not be able tost the entire battle.


    Saleen also began emptying his demonic ring as there were many unnecessary items inside. He transferred all the items into the Ring of Gifts, except for the bronze magic book and the written scrolls. In addition, Saleen put the witcher spider into his bag.


    Nailisi took out the two fully constructed puppets which belonged to Saleen, and Lex changed their magic nuclei into grade-8 ones as well.


    Once all the preparations had beenpleted, Lex instructed everyone to memorize the terrain of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town and gave special instructions to Nailisi. ¡°You will stay behind Saleen, as the enemy might possess alchemy crossbows. Once you spot those crossbows, send out the fully constructed puppets. Never let Saleen take the damage as his level-4 magic might be destroyed by the alchemy crossbows.¡±


    ¡°Sika, you are skilled in equestrianism and you have heavy weapons, so you shall focus on the ballistae. Ignore the swordsmen and mages.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, at the start, use the bronze magic book. Don¡¯t use the level-4 or level-5 scrolls. Let the enemies be hopeful.¡± Lex instructed the three of them one by one.


    Lex was very clear. Once the battle started, she would not show any mercy. However, there was one condition. She could not be the one who started the fight, or else their enemies would have a hold over her. If Lex¡¯s attacks were too savage at the start and the soldiers from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town surrendered, then things would be very troublesome.


    Lex could not conquer this town as it was too far from the Bitter Water County. Hence, she would not be able to control it.


    Afterpleting her instructions, Lex patiently brought out her map again and showed the other three the types of vocations, weapons, and tactics which weremonly seen in armies. Lex had never regarded Saleen as abat mage, so she had never taught him such things in the past.


    Seeing that the war horses were fully rested, the four of them continued their journey. Lex caressed her horse, disying a hint of pity in her eyes. In the battleter on, these horses would most likely be killed. Since there would be too many enemies, she would only be able to protect her team, and she would not have time to care for the horses.


    The roads in the Qin Empire were more than twelve meters wide. During wars,rger carriages would be able to pass and they would not damage the surface of the roads. Riding a horse that was blessed with magic on these roads would enable a person to cover one hundred miles in just a little more than two hours.


    By the time Lex and her team approached Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, it was alreadyte into the night. Lex and Sika were riding in front with Saleen and Nailisi at the rear. The north and east sides of the town were not surrounded by walls, and there was only one fortress on each side of the road. This fortress was very tiny. It looked like it could only fit up to one hundred soldiers.


    Saleen disseminated his perception and discovered that the loaded crossbows in those two fortresses had locked their aims onto his back. However, he did not feel threatened as there were no alchemy crossbows in the fortresses. After all, this was a small town, and ording to thews of the empire, such weapons were not allowed to be employed during peacetime.


    Lex and her team did not slow down at all. They did not signal any intentions of stopping at Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. Up ahead, a drunk man suddenly appeared on the road, and he was walking while swaying back and forth. Lex snorted and immediately cast a frost array at the man¡¯s feet.


    Actually, the drunk man would have coincidentally blocked Lex¡¯s path given his pace. However, the frost array stopped the man in his tracks and Lex simply rode past him, causing the drunk man to be stunned.


    All of a sudden, hundreds of arrows shot out from both sides of the road. If Lex and her team had stopped advancing, that barrage of arrows would have engulfed them. That drunk man could not dodge and he was pierced by dozens of arrows. He screamed in pain before gradually bing unable to breathe.


    Then, a ck fog suddenly appeared and enveloped Lex and her team. Themander who was hiding in the shadows realized that his enemies were prepared, so he hesitated. Because of that hesitation, dark red rain droplets started to fall out of the sky in a one thousand meter radius. The soldiers who were hiding in shadows came into contact with the rain, and they ran out of the shadows wailing in pain.


    The ck fog flitted about and epassed Lex and her team. Then, the ck fog rushed towards a road junction straight ahead.

 Chapter 168: Massacre (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 168: Massacre (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°They are running away!¡± someone in the shadows hollered as the sound of sharp metal nking together filled the air.


    From both sides of the road junction, four big carriages were pushed out from their hiding spots. The linen cloths covering the carriages were torn down, exposing the fearsome crossbows hidden underneath. The ck fog began to burn, and a fire dragon was formed. The fire dragon lunged at the four ballistae. To the rear of the street, a ballista had alreadyunched three metal arrows.


    The arrows whistled through the air and flew into the remaining fog, and the sound of the metal colliding with an object could be heard.


    When the ck fog dispersed, two metallic people appeared out of thin air and stood behind Saleen, helping to block the arrows from that ballista. The metal arrows struck the chests of the metallic people, causing them to be hurled into midair by the impact.


    A mage d in white robes walked out from behind the four ballistae and stood in front of them. This mage had three magic symbols on his chest, and that revealed his grade ¨C a grade-3 mage.


    The mage was astounded when he saw the Fire Dragon spell. That was level-6 magic, and he could not negate its effects. However, it was toote for him to escape now, so he clenched his teeth and opened a scroll. That was his precious level-4 scroll, and it would be used to protect his life.


    A green ice te armor appeared and covered the mage¡¯s robes. The fire dragon crashed into the mage ferociously, producing the sound of a robust explosion.


    The strongest mid-level defense spell had lived up to its reputation. The mage d in white robes was flung back by the impact, but his ice te armor was notpletely destroyed yet. However, the four ballistae behind him were not so lucky. The Fire Dragon spell might not have possessed the strongest offensive capabilities in level-6 magic, but its area of effect was massive. Hence, the four ballistae broke into pieces, and the loaded arrows were spilled all over the ground.


    The mage in white robes was struck by three arrows while in midair. One of the arrows prated his body through a crack in his ice te armor. The two finger thick arrowhead left a gaping hole in that mage¡¯s body.


    If he had been a grade-4 mage, he would have been able to repair any holes in the ice te armor whenever he wished to do so. However, he was only grade-3, hence he could not maintain the original state of the ice te armor after casting it.


    The fire dragon then disappeared, while the mage in white robes mmed heavily into the ground, but no one cared about him. The disy of power by Lex and her team was truly fearsome. The attack by that holistic mid-level spell had caused the two-pronged attack to lose its purpose.


    A vigorous whining filled the air. From an area some distance away, twelve alchemy crossbow bolts flew towards Lex and her team. Earlier on, Lex had already deployed ten fully constructed puppets. These tall metallic people stood in front the horses, and four of them even held gigantic metallic shields.


    Om¡­


    A thunderous vibration sound came from the metallic shields as they stood in the face of those alchemy arrows. An acute grinding sound with the potential to pierce a person¡¯s eardrums filled the air as the alchemy arrows prated the metallic shields and struck the chests of the fully constructed puppets.


    Those metallic shields had been put on the puppets by Lex, so they could not stop the alchemy arrows at all since those arrows were used to attack cities. The alchemy arrows prated the shields and were stuck into the chests of the fully constructed puppets.


    The chests of these puppets had been made from entire pieces of metal. The arrows could only advance halfway through the metal before they could no longer advance anymore.


    Saleen ignored whatever that was happening up ahead. He turned his horse around and brought out the bronze magic book. Dozens of phoenixes charged out of the bronze magic book and lunged towards the ballistae at the rear of the street. Even though these ballistae were not alchemical equipment, the lethality of their metallic arrows were pretty horrifying nheless.


    With ice te armor blessed onto his own body, Saleen activated his icy sight. He could vaguely spot hundreds of swordsmen rushing out from both sides of the courtyard wall. Saleen despaired. If those swordsmen came out onto the street, he would be in grave danger. At that point in time, Saleen realized that such battles could not be managed by just one or two mages alone.


    No matter how powerful a mage was, their magic chords would eventually be depleted. Without their magic chords, the mage would only be able to fight one beginner swordsman at most, and that was provided that they had a de and that the swordsman was a poor one.


    Saleen did not dare slow down. Once he saw that the ballistae were burning, he immediatelymanded a fully constructed puppet to charge towards the wall.


    The metallic person was unusually heavy since it was wielding a heavy weapon. The puppet that Saleen was controlling wielded a square axe, and the puppet made two shes on the wall. The square axe was sharpened at both ends, so it easily created arge opening in the wall. The remaining fully constructed puppets then rushed in through the opening, causing dust to fill the air and the ground to tremble.


    Without any pity for the soldiers, Saleen steered the puppets into the crowd under the pressure of potentially being killed. There were more than three hundred swordsmen, and the fully constructed puppets flitted about. With one sh of an axe, more than three swordsmen could lose their limbs.


    When the swordsmen noticed that those metallic monsters could kill dozens of theirrades with one blow, they became more agitated and began rushing forward with their weapons. The fully constructed puppets did not put up any defenses and allowed the swordsmen to sh at their legs. One puppet then simply flung its axe forward in a single move and destroyed the chest of a swordsman.


    A metal chain was attached to the square axe. The eyes of the fully constructed puppet reddened and started spinning in their sockets. Then, the hefty axe danced in midair as fresh red blood spurted everywhere.


    Elsewhere, Nailisimanded another fully constructed puppet to go to the wall on the opposite side. This puppet wielded a halberd with a long pole, but it did not use its weapon. Instead, the puppet simply crashed into the wall, thus blowing open a human-sized opening in the wall. Then, the puppet began its massacre.


    Sika rode on horseback and charged along the wall to the right towards the road junction. She noticed that two ballistae in the distance were being loaded with alchemical arrows by dozens of soldiers.


    The speed of the arrow loading was slow, so a mage disciple would be needed to help catalyze the process. Sika quickly scanned the surroundings and spotted two magic disciples. She then took her boomerang from her waist and threw it at them.


    The boomerang appeared out the blue. However, a swordsman who was helping load the arrows reacted swiftly. He took out his sword and tried to stop Sika¡¯s boomerang. The boomerang took a hasty dive, went around the sword, and made a sudden bend before shing the thigh of one of the magic disciples.


    That magic disciple fell onto his face, and thus the magic array on the alchemical ballista stopped functioning. The swordsmen shaking the rocker no longer had the strength to pull on the crossbow chord, so they let go as well. One of the swordsman did not let go of the rocker in time, and the metallic rocker spun in the opposite direction at lightning speed, smashing into the hand of that swordsman.


    By then, Sika had reached the ballistae. She bolted off of her horse and nked from the side as she waved her weapon from side to side. The ballista on the left was destroyed by Sika¡¯s cudgel as if it had been struck by magic, and a rumbling noise came from within the ballista.


    Swordsmen charged out from all sides of the road junction. Sika roared wildly. The swordsman directly in front of Sika felt that his eyes were ying tricks on him, as that female warrior seemed to expand and grow half a foot taller.


    Pu¡­


    Sika simply swept her cudgel across, decapitating the swordsman.


    After destroying the alchemical ballistae, Lex proceeded to separate the fully constructed puppets and allocated two to protect Saleen. At least one hundred swordsmen jumped over the courtyard wall, nning to kill that low-grade mage first.


    Saleen turned his head when he heard the cries of pain from the war horses. Saleen saw that a swordsman had shed the front legs of the horse he was riding on. Saleen fumed, and flipped a page of the bronze magic book. A sh of white light appeared and an ice arrow shot out.


    The swordsman quickly used his sword to block, but the speed of a magic arrow was vastly different from that of a normal arrow. At least a mid-grade swordmaster was needed to be able to block such a magic attack.


    A roar came from the earth. At the same time, the swordsman was prated by the ice arrow and lost his breath of life in that instant. Saleen then noticed that a horde of heavy cavalry had appeared from behind the street.


    Once again, Lex gave two fully constructed puppets to Saleen and said calmly, ¡°It¡¯s fine. They aren¡¯t genuine heavy cavalry. They are just wearing the equipment of heavy cavalry.¡±


    Saleen clenched his teeth. Under the protection of the two fully constructed puppets, he continued flipping the pages of the bronze magic book. With every page that was flipped open, a low-level spell was released, killing at least one swordsman. More and more swordsmen jumped over the courtyard wall, and they killed a few of the reserve war horses.


    Lexmanded ten fully constructed puppets while wlessly executing different spells at the same time. When she noticed that Saleen could not withstand the intensity of the battle, she deployed six of the puppets to form a line. These puppets then charged towards the horde of heavy cavalry.


    The six tall metallic people stood shoulder to shoulder and charged forward. The noise they gave off almost surpassed that of the heavy cavalry. As both parties shed against each other, the offense by the cavalry was extinguished immediately. The fully constructed puppets were taller than the soldiers on their horses. Two of the puppets which stood in the middle wieldedrge des the width of a door, and those des were full of serrated edges. When the des were swung, the metallic armor of the heavy cavalry simply crumbled like pieces of paper.


    ¡°Once the mages are dead, the puppets will be useless!¡± Before the swordsman who was yelling could finish his sentence, a spider slightlyrger than his fist had torn his armor open and crawled in. Those inspirational words immediately became cries of excruciating pain.


    Saleen was extremely nervous. He felt that he had already killed many swordsmen, yet they still kepting in hordes. Was this a battlefield? Smashed and bloody bodies were strewn all over the ce and excruciating screams filled the air. There was no time for rest as swords were shing and arrows were flying in all directions. If not for the ice te armor, Saleen would have died several times by now.


    The eighteen spells stored in the bronze magic book were depleted swiftly, hence Saleen had no choice but to recall the fully constructed puppets. The metallic bodies of those puppets were soaked in blood and flesh. None of the swordsmen could withstand the blows from the square axe.


    Saleen hid in the center of three fully constructed puppets, then began opening his scrolls.


    The swordsmen surrounding Saleen were going crazy. Hundreds of theirrades had been killed, yet the magic of their enemy seemed to be endless. Did they possess infinite magic chords?


    Swordsmen at the back could not see what was happening up front, and Saleen was hiding behind the puppets while he opened his scrolls. Whenever the swordsmen at the front copsed, those at the back would think that Saleen¡¯s magic chords were exhausted. But once the whole row of swordsmen at the front were dead, those at the back would then vaguely spot the item that the young mage was holding in his hands.


    Now, any shouts of encouragement would be useless. If the mage did not deplete his scrolls, then the soldiers could only wait for his mental power to be fully depleted. The swordsmen believed that Saleen would be doomed once he cast another dozen or so scrolls, because low-grade mages possessed very few magic chords. As long as these swordsmen killed Saleen, then half of the puppets would lose their functionality.


    Almost all the swordsmen thought that way, and so more and more soldiers swarmed Saleen.

 Chapter 169: Massacre (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 169: Massacre (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had no time to think, and even if he thought about it, he would not understand why the situation was like this. These swordsmen attacked with such determination and mindlessness, but what did they have to gain from it?


    At the road junction, Sika was surrounded by swordsmen. She was not afraid at all. Instead, she became abnormally excited.


    Sika was far more nimble than Saleen, and none of the arrows could hit her. Additionally, Sika did not give things as much consideration as Saleen. She only knew that the battle was not rted to anything else. On the battlefield, the only thing a person needed to focus on was killing the enemy. Sika¡¯s weapon was heavier than those wielded by the fully constructed puppets, and metal armor would not be able to absorb the blows from the swinging cudgel no matter how thick it was. Sika even found time to toss her boomerang in order to kill the archers who were shooting from high ces.


    During such a messy battle, cavalry would not be able to increase their speed, so a person like Sika who possessed immense strength would naturally dominate the battlefield.


    As Sika was engrossed in her killing, she took out the magic liquid that Lex had given her with one hand and took a sip. She could immediately feel that her strength was recovering swiftly. Like a gust of wind, Sika rushed back to join the battle. Since the ballistae were ruined, she needed to return and assist Saleen.


    The swordsmen swarming Saleen were still hopeful that Saleen¡¯s magic chords or mental power would be depleted. However, when they saw Sika¡¯s ferocious attacks, they became paralyzed with fear. This female warrior was only wearing simple leather armor, and yet she was more terrifying than a magic beast. Whenever that ck cudgel was swung, anyone who came into contact with it was flung away.


    This was not a battle. It was a massacre.


    Everyone knew that no matter how fearsome this female warrior was, it would be impossible for her to kill everyst swordsman. But her attacks were more astounding than magic because every move she made resulted in someone¡¯s death. Upon seeing Sika charging towards the rear, the swordsmen directly in front of her made way for her to pass through. Sika went on a rampage as though she were a walking dragon, killing anyone who obstructed her path.


    A dragged out sound came from a metal whistle. The swordsmen who were swarming Lex and her team suddenly felt demoralized, as they had now received the order to retreat.


    ¡°Trying to flee?¡± Lex snorted, taking a gulp of magic liquid. She rxed her muscles beforemanding the fully constructed puppets to pursue the fleeing swordsmen. Nailisi alsomanded her puppet to stand beside Lex, but she did not participate in the pursuit since her puppet was protecting Lex.


    ¡°Stop!¡± A restless voice could be heard. At the road junction ahead, a tall middle aged man walked over to Lex. This man was encircled by hundreds of swordsmen in silver armor.


    Lex ignored what the man said. The tall metallic puppets pursued the swordsmen and crushed them into a bloody mess. Even the pope would not be able to heal the people who were struck by the weapons wielded by the puppets.


    It was toote to stop this battle. Since the other party had used alchemy crossbows, it meant that they had only intended to keep Lex alive. Lex was a grade-6 mage, so it would be difficult to kill her using an alchemy crossbow. Obviously, Lex knew the crux of this issue. These people from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town had received instructions from Pompeii City to capture her alive.


    Had Lex been captured alive, the consequences could have easily been predicted.


    ¡°Lex, don¡¯t think I can¡¯t kill you!¡± The middle aged man drew his sword in extreme ire. Then, he hollered at Lex, ¡°I still have one hundred and fifty swordmasters. If you continue killing, don¡¯t me me for being merciless.¡±


    Lex finally stopped. The swordsmen in her vicinity had already been killed, and the fully constructed puppets were too far ahead. That would deplete exponentially huge amounts of her mental power. It was already very taxing for Lex tomand ten fully constructed puppets at the same time.


    Sika suddenly turned around and tossed her boomerang. The boomerang gave out a strange whimpering sound and cast a shadow as it rushed towards the man¡¯s face at full speed.


    A swordsman beside the middle aged man used his sword to block the boomerang, causing the boomerang to collide with the sword before sliding past it. Then, the boomerang travelled around the neck of that swordsman before returning to Sika¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Your swordmaster is dumber than a pig.¡± Sika waved her cudgel at the middle aged man and ran towards Saleen.


    The swordsman¡¯s neck had been shed, forming a ring of blood. His cervical spine was not damaged, but he would still die. The swordsman covered his throat with his hands, but fresh blood continued spurting from his neck. All the strength in his body seemed to bepletely drained as he copsed onto the ground.


    This was the first time Sika had tapped into the power of a priest. The remaining mental power in her boomerang had enabled Sika to control it freely and allowed her to kill a swordsman, and this made her really happy. When the skeleton of that mysterious magic beast could be utilized, Sika would then be able to fight in midair. A warrior priest who could fly was not any weaker than a mage.


    Seeing that his subordinate had been killed, the man¡¯s face twitched but he suppressed his rage. Then, he said to Lex, ¡°Do you really want to try me?¡±


    ¡°Let me think about it.¡± Lexughed as she carefully checked her current state. Her mental power was less than one-third depleted. However, this was quite a precarious situation, because Lex would only be able to cast one spell and it also meant that the fully constructed puppets would only be effective for another ten minutes. During actualbat, the depletion of mental power by the puppets was exceptionally fast. It was entirely different from practicing with them.


    Saleen stoppedmanding the puppet and had the puppet return to him. He had also realized that the depletion of his mental power was more than usual. If an average grade-4 mage had been controlling that puppet, they would not even have been able to cast a single spell right now.


    ¡°If you let me go, how will you answer to Dominic?¡± Lex asked calmly, patiently trying to regain her mental power. Even though she could not meditate at this point in time, her equipment was wless, so the speed of her mental power recovery was naturally faster as well.


    This middle aged man bore a grudge. When the man had received Dominic¡¯s message, he had only regarded it as an errand, so he had epted it without any hesitation. In truth, he possessed sufficient power, but he had not expected Lex to be a mage master and for those weird metallic people to be around Lex.


    The metallic people were simply too horrifying, as they could kill any person below the rank of a swordmaster with just a single strike. If the man wanted to capture Lex, it was possible that he would have to expend all the swordmasters working under him.


    ¡°What are you talking about? I don¡¯t get it,¡± the middle aged man replied nonchntly. It was not that the man refused to admit it, but he knew that Duke Dominic had concealed certain information, causing him to misjudge Lex¡¯s capabilities. It was not just about trust. If he failed this task, Duke Dominic would also shirk all responsibility.


    If the man testified that it was Dominic who had instigated his actions, Dominic would never spare him, even if this matter was swept under the rug.


    ¡°Forget it if you don¡¯t know what I¡¯m talking about. I wouldn¡¯t want to fall out with Dominic either. Since this was not done under his instruction, then I shall kill all of you to prevent any future problems.¡±


    As Lex spoke, she brought out her magic staff.


    ¡°What?¡± The middle aged man did not understand what Lex meant. He did not believe that Lex was so haughty that she would be willing for both of them to suffer great losses. His elite swordsmen were still alive, and they had been umted by his family for the past hundreds of years.


    Lex raised her magic staff. A ck ray and a white ray shot out from the top of the magic staff, urately hitting the forehead of the middle aged man. A hole the size of a thumb appeared on his head, and this hole extended from the front to the back of his head. This hole was wless, and there was no liquid flowing out from it. It seemed as though this hole had been present in the man from the very beginning.


    What kind of spell was that? Saleen was extremely astonished, witnessing that scene. Under the analysis of his icy sight, he discovered that this magic had been formed by thebination of two level-7 spells. Yet, the offensive power of this spell had greatly exceeded the limits of level-7 magic.


    ¡°Let¡¯s begin. Once we kill all of these swordmasters, Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town will belong to us.¡± Lex gathered all of the fully constructed puppets around her and had them surround her. Then, she charged forward on horseback.


    In that moment, the swordmasters in silver armor had realized that their leader was dead, so they were stunned. This single move by Lex had killed the strongest of them all in mere seconds.


    Lex was enveloped by the ten fully constructed puppets. Even though she was on horseback, the three meter tall puppets still managed to block the swordmasters easily. Lex seemed just like a warrior as she charged into the horde of swordmasters.


    ¡°Kill her!¡± The swordmasters went berserk and lunged at the puppets fearlessly. Two of the swordmasters leapt up high, hoping to jump over the puppets to kill Lex. The battle was reignited. This time around, these swordsmen were slightly clueless as they did not know whether to fight or run.


    Two fully constructed puppets protected Saleen unyieldingly, while Sika wielded her cudgel and blocked off the other side. She stood shoulder to shoulder with Nailisi, and the blood that had spilled onto her earlier was beginning to dry.


    Saleen slowly advanced towards the road junction. He ignored the swordsmen who were crowding towards him as their deaths did not matter. However, those swordmasters definitely needed to be killed.


    The total strength of all these swordmasters had exceeded that of an emblem group. These swordmasters were the power behind the core of this town. As long as they were killed, the local n would lose all of its influence.


    Furthermore, Saleen knew that it would be impossible to kill everybody in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. Even if he had possessed sufficient scrolls, he did not have so much mental power.


    The two swordmasters who had attempted to jump over the puppets emitted a bright glow from their sword auras. These were the symbols of high-grade swordmasters, and if they progressed just a little more, they would be bronze grand swordmasters.


    Lex did not have time to open her scrolls as she was busymanding the ten fully constructed puppets. She then raised her head calmly and bellowed, ¡°Get off!¡±


    A golden stream of air rippled off of the surface of Lex¡¯s body and her voice was transmitted directly into the ears of the two swordmasters. The swordmasters felt that the sword auras in their bodies had been extinguished. They could no longer maintain their bnce and fell straight down like blocks of wood.


    The fully constructed puppets used their door-sized des and cut the swordmasters into half. Lex clenched her teeth and activated the secret magic of the Grukos family. The golden stream of air upon her spread and caused the nearby puppets to experience dys.


    He!


    Lex mustered all her strength and hollered at the top of her voice. A golden stream of air sprayed out in all directions, and those swordsmen attacking her felt that something had prated their armor as their sword auras were all negated at the same time. A few of the swordsmen who were wielding heavy weapons could no longer withstand the weight of those weapons and dropped them, as they saw Lex take out a ck scroll.


    Saleen froze in his tracks as he saw Lex cast a level-7 scroll. The images in the sky became distorted as ck liquid floated around Lex. Droplet by droplet of the ck liquid dirtied the bodies of the swordmasters and began to burn rapidly.


    Without their sword auras, those burning droplets of ck liquid were now fatal to those swordmasters. At the same time, pathetic cries and moans filled the air. Those cries did not bear any significance on their own, but the swordsmen surrounding Saleen could not tolerate those noises and lost their will to fight.


    Seeing that even the group of swordmasters had been exterminated, the normal swordsmen did not have the courage to continue attacking. They simply dropped their weapons and escaped for their lives.


    Saleen stopped and shouted for Sika to stop her pursuit of the swordsmen. Saleen nced around his surroundings and saw that hundreds of bodies had piled onto the streets. The two fully constructed puppets beside him were drenched in blood and flesh, and their bodies contained shallow scratches caused by the weapons of the swordsmen.


    So this was a battle? Saleen knew that they had won this battle, but he did not feel the sense of satisfaction he felt when he had won battles in the past. The smell of fresh blood diffused across the entire town, and this had merely been a battle in a single street. If this had been a war between empires, then what kind of scene would it have been?

 Chapter 170: The Next Person was Merely a Speck of Dust (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 170: The Next Person was Merely a Speck of Dust (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen loathed the disgusting smell of blood, so he cast a Cleaning spell while washing the two fully constructed puppets at the same time. Under the gust of mist, a pure metallic color began to reveal itself on the bodies of the puppets. The redness in their eyes also faded away, revealing a lifeless gaze.


    ¡°Master,¡± Nailisi said timidly.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Lex seems to be in trouble.¡± Nailisi used her slender finger to point towards the road junction, where the fully constructed puppets had formed an airtight envelope around Lex. Out of the one hundred and fifty swordmasters wearing silver armor, only about a dozen were still alive while the rest had already been incinerated into ashes.


    It was oddly enchanting to watch the burning of the ck liquid. The armor of the swordmasters were not damaged at all. The ck liquid simply burned the bodies of the swordmasters through the crevices in their armor, destroying their bodies.


    The eyes of the surviving swordmasters were scarlet and as unfeeling as those fully constructed puppets. The swordmasters shed ferociously against the bodies of the puppets, leaving scratches all over them.


    Kill! Kill that demoness!


    Having witnessing theirrades being burned to death, these dozen remaining swordmasters had lost all sanity. They had only one thought on their minds, and that was to annihte the woman who was controlling those metallic monsters.


    If those swordmasters had still been thinking rationally, then some of them would have exploited the crevices between the puppets and pushed their swords in, and Lex would have been killed.


    Lex had fallen forward and was resting her head on her horse¡¯s neck, unmoving. The ck war horse red its nostrils in agitation and kept forcefully stomping its front legs on the ground.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. A hint of ruthless appeared in Nailisi¡¯s green eyes and she jumped off of her horse and told Saleen, ¡°Master, you should be strong.¡±


    Immediately after finishing her sentence, Nailisi bent her legs and jumped into the air with all her might. She leapt about twenty meters away, passing through the streets like a sh of lightning with her fingers curved, and lunged at the swordmasters who were thrashing at the fully constructed puppets madly.


    Saleen gathered his courage back together. He had not expected to lose hisposure in his first real battle, especially since he was used to death and killing. Killing on the battlefield waspletely different. People acted like wild beasts, or perhaps a person could even say that the people here were far more insane and cruel than wild beasts.


    ¡°Saleen, if you dislike such a life, you can follow me back to the vige,¡± Sika said as she twirled her cudgel with much unease. The swarm of swordsmen had escaped long ago, and with that pile of bodies under their feet, Sika could sense that Saleen was not feeling too well.


    ¡°No, I feel that Lex is right. Let¡¯s go, Sika. We shall give her a hand.¡± Saleen kicked lightly on the abdomen of his horse and led it over the countless bodies towards the road junction. Behind Saleen, the red glow in the fully constructed puppets lit up once more and they followed behind Saleen. As their heavy metallicbat boots stepped on the bodies, flesh and blood sttered everywhere.


    Within a minute, Saleen had figured out the whole situation. If Lex had not been ruthless enough to lure out the enemy¡¯s main forces and then schemed to provoke the swordmasters to surround her, the four of them on the other side would not have been able to secure victory. The enemy possessed sufficient manpower, and if they had gone all out to attack Saleen, it would only have been a matter of time before the lines of weakness in Saleen¡¯s defenses were revealed.


    In thest few moments of battle, Saleen could feel that his speed in opening the scrolls had not been able to match the rhythm of his enemies. If the magic nuclei in the puppets had been fully depleted, Saleen would have been doomed.


    Was there a sense of pity? Saleen did not pity those swordsmen at all. He was only fearful that he would grow ustomed to such a life. He actually felt indifference while seeing those healthy lives being destroyed.


    If only the world was as pleasant as the Bitter Water Prefecture. Everyone was upied with their own affairs, and people could practice magic in peace. There were no impurities like there were with mercenary groups, the Holy See, and unscrupulous businessmen.


    By the time Saleen¡¯s horse reached the road junction, Nailisi had already finished ughtering the remaining dozen swordmasters. The sword auras of those swordmasters had adversely been affected by Lex¡¯s secret magic, like magic beasts whose magic nuclei had been dug out. Furthermore, since the mental states of the swordmasters had be erratic, they could not even fight as well as an average swordsman.


    The red glow of those fully constructed puppets protecting Lex had long since diminished, and they had stopped moving altogether. Nailisi grabbed the thigh of one puppet and pulled it away. Saleen carried Lex off of her horse, pried her mouth open, and forced magic liquid down Lex¡¯s throat. This magic liquid had been created by a sorcerer, and Lex and her team carried it with them at all times.


    Mages never used holy water from the Holy See. They had better items.


    Lex regained her consciousness quickly and felt that she had regained a bit of strength, but she did not want to move. Lex looked at Saleen and cracked up. Then, she whispered, ¡°Do you feel a little out of ce?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but this feeling is better than being dead.¡±


    ¡°Mm,¡± Lex moaned and stretched her body. She had miscalcted things. The aftereffects of the secret magic had been incredibly intense. It seemed that before Lex mastered thest part of this magic, she would need to restrict its usage. If it had not been for the fully constructed puppets, the situation would have been perilous.


    ¡°What should we do next?¡± Saleen looked at the empty streets around him. There was not a single tinge of life at all.


    ¡°Saleen, if you were Dominic, what would you do?¡±


    ¡°I would send some people toe after you. If you were captured, then you could be brought back to Pompeii. If the people from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town failed, then you would also have suffered huge losses. You might even be injured, so it would be much easier to capture you.¡±


    ¡°That means the people from Pompeii will be here very soon. Dominic is not an idiot. Even if I escape, the remaining people in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town will be his prey. Using the excuse of having attacked the emperor¡¯s sister, Dominic will naturally take control of the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. This is a distribution center for weapons. Red Copper Fort is to its rear and there is a mine in the west. Dominic might have been eyeing this ce for a long time by now.¡±


    Saleen was disheartened. He had thought that he was very ruthless already, but he was still a great distance away from people such as Dominic. Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town had obviously been acting under his instructions to attack Lex, but no matter the oue, Pompeii would be the one to gain.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Dominic still needs to put on a show, so we still have the time to clean up the battlefield. Do you still remember the position of the warehouse that I pointed out to you?¡±


    ¡°I still remember it.¡±


    ¡°Go and empty that warehouse.¡±


    ¡°Master, allow me.¡± Nailisi extended her arms to take Lex from Saleen as Lex struggled to stand on her own. As Nailisi approached Lex, Lex suddenly felt uneasy, as though a poisonous snake were staring at her. The feeling was simr to the time that a dangerous magic beast had snuck up on her while she was deep asleep.


    Even a person like Bain did not make Lex feel this way, and Nailisi did not have any sword aura in her body at all.


    Nailisi giggled, not minding at all. Lex was truly a grade-6 mage as she was very sensitive to danger. Nailisi secretly rubbed her nails on her skirt, her nails covered in dark red stains. Those stains hade from the blood of the people that Nailisi had ughtered just now.


    At first, Saleen thought that he would not gain much since Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town was so small. But when he entered the first underground warehouse, he was dumbfounded. Enormous sealed crates had been arranged neatly, and armor specifications and levels were written on them. Saleen randomly selected a crate and opened it, and saw a set of tungsten armor that was yet to be assembled. There was aplete set of essories in the crate, such as armor leaves, nails, leather ropes for donning the armor, helmets, arm guards, and so on.


    This set of tungsten armor was worth at least one thousand gold coins. As long as it was not hit by alchemy crossbows, this armor could even absorb direct hits from archers. This small warehouse alone contained over two hundred crates, and its items were worth more than one hundred thousand gold coins.


    Lex was like a gust of wind as she stored anything she saw into the god¡¯s ring.


    As Lex and her team went from warehouse to warehouse, the soldiers standing guard immediately dispersed when they saw the four of them approaching from a distance. There were not many people remaining in the town. After the looting from Lex¡¯s team, the remaining poption would not dare to even stay here anymore.


    ¡°Why are there no gold coins?¡± Saleen had searched dozens of warehouses, but there was not any cash in sight. Saleen grew puzzled. Did these people bury their money beneath their beds?¡±


    ¡°Weapons transactions are done with named deposits. They would be useless even if we found them.¡±


    ¡°We won¡¯t get into trouble for taking these items, right?¡± Saleen felt that he had already taken more than one million gold coins worth of armor and equipment, so he grew worried.


    ¡°Who could prove that we took these items?¡± Lex used an even more curious expression to look at Saleen.


    ¡°The soldiers¡­¡±


    ¡°Since Dominic wants to seize control of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, those soldiers will eventually be killed. And, Dominic will not use these goods as evidence to report us, so just rx andplete this task.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen was even more aghast now. He simply could not figure it out.


    ¡°If Dominic used me of causing a massacre in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, then Holy Rock City would assign another person to investigate this matter. But if he helped us eradicate the people who tried to kill the county king, then Holy Rock City would recognize Dominic¡¯s influence over Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. So what if we killed those people? Dominic is the real murderer.¡±


    ¡°But you came despite knowing this!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, it is they who wanted to harm me, not the other way around.¡±


    ¡°Then what about these items?¡± Saleen did not want to lecture Lex since she was right. If the people of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town had notunched an offensive, then none of this would have happened. The more pressing issue was to split the spoils.


    ¡°You have no use for these weapons, right?¡± Lex put away thest box of crossbow bolts before changing the topic of the conversation and saying, ¡°How about this? The items here will belong to me, and I will be fully responsible for the magic nuclei during your trainings.¡±


    ¡°Trying to bribe my teacher with these? That¡¯s definitely not enough.¡± Saleen huffed loudly through his nose. He had seen the way noblemen handled issues and felt that he was still too inexperienced.


    ¡°Your teacher will be regarded as¡­ a partner.¡± Lex burst out intoughter, secretly thinking that Saleen was truly observant. The more Saleen behaved this way, the more Lex liked him. In truth, if Saleen had been fine with her making use of his teacher, Lex would have despised him and might even have abandoned him at anytime.


    Saleen did not continue with the topic. Saleen knew that Lex required guidance from a teacher, and the six element space in the hell of god¡¯s punishment would also be extremely vital for his teacher. Saleen¡¯s teacher had umted more knowledge han him. The possibility of Jason bing a sorcerer was even greater than Lex¡¯s. If Jason entered the six element space to train, it would be easy for him to advance to grade-9.


    ¡°Do we keep going?¡±


    ¡°No, the hoard of premium goods in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town have already been taken by us, and the remaining goods are worthless. Let¡¯s leave after cleaning up.¡±


    What Lex meant by cleaning was to pour burning agents on the bodies before incinerating them. Saleen watched the fire growrger and spread to the surrounding houses, causing him to feel that Lex was very petty. With so many houses burnt down, Dominic would need to spend a considerable amount of effort in rebuilding the town if he decided to control Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town.


    The books were right. Never ever offend women.

 Chapter 171: The Next Person was Merely a Speck of Dust (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 171: The Next Person was Merely a Speck of Dust (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex did not dare to stay for too long in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town either. Since Dominic had intended to capture her alive, he must have been eyeing the wealth of the Bitter Water Prefecture. Since the matter had not blown up yet, Dominic would not send his main troops after Lex. However, Pompeii had a grade-7 mage, and if this mage really came here, then Lex was not confident she could win the battle.


    Only three out of the eight horses survived. The rest had been killed by the swordsmen from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. Sika managed to find one untamed horse and rode it, then the four of them hurriedly left the town.


    Once Lex and her team left, the people who had escaped earlier returned to put out the fire, but little did they know that it was just the beginning of the disaster. On her horse, Lex looked back, saw those people returning to the town, and could only sigh. If these people who had abandoned their homes in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town had taken this opportunity to escape to Cloudflow before the people from Pompeii arrived, it was possible that they could still escape unscathed. But now, it seemed like the fire that Lex had started would not be very effective.


    Once the soldiers from Pompeii arrived, the people remaining in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town would meet their doom.


    Saleen recalled a phrase from a book of magic notes that had greatly affected him ¨C the next person was merely a speck of dust.


    Saleen did not know who or what ¡°the next person¡± was, he just did not want to be a speck of dust, hence he had chosen to practice magic. However, the journey thus far had been full of obstacles and perils, yet he could only change himself. Out of the billions of people on the Myers Maind, how many of them could truly control their own destinies? Instead of pitying others, Saleen needed to grow and stand taller.


    As they travelled into the night, it began to rain and the torchlights were extinguished. Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town had long since been out of sight, and Saleen and his team travelled beneath the pitch ck night sky. Only the sound from the horses¡¯ hooves could be heard.


    After the huge, intense battle back there, the four people had continued their journey without any rest. Nailisi was still coping just fine, but Lex disyed some fatigue. Lex did not dare consume too much magic liquid because such items were not sold in shops. They could only be created by sorcerers.


    It was possible for Lex to start producing magic liquid, but one round of production would deplete her magic chordspletely. The magic liquid she was carrying with her now had been created especially for her by the sorcerer. If Lex did not produce any magic liquid before she returned to the Bitter Water Prefecture, then it would be difficult to resupply the magic liquid.


    The four horses jogged slowly and had covered a distance of one hundred miles by sunrise. However, the rain grew heavier now, and the sky was eerily overcast, as though the night were boundless.


    In order to get to Alchemy City, Lex had left the main road and veered onto the trails. The southern part of Qin was filled with mountains. The roads were fine, but the narrow parts of the trails could only fit one carriage at a time. Furthermore, the roads were full of twists and turns, and in order to avoid tough obstacles, one had to meander deep into the mountains.


    ¡°After getting through these mountains, we will be able to reach Alchemy City after another one thousand miles.¡± Lex raised her arm and flicked a burning star into the sky. The burning star levitated in midair and provided them with directions.


    A colossal shadow crashed down, and Lex was lifted up by a gust of wind. She had not been able to avoid it.


    Saleen was shocked and cast ice te armor and water shield in the same instant for doubleyered protection. Lex¡¯s horse had been crushed by that gigantic being, and she ced her hands together and cast an extremely bright ray of light.


    By this time, Saleen could see clearly. The gigantic being that had descended from above was a magic beast. This magic beast was twenty meters long, and above its thick neck was a head full of thorns. Razor sharp teeth were arranged closely together and protruded out of its mouth. The enormous body of the magic beast had pressed into the ground, sending muddy water spewing in all directions.


    This monstrous magic beast also possessed a pair of wings. There were injuries all over its wings, with thergest gash being over five meters long. Blood was still oozing out of its wounds.


    The magic beast struggled to get back onto its feet. It wavered for a few moments before mming forcefully back onto the ground.


    Sika and Nailisi were sshed all over their bodies by the muddy water. The magic beast wagged its thick and muscr tail in hopes of regaining its bnce, but its efforts were all in vain.


    ¡°What is that?¡± Nailisi looked at the massive creature with great curiosity. To Nailisi, this creature smelled delicious, much better than the flesh of the grand swordmasters and more powerful than that of their souls.


    There was an analogy among the people of Tanggsi ¨C cheese had fallen from the sky.


    The colossal beast spun its head around and gave out an earth shattering roar.


    Ang¡­


    With the exception of Nailisi, the other three people and four horses lost all their strength after hearing that roar. The war horses fell to the ground, white foam flowing out from their mouths and their eyes devoid of all life.


    Saleen recovered from his shock instantly and hollered at the top of his lungs, ¡°Run, it¡¯s a dragon!¡±


    Sika and Lex also regained theirposure. Then, Sika shouted, ¡°Why should we run? It¡¯s injured already.¡±


    Saleen had no time to exin further. He simply blessed Sika with the Windspeed spell. Among the four of them, Sika possessed the strongest explosive power, but her endurance was not as longsting as Nailisi¡¯s. Saleen grabbed firmly onto the dart capsule that was hanging on Nailisi¡¯s belt and escaped.


    The dragon might have been down to itsst breath, but even so, it was still lethal. This was not a low-grade green dragon. Saleen had seen a map of the dragon family in the past. This creature was an extremely dangerous sea dragon ¨C Tiago.


    In terms of dragons, tiago belonged to the race of tyrannical dragons. Such dragons did not have scales, yet they loved hunting in the water. They could also fly at high speeds and elemental attacks were their forte. As fine hairs grew on the surface of the skin of these dragons, their skins were top-notch materials in weaving. Furthermore, the dragon skin was tough, equivalent to dragon scales. Hence, these dragons had be one of human¡¯s favorite targets to hunt and capture.


    Tiagoes were intelligent dragons and could not be tamed. Most of the tiagoes who were sent to Myers were killed, while a small number of them managed to escape their manmade cages and went to hide in the depths of the ocean.


    Saleen did not wish to fight with a tiago. A single breath from a tiago would cause Saleen to be frozen and break into smithereens. The breaths of other dragons would only cause burns, corrosion, or poison, but the breath of a tiago was the coldest of all. In particr, when steel was hit by a tiago¡¯s breath, it would shatterpletely.


    The breath from a tiago was stronger than the Absolute Zero spell. While the Absolute Zero spell contained only magic, the breath of a tiago would result in a two-pronged offense that used both magic and physics.


    ¡°Saleen.¡± Lex caught up to Saleen and pulled on his clothes.


    ¡°Lex, that¡¯s a tiago.¡± Saleen noticed that Lex was holding him back and was afraid that the dragon would turn around and go after them, so he had stomped out of anxiousness.


    ¡°Dragons fly using magic. Since it can¡¯t fly, it must be unable to cast any magic too.¡± Lex was abnormally collected. When she had thought about the tiago at first, she had also wanted to run to safety immediately.


    ¡°Right!¡± Saleen then calmed down. When he looked back, he could see a dragon writhing in pain on the ground a few hundred meters away.


    If that tiago could fly, Saleen¡¯s legs would never be able to outrun it, and Lex would not be able to even if she flew. A mage might have been able to fly faster than a horse could run, but they were definitely slower than a dragon.


    The effective radius of a dragon¡¯s breath was only one and a half times the length of the dragon¡¯s body. That tiago was only twenty meters long, so even if it could spit dragon¡¯s breath, the breath would only travel for thirty meters. By now, Saleen had run at least two hundred meters ahead.


    Saleen took a few steps back and activated his icy sight, ring at that tiago. After a few moments of observation, Saleen said, ¡°Lex, do you think we have a chance at killing this dragon?¡±


    ¡°It will be difficult. I can only cast level-7 spells at most, and for dragons at such grades, they are immune to any magic below level-8. Your witcher spider will not work either. Once Sika and Nailisi get close to the tiago, their lives will be in danger the moment the dragones in contact with them.¡±


    Saleen had a headache. This creature was so seriously injured that the energy in its body had be erratic. But even so, Saleen and his team could still not kill this dragon.


    ¡°What about the fully constructed puppets?¡±


    ¡°I will give it a shot,¡± Lex replied. Then, she gingerly approached the rear of the dragon. When she was thirty-five meters away from the dragon, she deployed a fully constructed puppet.


    The skin of the tiago was tough. When it was used to manufacture light armor, it was even better than sturdy dragon scales. All the fine hairs on the skin were the best material for producing magic robes. Even the worst alchemist in existence would be able to create a set of high-grade magic robes using fine hairs from a tiago.


    If the ck metal grand swordmasters had worn armor fused with the skin of a tiago, perhaps the envoys of god would not have been able to kill two of them. And Faerun? Faerun might not have died either.


    Lex had gained her riches from the remains of the goddess, so she did notck any money. But many things, such as these rare materials, could not be purchased with money.


    Saleen observed Lex¡¯s actions from afar and whispered to Nailisi, ¡°Can you handle this dragon?¡±


    Nailisi lowered her head and looked at her own fingernails before saying, ¡°It will be difficult. Thebat power of this dragon is simr to that of demons. It could even be slightly higher.¡±


    ¡°Demons? Are you saying that a tiago¡¯s strength is only equivalent to that of demons?¡±


    ¡°No, its power is simr to that of supreme demons. But this dragoncks wisdom, and itsbat techniques are too simplistic. If it doesn¡¯t move, I can surely kill it. But if it moves about wildly, I think it would be better for us to beg for mercy.¡± Nailisi¡¯s words caused Saleen to feel demoralized. Beg for mercy? How many creatures had begged in front of humans? Things had not turned out well for any of them.


    Lex stopped. A red glow appeared in the eyes of the fully constructed puppet, and a halbert appeared in the hands of this puppet. Then, the puppet charged towards the tiago.


    Peng!


    The tiago did not even turn around. It simply waved its tail and caused the puppet weighing thousands of kilograms to be flung away. ring sparks were produced due to friction between the tiago¡¯s tail and the body of the fully constructed puppet. Saleen witnessed everything very clearly. The metallic armor of the puppet which those swordmasters had not even been able to prate had been smashed by the tiago¡¯s tail, causing the alchemical parts inside of it to fly outwards


    Sika stuck out her tongue. That single move by the tiago had exceeded her own knowledge of strength. Sika felt that she could destroy a fully constructed puppet through a difficult fight, but this seriously injured dragon had simply shaken its tail and the puppet had already been broken into various small parts.


    Lex backed away helplessly. This dragon was too much for her to handle. Lex was well aware of the sturdiness of the puppet¡¯s body. The puppet could crash about recklessly on the battlefield and an alchemy crossbow would not even be able to damage it. Furthermore, fully constructed puppets were nimbler and smaller than war puppets, sorge alchemy crossbows found in fortresses could not even get a strict aim on them.


    Saleen looked at the dragon indignantly. Its entire body was full of treasures, especially its magic nuclei. A tiago¡¯s magic nuclei were priceless. The magic nuclei also contained special water element attributes which were very suitable for Saleen.


    ¡°Nailisi, are you sure about this? If it doesn¡¯t move, how long will you need to kill it?¡± Saleen stared at the gaping wounds on the tiago¡¯s wings as he came up with an idea. After all, the tiago was seriously injured, and its legs could not even support its body properly.


    ¡°If I take some risks, I can kill it within a second. But if I use the safer method, I will probably need about ten minutes.¡±


    ¡°In that case, use the safer method. Nailisi, follow me. Sika, stay alert and protect me.¡± As Saleen spoke, he began walking towards that tiago.

 Chapter 172: How to Kill a Dragon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 172: How to Kill a Dragon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, what are you trying to do?¡± Nailisi asked worriedly as she followed behind Saleen. Saleen approached the dragon, causing Nailisi to be jittery. Given Saleen¡¯s build and physique, a sneeze from the tiago would be enough to crush him. This was not a matter that was worth the risk. As long as they went around the dragon, they would be able to run to safety before the dragon recovered. Even if the tiago was fond of bearing grudges, it would not dare to create trouble in Alchemy City.


    ¡°The injuries on its body were left behind by grand swordmasters. If humans can cause harm to it¡­¡± Saleen did not finish his sentence and stopped at a distance thirty-five meters away from the dragon. Nailisi noticed that Saleen had brought out a bottle carved from a piece of obsidian, then used frost array to freeze a piece of hard earth. Thereafter, Saleen ced the bottle precariously onto the ground and opened its cap before retreating dozens of meters.


    An almost transparent liquid floated out from the ck bottle, forming droplets in midair. At the same time, Saleen cast ck fog. The water droplets that exited the bottle dispersed and mixed with the ck fog, then this mixture floated towards the body of the dragon.


    ¡°Master, poison might not be effective on a dragon, right?¡± Nailisi¡¯s sight was not inferior to Saleen¡¯s icy sight. She could tell straightaway that there was a certain kind of lethal poison in the ck bottle. Once the liquid mixed with the ck fog, it would seep into the dragon¡¯s body via the injuries on its wings.


    ck fog was not an offensive spell, so the calction of magic resistance using magic forme would not be applicable in this case. However, dragons and demons were the same in that they would not be harmed by any kind of poison.


    Saleen ignored Nailisi¡¯s grumbling. He had taken this poisonous liquid from the mysterious magic book which had been disguised as magic chord medicine. Even a level-9 magic beast would be poisoned to death immediately after consuming this. It was possible that the dragon would not die, but it would at least sustain some clear damage.


    In the past, Saleen had given this poison to Da to help him take out the bandit gang in the Ceylon City. Da¡¯s killing had been effortless. Once the poison took effect, it could not be detected anymore. Later on, Saleen had tried breaking down and analyzing this poison, but his results had not been conclusive. He only knew that the toxicity of this poison was the mostplex one he had ever seen in his entire life.


    Lex also watched Saleen anxiously, not knowing what his intentions were.


    Saleen¡¯s n was very simple. There was transpired water vapor on the water shield over Saleen¡¯s body which formed a robust airflow. Saleen¡¯s Windspeed spell wasparable to Lex¡¯s, and he could cover a distance of over ten meters within a second. However, the Windspeed spell of a mage was different from the run of a swordsman. While running, a swordsman could still attack freely, but a mage¡¯s Windspeed spell could not be controlled that easily.


    Saleen caressed the Ring of Gifts while doing some calctions in his mind. He was thirty-five meters away from the dragon. If Saleen boosted the Windspeed spell to its maximum intensity, he could rush next to the dragon within three seconds and take out his n badge before casting a level-0 spell. The only uncertainty was whether or not the poison would be able to paralyze the dragon for three seconds.


    The ck fog engulfed the dragon. A blue light moved around in Saleen¡¯s vision as Saleen looked past the ck fog and observed the reactions from the dragon.


    The injuries on the dragon¡¯s wings were enormous and blood was gushing out, so the toxins within the ck fog easily infiltrated the dragon¡¯s body. Saleen was shocked to notice that the disorderly breaths of the dragon had suddenly stopped. Without any hesitation, Saleen charged forward.


    The poison had taken effect, but the poison was not killing the dragon. Instead, it had created an opportunity for the dragon to recover. If Saleen did not take action now, the tiago would be able to regain part of its mobility very soon.


    Saleen was extremely decisive. However, if he had not had the blessing of the Windspeed spell, his legs would have turned into jelly long ago. Saleen had no choice but to charge towards a dragon which could run rampant at anytime, and this feeling was worse than how he had felt while facing the white deacon.


    After all, the white deacon had still been human, so Saleen had been able tomunicate with him usingmonnguage. But what about the tiago? In the tiago¡¯s eyes, Saleen might have just been a tiny bug that did not seem so ptable.


    There were some things in life that simply needed to be done. Saleen had loved this phrase, but now, it simply felt like nonsense.


    Some things in life should simply never be attempted, such as a grade-4 mage trying to kill a dragon.


    Saleen charged into the midst of the ck fog. The dragon twitched, so its tail naturally swayed and the tail headed straight towards Saleen. If the tail struck Saleen, the twoyers of magic shields that Saleen had would be smashed, and his body was not as sturdy as that of a fully constructed puppet. Seeing this, Nailisi was heartbroken. Without waiting for Saleen to make his move, Nailisi rushed in from the other side.


    If Saleen died, then she would be the unluckiest person alive.


    Nailisi did not bother hiding her powers anymore. ck mes appeared on Nailisi¡¯s fingertips, and she stuck close to the floor before lunging towards the dragon¡¯s throat like an arrowunched from an alchemy crossbow. Nailisi hoped to distract the dragon, but the dragon was not able to control its body at all. The strike from its tail had only been a natural muscle reflex. Lex was dumbfounded as well. If Saleen was hit by the dragon¡¯s tail, he would surely die.


    Was Saleen going to die? Why was such a cautious mage acting so recklessly! Lex¡¯s mood was extremely tense, and she witnessed the scene unfolding before her in a daze.


    Time seemed to slow down. Saleen¡¯s white mage robe was lifted by the wind, and both his water shield and ice te armor were destroyed in that instant. Lex felt her throat go dry, and thoughts of the time they had spent together in the past two years came flooding into her mind.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Lex could not exin why, but she bellowed for Saleen and rushed forward as well. The god¡¯s ring on her finger lit up and she disappeared.


    There was still ayer of water vapor on the surface of Saleen¡¯s body. The tail of the dragon moved at such a high speed that the wind element attack it had mustered had already been able to destroy Saleen¡¯s doubleyered defense. The special attributes of the ice te armor had caused Saleen¡¯s magic chords to be fully depleted, and this had saved his life.


    Before a person¡¯s magic chords werepletely depleted, the ice te armor would never disappearpletely. However, no mage masters had ever experienced a situation where their ice te armor was depleted at such a terrifying speed. Within a second, Saleen¡¯s magic chords had beenpletely drained.


    The Windspeed spell did not actually disappear. Saleen executed a sudden turn while in midair and managed to dodge the attack from the dragon¡¯s tail. At the same time, a thick badge appeared in Saleen¡¯s hand, and he pressed it against the tail of the dragon.


    Level-0 magic ¨C Reading spell.


    Lexnded on the dragon¡¯s back, using a golden light which had appeared on her hands to exert pressure into a tiny injury on the dragon¡¯s back. Meanwhile, Nailisi used her fingers with their ck mes, hugging onto the neck of the dragon while tearing at it vigorously.


    Peng!


    The ten meter long tail mmed onto the ground. Saleen fell onto the dragon¡¯s tail, several of his bones fractured by the impact.


    Lex felt that an immense power had been emitted from the dragon¡¯s body. Her family¡¯s secret magic which had always worked had failed this time around. Lex was flung away and the elemental bnce in her body was disrupted. Lex did not dare to prepare any spells. She simply mmed onto the ground and spat out a mouthful of blood.


    The dragon could barely move its neck. Nailisi was still at the bottom attacking ferociously, but no matter what she did, she could not tear the ck fluff on the dragon¡¯s neck. Then, the dragon¡¯s neck slumped down, and Nailisi ced her fingers together and attacked upwards. With a boom, Nailisi was smashed into the ground and ceased moving altogether.


    The dragon felt that the chaotic elemental power within its body had be stable again. The dragon flexed its wings and prepared to fly. At this point in time, the dragon felt that its tail had gone numb, as if someone had used a divine weapon to puncture a hole in its tail. The power within its body was gushing out explosively, simr to how a flood burst out after the breaking of a dam.


    The tiago opened its massive mouth and tried to retaliate using sound waves, but felt excruciating pain at its throat. Even though that part of the dragon¡¯s neck had not been damaged by Nailisi just now, the strange power that came with the ck me had injured its vocal cords. The dragon went limp and copsed on its side.


    Saleen, who was hugging the dragon¡¯s tail, had already been exhausted long ago. His arm was trapped by the dragon¡¯s tail but he gripped the badge tightly and pressed it against its skin. Saleen¡¯s forearm might have been broken, but his left arm which had been transformed by the Gift of Life from the goddess could still be controlled using his remaining mental power.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen used thest of his strength to holler. He knew that given the special attributes of the badge, he would need thirty minutes to recover fully. However, this dragon would potentially be able to get back onto its feet in the next two or three minutes.


    Sika had arrived beside Saleen, wanting to drag him out from beneath the dragon¡¯s tail.


    ¡°Don¡¯t move it,¡± Saleen groaned. ¡°Go and take a look at Lex.¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t care.¡± Sika clutched the dragon¡¯s tail stubbornly as she tried to move it aside.


    ¡°You cannot move it.¡± Saleen¡¯s strength was diminishing by the second, and Sika did not understand that once the badge lost contact with the dragon¡¯s skin, the dragon would be able to regain its movement. When that happened, everyone would die together.


    Nailisi crawled out of the soil like a ghost. Fortunately, this was not the maind. The soil had softened after being soaked in the rainwater, and that was why her sturdy body had been able to survive the impact. When Nailisi heard the shout from Saleen, she jumped andnded on the back of the dragon. Nailisi noticed that Sika was trying to move the dragon¡¯s tail, so Nailisi simply lifted her leg and kicked Sika¡¯s rear. Sika yelped. That kick from Nailisi had caused her to fly andnd on Lex.


    ¡°Kill,¡± Saleen said this single word with much effort.


    Nailisi nodded and began crawling on the ground. Beneath the dragon¡¯s tail, she found its anus. Without hesitation, Nailisi opened this weak part of the tiago and crawled in. Nailisi transformed back into her demonic form quickly. With her ws extended, she hooked onto the intestines of the dragon and crawled further in.


    The dragon was currently in bad shape. The effects of the badge had been too terrifying for it. Since the tiago¡¯s birth thousands of years ago, it had never experienced such intense pain before. The thorns on Nailisi¡¯s back shed its intestines, and this pain was still considered mild to the dragon.


    Sikanded on the ground and watched this scene in astonishment. She thought of a type of magic wolf that was found back in her vige. This wolf could use its razor sharp ws to pull out the intestines of high-grade magic beasts. Nailisi was scarier than those magic wolves as she went straight for the dragon¡¯s heart.


    No matter how powerful a creature was, it would lose all of its capabilities for retaliation and resistance once its heart was damaged. Even a supreme demon was no exception. The intestines of the dragon were harder to destroy than the scales of other types of magic beasts. However, there were weapons with unparalleled sharpness all over Nailisi¡¯s demonic form. A tail which curled in front of Nailisi pierced into the dragon¡¯s body. With every cut she made, Nailisi would use the ws on her hands to tear the hole even wider.

 Chapter 173: How to Kill a Dragon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 173: How to Kill a Dragon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi could empathize with Saleen¡¯s anxiety. For a creature like a dragon, forceful impact meaningless. As long as the dragon did not die, it would be able to recover from any type of injury. Once the tiago regained just a little bit of its strength, the four of them would not be able to escape anymore.


    Nailisi was left with no choice but to deplete the special energy she had been umting for a long time. She cut through the sturdy intestines in the dragon¡¯s stomach and chose the most straightforward route.


    Nailisi could feel the beating from the dragon¡¯s powerful heart. It made others feel that it was a fearsome creature which constantly emitted dominant vibes.


    The lungs of the dragon were very different from that of other creatures. Six pieces of leaf-shaped lungs contained a densework of veins, and countless minute crystal particles grew on the surface of its lungs. These crystal particles were harder and more resistant to wear than diamond. Furthermore, there was gummy sticky liquid between the crystal particles.


    That was the toughest part in the entirety of the dragon¡¯s body. It was impossible to prate it, so Nailisi went around the six lungs and atst found the dragon¡¯s heart.


    Nailisi exerted a great deal of strength and jabbed at the dragon¡¯s heart. Her hook-like fingernails advanced for about half a centimeter before they became stuck. The heart shrunk hastily. Ka ba! A section of Nailisi¡¯s ws broke off neatly in a row.


    Nailisi was in so much pain that she howled, and the bodily fluid within the thoracic cavity of the dragon flooded her mouth.


    Even a demon whose heart had been pierced by Nailisi would not have reacted like this. Nailisi did not dare use her tail anymore. She simply hooked her tail onto the gully of the heart and wriggled her body upwards.


    In the demonic ne, tiny demons were still able to huntrger magic beasts. Crawling into the enemy¡¯s intensites was amon tactic. Instinctively, Nailisi found a blood vessel in the dragon and bit down on it.


    This blood vessel was proximal to the heart and was thicker than Nailisi¡¯s waist. Nailisi¡¯s teeth created an opening in the blood vessel, and fresh blood spurted out in that instant,pletely drenching her in blood.


    Since Nailisi was covered in the bodily fluids of the dragon, her entire body was slippery and had no traction, and she could not even stop to take a sip of the dragon¡¯s blood. Nailisi simply used her limbs to maintain the opening in the blood vessel and extended her head into it.


    This blood vessel was actually one of the dragon¡¯s veins. Once Nailisi entered the blood vessel, she felt the dragon¡¯s heart exert a massive suctioning force which sucked her body into the blood vessel.


    The dragon twitched violently. There was nothing more horrifying than having a foreign body inside of its heart. However, the dragon did not have any strength left and could not even cast magic. That human hugging onto its tail had cast some evil skill, absorbing all of its power away.


    Nailisi was feeling even worse. The force exerted by the shrinking of the heart was too immense, causing Nailisi¡¯s bones to be broken and her skeleton to give off a grating sound. The essence from the dragon¡¯s heart had seeped into Nailisi¡¯s body through her skin. Originally, this had been something that Nailisi dreamt of, but now, it seemed like it was going to be fatal to her.


    The essence from the dragon¡¯s heart was like an ocean and Nailisi¡¯s body was a mereke. No matter howrge theke was, it would never be able to contain the ocean. Nailisi was trapped by the shrinking heart. That had been a reflex by the dragon¡¯s brain. Nailisi tried her best to break out of the ventricle and escape, but she could not move at all.


    As seconds ticked by, Nailisi felt that she was going to be assimted into the dragon¡¯s heart. The strength in her body had also fused with itpletely. Furthermore, the skills which she had been unable to activate after her transition to adulthood were now unrestrained. However, Nailisi could not control her actions as she gradually became part of the dragon¡¯s heart.


    Nailisi had never expected this to happen. Even though the dragon¡¯s strong body was now rendered immobile, Nailisi waspletely trapped solely by its heart¡¯s reflexes. Even if the dragon ultimately died, she would also be trapped here until she died in its heart. Nailisi could feel her life diminishing. Another way to put it was that she was bing part of this colossal heart.


    ¡°Sika, help me get over there.¡± Lex noticed that the dragon was motionless and felt that something was wrong. Lex¡¯s bones were broken, and such injuries could not be healed immediately using magic. Currently, she had trouble walking as well.


    This dragon seemed to be able to remain alive no matter what they did. Lex knew that if the dragon did not die, then she would be the one to die. Thus, she tolerated the immense pain and had Sika help her over to the dragon.


    Lex felt regretful. The two spells which were stored in the magic staff had already been used by her. Otherwise, those spells would definitely have been able to damage the dragon. The defenses of the dragon were now at a pitifully low level, and yet, that restorative magic which possessed offensive power equivalent to that of a level-8 spell had been used by Lex back at Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town during the battle. The restorative magic had been prepared for Lex by her teacher.


    Lex still possessed arge quantity of level-7 scrolls, but even if she drained herself of mental power, the dragon would only be severely injured and not killed.


    The only thing that would work now was the god¡¯s ring.


    The god¡¯s ring contained many abilities. Each time, Lex could only activate one ability, and after using it, it would require one year of recovery before it could be used again. Lex could not afford to consider it thoroughly now. There would still be an opportunity for the god¡¯s ring to regain its abilities if it was used. However, if the dragon did not die, then she would stand no chance at all.


    Sika helped Lex beside the dragon. Lex knelt down on the ground and raised her hands while the god¡¯s ring was ced on the dragon¡¯s body. Then, Lex began to make a sound. Golden air gathered and formed one line, and this line pierced into the dragon¡¯s abdominal cavity ruthlessly before exploding. The multiple injuries that Nailisi had caused could no longer withstand thatrge external pressure. Within the dragon¡¯s body, a bundle of golden air spun furiously and expanded. It was just like those alchemical reamers which were used for mining. Whichever areas the golden air passed through, those portions of the intestines were destroyed.


    ¡°Wu¡­¡±


    Nailisi could sense that the dragon¡¯s heart had tensed up all of a sudden. With a crack, the arm which Nailisi had been using to support her body broke, but it was quickly repaired by the essence of the dragon¡¯s heart. The pain from the reparation was worse than the fracturing of the bone, causing Nailisi to moan in pain. After shrinking vigorously, the dragon¡¯s heart then rxed for a moment.


    Nailisi took this opportunity to curve her tail upwards and pierce the muscle of the heart. Finally, an opening was shed into the dragon¡¯s heart. Nailisi turned her head to the side and bit into the heart.


    This time around, the dragon roared in excruciating pain. Lex and Sika could not withstand the dragon¡¯s roar. Their bodies went limp and they copsed onto the ground.


    With just several bites, Nailisi had created arge hole in the dragon¡¯s heart. The heart was no longer able to shrink after this tremendous trauma, but Nailisi kept biting at it ferociously, fearing that the dragon might undergo further changes. Nailisi had not noticed that her broken ws had regenerated, solidified into a human form this time around. This meant that Nailisi no longer needed to transform into her demonic form in order to unleash her strongest attacks.


    That final transformation magic had ovee the barriers created by the blood vessel, allowing Nailisi to possess a power that only supreme demons had.


    If a human had entered the dragon¡¯s heart, they would have disintegrated long ago. Only the sturdy bodies of demons were able to survive in such an environment, and this had caused Nailisi to gain an unexpected payoff.


    To most people, dragon¡¯s blood was already the best supplement they could ever consume in their lives. However, Nailisi hadpletely absorbed the essence of the dragon¡¯s heart. This strength was imperative to Nailisi even though she was not a mage.


    Only a supreme demon possessed the ability to cast magic. No matter how exquisite a tiny demon¡¯s bloodline was, it could only perform unimportant tricks.


    The dragon¡¯s gaze began to dim as it lost the fury and sadness in its gaze. Lex freed herself from the shock and whispered weakly, ¡°Sika, can you move?¡±


    Ka cha! The bone ne around Sika¡¯s neck broke and a ray of purple light entered her bones. At the same time, she recovered from the mental damage of the dragon¡¯s roar, and countless ancient messages gushed into Sika¡¯s brain. This was the power Sika had been longing for.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Sika jumped up in a daze. She felt that her muscles were still sore, but she could already move about without any problems.


    Lex held a green bottle in her hand and said to Sika, ¡°Take a sip to regain your strength. Don¡¯t let anyone else near.¡± As Lex spoke, she brought out another fully constructed puppet from the god¡¯s ring. Arge amount of her mental power had been drained, so Lex was hardly able tomand another puppet.


    Fresh blood sprayed out of the dragon¡¯s nose. It seemed like it was going to die, but Lex knew that the trouble was far from over. The injuries on the dragon had been caused by humans, and to cause those types of injuries, at least a golden grand swordmaster and a grade-9 mage were needed. However, that was still not enough. Forbidden equipment was still required in order to cause a tiago to lose its magical abilities.


    Forbidden equipment and the god¡¯s ring had both been passed down from ancient times, and only the imperial family of the Cloudflow Empire possessed them. If those people who had injured the dragon were indeed the royals of Cloudflow, then they would definitely continue their pursuit. Even if the golden grand swordmaster and grade-9 mage respected the old agreement to not set foot into Qin soil, a simple grade-7 mage would be enough to kill Lex and her team right now.


    Hence, Lex needed to try and regain her strength as soon as possible in order to dissect the dragon. Then, she would store it into her spatial equipment and remove all traces of the dragon.


    Lex was not certain that the people from Cloudflow would abide by that agreement as that agreement was already nearly one thousand years old. Since the envoys of god from the Holy See had dared to trespass onto Qinnd, it was very possible that the people from Cloudflow would take the risk to obtain this dragon.


    The tiago was a grade-9 dragon. Its value was unmatched by a mere grade-6 green dragon.


    Nailisi¡¯s appetite was enormous. Usually, she would still have been hungry even after devouring a cow. However, this time around, the dragon¡¯s heart had almost overwhelmed her. Nailisi had only eaten one percent of the heart and was unable to ingest anymore. The power from the essence of the dragon¡¯s heart made Nailisi feel that her body had expanded, and if she continued eating, her newly reinforced body might not be able to take it either.


    Nailisi used her teeth to tear the heart into smaller pieces before storing them into her bracelet. The golden air in the abdominal cavity of the dragon had faded, leaving behind a bloody mess and forming a huge pile of sticky fluid.


    Nailisi did not exit the dragon¡¯s body immediately. She climbed towards its head through its digestive tract, wanting to obtain the dragonshard for Saleen. The magic nucleus of a grade-9 magic beast was priceless, and it would never be exchanged for gold coins. The magic nucleus of a grade-9 dragon was no longer called a magic nucleus. It was simply referred to as a dragonshard.


    Nailisi was not going to let the dragonshard be part of the spoils. She was going to take it first, so Lex would not mention it.


    If Lex and her master had given birth to a powerful descendant, Nailisi might still have considered giving Lex part of the gains. Nailisi¡¯s thinking was very na?ve. Any benefits belonged to Saleen. Through empathizing with her master¡¯s emotions, Nailisi knew that Saleen would not be under someone¡¯s rule his entire life. One day, her master would surpass Lex and be known as the real expert.


    Each time she felt emotions like these in Saleen, Nailisi was overjoyed. If Saleen was not powerful enough, the power of the demon under his soul bond would also be constrained.

 Chapter 174: Destroying the Body (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 174: Destroying the Body (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Sika confirmed that the dragon had truly died, she went to move its tail and drag Saleen out. She gave Saleen a sip of the magic liquid. Saleen¡¯s arm was broken and would require six to seven days to recover fully even with magic treatment.


    Fortunately, the dragon¡¯s tail was on top of his left arm. Had it been his right arm, his arm might have been crushed already. The transformation of Saleen¡¯s left hand by the Gift of Life had influenced his whole arm. The reinforcement extended all the way from his hand to his shoulder.


    Sika did not say much. When she saw that Saleen was fine, she simply picked up her cudgel and walked into the darkness. There were too many things on her mind at the moment, and she did not know what to say to Saleen.


    The downpour continued. Very few people passed by this road to begin with, and with the rain right now, no one would travel on this road.


    When Nailisi exited from the dragon¡¯s mouth, Saleen and Nailisi had just regained some of their strength. Compared to Sika, those two mages were really too frail.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡± Lex called out, a slight blush on her face. When she had seen that Saleen was in trouble, she had immediately tried to rescue him without any hesitation. Since Lex was young, she did not have any friends, so Saleen could just barely be considered her half friend. All of her subordinates, including other mages and swordsmen who attempted to win her heart, were in awe of her.


    Saleen was also full of respect for Lex, but Lex knew that Saleen¡¯s respect was purely professional. He respected powerful mages, and that kind of respect was simr to how Faerun thought of sorcerers. Saleen did not even pay any attention to Lex¡¯s royal blood, and he hade to Bitter Water Prefecture out of desperation. Sooner orter, Saleen was going to leave.


    The more Saleen wanted to leave, the more Lex wanted to make him stay.


    ¡°Lex, we need to be on guard for the people who are in pursuit of this dragon. Let¡¯s clean up this ce and leave.¡± Saleen¡¯s mind was very perceptive. He might not have known about the forbidden equipment, but the dragon had already been severely injured when it appeared, so Saleen had naturally inferred that only powerful experts could cause such injuries.


    ¡°Master.¡± Nailisi was drenched in blood when she came before Saleen. She was feeling perturbed. She had dug out the two dragonshards that had been in the dragon¡¯s head and stored them into her bracelet, so she was not sure whether Saleen would be angry at her for taking matters into her own hands.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Saleen asked with great concern.


    ¡°Master, I am fine.¡± Nailisi coughed.


    ¡°Since you are fine, get to work. Think of a way to remove the horns, teeth, and ws first. It will be best if you can break them down and store them.¡±


    ¡°How will we split these things?¡± Nailisi asked worriedly.


    At the veryst moment, Lex had contributed some effort, so she was definitely going to receive part of the dragon. It had been a little greedy of Nailisi to take the dragonshards first. However, demons were greedy by nature. Nailisi was only worried that Saleen would soften his stance and give away the dragonshards.


    ¡°The front half belongs to you while the rear half is mine,¡± Lex told Saleen.


    As she said that, Nailisi began to like Lex. The essence of the dragon was all concentrated in the front half. Aside from the tailbone which was the most precious item in the back half, only the two ws were considered valuable.


    ¡°However, I want the dragon skin and tendons. I will make two sets of equipment for each of you.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Nailisi, quick, get to work,¡± Saleen said urgently. Saleen put away his badge and released his perception cautiously to scan his surroundings.


    The rain gradually grew heavier. Saleen projected his perception to its maximum range but he could not detect the presence of any humans at all. Thus, he grew slightly rxed. Then, he said to Lex, ¡°Can you still fight?¡±


    Lex frowned. There were cracks in her ribs and leg bones, and this was the first time she had experienced such pain. Saleen¡¯s arm had also been broken, but he showed no signs of difort or pain. This caused Lex to greatly admire Saleen.


    ¡°I can control the puppets and open scrolls, but I don¡¯t think I can continue the journey,¡± Lex replied in distress. All four war horses had died, so she was fretting over how they would get away from this ce in the shortest amount of time.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Leave it to me,¡± Saleen answered calmly. Things would be fine as long as Lex could cast magic. Nailisi could carry her on her back, and Sika would be able to catch up if she was blessed with the Windspeed spell. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s own Windspeed spell could help them conserve some physical strength. As long as their enemies did not have a sorcerer, any other people would not be able to catch up to them.


    When she saw Saleen soposed, Lex could finally set her mind at ease. Saleen was trustworthy. He would never boast about his capabilities.


    ¡°Lex, I think we had better split up and guard this area. Sika will not be able to handle things alone.¡± As Saleen spoke, he began to walk in the other direction. Lex did not suspect that anything was amiss. She simply thought that Nailisi possessed some razor sharp weapon which could be used to dissect the dragon. However, Saleen was just afraid that Lex would realize that there was something wrong with Nailisi.


    The two of them separated into the darkness, leaving Nailisi alone with the dragon.


    Dissecting magic beasts was Nailisi¡¯s forte. Since the dragon had not advanced to grade-10, its body structure was still very simr to that of a magic beast. Nailisi fulfilled Saleen¡¯s request and plucked out the dragon¡¯s teeth. The teeth were not huge, but there were many of them. After plucking out all of the teeth, Nailisi then proceeded to remove the ws from the limbs and put them away.


    The challenging part was removing the horns on the dragon¡¯s head. The exterior of the tiago was very different from other types of dragons. Its head did not have the same long horns, either. Instead, they were small. The horns grew out of the skull directly, so Nailisi had no way of dealing with them. She could only use her teeth to bite off the skin of the neck before using her nails to cut the neck muscles. Once she located the joints of the bones, she would separate them before beheading the dragon.


    The ck fluff on the dragon¡¯s neck was the most valuable item, and even Nailisi¡¯s teeth were useless against it. That piece of fluff provided protection for the weakest part of the dragon¡¯s throat.


    Nailisi tore as many muscles as possible off of the skin in order to make the dragon¡¯s head smaller so that it could be more easily stored.


    At the dragon¡¯s throat, there was a piece of hollow bone. The air from its lungs needed to pass through this hollow bone in order for the dragon to emit its powerful breath. Nailisi tried her best to dissect the bones forming the dragon¡¯s head before atst, she was barely able to put it away. Then, she proceeded to dissect the body of the dragon.


    ¡°Sika!¡± Nailisi bellowed. Sika emerged from the darkness and came before the corpse of the dragon.


    ¡°Help me skin the dragon.¡± Nailisi resembled a lizard as her limbs gripped the dragon, using her teeth to bite at the dragon¡¯s skin as she crawled forward.


    If the dragon had still been alive, Nailisi¡¯s teeth would have been destroyed by the strength of those muscles by now. However, against a dead dragon, Nailisi was fearless.


    ¡°Mm, what do I do?¡± Sika had no idea how to manage the dragon¡¯s skin, so she stood to one corner and watched Nailisi.


    ¡°Use your weapon to cut the muscles underneath the skin. It will make it easier to tearter on.¡±


    Sika¡¯s boomerang was also abnormally sharp. The boomerang could not cut the skin itself, but it did not have any issues cutting into the muscles underneath. Sika climbed onto the dragon¡¯s corpse, followed after Nailisi, and began dissecting the dragon¡¯s body.


    The dragon¡¯s skin was the hardest part to remove because it was extremely sturdy. Nailisi¡¯s work was fairly slow. She had only managed to bite four massive holes out of the dragon after nearly two hours. Sika followed behind Nailisi all the while. When Nailisi was finished, the two of them pulled hard at the skin at the same time.


    ¡°Sika, do you need this piece of bone?¡± Nailisi was very rxed afterpleting the toughest part of the task. She felt that her gums were swollen and painful, and her teeth were loose. Even Nailisi¡¯s teeth, which were used to cut magic nuclei, could not withstand such stress.


    ¡°I want some horns to put on my cudgel.¡± Sika¡¯s cudgel had been produced from the bones of ancient magic beasts, and its quality was not poor. She did not want to create an identical weapon anymore, but she was eyeing the horns because if they were applied to her cudgel, she would be able to prate high-grade magic armor with it.


    Such horns could also destroy magic shields with just a tap.


    ¡°Hurry up. When master finds his teacher, they can help you produce weapons.¡± Nailisi and Sika pulled hard on the ends of the dragon skin and finally managed to remove the skin on the dragon¡¯s back.


    Without the protection of the skin, Sika¡¯s boomerang could now be used to dissect the dragon¡¯s corpse. Nailisi put away her tail and wiped the blood from her face. Then, she announced softly, ¡°Viscountess Lex¡­¡±


    There were cracks in the bones of Lex¡¯s legs, so it took her a great deal of effort to walk. When Lex heard Nailisi¡¯s call, she could only cast the level-3 Windspeed spell and limp towards the dragon¡¯s body


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Armor can be soaked in the dragon¡¯s blood. I think you should take it.¡±


    Lex was tempted. In Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, she had acquired many pieces of quality armor, but there had been no magic armor at all. If those pieces of armor were soaked in dragon¡¯s blood, they would gain magic defenses.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Lex took a bottle from her waist. This bottle was obviously a special piece of spatial equipment. It could not be stored into another piece of spatial equipment, so it needed to be carried around on its own. Nailisi and Sika jumped off of the dragon¡¯s back. With their strengthbined, they actually managed to flip over the humongous body.


    Lex sighed after witnessing that scene. It would have been great if there were such tenacious soldiers in the Bitter Water Army. Nailisi in particr was special. If she wore magic armor, she would be a fully constructed puppet with a human form.


    Things were not adding up. If Nailisi and Sikabined their physical strength, it would already be close to that of a war puppet. So long as Sika used a square axe, it would not be an issue for her to break the gates of a city.


    Sika and Nailisi mustered all of their strength and tried to peel the skin off of the dragon¡¯s abdomen. Lex cast an ice arrow, but it became stuck in its muscles. There was stiff fibrous tissue between the muscles, and even level-3 magic could not prate it.


    Nailisi giggled. She bunched her fingers together and stabbed them upwards into the dragon¡¯s abdomen, reaching all the way to her arms. Nailisi pulled out her arms swiftly, and Lex quickly brought her spatial equipment forward to begin collecting the liquid within the dragon¡¯s abdomen.


    The sun had risen. This caused Saleen to be slightly anxious, for the rain had provided a cover for their auras, and that was why those people pursuing the dragon had not arrived yet. If there was any further dy, the four of them would be in great danger.


    This location might have been extremely remote, but it was still beside a trail. Once the rain stopped, there was a possibility that people would pass by. Unless the people were blind, anyone would be able to see such a massive dragon as they passed by.


    Saleen could not possibly kill those innocent people if they really came.


    Lex was also beginning to be nervous. She and Saleen were unable to help, so only Nailisi and Sika were working to dissect the dragon, and the speed of dissection was not too swift.


    ¡°Lex, use a fire to burn this corpse. We will then take whatever is left after the fire,¡± Nailisi reminded her. Lex came to a realization. She had not thought of it sooner, only being fixated on how to remove the dragon and avoid leaving any traces of evidence behind. Now that Nailisi had already taken all the valuable objects, it would be best to burn the rest of the body. The bones which were not destroyed by the fire would definitely be of superior quality, so Lex did not need to worry either.

 Chapter 175: Destroying the Body (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 175: Destroying the Body (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Destroying a body was an easy thing to do, except in the case of a dragon.


    Without its heart, skin, and dragonshards, the dragon was no longer immune to magic that was level-8 and below. Even so, Lex had no choice but to employ a level-7 scroll.


    Fire Enchantment ¨C level-7 magic.


    The fire enchantment was not considered to be a support spell, but it had obvious limitations. On the positive side, fire enchantment had two effects. Firstly, its offensive abilities were tremendous. The attack power created by the fire elements were stronger than that of most level-8 spells. At the same time, the movements of the target who was trapped inside of the fire enchantment would be greatly restricted, more than they would be in most level-7 water and earth control spells.


    The only problem was the way in which the fire enchantment attacked. Within a distance of ten meters, the mage could cast a burning area that was approximately forty-five meters wide, but the length of this region would only be less than three meters in total.


    This meant that a person would remain unharmed if they were more than three meters away from the burning area. Additionally, the burning area was less than four meters tall.


    Mages who were grade-6 could fly, and this spell was not instantaneous. So no matter how powerful the spell was, grade-6 mages would not be affected at all. If a person was fighting mages who were below grade-6, then the spells used would not need to possess the offensive powers of level-8 magic.


    If a mage fought against a swordsman, the swordsman only needed to be a grand swordmaster to escape. The height of a swordsman¡¯s jumps were proportional to their sword aura, so their jumps would have exceeded the limits of their physical body long ago.


    If the swordsman who was being attacked realized that this spell was going to be cast, they simply needed to jump in order to dodge the effective area of the spell.


    If this spell was cast in a confined environment, the effects would be abnormally horrifying, akin to a hidden tower of soldiers within a castle. Right now, this spell could be suitably applied because the dragon had already died, so it surely would not escape the mes of the fire enchantment.


    Using the dragon as the center of her aim, Lex opened the ck scroll. ck mes appeared on the ground and engulfed the dragon¡¯s body. Lex felt a little wasteful because the fats in the dragon were also a rare material, but now all would be destroyed by this fire.


    Nailisi watched on happily. Many materials within the body had been dug out and stored into her bracelet. In particr, she had obtained those six leaf-shaped lungs. When the lungs werebined with the dragon¡¯s uniquerynx, alchemical equipment with amazing attributes could be created.


    Nailisi was not sure whether or not the equipment produced would be able to spew dragon¡¯s breath. However, the defensive equipment produced would surely be able to at least resist a dragon¡¯s breath.


    The fire enchantment burned swiftly, and even the torrential rain which grew heavier by the second could not extinguish it. The dragon¡¯s body seemed to have been soaked in oil. If not for the introversion of the fire enchantment and the ck mes, it would have been highly possible that the fire could have been spotted even from dozens of miles away.


    Within several minutes, the dragon had been incinerated until only a skeleton without a skull remained. If any death mages had spotted this skeleton, they would have surely fainted out of excitement.


    Lex continuously cast a frost array to lower the temperature of the dragon bones. If metals were cooled and heated like this, their internal structures would have been ruined. However, the dragon bones became further crystallized, eventually looking like the most precious tremolite rocks in existence.


    Nailisi and Sika began disassembling the skeleton, while Lex cast an earth spell to smash apart the ground which had been burned. The crystallized earth then transformed back into soil. Next, she would have to continuously disperse the elements in order to remove all traces of the high-level spells which had been used.


    By the time they finished disassembling and storing the bones, the weather had already begun to clear up. Lex continued casting the Cleaning spell to remove the blood and smell of the dragon from everyone¡¯s bodies. Saleen removed his white magic robe and changed into the grey magic robe that Lex had given him as a gift.


    Arge portion of the dragon¡¯s blood seeped into the soil, and Lex did not know what to do with it. Thus, she asked Nailisi to dig up all that soil and put it away. Sika chopped down two trees and Lex burned them into charcoal. Then, the charcoal was crushed and put back into the ground. Thereafter, several huge rocks were ced on top of the ground.


    As long as other people did not examine things closely, they would not notice these anomalies. The corpses of the war horses were stored away as well. The rears of these horses had been branded, and as long as people were literate, they would be able to trace the origins of those horses. Hence, those horses could not be left behind either.


    Thest task was to gather and store all the spare parts that had fallen out of the fully constructed puppet when it was struck by the dragon. Then, the four of them left the scene in a hurry. The methods used by Lex and her team had not been wless, but as long as the pursuers had not brought along a magic beast such as a magic wolf, then it would be difficult for them to discover the anomalies here.


    The torrential rain had done a huge favor to Lex and her team. It was only more than four hourster that a team of people in leather armor passed by. That team seemed to be a team of mercenaries. Within this group, there were two swordsmen who rode on magic beasts a bit more than four meters tall, and they wieldednces which were seven meters long. There was no use disguising those weapons, because only the magic beast swordsmen from the Cloudflow Empire specialized in these overly long weapons.


    These magic beast swordsmen might have only been beginner swordmasters, but their capabilities on the battlefield were nearly equivalent to that of one hundred swordsmen. The magic beasts which they typically rode were not gifted in magic, but that was not necessary on the battlefield either way. Those magic beasts simply needed to rampage.


    The magic beasts used by those swordsmen were obviously not everyday beasts. The beasts were over four meters tall and had a body length of roughly six meters. Their bodies were slightly bloated and thick scales naturally grew upon them. Only the necks of those beasts were covered with metal armor, and those must have been the weaknesses of the beasts.


    Thences in the hands of the swordsmen were also very unique. The four facets of the sharp ends of thences contained fine magic patterns, while their bodies gave off metallic lusters. Thences were extremely heavy. A metal chain had been attached to the poles of eachnce, and eachnce hung behind the saddle. Only swordmasters or people who possessed inborn strength could wield suchnces. An example of such a person was Sika.


    With added force from the magic beast, this seven meter longnce could already cause severe injuries to the body of the dragon.


    There were mercenary badges hanging from the bodies of those two swordsmen. They looked abnormally cold, and did not really have any other expressions. In front of them, there was a swordmaster who rode on a white horse. This man was holding onto a piece of metal equipment which resembled apass. In the middle of this orange-yellow square te was a circr depression. The top was sealed airtight with crystals, and the surroundings were filled with magic patterns.


    Inside the crystal was a levitating maic needle, and this needle was spinning about in chaos.


    ¡°Why did we stop?¡± A man wearing green metal armor whispered behind those two magic beast swordsmen.


    ¡°Sir, we have lost the direction of the tiago.¡±


    ¡°What!¡± The man in green metallic armor rode his horse around the two magic beast swordsmen and came beside the swordsmen holding onto the metal te. Then, he grabbed the metallic square te. Upon noticing that the maic needle was spinning about aimlessly, the man pushed his mask aside, revealing a youthful face.


    It was a pale face which was very delicate and clean. In that moment, the face had a ferocious expression on it. Then, without any emotion, the man asked, ¡°Bjorn, didn¡¯t you say that we wouldn¡¯t lose it?¡±


    ¡°Sir, we wasted too much timest night¡­¡±


    ¡°Bjorn, so you¡¯re saying that I was wrong to let you all avoid the rain?¡± The youth¡¯s tone became sharp as he ruthlessly red at the swordsman on the white horse. That swordsman thought quickly. He swiftly dismounted from his horse and knelt on one leg before bowing down and saying, ¡°Sir was only beingpassionate and kind to his subordinates.¡±


    As that swordsman spoke, he scolded the youth in his mind. You were obviously infatuated with that showgirl in town. That¡¯s why you let all of us take shelter. To think that you are heir to the title of an earl when you actually took a liking to that kind of woman. What an idiot.


    ¡°Mm, good that you know that.¡± The youth then pressed on the two triangr protrusions on both sides of his helmet. Ka da! The youth took the helmet connected to the carapace off of his head, revealing a head full of long brown hair.


    ¡°What do you all think we should do next?¡± The youth tossed the metal te aside and turned around.


    The remaining twenty swordsmen could not think of anything, so one of the magic beast swordsmen said, ¡°Sir, why don¡¯t we wait until the mages arrive? They will have a solution for tracking the tiago.¡±


    ¡°Mages?¡± Hehe¡­ send four people to seal the front and back of this road. The rest of you shall search the vicinity. Search every nook and cranny within a two mile radius. Once you find any clues,e report them to me,¡± the youth arrogantlymanded his men. The youth had only been putting up a pretense when he had asked for suggestions. Since thest clue had been found here, they needed to search this area. This task could not have been any simpler, and yet the fools still wanted to wait until the mages arrived.


    Once the mages arrived, then who would im the credit?


    Lex and her team had already travelled more than one hundred miles. Lex was injured, so Sika was carrying her on her back. With the level-3 Windspeed spell, they still managed to cover one hundred miles in this four hour duration.


    Sika did not feel exhausted yet, but Lex could not take it anymore. The four of them then took a break. The ce they were at was already very far from the roads of Qin. It was situated at a ridge, so there was a vantage point where they could observe all directions.


    As Lex took a sip of magic liquid, many thoughts ran through her mind. After obtaining the tiago¡¯s skin and subtracting the six pieces of equipment which would be given to Saleen, Lex would still have enough skin left to produce close to one hundred sets of swordsman equipment. Furthermore, the fine hairs of the dragon could be used to create magic robes. All these things would already enable Lex to create an emblem group consisting of swordmasters and mage masters to serve as her main forces.


    There were quite a few experts in the Bitter Water Army, so their equipment had been fairly standard all this while. Even alchemical armor was still inferior to genuine magic armor. The many sets of armor obtained from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town were already enough to equip an entire swordsman camp. After soaking all this armor into dragon¡¯s blood, the metallic attributes would be altered, and the armor would be able to resist magic.


    Unfortunately,rge amounts of the dragon¡¯s tendons had been destroyed during the fire, and the remaining materials were pretty good, so they would be reserved for Bain.


    Saleen and Nailisi had been the ones who had killed the tiago. Lex had only dealt the finishing blow. Thus, it was fine for Lex to forgo the dragonshards, but she would need a few pieces of the dragon¡¯s teeth in order to produce daggers and arrowheads.


    The bones could be used to craft hard armor, so Saleen would not snatch them from Lex. It would be impossible to craft so much equipment if she did not go to Alchemy City. If Lex relied solely on the abilities of Bitter Water Prefecture, the equipment would take up to a few years to be produced, and that was under the condition that the grade-8 sorcerer and the mage masters who had returned to the prefecture were around. If it had been any other city, it would have been nearly impossible to craft all of that equipment using the materials currently at hand.


    ¡°Lex, are you feeling alright with all those injuries?¡± Saleen stood beside a tree and looked into the distance, not turning around.


    Lex looked at Saleen¡¯s back and grew emotional. When she had first seen Saleen, he had still been a child and had not yet grown taller than herself. Now, he was almost an adult, and his shoulders had broadened. Saleen was now calmer, unlike the flighty person he had been during his first meeting with Lex.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. As long as I continue to cast the Chunlin spell, it won¡¯t hurt much.¡±


    ¡°Mm. Do you think those people who severely injured the dragon will be able to track us down?¡±


    ¡°Yes. We created such a mess in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town that our tracks will definitely be exposed eventually. At the very least, we will be under suspicion, but don¡¯t worry. Those people will not enter the Qin Empire. Any mage above grade-8 from the Cloudflow Empire cannot enter the Qin Empire for no good reason. As long as we reach Alchemy City, those people will be helpless even if we had stolen the national treasures of Cloudflow.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I feel that this time around, there will be many more people pursuing us.¡± Saleen gently heaved a breath out of his chest and tried his best to rx. However, his intuition told him that danger was still nearby.

 Chapter 176: Unlucky Mage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 176: Unlucky Mage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let¡¯s continue forward. If we cross the two hundred mile mountain ranges ahead, we can walk one less day.¡± Lex held the map and looked for the coordinates they were at, magnifying the image.


    ¡°There¡¯s a vige here?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps. They might be gone. This is definitely the territory of the Guogan people.¡±


    ¡°Or we could pass around them.¡± Saleen did not want to cause any trouble. The Guogan people were a courageous mountainous tribe, and although the Qin Empire had conquered this piece ofnd, they had not managed to exterminate the Guogan people. No wealthy people were willing toe here. No matter howrge of an area they would be conferred, they would need to be alive to enjoy it.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. I can speak Guogannguage and the people here treat mages decently. Moreover, inparison, they hate the people from Cloudflow even more.¡±


    Saleen kept quiet. Prior to the Cloudflow Empire had been the Fourth Dynasty, and they had once ughtered the people in the Guogan region. He had seen this before, and even though this hatred spanned a thousand years back, the Guogan people had not forgotten.


    Lex marked the detailed path they would be taking and had Saleen memorize it.


    Next was a check over their equipment. At Dragon Tooth Town, Saleen had depleted arge number of his low-level magic scrolls and the level-8 magic nuclei used to power the puppets were half gone. They would not be able to sustain a battle like the earlier one again.


    The spells stored within Saleen¡¯s bronze magic book had been wiped clean as well, and he did not have time to replenish them now. Most of his mid-level and high-level magic scrolls were nk and Saleen could no longer write on them.


    If they had possessed the time, Saleen could have still been able to write on the low-level empty magic scrolls, but now, he could only equip new magic nuclei into the witcher spider and hope that they would not run into any battles for the next few days.


    Lex had experienced even greater losses. Now that she had used the god¡¯s ring, she could not use it for another year. She had also used the two magic spells within her magic staff and had no way of storing simr magic. Luckily, she had not used her silver magic book. The eighteen mid-level spells inside were the strongest powers she had remaining.


    Storing magic within abat magic book was easier than keeping it in a magic scroll. However, the time taken to seal it was substantial. The only advantage was that there was no need to worry that it would fail.


    The ws of a magic book were more obvious. The spells stored within it had to be stored by the user themselves, or else there was a high chance that the spells released would experience elemental dispersal, rendering the magic ineffective. Saleen still did not know the technique for writing into a silver magic book, and the six mid-level spells within the demon magic book had be his lifeline.


    At least Sika and Nailisi were both unharmed. Saleen had no idea that Nailisi¡¯s entire body had been strengthened, removing some of the hidden problems that had been caused by the chalcedony.


    Sika picked up Lex again and the four of them made their way downhill towards the cluster of mountains. Without theck of roads and the slippery mud, if it had been any other team, their speed would have decreased tremendously. Saleen¡¯s team continued moving forward at twenty miles an hour, and after crossing a few mountains, arge vige appeared before their eyes.


    Saleen stopped. There were no noisesing from the vige and there was a tower made from wood at the entrance. The tower was empty. Looking inside the vige from the entrance, Saleen could only see shabbily built wood houses and an uneven road.


    There was no one at all!


    ¡°Nailisi, go in and take a look.¡± Saleen did not dare enter without caution. The size of this vige seemed to have been able to house a hundred families, and yet at the moment it waspletely quiet. Not even the breathing of animals could be heard.


    Lex¡¯s injuries were not too severe and at the very least, she could still release magic. She had merely hurt her ribs and did not want to speak much. It was up to Saleen tomand the team now.


    Nailisi nodded. Even without entering, she knew that there was no one here. More urately, there was not a single living being in the entire vige. Now that Nailisi was an adult, she was much braver than before. Even if they met with a ck mage, the consequences would not be too grave.


    She entered the vige and made a trip around beforeing out.


    The vige of the Guogan people was simple. The wood houses above ground were meant to keep away snakes and insects. They did not engage inrge scale agriculture and they stored their food together.


    ¡°Master, there is nothing.¡±


    ¡°Nothing at all?¡± Saleen asked. ¡°What does this mean?¡±


    ¡°It means nothing. No people, no food, no weapons, no magic beasts, no animals¡­¡± Nailisi was getting better at speaking the Qinnguage and as she continued, Saleen had to stop her.


    ¡°Is there any danger?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s just an empty vige.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He was being overcautious. This was not the Cascausus region and even though the Guogan people were courageous, they did not have the priests of the Cascausus people and the warriors among them rarely reached the standards of a swordmaster. The priests of the Guogan people had been wiped out long ago, during the Fourth Dynasty. The only thing they needed to worry about was the poison of the Guogan people. Even so, he was a mage and could detect poison.


    ¡°Let¡¯s rest a while.¡± Saleen was incredibly tired and his nerves had constantly been strung up the past few days, always ready for iing danger. One of his arms was broken as well, and it would take five to seven days for it to recover even with the help of the magic liquid. Normally, someone with a bone injury would need at least three months to heal.


    With no need to rush, Sika set Lex down and said, ¡°You all go inside. I¡¯ll go up the tower.¡±


    She ced her cudgel on her back and climbed nimbly up the tower, not going through the door but through the window instead. Just as her shadow disappeared into the window, arge sound emerged from within the tower.


    What followed was an angry roar from Sika. Something had broken and a ck shadow flew out,nding on the ground. Saleen always had his icy sight activated and saw that the object was a skeleton.


    The skeletonnded heavily on the floor, but Saleen did not ignore its gloomy gaze. He immediately released a Swamp Illusion spell to entrap the skeleton.


    Ka¡­ka¡­


    The skeleton opened and closed its lower jaw, struggling to climb out. Sika¡¯s voice came from the tower. ¡°Don¡¯t let it move about.¡±


    The skeleton stopped moving soon enough. Sika peered out from the window and said to Saleen, ¡°I have caught someone.¡±


    ¡°I thought you said there were no people?¡± Saleen red angrily at Nailisi.


    Nailisi said pitifully, ¡°There were not any in the vige. This¡­¡±


    ¡°Catch!¡± Sika threw someone from above. The person iled about wildly in midair and screamed. Lex released a Binding spell and hended lightly on the ground.


    This man was unkempt. There were holes all over his robes and a shoe missing from his feet. He had been bound by the Binding spell, and his face was facing Saleen and the others. It was an honest face, almost like that of a hardworking farmer in Sikeqinya.


    Even the pope had eximed before that in Sikeqinya, if a person was willing to farm, they absolutely needed to have a pure soul.


    ¡°Don¡¯t kill me. I have no money and I¡¯m poor. I¡­¡± The man began squealing like a pig about to be ughtered. His square face had thick eyebrows. With tears in his eyes, he looked as pitiful as could be.


    Saleen walked forward, lowered his head to the man, and asked, ¡°Mister death mage, if you don¡¯t have any money, how can you possess a skeleton from the death dimension?¡±


    The skeleton suddenly lurched forward, about to pounce onto Saleen. A white light shot out from Saleen¡¯s hand as an icicle was fatally shot into the chest of the skeleton. The skeleton was frozen by the icicle as Saleen said, ¡°If it moves again, I will use an icicle to st your brains apart.¡±


    The death mage who was bound did not dare move any longer. He realized that Saleen was wearing a grey robe with two lines of magic symbols on it. A grade-5 mage?


    He was mistaken. This magic robe had belonged to Lex, and Saleen was only a grade-4 mage.


    ¡°Death mage, I¡¯ll need to inconvenience you.¡± Saleen waved his hand and had Nailisi carry the death mage, walking towards the vige.


    Seeing that Saleen had been able to release an instantaneous spell without any warning, the death mage gave up any hopes of fighting back. The skeleton that had fallen on the ground was following behind the four of them. Sika did note down from the tower.


    Finding a clean wooden house, Lexid out a carpet on the floor and sat down to rest. Nailisi threw the death mage onto the floor while the skeleton stood at the entrance. Without anymands from the death mage, it would not attack anyone.


    Saleen looked at the skeleton and said, ¡°It¡¯s a beautiful skeleton. Too bad it¡¯s missing some parts. Death mage, there¡¯s no one in this vige. Did you kill everyone?¡±


    The death mage was not a ck mage and would not kill innocent people for no reason. However, death mages had bad tempers, and when they became angry, the things they would do were perhaps difficult to speak of.


    The honest, youthful death mage blinked his eyes, knowing that Saleen would not be easy to handle. He looked over at Lex, who was meditating, unable to speak of the pain he held within his heart. All he had done was find somece quiet to rest, and now he had been captured to be interrogated. Other mages were so well respected. Why was he so unlucky? The Binding spell was an easy spell and itsted a longer time. However, the user needed to be at least two grades higher for it to be able tost this long.


    Damn it, two grand mages!


    ¡°Death mage, only I would speak this patiently to you. If I lose my temper, it will not be a good thing for you.¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± The death mage thought for a long while. Thinking that he should not lie to them, he said honestly, ¡°Master, I am but an insignificant mage. I would not dare kill anyone. When I came here, the ce was already empty. I could not even find a bone. Master, do you have anything to eat? I am going to die from hunger.¡±


    Seeing his weak body and that his skin held a tinge of yellow, Saleen shook his head and said, ¡°Being a mage, you are a failure. I don¡¯t have anything to eat unless you tell me the truth. Don¡¯t tell me you are poor. The cheapest death mes cost millions of gold coins.¡±


    The death mage was crying as he said, ¡°Because of that, I am poor now. If I could call upon a skeleton army, I would have be a royal mage by now. I would not need to run around.¡±


    ¡°Skeleton army? With you alone? Do you think I don¡¯t know anything? That is, unless you¡¯ve found a stable passageway to open up the death dimension at anytime.¡±


    Saleen did not want to make things hard for this death mage, but he was simply infuriating. Not a single word of truth had been uttered from his mouth. If only he had been as straightforward as Sika. Then, Saleen would have given him some bread by now.

 Chapter 177: Unlucky Mage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 177: Unlucky Mage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I did find the coordinates.¡± The death mage was unbelievably stubborn, but Saleen spotted the sly look in his eyes.


    The Binding spell disappeared and Saleen picked him up. Sika sat down as he patted the death mage on the back and said, ¡°I¡¯m a mage who can control elements. Your coordinates are of no use to me whatsoever. You have offended my friend slightly, but I have no intention of killing you. Why are you this nervous? Unless you¡¯ve got some important secrets that you¡¯re afraid I¡¯ll discover?¡±


    Seeing the death mage go pale, Saleen was shocked. Could he have guessed it so casually?


    The death mage¡¯s expression was unusually vivid. There was anger, sadness, pain, disappointment¡­


    Saleenughed. He held no grudge against this fellow and did not need to interrogate him like a suspect. Saleen took out some ck bread, butter, and smoked meat. Setting out an oil cloth, he ced it all in front of the death mage.


    The death mage looked at the food in front of him. Suddenly, his shoulders slumped and he began to cry.


    Saleen stared at him in shock before regaining hisposure. A long time ago, had he not cried because of bread as well? However, this death mage was nearly grade-3. Could he not even hunt?


    ¡°Eat first. We will talk after you eat.¡± Saleen pushed the food forward. Lex was not very particr about food when they were travelling. These were army standard. The death mage grabbed a piece of bread and stuffed it entirely into his mouth, choking on it. Saleen found it funny at first, until he realized that the death mage could not breathe and his face was turning purple.


    Saleen quickly grabbed onto him and pounded on his back with all his might.


    Ka¡­


    The death mage spat out arge piece of bread.


    Nailisi took out arge bowl and Saleen quickly created a portion of restorative water for him. He did not dare stuff his face again. If Saleen had not helped him earlier, he would have caused an unusual event: He would have been the first mage ever to have choked to death.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Seeing that he was almost done, Saleen questioned him again.


    ¡°Daniel Kang.¡±


    ¡°Are you wealthy?¡± Seeing Daniel return to normal, Saleen questioned him. Daniel no longer looked poor. A simple piece of bread could change a person this much.


    Daniel¡¯s face turned red as he replied, ¡°I am a mage. A grade-3 death mage.¡±


    ¡°You must be from Tanggsi.¡±


    Daniel was not willing to nod. He was a wealthy person from Tanggsi. However, there were numerous differences between things in the Tanggsi Empire and the Qin Empire. In the thousands of years during the empire¡¯s establishment, the wealthy had been too numerous to be counted. He was only a third-ss baron and his family owned but a few miles ofnd. They had only been able to survive because of their business with the Sikeqinya people.


    ¡°Why did youe to the Qin Empire?¡± Saleen asked even though he knew the answer. The Holy See had announced that death mages were heretics, and even if Daniel had been a duke, he would have needed to escape the Tanggsi Empire.


    However, Saleen did not expect Daniel¡¯s answer to be far more interesting than he had originally thought. How this unlucky death mage had been able to reach the Qin Empire alive was essentially a miracle in itself.


    Daniel¡¯s family had been to the southwest of Tanggsi. It was not a very good location, as it was constantly threatened by the Cloudflow Navy. However, he was unbelievably smart and ended up doing business with the Cloudflow people instead. Within a few years, he had assembled three boats and had been able to go south to Cloudflow or north to Sikeqinya.


    This was an extremely embarrassing thing for the wealthy of Tanggsi who would rather die of starvation than do business with others. Of course, the very wealthy were still the best at getting what they wanted through brute force. Without the sacred Holy See, the Tanggsi Empire would have been destroyed a long time ago. The more corrupt the empire was, the more prosperous the Holy See became.


    If a personcked even food and had no ability to resist, it would be very easy for them to embrace a religion.


    The Holy See owned numerous plots ofnd by themselves, and by doing business, they only needed to pay a little to their disciples in order to cause a chain effect, causing more farmers who had lost theirnd to join the Holy See.


    Daniel had once been a magic disciple. Mages had no status in Tanggsi, and a disciple would attract even less attention. He, like Saleen, had been unable to form magic chords and was about to give up on the idea. However, his father, Daniel Senior, once saved a death mage while out at sea, and hence, Daniel switched to learning death magic.


    In addition to gemstones, learning death magic required death mes in order to establish coordinates with the death dimension. Usually, the coordinates given by the death mes were unclear and Daniel had not had much hope. Murky coordinates meant that a death mage¡¯s death mes would grow much slower.


    However, with the death of his father, he had not wanted to carry on the business and needed to figure out a way to buy the death mes. That had cost him three boats.


    Daniel had not expected the death mes that he had purchased to be top-tier ones, and within the short span of three years, he had risen from a disciple to a grade-3 mage. Under normal circumstances, death magic was always easier at the start but more difficult towards the end. However, at the rate with which he was advancing, so long as he continued working on it, he could be a sorcerer before he died.


    Death sorcerer could extend their lives as well, and Daniel began to work hard. Just as he had begun to growcent, the Holy See announced his death sentence: all death mages were heretics.


    He immediately donated arge part of his fortune and bribed a local grade-2 high priest. Under the protection of the high priest, Daniel escaped his hometown, but the high priestter betrayed him and the people from the tribunal began chasing after him.


    Daniel escaped and took a ship to the Cloudflow Empire. Using the contacts he had gained while running the business, he managed to raise some money and decided to start anew in Cloudflow. However, he identally found out that the Holy See already had arge number of people that had infiltrated the Cloudflow Empire who had given his location to the tribunal.


    If these people had risked exposing their identity to catch him, Daniel would have been dead long ago. Death mages were extremely rare, and the Holy See would dly have him be the first death mage to be burned to death on the Glorious Square.


    This time, Daniel ran even faster and did not dare to keep in contact with anyone he knew. He joined some mercenaries and set off on a ship that went on missions.


    There were countless inds in the vast ocean south of Cloudflow, and the powers of the Holy See had not extended to those regions. However, Daniel seemed to have been cursed. The mercenaries he had joined discovered arge ind with many rare magic beasts on it. The expanse ofnd had been incredibly vast.


    Just a map of the area alone would have fetched an astronomical price. It was a pity that there were people on the ind. This maind-like ind had been upied by the Gauss family, who were operating secretly. The family had two barons and four rtives in the royal family. They were certainly extremely powerful and wealthy. However, the length of the ind was over one thousand miles, and if it was discovered, it would belong to the royal family. The Gauss family definitely did not want anyone to spread the news that they were secretly hoarding the ce for themselves.


    Poor Daniel had no choice but to run for his life again. The mercenaries he had been together with werepletely exterminated, and the only undead soldier he had left with him was this winged skeleton. During battle, the wings of this skeleton had been broken, leaving Daniel penniless. He could not afford any magic nuclei, and with his death mes, he had no idea when he would be able to fix this skeleton, much less train.


    After returning to Cloudflow, he was afraid of being found by the Gauss family and did not dare move around near the sea. He decided to make his way to Titan Duchy, but midway through his journey, he encountered people from the tribunal, causing him to turn in the opposite direction and escape to the Qin Empire.


    Saleen did not know if Daniel was lucky or unlucky. He could not be considered unlucky, given that he was still alive despite having been pursued for so long. He could not be considered lucky either, seeing how he had been targeted by both the Holy See and the Gauss family.


    ¡°Daniel, don¡¯t worry. In the Qin Empire, mages are safe,¡± Saleenforted him.


    ¡°Safe? The people from the tribunal have followed me here. Do you think I want to hide in the mountains? The winged skeleton doesn¡¯t have its wings anymore and it moves very slowly. The prey killed using death magic cannot be eaten and I have been filling my stomach with ants that I have caught these past few days¡­¡±


    Ants!


    Saleen now understood why a death mage like Daniel had been living in an abandoned vige. There were wooden houses everywhere and there were probably arge number of termites.


    Daniel¡¯s circumstances could no longer be described as unlucky.


    ¡°You said the people from the tribunal have entered the Qin Empire?¡± Lex suddenly opened her eyes and looked at Daniel from afar.


    ¡°Yes, those lunatics¡­¡± Daniel thought about the people from the tribunal he had encountered while being chased, and a cold chill went down his spine. A normal person would have been terrified of a death mage. However, Daniel felt that the disciples of the tribunal were the scariest people in the world.


    ¡°Are they the ck deacons or the dark oracles?¡± Lex asked coldly. She did not have anything against Daniel, but she was angry. With her father¡¯s passing, the people from the Holy See had gotten out of hand. Her brother had ascended the throne, but in reality, Safilos was the one controlling the capital. Safilos was not willing to dispatch any new troops, showing the cracks that had begun to appear within the Qin¡¯s wealthy.


    ¡°It was the ck deacon. If the dark oracles hade after me, I would have died long ago.¡±


    ¡°Then you¡¯re pretty good yourself. ck deacon¡­¡± Saleen began to think. If it were only the ck deacon, he would not be afraid. They were equivalent to grade-5 mages. However, the fighting abilities of the deacons who hade from the tribunal were much better and would require Lex to deal with. To chase after a death mage, the tribunal must have reassigned quite a few people. They were still hiding from the people who had wanted to kill the dragon, and with everythinging together, their true problems were just beginning.


    Saleen took out a pen and paper and drew a simple map from his memory before saying to Daniel, ¡°Which direction are they in?¡±


    Daniel pointed at three points and said, ¡°Here and here¡­ there are probably less than thirty people split between three teams. I intend to go to Red Copper Fort tomorrow to find a group of merchants and go north towards Pompeii City. The people from the tribunal will not dare cause trouble there.¡±


    ¡°Looks like you won¡¯t need to go to Pompeii. In that direction are arge number of Cloudflow people in ambush. They seem to be looking for someone,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Ah?¡± Daniel was stunned. Had the people in the Gauss family gone crazy as well? They had actually sent so many people to the Qin Empire over a small grade-3 mage. Were they not afraid of angering the Qin Empire?


    Saleen, of course, would not tell Daniel that these people were searching for the giant dragon. He looked pitifully at Daniel and said, ¡°We are all mages. I sympathize with your situation, and if you wouldn¡¯t mind, I can help you take out the people from the tribunal.¡±


    Daniel was still in a daze. It took him a while before he said, ¡°Then, Master, what price would I need to pay?¡±

 Chapter 178: Death Trap (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 178: Death Trap (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    If a person wanted something, they would need to give up something of simr value. This was a saying which all mages believed in.


    Daniel did not believe that someone he had met by chance would go against the ck deacon of the tribunal simply because of his plight. Saleen looked young, but he certainly did not look stupid. There were no signs of rashness in his blue eyes, and Daniel knew that he would need to give Saleen something that would satisfy him in order for him to solve his problems.


    ¡°That map of the ocean, do you still have it with you?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. Once the ck deacon is dead, give me the map of the ocean. I will use detection magic to check if it is real.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± Daniel was a little shocked. He had thought that Saleen would want his death mes.


    ¡°Yes. This is too small of a price, so you will owe me a favor as well,¡± Saleen replied cheerily. He knew in his heart that even if he did not help Daniel, Lex would not let the people from the tribunal go. Her hatred of the Holy See could not be resolved.


    He was only helping him because it was convenient. The fact that Daniel had been able to avoid being killed so many times meant that he must have been quite talented. Moreover, he was a death mage, which was a rarity. He might as well have gotten into Daniel¡¯s good books to learn more about the secrets of death magic.


    ¡°Alright. I will draw it for you now,¡± Daniel answered candidly.


    Saleen could understand vaguely why Daniel had been able to survive. He had been crying just now, but it was all just a fa?ade. Deep inside, Daniel might just have been an incredibly powerful person. If he hadcked the wits and decisiveness, he would not have been able to escape here from the Tanggsi Empire.


    When he had first met the white deacon back then, he could not even have escaped. The only reason he had not died back then was because Picasso had been in a good mood.


    Nailisi watched from the side and began to think. Master is bing more evil by the day. He is the one who wants to kill all of the people from the tribunal to make Lex happy, but here he is trying to be nice about it.


    Lex, however, did not think of it that way. She had keenly rted two things together. The appearance of the rare tiago dragon and the people chasing after it being people from Cloudflow, and the Gauss family from Cloudflow owning arge ind filled with rare magic beasts.


    Could the tiago havee from the mysterious ind? The map of the ocean that Saleen wanted from Daniel was not worth much money since Daniel did not have the ability to go to the ind and chase away the Gauss family. He did not even have a chance of returning to Cloudflow.


    However, behind Saleen was the Bitter Water Prefecture. One day, Lex would have enough power to seize that ind, and even if she had no ns to do so, selling the map to someone from Alchemy City would her a huge fortune. Saleen only needed to use a piece of tiago¡¯s bone to prove that it was real. Fresh bones from a giant dragon and a mysterious ind were enough to make a mage from Alchemy City go crazy.


    Saleen only needed to find his teacher to safely sell away the map of the ocean, and it was possible that he would even gain some profit from the ind. The Gauss family was not of the Cloudflow Empire and they could notmand the Cloudflow Navy. If the mages from Alchemy City insisted on obtaining the ind, the Gauss family could only begrudgingly ept it since broadcasting it would only lead to the royal family of Cloudflow seizing it back.


    He was definitely someone from Sikeqinya, possessing such urate judgement of the prices of goods. If Saleen used his wits in the political battlefield, it just might have been possible that he would be someone important in the empire.


    ¡°Daniel, I haven¡¯t told you my name. I¡¯m Saleen Metatrin, a grade-4 mage. I have a n now. The people from the tribunal will be split into three teams. We will need to gather them together so that none of them can escape, and this will require your help.¡±


    ¡°What can I do?¡±


    ¡°Bait them.¡±


    Daniel shuddered but did not back off. He nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Rx. I have enough manpower to deal with the people from the tribunal.¡± Saleen looked at Lex and hesitated before introducing her. ¡°This is Lex, a grade-6 mage.¡±


    Saleen was afraid that Daniel would back out at thest minute and needed to reassure him using Lex¡¯s identity. Daniel indeed heaved a sigh of relief, and Saleen said, ¡°You are only a grade-3 mage. If they dare split into three groups, it means that there is at least a grade-5 elite in each group. A grade-4 elite might not be able to defeat you.¡±


    ¡°Yes, there is at least one high priest in each group, along with an assassin.¡±


    ¡°To get them to gather, you need to show them your level-4 skills. Can you create a magic beast skeleton?¡±


    ¡°I¡­do not have any magic nucleus left,¡± Daniel said, ashamed. A mage who did not even have any magic nuclei surely lived a miserable life.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. You can count on me,¡± Saleen said confidently, patting Daniel on the shoulder.


    Saleen¡¯s n was notplicated. Death mages could call upon living creatures from the death dimension. However, there were not always living creatures lurking around the passageway in the death dimension. There was a low chance of sess, and the creatures needed to be taken care of, just like Daniel¡¯s winged skeleton. Hence, death mages had thought of a way to rece them and created skeleton puppets instead. Theirbat abilities might not have been as good as those of a living creature that was called upon, but they were meant to be sent to their deaths, and so long as one possessed the materials, one could create them.


    Saleen would definitely not give the dragon bones to Daniel for him to waste. He still had some magic beast skeletons from god¡¯s hell. Besides, the three war horses that the giant dragon had killed were still around, and they could be used by Daniel to make skeleton puppets. He could add human skeletons on top of them and pass them off as mid-grade summoned creatures: skeleton riders.


    With three skeleton riders and two magic beast skeletons, it would be enough for the tribunal to direct their attention to Daniel again. They would call upon theirrades out of caution and strike together. With Saleen and Lex securing the ends of the vige, they would be able to take down all the people from the tribunal.


    Daniel was only a grade-3 death mage and grade-3 magic nuclei were enough for him. Saleen took out an entire box of grade-3 magic nuclei and handed it to Daniel. Tears flowed out from Daniel¡¯s eyes. He had not touched a magic nucleus in a long time, and whenever he had been in battle, he had been extremely nervous. Without any magic nuclei, his death mes had not been able to exert much power inbat.


    Death mes were like the magic chords of an elemental mage, only much more mysterious.


    Saleen still had many magic nuclei on hand, and now that he was already grade-4, the low-grade magic nuclei were not too effective for him and were only valuable items. However, they were exactly what Daniel needed, and as he watched Nailisi take out arge number of magic beast skulls, he was shocked. He could not feel any magic powers from Nailisi, and yet she could use spatial equipment. Could thisdy be a grand mage too?


    The winged skeleton was a summoned creature and Daniel quickly picked over a dozen bones and assembled the wings of the winged skeleton.


    Saleen¡¯s n required them to wait until everyone from the tribunal had entered the vige before they could take action. This was a true battle, and counting on skeleton puppets would not work. A winged skeleton was a mid-grade death creature and had a higherbat power than Daniel. It could fly as well, and was the main reason why Daniel was still alive.


    Having finished with the assembly of the wings, Daniel silently muttered a curse and a ball of green mes appeared behind him. This green me gave off a cold chill and started floating behind Daniel, being about as tall as a person. The winged skeleton was absorbed into the death mes and its wings slowly fused together.


    Seeing this mysterious magic, Saleen could not help but feel envious. He used his icy sight to observe and caught a glimpse of the secrets of death magic. The death mes were an entity of pure energy and had nothing to do with the six types of elements. Instead, they had something to do with the powers of life of the Goddess of Nature.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand had been modified by this power and he had a feeling that if any death mes were to enter his left hand, their structures would bepletely destroyed and any death creatures inside of them would be killed.


    It was simr to how light elements and dark elements could neutralize each other. If one was stronger than the other, the other element would bepletely suppressed. There was no chance of one converting the other.


    Saleen was slightly relieved. The powers within his left hand hade from the Goddess of Nature and had no effect on his elemental magic whatsoever, yet they could suppress death magic. At first, he had been slightly worried that the death magic would possess something to it that would render him unable to control it.


    The three dead horses still had their flesh and blood, and their bones were intact. Daniel took out part of the green mes and began to burn them. Creating a skeleton was a little troublesome, since nobody wanted to carry a dead person around.


    To create a fake skeleton, one needed to use the bones of a magic beasts. Daniel was a little troubled. Humans had two hundred and six bones, and carving them out was a very cumbersome thing to do. Of course, the puppet created did not have to be perfect and only needed to be good enough to fool others. To create a skeleton rider with graceful actions, a person needed to replicate the body of a human.


    Saleen told Daniel not to worry and to let Nailisi deal with it. Nailisi¡¯s teeth could process even tougher materials, and she was very familiar with the structure of the human body. Saleen¡¯s knowledge of the human body hade from books, while Nailisi had actually eaten a few people herself.


    A magic beast skeleton was easier to fake. The creatures in the death dimension were a mystery, and the weirder they pieced it together, the better.


    Daniel worked throughout the day and the night, and Saleen did not see him take a break at any point. He curiously asked, ¡°If there were enough magic nuclei, would you be able to continue fighting?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. The death mes are depleted even faster in battle, just like the magic chords of an elemental mage. I can only release twelve level-3 spells consecutively before the death mes dissipate. I will need to regather them by meditating.¡±


    ¡°What aboutmanding a summoned creature?¡± Saleen asked, unfazed.


    ¡°Summoned creatures, skeleton puppets. They barely use up any death mes. However, the skeleton puppets require focus and aren¡¯t as good as summoned creatures.¡±


    Saleen could vaguely understand. The winged skeleton was simr to Nailisi. Both were creatures from another dimension, and Nailisi did not use up any of his magic chords while inbat. It was the same for the winged skeleton. However, for the winged skeleton to recover from its injuries, the help of a death mage was required.


    When everything was ready, Saleen asked, ¡°Daniel, are you afraid?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. If things get too dangerous, abandon the winged skeleton. I will provide you with some mid-grade magic nuclei for you to call upon another death creature.¡±

 Chapter 179: Death Trap (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 179: Death Trap (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The three skeleton puppets that were disguised as skeleton riders were let out to roam around the vige. The three magic beast skeletonsid down directly outside of Daniel¡¯s room, almost as if they were showing off their might.


    If a mage in the same grade as Saleen had seen this sight, they surely would have taken another way around. A mage that could summon six mid-grade death creatures had definitely reached the peak of grade-4.


    Within the forest to the east of the vige, a thin figure was peering through the leaves into the vige. He immediately saw the skeleton riders walking about, and in shock, rapidly darted deep into the forest. He was dressed entirely in ck clothes that stuck close to his body, a certain fluidity to his figure as though he possessed the tendons of a magic beast.


    As he walked, it was practically as though he had eyes underneath his feet. He did not step on any broken branches and his clothes were not caught on the thorny vines. In the darkness, his eyes reflected no light, and they were pitch ck like a bottomless hole. Looking at the face, one would only see a dark green mask that did not reflect any light.


    A professional assassin!


    His body was like a snake, moving about in the forest and silently arriving at the field behind it. There were mounds all over the empty field and a man dressed in ck robes was sitting on the floor, a book in his hand. He was reading using the light of the moon.


    A red me pattern was stitched near the sleeves of his robes, and within the mes, one could vaguely make out the shape of a distorted human.


    Hellfire represented the tribunal that was in charge of punishments. The assassin approached him and said softly, ¡°Deacon, I have found him.¡±


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t you taken action?¡± The middle-aged man reading the book was the ck deacon of the tribunal. He had been following Daniel for a few months and had a good understanding of the abilities of the death mage. He was also aware of Daniel¡¯s predicament. He no longer had any magic nuclei and hisbat abilities had been greatly reduced. He did not even have time to fix his winged skeleton.


    A grade-3 mage like him was barely any match for a professional grade-4 assassin. His advantage as a mage was gone, and the assassin¡¯s advantage was much more pronounced.


    ¡°Deacon, I saw skeleton riders.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± The ck deacon was a little unconvinced.


    ¡°It¡¯s true, Master. Those skeleton riders are wearing corrosive armor, and even the horses are d in armor too. Daniel must have called upon new death creatures.¡±


    ¡°You did not alert him, did you?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Good. Gather everyone and have them approach from here. This time, we cannot let Daniel escape again. Since the promation of the newws, the tribunal has not caught any death mages. If we are the first ones to seed, we may be promoted two grades.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± The assassin could not hide the joy inside of him. Rising two grades within the tribunal would not just lead to an increase in authority, but one would gain higher level swordsmanship skills or divine skills. If their chief advanced another two grades, he would be equivalent to a local cardinal. Even though those within the tribunal who were at this grade could not join the pope in battle, they could gain higher level divine skills and even the gifts of god.


    As for himself, he would be a deacon in two grades time, and just like his master, he would be able to bring a team out on missions. The amount of resources that he would be able to move around would be ten times what he was able to move now.


    Those who devoted themselves to faith had urges too, and anyone who who was willing to enter the tribunal possessed a dark side to them. However, these people believed that their wickedness in falling was done to protect the light of god.


    The assassin took out a miniature scroll and opened it. Light spilled out from within it, but it did not cause any disturbances in the night sky. The coordinates had been sent, and the deacons of the other two teams would be here soon with their teams.


    Thirty-two people against a single death mage. Even if he was a grade-4 mage, it would be difficult for him to escape.


    After nearly two hours, the teams that had been sent away gathered back together. The deacon nodded to the assassin and said, ¡°Describe what you saw to the others. Everyone, be prepared to move out in an hour.¡±


    The ck deacon tried to hide the joy in his heart. He had thought that they had lost their target, but they had managed to find Daniel again. If Daniel had escaped again and had run away from this mountainous region, they would not have dared to ambush him in such a big group like this.


    Red Copper Fort was not far from the back of these mountains. The troops from Pompeii City would be here within a day, and if the death mage managed to make it to the main roads, he would be at a loss for a good n of action.


    The position of the ck cardinal. An enticing role that shall soon be mine!


    In addition to the ck deacon, the remaining thirty-one of them wereprised of two grade-1 high priests, six grade-2 high priests, three assassins, three dark knights, and seventeen warriors of hell.


    Since they had needed to enter the Qin Empire, the ck deacon had not dared to bring along any zealots. However, the warriors of hell were able to channel life abilities, and when needed, they could forcefully increase their powers to the standards of a beginner swordmaster. The price, however, was to sacrifice some of their lifespan. This was a sacrifice for the gods.


    Even if the death mage was lucky and advanced while escaping, he would only be a grade-4 mage and two grade-1 high priests would be able to defeat him. He had only gathered everyone together as he was afraid that Daniel would escape. Daniel possessed a winged skeleton, and if it regained its flying abilities, it would not be easy to pursue him in this mountainous region.


    The more than thirty people confidently made their way through the forest and came to the east entrance of the vige. Two skeleton riders in corrosive armor were roaming around freely.


    ¡°There is no one in this vige.¡±


    ¡°Master, the death mage must have killed them all.¡±


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s go now. If he stays alive any longer, he will only kill more people.¡±


    The ck deacon did not think too much of it. Daniel was from Tanggsi and had a clean background. Aside from studying death magic, there was nothing suspicious about him, and his hometown was twenty thousand miles away from here. He could not have had any friends in this vige within the mountains. It was better that everyone was dead. At least now, his tracks would not be exposed.


    With that thought, the ck deacon nodded and said, ¡°The dark knights will deal with the skeleton riders, the assassins will follow the high priests, and the dark warriors will be in charge of intercepting. Let¡¯s go, for the God of Light.¡±


    ¡°For the God of Light!¡±


    The voices of the dark warriors had been a bit loud and the skeleton riders roaming near the vige entrance were immediately alerted. They turned their burning amber eyes towards the forest and suddenly did something that stunned the ck deacon.


    The two ridersmanded their skeletal horses to turn back and escaped further into the vige.


    ¡°Quick, the death mage is escaping!¡± The ck deacon did not bother exining and the three dark knights were the first to emerge from the forest and rush into the vige. If they took out the skeleton riders, the death mage would be hurt too. Then, it would not be easy for him to escape.


    The eight high priests clustered around the dark warriors and went into the vige while the ck deacon walked at the back. A slight feeling of danger surfaced in his heart. However, he could not call back his men. It was possible that the dark mage would escape any moment. He grit his teeth and thought: A grade-4 mage, what could he do? With my thirty-one men, I can take out even a grade-6 mage.


    With that thought, the ck deacon increased his pace and caught up.


    The skeleton riders were not moving very fast because they were actually puppets. Wearing heavy armor affected the speed of the puppets much less than it affected theirbat abilities.


    The three dark knights came closer and closer, and just as they were about to catch up, they suddenly saw three magic beast skeletons in front of the wooden house up ahead.


    The dark knights stopped and hesitated. They had been venturing among the mountains, and if they gave up their war horses, theirbat abilities would decrease. The three magic beast skeletons had weird shapes, and they had no idea what living creatures these beasts had evolved from. One of them did not even have four limbs and seemed to havee from a giant python. However, on its massive skull were six horns. They had never heard of a living creature with that many horns.


    ¡°The death mage is inside the house. Kill him!¡± The dark knight with the highest grade rushed towards a magic beast skeleton. He chose the biggest one, which had three legs only and was spouting ck mist from its mouth. The dark knight activated his assaultive abilities, holding onto his sword. A white light emerged from the armor on his body and went straight for the magic beast skeleton.


    The other two dark knights activated their abilities and rushed towards the other two magic beasts. They could not have cared less about the skeleton riders; magic beast skeletons were able to possess the abilities they had when they were still alive, and that was what they feared.


    In any case, the high priests arrived in no time and had the same thoughts as the three dark knights.


    The dark knights swung their swords andnded them squarely upon the magic beasts. With a cracking sound,rge cracks appeared at the ces where the magic beast skeletons had been struck.


    The three dark knights were stunned. Were these magic beasts really so weak?


    In that short amount of time, a dark shadow appeared from above and slit the throat of one of the knights. There was a metal te at the throat of the dark knight, but it had not been able to stop this weapon. The dark knight that had been attacked dropped his sword in an attempt to clutch the gash. However, the gash was behind the metal te and it would not matter how hard he tried to stop it.


    Swish¡­


    The magic beast skeleton took this chance to strike the dark knight on his chest with its horns. The part of the armor where he had been struck sunk in, and the blood from his throat spewed out even quicker.


    Saleen had not expected the people from the tribunal toe in all at once. Any ideas that he had thought of were no longer relevant. Daniel would not need to fight with his life on the line in order to lure out the enemy¡¯s reserve troops.


    At the two ends of the vige, Saleen and Lex each released a Fluorescence spell. The lights flew into midair and bathed the entire vige in a blue-green hue.


    The eyes of the ck deacon contracted rapidly. An ambush! He turned around sharply and saw a dainty hand reaching towards the back of his waist.


    The ck deacon could smell death and did not even release a divine spell. Instead, he sent out a concentratedimpact and released the magic stored within his robes.


    The elegant women furrowed her brows. The concentrated impact hadnded squarely upon her and she was obviously in difort. However, her hand stillnded on the ck deacon¡¯s robes.


    There was a clear sound: Bam!


    Before his magic could be releasedpletely, it was broken down by the woman. She seemed to be in great pain and did not continue her assault. Pressing both hands against her head, she leaped backwards and escaped the range of any divine spell¡¯s assault.


    The ck deacon felt as if he had taken a walk in hell. That hand had been too terrifying. The ck robes on his body had been shredded into pieces, and if he had used a divine spell, he might have been dead by now.


    The green light descended and a woman in colorful robes walked over. She had a disdainful look in her eyes, and as she looked at the ck deacon, she said, ¡°Why? Have even the people from the Holy See been learning magic?¡±

 Chapter 180: Book of the Fallen (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 180: Book of the Fallen (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The shattering of the ck deacon¡¯s robes only served to push away the woman that had ambushed him. He was still shaken. The long robes that he was wearing had been processed by the cardinal, and the magic that had been released contained the powers of god and were as quick as an instantaneous spell. From a defensive standpoint, it was not any less than level-5 divine protection.


    The ck deacon felt more danger than he had from the girl in the colorful robes. He could tell with his acute senses that she was a grand mage. Ignoring her sarcastic remarks, he instead took out a covered ck book and held it in his hands.


    ¡°The Book of the Fallen? No wonder you dared toe to the Qin Empire. It¡¯s too bad you¡¯re only a deacon.¡± The one who blocked his way was Lex. Seeing the ck deacon bring out his book, she brought out her own silver magic book as well, releasing four fully armed puppets.


    Saleen had directed Nailisi to attack the ck deacon while Sika would attack the dark warriors. He would defend the entrances of the vige. In order to provide protection against any magic beasts in the mountains, the road to the vige was extremely narrow. The Guogan people had no carriages anyways, so there was no need for a wide road. The puppet that Saleen controlled blocked the entrance and he stood behind the puppet, waiting for any enemies that would attempt to escape from this point.


    Ahhh!


    A scream resounded from within the vige, and it turned out to havee from two high priests being chased by two magic beast skeletons. A grade-1 high priest was faster than a dark warrior, and when he realized that a dark knight had died and two more were injured, he hade to aid them, unable to have cared less about the skeleton puppet which was falling apart.


    The three skeleton riders gathered together, surrounded by the dark warriors. The assassins entered the wooden house. Once the death mage was dead, the puppets outside would be useless.


    The ck deacon did not seem to be the least bit concerned about the battle happening behind him. He looked at Lex and said slowly, ¡°Mister Mage, what use does that death mage have for you? If you will help me, I will give you ten times the reward.¡±


    Lex was a female mage, and hearing the ck deacon address her as mister was something rare. He was from the tribunal, and in Tanggsi, his position wasparable to the Red Clothed Chapel. At least the Red Clothed Chapel were not permitted to kill people.


    ¡°Ten times the reward?¡± Lex gave a coldugh. The Holy See had gone to such great lengths to kill her father. No matter what rewards they gave her, it would never be enough. The ambush this time was merely for her to vent her anger.


    ¡°Mister Mage, if I wanted to leave, you would not be able to stop me,¡± the ck deacon patiently exined to Lex. The battle in the vige was already heating up.


    ¡°Why should I stop you? I only need to kill your men and you¡¯ll be duly punished when you return,¡± Lex said sarcastically. Only then did the ck deacon¡¯s face turn dark.


    Lex¡¯s words had struck a chord with him. He possessed flying equipment and could still escape the vige. If the female mage he was facing were to chase after him, she would not have the help of her teammates. However, if all of his men died, even if he returned alive, he would be punished by the ck Clothed Cardinal.


    Saleen stood at the entrance, a little bored. The people from the tribunal were certainly dumb. Once they had realized that it was a trap, they should have escaped. Instead, these people had chosen to fight their way through, and not a single one had escaped. Saleen stood on the puppet¡¯s shoulder and looked towards the vige.


    Around the wooden house that Daniel was in, everything was in shambles. A magic beast skeleton had been beaten into smithereens while the two others were severely injured. These magic beast skeletons were grade-3 puppets, and even though they had been disguised as summoned creature, theirbat abilities had not increased. Saleen saw six white lights shoot out from a holy master and envelope a skeleton puppet. The puppet had been pouncing towards the holy master, and as its body was struck by the divine light in midair. It disintegrated on the spot.


    Saleen gave a slight smile as the skeleton scattered as it fell. A fist-sized shadow pounced onto the chest of the holy master and a spurt of blood appeared. Saleen¡¯s witcher spider hadnded on the holy master¡¯s chest and broken through their divine defenses, burrowing itself deep into their chest.


    Saleen had lent the witcher spider to Daniel, who had hidden it inside of a skeleton puppet. It had managed to ambush a grade-1 high priest.


    It seemed that no one would be escaping from here. Saleen did not see the ck deacon join in the onught and knew that he must have caught up with Lex and Nailisi. If the ck deacon did not give any orders, the people here would only be able to fight to their deaths.


    Since the three assassins had entered the wooden house, there had been no movement. Saleen furrowed his brows and thought, Daniel could not have died, could he? Since they were not nning to escape, he would need to take action. The spider could not kill all of their enemies. It may have been useful for an ambushes, but in face-to-facebat, a swordmaster would be able to catch it.


    Saleen jumped off of the shoulders of the prepared puppet and activated it, a red glow emerging from its eyes. Saleen pressed against the wound on his left shoulder and felt that it would not affect his movement. Only then did hemand the puppet to follow behind him as he entered into the vige.


    At this moment, Saleen was calm. There were over thirty enemies, butpared to the battle at Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, this was not much.


    Psshh!


    The prepared puppet rushed into the midst of the dark warriors, and with a swing of its axe, cut a dark warrior into two halves. With another swipe, it cut open the chest of another. Only a puppet would be able to use such heavy weaponry without its movement being affected. Even Sika would not have been able to handle it. With all this movement, the muscles of most humans would have torn from the stress.


    The three skeleton riders had been fake from the start and under the attacks of the dark warriors, two of them had been hacked into many pieces. As the puppet charged in, the dark warriors had not paid much attention to it, but when they saw two of theirrades murdered within seconds in front of them, they realized that something was wrong.


    This metal being had not been summoned by the death mage. It was an elemental mage¡¯s puppet! Its movements were far too nimble, and by the time the two dark warriors had drawn their long swords, the puppet had taken another swing and had hacked another one of them into two halves. Another long sword slid across the metal armor of the puppet and the puppet lifted one of its legs, stomping aggressively at the dark warrior.


    Saleen hated the Holy See as well. Had it not been for their incitation, Earl Sufonso would not have destroyed his family grave. He had no mercy for them. When fighting with the puppet, professionals beneath the grade of a swordmaster essentially only required one hit to kill. Only a swordmaster could defend against such heavy weaponry.


    The dark warriors had plenty of experience too, and upon seeing this, the armor of the remaining dark warriors began lighting up rapidly. They began to recite a prayer under their breaths and their eyes turned blood-red. Their weapons began shining with a bright light as well.


    It was the special skill of the tribunal: Life Sacrifice.


    This was a method of sacrificing a little of their life force to the gods in order for a warrior to activate theirbat ability. The strongest effects could result in the warrior advancing by two grades. The eight dark warriors could not have cared less about their lives and they pounced forward. All the weapons in their hands moved about in a flurry as they started hacking at the puppet.


    The puppet began spinning on the spot, and with its axe and the power from its body, the dark warriors¡¯ weapons were flung out. The dark warriors had lost their weapons but were not about to give up. They increased their life powers to their maximum and pinned the puppet to the ground. They could not find any weak points on the puppet¡¯s body, but they could hold it down.


    The remaining dark warriors could not have cared less about theirrades as they rushed towards Saleen.


    Once they killed the mage, the puppet would be useless.


    If this had been the past, Saleen would have been nervous, seeing more than a dozen people holding knives and swords while approaching him. After the battle at Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, hisbat abilities had been excited and he consecutively released two scrolls, casting a swamp illusion and blocking the path between him and the dark warriors.


    He took advantage of the time they stopped moving to prepare an Icicle spell.


    Hundreds of icicles froze into the air and struck down hard. Without the cooperation of the environment this time, the short time that Saleen had taken to freeze the icicles had resulted in less than half the number he had conjured before. However, it was enough, and with the narrow construction of the vige, the dark warriors had no way of escaping.


    Their sword auras criss-crossed over each other as they flew about. The dark warriors could only protect their bodies with their lives, attempting to chase away the magic with their sword auras.


    Saleen gave a coldugh. It was not a secret that they could increase theirbat abilities by sacrificing their life force, but it only served to increase their assaultive abilities, and their defensive abilities had dropped. A true mid-grade swordmaster was required to be able to counter his icicle magic, and the defensive abilities of these high-grade swordsmen had dropped to those of a mid-grade swordsman.


    The icicles struck in three waves, the first one killing the four dark warriors stuck in the swamp illusion. The movements of these four dark warriors had been slowed down and they had not had time to defend, more than a dozen icicles having diced them uppletely.


    By the time the holy masters who had killed thest magic beast skeleton realized that things were going wrong, it was toote. Saleen had used himself as bait to draw in the dark warriors and had killed them all at once. If their enemies had been anyone else, they would not have been as crazy as the people from the tribunals.


    Saleen was not afraid of a crazy enemy. He was afraid of a calm one.


    The dark warriors outside the swamp illusion all sustained injuries. When the second wave of icicles shot down, another six dark warriors were slowed and were shot to death right away. By this time, the remaining dark warriors¡¯ weapons had been frozen and their sword auras no longer worked. The third wave of icicles destroyed them and their weapons together. All over the ground were frozen bodies and blood that were remaining from the bloody battle.


    A holy master looked at Saleen and said to the other two dark knights that had been treated, ¡°Kill him!¡±


    Two dark warriors and six grade-2 holy masters walked towards Saleen. This grade-1 holy master had wanted to turn around and help the ck deacon deal with Lex when the wooden wall of a nearby house smashed apart and Sika appeared, swinging her cudgel whichnded squarely on the back of the holy master.


    Pshhh¡­


    He spat out a mouthful of blood, and with a stagger, nearly fell to the ground. The light of god surrounding his body faded rapidly. Sika pursued, giving another bash to the grade-1 holy master¡¯s head.


    Two years ago, she would not have been able to harm a grade-1 holy master. When they had entered the cave near the Chaotic Swamp and been surrounded, Sika¡¯s cudgel had barely left the holy master seeing stars.


    Boom!


    The house that Daniel had been hiding in was sted into smithereens and the winged skeleton pulled Daniel into the skies. The three assassins in the house had been mashed into blood and flesh. They had not expected that the winged skeleton had not only been restored, but had advanced another grade.


    The ck deacon looked at Lex, his eyes no longer concealing his killing intent, and said, ¡°Do you think you have won?¡± As he spoke, he opened the ck book in his hands.

 Chapter 181: Book of the Fallen (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 181: Book of the Fallen (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A sliver of white light went past the cover of the ck book, moving about on the cover and forming holy prose. The holy prose floated up andnded on the body of the ck deacon, releasing an intense light.


    Lex secretly regretted having used the fire enchantment scroll. Seeing what was unfolding in front of her eyes, it was the best opportunity to use the scroll.


    ¡°Nailisi, help Saleen.¡± Lex knew that the fight between her and the ck deacon could not be resolved that quickly. Killing the others before surrounding the ck deacon was the best idea.


    Nailisi nodded. She saw theyer of light on the ck deacon¡¯s body, a little afraid. It was a power that could hurt her. Only if she had absorbed all the essence from the heart of the giant dragon would she have been able to defend against this holy light.


    Lex had four equipped puppets around her and she did not need to worry about anything happening.


    The two dark knights that pounced towards Saleen saw the strange smile on his face, and before they could react, the equipped puppet that had been pinned down by the eight dark warriors had thrown its axe. The axe headnded on the back of one of the dark knights and as his sword aura lurched, all the organs inside of that dark knight started to bleed.


    The eight dark warriors had be worn out long ago and could not control the puppet at all. Saleen had it lie on the floor and wait for the dark knights to walk past. These two dark knights were of a simr grade to Saleen and it would be troublesome if the two of them got close.


    The remaining holy masters stopped in their tracks. They were not as strong as the dark knights and when defending against a full metal puppet like this, a swordmaster would be best.


    Sika¡¯s cudgelnded on the back of the grade-1 holy master¡¯s head and a white light rippled. The holy master felt a jolt and lost his bnce, falling onto the ground.


    ¡°Daniel!¡± Sika shouted. The winged skeleton flew down unsteadily and ced Daniel on the ground. It was a little afraid of the light from the holy master and did not attack. A small burst of mes appeared behind Daniel, the death mes having begun to burn again. The winged skeleton flew into the mes and started repairing any damage it had taken while fighting the three assassins.


    Daniel did not get close either. Hemanded the witcher spider to tear open the muscles at the holy master¡¯s waist and the witcher spider dug its way in. The holy master sprang up in pain andnded heavily on the ground.


    Having attacked two grade-1 holy masters consecutively, the witcher spider¡¯s magic nuclei had been wiped clean. It did not wreak havoc in the holy master¡¯s abdomen. Daniel stared at the holy master who had been severely injured, full of hatred. He twisted his hands together and the green death mes began to vibrate intensely, shining with a grey magic light. Many bones started to appear from the ground, and like a spear, pierced through the body of the holy master.


    ¡°I will let you chase me. You have chased me for more than twenty thousand miles, for more than a year. Do you still want to chase me?¡± Daniel was looking a little crazed as more bone spears emerged from the ground, nearly shredding the body of the holy masters into pieces. Only then did he stop and heave arge breath of air.


    Nailisi walked past him, gave an eye to Daniel, and said, ¡°Go help, quick.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Daniel turned and went towards the rest of the enemies with Nailisi.


    Behind thest dark knight was the puppet. It had killed all the other dark warriors and was blocking him from behind, preventing contact between him and the holy master.


    As the six holy masters saw the three of them approaching from behind, they looked at each other. Five of them formed a circle without hesitation and the holy master in the middle started reciting a prayer.


    ¡°What idiots,¡± Sika said, displeased. A shot of holy light went past her as she threw out the boomerang in her hand.


    The boomerang flew in a strange trajectory and went past the defenses of the five-man team, slitting the throat of the holy master in the center.


    The grade-2 holy master had taken too long to recite the prayer and his defensive skills had been poorer than those of a grade-1 holy master. This difference in skill level was as big as the difference between a grade-3 and grade-4 holy master. The holy defenses of a grade-1 holy master exceeded the defensive abilities of most armor, and yet a grade-2 holy master had not been able to withstand Sika¡¯s power at all.


    The three of them approached the remaining five grade-2 holy masters and Daniel released his death mes repeatedly, using the easiest methods of assault to distract the divine spells of the holy masters.


    Daniel was being this careful because he was afraid that the holy masters would use their sacrificial life skills.


    Thest dark knight suddenly released his assaultive ability. This ability was not only swift but effective on the battlefield. In the sh of a shadow, he had already appeared before Saleen.


    Saleen was not rmed. A ck mist immediately exploded and he was sted backwards, carried by the intense wind elements. He had escaped a fatal blow from the dark knight. The dark knight was forced into darkness and a loud, intense noise appeared in his ears, simr to the sound of metal rubbing against each other. He could not locate Saleen at all.


    Saleen could clearly sense the panic within the dark knight, and yet there was a slight joy in his heart. A swordsman the same grade as him would never be a match for him, and since he had be a grand mage, he had many spells to choose from and the way he battled was never the same as before.


    Together with his puppet, he had killed over twenty high-grade swordsmen and two swordmasters.


    Saleen did not use any more scrolls and released a Frost Array spell, a level-1 Icicle spell, and an Ice Ring spell. The three level-1 spells linked up perfectly and the dark knight felt a chill down his legs as he was frozen to the ground. He panicked a bit. With a surge of his sword aura, he managed to escape the control of the frost array only to find that an icicle was already in front of him.


    Dark knights did not wear fully sealed armor and without any armor over a person¡¯s face, they could not use their face to stop a spell. He avoided the icicle but felt a chill at his waist, and what followed was a rush of heat. Blood spewed out and he could no longer feel anything below his waist.


    Saleen dissipated the ck mist. The dark knight had already been cut into two halves at the waist. Without any magic armor, the Ice Ring spell¡¯s incredible cutting abilities could be fully utilized. This dark knight had not even understood what had happened before he was killed.


    Sika and Nailisi were like wild animals. The five grade-2 holy masters were restrained by Daniel¡¯s death magic and did not even have a chance to struggle. Sika¡¯s cudgel danced in the air and the holy defenses of the grade-2 holy masters could no longer keep up with the beatings. With her speed, it took her hardly a second to destroy them.


    Nailisi was not as fearful of the holy light from the grade-2 holy masters. Her hand pierced through it directly and she gouged out the heart of a holy master as blood spewed all over Sika. The holy master that had been hit by Sika¡¯s cudgel was essentially obliterated, and as Daniel watched from the back, he was shocked.


    Were these two really women?


    If these holy masters had possessed the protection of three to five dark knights, the battle might have progressed differently. The attack speeds of divine skills were fast, but they were not as swift nor fierce as those belonging to magic. Their defensive abilities were only stronger than magic belonging to the same level. A grade-2 holy master¡¯s abilities were simr to those of a grade-3 mage, and it was surprising that he had not instantly been killed by Sika.


    A person need to know that Sika¡¯s cudgel had been processed by a sorcerer and had many rare metals added to it. If it had not been limited by its weight, the offensive abilities of the cudgel would have been stronger than those of a constructed puppet.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Seeing that all of their enemies were defeated and Saleen was not hurt, Sika ran over smiling.


    ¡°Careful!¡± Saleen lifted his hand and added a water shield onto Sika. The more powerful version of the water shield could only adhere to Saleen¡¯s body. When he cast it on Sika, it was akin to a giant bubble, enclosing Sika entirely.


    Nailisi bent her legs. With a jump, she sprung up over ten meters,nding on Saleen¡¯s back. Daniel had a great deal of experience in escaping and the death mes behind him expanded instantly, protecting his body. The winged skeleton enveloped his body and opened its wings, needing a great deal of effort to fly.


    In the middle of the vige, a purple me came up from the ground, spreading in all four directions. A dark shadow shook about within the me, still iplete. Lex¡¯s face turned pale. In an attempt to escape the attack of the ck deacon, she had released a speed skill and rapidly moved herself away. Her leg was beginning to hurt, and even the Chunlin spell could not suppress it.


    Lex had released three level-6 spells consecutively and they had all been blocked by the holy prose. After the ck deacon had opened the book in his hands, he had started reciting a long prayer.


    ¡°In the words of god: I give you the power to walk among the dark. Those lostmbs, those who betray the faith. In the darkness of the night, you are their master. Your sword is but a symbol. Once it pierces the chest of an enemy, it only writes my name ¨C light.¡±


    ¡°In the words of god: I give you the honor of your faith. You will not need to pray, you will not need to regret. In a broken hell, the doors to heaven will still be opened for you. The judge of those who walk among the dark, you are the sword in the hands of god.¡±


    The sound of the ck deacon¡¯s prayers became louder and louder as they echoed throughout the vige. The purple mes from the ground began to expand intensely and covered the entire vige.


    Cold! An endless chill descended. With the exception of Nailisi, everyone¡¯s skin contracted and they began to shiver.


    The chill that the purple mes emitted were colder than that of icicles, and the ck shadow within the mes began to fuse together slowly, forming human-like figures. These people had skinny bones and ck skin. Their eyescked pupils and were patches of ck. With long fingernails, they crawled forward, and their long tongues were covered in spit which spewed from their mouths as they revealed their sharp teeth.


    ¡°Those who spheme the gods, prepare for your trial!¡± Amidst the fire, the ck deacon¡¯s voice sounded even more insane. Saleen¡¯s icy sight was in overdrive but he could not see where the ck deacon was hiding.


    ¡°The hell of hunger?¡± Lex¡¯s voice sounded from all around. Saleen could not determine where she was.


    ¡°Not bad. It is indeed the hell of hunger. All these spirits are heretics who I have killed. Their only wish is to eat anything in their way. Enjoy.¡±


    An evil spirit turned its neck and faced Saleen. Saleen looked at its pitch-ck eyes with anger surging in his heart. All these evil spirits were people who the ck deacon had killed, and the so-called heretics had simply rejected their faith. Having to suffer like this even after death, how cruel.


    If he died in here, it would not be the end. He would be an evil spirit and suffer eternally within these purple mes.

 Chapter 182: The Undead Spirits (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 182: The Undead Spirits (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The evil spirits that were all skin and bones did not seem to have any vision, and the evil spirit that had turned its head over started twitching its ears quickly. Its nose did not stop sniffing as it noticed the unusual smell within the fire.


    Boom!


    Nailisi lifted her leg, and with a kick, an evil spirit that was lurking within the purple mes was blown away, broken at its waist. Nailisi pouted and said, ¡°Master, these things aren¡¯t much. I hardly used any strength.¡±


    The evil spirit fell into the purple mes and more than a dozen evil spirits surrounded it. Saleen realized that his icy sight was still active but his senses had been reduced to an incredibly narrow range.


    The evil spirits that surrounded Saleen and the others were not quick to attack. Daniel, who had been flying low, could hold on any longer and fell from the winged skeleton. He was only a grade-3 mage and it had not been easy for the winged skeleton to have dragged him for such a far distance.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you escaping?¡± Saleen saw that the green death mes behind Daniel had shrunk and the winged skeleton inside was in low spirits.


    ¡°There are purple mes overhead too. I can¡¯t fly out.¡± Daniel gave a bitter smile. The winged skeleton had advanced, but he had not. If he flew about recklessly, the death mes would be used up in no time. He might as well stay safely beside Saleen.


    ¡°This will be tough.¡± Saleen did not think that the evil spirits would be easy to deal with. A skill released by the ck deacon would at least be at the standards of a grade-5 mage, or perhaps even a grade-6 one. Now that Daniel had said that he could not fly out, it would be impossible to leave from the sky.


    Aooo¡­


    One of the evil spirits leapt up like a toad and stretched as far it could. Its speed was shockingly fast and Saleen released an ice bomb at once. The ice bomb, which was over a meter long,nded urately on the head of the evil spirit.


    The evil spirit¡¯s skull broke with a loud crack and ck fluid spurted everywhere, freezing into ice as itnded in the purple mes. The surrounding evil spirits seemed to grow afraid upon seeing this, but they still pounced forward. Saleen had already ascertained that even a level-1 spell could hurt them and as he continuously released level-1 Icicle spells, over a dozen evil spirits had their skulls blown open.


    ¡°Master, wait.¡± Nailisi helped Saleen kick away two evil spirits and pointed towards the body of the evil spirit that was within the purple mes.


    The evil spirit that had been broken from its waist down after being kicked by Nailisi struggled and straightened its body again, panting within the mes. After more than ten seconds, it crawled back up and walked closer to Saleen.


    Saleen was bbergasted. Could these things not be killed? Or rather, were they able to be revived in the purple mes? Certainly, soon enough, the evil spirits whose heads had been sted apart started crawling back up. Their skulls seemed to be in perfect condition.


    ¡°Sika.¡± Saleen called her over and asked, ¡°If I take away the water shield, will you be able to withstand the temperature here?¡±


    The purple mes were incredibly cold and even though Saleen was already used to such harsh conditions, he was still shivering. However, he could not afford to use his magic carelessly to stay warm. His magic chords were precious now, and releasing a scroll seemed pointless at this point. He needed to find a way to destroy the evil spiritspletely.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Sika nodded and said, ¡°It is colder than the winter back at home, but at least I¡¯m wearing more now.¡±


    Saleen thought back to the first time he met Sika. It had been mid-autumn and she had been wearing clothes which exposed her belly. She had even dared to enter the water for a bath. Her body was not as simple as that of a warrior with the sword aura.


    Saleen dissipated the water shield around Sika and gave her ice te armor. Sika was not a mage and she would not be able to fight with the water shield, as her weapon could not pass through it.


    ¡°The two of you try to hold them off. I will experiment with Daniel and see what spells can destroy thempletely,¡± Saleen said seriously.


    He still had more than half of his magic chords left and could release more than a hundred level-1 spells. However, these evil spirits could be revived, and it did not matter how many magic chords he had. Sika and Nailisi¡¯s abilities were strong enough to hold them off for a while. The fully constructed puppet would not be too useful, as it drained his magic chords far too quickly and Saleen nned to use it to secretly ambush the ck deacon.


    So long as the ck deacon dared to show his face, Saleen would not mind destroying the puppet in order to mince him up.


    Sika was already wearing magic armor, and with an additional ice te armor and a pair of gloves, she was not afraid of the low temperatures of the purple mes at all. She swung her cudgel and blew away dozens over evil spirits before saying in surprise, ¡°There seem to be more and more of them!¡±


    ¡°Yes. Almost four, five hundred,¡± Nailisi replied.


    ¡°How do you know?¡± Sika did not believe her.


    ¡°Feeling.¡±


    Nailisi answered as she kicked away the evil spirits near Saleen. She had spent a considerable time in the demonic realm, and because she had lost her parents when she was born, she had grown ustomed tobat long ago. These evil spirits were like magic insects, and no matter how far away they hid, they would eventually be discovered by the demons.


    Saleen gave Daniel a bag filled with low-grade magic nuclei and said, ¡°Go rest for now and restore your death mes. Later, when I¡¯m resting, don¡¯t try to save them. Just use them all up.¡±


    When Daniel had been in Tanggsi, he had been considered rich. Otherwise, he would not have been able to rise to grade-3 so quickly even after buying the death mes. All of this had been possible because of the help of low-grade magic nuclei. Even so, Saleen¡¯s generosity warmed his heart. It seemed that he was truly a mage and not a petty merchant, for this bag must have contained three hundred to five hundred magic nuclei.


    Saleen began experimenting with level-0 spells and attacked the evil spirits with different forms of magic, hoping to find one that could kill them permanently. After testing out more than ten spells, Saleen realized regretfully that not a single type of magic couldpletely wipe them out.


    The only positive thing he had discovered was that these evil spirits had low defenses and an Acid Sputtering spell was enough to dissolve them. However, they would quickly revive within the purple mes.


    ¡°Daniel, your turn.¡± Saleen held a grade-4 magic nucleus in his hand and began restoring his magic chords.


    Daniel threw out a small ball of death mes and started experimenting with various types of death magic. Saleen used his icy sight to observe these evil spirits. They possessed blood and flesh and did not seem to be corpses that had died a long time ago. Their speed was incredibly fast and they were unusually sensitive to temperature. Daniel¡¯s death magic was incredibly varied, but just like Saleen, he was unable to prevent them from reviving.


    ¡°Lex, are you still there?¡± Saleen shouted loudly.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Lex¡¯s voice came from all around and Saleen was slightly relieved. Lex continued speaking. ¡°Saleen, these things are afraid of restorative magic. Using restorative water to kill them will be easiest.¡±


    The ck deacon¡¯s voice sounded eerie and dreamy. ¡°Hehe, you can all stop wasting your energy. I don¡¯t believe your magic chords are unlimited. Surrender and return to Tanggsi with me. So long as you all help me capture the death mage alive, I will ask the cardinal to pardon your sins.¡±


    Daniel¡¯s face instantly turned pale. Saleen wagged his finger at him to beckon him to stay silent. This simple provocation was useless on him and Lex. Besides the fact that they were unwilling to agree, even if they surrendered and reached Tanggsi, things would not turn out well for them anyways.


    ¡°He is lying,¡± Saleen said softly to Daniel, pointing to an evil spirit which was chewing on something within the mes up ahead. The evil spirits were not dealing any damage to them and had instead begun eating the corpses of the dark warriors and holy masters who Saleen had killed.


    After eating those corpses, their bodies began to expand and another head quickly emerged from their shoulders. Their bodies would not stop growing until they finally split into two, forming two evil spirits.


    ¡°If you are caught, you will be burned at the Glorious Square. If I am caught, I will be like them.¡± Saleen looked at the disgusting scene in front of him and silently cursed the Holy See.


    Only then did Daniel heave a sigh of relief, continuing his experiment.


    Saleen had Nailisi take out her fully constructed puppet and ced them behind him side by side. Their incrediblyrge sizes blocked his back and the evil spirits had no choice but to attack from the front. Their ws could not hurt the puppets¡¯ bodies at all.


    Boom!


    Daniel released a will-o-wisp and sted five evil spirits away, struggling. Saleen was already satisfied. Daniel¡¯s bone spears were able tost for an incredibly long time, and after piercing through an evil spirit, the spear would disappear and only then would the evil spirit begin to be revived. With the rate at which they were restoring their magic chords and death mes, they would be able tost for a long time even without using any scrolls.


    However, he was not sure if Lex would be able to hold on. Saleen was a little worried, but he did not call for her aloud again. It was possible that the ck deacon would be able to hear anything they said.


    Any ce that seemed the safest was in fact the most dangerous. This was the same as the story with the fish and frog. Saleen and Daniel would tire out sooner orter and they could not keep this up forever. The speed at which a person¡¯s magic chords were restored would gradually be slower, and once they could not be restored anymore, they would need to fight the evil spirits physically. That would be when death was imminent.


    Daniel thought about this as well and was feeling hopeless when he said to Saleen, ¡°I have burdened you all.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic. I just need some time for calctions. Sika, the two of you keep watch. Nailisi, protect me,¡± Saleen said as he sat on the floor, allowing the cold mes to burn his water shield as his focus entered the Goddess Ne.


    He wanted to calcte the weak points of the evil spirits. However, they were not elemental creatures and within the twenty-four spaces in the ne, Saleen had only managed to study the one which included the space of the Figaro form. The rest he was still familiarizing and could not grasp at all.


    Saleen went through more than ten spaces in the ne and stopped at the thirteenth one. The energy revolving within this space was extremely simr to that of the evil spirits. Saleen calmed himself down and began to study it through observation.


    It was easy defeating the evil spirits, and even a beginner swordsman would have been able to do it. However, if a person wanted to kill them, there were only two ways. The first was to kill the ck deacon so that the spirits would gain their freedom. The second was to analyze the way in which these evil spirits were assembled and use the mostplete method to erase them from this space.


    One hundred and twenty thousand tadpole-like words appeared within the space, and Saleen was shocked. Thews within this space were extremely simple, even simpler than those of the Figaro form. Even though there were ten times the number of letters, in reality, the part he needed was only approximately three hundred words. An arrangement as orderly as this would greatly reduce the results that he would need to calcte.


    Inside of these words, Saleen found the description that was closest to the evil spirits.

 Chapter 183: The Undead Spirits (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 183: The Undead Spirits (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen carefully studied the more than three hundred symbols. He had never seen them before, but he could understand all of them objectively. This was an advantage of having studied the Figaro form. So long as they were words with order, Saleen could vaguely understand the meaning they held.


    This was enough. Saleen was not looking to create a piece of holy equipment like the Book of the Fallen. He only wanted to understand where these evil spirits came from and how to destroy them.


    Mages thought that the world wasposed of the six types of elements, and from the very beginning, each and every dimension had started at a point where there were only the six elements. These six elements hadbined to slowly form a dimension. The process was long, and the longer the evolution took, the longer the lifespan of the dimension was as well.


    These six elements were based upon ground, water, wind, and fire, and had twenty-four simple transformations.


    Hence, no matter howplicated this world was, each detail could be calcted in reverse to deduce its original appearance.


    In reality, there were twenty-four spaces in the Goddess Ne and they each represented one of the twenty-four beginnings of the Myers Maind. Once a person grasped these beginnings, in theory, a mage would be able to create a world of their own.


    Inside of Raphael¡¯s magic tower, in the cheese-like metal pir, one such world had been created.


    Saleen, of course, did not want to copy Raphael. He only wanted to understand some of the changes that had taken ce in order topletely wipe out those evil spirits.


    Saleen had not nned on learning these beginnings at this time, but now that he was stuck within the cage of the ck deacon, he had no other choice.


    The bodies of the evil spirits had still been created from the six primary elements. Hence, magic was able to hurt them. This was in line with the firstw of the Myers Maind. Saleen thought quietly as he investigated other possibilities.


    Within the Goddess Ne, his speed of calction was much faster than it was when he was outside. He was not anxious.


    As Sika waved her cudgel, the evil spirits were attacked from all directions. The ice te armor on her body had already disappeared and since Saleen had entered into his meditative state, four hours had passed.


    The evil spirits began attacking more frequently and the three of them started taking turns to rest. If the two constructed puppets had not been blocking the attack from one side, the situation would have been even worse.


    ¡°Nailisi, I need to rest another ten minutes,¡± Sika said as she put away her weapon and came before Saleen. Closing her eyes, she fell asleep almost immediately.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Nailisi nodded and took out arge number of level-1 scrolls from her bracelet. These scrolls were from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town and Saleen and Nailisi had not taken much notice of them. Levl-1 scrolls were created by grade-2 mages in order to familiarize themselves with level-1 spells and did not have much value to them.


    Hence, the materials used for level-1 scrolls were verymon and the spells inside of them could notst for more than three months. Once three months had passed, these scrolls would be useless.


    If Saleen and the others had note, these level-1 scrolls would have been sent away from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town and would have been quickly sold in the towns nearby.


    Level-1 scrolls could be released by magic disciples and their low prices were their advantage. Most mercenaries could not afford to hire mages, and sometimes, even the wealthy were not able to. An inferior level-1 scroll had a price simr to that of a grade-1 magic nucleus, and was worth less than five gold coins.


    Five gold coins was certainly not a hefty price, but it allowed a magic disciple to release a level-1 spell like the frost array.


    If it surrounded a grade-3 or below magic beast, the frost array could cause any target¡¯s speed to be irreversibly slowed and could create suitable conditions for a swordsman to deal a fatal blow.


    Nailisi was making good use of these low-grade items. She did not need to use much energy and only needed to open the scrolls one by one to defend against the attacks. She had only be able to release scrolls after maturing, and her focus was as ample as Saleen¡¯s. So long as there were enough scrolls, Nailisi could serve as a mage with incredible closebat skills.


    Daniel did not waste any time in restoring his death mes and he was no longer interested in finding out more about Nailisi, who was both able to release scrolls and was good at closebat. After over four hours of battle, his death mes had dimmed considerably and he was in dire need of replenishment from a magic nucleus.


    Nailisi¡¯s face looked incredibly devilish under the eerie glow of the purple mes, and as she opened a scroll, her sapphire eyes shot out a shimmering gold light which shined onto the scrolls and activated the magic. There was a pile of over a hundred magic scrolls by her feet, and the value of these magic scrolls was probably less than an effective level-3 scroll. Right now, the level of the abilities used was not important. The number of scrolls was more important.


    Nailisi reckoned that if she continued to battle and rest like this, she could hold out for three to five more days without much trouble. The evil spirits were too weak and were not evenparable to magic insects.


    Suddenly, Saleen opened his eyes just as Nailisi was about to open a fireball scroll. The giant fireball was shot out without any aim and it seemed that the mage who had created this scroll had not grasped the true meaning of the Fireball spell.


    The Fireball spell was essentially a level-2 spell and there was a simplified level-1 version of it. A level-1 fireball could not lock onto any targets, but it also did not fly away unsteadily like what it was doing now.


    Luckily, the enemies were everywhere and as the giant fireball exploded, it destroyed over a dozen of the evil spirits¡¯ bodies. The oing evil spirits were kicked away by Nailisi and waited to be revived.


    Saleen shook his head at this scene. If he had been the one to release that scroll, he would have realized its problem even before he had opened it and would have made adjustments to it. At the very least, it would have been able to aim at its target. Even though Nailisi was able to open scrolls, she did not know any magic and could only release them haphazardly.


    A spell that had not been learned that was released from a scroll could not be controlled, and most mages prepared scrolls with spells that they had learned. Otherwise, the offensive powers of the spell in the scroll would be greatly reduced. Hence, Saleen possessed a great number of mid-grade scrolls which he had not given to Nailisi.


    Having Nailisi learn how to control magic by opening scrolls would require much more effort than it had when Saleen had learned it. Saleen was a mage and did not need to release a scroll to feel the details of the spell inside. However, in order for Nailisi to familiarize herself with a spell, releasing scrolls on her own would be the only way.


    Nailisi released over three hundred scrolls before she managed to hold off the assault of the evil spirits.


    ¡°Nailisi, go rest. I¡¯ll take over.¡± Saleen had not interrupted her since he had been calcting the speed of the evil spirits. He was contemting which method would be the best for dealing fatal blows to them.


    ¡°Saleen, should I take over?¡± Daniel volunteered.


    ¡°I want to restrain an evil spirit but I don¡¯t want to waste too much energy. What level of magic can you use to restrain them?¡± Saleen knew that he would not be able to seed in one try and would need to experiment continuously. Hence, he needed to control the rate at which he used up his magic chords.


    ¡°I can use bone shackles, a level-1 death magic. I have always deemed it useless,¡± Daniel said in embarrassment.


    ¡°Alright, go prepare.¡± Saleen took a deep breath and looked inside of the purple mes in front of him. Many evil spirits were reviving. At least the evil spirits did not have any vision and were not under the direct control of the ck deacon. Each time they were revived, they required some time to find Saleen and the others.


    ¡°Daniel, try to restrain as many as you can!¡± Saleen said as he started preparing a spell. A green light shone from his hand as an enormous ice bomb froze upon it. This ice bomb was much bigger than a pumpkin and had a cold metallic glow to it.


    By this point, Saleen was incredibly confident that he would be able to deal a fatal blow using this level-1 spell.


    The ice bomb began to evaporate and a mist surrounded it. The enormous ball began to expand and could not be controlled as it started breaking apart. Saleen had taken longer than a second to prepare the spell, and the ice bomb with the mist surrounding it was still on his hand. If it had been any other mage, they would have thrown the dangerous object away long ago.


    The ice bomb became two, which became four, and then eight. When it finally reached sixty-four, Saleen felt that he could no longer control it and all the ice bombs were released. In midair, the mist separated and began to burn.


    The sounds of the explosions were endless as the ice bombs shattered and mes shot out everywhere. The evil spirits instantly fell to the ground, and some of them burned to ashes.


    Saleen was delighted. This experiment had gone incredibly well and had exceeded his expectations.


    Sixty-four ice bombs meant sixty-four level-1 spells. If this had been the past, they would have used up one-third of Saleen¡¯s magic chords right away.


    This time, Saleen had experimented with alignment magic. However, the alignment magic of others was incredibly monotonous and was simple only when it waspleted, not when it was used to counter other magic.


    Saleen¡¯s alignment magic had only made the magic moreplex. The ice bomb had not been simplified and had instead taken on three different forms, with Saleen having involved the technique of elemental change.


    Usually when a grade-4 mage did so, their magic chords would bepletely wiped out and they would be in a weakened state for an extended period of time. Not only did Saleen not feel weak, but he had also calcted the amount of magic chords that had been depleted.


    He had depleted the equivalent of seven and a half level-1 spells. This was to say that this attack had the power of sixty-four level-1 spells but had only used up an eighth of his magic chords.


    This technique was not provided by the Figaro form and it had been discovered while Saleen had been calcting the weak point of the evil spirits. Once the evil spirits had devoured the corpses and split into two evil spirits, they used up less energy. This was different from a mage¡¯s understanding of magic, and Saleen had cleverly discovered it.


    For something to transform into something else, the energy used could not be less than the total amount needed to transform the two objects. This wasmon knowledge in alchemy.


    However, the release of magic was not alchemy and these evil spirits were not giving birth to each other. As the evil spirits split, in addition to devouring the corpses and souls, they were sucking in energy from the ice cold mes.


    As Saleen had prepared his spell, he had absorbed the elemental energy within the surroundings. When the ice bomb had split into two, Saleen had only used up one and a half portions of his magic chords. When the ice bomb split again, he had kept the same ratio. Not until the sixth division did he feel that he could no longer control it and released the magic immediately.


    If it had continued splitting and the spell had gone out of control, not only would have Saleen been unable to save anything from those sixty-four portions of magic chords, but he would have needed to pay a simr price. Saleen¡¯s magic chords would have been wiped outpletely and would have begun taking elements from his body, cancelling out the spell. It would have been the perfect example of counter magic.

 Chapter 184: Left Hand (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 184: Left Hand (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had cleared more than half of the evil spirits at once and the remaining few had quickly located him and pounced over. Saleen retreated two steps and had Daniel take over.


    The death mage was much tougher looking than Saleen and the magic gestures that he made with both his hands were perfect. He kept silent as he recited his curses andpleted his death magic.


    Without a doubt, he was a hardworking person as well. It was just too bad that he did not possess a good magic lineage.


    Saleen observed closely this time and looked for Daniel¡¯s ws and strong points. Like him, Daniel was looking to increase the speed of his magic, but he could reach the maximum speed of a single spell, and whenbining spells, he did not have the powers of Saleen.


    Giant bone shackles appeared in thin air and came from all sides, trapping three evil spirits inside. The three evil spirits were shackled at their heads and limbs, unable to move an inch.


    This level-1 spell could only be used to control a mid-grade swordsman at best and could only be used once the swordsman was defenseless. A high-grade swordsman would be able to use his powers to break apart the shackles.


    Saleen was delighted when he saw it. This magic was quite good. In a one-on-one battle, its flexibility was not as good as that of the frost array, but on the battlefield. It could control many enemies at once and was much better than the frost array.


    If Daniel was with a warrior like Sika, he would only need to lock down their enemies for the warrior to be able to decapitate everyone.


    Daniel must be kept by my side, Saleen started to think.


    In choosing a death mage as a partner, Aini might have had strongerbat abilities, but Saleen could not be certain of Aini¡¯s temper. He had gained the approval of Aini¡¯s parents and had gone through life and death with Aini. It was possible that he was Aini¡¯s only friend as well. However, Aini was a person with ideas of his own, and once he decided upon something, Saleen could not stop him.


    Aini could not be controlled.


    Daniel was different. His parents were not in the Qin Empire and when Saleen hade here, he had at least had Sika and Nailisi. Daniel was all alone, and not only did he not have anyone, but he was being watched closely by the people of the Holy See.


    At this thought, Saleen smiled at Daniel and walked towards the evil spirits that had been restrained within the bone shackles.


    The bone shackles had been created by death mages for battle and had many uses. This was death magic that required a medium and at minimum, a death mage needed to prepare some bone powder for its use. Hence, a dispersing spell was useless against the shackles, as they could only be crushed into bits. Furthermore, if there were any pieces left afterwards, they would remain there for a certain period of time.


    Magic which was partially physical was very hard to deal with, and if one¡¯s grade was not sufficient, it would be very difficult to dispel using techniques alone. Low-grade officers on the battlefield were swordsmen at most, and these spells could be used topletely halt any charging troops. No ws existed with them.


    Saleen approached the shackles. On them were not magic patterns, but rather, streaks of blood. The shapes of the bones were uneven and each nudge caused the evil spirits to be crushed even tighter. The evil spirits started scowling, long since having forgotten anynguage they had spoken when they were alive.


    They were trapped in a hell-like space, never to die but having to suffer the eternal pain of hunger. If they came across anything to eat, they would suffer an worse fate. They would be driven by instinct to consume it, but any food they consumed would be split from them and be another evil spirit.


    They could not avoid eating, but the more they ate, the hungrier they became. This was the life these evil spirits were living.


    ¡°What did they do to suffer such a punishment?¡± Saleen said. He was only thinking aloud and did not actually expect these spirits who had lost their minds to reply to him.


    ¡°Since the ck deacon called this hell, it would be better for all of you to die than to live forever in hell¡­ that is the cruellest punishment.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he took out a small bottle filled with restorative water. This object had mutated under Saleen¡¯s magic, and yet it was unusually stable and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Besides the fact that the amount of restorative water that Saleen created was eight times greater than anyone else, there was nothing different about it.


    The restorative water in itself was a concept of unfinished magic. In other words, the process ofpleting this magic was incredibly slow and stable.


    Even for a mage who was unfamiliar with a Water Magic, so long as they sessfully created restorative water, they would be able to store it for six days. Only after six days would the spell be consideredplete and start losing its effects. Saleen was not sure himself how long his restorative water could be stored, but whenever he was free, he would create a portion of restorative water to store. A single portion from him was equivalent to eight portions from another mage.


    The clear, transparent restorative water floated in midair and Saleen recited his magic curse carefully. He could not afford to make any mistakes during this attack. A single mistake would mean that he would need to spend few more hours in this god forsaken ce.


    The restorative water gathered together and was slowly stretched thinner. The spell in Saleen¡¯s hands waspleted almost instantly and a long thick water current formed in the air,bining perfectly with the restorative water.


    Current Cutter. Level-4 Water Magic.


    Before he had learned this spell, Saleen had not thought that this spell would be sharper than the Ice de spell. It could be continuously upgraded until grade-10.


    This level-4 spell had easily killed two swordmasters in the past and Saleen had not found a better target to experiment on since then. Now, he needed to control the offensive abilities of the current cutter, insteadbining it with restorative water. He had to be careful not to kill the evil spirits.


    The clear water current simr to a water snake danced around in the air before striking the eyes of an evil spirit directly.


    The eyes of the evil spirit were hollow and ck. The clear water current seemed to have stabbed past a sheet of paper, going directly into the brain of the evil spirit. The evil spirit screamed in agony while Saleen calmly controlled the water current, sensing that sliver of feeling within the evil spirit¡¯s brain.


    This evil spirit must have had a connection to the Book of the Fallen and Saleen needed to break that contact. Without the threat from the evil spirits, the ck deacon would no longer be able to trap them. Any equipment which could trap living humans must have been at least half a god weapon. Even holy equipment could not have achieved such a thing.


    Even so, the Book of the Fallen was a holy weapon at minimum, and if the ck deacon could use such a weapon, he must have had a certain position in the tribunal. He would likely attain the position of a ck Clothed Chapel soon.


    Saleen had no intention of taking down the ck deacon by himself. He needed Lex to share this burden. She must have still been under attack by the evil spirits; this space was enclosed and the number of evil spirits around must have remained the same. So long as one was lured over, the others would follow.


    If contact was cut off with the Book of the Fallen, these evil spirits would temporarily be unable to revive. The others could then focus on finding out where the ck deacon was.


    Even if he possessed the powers of a ck Clothed Chapel, Saleen was not afraid either way. He had realized that his n badge was his best weapon. So long as his enemy was alone, he could use it without any fear. Aside from some trouble when they had encountered the tiago dragon, in all other instances, the n badge had been a life saver for Saleen.


    The brain of the evil spirit was definitely bigger than he had expected. Once the water current had pierced to the back of the evil spirit¡¯s eyes, Saleen¡¯s senses finally passed through and he found the secrets within the skull of the evil spirit.


    The inside of the skull was dotted with holy prose which was continuously in motion, providing energy for the evil spirit. No wonder all magic attacks were able to cause the heads of the evil spirits to explode. The explosions were the holy prose exploding on their own in order to prevent the evil spirit from losing contact with the Book of the Fallen.


    Saleen patiently memorized the holy prose. It was shimmering in a purple light, and there were over three hundred of them.


    Was this the ability that the God of Light had given to the ck deacon? In theory, it seemed the same as what the Myers Goddess had left behind. Saleen might not have known any divine spells, but he could still quickly analyze the connection.


    The two were describing the same concept, only in different directions. The Myers Goddess had tried to give meaning to life while the God of Light had spoken of the eternity of death.


    It was not that the Myers Goddess was incredibly easygoing. Anyone who grasped the secrets of life could just as easily take away someone¡¯s life. It was just that the God of Light¡¯s skills were far too evil. Some of them were even simr to the skills of the ck mages.


    At this thought, Saleen stiffened. If he spread this information, would the Holy See send the oracle after him to personally destroy him?


    Saleen was sure that this skill had nothing to do with death magic. The evil spirits had lost their consciousness. Their minds had not returned to nature, but rather, had been forcefully taken by others to live the lives of evil spirits with minimal skills.


    The souls that had been taken away had nothing to do with these bodies. If their souls were not destroyed, these bodies would reborn continuously within the fire, and their pain would be eternal.


    He could not let the ck deacon leave this ce no matter what. At this distraction, Saleen failed to control the current properly and the more than three hundred holy prose started swirling and adhering to the crystal-clear current.


    St!


    Saleen felt his body going numb. It had urred in such a short period of time, less than a third of a second. If Saleen had not been a mage, he would not have known what had happened.


    The holy prose and the current had rubbed against each other, causing a spark. Saleen had been using his focus to control the current and the spark had created the illusion that he had been electrocuted.


    Understanding this, Saleen grew even more agitated. He had lost control of the currentpletely and it had disyed killing intent, spiralling towards the holy prose.


    So long as the holy prose was destroyed, the evil spirits could not be revived.


    The holy prose seemed to sense the tremendous energy from the current and a good half of it exploded. It was flung outwards, into the surrounding mes, and disappeared. The clear current increased in volume and attacked the more than one hundred remaining symbols. Saw-like patterns appeared within the current and started spinning vigorously, almost like a chainsaw.


    Theyer of restorative water on the outside of the current seemed to hurt the holy prose as well. With the revolution, the remaining symbols exploded, disappearing into thin air.


    They had escaped!


    Saleen could not do anything about the holy prose that had been flung away. The over three hundred symbols acted as an entity, and unless all of them were destroyed, he could only dy the revival speed of the evil spirits at best.

 Chapter 185: Left Hand (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 185: Left Hand (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were still two other evil spirits trapped within the giant shackles and they began to snarl at Saleen. Seeing that the current cutter had not dissipated, Saleen controlled it to enter into the eyes of another evil spirit.


    This time, Saleen acted quickly. Using the memory he had of earlier on, the current quickly churned within the skull and enveloped the entirety of the holy prose. Just as he was about to dissect the holy prose, it quickly reassembled and the outeryer of holy prose exploded violently, Saleen felt a heavy blow to his head and his control started to slow down. Over a dozen symbols took the opportunity to escape.


    The evil spirit¡¯s skull exploded and ck juices sprayed all over the shackles in an incredibly disgusting disy


    Just as Saleen was considering changing his method to deal with the third evil spirit, the purple mes in the distance suddenly expanded and the temperature dropped even further. Saleen raised his head and saw a swordsman with arge figure appearing from the mes. He was decked in heavy armor and was carrying a sword de.


    A grand swordmaster!


    Saleen saw that the eyes of the swordmaster were still pitch ck. He knew that the ck deacon must have found out that he had been researching his secrets and was beginning to grow uneasy.


    Saleen had suspected from the start that even if these evil spirits were able to revive an infinite amount of times, against any professionals who were at the level of a swordmaster or above, they would be too weak. The ck deacon could not have used them to defeat everyone.


    If he and Lex persevered, with the number of scrolls they had with him,sting a month would not be a problem. It was possible that the ck deacon would not be able tost a month controlling the Book of the Fallen.


    A divine master had to eat as well and not everyone was like Lex who had arge number of daily necessities and rations with her.


    Saleen had a habit of doing this as well, but it might have been because he had been afraid of starving to death since he had been young. He would always keep some smoked meat or bread inside of his bag or demonic ring. Saleen wanted to make sure that no matter what environment he was in, he would not need to worry about food anymore.


    At the start, his reason for learning magic had been so that he would never have to worry about food ever again.


    As expected, the ck deacon was growing uneasy. He had not expected anyone to unveil the secrets within his holy weapon, and if Saleen continued, all the evil spirits would be destroyed sooner orter. Hence, he had no choice but to release the second form of the evil spirits.


    The second form of the evil spirits possessed powers that were simr to the ones they had possessed before they had died. This swordmaster had once been a bronze grand swordmaster with incredible battle techniques. Even though he had lost his vision, his senses had be more heightened and were simr to those of a mage of the same grade.


    In most situations, a mage could still fight without his vision. This swordmaster had such high focus that with the help of the purple mes, his senses had increased by more than ten times.


    Saleen saw the grand swordmaster walking over and said softly, ¡°Nailisi, take him out quickly. When this one dies, it will not revive that easily. Otherwise, the ck deacon would have used them to surround us and would not have gone through all that trouble.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Nailisi walked towards the grand swordmaster. At the same time, the eyes of a fully constructed puppet turned red and activated as it followed behind her.


    ¡°That¡¯s a fully constructed puppet! It¡­ it¡¯s perfect.¡± Daniel had only realized now that the structure of the metal giant was not themon puppet magic that he was used to.


    Saleen had not heard what Daniel had said. He knew that their troubles were just beginning. If the ck deacon decided to surround them at the expense of all of his evil spirits, with more than eight hundred evil spirits at this grade, they were dead for sure.


    At this thought, Saleen looked at thest evil spirit in the shackles. It had begun to struggle and the parts that were locking down its limbs had started to shatter. Saleen raised his left hand and took in a deep breath. A dim green water ball appeared in his left hand, and since he had advanced, the two strange-looking water shields hadpletely changed their appearances. They no longer looked like water bubbles, but instead werepletely liquid.


    With a booming noise, the two water shields urately struck the face of the evil spirit before adhering to it and enveloping its entire skull.


    Kaboom¡­


    The evil spirit¡¯s spine broke, and the skull which was covered by the water shields fell to the ground before bouncing back up.


    Saleen extended his hand and the water shields flew back to him as he hesitantly looked at the evil spirit¡¯s skull. Nailisi had already charged forward with the fully constructed puppet. Its axe was almost as long as a sword de, but was much heavier. The sword de of the grand swordmasternded squarely on the fully constructed puppet¡¯s chest. Had he been a living human, he would not have been this dumb.


    The fully constructed puppet did not care about the grand swordmaster¡¯s attack at all. It swung its axe and smashed it directly into the chest of the grand swordmaster.


    The sword de had been stabbed in at least half a foot. The swordmaster had likely been incredibly powerful when he was still alive. If he had not been facing a puppet made entirely of metal, this stab would have been enough to break any shield from a low-grade mage. Even a grade-4 magecking ice te armor would have been killed within seconds.


    The fully constructed puppet¡¯s axe pierced directly into the swordmaster¡¯s chest, and with a push, his entire chest came copsing down, having been cut into two halves by the axe. Nailisi jumped up and grabbed the swordmaster by its head, giving it a tug, and the entire head together with the metal helmet came off. She was afraid that it was still not dead and with a press, ck juices spilled out from the gaps within the helmet. The entire head had been crushed by her.


    The grand swordmaster¡¯s hands were still pushing forward and he had lost his bnce by then. With a st, the entire head of the sword de broke. The fully constructed puppet took a step forward, and bringing its axe down, chopped the body of the swordmaster into pieces.


    Seeing this, Saleen did not feel relieved at all. The grand swordmaster was too powerful and a single strike to the fully constructed puppet had nearly broken its outer shell. Moreover, it could still battle even though its body was chopped into two halves. Things like this posed a serious threat to mages.


    Saleen had always been curious about his left hand but he had no time to contemte it now. Even if this had something to do with the Myers Goddess, he could only brace himself for the time being. He picked up the head of the evil spirit which was enveloped in the water shield and shoved his left hand inside.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand passed through the skull and grabbed onto the holy prose. The holy prose could not fight back under Saleen¡¯s left hand and lost the energy that it had exhibited before.


    Saleen could clearly sense the life energy within his left hand. It was so overwhelming that he did not dare ept it. If a person wanted something, they needed to pay something of a simr price. Saleen was afraid that this was a trap by the gods, but if he did not find a way to deal with the evil spirits quickly right now, hundreds of swordmaster-like evil spirits would hack all of them into pieces.


    A person about to die of thirst would not care if the alcohol was poisoned.


    With a swooshing sound, a purple chill shed past the mes and went towards Saleen¡¯s throat. If it had not been for the fact that this weapon had been moving too quickly and the sound could not be masked, Saleen would not have realized that he had been ambushed.


    From his left hand, the second water shield emerged. Sika threw her boomerang at the same time and knocked the oing weapon onto the ground.


    Assassins!


    The ck deacon had restored the abilities of the evil spirits. Saleen was able to kill the evil spirits, but if the first form was used, the ck deacon would be in big trouble.


    ¡°Mage, no matter how strong you are, you are but a grade-4 mage. Do you really think you are a match for my hunters of hell?¡± The ck deacon¡¯s voice resounded again and Saleen keenly located him.


    No wonder the ck deacon had been unwilling to attack in this manner. Doing so would expose him.


    Saleen saw that the purple mes between him and the ck deacon had evil spirits reviving continuously within them. This time, they were no longer crawling on the ground but were all standing upright. All of them were holding onto weapons they had been skilled at when they were still alive, and among them were three mages.


    ¡°Lex, it¡¯s up to you,¡± Saleen shouted. If he could find the ck deacon¡¯s location, so could Lex. Lex had nine fully constructed puppets with her and they would be enough to withstand the attacks from the swordsmen. With her abilities, she could defeat the ck deacon as well. As for himself¡­


    Nailisi retreated. Sika stood nervously beside Saleen. The assassin earlier had only thrown a dagger before disappearing into thin air.


    Daniel could not be bothered with the injuries of the winged skeleton anymore and he released it from his death mes, having it fly about in the air.


    Saleen¡¯s hand trembled and the skull within the water shield fell to the ground. The two clear water spheres returned to Saleen¡¯s side, ready to defend against any further attacks from the assassin. At the same time, he activated his fully constructed puppet. He no longer needed to save his magic nuclei. This battle would be hisst. If they lost here, there would be no point to holding on to any magic nuclei.


    ¡°Daniel, don¡¯t be nervous. Even if we die, I won¡¯t let the Holy See get anything.¡±


    Danielughed. He was not afraid of dying, but rather, he was a little regretful. If he had known this day wasing, he would have researched some recipes for poisonous magic and thrown it into any church in order to get some money back. Now, he had lost his family and had not earned anything. He was not content with dying in this ce.


    ¡°Mages, before you all die, could you tell me your names?¡± The ck deacon hade to terms with the situation. Now that his men had died, he could not shun his responsibilities. If he saved his evil spirits and was not able to capture a few of them to bring back, even the grand cardinal would not be able to save him.


    Saleen looked at his clean white left hand and sputtered, not answering the ck deacon¡¯s question.


    A mage¡¯s beliefs were even purer than those of a holy master. Despite things having reached this stage, the ck deacon was still thinking of shaking his soul. He was starting to lose ground and was no longer confident of winning this fight.


    Although Saleen had no idea where Lex was, he knew that so long as she managed to find the ck deacon, there would only be one oue: The ck deacon would be tortured by Lex until he died. Lex still had a level-7 scroll with her, and if even that could not kill a deacon, her title as a grade-6 mage would be an utter joke.

 Chapter 186: Sika, Sika! (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 186: Sika, Sika! (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Asking an opponent for their surname before a duel to the death was a customary practice. However, Saleen pursed his lips tightly, refusing to reveal his name. He simply could not be bothered to exchange pleasantries with the ck deacon. Out of nowhere, Lex¡¯s voice could be heard. ¡°My surname is Grukos. I don¡¯t care who you are or where youe from. I have killed and will kill many people like you. I bet I could even do it in my sleep.¡±


    What is she doing? Saleen thought. The ck deacon roared with anger. Suddenly, Saleen realized the rationale behind Lex¡¯s odd behavior earlier. She only knew the general location of the ck deacon, but could not urate pinpoint where he was. By throwing her surname out there, she had unnerved the ck deacon enough to distract him from hiding himself properly. Amazing. Only people like Lex could do this so effortlessly just by revealing their surnames, Saleen thought.


    As a descendant of the Grukos family, Lex knew the people of the Holy See like the palm of her hand. She had very reliable sources of information. She knew everything from their general appearances to their organization, as well as its members.


    Unless they were unimportant figures, no one from the Holy See would not at least flinch at the mention of the Grukos. This was especially true now, since the cards were in the ck deacon¡¯s hands.


    Hundreds of evil spirits, each with the ranking equivalent to that of a swordsman, had surrounded the group of four. Once these evil spirits finished them off, Lex would be the ck deacon¡¯s most valuable trophy.


    In a fit of rage, the ck deacon had forgotten to hide his aura properly. Lex, upon discovering his location, braved the searing pain in her ribs and levitated. The Book of the Fallen was not something that the ck deacon himself had refined. He could not exercise full control over it without the right environment. Unless he was promoted to the rank of a bishop, he would not be able to harness the full power of the holy equipment. Unfortunately for him, Lex had found his location almost instantaneously.


    Seeing that Lex¡¯s trick worked, Saleen let out a sigh of relief. Typically, a fight between a grade-6 mage and a holy master would not drag on for too long. In this case, as long as Saleen could fend the evil spirits off until Lex ughtered the ck deacon, he would be fine. This was turning out to be a very realistic aim.


    The evil spirits had recovered most of their fighting power, but their intelligence still left much to be desired. It was almost as if they were not gaining any intelligence. Most of them were still waiting for the right moment to attack, although when they did, they did not do it together. If they had done the exact opposite with the intensity only disyed by the swordmasters from Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, Saleen knew he would have been dead in a matter of minutes.


    ¡°Let me do the honors,¡± Daniel said bravely. He knew that within the people in the group, he was the weakest member. The winged skeleton had the power equivalent to that of a grade-6 creature. Yet, he was just an insignificant grade-3 necromancer. The death mes could only assist the winged skeleton in battle for about ten minutes before they ran out of energy. If he did not get sufficient rest, he would use up the death mes and it would be impossible to get them burning again.


    Saleen did not stop Daniel. Instead, he patiently hid behind the fully constructed puppets, and carefully observed the evil spirits¡¯ second form.


    Appearance wise, the evil spirits had definitely gotten a lot more muscr. However, all Saleen could focus on was the mes that were glowing from underneath their skin. This could only mean one thing ¨C they had directly absorbed the powers of the frigid purple mes, temporarily restoring their original forms. However, Saleen was unsure of whether their souls had remained ripped out of them.


    The winged skeleton leapt into the air, its hands suddenly morphing to form bone spears. With a swoosh, it threw the bone spears from the sky and sessfully pinned an evil spirit onto the ground. It did not stop there. After that attack, the winged skeleton hovered above the remaining evil spirits tauntingly whileunching its next bone spear attack without any further hesitation.


    The first time its target had been struck through a sneak attack, and the target had been a slightly weaker evil spirit. The winged skeleton had excellent battle wit even though it was very different from Nailisi, who had some semnce to the human race. If their species could evolve, it would have been speaking simplenguages by now.


    Although Daniel was a very unlucky fellow, he had managed to get his hands on an extremely rare item: highly advanced death mes. He had also been able to secure a winged skeleton which could potentially evolve. These were objects that simply could not be bought in Alchemy City.


    The evil spirits were angry and out for blood. A group of evil spirits, decked in armor and other swordmaster gear, leapt into the air towards the winged skeleton that was waiting for them. They had jumped over thirty meters high, a height that was taller than most buildings.


    These creatures! They must be on the same level as bronze grand swordmasters! Saleen thought as he gulped. Swordmasters who had the ability to leap that high were very likely to have sword auras that could leave their bodies andunch attacks on their opponents.


    Boom! Boom! Boom! That was the only sound Nailisi could hear as the winged skeleton was about to be hacked into bits. At this point, she could no longer afford to wait for the right moment to strike. She mobilized the fully constructed puppet to charge towards the evil spirits. The fully constructed puppet elerated as its feet extinguished the purple me beneath it almost immediately, exposing the soil that was hidden underneath.


    The worst thing anyone could do was underestimate the power of the fully constructed puppets. Although they looked harmless with their three meter tall frames, they weighed tens of thousands of kilograms. A person only needed to imagine a truck barrelling towards them at lightning speed. That was how destructive their attacks could be. Nailisi knew that and was about to put it to good use. Shemanded the fully constructed puppet to ram into the evil spirits.


    The sound of colliding metal was extremely piercing. Deafening, in fact. The fully constructed puppet did not seem to care for using the axe in its hands to attack its opponents. It cared more about using its strong, durable body to violently stomp through the group of evil spirits.


    Dozens of weapons pierced through the body of the fully constructed puppet, but none of them badly damaged its vital parts. It was running too fast. Evil spirits from the side were unable to gather energy in time to attack it.


    Nailisi followed suit, keeping perfect pace with it without showing any signs of slowing it down. Meanwhile, the winged skeleton had lost its wings. Part of its wings had passed over a bronze grand swordmaster¡¯s face and were hurtling towards the ground.


    With a stretch of her hand, Nailisi effortlessly caught the ends of the winged skeleton¡¯s severed wings before turning around to run. She knew that even if the winged skeleton were to do a fantastic job in repairing its wings, it would be defenseless for a few days. Nailisi¡¯s curiosity about the winged skeleton had peaked. She had a faint impression of the death dimension. Had my parents been there before? Is that why I have this familiar feeling? Nailisi thought to herself.


    Her curiosity was not the most important thing right now. Saleen was now face to face with an expanding purple me. A long, slender palm had shot out from within the burning mes towards Saleen¡¯s calf. It was not attacking him with just its fingers though. Clutched between them was a needle that shone menacingly.


    Saleen, whose senses had been hampered, could not see the needleing. On his right was Sika; on his left was Daniel; behind his back were the fully constructed puppets. A person would have thought that he would be able to see the assassin who was hiding right in front of him, seeing that his attention was only concentrated on that area.


    Sika instinctively bellowed, ¡°Shatter!¡±


    A dark shadow suddenly flew out from the bone ne hanging from her neck and formed the shape of a totem. That totem chased after the hand that was about to pierce Saleen¡¯s skin like a missile. After that, Saleen cast her boomerang out towards the assassin.


    With a ¡°ping¡± sound, that needle shattered into several fragments. Within the blink of an eye, the bones of the assassin¡¯s hand had broken as well. Saleen felt chills run down his spine as cold sweat started dripping from his forehead. That had been too close forfort. From the attack, Saleen could tell that the assassin was highly skilled. His ability to hide his aura rivalled that of Lex¡¯s personnel, Bain.


    If the assassin was in great pain, he did not show it. Instead, he used his other good hand to take out another weapon ¨C a gun. That firearm was very small. In fact, the gun could have been sandwiched between Saleen and the assassin and they would have still had room to spare.


    To put it into perspective, the distance between Saleen and the assassin was only three steps. In such a short distance, Saleen knew that the assassin¡¯s speed would match up to that of the magic spells he couldunch.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±


    ¡°Sika!¡±


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    A cacophony of voices rang in the air as the members of the group shouted at one another, hoping that the others were alright.


    Keeping a neutral expression, Daniel released a Bone Shackle spell in an attempt to take down another assassin that had suddenly appeared behind Sika¡¯s back. He had done it even if he knew that he was just wasting his energy. His attempt at stopping the assassin would be futile as the powers of the assassins they were up against were at least grade-6.


    Assassins attacking one after another, especially when the second oneunched a surprise attack, was one of the mostmon ways to defeat a mage. However, the fact that two grade-6 assassins were needed in order to kill a grade-4 mage was fairly unheard of.


    Grade-4 mages like Saleen had very keen senses. The more assassins they were, the more heartbeats he could hear, and the greater the risk that the assassins would be discovered.


    The only thingplicating this was the fact that the two assassins were evil spirits. They had no heartbeats, nor did they breathe. The only way they survived was by hiding their essences within the purple mes. Sika¡¯s attack had only been sessful in crushing one of her opponent¡¯s hands. The other assassin had leapt towards Sika from behind, his hands brandishing a long scimitar.


    Not caring about the boomerang that was approaching him from behind, the assassin who had the firearm in his good hand charged towards Saleen. Sika, who was not too bothered about the scimitar that was about to stab her from behind, attempted to pursue the assassin in front of her. Right now, the person who was in shock was actually Nailisi. She could not believe how much danger Saleen was in. All she had done was leave Saleen alone for less than a minute.


    Shots fired by a grade-6 assassin, especially within a three-step point-nk range, were attacks that Saleen would be unable to defend himself from in time.


    With a slicing sound, the assassin¡¯s scimitar scrapped against Sika¡¯s back, effectively slicing apart the armor that Saleen had custom-made for her. Sika, struggling to stand, threw the wooden club that she had in her hand in ast-ditch effort to protect herself from any further injuries.


    Saleen felt his mind go nk as he witnessed Sika fall onto the floor in agonisingly slow motion. He nced at her wounds and winced. Her entire back had a sh mark almost two feet long. It was so deep that the bone was visible. Instinctively, he released a spell called Mutating Wind.


    Ayer of fog started emanating from Saleen¡¯s body. He did not attempt to dodge the gun. In fact, he rushed towards it. The evil spirits were creatures with no emotion. Thus, they were not affected by Saleen¡¯s odd behavior at all. The gun was making its way towards Saleen¡¯s abdomen¡­


    No, the assassin was not about to utilize his bullets. As soon as the weapon was close enough to Saleen, he would flick his wrist and the spear hidden within the gun would reveal itself. By the time Saleen realized this, it would be toote for him, and the spear would already have plunged deep into his heart. Stabbing someone¡¯s lower abdomen would not kill them. However, as soon as the heart ruptured, even grade-9 mages would not be able to save Saleen.


    Saleen, too distraught for words, leapt towards the gun. Only one thought was shing frenziedly throughout his mind ¨C save Sika.


    No sooner had the wooden club thrown by Sika made contact with the assassin¡¯s back than the crunching sound of bone breaking could be heard from afar. Her attack had expended her remaining energy. Falling onto the floor, she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. The scimitar that the other assassin had used against her did not contain poison, but it was a serrated knife. These types of knives, after making contact with skin, would immediately draw a never-ending flow of blood.


    It was the first time that Saleen had seen such a fearsome assassin. He knew that with Sika¡¯s throwing ability, even the strongest magical beasts would have been rolling on the floor in pain after the wooden club struck them. However, the assassin that had been struck could still find the energy in him to continue charging towards Saleen.


    Saleen had momentarily lost his agility from the earlier attack. All he had now was his speed.


    The fog that wasing from Saleen¡¯s body was already one foot thick. However, the assassin was easily able to slice through the fog using the gun-and-dagger device, and stabbed the weapon into Saleen¡¯s ice te armor.


    A deep crack appeared on the armor almost immediately. Saleen¡¯s body, with some momentum from the fog,unched up into the air. The assassin, whose arms were tired by now, could only watch as the tip of the gun which contained the de slipped down from the ice te armor. Saleen saw red. His left hand immediately reached out towards the assassin¡¯s face.


    Although he was a mage, Saleen realized that he would not be able to finish off his opponent with just one spell as the distance between them was too small. Technically, since his opponent was an evil spirit, he would likely would not care about life and death.


    ¡°Now you¡¯ll see what actual hell feels like,¡± Saleen roared as his left hand, glowing a brilliant green, silently punched through the assassin¡¯s face.


    Seeing that hispanion was in grave danger, the second assassin, the one who had the scimitar, immediately came to his aid. Upon seeing that there were remnants of Sika¡¯s flesh on the tip of the scimitar, Saleen felt an anger that he had never felt before consume him. His azure blue eyes shed a menacing red.


    ¡°Sika!¡± Saleen screamed at the top of his lungs, hoping that his loud volume would somehow startle his injuredrade into consciousness. He pulled his left gand back from the assassin¡¯s face and charged towards the second assassin that was brandishing the scimitar.

 Chapter 187: Sika, Sika! (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 187: Sika, Sika! (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi watched helplessly as Saleen pounced on the assassin holding a scimitar.


    Meanwhile, Saleen was calm. The serrated de of the scimitar shone menacingly against the light. Orbs of power still shone brightly in Saleen¡¯s left hand. The assassin held the scimitar firmly in his grip and started swinging it wildly in Saleen¡¯s direction. It was clear by now that his target was Saleen. Even though he had lost his sense of awareness, the assassin was still able to instinctively devise a n to trick his opponent.


    How important was Sika to Saleen? That was a question Saleen himself could not answer. What he did know was that even if he was reduced to a most deste state and only had powers equivalent to a grade-1 mage, Sika would never forsake him. Even if he only gave her one meal a day, she would be more than satisfied. He knew that the assassin had set a trap for him. However, because instantaneous spells could not help him this time, he could only jump into the trap in hopes that the assassin would be distracted enough to shift his focus away from Sika.


    A water shield the size of two human heads immediately formed to defend the spellcaster from the scimitar attack. No sooner had the scimitare into contact with the shield did the shield shatter. Even a grade-4 Elemental Variation spell could not have withstood the forceful impact of the grade-6 assassin¡¯s attack. The curvature of the knife, although having only made contact with the water shield for less than a second, looked as if it was ready to draw blood anytime it touched Saleen¡¯s flesh.


    The death mes behind Daniel continued burning violently, making crackling sounds as they did so. Daniel was in pain. He was wincing and scrunching his face in distress as the fire continued to burn away at his clothes from behind. Unfortunately for him, the fire was also turning his muscles into charcoal. Suddenly, the death mes took on the shape of a green rifle and started aiming for Saleen¡¯s back.


    Saleen bent over to dodge the attack, which he was able to do, but just barely. The green rifle whizzed past Saleen¡¯s back and mmed into the assassin¡¯s face. Hard.


    The other assassin holding the scimitar started to bring his weapon down towards Saleen¡¯s chest repeatedly. The scimitar seemed to have a mind of its own. Even when the assassin had lost all control, the de still aimed directly at the center of Saleen¡¯s chest.


    With the first swing, the ice te armor split from the blunt force of the scimitar. With the second swing, the grey robe that Saleen wore was sliced away as well. With the third swing ¨C ding! This time, however, the scimitar had made contact with a very hard object.


    It was Saleen¡¯s family badge that had managed to block the assassin¡¯s unusually strong scimitar.


    In such a short amount of time, Saleen had been unable to figure out how the assassin¡¯s sword aura worked. All he could do now was prevent himself from being repeatedly knifed in the chest. After many swings of the scimitar, Saleen had been able to conclude that the attack route taken by the de of the weapon was not going to change significantly even if the battle dragged on for a bit.


    The scimitar was far too powerful. As soon as it had clubbed the badge, Saleen felt like he had been struck by a fully constructed puppet using a war hammer. His demon suit had managed to diffuse the intensity of the attack, but he still felt his sternum crack.


    The impact of the de had caused Saleen to bounce upwards. However, he did not just let himself fly through the air. He stretched out his left hand and reached into the assassin¡¯s burning face before pinching the more than three hundred holy prose that were present in the assassin¡¯s brain.


    Both Saleen¡¯s and the assassin¡¯s attacks caused them to fall onto the ground at the same time.


    Saleen grimaced in pain, feeling as if his bones had broken apart. As Daniel witnessed the scene unfold before him, he became pale in shock. He had managed to fend off his enemies with the help of Saleen. Now, Saleen seemed to be too severely injured to help him defeat the evil spirits. He was all alone.


    Although the death mes had struck with everything they had, all they had done was cause a minor inconvenience to the assassins. The gap between their ranks would mean that his attacks spells were almost useless against the assassins.


    Saleen and Sikay sprawled face down on the floor about one meter away from each other. Even with such a short distance, Saleen¡¯s hands were unable to reach out to check her wounds. He could only turn his face to look at Sika and watch helplessly as Sika bled profusely, soaking her leather armor in the process.


    ¡°Sika, Sika!¡± Saleen roared, not caring that by shouting loudly, he had aggravated his injuries. All he had on his mind right now was Sika¡¯s well-being. Or rather, theck thereof. He stared helplessly at Sika, the sweat beading on his forehead and dribbling down into his eyes.


    As Sika¡¯s body twitched, Saleen heard her faintly call his name. Tears started pouring out of Saleen¡¯s eyes as soon as he realized that Sika was alive.


    Bang!


    The sound of Saleen¡¯s fully constructed puppet being hit in the head by an evil spirit rang clearly in the air. Almost immediately, it started falling towards the ground. Distracted, Saleen shifted his focus towards regaining control of the puppet again. The fully constructed puppet threw an axe in the direction of the evil spirit who was holding onto a il, sending him flying backwards. The fully constructed puppet slowly got up and rewound the iron chain before gripping the axe once again in its hands.


    Saleen tried moving his feet. Nothing. Then his arms. Nothing. He tried his midsection. Nothing. His whole body felt numb and heavy. The only thing he could control was the puppet.


    Daniel took out a grey scroll and walked hurriedly over to Saleen¡¯s side before releasing the magic contained within it. The money spent on that scroll would have allowed him to purchase another set of death mes. There were too few scrolls in existence that necromancers could use. Literally none of them could be found in stores. As expected, the powers of a necromancer¡¯s scroll were the greatest out of all magic scrolls. Any scroll that had been created by a necromancer was an invaluable object.


    The difference between a scroll made by an elemental mage and a necromancer was that thetter used death mes while writing magic scrolls while the former did not. Therefore, the magic released from the scroll would not only include the power of the necromancer themselves, but the death mes which had been stored inside the scroll.


    Crackle, crackle, crackle¡­


    The sounds of the purple mes on the ground being dispersed filled the air. Huge bones started emerging from the ground before converging into one, effectively surrounding Saleen and the others. The bones had formed a squarish wall, with dozens of ferocious jagged skulls moving inside and outside the bone walls, each of them spitting out ck mist.


    They were constructing a bone cage! Saleen thought in rm.


    Looking up, Saleen saw dozens of ginormous skulls hovering above them threateningly.


    Daniel dispersed the death mes and shielded Sika and Saleen with a green me instead. The skulls that were spitting ck mist were unable to get any closer to the trio. s, the three of them were still stuck in the bone cage.


    Was this the best idea that Daniel could think of? At the moment, yes. The bone cage was too difficult for him to destroy on his own. Even with Saleen¡¯s help, it was possible that they would not be able to make it out. He could only dy the onset of attacks of their enemies in the hopes that Saleen would somehow regain enough strength to help him. After all, he was just a grade-3 mage. Asking him to defeat all of the evil spirits on his own would be a pretty tall order.


    He could not see what was happening outside the bone wall. The only thing he could do was have the death mes stop the bleeding from Sika¡¯s wounds.


    ¡°Saleen, can you still move?¡± Daniel said as he forced himself topletely rx. Inside the bone cage, he at least had the opportunity tomit suicide and avoid capture by the people of the Holy See. Once a necromancer like him died, he would be teleported back to the death dimension via the death mes. If that happened, even the people from the Holy See would be unable to do anything about it.


    However, that was ast resort. Nobody knew what happened after a person ended up in the death dimension. Not even necromancers themselves knew.


    ¡°Still alive,¡± Saleen wheezed. Using his still mobile left hand, he retrieved the jade vase from his demonic ring and held it tightly.


    ¡°Get Sika¡­¡­ to drink this¡­¡± he gasped.


    Understanding Saleen¡¯s words, Daniel immediately picked up the jade bottle. He opened it and gave it a sniff before carefully pouring out a drop and tasting it. No, he was not about to sabotage Sika¡¯s chances of survival. He was just afraid that Saleen had given him the wrong thing in his delirious state. Mages, after being afflicted with severe injuries, were unable to think and process things clearly. Taking out the wrong magical objects was just one of the many things they could potentially do. Sometimes, they could even cast the wrong spells.


    Seeing that the magic liquid was not harmful, Daniel took out a stoneware bottle and poured two drops of the magic liquid into it. After diluting it, he poured the solution onto the deep wound on Sika¡¯s back.


    Almost instantly, Sika stopped convulsing. Daniel carefully raised Sika¡¯s head and poured the remaining contents down her throat.


    Sika¡¯s current injuries would be best treated with divine healing. The magic liquid could y a huge role in curing that injury. However, to cure itpletely, the amount of magic liquid needed would be far more than the two drops he had administered.


    The bone cage had cut off all contact with the outside world. Saleen was no longer able to control his fully constructed puppet. The puppet was very powerful. In fact, it could actually fight on its own without needing Saleen to control it. However, that would require the activation of the magic nuclei. Without Saleen¡¯smands, the fully constructed puppet simply stood outside the bone wall like a block of wood, its red eyes slowly turning back to ck and indicating that it was deactivating.


    Nailisi rushed over hurriedly. Fortunately, she did not lose contact with Saleen and had sensed his life force, signifying to her that Saleen was still alive.


    She felt a little sad. Her owner had risked his life just to preserve Sika¡¯s. If she had been the one injured, her owner would have certainly given up on her by now.


    At full speed, an evil spirit charged towards Nailisi, bringing his gleaming sword down towards her back. Before the weapon could even reach the level of her shoulders, Nailisi¡¯s tail sprang out and wrapped itself tightly around both of the evil spirit¡¯s hands. With a firm tug, her tail lifted the evil spirit up and suspended him in front of her.


    As she looked into the pitch-ck eyes of the evil spirit in front of her, she was suddenly ovee with a sense of rage.


    I¡¯m an imp! I¡¯m not like you and I never will be you! Nailisi thought furiously as she bit down furiously on the evil spirit¡¯s head.


    The fully constructed puppet, which was carrying a halberd, had many wounds inflicted upon it by its assants. Even in its pitiful state, it was still able to carry the barely conscious winged skeleton. The winged skeleton had lost its wings after defeating a few evil spirits on his own. If not for Nailisi, the winged skeleton would not have made it. Although the winged skeleton could move on its own, it had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of evil spirits it had needed to face earlier, three of which were mages.


    After doing a detailed scan of the bone cage, Nailisi concluded that the trap had no weak points. Furthermore, even if they had wanted to explore its potential weak points, they were prevented from doing so. The ck mist that was emanating from the top of the walls was very corrosive. Even evil spirits who were unlucky enough to draw close to it had their faces burnt off.


    As what seemed like hundreds of Ahrimans closed in on the gang, Nailisi turned around and faced her back towards the bone cage. With a ¡°pop¡± sound, another head appeared on Nailisi¡¯s shoulders. At the same time, her body started to elongate. She was showing her true form.


    Although her human form did not diminish any of her abilities in terms of strength and speed, her demon form was more suited for battle. Her tail swung to and fro wildly and all four of her limbs were in contact with the ground. The most chilling part of her transformation was likely her eyes. The edges of her azure green eyes glowed a bright gold.


    In the meantime, the fully constructed puppet, which had used up the energy from its magic nuclei after ughtering too many evil spirits, began to power down as the red orbs in its eyes began to dim. The other fully constructed puppet, the one not holding a halberd, however, had been activated. Holding its axe, the puppet charged towards the evil spirits.


    Now, you might be wondering how that fully constructed puppet had managed to move, given that Saleen no longer had any control over his ¡°pets¡±. The answer was simple. Nailisi. She had sessfully rebooted the puppet. Seeing that she had aplished her goal, Nailisi¡¯s lips curled up slightly into a small smile beforeughing, her expression looking a lot like Saleen¡¯s in that moment.


    Hmph! Whatever Master Saleen can control, I can too! Nailisi thought haughtily to herself.


    The soul bond was not just a contract with restrictions. In fact, Nailisi was not really clear about the nitty-gritty portions of the concept at all. Naturally, she would have no idea of the fascinating aspects of the soul bond. All she knew was that whatever skills Saleen possessed ¨C keen senses; mental strength; soul variation frequencies, etc. ¨C would be hers to keep as well.


    Defeating the evil spirits was not a very difficult job. They never operated in sync, had no clear battle strategies, and were unwilling to work together. Unless they had beenrades in their previous lives, theirck of cooperation tended to be the norm in the realm of evil spirits. If not for the fact that the fully constructed puppet¡¯s agility waspromised because of its overly bulky structure, it would not have had a hard time trying to dodge their attacks.


    Upon sensing Nailisi¡¯s presence, Saleen calmed down slightly. He knew that he could count on Nailisi to dy whatever the bone cage had in store for them. Lex had already found the ck deacon and would be able to save them soon.


    Each time a battle concluded, Saleen would reflect on either his actions in battle or his next move. This time, he was questioning himself. Had he been too reckless this time? If the assassin had been a human, that knife would have missed him. If he had not had his family badge, his demon suit might not have been able to withstand the impact of the de¡­


    As many what-if scenarios shed through his brain, Saleen mentally pped himself. You shouldn¡¯t even be thinking about this! You did it to save Sika! You had no choice! Saleen scolded himself.


    Like Saleen, many people would have to sacrifice something in order to save another. It was not a matter of choice, because there was not any to begin with.


    Adjusting his breathing, Saleen began inspecting his injuries.

 Chapter 188: Goddess’ Redemption (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 188: Goddess¡¯ Redemption (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s wounds were not looking so good. Unfortunately, he would have no control over the powers that the demon suit possessed until he was promoted to a sorcerer. Hence, his outfit could not fight for him. The badge had managed to prevent Saleen from being stabbed directly in the chest, but it had been unable to mitigate the blunt impact of the attack. On a more positive note, the demon suit had managed to disperse the force of the assant¡¯s attack, protecting Saleen from potentially adding a crushed chest to his list of injuries. Saleen knew that the strength of the assassin far surpassed that of Sika.


    Daniel, having been pushed far beyond his physical limits a long time ago, was extremely exhausted. All he wanted to do was rest. His death mes were expending his energy at such an unprecedented rate that he needed to utilize magic nuclei in order to recharge the mes.


    Saleen was able to speak normally by now. He was able to take pain better than most people. Hence, the agony that he suffered disappeared in the blink of an eye. Sure, the impact of the de making contact with his body had made Saleen felt as if his bones had been snapped over a million times. However, he had gotten over it. His chest wound had receded down to bearable levels of pain.


    This degree of pain was nothingpared to the amount of pain he could have received had he not put on his family badge. However, he did not experience any mental effects of the pain. In fact, the pain was mostly physical. That would exin why Saleen had been unable to control his body for a brief moment, and that had scared him, putting him on high alert.


    Saleen had always thought that even if he sustained extremely devastating injuries, he would still be able to cast his spells without any trouble. After all, the mind was the most important thing of all, right? Now he knew better than to view mental strength and physical prowess as two separate entities. After all, what was a mind without a body? Wearing out thetter would mean that the mind would not be able to function at its full potential.


    The assassin must have done something to his weapon. Saleen had gotten a lot stronger thanks to Master Joey. His bone density rivalled that of the most powerful magic beasts. There was no way a simple attack like that could have nearly snapped all of the bones in his body.


    After stretching and rotating his neck, Saleen concluded that his neck bones were intact before releasing an Chunlin spell.


    Daniel was scared out of his wits. He had sensed a strong magical presence lurking in the vicinity of the death mes, which meant that the magic could likely bypass his magic and get to him. Preparing to defend himself, he turned around, only to see Saleen casting a spell instead of some other vicious opponent. Daniel heaved a sigh of relief before stuttering, ¡°Don¡¯t¡­ don¡¯t scare me!¡±


    Saleen stared at him expressionlessly before continuing his spell. The moisture gathered from the air converged to form a green mist which entered Sika¡¯s body. Saleen spoke to Daniel as calmly as he could, ¡°How long can your defense magicst?¡±


    Daniel did not bother telling Saleen that the bone cage he had consructed was a form of control magic and not defense magic. Instead, he sat on the floor and replied glumly, ¡°It¡¯llst. I don¡¯t know exactly how long, but it¡¯llst. If there¡¯s nothing attacking my magic, it should disappear after one to two hours?¡±


    ¡°So long?¡± Saleen gasped, not believing his ears.


    ¡°It¡¯s just an estimation, don¡¯t take it too seriously,¡± Daniel said curtly, not willing to argue with Saleen. Saleen was able to cast spells without damaging his death mes. This meant that Saleen was not only a more powerful mage than he was, but he was also much better at controlling his strength. In the mage world, that was important. Sure, intelligence would get a person far, but capabilities were what made a mage.


    ¡°In that case, one to two hours is more than enough. Don¡¯t worry. Lex will kill the ck deacon,¡± Saleen said, trying to reassure the nervous male in front of him.


    Daniel forced a smile. He did not want to tell Saleen that even if the ck deacon was no match for Lex, he still had arge army of evil spirits. Lex would have lost before things even started. There was just too many of them for even a powerful mage like Lex to handle.


    Bang!


    A loud crashing sound outside the bone cage rang the air. The evil spirit that had managed to get past Nailisi had rammed himself against the bone cage. He carried a squarish shield to protect himself against the ck mist. No sooner had the shield made contact with the ck mist was it corroded to the point where patterns of rust started appearing on it. The shield, after making violent contact with the wall, shattered. The walls of the bone cage remained intact, angering the evil spirit. He used the hatchet he had in his right hand and brought it down hard against the walls, chipping off a small part of it.


    Daniel was right when he had said that defensive magic would not help much in their case. The offensive abilities of the bone walls were not strong enough to eat away at any low-level defense spells. The only aspect of the wall they needed to ovee was its durability against any attack spells. The hatchet might have been bulky and heavy, but the evil spirit was able to use it effortlessly without needing to worry about hurting himself. That one strike might have used up all his strength, but it only chipped off one small piece of the wall. If the evil spirit wanted topletely destroy the wall, he would have to continuously strike the wall for one to two hours.


    The two skulls located on the walls started moving until they located the evil spirit, spitting out a more concentrated version of the ck mist at him. Before the evil spirit knew it, his body had been doused with the ck mist.


    His body instantly melted away. With nothing holding onto the hatchet anymore, it dropped onto the floor with a thud. This, however, did not deter the evil spirits that were behind him. All of them closed in on the bone cage and started chopping away with whatever weapons they had on hand.


    If the evil spirits had been smart enough, they would have taken precautionary measures to ensure that the ck mist did not corrode their flesh. s, they were just a bunch of mindless creatures. Within seconds, dozens of evil spirits melted into mush at the merciless hands of the ck fog.


    However, their efforts had not been in vain. Huge, deep cracks had appeared on the walls of the bone cage, thanks to their relentless attacks. If the evil spirits had possessed intelligence, they would not have had that much physical strength. It was very rare to find evil spirits that excelled in both attributes.


    An evil spirit, whose body was glowing from the purple mes that surrounded him, gripped his weapons tightly and rammed himself against the wall. Instantly, a gigantic crack appeared on the walls of the bone cage. At what cost, you might ask? The answer was simple ¨C his hands. His hand muscles, bones, nerves¡­ all of them shattered beyond repair. The evil spirit copsed as the ck mist ate away at his legs. With his limbs now practically useless, the evil spirit had no choice but to crawl towards the area where the purple mes were burning in order to have the mes heal his injuries.


    Meanwhile, Nailisi was having a hard time dealing with so many evil spirits. She had no weapons on hand, only her ws and tail. Even so, they were lethal enough. Sometimes, she even made use of her jaws to bite off the head of an evil spirit.


    The fully constructed puppet holding onto the hatchet, having lost its mobility, was no longer a threat to the evil spirits. Thus, they decided not to waste anymore energy trying to defeat it. From the looks of things, the magic nuclei that were powering up the other puppet were not going tost much longereither. By now, Nailisi had be very fatigued. She climbed onto the fully constructed puppet¡¯s shoulders and scanned her surroundings. There were more than six hundred evil spirits waiting for her, crowding around the bone cage.


    Having absorbed the essence of blood in the dragon¡¯s heart, Nailisi¡¯s stamina had improved by leaps and bounds. She was able to fight the evil spirits for at least a day without being worn out, even if she was outnumbered six hundred to one. s, she was only one person. She could defend herself, but she would not be able to stop all the evil spirits from attacking the bone cage. Nearly all the evil spirits had galloped towards the bone cage, barely sparing a nce in Nailisi¡¯s direction.


    Nailisi thought for a moment, before retrieving a small bottle from her bracelet. The bracelet contained the dragon¡¯s blood that she had painstakingly collected. She dipped her finger into the bottle before smearing the liquid all over her face.


    As soon as she popped the lid open, at least half of the evil spirits stopped attacking the bone cage. She had not smeared the fluid on her face for nothing. Dragon¡¯s blood contained a life force too strong for any evil spirit to resist. In fact, to an evil spirit, dragon¡¯s blood was fatally irresistible. They had long since stopped caring about their fallenrades. Nearly all of them shifted their focus away from the bone cage and started leaping towards Nailisi instead.


    Upon seeing their trance-like states, Nailisi could not help but let out a heartyugh as she jumped from the puppet¡¯s shoulders and ran for her life. The evil spirits did not just stand there, of course. They started to give chase as well.


    However, after dashing for about a hundred meters, Nailisi suddenly felt like something was amiss. It was not that shecked faith in her agility. She was far faster than those evil spirits. She could not see any paths for miles as the purple mes had blocked her line of sight. Even if she could vaguely make out a pathway, it was hugely distorted. The evil spirits, who had been left in the dust a while ago, starting rushing towards her from the sides.


    What the¡­ Nailisi thought miserably upon realizing that her n was not as well thought out as she had thought. Now, not only was the dreaded thought of the evil spirits surrounding her bing a reality, but they had also picked this time to be more coordinated and cooperative. Without hesitation, all the evil spirits began their various waves of attack.


    Crack! Crack!


    The bone cage started to crumble as the ck mist coagted into blocks of pitch ck ice and dropped onto the ground. The purple mes had frozen the ck mist, neutralizing the spell that Daniel had put in ce. Daniel became pale in shock. He had not expected the bone cage to shatter so soon.


    Saleen, while notpletely springing into action just yet, sat up and began observing the situation outside the bone cage.


    He did not see a single evil spirit. All he saw were the two puppets standing outside of the cage like wooden blocks. Where is Nailisi? Saleen thought.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice rang in the distance. Saleen squinted his eyes and saw Nailisi running towards him from afar. She was frantically running in zig-zag motions, barely dodging the ws of one evil spirit who had decided tounch a sneak attack on her from the side. The same evil spirit, seeing that he had failed, simply discarded his weapons and decided to catch Nailisi with his bare hands. From Nailisi¡¯s dishevelled appearance and thecerations on her skin, Saleen could tell that Nailisi was not too badly hurt.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Nailisi screamed, leaping a height that likely surpassed her personal record as she tried to keep the evil spirits at bay. At least seven evil spirits mimicked her actions and jumped towards Nailisi, the purple mes trailing behind them.


    Daniel, upon seeing Nailisi¡¯s tail and elongated body, was extremely unnerved. Her true form looked so different from her drop-dead gorgeous human form that if he had not known any better, he would have sworn that they were twopletely different people.


    Upon seeing Saleen¡¯s protective barriere apart, the temptation to run towards her master and protect him crossed Nailisi¡¯s mind. Even so, she resisted. How would she defend her master when she could not even protect herself? With a spine-chilling howl, Nailisi brought her tail down hard onto an evil spirit¡¯s body before doing a somersault in the air andnding in the opposite direction.


    However, before she reached the ground, Nailisi took out a piece of dragon meat from her bracelet and tossed it in the direction of the evil spirits. The dragon meat was part of her food stash. She had intended to save it forter, when she would have time to slowly enjoy it. For now, she had found another use for it ¨C bait.


    Dozens of evil spirits pounced onto the dragon meat and started munching on it greedily. s, the size of the dragon meat was not big enough to satisfy them. The evil spirits had realized this as well, and had started fighting viciously over it. However, Nailisi knew that it would not hold them back for very long. Even if she had given them all the dragon meat she could find, the more than six hundred evil spirits would still not be satisfied. There were simply too many of them.


    She did not even want to think about the fact that once the evil spirits had consumed the dragon meat, they would be even more famished. That was god¡¯s punishment for the sins they hadmitted.


    Out of the dozens of evil spiritspeting for a share of the dragon meat, less than half of them actually got to taste it. Most of the time had been spent fighting each other. In less than a few minutes, the meat was gone. If the dragon meat had been served on a te, Nailisi bet that they would have been eating the te as well. Initially, Nailisi had intended to give herself some time to rest by tossing more dragon meat their way. However, she decided against it after she saw the evil spirits who had consumed the meat convulsing on the ground. In an instant, their bodies expanded and produced a duplicatation of themselves.


    If Nailisi had been able to cry right now, she would have. Today just isn¡¯t my day! she thought in exasperation.


    Like an anaconda suffocating its prey, Nailisi used her tail to choke an evil spirit to death. She attempted to move her arms, but discovered that two other evil spirits had decided to sink their teeth into them. However, it was not a big deal. Her muscles were too strong for them to do any real damage. If anything, all the evil spirits had done was leave two separate bite marks. Even so, it was enough for Nailisi to yelp in pain. Being bitten was no joke. Wincing in pain, she stuck out her arms and used her legs to kick the two evil spirits in the knees with so much force that she could hear their bones crack.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Lex screamed, startling Saleen. He immediately tensed up and looked around frantically, not wanting to believe that Lex was in danger.


    A grade-6 mage should have been enough to defeat the ck deacon. Had he overestimated Lex¡¯s capabilities all along? Or had he underestimated the power of the ck deacon? In that moment, Saleen felt as if the surrounding temperature had started to drop rapidly. The purple mes had started to converge and wereing his way. Having neutralized the bone cage spell, the purple mes were burning even more powerfully than before.


    Good grief¡­ He sighed inwardly. Sometimes, a person simply needed to be their own hero!


    Saleen grit his teeth and told Daniel to call for Nailisi.


    ¡°Call for her?¡± Daniel asked, unable to believe what his ears were hearing. Nailisi had done a good job distracting all of the evil spirits so far. If Nailisi responded to Saleen¡¯s call, Daniel knew that he would be gobbled up by the evil spirits before he could even say ¡°necromancer¡±.


    Seeing Daniel¡¯s confused face, Saleen tried to exin, but wheezed as a jolt of pain hit his chest. He felt as if all the air had been knocked out of him. He did not bother exining any further. The two water shields that hovered in the air flew to the level of Saleen¡¯s shoulders and hoisted him up.


    As Saleen locked his hands together and caressed the Ring of Gifts resting prettily on his left hand, he thought, When I get out of here, I¡¯m gonna ask Lex about the other gifts left behind by the Myers Goddess.


    He lifted his arms slowly and begun to telepathicallymunicate with Nailisi.


    Nailisi,e to me. Come to me¡­


    Nailisi, upon hearing her master¡¯smand, thought that something was wrong with the soul bond. She circted the area a few times, before finally locating Saleen. From afar, he looked pretty silly talking to his raised hand. The fact that his hand was glowing bright green was not exactly making him look any more normal.


    ¡°Nailisi, listen to me. Come to me¡­¡± Saleen was patiently whispering to the soul bond.


    Snap! The sounds of tearing fabric filled the air as Nailisi felt a sharp pain on her back. Five deep cuts upied the area where her clothes had once been. The evil spirits¡¯ nails were incredibly sharp. Even if her skin had been as sturdy as possible, it would pale inparison to that of a gigantic dragon.

 Chapter 189: Goddess’ Redemption (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 189: Goddess¡¯ Redemption (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Master must be out of his mind! Nailisi thought. Instead of running towards Saleen, Nailisi grit her teeth and began running in the other direction. As she ran, more and more evil spirits emerged from the purple mes and pounced on her. Nailisi could feel the number of injuries on her body increasing by the minute.


    Nailisi was not too bothered by her injuries. Her healing powers would make quick work of them. However, the main issue here was that she could not heal as fast as the evil spirits. As long as Nailisi did not bash the heads of the evil spirits in, they could use the purple mes to return to abat-ready state. She knew that this was a losing battle.


    ¡°Give up. Stop resisting. I¡¯m practically god in this dimension!¡± The voice of the ck deacon came from all directions. Lex could sense a tinge of excitement in his voice that she simply could not share.


    ¡°The gods can die as well,¡± Lex replied with a cold voice.


    ¡°Oh? Hahaha! If you want me,e and get me!¡± The ck deaconughed maniacally. He had lost all his men and a sizeable number of evil spirits trying to get his hands on Lex. However, if he did manage to capture the viscountess of the Qin Empire, he would be pardoned. Ever since the Book of the Fallen had been activated, he had been unable to directly attack Lex. On the other hand, Lex was unable to break through the defenses of the holy prose, and could do nothing but try her best to oust the ck deacon.


    If not for the protection provided by the four metal puppets, Lex would have used up the energy of her magic nuclei by now. The ck deacon was immersed in his fantasy world, imagining the feeling of triumph he would get after capturing the viscountess of the Qin Empire, the emperor¡¯s sister. This achievement alone would be enough to promote him to the rank of an archbishop. If everything went ording to n, he could even be an important figure in the supreme court. Perhaps he would even take on the role of a chambein, or even better, be the ruler of the supreme court.


    Saleen could not just sit there and allow anything to happen to Lex. He did not know if his new spell would work. Heck, he did not even know if his spell would backfire and attack her instead. He only knew that if he did not do something, all of them would die at the hands of the ck deacon. Lex had used her god¡¯s ring far too soon. Now, the equipment was practically unusable.


    Goddess, I do not know why you left these items behind, but if these are your wishes, I am willing to help you fulfill them.


    Saleen said these words softly as he gently caressed the Ring of Gifts.


    The sixteen runes lit up and floated in front of Saleen. Saleen did not stop there though. He continued chanting as his life force began seeping out of him through his left hand at a great speed. In an instant, Saleen¡¯s left arm started to decay, almost as if someone had used death magic to suck away all of his flesh, leaving only skin and bone behind.


    ¡°In the name of the Myers Goddess, I present to the world the Gift of Life!¡± Saleen eximed.


    With a surge of green light, the sixteen runes started spinning wildly in the air beforebining together. As they spun, the green light continued to shrink until it reached the size of a small pin in less than two frames of time. All of a sudden, it exploded.


    Daniel gasped. The green light was so blinding that it put the sun to shame. The green light started illuminating the entirendscape, almost as if it were a rain of fire. It moved rapidly and dispersed any obstacles standing in its way. No sooner had Daniel¡¯s winged skeleton been struck by the green light did it start to dpose. rmed, Daniel immediately stored the winged skeleton back into his death mes.


    However, although the winged skeleton was protected from the light rays, his death mes were not. They were rapidly shrinking as well. Left with no other choice, Daniel absorbed the death mes back into his body.


    A severe burning sensation, as well as the feeling of being stripped of his soul, suddenly came over Daniel. He realized to his dismay that the winged skeleton had disappeared. It could no longer exist inside of Daniel¡¯s body and had been forcibly returned to the death dimension.


    Zing! In the blink of an eye, the purple mes were vaporized by the green light, and the surrounding temperatures slowly began returning to normal. The green light continued spreading its rays throughout the entire area until the purple mes hadpletely disappeared, returning everything to normal as well.


    Saleen looked around. Yup, it¡¯s still Guogan Vige, he thought.


    Simr to Mister Snowman meeting Mister Sun, the evil spirits that were hot on Nailisi¡¯s heels immediately melted away upon contact with the green light rays.


    With a buzzing sound, the green light started to expand rapidly again, covering the entire vige for miles. All of a sudden, a violent explosion rang in the air. The ck deacon had been found. The Book of the Fallen was long gone, and his lower body had been sted into pieces.


    As Nailisi basked in the light, she felt her injuries heal rapidly. Sika¡¯s ghastly wounds had started improving as quickly as, if not faster than Nailisi¡¯s. Aside from his wrinkly, shrivelled left arm, Saleen¡¯s limbs and chest wounds were healing quickly as well.


    The six puppets that had apanied both Lex and Saleen in battle were also showing signs ofing to life after being enveloped in the blinding sh of light. The two water shields that were hovering around Saleen grew in size again, bing more than one meter tall at minimum. This time, however, the water shields no longer had intricate magical patterns carved onto them. Instead, they were unusually clear and transparent.


    Two gigantic water orbs came out of nowhere and started circling around Saleen. After hovering in the air for a bit, they were reabsorbed by Saleen¡¯s left hand.


    In that moment, Saleen started opening up his left hand. Instantly, he winced in pain. He felt like some rusty alchemical robot. He bet that if he listened closely enough, he would be able to hear the creaking sounds of his bones. Saleen did not freak out though. Instead, he rxed slightly. His arm was still intact. Casting this divine spell had only taken away a huge portion of his life force and not the mobility of his arm. For that, he was thankful. He looked at his left arm and predicted that it would be as good as new in just a couple of weeks.


    All of this power just from a leaf taken from the Tree of Life. If he had possessed the entire tree, even this side effect would not have happened.


    The powers of god were not to be belittled or underestimated. Just one gift by itself contained more power than Saleen could ever imagine. The Book of the Fallen, as well as the evil spirits, both virtually indestructible, had melted away under the divine powers of Saleen¡¯s gift.


    Nailisi rolled onto the ground, turning back into her human form. Her tail retracted back into her body. Lex, not even sparing Nailisi a nce, turned and walked towards the ck deacon.


    The ck deacon had a wood-like expression on his face, masking his confusion. He had felt the powers of the gods just now, but they had not been those of the Lord of Glory. How is this possible? There is only one god left in the Myers Maind! He thought in despair.


    Without hesitation, Lex unleashed a Fossilization spell.


    The ck deacon did not show any signs of resistance. He simply let the spell turn his entire body into stone. Both his legs had been blown to bits and his hands were permanently glued to the floor. It almost appeared as though he were worshipping Lex.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Lex called out, waving her hands frantically. The four fully constructed puppets instantly followed suit. Lex suddenly turned her head around and stared into their faces, noticing human-like expressions forming on their metallic faces.


    By this time, the green sh of light hadpletely dispersed. With a great deal of difficulty, Sika got up, feeling a little cold and dizzy. The divine spell hadpletely healed her injuries. She had bled out earlier, but that was nothing a quick blood transfusion would not fix.


    By now, Saleen had noticed the profound changes in the fully constructed puppets as well. He waved his hands towards the two fully constructed puppets that were by his side. This time, he did not use any mental power to control them. The two puppets looked at each other for a while, before walking towards Saleen. Lex witnessed this as well, and was too shocked for words.


    These puppets¡­ they¡¯re alive? Lex thought, bewildered.


    She began to regret not having taken out the remaining five fully constructed puppets in order to do a before-and-afterparison. If all nine puppets had managed toe to life, she would have dismantled at least one of them in experimentation, without question. However, she could not bear to do so now. Plus, she had better things to do, like deal with the ck deacon.


    No matter what, the ck deacon had needed to die. Even if the feud had not escted to a level of full-blown hatred, Lex could not allow anyone to spread the news on Saleen¡¯s new powers.


    Divine spells, especially those not cast by the Lord of Glory, would immediatelynd the spellcaster in grave danger. If the Holy See knew about this, they would not even bother going to war. They would simply contact the holy masters and request them to dere a divine decree. No matter where Saleen went, the Holy See would be just a few steps behind him. They were merciless and would go to great lengths to kill Saleen, regardless of how many people they needed to hurt or even kill along the way. No one was going to stop them.


    In the Myers Maind, there was only one god. He was what made the Holy See so sacred and divine.


    Lex walked towards Saleen but her eyes were trained on Daniel the entire time. Standing in front of Daniel, she smiled and asked, ¡°Daniel, how much did you see?¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± Daniel stuttered, utterly terrified of the woman standing in front of him. Saleen had cast what seemed like a divine spell. Even if it was not one, it was certainly no magic spell. No magic could drive his winged skeleton back to the death dimension. He did not know what to say. All he knew was that Saleen had divine powers that did note from the Lord of Glory.


    Even possessing this tiny bit of information was sufficient reasoning for Saleen to kill him. After all, dead people could not talk. However, even if he was a necromancer, if he managed to capture Saleen and send him to the Holy See, the pope would pardon all his crimes.


    ¡°Lex, I trust Daniel,¡± Saleen said, instantly putting Daniel¡¯s mind at ease. He was going to live to see another day.


    Lex shook her head in disapproval and said, ¡°This is not something you can decide on your own. You may trust him, but I don¡¯t. If he betrays you, I¡¯ll be implicated. So Daniel, do you still want to live?¡±


    Daniel nodded his head furiously. Of course he would not betray Saleen. Even if the pope pardoned him of his crimes, he would not be able to gain any redemption. When he died, he would have to go to heaven, and he knew what happened to necromancers once they were there.


    Perhaps normal humans did not mind going to heaven. However, necromancers who studied souls and understood their secrets did not dare underestimate the problems that came even after death.


    ¡°Unless you would like to be a heretic. Otherwise¡­¡± Lex said, leaving Daniel hanging at the end of her sentence. She figured that it would be fun to let Daniel¡¯s imagination run wild for a bit. Since Saleen was the good cop, she would have to y the bad cop. She knew that Daniel would be her loyal follower. If not, his days would be miserable.


    ¡°Alright, what should I do now?¡± Daniel sighed. Guess I don¡¯t have much of a choice, do I? he thought gloomily.


    ¡°Follow me,¡± Lex instructed. She brought Daniel to the ck deacon, who was still frozen, unable to escape the effects of Lex¡¯s spell.


    ¡°This deacon is from the Holy See. His body still has a bit of divinity left. This divinity was a gift from the pope. As long as you use your magic to strip him of it, you¡¯ll live to see another day,¡± Lex said simply.


    Daniel replied, ¡°I¡¯ll do it.¡±


    Lex nodded her head in approval. She was liking the young man more and more. The fact that Daniel had been able to survive this long even after the assassination attempts by the Holy See had not been due to luck alone. Being a heretic was not something to joke about. If Daniel did what Lex told her to do, any clergy would be able to recognize Daniel. To those that believed firmly in the Lord of Glory, Daniel would be their number one target.


    The reason why they would go after Daniel was because killing him would mean gaining god¡¯s approval.


    Saleen silently slipped a magic glove onto his left hand, covering his shrivelled left arm. He helped Sika up, and together with Nailisi, the trio arrived in front of the ck deacon. The two fully constructed puppets followed suit without needing to be controlled.


    With a wave of her hand, Lex neutralized her spell. However, the ck deacon¡¯s limbs remained on the ground. He lifted his head and stared dully at Saleen, before saying,


    ¡°Myers?¡±


    Saleen stayed silent. He did not know why he had divine powers. He did not even believe in the goddess. Even if he had made promises to the goddess before unleashing his powers, it was all so that he had been able to get the spell done and over with. He had always felt that the goddess was overrated. The power that she had over her loyal followers did not correspond to the promises that she fufilled for them. However, whether it was the goddess¡¯s will or simply one of many tricks that the goddess had up her sleeve, he could not deny the fact that she existed now.


    ¡°So this is the goddess¡¯ redemption,¡± the ck deacon said. His expression looked as if someone had taken his breath away. The goddess¡¯ redemption was something that he had been obsessed with for a while now.


    Saleen furrowed his brows and asked, ¡°Huh? What¡¯s that?¡±


    The ck deacon let out a coldugh. ¡°Hahahaha¡­ if you want to know so much, why don¡¯t you ask the pope yourself, if you dare¡­¡±

 Chapter 190: A Shocking City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 190: A Shocking City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°The pope? Alright, I¡¯ll ask him,¡± Saleen said as he nced at the ck deacon¡¯s deformed face. That st had really done a number on him. With that, Saleen signalled for Daniel to kill him.


    To get even a small amount of information from the people of the supreme court was an uphill battle. Saleen had no time for that. Reports of Cloudflow people searching for traces of the giant dragon to the west side of the mountain had been resurfacing.


    The only thing Saleen regretted about casting the spell was that the divine powers hadpletely destroyed the Book of the Fallen. The book described the meaning of life as well as ways to imprison one¡¯s soul in great detail. From this aspect alone, a person could say that the Book of the Fallen and ck magic were pretty simr.


    As for the goddess¡¯ redemption, it must have been a secret that had been kept hidden by the sacred Holy See. Meet with the pope? Saleen was not stupid. He was not going to confront the person who had managed to kill the emperor of the Qin Empire.


    The two fully constructed puppets that were standing behind Saleen stepped forward and grabbed the ck deacon by his shoulders. Lex suddenly released a Cryonic spell and sealed the ck deacon¡¯s mouthpletely shut. Now, even if he wanted to say anything that could be remotely helpful to Lex and Saleen, he would be unable to do so.


    ¡°It¡¯s toote for regrets,¡± Lex sneered in the ck deacon¡¯s direction. He had no chance to plead for mercy. Lex did not want to be merciful anyway. She did not need him to gain ess to the Holy See¡¯s secrets. She would have plenty of opportunities in the future to do so.


    Seeing that Lex had already started getting physical, Nailisi, not wanting to miss out on the action, walked towards the ck deacon and stripped his fingers and wrists of any equipment that could potentially help him escape. Sika followed suit and took off all of his clothing as well as a metallic band around his neck.


    At that moment, the ck deacon felt a sense of dread. He was a very important figure. He had thought that he could at least negotiate with his captors into let him go. He had not thought that they would kill him after just one question. He did not even have the chance to plead for mercy.


    Of course there was no hesitation on the part of his captors. Saleen and Lex had no intentions of forcing any information out of him at all.


    Seeing that the ck deacon no longer posed a threat to him, Daniel walked to the opposite side of the ck deacon and started chanting. Death magic generally required more time for its spells, and this asion was no exception. The death mes, whose powers had already been weakened as a result of Saleen¡¯s divine spell, emerged from his body and entered the ck deacon¡¯s forehead.


    Saleen and Lex watched from the side nervously. Daniel tried to be as careful as possible so that he would do a clean job. In a few minutes, a ray of white light began shooting out from the ck deacon¡¯s nostrils. Daniel opened his mouth in response and out spewed a ball of green fire thatpletely enveloped the surging light. The white light was very weak, and had no attack power. The green fire that Daniel had unleashed was the heart of his death mes. If it was overwhelmed by the ck deacon¡¯s light, he would lose the ability to use the death mes forever.


    As the blinding white light continued glowing, a low, angry roar was heard. It was not loud, but it was enough to strike fear in the hearts of everyone present. Even the two puppets that were holding onto the ck deacon¡¯s shoulders felt the power of the roar. For a moment, they were unable to control the strength of their hands, and they identally crushed ck deacon¡¯s shoulder des.


    Daniel¡¯s face was nothing short of solemn as he used his primordial powers to slowly strip the ck deacon of his divinity. This divinity was what made him a believer. It was an honor bestowed by the Lord of Glory upon his followers. What he was doing now was not only equivalent to pping god in the face, but also a tant sign of contempt for god. He was no longer just a heretic. In the Holy See¡¯s eyes, he was even worse than that.


    There was no turning back for Daniel.


    The ck deacon¡¯s body was convulsing violently by now. The two puppets, in an effort to contain the ck deacon, exerted even more pressure on him using their hands. Instantly, the sounds of bones snapping and muscles copsing could be heard. His pained expression was unusually disturbing, but it made it even harder to look away from his face.


    The green me burned for almost an hour. The seemingly insignificant bit of divinity was like oxygen to Daniel¡¯s death mes, boosting his primordial powers. The death mes burned more steadily than before and had already expanded by about thirty to forty percent.


    Stealing divine powers like this was not a urrence which happened once in a blue moon. Divine powers were often either borrowed or absorbed by humans. However, this was done only with god¡¯s approval. Not only had Daniel not sought that approval, but he had also be the first sphemer ording to the Holy See¡¯s code.


    With a sickening crack, the ck deacon¡¯s body stiffened before rxingpletely. The two puppets, seeing that their captive was already dead, released their gigantic metallic palms from his shoulders and stood up. Daniel did not stop there though. He released a ck ball of fire and cremated the ck deacon¡¯s body.


    If the ck deacon died ¨C which he did ¨C whatever divinity that Daniel had extracted from him would dissipate along with him and find its way back to its rightful owner, the Lord of Glory. His soul would also be sent to heaven. As of now, his divinity had been imprisoned and refined, causing his human form to die as well.


    ¡°How did I do?¡± Daniel asked after he had finished cleaning up the dead body. Lex replied, ¡°You did not do a sloppy job, so well done.¡±


    ¡°So can I go now?¡± Daniel asked.


    ¡°Oh, Daniel.¡± Saleenughed before continuing, ¡°Lex is the viscountess of Bitter Water Prefecture. Didn¡¯t youe to the Qin Empire to look for someone who could help you? Don¡¯t break your back trying to find that person. Stay, and you can potentially be one of the most valued mages in Bitter Water Prefecture. In fact, I can help you achieve that.¡±


    ¡°You?¡± Daniel asked incredulously. He had done what he was asked to and had no intention to stay. However, he was curious and wanted to know what Lex would do to him if he decided to leave.


    ¡°Of course! I¡¯m the most important mage in all of Bitter Water Prefecture. Don¡¯t forget, I¡¯m also Lex¡¯s partner. If you stay, you¡¯ll be the first necromancer of the empire. Your future will be very bright here. Lord Lex will not be biased against you. You¡¯ve killed the ck deacon with your bare hands. I can¡¯t think of any better way to show loyalty to a person,¡± Saleen rambled.


    ¡°But¡­ I have nothing left to offer¡­¡± Daniel replied in a defeated tone. The winged skeleton had taken him years to procure, and yet in just a few seconds, Saleen¡¯s divine powers had driven it back to the death dimension.


    ¡°We are making our way to Alchemy City. There might be some advanced summoning arrays there. If your death mes can be restored to their original state, you will be able to use the summoning arrays to summon the winged skeleton back. In fact, you could summon even more powerful creatures from the death dimension,¡± Saleen said.


    Technically, it was also possible to directly summon creatures from the death dimension using the death mes. However, results were not guaranteed. An advanced summoning array would be needed in addition to the death mes in order to bring the winged skeleton back.


    ¡°What do I need to do?¡± Daniel asked. He did not feel like he had anything to offer. The Qin Empire was known for its potent magic. In fact, it had even been nicknamed the Empire of Magic. He was only a grade- mage ¨C a pretty unimportant figure.


    ¡°We could spar for now, or practice our spells together. We have lots of time to think about the things we can do together. Right now, we need to finish cleaning up the area so we can leave. There are still people from the Cloudflow Empire roaming the western side of the mountains. I¡¯m not saying this to scare you. I¡¯m justying out the facts,¡± Saleen said as heughed. He did not even need to lift a finger. The fully constructed puppets were doing the menial work of cleaning up the ck deacon¡¯s remains for him.


    Daniel was making good progress for a grade-3 mage. When he finally became a senior mage or even a sorcerer, he would have a bright future at Bitter Water Prefecture. The only reason why Lex was so cold to him was because she was scared that he would reveal Saleen¡¯s secret. Saleen did not want any unnecessary deaths to happen on his watch. Thus, he had immediately promised Daniel a position back at Bitter Water Prefecture without Lex¡¯s approval to avoid any conflict.


    Lex did not object, which was a good thing. The fact that Saleen had recruited Daniel to assist her surprised Lex. Looks like Saleen¡¯s willing to help me build up Bitter Water Prefecture, Lex thought happily.


    Six fully constructed puppets cleared up the mess that had been made during the battle within a short period of time. However, as a result, one of them lost its mobility. Saleen realized that the fully constructed puppets still needed to expend energy from their magic nuclei, albeit less since they no longer needed to be controlled by Saleen¡¯s or Lex¡¯s mental power. Saleen smiled as he realized that he would no longer need to bear the heartache of using up grade-8 magic nuclei. Just grade-6 magic nuclei on their own would be sufficien for actual battle.


    Left with very little time to sit there and study the fully constructed puppets, Nailisi and Lex quickly put them away before the group of five left Guogan Vige. Just as they were about to put their step forward, a mage emerged from the western side of the vige. He walked into the vige, stopped, and started looking around, his brows furrowed tightly in thought.


    He had managed to sniff out a follower of the Holy See and was deep in thought, wondering if the giant dragon¡¯s disappearance had anything to do with them. However, since he was alone, he did not dare stay any longer and decided to bolt. In doing so, he lost the chance to sniff out Saleen and his friends.


    Everyone¡¯s injuries had more or less healed, with the exception of Sika, who was looking unusually frail. She was even unable to carry heavy weaponry anymore. Nailisi carried Sika on her back as the five of them walked towards the east, quickening their footsteps in order to avoid being spotted.


    The journey across the mountains only took about five days thanks to Lex¡¯s Windspeed spell. They arrived at a vast in which was not very far away from Alchemy City. Being near Alchemy City also meant that they were no longer near any aristocratic cities in the Qin Empire.


    Alchemy City¡¯s territory spanned all the way from the ocean to the area where they were currently standing, plus roughly four hundred miles more. Unlike the Phoenix Duchy, there were no obvious obstacles that blocked ess from the Qin country to the northern regions of the city. However, the mountains located in the western and southern regions cut off any possible connections to the Cloudflow Empire. Hence, under normal circumstances, the people who were willing to step onto the territory were most likely Qins.


    Like all cities, the people of Alchemy City had their own set ofws to follow. All foreigners would have to follow them, regardless of their rank.


    Instead of noblemen, it was mages who enforced thews here in Alchemy City.


    It was the first time any of them had been to Alchemy City. Although technically, they were not in the city, just within its geographical boundaries. They still had a few hundred miles to go. However, even with that distance, Saleen was already able to experience the uniqueness of the city. It had many green pastures, fields, viges, and farmers. However, the crops that they nted were herbs. He was not able to find any food crops nted in this soil. The most astonishing part of the ce were the farmers. They were not real farmers. They were actually mage apprentices. Even then, they did not do manualbor. Instead, they were enlisting the help of puppets to do menial tasks for them.


    Normally, puppets used up the energy of their magic nuclei very quickly. This was because they needed to fight and execute a series ofplicated moves during battle. These puppets, however, only needed enough strength to walk in a straight line.


    Saleen even spotted an archmage controlling a flying puppet from the ground. The flying puppet was spraying what seemed to be some sort of magic potion from the sky. Those chemicals are probably insecticide, Saleen thought.


    Even the waterwheels used for irrigation had been enchanted. Saleen was able to deduce this based on the many intricate magic patterns engraved on them. These patterns had been pieced together to form a simple magic array. In addition to the puppets, Saleen also saw magic beasts plowing thend, effectively taking over the role of water buffalo. This would never happen in the southern parts of the Qin Empire, where the farmers there often used water buffalo to ensure that thend was arable.


    Daniel was very excited, yet overwhelmed at the same time. Back in Tanggsi, he had hardly ever spotted any mages or mage apprentices. In fact, he had not been able to spot any mages ever since the empire had been established. The first mage he had ever made contact with was his mentor. It was a pity that his teacher had left after tutoring him for a short period of time.


    The second time he hadnded his eyes on a mage was when he had taken a ferry for the first time to the Cloudflow Empire to do business there.


    Daniel was not the only one who was feeling all sorts of emotions. Saleen was shocked as well. They had passed by dozens of viges, and all of them had at least one magic tower each. If his eyes had not failed him, they had passed by approximately ten magic towers. Even if each tower only had six storys, they were packed very closely together. Even the towers located in the imperial city of the Qin Empire were spaced further apart.


    If even viges have magic towers, what will the situation be like over in Alchemy City? Saleen thought. He knew the others were thinking the same question as well.

 Chapter 191: A Shocking City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 191: A Shocking City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Noticing that they were about fifty miles from Alchemy City, Saleen asked, ¡°Lex, what does Alchemy City look like?¡± At this point, they were able to move at full speed. Sika¡¯s injuries hadpletely healed, and a distance of fifty miles could be covered within an hour.


    ¡°No idea,¡± Lex replied simply, making Saleen scratch his head in confusion. He thought that Lex knew the affairs of the Qin Empire like the back of her hand. That should have included Alchemy City.


    ¡°All of us were in such a rush that I had no time to contact my people,¡± Lex exined. Upon seeing Saleen¡¯s ignorant expression, Lexughed. ¡°Alchemy City is not just any city. Its structure constantly changes. Even the magic towers outside the city are like this.¡±


    Instead of feeling enlightened, Saleen was even more confused by Lex¡¯s words. However, he stopped questioning her. He believed that he would get all his answers when they reached their destination. After all, seeing was believing.


    Saleen had never been to Alchemy City, but since his mentor, Jason Statham, had originated from the area, he had a good feeling about the ce.


    Initially, Saleen had thought that after seeing Holy Rock City, the grandeur of other cities would not impress or shock him at all. However, he had been wrong. Saleen could clearly see the outline of Alchemy City, even though he was dozens of miles away from it.


    He did not see city walls. He did not see magic towers, either. The sight that greeted him was a vast urbanwork of towering buildings.


    Left with only five miles to the city, Saleen utilized his icy sight to get a better look at the magic tower located just outside the city borders. However, the buildings inside the city were far taller than the magic towers.


    Just what kind of buildings are they? They¡¯re even taller than a ten story magic tower! Saleen thought, bewildered. He did not even need his special powers to know that most of these buildings were taller and bigger than the main gates of the imperial pce. He vaguely remembered reading a book about the holy church in the glorious city being the Myers Maind¡¯s tallest building. However, upon seeing the buildings in Alchemy City, he began to doubt the book¡¯s ims.


    People who did not know better might have thought that Alchemy City had no walls. However, that was not the case. The walls had been designed to suit the styles of different parts of the castle. Hence, they were not uniform. The walls were rugged, although pleasing to the eye. To further enhance the artistic beauty of the walls, the designers had even included sculptures to them. Not only were they beautiful, but they were also practical. Fully trained swordmasters no longer needed to usedders to climb over the walls anymore. They could simply consider scaling the wall as a rock-climbing activity.


    Most castles like this were built out of low-quality magical materials. However, no matter how inferior these materials were, they could still be used to construct magic towers. The walls of the castle ¨C the sculpted areas and magical patterns ¨C were not painted on, nor had they been artificially colored by other means. These features had been solely determined by the natural colors and textures of the stones themselves.


    The main gates leading to Alchemy City did not appear to be average city gates to Saleen.


    At the end of the road leading into the city were two tall statues standing as if they were waiting for a person¡¯s arrival. They were so tall, standing eighty meters high, that a person would get vertigo trying to gaze up at them. They looked eerily lifelike, and were d in animal skin clothing. Their eyes were designed such that they looked downwards. One of them even had a sword in its hand.


    As soon as Saleen saw a third eye on the forehead of the statue, he realized that the statue was actually an homage to three-eyed giants.


    The giant dimension had vanished long ago. Unlike the death dimension, where there were living, breathing creatures that could be summoned by necromancers, the giant dimension was nothing but a myth. It was a legend told in folklore.


    Beneath the swordy a statue of a giant dragon¡¯s head. Besides fulfilling its function as a decoration, the dragon head statue was also the main gate leading into Alchemy City. All of a sudden, Saleen felt a gust of power surge through him.


    He had seen giant dragons in real life. Yet, the amount of power radiating from this dragon head statue rivalled that of a real-life dragon.


    The design of this main gate had definitely been inspired by the only Myers-based mythological folklore. The event had supposedly taken ce thirty thousand years ago.


    The gods had their eyes on the Myers Maind for a long time due to its abundance of fertilend. In order to obtain it, they started a war between dimensions. Humans, along with hundreds of creatures from different dimensions, fought against the gods for the right to rule Myers Maind.


    The three most fearless tribes under themand of the humans were the devil tribe, the dragon tribe, and the giant tribe. When the gods were forced to retreat, all seemed lost for them as they prepared to give up the portal that allowed them to travel to different dimensions. However, it was a frail-looking runt-like god that managed to tempt one of the most important figures of the dragon tribe. This caused at least half of the giant dragons to betray the humans.


    Rumors spread like wildfire. In no time at all, almost all of the magical creatures from different dimensions came to a consensus. All magical beings that existed in the human dimension had to be eliminated. This sparked many wars and even more rumors, the stories bing even more distorted each time they were told. Despite having sewn discord amongst the humans and magical creatures, the gods had still lost the right to rule the Myers Maind. However, it was because of this that the humans allegedly severed all ties with their bestpanions ¨C the giant tribe.


    The giants had expressed their disappointment over these wars time and time again, hoping that humans could at least make peace with the gods. They felt that wars were unnecessary and almost always implicated the innocent. After helping mankind ughter the dragons who had betrayed them, they disappeared. Legend had it that they broke through the physical limitations of the magical dimension and travelled on to another world ¨C one that was muchrger than their homnd.


    No one really remembered what happened after that, but one could probably imagine how chaotic it must have been and the amount of mayhem and pandemonium that must have arisen because of these wars. The only thing that people could remember was the emergence of a new god ¨C Myers.


    The Myers Goddess did not care if nobody believed in her. She bestowed gifts upon everyone, regardless of whether or not they were loyal followers. A shrine was erected in her honor to thank her for cleaning up the mess left behind after the war between dimensions.


    Saleen did not know whether the events that had urred thirty thousand years ago were real. What he did know was that these legends would never be recorded in history books. Even if they were, these books would be impossible to find. The Holy See had previously raided three-fourths of the Myers Maind in order to locate these books and burn them.


    For the past one thousand years, aside from being referenced in several written recordings, this story had been passed on solely through the wandering poets of the Qin Empire.


    Writing these words on paper was highly disrespectful to the Lord of Glory. Gods loved humans. Why would they start a war? Moreover, since history had been covered up for so long, some people did not even believe in this story anymore and dismissed it as a mere myth. They just could not bring themselves to believe that they had such a glorious history.


    The main gates of Alchemy City had definitely been inspired by this legend. No one from the Holy See would fail to understand the message behind the design. Even without constructing ten story magic towers to prove that they believed in magic more than god, this design alone had done a good job sending a message that mages would never believe in god.


    The dragon¡¯s w was over twenty meters in height. The giant dragon¡¯s mouth was open, and a magic array was carved onto six unevenly sculpted dragon teeth. There was no need for the gates in the first ce. The magic array could simply attack anyone who wished to enter Alchemy City. Saleen started feeling a little dizzy again. He started counting the number of magic arrays and concluded that there were twelve of them. While doing so, he felt his mental power rapidly slipping away, almost as though a vacuum were sucking it out of his body.


    Saleen even had suspicions that the two eighty meter tall statues were also weapons of mass destruction. However, he just could not figure out the magical artifacts needed to power them up.


    Saleen had been deeply affected by these sculptures. He thought, Why do humans choose to forget their glorious past? Why is it that mages pursue the truth in order to progress, despite how hard it is for them to do as well?¡±


    Many people might have felt that mages were entric and unapproachable. Even the mages who served royal families or noblemen found it hard to strike up simple conversations with the people around them. However, Saleen knew that it was not as though they thought they were above everyone else. It was simply that their worldviews were vastly different from those ofmon folk.


    What kind of normal person would think about events that could potentially ur centuries from now? Did humans ever think about the chemicalpounds present in the food that they ate? They did not even bother trying to count the number of bones in their bodies. Most importantly, they did not bother trying to understand why mages were always far stronger and superior to them.


    More and more human beings were only concerned about the present. They had lost their desire for knowledge. Many mages actually felt sorry formon folk. Even humans who wanted to be mage apprentices did so in order to make a living using those skills.


    The prospects for a mage apprentice were huge. Some people only became mage apprentices in order to master recollection magic. From there, they would go on to be one of the most sessful ountants in the world of business.


    The Myers Maind had a poption of more than one billion people. Yet, mages took up less than one percent of the poption¡¯s demographics. Moreover, most of them were concentrated in the Qin country. Even with Lex¡¯s best efforts, she had been fairly unsessful in getting junior mages and apprentices to relocate to other cities. In a span of one decade, she had only managed to relocate slightly over ten thousand of them to the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Arge percentage of these ten thousand people were mage apprentices. There were only a little more than one thousand junior mages. These one thousand junior mages took up less than one percent of the entirety of the Myers Maind¡¯s poption.


    The reason for the existence of Alchemy City suddenly dawned on Saleen. This city had been constructed by mages as a symbol of hope. Every mage that entered the city would see those sculptures, and recall the glorious years that humans had once lived.


    Alchemy City had no guards and the doors leading into the city were never shut. There was no such thing as the collection of entry tax either. The roads seemed narrower than the roads back in Holy Rock City. The road designs were not done to pay homage to the royal family. They were designed to amodate the unusually small size of the carriages that travelled in and out of Alchemy City.


    There were many archmages here. The spatial equipment in Alchemy City was expensive, and frankly, not worth purchasing. No one really needed a carriage the size of an empire to store these low-grade wooden boxes.


    The roads in the city were windy. The mages there did not need any cavalry. Instead, they had a variety of puppets to y with. Plus, no one dared to attack Alchemy City. Saleen had seen more than a hundred magic towers outside the city alone. However, he had not seen the nine nine story magic towers as told in the legends and myths. These nine towers were supposedly located to the east of the city, and were positioned in such a way that they were facing the sea.


    Alchemy City had thousands of years of history. The lifespan of a grade-9 sorcerer far exceeded that of an ordinary mage. Out of the hundreds of magic towers that were situated inside and outside of the city, at least half of them belonged to mages that were already deceased. Nobody would enter these towers ever again. Thus, these towers would end up bing their eternal resting ces.


    The paved roads in Alchemy City had no gaps. All the rocks that had been used had been sealed tightly using alchemy. Nothing could pass through once they had been fused together. These roads would be maintained every year. The reason why these roads had wear and tear in the first ce was due to the overwhelming number of mage apprentices and junior mages.


    The shockingly big buildings were found almost everywhere in the city. Saleen even spotted a tower constructed using metallic bones. The walls were decorated with crystals. Even if these crystals looked like scraps, they were still far too valuable to be bought using gold coins. Everything in Alchemy City was expensive. In Alchemy City, gold coins would only get you items of inferior quality, like low-grade magic nuclei.


    Upon seeing a war horse puppet lying in the streets, Saleen immediately took it for a spin. The windows of the houses Saleen passed by were all decorated with crystals. The disposed crystals did not make up a huge portion of the decorations used. However, the amount of ss used to make these windows was enormous. Saleen even spotted a shop that had a five meter tall window. That in itself was equivalent to one story.


    What a wealthy and invincible city! Saleen¡¯s instincts started to kick in. He felt that even with a magic calctor, there was no way to tell how much Alchemy City was worth.


    ¡°Hi, do you need any help?¡± A man in his mid-fifties asked as he walked towards Saleen. He was wearing an outfit that matched the style of a mage apprentice.

 Chapter 192: The Expensive Life (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 192: The Expensive Life (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mage apprentice looked far too old for his age, although in truth, he really was fairly old. He had a wisened face and a fringe of grey-white hair around his mottled scalp. His head stuck out like a sore thumb in the Qin country because most of the people here had either ck or brown hair.


    However, he still looked presentable. His clothes had been enchanted such that there was not even a single speck of dust on them.


    Saleen could not help but look at the old man with contempt as he stared into his meek brown eyes. However, his contempt turned to pity as soon as he realized that the mage apprentice standing in front of him would never be able to be a true mage. Back then, if Saleen had not discovered the magic medicine, he would have met the same fate thirty years down the road.


    Not everyone was as lucky as him. Then again, not everyone was as courageous, or in less pleasant terms, reckless, as he was.


    If a mage was unable to create magic chords, they would never be a respected mage. It was exactly for this reason that many people switched to learning new skills ¨C for example, swordsmanship. Some of them even became bandits just to survive.


    ¡°What can you do for us?¡± Saleen asked, not letting Lex make the decisions this time. They hade to Alchemy City to get information about Jason¡¯s whereabouts. The Grukos family was not legally permitted to inquire information about Alchemy City, so she was just about as clueless as he was. Right now, what Saleen and Lex needed to do was to find a local here who had information on Jason.


    For example, in Ceylon City, if you needed information about someone, the best people to find were people like Da. Before bing a bandit, he had done many odd jobs and thus had many connections. He was physically stronger than Saleen and that gave him an added advantage when it came to the variety of jobs he could do.


    ¡°Would you like to stay here for the longterm, or are you nning to leave after two to three months?¡± the old apprentice asked with a smile on his face.


    ¡°We haven¡¯t thought about it yet, but let¡¯s stick with the longterm n,¡± Saleen replied politely.


    ¡°In that case, let me introduce myself. I¡¯m Sumano, an advanced apprentice. Pleased to be at your service,¡± the apprentice said.


    ¡°Saleen,¡± Saleen repliedzily, not bothering to introduce the old man to anyone else. Why bother? That old apprentice was just going to be one of the many faces that they would forget a few weeks down the road. A person at this age could not have their future altered, not even with divine intervention. Sumano was fated to never be able to live a life of luxury like Lex. Bitter Water Prefecture had many mage apprentices, of which eighty percent of which were under eighteen years old. If neither Saleen nor Lex could remember them, they would most probably forget about Sumano as well.


    Sumano cheerily asked, ¡°Mr. Saleen, if you and your friends are nning to stay for a while, will you be buying a house or renting one?


    ¡°Oh, what¡¯s the difference?¡± Saleen asked, genuinely curious.


    Before Saleen could evenplete his question, he was able to hear Sumano¡¯s stomach rumble. The old apprentice blushed andughed awkwardly. Yet, he mustered up his confidence and asked, ¡°Mr. Saleen, I can exin everything to you, but could we talk about it over some beer?¡±


    Understanding that the old apprentice had indirectly asked for a free meal, Saleen nodded and replied, ¡°Sure, lead the way. Don¡¯t go for anything too expensive. I can only afford to pay in gold coins.¡±


    Gesturing for Saleen and the gang to follow him, Sumano walked at a brisk pace and led them through the narrow streets onto another road. As he walked, he tried to strike up a conversation, ¡°Mr. Saleen, I don¡¯t know what you might have heard about Alchemy City, but we are notpletely unique. We do share simrities with other cities. For example, the items within the city limits are nearly ten percent more expensive than those you¡¯d find outside.¡±


    Saleen did not reply. He was too busy observing his surroundings. It was his first time walking in such a narrow alley. The alley was nked by two buildings so ridiculously tall that when he lifted his head, he could only see a patch of the sky. The base of the walls were built pretty simrly to those in ordinary cities. The materials used were anything but steel. With the exception of not being able to carve a magic array directly into these walls, the sturdiness of these walls was pretty much the same as any other ordinary town.


    The two buildings, though tall, did not have that ¡°Leaning Tower of Pisa¡± vibe to them. It was the perfect location to set a magic trap, as even archmages would have difficulties trying to escape.


    Despite what Sumano said, Saleen still felt that this city was vastly different from any town that he had ever seen. He almost felt as if Alchemy City were something plucked out from another magical dimension. It just did not seem to blend in with the other cities that Saleen knew.-


    After weaving in and out of at least a dozen streets, Sumano finally stopped at a tavern.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, is this ce okay? Each person will spend a dozen gold coins at most here,¡± Sumano said.


    Saleen nodded. Although a dozen gold coins did not seem like much, it was the amount of money that amoner would earn in a year. Yet, this amount of money was only enough for a meal here in Alchemy City. Before he had met Jason, Saleen had not dared to dream of such avish life. At that point in time, his greatest dream had only been to be able to have a good meal over at The Whale of Ceylon, preferably once a month.


    Over at The Whale of Ceylon, with the exception of whale meat or any other rare sea creatures, a person would be able to order any dish for just one gold coin each. Saleen could not help but think back to the time where he had risked his life for just one gold coin. Sighing deeply, Saleen followed Sumano into the tavern.


    Saleen had stayed in the Qin country for quite some time and was very familiar with its customs. He knew that the beer here would be more expensive because of the Qin¡¯s excessive focus on agriculture. The officials had implemented a heavy tax on beer to deter the locals from drinking it. If any noblemen dared to ferment their own wine to evade these taxes, it was possible that theirnd would even be seized from them. These disciplinary measures had been implemented before. In fact, one of the viscounts had even dered war against the royal army as a result of this, though a person could imagine how miserable his fate had been.


    Thus, the so-called taverns in the Qin country were technically just restaurants that provided fruit-based wines.


    As soon as they entered the tavern, a waiter approached the group of six and led them to a table. Saleen noticed that there were not any menus. Just as he was about to ask for them, the same waiter handed him a thick book.


    ¡°What is this?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°This is our menu. You can choose your preferred dishes based on the pictures attached to their names,¡± the waiter exined patiently. He had rehearsed these lines so many times that he could utter them in his sleep. Alchemy City was a very popr tourist destination, with thousands of peopleing here every year. Not only did these people include mages, but there were also manymon folk, mostly noblemen, who hade here to satisfy their curiosity and explore life here at Alchemy City.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen replied as he flipped through the menu. Each page was filled with magical images dedicated to that one menu item alone. The colors blended well together, almost as if a mage had used magic to capture the most appealing angles of the dishes and pasted them onto this book which seemed to be made out of animal skin. Not only was the menu thick and heavy, it also had at least a hundred pages. Although Saleen had no idea how much it had cost to make these books, he knew that they were not cheap.


    Of course, Saleen understood that the profit the restaurant would make off of its customers would more than make up for this expenditure. Although the Qin country had less noblemen than other countries, it still produced quite a number of wealthy officials. It was probably a good idea to visit Alchemy City at least once in a person¡¯s life if they could afford it. There were just too many ces to see and too many magical goods and services to choose from. Aside from Holy Rock City, Saleen did not know of any other city that was so¡­ magical.


    From Saleen¡¯s experience, when a person entered a restaurant in other cities, they would be greeted by many wooden signs hanging on the walls. These wooden signs would depict the specialties they were serving on that particr day.


    However, in Alchemy City, Saleen did not see any wooden signs. The ridiculously thick menu sufficed. Not only did the book inform the customer about the choices of food avable, the addition of these magical images were also the perfect gimmick to stimte a person¡¯s appetite. What pleased Saleen the most about this book was that a list of ingredients was provided at the bottom of each illustration. It also provided the price of the dish, which apparently varied ording to the seasons.


    Saleen flipped through the pages quickly. He was not a picky eater. As long as he was not allergic to something, he would eat it. Plus, he had note here for the food. He hade to this tavern so he could ask Sumano for more information regarding Alchemy City. He eyed Lex for a moment before asking, ¡°What do you want to eat? The dishes here look good.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine with whatever. Just get their specialties,¡± Lex replied. When it came to food, Lex was very picky. Her food needed to be prepared just the way she liked it. However, since she had left Bitter Water Prefectures, she had endured many hardships. For example, she had needed to fight the ck deacon even with a few broken bones in her body. Food was the least important thing on her mind right now.


    ¡°Alright, just get me your specialties. Bring us enough food for eight people,¡± Saleen instructed the waiter. Nailisi did not eat much. In fact, the things she ate tended to be things that Saleen found unappetizing. The two additional portions that he had ordered were for Sika.


    After asking them for foods to avoid, the waiter selected an eight-course meal.


    The meal included desserts, wines, and soup. Thus, there was no need for Saleen to order them as side dishes. The only additional menu item that Saleen ordered was a big ss of beer ¨C for Sumano.


    The beer was served first. However, out of courtesy, he did not guzzle it down immediately. Instead, he told Saleen politely, ¡°Mr. Saleen, while waiting for your food to arrive, feel free to ask me anything.¡±


    Saleen had noticed that the ss of beer Sumano had been served was not small. Fearing that he would be unable to get any information out of Sumano once he was drunk, Saleen immediately replied, ¡°Sumano, what is the difference between buying and renting a house here?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a lot cheaper to buy a house. Even though it might seem expensive at first, the value of the property will appreciate. Let me put it this way. Years down the road, should you decide to sell the house before you leave Alchemy City, not only will you recover the money that you paid for the house, but the transaction fee that will go to your property agent will be far cheaper than that of renting a house. You must have realized by now that the houses in Alchemy City are enormous. However, the poption of this city is less than one million. These huge buildings can definitely amodate up to three to five times the current poption of the city. The houses that you can rent in Alchemy City are able to fit up to thirty to fifty people each.¡± Samuno exined.


    ¡°Oh. Isn¡¯t it quite wasteful to spend so much money on these big houses?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, most of the noblemene to Alchemy City because they have so much money that they don¡¯t know what to do with it. Each nobleman can spend up to thousands of gold coins per day here,¡± Sumano said, sighing as he reached thest part of his sentence. Sadly, he had note here as a tourist. He hade here to make a living at the tender age of twenty after being promoted to a senior apprentice. He had dedicated his entire youth to trying to make ends meet. At this age, he should have either be wealthy enough to retire or be a well-respected mage. s, he had achieved neither. In fact, he had not improved at all.


    However, no matter how discouraged he was, he did not want to leave. He had fallen in love with the city. Even if he could not be a mage himself, seeing these magical buildings, puppets, as well as peoples¡¯ shocked expressions whenever they entered Alchemy City for the first time, was enough to put a smile on his face everyday.


    Moreover, he did not know what else he could do after leaving Alchemy City. He did not have a high-paying job here, but it was enough to survive. Sadly, in order to avoid starvation, he had to take on many odd jobs that took a lot of time away from his studies. Thus, he had no choice but to give up on studying magic.


    ¡°How much would it cost to buy a house here?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°If you want your house to be custom-made, then it¡¯ll take about a day for it to be ready. If you can pay the deposit upfront, you will not need to pay for any amodations for that one day. The people who are selling the houses will arrange temporary lodging for you. If you¡¯re fine with any location, each house should cost about two million gold coins. If you want a customized house in the heart of the city, it¡¯ll cost about nine million gold coins. This quote doesn¡¯t include the fee for the materials needed to construct your dream home,¡± Sumano said.


    ¡°That¡¯s so expensive!¡± Saleen eximed indignantly.


    Yes, he had been prepared to pay a little bit more for housing, but he had not expected the price of a house to have so many zeros attached to it. It¡¯s just a house. Is there really a need to charge so much money for it? Saleen thought.


    ¡°No no, it¡¯s not expensive at all,¡± Sumano said hurriedly before he continued, ¡°Renting a house costs about a few hundred thousand gold coins per year. Buying a house and then selling it will only set you back by approximately twenty percent in property tax. A two million dor home will only set you back by about three hundred thousand gold coins once you sell it. A nine million dor home will only set you back by one million and eight hundred thousand gold coins. The longer you stay, the less taxes you¡¯ll have to pay.¡±


    Saleen was not about to believe Sumano and his nonsense. The longer they stayed in Alchemy City, therger their expenses would be. If what Sumano said was true, they would have to live here for quite a while before they could sell their ce and actually make the purchase of the house worthwhile. The problem was that the money they would save on lodging would be more than made up for by other expenses. Just eating alone was a huge financial burden. In addition, Saleen had to purchase magic nuclei from Alchemy City as well. Even if the prices here were ¡°worth it¡±, they would still be very expensive. The merchants here would never sell ordinary magic nuclei. They would only sell the higher-quality ones.


    Saleen knew that this was more of a business issue rather than a magic one. Being a Sikeqinya citizen, Saleen was very wary of these potentially exploitative situations.

 Chapter 193: The Expensive Life (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 193: The Expensive Life (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°That¡¯s absurd! How can anyone buy a house in this ce?¡± Saleen asked Sumano. Lex was considered one of the wealthiest individuals in all of the Qin Empire, but even she did not carry around nine million gold coins wherever she went. Even two million gold coins was too much for her. She would have to auction off some of her items along with Saleen in order to produce that much money. If even Lex could not afford it, then there would only a small handful of Qins that would be able to set up business here in Alchemy City.


    This is daylight robbery! Is this even legal? Saleen fumed as he thought about the number of zeros attached to those houses.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to pay in gold coins. You can use magic objects to pay for your amodation. This city is run by nine sorcerers. There are no lords here. All transactions are done in the alchemy tower located at the heart of the city. If you have high-quality equipment, raw materials, and so on, the people there will be willing to pay for them at prices above the market rate,¡± Sumano exined patiently.


    ¡°What sort of materials are they looking for?¡± Saleen asked. He had many rare magical artifacts and materials on hand. However, he was unwilling to sell most of them. He still needed to use the items he had extracted from the giant dragon as bait. He would not give them up, at least not anytime in the foreseeable future.


    ¡°There is a chart over at the alchemy tower. The price quotes for the materials are stated there. The list is too long and their prices fluctuate too often. I¡¯m afraid I can¡¯t give you an exact answer,¡± Sumano replied.


    ¡°If I can¡¯t even afford to rent a house and I don¡¯t have any suitable materials on hand, will I have to end up sleeping on the streets?¡± Saleen asked sarcastically.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that¡¯s simply not possible. See this?¡± Sumano pointed to a badge pinned onto his long robe before continuing, ¡°This badge is distributed by the sorcerers over at the alchemy tower. Without this badge, should you choose to sleep in the streets at night, you¡¯ll be attacked by the patrolling puppets.¡±


    Saleen was simmering with anger by now. To him, Alchemy City did not feel like the Empire of Magic anymore. Now, he felt like the city was filled with profit-driven businessmen who did not care about the welfare of others.


    ¡°So if I¡¯m penniless I¡¯ll have to die here?!¡± Saleen yelled.


    ¡°No! No! It¡¯s not like that,¡± Sumano whispered harshly in an attempt to calm Saleen down, ¡°If you are broke, you can still chose between two options.¡±


    ¡°What options?!¡± Saleen roared. Alchemy City was too profit-driven for its own good and the people here treated mages coldly. A deste mage did not even have the right to sleep on the streets.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, you must have misunderstood what I said,¡± Sumano said, treading his words carefully. ¡°Without thesews, the poption of Alchemy City would have reached tens of millions by now. Think about it ¨C there are so many money-making opportunities here. If I did not need to rent or buy a ce, I¡¯d be able to earn so much money offering my services to random people on the street.¡±


    After hearing Sumano¡¯s words, Saleen realized that he might have been a little too impulsive. He used his senses to scan his surroundings and realized that no one had even bothered to look in his direction. Maybe they¡¯re used to neers acting like this. Plus, why would they be bothered with such frivolous matters? Saleen thought.


    Sumano was right. Even in Holy Rock City, if strict regtions had not been imposed, the poption would have swelled to terrifying numbers. Like Alchemy City, Holy Rock City had many money-making opportunities. In fact, for the same job, a person would be able to earn twenty times more in Holy Rock Citypared to other areas.


    ¡°For mages that can¡¯t afford to study here, they have the option of telling the sorcerers over at the alchemy tower. The sorcerers will be able to arrange aplementary carriage ride out of the city within three days. In fact, these carriages will be able to send you right back to your hometown. Even if you live as far as away as Phoenix, you will not have to pay a single penny,¡± Sumano exined.


    ¡°What about the second option?¡± Saleen asked. He believed that mages who travelled all the way to Alchemy City would not leave just like that.


    ¡°The second option would be to run errands for the officials at Alchemy Tower. The mages at Alchemy City needrge quantities of specific materials, some of which must be personally hunted for in the oceans. As a mage, you¡¯d know that these activities take up a lot of time. Unless they¡¯re looking to gain some fighting experience, most mages here in Alchemy City are unwilling to participate in these hunts. They almost always pay foreign mages to do the fighting for them. However, these mages have to surrender every single magical item and material they find over to the officials. No hoarding is allowed. And they have to keep doing this until they repay their debt,¡± Sumano replied.


    Saleen nodded in understanding.


    ¡°Wait, so if I¡¯m broke, but I don¡¯t owe Alchemy City anything¡­ can I still participate in these hunts?¡± Saleen prodded.


    ¡°Of course you can. The officials there actually make announcements regarding the goods they need everyday. How else do you think the swordsmen in the east survive? They do the dirty work for these mages. They¡¯re practically servants, if you think about it,¡± Sumano said. Even though he was merely a mage apprentice, he still looked down on people who chose to be swordsmen.


    ¡°Sumano, please eat first,¡± Saleen said as he tossed a knowing nce at Lex. Lex nodded in approval, indicating that Saleen could decide their next course of action. Upon getting the green-light, Saleen started thinking about the items he could sell to raise the money.


    He thought about it, then thought about it some more. He just could not bear to sell anything that he had on hand.


    The demon-suit was a no-go. It was more effective than he had expected. Without it, he would have died a long time ago. He was not going to sell the god¡¯s ring either. He still had the cbash left. He did not know exactly what it could do, but he guessed that it was probably a gift left behind by the Myers Goddess.


    The crystal ring given to him by Raphael; his family crest; fully constructed puppets¡­ he was not about to sell any of them either.


    Advanced scrolls were about as valuable as diamonds. Selling them now would mean that Saleen would never get a chance to buy them in bulk again. Intermediate nk scrolls would not fetch a high price in Alchemy City as they were not in high demand here.


    The nk magic book that the Myers Goddess had left behind could not be sold either. Originally, Saleen had not thought much of this magic item. However, Saleen was confident that he would be able to unleash the power of the book after some guidance from Joey. Whatever the bookcked, his magic chords could more than make up for.


    One of the most valuable magic items left now was Raphael¡¯s magic book. However, this book was not meant for public eyes. The officials would only need to do a simple background check to verify that Raphael¡¯s book was actually an ancient artifact with thousands of years of history behind it. If they dug any further, Saleen knew that him and Lex¡¯s identities would be exposed. Sooner orter, the things that they had done in the hell of god¡¯s punishment would no longer be able to be kept under wraps.


    On the other hand, Lex had about five fully constructed puppets under hermand as well as spare parts that could be used to construct the sixth puppet. Selling either the spare parts or one fully constructed puppet would be able to bring in enough money to purchase a house. Even though the art of puppetry was a skill that had been lost over the years, it was not a skill that was unique to Raphael. Heck, he had not even been the founder of the skill. Hence, selling off these puppets would not raise anyone¡¯s suspicions.


    Saleen began to rx a bit and started eating. Sika had long ago finished her three portions and was guzzling down Nailisi¡¯s share of the desserts.


    As Saleen looked around, he realized that the tavern was well-maintained and everything was spick and span. Just then, the waiter ced some crystal sses onto the table before using a Cleaning spell to assure Saleen and his friends that the sses were safe to drink from. Then, he poured some red wine into each of their sses.


    To be able to cast a Cleaning spell indicated that the waiter possessed a rank equivalent or higher than that of an advanced apprentice.


    Ever since Saleen had entered Alchemy City, he had only managed to spot two mage apprentices: Sumano, and the waiter that was working in this restaurant. Looks like Alchemy City isn¡¯t mage-friendly after all, Saleen thought.


    Saleen did not directly ask Sumano about any information regarding his mentor. He doubted that a grade-5 mage like Jason would be a household name here in Alchemy City. The matters that Lex and Jason were about to discuss were highly confidential. If the officials of Alchemy City caught wind of it, they would go after both Lex and Jason. Saleen could not betray Lex. Not because of their strong camaraderie, but because he had a stake in the magic tower over in the hell of god¡¯s punishment.


    If this tower was ever seized by Alchemy City, he could kiss his share of the tower goodbye.


    Mages usually did not touch other people¡¯s things, but the key word here was ¡°usually¡±. Saleen doubted that the grade-9 sorcerers would be able to resist the temptation of making Raphael¡¯s magical artifacts theirs.


    ¡°Alright Sumano, tell me more about this alchemy tower¡­¡± Saleen said. He was curious as to how this city even functioned without the help of noblemen. Plus, judging by the tone of Sumano¡¯s voice, there seemed to be a lot of swordsmen here in Alchemy City.


    Sumano wiped his mouth with a napkin and took a sip of beer before replying, ¡°Magic towers are everywhere in Alchemy City. Contrary to popr belief, the people actually in control if this city are not located inside them. The magic towers located at the heart of the city are but avenues where the nine sorcerers disseminate information. In reality, they cannot be bothered to personally make a trip down. The alchemy tower has a transmission array that is able to transmit sounds and deliver small items. If necessary, it can even teleport people. Thanks to this transmission array, any threat to the alchemy tower will immediately bemunicated over to the mages outside of the city.¡±


    ¡°I just want to know¡­ besides the alchemy tower, are there any other ces managed by the higher-ups¡­ like for example, this restaurant?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. The territory of this city spans twelve kilometers, and there are over eight hundred thousand people here. Just managing that tower alone is a lot of hard work. In this city, there are a grand total of six miniature alchemy towers. The people that manage these miniature towers are called elemental hands. Those people are the ones who truly manage the city,¡± Sumano replied.


    ¡°Oh? So if I wish to purchase a house, I¡¯ll have to go through them?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes, definitely. The alchemy tower is only responsible for announcements as well as transactions between outsiders and Alchemy City. Taxes and military defenses are all under the jurisdiction of the elemental hands,¡± Sumano exined.


    ¡°Are there any royal banks here?¡± queried Saleen.


    ¡°No, the people here at Alchemy City only ept currencies endorsed by the elemental hands,¡± Sumano replied.


    ¡°So I can¡¯t cash in any checks here?¡± Saleen asked, exasperated.


    ¡°You can, at a conversion rate with a five percent loss. If you¡¯re unwilling to convert them into our currency, your checks will be as good as useless here,¡± Sumano answered.


    Five percent did not seem too bad. Sikenqinya checks needed to undergo losses in conversion in Qin banks as well, and their rates of loss could sometimes be even more vicious than the rates provided at Alchemy City. However, these rates only applied to small amounts of money. The loss rate for private transactions would be more favorable if the check was not registered. Here in Alchemy City, each transactionprised of at least tens of thousands of gold coins. A five percent discount rate would mean losing a huge sum of money.


    Saleen guessed that Lex had at least one million gold coins worth of checks with her at this moment. A five percent loss would mean that they would lose fifty thousand gold coins. This caused Saleen to reminisce about the time when he was nearly killed by ck mages over a few thousand gold coins after a shady business deal with Aini. Ah¡­ good times, he thought sarcastically.


    He knew that money was not supposed to be spent like that. Even the wealthiest people knew better than to spend all of their money. Looks like Lex and I will need to run some errands for the people over at the alchemy tower, Saleen thought. Both Lex and Saleen did not know how many mages died running errands for the higher-ups each year. They did not want to know either. To the mages here at Alchemy City, hunting missions were nothing but a waste of time. That was why they outsourced these activities to other people to save time and effort.


    Although they would need to spend money giving these peoplepensation for their efforts, they would get the benefit of being able to practice magic full-time without having to worry about their supplies ever dwindling.


    Mages who were able to dedicate more time on honing their magic would be able to progress at a much faster rate than other mages. Sumano must have had spent his entire youth trying to make ends meet. Thus, he was unable to advance even after decades of being an advanced mage apprentice. Even if he was the most idiotic magician in the world, with adequate practice, he would have at least been able to create magic chords by now and would not have remained as a mere advanced apprentice.


    Looks like assimting to life in Alchemy City isn¡¯t as easy as we thought, Saleen thought gloomily. The costs of living in Alchemy City were so high that many mages were forced to earn money through hunting; picking herbs; digging for minerals¡­ anyone who was broke could forget about practicicing their magic or doing the things they loved.


    Saleen suddenly became curious about the origins of true alchemy mages. He also wanted to know if he could be one of them even if he did not have an alchemist¡¯s blood. He was not going to ask Sumano these questions though. He nned to ask his teacher about this once they had met.

 Chapter 194: Purchase Industry (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 194: Purchase Industry (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sumano sipped his beer while trying to maintain a calm andposed look. He could tell that Saleen was not just an average mage. He had been in the business for several years now, and seeing people react the way Saleen did when he informed them about the high costs of living in Alchemy City was a rarity. These people were usually either rich, powerful, or both.


    Most people would immediately ask him for ways to save money in Alchemy City. A handful of them would ask him about the techniques used to carry out missions sessfully. These two pieces of information formed the bulk of his earnings and potentially earned him a pretty penny.


    Not only did Saleen look unfazed, but the female mage wearing the colored robe looked fairlyposed as well. Both the female warrior and servant looked unbothered. What Sumano did not understand was why the mage d in the white robe had not reacted at all.


    As a matter of fact, both Saleen and Lex did not mind forking over such arge sum of money because they had more than enough items to auction off and pay for their expenses. If worst came to worst, Saleen could always fire Sika. She was not a mage, so they probably would not miss her absence. Nailisi was a creature bound to Saleen via their soul bond. She had to follow him wherever she went. As for Daniel, he was so poor he literally had nothing to his name. Since he was already in abject poverty, he really had nothing to worry about.


    However, since Lex was going to hire and provide for him, she needed to control his expenses.


    Daniel was different from an average mage. After bing a heretic, he had pledged his loyalty to Lex and Saleen, something that not many mages would dare to do.


    The reason why Daniel had picked up magic in the first ce was simple. He had longed to pursue magic as a career, and wanted to be a mage. All the achievements that came along with being a mage did not matter to him. He only worked hard because he loved magic and nothing else.


    Most mages valued freedom. However, freedom meant nothing to Daniel. If Saleen would be able to help him hone his skills and provide him with the materials for him to practice his magic, he did not mind serving Saleen.


    Not knowing the backgrounds of the five individuals sitting in front of him, Sumano asked tentatively, ¡± Mr. Saleen, so what are your intentions¡­¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about the money. Just charge me the amount you¡¯d charge anyone else,¡± Saleen said, his eyes darting towards the group of four sitting at the table next to him.


    Because the tables were not spaced too far apart, Saleen was able to clearly see their expressions. However, he could not hear what they were saying as there was a ss wall that separated the two tables. It was then that Saleen realized that the ss wall had actually been magically soundproofed and was not there for decorative purposes.


    Saleen could tell right away that all four of them were mages. Three of them were dressed in white robes while the fourth one was dressed in a grey robe. They looked to be about thirty years old. They would probably be considered prodigies by now if they had not been in Alchemy City, which was otherwise known as the ¡°Empire of Magic¡±.


    Saleen could tell from their expressions that they were quarrelling about something, although he could not hear what the argument was about.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen,¡± Sumano said.


    ¡°Mhm?¡± Saleen replied distractedly.


    ¡°They¡¯re trying to decide on whether or not they should hire swordmasters,¡± Sumano said.


    ¡°How would you know?¡± Saleen asked, confused. His powers could not prate through the magically soundproofed windows. Seeing that Sumano was merely an advanced apprentice, he would not be able to do so either.


    ¡°These things are verymon in Alchemy City. The tasks that they take on can be somewhat dangerous. If these mages hire a few swordsmen to protect them, they¡¯ll be much safer. They¡¯re probably dealing with magic beasts from the maind,¡± Sumano exined.


    ¡°Then where do all these swordsmene from?¡± Saleen inquired.


    ¡°There is a swordsmens camp located in the eastern side of Alchemy City. They specialize in these kinds of services,¡± Sumano replied.


    ¡°These types of camps exist in Alchemy City?¡± Saleen asked, his toneced with surprise.


    ¡°There¡¯s four of them, actually, and they¡¯re all full,¡± replied Sumano.


    ¡°Then why haven¡¯t I heard of any of them?¡± Lex interjected. She had not arranged for anyone to spy on the people of Alchemy City. However, news as major as the construction of four swordsmen battalion camps should have reached her ears a long time ago.


    ¡°Probably because they were only constructed recently. In the past, Alchemy City only had one swordsmens camp. The swordsmen there were trained to only serve the mages in Alchemy City. No one knew about their existence back then. However, as the number of errands the mages required help with increased, more and more people started to study swordsmanship so they could take on these tasks. Sadly, these upations are the ones that are most looked down upon. Not being able to bear the ostracization, these swordsmen congregated in the eastern part of the city and chose to settle down there. All the mages did was deploy a representative to regroup these swordsmen. In reality, they did it so that they could better control the hiring prices of these swordsmen,¡± Sumano rambled on.


    ¡°But isn¡¯t this a win-win situation?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes, of course the swordsmen benefit too. After being integrated into Alchemy City, they¡¯re able to purchase food and lodging at much cheaper prices. Plus, the chances of being dumped right after an errand ispleted are much lower,¡± Sumano said.


    Saleen did not ask any further. Alchemy City ran a detailed show. The four battalion camps had enough swordsmen to protect the entire city from any unexpected attacks. If it cost less to hire a swordsmanpared to operating a fully constructed puppet, Saleen would consider hiring a few.


    Just then, the mage with the grey robe unwittingly made eye contact with Saleen. He immediately ignored his partners¡¯ words and started walking towards Saleen and the others.


    ¡°Lord mage!¡± the grey-robed mage shouted from afar. Upon being called, Saleen stood up to entertain him. The mage continued walking towards him and only stopped when he was right in front of Saleen. He continued, ¡°Would you like to join our group? We can sign a contract right now if you¡¯d like.¡±


    ¡°Join your group? Sign a contract?¡± Saleen echoed the mage¡¯s words, furrowing his eyebrows in distaste as he did so. The mage standing right in front of him was very rude and had no basic sense of courtesy.


    ¡°Oh, you don¡¯t know about the new mission that the alchemy tower just announced? It¡¯s a grade-7 mission,¡± the grey mage uttered,pletely oblivious to Saleen¡¯s unhappy expression. ¡°The natives of the Green Archipgo have recently discovered dragons. The alchemy towers just confirmed it.¡±


    Not even thinking twice about the mage¡¯s invitation, Saleen shook his head.


    Kill a dragon? No thank you! Saleen thought, recalling the time where he was almost killed by a dragon which was about to take itsst breath. He would be nuts to take up an offer to kill a dragon when he did not even have any information on it.


    ¡°But sir, there will be mages from the alchemy tower apanying us on this mission,¡± the mage said, trying to assuage Saleen¡¯s fears.


    Saleen shook his head again, hoping that the mage would take the hint. The mage looked at Saleen in disappointment, his heart starting to develop feelings of contempt for Saleen.


    As he watched the mage storm away, Saleen¡¯s mind started to be upied with suspicions about the mage¡¯s ims. Even though he did not know anything about the Green Archipgo, he was certain that there would not be any dragons there. There had not been any sight of them in the Myers Maind for years now.


    Two years ago, green dragons had been spotted in the Kosan Prefecture. Just a few days ago, an injured tiago had emerged from the Red Copper Fort. Now, Saleen had caught wind of news that dragons had reappeared in the Green Archipgo. Was the dragon dimension reopening?


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, are you sure about this?¡± Sumano asked, perplexed as to why Saleen had immediately rejected the other party¡¯s invitation. The organs of a dragon could be harvested to create powerful equipment. Killing one would be the equivalent of winning the lottery a hundred times over.


    Dragon skin was especially valuable as it could be used to create armor. Dragon skin extracted from the abdomen was best used in the manufacture of scrolls.


    This was because scrolls made up of dragon skin would be able to resist the power of forbidden spells.


    ¡°Buying a house and settling down is the most important thing to me right now. Anything else is secondary. Plus, dragons are not exactly easy to kill,¡± Saleen replied, shooting Sumano a weak smile. Even if he did want to find someone to partner up with, it would definitely not be that mage. A mage who was consumed by greed would provide little to no help. Saleen was better off enlisting the help of a junior swordsman.


    Salem finally understood what the argument was about. The other mages, fearing for their lives, must have rejected the grey-robed mage as well. That was perfectly understandable. When Saleen had been just a grade-3 mage, he had bailed at the mention of any missions involving dragons. It was only after he had been promoted to grade-4 that Saleen managed to muster enough confidence to take on more daunting missions.


    If he had not met the tiago and understood how strong these dragons were, Saleen might actually have been interested in taking on the mission.


    ¡°Alright then,¡± Sumano said calmly. He was not too disappointed. Saleen had mentioned his desire to own a house here in Alchemy City. If Saleen chose to work with Sumano, thetter would get a guaranteedmission from the officials in Alchemy City.


    If even Saleen did not dare to take up the mission of ying a dragon, Daniel definitely did not dare to even consider it. Lex, knowing that ughtering dragons was an extremely difficult task, would not force Saleeen to ept the mission just to earn a quick buck. Faced with these seemingly impassive and indifferent people, Sumano could only awkwardly sip his beer, hoping that Saleeen would hire him for something.


    ¡°Sumano, do you have any money on you at the moment?¡± Saleeen asked, startling the advanced apprentice.


    Oh dear! Are these guys actually broke? Am I going to be bankrupt? I can¡¯t afford this meal!! Sumano thought frantically, already regretting his possiblepse in judgement.


    ¡°Please don¡¯t be mistaken,¡± Lex assured Sumano as soon as she saw worry lines starting to appear prominently on his facial features. She took out a bundle of checks and asked Sumano, ¡°These are twenty thousand gold coins worth of checks. How much will you receive after the loss in the exchange rate?¡±


    Sumano used his near perfect vision to carefully take a glimpse at the stack of checks. The words written on them were in the Tanggsinguage, which meant that they were not in the Qin currency. Nevertheless, since he was used to transactions where he had to convert currencies, he immediately replied, ¡°Eighteen thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°Excluding this meal, how long can we hire you for eighteen thousand gold coins?¡±


    ¡°Six months,¡± Sumano replied, trying not to sound too gleeful.


    ¡°Okay, consider these gold coins yours. You must be at our beck and call for half a year,¡± Lex instructed generously. It was not her money anyway. She had discovered these checks while rummaging through the ck deacon¡¯s spatial equipment.


    Lex figured that she would not be able to go back to the Tanggsi Empire to cash in the checks, at least not for another few years. In the Qin country, the Tanggsi banks had implemented a check discount rate so high that no one would want to cash in such a high sum of money there. It was not worth losing so much money just to cash in a check. Furthermore, to Lex, spending a fortune employing a local in a foreign country to cater to her every whim was something that she had been ustomed to doing. Hence, she did not feel the pinch when she spent eighteen thousand gold coins on Sumano¡¯s services.


    Sumano was well-informed about Alchemy City¡¯s affairs. He figured that half a year was all Lex and Saleen needed to understand everything about Alchemy City, and rejoiced when Lex did not bother trying to bring down his price quote.


    As soon as Saleen saw Sika wiping the food stains off of her lips with her sleeve, he asked, ¡°Sika, are you full?¡±


    Sika nodded happily. Saleen, satisfied with Sika¡¯s response, turned to Sumano and said, ¡°Sumano, keep the money in a safe ce and take us to the alchemy tower.¡±


    It took a lot of effort for Sumano not to jump for joy. He had thought that Saleen and Lex were kidding when they said that they were going to employ him for six months. Sumano had even pictured the worst case scenario where they would immediately cast him aside after finishing their meal. He had not expected them to pay six months worth of his services upfront. As an advanced apprentice, his services were not worth much. Tourists typically needed just one week with him to understand everything about Alchemy City.


    What Sumano did not know was thatpared to thepensation received by the mages under Lex¡¯smand over at Bitter Water Prefecture, he was actually being underpaid. The magic nuclei that Lex provided for each of her mages needed to be replenished often due to their frequent usage, and that required money. Even if he was just an advanced apprentice, if he had been in Bitter Water Prefecture, Lex would have given him a sum of money topensate for the energy expenditure.


    After verifying the sum of money he had received, Sumano pocketed the checks and called for the waiter to pay the bill. What he had not told Saleen was that he had alternative means to cash in the checks at a better exchange rate. After the fees he had to pay the middleman, he could save over one hundred gold coins.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, if you have enough money, you could consider immediately buying an apartment over at the alchemy tower,¡± Sumano said.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Saleen asked, perplexed.


    ¡°The nine underground floors of the alchemy tower are designated for the negotiation of business deals and trade agreements. The first floor to the ninth floor of the building are all apartments. The penthouse overlooks the entire city, and let me tell you, it¡¯s breathtaking,¡± Sumano said before pausing. He let the grandeur of the city send him into deep feelings of awe. Unfortunately, he could not afford to even hitch a ride to the top floor of the tower. That required a huge sum of money that he was unwilling to part with at the moment. He was definitely nning on seeing the view of the entire city that he had dedicated his entire life to though. Perhaps he would do that at a ripe old age, when he was unable to work and had nothing else to live for.

 Chapter 195: Purchase Industry (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 195: Purchase Industry (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The group of five allowed themselves to be led by Sumano as they headed towards the center of the city. Saleen deliberately slowed down his footsteps to match Lex¡¯s as the two of them took in the scenery around them.


    Alchemy City was truly one of a kind. Never in his wildest dreams had Saleen envisioned a city so beautiful. The roads were practically seamless. The bricks used to build them had been cemented together using magic. Saleen also spotted storm drains located on both sides of the streets. Taking a closer look, a person could see the many drainage pipes that had beenid in the ground. The streets were so wide that even if carriages took up one side of the road, there would still be enough space for other modes of transport to pass through.


    Tall buildings nked both sides of the streets. Outside of these buildings stood beautifully sculpted statues and other intricate magical-patterned decorations. Saleen noticed that magicmps were ced at one hundred meter intervals. Since it was still daytime, these magicmps were not lit up yet. However, Saleen could imagine how spectacr the view of the city would be when night came and all the magicmps lit up at once.


    The buildings that nked both sides of the roads were mostly shops that sold all kinds of goods and services. In fact, Saleen had spotted a few mage apprentices dismantling a five meter tall puppet when he peered through the ss window of one of the shops.


    The equipment stores here were very different from those in other cities. They only specialized in the sale of certain types of equipment. For example, one of the shops Saleen passed by only sold armor. Since Alchemy City had four swordsman¡¯s camps, most of their business probably came from the swordmasters who needed to constantly update the quality of their weaponry. At the corner of the shop, Saleen saw a puppet approximately as tall as two people soliciting business from people from all walks of life. Decked fully in a tacky yellowish-orange magic armor, it looked quite ridiculous.


    There were two lines written in magic ink on the ss windows of the shop. They read ¡°Dyneema¡¯s Knight armor Forging Services ¨C proven and tested for one thousand and five hundred years ¨C safety guaranteed¡±. A magic potion had caused the colors of the words to constantly change, allowing them to stand out from the rest of the shops.


    The status of knights might have deteriorated over the years, but the techniques for forging knight armor had been passed down for many generations and were still popr today. The way the slogan had been phrased would attract the patronage of many swordmasters to this shop.


    Saleen looked up to see the sight of a grey, gloomy sky, meaning that it was going to rain very soon. However, the people on the streets did not seem to be too flustered by the sudden change in weather, although Saleen did see the silhouettes of them hurriedly walking, each of them draped in what seemed to be an apprentice robe.


    Of course, in a city filled with many ridiculously tall buildings, there were bound to be a few low-rise ones too. Each of them had their own unique character, and judging by the materials used to build them, Saleen guessed that almost all of them had been built ording to the standards of magicboratories.


    Even though they were much shorter than the average building here in Alchemy City, they were at least twenty meters in height. These buildings did not have more than five floors, and each of them had a space designated solely for carriage horses to rest.


    If what Sumano said was true, Alchemy City would definitely be able to amodate a poption equivalent to that of Holy Rock City. It was such a waste to construct these enormous buildings for so few people.


    Although both Alchemy City and Holy Rock City were huge, thetter only looked the part. However, it was still enough to leave tourists gobsmacked. On the other hand, Alchemy City was truly vast. With the exception of horse carriages, everything in here was a lotrgerpared to that of other cities, from buildings to shops, to even the roads.


    However, this type of vastness actually made people feel empty and depressed. Lonely, even, almost as though a person were alone in this city and had no one to reach out to.


    Scary! Saleen thought as he shuddered at the thought of being alone with no one to turn to. He had gradually fallen in love with Alchemy City. Yet, there was always something about it that made him want to flee from the ce without looking back.


    Holy Rock City was a safe and clean ce to live in, allowing people to livefortably and freely without ever having to worry about their safety.


    Law and order was maintained in Alchemy City too, but itcked the warmth that was omnipresent in Holy Rock City. Everyone was treated the same here, almost as though they were machines. I guess that¡¯s what you get when you decide to use magic to do everything for you, Saleen thought grimly.


    Saleen gradually understood the differences between Holy Rock City and Alchemy City. Thetter was just like a fully constructed puppet, intricately designed and wlessly operating, allowing almost no room for error. On the other hand, Holy Rock City was like a fully constructed puppet that hade to life. There was actualmunication, warmth, and the feeling that a person belonged.


    To survive in Alchemy City, one needed to have a strong sense of self-control so that they would not be too depressed from theck of human contact and warmth. Only then could that person truly benefit from staying in Alchemy City.


    Saleen had wanted to visit the alchemy tower since long ago. Lex felt the same way. In fact, just looking at the building that towered over her made her feel all sorts of indescribable emotions.


    It could not be considered a ¡°tower¡± in the traditional sense at all. From afar, it looked like a mountain that had been divided into six valleys. Among these smaller mountains, numerous rooms had been carved. The public square located in front of the tower wasrge enough to amodate tens of thousands of people.


    The six edges of the tower had been constructed using pure metal and were engraved with magic texts. This seemingly ordinary design looked absolutely marvellous on the alchemy tower ¨C shocking even. It looked to be about fifty stories tall. Although the top few floors appeared shorter than the others, they were each at least two hundred meters tall.


    The six metal edges cut into the sky like a spear. There was even a bridge built on the ninth floor to improve essibility for locals and foreigners alike.


    Bridges like this were ancient, and had their own unique architectural style. Legend had it that during the second Wang Dynasty, the bridges built in the imperial capital had been at least dozens of miles long. It was so wide that even horse carriages could fit onto it.


    Samuno was right. Alchemy City did not have any magic towers that were ten stories tall or above. However, this alchemy tower was easily one of the tallest buildings in all of the Myers Maind. The churches in the Holy See could not even reach half of its height.


    This was something that all of Alchemy City could be extremely proud of. Saleen could imagine how exhrating it would be to observe the entire city from the top. Would he feel like he had the world under his feet?


    Saleen knew that he should not have been feeling too ambitious and cocky, but he had already set his heart on owning this huge building one day. Perhaps he could not achieve his dream now, but he could at least start by buying one of the most spacious and high up rooms the tower had to offer.


    As he gazed at the ten meter tall main entrance, Saleen kept telling himself that it was just an ordinary building and that he would not let himself be too awestruck by the grandeur of the ce. It was not bing of a mage to be easily overwhelmed with excitement over petty things like this. Plus, no building in the world couldpare to Raphael¡¯s ten story magic tower. The only thing the alchemy tower had over Raphael¡¯s tower was height. That¡¯s not too big of a deal, Saleen thought. He figured that the humans who had existed tens of thousands of years ago would have easily been able to construct a building of this height.


    Although, the alchemy tower was huge, it was not considered a true magic tower. Even the name they had given the building made it sound like an oversizedboratory. The rooms located on the ninth floor onwards were all apartments for sale. This showed that the mages in Alchemy City were not truly prepared to face the gods in an actual battle.


    ¡°Sumano, just take me to the ce where I can finalize my documents for the transaction,¡± Saleen said. In reality, he did not feel like exploring the tower any further. He simply did not understand the alchemy tower. On one hand, it had potential. Its size and height far surpassed thergest building in the Holy See. On the other hand, the alchemy tower was not built to withstand any divine attacks.


    The alchemy tower had epitomized both the confidence of the alchemy mages, as well as their inferiority. That confidence stemmed from their sheer power. After all, they had built this tower all by themselves. At the same time, however, they felt inadequate because that same power they possessed had been slowly deteriorating. Hence, mages never possessed the courage to dere war on the gods, something that humans had done thousands of years ago.


    Right now, the mages of the Myers Maind were counting on the interdimensionalws in order to avoid confrontation with the gods. After the goddess had been defeated, no god had been able to step foot onto the Myers Maind.


    Two thoughts suddenly sprouted in Saleen¡¯s mind. Will Lex be able to build a magic tower that can keep away the gods? Will I stick with her even if she decides to challenge the gods to a battle to the death?


    The first floor of the tower was almost as big as the entire public square itself. Saleen looked around and noticed that there were not many pirs holding up the weight of the entire building. As he lifted his head upwards, he saw a huge magic array distributing some of the weight of the building away from the existing pirs. He had never seen such an indented, unevenly constructed magic array in his entire life. For such a huge magic array to operate smoothly, external forces were at work. There was no way it could rely solely on the weak elemental forces it absorbed from its surroundings.


    The magic array seemed to have been constructed using the Figaro form. Saleen did not bother trying to observe how it worked, as it was tooplex. However, Saleen guessed that its function was to distribute the weight of the dozens of floors above it, allowing the thick metal columns hidden in the walls to absorb the force of gravity acting upon them.


    If the scale of the magic tower had been reduced to about ten percent of its original size, Saleen would have been able to design it himself. Even for arge-scale tower like this, all a Ceylon City mage needed was thirty to fifty years to be able to precisely replicate a building of the same size. Designing and constructing a magic tower was not as hard as it seemed.


    There were not many people roaming the first floor of alchemy tower. Saleen did not see the all-familiar professional union either. There were models of miniature houses set up in the middle of the hall. The way they were ced made them look like closed counters. Saleen really liked these exquisitely small houses. He looked around, and noticed that there were quite a number of magic nts ced in all four corners of the room.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, are you certain you want to purchase an apartment in the alchemy tower?¡± Sumano asked again. He did not want to conduct any transactions with people who were potentially broke. If he was ever implicated, it was possible that he would lose his home and even be barred from ever stepping foot into Alchemy City again. Just thinking about it sent shivers down Sumano¡¯s spine.


    ¡°Not to worry. We have the money,¡± Saleen saidzily. He knew Samuno all too well, and had guessed that he would ask this question.


    ¡°Thene with me,¡± Samuno instructed as he led Saleen and the gang through a hall before stopping in front of a door. cing his hand on the doorknob, he turned and told Saleen as tactfully as possible, ¡°Mr. Saleen, purchasing an apartment, especially one at alchemy tower, is not something to joke about. Each apartment is at least five million gold coins. If you intend to back out, please tell me now.¡±


    ¡°Gold coins mean nothing to mages like us,¡± Saleen replied. His tone was pleasant, without a hint or anger or frustration.


    For transactions involving grade-7 magic objects and above, gold coins were not needed. The mages involved would not mind bartering. The buyer would give up suitable quantities of raw materials and equipment in exchange for the objects provided by the seller.


    The sound of a door opening rang through the air. Samuno went through the door first, followed by Saleen and the others. They had entered a winch-like lift that wasmonly used in steep mining terrain. The reason why it had been built here was obvious. The alchemy tower was too tall, and junior mages did not have the stamina to climb all those stairs.


    ¡°Take us to the tenth floor,¡± Samuno spoke into the magic array ced inside the elevator.


    The high-pitched squeaking sounds of metaling together rang in the air as the winch took them to their destination. As much as Saleen hated the noise, he knew that this sound could not be muted using magic. The mages needed the noise in order to deduce that the machine was working and to ensure the safety of all its users.


    As the machine slowly took the group of six up to the tenth floor, Saleen felt conflicting emotions rush through his entire being as he thought about the reason why he had managed to embark on the journey to be a mage in the first ce. Jason had wanted to buy his house, which had given him enough funds and thus opportunities to study magic.


    Now, he could say that he was a sessful archmage. Not only that, but he was also wealthy enough to purchase his own home. If someone had told him that when he had just started out, he would have scoffed at them.


    Lex wanted to own a house here as well, right in the heart of Alchemy City. However, Lex being part of the Grukos family, realized that this desire was impractical. She would have to sign a magic contract in order to secure ownership of the house. However, she was afraid that if she revealed her full name, it would cause unnecessary trouble.


    It was not a bad idea to purchase a property in Saleen¡¯s name. His mentor was of alchemist blood. In this aspect, Saleen could pull some strings and cross multiple territories without being restricted by theirws.


    After reaching a height of about seventy to eighty meters, the doors of the elevator opened. Saleen adjusted his robe before asking Lex, ¡°So how many are you willing to sell?¡±


    Lex knew that Saleen was referring to the fully constructed puppets. She had five unmatured ones on hand. After thinking about it for a moment, Lex replied, ¡°Two. If it¡¯s still not enough, then we can sell the spare parts of the puppets as well.¡±

 Chapter 196: Alchemy Tower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 196: Alchemy Tower (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The materials used to produce the fully constructed puppet were definitely not worth five million gold coins. The most valuable parts would be the magic arrays carved into the interior of the puppet. Such magic arrays which could move metallic parts just like the human body, but they had been lost in time. Now that the people from Alchemy City were going to purchase this fully constructed puppet, they would still need to think of a way to disassemble it.


    Since only one puppet was going to be sold, the chances of a breakthrough were dismal, so the puppet had lost some of its value already.


    Once Saleen exited the lift, he saw a hall which was neither big nor small.


    Each side of the hall contained a corridor, and in the center of the hall was a counter. A man who looked to be about forty years old popped his head up from behind the counter andughed, ¡°Sumano, you got a good deal this time!¡±


    Sumano walked forward awkwardly, then he took out a voucher from his pocket and stuffed it into the hands of the man behind the counter. The voucher represented one thousand gold coins, and would be worth nine hundred gold coins after a slight discount. However, he had owed this sum of money for two weeks now and was embarrassed to make others give him change. It was good that other people had not charged him any interest.


    ¡°Lobolly, I will treat you to drinks next time.¡±


    ¡°Mm, go and settle your business. Don¡¯t dy any further.¡± The middle aged man called Lobolly put away the voucher and lowered himself back down behind the counter. He had known Sumano for a very long time. They hade to Alchemy City at almost the same time. Now that Lobolly was working for the city, he was at least able to survive, so he would still help Sumano from time to time.


    Sumano led Saleen and the others to the corridor on the left side of the hall. The corridor was spacious, and it seemed as though people would be able to race horses inside of it.


    As Saleen was appreciating the area, a few people walked out from the second room on the left. The first person was a youth who was d in a grey magic robe. As the man approached Saleen and his team, Sumano quickly avoided that man.


    In reality, Saleen never paid any attention to the arrogant youth. However, this mage d in a grey magic robe walked straight up to Lex the moment he saw her. The other three people who followed that mage cautiously tried to stop him, but failed to do so.


    ¡°Beautifuldy, allow me to introduce myself. I¡­¡±


    ¡°I am very busy,¡± Lex simply interrupted. At this point, Saleen then took a closer look at this youth. The youth was dressed immactely, in a way that made him look younger than his actual age. If Saleen was not so observant, he would have thought that the man was only around twenty-three or twenty-four years old. After secretly activating his icy sight, Saleen merely scanned the mage¡¯s skin and deduced that he was already almost thirty-four or thirty-five years old.


    When the mage spoke, he did not sound like a mage at all. He sounded more like the young master from that explosive household. Perhaps he was a member of some small noble family who had never seen the world before. Otherwise, if he had been from somerge aristocracy, he would have never behaved so rudely.


    ¡°Busy? I can wait for you.¡± When this mage was interrupted by Lex, he was slightly angered. However, when he saw that Saleen was wearing a grey robe that belonged to grade-5 mages, he did not dare to reveal his fury. If this mage had been back in his hometown, he would have asked his people to maim Saleen a long time ago.


    Sumano did not dare to make any noise. He simply rushed towards the end of the corridor. On the other hand, the three people behind the mage pulled on the mage¡¯s shirt as they were afraid he might exhibit some coarse behavior.


    When Lex walked past him, the mage d in a grey robe took a deep breath a mesmerized expression. When Saleen saw that frivolous look on the mage, he grew furious. However, he was in the Alchemy City now, so it would be troublesome if he got into a fight with that mage. If this had happened in the wilderness, Saleen would have surely beaten that guy into pulp.


    How did a person like that be a mage? What was more, he was a grade-4 mage!


    Lex, however, did not disy any change in her expression. When she walked past that group of people, she noticed that there were markings on the three people behind that mage. Their cors were embroidered with the picture of a badge.


    The study of badges was a greatlyplicated form of knowledge as many badges contained magic imprints and there were manyplex variations. Lex was greatly familiar with the noblemen of the Qin Empire, so she simply took a nce and could tell right away that those people were not from the Qin Empire.


    Lex was fuming in her heart. The multicolored magic robe was good, but it caused other people to be unable to recognize her identity. Even mages with the same grade as Lex could not identify her true capabilities.


    As the mage in a grey robe continued to sniff the air forcefully, Nailisi suddenly released a long draw of air as she walked past him. Nailisi had been able to sense Saleen¡¯s mood at that time, hence why she had done that.


    Pu!


    A pungent and sour smell filled the corridor. The mage nearly choked to death as he had still been frivolously sniffing the fragrance from Lex¡¯s body.


    Nailisi giggled and walked right in front of him. She even turned even to nce at him.


    Of course, Nailisi had not farted. Such matters could not be controlled at will, despite Nailisi¡¯s ability to imitate sounds more skillfully than high-level assassins. As for the smell, it hade from a toxic capsule which Nailisi had found while collecting the materials from the magic beasts in the hell of the god¡¯s punishment.


    This toxic gas was not fatal, but it had an extremely pungent odor. Saleen was already prepared for this gas. Thus, when the gas was released, he immediately acted to disperse the air around Sika.


    However, the mage in the grey robe had still been smelling so forcefully and had not been prepared at all, so he was directly hit by Nailisi¡¯s covert assault.


    The mage grew dizzy and his legs softened, then he fell to the floor and began vomiting. The other three muscr men behind him also found the smell extremely abominable and started retching as well.


    They knew that they had been attacked by that green-eyeddy. They simply did not have any evidence. Even if theyined to the people of Alchemy City, those people could not possibly intervene with people¡¯s farting.


    Saleen was overjoyed when he looked back and saw that the mage was nearly puking his guts out. Since you wanted to disgust other people, I will make you vomit like mad. However, Nailisi¡¯s method was¡­


    When Saleen thought of that sound made by Nailisi, he could feel his stomach churning.


    Lex chuckled in her heart. Nailisi seemed so elegant and beautiful, yet her methods were so unpredictable. This was a good technique. Unfortunately, Lex could not learn it. As the head of a county, it would be an utter joke if Lex learned to make such noises.


    Thest person to walk past the mage was Sika, and she did not hold back at all, simplyughing out loud. The three retching men knew that these people they had just met could not be trifled with when they saw Sika¡¯s weapon. The actions of their young master had been atrocious. If he decided to put on an attitude now, a conflict might immediately ensue. When the three men thought of that, their faces were filled embarrassment. Then, they helped the mage stand up and fled in disgrace.


    As a swordsman, the most important core value was loyalty. However, if a swordsman followed the wrong master, that loyalty would be sorrow.


    Sumano was dumbfounded. That was the first time he had seen such methods being applied by a person on their enemies. In Alchemy City, when two different groups of people entered a conflict, most people chose to tolerate it. If they could not suppress their anger, they would risk being stripped of all their equipment and being kicked out of the city.


    Even though the mages and swordsmen in Alchemy City rarely killed, it did not mean that they were not violent. Even a duke who came would have to abide by thews set by the people of Alchemy City.


    Lex felt much better after getting back at the mage. It¡¯s a pity Bain is recuperating in Bitter Water Prefecture. If he were here, he would never have let that atrocious guy leave the Qin Empire, Lex thought to herself.


    As a mage master, his actions had been unbing and obscene. It was a true insult to each and every mage.


    As a woman, Lex was not cold and unfeeling like a mountain of ice. She had an outstanding appearance and was of noble status, so tons of people had been confessing their love for her since several years ago. Most of the men were the swordsmen who worked alongside her, and the way they disyed their affection was very traditional as well. Those men abided by proper etiquette despite knowing that they did not stand much of a chance. What Lex had found uneptable were the actions of that mage. If it had not been for Nailisi, Lex would most likely have hit that fellow the next time she saw him.


    Sumano stopped walking when he reached the end of the corridor. A sweet voice came from within the room and said, ¡°Come in.¡±


    Then, Sumano signaled to Saleen before opening the door and entering the room.


    ¡°Lord Hogina.¡± Sumano entered the room and bowed at a girl who seemed to be only fifteen or sixteen years old. The girl was dressed in a white robe, and the excess cloth from the robeid on the floor.


    The girl had a childlike cuteness on her face. Her lips were scarlet, and her hair was rolled up behind her head. This was the dressing of a person from Cloudflow. She had the face of a Qin person as her hair was ck and her nose was not that high.


    ¡°Sumano, are you here to borrow money again? Teacher might just chase you out of Alchemy City!¡± Hogina admonished Sumano. Even so, she still maintained a sweet smile.


    Sumano¡¯s face flushed, and he could not rebut her. He had borrowed money from Hogina in the past, but that had been such a long time ago. Hogina had only been about six or seven years old at that time?


    ¡°Madam, this mage here is looking for you.¡± Sumano turned his body sideways and introduced Saleen to Hogina.


    Saleen was full of admiration because Hogina was already a grade-2 mage at such a tender age. Saleen gave a mage¡¯s bow and simply said, ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Hogina Alexaka,¡± the little mage answered seriously. However, her robe dragged by her feet, so the image was a little amusing.


    As Hogina turned around and began walking towards the rear of the table, she stepped on her own robe and staggered. She quickly grabbed the lower part of her robe, like a girl who wore a skirt, and returned to her chair in a fluster.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t you dareugh at me!¡± Hogina said to Saleen vehemently. She had noticed that theughter in Saleen¡¯s eyes was building.


    ¡°Hogina, I am not mocking you. You made me remember that when I was young, I also wore my teacher¡¯s clothes, just like you,¡± Saleen replied gently, notughing at all.


    ¡°Your teacher? Is it this sister? grade-6, so powerful!¡± Hogina¡¯s words were stunning. She was only a grade-2 mage, yet she could decipher Lex¡¯s capabilities despite that multicolored robe.


    ¡°No, my teacher is called Jason, Jason Statham.¡±


    ¡°Never heard of that person before, but to be able to groom a mage master, he must be immensely powerful. Ah!¡± Hogina pped her clean forehead and continued, ¡°What were you saying just now?¡±


    ¡°This mage is looking for you,¡± Sumano quickly reminded her.


    ¡°Oh, yes. Master Saleen, what can I do for you?¡± Hogina resumed her solemn appearance.


    ¡°I would like to buy a space in the alchemy tower.¡±


    ¡°Oh! I will be rich!¡± Hogina jumped off of her chair and onto the table immediately. She grabbed Saleen¡¯s hand enthusiastically and said, ¡°Which story are you nning to buy?¡±


    ¡°The higher, the better.¡±


    ¡°Mm, but the price increases the higher you go.¡±


    ¡°I will have an item that will definitely satisfy Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Satisfy? What items has my teacher not seen, hmph¡­¡± Hogina let go of Saleen and looked a bit disappointed. Many people had enquired about the price of the houses, and all of them had wished to use their equipment as coteral. However, there were too few things which would satisfy her teacher. Moreover, Saleen was merely a grade-4 mage. He would not possess any good equipment either.

 Chapter 197: Alchemy Tower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 197: Alchemy Tower (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Peng!


    Lex removed aponent from the body of a fully constructed puppet and dropped it on the table. Thisponent was about one foot long, and its core was aplex metallic gear. The exterior was interlocked, formingyers of small annr sheets.


    ¡°Ee?¡± Hogina jumped off the table and tried to take thatponent. Nailisi, who was standing to the side, extended her arm and stopped Hogina¡¯s arm in its ce.


    ¡°Hogina, you want this item right?¡± Saleen said. He felt that Nailisi was bing increasingly useful. Without Saleen saying anything, Nailisi could urately sense whatever thoughts he had.


    ¡°Hmph, I have seen many puppetponents.¡± Hogina might have said that, but she yearned to touch theponent in the bottom of her heart.


    ¡°Is this item not valuable?¡± Saleen looked extremely astonished.


    ¡°It is valuable, but it is not enough for an apartment,¡± Hogina replied angrily as she yanked her arm out of Nailisi¡¯s grip. Her strength was inferior to that of Nailisi¡¯s. In fact, even if Hogina was blessed with the Potency spell, she would still not be stronger than Nailisi. Hence, she could only look at this wonderful alchemical machineponent, and she could not touch it.


    ¡°What if I have theplete set?¡± Saleen and Lex were fairly skilled in business negotiation. They had not brought out theplete fully constructed puppet. They had only used a singleponent to tempt Hogina.


    ¡°Complete set? Impossible! This item has a history of over one thousand years. If you have aplete set, then you should send it to the Holy Rock City where you can fetch a better price.¡± Hogina possessed a very keen pair of eyes, and Saleen marveled at her judgment. Furthermore, whenever Hogina spoke, itpletely did not sound like her age at all.


    Lexughed and said, ¡°If I take it out right now, your floor will be damaged. This floor is made from sea pear wood, and if it is damaged, you will impensation from me.¡±


    Hogina looked at Lex, and her eyes darted darted about wildly as she considered the proposition. Then, Hogina spoke to herself, ¡°A grade-6 mage should not be lying. Teacher, teacher!¡± Hogina suddenly ran out of the room like a gust of wind, and hollered along the corridor.


    ¡°What is it?¡± A gentle and elegant voice sounded from the other end of the corridor.


    ¡°Teacher, there is a good deal.¡± Hogina knocked on the door at the opposite side while shouting anxiously.


    Saleen looked at the door to the opposite side. The door was split into a left and right piece. Both pieces of the door slid open and a man who was around Jason¡¯s age walked out. Saleen was taken aback. This man looked fairly normal. It was just that¡­


    Hogina¡¯s teacher had six legs, and a tail at his back. Furthermore, there was a thick,rge piece of metal equipment on his left forearm. This tubr metallic equipment kept spinning on top of his arm.


    ¡°Teacher¡­¡± Hogina dragged this six-legged man forward, and pointed to the table in her room.


    ¡°Oh? That¡¯s interesting.¡± The six-legged man caught sight of the alchemicalponent in one nce. His legs flitted at an astonishing speed, and in almost the span of a single breath, this man hade before the table.


    At this point in time, Saleen discovered that the lower half of this man was fitted with a set of alchemical equipment to rece his two original legs. This equipment had a copper color and resembled a kind of giant desert scorpion. So, this man was Hogina¡¯s teacher?


    Hogina¡¯s teacher did not wear a magic robe. He only had half a piece of magic armor on his upper body, and his hair was bundled together by a metal ring. Even Saleen¡¯s icy sight could not decipher his grade.


    Saleen knew that if he could not identify a person¡¯s grade, then the person must have been a sorcerer. Unless a person wore a magic robe like the one on Lex, Saleen could identify the levels of professionals who were of grade-6 and below.


    Hogina¡¯s teacher stared at theponent on the table for around a minute. Then, he spoke, ¡°Master Saleen, you want to buy an apartment in the alchemy tower?¡±


    ¡°Oh, yes.¡± Saleen was not surprised at all. The two rooms were separated by only a corridor, so it was not surprising that Hogina¡¯s teacher had overheard the conversation.


    ¡°Thisponent can be exchanged for the smallest room, the kind which is used to store food. If you have aplete puppet and you can also guarantee that thisponent is authentic, then you can exchange them for arger room.¡±


    ¡°No, I want an apartment.¡± Saleen immediately rejected the deal when he heard that a fully constructed puppet could only be exchanged for one room. Saleen had five people with him, and he definitely did not want to share a room with a death mage.


    ¡°An apartment? Do you know how much an apartment on the top floor of the alchemy tower costs?¡± Hogina¡¯s teacher asked.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t. I only know that it would be extremely arduous to find another puppet like this on the entirety of the Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°If you have two of these puppets, I will give you an apartment. Saleen, an apartment in this alchemy tower spans a few hundred meters. But¡­¡±


    ¡°But what?¡± Saleen followed the pace and tone of the man and asked this question.


    ¡°If you possess the drawing for this puppet, you can exchange it for an entire story,¡± The man spoke in a seductive tone and he used his pale blue eyes to look at Saleen. However, Saleen shook his head.


    ¡°There¡¯s only one. If you want two, we will have to renegotiate the terms.¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡± The metal tube on the man¡¯s left arm spun furiously. He rubbed his eyebrows and looked at Saleen. Saleen felt like he was being watched by a scorpion. The tail on the man¡¯s back was wagging, and if those needles at the end of the tail stung someone, the oue might end up more fatal than a sting by a giant desert scorpion.


    Saleen pretended not to notice it. There were rules in Alchemy City, and they had to abided by. Otherwise, it would be as good as not establishing those rules. In Alchemy City, there could be no robbery and no fights. Otherwise, that irksome mage who had been harassing Lex would have been sted into smithereens already.


    ¡°What terms?¡± Hogina¡¯s teacher narrowed his eyes.


    ¡°One fully constructed puppet for an apartment on the highest story. And that is only the basic deal. The additional condition is that I will give another fully constructed puppet in exchange for the results from your research.¡± After Saleen finished speaking, heughed and continued, ¡°If I had the drawing, I would have been able to sell these puppets already. I would not have bothered to negotiate with you anymore.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, are you from Sikeqinya?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen was not embarrassed. Since it was a transaction, there was nothing to be ashamed of. It was a mutual affair for both parties to negotiate the terms and conditions. Saleen could tell that Hogina¡¯s teacher was being sarcastic. The teacher meant to say that he thought only of temporal gain.


    Hogina¡¯s teacher had not expected Saleen¡¯s response to be like that. He had thought that Saleen was a pure Qin person due to his blue eyes and ck hair. Unexpectedly, Saleen had actually replied that he was indeed from Sikeqinya.


    ¡°People from Sikeqinya used to say that a good neighbor means a good deal. Saleen, if you want stay in this alchemy tower, then you¡¯ll have to be a good neighbor.¡±


    Saleen grinned and said, ¡°Master, when the people from Sikeqinya have new neighbors, they gift items to them. Take thisponent as a gift from me to you then.¡±


    ¡°Then, I shall ept it.¡± Hogina¡¯s teacher remained indifferent and stored the alchemicalponent into his spatial equipment. This time around, Saleen could see very clearly that the spinning metallic tube on the teacher¡¯s arm was in fact a type of spatial equipment.


    ¡°What about your present?¡± Saleen asked unabashedly. Since Saleen had seen that Hogina¡¯s teacher did not have the intention to reciprocate, he had to ask for it directly.


    ¡°We have to sign a magic contract before anything else, Saleen. As a mage, you should have patience.¡± Hogina¡¯s teacher took out a book of contracts ced it on the table. Then, he said, ¡°Take a look first.¡±


    Saleen took the contract book and flipped through a few pages. This was one of the safest kinds of contract there were, as it was used purely for business transactions. There were magic images and magic words in the contract book to specify the details of the property for sale. The nk spaces were reserved for the purchaser¡¯s conditions, signature, and magic imprint.


    ¡°Forty-ninth floor?¡± Saleen saw the picture on the magic image and noted that the apartment in the contract book was not situated on the highest story.


    ¡°The fiftieth story is a farm. It is not suitable for humans to live in. If you have any magic beasts, you can keep them on the fiftieth story. There will be specialists from Alchemy City who will look after them for you.¡±


    Saleen read the terms of purchase repeatedly. When he felt that there were no more issues, he then dipped the magic pen in ink and signed his name in the contract book before writing down the terms of purchase.


    Hogina¡¯s teacher was not required to sign anything. Nine signatures naturally appeared on the contract. These nine names represented the ultimate powers of Alchemy City ¨C the nine grade-9 sorcerers.


    Once the contract waspleted, a magic light lit up and the contract book was split into three portions. Saleen took one set, while Hogina¡¯s teacher collected the other two.


    ¡°Hogina, lead them to the house. And remember to bring the puppets back.¡± Hogina¡¯s teacher made no mention of reciprocating Saleen¡¯s gift, so Saleen stopped probing as well. That was the first time Saleen had seen a sorcerer who had brushed him aside.


    ¡°Follow me.¡± Hogina grinned from ear to ear as she walked out of the room with light, quick footsteps. Saleen and the others followed suit and left the room. Then, Hogina¡¯s teacher suddenly called out for Saleen.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± Saleen turned around.


    ¡°My name is Inbosa. I will give you a copy of the research results of the fully constructed puppet when I am done.¡±


    ¡°Thank you very much, Master.¡± Saleen executed a mage¡¯s bow, and caught up to Hogina¡¯s pace. The pictures did not mean much to Saleen. Not only did the production of fully constructed puppets require high-level alchemy andrge amounts of money, but a lot of time would be required as well. All these things were not an issue for Alchemy City, but Saleen did not possess so much time and manpower. He wanted the results only because Lex wanted them.


    Thend under Bitter Water Prefecture was expandable, but its location was not ideal so the poption could not be increased easily. It would not be enough to rely solely on their current manpower if Lex wanted to develop her county in a sustainable manner. The fully constructed puppets were far more useful than the war puppets on the battlefield. An emblem group only needed ten fully constructed puppets to increase their offensive ability by multiple folds.


    In the hall on the tenth story, Saleen identally caught a glimpse of the mage who had been harassing Lex. That mage was waiting in front of the doors to the lift. The three men behind him had looks of worry on their faces.


    Lex¡¯s jovial mood was now ruined. The mage in a grey robe red voraciously at Saleen, causing Saleen to be puzzled. What have I done? Why is that idiot looking at me in this manner?


    ¡°Mage, I want to challenge you to a duel!¡± The mage in a grey robe stared at Saleen unwaveringly.


    ¡°Not interested.¡± Saleen shook his head, and said to Hogina, ¡°Let¡¯s go, I don¡¯t know this fellow.¡±

 Chapter 198: Hogina’s Tip-off (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 198: Hogina¡¯s Tip-off (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, you cannot refuse.¡± Hogina took a step back and stood next to Saleen.


    ¡°Why not? Does Alchemy City have such a rule?¡± Saleen remembered that Lex had taught him quite a number of things along the way, and he had not forgotten the taboos of Alchemy City. However, Saleen could not recall anything about duels. To a mage, duels were silly events. After the knight ss had be obsolete, duels had be the solution to disputes between mercenaries of the lowest levels.


    ¡°I hate him, he smells strange.¡± Hogina covered her nose and looked at that mage with an odd expression. The mage d in a grey robe was in fury and anguish at the same time. He had tried casting the Cleaning spell multiple times to get rid of the smell. However, the smell seemed to have seeped into his skin aftering into contact with it. No matter how hard he tried, the smell could not be removed.


    The mage himself could not help but be appalled by that smell, let alone Hogina. The feeling he had was as if he had entered a nest of scavengers while they were feeding their cubs, and the cubs had strewn rotten intestines all over the ce.


    ¡°Hogina, that doesn¡¯t constitute a reason for me to take action.¡± Saleen was not moved by Hogina¡¯s expression. Hogina sulked and wanted to rebut, but when she saw the gaze of coldness and stillness in Saleen¡¯s blue eyes, she could only stifle her breath.


    Damn it, his heart must have been drowned in Water Magic. So unfeeling.


    Saleen lowered his head and looked at Hogina, who had a wronged look on her face. He simply ignored the mage d in a grey robe. However, what had caused the mage to be depressed was that the people around Saleen had also stopped walking, but none of them bothered to look at him.


    If someone had scolded the mage for blocking their way, he could have at least found a reason to pick a fight with the other party. However, Saleen and his group were not talking or looking at him at all, and this caused him to be at a loss for what to do. The mage could not possibly obstruct the path forever. This was Alchemy City, and not his home.


    ¡°Fancy calling yourself a man!¡± The mage d in a grey robe directed all his rage at Saleen. He took two steps forward and red at Saleen.


    Saleen then raised his head, and responded coolly, ¡°Do you still dare to call yourself a woman?¡±


    Lex could not help it when she heard the viciousness of Saleen¡¯s words and augh escaped her throat. Indeed, when that mage heard what Saleen said, his eyebrows arched upwards and a brutal look appeared on his enraged face.


    That mage ced his hands together in the shape of a cross with his index finger and middle finger bent. He chanted a mantra and prepared to cast a spell. Saleen was stunned. The other party was wearing a grey robe. Did he not even know how to cast an instantaneous spell?


    However, Saleen did not want to absorb that magic attack without any rhyme or reason. Saleen took a step forward and came before the mage in the grey robe before raising his hand to deliver a punch.


    Saleen had never trained in the martial arts before, let alone the sword aura. However, he had witnessed many scenes like this in the past, so he tried to replicate them. Before the mage could prepare his spell, Saleen¡¯s fist had already struck him on the nose.


    Ka! The mage¡¯s nose was fractured, causing the nose to be crooked. The mantra was disrupted and the mage in the grey robe cked out. His breathing stopped abruptly and he copsed onto the ground stiffly. The three men behind that mage were aghast, and they drew their soft swords at the same time.


    ¡°He has only fainted. But if you dare to do anything, he will surely die.¡± Saleen wriggled his aching hand, having used too much strength in that punch. Without any magic, Saleen¡¯s hand had beenpletely unprotected. The mage¡¯s nose was broken, but Saleen¡¯s fist was also in excruciating pain.


    Hogina cracked up as Saleen¡¯s actions had gonepletely beyond her expectations. As a mage, one was not considered to have flouted the rules of Alchemy City if they punched someone. Had the other three swordmasters used magic against Saleen, the oue would have also been the same.


    However, the sword aura and magic chords could not coexist. Even if the three swordmasters changed their profession midway through their careers, they would only be at the standard of magic disciples. The most they could do was remain in their positions and cast level-0 spells. However, in that window of time, a mage would have already been able to thrash them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t create any trouble in Alchemy City.¡± Hogina shoved the three fuming men aside and entered the lift. She turned a blind eye to the soft swords in the men¡¯s hands, but Saleen did not dare to be careless.


    ¡°If you do not leave, I will shout for the patrolling guards of Alchemy City.¡± Saleen raised his ice te armor while Nailisi and Sika took a step forward to block their line of assault.


    The rules in Alchemy City might have been a big deal, but many matters could not be controlled using rules alone. One example was this mage d in a grey robe who had tried to cast magic against Saleen. If a person went berserk, they were capable of doing anything.


    Since their young master had not died, the three swordmasters did not dare tounch any attacks. They put away their soft swords and carried the mage away, making way for Saleen and the others to pass.


    ¡°Saleen, that punch was so beautiful!¡± Lex said in amending tone when she entered the lift. In the Qinnguage, ¡°beautiful¡± also had the meaning of ¡°perfect¡±. Saleen¡¯s punch had been executed just as the mage¡¯s mantra was about to bepleted. The resulting magic bacsh, which was neither too weak nor too powerful, had then caused that mage to faint.


    If Saleen had punched slightly earlier, the mage¡¯s magic would have been broken, but he would not have fainted. And if Saleen¡¯s punch hade just a littleter, the strength from the magic bacsh would have been amplified by thousands of times, and the mage¡¯s brain could have exploded. If that happened, Saleen¡¯s fist would have been destroyed as well.


    From a martial arts perspective, Saleen¡¯s punch had been full of weaknesses and loopholes. However, in terms of magical calctions, Saleen¡¯s punch had been pretty perfect.


    Saleen blessed his own fist with a Chunlin spell, and said, ¡°It hurts a ton. That guy¡¯s nose was really hard. Hogina, who is that man? Why does he not know about the rules?¡±


    ¡°How would I know where he came from? There are so many foreigners in Alchemy City that I can¡¯t be bothered to get to know them.¡± Hogina was peeved at Saleen¡¯s words just now, as her request had beenpletely neglected by him.


    ¡°But he did that in front of you. Don¡¯t you want to investigate further? You could at least teach him a lesson. If every foreigner behaved in that manner, wouldn¡¯t Alchemy City be a total mess?¡±


    ¡°That is the elemental hand¡¯s issue. It doesn¡¯t concern the alchemy tower.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t concern? But what if he had hurt you identally?¡±


    ¡°Hurt me? Hmph, those Cloudflow scumbags. If they had hurt me, my teacher would have sent people to their hometown to obliterate everyst one of them.¡± Hogina¡¯s face was filled with a murderous aura. She had unknowingly revealed a part of that mage¡¯s identity. Obviously, she knew where that mage hade from.


    As the lift traveled upwards, the halter gave out a low rumble as if no grease had been applied whatsoever.


    Hogina¡¯s words caused Saleen to be rmed. The people of Alchemy City were not good people. In the future, it would be best not to execute any attacks on people who had the markings of Alchemy City, unless all the witnesses could be killed.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so nervous. People like that are all over Alchemy City. When they first arrive, they¡¯re full of themselves, but they sort out their thoughts after some time,¡± Hogina turned around and told Saleen as she walked out of the lift after the doors had opened.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you curious? Fancy a grade-4 mage being so jumpy.¡± Saleen did not give up. He still wanted to extract some information from Hogina.


    Hogina¡¯s face broke out in a sly smile. Then, she sniffed with her nose and said, ¡°Saleen, if you want information, you can buy it. There¡¯s information for sale on the first story of the alchemy tower.¡±


    ¡°If I buy it from this ce, will it be cheaper?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t ept gold coins. But if you give me a few pieces of objects like that alchemicalponent, we can be friends.¡±


    Upon hearing Hogina say that, Sumano¡¯s face brimmed with worry. If Saleen agreed to Hogina¡¯s deal, he would lose his job. Furthermore, the money he had received from Saleen would have to be returned.


    ¡°Friends do not demand remuneration and benefits.¡±


    ¡°Do you think I care for that? Hmph hmph¡­¡± Seeing that Saleen had no response, Hogina tolerated her annoyance and continued, ¡°You¡¯re fortunate to have met me. Usually, I can¡¯t be bothered with these misceneous matters. I am only helping my senior tend to them for a day. It will be difficult for you to find me in the future.¡±


    Hogina was throwing a childish tantrum. Even though Saleen was not old, he had stopped acting like a spoiled child after his parents had died. Saleen was more mature than most people his age, and he could only chuckle when he saw Hogina acting in this manner. He said, ¡°Hogina, we cannot keep talking while standing here. Bring me on a tour of the apartment first.¡±


    Theyout of the forty-ninth floor was different from that of the lower stories. The lift faced a spacious counter. This counter was about six meters wide, and a beautifuldy with an amiable smile stood behind it. The receptionist noticed that Hogina was arguing with Saleen, so she did not try to interject. When Hogina walked towards her, she then opened her mouth and said, ¡°Miss Hogina, you are here. Are there any issues?¡±


    ¡°A friend of mine wants to purchase an apartment. Give me the keys to Room 2.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Thedy took out an alchemical key from beneath the counter and handed it to Hogina.


    Hogina¡¯s expression became jovial once more as though she had forgotten what had just happened. She twirled the key in her hand and said to Saleen, ¡°Let¡¯s go and see your new home.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Saleen nodded and followed her. His icy sight was activated all the while, and he spotted the concealed alchemical contraption under the counter. There were at least tenplex alchemical crossbows which were aimed at the lift. These crossbows were not employed by the military, and Saleen could feel that the magic arrays in the crossbows were fitted with high-level magic nuclei.


    The military wanted their crossbows to be economical and versatile, so their magic nuclei were only of intermediate grade at most. However, the crossbows under the counter were banned in all other countries. Saleen intuitively felt that these crossbows could easily prate his ice te armor.


    In reality, if there were people creating trouble, the crossbows would not even need to be deployed. The alchemy tower simply needed to snip the halter on the lift and the people inside would be smashed into pulp.


    It was safe to stay here. Even if there was any sort of trouble, no one woulde here anyways.


    The surface area of the hall on the forty-ninth story was muchrger than that of the tenth floor. It was decorated into a gigantic living room. Artwork was disyed throughout the hall while the ceiling was equipped with an boratework of magic lights. Crystals refracted the light rays onto the walls which were filled with enormous paintings.


    On three sides of the hall were four doors each. Hogina led Saleen and his team past the lift, and they arrived at a door which was facing the center of the counter. In the center of the door, there was a beautiful metallic lock. Hogina stuck the key into the lock and the door slid open to both sides.


    ¡°Come this way. I don¡¯t care whether or not you are satisfied. Once you hand the items to me, this apartment will be yours.¡± Hogina waved her hand to allow Saleen and the others to follow her through the door.


    Behind the door was a small hall that had a length and width of six meters, entirely empty. Hogina told Saleen, ¡°This is the ce where you can set your magic array. Without your permission, no one can enter, not even the people of Alchemy City. For example, if that mage back there wanted to barge in, Alchemy City would not interfere no matter what you did to him.

 Chapter 199: Hogina’s Tip-off (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 199: Hogina¡¯s Tip-off (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen noticed that Sumano did not enter, merely standing outside obediently. The walls of this tiny hall, the ceiling, and the floor had been reinforced by magic, and unless a dragon was somehow stuffed inside, it would be an difficult task to destroy it.


    This was indeed a conducive environment for setting magic arrays. Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Since the people from Alchemy City also could not enter, this ce must have absolutely been private.


    On the other hand, the rental apartments did not enjoy such a privilege. It seemed like on the maind, wealthier people always led better lives than the poor. Even Alchemy City was no exception.


    ¡°If you are clueless on how to set magic arrays, you can hire people from Alchemy City to help you do so. There are mages on the first story who specialize in setting magic arrays.¡± Hogina then proceeded to unlock the second door using the alchemical key and led Saleen and the others into the apartment.


    ¡°There¡¯s not much to see here. You need to decorate it yourselves.¡± Hogina pointed at the empty living room and said, ¡°The specifications of this house are stated in the contract, so I won¡¯t exin any further. For decorations¡­¡±


    ¡°They are for sale on the first story. I know that.¡± Saleen looked at the barren living room and continued Hogina¡¯s sentence with much helplessness. Alchemy City was truly smart in making money, since a person who had purchased a house could not possibly sleep on the floor. In addition to training and procuring umon materials, people who came to Alchemy City also wanted to make new friends.


    What was toe next was all kinds of spending. Fortunately, before Lex had set off on this journey, she had preparedrge quantities of supplies and daily necessities. She had brought along adequate resources.


    ¡°d you know. This way is to the kitchen, small living room, study, bedroom, servant¡¯s room, meditation room, training chamber, dining room, storeroom, bathroom¡­¡±


    ¡°What is that?¡± Saleen asked as he pointed to a colored ss wall in front of the living room.


    ¡°This is the flower room. Come and take a look.¡±


    There was an entirely different world behind the ss door. Twelve flower ponds were filled with ck soil and surrounded byrge pieces of magic stone. Most of these stones were not polished, and only a small number of the stones were modified with magic arrays carved onto them. In addition, ponds of different sizes were scattered in between those flower ponds.


    Gravel-filled trails cut through these flower ponds, and beneath a crystal wall, there was a tiny flower hall.


    In the flower hall, there was a wooden table and six wicker chairs, and the table was ced next to a crystal window. Looking out of this window, one could enjoy a panoramic view which spanned ten miles.


    Be that as it may, this feeling was different from the experience of ascending a mountain. The alchemy tower was entirely manmade, and to look out from such a height, theplex feelings that one experienced were unparalleled.


    As Saleen looked down from the alchemy tower, the high rise buildings in the city looked like magic wooden blocks. Saleen then recalled the metal pieces which Faerun had used to practice the Figaro form.


    A gargantuan puppet flew past the window, clearly identified by its fascia which was covered by its wing bones. A mage was seated atop this flying puppet, d in a grey robe and his face filled with fascination.


    Hogina giggled, and pointed to the flying puppet which was gliding through the air. She said, ¡°Saleen, if you want to experience the feeling of flying, you can rent a puppet. Ten thousand gold coins for a flight time of ten minutes.¡±


    Saleen gazed at the silhouette which was flying into the distance and shook his head. He evaluated its speed and realized that the flying puppet¡¯s grade was too low. Each hour, it could cover fifty miles at most, nearly the same as his Windspeed spell. On the other hand, real flight would enable a person to travel at more than one hundred miles an hour. In addition, such puppets would not be able to fly for very long since they used intermediate magic nuclei.


    If this puppet was using a grade-4 magic nucleus, each flight would only cost about two thousand gold coins. Thus, it was too wasteful for this mage to have spent ten thousand gold coins renting this flying puppet.


    Flying puppets were employed in the military. They were used to transport manpower, and the distances of their flights were less than ten miles. Prehistoric humans had used such puppets to fly over city walls in order to attack their enemies¡¯ cities. However, these puppets were bulky, pricey, and could easily be shot down by heavy crossbows. Furthermore, they could only fly at low altitudes and low speeds. However,ter on, they were modified to be used to defend cities and no longer transported people. They were solely used to burn and destroy magic trebuchets belonging to the enemy.


    If Saleen wanted to fly, Lex could produce eight to ten of these puppets for him. Lex was in possession of items which an average mage would find challenging to acquire.


    Hogina was at a loss of what to do seeing that Saleen was so miserly. She pulled over a wicker chair and sat down. Then, she said, ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s time for you to take out the items . You have signed the contract. If you can¡¯t produce the items, even I will not be able to help you.¡±


    Lex did not mind since Hogina was only a child and took out two fully constructed puppets. Hogina caressed the metallic skin of a puppet and nodded in satisfaction, ¡°This is it. Saleen, sign your name.¡±


    Hogina took out a stack of contracts and ced them on the table. Saleen also took a seat and ran through the contracts one more time. This set of contracts wasplicated and detailed. After giving the signature, this apartment would belong to him.


    Proof of purchase, housing deed, receipt, and the registration of residence.


    Every single upant had to fill in their name and basic information on the residence registration form. Saleen knew that this was the method Alchemy City used to gather information. If a person refused to sign it, then Alchemy City would not protect their interests.


    After the signing, Hogina put away the receipt before putting on a pitiful look and saying, ¡°Saleen, do you still have theponents belonging to this puppet? I want them.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t, but she has them.¡± Saleen pointed to Lex.


    Hogina¡¯s eyes darted over, and she pulled on Lex¡¯s sleeves, ¡°Sister Lex¡­¡±


    Lexughed and took out an arm belonging to a fully constructed puppet. This piece had been smashed by the dragon, so there were not many intact portions of it left. Lex ced the puppet¡¯s arm on the floor right away since she did not have the strength to carry it. This arm by itself already weighed a few hundred kilograms.


    ¡°Ha¡­¡±


    Hogina stored the puppet¡¯s arm before putting away the two fully constructed puppets. Saleen noticed that Hogina¡¯s spatial equipment was actually a metal earring and felt extremely astounded.


    In most situations, a mage needed to be at least at grade-5 in order to be able to use spatial equipment. Rare equipment such as the Ring of Gifts would have histories that were at least tens of thousands years old. Even though such equipment was not restricted to just certain grades, there was a limit to the volume of the items that could be stored in them. Hogina¡¯s earring was much smaller than the Ring of Gifts but it could fit a three meter tall fully constructed puppet, and this meant that its magic value was tremendous.


    It would still be eptable if it was a relic from a predecessor, but if Hogina¡¯s teacher had created this, then that man with a scorpion-like lower body was far too terrifying.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ve received the items. Saleen, what do you want to know?¡± Hogina did not go back on her word. Now that she had received a present from Lex, she was overjoyed.


    ¡°Mm, I have the housing deed now, but the keys to this apartment¡­¡±


    Hogina pped her forehead and said, ¡°I forgot to tell you something. Pass the registration form to the sister you saw in the hall earlier on, then get the alchemical keys from her. This apartment can house six people, but if you want to arrange for a sixth person to stay here, you¡¯ll have to go to the tenth floor to register one more time. In addition to the keys to this apartment, she will give you five alchemical badges. With these badges, you will not get into trouble when you are out at night.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t forget anything else, did you?¡±


    ¡°Mm, and if you want buy anything, you can ask that sister to help you do so. There¡¯s a magic array in the study which can transmit sound. Without leaving your apartment, you will be able to get anything you desire from Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Do I need to pay extra money?¡±


    ¡°Of course, you have to give her somebor money. In any case, that sister is still a grade-3 mage.¡±


    Saleen started chatting with Hogina calmly. Hogina did not seem to be in a rush at all. She was able to bber nonstop and treated Saleen hospitably. Perhaps it was because Hogina had taken Lex¡¯s bribe.


    Saleen had begun by asking about the background of the mage who had been harassing Lex when he stumbled upon some information which could not be essed anywhere else.


    The mage was a person from Cloudflow, and the three men were high grade swordmasters. He had been in Alchemy City for about three months now and was hoping to procure a batch of rare materials.


    However, Hogina told Saleen that for the past two years, many newly promoted mage masters had appeared in the Cloudflow Empire. Many people hade to Alchemy City, and on all of their buying lists were the same few items. Those items were all used to produce high grade magic medicine.


    These newly promoted mage masters were also sweepingrge quantities of gems off of the market. They only looked for the purest of gems, and were not particr about the size or the species of the gems.


    ¡°Teacher said that those newly promoted mage masters had employed unique methods to forcefully break through the limits of grade-3 and grade-4, so they are in an unstable state. The materials which they purchased to create the magic medicine are used to resolve that situation,¡± Hogina said proudly. These secrets which she held were quite valuable. However, at the end of the day, she was not a person who dabbled in the business of intelligence. She was just a child who was passionate about alchemy.


    Lex was shaken. All this information was far too valuable. It was even worth aplete fully constructed puppet, not to mention a puppet¡¯s arm.


    There were no shortcuts in a mage¡¯s journey of training. This was especially true between grade-3 and grade-4, as the barrier between those two grades was extremely difficult for a person to ovee. Talent, inheritance, wealth, and guidance from a teacher. None of those things could be missing. Obviously, that mage who had been harassing Lex was not of very high caliber, yet he had forcefully advanced to grade-4.


    If the Cloudflow Empire employed such methods, then the bnce on the maind could be easily disrupted.


    The difference between a mage master and a low grade mage was too great. A low grade mage could be groomed using money, but in grooming a mage master, things were entirely up to luck. Thebat power of both types of mages were also immensely different. Instead of having one hundred low-grade mages in a swordsman¡¯s camp, it would be better to have several mage masters.


    Recalling what Daniel had said, it was indeed true that there had recently been many anomalies in Cloudflow. This was especially true with the news regarding the numerous appearances of dragons, as almost all of them were rted to Cloudflow.


    If the people of Cloudflow possessed the capabilities to capture dragons, breed high grade magic beasts for their magic nuclei, and even groomrge numbers of mage masters, then that would spell big trouble for the Tanggsi Empire. Furthermore, it was possible that it meant that the Cloudflow Empire had the ambition to swallow the Qin Empire.


    This piece of intelligence had to be sent back to the Holy Rock City no matter what. Even though Safilos was biased against Lex and oppressed her, this crisis was not targeted at Lex alone. It was targeted at the entire Qin Empire, the empire that her father had left behind.


    Saleen was also extremely shocked. His first thought was about magic medicine.


    The one thing that prevented a magic disciple from bing a mage was how difficult the formation of magic chords was. If magic chord medicine could be mass produced along with the techniques employed by the Cloudflow Empire, it would mean that almost anyone could be a mage.


    Something was wrong about this whole affair. After the Myers Goddess had fallen, the power of humans on the maind had been on a continuous decline. All of a sudden, such a possibility had surfaced, and all of this seemed like it had been premeditated. Furthermore, the Holy See had decided tounch a holy war against all mages at this point in time. Wasn¡¯t all of this too much of a coincidence?


    Saleen had wanted to find information on his teacher, but now that he had been made aware of this information, his worries had amplified. What if the magic chord medicine was implicated into this matter? Was he simply too sensitive?

 Chapter 200: Heavily Refined Equipment (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 200: Heavily Refined Equipment (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The intelligence regarding Cloudflow was unsettling. After asking a few more questions, Saleen allowed Hogina to leave. As Hogina was leaving, she gave Saleen a magic fragment which had been polished from the horns of a magic beast. This magic fragment could be mosaicked into the magic sound array, and if Saleen ever needed something from Hogina in the future, he could contact her privately using this fragment.


    As Saleen apanied Hogina to the door, he saw that Sumano, the old disciple, was still waiting outside, and felt pity for him. Then, Saleen said, ¡°Leave your contact information. If I ever require your help, I will go and look for you.¡±


    Sumano became flustered, and said, ¡°Mr. Saleen, please don¡¯t say that. I will be waiting at the bottom of the tower every day. If you have any instructions for me, I will be just downstairs.¡±


    ¡°How could I make you do that?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ have already epted your payment.¡±


    Seeing that Sumano behaved so awkwardly, Saleen did not want to push him anymore and let him be. Saleen then went back into the apartment and began discussing official matters with Lex.


    ¡°Lex, how did your men manage to uncover my teacher¡¯s background?¡± Saleen felt that something had been wrong when even Hogina had never heard of Jason¡¯s name. Jason might not have been an expert, but his background was not toomon either. By all rights, he should not have been unknown in Alchemy City.


    ¡°He traveled from Alchemy City to Lon before passing through Laiyin and then reaching Sikeqinya. He never concealed his identity at all. My men simply tracked his movements from Sikeqinya all the way back to Alchemy City. It was that simple.¡±


    ¡°I think we should ask Sumano first.¡±


    ¡°No, Alchemy City will be able to trace my origins very soon. There aren¡¯t many people with the Grukos surname in Qin. It will look very fishy if we go and look for your teacher immediately. Besides, my men did not enter the city to investigate further at that time. Let¡¯s just stay here for now. After two months, we will ask Hogina again.¡± Lex was not anxious, she simply needed a nod from Saleen.


    There were too manyplications surrounding the hell of god¡¯s punishment, and Saleen did not want to publicize that he was searching for his teacher. Saleen¡¯s main objective was to recruit more mage masters after locating his teacher. Furthermore, these mage masters needed to originate from the same teacher as Jason because outsiders could not be trusted.


    His teacher¡¯s teacher must have been a sorcerer. It would be good if he was a grade-9 sorcerer, because any sorcerer below grade-9 was still considered small fry in Alchemy City. If such a tremendous benefit was leaked to outsiders, then all hell would break loose.


    Now that he had thought of this, Saleen could finally suppress his urge to try and obtain more information on his teacher.


    This apartment wasrge enough with over one hundred meters of space, although it paled inparison to the viscountess¡¯ residence. The rooms were partitioned nicely, especially the room next door. The wall between two rooms was filled with solid magic materials and only metallic beams were used. The brick wall had been wiped with isinss before being painted with magic powder and a sound cancelling magic array had been set up. Lastly, ayer of wall cloth had been put on.


    The training chamber was thergest room but there was only one of them while there were six meditation rooms. All these rooms did not require any decorating. Lex took out the misceneous items from her god¡¯s ring and helped decorate the rooms belonging to Sika and the other people.


    Besides the main door of this house, only the crystal floor-to-ceiling windows in the flower room were connected to the outside world. Lex ced two metal tes outside the door in that six meter wide hall, creating temporary protection at the entrance of the apartment. Logically, no one would dare to create trouble in Alchemy City, but one would never know when a madman woulde and create trouble, just like that Cloudflow mage d in a grey robe.


    It was good to be vignt. At the very least, the people living in the apartment would be more at ease.


    After the decorations werepleted, Lex purchased a list which detailed all the goods sold in Alchemy City. Even though this list did not contain any magic items, it had cost almost one thousand gold coins. Before Saleen saw the list of goods, he had been denouncing it, but when the list was delivered, he no longer felt that its price was exorbitant.


    This list was actually dozens of books, and each book was four times the size of an average magic book. When a book was flipped open, there were even a detailed table of contents. All the pieces of paper used to produce these books had already been sufficient for creating low grade magic scrolls, not to mention that there was meticulous information ranging from the grade of an item and price fluctuations to pictures.


    Books read by an average nobleman were made from normal pulp, while slightly more expensive ones were made from parchment. This kind of paper which was used to create scrolls was highly resistant to tear and could be preserved for centuries. On the other hand, the averagemoner used parchment to create contracts and vouchers. These books were practically being given away for free because their production costs absolutely exceeded one thousand gold coins.


    However, Saleen knew that this transaction was not a loss to Alchemy City. Even mages from Cloudflow were here in the city to procure materials. It just went to show what great business Alchemy City enjoyed.


    Alchemy City was still guarding the southern sea for the empire. It was just that the taxes collected by Alchemy Port were hundreds of times higher than that of Lex¡¯s county.


    Lex and Saleen were not afraid of being disrupted during their meditation, but Daniel was. Of the six meditation rooms, five of them had been converted into two alchemyboratories and two fencing rooms. Fortunately, Lex had brought along all the required materials. No one in Alchemy City would have expected someone to bring so many burdensome items along with them.


    Even if the god¡¯s ring which belonged to Lex and all the spatial equipment Saleen owned werebined, they still could not store all those items.


    At first, Saleen had wanted to run some errands in hopes of familiarizing himself with Alchemy City and finding out what good materials were avable for purchase. However, Lex wanted to build aboratory so that she could refine everyone¡¯s equipment.


    After Sika¡¯s leather armor was shed open, it could no longer be repaired. And now, Saleen possessed enough materials to help Sika swap out her equipment. The skin and bones from the tiago were good materials to be used in refining armor.


    Lex and Saleen embarked on their n to refine new equipment. Saleen¡¯s alchemy skills could be described as quite poor, so he could only provide minute assistance to Lex and do menial jobs.


    Lex separated the alchemy drawings into a few parts, while Saleen helped her to do the most primitive of tasks ¨C treating the materials.


    After the bones from the dragon were broken apart, Lex would choose the portion which was most suited for producing armor and Saleen would start the treatment. The first step of the treatment was to use Water Magic to force out the fats within the bone. Then, Fire Magic would be employed to burn the bone. Saleen abided by the drawings provided by Lex and managed to produce arge quantity of bone fragments. These original bone fragments were gathered by Lex before being put into an alchemical machine.


    These bone fragments were already very tough, as even a giant axe could hardly damage them. However, that was not enough, because when Sika was severely injured, it had been a weird machete which had caused those injuries. The machete had been put away by Saleen, and now, Lex was going to study it carefully to find out its secrets.


    The arrangement of the serrations on the machete¡¯s de were in full ordance with the rules of Current Cutter, a level-4 spell. As long as the de had enough speed, it would even be able to cut through dragon¡¯s skin.


    Such vicious weapons were umon, and a person needed to at least be a grade-8 sorcerer in order to produce them. After Lex had refined the bone fragments, she proceeded to use the alchemical machine to slice the fragments into thin films before sewing them onto the dragon¡¯s skin. Hence, an exquisite leather armor was created. However, this armor could still not resist a true magic blow. Once the dragon¡¯s spirit was lost, the strength of the dragon¡¯s skin and bones would be severely diminished.


    Lex began crafting a belt for this set of leather armor. The belt was crafted entirely from the tough bones found in the dragon¡¯s paws, and the segments were connected by the tendons of a magic beast. In addition, Lex had put a magic array on each piece of bone. The magic arrays had been obtained from the skull of the behemoth back in the forest in the hell of god¡¯s punishment.


    The functions of the magic arrays were to stimte strength from the magic nuclei which were mosaicked into the core of the belt. This was so that the impact received by the wearer would be dispersed to every piece of bone, and the bones would all absorb the impact simultaneously.


    The behemoth in the forest had applied such methods to gain its groundbreaking defenses. Even now, Saleen was not confident that he could kill that behemoth using his own magic.


    In the future, if anyone tried to use their deceitful powers to attack Sika, they would have to destroy all the bones on her body first.


    The refinement process for this set of armor was very slow because it had to be ced within a magic array for approximately a month after it took shape. Within this one month, the magic arrays on the bones had to be connected. Furthermore, different kinds of metal needed to be introduced into the bones to make them tougher while not interfering with the operation of the magic arrays.


    The belt was split into twenty-four segments, and each segment was hollow so that a magic nucleus could be installed in it. This was an authentic piece of magic armor. When the wearer was struck by magic attacks, the magic nuclei in the belt would automatically release some energy to activate the magic arrays.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel also needed to be refined again. With the dragon¡¯s horns and teeth, the cudgel could be transformed into a real weapon of destruction. However, the material of Sika¡¯s cudgel made it very challenging for it to be refined further. The process would be analogous to cutting through a rock using dripping water, so Sika would need to rece her cudgel with another weapon for the time being.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel and a leg bone from the dragon were put into the alchemy array at the same as they underwent transformation.


    As the process took ce, Lex and Saleen did not waste any time at all. They continued producing new equipment for everyone.


    Nailisi¡¯s clothes had been destroyed. Luckily, Lex had an abundance of dragon¡¯s skin, so she made form-fitting clothes for Nailisi. Lex also crafted a dagger from the tooth of the dragon. The dragon¡¯s tooth was hollow as Lex carefully carved a magic array inside of it. As long as the tooth was mosaicked with a magic nucleus, Nailisi would be able to stimte the magic array so that a razor sharp ice thorn, about one feet long, would grow out of the dagger.


    The ice thorn was not sharper than the dragon¡¯s tooth, but its frosty temperature would weaken the target. Even if the ice thorn did not work, it still provided a second opportunity for the user to attack their target.


    In the process of crafting the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger, Lex employed a small trick. She made the final form of the dagger into a white colored ring. Nailisi simply needed to activate the power of spatial equipment in order to transform the ring back into the dagger.


    Nailisi was extremely satisfied even though she did not like carrying weapons on her body. The sharpness of the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger was second only to her own teeth, and this meant that she would be able to conserve a lot of strength in future battles.


    Noticing that the material of the dragon bones was good, Nailisi made a drawing and requested help from Lex to produce a weapon that belonged only to demons. Originally, this weapon had only existed in the demonic realm. However, Nailisi had discovered the weapon when she had inherited her memories, and felt that it was suitable to be made from the dragon¡¯s tooth. Thus, she immediately drew out the method of production for the weapon.

 Chapter 201: Heavily Refined Equipment (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 201: Heavily Refined Equipment (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was an item which resembled a bone whistle, and it could be put into the mouth. The hollow center contained a bone needle, and Nailisi could blow this needle to hurt her enemies.


    Lex followed Nailisi¡¯s drawing and tried to make this item, and wasted a massive amount of bones before sessfully creating one.


    ¡°What is this?¡±


    Saleen looked at the small piece of bone which had been crafted into the shape of a horn. On top of it, there was a narrow hole for a blow dart to pass through. A normal blow dart could hardly harm a target even if it was made from metal. However, this bone needle was heavy as it had been refined from arge piece of dragon¡¯s bone. As long as it could be blown out, normalbat armor would never be able to withstand the impact, unless it was magic armor.


    ¡°I am equally clueless. This item¡­¡± Nailisi started thinking to herself. This item is like a bow for an imp. It can be used to kill stronger creatures such as demons or spirits which rely on a supreme demon.


    Lex tried, but realized that she could not activate this piece of hornlike equipment. Nailisi took the small horn and put it into her mouth. Lex ced a piece of metal in front of Nailisi. The metal was a piece of ck gold which had not yet been refined. Nailisi blew gently and a fine white line flew out of her mouth, urately striking the center of this piece of ck gold.


    Chi! The bone needle prated the ck gold ore and nearly came out of the other end. The bone needle had thorns all over it after its refinement. When the needle entered the ck gold ore, it had spun about furiously, creating arge opening nearly the size of a person¡¯s wrist in the ck gold ore. Had this needle been aimed at a person, the person would surely have been killed. If the needle prated the abdomen, the intestines would definitely be mashed, not to mention the brain.


    When Lex had been carrying out the refinement, she had been well aware that one of the reasons the bone needle could break ck gold ore was because of its high spinning speeds, and also because it was razor sharp and heavy. Unfortunately, this item could not be mass produced. Furthermore, even though dragon bones were utilized in its production, the sess or failure of the production was entirely dependent on luck.


    Lex was not disappointed at all. Anyway, from Sika¡¯s armor, she had already amassed a great deal of experience, so she could use that method in the production of armor for the Bitter Water Army in the future.


    The main event was the refinement of magic robes. Lex had addedrge amounts of the hair from the tiago to the magic robes which belonged to Saleen and herself.


    These two magic robes were rare boutique items. Lex¡¯s multicolored magic robe was self-exnatory. On the other hand, Saleen¡¯s magic robe had been refined by Lex¡¯s teacher for dozens of years before he had managed to achieve sess with it.


    For most magic robes, the duration for refinement would only be a month or two regardless of the quality of the materials used. However, the time it took to refine those two magic robes was calcted in the dozens. If the time used to prepare the materials was also added in, then the amount of effort which had been concentrated into these two items would be even more astounding than it was already.


    There were two benefits to refining the magic robes with the tiago¡¯s hair. The first benefit, for Saleen, was that he could wear the magic robe all the way until he was grade-9. His demonic set possessed simr attributes to that of Lex¡¯s multicolored magic robe. Furthermore, after the grey magic robe was refined, it was able to defend against razor sharp weapons. The second benefit was rted to Lex. Her multicolored magic robe was good, but it was too conspicuous. When amoner saw it, they did not know that it was high grade equipment, and when an expert saw it, it was far too rming.


    Once the hair from the tiago was refined into the magic robes, Lex and Saleen became mages d in magic robes without any indications of their grade. The features on the magic robes had disappeared, and even the curing magic on Saleen¡¯s robe had disappeared as well.


    Lex and Saleen were notcking any equipment. Now that they had resolved the problems with their magic robes, they only needed to store spells into their magic books and fill in their scrolls. When all that was done, their offensive abilities would essentially have peaked again.


    The personcking equipment was Daniel. This grade-3 death mage had lost his winged skeleton at the moment and did not know when he would be able to get it back again.


    A death mage was different from an elemental mage. Without a summoned creature, their offensive abilities would decrease drastically.


    Everybody¡¯s equipment had been ced into Lex¡¯s alchemy array for refinement. Daniel helplessly said, ¡°I will try to summon a new contracted creature.¡±


    Daniel was depressed. If he lost the winged skeleton¡¯s recement, then the chances of him getting the winged skeleton back would be slim to none.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know how to produce bone puppets?¡± Saleen thought to himself, The offensive abilities of bone puppets are not considered low. At the very least, they¡¯re effective in dealing with swordsmen. The skills a death mage possessed had deterring effects. People who were of a lower grade than the death mage would have their emotions easily influenced.


    ¡°I¡­ am a grade-3 mage, so I cannot use spatial equipment yet. It is impossible for me to bring along a gigantic being wherever I go.¡±


    Saleen already possessed the Ring of Gifts and the demonic ring, so he had long forgotten the fact that a mage needed to be at least grade-5 in order to utilize spatial equipment. Upon hearing Daniel say that, Saleen blushed.


    Lex said, ¡°Do you remember among low-level death magic, there¡¯s a spell called¡­ nine, nine, what was it called again?¡±


    ¡°Nine Kings. But I currently don¡¯t have that many bones in my possession¡­¡±


    That time, Daniel had exhausted arge amount of his precious resources in order to produce the camouged skull cavalry. He was embarrassed to get more materials from Lex.


    ¡°Nine Kings?¡± Saleen understanding of death magic was sparse, so he looked at Daniel with a doubtful gaze.


    ¡°It refers to the nine types of creatures found in the death dimension which are extremely useful to a death mage. These creatures also possess higher offensive abilities. The winged skeleton is the tenth type, slightly lousier than the other nine types,¡± Daniel said. Then, he exined in more detail, ¡°These nine creatures are extremely difficult to summon, but there is a method used to rece them. A death mage has to create nine puppets that correspond to those nine creatures respectively, then the mage will ce them into a summoning array. As long as the breaths of the nine kings are captured, those nine puppets will gain a minute amount of intelligence. Even though the puppets are still inferior to the creatures, they will not need anymands from the death mage anymore.¡±


    The winged skeleton was not even considered to be part of the nine creatures! Saleen thought of the offensive abilities the winged skeleton possessed and felt that they were much higher than those of its owner.


    The puppets would be slightly intelligent? In that case, the spell would be simr to Saleen¡¯s divine spell, Gift of Life. Death magic was indeed rted to divine magic, which dealt with life, just like how darkness and light cancelled each other out. When Saleen had cast the Gift of Life, he had banished the winged skeleton back to the death dimension.


    These skills which a death mage had were the exact opposite of divine magic which supported life.


    ¡°Lex and I will help you purchase whatever items you require. You may return the money after earning it back.¡± Saleen knew that if the nine kings were produced, they would be tougher than the winged sksleton. Thus, the increase in the team¡¯s offensive ability would be equivalent to having one more grade-4 mage in the team. Furthermore, the item would be a product of the Myers realm, so it would not be banished by Saleen¡¯s own Gift of Life divine spell anymore.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand would recover in a few more months, and this hand was the nemesis of death magic. He was also not afraid that Daniel would turn against Lex after gaining these benefits, as that was nearly impossible. On the Myers Maind, not many people could have stayed with Daniel already.


    Daniel mustered his courage, found a pen, and began listing all the items he would need.


    A death mage was an immensely powerful profession. Hence, it was an unbearable experience for Daniel to be the lousiest person in the team. He had never given any thought to Lex and Saleen, but Daniel had discovered that he could not even defeat Sika and Nailisi in a one-on-one battle. He also knew for sure that Sika and Nailisi had never honed their sword auras before.


    Saleen and Lex looked at each other after seeing the list that Daniel had written up. There were more than one hundred materials listed. Saleen and Lex only had half of these materials at best, which were around seventy of the materials. The remaining portion needed to be procured from Alchemy City. It seemed like this would be another enormous expense.


    Even though the apartment they were living in had cost millions, Lex had only paid for it using two fully constructed puppets, so it was impossible for her to take out such a huge sum of money. Out of desperation, Saleen used the magic sound array and contacted Hogina to state his needs.


    ¡°If you give me the remaining puppetponents, I will be able to gather all these materials within a day.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Lex readily took out the remaining tatteredponents. This fully constructed puppet had been smashed beyond repair by the dragon, but it still possessed high research value. If Hogina and her teacher wanted to study a fully constructed puppet, they would have to disassemble a fully functioning one. The protection in these ancient fully constructed puppets was highly sophisticated. Once they were disassembled, it would be challenging to assemble them back to their original state. So, to Hogina and her teacher, theseponents were not very different from aplete puppet.


    Hogina grinned as she put away theponents belonging to the fully constructed puppet. Two hourster, she had gathered all the materials that Daniel required. Then, Saleenmented. Alchemy City might have been prosperous, but there were so many materials, and all of these materials were not easy to obtain at all. Since Hogina had delivered them all in two hours, it was possible that she had spent one hour hugging theponents of the puppet and celebrating.


    In any case, it was a good thing that all of the materials were present now. Daniel started setting his summoning array. Usually, such arrays were not used inside of buildings, unless the building was something like the alchemy tower which was absolutely secure.


    This time around, nine bone puppets were going to be built, so more than one thousand pieces of bones needed to be cut. Hence, Lex¡¯s alchemical machine would be required for this task. Meanwhile, Saleen was currently free, so he and Nailisi were in the alchemyboratory studying the dragonshard.


    Until now, Nailisi had not told Saleen that she had dug out the two dragonshards as she still did not trust Lex. Anyway, since the item was already in Nailisi¡¯s possession, everyone else would think that Saleen had only obtained one dragonshard as long as Nailisi did not reveal the truth.


    The tiago¡¯s dragonshard wasrger than a pumpkin, with a diameter more than one foot long. Compared to the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus, the magic vibrations of the dragonshard werepletely introverted and the toughness of the core was unparalleled, while the quality of the exterioryers deteriorated gradually.


    ¡°Master, do I segment it?¡±


    Saleen hesitated for a moment before nodding his head. If he asked Lex to help him segment the dragonshard, he would need to give her somepensation. This dragonshard was full of water attributes, so it was far too important to Saleen. Once the demonic bracelet was mosaicked with the dragonshard, it would not need to be reced with any other magic nuclei ever again.


    The dragonshard was able to replenish his magic chords swiftly. With it, Saleen would not need to wear the white crystal ring anymore, leaving an additional slot for other spatial equipment. Once Saleen advanced to a sorcerer, he would most likely get his equipment from the dragonshard. The dragonshard might have been huge, but once it was segmented, there would not be many valuable portions left aside from the core which was the most valuable part.


    To Saleen, the depletion of his magic chords would be minute during his training sessions as long as he wore the demonic bracelet which was mosaicked with the dragonshard. The reason why the dragonshard was not called a magic nucleus was because it contained limitless power. Unless it was severely damaged, the elements within the dragonshard would be replenished automatically after total depletion until its lifespan was up.


    Such a big dragonshard perhaps had a lifespan of around ten thousand years.


    ¡°Go ahead and segment it.¡± Saleen stared longingly at the dragonshard which wasrger than a pumpkin. Once Nailisi started the segmentation, it was unlikely that Saleen would see aplete dragonshard ever again. To a mage, this was cruel indeed.

 Chapter 202: Magic Ship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 202: Magic Ship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Dragons enjoyed longevity, and their dragonshards would also grow as the dragon aged with time. The core of this enormous piece of dragonshard contained twenty-four facets by nature. Nailisi segmented the core before Saleen carefully stored it into his Ring of Gifts.


    Nailisi had not handled the exterioryer of the dragonshard perfectly. She could only segment severalrge pieces for Saleen to put away before cutting out the materials required for the mosaic.


    Without any help from alchemical machines, some parts of the dragonshard were wasted with this cutting technique. Each time a twenty-four faceted piece was cut out from the dragonshard, some useless shards were produced in the process. Since these shards were also too small to be made into rings, it was better for Saleen to collect them for now.


    Since they could not be made into rings, producing earrings or even dentures with them would be good too.


    There were nine gems iid into the grooves of the demonic bracelet. This bracelet was solely used for replenishing magic as there were no magic arrays carved onto it. After mosaicking the dragonshard, Saleen said to Nailisi, ¡°Your bracelet has already been fused, right? I remember there was a magic array on it. Was it the crystal guardian?¡±


    ¡°I cannot utilize it yet.¡± Nailisi shook her head in response. She could stimte magic arrays, magic scrolls, and even spells within a magic staff. However, all of her equipment was limited by Saleen himself. Nailisi would be able to use the spell in the bracelet only once Saleen had advanced to grade-7.


    ¡°Nevermind. Let¡¯s do the mosaicking first.¡± Saleen forced Nailisi to mosaic all the grooves before replenishing the spells in the bronze magic book.


    There were ring differences between different spell storing equipment, such as magic books, magic scrolls, and magic staffs.


    The magic book was the most practical item, but it was also the hardest to obtain. The spells in the magic book were identical to the spells which a mage could cast. Take Saleen, for example. He was a grade-4 mage, so at most, he could store level-5 spells into the magic book. The disadvantage of the magic book was that a person could only utilize spells which they themselves had stored inside.


    Lex could not help Saleen store any spells in the magic book. Saleen needed to rely on himself.


    Magic scrolls did not have this limitation. Anyone could store a spell into a scroll, and other mages would still be able to use it. However, a magic scroll could only be used once, and would be useless after a single use. Magic scrolls had two disadvantages. Firstly, if a mage cast a spell which they were not familiar with, they would not be able to control it once it was released. Secondly, the sess rate for producing a scroll was low.


    A grade-4 mage could easily produce level-3 scrolls. However, if the mage wanted to produce level-4 scrolls, they would be d to have even a fifty percent sess rate. Furthermore, if they tried producing level-5 scrolls, the sess rate would be less than ten percent.


    The disadvantages of other spell storing equipment were mostly the same, such as magic staffs and Nailisi¡¯s bracelet. Most of them needed to be mosaicked with high grade magic nuclei, and the frequency with which spells could be cast was also strictly restrained.


    Saleen possessed arge quantity of nk scrolls, all of which had been taken from Raphael¡¯s magic tower. If he went ahead and started producing scrolls, he would only be able to make low level scrolls which were level-3 and below. For level-4 nk scrolls, Saleen would only have a sess rate of about twenty percent, which meant that out of ten nk scrolls, Saleen would only be able to produce two sessfully, and the remaining eight would be wasted.


    Alchemy City had businesses which specialized in producing scrolls. As long as the customer provided the nk scrolls, the city would receive thirty percent of the production costs. Alchemy City could guarantee the sess of the production because there were grade-1 to grade-9 mages in the city.


    ¡°Saleen, Saleen!¡± Sika ran over excitedly with her weapon in hand.


    The appearance of Sika¡¯s cudgel hadpletely transformed from a crude Caucasus weapon into an exquisite military weapon. The bulky cudgel had be slender while the metallic top had be thicker, and the two angr ends now contained six sections each. When Sika rotated the grip of the cudgel, the metallic portion at the top also began rotating. Ka! Dozens of sharp dragon¡¯s horns popped out.


    ¡°Come, let¡¯s try it!¡± Sika waved her cudgel around, causing Saleen and Nailisi to back away in fear. The sharp dragon¡¯s horns at the top of the cudgel were no joke. A simple scrape from them could potentially cause serious injury.


    ¡°Sika, go easy!¡± Nailisi hollered. In the past, Nailisi had not been afraid of Sika because Sika could not hurt her. But now, if Sika used her cudgel to attack her, she would not dare to block it anymore.


    ¡°I will know when to stop. Saleen,e on!¡± Sika could not contain her excitement and began waving her cudgel with more intensity. An air of frostiness from the dragon¡¯s horns caused Saleen¡¯s alchemyboratory to be unusually cold.


    Saleen was helpless. Thus, he cast a water shield, and the giant bubble stood in between him and Sika. Then, he said, ¡°Come and try it out, but don¡¯t ruin the floor.¡±


    Sika grinned before raising her cudgel and striking the water shield. Pu chi! The dragon¡¯s horns which protruded from the cudgel managed to prate Saleen¡¯s water shield and freeze it. An important aspect of the water shield¡¯s defenses was its sticity. The air of frostiness which apanied the dragon¡¯s horns had caused the water shield to be rigid. Cracking sounds were heard, and the water shield shattered into pieces.


    Chi! Sika had not held back and the cudgel smashed into the floor. The sharp dragon¡¯s horns pierced into the floor, creating multiple holes in the ground.


    ¡°Ah! That was too much¡­ I still have to get used to it.¡± Sika¡¯s face turned scarlet red when she noticed that she had destroyed Saleen¡¯s floor. Then, she quickly ran out of the alchemyboratory.


    ¡°Master¡­¡± Nailisi pointed to the holes in the ground, while Saleen simply shook his head helplessly. Fortunately, Sika¡¯s weapon was not too overbearing. Had it prated the floor, a conflict might have ensued with the tenants living on the story below.


    After living in the alchemy tower for about one month, Daniel¡¯s puppets were going to bepleted soon. The team had also grown familiar with Alchemy City, and they no longer drew unnecessary attention to themselves.


    ¡°Nailisi, go and look for Sumano.¡±


    ¡°Master, people are still watching us, and you want to go and look for your teacher? Aren¡¯t you rushing too much?¡±


    ¡°I want to carry out some missions. People will only grow suspicious if we keep staying in the apartment like this. Once I havepleted two missions, those people will no longer keep watching us.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to discuss this matter with Lex first?¡±


    ¡°I will make the decision regarding this issue.¡±


    Just as Sumano had told Saleen, he waited for Saleen¡¯s instructions on the first story every single day and did not go and close other deals. Sumano had also been quite nervous after epting Saleen¡¯s money. He was afraid that Saleen had nothing to do and would create trouble for him. If that really happened, then Sumano would have to give him a refund. But if he had already used Saleen¡¯s money to repay his debts, what would he give to Saleen for the refund?


    Saleen met with Sumano in therge hall outside of the apartment, as Sumano was not willing to enter Saleen¡¯s residence no matter what. That was Saleen¡¯s private space, and Alchemy City would not step in even if Saleen killed him inside the apartment. That was the right of a home owner. The owner was the emperor of their own house.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, what do you need me to do for you?¡± Sumano was more lively and treated Saleen with more respect than he had in the past. Saleen was Sumano¡¯s biggest client. If Saleen would be living in Alchemy City for a long period of time, then he would most likely not look for another person to rece Sumano.


    ¡°I want to ept some hunting assignments. What I kill is unimportant. I just need to get some high grade magic nuclei along the way.¡±


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, it would be better for you to buy the high grade magic nuclei from Alchemy City if you want them. There aren¡¯t any high grade magic beasts in the neighboring inds. If you want to hunt, you¡¯ll have to travel at least one thousand miles away.¡±


    ¡°What about it?¡±


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, you will have to spend a fortune hiring the ship. Also, you will have to get somepanions. Surely it is not possible for all five of you to go hunting for high grade magic beasts, right? You will also have to split the spoils equally. And, after subtracting the costs of hiring the ship, it will be more worth it if you just purchase the magic nucleus from Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Sumano, I havee to Alchemy City in hopes of gaining more experience. I heard that there are mages from Alchemy City who will follow the hunting groups, so it is very safe. Also, there are no such benefits in other ces, so the money spent will be worthwhile too.¡±


    Sumano believed Saleen¡¯s words. Many mages were wealthy and were notcking in equipment. They hade to Alchemy City because of the security here. A safebat environment enabled mages to increase their powers swiftly.


    Mages were different from swordsmen. Many swordsmen could only experience breakthroughs in their sword auras when their lives wre on the line, but mages did not need to take such risks.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, I thought you were here in Alchemy City because of the auction that will take ce in October,¡± Sumano remarked casually.


    ¡°Auction in October? What is that?¡±


    ¡°Every October, Alchemy City auctions off all of the items which have been gathered over the past year. Items whose prices can¡¯t be determined are also collected by Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Are there any good items?¡±


    Sumano was overjoyed when he noticed that Saleen was interested. He had only been afraid that Saleen would not employ his services. ¡°Everything will be there. Mages from Alchemy City are active all over the maind, so they frequently obtain rare items. Foreign mages also provide a lot of equipment. Last year, a mage from Sikeqinya managed to auction off an authentic magic cannon. He was really lucky. He walked away with five hundred high grade magic nuclei in exchange for that magic cannon.¡±


    ¡°So expensive!¡± Saleen was astounded. He had acquired many high grade magic nuclei from Raphael¡¯s magical tower, but the total quantity had been less than two hundred pieces. Alchemy City could produce so many magic nuclei. Could they have been richer than Raphael?


    ¡°That is not considered expensive. Alchemy City has a ship which can hunt magic beasts in the deep sea. There are countless magic beasts in the ocean, unlike on the maind. There are more magic beasts there than the amount of hairs on a cow¡¯s body.¡±


    ¡°What type of ship is that? It can even hunt magic beasts in the deep sea!¡± Saleen could not believe what he had just heard. Even a ship which was powered by magic would be weak on the ocean. Indeed, there were many magic beasts in the ocean, and they were more perilous than the ones onnd.


    ¡°I have not seen it before. That ship belongs to the Devil¡¯s Horn. It will not appear in the port of Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Devil¡¯s Horn? Is it one of the three inds?¡± By now, Saleen was aware that Alchemy City had extended its sphere of influence even all the way to the deep sea, controlling all the inds in its vicinity. Out of the numerous inds there, there were three slightlyrger ones which possessed three nine story magic towers. They, too, belonged to Alchemy City. These three inds formed a barrier of defense on the ocean routes, and even the Cloudflow Empire could not do anything about them. The Cloudflow Empire could only carry on with their usual business, as their navy could not be deployed for plundering.


    With Alchemy City around, the coastline of the Qin Empire could be considered peaceful. Otherwise, it would have been like the Tanggsi Empire. The Tanggsi Empire had been left with no choice but to deployrge numbers of soldiers to sea to prevent plundering from the Cloudflow people.


    Everyone knew for sure that the pirates from Cloudflow were supported by the empire¡¯s royal family. However, the other three empires did not possess a navy like the Cloudflow Empire did, so they could do nothing about it either way.

 Chapter 203: Magic Ship (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 203: Magic Ship (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Yes it is, and it¡¯s the farthest ind. Without the ocean, Alchemy City would not have been able to amass so much wealth,¡± Sumanomented. Since he was only a disciple, these things were too far out of his reach. He could only console himself by saying that he was also a member of Alchemy City, so all the glory and honor associated with the city would be rted to him.


    Saleen was very tempted. Hogina seemed to know everything about Alchemy City like the back of her hand, but she simply did not know anything about Saleen¡¯s teacher. The only usible reason was that Saleen¡¯s teacher was one of the people who hade from those three inds.


    To the people of Alchemy City, the three inds were shrouded in mystery. Aside from asionally leading missions to those inds to supply Alchemy City withrge amounts of materials, not much information was known about them.


    ¡°Such missions won¡¯t be without risk, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but the mages from Alchemy City will not abandon you. If the mission fails, they will have to give you a refund.¡±


    ¡°Mm, help me look for groups which aren¡¯t too big.¡± Saleen roughly grasped the difficulty of such missions. Missions which involved more than one hundred people were indeed risky, but those under one hundred people had never run into problems yet.


    ¡°Then I will help you find some information regarding Devil¡¯s Horn.¡± Seeing that Saleen never brought up the issue of money, Sumano grew more at ease. Many mages were rich, and if they looked too much into it, they would realize that Sumano actually did not do much work. Since Sumano had epted such arge sum of money from Saleen, this made him feel uneasy and he did not even dare to enter Saleen¡¯s apartment.


    ¡°Alright, give me the information within three days.¡± Saleen was well aware that people like Sumano existed in every city. These people were struggling for survival on the bottom rungs of society, and no one really showed them any concern. One example was Da, Saleen¡¯s partner during his youth. Da had eventually be a bandit as he had been forced down that route by other people. However, people like that also tended to have ess to information which no one else would ever attain, so Saleen did not look down on Sumano in the slightest.


    The mages in Alchemy City were all highly regarded and admired by others, so they would not give a hoot about this old magic disciple. It was safer for Saleen to extract information from Sumano, as long as Sumano did not go around publicizing it.


    Lex was indifferent towards Saleen¡¯s methods. Her agenda foring to Alchemy City had been to locate Saleen¡¯s teacher, and more importantly, to find out how many assets Alchemy City actually owned.


    After autumn, the Tanggsi Empire wouldunch an assault against Lon, and the situation on the maind would be altered once more. By then, the stances adopted by Cloudflow and Sikeqinya would have been revealed. If these three empires all dered war against Qin at the same time, Alchemy City would be a crucial factor. Until now, no information had been received from the sorcerers deployed by Alchemy City. It was still unclear what they were trying to do in the Tanggsi Empire.


    The Qin Empire had no choice but to have Alchemy City guard the coastlines. The foundation of the empire was built on magic, and the royal family itself had produced many mages in the past, so the empire understood the temperaments of mages very well. If the Qin Empire had carried out a forceful requisition or had chosen to groom mages solely within the royal family, then the empire would have been just another Cloudflow Empire and would not have possessed so much capital already.


    At least now, in addition to Alchemy City, any other cities that were slightlyrger had a magic tower. Anyone who thought of invading Qin would have to face the grade-6 mages or sorcerers in those magic towers first.


    After one thousand years, the policies made by the Grukos family had taken effect. The fates of Alchemy City and Qin had been bound together. Any other dynasties would never have given Alchemy City so much freedom.


    Two dayster, Sumano delivered a huge stack of information to Saleen. He still did not enter Saleen¡¯s apartment. There was an assignment for Devil¡¯s Horn. This was a sixty mage mission to kill a finless whale.


    Mages who came to Alchemy City did not bring too many swordsmen with them because swordsmen were seen as lowly in Alchemy City. For such a mission, a mage would employ swordsmen whom they trusted from the swordsman¡¯s camp. Around one hundred and twenty swordsmen would tag along for this sixty mage mission.


    There was also a minimum requirement for mages for this mage mission. A grade-3 mage like Daniel was the bare minimum. Such missions were given a duration of three months at most. After three months, the ship would have to sail back to the Alchemy Port for resupply even if the mission had not beenpleted.


    Since Saleen¡¯s group had three mages and two warriors, he could still hire four more swordsmen as a supplement.


    In Alchemy City, hired swordsmen cost more than mercenaries. For this mission, each person had to pay nearly five hundred gold coins. This sum of money had to be spent because the swordsman¡¯s camp in Alchemy City was definitely secure, and the hired swordsmen were more reliable than mercenaries. The swordsmen were pretty useful for hunting magic beasts. Furthermore, danger was greatest out at sea, and with some swordsmen around, those mages would be able to sleep more peacefully too.


    After epting the mission on the first story of the alchemy tower and going to the swordsman¡¯s camp to hire four more swordsmen, there was still half a month left before the start of the hunt. Saleen and his team needed to familiarize themselves with the flow and rules of the mission.


    The finless whale was a colossal grade-6 magic beast, and it would not be easy to hunt it at all. However, the finless whale was filled with valuable materials throughout its body, and just the whale oil alone could already fetch a fortune. The magic nucleus in the finless whale was not small either. After segmentation, the size of the magic nuclei would still beparable to those of hundreds of magic beasts onnd.


    The whale skin was also a premium material for making magic armor. If the sixty mages were able to hunt three whales during these three months out at sea, they would make a profit. In addition to the mission reward, the mages would also get to keep whatever spoils they got from killing other magic beasts. Alchemy City would only take themission.


    After conversion, a single mission like this would enable each of the sixty mages to earn at least thirty thousand gold coins, provided that there were no unexpected situations. That was equivalent to a year¡¯s work in arge mercenary group.


    Alchemy City would not be in deficit either. They only needed to provide the ship, the funding, and several mages to ensure safety, and then they could simply sit back and wait for the harvest. Since the mages in Alchemy City would save three months¡¯ worth of time, their progress with their training would definitely be faster than that of the mages who went out on the mission.


    This was just like business. A rich businessman simply provided the capital, and no matter how much their subordinates earned, the businessman would still get the biggest cut of the earnings.


    Whatever benefits and gains a foreign mage acquired by working in Alchemy City, a good half of it would go to the city itself. However, there was no solution to this. Without Alchemy City, these mages would not even be able to set sail. Alchemy City was in control of all of the rich resources found at sea.


    Saleen and Lex were more seasoned and experienced, and Daniel was feeling the most excited. If this bankrupt mage had not met Lex and Saleen, he would never have been able to survive in Alchemy City, let alone take on missions like this which required coteral.


    Each of the three mages needed to pay a coteral of fifty thousand gold coins. If the mission failed, the fifty thousand gold coins would be forfeited. The mages were not only interested in the gold coins, but they also had a chance of obtaining a grade-6 magic nucleus from the mission. Daniel hoped to be independent and self-sufficient. Currently, Lex was providing him with grade-3 magic nuclei in order to sustain his three training sessions each day.


    If Daniel waited for his magic chords to recover by themselves, he would only be able to train once a day, and that would cause him to advance very slowly towards grade-4. If he managed to kill additional finless whales during the mission, then he would not need to rely on Lex¡¯s assistance anymore, at least not anytime in the near future.


    Saleen did some simple calctions. The coteral for this voyage was already much more than what somerge cities collected in taxes.


    Sixty mages and one hundred and twenty swordsmen gathered at Alchemy Port. A grade-7 sorcerer was in charge of this mission, but he would not do any hunting as his job was solely to ensure everyone¡¯s safety. Executing the mission were two grade-6 mages. These two mages were used to such missions. They simply instructed the sixty mages to split themselves into groups of five before boarding the ship.


    Hundreds of ships were docked at Alchemy Port, and the lengths of some were over two hundred meters. The hulls of almost all the ships were wrapped in metal, and this metal sparkled under the sunlight.


    Saleen¡¯s group was allocated into a smaller ship, but this ship was also about sixty meters long. The other two mages in Saleen¡¯s group were not too old either. One looked like he was around forty years old while the other was only in his early thirties.


    They were grade-4 mages. Under most circumstances, the two of them were already considered to be impressive since they had attained grade-4 at such an age.


    The ship¡¯s destination was Devil¡¯s Horn. The ship did not contain cabins, and the second story was simply an open hall with dozens of tables secured onto the deck. The swordsmen and mages were seated ording to their groups. The sailors from Alchemy City had already inspected the ship. Thus, they went to untie the cables immediately, and the ship left the dock under themand of the captain.


    Saleen¡¯s hometown was just beside the sea, so he was used to the ocean view. However, he had never travelled in such arge ship before. The fishing boats in Ceylon City were tiny and only allowed fisherman to fish in nearby waters. Once the weather turned slightly overcast, the fishing boats did not dare sail anymore. The onlyrge ship in Ceylon City belonged to Viscount Gugger, but it was used for smuggling items.


    The two mages noticed that Saleen and Lex were d in grey robes, so they did not dare to underestimate them and began introducing themselves. These two mages were actually Qin people. They had been training together since they were young and had the same teacher.


    When they had advanced to grade-4, their teacher had suggested that the two of them go out to explore and experience the world. Since they hade from wealthy families, they had chosen toe to Alchemy City without much hesitation.


    It was never boring for mages to have conversations with one another. Furthermore, these two grade-4 mages had good temperaments and were knowledgeable, and they were even heirs. Very soon, the five mages began chitchatting with one another. The ship was also sailing increasingly farther away from the docks. The skies were clear, and oing strong winds blew into the cabin, apanied by a slightly fishy smell.


    Even though the ship was travelling against the direction of the wind, the captain did not give the order to start the alchemical machine. The ship gradually increased its speed and the shoreline disappeared from view. Flocks of seabirds flew above the ship, and crisp and long tweets could be heard from time to time.


    ¡°Andrew, Keegan, meet Mage Daniel. He is a rare death mage.¡± Saleen noticed that the two grade-4 mages had been somewhat aloof towards Daniel, and knew that it was because of Daniel¡¯s grade. The boundary between grade-4 to grade-6 was not so pronounced, but between grade-3 and grade-4 was a barrier which some mages could never cross in their entire lives.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s great! We¡¯re so sorry¡­¡±


    Once they heard that Daniel was a death mage, the two grade-4 mages began to treat Daniel in a friendlier manner, and Daniel could finally join in the conversation.


    ¡°Saleen, we will reach Devil¡¯s Horn in a day. Once we¡¯re there, you¡¯ll be able to see the most unique ship on the face of the earth,¡± Andrew said enthusiastically.


    ¡°How unique is it?¡± As Saleen posed his question, he observed Nailisi and Sika, who were sitting with the other swordsmen. Nailisi was doing fine, but Sika seemed restless. The swordsmen were all striking up conversations with Sika, but none were harassing Nailisi. Nailisi was not uglier than Sika, but throughout the journey, most people were only interested in talking to Sika. Those spirited swordsmen seemed to be uninterested in Nailisi.


    ¡°That ship is the dream of every single mage. We call it the magic ship.¡±

 Chapter 204: Devil’s Horn (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 204: Devil¡¯s Horn (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel did not mind that the two mages had looked down on him in the beginning. With Lex¡¯s help, he hadpleted the summoning of the nine bone puppets, and these puppets had evolved into the nine kings. So, his power was now already equivalent to that of a grade-4 mage.


    It could even be said that in a one-on-one battle, neither Andrew nor Keegan would be a match for him.


    Death mages had better stamina than elemental mages in terms of offensive abilities because death mes were not depleted so easily. Furthermore, death mages could also cast scrolls and had many bone puppets under theirmand.


    Low-grade bone puppets did not require any magic arrays nor the power of the dead from the death dimension. Such puppets were simr to swordsmen in terms of offensive ability, and as long as the death mage possessed enough bones, they would be able to create their own army.


    The power of a death mage would have been extremely terrifying if their low-grade bone puppets had a longer duration of effect.


    ¡°Magic ship? What is it like?¡± Lex knew a little about the empire¡¯s navy, and the ships in the navy paled inparison to those found in Alchemy Port. These two grade-4 mages were full of admiration for that magic ship. Could the magic ship have been simr to the giant ships found in the Cloudflow Navy?


    ¡°When you see it you will know. That ship isn¡¯t even a ship anymore. If the empire possessed dozens of simr ships, then they would already have no problem attacking Cloudflow.¡± Andrew and Keegan were Qin mages, and they had gone a little out of line in citing this example. There were Cloudflow mages in the other seats, and when they heard this example, they simply snorted in response.


    ¡°That magic ship¡­ won¡¯t the owners be afraid that other people will learn of its secrets?¡± Lex was worried as she felt that Andrew was not boasting at all. Mages only stated facts as they were. They did not need to lie.


    ¡°The magic ship doesn¡¯t participate in missions like these. Foreign mages like us will never get the chance to board the ship.¡±


    ¡°That ship must be one of a kind. Even if the Cloudflow people got their hands on its drawings, they might not be able to replicate it,¡± Saleen announced just loud enough for the Cloudflow mages to hear. The Cloudflow mages must have agreed with what Saleen had said, seeing as they did not give any response.


    The Cloudflow people had already honed their shipbuilding technology to perfection. Alchemy City might have been able to create better ships, but they did not have the means to mass produce those ships. If Alchemy City wanted to build a fleet like Cloudflow¡¯s, they would have to exhaust ten times more resources than Cloudflow. Alchemy City had only been able to gain such a firm foothold in southeast Qin by relying on its numerous magic stone artillery.


    No navies could get close to Alchemy Port no matter how powerful they were. Magic stone artillery were positioned on manmade hills situated on both sides of Alchemy Port. No matter how many ships came, they would all be sunken nheless.


    ¡°Of course. Even the gods might not be able to finish constructing that ship,¡± Keegan continued. Fortunately, there were no devout followers from the Tanggsi Empire on the ship, or else a battle would have erupted there and then.


    Saleen finally realized why people always said that the Qin people were arrogant. Indeed, judging by the way Andrew and Keegan spoke, they regarded the Qin Empire as the central point of the maind. There were many people who did not believe in the gods, but only the Qin people would dismiss the gods in such a straightforward manner.


    Even though this ship was traveling against the wind, its speed was still quicker than the ship which Saleen had taken on the river. Using his icy sight, Saleen felt that the ship was traveling at more than fifty miles an hour. This meant that the person steering the ship possessed good skills and had a deep understanding of the wind element, and this person had to at least be a low-grade mage.


    Alchemy City was truly extravagant. Even the positions of the chief officer and main sailors were fulfilled by mages. Even so, this was also a potent method for training, simr to how Lex allocated mages for daily chores.


    Saleen leaned back in the chair and sat facing Lex. Then, the two of them started ying a magic game. Saleen cast a normal Icicle spell at his lowest speed, causing Andrew, who was next to Saleen, to be petrified. Lex waited for the Icicle spell to be fully released before dispersing the magic. Had she been slightly slower, the icicle would have prated her body.


    At least, that was what Andrew saw from his perspective. Following that, Lex employed the same method and casted a small fireball. Saleen waited for the fireball to leave Lex before dispersing it. The two of them were used to this game since they had yed it all the time when they were in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. The game might have seemed perilous, but in reality, the two of them could already control this game perfectly.


    Furthermore, the defensive abilities of their magic robes could easily resist level-1 magic. However, to Andrew and Keegan, Saleen and Lex seemed to be toying with their very lives.


    Saleen and Lex did not bother to cast any magic shields. They simply took turns casting spells. This caused the onlookers to be filled with terror.


    Daniel knew that Lex was a grade-6 mage, so it was no surprise that she was capable of dispersing magic. However, he was astonished that Saleen, a grade-4 mage, could actually disperse a level-1 spell cast by another person!


    The mages around Saleen and Lex were mesmerized by their actions, and at one point in time, the cabin fell silent.


    Out of the sixty mages participating in the mission, only half were grade-3 mages, while the rest had already reached grade-4. Needless to say, those grade-3 mages could not disperse magic. Even so, all the grade-4 mages were in truth questioning themselves, wondering if they could disperse magic like what Saleen was doing.


    Saleen and Lex sat opposite each other, so the distance between the two was only slightly more than one meter. At such a distance, magic attacks did not even need to travel far to be able to reach their target.


    Lex and Saleen had harbored the same intentions when they decided to y the game. As expected, the two mages in the same group as them were immensely impressed as their expressions were that of respect. The fact that Saleen and Lex were able to achieve this meant that their magic control abilities were almost at their peak already. Even if they had rehearsed the game beforehand, a slight mistake would still result in death.


    In the cabin below, the sorcerer and two grade-6 mages from Alchemy City had found out about this scene. In their cabin, they had magic images of the second story. In addition to protecting the mages who were executing the mission, these three people also had to ensure that no one was creating trouble on the ship.


    ¡°Sir Juno, look at these two mages!¡±


    The grade-7 sorcerer had been meditating, but now he was staring at the magic image. After looking at the images for a moment, he ordered, ¡°Check their backgrounds.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± One of the grade-6 mage immediately took out a book. This book contained information on all of the mages on the ship. After flipping a few pages, he finally found the information.


    ¡°Sir, the woman¡¯s surname is Grukos. Could she be the viscountess of the empire?¡±


    ¡°I am afraid so, but what is she doing in Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Training purposes. After Emperor Chanake died, the Bitter Water Prefecture has been surrounded by the prince¡¯s men, so there hasn¡¯t been much progress.¡±


    ¡°Does she need money?¡±


    ¡°No, the Bitter Water Prefecture is very wealthy. Although it is not as rich as Alchemy City, it is still able to support the lives of more than one hundred mages.¡±


    ¡°Who are the people beside her?¡±


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin, a citizen of Bitter Water County, but from Sikeqinya. He is a grade-4 mage. Daniel Kan, from Tanggsi¡­¡±


    ¡°From Tanggsi?¡±


    ¡°He is a grade-3 death mage.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Just now, a burst of murderous vibes had exploded out of that sorcerer when he had heard that Daniel was from Tanggsi. The people of the Elemental Hand should not have made the mistake of allowing people from Tanggsi to get on the ship, especially during this period of uncertainty. However, since the person was a death mage, it was perfectly understandable. Currently, the Tanggsi Empire was sparing no effort in capturing all the death mages they could find. Even the pope was offering huge rewards for them.


    ¡°Sir Juno, will they cause problems for us?¡±


    ¡°No, I will be able to handle that woman. Furthermore, she belongs to the Grukos family. They still have to rely on us to defend the southeastern part of the empire. She shouldn¡¯t have any special ns. Once we get back, inform the people of the Elemental Hand.¡±


    However, the sorcerer called Juno could never have been more wrong. The concealment ability of Lex¡¯s magic robe was too strong. Now that the multiple colors had disappeared and the tiago¡¯s hair had been added, no one would be able to identify Lex¡¯s grade unless Lex revealed it willingly. If Lex really wanted to create trouble, she could easily sink this ship.


    ¡°For this mission¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t let her execute the dangerous tasks. After all, she is of royal blood, and if anything goes wrong, there will be trouble.¡± The sorcerer closed his eyes, but he did not continue meditating. Rather, he was thinking. When I was grade-5, could I have done that?


    No problems had ever surfaced in such hunting missions in the past, but this did not mean that there would be no problems in the future. After all, the hunting was conducted at sea, and moreover, the magic beast in question was grade-6. If special equipment was not avable, the grade-7 sorcerer also would not dare proim that he would be able to kill the finless whale.


    Lex and Saleen still did not know that their insignificant actions had caused them to receive the safer tasks. Besides wanting to maximize their time by training, Lex and Saleen had also wanted to take charge within the small group.


    There had to be someone calling the shots in this five-man group. The rest of the mages did not want to lose out to Lex and Saleen, so they stopped talking as well. Some of them even took out nk scrolls and started filling them up.


    A situation like that would only ur within the region of Alchemy City. In other cities, mages would always choose to fill out their scrolls in a safe location.


    Saleen secretly observed his surroundings. He discovered that only two mages were meditating. These two mages surely possessed high-level guidelines on meditation, for that was why they were not afraid of being disturbed. Mages who were able to practice in Alchemy City were definitely not weaklings. Be that as it may, out of these sixty mages including Saleen and Lex, only four mages possessed perfect guidelines for meditation.


    No wonder the only warning which Saleen¡¯s teacher had given him had been regarding the meditation process. If Saleen had imparted his guidelines for meditation without any discernment, Jason would employ the most extreme of methods to get them back.


    But why was this the case in the Bitter Water Prefecture too? Did Lex not want to bring glory and honor to magic?


    Good guidelines for meditation would allow a mage to boost their mental power slowly alongside obvious signs of growth. Even if Saleen had not had help from his n badge, his mental power would not have been any weaker than that of other mages of the same grade. The Bitter Water Prefecture provided various magic knowledge and cheap materials, yet was not willing to impart guidelines on meditation.


    Everyone on the ship was training. Even the swordsmen were honing their sword auras. When night had fallen, the ship crew then delivered food to everyone. As Devil¡¯s Horn was still one thousand miles away, the ship would require one more day and one more night to reach it, yet not a single cabin with beds had been prepared. No matter howfortable a chair was, a person would grow tired of sitting eventually. Saleen stood up and walked up front.


    Looking out of the window, the ocean seemed to be boundless. Saleen felt an unparalleled freedom in his heart. This feeling was not even attainable in alchemy tower. The moon rose above the surface of the sea, causing the waves to glisten with a silver glow.


    Would genuine freedom be attainable only if one lived in a ship on the ocean? For the first time in his life, Saleen felt a strong desire. Sailing on the ocean, without any restraints whatsoever. This dream seemed so near, yet so far in reality.


    If one lived on the ocean, he would have to provide for the sailors, fight magic beasts and pirates, ande across navies from other countries. If a storm urred, the ship would also be shredded into pieces no matter how sturdy it was.

 Chapter 205: Devil’s Horn (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 205: Devil¡¯s Horn (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Quietly, Lex crept up behind Saleen and asked, ¡°What are you thinking of?¡±


    The fragrance from Lex¡¯s body mixed with the faint fishy smell from the seawater, turning into an intense smell which filled the lungs. Saleen dered honestly, ¡°I want a boat so that I can live a life without restraints.¡±


    Lexughed gently, ¡°Hey, that won¡¯t do. You still have many things to do in the Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t really do much. Aside from my rapid training, the only other important aspect of myself would be the good teacher that I have.¡± Saleen gazed at the ocean, and for the first time ever, he said whatever was on his mind.


    ¡°Do you feel that if it was not for your teacher, I would not have allowed you to leave that ce?¡± Lex did not directly mention the hell of god¡¯s punishment, as she was not sure whether other people would be able to hear their conversation.


    ¡°Not necessarily. It¡¯s just that judging by your intentions now, you want to have me oversee many matters which I don¡¯t actually enjoy doing.¡±


    ¡°Father talked to me about you in the past,¡± Lex suddenly imed.


    Saleen had never expected that Emperor Chanake would have spoken about him. Saleen had been full of admiration for the emperor and was very curious about what the emperor had thought of him.


    ¡°My father said that you were a man without great ambitions, but you would be able to aplish great things. Even though you are only a grade-4 mage now, your future achievements will definitely surpass mine. Some people ce their goals too far away. That is why they do not aplish much throughout their lives. But you willplete whatever task is in front of you with great tenacity, and every step you take will be full of confidence and solidity.¡±


    ¡°Surpass you? It won¡¯t be that easy,¡± Saleen replied honestly. Saleen viewed Lex as his goal simply because Lex was around the same age as him. However, Lex possessed a big head start, so even though Saleen had tried his best to build up his foundation, he still felt that there were many areas where he was inferior to Lex.


    ¡°After grade-6, the effect of money on magic training does not do much anymore. You also know that a grade-7 magic nucleus can¡¯t be acquired with money.¡±


    Saleen remained silent because he knew that Lex was speaking the truth. For this trip to Alchemy City, both of them had held the motive of finding out how Alchemy City had managed to support the training of so many sorcerers.


    Now, both of them vaguely knew that Alchemy City was simply using the simplest of all methods ¨C plundering.


    Alchemy City was the holy ground for magic. One could purchase whatever magic materials and knowledge they sought from this ce. If a foreign mage wanted to acquire these items, then they would have to carry out certain tasks for Alchemy City. Some examples included hunting, collecting, and mining. These tasks took up a lot of time and some were even life threatening. Hence, Alchemy City allocated these tasks to the foreigners, and the city even collected a fee from them.


    Was this logical?


    Perhaps not. But year after year, throngs of hopeful mages still decided toe to Alchemy City.


    ¡°It would be difficult for you to lead a life like that,¡± Lex continued speaking gently. A feeling of fatigue welled up in Saleen¡¯s heart, but he quickly brushed away the strange emotions he was experiencing.


    ¡°Lex, that is not difficult at all. Just that I will need to let you take over some matters temporarily, as I don¡¯t have the time to start on them. When I am more free, I will get a boat to go one round around the Myers Maind, then¡­¡±


    ¡°Then what will you do?¡±


    ¡°Then I will keep moving towards the end of the ocean. I would like to see what is at the end of this ne.¡±


    ¡°That is¡­ such a romantic thought.¡±


    ¡°I think you mean unrealistic, right?¡± Saleen smiled.


    ¡°To a mage, nothing is unrealistic. Do you know what I want to do?¡±


    ¡°You want to locate my teacher as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Hey.¡± Lex did not deny it. Beforeing to Alchemy City, she had thought too simply about things. However, aftering to Alchemy City, she had discovered that the city did not belong to an individual and actually belonged to a group of people. Power struggles existed wherever people did, and even Alchemy City was no exception.


    ¡°I was just thinking about whether I would still be considered a mage if this goes on.¡± Saleen was a little emotional,pletely unlike how someone his age typically behaved.


    ¡°Then are you still going to help me or not?¡± Lex changed the topic.


    ¡°Help? Of course I am helping!¡± Saleen shifted his body sideways to make a bit of room for Lex to stand in front of the window. Then, he whispered, ¡°I can¡¯t let you have all the benefits of that thing.¡± The thing that Saleen was referring to was, of course, the hell of god¡¯s punishment.


    ¡°Unfortunately, the Bitter Water Prefecture is situated deep in the empire¡¯snd. If the prefecture had an entrance at sea like Alchemy Port, a navy could be established and people would be able to traverse freely just like they can in Cloudflow.¡± Lex ignored Saleen¡¯s banter since she was very clear on his intentions.


    ¡°There are two ports in the north, but they aren¡¯t as convenient as those in Alchemy City, so those ces might not be ideal. However, the Phoenix Duchy is situated in the north. Isn¡¯t there arge piece of no man¡¯snd?¡± Saleen shared his thoughts as he recalled that there was an empty piece ofnd indicated on maps of the Myers Maind.


    ¡°Like you said, it is no man¡¯snd. Within a single year, there are at least four months when that ce is covered in snow. No one is willing to live there. I have sent my people to conduct an investigation on it in the past. That ce has a natural deep-water port, but unfortunately, it is frozen for a few months each year. If you like it, I will conquer that ce. Shall I perhaps confer you the title of a marquis?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no fun in being a marquis.¡±


    ¡°You want to be the emperor?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary. I will already be content being a county king.¡±


    In that instant, Lex¡¯s face turned scarlet. Why had Saleen said that? If Lex had not been made county queen yet, then that sentence would have seemed as though Saleen had been trying to flirt with her. Saleen did not notice the strange look on Lex¡¯s face. He simply stared at the ocean and said, ¡°Lex, all those emperors simply wanted to unify the maind and restore the glorious days of the old dynasties. But that way of thinking is so childish. Even the Fourth Dynasty also controlled a few thousand miles of sea beyond the border, not to mention the first three dynasties. It was only today now that I¡¯m here out at sea that I realize how minuscule my goals were.¡±


    ¡°What were your goals?¡±


    ¡°I hoped that every meal would fill my stomach, and I hoped that the money beneath my pillow would not be stolen or cheated from me. I began learning magic because of these goals.¡±


    As the two of them conversed about trivial matters, the eastern side had unknowingly grown whiter. A blinding ray of golden light shone on the surface of the sea. Sunlight pierced through the darkness. In the moment before dawn, Saleen and Lex unwittingly held their breaths as they witnessed their first ever sunrise at sea.


    The ship had reached Devil¡¯s Horn!


    In the distance, a foggy ind was vaguely discernible. The ship slowed down and the sailors lowered the sail. The ship was going to be powered by magic from here on, as it would allow the ship to enter theyer of mist slowly.


    Saleen and Lex never returned to their seats. They extended their perception to the exterior of the ship and realized that the formation of the mist itself actually originated from a magic array. Even though the ind was still far away, it already looked massive. The mist was projected at least dozens of miles from the shore, and if all of it was being released by a magic array, then the magic array was far too horrifying even if it was a low-level one.


    The ship carefully avoided the reefs, causing Saleen to think to himself, No wonder Devil¡¯s Horn could be established at sea and its people are not afraid of the Cloudflow Navy. If this gigantic ind was engulfed in mist all year round with those reefs scattered all over its perimeter, then it would be impossible for anyone to even get close to it without a detailed map. Even though the ind utilized its surrounding environment, which was rich in water elements, this set up was also far too overwhelming already.


    As the ship navigated through the mist, Saleen made mental notes on its route. However, he soon realized that in this mist, a person could not even orientate themselves properly. After a few turns, Saleen had already lost their original coordinates.


    Saleen was a grade-4 mage, and his mental power was not any weaker than Lex¡¯s. If even someone like him could forget the way, then Devil¡¯s Horn was definitely safe enough.


    If the ocean currents, geomaism, mist, and reefs underwent changes, then no iing ships would be able to get close to the ind unless the people from Devil¡¯s Horn gave their authorization and disseminated concise magic coordinates.


    Holy Rock City and Alchemy City had astounded Saleen in the past. This was because those two cities had been built up over thousands of years and looked majestic. However, Devil¡¯s Horn was built upon a colossal magic array which had been formed by the multitude of changes that the ocean had undergone during the past hundreds of millions of years. Such a technique had already exceeded some of Saleen¡¯s present knowledge.


    That was the power of mages. The elemental power and the natural environment had fused togetherpletely. No matter how strong the Cloudflow Navy was, it would not be able to get close to Devil¡¯s Horn unless it possessed the capabilities to disperse all of the elemental power in a radius which spanned over hundreds of miles.


    Even a forbidden curse would not be able to achieve that.


    Saleen and Lex nced at each other as amon thought emerged in their hearts. What type of person had set this magic array?


    When the ship was several miles from the ind, it stopped turning, and the mist also became fainter. Arge metallic port came into view. The style of the port was that of toughness and ruthlessness. The magicmp on the ship shed repeatedly to signal to the tall tower built on the dock. Many mages crowded around the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the magic ship which was berthed at the port.


    The people from Alchemy City did not stop these mages, as they did not care if people looked at the magic ship. If a person could steal all of its secrets through sight alone, then Alchemy City would not have been able to dominate the ocean anyways.


    The harbor had been developed from a gargantuan rock, and enormous forts surrounded the harbor on three sides. There was a metallic port mosaicked into the depths of the inner part of the ind. That dock was huge, berthed with dozens ofrge ships.


    Saleen did not need anyone to point it out to him. At a nce, he had already spotted the magic ship that Andrew was talking about.


    Si¡­ oh!


    Exmations and inhtions filled the air as many people were filled with awe. However, even more of them were filled with anticipation and greed which was disyed in their eyes. So there was such a ship. If Saleen had not seen it in person, he would never have been able to imagine that a ship could be built this way.


    The ship¡¯s dragon bone had been extracted from a colossal sea magic beast, and it was almost two hundred meters long. The skull of the magic beast was ced at the ship¡¯s bow. Its mouth was agape, and the two empty skull orbitals were mosaicked with two extremely gargantuan gems. From the beginning to the end of the hull, not a single crevice could be spotted. The pure wooden color of the hull made the ship look as if it had grown naturally on the bone of this magic beast.


    From the side, magic powered propellers could not be seen, but there were two wing bones which were currently retracted. The deck consisted of four stories, and there were no sails. In addition, there were magic cannon towers located at the bow and the stern. The magic cannon could only be fired under elemental stability. Hadn¡¯t the manufacturing process for this item been lost already?


    In addition to the magic towers, the ship also contained many arrow towers of different sizes, and alchemical crossbows were installed on them. Saleen clearly saw a simple magic tower on the highest point of the ship¡¯s bridge.


    If this ship had a sorcerer as itsmander, then it would be able to traverse the seven seas. This ship had defied much of Saleen¡¯s general knowledge, for example, having magic cannons and a magic tower on its dynamic hull. Such an enormous ship did not have any sails. How many magic nuclei would be required to power it?

 Chapter 206: Starting the Hunt (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 206: Starting the Hunt (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The swordsmen from the swordsman¡¯s camp were already used to such a scene. All of them sat in their chairs earnestly, and none of them stood up. The ship Saleen was in berthed at a dock that was very far from the magic ship. This dock had been independently built, so it was far away from the ships belonging to Devil¡¯s Horn.


    Even so, that did not stop Saleen from observing the processes happening in the port. He saw a massive tower, and a slideid on a metal bridge. Hooks hung from above, helping unload cargo from the ships.


    Those metallic boxes were tied up and lowered from the ships before being stacked up on the port. Thereafter, five meter tall metal puppets woulde and carry them away.


    Some cargo was obviously special. Once that cargo was unloaded from the ship, horse carriages¡­


    Those were not horse carriages. They were chariots being pulled by magic beasts! Saleen had only seen this type of event in murals, but now, it was unfolding right before his eyes. Saleen was extremely astonished. The hunting team consisted of mages from various empires. Even if the secrets of these processes were not so easily discovered, other people would already be able to learn a great deal just by observing the port¡¯s structure and workflow. Were the people of Alchemy City really not worried at all?


    The carriages pulled by the magic beasts were filled with cargo as they made their way ind. The port was constructed within a rock, and the many paved wide roads were also within the mountain.


    In truth, Devil¡¯s Horn was not suitable for building ports. The reason it was possible waspletely due to the efforts of humans. It was still manageable onnd as there were numerous puppets around to chisel the mountain, but what about the sea? Had the underwater area under the port also been cleared by humans?


    Saleen witnessed a feeling of unparalleled resolution, looking at this metallic port. It was the type of unyielding heart that humans possessed in the face of nature.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. We¡¯re going to rest on the ind for two days before setting off on the hunt,¡± the sorcerer hurried everybody.


    Behind the port, there were dozens of giant horse carriages waiting. All the mages boarded the carriage while the swordsmen from the swordsman¡¯s camp rode on horseback and followed beside the convoy. The personal bodyguards of the mages also boarded the carriages with the mages. Most mages did not possess the energy to train their bodies as Saleen and Lex did. Unless they advanced to the grade of a sorcerer, they would becking in strength.


    After a day and night of being on a ship with only chairs, the difference between two types of mages immediately became evident.


    Wealthy mages had better physique. Their physique was already that of swordsmen. On the other hand, mages from poor backgrounds spent all their time practicing magic, so they did not get much rest during the journey and all of their faces were pale. By this time, it was already considered good if they had not vomited due to seasickness.


    The horse carriages, with the hunting group inside, traveled along a road and arrived at a castle. Most of the mages were extremely exhausted, so after the rooms were allocated, they split up and went to rest. The swordsmen, however, were led to the diner so that they could consume their meals first.


    Even though Saleen and Lex were not tired, they still took a nap. This castle was surrounded by a forest, and the crisp chirping from birds could be heard just outside the window. As Saleenid on the soft bed, he had a sweet dream.


    The dream was a little blurry, and Saleen only remembered the portion just before he woke up. Saleen dreamt that he was on the magic ship. He was standing on the bridge as hemanded the magic ship tounch an attack on a dragon. Just as the behemoth, which was on the ship¡¯s bow, spit out a ray of blinding magic light, Saleen woke up.


    ¡°Master.¡± Saleen opened his eyes and saw that Nailisi was lying down beside him, staring at him with her pair of green eyes.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Juno sent someone to give you this item.¡± Nailisi took out a thin book and handed it to Saleen. When Saleen opened it, he realized that the book simply contained the details of the hunting mission.


    The hunting program, as well as the habits of some dangerous magic beasts, were written in this book. All the important details and the mission specifically for Saleen¡¯s group were stated very clearly.


    Saleen frowned when he saw them. ording to the briefing in the book, this mission seemed too easy. Could there have been a mistake?


    Saleen climbed out of bed and put on his clothes before heading out to look for Lex. Lex and the rest of the group had woke up earlier than Saleen, so they were all eating in the diner already. The moment Saleen and Nailisi appeared, servants immediately came forward to serve them. Saleen did not even wash up. He simply cast a Cleaning spell and went to sit beside Lex straightaway.


    This castle had obviously been built for the purpose of hosting hunting groups. The diner was massive, formed by a chain of smaller halls. The swordsmen which belonged to Saleen¡¯s group were also sitting at the same table.


    Including the swordsmen which Andrew and Keegan had hired, there was a total of fifteen people sitting at this table. Excluding Sika and Nailisi, the other hired swordsmen were not weak either. They were at least at the standard of a beginner swordmaster. Their sword auras might not have been very powerful, but their many years of killing magic beasts had caused them to have ferocious auras around them.


    ¡°Sir, you are here.¡± The swordsmen bowed towards Saleen. Saleen nodded, and asked the swordsmen to carry on with their meals.


    ¡°Lex, have you seen this?¡± Saleen took out the book containing the mission details and showed it to Lex.


    ¡°I have. Everyone has a copy.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you think our mission is too simple?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that great?¡± Andrew replied, and continued, ¡°There are always a few lucky mages in every mission. They don¡¯t have to do much. They just have to follow the sorcerer¡¯s ship and act as the reserve forces. Finally, my turn is here. Ha¡­¡±


    Whenever Alchemy City hunted finless whales, at least four ships were deployed. Even though the target for this mission was not much, five ships were still going to be deployed. One of the ships would be a warship, responsible for protecting the fishing boats from any harassment by the pirates. The whalers were going to venture to the deep-sea and would not be under any protection from Devil¡¯s Horn. Without the warship, the fishing boats would not be able to withstand much impact in the event that a magic beast which was grade-8 or above appeared.


    Three of the five fishing ships were going to be the mainbat force against the finless whale. On the other hand, Juno the sorcerer would take the fourth ship, and together with the warship, they would act as reinforcements. Saleen¡¯s task was to follow the sorcerer. The moment the three fishing ships could not take down the finless whale, the fourth one would be activated. Of course, Juno would join in the fight by then.


    Saleen¡¯s task was equivalent to getting paid without needing to do anything. Under most circumstances, dozens of mages could easily kill a finless whale. This magic beast might have been grade-6, but its attacks were very simple. Furthermore, the fishing ships travelled slightly faster than the finless whale, so there was not much risk.


    Lex did not say much. She had guessed that the people from Alchemy City had already ascertained her identity, so they had arranged such a simple task out of fear that she might get into trouble. Although Alchemy City did not hold the authority of the Grukos family in high regard, the people were well aware that if someone else had be the emperor, the city might not have been treated so well up until this point.


    In terms of capabilities, Alchemy City might have been able to stand independently, but the price it would have to pay was too much to bear.


    Aye, it was a pity Lex was not well-respected in Holy Rock City. Instead, people in Alchemy City were giving her privileges over the other mages. If Lex had been in Holy Rock City right now, how many ridicules and insults would she have to bear?


    When Saleen looked at Lex¡¯s expression, he finally understood the reasoning behind their mission.


    Saleen had never felt that this mission had any danger whatsoever. There were more than thirty grade-3 mages in the group. Furthermore, Lex was a grade-6 mage, and there were two more grade-5 mages while the remainder were grade-4 mages. If the mission had not taken ce at sea, just the one hundred and twenty beginner swordmasters alone would have been able to torture the magic beast to death. Since Lex was now receiving special care and would be on the same ship as the sorcerer, the mission would be even safer now.


    ¡°Andrew, how many times have you participated in this mission?¡± Saleen asked casually as he sipped on oatmeal porridge.


    ¡°Twice. I almost died the first time since I was inexperienced,¡± Andrew replied with lingering fear in his voice.


    ¡°Can I go and explore the ind?¡±


    ¡°Of course you can. But when you are outside, the people from Alchemy City will not guarantee your safety.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°It is forbidden for you to go to the western, southern, and northern areas of Devil¡¯s Horn. The eastern area is the sole region reserved for hunting, and there are stronger magic beasts here too.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Saleen nodded, and thought to himself that perhaps Alchemy City was also researching the breeding of magic beasts. No matter how big this ind was, it was still not big enough for many magic beasts to live on it. To have been able to allow people to conduct hunting for such a long time, the people from Alchemy City must have transported all the captured magic beasts to the east of the ind. On one hand, it would provide a hunting ground, and on the other, they would be able do research on artificial breeding techniques.


    It did not matter what kinds of magic beasts were bred on the ind. Even if the magic beasts escaped, they would not be able to harm the Qin civilians either way. Devil¡¯s Horn was extremely far from the maind, but it was the best naturalboratory.


    Saleen did not know how he was going to get information about this ind. If his teacher hade from this ce, then it would truly be impossible to inquire about anything in Alchemy City. The servants in the castle were under strict rules, so Saleen would not be able to find out much from them either. And, if Saleen wanted to venture elsewhere, Alchemy City would not guarantee his safety. This was indeed a frustrating issue.


    Even if Saleen went out and did not face any danger, he could not possibly just grab a random a person and ask ¨C do you know who Jason Statham is?


    If Saleen had simply possessed the intention of looking for his teacher, it actually would not have been wrong to pose that question to a random person. However, Saleen was hiding something. He was afraid of making others aware of the hell of god¡¯s punishment. Even after locating his teacher, Saleen would still have to conceal many things from other people in Alchemy City. If he acted too conspicuously, then future matters would be more difficult to resolve.


    It seemed like the books were right. A person without any desire was the most powerful person in existence, and was undefeated. With this selfish desire of his now, Saleen could not do anything well.


    When he thought of that, Saleen grew depressed. But if Alchemy City learned about the hell of god¡¯s punishment, it¡¯s highly likely that they¡¯ll take the entire interdimensional space for themselves. Then what would be left for Lex and myself?


    Saleen lost his appetite as he thought of this question. He simply stuffed a few pieces of bread into his mouth and did not bother spectating the ongoing magic battles which had been organized by the mages in the hunting group. Saleen decided to sleep for the full duration of the next two days.


    When Saleen went back to his room, Lex followed him.


    ¡°Saleen, why are you fretting when I¡¯m not even anxious at all?¡± Lex closed the door behind her and cast a Mute Enchantment.


    ¡°I miss my teacher. Yet, I have no clues at all. Do you think I should be happy?¡± Saleen threw a tantrum, just like a child.


    ¡°That can¡¯t be helped. How about your white crystal ring?¡±


    Now that the dragonshard was mosaicked into Saleen¡¯s demonic bracelet, the white crystal ring did not have much of an effect anymore, so he had put it away. Upon hearing Lex say that, Saleen immediately replied, ¡°No, I cannot take it out.¡±


    ¡°Why have you lost your wits now? I am not asking you to auction it off. You might not be able to find your teacher that way, or perhaps he¡¯s not even back in Alchemy City yet. That white crystal ring looks precious. It seems to be part of an equipment set. You can announce your intentions to acquire more equipment belonging to that set, and it will look more normal.¡±


    ¡°Acquire?¡±


    ¡°Stupid, a set of equipment is bound to have special connections. Use the Figaro form to find out what sort of features the other pieces of equipment should have. Then, acquire the rest of the pieces based on those features. Your teacher will definitely be concerned if he hears of this news.¡±

 Chapter 207: Starting the Hunt (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 207: Starting the Hunt (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s mood brightened all of a sudden since Lex¡¯s idea would not leave any traces. Every mage who came to Alchemy City made many odd requests, and they were also quite fussy about items which they wished to purchase. No matter how odd Saleen¡¯s purchase was, it would be regarded as normal in Alchemy City. When Saleen¡¯s teacher had first given Saleen that ring, it had looked a lot like a piece of equipment within arger set. At that point in time, Saleen¡¯s grade had been too low, so he would not have been able to utilize the rest of the equipment.


    Despite having left his teacher such a long time ago, Saleen had never seen any other white crystal equipment up until now, which showed just how precious these items were. Even though the face of the ring was very small, people had still been willing to spend tens of thousands of gold coins on it.


    ¡°Lex, why did not you tell me earlier!¡±


    Lex smiled bitterly. ¡°I didn¡¯t know that Alchemy City would be like this before I arrived. At that time, I still thought¡­¡±


    Saleen knew that he could not me Lex for not having suggested that idea earlier, as he had simply been too obsessed earlier on. Now that he had straightened his thoughts and a few ideas had popped into his head, Saleen was more confident that he would be able to locate his teacher.


    Hogina and the Elemental Hand did not belong to the same faction. Alchemy City was mainly split into three groups: the alchemy tower, the Elemental Hand, and the three inds.


    This meant that the mages in each of these three groups worked on a specific function. The Elemental Hand was in charge of Alchemy City¡¯s security, the alchemy tower was in charge of business, and the three inds controlled the resources. In addition to acquiring equipment which was rted to the white crystal ring, Saleen would also need to take on more missions from the three inds. If Jason really was on one of these three inds, then he would be able to find out about Saleen¡¯s presence as long as he paid attention to their happenings.


    Of course, there was not much hope in doing these inferior missions. Only by epting the superior missions would Saleen¡¯s name be ced on the watch list of the three inds. If Saleen had the opportunity to execute missions which would require the boarding of the magic ship, then his teacher would definitely be made aware of him.


    This would take time though. All new mages in Alchemy City could only ept inferior missions like this one at first. Without any hunting experience, a person was essentially walking to their own doom if they took on any high grade missions.


    Saleen was feeling happier now, but he did not go and view the magic battles. Saleen and Lex continued their magic game in the room. Without any strangers around, they tried dispersing level-3 spells instead.


    Under a situation whereby both of them cooperated with one another, Lex had a higher probability of dispersing Saleen¡¯s magic sessfully. Hence, Saleen had no choice but to bless himself with twoyers of magic shields in case of any mistakes.


    Lex cast three Phoenix spells consecutively. The fire elements morphed into the shape of a phoenix in midair and attacked Saleen. Even though all mages wanted to advance their Fireball spells to the level of a mage master, the Phoenix spell was still highly regarded by low-grade mages. This was because the Phoenix spell¡¯s ability to lock onto its target was very powerful.


    Mages did not need to use much mental power to be able to aim the Phoenix spell at their enemies. Inparison, the Fireball spell was more profound, and it even affected the advancement of some mages to grade-4.


    Saleen kept using his level-2 icicles to disperse the level-3 phoenixes. However, Lex released the phoenixes continuously. In the end, Saleen¡¯s actions were a tad slower, and thest phoenix managed to dodge the icicle before pouncing onto Saleen. Lex was petrified. The magic had alreadye into contact with his body, so there was no use dispersing the magic now.


    Peng! A boom sounded. A gigantic bubble expanded on the surface of Saleen¡¯s body. The bubble then burst and the phoenix disappeared into midair, but Saleen was flung away by the impact.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± At the same time, Lex chanted the Windspeed spell and managed to travel the span of the room in just a single step. Then, she clung onto Saleen, who was about to crash into the wall. Lex had be a littlepetitive, as the power of the phoenix had already exceeded the limits of level-3. Originally, Lex had wanted to stop the moment Saleen made a misstep, but both parties were practicing in the room and the room was only dozens of meters wide. Level-3 magic was able to strike the target within mere frames. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s water shield had suddenly exploded and struck the phoenix earlier than expected.


    Saleen had not expected the phoenix to explode. The impact from that explosion had been too strong, causing Saleen to feel like a sledgehammer had struck all of his bones. If Lex had not caught him in time, his head would have been busted open even if he had used the Windspeed spell to lower the speed of the crash.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Lex asked furiously. Saleen¡¯s water shield had expanded without any warning, and its speed had even beenparable to that of some attack spells. If there was a bit of carelessness or a slight mistake during an experiment like this, Saleen risked getting seriously injured.


    Saleen¡¯s body was in pain, but he feltfortable in Lex¡¯s embrace. Saleen had many things he wished to say, but he did not do so. Hence, all those words became an intermittent murmuring.


    Then, Lex realized what was going on. Her reaction was that of anger and amusement. She threw Saleen onto the bed, red at him, and said, ¡°Do you take me for your mother in behaving like this?¡±


    Saleen was mmed onto the bed but did not howl in pain. He simply chuckled, ¡°Don¡¯t take advantage of me. My mother died early.¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Lex might have enjoyed high status, but her skin was thicker than Saleen¡¯s. However, Saleen¡¯s words had touched a raw nerve in her heart, and Lex recalled that the both of them had lost their mothers at a young age. Thus, Lex stopped sulking and sat on the bed. Then, she asked, ¡°How did you manage to do that just now? My spell, with the power of level-4 magic, was actually on par with your water shield. Did both spells nullify each other?¡±


    As Lex asked that question, she blessed Saleen with the Chunlin spell. A green mist entered Saleen¡¯s body, making him feel much better. Saleen pondered, then said, ¡°It can¡¯t be considered nullification, or else the explosion would not have urred. Every defense spell has its weak points and strong points. I simply used the strongest part to negate your attack and disperse the impact across the shield. If that phoenix had not been released by you, I would have been able to control the situation.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to try so hard. We still have time.¡± Lex could not help but berate Saleen for his actions. It had been an entirely new magic experiment, and this experiment had taken ce in an uncontrolled setting.


    ¡°I am not desperate. I have had this notion since one year ago.¡± Lex understood what Saleen meant. A year ago, the two of them had still been in the ne of the hell of god¡¯s punishment.


    ¡°Can you still move about?¡±


    ¡°Yes, let¡¯s do it again!¡± Saleen rested for a short while before sitting upright and casting his water shield again. Saleen was determined to master this technique as it would be crucial in helping him surpass the other mages. Through his understanding of the arrangement of the water elements, Saleen had managed to increase the defensive abilities of his level-2 transformed magic into those of level-4. If he could make the water shield respond faster, then he was confident that he would be able to promote the water shield to the next level.


    The Fireball spell was precious because it could scale with grade. At level-2, the lethality of the Fireball spell was inferior to that of the ice arrow. The freezing effect from the ice arrow exceeded that of certain level-2 control spells, but the ice arrow could not evolve. Even if a person was a sorcerer, they could only utilize some techniques to make the ice arrow more powerful. Even so, fundamentally, the ice arrow would not change.


    When the water shield advanced to level-3 magic, its defensive abilities would be level-5, so it would be more useful than ice te armor. Even though ice te armor was powerful, its depletion of magic chords was that of a standard level-4 spell. That was the reason why Saleen had continued to focus on the water shield after bing a mage master.


    Currently, Saleen could consecutively cast ny-six level-2 spells or twenty-four level-4 spells. That was four times the difference in the depletion of the magic chords. Hence, Saleen hoped to increase the efficiency of the water shield instead of familiarizing himself with ice te armor.


    Ice te armor was the perfect spell. Before one¡¯s magic chords ran out, the destroyed portions on the ice te armor could be regenerated. The only problem was the rate of depletion. It was a very taxing activity for an average grade-4 mage to try to sustain an ice te armor.


    Saleen had a very keen sense of danger. He possessed many nk scrolls which had been taken from Raphael¡¯s magic tower. These scrolls would run out one day, and he would not be able to replenish the stock again.


    The only items he could count on were his own magic chords. Now, Saleen only needed to rest for half an hour without any meditation to fully recover his magic chords. This was due to the dragonshard, but Saleen knew that since he was grade-4 now, his rate of recovery had also naturally be quicker. Once Saleen became a sorcerer, the dragonshard would bepletely depleted whenever he needed to recharge his magic chords, and he would need to wait for a long time before being able to use the dragonshard again.


    If this went on for a long period of time, the dragonshard would also reach the end of its lifespan eventually. Since Saleen was still at a low grade, he tried his best to use low grade magic nuclei to restore his magic chords. Saleen¡¯s powerful mental power enabled him to employ arge quantity of scrolls, and he continuously used his n badge to help train his own mental power.


    In truth, Saleen did not know why he was so desperate. In fact, if it had not been for the Holy See, Saleen could not have cared less about Earl Sufonso anymore. Only when Saleen had reached Alchemy City had he understood that he was no longer that begging youth whose sole aim was to fill his own stomach. He was a mage, and he wanted to be like Raphael who had fathomed the secrets of this world.


    People changed all the time. Sometimes, when people grew up, they gradually abandoned their ambitions. On the other hand, others came to have even greater ambitions.


    Saleen and Lex practiced magic in the room. Since Saleen asked that they increase the intensity of their training, the movements they made became increasingly louder as well. The people from Alchemy City acted like they could not hear anything. However, Nailisi and Sika, who were outside practicing for the battle, grew very worried as they were afraid that Saleen might have been in danger.


    The people who were most curious of all were Andrew and Keegan. These two Qin mages were very hardworking and had managed to be mage masters before they were forty years old. Thus, they had faced far less difficulty than others in the process of advancing to sorcerers. They could not figure out what Saleen and Lex were practicing, hearing the loud and abrupt explosionsing from Saleen¡¯s room. Even the Mute Enchantment had been destroyed by their magic training.


    During the time spent with Lex practicing magic, Saleen never felt that things were unbearable. Lex did not have any airs of royalty about her, and her actions and behaviors were solely those of a mage. Saleen loved this feeling. He even thought about not joining the hunt if he would be able to stay in the castle and practice like this the entire time. Saleen even considered abandoning his dream of obtaining a ship.


    Despite that, Saleen still needed to go since he had not found out anything about his teacher even after arriving at Alchemy City. After the two days of rest, Juno and the two grade-6 mages appeared before everybody.


    Juno did not waste his time on unnecessary conversation. He simply nced around and said a terse phrase ¨C set off.


    At that moment, the contract between Alchemy City and the mages took effect. Juno was responsible for everyone¡¯s safety at sea. Rules were abound. Killing finless whales was considered a safe mission, but out of all the low grade missions, it was the most challenging one. Furthermore, there were dozens of neers this time around. For Lex¡¯s safety, Juno did not travel with the neers. Instead, he allocated them into the other three ships.


    Hopefully, this mission would go smoothly. If the hunting group met with a storm, then the hunters would be the hunted. Therge numbers of sea magic beasts represented wealth. A massive and perilous wealth.

 Chapter 208: Pointless Cracks (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 208: Pointless Cracks (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The hunting group returned to the port once again. Saleen and the rest of the mages, who were participating in a mission like this for the first time, still felt anxious. This time, the group hade to the port which housed the magic ship. The feeling observing the hundreds of meters long massive ship from the port was entirely different from observing it from a long distance away.


    Saleen made some detailed calctions. There was a magic cannon installed on the magic ship. Including the tipped up bow, the ship was only two hundred meters, which was too different from the amount of space that was required to install a magic cannon. The depletion by the magic cannon was more than thirty times the depletion by the fort, and in order to lower the depletion amount to normal levels, a ship longer than one thousand meters would have to be constructed. However, that was impossible.


    Horse carriages could not go onto the main port. Hence, the mages walked on foot and proceeded onto the pier before splitting up onto the four hunting boats.


    The hunting boats were around fifty meters long and had a width of about ten meters. The front of the boats were raised while the backs were lowered. Saleen had been born by the sea, but people in Ceylon City had stopped killing whales a long time ago, not to mention whale-like magic beasts.


    There was arge and structurally odd alchemical crossbow ced at the bow of the hunting boat, guarded by two puppets. Saleen¡¯s group was led to the rear of the cabin on the second story, and in the cabin, there was a magicpass with a diameter of more than one meter. This item was not simply used for navigation. It was also used for spotting magic beasts in the ocean.


    The other ten mages who boarded the boat were allocated the cabins situated at the front of the boat. At the front of the boat, there were rooms specially designed for mages located on both sides of the cabin. Because Andrew and Keegan were in Lex¡¯s group, they managed to get a free ride and were able to enjoy the privileges as well. By staying in the rear, they did not need to fight at all. They were only required to monitor thepasses.


    However, the captain of the ship would be manning thepass most of the time, unless he and the chief officer had died. Even so, Saleen would not need to worry at all because Juno would take overmand of the ship if that really happened. Saleen¡¯s seat was good because he could look out of the crystal window and observe what was happening up front. Five mages, eight swordsmen, plus Nailisi and Sika were in the cabin. All fifteen of them satfortably on their chairs, as though they were on vacation.


    The boats set sail and left the port, then entered the mist surrounding the perimeter of the ind. Besides the four hunting boats, there was also an armored ship following behind them. This armored ship was responsible for protecting the four hunting boats. Furthermore, if there were any important magic beasts, it could also contribute to offensive efforts.


    The environment in the boat was inferior to that of the inside of the castle, thus Saleen and Lex were unable to carry on with their special training. Then, the people in the cabin began to chitchat.


    Saleen realized that he had little time for conversation ever since he had be a mage because he was always busy. It was the same case for Lex as well. Even though the nobles in Qin did not have the habit of consuming afternoon tea, they would still gather every Saturday for the sole purpose of catching up with one another. However, Lex had never received an education on such matters when she was young. The moment she had matured, she had be engrossed in the world of magic.


    From the perspective of outsiders, mages were mysterious and basked in glory. However, most people would not be able to tolerate the dullness that came with being a mage.


    Daniel mentioned his experiences at sea, and even Andrew and Keegan were captivated by them. Saleen then realized that Daniel was very eloquent. Beneath that honest face, Daniel¡¯s character was actually very simr to that of people from Sikeqinya. Around Saleen and Lex, Daniel had only been able to be introverted. However, around Andrew and the others, Daniel behaved differently, causing Saleen to be astounded.


    ¡°Actually, the finless whale isn¡¯t that big of a deal. This magic beast is only about twenty meters long and feeds on small fish. As long as boats like ours do not provoke it, the finless whale will avoid us. The real danger is the blueg flying fish. The moment this fish appears, it will just be overwhelming, as it flies in the sky like a bird. Its protracted mouth can easily prate heavy armor from end-to-end.¡±


    Saleen then thought to himself, Isn¡¯t that nonsense? Prate heavy armor from end-to-end? There are no warriors who wear heavy armor on boats. With the exception of magic armor, warriors who are at sea only wear leather armor, or else they would drown if they fell overboard.


    Furthermore, a swordmaster at minimum was needed to deflect a blow that could prate heavy armor from end-to-end. Saleen had heard of the blueg flying fish. It was a grade-3 magic beast, and a group only consisted of hundreds of them, so how were they overwhelming?


    ¡°Thest time I went to Cloudflow, I did not take my own ship, and the ship I was in did not have any magicpasses. In the end, we ran into a group of blueg flying fish. There were at least ten thousand of them, and they formed a denseyer on top of the sea. I thought I was doomed. When those things fly, they don¡¯t turn at all, they simply crash straight into the ship. Even an armored ship would sink.¡±


    Lex simplyughed as she heard Daniel¡¯s words, but she did not bother exposing the holes in his story. Keegan grabbed his hair and said, ¡°So did you actually die?¡±


    ¡°The¡­¡± Daniel became slightly awkward. Everyone here was a mage, so no matter how much knowledge Daniel possessed, others would still be able to detect his lies. If the mouth of a blueg flying fish could destroy an armored ship, they would have been massacred already, because their mouths would be a superior material for making alchemical crossbows, and the arrows produced would be indestructible.


    ¡°Haha¡­¡± Sika burst out inughter as she pointed at Daniel without any regard for him.


    Andrew and Keegan became upset when they saw that. As a warrior, could not she show some respect to a mage? Since Andrew and Keegan had been living in Alchemy City for some time, they had been subconsciously influenced by the beliefs of that city. In fact, they had witnessed Sika sparring with the other swordsmen, and they knew that Sika¡¯s capabilities were close to those of a high grade swordmaster already.


    ¡°Of course I did not die. I am a death mage, not a dead soul,¡± Daniel fumed.


    Sika tapped on Daniel¡¯s shoulder and said, ¡°I am a mountain person, so I haven¡¯t seen any of those blueg flying fish. But, I know of a type of magic beast which is more terrifying than that fish.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen knew that Sika was spouting nonsense, so he did not want Daniel to be able to insult her. If Daniel dared to insult Sika, then Saleen would already have to let Lex down. No matter what, Saleen would have to teach Daniel a lesson if that happened.


    ¡°The ferocious volcanic boar. That magic beast is even longer than this boat, and it runs faster than the golden-winged crow can fly. Furthermore, the boars travel in herds, so when they start charging, they can even topple a hill. There was a time I went out hunting and I ran into a dozen of them by ident. At that time, I thought that I was doomed¡­¡±


    ¡°Then, did you die?¡± Saleen joined in the fun and posed that question to Sika, causing Daniel¡¯s face to turn scarlet. Now, Daniel finally knew that Sika could not be trifled with, as Saleen was obviously biased towards that female warrior.


    ¡°Ha¡­ I don¡¯t know. Why don¡¯t we ask Daniel how he managed to survive?¡± Sika provoked Daniel as she wrinkled her nose at him. She had discovered recently that Daniel had realized that Lex was the one whomanded the team, so he had begun sucking up to her. That was not a good sign at all, because Saleen was not Lex¡¯s sidekick.


    ¡°Daniel, just share it with us. Anyways, we have nothing else to do.¡± Lex¡¯s words caused Daniel to feel relieved, as he really did not want to offend Saleen. Saleen was always spending time with Lex, so Daniel was not sure what sort of rtionship they had. Even if Daniel wanted to suck up to Lex, he needed to understand the current situation first.


    ¡°Those blueg flying fish were only a few miles away from my boat, so I would not have been able to turn away in time. At that point in time, I was preparing to jump into the sea. But all of a sudden, a gargantuan magic beast emerged from the ocean and opened its mouth, sucking all those fish in. That beast did not even spit out any bones.¡±


    ¡°I understand now. You were eaten by that magic beastter on,¡± Sika said as she pped her hands.


    ¡°How would that have been possible? The magic beast had already filled its stomach. It would not try to go after my boat. Otherwise, there are many magic beasts in the ocean which can easily destroy this ship of ours.¡±


    ¡°It makes sense.¡± Sika nodded and continued, ¡°That was what happened when I met those ferocious volcanic boars too. They found me too tiny, so they simply went away after devouring a forest.¡±


    ¡°Sika, you should show some respect to Mage Daniel,¡± Andrew interrupted, unable to tolerate Sika any longer.


    Sika simply shrugged her shoulders. Aside from Saleen, she did not want to respect anyone else. Only an outstanding mage like Saleen was worthy of her respect. Faerun had been respectable as well. Unfortunately, he had already died.


    Saleen narrowed his eyes and said to Daniel, ¡°Daniel, do you think Sika is being disrespectful to you? If you do, I will ask her to apologize to you.¡±


    Daniel hesitated for a moment. However, when he saw that there was something in Saleen¡¯s eyes which caused his heart to palpitate wildly, he quickly shook his head and said, ¡°Not at all. Sika is your friend, so there¡¯s no reason for her to make my life difficult.¡±


    Daniel¡¯s stance quickly softened, causing Andrew to feel shocked. Andrew then frowned and said, ¡°A Caucasus person should not join in a conversation between mages.¡±


    All traces of a smile disappeared from Saleen¡¯s face. ¡°If you don¡¯t like her, we will not sit here anymore. Bring me to the mages¡¯ cabin in the front,¡± Saleen said coldly to Andrew.


    For the first time ever, Saleen realized that the superiorityplexes that mages had were incredibly abhorrent. Saleen despised many people, but he would never say so directly. Andrew¡¯s behavior had infuriated Saleen. Sika might not have been a powerful warrior, but she was still his friend, so what right did Andrew have to admonish the friend of another mage?


    However, Saleen had misunderstood Andrew. In Andrew¡¯s heart, two mages would always share the same thoughts, and other professions simply consisted of people who had no rtion to mages. What right did a Caucasus person have to be a mage¡¯s friend? That was Andrew¡¯s na?ve idea.


    ¡°Saleen, that was not what Andrew meant,¡± Lex finally spoke.


    ¡°That was exactly what he meant.¡± Saleen stood up. He did not even bother to look at Andrew¡¯s awkward expression, and was already preparing to leave the cabin. The sailors serving him were at a loss for what to do. They were not sure whether to ask Juno what to do or to lead Saleen to the other cabin.


    Lex sighed in her heart. In doing this, Saleen was making Andrew look very bad. After all, Andrew was a grade-4 mage and Saleen was younger than him as well.


    ¡°Daniel, do you want to continue your conversation here, or do you want to admire the scenery up front?¡± Saleen turned his head sideways and looked at Daniel.


    Daniel was caught in a dilemma. That was the first time Saleen had been so domineering over him, and he was not used to it at all. Lex was powerful enough, so Daniel could definitely lean towards Lex. However, Saleen was just a grade-4 mage while he was a grade-3 death mage, and under most circumstances, their offensive abilities were nearly the same.


    Daniel thought of an idea swiftly. As Daniel peeked at Lex, his butt shifted forward in the chair, making it look like he was going to stand up.


    Lex knew that if Daniel really stood up, it would be equivalent to giving Andrew a p on the face. Such offensive things were not necessary, so when Lex thought of this, she said, ¡°Saleen, the mages¡¯ cabin is too stuffy and the venttion is poor. I am afraid I might get seasick if I were to go there.¡±


    When Daniel heard Lex¡¯s words, his butt immediately stuck to the chair, unwilling to move even a single inch anymore. Lex was trying to make Saleen stay. Her words possessed a certain meaning ¨C if Saleen were to leave, she would follow suit. No matter how prone a mage was to seasickness, a bottle of restorative water would do the trick.


    ¡°But Sika will be bored here, and I don¡¯t like that.¡± Saleen might have stopped walking, but his attitude remained unchanged.

 Chapter 209: Pointless Cracks (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 209: Pointless Cracks (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Andrew was also pissed off when he heard Saleen say that. Andrew stood up and said, ¡°Did I say something wrong? Why is Mr. Saleen so angry that I am punishing a warrior?¡±


    ¡°Mr. Andrew, you are mistaken, I am not angry. In my life thus far, only one person has made me angry. And when I return to Sikeqinya, I am going to kill that person.¡±


    Daniel was thinking of standing up again, but Lex red at him and then said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, we are here on a mission this time.¡±


    ¡°Lex, if somebody insulted your friend, what would you do?¡± Saleen knew which mission Lex was referring to.


    ¡°Saleen, my only friend is you.¡± As Lex spoke, she stood up and tugged Saleen, then shoved Nailisi aside and had Saleen sit beside her.


    Daniel was terrified. He had almost offended Saleen just now. Luckily, he had not spoken in Andrew¡¯s tone. Daniel had not expected the rtionship between Lex and Saleen to be more intimate than he had thought. After this incident, the two of them had grown even closer.


    Nailisi grinned as she came before Andrew and said, ¡°Excuse me. Let me pass through.¡±


    Out of everyone in the cabin, Nailisi was the happiest. If Andrew had fallen out with Saleen, she would have found a chance to kill Andrew. Nailisi had never eaten mages before, so she was curious how they tasted.


    ¡°Andrew, if you think that warriors are useless, why did you still hire two warriors to stay by your side?¡± Lex said straightforwardly.


    ¡°That is my business. Keegan, let¡¯s go.¡± Andrew did not understand why Saleen was enraged and had embarrassed him. Andrew tried to shove Nailisi out of the way. However, a sh of golden light appeared in Nailisi¡¯s green eyes, and she then inted her chest before pushing back against Andrew. If Andrew had really shoved Nailisi, she would have killed him so quickly that he would not have known what killed him.


    In response, Andrew withdrew his hand. At this point in time, a low voice could be heard outside the door, ¡°Stop!¡±


    Nailisi immediately retracted her already outstretched index finger, having tapped into the power of the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger by then. Had Andrew touched her, she would have burst open Andrew¡¯s heart inside of his body. The Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger would have frozen Andrew¡¯s heart, making it appear as though he had been killed by magic.


    However, the person who had stopped the fight was Juno, and Nailisi was not confident of overpowering this grade-7 sorcerer. If the sorcerer had managed to discover her identity, she would have created huge trouble for Saleen.


    ¡°Sir!¡± As Andrew saw Juno entering the cabin, he hastily tried to exin that he had not been trying to touch Nailisi¡¯s chest earlier on. As a mage who was totally subsumed into the world of magic, Andrew had low requirements for women. Nailisi might have looked decent to Andrew, but she would not cause him to disgrace himself like that.


    ¡°Andrew, you and Keegan have gone on two hunting missions, so go to the front and monitor the situation,¡± Juno simply interrupted Andrew. Andrew did not say much, merely executing a mage¡¯s bow in response. Nailisi obediently made way for Andrew and Keegan to leave the cabin. The four swordsmen hired from the swordsman¡¯s camp followed them, but they looked indifferent.


    Those swordsmen had overheard the argument between the mages, so naturally, the swordsmen were inclined towards Saleen. It was just that in front of Juno, they did not dare express their emotions.


    Juno had not brought his two grade-6 mages along. He took a seat and faced Saleen and Lex.


    ¡°Your Highness¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh? That means you know who I am.¡± Lex¡¯s demeanor took an abrupt turn. It was just like the first time Saleen had met her. She had been right in front of him, and yet Saleen had not been able to decipher her thoughts at all. Lex was not trying to put on airs. She was simr to a mountain. A mountain did not look down on anyone, and yet its stature could not be ignored.


    ¡°Of course I do. I also know that you had already be a grade-5 mage master five years ago. I must be wrong. You must already be grade-6, right?¡± Juno said with due respect. Essentially, the Grukos royal family had no control over Alchemy City. Both parties simply respected each other, or, were perhaps tolerating each other.


    ¡°It¡¯s been two years, and as for the issue earlier¡­¡± Lex disyed a look which signalled that she did not want to engage in conversation.


    Junoughed and said, ¡°For this mission, you will no longer be with them. In fact, given your capabilities, you are already able to take on intermediate and high grade missions.¡±


    ¡°I am not a risk-taker, and I do notck money,¡± Lex replied casually.


    ¡°Then what do youck? I can see to it if it is convenient,¡± Juno responded enthusiastically. He was not suspicious since it was normal for Lex toe to Alchemy City. After all, she was a grade-6 mage. Even though Bitter Water County was far from the battlefield in Lon, Lex still had to take some precautions.


    ¡°Aye, I don¡¯t have enough manpower, so I can onlypensate with better equipment. But, I do not want average equipment, so here I am in Alchemy City. I have reviewed the goods list of Alchemy City, but the equipment was either unsatisfactory, or it could not be supplied in mass quantities.¡±


    ¡°That is true. How many swordsman¡¯s camps does Bitter Water County have?¡±


    ¡°I n to build ten. In three years at thetest, I n to deploy my troops to Lon.¡± Lex was being ambiguous here, because even if she deployed one troop or one hundred thousand troops, it would still be considered troop deployment. However, Lex was truly in need of equipment, but almost all of the equipment provided by Alchemy City could not be mass produced. The sole exception was puppets.


    Normal war puppets could be manufactured in Holy Rock City and Lex¡¯s Bitter Water Prefecture, whereas the production ofrge war puppets was entirely dependent on gold coins. The armor which Lex urgently required had already been acquired during the robbing of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town.


    Before Lex went out to sea, she had specially contacted Holy Rock City one more time. Even though Safilos was aloof towards her, he still earnestly gathered some men and sent them to infiltrate Cloudflow after receiving the intelligence regarding Cloudflow. If what Lex said was true, then not only would Safilos not be able to attack Lon next year, but he would also have no choice but to build a second line of defense in the southern part of the empire.


    Regarding the issue of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town and Pompeii, Safilos actually did not mind them at all. Furthermore, he had not expected Lex to be so decisive as to rob an armor distribution center without any hesitation. After Emperor Chanake had died, Holy Rock City¡¯s control over the nobles had decreased drastically, so Safilos could only turn a blind eye to Pompeii¡¯s upation of Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town and did not investigate the matter further.


    ¡°I know that the alchemy tower possesses a set of superior drawings for magic armor, and if you buy it in the name of Grukos royal family, you will enjoy a thirty percent discount. As for ores, Cloudflow doesn¡¯t transport arge quantity of them through here every year. Unless you are nning to equip heavy cavalry, those ores will be wasted if you purchase them. As for weapons, the ones from Red Copper Fort are pretty good. You also will not need to use equipment that is too extreme on the battlefield.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the purpose of telling me all of this?¡± Lex understood that if she behaved too enthusiastically now, she would lose negotiating powerter on. People who managed to be sorcerers were definitely not dumb. A stubborn person like Andrew would only have a slim chance of bing a sorcerer not matter how hard he tried. However, Juno could not be fooled easily. Furthermore, Lex could not be sure if Juno really had the intention of helping her.


    ¡°In the past two years, Cloudflow has been acting a little strangely, so there¡¯s quite a bit of pressure on Alchemy City as well. If Your Highness can control Lon¡¯s situation from the west, it will be easier for Alchemy City to deal with Cloudflow. Without a connection to the sea, Alchemy City is not much better off than Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°I heard that Alchemy City has sent some people to Tanggsi, and I have a question.¡±


    ¡°Please speak.¡±


    ¡°Within that group, is there someone by the name of Jason Statham?¡±


    ¡°No, who is that?¡±


    ¡°He is my teacher,¡± Saleen answered from the sideline.


    ¡°He might be on Hell Ind or Scales Ind. There is definitely no such person in Devil¡¯s Horn or within Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Thank you. I was just worried that my teacher might have gone to Tanggsi.¡±


    ¡°Then may I know the objective of the sorcerers who went to Tanggsi?¡± Lex conveniently skipped over the topic, and Saleen also looked relieved.


    ¡°I have no ess to the details. I can only say that it is a very big matter. If it is executed well, the Tanggsi Empire will no longer be a threat. If it is not, there won¡¯t be any losses either.¡±


    ¡°I hope so.¡± Lex then fell silent.


    ¡°Your Highness.¡± Juno spoke sincerely, ¡°Please do not mind Andrew, or we will be put on the spot.¡±


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°I will follow thews of Alchemy City, but what about the discount you were talking about?¡±


    ¡°Purchasing in bulk will be thirty percent cheaper, and that is a rule only applicable to the Grukos family. If you only purchase equipment for your friends, then the discount will not be applicable, no matter what.¡±


    While Lex and Juno were conversing, the ships had already traveled a great distance away from Devil¡¯s Horn. With the exception of their ship, the other three hunting ships had separated from the armored ship and fanned out as they tried to search for traces of the finless whale.


    ¡°Your Highness, do you n to leave after your procurement of equipment or do you n to stay in Alchemy City to train?¡±


    ¡°I am going to stay for three years. Why do you ask?¡±


    ¡°How many mages do you n to recruit in Alchemy City?¡± Juno asked confidently, as he thought that he knew what Lex¡¯s agenda was.


    ¡°It might be a little cumbersome¡­¡± Juno confidently conveyed his thoughts, but Lex felt there could be some problems. Lex had thought of recruiting mages from Alchemy City, but how could she set her mind at ease? Aftering to Alchemy City, Lex had discovered that Alchemy City had nearly be a county already, and the total amount ofnd under its control was almost on par with Bitter Water Prefecture already. Furthermore, at sea, the city also controlled threerge inds and dozens of smaller ones. Plus, the waters within a one thousand mile radius were also in the hands of Alchemy City.


    As a member of the royal family, it would have been odd if Lex was not vignt. Given the power Alchemy City currently held, they already had enough power to establish a country. However, there were two problems for Alchemy City. Firstly, when the city was just built, an agreement had been inked between the mages and the Grukos family that Alchemy City would never establish a country of its own. Secondly, even if no one remembered this agreement, Alchemy City did not produce its own food. However, the empire¡¯s main food production lines were located in the central and northern regions. If Alchemy City wanted to ensure a continuous supply of food, it would have to either purchase it from the empire or deploy troops up north.


    ¡°You should discuss this matter with the Elemental Hand.¡± Juno thought for a long time, but continued to beat about the bush. Now that Lex had walked right into Alchemy City, Juno would never let her discover the greater ambitions that the city harbored. A grade-6 mage could already fly. Even though their speed would not be fast, Lex would still be able to enter the mountains in the southern region, and Alchemy City was not confident of being able to capture her there.


    By beating about the bush, Juno thought that he would cause Lex to lose her vignce, but it turned out that Lex could see right through his intentions. The moment Juno raised the topic of the recruitment of mages, Lex immediately felt as though she were a cat who had been targeted by arge animal, and her hair stood on end.


    Lex was no longer a viscountess. As the head of a county, she was immensely valuable in the eyes of Alchemy City!


    At this point in time, Lex felt that she had been a little reckless, as she should have gone straight to Holy Rock City immediately after escaping from the hell of god¡¯s punishment. No matter how poorly her uncle treated her, he would also not kill her. Furthermore, the mages in Holy Rock City would never interfere in the conflicts within the royal family. Had Safilos and Lex fought, the mages in the pce would have definitely stood on the sidelines, and Lex would have still had Joey.


    Aye, just a single mistake. Hopefully, Alchemy City¡¯s request will not be too significant. Now that I¡¯m at sea, I couldn¡¯t leave even if I wanted to.

 Chapter 210: Ambush (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 210: Ambush (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, we have found a giant sea serpent,¡± the captain that had been sitting quietly by the magicpass suddenly said, interrupting the conversation between Lex and Juno.


    ¡°Spray magic medicine #14 to chase it away. Do not attack it,¡± Juno answered calmly. The giant sea serpent was a grade lower than the finless whale, but its assaultive powers were incredible. Unless the mission was already over, it would be best not to deal with this monster. There was once a hunting ship that had been knocked over by a giant sea serpent, and four mages and over a dozen swordsmen had died in the tragedy.


    The mages in this hunt were of a higher grade and would be able to attack it, but Juno¡¯s mind was not on hunting right now. Hence, he merely ordered them to chase away the sea serpent.


    The magic beasts at sea were different from those onnd. When magic beasts at sea were not hungry, they did not attack. If one came across them by chance, so long as they were dealt with objectively, danger could be avoided. For example, giant sea serpents hated sweet things, so as long as one released arge amount of sweet magic medicine, the sea serpent would stay away.


    Simrly, using the various characteristics of different magic beasts, magic medicine could be used to lure in prey.


    ¡°Master, it is a four-eyed sea serpent!¡± The captain¡¯s voice was a little hurried. Upon hearing this, Juno raised his head and asked, ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°What is a four-eyed sea serpent?¡± Saleen saw Juno losing his cool and interrupted.


    ¡°Have the left nk send a flying puppet to confirm the target.¡± Juno was a little excited and replied to Saleen¡¯s question at the same time. ¡°A four-eyed sea serpent is a grade-8 magic beast, and those that move around in shallow water are not adults yet. If we catch it, it will be worth a hundred times more than a finless whale.¡±


    ¡°Master, what about us?¡± Seeing Juno excited, the captain became agitated too. The value of a four-eyed sea serpent would be enough for him to never have to lead such a dangerous life ever again.


    ¡°Call the other boats. Draw close to the left nk.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± The captain immediately opened the magic sound array on the magicpass andmunicated with the remaining two ships. The boat that Saleen was on started turning and elerating.


    Wu¡­


    The bugle red. Juno furrowed his brows and said, ¡°Guys, we have encountered some trouble. Come with me up top. Let¡¯s let the captain do his job here.¡±


    Saleen did not know what trouble they were in, but from Juno¡¯s voice, it seemed that danger was imminent. The few of them followed Juno to the third floor. His room was almost as big as the cabin down below containing the magicpass. At the front of the room was a giant crystal porthole, and to the back was a magic array. The two grade-6 sorcerers stared at the magic images, and upon seeing Juno return, they said, ¡°Master, it is a human shaped sea demon.¡±


    Juno looked back and said to the swordsmen that had followed Saleen and the others, ¡°Go to the deck and be careful of the sea demon boarding the ship. For each sea demon killed by all of you, you will get twenty percent of the profits.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± The six swordsmen left to carry out their orders.


    Saleen did not ask what a human shaped sea demon was. He went to the porthole and could already see that something strange was happening on the surface of the sea.


    On the surface of the sea that had once been calm, a wave nearly five meters tall had appeared. Within the waves was a green human shaped creature that was stepping on the wave anding straight towards the hunting ship. This magic beast did indeed look like a human. It was around three meters tall and had long, slender limbs on its front which possessed sharp ws. The top half of its body was above the water and was covered in blue scales.


    Juno nced at Nailisi and Sika who were beside Saleen, not saying anything. Saleen and Andrew had gotten into an argument only because of the warriors by his side. Juno had seen many things like that, and if it had not been for Lex¡¯s special status, he would not have gone down to mediate.


    The number of human-shaped sea demons increased more and more. At least four hundred of them surrounded the hunting ship that Saleen was on. Their faces looked human, or rather, like golden-eyed baboons with long mouths. After surrounding the hunting ship, they gave out shrill cries and started pouncing on the sides of the ship.


    Saleen breathed in deeply. The lower-halves of the sea demons were not fish tails, but rather, simr to the back limbs of an animal. Their sharp ws hooked onto the sides of the ship and they climbed rapidly up onto the deck. It took them hardly two steps to get onboard the ship.


    The mages¡¯ cabins were at the front of the ship with one end facing the sea and the other facing the door to the deck. The sea demons climbed onto the deck and the swordsmen from the mages¡¯ cabin rushed out, defending the entrance.


    The cabin door on the first floor burst open and dozens ofbat puppets rushed out, followed by the sailors onboard the ship.


    At the end of the ship, the portholes on an independent cabin opened, revealing an archery nook. A small crossbow was fixed upon it and it began shooting at the sea demons behind.


    At the front of the mages¡¯ cabin facing the sea, dozens of fireballs flew out and attacked the sea demons on the sea. The sea demons on the deck had all four of their limbs on the ground as they started pouncing onto the sailors and swordsmen.


    There was no rhythm to this fight as it became an intense bloodbath all too quickly. The sea demons perked their noses and started sniffing for their prey. Paying no mind to thebat puppets, they went straight for the swordsmen and sailors. Their long ws swung about and were their deadliest weapons. A gentle scratch against the swordsmen left wounds appearing everywhere.


    The weapons that the swordsmen on the ship were using were wide knives and they had pretty decent killing power when swung, but were not good for stabbing. The sailors used fish spears which each had a hook at the tip of the spear. Under the protection of thebat puppets, three to five sailors stabbed their spears into a sea demon at the same time. They did not bother pulling out the weapons and released them, taking more from the cabin.


    One of the swordsmen lost his bnce and stepped onto intestines from one of the sea demon, falling backwards onto the deck. Immediately, two sea demons pounced onto him, one of them pulling on his leg while the other one opened its jaws wide and broke the swordsman¡¯s neck into two halves.


    Seeing that a death had urred, the two grade-6 mages could not sit around doing nothing and said to Juno, ¡°Master, let us go down.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush. These sea demon havee at a strange time. This must be some form of a trap.¡±


    ¡°Master, pirates don¡¯t have the ability to do this, and they would not enter this region of the sea either way.¡±


    ¡°All of you, wait outside for now. If more than half of the sea demons die but they still do not retreat, all of you take action. There are still more than ten mages below deck. They will not be a problem for now.¡±


    Juno calmly watched the fight on the deck. There were no inds around here, so why were there so many sea demons? If someone imed that they were raised by pirates, he would not believe it at all.


    All pirates within a thousand miles had been exterminated, and the navy from the Cloudflow Empire would note here.


    The magic array at the front of the deck began lighting up. With their legs nted firmly on the deck, thebat puppets formed a circle and started swinging the axes in their hands. The swordsmen began to hide behind thebat puppets and the sailors on board switched to crossbows, not engaging in closebat with the sea demons.


    Thebat puppets from Alchemy City were evidently not as good as the ones that Lex had created. These puppets were bulky and clumsy, and were very easily destroyed by human weapons on the battlefield. However, they were the best things avable when it came to dealing with magic beasts.


    The swordsmen held their formation and held back the sea demons on the deck. Meanwhile, the door to the mages¡¯ cabin was sealed, and from a small opening on the door, magic began to spew out.


    There were fifteen foreign mages on this ship. Three of them had followed Juno to watch the show while the other twelve were below deck. Among them, there were four grade-3 mages while the others were grade-4.


    Despite the fact that among them, only Andrew and Keegan had joined a hunt before, these mages quickly found a suitable spell to deal with these sea demons.


    Ice Arrow spell ¨C a level-2 water-type spell. It had prating strength greater than an icicle and had freezing and slowing effects.


    The scales on the sea demon were fire proof, and even though a Fireball spell used up less focus, the damage to a sea demon was but a small wound. An Ice Arrow spell was different, as any small wound on the sea demon would cause it to slow down significantly. When the sea demons were slowed, it was easy even for thebat puppets to deal with them.


    Psh¡­


    One of the sea demons that had been hurt by an ice arrow was smashed into two halves by the axe of abat puppet. The two hundred kilogram axe split open the sea demon¡¯s brains as brown brain juice sttered everywhere. Some sea demons tried to attack the mages¡¯ cabin, but since the door had been made from steel, the sea demons¡¯ ws drew deep lines on it but they could not force their way in, eventually being fatally shot by some ice arrows from the mages.


    Saleen analyzed things carefully. Thebat abilities of these sea demons were all roughly the same. The stronger ones could take on two human swordsmen, and the normal ones were as strong as the sailors wielding the fish spears. The sailors seemed very familiar with the sea demons and left the stronger ones alone. The sailors grouped together, some of them holding shields while the rest held spears. None of them were injured or dead yet.


    These sea demons looked incredibly simr to humans but possessed low intelligence. Saleen estimated that a level-2 Ice Arrow spell would be able to destroy all of them on the deck. However, he was afraid that he would destroy the deck too if he used it. Simrly, any level-7 magic that Juno released would be able to annihte these demons, but he could not ensure that the ship would not be damaged.


    A normal fishing ship would have been done for if it had encountered magic beasts like these. The hunting ship from Alchemy City had too many warriors and mages. The space on the deck was not big either, and with a group ofbat puppets encircling the swordsman, the sea demons had no room to manuever about.


    Suddenly, more than ten small boats appeared in the distant sea. They had been sent to help after receiving a warning from the armored naval vessel trailing behind. These boats hadpletely sealed cabins with only four sailors each controlling them from inside. There was a fixed puppet on the deck of these boats controlling a crossbow, shooting at the sea demons on the surface of the sea.


    These boats were less than ten meters long. If they had not been following therger ships, they would not have been able to survive in the sea, but now, they were incredibly useful. The crossbows shot in a straight line under the control of the puppets and easily passed through the demons¡¯ bodies, spilling purplish-red blood all over the sea.


    The sea demons noticed these boats and tried to attack them. The boats were incredibly quick and stayed out of range. Whenever the sea demons chased after them, they would go even further away. After a minute, the boats had killed over a hundred of the sea demons.


    The boats either ran out of arrows or had expended their magic nuclei, but after shooting for a while, they abandoned the ship that Saleen was on and sped back. The magic arrays on these small boats were iid and neededrger ships to change their magic nuclei. It was moreplicated to use a magic array at sea, for the elements were not as stable as they were onnd. Once the magic nuclei were expended, they needed to return to arger ship to change them out.


    When the second batch of boats arrived, the sea demons had already dispersed, and the sea demons on the ship had died one by one under the attacks from the mages. Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. They were magic beasts, after all, and if one could not defeat them, escape was still an option. He had been calcting the magic chords of the twelve mages on the front deck. If those sea demons had not left, the mages would have quickly lost theirbat powers and would have needed at least three hours to restore them.

 Chapter 211: Ambush (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 211: Ambush (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had just heaved a sigh of relief when suddenly, a piercing magic rm sounded. Before he could ask what was happening, a giant rock fell from the skies andnded in the sea beside the ship, causing a giant water column to erupt.


    Saleen leaned towards Lex. He saw Juno¡¯s face turning pale.


    ¡°Magic stone artillery!¡± Lex recognized it, shouting out in shock.


    Although they might have sounded simr, magic cannons and magic stone artillery were worlds apart. Magic cannons were magic weapons that had been left behind from the past and shot out fire-type spells. Magic stone artillery were weapons which could shoot out magic rocks with deadly precision to chase away the enemy.


    The rock was more than a meter in diameter. If it hadnded on the hunting ship, the casualties would have been deadly.


    Juno furrowed his brows. Opening the cabin doors, he used a Flying spell and shot into the sky. The magic stone artillery¡¯s range was not very far and had a maximum range of two to three miles. He saw a ship from afar. It was a pirate ship with a skeleton g flying in the air.


    Juno was filled with rage. Those damn pirates. They actually dare to enter the sea controlled by Alchemy City. Looks like I¡¯ll need to speak with the elders when I¡¯m back. We need to expand the assaultive range of Alchemy City. This time, he needed to take down the pirate ship to give them a little punishment.


    ¡°Sh*t!¡± Saleen shouted as he saw Juno fly up.


    ¡°What?¡± Lex asked Saleen. She did not see anything out of the ordinary.


    ¡°It¡¯s a trap. Juno is in danger! Their target is the armored navy vessel!¡± Saleen had activated his icy sight and saw that the pirate ship on the sea was but a magic illusion. Even though he found it extraordinary, without a doubt, behind the magic illusion was arge vessel.


    Saleen felt a bitter taste in his mouth. The hunting ship had left Devil¡¯s Horn more than a day ago and had likely travelled for hundreds of miles. If they capsized here, it would be an impossible task for them to swim back.


    Hearing Saleen¡¯s words, Lex also activated her icy sight to observe the pirate ship from afar. Juno¡¯s shadow approached it before running through a ripple and disappearing.


    ¡°Lex, think of a way to escape. Do you remember where the lifeboats are?¡± Saleen was panicking. The enemy had driven away the sea demons to attract the attention of the hunting ships and armored vessel so that they could silently approach andy a trap. Saleen did not think he could hold down the ship, and anyone who dared to challenge people from Alchemy City must have had the capabilities to do so.


    ¡°I remember.¡± Daniel instinctively sensed danger. This instinct was something he had nurtured from escaping for tens of thousands of miles. He was a death mage and he did not have the energy to move elements around, making him less adept at surviving on the sea than Saleen. He was the most anxious amongst them all.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen tugged on Lex¡¯s hand, not caring what she thought, and they followed Daniel out of the cabin. Just as they left, a magic stonended on the porthole on the third floor, destroying the crystal porthole and leaving one side of the wall caving in.


    The stones from the skies fell almost like rain. The hunting ship was not abat vessel and did not have any armor on it. With the rocks weighing more than a ton as they came hailing down, their powers were as strong as magic. Before long, many holes appeared on the front deck, and the bow of the ship was struck by the artillery as well. The two puppets defending the alchemy crossbow were blown away, the crossbow destroyed too.


    Seeing Juno disappear, the two grade-6 mages flew towards the skies and went in the direction of the pirate ship as well. Seeing this, Saleen gave up all hope. The two mages were decently strong, but it was a pity theycked intelligence. The enemy had a sleeve of tricks waiting for them.


    Daniel could not be bothered with the lives of the others. He ran straight for the back deck. At the end of the ship, there was a lifeboat on both sides. The sailors were shaking the winch, attempting to lower the lifeboat. A rocknded squarely on the back deck, and blood and flesh flew everywhere. Saleen released two ice des from afar, cutting the rope that was securing the lifeboats. One of the two lifeboatsnded tly on the surface of the sea, letting out a thunderous sound.


    The other lifeboat rolled over the deck and fell into the sea.


    Daniel was first to jump towards the sea. Lex blessed everyone with a Windspeed spell, knowing that this time, they were in big trouble.


    The authority of Alchemy City had gone unchallenged for centuries. This was the first time Alchemy City had been targeted, and they were embroiled within. Were they just too unlucky?


    Lex, Sika, and Nailisi jumped urately onto the lifeboat while Saleen and Danielnded in the water. Saleen was quicker than a fish in the water, and he grabbed Daniel by his neck and threw him up into the lifeboat before turning himself over onto the boat.


    The lifeboat was over ten meters long and did not have any oars. In the back cabin, there was an alchemy machine that had magic nuclei iid within. Saleen did not pin any hopes on this boat making it too far, and he said to Lex, ¡°Find a way to start it.¡±


    Lex nodded. This thing was simple. She just did not know how to steer it.


    With a loud booming noise, another magic stone artillery hit the hunting ship. Behind the magic illusion, an enormous fleet of vessels seemed to be concealed. With such frequent attacks, even if they did not aim carefully, the hunting ship would not be able to withstand the assault.


    ¡°Daniel, you steer,¡± Saleen gave the order. This time, Daniel listened as he rushed to the back and steered by himself.


    ¡°Saleen, where are we going?¡±


    Saleen was momentarily stunned before he understood. The road to Devil¡¯s Horn had probably been cut off. ¡°Northeast, as far as possible.¡±


    He did not want to die together with the people from Alchemy City. With a boat, they would not die. Both he and Lex had brought arge amount of food with them, since it had already be a habit of theirs. No matter how far out to sea they went, so long as there were not any storms, they would not be in too much danger. As for the magic beasts in the sea? They would think about them once they had steered clear of the danger in front of their eyes.


    Amongst them, Sika and Daniel were the ones who were in the most danger. Without a boat, they could not survive. Saleen did not even need to breathe in water and he was not afraid of the cold. Nailisi was not, either. Lex had the ability to fly and she would definitely be able to findnd before her magic scrolls were used up.


    Daniel did not say too much. He knew that this was a matter of life and death, and since Lex had activated the alchemy engine, he had been steering them further out to sea.


    ¡°Save me!¡±


    A head bobbed up from the sea. It was Andrew. Lex did not have any intentions of stopping, and Daniel decided to collide with him instead. With a bang, Andrew did not even have the time to react before he was struck by the boat and sank. Under such circumstances, Lex did not dare to let an outsider onto the boat, especially someone who had fought with Saleen.


    The lifeboat had been prepared for escape purposes. If the hunting ship met with a powerful magic beast in the sea, there was a chance that it would sink and the speed of this boat needed to surpass at least that of most of the magic beasts in the sea. Revving the alchemy engine, the six motors to the two sides of the boat started revolving and cut a white line across the sea as it sped off towards the northwest.


    As expected, there were not any ambushes in this direction, and as Saleen looked back, the magic illusion had already disappeared and a giantbat vessel had appeared on the surface of the sea, moving towards the oing armored vessel. The hunting ship had already begun to sink and Saleen took a deep breath before taking out a scroll and opening it.


    White fog dispersed and surrounded the boat. Even though it could not hide their trail, even if someone found them, they could not urately aim their magic stone artillery.


    Thebat vessel had no intentions of dealing with a lifeboat and Saleen¡¯s boat quickly sped off without looking back. He did not think that the armored vessel from Alchemy City would be able to deal with the giantbat vessels. The enemy had been able to create such an enormous magic illusion, so there had to be at least three sorcerers on board.


    The armored vessel was fairly sizable as well, but it was an alchemy ship that was prepared for hunting and did not have any weapons for naval warfare. Most of the people on board were swordsmen as well, and the strongest mage, Juno, was probably already dead.


    The lifeboat was too small to install a magicpass, but luckily, Daniel was used to travelling by sea. Looking at the sun to determine their direction, they travelled hundreds of miles before a loud noise came from the alchemy engine and all of the motors stopped spinning.


    The boat stopped moving and Saleen said, ¡°This ce isn¡¯t safe. The enemy has a magicpass, and so long as they send out a flying puppet, they will be able to track us down.¡±


    Daniel looked at the alchemy engine that had stopped working and said despondently, ¡°This can only be opened with a special alchemy instrument. It will not work if we take it apart.¡±


    ¡°Lex, create four boat oars. ¡°Saleen looked in the direction that they hade from. The sea was vast, and there were no signs of the enemy. A seagullnded on the front of the boat and looked at them curiously.


    Lex did not say much as she took out two massive beast leg bones from her god¡¯s ring. She gave Sika and Nailisi a handsaw each before saying, ¡°Process them into oars, quick.¡±


    She did not have any materials to create oars with her. Back in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town, she had only stolen some armor and had not been interested in materials at all. Daniel had no idea what Saleen was nning, and he did not dare to ask either way.


    Nailisi and Sika started processing the magic beast leg bones while Lex walked towards the deck and scanned the area. She brought out some metalponents and secured them to the two sides of the ship.


    The fog had dissipated a long time ago, and as the sea breeze blew, Daniel shivered, a little cold. Saleen released a Chunlin spell for him before walking to the deck and watching Lex work.


    ¡°It was not targeting me,¡± Lex said as she strengthened the sides of the ship.


    ¡°I know, but we still need to be quick.¡±


    ¡°Help me.¡± Lex threw over a piece of paper with instructions and Saleen took a look before helping Lex secure the metalponents. Before long, the magic beast leg bones had been processed and Lex took out two spears, piercing them into the leg bones. She then made a few holes on the leg bones and secured them to a metal pole.


    cing the metal pole into the holes at the two sides of the ship, the two oars were nearlyplete. Daniel looked at the giant oars, a little dazed. How would they move them?


    Lexughed and Daniel understood instantly, looking at the fully constructed puppet which Lex had taken out and left on the deck. He was incredibly grateful. If there had not been any elemental mages, these puppets could not have been activated by magic nuclei and this method would not have worked.


    Although thebat abilities of death mages were incredible, they did not have as much utility as an elemental mage.


    The two fully constructed puppets were left on the deck. One of them rowed while the other sat behind it, waiting to take over. The fully constructed puppet was incredibly useful except for the fact that it expended magic nuclei too quickly. Luckily, rowing a boat was not anything tooplicated, and Lex did not have to control the puppet all the time. The oars started moving rapidly and Daniel took a look before continuing to steer from the back.


    The lifeboat was back in motion, but it was twice as slow as before. Looking at the setting sun, Saleen was starting to get worried. He said, ¡°Lex, do you have a map of the sea?¡±

 Chapter 212: Drifting (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 212: Drifting (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°No, I only have a map of the roads. This is too far fromnd. We¡¯re almost two thousand miles out.¡± Lex brought out some food, but aside from Sika, the others did not have much of an appetite.


    ¡°Daniel, do you have the map of the sea?¡±


    ¡°No. Even when I was doing business, I never saw a map of the sea here either.¡± Daniel shook his head. He was not a professional sailor, but he could still use the sun to get directions during the day. However, when night came, he could not read the constetions.


    ¡°How far have we moved?¡±


    ¡°No idea. I don¡¯t have a magicpass, and my instincts are not urate,¡± Daniel answered carefully.


    ¡°If a bunch of sea demonse now, we¡¯ll all be goners.¡± Saleen said worriedly, looking at the puppet rowing the boat up ahead. Actually, even if a mere finless whale came, they would be out of their luck then as well.


    The sun set and the wind started blowing harder, making the waves taller. Saleen had no choice but to close the cabin door. Looking outside of the window, the puppets on the deck were beaten by the waves until they werepletely drenched.


    On the surface of the sea up ahead, dozens of magic beasts appeared, their bodies shining with the silver light of the moon. Daniel saw Saleen and Lex tense up and went to prevent them from taking any action. He said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. They are moon singers.¡±


    ¡°Moon singers?¡± Saleen looked at the magic beasts that had fallen into the sea from the porthole, shocked beyond belief. These beasts could not be considered beautiful, yet he had heard of them before. The fishermen by the seaside believed that moon singers had been left behind by the goddess to protect them. These magic beasts were incredibly friendly to humans and would use their clear voices to send messages among themselves. They liked to follow behind fishing boats and the fishermen would usually give them some small fish as a prayer for their safety.


    Saleen had listened to fishermen describe them since he was young. When he had heard of them, they had sounded almost perfect, with beautiful skin, elegant bodies, and pure eyes.


    In reality, what Saleen saw were sharp teeth in the mouths of the magic beasts, signifying that they were carnivorous. What Saleen could not understand was that these moon singers were actually scaleless sharks. They were a little like sharks, havingrge bodies without any scales. They loved to form groups, and even if they met with a stronger magic beast, they could hardly be bothered. These scaleless sharks were incredibly tightly bonded to each other and could control water elements naturally. Mages suspected that they were intelligent creatures due to the fact that they would sometimes save humans.


    Many books had recorded the selfless acts of scaleless sharks saving humans. Some humans that hadnded in the sea were guided for over thousands of miles until they foundnd and the scaleless sharks left.


    ¡°Looks like we are lucky.¡± Lex looked at the scaleless sharks and heaved a sigh of relief. There would not be any powerful magic beasts near them. Any grade-3 or grade-4 magic beasts were prey for these creatures, and whenever a powerful enemy approached, these scaleless sharks would gang up on them and attack them.


    ¡°This is lucky?¡± Saleen grabbed some bread and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing loudly.


    ¡°At least we are still alive.¡±


    Lex¡¯s words left Saleen speechless. Back then, he had been fast enough and their escape had been by pure luck. Two grade-6 mages and a grade-7 sorcerer had gone missing. If they had stayed on the ship, their enemy would not have given them any chances. The other mages on the boat had been too trusting of Alchemy City and had never seen anyone who had dared to go against Alchemy City before. Thinking back to Andrew who had called for help in the water, Saleen felt apologetic.


    The best oue for him would be to be a captive in the enemy¡¯s hands. Lex was right. They had been lucky. Whenever they met with a stronger enemy, they always managed to escape. Thinking back to the fleet behind the magic illusion, Saleen could not help but feel a chill go down his spine. That was created by humans?


    He knew that if a ship could be that massive, there would definitely be a magic cannon on it. Magic cannons were different from magic stone artillery. Magic stone artillery was mainly used to deal with hunting ships whereas magic cannons could destroy the armor of an armored vessel. Alchemy City could rule the sea only because they had a ship with a magic cannon on it, preventing the Cloudflow Navy from venturing north.


    Now that others possessed that ability too, Alchemy City was no longer safe.


    ¡°Saleen, do we continue east?¡± Daniel asked tentatively. Towards the west wasnd and their boat was only ten meters long. Any storm in the sea had the potential to destroy them.


    ¡°Go north. We will shift our direction to the west in three days.¡± Saleen did not exin, but with his instincts he could feel that the region that the fleet controlled was immensely vast and the flying puppet was still looking for anyone who had gotten away. Once they were discovered by the flying puppet, even if they used their own puppets to destroy it, the enemy would still be able to locate them. The enemy had a huge ship with a magicpass, and their speed would be much faster than this small boat as well. The alchemy engine had lost its power and using a pair of oars would not be faster than abat vessel.


    The scaleless sharks surrounded their boat and yed for a while before swimming towards the south. The stars dotted the night skies but Saleen was not in the mood to enjoy them. He turned towards Daniel and said, ¡°Teach me how to steer.¡±


    ¡°I can still hold on.¡± Daniel¡¯s honest face showed a glimpse of gratefulness.


    ¡°I have other things for you to do. Sika,e learn with me. Go and rest once you¡¯ve learned how.¡±


    ¡°Then what do I do?¡± Lex was not bothered that Saleen was giving out orders, instead asking what she was supposed to do.


    ¡°Take a rest. If we meet with any powerful magic beasts, we will need to count on you.¡±


    ¡°Alright¡­ I will go and sleep then.¡± Lex looked at Saleen¡¯s cold eyes and found it weird. Saleen was not very smart most of the time, but when it came to matters of life and death, he was unusuallyposed. He had been the first to spot danger and had decided to take the lifeboat to run. He had never thought of assisting Juno.


    It had been proven that if Lex had gone to help Juno, the results would have been disastrous. She was the viscountess of an empire and in the past, she had been used to doing everything herself. There was nothing in Bitter Water Prefecture that did not go through her. Now, with someone like Saleen, she suddenly felt more rxed than ever.


    Saleen was not a reckless person, and if there was a problem waiting to be solved, he would seek help from Lex. This was something that greatly satisfied Lex. Saleen knew his capabilities. She had too many mages under her that had could solve matters easily, but she was constantly worrying that they desired authority too much.


    Saleen did not have such desires. He was more interested in the art of magic than Lex.


    If her father had still been alive, he probably would have liked Saleen even more. Thinking back to what her and her father had talked about, Lex felt a bitter feeling welling up inside of her. Her father had been right. Saleen was someone that could be nurtured. It was only that he had not been able to hold on to see this day.


    Controlling the boat was not somethingplicated and Daniel patiently taught Saleen and Sika. Saleen tried steering by himself, and only when Daniel approved did he ask, ¡°Daniel, a death mage knows how to process bone equipment, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes. With enough magic nuclei, even though I am only grade-3, I might be able toplete some.¡±


    ¡°Good. Take a rest. Tomorrow, we will create another boat that isrge enough to carry two people.¡±


    ¡°We already have a boat.¡± Daniel did not understand Saleen¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°It¡¯s in case this boat is destroyed. I¡¯m not afraid of water, but are you afraid? We don¡¯t have the power of the alchemy engine and we aren¡¯t sure how far awaynd is. Plus, for now, we can only go in a general direction and might drift off somewhere far away. There are too many magic beasts in the sea and I cannot guarantee that nothing will happen to this boat. You can create a small boat that is enough for you and Sika.¡±


    ¡°What about Nailisi?¡± Daniel was being honest this time. He did not ask about Lex.


    ¡°She¡¯s the same as me. We won¡¯t drown underwater.¡± Saleen did not bother exining Nailisi¡¯s powers to Daniel. She was indeed not afraid of water and had an added advantage over Saleen in that she was not afraid of low temperatures. Saleen still needed to use magic to maintain his body temperature periodically underwater. Nailisi, on the other hand, did not.


    Daniel could not do so. If he ended up in the water, he would either drown or freeze to death.


    Daniel did not say too much before taking the nket that Saleen handed him and lying down beside the window, trying to fall asleep. He was a grade-3 mage and could not restore his powers as quickly as Saleen. If he continued pushing himself, he would quickly lose hisbat abilities. He knew the dangers of the sea and they had already crossed the borders of the safe zone of the sea. It was hard to say how many days a small lifeboat couldst.


    ¡°Sika, keep watch for now. I¡¯m going to take a nap. Wake me up in four hours.¡± Saleen handed the steering wheel to Sika. He knew that under such hurried teaching, he and Sika would not be able to control their direction urately. Even Daniel could not read the constetions, so he could only pray that this boat would not stray too far away fromnd.


    Saleen walked towards Nailisi. Under such circumstances, he could only feel safe when he was sleeping beside Nailisi. Nailisi wasying beside Lex, and as Saleen walked over, Lex said softly, ¡°Saleen,e over. Let¡¯s talk.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Saleen used his leg to push Nailisi aside andid between the two of them. Lex¡¯s had a fresh fragrance on her that was somewhat faded, and Saleen knew by now that it was a high-grade magic medicine. So long as Lex controlled it a bit, it could be a smell that mixed with any atmosphere, blending with her surroundings.


    ¡°Saleen, you don¡¯t ever seem to be afraid.¡± Lex used a short ranged mute enchantment, preventing the others from hearing. Sika had been steering and started feeling uneasy, suddenly unable to hear Saleen and Lex¡¯s voices.


    ¡°What¡¯s the use of being scared? Those who die will die. I¡¯m different from you. I¡¯ve never had a good day before, and if I were to die, I might just be lucky.¡± Saleen did not hide his emotions with the mute enchantment in effect.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you worried about Sika and your teacher?¡± Lex¡¯s voice was so matter-of-fact that Saleen thought he had heard her wrong.


    ¡°If I do not survive, I do not deserve to be my teacher¡¯s student. As for Sika. I should have let her return to Caucasus a long time ago. Following me, she will only meet with danger. I seem to be quite down on my luck, and sooner orter, I will burden her.¡±


    ¡°You could bear to let her go?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s not to bear? If I were to die, she would probably be upset. If I survive¡­I will be a sorcerer and live for a thousand years. It would be my turn to miss her then.¡±


    ¡°You¡­have you not realized that Sika likes you a lot?¡± Lex said softly, not knowing why she had asked that.


    ¡°Really?¡± Saleen was shocked for a moment before he thought back to the time at the pce in Holy Rock City. He had barged into Sika¡¯s room and had been hit on the bridge of his nose by her toothbrush. At that time, her face had been red, but she did not seem to be angry.

 Chapter 213: Drifting (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 213: Drifting (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± Lex asked. ¡°Then why did you give her sixty thousand gold coins? Do you know how many Caucasus people that could feed?¡±


    ¡°She deserved it, just like how we split the items in god¡¯s hell,¡± Saleen retaliated.


    ¡°In addition to hunting, the main source of food for Caucasus people are potato biscuits. One kilogram of white potatoes there goes for one copper coin. Together with wood flour, almost two kilograms of it can be made. Wood flour is worth even less, so one can get almost two thousand kilograms of food with one and a half gold coins. The money that you have sent over will be enough for her vige to survive for years.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the use of saying all this? We¡¯re two thousand miles away from the coast. We still don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll be able to make it back.¡±


    ¡°With me, what are you afraid of?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t think I don¡¯t know. With a grade-6 mage¡¯s magic chords and the speed with which you fly, you might not be able to make the journey back. There are magic beasts that fly in the air as well. If you meet with any, you can only wait to fall into the sea. It¡¯s hard enough just for you to fly back alone. With me, haha¡­¡±


    ¡°Since I dared toe out to sea, what makes you think that I don¡¯t have my ways?¡± Lex said nonchntly.


    With that, hope sprouted in Saleen¡¯s heart. Everything he had done thus far had been a result of following orders, and in his rush, he had forgotten that as the head of a country, how could Lex havee out to sea without an escape n?


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen could not hold himself back, asking Lex.


    ¡°I have an alchemy drawing which we can use to create a special boat. If we can find a small ind and create ab on it, I can even create a magicpass and we can make our way back to Alchemy City directly.¡±


    ¡°Can I take a look?¡± Saleen was not good at alchemy but had a good eye for materials.


    ¡°The drawing is enormous and I cannot spread it out. Our problem now is this boat is too small. If a storm appears, there is a high chance we will die. Creating a ship isn¡¯t as simple as asking Daniel to create bone equipment. Saleen, when the sun rises, we will follow the seabirds and hope to seend.¡±


    As Saleen listened to Lex, he suddenly rolled over and pressed his ears to the floor of the boat. He did not utilize any of his senses but instead listened quietly to the water flowing beneath. There were too many powerful magic beasts in the sea, and if he used his senses, it would anger any magic beast that did not originally have the intention of attacking. Saleen heard a strange noise within the water flow and felt an enormous presence approaching from beneath the surface of the water.


    ¡°Watch out!¡± Saleen sprung up from the floor, but it was Nailisi who had pushed him away. From beneath the boat, a thick tentacle tore a hole in the floor of the boat and curled towards Saleen.


    In midair, Saleen instantly cast an ice te armor and a water shield, adding them onto his body. The thick tentacle was thicker than a barrel, and Sika, who had been steering, threw out her boomerang. With a swooshing sound, it sliced the tentacle apart, causing blue blood to spew all over. Seawater started rushing into the boat and the injured tentacle twisted, causing the gaping hole to widen and water to rush in even quicker.


    ¡°It¡¯s an octopus!¡± Daniel was instantly awoken from his sleep. Seeing the thick tentacle, his face turned pale.


    An octopus was a magic beast that was incredibly difficult to deal with as it was incredibly intelligent and had immense powers and a strong body. There had been recounts of an enormous octopus dragging an entire navy vessel down into the sea before. His skeleton puppet would be useless against such a magic beast, and seeing the tentacle twisting within the cabin, Daniel was the first to run out.


    At the front of the deck, one of the puppets was still rowing while the other was resting, Dozens of tentacles extended from the sea and trapped the puppets on the deck. The wood exploded with a loud noise as the fully constructed puppets were forced into the deck. They were not mutated puppets, and without Lex¡¯smands, they could only carry out simple actions ording to the orders they were given.


    Daniel saw the puppets trapped and summoned his courage and released his death mes. Among the mes, nine different sized skeleton puppets floated within.


    ¡°Go!¡± Daniel pointed with his finger and a skeleton puppet emerged from the death mes, expanding to a height of over five meters and pouncing into the water.


    Ka, ka¡­


    The entire boat had been wrapped in the octopus¡¯ tentacles and the tentacles contracted, attempting to crush the boat. Saleen knew they could not stay on the boat any longer and released an ice bomb whichnded directly on the gaping hole where the tentacle hade from.


    The tentacle was frozen to the deck, but in less than three seconds, theyer of ice on the surface of the tentacles had broken. Saleen took this opportunity to jump from the boat.


    ¡°Lex, watch from the top!¡± As he finished speaking, Saleennded in the water.


    He followed behind the skeleton puppet and looked at the giant octopus that was attacking the boat. Beneath the night sky, it seemed like a pitch-ck shadow with its eight massive tentacles wrapping around the boat. It had lumps growing all over its enormous face and there were eyes all over its head which emitted a blue light. There were at least thirty of them altogether.


    This magic beast had perfect eyesight, and despite the fact that he had hid behind the giant skeleton puppet, it had still spotted Saleen.


    An enormous tentacle left the small boat and went straight for Saleen. If he was struck by it, it would be no different from being crushed by the tail of the giant dragon. There were suckers all around the giant octopus¡¯ tentacles and around them were sharp, spiky hairs.


    The skeleton puppet wielded arge knife and went straight for the octopus¡¯ tentacle. Saleen¡¯s body was enveloped in a water shield and he floated on the sea as he released a level-5 scroll.


    Now was not the time to be thrifty. Even though the scrolls were valuable, there was no use in keeping scrolls if one was dead.


    With a thunderous sound, the skeleton puppet had its arm sliced off by the tentacle of the octopus. Its knife barely left a mark on the tentacle and the wound quickly closed up as a minimal amount of blue blood was spilled.


    Saleen had already cast his level-5 spell and six giant ice cubes floated around the octopus, striking towards its center. Saleen had used this spell to kill a bronze grand swordmaster before, and now in the sea, he was even more skilled with this magic.


    After arge boom, the giant cubes froze together and a prison made of ice was created in the sea. The giant octopus¡¯ head was frozen inside, leaving the eight tentacles struggling outside.


    Saleen was not done. As the eight tentacles contracted violently, Saleen saw an eerie sight. The tentacles had be incredibly thin and eight thick holes appeared in the ice prison.


    This was a spell that had been released by a scroll, and after it had beenpleted, Saleen could no longer control it. The impact of the ice was unchanged and the octopus should have died after being entrapped, but instead, the octopus was crawling its way out of the ice prison.


    The octopus¡¯ head was thicker than the small boat, and yet it had had been able to squeeze itself out from such a tiny hole. Saleen was dumbfounded.


    He was not afraid of the octopus. With Nailisi around, theirbat powers were not affected underwater. Up in the air, Lex was still waiting for an opportunity to deal a fatal blow. Saleen just could not imagine that a creature¡¯s brain could be this malleable.


    Saleen had no choice but to put away the second scroll that he had prepared. He released ten over ice des from his hands and threw them from three different angles. The trajectory of the ice des was strange within the water, and the skeleton puppet that was sinking underwater had to make way.


    The ice des drew silent arcs underwater beforeing together, striking precisely at the hole that the octopus was making its way out from.


    The ice des were incredibly sharp and the few lumps on the octopus¡¯ head were sliced open and instantly frozen, the blue blood sticking onto the ice cube. The octopus¡¯ tentacles quickly retracted into the ice and the water shield around Lex¡¯s body expanded into a massive bubble, floating rapidly to the surface of the water.


    In the ice prison, the giant octopus¡¯ body started expanding. As Saleen floated to the surface, he shouted at Lex, ¡°I can¡¯t contain it!¡±


    The lifeboat was already destroyed and Sika was clinging to a piece from the boat. Nailisi was swimming around her, giving a deadly re at the octopus that was about to escape. Sika knew how to swim, but her weapon was too heavy.


    ¡°Give me the cudgel.¡± Nailisi extended her hand to take Sika¡¯s weapon. If Sika continued holding on to it, it would be hard for her to continue floating.


    Sika was anxious and angry at the same time. She had not be a true holy priest yet and there were no suitable magic beast souls within her cudgel. Looking at the situation, she had no choice but to give up on this creature.


    Nailisi grabbed the cudgel and stored it within her bracelet. At the same time, she took out a short axe and threw it to Sika. ¡°Use it when necessary. Master isn¡¯t in any danger right now, but be careful of other monsters.¡±


    Aren¡¯t you a monster too? Sika thought to herself, grabbing the short axe. The axe was barely twenty kilograms and was too light. Moreover, it was incredibly thin and she was not very skilled at using a double-sided axe.


    The sound of ice cracking resonated throughout the sea and a giant whirlpool emerged, swirling around the ice cube. The many pieces of the lifeboat were sucked within as well, and Nailisi had to grab hold of Sika as she swam in the opposite direction.


    The skeleton puppet grabbed hold of Daniel as well as he fought hard to get out of the whirlpool. Lex watched from above and saw cracks appearing on the ice as it exploded from within. Saleen continuously released white lines from his hand, which turned out to be level-2 ice arrows. The speed at which he released the arrows was incredible. A person needed to be aware that Saleen had been floating in the water at that moment, and if it had been another mage, even releasing a spell would have been dangerous.


    Lex saw an opportunity. Even though Saleen¡¯s ice arrows could not kill the octopus, they effectively prevented the octopus from creating a bigger whirlpool and the elemental vibrations in the surroundings slowed down. Lex did not bother investigating how Saleen had managed to retain control as she quickly brought out her magic staff and released the two spells stored inside of it.


    A ck and white light shot out. This time, however, their speed was not as quick as when they had been released in Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town. Lex had not perfected this spell and had stored it rather forcefully into her staff.


    However, the power from the ck and white light was immense, and as Saleen used the ice arrows to slow down the intense water currents, the two lights urately struck an eye on the octopus¡¯ head.


    The octopus¡¯ brain began to convulse, and an intense wave of focus was released. Lex felt an intense pain shoot into her head and she momentarily lost control of her Flying spell, falling into the sea.


    That had been a focused impact! This giant magic beast had chosen to use a method of attack that most humans would never have dared to use.

 Chapter 214: Lightning and Thunder (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 214: Lightning and Thunder (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A focused impact was a fatal move and both parties would suffer casualties as a result of it. Any small mistake would prove to be fatal. Saleen had top-notch focus, and yet he only dared to control puppets at most. Using it to attack an enemy would be the same as betting with his life.


    The magic beast had been fatally injured in its brain and could not care less about anything else. Saleen took out his n badge without hesitation and released a level-0 spell within the excruciating pain.


    The focus of the giant octopus had already locked onto everyone and Saleen felt as if a saw had pierced through his brains and was twisting repeatedly. If he had not gotten used to such a negative state of mind when he had been training, he would have lost consciousness already.


    Saleen¡¯s focus was quickly absorbed within the n badge, and this time, it connected with the giant octopus. The lightning symbol within the badge could not contain the azure light any longer and started absorbing things furiously.


    Outside of the whirlpool that the octopus had created, another mini whirlpool had formed, and within the center of it was the mysterious badge that Saleen was holding in his hand. The badge directly sucked in the octopus¡¯ focus and the water elements, and within the lightning symbol, the azure light could not be contained and was released.


    With the exception of Nailisi, the others had fainted from the focused impact that hade from the octopus. Daniel¡¯s skeleton puppet was not a living thing and did not have much focus. It was dragging Daniel along in a daze, not knowing what to do. Nailisi dragged Sika with one hand and Lex in the other, following behind Saleen nervously.


    She was afraid of the badge. Every time Saleen used it, she had to suffer along with him. However, Nailisi luckily had many years of training and her focus was incredibly dense. Hence, she did not lose consciousness.


    Lex¡¯s focus was greater than Saleen¡¯s and her technique in using it was superior to Saleen¡¯s as well. However, her focus was nowhere near as concentrated as Saleen¡¯s. Saleen had been training with his n badge for six years and had never stopped using it even once. Each time the n badge absorbed Saleen¡¯s focus, it had made his focus even denser. After six years, even Saleen was not sure what changes had been made to his focus.


    For all spells that were dangerous to other mages, Saleen seemed to be able toplete them with ease. While other mages still felt troubled over meditation, Saleen merely needed to recollect his magic chords.


    Without magic chords, it did not matter how strong his focus was, for he would only be able to move around some weak elemental energy and release a level-0 spell. Without his focus, his magic could not bepleted, and if it was weak, he would not be able to control his magic.


    The giant octopus started panicking. It was unsure what was happening. Its eight tentacles were as soft as noodles and it could no longer control them. Its focus and the power in its magic nuclei had been sucked away by the whirlpool and it suddenly spat out arge amount of water, attempting to escape.


    Saleen felt the n badge in his hand tremble as a blueish-white light shot out. It was a lightning bolt which went straight for the skull of the giant octopus.


    The silent attack left a gaping hole in the head of the octopus. No blood spilled out as an eerie, crystal-like material formed at the wound where the lightning had struck, almost as shiny as a gemstone.


    Saleen was shocked this time. He had not expected the badge to be able to release an attack. Furthermore, this attack had taken on the form of a lightning bolt!


    He had never heard of a mage who had been able to release lightning. During stormy weather, even mages did not dare to fly in the sky, and even sorcerers had to be careful. Lightning was the most ominous power in this dimension, and its speed surpassed that of any other magic. Saleen stood within the water shield and stopped moving about in the sea, trying to recall the changes that had urred within the badge earlier.


    The octopus¡¯ body sunk down into the sea and Nailisi started grinding her teeth in anxiety. The magic nuclei within the octopus¡¯ body had not been dug out and its skin was a good material as well. The most expensive parts of the octopus were its ink nds. They were the best ingredients possible for writing scrolls and drawing magic arrays.


    However, she could not let go of Sika or Lex, and she did not dare disturb Saleen either. Deep within her soul, she could feel the shock that Saleen was facing in that moment. Her master was deep in thought about something serious, and if she were to disrupt him now, the results would be disastrous. Nailisi pulled the two of them along and paddled against the water under her feet, bringing the top half of her body above the surface of the sea. Under the moonlight, her long hair glistened with water droplets and stuck to her body, making her appear almost like a statue of the goddess.


    Saleen did not move at all and the badge trembled again. A rumbling noise of thunder sounded and an even thicker bolt of lightning shot out and went straight deeper into the sea.


    Saleen was excited this time. He had caught the changes within the badge. The enormous amount of water elements had rubbed and knocked against each other within the badge before revolving systematically. Between the water elements, a secret energy had been separated ande together, one hundred times more vigorous than fire elements.


    Is this the power of lightning?


    Boom!


    The sound of thunder within the badge was enough to deafen someone, and as a third bolt of lightning shot out, the intense energy dissipated along with the decrease in water elements.


    Nailisi ducked her head down. This energy that her master had released was something that she had seen before. After she had been captured and brought to this dimension, she had felt an energy simr to this, which was even stronger than lightning.


    ¡°Oh¡­¡± Saleen groaned. He had dug deeper into the changes within the badge and had forced his focus to go even further. Each time he had gone further into the badge, his focus waspletely wiped out by the energy within the badge. Before this, half of his focus had been remaining, but now it was all used up.


    His bodyy limply within the giant bubble, and the only thing he could do was forcefully hold the n badge away from him with his left hand.


    ¡°Nailisi¡­¡± Saleen called out in exhaustion. He did not want to say another word. His focus had beenpletely wiped clean by the n badge and the focused impact that had struck him earlier wasing into effect only now. His head was hurting so much that he wanted to knock something against it to relieve the pain.


    ¡°I¡¯m here.¡± Nailisi paddled in the water and came to Saleen¡¯s side. Sheughed strangely as she felt for something on Lex¡¯s hand and brought out a small bottle. Inside was magic liquid, and she slyly revealed her tail to bind Lex and Sika together in order to prevent them from sinking even further. She then used her hand to pierce through Saleen¡¯s water shield as she poured the magic liquid into Saleen¡¯s mouth.


    Saleen looked at her in shock. Too many things that he could not understand had happened today. Nailisi had managed to take something out of Lex¡¯s spatial equipment.


    Spatial equipment was branded with the focus of its owner and was even harder to crack open than a magic lock unless a person¡¯s focus was one hundred times greater than that of the user. If not, it would not open. Even if a person forcefully opened it, it would destroy the items stored within. Nailisi¡¯s abilities were too terrifying!


    However, Saleen did not bother asking about it as he forced himself to meditate, hoping to repair any damage to his brain as soon as possible. The secrets within the n badge had left him in awe. With something as terrifying as that, how could his family have gone into decline? The three lightning bolts had gotten stronger one by one, and he was sure that thest bolt of lightning had been as powerful as a grade-9 sorcerer using all of their energy at once.


    It was a pity that the rate at which the badge gathered its energy was too slow. He had poured six years of magic chords and focus into it, together with the many times that he had absorbed the energy of his enemies and the powerful magic array that he had absorbed in Raphael¡¯s magic tower before it had been able to reach this level of power.


    The effort and conditions needed to release the power were even more strict than those of the god¡¯s ring. Could this weapon even be stronger than a weapon of god?


    Saleen quickly entered a meditative state and Nailisi brought out a long rope from her bracelet and tied Sika and Lex together at their waists. She held onto Saleen¡¯s belt and kicked her feet in the water, not knowing what to do. Daniel¡¯s skeleton puppet was dragging its owner along as well, floating on the surface of the sea.


    After using the badge, Saleen only needed less than thirty minutes to meditate, much quicker than usual. He quickly woke up and took a look at his injuries. Sis focus seemed to have been restored. None of the problems that he had expected were present, but his focus seemed to have weakened. It seemed that the frequency of the vibrations within his focus and the vibrations of the energy within the badge had grown more simr.


    ¡°Nailisi, let go.¡± Saleen released a water shield and floated back onto the surface of the sea. There were plenty of strange magic beasts in the water, and even though Saleen was not afraid of water, he needed to protect himself.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Do not let anyone else know of what you have seen,¡± Saleen said sternly. His badge was incredibly ominous and it worried him. If people were to find out about it, it would stir up more attention than a weapon of god. A weapon of god was something that only a grade-8 mage and above could use, and this badge must not have had any grade restrictions.


    It was a pity that it could not be controlled. If he had been able to hold back the two other attacks, he would have been able to possess two level-9 spells.


    ¡°Not even Lex?¡± Nailisi asked innocently. She had rarely disyed such an expression recently, and once she did that, Saleen knew what she was thinking.


    ¡°No one. Unless¡­unless I have mastered this power. If not, we will be in trouble.¡±


    Nailisi stuck out her tongue and kept silent.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika suddenly woke up and realized that she was strapped at her waist. In shock, she realized what had happened.


    Saleen had not expected Sika to wake up first. He had thought that Lex would have recovered faster. It seemed like Sika¡¯s holy priest abilities were special and her focus was simr to his.


    Saleen furrowed his brows and said, ¡°Nailisi, put that away.¡±


    Nailisi reluctantly returned the bottle of magic liquid into Lex¡¯s ring as Saleen released a Chunlin spell on her before using another on Sika. As for Daniel, he still needed to sleep a while longer. Having one¡¯s focus impacted was a more serious issue for a death mage, and the best thing for him to do was to sleep until he woke up.


    Nailisi hid her tail as Lex opened her eyes and realized that she was still alive.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°The magic beast has been killed by me. Are you alright?¡± Saleen said naturally, forcing Lex to swallow down what she had wanted to say. She did not know how Saleen had done such a thing. Under such an intense focused impact, even a grade-6 mage like her had not been able to hold out. Saleen not only seemed alright, but he had managed to kill the octopus as well.

 Chapter 215: Lightning and Thunder (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 215: Lightning and Thunder (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I¡¯m alright, but the boat is destroyed.¡± Lex immediately released a Flying spell and came up onto the surface of the sea, her feet stepping onto the water almost as though she were standing on the ground. A weak fire erupted around the surface of her body and quickly evaporated the water on her magic robes.


    Saleen was troubled, too. Since he had an improved water shield, was able to breathe underwater, and was not affected by water temperature, it was impossible for him to drown. However, he had no way of dealing with magic beasts underwater, especially while he was moving across the sea in this magic shield. It was as good as telling them, Magic beasts, I am here to fight for your territory!


    However, if he did not use a water shield, he would be attacked by creatures like the giant octopus, and if he was not careful, he would be eaten up by them. Only if he had a ship that was over two hundred meters long could he be protected in the deep sea.


    Lex had a drawing for creating a ship and possessed the necessary alchemy equipment as well, but there was no way to do alchemy on the sea so they needed to findnd. With their current situation, they would be considered lucky if they were not eaten up by magic beasts. Findingnd? The sea was vast, and without a map of the sea or a map of constetions, how were they going to findnd?


    Lex quickly brought out dozens of massive wooden boxes from her god¡¯s ring. These boxes had been used to store high-grade armor and were materials that had been reinforced by magic. Coincidentally, they werepletely sealed. Putting away the armor and tying the wooden boxes together with a rope, they had a temporary ce to ce their feet.


    Saleen asked Lex to find over ten shields and fixed them at the connecting points between the boxes, providing additional protection and preventing any magic beasts from attacking from below.


    Climbing onto this shabbily built raft, the skeleton puppet was not willing to let go of Daniel. Saleen had no choice but to ask Lex to release a Binding spell to restrain the puppet and snatched Daniel away. Once Daniel was away from the skeleton puppet, it quickly shrunk and stopped moving. Nailisi conveniently scooped the puppet onto the raft and asked, ¡°Master, where do we go?¡±


    ¡°Nowhere. Let¡¯s follow the currents,¡± Saleen answered distractedly. He was still thinking about the secrets within the badge. Lex waspletely unaware as she had Sika secure Daniel¡¯s body onto the boxes. Once he was secured, Lexid down as well and stared dazedly at the sky.


    Stars filled the night sky. They were even more captivating than the prettiest gemstones.


    Lex¡¯s focus was entirely on the starry skies. In ancient times, humans had possessed great powers and astromancers had been a verymon profession, possessing astrology as one of their abilities.


    Master Merlin might have been thest astromancer on the maind, and others had called him an astrologer. In reality, Merlin had possessed a great deal of knowledge and had been an expert in magic as well, being one of the rare talents of the Grukos royal family. He had assisted her father in ruling the empire in an orderly fashion. However, before his death, he had said something that had made Chanake upset.


    Lex will destroy the empire. If you want the prosperity of the Qin empire to continue, have her leave Holy Rock City.


    This had been Merlin¡¯sst prophecy and he had been urate with all of his prophecies up until then. Emperor Chanake was upset, but he was afraid that the prophecy would be reality. Hence, when Lex was seven, he sent her to Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Was it Merlin¡¯s prophecy that had led her to such a fate, or had her fate led to Merlin dering that prophecy? Lex looked at the night sky, wanting to see her fate within the stars. The tens of thousands of stars seemed deste and far away in the night sky.


    Saleenid on the boxes as well and looked at the sky. He was thinking about the theory of the elements revolving within the badge. There were only water elements within and Saleen would not have understood them in the past, but now, he did. Water elements did not always form water. The changes of the six elements were not a secret to him any longer.


    In reality, there was a huge space within the badge, and the elemental energy it stored was expressed in the form of water elements. The formed water elements had be plentiful and the energy created within had eventually formed lightning.


    Most of the lightning had been dissipated within the badge, and only three lines had managed to find their way out. The ce which the lightning hade out from was the lightning shaped symbol at the center of the badge. Once the lightning had been released, the elements within the badge had restored their bnce and were nearly like a piece of metal. No signs of the secret space could be uncovered.


    It seemed that in order to activate the energy of the badge, a person needed to continuously direct energy inside of it.


    Saleen held the badge in his hand and used his senses to probe at it. The pattern on the surface of the badge had been seared within his memory, and now that he had used his senses to carefully observe it, he realized that the magic pattern on the surface of the badge was more intricate than he had imagined and formed from a string of magic symbols. These magic symbols were arranged in a form and were moreplex than any form that Saleen was familiar with.


    Theirplexity did note from the number of meanings each symbol had. In reality, there were not as many magic symbols as there were in the Figaro form. However, these symbols were three-dimensional and there were six in every sentence which formed a three-dimensional symbol. They were then strung together to form a point, and from that point, the other six directions bore simr points. These points came in pairs and werebined in a twisted formation which formed a form.


    These forme were rted and formed many strings that made up the magic pattern on the badge. Saleen had no idea what the badge had been made from, but it was incredibly tough and he had not found anything that could destroy it. Even a strike from a grand swordmaster had not left any mark on the badge.


    If an armor was made from this material, it would surely be the toughest armor in the world.


    Saleen patiently calcted this unfamiliar form. He knew deep down that with his current focus, even if he were to analyze it for fifty years, he would not be able to uncover the secrets of the badge. He was only doing so now to familiarize himself with the sequence of the form.


    The power of lightning. If he could grasp its powers, he would definitely be able to exact his revenge. Even the Holy See would not be able to help Sufonso.


    Sufonso was a burning issue for Saleen. Even though it had been his fault at first, after his parents¡¯ remains had been destroyed by Sufonso, he would never forgive him. After the trials in god¡¯s hell, Saleen had developed a much broader understanding of the world and he would not have to destroy Sufonso¡¯s entire family as he had nned.


    However, he needed to deal with Sufonso, but killing him would only lead to his son seeking revenge. This was an endless cycle, just like a recurring magic form.


    Once a recurring magic form was written, it did not matter where the form began. The entire form would be an independent world.


    Moreover, this matter had led to other problems. Sufonso had used this opportunity to provoke his teacher. It was just that his teacher had not vented his anger on his men, but had instead gone straight for the magic tower which protected Sufonso. The Holy See¡¯s n had failed, and the hatred between his teacher and Sufonso had no end.


    Even if Saleen could swallow this down, Jason would not be able to. Sooner orter, Jason would kill his way back to Yaoyang City and destroy that magic tower. How could Saleen watch without doing anything?


    Was this the fate that the astrologers were talking about?


    If a person wanted to seize their fate, they needed absolute power. Saleen caressed his n badge, suppressing the anxiety that he felt. His fate was incredibly unusually, almost like a perfect magic form that had been arranged by someone.


    Remembering the magic pattern on the badge, Saleen put it away and took out the yellow cbash from his Ring of Gifts. This time, he could feel the elemental vibrations inside of it.


    The inside of this sealed cbash was filled to the brim with water elements. The cbash was very light, but the water elements within were incredibly heavy. How these water elements had ended up in the cbash, Saleen could not figure out. The mouth of the cbash was still intact. Could it be that the cbash had been grown this way?


    ¡°Saleen, where did you get that cbash?¡± Lex saw the cbash in Saleen¡¯s hands. It was almost as though she recognized it.


    ¡°I won it in a bet,¡± Saleen answered truthfully.


    ¡°You¡¯re lucky. That thing¡¯s incredibly rare.¡±


    ¡°You know what this is?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen it in books. It¡¯s called a shenhe. In ancient times, it was grown using alchemy and was a precious item even back in its time.¡±


    ¡°This is a shenhe?¡± Saleen had heard of this word before in some magic notes. It had been talked about briefly, but not in detail. The mage that had taken these notes had said that a shenhe was a half-magic life. Saleen had not expected that life to be a nt. He had assumed that it was an soul alchemy used by people in ancient times.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know how to use this, do you?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°There are six different types of shenhe. This one stores water elements, and if you want to use it now, you can cut a hole as instructed in the alchemy drawings on the cbash. The water elements will not dissipate and you will be able to control them in any environment. Your strongest attacking spell right now is the current cutter. If you attach it to the cbash, the cbash can be a piece of equipment which stores magic. This magic equipment doesn¡¯t need to be activated with any magic nuclei. Just like my magic staff, it has a life of its own.


    ¡°Holy weapon?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a holy weapon, nor is it a weapon of god. Ancient people were not so boring. Just put it to use. Current cutter is a practical spell and is much stronger than most Fire Magic in close range. Plus, it can be upgraded all the way to level-9. Its only w is that the spell cannot target many people, and no matter how good your technique is, it can only attack a few people at a time.¡±


    Saleen was overjoyed upon hearing that. He had longed for Lex¡¯s magic staff for a long time, but Joey had taken such a long time in processing and extracting that small amount of essence from the two trees to give to Lex that the rest of the materials might not have been as magical as those used in her magic staff. The cbash could store Water Magic to be used repeatedly. From what Lex had said, it was controlled by one¡¯s focus, and this aspect of it made it better than the magic staff.


    Current cutter? He was not in a rush either way. Perhaps it would be better if he researched the magic pattern on the badge and then processed it onto the cbash. With that, it was possible that the magic released by the cbash would have some special effects as well.


    ¡°Actually, you can always use this cbash to create a water puppet once you¡¯ve advanced to grade-6. It might have unexpected results.¡±


    ¡°We shall see then. I already have two fully constructed puppets.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because you don¡¯t understand how powerful a water puppet is,¡± Lex said as she sat up. ¡°I still haven¡¯t mastered this spell, but let me demonstrate it to you and you will understand.¡±

 Chapter 216: Pan’s Turtle Shell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 216: Pan¡¯s Turtle Shell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex sat up and crossed her fingers together. While disying this umon magic gesture, she started reciting a spell. Some spells could never be released without saying anything, and those that could required long periods of practice to be able to do so.


    Reciting a magic spell guided a person¡¯s magic chords and activated the spell¡¯s elemental frequency. Once the magic chords were familiar with the frequency of the elemental vibrations, the spell would take less and less time to cast until eventually, a person could release a spell without relying on any chants.


    The water puppet was a spell that did not require any chants, and the fact that Lex was chanting such a lengthy chunk now showed that she had not really grasped the secrets behind this spell.


    A white light shot out from between Lex¡¯s fingers, and the water vapor in the air condensed together and formed a twisted image. A human-like figure almost two feet tall appeared before Lex. It was made from the condensation of water elements and its body was translucent, with its organs vaguely visible.


    Saleen found it interesting. This thing seemed fun to y with, but what could it do?


    The small man walked forward and sped its hands together, shooting out an icicle that went straight for Saleen¡¯s face. Saleen waved his hand and the icicle disappeared. The small man trembled before melting atop the wooden box, returning back into a puddle of water.


    Lex let out a breath and smiled. ¡°How about that? A puppet that can release magic.¡±


    ¡°It seems¡­ weak?¡± Saleen asked suspiciously. The water puppet that Lex had created hadsted less than ten seconds, and even though it was surprising that it could release magic, it had only been a level-1 spell with very slow speed. Saleen had managed to wave it away even though he had not expected it.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to be. This spell originated from the First Dynasty and back then, many people on the maind had the type of shenhe you have in your hands. The elements in the shenhe did not dissipate and the water puppets created were not destroyed this easily either. I need to familiarize myself with a new puppet each time I use it, and that is equivalent to learning a new spell each time. The spells that the puppet can release are also of the lowest level. If you use the water elements in your shenhe to create a puppet, it will almost be like¡­¡±


    ¡°Soul control?¡±


    ¡°It will almost have the same effect, but a puppet doesn¡¯t have a soul. You can control the puppet to do whatever you want it to do, just like another you.¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t sound like there¡¯s any advantage?¡±


    ¡°How is there no advantage? At least when you are controlling the puppet, you don¡¯t have to be afraid of the spell backfiring. You can try out any dangerous spells you know. Once you have mastered it, it will almost be like you possess twice thebat power. But, of course, your magic chords will be used up twice as fast too.¡±


    ¡°Two grade-6 mages still aren¡¯t a match for a sorcerer.¡± Saleen shook his head and said, ¡°I think I shall focus on the present. The current cutter can at least be upgraded to a level-9 spell.¡±


    ¡°This shenhe might be thest one on the maind,¡± Lex said regretfully.


    ¡°It is better to specialize in spells used inbat. I remember Master Faerun was the best at the Fireball spell.¡±


    On the topic of Faerun, Lex had nothing to say. He had been her most loyal subordinate and also her elder. He had been her half-teacher. Even now, Lex still could not ept the fact that Faeurn was already dead.


    However, Saleen was not wrong. Whenever mages conducted research, they would need to learn over hundreds or even thousands of different types of magic. However, inbat, they would usually choose the ones that they were most familiar with. From level-1 to level-9, there were less than a hundred spells that were popr, and there were only a handful in each level.


    Saleen¡¯s alchemy might have been terrible, but when it came to drawing magic arrays, magic patterns were the keys to techniques with alchemy equipment. Saleen had just learned the magic pattern on his n badge and would now be able to use it. Once the cbash was processed, it would still need to be adjusted constantly to Saleen¡¯s magic chords. To create such equipment would take at least three to five years.


    In order for this equipment to unleash its true potential, decades would be required. Hence, Saleen saw no need to choose the water puppet since he was not sure when he was going to reach grade-6. Even if he reached grade-6, it was possible that he would not be able to master that Water Puppet spell.


    On the other hand, he was very familiar with the Current Cutter spell, and together with the water elements in the shenhe and the powers of the magic pattern that he had just grasped, he could quickly organize hisbat power.


    This was not an era of peace, and even though there were only conflicts in the middle of the maind, a war could spread throughout the entire maind at any moment. Saleen had no idea how much longer he could train in peace, and being able to grasp whatever opportunities were avable now was the most practical thing he could do.


    This was a characteristic that was present in the blood of all Sikeqinya people. Some would have said that he was practical, while others would call him short-sighted.


    In reality, the real reason Saleen was impatient was because of his badge. Once he grasped the powers of the badge, what would the shenhe be to him? It was but condensed elements which would not dissipate. It still required a mage to control it, and its powers were nowhere near the powers of lightning.


    ¡°Look.¡± Lex lifted her finger and Saleen followed it and looked in the direction that she was pointing in. A turtle over twenty meters long had floated up to the surface. Saleen became a little nervous.


    The characteristics of turtle-like magic beasts were greatly varied. Some were docile but had incredibly powerful offensive powers, and even a giant sea serpent might not have been a match for them.


    Nailisi was awake as well, and as she saw the turtle, she said excitedly, ¡°Master, master!¡±


    Lex removed the mute enchantment. Saleen asked, ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Kill that turtle to make a small boat. It will be much safer than these boxes.¡± Nailisi rolled herself over, her limbs stiff and a carnal look in her eyes.


    ¡°No, we have no idea what that is. It might be a magic beast with high value,¡± Saleen rejected Nailisi¡¯s request. Turtle-like magic beasts not only had water-type properties, but during their long lives, hundreds of magic nuclei could form within their shells and they could bear all six types of elements. It would not matter if it was a low-grade one, but if this was a magic beast that was superior to grade-6, unless Saleen could manipte the energy within his badge, they would not stand a chance at all.


    ¡°Master, do you still have that poison?¡± Nailisi looked indignantly at the giant turtle.


    Saleen felt his heart flutter and he looked at Lex. Lex stared at the giant beast and asked, ¡°Nailisi, how confident are you?¡±


    ¡°Twenty percent. With the poison, fifty.¡± Saleen did not have much poison left and theponents of this medicine wereplicated. Saleen had only seeded in producing it twice.


    ¡°You have a n, don¡¯t you?¡± Lex saw Saleen hesitating and instinctively felt uneasy.


    ¡°What n? That thing is very sensitive to changes in elemental vibrations. You all wait here and don¡¯t do anything. I will poke it. If I miss¡­¡±


    Nailisi trailed off as she caught the bottle that Saleen had given her, carefully applying it to the tip of her Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger. She held the dagger between her teeth and started removing her clothes.


    Under the moonlight, Nailisi¡¯s skin had the glow of jade. Lex took a nce at Saleen, realizing that he was staring intently at the giant turtle in the distance, not intending to take a peek at all.


    Nailisi removed all of her clothes. Taking off the bracelet that Lex had given her, she passed the bracelet that she had bought from Aini and the one that Lex had given her over to Saleen. She then took a in rubber string and put up her hair, securing it behind her head. With the exception of the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger between her teeth, she had nothing else on her body. She sniffed with her nose to ensure that even her odor would not attract the giant turtle¡¯s attention before saying, ¡°Master¡­¡±


    Saleen looked back and saw Nailisi¡¯s naked body. He could not help but look at her rear. Luckily, she had not revealed her true form. Her tail which only demons possessed was hidden away from sight.


    ¡°Be careful. If you think there isn¡¯t an opportunity, don¡¯t try it. This magic beast doesn¡¯t seem like the aggressive type.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Nailisi ced the empty bottle on Saleen¡¯s palm and whispered in his ears, ¡°Master, do I look good?¡±


    If Lex had not been by his side, he might have kicked her into the sea. But now, he could only nod reluctantly. Nailisi started giggling, and with a twist of her body, almost as if she did not have any bones, she slid into the sea behind the boxes.


    The seawater was ice cold but Nailisi did not seem to mind. She dove down for over one hundred meters before starting to swim in the direction of the giant turtle. Her body and the seawater became one as many fish swam by her, not realizing she was a dangerous creature.


    Keeping all of their aura inside of them was something that all demons needed to learn. No matter whether it was for the purposes of chasing after prey or escaping, this was the most important of all. The living things in the demon dimension needed to constantly be alert.


    Saleen held his n badge, unusually nervous. Attacking a creature that was not aggressive was dangerous in itself. Furthermore, they did not have their boat and these boxes would never be able to oust a storm. The weather on the sea could change at any moment, and if they did not findnd quickly, even Lex was not confident that she would be able to survive.


    Lex brought out a rope from her god¡¯s ring to prepare for the next step.


    ¡°Saleen, what did Nailisi say just now?¡± Lex asked unexpectedly.


    Saleen was nervous and could not help himself, ¡°She asked if she was pretty.¡±


    Lex assumed that Saleen had a loose tongue and her face turned red. She looked at Sika, who had already woken up, and saw that she had a nonchnt look. At this, she was slightly troubled. Is this guy really a grown man? Walking around with twody warriors, how ridiculous. Judging by Sika¡¯s expression, she had already gotten used to it!


    How would she have known that Sika had seen Nailisi¡¯s true form and knew clearly that Saleen would never do anything to Nailisi. Thinking back to that giant mouth, sharp teeth, scaled body, and the sharp spikes on her back, even if Saleen was lecherous, he would not have any sexual attraction for her.


    Lex did not continue to question it and took out her silver magic book. If Nailisi missed, they could not sit there and wait for their deaths.


    Nailisi had swam out for over a thousand meters before slowly ascending. The giant turtle was just above her. Only when she had approached it did Nailisi realize that this thing was much bigger than when they had looked at it from afar. The giant sea turtle was more than half the length of the hunting ship and was almost the same width. Its four thick limbs were rowing in the water as it floated about leisurely, not realizing that Nailisi was there at all.


    Nailisi knew she only had one chance to strike and started observing her prey. Demons had long lives, and thus had the best patience as well. Nailisi floated in the seawater, golden light gliding about within her blue-green eyes.

 Chapter 217: Pan’s Turtle Shell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 217: Pan¡¯s Turtle Shell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were magic patterns grown naturally on the giant turtle¡¯s shell, and they wereyered and giving off a dark green color. The shell along its belly had six thick magic patterns that split the shell around the belly into six parts. Nailisi¡¯s eyes could look past the meaning of these magic patterns. They were a ground-type magic as strong as Pan¡¯s rock.


    Nailisi grasped the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger in her hands. There were not many things that could not be pierced through by this dagger. However, the turtle¡¯s shell was almost three meters thick, and even a heavy sword might not have been able to cleanly pierce through it. Moreover, the magic patterns on the turtle shell provided incredible defensive power, and any means that Nailisi had used in the past would no longer be effective.


    The thick tail of the giant turtle was covered in armor and it almost seemed to be a metal body part, possibly even tougher than the outer armor of a fully constructed puppet.


    Its tail was facing downwards and was blocking the weak point of its body. The giant turtle lifted its head and the reflective scales on its neck scrunched up, making a loud metallic noise. Nailisi saw that between the giant turtle¡¯s neck and its shell, there were many magic symbols. They had been formed naturally, and only when the giant turtle scrunched its head within its shell would these magic symbols be activated, releasing the powers of the ground-type magic andpletely sealing the turtle¡¯s shell.


    If she missed on her first try, even if the giant turtle did not retaliate, so long as it retracted its head and sank into the sea, Nailisi would not be able to do anything.


    The pressure deep in the sea would be too strong, and Nailisi¡¯s body was definitely not as tough as the turtle¡¯s shell.


    This was tough. Even above the turtle¡¯s eyes was ayer of transparent skin. This skin seemed even tougher than the skin of the tiago. Nailisi was not confident she would be able to pierce through.


    Just as she was contemting how she could get closer, from the surface of the distant sea, a giant arrow flew over. The sound it produced was almost like a fire-type spell that had lost control, and there were a series of explosions above the surface of the sea which createdrge waves.


    With a loud boom, the arrow which was as thick as an arm impaled itself into the turtle¡¯s skull. The sharp arrow was horrifyingly heavy. Nailisi kicked with her legs as she approached the back of the giant turtle. She saw dozens of spots of light in the distant sea which were rapidly approaching. They were humans dressed in shark skin.


    The giant arrow had not pierced through the turtle¡¯s skull and had only left a shallow mark on its head. However, the incredible impact had left its head twisted.


    Ang¡­ ang¡­


    The giant turtle started making strange noises. It was the first time Nailisi had seen a creature like this making noise. Luckily, she had made her way behind it, or else she would have been exposed.


    The lights approached, and the surfaces of these bodies were glowing. They had put on giant flippers and the shark skins covering their bodies were filled entirely with magic patterns. When they swam, they were several times faster than a boat.


    These people each had a long metal spear in their hands, and the tip of each spear was an unusual triangle shape without any grooves on it, but there was a small hole on every nted side.


    The giant turtle angrily spat out a ball of yellow gas and the five people in front were instantly enveloped in the gas, their bodies immediately turning into stone. A few water arrows emerged from the giant turtle¡¯s nostrils. They were a few times thicker than the arrow that had struck it, and the water arrows quickly came apart in midair, forming a giant water and trapping the rest.


    The others did not seem to be affected by the deaths of theirrades and they twisted their bodies as two of them escaped from the water. The metal spears in their hands spun rapidly as they released them, straight towards the giant turtle¡¯s eyes.


    The giant turtle had four eyes, and before its transparent eyelids could close, the spears had pierced through its eyeballs.


    Fresh blood spewed out from the back ends of the spear. This was magic equipment meant for killingrge prey. The hole at the tip of each spear produced a massive suction that immediately sucked clean any liquid within the eye sockets of the giant turtle. The triangr spear tip was nested within the skull and its eyeballs were crushed. Fresh blood ceaselessly flowed from its eyes, and the scene looked incredibly horrifying.


    Having struck the turtle with just one shot, the two other men dressed in shark skins escaped the water and could not have cared less about theirrades that were being strangled to death beneath the. They swam swiftly in the water, and in less than a few seconds, came beside the neck of the giant turtle. They pulled out their spears and rapidly pierced them within the two ligaments beneath the turtle¡¯s neck.


    The ligaments were very thin, and yet they had the same effects as the fin of a fish, having no blood and flesh within. However, once the spears pierced through it, the giant turtle could no longer retract its head.


    Watching from afar, Saleen was even more nervous than Nailisi. He said softly to Lex, ¡°Damn it. Why would anyone be hunting for a magic beast in the middle of the night?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to worry about? We¡¯re saved!¡± Lex wanted to fly up in excitement.


    Saleen held her back and dragged her down with all his might. He had no idea how to exin it to Lex, but in this situation, Nailisi would definitely kill the people who were hunting the giant turtle as well.


    Saleen had been spot on with his guess. Once these people in shark skins had appeared, Nailisi had taken them for her prey. The giant turtle¡¯s head was injured and it could no longer retract itself back into its shell. The four survivors had swum away and were waiting for their boat to approach before dealing with this beast using their powerful weapons.


    They had a well thought n. Nailisi stuck to the giant turtle¡¯s belly, quickly feeling for the injured eye socket of the turtle. With a gentle stab from the dagger, she delivered the poison into the turtle¡¯s body. She then stepped up onto the turtle¡¯s body, and her body instantly extended, a green magic pattern appearing on her skin. The tail that she had concealed was revealed as well, and faster than an arrow, she chased after the four survivors.


    The four them had not expected that anyone would be around the giant turtle, and when Nailisi appeared before them, they were stunned. Their weapons were still on the turtle¡¯s body, and by the time they realized that something was amiss, Nailisi¡¯s dagger had already shed open their special water armor.


    The dagger shed opened their sharks skin almost as though it were cutting through soft butter. Before the four of them could make use of the special water properties and get away from this woman who had appeared from nowhere, the poison on the dagger and its freezing effects had already activated and a toughyer of ice appeared on surface of their bodies, causing them to sink down into the water.


    Nailisi smiled and returned to her normal form. The chill from her dagger burst outwards and dissipated the poison on its surface, and then it turned back into a ring which she put back on.


    ¡°Why does Nailisi need to kill them?¡±


    Lex listened to Saleen¡¯s exnation, a little shocked.


    Saleen thought to himself, This is just how demons are. How should I tell you? He jumped into the water and ayer of vapor surrounded the water shield on the surface of his body. The vapor rolled around in the sea and Saleen kicked his legs. Using the power of magic, he brought the dozens of wooden boxes closer to the giant turtle.


    The giant turtle had gone numb from the poison and would not die for a while. Saleen was well aware that the arrow that had shot the turtle had not been released by a human, and in the darkness of the night, a long, narrow boat approached the giant turtle. With Saleen¡¯s strength alone, he was unable to get the boxes to keep moving and gave up on them. With his water shield sticking even tighter to his body, almost like a fish, he swam straight for the waves.


    Nailisi was his bound creature and he needed to clean up any messes she made. Moreover, Nailisi was not a magic beast, and like a human, she was intelligent. Saleen had already gotten used to having such a demon by his side and calling him master.


    ¡°Sika, take care of Daniel. No matter whoes close, do not interact with them, just take action.¡± Lex knew Sika was not good at interaction, and in her moment of anxiety, she was only able to say something like that. She released a Flying spell and flew towards the giant turtle.


    Just as she had flown halfway there, Lex realized what type of giant turtle this was. It was a grade-7 magic beast, but it was docile and kept itself alive with its overwhelming defensive abilities.


    Pan¡¯s turtles could live for an incredibly long time, and before they died, they could surpass grade-9 and were one of the longest living creatures in the sea. This pan¡¯s turtle had just matured and it was the first time it had met any humans, having had no idea how scary humans were. It had spent a long time floating on the surface of the sea to breathe and had been easily spotted by many hunting ships.


    There were missions to kill pan¡¯s turtles in Alchemy City as well, and they all took ce at night. Pan¡¯s turtles did not float up during the day, and once they took a breath, they were able to stay underwater for many days.


    The shell of a pan¡¯s turtle was perfect for makingbat armor and it was more valuable in this area than a giant dragon. Although the scales of the giant dragon were tough, they were hard to process and were not suitable for warriors to put on, being more suitable for creating equipment for mages.


    Someone was hunting for pan¡¯s turtle here. They were definitely not from Alchemy City, so there must have been an ind nearby. Lex was both happy and upset at the same time. It seemed that Saleen had been right and Nailisi had killed someone. She looked down from above and saw Nailisi hiding behind the back of the turtle, looking at the approaching boat from afar.


    There were four spearsing out from the turtle¡¯s skull and they had not been fatal. In the current moment, it was exhaling more than inhaling and was floating on the surface of the sea. It could not even sink and must have been poisoned by Nailisi.


    What about the owners of the spears?


    The stench of blooding from the sea was strong, and if it had not been for the fact that the scent of the turtle was overpowering, sharks would havee along in search of prey by now.


    Saleen approached the turtle quickly and was in awe at the patterns on its shell. Climbing up onto its back, heid beside Nailisi.


    ¡°Who said you could kill them?¡± Saleen could feel joy and excitement within Nailisi¡¯s soul. That had been a hunt. Her thirst for blood was overpowering and could not be controlled.


    ¡°No one knew it was me.¡± Nailisi twisted her body andid beside Saleen. He took out some clothes and forced her to put them on before passing her two bracelets to her.


    ¡°You¡¯re sure no one knows?¡±


    ¡°Yes Master. More than ten of them died at the beginning and they were killed by this giant creature. I only killed four of them.¡±


    Before she could finish, the boat had alreadye near the turtle. It had equipment simr to the watchtower of a city gate, and there was an alchemy crossbow inside of it. Saleen felt danger emanating from it. This crossbow must have had an aiming device on it. If he was not careful, a crossbow like this could lock onto him from a few miles away.


    The giant alchemy crossbow was meant for attacking cities. If it could urately lock onto a mage, even if the mage had a shell as tough as the pan¡¯s turtle, they would not have bones as tough as it.


    Where is this boat from? It cannot be from Alchemy City. This is already out of Alchemy City¡¯s range. It cannot be from Cloudflow either. Thebat vessels from Cloudflow have armor all over them. This boat has been carved out entirely from wood. Where in the world would one find such a big tree?

 Chapter 218: Shengfeng Country (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 218: Shengfeng Country (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Facing such a powerful weapon, Saleen did not dare expose himself immediately. Lex was in the air and had nowhere to hide. The current over the surface of her body became intense and turned into a wind-type magic shield ¨C a level-5 spell, the Windshield spell.


    This was the only spell that mages could use safely while flying. The currents revolved furiously around Lex¡¯s body, her robes billowing in the air.


    ¡°Who is it?¡± Lex knew that Nailisi had killed someone but her words remained firm. If she moved about furtively at this point, even if she had not done anything wrong, people would grow suspicious.


    Her voice resounded over the sea and left the people on the boat in shock. They had not expected to meet a grand mage in these areas.


    ¡°Your Excellency, can youe down for a word?¡± A thick-ented voice sounded as Lex looked down upon the other party and saw a big burly fellow in a ck metal helmet walking over to the front deck.


    Lex was like a giant bird, diving straight towards the deck. If they had not known that she was a grand mage, the people on the boat would have taken action. Lex¡¯s body was almost the same size as a grand swordmaster¡¯s and everyone was thinking in their hearts, This is abat mage!


    Some mages focused onbat and would only study the true secrets of magic as used inbat. These types of mages were not hard to deal with as long as people did not agitate them.


    ¡°Master, can you hear what they are saying on the boat?¡± Nailisi asked.


    Saleen shook his head. He had not expected Lex to board the boat and was not sure of her intentions yet. Had she done that to hide the fact that Nailisi was the killer, or had it been so that she could seize the boat?


    It seemed unlikely that she was about to take over the boat. The other party were not pirates, after all. However, if they followed this boat, they were not sure who these people were and Saleen never trusted a strangers who he had met by chance.


    ¡°Saleen,e out,¡± Lex shouted in Saleen¡¯s direction. Saleen and Nailisi surfaced and everyone on the boat was shocked. They had been keeping watch with their alchemy binocrs for a long time, and yet they had not found these two people hiding on the turtle¡¯s back. Even though the angle had not been optimal, the way these two people had concealed their auras was incredible, and even the captain had not realized they were there.


    The boat lowered its anchor and released a smaller boat to wee Saleen and Nailisi onboard. The small boat then went to pick up Sika and Daniel.


    Lexughed and said to Saleen, ¡°Come here. Let me introduce you. This is Captain Fellett.¡±


    Saleen lifted his head. Captain Fellett was almost a full head taller than him and was dressed in ck metal armor, minus the helmet. This man was roughly in his thirties and appeared intelligent, with a short moustache. His skin seemed paler under the glow of the magicmps, but it was still a healthy color.


    ¡°This is Mage Saleen, my friend. This is¡­Saleen¡¯s maidservant.¡± Lex red at Nailisi. She had almost caused them a huge amount of trouble. There were at least thirty to fifty swordmasters on this boat, and Fellett must have certainly been a grand swordmaster. Looking at the alchemy engine on the boat, there must have been at least two other mages on the boat as well.


    Luckily, Nailisi¡¯s hands and legs were clean and had not left any evidence. The other party had not been able to observe what was going on underwater, and it had only taken a single swipe from the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger to kill four people. If it had happened onnd, Nailisi might not have been able to conceal herself. She had returned to her original state in the water and was even more nimble in water than a fish.


    ¡°Mage Saleen is very fortunate, haha. Come, let¡¯s talk in the cabin. Prepare something for the mages to eat, you bastards. What are you all standing around for? Secure the pan¡¯s turtle. If it sinks, when we are returning, I will take your heads!¡±


    ¡°Yes captain!¡±


    The sailors quickly dispersed and only two people were left beside Fellett. Only now did they appear different from the rest. Saleen realized that the two of them were younger than Fellett and slightly stronger. Fellett was most likely a zun grand swordmaster while the two expressionless fellows must have been ck grand swordmasters.


    Fellett had boldly imed the pan¡¯s turtle as his own, which left a bitter taste in Saleen¡¯s mouth even though he could not say anything. The creature might have been killed by Nailisi, but without her, they would not have been saved either. Nailisi had secretly taken down a few of their men as well, and Saleen did not have the courage to argue at that point in time.


    Sika and Daniel were brought up onto the boat, and Fellett was incredibly understanding. He made arrangements for Daniel, who was still unconscious, and set up their rooms before hosting a banquet for Lex in the cabin.


    They looked over at the sailors who were releasing arge number of bags into the sea. These bags were each linked to a metal chain and were strung over the pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s neck and limbs, filled with air to prevent the body from sinking. The sailors clipped the metal chains to the back of the boat and departed with the body of the turtle behind them.


    ¡°Captain Fellett, where are you from?¡± Saleen asked exhaustingly. He had not been so shameless as to assume that the turtle was his, but he was not happy either. Fellett must have identally spotted the turtle and followed it for more than half a month before getting a chance tonight.


    ¡°Shengfeng country.¡± Fellett¡¯s reply left a chill in Saleen¡¯s heart. Legend had it that there were hundreds of inds on the Myers Maind and they were only there because humans had lost a great deal of their power and could no longer control the inds out at sea. However, records of Shengfeng country had still appeared in the recent centuries.


    Out of the hundreds of countries out at sea, Shengfeng is the best. Saleen remembered a note saying this in some records.


    The ¡°best¡± in that line referred to the bloody state that it was in now, and the inds far out to sea had never been unified.


    ¡°You know Shengfeng country?¡± Fellett saw past Saleen¡¯s reaction. It was one that could not be concealed.


    ¡°Only from books.¡± Saleen thought back to what the notes had described. The people in Shengfeng seemed to be brutal. For a mage to use brutal to describe someone, it was enough to show what kind of country Shengfeng was. At that thought, Saleen disyed a gentle smile, almost as though Fellett were his long lost rtive.


    ¡°Come, drink some alcohol!¡± Fellett brought over a bowl, and without waiting for Saleen¡¯s reply, downed it.


    Saleen held up a bowl. It was filled with turbid alcohol and he could not help but wonder why Fellett was drinking such inferior alcohol if he was a grand swordmaster. Could everyone in Shengfeng country be so tough that even a grand swordmaster was nothing? He released a Detection spell to check if there was anything wrong with the alcohol before raising his bowl and downing it like Fellett had.


    The two young men had seen Saleen check the alcohol for poison and said angrily, ¡°You, our captain was nice enough to offer you alcohol. Did you think we would have poisoned you?¡±


    Saleen raised his head, his gaze clear. He put down his wine bowl before saying nonchntly, ¡°You two, your Qin is pretty good!¡±


    The two young people turned a shade of red while Fellett burst intoughter. ¡°Saleen, you are cautious, but that is a sign of a good mage. We constantly roam around the Qin Empire, and in this year alone, we have been speaking Qin half of the time. Ites out easily.¡±


    Seeing Fellett being honest and not speaking in the Myersnguage, Saleen nodded and said, ¡°No matter where I go, I will always check before consuming anything. Mages aren¡¯t as great as swordsmen. If a swordsman realizes that there is poison in his food, he can control it with his sword aura. A mage¡¯s body isn¡¯t that strong. Besides, some poisons are so strong that no people are able to withstand them. That pan¡¯s turtle died from my poison.¡±


    ¡°Oh? That happened? Why hadn¡¯t anyone told me!¡± Fellett gave a look of shock, and Saleen became angry yet found it funny at the same time. Fellett was at least twice as old as Saleen and had a fussed up look on his face. Evidently he was not willing to hand over the pan¡¯s turtle.


    ¡°Captain, if I wanted to buy the pan¡¯s turtle from you, how much would it cost?¡± Saleen did not bother speaking nonsense. This pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s shell was very important to Lex. Lex had not asked because they were under his roof. After being saved by someone, what else was there to say?


    This boat seemed like a normal hunting ship and had around the same number of troops as the empire¡¯s navy. The professionals on the boat left Saleen frustrated and he could not think of any other ideas aside from buying it from him.


    ¡°Money? Do you mean gold coins? We do notck those in Shengfeng country.¡± Fellett did not reject him outright but made it clear that the pan¡¯s turtle could not be imed away with money. That was, unless Saleen had something of a simr value to exchange for it.


    Saleen took a look at Lex, who shook her head. Anything they had that could be used in an exchange for the pan¡¯s turtle hade from suspicious ces and involved many secrets.


    The people from Shengfeng country stayed far away from the maind, yet had frequent dealings in the Qin Empire. The empire was unaware of them, but they were not necessarily bad news. Now that she and Saleen had fallen into dire straits, if they were to bring out their valuables now, it was possible that they would not even be allowed to escape, much less make a deal. Even the merchants on the sea could sometimes act like pirates, much less a captain from unknownnds.


    The could no longer sell the fully constructed puppets and two of them had sunk during the attack by the octopus. Another two had been sold to Alchemy City. Lex had only one fully constructed puppet that was not mutated. Saleen thought carefully. Since it is the pan¡¯s turtle, the other party wants to build armor and has never thought about building a boat.


    ¡°Captain Fellett, what is the best armor in Shengfeng country?¡±


    ¡°Heavy magic armor.¡± Fellett looked at Saleen, his face one of confusion. Could this grade-4 mage have had something of simr value to the pan¡¯s turtle with him? If he did, Fellett would not mind being a pirate for once.


    ¡°You have deals with the Qin Empire to purchase weapons, right? If you send us back, this pan¡¯s turtle can be exchanged for hundreds of pieces of heavy magic armor. How about that?¡±


    Fellett yed with his short moustache. Looking at Saleen, he hesitated. The pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s shell was a very good magic ingredient. Creating armor was incredibly time consuming, and even with sufficient manpower, it would take more than a decade to create all those pieces of armor from this enormous thing.


    It would take more than ten years. He did not have such time. The problem was, was this young mage speaking the truth? Did he really have hundreds of pieces of heavy magic armor at the port of the Qin Empire? In the Qin Empire, to possess so much armor was a crime punishable by death!


    ¡°You¡¯re a mage. How do you have that much armor?¡± Fellett¡¯s voice was especially cold. If Saleen was trying to trick him, he would not be a friendly person and would definitely teach this young mage a lesson.


    He had not thought that Saleen and Lex might have had anything valuable on them now. The spatial equipment a grade-6 mage could use was not very big. As for a grade-4 mage, having a space three by five meters wide was already quite rare.

 Chapter 219: Shengfeng Country (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 219: Shengfeng Country (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen saw that Lex was not stopping him from speaking nonsense and had an idea of where this was going. He said to Fellett, ¡°Captain, since you constantly have deals with the Qin Empire, you should know the Clyde family, right?¡±


    ¡°I do, but your surname is Metatrin.¡± Fellett not only knew who the Clyde family was, but he was very familiar with the rules of the merchant families in the Qin Empire. Those who did not take on the family names would never rise to the upper echelons. The price of one hundred pieces of heavy magic armor exceeded that of a castle. If Saleen continued spouting nonsense, he did not intend to continue listening to it.


    Fellett rubbed his moustache with his fingers, giving a coldugh.


    Saleen took out a badge from his sleeve. ¡°You should recognize this.¡±


    Fellett¡¯s face changed as he looked at the silver of the badge in Saleen¡¯s hands. In the middle was the symbol of the Clyde family. It was possible to create an imitation, but the price would have been astronomical.


    The front of the badge was golden while the back was a dark blue, having been created from two different metals. After leaving Holy Rock City, the Clyde family had given him this badge for future dealings. However, since leaving Holy Rock City, Saleen had not had a chance to return to Bitter Water Prefecture, and the things that he were supposed to do for Lex had been set aside.


    ¡°I have done much business with the Clyde family. I receive fifty percent of whatever is difficult for them to sell. This batch of armor is from Lon Duchy. I meant to keep it for myself. However, I have better alchemists with me and if I exchange the armor for the pan¡¯s turtle, we will both have nothing to lose. Even if you bring this pan¡¯s turtle back with you, you might not be able to create one hundred pieces of armor, right?¡±


    Saleen had spoken grandiosely, but unless he controlled the weapons deals of Bitter Water Prefecture, he would not be able to obtain such a big share from the Clyde family, even if they were going to be dealt in the ck market. However, he was very good at reading people and knew that if he did not say it like this, the man with the moustache would not believe him.


    Even though Fellett went back and forth between the Qin Empire and Shengfeng country, he did not have a web of information in the Qin Empire and all of his news was purchased from the professional union. He had a certain understanding of the situation on the maind, but was not as familiar as Saleen with inside information.


    Lon Duchy was at war and the wealthy at the frontline were especially cautious. The Holy See had paid a heavy price in their bid to kill Emperor Chanake, and this had led to a temporary, special bnce.


    Looking at things in the long term, the Qin Empire had lost an emperor who had been able to unify them. The pope of the Holy See had not died, and of course, the Qin Empire was at a disadvantage. However, looking at the wealthy who were gathering their forces to attack, they would definitely be able to drive the Holy See out of Lon Duchy.


    Many of the wealthy from Lon Duchy had died and the troops from the Qin Empire had not only dered war with the Holy See, but had snatched away many of the castles from Lon¡¯s wealthy. If Chanake had still been alive, no one would have dared to have done that. Now that Safilos was backing the young emperor, Holy Rock City had no dissenting voice, yet it did not mean he could control the entire country.


    The differences between Safilos and Chanake were visible here. When Chanake had still been alive, the Qin Empire had been a metal te. Once Chanake had died, Safilos had immediately lost. Unless he became the emperor himself, the wealthy would not trust his words.


    However, if he were to snatch away the position of the emperor from his nephew, the wealthy in Holy Rock City would be unappeasable.


    Fellett only knew of the news at the frontline and had no idea of the despicable things going on behind the scenes. He had assumed that the Qin Empire was corrupt and that the wealthy on the frontline were not willing to fight with their lives. It was not surprising that an army without anybat power would sell their army¡¯s weapons for a profit. Saleen had said that his armor was from the frontline, and hence he did not bother questioning it too much. This was high-grade armor, and it was said that only the royal swordsmen would use such equipment in the future.


    There were still many remaining royal swordsmen that had not returned from Titan Duchy, and Fellett naturally thought about that. Saleen¡¯s armor might have been taken from the Titan Duchy. It was hard to sell such armor, and it was normal for a mage to use it in trades.


    ¡°Where¡¯s the armor?¡± Fellett was interested. Shengfeng country was facing war from all sides as well, and one hundred pieces of heavy magic armor would be immensely significant. If he was able to purchase them and bring them back, he would certainly gain recognition. The areas ofnd in many of the inds were small, and in using one hundred pieces of heavy magic armor to form an army, one could definitely take down a country.


    ¡°In Alchemy City,¡± Saleen said, smiling.


    Even though Fellett was suspicious, he mostly believed Saleen¡¯s story. Much of the armor from the frontline meant for resale tended to have several special symbols, and no matter if one was nning to get rid of these magic symbols or to sell them as they were, the best ce to go would be Alchemy City.


    ¡°How did you all end up in the sea?¡± Fellett asked hisst question.


    Saleen was not flustered at all and naturally pointed to Lex, directing him to ask her. He had an innocent look on his face, but his heart was pounding. He had no idea what Lex had told Fellett, and in the event that he said something different, they would be exposed.


    Lex could read his mind and said, ¡°We had set off from Lianyun City, wanting to reach Alchemy City by sea. The goods went bynd. Even if something happened, it would not have anything to do with us. However, the boat we hired met with a storm and sank, leaving just us. There were some goods on the boats at first. Look at these boxes. They were used to store armor.¡±


    At this point, Fellett basically no longer had any suspicions. When he had saved Lex and the others, the unconscious white-robed mage had been lying on a pile of boxes. Those boxes were used to to store armor, specifically high-grade armor. Those boxes werepletely sealed. They had been immersed in the water for quite a while, but not a single one had water in them.


    ¡°If that is the case, I will make a trip to Alchemy City. But how do I know this deal is safe?¡±


    Now that Saleen had set down suchrge bait, Fellett was worried that he would go back on his word.


    ¡°There are mages on this boat. We can sign a magic contract,¡± Saleen replied, Lex had a batch of top grade armor with her that had been soaked in dragon¡¯s blood. With a little processing, it could be used to make a deal. These pieces of armor definitely cost more than the value of the pan¡¯s turtle, but just by their descriptions alone, they were definitely top grade magic armor.


    The two young grand swordmasters by Fellett side broke into smiles and their attitude towards Saleen changed immediately. A magic contract was something that a mage would not dare to go against lightly. Even though a magic contract was not immediate like divinity, if a mage tried to go against it, they would be destroyed by the contract in the future.


    Saleen was not afraid of being bitten by the magic contract. He would only write about the contents of their deal in the contract, and anything that had been said prior was not needed. Exchanging magic armor for the pan¡¯s turtle would be alright so long as he did not lie about that.


    Fellett immediately called another mage and Saleen wrote the magic contract on the spot. Looking at the white-robed mage who Fellett had found, Saleen felt even more secure.


    It seemed that there were not many mages in Shengfeng. There were three grand swordmasters on this boat, and it was enough to show the importance this boat had in Shengfeng. However, on a boat like this, the mage overseeing his contract was only grade-3.


    After writing the contract under the guidance of the white-robed mage, Fellett wrote his name on the contract as well, and he and Saleen each ced a drop of their blood onto the same magic array. This had nothing to do with the magic, but instead had been passed down since ancient times.


    ¡°Fellett, you must have a certain position in Shengfeng.¡± Once Saleen had signed the contract, the atmosphere within the cabin had lightened considerably. The two parties had dropped the messy honorifics and had started calling each other by name.


    ¡°Sigh. To be honest, I am already a duke in Shengfeng. However, my ind has been conquered by a neighboring country and I have no choice but to return to Shengfeng ind to find another way out.¡±


    ¡°Duke! Then I should be addressing you as Your Excellency!¡±


    Fellett was slightly embarrassed. There were many people in Shengfeng country, and yet the entire country was still not as big as a prefecture of the Qin Empire. The number of inds he controlledposed a territory smaller than that of a baron within the Qin Empire.


    However, he did not think Saleen would know and hence gave augh and changed the subject. ¡°Saleen, your maidservant is very pretty. Trade her to me for ten high-grade magic nuclei. How does that sound?¡±


    Nailisi was enraged. She lowered her head and concealed the golden light within her eyes. Saleen knew things were not going well. With Nailisi¡¯s temper, she was going to hate Fellett, and if the two were alone, it was very possible that Nailisi would attack and kill a duke from Shengfeng.


    If they had been onnd, Saleen would not have been afraid, but they were on a boat and the other party had two actual grand swordmasters. He would not be able to disy his true powers as a mage. If they attacked, Lex could not destroy the boat, could she?


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid not. In Alchemy City, I refused even when someone offered dragon ss. Nailisi is more important to me than Holy Rock City.¡± Saleen looked away from Fellett and instead stared lovingly at Nailisi.


    Fellett said nonchntly, ¡°Saleen, if you follow me to Shengfeng, I can give you ten of such women. I just want something fresh. How can this woman be worth a dragon ss?¡±


    He had taken his words lightly and Saleen saw that the two young grand swordmasters bore the same look as Fellett. He knew that this was the way Shengfeng handled such things. Women were not respected there.


    In the Qin or Cloudflow Empire, women had inheritance rights and were not allowed to be peddled.


    ¡°Fellett, that is not right of you.¡± Lex said in a disapproving voice, furrowing her brows.


    Fellett burst intoughter and said, ¡°You are a grand mage. In Shengfeng, you could even have been a mermaid and nobody would have been disrespectful to you. I was not referring to you.¡±


    ¡°I am tired. I need a rest. You all can continue drinking.¡± With that, Lex stood up and dragged Nailisi away.


    Only then did Sika raise her head and give a look of shock towards Saleen before asking, ¡°They haven¡¯t eaten anything, right?¡±


    The tes in front of Sika were in a mess. There were piles of empty bowls that had once been filled with smoked meat. Her hands and face were smothered with ayer of oil, she had a leg on the table, and with a ir like this, even if she had been born pretty, it was all for naught.


    ¡°You should almost be done too. Go back. I still have things to discuss with Master Fellett.¡± Saleen was afraid Sika would say something wrong and quickly dismissed her. He suddenly had another idea. Bitter Water Prefecture was blocked off from all four sides, and even if it were to be developed, traffic would be inconvenient and the dealings with the Clyde family would be restricted. If they could link up with Shengfeng, it might not be such a bad thing. The main problem was that Bitter Water Prefecture did not have a port.


    Obtaining a port was not impossible. The Qin Empire had two important ports, and one was at Alchemy City while the other was at Lianyun City. That was, unless he built a third port even further north.

 Chapter 220: Devil’s Retaliation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 220: Devil¡¯s Retaliation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Shengfeng ship travelled south for two days before suddenly steering eastwards.


    Saleen only realized that the two grand swordmasters were Fellett¡¯s household servants after acquainting himself with him. The term ¡°household servants¡± had not beenmonly adopted. The only other country that used this term was Sea Ind. In the Myers Maind, before the status of knights had deteriorated, they had been able to afford the luxury of hiring such ¡°household servants¡±.


    Needless to say, the two grand swordmasters also belonged to the Fellett n. Just like the knights who had once served noblemen, they could never pledge their loyalty to anyone other than the Felletts. Any form of betrayal would not be tolerated. In the Qin country, there were also grand swordmasters that were hired to serve noblemen. However, their bosses were not as strict as those in Sea Ind.


    As the ship continued moving east, Saleen noticed, to his rm, that they were actually heading further and further away from the maind. Panicked, Saleen rushed towards Fellett to demand an exnation.


    ¡°Fellett, why did the ship change course? Aren¡¯t we heading for Alchemy City?¡± Saleen asked, his tone slightly harsher than he had expected. This ship might not have been moving as fast as Alchemy City¡¯s bounty-hunter ships, but everything had been smooth-sailing for the past few days. Plus, the ship had been travelling at full speed. It should have covered at least a thousand miles by now. Yet, the maind was nowhere in sight.


    ¡°The ship we¡¯re on is a modified warship. Sailing it to Alchemy City¡¯s ports would be the dumbest thing we could do. The mages there might think we¡¯re enemies trying to infiltrate their city andunch an attack on us. Boom! Before you know it, the ship would be riddled with holes, and we¡¯d drown. Do you want to die by drowning? Don¡¯t think so. We¡¯re going in another direction so that we can change ships. Plus, if you¡¯ve noticed, there¡¯s a storm brewing up ahead. We need to avoid that storm. If not, we¡¯d capsize and again ¨C die by drowning,¡± Fellett repliedzily.


    ¡°A storm!¡± Saleen eximed. He knew how powerful storms could be. In Ceylon City, the aftermath of a storm was devastating. Not only were the fishermen at risk of losing their lives, but they would lose their catch as well and suffer huge mary losses as a result. No one could resist the forces of nature, not even mages.


    Saleen was bing more apprehensive by the minute. The magicpass on Fellett¡¯s ship was broken, and for a ship to be able to navigate properly, it needed to get proper directions and coordinates from apass. Saleen was not sure if the ship could survive the storm. Without a magicpass, the ship could have been going in circles, and no one would ever know.


    ¡°Not to worry, I¡¯m very familiar with this route. All we need to do is go south and pretend to be a merchant ship from Cloudflow in order to safely reach Alchemy Port,¡± Fellett assured Saleen.


    The bounty-hunting vessels in Alchemy City have already been attacked. If they were attacked by people from the Cloudflow Empire, won¡¯t we be courting death if we follow Fellett¡¯s n? Saleen thought. The problem now was that he had woven a set of lies to convince Fellett that he had been travelling from Alchemy City. If Fellett knew the truth, he would most definitely throw Saleen into the sea without hesitation.


    Saleen walked back to his cabin sullenly. At the same time, Daniel¡¯s eyes fluttered open, bringing an end to his two-daya. He was not too damaged emotionally or mentally, just hungry. Saleen knew that necromancers had their own secretive means of protecting their souls, but did not ask about them because he knew that Daniel would be put in a difficult position.


    ¡°Master, Viscountess Lex is looking for you,¡± Nailisi said as she stood by the door. Sighing, he climbed down from his bed and headed to Lex¡¯s room, dropping his ns of honing his magicpletely.


    Upon seeing Saleen enter the room, Lex immediately released a Mute Enchantment spell.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ve decided to strike. What do you think?¡± Lex said coldly as she gazed into the distance. Her arms were crossed behind her and her back was unusually straight.


    ¡°Strike? As in seize the ship? That¡¯s not possible! It¡¯s not realistic! Are you thinking straight?¡± Saleen nearly screamed. He had done a check on the entire vessel over the past two days and had discovered that there were over two hundred people onboard the ship, each of them equipped with a set of fighting skills at minimum. What made Saleen feel even more uneasy about Lex¡¯s n was that he could not use his senses to study some of their ranks. He could only rely on his gut instinct, and his gut instinct told him that these people were dangerous.


    ¡°Are you worried about the magic contract or have you already be chummy with Fellett?¡± Lex retorted as she whipped around so fast that Saleen was afraid she would get whish. Her eyes were burning with an unknown desire that Saleen had never seen before. For a moment, Saleen was stunned, as he studied Lex¡¯s facial features.


    ¡°Magic contracts only deal with business-rted stuff. I¡¯m not too bothered. Are you more concerned about the fact that I¡¯m bing overly friendly with Fellett?¡± Saleen quipped.


    ¡°Yes. This vessel has over ten sets of alchemy crossbows. This is forbidden equipment. Do you have an idea of where they got it?¡± Lex questioned.


    ¡°The north?¡± Saleen said, his replying out as more of a question than a concrete answer.


    ¡°So Lianyun¡¯s City¡¯s ports deal weapons now?¡± Lex said, raising her eyebrows.


    ¡°What? No. You said¡­¡± Saleen protested, but was cut off by Lex, ¡°These people are pirates! They are the same pirates that often prowl the northern seas of the empire!¡± Lex eximed. There was not a hint of anger in her voice. Saleen only detected excitement, an emotion he could not really share with her right now. Saleen was smart. He knew what Lex was going to say next.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to deny the fact that they¡¯re from the country of Shengfeng, but this doesn¡¯t affect how they conduct their crimes. The southern part of the empire contains Alchemy City. They would not dare strike there. This is different for Lianyun City. They have only one mediocre fleet in their navy. There aren¡¯t many dealings between Lianyun City and Sikeqinya not just because of the six month long deep freeze during the winter months along the northern shipping route, but also because these pirates are too difficult to eliminate. Not many merchants can afford to risk losing their cargo travelling back and forth between the two cities,¡± Lex rambled.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course! They¡¯re from the country of Shengfeng. If they can conquer stormy weather and choppy seas, why don¡¯t they just open up their own shipping route? This just proves my point that they¡¯re shady people!¡± Lex nearly screamed at the end of her speech as she tried to make Saleen understand her point of view.


    Although what Lex had said was a bit harsh, she was notpletely wrong. With a magic ship, even if the country of Shengfeng was approximately tens of thousands of miles away from the Myers Maind, they would be able to reach it in roughly two to three months. These magic ships were able to travel at least one thousand miles a day. The only thing stopping people from travelling to the Myers Maind from Sea Ind were the sea monsters, as well as the stormy seas that travellers would surely experience if they chose to travel from Sea Ind.


    Any storms located more than ten thousand miles from the Myers Maind were neither predictable nor stoppable. The intensity of the storms could be ten times stronger as they moved further away fromnd. Even Cloudflow battleships were unable to weather the storms. Frederick must have discovered a safe shipping route to have been able to go from the country of Qin to the country of Shengfeng so easily.


    If such a shipping route did exist, the merchants exploiting it would have an absolute field day counting the money rolling in from all the ships waiting to cross to Qin from Shengfeng and vice versa.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know why the people of Shengfeng didn¡¯t open up this route. All I know is that I¡¯m going to beat them to it,¡± Lex said in an unusually calm tone. However, Saleen knew that this was just the calm before the storm.


    ¡°They have two ck metal grand swordmasters,¡± Saleen said, hoping Lex would get the hint that this mission was not very realistic. He could understand why Lex was so desperate to get ahold of the shipping route. Finding it would mean that he would not need to listen to Fellett¡¯s crap again, and his original n would be easier to carry out. This would be even more beneficial given that following Fellett back to Alchemy City might not have been a good thing. Who knew how things were over at Alchemy City?


    ¡°Do you still have the venom?¡± Lex asked.


    ¡°Nope,¡± Saleen answered. The ingredients needed to make the venom were not expensive. However, there were so many of them that refining them was a chore.


    ¡°I think they have a secret hideout at the southern part of their empire. I¡¯m going to seize that from them first. Those two ck metal grand swordmasters are a pain in the neck. Can Nailisi and Sika deal with either one of them?¡± Lex said. She was passionate about this mission, but also cautious. Those two blokes could easily threaten her life if she was not careful. Dealing with just one of them? Sure, why not. But dealing with two of them? She would die in a heartbeat.


    ¡°But they have over two hundred people¡­¡± Saleen said, continuing to rain on Lex¡¯s parade.


    ¡°I just need Sika and Lex to hold off one of the ck metal grand swordmasters while you deal with Fellett. That way, I can kill off the remaining ck metal grand swordmaster while Daniel deals with the rest of the crew,¡± Lex said simply, dismissing Saleen¡¯s concern as if it was nothing but a petty annoyance.


    ¡°Daniel isn¡¯t that powerful!¡± Saleen yelled. He was at his wits end trying to convince the viscountess standing in front of him that attacking now would be a bad idea.


    ¡°I just need you all to contain them for a minute. Just one minute is all I need to kill those two bozos. Once we capture Fellett, the rest of the crew will not dare resist anymore,¡± Lex said.


    ¡°But why do we have to strike?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°My father was killed by the sacred Holy See. I want revenge and I want it badly, but I can¡¯t count on my brother for anything. To ensure that Bitter Water Prefecture continues to prosper, at least fifty years will be needed for it to do so organically. However, the Holy See will regain its strength after three years at most. Saleen, I would ask my uncle for help. You and I both know that he possesses great power. But if we¡¯re talking about the ability to lead a country, he¡¯s not even one percent as good as my dad. I can only carry out revenge by myself. The riches that I obtained from the temple are not enough to help me build an army that can tten the Holy See. That¡¯s why I need to conquer country of Shengfeng, and call that country my own,¡± Lex exined.


    ¡°It¡¯s not as simple as you think¡­¡± Saleen replied, but was cut off by Lex again. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t you think that it¡¯s fishy how there are only two junior mages on this one battleship?¡±


    ¡°Well, yes¡­ but it could be that mages are rare in the country of Shengfeng. You can¡¯t just¡­¡± Saleen said, trailing off at thest part of his sentence.


    ¡°So let¡¯s capture Fellett and behead the Emperor of Shengfeng!¡± Lex eximed excitedly, seemingly unaware of Saleen¡¯s growing panic and frustration.


    ¡°Fellett is not that easy to manipte, let alone capture!¡± Saleen said. He knew very well that Fellett was an ambitious fellow. Even if Lex was able to kill the Emperor of Shengfeng, Fellett would not be easy to control once they were docked there. Saleen did not like where Lex was going with her n. He actually thought she was getting crazier by the minute.


    ¡°This is a long-term n, silly! Now all you have to do is to capture Fellett and let me handle the rest,¡± Lex said, her sentenceing out more as a demand rather than a request.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you¡­ just wait for a few more years?¡± Saleen asked, hinting at the hell of god¡¯s punishment. If Lex had the patience to search again for its interdimensional coordinates, she would be able to bring her soon-to-be sorcerers there so that they could instantly be promoted to grade-9 mages in the six element space.


    Once Lex had many grade-9 sorcerers under hermand, she could easily proceed with her n for revenge, but only if she had the patience to wait. Once the day came, she could easily destroy Glorious City with the help of the sorcerers and the forbidden scrolls.


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s very costly to groom a mage. I can only wait five years max. No wait, three. After three years, I can¡¯t afford to provide for any more mages, unless I can exploit the unrevealed shipping route. Do you think that I¡¯m able to just set up any business over on the Myers Maind and expect it to be sessful?¡± Lex said.


    Saleen was rendered speechless. Lex did have an excessive number of mages to provide for. Just providing them with magic nuclei alone was a huge strain on her finances. She might have be wealthier through the riches brought about by the goddess, but those resources were not unlimited. Unless Lex managed to find new ways to bring wealth to Bitter Water Prefecture, the city would eventually decline and be unattractive to both local and foreign mages.


    Seeing that Saleen had gone silent, Lex fought to keep her smirk in as she tried convincing him again, ¡°Nailisi told me that you¡¯ve refined the dragonshard. I don¡¯t want the core, I just want the parts that you have dissected so that I can fit them into my puppets. Tell me, are you confident that you did not mess up the refinement?¡±


    As soon as those words left Lex¡¯s mouth, realization hit Saleen like a twenty-pound sledgehammer. Nailisi must have instigated Lex behind his back. Dragonshards were very hard to refine. As a grade-4 mage, it was almost impossible to do so. Nailisi, however, had the ability to cut a huge dragonshard into twenty-four smaller pieces that were big enough to fit into the fully constructed puppets.


    Lex did not know that it was Nailisi who could refine a dragonshard, and not Saleen. So Nailisi lied to her, Saleen thought grimly.


    I can¡¯t believe Nailisi still bears a grudge against Fellett after he offered to buy her from me. I thought that she¡¯d calm down over the next few days and give up her ns for revenge, Saleen thought. What he had not expected was that she would be so callous as to convince Lex to eliminate Fellettpletely.


    Saleen felt as though someone had sshed cold water all over him. If Nailisi had not been bound to him, he would have thought that Nailisi was a terribly wicked person. How can she manipte Lex¡¯s greed in order to get what she wants? How can she decide Fellett¡¯s fate just like that? Does she really want to sacrifice innocent lives over a slip of a tongue? These thoughts ran through Saleen¡¯s mind, pushing him deeper into confusion.


    Saleen knew that Nailisi would not be satisfied even after she captured Fellett. She would utilize any means necessary to kill anyone associated with him. Saleen also knew that imps like Nailisi had many creative ways of discreetly dealing with Fellett behind his back, although he did think that Nailisi did not have to be so cruel.


    If Lex really did capture Fellett and attack country of Shengfeng, not only would Fellett meet a miserable fate, but he would also end up implicating every single person in his n. If Nailisi had the desire to do so, she could even instigate Lex to kill his family, friends, and even people who had the slightest affiliation with him.


    Traitors never did live to tell the tale anyway ¨C and Fellett would be no exception.

 Chapter 221: Devil’s Retaliation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 221: Devil¡¯s Retaliation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What¡­ what did Nailisi tell you?¡± Saleen asked.


    Confused, Lex replied, ¡°Isn¡¯t she bonded to you via soul bond? What else could she say? She said that you were interested in managing the northern side of Shengfeng and would like to open up a third port there. Now that I think about it, it¡¯s not a bad idea. I can take a load off of my shoulders by entrusting you with the country of Shengfeng¡¯s business affairs.¡±


    Saleen was livid. The veins in his neck looked ready to burst at any moment now. He was a mage, for crying out loud. He was not a nobleman and he definitely was not ready to be entrusted with such a huge responsibility. He wondered how Lex could be swayed so easily. He thought that Nailisi would turn into an obedient little imp under the restrictions of the soul bond. Looks like she loves control. We¡¯ll need to fix that, Saleen thought grimly.


    Saleen knew that Lex¡¯s n, if sessful, would bring him tremendous benefits as well. The Grand Duke of Phoenix was ipetent, cowardly, and all other traits unbefitting of his rank. As of now, he was still residing in Holy Rock City, afraid to go back. If he were able to develop the northern area of Phoenix, he would never have to worry about safety or money again. However, Saleen was content with what he had now. Power and riches meant nothing to him.


    Was Nailisi merely trying to help him n his future? Or did she have something more sinister in mind? These were questions that Saleen wanted to find answers to.


    ¡°Saleen, do you not wish to help me?¡± Lex asked, disappointed. She had noticed Saleen¡¯s awkward expression. In the past, when Saleen and Lex hadmunicated with each other, the former¡¯s expressions had been fluid and natural. She had never seen Saleen too stunned for words before. Now that Saleen was unusually quiet and gritting his teeth, she wondered what he had to say.


    Saleen was definitely not scared. If he had been scared, he would not have charged towards the giant dragon. He was a mage, not a swordsman, but had still been brave enough to take on the dragon.


    ¡°No, not at all. You take out the fully constructed puppets for now while I go retrieve the refined dragonshards,¡± Saleen said, trying to keep his tone as gentle as possible as he suppressed the urge to find Nailisi and beat her into a pulp. He knew that once Lex set her heart on something, there was no changing her mind. Plus, they would eventually have to deal with the country of Shengfeng anyway. Since I have to do it eventually, why not get it done and over with? Maybe I¡¯ll be able to get something out of it, Saleen thought.


    Lex must have realized that Saleen could not find any good reason to reject her. That would exin why she had proposed the idea to him so confidently. Providing for an imp was not easy. He had needed to deal with the likes of three grand swordmasters because of her, but what about next time?


    Lex was beyond overjoyed as she quickly but carefully brought out a fully constructed puppet. The cabin was small and did not have much standing space, so it had to lie t on the floor. It turned its head over and looked at Lex curiously. A person might have thought that possessing human traits would have made a puppet weaker. But no, itsbat skills were not affected, much to Lex¡¯s relief. The only bad thing about these puppetsing to life was that they had also acquired bad habits which humans loved to practice. Sometimes, seeing a puppete to life like this was scary to say the least.


    A metallic life form¡­ interesting¡­ Lex thought as she gently caressed its metallic head, causing the fully constructed puppet to rx almost immediately. Lex carefully ced her hands on the ears of the puppet before transferring power from the magic array into it.


    With a clicking sound, Lex had twisted the puppet¡¯s head open to reveal the battery-like device located inside its neck. It was a ce to put the magic nuclei. The magic nuclei had been depleted quite a bit, and the energy left inside the puppet was close to none. Lex immediately removed the magic nuclei. At the same time, Saleen had retrieved the dragonshard from the Ring of Gifts and was ready to pass it to Lex.


    With the dragonshard, the fully constructed puppet¡¯s endurance would be greatly extended. Another benefit was that it could also regenerate naturally, making it seem more lifelike than ever. Even if the energy within the dragonshard was expended, as long as the fully constructed puppet took a nice nap, it would be good to go.


    Lex had originally possessed ten fully constructed puppets. Unfortunately, one of them had been smashed by a dragon; two of them had to be sold; another two were lost at sea. Now, Lex was left with only five puppets, of which four of them had been given the gift of life, allowing them to possess human characteristics. Lex carefully installed the dragonshards into the four puppets and reced six grade-8 magic nuclei for the remaining one.


    ¡°What do you intend to do now?¡± Saleen said calmly, rxing as his eyes followed Lex¡¯s gentle movements. Lex was part of the reason why he had gotten to where he was now. Without Lex, he would not have been able to practice his magic and gain relevant experience properly. Without Lex, he would never have been able to leave the hell of god¡¯s punishment in one piece and have so many magic books to peruse. Without Lex, he would not have met Joey, and could have died long before now.


    Was this risk too big to take? Did the risks he had taken before evenpare to this one? He could not think of many mages that had the opportunities that he did. Bing a mercenary in order to earn extra money was a risky job. However, without money, no mage could buy magic nuclei, nor could a penniless mage afford to hunt in the forests, hills, or swamps.


    s, a lot of mages made the mistake of making earning money their top priority. What they failed to realize was that even if they managed to buy high-quality magic nuclei, without proper training, they would progress at a rate simr to other penniless mages.


    Then again, without putting in the efforts to pull in some cash, how would they get their equipment? The mages under Lex¡¯smand over at Bitter Water Prefecture had to work in order to receive the benefits that they enjoyed. It was not a transaction per se, but rather an obligation. Saleen, however, did not want to owe Lex anything. He was going to achieve his goals on his own.


    Lex had said before that he was her only friend. That Saleen did not doubt. The problem was that even between friends, not everything was done unconditionally. Lex was not his parent, neither was he her debtor. Lex did not owe him anything, yet she had willingly helped him achieve what he had today.


    ¡°Nailisi will help us restrain the two mages. Once this ship casts its anchor, we¡¯ll strike. All the sailors will either be on deck or in the engine room.


    ¡°There are over thirty swordsmen. I¡¯m not sure about our odds,¡± Saleen exined.


    ¡°They¡¯re only ves. Without receiving any orders, they can¡¯t do anything,¡± Lex replied.


    ¡°ves?¡± Saleen said in disbelief. Those thirty-plus people gave him dangerous vibes. Surely they could not be ves?


    ¡°Their strength is powered by some special medicine. You can even find it in Alchemy City. Those people won¡¯t live very long¡­¡± Lex said haughtily. In the Qin country, very was prohibited, and so was ve trading. The Grukos family also had strong opinions against very. They felt that if people did not have the will to live, then they would not work hard. If the whole country wasprised of mostly ves, it would copse sooner orter. It was already unreasonable to expect the majority to be ruled over by a small group of people. Who gave these leaders the right to bring despair to their people¡¯s lives and expect them to remain loyal to them?


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s perplexed face, Lex continued, ¡°These ves are the ones to charge onto an enemy ship. They are also expected to sacrifice their lives when the need arises during monster hunting trips. They¡¯re as good as dead now. Don¡¯t worry about that.¡±


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t they fight back?¡± Saleen asked. He knew that even when he had been poor, he had fought everything and anything that had threatened his life. Even when he had been a beggar, he had not been passively waiting for death. These over thirty swordsmen were gifted inbat. Saleen had never expected them to be ves, and willing ones at that. This was something that he would never be able to understand.


    ¡°If you were told since you were young that you¡¯d never taste freedom, and that you were somebody¡¯s property, you¡¯d be like that too,¡± Lex said as she attempted to exin it from a mage¡¯s point of view instead of that of a governor.


    Saleen realized that these swordsmen were just like the magic wolves that the Caucasus people bred. If a magic wolf cub was snatched away from its parents when it was young, it would view its parents¡¯ killers as the alpha wolves and forever be subservient to them. These swordsmen were no different.


    Although it was wrong, the practice of very was not only rampant in the Land of Wind, but also in other regions like Sikeqinya and Tanggsi.


    ¡°Does Daniel know anything about this?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Not yet. Just tell him what to do when the timees. Tell him that no isn¡¯t an option,¡± Lex said coldly. Lex treated Daniel differently from how she treated Saleen. That was understandable. Both of them had been through life-and-death situations together. Plus, Saleen had connections with the mentor that Lex really needed to speak to at the moment. Daniel, on the other hand, had nothing to offer. He was but a poor bloke.


    Lex did not treat her mages horribly, but she did practice favoritism. Saleen figured that if he were in her shoes, he would not have told Daniel about the n beforehand either. He did not want Daniel to be too afraid and unwittingly reveal their n.


    Saleen continued discussing the nitty-gritty details of their n before exiting Lex¡¯s room with ten level-5 scrolls.


    Before Saleen could return to his cabin, he saw Nailisi loitering around suspiciously. Without hesitation, Saleen grabbed her by the neck and pulled her into the room next door. Coincidentally, the room belonged to Sika. Sika had been waving her new cudgel in the small cabin the entire time Saleen had been in Lex¡¯s room, trying to get used to the sound of her new weapon as well as kill time. Upon hearing them enter, Sika continued studying her weapon, not even sparing them a nce.


    Nailisi eximed softly, ¡°What are you doing, Master? Sika is in here too!¡±


    Saleen held onto Nailisi tightly with one arm. He was not able to cast a Mute Enchantment spell, but he had other ways of preventing Sika or anyone else from hearing them. Using his free hand, he conjured a water shield that took the form of a giant water bubble. With a ¡°bloop¡± sound, the bubble encased both Saleen and Nailisi. The magical patterns on the surface of the water shield moved prettily. Saleen¡¯s magic was getting stronger and stronger. It was already slightlyparable to the standards of Raphael.


    Not only could the people inside the water bubble be protected from external attacks, but they could also prevent people outside the bubble from hearing them. This spell was Saleen¡¯s version of the mute enchantment. He had been using this ever since he had discovered that the cabins had secret metallic pipes installed to facilitate eavesdropping.


    ¡°Nailisi, why did you do that?¡± Saleen asked sternly. Even though he had epted Lex¡¯s n, Saleen did not want to be the one clearing up Nailisi¡¯s messes every time. If Nailisi did not have a valid reason for what she had done, Saleen would have no choice but to punish the imp.


    Instead of answering, Nailisi¡¯s hands snaked around Saleen¡¯s waist as she said sweetly, ¡°Master, I did this for you! That Fellett had stomped on your pride, and I was not going to let that slide!¡±


    ¡°Tell that to someone who buys it. Lex had already said that you were nothing but a servant. What¡¯s so insulting about Fellett wanting to buy a servant?¡± Saleen roared as he pped away Nailisi¡¯s wandering hands, which had found their way to his rear.


    ¡°Master, if Fellett was gay and had a habit of collecting males as pets, what would you do if he were to touch your butt?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°I¡¯d drown him in a pool of his feces,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°But what if he did not do it on purpose?¡± Nailisi pressed on.


    ¡°That¡¯s still uneptable!¡± Saleen eximed, shivering in disgust as he thought about Nailisi¡¯s analogy.


    ¡°Master, you should know why Fellett wanted to buy me off of you. We are connected via the soul bond. If I were to feel sad, or, should I say, excited, you¡¯d be able to feel it too,¡± Nailisi said, giggling as she trailed off at the end. Her hands started making her way to Saleen¡¯s rear again.


    This time, Saleen did not push her away. He was too stunned to do so anyway.


    He knew very well that what Nailisi had said waspletely hypothetical. However, Saleen could not help but visualize Fellett¡¯s moustache wriggling in front of him. It was disgusting, to say the least. If Nailisi were to have sex with someone, he would feel it too. What would that be like? Would it be like taking it up the¡­


    ¡°To hell with that pig!¡± Saleen roared.

 Chapter 222: A Storm (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 222: A Storm (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi chortled silently as she stayed in Saleen¡¯s embrace. She lifted up her head and whispered softly in Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°Master, if you wish, I can make sure he dies a slow, agonizing death.¡±


    Saleen knew that everything she was saying now was going to somehow end up as part of her nter on. However, he did not feel like rebuking her anymore.


    ¡°Have you reced the dragonshards for the puppets?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yup!¡± Nailisi replied cheekily. She knew that Saleen was not going to pursue the matter any further. She knew that Saleen was well aware of the fact that Lex was not someone who was easily manipted. The fact that Nailisi had even been able to convince Lex to proceed with her n meant that it was doable and the returns were huge rtive to the risks.


    ¡°Once Lex sessfully seizes control of the ship, don¡¯t listen to anything she says about mercy. We must kill everyone on this ship. None of them are good people. What kind of people would venture up north to y pirate after finishing a business deal?¡± Nailisi egged on.


    If there was one thing that Saleen could agree upon with Nailisi, it would be that very statement. While Lex was thinking of merely incapacitating the sailors, Saleen thought that it would be better topletely strip Fellett of any protection. That way, he would not try anything funny when they descended upon him like a snowstorm.


    The fall of a nobleman was never a short process. Fellett might have lost his territory, but there were still plenty of swordsmen under hismand waiting to cater to his every whim. Saleen wanted to eliminate all of his protectors. Once Fellett was captured, he would let Lex decide his fate.


    ¡°Master¡­ that¡¯s just so cruel,¡± Nailisi said, pouting as she did so. A person could even see confusion in her eyes. People who did not know what was going on would have thought that Saleen was the mastermind behind everything.


    Saleen did not dignify the Nailisi¡¯s words with a response. He knew that Nailisi would carry out her orders to the best of her ability. He was her master, after all. With that, he dispersed the water shield and signalled for Sika toe over. Sika ced her weapon on the floor and stared nkly at Saleen, confused as to what was going on.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be busy tonight. Help me take care of Daniel,¡± Saleen said.


    Daniel did not actually need any assistance since he had woken up and was recovering rapidly. Saleen was just making up excuses to separate Sika and Nailisi. He was afraid that the more time they spent together, the more Nailisi would be able to instigate Sika into doing something potentially dangerous. The chances of that happening were quite high. Sika possessed the intelligence of a block of wood while Nailisi was a cunning, maniptive fox.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Sika said, smiling. After Nailisi had matured, Sika no longer felt indispensable, and that made her feel uneasy. That was why she had been fervently studying the bone ne as well as her newly refined weaponry. She wanted to feel useful again. Now that Saleen had asked her for help instead of Nailisi, Sika was, of course, overjoyed.


    As Saleen opened the door to his cabin, he saw Daniel practicing his magic. Daniel did not try to avoid him this time. He merely continued to focus on the magic spells at hand. Saleen pulled Sika over to a corner and started speaking to her softly.


    Daniel¡¯s entire body was surrounded by the green death mes. It was obvious that the death mes had grown stronger. Not only had the giant octopus¡¯ mental attack not left a single scratch on Daniel¡¯s body, but it had also boosted Daniel¡¯s power. Saleen was truly envious of how Daniel had progressed so quickly.


    Necromancers did not need to refine their magic chords. As long as they were able to fuse themselves partially with their death mes, they would be able to find the approximate coordinates of the death dimension. From there, the death mes would continue to absorb energy from the death dimension and grow stronger and stronger. What all necromancers aimed for was theplete fusion of their bodies with their death mes. In other words, bing one with the mes.


    Once that happened, necromancers would have power equivalent to that of a sorcerer. Their bodies would be able to absorb energy from the death dwhenever they needed to recharge. Not only that, but they would be able to retrieve the exact interdimensional coordinates needed to facilitate the summoning of strong death creatures.


    However, as grand as everything sounded, the death mes had to be fed with energy first, and that required magic nuclei. Even so,pared to the energy expended by elemental mages, it was nothing. Although necromancers had to fork out huge capital to acquire their death mes, they would be able to save more and more moneyter on as they realized that they would need to fork out less cash recing their magic nuclei.


    One of the nine kings had been destroyed, and eight skeletal puppets were hovering amongst the green mes. Daniel was controlling all of them at once and making them executeplicated moves.


    This was more than enough evidence to prove that Daniel was a strong necromancer on the maind. If he had not been strong, he would not have been able to flee from Tanggsi to the Qin country.


    ¡°Sika, what abilities do warrior priests possess?¡± Saleen asked cautiously as he tried to avoid bringing up Lex¡¯s n. He could not be bothered to activate his soundproof water shield again. Plus, he had already talked things over with Lex. They were going to strike when the ship was about to dock.


    As Saleen waited for Sika¡¯s answer, he brought out a bronze magic book and unleashed all of the magic spells inside of it before dispersing them.


    Thest time Saleen had replenished the spells of the bronze magic book after exhausting it had been a disaster. The new spells had not only been unable to strike their targets directly, but were also unfit for battle on warships. Saleen was going to make sure that the bronze magic spellbook had new, better spells inside of it.


    Sika, on the other hand, leaned against the wall with the wooden cudgel beside her. She took out her boomerang before retrieving a ck crystal from her pouch, intending to sharpen the boomerang de with the crystal.


    ¡°Warrior priests are a little bit like wizards, except that they focus more on battle skills. Their healing powers are pretty weak,¡± Sika replied.


    ¡°Wizards? Do you have the ability to attack using magic?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°No, no¡­ it¡¯s not magic. Wizards don¡¯t use magic either. Those skills¡­ are rarely passed down¡­¡± Sika trailed off at thest sentence. Saleen could sense that she was unwilling to exin any further. He was understanding enough not to press her for more answers, knowing that it might be taboo for Caucasus people to speak about these matters.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s not talk about warrior priests. I just want to know¡­ what abilities do you have?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°If I be a warrior priest, I can conjure up magic beast souls and control them. They¡¯re like¡­ spirits in a way. I can¡¯t really describe it. They¡¯re not really spirits per se¡­¡± Sika said.


    ¡°If you really did have that power, how many Daniels could you take on?¡± Saleen asked as he nced at Daniel, trying to make aparison.


    ¡°Even if I did not have this power, I¡¯d still be able to defeat him,¡± Sika replied in displeasure as she curled her lips upwards in disdain. She had progressed rapidly over the past two years. Plus, she had just gotten some powerful new weapons. Necromancers had not scared her then, and they would not scare her now, especially since she was bing stronger and stronger as she began to see her priest powers awaken. With just one nce, she could tell exactly how much power Daniel would and could put into one magic spell.


    In a single nce, the bright green death mes and the eight tiny bone puppets might have seemed like two distinct aspects of magic. However, their connection and links were as clear as day for Sika. She was able to foresee what Daniel was going to do with the death mes before he even did anything. If she had managed to discover the ability earlier, she might not have suffered the humiliation of being wounded by the ck deacon¡¯s evil spirits.


    She would forever remember how the evil spirit had managed to stab her in the back. Determined to never let something like that happen again, she put even more effort into practicing her craft as soon as she had fully recovered.


    ¡°Sika, what I meant was, if you did not have any weapons with you, would you be able to deal with Daniel using your bare fists?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°It would be a bit difficult, but I¡¯m a warrior. Why would I not have a weapon with me?¡± Sika asked, perplexed.


    ¡°Well, you can¡¯t always bring a weapon with you wherever you go, right? Do you bring them with you when you¡¯re showering?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course! I¡¯ll guard my weapons with my life until you tell me not to. Otherwise, I¡¯m going to carry them even when I¡¯m pissing or sh*tting,¡± Sika said. Her words might have been crude, but they exuded the character of a true Caucasus warrior.


    ¡°Sika, as we continue working together with Lex, we¡¯ll encounter even more danger than before. I¡¯m telling you now to never let go of your weapon, even if I tell you to do so. You hear me?¡± Saleen said sternly.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll remember!¡± Sika eximed, her eyes narrowing into slits as she smiled happily. Back in Holy Rock City, Saleen had forbidden her from carrying her weapons everywhere. That had made her feel uneasy. The people outside of her vige were vastly different from the people in her local vige. Without anything to protect herself with, she often felt insecure.


    ¡°Wait, I¡¯m not done yet. I¡¯m telling you now to never ever believe whatever Nailisi tells you in the future,¡± Saleen instructed sternly before realizing that Nailisi was too smart for Sika. Nailisi would be able to find ways to dupe Sika. That, Saleen did not doubt. With a sigh, Saleen added, ¡°Just follow your gut instincts. Don¡¯t be overly influenced by her words. If she wants you to do something, think about how it would affect people at your vige before proceeding with your next course of action.¡±


    ¡°Really?!¡± Sika eximed in disbelief. Her eyes widened as she stared at Saleen. Her slender eyes tilted upwards slightly as she raised her brows. As she did that, Saleen saw something sh in her eyes, and his heart jumped slightly.


    Lex once told me that Sika liked me. Is that true? Saleen thought.


    It would be terrible if it was true. He was a mage, and his goal in life was to be a sorcerer, or even better, a grade-10 mage. Even if he settled for the rank of a grade-9 sorcerer, he would be able to live for a thousand years. How could he choose to spend his life with a Caucasus warrior? Sika had the lifespan of a human. She would die after a hundred years. It was just not worth it.


    ¡°Of course! You should know her background very well,¡± Saleen decided not to speak any further. Who knew whether anyone else was listening in on their conversation? Plus, this was a secret between just him and Sika. Lex did not even know that Nailisi was an imp. On Nailisi¡¯s end, she had also been trying her best not to reveal her identity, and that included hiding her true form from anyone but Sika and Saleen.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s exnation, she sighed in relief and smiled again, her eyes narrowing into slits once more.


    Saleen looked at Sika apprehensively as she continued to sharpen her boomerang, worried that he might have said something wrong. Deciding not to just stand there awkwardly, Saleen silently transferred some of his magic into the bronze magic book. At that moment, the whirring sounds of the deing into contact with the ck crystal had never been more sharp and piercing.


    Night came quickly. Fellett had been busy for the past few days and could not find time to host a dinner to wee Saleen and his friends. Instead, he ordered his sailors to bring dinner up to them. Upon receiving their food, Saleen, Daniel, and Sika started guzzling it down. Saleen had not seen Lex once since he had stepped into Sika¡¯s room. Lex had been too busy preparing the magic scrolls to practice magic with him.


    Before the three of them could even properly start on their meal, the ring sounds of a magical rm rang through the air. Saleen instantly kicked the cabin door open and walked down the corridor towards Nailisi¡¯s room. Nailisi¡¯s cabin was only separated from Lex¡¯s by one thin wall. Saleen knocked on that wall, hoping to get a response from Lex¡¯s side. Lex, who had been practicing her Wind Magic, yelled in response. However,pared to the gusts of wind blowing across her room, her voice seemed weak, soft, and fragile.


    Upon hearing Lex¡¯s voice, Saleen sighed in relief. He had thought that Lex wanted to bring forward their n without telling him.


    ¡°Master Saleen! Master Saleen¡­¡± a sailor yelled as he stumbled towards them, his face bearing a look of panic.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Daniel and Sika said in unison as they prevented the sailor from entering Nailisi¡¯s room.


    ¡°We¡¯ve run into a storm! We¡¯ve deviated from our shipping route and now our magicalpass is down!¡± the sailor wheezed as he tried to catch his breath.


    ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± Saleen asked, maintaining a neutral expression. The ship that they were on was a big one, which meant that as long as they were not smack dab in the middle of the storm, they would still have a chance to escape.


    ¡°It¡¯s not safe here. The captain has asked me to escort you upstairs,¡± the sailor said.


    Saleen¡¯s heart raced again. The ship might actually sink, he thought in dread.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s go up!¡± Saleen said, not trusting the sailor¡¯s words entirely. After all, Fellett was not a good person. If he did not trust someone, he would not even bother trying to find any incriminating evidence. Instead, he would just eliminate them. Saleen did not want to be the one eliminated. Then again, he did not want to potentially drown either.


    Saleen calmly told Nailisi and Lex to have Daniel walk in front of them as they made their way towards the deck. Suddenly, the entire ship started to shake violently. Without hesitation, Saleen cast a mutated Windspeed spell on himself, allowing him to rush towards the deck at full speed without even making contact with the floor. Just when Saleen thought he could take a breather, a huge wave came crashing towards him. Instinctively, he activated his water shield and forced it to quickly expand to cover his entire body with the exception of his feet. Not wanting to be swept away by the giant waves, he then unleashed a Frost Array spell on his feet to keep them firmly rooted to the deck.

 Chapter 223: A Storm (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 223: A Storm (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    With a loud bang, Daniel released a bone puppet. It leapt into the air beforending onto the deck on all six limbs, puncturing holes in the floor with its sharp ws. There was chaos all around. The storm hade so suddenly that even the disguised battleship had no chance to pull out of it. If Saleen and the gang had been on a sailboat, they would not even have had a chance to lower their sails. The sheer force of wind would have overturned the boat, taking them along with it.


    The current situation was not too promising either. Ominous dark clouds peppered the humid sky as the howling sound of wind could be heard throughout the distance. The unexpected torrential winds had caused the magical lights on the ship to swing to and fro violently, causing shes of light to appear every now and then. By now, the waves had reached ten meters in height as the ship attempted to forge on through the water. Dark, foaming waves began to rise up ominously against the front of the battleship. They loomed higher and higher until one eventually crashed right over the side of the huge ship.


    Instantly, Saleen was tossed around and rolled under the waves like a rag doll. As he fell heavily onto the floor of the deck, he saw a sailor, who had been trying to close off the pathway leading to the lower deck, being lifted up by the waves and thrown overboard. Saleen gulped. That sailor had been a skilled swordsman, yet he could not do anything against the storm.


    With a sickening crack, the naval ram, which had been disguised as the ship¡¯s mast, snapped under the force of the strong winds. The rain exhibited no signs of stopping. If anything, it continued cascading in diagonal sheets in its full glory. The raindrops that hit Saleen¡¯s shield bounced instantly right off.


    Saleen remained unusually calm andposed. He stood firmly on the floor of the deck as he turned around and said, ¡°Lex, we can¡¯t save the ship! We need to strike now!¡±


    Before he could do anything else, the sounds of the ship¡¯s keel copsing filled the air. The rock turtle had been lifted by the huge waves, causing the chains that tied it to the ship to be pulled along harshly. This tug alone nearly tore the entire ship apart.


    Lex was stunned for a moment before she realized that Fellett was indeed an unreliable person. The ship was sinking and he was nowhere to be seen.


    A ray of magic light shone in the distance before it vanished as quickly as it hade. Saleen¡¯s heart fluttered with excitement. He knew that all elements behaved abnormally in the face of the storm, but what truly surprised him was the fact that the light had something to do with fire elements. What excited him though was that the water elements in the area had strengthened a great deal during this storm. Deciding to test his Water Magic, he waved his hands. Instantly, hundreds of icicles appeared in the air out of nowhere.


    Although it looked impressive, Saleen had merely cast a level-2 spell. In the past, Saleen had been able to conjure up thousands of icicles, but they had used up half of his magic chords and he had needed to repeat the spell many times in order to get them to reach that number. Now, he had improved so much that just one wave of his hands was enough to make more than three hundred icicles appear in the air, ready to strike their targets.


    At that moment, he felt as if the power of heaven and earth had been concentrated into the spell. ¡°Sika, seize the rock turtle! Now!¡± Saleen bellowed. Daniel instantly summoned the remaining seven bone puppets to assist him. During battles like this, it was people who depended on brute strength that would be able to weather through both the storm and the fight. Those that relied more onbat techniques would have lost the battle before it even started.


    The eight bone puppets instantly surrounded the entire deck, preventing any sailors from gaining ess to it. Nailisi lifted her leg and kicked the sailor that had escorted them upstairs overboard. The remaining sailors had gathered behind them by then. All of them only had a single goal in mind, which was to prevent the rock turtle from ending up in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    The rock turtle was over twenty meters long. Within the course of two days, the sailors had hollowed out all of its flesh. The only thing left was its shell, which had been sealed shut and left at the back of the ship. The empty shell was heavy, but buoyant. It had been hollowed out, after all. The wooden battleship might have been destroyed by the storm, but the turtle¡¯s shell remained intact.


    Boom!


    With a swing of his hand, Saleen threw the icicles in the direction of the deck¡¯s floor. A great explosion pulsed through the battleship as the icicles smashed right through the floor of the deck, leaving a gaping hole at least five meters in diameter.


    Bang! Bang! Bang!


    As the storm raged on, Saleen continued unleashing icicle after icicle, smashing hole after hole through the cabins located on the second floor. He was not going to fight Fellett when he had his crew on board. It would only be a fair fight if it was one on one, and for that to happen, everyone else had to take a swim.


    Saleen would only rest easy once all of the sailors and ves onboard had been tossed into the sea either by the force of the waves or his Icicle spells. He could not think of anyone else aside from Nailisi who would be able to hold their own against these dangerously choppy waves.


    The howling winds and the roar of the waves pierced his eardrums. Saleen had never experienced the wrath of such waves in his life. Yet, he was not filled with the slightest bit of terror. All he did was levitate as he cast a mutated Windspeed spell, which expanded to form an air bubble that wrapped around his body. The air bubble was opaque, so nobody could see what he was doing inside the air bubble.


    Saleen¡¯s magic exemplified the powers of a true grand mage. He was able to manipte his surroundings to his advantage, and in the process, unleash the greatest power possible from the elements. Saleen had allowed the winds to carry him upwards as the water droplets that clung onto his skin, fabric, hair, and other parts of the body flew outwards towards the back of the ship, leaving him dry.


    Only grade-6 mages were able to execute this spell perfectly. However, as a grade-4 mage, Saleen was already able to replicate it. He had seen this spell done by Lex at least a hundred times. Although Lex had not cast the spell specifically so that he could learn it, he hadmitted the workings of the spell to memory anyway. Now, under these special circumstances as he felt the waves move past him, he felt like he was flying.


    To him, the storm was an enabler, not an obstacle. His powers would only strengthen as the storm raged on. As he felt a huge wave speed past him, Saleen retrieved the bronze magic book from the Ring of Gifts.


    Using whatever he had in him, Saleen unleashed all the magic inside the magic spellbook. A mist-like fog started seeping out of the book, burning wildly in the air before taking on the form of fireballs. They burned brilliantly in the air as they hurtled towards the ship¡¯s stern. The sailors did not even have time to react before they were struck by the fireballs and tossed into the ocean, where they were then swept away by the waves. All of them had fastened themselves to each other using a rope secured tightly around their waists, probably to anchor themselves to the ship in case one of them fell overboard. Unfortunately for the sailors that were not struck by Saleen¡¯s magic, this proved to be their downfall as they were dragged overboard by those that had fallen into the sea.


    The sounds of crunching bones and roaring waves filled the air. Saleen looked around and saw an enormous neck emerge from beneath the waves. He could not identify the monster based on its facial features, but it looked to be very fearsome. With a snap of its jaws, the beast swallowed dozens of sailors before disappearing beneath the waves.


    Bang! The rock turtle¡¯s shell collided heavily with the ship, causing the front of the ship to tilt downwards. This could only mean one thing ¨C it was sinking. Saleen looked around, hoping to see some lifeboats or any other floatation devices. s, he saw none. That was when he realized that the only way for him, Lex, and the others to get out of here alive was to get on that empty, buoyant shell.


    Forked lightning, brilliant and white-hot, shed through the ckening sky, asionally illuminating what was left of the floor of the deck. More than thirty ves had blocked Lex and Sika¡¯s path. One ck grand swordmaster was keeping Nailisi busy while the other one, who had been protecting Fellett all the while, suddenly leapt up into the air, leveraging his gravity to strike the metal chain connecting the rock turtle to the ship ten times with his long sword, effectively severing it.


    Ice de magic? Show me what you¡¯ve got! Saleen thought as he gathered moisture from the air, preparing for his next wave of attacks.


    Instead of utilizing the Current Cutter spell. Saleen conjured up six wind des in just twelve frames of time. The offensive power of a ck grand swordmaster rivalled that of a grade-7 mage. However, by the time a mage reached that grade of power, they would have already mastered the art of flying. On the other hand, grand swordmasters could barely fly even if they were grade-8. In other words, only golden grand swordmasters were able topete with a sorcerer on a level ying field.


    The six icicle des continued drawing moisture from the air and sea before silently hurtling towards the young grand swordmaster. The icicle des had only been half a foot long when they were first unleashed. However, as they travelled towards the ck grand swordmaster, they each expanded rapidly to over a meter in length. The magical patterns engraved on the icicles moved gracefully, and even expanded along with the icicles.


    Saleen¡¯s attack had sealed off his opponent¡¯s potential escape routes. The Icicle de spell was a more lethal spell than the Icicle Attack spell. It was possible to break an Icicle Attack spell. However, the icicle des that Saleen had conjured up were so strong that they could cut through metal. Saleen¡¯s spell had also sessfully trapped Fellett, leaving him with no hope of escaping.


    Although Fellett did not show it, he was quaking on the inside. He had originally wanted to find an excuse to force Lex and the others off the ship. He had not expected Lex to strike so quickly. The maidservant was so strong that it terrified him. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Caucasus warrior and the maidservant fighting the ck grand swordmaster, and the man was losing terribly. The eight giant bone puppets had started to attack the sailors, who by now had arranged themselves into battle formation. Before Fellett could even blink, the sailors were dead, their bodies strewn all over the ce.


    If it had not been for the torrential storm, the eight bone puppets would not have been able to kill so many sailors. It was not that the storm boosted their strength. It was that the storm had terrified the humans and weakened them enough to be able to be taken down easily.


    Fellett had no choice but to give up his original n of robbing Lex. Instead, he jumped off of the ship together with his most loyal men, intending to use the turtle shell to weather the storm. However, the metal chain connecting the rock turtle to the ship had been severed, and even with the help of his men, he could not spot it anywhere. It had drifted too far away.


    However, before he could get over his loss, the six giant icicle des appeared out of nowhere. It did not matter that Fellett was equipped with the most advancedbat techniques avable. He could not do anything when his feet were not on the ground. He was not a mage, so he could not release any spells to defend himself.


    The icicle des had appeared at the right time. The ck metal grand swordmaster had exhausted his energy after severing the chains earlier. With the icicle desing in all four directions and Fellett being directly behind him, the ck metal grand swordmaster had nowhere to run. His only option was to face the icicle des head on.


    Facing a magic attack head-on was probably one of the worst things anyone could do, even for a golden grand swordmaster. However, Saleen was not going to give the ck metal grand swordmaster any chance to breathe. The swordmaster could only summon his residual sword aura to defend himself.


    The sound of metal shattering was piercing to the ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s ears. Before he could finish summoning his aura, his long sword had already been broken into many fragments by the icicle des. Left with no weapon to defend himself with, he pulled Fellett towards him and twisted his way out of the magical trap that Saleen had set for him. Since Saleen had been able to figure out his weakness, the ck metal grand swordmaster could also figure out the ws in Saleen¡¯s spell.


    If the icicle des had been small enough, the ck metal grand swordmaster would have been able to use his long sword to break them. On the other hand, if they were too big, they would have been too bulky to seal all the possible escape routes. However, at the moment, Saleen was too powerful for him. Aside from the limitations imposed by his magic chords, in terms of techniques, senses, and the use of magic, Saleen¡¯s powers were at an all-time high.


    Seeing that the ck metal grand swordmaster had escaped his icicle de attack, Saleen retrieved three level-5 scrolls from the Ring of Gifts and unleashed all the magic in them one by one. To be able to release so many spells in one go was a skill that not many mages possessed. It was not that hard of a technique to master ¨C most mages simply did not find the prospect of wasting so many scrolls in one go appealing.


    Using the three level-5 scrolls, Saleen unleashed three Water Strike spells. Once the spell had been cast, a wall of water strong enough to destroy a magic chariot was supposed to emerge from beneath the ground. It worked even more effectively now because he had just released three of them. As expected, three streams of water shot up into the sky, converged, and headed directly towards the ck metal grand swordmaster.


    The ck metal grand swordmaster, who had let his guard down after thinking that he had managed to get a chance to catch his breath, instinctively resummoned his sword aura before bringing Fellett into a protective embrace. With a ¡°whoosh!¡± sound, the giant wall of water came into contact with the ck metal grand swordmaster. Instantly, the water grinded his armor into dust. It was almost as if he had taken a bath in the most corrosive of alchemy potions. The torrential rain washed away the armor, revealing dozens of abrasions and wounds that covered the swordmaster¡¯s torso. Usually, the sheer force of three Water Strike spellsbined would have killed even the most high-ranking mages and warriors. However, this swordmaster¡¯s life force was unusually strong. In fact, Saleen had not even managed to draw blood at all. Actually, the injuries inflicted upon the swordmaster by Saleen were rapidly healing.


    Lex grunted as she sped past the ves, who were more like human sacrifices. After ensuring that the coast was clear, she unleashed a level-7 magic spell from the ship¡¯s rail ¨C Incandescent me.


    Almost immediately, the surrounding temperatures began to grow hotter and hotter. A crimson-red air current emerged from Lex¡¯s body and danced wildly around the ck metal grand swordmaster, effectively surrounding him.


    The rest of the ves leapt towards Lex, each of them sporting a crazed look in their eyes. At the back, Sika and Nailisi were still fighting the remaining ck metal grand swordmaster. Lex decided to pull her gaze away from them and focus on her fight against both the ck metal grand swordmaster and the ves. Now that she had managed to fend off her opponent¡¯s attacks, she was not scared of the ves anymore. They were like annoying pests waiting to be exterminated.


    Before the ves could even close in on Lex, thetter had erected a giant brick wall behind her, effectively protecting herself from the axe-wielding maniacs. By then, Daniel¡¯s bone puppets hade to assist her as well. With a wave of his hand, Daniel summoned his pets, directing them to charge towards the ves and grind them into meatsauce.

 Chapter 224: Courage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 224: Courage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    With a snapping sound, Saleen opened his fourth level-5 scroll. The spell he unleashed was a more manageable one ¨C Icicle Attack. Saleen gathered more moisture in the air to form half a dozen huge ice blocks and sent them hurtling towards Fellett.


    The young ck metal grand swordmaster red at Saleen with his bloodshot eyes as he realized that his end was near. No sooner had the ice blocks made contact with him did his body rapidly swell, blood vessels rupture, and blood spurted everywhere. It was a terrifying sight.


    Using whatever sword aura and energy he had left in him, the ck metal grand swordmaster inhaled hisst dying breath and swung his sword for the final time. As soon as the weapon came down on Saleen¡¯s ice blocks, thetter¡¯s spell was neutralized. That impressive counterattack was what the grand swordmaster had been training for his entire life. Technically, Saleen had disyed poor control over the icicle attack he had unleashed earlier. The swordmaster could easily pinpoint its weakness and disperse Saleen¡¯s spell before thetter even had a chance to do anything about it. s, this was going to be thest thing the swordmaster would ever do.


    Saleen knew this as well. He understood that if he had released the icicle attack without the help of the scrolls, he would have been better able to control its powers andplete the spell. However, since he had cast the spell using these scrolls, he could no longer establish a strong connection with the magic that came out of them.


    With a st, the ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s body exploded upon impact. His internal organs dripped down beneath him as blood and flesh flew everywhere. Saleen flew across the sea andnded gently on the back of the rock turtle¡¯s shell. As he stared into the darkness, Saleen suddenly saw an extremely bright sh of golden light illuminate the entirendscape. It was someone else¡¯s sword aura.


    Fearing for his life, Saleen dived into the sea immediately. Without hesitation, he made his way towards the rock turtle¡¯s abdominal shell and hid there. Back on the surface, the sword aura shone brilliantly, showing no signs of dissipating. Back on the ship¡¯s rail where Lex stood, Fellett red at the female standing in front of him. His eyes were bloodshot as his sword aura glowed even brighter than before. It was blinding, to say the least. Lex simply gave him a dull stare as he hovered in midair, preparing to strike.


    ¡°All of you! Prepare. To. Die,¡± Fellett roared, spitting out each word venomously. The torn and tattered armor glowed a bright gold as magical patterns appeared on it, moving eerily. Those magic patterns, which appeared to be hand-sculpted, emanated yet another sh of bright gold light. It was so bright that Lex could see the ocean for miles.


    The ck metal grand swordmaster who had been battling Sika and Nailisi was momentarily distraught by the loss of hisrade. Taking the opportunity, Sika brought her wooden cudgel down. Hard. Her opponent, taken by surprise, tried to dodge the attack, but he was too slow. He was left with no choice but to use his sword in an attempt to alleviate the impact of Sika¡¯s attacks.


    Snap! That was the sound the sword made as it was smashed into pieces by Nailisi¡¯s serrated cudgel. The dragon horn present on Sika¡¯s cudgel struck the ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s shoulders, cutting his skin so deep that a person could see bone. A ray of white light shot forth from Nailisi¡¯s mouth and made contact with her opponent¡¯s wounds.


    Before his blood could even be shed, the ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s wound, along with half of his body, was frozen into a giant block of ice which effectively left him immobile. Sika took that opportunity to strike once again. Just one hit from her wooden cudgel was enough to smash the frozen half of the swordmaster¡¯s body into a million pieces. Not even god could save the ck metal grand swordmaster now.


    Sika did not stop there though. Turning around, she focused her energy on destroying the battlement instead. With a powerful grunt, she hit the foot of the battlement with everything that she had. With a creaking sound, the only remaining battlement crumbled into pieces. Satisfied, Sika scavenged through the rubble and retrieved the alchemy crossbows.


    This crossbow was easily three meters wide. After grabbing a few spears that were strewn all over the ground, she stabbed them deep into the floor of the deck to create a simple stenting. She lifted the alchemy crossbow with ease and ced it gently on the stenting, before proceeding to draw the crossbow string with her hand. s, no matter how hard she tried, she did not seed. Even a person as strong as Sika would be unable to pull the string of a magically enhanced crossbow.


    Meanwhile, Fellett had flown towards the part of the ship that was currently making its way beneath the waves. As he did so, the golden sh of light trailed behind him. Lex¡¯s face nched slightly as she fought to recall the type of aura that Fellett was emitting. It seemed awfully familiar¡­ That was it! Safilos! He was a golden grand swordmaster. Which would mean that Fellett was¡­


    No! It could not be. Fellett did not exhibit enough skill to be considered one. His powers were derived from his armor. However, the body underneath the armor was unable to absorb all this power at once. Lex could distinctly hear the creaking of Fellett¡¯s bones, as though they were about to shatter any moment.


    Lex had originally nned to capture Fellett. Upon taking a closer look at Fellett, whose face was so distorted that it looked like the strips of metal that had been bent under the wrath of the winch, she decided to abort her n. However, Fellett¡¯s armor would not allow its host to die so easily. It was as if it controlled Fellett¡¯s every move. Right now, Fellett was bringing his sword down towards Lex in an attempt to either kill or maim her.


    As of this moment, Lex¡¯s magic scrolls would be unable to block Fellett¡¯s attack. Even releasing the most powerful spells she had stored in the level-7 scrolls could do little to help her situation right now. When faced with a powerful force equivalent to that of a golden grand swordmaster, any counterspell seemed petty and insignificant.


    The eight bone puppets had scaled over the walls and were leaping towards Fellett. With just one swing of Fellett¡¯s sword, everything within ten meters of him was grinded into dust by his golden sword aura.


    Fellett had essentially lost control over his powers by now. However, he did not need to be in control. Just a few punches and kicks here and there would be sufficient to send Saleen and the others on a permanent trip to the ocean floor. As expected, the eight bone puppets disintegrated immediately. Still distraught by the loss of his ship and devoted followers, Fellett flew towards the tip of the ship and pointed his long sword at Lex. He let out a powerful roar of grief before screaming, ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because I¡¯m a Grukos,¡± Lex said calmly, even though she knew that any spells cast within five meters of a magical creature who possessed the strength of a golden grand swordmaster would be absolutely ineffective. She was not even scared that she was within that striking distance.


    ¡°Hahaha! I see! Good, good! So, you¡¯re Qin royalty. If I had known earlier, I would have struck a long time ago!¡± Fellettughed maniacally. As he said this, he made his way towards the ship¡¯s stern again. By now, more than half of the ship had sunk beneath the waves. He red at Lex, before continuing, ¡°I¡¯m not going to kill you. I¡¯m going to take you back to Shengfeng country as a gift to the emperor. But, before that, I¡¯m going to have some fun. You look young for a mage. Want me to show you what a true man can do to that body? I could have you begging within seconds¡­¡±


    Fellett¡¯s eyes glinted sadistically. Lex let out a cold sneer, ¡°Oh yeah? Attack me now then! You can¡¯t even control your powers, can you? If you strike, we¡¯ll both die. You know that, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course! But if I die, you¡¯re going to purgatory with me, along with your little friends. Three mages aspany in the afterlife sounds quite appealing, don¡¯t you think?¡± Fellett said,ughing maniacally as soon as he saw Lex¡¯s exasperated face.


    At that moment, Fellett made the decision to fight Lex to the death. The two people who were going to restore him to his former glory, the ck metal grand swordmasters, had been killed by Saleen, Sika, and Nailisi. Even if he made it to Shengfeng country in one piece, he would never be able to revive his family¡¯s reputation, nor would he be able to seize back his territory.


    Ping! The sounds of a huge alchemy crossbow being fired rang the air, interrupting Fellett¡¯s crazedughter.


    Lex was taken aback, but nevertheless calm andposed. She knew that Fellett¡¯s words had been meant to strike fear into her heart and disrupt her focus. She had been practicing psychological warfare tactics since she was little. She was not going to be intimidated by someone like Fellett.


    As Saleen hid underneath the rock turtle shell, a sense of humiliation like never before came over him. He had been the first one to suspect Fellett. Now that his suspicions were confirmed, Saleen had chosen to run away, instead of facing his opponent like a true mage.


    However, Fellett was too strong for him to beat. I¡¯ve worked so hard to get to where I am now. As an archmage who is no match for Fellett, should I run? Saleen thought. He had contemted charging towards his opponent to see how things yed out. However, Saleen stopped himself. It was absolutely pointless. No spell of his would be able to neutralize Fellett¡¯s attacks.


    I can¡¯t just run away! Sika and Nailisi are still on the boat! Saleen thought frantically as he continued hiding beneath the turtle shell. It was normal for a person to cower in the presence of someone much stronger than themselves. However, now was not the time to be scared. Fellett was about to finish off the people that he held dear to his heart.


    Saleen had never felt more conflicted. Attacking Fellett recklessly couldnd him in grave danger, especially since he knew that one swing of Fellett¡¯s sword was all it would take to end his life. However, if he let the most important people in his life die just like that, he would have to carry these horrible mental images for as long as he lived. He would not be able to hone his magic skills if he kept grieving over them. And if he could not hone his magic, he would not be promoted to a higher-grade mage. If he could not be promoted, he could not gain ess to more powerful spells. It was a vicious cycle that would not only cause him to remain stagnant, but also to deteriorate in the long term. How could he fulfill his dream then?


    Saleen remembered Lex asking him about his ambitions in life. Right now, Saleen was unable to answer her question. I¡¯vee so far now. Surely my answer can¡¯t be the same as my previous response ¨C¡±to never go hungry¡±? Saleen thought. If his response now was truly to ¡°never go hungry¡±, Saleen felt as if he might as well just die along with the others.


    With that, Saleen easily made his decision. If running away was not an option, then he needed to stand with Lex and fight Fellett to the end. Furthermore, once Fellett was done with Lex, he would not spare Nailisi and Sika either.


    Once he hadposed himself, Saleen rummaged through the items avable in the Ring of Gifts. Demon magic books, five level-5 scrolls, family badge¡­ to a mage, these items were even more valuable than gold.


    Fellett is weakening. Maybe I do have a chance to defeat him after all, Saleen thought.


    Saleen released two mutating water shields and allowed them to hover beside him. He stuffed his family badge between the pages of the demon spellbook before making his way out of the rock turtle¡¯s shell and above the ocean waters.


    Scanning his surroundings, Saleen realized that the rock turtle¡¯s shell had drifted from the sinking ship, and was currently moving further and further away from it. shes of lightning illuminated thendscape. The only light more striking than the lightning itself was Fellett¡¯s armor, which was still glowing a bright gold.


    Saleen activated his icy sight and analyzed Fellett¡¯s vitals.


    Fellett won¡¯t be in control of his body much longer! Saleen thought in rm.


    Just as Saleen was about to use magic to speed towards the sinking ship, he saw something that he would never forget for the rest of his life. A metallic crossbow bolt had been shot towards Fellett¡¯s skull. It was the type that was used to crumble city walls. This lethal object was now lodged in the back of Fellett¡¯s unprotected head. The golden light surrounding Fellett dimmed for a brief moment. All of a sudden, Saleen heard Lex¡¯s angry roar.


    Saleen knew that the roar was part of the secret battle techniques of Lex¡¯s family, and were exclusively for the purpose of weakening and destroying sword auras.


    Although the huge crossbow bolt was sticking out of Fellett¡¯s skull, upon taking a closer look, Saleen realized that the weapon had not prated it. The golden light seemed to have blocked the crossbow bolt from prating Fellett¡¯s skin.


    Unfortunately for Fellett, his armor was not full body armor, which meant that his head was his weak point because it was unprotected. Lex¡¯s roar had shaken up the life force that was inside of the armor, effectively preventing it from protecting its host for the time being.


    Within seconds, the crossbow bolt was deflected. Fellett¡¯s neck made a sickening creaking sound as his body flew in the opposite direction of the bolt. Seizing the opportunity, Lex pounced towards Fellett. As she did so, her magic robe emanated a brilliant orange-red.


    Saleen had never seen a brighter color in his life. Without hesitation, Saleen lifted himself into the air and started releasing the six magic spells kept inside the demon spellbook one at a time, all the while preparing tounch more magic attacks from the magic scrolls.


    Saleen had to admit, Lex was definitely a lot braver than him when it came to fighting creatures as powerful as a golden grand swordmaster. However, he was not going to be a sitting duck any longer. Lex had utilized an unorthodox method to deal with Fellett. Saleen was shocked that he was not the only one who possessed such creative problem-solving skills. Then again, mages that excelled in their field were probably more than capable of using their magic in unexpected ways.


    Lex had cast a Fire Washing spell. This spell functioned more as a dispersing spell used to dispel the enemy¡¯s attacks. This basic level-0 spell, in Lex¡¯s hands, had instantly turned into a level-7 one. Lex was only a level-6 mage, yet she had been able to achieve this feat. Clearly this attack would be more powerful than Saleen¡¯s mutated Water Shield spell.


    Not only was Lex wise, but she was also courageous. Saleen, now feeling deeply inspired, pounced towards Fellett, who was now falling from the sky. As he did so, he released all the spells from his five scrolls before speeding towards his opponent.

 Chapter 225: Courage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 225: Courage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Most people might have thought that mages could only win fights when they were at a distance from their opponent. Some might even have thought that mages were as good as dead when they came too close to a swordsman. Fortunately or unfortunately, that was a huge misconception. Most spells only worked well at close range. Moreover, the effectiveness of magic spells were dependent on the circumstances. There was no fixed distance that a mage had to gauge in order to release a magic attack.


    Take the crystal ring that Raphael had passed on to Saleen, for example. For it to work, the enemy needed to be within the striking range of ten meters. Before Saleen had further developed it, the striking range had not even been three meters. There were many other rare spells like this as well. The general consensus was that most mages did not like getting too close to their opponents during battle. Why take the risk If they could resolve their problems from a safe distance?


    However, Lex and Saleen had no choice but to take that risk. They had nevere face to face with such a strong opponent, or rather, armor, before. The armor was enough to boost the strength of its wearer from the level of a bronze grand swordmaster to that of a golden grand swordmaster. That was boost of three grades! Facing an opponent of that level was dangerous, perhaps even fatal to both Lex and Saleen.


    Originally, Saleen had intended to fight Fellett until one of them came out on top. If he had cowered away while Nailisi and Sika sacrificed their lives, he would live the rest of his life in shame. He would not even have dared to continue honing his magic if he was going to be branded a deserter. However, he realized that he would not even need to do anything to weaken Fellett. The bolt of the alchemy crossbow had struck Fellett¡¯s neck so forcefully that it was badly twisted.


    Saleen knew that it was now or never. Under normal circumstances, a person who had been afflicted with this type of injury would have beenpletely paralyzed. Even if Fellett had truly been a golden grand swordmaster, he would not have been able to brush off this injury. Swordmasters were not like mages. They could not fire spells for the sake of their lives. Being unable to maneuver their neck was as good as losing half of theirbat abilities.


    As Saleen continued releasing scroll after scroll, the ocean waters rippled even more turbulently and the waves reached a height that Saleen did not even think was possible. These waves hurtled towards Fellett, who was still stuck at the stern of the ship, unable to move properly. These walls of water moved haphazardly in all directions. Saleen did not bother controlling the strength of the water. He wanted his spell to hit Fellett full force in order to stop him from getting away. He also wanted to give Lex as well as himself the chance to catch their breaths.


    As Saleen hovered above the choppy waters, a whirlpool started to form beneath his feet. What started out as a small spiral immediately developed into a huge vortex. In the distance, a jagged bolt of white-hot lightning asionally lit up the soon-to-be sunken ship.


    Saleen started to gather moisture from the air. The small droplets of water coagted into a huge mist before forming a wall of fog as thick as the cumulonimbus clouds that peppered the sky. The thickening fog lifted Saleen higher and higher as his Windspeed skill started to mutate yet again. Saleen noticed that he had not been sucked into the whirlpool as he travelled across the water. Instead, he felt as though he was one with the water elements.


    Just then, Saleen realized that his magic chords had been depleted of their energy. It was then that he realized he had discovered a new magic spell! He probably would not have achieved this without Joey¡¯s help. At that moment, he felt like he was one with the water, almost as though he lived in it.


    Without realizing it, Saleen¡¯s body had started absorbing even more water than before. The veil of mist that surrounded him began to grow thicker and thicker before reaching a diameter of at least one hundred meters. To Saleen, these cloud-like formations were weightless, hardly considered obstacles. He was able to freely pass through these clouds without any difficulty. He guessed that everyone else would not be able to navigate through them as easily as he could.


    This magic was much better than the Windspeed spell. It was as if the grade-4 mage was levitating high in the sky. With his icy sight, Saleen could see through the opaque clouds. He began to fly for over two hundred meters before the clouds lifted him even higher than before. Unfortunately, that little stunt he had pulled with the clouds had consumed even more of his magic chords¡¯ energy. It seemed that for every ten meters in height that the clouds were able to raise him, the rate of depletion of his magic chords was doubled.


    Nheless, Saleen was not too worried. He just needed enough space between him and Fellett in order to avoid death by his sword. Now that his opponent was stuck in midair, his head fully paralyzed and immobile, Fellett was like a living dartboard.


    Bang! The chains of fire that surrounded Lex suddenly exploded, burning even more brightly than before. Hundreds of fire crows started crowding around her. Ten meters. This distance was all Lex needed for the mes to effectively reach their target. The god¡¯s ring on Lex¡¯s hand glowed a light golden color as it pulsated on her finger. The golden light expanded until it covered Lex¡¯s entire body. Saleen knew that Lex was taking a gamble. It was either her or the god¡¯s ring. She had chosen to sacrifice her prized possession in exchange for a chance to live.


    By then, the right-handed swordsman had switched his sword to his left hand in order to free up his right one and pop his neck back into ce. Lex did not even flinch as the sickening ¡°pop¡± of Fellett¡¯s neck being cracked into ce reached her ears. It was her first time unleashing such a rare, unique spell. The mes that surrounded her glinted hungrily, as though they were waiting for the right moment to pounce on their prey. The fire crows that were dancing prettily beside her suddenly flew towards Fellett.


    Unleashing Fire Magic like this was unheard of. Lex was now situated in the middle of the zing fire. Even her hair was glowing bright orange from the mes that emanated from her body.


    By now, Saleen had made his way towards Fellett and was hovering directly above him. The storm continued to rage on as darts of icy rain fell from the sky like there was no tomorrow. Saleen weaved in and out of the clouds as he fished out the demon spellbook from the Ring of Gifts. No sooner had he flipped open the pages of the magic book did a gigantic block of ice begin to form in midair. The ice bomb was originally a level-1 spell. However, this ice bomb that Saleen had created far surpassed any ice bomb that a grade-1 mage could conjure up. It was transparent and its diameter spanned over three meters. It had twenty-four sides and was smooth to the touch, almost like a polished magic nucleus.


    Most mages had unique ways of casting their spells. After seeing Faerun¡¯s Fireball spell, Saleen had been inspired to continue exploring areas that he wanted to further develop. The Icicle spell had only been the beginning. This ice bomb was his assassin¡¯s mace.


    After receiving the magic books and notes from Raphael, Saleen was better able to advance his studies in magic and formte his theories. Using the Figaro form, Saleen had managed to study the ice bomb attack in great detail. Although impressive, Saleen knew that he would never be able to replicate the spell and unleash it in such a magnitude without the assistance of the god¡¯s ring. Just preparing tounch this spell alone took a great deal of effort and at least three minutes.


    What made it worse for him was that this level-5 spell actually consumed double the amount of energy needed by other level-5 spells. Regardless, the twenty-four-faced ice bomb was a breathtaking sight to behold. Floating magic patterns which decorated the ice block suddenly oozed out thickyers of steam, which burned at the touch and exerted great pressure on everything it came in contact with.


    This steam-like vapor was rather unstable. In fact, a person could even say that it wasbustible. If not for the fact that the ice ball had such strong stabilizing forces, the vapor likely would have exploded in Saleen¡¯s face by now.


    As the thunder continued rumbling in the distance, a new whirlpool started to form beneath Fellett. It was so strong that the ship, which had already been seriously broken, starteding apart once more. As Fellett continued snapping his neck back into ce, he looked at Lex condescendingly and asked, ¡°So, little mage, did you really think those mes of yours could hurt me?¡±


    No sooner had he said this did his sword aura decided to make a reappearance. With a swipe of his long sword, the mes that Lex had released upon him disappeared. It was obvious by now who the stronger party was. No matter how hard Lex tried, she would not be able to make up for the difference in their strengths. This was fairly understandable though. This was likely one of the main reasons why mages honed their magic while swordsmen polished up their skills everyday.


    ¡°Haaa!¡± Lex roared as the golden light surrounding her started to expand rapidly. Her hair flew in all directions. Saleen could see some semnce of a fire elf in Lex as vicious mes began to shroud her again. The heavy rain did not seem to do anything to extinguish the fire. In fact, the fire burned even more fiercely than before, almost as if oil had been doused upon it. The fire crows pounced on Fellett like they were magic beasts attacking their prey. Fellett did not flinch as the mes licked his body. It was as if he did not feel the agony usually associated with being burned alive. Instead, he took a step forward. Lex¡¯s mes, together with the fire crows, immediately disappeared upon contact with his armor.


    Fellett then raised his long sword and aimed it at Lex¡¯s heart. The sword aura was so powerful that even the howling sounds of the hurricane-like winds and surging waves did not affect Fellett¡¯s grip on his sword. Lex merely stood there, as though she were a pinata offering herself up to be cut open by Fellett.


    Just then, two silhouettes emerged from behind Lex and started charging towards Fellett from his left and right. Fellett continued brandishing his sword as he attempted to use his sword aura to finish off his enemies. s, although Fellett was a war veteran, he had made a hugepse in judgement. The peopleing towards him did not possess any sword auras. In fact, they were even deadlier than swordmen.


    Shing! That was the sound that filled the air as long dragon horns started to appear on the tip of her cudgel. They were so sharp that touching them would be akin to touching cacti over in the Alchemy Desert. The spikes had torn his sword aura apart, creating dozens of holes in the process. Seizing the opportunity, Sika dove her way through the holes in his sword aura, trying to make as little contact with the golden light as possible. By now, her leather armor had been torn into a million pieces.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel became a blur as she waved it wildly in the air. Some of Saleen¡¯s mist that hade into contact with her weapon instantly disintegrated. The cudgel seemed to have a life of its own, emitting loud roars as it came into contact with the magical presences over and over again.


    It was toote for Fellett to retract his sword. He hoisted himself into the air and narrowly dodged Nailisi, who was attacking him from below. From there, he used his shoulders to shoulder, quite literally, the impact of Sika¡¯s attack.


    ¡°Argh!¡± Fellett let out an animalistic roar of pain as the cudgel came down hard on his shoulders, causing the golden light to scatter in all directions. The magical patterns engraved on his armor were instantly dislodged from the force of impact, flying in different directions. As he tried to limate to the pain, he suddenly realized that half of his body was numb. Deep down, Fellett knew that it could have been a lot worse. Without the armor, he would have been smashed, crushed, or even killed.


    Stepping onto the remains of the boat to gain traction, Nailisi rushed up to Fellett, her dragon tooth dagger in hand and ready to strike Fellett¡¯s legs at any time. She did not need to strike him in his vitals. She only needed to strike with enough force to break Fellett¡¯s armor so she could use her magic to freeze one of his legs.


    The threedies¡¯ attacks had forced Fellett to move upwards into the sky. Big mistake. A sh of lightning illuminated the area. That was when Fellett saw a huge ice crystal hurtling towards him from the overcast skies.


    Instinctively, Fellett raised his long sword in an attempt to counter Saleen¡¯s attack. However, before the sword could even touch the ice crystal, the vapors surrounding it began to burst into mes. Before Fellett knew it, the entire ice crystal had started to burn brightly before exploding in his face. The golden light that surrounded his armor instantly faded into nothingness. His mouth started dribbling with blood which fell onto his chest, staining it. Almost instantly, the armor reabsorbed the blood as though Fellett were donating his blood. The golden light which had previously been dispersed returned and glowed brighter than ever.


    Pew! Fellett followed the direction of the sound and saw a second giant ice crystaling towards him. This time, Fellett did not dare use his sword to counteract the attack. Just as he was about to dodge the icicle, he saw Nailisi leap towards him. Focusing on the imp instead, Fellett calmly raised his right leg.


    Nailisi did not try to dodge either. Instead, she allowed herself to be kicked in the lower abdomen. Of course, she was not offering herself up as a punching bag for nothing. With her dragon tooth dagger in hand, Nailisi found a gap present in the armor and stabbed the weapon into his thigh.


    Umph! Nailisi grunted as her body convulsed from the impact Fellett¡¯s foot had caused on her body. It hurt, to say the least. If Fellett really did possess this much power, Nailisi knew that she would be dead if he struck a second time. Even demons like her had a pain threshold, and Fellett¡¯s kick had far surpassed it.


    A hole appeared where Fellett¡¯s skin and muscle should have been. Strangely, not a single drop of blood was seen. Instead, his wound was immediately frozen. It was then that Fellett felt fear for the first time since the battle had started.


    Being bestowed ¨C cursed, really ¨C with the powers of a golden grand swordmaster had caused him to spiral into insanity. As soon as he realized that even golden grand swordmasters could be this seriously injured, Fellett was overwhelmed with thoughts of escaping. He felt Nailisi¡¯s grip on him loosen and watched as the demon fell into the ocean.


    Bang! Before he was able to realize that Nailisi¡¯s attack had only been a distraction, the second ice block had struck Fellett¡¯s skull heavily, twisting his neck at a grotesque angle once again. Dazed, he dropped like a sack of bricks and fell into the ocean along with Nailisi.

 Chapter 226: Devil’s Magic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 226: Devil¡¯s Magic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without hesitation, Lex and Saleen dived into the ocean, hot on Fellett¡¯s heels. By then, the mes on Lex¡¯s body had beenpletely extinguished. Her face was sallow, and the golden glow that shrouded her entire body had dissipated long ago. Saleen, on the other hand, felt like he had been struck in the head a million times over . Maneuvering the ice crystals and making sure that they fatally struck Fellett had used up all of his mental power. This spell was too hard to control. In fact, it was so difficult to contain that he was only able to store one spell of this magnitude per day in the demon¡¯s spellbook.


    Lex was doing better than him though. At the very least, she could still control her ability to fly. Saleen¡¯s new powers had already disappeared as soon as the spell ended. All that was left was a thin veil of fog that surrounded his entire body as he dove into the depths of the ocean.


    The storm showed no signs of ceasing. The waves were so high that they could tower over city walls. Spine-chilling crashing sounds were heard as the waves rose and fell.


    Daniel was nowhere to be seen, while Sika stood on one of therger remains on the ship, alone and drenched in blood. She looked as if she had been scratched and wed by over a few hundred magic beasts. Sika started chanting. Instantly, runes started flying out of the bone ne and surrounded her, effectively sheltering her from the harsh winds. Sika watched as her wounds rapidly healed under the power of the runes.


    In the sea, Saleen felt unstoppable, as though he was nimbler and more agile than even the fastest fish in the waters. Nailisi, on the other hand, continued sinking quickly as though she had an anchor attached to her leg. It was obvious to Saleen that Nailisi had lost consciousness. His body¡¯s vapor seeped from his frame into the ocean to form ayer of creamy ocean foam. Kicking his legs back, Saleenunched himself further into the depths of the sea.


    This ocean was very deep. If she continued sinking, even if she did not drown, she would be crushed by the immense underwater pressure.


    Out of the blue, Saleen heard a humming sound. From the corner of his eye, he saw Fellett, who waspletely unconscious by now, brandishing his sword and aiming it in his direction, his entire body now under the armor¡¯s control. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut and one eerie-looking three-dimensional magical pattern was suspended on his forehead. It was opening and closing, almost as if it was breathing, as well as observing its surroundings.


    Fellett¡¯s, or rather, the armor¡¯s, move caught Saleenpletely off guard. He had exhausted too much of his mental power. If he had not been ustomed to training with his badge, he probably would not even have been able to lift any of his limbs at this point. This attack waspletely unexpected. Saleen could sense Fellett¡¯s life force fading further away by the minute. He certainly had not expected a half-dead person to be able to attack him like that.


    Lex, on the other hand, was struggling to keep up with Saleen. She had suffered more serious injuries. Plus, utilizing her family¡¯s secret battle techniques to deal with Fellett¡¯s sword aura had taken a serious a toll on her. Lex¡¯s entire body felt like lead, although she was not running too low on her mental power, meaning that she was still able to cast magical spells. Seeing Saleen¡¯s life in danger, Lex used a Binding spell to sweep him away along with the water currents, effectively shielding him from Fellett¡¯s attempt at ending his life.


    The way Fellett was attacking waspletely atypical of hisbat style. The armor was in full control of his limbs. Although he was stronger now, Fellett¡¯s move did not epitomize anything he had learned in swordcraft. It was obvious to Lex and Saleen that the armor was attacking only out of instinct. Lex was particrly unnerved by the sight. She knew that if the male mage ever came into contact with Fellett¡¯s long sword, he would be split into half regardless of whether he used magic to defend himself.


    Roar! A deafening sound filled the air, almost bursting the eardrums of everyone present. Saleen turned in the direction of the voice and saw a human face emerge from Fellett¡¯s armor. He had no eyes and looked like a tortured soul with the facial expression he was sporting. The roar was no ordinary yell. Instantly, an earthquake-like vibration sted towards the two mages from all directions. Lex and Saleen felt as if they had been struck by an icicle attack over a million times. The ice te armor that Lex had donnedpletely shattered from the force of the st. Almost instantly, blood starting spurting out of their bodies.


    Demonic tool! This is a demonic tool?! Saleen thought frantically as he felt his mental power slip away even more. He turned his head just in time to see Lex¡¯s eyes roll over. She was struggling to keep the water from entering her mouth and nose. Saleen was so weak that even if the demonic tool stopped attacking, he was not sure he would be able to get Nailisi and Lex out of here alive.


    With Lex looking like she was about to drown and Nailisi sinking like there was no tomorrow, Saleen had to make a quick decision. Without hesitation, Saleen twisted his body and grabbed Lex¡¯s waist with his legs, deathly afraid that his femalerade would be swept away by the choppy waves. Using a great deal of effort, he took out his demonic spellbook and began flipping the pages. A water dragon appeared in front of Saleen almost instantaneously, shocking him. He had not expected the current cutter to morph to such arge extent under the influence of the ocean currents.


    With a wave of his hand, the water dragon pounced towards Fellett, wrapping its body tightly around his glittering armor. s, this was just a basic level-4 magic spell. Even if Saleen had managed to push it up a notch to make it a level-5 spell, because of the fact that the spell itself was not a strongbination of all six elements, it was no match for the sword aura. A golden light emerged from the armor and destroyed the water dragon immediately.


    Not willing to give up just yet, Saleen frantically flipped through the pages until his hand rested on another one. He unleashed yet another Current Cutter spell. As he ced his demonic spellbook back into the Ring of Gifts, the eyeless face that was sported on Fellett¡¯s armor turned and growled at Saleen again.


    The ocean waters started to heat up rapidly as a huge invisible force suddenly struck Saleen, causing him to fly backwards. Although Saleen was reeling from the force of impact, he still tried to keep his legs as tightly mped around Lex¡¯s waist as possible.


    Nailisi! As soon as Saleen sensed that Nailisi was regaining consciousness, he screamed into the soul bond, trying tomunicate with the imp.


    Crack¡­ crackle¡­


    The armor made its way towards Saleen, dragging Fellett along with it. The host was slumped like a stuffed toy, his neck hanging limply. The only thing moving on his body besides the armor was a lone rune which hovered above his forehead, shining brightly. Saleen immediately fished out his badge. One chance. That was all he needed. If he could get the badge on the armor, no matter how strong of a demonic tool it was, he could sessfully disable it.


    Shing! Fellett¡¯s arm that was carrying the sword, now fully under the armor¡¯ control, swung towards Saleen¡¯s lower abdomen. Saleen was at a loss for what to do. All he did was mp his legs tightly around Lex¡¯s waist. He knew that once he was stabbed, the result would not be as simple as a knife wound. The sword aura carried within the sword would mince his insides to mush.


    The sword aura¡¯s golden light had surrounded Saleen and Lex as well as the area ten meters away from them. Even if Saleen decided to abandon Lex now, he would not be able to escape in one piece. That was when he began to regret not having taken action sooner . If he had pitched in earlier, he might have been able to buy Lex time to break the god¡¯s ring and release its powers from within, effectively killing Fellett. Perhaps then, they would not have ended up in this situation.


    Saleen realized then that a person always needed to look forward. Running away from one¡¯s own problems was the worst thing anyone could do, especially during battle. s, there was nothing he could do now but protect Lex and himself. With all the mental power left in him, Saleen willed the two water shields to appear and surround the both of them.


    At this point, he was unable to strengthen the water shields, nor was he mentally strong enough to calcte his opponent¡¯s moves. Unable to control the shields any longer, Saleen had no choice but to watch as the two shields charged towards the golden sword aura.


    Boom! Saleen looked up just in time to see the mutated water shields be smashed into a million pieces upon contact with the sword aura. If he listened closely, he could swear that he heard howls of paine from the shields as they disintegrated. Instantly, the spell returned back into the Ring of Gifts. No matter how hard Saleen tried, he was unable to unleash the spell again. On the bright side, Fellett, as well as the sword aura, had been slowed down by the impact of the water shields colliding into them.


    Knitting his brows together, Saleen grit his teeth while preparing to p the badge on either the sword or the armor. He knew that even if he did seed in his n to stop Fellett, or rather, the armor, from killing them, his hand would not be able to withstand the impact of the sword aura¡¯s attack, meaning that it would be crushed and deformed, and could never be used again. However, Saleen knew that it was now or never. It was either his hand or his life.


    Just then, Saleen saw someone swimming towards Fellett from below. Taking a closer look, Saleen realized that it was actually Nailisi. Her abdominal wound was terrifying, to say the least. A deepceration the size of a fist had formed, and a person could see her insides, which were badly mangled. If Nailisi was in pain, she did not show it. Instead, she focused on elongating her body and whipping out her tail. With a swipe, her tail pierced through the arm that was carrying the sword.


    After piercing a hole through the armor, Nailisi¡¯s tail slowly made its way to the pauldron. With a strong tug, she detached the armor from Fellett¡¯s body and flung it as far away as she possibly could. If only Sika were here. Her wooden cudgel would be able to break open the armor, Nailisi thought, suddenly missing her ditzyrade. s, Sika was not as good of a swimmer as she was and was unable to dive into the ocean to help them.


    The armor was flung over a hundred meters before it abruptly halted. The eyeless face made an appearance again. Growling loudly, it attempted to charge towards the two mages once again so that it could finish what its host had started. Just then, a green me came hurtling towards Fellett and went straight into his nose. The eyeless face made a contorted expression of pain as it roared again, sending vibrations travelling through the ocean floors.


    It was Daniel who was responsible for the green me. He hadin low when the two mages were battling it out with the sword aura, and only attacked when he had found the perfect opportunity. Even though the demonic tool contained evil spirits, Fellett was not dead, only unconscious. The death mes, having entered his body, instantly took control of his soul, forcing the eyeless face to go back to where it hade from ¨C the armor. By then, the lone rune perched on top of Fellett¡¯s forehead had disappeared as well.


    Grabbing onto her master¡¯s belt, Nailisi swam towards the surface. Meanwhile, the green me was still battling for control over Fellett¡¯s body. Within seconds, Fellett¡¯s soul lost, unable to resist Daniel¡¯s power any longer. As soon as that happened, the golden light emanating from the armor disappeared. Felletty unconscious with a particrly calm expression on his face as he was dragged along with Saleen towards the surface. .


    By the time the battle between Fellett and the group of five had ended, the storm had passed as well. They were no longer in the heart of the storm anymore. If they had been, Saleen would not even have focused on defeating Fellett. He would have been busy trying to prevent himself from being torn apart by the harsh wind elements.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡± Sika wheezed as she saw Saleen emerge from the depths of the ocean. Even though her wounds werepletely healed, she still needed more time to regain her strength. The sword aura had knocked the wind out of her. Priests were different from holy masters, after all. Although priests were able to heal themselves naturally instead of relying on magic, which would lead to slower recovery, their recovery rates still paled inparison to those who had divine powers.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Saleen whispered hoarsely. As he was about to continue reassuring Sika, dark purple blood started dribbling from his mouth. That could only mean one thing. His internal injuries were too serious for him to cast a Chunlin spell. Moreover, his mental power was next to none at the moment, making it even more impossible for him to cast any healing spells on himself.


    Lex, on the other hand, did not look any better than Saleen. She had regained consciousness by now, and was currently coughing as she struggled to breathe properly. The reason why both Lex and Saleen were still alive after fighting the golden sword aura was because of their robes. They added an additionalyer of protection for the mages, preventing them from dying too easily.


    Seeing that Saleen and Lex were still in the water, Sika immediately reached out to pull the two mages onto the wreckage that she was on. There was not much space for all of them, but they made do with whatever they had. Nailisi clung onto the same piece of wreckage the trio were on, her face contorted into an expression of pain. That kick had done a number on Nailisi. It had pierced directly through her dragon-skin armor and into her lower abdomen. If she had not been a demon, she would have died a long time ago.


    As long as the hearts of demons remained intact, other injuries, no matter how severe they seemed, only served to weaken them or leave them in pain. Legend had it that demons who were presumed dead could resurrect themselves as long as their hearts were still whole.


    Just then, Daniel emerged from the ocean waters as well. The green me trailing behind his body was slowly diminishing in size. However, Saleen managed to spot the silhouette of Daniel¡¯s winged skeleton hiding within the dancing mes. The fact that Daniel had been able to reunite with his long-lost magic pet was very impressive. After the winged skeleton had been driven back to the death dimension, Saleen had thought that he would never see it again. Saleen was happy for Daniel though. Not many people were as fortunate as he and Daniel to be given so many chances in life.

 Chapter 227: Devil’s Magic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 227: Devil¡¯s Magic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel looked at Saleen with an odd expression as he swam towards the mage. Fellett¡¯s body trailed behind him,pletely under his control now. He could not help but think, All of them are too hurt to fight. If I strike now¡­ Daniel knew that Lex and Saleen were a wealthy duo, and both had brought a huge sum of money with them on this trip. Robbing and killing them would automatically make him filthy rich. His idental reunion with the winged skeleton had allowed him to establish an even stronger connection with the death dimension. He did not need anyone¡¯s help anymore. As long as he had the money, he would be able to work his way up to the rank of a sorcerer.


    The temptation was just too hard to ignore. Daniel licked his lips as he felt his throat dry up. He was not too affected by the loss of his bone puppets. In fact, the return of the winged skeleton had boosted his power to a far greater extent than the bone puppets would have. He was now much stronger than before. If he wanted to finish off Lex and Saleen, now would be the best time.


    As Saleeny on top of the broken ship wreckage, he turned to Daniel and said, ¡°Daniel, the pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s shell could not have gone too far. Your winged skeleton should make it convenient for you to travel. Take it and help me find the shell.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Daniel responded almost instantaneously. With that, he turned around and carried out Saleen¡¯s orders. As he did so, he felt very conflicted. Why am I feeling so afraid? Saleen can¡¯t even fire a level-0 spell. He¡¯s practically powerless! Daniel thought.


    Even though Daniel kept trying to boost his own confidence, he felt himself being carried further and further away from Saleen by the winged skeleton. Not once did he stop to turn or even look back. As Saleen watched Daniel fly further and further away from them, he breathed a sigh of relief. Saleen knew from the start that Tanggsis were unreliable. Although the mages of Alchemy City were a little bit more ill-tempered, they would never give into the temptation of greed. Not under these circumstances, at least.


    Yes, Daniel was a mage. However, he had been brought up the Tanggsi way. What the Qins were unwilling to do, he might have been more than happy to carry out. To a typical mage, faith preceeded morals by a longshot. This was because beliefs were something that solely belonged to them. Morals, to them, were social constructs that had been imposed onto them since they were young. Who cared about being all-holy and upright when no one was around? Saleen believed that mages needed to be more firmly anchored in their beliefs and not morals so that they could stay true to themselves.


    Right now, Saleen highly doubted that Daniel would factor in morality when deciding whether to kill them. Then again, Saleen doubted that Daniel had any righteous beliefs to begin with. Saleen strongly believed that a person needed to work hard to get what they wanted. Daniel was not prepared to sacrifice anything to be sessful. He had looked at them with such hungry eyes as soon as he had realized that Lex, Saleen, and the others were too weak to fight him. At that point, Saleen had felt like he was prey being watched closely by a predator.


    Meanwhile, Lex brought out a bottle of magical liquid and took a sip before passing it to Saleen, who took a bigger sip ¨C more like a huge gulp. He then passed on the remaining contents to Sika, who then gave it to Nailisi after she was done drinking some of the fluid. The bottle was emptied within minutes. The nourishment that the magical liquid had provided them with meant that their injuries would no longer worsen. Gripping his family badge tightly, Saleen used all his strength to cast one level-0 spell.


    As he did so, he made the decision to never turn his back on Lex ever again. The two of them had been through too many life and death situations together. He knew that Lex would do the same for him. Although the family badge continued draining Saleen of his energy, he felt his mental power stabilize after a while. In fact, his mental power was slowly being restored to its peak state. In just half an hour¡¯s time, the dragonshard would be able to make him nearly as good as new.


    On the other hand, most of Lex¡¯s injuries were physical. Her mental power was still intact, allowing her to cast a Chunlin spell on herself before blessing it onto the rest of the people present. No sooner had she done that did she copse onto the ship wreckage that she was sitting on, too worn out to move.


    ¡°Lex, get up,¡± Saleen said bluntly, as he hoisted himself up into a sitting position. ¡°What?¡± Lex repliedzily. ¡°That Daniel wanted to kill us. I¡¯ve sent him away for now. If he sees you lying like that looking like the undead, he might be tempted to do something again. With the winged skeleton, his powers easily rival those of a grade-4 mage.¡± Saleen whispered harshly.


    ¡°He¡­¡± Lex wanted to continue, but decided not to. She had faced her back towards Daniel the entire time he was there. She was not the one who had witnessed Daniel¡¯s strange facial expressions. Saleen, on the other hand, had. Lex trusted Saleen, especially under these circumstances. Saleen had no incentive to lie to Lex about something like this.


    Meanwhile, Sika¡¯s body was littered withcerations, cuts, puncture holes¡­ any injuries a person could think of were present on her frame. If it had not been for the armor that had been specially refined by Lex for her, she would have died a long time ago. Nailisi, on the other hand, was not hovering between life and death, though that wound on her stomach was probably going to give her a hard time for the next few weeks.


    Lex grit her teeth as she forced herself into a sitting position. Within ten minutes, Daniel returned.


    ¡°Did you leave any magical imprints?¡± Saleen asked calmly. Daniel cautiously nodded his head, confused by Saleen¡¯s sudden change in attitude.


    Saleen spoke again, ¡°I¡¯m too injured to do anything right now. If you can control Fellett¡¯s body, could you please have him pull us to the rock turtle shell?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were enough to make Daniel rethink his original n. Daniel knew that he could not act hastily. Both Saleen and Lex were archmages. Even in their weakened states, the odds of attacking both of them by surprise and actually winning were very slim, regardless of whether or not the death mes were employed.


    Unfortunately, the temptation just was not going away. Daniel could hear a faint voice calling out to him from the armor. ¡°Wear this armor and kill your enemies! You¡¯ll be invincible!¡±


    Attempting to block out the sounds of the voice, Daniel squeezed his knuckles so tightly that his nails sliced open his palms. Saleen asked curtly, ¡°Daniel, what¡¯s on your mind?¡±


    ¡°Noth¡­ nothing¡­¡± Daniel stuttered, feeling a shiver run down his spine as he observed Saleen¡¯s subsequent actions. Apparently, the grade-4 mage had decided to pull off his gloves, exposing his shrivelled left hand. Daniel noticed a dark green ring perched prettily on Saleen¡¯s finger. Although Daniel was unable to tell just how strong the magical object was, he sensed that the magic within this ring was anti-death magic.


    As Daniel was reminded of the painful memory of losing his winged skeleton after Saleen had unleashed his divine powers, the temptation slipped away almost instantly. Daniel coughed heavily as he used his magic to direct Fellett¡¯s body to push the wreckage that Saleen was on. After ensuring that Saleen¡¯s instructions were fulfilled, he turned and flew towards the direction of the rock turtle shell.


    However, he was not using his magic to fly. The winged skeleton made another appearance and lifted Daniel¡¯s body up into the sky as they skimmed past the ocean waters. The magical patterns on Fellett¡¯s armor had not disappeared. Even the golden light that had faded away earlier made another appearance. This time, however, the armor was not able to do whatever it wanted. Its host had been controlled by another magical presence. Thus, Fellett¡¯s body could do nothing but push the board that Saleen was on towards the south as the gang trailed behind Daniel.


    Saleeny on the wreckage as he pondered: Daniel had been improving by leaps and bounds, and even though he had not been promoted to a higher grade, his abilities would easily rival that of a grade-4 mage. If he disyed any signs of weakness, Daniel would only be more tempted to harm him.


    Fortunately for Saleen, Daniel did not seem to understand the source of his divine powers. Saleen guessed that the reason why Daniel had not attacked him yet was because of thetter¡¯s huge misconception regarding the source of his new powers. He probably thought that releasing a spell of that magnitude had required a physical sacrifice, be it a body part or even his own life. Daniel had probablye up with this false conclusion after seeing how Saleen¡¯s hand had shrivelled up upon casting the divine spell.


    Saleen was not wrong. The part where Saleen unleashed his divine powers would forever be etched in Daniel¡¯s memory. After seeing how Saleen¡¯s hand had not even showed the slightest bit of recovery, Daniel had hastily jumped to the very same conclusion that Saleen had predicted he woulde up with. Because of this, he had also thought that divine powers did not necessarilye at the expense of the magic chords. As long as Saleen was able to chant some short prayers, he would be able to release even more powerful divine spells.


    This is probably theoretically true, Daniel thought to himself.


    Daniel tried to reassure himself that he would be courting death if he had acted on impulse. It was possible that the grade-4 mage would sacrifice another body part to preserve his life. If Saleen unleashed another divine spell, who knew whether his winged skeleton could survive another attack like that? Losing a maturing winged skeleton would be like losing an arm and a leg. All the money in the world would mean nothing if he did not have his beloved magical pet.


    Even though Saleen had managed to scare Daniel into not harming him, he still proceeded with caution. At the moment, Fellett waspletely under Daniel¡¯s control. Even if Daniel was not as adept in manipting corpses like the ck mages, as long as Fellett was still alive, Daniel could still use the death mes to torture his body and soul.


    The only way for Fellett¡¯s soul to bepletely overwhelmed by the death mes would be if Fellett kicked the bucket. What would happen right after that was that his soul would be sent straight to the death dimension. Right now, Fellett was still a danger to Saleen, Lex, and the others. Daniel had refused to end Fellett¡¯s life, for reasons unknown to Saleen. Saleen did not know if Daniel was preserving Fellett¡¯s life because of the value of the armor he had on, or because it was his way of guarding himself against Saleen.


    The armor¡­ the armor was a demonic tool. If it controlled Daniel instead of Fellett, Saleen knew everyone would be in deep trouble. No sooner had he been reminded of the fact that the armor was a demonic tool did he turn towards Nailisi, who was still in the water, and ask, ¡°Are you able to identify the magical presence inside the armor?¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately¡­ I can¡¯t,¡± Nailisi replied cleverly. Saleen understood what she meant. The magical presence inside the armor had note from the demon dimension. Back in the olden days, humans had captured so many creatures from so many dimensions that they could not remember the origins of some of them.


    To the humans then, demonic tools had been but toys to y with. Now, demonic tools were regarded as double-edged swords. Not only could they harm a person, but they could also hurt others around them too. Saleen did not want the people dearest to him to wield those magical objects. Just one slip and they would end up like Fellett.


    Nailisi tilted her head to the side as she studied the armor that Fellett had worn. This demonic tool doesn¡¯t seem too impressive to me. Demons should be able to wear this armor. Fellett was never strong enough to begin with, so being controlled by the armor was a given. Even with the help of the contract magic array, he shouldn¡¯t have been so ambitious, Nailisi thought.


    Fellett had been hurt so badly in the battle against the group of five that he had lost his sense of consciousness, allowing the spirits inside the armor to take control of his entire body. If Daniel had not caught Fellett by surprise by directly having the death mes wrap themselves around Fellett¡¯s soul, who knew how much scarier the armor could have be?


    ¡°Master, I can try on this armor if you¡¯d like,¡± Nailisi said in ancient Myersnguage. Her expression was oddly gentle and seductive. If Saleen had not understood ancient Myersnguage, he would have thought that Nailisi was flirting with him.


    ¡°That¡¯s a no-go Nailisi. This thing is dangerous. With your current strength, you wouldn¡¯t be able to control it,¡± Saleen replied as he smiled gently as though he were the best master in the world and Nailisi was his dearest maidservant.


    Gripping her hands firmly onto the wreckage, Nailisi hoisted herself up before lowering her head and resting it in Saleen¡¯s hands. ¡°Master, what are you so scared of? I still have you to save me if I do end up being unable to control the spirit. Don¡¯t forget, we are connected via a soul bond. No magical being has mental power that exceeds the two of oursbined.¡±


    ¡°No means no. I can hold onto the armor for now. Daniel would not dare defy me. I¡¯m sure Lex doesn¡¯t want ¡®spiritual armor¡¯ anyway. All she wants is something that soldiers can wear to the battlefield. I¡¯ll let you try on the armor once I feel that you¡¯re strong enough to deal with the spirit on your own, okay?¡± Saleen said in a sincere tone.


    Not only did they have a special connection between them through the soul bond, but Nailisi had also saved Saleen countless times. Over the years, she seemed to have be even more attached to him. Even though many magic books had made ims about the questionable behavior of demons, Saleen did not want to torture Nailisi by making her wear the armor. After all, Nailisi was not only his bonded creature, but also his partner and friend.


    ¡°Master, don¡¯t treat me too nicely. See, Lex looks unhappy,¡± Nailisi giggled sweetly as her eyes darted over to Lex. Lex¡¯s ears instantly perked up. She might not have understood what the two of them were talking about, but she swore that she heard her name mentioned.


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Lex grunted, deciding that she was not going to try and understand anything that they were saying. Instead, she chose to close her eyes and meditate.

 Chapter 228: Ghost Fog Island (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 228: Ghost Fog Ind (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fellett¡¯s head waspletely limp by now. Without the death mes inside of his body, he would have died a long time ago. Saleen eyed the metallic armor, internally debating whether or not he should take it from him.


    A demonic tool like this meant nothing to a strong warrior. However, ordinary people who attempted to usurp control of these items would end up subservient to these magical objects instead. Technically speaking, what made the armor so powerful and valuable was the presence of its spirit-controlling matrixes. It was through these matrices that Fellett had been able to gain partial control of the armor.


    Unfortunately for Fellett, he had not been strong enough. As soon as he was injured, the spirits had jumped out and nearly swallowed Fellett whole. He was not looking too good at the moment, and Saleen was certain that Lex would not bother to save him even after Daniel took the death mes back.


    Although the metallic armor looked slightly worn out, Saleen was confident that it could be fixed. What was a little wear and tear to an object that had nearly consumed Fellett¡¯s entire being?


    Should I keep this armor? Saleen thought grimly. He knew that once the wearer lost control and was taken over by the spirit residing in the armor, the wearer would be as powerful as a golden grand swordmaster, and everyone around that person would be no match for them.


    The nearly dead Fellett now yed the role of a coolie, and had already pushed them for over ten miles before the pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s shell came into view. Although Saleen¡¯s mental power had beenpromised during the battle, his limbs were still nimble and agile. He followed Sika as the two of them climbed to the top of the pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s shell. Lex, on the other hand, had to be carried on Nailisi¡¯s back while thetter did the climbing. Nailisi had pretty much healedpletely by now, although she did look pale, sickly, and weak at the moment.


    The dragon heart that she had secretly stuffed into her mouth earlier had been fully absorbed into her body, and was doing a terrific job at mending her injuries. Fellett was thest one to scale the turtle shell. No sooner had he reached the top did Nailisi pull out the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger that had been stuck in his thigh and pocket it, but not before she returned it to the form of a ring.


    ¡°What should we do now, Saleen?¡± Daniel asked. By now, he hadpletely given up on the n to kill Saleen, and no longer had malicious intentions against him. He knew very well from how Sika¡¯s and Nailisi¡¯s bodies were regenerating so quickly that he no longer stood a chance against all four of them together anymore.


    Saleen was not going to confront him about it either. He understood that a person would be faced with many temptations in his or her lifetime. As long as Daniel did not actually follow through with them, Saleen was not going to make a big fuss about it. Plus, he still had use for Daniel¡¯s powers, so a fall-out at this stage was pointless.


    ¡°Pat Fellett down and see if he has anything on him,¡± Saleen instructed.


    ¡°Alright,¡± Daniel replied. As though he were a seasoned professional, he carefully lowered Fellett into a sitting position. By now, the golden lighting from the armor hadpletely vanished. All that was left were faded magical patterns that moved slowly on the surface of the ck metallic armor. With his nimble hands, Daniel stripped Fellett of his armor and found several items that had been hidden in the back pockets ¨C letters; elixirs; jade pieces; and a map.


    The letter was written in Myersnguage. Upon taking a closer look, Saleen realized that it was merely a simple document of endorsement by Shengfeng country. There were around a dozen elixirs stored in an ordinary-looking metal box. Upon taking a sniff, he realized that their healing properties were pretty basic. They were meant to mend the injuries of warriors and other fighters. There were a few strange words engraved on the jade pieces that Saleen could not decipher. There were approximately ten of such jade pieces in the pile.


    ¡°These things must be their version of money,¡± Lex muttered as she picked up one of the jade pieces, gently caressing it before she continued, ¡°Well, the quality isn¡¯t very good. It¡¯s probably not a valued magical object.¡±


    The map, on the other hand, was over two meters wide and the illustrations were imprinted on what seemed like a thin sheet of parchment. ¡°It¡¯s a star chart!¡± Saleen eximed, instantly recognizing theplicated-looking symbols as well as the circled points marked by red ink.


    A map of a particr area could be drawn solely based on the positions of hills and valleys, as well as mountains and rivers. However, now that they were nowhere nearnd, if they wanted to figure out where they were going, they would have to rely on the positions of the stars in the sky. However, this method was not only difficult, but also tedious. The positions of the stars were constantly changing. That was exactly what the star chart was for ¨C to pinpoint the positions of the constetions as they slowly changed over the course of one year.


    The mostplex star chart even illustrated the changes in positions of the constetions in a one thousand year span. The only problem now was that the Myers Maind was nowhere to be seen on the map. The star chart was split into two separate illustrations. The first one depicted the positions of the constetions, while the one at the bottom depicted the relevant inds, ocean currents, and the seasonal wind patterns.


    Without cing it inside a special magic array, the star chart was nothing but a decoration. However, since that particr magic array had not been refined by Lex, everyone present could only stare at the star chart stupidly, confused as to how to interpret it.


    ¡°Daniel, are you able to read Fellett¡¯s mind and see what he¡¯s thinking?¡± Saleen asked out of the blue. Daniel let out a bitterugh, and said, ¡°Well, even the strongest necromancers can¡¯t do that. If he was not so heavily injured, maybe I could force something out of him. Right now, the only things keeping him alive are my death mes. If I take them back, he¡¯ll be dead in a few seconds.¡±


    ¡°Okay, then I¡¯ll think of something else. Go help Lex and don¡¯t bother me,¡± Saleen replied coldly as hey the star chart in front of him and began calcting their coordinates. Usually, a mage¡¯s sense of direction was better than that of other magical creatures. However, they were currently stranded in the middle of the ocean. Thus, Saleen could only estimate the direction they were heading. It was very hard to estimate the distance that they had travelled. He had never stopped trying to calcte the distance between where they were now and Alchemy Port. From Alchemy Port to Devil¡¯s Horn to the ce where they had sunk their ship and even to the hundreds of miles that they had drifted since they had fought Fellett. They had all been factored into Saleen¡¯s calctions.


    He could make the star chart bigger to get a clearer look at the stars andndmarks, but this item was differentpared to Lex¡¯s magic maps. Since star charts were moreplicated, a suitable magic array was needed in order to tease out the information stored within them.


    Right now, all Saleen could see were tiny dots and lines. He figured that the lines on the left side of the map represented the coastal areas of the Qin Empire. Looking downwards, he managed to locate Alchemy Port on the map. Uponparing it with Lex¡¯s magical map, he then confirmed the rtive positions of Alchemy Port and Lianyun City.


    Both cities were located at least five thousand miles away from each other. This distance alone upied half an arm¡¯s length on the map after scaling it down ordingly.


    To convert these distances mentally using the scale of the map alone was pretty difficult, especially without some sort of calctor. Saleen used his icy sight to study the map again. He dotted an invisible line connecting their current location to the maind. Five thousand miles. What? How can we be so far away fromnd? Saleen thought.


    After calcting it again, he realized that he had calcted things wrong. It was actually more than five thousand miles. With their current location and predicament, even Lex did not have the ability to fly back.


    Unlike seagulls, mages could not fly continuously for hours on end. A grade-6 mage who had just gotten the hang of flying could only clock a speed of a hundred miles per hour. Lex could probably fly for twelve hours before exhausting her magic chords, and that was not including the fact that the energy in her magic chords could have to be used for something else like battle. In other words, if everything went well, Lex would only be able to cover one-quarter of the distance needed to reachnd.


    It was basically a lose-lose situation. If Lex wanted to preserve her magic chords, she would have to fly just above the ocean waters. However, that made her an easy target for magic beasts. If she wanted to be safe, she would exhaust her magic chords more quickly. In other words, the probability of her making it back safely through flying alone was close to zero.


    The good thing was ¡­ that Lex still had some old tricks up her sleeve. Lex took a fully constructed puppet out of the god¡¯s ring. It had stayed idle during the battle with Fellett. Now, it could function as their coolie.


    Constructing paddles was a tedious job, but since the rock turtle¡¯s back had a vast area of t ground, it made things slightly easier. All Daniel had to do was to piece the bones of the magic beast together and refine them into some sort of bone equipment that represented a paddle. All they needed was something they could row with. It did not have to be state-of-the-art battle equipment.


    Using some of the bones, Lex created a support to lock the paddles in and utilized a Fossilization spell to cement it onto the turtle¡¯s shell. Now, all they had to do was create some sort of rudder and fix it onto the back of the turtle shell.


    Saleen studied the symbols of the inds depicted on the star chart carefully. He could not pinpoint an exact route that they could take to reachnd, nor could he be certain of their current location. He could only estimate that if he continued sailing in the southeast direction, he would be able to locate a secret ind that housed a few of Fellett¡¯s private boats as well as a battalion disguised as sea pirates. That was where they needed to go.


    However, the odds of finding a hidden ind were very slim. Furthermore, going in that direction meant that they would be moving further and further away from the Myers Maind.


    ¡°Daniel, are you able to recognize these ocean current symbols?¡± Saleen asked, pointing at the map. He could feel some sort of headache set in from all the thinking he had to do. Daniel shook his head. He might have voyaged through the sea quite a few times, but he was not a sailor. At that time, he had taken on the identity of a businessman. He had not had to learn this. After bing a necromancer, he had dedicated his entire life to understanding and honing his magic.


    Desperate, Saleen searched his memory to see if he had picked up some sort of navigation skills along the way, but to no avail.


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s not that difficult actually,¡± Sika piped up. She had been studying the map along with Saleen and had been seated directly across from him the entire time. ¡°How so?¡± Saleen asked curiously. Sika replied, ¡°Likend creatures, marine creatures have their unique characteristics, behaviors, and habits. Take, for example, fire wolves. They almost always walk along mountain ridges. On the other hand, earth wolves like to roam canyon ravines. Some sea monsters also like to live close to the coastal regions of certain inds. Do you still have the Alchemy City field guide on magic beasts?¡±


    Saleen pped his forehead in realization, cursing himself inwardly for being so careless. Right now, their aim was to find any ind where Lex could set up a temporary alchemyboratory as well as offload the turtle shell. Findingnd was a much better alternative than being stranded at sea with no clue of the unknown.


    At the moment, everyone was too severely injured. If they encountered another magic beast like the giant octopus they had faced earlier, they could kiss their chances of survival goodbye. Locating Fellett¡¯s secret ind was an uphill task, but finding a ce to rest was not. As long as they could observe the behavior of any magical sea monsters that came their way, they would be able to estimate how far they were fromnd.


    Once they had locatednd and set up an alchemyboratory, they would be much safer on the journey back to the Myers Maind. Never had the thought of creating an armor out of the turtle¡¯s shell crossed Saleen¡¯s mind. He had just wanted to convert it into some sort of ship so that they would not have to worry about encountering another storm. Plus, if they could hide in the hull of their makeshift ship, they would be safe from all of the magical sea creatures that wished to make a meal out of them.


    ¡°Lex, could you take over for a while? I¡­ want to conserve my energy,¡± Saleen said as he folded up the star chart.


    The battle earlier had taken a toll on his mental power. Thus, using his senses to capture any traces of sea creatures was going to be very difficult. One wrong move and he would anger some of the stronger ones. Back on the maind, where the human poption was significantly greater, mages were free to roam without fearing for their lives as magic beasts rarely made an appearance in poption-dense areas. Even if there were magic beasts, they would not be too dangerous.


    All magic beasts that were a threat to human life had been forced away by humans. Those that just would not leave had be the mage¡¯s game. This situation was vastly different when it came to ocean waters. In every ocean, there were bound to be some sort of unknown dangers. Even sorcerers had to proceed with caution every time they voyaged through the seas.


    Saleen finally understood the power of the Cloudflow Navy. All navy personnel that cruised through the deep ocean waters had to have been at least grade-7 in terms ofbat against magic beast.


    Over the course of the next three days, Saleen spent his time using the badge to restore his mental power. Lex was recovering pretty quickly too. The most heavily injured individual at the moment was Nailisi. However, demons generally recovered from physical injuries much faster than humans. In other words, she could probably dive into the sea to fish for food after another three days of rest.


    The winds were unusually calm today and there was not a single cloud in the sky. The azure blue sky and the deep blue ocean were a breathtaking sight indeed. They were quite literally the direct opposite of the weather Saleen and the gang had been put through a few days ago.


    ¡°Look, Saleen. Hunter gulls!¡± Sika told Saleen as she pointed towards a small speck in the sky.


    Saleen eximed, ¡°Hunter gulls? That meansnd is in sight! Nailisi¡­¡± Before he could finish his sentence though, Nailisi emerged from the waters and said excitedly, ¡°Saleen, I just discovered some coral reefs! It¡¯s very shallow here!¡±

 Chapter 229: Ghost Fog Island (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 229: Ghost Fog Ind (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Over there!¡± Daniel eximed excitedly as he pointed enthusiastically towards the northeast. Saleen¡¯s gaze followed Daniel¡¯s pointed fingers and rested upon a faint outline of an ind. If Daniel had not pointed it out, both Lex and Saleen would not have noticed it at all.


    Saleen instantly perked up as he replied, ¡°Let¡¯s take a look!¡± They had been drifting for about three days now, which was not a very long time. Saleen could take up to an entire day just pondering over a single form. In fact, he would be so caught up on it that he would skip his meals. However, it was different here. An additional day out at sea meant an additional day where they would be surrounded by danger. The most dangerous magical beasts of all loved to roam about these waters, and they had already had the displeasure of meeting some of them. In fact, there was one asion where they had had no choice but to feed Fellett to a shark in order to escape in one piece.


    Luckily for them, the colorful shark that they had fed Fellett to was not a species which travelled in a group and had left immediately after guzzling him down. Even though it had been a lone shark, Saleen had not dared to antagonize it by attacking it. He knew now that magical sea beasts were very adept atmunication. If that shark had been attacked, it would have been able to call up at least a hundred of its kind within minutes.


    If Saleen and the gang continued drifting on for days on end, they would eventually meet a magical beast that they had no hopes of defeating. It did not have to be some legendary powerful creature. Just a grade-8 beast would be enough to make the ocean their permanent resting ce.


    Under Lex¡¯smand, the two fully constructed puppets started rowing faster. The only problem now was that the turtle shell was so big that even all the strength in the world could not make it run as fast as an actual ship. In other words, they were travelling really slowly.


    After rowing for over three hours, the blurry outline of the ind territory became slightly clearer, meaning that they were getting closer and closer tond. Using his icy sight, Saleen concluded that the huge ind was shrouded by some sort of fog.


    The other thing separating Saleen and the others from the ind were thick curtains of light, which almost fully concealed the ind. In fact, if Saleen had not used his icy sight, he would not have spotted that ind. He would have thought that the ocean color was slightly more faded than normal.


    ¡°Stop! Stop!¡± Saleen bellowed. Toote. The puppets had sped up too suddenly to stop now. Before Saleen knew it, they were crashing into the curtain of light.


    Everyone but Nailisi instantly activated some sort of protection for themselves. For Lex, it was the ice te armor; for Saleen, it was the water shield; for Daniel, he had expanded the death mes to cover his body in a protectiveyer of mes; for Sika, ayer of darkness had suddenly popped out of nowhere and shrouded her in a protective embrace. Quaint runes started floating about, bringing about a feeling of peace and tranquillity.


    Drifting out at sea had benefited Sika the mostpared to the others. Back in her vige, the areas nearby had often been filled with all sorts of human activity, and the people from the Holy See had also liked to roam there. All the powerful magical beasts had been chased away by humans to the extent that Sika was confident that no one could find traces proving that they once roamed freely about these viges. For Sika¡¯s warrior priest abilities to awaken, she would have to frequently interact with the strongest magical creatures alive, and in some cases, even learn to live with them.


    Ever since Sika had joined Saleen on this trip, she had encountered different kinds of powerful sea monsters. These creatures were different from the beasts that a person would encounter onnd. They had no ill-will against humans, but they definitely were not afraid of them either. Unless they were starving, sea monsters usually left Saleen, Sika, and the others alone.


    This characteristic, however, would never be found in the magical beasts humans tended to encounter on the maind. By now, Sika had gradually understood the intimate connection priests had with nature. It was not any form of maniption, nor was it an attempt to conquer. The sole purpose of priests partaking in battles was to allow humans to survive. It was no wonder that the spirits inside the weapon exhibited no hint of resentment. The priests back then had not forced the magic beast souls to stay. They had strongly believed in the concept of coexistence.


    As of right now, the curtain of light had notunched any form of offensive attack on the group of five. In fact, Saleen believed that its main function was simply to conceal everything behind it. However, Saleen and the others did not let their guards down. This ce was the definition of lifeless. There was not even a speck of green on the towering grey rocks that made up the ind. It was located in the most southern part of the ocean, meaning that the temperature and humidity levels were high. Even if there were no trees, Saleen thought that there should have at least been some grass covering thend.


    As they turned back to look at the view of the ocean they had grown ustomed to before crashing through the curtain of light, they were surprised to see nothing but pitch ck, as though the world there had been plunged into darkness. Not only that, but Saleen and the others were not really able to navigate through their current location. It was obvious that there was a huge magic array in operation here, although it did not seem like the kind that warded off intruders. If anything, it existed to keep the people on the ind from getting out.


    Saleen was not too afraid of these magic arrays since he still had his badge with him. As long as the magic array was not too powerful, he could destroy it by sticking the badge on it and having the badge absorb the elemental powers present in it.


    There was still a metal chain attached to the tail of the rock turtle. Nailisi dived into the water and started pulling the chains in the direction of the ind.


    A green stream of air lifted Lex off of the turtle shell and gently flew her in the direction of the ind. Saleen turned and rested his gaze on Daniel as he thought, How is it possible for Daniel to discover such a well-hidden ind while Lex and I could not even see anything unusual? Saleen did not think that Daniel¡¯s mental powers were stronger than either his or Lex¡¯s.


    ¡°Daniel! Tell me¡­what is this ce?¡± Saleen asked with a slight grin on his face.


    ¡°Ghost Fog Ind,¡± Daniel replied without hesitation. Wow, he didn¡¯t try to evade the question, Saleen thought, stunned for a moment. Seeing his perplexed expression, Daniel let out a sigh before continuing, ¡°These inds also exist in the Tanggsi waters. They are normally left behind by necromancers. However, not many people have the opportunity to see them because they¡¯re located so far away fromnd.¡±


    ¡°Oh really? Tell me what you know,¡± Saleen said. He did not understand much about death magic. Aside from Daniel, Saleen could not recall crossing paths with another necromancer. He thought that it would be a good idea to find out more about the ind before he explored it. Saleen also figured that Daniel would not hide anything from him.


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure myself. Most ghost fog inds haverge magic arrays to avoid being seen by the outside world. Necromancers typically don¡¯t like interacting with people. Plus, the Holy See hasn¡¯t exactly been very friendly with our kind either. Thus, most necromancers use magic arrays to conceal any and all parts of their inds. This ind in particr is very big. If there are any necromancers here, we will not be able to beat them even if webine our powers,¡± Daniel exined.


    ¡°What if there aren¡¯t any necromancers here anymore?¡± Saleen asked curiously. Daniel¡¯s eyes perked up for a bit before they were reduced back to a dull gaze in the blink of an eye. He replied sincerely, ¡°If a necromancer knew that he was dying, he¡¯d take everything on his ind with him. Besides the magic array, this ind may contain a magic tower. The key word here is ¡®may¡¯ because even the tower may not be here anymore. I don¡¯t think you¡¯d find anything valuable here either. Unless¡­¡±


    ¡°This must be the most conducive environment for you to practice your death magic in, right?¡± Saleen asked, feeling ufortable being surrounded by the stench of death lingering in the air which was the coincidentally the direct opposite of the Myers Goddess¡¯ powers.


    ¡°Yes, that might be the only good thing we can get out of this trip,¡± Daniel quipped.


    ¡°Ah Daniel, so you finally understand what the word ¡®we¡¯ means,¡± Saleen said,ughing at the end. At that moment, Daniel felt his heart stop as shivers ran down his spine.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡­¡± Daniel stuttered before he was cut off by Saleen, ¡°Save your breath. We¡¯ll be here a while. Lex will be building a ship to get us off of this ind, so when she needs your help, you¡¯d better give it one hundred percent. Practice your magic when you¡¯re not needed so that your winged skeleton can be restored to its peak state.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Daniel said in confusion. He had thought that Saleen was going to confront him about what had happened a few days earlier.


    ¡°Daniel, Lex is someone who¡¯s going to do big things one day. Do you really think you¡¯re indispensable? Bitter Water Prefecture has so many mages like you that I¡¯ve practically lost count. I just don¡¯t understand why those thoughts ever crossed your mind,¡± Saleen said.


    Daniel lowered his head in shame as he replied, ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe it was the armor¡­¡± Saleen shuddered as he recalled the eyeless face floating about the armor. Daniel had deposited a huge portion of his death mes into Fellett¡¯s body, and did not have as much willpower in resisting the spirit¡¯s voices. Saleen was not sure if there were any side effects that Daniel might have been experiencing after that brief encounter with the spirit. All he knew was that if Daniel did give in to his greed, he would be dangerous to have around.


    Bang! The huge turtle shell had rammed into one of the giant rocks on the ind, shattering it into pieces. The crash also did a number on the already damaged body of the turtle. Without it, even if the turtle shell was hollow, it would still slowly sink.


    Nailisi took out ance from her bracelet and stabbed it deep into the rock. Since thence was made of pure steel, it was not difficult for Nailisi to split the rock into half. Upon realizing how strong Nailisi was, Daniel started to be afraid of the demon. Now, he was not only scared of Saleen, but he was also afraid of Nailisi and Sika.


    Saleen¡¯s divine powers could easily subdue him, and Sika¡¯s weapons shattered his defensive magic like it was nothing. Right now, Daniel knew that if Nailisi wanted to, she could simply beat him to a pulp using just her strength alone.


    Saleen watched as Nailisi wrapped the chain tightly around thence and casually bent it. Saleen was also surprised to see that the end of thence had been buried deep into the rock. This was not something that just anyone could do. Even people who had honed their sword auras and had explosive power that surpassed even the strongest of magical beasts would not be able to bend ance made of pure steel.


    Saleen was pleased to have people like Nailisi and Sika who excelled in their craft and did a terrific job in protecting him. Even though neither of them had attempted to hone the sword auras before, both of them possessed ridiculous amounts of power. Even swordmasters who were not careful could die at their hands if the twodies decided tounch a sneak attack on them.


    And that was taking into ount the fact that swordmasters had the ability to recognize their enemies¡¯ sword auras or magical ranks, which would put Sika and Nailisi at a disadvantage since they had never practiced them.


    The winged skeleton grabbed Daniel and started flying towards the ind. As Daniel rose higher and higher into the air, he turned his head around and told Saleen, ¡°You¡¯d better hurry up. It¡¯s best if you can build some sort of temporary shelter. It gets kinda foggy at night! And it¡¯s not like that big fog you saw over at Devil¡¯s Horn. There might actually be a few monsters obscured by the fog.¡±


    ¡°Monsters? But didn¡¯t you say that those necromancers would take everything with them?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Well, this isn¡¯t the death dimension so¡­¡± Daniel started, but before he could finish his sentence, the winged skeleton had ced him onto the ground. Saleen followed suit, leaping into the air. Before he crashed onto the ground, Saleen¡¯s body was suddenly enveloped in a thick cloud-like mist that cushioned hisnding.


    There were giant boulders as well as some gravel present in the area that they hadnded in. Strangely, not a single grain of sand was in sight. Daniel watched in amazement as Saleen started levitating in midair. He started trying to figure out the spell that Saleen had used, but to no avail.


    Saleen gave Daniel a gentle smile before he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Lex flying back towards them from afar. He continued pressing Daniel for answers, ¡°There shouldn¡¯t be anyone here. Didn¡¯t you say that necromancers don¡¯t leave anything behind? Why would there be monsters here?¡±


    ¡°This particr ind is frequently connected to the death dimension. However, without a necromancer, death creatures will not be able to travel here on their own. That doesn¡¯t mean that the ind can¡¯t house other monsters naturally though. To us necromancers, we could domesticate them and make them our ves. In other words, the monsters here probably aren¡¯t creatures from the death dimension. To most people, they¡¯re actually scarier than illithids. Get too close to them and you¡¯ll get your life force sucked right out of you. Even swordmasters would die in a heartbeat,¡± Daniel exined.


    ¡°Are they really that powerful?¡± Saleen eximed in wonder. Daniel replied, ¡°I mean¡­ not if you¡¯re prepared. These creatures move slowly and they don¡¯t usually attack unless provoked. Just hide in a tent if you don¡¯t want to be spotted. Don¡¯t get surrounded though. These things can fly in the fog, and once you¡¯re surrounded, there¡¯s no way out.¡±


    Sika leapt from the turtle shell and onto the ground of the ind. If a person considered the metal chains to be long, they would be shaking once they knew how far she had jumped ¨C ten meters. Daniel quaked as he witnessed Sika¡¯s random burst of power. Sika patted on Daniel¡¯s shoulder gently as she said, ¡°Just leave these monsters to me. I¡¯m currently studying something regarding souls and spirits, and would love to have something to experiment on.¡±

 Chapter 230: Saleen’s Follower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 230: Saleen¡¯s Follower (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel¡¯s face was that of excruciating pain as he felt that all of his bones were on the verge of breaking after Sika had given him a pat. However, what made him most astonished was that the winged skeleton behind him seemed to be afraid of Sika, actually retreating half a step.


    Daniel grew morose. He had thought that all of the benefits on this ind would belong to him, because he was the only one who was versed in death magic out of this group of five. Saleen and Lex looked wealthy, so they would not snatch these items from him.


    In the end, Sika, that warrior from Caucasus, had bafflingly said that she wanted to study the ghost fog monsters, and Daniel did not dare to refuse. Those monsters in the ghost fog were very valuable, but Daniel was less powerful than Sika, and he also did not want to offend Saleen.


    ¡°I know a little about death magic. Indeed, there are terrifying creatures in the ghost fog, but Daniel should be able to handle them. Earlier on when I took a look around, I found that there are no humans nor magic beasts within a ten mile radius. More urately, even grass does not grow there. Daniel, you look overjoyed. Tell me, what benefits does the ghost fog bring you?¡±


    Daniel sulked and said, ¡°The benefits are tremendous. You surely know about them.¡±


    ¡°It can absorbed by the death mes, right?¡± Lex was considered to possess profound knowledge. Whenever Saleen did not know something, she was always able to supplement rted information. The two of them had different perspectives on their studies and there was arge difference between their family backgrounds, yet they were mutually helpful.


    ¡°It takes time,¡± Daniel replied in a perturbed manner. He had once dreamed of discovering an ind which had been abandoned by a death mage, and now that he finally discovered one, he actually could not stay. Without Saleen and Lex, he would starve on this ind.


    Daniel did not wield spatial equipment and had not brought food along. If Lex and Saleen were bent on leaving, it would be impossible for Daniel to stay. Fishing in the ocean? Many fish in the sea would view him as prey.


    Saleenughed, then he made a face at Lex. Then, with his back facing Daniel, he said, ¡°Daniel, go and take a look. Perhaps there is a magic tower on the depths of this ind. If that¡¯s the case, we¡¯ll be able to save a lot of effort since we won¡¯t need to build aboratory.¡±


    Daniel agreed in a depressed manner and then left with his winged skeleton. The ind might have been vast, but it was not difficult to conduct a search given a mage¡¯s speed. Furthermore, Daniel had the winged skeleton, and the winged skeleton was basically an additional pair of flying eyes.


    ¡°Saleen, do you have something to tell me after dismissing Daniel?¡±


    ¡°Lex, you have think of a way to control Daniel. The Bitter Water Prefecture doesn¡¯t have any death mages. With Daniel around, your n would have a massive symbolic meaning to it.¡±


    ¡°I know, but Daniel doesn¡¯t make me feel assured. Isn¡¯t your friend Aini learning death magic right now?¡± Lex replied. Lex wanted to recruit death mages for Bitter Water Prefecture, because that would be equivalent to announcing that she was putting up direct resistance to the Holy See and would not back down. That, in turn, would attract more mages to the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    ¡°Aini? He¡­ might make you feel even more ufortable,¡± Saleen said bluntly. In the past, Saleen had interacted with Aini at Aini¡¯s lowest point solely for the purpose of taking advantage of him. Aini was an arrogant person, so he would never be friends with Saleen ever again. Later on, Saleen had met Aini¡¯s parents and had left a good impression on them. However, he did not have any confidence in persuading Aini to work for Lex.


    ¡°He thought of harming me in the past, so no matter what, I will never favor him again,¡± Lex said tly.


    ¡°Leave him to me. I will make sure he ispletely tamed and will work for you.¡±


    ¡°Hm? Are you confident?¡± Lex was in slight disbelief. Death mages were the toughest people of all to deal with, and Daniel might have seemed honest, but one could never be sure of his true intentions.


    ¡°Just a little. Let¡¯s wait until he obtains some benefits on this ind.¡± Seeing that Lex was frowning, Saleen continued, ¡°Lex, you are a viscountess. No, you are a county queen right now. Sooner orter, you will rule over an enormous amount ofnd, and there will be many mages as your subordinates. You can¡¯t handle everything personally. As for myself? I require more time to study magic and won¡¯t be able to ughter enemies on the battlefield. Look at Daniel. He is so much more useful. Help him produce more bone puppets in the future and position them as the charging forces in front of the swordsman¡¯s camp. By then, even heavy crossbows will be helpless in that situation.¡±


    ¡°What if he harbors intentions of harming me again?¡± Lex asked straightforwardly.


    ¡°He won¡¯t have the chance anymore,¡± Saleen answered confidently.


    ¡°Mm, then I will leave it to you.¡± Lex did not continue arguing. Since Saleen was confident, she would let him give it a shot. Indeed, Daniel was a magic genius, but which of her subordinates was not? No matter how hard Daniel tried, he would never get the opportunity to surpass Lex in this lifetime. As long as Lex could settle the issue regarding the hell of god¡¯s punishment, she would be able to be a Grade 9 sorcerer before turning fifty years old.


    Daniel returned shortly and appeared a bit excited. Then, he said, ¡°About twenty miles ahead, there is an abandoned magic tower. But oddly enough, it only has six stories.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing strange about it. This ce is separated from the maind, so it would be challenging to transport materials to and fro. If the mage was not threatened by enemies, he would not have had to build a magic tower.¡±


    As Lex spoke, she signalled for Daniel to lead the way.


    There were no roads on this ind, but there were no obstructing nts either. Thus, for these five people, the twenty mile journey would only take half an hour. The magic tower stood on an empty podium, and the podium seemed to be a ttened hill, being about two meters taller than the rest of the ground.


    Saleen and Lex had been amazed by Raphael¡¯s magic tower, so they were indifferent to this one. On the other hand, Daniel was very agitated. He bowed respectfully towards the magic tower and was mumbling to himself.


    Saleen felt that it was odd and asked, ¡°Daniel, what are you saying?¡±


    ¡°I am thanking the master who has left this magic tower behind. You know, if I train in this tower, my death mes will no longer need replenishing from magic nuclei anymore.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Then I would save a lot.¡± Saleenughed. He was now on the same pedestal as Sika and the others already.


    The magic tower left behind by the death mage was taller than the usual magic tower, as every story had a height of seven meters. A six story magic tower was already taller than most castles. This ck magic tower had been constructed from steel rocks, and a magical bonding agent had been used at the parts where the rocks met. From the architecture, this magic tower hade from the Fourth Dynasty, so it was not ancient. No magic arrays were positioned around the magic tower, and all of them were concealed beneath the podium.


    Saleen¡¯s icy sight could clearly observe what types of deathly forces were present. The magic array which was under Saleen¡¯s feet was used to control the entire ind by concealing it, and the magic array did not require magic nuclei. This method was simr to Raphael¡¯s, but was not as extravagant.


    Death mages were usually modest and did not have any opulent desires. Once they entered the magic tower, the first story was a massive space, but there were no decorations. Besides a stone table, the only other objects remaining were the residual magic patterns on the wall.


    ¡°This ce is pretty good. Saleen, go up and take a look with Daniel. If there is nothing else, I will build an alchemyboratory here in order to build a boat as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Okay, be careful.¡± Saleen gave an instruction and asked Nailisi to stay behind. He then brought Sika and Daniel up to the second story.


    The second story was also barren. It seemed like Daniel had been right about death mages preferring not to leave anything behind. Furthermore, death mages could urately predict the ends of their lives, so they would make all of the arrangements beforehand. As the three of them made their way up to the third, fourth, and fifth stories, Saleen could not help but sigh at the stinginess of this death mage.


    You are already dead. Can¡¯t you just leave something behind for future generations?


    This magic tower was slightly different from a normal magic tower all the way up until the sixth story, where Saleen saw a window. The flooring on this story was made of white rocks, and a magic array had been put together on the surface of the rocks. Daniel pounced onto the magic array and started sobbing, portraying a miserable and pathetic scene.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡±


    ¡°This is a ner magic array! Saleen, I am going to be rich. Correction, we are going to be rich!¡± When Daniel saw Saleen¡¯s smile, he hastily changed his words.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know how to build a ner magic array? Is the grade of this one different?¡± Saleen could not identify the differences between this ner magic array and the one which Daniel had drawn in the past.


    ¡°The materials, materials! Saleen, this rock over here isn¡¯t natural, it¡¯s manmade, and at least a whole piece of ck crystal is required to produce so many bone rocks!¡±


    ¡°Uh, ck crystal? You mean this?¡± Saleen took out a shard of ck crystal. He had aplete piece in his possession. This shard was simply a byproduct from when Nailisi had been segmenting some gems.


    ¡°My goodness, Saleen, you actually have a ck crystal!¡± Daniel stared at the shard obsessively. Death mages did not adore many gems, but the ck crystal was definitely one of the superior gems.


    ¡°Originally, it was aplete piece. But I gave it to my friend, and this is the remaining shard.¡± Saleen did not put away the ck crystal shard. He simply kept grinning and staring at Daniel. Daniel stared at the ck crystal for a long while, then he clenched his teeth and said, ¡°Saleen, what do you want?¡±


    Daniel¡¯s eyes were going to be red. Death mages had their strengths, but they also had their weaknesses. It was challenging for them to produce magic books, and there were no suitable magic staffs either. Furthermore, they even faced difficulties in producing scrolls. Because there were too few materials which were able to store death magic, the ck crystal was one of the best materials avable.


    This piece of ck crystal was notrge. It was simply a shard just like Saleen had said. However, it was alreadyrge enough to be mosaicked into smaller pieces of magic equipment. If this shard was further segmented in a conservative manner, it could still store at least three death spells.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want anything. Let¡¯s just¡­ sign a contract then. A magic contract.¡± At this point, Saleen then put away the ck crystal while Daniel anxiously rubbed his hands together.


    Saleen was not anxious at all. He had not been able to find a vendor selling ck crystals in Alchemy City, but it did not mean that the city did not have any ck crystals at all. Alchemy City most likely had death mages as well, but when they came across such gems, they would give them to their own people first. Even if Daniel had been wealthy, he would not have been able to purchase such a gem, let alone that he was broke.


    ¡°Saleen¡­ I will do anything you say!¡± Daniel said through clenched teeth. In addition to being able to store magic, the ck crystal would also be immensely helpful to his training. Furthermore, Daniel possessed death mes which were of higher quality, so normal crystals had almost zero effect on them.


    ¡°Daniel, please don¡¯t put it that way. I am not trying to force you to do anything. If you don¡¯t like it, then we will not sign a magic contract. Instead, I can sell this ck crystal to you at market price.¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± Daniel was speechless since he was broke. This piece of ck crystal was far too valuable to a death mage. He wanted to buy this piece, but he did not know when he would be able to gather that sum of money. Whenever it was, it would surely be a long timeter.


    ¡°If you are undecided for now, I have a friend who practices death magic too. When I meet him, I can¡¯t say for sure that I will not give the remaining pieces to him.¡± As Saleen spoke, he was already preparing to descend down the six story magic tower. Daniel tried extending his hand, but saw that Sika was giving a deathly re to him. Daniel shivered and did not dare to stop Saleen. He simply called out to him.


    ¡°Saleen, I am willing to sign the contract!¡±

 Chapter 231: Saleen’s Follower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 231: Saleen¡¯s Follower (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Daniel, you have to consider this very carefully. This contract isn¡¯t going to be very fair to you,¡± Saleen advised. Daniel did not know that this was Saleen¡¯s way of raising the stakes. He simply grit his teeth and nodded.


    ¡°Saleen, as long as you give me this ck crystal, it will be up to you to write the contract.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s no good. I want you to do this willingly.¡±


    ¡°I am willing!¡± Daniel¡¯s voice sounded like he was in pain. Aside from the winged skeleton, he had nothing else to his name. It was his fortune that Saleen was willing to exploit him.


    ¡°Daniel, I need a follower,¡± Saleen said calmly. At the same time, Daniel¡¯s expression became quite intriguing.


    Many mages had followers, and followers were split into two types. The first type was a student of a mage. The student was not willing to leave their teacher and train by themselves, so they would be a follower. The other type was a contractor, who had signed a magic contract. A contractor could stay with the mage and aided the mage in training andbat.


    Saleen¡¯s request had not been made on a whim. He had experienced multiple battles and realized the advantage of having more people by his side. Especially aftering to Alchemy City, Saleen had realized that if he wanted more time to train, he had to emte the mages in Alchemy City by getting someone to help him.


    Be it gathering materials or doing battle, Saleen would not have much time for training if he did all of these activities by himself.


    Daniel was hesitant now. Just now, he had been full of determination about wanting to sign a magic contract with Saleen since he had thought that Saleen simply wanted him to carry out some tasks. In reality, Saleen wanted a follower. Once the contract was signed, Daniel would never be able to leave Saleen ever again.


    Daniel felt that a piece of ck crystal in exchange for his lifetime¡¯s freedom was not worth it.


    ¡°Daniel, do you think the deal isn¡¯t worth it?¡± Saleen¡¯s question had hit the bullseye in Daniel¡¯s heart. Daniel nodded, then Saleen said, ¡°This contract is not permanent. As long as your grade surpasses me one day, this contract will be voided.¡±


    ¡°Okay!¡± Daniel was overjoyed. Upon reaching the grade of a sorcerer, a death mage would advance slower than an elemental mage, but before that, a death mage¡¯s speed of advancement was much faster than that of an elemental mage. Saleen was currently at grade-4, while Daniel was about to break the limits of grade-3, so the difference in their grades was limited. Even if Daniel wasted some time by assisting Saleen, he would still be able to reach grade-6 in ten years at most. Yet, Saleen was thinking of reaching grade-6 within ten years? That was pure daydreaming.


    If Saleen had been at grade-6 now, then Daniel would not have had much hope. But, Saleen was at grade-4, so Daniel did not feel that the contract was unfair. He simply thought that Saleen wanted to borrow his powers just for the next ten years.


    Saleen was also rejoicing in his heart since Daniel did not know his background. In order to surpass his grade, Daniel¡¯s training speed would have to be four times that of a normal mage. The moment the contract was signed, it would be toote for Daniel to have any regrets. A contract between mages was not able to be repudiated. Furthermore, Daniel was a death mage, so the bacsh from the contract would affect his soul directly. If Daniel decided to go back on his word, he would surely be doomed.


    Saleen¡¯s body had been transformed by Joey and he had also obtained Raphael¡¯s magic notes, so his training had be very smooth. And, if Saleen still lost to Daniel despite all these advantages, then he would have no right to have Daniel be his follower.


    The real challenge would be advancing to grade-7 from grade-6, as this barrier was the tallest one in the face of every mage out there. As long as Saleen was promoted to grade-6 in advance, then Daniel would never have a chance of surpassing him anymore.


    Saleen grinned as he took out a nk scroll. This time around, the contract was of extreme importance, so a normal piece of paper was no longer strong enough to contain the powers of the contract.


    ¡°Daniel, I am going to write it now. Have you decided?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ have decided.¡± Daniel knew that once he signed the contract, he would have to start working for Saleen. However, he was merely a grade-3 mage, so his powers were limited, and thus Saleen would try to make him advance to grade-4 as soon as possible so that he would be useful.


    Saleen sat down calmly and opened the scroll before taking out a magic pen and the ink made from dragon¡¯s blood. Then, he started writing the contract.


    The format of a magic contract was notplicated. The crux of the contract was in its magic array. A magic array which could affect the soul would effectively restrict both parties involved in the contract. Saleen had been weak in the aspect of magic arrays, but after taming Nailisi, he had continuously studied the magic arrays of contracts.


    Before meeting Joey, Saleen¡¯s studies had been confined to books, but after being enlightened by the conversion of the six great elements, Saleen could now draw magic arrays on his own. The magic array which he was now drawing on the level-5 nk scroll caused Daniel to be petrified. That was the Elemental Annihtion magic array. When this magic array was deployed duringbat, the power contained in it was just too weak. However, when used in contracts, it meant that the soul would be affected by the magic and ignore any defenses as long as both parties took the initiative to make a soul imprint on themselves.


    As a death mage, Daniel knew just how fragile a human¡¯s soul could be.


    Magic array, magic mantra, soul imprint, and the rune signed in blood. By the time this set of things waspleted, the sky was already beginning to turn dark. Saleen thought to himself that he needed to produce more of such contract scrolls so that he could save a lot of time when he needed to use them. Daniel had done fine, as he had not had much of a choice. If Daniel signed contracts with others in the future and the other parties changed their minds because of such a dy, then it would be disastrous for him.


    ¡°Congrattions, Saleen. You finally got yourself a follower,¡± Sika congratted Saleen once she saw Daniel leaving his soul imprint on the contract scroll. Before a mage obtained their own magic tower, their offensive abilities were closely linked to the quality of their followers. After all, Daniel was still a death mage, and once he advanced to grade-4, he would be able to summon creatures from the death dimension from time to time. Plus, with Daniel¡¯s winged skeleton which had already been there from the beginning, the power of Saleen¡¯s team would immediately receive a noticeable boost.


    Death creatures did not feel fear, so they would act as better cannon fodder than fully constructed puppets. If a fully constructed puppet was damaged, one had to spend money on its repairs, and the puppet also required sustenance from magic nuclei in order to function. On the other hand, if summoned death creatures were destroyed, one could simply summon more the next time. There was not even a need to worry about wear and tear issues unless the creature was a high-grade one like the winged skeleton. However, it was also difficult to kill a high-grade death creature like the winged skeleton because the death mes of the death mage would have to bepletely depleted first. As long as the death mes were still present, the winged skeleton would be able to escape to the death dimension at anytime.


    ¡°Daniel, you don¡¯t have to call me ¡®sir¡¯ in the future, ¡®Saleen¡¯ will suffice. This is yours now.¡± As Saleen spoke, he took out the ck crystal once more and handed it to Daniel. As Daniel clutched the cold gem, his heart wrenched. He had originally thought that he was going to die since he was being pursued by the Holy See. Many times, Daniel had tried to make his soul traverse the nes. Unfortunately, he had not possessed enough power.


    Finally, there was hope. Even though Daniel had lost his freedom by bing Saleen¡¯s follower, he had also gained a certain level of security. Saleen was rich, so he could provide magic nuclei and more protection for Daniel. Followers could still hire mercenaries or sign contracts to recruit warriors. The power within a contract belonging to a mage master was sufficient to restrict approximately one hundred people. Since Daniel was Saleen¡¯s first follower, his position would only keep increasing until the contract lost its effect.


    ¡°Okay, Daniel. You shall remain on the sixth story to train. When I need you, I will send Nailisi up here. Sika, let¡¯s go and take a look at Lex¡¯s preparations.¡± Once Saleen had finished his sentence, he did not discuss future matters with Daniel. He simply went all the way down to the first story, leaving Daniel all alone on the sixth story.


    Saleen was feeling a little smug. He was only a grade-4 mage, yet he had managed to recruit a grade-3 death mage as his follower. It seemed like such a thing had yet to happen throughout the history of the maind. It was all thanks to the Myers Goddess who had left behind a heap of gems, in which there had been this ck crystal which was a necessity to the death mage.


    After reaching the first story, Saleen realized that he had not given any food to Daniel. However, Daniel must have been full of excitement right now, so it was possible that he would be unable to stomach anything either. Lex had already built an alchemyboratory, and various alchemy appliances were on disy throughout the first story.


    On the spacious podium outside the door of the magic tower, Saleen noticed a gargantuan turtle shell.


    ¡°This¡­¡± Saleen pointed at the turtle shell and looked a little dazed. This object was absurdly massive and its weight was astounding, so how had Lex been able to move it here?!


    ¡°Master, I am going to die from exhaustion.¡± Nailisi copsed into Saleen¡¯s arms, her eyes brimming with tears.


    Saleen was not going to believe that Nailisi was the one who had moved the turtle shell. Lex waved her hand and called Saleen over. A table was ced in front of Lex. On top of it, there was bread, grease, freshly barbecued meat, and tea brewed using the Cloudflow method.


    Saleen cracked up. Then, he pulled along Nailisi and called out to Sika, ¡°Let¡¯s eat!¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Sika nodded, taking out her boomerang and beginning to slice meat for Saleen. Ever since Lex had left the Bitter Water Prefecture, her diet had be monotonous and she no longer yearned for good taste in her food. Sika had also resumed her original lifestyle where she only used her hands and weapons as tools for eating, not bothering to use a knife or a fork.


    ¡°Sika, you will get sick if you eat like this.¡± Lex blessed Sika with a Cleaning spell, helping her wash her weapons and hands. Sika simply smiled in response. In a sh, Sika had finished slicing the meat with quick strokes of the boomerang before giving the meat to Saleen for him to put between pieces of bread.


    ¡°Lex, I have a piece of good news for you. Daniel¡­ has be my follower.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± Lex thought that she had misheard Saleen. It was not prohibited for a mage to follow another mage, but Saleen was only grade-4, so why would Daniel follow Saleen willingly?


    ¡°The contract has been signed. In the future, just use him as much as you want. It is toote for that fellow to regret it now.¡±


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡± Lex paused for a while before continuing, ¡°You are not a demon, right? So how did you manage to do it?¡±


    ¡°Demon?¡± Saleen nced at Nailisi, then heughed and said, ¡°Lex, our methods are different. You prefer to let the other party work for you willingly while I simply focus on the result. Only a contract is fair. If you hope to expand the Bitter Water County in the future, you can prepare some contracts. I will help you get signatures, and you will definitely not be the one on the losing end.¡±

 Chapter 232: Alchemical Boat (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 232: Alchemical Boat (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Don¡¯t you need to call Daniel? He is your follower now.¡± Lex used a small de to slice some bread before putting a pinch of salt onto the bread. Such a way of eating was exclusive only to the Qin people.


    ¡°Allow him to calm down first. Lex, how did you manage to move the turtle shell up onto the shore?¡± Saleen asked as he consumed the bread which Sika had given him.


    This turtle shell was almost thirty meters long and had a thickness of over one meter. Its weight was astounding, and it was possible that even an ancient giant would not be able to lift it up.


    ¡°How could I possibly have moved it? I merely used the natural magic array on the turtle shell.¡±


    Then, Saleen had an epiphany. This turtle shell possessed an amazing defensive ability, and its thickness and hardness were unparalleled by any other creature. However, it was a challenge for the turtle to live with such a heavy shell in the sea. There was a magic nucleus and magic array within the shell. When the turtle had been alive, it simply needed to draw power from the magic nucleus and its shell would be dozens of times lighter. Then, it would take this opportunity to float above the surface of the water to exchange the air in its body.


    If this turtle shell became dozens of times lighter, then Nailisi and seven other fully constructed puppets would indeed be able to move it. With Lex casting the Binding spell, the shell would be slightly lighter too. It seemed like Nailisi had not been spouting nonsense when she hadmented, because even if the shell was lightened by dozens of times, it would still weigh around hundreds of thousands of kilograms. In order to drag this shell up the shore, Nailisi must have suffered quite a bit.


    Lex noticed that Saleen was feeling a little distressed over Nailisi¡¯s plight. She thenughed and told Saleen, ¡°It was not as difficult as what you thought. I cast magic by paving a road on the ground beforeying ice over it, and the shell became much easier to transport.¡±


    ¡°Master, I am full.¡± Nailisi jumped up and sprinted out of the magic tower in a sh before jumping atop of the turtle shell. At this point in time, Saleen realized that he had been deceived. Lex was a grade-6 mage, so she definitely had many ways of making the road t. Afteryering the road with ice, she could still alter the thickness of the iceyer to create a gradual slope down the road.


    This process had been a little tedious, but was not as tough as what Nailisi had described it to be. In terms of who had suffered the most, Lex must have been the one to do so, because she had needed to cast magic continuously as well as control the changes in the magic. If Lex had not been on a deserted ind, she would have utilized dozens of magic beasts to pull the turtle shell along. Now, however, she could only do it herself.


    After discovering that the turtle possessed an inborn magic array, Saleen became agitated and lost interest in his food. Saleen then told Lex that he wanted to look at the turtle shell after scarfing down two pieces of bread in a hurry.


    As far as Saleen knew, magic beasts never possessed any inborn magic arrays. In the hell of god¡¯s punishment, the magic arrays in the magic beasts had appeared only once they had been transformed, and they were not natural. Now that Saleen knew that the turtle shell contained a natural magic array, he naturally lost all appetite. To a mage, unknown knowledge was more attractive than anything else.


    The shell had been treated by Fellett in the past. However, that had been out at sea, and Fellet¡¯s method had been extremely crude since the flesh had simply been dug out from the shell. Having been soaked in water, there was not much of a smell, but when Saleen came before the shell, he could immediately detect a rotten odor emanating from it.


    The turtle shell had six openings. Saleen decided to forbear the pungent odor and enter through the opening at the head.


    The space inside the turtle shell wasrger than expected. Many pieces of flesh were still stuck to the insides of the shell, but most had been removed already. The height of the space inside the shell was fairly uniform at around five to six meters. It seemed like the thickness of this shell was even more astounding than he had imagined. Saleen cast a Fluorescence spell and saw the natural magic lines under his feet. Then, he went into deep thought.


    The turtle shell would have been wasted if it was used to craft armor, but it will make a good boat if the six openings are sealed.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Everybody shall clean up the shell by removing the rotten flesh.¡± Lex also did not mind the repulsive odor and climbed into the shell.


    ¡°Nailisi, be careful. Don¡¯t ruin the magic lines.¡± Saleen noticed that Nailisi¡¯s movements were hasty, and he was afraid since her nails were extremely sharp. The turtle shell might have been tough, but it was still possible for Nailisi to make a few scratches if she chose to. If the magic lines were destroyed, then the value of this shell would decrease drastically.


    The four people began removing the carrion. Once a segment was cleared, Lex and Saleen would use Cleaning spells and Fire Washing spells to create a sterilized area. Very soon, all the carrion inside the turtle shell had been removed and the shell waspletely clean. Thereafter, Lex and Saleen used recollection magic to memorize all of the magic lines on the shell.


    ¡°Saleen, the sky is dark,¡± Sika reminded them. After acquiring the abilities of a warrior priest, Sika quickly realized that a dense fog had appeared outside, and some strange creatures had appeared in this fog. These must have been the ghost fog monsters that Daniel had been referring to. They did not feel powerful, but their numbers were shocking.


    Lex did not want to take any risks either, so she stopped working and left the shell together with Saleen and the others.


    Just as they reached the magic tower, the dense fog had engulfed the surroundings of the magic tower. As there was a magic array under the base of the tower, the dense fog could not enter the magic tower. Saleen discovered that he could only see less than ten meters into the dense fog even with his icy sight, and he saw that within this dense fog, a type of small creature that was only a little more than a meter long was crawling about slowly.


    That was a ghost fog monster. It had a human face and slender limbs, and even Saleen was confident that he could breaking its waist with a single kick. However, these small monsters possessed razor sharp teeth and ws. Growing on the surface of its body was neither hair nor scales. Instead, it was a thickyer of rust.


    It was rust, and the body of this little monster seemed just like an eroded puppet.


    Gege¡­ ao¡­


    The little monster had a sharp voice. Saleen felt as if an invisible force had invaded his mind, so he quickly adjusted his mental power to eradicate it.


    Indeed, that was a huge threat. Had Saleen been in a deep sleep when he was assaulted by this sound, he might not have been able to react in time. Fortunately, this monster only appeared at night, because during the day, the fog would disperse and it would disappear into thin air.


    ¡°Sika, are you able to deal with these things?¡± Saleen grew a little worried. Sika had said that she was not afraid of such creatures, but now it seemed like these creatures possessed the ability to carry out psychological attacks.


    ¡°Warrior priests are of course not afraid of these,¡± Sika protested. Her eyes could also see several meters into the dense fog, so she could tell that these tiny monsters were really too frail.


    ¡°Master, this thing smells a little like the winged skeleton. It might really belong to the death dimension.¡± Nailisi twitched her nose and ran into the dense fog suddenly. She grabbed onto the neck of a little monster and pinched it tightly before making her way back to the magic tower.


    Zhi zhi!


    Nailisi mmed the tiny monster onto the ground, and Sika went forward and stomped on it before putting her cudgel onto the monster¡¯s head. At the end of the cudgel, the dragon¡¯s horns sprung out, and the freezing air epassed the tiny monster, rendering it immobile.


    Saleen detected an extremely fishy smell. Thatyer of rust on the surface of the body of the little monster was apanied by a fishy stench which was only found on dead fish.


    Lex cast a Cleaning spell, and a faint magic light engulfed the tiny monster. The tiny monster twisted and turned in pain, as its short tail mmed against the ground in desperation.


    The odor was greatly dissipated by the Cleaning spell. The body of the tiny monster already looked like it had been burned by fire for several hours, as its skin was shrunken, cracked, and smoking.


    Saleen became at ease when he noticed that the monster was indeed afraid of treatment magic. Most treatment spells were instantaneous, sustainable over long periods, low in depletion, and their range could be easily controlled. Even if this tiny monster wanted tounch an assault, it would have to ovee the barrier at the entrance of the magic tower first. The Cleaning spell was only level-0 magic, yet it could already cause such severe damage to this tiny monster.


    However, this thing was so noisy that it prevented people from falling asleep. It was truly irksome.


    ¡°Close the door. I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll get any sleep tonight.¡± Saleen shook his head helplessly, then he instructed Nailisi to deliver the tiny monster to the sixth story where Daniel could do some research on it.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. Let¡¯s take this opportunity to study the alchemy drawings. I won¡¯t be able to handle them alone.¡± Lex summoned Saleen over to herboratory tform.


    Saleen also knew that it would not be practical to ughter all the tiny monsters out there, because as long as this ind had even the slightest of connection to the death dimension, the dense fog would continue to produce such things. Sika and Nailisi leaned on both sides of the door of the magic tower. Thus, Saleen decided to put his mind at ease and study the shipbuilding alchemy drawing together with Lex.


    The alchemy drawing wasid over a magic array, and magic nuclei were mosaicked into the six corners of this magic array. A white magic light lit up, and a three-dimensional structure emerged from the alchemy drawing.


    ¡°Is this¡­ a ship?¡± Saleen could not help but feel doubtful when he saw the three-dimensional structure. The drawing was tooplex. The core structure in the middle already contained hundreds of magic forme, and an endless list of materials and alchemy forme were written on top of it.


    ¡°Mm, this is a ship that was created by the empire¡¯s alchemists. Originally, it was meant for the Lianyun City, but as you know, that city has gone out of control because my uncle isn¡¯t capable enough.¡±


    ¡°Where is the source of the power for this ship?¡±


    ¡°Do you see these eight magic forme?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Give me a moment.¡± As Lex spoke, she shifted the alchemy drawing and the three-dimensional structure immediately transformed into a strangely shaped ship, appearing before Saleen.


    The ship looked more like an octopus. Its front was shaped like an oval, thus obscuring the deck. Eight sterns, each the length of an insect, were present at the rear of the ship, and these sterns looked like the ship¡¯s paddles.


    ¡°This is a stealth warship. It is able to move while being ten meters below the surface of water. These eight magic forme that you see are in fact eight magic sequences, and these are detached magic arrays which are refined into the eight sterns. The sterns can control the direction of the ship and shoot water. Actually, this item was created by the empire¡¯s alchemists after they dissected some sea magic beasts.¡±


    ¡°If this ship is hit, everyone on the ship might die too.¡± In one nce, Saleen identified the problem with this ship. Being able to travel underwater was not something amazing. The thing was, this ship did not possess the required offensive abilities to be regarded as a warship, and once it was struck by magic, no one on the ship would be able to escape.


    Those eight sterns could not possibly be used to attack enemies either, because once the sterns were destroyed, the ship would lose its mobility, and the warriors on the ship would eventually drown as well.


    ¡°That¡¯s why we need to transform it. There are very few spells which can destroy the turtle shell, right?¡± Lex shifted the alchemy drawing once more, thus projecting the internal structure of the magic ship again.


    ¡°We are going to transform these eight sterns, and install them onto the turtle shell at the positions where the limbs were originally at.¡± As Lex spoke, she pointed to the crucial positions on the alchemy drawing. Gradually, Saleen understood that the drawing was simply an experimental piece. Theoretically, it was possible to build the ship, but Lex might not have possessed so much confidence if she were to really build it ording to the drawing.

 Chapter 233: Alchemical Boat (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 233: Alchemical Boat (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Lex, this is an experimental product.¡± Saleen rubbed his eyebrows and sighed at the drawing.


    ¡°Three of these ships have been produced. We are not the first to do so.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Alchemy City doesn¡¯t seem to have such a ship.¡±


    ¡°This ship¡­ was produced by my father secretly behind the backs of the houses, so the drawing was not circted. All three ships were sunk in Lake Gan, and aside from the royal mages who were loyal to my father, no one else knows about this.¡± At this time, Lex¡¯s expression turned glum. Her father had not only possessed the intentions of overthrowing the Holy See, but he had also wanted to unify the maind. In order to do so, he had needed to deal with the Cloudflow Navy.


    Alchemy City would never dere war on the Cloudflow Empire, so Emperor Chanake had needed to establish his own magic fleet. Unfortunately, before he could fulfill this wish, he had been killed in the Holy See¡¯s ambush. Safilos had known of this n as well, but he could no longer control the nobles in Lianyun City. Hence, he had not dared to continue with Chanake¡¯s n.


    Lex¡¯s eyes were brimming with tears as she stared at the alchemical structure levitating in midair. Once her father passed away, many things had simply disappeared. Not only was the magic fleet gone, but the city of magic which her father had supported was also gone.


    Alchemy City was already showing symptoms of degeneration. It would not be able to help the Qin Empire unify the maind. Those sorcerers were too used to being at the top of the society, so they did not bother thinking about the future of mankind. To the sorcerers in City, they were fine with anything so long as no one offended their pride. Alchemy City had leeched onto the Qin Empire and had stopped thinking of how to help the empire realize the glory and dreams it had possessed when it was first founded.


    Countless magic resources had been monopolized by Alchemy City. Lex had inched along in the Bitter Water Prefecture for ten years before being able to groom a sorcerer ¨C Faerun. Unfortunately, Faerun was dead. The Bitter Water Prefecture and Alchemy City were poles apart whenpared to each other, so there was still no visible hope of salvaging the Qin Empire right now.


    ¡°This ship is problematic.¡± Saleen stared the ship for a long time. In regards to how it was powered, Saleen could not figure it out, but he had great understanding of the aspects of its offensive magic. It was far too difficult to carry out underwater attacks, as this ship would need to surface above water before it could open the alchemical magic array in its hull andunch its magic stone artillery.


    Lex sighed and said, ¡°Saleen, do you realize just how strong the Cloudflow Navy is? If it was not for Alchemy City, the coasts of Qin would never have been able to enjoy a day of peace. This ship was originally used to transport dead troops. The hull would be piled with magic burning agents, and then the ship would sneak close to the Cloudflow warships before surfacing above the water. After that, the magic burning agents would be ignited and the ship would perish together with the enemy.¡±


    ¡°That¡­¡± Saleen had not expected that such aplex ship was simply intended to perish together with the enemy. As Saleen recalled the scene when the hunting boats from Alchemy City had been assaulted by that giant ship, he felt helpless. That giant ship had been able to fire its magic stone artillery in quick session, and no matter how many warriors onemanded, no one would have been able to get close to that ship.


    Peng!


    The door of the magic tower was rammed by a huge force, causing Sika and Nailisi to grow rmed at the same time. The ghost fog monsters were trying to gain entry into the tower and had begun attacking! These monsters were still fairly capable while they were in the dense fog, but once they left the fog, they were just like fish who had left the water. If the ghost fog monsters really charged in, Saleen and Lex would not need to do anything, because Sika alone would be able to smash them into mash using her cudgel.


    ¡°So troublesome!¡± Saleen turned his head around and said to Nailisi, ¡°Let Sika get some more rest. If those monsters manage to barge in, just use the scrolls to exterminate them.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master,¡± Nailisi replied solemnly. Most of her scrolls had been acquired from Saleen¡¯s magic practice sessions. Their quality was bad since Saleen was lousy at making scrolls. Saleen had only focused on familiarizing himself with the process of storing magic into the scrolls, and as for the results, they had been out of his control.


    ¡°Lex, if the alchemical boat is made using the turtle shell as its material, it will definitely be of great use. But, do you think we will get another opportunity to capture a turtle?¡±


    ¡°It is very challenging. If a normal hunting boat is used, the turtle will cause it to capsize, and if a fleet is deployed, the turtle will simply avoid it.


    ¡°If we will face so much difficulty in catching a second turtle, then even if this ship is transformed, it will not be meaningful to you. You require a massive fleet, so what¡¯s the use of just one ship? It would be great if we could think of a solution to install an alchemical machine on the shell so that we could steer it back to the maind. We will just be wasting our time if we rush to study the transformation when there is clearly no use for it in the future.¡±


    ¡°No, Saleen. Before I witnessed that spell of yours, I used to think that this ship was just wasting the lives of our warriors. But if your spell can be used to analyze the magic array, then you can create spells which are suitable for underwater assaults.¡±


    When Saleen heard Lex¡¯s words, he raised his hand and an ice bomb appeared on top of his hand, levitating in midair. A thickyer of water vapor surrounded the ice bomb. As long as Saleen continued to release more magic, the water vapor would begin to burn and eventually explode.


    ¡°Your ice bomb has already advanced to level-5, and it also contains the attributes of the fire element. If you can use a magic array for casting and a magic nucleus for stimtion, then it can be released underwater. Level-5 magic already poses a threat to the Cloudflow Navy.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Saleen dispersed the ice bomb on his hand, leaving behind some ice shards which resembled snowkes in the air. The ice bomb was quickly dispersed. Those ghost fog monsters outside the magic tower were still trying to break the door down, and Saleen could not be bothered with them. He would only react once the door was broken.


    ¡°I will alter the portion regarding its mechanical power. You will be in charge of the study into the offensive magic array.¡±


    ¡°That will be difficult.¡± Saleen was ashamed. Saleen¡¯s original choice of direction had been in magic pharmaceutics, so it was not a problem for him to create some strange medicines. However, asking Saleen to research magic arrays was equivalent to making a fish learn how to run onnd. The only possible method was to analyze it using the Figaro form. However, that would require an immense amount of analysis.


    ¡°You still have to do it even if it¡¯s challenging. Saleen, I am but a single person. It is really exhausting.¡± As Lex spoke, she took the chance to sit down and leaned against the chair, looking a little vexed.


    Saleen looked at Lex. Her face had never been so haggard before. Other nobledies her age would have been married, and some might even have been pregnant already. However, Lex had toplete numerous tasks which were fraught with difficulties, because she had no choice but to inherit her father¡¯s bequest.


    Saleen really wanted to say this to Lex ¨C you should just drop everything and leave it alone. However, that tinge of lingering sadness in Lex¡¯s eyes made Saleen unable to say so outloud.


    It seemed like Saleen¡¯s wishes were not as intense as those of Lex¡¯s. If Saleen had been in her shoes right now, would he have been as persistent as her?


    Lex¡¯s uncle was not willing to support her while her brother was an emperor who was powerless and disrespected by the noblemen. Lex had established her county in the barren Bitter Water Prefecture, where the food supplies were barely self-sufficient. The county was in an isted environment, and evenmerce could hardly take ce there. With such conditions, was it possible for a county to resist the entirety of the maind?


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll do the calctions.¡± Saleen pointed at Lex¡¯s chair, Lex understood what he wanted and stood up before giving the chair to him. In Lex¡¯s god¡¯s ring, there was only this single chair. Usually, her and Saleen would simply sit on the floor.


    Saleen took a seat and nced at the levitating alchemical structure before taking a deep breath. Fortunately, Saleen still possessed the ne belonging to the Myers Goddess. Saleen channeled all of his mental power into the ne and entered the space of the Figaro form, then he began analyzing his Ice Bomb spell.


    Lex had not been acting pitiful in front of Saleen. After spending so much time with her, Saleen knew that Lex was actually a fairly simple person. All the hypocrisy associated with the nobles was unrted to her. Had Lex wanted some peace of mind by marrying herself off to Cloudflow, the Cloudflow royal family would also not have dared to anger Lex given her status and capabilities.


    With a certain type of significance, Saleen was full of gratitude towards Lex. When Saleen had been destitute, it was Lex who had given him shelter. Lex treated Saleen and the rest of the mages equally. She did not belittle nor boss him around. At that point in time, Lex had never harbored the intentions of making use of Jason Statham.


    Saleen had been greatly influenced by Lex. When Saleen had been his old self, he had always gone into hiding whenever he ran into problems. However, after spending so much time with Lex, Saleen had gradually gained the courage to face challenges and perils. The environment in the Bitter Water Prefecture had also greatly changed Saleen¡¯s character. He was now not so gloomy and easily roused. If Saleen met Earl Sufonso¡¯s son right now, he would definitely not act so reckless as to kill him.


    That killing would have been a mere act of cowardice by Saleen. Perhaps it might have seemed like decisive revenge, but it was, in fact, Saleen¡¯s inferiorityplex at its peak. Saleen was d, because nobody would have known how he would have turned out had he returned to the Clyde family with Aini. Aini might have been Saleen¡¯s friend, but if his character and Saleen¡¯s mindset influenced each other, Saleen could have easily became a wayward mage.


    Once a person became wayward, it was difficut to get them back on the right path.


    Lex was also furiously calcting away. She was not as proficient as Saleen in the Figaro form, but she was more familiar with the changes in a magic array. The Figaro form was only a tool. Lex¡¯s ultimate goal was to transform the magic array so that the original concept of the alchemical boat could bepatible with the new materials.


    Lex did not need to calcte many things, and as for the alchemy drawing, she could not have been more familiar with it already.


    The turtle shell was very special. The space in the middle was not exactly empty. There were vertically positioned bones at the openings for the limbs supporting the shell, forming a sealed natural cabin. Lex needed to think of a solution to maximize this space and install the alchemy machine, so that even if the machine was destroyed, the ship still would not sink. In order to achieve that, Lex would need make bigger alterations to the structure of the machine. Since Lex was also adept at alchemy, this was not a big deal to her.


    However, the things which Lex and Saleen wanted to aplish had indeed exceeded their capabilities. Usually, only a sorcerer would have been able to carry out activities such as designing a new magic array and refining huge pieces of equipment. Right now, Saleen was merely a grade-4 mage while Lex was a grade-6 mage, so the amount of calctions they had to do were very shocking even though they had obtained the alchemy drawings from a predecessor.


    If Saleen had not possessed the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne which enabled him to calcterge scale forme in a short time, he would have never been able to solve this problem.


    The alchemical boat needed to have offensive abilities, or else it would be easily captured by other people. Saleen was well aware of what it would mean for the Qin and Cloudflow Empire the moment the alchemical boat could be produced sessfully.


    In his heart, Saleen was secretly excited about the task he was going to carry out because it would likely influence history throughout the entire Myers Maind. As a mage, it was an extremely rare opportunity to be able to leave such a mark in history. It was just like Raphael. Many people did not know what Raphael had done, but his name had already be an eternal legend.

 Chapter 234: Transformed Ice Bomb Magic Array (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 234: Transformed Ice Bomb Magic Array (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel sat on the sixth story of the magic tower. The dense fog was just outside the window, and from time to time, a ghost fog monster would pop its face out from the fog to take a peep into the magic tower.


    Daniel was not flustered at all because the magic array underneath his body had been created for the purpose of connecting to the death dimension. Only strong and powerful death creatures existed on the other end of the magic array. Those ghost fog monsters did not have much wisdom, but they would not enter the sixth story of the magic tower either way, because the magic array contained a smell which they were terrified of.


    The ghost fog monsters were simply eyeing the flesh of a death mage, and Daniel knew that. However, these monsters could not cause much damage to Daniel unless they were inside the fog. In front of Daniel was a ghost fog monster which Nailisi had delivered to him, and when Daniel recalled what Nailisi had said to him, he became a little petrified.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about the contract. As long as you try to harm my master, I will treat you the way I treated this monster.¡± After Nailisi hadpleted her sentence, she had torn that pitiful monster into shreds. Nailisi¡¯s techniques were too precise, as though she had done such acts countless times. In her pair of green eyes was a desire to make people¡¯s hearts palpitate.


    Daniel did not know what type of desires Nailisi had. Perhaps she was hoping he would harm Saleen. That way, she would have the opportunity to kill him.


    Anyway, Daniel had already signed the contract, so he did not try to challenge Nailisi. Daniel simply needed to advance to grade-6 before Saleen did and the contract would be voided. By then¡­


    No matter how powerful Nailisi was, she was merely a maidservant. Daniel suppressed a fire which welled up in his heart and stopped thinking about the contract. Then, he released his death mes and began strengthening the winged skeleton. Additionally, he attempted to summon a second death creature.


    It was pitch ck outside the magic tower and the moonlight could not be seen. Saleen and Lex were engrossed in the midst ofplex calctions, while Sika and Nailisi stood guard by the door of the magic tower, preventing any ghost fog monsters from identally barging in.


    One night passed just like that.


    As the sky gradually grew brighter, the fog started to disperse, and the tiny monsters within the fog also disappeared. Sika shoved the half broken door aside and walked up onto the podium. The colossal turtle shellid quietly on the podium.


    Sika jumped atop the shell and went to its center before sitting down. Then, she gazed at the distant barrennd and rocks in a trance. Nailisi sneakily followed her and climbed behind Sika. Nailisi had not made any noise at all, but Sika had already taken out her boomerang and was pressing it against Nailisi¡¯s neck. It was as though Sika had eyes on the back of her head.


    ¡°Sister Sika.¡± Nailisi spoke in a mellow tone as she curled up her body, a look of gentleness on her face.


    ¡°I am not your elder sister. Just think of your age right now.¡± Sika remembered Saleen¡¯s words telling her to never trust Nailisi. Her mind was very simple. Once she set her mind to something, there was no way to make her change it.


    Nailisi backed away slightly, allowing the boomerang to leave her neck beforeying down, just like a magic pet.


    ¡°Sister Sika, I am Master¡¯s¡­ I won¡¯t hurt you.¡±


    ¡°Probably.¡± Sika stored the boomerang into the leather sheath, having no intentions of having a conversation with Nailisi.


    ¡°Sister Sika, something is wrong with Lex.¡± Nailisi ignored Sika¡¯s attitude. She ced her chin on her hand and lifted her eyelids so that she could observe Sika¡¯s expression.


    ¡°Mm.¡±


    ¡°I think she likes Master,¡± Nailisi said calmly.


    Sika¡¯s eyelids fluttered, then her expression became that of indifference and said, ¡°Saleen is a good man. It¡¯s only natural that she will fall for him.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not normal, not normal at all!¡± Nailisi rebutted. ¡°Master¡¯s background is nowhere near as noble as hers. Why would she fall for him? Sika, aren¡¯t you worried?¡±


    ¡°Why should I be worried?¡±


    ¡°If Lex and Master get together, then Master will no longer need your protection.¡± As Nailisi spoke, her eyelids closed.


    ¡°Are you saying that Lex wants the entire interdimensional space? Then she can have it. I don¡¯t need it.¡±


    ¡°I am talking about Master! Sika, don¡¯t you like Master?¡±


    Sika lowered her head, stared into Nailisi¡¯s green eyes, and said, ¡°I am a Caucasus person. I will vie for anything that I like. I haven¡¯t thought about it yet. Why are you telling me all these things?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all for Master! Sika, have you thought about it? If Master keeps following Lex, he will no longer spend his days happily. Those humans want to go to war. They want to go to war with the Holy See and conquer other people¡¯snd. The thought of it is just so loathsome, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    Sika nodded. She agreed with Nailisi¡¯s view. Caucasus people did not need to go to war. They simply needed to fill their stomachs, and any extra food would be given to the elderly and children in the vige.


    ¡°Sika, if you like Master, I will help you,¡± Nailisi said earnestly.


    ¡°I get it. You can go and do your work now.¡± Sika removed the cudgel from her back and ced it on the turtle shell. Then, sheid down, using her cudgel as a pillow, before closing her eyes.


    ¡°Sister Sika, I am not busy at all.¡±


    ¡°But I am tired and want to sleep. I still have to stay up tonight.¡± As Sika spoke, she positioned her hands on the leather sheath housing her boomerang, and Nailisi knew that if she continued pestering Sika, Sika would attack her soon enough.


    ¡°Hmph¡­¡± Nailisi got up and jumped off of the turtle shell, confused. How did this Sika be so bright? However, Nailisi did not harbor any ill intentions either. She simply did not want Saleen to get together with a woman who was too intelligent, as that would not be beneficial to her.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice came from the magic tower.


    ¡°Aye!¡±


    ¡°You shall continue cleaning the turtle shell, but be careful not to break anything.¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± Nailisi pouted, but still obeyed Saleen¡¯s orders and crawled into the turtle shell. The odor within the turtle shell smelled much nicer than it had yesterday. Seeing that no one was around, Nailisi removed her shoes and climbed with nimble movements towards the upper end of the shell. The roof of the turtle shell was about eight meters from the base of the shell. Nailisi sped her legs around the lines on the shell and used her hands to pull out the carrion which had not been removed yet.


    Nailisi remained in one spot and cautiously removed all the carrion. After more than an hour, the center of the turtle shell waspletely clean. At this point in time, Nailisi noticed that there was a massive magic pattern at that spot.


    This pattern was clear and profound, formed by the manyyers which the turtle had grown over the years. Nailisi knocked on it and a hollow sound could be heard. Parts of the turtle shell were obviously hollow. If everything was solid, the shell would definitely have been heavier. Magic nuclei and magic liquid grew inside the hollow portions, and these portions possessed self-healing abilities.


    Nailisi wanted to extract the magic nuclei, but did not dare to. Saleen had warned her against ruining the turtle shell, and if she did so, he would be furious. Nailisi ced her palm against the pattern, permeating her mental power into it.


    Such an enormous magic nucleus! Nailisi found the position of the magic nucleus swiftly and secretly put a mental imprint on it. Even Saleen did not know that she had such an ability. Afterpleting it satisfactorily, she then went in search for the next magic nucleus. From Nailisi¡¯s perspective, the turtle belonged to her master, but Lex had forced her way in and Saleen could not fight back, and this made her furious. That was why Nailisi had tried to instigate Sika into fighting with Lex for Saleen.


    Even though Sika had ignored her, Nailisi was not worried at all. Since Nailisi had already raised the question, the question would nt itself and grow in Sika¡¯s mind, and then it would eventually erupt.


    As a contract creature, Nailisi did not want to be under someone¡¯smand. If Saleen got together with Lex in the future, Nailisi would naturally be the most pathetic coolie ever. However, if Saleen chose Sika, Nailisi would have an easier life. Sika was just a dumb woman. Obviously, she would be easier to deal withpared to Lex, who was shrewd. Perhaps her master could marry several women and have more children, but Lex definitely could not be the head of the household.


    Nailisi¡¯s task right now was to gainplete control of the turtle shell. Those magic nuclei would be the main part of the turtle warship, as they would be one with the alchemical machine. Nailisi was confident of gaining ultimate control as long as the warship was produced.


    The alchemical machines made by humans were definitely exquisite, but they still relied on magic nuclei to be controlled at the end of the day. I will acquire these magic nuclei in advance. As long as the mental imprints aren¡¯t discovered and the warship is produced, hehe¡­


    Nailisi felt smug as she continued cleaning the interior of the turtle shell. Atop of the shell, Sika¡¯s eyes were closed, but she could not get to sleep.


    Do I like Saleen? I definitely do. But to what extent? I can only confirm that after asking the vige chief when I return to the vige. But I have be a warrior priest, so even if I like Saleen, I can¡¯t get married to him! It seemed that in the history of the Caucasus people, there was not a priest who had been married yet.


    Didn¡¯t Saleen say that he wanted a boat so that he could live a life without any restraints on the ocean? So a boat is going to be built, but why is it for Lex¡¯s battle? Qin people, Tanggsi people, Cloudflow people, Sikeqinya people ¨C are all of them so greedy? Wouldn¡¯t it be great if everyone could live like the vigers? Why are there nobles, the Holy See, and so many inedible ¨C but more important than food ¨C gold coins?


    Sika racked her brain but could not understand these things. In the end, she realized that all these problems stemmed from the Holy See. Without the existence of the Holy See, the old emperor would not have died, and Lex would not have so many ideas and would not have had to carry out so many tasks.


    The Holy See. The most irksome fellows came from the Holy See. In thest few years, many warriors from two of the viges located to the south of the mountains had been deceived by the Holy See and had never returned. The Holy See had only given them some gold coins, and those gold coins were eventually cheated from them in the end.


    The vige chief was right. The Holy See and the rest of their aplices do not actually have a religion. They are fallen devils who want to tempt mankind. Otherwise, why wouldn¡¯t the Lord of Glory be willing to descend? The legends are true. If gods descended upon the Myers Maind, they would gradually die, and no one would be an exception. The Myers Goddess was not the first, but she will definitely be thest.


    Gods are selfish fellows. Those who are not selfish have already died.


    Saleen was unaware what Sika and Nailisi were thinking about since he was intensely focused on analyzing his Ice Bomb spell. Immense calctions were needed in order to enable a spell to be cast from a magic array. This was even more true because Saleen¡¯s spell was aplex transformed spell. Usually, he would require several months or even a year¡¯s worth of calction time, but now that Saleen was tapping into the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne, he could aplish this task in a week.


    They could not stay on this deserted ind for too long. If Lex went missing for too long, change would definitely ensue in the Bitter Water Prefecture. The people in the Holy Rock City were looking forward to that day.

 Chapter 235: Transformed Ice Bomb Magic Array (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 235: Transformed Ice Bomb Magic Array (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Doing the calctions in a magic form was not a very difficult task. Even if a mage was only grade-1, they would still be able to rely on alchemical equipment to calcte extremelyplicated forme. For a mage like Saleen who possessed powerful mental power, he could simply do the calctions in his head.


    If Saleen had possessed dozens of students, he could have simply delegated this job to his students and asked them to calcte the different parts of the magic form before piecing everything together.


    Saleen now knew that it was so imperative for a mage to have arge number of followers. However, right now, he could only rely on himself to calcte the tens of thousands of forms before restoring them into the lines and patterns of the magic array. As Saleen calcted through the night, he went in and out of the ne repeatedly and meditated many times, causing his body to be extremely exhausted.


    Lex noticed that Saleen was looking pale, so she gave him thest bit of magic liquid she had. The magic liquid was not able to restore his magic chords nor his mental power, but it could help regte his physical body.


    ¡°How are things going?¡± Lex asked Saleen in concern.


    ¡°It¡¯s very tedious. I¡¯ve just finished calcting the portion for the core, and there are still six regions yet to be calcted.¡± Saleen then took a sip of the magic liquid with an unusual reverence.


    Lex said, ¡°Drink it all, I will make moreter on. Now that we will not need to fight, it will be fine to fully deplete our magic chords.¡±


    Saleen pondered for a moment before drinking all of the magic liquid in the bottle. Lex had been able to produce thirty bottles of magic liquid within this one month on the ind. Even if battles erupted at sea, they already had an adequate amount of magic liquid. Thirty bottles of magic liquid were equivalent to all of the treatments carried out by two high-grade holy masters within a day.


    In reality, Saleen¡¯s Ice Bomb spell was split into three phases. Firstly, a level-5 ice bomb would be formed via condensation, then the surface of the ice bomb would be vaporized and broken down in order to allow the water elements to be converted into extremely unstable wind elements. Before the wind elements came into contact with the target, they would have already been converted into fire elements. This whole process was very swift. It was still easy for the mage to control this process, but if it was driven by a magic array, the magic array could potentially explode if the spell was cast just a little bitter.


    The effect from a chain of mutual bombardments between the magic elements would cause the ship to be sted into smithereens. If the explosion urred within the turtle shell, the shell would remain fine, but the people inside would definitely be killed. Hence, Saleen needed to make the magic array controble. The person controlling the magic array might only be a grade-1 mage, and Saleen could not pin his hopes on a grade-1 mage controlling a level-5 ice bomb.


    This would mean that huge changes needed to be made to the transformed Ice Bomb spell. Saleen had spent more than a year creating this spell, and he had even received guidance from Joey in order to understand thews of the elemental conversion process. Completing the changes in six days¡¯ time was an extremely arduous task for Saleen even though he was doing the calctions inside of the ne.


    As the days passed, Saleen did not get much rest at all. At night, he would be calcting in desperation, and during the day, he would do research on the various changes this spell could undergo. Nailisi had already finished cleaning the turtle shell. She was simply waiting for the results of the research conducted by Saleen and Lex.


    On the sixth day, Saleen withdrew all of his mental power from the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne after staying up the whole night. He then requested for a magic brush from Lex andid a nk scroll on the alchemy tform before swiftly drawing a magic array.


    This was the first magic array that Saleen had transformed. He drew with the brush at lightning speed and did not dare to waste any time at all. At this point in time, Daniel descended from the magic tower, and as he had not appeared for six days, the color of his skin was that of an unhealthy white. His facial muscles were also drooping. For the past six days, Daniel had not eaten a single mouthful of rice at all. He had simply been fully engrossed in magic.


    Lex gestured for Daniel to remain silent and to wait outside of the magic tower for now. Lex stayed beside Saleen. She noticed that Saleen had used the finest part of the magic brush to draw a magic pattern which was as intricate as a strand of hair, and she became agitated as she observed Saleen.


    As pieces of scrolls werepleted, Lex knew that most of Saleen¡¯s designs would be sessful. This was aplex magic array. There was a main core alchemy drawing apanied by six auxiliary alchemy drawings. Even though more space would be required, the space inside of the turtle shell was already massive to begin with.


    The alchemy drawing had an obvious w. The core portion would need a grade-5 mage at minimum to control it, while the remaining six auxiliary magic arrays also required a legitimate mage to monitor them. All seven of these alchemy drawings were just to cast a single level-5 spell. If this magic array had not needed to be installed inside of the stealth ship, then it would simply be useless.


    Saleen spent two hours drawing all of the lines and magic patterns. After he hadpleted the drawing of the magic array, he tossed the brush aside andid on the floor, not wanting to move at all.


    For six consecutive days, Saleen had spent all of his time on the magic array. This was the first time he had ever put in so much effort since he had started learning magic.


    ¡°Saleen, when this thing is pieced together, it looks like¡­¡± Lex said hesitantly. She acknowledged Saleen¡¯s effort, but this was aplex magic array which could not be controlled singlehandedly. The alchemical machine which Lex had designed was also like that. It was separated into six parts so that the alchemical boat could move about freely.


    Saleen¡¯s magic array required seven mages to control it, while Lex¡¯s magic array required six. This meant that even if the boat was constructed, at least thirteen mages would be needed in order for it to be functional. Otherwise, the boat would simply be an empty shell floating at sea. It would not even be able to dive or travel forward.


    Since the mages would grow tired, at least three groups of mages would be needed to tend to Lex¡¯s alchemical machine, while two groups were needed to control Saleen¡¯s offensive magic array. In this case, the boat would then require at least thirty-two mages. And if thirty-two mages were to be deployed on such a boat, then it would actually be easier to just employ a normal armored warship.


    Even on an armored warship, the alchemical machines were operated by magic disciples. The alchemical boat which Lex and Saleen had transformed was expecting a little too much from its crew.


    Because of their limited time, Lex had not thought of the defensive magic array yet, not to mention that the defensive magic array would still need to bepatible with the natural magic array on the turtle. Once everything waspletely transformed, this boat would require at least fifty mages in order to be used as a warship.


    Saleen looked at his more than twenty scrolls in satisfaction, and said to Lex, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. If I am controlling this magic array, I can do it myself.¡±


    ¡°I know that, but in the future¡­¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s produce the boat for now. As for future matters, we will of course manage them in the future. Come, let¡¯s try an experiment with this magic array to see whether or not it can really be used.¡±


    Lex was helpless. After all, the fact that Saleen had been able to produce such a magic array within a mere six days had already exceeded her expectations. Thus, future issues would have to be left for the future.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Daniel? I thought I saw him just now. Daniel!¡± Saleen hollered.


    Daniel was chewing on some bread outside the door. He nearly choked when Saleen started shouting for him.


    ¡°Coming,ing!¡±


    ¡°Give me a hand. Help me test a new item.¡± Saleen threw the scroll with thepleted magic array over to Daniel and asked Lex to take out some materials, wanting to conduct a test on the spot.


    The magic array needed to be refined onto special equipment before it could be installed on the turtle shell. It was not so troublesome right now, as Lex could take out some simple materials and carry out the test. After all, this was the first time Saleen had developed something, and if there was really an error, they could not possibly think of a solution only after setting sail.


    ¡°Test?¡± Daniel felt dizzy as he looked at theplicated magic array drawing and magical patterns. ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s not dangerous, is it?¡±


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s dangerous. At least half of all mages who die are killed while performing experiments. Don¡¯t you know that?¡± Saleen did not have even the slightest intention of encouraging Daniel whatsoever, causing Daniel¡¯s honest face to be filled with anguish.


    ¡°Why do you have that expression? I¡¯m doing it too. Do you think I want to kill myself?¡±


    ¡°Aye¡­ Saleen, I didn¡¯t mean that.¡±


    ¡°Then quicklye and help me.¡± Saleen moved deftly and was already sorting the materials which Lex had taken out.


    Lex began building the core of the magic array using a piece of wood, and even Saleen could not identify what material it was. It had a diameter of almost two meters, and must have been at least one thousand years old already.


    The wood was chopped into seven parts, and six faces had to be drawn on each part. One magic nucleus would be mosaicked into each of the faces. The depletion by such a magic array would be tremendous. Luckily, only mid-grade magic nuclei were used, or else Lex would go bankrupt.


    Eventually, Lex would need to refine seven three-dimensional magic alchemy materials together, and this could not be done empty-handed. At the podium outside of the magic tower, the three of them built a three-dimensional shelf which was about three meters tall and had a radius of twenty meters. This shelf was used to store the seven magic arrays, and after that, alchemy materials would be used to connect these seven magic arrays together.


    In the distance, Sika was atop the turtle shell as she gazed at Saleen working, and a tinge of tenderness welled up in her heart. Nailisi¡¯s words had affected her. One would only realize that Saleen was a good man after spending a long period of time with him. It was a mistake for Sika to have regarded Saleen as a good person from the beginning, because the Saleen at that time had been a mage who was only concerned with making use of others.


    It seemed like Lex was a little interested in Saleen. Sika noticed that Lex had given Saleen a bottle of magic liquid which he had epted and drank from. That bottle seemed to have been Lex¡¯s personal one.


    The more Sika looked at Saleen, the more ufortable she felt. Sika knew that she would not be of much help, so she decided to flip her body over so that her back was facing Saleen.


    At this point in time, Nailisi came behind Sika once more. This time around, Sika did not draw her boomerang. She simply sighed and said, ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯te and bother me anymore.¡±


    ¡°Sika, you should have more initiative,¡± Nailisi said in a seductive tone as she looked at thepleted alchemical machine in the distance.


    ¡°How do I have more initiative? I don¡¯t know magic at all. I won¡¯t be able to help Saleen.¡±


    ¡°I have an idea, if you really want to help Saleen.¡±


    ¡°You?¡±


    ¡°Actually, you don¡¯t have to know magic. You just need to be able to control some magic machines. If you are willing to help me, the two of us can control the boat once it is fully constructed. Then, Lex will have to beg you for help.¡±


    ¡°Oh? I only possess sufficient mental power. I won¡¯t be able to manipte the elements!¡± Sika turned around to face Nailisi.


    Nailisiughed, then whispered, ¡°Sister Sika, demons like me have some very special powers. As long as you sign a contract with me, I will bless you with the power to control magic arrays.¡±


    ¡°Contract?¡±


    ¡°Yes, just a small contract. What are you worried about? I am Master¡¯s contract creature, so he is able to void any contracts which are signed with me. Are you afraid that I will harm you? Even if I n to do so, Master will never harm you.¡±


    Nailisi used her green eyes to gaze at Sika, and Sika was tempted. Sika, with her mental power, was already able to feel elemental vibrations, but she simply could not manipte magic arrays. Perhaps¡­

 Chapter 236: Sleeping Spirits of the Dead (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 236: Sleeping Spirits of the Dead (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Sika called out gently.


    Nailisi replied joyously, ¡°Sister Sika, have you made up your mind?¡±


    ¡°Am I very stupid?¡± Sika looked at Saleen who was in the distance, with an elusive look on her face.


    ¡°Of course not. You are just toozy to think. Otherwise, how would a fool ever be able to be a warrior priest?¡±


    ¡°Since you think that I am not stupid, do you think I will sign a contract with a demon? Nailisi, if you try this again, I will not care what Saleen thinks anymore, I will just kill you straightaway.¡± As Sika spoke, she grabbed the cudgel which had been ced on the turtle shell, and tried to smash Nailisi to pieces. This time around, Sika had not held back at all.


    Nailisi was startled. The ring on her finger transformed into the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger in that instant, and the dagger lunged upwards. Dang! The dagger blocked Sika¡¯s cudgel. The two of them possessed almost the same amount of strength. Nailisi had higher endurance while Sika¡¯s forte was explosive power. This time around, Sika had the upper hand. Nailisi was afraid that if she had dodged Sika¡¯s attack, the turtle shell would have been destroyed by Sika, and then she would have surely been punished by Saleen. To think that Nailisi was still trying to tempt Sika into signing some sort of contract.


    The Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger might have been very tough, but it was not as heavy as Sika¡¯s cudgel. If Sika used all her strength, even a swordmaster might not be able to survive the blow. Nailisi felt as if she was struck by a mountain, as she lost her footing and was flung back.


    Peng!


    Nailisi mmed heavily into the ground right in front of Saleen. Saleen looked at Nailisi in astonishment and asked, ¡°You, what are you doing?¡±


    With a look of bitterness, Nailisi replied, ¡°Master, I was practicing martial arts with Sister Sika. She is too good¡­¡±


    Since Saleen was fully concentrated on the magic array, he did not suspect anything, so he simply nodded and said, ¡°Continue practicing then, but don¡¯t hurt Sika, understand?¡±


    Nailisi felt that her both arms were going to break. However, she also did not dare to say too much to Saleen, because if she lied excessively, Saleen would be able to detect it. Thus, Nailisi left secretly and did not dare to look for Sika at the moment. She could only hide in the distance and observe the people who were busy working in front of the magic tower.


    Seeing that Nailisi had gone into hiding, Sika sat down once more and hugged her weapon. As she watched Saleen busy himself with the magic array, she went into a daze.


    Saleen and Lex worked until nightfall before finally constructing an oval-shaped shelf, where the seven offensive magic arrays werebined together. On the shelf, there were three magic arrays which were mosaicked withrge crystals, and that was the ce where the offensive magic array would release its magic.


    The dense fog swarmed the magic tower swiftly, and Sika and Nailisi quickly ran back into the magic tower. Daniel also wanted to return to the tower, but Saleen smiled, pulled at his sleeve, and said, ¡°Since it¡¯s a test, there must be a target. These ghost fog monsters will be the best targets. Let¡¯s go. We shall be the first ones to control the magic array.¡±


    ¡°But, you can do this alone¡­¡± Daniel¡¯s face was as shriveled as the tes which the Tanggsi people used, hard and dull.


    ¡°If I am alone, I won¡¯t be able to hold on for long, and I still need you to change the magic nuclei.¡±


    ¡°Change the magic nuclei? You want to kill all of the ghost fog monsters? That¡¯s impossible!¡±


    ¡°I get it. Daniel, don¡¯t try to bluff anymore. If I ughter all of these tiny things tonight, won¡¯t the stronger monsters emerge? Are you going to deal with this problem only when you return in the future? I may not understand death magic, but I have memorized a lot of knowledge. Will these ghost fog monsters alone be able to protect the ghost fog ind? If so, it is already too easy to harass a death mage.¡±


    ¡°No no no, I am just afraid that if we kill all of the ghost fog monsters now, we will not be able to handle the things that emergeter on.¡±


    ¡°If the sleeping spirits of the dead awaken suddenly, their powers will also be two grades weaker. We have two mage masters here. Do you think we cannot handle it?¡±


    ¡°Okay, I will do it.¡± Daniel became quite decisive at this point in time. He noticed that the fog was nearing, and within it, the shadows of the ghost fog monsters could be seen shifting about as a sour smell emanated in the direction of the magic tower.


    ¡°The two of you shall control the two sides and monitor the speed of depletion of the magic nuclei. Daniel, I will cast the magic first. Remember, there must be a six second window between the three of us, or else this thing will not be able to take it. Hm, if you are not precise enough, then seven seconds will do, but I will not be held responsible should there be an explosion.¡± As Saleen spoke, he blessed himself with ice te armor before putting a water shield on as an additionalyer over its surface, protecting himselfpletely.


    Saleen did not care about what antics Daniel might have had. It was reasonable for Daniel to not to want to provoke the sleeping spirits of the dead. Even if Daniel dealt with these things right now, he would not be able to use them even after capturing them, so he would still have to hand them over to Saleen for safekeeping for now.


    As to whether they would be able to deal with the sleeping spirits of the dead, Lex was around, so there should not have been a problem. Death creatures which were summoned onto the Myers Maind would only be grade-8 at most, because those above grade-8 could not be controlled even by the death mages themselves, so they would not be able to stay on the maind.


    This meant that if sleeping spirits of the dead had been left behind by the death mages on this ind, they would only be grade-8 at most, and without the help from the death mes, the powers of the spirits on the maind would have weakened gradually. Right now, a grade-8 spirit would only possess level-6 abilities.


    Lex would be able to handle a grade-6 death creature, and furthermore, Saleen was also around to help, so there was no reason it could not be defeated.


    Saleen understood Daniel. If Saleen himself had been a death mage, he also would have hoped that he would be able to subdue a spirit of the dead on his own, without help from others. Even though Daniel was currently more likely to subdue the spirit, it would still be influenced by Saleen and Lex in the future, so it could not be fully considered his own contract creature.


    Seven wooden magic arrays were positioned in a circle, and the three people stood on top of these refined magic arrays. Saleen stood in the middle. He had already started activating the magic arrays, not bothering to wait for the ghost fog monsters toe close. The magic produced a ripple of blue light, and as circles of ripples spread out, moreplicated magic patterns appeared on the oval-shaped alchemical machine.


    This alchemical machine, more than twenty meters long, was fully activated. At the same time, Lex also activated the powering device on the alchemical machine. There was no offensive result from Lex¡¯s action. The main purpose was just to find out whether the two magic arrays would interfere with one another if they functioned at the same time.


    These things could not be tested underwater. Onnd, mutual interference would at most cause the magic arrays to stop working, but if it happened underwater, no one would be able to float up once the magic arrays were ruined, and everyone would drown. The Grukos royal family had manufactured three of such ships and they had all sunk, so Saleen did not want to risk his own life.


    This was the ocean. Once Saleen sank to the bottom, he would still be crushed by the water pressure even if he did not need to breathe.


    The magic lines were situated behind the three giant crystals which were mosaicked at the front. The forty-two magic nuclei belonging to the seven magic arrays were activated at the same time, and the magic array behind the crystals gave off a blinding light. Then, Saleen lowered his voice and said, ¡°Daniel, be careful when you are controlling it. We are only going against the ghost fog monsters.¡±


    Before Saleen couldplete his sentence, a massive ice bomb had condensed in front of the alchemical machine, levitating three meters in front of the crystals. This ice bomb was perfect as it contained twenty-four facets, and had a diameter of more than one meter. Saleen allowed Daniel to control the magic array, but Daniel had no way of managing it. He was only a death mage who did not have the ability to control the elements. Simply using mental power to control the workings of the magic array would not make the casting process precise. Daniel¡¯s face was bitter as he tried very hard to prevent the magic array from operating at too high of a speed.


    Whoosh!


    The speed of the ice bomb was not fast. In fact, it was even slower than some average spells. Water vapor diffused from the surface of this perfect twenty-four-faceted ice crystal, and then the ice crystal flew into the dense fog.


    After flying for about twenty meters, the ice bomb began burning, and an explosion urred at the same time.


    Boom!


    Dozens of ghost fog monsters were smashed into pulp. The burning shards from the ice bomb entered the dense fog, and countless of excruciating screams filled the air.


    ¡°Such a repulsive noise. Lex, you will control this time around.¡± While speaking, Saleen stimted the core of the magic array for the second time.


    In reality, Saleen could control these seven magic arrays by himself, but he needed to make sure that even if he was not on the boat, the weapon would not be a decoration.


    The second ice bomb was much smaller than before, with a diameter of less than one meter, but it was still perfect with twenty-four facets, encircled by water vapor. Lex was controlling the ice bomb while Saleen monitored the depletion of the magic nuclei.


    It was not too bad. The forty-two grade-6 magic nuclei had not been depleted much. After all, only a level-5 spell had been cast, and its power had been restricted. The power of the spell could only be increased if the seven magic arrays interacted with one another. Right now, Saleen needed to do this step-by-step.


    Boom!


    This time around, the ice bomb flew for over one hundred meters before exploding, and more miserable howls could be heardpared to the previous attack. For the past week, these ghost fog monsters had gotten used to surrounding the magic tower whenever night had fallen. There was an attractive smelling from the tower.


    The ghost fog monsters did not feed on meat. They wanted to absorb power from souls. There was an incredible amount of ghost fog monsters on this ind, and they had been starving for a long time since they had only been surviving on the miniscule bit of power from the death dimension which was found within the dense fog. They had no wisdom and did not have the ability to enter the death dimension, and so when the magic array on this ind finally stopped working, they would simply starve to death.


    Thus, even though the ghost fog monsters were fearful of the power from the magic tower, they still came forward relentlessly. It was just that today, the people in the tower were no longer defending. The people had emerged to use magic to bombard them. If the ghost fog monsters possessed wisdom, they would have escaped immediately, but right now, they were just charging towards the magic tower in a frenzy.


    In front of the three giant crystals, pieces of ice bombs were formed through condensation and then flew into the fog. Beyond the oval-shaped alchemical machine, the dense fog was forced open by an invisible power. As the magic light shined onto the magic tower behind him, Saleen calmly stimted the magic array time and again.


    The magic nuclei were swiftly depleted, and the three crystals gave off a crackling sound as if they were going to break anytime soon.


    Saleen bellowed calmly, ¡°Daniel, go quickly now.¡±


    Daniel obeyed and immediately took out the prepared magic nuclei. Then, he began recing the magic nuclei on the magic array. At this point in time, Saleen¡¯s design disyed its advantage. As the magic array was split into seven parts, it was easy to rece the magic nuclei even though the power of the magic array was constrained.


    While the magic nuclei were being reced, the frequency of attack was slowed. Hence, several ghost fog monsters managed to rush out from the dense fog and lunged at the oval-shaped alchemical machine. Orange mes started burning on Lex¡¯s body, and hundreds of fire crows flew about in those mes, a few of them pouncing onto the ghost fog monsters.


    Saleen was extremely impressed. To be able to control Fire Magic to such an extent, Lex¡¯s achievements had already surpassed that of Faerun¡¯s. Even though Saleen and Lex were at a very close distance from one another, Saleen could not feel the heat at all despite the fact that the mes were nearlying into contact with his body. This had happened because Lex was inplete control over the power of the fire elements. That was the mark of a grand mage!

 Chapter 237: Sleeping Spirits of the Dead (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 237: Sleeping Spirits of the Dead (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ghost fog monsters were not fast enough, and the attacks by the magic array constructed by Saleen were not quick enough either. However, the three magic crystals at the front of the magic array took turns casting the spell, and furthermore, the transformed level-5 ice bomb could do damage in an area. Thus, the horde of ghost fog monsters could never get close to the magic tower.


    The asional few who managed to slip past were burned to death by Lex¡¯s fire crows. The orange mes on Lex¡¯s body sizzled just beside Saleen¡¯s ears, but no heat was emitted. Saleen had never expected the Fire Washing spell to have this effect once a mage was promoted. As Saleen stimted the magic array, he thought, I seem to have missed out on many low-level water element spells. Perhaps the spells themselves can be advanced as well, it is just that there are many spells which people have not bothered to examine.


    For example, within the low-level spells of the water element, there were essentially no spells which could deal damage to groups. Since Saleen had been helpless, he had begun examining the Icicle spell and had barely managed to simte its area of effect damage once he had been promoted. However, the Icicle spell was still inadequate inparison to the fire element spells, because its consumption of energy was that of abination of level-2 spells instead of just a single spell.


    As for the transformations to the Ice Bomb spell, Saleen had made them slowly. Firstly, Saleen hadbined the Ice Bomb spell with the Icicle spell in order to increase the distance of the attack. Then, after he had acquired knowledge of elemental conversion, he had proceeded tobine the Ice Bomb spell with fire element magic.


    If not for the defects in his magic chords, Saleen would not have spent so much time studying these transformations. Perhaps this was the choice which many mages had made. Since they had been able to advance, some spells had been abandoned and would never be examined in depth.


    While Saleen was admiring Lex¡¯s control over the elements, Daniel was feeling heartbroken over the depletion of the magic nuclei. The magic nuclei which Lex had handed to him were all segmented grade-6 magic nuclei. Even though Daniel was not an elemental mage, he could still feel the astounding speed at which the magic nuclei mosaicked into the magic arrays were being depleted.


    If Daniel had received a grade-6 magic nucleus like this for training, he would have been able to use it for two to three months. But now, all these magic nuclei could potentially be fully depleted in less than a day.


    The unintelligent ghost fog monsters did not understand the logic of attacking from the rear. They simply shed head-on against Saleen¡¯s magic attacks as they tried looking for a breakthrough up front. A gigantic ice bomb flew outwards, bringing mes along with it, before exploding in midair. The shards produced by the explosion were as sharp as ice des. Once these shards pierced into the monsters, they exploded and burned like fireballs.


    Had the ghost fog monsters moved faster, Saleen¡¯s magic array would have been rendered useless already. Right now, Saleen continuously adjusted the attack range of the magic array, from one hundred meters to two hundred meters, and then to five hundred meters. Only when the attack range reached one mile did Saleen feel that the magic array might possess a risk of exploding.


    This attack range was not farther than that of the magic trebuchet or magic stone artillery. Even the speed was slower. It was just that the frequency of attacks was slightly higher.


    Even so, Saleen was very satisfied, because after the ice bomb had been transformed, the mist on its surface now possessed the characteristics of his newest flying magic. In the water, these ice bombs would definitely travel at least ten times faster.


    This meant that Saleen¡¯s magic array was designed solely for the purpose of underwaterbat.


    Death mages could make use of their death mes to mark coordinates between the nes so they could summon the death creatures to assist them in battles. Once the death mage died, these death creatures would then remain on the Myers Maind. Without any restraint from the death mages, these death creatures would no longer be harmless tools. They would also go around hunting just like magic beasts.


    The ghost fog monsters were merely the lowest grade of creaturesmanded by a death mage. Those truly powerful death creatures would be sealed by the death mage before they died to reduce their abilities so that they would not be of harm to other humans. Besides having a restoration magic array, the ghost fog also had the effect of suppressing death creatures for a long time. Saleen wanted to destroy the ghost fog monsters and ruin the energy bnce within the ghost fog so that the seals might be loosened. Then, the strongest death creatures left behind by the death mage would be able to massacre all life on this ind.


    Such actions were indeed very perilous. If the death mage on this ind had only died recently, the death creatures which were sealed by him might not have been fully suppressed yet, so they might still be above grade-6.


    Saleen wished to tame the death creature and give it to Daniel so that Daniel¡¯s power could be boosted quickly. Since Daniel was Saleen¡¯s follower, he would have to be the first to charge forward if there were any battles. The winged skeleton was too valuable, so Saleen was not willing to make it cannon fodder, but the death creatures on this ind would make good targets for his contracts.


    The squeaking noises had diminished drastically since the number of ghost fog monsters had dwindled by a significant amount. Rock fragments and the bodies of the ghost fog monsters which had been blown up by the ice bomb shards covered the ground. There were rocks everywhere on this ind, and since the ice bomb shards had unparalleled sharpness, they cut into the rocks before exploding and burning. The stimtion of the magic array by Saleen and the others had already ttened all ground within one mile.


    This power was far greater than that of the magic scrolls. For the first time ever, Saleen regretted his decision. Had he known that magic arrays were so useful, he would not have chosen to learn magic pharmaceutics anymore. If he started his studies over from the beginning again, he would have to face a colossal andplicated system. Even though Saleen possessed the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne which could shorten calction time by tens or even hundreds of times, it was still not a good choice.


    Unless Saleen became a sorcerer and was able to extend his life steadily, he would never waste too much time on magic arrays alone, as it would adversely affect his advancement.


    Mages did not just pursue power, they also pursued the truth. Magic arrays were not able to exin the true colors of this world. They simply gathered the power of the elements and enabled a person to control the elements in a regted manner.


    ¡°It¡¯s almost there. The two of you take note!¡± Saleen bent down and pressed both hands onto the center of the magic array. The magic forme came to life and countless of magic lines began to ripple. The magic nuclei on the seven magic arrays lit up sessively, and the three crystals at the front formed an enormous ice bomb with a diameter of about three meters via condensation.


    This ice bomb was still expanding and was also highly vtile. Within thirty frames of time, Saleen had already lost control of it, not to mention Daniel and Lex.


    The colossal ice bomb flew outwards following a whistle. This time around, it managed to fly for more than two miles. Even Saleen could not be sure where it had flown even though he had used his perception. ording to its trajectory, the ice bomb was also flying at a great height.


    In the far distance, a dull explosion could be heard. Ka! Cracks had appeared on the oval-shaped alchemical machine, while the crystals mosaicked into it had fallen to ground and broken into several pieces. Daniel was so heartbroken that he was on the verge of tears already. Even though theserge crystals had no attributes, they could have been used to create crystal magic books or at least store a sequential spell.


    Now that the crystals had broken in front of him, Daniel rubbed his hands as he looked at Saleen.


    ¡°What are you looking at? It¡¯s all for you!¡± Saleen frowned and picked up the crystal fragments before putting them away. He then said to Daniel, ¡°Where do you think the death creatures are sealed on this ind?¡±


    Saleen had managed to discover the secrets of a small group of death mages using his memories, but he could not locate the seal.


    ¡°The best ce would have been underneath the magic tower, but that already seems improbable.¡± Daniel hesitated, before continuing dubiously, ¡°If I absorb this ghost fog, the death creatures will break the seals themselves. Can I do that?¡±


    ¡°Hm? Is it not enough to just kill the ghost fog monsters?¡±


    ¡°Of course it isn¡¯t. The magic array on this ind is very bizarre. It¡¯s a dead cycle. I haven¡¯t located the starting point, so I can only use a stupid method like this.¡±


    ¡°No rush. There is still a long time before daybreak. Sika, Nailisi,e out.¡± Saleen called for the two people who were resting inside the magic tower, and said, ¡°I have killed almost all of the ghost fog monsters, and the magic array seems to have spoiled. You two will guard this ce for the time being. Don¡¯t allow any surviving ghost fog monsters to enter. I have to speak to Daniel about some matters.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Nailisi carelessly forgot about Sika¡¯s threats and pulled on her sleeves while giggling before going to the edge of the podium. The mist had greatly faded and the power from Lex¡¯s mes had dispersed, yet no more ghost fog monsters were trying to invade the ce.


    Daniel followed Saleen into the magic tower, but Lex did not follow them. Saleen then closed the mostly broken door and turned his head sideways to look at Daniel. In that darkness, Saleen¡¯s blue eyes gave out a faint glow, like a magic beast which only targeted humans.


    Daniel was nervous. He had never seen Saleen put on such an expression before.


    Saleen looked at Daniel for a moment before saying, ¡°Daniel, I am seventeen years old this year, and soon I will be eighteen.¡±


    Daniel did not understand what Saleen meant, so he simply nodded his head since he was at a loss for what to do. For a while, Saleen thought of how to express his thoughts. Then, he continued, ¡°Perhaps you are unwilling to be my follower, but that is fine. With the contract around, I don¡¯t really care about what you think. I am going to enter adulthood soon, so I will use an adult¡¯s method to illustrate my points. If you lie to me one more time, I will take everything from you.¡±


    ¡°Everything?¡± A hint of fury appeared on Daniel¡¯s honest face, then he tried his best to lower his voice and replied, ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s not impossible for you to attain my respect, but what methods are you going to use to do so? A piece of ck crystal?¡±


    ¡°It is Lex who wants to tame you, not me. I just don¡¯t want you to die so early. That was not your attitude when you were signing the contract. So this is a person from Tanggsi? Hehe¡­¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with people from Tanggsi? At least we have a religion!¡±


    ¡°Of course. Tanggsi has the Glorious ins and the grace of god. Too bad you will never be able to enjoy all that glory anymore. Daniel, did you think I was joking when I said that I was able to take everything from you, including your death mes?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s blue eyes gave off an air of frostiness in that darkness. Daniel stifled a breath, and did not dare to rebut any further. He had seen Saleen cast a divine spell before. That divine spell was used to restrain death magic. Saleen was not bluffing. If Saleen really became angry, Daniel¡¯s death mes and winged skeleton would be disintegrated by that divine spell.


    ¡°Now tell me honestly, where could the death creatures on this ind havee from in order for you to never be able to forget them? If you tell me that you do not know, you will not get any other chances.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he caressed his Ring of Gifts, his left hand shriveled like half of a gaunt skull. Compared to Daniel, it was Saleen who looked more like a death mage.

 Chapter 238: A Second Contract (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 238: A Second Contract (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    For the past few days when Daniel had been on the sixth story of the magic tower, he had not only been training, but also thinking about his rtionship with Saleen.


    In terms of offensive abilities, a grade-3 death mage was simr to that of a grade-4 elemental mage. Especially since Daniel had a winged skeleton, he did not believe that Saleen was any stronger than him.


    Even a follower had their own pride. Daniel did not want to be bossed around by Saleen. So, the best solution would be for Daniel to quickly boost his abilities and advance to grade-4, so that even if Saleen advanced to grade-5 at the same time, they would still both be grand mages. By then, the advantages of a death mage would be more pronounced.


    The rules of the contract were that Daniel could not harm Saleen and could not betray Saleen no matter what methods were used. However, so long as Daniel¡¯s powers were strong enough, Saleen would also not be able to force him to do any unreasonable tasks.


    Daniel continued studying the ghost fog monster which had been torn apart by Nailisi since he wanted to analyze it and find out which death creatures were being hidden on this ind. When he finally thought of the death mage who had once stayed on this ind, Daniel had then harbored the intentions of subduing the death creature all by himself.


    Even though Saleen had tried to destroy the bnce on the ind, Daniel was not worried at all and had simply yed along. In reality, Daniel was well aware that such a method would have to be repeated consecutively for about a month before the seals could be loosened and all the ghost fog monsters on this ind would be killed. It was just that he had not expected Saleen, an elemental mage, to figure out that important death creatures were on this ind.


    Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s attitude had caused Daniel to be aghast as Daniel had thought that he was very important to Saleen. Unexpectedly, Saleen had not hesitated and had not given Daniel any face. He had simply acted to discuss the issue of respect with Daniel right away.


    Saleen ignored the look on Daniel¡¯s face, before saying slowly, ¡°We, the people of Sikeqinya, only trust contracts. We don¡¯t believe in anything else. By signing a contract with you, I am giving you my utmost respect already. Have you decided? Lex has been waiting outside for a long time. She will be impatient.¡±


    If Daniel had still been in Tanggsi, he would have scoffed at Saleen¡¯s attitude, but his many years of being on the run had taught him many principles. Even if one was a death mage, they were not a big deal. Without a backer, it was simply too difficult for a mage to live a life of freedom.


    Daniel¡¯s assets had been confiscated. Half of them had gone to the Tanggsi royal family while the other half had gone to the Holy See. His family members and servants had either been killed, captured, imprisoned, or banished. Everything Daniel had owned had disappeared into thin air, and the only thing left was his winged skeleton.


    Now that Saleen had told Daniel that he was going to take away his winged skeleton, Daniel no longer harbored the thought of rebelling against Saleen.


    Saleen was right. This was just a transaction, whether or not it was fair was entirely up to Daniel himself. If Daniel felt that it was unfair, then he should not have signed the contract. Since he had chosen to sign the contract, then he should notment that Saleen had tempted him.


    When one had no way of revolting, choosing to obey was not a very difficult thing to do. Most of the time, people resisted strongly because they had not yet grown ustomed to a life of obedience. For such matters, it was very easy for a second time to ur as long as there was a first.


    When Saleen noticed that the bit of determination in Daniel¡¯s eyes was slowly diminishing, he sighed in his heart. However, Saleen was not Lex. Lex¡¯s ambitions were great while his were tiny. Saleen only wanted a group of people to work for him and Lex. He had given Daniel a chance to be his friend, but Daniel had not cherished that opportunity.


    Daniel had repeatedly tried to deceive and hide things from Saleen. Saleen was not angry, as those were simply the instincts of a human. Since Daniel had chosen this path, Saleen could no longer regard him as a friend whom he could forgo his interests for.


    Saleen had been fine with giving Aini aplete piece of ck crystal while he had wanted Daniel to sign an unfair contract in exchange for that ck crystal. This was because Aini had chosen to befriend Saleen and had not tried to deceive him. For a person like Aini, that was a rare event. Sometimes, one did not be friends with another person because they were good people, but because there was an intriguing affinity between the both of them.


    Aini was definitely not a very good person. He could even be described as ruthless. But he had never done any harm to Saleen, ever. When the two of them had met, they had both been in dire situations, and perhaps that was fate. If Aini and Saleen had met with different timing, perhaps the two of them would have be sworn enemies by now.


    Inparison, Daniel was a more peaceful person. It was just that he was a little selfish. On the contrary, it was a person like Daniel who could not be Saleen¡¯s confidante. There were even many conflicts between them.


    Daniel never tried to harm anyone. When he was unfairly treated, he did not exact revenge using his death magic. Instead, he had escaped from Tanggsi in hopes of starting his life anew. Otherwise, had heid low in the Tanggsi Empire, he would have been able to ughter the many noblemen and their underlings using his death magic.


    All these events would have fulfilled a mage¡¯s criteria for revenge, but Daniel had not done those things.


    ¡°This death creature¡­ is extremely powerful. This is the first time I have seen an entire ghost fog ind being used to seal a creature, so it must be a grade-8 death creature at minimum. Actually, this death creature should have returned to the death dimension after the death mage¡¯s death, but it remained here because it is too powerful, so it is not able to pass through the narrow ne coordinates.¡±


    ¡°Then why do you want the winged skeleton to absorb the ghost fog? What benefits will the winged skeleton obtain?¡±


    ¡°There are no benefits. If that death creature is subdued, it will be worthwhile even if the winged skeleton cannot advance any further.¡±


    ¡°You have failed as a mage.¡± This time around, Saleen spoke in a very strict tone. It even sounded like an admonition. A person needed to treat their first contract creature like a friend by having it grow continuously. If Nailisi requested anything, Saleen would definitely exhaust all potential options in order to obtain it for her.


    Saleen could also feel that Nailisi would definitely be the first person to rush forward and protect him should there be any danger, even though she hid various secrets and tried to create trouble for him. During the battle with the ck deacon, Nailisi had risked her life by going forward to distract all the evil spirits who were assaulting Saleen. For a demon, that was trulymendable.


    ¡°I am unlike you. You received many opportunities and a great inheritance. On the other hand, did not really care about me,¡± Daniel said sadly.


    ¡°Daniel, your teacher doesn¡¯t owe you anything.¡± Saleen¡¯s disappointment towards Daniel welled up in his heart. He had never expected a mage toin about their own teacher. To Saleen, his teacher was his father and someone who he could depend on.


    ¡°Saleen, you have everything, of course you would say that. But I have nothing now,¡± Daniel rebutted angrily, his face flushed.


    ¡°Is that the case? Perhaps you are right, so go ahead and use the winged skeleton to absorb the ghost fog. As for this death creature, I will help you capture it, but you will need to sign a second contract.¡±


    ¡°A second contract?¡±


    ¡°I want your winged skeleton. Since you don¡¯t need it, you can give it to me.¡±


    ¡°What do you want it for?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t forget, I have a friend who is also a death mage,¡± Saleen replied with a smile. All of a sudden, Saleen had straightened out his thoughts. Since Daniel could not be his friend, then why did he need to be frustrated over Daniel¡¯s mistakes? No matter how Daniel thought or lived, it was entirely his own business.


    Now, Daniel was hesitant. If the winged skeleton was groomed and reared properly, it would grow into a powerful death creature someday. On the other hand, he could simply capture the death creature on this ind andmand it. The winged skeleton¡¯s offensive ability was only at level-5, whereas that of the death creature might be at level-8.


    It would not be very challenging to recover its suppressed offensive abilities. Daniel would only need to spend several years grooming his new contract creature to turn it into a powerful spirit. But as for the winged skeleton, it would require about twenty to thirty years of grooming. It would not be a big deal even if the winged skeleton was given to Saleen. Anyway, after the ghost fog was absorbed, the winged skeleton would advance to grade-6, but it would be difficult for it to advance anymore.


    ¡°I ept your deal.¡± Daniel stopped hesitating.


    ¡°Mm, then I will draft the contract now.¡± Saleen took out a nk scroll and began writing the contract. This time around, he did not leave any opportunities for Daniel. As long as Daniel managed to acquire a second contract creature, the winged skeleton would immediately be Saleen¡¯s.


    Daniel went through the contents of the contract, then signed it and left his soul imprint. This contract could not be repudiated. As long as he captured a second death creature, the winged skeleton would no longer belong to him.


    Saleen sneered in his heart since Daniel was an easy target to plot against. To be Saleen¡¯s match, Daniel would need to possess much more knowledge than he had before. The moment the winged skeleton left Daniel, it would no longer obtain the power from the death mes and would be cut off from the death dimension. It would already be good if the winged skeleton did not die, not to mention advance.


    Suddenly, Daniel¡¯s face went pale. He felt an indignant roar of fury from the winged skeleton inside the death mes. The winged skeleton was not a normal death creature. It possessed intelligence, and had grown loyal towards Daniel. Ever since it had been banished to the death dimension by Saleen¡¯s divine spell, the winged skeleton had been keeping guard beside the coordinates of the death dimension as it waited for Daniel¡¯s summoning. Otherwise, Daniel could not have been so lucky as to be able to summon the winged skeleton back onto the Myers Maind.


    ¡°Okay, Daniel, can we begin?¡±


    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s go to the sixth story.¡± Daniel seemed to have been ready a long time ago. Saleen knocked on the broken door and signaled for the others to enter the magic tower while he and Daniel made their way up to the highest story.


    The magic array on the sixth story had been redrawn by Daniel, as there wereyers of clear and legible magic lines. Daniel stood in the middle of the magic array as the death mes were released behind him. The winged skeleton soared into the air and pasted itself against the ceiling, giving out a shrill howl. The red glow in its eyes began fading away until they finally became an utter ck.


    Saleen retreated to the stairway and watched calmly as Daniel cast his magic. Daniel pointed to the ghost fog outside the window, andmanded the winged skeleton, ¡°Go, go and absorb the power from the spirits of the dead, and open the seal!¡±


    The winged skeleton cried out, and its pair of bone wings repeatedly struck the ceiling of the magic tower, giving out a thunderous noise. The winged skeleton was intelligent, so it knew the significance of the contract. It was indignant that it was going to be abandoned by Daniel just like that.

 Chapter 239: A Second Contract (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 239: A Second Contract (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Go!¡± Daniel made aplicated magic gesture with his hands, and countless ck rays shot out from the magic array, hitting the winged skeleton. The body of the winged skeleton started smoking and it banged its head repeatedly against the walls, but it just would not fly out the window.


    Did the winged skeleton possess intelligence now? All of a sudden, Daniel felt remorseful. The winged skeleton seemed to be very different from a normal death creature. How had Daniel not noticed it before? However, the contract had been signed, so it was toote for regrets now.


    ¡°Soldier, in the name of the contract, go!¡± Daniel changed his hand gesture, and this time around, the winged skeleton could no longer control its own actions and flew out of the window in a stumbling manner.


    Upon witnessing this scene, Nailisi whispered to Saleen, ¡°Master, I abhor Daniel.¡±


    Even Lex could not bear watching this scene. She did not know what had transpired between Saleen and Daniel that had caused Daniel to treat his contract creature in this manner. It was widely known that mages would exhaust all means to try and recruit followers, as long as they had the capability to support their followers, but none of the followers would be as effective and loyal as contract creatures.


    Saleen¡¯s expression did not change. So the winged skeleton¡¯s name is Soldier. Haha, it¡¯s so simple. After all, it¡¯s a skeleton soldier, and Daniel did not even bother to give it a better name. Seems like I was right to take the winged skeleton.


    In the realm of the death dimension, it was difficult for skeletons to grow into powerful creatures, but skeletons with bone wings stood a much higher chance of doing so. Intelligent skeletons were even rarer. Soldier was bound to a contract, so it was forced to fly out of the magic tower and start absorbing the ghost fog against its will. Cracks had appeared on the bone wings of the winged skeleton after the repeated impacts against the ceiling, and now, there was no longer any red glow in its eyes. The red glow had been reced by a pitch ck darkness simr to the night sky.


    Thousands of magic runes had appeared on the bones of the winged skeleton. These magic runes levitated atop the bones and spun around furiously, thus forming a vortex, and absorbing the ghost fog across the ind.


    The ghost fog was extremely dense. After the fog was absorbed by the vortex formed by the runes on the body of the winged skeleton, it seeped into the bones of winged skeleton and was then assimted into the bones. Originally, the bones of the winged skeleton had been white, but after absorbing the ghost fog, the color of the bones became increasingly darker. From white to light grey to dark grey, before bing pitch ck like ink made from dragon¡¯s blood.


    The bones of the winged skeleton were reinforced. Its wings had originally been about three meters wide, but after the absorption process, they were now six meters wide. Furthermore, a second pair of wings had begun to grow out of its back. This was not a natural evolution. It was an evolution that had taken ce by forcefully absorbing the power of the ghost fog made from the death dimension. This evolution would potentially be thest time the winged skeleton advanced.


    The instincts of the winged skeleton were to resist such progress, but it could not stop the evolution because it was bound to the contract.


    As the ghost fog became thinner, the howls from the winged skeleton grew increasingly louder. The stars and the moon had begun appearing across the sky. As most of the ghost fog was absorbed by the winged skeleton, those tiny monsters within the fog also howled as they rolled on the ground in excruciating pain, then began to die off.


    Once the ghost fog monsters had died, the dispersal of the ghost fog became even faster. To the north of the magic tower, a colossal rock started trembling. This square rock was about forty meters tall, and there were no signs which signaled that it had been carved by humans. As the ghost fog disappeared, cracking sounds came from the interior of this rock.


    Daniel pointed and said, ¡°It¡¯s right there!¡±


    Before Daniel¡¯s voice had died down, an earth shattering sound came from that gigantic rock. An explosion urred in the middle of the rock, causing rock fragments to fly in all directions. A rock fragment about one meter in diameter flew towards the magic tower and struck the window of the tower. A boom followed and the magic tower began wavering.


    At this point in time, a red glow suddenly appeared in the eyes of the winged skeleton which was flying in midair. Out of the blue, the winged skeleton charged towards the broken rock.


    A sh appeared in Daniel¡¯s eyes. The winged skeleton¡¯s mission to expose the seal had been aplished. Now, the winged skeleton had voluntarily attacked the death creature which was about to emerge, and this would relieve a great deal of pressure for Saleen and the others.


    Daniel grew worried. The winged skeleton was basically heading to its own doom by doing that. Daniel turned to look at Saleen, but Saleen looked insipid and had no intention of stopping the winged skeleton at all.


    Daniel then rxed. Either way, he had not been the one who hadmanded the winged skeleton to risk its life. Once he obtained the death creature, it would be Saleen¡¯s concern no matter how the winged skeleton ended up. Since Saleen had not bothered stopping the winged skeleton, he would not be responsible either.


    ¡°Lex, I will have to trouble you regarding this matter.¡± Saleen took a deep breath. After the gigantic rock had broken, a sealed magic array had been exposed, and the lines on the magic array were in extreme disorder. The ck lines and the intangible white light rays were entangled around each other like a. It was just that this was extremely fragile, and the death creature inside this had already exposed its head.


    Lex nodded. The death creature was unexpectedly strong, and even though its power was diminished, it still possessed level-7 abilities. The three white heads of this death creature were twice the size of a tire, and there were dense rows of razor sharp teeth in its protruding mouth, like those found in the mouth of a shark.


    There were countless three-headed creatures in the death dimension. However, there were a pair of slender horns on the heads of this death creature which grew backwards and were about two meters long. These horns were not forbat. They were the storage hubs for death magic in this death creature. Spirits of the dead did not have magic nuclei, so there were very few death creatures who could release magic unless they were extremely powerful. This death creature had three heads and six horns, so it could cast at least six spells at the same time.


    Luckily, it was trying to escape and break free from the seal. It also wanted to release magic in order to obliterate the sealing magic array.


    Lex soared into the sky. This time around, she had cast the Fire Washing spell, causing her body to be enveloped by orange mes, and flew out of the magic tower like a shooting star.


    What a genius! Saleenmended her in his heart.


    Saleen had spent several years researching the Flying spell, which had been created from water elements before finally having a prototype. However, Lex had only seen him do it once and had already grasped the skill. She had utilized the ferocious fire elements to produce the same flying effect.


    Saleen had created such a spell out of desperation. Lex was a mage who had the strongestprehension ability Saleen had ever seen, as she could produce many variations of her Fire Washing spell. As long as Lex was given a theory to work on, she would be able to make further roads into that particr theory.


    Faerun¡¯s specialty skill was the Fireball spell while Lex¡¯s was the Fire Washing spell, so which skill should Saleen have focused on developing?


    The Icicle spell? This spell was fairly effective against low-grade enemies, but it was practically useless against a sorcerer. The Ice Bomb spell? This was also used against warriors, but it consumed too much energy. The Current Cutter spell? It was fairly strong for a single target attack, but it could not inflict area damage.


    Saleen thought of using the lightning power which was stored within his badge. If he could control such a power, then he would be able to n his training in that direction already. The death creature inside the seal was very powerful. Saleen could even sense that the creature was observing the happenings inside of the magic tower from a very far distance away. Such perception was even stronger than Saleen¡¯s own. If Saleen could control the power within his badge, then this death creature would be killed in a single blow.


    No matter how fast magic was, it would still not be quicker than lightning. Of the six elements, the power of lighting was the most ferocious of all, and it could also be released the fastest. The reason why Fire Magic was so powerful was because the speed of its release was extremely fast. Earth Magic possessed satisfactory defensive abilities, but its speed of release was too slow.


    However,pared to lightning, the speed of release of the fire elements was simr to a crawling snail. The faster an element could be released, the stronger the power it contained.


    Saleen was not worried about Lex at all. The winged skeleton had already flown above the sealed death creature, and the creature was looking upwards using its three heads as it roared at the sky. The ground was trembling because the death creature was struggling to break the binds from the sealing magic array.


    ¡°I know what this is. This fellow is¡­ a pikoosi.¡±


    ¡°Pikoosi?¡± Saleen was unfamiliar with death magic, so he was clueless about what a pikoosi was.


    ¡°In deathnguage, it means ¡®to trample¡¯. Such a creature¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Lex only needs three minutes at most and it will be subdued.¡± As Saleen looked at the battle taking ce in the far distance, he felt bored. Lex had level-7 scrolls in her possession, so a battle against a trapped death creature who only possessed level-7 abilities would not be exciting at all.


    Saleen felt a little bored, so he left the sixth story without a word and came to the fifth story where he took a seat. Sika and Nailisi followed suit.


    ¡°Nailisi, did I go overboard?¡± Saleen rubbed his eyebrows. The winged skeleton hadunched an offensive even before Lex had done anything. It seemed like it had a death wish.


    ¡°Yes, but the winged skeleton chose Daniel, so it¡¯s not Master¡¯s fault either.¡± Nailisi¡¯s tone was a little hypocritical.


    Saleenughed and patted Nailisi¡¯s shoulder before saying, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. No matter what happens, I will never give you away.¡±


    Nailisi lowered her eyelids. She was filled with hatred after seeing the way Daniel treated the winged skeleton, but Daniel was Saleen¡¯s follower now, so it would not be convenient for her to kill him either. That was, unless Daniel did something wrong.


    Such a mage would be better off dead, Nailisi thought ruthlessly to herself.


    Outside the magic tower, a noise louder than an eruption from a forbidden curse was heard. All of a sudden, Saleen felt a throbbing in the depths of his soul. This was the same feeling he had felt when he had signed the contract with Nailisi.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    A foreign voice sounded in Saleen¡¯s mind, causing Saleen to be rmed.


    ¡°Who is that?¡±


    ¡°Soldier!¡±


    ¡°You¡­e over.¡±


    Saleen did not know what spells Lex had employed to be able to subdue that death creature in just a single hit. This caused Saleen to be a bit disappointed, but it was always a good thing to be able to conserve scrolls. The fact that the winged skeleton couldmunicate with him on a spiritual level made him excited, because even Nailisi did not have the capability to do so.


    ¡°I, can¡¯t go over anymore.¡± Extreme fatigue apanied the winged skeleton¡¯s voice. Saleen felt that his connection with the winged skeleton was going to be broken at anytime now, so he quickly descended the magic tower and rushed out the door.


    In the distance, white moonlight shone across the deserted ind ground which was filled with rocks. It was like one of those ancient wastnds that were depicted in storybooks. Daniel stood in front of the massive death creature with one hand pressed against its center head, and a three-dimensional magic array had enveloped him and the pikoosi.


    In the farther distance, Lex stood with her hands dropped to her side as the winged skeleton crawled at her feet. The ck bones of the winged skeleton had been smashed and were strewn across the ground, and its two pairs of bone wings werepletely broken. Its dying voice sounded in Saleen¡¯s mind, ¡°Master, I am dying, and will disappear forever¡­¡±


    Saleen could not understand why, but in Soldier¡¯s voice, he detected a tinge of happiness. It seemed to be kind of a relief for Soldier that it was disappearing forever.

 Chapter 240: Pirates (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 240: Pirates (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was engulfed by a cloud of fog before he was lifted into the air towards the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton had received a direct strike from the pikoosi, and only its skull was still in one piece.


    ¡°You will live.¡± Saleen took out a gem from the Ring of Gifts. This gem had been segmented and so it was crystal clear. The gem had a translucent green hue, and there seemed to be smoke swirling around its core. If one did not possess adequate mental power, they would be entranced the moment they made eye contact with the gem.


    ¡°I know that you are exhausted. Come in and rest.¡± Saleen raised the gem, and the green smoke within it began swirling furiously, causing the winged skeleton and its broken bone fragments to fly into the gem. Upon taking a second look, a skeleton with two pairs of wings could vaguely be seen within that green smoke. The green smoke was tirelessly treating the injuries on the skeleton.


    ¡°The green spirit!¡± Even though Lex knew that Saleen had many gems in his possession, she still felt a little astounded.


    The green spirit was a gem used for sealing. To mages who were well versed in summoning creatures, its value exceeded that of the ice ind rock. The ice ind rock was merely low in production, but it could still be purchased from the market. On the other hand, the green spirit was not a natural gem, or one could simply say that the Myers Maind did not directly produce gems like this.


    The green spirit was a variant derived from the gems brought along by extremely powerful people when they had traversed the nes. The green spirit contained the ability to seal contract creatures. Those contract creatures sealed within the green spirit would undergo a healing process.


    If that was solely the case, then the green spirit was not very precious, because obsidian could also be used to seal contract creatures. However, be it obsidian or any other kind of gems, the progress of the sealed contract creature would be halted. On the contrary, the green spirit still allowed the sealed contract creature to undergo amazing transformations.


    As Saleen looked at the winged skeleton which was sealed within the green spirit, he could feel the emotions it was experiencing. Weariness, sadness, helplessness, and fatigue. Suchplicated emotions were in abundance, and were more than what Nailisi was experiencing.


    Daniel was simply engrossed with his new contract creature, and did not even notice Saleen¡¯s actions. Saleen put away the green spirit and said to Lex, ¡°After some time when the winged skeleton¡¯s injuries have recovered, I will have one more grade-6 helper. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a little¡­ wasteful.¡± Lex shook her head. The winged skeleton might have been a grade-6 creature, but there were other stronger magic beasts in the interdimensional space which Saleen could choose from. Now that this green spirit had been utilized, it would not be possible for it to seal other creatures anymore.


    ¡°I like this fellow. I believe any other mage would like them as well.¡± In the depths of his soul, Saleen could feel that the winged skeleton had gone into a deep slumber, and there was no more response from it.


    ¡°Sooner orter, Daniel will regret his decision.¡± Lex looked into the distance. Daniel was desperately trying tomunicate with the pikoosi since he wanted to subdue this death creature using a more peaceful method. The power of the death magic in the pikoosi¡¯s six horns had been fully exhausted, so it could no longer break free from the seal using its physical strength alone.


    The sealing magic array was not a gem. Such a seal would continuously weaken the pikoosi¡¯s power. If the pikoosi could not escape, its powers would eventually decrease until it reached the grade it had been at when it was first summoned, then the seal might lose its effectiveness or the pikoosi might return to the death dimension.


    ¡°It¡¯s useless even if he regrets it. It was his own choice.¡± Saleen was also observing the interaction between Daniel and the pikoosi in the distance. This death creature obviously had a bad temperament, or else it would not have been called ¡°trample¡±.


    ¡°Saleen¡­ do you have any more green spirit?¡±


    ¡°Do you want it?¡±


    ¡°No, I will suggest that you create a water puppet and give it life, so that it can be sealed within the green spirit and make progress.¡± Lex was, of course, not eyeing Saleen¡¯s green spirit. If she was able to study the world created by Raphael, then that would already be much more worthwhile than working with any sealing gems.


    ¡°I think I want to refine the current cutter. Any type of puppetry is actually scattering a mage¡¯s power. It may look strong, but it actually affects the advancement of a mage. I have made a bet with Daniel. If his grade surpasses mine, then I will lose him as a follower.¡±


    ¡°Aye, it¡¯s up to you.¡± Lex was helpless against Saleen¡¯s persistence. There might have been just one shenhe left on the Myers Maind, and yet Saleen was going use to it on a level-4 spell. One could say that Saleen was down to earth, or that he was simply prodigal. After all, if a water puppet was produced, it would be equivalent to doubling Saleen¡¯s attack frequency.


    As for the current cutter? Lex was not very optimistic about such solo attack spells which could rival Fire Magic in terms of offensive power. The current cutter¡¯s speed was still slightly slower, and the attack range was not far enough.


    Saleen did not care what others might have thought. In his heart, he had already decided that he would produce a piece of equipment that had never been seen before on the Myers Maind.


    ¡°Lex, will Daniel be okay?¡± Saleen asked worriedly when he noticed that Daniel had not subdued the pikoosi.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I have snuffed the pikoosi¡¯s magic power. It doesn¡¯t have the ability to resist too much anymore.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I¡¯m going to refine the shenhe, and as for the matter of Daniel, I¡¯m already going to have to trouble you.¡± As Saleen spoke, he looked up into the moonlit sky and felt a little lonely.


    Back at the magic tower, Saleen led Sika and Nailisi straight to the sixth story. He instructed Nailisi to guard the stairway, and told Sika, ¡°I¡¯m going to produce a piece of equipment. I don¡¯t know how long it will take, but since its safe now, you¡­¡±


    ¡°I, need the remains of that magic beast.¡± Sika looked at Nailisi. The remains of the magic beast which had almost killed Saleen were still stored inside of Nailisi¡¯s bracelet.


    ¡°Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°Got it¡­¡±


    Nailisi carefully took out the bones of that magic beast. The bones upied almost all of the space on the sixth story, and Saleen had no choice but to sit by the bones. He took out a light yellow cbash and began thinking.


    Saleen had already thought about this countless times. Since he was going to put it into practice this time around, he felt that it would be better to be safe and conduct one more round of study. Refining equipment was not a difficult thing to do, and any mage master would be able to do it. It was just that some equipment was simple while others were moreplex. Given Saleen¡¯s skills, he had a higher chance of failure if he refined moreplicated stuff, so he wanted to carry out simple tasks as much as possible or do something that he was familiar with.


    A spell Saleen was familiar with was the current cutter, while the magic streaks he was most familiar with were the patterns on his n badge. Thebination of these two things might have seemed easy, but in reality, Saleen was going to fuse Water Magic into thisplex system of magic streaks. The magic streaks on Saleen¡¯s n badge had three-dimensional structures, while the arrangement of elements in the current cutter were only two-dimensional.


    Saleen needed toplicate the current cutter so that it would bepatible with the magic streaks on the n badge.


    Those magic streaks contained the seventh power, which was different from the six elements. It was the power of lightning, which mages had never tried controlling before.


    Saleen upied the entire sixth story. It was obvious he did not want to be disturbed. While he stayed on the highest floor for a prolonged period of time, Lex calmly refined various kinds of alchemicalponents.


    The entire first and second story of the magic tower had been converted into an alchemyboratory by Lex. Since Daniel had nowhere else to go, he could only stay behind and assist Lex. After subduing the pikoosi, Daniel was feeling satisfied, so he did not mind staying a little longer on this ind. This ind had a stable connection to the death dimension, so even though Daniel was not on the sixth story, he could still make quick progress.


    Lex wanted to manufacturerge quantities of machineponents. It was not possible for Lex to produce everything herself, so she needed to enlist help from alchemical equipment, and in that case, the daily depletion of magic nuclei would be as swift as running water.


    In the beginning, Lex had been producing the items inside of the magic tower. However,ter on, she decided to simply produce thoseponents inside the turtle shell itself.


    ¡°Daniel, bring me the metal matrixbeled ¡®601¡¯!¡±


    ¡°Daniel, use your death mes to melt this timber. It should be melted until it is only one percent of its original size.¡±


    ¡°Daniel,mand your pet to lift the turtle shell up. Yes, then put the obsidian corebeled ¡®1020¡¯ under it.¡±


    ¡°Daniel¡­¡±


    Lex seemed to be working continuously. At first, Daniel was d to be helping because it was always a joyous affair to be able to work together with an unrivalleddy such as Lex. However, as Lex¡¯s tasks became tougher, Daniel felt that his mental power was beginning to seem inadequate. At this point, he realized that the tireless Lex was very much stronger than him. The two of them were simply from different worlds.


    Lex only asked him to do the more menial tasks, while she took on the moreplex ones. Daniel could not help but startmenting. What exactly was Saleen doing on the sixth story of the magic tower? With Saleen¡¯s help, the refinement of the turtle shell could bepleted earlier. However, since Lex did not mention anything about him, Daniel did not dare to look for Saleen either.


    For some reason, Daniel had grown fearful of Saleen after subduing the pikoosi. This fear seemed to havee out of nowhere, and even Daniel could not figure out the reason behind it. If the two of them engaged in battle now, Daniel did not think that he would lose since he had the pikoosi by his side.


    Saleen must be afraid that I am progressing too quickly. That¡¯s why he seized the sixth story for himself.


    As Daniel made wild guesses in his head, his hands never stopped working. Right now, he needed to construct an alchemical frame so that the turtle shell could be ced on top of it. This three-dimensional frame would eventually be aplex magic array sequence, as it would fuse the turtle shell and the alchemical machineponents into one.


    Daniel had never heard of Lex¡¯s techniques before.


    ¡°Lex!¡± Daniel could no longer tolerate it anymore and asked, ¡°Why are the pairs of hands under Saleen not helping?¡±


    Daniel did not ask why Saleen was not helping. He could tell that Saleen and Lex shared a very intimate rtionship, and it seemed like they were hiding some very important matters from him. Of course, Daniel would not put himself at a disadvantage by asking why Saleen was not working. But as for Saleen¡¯s subordinates, what right did they have to not do anything and simply have a death mage do all the menial tasks?


    ¡°Daniel, don¡¯t be angry.¡± Lex smile was like a breeze blowing over the surface of water, yet it caused countless ripples in Daniel¡¯s heart. Then, in a solemn tone, Lex said, ¡°Sika and Nailisi aren¡¯t Saleen¡¯s subordinates. They are his friends.¡±

 Chapter 241: Pirates (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 241: Pirates (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Friends? Daniel did not quite understand how a mage could be friends with warriors.


    ¡°Daniel, go and do your work, Saleen still has important matters to tend to.¡± Seeing that Daniel was distracted, Lex thus reminded him that he still had unfinished work to do. Daniel nodded in despondence. He could onlymand his contract creature to use its long horns to lift the turtle shell up so that he could slowly construct the alchemy magic array.


    This method of production was extremely crude. If one really wanted to build a magic ship, they would require a huge factory, a huge dock, and hundreds of mages and disciples. Furthermore, a sorcerer would be needed to lead the operations of the core array.


    Just as Lex was fretting over how tobine the magic streaks on the turtle shell with her own alchemical machine, a sound from a metal whistle sounded in the far distance.


    ¡°Someone has just arrived on this ind. Daniel, go and take a look.¡± Lex immediately stopped her work and crawled out the turtle shell. Then, she cast a Flying spell and flew into midair. Shended on top of the magic tower and concealed her stature. Casting magic from such a high angle was the best position a mage could have.


    Daniel held onto the pikoosi¡¯s horn for support, then he stood on top of its head and began walking towards the shore.


    On the shore of the ghost fog ind, a wooden ship about forty meters in length had dropped its anchor, and several smaller boats had been deployed by that ship. Fearsome-looking men sat on these small boats. They were d in leather armor and wielded sharp des. They shouted at one another, but did so using Myersnguage.


    ¡°One-eyed, row faster! Didn¡¯t you eat?! What sort of ind is this? We have been navigating this route for several years already but have never discovered it. All of you better be alert. This ind might have some treasure.¡±


    This shouting man wielded arge de which had a hollow body, so its weight was significantly reduced. He had a curved, thick, and yellow mustache. Therger boat behind him had lowered its sails, but the g with a skeleton on it had not been removed. In the seas surrounding the Myers Maind, such a g was representative of their identities ¨C pirates.


    There were many types of pirates. Pirates like these who would bravely put their gs out did not necessarily kill everyone. After robbing a cargo ship, they would sometimes ask for a ransom before returning the ship to its owner. The scariest pirates were the ones who pretended to be merchant shippers. At sea, such pirates would leave no survivors. After looting all of the goods, they would sink the ship. The crew would be trapped in the cabin underneath, so no one could escape.


    This pirate ship was forty meters long. At the bow, there was a giant crossbow, while at the stern, there was stone artillery. Most merchant ships would not try to escape when they met such a pirate ship.


    The three small boats carried over twenty pirates. All of them looked menacing as they approached the shore.


    Before they could dock the boats by the shore, giant footsteps could be hearding from the depths of the ind. A three-headed monster charged towards the shore, stunning those pirates.


    ¡°Release the arrows! Quickly, release the arrows!¡± The yellow mustache pirate was the first one to react, but there was no way the people on therger boat could hear his cries.


    Daniel stood on the pikoosi¡¯s head. He scanned the surroundings using his eyes and noticed the three boats trying to turn around and escape. The green death mes behind him began expanding, and a tinge of them seeped into the pikoosi¡¯s head.


    The pikoosi¡¯s two heads to the side suddenly opened their mouths and said, ¡°All of you stop, right there!¡±


    This thunderous voice spread outwards, causing the pirates on the three boats to flee even faster. They rowed wildly since they were afraid of being devoured by that speaking monster.


    Pirates were also afraid of death. Since there were no mages on the boat, those people would not have the courage to face a three-headed monster.


    Daniel was stunned for a moment. Then, he raised his head and noticed that the sailors on therger ship had reacted as they had begun raising the sails, trying to flee.


    Daniel bent down and patted the pikoosi¡¯s head. On the pikoosi¡¯s right head, a grey light was emitted between its horns. The area between the horns vibrated endlessly as a magic rune with a diameter of over one meter was formed.


    The pirate ship had stopped hundreds of meters away and had not docked at the shore because it was afraid of rocks. Since Daniel could not attack that far away with his magic, he needed to borrow the power of his death creature.


    The pikoosi lowered its head and gave out a low roar. The magic symbols formed between its horns rotated furiously, and then a colossal grey magic bomb was released.


    This grey magic bomb glided over the surface of the ocean and managed to hit the main mast of the pirate ship.


    The main mast, with a width of about two people, suddenly broke from the middle. At the area where the mast had broken, there was ayer of grey dust, as though the mast had decayed after being on the ship for thousands of years.


    The pirates on the smaller boats were at a loss for what to do. They could not get close to the shore and they could not flee either. That three-headed beast could attack from hundreds of meters away. It was truly petrifying.


    Those pirates had seen magic beasts before. However, most sea magic beasts preferred to use melee attacks, and rarely released magic. A single magic bomb from that three-headed beast had destroyed the boat¡¯s mast, causing the pirates to be in utter panic, and they were about to jump into the sea to escape.


    ¡°All of you, stay where you are. Otherwise, I will be attacking the hull next.¡± Daniel controlled the pikoosi, and his voice was like thunder as it spread across the ocean.


    Lex heard Daniel¡¯s voice from the magic tower. She shook her head and descended. At a window on the sixth story, Lex stopped for a moment as she noticed that Saleen was not there.


    ¡°Nailisi, where is Saleen?¡± Lex called out.


    Nailisi popped her head out from the window, and told Lex, ¡°He said he was going to capture the pirates.¡±


    Pirates? Lex was suspicious. Saleen had not shown any signs that he had left the magic tower, so how did he know that those people were pirates? Furthermore, Lex herself had been in the tower all along, so how had Saleen gotten out?


    Saleen¡¯s body was enveloped by dense mist, as though he were engulfed by a dark cloud. The airstream formed by the water elements was far more stable than the Flying spell. Saleen rushed towards the sea, since that sound of the metal whistle was a signal that pirates were lowering their sails. If there were pirates, then there had to be boats. If they had not been so desperate, Saleen would not have wanted to travel in an alchemical boat made from a turtle shell.


    The alchemical boat would surely be very unrefined, and it was bound to have many errors. If Saleen was trapped inside, he would also drown even if he possessed very powerful abilities. No matter how old a pirate ship was, its ability to resist the winds and waves would still be fairly good. As long as Saleen could seize this pirate ship, then Lex could stop production of the alchemical boat for now.


    Saleen was only afraid that his actions had been too slow. The death magic from the pikoosi was no joke. If it made an urate hit, then the pirate ship would sink.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Saleen flew to the shore and bellowed at Daniel. Saleen¡¯s voice was projected for a great distance, and the pirates really stopped in their tracks. They saw a massive dark cloud flying towards them, and a deafening roar came from that dark cloud.


    Grand mage¡­


    ¡°Who is the captain?!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice spread across the surface of the ocean. Even the sound of crashing waves could not overwhelm his words.


    ¡°That¡¯s me.¡± At the bow of the pirate ship, a stout pirate whose face was filled with scars stood out. He was d in magic leather armor and did not wield any weapons, but Saleen could see a short de hidden behind him.


    ¡°Excellent.¡± Saleen raised his hand, and a ray of white light shot out from the dark cloud, urately hitting the pirate¡¯s chest. An ice arrow had prated the pirate¡¯s heart. Before this pirate could even continue his sentence, he had already been killed by Saleen.


    This pirate leader had not expected Saleen to kill him. Thus, he had not put up any resistance against Saleen¡¯s sneak attack at all.


    ¡°So who is the captain now?¡± Saleen dispersed the dark cloud slowly, revealing his face to the pirates. Saleen was only flying dozens of meters in the air so he waspletely within the range of the pirates¡¯ bows, but none of the pirates dared to touch their bows and arrows.


    After all, their captain had been an intermediate grade swordmaster, and yet he had been killed in a single blow by that mage.


    ¡°Answer me!¡± Saleen dispersed his cloud once more, and his long hair swayed in that swirling mist. His face was engulfed by the sunlight, giving off a radiant golden glow.


    Saleen levitated around the ship¡¯s bow and observed the pirates on the ship. A small and skinny pirate suddenly thought of an idea. He knelt on the deck and looked up to Saleen and said, ¡°You, you are the captain!¡±


    There were more than a hundred pirates on the ship. When they heard what their friend had said, they simply looked at one another. The other pirates also wanted to suck up to Saleen, but they did not know whether Saleen would be satisfied with just being the captain of the pirate ship. Perhaps that mage would view this ttery as an insult. If that was the case, then there would be trouble.


    Following the dispersal of the mist, Saleen also spread his perception. He carefully surveyed the situation on the pirate ship. After making sure that the pirates did not have a mage with them, Saleen then began slowly, ¡°Does anyone have any objections to me being the captain?¡±


    Those pirates then understood what Saleen meant. This mage simply wanted their ship. The pirates began cursing and swearing at Saleen in their hearts. They had a wideprehension of the different professions and knew that flying mages were definitely at least grade-6. If this mage wanted money, he could simply produce a few scrolls. He did not have to hijack this ship.


    After taking everything into ount, this ship will only be worth around ten thousand gold coins. Is this mage crazy?


    ¡°Very good. Since I am the captain, then obey mymands and dock this ship at the shore.¡± After saying his piece, Saleen then used the airstream created by the mist to fly back to the shore andnded next to Daniel. The pikoosi became a little annoyed, but it did not dare to harm Saleen.


    Saleen secretly heaved a sigh of relief. He was still not too familiar with the mist yet, and his magic chords could not sustain long periods of flight. However, in order to terrorize those pirates, Saleen had forced himself to levitate for a while. Had he flown for just a little longer, his ws would have been exposed. These pirates were all trained in martial arts, and they were at least beginner swordsmen. Saleen was not afraid of battling those pirates, but if all of them had died, there would be no one to steer the ship anymore.


    The over one hundred pirates on the ship had been horrified by Saleen, and they did not dare to flee anymore. Saleen was a grand mage. How would a pirate swim faster than a mage could fly?


    The people on the boats were the first to dock. Saleen instructed them to stand in front of the pikoosi and line up in an orderly manner. These pirates were not trained. They might have been able to fight, but the way they assembled themselves was utterly messy. Furthermore, the three heads of the pikoosi were still grinding their teeth while staring at them, causing their legs to tremble in fear. Those pirates who were able to stand firmly could already be considered the better ones.


    ¡°I need a chief officer, and that would be you. What¡¯s your name?¡± Saleen pointed to the first person, a pirate with a yellow mustache, who hade up onto the shore. This pirate was still shaken, but when he heard Saleen¡¯s words, he became more at ease. Saleen was not nning on killing them. It was simply good that pirates could simply follow whoever they needed to.


    No one had ever heard of a mage being the captain of a band of pirates. Perhaps, these pirates could still make a fortune by following this young mage.

 Chapter 242: Captain Saleen (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 242: Captain Saleen (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not know that even though these pirates dominated the seas, looked ferocious, and robbed people of their treasures, there were actually not many rich pirates around. To a pirate, the most valuable item was the pirate ship. The pirate ship belonged to the captain, and was unrted to the underlings.


    Saleen had killed the captain and hijacked the pirate ship, so these pirates did not feel any tangible pain or loss at all.


    The pirate with a yellow mustache mustered all of his courage and took a step forward, before looking up at Saleen and saying, ¡°Great mage, my name is Jupiter.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Haha.¡± Saleenughed. Currently, the emperor of the Cloudflow Empire was also named Jupiter. This pirate¡¯s name was certainly interesting.


    ¡°Jupiter, are you literate?¡±


    ¡°Great mage, I can write Qin words,¡± Jupiter replied honestly.


    ¡°Record everybody¡¯s information. I want it by tonight. As for the others, they shall camp on the beach, and move everything off of the ship.¡± As Saleen instructed Jupiter, he felt that he was not suited to be the leader of these pirates. Chaos would surely ensue since Saleen was the solemander. However, he could not look to Lex for help either. She was an authentic noble, so she could not be the onemanding a bunch of pirates who onlymitted crimes. Saleen, on the other hand, did not think that he was of that high of a status yet.


    Saleen swiftly delegated the tasks that needed to bepleted before nightfall, and the boisterous pirates dispersed. Then, he said to Daniel, ¡°Stay here and keep an eye on them. I will go and discuss the matter of our departure with Lex.¡±


    Without waiting for Daniel¡¯s response, Saleen had already cast his unique flying skill. He was then enveloped in a cloud of mist and flew away. As Daniel watched Saleen fly in midair, he felt bitter. Saleen can fly already? Is he already grade-5?


    Grade-5 mages could fly for short distances with the help of alchemical equipment, but grade-4 mages could not.


    Saleen did not care about Daniel¡¯s thoughts. He simply returned to the magic tower and went to Lex. ¡°Lex, I have captured more than one hundred pirates. They will be our freebor.¡±


    Lex nced at Saleen¡¯s excited face, and held onto a giant piece of alchemical equipment in front of the magic tower for support. Then, Lex sighed and said, ¡°More than one hundred pirates? One squadron of my cavalry would be able to ughter all of them in five minutes. And you want to rely on these pirates to take us back to the Myers Maind? Unless we are fortunate enough to not run into any ships from Cloudflow or Alchemy City.¡±


    The organizational structure for the Qin army was as such. Ten thousand soldiers formed a camp, one thousand soldiers formed an emblem group, two hundred soldiers formed a brigade, forty soldiers formed a squadron, and eight soldiers formed a squad. Only the numbers of support troops and mages were not fixed. Hence, Lex was not boasting when she said that her squadron of forty cavalry troops could ughter all those pirates.


    ¡°Lex, this is not a war. I believe you do not want people to know about the alchemical boat when you bring it back, right?¡±


    ¡°Not at the moment.¡±


    ¡°Then how do we return to Alchemy City?¡±


    At this moment, Lex then understood that Saleen wanted to use these pirates as a cover to conceal the secret of the alchemical boat.


    ¡°We have to go back. The main task has not beenpleted yet,¡± Saleen said with a smile.


    Lex then said firmly, ¡°Saleen, all those pirates will be under your control. I won¡¯t care about their development. And don¡¯t think of using them for your own gain. Pirates have their own methods of survival, and furthermore, you are a mage. Are you really going to live with them at sea? Once you get to Qin, I don¡¯t care whether you set them free or sell them away, but I am definitely not bringing them back to the Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    Saleen was stumped for words. He rubbed his eyebrows and said in frustration, ¡°These people have been very obedient, I can¡¯t possibly kill them, can I? I don¡¯t need to control them with money. I just have to supply their meals.¡±


    ¡°I would rather spend money hiring innocent swordsmen,¡± Lex rejected resolutely. In her ideal country, she would not want these criminals, and even though they were obedient, she also did not want them as her subordinates.


    ¡°Then you do not object to me leading them, right?¡± Saleen could only settle for the second best option. He had no one under him right now, aside from Daniel who was still undecided. Saleen could not possibly delegate everything to Sika and Nailisi. If those pirates were well-trained, they could be of help as well.


    ¡°Then you will lead them. I will not be responsible for caring for them.¡± Lex was firm and decisive. There was no room for negotiation.


    ¡°Lex¡­¡±


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t go on anymore. If you want loyal subordinates, I will give you an emblem group when I return to the Bitter Water Prefecture, and you will have one thousand swordsmen following you for the rest of your life. These pirates cannot be trusted.¡± Lex raised her eyebrows, and her eyes had a serene look to them. As the setting sun shone on Lex¡¯s face, it left ayer of pearly glow on her fair skin, causing Saleen to be stunned in that moment.


    At the very end, the cogitation of a noble was still different from that of a businessman. Saleen admitted that Lex¡¯s exnation was logical. Professional soldiers were stronger and easier to manage than pirates, and they would not go renegade without any rhyme or reason. Since the Bitter Water Prefecturecked manpower, Saleen had always thought that Lex should not refuse if she could receive additional benefits.


    This group of pirates might not have been some powerful force, but they were still proficient sailors. Furthermore, there were at least hundreds of such pirates on the eastern sea of Qin. If all of them were integrated together, a formidable force could still be formed.


    Saleen felt that it was very challenging for the Bitter Water Prefecture to make progress onnd. So, if the prefecture could dominate the seas and pave the route to Shengfeng country, it would be an opportunity for the prefecture to develop swiftly. Unfortunately, Fellett was dead, thus it was unknown when the route would be discovered. By taming these pirates in advance, they would be a great help in searching for the route.


    ¡°Lex, I will keep these men and bring them to the northern side.¡± Saleen did not know why he had be so determined all of a sudden, as his dormant thoughts were now active once more. Perhaps Saleen was too mindful of his origins, so Lex¡¯s attitude had made him ufortable.


    Lexughed and gently said, ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t be so sensitive. You are a mage, so the people you use have to be dependable. Do you know the pirates¡¯ rules?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°An individual will be the boss after killing the captain.¡±


    ¡°Oh? That was exactly what I did just now!¡±


    ¡°They are only obedient for the moment. Once you assign them tasks, be prepared to be betrayed at anytime.¡± Lex decided to use another tone to persuade Saleen.


    Saleen pondered for a moment, and said, ¡°We need sailors. Even though you have many qualified warriors, not many of them know how to steer a ship. I will continue this activity, and as for the pirates¡¯ rules¡­ I will make them change them.¡±


    ¡°How do you want to change them?¡±


    ¡°The people of Sikeqinya believe in contracts. Since I am a mage, I will definitely sign a contract with those guys.¡± Saleenughed, and his smile looked a little strange.


    Contractual magic was also a form of power. If used well, he would be able to exertplete control over those pirates. It was just that no mages had ever done so before. Only Saleen would have been able to think of such an idea for dealing with this motley crowd.


    ¡°Mm, that will do. How¡¯s the refinement of your shenheing along?¡±


    As Saleen heard Lex pose this question, he became overjoyed. He took out that yellow gourd, and there was an additionalyer of blue patterns on the surface of the gourd. The opening of the gourd had been chopped off and a gem had been mosaicked onto it. This gem was the white spirit. It contained the attributes of spatial equipment. Only a rich and powerful person like Saleen would have mosaicked such a premium gem onto a piece of crude equipment like this.


    Saleen did not have to chant any mantras. He simply tapped on the gourd and a stream of water about five meters long shot out from the white spirit. This water flow was solid and unbroken, and it encircled Saleen¡¯s body like a coiling serpent.


    ¡°Eh?¡± Lex was astonished when she saw such a scene. The current cutter was an offensive spell, but now that it was in Saleen¡¯s hands, the water flow seemed to have a life of its own since it was able to move about freely without depleting Saleen¡¯s power at all.


    ¡°How did you manage to do it?¡± Lex could not help but ask. There were few secrets between the two of them, and since this concerned magic knowledge, Saleen would not hide it from her either.


    However, Saleen did not know how to answer Lex. He had nearlymitted a blunder when he had been refining the shenhe. There were simply too many water elements inside the shenhe, and they had all been of the purest quality. Saleen had not been able to achieve any bnce whatsoever. Just as the water elements had been about to escape, the two transformed water shields on his left hand had moved to block the opening of the gourd, and in the end, the water shields were assimted into the gourd.


    After the two water shields had disappeared, whatever equipment was produced had then attained a life of its own. All of these events had been beyond Saleen¡¯s control, so there was no way for Saleen to answer Lex.


    The water flow had a blue-green hue and the natural magic patterns within it were ever-changing. It was eerily mesmerizing. Saleen did not have to control the water flow intentionally and it would encircle his body on its own, like a very obedient contract creature.


    ¡°Test its power.¡± As Lex spoke, she took out a metal column and tossed it on the ground. This metal column had a diameter of more than half a foot. The metal column had an orange-yellow hue, but it was actually bailian copper, made from mixing pure copper with seven different types of metals. This kind of copper was one of the most cost-efficient metals out there. It could be used to manufacture huge shields or arrow towers inrge cities.


    Most spells would not be able to destroy this metal immediately. If this metal was used to build arrow towers and then fortified with a magic array, the arrow towers would be able to withstand all-out attacks by spells which were level-4 and below.


    Saleen pointed at the copper column, and the blue-green water flow encircling him immediately flew outwards. It winded around the copper column before making a single twist, and then the thick copper column silently broke into two. The water flow then flew back to Saleen, and it did not seem to be weakened at all.


    ¡°Not bad. Its offensive ability is close to that of level-6 magic already!¡± Lex eximed.


    Saleen smiled. This water flow still contained another secret, but Lex could not tell. Unless Saleen ran into very dangerous enemies, he would never disy it. He tapped on the gourd once more, and the water flow about five meters long returned into the gourd.


    ¡°You should have no more problems dealing with the deacons anymore,¡± Lex analyzed solemnly.


    ¡°Unfortunately, there are still the temrs, bishops, oracles, and many other fellows above the deacons.¡± Even though Saleen said that, he was feeling relieved. Refining the shenhe had enabled him to understand many more secrets of the badge. Those special patterns on the badge were an embodiment of the seventh power.


    Saleen might not have been able to utilize the power of lightning yet, but he could already visualize the path ahead of him.

 Chapter 243: Captain Saleen (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 243: Captain Saleen (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The thing a mage feared most was bing lost during their journey of training. Without guidance from another person and unable to find the right direction, a mage would lose themselves. Consequently, they would not amount to much in their life.


    Lex sensed Saleen¡¯s determination and was subconsciously influenced by him. She was well aware of what she wanted. It was just that the journey ahead would be very difficult. Thus, during this time, she could only work very hard in order to lessen the pressure she felt in her mind.


    Just as Lex was going to say something to Saleen, a thunderous boom could be heard out of the blue from the magic tower. Nailisi jumped out from the sixth story of the magic tower, looking very uneasy. The whole magic tower began to waver, causing Lex to be greatly astounded.


    The magic tower looked like it was going to copse soon. Lex did not care whether the tower copsed, but the unfinished alchemical boat was right in front of the tower. If the tower really fell, the turtle shell might have been fine, but the rest of the instations would bepletely ruined.


    ¡°Sika!¡± Saleen hollered, then he soared into the air and charged towards the window of the sixth story. Looking in through the window, Saleen noticed that Sika was trying her very best to control the skeleton of the magic beast. As she was on top the bones, ck runes levitated in midair around her, engulfing the entire sixth story.


    The skeleton of the magic beast seemed to havee to life. Its long tail shook about wildly, striking the walls of the magic tower and giving off an earth-shattering sound. The bone wings under its ribs were also pping about. Sika grasped the neck of the skeleton while the skeleton crashed against the magic tower forcefully. With every crash, the magic tower would sway, and it felt like it would copse at anytime.


    ¡°Everything¡¯s fine!¡± Sika¡¯s face turned scarlet when she looked up and noticed Saleen outside the window. This was the first time Sika had triedmunicating with the magic beast soul inside the skeleton, but she was too weak, so the magic beast soul had refused to acknowledge her. After a long period of interaction, the magic beast soul had grown annoyed. Even though it would not harm Sika, it had nearly trampled Nailisi.


    When Saleen saw the situation on the sixth story, he immediately used his icy sight to conduct a scan. He knew that Sika would not be harmed, but it seemed like the magic tower was going to copse soon since the magic beast skeleton was already far too strong.


    The construction of a magic tower was very stringent. Even if the best materials were not used and there was no fortification by magic arrays, it would be hard to destroy a magic tower either way. Most of the time, a magic tower would remain standing for more than one thousand years, and it was more difficult to topple a magic tower than a metal arrow tower. However, every hit by this skeleton caused a crack in the structure of the magic tower.


    ¡°Lex, hurry¡­¡±


    Saleen yelled, but he did not have any solutions either. He was more proficient in battles and offense, but it would be impossible for him to stop the crumbling of the magic tower.


    Lex was also helpless in the face of this swaying magic tower. She simply cast a level-6 earth spell repeatedly ¨C Crystal City, forming several magic barriers between the turtle shell and the magic tower. Then, she flew into the air and went to the other side of the tower. She called out to Saleen, ¡°Attack this side!¡±


    After saying her piece, Lex went back to the other side and erected dozens of consecutive walls along the base of the magic tower. Right now, Lex was not thinking of salvaging the magic tower. She was thinking of how to make the tower fall towards the other side.


    Saleen then went to the rear of the magic tower. He lowered his altitude and took a look at the position of the magic marking left behind by Lex. This position was coincidentally at the sturdiest part of the magic tower, where ck steel rocks were giving off a dark glow and forming a crimson hue in the sunset.


    Saleen quickly took out his gourd and tapped on it, and the five meter long blue-green water flow was ejected. Saleen let the water flow encircle his body before putting away his gourd and taking out the demonic spellbook. Saleen opened the ck magic book and then released the level-5 ice bomb which was stored inside.


    A massive ice bomb bombarded the base of the magic tower ruthlessly, causing it to explode with a blinding light in that instant. The ice bomb crashed into pieces, and fragments of ice pierced into the base of the magic tower before igniting. Saleen took this opportunity tounch the water flow, making it cut deep into the base of the magic tower.


    The almost indestructible water flow contained small serrated edges. When the water flow moved rapidly, it was even more terrifying than the sharpest de in the world. The magic patterns within the water flow moved cyclically, causing the cutting power to be maintained indefinitely.


    Ka, ka¡­


    The cutting of the water flow on the steel rock produced the sound of grinding metal. The ice bomb fragments and the burning from the mes had caused the strength of the steel rock to be slightly lowered, and after repeated cuts by the water flow, some cracks were finally produced.


    Boom!


    On the sixth story, the skeleton had actually managed to burst through the floor separating the fifth and sixth level. This had caused the entire sixth story to break off from the rest of the magic tower. Gargantuan rock pieces avnched downwards, causing Saleen to escape in fright.


    Hong¡­


    A dull noise emanated throughout the ind. Saleen retracted his water flow, and at the same time, he caught a glimpse of a giant shadow crashing through the walls of the magic tower and running out at lightning speed.


    Sika was in a fluster on the back of this shadow.


    Ka cha! A crisp crack came from the base of the magic tower. Saleen retreated once more, only to see the colossal magic tower copsing slowly towards him. The ground trembled, causing dust to fly dozens of meters into the air, and it was still flying even higher. A gust of violent wind blew past, having been a Storm spell cast by Lex. This wind had blown away all of the dust formed by the tower¡¯s copse.


    Upon seeing that the turtle shell was safe, Saleen then rose up into the air once more and started pursuing Sika.


    In midair, he shouted downwards, ¡°Sika, stop now!¡±


    After the magic beast had flown out of the magic tower, it had alreadynded and retracted its wings, and now was running furiously. Sika sat on top of it, unable to reply to Saleen due to the vigorous bumping. She had not known that this would be the result of stimting the magic beast soul. It was not like she had never done this before, butpared to this magic beast, the other souls had been like obedient domesticated cats and dogs.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Sika roared. She was also fuming now. This fellow was too unruly and had even destroyed the magic tower. Lex had kept some alchemical appliances in the magic tower, and Sika did not know whether or not she would need topensate Lex. The moment Sika thought of needing to pay gold coins inpensation, it was as though a fire had been lit in her eyes. She removed her hands which had been gripping onto the skeleton before wielding her cudgel. Then, with both hands clutched around the cudgel, Sika smashed it down hard onto the skull of the skeleton.


    ¡°Run, go ahead and run some more!¡± Sika waved her cudgel wildly, and with every blow she delivered, a string of sparks would appear between the cudgel and the magic beast skeleton. After Sika¡¯s cudgel had been refined by Faerun, its degree of toughness had already exceeded that of most magic equipment. However, that magic beast skeleton was also extremely tough. There was not even a single mark even though Sika had delivered two vigorous blows.


    The skeleton did not have a direction in mind, so it simply sprinted aimlessly and eventually reached the seaside. Those pirates by the sea had been building their tents when Sika rode in on the skeleton and came charging into the camppound. Several pirates could not dodge in time and were hurled away by that impact.


    Peng! Peng!


    There were not many tents in the camppound, and after the rampage by that magic beast skeleton, the entirepound was in shreds. The fleeing pirates were stunned as they watched the scene unfolding before them. They had just seen a female warrior, who was prettier than the most beautiful songstress in a tavern, on top of a monster made out of bones. She was waving a gigantic cudgel about in absolute madness.


    Sika was on the verge of tears already. The heap of gems and money which she and Saleen had umted through sheer hard work all this time was going to go into thepensation for the damages caused by this skeleton.


    All of a sudden, Sika stood up and nted both feet firmly into the back of the skeleton. She began spinning the cudgel, causing metallic magic patterns to crisscross as dozens of razor-sharp dragon horns popped out from the top of the cudgel.


    ¡°I dare you to run some more!¡± Sika raised her cudgel and was about to strike.


    Within that skeleton, the magic beast soul suddenly felt threatened, and Sika heard a furious roar. She did not care anymore, and she smashed her cudgel downwards.


    With a boom, the magic beast skeleton mmed against the ground and slid dozens of meters forward, almost charging into the ocean. Sika raised her cudgel once more and was going to continue hitting it, but Saleen had already caught up and while in midair, he bellowed, ¡°Sika, stop hitting it!¡±


    At this point in time, Sika calmed down. The magic beast soul did not really have the intention of harming her, and her cudgel also had not managed to break any of the skeleton¡¯s bones.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    Sika lowered her cudgel, with tears brimming in her eyes. That was the first time Saleen had seen her with this expression, causing him to be stunned.


    ¡°Gold coins! Gold coins!¡± Sika started pping the magic beast skeleton as she spoke incoherently.


    ¡°What gold coins?¡± Saleen slowlynded beside Sika, and he did not know how to console her after seeing her looking so heartbroken.


    Sika used her sleeve to wipe her nose and held back her tears. Sika then climbed off of the magic beast skeleton and turned around to give it a kick. Her back faced Saleen, as she did not know what to say to him.


    All of a sudden, Saleen realized what was going on, and a wave of warmth welled up in his heart. At the end of the day, Sika did not have anyplicated thoughts. So that was what Sika was worried about!


    ¡°Sika¡­¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Sika did not bother turning around. She simply leaned against her cudgel as she felt that her feet were in great pain. The magic beast skeleton was stronger than steel. Instead of venting her anger, Sika had almost been injured after delivering a few kicks to the skeleton.


    ¡°Are you worried because Lex¡¯s alchemical equipment has been ruined?¡±


    Seeing that Sika did not reply, Saleenughed and came behind her. Then, Saleen pulled on her tight sleeves and said, ¡°Let¡¯s go. We will go back and take a look. If Lex demandspensation from you, then we will not work for her anymore.¡±


    Sika turned around. Her face was scarlet as she hesitated and said, ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be too good, would it?¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t it be? You may not know it yet, but I am the captain of the pirates now!¡±


    ¡°Pirates? Ah! Right, I saw some strange-looking people just now. I think I rammed into some of them. So they are the pirates? I will go and ughter them!¡± Sika quickly forgot about the gold coins and was about to grab her weapon to kill those pirates.


    Saleen grabbed onto Sika¡¯s sleeves. It was still an unknown whether those pirates who had been hurled away would survive, and if Sika still went to beat them up, there would be very few people remaining in the camppound.


    ¡°Sika, I have subdued those pirates!¡±


    ¡°Ah? Oh right¡­¡± Sika had finally regained herposure. Then, she asked strangely, ¡°Those men are so weak. Why did you capture them?¡±


    ¡°They came of their own ord. I don¡¯t know either. But, I am the captain now. Also, don¡¯t behave like this in the future, Sika. Lex would never demandpensation from you even though her items were destroyed.¡± As Saleen spoke to Sika, he also felt incoherent as he did not really know what to say.


    ¡°That¡¯s true. Saleen, you are the captain now. Do you n to carry out robberies?¡± Sika asked uneasily. Sika¡¯s question was not considered odd either. If it was possible, Saleen would really try to conduct robberies, but he would only rob ships belonging to the country of Shengfeng. Saleen¡¯s main agenda had been the country of Shengfeng when he had decided to subdue the pirates.

 Chapter 244: Mage’s Temptation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 244: Mage¡¯s Temptation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The pirates standing at a distance looked at Sika, who was speaking to Saleen, in awe. Their ears were ringing and the sounds of Sika beating the magic beast skeleton could still be heard in their heads.


    Those pirates were rather skilled in martial arts, and about a dozen of them were swordmasters. They all knew what the sounds had meant: the strength of this female warrior was perhaps greater than that of the former ship captain. Several injured pirates were simply bandaged up, and it seemed that they might not survive. Each and every one of them had dozens of broken bones, and their wounds had not been healed up, still bleeding.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen shouted. Nailisi came behind him immediately.


    ¡°Put this away, take Sika back, and help clean up the tform,¡± Saleen said before going to the pirate camp. The camp had been devastated and Saleen approached a few injured pirates. Four of them werepletely unconscious, two had broken arms, and two had minor injuries in the form of scratches on their faces.


    Seeing Saleen walk over to them, the pirates retreated and did not dare approach him. It was not because Saleen was savage, but because they all knew that mages did not like it when armed warriors got too close to them, not to mention even less trustworthy pirates. In the event that any of them made actions that could be understood, this mage could very well be a killer.


    However, Saleen did not mind. His mid-grade armor could be summoned instantly now, which meant that the pirates who were merely mid-grade swordmasters would have troubleunching a sneak attack on him. He would have been more careful if there was a bronze grand swordmaster present.


    As he faced the injured, Saleen observed them with cold eyes and saw four seriously injured pirates with visceral ruptures. He beckoned over a pirate and said, ¡°Bleed their stomachs to save them.¡±


    ¡°Aye.¡± This pirate with short red hair looked clean. He was quick to pull out a knife and began to cut open the stomachs of his injuredrades to let out the extravasated blood. He knew that he was saving their lives, but their injuries were too heavy for this method to be effective.


    Seeing that almost all the extravasated blood had been let out, Saleen used the Frost spell to freeze the wounds of those pirates and then casted four Chunlin spells in session. Green streams of air prated the pirates¡¯ bodies, and those four pirates stopped moaning and seemed a little bit better.


    ¡°Get a bucket,¡± Saleen continued with his orders. Some pirates brought over a bucket right away. Saleen created some restorative water and instructed them, ¡°This is a healing potion. If you take care of these four, they will survive.¡±


    The pirates looked at each other and bowed their heads in deference. Most of the pirates began to have ideas of following Saleen. This mage was willing to cast magical treatment for his men. Following him, one would have a lower chance of dying. Pirates risked their lives for their work, and on any given day, it was possible that they would not live to see tomorrow. It was difficult to get treatment after being injured on the sea. Even though they had been sailing with some magic potions, those potions had been for the leaders and normal pirates needed to wait for their own bodies to heal themselves.


    Saleen said no more. Winning over the support of other people was not his forte. He had simply done that out of his own habits. Those pirates were hisbor and any deaths would be a big loss for him. Lex possessed many loyal swordsmen, but none of them were qualified sailors.


    Operations on the sea required more than just powerful sword auras. No matter how powerful a person¡¯s aura was, they could not depend on it to fly over the sea. They would need a boat in order to operate.


    Daniel also watched on from a distance. He had seen more than those pirates, so he felt greater awe for Sika. Without having ever cultivated her sword aura, she had attacked so fiercely with pure strength as though she were a monster in the form of a human. He felt both envious and jealous of these two women beside Saleen. It was the happiest thing of all for a mage to have such warriors around.


    When will I be able to leave Saleen? When that timees, I should also find several followers like them.


    This thought came into Daniel¡¯s mind as he watched Saleen walk away. He still did not understand Lex¡¯s words. Sika and Nailisi were Saleen¡¯s friends, not his followers.


    The magic tower was a mess, but Lex¡¯s Crystal City and Stonewall spell had done a very good job of controlling the damage. Her Storm spell had blown away any dust, leaving the alchemy machines for the pan¡¯s turtle unharmed. The magic tower had broken at its lower middle section and had fallen to the other side, causing cracks in the huge tform. Lex had already filled those cracks using magic.


    The footing of the magic tower had been shattered. This would not have happened if the owner of the magic tower had been alive and the magic array had been in full motion.


    ¡°How¡¯s it going, Lex? How much did you lose?¡± Saleen grinned and asked. Lex looked at Saleen with a puzzled expression.


    ¡°Sika wants to pay for your losses.¡±


    Lex smiled after hearing Saleen¡¯s words. ¡°What losses? The materials of this tower are also worth money. Sika helped break them apart, and I can transport them right away. There are many steel rocks here.¡±


    She knew of Sika¡¯s temper, and she also knew that Saleen was not joking and that Sika was quite serious. No wonder Sika hade back with a strange look on her face. Lex liked Sika¡¯s character. Instead of making fun of her innocence, she began to ease Sika¡¯s feelings together with Saleen.


    ¡°Lex, is that true?¡± Sika¡¯s eyes widened. She looked at the ground


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s true. Not all of the alchemy machines buried inside are broken. And if it hadn¡¯t been for you, I wouldn¡¯t have had the kind of strength needed to destroy such a big tower.¡±


    Lex¡¯s words were not entirely lies. The construction of the magic tower required many special materials that might not have been particrly valuable, but had a rather high value when added up altogether. She had already taken down many materials from the first and second floors of the alchemyb and had transported them out of the magic tower. Her losses had not been too big this time.


    ¡°You should be happy, Sika. As I recall, you must be the first warrior who has taken down a magic tower, right?¡± Seeing that Sika had cheered up, Saleen also felt delighted.


    ¡°The first! Me?¡± Sika pointed at her own nose in disbelief.


    ¡°Of course. Which warrior do you think has the guts to take down a magic tower?¡± Lex exined with a smile on her face, ¡°Even swordsmasters do not dare to attack a magic tower directly.¡±


    ¡°Well, enough of this. Lex, let¡¯s begin working out how we¡¯ll get back.¡± Saleen did not want to talk too much about this after seeing that Sika was no longer worried. If news of this incident were to spread and be known to other mages, others would perhaps dislike Sika because of this. Having a magic tower taken down was a disgrace to mages, even if the tower itself no longer had an owner.


    With the exception of the Tanggsi Empire, magic towers in the other three empires were usually left standing and untouched even if the mage passed away.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you already have an idea?¡± Lex looked at Saleen with a faint smile. This man had already thought it over, but had still asked the question to tempt the others. He did not seem to be an ingenuous man.


    Saleen was embarrassed and thenughed. He cleaned out a patch of ground using the Cleaning spell, had Lex sit down, and said, ¡°The main mast of the pirate ship is broken and cannot be repaired without the required materials.¡±


    ¡°It can be repaired. Saleen, just tell us how you¡¯ll do so.¡±


    ¡°Well, you see, this pirate ship is forty meters long and this pan¡¯s turtle shell is not even thirty meters long. Although the bottom of this pirate ship is not t, there is a way to add a one-time piece of connecting equipment to the pan¡¯s turtle¡¯s shell. We can drag the alchemical boat under the pirate ship and sneak back to Qin.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a good idea, but all of the pirates will have seen this alchemical boat. Do you intend to kill them all? This is not your style.¡±


    ¡°We have Daniel. Have him sign a death magic contract with those pirates and they will keep this secret until their deaths. If they survive, I will arrange for them to go to the north of Phoenix and build a stronghold there. This pirate ship is also the beginning of my future.¡±


    Lex looked at Saleen and seemed to see something in his eyes. Saleen looked back calmly with simple thoughts. If he epted the swordsmen given by Lex, all of his efforts would not actually be his own. He would have an equal status to Lex only when he had opened a new situation on his own.


    It was only recently that he had thought of this idea. Before that, he had believed that Lex was meant to be more powerful than him. She was gifted and had a solid foundation because she had received the guidance of sorcerer since she was seven and had nevercked money.


    However, a vague feeling had begun to form in Saleen¡¯s mind with his advancing age. It could also be said that his feelings towards women had awakened. It was not impossible for him to work with Lex all year round. It was just that he had felt like he was being ced under others.


    Lex¡¯s life has not been smooth sailing either. Even though I had a rather unfortunate beginning, I have so many opportunities now. Why not make ns for my own life just as Lex does?


    Saleen did not just want a boat for freedom. For a mage, a ship was far less important than a magic tower. If Saleen wanted to depend on himself, he simply needed to speed up his learning and be a grade-6 mage. Lex would naturally treat him with a more respect once that happened.


    Even so, he did not want to depend on Lex. They had the same enemy in the sacred Holy See. However, they were too far away to attack from Kroraina and could not deal with the Holy See. If he was armed with a navy, Saleen would no longer be worried about the men of the Holy See.


    There were vast tracts of secludednd to the north of Phoenix. For as long as six months every year, they were covered with ice and snow, and no one wanted to live and thrive there with the plentiful amount of Myersnd avable. Thisnd, however, was under different circumstances now, and that ce could be a wider world for Saleen.


    Saleen had held this idea ever since he had seen Lex¡¯s magic map of thends. Originally, he had discussed with Fellett how to develop thatnd and had no power to rely on after Fellett¡¯s death. Now that those pirates hade to his doorstep, Saleen had suddenlye to this idea.


    I¡¯ll have those pirates help me develop that wastnd. There is a ce to build a port to the north of Phoenix. Although that ce has a six-month period of frost every year, a frozen port can also be used year-round if the techniques of the alchemical boat arepletely mastered.


    Where there was power, there was temptation. Saleen had seen the almighty power in his badge, and this power had bred his temptations.

 Chapter 245: Mage’s Temptation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 245: Mage¡¯s Temptation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was determined to keep those pirates, and Lex would certainly not oppose to it. Saleen had a good idea, but there were some technical problems. The shape of the ship¡¯s bottom had been designed specifically against waves, and if the alchemical boat were to be dragged rigidly under it, it would not only slow the ship down, but also affect the ship¡¯s bnce.


    Lex did not put forth a more appropriate idea. She merely rejected Saleen¡¯s design and added a sturdy hook to the tail of the pirate ship, using chains to drag the secret alchemical boat made from the pan¡¯s turtle.


    Even so, dragging an alchemical boat behind them would still affect the speed of the pirate ship and would endanger them when there were storms.


    By now, the pirates on the beach werepletely obedient and had removed all of the things irrelevant to the voyage from the ship under Daniel¡¯smand. Arge amount of fresh water, dried vegetables, dried sliced meat, and uncooked rice were transported ashore. There were not many goods onboard, and the several hundred gold coins turned in by the pirates were given back to them by Saleen.


    These gold coins only amounted to the worth of a single grade-4 magic nucleus, but the pirates had risked their lives for those coins, most of which had been taken by the former captain of the pirate ship and buried on his ind.


    After two heavy showers within three days and a storm that had struck close to this unnamed ghost fog ind, the pirate camp had been blown to a mess. After seeing Lex¡¯s alchemical boat nearing its desired state, Saleen went to the pirate camp, called over Jupiter, and counted the number of pirates.


    Not all of the men on the pirate ship were pirates. Some of them were kidnapped sailors who had not been rescued and had no choice but to live as pirates. In fact, this was also one of the reasons that a team of pirates could be sustained. No one was born with the wish to be a pirate, and all four empires held the same attitude towards pirates: execution.


    Even if those captive pirates who had lived on a pirate ship for a long time had done nothing, no one would bother to check whether they were innocent after catching them. Over time, these sailors would also be new pirates.


    Saleen separated these sailors, totalling over forty, from the rest of the pirates. Saleen needed sailors, and these sailors had nowhere to go and had not beplete pirates. They were exactly the manpower that Saleen wanted.


    Saleen ordered these over forty pirates to take care of the four seriously injured pirates, and put the rest of the pirates into stringent training.


    Saleen knew nothing about the cultivation of sword aura, and even if he did, he could not teach so many pirates. Although the cultivation of the sword aura was not as strict as that of magic, it also needed to be inherited. One could teach themselves to be a junior swordsmaster, and after that, they would need special guidance from a teacher.


    Saleen ordered Jupiter to train those pirates to cultivate their sword auras. Leaving out those injured pirates who could not partake in the training, there were one hundred and twenty-eight strong pirates in total.


    After examining the weapons and armor of those pirates, Saleen was disappointed. The pirates were skilled inbat, but they had miserable equipment. He asked for over one hundred sets of leather armor from Lex and used these to rece the pirates¡¯ old sets. Their weapons were also reced with shorter straight knives.


    In Saleen¡¯s opinion, the pirates would not be at an advantage when it came to closebat on the sea. Pirates had stone artillery and heavy crossbows, and could attack unhurriedly after crashing into the sails or rudders of their enemies. If they needed to jump on deck and fight in closebat, those guys with no spirit of cooperation, just as Lex said, would be less useful than a squadron of cavalry.


    Nevertheless, they would be the first of Saleen¡¯s warriors. As a mage, it was normal for him to not be too skilled at this. Neither Sika nor Nailisi could help him. Sika was not good at positionedbat and knew nothing about battle at sea, and Nailisi knew little about this, even less than Saleen.


    Saleen did not ask Lex for help. He simply ordered these pirates to familiarize themselves with their new armor and weapons and trained them every day on how to maintain their equipment. He also asked for ten storage boxes from Lex. This Qin army equipment required a mage apprentice to open and had the same room inside as it was seen from the outside.


    The only advantage of this box was that it waspletely sealed, isting the room inside from the outside environment. Food stored in this box would never decay unless the box was broken.


    Saleen chose ten young pirates to take care of these ten boxes that were filled with good dried sliced meat, not the musty goods that the pirates stored. These ten boxes of food could help the pirates survive for a longtime and maintain their fighting strength even when they could not fish.


    Lex finally finished her alchemical ship, came to the seaside, and simply smiled upon seeing the pirates who had begun to possess discipline after being trained by Saleen. When it came to the actual battlefield, any small attacks by her warriors would reveal the pirates¡¯ true strength. Saleen was only training them superficially. A true army would require several years of time to form itsbat effectiveness.


    In Qin, the training of a professional serviceman began at an early age. A boy would be taught martial arts at twelve, and sword aura cultivation at fourteen. A child with average talent would be a junior swordsman at sixteen and could receive the formal training of a soldier.


    This process would take four years, during which those children were trained to be disciplined and could perform under themand of any professional officer. The next four years would be battle array training and cavalry training. Among all those warriors, some would be selected as archers, crossbow men, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, hoplite, and so on.


    The kind of training they had been ordered to conduct by Saleen was just a joke in Lex¡¯s eyes.


    Lex called Daniel and they went on the pirate ship to repair the main mast. She had five fully constructed puppets, and together with Daniel¡¯s death creature, they lifted the broken mast without any trouble and put it back into the ce where it had used to be. Lex used a two meter long metal sleeve to fix it there, and cast a Fossilization spell for refinement.


    The next matter was dealing with the internal structure of the pirate ship, which belonged to the shipbuilding style of Cloudflow and was outdated. The watertight cabins were all solid, and there were special cabins avable for sailors to paddle in.


    Half of the paddles of the pirate ship were hidden in the cabin and were divided between two decks. The paddles would only be used when enemies were chasing after the ship, and the ship was normally driven by its sail, not by paddles.


    Lex removed the double-decked paddles from the pirate ship and reced them with wheel paddles. Wheel paddles had been invented in the Qin Empire and had a much higher efficiency than normal paddles. However, their construction required expensive materials and the process for their creation was rtivelyplex.


    In reality, Lex had added those refined wheel paddles directly to the ship, which would not be beneficial for it. Because of their structure, wheel paddles changed the force-bearing points of the ship. If the ship had possessed thirty years of life before, it would have only five years left after adding those wheel paddles before it would break down from its keel.


    The heavy crossbow at the ship¡¯s bow was removed and reced by a more sophisticated metal crossbow. Lex did not add an alchemical crossbow to the pirate ship because she knew they were threat for mages. She did not believe in the power of contracts as Saleen did.


    Stone artillery, which was superior to a trebuchet, was at the stern. Lex made over two hundred marbles from the ind¡¯s rocks, and those marbles were also used for adding pressure.


    The fresh water tanks were reinforced and fresh water created by Saleen and Lex was added into those tanks. Every cabin was cleaned using a Cleaning spell, getting rid of the strange smells that had used to linger in the air.


    The pirates were summoned onboard, and every pirate was also treated with a Cleaning spell to ensure they did not have any infectious diseases. After all that work had been done, Saleen gave the order to set sail.


    Several houses, which had been built by the pirates, were left behind on the ghost fog ind. The over forty sailors were also left behind together with the seriously injured pirates who had not recovered.


    The business continued until night and all of the pirates were locked inside the cabin under the supervision of Sika. Then, Lex began to transport her alchemical boat to the sea.


    By now, the shell of the pan¡¯s turtle had been reconstructed. Its limbs and tail were equipped with special paddles and its head waspletely sealed by a huge crystal. The boat did not have normal hatch like other ships did. Lex had created a teleportation portal at the abdomen of the shell.


    The high price of a teleportation portal was rtive to its transmission distance. The price for transmitting one person from Bitter Water Prefecture to Holy Rock City, which were six hundred miles apart, was over ten thousand gold coins. The prime cost of this transmission would be six grade-6 magic nuclei and over five thousand gold coins.


    When the transmission distance was one-tenth of its former distance, the magic nuclei necessary would be halved.


    The transmission distance of the teleportation portal Lex had created was only three meters, and it was a bidirectional teleportation portal, which halved its cost. This portal could transmit up to ten people at a time at the cost of several hundred gold coins.


    This design was to ensure that the firmness of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would not be affected by the reconstruction. All vents had been constructed at the location of the paddles, so the boat was only required to float at the surface of the sea.


    Saleen and Lex began to pave an ice trail on the road from the tform to the sea. It was much easier this time since the ice road had a naturally downward slope. A long chain was hung on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, and Daniel¡¯s death creature, the pikoosi, served as thebor this time, dragging the chain and struggling to the seaside.


    In the twilight, a ten-meter-long, three-headed death creature was dragging the chain and plodding in front of the boat, giving out crunching sound. The weight of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was too great. Even though it was put onto a sloped ice trail, the boat still made the bones of pikoosi give out scary sounds, as though they would crack at anytime.


    The alchemical boat, which was about thirty meters long, was finally dragged into the sea. Lex looked at Saleen and asked, ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want toe below with us?¡±


    ¡°I need to be on the ship. I¡¯m the captain. This alchemical boat does not need to be started, so you can control the boat by yourself. Nailisi will be with you.¡±


    ¡°What about me?¡± Daniel asked.


    ¡°You will follow me.¡± Saleenughed, thinking, I will feel worried if you stay on the boat. Death magic was too strange and Daniel was going to advance to grade-4 at anytime. Even Lex might not have been able to control herself in the closed environment.


    ¡°Nailisi, you¡¯ll be with Lex. Pay attention and keep in touch.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Neilisi smiled happily and stood on the teleportation portal of the alchemical boat together with Lex. Daniel did not say a word, but thought to himself, It¡¯s better to be on the ship. If the boat cannot float, I will die a most unworthy death.

 Chapter 246: The Migration Plan (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 246: The Migration n (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In reality, Saleen really wanted to stay on the alchemical boat, but he could not trust the pirates. With Daniel¡¯s help, all of the pirates had signed contracts and be his warriors, but the validity of the contracts depended on whether Daniel was alive. If Daniel, the contract maker, were to die, then the contracts would be invalidated together with the disappearance of Daniel¡¯s soul.


    Saleen came to his captain¡¯s room. Sika ordered the pirates to go back to their set positions, and brought Jupiter to Saleen.


    Jupiter asked uneasily, ¡°Sir, do you really want to sail at night?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter? The weather is fine now.¡±


    ¡°Many folks are from the Cloudflow Empire and they think that it is unlucky to sail at night. What about waiting one more night?¡± Jupiter¡¯s yellow beard trembled, and he was afraid that Saleen would be angry. It was hard to predict a mage¡¯s temper. Although Saleen had been quite nice to the pirates during recent times, he did not think that Saleen respected them.


    ¡°Really? Cloudflow people have this kind of tradition?¡± Saleen kept it in mind after hearing this.


    ¡°It¡¯s not so much a tradition. It is said that when the King of Pisa was on the run, he set sail at night and was murdered by his men. Thus, the people of Cloudflow began to stick to this habit,¡± Jupiter said cautiously. Saleen looked at this yellow-bearded pirate, and did not think he was rude.


    ¡°Jupiter, are you educated?¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir. I was a mage apprentice for some time,¡± Jupiter answered honestly, despite feeling ashamed.


    ¡°Really? Then how did you be a pirate?¡± Saleen became interested. Jupiter¡¯s words were logical, and he could write and had good management skills. However, Saleen had not expected for him to have once been a mage apprentice.


    ¡°An ident urred when my teacher was hunting magic beasts. He died because of magic backdraft and left nothing behind. I had no one for guidance and had no money, and then became a swordsman trainee. After learning swordcraft for several years, I stopped my cultivation out of ack of money and joined a mercenary team. My first task was an operation at sea, and pirates robbed the employer¡¯s ship. I was captured by them and stayed because I was never ransomed. I began in the team as a sailor and worked as one for ten years. It was just like this¡­¡±


    ¡°Where are you from?¡±


    ¡°From Kosan Prefecture, sir.¡±


    ¡°You are from Lon then. Lon is at war now. Do you want to go back? If you do, you may be able to dispel your identity and be a swordsman for your empire again.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I have no rtives in Lon anymore.¡± Jupiter lowered his head and whispered, ¡°Am I a person with no ambition? Actually, I could have left these pirates years ago. I saved a few hundred gold coins secretly and put them in the imperial bank, but I don¡¯t want to leave the folks on the ship.¡±


    Jupiter was in his thirties now, and when he said those words to Saleen, he spoke as though he were a young man confiding to an elder. Saleen did not find this attitude wrong. He had more knowledge than Jupiter, and his status was much higher than his as well.


    ¡°Do you want to learn magic again?¡± Saleen asked Jupiter all of a sudden.


    ¡°Of course I do!¡± Jupiter looked up at Saleen, then bowed his head quickly, and said, ¡°But I am already in my thirties now, without any hope for the rest of my life. Besides, I am now an intermediate swordsmaster with a bit of sess with the sword aura. If I practice magic again, I cannot attain magic chords anymore.¡±


    ¡°Magic chords are not necessary as long as you can learn to memorize magic. That was only level-0 magic. Your mental power did not regress, did it?¡±


    ¡°No, sir. Every time I had trouble going to sleep, I used the method of meditation which my teacher taught me.¡±


    ¡°Well, Jupiter, even if you want to learn magic again, I cannot ept you as my student. My teacher would kill me if he knew that I epted a pirate as my student. Don¡¯t mind this boat anymore. I will have someone else take care of it for you.¡±


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. If you follow me, I will find a teacher for you and teach you senior-grade swordcraft. As for magic, I¡¯ll need you to memorize a lot of knowledge.¡±


    Jupiter became excited. He was quite talented but had run into bad luck, now being a man over thirty-five who did not have any achievements. Saleen¡¯s words meant that he intended to get him promoted.


    ¡°Jupiter, the things I will want you to do in the future will be very dangerous. You need to think it over. I won¡¯t force you to do anything.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I¡­ I!¡± Of course Jupiter was well aware that the things Saleen would want him to do would be dangerous, but what was not? His daily sailing and robbing of merchant ships had also been dangerous. Sometimes escorts would sail far behind and would appear only when pirates did.


    He had not lived a single day in this position without risking his life. Pirates could be killers, but they were by no means dominant over the seas. Mercenaries could also be killers, and they could kill pirates and im rewards over their heads. This was what mercenaries on the sea enjoyed doing the most.


    ¡°I just want you to understand. You will have many ships in the future, and when to set sail will not be for you to decide. So, do not mind those people from Cloudflow. Now, set sail.¡±


    ¡°Daniel, go with Jupiter. If someone disobey your orders, handle the situation as you please.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    Daniel was extremely reluctant to carry out Saleen¡¯s orders. As a death mage, he was extremely angry that he had to deal with a group of despicable pirates, but he could not disobey Saleen¡¯s orders. He held wrath in his chest and hoped that there would be a pirate who could not see the situation clearly. If one disobeyed orders, they would be the punching bag to ease his wrath.


    ¡°We can finally rx a little bit, Sika. Let¡¯s go up and take a look.¡±


    ¡°Up?¡±


    ¡°Well, the watchtower.¡± Saleen smiled and pulled Sika out of the cabin.


    Saleen sent those pirates who had been taking care of him away. He did not really want to be the captain of a pirate ship. Saleen and Sika went to the rear deck. The design of this pirate ship was different from that of most standard warships. The watchtower was actually a deputy mast with a small upper tform.


    They came to the mast and Sika was about to climb up, making use of her agile hands and feet. Saleen stopped her and said, ¡°No need for that.¡±


    As he spoke, Saleen cast his unique Flying spell, and ck clouds enveloped his and Sika¡¯s bodies. The clouds were chilly. Saleen had grown ustomed to this coldness, but Sika was not and yelped because of it. The stream of air formed by the water vapor wrapped Sika and Saleen together and rose up. Then, Sika adapted to the cool water vapor.


    Saleen did not know that this vapor, different from an enchanted magic shield, would prate through Sika¡¯s clothes and armor directly. The flowing vapor felt like numerous hands were touching Sika¡¯s skin, and those hands were cold like those of a zombie.


    Once their feet had touched the floor after arriving at the watchtower, Saleen scattered the cloud. With the sea winds blowing and the stars twinkling, the vast view visible at this height made people rxed and happy.


    ¡°Sit down,¡± said Saleen, seating himself against the railing. The tform was only one-meter wide and seemed crowded with two people on it, leaving no room for a third.


    Sitting against Saleen, Sika blushed and asked Saleen in his ear, ¡°What are we doing up here?¡±


    Turning his head, Saleen said in Sika¡¯s ear, ¡°Being prepared to escape. I feel anxious staying in the cabin.¡±


    ¡°Escape?¡± Sika cried out. The sea wind carried her voice to a distance, and Saleen stopped her in a hurry.


    ¡°Lower your voice. The only kind of ship we can run into will be that of an enemy. We don¡¯t have a magicpass, and Lex did not make a second. It¡¯s really¡­¡±


    Sika lowered her voice and said in Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°How will you contact Lex? I know there is a magic sound array, but it is in her ship. It isn¡¯t easy to transmit sound, is it?¡±


    ¡°Well, Sika. In any case, if there is danger, I will take you and run. Now that Daniel isn¡¯t afraid of water, going down by himself shouldn¡¯t be a problem. ¡±


    ¡°So we just sit here?¡± Sika looked around and found that none of the working pirates were looking up, and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat dragged behind the ship was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that only her and Saleen were left in this vast space.


    ¡°Yes. You are not afraid of this hardship, right?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid, just a little bit cold,¡± said Sika, burying her body in Saleen¡¯s arms.


    Saleen¡¯s demonic mage robes were not close to his skin, so he could not feel the coldness of the sea. The grey magic robe he was wearing was Lex¡¯s, and it was set at afortable temperature. Seeing Sika feeling cold, Saleen untied his magic robe and wrapped Sika inside.


    ¡°Everything will be fine. I¡¯m guessing we¡¯re one thousand and five hundred miles away fromnd. Although the ship is slow, it will take ten days at most to arrive if our direction is correct.¡±


    Ten days?


    Sika lowered her head. Am I going to stay here for ten days with Saleen? Not bad.


    ¡°Saleen, can Lex and the others stand staying ten days under the sea?¡±


    Hearing this, Saleen be somewhat worried. If I leave Nailisi and Lex to spend ten days on their own, will they cause any trouble for me?


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about them, Sika. A long time has already passed since I¡¯ve apologized to you.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, what are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°I never asked you about your ns for the future, Sika¡­¡± Saleen suddenly did not know how to continue his words. He had always thought about the futures of others, except for Sika¡¯s. Sika was close to him, but she had also been forgotten by him.


    ¡°Future. Haha, Saleen, have you lost your mind? I¡¯m Caucasian. I don¡¯t need to think that far ahead. I will be a warrior priest for now. Even if you don¡¯t need me, I can always go back and be the leader of the vige.¡±


    Leader of the vige? Saleen felt discouraged after hearing Sika¡¯s hopes for the future.


    ¡°Sika, although the Caucasus region has difficult terrain and a harsh environment, it won¡¯t be left alone once warpletely breaks out. If the Holy See takes over the entirety of Lon, it will certainly deal with the Caucasus region. Have you ever thought about moving your vige away?¡±


    ¡°To the beach? Saleen, few Caucasians have be good sailors,¡± Sika said with a somewhat depressed mood. She felt that Saleen was a little bit lost in his pursuit for unrealistic power. He wants the vige to migrate. Has he taken a fancy to the fighting strength of the Caucasus people?


    Saleen felt Sika¡¯s body stiffen in his arms, and with his sharp mind, instantly knew Sika¡¯s thoughts. Saleenughed aloud, rubbed Sika¡¯s hair, and cast a Cleaning spell for her after noticing that she had not washed her hair for several days.


    ¡°I¡¯m just afraid that you won¡¯t be at ease following me, so I thought of migrating your vige to a safe ce. I did not ept those one thousand swordsmen that Lex promised me. How could I ask your friends to fight a meaningless battle?¡±


    Sika¡¯s body softened, and then she whispered, ¡°Then, what are you going to do?¡±

 Chapter 247: The Migration Plan (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 247: The Migration n (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Sika, how many people are there in your vige?¡±


    ¡°A little over six hundred. It¡¯s a big vige.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to hire a hundred Caucasus people for now, find a ce in northern Phoenix, and build a city. The first building will be a castle which can protect the Caucasus people who can develop that wastnd. Lex said that she would give me a thousand swordsmen, but I can¡¯t possibly ept them. That many warriors will attract the attention of other people, and even if no one pays attention, I don¡¯t want to rely on her.¡±


    ¡°Why not, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Lex¡¯s armies will be sent onto Lon¡¯s battlefields sooner orter. These thousand swordsmen have been following her for many years, and when the war begins, they will be anxious and want to return to Bitter Water Prefecture. I do not want to participate in such a war at this point. The Grand Duke of Phoenix is cowardly and if I develop my power to the north of his duchy, he won¡¯t care. I will start with the construction of the castle, ntations, and the opening of a harbor. There is no need to be part of the war on the centralnd.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t you think highly of Lex? ¡± Sika understood Saleen¡¯s implications.


    ¡°No. What can Lex herself do if Qin is not united internally? ¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s so nice to you. Aren¡¯t you going to help her?¡± Sika expressed her disappointment through her tone. Her thoughts were very simple. Even if Saleen was not a perfect person, he should not have shown the slightest bit of ungratefulness.


    ¡°Sika, what am I doing at Alchemy City if not helping her?¡±


    Sika blushed at Saleen¡¯s question. She had been too concerned and had thuse to that misunderstanding. Saleen¡¯s words reminded her that the most important thing for Lex was the magic tower of Raphael. This matter would require the help of Saleen. They could receive support from a reliable sorcerer only if they could find Saleen¡¯s teacher, and even then, his reliability dependedpletely on how Saleen operated between the two parties.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the migration.¡± Sika changed the topic in a hurry.


    ¡°October ising. I¡¯m afraid the Tanggsi Empire has already begun their attacks. Qin nobles staying in Lon may not be willing to defend their positions until the end. Without exception, Prince Safilos will abandon the situation this winter and strike back next summer when the agriculture in the Tanggsi Empire is thriving. The battlefield is near Caucasus, thus many Caucasians will be recruited. I want to hire all of the Caucasians who want to join the army before that. ¡±


    ¡°All of them! Saleen, we don¡¯t have that much money. ¡±


    ¡°Money is not the problem. I will get money when we return to Alchemy City. The important thing is that you need to get back to Caucasus and choose reliable people to work on developing the wastnd in northern Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter, Sika?¡± Saleen thought Sika was faced with a dilemma because she did not want to be separated from him.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I might take the wrong roads. If you have meplete this task, it may take several years.¡±


    ¡°Haha!¡± Saleenughed outloud. Sika knocked her head heavily against his chest, and Saleen instantly coughed.


    ¡°Well¡­ I have thought about this. I will send the right people to go with you.¡±


    ¡°What happens after the recruitment?¡±


    ¡°Do you remember Deep Forest Town? The ce we met Aini?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I do.¡±


    ¡°Bring the people there, and I will pick you up.¡±


    ¡°Why will you be there?¡±


    ¡°I need to buy a lot of things and they are too expensive to purchase at Alchemy City. I need to meet with Aini to discuss this.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll do it.¡± Sika mustered up her courage. For her, finding the right paths was a thousand times harder than fighting. Even though Saleen had said he would find someone to lead the way, she still did not feel too confident.


    At this point, Saleen had nothing to say. His n was tooplicated, and even if he told it to Sika, she might not understand. He looked to the distance and saw the sparse beam of light produced by the magic light hanging on the pirate ship. The night was dark. The sea wind was only bing stronger and colder. Only Sika, who was in his arms, was warm.


    Saleen took thest piece of green spirit from the Ring of Gifts, and then asked Sika, ¡°Sika, do warrior priests in Caucasus use this type of gemstone?¡±


    ¡°Are you giving it to me?¡± Sika looked at the green spirit in disbelief. Saleen had obtained two green spirits in total. One had been used to seal the winged skeleton, and this was hisst one.


    ¡°It¡¯s supposed to be yours. Half of all the things we obtained from the temple are yours.¡±


    ¡°But you are the mage ¡­¡±


    Although Sika was one of those rough-and-ready people, she knew the rules of adventurers. The mage was not only entitled to the bigger half, but they also had the right to preemptively take any magic materials. She had known nothing when she had left her vige. Her strength had not even been half of what she currently possessed, and she had contributed little to their discovery.


    ¡°You are a warrior priest, which are even scarcer than mages. Tell me, can warrior priests use green spirits?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we can.¡±


    ¡°Well then. When you are able to use this gem, I will ask Nailisi to hand over the magic beast skeleton to you and have you seal it inside. This way, I will be more relieved when you are alone.¡±


    When I¡¯m alone? Sika was about to say that Caucasians could fight on their own, but she suddenly felt quite sad. Alone? I will be alone after leaving Saleen.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll take it.¡± Sika nodded and epted it, feeling the winds outside of the magic robe bing even colder.


    Below them, the pirates were piloting the ship carefully. Without a magicpass, they could not detect danger that was too far away, and the watchtower had been taken over by Saleen. Thus, they could only pray that they would not encounter any Cloudflow warships that night. The sail was full, and the ship was moving at its top speed, almost twenty-two miles per hour. Inside the alchemical boat that was being dragged behind, Nailisi and Lex were having tea.


    This alchemical boat had a small control cabin that could only amodate four people. In addition to Lex and Nailisi, six fully constructed puppets that possessed a bit of self-awareness were onboard. Fully constructed puppets could neither control nor attack magic arrays. Lex and Nailisi had set them out only because they had been too bored.


    The entire alchemical boat had a ratherrge space, but four of the main alchemical power capsules were all closed and upied a certain amount of space. Theplex alchemical rudder was at the stern, from where Lex and Nailisi were controlling the direction of the alchemical boat.


    This cabin was equipped with the magicpass made by Lex, which was a bit simple and would surely be reced by a new er. The two of them were at leisure because there was no need for them to start the paddle.


    Nailisi was making tea for Lex. The blue-green tea water formed a simple kind of beauty against the white porcin teacup.


    ¡°Nailisi, how did you get to know Saleen?¡± Lex could not help but ask this question now that she and Nailisi were familiar with each other.


    ¡°My master would not allow me to tell,¡± replied Nailisi, winking. She took a bubble with her white, slender fingers and yed with it using her fingertip. This was not magic. It was simply Nailisi¡¯s delicate control over her power. She could use her fingernails, which were sharper than knives and swords, to draw a pattern on a bubble without breaking it.


    ¡°Why do you call him master?¡± Lex was confused. She could not see through the supreme transformation magic Nailisi was using and had never thought that she could be an imp. A soul bond could not be signed between two people, so Lex thought that it was strange for Nailisi, a person with great talent, to follow Saleen willingly.


    ¡°I owe my master a lot of money,¡± Nailisi said with tears in her eyes, deliberately sighing. Even Lex was convinced.


    ¡°If you work for me, Nailisi, you will make huge amounts of money,¡± Lex tempted Nailisi. She had many swordsmasters, even grand swordsmasters, working for her, but they were all men and were not appropriate for close protection.


    ¡°Contract¡­ contract¡­ ¡± Nailisi broke the bubble with her fingernail and started to cry.


    ¡°What contract? Tell me, Nailisi, and I can help you work it out.¡±


    Sobbing and with tears falling, Nailisi said to Lex, ¡°I was young at that time and my master cheated me into signing a magic contract with him which required me to work for him for all times.¡±


    ¡°What kind of contract?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t know. A lot of weird patterns were on that big piece of paper, and there were also words that I did not recognize.¡± Nailisi merely made it up carelessly, secretlyughing in her mind. Lex is good. She has noticed that I am a little bit stronger than Master in terms of strength. However, she will never know my identity unless he tells her.


    ¡°Did you write your name on the contract or leave your soul imprint?¡± Lex asked patiently.


    Nailisi was afraid that she would say something wrong, so she simply burst into tears.


    ¡°I don¡¯t¡­ I don¡¯t know! My master made me bleed a lot. It was so painful. Lex, let me show you.¡± Saying this, Nailisi gestured as though she were about to loosen her clothes.


    Lex grasped her hand hurriedly. Nailisi¡¯s heart was trembling, thinking, If I bit you, even a grade-6 mage could not survive. But Nailisi also knew that Saleen would never forgive her if she bit Lex to death. The problem was that Lex was being extremely annoying in asking so many questions.


    As Lex held Nailisi¡¯s hand, she felt a cold feeling on her neck, as though she were being locked down by magic that had been cast by a sorcerer. Her heart trembled and wanted to release Nailisi¡¯s hand, but Nailisi hugged her instead, crying even louder.


    Lex held Nailisi in her arms andforted her in a low voice, ¡°Saleen is a good person and it seems that he is nice to you. Let me talk to him and persuade him to dispel the contract between you two. ¡±


    A murderous expression shed in those green eyes of Nailisi. Dispel the contract? You are trying to separate me from Master, right? She ground her teeth but pretended to be panicking. ¡°Don¡¯t, my master will punish me for that!¡±


    Lex let go of Nailisi and frowned, ¡°How can Saleen do this to you?¡±


    ¡°Lex, actually, I really like my master.¡± Nailisi wiped her tears and changed her tone, which surprised Lex. Nailisi continued, ¡°My master taught me how to speak and how to protect myself when I knew nothing. Although he has a bad temper sometimes, I still cannot forget what he was like back then¡­¡±


    Nailisi did not continue. When she saw the unfriendly expression on Lex¡¯s face, she knew that she had said enough.


    Lex has been asking about Saleen recently, as if she hasn¡¯t already done her research. I changed the topic thest time, but I didn¡¯t expect Fellett to die. My n for Shengfeng country had to be put on hold because of that, and now she¡¯s asking questions again. Geez! Do you like my master? If you don¡¯t have my permission, forget about it!

 Chapter 248: Mage Group (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 248: Mage Group (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ships did not always sail in a straight line, and in addition to apass, determining the direction of a ship also required the rich experience of a captain. Pirates sailed on the sea all year round, and a calcting pirate like Jupiter was constantly learning from the shadows. Thus, under the control of the pirates, no incidents urred to the ship.


    Saleen and Sika were sitting on the watchtower, both of them feeling calm watching the rising waves. In two days, the pirates had managed to sail for more than six hundred miles. If they had been onnd, they could not have achieved such a speed of advance.


    This pirate ship was forty meters long, and even though it was nothingpared to a warship, few magic beasts impeded their voyage.


    With green seas, blue skies, and the freezing wind against his face, Saleen was feeling bored one day when he suddenly heard the sound of the metal whistleing from the ship¡¯s bow.


    ¡°Well, Sika, we are in trouble.¡±


    Sika rose at once and asked, ¡°What should we do?¡±


    ¡°Climb down. It¡¯s too dangerous up here. If I tell you to jump, jump into the water immediately. Go to the back!¡± Saleen jumped from the watchtower as he spoke. Sika put on her gloves, grabbed the rope, and slipped down swiftly. She knew no magic so she did not dare to jump as Saleen did. Even if she would not be injured by jumping, the deck would not be able to withstand her heavynding with her weighted weapon.


    Daniel appeared on the deck in no time, and Jupiter also approached Saleen.


    ¡°What did you see?¡± Saleen did not recognize any enemy even with his icy sight, and Jupiter could see much further through his alchemical telescope. Saleen¡¯s icy sight could perform normally even through fog or bad weather, but the alchemical telescope could not.


    ¡°There are warships from Qin, three of them.¡±


    ¡°Warships? Don¡¯t try to hide. Our ship will not be able to outrun them. Communicate with them using g signals and tell them that we are going to Alchemy City and wait for their response. Remove the bolt from the heavy crossbow, and get the stone artillery ready.


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    Jupiter turned his body, but before he could leave, Saleen stopped him and said, ¡°Jupiter,e to me if you are in danger.¡±


    Jupiter¡¯s paused, then strode to the ship¡¯s bow.


    The Qin warships appeared in front of them. They must have been equipped with a magicpass, which meant that they had noticed this pirate ship before Saleen had noticed their presence. Although the pirate g had already been taken down, the appearance of the ship¡¯s body had not changed. A normal merchant ship would not use this model that was mainly for speed and gave up loading space in exchange.


    The pirate ship sailed towards those three warships. Pirates in the bilge had gathered in the paddle cabin. If a battle was necessary, the ship would need to rely on paddling to speed up.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat that had been dragged behind began to sink until it reached a depth of twenty meters.


    ¡°Daniel, if there is a fight, you will have to step onto a warship before calling out the pikoosi,¡± Saleen told Daniel. The body of Daniel¡¯s death creature was so massive that if he were to summon it onto the pirate ship, everything on deck would be destroyed even without an attack by the enemy.


    The aging process of anything not protected by an Enchantment spell would elerate near a death creature. Cables and canvas were some of the most ordinary things found on a ship, and they would turn to ash under the breath of the pikoosi.


    The three Qin warships could be seen with the naked eye now, and with the even clearer vision of his icy sight, Saleen could see that all three ships possessed the sign of Alchemy City. The ship¡¯s rails were covered by ck armor and would not be damaged if struck by stone artillery. The length of every ship exceeded one hundred meters, and magic stone artillery stood at the bows of those ships. Someone standing up high was signing g signals,municating with the people of the pirate ship.


    The pirate ship had slowed down and its sail began to furl. When the distance between the two parties was close to a half mile, the pirate ship stoppedpletely. One of the Qin warshipsunched a small boat which began to approach.


    The boat, which was about ten meters long, was quite fast, and was powered by ten sailors who were paddling. A tall man in ck leather armor stood on the boat¡¯s bow, carrying a heavy sword on his back. When the small boat was about a hundred meters away from the pirate ship, the man in ck leather armor jumped and sped towards the pirate ship over the sea using a white line he hadid out.


    His control of the sword aura was great and well-utilized, and even Jupiter had noticed that this man wearing magic armor was superior in swordcraft to him. Although it is not actually flight, he must be a ck metal grand swordmaster to do that, right?


    ¡°Who is the captain?¡± The grand swordmaster in ck armor jumped to the bow, pulled out his sword, and looked around.


    Jupiter thought of Saleen¡¯s words. He walked up to the man, saluted, and said, ¡°General, the captain is in the back.¡±


    ¡°Tell him toe see me!¡± This grand swordmaster had a loud voice and a fine appearance. The red skin of his face was touched with ck, and he had a clean chin, not having a beard. Seeing Jupiter¡¯s hesitation, the grand swordmaster raised his sword slightly in dissatisfaction.


    ¡°General, the captain is a grand mage. I dare not disturb him,¡± Jupiter exined quickly.


    ¡°Really?¡± The ck-armored grand swordmaster was surprised because he had never heard of a mage being a captain of a ship. He supposed that the man with a yellow beard would not dare lie to him, so he softened his tone and said, ¡°This is definitely a pirate ship. Are you lying to me?¡±


    His words and tone showed the majesty of the man. Jupiter felt the sword aura being emitted from him. It was the temperament of a person who had spent a great deal of time on the battlefield.


    ¡°General, we were captured by the mage. Why would I dare lie to you? He is on the rear deck. I can show you the way.¡±


    Captured? The ck-armored grand swordmaster looked around and saw that the people were clean and in armored uniforms. They did not look like people who were constantly drifting at sea andmitting robberies.


    A grand mage¡­ although I am not afraid of him, a grand swordmaster like me does not have high status in Alchemy City and these is no need to offend him. Thinking this, he nodded and said, ¡°Then, lead the way to the mage.¡±


    Standing on the rear deck, Saleen and Sika felt a strong aura approaching them when the man was still at a distance. Without hesitation, Saleen cast an ice te armor and enchanted himself with a water shield that exuded a fog. He also cast an ice te armor for Sika before turning to face the front.


    Jupiter led the ck-armored grand swordmaster to the rear deck. The grand swordmaster began to believe Jupiter¡¯s words upon seeing Saleen. Although he was young, Saleen had the temperament of an orthodox mage. When his eyes met Saleen¡¯s, the ck-armored grand swordmaster stopped before he became too close to him.


    He had seen the magic shield on the young mage and knew that if he stepped any closer, a misunderstanding could ur.


    ¡°How should I address you?¡± Saleen asked calmly.


    ¡°Morpheus. And you are?¡±


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin. Are you from Alchemy City, Morpheus?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Mr. Saleen. How did you get here?¡± Although Morpheus had dropped his dominating attitude while facing Saleen, he refused to give him any clues. His warships had been patrolling this area for seven days without finding any sign of the Cloudflow warships mentioned in the intelligence they had received.


    Alchemy City had sent out arge number of warships on the search, and they had covered such a great distance that it would be too dangerous to sail any further. Now that they had finally met with living people, he would surely ask his questions carefully.


    ¡°I sailed together with hunting ships from Alchemy City and we were attacked by a mysterious fleet. I escaped, ran into this pirate ship, and captured these pirates. I¡¯m heading to Alchemy City with the hope of figuring all of these things out.¡±


    ¡°Really? So you are a mage living in Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Exactly!¡±


    ¡°Follow me to the warship then. I have many questions to ask you. After the ident regarding those hunting ships, you are the first survivor we have found.¡±


    ¡°If I go with you, what will happen to these captives?¡± Saleen asked reluctantly.


    ¡°Order them to follow us. If they should show any disobedience, just sink the boat,¡± Morpheus said in indifference.


    ¡°This ship belongs to me!¡± Saleen was afraid that Alchemy City would attack straightaway without figuring out whether the other party was friend or foe. The ship was not valuable, but he had noce else to recruit new sailors.


    Morpheus sheathed his sword, smiled at Saleen, and said, ¡°It¡¯s no big deal, Mr. Mage. Alchemy City can pay for your losses. Besides, it¡¯s not safe for you to be surrounded by pirates. Juste with me to the warship.¡±


    Saleen could not convince Morpheus otherwise. He and Sika could defeat this ck metal grand swordmaster, but there were three warships behind him that were ready to sink this ship. Saleen was not interested in getting into a meaningless conflict, not to mention the sneaking alchemical boat being dragged behind them. If the others found out about the boat, they would probably be suspicious of where it hade from.


    Saleen thought for a moment, then said to Daniel, ¡°Watch the people on this ship. Jupiter, youe with me.¡±


    Out of all of these pirates, Jupiter was the most talented. He was familiar with navigation, had good fighting abilities, and had once been a mage apprentice. Saleen did not want anything to happen to him.


    Together with Sika, the three of them followed Morpheus to the small boat sent out by the warship from Alchemy City.


    The three huge warships were about half mile apart from one another and formed a triangle. Saleen was led to the one in the middle.


    ¡°Follow me, Mr. Mage.¡± Morpheus stepped onto the warship and reced the dominating attitude he had previously had with a tone of gentlesness. Saleen hesitated for a moment and then understood. There were grand mages from Alchemy City onboard this warship.


    The warship had four floors above its deck, and Saleen followed Morpheus to a spacious cabin on the highest floor. Morpheus turned around and said, ¡°Mage Saleen, the people you are going to see are not from the elemental hand. Thus, you need to tell them everything starting from the beginning. We have spent quite a long time on the sea and have no connection to Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Saleen nodded, opened the door, and walked in.


    The fragrance inside the cabin smelled familiar to Saleen. The smell of this kind of magic spice, which could be considered a high-grade magic potion, could blend in any atmosphere under the control of a mage. Lex usually used it, but her variety was even rarer than this.


    There were three people in the cabin, and Saleen felt dizzy just facing them. Of the two men, there was one who was quite handsome, and one woman was wearing a ck magic robe, on which there was an eye-catching magic mark indicating that she was a grade-7 sorcerer.


    The other two middle-aged mages, a man and a woman, were wearing grey magic robes with the magic marks of grade-5 grand mages. Alchemy City was certainly rich. With such powerful magic supporting the warship, it was no wonder that they dared toe out and look for trouble with the Cloudflow warships.

 Chapter 249: Mage Group (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 249: Mage Group (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mages had been meditating. When Saleen pushed the cabin door open, they all opened their eyes immediately. Morpheus waited outside, and Saleen walked in with Sika and Jupiter.


    The sorcerer in a ck robe nced at Saleen and expressed his praise in his eyes. This young man was already a grade-4 mage with a solid foundation, a rare talent even in Alchemy City.


    ¡°Sit down, mage.¡± The sorcerer pointed at the two empty chairs in front of the table. Saleen casually sat down, Sika stood behind him in a precautionary manner, and Jupiter did not dare to sit.


    Saleen said in a low voice, ¡°Sit down, Jupiter. If they ask you any questions, answer them properly.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡± Jupiter greeted those three mages respectfully and sat down uneasily when he saw no objection from them. He had once been a mage apprentice and admiring mages had be his instinct. These mages had unattainable powers and he did not dare to be rude even if they were unruly people.


    Saleen introduced himself unhurriedly, ¡°Masters, I¡¯m Saleen Metatrin, a grade-4 mage from Bitter Water Country. I travelled with the hunting ships from Alchemy City over two months ago. Our ships were attacked andpletely destroyed, and I have been drifting on the sea since then. This is Jupiter, a pirate I have captured. Perhaps he has some information.¡±


    Instead of looking at Jupiter, the sorcerer looked at Saleen curiously and asked, ¡°Yourst name is Metatrin?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen did not understand the sorcerer¡¯s question. Although Metatrin was a rare surname, it was not so unique that it would catch a mage¡¯s attention.


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin?¡± The sorcerer asked again and Saleen nodded.


    ¡°Where is Bitter Water County?¡±


    ¡°The former Bitter Water Prefecture. It was built into a county with the permission of Emperor Chanake less than two years ago.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s your hometown?¡±


    ¡°Ceylon City, in Sikeqinya. It is a small city,¡± Saleen answered frankly. He had nothing to hide concerning his hometown. Information that could be found by Lex¡¯s personnel would be no secret to others.


    ¡°Hahaha¡­ ¡± The sorcererughed, leaving Saleen at a loss for what to do.


    ¡°What¡¯s your teacher¡¯s name?¡± The sorcerer continued his questions.


    Saleen¡¯s heart leapt. I came to Alchemy City to find my teacher, didn¡¯t I? Does this sorcerer know who I am? He hesitated for a little while and answered, ¡°My teacher is Jason Statham.¡±


    ¡°Well, Saleen. Don¡¯t you know that Alchemy City is not united internally? If you had stated the wrong teacher¡¯s name, you might have been dead before you knew it.¡± The sorcerer released a strong elemental aura as he spoke, stirring the air outside of his ck robe.


    Saleen was shocked. How powerful was he? Although he knew that a sorcerer¡¯s ability to control the elements was much stronger than that of a grand mage, he still could not believe it. The sorcerer standing in front of him had achieved the effects of magic using mental power to vibrate the elemental powers around him, without actually using magic!


    What? Is the sorcerer threatening me?


    Saleenughed immediately and said, ¡°My teacher told me that he will recognize me as his student only when I am a grand mage. I have achieved this grade through my own efforts, so I can state my teacher¡¯s name now. I am a mage from Bitter Water County and have nothing to do with the affairs of Alchemy City. There are about a hundred sorcerers in the city, and I don¡¯t think other people will find fault with a grade-4 mage like me. Even if they do, how can I refuse to admit that I was guided by my teacher solely because of that?¡±


    ¡°Very good, Saleen. However, this is very important. If you can prove you are Jason¡¯s student, you will not have to go through an investigation after arriving at Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Go through an investigation?¡± Sarleen did not understand.


    ¡°Alchemy City has lost one grade-6 mage, about a dozen grade-4 mages, and four ships. They haven¡¯t found the person responsible yet. This ident even affected trade between Alchemy City and Cloudflow. A great number of mages have died, and youe back alive. Do you think they will believe your side of the story?¡±


    Saleen was silent for a while, then answered, ¡°A grade-4 mage like me does not have the power to sink four ships. To go back and ept the investigation is nothing. However, if this will bring any trouble to my teacher, I would rather not mention it.¡±


    ¡°Hey, you have said that you are Jason¡¯s student and I will have to verify it. Young mage, my patience is limited.¡± As the sorcerer spoke, the elemental vibrations around his body grew stronger. Saleen even felt the prelude of the six great elements forming magic all together.


    Saleen pursed his lips, took out the white magic robe that Jason had given him out of the Ring of Gifts, and draped it over his body.


    ¡°This robe was given to me by my teacher and I cannot bring myself to wear it.¡± Saleen fondled the magic nucleus on the robe¡¯s belt, which had not been consumed, and sighed. When I was just a grade-1 mage, teacher must have given me this grade-3 magic robe hoping that I would be a grand mage. I have lived up to his expectations and be a grand mage, and now teacher will surely feel happy for me.


    The three mages looked at one another. They were familiar with this magic robe. It had belonged to Jason when he was young. A robe, however, was not convincing proof, and they needed to be cautious about this.


    Saleen saw their expressions and knew that he needed to show them more evidence. He took out the crystal white ring from his collection, put it on, and showed it to them. He exined, ¡°This was given to me by my teacher, a white crystal ring with his spiritual imprint. Other people will need to clear this imprint before they can use it.¡±


    ¡°Let me take a look,¡± the middle-aged female mage said. She pointed at the ring and a white sh hit the white crystal.


    Saleen admired this female mage for her skills. She had cast Light Magic and used the minor vibrations of the light elements to examine the spiritual imprint. Her skills were superb.


    ¡°Jason¡¯s spiritual imprint is still on it.¡± The female mage smiled, and said to Saleen, ¡°Wee, Saleen. We three are senior to Jason under the same teacher.¡±


    ¡°How can I trust you on this?¡± Saleen felt ecstasy in his heart but his expression did not change. He also feared that they were lying to him.


    ¡°This is simple. Either way, you can neither defeat us nor run from us. We will take you to Jason.¡± The sorcererughed out loud. Saleen alsoughed. He had thought about how powerful the group of mages which included his teacher would be. Judging from this, at the very least, the powers of the sorcerer were strong. His ability to control the elements even exceeded that of a grade-8 sorcerer.


    Mages valued inheritance very much. If these three people are from the same group of mages as my teacher, then they will be my powerful backers since their foundations are more solid than mine. Saleen had used to think that he would be able to defeat a grade-5 mage, but after meeting two people from his teacher¡¯s group of mages, he knew that he had been wrong.


    ¡°My name is Gaia. This is Tritiny and Baifan.¡± The sorcerer immediately changed his attitude after verifying Saleen¡¯s identity. Saleen felt that a new, familiar aura had appeared around him, and the aura was simr to that of his teacher.


    ¡°This is Sika, my good friend.¡± Saleen stood up, greeted those three elders again, and introduced Sika specifically.


    ¡°A great Caucasian warrior. Saleen, take good care of her,¡± Gaia gave Saleen an earnest warning, in magguage this time.


    ¡°Of course. This man is, um¡­ Jupiter, a man who is useful to me,¡± Saleen responded in magguage.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Saleen. Since you have met us, we won¡¯t do anything to those pirates. But don¡¯t go to Alchemy City just yet. Come with us to Sregl Ind and help us figure out the matters regarding Alchemy City.¡± Seeing that Saleen wanted to say something, Gaia stopped and waited for Saleen to speak.


    ¡°There are also twopanions and a follower of mine on the ship behind us.¡±


    ¡°A follower? You are so young, Saleen. Why do you have a follower now? Isn¡¯t that tough?¡± Gaia unreservedly wanted to teach him a lesson in Jason¡¯s ce.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like that. That guy knows some secrets of mine and he is being hunted by the Holy See. I have to keep him around me.¡±


    ¡°Well, why don¡¯t you just kill him?¡± Gaia asked naturally.


    ¡°Um¡­ killing is not really a good thing to do. Daniel is not a good guy, but he has not done anything evil either. Uncle Gaia, I can¡¯t depend on my teacher for everything. Daniel has good skills.¡±


    ¡°Well then, bring them here.¡± Gaia was obviously not interested in this follower.


    ¡°I should do it myself to avoid any misunderstandings,¡± Saleen stopped him hurriedly. Other people would not be able to find Lex.


    ¡°Okay, I will have Morpheus take you there.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that. I don¡¯t need a boat.¡±


    ¡°Really? Saleen, that ship is about half a mile behind us. You can¡¯t fly there even with flying equipment.¡±


    ¡°I can manage,¡± Saleen said with confidence. Gaia and the others were curious. Saleen was merely a grade-4 mage. How would he cross such a distance?


    The three mages who were older than Saleen by half of his age followed him outside in curiosity. Saleen grinned and greeted them. His body was enveloped by heavy water vapor that soon took the form of dark clouds.


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    Gaia, Baifan, and Tritiny were all surprised. They were familiar with elemental conversion, but were surprised by the fact that a grade-4 mage had been able to master the skills of a grade-7 sorcerer.


    Saleen flew away. A sh of dark cloud disappeared into the sea without producing the same turbulence as a Flying spell. Gaia looked at the other two sorcerers and said, ¡°Jason¡¯s student is good, but his grade is too low to help us with the current problems on Sregl Ind.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Even our teacher is not with us anymore. We are not afraid of anybody else. Don¡¯t tell Saleen about the situation on the ind. We will be doing Jason a favor if we send him away without getting him involved.¡±


    ¡°Argh! I have no idea how Jason¡¯s doing with his promotion to a sorcerer,¡± Gaia sighed. Saleen¡¯s abilities had surprised them, but a grade-4 mage would not be able to change anything in the end. The pressure facing Sregl Ind could be alleviated if Jason became a sorcerer.

 Chapter 250: Sregl Island (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 250: Sregl Ind (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen flew to the pirate ship, entered the water at the rear end of the ship, and dove down to the ce where the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was. Although there was a teleportation portal under the alchemical boat, Saleen was not willing to pay a few hundred gold coins for its transmission, so he knocked on the turtle shell for a while, went around, and stood in front of the huge crystal.


    Nailisi and Lex opened the magic image array after hearing the sound, and saw Saleen waving to them in front of the alchemical boat.


    ¡°Master wants us to go out.¡±


    Nailisi jumped up and rushed straight to the cabin with the teleportation portal.


    Lex turned off the magic image hurriedly, left a fully constructed puppet in the cabin, and then went to the cabin where the teleportation portal was with Nailisi.


    Chuu¡­


    They followed Saleen and came to the surface of the sea. Saleen cast a Flying spell, stepped onboard, and then said to Lex who had flown after him, ¡°I have met someone from my teacher¡¯s mage group.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Yes. That person has an aura around him that is simr to my teacher¡¯s. That type of aura must be cultivated over years and cannot be imitated. And I heard them talking about ¡­¡±


    ¡°Is it safe?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but don¡¯t be afraid. They are not targeting us. Daniel, ask the sailors to lower a boat and we will go there.¡±


    Daniel followed his orders obediently and supervised the sailors as they lowered a boat. Saleen warned Nailisi, ¡°When we go there, do not say a word. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°Not even a word?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s eyes widened.


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Okay then.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s eyelids dropped quickly. Saleen thought, If you cause any trouble in front of my teacher, I cannot protect you. I hope Nailisi can behave for a while.


    Ten pirates who were working asborers paddled against their will, driving the small boat towards the warships. They especially hated and feared warships. Warships were thest thing pirates sailing on the sea wanted to encounter. With no ability to defeat or flee from them, a warship was an indication of death for pirates.


    The small boat stopped next to the huge warship, and someone dropped a ropedder down from the ship. Neither Saleen nor Lex used the rope. They flew onto the deck directly.


    Of course, those three mages had not waited for Saleen all this time. Morpheus was waiting on the deck, and he said to Saleen after seeing him, ¡°Master Gaia is waiting for you on the fourth floor.¡±


    He had be even more polite towards Saleen. Saleen thought about the four ck metal grand swordmasters who worked for Lex. With my physique, if I had chosen swordcraft instead of magic, I would have only been a high-grade swordsman, not even a swordmaster, by this time.


    Even if I had achieved the grade of a grand swordmaster, I would not have had equal status to a mage at any grade lower than that of a golden grand swordmaster.


    Saleen thoughts were not wrong, but he had forgotten that he would have still been a grade-2 mage at this time if not for his luck. Plus, a grade-2 mage did not have high status in Alchemy City either.


    If this ck metal grand swordmaster had been at any ce other than Alchemy City, other people would havepeted to recruit him. Hiring a mage was expensive and troublesome, but hiring swordsmen was much cheaper. The cost of a swordmaster was less than that of a grade-4 mage.


    Lex was in a disturbed state of mind. On this warship, she felt ack of control for the first time, and the feeling of being uncertain of her future. She had been a viscountess, then a duchess, and was used to having over ten thousand people working for her, with a few dozens of them being mages. She was now on this warship all alone, and the ck metal grand swordmaster from the other party was merely a messenger.


    I have no idea whether the people from Saleen¡¯s mage group are mages in the traditional sense. If not, there may be more variables in my n. If this mage group is an orthodox one, then cooperation with them will be much smoother.


    Saleen surprised Gaia again when he came back with his friends. One of them was a grade-6 mage and the other was a death mage. There were no more than ten death mages in the entirety of Alchemy City, and this death mage was already grade-3 and had a fairly high grade of death mes.


    That tall girl, what type of person is she? Why do I feel like she is dangerous?


    ¡°Uncle Gaia, this is Lex, Nailisi, and Daniel.¡±


    Saleen introduced them. Gaia looked at Lex, thought for a moment, and then asked, ¡°What¡®s yourst name?¡±


    ¡°Grukos,¡± Lex replied calmly.


    ¡°Are you the genius viscountess?¡±


    ¡°She is now a duchess,¡± Saleen interrupted with a smile.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t seen many nobles like you. And Daniel, you are from Tanggsi, right?¡±


    Gaia hardly ever went to the maind but possessed sharp eyes. He had been able to distinguish Daniel¡¯s lineage from his facial features alone.


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    Daniel did not dare speak too much. Gaia not only had powerful strength, but he was also emitting a sense of pressure on Daniel¡¯s spirit. He even felt that if Gaia were to release his spiritual power, he would be under too much pressure to call out the pikoosi from his death mes.


    ¡°Nailisi, what are you? I can¡¯t tell.¡±


    Gaia looked at Nailisi with clear eyes.


    Nailisi grabbed her dress, greeted him in the manner of ady, and then answered in a soft voice, ¡°Sir, Saleen is my master.¡±


    ¡°Master? Well, well¡­¡±


    Gaia said no more. The power hidden in Nailisi made him feel uneasy. Why would this type of person recognize another person as her master? Saleen was not cheated, was he?


    He did not know that Saleen had cheated Nailisi into signing a soul bond with him. Although Nailisi had lost all of her strength back then, Saleen would not have been able to sign a contract without her permission. Saleen had lied and threatened Nailisi before she had signed the contract. If this were made known across the demonic realm, other demons wouldugh at Nailisi.


    Demons only respected the strong. An imp with a superb, heroic lineage had signed a soul bond with a human with the same amount of power as a magic hug. What a tragedy!


    ¡°Saleen, is there anyone else important to you on the ship trailing behind? If not, I will have the ship sunk.¡±


    Gaia did not speak to Lex, but discussed the pirate ship with Saleen.


    ¡°Uncle Gaia, if you don¡¯t like these people, I will have them leave first. I need them as my sailors. If they are killed, I have no time to catch new sailors.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, This ship has a value of tens of thousands of gold coins. Judging from his thought to sink the ship without any hesitation, he is not a person who cherishes property. In addition, there is a pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat being dragged behind. No one is controlling the boat, and if the pirate ship sinks, where will I find that boat?


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that, Saleen. If you want sailors, there are dozens of pirate ship in this area. I can catch them all for you.¡±


    Jupiter was sweating because of his words. He had thought that his men were beyond the sphere of influence of Alchemy City and were away from serious threats. He had not expected them to be so familiar with this area, and it seemed they could exterminate all of the pirates in this area at any time.


    Saleen¡¯s heart leapt. Dozens of pirate ships? That will mean thousands of people. About one-tenth of those people must be sailors who have not turned into real pirates. If I can have two hundred of those people, they will be enough to control a ship. Those sailors will be more reliable than the pirates.


    ¡°Uncle Gaia, that can wait. Did you get any information from Jupiter? ¡±


    ¡°No, nothing I didn¡¯t already know. No fleet has passed through this area in three months. We have travelled over one thousand and two hundred miles from Alchemy City and we still don¡¯t know where the attacking fleet came from.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mouth twitched, but he did not mention the possibility that they could be rted to the country of Shengfeng. He did not dare to share all of his information with Gaia. He had not met his teacher, after all.


    ¡°Saleen, we will return to Sregl Ind and stop the search. Devil¡¯s Horn has also sent their fleet on the search, so we¡¯ll let them do the job. I¡¯ll take you to Jason for now. Tritiny, arrange some rooms for them. Get some rest, Saleen. Come back in eight hours.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    Saleen left with Tritiny, thinking to himself, Eight hours. If the ship sails at normal speed, about fifteen miles an hour, it will cover one hundred and twenty miles in eight hours. This means that teacher is on an ind that is nearby. But Alchemy City is about a thousand miles away. No wonder no one in Alchemy City knew of him.


    He just had not expected Alchemy City to be able to hold influence over such a big area, nor that the three inds on the sea would be so far away from the city.


    Alchemy City was as powerful as a country.


    Saleen did not fall asleep. With Sika and Nailisi as his guards, he practiced twice using the badge and felt relieved and energetic afterwards.


    Eight hours passed quickly as he practiced, which was normal for mages. Although mages lived longer lives at higher grades, they spent most of their lives practicing, so they did not possess any more freetime than ordinary people.


    Therefore, mages attached great importance to practice after they had reached grade-4. Many mages left their hometowns and lived earthly lives as ordinary people for some time to appreciate a different type of life in this world.


    Daniel and Lex rested through meditation. When eight hours had passed, they were taken to the cabin on the fourth floor together. There was only one main cabin on the fourth floor, and a person could see the ship¡¯s bow through the crystal port at the front of the cabin.


    ¡°Saleen,e and look. That is Sregl Ind.¡±


    Gaia called Saleen to the port and pointed at a strange ind in distance, ¡°You teacher is on this ind. If you are lucky, you will meet him when we get there.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    In truth, Saleen had overheard their conversation, but he needed to pretend that he was unaware of what they had said.


    ¡°Jason is in the process of advancing to a sorcerer. I am certain that he must havepleted that process by this time. However, as you know, there is no certainty when ites to advancement.¡±


    Although he had heard it before, he still felt excited. My teacher is bing a sorcerer, a sorcerer! That grade is still too far away for me.


    My teacher is a genius. When I left him, he was only a grade-5 mage. Has it been two years? Is he advancing to a sorcerer already? How much umtion is needed for a person to do that! Even nobles who possess all of the necessary resources like Lex would need more than ten years to advance from grade-5 into a sorcerer, wouldn¡¯t they?


    The warships slowed down and Sregl Ind became clearer. Looking at the strange shape of Sregl Ind, Saleen was as shocked as he had been when he had first seen Holy Rock City.


    This was indeed a ce that could bepared to Devil¡¯s Horn. Even though this ind did not have fog produced by a magic array, Saleen believed that no warship would be able to approach this ind as it pleased. On the tall, well-structured mountain, Saleen saw a dozen parallel magic towers.

 Chapter 251: Sregl Island (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 251: Sregl Ind (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At the front of Sregl Ind was a stone wall, over three hundred meters high and as smooth as a mirror. The stone wall had been directly carved out of the entire mountain, and was vertical to the sea at the shore. Waves were hitting the stone wall, making loud, crashing sounds.


    There was a magic tower every half a mile, and they varied in height. Of course, the entire ind was not merely a mountain, and some parts of the stone wall had been filled-in with rocks. Saleen saw clearly with his icy sight that liquid copper had been added to those rocks.


    At the center was a gate about eighty meters high, behind which was the dug-out port.


    A conical mountain over a thousand meters high was standing at the center of the ind. Saleen felt the vibration of the fire elements even at a distance. The center of this ind was a volcano.


    Mages were the only type of people who would dare to live on a volcanic ind.


    It was different from the ghost fog ind whose mountain was also dark ck, in that lives were thriving on this one.


    Gaia said to Saleen, ¡°The outside of the mountain of Sregl Ind is the work of mages over a hundred years. They piled on volcanic ash and rock, and then cast Fossilization spells. At most, there were over a thousand mages on this ind casting the spell non-stop.¡±


    Only the warship they were on approached the gate, and the other two sailed around the ind in opposite directions. Saleen¡¯s boat sailed through the huge gate and into the harbor. The gate was one hundred meters wide, enough for two ships to sail through side by side. As Saleen passed through the gate that was dozens of meters thick, he sensed obvious elemental vibrations.


    Arge number of magic arrays had been cast onto both sides of the gate. It was different from Holy Rock City in that elemental vibrations were active above and below the gate. ess through this huge gate could be left unsupervised.


    Saleen looked at the magic patterns on both sides of the mountain in awe. How great was the strength of mages! With thisyout, attacking Sregl Ind would only be possible from the skies.


    How many humans were able to fly? Flying puppets were easy to produce, but they might not be able to fly over the mountains that were over three hundred meters tall. Not to mention that because of those crowded magic towers, almost every angle of attack was in the attack range of one of the magic towers.


    Grade-6 mages had a fairly far attack range, and some of them were even able to attack from as far as five to six hundred meters away. If a mage was in a magic tower, that distance would be indiscernable.


    Despite Sregl Ind having suchplex terrain, Gaia was still worried. It seemed that the problem had note from Cloudflow, but rather, from the inside of Alchemy City.


    The warship stopped at the pier, which was rather small and had five ships docked there. Gaia did notmunicate with the upper tform on the port using a magic sound array. He merely lit the magicmp on the warship andmunicated using light signals. Those several-meter long metal spikes around the port were withdrawn, and the warship approached the dock slowly. Gaia smiled at Saleen. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Sregl Ind is still ours.¡±


    Rolling castles stood on thend, but they were in the style of thete Second Dynasty, being tall,plicately decorated, and having beautiful patterns. This type of castle with its big windows was mainly for living infort, and its defensive powers were weaker than those of the Fourth Dynasty. However, during the Second Dynasty, mankind had still been in power, thus people had paid less attention to aspects like defensive capabilities.


    Gaia led the way through the castleplex, followed by Saleen and the others. Saleen felt like he had walked into a small town at ind Qin. There were not many stone buildings. The roads had been paved ording to the originalyout of the mountain, and the houses had been built up using brick and wood.


    To Saleen¡¯s surprise, there were many ordinary people living here.


    Gaia walked side by side with Saleen and guided him. ¡°Sregl Ind is different from the other two inds. We do not hire swordsmen from Alchemy City. Instead, we train them ourselves. All of our grain, fish, vegetables, and meat are produced here on this ind because of the great distance from the maind. It usually takes ten days for a round-trip to the maind, so we have many ordinary people here responsible for our ntations.¡±


    ¡°The volcano does not seem very stable, does it?¡± Saleen pointed at the central mountain and asked.


    ¡°It erupts once every one hundred years. Mages channel the volcano every day, so its eruption will not be serious. This volcano is also used as the source of power for our magic arrays.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen thought he had heard wrong.


    ¡°It¡¯s not too strange. A magic nucleus stores the power of the elements, which is also stored inside of a volcano. Using this power is troublesome, but it is cheap.¡± Gaia smiled proudly. The most valuable thing on this ind was its central volcanic magic array.


    However, the Sregl volcano was unique in that it was far too stable. Not another volcano like it could be found onnd.


    ¡°What about my ship?¡± Saleen thought about his pirate ship that had followed behind the warship. They would surely notice the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat if it went through the gate. Saleen blushed. He needed to keep the boat a secret because he had not gotten permission from Lex to tell the others.


    ¡°That type of ship is not allowed to enter Sregl ind. It will anchor at a distance. Don¡¯t worry. There are only over a hundred people onboard. If they need food and fresh water, those supplies will be sent over from the ind.¡±


    Saleen felt relieved hearing this. He did not want Gaia to misunderstand.


    A team of swordsmen followed them. The leader of the team was not Morpheus, but a senior swordmaster. That swordsmen team followed them until they walked through the small town. A straight road was ahead of them, leading to the center of the ind.


    On both sides of the road were dense woods. Apparently, Gaia and the others did not have a habit of travelling by vehicle. Instead, they began to walk towards the volcano.


    After walking a few miles, they arrived at the foot of the volcano. Only mages resided here, and all the buildings had been constructed ording to the needs of the mages.


    Saleen saw hundreds of magic towers here, but most of them were sealed shut. Their owners had probably passed away. Most of the magic towers were seven stories tall, and Saleen only saw a few with six stories. Gaia exined to Saleen, ¡°At grade-6, most mages choose not to build a magic tower, but to travel to the maind and savor the meaning of life. When theye back, they have enough power to advance to a sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Where is my teacher?¡±


    ¡°He is in the south. I¡¯ll take you there.¡± Gaia reminded Tritiny and Baifan of something, and they left separately. Saleen and others followed Gaia and walked on the footpath. After walking for a few hundred meters, they reached an open plot ofnd.


    To all four sides of the area were forests, and three magic towers stood there, not even a hundred meters apart from one another as they formed a triangle.


    ¡°Gaia, is that you? Who are those peopleing with you?¡±


    A gentle voice came from the furthest magic tower. When the sound came to Saleen, it was like a soft whispering at his ear.


    Saleen had already grown ustomed to this. That was an eight story magic tower and theprehension of the wind elements by a grade-8 mage would surely be far superior to Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°It is Jason¡¯s student,¡± Gaia replied and that man did not speak again. Gaia led them to the closest magic tower, which had seven stories. Saleen was not surprised. His teacher must have felt confident when he was about to advance to a sorcerer. Building the tower in advance would save him timeter on.


    Saleen stood in front of the tower. It had six sides and every floor was six meters tall, entirely build from steel rock without adding any other type of stone. His teacher was surely rich. This volcano ind did not produce steel rock. All of it must have been bought from the maind.


    A very familiar voice came to Saleen from the seventh floor.


    ¡°Saleen, is that you? Come up here and let me see what you¡¯ve be.¡±


    This voice was also mild, but had a firmer strength contained within it. Saleen¡¯s lips wavered, but he did notugh. Tears dripped from his eyes uncontrobly.


    He did not know why he was crying at a time when he should have been happy. He had found his teacher, who beyond what he could have imagined, had advanced to a sorcerer. The group of mages of his teacher was both powerful and orthodox, which was evident from Gaia¡¯s attitude towards him.


    Saleen felt his heart trembling, and it could not be stopped even if he controlled his blood flow as much as possible. He knelt down and greeted his teacher ording to the conventional etiquette.


    ¡°Teacher¡­ ¡± Saleen sobbed.


    I made magic chord medicine behind my teacher¡¯s back, killed the son of Earl Sufonso, and left teacher to bear the pressure. He did not me me. Instead, he challenged the mage in the magic tower at Yaoyang City because of me.


    All this time, I have owed him too much.


    ¡°Come up, Saleen. You have grown up and should not act like a child.¡± The gate of the magic tower opened automatically when Jason finished his words.


    Saleen wiped his tears, stood up, and said to those standing behind him, ¡°You wait here. Lex¡­¡±


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°Just go. I¡¯ll wait too.¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment, then said to Nailisi, ¡°Come with me.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Nailisi¡¯s eyes had narrowed into lines. I am the only one close to my master.


    Jason¡¯s magic tower had a teleportation portal on the first floor, and it had no sandwich-type floors. Saleen and Nailisi stood on the teleportation portal, and were on the seventh floor after a sh of magic light. The cost of a teleportation portal within a magic tower was low because the entire tower was a world which belonged to the mage.


    Saleen stepped out of the teleportation portal and saw his teacher, who he had missed so much. Jason looked younger, as though he were in his early thirties. He had ck hair, ck eyes, and a ck magic robe. The magic staff Saleen had used to see him with was not there, but the silver ring was still on his finger.


    Upon seeing Saleen, Jason raised his eyebrows and said in surprise, ¡°Saleen, you are a grand mage!¡±


    ¡°Teacher!¡± Saleen ignored his surprised expression, threw himself into Jason¡¯s arms, and sobbed again.


    Jason patted Saleen on the shoulder and said in a gentle voice, ¡°Saleen, I told you toe alone. Who is this girl? Is she your wife? It¡¯s not good for a mage to get married at such a young age. Have you forgotten my instructions?¡±


    Saleenughed. Teacher has always been like this, generous and gentle towards me. This attitude of his has never changed ever since he acknowledged me as his student. I was too ignorant to understand this back then, which in turn led to secrets between me and him. I will never do that again!

 Chapter 252: Elf of Fire Elements (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 252: Elf of Fire Elements (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Come here, Nailisi.¡± Saleen waved to Nailisi, who was still standing in the teleportation portal.


    Nailisi walked over and bowed in front of Jason. Her body became longer quickly after she taking off her clothes, exposing her skin covered in green patterns and the tail swinging behind her.


    ¡°Master Jason, Saleen is my master,¡± Nailisi said in her most respectful tone of ancient Myersnguage. Jason¡¯s powers were stronger than that of an imp, and even stronger than that of some demons. Nailisi truly respected Jason from the bottom of her heart, and not just because Jason was Saleen¡¯s teacher.


    Her mental power was as sharp as Saleen¡¯s, and she could feel Jason¡¯s strong will. That will was akin to fully-refined rhenium gold ¨C pure, wless, tenacious, and sharp. The most surprising thing was that Jason¡¯s will was also restrained. A person could not sense this will unless he himself decided to reveal it.


    ¡°Well¡­¡± Jason looked at Nailisi¡¯s tail and said, ¡°Raise your head.¡±


    Nailisi looked up, golden light shing in that pair of green eyes. Jason thought for a moment and asked, ¡°Are you a demon?¡±


    ¡°Imp,¡± Nailisi replied.


    ¡°Your power is about the same as a demon¡¯s. What type of contract did you sign with Saleen? ¡±


    ¡°A soul bond.¡±


    ¡°How long have you been an adult?¡±


    ¡°Just over a year,¡± Nailisi answered carefully. She had discovered that Jason was more knowledgeable than Saleen. He had asked all of the important questions, but had not followed up on any of them. Apparently, he knew everything already.


    ¡°Stand up. You can continue following Saleen.¡± Jason was also relieved. Nailisi had signed a soul bond with Saleen before she was an adult, which meant that there would be no bacsh. No future growth from Nailisi would harm Saleen. With the strength of his soul, Saleen had been too reckless in signing a contract with an imp who had a strange lineage and branching evolutions.


    If the soul bond had been signed when she was already an adult, things would have be quiteplicated.


    ¡°Teacher¡­¡± Saleen said, but did not know where to begin. He had many words to say. He wanted to ask about everything that had happened to Jason after he had left him, and he also wanted to tell him about the hell of god¡¯s punishment.


    ¡°Saleen,e here and talk to me. My state at grade-7 is stable now. Don¡¯t worry.¡± Jason sat Saleen at a table. Nailisi stood up and stayed behind Saleen in her human form.


    Hundreds of ck metal blocks were ced on the table, and Saleen nced at them and immersed himself in their form.


    The Dante Sequence!


    This sequence was superior to the Figaro Form. Thetter exined the rtionship between elements and matter while the former exined thepositional principles of the dimensions.


    Those hundreds of ck metal blocks ced on Jason¡¯s table were apparently the simplest sequence, but they exined the principles of the dimensions, and were still abstruse. My teacher¡¯s lineage is obviously stronger than Faerun¡¯s. Is he studying theposition of the dimensions already? But this is beyond the calctive abilities of a grade-7 mage!


    ¡°Saleen, can you understand this?¡± Jason knew that although he had instructed Saleen a lot, he had not had time to teach him advanced knowledge. This Dante Sequence was something that he had just begun studying, but Saleen had immersed himself in it immediately, indicating that he knew something about the sequence.


    ¡°I can¡¯t, but I have read about it in magic notes.¡±


    As he spoke, Saleen could not help but take all of the magic books and notes he had obtained from Raphael¡¯s magic tower out of his Ring of Gifts. He only brought out the high-grade ones, yet they covered most of the space on the table.


    ¡°Teacher, these are what I have obtained. Please ept them.¡±


    ¡°Haha!¡± Jasonughed and said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ve already found my path and won¡¯t need these anymore. Keep them for yourself. You cane to me if you have any questions.¡±


    Jason also felt satisfied within his heart. Saleen was a good child. Although he had taken the wrong path before, he had be an orthodox mage through his own efforts. This knowledge was invaluable and Saleen had proved that he had a good heart by taking them out.


    Saleen hesitated, put the books away one by one, took out several nk scrolls, and asked, ¡°Teacher, you surely need these, don¡¯t you? I heard that Sregl Ind has been in trouble recently.¡±


    ¡°Not exactly in trouble. It was just a problem left over from a long time ago. I¡¯ll tell youter. Saleen, these scrolls are ancient and are fairly high-level. Where did you get them?¡±


    After hearing Jason¡¯s question, Saleen began telling Jason of his experiences after leaving Ceylon City. Just hearing about Saleen¡¯s experiences made Jason worry about him even though Saleen was sitting in front of him safe and sound.


    It could be said that Saleen had been living by a thread. Beginning from the time when he had first encountered the white deacon, Saleen would have died a hundred times over had he not had good luck every time.


    Gaia went back to his magic tower without caring about Lex and the others. Lex began to practice outside of Jason¡¯s magic tower. Sika sat on the ground, holding the bone ne in her hands, and used her mental power to perceive the information stored within it.


    Daniel and Jupiter were left in a dilemma. They could not walk around, nor did they dare to practice like Lex did. So, they simply stood there and waited.


    Ordinary people thought mages were indifferent for a good reason. Saleen had gone to see his teacher and had left those people outside, and this seemed like a rather bad thing to do. However, Lex and Sika did notin. They could rest anywhere, with or without a roof or a bed.


    ¡°You were saying that you and Lex found the magic tower of Raphael?¡±


    ¡°We did not find it. We were forced into the hell by god¡¯s punishment by the oracle, and that was Raphael¡¯s hiding ce back then. There are many interdimensional spaces that are connected to Myers. Now, we have only vague coordinates, and will need help from many sorcerers to return to that ce.¡±


    ¡°The things left by Raphael have already been taken by you and Lex, right?¡±


    ¡°Teacher, there was also a world created by Raphael and a six element space. Lex is willing to give up one of these two.¡±


    ¡°Six element space¡­ Saleen, what type of promise did you make with Lex?¡± Jason raised his eyebrows, apparently unsatisfied with Saleen for making promises to others without his permission.


    ¡°I made no promises. The conditions need to be set between you and her. But it is hard to build a six element space on Myers, Teacher. If you and other people from the mage group go there and practice, it won¡¯t be as difficult to advance to a grade-9 sorcerer.


    ¡°Saleen, you don¡¯t understand. The mages of Sregl Ind won¡¯t work for a noble.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, half of the things in that interdimensional space belong to me. We don¡¯t need to work for a noble. We just need to guard the things that belong to us. I have been to the world created by Raphael, and it is such an amazing world with natural living things and bnced elements. Going there will be good for your studies on the Dante Sequence.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, do you really think we can stay out of the affair once we enter that interdimensional space?¡± Jason asked the most important question. Even if Lex did not need them to work for her, the Holy See would attack in full force once they discovered the secret of that ce. By that time, their attacks would not stop even if Jason¡¯s men imed they had nothing to do with Lex.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I don¡¯t want to build the teleportation portal at Bitter Water County. Teacher, we can always find a less conspicuous ce and build it without catching anyone¡¯s attention. The coordinates can be calcted, and we can build the teleportation portal at a frozen district up north. The Holy See won¡¯t pay any attention to that area for decades even if they unify thend.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of trouble. The six element space is worth taking risks for, but right now, Sregl Ind cannot send that many sorcerers to help. You are wrong if you think that it is the Holy See I¡¯m worried about. The Holy See is also a group of people. The turmoil on the maind has already spread to Alchemy City, and no one can stay uninvolved.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, what is the problem on this ind?¡±


    Jason thought for a moment and said, ¡°You can¡¯t help, but since you are my student, I¡¯ll exin the situation to you. You already know that there is a volcanic magic array at the center of Sregl Ind. That magic array has a longer history than Alchemy City, and it was built by six grade-10 mages.


    ¡°Grade-10 mages!¡± Saleen knew that the power of a grade-10 mage was the peak of this world. Six grade-10 mages. Wouldn¡¯t they be able to challenge the gods?


    ¡°Yes. Many people think that Alchemy City was built by nine grade-9 mages, which is not true. At the very beginning, six grade-10 mages and over thirty grade-9 mages worked together to build what we have today.¡±


    Jason exined it to Saleen. Saleen knew that what he had said was the real history of Alchemy City.


    ¡°Alchemy City was built during the redistricting ages of Myers when the Fourth Dynasty had just copsed. The Grukos family rose with their magic and built the Qin Empire, and those six grade-10 mages yed important roles in it. One grade-10 mage became a royal mage of the Grukos family, one died, and the remaining four grade-10 mages returned to Alchemy City and built what you see today. ¡±


    ¡°Three of the grade-10 mages upied three overseas inds, and one upied Alchemy City on the coast. Those mages lived to the end of their lives and left a huge fortune for their descendants, including Sregl Ind. What makes Sregl Ind special is that the magic array at its core was the work of all those grade-10 mages at the very beginning, different from Devil¡¯s Horn and Sky Ind. Mages from our branch have been under pressure for many years. The other three branches have been asking for Sregl Ind to be opened up for all mages to practice on it.¡±


    ¡°Is that right?¡± Saleen asked dubiously. Since Alchemy City belonged to all mages, why was it split into four different branches from the inside?


    ¡°But Devil¡¯s Horn, Sky Ind, and Alchemy City all have their own belongings and are not willing to share them with others. Why must Sregl Ind be opened up? Saleen, mages are the most stingy people of all, and you should understand. ¡±


    Of course Saleen could understand. Mages from the other three forces want to gain without paying the price. No wonder even a person like my teacher feels that this is unfair.

 Chapter 253: Elf of Fire Elements (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 253: Elf of Fire Elements (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°They wouldn¡¯t be so nervous if it was only about the volcanic magic array. The original intention of those six grade-10 mages in building this array was to nurture a fire elf, an elf of fire elements.¡±


    ¡°The creation of life seems to be in the domain of god.¡± After being informed of the thoughts of those six grade-10 mages, Saleen felt that they must have been crazy.


    ¡°Once a mage exceeds grade-9, they lose theirst bit of respect for god.¡± Jason sighed. The mages of the present were weaker than their ancestors, but even more arrogant.


    ¡°Is that really true?¡± Saleen asked. Jason did not seem to be joking. There were magic beasts in the world that had been created by Raphael, but they had likely been caught from other dimensions and sent there. Although an elf of fire elements was very different from a human, it was still intelligent life.


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s true.¡± The volcanic magic array had possessed the aura of life for over a hundred years now. ording to the original n of those six grade-10 mages, the creation of the elf of fire elements was nearlypleted.


    ¡°Now I understand!¡±


    Saleen could understand why Jason was indecisive after hearing about the six element space. The elf of fire elements would be the safest contract creature of all before it formed intelligence. Any sorcerer with an elf of fire elements could release the power of level-9 magic as they wished.


    Even if a contract could not be signed with the elf of fire elements, this elf could be used to build magic equipment of the highest level, which were also half artifacts. If the elf was powerful enough, it could build three to five pieces of that equipment, or at least two pieces at minimum.


    The search for the interdimensional space might not seed, but the elf of fire elements was on this ind. How could Jason give up such a powerful thing?


    ¡°Saleen, the catching of the elf of fire elements requires three grade-9 sorcerers or thirty-six sorcerers no lower than grade-7. Thest grade-9 sorcerer of this ind has passed away and there aren¡¯t enough grade-7 sorcerers. Now Alchemy City, Devil¡¯s Horn, and Sky Ind all want to share the benefits. If all the mages of Alchemy City demand that Sregl Ind be opened, the mages of this ind cannot refuse. ¡±


    ¡°Is there an agreement involved in this?¡± Saleen found the loophole in his words.


    ¡°Yes. It was the decision of those six great sorcerers to make Sregl Ind a closed ind. Soon, the period of one thousand years will have passed. If we cannot catch the elf of fire elements within seven months, we won¡¯t be able to refuse their requirement. But we can¡¯t gather thirty-six sorcerers in seven months.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, how can we catch the elf of fire elements? Is a certain number of sorcerers a must?¡±


    Saleen thought about Lex¡¯s god ring. The protective power of that thing was much stronger than a magic shield cast by a sorcerer.


    ¡°The elf of fire elements is born in theva, and even sorcerers cannot approach it. These thirty-six sorcerers are actually needed to control the magic array. Without full control of the enormous mage array, we cannot control the power of the volcano either. Unless we can get help from an artifact, we will have the grade-8 sorcerer, the strongest on the ind, go into the volcanic vent and catch the elf directly.¡±


    ¡°An artifact?¡± Saleen thought for a moment and said to Jason, ¡°Teacher, I have an artifact in my hands, but I do not dare bring it out. I am afraid that the people from the Holy See will know and cause problems for us once I take it out.¡±


    ¡°Really? What is it?¡± Jason had not expected his student to be so rich by this time. He had mentioned artifacts only to discover that Saleen unbelievably had one with him.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Seal of Divine Power. Raphael was severely injured by this artifact. It has the imprint of the Lord of Glory, which can be concealed in the interdimensional space, but not here. I am afraid that the Holy See has its way to detect the waves of the artifact¡¯s power.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, are you saying the pope does not have all three artifacts by now?¡±


    ¡°Exactly. This artifact was inside of Raphael¡¯s body even after his death.¡±


    Jason pondered this. If the pope does not have all of the artifacts, the strength of the Holy See has been lowered by at least ten percent. Concealing the artifact and keeping it a secret to the people of the Holy See will be an advantage for the mages. It is not worth exposing the location of the artifact merely for an elf of fire elements.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t take it out. I will take care of that artifact after we arrive in the interdimensional space. The imprint of god can be erased.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, so you agree to go to the interdimensional space?¡± Saleen was delighted.


    ¡°I can go. But only after we catch the elf of fire elements will I be able to persuade others to leave together.¡±


    ¡°Of course, Teacher. Lex is still outside. Do you want to talk to her?¡±


    ¡°Is she your friend?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Then she can stay in my magic tower. Now, let her in.¡±


    Lex had grown impatient waiting outside of the magic tower, and was relieved when she suddenly heard Jason¡¯s voice. The gate of the magic tower was opened again. Lex and the others walked into the magic tower and stepped onto the teleportation portal following Jason¡¯s orders.


    ¡°Saleen, I have no students aside from you. They can stay here, but cannot walk around freely. If they need anything, just speak into the magic sound array.¡±


    Jason did not meet with Lex right away. He arranged a ce for her to stay and then continued to speak with Saleen.


    ¡°Saleen, you cannot help with the matter of the elf of fire elements, so don¡¯t worry about than. I have a question for you. What are your ns for the future? Do you want to stay on this ind and practice? Or do you want to leave with Lex and help her build a more powerful county?¡±


    ¡°Teacher, Lex is not trying to build a powerful county. She just wants to provide people with more opportunities to learn magic.¡±


    Jason smiled, his eyes filled with wisdom. ¡°Saleen, aren¡¯t those the same thing?¡±


    Aren¡¯t those the same thing? Saleen was enlightened by those words. It was impossible toplete Lex¡¯s dream just by relying on herself alone. To have more people learn magic and truly understand the world required a county as a source of power.


    ¡°Teacher, I had the idea of building more cities like Alchemy City, but not as closed and conventional.¡±


    ¡°Conventional? Saleen, do you think mages were like this in ancient times? Back then, the imparting of magic knowledge was open and magic books did not have sky-high prices as they do now. Mages nowadays are different from the mages of ancient times. They are not conventional. They just want to keep their money.¡±


    Saleen did not respond. He thought, Teacher, you have over ten thousand books in your own spatial equipment, but have never made them known to the public.


    Jason seemed to know his thoughts andughed, ¡°If I take those out, how many people would be able to understand them?¡±


    Saleen blushed. Most people were illiterate and those magic books were written inplicated words. Even enlightening them would be difficult. Saleen himself was also not self-taught. Had Jason not instructed him at the very beginning, he could have taken the wrong path and suffered from magic bacsh.


    ¡°Teacher, let¡¯s talk about the matter concerning the elf of fire elements. I might not be able to help, but I have many good items with me, and so does Lex. If she wants your help, she will be willing to pay the price. She is a grade-6 mage and certainly understands this.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard of her. She is already a grade-6 mage?


    ¡°Yes. And she will advance to a sorcerer within ten years.¡±


    ¡°A sorcerer under the age of thirty is rare!¡± Jason eximed. He said nothing more about her, and had Saleen put his collection on the table piece by piece.


    Jason did not know what to say upon seeing all the materials and equipment taken out by Saleen. When he had epted Saleen as his student, he had not even had enough food to survive. Now, Saleen was richer than most of the mages on this ind with his collection.


    Jason did not ept anything from Saleen, but gave Saleen instructions on how to use every piece.


    ¡°Saleen, this demon set is not eye-catching, but is of top quality. These pieces of equipment can be used by you even after you have be a grade-10 mage, particrly the demonic spellbook. Use them well and familiarize yourself with storing and releasing magic. This kind of material is hard to find nowadays, and is most suitable for you, a mage with defective magic chords.¡±


    ¡°The Ring of Gifts, goddess¡¯ ne, and the shenhe were not rare equipment in the past, but are hard to find at this time. However, your refinement of the shenhe is a bit wasteful. Lex is right in her opinion that making the shenhe into a water puppet would release its full power. You cannot understand right now, but you will once you reach grade-9. Having a water puppet of the same grade fighting side by side with you will be like carrying a small magic tower with you.¡±


    ¡°The magic of the crystal ring seems oddly effective within short distances. Saleen, you cannot rely on this magic to advance. Your performance of the Flying spell is good and you will be surprised if you continue to practice. These three magic books are good. They can make up for the defects in your magic chords if used just right, and will deepen your understanding of elemental conversion. ¡±


    ¡°I cannotprehend your badge. But I am warning you, do not let anyone else know about its existence. I¡¯ll consult materials that date back a thousand years. Yourst name was notmon even at that time, and I should be able to find the origin of this badge in those materials.¡±


    ¡°The witcher spider is a good item and can support you inbat even when you be a sorcerer. Use these variant fully constructed puppet with caution. Don¡¯t take them out in front of people from the Holy See, and if you do, have them tell no one about the secret of the puppets.¡±


    ¡°This scroll can be used across two grades, but don¡¯t think about casting level-10 magic at grade-8. Your body cannot take it. Wait until you have be a grade-9 sorcerer, and produce the scroll then.¡±


    ¡°Now that you have a dragonshard, don¡¯t save up those high-level magic nuclei. Try to find the right equipment to iy them. When there is no need for magic chords, your mental power will be your only advantage over others.¡±


    Jason held Saleen¡¯s equipment in his hands and exined them to him piece by piece, which warmed Saleen¡¯s heart. Saleen decided in his mind that he needed to have Lex do her best in catching the elf of fire elements at any cost. If Lex could not use the god¡¯s ring, perhaps she had other equipment that she could use. She had not only obtained magic nuclei and gold coins from her trip to the temple of the goddess, had she?

 Chapter 254: Lex’s Deal (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 254: Lex¡¯s Deal (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°At the end of the day, the properties of magic are the same. Elemental conversion isn¡¯t anything special.¡± Jason had Saleen take a look at all the equipment, examining the magic he had learned over the past few years.


    As a grade-4 mage, the number of spells Saleen had learned was considered below average. Usually, a mage would learn more than thirty spells at every grade and at least five of every type. This made it easier to achieve a bnce towards the understanding of magic.


    Many grand mages would know hundreds of spells, but Saleen did not have this ability. He had not had a choice since the beginning due to his magic chords. Even though he had managed to learn the techniques of elemental conversion afterwards by going back to study them, the number of spells he knew was still less than other mages of the same grade.


    Looking at the foundation in magic of Jason and his students, Saleen was a little dejected. All the mages on Sregl Ind had a stronger foundation than him. On this ind, the advantage he had in his magic understanding was nonexistent.


    ¡°The fact that you have understood the knowledge behind elemental conversion isn¡¯t a bad thing. It is just that you will have to put in more effort than others. Saleen, do you understand?¡± Jason watched as Saleen released a level-2 Ice Bomb spell and sessfully changed it into a fireball and an exploding magic bomb. He could perceive Saleen¡¯s strengths and weaknesses.


    ¡°I understand, Teacher. Then what spells do you think I should focus on?¡±


    ¡°I cannot help you in this. All mages must choose their own paths. My teacher did not tell me what to choose either.¡± As Jason talked about his teacher, he became a little upset. He had gone out travelling and when he returned, his teacher had already passed away.


    ¡°Okay, I understand.¡± Saleen silently showcased all the magic that he was familiar with. Jason watched, furrowing his eyebrows. Aside from some lower levelled spells, all the spells that Saleen knew were forbat. This was not a good thing. A mage that only knew how to fight would need to put in many times more effort than other mages to get over thest hurdle.


    The two of them showed their magic to each other and Jason analyzed Saleen¡¯s magic while exining things to him. When they had both expended their magic chords, Jason started exining Sregl Ind¡¯s current situation to Saleen. A day and night passed before Saleen started feeling exhausted.


    Saying goodbye to his teacher, he walked up to the magic array full of thoughts. Bringing Nailisi to the fifth floor, Saleen was thinking of how he would tell Lex.


    There were thirty-three sorcerers on Sregl Ind and they needed another three topletely control the volcanic magic array and capture the elf of fire elements. Of course, if they could use the god weapon, they would only need less than ten sorcerers. However, there were no god weapons on Sregl Ind and Saleen did not dare take out the Seal of Divine Power in his hands.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Lex voice sounded beside his ear. There were six rooms within the magic tower and Saleen followed the voice to Lex¡¯s room, the door opening automatically.


    There was a small table within the room. It was filled with alchemy equipment and Lex was sitting in front of the table, heating up a piece of metal and continuously adding magic medicine.


    ¡°Nailisi, go clear out my room.¡± Saleen chased Nailisi out and sat opposite to Lex. Her hands were stable as she put the liquid medicine drop by drop into a beaker, and using a hollow metal pipe thinner than a hair, she dripped it onto the heated metal.


    ¡°Lex, it will be a little tough.¡± Seeing that Lex did not ask anything, Saleen started speaking about the elf of fire elements.


    ¡°Saleen, you said there were seven more months?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s what my teacher said. In another seven months, the magic array on Sregl Ind will need to be opened, and by that time, anyone will be able toe here to capture the spirit.¡±


    ¡°What if we closed Sregl ind?¡±


    ¡°It will start a war. This ind was not built by one person alone from the start.¡±


    Lex started growing dejected. It would be impossible to find another three sorcerers within seven months.


    ¡°Lex, do you have any magic equipment that can protect people against fire elements?¡± Saleen tried asking.


    ¡°The god¡¯s ring cannot be used. If we use it again, it will be destroyed.¡± Lex shook her head. The value of the god¡¯s ring was much greater than that of the elf of fire elements. She was not that rash yet. She would definitely not use something so precious in exchange for the spirit. She had been forced to use her god¡¯s ring when they had previously killed the dragon. They needed to wait at least another eight months before they could use its incredible defensive powers again.


    ¡°Lex, how about the tiago¡¯s skin? If we processed some mage armor¡­¡±


    ¡°The temperature ofva is much higher than what you would expect. A tiago has freezing properties and can defend against fire type attacks, but even a live tiago dragon would not dare to venture deep within a volcano.¡±


    ¡°How then? We wait here for nothing?¡±


    ¡°If only we had a supreme demon. Sigh¡­¡± Lex sighed.


    Saleen¡¯s heart skipped a beat as he said, ¡°If there was a supreme demon, it would eat us up before eating the elf of fire elements.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± Lex stretched her body and rubbed her shoulders before saying to Saleen, ¡°The special powers of the god¡¯s ring cannot be used here. I can bring out the tiago¡¯s skin, and if there is a powerful alchemist on Sregl Ind, it might be of some use. Give me your dragonshard fragments too. Let me talk to your teacher.


    Saleen knew that Lex was afraid he would take out the dragonshard fragments without any restraint and he took them out without hesitation, handing them over to Lex.


    The mages on Sregl Ind hade from a grade-10 mage and aside from those who had left, there had been at least hundreds of them in the past thousand years. The three grade-9 sorcerers had passed on, and the remaining sorcerers were but grade-8.


    The thirty-three sorcerers would have been considered to have incredible powers anywhere else. In Alchemy City, they would act as one of the powers from all four sides, but were not as strong as the other three powers.


    Jason¡¯s teacher was a grade-9 sorcerer and he had not managed to cross the grade-10 hurdle before passing away. Now, Sregl Ind was the weakest main power of Alchemy City. If Jason¡¯s teacher had managed to be a grade-10 mage, things would have been very different.


    No one knew how long a grade-10 mage could live, and under normal circumstances, a grade-10 mage would stay here for less than a hundred years before going to another dimension to find a continuous path of advancement.


    The position of Sregl Ind was very awkward now. If they could not get the elf of fire elements to build the half-god weapon, everything on this ind would be divided up among the other three powers.


    This was a very realistic threat and Saleen could not advise his teacher to give up everything here to go with Lex to Bitter Water Prefecture. The entirety of Sregl Ind contained arge amount of fortune as well. The magic towers and magic arrays on the ind had been left behind by powerful mages many years ago and could not be brought away. Moreover, asking these mages to give up straightaway would be an insult to their pride.


    Lex walked out of her room nervously and came to the middle of the magic array before saying softly, ¡°Master Jason, I¡­¡±


    ¡°Come up.¡± Jason activated the magic array, and Lex was transported to the seventh floor of the magic tower. Within this magic tower, Jason was much more powerful than Lex. Unless she used her god¡¯s ring, she would not be able to defend herself from a single attack by Jason.


    Lex came to the seventh floor. She did not immediately step down from the magic array, but took a careful look at the setting of the ce.


    The highest floor of the magic tower was meant for the owner to stay in. This entire floor was opened up, and there were many books and a small alchemy tform. Lex even caught sight of some pots of flowers. She did not recognize any of these flowers at all. They were entirely foreign to her, and on the petals, there were some shining bugs absorbing pollen.


    Such powerful alchemy! These insects were miniscule puppets and the naked eye could not differentiate them from real bugs. It seems like Jason has specialized in the study of medicine, alchemy, ground type and water type magic, eh¡­ and swordsmanship?


    Lex saw a long sword hanging on the wall that was facing the sun. This sword was not a weapon seen on the battlefield and was a little thin. However, it had sizeable killing power. In the hands of a swordmaster, a weapon like this could pierce through heavy armor.


    Jason saw Lex¡¯s staring at the long sword and smiled, saying to her ¡°You are Lex, right? Do you know about swords?¡±


    ¡°I have four grand swordmasters and a grade-8 assassin under my control,¡± Lex answered simply.


    ¡°That sword was my wife¡¯s.¡± Jason smiled and told her something that even Saleen did not know.


    ¡°Master, you have a family?¡± Lex was shocked as well. She had done her research and when Jason had been in Ceylon City, he had been but a grade-5 mage. He had be a sorcerer in two years and the amount of experience he had amassed previously was a great amount. If he had a family, how had he had time to research magic?


    ¡°That was in the past. Lex, why are you looking for me?¡±


    Lex stepped down from the teleportation array, not knowing where to start. When she had first seen Saleen¡¯s teacher, Lex knew this sorcerer was not someone she could control. Jason¡¯s road to his training was simr to that long sword. Even without taking it out of its sheath, one could feel the sharpness of the de and an incredible aura.


    Such determination was rarely seen even by Lex. His teacher was one such person? Joey was like this as well, but it was hard to say for the rest.


    Someone like Jason was very full of themselves, and once he had determined something, no one could change his opinion.


    ¡°I want to ask, is there anything I can help you with?¡±


    ¡°Sit.¡± Jason pointed to a chair. He was but a grade-7 sorcerer, but he gave Lex the feeling that her father had been revived. All of his actions seemed to fit with the rules of this dimension.


    ¡°Saleen had me bring the dragonshard over. The dragonshard from the tiago dragon has freezing capabilities and it has a very strong defensive power against fire elements. I brought tiago¡¯s skin too.¡±


    ¡°I know, Saleen has told me. However, there aren¡¯t many grade-6 mages on the ind and we need eighteen grade-6 mages to put on special magic robes and stand in the magic array and attack. These eighteen mages would be putting their lives in danger. Even though the elf of fire elements won¡¯t be intelligent, it will still be able to find the weakest link within the magic array.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m willing to do that,¡± Lex answered peacefully. She took out the fragments of the dragonshard and ced them in front of Jason.

 Chapter 255: Lex’s Deal (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 255: Lex¡¯s Deal (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°How many sorcerers do you need to activate the dimensional teleportation array?¡± Jason looked at the dragonshard on the table. He did not take it, but immediately asked a question that excited her.


    ¡°At best, I would need thirty-six.¡±


    ¡°There are only thirty-three sorcerers on Sregl Ind. I have no way of promising to fulfill your request. Since you are willing to speak to me, you definitely trust me. Even though Alchemy City has many sorcerers, you can only ask for help from Sregl Ind, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°How many sorcerers do you have with you then?¡±


    ¡°One.¡± As Lex replied, she felt helpless. Jason did not say much, but a simple question had revealed her weakness.


    Sregl Ind could provide thirty-three sorcerers, but she only had one. The difference in capabilities was not something that an army could solve.


    ¡°There are one hundred and eighty-eight grand mages on this ind as well. How many do you have with you?¡±


    ¡°Forty-two.¡± Lex counted carefully. Among all the mages she had spent years nurturing, at least forty-two would return to Bitter Water Prefecture to follow her.


    ¡°If I do not help you, you would need at least sixty years to gather thirty-six sorcerers, right?¡±


    ¡°More than sixty years.¡± Lex started to feel like she did not have any terms to discuss with Jason. All the grand mages she had now were basically grade-4 and above, and under normal circumstances, only a tenth of them would be sorcerers. Of course, the quality of her mages was top notch and this percentage would be higher. However, to gather thirty-six sorcerers within sixty years was almost impossible.


    ¡°In the interdimensional space, a person¡¯s life would be extended, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Jason seemed to know everything and Lex felt that in front of him, any ns would be useless.


    ¡°So long as you send all the mages to the interdimensional space, they can all be sorcerers. With the help of the six element space, within two hundred years you would have arge number of grade-9 mages, right?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±


    ¡°Okay, since you have so much to gain, what do you intend to give up in return?¡±


    ¡°I¡­don¡¯t know.¡± Lex hesitated, not suggesting her original idea. The mages on this ind were different from those in Alchemy City. They seemed to live like mages from thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago. Riches and titles did not matter to them.


    ¡°I do have an idea, but I am not sure if you are willing to ept it.¡± Jason looked at Lex. She felt flustered by his gaze.


    ¡°Please¡­ speak.¡±


    ¡°If you marry Saleen, things will be much easier. Even though Saleen isn¡¯t from Sregl Ind, he is my student. We can follow the mage¡¯s way of splitting things and handle this within ourselves.¡± Jason smiled as his question left Lex red in the face.


    Since she had been young, Lex had never felt this way. As a royal, many people pursued her and she was used to looks of desire from others. However, Jason was seeming to treat her as his own descendant, proposing a marriage for her. Even so, his words still left her heart beating incredibly fast.


    Marrying Saleen? How would that work!


    Lex thought back to when she had first met Saleen. He was tender, and even though he was not very weak, he wasparable to her childish younger brother.


    Lex took in a deep breath and calmed herself down before saying, ¡°Master Jason, I cannot promise you this.¡±


    ¡°Oh? My Saleen doesn¡¯t suit you? I think if he works hard, he could be a sorcerer at the same time as you. Even though you are a viscountess, all those things do not matter in the eyes of mages. If you do not be a sorcerer in a hundred years¡¯ time, you will be a pile of ash. You cannot avoid that even if you are the emperor.¡±


    ¡°No!¡± Lex answered, more determined this time. She lifted her head and looked at Jason, saying, ¡°I merely fancy Saleen. If I make this promise to you, this will be an agreement and I will merely hate him in the future.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with an agreement? This is very fair.¡± Jason was not angry. He gazed casually at Lex.


    ¡°Saleen¡­ he cannot be used in an agreement,¡± Lex answered stubbornly.


    ¡°Then it will be very hard for me to persuade those under me to follow you to Bitter Water Prefecture. Go back and think it through. We still have time. These dragonshards are useless to me,¡± Jason said as he pushed them back. All these things that the mages on the maind scrambled for wereparable to normal stones in the eyes of Jason.


    ¡°Master Jason, I know what you are concerned about.¡± Lex considered her words and said carefully, ¡°If Ipletely open up the interdimensional space, your people will be able to use the six element space freely. The world that Raphael created can be provided to you all. But regarding the teleportation portal, no matter what happens to it, it cannot be built here!¡±


    The teleportation portal was the key. No matter how secretive the interdimensional space was, so long as one opened the portal permanently, it would be akin to the Myers Maind opening its doors. Whoever defended this door would own the interdimensional space.


    ¡°However, aside from here, where else can we safely build the teleportation portal and not be found by the Holy See?¡± Jason said slowly. He did not seem to be in a rush at all. Lex knew how smart he was and quickly replied.


    ¡°Saleen wants to build a city on the north of the maind. I will fully support him. The teleportation array can be built within his city. I trust Saleen.


    ¡°Oh? Relying on a mage to build a city, within a year or two, I think we will be able to see something. If we create a half-god weapon, we can safely build a transportation array too. That is a good idea, but I am not convinced, and convincing the others will be even harder.¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± Lex was in a dilemma. In the end, she brought out herst bargaining chip. She took out a map and turned it over. Behind it were the drawings of thirteen magic arrays.


    ¡°What is this? The magic arrays are fairly decent. A pity¡­¡±


    ¡°A pity that it isn¡¯tplete. There are over two hundred of these magic arrays in total and they are hidden within the twenty-four temples of the Myers Goddess. I know the location of the twenty-four temples. Saleen has a such copy of them as well.¡±


    ¡°Oh? The temple that Saleen mentioned, there are twenty-four of them? That means there are treasures stashed within each temple. If that is the case, why do you care so much about the interdimensional space? The value of these temples is immeasurable.¡±


    Lex gave a bitterugh, ¡°These twenty-four temples are spread throughout the Myers Maind. One of them is in Glorious City. Unless I conquer the entire maind, I will not be able to piece together the entire set of magic arrays. If these magic arrays are pieced together, a city greater than Alchemy City can be built. A soul city that has an endless amount of god power.¡±


    ¡°You cannot conquer the entire maind. We cannot, either. These magic arrays are just a decoration.¡± Jason was not moved.


    Lex started growing anxious and said without much thought, ¡°Then what do you want?¡±


    ¡°Your surname is Grukos. You can be the empress, can¡¯t you?¡± Jason squinted his eyes and Lex realized that Saleen sometimes did that, having learned it from Jason. Whenever Saleen made that expression, it meant he had an ultimate n in his hands.


    ¡°You, you¡­¡± Lex was alert. She suddenly understood what Jason wanted.


    ¡°Lex, you are very smart. I want everything that the mage who followed the Grukos family owned. His things must be in the pce, right?¡±


    Back then, six grade-10 mages had created Alchemy City and each one of them had specialized in one of the six types of magic. Now that Alchemy City only had five different lineages, it was missing one and hence could never be the strongest power in the world.


    If all six lineages were gathered, the grade-9 mages could discuss things amongst themselves and bing a grade-10 mage would not be that difficult. Jason¡¯s teacher had already possessed five types of lineages but was missing one more, and hence had died while breaking the barrier to grade-10.


    With time, it would not be too hard for Sregl Ind to nurture more grade-9 mages, but it would be impossible for them to reach grade-10. It had been eons since there had been a grade-10 mage on the Myers Maind, and it was not a coincidence that the Holy See had suddenly announced war on the mages.


    Not admitting the status of mages was one thing, but to go after death mages brazenly was to test the reaction of Alchemy City.


    However, this lineage already belonged to the Grukos family, and now that Jason wanted it, Lex could not ept it.


    In addition to Lex and Safilos, the Grukos family had many other people as well, but these people hardly had any chance of inheriting this worldly power even though they could easily enter the pce and be pce mages. This was all because the Grukos family possessed this lineage.


    Lex¡¯s teacher, a grade-8 sorcerer, also had the surname Grukos. This was something Saleen did not know.


    ¡°Lex, if we cannot get the elf of fire elements and the otherse in, we can still get a quarter of the benefits. We can only get one out of twenty-four of your magic arrays. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°So, you want the Grukos family¡¯s lineage?¡±


    ¡°I have heard Saleen mention that you hope everybody on the Myers Maind will have a chance to be a mage. If that is the case, why do you care who the lineage belongs to? Within the Grukos family, not everyone has the chance to learn all of the magic lineage either, right?¡±


    Lex was silent for a while before saying, ¡°I did not learn all of the magic lineage either. If you wish to obtain it from me, it will be impossible. That is, unless you fight your way into Holy Rock City.¡±


    Lex was a little frustrated when she said this. There were no longer any more grade-9 sorcerers on Sregl Ind, and it was already hard for the outside world to attack this ce. There were many magic towers and ancient magic arrays here. Holy Rock City? There were still three grade-9 sorcerers, and it would be even harder to take it down.


    If Holy Rock City was that easy to take down, the Holy See would not have needed to put in all of their efforts into ambushing Emperor Chanake only after he had left Holy Rock City. If Chanake had not left, no matter how many professionals the Holy See had sent, they would not have been able to do anything about it.


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, I cannot help you either.¡± Jason was not willing to budge at all.


    Lex sighed. It was expected for Jason to react this way. If Lex did not have his help, it would be almost impossible to return to the interdimensional space.


    ¡°Master Jason, let me think about it.¡± Lex bowed and returned to the teleportation array. An agreement had not been reached, and it was not what Lex had expected. Marry Saleen? It seemed she would need to reconsider that.

 Chapter 256: War on Sregl Island (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 256: War on Sregl Ind (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex returned to the fifth floor where Saleen was waiting for her. When she saw Saleen, Lex felt anger rising up in her. Saleen couldn¡¯t have mentioned that to Jason, could he? If not, why would Jason make such an unusual request?


    ¡°Lex, what did Jason say?¡±


    He did not know Lex was angry and had asked at the wrong time, as Lex replied angrily, ¡°He asked me to marry you. The hell of god¡¯s punishment will be the dowry. Tell me honestly, was this your idea?¡±


    When Lex was angry, her face turned a deep shade of red and her breathing quickened.


    ¡°Ah? Then did you agree?¡± Saleen had not reacted and allowed his tongue to slip.


    Lex grew even angrier. As she looked at Saleen, she could tell that he was not the mastermind behind this. For some reason, upon seeing Saleen¡¯s expression, she became even angrier. She raised her fist and punched Saleen on the nose.


    Saleen had not expected Lex to be this violent, and moreover, she had practiced some martial arts when she was young. Even without any sword aura, she was much quicker than many swordsmen. This punch came without warning andnded squarely on Saleen¡¯s nose. Saleen gave a shout as blood spurted out. He covered his nose and knelt down, not knowing why Lex had hit him.


    Only after hitting him did Lex feel that he was innocent and release a Chunlin spell. The green aura seeped into his body and his nose stopped bleeding, but it did not stop the pain within his nose bridge as tears welled up in his eyes.


    ¡°Why did you hit me?¡± Saleen asked dejectedly.


    Lex raised her fist again as Saleen quickly backed away. He was as strong as Lex but not as skilled at her in closebat. He held his nose and stared at Lex. The redness on her face faded away as she lowered her fist and asked, ¡°Are you alright?¡±


    ¡°Alright? Why don¡¯t I try punching you?¡±


    Saleen was still focused on Lex¡¯s affairs and getting punched for no reason had left him feeling troubled. At the moment, he did not notice the embarrassment within Lex¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen could not really punch Lex anyways, and he said in a low voice, ¡°This isn¡¯t even my fault. Getting punched for no reason, aiya¡­¡±


    As Lex listened to his whining, she felt anger rising within her again as she swung her fists at the air and left Saleen¡¯s room.


    As Lex left the room, Nailisi appeared from out of nowhere. She took out a handkerchief to wipe the blood off of Saleen¡¯s face and said, giggling, ¡°Saleen, do you know why you were hit?¡±


    ¡°How would I know? Lex is crazy.¡±


    ¡°She isn¡¯t. You are the dumb one. Sigh,e over and lie down.¡± Nailisi dragged Saleen over andid him on the bed as sheid down as well and exined to him, ¡°I am sure Lex likes you, and yet you said this had nothing to do with you. Why wouldn¡¯t she be angry?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, if you spout nonsense again¡­ wait? Did you say she likes me?¡±


    ¡°Master, do you not know? I have been reading some books, and they mentioned that human feelings are the strangest of them all. We demons like people who are strong, but humans are different. It doesn¡¯t matter if a person is strong or weak or rich or poor ¨C once someone fancies the other, they cannot let go. Don¡¯t think Lex is from a rich background. How many of the people around her can she actually speak to? They are either her men or those with hidden motives. If it were you, you would need to be wary too, wouldn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true, but what does that have to do with me?¡±


    Nailisi gave a whine as she buried her face into the pillow. She looked up at Saleen with her piercing green eyes and said, ¡°But you spent a year with her in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. Didn¡¯t you fall for her?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps a little, but not enough for marriage?¡±


    ¡°Master, did something go wrong while you were in puberty? Let me take a look!¡± Nailisi said, about to take off his clothes. Saleen kicked her away while thinking about Lex¡¯s reaction, still not believing that Nailisi was correct.


    Nailisi crawled off of the bed. Her excitement did not wane as she said to Saleen, ¡°Master, if you want to know if Lex really likes you, it is simple.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Go and find her now, and no matter what she says, give her a tight hug and kiss her. If she likes you, she will not resist.¡±


    ¡°And what if she doesn¡¯t? Will I be burned to death?¡± Saleen red at Nailisi.


    ¡°Your teacher is the master of this magic tower. How would she dare?¡± Nailisi opened her eyes wide and said in a shocked voice, ¡°She would chase you away at most, Master. Try it.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go and try it?¡±


    ¡°Oh¡­ I have already matured and it is impossible for me to be a male now. Master, why aren¡¯t you interested in me?¡±


    ¡°Interested? Oh, you mean sexually? You¡¯re a demon. I don¡¯t want to breed a new species with you.¡± Saleen¡¯s reply was standard for a mage and Nailisi¡¯s excitement waned upon hearing it, looking almost sad.


    ¡°Sigh, women are so troublesome.¡± Saleen could not figure out what this had to do with Lex¡¯s n. No matter what Lex felt for him, the problem regarding the hell of god¡¯s punishment could not be resolved, could it?


    ¡°Sika isn¡¯t troublesome, but don¡¯t you have the same attitude towards her? Master, you must be sick,¡± Nailisi said angrily.


    ¡°What attitude is this!¡±


    ¡°It is the attitude of a contract creature. You don¡¯t want me but you don¡¯t allow me to be with anyone else. Will I have to go without offspring in the future?¡± Nailisi¡¯s words were harsh, but she was not wrong. Before her, there had not been a contract creature like this.


    ¡°When have I disallowed you from being with others?¡±


    ¡°Those are your words. Once I mate with someone else, you can suffer then.¡± Nailisi scrunched her face up and made an unusually scary face.


    Saleen felt a chill down his spine. If Nailisi were really to do that, it would be most unfortunate for him.


    ¡°Nailisi, I won¡¯t allow you to do that!¡±


    ¡°Are those your words?¡±


    ¡°We are talking about Lex¡¯s affairs. Why are you talking about this?¡± Saleen could not win an argument against Nailisi and felt ridiculous. All a contract creature had to do was to listen and obey. It was just his luck to get one with funny thoughts. He could only me himself for hisck of experience back then, having signed a soul contract on a whim.


    Nailisi gave a smirk. She had incited Saleen to harass Lex, and if anything went wrong, Lex would never pester Saleen again. It was a pity that Saleen had not believed her words and the n had failed.


    In Nailisi¡¯s eyes, Sika was a much better choice than Lex.


    Firstly, Sika¡¯s thought more simply, and if she got together with Saleen, she would not lose anything in the future. Secondly, Sika was physically stronger and was nearly as strong as some of the creatures in the demonic realm. With a body like that, her offspring would be very strong. As Saleen¡¯s contract creature, Nailisi did not want to be affected by his death, and following after his offspring was not a bad idea.


    A contract handover through a bloodline was rtively safe, and if Saleen handed her over to someone unrted when he died, Nailisi would be in trouble. Her soul could be damaged, and she could be forced to another dimension. If Saleen were to die by ident, she had no idea what would happen to her.


    Demons were all quite crafty, and always left a safe road for retreat.


    Lex returned to her room and was not in the mood to meditate. She could only stare angrily out of the window. What type of attitude was that from Saleen? Even though we have not said anything to each other, we have gone through life and death together. He must feel something, shouldn¡¯t he?


    Saleen was like a stiff stone. Aside from magic, he had no reaction to other things. He did not like pursuing the arts and did not care for a finer life. None of this mattered, but what infuriated her was that even in a moment like that, he had not had a reaction. Could I have be ugly in the past two years?


    Despite being a grand mage, Lex¡¯s head was filled with thoughts that only a little girl would have.


    Marrying Saleen in exchange for the support of Sregl Ind? Definitely not! Lex banged her fists on the bed, angry at herself. After a while, thinking back to her dead father, Lex became sad again. Her father was not around and even though she was a viscountess, she was like duckweed, not having any roots.


    If she lost the support of Holy Rock City, Bitter Water Prefecture would only be a small county with an army of twenty thousand troops, almost the same as a hereditary duke. Her uncle did not support her and her brother was not sensible. It seemed there was not much hope of her avenging her father.


    So what if she was a grade-6 mage? She could not overthrow the Holy See alone.


    After a moment of mncholy, Lex calmed herself down and said to herself, ¡°Lex, Lex! Your father gave you this name in the hopes that you would be as strong as a man. Didn¡¯t Saleene from nothing as well? If he could do it, why can¡¯t you?¡±


    No matter how strong the Holy See was, it was the same as Alchemy City with major internal strife. If not, it would not have made use of her father¡¯s passing to attack Lon Duchy. The nobles¡¯ troops had only cared about their personal interests and would not fight to the end with the knights from the Holy See.


    Jason wanted her family¡¯s magic lineage. He could find his own way to obtain it, since anyways, the lineage belonged to Alchemy City. In addition to magic, the Grukos family had their own secret arts which could be learned by both mages and swordsmen. If they had relied solely on one magic lineage, they could not have built such a powerful empire in the first ce.


    Jason wanted this lineage so he could find a way to be a grade-10 mage. If he found it, he would surely pass it down to Saleen. Could Saleen have been hiding this from her?


    Understanding this, Lex was no longer angry. She suddenly understood that Jason had been telling her that if an agreement was reached from both sides, no one could guarantee what would happen in the end.


    The mages on Sregl Ind were well united because they heldmon interests. However, she did not have the same interests as them, and to build up mutual trust and affection would take too much time. If she epted this agreement, the mages on this ind would see a glimmer of hope.


    Saleen¡¯s teacher was extremely intelligent, indeed.


    Lex finally understood Jason¡¯s intentions and was relieved. She had wanted to find Jason immediately when suddenly, a piercing magic rm sounded from outside of the magic tower.

 Chapter 257: War on Sregl Island (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 257: War on Sregl Ind (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The magic rm was a simple level-0 spell but had many uses. A long-range rm like the one outside of the magic tower could give offplicated sounds to conveyplex messages. Lex did not know the secret magguage of Sregl Ind and had no idea what was happening. She only knew that it seemed like the imprable Sregl Ind was under attack.


    ¡°All those in the tower, ignore the rm,¡± Jason voice sounded. Lex suppressed her curiosity. She knew that with her strength, she would not be of much help at the moment.


    Outside of Sregl Ind, there was arge patch of reef to the northwest. The patch of reef was incredibly vast and was over ten square kilometers. At the center of the reef was arge tower. It was taller than a normal nine story magic tower and had a magicmp shining all year round, serving as a lighthouse for Sregl Ind.


    To the north of the reef, over ten bronzebat vessels approached slowly. There were dozens of small boats on thebat vessel that were rowing towards the lighthouse. Thebat vessels needed deep water and did not dare enter the patch of reef. There were magic eyes around the lighthouse that could monitor anything within a hundred miles. If they did not destroy the lighthouse, thebat vessels would be exposed by the monitors of the enemy.


    Saleen¡¯s pirate ship was docked to the north, over ten miles away from the patch of reef. The pirates on the ship had heard the magic rm on the ind before using their alchemy binocrs to spot the approachingbat vessels.


    Thebat vessels on the sea usually released their magic stone artillery first before using crossbows to suppress the enemy soldiers in the water and approaching the enemy¡¯s vessel for a closebat battle on the decks. The artillery fired were giant rock bullets that were over a meter in diameter. They had been processed with Fossilization spells and were as tough as metal, forming holes wherever theynded on the ship.


    However, these rocks wererge in size and a normal vessel could not carry too many. Even if a grand mage onboard had spatial equipment with them, they would not be able to store something like this. The pirates on the pirate ship had a great deal of experience and the moment the magic rm sounded, they had immediately chosen what to do. Not even raising their sails, hundreds of pirates started the ship and steered it south towards Sregl Ind.


    The pirates knew that if they were to escape now, the vessels that had appeared from out of nowhere would release their magic stone artillery. These pirate ships that were made from wood could withstand less than five shots before sinking. Over a dozen leaders that were under Saleen gave loud cries and left the northern waters of Sregl Ind.


    The southern waters of Sregl Ind were shallower and the pirates quickly escaped to there. The leaders discussed things amongst themselves and released the iron chain tow at the back of the ship. They had no idea what the iron chain was towing, but it made controlling the ship incredibly difficult, making them an easy target for the magic stone artillery.


    As the iron chain was released, a small magic array was activated on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and it sank towards the depths of the sea. The sea in this area was barely a hundred meters deep, and Saleen had taken a careful look before he had left, specially instructing the pirates to release the iron chain if they met with any trouble and steering as far away as possible.


    Looking from above, a person would realize that Sregl Ind was a triangle which had a giant door on each side. Surrounding the coasts were tall stone walls. The pirate ships stopped on the south bank momentarily before steering to the west.


    After getting rid of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, the flexibility of the pirates had emerged. They did not dare draw close to Sregl Ind, but instead entered another patch of reef.


    In any case, those vessels that wereunching an attack could not enter the patch of reef and would not waste their magic stone artillery on a wooden ship. The more than dozen bronzebat vessels stopped at a distance and started shooting magic stone artillery at Sregl Ind. No one bothered with the wooden ship.


    The ship that had entered the patch of reef was approaching the lighthouse when suddenly, a five meter long flying puppet emerged with a man lying t on it. This man clung tightly to the puppet, and not looking back, he flew towards Sregl Ind. The puppet was flying at around a hundred meters above the sea, swooping downwards. The bronzebat vessels started firing arrows at it. However, only a giant golden arrow posed any threat to it as a normal arrow could only shoot within a range of a few hundred meters. The arrowsnded in the water while the mage on the flying puppet that had two sets of wings flew headfirst into the main door of Sregl Ind.


    To the north of Sregl Ind was a sharp point, and at the top of the over three hundred meter tall stone wall was a seven story magic tower. The magic stone artillery from thebat vessels flew past as a dim golden light shone in the magic tower. The magic stone artillery struck the light as it changed course abruptly, shooting down.


    Two of the magic stone artillery struck the stone wall and left a nearly invisible mark on it.


    At the top of the seven story magic tower, a mage in ck robes was watching thebat vessels through a magic image as he said to a few students around him, ¡°Alright, stop the rm. This is only a test.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, there are thirty-eight ships. This is only a test?¡± A mage in white robes looked at the vessels on the magic image, a little worried.


    ¡°These ships are barely hundred meters long. Look here.¡± The ck robed mage pointed at a ship that was in the front and said, ¡°This ship has a war g. It is themand ship and is only over eighty meters long. The rest of the ships are barely sixty meters long. This is the deep sea, and they are not the main forces here. If we attack them, they will run away using their advantage in speed, luring us into giving chase. We can ignore them. These small boats have limited ammunition. If they approach, we will destroy them with magic.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, do we not retaliate?¡±


    A mage in grey robes asked, puzzled. There were even stronger magic stone artillery behind the giant stone walls of Sregl Ind that had a range of over ten miles. Thebat vessels that were cruising a few miles away were all within range.


    ¡°It is not worth it. The enemy wants us to use up our magic stone artillery. They are nning to locate them in preparation for future attacks. You are not young anymore. Surely, you must know this.¡±


    The grey robed mage retreated back, ashamed of himself.


    The ck robed mage said to his students, ¡°Look here, I have visited Lancelot. These ships must be from Cloudflow, and the real attack still awaits us. Just be careful and do not let these shipse close. Once they are within two miles, attack them with magic.


    ¡°Yes, Teacher.¡±


    Seeing their teacher rx, the other mages within the magic tower quieted down. There were barely more than thirtybat vessels and there were only a little over two hundred soldiers on each of them, being less than ten thousand men in total. These vessels would not be able to take down Sregl Ind.


    The ck robed mage was right. The vessels watched as the mages in the lighthouse escaped back to Sregl Ind. Sregl Ind did not even bother retaliating, not even closing the three main doors and being toozy to send a vessel to battle with them. The thirty-eight vessels retreated, no longer approaching. They had done enough to exhibit their intentions of attacking Sregl Ind, not moving forward half an inch once they were within five miles from the ind.


    The magic stone artillery was not too urate either, and five miles was its limit. To urately strike their targets, they needed to be within two miles at maximum. However, two miles would be within range of the magic tower, and by then, the mages would be able to attack them using magic.


    The magic stone artillery relied on its massive weight and high heat, and it could only strike a single target. Magic was different and if thebat vessels were to approach, there were dozens of magic towers all over the three sides of Sregl Ind, and even a single six story magic tower could easily sink a vessel. Only if there was an actual sorcerer on the vessels could they actually approach the ind.


    Since their ns to bait the enemy had failed, these vessels did not n on using up their ammunition for no reason. Under themand of the gship, they retreated, as the pirates hiding within the reef sighed in relief.


    ¡°Captain, why don¡¯t we escape from here? This ce seems unsafe,¡± a pirate tried to sway the temporary captain. With Jupiter away, the captain was in charge of all the pirates on the ship.


    ¡°Do you want to die? Our new captain is a mage. If we leave, he will know immediately. Moreover, there is only a week¡¯s worth of fresh water and food onboard. Within six days, where could we run?¡±


    The pirates that wanted to escape no longer said a word. Saleen had only left behind enough food and water for six days, and if they fished, it would not be enough to keep the more than one hundred of them alive. All the pirates knew that their new captain was a mage who could fly. The speed of flight of a mage was much faster than a pirate ship and was at least one hundred miles an hour. The speed of this boat was but fifty miles an hour, and if they tried escaping, they would definitely be caught.


    At the center of Sregl Ind, within an eight story magic tower, more than ten ck robed mages had gathered inside, discussing how to deal with the sudden attack from the vessels.


    The two grade-8 sorcerers sat at the center while the other grade-7 sorcerers sat around them. With an elegant look, a ck robed mage with golden long hair said, ¡°Does anyone know where these vessels are from?¡±


    ¡°Lancelot, those ships are from Cloudflow, but they aren¡¯t the royal fleet.¡± The one that had spoken was Gaia. Before he had be a sorcerer, he had gone to Cloudflow to train and understand the secrets of life. In regards to anything rted to Cloudflow, he was fairly familiar with it.


    Another ck robed mage nodded in agreement. The grade-8 mage known as Lancelot was obviously the leader of the entirety of Sregl Ind. He and the other grade-8 mage began to speak in hushed voices, and after a while, they said to the others, ¡°We still have seven months to capture the elf of fire elements. In the meantime, we do not have any attention left for dealing with these harassing ships. Since the people from Cloudflow have dared to take action, I suggest sending information to the other two inds to send their vessels to surround these invaders.¡±


    ¡°Lancelot, Devil¡¯s Horn and Sky Ind want the elf of fire elements too. They will not help. Only after seven months when Sregl Ind ispletely open will they do anything,¡± Jason retorted.


    ¡°Jason, do you want to seal the ind?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Since they will not help and only want the elf of fire elements, we don¡¯t have to care about face. Once we seal the ind and cut off any contact from the outside world, even they will not be able to enter. In three years, we will have a better chance.¡± Jason¡¯s voice wasposed and not at all worried about the consequences of sealing off the ind.


    ¡°What do the others think?¡± Lancelot had just obtained authority over Sregl Ind and could not give orders yet, instead asking the opinions of the others. Once they sealed the ind, Sregl Ind would have no contact with the outside world, and even if arge number of sorcerers came to attack it, they would not be able to open the defensive magic array of Sregl Ind. Once this magic array was activated, it would take at least three years to stop.


    In seven more months, Sregl Ind would face the other three main forces from Alchemy City, and even though sealing the ind would give them more time and a chance to capture the elf of fire elements, it could aggravate the other three forces.

 Chapter 258: Jason’s Gift (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 258: Jason¡¯s Gift (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Jason is right. Since Devil¡¯s Horn and Sky Ind will not help us, why should we care about their feelings? We may as well send out a distress signal for now. If there is no reaction in a day, we will seal the ind,¡± a few ck robed mages affirmed Jason¡¯s words.


    The mages on Sregl Ind had survived independently for generations and the pact made thousand years ago had nothing to do with the people today. None of the mages were willing to give up their volcanic magic array and the elf of fire elements. This was the perfect opportunity. If the mages on the other two inds were not willing to help, then the sealing of the ind would have a clear reason behind it.


    However, all of them knew that thebat vessels could never take down Sregl Ind. These mages could not care less about those vessels cruising in the sea anyways. Since Sregl Ind had first been established, it had always been self-sufficient. Even if they could not leave the ind, the magic ntations were enough to feed thousands of inhabitants.


    Every mage had the same thought. In three years¡¯ time, there could be three more sorcerers on the ind. There were thirty-three sorcerers on this ind now, and one hundred and eighty-eight grand mages. Among the grand mages, there were over twenty grade-6 mages, some of them having possessed that grade for many years. Some of them could have a breakthrough in the next three years, and they could count on their own capabilities to capture the elf of fire elements, not needing to count on the other two inds and Alchemy City.


    ¡°If Devil¡¯s Horn and Sky Ind really send someone to our aid, then what should we do?¡± Lancelot posed a sharp question. If the two inds really did send mages over, they would not have any excuse to seal the ind.


    The sorcerers looked at one another. They were not willing to split the elf of fire elements into four parts, but if an internal struggle really did ur, Sregl Ind would be the weakest of the four forces.


    Sealing the ind straightaway? That would make their intentions too obvious.


    The mood turned somber and Lancelot became a little sad as well. When thest grade-9 sorcerer on the ind had passed away, Sregl Ind had lost any hopes of being equal in power to the other three forces. If they had a grade-9 sorcerer on the ind, they would not have been in this embarrassing situation today.


    ¡°Everyone, go back and rest. I will prepare thirty-six pieces of magic equipment within a month. We will prepare to capture the elf of fire elements, and as for sealing the ind, let me give it some thought.¡± Lancelot waved his hand, asking the others to leave.


    ¡°What? Teacher, you asked that Sregl Ind be sealed?¡± Hearing Jason¡¯s idea, Saleen was a little flustered. Wouldn¡¯t his n be ruined then?


    ¡°I am still not confident about Lex¡¯s affairs. I haven¡¯t told Lancelot about them yet. Saleen, you can give up that ship. Have the pirates stay on the ind in the meantime. The town on the ind can feed them.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, Lex needs to return to Bitter Water Prefecture. After three years, the Holy See will have fought their way into the Qin Empire.¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t be that easy. There are quite a few grade-9 sorcerers in the Qin Empire, aren¡¯t there? There are three in Holy Rock City alone. The Holy See only dares to throw their weight around in God Grace Duchy. If you let them onto Qin soil, they might not have the guts to enter anyways.¡±


    Jason had a frank expression on his face, making Saleen even more anxious. In three years, thebat puppets in Holy Rock City would have finished building. By that time, the need for Bitter Water Prefecture would be drastically reduced. Even if they did not lose any territory, Lex would have no opportunities to develop it further even if she went back. Moreover, if she did not return for three years, the people in Bitter Water Prefecture would have no idea what had happened to Lex.


    If Lex brought a group of sorcerers with her now, she would be able to fight back against Lon Duchy and expand her power. After three years, Holy Rock City would be prepared and Bitter Water Prefecture would be in an even more awkward position, not gaining anything from this war which involved all of the countries on the maind.


    It was already September and the knights from the Holy See might have already crossed the middle line in Lon Duchy. And in three years? Who knew what would happen in three years?


    ¡°Teacher, you need to speak with Lex again,¡± Saleen said anxiously.


    Jason smiled. He patted Saleen on the shoulder and said, ¡°She should be worried about this, not you. You¡¯re too anxious. Aren¡¯t you worried that you might lose out?¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I have half of the share of the interdimensional space. How would I lose out?¡±


    ¡°It would be best if it were all yours,¡± Jason said softly as Saleen felt a chill go down his spine.


    ¡°Teacher, you aren¡¯t suggesting that I make an agreement with Lex?¡±


    ¡°Not to that extent. There are remnants of Raphael within the interdimensional space. He was a grade-10 sorcerer, but Sregl Ind is also the remnant of grade-10 sorcerers. The volcanic magic array¡¯s value isn¡¯t any less than that of Raphael¡¯s magic tower. The six element space is important, but it isn¡¯t something worth worrying about. You need to avoid drawing attention. Think. If this information is leaked, not only will the people from the Holy See want the interdimensional space¡¯s coordinates, but even the other forces from Alchemy City will be tempted.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t things be the same after three years?¡± Saleen did not understand what the difference was.


    ¡°Saleen, the elf of fire elements is more useful than you can imagine. This magic array has been revolving by itself for the past thousands of years. The elf of fire elements within is enough to create four half-god weapons. With them, we will have the power to counter any forces from the Myers Maind.¡±


    Saleen thought back to what was written within the demonic spellbook. In the past, an elf of fire elements born from an abyss could not be defeated even by humans or supreme demons. This elf of fire elements was indeed the strongest life form in the universe.


    ¡°If we can gather thirty-six sorcerers in three years, we can bring the four half-god weapons to the interdimensional space. Tell me, by then, who will be able to snatch the away interdimensional space from us? I do not care about Lex¡¯s share, but if the Grukos family were to find out about this, they would definitely intervene. We do not have any grade-9 sorcerers now. What will we use to fight them?¡±


    Saleen did not rebut. He had thought of Joey in Holy Rock City.


    The world Raphael had created did not have much meaning to a normal mage, but for someone like Joey, it had enormous research value.


    If Joey knew about that ce, wouldn¡¯t he be tempted? If he is, the thirty-three sorcerers that teacher has here might not be a match for him. The sorcerers in Holy Rock City are not sparse either, and if all of them join the fight, it will be another humiliating situation for Sregl Ind.


    ¡°Saleen, if you cannot wait, leave with Lex. Come and find me again in three years.¡± Jason saw that Saleen could not make up his mind and did not force him to do anything either.


    ¡°Teacher, do you think Nailisi can enter the volcano to capture the elf of fire elements?¡±


    ¡°She is too weak. Moreover, don¡¯t have your contract creature do something so dangerous. It would have been good if she was a supreme demon. Sigh¡­¡± Jason sighed. If only his teacher had not died by ident. Then, Sregl Ind would not have been in so much trouble. A grade-9 sorcerer would have been able to take the ce of six normal sorcerers in controlling the direction of the magic array.


    ¡°Saleen, I have seen both Sika and Daniel. They can help you greatly. If you want to put your heart into training your magic, these people will be enough. If you want to help Lex build another empire that will surpass the Qin Empire, they are definitely insufficient. This is something that will take decades or even centuries. You are a little too anxious now. No matter how anxious you are, the world will not change because of you. If the Holy See wants to do something, you cannot stop them. If Holy Rock City wants to do something, you have no power to protect yourself from them. What you need to do right now is increase your power. Be a sorcerer and go to the six element space of the interdimensional space to train.¡±


    Jason wanted to wake Saleen up with his words. Saleen was indeed too anxious now. Everything he wanted to do would require a long time. However, he could not wait and wanted toplete everything as quickly as possible.


    ¡°I¡­ know,¡± Saleen answered bitterly. He had not had much time to train after all, and he could not control the power of fate. Even Raphael had not been able to control his own fatepletely.


    ¡°Lex¡¯s idea is pretty good. If you intend to leave, have her leave behind enough items to trade for threebat vessels, and ditch the pirate ship. Threebat vessels will be enough for you to establish a port up north. Even Cloudflow does not have so much power that they will fight for that barrennd in the north. Saleen, I can support you in whatever you want to do, but it doesn¡¯t mean that I will support Lex. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°I know, but¡­¡±


    ¡°I can lend you some grand mages. With them, you will have the same authority as Lex. It isn¡¯t that the interdimensional space isn¡¯t important, but it isn¡¯t as important as the elf of fire elements. Once all these matters have been settled on Sregl Ind, I will bring some men to find you.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen intended to leave, Jason decided to let him go in peace.


    ¡°But what of the matter between you and Lex?¡±


    ¡°What matter? Oh, you mean asking her to marry you? Haha, if she is willing, of course it would be good. If a mage wants to get married and have a wife, it would be best if she is a mage. If she is willing to marry you, then I will support her unconditionally regarding the interdimensional space. Anyways, it would be yours at the end of the day.¡±


    ¡°I understand. Teacher, I can¡¯t bear to leave.¡± Saleen hung his head, a sadness rising within his heart. He had just been reunited with his teacher, but had to leave again.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯ll need to be independent someday. Moreover, I am confident that I will be able to reach grade-8 soon. Living for another few centuries will not be a problem. You need to work hard too. If a mage cannot reach grade-9, it will be very hard for them to understand the truths of the world. Only a grade-10 mage can live as they please. Simrly, any unrest on the maind has nothing to do with us.¡±


    Saleen nodded, not trying to convince Jason. Jason¡¯s mindset was the same as most mages. As long as one could live well, why should they care about others?


    Saleen had made up his mind. The interdimensional space could wait another three years. No matter what happened on Sregl Ind, these mages would be interested in it. He would go and build a port in the north. With the backing of his teacher, Lex, and the Grand Duke of Phoenix at his weakest, it would not be too difficult.


    ¡°Teacher, I think the sealing of the ind can be dragged out for a while. Each additional day is another chance to capture the elf of fire elements.¡± After making up his mind, Saleen squinted and started giving Jason ideas.


    ¡°Hehe, Saleen, you look a lot like me doing that.¡± Jasonughed as he said, ¡°If you need my help for anything, just let me know. It was my idea to seal the ind. Lancelot is too soft and he is destined to not be able to control everything. When you see me again, I might be the master of Sregl Ind. As for now, I have some power in decisions. My closest apprentice is the second grade-8 sorcerer on the ind. Saleen, our branch of mages still have some say.¡±

 Chapter 259: Jason’s Gift (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 259: Jason¡¯s Gift (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jason saw past Saleen as heughed awkwardly and said, ¡°I have many high-level empty scrolls with me right now. There are many sorcerers on the ind, I think¡­¡±


    ¡°Leave the scrolls behind. I will have them sent to you once I have written on them. This won¡¯t be too much of a problem. Saleen, for a sorcerer, writing a scroll is also a learning process. The most troublesome thing iscking materials. There are many magic beasts in the sea but it is very hard to find any that are suitable for making high-level scrolls. So long as you have any same level of empty scrolls, I will exchange all of them with you.¡±


    Jason¡¯s generosity surpassed Saleen¡¯s expectations, but he understood immediately that on this ind, scrolls were not meant forbat but rather to practice magic. For thousands of years, countless sorcerers had left behind filled scrolls. These mages did notck money, but rather, materials.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, Saleen. I will get Lex toe up and the two of you can decide what you will need,¡± Jason said as he activated the magic sound array, calling Lex up to the seventh floor of the magic tower.


    Lex had regained her usual demeanor, and when she saw Jason, she bowed respectfully, almost as though Jason had never said anything embarrassing to her.


    ¡°Lex, Sregl Ind is about to be sealed. Saleen intends to leave early.¡±


    ¡°What? Then¡­¡±


    ¡°The interdimensional space can be discussed in the future. The ind will be sealed for at least three years. Didn¡¯t you say that you wanted Saleen to build a ce in the north that could bepared to Alchemy City in preparation for a teleportation portal? I will give you three years. If this ce can be built within three years, then we can talk about the interdimensional space.¡±


    Lex eyed Saleen, who nodded at her. She said, ¡°Master Jason, then I shall wait for word from you.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s talk about what materials you will need to build this city.¡± Jason led Saleen and Lex to the side of his alchemy tform. He took out arge blueprint andid it down. The magic array on the alchemy tform was activated as a hologram shone. It was the model of a city.


    Many cities were designed by mages. This was especially true for cities in the Qin Empire. Cities designed by mages had strong defensive abilities with reasonable arrangements and good plumbing systems.


    ¡°This is a city that I have designed. Take a look. How is it?¡± Jason seemed a little smug. Designing a city was not considered proper for mages, and from Jason¡¯s expression, it seemed that he had a liking for it.


    The blueprint of the city was only a foundation, but Saleen fell in love with it the moment he saw it. The city in the magic illusion was half onnd and half on water, forming a perfect bnce. On the side within the water, there was a thick stone pir every five hundred meters. There were a total of twelve pirs, and a metal bridge was perched on them with intricate magic patterns all over it. It almost seemed like a temple in the water.


    The magic markings indicated that the stone pirs were twelve meters in diameter, rising high above the clouds and deep into the water. There was a tform at the back of the pir, separated into two stories. The top floor was the port while the lower floor was empty and was hundreds of meters below the surface of the water. In the empty space, there were magic arrays to release magic underwater, attacking any enemies that woulde from below the surface.


    This design prevented a fortress from being built on the pier, causing an awkward space. Saleen thought back to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical ship that Lex had built. It would be a perfect hiding spot for it. On the two sides of the pier were tall magic towers, and the designs of them were old, almost simr to Raphael¡¯s.


    What was most attractive to people was the fact that the magic towers only controlled the waters behind the twelve stone pirs. Aside from the stone pirs, one could only see an intricate corridor, and there was not a single reminder of war.


    Behind the pier was a building shaped like a pce. Saleen saw the remnants of the pce in Holy Rock City. The front yard was enormous and could allow any mechanical puppet from entering. The warehouse design was half below ground and half above. On the two sides of the pier were metal slides that could amodaterge vehicles, allowing goods to be unloaded from a ship.


    There were severalrge statues among the pce-like buildings and they were puppets as well. If there were enough mages, the goods could still be quickly unloaded even if there were not any workers.


    ¡°Great, this is a brilliant design!¡± Lex took a look and was greatly impressed. The city could build the pier first and use it to transport materials. It would be much faster thannd, and if they chose the right location, the stone materials that were discarded while building the pier could be used to fill up thend, pushing it down story by story and not wasting any time and space.


    In the center of the section of the city that was onnd, there were many magic towers. These magic towers formed an evenrger magic array and were well-coordinated. The entire city formed a magic web under the control of these magic towers. The magic web provided energy for the entire city, and any mage in the city could release magic with power that was more than ten times greater than usual, just as though they were in a magic tower.


    The city walls onnd were even more bizarre. They were formed from giant rocks that were of different colors, and these different-colored rocks were obviously arranged in a Dante sequence. The empty spaces within the arrangement formed six stone doors. What was even more bizarre was that on top of the wall, the giant spaces that were formed from the piles of rocks seemed to form countless stone houses on the wall.


    The entire part of the city that was onnd was arranged with different types of magic arrangement and sequences. Apart from the magic towers, the bridge, and the main roads which war chariots could use, the other parts had very few buildings, and there were no residential areas.


    This was an unbelievablyplicated structure. The entire city was like a giant magic form, and Saleen became dizzy just by looking at it. His teacher¡¯s design had surpassed that of a normal city. This was indeed a magic city made specially for mages.


    Under the city was not just the sewer system, but there were three stories of passageways. The lowest one led to many warehouses and they all linked to the pier. These warehouses were coordinated with the magic towers and they served as storage space for each of them. A design like this essentially did not use up any energy but was merely used to ensure that the things in the warehouses would not rot.


    ¡°This, how much money would it take to build this?!¡± Saleen could not help but exim, looking at the underground.


    ¡°The main materials needed to build the city cannot be bought with money, but Sregl Ind has quite an abundance of them.¡± Jasonughed.


    ¡°What can we exchange for them?¡± Lex understood Jason¡¯s words. The ideas on this paper hade from a genius mage, and the ns themselves were essentially priceless. If Jason provided the materials as well, she would not dare ept them.


    ¡°What do you have? I¡¯m fine with anything.¡±


    Upon hearing that, Lex heaved a sigh of relief. Jason did not want to make things hard for her and so long as she produced something of equal value, she would be able to exchange them for the materials needed for the city. As for whether those materials were something that Jason needed urgently, it would not matter.


    Lex took off the ring on her finger and handed it to Jason, saying, ¡°This is something my father left me. I think it is enough to exchange for your gifts.¡±


    Jason took the ring and inspected it, saying a little unexpectedly, ¡°This odd thing used to belong to the Grukos family. I don¡¯t understand. Why didn¡¯t your father build this city? If he had, unless the God of Light hadnded on the maind, the Grukos family would not have needed to bother with the Holy See.¡±


    Saleen had no idea what Lex had taken out and looked a little curiously at the ring in Jason¡¯s hand. Jason stared at Saleen as he said to Lex, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you try to exchange this with me earlier?¡±


    Lex gave a bitterugh and said, ¡°It was impossible for us to gather all of the materials to build a city on the maind. I did not think you would be interested in this, but it is the best thing I can give you. It is just to express my gratitude.¡±


    ¡°It has enormous research value!¡± Jason took the ring, a little hesitant. He had only produced the blueprint for Saleen¡¯s sake. Lex¡¯s gratitude was a little too precious.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t much. I think if you had researched all of the contents within the blueprint, you would not have refused to impart them to me,¡± Lex replied, smiling.


    ¡°Teacher, what is this?¡±


    ¡°Ask Lex yourself. I am only aware of the general idea behind this thing. It seems I¡¯ll need to give you two something good,¡± Jason said as he waved Saleen and Lex onto the teleportation portal.


    ¡°Follow me to meet Lancelot. I do not have the authority here.¡±


    Lex was secretly happy. Her item was not something that could not bepleted, but the blueprint that Jason was giving her was something tangible. If the city from the blueprint was built, it would not only beparable to Alchemy City, but at the very least, it would not be far off from it. Saleen¡¯s teacher possessed everything in his brain and had even been able toe up with a city like this.


    ¡°Lex, what did you give my teacher?¡±


    ¡°The Heart of the Sky.¡±


    ¡°What is that?¡± Saleen did not react.


    ¡°It is the nucleus blueprint that the First Dynasty used to build a sky city.¡±


    ¡°Cough¡­¡± Saleen started coughing violently. The humans from the First Dynasty had still able to travel through dimensions and had not needed any teleportation portals, being able to count entirely on the power from their bodies. Cities back then had floated in the sky. The strong could not bother fighting with the weak down onnd. They were high above the clouds and could not have cared less about the rulers of the dynasty.


    There were some remaining sky cities during the Second Dynasty, but they werepletely destroyed during the Third Dynasty. The remains of these cities had been defaced and destroyed. There were no longer any sizeable remains left on the maind, much less a nucleus blueprint of one. This technology had disappeared as humans had be weaker. Lex had actually given this to Jason.


    ¡°Teacher, what do you intend to take out then?¡± A magic light shed past them as the three of them reached the outside of the magic tower. Saleen held onto Jason¡¯s sleeve as he questioned him.


    ¡°The materials needed to build the thirty-six magic towers and the real blueprint of that city wall.¡± Jason looked at his student as he thought, In terms of research value, the two can¡¯t bepared. However, the materials needed to build a sky city are unique to other dimensions, and it cannot be built. His gift was of equal value to the one Lex had given him to express her gratitude.

 Chapter 260: Inherited (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 260: Inherited (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Thirty-six magic towers worth of building materials?!


    Lex was simply overjoyed. Out of all the buildings depicted on the alchemy blueprints which Jason had allowed her to look at, the most difficult ones to construct were the thirty-six magic towers located in the inner city. Theyplemented each other perfectly, forming a magicalwork, indicating how extremely demanding it was to build towers like this. The quality of materials needed to be perfect.


    Even the construction of an ordinary magic tower required a mage to devote all their time and energy into finding suitable materials in order to sessfully build it.


    Most magic towers were built out of pyrophyllite, a recement for conventional brick. Only wealthy mages would use ck steel rocks to construct their magic towers. If they could not get their hands on ck steel rocks, white steel rocks would do. They were considered just as rare as the former. ording to Jason¡¯s city blueprints, these magic towers required the use of obsidian rock.


    Obsidian rock was far more expensive than any other steel rock in existence. This was because obsidian rock could be used to create magic weapons. Lex had hundreds of cubic feet of obsidian over at the warehouses in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Even then, it was not enough to construct an entire magic tower. The thought of building her own tower out of the obsidian stone had crossed Lex¡¯s mind, but she never acted upon those desires as she simply could not amass enough material to build it.


    Lex knew that Jason¡¯s generous gesture was not solely because he wanted to show appreciation to her for giving him the Heart of the Sky. He had done this partly for Saleen as well. Although the city was constructed purely for the sake of the inter-dimension teleportation portal, the one who was in true control of the city was Saleen.


    Jason activated the teleportation portal and teleported Saleen and Lex straight into Lancelot¡¯s magic tower. Lancelot, who was still in the midst of moping, jumped nearly ten feet in the air when Jason suddenly materialized out of nowhere. Clearly, he was scared out of his wits. At the same time, he knew that Jason probably had urgent matters to discuss with him to be entering his magic tower like that.


    ¡°Lancelot, I need ess to the warehouse,¡± Jason said. Lancelot replied instantly, ¡°Just go, don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Sregl Ind was filled with warehouses. Plus, there was not really a need for Jason to seek permission from Lancelot to ess them either since they were open to sorcerers like Jason.


    ¡°Lancelot, let me exin to you our situation¡­¡± Jason said, trailing off towards the end as he took out the ring that Lex had given him and ced it in Lancelot¡¯s hands. Before Lex knew it, Lancelot and Jason were whispering furiously to one another.


    Lex watched the two of them apprehensively, too afraid to use magic to eavesdrop on their conversation. As Lancelot¡¯s grip on the ring tightened, he cast a surprised nce in Lex¡¯s direction. After a long discussion with Jason, Lex saw Lancelot nod his head at something that Saleen¡¯s teacher had said.


    Saleen had taken in the sight before him as well. He thought, Teacher is right. Even if Lancelot is a grade-8 mage, he does not try to show off his prowess or attempt to appear intimidating. In fact, it is teacher who is leading the conversation.


    Lex could not agree more. After gathering information about Jason¡¯s movements in the Myers Maind through the help of some spies she had hired, as well as how he had acted in front of Lancelot, Lex gained a deeper understanding of Jason¡¯s character. Fortunately, she did not have bad blood with Jason. If she did, the grade-7 sorcerer would be one of the hardest opponents to beat. Jason had the guts to pick a fight with a grade-6 mage back when he had only been grade-5. What tilted the odds against him then was the fact that the grade-6 mage also possessed a magic tower. However, he had not done so out of impulse. In fact, it was a calcted move.


    Through that battle, Jason had been able to push past the limits of a grade-5 mage and had advanced to a grade-6 mage. After two years of hard work, he had eventually be a sorcerer. Lex did not know how Jason had been able to do it back then. In fact, even with her current abilities, Lex knew that she would be unable to take on a grade-6 mage in a magic tower.


    Throughout the entire conversation between Jason and Lancelot, the former had not bothered to introduce Saleen and Lex to thetter. In fact, as soon as they had finished their discussion, Jason left Lancelot¡¯s magic tower, dragging Saleen and Lex along with him. Under these circumstances, Saleen deduced that if he were to build a permanent teleportation portal connecting Sregl Ind and the interdimensional space, the mages here would be under themand of his mentor. His teacher had told Saleen that he would be a grade-8 sorcerer after three years. Saleen did not know if that was true, because if it was, his mentor¡¯s advancement rate was terrifyingly fast.


    Technically, Saleen¡¯s own advancement rate could be considered legendary as well. s, the ws in his magic chords as well as the fact that he was still a low-grade mage meant that his advancement rate was not astounding enough. In fact, in the time that it took for him to get to where he was now, his mentor had already been promoted to the rank of a sorcerer. In the sorcerer stages, it was extremely difficult to improve or advance even after decades of hard work. Lex¡¯s mentor was the perfect example of this. Even after a decade of honing his magic, he had remained a grade-8 sorcerer.


    Jason, along with the two mages, bid farewell to Lancelot as thetter opened the teleportation portal for Saleen¡¯s mentor. In the blink of an eye, the three of them were sent directly in front of Sregl Ind¡¯s warehouse.


    The warehouse had been built directly on arge piece of volcanic rock. As Saleen and the others stepped into the building, they saw meditation rooms specially constructed for mages lining both side of the hallway. No sooner had Jason entered the warehouse did the magese out of their trances, trying to figure out what was going on. However, as soon as they realized that it was just Jason, they resumed their meditation without so much as going outside of their rooms to greet him.


    From a superficial nce, people might have thought that the defenders of this Sregl Ind warehouse were useless. Nopetent defender would have stayed in their room after sensing the presence of a possible intruder. However, Saleen knew that they were not necessary anyway. Without the teleportation portal, it would be very difficult to make it this far. Everyone on the ind knew each other well. Hence, there was no possibility of strangers trying to weasel their way into the warehouse by pretending to be some close friend or business partner. Moreover, Sregl Ind was surrounded by vast oceans. To be able to infiltrate the area, one would have to enter the three magic array-fortified gates.


    Jason led Lex and Saleen down the spacious hallway before entering a huge storeroom. Saleen and Lex followed suit. As soon as they entered the room, magical equipment and building materials greeted them. Saleen nced around and discovered that the hundred-meter wide room was filled with shelves that reached over ten meters in height. They were filled with a variety of items. From what Jason had insinuated earlier, storerooms like these were not a rare sight. Sregl Ind was indeed a wealthy country.


    Within a thousand-year period, Sregl Ind had turned from a barely-inhabited ce to a densely popted area that housed over tens of thousands of mages. All mages would journey over to the maind to collect materials to facilitate the creation of weapons. Just this storeroom alone contained a hundred times more magical materials than whatever Saleen had been blessed with by the goddess over at the temple. In fact, he would not be surprised if it was a thousand times more. Although the quality of these materials paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s gems, they definitely trumped his gifts in terms of variety.


    ¡°Saleen, Lex, take out whatever equipment or materials that you don¡¯t need and leave them here in exchange for the equipment that you feel that you might need. One item can only be traded for a maximum of two here,¡± Jason instructed. Saleen started to regret not bringing Nailisi with him. Compared to the two bracelets which Nailisi possessed, the storage space in Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts and demonic ring were pretty pathetic.


    Furthermore, the two pieces of spatial equipment which Saleen had with him now contained important magical artifacts which he would not trade for the world. Lex, on the other hand, was stunned upon hearing Jason¡¯s words, but only for a short while before she regained herposure. This Sregl Ind warehouse housed only the excess materials or equipment that the mages here did not need, meaning that they would never deposit any truly precious artifacts here. As a mage herself, she could and would only trade magical items in order to get her hands on items that might evene close to the rarity of these truly precious artifacts. She would not resort to stealing or other underhanded means. That was just too beneath her. Jason was trying to be nice. It would not be very nice to reject his offer. If she did so, she would not be able to be as calctive in future transactions.


    Jason had done this all for Saleen. Lex was a grade-6 mage who was not only the ruler of a country, but also themander of over twenty thousand swordmasters. Saleen, on the other hand, was merely a grade-4 mage. Jason must have been afraid that Saleen was too weak to do anything about Lex, and thus the chances of him getting the short end of the stick when it came to any dealings with her would be higher.


    Lex was not about to turn down Jason¡¯s offer anyhow. Instead, she immediately retrievedrge quantities of her own magical treasures in exchange for the equipment that was sitting prettily on the shelves. Upon seeing Saleen standing there like a deer in the headlights, Jason chucked before telling Saleen to follow him.


    Saleen obliged, and allowed himself to be led by Jason to the end of the warehouse, where a teleportation portal was located. Both Jason and Saleen stood on the portal and allowed themselves to be teleported into apletely sealed off storeroom.


    Upon looking at the items stored here, Saleen became more convinced to take Jason up on his offer. The items outside this room, whether they were equipment or materials, were things that could be bought in Myers Maind. This room, on the other hand, was only a little over twenty meters in width, and did not contain many tall shelves. The height of the room, from the ground to the ceiling, only spanned about six meters. However, the magical equipment housed inside the crystal cabs could only be wielded by mages who were grade-4 and above. In fact, Saleen estimated that a whopping ten percent of the equipment here could only be used by sorcerers.


    ¡°No one usuallyes here. This room contains items left behind by mages who have passed on. Saleen, I¡¯m going to assume that you don¡¯t have any good spatial equipment?¡± Jason said.


    ¡°Actually, I do, but they¡¯re all with Nailisi. My grade is too low for me to use anyrge spatial equipment,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°You mean the two bracelet Nailisi has? Yup, yup, good stuff. But I think you can only use them once you¡¯ve attained the grade of a sorcerer? Come here,¡± Jason said as he brought Saleen over to a corner where a few crystal boxes stood.


    Saleen looked at the pink-colored crystal boxes with glee. These boxes could seal off the essence of anything and everything contained within them such that even sorcerers would be unable to tell what was hidden inside them.


    Jason opened one of the boxes to reveal rectangr tremolites that were arranged neatly. Back in the Qin Empire, tremolites were also called nephrites. There were a huge variety of nephrites avable, and all of them were very expensive. They were shaped just like tiles, with one side slightly hollowed out. The hollowed side had magical inscriptions engraved upon it. They were arranged in rows of eight, with a total of five rows stacked on top of one another. The forty tremolites glistened beautifully under the magical lights.


    ¡°Saleen, these are basic materials required for the construction of forty magic towers. Each tremolite provides enough material to build one nine story magic tower. You can store these dimension stones into the Ring of Gifts without worrying about their magic shing,¡± Jason exined.


    ¡°Dimension stones?¡± Saleen inquired. It was the first time he had heard of such equipment. ¡°Most spatial equipment is actually a result of elemental powers forcing their way through interdimensional space. Although the interdimensional space is stable, when ites to this equipment, they cannot be stacked together. Otherwise, the interdimensional space will copse and everything stored inside of this equipment will vanish forever. Dimension stones, however, are different. They carve out space inside of themselves directly within these rocks. Unless they have been damaged or destroyed, you never have to worry about space copsing on itself. You must keep these dimension stones, and remember to never give them to anyone else,¡± Jason exined.


    ¡°What about these boxes?¡± Saleen asked as he pointed at another pink crystal box.


    Jason could not help butugh to himself at how greedy his student looked at the moment. These boxes, as well as the contents within them, were worth nothingpared to the dimension stones. Nevertheless, he nodded his head, giving permission for Saleen to im these boxes as his own.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Please don¡¯t touch anything unnecessarily,¡± Jason said warily as he saw Saleen looking all over the ce with his hands outstretched, as if he wanted to pocket everything and anything that he could see. Jason wanted to garner the support of all the mages on Sregl Ind, meaning that he could not let Saleen leave a bad impression of himself. My very own student¡­. aye, maybe I should think of a way to broaden his horizons. Then maybe he would not be so touchy with these objects, Jason thought.


    However, Jason was wrong. It was not that Saleen knew little about this magic equipment. It was that Saleen had be emotionally scarred from living in poverty since he had been little. Saleen had grown up coveting all things that were valuable and would not think twice about making any precious objects that he came across his, whether he needed them or not. It would be very hard to change this aspect of Saleen¡¯s personality, unless he chose not to worry about his financial security or he managed to vanquish the emotional scars he had obtained when he was younger.


    This feeling of insecurity was not something that broadening his horizons would solve.


    Saleen did not understand the mages on Sregl Ind as well as those in Alchemy City. How could they leave so much top-notch equipment rotting in these storerooms? All he could think was that if he could take these items out, he would be able to exchange them for money, other equipment, building materials¡­ in fact, he could exchange them for anything and everything. He recalled Lex¡¯s dream. s, even though there were many mages back on the Myers Maind, their effortsbined would not be enough to amass even one set of the equipment here, let alone a magic tower worth of weaponry.


    These materials could be used to groom tens of thousands of mages over on the maind. The riches over at Alchemy City would be able to increase the poption of the Qin mages by dozens of times.


    Moreover, these mages were partly responsible for the gradual deterioration of magic energy

 Chapter 261: Inherited (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 261: Inherited (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jason had no idea Saleen felt this way. He teleported Saleen out of the storeroom into another one with the help of the teleportation portal. Just like the previous storeroom, this one waspletely sealed off. It was also nearly identical in size to the previous room. The difference was that there were no crystal cabs here. Instead, the entire room was filled with storage lockers built, carved, and sculpted entirely out of nepheline.


    Nepheline was not expensive because its quality paled inparison to other rocks and minerals. However, its elemental stability was by far one of the greatest amongst all minerals. In these lockersy huge amounts of magical scrolls.


    Saleen had never seen so many magical scrolls in his life. These scrolls ranged from level-4 to level-9, and their numbers were uncountable. Each of them were very stable, in part due to the stabilizing forces of nepheline. However, it was mostly due to the fact that the scrolls had been created using high-quality materials.


    ¡°The mages on this ind rarely use these scrolls. Why bother when they have the protection of their magic towers? Only the mages that wish to step outside of their towers would take the scrolls from their storerooms as a form of protection. Saleen, leave your nk scrolls here and take these scrolls instead. Each nk scroll can be traded in for two scrolls of the same level, or one scroll of a higher level,¡± Jason said.


    Saleen wasted no time in retrieving the nk scrolls from the Ring of Gifts. No sooner had he done that did he start choosing the magic scrolls he wanted from the lockers. Saleen had obtained a huge amount of magic scrolls over at Raphael¡¯s magic tower. However, the amount of time needed to fill in these nk scrolls with spells was so long that even Saleen could not put a number on it.


    Even mages who were experts in creating magic scrolls had only a fifty percent chance of sessfully creating one that matched their rank. To use Saleen as an example: if he wanted to create magic scrolls, out of ten level-4 scrolls, he would likely only be able to sessful create five. To Saleen, it would be a much safer option to just stick to creating level-3 scrolls.


    Saleen might have had a huge stack of nk scrolls, but he was unable to get any sorcerer to fill them in on his behalf. Through the creation of magic scrolls, mages were able to gain a deeper understanding on the fundamentals of magic. s, there was a limit to the number of scrolls a mage could create in a day. Even if Lex¡¯s mentor was more than willing to help Saleen out, Saleen would have to wait for many years before he would receive thepleted scrolls. Plus, it was not like Saleen could expect Lex¡¯s mentor to create magic scrolls for him everyday. Thetter probably had other things to do.


    Now that Saleen was offered the chance to exchange a nk scroll for twopleted ones, he was not about to let the opportunity slip from his fingers. The grade-4 mage was, of course, ecstatic at the prospect.


    Jason took in Saleen¡¯s facial expression and bodynguage, but did not stop thetter from getting too carried away. Saleen¡¯s mentor was still apprehensive about his student¡¯s rank and powers. The only advantage Saleen had was his unusually strong mental power. These level-4 scrolls would only serve to increase the physical security of their holder, Saleen, by a small fraction. After waiting for Saleen to finish his ¡°harvest¡±, Jason opened his mouth to speak.


    ¡°Saleen, while I¡¯ve got you here and out of Lex¡¯s earshot, I have something that I need to give you,¡± Jason said solemnly. ¡°Teacher?¡± Saleen asked nervously, noticing that Jason¡¯s familiar gentle expression was now reced by an unusually grim one.


    ¡°You¡¯re my only student so far, Saleen, and even then I¡¯ve failed to guide you properly. I don¡¯t foresee a second disciple in the future because I just don¡¯t have time. The time wille where you will be my sessor,¡± Jason said grimly.


    Saleen felt a twinge of pain in his chest. He felt his heart constrict heavily in pain. Everything seemed unreal to him at the moment. What Jason meant to say was that¡­ he would be inheriting all of his mentor¡¯s powers and secrets.


    Every mage had their own unique items, techniques, and materials, and each of them would only pass them down to one to three of their students. It took time for a mage to sessfully groom a student. To have three students under his or her belt would already be pushing the limits, meaning that if he or she were to take on more students, another fellow mage would have toe help out, and the one-on-one attention given by said mage would diminish to almost none.


    The way Bitter Water Prefecture coached its students also allowed more people to learn about magic. However, the sorcerer would only lecture this group of people once a week as it just was not possible for those students to stick around twenty-four seven. That was why most mages valued these inheritances more than anything in the world, Saleen included. Even though Saleen had been personally coached by Jason, it had onlysted for a little while, and even during these sessions where he would hone his magic under the guidance of his mentor, thetter would mostly force him to memorize mundane words andmit them to memory.


    The good thing was that Saleen was a hardworking mage who seized every second of the day to memorize and digest the basic fundamental knowledge of magic. Jason had only decided to impart higher-order magic skills to him after witnessing Saleen¡¯s positive attitude towards his studies. This was how mages like Jason were able to sessfully pass down their knowledge for generations.


    ¡°Saleen, mages like us focus on studying the art of water magic. However, mages in the past few generations have converted to studying fire magic in hopes of capturing fire elves. That is totally off-tangent from what we¡¯re doing. However, after I stayed on the Myers Maind for a short period of time, about a year or so, I managed to understand the importance of bnce. The six magical elements cannot exist without one another. But now the question is, why would the six grade-10 mages who created Alchemy City only study one magical element?¡±


    Saleen listened intently to his mentor¡¯s words, imprinting everyst one of them into the crevices of his mind.


    Jason continued, ¡°The reason why the six element space is so important is because it can allow even the most dishonest mages to understand the concept of harmony. Plus, mages spend eighty-five percent less time honing magic therepared to anywhere else. I¡¯m not in a rush to locate the interdimensional space, because I understand the concept of bnce. Even if the six element space no longer exists in the future, I will not be led astray anymore. Please don¡¯t think that the knowledge I¡¯ll be imparting to you is what magic is all about. Keep in mind that even my mentor did not advance and be a grade-10 mage. Thus, you must remember that the boundaries of magic are limitless. Do not limit yourself to your predecessor¡¯s achievements.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I understand,¡± Saleen replied seriously. Jason took off the greyish-ck ring from his finger and handed it to Saleen. ¡°This ring contains the experiences, reflections, and epiphanies from mages dated up to thousands of years ago. Just remember to properly read through them in the future. When we meet again, you can ask me anything you don¡¯t know,¡± Jason said, sighing towards the end. It was a shame that he could not follow Saleen through his journey as a mage. Saleen¡¯s hardworking attitude and receptiveness to hardships were qualities rarely seen in the mages on Sregl Ind. s, he could not always be there for Saleen.


    Regardless, Saleen had already paved his own road as a mage. In fact, he was already an archmage. Perhaps he will even surpass me one day, Jason thought to himself. Saleen gently caressed the ring that Jason had handed over to him. The object was unusually heavily, and yet, Saleen could not tell which materials had been used to manufacture this ring. Jason had wiped away his spiritual imprint on the ring, leaving a space for Saleen to engrave his own, which he did. As soon as he did that, Saleen felt the ring be lighter. However, he was unable to unlock the space within the ring.


    ¡°Just wait until you¡¯ve reached grade-5. Only then will you be able to utilize it. By the way Saleen, what do you think of Lex as a person?¡± Jason said, popping the question out of the blue, stunning his student for a moment. Seeing that Saleen was hesitating, as if he was debating what to say to his mentor, Jason added on, ¡°Just tell me how you honestly feel.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s a bit too idealistic. She has big dreams, and is far more talented than I am. If she was not from royal blood and did not think about achieving these irrelevant goals, maybe she¡¯d be an excellent mage one day,¡± Saleen said honestly.


    ¡°Yes, she is idealistic to even think about gleaning magical knowledge from everyone that she meets. That¡¯s just impossible. Even most humans in the First Dynasty were unable to learn magic. However, you can help her. It isn¡¯t a bad thing to help her, but you must solve a problem first,¡± Jason said.


    ¡°What problem?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Lex has one of the highest ranks in the royal empire. However, she is a woman. If she ever gets married one day, her man might just try to control her, from her movements to even her assets. At that point in time, you¡¯ll be in serious danger. If you cannot marry her, don¡¯t let anyone else get to her,¡± Jason said.


    ¡°Oh? Is that really so hard to do that you have to warn me?¡± Saleen asked


    ¡°Not at all, my child. Just scare off any male who looks interested in her. Don¡¯t you know how to use force if they don¡¯t listen? Anything you can¡¯t resolve, just leave it to me. Anything that I can¡¯t resolve will be passed on to the mages on Sregl Ind,¡± Jason said calmly. However, Saleen detected a murderous tone under his calm facade.


    Saleen did not know whether tough or cry. He knew Lex too well. It was nearly impossible for her to fancy anyone. Even the most eligible males from the Cloudflow royal family were rejected. Saleen just could not think of anyone more eligible to ask for her hand in marriage. He also could not think of anyone else that would make Lex fall head over heels for him. Plus, if Lex found out about his ns, she would be hopping mad.


    It was almost as though Jason could read Saleen¡¯s mind, because the next thing he said was, ¡°Saleen, this matter concerns both Sregl Ind and Lex, and whether both parties will work together in the future. If you don¡¯t see to this matter properly, don¡¯t me me if I take back the rights to the interdimensional space. I just can¡¯t trust an outsider in our current situation.¡±


    Saleen protested, ¡°But Teacher, Lex has the rights to fifty percent of the interdimensional space. I shouldn¡¯t be interfering with what she does with it.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, have you ever considered its worth? What if people get close to Lex because they are coveting a piece of the interdimensional space? Believe me, they will not just want half of it. They will want everything. You can trust Lex, but you can¡¯t entrust everything to her. Do you know why I wanted to wait for the capture of the elf of the fire elements before I even brought up this topic? It¡¯s because the interdimensional space is worth too much. I would not even dare mess with it unless I had strong powers,¡± Jason exined.


    Saleen mulled over Jason¡¯s words for a while before asking himself, If Lex were to have any suitors, how would I feel? Instantly, his blood boiled at the thought of Lex being with another man.


    Although he felt puzzled as to why he felt this way, he did not try to find a reason for it. Instead, he simply nodded and told Jason, ¡°Yes Teacher, I¡¯ll do my best.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen had agreed to his proposal, Jason slumped his shoulders in relief. He was merely taking precautions. If Lex ever married another man someday, her rtionship with Saleen would never be as close as the one she had with that man. Once the rtionship between Lex and Saleen reached that point, they would not work together like they did before. There would be more scheming, calctions, and possibly underhanded means.


    The fact that Saleen had agreed so readily meant that he had some interest in Lex. Jason wanted to ensure that Saleen¡¯s interest in her could blossom into something beyond just tonic friendship. Once they became closer than ever, it would be very hard for a third party to interfere with their matters.


    ¡°Hand me your cbash,¡± Jason instructed. Saleenplied, not knowing what his mentor was going to do with it. The once pale-yellow cbash was now peppered with many azure-green magical patterns. Saleen noticed the patterns bing smoother and rounder every second, as though they were naturally flowing on the cbash itself. Jason caressed it gently as he sighed, ¡°What a shame. At least these magical patterns aren¡¯t too bad.¡±


    As he spoke, blue mes suddenly erupted from his hands. They were surprisingly cold to the touch. The cbash seemed to shrink under the presence of the mes. The mes caused the magic patterns on the surface of the cbash to seep deep into it and only ceased burning once the mes followed the magical patterns into the cbash.


    ¡°Try again, Saleen,¡± Jason urged as he returned the cbash to his student. Saleen felt as if the cbash had be even heavier than before, almost as if the magical patterns that he had refined had be one with the cbash. Almost immediately, he noticed the water elements that were present on the surface starting to react.

 Chapter 262: Up North (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 262: Up North (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen gently tapped the cbash and watched as a wall of azure-green water about six meters in length gushed furiously from it. The stream of water pulsated and spun nimbly in the air before snaking around Saleen¡¯s body.


    Saleen felt as if this stream was moving much more fluidly and rapidly than before. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that the cbash would be so powerful after a minor refinement from his mentor. It was then that he realized that his alchemy skills were garbagepared to his teacher¡¯s. He started to understand why his teacher had said what he had earlier on.


    The fortunate thing about the magical patterns were that they had the ability to refine the current shooting out of the cbash by themselves until it was perfected. Saleen was unable toprehend how that was even possible. He did not know how these corrective abilities came about in the first ce. All he had done was replicate the magical patterns imprinted on his family badge. Another interesting thing about the magical patterns was that they were able to store energy from lightning and thunderstorms, although this feature had never made an appearance.


    ¡°How does it feel?¡± Jason enquired.


    ¡°The water elements have be more concentrated, and the current seems to be able tost for a longer period of time, though I don¡¯t think the elemental sequence has changed, nor do I notice the presence of any fire elements. How did you do it, Teacher?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Water me alchemy. It¡¯s a pretty popr technique that you¡¯ll learn once you¡¯ve reached grade-7,¡± Jason replied.


    ¡°Water me alchemy?¡± Saleen asked, confused.


    ¡°You should know that the fire element is considered the most unstable and violent element because of its ability to break any magic arrangement found in fortified objects. In reality, all elements possess this characteristic. The earth element can create gravitation and we all know strong gravitational forces can force matter to shrink beyond its limits, effectively getting rid of any harmful things standing in your way as well as breaking apart the fundamental matter that make up other elements. The wind element, on the other hand, can be said to be the most unpredictable element, just like storms and hurricanes themselves. It can be the most delicate element, or the most destructive. Once you¡¯ve managed to attain grade-10 mastery of the element, virtually no magic shields will be able to withstand your attacks. The wind element destroys everything in its path, that we all know. But do you know what the water element has?¡± Jason exined, throwing Saleen the question out of the blue.


    ¡°Does the water element have the ability to solidify into ice?¡± Saleen threw a wild guess.


    ¡°Nope, water has the ability topletely disintegrate matter. Once the water element has lowered the surrounding temperatures below its physical limits, it will eitherpletely disintegrate all other elements or revert them back into their original form, which is the state that they were in before that particr dimension was created. The water me is a good example of this. In fact, you can use this technique to either disintegrate or refine matter. If you can create record-low temperatures, you can use that to refine even higher-quality material. You can even conjure up enough water mes topletely destroy a dimension,¡± Jason said.


    ¡°Destroy a dimension¡­¡± Saleen repeated Jason¡¯s words, trailing off at the end, almost as if his entire body had gone numb. No wonder mages were not moved by the presence of god. Whatever the gods could do, mages could also theoretically achieve. In reality, creating spatial equipment was equivalent to forging a mini-dimension, just excluding the fact that there would be absolutely nothing in there aside from apletely sealed off space.


    However, the basic fundamentals of the creations of these dimensions all originated from the Dante Sequence. Completely destroying one piece of spatial equipment would be akin topletely destroying a part of interdimensional space.


    In the room filled with magic scrolls, Jason decided there and then to tell Saleen the origins and principles of the Water me spell. Saleen was not too anxious to learn about them anyways. He listened patiently to Jason¡¯s descriptions and exnations. He knew that his mentor was imparting the essence of his take on magic to him to the best of his ability.


    After rambling for about four hours, Jason decided that was enough exnation for the day. He paused momentarily before speaking again, ¡°Lex is probably almost done with the collection and trading of her magical items. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Although Saleen yearned to hear more about the water me, he had already gained a general understanding about the technique and how it was applied. If he wanted to further his interest and continue studying it, he would have to apply it in real life. s, with his current grade, he would never be able to activate it. Even if he did ask for help, he would never find out the important parts that he needed to note.


    As Saleen stood on the teleportation portal, he turned his head around to take in the sight of the numerous scrolls again, feeling slightly dissatisfied. Leaving the scrolls on this ind was just too wasteful. Then again, if the time dide for the Sregl Ind mages to utilize these scrolls, the magic towers on the ind would be demolished so quickly that Saleen was positive he would not even have time to blink.


    That would never happen, of course, unless the Lord of Glory made a trip down to the Myers Maind himself.


    ¡°Saleen, to a mage, only the magic chords can qualify as a loyalpanion and friend,¡± Jason brought his lips down to Saleen¡¯s ear and whispered lightly just as the magic light started powering up. In a sh, Saleen was teleported out of the storeroom and back into therger storeroom located outside.


    Coincidentally, Lex was just pocketing thest of the equipment that she was interested in collecting. No sooner had both men materialized did she bow slightly in Jason¡¯s direction before speaking. ¡°Thank you for your kind gesture, master sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Believe it or not, your dreams were once mine. I¡¯m happy to help you achieve yours. I¡¯ll be even happier if you managed to realize them,¡± Jason said with that all too familiar gentle tone in his voice. He looked at Lex for a minute before blurting out, ¡°I know you¡¯re studying fire magic, so I have something to give you.¡±


    As Jason spoke, he took out a ne made from a tiger¡¯s eye gemstone. The gemstone took on a six-sided structure and had a string of three precious gems in the shape of water droplets contained in the center. Those three gems had a fiery red appearance, and looked purer than anything Saleen had ever seen. They had been carved and polished using the core essence of red gems. They also had the ability to store a certain quantity of fire elements.


    Tiger¡¯s eye fortified equipment enough to speed up the release of magic spells and gave it the ability to store some fire elements as well. Since fire magic was all about speed, tiger¡¯s eye would effectively raise the might of the fire elements by leaps and bounds.


    Seeing that Lex was still hesitating, Jason chuckled before he continued, ¡°The things you obtained today were traded for. This object is a gift from me to you, because you¡¯re Saleen¡¯s friend.¡±


    ¡°In that case, thank you very much, master mage,¡± Lex said as she took the tiger¡¯s eye ne from Jason and wore it around her neck. Tiger¡¯s eye had the ability to speed up the rate at which the spellcaster unleashed their elemental spells, all elements included, not just the fire element. For those magic spells which could be fired quickly even without any fortification, tiger¡¯s eye would also serve to alleviate the strain on the spellcaster¡¯s mental powers from casting said spells. The tiger¡¯s eye ne was not considered a rare artifact. Rather, it was the fact that the materials used to make this particr object were of the highest quality that made it so rare. It was one of the most durable, practical things a person could have on them.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s best that you leave as soon as possible. I¡¯ve spoken to Lancelot, and he has agreed to lend you three of his battleships, along with their crews and mages. Saleen, these mages will be under yourmand until you feel that they are no longer useful to you. It¡¯s a shame that I can only lend you grade-5 mages at the moment. Mages grade-6 and above need to stay on the ind until it ispletely sealed off,¡± Jason said with an apologetic tone in his voice.


    ¡°That¡¯s more than enough, thank you,¡± Lex offered her words of appreciation once again. She knew that in the entire Myers Maind continent, more than one-third of the sorcerers were concentrated in Alchemy City. The grade-5 mages that Jason was about to lend her and Saleen were enough to create a powerful army. Moreover, they now had three battleships under theirmand. If they were to sail towards the north, even Lianyun City would have to be wary of them.


    ¡°I suggest you don¡¯t go back to Alchemy City. Make your way up north instead to build your port first. Three years isn¡¯t a long time, and I¡¯ve only given you enough material for the construction of the magic towers. Lex probably hasn¡¯t amassed enough of the remaining materials needed. This storeroom may only have approximately twenty percent of what you need. The two of you will still have to purchase the rest of the materials. If you are strapped for cash, feel free to approach me and I¡¯ll get the Sregl Ind mages to help out. Maybe we could raise about a few million dors worth of checks,¡± Jason exined.


    That amount of money was equivalent to half a year¡¯s worth of taxes back in the Qin Empire. Under normal circumstances, the cost of building a city was only a few million gold coins. However, Saleen was not too surprised at how wealthy the mages on Sregl Ind were. They had thousands of years to amass their fortune, after all. They would not feel the pinch of giving away some of these checks.


    ¡°Saleen, I cannot stress enough the importance of safety. You need to stay vignt. Right now, the Cloudflow naval fleets are trying to attack the ind housing Alchemy City. Once your ships leave the dock, it¡¯s full speed ahead, okay? Don¡¯t let yourself get surrounded and definitely do not give the Cloudflow Navy a chance to catch you. Never ever slow down to save on magic nuclei,¡± Jason cautioned.


    Jason droned on and on about the things Saleen needed to look out for when out at sea. Although Saleen did not want to leave the ce, Lex was raring to go home.


    As soon as they returned to the magic tower, Jason called upon three grade-5 mages, three grade-4 mages, and eighteen grade-3 mages. They would be under Saleen¡¯smand at all times and would be responsible for steering and manning the warships.


    Saleen had no choice but to leave at this point. Sregl Ind was to be sealed off, and if he did not leave right now, he would have to stay on the ind for at least three years. He was not as anxious as Lex to build the city. Rather, his biggest worry right now was Lex, and the fact that he had appointed her as the vige warrior. Three years of battle would most likely implicate the Caucasian countries, including Sika¡¯s vige. He did not want Sika and her family to be annihted by the Holy See just because she had any affiliations with him.


    As of now, Saleen was definitely not ready to face the Holy See head on. All he could do now was evacuate all the vigers from Sika¡¯s vige and arrange for more Caucasians to travel to the north. The weather up north was simr to that of the Caucasus region, in that both had long winters. To the Caucasians, the living conditions in the north would not be as bad as those in their hometown.


    Everything was going smoothly. Jason was obviously some sort of authoritative figure for the six archmages to willingly obey Saleen¡¯s beck and call without protest. Saleen felt as if he was living in a dream. Before he bid farewell to his mentor, he secretly took out a perfectly shaped ice ind rock and a piece of chlorite and ced them on the seventh story of the magic tower. These two rocks were the most precious gemstones that he had. Ice ind rocks were rare, and although they did not possess any elemental powers, they were suitable materials for the creation of magical equipment. The chlorites were even rarer. They had the ability to ept divine powers regardless of the rank and status of the person who possessed them.


    ording to the Holy See¡¯s codes, chlorites were forbidden objects. Mages did not subscribe to the same train of thought though. In fact, the chlorites over on the maind had been mined to such an extent that there were hardly any left to extract. To be able to own such a precious gemstone was every sorcerer¡¯s dream.


    Jason saw everything, but he did not attempt to reject Saleen¡¯s kind gesture. When he had first epted Saleen as his disciple, he had done so out of kindness andpassion. He had only started to pay more attention to his student after thetter had moved him with his fortitude and perseverance. Jason had taught him everything that he knew. However, he had never thought that Saleen would be so lucky as to have magic medicine work on him. Not only that, but he had been blessed with the opportunity to change the makeup of his body with the help of a mage who was nearing grade-10, allowing him to escape the dangerous side-effects of the medicine.


    Saleen¡¯s achievements had far exceeded Jason¡¯s expectations. Not only that, he had attained them far quicker than his mentor would have ever expected. This,pounded with the fact that Saleen was his only student, motivated Jason to impart his best knowledge to his disciple. Jason understood that Saleen¡¯s kind gesture was just a way to show his appreciation and desire to repay his benefactor. In fact, he empathized with the feeling. After his teacher had passed on, Jason regretted not having spoken to him more so that he could understand him. He also regretted not having done more things together with him.


    Mages were not as lonely as a person would think they were. However, the people they were closest to were usually not their parents, but rather their teachers, mentors, and the other people who guided them closely on their magical journeys.


    Jason gave Saleen, Lex, and the other mages a final sendoff from the harbor. As the sea breeze carressed Saleen¡¯s cheek, he suddenly remembered that he had wanted to ask his mentor something regarding Shengfeng country. He whipped his head around and blurted to Jason, ¡°Teacher, before I reached this ind, I received news that Shengfeng country has been secretly dispatching naval fleets, disguising themselves as merchants from the Myers Maind, and conducting trade deals using these fake identities. Have you heard about this?¡±


    ¡°Shengfeng country? I¡¯m afraid you¡¯d have to ask Gaia. I¡¯ll handle this, so please don¡¯t interfere,¡± Jason replied, pausing as he looked in Lex¡¯s direction before continuing, ¡°Lex, if there really is a secret shipping route over in Shengfeng waters that allows naval fleets to sail without having to brave torrential storms and you can¡¯t do anything to seize it at the moment, I suggest you wait until you have amassed great enough numbers to form a sufficiently strong naval fleet.¡±


    ¡°In that case¡­ Teacher, do you have anything else you¡¯d like me to do?¡± Saleen asked, as he tugged at Jason¡¯s sleeve, pouting childishly. He refused to loosen his grip on the sleeve, for fear that once he did so, he would never see Jason again.

 Chapter 263: Up North (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 263: Up North (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I¡¯ve told you what you need to do. There¡¯s nothing more, I think,¡± Jason said, pausing before cautioning, ¡°Do not provoke the people from the Holy See¡­ at least, not until you¡¯re a sorcerer.¡±


    Saleen nodded in understanding. After advancing to a grade-7 sorcerer, he would be able to fly freely without any restrictions. Grade-6 mages could fly as well, but the speed at which they could fly and the height above ground which they could levitate were limited. Only when Saleen became a grade-7 mage would he be given more options to flee in case his opponent was too powerful ¨C provided that he himself did not fall prey into his enemy¡¯s trap first.


    As of right now, Saleen could fly as well, but height and speed-wise, he paled inparison to Lex, let alone a sorcerer. Jason was simply afraid that Saleen would be too overconfident in his ability to fly and provoke the Holy See on impulse.


    The warships from Sregl Ind were at least a few hundred meters long and could only be powered up using magic provided by mages. For Saleen, Jason had kindly assigned one grade-5 mage, one grade-4 mage, and six grade-3 mages to each warship. These numbers were enough to ensure that they could go full speed ahead, regardless of whether it was night or day. The warships looked grand and expensive as well. Saleen reckoned that if they were to be constructed by the noblemen over in the Qin Empire, the price would definitely exceed one million gold coins.


    To put things in perspective, war horses cost a little over ten gold coins each, meaning that the money used to build these warships alone could have been used to purchase over a hundred thousand war horses. One could say that naval fleets were one of the most expensive armies to maintain. Just like a knight¡¯s war horse needed hay, grass, and whatever other sustenance it needed to survive, a warship fortified by magic needed energy from magic nuclei in order to run smoothly. The cost of maintaining the magic nuclei was definitely not going to be lower than the cost of maintaining a war horse for a sailor and knight respectively.


    Yet, the Sregl Ind warship was not the most expensive type of battleship. The Cloudflow Empire¡¯s primary battleship reached over two hundred meters in length, and cost over ten million gold coins to build. Only a huge empire could afford to build and maintain a naval fleet on such a grand scale. Ordinary noblemen could only watch from the sides in envy.


    To be able to receive three battleships in one go made Saleen feel like a nouveau riche. The concealed ship¡¯s wheel started powering up, allowing the ship to slowly but surely move further and further away from Sregl Ind. As the ship started to move, the pirate ship decided to make an appearance from behind the skerry. Saleen allowed Lex to bring Nailisi to retrieve the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    Lex crossed over to the pirate ship with ease, and it was there she found out that the alchemical boat had been sunk by the pirates. Fortunately, Saleen had a well-rounded n. Since the waters near the ind were not too deep, once Lex returned to the warship, she could bring the six grade-3 mages on a diving trip to power up the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat so that it could catch up with Saleen¡¯s naval fleet.


    Magic warships could reach a speed of up to eighty miles per hour during battle, and about fifty miles per hour when they were just cruising. Hence, it would be a bit difficult for the pirate ship to catch up. Under the water, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat could barely maintain this speed as well. The mages onboard the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat were beyond excited. The people of Sregl Ind had attempted to construct an underwater warship, but many unsolvable issues and faults had cropped up, preventing that from happening. For example, warships could not move fast underwater, and the amount of pressure that warships could withstand underwater was another issue. The most difficult problem to solve was the issue of lifespan. If underwater warships were to be built so that they couldst for decades or even centuries like those above water, there would be so many zeros attached to the price tags of their construction that they would make a person¡¯s head spin.


    It was not that Sregl Ind could not afford the cost of building this type of warship. The mages there would not even feel the pinch. The issue here was the cost of maintenance. The Sregl Ind mages had calcted the overall cost of building and maintaining this type of battleship before. It would take more money to build a thirty-meter long underwater warship than a lead battleship that operated above water. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining the underwater vehicle would be ten times more than of a lead battleship.


    That was why Sregl Ind only had a few underwater ships, each roughly over ten meters long, stationed within its harbor. The people on these ships would be in great danger when faced with magic sea beasts because they would not be able to steer them deep into the depths of the ocean to seek refuge. There was a limit to how far these ships could be steered from shore before they fell apart. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat¡¯s hull, on the other hand, had been built directly from a matured pan turtle shell. It was a material stronger than almost all metals. Yet, for the same quantity of both materials, the shell weighed less than half of most metals. The hull was also fused together with many crystals. Behind these crystals were magic arrays which allowed the people inside the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat to see magic images of the events urring outside of the vessel. The four magically fortified paddles had an alchemy cabin built specially for them, so that the ship could still move forward in the event that two of them were either destroyed or damaged.


    The weight of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat could be controlled using the magic array found in the main control room. However, for it to be buoyant now, it would take up a lot of energy from the magic nuclei. If it were to continue travelling underwater, the amount of energy expended would be much less.


    Saleen stayed behind on the gship to do a headcount of the crew onboard the battleships. He had not had a chance to do so earlier because they had left in such a hurry. After finishing his headcount, he realized that he had oversimplified the entire situation earlier. The pirates did not possess decentbat abilities. These three-hundred-meter- long warships and their essories were all Saleen needed for his mission.


    It was easier to operate a magic battleship than an ordinary sailboat. There were over ny sailors split into groups of three, and they would effectively operate the ship twenty-four hours a day through a regr watch system. The main thing allowing the ship to move forward was its magic nuclei. Without a mage to activate them, the warship would be as immobile as a floating ind.


    Upon skimming over the nominal roll, Saleen realized that there were over two hundred warriors onboard each battleship. The ideal number was five hundred. However, Sregl Ind was not about to hand over that many men to Saleen. Nheless, the numbers were still sufficient for maintaining thebat prowess of each ship.


    In addition, approximately a dozen alchemy apprentices had been added onto each ship. They needed to work hand in hand with the swordsmen in order to operate the magic stone artillery and magic alchemy crossbow, as well as a few simple magic arrays. The four story battleships could amodate over eight hundred people each. However, as of this moment, there were only a little over three hundred people onboard each battleship. It was not hard to visualize how empty the ships looked.


    The weapons found on the battleships were very different from those avable on the maind. On this ship, Saleen found seven-meter-longnces and different types of arms, mostly daggers and swords which were easier to maintain. There was not a single woodenpound bow in sight, only metallic crossbows which were fortified with ratchet drawing mechanisms. These metallic crossbows had been made using materials of the highest quality, preventing them from rusting under the humidity-clodded ocean weather and making them a lot easier to maintain.


    The boats were even equipped with a few simple puppets that were controlled by mage apprentices. Their main role was to help the sailors wash the decks and perform other menial tasks. Each warship even had its own motorboats. The lowest deck of each ship even had its own freezerrge enough to preserve the freshness of tons of kilograms worth of fresh fish if they were to catch any. The sailors did not stay on the bottom decks. Rather, they lived on the first floor of the ship together with all the warriors. The space in the bottom decks was already upied by alchemy mechanical devices. Unless puppets were considered people, a person would rarely see anyone there.


    Saleen requested the blueprints of the warships, and studied them intensely once someone had passed them on to him. He knew that given the pirates¡¯ capabilities, it would be very hard for them to power a magic warship.


    However, unlike the warships in Alchemy City, most ships could not afford to run solely on magic alone. That was far too expensive. Therefore, those pirates could prove useful in the future.


    After studying the structure of the battleships, Saleen started to match the names of the crew members to their faces. Magic images depicting each crew member¡¯s particrs were attached to the nominal roll, making it easier for Saleen to learn all of their names instead of going up to them and requesting information.


    From the looks of it, Sregl Ind mages were very experienced in managing their warriors. They did not show any signs of inexperience or ipetence. Every day, as the ships sailed towards the north, mages requested instructions from Saleen through magical videos sent via the magic arrays. However, Saleen¡¯s onlymands were to never jam the brakes on the warships, and to only travel towards the north.


    Even though the ocean was so vast that Saleen could not even seend for miles, the grade-4 mage was still afraid that he would be unlucky enough to bump into Cloudflow naval fleets. Performance-wise, his three warships were definitely far superior to the bronze warships that hadunched an attack on Sregl Ind. In fact, Saleen was confident that even if they were hopelessly outnumbered, they would still be able to win a fight against the Cloudflow Navy. However, Saleen was afraid of encountering a battleship as ginormous as the one that he had seen before. That battleship had possessed too much magic stone artillery for its own good. Saleen knew that those artillery could fire munitions far beyond the range and power of any weapons and firearms Saleen¡¯s battleships had on hand. Saleen knew that if he was unlucky enough to bump into that battleship, he, along with Lex and the other crew members, would be doomed to a terrible end.


    The functions of a magicpass included locating and confirming coordinates as well as the monitoring of enemy movements so long as they were within the range of forty miles. However, once the Cloudflow naval fleets spotted Saleen¡¯s ships and vice versa, Saleen was certain that the crew members from the enemy ships would deploy flying puppets to dy the retreat of Saleen¡¯s fleet. At that point in time, even if they did manage to scatter and escape, Saleen was certain that the Cloudflow warships would have sunk one of his vessels.


    That was why Saleen did not dare to stop the ships even for a second. He did not bother to stop near the Qin shores for fear of being spotted as well. He simplymanded the ships to go full speed ahead.


    Everyday, if Saleen was not honing his magic, he would be studying the structure of the city that Jason had designed through the blueprints that thetter had given him. After closely studying them for a few days, Saleen had a minor epiphany. All cities, including Holy Rock City, Alchemy City, and even the one which Jason had designed, could technically be considered an enormousplete magic array.


    Although the city which Jason had designed was much smaller than Holy Rock City or Alchemy City, the way he was going to build it was very simr to both cities. The outstanding thing about Jason¡¯s design was the magicalwork created using the thirty-six magic towers. Not only would thiswork raise the might and power of the magic towers, but ach mage would be able to have their very own magic tower. They would be able to control the areas within range of the magic towers from there.


    Jason had also used the magic towers to create some sort of magic which shrouded the entire city. This allowed every single piece of magic equipment to be more fortified and powerful. Not only that, but the energy required to power this equipment would be drastically lowered, thanks to the magic.


    s, there was one w in Jason¡¯s blueprints. To be able to realize the full potential of his design, the city would need thebined powers of at least thirty-six sorcerers at all times.


    Sregl Ind was home to only thirty-three sorcerers. One might be able to find thirty-six sorcerers in Holy Rock City. However, both ces should not be used as a basis forparison. If Jason wanted to build a city asrge as Holy Rock City, and still achieve the same effect, he would need at least a hundred sorcerers.


    However, even if they did find these numbers, it would be impossible to get so many powerful sorcerers to meekly obey themands of one person. Perhaps it would have been possible during the time when the Qin Empire was still being founded. Currently, the probability of that happening, and hence the construction of the dream city, was close to zero. This was because the Myers Maind of today had been severely affected by the internal conflicts with and within the Holy See.


    Saleen finally understood why Jason wanted to build only thirty-six magic towers. This city had clearly been designed with Sregl Ind in mind. The mages on Sregl Ind were the most united bunch that Saleen had ever seen. Perhaps there was hope that they could amass thirty-six sorcerers after all.


    Saleen silently admired his mentor¡¯s wit and cleverness. Even if Lex did go ahead with the construction of the city, she would need the help of Sregl Ind in order for the city to be at its maximumbat effectiveness.


    Lex would not be getting the short end of the stick either. The city shown on the blueprints could be copied and duplicated. After building up one city, Lex could immediately start building the next one. Plus, because she would have gleaned some experience from building the first city, Lex would be able to save on a lot of money and time when building the second one. Compared to building a city simr in size and grandeur to that of Holy Rock City, building two smaller cities would cost a lot less in terms of construction fees.


    Saleen was a lot more confident in undertaking the task to build a city of a smaller magnitude anyway. No one would be able to replicate Holy Rock City. Just thinking about the pitch ck walls of Holy Rock City that towered over him like a mountain as well as the gigantic magic clocks that peppered the city made Saleen realize just how weak his powers were. Saleen knew that his mentor was right about not provoking the people from the Holy See.


    To travel from Sregl Ind to Phoenix, Saleen would have to travel a distance of ten thousand miles towards the north. From Phoenix, Saleen¡¯s fleets would have to travel around a bend and continue for another fourteen thousand miles before they even reached the Myers Maind. Saleen¡¯s warships travelled at a speed of fifty miles an hour, which tranted to over a thousand miles a day. Not once did they stop to take a break, and half a month passed just like that. However, their efforts bore fruit, for the Myers Maind was finally in sight.


    Strictly speaking, the Myers Maind was not actually in sight. Rather, it was the outline of inds which were located in the Myers Maind that had been spotted. These inds were ¡°pieced¡± together by tall, steep, and sturdy rocks. The only flora spotted were nts sprouting from the joints and bedding nes of these boulders. Now that it was close to wintertime, all the sea breeze carried with it was raw, biting, and bitter cold. Instead of being greeted by a mixture of ck and green, the sight that awaited them was that of withered trees and grass, as well as ck rocks, of course.


    ¡°Find a suitable ce to dock our ships,¡± Saleen ordered. There were no naturally uring harbors here. If they wished to construct a coastal city, he would have to locate an area together with Lex first. Saleen was in a particrly good mood today. Ever since he had left Ceylon City, he had experienced the smoothest fifteen-day journey in his life. Not only had he not encountered any Cloudflow ships, but Saleen and his fleet had also not bumped into any powerful magic sea beasts. The best part about the whole journey was that they had not even run into any torrential storms. It was a good sign that everything was going to be okay.

 Chapter 264: Land Reclamation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 264: Land Remation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As the warships dropped their anchors, Saleen turned to look at the pirates, who looked like they were about to copse on the pirate ship and spurt out blood any minute. Even though the northern winds were strong, a sailboat would never match up to a magically fortified ship. The sailors on the pirate ship had needed to expend a lot more physical energypared to the mages manning the warships. Over the course of half a month, the one hundred pirates had been physically milked for all they were worth, but not once had any of themined.


    Saleen¡¯s three warships were not there for decoration. It was toote for any of them to flee now.


    As Saleen looked towards the maind (which was unfortunately still very, very far away), all he could see were tall mountains looming in the distance. The mages onboard the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat followed Lex off of the vessel and onto the battleship. She walked towards Saleen and only stopped when she was right beside him. Upon surveying the terrain, she shook her head in disappointment. There were just too many mountains, hills, and valleys. It would be impossible to clear all of them and build a harbor in this area.


    The city that they were going to build had to be connected to Phoenix viand and Lianyun city via sea. The northern part of Phoenix was filled with mountains to the extent that even if there were a huge number of mages helping Lex and Saleen, they would never finishing clearing the mountains and paving roads in their ce within three years.


    Lex fished out her own magic map and opened it. Her eyes travelled towards the top half of the map and continued travelling upwards until she found the northern part of Phoenix. She zoomed in on the map and after closely examining it, she finally marked out a few points where they could potentially build a deep sea harbor.


    One of the spots she had marked that was the closest to Phoenix was definitely a no-go. It waspletely cut off from the outside world. Mountains surrounded three sides of the area and the only other side not upied by mountains was upied by sea. Over four hundred miles north was apletely isted area which was also surrounded by mountains. However, the difference was that clearing these mountain ridges was more manageable therepared to the area four hundred meters down south. As long as she could get some people to knock down a few of these giants, she would be able to connect this small area to the ins located directly behind the mountains.


    There were not many obstacles standing between the ins and Phoenix. One could simply travel west for about eight hundred miles before heading directly towards Phoenix to the south. The total distance for both journeys would exceed two thousand miles. As much as Lex preferred the direct route, a straight line connecting both ces, it was peppered with mountains, making it impractical to travel that way. As of now, this was the fastest way to reach it.


    ¡°Two thousand miles? Even if we deploy the best chariots and force our horses to run for eight hours a day, we¡¯d only get there after five days!¡± Saleen eximed as soon as he saw the map. Two thousand miles to Phoenix? To Saleen, that was just too much ground to cover.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that bad. We can build our city over on the ins. It¡¯s definitely not possible for the harbor near the sea to double up as a business hub, but we can build a second harbor about seven hundred miles south of the first one. It¡¯s not like we need the second harbor to double up as a city to facilitate transactions. We can just use it as a ce to dock our warships,¡± Lex replied.


    ¡°Won¡¯t we stir up trouble by iming thisnd as our own?¡± Saleen asked again, refusing to believe that there was no other way to go about it.


    ¡°Nope, the empire¡¯s territory stops right at the borders of Phoenix. Any nobleman can expand the empire by reiming thend outside of the territory. However, no one wants thend here because it is not suitable for agriculture. Let¡¯s also not forget the fact that this ce goes through half a year of deep freeze, meaning that the water over at the harbor will be frozen over as well. Once that happens, there is no way to further expand and develop the maritime route connecting this area to Sikeqinya. If you think about it, the returns you¡¯d get from reiming thend here would be too petty to even be remitted back to the royal family,¡± Lex exined.


    ¡°Then won¡¯t you be bankrupting yourself?¡± Saleen asked, surprised at the fact that noblemen who ownednd outside of the empire still had to hand over a fixed portion of their earnings back to the royal family. It was not hard to figure out why no one wanted such a big plot ofnd now.


    ¡°I am royalty. This could be the first plot ofnd reimed by the Bitter Water Prefecture. We don¡¯t need to hand over anything to Holy Rock City. All I have to do is provide for the farmers here,¡± Lex replied.


    Upon hearing Lex¡¯s words, Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Who knew that being a founder of a country woulde with such perks.


    After some more discussion between themselves, both Lex and Saleen started to fly until they reached midair beforeparing the coordinates that they had obtained from the magicpass. After deciding on the relevant coordinates, Lex transferred the information over to her magic map and confirmed their current location.


    As soon as the pirates heard that they would be given one night of rest, they slumped over onto their beds, too exhausted to even clean the ship. Saleen, on the other hand, was more energetic than ever. Hemanded all the mages who were manning the three warships to gather around him and told them about the n that he had discussed earlier with Lex. The mages did not have a problem following their n. Jason had instructed them to heed every single one of Saleen¡¯s orders unless it was a suicide mission or something that could potentially kill them.


    After that much needed night of rest, the naval fleet set sail on the second day for about four hours until they reached Lex¡¯s intended destination.


    The area was still located north of the Myers Maind, and was also surrounded by water and mountains. Lex could even see the silhouette of a penins located smack in the middle of the vast ocean waters. What made Saleen cheer inwardly with glee was the fact that the mountains were filled with purely white stones. He did not know what type of stones they were. All he knew was that they looked very simr to muscovite, aside from the fact that these rocks were exceptionally hard and durable.


    These rocks would make it very hard for them to reim thend, given that they would have to drill through them in order to do so. However, if they were to build a harbor here, the rocks would ensure that the harbor was one of the sturdiest and most indestructible ones in existence. Saleen recalled the white city walls over at Pompeii. Hm¡­ it looks like those walls were made using these stones¡­ Saleen thought.


    An extra bonus was the fact that there was a penins the shape of a crescent moon not too far away from here. A penins was a naturally urring deep water harbor. To the north of the penins were two barren-looking white mountains that nked both sides of the ind. They looked to be made entirely out of white stone. Digging out enough space to construct a magic artillery battery would do wonders for the security of that naturally urring harbor. If Saleen wished, he could even carve out a tform in the penins to fix the twelve magic stone columns in ce.


    The area behind the northern white-stoned mountain could also be a potential location for the construction of the harbor. In that case, Saleen did not see a reason not to convert the area they were in now into arge city instead.


    The penins was filled with forests and the mountaintops would collect snow for almost half a calendar year, meaning that Saleen would not have to worry about extracting freshwater elsewhere since he could just collect the snowmelt and drink it.


    ¡°Okay Saleen, as much as I¡¯d like to stay, I have to go,¡± Lex sighed as she looked at the moon-shaped penins for onest time. She was overwhelmed with emotion from all the recent happenings and what was in store for her in the future. She knew that if this area was not affected by the half-year deep freeze, it would have been dug up and reimed a long time ago. The crystal blue waters; white stone outcrops; the penins; lush forests ¨C all blended together perfectly into a unique style and atmosphere which made the area seem especially appealing.


    ¡°You¡¯re leaving?¡± Saleen asked with a crestfallen look on his face. Lex replied, ¡°The materials your mentor gave me are not enough to build an entire city. I still need to make a trip back to Qin to buy them. Didn¡¯t you say something about moving the Caucasians out of their viges? Since I¡¯m making a trip to Lon with Sika anyway, I could examine the situation there first. I probably won¡¯t be back for at least half a year. During this time, your men will be pretty useless. I suggest you start with ttening out the hills and valleys to create t ground first while you wait for me. Do refer to the blueprints if necessary.¡±


    ¡°How many people are you bringing with you?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m probably taking one of the battleships. Just Sika and maybe a few mages will do. You can keep the remaining mages. I¡¯ll dock over at Lianyun City and try my best to get back to Bitter Water Prefecture as fast as I can. After I reach Lianyun City, I¡¯ll have them steer the battleship back to this ce. I¡¯ll being back here from Phoenix, which will allow me to do a survey of the areas suitable for the construction of roads and traffes,¡± Lex said.


    ¡°Be careful,¡± Saleen said, the volume of his voice barely above a whisper. He did not want Lex to leave. Throughout the years that they had spent together, he had genuinely forgotten about her rank as a viscountess. In fact, he did not even think of her as an archmage who was two grades above him. He genuinely saw her as a friend andpanion.


    Lex was at a loss for words as well. Saleen could be considered her one and only friend. Out of the people closest to her heart, Faerun had passed on; she could not expect her mentor to stick forever by her side, and her father was dead. Now that she was being forced to part from the only friend she had made over the course of the past few years, she was ovee with a sense of grief and bitterness.


    She told herself silently that half a year was not a very long time. To a mage, six months would pass quicker than they could blink. Lex attributed her current emotional state and her reluctance to part with Saleen to Jason¡¯s psychological talks. Lex, get it together! You have more important things to do¡­ Lex scolded herself mentally.


    As Lex forced herself to think about the ¡°more important things¡±, she started bing sadder and sadder. As a person of royal blood, she realized that she had lost more things than she had gained. Take her current situation, for example. What kind of ordinary mage had to worry about building a city? What kind of ordinary mage would have to think about building an interdimensional teleportation portal that could allow the user to see anything and everything? If she had been an ordinary mage, she could have stayed peacefully in the interdimensional space with Saleen.


    Forcing herself to toss these depressing thoughts out her mind, Lex put on a small forced smile as she told Saleen, ¡°Maybe I won¡¯t be docking after all. In fact, I¡¯ll leave right now¡­ Would you like to bid Sika farewell?¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡± Saleen eximed upon hearing Sika¡¯s name, instantly forgetting about the pain of bidding Lex goodbye. He started to worry that Sika would be duped or conned if she left his side. He knew Sika too well. Her brain was filled with everything and anything regarding the subject of war. Not only that, but he knew that the only other thing Sika ever thought about was the people in her vige. She did not, and would not care about other matters.


    Most Caucasians were as war-oriented andmunity-oriented as Sika. That would exin why such a strong group of people could be in decline. They focused too much on these two aspects and paid no heed to other, potentially crucial things.


    As soon as the decline of the Caucasians crossed his mind, Saleen decided not to go to Sika, but rather Daniel. The necromancer was a lot more honest and grounded now. After seeing how much backing Saleen had, Daniel was not about to do anything to provoke the ire of the dozens of sorcerers over on Sregl Ind. All Daniel hoped was that he would be able to surpass Saleen in terms of rank so that he could fulfill the contract and get his freedom back.


    ¡°Daniel, I want the death toxin. Whatever you have, hand it over,¡± Saleen said bluntly. Daniel felt his heart bleed at the thought of having to give up his precious toxin. Nevertheless, he took out a small vial. The death toxin was not something that could be extracted. It was secreted by death creatures summoned from the death dimension. The serum was extremely rare, as well as lethally poisonous. However, necromancers often used this toxin when they practiced their craft.


    As much as Daniel wanted to outright reject Saleen¡¯s request, he knew that he could not. After all, Saleen had supplied him with so many magic nuclei. Saleen took the vial from Daniel and went immediately to Sika¡¯s room, entering it without even bothering to knock. The sight of Sika reading a book surprised Saleen. Even though Sika was a literate person now, he had never seen her attempt to read books before.


    Upon seeing Saleen enter, Sika put down her book and asked, ¡°What¡¯s the matter, Saleen?¡± Now that she was not carrying a weapon on her back, she looked a bit more feminine. Her long ck hair rested beautifully on her shoulders. The armor which covered her animal-skin outfit hugged her body nicely, showing off her toned figure.


    As Saleen told Sika about Lex¡¯s departure and the fact that she was going to bring Sika back to the vige with her, Sika cheered in delight. She leapt over the table and picked up Saleen off of the ground in a tight embrace before spinning him around a few times. It was a good thing that Saleen had already grown ustomed to these extremely violent movements when flying. Otherwise, his puke would have been all over the floor by now.


    ¡°Sika! Put me down right now!¡± Saleen shouted. No one could me him though. Sika¡¯s arms were stronger than those of magic beasts. Ignoring Saleen, Sika said happily, ¡°I can finally go back to my vige! I¡¯ve always wanted to leave, but I was scared I¡¯d lose my way.¡±


    Seeing Sika without the desire to stay made Saleen feel strange. He had thought that Sika would not want to go back. It¡¯s not really a bad thing that she wants to go back though¡­ Saleen thought to himself as he passed the vial containing the death toxin that he had extorted from Daniel to her.


    ¡°This vial contains a substance called the death toxin¡­¡± Saleen said, pausing for a moment to take off his gloves. He stuffed them into Sika¡¯s hands and said, ¡°When you use this serum, remember to put them on. You can apply the toxin directly onto your boomerang. As long as the poison enters your target¡¯s bloodstream, even the most powerful magic beast would be dead within seconds. However, this thing doesn¡¯t take effect as quickly as my own poison. You need to be careful not to poison yourself when using the death toxin, understand?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I do. Where¡¯s Lex?¡± Sika asked, her face showing a mix of joy and excitement.

 Chapter 265: Land Reclamation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 265: Land Remation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika, who was absolutely bent on leaving the ind, went to find Lex together with Saleen. Once the duo located Lex, the female warrior started chatting with the viscountess animatedly using the Caucasiannguage. Fortunately, Lex was able to understand everyst word that Sika said, as she had undergone very strict linguistics training, allowing her to be fluent in Sika¡¯s mother tongue. Saleen, on the other hand, could barely understand what Sika was saying.


    As Lex conversed with Sika, her gaze slowly travelled to Saleen. Saleen only shrugged his shoulders and gave her a look of resignation. Sika was a very expressive person by nature. If she was happy, there was nothing that could stop her from openly sharing her joy to the world.


    ¡°Hold that thought, Sika,¡± Lex said as she took out another bracelet and handed it to Saleen before speaking in his direction. ¡°This bracelet is something I took from Sregl Ind. You have over seven hundred swordsmen, three hundred sailors, and one hundred pirates under yourmand. Focus on building the less important infrastructure first. Only start to build the magic towers when Ie back with more people.¡±


    Saleen nodded in understanding as he took the bracelet from Lex. He did not have enough power to operate this spatial equipment. Lex, on the other hand, was able to use the equipment freely.


    Lex took out four fully constructed puppets and ced them in one of the cabins before speaking again, ¡°These four puppets here do have minds of their own, but you can stillmand them to do menial,borious tasks. Technically, they¡¯ll do whatever you tell them to. There are many robotic puppets stored inside the bracelets. If you have the apprentices control them, the puppets will prove even more useful than the swordsmen.¡±


    ¡°I know¡­ here¡­ take this,¡± Saleen said as he took out twenty-four level-7 scrolls and handed them over to Lex. He was worried about Sika¡¯s safety and knew that Lex had very strong mental power. Given her capabilities, she could unleash the power of dozens of level-7 scrolls in just one battle alone. If twenty-four level-7 scrolls could not stop the enemy, then Saleen could confidently say that the opponent was too powerful for either of them. If Lex was unfortunate enough to encounter an enemy like that, there would be nothing Saleen could do for her.


    Lex was not about to pass up on Saleen¡¯s offer either. She immediately snatched the scrolls from Saleen¡¯s palms and stored them into the god¡¯s ring. Given that she was a powerful mage, as long as she did not bump heads with a sorcerer, she would be fine. Now that she had the twenty-four level-7 scrolls, even grade-7 sorcerers would have a hard time defeating her in battle.


    Saleen chose to give one of the warships to Lex instead of the pirate ship because it would be impossible for a ship like the pirate ship to dock near Lianyun City. Saleen was not going to have Lex leave with the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat either. Now that Saleen had many mages under hismand, he nned to have everyone practice maneuvering and mastering the controls of the underwater battleship.


    Battleships that were less than thirty meters long usually did not look intimidating, nor did they seem to pose a threat. Magic stone artillery could not even be installed on these ships because they were too small. However, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat ran purely on magic nuclei that were at least grade-6 in order to operate its offensive magic array. Even though the energy expenditure was huge, it was much more powerful than magic stone artillery, to the extent that the ship could fire mutated ice bombs even when submerged under water.


    Even the average battleship would not be a threat to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Onlyrge battleships operated by sorcerers would potentially be able to leave a scratch or two on it. Even if the most advanced swordsmen were to dive into the waters to personally break the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat¡¯s defenses, they could do nothing to shatter the thick outer shell of the pan¡¯s turtle. The situation was no different when it came to swordmasters. This was because swordmasters were not able to rely on the Underwater Breathing spell in order to stay submerged for a long time. Plus, water was detrimental to the sword aura.


    Thus, Saleen concluded that the biggest threat to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was magic. There were too many different types of magic in the world. Many rare, umonly practiced water-based spells were executed underwater. Even Saleen, a person who specialized in water magic, would be unable to recite all the water-based spells that existed in the world.


    Sika¡¯s little joyous outburst had made Saleen less emotional about the separation. After sending Lex off, he flew up from the battleship, not giving himself any time to rest. Pitch-ck fog shrouded Saleen¡¯s body from sight as the grade-4 mage lifted himself further and further away from the ground until he was over two hundred meters in the air. Any height above and below two hundred meters would drain too much energy from his magic chords. Plus, Saleen found that it was a lot harder to continue ascending after reaching a little over two hundred meters in the air.


    Two hundred meters was nothingpared to the height of the white stony mountains. Saleen flew towards the maind as he travelled along the moon-shaped penins. The coastal area of the ind was also made of pure white rock, and was much higher than the surface of the sea. There were two ways to go about building a pier. The first way was to construct it directly in front of these rocks using metal alone. The second way would involve chiseling and building the pier directly on the white boulders themselves.


    Saleen allowed himself tond gently on the ground. Once his feet made contact withnd, Saleen fished out a dragon¡¯s tooth from the Ring of Gifts. Clutching it tightly in his hand, he brought it down onto one of the white colored rocks. Hard. The piercing sounds of scraping metal filled the air. Sparks erupted as the dragon¡¯s tooth made contact with the surface of the rock. They faded as quickly as they came, leaving behind a long, shallow scrape mark.


    Saleen had not held back. The amount of force used to leave that scrape mark had easily rivalled the offensive power of a high-grade swordsman. That was excluding the fact that he had the powerful weapon in his hand.


    Because the boulders could withstand powerful attacks like this, they would make perfect building materials for the construction of the city, including the walls, doors, gates, and so on. Saleen¡¯s action earlier had been to test the elemental makeup of the rock. Upon studying the scrape mark, he realized that it was just ordinary bedrock made up of a good mix of all the elements. Besides the fact that it was unusually strong and durable, the rock was pretty much useless. No magic equipment could be created using material like this. To a mage, this piece of information would mean that the rock was worth significantly less now.


    This rock might have been stronger than steel rock, but it did not possess magical properties, making it unsuitable for the construction of magic towers. Even with the dragon¡¯s tooth, I cannot slice the rock apart. Perhaps I can use these rocks to build a house after all, Saleen thought. A house like that would be able to withstand low-level magic attacks. Even mid-level magic spells would do little to undermine the structural integrity of the infrastructure.


    Saleen tapped the cbash which was secured tightly around his waist. The six meter stream of azure-green water spurted out almost instantly, making its way towards the gravel. The wall of water etched deep scrape marks onto the white boulders, and continued cutting and scratching against the rock¡¯s surface for thirty seconds until the rock waspletely split into two.


    No sooner had that happened did Saleen instantly figure out the best way to utilize the rock. He could use it to build the main battery of the magic cannon.


    Magic cannons were not to be confused with magic stone artillery. Firstly, only the former could shoot out magic bombs. Secondly, the firing range of the magic cannon was far superior than that of magic stone artillery. Thirdly, magic cannons were much harder to install on a shippared to magic stone artillery. That was because each magic cannon needed to be built on one square mile of a t sturdy surface in order for the operator to shoot out its magic bombs more urately. Even battleships over two hundred meters long were not suitable locations for the construction of these magic cannons. In the event that they were forcefully installed on these ships, the magic bombs that were fired from the weapons would onlynd and destroy the ship themselves.


    Furthermore, the crafting involved in the construction of the magic cannons was simply far tooplicated. There were not many alchemists today that could recreate a weapon which had existed centuries ago. Plus, a lot of the materials needed came from other dimensions and were thus harder to procure. Magic cannons were very rare in the Myers Maind. The reason why Cloudflow naval fleets did not dare to attack Alchemy City was because of the fact that Alchemy City was home to quite a few of these cannons.


    Saleen knew that he would not have to worry about ever running out of these white stones, seeing that they were everywhere. The grade-4 mage allowed his sensory magic to seep deep beneath the ground. Even after his sensory magic travelled about a hundred meters below ground, Saleen failed to hit rock bottom¨C literally ¨C meaning that the area where he was standing was too high above the sea, which was not ideal. If he wanted to construct a pier here, he would have to chisel his way through over a hundred meters worth of rock. This alone could be considered arge-scale project, as many resources would have to be deployed to do so.


    Saleen lifted himself off of the ground again and started doing a survey of the coastal area. The stonyndform spanned over a mile in width and was at least a hundred meters tall. However, the rockyndform decreased in height as it continued extending towards the maind until it was level with the soil, mud and dirt, which covered the back of thendform. That was also the part of thendform where nts could actually grow.


    It¡¯s a shame that these aren¡¯t white jades, Saleen thought to himself. If he hade across andform made of white jade that was a mile wide and a hundred meters tall, even if he had to manually slice them into smaller pieces himself in order to sell them, he would be richer than all the citizens of the wealthiest countrybined. It was not that white jades were valuable. In fact, a small piece of white jade was only worth one gold coin. Rather, there were just too many of these rocks. He could not see the end of thisndform for miles.


    As Saleen continued travelling northwards, he stumbled upon a few small streams, which seemed to be river channels carved out by mountain snowmelt itself. The sea was located to the north of the white rocky mountains, and the forests were not located on a huge plot ofnd. In fact, it was probably about thirty miles in diameter. Behind the forests, Saleen saw more mountains. However, there was a huge opening that extended beyond the mountain ridges, almost as if the gods had used a knife to forcefully split the mountains into half.


    This area appeared to be half sealed from the world. The small ins overlooking the ocean spanned about a hundred miles in length and over thirty miles in width. However, the mountain opening was slightly wider than the ins, meaning that constructing roads connecting this area to the inner maind was not going to be difficult.


    Saleen was almost done with his survey of the ce. He had not stumbled upon any magic beasts in the forests so far, which was a good thing. He decided that he was done for the day and made his way back to the battleship, where he ordered the swordsmen to start pitching tents and other makeshift shelters on the shores.


    After giving away one-third of his mages to Lex, Saleen still had two grade-5 mages, two grade-4 mages, and twelve grade-3 mages under hismand. They gathered together and started to bring down a batch of building materials from the ship to facilitate the construction of a barrack. After the alchemy stage had been set up inside the barrack, Saleen ced Jason¡¯s blueprints over it, activated the magic array, and started discussingnd remation matters with the mages.


    Once Lex¡¯s ship came back, Saleen would have nearly one thousand people under hismand. Thus, job allocation was going to be very important to ensure maximum efficiency. Saleen was not very good at it, and thus, he left the task of job allocation to the two grade-5 mages.


    Saleen already had a rough idea of how everything was going to y out ¨C while he let the two grade-5 mages assign the task of building the barrack to the swordsmen and sailors, he brought Nailisi to the crescent moon-shaped penins.


    The arc of the penins spanned over ten miles in length, and reached deep down into the ocean waters, almost as if it were a naturally urring dam. The widest part of the penins was about four hundred to five hundred meters in breadth and was over ten meters higher than the surface of the sea. It was this part of the ind that gave it its distinctive moon-like shape. Saleen dove into the water to survey thendform. The submerged part of the penins was very steep as well. After diving over a hundred meters below the surface, Saleen started feeling queasy from the water pressure. However, he managed to locate the bottom of the ocean using his senses.


    The penins was located in a part of the ocean that was over two hundred meters deep ¨C meaning that it was a naturally urring harbor. Even the primary warships from the Cloudflow Empire could dock here. As Saleen made his way towards the south of the penins, he realized that the southern area submerged beneath the waters was extremely sturdy and durable as well. In fact, there was not a single crack, hole, or joint in sight. Saleen knew then and there that it would be very safe to construct magic stone columns here, as the bottoms of these columns would never be damaged. In fact, he could drill even a hole through the submerged area ofnd and consider it a secret chamber. The area overlooking the ocean was embedded with rocks. If Saleen could get his men to build an offensive magic array in the secret chamber, in the same the way it was constructed on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, he couldunch defensive attacks underwater.


    Saleen could not think of a more perfect location. If anyone wanted to dock here, they would have to travel around the penins and enter through the harbor from the other side. Another side of the ind was upied by enormous white stone mountains. If he were to install a magic cannon on top of any of the mountains, he would be able to seal off the harbor entirely. Evenrge battleships would not be able to make a dent in these mountainous regions.


    To attack the ind from the north was not a good idea since it was a good eighty miles away from the only area suitable for docking and disembarking. Plus, a magic cannon fixed on any of the mountains here would be able to fire magic bombs at a distant range. The only problem now was that Saleen did not know where he could purchase these magic cannons.


    As Saleen and Nailisi emerged from the water, thetter spoke to the grade-4 mage as she gently rubbed her finger. ¡°This stone is too hard to drill through. Are you sure you want to build the city here?¡±


    ¡°Of course, it¡¯s doable! We just need enough mages,¡± Saleen replied confidently. No matter how durable the white stones were, they could never resist the forces of magic. Earth magic, in particr, would be able to corrode the rocks to arge extent. Unless someone had either cast a magic immunity spell on these rocks or carved out magical patterns on them, these rocks would almost always yield under the corrosive power of these spells. This meant that they were much easier to deal withpared to steel rocks.

 Chapter 266: Magic Beasts (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 266: Magic Beasts (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    For amoner, building a city was an incredibly hard thing to do, as it would take decades for it to even take shape. It was different for mages. By activating arge number of puppets, they could quickly build the frame of a city within a short period of time.


    Saleen had over twenty mages with him and even more magic disciples. Thus, he could activate over a hundred mechanical puppets. These puppets that were taller than two people could only do simple tasks, but they would be enough. The forest west of the coast needed to be deforested, and the magesmanded the puppets. Using giant metal saws to fell the trees, the wooden materials were processed with magic and used to build houses.


    The trees here had grown for many years and trees that were over three meters in diameter were everywhere, the wood sturdy yet fine. The mages followed the map that Jason had given them when extracting these woods and did not deforest the entire ce, leaving behind arge number of trees.


    Some of the big trees within the forest had already grown to their limit, hence the mages drained out any liquid within these trees to end their lives. They could then carve houses directly into the trees, carving out holes within their crowns and nting different varieties of nts.


    Such treehouses were popr among the wealthy. They were warm in the winters and cool during the summers. However, it was hard to find such thick trees, and they were limited in supply.


    The wild beasts within the forest had been chased away, and the mages could not have been bothered to kill them either. After building a road within the forest, the mages started having the puppets dig andy the foundations of the city underground.


    This was an onerous task, and Saleen could not help much either. He and Nailisi decided to process the white stone materials by the coast.


    Saleen did not know the ground-type Corrupting spell and could only use the current cutter within the cbash to cut the stone materials. Thus, their progress was not incredibly fast. He was not in a hurry either way and took it as practicing his magic. Nailisi did not have anything to do either. Shemanded the puppets that Lex had left behind, using brute force to extract the stone materials.


    The strength of the fully constructed puppets could not bepared to that of humans. They were made entirely of metal and did not know the meaning of fatigue. Changing to alchemy equipment, arge metal gear was equipped onto each of their arms as they rapidly revolved, cutting deep valleys on the white stones.


    As Saleen was extracting the stone materials, he fully activated his current cutter¡¯s abilities. In the past, it had relied on rapid current flows and friction to form a water rope, using the force from its twist to cut its target. Now that it was facing a t stone, the six-meter-long water current had no way of wrapping around it. Saleen started to feel the vibrations formed from the rapid currents. The arrangement of the elements exacerbated this vibrating energy, and on a needle sized area, thousands of small gears were rapidly revolving. So long as he increased these vibrations, even without having the current wrapping around its target and twisting, it could cause enormous damage.


    The six-meter-long green current cutter became more concise as Saleenmanded it at will, almost as if it was a long sword. Moreover, with countless sharp des, Saleen decided to use the current cutter to cut the stone directly. On the white coast, a green shadow danced around Saleen.


    At the beginning, whenever Saleen made a cut with the current, he could only leave a mark that was a finger deep. As his skills got better, every time he made a cut, he would be able to leave a mark that was almost half a meter deep in the white rock. His speed became increasingly fast since the current cutter used up incredibly little focus. Saleen¡¯s two mutated water shields blended together. The green current and Saleen¡¯s soul seemed to have a fascinating connection, as Saleen only needed to rest after using it for five hours.


    Nailisi stopped, no longermanding the fully constructed puppet. She looked at Saleen in a daze and said, ¡°Master, you look like a swordsman now.¡±


    Saleen suddenly realized it as well. Controlling this current cutter had caused the spell tost longer. Was this not like a swordsman using the sword aura to attack from a distance?


    Grand swordmaster? Even a grand swordmaster could not allow their sword aura to be condensed for such a long time away from their body, unless they had surpassed grade-9. It was a pity no such person had ever appeared on the Myers Maind.


    Saleen had once researched the principle behind the sword aura. He was much more familiar with the logic behind thisbat skill than most swordsmen. From the basic theory, his current cutter was not only magic, but had the properties of the sword aura as well. In other words, it contained life itself.


    Some of this life had been left behind by the Myers Goddess while some of it was from Saleen. With this life blending together within the spell, Saleen could control this magic freely and use up very little focus.


    After understanding this point, Saleen controlled the current as it pierced into the white rock like a long spear. The tip of the current formed a sharp triangle, and the spell was like a spear formed from water elements. When the entire six-meter-long current went right into the stone, even Saleen was shocked.


    As the current went into the rock, it changed its angle of motion and formed an arc beforeing out from another side, creating a tunnel within the incredibly tough rock. This conserved more energy than cutting into it directly and Saleen already had a n in mind. He had the current reenter the rock, and after about a meter, had it change directions and form a hole to the side. After another meter, he controlled the current to move upwards and out of the ground. At this moment, the current was touching together at its tips. With a hard twist, rock shavings flew everywhere.


    On the t white rock, a one-and-a-half-meter-long square opening appeared before Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Saleenughed, having never felt this pleased before. Even though he knew he would have been more delighted if he had used the water elements within the cbash to create a water puppet, he was satisfied.


    When a water puppet released any magic, it would use up a mage¡¯s magic chords. However, this current only required a little bit of focus and couldst for much longer than a water puppet.


    Moreover, this current had started changing its arrangement, adding in the special magic patterns on the cbash. Within the vibrations of the current, miniscule lightning had formed.


    This lightning did not have much attack power and might not even have been able to kill an insect, but this was an important start. So long as Saleen continued practicing, this current would be able to contain the powers of lightning sooner orter.


    If this cbash had been used to create water puppets, it might have been able to create a puppet filled with lightning, and any attacks might have caused Saleen¡¯s magic chords to be wiped clean. Even though the power would be immense, the results would not be stunning.


    Once Saleen realized the changes to his current cutter, he stopped processing the stone materials by the coast with Nailisi. They returned to the sea and started practicing the magic at the crescent shaped ind.


    Saleen did not need to release any magic in the water and he could breathe easily. This allowed him to practice underwater for a long time without anyone realizing.


    Once grasping this skill, Saleen¡¯s improvement sped up. This naturally crescent shaped coast was incredibly peaceful and did not have a single fish. Saleen had Nailisi follow behind him. If the rock that was cut out was slightlyrger than normal, Nailisi would store it within her bracelet.


    This white stone material did not have any magic properties. However, once it was solidified with magic, it would make for a very good defensive material. Saleen followed the edge of the coast, cutting the rocks from top to bottom and chopping off any jutting rocks.


    If such rocks were to ram into the bottom of any ships, even an armored carrier would not be able to withstand the damage.


    Saleen¡¯s few ships were not too big. The mainbat vessels from the Cloudflow Empire only needed water that was at least ten meters deep, which was incredibly terrifying. Saleen wanted to own such ships in the future as well, and the water at this coast was of such depth. He cleared away any rocks near the edge of the ind, out to spots that were fifty meters deep. In any case, his speed was incredibly quick now. He would not even need half a year until he was able to finish clearing all the rocks on this ind.


    After busying himself for half a day, Saleen was a little tired. He stopped cutting the rocks and swam even deeper, wanting to see how deep this harbor was and if there were anything useful on the sea floor.


    Diving down over one hundred meters, Saleen could already feel the immense pressure. He released a water shield, and the giant bubble enveloped him. The round water shield could withstand immense pressure, but it was still tough to dive even deeper. There was not much Saleen could do about the enormous buoyancy of the bubble.


    He reduced the size of the bubble to its smallest size, but the resistance was still incredibly powerful.


    Saleen had no choice but to change to an ice te armor. Dispersing the water shield, he continued diving. Saleen knew that at the end of the day, he was a mage. It was incredible enough that he had been able to dive to such depths. Nailisi was not embarrassed following behind Saleen. It was said that in Cloudflow, there were professionals who harvested pearls that could dive to depths of three hundred to five hundred meters below the surface. If I have time, I should really practice fighting underwater.


    If he could dive to such depths too, it would be something he could consider when escaping. Even a sorcerer would have limited magic power when they were underwater. Moreover, a mage¡¯s speed was not controlled by their powers.


    Saleen¡¯s swimming technique was simr to that of a fish. After changing to an ice te armor, besides the fact that the pressure was still immense, his body immediately felt more flexible.


    The seawater here was incredibly clear, but light refracted underwater. In ces this deep, his vision became blurry. Saleen relied on his icy sight and was barely affected, but he still cast out his powerful senses to survey the situation on the seabed.


    Diving down over two hundred meters, Saleen saw a round cave in the white rock. It was incredibly smooth, with a silver light glowing above.


    Saleen waved back at Nailisi. He went ahead first as he carefully slipped into the entrance of the cave that was over two meters wide.


    The widest part of this ind was barely four hundred to five hundred meters across, and the seabed was slightly wider, being almost a mile thick. Saleen had ventured in hardly ten meters when he entered a spacious cavern. The stone walls within the cave were shining with a silver light, presenting the scene in front of Saleen clearly.


    In the middle of the cave, there were a few ck stones jutting out, forming a circle. In the middle of these ck stones were dozens of red eggs.


    Saleen sensed a tinge of danger. There were magic beasts in here!

 Chapter 267: Magic Beasts (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 267: Magic Beasts (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Mages knew very little about magic beasts that lived in the water. It was hard to keep track of all the different magic beasts in the sea. The red eggs surrounded by the ck stones were approximately the size of a fist and had natural golden magic patterns on them. This was not some low-grade magic beast. Only a high-grade magic beast could have magic patterns on its eggs.


    What was worse was that these eggs evidently needed to be taken care of. The magic beast in the cave would not have left without an intention to return.


    Saleen flipped around and swam back towards the entrance of the cave. The magic beast staying here was not any good magic beast. There were not any fish within this natural harbor, and there were no other magic beasts in existence either. Onnd, this could only mean one thing ¨C the magic beast within this cave was vicious and powerful. No other magic beast wanted to offend it, and hence this harbor seemed incredibly serene.


    With this flip, he saw the golden light being emitted from Nailisi¡¯s green eyes. She was excited, about to pounce on the magic beasts¡¯ eggs.


    Saleen extended his hand and grabbed Nailisi by the neck, pulling her away.


    These things might have been beneficial to Nailisi, but he needed to quickly ascend to the shore to find the other mages for help. There were over twenty mages on the coast and they had to find a way to deal with the magic beast together.


    This magic beast needed to be exterminated. Otherwise, this ce could not be used as a port. Knocking over abat vessel would be easy for a magic beast which other creatures did not daree close to.


    Saleen was not sure about other things, but he could at least understand the magic beasts in the sea. They were different from those onnd. Here, the territories of the magic beasts were blurry and it seemed like many of them shared the same space.


    This magic beast had chased away all other living creatures within hundreds of miles. How could this possibly be good?


    Nailisi struggled for a while before calming down. These magic beasts¡¯ eggs could not escape, there was a lot of help on the coast, and she did not need to be too anxious. She was dragged out of the cave by Saleen as an over ten-meter-long sea creature swam over.


    Saleen thought that this was it. He had just swum out of the cave which contained its eggs, and it would be impossible for it to not attack. This fish was silver in color with no visible scales. Light, golden magic patterns filled its body as a circle of eyes grew on its head, looking incredibly devious.


    Saleen tapped the cbash by his waist as a six-meter-long current flowed out, darting towards the fish.


    This fish was incredibly slender and flexible. Sensing the threat from Saleen, it twisted its body. Saleen saw a blue current explode from between the golden magic patterns as hundreds of streaks of lighting shot out, squarely striking Saleen and Nailisi.


    Having been struck by the lightning, Saleen immediately lost control of his muscles. If he had not been able to breathe underwater, he would have pulled all that seawater into his lungs and died immediately.


    Even so, he could not withstand such an attack. His ice te armor had a limited effect when it came to blocking the effects of lightning. It went past his armor and left his body cramping.


    This cramping was a natural reaction of muscles. Saleen could not control it, and regarding the intense pain, he was able to endure it. Saleen¡¯s focus had not been affected. This was all because of the focus training he had done with his n badge. If any other mage had experienced a lightning strike like this, they could forget about using magic for months.


    The current from the cbash also struck therge sea creature. The green current wrapped around its body, and just as it was about to twist hard, a blue current exploded from within the magic patterns again. This blue current formed a thick bolt of lightning and struck the current that Saleen had released.


    The speed of the fish-shaped magic beast¡¯s magic was much faster than any other magic. Even if Saleen had been in his usual state, he would not have been able to manipte the current into dodging.


    With a sizzling sound, the green current absorbed all the lightning released by therge sea creature. It did not cause the current to disperse, but the power from the creature surpassed what the current could withstand as the elemental arrangement within the current was disrupted and it could not attack again.


    If this current had not had lightning properties to begin with, this attack could havepletely destroyed it and rendered it unable to condense again.


    Saleen had not realized that all the attack that he had withstood had been absorbed within the Ring of Gifts. His n badge within was vibrating crazily, absorbing all the current from the ring. Within the deep mark of the n badge, a blue liquid formed and it did not disappear.


    Nailisi had been struck by the attack as well. Her hair had spread apart within the water, dispersing the damage caused by the current. However, herbat abilities had beenpletely destroyed. Nailisi relied on herbat skills to fight. Her situation was not any better than that of Saleen¡¯s. Saleen had his focus and could still release a silent spell, but she could not do anything as she stared at the enormous creature that was darting over, opening up its huge mouth and about to swallow her and her master into its stomach.


    In many legends, a warrior that hunted for a magic beast would enter its stomach and split it apart. This was not realistic. Unless they were a demon like Nailisi who was not afraid of acid, if a human entered the stomach of a magic beast, they would be corroded into a pile of fertilizer immediately.


    Nailisi was genuinely afraid. If she was swallowed into the fish¡¯s stomach, she would not die, but Saleen could be digested cleanly. Once Saleen was dead, her fate would be incredibly miserable. At best, her soul would go up in mes, and she would die a clean death like Saleen.


    Even though earlier fights had not been easy, she had never been in a situation like this before. Saleen was about to die right in front of her eyes.


    Saleen was not flustered. He was unusually calm, merely releasing a water shield. He was still grabbing onto Nailisi¡¯s neck. As he was struck by lightning, his muscles stiffened and could not rx, and his nails dug deeply into Nailisi¡¯s skin even though they could not pierce through it.


    A giant bubble over five meters wide enveloped Saleen¡¯s body. This water shield was a level-4 defensive spell and was slightly weaker than the ice te armor. Plus, it would not be able to stop the big fish¡¯s attacks. However, Saleen and Nailisi were at the bottom of the sea now and this bubble¡¯s giant buoyancy lifted both of them towards the surface of the water.


    Saleen released a water-type spell at the same time ¨C elemental bnce. This was an incredibly unpopr spell and was designed specifically for water elements. It could allow one to maintain their bnce, serving as a form of support magic.


    If someone else were to rush up to the surface of the sea, even with this elemental bnce, their blood would boil and they would be severely injured even if they did not die. Saleen was not breathing through his lungs but from his skin instead. As the bubble enveloped him and Nailisi and they rushed to the surface of the sea, he was not severely affected, and only his vision became blurry.


    The bubble broke the surface as they flew into midair. Saleen still could not move his body as he immediately released his Flying spell, and a ck cloud wrapped itself around their bodies as they fell onto the crescent shaped ind.


    Saleen still could not fly while carrying someone. Using this magic silently was pushing his capabilities already. Just as they were about to fall to the ground, Saleen released dozens of frost arrays, and as the bubble smashed onto the ground, they immediately froze the bubble and did not bounce back into the sea.


    Saleen wanted to open his mouth to speak but could not make a noise. Nailisi could not either. Saleen waved away the water shield. He wanted her to take out the fully constructed puppets from her bracelet and carry them away from the coast.


    Nailisi had thought of this as well, but she could not control the puppets with her entire body numb. She could not even withdraw them from her bracelet.


    A water pir shot out from the sea. The enormous sea creature had not given up its pursuit, and its head stuck out from the surface of the sea.


    I don¡¯t believe you can climb out of the sea. At most, I will suffer a few more strikes of your lightning. Saleen red at the eyes of the fish, and they stared at each other with hatred.


    Saleen was right. For the fish to release its lightning, it needed a great amount of energy. They were quite a distance apart and the fish was not confident it could electrocute Saleen from where it was.


    Just as Saleen was feeling a little lucky that this fish could not climb ashore like other magic beasts in the sea, it opened its mouth and shot out an enormous ice bomb.


    Saleen pulled up the water shield again. As it enveloped him and Nailisi, the ice bomb smashed into the water shield and they were flung into the air.


    The water shield possessed a special property. After it had mutated, it could greatly reduce the impact of physical attacks. Before the ice bomb fired by the fish destroyed the water shield, the physical attack properties sent Saleen and Nailisi flying towards the other side of the ind.


    With a ssh, Saleen and Nailisinded back into the sea.


    Nailisi was still alright, but with this fall, Saleen nearly lost consciousness. Nailisi still could not make a noise, but she wanted Saleen to leave her behind and escape. That fish did not have any teeth and any magic beast without teeth had stomach acid more corrosive than any magic attack. Nailisi knew that if she were to spend half a day in that liquid, she could still survive. Saleen could go back and get help and it was possible she would be able tost that long. If Saleen was swallowed into its stomach, he might not evenst a minute.


    Saleen was still not anxious. This crescent shaped ind was over ten miles long and he hadnded exactly in the middle of the ind. If the magic beast wanted to go around the ind in pursuit of them, it would need to swim at least another ten miles first. This was enough time for him and Nailisi to get ashore.


    Saleen released the water shield as they both floated onto the surface. He then used his Flying spell again, and this time he did not attempt to fly together with Nailisi. The ck cloud wrapped around them as they slowly inched towards the coast. The air currents had formed a whirlpool in the water. By this time, the mages by the coast had noticed the disturbance by the sea and rushed over.


    Nailisi heaved a sigh of relief. She was a demon and demons were not like humans, who helped one another out.


    Once the magic beast within the water went above the surface, it could no longer mask its aura. Two grade-5 mages spotted it and were scared out of their wits. They immediately saw the ck cloud that had enveloped Saleen moving towards them, and a few swordsmen immediately jumped into the water and swam towards him.


    Seeing theme forward to save him, Saleen could no longer hold on as he lost consciousness.

 Chapter 268: Lightning Dragon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 268: Lightning Dragon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The swordmasters dragged Saleen and Nailisi back ashore. The two grade-5 mages released a Chunlin spell, and Saleen woke up rapidly. His voice still could not produce any noise.


    This magic beast¡¯s skills were too incredible. If hundreds of those lightning strikes were to be shot out onto a battlefield, at least hundreds of soldiers would lose theirbat power.


    It took Saleen roughly half an hour before he regained his voice. Nailisi was a little quicker. Sheid on one side, pretending to be unable to get up.


    Saleen carefully recounted what he and Nailisi had seen, and the two grade-5 mages could not hide their shock.


    ¡°It was a lightning dragon.¡±


    ¡°Dragon?¡± Saleen could not tell how that fish-like creature had looked like a dragon. Dragons could fly, but this thing had not even been able to leave the water.


    The mage talking to Saleenughed, saying to him in the Myersnguage, ¡°The lightning dragon isn¡¯t a dragon. This thing only appears in the deep sea and chooses toy its eggs near inds in the sea. It is a grade-8 magic beast and we cannot afford to offend it.¡±


    Cannot afford to offend it? Saleen became worried upon hearing that. The method of attack of this lightning dragon was indeed hard to defend against, but it was not impossible to kill. If they allowed the lightning dragon to live here, the port would not need to be built. Any ships that dared toe in would need to face the assaults of the lightning dragon.


    If they could not kill the lightning dragon, would they need to continue travelling north to find another suitable ce?


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s wait until Lex is back first. She can call her teacher for help,¡± the mages suggested something that he did not want to ept.


    There was no other reason that Saleen wanted to y it. Saleen had his eyes on the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs.


    Most magic beasts did noty eggs. When a magic beast reproduced using eggs, it was very easy to bind them to a contract. Before the magic beast broke out from its shell, the rate of sess of binding it to a contract was incredibly high. If even this failed, the mage¡¯s luck must have been terrible.


    This lightning dragon had such unusual characteristics. It would be perfect for his research. If others were to hunt it down, the magic eggs would never be his.


    Just as he was thinking, a green current erupted from the surface of the water and charged towards Saleen. The two grade-5 mages stopped by Saleen could not react in time as the current returned into the cbash on Saleen¡¯s waist.


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Having fought in the water earlier, the water current had nearly been destroyed by the lightning dragon¡¯s attack. Saleen had not had a chance to store it back into the cbash. He had not expected it to return on its own.


    The blue current¡¯s speed was too fast and no other magic was this quick. If he could create such an electric current, even without being able to harness the powers of lightning, it would be enough.


    The most important property of the electric current was that it could destroy magic. Saleen¡¯s current cutter was essentially made up of water elements containing life, and its state was more stable than any magic gathered from a person¡¯s magic chords. Even so, it had been dissipated by a single shot from the lightning dragon. If he grasped this skill, even if he had not finished learning the Figaro Form, he would be able to stop an enemy¡¯s magic attack.


    However, Saleen could not figure out a way to kill the lightning dragon either way. Even if he concocted a special poison, he would need to pierce through the skin of the lightning dragon. Using bait to poison a magic beast greater than grade-7 was essentially impossible. What could he do?


    Just as he was deep in thought, Nailisi sat up from the ground. She had been able to move a long time ago but did not want to draw attention to herself.


    ¡°Master, there is a way.¡± Nailisi held back her temptation. She wanted to jump straight into the water and swallow the magic eggs.


    Those magic eggs. If she ate them, she would not need to fear such electric attacks any longer.


    ¡°What way?¡± The mages from Sregl Ind were curious too. They had been living on inds for most of their lives and were much more knowledgeable when it came to magic beasts in the sea than mages onnd. They had no idea how to kill a lightning dragon. Perhaps it would require a few grade-9 sorcerers.


    ¡°This lightning dragon needs to go out and hunt. It cannot go without food and water in order to protect its eggs. We can steal the eggs while it is out. Without the eggs as bait, we cannot trap it,¡± Nailisi said smugly. Such tricks were not umon in the demon dimension.


    Saleen furrowed his brows. This was not a bad idea, but it would be a problem tracking the lightning dragon¡¯s movements. The cave was over a hundred meters underwater, and with the lightning dragon there, it would be hard for anyone who descended down into the water to escape.


    He had still been able to count on his special magic to escape the first time, but the lightning dragon was incredibly smart. It would not let him escape so carelessly the next time. If anyone else went, even going down to such depth would be a problem.


    ¡°My lord, should we try using the alchemy ship?¡± A grade-3 mage asked cautiously. He had followed Lex onto the ship before and had seen how it worked. He could not forget about it.


    It was a good idea, using the ship to go to the bottom of the sea and using the magic array at the top to observe the lightning dragon¡¯s movements. Once it left, the people on the ship could steal the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs. With the eggs, they would immediately return to the ship, and the lightning dragon could not do much with the alchemy ship protecting them.


    The alchemy ship itself was dead, and an electric current was useless on a turtle¡¯s shell. At most, it would damage the magic crystals on the outside. The lightning dragon was barely ten meters long and the alchemy ship was almost thirty meters. Even if it was alive, the lightning dragon would potentially still be unable to kill it.


    As to how they were going to kill the lightning dragon, that was not important to Saleen. With the dragon eggs in hand, other people could help them kill the lightning dragon. It would be best if he did it himself though. He could skin the entire lightning dragon and research the magic patterns on its skin. Such magic patterns could contain the power of lightning. Thus, they were incredibly important to Saleen.


    Even if he looked to Lex¡¯s teacher for help, that would still solve Saleen¡¯s worries. At least he would be able to get a small piece of lightning dragon skin for his research.


    With time, the lightning dragon would hatch and he could bind the baby lightning dragon with a contract, controlling it for his research. However, a mage would not harm his own contract creature, and that would make his research a little harder. If not, dissecting a magic beast was the easiest method to conduct research.


    ¡°Who here knows the weakness of the lightning dragon?¡± Saleen had already decided to use Nailisi¡¯s idea of obtaining the magic beast¡¯s eggs and seeing if they could kill the lightning dragon. If they could, he would not need to wait for Lex.


    The mages from Sregl Ind shook their heads and gave bitter smiles. If they knew its weaknesses, this creature would not have been a grade-8 magic beast. The lightning dragon¡¯s water-type magic was very standardized. Its strongest magic was its electric current. Moreover, once a lightning dragon was over a thousand years old, its electric current would be lightning. Lightning and electricity were two different concepts. Once it was able to release the power of lightning, it would be able topletely destroy the structure of the elements.


    This lightning dragon evidently had not evolved yet. If not, Saleen would have died immediately after being struck by it.


    Once a lightning dragon evolved, it would surpass grade-9 and would be impossible to capture or kill.


    ¡°Every living creature has a weakness. At the very least, I know that the lightning dragon cannot leave the water,¡± Saleen encouraged the mages. The mages from Sregl Ind hung their heads low.


    The lightning dragon could be killed. However, Saleen did not have any professionals by his side. The two grade-5 mages had a simr skill level as Saleen, and were not any stronger than that. A mage below grade-3 was useless against such a creature. It was immune to low-level magic, amon characteristic among high-grade creatures.


    If this lightning dragon had not been hatching its eggs near the coast, even a grade-8 sorcerer would not have been able to do anything about it. Many grade-8 creatures could be killed by grade-6 or even grade-5 mages, but this lightning dragon could even survive against a grade-9 mage. The grade was only used to determine a creature¡¯s magic level and lifespan. Having high-level magic did not mean that it had great attack power and that it would have powerfulbat abilities.


    Simrly, having low-level magic did not mean that it was not dangerous, just like Saleen¡¯s witcher spider. Even though it was only a grade-4 creature that did not have any magic nucleus, when it ambushed its prey, even a grade-7 creature could be killed by it.


    The lightning dragon could not leave the water. That might have seemed like a weakness, but if a person considered it from another standpoint, since it could not leave the water, one could not bait it ontond. To kill it, a person had to go into the water.


    Thebat powers of humans were greatly reduced in the water, but it seemed like the lightning dragon was not affected.


    If the lightning dragon had a weakness that could be exploited, humans would have figured it out a long time ago. The mages from Sregl Ind were so familiar with the prowess of the lightning dragon that they had no reaction to Saleen¡¯s suggestion.


    ¡°Whatever the case is, let¡¯s steal the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs for now. If these eggs hatch, dozens of lightning dragon will take this ce as their nest and will live here for at least hundreds of years. We¡¯d need to move then,¡± Saleen said as he ordered a few grade-3 mages to follow him, letting the others continue with their deforestation of the ce.


    Bringing with him six other grade-3 mages, Saleen and Nailisi came to the white stone mountain in the north. They boarded a small boat that steered towards the vast sea. The lightning dragon was in its cave protecting its eggs and did note to disturb them.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was sitting behind abat vessel and Saleen brought the six mages and Nailisi onto the teleportation array on top of the turtle shell, entering inside.


    Saleen controlled the gravity magic array while the six other grade-3 mages controlled the oars. With that, the alchemy ship slowly descended towards the crescent shaped ind.


    The scenery was in. With the lightning dragon controlling this region, there were no signs of any other living creatures. Besides the azure blue waters, there was nothing else outside the ship. This ship was controlled by magic and Saleen had the grade-3 mages reduce its speed to the minimum. Not making any intense elemental vibrations, they followed the white stone mountain towards the coast, stopping when they were a mile away from the lightning dragon¡¯s cave.


    The gravity magic array of the alchemy ship stopped revolving, and the entire turtle shell slowly sunk deeper into the sea, taking a full three minutes to reach the bottom. All the magic arrays on the alchemy ship had stopped revolving. The lightning dragon felt the elemental vibrations from it as it swam out of the cave, not noticing the alchemy ship.


    After waiting for over half an hour, Saleen started up the magic illusion again. ¡°Everyone will keep watch for an hour. Once the lightning dragon leaves, we will take action.¡±


    There were a total of eight people onboard. Everyone keeping watch for one hour would not be too exhausting. The six grade-3 mages nodded in agreement. One of them said to Saleen, ¡°My lord, can we take a look at this ship?¡±


    ¡°Of course, but we should wait until the lightning dragon is taken care of,¡± Saleen replied with a smile. The lightning dragon had not spotted the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, and he realized the lightning dragon had another weakness ¨C its senses.


    Although this magic beast had powerful attacks, its senses were not at the same level as its grade. Saleen became much more confident of ying the lightning dragon.

 Chapter 269: Lightning Dragon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 269: Lightning Dragon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Keeping watch was a boring task and Saleen used this time to find out more about the characteristics of the lightning dragon from the mages.


    Since the lightning dragon could release electricity, it had been targeted by mages hoping to catch one since long ago. However, they lived in deep waters and were incredibly rare. The mages of Sregl Ind had not even had the chance to record down the magic patterns of this magic beast.


    Lightning dragons did not have any teeth but could use their water-type magic to cut up their prey. Their throats were simr to those of many magic beasts as well, being full of spikes. When they swallowed, their throats would wriggle, producing enough energy to crush their prey into meat paste.


    The lightning dragon did not have any scales. Its skin and muscles were its best defenses. In the past, someone had used a heavy crossbow to shoot at the lightning dragon, but that arrowhead filled with saw teeth had merely glided across the lightning dragon¡¯s skin.


    At that time, a grade-9 sorcerer had returned to Sregl Ind and met with a lightning dragon by chance. The mages on thebat vessel had controlled the heavy crossbow urately, but the lightning dragon was crafty. When it had spotted the grade-9 sorcerer, it had simply escaped, avoiding a fight with the hugebat vessel.


    The mages had retrieved the heavy crossbow arrow and realized that the saw teeth seemed like they had nearly been melted off by high temperatures, not having any effect at all.


    Saleen thought back to when he had first met the lightning dragon. The current cutter had almost been destroyed by the lightning current that the lightning dragon had released. If the current that Saleen had processed had not had lightning properties to it, he might have lost this life-bearing current.


    The lightning dragon was not sensitive when it came to distant objects. However, within a short range, its reactions were quicker than the speed of release of magic. With that powerful electric current protecting it, Saleen could not think of any way to deal with this magic beast.


    ¡°Master, go rest, I can handle it from here,¡± Nailisi said to Saleen. She did notck the patience to wait for her prey. Waiting aimlessly on the ship, however, made her restless.


    Nailisi¡¯s body had recovered much faster than Saleen¡¯s. He wanted to quickly restore his health too. He had more magic liquid with him now, mainly because Sregl Ind did notck it, and it was more effective than holy water. There were thirty-three sorcerers on the ind, and there had even been a grade-9 sorcerer in the past. Every day, they would make a portion of magic liquid.


    This magic liquid couldst at least a year. Jason had been worried about Saleen¡¯s safety and had Saleen take a great deal of it with him.


    Storing the magic liquid in the Ring of Gifts would extend its effective period. Looking at the other six grade-3 mages going off to meditate, Saleen drank the magic liquid. Using this form of magic medicine to restore the harm his body had sustained, Saleen started remembering what had happened during his battle with the lightning dragon.


    Even though Saleen had only met with the lightning dragon briefly, his memory on the golden magic patterns on the lightning dragon was fresh. The blue lightning that hade from the magic patterns had almost killed him. There had barely been any light under the water at that time and Saleen¡¯s icy sight had been affected by the high pressure. He could not recall the precise magic patterns on the lightning dragon.


    However, Saleen remembered a certain portion, and now that he was thinking carefully, hepared the magic patterns on the lightning dragon with the ones on his n badge. Saleen was disappointed when he realized that they had no simrities.


    It was said that a grade-10 sorcerer could look at a spell and calcte the theory and method of release of the spell. Saleen did not have such abilities. He had only taken a look at the process through which the lightning dragon released its electric currents. He could not determine how the lightning dragon had done it.


    The golden magic patterns on the lightning dragon seemed like defensive mechanisms, not offensive ones.


    Saleen recalled again the reaction of his body when he had been struck by the lightning. He had lost control of all of his muscles, and even his heart had stopped beating. Saleen had only been able to regain some of his functionality because his body was used to being in such a state, with no rtion to being electrocuted by the lightning dragon.


    Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s body had been modified by Joey and was like a perfect magic array. Its self-restoring abilities were something that other mages did not possess.


    In that brief moment, Saleen felt as though he had died. The electric current was like a loach, tunneling around and causing widespread destruction in his body. In that moment, even a level-1 spell would have killed him.


    If his current cutter had such properties, he would not need to be afraid of his enemies¡¯ defensive powers at all. Once they were electrocuted, the current could split his enemies into two.


    Saleen researched the experience the lightning dragon had inflicted upon him. Nailisi had her hand in front of the magic illusion, staring intently at the virtual image that was floating above the magic array.


    Demons were different from humans, as they inherited memories from their lineage. Take Nailisi, for example. Even though her parents had not imparted any knowledge to her, she had gained some memories from her demonic lineage when she had matured. Nailisi¡¯s blood was very unique and pure, and she had not lied to Saleen at all. She was indeed a unique imp.


    Theplexity of demons was greater than that of any other creature. Nailisi¡¯s powers might have been considered powerful even in the demon universe, but her body was too weak whenpared to a supreme demon. Hence, she had only been able to eat magic insects in order to survive. The only reason her group of demons could survive was because under normal circumstances, no demon would take the risk of hunting and eating them up.


    When her tribe fought with all their might, they could kill even a supreme demon. If she had not left the demon dimension before she had grown up and hence had not matured properly, she would not have needed to worry about dealing with the lightning dragon right now.


    The mages did not know the lightning dragon¡¯s weakness. Nailisi had only taken one look and had gained much more information.


    Over two hundred meters below the surface of the sea, there was almost no light. There were no other lives here either, and as the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat floated among the rocks, it in itself was like a giant stone. As the sky dimmed, the sea turned pitch ck, not receiving any more light, and the image of the magic illusion became an eerie ck and white.


    Suddenly, a burst of silver light appeared from afar. Nailisi focused and observed as she realized that the lightning dragon wasing out of its cave and swimming around the entrance, seemingly anxious. This creature might have realized that it was in danger. If its eggs had not been here, it might have moved its nest already.


    Magic beasts had a natural sensitivity towards danger. Unless they were below grade-3, it did not take much intelligence for a magic beast to avoid danger. This was something which humans did not possess.


    Nailisi was incredibly worried that this creature could take away its eggs. Nailisi had a special ability, which was devouring. However, this devouring came with certain conditions. The magic beast¡¯s eggs could easily be absorbed and disintegrated by the imp, and she would obtain the energy that was inside of them.


    Nailisi had once absorbed the essence of a giant dragon¡¯s heart. However, it was a pity that her body could not obtain the powers of the giant dragon. If she had been able to eat the tiago¡¯s eggs, that would have been a different matter. Eating a giant dragon¡¯s eggs, her powers would have been ten times what they were now, and much higher than Sika¡¯s.


    If she ate the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs, Nailisi would at least be able to gain the ability to defend herself from electric currents, or perhaps even release the powers of the current herself. Whatever she obtained, it would be incredibly important to Nailisi. At worst, she would gain some water-type magic and she would no longer need to release magic with the help of scrolls.


    Nailisi could possess eight different kinds of powers, and every time she devoured something, she would gain one of them. Now that she had already absorbed the essence of the giant dragon¡¯s heart, she had seven more that she could absorb. For an imp like her, gaining these eight abilities meant that she would be able to survive in the demon dimension. Otherwise, it did not matter how powerful her physical body was. Some of the supreme demons in the demon dimension would not go through the trouble of hunting dangerous creatures once they were old and weak.


    Gaining the eight powers was the most powerful inheritance that Nailisi¡¯s bloodline was able to leave behind. The kind of imp she was had a beautiful name in the demon dimension ¨C luoluokaluo ¨C meaning ¡°demon spirit¡± in the demonguage.


    This information was something that Nailisi would progressively receive as she became older. If Saleen had met her when she had already matured, even if Saleen had been stronger than her, she might not have given in. Moreover, at that time, Saleen had only been a grade-1 mage. He could not evenpare to a magic insect in the demon dimension.


    Since Nailisi had followed Saleen until she evolved, she had eaten some things based on her instincts. She had not been able to evolve from them and had not gained any real power. Now that she understood her powers, she would not be interested in anythingmon. The powers of this lightning dragon were what Nailisi really wanted.


    Nailisi cast a deadly re at the lightning dragon which was swimming around the entrance of the cave. She looked just like Sika when she looked at food. If this lightning dragon did not release its currents, Nailisi¡¯s ws and teeth could easily rip apart its skin, muscles, and even its bones.


    Saleen took out his n badge and slowly seeped his senses into it. He had done so very carefully and only used a small part of his focus. This time, his focus finally entered the n badge and started interacting with the secrets inside.


    The enormous elemental energy within the badge left Saleen feeling as if his focus had been solidified with someone else¡¯s magic. It was incredibly sluggish. He felt that the world within the n badge was murky and he could not see anything clearly. The only thing he was familiar with was the electric current energy which was slowly building, waiting to explode at any moment.


    It seemed as if the energy of this current was created from the jostling between the elements. If that was the case, this seventh energy was a derived magic and not an independent element.


    Such derived magic was even harder to learn than independent magic. One had to be incredibly familiar with the other fields that were involved. However, the lightning dragon was evidently not intelligent life. How could it have grasped suchplex stuff?


    Almost all magic beasts could only understand the most elementary magic. He had not heard of any magic beast that could grasp restorative magic or even derived magic. The existence of the lightning dragon, however, had disproved this view. As a mage, Saleen was incredibly perplexed.

 Chapter 270: Expensive Research (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 270: Expensive Research (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The lightning dragon did not want to leave its cave. Saleen took this opportunity to gather his thoughts, finding a way forward that suited him the most.


    Saleen understood a little now, he had not died after taking the magic medicine because the medicine used to be stored within the lightning shape mark in the n badge and some of its properties had been altered by it.


    If he wanted to have the highest achievement in magic, he needed to consider where the magic had originated from.


    Everything had to do with his n badge, it had the powers of lightning within, and the forming of his magic chords would definitely be affected by it. However, Saleen also remembered when it formed, he had only seen the water element.


    The secret of the lightning might have something to do with the water element, the so called elemental bnce could be an illusion too. The first time Saleen had slipped into a deep meditation, he had also realized that when mages meditated, they were not sleeping, but rather, their thoughts were still in motion. He could not calcte any magic form during this time and with his focus incredibly rxed, but he could instead remember the murkiest things within his memories.


    Such memories were incrediblyplex, they seemed blurry but the feeling of the body was incredibly real. Saleen recalled to the time when the n badge had released the lightning, the things that he had forgotten then slowly floated back into his mind.


    He could not figure out how the n badge had released lightning; however he could remember all the elemental vibrations and changes his body had experienced then.


    He did not know the logic behind it, yet he had experienced it deeply.


    Saleen was a little afraid, was this not an ability that only magic beasts had? Could humans have gained inspirations from magic beasts while learning magic?


    That was impossible, humans were powerful and there were not any magic beasts that coulde close, humans did not need to look at lower grade creatures to learn how to fight.


    Saleen retreated from his meditative state, this question puzzled him but he knew that he would not be able to uncover any secrets of magic by himself. Such as where did magic originate, or why it had spread among humans.


    He had experienced the feeling when the electric current was released earlier on and he had a deeper understanding of the magic patterns on the n badge, so he decided to conduct an experiment.


    Saleen had juste into contact with the Water me Alchemy spell and he had not truly learned it yet, but at least he knew the true meaning of the processed magic pattern now. It could allow the elemental energy within the magic pattern to revolve ording to a fixed pattern, even without the Water me Alchemy spell Saleen could still roughly process some simple items.


    He was confident now as he took out the witcher spider directly, he had not used this thing in a long time. The dangers that he had encountered in thest two years were not something the witcher spider could resolve, most of the time he had only let ity low at the side to prepare an ambush.


    Without its 8 legs the witcher spider was only the size of a fist, such a creature without any magic nuclei was already grade-4. Its tough body and sharp legs were its only abilities. Back then when Sika had smashed it with her rod, she had only ttened it but had not killed it.


    Saleen reanalyzed the body structure of the witcher spider, probing his senses within, only then did he realize the patterns within its outer shell were magic patterns too. Even though its body seemed pitch ck, it still had magic properties to it.


    These magic patterns were incrediblyplex and were simr to the patterns on Saleen¡¯s badge; they were three-dimensional.


    An ability to withstand incredible forces and a stunning restorative ability was what this magic pattern epassed. It was a pity that Saleen had only discovered these magic patterns recently, it was a little toote to research them. When Aini¡¯s parents had processed the witcher spider, some of the magic patterns¡¯ structure had been destroyed.


    In other words, the witcher spider puppet was not as tough as it had been when it was alive. If it met with another explosive force like the one Sika dealt it, it would be further damaged, perhaps even unable to restore.


    The part of the witcher spider that had the most preserved magic patterns were at its front legs, a bunch of sharp spikes on its legs were enough to rip apart the defenses of a magic shield.


    Saleen gave up after researching this magic pattern for a while. The magic pattern on the witcher spider were simr to those in some high-grade alchemy arrows, a high-grade alchemy arrow needed to have magic nuclei in it to be able to pierce through a magic shield when fired. Saleen had not made such arrows before but he had seen a blueprint of it. Back then he didn¡¯t know such magic patterns were three-dimensional and existed within the interior of the arrowhead.


    Saleen did not want to process such three-dimensional magic patterns. Before he had learnt the Water me Alchemy spell, he could only process some simple magic pattern structures. Saleen removed the magic nuclei from within the witcher spider as he started drawing ayer of the magic pattern from his n badge onto the surface of its body. He already had experience with this magic pattern and it was incredibly easy drawing it out. It could release miniscule amounts of electric current while the magic array was revolving.


    Using a fire element to process magic equipment would definitely bring about some differences; the higher the grade of the mage, the smaller the differences. Saleen¡¯s me alchemy spell was incredibly crude and even though he was a grade-4 mage, his ability was closer to a grade-3 mage. The mes that hade about from water elements could not be controlled carefully and could not process a fine magic pattern.


    Saleen spent an entire day on it before he managed to process the magic patterns crudely onto the witcher spider. This waspletely different from his attitude towards the Shenhe, the Shenhe was unique while the witcher spider was only an experimental ingredient.


    After processing the lightning magic pattern, Saleen then processed the natural magic pattern from the lightning dragon¡¯s body onto the surface of the witcher spider. He knew such imitation methods wouldn¡¯t produce the best results but he was only familiarizing himself with any feelings associated with lightning. Sess or failure were not within his considerations.


    At most his witcher spider would be destroyed, this was his strongest natural ingredient and if he was to create his own puppet, he could not destroy it yet.


    Saleen was a little stingy with his money but he also possessed a basic characteristic that all mages had. Once he was in a research frame of mind, he did not care about what he used up. To search for the truth, a mage could risk many dangers and the word ¡°regret¡± was never in their dictionary.


    When Saleen was in Bitter Water Prefecture, he would use up dozens of gold coins worth of magic nuclei and this was not even including the amount of money he wasted when creating scrolls. It did not matter how valuable an item was, Saleen could not care less. Only when a mage was willing to give all could he be ahead of the rest.


    The electric current magic pattern and the magic pattern on the lightning dragon did not have many simrities, nor did they have any position where they could link up. Saleen used his senses to probe to try and find a way where they coulde together the best.


    Such a basic method was something mages without magic lineages would do, since he did not have any guidance from a teacher. Mages who learned by themselves could only go through countless simtions and explorations to learn normal magic.


    As for a mage like Lex; most of her magic processes began with the theory. All the details were taught to her by a teacher, the first step of learning magic was incredibly easy.


    A mage without the guidance of anyone would waste most of his energy on such simtions, Saleen¡¯s theory knowledge was vast yet hecked direct guidance from Jason. Jason¡¯s essential lineage would only be essible to him when he reached grade-5, now all of his knowledge was the foundation. They were enough when he was between grade-1 to grade-3 but after grade-4, it proved to be a little problematic.


    Jason had not expected Saleen to advance to a grand mage this quickly too, hence he had only imparted him grade-1 to grade-3 knowledge. The rest had been passed on to him in bits. Jason had also given Saleen his magic notes. Through the past few years, Saleen had already gotten used to learning magic through theory knowledge. Using the simtion method to deduce if these two magic patterns had a match had be something foreign to him now.


    Saleen¡¯s simted the rough magic pattern on the lightning dragon, but processing them with the magic pattern from his n badge proved to be a challenged. The magic pattern from the n badge was three-dimensional, Saleen had simplified it but it did not change the fact that it was still three-dimensional, if changed it would no longer be able to contain electric currents.


    As for the magic patterns on the lightning dragon¡¯s surface, Saleen only saw a single ne. He had not used his focus to probe, back then his focus could not have probed the lightning dragon¡¯s body, the power of the electric current could destroy the structure of his focus. In other words, when blue electric current propagated the lightning dragon¡¯s body, even a sorcerer would not be able to use magic to lock on to it.


    This was how a lightning dragon was scariest; if one could not lock on to it, the magic would lose its pursuing effect. Without any aiming, no matter how strong or weak a magic was it would be the same as a magic cannon.


    Saleen used his senses to simte for a few hours but he could not find a way these two magic patterns could align. He then processed the lightning dragon magic pattern onto the electric current magic pattern, not linking them at all.


    This was much easier for Saleen, all he had to do was control the distance between the two magic patterns.


    Together with the magic pattern that Aini¡¯s parents had processed on the witcher spider for Saleen, the witcher spider puppet had 3yers of magic patterns on it now. One was used to protect the witcher spider¡¯s body structure while the other 2 had to do with the power of lightning, Saleen still had no idea how it would turn out.


    He took out the magic nuclei and refitted it into the witcher spider, letting it move around.


    The grade-4 magic nuclei iid within the witcher spider¡¯s body only released a second of light before dimming. Suddenly; a blue electric current appeared on the surface of the witcher spider¡¯s body, this electric current was exactly the same as the one on the lightning dragon, only much weaker.


    The blue electric current flowed on the surface of the witcher spider, not releasing any attack or disappearing. However the grade-4 magic nucleus iid within the witcher spider had almost been wiped clean, the witcher spider was paralyzed and Saleen couldn¡¯tmand it to do any action.


    This was a huge waste, these six grade-4 magic nuclei had been the iid into the witcher spider for the first time, a single failed attempt at condensing the electric current had almost wiped them clean. If he wanted to use simtions to research the truth behind the electric current method, it would waste an astronomical amount of money.


    Many mages were not talented but they were willing to give, that was how they could further their studies in magic. Saleen was a little dejected, he knew such magic powers had not been seen in any other mages before. He had no idea who the creator of the badge was, unless he found the notes of this person, he would need to start all over again.


    If he continued researching this way, Saleen would go bankrupt in a few months.

 Chapter 271: Expensive Research (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 271: Expensive Research (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At first Saleen thought he could continuously use trial and error to understand the theory behind the magic patterns, however; he had not expected the blue current to use up this much energy.


    It seemed like only Alchemy City could withstand such expenses. Saleen¡¯s finances alone were limited and he could not afford to use such methods to uncover the secrets of the electric current.


    In less than a second, he had used up more than two-thousand gold coins. Such methods of spending had to be the fastest in history, even quicker than dumping gold coins into water.


    The standard weight of a gold coin in the empire was twelve grams, two-thousand gold coins were heavier than twenty kilograms. Saleen still did not feel satisfied after spending over twenty kilograms of gold coins.


    As a sizzling noise sounded, the blue current on the body of the witcher spider disappeared and ck smoke appeared. Saleen immediately used a cleaning spell to clean the witcher spider, holding it in his hands.


    The nuclear position of the witcher spider was a piece of crystal, it had Saleen¡¯s focus imprinted on it and was used tomand the actions of the puppet. When the blue current appeared, Saleen¡¯s imprinted focus had not been affected, this part of the magic was sessful. At least after adding the magic pattern from the lightning dragon, Saleen¡¯s focus had not been hurt.


    The problem was that the current produced on the body of the witcher spider was too weak. Even if it did hit Saleen, it would not hurt him at all. Saleen did not even need to use a magic shield to be able to withstand such a current.


    That was the only value of this experiment, Saleen knew that if he was to continue researching, he would definitely be able to discover something.


    It seemed like he needed his own magic tower now, without it, this experiment used up too much. Saleen also felt that even if he were to have his own nine-storey magic tower and became a grade-9 sorcerer, he would not be able to afford such expenses.


    Continuing this experiment meant using magic nuclei non-stop, even if Saleen had that much money, he had nowhere to buy that many high-grade magic nuclei.


    High-grade magic nuclei were so expensive not because they were much better in their properties aspared to middle-grade and low-grade magic nuclei, it was because it was limited. Every year the high-grade magic beasts that could be hunted were all found in the sea, those onnd were either too hard to deal with or were almost extinct. Even though the Myers Maind was vast, human powers were too great and their destructiveness was shocking.


    The rise of every city meant that the living creatures within that area were being destroyed and hunted.


    If a wealthy person were to spot a magic beast, they would definitely hire some soldiers and mages to get rid of it. Besides getting money for it, they would be able to protect their citizens from being threatened.


    That was how the magic beasts on the Myers Maind slowly disappeared, besides some ces where the conditions are harsh and no humans would be willing to go. In other ces, when a magic beast appeared, mercenaries and adventurers would gather like hos.


    A swordsman was willing to hunt for a magic beast that was one or even two grades higher than himself for gold coins. Setting traps, poison, and alchemy weapons; he would use them all.


    The magic powers of a magic beast were limited, the rest of its powers came from its ws, so how could it fight against the armors and weapons of the swordsmen?


    Because of that high-grade magic nuclei were not bought over with gold coins, they had to be traded with materials. In the rare asion that someonecked money, he could auction off his magic nucleus for gold coins, the price of the magic nucleus would be ten times or even hundred times greater than what it was really worth.


    Alchemy City was rich because it defended the seas and it could defend against any attack by thebat fleet of the Cloudflow Empire.


    Controlling the seas, one could reap the benefits of it. Human activity had not affected the magic beasts in the sea before. Moreover, the area of the sea was countless times bigger than the area of the maind. There were far more magic beasts in the sea than the number of people on the Myers Maind.


    Saleen finally understood why Alchemy City could stand for thousands of years. Now he was about to do something simr, building a port and a fleet here, controlling the nearby seas, gathering a group and obtaining the magic resources in the sea.


    However, Saleen felt that there was something wrong with that, what if all the resources in the sea were used up by humans? Would humans be weaker then?


    During ancient times, the magic ingredients on the Myers Maind were countless and anyone that was training would not meet with the problem of ack of ingredients. However, only a few mages could have the luxuries that Lex had on the Maind. As for the rest, they would usually die before reaching a sorcerer.


    Lex wanted everyone to understand the secrets of magic but realistically, the number of people who could be sorcerers were the same now, because the Myers Maind could only nurture that many sorcerers.


    This was merely a shing thought in Saleen¡¯s mind, he had not given it much consideration. Whatever happened in the future, he could not give up on his magic training.


    If he became a mage like Raphael in the future, he would be able to create a world. He could nurture countless of magic beasts in that world; maybe that was what Raphael wanted to do?


    Whatever humans wanted, they would need to pay a price for it, this made so much sense. Mages gained magic powers and boundless knowledge but the price to pay was the Myers Maind getting increasingly deste as time passed. Sooner orter, it would be like the interdimensional space with no signs of life.


    The witcher spider was damaged after releasing a single blue current. Luckily Aini¡¯s parents had processed a magic pattern that was of high enough grade, it did not damage the structure of the witcher spider this time; the natural magic patterns within it had not changed.


    Saleen could not do a second experiment anymore, if he did it would really be destroyed. Although this current could not attack enemies, it affected the structure of the elements. The most precious part of the witcher spider was its stable structure because it had the ability to self-restore.


    ¡°Master, the lightning dragon has left,¡± Nailisi said. Saleen immediately rushed to the control cabin. The magic illusion within the magic array was a sea of grey, only the silver light that was left behind in the cave by the lightning dragon shone, lighting up the surroundings of the cave entrance.


    ¡°How long has it been?¡± Saleen had not seen when it left, he did not dare enter the cave immediately. If it returned, he would be stuck within and have no chance of escaping this time.


    ¡°Just now.¡±


    ¡°Wait a while.¡± Saleen did not want to take the risk. Even though it was not very intelligent, it might have a few tricks up its sleeve to survive. Who could guarantee that the lightning dragon was not trying to trick them and was waiting nearby to ambush?


    He had spent less than three days on the alchemy ship when it had returned the time before. It should have eaten till it was full, magic beasts and normal animals were not the same, every time they ate itsted for three to five days.


    Under dire circumstances, some insect-like magic beasts could go without food for up to two years. The alchemy ship that Saleen was on was the shell of the Pan Turtle. It could go without eating for two years as well, but the characteristics of the lightning dragon were unknown to everyone.


    ¡°Master, this lightning dragon is so powerful, it must eat a lot.¡± Nailisi tried to influence Saleen. She had a certain feeling that the lightning dragon had indeed left and was not waiting to ambush them. This was her demon¡¯s instinct.


    ¡°How do you know?¡± Saleen didn¡¯t believe in instincts, he believed in logic and deduction.


    Nailisi knew Saleen¡¯s character as she giggled at Saleen and said, ¡°The stronger it is, the more it would need to eat, look at Sika.¡±


    Saleen was left speechless at Nailisi¡¯s words, however it did make sense too, there were not any living creatures near the lightning dragon¡¯s ce. They were either scared away by it or were eaten by it. It had a big appetite, Nailisi¡¯s words made sense too.


    Sika was powerful, almost as strong as Nailisi. She needed to eat three meals a day, any less and it would affect her mood andbat abilities.


    Most magic beasts on the maind were like this too, the lightning dragon had to be as well.


    ¡°Wait another hour, if the lightning dragon really went out to hunt, it would be very far from here in an hour. It would be hard for it to return immediately.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Nailisi pouted, not arguing with Saleen. Anyway, the lightning dragon would not be returning any time soon.


    The two of them stared at the magic illusion in the magic array, the dark entrance of the cave shone with a silver light. Even without the help of magic, the light could be seen from a mile away.


    ¡°A light that can pierce through the darkness, this colour is simr to that on the surface of the lightning dragon. I have read from notes that the lightning dragon secretes a sticky substance.¡± The six grade-3 mages had stopped their meditation and training,ing beside the magic array and looking at the magic illusion from it.


    The entrance was over two meters wide, whenever the lightning dragon entered and exited, its body would rub against the stone walls. As time passed, the secretions had seeped into the walls.


    ¡°Is this thing of any value?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Very, a finger-sized piece of the solidified secretion could be exchanged for dozens of high-grade magic nuclei.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Why, is it valuable? What special properties does it have?¡±


    The mages from Sreeger Ind did not hide from Saleen, he was a student of Jason and in their eyes, he was truly one of them.


    In turned out that the lightning dragon had never been captured alive before, mages had only been able to find its remains. These remains were usually left behind tens of thousands of years ago. Their skeleton could not withstand the passing of time, unlike those of other magic beasts and had started to dpose after three hundred to five hundred years. The skin of the lightning dragon would fossilize after it died, these fossilized skins had a thinyer of solidified secretion on its surface and this material had an interesting property. When it was added into any magic equipment, it would immediately raise its stability and made it easier to process the equipment.


    ¡°Magic stability medicine?¡± Saleen thought about it, many alchemists were masters of magic medicine too, they could make use of a high-grade magic medicine to increase the efficiency of their alchemy.


    ¡°No, it is a solidifying stability medicine.¡± A mage exined.


    The value of a solidifying stability medicine was ridiculously high because there was an ingredient in the medicine which was the solidified secretion from the lightning dragons. Humans could not hunt for lightning dragons and hence, it became lesser and lesser. The natural remains of the lightning dragon were all found deep in the sea and humans did not have the ability to swim to such depth to find them.


    Saleen swallowed hard, he had to get his hands on that stuff! ¡°Lightning dragon, I¡¯m sorry but it is your fault that you are full of precious materials,¡± he thought.

 Chapter 272: Electric Stone (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 272: Electric Stone (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Processing magic equipment and writing scrolls had the same problem, they both had a high possibility of failure. The higher grade the magic equipment, the easier it was to fail. When Saleen was reprocessing the witcher spider he had actually failed because the magic patterns had damaged it.


    The secretions from the lightning dragon were a main ingredient for the solidifying stabilizing medicine. Humans could no longer capture lightning dragons, so such medicine was incredibly valuable.


    It was a necessary ingredient when it came to processing holy weapons or half-god weapons, and to ensure that a holy weapon could be processed sessfully, a mage would pay any price.


    Equipment was different from scrolls; scrolls were a one-time item and even if they were written incorrectly the loss to a mage was not that great. At least in the writing process a mage would be practicing storing magic in the scroll. No matter whether it seeded or failed the mage would be able to gain valuable experience.


    Although Saleen was agitated, he was not crazy enough to go scrape off the secretions on the wall right now. He could only do so when the lightning dragon had been killed. This cave was incredibly deep in the ocean, a normal swordsman or mage would not be able to find it. Saleen was not worried that it would be taken away by others, this coast belonged to him now. Even though the mages from Sregl Ind were tempted, they remembered Jason¡¯s warning: ¡°Saleen makes the decisions.¡±


    Of course, Saleen would not mistreat these mages. This solidifying stabilizing medicine was of much use to him now. He needed toy down magic arrays while he was building the city. He had to build another thirty-six magic towers too. During the building of these magic towers he needed to use something simr to a magic medicine. Saleen knew clearly that at the end of the day most of the magic towers in the city would be defended by the mages of Sregl Ind.


    Jason could not control everything either. The most important thing in the remains within the interdimensional space was the six-element space. The world that Raphael had created was very much worth researching, and the six-element space could speed up a sorcerer¡¯s advancement too.


    As of now, Saleen did not feel it was anything wrong. Lex could not control everything within the interdimensional space. Without Jason¡¯s help she would not even be able to open the passageway to the interdimensional space to build a teleportation array.


    Instead of finding someone else for help, why not let Jason do it? After all, Jason had not taken away Lex¡¯s portion on Saleen¡¯s ount.


    Saleen waited patiently, but the lightning dragon was not quick. It was slower than most magic beasts onnd. Saleen let it go further away before he had the courage to re-enter the cave. The first time was an ident. This time, he was after the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs.


    As time passed slowly, Saleen became sure that the lightning dragon was gone. He stepped into the teleportation array, but made Nailisi stay in the ship. He did not want Nailisi to destroy the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs. Handling the eggs required a special touch and one could not just take them away as they were.


    Saleen was a mage, so he would not make such low-grade mistakes. If not, he would not have left so hurriedly thest time and would have taken the magic eggs back with him.


    He used the teleportation array to enter the deep sea. Saleen had already gotten used to the pressure this time and the ice te armor was effective at reducing it.


    As he swam towards the lightning dragon¡¯s nest he was unusually nervous. He held onto his n badge tightly; he would not be defenseless like before once the lightning dragon appeared.


    It was almost a hundred meters from the cave entrance to its interior. Saleen now knew how precious the silver substance was but he did not have the time to collect it. He hurriedly went through the tunnel to the eggs.


    The red lightning dragon eggs had a purple pattern on their surface in the water. Saleen reached out to feel the ck stones that were surrounding the lightning dragon eggs. He wondered if he should use the holy text that had a life force to it or directly drip blood on the lightning dragon eggs to leave a mark.


    The magic beast¡¯s eggs needed to breathe too and they could not be stored within the spatial equipment. The spatial equipment was simr to a special interdimensional space that was a vacuum. Any living creature ced inside would notst long, simr to how a fish out of water would die from suffocation.


    Any living creature without magic abilities would have their blood boiled if they were ced in the spatial equipment. These magic eggs would not be able to be handled by other people¡¯s hands, luckily Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts had the holy texts with life force in them and could hold life.


    ¡°Master, do not move.¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s voice sounded in Saleen¡¯s head. This shocked him in his nervous state, after all he was stealing the eggs of a grade-8 magic beast. The lifespan of a grade-8 creature was almost the same as a grade-9 one and their attacking powers were simr too. Saleen was a thief in itsir, one could only imagine his nervousness.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s voice was incredibly cold. Saleen knew that was because its memories of Daniel had not disappeared.


    ¡°Why not?¡± Saleen asked in his head, as his hands stopped.


    ¡°You need to keep the ck stones together too. If not, the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs will die,¡± the winged skeleton replied.


    ¡°How do you know?¡± Saleen did not mention how strange it was. This winged skeleton was a creature that Daniel had summoned from the death dimension. Could it still have memories of its past?


    ¡°Master, I once swallowed the soul of a human mage. That is why I am self-conscious now. From the memories that I have, there is something about these stones. They are electric stones also known as tourmaline on the Myers Maind. The lightning dragon¡¯s eggs do not have any magic nuclei. To let it continuously absorb electricity it cannot leave these stones.¡±


    ¡°Tourmaline?¡± Saleen echoed the gemstone¡¯s name in his head.


    Tourmaline was a special stone, many mages used it to create equipment that could bring a dying man back to life. Even if the victim¡¯s heart had stopped beating, tourmaline could revive them. Within the lightning dragon¡¯s nest he had not realized that these gemstones were hiding inside the stones. He had overlooked a fundamental problem.


    Magic beasts¡¯ eggs already had life to them and if they had life, they must have other natural properties.


    Tourmaline was inside the ck stones and there had to be dozens of tons of them there. If Saleen wanted to take all of them away, he would need to spend a long time cutting them up.


    No wonder the lightning dragon chose this ce as its nest. There was a giant pile of natural electric stones here.


    ¡°Electric stones¡­ could they hold the power of electricity within them?¡± Saleen thought to himself. If that was the case and he created the special magic equipment in the future, he would need to iy such gemstones.


    Saleen tapped the cbash by his waist and a six-meter-long current rushed out. With it under Saleen¡¯s control he started cutting up the ck stones. Knowing that there was tourmaline within, he was much more careful and tried his best to cut the stone from the outside.


    The patch of ck stones formed a circle on the ground, but he found they were all joined underground. Saleen dug deeper, all the way until six meters deep before the ck stones could be cut.


    Saleen could not keep such arge stone even if he wanted to. He could only split it into four parts each over a meter long. He ced the piece that had the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs on it into the Ring of Gifts and the remaining three pieces into the Demon¡¯s Ring.


    Saleen was a grade-4 mage and did not have the ability to open normal spatial equipment. These two rings did not have any grade restrictions on the mage, but the space was rtively smaller.


    Just like Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring it could store practically a countless amount of items. Saleen had not seen Lex troubled due to ack of space. On the other hand, he frequently met with such problems. If Nailisi was not with him his two rings would not be enough.


    Nailisi waited impatiently on the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. Saleen had been gone for too long. He was just taking the magic beasts¡¯ eggs, could he be in danger? She had no feeling of Saleen getting hurt from deep within her soul and Saleen had let her man the teleportation array, so she did not dare leave it.


    In actuality, she was even more anxious than Saleen. These mages had looked at the alchemical boat just like how she looked at the magic beasts¡¯ eggs. Nailisi was thinking from a demon¡¯s perspective and did not find these mages trustworthy.


    Saleen wanted to quickly return to the alchemical boat too. It took time to cut the stones into suitable sizes to be ced within the ring. The use of the spatial equipment was limited. How big an object one could fit within it depended on their abilities.


    If not, a normal person would be able to wave a mountain away just by wearing the God¡¯s Ring. This was something from folklore. Real spatial equipment would need to use up focus, simr to releasing a scroll.


    If one forcefully took something too big it would cause the user¡¯s focus to deplete and turn them into an idiot. No mage would do something so stupid.


    Getting the tourmaline satisfied Saleen. He had heard that in other dimensions this was known as an electric stone. He thought about it and decided that if they were useful to his training he could buy them when they were cheap on the market. As for the one that he had cut off, he could use it as part of the materials in building the magic towers.


    In the future, his magic towers would needrge number of tourmaline gems. As long as this thing could hold electric power, Saleen had decided to spend a fortune on it. He felt he would be a grade-6 mage soon. If he bought them, it would beter. Buying such arge number of the same material would cause its prices to skyrocket.


    The price of tourmaline was moderate now because there were other gemstones that could rece it. Once a sole property could only be found in a specific gemstone, even if the gemstone was everywhere, its prices would be pushed to insane heights.


    ¡°Soldier, why did you suddenly talk to me?¡± Saleen asked the winged skeleton as he processed the tourmaline.


    ¡°I would need to speak sooner orter.¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice was incredibly cold and bitter. Saleen wanted to soothe it but he could not do so since the winged skeleton had been traded over from Daniel. Without his contract, Daniel could not give up the winged skeleton.


    Saleen sighed internally before he spoke to the winged skeleton, ¡°Do what pleases you, I won¡¯t interfere.¡±


    ¡°You are my master, I will listen to you from now on.¡± The winged skeleton was not touched by Saleen¡¯s words. He was obviously still hung up on Daniel leaving him behind.

 Chapter 273: Electric Stone (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 273: Electric Stone (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was true that a contract creature needed to listen to everything its master said, however, there had also been mages who had been killed by their contract creatures. They either had no intelligence or were too intelligent, and having rich emotions could cause huge trouble. A mage would usually only take in one contract creature as it required a lot of focus to nurture them.


    Saleen had never created any sealing type of equipment to conceal Nailisi so as to live together with her. Nailisi was highly intelligent and if he treated her like any other contract creature it would lead her to be distant towards him.


    It was a pity that Saleen did not have time to interact with the winged skeleton now. He had a guilty conscience and wanted to leave the lightning dragon¡¯s nest as soon as possible.


    He used his fastest speed to return to the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat and with the help of the six grade-3 mages Saleen quickly steered the ship away from the lightning dragon¡¯s nest. This time they steered north for over an hour before they came to a river intersecting with the sea. The alchemical boat swam upwards with the river flow, only stopping when it reached a riverbank.


    The lightning dragon could not chase after them in such shallow water.


    When the lightning dragon returned and realised its eggs were gone it would definitely be angry and look for them nearby. Saleen was not sure if the alchemical boat could withstand a beating from the lightning dragon now. While escaping Saleen already had some ideas on how to deal with the lightning dragon. Since it could not leave water, he could make use of the river¡¯s flow.


    It was a pity that he was so anxious, if there was a grade-8 mage with him right now Saleen would have a perfect way of dealing with the lightning dragon. His n now was not very safe. Without any sorcerers it would be a little hard to control the lightning dragon.


    Letting the mages from Sregl Ind return to report their safety, Saleen and Nailisi stayed on the alchemical boat. They could not continue their work underwater now with the lightning dragon there. Saleen did not want to take any risks in the water or even near the coast.


    The lightning dragon was known as a grade-8 creature probably because of its weakness; it could not go ashore. Many people did not have to worry about it. For a normal person, a lightning dragon was much less scary than a magic wolf.


    Saleen waited for all the mages to leave before he took out the tourmaline and the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs. It was not that he did not want to share them, but these low-grade mages had no use for something of such high-grade. Only a sorcerer like his teacher could help him use them. Saleen was only worried that these eggs were incubating too quickly.


    The hatching of magic beasts¡¯ eggs had no definite rules to it. Some magic beasts¡¯ eggs could mature within three to five months while some would take decades. Since Sregl Ind had been sealed, it would take at least three years for anyone toe.


    If the eggs showed any signs of hatching before then, Saleen could only keep them for himself.


    Nailisi looked pitifully at Saleen. She raised one finger to point at the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs.


    ¡°You only want one?¡± Saleen was a little shocked. Nailisi did not usually eat anything, but when she came across something she liked, she could eat more than Sika. These lightning dragon eggs should be beneficial to her, so how could she only want one?


    A nest of lightning dragon eggs had forty-four eggs. Saleen nned to reserve thirty-six of them to give them to the mages that defended the magic towers. Of course Lex would have two of the remaining ones and there would be six left. If the mages from Sregl Ind did not arrive in time, Saleen could keep all of them and give them out however he liked.


    Nailisi nodded, only needing one lightning dragon egg. If she absorbed itpletely she would definitely gain a new ability.


    Saleenughed. Nailisi was rarely this generous. He knew that the fact that Nailisi did not take the eggs by herself proved that their benefits were greater than others she had eaten in the past. A demon¡¯s attitude was entirely different from a human¡¯s.


    ¡°Three, I think three is enough for you. I will keep three as well, but then I need to give out the rest.¡± Saleen pointed at the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs on the tourmaline.


    Nailisi smiled gleefully as she grabbed three eggs and threw them into her mouth.


    ¡°Master, I need to take a rest. Unless you want me dead, do not call me.¡± Nailisi¡¯s words left Saleen unable to do anything. A demon¡¯s attitude could be full of deceit, but it could also be unbearably direct. Demons were known to be intelligent creatures by humans because they were just asplex as them.


    Humans would grade creatures that looked simr to them as more intelligent. For example; most people would think that monkeys were intelligent animals only because they looked simr in appearance to humans. In fact, they were not even as clever as some crows.


    Demons were simple, at least that was how Nailisi saw it. After swallowing the eggs she immediately left Saleen¡¯s side and she went to rest in the cabin herself, sealing the door shut behind her.


    While she was ingesting the essence of the giant dragon¡¯s heart, Nailisi still did not have the ability to absorb the powers voluntarily. She had wasted a lot of energy, but she did not feel it was anything. If she could find another Tiago in the future, she would continue swallowing and absorbing it. So long as she solidified this type of energy on her body there was still a chance.


    Nailisiid on the bed, slowly returning to her special form.


    A pair of silver horns emerged from her head and her body grew slightly longer and obviously thinner. Removing her clothes, her skin became a nephrite color. Smooth and shiny, the faint green magic patterns became clearer as the lightning dragon eggs that she had swallowed were rapidly breaking down.


    It was not as painful for Nailisi this time. The perfect absorption method allowed her to enjoy it as her happiest experience since she had followed Saleen. The magic patterns on the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs were incorporated into Nailisi¡¯s body and began to be assimted. The magic patterns on her body became moreplicated; her tail, fingernails, and her horns gained a thin thread of gold to them.


    Her absorption did not leave her satisfied and she suddenly felt incredibly hungry. Such absorption required arge amount of energy. Nailisi took out the food that she had prepared from her bracelet and began to eat it.


    Saleen kept the lightning dragon eggs with the tourmaline. He did not need to use any tricks to preserve them, but he needed to research the tourmaline.


    Tourmaline was notmonly seen on the Myers Maind and some might even ssify it as rare. However, there were so many recements for this gemstone that its price had always been low.


    Saleen had not ced great significance to this gemstone in the past but now that he knew the link between tourmaline and lightning he had to ce it in high regard.


    He ced the giant gemstone in front of himself and used his current cutter technique to shave away the outeryer of stone around the tourmaline. Slowly it started to reveal its true form. Saleen cut with much patience this time to ensure he did not waste anything as even this outeryer of stone was valuable. Whenever he cut, he kept a standard depth to it.


    The ck outeryer was stripped away and the tourmaline saw light. This was not the first time Saleen had seen tourmaline, but this time the tourmaline within was of incredible quality.


    The green gemstone was almost half a meter in diameter. Saleen cut open the original stone and saw a sh of blue electricity going across the tourmaline. In the past when he had seen equipment shops selling tourmaline they were small, but the tourmaline in front of him now was enormous. It had to contain some electrical current naturally.


    At this point, Saleen did not dare continue. Even though the original stone had been cut up into four pieces by him, only this piece had tourmaline in it. The other three were made up of the original stone.


    This original stone had its uses too, especially the parts closer to the gemstone. They could even be considered impure tourmaline. Saleen was afraid if he continued cutting that the tourmaline would get even smaller and would no longer be able to contain the powers of electricity. Keeping the tourmaline, Saleen found a piece of original stone that was purer and he started thinking.


    ¡°How should I use this original stone? There are three more giant original stones, if I was to cut them all up, they would be able to create quite a bit of healing equipment. If I give them to Lex¡¯s army and give some to the mages in my city, they should almost be enough,¡± he thought.


    These original stones could not be that simple. The tourmaline was enveloped within it and the electric power was absorbed and released at a speed even Saleen could not detect. This was the gemstone¡¯s ability to absorb. Saleen had not realized the tourmaline was there because the original stone around it had blocked his senses.


    The tourmaline mined on the maind had never been such a sight to behold before. The original stone that could block out senses could be very useful.


    Saleen only had a vague feeling as to what this stone could do. He had not thought much about it yet.


    The purer the stone, the closer its effect was to tourmaline. Saleen used an experiment to test his theory. He cut out a piece of original stone one foot wide and started drawing a magic array on it.


    Most magic arrays were drawn unless they were being used on high-grade equipment. Only then would mages use an eternal solidifying method to process the magic array.


    No matter how good the material used for the magic array it could not be used for too long. For experimenting, Saleen only needed it tost for a few days.


    Saleen had drawn an energy gathering magic array, leaving a ce at the top to iy a magic nucleus. He then started drawing magic patterns on the magic array. He drew the two magic patterns that he had experimented on the witcher spider with onto the original stone.


    After doing all this he iid six grade-4 magic nuclei on the magic array. It started revolving and provided energy to the magic patterns. The twoyers of magic patterns came alive immediately as a blue electric current started flowing between the magic patterns.


    As expected, the original stone of the tourmaline could stabilize the usage of the electric current. The six grade-4 magic nuclei dimmed quickly, but not as fast as the other time. When he had experimented on the witcher spider the first time the magic nuclei were wiped clean instantly. At least itsted for more than ten seconds this time.


    Saleen finally saw hope for his training. If he could use the real tourmaline to process such magic patterns, the usage of the magic nuclei would be eptable. If it was still uneptable, he still had the dragonshard from the Tiago he could use.


    Saleen would grasp the energy of electricity without hesitation, even if he had to use up the dragonshard.

 Chapter 274: Murder Plan (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 274: Murder n (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Only magic chords were the most reliable thing to use. No one had any idea who said that first, but they must have been a traditional mage. Saleen¡¯s thinking had been heavily influenced by Jason and because of that when he was training he did not care how much money he spent on his magic chords.


    Saleen was only concerned with how he could continue training. The new magic patterns that he had just grasped were shabby. Not only could they not be used for attacking, but they also used up a lot of energy.


    Saleen could not continue with them while he still had more pressing issues to deal with. If the lightning dragon were to return, it would be incredibly angry. He had to deal with that problem first before he considered other things.


    It was already October and the wind on the white beach was incredibly cold. The mages that were working all released the solidifying magic on their magic robes to resist the cold. The swordsmen only had their sword aura, but it was not snowing and they were better at resisting the cold than the mages.


    During this season, the nts in the region would shed their leaves and present a yellow color. When Saleen and Nailisi came down from the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat they saw the mages still slogging away. The forest had already been cleared to make way for roads and an empty space cleared for more craftsmen to arrive to start building the city.


    The leaves that they cleared had been piling up for tens of thousands of years leaving tons ofpost material underneath. Some of the pirates that were once farmers touched the deep ck soil and started crying.


    Many of them had been forced to be pirates and the fertilend there had reminded them of their past lives. The Qin Empire had high regards for agriculture, and even mages had a good opinion of it.


    As these busy people saw the fertilend, they felt a simple satisfaction in their hearts. This ce had been barren for thousands of years with no oneing to stay, but now it was such a beautiful piece ofnd.


    Daniel was the only one who did not feel that way. He was born in Tanggsi and was a wealthy man. Thend there was infertile and they had be rich through business simr to a Sikeqinya person. He hadmanded the huge death creatures to reim thend and had deforested the ce. A feeling of humiliation rose from his heart.


    Only the people from the Qin Empire would be so bold as to ask a wealthy mage to do such a thing. While Daniel was resting he chewed on the jerky that the mages from Sregl Ind had given to him, thinking to himself how terrible his life was. He thought to himself, ¡°What is the use cultivating so many crops on a piece ofnd? It is still less than ten percent of the revenue I get from doing business.¡±


    When Saleen appeared in front of Daniel, he could not help but immediately startining.


    ¡°Saleen, can I do something else?¡±


    ¡°Something else?¡± Saleen looked at Daniel in shock. The sincere looking death mage was filled with sorrow now, looking even more unhappy than when he had forced him to be his follower.


    ¡°Something that a mage would do. Look; my summoned creature has be an animal that is used to till thend and they have been eating tasteless food. I¡¯m a death mage. Besides researching spirits, fighting is my profession.¡±


    ¡°Oh, so that¡¯s the case¡­¡± Saleen looked at Daniel thoughtfully. As he had gotten older and spent the past few years with Lex, he had gained an aura of nobility to him. He was no longer the same out of spirit youth; now, his thoughts were hard to read by others. He understood Daniel¡¯s grievances. After all, Daniel was from Tanggsi.


    ¡°Yes!¡± Seeing Saleen with an understanding andpassionate expression, Daniel was relieved. He did not want to do farmwork any more.


    Saleen sighed in his heart. Was he not the same as Daniel? Were mages really more noble than other professions? Without the farmers tilling thend, the mages would go hungry.


    If one did not work, what right did he have to eat? Daniel reminded Saleen of himself when he had first arrived in Bitter Water Prefecture. He had not been able to understand why the mages wanted to do so much for Lex.


    He understood now that mages were the same as others, besides their natural gifts.


    Daniel was talented, but it was a pity he was a little showy about it. It was different from his appearance. This could be good too. He had brought Daniel under his control as a fa?ade for him in the future.


    ¡°I can arrange for you to do something else. Daniel, when do you feel like you will go up another grade?¡± Saleen asked Daniel about his advancement.


    ¡°It is hard to say. I feel as if I¡¯m already at the edge of grade-4, but I can¡¯t seem to advance another step. I might have a breakthrough at any moment.¡± Daniel was a little cocky. He was like a mage now and he had not thought about his contract with Saleen. He was satisfied with his own abilities.


    ¡°Then you should do something else besides training to go experience this world. Since you don¡¯t want to do something like this, go gather the pirates together, you need to ept a few magic disciples.¡±


    Daniel was shocked and he asked, ¡°ept magic disciples? It¡¯s still too early for me, isn¡¯t it? I don¡¯t have death mes yet. Even if one or two of these pirates are gifted, they cannot be death mages.¡±


    Daniel was not worried about his lineage; his teacher had not warned him not to impart his magic knowledge to other people.


    ¡°Once the city is built, I will arrange aboratory for you. You will need some people to serve you. Choose some for now, then I will gather more pirates in the future and you can choose better ones from there. Take it as training on how to be someone else¡¯s teacher.¡±


    Daniel thought for a while. It was better than staying there, so he agreed.


    ¡°As forbat, I need to deal with a lightning dragon now. You are only a grade-3 mage, so you can¡¯t help.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words left Daniel embarrassed. He knew he was avoiding any work now. He did not yet have the ability to face off against a grade-8 creature.


    Daniel hesitated for a while before saying, ¡°Saleen, I definitely cannot go underwater but can I help fromnd?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± Saleenughed. He took out the new map that the mages had just drawn. Pointing at it, he said, ¡°I need to set up a huge trap here, but first I need to dredge this area.¡±


    Saleen exined his n to Daniel. As Daniel listened he could not help but respect Saleen. Saleen¡¯s idea was very simple, but it was precisely because it was simple that it was possible to capture the lightning dragon. He was satisfied with Saleen¡¯s arrangements too, even though it involved working thend. It was part of the battle and not the same job as what the craftsmen had.


    ¡°Bring the pirates to do this. Remember; use your death magic to hide your scent so you don¡¯t alert the lightning dragon. I give it at most half a month before it returns. It might appear in as little as three to five days, so you need to work quickly.¡±


    Saleen easily deflected Daniel¡¯s grievances and he even managed to get him to do a more onerous task happily. He started questioning himself. Since when had he be so simr to Lex? Could the bloodline thing be true? His ancestors were wealthy too but it had been over thousands of years. That little amount of bloodline he shared with the wealthy families had to be as diluted as water.


    Saleen did not know that as he was growing up that he would naturally be affected by those around him. Lex had not taught him any technique when it came to this, but after spending years together Saleen had unconsciously learned many things from Lex. These things were unrted to magic and were entirely based on one¡¯s temperament and abilities.


    He had many things he needed others for, he could not just deal with the lightning dragon alone. Before Lex returned, he had to set the foundation of the city. There was a lot a thousand people could do and Saleen was not very troubled, it all seemed pretty easy.


    As he let Daniel set the traps, Saleen called over all the mages from Sregl Ind to research the first building of the city.


    Under Jason¡¯s design, the center of the city was a square with a huge teleportation portal. Saleen did not have the ability to change the blueprint but he decided not to build a square. Instead, he wanted to build a building that was simr to the temple of the Myers Goddess.


    There was a teleportation portal in the temple of the goddess. It was incredibly stable and was not damaged even after tens of thousands of years. Saleen wanted to build this city to gain a safe passageway for him and Lex to enter the interdimensional space, so he naturally thought of the Goddess¡¯ temple. That building left asting impression on him. The temple had also changed his fate. He had met Nailisi there and gained arge amount of wealth.


    Large amounts of building materials had been taken out from within the bracelet that Lex had left for Nailisi. More puppets were used to build the city. When Jason designed this city, he had also created many puppets specifically to help with construction. To finish this city with humans alone would take decades.


    The price to pay to speed up the process of building the city was that it required arge number of magic nuclei tomand these puppets.


    Saleen wanted to build a temple that did not make offerings to any god and the n left the mages incredibly excited. Perhaps in their hearts, such a temple symbolized their faith in magic.


    Such an action was of course offending to the Holy See, but who cared? The pirates definitely did not and the mages from Sregl Ind had not cared about any gods for the past thousands of years.


    The trap in the north still required onest important step. Saleen took out arge puppet from the bracelet that Lex had left him and let the mages assemble it.


    The mages that Jason had chosen for Saleen all had special abilities. Some were masters in alchemy, some could concoct magic medicine, but all of them had a simrity. They were all experts when it came to magic arrays. Saleen distributed the work and all that was left was to set up the trap.


    The most important part of the trap was the bait. The lightning dragon¡¯s eggs were in Saleen¡¯s hands, but Saleen was not afraid the lightning dragon would note. North of the city there were some rivers that flowed into the sea. The river that Saleen¡¯s alchemical boat had entered was not very wide, but it was deep. Saleen had thought of the idea of baiting it because the river was not very wide.


    Lightning dragons were very powerful, but if it entered a river that was too narrow, it would be the same as a fish entering a. It would be impossible for it to escape.

 Chapter 275: Murder Plan (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 275: Murder n (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The terrain north of Phoenix was incredibly primitive, so the river that Saleen had chosen to set the trap in had been changed many times. Daniel needed to go upstream to where the river used to be and build a temporary dam. Once this dam was opened, the river would flow into the other path.


    Since they had cleaned the river first, Daniel¡¯s progress was incredibly fast. The giant death creature was more effective than any puppet. After all, there were only so many things a mage couldmand a puppet to do. A summoned creature was like an extension of one¡¯s body, it could do things that puppets could not.


    There was a giant rock blocking the river, but the corrosion magic released from the horns on the three heads of the Pikoosi quickly destroyed the white rock. Daniel was able to quickly finish half of his job.


    The mages from Sregl Ind alsomanded therge puppets to set up the trap. At the two sides of the original path of the river, Saleen had gathered arge pile of stone materials. They were almost one-hundred meters high, as he had mined them fervently every day. When the stone materials were ced on the magic array and it was activated, the heavy stones would immediately nt and drop into the river to cut its flow.


    In the history of the Myers Maind, cutting a river flow was not anything very difficult. A grade-9 mage could easily block a small river alone. Saleen¡¯s trouble now was that even though the river was not wide the river currents were rapid and deep. As he was cutting off the river flow he had to ensure that the lightning dragon could not break through the defenses and return to the sea.


    Saleen did not have anyone by his side that was higher than a sorcerer, so he had no choice but to do things the primitive way.


    The lightning dragon was faster than anybat vessel in the water, Saleen had to ensure that when the river flow was cut off, it would not be able to return. When it came back, the mages on both sides of the riverbanks would have to evacuate too. If they waited there they might not be able to withstand the electric current¡¯s powers like him and Nailisi could.


    Once the river flow was stemmed he needed to stop the river flow at the top and divert it as well. If he did not, it would overflow from the stone materials. The lightning dragon could not leave water and once the waters crossed the dam, the dragon would return to the sea and Saleen would not have any way to deal with it.


    Even if the lightning dragon was not an intelligent creature, it would not fall for the same trap twice.


    Seeing as the traps were almostid, Saleen and Nailisi sat at the river bank looking at the mages setting the magic arrays. To let so many stones fall into a river that was more than ten meters deep, they needed them to fall in all at once. A magic array was not enough. Rhis would use up thousands of times more energy than magic stone artillery.


    Human strength was incredible; Even though they were not as strong as they were thousands of years ago, when so many weak humans came together they could kill a grade-8 lightning dragon. As hundreds of people split up to work, they were all individually as weak as ants to the lightning dragon.


    The river water was cold and even on the river bank Saleen could feel the chilling aura as the wind blew over. The environment in the north was indeed harsh. No wonder no wealthy people were willing to develop thend there.


    Feeding a farmer here would cost more and they still had to give taxes to the empire.


    ¡°Nailisi, what is your hometown like?¡± Saleen thought back to his own hometown; Ceylon City. He still had no idea when he could return. Saleen no longer wanted to impress all those that knew him there, it was immature. After bing a grand mage, Saleen no longer considered the opinions of themoners.


    He did feel a little sorry for Gugger, he had taken his money yet was of no help to him. If he felt this way, Gugger¡¯s investment was already half sessful. So long as Saleen could return in the future, he would definitely bring about enormous benefits for Gugger.


    Sikeqinya was not like Alchemy City. Over there, mages were held in higher regards. The mages in Alchemy City might seem to look down upon the other professionals, but thepetition between the mages was also intense. There were normal mages, disciples, and grand mages around; but the true powers were only in the hands of the sorcerers.


    The mages that Jason had sent to Saleen would definitely carry out Jason¡¯s orders without question. Unless they became sorcerers, Jason would always have power over them.


    What seemed to be loyalty was in fact obligation. That was not something Saleen fancied. His ideal life for the mages, or what he could ept for them, was something more like Lex¡¯s ideals even though they were not very realistic.


    ¡°I have already told you.¡± Nailisi was incredibly tired now. She had used the bracelet to carry arge amount of stone materials and that took up focus too. She did not have the sense of a contract creature and she did not want to answer Saleen.


    ¡°In my hometown, the river would freeze in winter and the port would close too. I have heard in ces even further north, there would be mountains floating in the water that are made entirely from ice.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± Nailisi answeredzily not focusing on his words. Sika and Lex being gone was a little difficult for her to adapt to. She wished Sika were there. Even though Lex treated her well, she did not like someone who had too much controlling power. Even though Saleen was getting more and more powerful, it could not change the difference in grade between them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to go back and see?¡± Saleen seemed to be full of words today. He rarely shared his feelings and most of the time he had was used to train his magic.


    ¡°I do, but there is no point. You can¡¯t go back with me anyway.¡±


    ¡°Why not? Nailisi, do you think I am such a heartless person?¡±


    ¡°Master, you are too weak. I don¡¯t want you to be eaten up by the supreme demons.¡± Nailisi¡¯s answer was a heartless one.


    Saleen was not offended by Nailisi¡¯s frankness. He looked at the puppets busying themselves on the other side of the river as he said to Nailisi, ¡°If I be a grade-9 sorcerer, I can go back with you, right? I want to see what the other dimensions look like.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you been to the interdimensional space?¡±


    ¡°I was forced by the oracle there, but I hope one day I will be able to enter and leave different dimensions just like humans from the past.¡±


    ¡°I remember that you wanted a ship, but you can¡¯t even move around freely on the Myers Maind. Stop saying nonsense,¡± Nailisi said with apparent attitude in her voice.


    ¡°Oh, then I shall build arge ship that can move across different dimensions and bring all my friends on it.¡±


    ¡°Master, besides Sika, who else is your friend? Lex is a partner isn¡¯t she? Your ship must be incredibly small.¡±


    Saleen was left speechless by Nailisi¡¯s words. He had been struck painfully by what she said, but it was true. During his time at the viscountess¡¯ residence, not a single mage there had be his friend. Besides Sika, he could not find anyone else he trustedpletely.


    He could not me anyone for this. Since his youth, he had been cautious of everything. He was slightly more normal than Aini and because of this his rtionship with Aini was decent. The problem was that Aini was only half a friend. When true danger approached, Saleen would not trust Aini with his back.


    ¡°I still have my teacher,¡± Seleen spat out after a long silence.


    ¡°Gratefulness, trust, dependence; are all of them what humans call emotions?¡± Nailisi had been reading recently and was bing less and less like a demon. Her words were straight to the point. Saleen trusted Jason because everything he owned had been given to him by Jason. Without Jason, Saleen would not be in his current state. If Jason wanted to take everything back, Saleen would not resist.


    Saleen was fighting this hard for Lex mostly so Jason could own the six-element space. This was his way of repaying him. Saleen wanted to be close to his parents now, but they had died and the only one he could consider family was Jason.


    Nailisi¡¯s words were too urate. Saleen was like grass without roots. He wanted to dig deep to find connections.


    ¡°Master, this Nailisi spoke out of turn, you should punish her!¡± the voice of the winged skeleton sounded again in Saleen¡¯s brain.


    Saleen said casually, ¡°She would be hurt.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Nailisi asked, thinking Saleen was talking to her.


    Saleen was stunned for a while beforeughing out loud and saying to Nailisi, ¡°Soldier said your attitude was atrocious and asked me to punish you. Do you think I should do that?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that creature¡­¡±


    Nailisi suddenly remembered that she was not his only contract creature and had anotherpetitor. Hearing Saleen, this winged skeleton was very loyal indeed. If Nailisi¡¯s attitude kept up, Saleen might really be distant from her.


    At this thought, Nailisi immediately put on a smiling face and teased Saleen, ¡°Master, didn¡¯t you say I was your maidservant? The wealthy always punish their maidservants. It is written in books that they would smack their butts first before dragging them to bed.¡±


    Saleen was a little regretful that Nailisi was literate now. Nailisi did not need to train like him and had a lot of free time. While Saleen was training, besides sleeping, Nailisi would be reading books. The more she read, the more troublesome she became.


    No matter how crafty a demon was, they were innately more innocent than humans. Nailisi was now a demon that had been tainted with human thoughts. She was suddenly reaching her hands down Saleen¡¯s shirt and reaching downwards.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Saleen shouted. His voice was so loud that even the mages in the distance could hear it. Many of them looked over and saw a sight they were quite envious of; Saleen¡¯s beautiful maidservant was groping him.


    Mages were not all cold and unfeeling, and many of them were envious of Saleen. He had a powerful and beautiful female warrior for protection and a stunningly pretty maidservant to serve him. His friend was the viscountess of an empire with arge area of territory.


    For the mages of Sregl Ind, Saleen¡¯s life was much more interesting than theirs. Saleen was Jason¡¯s only student and many of the mages believed Jason would manage everything on Sregl Ind sooner orter. If Saleen worked hard, all that would be his in the end.

 Chapter 276: Planes in Chaos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 276: nes in Chaos (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s life was not as blissful as what those mages from Sregl Ind thought to be. Nailisi had only shapeshifted into the image of the Myers Goddess, but she was still a demon at heart.


    Saleen had no intention of dating a demon. In fact, he did not have much of a desire to date other humans either. However, he was already less guarded towards Nailisi than before. After going through so many things together, Saleen knew that Nailisi would never harm him.


    ¡°Master, you won¡¯t sell me away like Daniel did, right?¡± Nailisi said pitifully, while nestled in Saleen¡¯s embrace.


    Nailisi was speaking heartfelt words now, but Saleen did not take her seriously. Saleen was well aware of what Nailisi had been like in the past. From the day the contract had been signed, Nailisi had been fixated on leaving him. Butter on, she had grown attached to Saleen, so her thoughts of leaving him had turned into wanting him all for herself.


    Nailisi tried to sow discord among the people around Saleen, because the more chaotic the situation was, the more Saleen would need her powers.


    ¡°Those mages are staring at us.¡± Saleen did not push Nailisi away. In the beginning, Saleen had no choice but to sign the contract with Nailisi by lying to and frightening her. But after spending such a long time with her, Saleen felt that the books¡¯ description of demons were inurate.


    Demons could not be considered to be cruel, because which creatures were more ruthless than humans?


    The Lord of Glory had disseminated his teachings across the Myers Maind. He thought that humans sinned the moment they were born and needed total redemption. This sentence wasrgely incorrect, but a portion of it was right. Most humans needed redemption.


    In order for a mage to practice magic, they would have to mine for minerals to acquire gems and hunt magic beasts to obtain magic nuclei. In prehistoric times, the powerful humans had traversed between the various nes and snatched whatever was in front of their eyes. Perhaps, the various nes had been hurled into devastation by those humans, so the gods had descended to mete out punishment and caused the humans to gradually lose their abilities.


    Even the gods would have to abide by the rules of the different nes, whereas humans were simply unscrupulous.


    Demons were much simpler. Nailisi would eat whenever she was hungry and would sleep when she grew tired. She had no other desires. When Nailisi hade across the eggs of the lightning dragon, she just wanted to use one of them. She had not tried to instigate Saleen into taking all the eggs.


    ¡°Let them look all they want. Either way, I belong to master.¡± Nailisi looked shameless,pletely unbefitting of her beautiful and elegant appearance.


    In truth, Saleen had wanted to talk about how he felt homesick, but now he hadpletely lost those feelings. Thus, Saleen could only change the topic. He removed Nailisi¡¯s arm and said, ¡°When I was struck by the current from the lightning dragon, I felt like I was dead. Everything had stopped moving. There was a boundless darkness and there was no pain at all. What about you?¡±


    ¡°Whatever feelings Master received, I felt the same ones too. But I recovered faster, and did not want to let those mages know about them.¡± When Saleen mentioned the lightning dragon, Nailisi grew solemn as she knew how important it was to Saleen. Jason had givenrge amounts of materials to Saleen, but in order to construct a city, Saleen would have to spend an astronomical sum of money. Saleen could not ask Lex to move the Bitter Water Prefecture here, or else the Holy See would immediately take notice.


    Currently, Lex would have to bring a few people from the swordsman¡¯s camp before conducting a mass migration in the Caucasus region. Only the people of Caucasus were willing to live in the ins situated west of the harbor. However, this northern area was not barren. It was even slightly superior to the Caucasus region. There were many mountains in the Caucasus region, makingrge scale agriculture difficult. Hence, the food production of a vige was more often than not insufficient for the Caucasus people themselves.


    Furthermore, people from the other regions were not able to tolerate the frostiness of the north.


    What Saleen needed to do right now was build a strong foundation for the city, and in order to do so, he would requirerge quantities of gold coins. The slime secreted by the lightning dragon could fetch a good price. If this thing was marketed in Alchemy City, the mages would definitely be willing to exchange mountains of gold coins in return for it.


    ¡°This time, don¡¯t charge up ahead anymore,¡± Saleen reminded Nailisi. The attacks by the lightning dragon could not be dodged, and even if Saleen was a grade-10 mage, he would only be able to stop the dragon¡¯s reactionary attacks. Once the dragon¡¯s attack was released, the electric current was even swifter than the cognition speed of a human.


    Perhaps the power of lightning was released far too quickly, so mages had never been able to use magic to simte natural electricity.


    The magic patterns created by Saleen were a breakthrough, but these patterns originated from two items which were not created by him. Before that, the person who created the badge had already grasped the power of lightning, but this person was neither mentioned in books nor was he talked about among the mages. This man was even less famous than Raphael. At least some high grade mages knew who Raphael was, but there was absolutely no information regarding the person who created the badge.


    Saleen was only the heir, and unless he discovered the principles behind this badge, he would never be able to make progress in this aspect. It was meaningless to Saleen if he could only produce an electric current strong enough to kill insects.


    ¡°Anyway, we were not shocked to death, so I am not afraid.¡± Nailisi shook her head in determination. She could not bring herself to hide behind Saleen. The attacks by the lightning dragon had been very terrifying, but Nailisi intuitively felt that what she and Saleen had gone through was only less than one percent of the dragon¡¯s true capabilities.


    If the power of the blue electric current had been unleashedpletely, the two of them would have been roasted into ash already.


    Saleen did not say anything. Nailisi was not a hypocrite. He patted her shoulder and then stood up. The stones on the river banks on both sides had been stored into twenty massive magic arrays. Even though these magic arrays were unrefined, there was a possibility that they would only have to be used once.


    Piling up these stones was a job that required skill. In order to pile the stones higher than a magic tower and be able to dump them into the river at anytime, a delicate bnce had to be maintained, and this bnce could not be achieved using magic. Before the magic arrays were activated, Saleen needed to ensure that there were no vigorous elemental vibrations present.


    Magic beasts were very vignt. Even though the lightning dragon¡¯s eggs were very tempting, the furious lightning dragon would also not suddenly enter a ce which it felt was dangerous.


    The work upstream waspleted in a shorter time. That area was leaning against the river bank. From the start, there was already a slightly loose giant rock there, so the mages only needed to cast a small earth spell in order to cause this rock to fall into the water.


    More importantly, there had to be way to lure the lightning dragon into the river. Magic beasts which lived in the sea would almost never enter a river. In addition to being too shallow, the water in a river was freshwater, which was unsuitable for the survival of sea magic beasts.


    Firstly, a lightning dragon egg would have to be the bait, but who would be the one to lure the lightning dragon into the river? In the water, Saleen possessed adequate flexibility, but his speed was too slowpared to the lightning dragon.


    If Saleen held the dragon egg to bait the lightning dragon, the most probable case was that he would be electrocuted to death even before entering the river. But aside from Saleen, even Nailisi was not that fast in the water.


    After a great deal of discussion, the final decision was to have Daniel summon a death creature to carry the dragon egg and serve as bait. Even if the death creature was struck by the lightning dragon, it would return to the death dimension automatically just before it died.


    Daniel did not mind at all. Death creatures did not need to breathe underwater and were not afraid of the cold either. Just some simple training would be needed for the death creature to be quicker than Saleen. Furthermore, most of the creatures summoned from the death dimension existed as cannon fodder. A creature like the winged skeleton was an anomaly within the spirits of the dead. Most death creatures would need to surpass grade-7 before gaining a bit of intelligence.


    Daniel¡¯s death mes were at a high level, and he had rtively clear coordinates in the death dimension as well. Even though he could still not summon a specific creature, his sess rate was not zilch either.


    When the green death mes expanded, the three-headed pikoosi within appeared beside Daniel. Daniel adored death creatures like the pikoosi. Death creatures which possessed magical and physical attacks were rare, and furthermore, the pikoosi could still cast three death spells at once. It was far stronger than the winged skeleton.


    As the mages observed Daniel¡¯s performance, they were green with envy at the unique powers which a death mage possessed. Absorbing powers from another ne for training was so much easier than tempering with one¡¯s magic chords. A death mage¡¯s advancement might have been slower than an elemental mage¡¯s in theter stages, but using the same logic, how many people would be able to be a sorcerer even if they were elemental mages?


    Excluding a ce like Alchemy City, only one sorcerer would appear out of every one thousand mages on the Myers Maind. Grade-6 was mostly the endpoint of the training journey for most mages. Even though many mages refused to acknowledge this fact and continued training day and night, they would sumb to the power of time eventually.


    Ever since Daniel had begun practicing magic, this was the first time he had enjoyed so much glory. Even in the Tanggsi Empire, he had not been very regarded, even before the implication by the orders which the Holy See had given. Mages did not have much status in the Tanggsi Empire, as that was the haven for holy masters.


    To most people, practicing magic was something that was too distant from them. A more worthwhile thing to do was to attain a passport to heaven after death by choosing to believe in a god.


    Only true mages would know that the price for that was simply too great.


    Believing in a god was akin to losing oneself. If one did not even exist, then what was the point of eternal life? One would only be an extension of the will of the gods.


    The green death mes seemed to be boiling. A power contrary to life had formed a colorless vortex. That was not a magic array. It was a rotating long passageway which was pitch ck and cold. This passageway had a strong attraction. The moment it was opened, Daniel¡¯s death mes began expanding furiously, engulfing all areas within a radius of one hundred meters.


    Hehe¡­


    Ka!


    Ka ba ka ka¡­


    Strange noises filled the air. Inside the ck passageway, rotten smells were continuously exuded. A colossal death creature was the first to fall out of the ck passageway. This ck death creature appeared quite simr to a human. It was just that it was around three to four meters tall. Soul mes danced in its ck orbital sockets, and the mes looked like they were about to die out at anytime.


    Daniel¡¯s face waas scarlet. The death creature which he had summoned was about to die, and it was still so enormous. Furthermore, its build was obviously not suited for swimming.


    Peng!


    An object shaped like a square dropped out, and when Daniel saw it, he screamed, ¡°Run!¡±

 Chapter 277: Planes in Chaos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 277: nes in Chaos (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Every mage who heard Daniel¡¯s screams immediately blessed themselves with a magic shield and a Windspeed spell before retreating in the same direction. In order to unleash the highest offensive power, mages needed to be at a certain distance. Not everyone was like Saleen, who loved taking risks.


    Daniel did not escape. This time around, he charged forward bravely and jumped up,nding on the pikoosi¡¯s center head. The pikoosi had also acknowledged the presence of this strange object. The pikoosi was more familiar than Daniel with these things. The strange creatures within the death dimension were moreplicated than those found on the Myers Maind, but what struck fear in the pikoosi was that this object did not resemble a living thing at all.


    This object emitted a pale light while it was within the death mes. The light shined for an instant before disappearing, and the pikoosi nearly copsed.


    ¡°No worries, it¡¯s fine. This thing will die soon.¡± Daniel tried his best to control his death mes, and the speed of rotation of the ck passageway began decreasing. That square-shaped creature bounced on the ground for a moment before opening with a crack. It looked like an angr structure made up of countless squares.


    ¡°Daniel, what¡¯s going on?¡± Saleen was already flying in midair, looking downwards. Before the ck passageway closed, several more death creatures with strange appearances were summoned onto the ne of the Myers Maind.


    Saleen knew that with Daniel¡¯s current grade, it was impossible for him to summon so many creatures at once.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know either, that¡­ is too scary!¡± Daniel was stunned. Saleen felt that something was strange. Even though Daniel was being pursued by the Holy See¡¯s people, Saleen had noticed that Daniel purposely made himself look petrified simply so that he could vent his emotions. In reality, Daniel was not afraid of dying. If he died, there was a possibility that he could still transport his soul to the death dimension.


    The entire situation had urred because Daniel¡¯s death mes were of a high grade. Other death mages were not so fortunate as to be able to obtain such miraculous death mes.


    Only after the summoning space disappeared did Daniel recover from his shock.


    Now, even if Daniel did not exin, Saleen also felt that something was wrong. In the beginning, the creature which had been summoned from the summoning space of the death mes could still be considered normal. However, Saleen noticed that the ones which had been summonedter on had actually resembled creatures from the abyssal ne which were always illustrated in drawings.


    The abyssal ne was wider than the Myers Maind by over a million times and was separated into different parts. No one knew how many levels the abyssal ne contained. In the past, humans had only been able to advance for dozens of levels before they could advance no more.


    What made Saleen suspicious was that Daniel¡¯s death mes had been summoning creatures from the death dimension, and yet things from the abyssal ne had managed toe out from the summoning space as well.


    Saleen furrowed his eyebrows, and decided to observe the square-shaped death creature first, the one which had caused Daniel to lose hisposure. This object did not look like it was alive, and even though its structure was popped open, it simply looked like a mere pile of wooden blocks.


    However, it was these things which looked like white wooden blocks that caused Daniel, who looked honest, but was in fact cunning, to be frightened, and he had even thought of perishing together with them.


    After the square-shaped creature popped open, itsplicated internal structure could still be identified even though itsyered configuration was not opened. Suchplexity was simr to a magic form in that a certain kind of cadence was disyed in an abnormally intuitive manner.


    Daniel was less experienced than Saleen. He did not know that thest few summoned creatures were not from the death dimension. He exined to everybody, ¡°This is called Aita, moremonly known as the mechanical soul.¡±


    ¡°Mechanical soul?¡±


    ¡°Humans have created many alchemical machines. In the past, when humans could still traverse the nes, they produced many soul-type alchemical machines. Then, these things underwent mutations, causing some to be extremely aggressive. After their creators died, these things caused a catastrophe within the death dimension.¡±


    ¡°How would you know that?¡± Logically speaking, such things would only have happened after the humans had left the death dimension, so how would Daniel, a mere death mage, know about all this?


    ¡°I just know. These things shouldn¡¯t even appear on the Myers Maind. They love swallowing all of the energy around them before replicating themselves. A single Aita is able to devour a creature hundreds of times bigger than itself, then it splits itself and replicates. With enough food, a single Aita is able to replicate itself countless of times within a single day.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t this thing dominate the entire death dimension?¡±


    ¡°No no no, there is a limit to the Aita¡¯s swallowing ability. After a few days of replication, its swallowing ability disappears.¡±


    ¡°Then why were you so terrified just now?¡±


    Saleen had never seen a drawing of an Aita before. However, the magic notes had mentioned such creatures, and the author did not seem to be afraid of such things.


    As Daniel exined the features of the Aita to Saleen, the rest of the mages from Sregl Ind were just like Saleen. They noticed that thest creature, which was on the verge of death, was not from the death dimension.


    How did abyssal creatures appear in the death dimension? Simr to humans, abyssal creatures were powerful, but they were not suited for traversing the nes. Inside of the abyssal ne, they were quite powerful, but after leaving it, they would die very soon, just like fish out of water.


    Even if the special attributes of the death dimension enabled them to ¡°live¡± on, such a life did not hold much meaning. The special attribute of the death dimension was that any creatures which had lived there for a protracted period of time would be transformed into spirits of the dead.


    Saleen also knew about this problem. If the powerful creatures from the abyssal ne wanted to invade other nes, it would have been normal for them to select the demonic ne, and not the death dimension. At least the demonic ne did not have so many volcanoes, and there were stillvakes in the ground. The abyssal creatures living in thevekes would not die, and their powers would not be reduced drastically either.


    ¡°Daniel, can you summon more of them?¡± Saleen asked Daniel, who was still panicking. Daniel remained afraid, because if the Aita he summoned killed everyone, who knew what consequences he would face?


    Creatures who were killed by the Aita would nt some thoughts in the replicated bodies. By the time the Aita split, the new bodies would bear hatred towards themselves, because of all the trouble the Aita had caused.


    Daniel did not dare to make the Aita his contract creature. There was not much of an effect in signing a contract with the Aita, because its actions were not influenced by other people.


    ¡°No, I am not summoning it again, unless we can find a solution to deal with the Aita.¡±


    ¡°This thing looks dead, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Saleen did not know why Daniel was afraid of a spirit of the dead. Wasn¡¯t he a death mage?


    ¡°Dead?¡± Daniel muttered, still in shock. Then, he said to Saleen, ¡°The Aita is not dead. This thing was never alive to begin with.¡±


    Saleen was deeply interested in the Aita, but his current alchemy skills were simply too lousy, so he was not in the mood to study it anyhow. Saleen put the Aita away before pointing to the other few abyssal creatures and asking the Sregl Ind mages, ¡°Do you recognize them?¡±


    ¡°Yes, these thingse from different abysses.¡±


    ¡°How did they get to the death dimension? Like those in human forms, which are even d in armor.¡±


    Abyssal armor and abyssal creatures were the same. The moment they left the abyss, they would disappear. Hence, the abyssal armor did not have any defensive power at all.


    A grade-5 mage, who was slightly worried, said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, this matter should be reported to Alchemy City. It seems like there is nar chaos. The creatures summoned by Daniel should have onlye from the death dimension, so why were there abyssal creatures too?¡±


    ¡°What is ¡®nar chaos¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Before a ne copses, it might have the opportunity to fuse with other nes. At this point in time, two nes which might never meet would collide into one another and fuse together. To the ne itself, this is a new life, but to its creatures, it means a neverending disaster.¡±


    ¡°nes actually collide with each other!¡± Saleen felt that this whole concept was too incredulous after listening to this mage from Sregl Ind.


    ¡°After the collision, the nes spend millions of years fusing with one another, and during this period, the creatures from both nes will find it hard to adapt to the transformations of the nes. This is called the period of nar chaos. Actually, there is nothing to be worried about. But Daniel has summoned the abyssal creature at this time, and this might cause the ne to gravitate towards the Myers Maind. Eventually, it will also fuse with the Myers Maind.¡±


    Saleen had the shock of his life after listening to this grade-5 mage. He did not really care about the Aita nor the collision between the abyssal ne and the death dimension. However, if this ne was going to crash into the Myers Maind, then that would be far too terrifying.


    ¡°If what you said was true, then how much time do we have left?¡±


    ¡°Probably a few million years? Or perhaps even longer. I obtained all of this information from a book,¡± the grade-5 mage exined to Saleen.


    Saleen pondered for a moment, then said, ¡°If there is still so much time¡­ then let¡¯s just ignore it for now. However, the abyssal creatures are pretty good. Unfortunately, we aren¡¯t capable of capturing them. Daniel, you might be worried, but I need you to carry out the summoning again.¡±


    ¡°I am not doing it anymore!¡± Daniel furiously refused.


    ¡°Daniel, Ipletely understand what you are going through right now.¡± Saleen did not mind Daniel¡¯s honesty at all. He knew that Daniel must have been feeling very terrible right now. However, Saleen had an idea to make Daniel continue.


    ¡°You might be feeling down now, but this is for your future. You should try your best to summon more creatures now, and don¡¯t send them back anymore.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    Daniel did not understand what Saleen meant. Saleen then exined, ¡°The speed of time differs between the different nes. Only the speed of time in the interdimensional space will be identical to its corresponding ne. If you do not exploit this chance to summon more creatures, you might not be able to do so once the two nes have fused together after a long time.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Okay, I will do it!¡± Daniel was once again shocked by Saleen¡¯s words. His future was in these death mes. If the interdimensional coordinates which were connected to the death mes disappeared, Daniel would perhaps be unable to revert to a magic disciple anymore, let alone make any process.

 Chapter 278: Three Kings (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 278: Three Kings (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was scaring Daniel, because he wanted to use this opportunity to acquire some obscure materials. Even though these abyssal creatures were not of a high grade, they were still unique and precious to the mages of Myers in this day and age.


    Had these abyssal materials been acquired earlier, Sregl Ind would not have had to employ an extreme method such as sealing the ind to deal with theirplicated situation in the first ce.


    However, there had been no alternatives either. After all, Sregl Ind could not fall out with Alchemy City, but heat-tolerant equipment could be produced from the materials from the abyssal creatures, and they would have no issues entering the volcano anymore.


    Saleen looked at the dead abyssal creatures with much regret and said to Daniel, ¡°In that case, you don¡¯t have to do any other work anymore. Just concentrate on summoning the creatures in the death dimension during this period of time.¡±


    The mages from the Sregl Ind had thought of a question. If the Myers ne ran into this nar collision, what would they do? These mages might have only been grand mages and could possibly even die before bing sorcerers, but they had rather high self-regard.


    If such an event really took ce, the creatures from both nes would fight to their deaths, and only less than one percent of the poption would survive. Eventually, this little bit of remaining life would reproduce and their powers would flood the entire ne.


    If such a thing happened, would the humans on the Myers Maind be able to survive until the end? Humans had long lost the tyrannical powers that they had possessed tens of thousands of years ago.


    Saleen pondered these questions for a moment, but did not be fixated on them. He felt that this was not his business. A nar collision would only ur a few million yearster, and by then he would have passed away, so there was simply no point to thinking about these issues.


    The history of humans only went back for about tens of thousands of years. Even if Saleen found a solution now, the people who were around millions of yearster would not know about it anyways.


    The most important matter at hand now was killing the lightning dragon and extracting its materials. After selling them, the money obtained would greatly lessen the financial burden of constructing the city.


    Even so, Saleen had forgotten about one thing. All of their thoughts were only assumptions. The nar collision was indeed unrted to Saleen, but what about a nar invasion?


    Within a narrow mountain crack in the death dimension was a pile of bodies belonging to the death creatures. An insane fight was taking ce on the mountaintop. The few intelligent death creatures weremanding countless spirits in the fight against the strange-looking abyssal creatures.


    As countless skeletons, ghosts, dolls, and bone beasts shed with the abyssal war weapons, an earth-shattering sound filled the air.


    This war was about to end. As the number of death creatures greatly overwhelmed that of the abyssal creatures, all of the abyssal creatures were massacred.


    A blood-red sun in the overcast sky shone on the horrifying scene on the ground. Every single intelligent creature was focusing on the final battle, as the ming dragon from the abyssal ne was bombarded by the bone holy beast. Now that the powerful ming dragon had left the abyssal ne, its power was only that of level-8 or level-9. As it struggled with all its might, it spit out mes which were hundreds of meters in length.


    However, all of its efforts were in vain. A brilliant light from the sole horn on the forehead of the bone holy beast managed to negate the mes from the ming dragon in midair. Across the witherednd, hundreds of giant arms emerged from the ground and grabbed onto the ming body of the ming dragon.


    These arms were not afraid of being burned. Furthermore, the mes on the ming dragon¡¯s body were already very faint, and being wed at by those gigantic arms now, the mes were gradually extinguished.


    Under the blood-red sun, three zombie-like death creatures were engaged in a conversation. They spoke in impable deathnguage. They were the death creatures of the highest grade who ruled over the death dimension. The reason they had gotten together was solely because they had run into a powerful adversary.


    ¡°Banchajanna, how did you transform the teleportation portal into a dimensional passageway?¡± A spirit dozens of meters tall said to another spirit who was just as tall.


    The spirit named Banchajanna had a human face, but had six arms, looking like a spirit.


    ¡°Why must it be me who caused that thing to appear? Diyabannersa, what do you mean by that?¡± Banchajanna replied unhappily. He could not have known that an ancient manmade magic array would be transformed into a permanent dimensional passageway. Such a thing like this could not be predicted, and he did not have the power to aplish it either. This strange thing must have been created by the humans in the past.


    ¡°Okay, that¡¯s enough. Banchajanna would never cause such a thing to happen. This time around, he has lost the most people, while we have only lost one third of our manpower. Diyabannersa, stop talking. We should quickly think of a solution to destroy this passageway.¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t possible!¡± Diyabannersa was anxious. That was a dimensional passageway which possessed the ability to tear through space. If it was forcefully destroyed, a dimensional storm would ur which would result in the deaths of at least half of the death creatures. Furthermore, the other half which survived would also be left in a very terrible state. The dimensional storm could shred the soul, and those death creatures did not have the protection of human flesh. While in the dimensional storm, they would simply disappear slowly, and that was scarier than dying.


    ¡°Let¡¯s throw that thing in. It will surely clog the passageway.¡±


    ¡°Judikaka, that thing is shared among the three of us. Can you bear to throw it away?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, but the abyssal ne is muchrger than the death dimension. If an invasion like this happens repeatedly, our losses will be greater,¡± the spirit named Judikaka replied.


    Diyabannersa was rendered speechless. Fortunately during this invasion, the abyssal monarch had not appeared. If the abyssal monarch appeared, it was highly likely that a death creature of the same grade as it would have also fallen.


    The abyssal ne had countless levels, but the death dimension only had one level. There were too few monarch-grade spirits. Including the three of them, there were only less than ten spirit monarchs.


    Under normal circumstances, it was fine even if a spirit monarch fell, because they would be revived and would be able to regain the pinnacle of their powers within tens of thousands of years. However, with the invasion by the abyssal ne now, those abyssal creatures would exterminate the spirit monarchspletely.


    If such a battle took ce a few more times, the power of the death dimension would bepletely crippled. In contrast, the abyssal ne was boundless. It would still be perfectly fine no matter how many monarchs it lost.


    Banchajanna, Judikaka, and Diyabannersa fell silent. The battle was already reaching its end. Thest ming dragon exploded in a blinding light while under siege, like a sun which hade to life, regaining its original level of energy.


    Countless bones flew up in the air and pierced into the rocks of the mountain.


    ¡°Eh?¡± Banchajanna pointed to a twinkling spot on the mountain, and said to hispanions, ¡°What is that?¡±


    ¡°A summoning array. It belongs to the humans.¡±


    Judikaka immediately recognized that thing. With a shing white glow, a few of the death creatures and abyssal creatures in the immediate vicinity were sucked into the summoning array.


    ¡°Damn it, always seeking our help on a whim,¡± Diyabannersa muttered in an upset tone.


    However, ording to the rules of the death dimension, spirits could not refuse to be summoned unless the spirits were of an equivalent grade.


    ¡°The level of that summoning array is so high!¡± Judikaka gazed at the white light which was growing increasingly powerful. In a sh, hundreds of death creatures surged into the summoning array. It even included some gravely injured abyssal creatures.


    ¡°That¡¯s because the summoning array is very powerful, but its user is extremely weak. Otherwise, all of the creatures on the battlefield would have been sucked in as well.


    ¡°That¡¯s fantastic!¡± Banchajanna understood Judikaka¡¯s intention, so he burst out inughter too. Theughter of any other living thing was used to convey a message of friendliness and happiness, but when Banchajannaughed, his mouth was so outstretched that his head nearly seemed like it was going to be lopped off. It was truly horrific.


    ¡°What¡¯s fantastic?¡± Diyabannersa was an irritable fellow. He was not as cunning as the other two spirits.


    ¡°Diyabannersa, what is the reason for the invasion by the abyssal ne?¡±


    ¡°To capture us, of course.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s correct. Our bodies have something which the abyssal monarch wants. As long as we leave the death dimension, the invaders will lose their aim, and they might not even engage inbat with our subordinates. They will simply wander about trying to track us down. What if we escape to the ne that the humans live on? Would the abyssal ne still be able to invade the human ne?¡±


    ¡°Judikaka¡­humans seemed to have deteriorated.¡±


    Diyabannersa might have been irritable, but he was not stupid. He knew everything that had happened in the past ten thousand years. There number of humans summoning death creatures was decreasing, and these humans were also getting weaker. This showed that the power of humans was no longer as it had once been. If the abyssal ne learned about this, it would definitely invade the human ne.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if the humans have deteriorated. If we get to the human ne, the abyssal ne will have to consider what the gods would think. The initial agreement was that the gods would not allow us to invade the human ne. Diyabannersa, you are also a king. Don¡¯t tell me you have forgotten about this?¡±


    ¡°Of course I remember. Wars cannot be waged inside the human ne. But the abyssal creatures may not necessarily wage a war against the humans. They only need to send their experts to cooperate with the humans in order to continue suppressing us.¡±


    ¡°We can cooperate with the humans first.¡±


    ¡°Cooperate with the humans?¡±


    ¡°This is it. Look, that fellow is still summoning, and it looks like he needs help. We will go over now and disguise ourselves as summoned creatures. And when the abyssal creatures catch up to us, they won¡¯t be able to attack the humans either.¡±


    ¡°So troublesome,¡± Diyabannersamented resentfully. As a king, he needed to escape from the war, and now he even had to bemanded by a weakling.


    ¡°Diyabannersa, we will go over together. With the protection of that thing, we can use the souls of other spirits to sign the contract. That weakling will not be able to discover anything. By then, we will still be in full control right?¡±


    ¡°Right!¡± Diyabannersa understood everything now. Heughed and said, ¡°Judikaka, you are indeed the most shameless out of all the kings.¡±


    ¡°I am definitely not the most shameless king. In the past, that human used this thing to deceive us, so it¡¯s only fair that we deceive them in return now.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a pity we aren¡¯t demons, or else we wouldn¡¯t have been restricted by the rules of the gods,¡± Banchajanna sighed. Even if it was for their survival, he was still unwilling to be under a human¡¯smand. Inparison, the demonic ne was nearly unrestrained by the rules of the gods. If demons could travel to the human ne, they would surely create a lot of havoc.

 Chapter 279: Three Kings (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 279: Three Kings (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°It¡¯s not a bad thing to be restricted.¡± Judikaka then continued, ¡°Otherwise, all of us would have been captured by the humans.¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡±


    Diyabannersa did not rebut. Without the intervention by the gods, the humans would have destroyed many ces.


    ¡°Take it out then. That human¡¯s power seems like it is going to be fully depleted soon. We should enter now. Otherwise, we may never get the chance again,¡± Banchajanna started rushing hispanions.


    Diyabannersa nodded, and a colorful radiance, which was rarely seen in the death dimension, shot out from his pitch ck eye orbitals. A thick scepter appeared in Diyabannersa¡¯s hand, and he then began reading the motto on the scepter.


    ¡°Truth, is the essence of this world. Lies, are the reality of this world. Absurdity, is theughter of this world. In the name of Shann, these three abilities will be bestowed upon you.¡±


    The colorful light faded, and the scepter in Diyabannersa¡¯s hand split into three. It had lost its original appearance by now.


    ¡°Thank you, Shann, for bestowing the power of truth upon me.¡± Diyabannersa might have said this, but his tone was obviously one of hatred. The three kings had abilities which exceeded those of the other kings, all because a man named Shann had helped them. However, the three of them were inseparable from the scepter, and if Shann was resurrected, he would return to enve them again.


    ¡°Thank you, Shann, for bestowing the power of lies upon me,¡± Judikaka said sincerely. However, he was holding onto the Scepter of Lies, so his words were quite dubious.


    ¡°Thank you, Shann, for bestowing the power of absurdity upon me.¡± Banchajanna¡¯s tone seemed like he was at a loss for what to do.


    ¡°Okay, with these three scepters, we will not be afraid of the restraints by the contract anymore. Other than Shann, it will not be possible for any other human to know about this. Let¡¯s hurry. That summoning array is going to disappear soon,¡± Judikaka urged.


    Daniel was still desperately trying to summon death creatures. This time around, he was extremely fatigued. Despite summoning more than one thousand spirits, he still had not stopped.


    This was because most of the spirits were on the verge of death and could not be saved. Otherwise, his summoning limit was usually only around ten creatures. After wasting a huge amount of power, all Daniel had obtained in return were some useless corpses. Once they died, they would be sent back to the death dimension immediately, and Daniel would not even be able to obtain any materials.


    Just as Daniel grew depressed, the green death mes with a radius of one hundred meters began expanding in an explosive manner. Before the ck passageway closed, there was an extremely vigorous, powerful vibration. Following that, three tall death creatures appeared in front of Daniel. He did not even manage to see how these three spirits walked out of the ck passageway.


    ¡°Human, were you the one summoning us?¡± Judikaka pointed his scepter at Daniel, and spoke in the humannguage which he had memorized.


    Luckily, there had still been death creatures who had been summoned onto the human ne all these years. As a king, Judikaka understood everything. Now, his memory hade in handy, having spoken perfectly in human words.


    Daniel was aghast. Judikaka had actually used humannguage to speak to him, and not deathnguage. Furthermore, Judikaka had taken the initiative to speak to him, so Judikaka must have possessed an extremely high level of intelligence. Furthermore, the three spirits were d in very powerful equipment, unlike an impoverished spirit like the winged skeleton.


    Furthermore, these three men were undamaged,pletely unlike the previously summoned creatures.


    Seeing that Daniel was not answering, Diyabannersa mmed the Scepter of Truth against the ground forcefully and bellowed, ¡°Human, even though we have answered your summons, you should not slight a king!¡±


    ¡°King?¡± Daniel nearly fainted from joy. There were different sses in the death dimension, and a king was the most powerful of them all. Daniel¡¯sst attempt had actually summoned three spirit kings!


    ¡°Of course, we are the kings who rule over the billions of spirits. If you are not satisfied, please allow us to go back.¡± Banchajanna surveyed Daniel, and realized that Daniel was truly weak. If not for the help of the three scepters, the three fellows would not have been able to traverse through such high level death mes.


    Daniel swallowed, and an evil thought emerged in his mind. If hemanded these three kings to kill everyone around him, then everyone¡¯s wealth would be his.


    This thought had just shed in his mind when Daniel saw Saleen¡¯s gaze. Saleen smiled at Daniel. That gaze held aplicated message, but Daniel understood what Saleen meant. At that moment, Daniel felt as if a bucket of water had been poured over him, causing him to be sober.


    Daniel had signed a contract with Saleen. If he really did so, his soul would bepletely incinerated.


    ¡°Honorable kings, I have a favor to ask of you.¡± The person speaking was not Daniel, it was Saleen. Saleen¡¯s eyes were filled with ruthlessness. Those three spirits could not have been summoned by Daniel. Thatst explosion from the death mes had obviouslye from the other end of the summoning passageway.


    In other words, it could be said that the three kings had summoned Daniel.


    Diyabannersa was fuming. At the very least, it had been the yellow-haired man who had summoned them. What was a child doing here? This child actually wanted tomand them as well! Diyabannersa pointed his scepter at Saleen, and was about to punish this weak human mage.


    ¡°Honorable kings, I think you need our help,¡± Saleen replied calmly, detecting Diyabannersa¡¯s fury. However, Nailisi was extremely nervous. She leaned towards Saleen, afraid that the spirit would try to kill Saleen out of the blue.


    Diyabannersa nced at Nailisi suspiciously. This woman did not seem like human. However, his spirit eyes could see that this woman had a human soul, so he felt that he had made a mistake. With the Scepter of Truth in hand, his spirit eyes would not make any errors.


    ¡°Mage, how did you know that?¡± Judikaka did not bother beating about the bush with Saleen. This human was very smart to be able to see through his intentions. But it did not matter, because smart people would always opt for cooperation. And as for that death mage, hehe, let him continue being ignorant. At least a grade-10 mage was required in order to summon a king-ss spirit.


    ¡°Of course I know. I also know that there was a war between your ne and the abyssal ne.¡± Saleen did not use the term ¡°nar chaos¡±. He tried his best to describe things using vague terms.


    ¡°We cannot interfere in such a war. It is just that it is a rtively simpler thing to enlist our help,¡± Saleen said solemnly.


    The mages from Sregl Ind looked as though they had been turned to stone. They had more experience than Saleen, so they also knew that it was impossible for a mage like Daniel to have summoned these three king-ss spirits.


    Judikaka was intrigued by this tiny mage named Saleen. How had Saleen managed to deduce this? Since Judikaka was the most strategic out of the three kings, he was the one who made the decisions, so he pondered for a moment, and then said to Saleen, ¡°Mage, a war has indeed erupted in the death dimension, and it is very vexing. Coincidentally, we saw that a person was using a summoning spell, so we decided to take a look in the human ne. Anyway, the war willst for at least ten thousand years. Since the rest of them love to fight so much, then let them be. We are more interested in pursuing the meaning of life.¡±


    Noticing that Saleen had a look of suspicion on his face, Judikaka really wanted to cast a death spell at Saleen and cause him to dpose into a skeleton. However, if he were to do that without beingmanded by the death mage, it would expose the fact that they were not restrained by the rules. Gods existed in this ne, and if the gods learned about this, the oue could be terrible. The humans had dared to resist the gods, but spirits did not.


    As Judikaka thought about this, he tried to emphasize his point by sighing as a human did, and said, ¡°The three of us have hit a teau in the death dimension, so we thought of trying our luck in the human ne. If you do not believe us, I cannot do anything about it.¡±


    Judikaka¡¯s words were not entirely false. Due to the restraints by the scepter, the three of them could only progress ording to the methods set by that human who had given them the scepters. Back in the death dimension, they had no longer been able to find a path of further advancement after reaching the grade of a king. If they could learn something which was rted to that person, it was possible that they could break the limitations of the king¡¯s grade and be demigods in the death dimension.


    If the three of them could progress in the human ne without being discovered by the gods, then there was also a chance that they could be real gods as well. No matter the rules, a true god would be able to revoke their status as a spirit, and so they would not restricted under the rules of the death dimension any longer.


    ¡°Excellent. The mage who summoned all of you was Daniel, but Daniel is my follower. Now, we have run into some trouble, so we require help from the three kings. Can you tell me your names?¡±


    Saleen spoke very forcefully. He knew that even if these three men were not under Daniel¡¯s control, they would need to pretend that they were. Such a deduction was a bit risky, but if these three men were not restrained by any form of rules, then they would not give a hoot no matter what attitude Saleen had.


    The three kings were simply too powerful. Even if they were restrained by the rules of the ne, they still possessed level-9 abilities. In the death dimension, the three men might have been close to grade-10, or they might even have been grade-10 already.


    Given the difference in power between Saleen and the three kings, the three kings would not even need to speak to Saleen if they had not been under any restraint at all. They would have only needed to cast any death spell and the world would be cleansed.


    Judikaka was a little upset. Humans were indeed cunning creatures, and that rendered Judikaka helpless. However, these humans in front of Judikaka were fairly weak, so their troubles were likely easily resolvable. Thus, Judikaka decided to lend a helping hand. Anyway, this matter was within the boundaries of the rules. It would not be a big deal even if the gods learned about it.


    ¡°Mage, tell us your problems. We will solve them for you,¡± Judikaka spoke in an imposing manner, as though he were gifting Saleen some benefits.


    ¡°Very good. We want to capture a grade-8 creature. It should be a piece of cake for you all.¡±


    The three kings heaved a sigh of relief. If they had still needed to fight for their lives in the human ne, then they should not havee over at all. Even if a war broke out in the death dimension, it would be the problem of their subordinates. Unless the three kings came across the abyssal monarch, they would not need to take any action at all. Even though killing a grade-8 creature was not an effortless task, it was not all that challenging for the three kings either.


    ¡°Which creature do you want to capture?¡± Judikaka asked out of caution.


    ¡°The lightning dragon.¡±

 Chapter 280: Saleen’s Contract (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 280: Saleen¡¯s Contract (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lightning dragon!


    When the three kings heard that Saleen was nning to capture this creature, their fires of the dead immediately began trembling violently. Other spirits might not have known what the lightning dragon was, but the three of them had a deep impression of it. In the past, Shann had kept nine lightning dragons as his magic pets. Those dragons had already advanced to a stage where they could already fly, and their lightning attacks could instantly transform a spirit into a bunch of dregs.


    Fortunately, the three kings remained expressionless. They had managed to conceal their fear extremely well. That was a matter of the past by now. Right now, the three of them had already progressed from weak spirits into kings, so they did not need to be afraid of a mere lightning dragon who had not evolved at all. It was just that the tinge of fear in their hearts had been buried too deeply. It could not be erased no matter what.


    ¡°Lightning is too damaging to spirits. Mage, it seems that your request is far too overbearing,¡± Judikaka said hesitantly. The three of them were confident of capturing this lightning dragon. It was just that they were not willing to do the job for free, so Judikaka began bargaining with Saleen.


    Saleen was afraid that they did not have any requests. Be it man or spirit, the subject not a threat as long as they were willing to negotiate a deal.


    Daniel was very awkward. He was the one who had summoned three powerful spirits, but none of them regarded him as the master. Daniel could have understood that much, but the three of them were even chatting with Saleen.


    Daniel sighed in his heart, I am the death mage!


    The mages from Sregl Ind found the scene amusing. They were very knowledgeable, hence they knew that even though the three spirit kings looked ferocious, they still abided by the rules. The higher the grade of a creature, the more afraid it was of dying. Usually, creatures who would try to fight it out with humans were either low-grade or unintelligent ones.


    ¡°Honorable king, what do you want? I am willing to pay an equivalent price.¡± Saleen was not greedy. The lightning dragon needed to be ughtered in order for the port and the city to be constructed. However, Saleen was tight-lipped. He simply said that he would pay an equivalent price. The lightning dragon was a grade-8 creature, and if the kings wanted an item whose value exceeded that of grade-8, then the deal would fall through.


    ¡°We would like to stay on this ne for some time. If you can provide us with a sufficient quantity of magic books, we can help you aplish many things. It will not be limited to solely capturing this lightning dragon.¡± Judikaka noticed that even though the humans were very weak, there were many mages around, so he made a request which did not seem too outrageous.


    The kings had been entrapped by the scepter for thousands of years now, and they still could not find a solution to the entrapment. Perhaps they could search for a vital clue to it on the human ne. There were neither mages nor books for reference inside the death dimension.


    ¡°Honorable king, to be frank, books on this ne are very expensive¡­¡± Saleen replied hesitantly.


    What a cunning fellow! Judikaka appraised Saleen in his heart.


    ¡°If you have enough books, we are willing to provide some materials which are unavable in this ne.¡± Judikaka did some mental calctions and felt that he would not lose out. It was purely an ident that he had traveled from the death dimension to this ne. For some spirits, they never saw the appearance of the death mage who summoned them. In any case, the kings could no longer progress inside the death dimension, so they might as well take it as a training opportunity now that they were in the human ne.


    ¡°Okay, then I will provide a magic book every single day. Will the three kings be satisfied with this arrangement?¡±


    ¡°Two books!¡± Diyabannersa hollered.


    Judikaka became upset. Diyabannersa was not very bright as he thought that they would get more benefits by increasing their demands. There were so many mages around, and if every single mage had about thirty to fifty books, then there would already be more than one thousand books in total. If they read two books a day, it would mean they would have to work for these humans for one year.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s make it two.¡± Saleen snickered in his heart. Sregl Ind mages might not have been the most powerful mages, but the quantity of books they had was potentially unmatched anywhere else in the world. Only the gods would know what the three kings were looking for. Since the kings did not mention anything, Saleen decided that he would start by lending them the mostmon books. By the time they found some rted information, many years might have already passed.


    ¡°But, to ensure fairness, we should sign a contract.¡±


    Saleen said that while smiling. The more Banchajanna stared at Saleen¡¯s expression, the more he felt like Saleen¡¯s expression resembled that of the person who had cheated them many years ago. Banchajanna then rebutted sharply, ¡°Contract? What contract!¡±


    ¡°Ha, it is for the borrowing of the magic books. I will provide the magic books for your reading every day, and each book will be used to exchange for one piece of your materials or equipment. I will also provide lodging and servants for all of you. If I stop providing the books, you can refuse to pay, or you can demand that Ipensate your losses.¡±


    ¡°Compensate our losses? Do you think that we are very poor?¡± Diyabannersa roared at Saleen. They were spirit kings, the people who ruled over the death dimension. Exchanging one piece of material in return for one book was far too cheap for them.


    Diyabannersa¡¯s character was too blunt. He did not consider that when the unique materials from the death dimension were transported onto this ne, their value would be immeasurable already. Saleen simply needed to sell them in order to obtain more books.


    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s sign a contract, in case you are afraid that we will go back on our word,¡± Judikaka said helplessly. Of course, Judikaka was not afraid that Saleen would set a trap within the contract. Given Saleen¡¯s grade, it would be impossible for Saleen to try to fool Judikaka by including additional uses inside the contract.


    Seeing that the spirit kings had agreed to sign a contract, Daniel thought of the contract between him and Saleen, and felt that the kings were walking into a trap. Saleen¡¯s contract was not that straightforward, but he could not warn the kings that Saleen was used to using contracts to ensnare other people.


    Saleen instinctively took out a nk scroll while Nailisi moved a t rock over. Saleen spread out the scroll across the rock and began writing the contract.


    The three kings were very patient. Saleen¡¯s writing was not skilled, and he looked like a child doodling while drawing the magic array. Seeing that Saleen was like this, Judikaka became at ease. What tricks could a mage, who was seemingly unfamiliar with a contractual magic array, do to a contract?


    Saleen was not putting on an act. He was unfamiliar with magic arrays and alchemy, among other skills. Furthermore, he had even discontinued his studies into magic pharmaceutics.


    This time around, Saleen employed magguage to write the contents of the contract. The three kings used their strong mental power to scan the contents of the contract, and found that this mage named Saleen really had not tampered with the contract.


    Only the responsibilities of both parties were written on the contract, and the kings did not even need to fight for Saleen. Besides using the magic books to get the materials which were unique only to the death dimension, there were no other uses.


    The three kings looked at each other before leaving their soul imprints on the contract. After the contract was signed, the scroll burned up in mes.


    Judikaka burst out inughter before saying, ¡°Mage, I must say that you are very cautious.¡±


    ¡°Please address me by my name. We can be considered acquaintances already.¡± Only now did Saleen feel a sense of safety. Saleen had written a contract of rules. The contract might not have specified anything, but before the contract was fulfilled, both parties could not hurt each other. Saleen did not feel safe at all having those three powerful spirits by his side.


    This contract could not be terminated forcefully. As long as all of Saleen¡¯s books were not borrowed, the three kings were considered to be of no threat to Saleen.


    Once teacher gets here, hehe, I will have over ten thousand magic books. For the next ten years at minimum, the kings will not be able to harm me, Saleen thought to himself, feeling smug. The contract itself had no problems, but Saleen needed to do things step-by-step. As long as his safety was guaranteed, the other matters would already be much easier to resolve.


    Three fools.


    Nailisi thought to herself. In the past, she had been deceived by Saleen, and that was why she had signed the soul contract. This harmless contract would eventually be a fatal poison. It was no wonder then that spirits were notbeled as intelligent creatures. Even though there were a few intelligent spirits, they were just a bunch of fools whenpared to demons.


    Feeling satisfied, Saleen then instructed everyone else to begin setting the trap. With the help of the three spirit kings, the n would likely go smoothly.


    Daniel¡¯s contract creature, that three-headed pikoosi, was cowering within the death mes. The arrival of the three kings had caused the pikoosi to be extremely petrified. The kings possessed intelligence and had their own names, unlike the pikoosi which was only identified by its race. The pikoosi could not understand why his weak master was able to summon those powerful kings.


    Saleen dispatched Daniel to raise the height of the dam, while he exined the n to the three kings by himself. After listening to Saleen, Judikaka then felt that the deal was much more worthwhile than he had previously thought. The three kings could not enter deep waters. Judikaka thought that Saleen would ask them to enter the deep sea to capture the lightning dragon, but it turned out that these humans already had a n to deal with the lightning dragon.


    After a simply analysis, Judikaka realized that even if the three of them were not around to help, Saleen would still stand a great chance of killing the lightning dragon.


    The unevolved lightning dragon could only dominate the sea, and even grade-9 creatures did not dare to trifle with them.


    The rest of the mages had already dispersed. Other than Saleen, no one else was willing to apany the three kings. Furthermore, they were no longer required to deal with the lightning dragon, and they still had to prepare lodging for the three kings. Those three gigantic fellows also needed to rest. A spirit¡¯s body was simr to that of a human, and both types of bodies were in a state of istion from their surroundings.


    The higher the grade of a spirit, the less time it needed to rest. However, the three kings still needed to train, so they needed to have some amodations. The kings could not possibly enter Daniel¡¯s death mes, as that would be infuriating to them.


    Banchajanna dragged the lightning dragon¡¯s egg using a piece of tourmaline rock, and entered the sea following the flow of the river. As the lightning dragon had not returned, Saleen had nothing else to do, so he began chatting with the other two kings.


    Spirits were not cold and unfeeling beings. If Judikaka had not looked so horrible, he could have been considered quite interesting as well. Diyabannersa might have been easily annoyed, but he possessed broad and profound knowledge. Compared to these two men who had been around for tens of thousands of years, Saleen seemed just like an ignorant disciple.


    ¡°Are all spirits afraid of the power of lightning?¡± Saleen posed this question innocuously as he spoke. Saleen had a n in his mind. If these three men were afraid of the power of lightning, then he would be able to subdue them in the future.


    Daniel was slightly blinded by his lust for benefits. He even tried interacting with the kings, but the kings would only speak to Saleen. Hence, he had been utterly slighted.


    Judikaka did so for a reason. He was ignoring Daniel on purpose because he did not want Daniel, who thought that he was very capable, tomand him. If he truly did that, then Judikaka would simply kill this stupid death mage before returning to the death dimension to continue the war.


    Saleen was still better. Even though Saleen was more cunning, he was fair.

 Chapter 281: Saleen’s Contract (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 281: Saleen¡¯s Contract (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Judikaka was not worried that Saleen would learn about his weakness. Up to this moment, he had not heard of a single human who had grasped the power of lightning. The only exception was Shann, who had been able to control a lightning dragon, but that had not been Shann¡¯s own power either. Hence, Judikaka replied honestly, ¡°Actually, spirits enjoy a higher resistance to lightning than humans. It is just that when we are struck by lightning, the pain we feel will also be hundreds of times more than that of humans. A single lightning strike might cause you to instantly be ash, but we will have to endure a long period of pain.¡±


    Saleen was seated opposite the two kings as he raised his head and chatted with them. As the river flowed behind Saleen, Saleen could feel a chill in his bones, but this coldness was nothingpared to the petrifying auras given off by the kings. Judikaka had already tried his best to rein in his aura, but Saleen still felt like he had returned to his childhood days of starvation in the freezing cold.


    The auras on the spirits¡¯ bodies were that of death. Frostiness, deterioration, hunger, and loneliness.


    Judikaka knew that it was extremely difficult for a person at this grade to be able to sit in front of him and yet remain nonchnt. He reined in even more of his aura to make Saleen feel better.


    ¡°I see, so how will the lightning dragon evolve?¡± Saleen still had dozens of lightning dragon eggs in his possession. If these things could fly after evolving, then their value would already be immensely different.


    Judikaka pondered for a moment, then he said, ¡°I am not sure how the lightning dragon evolves, but I think it has to do with lightning. This evolution must be fraught with difficulties, otherwise the lightning dragon would have already conquered this ne long ago.¡±


    Saleen felt that Judikaka¡¯s words were logical, but he also felt that Judikaka was concealing some facts. This spirit king seemed to be fearful of something, but he was definitely not afraid of Saleen.


    Of course, Judikaka would never disclose to Saleen the evolution process of the lightning dragon. Shann might have died, or he could have already be a god. Even if Shann was dead, he was still unwilling to divulge the secret. Relying on the nine lightning dragons, Shann had managed to throw the death dimension into chaos for thousands of years before he had left. At that point in time, Judikaka, Diyabannersa, and Banchajanna had all been weak spirits. Thus, they were easily subdued by Shann and wereter bestowed with the scepters. In just several years, their powers had been forcefully advanced countless times, and they had also gained intelligence.


    That was a period of pain, and Judikaka did not want to recall those memories.


    Saleen felt that he could no longer extract information by discussing this topic, so he decided to change the subject and said, ¡°Why did the abyssal ne want to invade the death dimension? This is really strange. I recall reading in a book that wars are not allowed between nes. Other than the rules, the power of a creature will also decrease once it travels to another ne, and even the gods wille and interfere. The abyssal creatures might be very powerful, but there aren¡¯t many of them who are actually stronger than gods, are there?¡±


    Judikakaughed bitterly, and said, ¡°The abyssal ne is too vast. From my own knowledge, I only know the first one hundred levels. Even if their powers are decreased, they can still wreak havoc within the death dimension simply by outnumbering us. As for the rules, you should know that abyssal creatures are ruthless. They are mentally unsound, and even if they are summoned, there is the possibility that they might kill their summoner. Have you ever heard of a mage who was willing to summon abyssal creatures?¡±


    ¡°Sir Judikaka, if you don¡¯t mind, may I take the liberty to ask a question? I have heard that there is an elf of fire elements in the abyssal ne. Is that true?¡± As Saleen digressed further, Judikaka began letting his guard down.


    ¡°Yes, but it should only be present in the sixth abyss. The other levels are more popted with poisonous creatures. There is also theva monster. The me tyrant is alsomonly seen, but the elf of fire elements is much too rare. Furthermore, they are antisocial. If two elves of fire elements are ced together, they will fight to their deaths.¡±


    ¡°When I am free, I would like to take a look around the sixth abyss. A pity that my magic is wed, and thus my immunity to damage from fire elements is too low. Oh yes, is there any special equipment in the death dimension which could be used to defend against attacks from the elf of fire elements?¡±


    ¡°Junior mage, are you trying to capture the elf of fire elements? I can provide the equipment, but please don¡¯t walk to your own doom. Furthermore, you have no idea how to get to the sixth abyss. Your body is as weak as a skeleton soldier.¡± Diyabannersa was being sarcastic towards Saleen. He simply said whatever came to his mind, unlike Judikaka. Even though he did not hate Saleen, he did not truly respect this weak mage either.


    If Saleen had not signed a contract with them, Diyabannersa would never have bothered reminding him.


    Saleen thought to himself, I must have a piece of equipment to bring back to Sregl Ind. At this moment, Sregl Ind is sealed. In the event that teacher does not manage to capture the elf of fire elements after three years, I will deliver the equipment at the same time as when the ind is reopened, in order to deal with the elf of fire elements as soon as possible.


    The people from Alchemy City would definitely not stand guard outside the ind. Dozens of days would not be much of a difference to them.


    ¡°Sir Diyabannersa, humans are always filled with their fantasies. Please fulfill my wish. I am willing to offer twice the amount of magic books in exchange for it.¡±


    Diyabannersa burst out inughter, then he lowered his head and said to Saleen, ¡°Junior mage, this set of equipment isn¡¯t considered a piece of material. A huge amount of materials are needed to produce this set of equipment. If you really want it, then use one hundred magic books in exchange.¡±


    In his heart, Diyabannersa thought to himself, If only this ne did not have any gods. Then, I would be able to look for mages and obtain many magic books by either stealing or purchasing them. I would not have to waste my time with this fellow over here.


    ¡°Nevermind. Anyway, I won¡¯t be able to enter the abyssal ne for the next thirty to fifty years at least. When the timees, we will make an agreement again.¡±


    Judikaka found the scene amusing, but he was afraid that Diyabannersa would be duped, so he quickly said, ¡°Saleen, this equipment is made from thirty-six types of materials. You shall use seventy-two books for the exchange, no more no less. This will be the permanent price.¡±


    Saleen chuckled. He did not care whether he needed to give one hundred books or seventy-two books. After a long conversation, Saleen had realized that these spirits were not foreign to the human ne, but this was the first time they had arrived onto the Myers Maind. Therefore, in the past, they must have interacted with a human for an extremely long period of time.


    Even though the rest of the mages were busy, they no longer needed to deal with the lightning dragon, so all of them were very rxed. It was not a bad thing to be serving the three spirit kings. Creatures from the death dimension were much easier to live withpared to those from other nes, and that was the reason why humans preferred summoning spirits.


    There was just too much risk in summoning creatures from the other nes.


    Even though the bodies of the three kings had been slightly shortened aftering onto the Myers Maind, they still had giant frames of over eight meters. At such a height, they could already peer into the second story of a magic tower.


    Fortunately, spirits were not particr aboutfort. The mages used magic to clear a piece ofnd before constructing a simple house on it. As mechanical puppets hammered the stakes, steel nails about half a feet long were wedged into the wood. Blinding sparks appeared with every strike.


    The dull hammering sounds spread across a huge distance. When Diyabannersa heard these sounds, he knew that the mages were building a house, so he felt very satisfied.


    Saleen knew how to behave in this delicate situation, as he knew that he could not use any form of status tomand the kings. That was sufficient already. As for the deal, Diyabannersa did not care about whatever equipment or materials were used. For example, the ubiquitous bloodstone in the death dimension could be used to produce disposable magic equipment, such as scrolls, but they were far stronger than scrolls because a mage could utilize a magic array to stimte the spell which was stored within a bloodstone.


    This was akin to viting the rules. However, a bloodstone was formed when a normal rock was fused with a dying spirit, so a bloodstone itself already contained the power of a spirit.


    Nailisi sat beside Saleen obediently and did not say anything. She was very confident of her ultimate shapeshifting spell. Even though the three kings possessed the ability to gaze into a soul, they would not be able to tell that she was not human.


    Seventy-two magic books in exchange for a set of equipment which could defend against the elf of fire elements¡¯ attacks was very worthwhile. It could even be said that the spirits were losing out in this deal. Saleen did not bargain anymore, because in the death dimension, such equipment was not valuable. Otherwise, the death dimension would not have been able to resist the invasion by the abyssal ne.


    As the moon rose, its silver moonlight shone against the river, giving out an enchanting glow.


    Judikaka gazed at the scenery, andmended, ¡°Humans are so fortunate to be able to live in such a world.¡±


    ¡°How is this ne good? If you have lived here long enough, you will realize that it is no different from the death dimension. There is no nar invasion in the Myers Maind, but humans will fight among themselves, causing even more fatalities.¡±


    ¡°You all can continue with the conversation. I am not interested.¡± Diyabannersa nced at Saleen before standing up and leaving. He was going to rest in the big but crude house which the mages from Sregl Ind had built.


    Saleen did not mind that Diyabannersa was leaving. Anyway, Diyabannersa was not inclined to talking, so he was contented to be able to chat with Judikaka alone. The two people shared a great chemistry and they did not mention anything about Daniel being able tomand the three kings. Saleen had even implicitly dered to Judikaka that from now on, the three kings would only negotiate with him.


    Judikaka was very satisfied. If Danielmanded them, they had the option of refusing without being punished by the contract. The only concern was that Daniel would go around boasting, and that would create trouble.


    Judikaka did not know that there was only one god who was being worshipped on the Myers Maind at this moment, and the followers of this god were trying to burn Daniel alive. Of course Daniel would not go and tell the Holy See¡¯s people about the spirits.


    ¡°Saleen, it would be great if you were a spirit!¡± Judikaka¡¯s words caused Saleen to be taken aback.


    ¡°Most spirits don¡¯t understand what I am saying. They will only obey mymands to die or live.¡± Judikaka extended his several-meter-long arm. On his arm, there were strange blue magic patterns which swirled about under the moonlight.


    Saleen¡¯s icy sight had been activated all this while. At this point in time, he saw that the blue magic patterns were absorbing the energy from this world.


    Something was amiss. Summoned spirits had to rely on the death mage¡¯s death mes in order to continue absorbing energy from the death dimension. On the Myers Maind, spirits who had left the mage would gradually weaken and their souls would eventually dissipate.


    The existence of these three kings was definitely rted to a human!


    A notion emerged in Saleen¡¯s mind. Out of the blue, Saleen said to Judikaka, ¡°How about we sign one more contract?¡±

 Chapter 282: Spirit Alchemy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 282: Spirit Alchemy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What contract?¡± Judikaka was still vignt. As a spirit, there were generally no problems in signing contracts with humans. In any case, they could simply refuse to be summoned again once they went back to the death dimension. However, that was limited to signing a contract with a death mage, not an elemental mage.


    In the past, Shann and the kings had signed numerous contracts, and the more contracts they signed, the less freedom they had.


    ¡°No, you misunderstand. I am just trying to help you.¡± Saleen had already shifted where he was sitting and was now sitting next to Judikaka. Saleen was gazing at the river, and at that point in time, it was as though he saw the lives which had been lost during the past thousands of years.


    ¡°All of you must havee to the Myers Maind because you are looking for something, and that is unrted to me. I am just a mage. My entire life is shorter than the time you sleep. However, I know many people in this ne. Perhaps, I can render some assistance in helping you look for what you desire.¡±


    ¡°You?¡±


    Judikaka did not mock Saleen, simply shaking his head. Shann had left one thousand years ago and had never reappeared again. Humans forgot their history easily. Judikaka only hoped to find some clues from those unassuming magic books which he would get from Saleen.


    ¡°On this ne, there is a city where mages congregate. There are many powerful people in that city, and even the three of you will be no match for them. Coincidentally, I know some of them, or else I would not exchange magic books for your materials and equipment. On this ne, most mages will not have more than ten books in their possession.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Judikaka was dumbfounded. From his memory, human mages always had many books around them so that they could read the books anytime.


    ¡°You have never been to this ce, so you don¡¯t know its actual situation. It will be tough for you to aplish your objective. Honestly, even if you were to rob someone now, you will also not be able to get many books. Most people will never get the chance to take a peek at the items which are used to produce magic books.¡±


    ¡°In that case, Mage Saleen, how do you want to help us?¡±


    Saleen smiled. Even though Judikaka was cunning, he was still better than Diyabannersa. Diyabannersa was blunt, and the moment there was some conflict, there was a high chance that he would kill a person with a death spell. On the other hand, Judikaka was open to interaction and negotiation.


    ¡°Magic books are but one method. If you are able to tell me your troubles, perhaps I can help you brainstorm more ideas. Humans always have many ideas, right?¡±


    Judikaka turned and looked down at Saleen, and after a while, he said, ¡°The deathnguage has one hundred and twenty-six letters, more than any othernguage, but most people think that spirits are stupid and cannotprehendplex reasoning. Saleen, is that what you are telling me?¡±


    ¡°No one can verify what you just said. You don¡¯t need someone else to evaluate your life.¡± Saleen was not worried that he would fall out with Judikaka. Since the contract had been signed, he was very safe. In any ne, one could do something behind the backs of the gods, but they would not be able to avoid the rules, unless they were gods themselves.


    ¡°Ha¡­¡± Judikaka dragged his sentence, but he did not carry on talking.


    He did not think that Saleen had the ability to help him. This human mage was too cunning. He would simply judge Saleen by the way Saleen judged him. But, even cunning people would not have any good ideas for dealing with their issue.


    ¡°Sir Judikaka, I have run into some trouble now, so I have always been desiring strong helpers. With your appearance, it seems like you are the goddess¡¯ oracle.¡±


    ¡°Goddess?¡± Judikaka¡¯s soul mes trembled a little, then he asked, ¡°Mage Saleen, what religion do you follow?¡±


    Judikaka was flustered. If Saleen turned out to be believer, then his matter would no longer be concealed from the gods. However, there were no signs of holy power in Saleen. Could Saleen have been a fake believer?


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t believe in any god.¡± Saleen¡¯s icy sight was still switched on, and when he mentioned the goddess, he noticed Judikaka¡¯s abnormal reaction. Thus, he came to a conclusion. It seems like this fellow does not want to anger the gods. If that¡¯s the case, then there¡¯s no hope of using them in the battle against the Holy See anymore.


    These seemingly powerful fellows could simply flee to the death dimension when they saw the representatives of the Holy See, not to mention not having the guts to partake in the battle.


    ¡°Oh, then, Saleen, what do you want me to do for you?¡± Judikaka heaved a sigh of relief. At the same time, his lips became less tightly sealed. Anyway, Saleen was fairly weak, so there should not have been much trouble.


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s notbat. No matter how weak I am, I have my own pride. However, I have a piece of equipment which I can¡¯t perfect no matter what. Sir Judikaka, could you help me with this?¡±


    ¡°So it¡¯s just a piece of equipment. That¡¯s no problem. Spirit alchemy might be inferior, but I believe that most humans will not be on par with my alchemy skills. Saleen, for this minuscule matter, why do we still need to sign a contract?¡±


    ¡°If you think there isn¡¯t a need, then follow me.¡± Saleen stood up and immediately jumped into the river.


    Judikaka was stunned. What had he and Saleen agreed upon? He followed suit, and very soon, the two of them came to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Saleen pointed at the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. He could breathe underwater, but he could not talk.


    Seeing that this boat, which was close to thirty meters, was stranded on the river, Judikaka¡¯s soul mes trembled once more.


    To Judikaka, this was just another piece of equipment. The level of the principle of an alchemical boat was very high, but the refinement techniques were very crude. If not for the special materials, level-7 magic alone would be able to damage this boat.


    Judikaka did not say anything. Aftering out of the river, a bone chain flew out from his hand. A green witch me trailed the chain, as the chain encircled the alchemical boat. Relying on the strength of one hand alone, Judikaka managed to drag this cumbersome alchemical boat onto the shore.


    This scene was too amazing. It was far more shocking than any other spell Judikaka had cast. Even if the magic arrays on the alchemical boat were activated, it would still weigh hundreds of thousands of kilograms. Yet, Judikaka could still drag the boat onto the shore. Sika¡¯s strength was nothing inparison.


    Given Judikaka¡¯s strength, magic shields below level-7 would not even be able to withstand a simple melee blow from him. Furthermore, such a skill could not be learned because strength itself could not be learned.


    The actions by Saleen and Judikaka had caused the rest of the mages to be rmed. After Saleen signaled to the Sregl Ind mages that he was fine, the mages then returned to their unrefined house to continue meditating.


    Saleen felt touched. Those mages had remembered Jason¡¯s exhortation to ensure Saleen¡¯s safety. However, there was a spirit king beside Saleen, so what could they have done?


    ¡°Saleen, are you the leader of all these people?¡± Judikaka found the entire situation incredulous. He could tell that even though Saleen was not the most powerful person, everyone listened to his instructions.


    ¡°No, I am not the leader, not yet.¡±


    ¡°Not yet?¡± Judikaka detected Saleen¡¯s confidence from his tone. A human¡¯s desires were always astonishing. Having such a tone, this weak mage spoke as if the world was under his control.


    ¡°Saleen, you need my help in refining this boat?¡±


    ¡°Yes, because my capabilities are limited. I may have many high level materials, but I can¡¯t perfect this boat.¡±


    ¡°I can help. Tell me what abilities you want this boat to possess. But I must disim, if the refinement fails, I am notpensating your losses.¡± Judikaka left an escape route. If Saleen became calctive in this aspect, he would not be able to argue his way out in the future.


    If Diyabannersa became angry, then this little mage would be sent to the death dimension to undergo endless waves of suffering.


    ¡°I will provide the materials, nevermind if they are wasted.¡± Saleen would never be petty when he needed something. He was not exactly a generous man, but Saleen knew that since this was the first time Judikaka had arrived on the human ne, he must have been in a good mood. It would be very difficult for Saleen to seek his help in the future.


    ¡°State your demands.¡± Judikaka did not mind. This equipment was indeed huge, butpared to the special equipment in the death dimension, this was still small fry.


    The bone castle was only a castle belonging to the lords, but it was aplete piece of equipment. Humans were too troublesome when it came to constructing things, unlike the spirits.


    ¡°The weapons on this boat are too crude. They are useless when ites to bigger things. There is a death spell called Soul Corrosion, right? We can use this spell as the initial supplemental attack. This spell will be stimted by a magic array and then released in a manner simr to how the pikoosi casts magic. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°Soul corrosion? That is of a much higher level than the pikoosi¡¯s skills, but it is fine, I can do it. But why would you choose such an offensive magic array?¡±


    Saleen chuckled, then said, ¡°Because of the attack range. If this boat is engaged in battle at sea, it can¡¯t fight at a close distance. Soul corrosion can be cast underwater, so the boat will be able to fight without needing to float above the surface of water.¡±


    In reality, that was not what Saleen was thinking about. Soul corrosion had a special feature in that its target could not be liberated from it and its damage wassting. This meant that no matter how strong a magic shield was, the target¡¯s defensive ability would be permanently reduced as long as the target was hit by the soul corrosion.


    Take, for example, Saleen¡¯s ice te armor. Under normal circumstances, once the armor was damaged, the magic chords would immediately repair the damaged portions. However, if the ice te armor was struck by soul corrosion, the armor could no longer be repaired. Saleen would only be able to release a second ice te armor after the first one waspletely destroyed.


    What Saleen was actually thinking was ¨C I am rich, I just have to bring enough magic nuclei. With the soul corrosion offensive magic array, I will be able to kill you slowly even if you are a super warship.


    Some metals were not affected by such an ability, and one example was rhenium gold. However, metals like these were so rare that mages would only use them to create small pieces of equipment. It was impossible for a warship to be crafted entirely out of high grade metals.


    Now that Saleen had Jason¡¯s support, he thought like a wealthy person. At this time, Saleen would not try to think of other methods of solving a problem if it could be solved using money.

 Chapter 283: Spirit Alchemy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 283: Spirit Alchemy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°It¡¯s not enough to just have one of these magic arrays.¡± While speaking of alchemy, Judikaka had forgotten that he was working for Saleen. He was obviously really interested in alchemy. For a spirit, Judikaka was already too simr to a human.


    ¡°I have never been to the death dimension, but I heard that there are oceans in there too. And in these oceans, there are some strange creatures. It would be great if bone spirits can be made.¡±


    ¡°How do you know about bone spirits?¡± Judikaka was even more intrigued now. Even death mages were not familiar with bone spirits. What was more, Saleen was still an elemental mage.


    Of course, Saleen had learned about them by ident. Saleen spent a huge amount of effort conceptualizing the idea of the boat. He needed to have a powerful warship since he had chosen such a location to build a city. The problem was, Saleen did not have that kind of money to build many warships, so he could only use another method, which was to build a boat which could do battle underwater.


    Before other people did their research on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, there would be a protracted period of time where the ship could not be sunk. This was because most people would not try to attack an underwater target. For a long time, Alchemy City had already possessed ships which could travel underwater, but the toughness of those ships were rted to their costs of production. Hence, even Alchemy City did not have a solution to this problem.


    There was the warship at Devil¡¯s Horn which had been produced from the bones of magic sea beasts. However, this ship could not travel underwater, and instead seemed like it could fly in the air. Saleen was envious of that ship. Unfortunately, he was not so lucky as to be able to capture such a creature to produce arge warship.


    With this alchemical boat, Saleen felt that he was very safe. As long as the magic array was shut down, the ship would be underwater, and beside the gods, no one else would be able to locate him.


    ¡°I also know that bloodstones aren¡¯t valuable in the death dimension,¡± Saleen replied with a smile.


    ¡°That¡¯s true, but what about it?¡±


    ¡°If the size of a bloodstone is big enough, then it can store arge amount of magic power, and that will be more useful than scrolls. A usual bloodstone is about the size of a pearl, but there are also ones which are bigger than a thumb. There are even some, which are produced by certain creatures, which are bigger than fists. Am I right?¡±


    Judikaka nodded. In the death dimension, bloodstones were ubiquitous. Some of these red rocks were evenrger than houses. But many were simply the size of rice grains, and because they were easily avable, they were not valuable. But what did that have to do with bone spirits?


    ¡°I need two spirit pools which can be used to produce bone spirits. One of them will be used to produce bone spirits from the oceans in the death dimension. They have to be swift and be able to bring along bloodstones to release magic. The other spirit pool will be used to produce bone spirits which will move the boat underwater.¡±


    Judikaka was slightly disappointed, and said, ¡°This idea is brilliant, but it won¡¯t be effective against real experts!¡±


    ¡°I have never thought of going against experts. I just need to be able to deal with people who are slightly stronger than myself.¡± Saleen thought to himself, In the ocean, unless a grand sorcerer is present, everyone will be doomed once the warship is sunk. I am going to deal with warships, not humans, so such an attack n is already inadequate.


    Those bone spirits who brought the bloodstones and swam at high speeds to attack the warships would achieve a better result than simply casting spells. Bone spirits had basic judgmental abilities, and they were able to execute their master¡¯smands. The experts in the death dimension who created bone spirits were identical to the humans who created puppets. These things acted asborers or cannon fodder.


    If Saleen wanted to increase the offensive ability of the alchemical boat, he would have to be a sorcerer so as to advance the Ice Bomb spell to a high level. That way, he would already be able to alter the magic array on the alchemical boat.


    ¡°This boat is too small, and you are demanding two spirit pools. At best, a little over twenty bone spirits will be produced for you.¡± Judikaka was unsatisfied. Originally, Saleen had requested his help. But now, it seemed like he was working for Saleen, and he was being very meticulous about Saleen¡¯s design.


    ¡°I have some shards from the green spirit. They are able to seal the bone spirits so they can be stored.¡±


    ¡°Using green spirits to store bone spirits?¡± Judikaka felt that Saleen was too prodigal. Bone spirits were the lowest grade of creatures, and they were not even considered to be proper spirits. Furthermore, the green spirit was extremely rare in the death dimension.


    In total, Saleen had two green spirit cores. One of them had gone to Sika while the other had been used to seal the winged skeleton. There were many shards from the green spirit, so Saleen nned to fuse half of them into the alchemical boat. By doing so, at least one hundred bone spirits could be sealed.


    It was precisely because of the low-grade of the bone spirits that Saleen wanted them. High-grade death creatures needed to be controlled by death mages. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s green spirit shards would not be able to seal so many high-grade spirits.


    Over one hundred odd bone spirits carrying the bloodstones to conduct a kamikaze attack would likely be adequate for one battle. A normal warship would not even be able to carry one hundred magic stone artillery bombs.


    Judikaka was speechless. Even though Saleen¡¯s n was wed, it waspensated by materials. However, if Judikaka had designed the n, the green spirit would definitely have been put to better use. A sly glow shed from the soul mes in Judikaka¡¯s orbitals. Judikaka decided that he was going to do something behind Saleen¡¯s back which would definitely surprise Saleen.


    Saleen had unconsciously made his matter into Judikaka¡¯s matter, and he had not even requested it. At this moment, Judikaka had not sensed it yet either.


    ¡°Do you have any other requests?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Right now, this boat ispletely sealed. In order to view the surroundings, magic images will have to be activated, and simr to the magic array, it is easily discovered.¡±


    ¡°That will be easy to settle.¡± Judikaka interrupted Saleen¡¯s sentence. The concealing ability of a spirit was very strong, and a simple magic array which contained the Eye of the Dead spell would be enough to solve the problem. Furthermore, the eye of the dead could differentiate between the living and the dead. Under a scan by the eye of the dead, a person would be able to tell whether a certain creature was still alive or not.


    ¡°This boat is also too slow¡­¡±


    Saleen had finally thought about the issue of saving his money. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was not slow at all, or else it would not have been able to keep up with the three warships from Sregl Ind for thousands of miles. It was just that the price to steer this boat at a high speed was too great. The sheer amount of depleted magic nuclei was too much to bear even for Lex.


    It would be very conservative to use the bone spirits to move the boat, but the speed could potentially bepromised. The advantage of bone spirits was that they were hardly detectable by mages.


    Judikaka did not say anything. A green light shot out from the orbital on his head, enveloping the alchemical boat. With a simple scan, Judikaka said, ¡°There are some things added on the exterior of the boat which are affecting the speed of the boat. If you remove them, the boat¡¯s speed will increase.¡±


    Saleen nodded in response. With the eye of the dead, the crystals which were mosaicked onto the turtle shell could already be removed. Those crystals were used to transmit magic images.


    ¡°The materials in the alchemical machines are very good, but you wasted all of them. If the entire refinement process was started from the beginning again, some space could be saved and the speed could be increased a little as well.¡± Judikaka could see right through the internal structure of the alchemical boat, and he began believing Saleen¡¯s words already.


    Saleen was wealthy. If he had not hailed from a prominent background, there was no way he could have gotten such a boat.


    This ship was very crude, but its materials were of high grade, and many of these materials could not be purchased using money. As Judikaka thought of this point, he became enthusiastic. If that was the case, then perhaps Saleen could really help him find information regarding Shann.


    ¡°Take out whatever materials you have. I will help you redesign it.¡± Judikaka retracted from his soul peeping, feeling very good.


    Saleen knew that such things could not be forced. Even though Judikaka¡¯s offensive ability was impacted in this ne, his alchemy was still at its original level. Saleen was just reeling in regret that he had not been able to obtain more materials after finding such a powerful person to help refine the warship.


    Saleen decisively took out all his materials andid them on the ground, creating a trail which extended for over one hundred meters.


    As Judikaka watched Saleen take out pieces of high grade materials, he had the urge to simply grab them. However, he held back his emotions in time. To the three kings, these things were only precious in their memories, but thergest problem was that they could no longer advance.


    The most important reason foring to this ne was to avoid detection by the gods and to look for a solution to be separated from the scepter. Without the scepter, their powers would be reduced temporarily, but their advancement would no longer be limited.


    ¡°Leave it to me.¡± All of a sudden, Judikakaid on the floor and his body began expanding. At first, he had been about eight meters long, but now, he had be as big as a hill, and then he swallowed the alchemical boat in a single gulp.


    As Saleen stared at Judikaka¡¯s original form, he finally understood why Judikaka possessed immense strength.


    This was spirit alchemy? Saleen could not see what was going on inside Judikaka¡¯s stomach, but Judikaka was swallowing the materials which wereid on the ground. Sometimes, he would spit certain materials out, and this was a clear signal that they were not suitable. However, at other times, Judikaka would spit out a bunch of dregs.


    The shards from the green spirit were notpletely used up. It was obvious that Judikaka was mindful of this material. However, there was no rhenium gold left, among other materials such as ink silver, mithril, fine gold, graham steel, fine copper¡­ At least one third of those items which Saleen had obtained from the Myers Goddess¡¯ temple were consumed.


    After about five hours, Judikaka spit out the alchemical boat from his mouth, and resumed his human form. Saleen tried his very best to not recall Judikaka¡¯s original form, because it was an extremely terrifying legendary spirit. All the tales about this spirit were rted to brutality and killing. Throughout the history of the Myers Maind, thousands of people would die whenever a death mage summoned such a spirit.


    ¡°You can recognize my race?¡± The fear in the depths of Saleen¡¯s soul could not be concealed from Judikaka, so Saleen could only nod his head.


    ¡°Looks like my reputation in this ne isn¡¯t too pleasant,¡± Judikaka mocked himself. Then he continued, ¡°Go and take a look, and you can put away your items. If Diyabannersa sees so many treasuresying around, he might just snatch them away.¡±


    Saleen quickly put away the materials. Judikaka was not joking. Since Judikaka was already such a horrifying fellow, then Diyabannersa would not be a peaceful and gentle creature either.


    ¡°Actually, the myths aren¡¯t true. If I told you that my race is actually verymon and weak in the death dimension, would you believe me?¡±


    Saleen shook his head. Quit joking. How could Judikaka¡¯s race be weak?

 Chapter 284: Ghost Ship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 284: Ghost Ship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boatid on the shore, and its external appearance had already been transformed. When Saleen and Lex had refined this ship, they had not dared to alter the outer shell for fear of affecting the depths of which the ship could enter.


    In reality, the turtle was a sea magic beast whose forte was not speed. Some useless portions of the shell appeared as part of the turtle¡¯s growing process, and these parts affected the turtle¡¯s speed in water. Some of the carapace was even useless for the turtle¡¯s defenses. Under most circumstances, the live turtle would not have an idea to deal with this problem. It could only rely on the smaller sea magic beasts to chew away those redundant parts.


    Judikaka had simply removed these extra parts, and the toughness of the alchemical boat was not affected at all.


    Besides this, there were not many other changes to the turtle shell. The magic patterns still remained, only now having an extrayer of dim hue. Even if one stared at this boat at close distance, there was still a feeling of intangibility, as though this boat did not exist.


    Judikaka had reinforced the entire alchemical boat with the Nothingness spell. The Nothingness spell was not elemental magic, but many mages could cast it. This was a type of skill where when one wanted to set a magic trap, the user would be able to conceal the crucial parts of the trap to avoid detection by the enemy.


    However, the depletion by this spell was not minute. Most mages would only use the spell to conceal an area about the size of the palm, but this alchemical boat was almost thirty meters long. Furthermore, this spell was permanently reinforced onto the boat, something which human mages would never be able to do.


    At this moment, the moonlight was strong, but if a ce was not well illuminated, the boat would look like it was invisible.


    Underwater, this effect would be effective over a long period of time. Even though a permanently reinforced spell would disappear, that was only in theory. At this moment, mages had never witnessed the disappearance of a spell yet. Such a disappearance was measured in thousands of years.


    However, all these things were nothing. When Saleen saw the bow of the alchemical boat, he was utterly speechless.


    On the bow, there were two slightly protruded horns, which imitated those of the pikoosi. This was still understandable. Hoever, on the original turtle¡¯s head, the crystals which Saleen had fused were gone. They were reced by a gigantic ck crystal.


    Saleen had not possessed this material. Judikaka had used his own materials to help Saleen refine the boat. Was the ck crystal counted as a piece of material? Or should the segmented pieces have been counted using the standard units of measurement? Judging by Judikaka¡¯s character, it seemed to be thetter.


    Saleen did not feel like he had lost out, but it was far too wasteful to put the ck crystal here.


    The ck crystal could be used to store death magic, and it would not even reject elemental magic. If Daniel saw this piece of crystal, would he immediately go insane?


    ¡°This¡­¡± Saleen pointed to the ck crystal at the bow, and raised his head to look at Judikaka.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing. The attack power of soul corrosion is too weak, so you can store the spell into the crystal first. After casting it, you can then use the magic array to cast a second time, so it will be like apound spell.¡±


    Judikaka felt that Saleen was overreacting. In the death dimension, all intelligent spirits did this.


    However, when Saleen heard this, he grew tempted. Why had he not thought of such a method? Now that Saleen¡¯s magic chords were wed, Saleen faced great difficulty trying to learn the other five branches of magic. If he could use scrolls to cast those five branches of magic and also cast his own spells, then there would already be more variations ofpound spells.


    ¡°Furthermore, how will the bone spirits pass through if I don¡¯t use the ck crystal? Bone spirits cannot withstand normal teleportation portals.¡±


    Only when Judikaka said that did Saleen notice that there was an unidentifiable magic array at the edges of this massive piece of ck crystal. A death teleportation portal!


    ¡°I¡­¡± Saleen pointed at the alchemical boat once again. He was unusually depressed as he tried to say something. He realized that the teleportation portal on the back of the turtle had disappeared, and this boat had be very powerful. However, Saleen himself was human, and he would not be able to pass through the death teleportation portal. At this moment, Judikaka hadpletely sealed the alchemical boat, allowing only spirits to enter.


    Judikaka secretly snickered. The way Saleen looked right now made him very happy. Seeing that Saleen was quite anxious, Judikaka then calmly said, ¡°I have designed two unidirectional teleportation portals. The entrance is under the boat, while the exit is on the surface of the boat.¡±


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Such a design was great. When the boat was underwater, it would be difficult for anyone else to enter from the outside. However, if there was not anyone inside, would the boat have to be flipped over if they wanted to enter?


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have a death contract creature?¡± Judikaka could tell what Saleen was worried about.


    Saleen had a moment of realization. He still had the winged skeleton, and the winged skeleton was an intelligent death creature. As long as the winged skeleton entered using the death teleportation portal, the alchemical boat could be activated and float up to the surface, then Saleen would be able to enter from the bottom. This design was good. Other than a mage like Saleen, any other mages would find it challenging to gain ess to this boat.


    ¡°I have altered the propellers so its speed is much higher now. Go and take a look. I am tired already.¡± Now that Judikaka had already stared at Saleen¡¯s expression to his heart¡¯s content, he waved at Saleen before leaving the shore.


    From behind, Saleen called out from behind, ¡°Hey! How do I get it back into the water?¡±


    ¡°Solve it yourself. This is not something which I should be doing.¡± Judikaka held back hisughter, and waved at Saleen with his back facing him. Saleen was even surer that Judikaka was definitely rted to humans after seeing him behave like this.


    Teasing me, right? Saleen looked at the giant alchemical ship, then hollered, ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    ¡°Here, my master.¡± Nailisi jumped out from the darkness. She had indeed been in the vicinity.


    ¡°We have to get this thing back into the water.¡±


    ¡°Master, you can ask Daniel to do this!¡±


    Saleen pped his forehead. He had been far blinded by anger. Daniel¡¯s death creature might not have been very intelligent, but it was huge and possessed immense strength. The ship was only dozens of meters away from the shore. With another six fully constructed puppets, it would be easy to get the ship back into the water.


    Daniel had been asleep, and he became very upset when Saleen summoned him. Daniel was no mage master. His mental power would surely be adversely affected if he did not get enough sleep.


    Even so, when he saw the new transformations to the alchemical ship, all his fatigue disappeared. Seeing that there was a colossal piece of ck crystal mosaicked into the bow of the ship, Daniel lost all hisposure and pounced forward.


    For the ck crystal, I gave up the winged skeleton. How many portions of materials could be segmented from this piece in front of me right now? Hundreds or thousands of portions? Why is Saleen so wealthy while I am so impoverished?


    Daniel caressed the ck crystal in a depressed mood. He very much wanted to cut a small piece out, but he knew that it was impossible. Unless one had special alchemy cutting tools, most crystals would not be able to be segmented. In the past, some extravagant nobles had crafted a set of armor out of crystal. This armor could protect its wearer from any attacks from bows, but the wearer was killed by a grade-1 mage during a battle.


    The physical defensive ability of crystal was extremely high, but if it was not treated, it would not have any defenses against magic. Instead, it would amplify the lethality of magic.


    ¡°Daniel, hurry up. This thing shouldn¡¯t be seen by many,¡± Saleen urged. Besides the mages from Sregl Ind, even the pirates had never seen the alchemical boat. The pirates only knew that their ship had been used to drag a gigantic item behind them, tied to a giant metallic chain.


    Only if the alchemical boat remain ssified would it be able to unleash thergest effect. Once enemies discovered this boat, they would begin researching countermeasures. Saleen still wanted to produce more of such ships, and if people knew about this in advance, then the whole project would already lose its meaning.


    The pikoosi was released by Daniel from the death mes. Together with six fully constructed puppets, the ship was pushed back into the water. Saleen immediately allowed Daniel to go back and rest, but Daniel could not bear to. He wanted to go onboard to take a look.


    ¡°Why are you so anxious? You will be able to steer this ship in the future.¡± Saleen dismissed Daniel. In truth, he did not need to hide anything from Daniel. However, if he wanted to enter the alchemical boat, then he would need to summon the winged skeleton. Using the winged skeleton right in front of Daniel could put a strain in their rtionship.


    Even though Daniel did not regard Saleen as anything, Saleen did not want to worsen Daniel¡¯s pain. Daniel would eventually forget about the winged skeleton, so Saleen did not want to continue provoking him right now.


    After entering the water with Nailisi, the alchemical boat could not be found. Saleen was not worried. The alchemical boat had been concealed by the Reinforcement spell. This Reinforcement spell did not deplete much energy, so the boat would not be totally invisible. Following the position where the alchemical boat entered the water, Saleen slowly made his way to the front of the alchemical boat.


    At a distance of about five meters, Saleen could finally spot the appearance of the alchemical boat. When Saleen came to the bow of the boat, he called out to the winged skeleton in his heart.


    ¡°Soldier, go in and take a look. Do you know how to activate the magic array?¡±


    ¡°I can do it if it¡¯s just a magic array.¡± The winged skeleton quickly responded to Saleen¡¯s calls and came out of the green spirit before standing on the bow of the alchemical boat.


    The winged skeleton had never been a magic creature, but after absorbing the soul of a human mage, the winged skeleton had gained intelligence and could learn about a life of magic. However, the winged skeleton did not have magic chords. He could practice death magic, but not practice elemental magic. Thus, he could only help Saleen activate the magic array.


    The winged skeleton pasted himself on the ck crystal. The four parts of the magic array on the ck crystal lit up at the same time, causing the winged skeleton to be teleported away. Not long after, the alchemical boat floated to the surface. Saleen knew that the winged skeleton was not very deft at controlling the magic array. He could only make the boat float to the surface.


    Saleen led Nailisi and crawled into the alchemical boat through the abdomen of the turtle shell. The design of this teleportation portal infuriated Saleen. During the transportation process, he saw countless images of spirits dancing about in his mind. Those mournful noises caused Saleen to be nauseous.


    Is this Judikaka¡¯s hobby? Right, Judikaka hasn¡¯t demanded remuneration yet. This old spirit is really scheming. By doing so, I will be embarrassed to deduct his rewards.


    Nevermind. Since they are helping me capture the lightning dragon and have refined such a weapon, it will be worth it even if I give them a batch of magic books.

 Chapter 285: Ghost Ship (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 285: Ghost Ship (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were more changes made to the interior of the alchemical boat. After entering through the teleportation portal, one would arrive at a tiny cabin which could only be essed from the exterior of the boat. If a person wanted to leave, they would have to go to another cabin. This was in stark contrast to the original design.


    The original teleportation portal was bidirectional, and the entrance and exit were at the same location. With the current design, the alchemical boat was more like a warship. Even though Judikaka was not human, there were wars in the death dimension too. Hence, when it came to making weapons more logical, Judikaka was superior to Saleen.


    Saleen did not know whether he was overthinking it, but he felt that the interior of the alchemical boat was kind of gloomy. At a nce, the space within the turtle shell was not altered at all. One example was the five machinery cabins. However, Judikaka had changed all the segmentations carried out by Saleen and Lex.


    The partitions across the entireyout had been removed, and the cabin was now separated into just three regions.


    Thest six meters at the stern were the amodation cabins. It was separated into two levels by Judikaka, and was enough to house more than one hundred people at a time. However, what astonished Saleen was the bathroom.


    The amodation cabin was decorated in an borate manner, and Saleen even noticed that there was a small kitchen. What made Saleen realize the generosity of Judikaka was the many spatialttices which Judikaka had produced.


    The turtle shell possessed some spatial attributes, and Judikaka had maximized that point. Every room had a spatialttice which could be used to store some items as the space was very narrow. The only advantage was that these spacettices were catered to people who were at the grade of a magic disciple.


    With these spatialttices, the crew could store their daily necessities into them.


    On the other hand, there were tworger spacettices in the kitchen which were used to store food and water.


    Located in the middle of the boat was the power cabin. Both ends of this cabin was sealed. There were five control rooms, and a guardroom was situated right beside each control room.


    Saleen had never considered the possibility of an intrusion, but Judikaka had covered that aspect. There were spaces solely for guards beside these control rooms. In order to disrupt the movement of the boat, one would have to kill the soldiers first.


    These portions were designed in a greatly regted manner, simr to what a military general would have done. The only gripe was that not all the details were exquisite.


    ¡°Soldier, where are you?¡± Saleen called out to the winged skeleton in his heart.


    ¡°Master, I am at the front.¡±


    Saleen approached the bow of the boat. Once he entered the front part of the ship, he realized that there were no partitions here. There was only a space which had an area of about one hundred square meters.


    Levitating inside this cabin was an enormous eye of the dead which was mosaicked into the ck crystal.


    Under this eye of the dead was a spirit pool with a diameter of about two meters. ck fog filled the spirit pool, but it did not spread outwards. Huge quantities of green spirits were mosaicked into the surroundings of the spirit pool. These magic arrays had aplex structure, and every single one of them was three-dimensional, simr to the magic patterns on Saleen¡¯s badge. It would be difficult for someone to use their mental power to detect these things.


    A message which was left behind by Judikaka was transmitted straight into Saleen¡¯s brain, causing Saleen to be petrified. Judikaka was a spirit king, so he was able to forcefully transmit a mental message into Saleen¡¯s mind without his permission.


    Such was the difference in abilities between Saleen and Judikaka. Judikaka was also reminding Saleen not to repudiate their agreement.


    The message was not borate. It only briefed Saleen on the usage of the spirit pool.


    This spirit pool would produce twenty-four bone spirits every single day. There were two options for the bone spirits. The first option was that the bone spirits would be bone fish and carry bloodstones to carry out kamikaze missions. As long as Saleen threw bloodstones into the spirit pool, the bone fish could already be produced.


    The twenty-four bone fish produced from the spirit pool could be sealed into the green spirits. There were a limited number of green spirits, so this boat could only carry twenty-four bone fish at most.


    Those magic arrays which were fused with the green spirits were teleportation portals connected to the ck crystals. Once the teleportation portals were activated, the sealed bone fish would beunched from the boat.


    The winged skeleton was inside a three-dimensional magic array located behind the spirit pool. This magic array was engraved into a colossal piece of crystal. As this piece of crystal waspletely sealed, it was unknown as to how the winged skeleton had gotten in.


    The two pairs of wings on the back of winged skeleton opened up and began pping inside the crystal. The soul mes within his orbitals lit up once again. After being betrayed by Daniel, those orbitals had been filled with pitch darkness most of the time, but at this moment, they were filled with a lively red me.


    ¡°Master, I feel that I can control this boat on my own!¡± The winged skeleton could not contain his excitement. The winged skeleton realized that every single item on the boat had fused perfectly with himself. Even that enormous eye of the dead seemed to be part of his body. The winged skeleton could view the external surroundings of the boat clearly. This experience of being able to see through an eye had caused the winged skeleton to be entranced.


    So these were the colors which the humans talked about. There was a portion about colors in the human memories which the winged skeleton had swallowed. However, most spirits did not have any eyes, so they could not see any color.


    ¡°Soldier, do you like it here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡±


    ¡°Stay here then,¡± Saleen sighed. Judikaka had created a ghost ship which had to be steered by spirits. Saleen was not a death mage, and he could not possibly ask Daniel to control this ship.


    ¡°Stay? Master, I¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± As Saleen spoke, he took out the piece of green spirit which had been used to seal the winged skeleton. When he came to the three-dimensional crystal magic array, he found a groove which could contain the green spirit.


    Saleen then fused the green spirit into the groove. He then realized that Judikaka had already considered all the aspects.


    ¡°I am giving you the green spirit. Soldier, you will control this ship in the future. You can delegate the work to the crew in the power cabin, but when I am not around, you will be the captain of this ship.¡±


    By doing so, Saleen had given the winged skeleton partial freedom. Even though the contract could not be dissolved, it was equivalent to the winged skeleton bing a creature as big as the turtle by being inside this crystal. The winged skeleton could move the warship freely in the ocean.


    ¡°Master, I cannot do so.¡± For the first time, the winged skeleton had disyed loyalty towards Saleen. He wanted to follow Saleen, just like Nailisi, to ensure Saleen¡¯s safety.


    ¡°Soldier, this ship is very important to me. I will rest assured knowing that it is in your hands. With this ship, even if I run into strong adversaries, I will be able to remain safe as long as I can get inside. Be it a grade-9 mage, a golden grand swordmaster, or even the pope with a divine weapon, they cannot kill me in the water.¡±


    Saleen exined calmly this to the winged skeleton. Saleen was not a dominating person. He would not lose out by giving partial freedom to the winged skeleton.


    The winged skeleton remained silent for a while, then said, ¡°Master, be a sorcerer as soon as possible. That way, our soul connection will remain effective for more than ten miles. When you be a grade-8 sorcerer, we will be able tomunicate across a radius of one hundred miles, and when you get to grade-9, I can transmit all sorts of information to you within a distance of one thousand miles. If you manage to break through grade-9¡­¡±


    ¡°Is the distance going to be ten thousand miles?¡± Saleen joked.


    ¡°It will be farther than ten thousand miles. As long as I am on this ne, you will be able to locate me. It is just that when that timees, you will no longer require my protection.¡±


    Saleen felt a little sad when he heard the winged skeleton say that. A contract was never equal. There were many other sacrifices besides the contract alone. The winged skeleton¡¯s loyalty hadrgely been brought about by the contract which had altered his psychological state. In the winged skeleton¡¯s heart, Saleen¡¯s safety was his top priority, but before that came Daniel¡¯s safety.


    No matter how his master turned out, he would have to protect them.


    Saleen did not continue brooding. Instead, he changed the topic and said, ¡°Judikaka left me a message, but it is notplete. Since you have grasped the workings of this ship, can you tell me what it does?¡±


    ¡°This ship is called¡­ Green Spirit Liner.¡± The winged skeleton said something that waspltely unrted to the topic at hand. However, the green spirit had been fused onto the crystal, so the winged skeleton would not need to return to Saleen. He would be able to survive and train on this ship. This ship was now part of the winged skeleton.


    ¡°The Green Spirit Liner has five methods of attack.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the first one?¡± Saleen was shocked, he had thought that the ship only had three methods of attack. It seemed like Judikaka had taken things into his own hands again. He had changed the offensive parts of the ship.


    ¡°It is the ice bomb magic array which Master originally designed. It is located to the left of the spirit pool, and a mage master is required to operate it.¡±


    ¡°The second is the soul corrosion magic array. It is located to the right of the spirit pool, and a death mage is needed to operate it. Grade wise, Daniel will be up to the task.¡±


    The winged skeleton did not seem so agitated anymore when Daniel was mentioned. Without the contract with Daniel, the winged skeleton could not maintain his loyalty. It was just that it was very difficult for him to ept that he had been abandoned by the death mage.


    ¡°Mm,¡± Saleen whispered, and did not continue along this topic.


    ¡°Master, if there are no death mages, I will be able to control this magic array too,¡± the winged skeleton reminded Saleen, and Saleen understood what he meant. Daniel was not important, so Saleen did not need to ede to any of Daniel¡¯s requests just because a death mage was needed to operate the magic array.


    ¡°What is the third method of attack?¡±


    ¡°It is this spirit pool. The spirit pool can produce up to twenty-four bone fish a day, and if they aren¡¯t sent into the green spirit for storage, no new bone fish will be produced. Which means that in the best case scenario, we will only be able to deploy two hundred and sixty-four bone fish.¡±


    ¡°Only? That¡¯s already a lot. It will be enough.¡±


    ¡°Master, in order to ensure the lethality of the attack, we will need to use three to six bone fish each time. Against arge ship, at least twenty bone fish will need to be deployed in one go. The magic inside the bloodstones are formed naturally within the spirit pool. In order for an attack to be strong enough, at least three fish will need to be deployed at any given time.¡±


    Saleen calcted things for a moment. If that was the case, then such an attack method was indeed not sustainable for this alchemical boat. After all, two hundred and sxity-four fish were deployed, and he would need at least one full day to replenish another twenty-four fish. In order to replenish all two hundred and sixty-four of them, he would need eleven days.


    ¡°Okay, then tell me, what¡¯s the fourth method of attack?¡± Saleen was very curious about the offensive ability of the remaining two attacks. As a spirit king, what surprises could Judikaka have given Saleen? If these presents were good enough, Saleen would not mind lending arge number of magic books to Judikaka, and he would not bring up the issue of rewards anymore. Saleen was already very satisfied that Judikaka had made a spirit pool which could dispense bloodstones. Otherwise, these items were only avable in the death dimension, and Saleen could not guarantee that he would be able to obtain them.

 Chapter 286: Banchajanna (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 286: Banchajanna (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, you will not like the fourth method of attack,¡± the winged skeleton replied. Without waiting for Saleen¡¯s response, he continued, ¡°This is an inborn attack from the turtle shell, simr to the sacrificial skill which the Tanggsi cavaliers have. It is called Fatal Dash. When this attack is used, a rhombic ice shell will be formed around the turtle shell, then the shell will dash at full speed towards the enemy.¡±


    Saleen was obviously displeased when he heard that. This skill would cause heavy damage to both parties since Saleen would have to ram his own ship into the enemy¡¯s. The Tanggsi cavaliers might have been willing to use their own lives to achieve victory, but Saleen was not. The cavalier ss had already been ostracized in the other empires. Their attitudes were not to be encouraged and publicized.


    ¡°Master, in truth, this skill is fairly useful.¡± Now that the winged skeleton could live aboard this ship, he was overjoyed and became chatty. Then, he exined to Saleen, ¡°This ship is of superior quality, so it can withstand any kind of impact. Even if this ship crashes into steel or rock, it will not break. The crux is in its speed.¡±


    ¡°Speed?¡± Saleen already understood the crux without needing to wait for Soldier¡¯s exnation. The alchemical boat could travel up to fifty miles an hour underwater, but due to the influence of its exterior, its highest speed was only close to sixty miles an hour. Even floating on the surface, the speed did not increase either.


    If such a skill provided speed, then the ship would be able to escape from the enemy¡¯s attacks in a short time. Of course, the winged skeleton understood Saleen¡¯s thoughts, which was why he said that.


    It was such irony that they would use this sacrificial method for escapes.


    ¡°Tell me about the fifth method of attack.¡± Saleen did not continue talking about this topic. In any case, the other three methods were adequate forbat already, while there was only a low probability of utilizing the fourth method.


    ¡°The fifth attack is called soul projection. Without needing to go outside, the mages inside the cabin will be able to project a phantom onto the deck using their mental power. This phantom is able to cast spells.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this a little impractical?¡± Saleen was doubtful. The previous few designs by Judikaka had seemed quite functional, but it did not seem to be the case with this one.


    ¡°Master, the soul projection is immune to physical attacks,¡± the winged skeleton exined.


    Saleen thought about it hard, then he suddenly said, ¡°Isn¡¯t that the same as a ghost?¡±


    ¡°Ghosts cannot release elemental magic.¡± The winged skeleton was extremely patient, exining the characteristics of this death creature in great detail. After listening, Saleen roughly understood the function of the fifth attack.


    The first four attacks were methods which were employed during war. On the other hand, the fifth attack was more peaceful, as its aim was not to sink the enemy¡¯s ship.


    ¡°Soldier, what is the weakness of the soul projection?¡± Saleen asked cautiously. He was afraid that such an ability might bring some underlying harm to the user.


    ¡°Master, this is veryplicated. It is hard to exin. There is no real harm, because the mages are inside the cabin. Even if the phantom is destroyed, the mages¡¯ souls will not be damaged, and the mages will only suffer loss to their mental power. However, when humans use this spell, they might mistake the phantom for their real selves, and they will thus regard the nonexistent damage as tangible damage.¡±


    Saleen understood now. The winged skeleton had exined it to Saleen through the method of a mage.


    In reality, what the winged skeleton meant was that if the phantom was shot by an arrow, the mage themselves would not sustain any injuries. However, the mage would truly think that they had really been shot. A mage would need to spend a long time getting used to such an attack method and familiarize themselves with the immunity towards physical attacks which the spell provided.


    Even so, once a mage became ustomed to this ability, there would be another problem. The mage would potentially think that they were immune to any physical attacks, and thus would forget to put up a defense against physical attacks in the future.


    This was called magic illusion. The psychological state of humans were difficult to interpret. Some spells could deceive the enemy, but they would deceive the mage themselves as well.


    It was impossible for a spell to be perfect. If the soul projection had not had such a huge w, then it would have been the strongest skill on the already.


    ¡°Master, it would be better not to use this magic array. I feel that Judikaka does not have good intentions.¡± The winged skeleton was straightforward, unafraid of offending Judikaka.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, he is only testing me. If I am too afraid of using this magic array, he will despise me, and there will be no more chances for cooperation in the future.¡±


    The winged skeleton hesitated for a moment, but he still mustered his courage and asked, ¡°Master, I have noticed that you aren¡¯t too close to the mages who were given to you by Teacher Jason. Why is this so?¡±


    Saleen was stunned, and said, ¡°There is no particr reason. They are from Sregl Ind while I have not joined Sregl Ind. Unless my teacher controls the entire ind, I will always be an outsider.¡±


    The winged skeleton continued, ¡°Master, those mages have inferior talents. On Sregl Ind, it is very difficult for them to be sorcerers. That is why Teacher Jason handed them to you. Have you ever thought of making them follow you permanently?¡±


    ¡°Follow me permanently? What can I give them?¡± Saleen smiled bitterly. He wanted to possess power like Lex so that he would have many followers, but what could he give the mages in return?


    ¡°At least on paper, you are the incumbent owner of this yet-to-be constructed city. Master, with the help from the three spirit kings, you will be able to acquire so much more.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You can build a spirit fleet. I am sure the three kings will be more than happy to lend a helping hand.¡±


    ¡°Why are you so sure?¡±


    ¡°Master, those spirits were summoned over. They will not really die during battle. Even if the soul mes are dispersed, the mes will simply return to the death dimension. There will be no loss to the three kings if they help you build a spirit fleet.¡±


    ¡°But what can I give them?¡±


    ¡°You can give them whatever they desire. Anyway, the three kings don¡¯t have many desires. They just hope to get some clues regarding their personal affairs.¡±


    ¡°Soldier, a person will have to pay an equivalent price for whatever they desire. If the three kings help me build a spirit fleet, I will have to pay out substantial rewards as well. If these mages follow me, I won¡¯t be able to guarantee their futures, and by then, how will I be able topensate them?¡±


    ¡°Master, in the death dimension, the strong obtain everything. No reasons are needed. I haven¡¯t seen those kings paying any prices yet,¡± the winged skeleton argued. At this moment, the winged skeleton was inside a gigantic crystal, and his height was now about two meters, just as it had been in the past. Nailisi stood outside the crystal and stared at him with ill intentions.


    ¡°If there was no price, then would the three kings havee onto the Myers Maind? Do you really think that Daniel has the ability to summon them?¡±


    ¡°But, Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t go on anymore. I will treat those mages kindly, but I will not make them my followers. If I really want to use them, I will think of a way to gain control of Sregl Ind. As for the three kings, I will figure out what are they searching for, then I will negotiate with them when the time is right.¡±


    At first, the winged skeleton had been worried that Saleen was so conservative that he would remain under other people¡¯s thumbs his entire life. However, after listening to Saleen¡¯s n, he stopped nagging. The winged skeleton stimted the images of the surroundings through the magic array. The images were still in ck and white, and they appeared in front of the colossal crystal.


    It was pitch darkness outside the alchemical boat, and the visibility underwater was extremely low at night. If not for the eye of the dead, the original magic images would have been less clear.


    Banchajanna was nowhere to be found, while the lightning dragon had not appeared yet.


    ¡°Soldier, let¡¯s go out to sea and take a look.¡± Saleen wanted to test the new capabilities of the alchemical boat. Even though there were an insufficient number of mages onboard to power the ship, the winged skeleton alone could already steer the ship.


    ¡°Master, the spirit pool has not started producing bone spirits. Magic nuclei need to be fused into the machinery cabin in order to move the alchemical boat.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Saleen instructed Nailisi, and Nailisi removed her gaze from the crystal which housed the winged skeleton. She thought to herself, If I swallow a spirit, then I will have power to steer this ship, right? A pity the winged skeleton is Master¡¯s contract creature. He won¡¯t let me eat the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Soldier, what¡¯s the difference between using bone spirits and magic nuclei to power this ship?¡±


    ¡°By using bone spirits to move the ship forward, the ship will be slower than when magic nuclei are used. But, the ship will not be easily discovered. A fixed number of bone spirits will be depleted every single day. If magic nuclei are used, the ship will be able to travel at its maximum speed. But if we run into a sorcerer, it will be difficult to conceal the elemental vibrations, and the ship will be easily discovered.¡± The winged skeleton was truly well versed in the capabilities of this ship.


    After Nailisi mosaicked the magic nuclei, the winged skeleton began to steer the ship farther into the river. When Lex had been refining this ship, she had faced many limitations. Hence, whenever the ship was powered up, loud noises from the alchemical machine could be heard throughout the ship. But at this moment, the ship moved forward with almost no noise at all. Without a sorcerer around, it would be difficult to discover that there was such a huge ship traveling underwater.


    This anonymous river was deep and fast flowing. As the river was quite narrow, the alchemical boat did not increase its speed. It simply followed the current and avoided the rocks in the river, floating out into the sea.


    Saleen stared at the images transmitted from the eye of the dead. He felt that after the refinement by Judikaka, the ship waspletely different from how it had been before. This ship was abnormally agile and lively with the winged skeleton at the helm. With four propellers driving the turtle shell, it was as though the turtle was still alive as the ship navigated theplex underwater terrain and did not run into any obstacles.


    None of the other ships which could travel underwater did this, and they did not dare to travel on the river bed. This was because once the ship came into contact with the rocks on the river bed, the ship would begin leaking water, and it would thus be difficult for the ship to float up again. At this moment, the alchemical boat was not doing so not because the turtle shell was tough, but because it did not even hit any protruding rocks in the first ce.


    The alchemical boat did not travel towards the ocean. Instead, it traveled along the shore and advanced towards the lightning dragon¡¯s nest. Saleen was not so afraid of the lightning dragon anymore. Even though the ship had been refined by Judikaka, it could still be possible for the lightning dragon to sink the ship. There were no other mages onboard, but Saleen was not afraid of water while Nailisi could move about underwater for a long period of time. Furthermore, the winged skeleton was a spirit, so it did not need to breathe at all. Even if the alchemical boat was destroyed by the lightning dragon, no one would be hurt.


    In the waters ahead, Banchajanna¡¯s massive stature came into view of the eye of the dead. In the water, Banchajanna had transformed into another appearance. He had six bone arms, all fanned out, while there was a white tail over ten meters long behind him. From afar, Banchajanna could already sense the presence of the alchemical boat approaching. He then turned around and looked. Those red mes from the soul mes in his orbitals were unusually clear, and blinding when observed from the ck and white images.

 Chapter 287: Banchajanna (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 287: Banchajanna (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A piece of tourmaline rock was in Banchajanna¡¯s mouth, and on that piece of rock was the lightning dragon¡¯s egg. His gigantic body was swimming in the water, loitering in front the lightning dragon¡¯s nest.


    In the face of such a massive spirit, Saleen could not help but feel a sense of beauty from the proportionality of Banchajanna¡¯s body. The six bone arms which extended from Banchajanna¡¯s back were about four meters in length, and each arm wielded a unique weapon. That ten-meter-long tail resembled a three-edged bone saw, with each segment of the tail having a three-sided razor sharp bone de.


    On Banchajanna¡¯s head were a pair of sharp, upright bone horns. In addition, blue magic patterns were spread across his body.


    Saleen recalled that the three kings had held onto objects which resembled scepters, but now, the scepter was not on any of the six arms at all.


    ¡°Master, the six weapons wielded by Banchajanna represent the six types of power from the death dimension.¡±


    The winged skeleton knew what was going through Saleen¡¯s mind, so he took the initiative and began exining. Nailisi was upset. With the winged skeleton around, it seemed like she was of no use. As Nailisi stood behind the gigantic crystal and stared daggers at the winged skeleton, the thought of killing him surfaced in her mind once again.


    Even so, it was very difficult to kill a spirit. At best, Nailisi would only banish the winged skeleton back to the death dimension. However, if Saleen managed to bring him back onto the human ne, then Nailisi¡¯s doings would be exposed. Hence, Nailisi decided to put the idea of killing the winged skeleton on hold for the time being.


    ¡°The six powers of the death dimension?¡±


    ¡°Elemental magic is present in the death dimension too. However, the real powers controlling the death dimension are fear, pain, suffering, despair, loneliness, and nothingness. Banchajanna¡¯s weapons reflect these powers. If a normal human being sees Banchajanna¡¯s weapons, it is highly likely that they will lose theirbat ability, and they might even die.¡±


    ¡°So scary?¡± Originally, Saleen had regarded the spirit kings as being simr to sorcerers. However, he now understood that the power of spirits and elemental magic were two different things.


    ¡°Master, if you ever engage in battle with Banchajanna in the future, don¡¯t ever open your eyes during the fight.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Banchajanna is in control of these six powers. If you happen to look when his soul mes flicker, your emotions will be adversely affected, and you will have to battle those six powers every second henceforth.¡±


    How would Saleen fight if he closed his eyes? Saleen thought of dozens of ideas, but none of them could be used to defeat Banchajanna.


    ¡°Why am I not affected now?¡±


    ¡°You are not Banchajanna¡¯s target at the moment. He is a spirit king, so his control over his powers is identical to that of a grade-9 sorcerer.¡±


    Saleen remained silent for a moment, before asking, ¡°Spirits are restricted by the rules on this ne, but to what extent are the rules effective?¡±


    ¡°Master, Banchajanna and hispanions used the summoning portal to ess the Myers Maind, so I am not too sure of the extent of the restrictions.¡±


    Saleen pondered. He was not sure whether it was a boon or a bane keeping the three spirit kings by his side.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°The lightning dragon has appeared!¡±


    In that moment, Saleen snapped out of his thoughts. Looking into the distance, the lightning dragon could be seen swimming towards Banchajanna at lightning speed. Like the previous time, the lightning dragon still had silver skin that was filled with golden magic patterns. It opened its mouth and spit out a razor sharp ice arrow.


    This ice arrow had a length of over two meters. This spell was obviously evolved, as it was not the usual level-2 magic.


    With a sweep of the arm, the bone tomahawk in Banchajanna¡¯s hand urately struck the ice arrow, smashing the massive ice arrow into smithereens and sending white debris flying in all directions.


    After realizing there was danger, the lightning dragon suddenly arched its body and swam in a circle, not continuing to lunge at Banchajanna. The blue electric current in between those golden magic patterns converged together.


    The soul mes within Banchajanna¡¯s eyes began flickering violently, as lightning could do substantial damage to spirits. Furthermore, lightning attacks could not be dodged. The six weapons in Banchajanna¡¯s arms knocked against one another, and the impact from this action caused radiating ripples in the water.


    Saleen¡¯s alchemical boat was not spared either. This attack had no specific target, so the ripples with Banchajanna¡¯s power fanned out in all directions. Saleen reacted very swiftly. He only received part of the impact before channeling his mental power into the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne.


    The blue electric current on the surface of the dragon¡¯s body shot outwards before converging into a thick electric dragon and then striking Banchajanna. Banchajanna began trembling furiously, and his soul mes flickered very violently. The temperature of the surrounding waters suddenly decreased by a huge magnitude, almost freezing into ice.


    Following that, Banchajanna¡¯s attack also urately struck the lightning dragon.


    Fear, pain, suffering, despair, loneliness, nothingness! These six powers from the death dimension were released in the form of ripples, and the lightning dragon had no way of avoiding those attacks.


    The electric current on the surface of the lightning dragon¡¯s body moved about randomly, giving out loud crackling sounds. The dragon had note across a situation like this yet. Its own electric current had hit the enemy, while the enemy¡¯s attack had also hit it at the same time.


    As the lightning dragon stared at the egg which was in Banchajanna¡¯s mouth, an irrepressible feeling of pain and despair overwhelmed it. Its fury caused its body to be contorted like a hemp rope as an even stronger electric current began to be produced.


    After being hit by the lightning dragon¡¯s attack, Banchajanna¡¯s soul mes were weakened and wavering. He could barely move his arm. That feeling of oppression by Shann seemed to have returned. That man who controlled the power of lightning was going to enve them eternally.


    Om!


    Banchajanna mustered all his strength and raised his six arms, and then knocked his weapons together once more. As the ripples carried the six powers through the water, the lightning dragon¡¯s blue electric current hit Banchajanna again.


    The speed of lightning was far faster than soundwaves, so Banchajanna was on the losing end. However, he did not want to give up. Since his arms could still move, Banchajanna repeatedly knocked his weapons together wildly, sending wave after wave of soundwaves outwards. In reality, the power hidden within the ripples was not soundwaves.


    The silver skin on the lightning dragon¡¯s body seemed like it was decaying, as its skin became increasingly grey over a short period of time. Those golden magic patterns also fell into a state of disorder.


    In truth, Saleen had only wanted Banchajanna to act as bait, but Banchajanna had provoked the dragon and did not escape back to the river. If it was in the river, the dragon¡¯s route of retreat simply needed to be cut off. By then, it would be useless no matter how strong the lightning dragon¡¯s electric current was. Saleen would just have to be patient and use his puppets to drain the river, and the lightning dragon would be doomed.


    However, at this moment, something hade over Banchajanna, and he was in a head-on conflict with the lightning dragon. At the end of the day, Banchajanna was on the human ne. He was restricted by the rules and also had an inborn weakness towards the power of lightning. He was in no way in an advantageous position in this battle. His six arms could no longer move and the six weapons had disappeared. There was only one arm now, and that arm was wielding onto the scepter.


    Saleen¡¯s mental power was only slightly damaged before he escaped into the Myers Goddess¡¯ ne. But this time around, the remaining impact from Banchajanna¡¯s attack had caused Saleen to be rendered useless. Saleen suddenly felt that the things he were doing at the moment were meaningless.


    So what if the lightning dragon is killed and the power of lightning can be obtained?


    In order to be a mage and sorcerer, Saleen had endured so much hardship. He had to use the badge to train his mental power, and in return, his soul was tortured. What was the point of this even if he could live to one thousand years old? Ever since Saleen¡¯s parents had passed on, when was thest time he had experienced a happy day?


    How about just dying and giving up the power of a sorcerer and the one thousand years of longevity?


    Saleen retracted his mental power out of the goddess¡¯ ne, and an empty gaze filled his eyes. Saleen tapped on the gourd at his waist, causing a six-meter long green water flow to fly out. The water flow revolved around his body, and this time around, the water flow took on the shape of a noose. This noose went around Saleen¡¯s neck several times.


    The violent trembles formed by the elemental granules in the water flow only needed to give a gentle twist and Saleen¡¯s neck would be broken. After being affected by Banchajanna¡¯s attack, Saleen had lost all his morale, and he now had the notion of ending his own life. This still happened despite the preparation and reminder from the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Master.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    The winged skeleton and Nailisi eximed at the same time, causing Saleen¡¯s eyelids to jump. He took a nce at the winged skeleton and Nailisi, then said decadently, ¡°Soldier, once I die, you will be free. You possess intelligence, and you can stay here. The boat will be yours, so you don¡¯t have to return to the death dimension. Nailisi,e. Let¡¯s leave together. You don¡¯t have to endure punishment from the contract anymore.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, a second water flow diverged from the green water flow and made its way towards Nailisi. Aboard this ship, the winged skeleton was sealed within the crystal, so it would not be affected by Banchajanna¡¯s attack because the crystal had been made by Judikaka. As for Nailisi, her blood made her immune to the effects of Banchajanna¡¯s attack.


    The reason why demons struck fear into many living things was because of their strong vitality. Many powerful skills were ineffective against them. Many schrs had also said that demons had no souls. More urately, demons did not have the negative emotions which humans had. Even if demons had possessed negative emotions, it was also very difficult for them to be influenced by their external surroundings.


    Nailisi¡¯s blood was pure demon¡¯s blood, so she did not care about Banchajanna¡¯s attack at all. However, Saleen could not disregard it. He was merely a grade-4 mage. In order to defend against such an attack, one would need to be familiar with the method of defense in advance, and Saleen was clueless in this aspect. Otherwise, Saleen would have only needed to analyze the principles of this attack in order to render the attack ineffective.


    ¡°Master¡­¡± A green water flow wound around Nailisi¡¯s neck. This water flow was as flexible as Saleen¡¯s arm, and was also like the long tongue of a magic beast. The water flow went around the crystal before trapping Nailisi. No matter how strong Nailisi¡¯s body was, it would not be able to withstand the twisting from Saleen¡¯s water flow.


    The winged skeleton was helpless while Nailisi was beyond petrified. No matter what she did, she would not be faster than this water flow. The magic patterns on the water flow were unusually beautiful as they swirled about, but beneath this beauty was imminent death. Nailisi¡¯s face seemed strange and flirtatious under the illumination from the magicmp inside the alchemical boat.


    ¡°Nailisi, haven¡¯t you always wished for freedom? I will give this freedom to you now.¡± As Saleen smiled, the water flow gently pulled Nailisi towards Saleen. Saleen raised his hand and caressed Nailisi¡¯s hair, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid. It will only hurt for a moment, then we will die together.¡±


    ¡°Banchajanna!¡± The winged skeleton bellowed. Banchajanna had known that the alchemical boat was behind him, yet he had not controlled the direction of his attacks. He had allowed his attacks to spread in all directions. Now, the winged skeleton was not afraid of any superior being. He was solely fixated on killing Banchajanna.

 Chapter 288: Unexpected Gains (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 288: Unexpected Gains (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Banchajanna could not hear the anger from the winged skeleton and was attacked for the third time by the lightning dragon. His body twisted and could no longer return to its original state. The third lightning current turned purple as itnded squarely onto Banchajanna¡¯s skull. This hit destroyed Banchajanna¡¯s soul mes as they disintegrated into red mes.


    Banchajanna was not dead, only because a part of his soul was in the scepter. It protected this part of his soul, but also restricted his freedom. The three kings could not do anything about this scepter, and the lightning dragon¡¯s attacks could not affect the soul within either.


    However, the winged skeleton gave a loud howl and Saleen¡¯s perplexed and lost expression paused momentarily. Nailisi took this perfect opportunity and mmed her fist between his chest and stomach. Saleen twisted his body and fainted immediately.


    Nailisi was very confident in her control over her strength and this punch did not stop Saleen¡¯s heart from beating. However, his heart slowed down, and since his body was not able to withstand such drastic changes, Saleen fainted. With him fainting, the green current returned to normal and with a swoosh, returned into the cbash.


    The green current was almost like an entity which apanied Saleen. If he did not control it forcefully, it would not hurt him, or even Nailisi or the winged skeleton, no matter what.


    It was the first time Nailisi had broken out into a cold sweat and she was thankful that her soul was contractually bound to her master. Her stable emotions had rubbed off on him, and if they had not, he would have killed himself and not cared about the warnings that she and the winged skeleton had uttered.


    The battle within the sea had stopped after only a few attacks. The lightning dragon and Banchajanna were both severely injured. Banchajanna could not move as he slowly sank deep into the sea, and as for the lightning dragon, after it had released the lightning, its entire body had gone limp.


    Banchajanna had not lost consciousness. He had reached the pinnacle in the death dimension, but now that he was here in the Myers Maind, he had been beaten up this roughly by a grade-8 creature. In addition to the fact that the dimension had limited him from unleashing his true powers, the control of lightning over spirits was an importantponent as well.


    The lightning dragon was worse off than Banchajanna. The impact that it had suffered was something never seen before on the Myers Maind. Even if it was a grade-8 magic beast, it was not in any better of a state than Saleen. Since it had lost control over itself, the lightning dragon had unleashed an immense power that it could not even withstand itself, destroying Banchajanna defenses with a single blow. That purple current had not only damaged Banchajanna¡¯s soul mes, but it had left the lightning dragon numb, unable to move at all.


    If the lightning dragon had not been a magic beast, it would have drowned in the sea. The silver skin on its body had be a dark and gloomy color, and the golden magic patterns were chaotic too, no longer storing any electric current.


    On the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, Nailisi lifted Saleen¡¯s shirt and used her nails to draw a line on his chest, releasing a burst of grey blood. Banchajanna¡¯s attack had almost taken Saleen¡¯s life. Nailisi took out a small bottle and poured the magic liquid down his throat. Only then did he wake up.


    The aftereffects of the attack had dissipated and only then did Saleen¡¯s powerful focuse into effect.


    ¡°Goddamn, I¡­¡± Saleen rubbed his skull, realizing what had happened earlier. The only thing he could not understand was that if Banchajanna had wanted him dead, why had Judikaka still helped him reprocess the pan¡¯s turtle? With the powers of the three kings, they did not have to take such a troublesome route to do what they wanted to him. Even if he was prepared, it would be hard for him to escape their attacks. Moreover, after signing a contract, even if Banchajanna wanted to hurt him, he would be restricted.


    Saleen obviously had no idea about the inner workings of Banchajanna. He seemed to possess unfathomable powers. Originally, being at the grade of a king, he would not have been able to fully control the six different powers of the dead. However, with his scepter, he could already use all six of them inbat. Banchajanna¡¯s logic was incredible. He had no intentions of hurting Saleen, but this had been the result. He had not controlled his attacks, and Saleen had been affected.


    Banchajanna still agreed with Judikaka¡¯s idea to use the weak humans and stay in this dimension for a while, not returning to the death dimension for now. Saleen was a human whom he rtively approved of, and yet he had never thought of protecting Saleen or letting him live safely.


    The winged skeleton seemed to notice that Saleen was regaining his strength as he said in concern, ¡°Master, don¡¯t exact revenge on Banchajanna. The other two kings will not be easy to deal with.¡±


    Saleen grit his teeth. If Banchajanna had been alone, he would have killed this death king when he did not have the ability to defend himself. Others might not have been able to do so, but he possessed the divine skills of the Myers Goddess and couldpletely destroy the dead. However, the winged skeleton¡¯s warning was correct. Judikaka and Diyabannersa would not be easy to deal with.


    ¡°Hm, let¡¯s get rid of the lightning dragon for now.¡± Saleen spat out the heavy feelings in his chest as he thought hard on how to deal with Banchajanna, who was already awakening. If he swallowed this down, would he meet with more trouble in the future?


    Under the control of the winged skeleton, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat came to where Banchajanna and the lightning dragon had been fighting. The lightning dragon waspletely paralyzed under the sea as it red at Banchajanna. Seeing Saleen¡¯s alchemical boat, it wanted to release an attack, but Banchajanna¡¯s attack was not that easy to withstand. Saleen had nearlymitted suicide from its repercussions, and the lightning dragon had absorbed most of the impact. Hence, it no longer had the ability to resist.


    Saleen was filled with anger as well. If he had known about this earlier, he would not have set a trap and would have had Banchajanna deal with the lightning dragon right away. However, all three kings had been hesitant back then and did not dare face the lightning dragon face on. Who knew that after seeing it, Banchajanna would have changed his mind and fought with it, nearly killing himself in the process.


    Saleen scrambled out from the deck of the alchemical boat. Judikaka¡¯s design was far more useful than the original design, and entering and exiting the ship was also easier. His icy sight could see everything in the water clearly. The lightning dragon had lost the ability to defend itself and Saleen did not want to miss out on this opportunity.


    Nailisi followed Saleen out of the alchemical boat. She knew that his spatial equipment was too small and if he wanted to carry the over ten-meter-long lightning dragon away, he would still require her help.


    The lightning dragon red at Saleen. It still remembered that he was the one who had barged into its nest.


    Saleen ignored its re. For a lightning dragon to grow this big, it must have killed countless living creatures. There were not any marine creatures within a hundred miles from here, and a person could only imagine the killer instincts in this lightning dragon.


    Saleen tapped on the cbash on his waist as the green current followed out, heading straight for the lightning dragon. The dragon was paralyzed and had nowhere to hide, allowing it to enter its nose.


    The current passed through the nose cavity up into its brain. Like most magic beasts, it had a magic nucleus in its brain. As the current invaded its body, thest of the lightning dragon¡¯s life force burst out, its silver skin restoring to its former glory and the golden magic patterns rearranging themselves again, regaining their electric current.


    Saleen did not dare let it fire again. Hemanded the current to wreak havoc in the lightning dragon¡¯s brain as it lost its aura again.


    Banchajanna looked at Saleen¡¯s actions, a little shocked. He had not cared about this human at first, but Saleen¡¯s current seemed a little devious, almost as if it could really hurt him.


    If Banchajanna had not been injured by the electric current and had watched this scene unfold with all his might, he would have killed Saleen immediately to prevent him from being a threat. However, Banchajanna could not even move his tail now, and pure terror struck him.


    If Saleen wanted to kill him, now would be the perfect opportunity.


    It had been a long time since the fate of his life had been in the hands of another. Banchajanna felt as though he had returned to the time when he had still been with Shann. Back then, his life had been in his hands.


    Saleen¡¯s current had the divine power of the Myers Goddess, and after killing the lightning dragon, its nucleus was still intact. It was pried away from its skull by Nailisi. Even though it was a grade-8 beast, the defensive abilities of its skin and bones were in no wayparable to tiago.


    Normally, the lightning dragon could use its electric current for defense and even level-8 or level-9 spells did not have much of an effect on it. However, now that it had lost its current, its body was barely as strong as a grade-7 magic beast. This was also why the lightning dragon was not considered a grade-9 magic beast. A true grade-9 beast would still have horrifying abilities even if it relied solely on its physical body and did not count on its magic nucleus.


    Saleen did not even nce at Banchajanna. He and Nailisi carefully cut up the body of the lightning dragon. Once the magic nucleus was in the hands of Nailisi, the only worthy thing left on the lightning dragon was its skin. The nds under its skin could secrete a silver liquid, and Nailisi removed them all together.


    Banchajanna could only stare as Saleen and Nailisi dissected the body of the lightning dragon, taking out its magic nucleus and removing its skin and blood. The calmer Saleen was, the more afraid Banchajanna became. The magic of humans was crazier than that of any other creature, and if Saleen decided to deal with him, Judikaka and Diyabanersa might not know that it had been him.


    No one would believe that a grade-4 mage had been able to kill a death king. Even if Saleen admitted himself, Judikaka would not believe him.


    The entirety of the skin had been pared away from the dragon¡¯s body. The bones were pulled out one by one, and the muscles were cut into pieces and all stored away into Nailisi¡¯s bracelet. There was no waste, and as Saleen calmly did all these things, the anger within him slowly subsided.


    Banchajanna was a king and ignoring a grade-4 mage was normal. If he wanted revenge, it would need to wait until he was a sorcerer.


    At this thought, Saleen came before Banchajanna and stared momentarily at his giant skull. Benchanjanna¡¯s soul mes had been severely injured and he was severely damaged emotionally. He felt that Saleen¡¯s blue eyes were incredibly simr to Shann¡¯s, equally ruthless and calm.

 Chapter 289: Unexpected Gains (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 289: Unexpected Gains (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Banchajanna¡¯s death was now in the hands of Saleen, and Saleen¡¯s icy sight had urately pinpointed Banchajanna¡¯s weak point. It was the scepter. Once Saleen released his divine spell and wiped out Banchajanna¡¯s remaining soul mes, the connection between Banchajanna and the scepter would bepletely broken.


    There was a part of Banchajanna¡¯s soul within the scepter, but that fragment of soul could only be another soul at best.


    Banchajanna had formed a n to break free from the scepter long ago. If he angered a god, he would be able to fully die. The gods may not have been able to destroy the fragments of soul within the scepter, but they would be able to cut their contact with himpletely.


    Saleen could see Banchajanna¡¯s fear as well. He was a little surprised. So someone as powerful as him could feel fear too?


    Only by believing in my god can one distance themselves from the fear of death. Saleen thought back to the words of the Holy See¡¯s divine rod, and his urge to kill subsided even further. There was no point in killing Banchajanna. Even if Judikaka and Diyabannersa did not know it was him, he would need to deal with many problems.


    Saleen gave a slight smile as he led Nailisi and swam back to the alchemical boat. Banchajanna¡¯s soul mes had finally stabilized, and Saleen let him go. Banchajanna was not insulted, but he wanted to leave this dimension as soon as he could. However, Judikaka and Diyabannersa would definitely not agree.


    Hopefully, Saleen will keep what happened today a secret. If not, Diyabannersa will not be happy. The three of them had discussed things, but their n had almost been ruined because of a mistake he had made.


    ¡°Soldier, let¡¯s go back.¡± Saleen returned to the alchemical boat, hurrying the winged skeleton to leave.


    ¡°How about Banchajanna?¡±


    ¡°Let him rest here. I will tell Judikaka.¡± Saleen did not have any means to heal a soul. Any magic and divine spells he knew caused huge damage to them. If he released a Chunlin spell, Banchajanna¡¯s skin would start shedding. If he used magic liquid to cleanse him, Banchajanna would be in greater pain than if a human had been burned with hot oil.


    Saleen had not thought of how to tell Judikaka about this. He did not have the winged skeleton steer the alchemical boat back into the river. Instead, they stopped directly under the white stone mountain, returning to the camp. At the campsite, Saleen did not find Judikaka. Instead, he called Daniel over and recounted what had happened before bringing Nailisi back to the alchemical boat.


    Saleen was still thinking about the materials in the lightning dragon¡¯s nest. The luminous liquid that the lightning dragon secreted was a top-notch tranquilizer, and Saleen had more ideas now. He was not nning to sell these items, but rather, to keep them for himself.


    As all creatures had their ways of growing, the silver liquid that the lightning dragon secreted was a form of defense. The electric current that it released must have been isted by this silver liquid. If not, it would not have only adhered to its surface while not harming the lightning dragon itself.


    If Saleen wanted to learn how to control the power of electricity, he needed to ensure that he would not be hurt by it first.


    He returned with Nailisi to the dragon¡¯s nest. This time, he immediately released a green current over six meters long and patiently began cutting. The lightning dragon had spent a long time in this ce, and the entrance of the cave was filled with solidified liquid. The solids that Saleen cut with his current were as thick as two fingers.


    This only solidified Saleen¡¯s idea that the secretion from the lightning dragon could prevent it from being hurt by its own current. The dragon¡¯s nest had been thered all over with this substance to protect the nest as well.


    After cleaning up the nest, Saleen immediately returned to the alchemical boat. He could not ensure that there were not other abnormal creatures here, and ording to the research of mages, some powerful magic beasts could survive together with some strange things. The lightning dragon was considered an entric creature on its own, but Saleen did not want to take any risks.


    Back on the alchemical boat, Saleen had the winged skeleton steer back to shore. He did not disembark, but instead, began researching the magic nucleus of the lightning dragon.


    The magic nucleus of this dragon was incredibly special. Even though it was a standard twenty-four-sided one, its color was a little mboyant and it did not seem as pure. With his icy sight, Saleen looked directly into the internal structure of the magic nucleus.


    This colorful magic nucleus had all six types of elements, yet it was incredibly unbnced. It leaned heavily towards ground and water type elements, and looking at this ratio, the magic nucleus should have been incredibly weak. However, the toughness of the magic nucleus was almostparable to that of the tiago¡¯s dragonshard.


    Lightning dragons spent most of their time in the deep sea and it would be hard for him to kill another one. For a lightning dragon¡¯s egg to hatch, it would take up to a few hundred years as well. Saleen could not wait that long as he reluctantly dissected the magic nucleus.


    This might have been the only magic nucleus from a lightning dragon in the entirety of the Myers Maind. Even though it was a grade-8 magic nucleus, its value was much higher than many other grade-9 ones.


    ¡°Nailisi. Say, why do you think this magic nucleus produces a current?¡± Saleen had analyzed it using many forms for a few hours, but he still could not exin why it was able to release an electric current.


    ¡°Master, I think it has something to do with its magic patterns. This magic nucleus could never produce an electric current.¡± Nailisi grabbed the magic nucleus and started ying with it.


    ¡°Just from those magic patterns, it could produce an electric current?¡± Saleen found it hard to believe. In terms of what mages knew, all the powers of a magic beast came from their magic nucleus.


    ¡°A witcher spider doesn¡¯t have a magic nucleus, yet it has the powers of piercing magic.¡± Nailisi¡¯s words led Saleen to a revtion.


    That¡¯s right. Mages do not have magic nuclei either, yet they can still control magic. Magic chords and magic nuclei have no simrities, and they work on different principles. Humans can release magic without magic nuclei, so magic beasts must be able to do so too.


    Saleen had Nailisi take out the lightning dragon¡¯s skin andy it on the floor.


    There was not a very big space within the ship and even though all of the skin of the dragon had been pared off, it could only be halfid out. Saleen sat down and started patiently researching the magic patterns of the lightning dragon.


    The golden magic patterns had returned to their original state just before the lightning dragon had died. It had been just about to release an electric current to attack Saleen, and this made it easier for Saleen to examine it urately.


    The golden magic pattern was indeed a three-dimensional structure, very simr to that of Saleen¡¯s n badge. This simrity was not in its power, but rather, in its structure. Most magic patterns were t, and three-dimensional ones had only been discovered by him recently. This magic pattern was a branch of a magic array, and from what it seemed now, humans had gained this knowledge from magic beasts.


    ¡°Nailisi, ignore anyone who is looking for me. Don¡¯t let anyone interrupt me¡± Saleen saw a glimmer of hope and gave an order to Nailisi straightaway. He then took note of the magic patterns on the lightning dragon and used all his focus to enter the Goddess¡¯ Ne as he began his calctions.


    This calctionsted for ten days. Luckily, Banchajanna seemed to realize the trouble he had caused and was not as hot headed as Diyabannersa. Instead, he and Judikaka tried to stop Diyabannersa. Banchajanna had a newfound fear for Saleen, and it was an irrational one.


    The mages on Sregl Ind did not dare offend the three kings either. The three kings had an agreement with Saleen, but it did not mean that the mages from Sregl Ind were protected as well. As to not anger the three kings, the mages had no choice but to take out the magic notes they had brought along with them to give them something to read.


    The three kings were not picky with their training either. They looked carefully at every sentence and word, exchanging opinions after. It seemed that they had forcefully memorized every piece of information rted to death magic. This form of memorization proved to be incredibly effective, and so long as they saw rted information in the future, they would be able to link all of it together to form a new system of analysis.


    Sinceing to the human dimension to look for leads on Shann was like looking for a needle in a haystack, as the three kings did so, they were incredibly patient. They were under the protection of the scepter and could live longer than any other spirit. They had time, and even if they read all the books on the Myers Maind, they would not die.


    Saleen calcted for ten days, but in reality, time passed incredibly slowly and Saleen¡¯s calction speed had increased to a new limit. In these ten days, Saleen had fully analyzed all the magic patterns of the lightning dragon, and even if he did not understand the meaning within them, he could replicate them urately.


    The lightning dragon¡¯s body was over ten meters long, but most of the magic patterns were repeated, and this made Saleen¡¯s job much easier. Moreover, the changes of this type of magic pattern were not asplicated as those on Saleen¡¯s n badge. There were less than fifty thousand of them and it considerably decreased the difficulty of Saleen processing such magic patterns.


    Once Saleen retreated from the Goddess¡¯ Ne, the first thing he did was take the witcher spider out and reprocess it. This time, he managed to process it in record time, and after changing the magic pattern on it, he iid six grade-4 magic nuclei inside of it and activated it.


    Blue currents danced on the surface of the witcher spider¡¯s body. The electric current had been increased by more than a hundred times. Before, it could probably kill an insect, but with its powers now, it could even kill a chicken without issue.


    The lightning dragon was but a grade-8 creature, yet it could injure a king from the death dimension. That was how powerful the electric current attack was. Moreover, the reprocessed magic pattern together with the secretions from the lightning dragon had prevented the witcher spider from having its body structure damaged. However, the depletion of the magic nuclei was not any less than before.


    This was not much. Any magic that had just been created possessed imperfections. Saleen knew it was time for him to learn the Water me Alchemy spell. His teacher had not realized the unique ability of his magic chords, and even though Saleen was only grade-4 now, he could learn such high-level abilities.


    After learning the Water me Alchemy spell, Saleen would be able to process true electric magic patterns onto demonic equipment. Just like the lightning dragon, they would be able to release electric currents to attack. Before he had learned of the secrets within his n badge, this would have been his most powerfulbat skill. With such power, Saleen would no longer need to worry about his rtionship with Judikaka.


    After ten days of training, Saleen was pleased with his sess as he said happily to the winged skeleton, ¡°Soldier, we can go back. Do you want to stay in the boat or follow me ashore?¡±


    ¡°Master, I think I should stay¡­¡± The winged skeleton replied cautiously. Within the crystal, his two skeleton wings had fully grown and he had a feeling a third pair was about to grow. Once his third wings had grown out, the winged skeleton would no longer be a low-grade mutant skeleton soldier, but instead, a high-grade death creature that could rece Saleen in battle.

 Chapter 290: Quickcloud Spell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 290: Quickcloud Spell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Seeing Saleen hesitating, the winged skeleton exined, ¡°Master, when Judikaka created this alchemical boat, he had a trick up his sleeve. If I don¡¯t stay behind, any spirit can invade the ship and control it.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen raised his eyebrows, he knew Judikaka would not be that kind-hearted. Thebat powers of the ship underwater had surpassed that of the Pan¡¯s turtle when it was alive. Judikaka obviously had no idea that Saleen¡¯s dead creature had intelligence and had left such an obvious backdoor for the future.


    This boat could be brought back to the death dimension and there would not be the shell of the Pan¡¯s turtle there. As for Judikaka, the value of this ship was enormous.


    Luckily the winged skeleton had intelligence and could fill Saleen in on the ws of this alchemical boat. So long as Saleen was more careful in the future, it would be hard for Judikaka to snatch away the ship.


    ¡°Once I have learned the water me alchemy spell, I will make you disappointed!¡±


    Saleen set his mind to it, he realized only the hot-headed Diyabannersa was easy to deal with; Judikaka and Banchajanna were incredibly troublesome. Diyabannersa was direct with his words, Judikaka on the other hand peppered his words with lies. As for Banchajanna, Saleen had no idea what he was thinking.


    Upon reaching the shore and meeting the three kings, they chose not to mention about the lightning dragon nor the fact that Banchajanna had almost gotten Saleen killed.


    The city¡¯s blueprint was in Saleen¡¯s hands, but he was no longer willing to take it out. He merely listed out the ns for the individual buildings and started discussing with the mages how to build the city. Saleen¡¯s original idea was to build the magic tower first, but with the three kings around, he did not feel safe to do so. The materials for the magic towers could only be stored in the dimension stone first.


    Only when he had enough power to suppress the three kings could Saleen take all of them out without worrying. The alchemical boat incident had taught him a huge lesson. Many times, even a bond could not restrict anybody.


    As the weather turned chilly, the river towards the north had started to freeze. With the help of the three kings, Daniel had called upon arge number of death creatures to help Saleen build the city. This surprised Saleen. The three kings seemed to genuinely n to stay there. These death creatures might not have much intelligence, but they were much more useful than humans when it came toboring.


    Daniel was squeezed tightly as his job everyday was to call upon more death creatures. As long as he called upon them, countless different types of death creatures would appear from the death mes. He would only stop when his focus could no longer hold on.


    As the number of death creatures on the white beaches increased continuously, it seemed like Daniel was controlling an entire dead army. He was fully aware that all of them were the three kings¡¯ and he had nothing to do with them. The three kings had made use of his death mes to confirm the coordinates of the death dimension. All the death creatures had entered the summoning array only after the kings had summoned them. If not with his grade, he could forget about summoning anything.


    Daniel was getting increasingly worried as he went to find Saleen and said, ¡°Saleen, those three fellows¡­¡±


    ¡°Daniel, I know about summoning the death creatures. Don¡¯t worry, Judikaka has no intentions of expanding his influence here, he only hopes to quickly build the city.¡± Saleen said nonchntly.


    ¡°But they have been summoning more than one-thousand death creatures every day, if these creatures formed an army¡­¡±


    ¡°Daniel, what are you worried about? These spirits want something different from us, even if they build up their army, would they snatch ournd or food?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, aren¡¯t you worried?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to worry about? If this city cannot be build, I would be worried.¡±


    Seeing Saleen not heeding his advice, Daniel was a little dejected. Saleenughed as he patted Daniel on the shoulder and said, ¡°Take your benefits first, ignore what these kings are nning to do.¡±


    Daniel was a little embarrassed, he had been getting quite a lot of benefits the past few days. He had onlye to find Saleen to tell him something was amiss after he was almost done getting them. Saleen knew that, but he did not take it to heart.


    Saleen no longer had eyes for the things Daniel had. He was not who he was when he first came from Ceylon City, he had a deeper understanding of benefits.


    Saleen¡¯s roots came from his teacher and Jason¡¯s roots were in Sregl Ind. Once the city was built, all the mages from Sregl Ind would arrive and stay in the thirty-six magic towers within the city. By that time, the three kings would not be able to cause anymotion and things would only be disastrous if the city was not built.


    Lex had already returned to Bitter Water Prefecture to gather resources and manpower. Once the city was built, they could consider looking for the coordinates for god¡¯s hell. Building a teleportation array, the sorcerers of Sregl ind could enter the six-dimension space to train and it would not take long for a grade-9 sorcerer to be born.


    The only thing that Saleen needed to do was to follow Jason¡¯s blueprint and build the strongly fortified city.


    Without these death creatures, once winter came, the jobs of the mages would be much harder. The weather would be much harsher in winter and even the mages would find it hard to withstand. They would need to constantly release magic in order to continue working in such low temperatures. The death creatures could not care less about it and even in a snowstorm, at most they would be hindered, but their lives would not be in any danger.


    With tens of thousands of death creatures working together, they quickly dug out the underground foundation of the city. Saleen started focusing on cutting away stone materials near the coast, building the pier first. There were still many reefs underwater and the coast was not even, so they could not dock a ship. The stone materials that Saleen had cut were used directly in the construction. There were thousands of death creatures waiting for Saleen every day to move the huge rock that Saleen cut down. There were hundreds of death creatures waiting to transport it.


    A winch was set up by the coast and the stone materials within the sea were tied and dragged up ashore.


    Seeing the three kings were not making an appearance, Saleen started digging a cave beneath the pier. He was preparing an underwater pier for the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. He was incredibly familiar with the controls of the current within the cbash by now and he could cut out two-square meters of rock within ten minutes. The waters there were incredibly deep and the shallowest region was almost a hundred meters. Saleen knew that thergestbat vessel would need at least ten meters of water and the cave he chose to hide the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat in was near the bottom of the sea.


    An alchemical boat like that needed to continue building in the future. Saleen dug ind from the coast for several hundreds of meters before expanding the radius.


    In the middle of October, the snow slowly rolled in. The swordsmen and pirates from Sregl Ind were staying in houses made from white rocks and they were no longer working. Over the entire coast, only the mages and the death creatures were toiling away daily. The trees that had not been chopped no longer had any leaves and as the wind blew, snow rolled across the ground like dust. Besides mages, a normal human would find it incredibly hard to be active in such an environment.


    It was tough on the mages too. They put up their invisible shields and controlled the puppets to cooperate with the death creatures. They moved the stone materials to build the base. The square at the city center had beenid, but a temple had not been built on the enormous white square. Snow quickly gathered to a depth of over a meter.


    Saleen worked continuously underwater, not suffering much. The temperature underwater had not changed much and Saleen had no need to put on any magic shield. He had already dug out the boathouse underwater. By that time, water creatures had started appearing near the coast. With the lightning dragon dead, this ce was no longer a restricted ares for other creatures.


    Saleen continued digging inwards, this boathouse needed to be essible from within the city and be well concealed. The longer he controlled the currents, the more Saleen felt the exquisiteness of water type magic. The most malleable substance was water. When the water element vibrated rapidly, any cutting power it had was something even metal could not withstand.


    The current within the cbash did not require any magic chords to control and this led to Saleen having an illusion that he was no longer a mage, but a swordmaster. Saleen still could not release the current too far way, around eighty meters and Saleen felt that he was losing control. Even so, it was much more powerful than the sword aura a ck metal grand swordmaster released.


    The sword aura was sharp as ever when it was attacking from a distance, yet it was not as durable and changeable as the currents. The attack from a sword aura was explosive while the durability of the currents was like an alchemy weapon.


    Saleen felt his magic chords about to advance. If he found an appropriate opportunity, he would be able to surpass the limit of grade-4 and be a grade-5 mage. Saleen was controlling the speed of his advancement, however. Since going to Sregl Ind, Saleen realized that his foundation was not considered strong. Compared to his teacher and the other disciples, those mages were the true mages.


    Even though the current from the cbash was incredible, Saleen had not dyed his magic training. His flying magic was almost perfect and he had named it the Quickcloud spell. This name was very fitting since every time Saleen flew, a giant cloud of mist would envelope his body.


    Saleen had introduced an attacking method into the Quickcloud spell. The air current formed from the water element could attack like a wind de and could condense into an icicle. He could us an ice arrow or ice de at any time. The water shield was also concealed within the cloud of mist, changing its size at will. The smaller it was, the stronger its defensive abilities were.


    As Saleen¡¯s control over the water element got better, he had formed aplex magic pattern on the surface of the water shield. It started imitating the golden magic pattern on the surface of the lightning dragon¡¯s body.


    The surface of the water shield would release a blue electric current asionally. It was enveloped within the cloud of mist and could not be seen from outside though.


    Even though Saleen could start imitating the lightning dragon to release the powers of an electric current, they were not usable in battle. A water shield used up magic chords like a level-3 spell. With the new magic patterns, every time Saleen released an electric current, his magic chords would be wiped clean.


    Even though it was a level-5 spell, Saleen could only release it twice consecutively. This meant that it used up more magic chords than a level-5 spell and with Saleen¡¯s abilities, he would not be able to finish this attack.


    Saleen only dared to train this magic in water. He was afraid that if the three kings saw him starting to attempt to control electricity, they would form an unfavorable impression of him. Lightning caused the greatest damage to the dead after all.

 Chapter 291: Quickcloud Spell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 291: Quickcloud Spell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was easier to control the Quickcloud spell in water than in the sky. The buoyancy of the water allowed Saleen to manipte his movements easily as if he was in the air. Moreover, the water resistance was hundreds of times stronger in the water and it actually made it easier to practice.


    After practicing in the water for over half a month, Saleen could slowly control the electric current and let it disappear on the surface of the water shield and not be released. This reduced the amount of magic chords depleted tremendously. Of course, this meant that there were no attacking powers. Saleen was not anxious to practice his electric current attack as of now, an attack like that would wipe out all his magic chords. If his Quickcloud spell stopped then, he would fall from the sky and Saleen would be the first mage to fall to his death because his flying spell failed.


    To use such a power, the best way was to process a magic robe and create the lightning dragon magic pattern on it. He could then use the magic nuclei iid on his belt to provide the magic energy to prevent his magic chords from wiping out.


    It would take a long time to train the Water me Alchemy spell and Saleen had just tried It. He knew it was not something that could be realized, but required continuous experience to use a skill like that. Without a high leveled alchemy spell, one could forget about attacking. The magic patterns processed on the magic robe would not be able to ensure the safety of the mage.


    The Quickcloud spell and current cutter, those were the basis of the spells that were keeping Saleen alive.


    Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell was slightly faster than the Windspeed spell and he could fly over a hundred miles every hour with it. The Quickcloud spell¡¯s advantage over the Windspeed spell was that while using it, a twenty-meter radius cloud of mist would envelope his body. Within that radius, all sight would be blocked and pinpointing Saleen¡¯s exact location would prove futile.


    Saleen could be anywhere within the cloud of mist and under such protections, an alchemy crossbow would not be able to lock onto him and attack.


    The current cutter was more useful than a normal spell. After all, the current within the cbash did not require magic chords to control and only his focus was needed. Even though the attacking speed and range of the current was not as good as a level-4 spell, extending the length of battle was the most important part for Saleen. He did not have to charge directly into the battle himself. As a mage, in the city an attacking range of within one-hundred meters, was not a disadvantage.


    During this time, Nailisi was resting within the alchemical boat. She had swallowed three lightning dragon eggs and it seemed her second ability was about to evolve. She was not in the mood to do anything and could only sleep in the boat daily.


    While she was sleeping, she had given up on her ultimate transformation spell and had reverted to her original form. During her growth to adulthood, she was bing increasingly human-like. Her body structure was still longer and she had a tail. On the surface of her skin, the green magic patterns had undergone a wonderful transformation. Some light golden magic patterns had appeared and were entangled together with the green magic patterns, seeminglying together.


    As for her long tail, the growth of the light golden magic patterns were even quicker. It followed her spine all the way until the back of her head and finally into her long hair. Her hair color had turned from light golden to ck, with a little golden shining from within.


    Once the magic patterns had spread across her entire body she woke up. She gave a long yawn, sleeping was also energy consuming. When she was sleeping, she had used up arge amount of energy to evolve into her new abilities. The three lightning dragon eggs were not enough to sustain the evolution and Nailisi had eaten arge piece of lightning dragon meat too.


    The lightning dragon had incredible abilities, but the energy within its flesh was nowhere near that of the tiago, a water type giant dragon. The tiago was a true member of the dragon n while the lightning dragon was named so, but it was essentially a special magic beast only.


    Nailisi let the winged skeleton use its death eyes, reflecting her image on a magic illusion. Seeing the golden magic pattern on her body, Nailisi was incredibly excited. She knew she had seeded and no matter what lightning dragon ability she possessed, from now on, she was not just an imp that had to rely on her physical strength duringbat.


    Buzz!


    A blue electric current appeared within her golden magic patterns and the winged skeleton showed a fearful expression from within the crystal.


    ¡°Oh? Nailisi released a burst of blue electric current, but realized that it could not leave the golden magic pattern on her body. It flowed on the surface of her skin. The current had not hurt her and the feeling she had when she was electrocuted for the first time did not surface. The current shot around on her body, but she could not release it to attack her enemies.


    Has the evolution failed? Nailisi was anxious, she could evolve eight abilities and every ability she evolved meant one less for her. If the ability evolved was useless, she had no way of taking it back.


    ¡°Nailisi¡­¡± The winged skeleton cried out tteringly through the crystal.


    ¡°What?!¡± Nailisi asked in an infuriated tone. If she had not evolved a useful ability, she would have wasted three lightning dragon eggs. She felt the pinch more than Saleen. These dragon eggs could still be hatched and if tiny lightning dragons had been born, they could be contract creatures and assist Saleen in battles. Even if they was kept in the port city to look after the area, it would be stronger than most magic beasts.


    ¡°Your ability seems to be a magic defence!¡± The winged skeleton had absorbed the soul of a mage and had a deeper understanding of magic. His intelligence was even higher than some mages.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Nailisi did not ask how the winged skeleton knew. She thought back to when she first met the lightning dragon. Saleen¡¯s current cutter had enveloped around its body, but was directly shot down by its currents.


    The magic destructive property of this current was useful too. If that was the case, it did not really matter if it could not release any electric current. Nailisi felt that if the current could actually be used to attack her enemies, it would be an enormous strain to her body too. The loss outweighed the gains. She was still the best at closebat fighting and it was not too important if she could release magic or not.


    If she wanted to release magic, she could use scrolls. With this electric current defensive magic, it would greatly increase herbat abilities.


    Many controlling spells were incredibly useful inbat. No matter how strong one¡¯s abilities were, sinking into quicksand or a swamp, it would be pointless. This electric current that could not be released could make magic lose its effects too. In other words, she did not need to worry about any controlling magic.


    Nailisi looked at the winged skeleton within the crystal and said with a smile, ¡°Soldier, why don¡¯t you experiment with me?¡±


    The winged skeleton shook his head furiously and replied, ¡°I cannot release any magic, go find Master.¡±


    ¡°Hm.¡± Nailisi wanted to tempt the winged skeleton out of the crystal. When he was not by Saleen¡¯s side, he would not appear in front of Nailisi no matter what. He could sense from his intuition that Nailisi harbored malicious thoughts towards him. In the past, he would not be scared. Now that she had a blue current flowing around her, he was afraid of her.


    Even though Banchajanna was almost killed by the electric current from the lightning dragon, he would not be able to take a hit from Nailisi.


    ¡°Take care of the alchemical boat then, I will go find Master.¡± Nailisi said as she left the alchemical boat through the teleportation portal. Only then did the winged skeleton heave a sigh of relief. ¡°This demon, why was she with Master? She will cause trouble sooner orter.¡±


    Nailisi experimented within the sea, she felt the current coursing through the surface of her skin as she controlled it with her will. If any magic attacked her, she could use her current to defend against it. This current used her physical strength and it did not need to be activated whenever. It was an ability that left her satisfied.


    Nailisi was naked as she swam speedily in the water, almost like a miniature version of Banchajanna. With her tail at the back and her hair spreading apart in the water, the gold magic pattern on the surface of her body faded away.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was stored in the boathouse underwater. It was enormous and Saleen practiced his magic inside. He did not need to surface to breathe and this was an ability that left most mages jealous. Underwater was usually out of bounds to mages. Even those who were exceptional with water type magic could not fight for long underwater.


    The number of magic beasts in the water far outnumbered those onnd. If a mage wanted to hunt for a high-level magic beast, it was very hard to do so onnd now. To get a high-level magic nucleus, one would either need to go to a few restricted areas onnd or under the sea. Inparison, the sea was safer than some of those restricted areas. For those who were not familiar with water would have theirbat abilities greatly reduced underwater.


    Seeing Nailisi appear, Saleen dissipated the cloud of mist around him and motioned for her toe over.


    Nailisi swam happily towards him and took out her clothes from her bracelet, putting them on. Returning to her human form, the magic patterns on her body had disappeared, but her abilities had not. The second ability had taken shape and all that was needed was for it to grow and her to perfect it.


    Saleen pointed above and Nailisi nodded, following behind him they swam towards a narrow tunnel. Saleen had dug a few of them within the boathouse and this one led to an ind that was crescent shaped. Under the ind there was the nest of a lightning dragon that made for a decent entrance.


    Saleen brought her all the way to the surface of the sea. He released a thick vapor around him that formed a ck cloud of mist, floating them out of the surface of the sea and into the air.


    Leaving the surface over a few meters, Nailisi screamed with joy.


    ¡°Master, your flying spell worked!¡±


    Saleenughed, he was genuinely excited this time. In the past, his Quickcloud spell was not perfect and he could only glide across in the air several meters above the ground, that was not flying. Now that it had finally taken shape; all the magic spells, gestures, and elemental revolution had been perfected. Only then could Saleen fly in the air, taking people along with him.


    It was an ability that only a grade-6 mage would know that Saleen possessed even though he was only grade-4. It was no wonder he was ted. At this moment, he hadpletely separated himself from the rest of the professionals. Even a silver grand swordmaster could not fly as high as him. If he met with any danger in the future, he not only could go underwater, he could fly in the sky too.


    Releasing magic in the air was an ability that was a cut above the rest.

 Chapter 292: Barbarian (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 292: Barbarian (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen brought Nailisi up into the air, nearly to a height of four hundred to five hundred meters before he stopped. He did not go any higher, and even though it was winter, dark clouds filled the north and it was snowing.


    Saleen was afraid a winter storm would appear, although those were rare.


    Mages had a saying ¨C be careful of lightning when one flies too high. This was used to caution someone against setting their sights too high, but it hade from a mage¡¯s caution towards lightning.


    As long as there was cloudy weather, mages would restrict their altitude to five hundred meters at most. If one flew too high, it could easily attract lightning strikes. The speed of a lightning strike was too quick and a mage would not have the time to react. Moreover, the defensive abilities of magic shields against lightning were incredibly poor, and as of now, besides the secretion from the lightning dragon, mages had not been able to create magic equipment to protect themselves from lightning.


    An altitude of five hundred meters was not low to the ground, and looking down from this height, the early stages of a city were already forming on the pristine white beaches. Tens of thousands of death creatures were working throughout the day and night. The underground portion of the city had already been dug, and several wide roads had beenid. Many houses had also already been built.


    The happiest people were the pirates. Being a pirate did not guarantee wealth, and aside from the captain, many of them ended up being arrested and executed, or turning old, sick, and eventually passing away. Saleen had captured these pirates, but had given them a home which was not just a stronghold on a barren ind. These pirates knew how to farm as well and the soil in the north was unusually fertile. Even if they could only harvest once a year, their gains would be decent.


    The mages from Sregl Ind managed the pirates incredibly well. Saleen surmised that most of the swordsmen from Sregl Ind had originally been pirates, and that they had been captured by the mages to be farmers.


    Smoke billowed from the residential area of the pirates. From above, Saleen saw that some of them had set up an iron furnace and were welding. Most of the swordsmen were not willing to wear leather unless it was armor made from a high-grade magic beast. However, most pirates would not wear metal on the sea and now that they were living onnd for the moment, they were making their own armor.


    Saleen realized that even among this group of unfortunate pirates, there were talented people too. Creating armor was much harder than creating normal swords and many among them could do high-grade welding. If these people had not been pirates, they would have done decently in Holy Rock City. It was a pity that they had made mistakes and could not earn a living in the capital.


    Saleen did not stop along the coast, and he brought Nailisi north. There was a river twenty miles away and the rapid river had frozen. Only those that were closer to the entrance of the sea had not. In December, even the sea water would freeze in the north. If magic had not been released in this port city, all the ships would have frozen in the water.


    All the way north, after more than a hundred miles, Saleen saw another river.


    ¡°Why is nobody staying on such wide and opennd? I think this is a very suitable ce for the Caucasus people,¡± Saleen said to Nailisi, pointing at thend below.


    It was definitely cold in the north, and without the protection from the Quickcloud spell, the chilly wind would have immediately frozen Saleen¡¯s blood. However, for the Caucasus people, many months in the year made up the snowy season. Moreover, the Caucasus region had very little fertile soil and did not have any wide and open fields like this ce did.


    Beneath the white snow, life was hidden as well. Saleen saw a pure white fox jumping around in the snow, chasing after its prey. It had a small body, and there was only a hint of ck on the tip of its tail.


    A grade-4 magic beast! Saleen recognized this species of fox. It was a rare grade-4 snow fox. Saleen had no intention of chasing after it. He had arge number of high-grade magic nuclei in his Ring of Gifts and demonic ring, so he would not lose his mind over a grade-4 magic nucleus.


    The fox gave chase for a short while before pouncing onto its prey and holding it down with its ws. It was some kind of mouse.


    The snow fox held it in between its teeth as it scurried away towards the mountains. Further north, Saleen heard the howl of a wolf.


    Magic wolves had the best adaptability among all magic beasts. From north to south, they were everywhere, and some of them could even be tamed by humans. Even if a person was not a mage, they couldmand it to help in their hunts.


    Saleen travelled through the vicinity for over two hundred miles before finding a ce suitable for humans to stay. He was selfish. Moving the Caucasus people was to prevent the Holy See from having things easy. However, in order for the Caucasus people to live well, it would be best to stay near the city he had built. Saleen would absolutely consider Sika¡¯s vige first when looking at the locations around the city.


    No one could be sure if the conflict would spread here in the future. Even though the Caucasus warriors were brave, without the help of mages and facing a regr army, they would not be able to defend themselves. Saleen wanted to move Sika¡¯s people to a safe spot and not ording to Lex¡¯s n, which was to have them stay on the ins west of the city.


    It did not matter whether or not the Holy See made their way over here. But if they did, that would be the first ce affected.


    Phoenix Duchy did not provide suitable cover, and in the entire duchy, there were not any suitable talents. If not, Saleen would not have taken a liking to this field in the north. Being close to a powerful duchy was not good for his development.


    After finding numerous locations that were suitable for habitation, Saleen brought Nailisi to survey the east. Along the coasts towards the east were mountain ranges, and besides the location where the city was being built, there were no other entrances towards the mountain ranges to the east, which progressively became higher as well. Saleen flew through midair, his senses heightened as he scanned the mountains thoroughly.


    There were no signs of humans here, although there could be powerful magic beasts. With his Quickcloud spell, Saleen was no longer afraid of magic beasts onnd. Aside from dragons, there were no powerful magic beasts which could fly.


    Venturing over a hundred miles deep into the mountains, Saleen stopped. There were definitely magic beasts living within the mountains, but they did not answer his provocations. From their auras, Saleen could tell that they were not any high-grade beasts, and were grade-5 at best.


    However, there were a little too many magic wolves here. They gathered in packs of three to five, running around the snow as if they would never grow tired. If they had not been magic beasts, normal beast would not have run around like this wasting energy. The rate of sess for a magic beast on a hunt was incredibly high. It was not afraid of wasting energy.


    Saleen had already flown for several hours and was a little tired. He brought Nailisi back to the ground, casually tossing out an ice arrow and killing a mountain chicken.


    Having spent so much time with Lex, Saleen had formed a habit of carrying seasoning and cutlery with him, since these things were easy for others to poison. Lex was not pampered, she had simply been taught how to stay safe since she was young. Saleen knew that some poisons had incredible toxic properties and could usually kill a person within a few minutes. Without any mage or holy master around, there would not be enough time to save him.


    Nailisi caught the mountain chicken and plucked out its feathers, and Saleen picked up some dried twigs as he started a fire.


    This mountain chicken was unusually plump. Winter had just barely started, yet the meat of the chicken carried the aroma of fat. cing it on the fire to grill, it immediately attracted several magic wolves.


    The magic wolves in the north were slightlyrger in size, and including their tails, they were almost three meters long. Saleen and Nailisi set up a bonfire in the empty space among the mountains. Their backs were against the snowy wind, and the chicken was perched atop the bonfire, its aroma wafting throughout the area. Two packs of wolves came to the empty space almost simultaneously, peering at the scene intently.


    Saleen and Nailisi did not take the presence of these wolves too seriously. A magic wolf¡¯s grade varied greatly, with some mutated species reaching up to grade-6, although usually they were grade-1 or grade-2. Among these two packs of wolves, there were nine of them in total, and there was only one that was grade-3. The rest were all grade-2.


    When a low-grade magic beast hunted, it would not release any magic. These two packs of wolves peered on as they seemed to realize that these two foreign creatures would not be easy to deal with, hesitating and being unwilling to enter. However, the temptation of the mountain chicken was great too. These magic wolves did not back down, almost as if they were waiting for Saleen and Nailisi to finish before seeing if they could feast on any scraps.


    Saleen watched on as heughed. He was in an especially good mood today. Seeing the wolves with their pitiful looks, he almost forgot that they were dangerous magic beasts. He told Nailisi to take out some jerky and throw it to the magic wolves.


    ¡°Master, they are such low-grade magic beasts. Do you intend to tame them? They aren¡¯t as useful as snow foxes.¡± Nailisi was unwilling.


    Saleenughed and said, ¡°These magic wolves are pretty crafty. We need to let them get used to the presence of humans. If not, they¡¯ll cause trouble for the Caucasus vigers.¡±


    ¡°What trouble? With Sika being who she is, she¡¯ll be able to kill hundreds of these magic beasts. I think she is the magic beast.¡± Nailisi pouted, but she still took out some jerky from her bracelet and threw it to the magic wolves that were watching from afar. After absorbing the powers of the tiago, her explosive power was simr to that of Sika. The jerky flew over a hundred meters as the magic wolves quickly retreated, allowing the jerky tond on the snowy ground.


    ¡°A warrior like Sika isn¡¯tmon in Caucasus. There are too many magic wolves here. Luckily, they aren¡¯t the craziest of magic beasts. So long as they are aware that humans are powerful, they will not attack the viges.¡±


    ¡°If you feed them meat, they will think you are weak. How will they know that humans are strong?¡±


    ¡°Feeding them is to make them familiar with our presence. As for scaring them, isn¡¯t that easy? Take out the tiago¡¯s skin, and the aura of the dragon will send them scurrying for hundreds of miles.¡±


    The magic wolves obviously could not understand Saleen¡¯s words. A young magic wolf tried to smell the jerky, licking it with its tongue. A bigger magic wolf came from behind and smacked the smaller one aside, smelling the jerky suspiciously.


    Saleen grabbed a fistful of magic powder and threw it into the bonfire. An enormous sound sted out as a me column over five meters high erupted. The few magic wolves retreated, afraid.


    ¡°See, aren¡¯t they afraid now?¡± Saleenughed triumphantly. Magic beasts were afraid of fire too. The cost of the magic powder had been less than a silver coin, and it had been enough to get the nine magic wolves scurrying. Magic beasts would always be easier to deal withpared to humans. There were not any humans around, and that was what pleased Saleen the most.


    Thousands of years ago, when the maind had been in chaos, countless wealthy people had brought their citizens away and roamed for tens of thousands of miles. Nobody could be sure that there would not be any wealthy people from the Fourth Dynasty living here. Saleen did not want to find humans residing in a ce like this.

 Chapter 293: Barbarian (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 293: Barbarian (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi ripped off a drumstick from the chicken and passed it to Saleen. The hot oil dripped down as the aroma wafted in the chilly weather. The magic wolves did not dare approach, and Nailisi threw over a few pieces of jerky before they started fighting over them.


    Saleen took the chicken drumstick and had opened his mouth to bite down when suddenly, a piercing noise sounded and a weapon flew over, right for Saleen¡¯s hand.


    Once he and Nailisi had set up the bonfire, they had neglected their surroundings and Saleen had not used his focus to scan around. In this snowy weather with magic wolves patrolling around, how could Saleen have considered that people would try to ambush them?


    However, he was no longer the low-grade mage that he had once been. As the weapon flew over and the air around them exploded with a piercing noise, Saleen calmly released an ice arrow with a finger and it smashed headfirst into the oing weapon.


    Saleen¡¯s control over magic was excellent as the ice arrow urately struck the back of the weapon, causing it to be knocked off course. With a thud, itnded right into arge tree.


    ¡°Nailisi, you realized there was somebody there earlier, didn¡¯t you?¡± Saleen was not angry. Even if he had not taken action earlier, with Nailisi¡¯s abilities, she would have been able to intercept the weapon.


    Nailisi giggled. She had realized that the person lying in ambush was not that dangerous, and hence, she had not reminded Saleen. She wanted to see how his skills were at the moment.


    The weapon had been struck aside by the ice arrow andnded deeply in the tree. It was a shabbily made stone axe.


    ¡°Come out!¡± Saleen used his finger and pointed in the direction that the stone axe had flown from. It was full of holes that had been filled with snow. The person that had ambushed them had thrown the axe from within the pile of snow, and it was impossible for them to hide now.


    ¡°He¡­¡±


    A low voice sounded as a barbarian climbed out from the trough. He was dressed shabbily in leather clothes, had a muscr body, and had a two-meter-long bow on his back. Looking at his beard, he had likely not managed it in months, as it was covering his entire face.


    ¡°Barbarian? Do you speak themonnguage?¡± Saleen changed to speaking themonnguage.


    ¡°Are you a mage?¡± The barbarian stood up, not removing the bow from his back. He had replied in the Myersnguage.


    Saleen pointed to the magic robe he was wearing and asked, ¡°Why did you attack me?¡±


    Barbarian was a broad term. They hadplicated bloodlines, unlike the ones of the Caucasus people. This group of people stayed far away from human cities and lived incredibly primitive lives. They did not deal with merchants from any country, and only the asional explorers would encounter them. Although they were not as big of a group as the Caucasus people, they were an intelligent group of people nheless and could speak manynguages. After the barbarian priests had died off during the Third Dynasty, they had not had much power left and had slowly declined.


    A barbarian would not dare attack a mage. Hence, Saleen had to ask.


    ¡°You guys¡­ aren¡¯t from the Holy See?¡±


    ¡°Holy See?¡± Saleen became agitated. Whatever feelings of pride he had felt before disappeared in an instant. The people from the Holy See have appeared here!


    ¡°I am a mage from the Bitter Water Prefecture. Barbarian, you need to apologize for your actions earlier.¡± Saleen looked at this muscr figure. He had managed to produce such incredible energy with his axe using his physical strength alone. If the stone axe had been reinforced with a magic shield, any mage below grade-3 would die in a single hit.


    The tree that the axe had buried itself into was tougher than steel, and for an object that had been struck off course to be able to pierce through it, the object must have possessed an enormous amount of inertia.


    The barbarian looked at the man and woman in front of him and hesitated. They had obviously not cared that he had just attacked them. He wanted to try again, but the older generations had warned him not to mess with mages.


    The young mage was very strong indeed, and with a flick of his finger, had been able to push aside his stone axe.


    He did not know that this was an ability that Saleen had trained for years. Saleen and Lex had always used low-level magic to avert each other¡¯s attacks. As the stone axe had flown towards Saleen, he had already calcted its trajectory and had merely given a light push to the back of its center of gravity with his ice arrow. This was purely done through skill. If not, he would not have been able to knock away the stone axe that easily.


    The stone axe from the barbarian was not very exquisite regardless. The material, however, left Saleen shocked. It was fashioned out from obsidian and its handle was wound with the tendons of a magic beast, with only a hexagonal hole visible. An axe like this had not been used by anyone in the empire for over tens of thousands of years. They could only be found in certain ruins.


    Due to its material, this shabbily made axe was sufficient for countering most low-level magic shields.


    ¡°You have to prove that you aren¡¯t with the Holy See,¡± the barbarian said stubbornly after thinking for a while.


    Saleen was relieved as he asked in return, ¡°How do I prove it to you?¡±


    The barbarian was shocked as well. He had no idea what Saleen could do to prove he was not with the Holy See.


    ¡°Master, why are you arguing with him? Capture him and question him.¡± Nailisi was a little frustrated. This barbarian might have been strong, but he was still not as good as Sika. In regards tobat techniques, a barbarian would not be able to hold a candle to a Caucasian.


    Saleen was speaking in Myersnguage. She had learned morenguages and would not have a problem passing off as a person from any country. Upon hearing Nailisi¡¯s words, the barbarian became agitated and took his long bow from his back.


    This was apound bow, and even though it was not as strong as an alchemy crossbow, its short-range piercing abilities were incredibly powerful. Moreover, the arrowhead held by the barbarian was a ck key and it would be difficult for any magic shield or divine spell to defend against it.


    ¡°That won¡¯t do.¡± Saleen threw down the chicken drumstick, and the pile of snow under the barbarian¡¯s feet started forming arge whirlpool, restraining his body. The long bow left his hand as he screamed, scaring away a few magic wolves. Around this area, the barbarians were at the top of the food chain. The magic wolves were afraid of them.


    Saleen¡¯s restraining spell did notst for long and he had no intentions of killing the barbarian either. Hence, he nodded at Nailisi, and she understood as she took out a rope and went over to tie the bound barbarian.


    Saleen came over to him as Nailisi pinned him down to the ground, and he immediately lowered his guard. He realized that the women in the snow white fur coat had enormous strength, as pressing down on his shoulders was enough for him to turn limp. It took hardly a second for him to be pinned onto the ground.


    ¡°You are my prisoner now. There is no need for an apology. Let me ask you some things. If you do not reply, I will feed you to the magic wolves.¡± Saleen looked down at the barbarian. His skin was not too rough, but his beard was incredibly long. He had a handsome face, almost like a high-grade professional.


    ¡°Firstly, were the people from the Holy See here?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Then tell me, who are they?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea.¡± The barbarian answered instantly. Evidently, he had not thought his answer through.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t I try?¡± Nailisi licked her lips, almost as though she were looking at prey.


    Saleen quickly raised his hand in objection. Those who had been questioned by Nailisi could not even be saved by the gods. The people of the Holy See appearing nearby could not be a good thing. He had not set up any infrastructure, and if the people from the Holy See were to realize this, it could attract more holy masters and holy knights.


    The Holy See would not send people to a barrennd for no reason. Aside from the barbarians, there would not be any intelligent life here. If they wanted to spread their teachings, it would be better to go to Sikeqinya. Even though the people in Sikeqinya only believed in wealth, some of them could still embrace the God of Light.


    If they were not here to spread their teachings, then why have they taken a liking to this plot ofnd?


    Saleen had already regarded thend in the north as his. Obviously, he would not share it with the Holy See.


    ¡°What did the people from the Holy See do?¡± Saleen wanted to ask a more understandable question for the barbarian to answer.


    ¡°They were catching ves,¡± he answered quickly this time.


    ¡°ves?¡±


    ¡°Many of the people from the n have been captured away,¡± the barbarian answered Saleen, a little despondent. He was a ve now too. Being captured by a mage could not be any different from being captured by the people of the Holy See.


    ¡°How many barbarians are here?¡±


    ¡°There used to be thousands. The numbers have been reduced in the past two years, and there are probably hundreds of us left now.¡±


    Barbarians were different from the Caucasians. All of them were warriors, regardless of whether they were male or female, young or old. A barbarian was considered to be an adult when they were fourteen, as they could fight against low-grade magic beasts by then. What is the Holy See capturing barbarians for? To spread their teachings?


    ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Conan.¡±


    ¡°Conan, I am a mage. I don¡¯t need a ve. However, you have offended me and you will need to pay for it. Do you agree?¡¯


    The barbarian named Conan nodded. He had only tried to attack Saleen as he was dressed in a long robe like someone from the Holy See. Now that he had been captured, no matter who the other party was, he could only me it on his luck. Barbarians did not believe in any gods and did not have many beliefs. Once captured, many would willingly be ves.


    ¡°Alright Conan, let¡¯s sign a contract,¡± Saleen said as he took out an empty scroll. This barbarian had fairly goodbat skills. Even though he was not as skilled as Nailisi or Sika, if he used higher-grade equipment, he would be much stronger than the pirates. Having a simple-minded follower like him would not be a bad thing.


    After expertly writing on the scroll, Saleen skipped the formalities and had Conan write his name in blood upon it. He burned the contract into ashes, and this indicated that the magic was effective and that the barbarian could not do anything funny.


    ¡°Nailisi, let him go. Get your weapon. Let¡¯s go back.¡± Saleen did not want to stay here much longer. The people of the Holy See were active around here and if he bumped into them, he was not confident he could win. If there was a deacon like Picasso and another ascetic, it would be a brutal fight.


    Having witnessed the eerie skills of the ck deacon, Saleen did not dare to look down on them. They quickly returned to camp. The death kings were still there, and even if the oracles themselves came, it was possible that they would be unable to do anything against them.


    Originally, Saleen had been worried about the three kings and had wanted them gone. Now that he knew that there were people from the Holy See, Saleen immediately changed his opinion. Before his teacher arrived, he would have to count on the three of them to protect his life.

 Chapter 294: Tribunal Hunting (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 294: Tribunal Hunting (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s movements were quick and they left as just as he said. He was not able to bring two people with him while he was flying, hence he had to stay at the front as they walked. After walking south for less than ten miles, they heard a siren from afar.


    ¡°Damn it, we have been spotted!¡± Saleen heard the siren and knew things were bad. He grabbed Conan and lifted the leather clothes that he was wearing. On his back, there was some holy text.


    It was an ancient trick that was incredibly effective. This barbarian had long ago been caught by the hunting team from the Holy See. He had just been unaware of it. The hunting team had been chasing after Conan, and once he gathered with the other people from his group, they could capture them all at once.


    ¡°Bad luck again,¡± Saleen said as the holy text on Conan¡¯s back shone like a magicmp in the dark night for the hunting team from the Holy See. The best way to avoid the people from the Holy See was for him to leave Conan behind and fly away with Nailisi.


    A mage leaving behind their follower was not only embarrassing, but morally wrong.


    The hunting team from the Holy See would not have high-grade holy masters from the pivotal council or a church. They must have been sent from the tribunal and could have people who were the same grade as a ck deacon. The people from the tribunal were crazy and dangerous, and were incrediblyplicated too. Some of them were thieves that had been manipted by the tribunals, and they would take care of anything evil.


    In the name of god, these people had be even more fearless and were even more brutal than they had been before joining the tribunal.


    Saleen took off the glove on his left hand. It had almost recovered fully, but if he were to release another divine spell now, Saleen was afraid that it would take on the look of death again. A mage¡¯s hands were incredibly important, and when learning a new magic, gestures were important. Saleen¡¯s hand had the leaf of the Tree of Life within it, and each time he released a divine spell of the goddess, it would need to draw its powers from this life.


    It felt good to use these spells, but the recovery time was incredibly slow and it would take months for his hand to return to normal. In the past few months, it had already been incredibly taxing for Saleen to learn new magic.


    If he were to use a divine spell now, he could easily erase the holy text on Conan¡¯s back that the people from the Holy See had left. Without this mark, Saleen would be able to bring Conan and Nailisi to hide within the mountains.


    ¡°Mage, what do I have on my back?¡± Conan asked, horrified.


    ¡°A small mark. So long as we kill the person who left it there, it will vanish.¡± Saleen released his clothes, not attempting to use the powers of the goddess. Running away was not an option. They were more than three hundred miles away from the camp, and a magic rm would never make it back. However, if a battle were to take ce here, the three kings would quickly sense something.


    ¡°Nailisi, prepare the scrolls.¡± Saleen sighed as he took one out and released it. A shining white light shot up and exploded high in the sky, producing an explosive sound.


    I¡¯ll call for help for now. With a distance of more than two hundred miles, if the three kings were to rush here, they will take less than an hour, Saleen calcted in his heart. He increased his speed and brought Nailisi and Conan into the forest.


    The trees in the north had all lost their leaves in the winter season. However, these were trees that had not been logged for thousands of years, and each one of them were over a meter in diameter. The thickest one had a diameter over three meters, and even if one were to hide horizontally, it would not be a problem.


    Saleen released a Quickcloud spell for himself and went to the top of a thirty-meter-tall tree. Nailisi and Conan were on two other trees, and Nailisi and Saleen had hidden Conan between them.


    The whistling sound from afar approached steadily and suddenly stopped when it was about five hundred meters away.


    Saleen gave a coldugh. These people were cautious indeed. It was a pity he had decided to use everything he could and not let a single person from the Holy See go. He had plenty of level-5 scrolls and Nailisi still had some low-level scrolls with her. If they were to use all of them on this team, creating explosions everywhere, he did not believe they would not be able to take down this group of people.


    The wind swept up the snow as the forest was barren. Saleen spread out his senses, and through the snowkes, they formed a giant web. The snowkes hit the tree branches as they blew through the gaps between the trees, swirling around the dirt mounds. Saleen¡¯s senses were bing clearer, and he had already discovered two intruders.


    Mid-grade swordmasters? If they were near him, their explosive attacks could be very dangerous. It was a pity he was on the tree. Unless one was a grand swordmaster, they would have no choice but to face the fate of death.


    Saleen was not anxious about dealing with these two people. They were too far away and using his focus to attack them would only leave a scratch on them. Moreover, the ones in charge of this hunt could not have been these two mid-grade swordmasters. The hierarchy within the Holy See was incredibly strict and the person leading the team needed to at least be a ck-clothed high priest.


    If he did not take down the high priest, the injuries of the other members of the hunting team could quickly be restored. This was something troublesome about the people from the Holy See. So long as a high priest was there, anyone injured could quickly restore theirbat power.


    Conan was lying t on a tree crown, looking down nervously. He knew Saleen was using him as bait. This was fair as he had caused the trouble, and he could not expect Saleen to be the bait himself. However, these people from the Holy See were incredibly evil and had captured the other barbarians and brought them hundreds and thousands of miles away, toying with them all the while.


    Conan was nervous. He held his stone axe in his hand, not drawing his long bow.


    The archery skills of a barbarian were normal and were enough to deal with a magic beast, but not the hunting team from the Holy See. If he did not aim correctly, these people would regain their strength quickly and use even crueller means to deal with the other barbarians.


    The two mid-grade swordmasters finally showed themselves, and behind them there were at least thirty other warriors.


    They were all decked in ck cotton armor and were wearing helmets which revealed only their eyes. Over their noses and mouths, thick white frost had appeared.


    There were more people outside the forest waiting to take over. Saleen used his senses and found out that this hunting team had more than one hundred people.


    One hundred people to deal with the three of us. Is there a need for this?


    Saleen did not know that all the barbarians around here had been hunted down and all the hunting teams had gathered together to look for the remaining few survivors.


    Conan¡¯s group of barbarians lived nearby, but had not been found by the hunting team. This time, they had felt some magic vibrations from Conan, and a few teams had immediately gathered to capture him.


    No matter who it was that Conan had interacted with, the hunting team was not going to let this matter spread.


    The hunting actions from the tribunal were not supported by any pivotal council. With the Holy See in internal turmoil, these people did not want to cause any more trouble for the three heads of the tribunal.


    The two mid-grade swordmasters each had a curved knife in their hand. They stopped and allowed the rest to proceed ahead, slowly drawing close, as they walked towards the tree that Conan was hiding in. The tribunal warrior dressed in ck cotton armor could not hide the evil smile under his mask. He had not caught a barbarian in a long time and if he did not reach his target, he would need to spend the rest of the harsh winter in this ce.


    After catching this fellow, he would need to force a confession from him. Even though he did not have the torture equipment that was found in the Tanggsi headquarters, the people from the tribunal had a knack for these techniques and could easily think of torture methods. Following this barbarian back to his gathering spot, once they gathered twenty of them together, they could deal with them all at once and return to Tanggsi.


    Saleen saw these hunters splitting up into smaller groups to approach and felt that they would be hard to deal with. Just as he was thinking about what means he should use to deal with the people of the tribunal, from the tree that Nailisi was hiding in, two three-meter-tall fully constructed puppets jumped down, giving off explosive sounds.


    The fully constructed puppets¡¯ bodies were made from metal and were incredibly heavy. They caused snowkes to swirl up into the air, forming tworge holes in the ground. The fully constructed puppets waved their weapons as they charged towards the warriors from the tribunal.


    The warriors had changed into cotton armor in this weather and not a single one of them was wearing metal armor. Of these two metal puppets, one was holding an axe while the other held onto a sword de. The puppet holding onto the sword de threw its weapon out as easily as if it were a spear.


    The sword de whizzed through the air and one warrior from the tribunal did not have time to dodge, the sword de piercing through his stomach.


    A normal sword de was at least two meters long. The weapon that this fully constructed puppet used had been specially made for it, and the sword de was over four meters long. At the front, it was as wide as the palm of a behemoth of a man. It easily ripped apart the cotton armor, and the armor underneath his clothes was sliced through too. The wide sword de passed through the warrior¡¯s stomach cleanly, cutting through his spine from the back. It was a strike which no living creature could withstand, and hard to heal even with a divine spell.


    The two mid-grade swordmasters immediately shouted in the Tanggsinguage. They had not expected that their enemies would be puppets. There must have been a mage around, and even if the mage was not spotted, thebat abilities of these two puppets could be at their peak.


    If the mage was not attacked, they would be more easily able to control these puppets.


    These people were still more than one hundred meters away and Saleen¡¯s current cutter could not reach them. If he used his scrolls, it would be hard to control the spells from such a distance. Saleen saw that many of them had metal bows on their backs and did not dare make an unannounced appearance. If those people from the tribunal used their special bows, they would pose a threat to his magic shields as well.


    The two fully constructed puppet chased after them as Nailisi¡¯s shadow swished among the trees, jumping from one to another. The control range of the fully constructed puppets was not very far and Nailisi had no choice but to advance with them. However, she did not need to drop down from the trees to battle. Leaving everything to the puppets, she only needed tomand them from the treetops.


    The ck armored warriors immediately noticed Nailisi as six warriors moved closer to the fully constructed puppets and another six went around them and took the metal bows from their backs, preparing to shoot. They immediately saw the shadow among the trees. It seemed to be flying, darting around between the trees.


    This patch of forest was not considered lush and the distance between two trees was at least ten meters. The ck armored warriors knew even if they were to climb up, they would not be able to chase this person down and could only use their crossbows to attack.


    Saleen calmed down. He started locating the holy masters, as a ck clothed holy master was harder to deal with than a white clothed one. If there was a ck deacon at the back of the team, he did not want to be wiped out by the divine spell from him.


    There were three different types of deacons in the Holy See ¨C the red deacon from the pivotal council, the white deacon under the seat of the oracle, and the ck deacon from the tribunal. Among them, the powers of the ck deacon were the mostplicated, and at least a few mages would be with them. The ck deacon that had gone after Daniel had almost defeated Saleen and Lex alone. Back then, Sika had been severely injured and Nailisi had been in danger too. Saleen had a deep understanding of the horror of the ck deacon. The previous time, it had been fortunate for him that his divine spell had controlled the book of hell. It did not mean that he was able to deal with a ck deacon.

 Chapter 295: Tribunal Hunting (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 295: Tribunal Hunting (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi jumped from one tree to the other, not caring about the crossbows below. The trees were too tough and the thick branches could protect her incredibly well.


    Dozens of metal arrows flew through the air and nailed themselves deeply into the thick branches. The two fully constructed puppets managed to kill three ck armored warrior as soon as they appeared.


    Fresh blood spilled onto the snowy ground as the fully constructed puppets stomped heavily through the pile of snow, cruelly chasing after their targets.


    Saleen only realized then that there was a problem with his train of thought inbat. In such a situation, the fully constructed puppets were definitely the best choice. Even if the other party had a holy master, it would take a lot to harm those fully constructed puppets. So long as it was a deacon that could not fly, Nailisi and him would be safe on top of the trees.


    However, he still concealed his tracks. Combining his senses within the thousands of snowkes, he patiently searched for any signs of the holy master.


    Seeing so many of their warriors being killed, those outside the forest could not hold back any longer as the more than one hundred remaining people rushed into the forest.


    It was only two fully constructed puppets and these people from the tribunal were not afraid to die. Using their numbers to push forward, they would be able to take down any puppet regardless of their grades. However, they had not expected these two puppets to already possess early signs of life, and they were not normal fodder. One of them had already retrieved its sword de and the puppet that had been using an axe rushed forward, using inhumane strength to swipe through any enemies standing in its way.


    The puppet using the sword de utilized the advantage of its weapon in piercing. It did not need to hide from the long bows of the ck armored warriors.


    The sound of shing metal resounded. Some of the crossbows arrows were indeed alchemical equipment, as they drove deep into the puppets¡¯ chest. However, these fully constructed puppets were not normal machine puppets. The alchemy arrows were not able to pierce through their incredibly thick armor.


    The two mid-grade swordmasters returned to the battle. Their curved knives shone with a red glow, which were obviously rare sword auras. The offensive power of their curved knives surpassed that of the crossbow arrows, and with the joint forces of the two mid-grade swordmasters, it would be possible to take down a fully constructed puppet.


    The sword auras shimmered, and with a nging sound, chopped off the head of the sword de. The two swordmasters jumped forward, and with this retaliation, the pressure on the ck armored warriors was lessened as they took up their weapons and pressed forward.


    However, thebat style of a fully constructed puppet was entirely different from that of a human. The tip of the sword de was chopped off and the fully constructed puppet held up the rest of the spear like an iron rod, smashing it down towards a warrior¡¯s head. The metal body of the spear could be considered a heavy weapon on its own. As a ck armored warrior was struck right in the head, he immediately turned into a limp pile of mush.


    The swordmaster towards the front swung his curved knife up,nding it on the inner thigh of an fully constructed puppet. If a human had taken this blow, he would have been sliced into half from the middle. The fully constructed puppet made a noise as it slowed down, the curved knife lodged within its metal body.


    The mid-grade swordmaster looked on in shock as an axe swiped past his chest area.


    Without the protection of any metal armor, this blow chopped off the part of his body above the chest. The other swordmaster was stunned. However, the leader of the team had not given any orders to stand down, and he did not dare run away no matter what. However, fighting against such arge piece of metal, he was at a disadvantage. If he had a heavy weapon in his hands like abat hammer, he could have still tried to destroy the puppet. With his curved knife now, he could only destroy the fully constructed puppet¡¯s outer shell at best.


    ¡°Found him! Come out!¡± Saleen suddenly opened a scroll from the trees. From the tree that he was hiding in, a five-meter-long magic snow beast formed from the pile of snow and charged towards a withering tree.


    This magic snow beast had a weak body that was formed from snowkes and ice. However, as it charged towards the ck armored warriors, anyone struck by it flew far away, and blue ice crystals condensed on the surface of their bodies. It seemed they would be able to survive.


    Boom!


    The magic snow beast struck a withered tree as wood shavings flew everywhere. The entire magic snow beast lost half of its body and could no longere together, falling to the ground. The withered tree shook before falling down. It was over ten meters tall, and with the hit from the magic snow beast, the tree fell forward eerily, revealing a short figure behind it.


    He was dressed in a ck long robe. Barely reaching the height of Saleen¡¯s shoulders, he looked almost like a malnourished child. His face was a waxy yellow, and not wearing a mask or any gloves, his tiny hands were frozen red. He was holding onto a red book and standing there. Then, he turned towards Saleen¡¯s direction and gave a faint smile.


    ¡°I have found you too.¡±


    ¡°ck deacon!¡± Saleen was able to deduce the man¡¯s rank from his height. The ice totem was level-5 magic and could even smash apart rocks, yet a withered tree had stopped the ice totem. It had been entirely created by the powers of the ck deacon.


    The ck deacon was only a rank away from a grade-1 holy master. Theirbat power, however, was miles apart. The ck deacon was the central power of the tribunal and could even bepared to the chapel of the pivotal council. A ck deacon had the power of a grade-5 mage, and those who were good could even reach thebat ability of a grade-6 mage.


    ¡°Once you¡¯re dead, those puppets will be useless, won¡¯t they?¡± The skinny ck deacon took another step forward. This single step had covered over ten meters, and he had made use of the powers of a swordsman.


    Saleen felt a chill go down his spine. The book in the ck deacon¡¯s hand was a divine equipment, and together with his swordsman¡¯s abilities, he would be ten times harder to deal with than a holy master. The ck deacon¡¯s words had reached Saleen clearly. He was not showing off, this was pure power.


    Saleen immediately opened a second scroll ¨C level-5 magic, Mist Concealment spell.


    The Mist Concealment spell was not the same as the mist of concealment. This level-5 spell was an incrediblyplex attack spell. Its main purpose was not to hide oneself, but to make the surrounding air unbreathable. Once a mage used this spell, even if a swordsman were to approach, their attack power would be greatly reduced.


    Within an unbreathable, blinding, and corrosive mist, even a high-grade mage would not have muchbat power left. Saleen had seen that this ck deacon actually possessed the power of a swordsman and was afraid that he was some grand swordmaster. If that was the case, this ck deacon could easily catch up with him, unless he abandoned Conan and flew away.


    Saleen could easily judge the power of a divine spell since his icy sight specialized in magic and divine spells. Despite having researched the sword aura, he could only distinguish the powers of high-grade swordmasters and below. When it came to grand swordmasters, even zhun grand swordmasters were very good at concealing their powers.


    Saleen could not tell what grade the ck deacon¡¯s sword aura was. Hence, his second spell had been intended to protect himself for now.


    The Mist Concealment spell was a level-5 spell that he was not very confident in using. He had only been able to release it so quickly with the help of the scroll. Once the mist started dissipating, Saleen released his third scroll.


    He no longer cared about using them up as he took out all of his level-5 scrolls. The third level-5 scroll was the poisonous fog. This magic was a little sinister and any living creature within its radius would be hurt. Under normal circumstances, mages did not like to use such magic, but now that Saleen was up against such a powerful enemy, he could not care less about the bnce of nature.


    The Mist Concealment spell together with the poisonous fog made everything blinding, but the fully constructed puppets were not affected as they did not rely on their eyes to see. As the ck mist rolled over the area, the ck armored warriors in the forest started dying one by one.


    The ck deacon did not seem to be affected either. He could not have cared less about the lives of his men as he took another step forward, and jumped over ten meters again. He was already within forty meters of Saleen¡¯s location. This was within range of Saleen¡¯s attack spells, and a level-4 spell could easily reach that distance.


    Whizz!


    Dozens of ice des were released as Saleen opened another scroll. They were over half a meter in width and over three meters in length, no longer being a level-3 spell.


    When Saleen released a spell with a scroll, he was unable to control its aim. Hence, he could only fight using such ranged attacks.


    Dozens of ice des circled in the air and blocked every spot that the ck deacon could have hidden in. Five used scrolls were by Saleen¡¯s feet. This was not a battle. It was burning money.


    Saleen had a reason for going this far. He knew this hunting team was not the main force of the Holy See in the north. If a small team like this had a ck deacon as its leader, then there must have been a ck-clothed chapel or even a ck bishop.


    Saleen knew that he would not be able to deal with a holy master who held the rank of a bishop and needed to return to the three kings before an enemy of that rank appeared. With them, even if an oracle were toe, Saleen would not be too worried.


    The ck deacon smiled. It turned out that Saleen was only a grade-4 mage, and he had worried too much. He did not release any divine spells. Instead, he extended a hand and grabbed onto a giant ice de, wielding it.


    The other ice des fell onto the snowy ground, and a red light glowed from the ck deacon¡¯s eyes, almost as if two pure gemstones had been iid there.


    This mist could not block Saleen¡¯s sight either, and upon seeing this, he knew that his worries were bing reality. This ck deacon was a grand swordmaster.


    Holding onto an ice de that had been condensed with magic with one¡¯s bare hands was not something that a zhun grand swordmaster could do. The ck deacon was at least a ck metal grand swordmaster. If that was the case, he would be able to reach the top of this over ten-meter-tall tree in a single leap.


    Saleen gave up using his scrolls to attack. He tapped against the cbash at his waist as a green water current flowed out and wrapped around his body. Since this current was so formiddable, it meant that Saleen had another level-5 spell that did not require magic chords. Besides the fact that its range and speed were a littlecking, this current was his strongest trick.


    ¡°Mage, do not hide.¡± The ck deacon split apart the ice de and threw the piece he had in hand aside. He took another step forward and came to the tree that Saleen was hiding in.


    Saleen knew that the grand swordmaster¡¯s body was too flexible. This tree was still more than ten meters high, and the speed of the current might not deal a fatal blow to the ck deacon. He opened another scroll. It was a level-4 spell, the Phoenix spell that he was more familiar with.


    The Phoenix spell was another spell that could be evolved, and even though Saleen could not control it, the Phoenix spell was an attack that honed in on its targets. He was already within thirty meters of the ck deacon, and within such a distance, by the time Saleen opened the scroll, it had already locked onto the ck deacon.


    Even a ck metal grand swordmaster will not be able to take the high temperatures of fire magic, right?

 Chapter 296: Mage’s Anger (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 296: Mage¡¯s Anger (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    With a smack, the ck deacon opened the book in his hands. The book was twice the size of a normal book. It had a red cover and there was not a single word on the cover. As the book opened the dozens of phoenixes that were flying towards him disappeared from the sky. He kicked the tree, leaving a deep hole in it.


    Saleen felt the branch shaking violently beneath him. He knew by then that if he did not leave, the ck deacon would reach him soon. The Mist Concealment spell could block the other party¡¯s vision, but it could not disable his other senses.


    If one did not consider the fact that a ck metal grand swordmaster could not fly, hisbat skill on the ground was close to a grade-7 mage. A grade-5 mage would not let a ck metal grand swordmaster lose his judgement.


    With a shake of his body, the grand swordmaster was only ten meters away from him. Saleen had no choice but to fly towards the sky.


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    Seeing Saleen fly with his body surrounded by a cloud of mist, the ck deacon was stunned. He was sure that Saleen was at best a grade-4 mage and he had not expected Saleen to be able to fly.


    Divine skills had the ability to fly too, but it was not something that he was good at. While flying he was not be able to use his sword aura. The ck deacon twisted his body andnded on the ground. He raised his head to look at Saleen in the air and said, ¡°Mage, if you fly away now, I will kill the rest.¡±


    His voice was calm but Saleen could hear the contempt for life in his voice.


    In all of Saleen¡¯s training he had not gotten used to killing anyone innocent. He would only kill those who were looking to attack him in self defense and would not even think of killing for anything else.


    Saleen was fuming, he rarely hated anyone. When Earl Sufonso had put out a bounty for his life he had not hated the earl because he had killed the earl¡¯s son. After that, Walnut the mage had used a paper puppet to plot against him, but he did not hate Walnut and pitied him instead. He did not even hate the white deacon; Baron Cook.


    Everyone had their own perspective and Saleen knew that not everyone would stand on his side. It was inevitable that he would make enemies. The problem was that the ck deacon showed no regard for life. It was as if he was talking about killing a sheep or ughtering a few pigs.


    Once one believed in a god, one was no longer human.


    The ck deacon was not a human. He wanted to kill people just because Saleen wanted to escape. No matter who else was in the forest, he would kill all of them so long as Saleen dared to leave.


    The ck deacon knew that not everyone was like him and unlike Seleen, he had nothing holding him back.


    Saleen did not care about the life of the barbarian Conan at first. Conan had once attacked him and if he gave up on Conan this time it would be the same as letting Conan return his life. This was fair, but a bud of anger had sprouted from his heart towards the ck deacon. This anger had a few streaks of sadness to it.


    Saleen lowered himself and raised his voice from within the cloud of mist, ¡°Very well, go kill them. For every one that you kill I will kill ten from the Holy See, how about that?¡±


    ¡°How dare you!¡± The ck deacon¡¯s voice became incredibly shrill. He had a child-like voice to him at the start and almost sounded innocent. With his next shout it became incredibly cold. ¡°Mage who insults the gods, I will tie you to the Glorious Square and burn you in public,¡± the ck deacon said as he flipped through the pages of the book. The red book gave off an intense red light, enveloping the entire body of the ck deacon as he flew into the sky. He had been angered by a single sentence from Saleen, making him give up his powers as a grand swordmaster and open his divinity spells, intending to fight in the air with Saleen.


    ¡°The Goddess of Nature ruled for tens of thousands of years and I have never heard of her capturing a ve before. I insult the gods? What even is the use of the God of Light?¡± Saleen did not hold back. He had already started heckling and was bent on infuriating the ck deaconpletely. He had given up his grand swordmaster¡¯s powers to use his divine spells to fly, and this was easier for Saleen to handle.


    If they really fought on the ground like what the ck deacon wanted, the two puppets would be destroyed in an instant.


    Without the puppets, Nailisi and Conan would have trouble defending against the hundred hunters.


    ¡°Whatever it is, it is the will of God.¡± The ck deacon was enveloped in a red light. He flew to the same height as Saleen, yet he did not dare enter the cloud of mist that was surrounding him. This mage was incredibly eerie, he had not heard of a mage that could sustain a spell like the Fog of Confusion while flying before.


    The ck deacon was a master in swordsmanship and divine spells, and was incredibly well-versed in magic. If a mage wanted to fly he would need to maintain the purity of the element around him. If a mage was only floating in the air he could release spells as he wished, but if he wanted to fly quickly, he would not be able to ensure his safety when releasing magic.


    The sh between the elements could have two different results. The first would be the mage¡¯s flying abilities losing their effect and he would fall from the sky. The second result was that the elements would be disrupted and the mage¡¯s attacking spell would reflect and hit him instead. Most sorcerers focused on wind element magic. Only such magic could ensure that he would be able to fly freely.


    Saleen definitely knew the limits of flying, but his Quickcloud spell was water type magic, so he could only release water type magic. He would not face the problem of being unable to release a spell while flying.


    Saleen was not in a rush to attack the ck deacon while Nailisi was controlling the battle on the ground. If the hunting team from the tribunal wanted to hurt the two puppets they would need to pay a huge price. Once those two puppets lost their ability to fight those people would not be a match for Nailisi.


    The longer the battle dragged on, the better it was for Saleen. Unless the other party had arge number of men waiting nearby, that was. He had already released his rm scroll. The three death kings that were three-hundred miles away must have realized that the situation there was dangerous. They would take less than an hour to rush there.


    Saleen was not afraid of whether the other party had support or not, his own support was arriving soon.


    In the city base three-hundred miles away, the mages from Sregl Ind had felt the magic vibrations that wereing from afar. The level-5 scroll could release a magic rm that could propagate over five-hundred miles, however, it did not carry a message with it. Only Saleen had this scroll with him and it went without saying that Saleen must have been in danger if he used it.


    Daniel quickly heard of the news. He wanted to get rid of Saleen still, but he was hesitant. After all, Saleen had given him too many opportunities to train. Without Saleen he would not even have the ability to buy magic nuclei unless some faction was willing to keep him.


    Even if Daniel did not know how to repay this debt, as a mage he did not want to take advantage of Saleen¡¯s kindness any longer. Every time he did the results were disastrous. He had started believing in that saying that if one wanted something he would need to pay an equivalent price.


    With Saleen in trouble, Daniel immediately went to look for the death kings.


    ¡°Danger? Saleen isn¡¯t any weakling, he is a grand mage.¡± Judikaka did not think too much of it. He shook his head, not wanting to listen to Daniel. He was not ready to go save Saleen.


    ¡°Saleen released a level-5 magic rm!¡± Daniel was anxious. If Saleen were to die, the mages from Sregl Ind would not treat him the same as before. He would not be able to use anything for free and when Lex came back she might even have thoughts of killing him. He was Saleen¡¯s follower. If something happened to Saleen, he was responsible for it.


    ¡°You have a lot of men with you, go save him Daniel. We will not be helping much if we go.¡± Diyabannersa pushed Daniel away roughly, Daniel finally realized that these death kings were not creatures that he summoned and he could notmand them to do anything.


    ¡°Are you all scared?¡± Daniel was furious. The three kings seemed to be able to do anything, yet now they were trying their best to shrink away from all responsibilities. He could not figure out why.


    Judikaka and the rest were definitely afraid. They were the first to know when Saleen released the level-5 magic rm. Their senses might not have been the most acute, but at this distance, they were able to tell where those hunting teams from the Holy See hade from.


    They had the aura of the gods with them and were disciples of a god.


    If it were the death dimension, they would not be afraid of any god¡¯s disciples, but in another dimension they had to consider the wrath of the gods. That was a huge difference. The disciples of the gods did not necessarily represent the gods, but the problem was that they were from another dimension and attacking any disciples of the gods was as good as invading the dimension.


    Just like the people from the abyssal ne that invaded the death dimension. Once any god from the death dimension was angered the invader would surely pay for it. If he could escape back to the abyssal ne he might have a chance of surviving, but the others would be burned to nothing by the gods.


    The three kings had just arrived on the Myers Maind and they were not entirely sure of the rules here. If the gods in this dimension could descend directly they had to be obedient. When it came to the disciples of the gods they had to be cautious.


    Seeing the three kings pushing him away, Daniel could take a hint no matter how dense he was. He got even angrier as he said, ¡°Okay, I don¡¯t care anymore, I will go. If I die, you will be truly free in this world.¡±


    He was saying the exact opposite of the truth. If he were to really die, the three kings would not be able to return to the death dimension. This was something anyone could guess since the the kings hade here of their own ord.


    They wanted to hide that fact, but they did not dare offend the disciples of the gods. They did not want to be under Daniel¡¯smand and had tried to get away from it. They believed that since Saleen could now fly and it was merely a distance of three-hundred miles, he should be able to escape. If the other party was too strong, they would be toote by now.


    They were a little surprised at Daniel losing his temper at them. Banchajanna still remembered how he almost died at Saleen¡¯s hands. He thought to himself, ¡°If Saleen were to really die, it would be hard for us to make a deal with the other mages.¡± They all understood that even though Saleen was not strong, he represented a powerful force. Even in the death dimension, someone that could be in charge of building a city like this must be of a certain status.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I take a look?¡± Banchajanna and Judikaka started discussing. Their decisions were made by Judikaka. Diyabannersa also looked towards Judikaka. He had a good impression of Saleen and he did not want to lose this partner too.

 Chapter 297: Mage’s Anger (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 297: Mage¡¯s Anger (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Banchajanna twisted his body, showing his true form. Grabbing Daniel in one hand, he stepped into the sky and flew off. Judikaka shook his head, afraid that trouble would be caused.


    Besides searching for leads on the scepter in the past few days, Judikaka also gained aprehension of the current situation from the mages of Sregl Ind. He knew this ce was away from the four empires in this dimension. It was indeed a good ce to stop. If there were no incidents, Judikaka intended to help Saleen build up the city and hide inside. It would definitely not raise any eyebrows.


    If they really did kill the disciples of the gods, it would be hard not to draw any attention.


    Daniel was held in Banchajanna¡¯s hands. He was over eight meters long with a tail that was over ten meters, making him enormous in the sky. The mages from Sregl Ind brought with them two-hundred swordsmen. Moving north bynd, they were quickly overtaken by Banchajanna in the air.


    Daniel used the death mes to envelope his body, Banchajanna was flying incredibly fast and the cold wind bit into him like a knife. Without the protection of the death mes Daniel would have frozen to death within minutes. The Pikoosi hid inside the death mes in Banchajanna¡¯s hands. It did not even dare show its face.


    The Pikoosi already had the absolute powers of grade-6. He was recovering incredibly quickly but that made him even more afraid of the death king.


    The mages from Sregl Ind saw Banchajanna flying past and were a little relieved. They were well aware of Saleen¡¯s powers. If he was asking for help, he must have met an enemy that was hard to shake off. If not, with Saleen¡¯s powers, he would be able to defeat a grade-5 professional easily.


    These mages had been ordered by Jason to protect Saleen. If anything happened to him, they would not be able to go back to Sregl Ind.


    Saleen was face to face with the ck deacon. They had not made any other moves yet. Standing over forty meters apart, they were at the optimal distance for any magic or divine spells.


    As the ck deacon saw it, the tribunal would win the battle on the ground. Thebat powers of the puppet were not incredibly strong, but these twobat puppets were tough indeed. The stronger their defenses were, the faster they would use up their magic chords though.


    He could afford to wait. There were at most another two or three more enemies in the forest. He had over a hundred men at hismand, so it was impossible that they would lose.


    Saleen was not in a rush either. These fully constructed puppets were driven by dragonshards. What was a hundred enemies to them? Even if there were thousands of people on the battleground they would not stop working from ack of energy.


    ¡°Mage, if you surrender now I will consider asking the cardinal to let you go. How about that?¡± The ck deacon had a change in tone, obviously trying to stall for time.


    Saleen knew his intentions and could not help but shudder. There was a ck bishop here. It seemed like the scale of this hunt was bigger than he had expected. The Holy See had sent so many people for this and he had run into them. Was he really a natural enemy of the Holy See?


    He had run into them when they were looking for the ruins of the Second Dynasty. When they were after Daniel he had run into them again. Now that he was in the barren North, he had run into their secret operations. Even an astrologer could not predict something so coincidental.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you want to burn me alive?¡± Saleen asked in a cold voice. The ck deacon was stalling for time but so was he. The ck deacon was afraid that if he flew too quickly, he would not be able to catch up. He had trapped him by threatening him, preventing him from deserting the rest and escaping.


    Saleen was stalling for time too. When the three kings arrived, they would be able to decimate the people here.


    As for the ck deacon, so long as he returned to the base of his city, he would not be afraid of any bishop. By the time the Holy See reacted, Lex and the rest would have arrived. By then, there would be dozens of grand mages there. If the three kings did not leave, he would not be afraid of the Holy See¡¯s next move.


    Saleen did not want to sacrifice Conan, he knew what the Holy See were doing. There were not many barbarians left in the north and he could keep Conan by his side. He could make use of the hatred between the barbarians and the Holy See to his advantage.


    ¡°You want to know what we have been capturing the barbarians for, don¡¯t you?¡± The ck deacon¡¯s face seemed incredibly savage in the red light.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to know,¡± Saleen replied coldly.


    The ck deacon could not care less either as he continued saying, ¡°They do indeed have superior bodies. The tribunal wants to create blood knights and they would be the best ingredients for it. Once we have gathered over ten thousand blood knights, the light of God will be spread to every corner of the maind.¡±


    ¡°Blood knights?!¡± Saleen¡¯s eye started twitching. They had appeared over a thousand years ago. Back then, the maind was in chaos and ck mages were everywhere. All the empires were finding a solution to deal with them.


    The Tanggsi Empire that thend Holy See controlled was doing so too, but the Holy See back then had been fighting for a long time and had suffered huge losses. To rece the dead knights, the tribunal had created the first batch of blood knights. Strictly speaking, they were no different from the ck puppets that the ck mages created, but the puppets that the ck mages created would eventually be sacrificed to the devils.


    The blood knights were essentially sacrificing the souls of knights to the God of Light. They would eventually go to heaven. Before that, they had to go through immense pain. Simrly, they would gain incrediblebat powers.


    They were created by divine spells and naturally had the blood sword aura. In other words, the blood knights that were created had not gone through any training to attain the powers of a beginner swordmaster.


    If a team was created entirely by swordsmen, it would be considered incredibly elite. The Holy See used this to create a group of knights that were made up of swordsmen. With this group they controlled the entire west of the maind. Even though the ck mages could create arge number of ck puppets, the blood knights were created incredibly quickly too. With the gods supporting from behind, no one could criticise the Holy See¡¯s actions.


    Despite that, creating blood knights was not something to rejoice. The people that had been turned into blood knights would have their lives shortened tremendously, at most living until thirty-five. Once they became blood knights, they would no longer have any conscious and needed to listen to themands of the holy master.


    Many blood knights were captured forcefully and were not willing. Even more had been prisoners of the other empires. When the ck mages were defeated it caused non-stop chaos on the maind.


    Eventually, under the pressure of the other three empires, the Holy See had to promise to give up creating blood knights.


    If the Qin Empire had not been so strong back then, causing the Cloudflow and Sikeqinya Empire to be worried, the three empires might have joined forces against the Tanggsi Empire.


    Now that the Holy See was back to creating blood knights it meant that they were confident of going up against the other three empires. The ck deacon did not deny this, leaving Saleen shocked and angered.


    ording to Conan¡¯s few words, Saleen gathered that thousands of barbarians had been captured in the north. A group of knights was ten-thousand people, these barbarians alone could form a few groups of them. With tens of thousands of blood knights all at least the level of a swordmaster, this was a worrying amount of power.


    When Saleen was little he had heard the rumors in his hometown that the Tanggsi Empire was involved in the business of human trafficking. They did not need ves, or at the very least they did not need to buy from the other empires. Finding a connection, Saleen realized that the Holy See must have been nning this for a long time.


    Turning a living human into an existence simr to a puppet and sacrificing its soul to the gods was something no mage could swallow. This world was bnced. Anything given to the gods could never be returned to this world.


    The Nature Goddess was the god of this dimension, and this problem did not exist. However, the God of Light was from another dimension. Whatever it took away would leave the Myers Maind dimension forever.


    ¡°Mage, consider surrendering.¡± The ck deaconughed. From afar, a bright light shot across. Saleen knew it must have been from a high-grade holy master flying.


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t the three kings arrived?¡± Saleen furrowed his brows. He suddenlymanded the cloud of mist around him to pounce towards the ck deacon.


    He was incredibly shocked, even though his sword aura was not revolving as he wanted while he was flying closebat was not the strength of mages. No matter how slow he was he would be faster than a flying mage.


    Saleen took advantage of his hesitation and released the scrolls in his hands consecutively. More ice des appeared silently within the cloud of mist. This time, the ice des that Saleen released were something he could control. Every time he opened a scroll, it was not finished. These ice des were released but did not shoot out. Hundreds of them gathered and revolved around in the cloud of mist.


    This saved arge amount of magic chords. As for focus, Saleen¡¯s focus was reaching the level of Lex¡¯s. Some grade-6 mages did not even have the focus he had. Saleen was not concerned about using up his focus, it could be quickly replenished unlike his magic chords.


    The ck deacon was incredibly shocked, his enemy was only a grade-4 mage yet had incredible attacking power. He was slightly slower when it came to flying and it was impossible for him to escape. He was slightly regretful of facing off against Saleen in the air. At that moment the red light on his body shone brightly as hundreds of holy prose shot out from his long robes.


    These holy proses gave off a golden light as every ice de shed against them slowing them all. The holy proses were easily shattered by the ice des, but they quickly condensed and reformed.


    The ck deacon quickly retreated and Saleen gave chase. The cloud of mist around his body expanded until it was almost a hundred meters in radius. The ck deacon waspletely surrounded in the cloud of mist. Saleen released scrolls almost as if they were free the powers from the scrolls surpassed that of a sorcerer.


    Because very few mages had as many scrolls as Saleen they needed to repeatedly practice their technique when it came to releasing scrolls. For Saleen, releasing low-level scrolls was as quick for him as releasing a spell himself.


    Ice des, ice arrows, icicles, poisonous fog; dozens of low-level magic surrounded the ck deacon. He quickly turned the pages of his book trying to recite a prayer. Saleen did not give him any chance to retaliate. The water current that was wrapping around his body silently flew out, breaking through the defences formed by the holy proses and wrapping itself around the ck deacon¡¯s neck.

 Chapter 298: Black Bishop (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 298: ck Bishop (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°God says¡­¡±


    The ck deacon had only said a word before the green water flow, controlled by Saleen, twisted around his neck. The ck deacon¡¯s head rolled onto the ground, with fresh blood spurting up to two meters in the air from the neck.


    ¡°Go and talk to your god.¡± Saleen retracted his water flow. Ignoring the corpse on the ground, Saleen flew down and entered the forest. The other party had stronger holy masters, and if Saleen continued flying, he would not be able to tap into the advantage of his speed.


    If he had fought with the ck deacon on the ground, he might have lost to the ck deacon. But in midair, the ck deacon had given up his advantage in speed and Saleen had also attacked him unexpectedly. No one would have thought that a mage would be able to cast so many spells in an instant.


    Saleennded on the ground and hid behind arge tree as he waited quietly for the arrival of the ck bishop.


    The battle on the ground had not ended yet and the ck armor warriors had already lost many people. With the dragonshard as motivation, the fully constructed puppets soldiered on courageously, and strangely, the injuries on their external shell were regenerating by themselves. This was the ability of a dragon, and now this ability was appearing on those two puppets.


    However, the ck armor warriors from the inquisition were fearless. The remaining thirty of them clutched onto their weapons and lunged at the two puppets. The two puppets did not exactly move quickly, and if they were to escape, Nailisi would be helpless. Nailisi would not be able to pursue so many enemies on her own.


    The smell of blood emanated throughout the forest. As Conan hid atop the tree and observed the battle, he was stunned by the scene in front of him.


    This mage and his femalepanion were far too powerful. Those pursuers had premium equipment and their actions were coordinated well, and all the swordmasters and holy masters were present, but they were hammered by that mage and that female warrior. That massacre by the puppets had reduced the one-hundred-strong crowd by more than half in a very short time.


    All this while, Nailisi had been observing the battle which had taken ce in midair. After the headless body belonging to the ck deaconnded on the ground, she jumped off of the tree and removed the book and ring from the ck deacon. Even if Nailisi could not use these things, she was not going to let the Holy See¡¯s people keep them. The red book in the ck deacon¡¯s hand caused Nailisi to feel unsafe. Had Saleen¡¯s sneak attack been unsessful, the oue of the battle would have been unimaginable.


    The forte of a holy master was their defensive abilities. However, Saleen had managed to destroy the defense of this ck deacon in an instant, and before the book could unleash its power, the ck deacon had already lost his head.


    Noticing that Nailisi had jumped off of the tree, the other twenty surviving ck armor warriors charged towards her. The puppets used the colossal weapons on their backs and managed to kill another five people. This time around, Nailisi did not run up into the tree. She rotated her wrist, and the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger appeared in her hand. She then cut a machete into half before stabbing a warrior in his heart.


    Before the other ck armor warriors at the back could make sense of what was going on, Nailisi had already rushed into the crowd like a cloud of smoke in snow. She thrashed to her left and right, and every single hit sent the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger into a warrior¡¯s heart.


    Nailisi¡¯sbat experience was not as rich as these warriors, but her speed was much, much faster than them. The toughness of the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger was almost unparalleled, causing the armor of those warriors to seem like fine bread in the face of this dagger.


    The ck armor warriors were already desperately trying to carry on the fight. Unfortunately, Nailisi¡¯s dagger possessed the freezing ability of the tiago. As long as it hit the enemy, the enemy would be frozen in that instant. The ck armor warriors were willing to give up their lives to stop Nailisi¡¯s actions, but were ruined by the attributes of her dagger.


    The ck armor warriors charged at Nailisi in despair. As long as this woman was killed, the two puppets would lose theirbat ability as well. Since every warrior thought that way, the warriors at the front decided to use their bodies to stop Nailisi¡¯s dagger, while the warriors at the rear faced their backs towards the fully constructed puppets. In those dozens of seconds, Nailisi used her dagger to take out over twenty ck armor warriors. Nailisi kicked thest warrior onto the ground, then a puppet pressed a square axe onto his neck.


    ¡°Master, I have captured one of them alive!¡± Nailisi was very satisfied at the fully constructed puppet¡¯s performance. These two gigantic fellows could already control their weapons with much precision and uracy. The square axe was heavier than a heavy hammer, but in the hands of the fully constructed puppet, it was like a strand of grass. The square axe pressed onto the neck of the warrior without breaking any skin at all.


    ¡°Ah¡­¡±


    A strange noise came from the neck of this ck armor warrior. It was a noise which was formed through a mixture of fanaticism and death. His chest was kicked by Nailisi, causing his ribcage to cave in a little. At this point in time, the warrior actually wanted to sit upright. His neck approached the de of the square axe, as he was trying to kill himself.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Some people from outside the forest called out, and they came before Nailisi in a sh.


    Nailisi was overjoyed. The square axe was then withdrawn and the warrior¡¯s neck was salvaged. Upon seeing the three people entering the forest, this ck armor warrior suddenly saw hope. If he did not need to die, then he would obviously cherish his life even if he was in the death squad. The warrior rolled over as he tried to escape.


    With a whoosh of air, another fully constructed puppet drove his metallic spear downwards. Pu! The thick spear entered the waist of the warrior, as though it had just prated cheese.


    ¡°In the future, if you want someone to stop doing something, remember to use the word ¡®please¡¯.¡± Such aplex action by the fully constructed puppet had obviously been carried out under Nailisi¡¯smand. Nailisi grinned from ear to ear as she watched the three people enter the forest.


    Of these three people, the leader was a middle aged man d in ck robes. His robe did not have a hood. He wore a metallic crown on his head, looking nondescript. Furthermore, he looked fragile. A pair of slender eyes and arched eyebrows made him look somewhat feminine.


    This was the ck bishop, the power which served as the backbone of the entire Holy See. Beneath a bishop, all the other positions were tied to an amount of personal contributions, but if one wanted the position of a bishop, they would need sufficient capabilities as well.


    At minimum, a bishop would possess the power of a grade-6 mage. If one was a pivotal bishop, then they would have the offensive ability of a grade-7 mage. That was already the power of a sorcerer.


    The ck bishop red at Nailisi. She was ridiculed beyond words and was contemting retreat. This ck bishop was abnormally devilish. His eyes were red, simr to those of a spirit.


    Of course, there were people who were born with red pupils. However, the shape of the red pupils of the ck bishop were constantly changing, like two bunches of soul mes.


    The two people beside the ck bishop also made Nailisi ufortable. They wielded a pair of strange-looking weapons. The weapons were like slightly curved knives, with des on both ends. Blood dripped continuously from these two pairs of curved double edged des, but once the blood came into contact with the snowy ground, it lost its color.


    Phantom!


    The ck bishop fumed. This capture mission which he wasmanding had already been going on for several years now. However, in this day alone, the number of men killed and injured was more than the total number of the past three months.


    There were no more surviving inquisition warriors in the forests ahead. Two gigantic metallic puppets wielded their weapons and stood behind a woman. Genuine feelings could not be detected in her pair of green eyes. They were so cold, like the snowy ground.


    With one nce, the ck bishop had already deciphered Nailisi¡¯s nature. He instinctively felt that this green-eyed woman was far more dangerous than the mage who was hidden from sight.


    ¡°Who killed Goodrid?¡± The ck bishop looked at Nailisi, as the shape of his red pupils carried on fluctuating. Nailisi licked her lips, but she did not reply.


    ¡°Goodrid is my son. You all will have to pay the price.¡± The ck bishop¡¯s voice was long and windy, like the sound given off as a steel wire was rubbed against a rock. One would feel extreme difort listening to his voice.


    As Saleen stood behind a tree, he felt a sense of difort in his heart. He had killed another person¡¯s son again? This time around, the trouble was much greater. The previous time, Saleen had only offended a secr earl, but now, he had killed the son of the ck bishop. Damn it, why am I always trifling with the wrong people?


    ¡°The two of you, capture this woman first and chop off her limbs. I want to use her to bear another son for me. I will go and deal with the mage,¡± the ck bishop instructed the two people beside him. Without looking at Nailisi, he turned around and made his way to therge tree where Saleen was hiding.


    Nailisi¡¯s green pupils contracted violently. The ck bishop¡¯s words had angered her. In the demonic ne, the devils would kill the demons, imps and spirits, but they would never do such a thing. Chop off the limbs and make her bear a child?


    Saleen¡¯s breathing became rapid and urgent. He knew what the ck bishop was talking about.


    The Holy See had a method of making newborns naturally believe in the Lord of Glory. There was some divinity involved in this method and it was extremely cruel. When the Holy See first emerged, the methods employed were unusually gory. Many simr incidents had happened, and only when the Holy See had taken control of the Tanggsi Empire and gained a stable following did the method be obsolete.


    The blood cavaliers and divine magic carried the smell of this primeval religion. They were not epted by the mature empires on the Myers Maind. Now that the Holy See had begun employing such methods again, a bloodbath would undoubtedly be formed.


    The ck bishop approached Saleen. Arge tree was in between the two of them. This tree was about three meters in width, and it could only be seen from the northern wilderness. Saleen was unusually nervous. Holy masters and mages were the same, in that they were not good in closebat. Furthermore, the ck bishop did not cast any divine spells. Instead, he walked closer and closer towards Saleen. Could it be possible that he knew some special closebat techniques?


    The green water flow swirled around Saleen¡¯s body. Saleen put away his scrolls. Against the ck bishop, scrolls were useless. Saleen would have to use magicbat ¨C his forte.


    At this point in time, Saleen finally understood the meaning of the phrase ¨C a mage can only depend on their own magic chords.


    Scrolls and magic books could rece the usage of the magic chords. However, these methods would prevent a spell from unleashing its full potential. Saleen could cast scrolls quickly, but the spells which were released from the scrolls could not be as easily controlled as when they were released using magic chords. Using scrolls against people who were of a simr grade was still fine. However, against holy masters who were at least two grades higher than Saleen, using scrolls would prove fatal for him.


    As the ck bishop drew closer to Saleen, Saleen began perspiring profusely even though it was such a cold day. Sweat droplets snaked down his forehead, and even his eyebrows and eyshes could not stop the sweat. One sweat droplet entered Saleen¡¯s eye, causing an intense piercing pain.

 Chapter 299: Black Bishop (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 299: ck Bishop (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This was not the first time Saleen hade across a powerful adversary. The most perilous encounter was when he had met the white deacon. Back then, he had been ignorant, so he had actually negotiated with the white deacon and managed to escape. However, this time was different. The deacons working under the oracles were not killing maniacs. They had clear motives in doing things, and thus, if they received certain benefits in return, their target might survive.


    However, the ck bishop from the inquisition was entirely different. There was no room for negotiation, and furthermore, Saleen had just killed his son.


    At this moment, Saleen did not dare to go airborne because the ck bishop could fly faster than him. If he had flew, the situation would be starkly different from what happened earlier on. He would not have the advantage of speed anymore.


    Nailisi felt as though she were being targeted by a demon as the two people wielding the double edged des approached from her left and right. The fully constructed puppets charged at them but were flung dozens of meters away by their kicks.


    These two people were too quick. After all, the two puppets were not living things. They could still deal with swordmasters as long as they were under Nailisi¡¯s control. However, these two men were potentially bronze grand swordmasters, or even ck metal grand swordmasters.


    Nailisi was beginning to miss Sika. If Sika had been around, they could have taken on a person each, and Nailisi would have been more confident too. Nailisi¡¯s new skill was extremely obscure. As long as the target did not pay attention, they would also be hurt even if they were a silver grand swordmaster. As long as Nailisi could grab onto either one of them, the electric current would be able to paralyze that person.


    The problem was that there were two enemies at the moment. If Nailisi grabbed onto one of them, her movement speed would be drastically decreased, and the other man would be able to kill her. Nailisi was not confident she could dodge the attacks. Furthermore, the two men did not care about each other¡¯s wellbeing, which made Nailisi very worried.


    Woo¡­


    The two men approached from the left and right at the same time, disying the color of blood, and their des like two pairs of scissors. The four des had blocked off Nailisi¡¯s route of retreat. Each de was four feet in length while Nailisi¡¯s dagger was only the size of a palm. If Nailisi wanted to retaliate, her speed would need to exceed that of the two men.


    All of a sudden, Nailisi made an unexpected move. Her body shrank violently, and she crouched in the snow. There was a thickyer of snow on the ground, and Nailisi managed to hide in the snow.


    The four des fell out of the sky. As the des burst with surges of the sword aura, the snowy area exploded, forming a vast nket of whiteness and reducing visibility to zero. After crouching down, Nailisi had be more agile. Even though demons were intelligent creatures, the way they fought was simr to that of magic beasts. With Nailisi¡¯s four limbs pasted against the ground, the two men had lost her.


    Nailisi crawled through the thickyer of snow and made her way into the depths of the forest. Once again, the two fully constructed puppets lunged at the two men. The heavy weapons in the puppets¡¯ hands caused them to be fearful. They could not afford to get into a head-on sh with the puppets, hence they decided to go around the puppets and give them a kick.


    Their kicks were infused with the sword aura. The sound of metal breaking came from within the puppets¡¯ bodies, then the puppets fell onto the ground. With the dragonshard, the puppets could regenerate their bodies, but the parts which were damaged by the sword aura would need a significant amount of time to be regenerated. At least for now, Nailisi could no longer rely on the two puppets anymore.


    Not only were their sword auras astonishing, but their movement speed was also faster than any of the enemies which Nailisi had previouslye across.


    Saleen had no time to care about Nailisi at the moment. The bishop¡¯s perception had locked onto him. He felt as if his body was trapped to the tree by huge shackles, and his feet could not move at all.


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Saleen grunted loudly. The surrounding air trembled furiously, and at the same time, he cast the Quickcloud spell before taking out his n badge.


    At this moment, Saleen only hoped that Nailisi could defeat those two men. If Saleen could not handle the ck bishop, he would have to take some risk by using the special attributes of his n badge to fight. This badge could even absorb the power of a dragon. Furthermore, the ck bishop only possessed the power of a grade-7 mage at best, and thus, Saleen was confident that he would be able to absorb all of the bishop¡¯s power.


    Seeing that Saleen had released some fog behind the tree, the ck bishop sneered in response. The shape of his red pupils fluctuated constantly, like flickering mes. His eyes could see right through any type of confusion magic, and the bishop was also well aware of Saleen¡¯s position behind the tree.


    The ck bishop and Saleen stood facing each other, separated only by thatrge tree. The bishop did not go around the tree. Instead, he began saying a prayer.


    ¡°God says, whichever ce He is not present in, is hell.¡±


    The ck bishop¡¯s prayer was extremely short. It was the shortest prayer Saleen had ever heard. The moment the bishop stopped speaking, red mes immediately emerged from the surrounding snowy ground. These mes were genuine and tangible, unlike the cold mes produced by the ck deacon earlier on. The red mes soared from the ground, causing the temperature to rise sharply and crackling sounds to be heard from within the snow. The snow became water vapor and intertwined with Saleen¡¯s fog, as though it were trying to destroy Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell.


    There was still a water shield within that Quickcloud spell. Hence, when the mes began burning, Saleen remained unharmed. However, the attack that came after that was a hundred times stronger. The snow which was vaporized by the mes turned into airflows which resembled tornadoes. There were at least one hundred of these airflows, and they charged towards Saleen.


    ¡°Er¡­¡±


    A muffled noise came from Saleen¡¯s throat. Saleen felt that not only was the ck bishop controlling the water vapor, but the surrounding air had also been totally depleted of it after the mes had started burning.


    The Vacuum Imprisonment spell!


    Besides using the water vapor formed from the Quickcloud spell, Saleen could not use the other surrounding water elements to supplement his spell¡¯s depletion. This holy master¡¯s divine spells and magic spells were extremely simr, and could restrict Saleen¡¯s mobility at the same time. Saleen could only stand on the spot and cast spells. He could not do anything else.


    A water shield covered Saleen¡¯s body while a green water flow encircled the water shield. At this point in time, he could raise his left hand. Saleen put on the demonic bracelet, which was mosaicked with the dragonshard, on his left hand. He decided to draw elemental power directly from the dragonshard, or else he would not even be able to cast any spells.


    A short and simple prayer from the ck bishop had caused Saleen to lose his ability to utilize the elements.


    Saleen was filled with immense regret. If he had picked up Raphael¡¯s crystal finger, he would have been able to prate the tree with solely his finger, and the ck bishop would have been doomed. However, there were too many things for Saleen to learn. And before he advanced to the next grade, he would not be able to learn the level-6 crystal finger.


    In order to solidify his foundation, Saleen had continuously dyed his advancement. But at this moment, he realized that a mage¡¯s grade was actually quite useful most of the time.


    ¡°Break it!¡± After absorbing the elemental power from the dragonshard, Saleen cast dozens of wind des. These wind des were formed via the condensation of the water vapor, and they were fundamentally water type magic. In that short period, Saleen was not able to figure out the bishop¡¯s weakness, so he could only send dozens of these weak-looking things to attack the bishop.


    Had Saleen not discovered the method of releasing low-level magic across a huge area, this action would have consumed at least one-tenth of his magic chords. This water element Wind de spell only had the consumption of level-2 magic, thus allowing Saleen to use it without any worries.


    Dozens of the tornado-like airflows were destroyed by Saleen, and Saleen cast another dozen wind des. The atmospheric elemental power was more bnced now. It was no longer restrained by the tornadoes.


    The ck bishop was quite astounded when he noticed that Saleen had only used one technique to ovee his Vacuum Imprisonment Ssell.


    As long as one was below the grade of a sorcerer, they would have to absorb elemental power from their surroundings in order to cast spells. If they only relied on their magic chords, the lethality of their spells would be decreased drastically. This grade-4 mage is able to deploy a countermeasure so quickly. He might have some special equipment with him.


    When the ck bishop considered that Saleen might have special equipment, he immediately changed his attack strategy. The red mes had subsided slightly. As the ck bishop stood behind the tree, he began chanting another prayer.


    ¡°God says, wherever He is, is heaven.¡±


    Hundreds of light rays descended from the sky. The red mes, which spread for hundreds of meters, were extinguished by this wave of light rays, revealing the burnt soil on the ground.


    The water vapor from Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell was not able to resist the white light. The white light stopped for a moment just outside of the water shield before prating it.


    The water shield was an autonomous defense spell. Since the white light had a therapeutic effect, the water shield would definitely be fine.


    The white light from the divine spell had many abilities, the mostmon of them being a form of therapy. Most defense spells would not resist treatment spells, even if they were level-1 divine spells or elemental spells.


    As the white light entered Saleen¡¯s body, Saleen felt warmth, and he no longer felt hostile towards the ck bishop. He even thought of removing the Quickcloud spell and the water shield, but this notion lingered for a moment before being interrupted by an intense pain.


    At this point in time, blue smoke appeared from Saleen¡¯s left hand which had almost been fully recovered. An intense pain came from the crevice of the bone.


    The divinity from the Lord of Glory shed with that of the Goddess of Myers. This pain was even more intense than when Saleen used the n badge.


    Pain! Pain! Pain!


    There were no other thoughts in Saleen¡¯s brain now. The ck bishop¡¯s divine spell had failed, and he did not know about the transformation which Saleen¡¯s body had gone through. The bishop went around the tree as he took out a slender metallic thorn, wanting to kill Saleen.


    The ck bishop was extremely confident of his own divine spell. The divine spell was targeted solely at mages, and as long as a mage came into contact with this divine spell, the mage would lose control over his actions for a short period of time.


    The green water flow which encircled Saleen also began twisting vigorously, before fusing with the two transformed water shields. The Goddess of Myers was also present in those two water shields. After being shone on by the white light, the water flow seemed to boil, and there were even signs of vaporization on its surface.


    Cracking sounds came from the bone in Saleen¡¯s hand. The green colored gift of life went against the flow of blood up his arm, expelling the white light from his body. This gift of life was far more intense than the prayer chanted by the ck bishop. When thest piece of leaf had entered Saleen¡¯s bone, it resulted in his left hand bing more powerful than any other officers who served the Goddess of Myers.


    Perhaps this power was not suitable to be used forbat, but at this moment, the gift of life and the divine light from the Lord of Glory were fighting for Saleen¡¯s body. The ck bishop was simply borrowing the divinity of the Lord of Glory through his prayers, and this divinity also originated from this ne. Even if it was destroyed, the Lord of Glory would not notice it anyhow.


    ¡°Ah, ow!¡± Saleen screamed out his lungs, as his mental power vibrated vigorously. He knew that he would not be able to cast any spells. If he tried casting spells in his condition right now, he would receive a bacsh from the magic. Saleen dispersed his Quickcloud spell, and raised his leg before kicking the ck bishop in the stomach.

 Chapter 300: Future Trouble (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 300: Future Trouble (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ck bishop walked around the tree, thinking that Saleen had lost all ability to resist. He clutched the metallic thorn and prepared to kill Saleen. At this point in time, Saleen was in intense pain because of the sh between the two types of divinity inside his body. The gift of life from the Goddess of Myers had expelled the divinity of the Lord of Glory, and this sh resulted in intense pain.


    Even though the pain could not be reduced, Saleen would have fainted long ago if he had not been so used to tolerating pain. Even so, Saleen could not move his body at all.


    The ck bishop was engulfed in the white light. When he came around the tree, he saw that Saleen was epassed in a green glow which emanated outwards. That green glow went into a head-on sh with the white light on his body, producing immense popping noises.


    ¡°Ah¡­¡± The ck bishop also groaned in pain. This skill, whereby the divine light enveloped the bishop¡¯s body, enabled the bishop to ignore any low-level spells. Only spells which were level-4 and above would be able to harm him. The ck bishop had never thought that the divine light would ever be so hot that his skin was nearly roasted.


    All this had happened because the divine light from the Lord of Glory was repulsive towards other kinds of divinity, and not because the divinity inside Saleen¡¯s body was aggressive. The oue would be the same when any kind of divinity came into contact with that of the Lord of Glory.


    The Lord of Glory did not reveal this fact to his believers who stayed on the Myers Maind, so the ck bishop thought that Saleen was the one who was attacking. After studying divine spells for such a long time, the ck bishop could immediately tell that the green glow on Saleen¡¯s body was another kind of divine light.


    ¡°Heretic!¡± the ck bishop hollered at the top of his voice, disying genuine astonishment.


    In the hearts of the followers of the Lord of Glory, there were no other gods on the Myers Maind. The Lord of Glory was the only god, be it on the Myers Maind or the other nes. The psychological impact on the ck bishop, which was caused by the green glow on Saleen¡¯s body, was no less than the first time he had ever heard god¡¯s response.


    The frosty gaze in the ck bishop¡¯s eyes became an intense fanaticism, as the mage in front of him believed in another god!


    The ck bishop had found that it was quite boring to participate in the mission to capture barbarians in order to produce blood cavaliers. This was an assignment delegated by the second judge in the inquisition, so he could not refuse it. But at this moment, this mage in front of him was a heretic who believed in an evil god. This made the ck bishop beyond excited.


    By capturing this real heretic and bringing him back, even the pope would have to recognize his contributions.


    After toiling in the inquisition for so many years, the ck bishop would also not be able to be a judge even if everything went smoothly. However, if he managed to capture a believer of an evil god, he could even get into the pivotal council.


    The ck bishop¡¯s authority was in no way less than that of a cardinal, but all the previous popes had been selected from the pivotal council. By bing a ck bishop, he would have to remain in the inquisition for the rest of his life with no chance of further promotion. Furthermore, a cardinal not only had a chance of bing pope, but a cardinal also had jurisdiction over all the churches in a vast diocese.


    The ck bishop had power over internal affairs. He had the power to sentence anyone who betrayed the Lord of Glory. However, a cardinal could control the churches and the believers. Their annual ie was far more than what the ck bishop received.


    Saleen recovered faster than the ck bishop. The ck bishop did not dodge Saleen¡¯s kick, as he could only bend his body.


    Peng! Saleen felt that his leg bone was going to break. He had activated the Potency spell which was on his magic robe, but his body was not very strong. At best, it was only at the level of a high grade swordsman. With the blessing from the Potency spell, Saleen had caused the ck bishop to fall onto the ground with his kick.


    The ck bishop had not received such a kick in years, and he rolled across the snowy ground in shame and fury. Saleen could not converge his mental power so he could not cast any spells. Meanwhile, the ck bishop could not cast any divine spells at the moment, and he was also kicked by Saleen. However, Saleen knew that this was a rare opportunity. It was purely a fluke that he had managed to hit the bishop. Had they been in a head-on battle, Saleen¡¯s chance of victory would have been far smaller.


    Saleen¡¯s right leg was in so much pain that he could not stand properly, and he knew that the ck bishop was not feeling any better either because he had used quite a bit of strength in that kick, unless the ck bishop had also practiced swordsmanship like his son.


    Saleen tapped on the ground with his left leg before following suit and rolling forward. The divine light on the bishop¡¯s ck robe had disappeared, and when the bishop saw Saleen approaching, he became petrified. This mage must have gone through life and death experiences in the past. He actually wants to exploit this slight temporary advantage to get into a brawl with me.


    If the ck bishop had regained his divinity, Saleen would never ever have been his match.


    Saleen did not dare let the ck bishop escape as the bishop¡¯s divinity was much scarier than he expected. If his left hand had not acted up, he would have been dead meat.


    Mustering all his effort, the ck bishop raised his hand and stabbed the metallic thorn at Saleen. Holy words were carved all over this metallic thorn. It was just that at this moment, the ck bishop could not cast any divine spells, so those words would not increase the lethality of the metallic thorn anyhow.


    Saleen tolerated his headache and swiped his left arm, having learned this technique from Sika. Now that his Potency spell had not dispersed, his left arm was like a steel rod as it shed against the metallic thorn.


    The Potency spell only provided additional strength. It could not increase the toughness of one¡¯s body. Consequently, both parties were hurt. However, Saleen¡¯s left arm had been transformed by the Tree of Life, so its toughness was much higher than that of the ck bishop¡¯s. Saleen¡¯s arm was only numb from the pain. However, a cracking sound came from the bishop¡¯s arm, as Saleen had actually broken his arm.


    The ck bishop howled in pain. The metallic thorn left his hand and flew dozens of meters before piercing into a tree trunk with a thud. At this point in time, the Potency spell disappeared. Without sustenance from mental power, the spells on the magic robe would onlyst a short while.


    The ck bishop was truly terrified now. He had not expected a mage to be so courageous, unlike any other mages.


    Saleen was also panicking. If he had been able to use his mental power now, he would have immediately used his water flow to strangle the ck bishop. However, the water flow did not have the ability to attack autonomously at the moment. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s mental power was in disorder and could not recover in time, so Saleen could only rely on his fists right now.


    Saleen could not cast his magic, while the ck bishop could not cast his divine spells. Hence, they began a fistfight on the snowy ground, and on the other side of the forest, the battle between Nailisi and the two men was bing intense.


    Nailisi crawled in the snow as the two fully constructed puppets were unable to regenerate themselves. Nailisi secretly opened two scrolls, thus releasing two swamp illusions. These two illusions could notst for a long time, but they helped create two areas which the assants had to avoid.


    With the two swamp illusions, the two men could no longer attack Nailisi at the same time. Nailisi immediately began her counterattack. She leaned forward and lunged at one of the assants. Nailisi tried to stab at the man, but he did not bother dodging. He used his hand with the double edged de to attack her instead.


    Since the double edged de was long while the dagger was short, Nailisi was on the losing end. However, Nailisi grit her teeth and twisted her body, dodging the de in the nick of time, and her dragon¡¯s tooth dagger shed against the de. All of a sudden, a portion of the de became snow white in color. The dragon¡¯s tooth dagger had released its effect. Even though the de was a premium piece of alchemical equipment, it could not withstand that instantaneous frigidity.


    Ka ba! The de broke beneath the force of the sword aura. Nailisi had already lunged into the arms of this man, then she kicked upwards with her knee. This assant was extremely agile. Even though his de had broken, he did not panic. He simply took half a step back in order to dodge Nailisi¡¯s knee.


    It was as though there were no bones in Nailisi¡¯s leg. Her leg then sprang into an upright position in that instant before kicking the assant¡¯s chin. Ka cha! The assant¡¯s chin was shattered.


    The tolerance level of this assant from the inquisition was far higher than what Nailisi had expected. If this kick had been delivered to someone else, they would have lost their consciousness in that instant. Imagine, what would the feeling be like if someone was hit in the chin by a war hammer?


    After absorbing the essence from the dragon¡¯s heart, Nailisi¡¯s strength had already exceeded that of most grand swordmasters. Her small boots had also been refined by Lex using the bones of the dragon, making them deadly alchemical weapons.


    The other assant had already made his way around the swamp illusion when he tried to sh at Nailisi¡¯s back. The assant, whose chin had been shattered by Nailisi, then threw his broken de at Nailisi, causing the de to fly towards Nailisi¡¯s neck in a revolving pattern.


    Nailisi pounced forward. She had already severely injured this assant, and there was no way she was going to give up this opportunity to kill him. She did not give a hoot about the attack that wasing from the rear. Her dragon¡¯s tooth dagger simply pierced into the stomach of this seriously injured assant.


    The legs of this assant turned into jelly and he knelt on the ground. His sword aura had protected his heart, so it did not freeze even after the attack by the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger. Even after these serious injuries, the assant was still fearless as he tried to headbutt Nailisi¡¯s face.


    The other assant behind her shed his de downwards, going straight for Nailisi¡¯s back. Nailisi was too engrossed in the fight. She twisted her dragon¡¯s tooth dagger and tried to deflect the attacking from behind.


    Om!


    A thunderous vibrating sound came from behind. The barbarian named Conan had finally made his move. His stone axe descended from above and went straight for the assant¡¯s back. The assant heard the noise, and was not going to take it lightly. The flying axe attack by the barbarian was too powerful. The materials used to make the axe had the attribute of negating magic as well as the sword aura.


    The assant swiped his de backwards. As his skills were more advanced than Conan¡¯s by over one hundred times, the de only slightly brushed against the flying axe and the flying axe was still sent flying in the opposite direction, just like how Saleen had ovee Conan¡¯s flying axe. Even though such a technique from the barbarians was very powerful, its weakness was skilled enemies.


    In this short window that was created, Nailisi had already plucked her dragon¡¯s tooth dagger from the assant¡¯s stomach. Her head then crashed against the assant¡¯s head, producing a loud, dull noise.


    This assant had the sword aura in him. If he used his head to attack his enemy, the enemy would be knocked unconscious immediately. Unexpectedly, Nailisi had also used her head to attack him. There were two barely detectable protrusions on Nailisi¡¯s head, and these protrusions were her horns.


    A demon¡¯s horns and fingernails were their weapons. As Nailisi¡¯s blood was purely that of a demon, her horns were inferior in the slightest to that of a dragon¡¯s. In that blow, Nailisi remained unharmed. However, the assant¡¯s head was depressed inwards as blood spurted from his face. Even so, he still did not die. He mped his legs onto Nailisi¡¯s legs.


    The assant at the rear lunged forward once more. He shed his de, going straight for Nailisi¡¯s back.

 Chapter 301: Future Trouble (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 301: Future Trouble (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was d in a long white fur coat. At this point in time, a tail, which was several meters long, sprang out from under her coat. The color of the tail was silvery grey, with a slight hue of gold and green, and magic patterns were spread throughout the tail. At the end of the tail was a razor sharp spike, like a miniature spear head.


    The assant behind Nailisi would never have thought that Nailisi was not human. Nailisi¡¯s tail popped out silently. Humans on the Myers Maind had never experienced such abat technique before.


    The color of blood appeared on the assant¡¯s de, disying a bright red color. The edge of the de swerved sharply, going in the direction of Nailisi¡¯s tail.


    This assant was now horrified. He might not have been a mage, but he could already guess Nailisi¡¯s identity.


    Demon! Demon! The humans on the Myers Maind were very familiar with the ruthlessness, callousness, and slyness of demons. Simrly, professionals regarded demons as very powerful beings.


    The profession of a swordsman did not have a long history, and all of their knowledge on demons hade from the mages. Furthermore, the power of mages had been deteriorating in recent times, and hence their opinions of demons were quite exaggerated.


    Back then, humans had used to capture demons. Those remaining demons on the Myers Maind had be extremely powerful, and only sorcerers would be able to survive their attacks. Since most demons were not good at flying, they were simply toozy to pursue a sorcerer if the sorcerer was able to escape in time.


    This misconception had be widespread. Back in those days, the demons which had been captured by humans were at least at the grade of a devil. As for creatures like the demons, imps, and spirits, humans had simply been toozy to capture these creatures from the demonic ne.


    Nailisi and the two grand swordmasters fought desperately, none of the parties daring to take any chances. Even though those protrusions on Nailisi¡¯s head were not fully developed horns, her tail was already that of an average demon¡¯s. The assant was beyond petrified and astounded. His feeling of shock was even more intense than when the ck bishop had realized that Saleen possessed another type of divinity.


    Demons were not good at casting spells, but this female demon in front of him had just instantly cast two spells. This caused the assant to misjudge Nailisi¡¯s capabilities. As he wielded his de, he did not try to stab Nailisi in the back. Instead, he went to block the attack from Nailisi¡¯s tail.


    Nailisi did not have any feeling in her tail. When the de hit her tail, sparks flew in all directions. From a straight stab to a horizontal swipe, Nailisi¡¯s tail changed its direction of attack. The assant failed to release the power in his de. Then, a bursting sound came from the end of Nailisi¡¯s tail as it ruthlessly smashed straight into the assant¡¯s arm.


    That red phantom given out by the strange-looking de was deflected by the magic patterns on Nailisi¡¯s tail, and not a single strand of it entered Nailisi¡¯s body.


    Whoosh!


    A feathered arrow was shot from Conan¡¯s longbow, heading straight for the assant¡¯s brain. This shot was extremely direct, which meant that the arrow travelled at a high speed. There was no special attack on this arrow, and the obsidian arrowhead was already sharp enough. Since the assant did not put on any armor, the barbarian¡¯s special arrow was already sharp enough to prate his sword aura protected body.


    Ow¡­


    After being hit in the arm by Nailisi, the assant made a sound which did not sound human. Nailisi¡¯s tail had a mystical power. The assant felt like magma had entered his arm, and a burning smell emanated from his bone marrow.


    The strongest weapon Nailisi had was her tail. Had this assant not resisted or wanted to die and taken Nailisi¡¯s stab in return for his stab, Nailisi might have been hurt right now. However, he had been so frightened by Nailisi¡¯s image that he had instinctively gone to block her tail. As a result, he had been seriously injured by Nailisi.


    This assant had two des, and he was fairly courageous. Even though one of his des had fallen to the ground, he still managed to move his body to use his other de to hack at the barbarian¡¯s arrow.


    Om!


    Standing upright atop the tree, the barbarianunched another arrow, causing the arrow chord to produce a resounding noise. The second arrow had reached the assant almost at the same time as the first. With a twist of his arm, the assant swiped his de in urgent strokes, forming a phantom of the de in midair, thus knocking the two arrows onto the ground.


    After that sessful strike, Nailisi did not continue pursuing the assant. The other assant in front of her was dying, but if he was treated by a holy spell, he would be revitalized in no time. Nailisi then executed an extremely simple maneuver. She swung her head backwards before violently mming it forward. The two protrusions on her head crashed into the assant¡¯s face once again.


    A boom sounded. This time around, the assant¡¯s head was destroyed. It had crumbled after that immense impact by Nailisi. Seeing that the assant was barely breathing, Nailisi raised her head again before mming it into the already crumbled face.


    The assant behind Nailisi was stunned by her insane attacks. This was not how a human would fight. The sound produced from the crash of heads between Nailisi and the assant sent a chill into everyone¡¯s hearts. Blood and brain matter spurted in all directions. The assant¡¯s body, which was not frozen by the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger, had finally stiffened. Any kind of sword aura would not have been able to defend against such an attack.


    Nailisi¡¯s tail had caused the assant to lose all confidence, as all sorts of myths about demons overwhelmed his mind. The assant¡¯s limbs were stiff while his heart was chilled. As he watched that green glow on Nailisi¡¯s hair, Nailisi broke the ribs of hispanion with one hand and took out the heart which was drenched in blood.


    His partner¡¯s life had been blessed by a holy spell in the past, hence it was abnormally resilient. Even though the heart was in Nailisi¡¯s hand, it was still beating strongly. With the reflection of the snowy ground, this fuchsia heart was extremely blinding.


    ¡°Demon¡­¡± As the assant murmured, his heart was on the brink of copsing. Has god abandoned me? Nailisi looked back and gave a strange smile. She rubbed her fingers on her white clothes before standing up and walking towards the assant.


    The barbarian called Conan witnessed the changes which were taking ce while he stood atop the tree, also experiencing a kind of fear. That was Nailisi¡¯s demonic skill ¨C Intimidation.


    This skill exploited the weaknesses in an enemy¡¯s mental state. If the enemy had aposed mind, this skill would not be so powerful. However, the assant¡¯s mind was filled with the scary myths regarding demons, and thus, Nailisi¡¯s skill could silently affect the assant¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Let me free you.¡± Nailisi¡¯s tail wagged, and greenish-gold magic patterns appeared on her skin. Under the fearful re of the assant, Nailisi ced her finger on the chest of the assant. Ka cha! She broke the assant¡¯s ribs.


    ¡°Oh, so humans can be this horrified too¡­¡± Nailisi¡¯s gaze looked a little confused, and she felt really good. All those tales about humans were so terrifying. Being locked up in the goddess¡¯ temple for tens of thousands of years, Nailisi had heard devils cursing, worshipping, and envying humans.


    The assant¡¯s chest felt a little numb. Under the influence of Nailisi¡¯s demonic skill, the assant would not feel any pain. He was just scared, very scared. As he held onto his de in one hand, the phantom on the de was still fluctuating, and a fresh drop of blood fell towards the snowy ground.


    ¡°Have¡­ mercy, on me¡­¡± The assant could barely say a sentence. He entirely did not feel that his heart had alreadye into contact with the frigid air. A man who believed in god and was a hitman from the inquisition was actually begging for mercy from a demon.


    ¡°Okay, I will spare you.¡± Nailisi leaned forward and held the beating heart in her hand as she tried to experience her own skill. The heart of a human is actually so fragile, but why isn¡¯t Master like this?


    A sense of relief and happiness appeared on the assant¡¯s face. He loosened his hand, causing the de to fall to the ground. Nailisi¡¯s tail wrapped around the assant before hurling him towards a huge tree. The assant did not die. He could still live for another thirty minutes. Nailisi then waved at Conan and said, ¡°Watch him.¡±


    Conan simply nodded blindly. He was fearful of Nailisi, so he did not know what to say.


    Nailisi retracted her tail and stealthily walked out of the forest. Saleen was fighting with the Holy See¡¯s ck bishop, and Nailisi felt that Saleen had been injured. However, this injury was not transmitted to her, so Saleen must have still been alive.


    Nailisi had too much faith in Saleen, as she did not know what the ck bishop represented. Having jurisdiction over arge diocese, the lives of over one hundred thousand believers were in the hands of a ck bishop. A person like that would have very powerful and longsting holy power. Furthermore, when someone reached the grade of a ck bishop, their god would typically award some divine power to them in order to allow the holy master to make huge progression in their skills.


    Saleen was in the middle of a tough fight. The ck bishop might not have engaged in a fistfight for a long time already, but he was still very agile. After that kick by Saleen, the two of them began brawling. The ck bishop managed to rain blows onto Saleen¡¯s body.


    Saleen tolerated the pain and did not retreat. Instead, with his fists pointed to the bishop, Saleen punched the bishop in a frantic manner.


    At this moment, Saleen¡¯s magic could not be converged while the bishop¡¯s divinity could be deployed. These two people, who were usually of a high status in the society, were now reduced to two ruffians.


    Thum, thum, thum¡­


    From afar, footsteps could be heard. These footsteps could not have been produced by a single person. Having been in the army with Lex for quite a long time, Saleen knew that such a tremble could only be produced by a group which had more than two hundred soldiers. Furthermore, the strength of these people was different from the earlier batch. At least half of them were already beginner swordmasters.


    The ck bishop¡¯s subordinates were here! The ck bishop¡¯s subordinates could not fly, so they had arrivedte. However, at this point in time, Saleen did not have the ability to release any magic. Even if there was only one swordsman now, Saleen would still be killed, not to mention there being one hundred swordmasters and one hundred swordsmen.


    Oh no, Saleen was not able to kill the ck bishop now, and furthermore, the bishop¡¯s subordinates had made their way here. Saleen could not kill all of them in a single swoop. The ck bishop would definitely transmit the issue of Saleen¡¯s divinity to Glorious City.


    If the ck bishop escaped, Saleen would have to deal with endless waves of attacks by the Holy See in the future.


    The Lord of Glory had a renowned saying ¨C other than myself, there are no other gods. In the eyes of the Holy See, the Myers Maind belonged to the Lord of Glory. If not for the Holy See only being able to control the Tanggsi Empire due to the Myers Maind not being unified, the maind¡¯s name would have long since been changed to the Glorious Maind already.


    Such a Holy See surely had no room for heretics.


    Just as Saleen despaired, the green water flow which encircled his body suddenly regained its vitality. Saleen managed to pick this up. Even though his mental power was in extreme chaos and he could not cast any spells, this water flow existed independently. Even if Saleen could not control the water flow, the water flow would also retaliate autonomously as long as he came under attack.


    What about Nailisi? A glimmer of hope appeared in Saleen¡¯s mind. If Nailisi had won her battle, she could help him kill the ck bishop. With the two fully constructed puppets and the water flow, Saleen would be able to exploit the terrain of the forest to trap those oing enemies. As long as Saleen held out until the mages from Sregl Ind arrived, he would be unharmed. No matter what, the ck bishop could not escape. Otherwise, Saleen would no longer live in peace henceforth.

 Chapter 302: Worried (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 302: Worried (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The holy text on the ck bishop¡¯s robe began vibrating vigorously, and in a few seconds, it had expanded, thus hurling Saleen away.


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Saleen heaved a sigh. His mental power was no longer in so much chaos and his magic chords could be deployed now. Immediately, an ice te armor and water shield condensed onto the surface of his body.


    This was the double magic shield, a skill which Saleen had cultivated after a great deal of effort. Very few mages did something like this because magic could regenerate on its own. In the case of some magic shields, they would not bepletely destroyed so long as the magic chords were not fully depleted yet.


    Saleen¡¯s sense of danger was very acute. Thus, he was obsessed with magic shields. When he was still a grade-3 mage, he had already been trying tobine these two magic shields together.


    Saleen rolled on the ground and crashed into arge tree. The ice te armor disyed its effect this time by protecting Saleen. The ice te armor had absorbed all of the impact from that impactful crash, so Saleen was not hurt at all.


    The ck bishop got onto his feet, bruises all over his face. Those bruises had been caused by Saleen¡¯s punches. After regaining the ability to cast divine spells, the first spell he cast was on himself, to repair all the injuries on his face. The ck bishop had also heard his subordinates drawing close, and even though those footsteps were still a long distance away, he was afraid of letting his subordinates see his destitute appearance.


    The sense of hierarchy within the inquisition was extremely strict. If the ck bishop presented himself to his subordinates looking like this, his subordinates would begin to despise him.


    At this point in time, Nailisi had arrived at the edge of the forest, and she saw this scene. She had also realized that the swordsmen from the inquisition were fast approaching. At best, they were only two miles away. Those footsteps were a skill in themselves, as they would strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. Such fear was useless against Nailisi. She had even withstood the intimidation from a dragon, not to mention a bunch of swordsmen.


    Even so, Nailisi was no longer the person who had just been rescued from the goddess¡¯ temple by Saleen. She knew that if these two hundred weak humans teamed up, they would still be able to release an immense amount of power.


    Those swordsmen from Sregl Ind were also like this. If they were separated, Nailisi was confident she could kill one of them within a second. However, if there were more than ten of them, she would have to take ten times as long in order to secure victory. And, if there were at least one hundred swordsmen, Nailisi would have to rely on equipment such as the fully constructed puppets to gain an advantage.


    Furthermore, the aforementioned situation would only be possible if the actions of the swordsmen were not coordinated. If Nailisi fought with the swordsmen who worked under Lex, their offensive ability would be ten times more than that of an untrained swordsman.


    Nailisi¡¯s tail might have been imprable by a de, but her body could still be injured by premium weapons. If the weapon was an alchemical one, she would not even dare to put up head-on resistance.


    Kill this old man in the ck robe!


    Saleen did not call out to Nailisi, but this thought had already appeared in Nailisi¡¯s mind. This chemistry with Saleen was bing increasingly stronger, and the uracy of the mental message was very high as well.


    Before the enemies arrive, the ck bishop must be killed!


    There were no other thoughts in Saleen¡¯s mind. He cast the Quickcloud spell once more and charged towards the ck bishop. If he did not kill the ck bishop now, he would die at his hands one day.


    The icicle, ice arrow, and ice de were levitating within the cloud. Once the cloud enveloped the ck bishop, Saleen would then instantaneously detonate them with extreme lethality. This time around, Saleen did not use any other transformed spells. The freezing type attacks by water magic only consisted of one element, and they had the speed of the wind element and the power of the earth element.


    When Saleen had just acquired his magic chords, he had already been able to use the level-1 Icicle spell to prate a rock. Now that his Icicle spell had been transformed, this spell depleted his magic chords like level-2 magic, but its offensive power was already that of level-3 magic.


    Divine light which protected the human body had the highest resistance towards fire type attacks, and had the lowest resistance towards earth type magic. However, freezing type magic possessed the strength of earth type magic. Thus, Saleen had already seized the crux of the battle. If he wasted his magic chords on a spell like Poisonous Fog, the divine light would be able to negate it naturally.


    Saleen did not have muchbat experience, but he was gifted inbat. During life-and-death situations, he would always manage to find a solution.


    The ck bishop detected danger, and this danger did not originate from Saleen. It came from the forest behind him. There was a person who was approaching slowly. That woman? A negative notion appeared in the bishop¡¯s mind. My two subordinates have gone through countless battles and wield unique alchemical weapons. Could they still have failed to deal with that woman? This woman has not cultivated any sword aura so she should be simr to that barbarian who fought solely with his physical strength, but my two grand swordmasters have failed to capture her?


    I cannot get into a head-on fight! Anyway, reinforcements are on the way. Once my swordsmen arrive, these two people and the barbarian will easily be captured. When the ck bishop thought of this, he immediately flew up into the air.


    Saleen¡¯s speed was inadequate. Even if he followed suit, he would not be able to catch up to the ck bishop. Saleen grew anxious, then he raised his head to the sky and shouted, ¡°You are going to retreat in the face of the heretic who killed your son? I am doubting your religion! Why don¡¯t you just believe in another god?¡±


    For a believer, it was still possible that they would still forgive a person even if this person had killed their entire family. However, if one went so far as to insult their religion, the believer would definitely retaliate with their life. Saleen¡¯s words caused the ck bishop to explode in fury. He could not maintain hisposure andnded back on the ground.


    ¡°Heretic, you will pay the price!¡± The ck bishop¡¯s voice had be more upset and sharp. He took out a three-meter-long scepter and held it in his hand. Then, fifty meters away from Saleen, the ck bishop began saying a prayer.


    ¡°God says, there is judgment wherever there is darkness.¡±


    It was a sinct and short prayer once again. As far as Saleen knew, the ck bishop¡¯s divine spells were high-level skills which could be cast in the shortest amount of time. The average divine spells were mostly simr to magic, and there was no need to chant any prayers unless the holy master was at a very low grade. At the ck bishop¡¯s grade, he would only need to chant prayers for divine spells which were at least at level-6. For spells which required a prayer, their offensive abilities were close to that of magic already.


    Saleen could not possibly release a series of level-6 spells. Naturally, he would not be able to receive level-6 divine spells either.


    The cloud released by the Quickcloud spell expanded once again, and Saleen opened a level-5 magic scroll ¨C Prism Refraction. This spell was a confusion spell, and it would cause double the confusion. Not only would this spell produce three phantoms, but it would also make the three phantoms extremely real, such that one¡¯s perception would not even be able to differentiate between reality and the illusions.


    This spell had a w though. The mage would expose himself if he moved after casting the spell.


    However, Saleen did not n to move either way. Since the ck bishop had been provoked, the ck bishop would naturally charge towards him. These two people might have held a huge difference in their grades, but the distance between them was small. Since the holy master¡¯s divine spells could hurt Saleen, Saleen would also be in range to counterattack.


    After the ck bishop finished chanting his prayer, the scepter in his hand began to transform gradually. The dark yellow wood of the scepter became increasingly dark as divine light flowed throughout the scepter, the holy text glinting. This three-meter-long scepter gradually transformed into a gigantic sickle.


    The de of this sickle was two meters long and ck in color. Whimpers could be heard as the sickle was swung about.


    Hell¡¯s Trial!


    The ck bishop had been so agitated by Saleen that he had cast a spell which could only be cast once every month. The ck bishop might have chased after fame and fortune, but he was still a fanatic believer at the end of the day. After Saleen had questioned the ck bishop¡¯s religion right in front of him and had also insulted him using his dead son, the ck bishop seemed to have lost some of his rationality.


    As the sickle was swiped downwards, Saleen realized that the three illusions he had made were all within the range of the attack. Even though it might have been hard to ovee the prism refraction, a single attack by the ck bishop could already deal with four targets at once. The ck shadow produced by that massive sickle had engulfed everything within Saleen¡¯s cloud. As the magical prism was shed by the shadow of the sickle, all three illusions disappeared. Furthermore, when Saleen¡¯s water shield was hit by the sickle, it simply evaporated with a hiss.


    In that instant, a huge crack appeared in the ice te armor, and Saleen¡¯s magic chords began repairing the ice te armor. If the sickle¡¯s attack had not been illusory but had been an actual strike, the ice te armor might have just exploded in that instant.


    Saleen¡¯s water shield was produced again, and he opened a defensive scroll out of desperation. Various types of defensive spells appeared within the perimeter of the cloud. The ck shadow formed by hell¡¯s trial seemed like lightning strikes on a rainy day. Strike after strike rained down with no pauses in between.


    As Nailisi came from the depths of the forest to the edge, she immediately witnessed this scene.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi hollered. With the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger in hand, she charged towards the ck bishop.


    Saleen¡¯s life was hanging by a thin thread. The speed at which he opened the magic scrolls was slower than that of the ck bishop¡¯s attacks. Furthermore, his scrolls were not limitless and they were mostly attack scrolls. Saleen rarely brought along defensive magic scrolls, as he had ced too much faith in his water shield.


    The transformed water shield¡¯s defensive power was close to that of the ice te armor, and its depletion was only that of level-3 magic. Such a spell could be considered the strongest transformed spell among all mages.


    This was because level-3 and level-4 magic were only different in terms of their nature. Furthermore, the ice te armor wasbeled the strongest mid-level defense spell, as a mage could utilize this spell from grade-4 to grade-6. Saleen¡¯s water shield was nearly as tough as the ice te armor, and furthermore, he had invented this transformed skill himself. Hence, from this point alone, Saleen could already be considered a partial genius.


    The ck bishop stared coldly at Nailisi, who was lunging at him. This woman¡¯s fingernails are still dipped in fresh blood. My subordinates must have been killed already.


    Hell¡¯s trial could only be cast once a month, but the duration itsted was fairly long. If used in consecutive attacks, it couldst for at least an hour. Seeing that Nailisi wasing at him, the ck bishop could not be concerned with only attacking Saleen. He was a little frightened seeing a warrioring so close to him. The ck bishop could fly into the air, but he would need to stabilize himself before casting a divine spell. In this way, a holy master was the same as a mage.


    If he chanted a prayer while on the move, it would be disrespectful to his god.


    ¡°Then, you shall die first!¡± The ck bishop seemed to have forgotten that he wanted Nailisi to bear another son for him as he pointed the scepter at Nailisi. That ck shadow, which was several meters long, then changed its direction of attack and went to strike Nailisi.


    Nailisi did not alter her route. In fact, no matter how fast she travelled, she would not be as quick as that ck shadow. Nailisi raised her hand to use the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger to block the attack. With a ng, the illusory ck shadow seemed to be tangible as it shed onto Nailisi¡¯s dagger. At the same time, cracks appeared on the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger.

 Chapter 303: Worried (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 303: Worried (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The dragon¡¯s tooth was one of the toughest materials around, as it possessed some natural toughness. A dagger made from a dragon¡¯s tooth was much more durable than a dagger made from metal. Under the attacks from hell¡¯s trial, the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger could only hold out for less than three seconds before cracks spread throughout it like a spider web.


    Seeing that Nailisi had used her dagger to block hell¡¯s trial, the ck bishop sneered, ¡°Hmph, such arrogance.¡±


    Even if a divine weapon was used to block the shadow by hell¡¯s trial, it would also be broken. Nailisi¡¯s dragon¡¯s tooth dagger was only a high-grade alchemical weapon. It had been able to endure it for almost three seconds solely because of the toughness of the material. Had the dagger been crafted from normal materials, Nailisi would have been chopped into two by now.


    However, in this three second window, Nailisi had already escaped to a position about twenty meters away from the ck bishop. She threw the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger, which was filled with cracks, at the ck bishop, before charging forward at full speed.


    The dragon¡¯s tooth dagger produced whimpers at it sped forward, then disintegrated while at the halfway point of its trajectory. Lex had put a lot of effort into this dagger, and it had endured twenty hits in total. The dragon¡¯s tooth was tougher than a dragon¡¯s scales. If hell¡¯s trial had been hacked away at the body of a dragon, the dragon would also have bled profusely.


    Woo woo¡­


    After the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger disintegrated, a ray of ck light continued charging towards the ck bishop. That was the soul of an alchemical weapon, also known as the weapon¡¯s spirit. As the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger had been in Nailisi¡¯s possession for too short of a duration, the weapon¡¯s spirit did not contain much offensive power either.


    The ck bishop had a wealth ofbat experience. He knew that the weapon¡¯s spirit was only a pretense, and the real offensive ability came from that woman. This woman had definitely not relied solely on a dagger to kill the two grand swordmasters.


    A golden piece of holy prose flew out, crashing into the weapon¡¯s spirit. A whimper was given out, and then the weapon¡¯s spirit disappeared into thin air. The ck bishop was a little dumbfounded when he noticed that there was a scroll in the woman¡¯s hands.


    This woman, who isn¡¯t a mage, is actually going to use a scroll?


    Normal human beings who had been magic disciples in the past were indeed able to open level-1 scrolls. To a holy master like the ck bishop, a level-1 scroll would do no harm to him. Furthermore, if the scrolls were opened slowly¡­


    Nailisi did not stop. She was not a mage and did not have any magic chords. Nailisi did not care about a mage¡¯s taboos either. So what if there was elemental disorder? Her ability to open scrolls came from the contract. Furthermore, she did not depend on scrolls for a living. She wanted to throw the elements into disorder in order to stop the ck bishop¡¯s offensive.


    Bam, bi bam!


    A massive phoenix appeared in the air. While Nailisi was sprinting forward, she opened a level-5 scroll. By nature, the fire elements were already abnormally explosive, and under this extremely vtile state, the elemental power stored within the scroll became uncontroble. All of a sudden, this phoenix grew bigger, absorbing all the avable fire elements from the surrounding air in that instant.


    Nailisiid on the ground stiffly. That phoenix then turned into a fire dragon which was dozens of meters in length. This fire dragon was no longer targeting the ck bishop. It simply traveled in circles, and its scales could clearly be seen.


    Boom!


    The fire dragon stopped growing bigger, then exploded due to all that elemental disorder. The ck bishop had quick reflexes. With a swipe of that sickle in his hand, a ck screen was formed, blocking all of the impact from the explosion of the fire dragon.


    However, the explosion was not targeted at anyone in particr. It was simply caused by the unstable elemental power in the air. This bout of elemental disorder had caused the ck bishop¡¯s divine spell to lose its power.


    A divine spell was given by the gods. However, when most divine spells were cast, they needed some cooperation from the elements as well. Fundamentally, divine spells were also magic, but they were simply reserved solely for the gods.


    If a god had cast that divine spell, he would have been able to directly draw power from his religion. However, the ck bishop was not a god, and he could not use the power of a religion. He could only rely on that tiny bit of power given by his god to stimte elemental power and hence cast a so-called divine spell.


    This was not anything bizarre. One thousand years ago, when the maind had still been going through tumultuous times, elemental disorder had been created during a battle between some mages and holy masters. The elemental disorder caused the mages to lose their lives while the holy masters lost the power of their divine spells. Consequently, the holy masters were hacked to death by the warriors.


    Elemental disorder brought about great damage to a mage. Since Nailisi did not possess magic chords, her mental state was only slightly affected. Then, she sprang up from the ground once more before lunging at the ck bishop.


    At this moment, Saleen was unable to cast spells anymore. If any spells were to be cast within this area, the consequence would the destruction of his magic chords.


    Nailisi had cast a level-5 magic scroll. Within a radius of one hundred meters, all the divine spells, magic, and sword auras had been greatly affected. The only thing unaffected was Nailisi¡¯s physical strength.


    Saleen was overjoyed. This technique which Nailisi had just executed was extremely powerful. Even though it restricted his own power, Nailisi¡¯s power was unlimited. Even if a silver grand swordmaster had been present at this moment, their strength would have only been that of a high grade swordmaster.


    Any attack which left a person¡¯s body would be torn to shreds in that elemental disorder. Saleen removed his magic shield before hastily retreating.


    Within that elemental disorder, the ck screen barrier between Nailisi and the ck bishop vibrated a few times before dispersing. Nailisi lowered her head and charged forward. Then, she saw the ck bishop sneering as his sickle came crashing down on her.


    Nailisi realized that she would not be able to dodge this attack, as this ck sickle was directly in her line of attack. This sickle, which was transformed from a scepter, was at least a partial divine weapon!


    The resilient attributes of a partial divine weapon allowed it to maintain its shape and offensive ability even under elemental disorder. Even though it could not create the illusion of the ck shadow, Nailisi would also be unable to dodge this blow.


    Nailisi had never felt so close to death before, and her green pupils contracted urgently. All of a sudden, that bracelet on her wrist which Aini had sold to Saleen exploded with an intense light, and a colossal mirror appeared in between the ck bishop and herself.


    With a crack, all the magic nuclei on the bracelet were broken. In that state of elemental disorder, Nailisi had actually stimted the level-8 spell in her bracelet ¨C Water Mirror Guardian.


    In this gigantic water mirror, a ck sickle was simted, before shing the ck bishop.


    Nailisi and the ck bishop were too close to each other. At such a distance, any kind of attack would be able to reach terminal velocity before it hit the target. The shape of the bishop¡¯s red pupils were also fluctuating violently, and they looked like they were going to go up in mes.


    This woman! Why? Why is she able to cast a level-8 spell?


    The ck bishop¡¯s sickle and the sickle reflected in the mirror crashed into each other forcefully. With a thud, the sickles broke.


    The ck bishop¡¯s face went pale. Even though a partial divine weapon was not as tough as a divine weapon, it was still very difficult to break. His scepter was now broken, and he would need to expend a huge amount of materials in order to repair it. Even if he possessed the materials, he would still need help from the second judge of the inquisition. Furthermore, the elemental disorder was still present, and that woman¡­


    The ck bishop was extremely horrified of being close to Nailisi. He very much wanted to escape from the woman who could kill two grand swordmasters and open magic scrolls.


    Nailisi was actually in really bad shape. She had no problems casting scrolls, but the problem was, she had stimted the Water Mirror Guardian on her bracelet by force. That was a level-8 spell. At this moment, Saleen was a grade-4 mage, so Nailisi¡¯s power was insufficient for stimting this spell. She had relied on her demon¡¯s blood to stimte it, and at the same time, it caused her head to feel like it had been struck by a giant axe.


    My head is going to crack open¡­


    Nailisi¡¯s mind was filled with this thought alone. With a twist of her body, she fell straight to the ground.


    Nailisi¡¯s face was nted in the snow, and she could not even think properly. Her only thought was, It would be great if Sika was here. That beast-like woman would be able to unleash her greatest strength in such a situation.


    The ck bishop had retreated for over thirty meters before Nailisi copsed onto the ground. Witnessing that, he was extremely regretful. This woman has exhausted all her strength! Unfortunately, he no longer had the partial divine weapon with him. The elemental disorder was still present, and given his own power, he would not be able to disperse this effect. He would need to be at least a grade-8 professional in order to do that.


    The footsteps afar were growing nearer and nearer. The ck bishop decided to retreat even further in order to get out of the area which was under the effect of the elemental disorder. He simply needed to wait until his two hundred subordinates got here. That mage and the woman had lost all ability to resist, and the ck bishop would not need to take this unnecessary risk.


    As the ck bishop made his retreat, Saleen charged forward towards Nailisi. Nailisi had copsed onto the ground, and she looked like she was in great pain. Suddenly, Saleen felt a pain in his heart.


    Nailisi is desperately fighting for her life!


    Saleen had all along been wary of Nailisi, afraid that she would create trouble which could not be resolved. However, Nailisi had never changed her character and had continued wreaking havoc. Even so, whenever Saleen met with danger, she would never run away.


    Even though Saleen had lost his magic abilities, he managed toe beside Nailisi even faster than when he was blessed with the Windspeed spell. Saleen lifted Nailisi within that cloud and took out a small bottle, pouring the magic liquid down her throat.


    ¡°Master, this time, I am going to die.¡± Nailisi¡¯s eyes were white, and after consuming the magic liquid, her body became shockingly hot.


    ¡°No, Nailisi, you must hang in there, I¡­¡± Then Saleen paused. What could he do? The severity of Nailisi¡¯s injuries was unknown. To get the best treatment, perhaps a high grade holy master was needed. But would a holy master help him and Nailisi?


    ¡°Master, I cannot protect you anymore. You, must persevere¡­¡± When Nailisi finished talking, her green pupils began spreading outwards. Her eyes were now filled with a green hue throughout.


    Saleen felt that there were violent throbs in the depths of his soul, as though something had disappeared, as it was being snatched away from him forcefully. Was Nailisi really going to die?


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen hugged Nailisi, with his eyes wide open as tears fell continuously. Those tears bounced and then sshed open when they struck Nailisi¡¯s face. Saleen¡¯s heart turned cold when he realized that Nailisi¡¯s heart had stopped beating.


    He looked up and stared at the ck bishop who was standing in the distance. The ck bishop was also staring back at him, his red pupils looking stranger than ever.


    ¡°Holy See, why can¡¯t you let me live in peace? It¡¯s always you!¡± Saleen grit his teeth and shouted at the ck bishop, his words full of bitterness. Saleen no longer cared about the mental state a mage should have. His parents¡¯ graves had been destroyed under the Holy See¡¯s instructions, and now this person had used a divine spell to kill Nailisi!


    ¡°That is god¡¯s will.¡± The ethereal and high-pitched voice of the ck bishop came from afar.


    A bundle of three-dimensional magic patterns appeared in Saleen¡¯s blue eyes, spinning about furiously. He had actually broken through the limits of grade-4 and entered the realm of grade-5 at this point in time.

 Chapter 304: Allowing the Enemy to Escape (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 304: Allowing the Enemy to Escape (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Am I dying too? Saleen felt that breakthrough in his abilities, and it even affected his surroundings. The elemental disorder was toning down while Saleen¡¯s magic chords grew rapidly. At the same time, he felt that something had entered his brain, and with a boom, he fainted.


    The ck bishop observed Saleen from afar, but did not go near Saleen. The vigorous elemental vibrations on Saleen¡¯s body struck fear in him. The ck bishop found Saleen quite terrifying. Having been in the inquisition for so many years, the ck bishop had witnessed his fair share of strange urrences, but Saleen still astounded him very much.


    The magic of a grade-4 mage had posed a threat to a grade-7 professional. If not for the partial divine weapon that had been in his hand, that mage and his female warrior would have injured him. Seeing that Saleen had fainted, the ck bishop retreated even farther.


    Who knows if this isn¡¯t an ambush? Those elemental vibrations from the mage have even stabilized the elemental disorder. There must be something wrong! If his subordinates were not here, the ck bishop would have definitely taken the risk to try and kill Saleen. However, the oing footsteps could already be heard clearly. A grand total of two hundred and forty swordsmen were going to arrive anytime now.


    The ck bishop would not want to take any more risks now that he was going to have so many people under hismand. His early arrival had resulted in the deaths of two bronze grand swordmasters and damage to the partial divine weapon. The ck bishop did not want any more idents to happen.


    As the elemental disorder stabilized, the water flow which encircled Saleen rose up and moved about gently, just like a snake. If someone tried to attack Saleen at this point in time, the water flow would retaliate autonomously.


    Bam, bam!


    Saleen could feel that his mental power had evolved and was now existing independently from his physical body. Was this his soul? However, Saleen¡¯s soul was definitely not made of up of his mental power. This was a condition which would asionally ur in a grade-7 mage ¨C mental dissimtion.


    Dissimted minds did not have simr attributes. There were thousands of variations in their details. However, there was amon feature, that dissimtion would cause the mage¡¯s mental power to grow by several times.


    Saleen felt that he had entered the goddess¡¯ ne, as though his mental power was travelling through the twenty-four segments of the ne. With every space his mental power passed through, one magic symbol would be imprinted upon it. Saleen¡¯s mental power was bing increasingly solidified. In the end, his mental power had transformed into a clot of blue liquid which was the size of a human adult.


    This clot of liquid was continuously transformed by the magic symbols within the goddess¡¯ ne, and then it underwent a strange transformation once more.


    This blue liquid had solidified into Saleen¡¯s own appearance. It looked exactly like Saleen.


    Soul incarnation? This skill could not be learned. It was an ability that would only ur asionally when one advanced to the next grade. Saleen had not expected his advancement to have the appearance of such a skill. However, he was not jumping for joy. Nailisi might have already been dead. There was nothing which could make him happy.


    So what if the ck bishop was killed? Some things, when lost, could never be retrieved ever again.


    In Saleen¡¯s eyes, a bundle of three-dimensional magic patterns were growing within his blue pupils. These magic patterns hade so suddenly, and Saleen did not even know why. If he could observe the magic patterns in his eyes right now, he would realize that the structure of these magic patterns were identical to that of his n badge. It was just that the size was proportionately much smaller.


    It was an extremely rare event for magic patterns to appear on a mage¡¯s body. However, some mages would use dragon¡¯s blood medicine to draw magic patterns on themselves, as it could bring about special effects as well. Saleen¡¯s magic patterns had grown in his pupils, and that was an event which had never been mentioned in any magic book before. Furthermore, he himself did not even know why something like this would happen.


    As the magic symbols were assimted into the soul incarnation, the goddess¡¯ ne became empty. In the future, Saleen would no longer need to enter the ne in order to learn those magic forme. This meant that he would be able to calcte the implications of a certain spell under normal conditions, spending the same amount of time as when he was inside the ne.


    For example, the Figaro Form could be used to dissect a spell in order to discover its weakness. At this moment, Saleen could do the same thing as Lex¡¯s teacher. He could now dissect a spell which was at the same level or a lower level than his own grade. In the past, Saleen and Lex had practiced such an ability for a long time, but they had only managed to do it to a few low level spells in the end.


    Prior to this event, the spells which Saleen could dissect had all been lower than level-3, and the quantity was less than ten. Now that his mental power had transformed into a soul incarnation, Saleen would be able to dissect most spells under level-5 as long as he continued practicing.


    If Saleen possessed such an ability, his offensive power would be increased by arge magnitude, because the dissection of a spell would consume less magic chords than the usage of a magic shield. How long a mage could battle was decided by the amount of their magic chords. If they used more defense spells, then they would have less magic chords for offensive spells. This was a fact which could not be altered.


    However, Saleen was devoid of happiness at the moment. Once all of the magic symbols from the goddess¡¯ ne had assimted into the soul incarnation, Saleen made the soul incarnation enter Nailisi¡¯s body.


    Saleen felt a kind of attractive force which sucked the soul incarnation into a space. This space was surrounded by green barriers, as though it were a gigantic green crystal box. Saleen saw Nailisiying in that space. Outside this space, a gigantic ck sickle was hacking her, as though it were destroying this space and trying to tear her into shreds.


    On the barriers inside this green space, there were fine magic patterns. This time around, Saleen understood these patterns. These patterns represented the soul contract between Nailisi and himself. If the sickle managed to destroy the space, it would mean that the connection between Saleen and Nailisi would be detachedpletely. If the sickle managed to chop Nailisi into shreds, then Nailisi would really die.


    All of a sudden, Saleen became very excited. Nailisi had not died yet. Was this her soul? A demon¡¯s soul typically resembled a demon. However, within this space, Nailisi had the appearance of a human.


    Saleen did not delve into this matter. Since Nailisi had not died, he was more energetic now. Instinctively, Saleen walked towards that massive ck sickle. Two rays of light shot out from his eyes. They were blue in color, and they looked extremely transparent. Shining onto the green barriers, the blue light projected two phantoms which were intertwined with one another.


    As those two phantoms ovepped one another, a burst of blue electric current suddenly appeared. As the ck sickle was being sent downwards, it struck the electric current instead.


    Zi¡­


    The ck sickle then shrunk to half its original size, and looked like it was retreating. Saleen still did not know how to control the electric current. However, the two phantoms projected from his eyes were currently expanding. A burst of blue electric current emerged before charging towards the sickle and lunging at it.


    The speed of the electric currents surpassed that of all the other attacks. Before Saleen could react, dozens of electric currents had already beenunched. If he had not been in this strange space, Saleen would never have the power to sustain such an attack. Furthermore, that sickle was only the phantom of the partial divine weapon, so it was rtively weakpared to the original. Dozens of electric currents lined up before striking the ck sickle. Eventually, the ck sickle disappeared.


    The blue light in Saleen¡¯s eyes died down slowly, while the phantom images of the magic patterns on the green barriers disappeared.


    Nailisi¡¯s body twitched, and Saleen was overwhelmed with joy. Out of the blue, the soul incarnation had crashed through the barriers in that green space, and Saleen had returned to his physical body. Those barriers were extremely sturdy. If it was not for those magic patterns from the soul contract, Saleen would not have been able to enter and exit so freely.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen woke up and stood upright. Then, he saw a dense formation of swordsmen behind the ck bishop. These swordsmen were d in ck cotton armor, but they wielded uniformly colored cavalry swords.


    Such cavalry swords were fairly heavy, and if the user was not skilled, they would not be able to use it.


    Nailisi twisted her body, opened her eyes, and said, ¡°Master, I did not die?¡±


    ¡°Mm, you did not die.¡±


    ¡°Were you crying just now?¡±


    ¡°I did not cry.¡±


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Stop talking. Think of a way to escape right now.¡± Saleen pointed to the ck bishop and his swordsmen in the far distance in front of them.


    ¡°Why should we escape? Isn¡¯t Banchajanna here already?¡± Nailisi pointed to the sky, and a colossal ck shadow had appeared in the sky above the forest. This shadow had a bone tail which was dozens of meters long, three pairs of arms, and six different weapons.


    There a lingering fear in Saleen¡¯s heart. He knew that when the six weapons were knocked against each other, a horrifying attack would be released. At this moment, Saleen still did not know how to defend himself against such an attack.


    Noticing that Saleen did not look too good, Nailisi said, ¡°Master, when Banchajanna does that attackter on, I will knock you unconscious and then I will carry you. That old man in the ck clothes will not be able to catch up to me even if he flies in the air.¡±


    Saleen agreed very ufortably. He knew that if Banchajanna targeted that attack at him, he would not be able to faint even if he wanted to.


    Up in the sky, Banchajanna was surveying the situation on the ground. That group of humans, more than two hundred of them who looked like ants, were confronting Saleen. Saleen was fairly skilled. He had actually been able to hold out until Banchajanna arrived! Daniel was seated on the back of Banchajanna. When he saw that Saleen was alive, he had a bout of odd feelings. Daniel was a little disappointed, yet a little d at the same time.


    Because of Saleen¡¯s affairs, Daniel was at odds with the three spirit kings. Even if Saleen had really died, Daniel would not have felt any burden in his heart. Since Saleen was not dead, Daniel would have to fulfill his follower¡¯s contract. Of course, this was not a bad thing either. At least Saleen would provide the magic nuclei that he needed for training in the future.


    Daniel rxed. He tapped on Banchajanna¡¯s body, and while in the sky, he bellowed, ¡°Honorable King, go and kill those ants. Crush them!¡±


    Banchajanna was very unwilling, but in front of a bunch of believers, he needed to pretend that he was Daniel¡¯s contract creature. Hence, Banchajanna hollered in response.


    ¡°I will obey yourmand, Mage.¡±


    Banchajanna was now flying directly above the forest, and his voice boomed at least ten miles into the distance. On the ground below, the ck bishop and his swordsmen were dumbfounded, as though they had been cast with a Fossilization spell.


    Their enemy had reinforcements. Furthermore, the reinforcement was a death mage. What was worse was that this death mage had summoned a very powerful creature. This creature was so powerful that none of the swordsmen wanted to go against it.


    Banchajanna opened his mouth and spit out a cloud of grey fog. This grey fog fell directly into the group of swordsmen. Everything in the fog¡¯s path became grey in color before decaying. Those swordsmen who came into contact with that grey fog simply died. There was no noise at all, as though that grey fog had stopped time.


    ¡°Banchajanna, kill that man!¡± Saleen pointed at the ck bishop. Banchajanna nced at Saleen, as though he did not hear him. Then, he spit out another ball of grey fog, directing it at the swordsmen.

 Chapter 305: Allowing the Enemy to Escape (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 305: Allowing the Enemy to Escape (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As long as Banchajanna was willing to knock his six weapons together, he would be able to kill the many swordsmen on the ground below. The absolute power suppression by the six powers from the death dimension would cause even the ck bishop to be injured. However, Banchajanna had only used a standard high-level death spell, the Nothingness me, to incinerate the swordsmen.


    While seated on Banchajanna¡¯s back, Daniel heard Saleen¡¯s cries. He pondered for a moment, and realized that he should not let the leader of those swordsmen escape. Thus hemanded, ¡°Banchajanna, go and kill that man in the ck robe!¡±


    Banchajanna replied coldly, ¡°Go and do it yourself.¡±


    Daniel fumed. If he had been able to kill that holy master in the ck robe, then he would not have needed to put up with the three kings. Usually, Daniel was tolerant. However, at this point in time, Daniel exploded with rage and said, ¡°Fine, I will go.¡±


    After finishing his sentence, Daniel jumped off of Banchajanna¡¯s back and charged towards the ck bishop.


    Banchajanna, on the other hand, was feeling depressed. That old man in the ck robe had a god¡¯s imprint on his body, which was different from all the other lowly swordsmen. If Banchajanna killed him, there would be endless trouble in the future. To Banchajanna, the Holy See was not really a threat. The real threat was the god behind the Holy See.


    He could kill those unimportant people. In the event that more enemies arrived, he would simply escape back to the death dimension with his two brothers. The god would definitely not traverse the nes to avenge the deaths of those lowly swordsmen.


    However, this old man in a ck robe had a god¡¯s imprint, which meant that he was acknowledged by his god as a true believer. If one wanted to kill this old man, he would have to remove the god¡¯s imprint at the same time so as to avoid being tracked down by the god. Now that Banchajanna was on the human ne, his abilities were reduced by one grade, so there was no way he could remove the god¡¯s imprint.


    Furthermore, Banchajanna was not Saleen¡¯s subordinate. He would not care about Saleen¡¯s future. Banchajanna just wanted muddle along life right now. It would be best if he could find some traces of Shann, but if he could not, he would also not want to go against a god over a human.


    This was not tens of thousands of years ago when humans had possessed the power to resist the gods. Banchajanna might not have been as intelligent as Judikaka, but he would not do such a stupid thing either.


    In order to avoid detection, Banchajanna would have to pretend to be Daniel¡¯s summoned creature. But if Daniel died, where could he go to look for a second death mage? As a result, Daniel had only just jumped off of Banchajanna¡¯s back when Banchajanna used his tail to pull Daniel back. Then, Banchajanna cast a grey shadow which caused Daniel to be stuck on his back.


    ¡°Let me down!¡± Daniel was enraged. However, his voice could not even pass through the grey shadow no matter how loud he yelled. Then, Banchajanna simply went about killing the swordsmen as though he were obeying Daniel¡¯smands.


    The ck bishop did not know about the conversation which had transpired between Daniel and Banchajanna, so he became quite terrified. His men were all the elites from the inquisition, even though they were not very high grade. However, if all of them gathered together, their sword auras would be so powerful that even a golden grand swordmaster would be injured. Even though that death creature in the sky had no wings, it could still fly. That metal-melting nothingness me had caused the ck bishop¡¯s trusted subordinates to be obliterated without any chance for resistance at all.


    The ck bishop did not know that Banchajanna had the intention of letting him escape, but he did not want to carry on fighting at this point in time either. He might have held some more tricks up his sleeve, but he could only withhold his skills for now.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± After finishing his sentence, the ck bishop took out a holy scroll from his ring and opened it.


    With a sh of white light, the ck bishop and his dozens of swordsmen disappeared into thin air. Seeing that the ck bishop had escaped, Saleen became very furious. If Banchajanna had attacked the ck bishop, he would not have been to use the scroll so easily. Now that the ck bishop had escaped, Saleen¡¯s newly constructed city would no longer have any peaceful days. Should Saleen give up such a great foundation?


    The ck bishop was also a ruthless man. His son was dead and he had abandoned his two-hundred-strong group of subordinates, escaping with only dozens of ck armor warriors. Such a loss was massive, and he had done so without any hesitation at all. Of course, it was Banchajanna¡¯s power which had left the ck bishop with no choice but to escape. If Banchajanna had concentrated all of his attacks on the ck bishop, the ck bishop could have only used his divine spell to fly, and he would not even have been able to use his holy scroll.


    Teleportation scrolls were extremely rare holy scrolls. Once such a scroll was used, the user would be transported to a rtively safer ce. The coordinates, distance, and direction could not be determined though. During the usage of this scroll, one could not be disturbed. Otherwise, their body would be torn into particles the size of an elemental atom by the power of space when the divine spell failed.


    When the remaining swordsmen saw that the ck bishop had abandoned them, they lost all their morale simultaneously. Banchajanna was flying in the air while these swordsmen did not have the ability to fly. Furthermore, this was not the Tanggsi Empire, and they did not have any weapons to deal with air assaults. Hence, these swordsmen were simply waiting to be ughtered.


    At this point in time, Banchajanna suddenly stopped his attacks. The swordsmen immediately seized this critical opportunity and fled in all directions. These swordsmen had been living in the north for many years, so they were very familiar with the terrain. Unless Banchajanna went all out to try to kill them, many of them would be able to escape to safety.


    Saleen helped Nailisi get back on her feet. Then, he looked up to stare at Banchajanna, his face as ck as thunder.


    Banchajanna had intentionally allowed the enemy to escape. He knew that Banchajanna had his own thoughts, but if such power existed in his city, it would surely be an underlying disaster. Saleen retracted that blue light which was about to beunched from his blue eyes, as he restrained the impulse to kill Banchajanna. Even though Saleen had just grasped the power of lightning, he would not be able to defeat Banchajanna either way.


    Saleen had to think of a solution to control the powers of the three spirit kings, or else his city could be destroyed at anytime without warning.


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, let¡¯s go back,¡± Saleen interrupted her. Nailisi must have been displeased with Banchajanna as well, since her mood was affected by Saleen¡¯s emotions.


    ¡°I have captured a person back in the forest.¡±


    ¡°Bring him back with us.¡±


    ¡°That fellow is on the verge of death. We might not be able to bring him back,¡± Nailisi replied. She had torn open his ribcage. Since that man¡¯s sword aura had been protecting his body, he was still not dead at the moment. Then again, how long could a person survive if their heart was exposed to the surrounding air?


    With his eyebrows furrowed, Saleen pondered. He felt that the ck bishop would not return to create trouble. At best, the ck bishop would report this matter to the Tanggsi Empire, and the Holy See would deploy more men. With that disy of power by Banchajanna back then, the ck bishop would not stay in the north anymore.


    Now that the ck bishop had escaped, Saleen would not have any more leads even if he managed to extract some information from that assant. Saleen did not bother acknowledging the presence of Banchajanna. He simply went into the depths of the forest with Nailisi. The barbarian named Conan was still atop the tree, keeping watch over that dying assant.


    ¡°You shall conduct the interrogation.¡± Saleen did not want to interrogate the assant personally. He knew that Nailisi was better at such activities.


    ¡°Master, we should let the winged skeleton do the talking,¡± Nailisi suggested. This idea was vicious. The winged skeleton was a spirit, and his interrogation abilities were not as strong. However, this assant was a believer of god, and even though he was not of a very high grade, he could still ry enough information back to the Holy See. The message would be very obvious since the assant had died at the hands of a spirit.


    When the ck bishop had been in the face of death, he had seen Banchajanna. Hence, no matter what kind of torture this assant went through, it would be on Banchajanna¡¯s tab. Nailisi¡¯s trick of framery might not have been very sophisticated, but it was already good enough.


    Banchajanna could not possibly go and dere his innocence, and even if he really did so, no one from the Holy See would believe him.


    Torturing the soul of a believer was a serious offense. The Holy See¡¯s code was not so easily tarnished. Knowing that Banchajanna wanted to stay out of this, Nailisi had intentionally done the opposite.


    ¡°Then we should capture more people.¡± After listening to Nailisi¡¯s suggestion, Saleen felt a telepathic message in his heart. He knew that this idea was extremely unscrupulous, but it was just what he required at this moment.


    ¡°Mage Saleen!¡± Waves of shouts sounded from outside the forest. The mages from Sregl Ind had finally arrived. Even though they were already rushing at full speed, they hade slightlyter than Banchajanna, who had simply taken his time.


    Saleen was overjoyed. These mages were the only ones he could rely on. Saleen really needed to recruit some real followers. A mage might have been powerful, but they would not be able to aplish much on their own. By recruiting more followers, Saleen would not have to do so many things himself.


    ¡°I am here!¡± Saleen called out to the mages to get them to enter the forest. Banchajanna did not give a hoot. He simply carried Daniel on his back and flew away, not even bothering tond. If Judikaka had been here, he might havee down to exin things to Saleen so as to repair the frayed rtions. If Diyabannersa had been here, he might have blown his top and killed all of the people from the Holy See.


    Banchajanna was a little confused. He had killed dozens of people and scared the ck bishop away. He had also caused cracks to appear in the rtionship between Saleen and himself. To have such behavior, Banchajanna could either be considered to have low intelligence, or to be a person who only thought of his own feelings.


    Saleen instructed the swordsmen and mages from Sregl Ind to pursue the fleeing Holy See¡¯s swordsmen. He even specified that some of the swordsmen needed to be captured alive. The three kings must never see these prisoners. Saleen had his own n for the prisoners.


    In some nes, there were more than one god, and the gods would try to snatch believers from one another. Whenever one party captured the believers of the other party, punishments would be meted out. When the believers were tortured, the god would be able to feel it telepathically. The swordsmen which Saleen had asked the mages to capture were not high grade believers. He did not need high grade believers anyway. These low grade believers would be the most suitable for framing Banchajanna.


    If a prisoner was a high grade believer, a detailed message would be sent back to the god before his soul was destroyed. Such low grade believers would only be able to transmit vague messages back.


    Saleen just needed to let the Holy See know that its believers were tortured by a powerful spirit.


    Saleen did not have any worries in doing something like that. Anyway, the actions by these inquisition swordsmen were infuriating. They had captured the barbarians in order to produce blood cavaliers. All these actions warranted Saleen to torture their souls.


    At this moment, Saleen was thinking of another issue as well. He was thinking of contacting Aini. ording to Aini¡¯s parents, Aini had be a death mage. Given Aini¡¯s power in the past, he would not need much time to get to grade-5. Aini possessed knowledge of spirits and a mysterious contractual spell. He would surely have a way to deal with the three kings.


    Saleen remembered that when he had been in Baron Cook¡¯s castle, Walnut¡¯s mercenary group had vited the contract. As a result, everyone within the mercenary group had fallen under Aini¡¯s control. That type of power was extremely petrifying. If a contract could be designed to make the three kings fall into a trap, then they would have no choice but to work for Saleen in the future.


    Today¡¯s incident had made Saleen realize that if one could not control their own power, then their power would be meaningless no matter how strong it was.

 Chapter 306: The Long-term Plan (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 306: The Long-term n (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Capturing the ck armor warriors from the inquisition was not a difficult task. In order to save their own lives, the warriors fled in all directions, thus their power was dispersed. As the mages and swordsmen from Sregl Ind worked together, they quickly captured more than twenty prisoners. They did not bother pursuing the remaining ck armor warriors.


    Under the interrogation by Nailisi, the assant only held out for less than a minute before spilling the beans on the secrets of this operation being conducted by the Holy See. Nailisi then fulfilled her promise by giving the assant a quick death.


    Out of the four des which the two assants had wielded, two of them had been ruined, and Saleen put away all of them. The material of these des was very special. Even though Saleen was well read, he could not identify the material from any of the books which he had read in the past. Since Nailisi¡¯s dagger had been destroyed, the material from these four des could be used to help her produce a new weapon.


    Using three times the times the speed which he used to fly to the forest, Banchajanna flew back to the city. He only revealed to Judikaka that he had let a high grade believer escape, but he did not mention the conflict between Saleen and himself. In Banchajanna¡¯s eyes, Saleen was insignificant. Saleen should not be unsatisfied with his actions.


    In the death dimension, power decided everything. An inferior being should always obey the orders of a superior being without any grudges orints. However, Banchajanna had forgotten that most spirits did not possess intelligence. On the other hand, humans were the mostplicated creatures out of all the creatures across the different nes. Using the lifestyle in the death dimension to judge a human being would cause Banchajanna to lose out.


    Saleen secretly led the prisoners back to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. These prisoners already regarded themselves as dead people, and did not give it much thought. After death, they would be able to enter the heaven belonging to the Lord of Glory, and it would be a form of relief for them.


    The winged skeleton was still inside the colossal crystal, and he could now control the entire alchemy ship. The magic array onboard this boat allowed his perception to spread out for thousands of meters. With this distance, he would not need any help from magic to be able to track his targets.


    This feeling was immensely pleasing, and it caused the winged skeleton to be a little obsessive. Ever since the winged skeleton had be an intelligent spirit, he had been craving freedom. However, within the death dimension, he had been under the control of high grade spirits. He had thene onto the Myers Maind under Daniel¡¯s summoning. Originally, he had wanted to stay by Daniel all his life, never to return to the death dimension.


    Unfortunately, Daniel had abandoned the winged skeleton, causing him to be severely hurt.


    Luckily, Saleen treated the winged skeleton well. The new master treats his subordinates well. Even that demon who only creates trouble is living a good life. Now that the winged skeleton enjoyed rtive freedom, this powerful alchemy ship would shelter him from the various dangers present on this ne.


    The sea magic beasts fought solely for survival. Since this alchemical boat did not have any flesh, it would not provoke any aggression from the sea magic beasts. By controlling this boat, the winged skeleton was considered free. The contract with Saleen was no big deal. The winged skeleton loved following a human, and when Saleen died, the winged skeleton would enjoy even more freedom.


    The winged skeleton and Nailisi were different. Indeed, the two of them would have very long lives. However, the winged skeleton had not signed a soul contract, he had signed a summoning contract. If Saleen died, he would not die.


    The winged skeleton was extremely confident that it was only a matter of time before Saleen became a sorcerer. Thus, Saleen would also enjoy a fairly long life. Before Saleen died, the winged skeleton would also be able to advance to grade-8. By then, the winged skeleton would no longer need to rely on humans to be able to stay on this ne. This logic was identical to that of the arrival of the three kings on the Myers Maind.


    Even if Daniel died, the three kings would not be banished to the death dimension.


    ¡°Master, what are all these ves doing here?¡± The winged skeleton curiously sized those ck armor warriors up. When the ck armor warriors entered water, they had not received any protection, so most of them were coughing their lungs out. Anyway, these people were already dying. Saleen would never waste his magic chords on them.


    After noticing the winged skeleton inside the crystal, the ck armor warriors began panicking. They could guess what Saleen was going to do next. A few warriors, who had weak willpower, had already begun begging for mercy. They even started berating the Holy See for its ruthlessness and ridiculousness. They had only been trying to make a living by staying in the inquisition.


    Saleen could not be bothered with these ck armor warriors. The hearts and minds of the people inside the inquisition were crooked, in stark contrast with those of the pivotal council.


    From time to time, the red bishops would bring their men to do some good deeds, instead of merely spreading the teachings of the god. But what were the people in the inquisition doing? Exterminating the dissidents and being unscrupulous. Even if Saleen was prone to feeling sympathy for others, he would not feel any for them.


    ¡°Stop making a ruckus. This is judgment time.¡± Saleen converted the restorative water into a mist, before delivering it into the noses of those swordsmen. By suffocating the swordsmen through forcing restorative water into their lungs, their injuries actually became better.


    ¡°Winged skeleton, do your thing.¡±


    ¡°Master, doing so will attract trouble.¡± The winged skeleton hesitated as he looked at those swordsmen. By doing such a thing, Saleen¡¯s actions would be equivalent to spitting on the face of god.


    ¡°Soldier, gods are not able to directly descend onto the Myers Maind. The people in the Holy See will not know who it was. At most, they will suspect Banchajanna. Even I am not scared. What are you afraid of?¡±


    ¡°Master, I am not afraid. It¡¯s just that these people¡­¡±


    ¡°They have harmed tens of thousands of barbarians in the north all these years by turning them into blood cavaliers. I have said that this is judgment time.¡± Saleen¡¯s expression remained the same. After detecting Saleen¡¯s determination, the winged skeleton was also helpless. Since these people were evil, Saleen¡¯s idea could not really be considered overboard either.


    ¡°Then¡­ I shall obey your wishes.¡± As the winged skeleton spoke, he walked out from the massive crystal.


    The winged skeleton no longer looked as he had when he was with Daniel. His height had shrunk by a great deal, and he was only one head taller than Saleen at this moment. The bones on his body had be white and crystallized, with some vague scale-shaped magic patterns on them. His two pairs of bone wings had been fully retracted and folded behind him. Ayer of faint green mes enveloped the exterior of his bone wings.


    Those were the death mes, but Saleen was not a death mage. When the winged skeleton had left Daniel, he had attained his own death mes, which could be used to absorb power from the death dimension in order to make progress. Nailisi¡¯s power was directly affected by that of Saleen¡¯s, exactly like the case of the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton¡¯s advancement was rted to the death mes. His contract with Saleen only allowed him to fight for Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s words might have been quite cruel, but he did not actually like watching people be tortured. A person¡¯s attitude was perverted if they derived pleasure from cruelty. After instructing Nailisi to stay behind and assist the winged skeleton, Saleen left the alchemy ship and returned to the city.


    At this moment, the three kings were still reading the books provided by Saleen. Their style of reading was very special. Not only did they read the words, but they were also searching for a familiar smell from the books. This made their reading speed painfully slow. However, the three kings had very long lives, so they did not give a hoot about this amount of wasted time.


    Saleen summoned the mages from Sregl Ind and began discussing the n on his mind.


    ¡°Pasatilo, Kanuka, I need you two to do something for me.¡± Saleen waited for the mages to finish setting the mute enchantment before continuing.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, are you going to deal with the three kings? We don¡¯t have the ability to do so yet.¡±


    The mages from Sregl Ind had learned of the event which had taken ce outside the forest, and now, they were also thinking of dealing with the kings. However, this was not Sregl Ind. If they had been on Sregl Ind, the three kings would have been small fry in the face of thebined power from the over thirty sorcerers and magic towers. However, there were only two grade-5 mages here, and it would be too easy for the three kings to retaliate.


    Saleenughed, then said, ¡°I am not that dumb. There is no need to rush this matter. Lex will only reach her destination by April of next year at best, but before that, I still need to rely on their abilities. However, you know what happened today. The three kings are not reliable at all. Hence, I intend to get some help.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen, Sir Jason wishes that the city remains unrevealed for the moment,¡± Pasatilo advised Saleen seriously. Pasatilo was Jason¡¯s newest subordinate.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. The person I am looking for does not have much ambition right now, but it will be hard to tell in the future.¡± When Saleen thought of Aini¡¯s temperament, he became doubtful. After being separated for such a long time, would Aini still remember their friendship? With that being said, Saleen possessed an item which had been gifted to him by Aini¡¯s parents, so Aini would likely not harbor any ideas at the moment. The Clyde family might have been huge, but they were small frypared to Lex¡¯s authority. Once the rest of the mages from Sregl Ind arrived, Aini, being a smart person, would naturally choose to side with Saleen.


    In merely three years, Aini should not have transformed into another person.


    ¡°But if we are gone, who will ensure your safety?¡± Pasatilo and Kanuka asked worriedly. It was very fortunate that Saleen had survived this ordeal. It was possible that he would not be so lucky the next time around.


    ¡°I am a grade-5 mage already. Besides, I will not travel far. Before Lexes back, I will only carry out my activities within the area protected by the three kings.¡± Saleen gave his word to the two mages. He knew that if something really happened, Pasatilo and Kanuka would inevitably be implicated.


    ¡°Take this, then go¡­ go to the Glorious City. There is a stronghold belonging to the Clyde family. Hand this badge over to someone called Aini Ou Clyde. Just tell him that I am in trouble, and that I need his assistance.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it? Who is Aini?¡± Pasatilo was a little naggy, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Saleen was still young, and Jason had specially instructed Pasatilo to take care of everything.


    ¡°He is my friend and I also know his parents, just rx. In addition to looking for him, I also need you two to recruit some reliable people within the Clyde family. This city will need businessmen and soldiers after it is constructed. The mages from Sregl Ind can¡¯t possibly do such things. Of the four business ns in the empire, I only enjoy cordial rtions with the Clyde family. If Aini is able to hold a position within the Clyde family, then our lives will be easier in the future.¡±


    Kanuka furrowed his brows, then said, ¡°You need the two of us to look for someone like that?¡±


    ¡°There are no disadvantages to being more formal. I am also going to write a letter to Aini. This letter cannot be seen by anyone else. If you cannot guarantee the security of this letter, you must use magic to burn and destroy it.¡±


    Saleen had already made some decisions in his heart. Once the city was fully built, there would be various benefits. The mages from Sregl Ind would dominate the magic benefits. Somemercial benefits would also be given, and the city would be dead if it solely relied on Sregl Ind. There was a mine in the north. In the future, the city would sell food, metals, and various kinds of magic materials. Saleen had already decided to use his own power to help Aini prosper, so that Aini would be able to attain a high status within the Clyde family.


    This cooperation would be much happier than if Saleen had cooperated with the earl. Aini might have been a little callous, but he valued rtionships more than that cunning old earl. If Saleen waited until Aini became an adult, their rtionship would only be increasing diminished as time went by.


    Rtionships needed to be cultivated. At the start, hadn¡¯t Saleen also treated Nailisi harshly? However, in this moment, he had even be depressed because Nailisi was injured.

 Chapter 307: The Long-term Plan (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 307: The Long-term n (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Pasatilo and Kanuka took Saleen¡¯s token and letter, then they left the city base at night. They were apanied by a boat of sailors, and travel;ed on the same route as the one Lex had used as they made their way to Lianyun City.


    Consequently, there were only two grade-4 mages and some low grade mages left in the city base. These two grade-4 mages were older in age, and they had zero chances of bing sorcerers. They were also more experienced in life. Even though they might not have been of much help on the battlefield, they were proficient in management, and that was why Jason had asked them to assist Saleen.


    The three kings might not have been reliable, but they were able to guarantee Saleen¡¯s safety at the moment. As long as Saleen did not leave the shore, he would not need be afraid of the Holy See¡¯s retaliation.


    Back on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, the winged skeleton had already executed all of the ck armor warriors. When these warriors had died, some holy texts had been seen escaping from within their bodies. Under the winged skeleton¡¯s control, only a minute amount of holy texts managed to fly out of the alchemy ship.


    The Holy See would only receive some vague information which would convey the message that the believers of the Lord of Glory had been tortured by some spirit.


    Nailisi had also gradually recovered from her injuries, because of the soul contract between Saleen and herself. In fact, even if the hell¡¯s trial had destroyed her soul space, Saleen would still be able to help her recover. As long as Nailisi¡¯s soul was not broken, it would be difficult for her to die. Now that Saleen had the winged skeleton by his side, Nailisi¡¯s soul could also be converted into a spirit in the event that her physical body was destroyed.


    However, Saleen did not want such a thing to happen. He wanted Nailisi to have flesh and a physical body. While he had been in that strange soul space, he clearly remembered seeing that Nailisi¡¯s soul had already been transformed into the shape of a human.


    The body of a demon with the soul of a human.


    Currently, Saleen still had a swathe of construction materials. At the moment, Saleen could not build a magic tower, because there were no mages around to lead the magic tower. Saleen decided to involve the three kings in the building of the normal structures, since Judikaka would still lend a helping hand in this matter. Anyway, the ones doing the work were only a group of low grade spirits. On the other hand, the mages and swordsmen from Sregl Ind would do theplicated work.


    The people whom Jason had assigned to Saleen were also well-versed in construction. The city on Sregl Ind would often undergo renovations, in order to help train the abilities of the mages. Saleen¡¯s city might have been slightlyrger, but the method of construction remainedrgely the same.


    The temple at the center of the city had been constructed. The architecture of this temple resembled that of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ temple. It was just that no gods were worshipped in this temple. Surrounding the temple was the city square which was filled with unfelled trees. All these trees segmented the city square into twenty-four smaller pieces.


    The lower level of the temple was going to be used to house the teleportation portal. As long as Lex managed to identify and calcte the coordinates of the interdimensional space, one would be able to enter the hell of god¡¯s punishment from this ce. The only problem was that the coordinates might not be very urate. There were weekly volcanic eruptions in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. If one was teleported over at a time which coincided with the eruptions and their location was also in the vicinity of the volcanoes, then they would be in great danger even if they were a sorcerer.


    Surrounding the temple, there were six positions marked for six magic towers, and the rest of the city was built around these locations. Saleen had a thought in mind. Since the temple would not be used for worshipping any gods, he decided that this temple would be a magic temple. In the future, Saleen was going to establish and of faith for all mages. Alchemy City was toomercialized. It was no longer a paradise for mages.


    The more threatened Saleen felt by the Holy See, the more rebellious he became. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, the Holy See was tens of thousands of miles away, yet it wanted to extend its control to such faraway ces. It was truly too greedy. Sooner orter, the Holy See¡¯s greed would cause the maind to be transformed into a bloody battlefield. The fanaticism of the believers could hardly be understood. If a person chose to believe in a religion, it was akin to giving up on themselves. They would only do what their god asked of them, and they would not need to think at all.


    That was the w which humans possessed. By entrusting their future to a god, they would not need to think anymore and they would not need to work hard anymore either. With a religion, they would be able to enter heaven after death. The believers were courageous on the battlefield only because their god had promised them a passport to heaven, so they had no worries anymore. In fact, some of them even yearned to die on the battlefield.


    Saleen was disgusted by this situation. When the Goddess of Myers had been around, she had never allowed the humans to make such wishes. Even though the humans of the past had also worshipped gods, they were never as weak as the humans of today. Lex was trying to help everyone regain their own identities, and that was why Saleen had be increasingly supportive of Lex¡¯s ideas.


    However, Saleen could not keep working for Lex, as he had his own ambitions as well. At this moment, he was not just seeking relief and freedom. He also hoped to do something for each and every mage out there, just as Raphael had.


    Saleen¡¯s teacher might have also possessed simr ideas. Looking at the map, this city would help magic unleash its full potential. As long as the city was built sessfully, it would be a fortressparable to Holy Rock City. When all thirty-six magic towers were stimted at the same time, a gigantic space would be formed. Within the limits of this space, no one would be able to fly over it without prior permission. This meant that one could only attack the city using primitive methods. Warriors would need to leap over the city walls and tear down its defenses.


    The cavaliers from the Holy See had been killed at Holy Rock City in this manner. Holy Rock City had rendered the high grade holy masters unable to fly in the air. Hence, the Holy See had only been able to use its cavaliers to crash into the city walls. However, those walls were as tough as mountains, thus killing the best cavaliers from the Holy See.


    Even though the city designed by Jason was different from Holy Rock City, the logic was the same. A normal city would rely on dense formations of alchemical crossbows to defend itself against any flying mages or flying holy masters. However, Holy Rock City relied on a colossal magic clock. The moment a sorcerer stimted a sound from the magic clock, neither the mages nor the holy masters would be able to fly over Holy Rock City.


    Saleen was full of admiration for his teacher¡¯s design. The entire city was under the protection of thirty-six magic towers. As long as there was a sorcerer in each of the six magic towers, almost half of this city¡¯s power could be unleashed, which would already be enough to secure the skies. Even if there were no sorcerers, having thirty-six grade-6 mages would also be able to achieve the same effect.


    Furthermore, the city walls utilized the Dante Sequence, which would make the city harder to invadepared to Holy Rock City. Unfortunately, a huge sum of money had to be used to build the Dante Sequence, and as a result, the city could not be toorge in size. However, Holy Rock City was the imperial capital of the empire while this city only belonged to mages. Even if it was smaller, it would already have enough space.


    Since Daniel had previously been angered by Banchajanna, he was now closer to Saleen. He was not as petty as he used to be, and was now busily working as he was fully focused on helping with the construction of the city. Daniel also knew that if this city was sessfully constructed, he would receive immense benefits because he was Saleen¡¯s follower.


    Even though Daniel was from the Tanggsi Empire and was more afraid of the Holy See than any other Qin mage, he had no other choice. If he was captured by the Holy See, he would be burned alive. In such a situation, anyone else would have also been loyal.


    As the city became bigger as time went by, there were many more buildings surrounding the temple now. There were too many white stones, and these were premium construction materials. At the shore, the exterior appearance of a port had already been formed. Afterrge quantities of rocks were extracted, a bay with a faint white hue had been formed.


    At the northern side of the temple, Saleen had built a colossal library. Only the Cloudflow Empire had amenities such as a library. However, only the nobles went to the library. Saleen had built this library to cater to the mages. As many mages were poor, they could not rent magic books. Hence, they could only see their time being wasted, and could not learn any new knowledge.


    Of course, the library designed by Saleen was not free either. Furthermore, the books could not be brought out of the library. Borrowing a magic book from the library was at least ten times cheaper than if one were to borrow from the empire¡¯s library.


    If one wanted to borrow a normal magic book, they would have to spend at least two hundred gold coins to do so. Saleen thus decided to maintain the price at around a mere twenty gold coins. This price would be much more manageable for mages. Saleen never thought of making the books free. If one wanted something, they would have to pay for it. Who would cherish something which was obtained for free?


    At the eastern side of the temple, which was also in the direction of the shore, Saleen had carved out a rectangr structure from an enormous white rock. This rectangr white structure was also designed ording to the Dante Sequence. Visually, the structure looked like it had been constructed from many pieces of giant white rock. However, it was actually one single body.


    This structure was over three hundred meters in length, and was conjoined to the rocks underground. It had been built with a tremendous amount of effort when the drainage system was being built. Saleen nned to house his followers in this structure, and in the future, various amenities would be installed in it. Even though a building which was carved from rock was very sturdy, it could be a little cold inside. Hence, a huge amount of magic patterns were carved inside every room, in order to improve the living conditions.


    Even though this building could not amplify the power of mages by dozens of times unlike a magic tower could, it would eventually function like a gigantic magic tower as Saleen recruited more followers.


    At the southern side of the temple was a garden. As it was winter, the garden only had a rough appearance. In principle, some ancient dead trees had been conserved, and houses had been carved out of those dead trees. The remaining trees and flowers had not been nted yet, and only an artificialke had been dug out. As the city was near the sea, it was not realistic to dig a well. Theke was used as a water reservoir. In the event that a war broke out, this artificialke would be able to guarantee a constant supply of water for the citizens of the city.


    At the western side of the temple was a nine story tall building. This building functioned as the administrative center for the city. A city of mages also needed to be managed, simr to how Alchemy City had an organization like the Elemental Hand. The building would be responsible for the operations of the government. And when business delegations arrived in the future, this building would also be used as a meeting venue.


    After all these buildings and the six magic towers surrounding the temple were built, the temple would be fully protected. It would be challenging for outsiders to enter the temple. A teleportation portal would be established at this location. Those six magic towers could be used to conceal the elemental vibrations produced by the spinning of the teleportation portal whenever it was utilized.


    This was the part of the map which Saleen had altered by himself. He had already meticulously considered all of its aspects. Now that everything had been prepared, Saleen only needed to wait for Viscountess Lex to bring her money and manpower over. Otherwise, the Holy See would definitely arrive here by springtime next year, and a war would be inevitable. Saleen clearly remembered the word which the ck bishop had hurled at him ¨C heretic!

 Chapter 308: Saleen’s Skill (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 308: Saleen¡¯s Skill (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was not doing this on impulse. He did not want to be on the run anymore. Ever since leaving Ceylon City and spending some time in the Bitter Water Prefecture, Saleen had never enjoyed a peaceful day.


    His time in the Bitter Water Prefecture was his sweetest memory. Saleen missed Faerun dearly, as he missed this mage who had given him a lot of help. If Faerun had still been alive, Saleen would have surely treated Faerun like he treated Jason. He would have respected him as though he were his teacher.


    Faerun had been killed by the god¡¯s punishment cast by an oracle, and this event would be an eternal wound in Saleen¡¯s heart. Even the three kings would not be able to locate Faerun¡¯s soul. Hence, Saleen would not even be able to convert Faerun into a spirit.


    Jason had changed Saleen¡¯s destiny, while Faerun had changed Saleen¡¯s character. Through Faerun, Saleen had begun to realize that there were still beautiful things in this world, and there were things which were worth being sentimental over.


    At this moment, Saleen had a strength which he could rely on, Sregl Ind. If he still wanted to escape, the only other alternative left would be to steer the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat out to sea. However, even if Saleen did so, he would still face threats from the country of Shengfeng, the Cloudflow Empire, and Alchemy City. Thus, Saleen wanted to build a fortress as strong as Holy Rock City in order to resist the Holy See.


    After all, this city was too far away from the Holy See. If the Holy See wanted to deploy troops here, the troops would either have to pass through the Qin Empire or sail on the sea. These two methods limited the possibility of the Holy Seeunching arge-scale attack against the new city. With this adequate distance, Saleen would be able to buy time and wait for Sregl Ind to reopen.


    The moment the mages from Sregl Ind could enter the elemental space of the hell of god¡¯s punishment, Saleen would very quickly be able to use grade-9 sorcerers. By then, would he still be afraid of the Holy See? Saleen would have thirty-six grade-9 sorcerers under hismand, and that was a power which even Alchemy City would be wary of. As long as these sorcerers were gathered together, they would be able to guarantee the security of the city.


    Of course, the thing which Saleen emphasized most was his personal cultivation. He needed to be like his teacher, who had be a sorcerer early in life. As long as Saleen became a sorcerer, he would be able to enter the elemental space and subsequently advance to grade-9. By then, Saleen would truly possess his own power.


    Only by advancing to a grade-9 sorcerer could Nailisi¡¯s power be unleashed to its maximum potential. Including Sika and the winged skeleton, Saleen would truly possess formidable strength.


    A demon whose abilities werepletely developed, an intelligent spirit, a warrior priest from Caucasus, and many more followers behind. All these factors would enable Saleen to enjoy a future greater than Lex¡¯s. Lex had never restricted Saleen¡¯s development, but she would also never change her ambitions for Saleen.


    It was only a matter of time before Lex produced a batch of sorcerers. This teleportation portal was only half the size of Lex¡¯s.


    However, Saleen would never be jealous of such things. He had grown up as a child beggar, while Lex had already been a viscountess from birth. She had received guidance from a sorcerer and had enjoyed a huge supply of financial resources. If Lex still achieved less than others despite all these advantages, then she was definitely dumber than a low grade magic beast. Saleen had simply been lucky to be Jason¡¯s sole student.


    This kind of luck was a thing which would cause envy in others. In the past, Walnut from the Nut Mercenary Group had tried to kill Saleen because he had be envious of him.


    Even though Saleen had experienced such catastrophes, his efforts had eventually paid off. Even though a mage like Walnut put in more effort than Saleen, he was still stuck in the realm of low grade mages. It would be a long time before he could even be a grand mage.


    At the moment, Saleen stayed in the temple. There were no magic patterns carved into the temple yet. Such a job could not bepleted by spirits, and even if the spirits could do such a task, Saleen would not be at ease knowing that the three kings were in charge of it.


    Currently, the three kings were submerged in the world of magic knowledge. They could not be bothered with Saleen¡¯s construction projects. Because the magical towers had not been built and the maps belonging to the three kings were iplete, the three kings felt that there was nothing great about this city. They lived in a massive structure which Saleen had built specifically for them. This building was located two and a half miles north of the temple, and it had been specially built for the three kings.


    The three kings were all more than eight meters tall, and during battle, they could even grow to be more than ten meters tall. Hence, this building was enormous. With a twelve-meter-tall door and three stories, this building was already taller than most magic towers.


    Every single day, Saleen would dispatch a person to deliver two magic books. Since each of the three kings would read each book once, their reading speed was extremely slow. The magic books did not only contain words, but they also contained the smell of the author. Only the spirit kings were able to analyze the contents of these books. This was a lengthy task, but the three kings did not mind spending a few years in Saleen¡¯s city in order to achieve true freedom.


    Saleen had far too many magic books in his possession. By now, the three kings also knew that a person like Saleen who owned so many magic books was very rare. Furthermore, they could not afford to trifle with someone who was richer than Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s days had be smooth sailing, but Saleen was very anxious deep in his heart. It was impossible for the ck bishop to disregard this matter. The discovery of a heretic would drive every person in the inquisition insane. The Holy See might not have been able to attack the city through thend, but it could create ships to mount a naval assault.


    Setting off from the port of the Tanggsi Empire, even the lousiest ship would be able to cover one thousand miles each day. At most, a ship would only take two months to reach this city. The production duration of the ships might have been longer, but given the Holy See¡¯s capabilities, it would be able to assemble an expedition fleet in two years at most. This meant that even if the Holy See could not pass through the Qin Empire on foot, it would still be able to get here by springtime two yearster. On the other hand, the mages from Sregl Ind would need three years to arrive. Hence, Saleen would need to rely on his power and Lex¡¯s power for some time.


    That was why Saleen wanted to see Aini so urgently. He needed Aini¡¯s mysterious contractual magic to subdue the three kings. If the three kings escaped back to the death dimension before the Holy See got here, or if they simply did not want to put in the effort, then Saleen¡¯s city would undoubtedly be destroyed by the Holy See, not to mention his ambitions.


    Even if the rtionship with Aini was disregarded, Saleen still had enough bargaining chips to force Aini to share the secrets of his mysterious contractual magic.


    Besides training every day, Saleen also focused his efforts into the construction of the port. He regretted not giving one fully constructed puppet to his teacher for research purposes. If this puppet could be sessfully replicated, they would perform exceedingly well in the defense of the port.


    Any people below the level of a high grade swordmaster could easily be destroyed by the fully constructed puppets. Even if the puppets fought against people above the level of a high grade swordmaster, they would still outnumber their enemies and attain victory. The mages from Sregl Ind would definitely have been able to unravel the secrets of the fully constructed puppets. How could Saleen have forgotten about them?


    On the crescent-shaped penins, Saleen had erected twenty-four gigantic stone columns. In Jason¡¯s design, there had only been twenty stone columns. Originally, Jason had not expected to have a natural penins act as the foundation. When too many stone columns were erected, the entire project would be incredulously huge.


    It was also in the style of a temple to have twenty-four stone columns. Saleen would have to wait for all the mages from Sregl Ind to arrive before starting to cast the magic patterns. Underneath the penins was the nest of the lightning dragon. Each day, Saleen would go and expand the nest bit by bit, in order to create one more hiding spot under the penins.


    The most important thing was the white colored mountain situated to the north of the port. After the mining of rocks from this mountain had beenpleted, a fort which was over six hundred meters tall had been built. If one wanted to install a genuine magic cannon, they would need a foundation with unparalleled toughness. Average stone ground would require a space with a radius of more than one mile.


    This mountain was only about four hundred meters in width. Since its quality made it sturdy enough, it would likely be able to withstand the weight of the magic cannons. Saleen decided that he would discuss the issue of procuring the magic cannons with Lex the moment she returned.


    At this moment, no one knew how to produce magic cannons, as all the magic cannons had been left behind by the Second Dynasty. There were very few left on the maind. However, the Grukos royal family would likely know where to purchase them.


    With the magic cannons, huge warships would not dare toe close, so they would not be able to use magic stone artillery to bombard the port. The only method would be to deploy small boats with soldiers to carry out the assault. The attacks from a magic cannon were very powerful, but their expenditures were also just as great. No one would utilize a magic cannon to destroy small boats.


    About one hundred miles south of the port was another location which could be used to build a second port. However, that location was more isted and was not suitable for agriculture, hence it could only be used to establish a military naval base. However, at this moment, Saleen only possessed five ships, so there was no need to develop a second port.


    Out of these five ships, three hade from Sregl Ind. One pirate ship had been seized by Saleen while the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat belonged to him and Lex. These five vessels could only handle normalbat. If they ran into the Cloudflow Navy, all of the ships would most likely be obliterated aside from the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    Lex had taken one-third of the mages from Sregl Ind with her, while two grade-5 mages had taken another four away. At this moment, the remaining mages followed Saleen and trained in the temple. They also helped each other, making Saleen feel as if he had returned to the days when he was in the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Saleen kind of missed Sika. Now that he had already advanced to grade-5, he wondered if Sika had managed to acquire the true powers of a warrior priest. Saleen was more confident in Lex. With Lex¡¯s protection, Sika should have made it back to her vige safely. Only by shifting Sika¡¯s vige to the new city would Saleen be able to set his mind at ease.


    The raging war between the Holy See and the Qin Empire would inevitably affect the Caucasus region. Saleen could not possibly ignore Sika¡¯s feelings. He felt that he was very much indebted to her.


    What made Saleen quite ecstatic was that now that he had advanced, he could practice some of the things left behind by Raphael. Crystal Finger was a level-6 spell while Saleen was only at grade-5 now, so it was unknown why he could already practice this spell. Perhaps, this waspensation from the gods because Saleen¡¯s magic chords only allowed him to practice water element magic. Hence, for Saleen, the difficulty of learning water element spells had been slightly reduced.


    Saleen also did not mind the fact that he presently faced several times more difficulty when simting spells of other elements. For every gain, there had to be a price. Saleen was already used to such things.


    The crystal finger was an extremely amazing spell. The method of attack for this spell was somewhat simr to that of a swordsman. The user had to be around ten meters away from the target in order to unleash its maximum power. And, the closer the user was to being at a distance of ten meters, the greater the power.


    Very few mages picked up closebat spells, as these spells were already nearly non-existent. However, Saleen had a soft spot for the crystal finger, because this spell was one of the strongest he had ever seen in his life. The physical human body could barely withstand the stress from learning this spell. Hence, Raphael had created a ring to store all of its power. One could only imagine how much damage this spell would cause to the enemy.


    This was normal though. wed spells usually possessed greater offensive power. Take, for example, the Ice Ring spell. Its cutting ability even exceeded that of the Current Cutter, a level-4 spell, and yet it was only at a level between level-1 and level-2.


    As a level-6 spell, the Crystal Finger only had an effective range of about eighteen meters. In terms of bnce, it was fairly normal for such a spell to possess higher offensive power. The attacks from a grand swordmaster might not have had a far range, but their instantaneous explosive power would be higher than that of magic. This could also be considered a form of bnce.

 Chapter 309: Saleen’s Skill (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 309: Saleen¡¯s Skill (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was another reason why Saleen was so fixated on learning the crystal finger. After fighting with the ck bishop, Saleen had realized that his current offensive power did not pose much of a threat to professionals who were above grade-6. When Sika and Lex had been around, this phenomenon had not been so ring. But once they had left, Saleen had immediately been able to feel the distress.


    Against a high grade swordsman, or even a grand swordmaster, Saleen had some special techniques to help himself gain an advantage, but if his enemy was a mage or a holy master, he would be helpless. Furthermore, Nailisi¡¯s power was limited by Saleen¡¯s grade, so it could not be fully unleashed either. Even if Nailisi and Saleen hadbined their power, it would not have caused any real harm to the ck bishop.


    If Banchajanna had not made it in time to scare the ck bishop away, Saleen would never have been able to defeat him. Saleen thus felt that he had to learn a lethal spell whose lethality exceeded that of his own grade. The depletion by the crystal finger was not immense. As Saleen learned this spell, he realized that the consumption of his magic chords by this level-6 spell was only that of a level-5 spell.


    While learning the crystal finger, Saleen faced a lot more difficulties than expected. He discovered that this spell came in four different forms.


    Crystal Finger (water) ¨C within a distance of ten meters, one could control six water flows and use them to deliver consecutive strikes. If the water flows were targeted at the same spot, the offensive power in each water flow would be double of that of the preceding one. Each water flow was as long as the mage¡¯s index finger. Once the depletion of the magic chords reached that of level-7, the water flows would possess the same effects as the current cutter, which meant they could be cast a second time.


    Crystal Finger (ice) ¨C within a distance of ten meters, one would be able to freeze the enemy¡¯s blood. This form had a puncturing effect on the target. This skill could be negated by divinity, magic, or the sword aura. However, the enemy¡¯s strength would be depleted. The amount of strength depleted by this negating process was equivalent to twice the amount as when the enemy was under normal circumstances. With every sessful hit, the effect would be amplified several times. In all, six attacks could beunched. This skill could be used twice.


    Crystal Finger (vapor) ¨C within a distance of ten meters, one could increase the temperature of the water elements within the enemy¡¯s body, and then cause them to vaporize. This skill could be negated by divinity, magic, or the sword aura. However, the amount of strength depleted by the negating process was equivalent to twice the amount as when the enemy was under normal circumstances. With every sessful hit, the effect from this skill would be amplified several times. In all, six attacks could beunched. This skill could be used twice.


    Crystal Finger (boundary) ¨C a standard level-7 spell. Saleen could not learn this skill for the time being.


    This spell involved some knowledge of the process of elemental conversion. Had Saleen not learned this knowledge systematically in the past, he would have needed to spend several years mastering the crystal finger. Saleen had gained the skill of elemental conversion when he had been at Joey¡¯s house. Hence, it was only a natural progression for him to learn the crystal finger. Other than the fourth form which required the abilities of a sorcerer to be activated, Saleen managed to grasp the other three forms in just three days.


    After learning a spell, one had to practice it. When a spell had just been newly learned, one would have to chant a mantra and simultaneously perform some magic hand gestures in order to cast the spell. Furthermore, the activation of the spell would not be instantaneous. The majority of the time was spent on learning how to execute a dyed release, instantaneous release, and secondary release of a spell.


    Furthermore, there were no shortcuts to trying to master these abilities. The only solution for the mage was to cast the spell repeatedly in order to increase their reaction speed. Saleen¡¯s only advantage in this entire process was that his body had been transformed by Joey, hence he was able to learn any kind of water spells very quickly.


    If one needed a month to familiarize himself with a particr spell, Saleen would only need less than a week to do so. Simrly, if he utilized elemental conversion to simte spells from other elements, he would need at least twice or thrice the amount of timepared to others.


    This meant that Saleen would only learn to simte a very small number of spells which belonged to other elements. He could only maintain a certain degree of familiarity, but it would be impossible for him to learn and simte all of those spells. Otherwise, his speed of advancement would only be a fifth of that of other mages.


    At this moment, Saleen still could not learn the crystal finger (boundary) skill, as only a sorcerer could learn it. This skill could produce a space of water element stability within an area of about ten meters from the user. As a result, issues like elemental disorder would not be able to affect Saleen¡¯s magic anymore. As for the abilities with other attributes, Saleen could not learn them now. Furthermore, one needed to take the initiative to explore the things left behind by Raphael, because Raphael had not recorded everything in detail.


    However, Saleen was looking forward to being able to use this skill. When Nailisi had previously been injured due to her creation of a space of elemental disorder, Saleen would not have been so affected had he possessed the Crystal Finger spell. When he had been in a brawl with the ck bishop, he would definitely have been able to strike him hard using the crystal finger, and this fellow wielding a partial divine weapon might even have been killed.


    Thebat range under a grand mage¡¯s control was nearly identical to that of an alchemical crossbow, and both had a range of two hundred meters. Now that Saleen was a grade-5 mage, he was already able to fulfill this requirement.


    Be that as it may, two of Saleen¡¯s most fearsome skills were short-ranged attacks. The crystal finger only had a range of about ten meters, while the current cutter only had a maximum range of thirty meters.


    The most suitable range for the Ice Attack spell and the Ice Totem spell were within one hundred meters. The level-5 Fountain Strike spell had a range of over one hundred meters, but it did not possess the ability to pursue the target.


    The true power of water magic would only be disyed when one became a sorcerer. Level-7 spells such as the Crystal Guardian, the Frost and Snow Magic Pattern, the Ice Storm, and the zing River were all very powerful spells. However, most mages would not choose to make water magic their primary choices forbat as the learning curve was too steep.


    Almost all of these level-7 spells could be advanced to level-8. Hence, the mage could save time as they would not need to learn any new spells. Furthermore, when a mage advanced to grade-9, pinnacle spells would appear in water magic. Pinnacle spells were also known as matured magic.


    Raphael had created an extremely concise summary of the six branches of magic, allowing Saleen to ignore his defective magic chords. Anyway, if Saleen focused on studying water magic, his offensive power would not be any less than that of other mages once he became a sorcerer.


    After Saleen had advanced to grade-5, Nailisi had entered a state of deep slumber. She had absorbed the essence of the tiago¡¯s heart, so her powers were being increased once again. At this moment, she possessed more strength than Sika. However, it was not known if Sika¡¯s strength would increase if she became a warrior priest.


    Currently, Saleen ced a great deal of emphasis on the quality of equipment. All of Saleen¡¯s equipment was pretty good, especially the demonic set. Previously, during the period of elemental disorder, he had remained fine due to two factors. First, he had realized what was going on very quickly, and thus he had cancelled the spell which he had been using at that point in time. Second, the demonic set provided a great deal of stability, thus the magic chords in his body had remained unaffected by the elemental disorder.


    The only problem was that the demonic set had been around for a very long time. Even though its material was good, it was not suitable for a mage like Saleen. Besides learning level-5 and level-6 magic every day, Saleen still had to spend some time learning water me alchemy. He nned to transform the demonic set by fusing the magic patterns acquired from the lightning dragon onto it.


    He was not Nailisi, who could actually control the growth of magic patterns on her body. Saleen still had not solved the mystery of those three-dimensional magic patterns in his pupils, but he was very hopeful of the demonic set.


    In terms of quality, every single item in the demonic set was priceless. If a mage possessed this set of equipment, they would already not need to worry about their equipment for the rest of his life.


    After Saleen had been promoted to grade-5, he realized that the space within the demonic ring had gottenrger. This meant that when he finally became a sorcerer, the space within the ring would expand until it was sufficient for his use.


    Ever since the demonic bracelet had been mosaicked with the dragonshard, Saleen had hardly ever used magic nuclei to restore his magic chords. The exception was when the dragonshard was temporarily empty in order to conduct self-recovery.


    Saleen¡¯s fitting demonic robe was not even considered a magic robe, because one would not be able to wear anotheryer of clothing outside a magic robe. However, the demonic magic robe had this ability. Twoyers of magic robes caused Saleen¡¯s surrounding elemental environment to be extremely stable.


    As for the demonic magic book, its value could already match that of a golden magic book.


    All along, Saleen had not been able to utilize the function of the magic books because his grade had not been high enough. But the moment he became a sorcerer, the power of his magic books could be fully unleashed. He would be able to store various spells into the golden magic book and silver magic book at will, and use them repeatedly. Unlike the production of magic scrolls, this process would not consume huge amounts of materials and was not restricted by one¡¯s grade.


    The golden magic book would provide Saleen with six level-7 spells, six level-8 spells, and six level-9 spells. On the other hand, the demonic magic book would provide Saleen with six spells without any type of restrictions whatsoever. That way, Saleen would thus be able to cast twenty-four additional high level spellspared to other sorcerers of his grade.


    What effect could twenty-four high level spells deliver? A level-7 spell with a long range would be able to kill dozens of enemies who were at the grade of a swordmaster. Twenty-four high level spells would thus be able to kill more than one thousand swordmasters. A regr cavalry regiment only had ten thousand people, roughly equivalent to hundreds of swordmasters.


    These two magic books would allow Saleen to destroy a ten-thousand-strong cavalry regiment without depleting his magic chords at all.


    If scrolls were used instead, Saleen might have faced difficulties trying to control the magic, not to mention the massive depletion of his magic chords. If a spell was not controlled properly, its lethality would be sharply reduced. A swordmaster was not a weakling. If the swordmaster was not locked down by magic, it was also not entirely impossible for them to kill a grand mage, given their speed and assuming that the battle took ce at close range.


    Furthermore, there would be countless swordmasters on the battlefield, and it would be immensely difficult trying to differentiate them from the others. It was rare for mages to engage in a direct battle during wartime, because if mages were not able to fly on the battlefield, they would sustain many casualties as well.


    The process of grooming a grand mage took at least ten years, and no one would be willing to let a grand mage be exposed to the dangers of the battlefield. Even if mages were deployed on the battlefield, they would be under heavy protection by the soldiers, and would only release magic at crucial moments.


    However, the magic books which Saleen had could change this situation. It simply showed how precious magic books were.


    Time flew by quickly when one trained. In the blink of an eye, it was already deep winter. The entire city base was covered by a thickyer of snow. In such an environment, the people from the Holy See would not appear. The port waspletely frozen. The warships from Sregl Ind and the pirate ship were docked at a deserted ind far from the city. The warships were produced from premium materials, and they would not disintegrate even if they were frozen. The pirate ship, however, could potentially break into smithereens if it was frozen.


    On this day, Saleen was practicing water me alchemy. He could already release a bundle of water mes from his hand, and was able to control it for more than fifteen seconds. He could already be considered an amateur in this skill. Just as Saleen was feeling jubnt and was nning to look for Nailisi to find out about her progress, a grade-2 mage from Sregl Ind entered the temple urgently. This mage entered Saleen¡¯s room and whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear.


    ¡°Hm? I will go and take a look.¡± After listening to the message from this grade-2 mage, Saleen decided to take some precautions and summoned dozens of swordsmen. Under the escort of these swordsmen, Saleen began to make his way to the port.

 Chapter 310: Williams (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 310: Williams (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nearly a hundred miles of the coast overlooking the ocean had been frozen over, and there were already manypleted buildings along the white shore. Saleen could see that the foundation and overall structure of the pier had already been built. The buildings that lined up behind the iplete pier were constructed in a simr fashion to the temple, and from afar, the style, look, and design of this harbor looked to be very different from those of other countries.


    Along the coastal areas, Saleen saw that there were puppets still hard at work doing what they needed to do. These puppets were controlled by low-grade mages and even mage apprentices. The mage apprentices from Sregl Ind progressed much faster than their peers. In fact, in a span of only a few months, two of them had done well enough to be promoted to grade-1 mages.


    This was not pure luck. Rather, it was because of the traditions that they had upheld. Sregl Ind had a very stringent process when it came to selecting mage apprentices. They had to be highly qualified in order to even be considered for the position. This, in addition to the fact that Sregl Ind had been umting magical knowledge for thousands of years, made the chosen apprentices motivated to attain the rank of an archmage.


    Although it was true that being promoted to the rank of a sorcerer required opportunity, these mage apprentices did not really need this rank to secure bright futures for themselves.


    The puppets stopped working when Saleen made his way to the seaside. There were over a hundred swordsmen gathered at the area where Saleen was now. From afar, Saleen could see a group of people standing on the frozen ocean waters. Their clothes were torn and tattered, and they were shivering wildly in the bitterly cold blizzard.


    Saleen eyed them for a second before asking the mage beside him, ¡°When did these people show up?¡±


    ¡°Just now, Master Saleen,¡± the mage replied.


    ¡°Have you talked to them yet?¡± Saleen asked. The mage shook his head before answering, ¡°They did send someone, but we chased him away. We can¡¯t allow strangers to infiltrate the area unless you say otherwise. They imed to have encountered pirates. However, pirates would not strike in the northern ocean territories during this time of the year.¡±


    Saleen processed the mage¡¯s words before saying, ¡°Call Nailisi over and tell her to pitch a tent for them. Get them to send a representative over to talk to me.¡±


    ¡°Master Saleen, these people are very suspicious,¡± the mage protested. Saleen raised his eyebrows and asked, ¡°How so?¡± The mage replied immediately, ¡°There is a nobleman present in that group of people. But that person disguised himself as one of themonfolk. Plus, they also have advanced swordsmasters amongst them.¡±


    ¡°A nobleman? That¡¯s not too bad.¡± Saleen chuckled before pping the mage¡¯s shoulders in a friendly gesture. He said, ¡°Tell that nobleman toe over. He is to not bring anyone with him. Send a swordsman over to bring him to me. You and the other mages prepare to unleash your scrolls. If they attack us, we will fight back until everyst one of them is dead.¡±


    The advantage that Sregl Ind mages had was the fact that they had excessive numbers of scrolls. Each of the mages that Jason hadmanded to follow Saleen had just as many scrolls as Saleen himself. The only difference here was that Saleen owned more intermediate and advanced scrolls, while the other mages only possessed low-level scrolls as they were not powerful enough to activate the ones that Saleen had.


    Writing scrolls was an effective way for a mage to practice their magic. There were many mages that resided on Sregl Ind. Thus, a person could imagine just how many low-level and intermediate scrolls would be written in a single day. Since Sregl Ind did not experience any kind of material shortages, a person could also imagine just how many magic artifacts had umted over all these years. Saleen had been able to exchange all of his nks scrolls forpleted ones in just one warehouse alone. He was very certain that this was not the only warehouse that existed on the ind. This piece of information alone would give an outsider a good idea of just how wealthy the people of Sregl Ind were.


    Under normal circumstances, these low-grade mages possessed decentbat abilities. Saleen was simply unlucky to have crossed paths with more formidable enemies. That was what had motivated him to hone his magic so obsessively in the first ce. The world worked in funny ways. The more risk and danger once faced, the more sessful they would be.


    Two advanced swordsmen were deployed to bring the nobleman back to Saleen. They trudged through the frozen waters as they made their way towards the group of survivors. These people were about five hundred miles away fromnd, which meant that even if they possessed alchemy crossbows, they would not be able to threaten the people on the shoreline. Since Saleen¡¯s icy sight allowed him to see everything for miles, he was able to monitor the two swordsmen¡¯s movements from where he was standing.


    There were exactly one hundred and eighty of them. Most of their armor had been shattered beyond repair. They were shivering uncontrobly as they desperately sought warmth from the nket that barely covered all of them. Saleen did not seem to spot many people who could be potential threats, although he did see some advanced swordsmen and a few other people who had attained the rank of swordmasters.


    How dare these people show arrogance at a time like this? Saleen remembered just how much effort he had put in to maintain a low-profile when he had been down and out, just like these people were now. Technically, the swordsmasters under these noblemen did not have much power over what they said or did. However, they were not going to appear like cowards in front of their masters. They did not want to risk being deserted or treated coldly. Seeing this scene unfold before him made Saleen hold a slight grudge towards the two swordmasters.


    Even if Saleen did reach out to them, he was certain that these people would not appreciate the help. Since they did not know how to behave properly around the people who could actually save them, Saleen did not see anything wrong with leaving them in the deep freeze for another day.


    Of course, Saleen was not about to deploy swordsmen to finish off that group of people either. Although these people seemed sketchy, they would likely be unable to leave a single scratch on his body, let alone kill him or the other mages. From their bodynguage and equipment, it was obvious to Saleen that even if they were assassins, they could not have been deployed to this ce. Out of one hundred and eighty people, only ten of them were swordmasters. Saleen estimated that there were approximately two mages. Their grades were not fantastic either, as they were definitely below grade-3.


    Saleen did not even need to lift a finger to deal with them. He could simply have the low-level mages do the job for him. That was how weak these people were.


    Nailisi had been underwater the entire time. She had transformed the lightning dragon¡¯sir into a cozy sleeping area where she would not be interrupted by anyone. It was also more convenient for Saleen to look for her herepared to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. She had just been in the middle of a snooze when she found herself being summoned by the magic array.


    ¡°Yes Master?¡± Nailisi asked, rubbing her eyes as she attempted to wake herself up. She was confused as to why Saleen needed her help.


    ¡°Nailisi, do these people look dangerous to you?¡± Saleen repliedzily as he pointed towards the one hundred and eighty people standing on the frozen ocean.


    Nailisi threw a nce their way before answering, ¡°They¡¯re like the opposite of dangerous. I can deal with them by myself.¡±


    ¡°How would you know?¡± Saleen questioned.


    ¡°These people don¡¯t give me killer vibes. Out of maybe a dozen of these swordmasters, only one or two have actually killed people,¡± Nailisi repliedzily as she yawned, confused as to why Saleen would take interest in a bunch of weaklings. Why couldn¡¯t he just capture them and ask them on his own? Nailisi thought.


    Saleen did not know whether tough or cry at Nailisi¡¯s response. He hade across too many opponents that were far too powerful for him to handle. In fact, he had gotten so used to fighting them that being faced with a group of people he could probably eliminate in one st had thrown him off guard.


    Technically, it was normal for a group of adventurers to be of this caliber. To be able to involve just one low-level mage on their adventures was already pretty good. Out of the one hundred and eighty people, there were two mages and around a dozen swordmasters. Under normal circumstances, this team of people would be considered rtively strong.


    Now that Saleen was more powerful and enlightened, he regarded these people with contempt. He had two grade-4 mages by his side at all times, as well as countless low-level mages and probably an infinite number of mage apprentices. Perhaps the words ¡°countless¡± and ¡°infinite¡± were a bit of stretch, but he did have a lot of people beneath him. Even if he did not have two-hundred-plus swordsmen, his army was a force to be reckoned with. Any noble with that many mages under theirmand would likely be able to build an entire city on the ground they were standing on. That noble would most certainly rise to fame as well.


    Even the head noblemen in all the cities of the Qin Empire had only one mage at most under theirmand. The magic towers located in the outskirts of the city were a magical force that not even the noblemen could control.


    At that moment, Saleen¡¯s men equipped the coastal areas with some defenses. Some of the brick houses already had alchemy crossbows fixed on top of them, and these crossbows were aimed directly at the ocean. Even if these people did re up, they would not dare to actuallye close to shore. As expected, a young bloke emerged from the group and started walking towards the coastline, pushing the two swordmasters away as he did so.


    The young fellow was tall,nky, and apparently malnourished. He was d in clothing made up of ck fur. He was not decked with any valuable items. In fact, he did not have anything on him except for the ck fur clothing. He did not look like someone who lived the life of luxury. Fur clothing that was actually brand-name and expensive was made from the skin of magic beasts. The lighter the color of the fur, the more expensive it was. Most noblemen would not be seen donning this pure-ck animal skin clothing. This outfit was usually worn by businessmen and merchants.


    Saleen did not enter any of the brick houses, as the environments there would put a mage at a disadvantage during battle. He had just started getting the hang of the crystal finger, and he could not use it to fight yet. He ordered his men to set up a tent. Once that was done, he stepped into the tent along with Nailisi and took a seat in anticipation of the young man¡¯s arrival.


    The young man did not seem to exude the arrogance of a typical nobleman. As soon as he reached the shore, he climbed thedder that the Sregl Ind swordsmen had built and made his way towards the tent that Saleen was in. Before he could enter though, two advanced swordsmen stood in front of him, effectively blocking his path.


    ¡°Drop your saber,¡± one of them ordered.


    The young nobleman furrowed his brows as the two swordsmen stared at him, showing no signs of backing down. He chuckled and muttered lightly as he took off his saber, ¡°There are so many of you and only one of me. Is this really necessary? Are you guys really that scared of me?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not scared of you. You don¡¯t have the right to hold a sword in Master Saleen¡¯s presence,¡± the same swordsman replied bluntly, not caring about the need to be tactful. They hade from Sregl Ind, and ording to the rules there, mages held the most authority. These two swordsmen would essentially be trapped in their current ranks for their entire lives, unless they somehow managed to work their way up to the rank of swordmasters. In their hearts, they had already deemed Saleen to be infinitely more respectable than the young fellow standing in front of them.


    ¡°Master?¡± the young nobleman said thoughtfully. He wanted to say something else, but chose to hold himself back. As soon as he walked into the tent and made eye contact with both Saleen and Nailisi, the simmering anger that had been ignited after being treated so disrespectfully vanished.


    Saleen was d in a grey magic robe. Even in the harsh weather, Saleen had decided not to put on any additional clothing. All he had done was tie his long hair up into a bun to make it easier to don his hood.


    Only archmages were fit to wear grey robes. Anyone else who was caught wearing them for the thrill of it could be punished by death. He finally understood why the swordsmen outside had said what they did earlier. Saleen looked about the same age as him, yet the former had already been promoted to the rank of an archmage. Any ounce of arrogance and pride left in him hadpletely vanished by now.


    ¡°Master Mage, please excuse me for being rude,¡± the young fellow lowered his head in an attempt to apologize to Saleen. Yes, it was true that there was nothing to fear about an archmage.


    Saleen was observant enough to notice that the young nobleman had no Adam¡¯s apple. He was certain that the young male standing before him was a female in disguise. He chuckled before motioning for him to sit down.


    The tent was huge, but it was not furnished with a single table or chair. All it had was a piece of animal skin which covered the floor. The noble(wo)manughed lightly. If Saleen had not noticed theirck of an Adam¡¯s apple, he would not have be able to tell that the nobleman was actually female. She took a seat and said, ¡°Sir, how can you be so petty? We are but disaster victims.¡±


    Saleen was not about to be tricked into revealing anything. He smiled slightly and asked, ¡°You must be ady. A female noble¡­ that¡¯s something you don¡¯t see everyday. I assume your n is very powerful. Why would you be here, looking so pathetic?¡±


    Saleen had detected a Qin ent in the young female¡¯s voice. Thus, he had no qualms about asking her about her background.


    Thedy, upon realizing that Saleen had seen through her disguise, let out a heartyugh before saying, ¡°You¡¯re not a Qin, Master Mage, so it¡¯s very hard for me to answer your question. Am I considered your prisoner now?¡±


    The young noblewoman¡¯s words had many hidden meanings. She knew that Saleen could not be a Qin from his mixed ent. When she had spoken to the swordsmen outside earlier, she had not been able to identify their strange ents either. She could only guess that they were from a remote ce to the south, far away from here. These people hade all the way north to set up camp here. If they were enemies of the Qin Empire, she could technically be considered a prisoner by now. If she were to be incarcerated, all she could do was wait for her tribe to fork out the ransom money in exchange for her freedom. However, being a prisoner did not mean that she had to answer all of Saleen¡¯s questions.


    ¡°I don¡¯t usually keep people as prisoners,¡± Saleen replied without an ounce of humor in his voice. If he¡¯s not going to keep us as prisoners, does that mean he¡¯s going to kill us all? the youngdy thought in rm. Even pirates were not that brutal.

 Chapter 311: Williams (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 311: Williams (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Which n are you from?¡± Saleen asked,pletely steering the conversation away from the topic of prisoners. He had not meant to scare her earlier. He really did not wish to keep anyone as his prisoner. However, the fact that this girl had suddenly appeared at his harbor with more than a hundred people was not something which could be brushed off easily. Even if she was not out to get him, she must have had something to hide. This could actually be beneficial to me, Saleen thought.


    Saleen had no desire to help this youngdy unconditionally. To a mage, there was no such thing as a free lunch ¨C everything came at a price.


    The youngdy hesitated for a while, keeping her mouth tightly shut as she stared at Saleen defiantly. Saleen chuckled and took a sip from the cup of tea that Nailisi had passed to him earlier. This was just one of the few habits that he had developed after being with Lex for so long. It was not a form of mimicry. Rather, this habit had been formed naturally.


    The rich, strong, and powerful never cared about how they were viewed by the people below them. They loved doing whatever they pleased without a care in the world. Saleen was no different.


    Every ounce of the youngdy¡¯s pride was trampled by Saleen. What was worse was that she knew that Saleen would not even bother trying to be nice to her. She had no choice but to reply meekly, ¡°My name¡­ is Irene Williams.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen replied, suddenly taking a little bit of interest in the female sitting before him. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected her to be part of the Williams n. Even then, her name was in the Cloudflow style. The Qins, especially the nobles, would never give their daughters the name Irene, as it did not sound grand enough. Saleen was not a nobleman and thus he had never studied the ancestral lineages of different ns. However, even he knew that this youngdy must have been the offspring of someone from the Williams n and another person from some Cloudflow n.


    Even though the Williams n was very powerful, their highest noble rank was only that of an earl. The fact that thisdy named Irene had been able to attain this rank meant that she had a massive influence within her n.


    Saleen knew that royal and noble ranks in the Qin Empire were very hard to attain. Even if the positions could not be inherited, the royal family made it even harder to attain these ranks. The different houses imposed restrictions on each other in an attempt to reduce the number of royal ranks that the other parties could amodate. Thus, these ranks were quite sought after in the Qin Empire.


    ¡°The Williams n is considered one of the more powerful groups. Why would they have a pampered person like you travel north to face hardship?¡± Saleen asked slowly. This question was the main question that he had been dying to ask the youngdy ever since he had found out that her surname was Williams. He wanted to find out exactly why she hade here.


    ¡°That is our n¡¯s business. Please excuse me for not being able to answer your question,¡± Irene replied. By saying this, she was risking it all. She did not believe that the young mage would actually kill her. She was part of a very influential n, after all. Helping her would bring Saleen tremendous benefits.


    ¡°Hm¡­ But the Williams n seems to travel up north a lot. I advise you to answer my question. If not, do not me me if I personally cut you off from your source of wealth. I am a mage, as well as a businessman. The only thing I know now is that your n must have discovered something that would bring prosperity to your group. If I can¡¯t force that ¡®something¡¯ out of you, I¡¯ll personally cut off your northern shipping route. That way, everyone will lose. Understand?¡± Saleen said, his voice sickly sweet as he uttered thest word.


    Saleen was currently the more influential person, and he was going to make sure the youngdy knew that. He was not about to let the young female noblewoman call the shots. In fact, he did not even want to make small talk with her. He also could not be bothered to be tactful. After the construction of the city wasplete, he was going to take control of the northern shipping route, and he would keep Alchemy City in mind as reference. The northern shipping route was practically unused. Out of the entire year, the northern seas were only upied for less than six months, and even then, they were only used by Sikenqinya merchants who used it to go to and from Lianyun City.


    It was obvious to Saleen that going on voyages during this season was not a good idea. Irene was definitely not here on a vacation. What could be so valuable about the northern seas that even the most important person from the Williams n needs to personally risk her lifeing here? This was the question which Saleen was dying to find the answer to.


    ¡°You need to be reasonable here!¡± Irene shouted indignantly, her face paling in fear. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought that a mage as respectable-looking as the one before her could be so money-minded.


    ¡°I¡¯m already being very reasonable here. Right now, I¡¯m in the middle of building an entire city. I have already been authorized by the royal family to govern the ocean territories up to several hundred miles from where we are sitting now. I couldn¡¯t care less about how you used to make your trips. But this is my territory now ¨C and if you want to pass through my territory, you¡¯ll have to go through me. Think about it. Your ship is probably lying on the ocean bed, and your men are freezing to death. You can¡¯t be that na?ve to expect me to help you for free? Honey, everythinges at a price. You¡¯ll have to make a sacrifice,¡± Saleen saidzily.


    Irene was simmering with anger by now. Now that she thought about it, the mage was being reasonable. However, it was the way he had conveyed his message that irked her so much. He had spoken in a condescending tone, almost as if she were mere dirt found on the bottom of his shoe. For a girl like her who had been pampered since her birth, it was a bit hard to ept being talked down to like this.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you wish to be friends with the Williams n?¡± Irene asked as confidently as she could.


    ¡°There is no such thing as friendship in the world of business. Perhaps we could end up as friends one day, but this friendship would have nothing to do with your n. I¡¯ve always viewed friendship like this, and I¡¯m not about to change my mind,¡± Saleen said with a smile on his face. He was not ying around when he said those words. Take the business rtions between Saleen and the Clyde n, for example. He was more than happy to share some of his profits with Aini. However, he would not give a single penny to Aini¡¯s n. That was where he drew the line.


    ¡°I ain¡¯t bing friends with you!¡± Irene roared in anger, mistaking Saleen¡¯s honest words for mockery.


    ¡°See what you¡¯re doing? You¡¯re rejecting a potential friendship with an archmage, yet you¡¯re scolding me for not wishing to get into the William n¡¯s good books. Aren¡¯t we both doing the same thing?¡± Saleen asked patiently. If the city that he built was going to depend solely on agriculture for its primary source of ie, Saleen knew that his entire city would be knee-deep in poverty. The earnings from farming were meager. If he chose to allow the city to depend on it as its primary source of ie, he would be happy if the money could even support the migrants who moved here. If he wanted to be more ambitious about his city¡¯s development, Saleen would have to venture into business just like Alchemy City. However, he could not do just any business. It had to be something that no one had ever done before.


    Perhaps he could depend on the Sregl Ind mages in the early stages of the city¡¯s development. However, the business issues that would arise were things which could not be solved by mages alone. He would need the help of ns in the empire who were experts in managing businesses.


    Irene looked to be severelycking in strength and power. One good look at her and Saleen could tell that her grade was probably equivalent to that of an advanced swordsman. This did not matter, however, as she still had a huge influence in her n due to her position. Saleen had already set his heart on coborating with her. After all, he could not share all of the city¡¯s profits with the Clyde n alone.


    The Clyde n and Williams n were business rivals. Saleen wanted to see both ns fight to get into his good books, as it meant that he could get more out of them.


    ¡°Master Mage, could you please let my men seek refuge on your shores? They¡¯re¡­¡± Irene pleaded before she paused slightly. The young female might have been well-educated, but her business senses were very unlikely to be keener than Saleen¡¯s. Right now, she was not in a good position to negotiate anything with the male mage sitting in front of her. Her family¡¯s merchant ship had sunk, causing the deaths of many of her men. Even those survivors were on the brink of death. If they died as well, it would implicate her parents. Under these circumstances, even if she had been the most intelligent person in the world, she would not have been able to win against Saleen.


    ¡°My name is Saleen. Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s you?!¡± Irene eximed, her eyes widening in shock as if she had heard his name somewhere before.


    Saleen touched his face gently as he stared at Irene, shocked at her outburst and more importantly, her reply. He asked, ¡°What? Am I famous or something?¡±


    ¡°I heard of you when I was in the imperial capital two thousand years ago. At that point in time, you were in charge of business deals between Viscountess Lex and the Clyde n. Of course I¡¯d remember you,¡± Irene gushed.


    Saleen smiled, refusing to continue the conversation. Irene sighed before saying, ¡°Since you¡¯re Mage Saleen, I don¡¯t think you¡¯re pulling a fast one on me. Let my men seek shelter for now. I won¡¯t run away. You want something from me? We can talk about it.¡±


    ¡°So¡­ can I safely assume that the Williams n has had long-term business deals over in the northern ocean?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes,¡± was all Irene replied.


    ¡°Good. Nailisi, deploy some of our people to escort Irene¡¯s men onto the shores. Pitch a tent and prepare some food for them as well,¡± Saleen instructed.


    Irene watched as the goddess-like woman stood up and sashayed past her. For some reason, Nailisi¡¯s actions had Irene feeling a certain way. Nailisi looked absolutely bewitching. Her hair now sported a few streaks of green, and her azure green eyes looked just like thekes in early spring. Her eyes glistened brightly under the light. Nailisi was so breathtaking that it shook Irene to the core.


    Irene tried her hardest topose herself. Saleen has such a beautiful woman by his side. Would he even take an interest in me? Probably not, Irene thought. She had also heard about how attractive Viscountess Lex was. It was no wonder that Saleen had looked at her in the manner that a businessman would inspect his cargo instead of the usual look of lust that most men sent her way.


    Saleen was also closely inspecting Irene¡¯s facial features. At the moment, since Irene donned a male outfit, she actually looked handsome and not feminine at all. She had a pair of light blue eyes, just like the minority of the people over in the Cloudflow Empire. Her eye color was slightly different from that of the Qins, who had dark blue eyes. Her eyebrows were obviously groomed to perfection. In fact, they looked a bit like Lex¡¯s ¨C arched and clear, just like knives. Her nose was a lot sharper than most Qin women. Thus, she really did look the part when she dressed herself up as a man.


    She¡¯s a beauty, Saleen thought.


    Seeing that Saleen had softened his gaze, Irene did not feel uneasy. In fact, she felt morefortable being around him. When they had first started chatting, Saleen had looked at her with a cold and calcting gaze, making her feel very nervous sitting in the same room as him. It was as if she had once again stumbled into the wild and encountered a formidable magic wolf, feeling like prey waiting to be pounced upon by a predator. Saleen was just like that magic wolf. The only difference here was that Saleen did not seem to be a ravenous magic wolf. In other words, he was holding back from attacking her. However, those eyes were obviously roaming about her face, taking in as much of her appearance as possible in order to form some sort of analysis. She was not going to snap at Saleen and tell him to stop.


    Humans looking at their fellow humans and magic beasts looking at humans were two entirely different things. This Saleen was a very dangerous character. Irene could feel some type of uncontroble power emanating from Saleen¡¯s body in waves.


    If Saleen had known what Irene was thinking, he would certainly have disagreed. After being promoted to a grade-5 mage, he had much better control over the elements. He had no idea that being constantly immersed in danger had changed his aura in a veryplex way, such that he came across as much more domineering than he actually was. In Saleen¡¯s presence, Irene was already considered calmer and more confident than ordinary folk. That was because she was a psychologically and mentally resilient person. Under Saleen¡¯s piercing gaze, other people might not even have dared to lift up their heads and make eye contact with him.


    Thus, when Saleen had mentioned that he did not like keeping people as prisoners, it had never urred to Irene that he was joking. She treated every single one of Saleen¡¯s words seriously. In fact, she had already considered Saleen to be one of the more perverted mages that she had ever crossed paths with.


    Upon sensing that Saleen had begun giving her some sort of affirmation and admiration, Irene heaved a sigh of relief. Saleen, on the other hand, was very satisfied with the oue of his interrogation techniques. Just a few sentences had been enough to get Irene to crack. Now that Irene¡¯s cold, tough outer shell had been shattered, it was time to discuss the unknown business that the Williams n had been involved in. He had three warships and plenty of men under hismand. Thus, he was certain that he had more than enough resources to venture into their field of business.


    Saleen was confident that the Williams n would not reject his offer to join forces with them. After all, the Williams definitely did not possess any battleships. Thus, the Williams would have no choice but to work with him if they wanted to continue their business in the north. To Saleen, talks between businessmen were the easiest form ofmunication in the world. As long as he gave the Williams n arge portion of the profits ¨C well,rge enough ¨C he would end up benefitting much more in the long run as he too would get a hefty share of the wealth generated from this business.


    ¡°You can speak now, you know. What type of business does the Williams n run in the north?¡± Saleen asked. Irene did not hesitate too much this time. She could tell that Saleen had the manpower and strength that easily rivalled two cities back in her n. That was excluding the fact that Saleen owned three battleships. She had been kept in the dark about these sea vessels the entire time. She did not know that one of them had been hidden in the neighboring inds while the other two would onlye back in the spring, which would be next year at minimum.


    ¡°There¡¯s a ce in the northern part of the Myers Maind that is almost alwayspletely frozen over. We call it the Oceanic Ice Block. As the name suggests, there are huge icebergs that float around all year round. Most ships aren¡¯t able to travel through the Oceanic Ice Block, unless the people onboard have a death wish. The ocean territory we¡¯re talking about here is massive. Not only that, but the Oceanic Ice Block is surrounded by many neighboring inds. In fact, it is rumored that there is actually more undiscoverednd to the north that has beenpletely sealed over by ice. The Oceanic Ice Block is the best ce to hunt down magic sea beasts. Manyrge magic beasts often roam about the floating icebergs as well. Since they move very slowly onnd, as long as you have whale hunting crossbows, you¡¯ll be able to ughter them and sell them off for big bucks,¡± Irene rambled.


    Saleen smiled and asked, ¡°Is that it? Are you sure that this business venture is all you¡¯re risking your life for? Don¡¯t you think that the risks rtive to the returns are too great for the most important person in your n to being here?¡±

 Chapter 312: Irene (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 312: Irene (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t it be worth it?¡± Irene retorted, her breathing getting heavier by the minute. She widened her eyes, red at Saleen, and continued, ¡°We¡¯re talking about grade-6 magic beasts here, and maybe some even more powerful than that. The magic beasts over on the maind are all below grade-6. Do you know how much money you can fetch from selling one magic nucleus?¡±


    ¡°Of course I know, Irene. I¡¯m a mage, after all. But do you really think that you and your friends have what it takes to hunt magic beasts that formidable?¡± Saleen saidzily.


    Irene¡¯s face flushed red with embarrassment and anger. Saleen was notpletely wrong, but he was not right either. Given the amount of manpower that she possessed, hunting down grade-6 magic beasts was a bit of an uphill task for her. It was not that her men were incapable of capturing them. Rather, the issue here was that the losses she would encounter rtive to the profits she could earn were too high to justify hunting them down. No businessman in his right mind would venture into any type of loss-inducing business, and Irene was no exception.


    There were two types of swordsmen that all noblemen, regardless of the ns they belonged to, would provide for. The first type of swordsmen would y the role of the n¡¯s personal bodyguards. Thus, none of these swordsmen would be registered with the empire. These swordsmen would share weal and woe with their employers. The second type of swordsmen were those who were hired officially and bound to a particr nobleman for long periods of time. Regardless of whether these swordsmen belonged to the first or second category, if they happened to perish while on duty, the noblemen would have topensate the swordsmen¡¯s families ordingly.


    Saleen knew that if every single one of Irene¡¯s hunting missions were to end in tragedy with the loss of a group of soldiers, even if these swordsmen belonged to the second category, the amount ofpensation would be too great for any nobleman to bear, Irene included.


    ¡°The Williams n has very little influence over in Lianyun City. Voyaging to ces like this takes at least half a year. Every trip you make costs your n over a hundred thousand gold coins. So tell me, Irene, is it really worth it?¡± Saleen asked. Irene had nothing to say in response. What could she say when Saleen had already calcted the amount of capital needed right in front of her?


    ¡°I feel like we should be more honest with each other. You know, at the end of the day, I might not even be interested in pursuing whatever your n has been doing. However, I will definitely be a part of it, at least for your journey. I could authorize your n to travel through my ocean territories. The journey might be a little bit longer, but it will be far safer than traveling through other waters. I could even deploy some battleships to protect your bounty-hunting ships so that things like this will not happen again,¡± Saleen said, referencing Irene¡¯s predicament.


    ¡°Battleships?¡± Irene asked, her eyes lighting up with hope as she continued, ¡°Can I buy them off of you?¡±


    ¡°Irene, Lex is a viscountess. Owning a battleship is nothing to her. The highest rank in the Williams n is only that of an earl. Purchasing the battleships might anger the officials over in Holy Rock City,¡± Saleen exined.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words, Irene realized that Saleen was truly well-versed in these matters. There was no way she could hide anything from him. Might as well tell him everything, Irene sighed inwardly.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, the Oceanic Ice Block is truly a gold mine. Assuming that the ships we send out don¡¯t hit any icebergs, just casting a into the waters alone will allow us to capture magic beasts that are very rare and valuable. There is a type of sea shrimp that exists only in that part of the ocean. It¡¯s red, nearly transparent, and is as long as an adult¡¯s arm. The front limbs of the sea shrimp can be directly refined into shen xing metal as well as grade-4 magic nuclei. Just one cast of the can reel in up to one thousand of these creatures. Can you imagine reeling in up to one thousand grade-4 magic nuclei in one go? It¡¯s literally a gold mine there!¡± Irene exined.


    ¡°How are grade-4 magic beasts so easy to capture?¡± Saleen asked in disbelief.


    ¡°Of course, there are some techniques that you¡¯ll have to master. You¡¯ll also have to use specially created metals as well. However, these efforts are nothingpared to the profits that can be earned,¡± Irene rambled on, feeling unusually rxed now that she had spilled everything that she knew.


    ¡°So only the Williams n have been involved in this business?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Irene replied, ¡°However, since you¡¯re definitely going to interfere, I guess we won¡¯t be the only ones doing this anymore.¡± As she said this, she tried to look as pitiful as possible. However, Saleen did not even flinch. Instead, he started to think about whether he really did want to venture into this business.


    Hunting and capturing magic beasts out at sea had always been lucrative. However, it would only be profitable if the people involved had strong backing. The southern ocean territories were now under Alchemy City¡¯s jurisdiction. Since the Williams n was risking the lives of its members who were travelling to the northern ocean waters to hunt, if he were to interfere just like that, the Williams would certainly not be happy. In fact, they would probably be hopping mad. Even though Saleen had the Bitter Water Prefecture and Sregl Ind behind him, he did not want to offend the Williams. Not too much, anyways.


    On the other hand, Saleen was not too worried that the Williams would exclude him from this money-making venture. He predicted that the Holy See would take at most two years to figure out the workings of the northern shipping route. They would be able to avoid the Cloudflow naval fleets, travel past Sikenqinya from the north, and eventually reach him. The deeper reason behind why the Holy See would do this was because of the fact that they had made almost no progress in tracking him viand. Naturally, they would think of getting to Saleen by travelling through the water instead.


    Alchemy City was a massive and impregnable fortress. Lianyun City, on the other hand, could be described as the stark opposite of impregnable. If the Holy See did put together a naval fleet, Saleen guessed that they would take advantage of the fact that Lianyun City was too weak to fight back and attack there first. Once Lianyun City fell, they would be able to gain ess to the Qin territory in no time.


    Once the Holy See made an appearance, the Williams¡¯ business would be done for. Once they reached that point, they would definitelye begging for Saleen¡¯s help. Thus, Saleen was not too anxious about interfering with their affairs.


    The shipping route connecting the ce that Saleen was currently at to the Oceanic Ice Block was definitely a business secret that Irene would not cough up easily. However, he was not going to simply ask for it. He wanted to see the Williams suffer for a while before having them give it up willingly.


    As Irene and Saleen continued chatting, Nailisi returned to the tent and asked Saleen, ¡°Master, I have taken care of Irene¡¯s men. Should we heal those that have been injured in the blizzard?¡±


    ¡°Of course! If those swordsmen lose any of their fingers, theirbat abilities will be negatively impacted. How much restorative water do we have now?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Not much left, Master,¡± Nailisi said politely, trying to present a false image of demurity in front of Irene. She looked so respectable mimicking the Myers Goddess that almost no one would be able to tell that she was lying. Saleen actually had so much restorative water that he could take a bath in it everyday and still have plenty of the liquid left. Restorative water was a product of mere level-1 magic. It was not difficult to make. Hence, Saleen had hoards of the liquid stashed somewhere. In fact, he gave the Sregl Ind swordsmen restorative water to drink everyday to improve their physical well-being and boost their strength.


    Since these swordsmen had not received these perks back at Sregl Ind, after being under Saleen for a while, they had more or less decided that they would remain loyal to Saleen until they either died or were no longer needed.


    ¡°I am willing to purchase it with money. Of course, I know that gold coins mean nothing to a respectable mage like you,¡± Irene said. She knew people like Saleen all too well. Even if she was aware of the fact that Saleen had copious quantities of restorative water, she would not be able to obtain it without giving him something in return. One of the few things that restorative water had inmon with the Holy See¡¯s holy water was that although it did not cost much to manufacture both liquids, mages were the only people who could produce them.


    ¡°Actually Irene, I might be more interested in what you can offer me aside from gold coins,¡± Saleen said smoothly and cryptically, making himself seem even more enigmatic to Irene than he already was. Saleen was very different from any other mage that she knew¡­ he behaved just like a nobleman who had bought his royal rank with gold coins. Yet, Saleen seemed like a genuine, sincere person who was very straightforward. His words had no malice or threat in them at all.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what you want from me,¡± Irene said, genuinely curious as to what Saleen wanted.


    ¡°Give me your catch for this hunting trip, and I promise that I¡¯ll personally send all of you back to Qin safe and sound,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°My ship¡­has sunk¡­¡± Irene said miserably. Her eyes were red and puffy and she felt like crying, but managed to hold her tears back. That ship had been a gift from her mother. Only Cloudflow nobles were able to receive ships as gifts, and the ship that she had received was worth at least a hundred thousand gold coins. After a few tweaks here and there, she had managed to create a symbolic representation of her status through her ship.


    Saleen knew that Irene was telling the truth. She had truly lost everything. There were no archmages in Irene¡¯s team, thus, not a single one of the one hundred and eighty people had been able to operate spatial equipment. All of their cargo could only be preserved through army equipment and storage in specially designed boxes. As soon as the ship had sunk, it was game over for Irene. There was nothing anyone could do to retrieve those boxes.


    ¡°Do you remember where your ship sank?¡± Saleen asked.


    Irene hesitated for a bit before answering, ¡°Six hundred miles from here¡­to the northeast, I think. We got here through the help of lifeboats.¡±


    Saleen consoled Irene and said, ¡°Don¡¯t be sad. Business is all about making money and losing money. If you really want a ship, I have one on hand right now. It may not have been revamped to your liking, but I can sell it to you at a cheaper price.¡±


    Once I find your ship Irene, everything on it will be mine¡­well, as soon as I activate my pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, of course, Saleen thought. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was a useful vessel after all. Saleen could make a fortune simply by deploying the ship to dive down and scoop up all of the valuable items that had gone down together with the sunken ships. Just using the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat for that purpose alone would bring in huge profits for the grade-5 mage. Moreover, not only could the bone spirits steer the alchemy ship, but they could also fight when needed. Of course, if Saleen wanted, he could alsomand the bone spirits to fish for Irene¡¯s cargo.


    Saleen¡¯s words did not bring much excitement to Irene. She could buy all the ships in the world, but none of them would be able to rece the ship that her mother had bought for her as a present. Saleen might have been strong, but constructing a ship required the help of professionals. The most that mages could do for professionals was provide them with the relevant auxiliary equipment. Everyponent and spare part that had made up the body of that ship had been created specially by the professionals themselves.


    As Saleen took in Irene¡¯s indifferent facial expression, he thought, I can give you the pirate ship for free since it¡¯s only worth a few thousand gold coins anyway, but you don¡¯t seem to appreciate it. I¡¯m not going to just seize your ship out of nowhere. That would probably be rude¡­ Oh well, I guess I have to ensure that the ship I give you is in one piece. That way she will not be suspicious of me.


    ¡°Irene, this isn¡¯t just some boat that I created myself. This is a ship ¨C a pirate ship, at that. I snatched that ship right out of those pirates¡¯ hands. You can¡¯t really use it to hunt, but you can use it to get back to your n,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°You¡­ seized their ship?!¡± Irene gasped, her mouth opening and closing like she was some kind of fish. Saleen watched the scene unfold before him gleefully.


    ¡°If those pirates can rob me, then I can do the same to them. Tit for tat, you know? I also n to rid the entire northern ocean territory of all pirates. These pirate ships are worth at least ten thousand gold coins each, and that¡¯s just the value of the poorly constructed ones. The better ones are almost as valuable as your bounty-hunting ship. What a pity that my ships aren¡¯t here with me right now. It¡¯s an even greater shame that it¡¯s currently the winter season. I don¡¯t think that pirates will be out and about at this time,¡± Saleen said.


    Get rid of all pirates? Talk is cheap, Saleen! Irene thought.


    Even if she thought that way, she chose to believe Saleen¡¯s words. Nailisi returned once again to ask Saleen, ¡± Master, I¡¯ve given Irene¡¯s men some medication. Do you need me to do anything else?¡±


    Saleen gave Irene a quick once-over and reconfirmed that the advanced swordswoman posed absolutely no threat to him. He waved his hands dismissively and said, ¡°You may leave us. Hm¡­on second thought, perhaps you can see what our soldiers are doing.¡±


    Saleen knew that Nailisi had overheard what Irene had said earlier. He also knew that she had her eye on Irene¡¯s sunken ship as well. Saleen figured that it would be a good idea to have the winged skeleton search for Irene¡¯s ship while he continued chatting with her about her family affairs. Perhaps I can get the winged skeleton to steer the alchemy ship. If we can find the sunken ship, we might be able to find some files and documents that can give us information about where the Oceanic Ice Block is, Saleen thought.


    ¡°Got it,¡± Nailisi said happily. Looks like master isn¡¯t stupid after all, she thought. The northern shipping routes were rarely explored. If the Williams n had struck it rich just by discovering one of those routes, who knew what else the northern ocean had to offer. The mainds located in these waters were rarely explored as well, likely because they werepletely sealed in ice. In fact, these inds were even more mysterious than the country of Shengfeng itself.


    Indeed, during the time that he had spent with Irene, not once had Saleen¡¯s judgement been clouded by lust. Yes, beautiful women had charisma which easily drew the grade-5 mage in, but he was just barely an adult now ording to Sikeqinya standards. He had met Sika before he had even be one. Irene and Sika were pretty simr, but it was obvious that Sika¡¯s looks stood out morepared to the former¡¯s. Saleen did not even react much whenever he interacted with Sika. Now that he was face to face with a female noble whose existence he had not even been aware of, Saleen was not about to let his guard down. He was not going to allow himself to slip up because he was thinking with hisher regions and not his head.


    To win the heart of a person like Saleen, the other party would have to spend a lot of time with him in order to even get into his good books. He strongly believed that ¡°love at first sight¡± was something that only existed in poems. Even then, he thought that the poets who had written them had either been suffering from writer¡¯s block or were, simply put, horrible writers. However, to Irene, Saleen looked as if he had already fallen for her charm.


    ¡°Irene, I¡¯ll go back and get my sailors to retrieve the ship for you. I know you might not have any money with you right now. Just think of it as a loan. If you do return, just pop by and pass me the money,¡± Saleen said with a smile on his face.


    Saleen¡¯s words had Irene cheering inwardly with glee. Looks like I¡¯m not aplete turn-off after all! Irene thought smugly as she began to notice Saleen¡¯s change in attitude towards her.

 Chapter 313: Irene (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 313: Irene (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°This is too much. We can¡¯t ept your kind offer,¡± Irene said. Deep down, it was taking all her self-restraint not to eagerly pounce on Saleen and offer all the words of appreciation that existed in the world.


    ¡°Think of it as an investment from me¡­ an investment on your n, of course. If you feel that it is too much or too sudden, we can sign a contract,¡± Saleen said with a smile on his face.


    ¡°A contract?¡± Irene asked curiously.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s like a loan agreement. Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t be putting any interest on your loan,¡± Saleen assured the young female.


    If Nailisi had still been in the tent, she would have beenughing uncontrobly at the notion of Saleen signing yet another agreement with some random stranger. The terms and conditions of Saleen¡¯s contracts were often fair, but somehow, the other party would always regret signing them in the end.


    ¡°Okay, sounds fair,¡± Irene said as she nodded. The situation was as clear as day to her now. Saleen did not seem to be the type of person who easily trusted other people. Even if he was not the kind who would extort the helpless, there was a high chance that Saleen would have refused to even lift a finger to help her.


    Mages had no obligations to help those in need. Yet, if Irene did not ept Saleen¡¯s help, at least half of her men would have perished by now. In fact, she might even end up not having any more men to provide for. Now that everything was frozen over, it was almost impossible for Irene and her men to trudge their way through the Northern wilderness to get back to the Qin country.


    As far as Irene knew, Saleen only owned one ship. Most of the men that she had brought along with her were skilled sailors. Since a pirate ship was only worth ten to twenty thousand gold coins, asking Irene to sign a loan agreement was apletely reasonable request. At least to Irene, it was a pretty good deal. If Saleen had given Irene a ship just like that, thetter would surely have been more guarded against the male mage.


    Saleen¡¯s heart fluttered with delight as he saw Irene nod in agreement. He was not going to chase Irene for her debt. To Saleen, as long as Irene did not pay him back the money, she would owe him many, many favors. Saleen could also not be bothered to implement a ten thousand gold coin interest rate. In fact, the only thing he took away from the entire conversation with Irene was that the Oceanic Ice Block could potentially offer riches to him.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, would you mind letting me eat something first?¡± Irene asked politely.


    Saleen pped his hands to summon the swordsmen. Once they entered the tent, the male mage instructed them to make dinner for his guest. All Irene had wanted was a mere piece of bread to curb her hunger. However, she was not about to appear rude in front of Saleen. Thus, she could do nothing but tolerate her hunger pangs for the time being.


    Nailisi boarded the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat along with a Sregl Ind mage that she had chosen to apany her. She told the winged skeleton about Irene¡¯s sunken ship before setting off. Because of the fact that Irene had not revealed the exact coordinates of the ce where her ship had sunk, the winged skeleton could not do much except scout the entire northeastern shipping route. Technically, she had indicated that it was to the northeast, but that was a pretty useless piece of information.


    At this point in time, the bone spirits were released as well, and were being controlled within a two-mile radius from the ship. As of now, their role was to assist the winged skeleton in searching through everything thaty on the ocean floor.


    The sunken ship, ording to Irene, was six hundred miles from where they were. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was able to maintain a speed of at least sixty miles per hour, and this meant that they could cover this distance within ten hours. Nailisi, however, was starting to be suspicious of Irene¡¯s ims. After all, it would be very challenging for someone like her to row a lifeboat six hundred miles.


    As the alchemy ship travelled towards the northeast, Nailisi suddenly noticed the ocean bing deeper and deeper around the four hundred mile mark. In fact, the deepest part of the ocean was about eight hundred meters below the surface. Ordinary ships would only be able to travel about thirty meters underwater before breaking apart from the sheer force of the water pressure. However, since the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was built entirely out of the pan¡¯s turtle shell, the ship could be submerged eight hundred meters below the surface and still maintain its current speed.


    Now that Saleen was not here, Nailisi was effectively the captain of this ship. The winged skeleton was truthfully a little afraid of the demon. Thus, he made sure that every single one of Nailisi¡¯s requests were fulfilled to the best of his capabilities so that he would not have to suffer Nailisi¡¯s wrath. The grade-3 mage was only there to help Nailisi observe the pictures of the ocean floor that the eye of the dead would send back. He knew that Nailisi was a very important person to Saleen. There was definitely not a simple master-maidservant rtionship between them. Thus, he also obeyed Nailisi¡¯smands as if they were Saleen¡¯s orders.


    After travelling about eight hundred miles away from shore, the ship started travelling along the arc of a random ind in search of Irene¡¯s ship. Ten hours had passed. Yet, no one found anything. The grade-3 mage was so tired that all he wanted to do was sleep. However, just as he was about to doze off, he heard the winged skeleton yell, ¡°Found it!¡±


    Under the control of the winged skeleton, the alchemy ship sped towards the ocean floor. Nailisi walked towards the magic images, and upon seeing the pictures captured by the eye of the dead, her body tingled with excitement.


    As the ck-and-white pictures became clearer and clearer, Nailisi discovered that the images projected earlier had not been that of Irene¡¯s bounty-hunting ship. Not even close. The piece of the sunken ship photographed earlier was far too big. In fact, it was over three hundred metres long. nt life was growing through the body of the ship, turning it into a beautiful floating forest. As the winged skeleton steered the ship to get a better view of its base, Nailisi discovered that there was a huge tear on the bottom of the ship. It was this huge fissure that had caused a gigantic metallic ship like this to sink in the first ce.


    Just then, a small shark emerged from the huge hole. As soon as it saw the enormous hull of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, it turned around and swam away frantically. Even though small sharks were considered just as ferocious as the bigger ones, they were far smarter than theirrger counterparts. They knew that it was probably a bad idea to try and take a huge chunk out of the ship.


    Nailisi had expected the ocean floor to be so dark that she could not even see anything. In fact, she had even expected to be unable to see the silhouettes of anything here. However, the entire ocean floorndscape had been illuminated by some type of bright blue seagrass that surprisingly did not shine too brightly, though it glowed bright enough for Nailisi to see that it was all over the ocean floor. These nts, which looked to be over ten meters tall, swayed gracefully with the currents. There were thousands, no, probably millions of colorful fish weaving in and out of the seagrass. However, Nailisi was not awed by the spectacr sight before her. In fact, she had sensed some kind of dangerous presence hiding beneath the sand of the sea bottom, waiting for the right moment to attack.


    ¡°Master Saleen is so lucky!¡± the grade-3 mage eximed, feeling a flurry of emotions overwhelm him at the sight of the ship.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Nailisi asked, pressing the mage for an exnation.


    ¡°This battleship was constructed during the Second Dynasty. I believe that most of the items on this ship have already dposed, but I feel that we should take the objects that are still rtively intact. Who knows, we might find lots of magical items here,¡± he exined.


    The Second Dynasty was said to be a magical dynasty, and was actually termed the ¡°Unholy Dynasty¡± by the Holy See. Magic had actually flourished during those times. In fact, nearly all the items that existed then were either fortified by magic or somehow connected to it. For example, the Heart of the Sky, the item that Lex had traded for the city blueprints, had not been considered a rare magical artifact back in the Second Dynasty.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take a look!¡± Nailisi eximed as she made her way towards the teleportation portal.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s way too dangerous!¡± the winged skeleton yelled in panic. Nailisi scoffed as she waved her hands dismissively, ¡°Rx, it¡¯s only eight hundred meters. I can take it.¡± She proceeded to teleport herself outside of the ship, and ended up on the lower back of the pan¡¯s turtle shell. The weight of the water above Nailisi caused her movements to be much slower than usual. As much as she wanted to morph into her demon form, she knew that she could not. The grade-3 mage¡¯s eyes were following every single movement she made. If she had been able to reveal her true form, she would have been able to tolerate even higher water pressures.


    Nailisi took out the brand-new dagger that Saleen had refined specially for her. The white dagger had been made using dragon¡¯s tooth as its base. It was a shame that Saleen had notpletely mastered the water me alchemy technique yet. Thus, the dagger that Nailisi was holding could not be transformed into a ring at her will, effectively making the dagger as powerful as any other ordinary weapon.


    Besides having used dragon¡¯s tooth as the basic material for the new dagger, Saleen had also utilized the machetes which he had seized. asionally, different illusions appeared on the body of the snow-white dagger. In fact, they were images that closely resembled blood. The images of these crimson-red fluids looked as if blood was oozing out of the dagger, making it seem as if Nailisi had just ughtered a group of people. It was a ghastly sight indeed.


    Saleen had fully understood the properties that the machetes possessed. The first property was that of deterrence. The second was that the machetes were able to block and even break the sword aura. Since he had wanted the dagger to possess these properties, Saleen had used the machetes to create the weapon as well. Even if the killers under the ck bishop¡¯smand had not encountered a formidable enemy like Nailisi before, all their enemy needed was four of these machetes to finish them off. In fact, even a silver grand swordmaster was no match for these machetes.


    It was unfortunate for her opponents that Nailisi was immune to the power of deterrence. She also did not possess the sword aura. Thus, these unique properties that the machetes had possessed had no effect on her. Never in the two killers¡¯ wildest dreams would they have expected people like Nailisi to exist in the world. It was toote to do anything about it now though. They had died wasted deaths.


    Gripping her new dragon¡¯s tooth dagger in hand, Nailisi sped towards the t ocean floor and swiped her weapon in the direction of the ocean gravel.


    Upon receiving a fatal blow from the dagger, the unknown creature hiding beneath the sand contorted violently in pain. Nailisi brought her dagger down again. Hard. No sooner had the dagger made contact with the creature did it stop moving.


    Upon striking the creature, the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger¡¯s freezing properties were activated, covering the entire t-looking creature in ayer of ice. Upon take a closer look, Nailisi realized that its mouth was actually located on top of its head. Squinting her eyes, she could see the outline of two sets of tusks which seemed to be able to spurt out venom.


    Was it the venomous tusks that made me so paranoid that I had to kill it? Nailisi thought to herself. She figured that a magic beast with the ability to squirt out venom instinctively would be considered valuable. Hence, she wasted no time in tossing the creature into her bracelet. As she did so, she estimated the length of its body. The number came out to be a little over one meter, give or take a few centimeters. Compared to everyone else, Nailisi had a very unusual body type. She was able to ingest an entire bottle of poison and remain rtively unharmed. However, she could sense that the venom secreted from this creature¡¯s poison nds was no joke, meaning that something might actually have happened to her if she hade into contact with its venom.


    However, since this creature did not contain a magic nucleus, it could not move very fast. Nailisi handled the creature with a bit more caution than she would with other objects or people to prevent herself from being the victim of a surprise attack. As long as the creature did not strike her unexpectedly, she would be fine. After surveying her surroundings and confirming that the only thing actually posing a threat to her was the creature that she had killed, Nailisi swam towards the gigantic hole on the base of the ship, carrying the dagger tightly in her hands.


    Nailisi took out a piece of fluorite from her bracelet. The gemstone glowed brightly, lighting up the entire ocean floor using the magic array that was fixed on top of it. Although she had perfect night vision, allowing her to see her enemies in pitch-ck darkness, she had not dove all the way down here to fight someone. She hade here to seek out the treasures on this sunken ship. With a light source, Nailisi was able to distinguish the valuable items from the worthless ones. Moreover, it was not realistic for Nailisi to drag this huge ship up to the surface alone. She could only pick and choose the items that she felt would bring in the most money.


    The hole located on the base of the ship was more than two meters in diameter. Upon surveying the giant crevice, Nailisi deduced that the hole had been created when the ship had rammed into something. What shocked Nailisi was the fact that a ship with a base more than half a meter thick had not been able to withstand the impact of the crash. What surprised Nailisi even more was the fact that the base had been constructed using rare, refined pieces of wood, meaning that the ship¡¯s base would be stronger than that of an ordinary ship.


    The ship that had sunk was some sort of gigantic alchemy ship. In terms of craftsmanship, this ship was far superior to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Even though Judikaka had refined the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, Lex was still the primary person responsible for its basic design.


    The tear in this gigantic ship¡¯s base seemed to have been caused by something, or someone. It was definitely not a result of the ship ramming into some random iceberg. As Nailisi¡¯s eyes travelled upwards along the direction of the cracks, she saw the floors of the deck ¨C or rather, what was left of them. Nailisi suddenly felt a shiver run down her spine. Who, or what could have attacked the ship so viciously? she thought. She was more inclined to think that the perpetrator was an ¡°it¡± rather than a ¡°he¡± or ¡°she¡±. If all three of Saleen¡¯s Sregl Ind warships had been attacked by the same unknown magic beast, Nailisi was certain that not a single one of them would survive.


    Fortunately, at least for Saleen, the ship looked as if it had been lying on the ocean floor for tens of thousands of years. The creatures responsible for the sinking of this particr ship were probably long dead by now. As Nailisi started patiently rummaging through the remains of the ship, she noticed that there were many different types of fish swimming around her. Apparently, they had made a habitat out of this shipwreck.


    The cabins that powered the ship had long since decayed by now. The only things left behind were piles of wooden pieces which could not dpose, and the same rare, special wood had been used to construct the base of the ship. Above these wooden nksy giant quantities of metallic magic streaks. All of these metallic magic streaks would remain intact even after spending tens of thousands of years underwater, as they were essentially immune to decay. To Nailisi, anything on this ship that had not decayed was probably either very valuable or useful material for the construction of god-knew-what. Keeping this rule of thumb in mind, Nailisi started to sweep up items from the ship.


    As Nailisi went about her merry way, she stumbled upon many wooden boxes. The quality of the wood used to make them was so good that probably no one would believe her if she told people that these boxes had spent ten thousand years at the bottom of the ocean. The boxes had remained perfectly intact, without even a single scratch on them. The items inside, on the other hand, had not survived the test of time. Unfortunately, this type of wood did not seem to be the kind that could be produced on the Myers Maind. Nailisi guessed that they had been imported from another dimension. As Nailisi opened up the boxes one by one, she realized that most of the objects inside disintegrated almost immediately when she touched them, including a few magic nuclei. The only items that did not disintegrate upon contact were made of metal.


    Those magic nuclei had been high-grade magic objects, and thus had retained their shape and form even after ten thousand years. However, they were not to be touched. Just one poke and an entire box worth of magic nuclei would turn to powder almost immediately. Nailisi found that out the hard way.


    Most of the metals had already decayed over time. The only metals that had withstood the test of time were rare, specially crafted ones. However, Nailisi had no interest in procuring them. All she wanted to do was see if there were any corpses of Second Dynasty mages. Even though most spatial equipment could notst ten thousand years, this rule of thumb could not be applied to the magical equipment that had been created during the Second Dynasty. Who knew? Perhaps they couldst for millions of years. Anything had been possible during the magical dynasty. If she did locate a corpse, that would mean that their spatial equipment could not be too far away. Just one set of spatial equipment alone would be worth more than all those boxesbined.

 Chapter 314: Second Dynasty Combat Vessel (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 314: Second Dynasty Combat Vessel (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The hole at the bottom of the ship was at its end and had directly destroyed the vessel¡¯s steering and engine systems. Nailisi started searching from the back of the ship to the front, but she could not find a single corpse.


    This was normal. There were already many special creatures on the ship and any corpse would have been eaten clean. Just as Nailisi started to be a little disappointed, she saw arge ring in front of a cabin door. It was covered with what looked like rust, but Nailisi knew it was not. She ced it into her mouth and wiped it down with the sharp spikes on her tongue, polishing it until it was shiny and appeared almost new.


    Spatial equipment! Nailisi used her focus to examine it and knew what properties this object possessed. With this spatial equipment from the Second Dynasty, this would not be a wasted trip. Even if they could not find the Irene¡¯s sunken ship, it was worth it.


    Having encountered this ring here, Nailisi took a nce at the undamaged cabin door, interested in whatid behind it.


    However, Nailisi did not have the ability to breathe underwater like Saleen and she had already been searching for more than an hour in such deep seas, creating a tremendous strain on her body. Nailisi thought for a while. Instead of using scrolls to create air, she returned to her demon form and the pressure was immediately greatly relieved. Her skin was now like Saleen¡¯s and could absorb whatever air she needed from the water.


    Nailisi ced her hand on the undamaged door and gave a slight push. The door opened silently. It was long since been filled with seawater, but none of the items inside were damaged. Nailisi looked at the items stored within the cabin and wanted to give a loudugh.


    Saleen had been looking for this! It was a magic cannon.


    Nailisi did not analyze any of the oddities on this magic cannon, as it was much smaller than what was drawn on the book, being barely two meters long. She was afraid that the thing in front of her would disappear and she stored it immediately into her bracelet.


    This was a magic cannon. What was more, it had been created during the Second Dynasty and there was not a second one like it on the entire maind.


    So long as they set up the magic cannon on the rocky mountains north of the port, anyrgebat vessels within a hundred miles would not daree close. Nailisi knew what Saleen was worried about ¨C thebat fleet from the Holy See. With this, they would not be able to reach the shores to attack, the magic stone artillery would not be able to help, and they would need to sacrifice their knights if they wanted to secure a victory.


    Nailisi smiled. She could already imagine Saleen¡¯s expression when he saw this thing. He would seem like he had never been happier before.


    The wood materials used to create thisbat vessel was quite special. Nailisi knew that she would be unable to tear it all down and take it away. The movements of the fully constructed puppets would be severely limited in deep seas like this as well. Moreover, counting only on two puppets, she would still be unable to tear down such arge vessel.


    Nailisi searched the head of the vessel carefully. Although she did not find a second magic cannon, she was already satisfied and she took down whatever she could. On the bridge, she had even found a giant magicpass.


    Theponents of the magicpass had spoiled, but the part of thepass used for surveince was still good. It almost seemed to have been created with tremolite. Nailisi knew the value of this, and using the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger to cut it down, she stored it within her bracelet. Atst, she felt as if there was nothing else she could take and she reverted back to her human form, swimming back to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat the way she hade.


    ¡°What did you find?¡± The grade-3 mage was incredibly excited. He did not have any self-serving motives. Back on Sregl Ind, the high-grade mages had taken everything while the low-grade mages could only wait to split the remains among themselves. However, although the distribution had been quite fair on Sregl ind, they had spent quite a long time with Saleen and realized that he treated everyone fairly decently. Perhaps they were now living even more well-off than they had on Sregl Ind.


    Nailisi had found the sunken ship, and if there were any benefits, Saleen would not forget about the others.


    Nailisi took out the wooden material that she had found, ced them in front of the grade-3 mage, and asked, ¡°Do you recognize this? It has been underwater for over ten thousand years and it still hasn¡¯t rotted.¡± She tapped it with her fingers as she spoke. The wooden material produced a crisp and clear metal sound.


    ¡°Thundercloud wood. This is from the giant dimension. These trees can grow up into the clouds and are much lighter than normal wood, yet much tougher than metal and also resistant to corrosion. Manybat vessels back in the day were made from this.¡±


    This grade-3 mage was extremely knowledgeable and could recognize the history of this wood just by looking.


    Nailisi took out the boxes to have the grade-3 mage analyze them. The material used to make these boxes were different from the wood used to make the ship, but they did not have any signs of corrosion either and produced a clear sound when tapped. From the echo, Nailisi could tell that the quality of this wooden material was about the same and not any less than that of the thundercloud wood.


    ¡°Divine cherrywood from the first abyssal dimension. Using this to create boxes is such a waste. This is material that can be used to make spatial equipment!¡±


    Nailisi giggled and asked, ¡°I have forgotten to ask your name. What shall I call you?¡±


    The grade-3 mage was a little embarrassed as he replied, ¡°Truman.¡±


    ¡°Truman, you seem very knowledgeable. Are all the mages on Sregl Ind like this?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I like alchemy and have researched materials much more than others. If not, I would be a grand mage by now,¡± Truman answered, though he did not seem to have any regrets.


    ¡°Yes, do not spread word about the sunken ship unless Master Jason is here. Now, with the three kings around, I cannot promise that they will not have any ideas,¡± Nailisi reminded him.


    ¡°Understood, I do not think those pirates are reliable either.¡± Truman nodded vigorously. Suddenly, he had another request.


    ¡°Nailisi, give me some of these materials. I want to research them.¡±


    ¡°Research?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have only seen such things in books. All the properties I know are from books as well. I¡¯m sure there are some differences.¡± Truman eyes shone.


    ¡°No.¡±


    Hearing Nailisi reject him, Truman became a little disappointed before Nailisi said, ¡°You cannot use spatial equipment right now. If I gave this to you, you would not have anywhere to hide it. If you want to conduct research,e to the temple and find me every day when no one is around. I won¡¯t be on the ship from now on.¡±


    Nailisi had a feeling that Truman would be of great use to Saleen and hence had yed a joke on him. Truman was overjoyed as he nodded fervently.


    ¡°Nailisi, are we still looking for that ship?¡± the winged skeleton asked. From the rewards they had obtained, this ship was definitely of greater value than Irene¡¯s ship. With this ship, Saleen would likely be satisfied.


    ¡°Search for it. If we find that ship, we might be able to find some clues on the ship¡¯s route. Hey, Soldier, if you are following Master, you need to learn to be smarter. If you are too useless, I will eat you up,¡± Nailisi threatened.


    The winged skeleton did not rebut. If someone else had said that, he would not have thought too much of it. What was there to eat? However, Nailisi was a demon and any demon would have done some research on spirits. The winged skeleton was worried that Nailisi really had a way of dealing with him.


    ¡°Okay, we have been out for over a day. Truman, go rest. The winged skeleton and I will continue looking for the sunken ship. If we haven¡¯t found it in three days, we will go back,¡± Nailisimanded. Truman was tired beyond belief. Hearing Nailisi¡¯s words, he quickly went to rest in the cabin in the rear.


    If a mage did not get enough sleep, it would affect the stability of their focus.


    ¡°Soldier, set the ship on its fastest speed. We need to expand the search radius.¡± Nailisi¡¯s focus was on overdrive. When she had been evolving, she needed sleep badly and would sleep for days without waking up. Now that her evolution wasplete, she had be someone who did not need sleep. The winged skeleton was a spirit and did not need much sleep either. So long as they had nourishment from death mes, any spirit could quickly restore themselves to their original state.


    The winged skeleton did not dare disobey Nailisi, as he was almost like Nailisi¡¯s contract creature now. The bone spirits had all been released and they searched within a two mile radius of the alchemy ship. The ship was moving at full speed and was already much faster than mostbat vessels that travelled on the surface of the sea. This expended a great deal of energy, and the bone spirits could only allow the alchemy ship to move along slowly to prevent the wasting of any magic nuclei. However, to achieve such high speeds would require the expenditure of many magic nuclei.


    They sailed in the sea for another day. If it had been anyone else, they would have been too tired to do anything. Only with thebination of a demon and a spirit could they continue working in such a boring environment.


    After almost fifty hours, Nailisi found Irene¡¯s sunken ship. It was in an odd location, in the ravines at the bottom of the sea. This ravine was not deep, but with such a ravine under the sea, unstable sea currents would naturally form. Since the Williams n had gone by this route, it was their mistake for choosing this path.


    The sunken ship of the Williams n was not anything unusual. There was arge crack at the hull of the ship that had been left when it smashed into a mountain of ice. This ship must have been sunk about ten days ago. The corpses on the ship had been nearly eaten clean by the living creatures in the sea, and what were left were just the skeletons. Shell-like creatures had adhered to the surface of these bones, making them their homes.


    Nailisi entered the ship. Finding the wares, she took everything inside and went to find the ship¡¯s log, at the same time taking the magicpass.


    With a powerful mage, one could look at the elemental vibrations left behind by the magicpass to determine the route taken by the boat. When this boat sank, the mage controlling the ship had not destroyed thepass. They must have thought that no one would retrieve it from the ocean floor.


    Of course, the things on Irene¡¯s hunting ship were decent too. There wererge numbers of grade-4 magic nuclei and some grade-6 ones as well. Many sea creatures had legs stronger than metal. There were shells, scales, bones, and tendons of the magic beasts living in the sea. There were also some sealed boxes and bottles, and these were filled with special blood. Nailisi took a whiff and knew this blood could be used to create high-grade magic medicine.


    The wares onboard were not plentiful, but the value of the wares on a boat could not be measured in gold coins.


    The owner¡¯s business had been decent. A pirate ship had been enough in exchange for leads on this sunken ship. The value of a pirate ship was less than ten thousand gold coins and Irene had taken a loan from her owners. The rewards from this sunken ship now exceeded a million gold coins.


    Nailisi calcted that they had been out at sea for four days. In these four days, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had used up several grade-6 magic nuclei, and the cost was to be counted in tens of thousands of gold coins. Even if they did not discover the Second Dynastybat vessel, with this sunken ship of the Williams n, they would have earned back everything.


    The one who had lost everything was Irene. She had gone out to sea and spent hundreds of thousands of gold coins, only to have her ship sunk in the end.

 Chapter 315: Second Dynasty Combat Vessel (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 315: Second Dynasty Combat Vessel (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The hole at the bottom of the ship was at its end and had directly destroyed the vessel¡¯s steering and engine systems. Nailisi started searching from the back of the ship to the front, but she could not find a single corpse.


    This was normal. There were already many special creatures on the ship and any corpse would have been eaten clean. Just as Nailisi started to be a little disappointed, she saw arge ring in front of a cabin door. It was covered with what looked like rust, but Nailisi knew it was not. She ced it into her mouth and wiped it down with the sharp spikes on her tongue, polishing it until it was shiny and appeared almost new.


    Spatial equipment! Nailisi used her focus to examine it and knew what properties this object possessed. With this spatial equipment from the Second Dynasty, this would not be a wasted trip. Even if they could not find the Irene¡¯s sunken ship, it was worth it.


    Having encountered this ring here, Nailisi took a nce at the undamaged cabin door, interested in whatid behind it.


    However, Nailisi did not have the ability to breathe underwater like Saleen and she had already been searching for more than an hour in such deep seas, creating a tremendous strain on her body. Nailisi thought for a while. Instead of using scrolls to create air, she returned to her demon form and the pressure was immediately greatly relieved. Her skin was now like Saleen¡¯s and could absorb whatever air she needed from the water.


    Nailisi ced her hand on the undamaged door and gave a slight push. The door opened silently. It was long since been filled with seawater, but none of the items inside were damaged. Nailisi looked at the items stored within the cabin and wanted to give a loudugh.


    Saleen had been looking for this! It was a magic cannon.


    Nailisi did not analyze any of the oddities on this magic cannon, as it was much smaller than what was drawn on the book, being barely two meters long. She was afraid that the thing in front of her would disappear and she stored it immediately into her bracelet.


    This was a magic cannon. What was more, it had been created during the Second Dynasty and there was not a second one like it on the entire maind.


    So long as they set up the magic cannon on the rocky mountains north of the port, anyrgebat vessels within a hundred miles would not daree close. Nailisi knew what Saleen was worried about ¨C thebat fleet from the Holy See. With this, they would not be able to reach the shores to attack, the magic stone artillery would not be able to help, and they would need to sacrifice their knights if they wanted to secure a victory.


    Nailisi smiled. She could already imagine Saleen¡¯s expression when he saw this thing. He would seem like he had never been happier before.


    The wood materials used to create thisbat vessel was quite special. Nailisi knew that she would be unable to tear it all down and take it away. The movements of the fully constructed puppets would be severely limited in deep seas like this as well. Moreover, counting only on two puppets, she would still be unable to tear down such arge vessel.


    Nailisi searched the head of the vessel carefully. Although she did not find a second magic cannon, she was already satisfied and she took down whatever she could. On the bridge, she had even found a giant magicpass.


    Theponents of the magicpass had spoiled, but the part of thepass used for surveince was still good. It almost seemed to have been created with tremolite. Nailisi knew the value of this, and using the dragon¡¯s tooth dagger to cut it down, she stored it within her bracelet. Atst, she felt as if there was nothing else she could take and she reverted back to her human form, swimming back to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat the way she hade.


    ¡°What did you find?¡± The grade-3 mage was incredibly excited. He did not have any self-serving motives. Back on Sregl Ind, the high-grade mages had taken everything while the low-grade mages could only wait to split the remains among themselves. However, although the distribution had been quite fair on Sregl ind, they had spent quite a long time with Saleen and realized that he treated everyone fairly decently. Perhaps they were now living even more well-off than they had on Sregl Ind.


    Nailisi had found the sunken ship, and if there were any benefits, Saleen would not forget about the others.


    Nailisi took out the wooden material that she had found, ced them in front of the grade-3 mage, and asked, ¡°Do you recognize this? It has been underwater for over ten thousand years and it still hasn¡¯t rotted.¡± She tapped it with her fingers as she spoke. The wooden material produced a crisp and clear metal sound.


    ¡°Thundercloud wood. This is from the giant dimension. These trees can grow up into the clouds and are much lighter than normal wood, yet much tougher than metal and also resistant to corrosion. Manybat vessels back in the day were made from this.¡±


    This grade-3 mage was extremely knowledgeable and could recognize the history of this wood just by looking.


    Nailisi took out the boxes to have the grade-3 mage analyze them. The material used to make these boxes were different from the wood used to make the ship, but they did not have any signs of corrosion either and produced a clear sound when tapped. From the echo, Nailisi could tell that the quality of this wooden material was about the same and not any less than that of the thundercloud wood.


    ¡°Divine cherrywood from the first abyssal dimension. Using this to create boxes is such a waste. This is material that can be used to make spatial equipment!¡±


    Nailisi giggled and asked, ¡°I have forgotten to ask your name. What shall I call you?¡±


    The grade-3 mage was a little embarrassed as he replied, ¡°Truman.¡±


    ¡°Truman, you seem very knowledgeable. Are all the mages on Sregl Ind like this?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I like alchemy and have researched materials much more than others. If not, I would be a grand mage by now,¡± Truman answered, though he did not seem to have any regrets.


    ¡°Yes, do not spread word about the sunken ship unless Master Jason is here. Now, with the three kings around, I cannot promise that they will not have any ideas,¡± Nailisi reminded him.


    ¡°Understood, I do not think those pirates are reliable either.¡± Truman nodded vigorously. Suddenly, he had another request.


    ¡°Nailisi, give me some of these materials. I want to research them.¡±


    ¡°Research?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have only seen such things in books. All the properties I know are from books as well. I¡¯m sure there are some differences.¡± Truman eyes shone.


    ¡°No.¡±


    Hearing Nailisi reject him, Truman became a little disappointed before Nailisi said, ¡°You cannot use spatial equipment right now. If I gave this to you, you would not have anywhere to hide it. If you want to conduct research,e to the temple and find me every day when no one is around. I won¡¯t be on the ship from now on.¡±


    Nailisi had a feeling that Truman would be of great use to Saleen and hence had yed a joke on him. Truman was overjoyed as he nodded fervently.


    ¡°Nailisi, are we still looking for that ship?¡± the winged skeleton asked. From the rewards they had obtained, this ship was definitely of greater value than Irene¡¯s ship. With this ship, Saleen would likely be satisfied.


    ¡°Search for it. If we find that ship, we might be able to find some clues on the ship¡¯s route. Hey, Soldier, if you are following Master, you need to learn to be smarter. If you are too useless, I will eat you up,¡± Nailisi threatened.


    The winged skeleton did not rebut. If someone else had said that, he would not have thought too much of it. What was there to eat? However, Nailisi was a demon and any demon would have done some research on spirits. The winged skeleton was worried that Nailisi really had a way of dealing with him.


    ¡°Okay, we have been out for over a day. Truman, go rest. The winged skeleton and I will continue looking for the sunken ship. If we haven¡¯t found it in three days, we will go back,¡± Nailisimanded. Truman was tired beyond belief. Hearing Nailisi¡¯s words, he quickly went to rest in the cabin in the rear.


    If a mage did not get enough sleep, it would affect the stability of their focus.


    ¡°Soldier, set the ship on its fastest speed. We need to expand the search radius.¡± Nailisi¡¯s focus was on overdrive. When she had been evolving, she needed sleep badly and would sleep for days without waking up. Now that her evolution wasplete, she had be someone who did not need sleep. The winged skeleton was a spirit and did not need much sleep either. So long as they had nourishment from death mes, any spirit could quickly restore themselves to their original state.


    The winged skeleton did not dare disobey Nailisi, as he was almost like Nailisi¡¯s contract creature now. The bone spirits had all been released and they searched within a two mile radius of the alchemy ship. The ship was moving at full speed and was already much faster than mostbat vessels that travelled on the surface of the sea. This expended a great deal of energy, and the bone spirits could only allow the alchemy ship to move along slowly to prevent the wasting of any magic nuclei. However, to achieve such high speeds would require the expenditure of many magic nuclei.


    They sailed in the sea for another day. If it had been anyone else, they would have been too tired to do anything. Only with thebination of a demon and a spirit could they continue working in such a boring environment.


    After almost fifty hours, Nailisi found Irene¡¯s sunken ship. It was in an odd location, in the ravines at the bottom of the sea. This ravine was not deep, but with such a ravine under the sea, unstable sea currents would naturally form. Since the Williams n had gone by this route, it was their mistake for choosing this path.


    The sunken ship of the Williams n was not anything unusual. There was arge crack at the hull of the ship that had been left when it smashed into a mountain of ice. This ship must have been sunk about ten days ago. The corpses on the ship had been nearly eaten clean by the living creatures in the sea, and what were left were just the skeletons. Shell-like creatures had adhered to the surface of these bones, making them their homes.


    Nailisi entered the ship. Finding the wares, she took everything inside and went to find the ship¡¯s log, at the same time taking the magicpass.


    With a powerful mage, one could look at the elemental vibrations left behind by the magicpass to determine the route taken by the boat. When this boat sank, the mage controlling the ship had not destroyed thepass. They must have thought that no one would retrieve it from the ocean floor.


    Of course, the things on Irene¡¯s hunting ship were decent too. There wererge numbers of grade-4 magic nuclei and some grade-6 ones as well. Many sea creatures had legs stronger than metal. There were shells, scales, bones, and tendons of the magic beasts living in the sea. There were also some sealed boxes and bottles, and these were filled with special blood. Nailisi took a whiff and knew this blood could be used to create high-grade magic medicine.


    The wares onboard were not plentiful, but the value of the wares on a boat could not be measured in gold coins.


    The owner¡¯s business had been decent. A pirate ship had been enough in exchange for leads on this sunken ship. The value of a pirate ship was less than ten thousand gold coins and Irene had taken a loan from her owners. The rewards from this sunken ship now exceeded a million gold coins.


    Nailisi calcted that they had been out at sea for four days. In these four days, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had used up several grade-6 magic nuclei, and the cost was to be counted in tens of thousands of gold coins. Even if they did not discover the Second Dynastybat vessel, with this sunken ship of the Williams n, they would have earned back everything.


    The one who had lost everything was Irene. She had gone out to sea and spent hundreds of thousands of gold coins, only to have her ship sunk in the end.

 Chapter 316: Second Dynasty Combat Vessel (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 316: Second Dynasty Combat Vessel (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi brought the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat back to the white beaches. The surface of the sea was frozen as the alchemy ship silently travelled underwater back into the boat house. This natural harbor was perfect. The depth of the sea near the coast was much deeper than other ces. Under the piloting of the bone spirits, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat went virtually unnoticed.


    At the end of the day, the bone spirits were death creatures as well. However, their soul auras were too weak and they were just as harmless as the fish in the sea. Even if a few sorcerers used magic detection near the beach, they would not be able to prate the over two hundred meters of seawater and notice anything awry with the alchemy ship.


    The tent on the beaches had long since been taken down and Nailisi had been gone for ten days. Irene and her people could not stay here. Saleen would not let them stay either, as his city was still under its initial stages of construction and he did not want anything to be revealed. Irene stayed for two days and her radius of activity was limited to a white line on the beach.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi rushed into the temple. where Saleen was practicing the Water me spell. The blue water mes were almost as big as a person¡¯s fist and were incredibly stable. Seeing Nailisi enter, Saleen immediately extinguished the water mes.


    ¡°Nailisi, did you find anything?¡±


    ¡°Yes, and not only Irene¡¯s sunken ship. I have found something big!¡± Nailisi gestured with her hands, exining how she had found the remains of a Second Dynastybat vessel.


    ¡°Nailisi, no one else knows about this, right?¡±


    ¡°A grade-3 mage named Truman knows, but I have already given him a reminder and he will not tell anyone. Master, first, take a look at this!¡± As she spoke, Nailisi took out the strange magic cannon from her bracelet.


    This magic cannon was barely two meters long. There was a hexagonal barrel at the front and a rectangr tform at the back, securing the barrel within.


    A normal magic cannon would have a crystal barrel. Since crystal could not withstand temperatures which were too high, many different ingredients had to be added and processed into it, and the diameter of the barrel would be at least a meter and a half. This magic cannon¡¯s barrel was made entirely of crystal, and at the hollow parts of the crystal, a long piece of ice ind rock had been iid.


    This crystal and the ice ind rock were things that Saleen possessed. Even though their sizes were much smaller, he still had ways of obtaining them. However, as for the rectangr tform, Saleen had no idea what material it was made of.


    Underneath the cannon tform was where the troughs met. Evidently, it could be ced on equipment of a simr size to create a moveable cannon tform. However, when the magic cannon fired a shot, its recoil was massive and this equipment could not be fixed onto a castle wall. Otherwise, in a single shot, the entire wall would crumble.


    Most importantly, when the base of the magic cannon was fixed, its shooting angle could only be adjusted via magic array, thus the attack range of the magic cannon was incredibly limited. This small-scale magic cannon obviously had a flexible base and could be stripped down using a fully constructed puppet.


    If there were two fully constructed puppets, together with some special base, this magic cannon¡¯s range could form a three hundred and sixty degree circle. Anything within the range would not be able to escape its wrath.


    Saleen forcefully held back his excitement. Even though this magic cannon had immense power, it only mattered if he could retain it. A cannon tform was not just a device for installing the base of the cannon. It needed to be treated like a magic tower, and defensive magic arrays needed to beid down in order to prevent enemies from destroying it.


    The rock mountains north of the port were the perfect ce for a magic cannon. However, the mages from Sregl Ind were not here yet, and Lex¡¯s people were not here either, so he could not install the magic cannon now. Even though it would be easy to fix it on, defending it would be tricky.


    ¡°Nailisi, put this away for now.¡± Saleen¡¯s eyes returned to their calm appearance.


    ¡°Master, do you want me to go to the rock mountains to install the cannon? I can do it alone.¡± Nailisi was more anxious than Saleen to install the magic cannon. This was something which even the three kings would not dare to face. Moreover, with Saleen¡¯s savings, a single battle would not be able to destroy it.


    With this small-scale magic cannon, Saleen could control not only the surface of the sea, but also the city. The rock mountains had enough space to install six of the base tforms. In that case, the magic cannons could control six directions, and each direction only needed to cover sixty degrees.


    ¡°I will do this alone. Nailisi, bring me the magicpass from Irene¡¯s ship.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Nailisi put away the magic cannon and took out the magicpass she had retrieved from the Williams n¡¯s sunken ship. The magicpass had been taken apart by Nailisi and could no longer be used. However, the information within had not disappeared and Saleen ced it on the floor. Sitting in front of it, he started analyzing its magic information.


    The magicpass would remember the route the ship had taken, and to understand the general route, one needed to reference a map of the sea and perhaps even a map of the constetions. With his advancement, Saleen had gain knowledge of innumerable magic symbols from the Goddess¡¯ Ne and his calction skills were no longer limited to the Figaro Form. He would be able to break down any remaining traces of magic using the magic symbols.


    Moreover, Saleen no longer needed to enter the Goddess¡¯ Ne to achieve such quick calctions. Irene had not told them the details of the route. He had not asked either, and he would not buy them from the Williams n. With thispass, Saleen would have the secrets of the route.


    No matter how much of the world Irene had seen, she could not have imagined that there was a ship which could patrol eight hundred meters underwater for extended periods of time which could find her sunken ship and obtain its magicpass. When she had struck the ice, she had not thought of destroying the information within thepass immediately. Instead, she had gone to save the swordsmen and sailors from her family.


    This calction took about a week, and when six days had passed, Saleen emerged from his endless calction. He saw that Nailisi had remained by his side the entire time and was touched as he said, ¡°Nailisi, make something to eat. Let¡¯s eat together.¡±


    ¡°Finished calcting?¡± Nailisi took out some bread, smoked meat, jam, and vegetables that were rarely seen in this season from her bracelet. Like Lex, she chopped them up and presented them on a silver te to Saleen.


    ¡°Almost. It is scary. This sea route still goes at least tens of thousands of miles north. The Williams n must have grasped the currents and seasonal winds by now. They must have expected a great deal of danger along the way. This is a sea route that has been exchanged for lives!¡±


    The magicpass only recorded the directions and speeds of the sea route, but Saleen had analyzed many things from the speed of the boat. This included when the ship would stop and when would it change its speed, and in which direction. If it had been a safe route, all these things would have been rtively uniform. However, the information from the magicpass told Saleen that there had not been a single day when nothing had happened on this sea route.


    ¡°Master, does that mean we can go to Oceanic Ice Block now?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. We need to find a map of the sea. It¡¯d be even better if we had a map of the constetions. Or¡­¡±


    ¡°Or what?¡±


    ¡°Or we can build abat vessel like the one from the Second Dynasty. This would ensure our safety.¡±


    ¡°Master, the Second Dynastybat vessel sunk after being hit by a magic beast.¡±


    ¡°I know, but a magic beast like that must be incredibly rare. Otherwise, the Williams n could not have travelled using this sea route for many years. They have only met with trouble now.¡±


    ¡°Then let me tear apart the Second Dynastybat vessel. We can use the thundercloud wood to build our own vessel.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no rush. We don¡¯t have suitable sailors. We can talk about this when my teacher is here. We can build a dock here, and by that time, we will be able to create countless vessels if we have the material and the carpenters.¡±


    Saleen knew that Judikaka had only been able to build an alchemy ship for him because the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was less than thirty meters long. If abat vessel over two hundred meters was to be built, the three kings would not be capable of doing so. Moreover, he and Nailisi had the same thoughts. The remains of the Second Dynastybat vessel were best kept a secret from the three kings.


    When Saleen was almost finished eating, he meditated for a while more before opening his eyes and saying to Nailisi, ¡°Go find Conan. I have something to ask him.¡±


    Conan quickly came to the temple. A structure like this temple was immensely impressive to a barbarian. Barbarians believed in gods, but they did not have any faith. This was something unusual, almost as if the gods of the barbarians had existed even before the Myers Goddess, though they had now forgotten about their gods.


    This was the first time Conan had stepped into the radius of the temple since he had been brought here by Saleen. Seeing the over three hundred stone pirs all around, the tforms that were even wider than the roads in the capital, and the simple yet elegant flower patterns, even if he did not ce faith in any gods, Conan still knelt on the ground in awe.


    To him, Saleen was almost like a god. Saleen had saved him, and at the same time had sent some swordsmen to bring the remaining barbarians to the city.


    Conan had taken himself for Saleen¡¯s ve and prisoner but had no intentions of revolting. He only hoped that his people could lead good lives. Slogging his life for a master like Saleen was not too big of a deal. This was the fate of a barbarian. Since losing the protection of the gods, they had led the lives of nomads. For Conan, having a powerful mage willing to take him in was happiness.


    ¡°Conan, how have you been in your time here?¡±


    ¡°Master Saleen, I have been well.¡±


    ¡°How about your people?¡±


    ¡°They are very grateful, Master. They are forming an army to repay their loyalty.¡±


    ¡°An army?¡± Saleenughed. The number of barbarians left was pitiful and even though they were strong teenagers, they were but thirty-three people.


    ¡°Master, the axemen we have with us are better than the Caucasians. We know thends here and can be your scouts.¡± Conan was not angry at Saleen¡¯s attitude. Instead, he exined things seriously.


    Saleen thought back to Conan¡¯s skill in throwing his axe and felt that what he said was true. A normal grade-3 mage would have died under such an axe. The Holy See had only dared to attack these barbarians when they had gathered over two hundred people. Furthermore, they needed a local to lead the development of the north.


    ¡°Conan, I have sought you out for two things. Firstly, I need to know what the Holy See has been doing in the north over these past few years. Secondly, I need you to go find any remaining barbarian survivors within a thousand miles and bring them back to the city. The north will not be peaceful forever, and they will not be able to survive for long in the wilderness.¡±

 Chapter 317: Reuniting with Aini (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 317: Reuniting with Aini (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Will those monsters from the Holy See return?¡± Conan asked with trepidation.


    ¡°If there are no hups, by spring next year, there will be a small grouping in. Within two years,bat vessels from the Holy See will start appearing in the northern seas.¡±


    Conan lowered his head and listened attentively to Saleen¡¯s words. He did not quite understand what Saleen was saying but he understood that the barbarians had two years at most before they would have to face those monsters again.


    Barbarians were not afraid of battle. However, those monsters had the protection of their evil gods while the gods of the barbarians had passed away long ago.


    Saleen did not say anything else as he waited quietly for Conan¡¯s answer. After a long while, Conan regrouped his thoughts and recounted to Saleen what the Holy See had done in the north.


    ording to what Conan knew, the Holy See had been active in the north for the past five years at minimum. At the beginning, they hade here to spread their teachings, hoping to develop some devotees from the barbarians. After seeing no results after two years, they had started recing their people with the ck armored warriors from the tribunal.


    After that, the massacres began. The range of activity of the barbarians was incrediblyrge and the tribes were not gathered. The number of people from the Holy See were not numerous at the start, but after progressively closing in on the barbarians, it only took two years for tens of thousands of barbarians to disappearpletely from the northern wilderness.


    The means of the Holy See were brutal. They did not want children or the elderly, only barbarians who could fight. Usually, after a tribe of barbarians had been cleared out, less than ten survived. Most of the surviving barbarians had escaped because they were not with the tribe at the time. They had been hunting outside and had thus escaped the disaster.


    Conan¡¯s tribe had a rtivelyrge area of activity and knew the positions of hundreds of tribes within a thousand miles. After three years had passed, none of those hundreds of tribes had been left unattacked.


    Saleen analyzed it simply. The northern wilderness was a part of the Myers Maind that stuck out of its top right corner, and its area was vast. Using this poption density, there must have been at least hundreds of thousands of barbarians. A tribe would control a radius of approximately a hundred miles, and they would not have a lot of people, perhaps around one hundred. Such a poption density was already lower than that of the Caucasians. It was no wonder that over the years, he had not heard about any major powers in the north.


    The barbarians were still living very primitive lives and they were not as willing as the Caucasians to run around and be mercenaries. These were tribes that had nearly been forgotten by the world. The first time they had been remembered by the others, they had encountered such a tragic fate.


    The internal workings of the Holy See were split into three factions. The tribunals were one, the oracles were another, and the one which served as the main body was the pivotal council. Capturing barbarians and processing them to be blood knights was something the pivotal council would not do. Back then, the ones who had signed a contract with the three empires had been the pivotal council.


    The ones who had sent the missionaries must have been the oracles.


    The seven oracles from the Holy See had special devotees. They went about their business furtively, and when it came to processing blood knights, they could avert their eyes. The powers of the oracles must have noticed that their efforts were hopeless and had called upon people from the tribunal.


    ording to Conan¡¯s description, regarding the barbarians that the tribunal captured, they had to kill two to be able to catch one. The losses of the tribunal were immense as well. However, after one year of battle, the situation turned aroundpletely as the tribunal brought arge number of holy masters with them. The number of ck armored warriors who died decreased. The barbarians no longer had the option of giving up sacrifices, and all who were hurt did not receive any aid.


    If there were around one hundred and fifty thousand barbarians, the Holy See would be able to capture fifty thousand of them. These fifty thousand people could be processed into blood knights and would make up five groups of knights.


    Five groups of knights all at the grade of a swordmaster would indeed be a scary force. Even if they did not attack cities, they could still cause unimaginable destruction in the wild.


    The swordsmen in Lex¡¯s Bitter Water Prefecture camp were considered elite, and after ten years of nurturing, the ratio of swordmasters to swordsmen was one to four. In other words, out of ten warriors, two of them were swordmasters.


    However, this had taken Lex ten years and these elites barely formed a camp. There were ten thousand people, and two thousand of them were swordmasters. The Holy See had been hunting down the barbarians for over three years and had been able to create a force that was twenty times greater than that of the Bitter Water Prefecture. If the two were to engage in a battle, Lex¡¯s swordsmen camp would be annihted.


    Of course, Lex still had many low-grade mages with her, but the Holy See had arge number of holy masters and ascetics as well. These people had the same powers as mages in the divine skills given to them by the gods. Perhaps with the mages, the swordsmen with Lex would be able to fight one against two. However, the enemy had twenty times their strength and this was something that could not be solved with mages.


    Looking at the timeline, the tribunal began capturing barbarians around when the ck mages appeared. Saleen suspected that the tribunal must have had something to do with the ck mages, and had used them to divert attention so that people would not notice what was happening in the northern wilderness. The problem was, how had the tribunal brought over fifty thousand barbarians back to the Tanggsi Empire?


    Could the grand duke of Phoenix Duchy have been involved in this? If that was true, then many people from the Holy See could be lurking within the borders of Phoenix Duchy. Once the situation on the western front grew tense, these hidden powers would attack from the north. What was worse was that the blood knights could already be inside of Phoenix Duchy.


    The new grand duke of Phoenix Duchy was still in Holy Rock City, and he would not go back no matter what. The entirety of Phoenix Duchy was being held up by the wealthy within.


    Saleen¡¯s suspicions were not without reason. The appearance of the ck mages seemed toe and go and were being suppressed by the wealthy within Phoenix Duchy. With the current powers of Phoenix, if the ck mages were really to revive and were adequately prepared, then without the help of the Qin Empire, the wealthy could not defeat such arge number of ck mages.


    If such a thing happened in Phoenix Duchy, Saleen¡¯s new city would be in danger. Phoenix was less than two thousand miles from here and it would take the blood knights two days at most to make their way here.


    If Saleen¡¯s city had been built, he definitely would not have been afraid of them. However, even his city walls had not been built, much less the defensive magic towers. If the blood knights attacked before the city was built, Saleen would not be able to hold down the fort even with the magic cannon.


    What was worse, if Lex brought back arge number of men and horses, she would need to pass through Phoenix Duchy. She was not aware of the danger there, and if his predictions were true, there was a possibility that Lex¡¯s army would bepletely wiped out.


    ¡°Master Saleen, I will have the elders contact the survivors of the other tribes.¡± Conan was determined. Within the city that Saleen was building, the barbarians were leading fairly good lives. They were no longer freezing and hungry, and the remaining things they did were things that they were familiar with: hunting, fighting, and training.


    ¡°You¡­go.¡± Saleen was a little dejected.


    After Conan left, Nailisi asked, ¡°Master, should we send someone to Bitter Water Prefecture?¡±


    ¡°There is no time. Lex might already be in the Caucasus region. Moreover, there aren¡¯t any teleportation portals in Bitter Water Prefecture. Finding Lex will be nearly impossible.¡±


    ¡°Then wait at the borders of Phoenix. There are only two or three routes into Phoenix anyways.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have anybody I can send.¡± For the first time, Saleen had a long face. He did not have anything from his past and had no roots. Whenever he met with trouble, he would simply escape. Now that he had a city behind him, this was the city his teacher had entrusted him to build, and he could no longer run away.


    Of the threebat vessels that Jason had given Saleen, one-third of the manpower remained. Lex had taken a third of them with her while Pasatilo and Kanuka had taken another third. If he were to send out the remaining third, the construction of this city would need to stop. He obviously could not send the pirates to Phoenix, and Saleen still did not trust them.


    Moreover, if he were to reassign the people here, what would happen with the three kings and the spirits? Once Saleen was knocked off of his feet, this ce would belong to the three kings, and all of his teacher¡¯s painstaking ns would be for naught.


    ¡°What about Daniel?¡± Nailisi brought up the death mage, and Saleen could only shake his head.


    ¡°Daniel is following me honestly now, but his grade is too low. Moreover, we need at least three people to go to Phoenix. Only then can we seal all of its exits.¡±


    Nailisi had no idea what to do either. The winged skeleton controlled the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and could not leave, and she needed to protect Saleen and could not leave either. Besides her, Saleen only had four grade-3 mages with skills simr to those of Daniel. Once they were sent away, Saleen would have no one else tomand.


    ¡°No wonder those legendary mages had so many followers at their sides. Sigh¡­¡± Saleen sighed repeatedly. He did notck money or materials. Now, hecked manpower.


    ¡°Master, actually, the Holy See might not think of a way to deal with you immediately. Why don¡¯t we shift their sights¡­¡±


    ¡°How will we shift them?¡±


    ¡°There are many credible mercenaries in Sikeqinya. We can hire a group of them to go to Phoenix. If the Holy See really are hiding powers there, we can easily cause trouble that cannot be covered up. Lex will naturally be cautious.¡±


    ¡°Once the number of mercenaries exceeds a certain number, they cannot enter another country freely. Even though Phoenix is only a duchy, it belongs to the Qin Empire and they will not allow arge number of mercenaries to enter. If the number is too small, it will not have an effect either. Lex is a viscountess of the Qin Empire. If she wanted to cross the border with her soldiers, nobody would dare stop her with the grand duke not around. It isn¡¯t the same for mercenaries.¡±


    Saleen had just been thinking hard when there was a knock on the door.


    ¡°Come in,¡± Saleen said. A magic disciple entered Saleen¡¯s temple and said, ¡°Master Saleen, Pasatilo and the others have returned.¡±


    ¡°They are back?¡± Saleen was overjoyed. Just as he had been worrying that hecked manpower, Pasatilo and Kanuka had returned. Just his luck! ¡°Bring me to see them!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re in such a rush to see me?¡± A familiar yet strange voice appeared from the doorway.


    ¡°Aini?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s me. I hadn¡¯t imagined that you¡¯d remember me. Sending someone from so far away to fetch me ¨C I didn¡¯t be friends with you for nothing,¡± Aini said, as he pushed open the front door and walked in.

 Chapter 318: Reuniting with Aini (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 318: Reuniting with Aini (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Hahaha¡­¡± Saleen could not suppress hisughter. Now that Aini hade, the pressure on him was relieved. In the letter that he had written to Aini, he had mentioned the special contract magic which Aini possessed. If Aini was not willing to tell him the secret of the magic, he would not havee here himself.


    Another matter was the problem of the Holy See. Aini had nearly been killed by the Holy See and hated them deeply as well. The Clyde family did not have a good attitude towards the Holy See either, and even without Lex and his teacher sending any armies to serve as reinforcements, the Clyde family possessed decent strength as well.


    A youth dressed in grey magic robes walked in, slightly taller than Saleen. It was Aini, who Saleen had not seen in years. Aini¡¯s face still looked slightly sickly. The curse from the Holy See was notpletely lifted and unless his death magic reached the level of a sorcerer, the condition of his body would not improve.


    Aini¡¯s looks had not changed much. His ck hair was mixed with streaks of blue, and he had prominent facial features and a pair of blue eyes. The only thing that had changed was his aura. Back when Saleen had first met Aini, he had held an unspeakable loneliness to him. That was the aura of a deserted lone wolf. Now, however, he was grinning, almost as if nothing could upset him.


    Saleen stood up and walked towards Aini. They embraced each other tightly.


    ¡°Cough¡­ you are strong!¡± Aini could not help but cough.


    ¡°Is your body better?¡± Saleen asked in concern.


    ¡°It will get better. It¡¯s just a curse. The person might be grade-6 or grade-7. So long as I be a sorcerer, everything will get better,¡± Aini said nonchntly, almost as if his promotion to a sorcerer was just around the corner.


    Saleen took a good look at Aini and asked, ¡°Are you grade-5 or grade-6 now?¡±


    ¡°Grade-5. You?¡±


    ¡°Me too.¡±


    ¡°Amazing!¡± Aini praised from the heart. He did not seem envious in the slightest. Under normal circumstances, his advancement would have been considered much quicker than Aini¡¯s. After all, Aini had used to be an elemental mage. He had already possessed a strong foundation in focus and magic control, while Saleen had to start from the beginning and needed to figure out many things by himself.


    However, Aini hade from a distinguished family and was different frommon mages like Walnut. He knew that to study magic in depth, in addition to having opportunities, one needed to work hard. Saleen could have the achievements he had now because he had given up much more than he had.


    ¡°How long do you intend to stay?¡± Saleen asked him another question he was concerned about.


    ¡°I¡¯m not intending to leave anytime soon. Either way, I can train anywhere.¡±


    ¡°Very good. Stay with me then. I won¡¯t arrange any other ce for you.¡±


    Aini looked at the wide and spacious room. It seemed to becking in furnishing, for with the exception of the simple magic array on the floor, there was only a bookshelf and a table.


    ¡°Not a bad ce. It isn¡¯t cluttered and is suitable for training.¡± Aini was satisfied with the surroundings.


    ¡°If you¡¯re really staying, can you let me build a magic tower for you?¡± Saleen tried asking.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to owe you too much.¡± Aini burst intoughter. The favors he would need to repay for a magic tower would be too great. Even though he had a decent rtionship with Saleen, he could not ept such a precious gift for no reason.


    Saleen sighed in his heart. Aini was not someone who would follow just anyone. If Aini had agreed, it would mean that he had promised to help Saleen from now on and stay at his side. However, this was good too. Regarding someone like Aini, Saleen would be more at ease if he was only a friend. If Aini worked under Saleen, Saleen would have no idea what would happen either. After all, Aini was part of the Clyde family and the powers of a family were something that amoner would not understand.


    ¡°Do you want to have a smallpetition?¡± Aini smiled craftily. Having be a grade-5 death mage, he enjoyed a simr status as his parents. His parents had also regained their freedom once he had advanced, and together with his uncles, this pir of power had regained important authority within the Clyde family. Aini was confident now andid down a challenge.


    Back when they had been in Phoenix Duchy, Saleen had won theirpetition. He wanted to even up the score now.


    ¡°Sure, what should wepete in?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re an elemental mage, I won¡¯t bully you. Let¡¯s pit our alchemy skills against each other. How about that?¡±


    Usually, the alchemy skills of a death mage were inferior to those of an elemental mage. Saleen looked at Aini¡¯s sincere expression and chuckled before saying, ¡°There¡¯s no rush. You¡¯vee from afar. Let¡¯s arrange for the people with you to settle down first. You guys haven¡¯t eaten, have you?¡±


    ¡°Pasatilo has made arrangements for my people.¡± Aini evidently had a favorable impression of Pasatilo. Saleen had shown him respect. Two grade-4 mages had gone to his family to deliver the invitation. The Clyde family had ced this in high regard, and Aini had brought arge number of men with him.


    Arge family like Aini¡¯s was incredibly well-off in both wealth and manpower. Many times, these extra funds and power would be used in opportunities to make more money. Hence, when they heard that a new city was being built and the owner of the city was Aini¡¯s friend, the Clyde family had made a quick decision and had immediately taken out all of their riches for Aini to bring with him.


    Time and money waited for no one. This keen sense of opportunity was something which the other families did not have. Sikeqinya people were born businessmen, but those from the Qin Empire were notcking business sense either.


    ¡°Then let uspete,¡± Saleen said nonchntly. The power of spirit alchemy was entirely dependent on the grade of the death mes. Aini seemed confident of winning against an elemental mage of the same grade, so his death mes must have been of a high grade. However, Saleen had witnessed Judikaka¡¯s alchemy skills and knew that no matter how skilled in spirit alchemy one was, it would never surpass elemental alchemy.


    The Water me Alchemy spell that he had learned was of the highest level of all elemental alchemy, and with their simr grades, Saleen did not believe that he would lose to a death mage.


    ¡°Let¡¯spete in processing arrowheads. How about that?¡± Aini said as he took out the necessary ingredients from his bracelet. The first time they hadpeted, they had used arrowheads too. Back then, he had used a solidified magic array to process the arrowheads and caused them to be defective. Now that he had his death mes, such things would not happen again.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯spete with those. There¡¯ll be a time limit this time.¡± Saleen was touched by Aini¡¯s attention to the details. Saleen was in the initial stages of building his city, and in regards to defense, he would still need to count on bows to prevent losses. For an army, alchemy arrows were extremely valuable. Looking at the increasing pile of ingredients which Aini took out from his bracelet, he must havee prepared.


    If Saleen¡¯s city came under attack, he would need arge number of alchemy arrows. Low-grade and mid-grade arrowheads had an effective period. Low-grade ones could be stored for a year while mid-grade ones could be stored for two to three years. As for high-grade arrowheads, if they were not used, they could be stored for hundreds of years.


    Saleen could not spend all his money on arrowheads. With that money, he might as well have processed them himself.


    ¡°We shall both process fifty thousand mid-grade arrowheads. Whoever takes the shortest time wins. No using magic arrays and no adding magic medicine.¡± Aini took out boxes of metal arrowheads from his bracelet. With the exception of being processed by magic, the rest of the steps had beenpleted.


    Thispetition would give Saleen one hundred thousand alchemy arrowheads. Aini wanted to both regain the face he had lost the other time and to prepare defensive weapons for Saleen¡¯s city. However, using solely magic to process the arrowheads would require great elemental control from an elemental mage. Simrly, Aini¡¯s death mes could not process that many arrowheads at once. This would be a test of their patience.


    When the mages from Sregl Ind heard that Saleen was about to have an alchemypetition with Aini, they all gathered in the temple, surrounding the enormous room that Saleen was in. Aini was not afraid either as he split the ingredients in half and said, ¡°There are exactly fifty thousand arrowheads here. If a single one of them is destroyed, you lose.¡±


    ¡°You be careful too!¡± Saleen said. The blue water mes appeared in his hand, and at the same time, hundreds of arrowheads were swept within them.


    Aini saw Saleen using an unconventional method. It was different from the alchemy he knew and he did not dare waste any time. He spat out a green ball of death mes and mixed them with two hundred arrowheads.


    The mages from Sregl Ind gasped with shock. Aini had spat the death mes from his mouth, which already left them reeling with shock. Furthermore, these death mes could process weapons like elemental alchemy, and could target hundreds of arrowheads at once. As for Saleen¡¯s method, the mages from Sregl Ind were incredibly familiar with it. It was a unique skill of Sregl Ind ¨C Water me Alchemy.


    It seemed like Saleen had received guidance from Mage Jason and could move to Sregl Ind in the future!


    To people who did not understand magic, this battle might have seemed boring. There were just two balls of different colored objects wrapping around arrowheads and burning like mes. In reality, Saleen¡¯s water mes were a special form of the water elements, and even though the death mes could burn up materials on their own, they were not mes, but the essence of death.


    Alchemy like this was entirely different from the alchemy found in the magic arrays on a normalboratory table. This tested the mage¡¯s control of their magic chords or death mes. Alchemy with a magic array required focus from a mage, but drew most of its energy from magic nuclei. Such pure alchemy methods did not have any other factors.


    Saleen had not finished training his Water me Alchemy spell and was incredibly nervous now. He was afraid a single mistake would cause him to destroy an arrowhead. A normal arrowhead was made of metal and was of fairly good quality, as steel was only needed for sping at certain crucial areas. Processed arrowheads required steel and copper, and in addition to that, numerous metals which could store elemental energy would be added as well.


    The amount of these metals was incredibly sparse, yet were the key to the alchemy process. If the temperature was too high, these metals would evaporate away. Steel and copper could not store elemental energy, and no matter how many magic patterns were carved onto them, they would be useless.


    However, Saleen¡¯s water mes did not have such a problem. The water mes made use of low temperatures to rearrange the structure of the metal, adding magic patterns and miniscule magic arrays to increase the destructibility of the arrowheads.


    The arrowheads that Saleen and Aini were processing were the most practical ones avable and they had only two properties: the ability to pierce armor, and to explode.

 Chapter 319: Floral Death Creature (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 319: Floral Death Creature (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The armor piercing abilities of the alchemy arrowheads were an important property. Those who were defending would be most afraid of the enemy¡¯s heavy armor swordsmen charging all together. If they did not have any mages, such a situation would be incredibly gruesome and difficult to stop.


    A swordsman in magic heavy armor was like a magic beast. They could ignore any attacks from normal bows and any attacks from low-level spells had their effects reduced to a minimum.


    Explosions were used to deal with flying puppets. When attacking a city, flying puppets were important to both parties. The attacking party would ce arge amount of magic powder on them and light them up. Once the amount of magic powder reached a certain level, they would possess power equivalent to fire-type magic. These flying puppets would carry the magic powder with them to the castle gate, causing mass destruction.


    The defending party would also use flying puppets to light up the enemy¡¯s weapons, such as their catapults or even their magic stone artillery.


    There were not any great methods for dealing with flying puppets, and they were mainly dealt with using mages and alchemy crossbows. However, piercing damage was useless against these flying puppets which could be taken down in one shot. Once they could fly above their targets, they would start burning or would even explode. Hence, the arrowheads of the alchemy crossbows would carry low-level spells like explosions to destroy the flying puppets.


    It did not matter whether the flying puppet¡¯s wings were destroyed or the magic powder upon it was ignited. Either way, they could stop the flying puppet. Hence, regr armies kept exploding alchemy arrows at a ratio of one to every ten arrowheads.


    Saleen patiently used his water me to corrode magic patterns onto the arrowheads. He had to carefully draw on the explosive magic array at the hollow center of each arrowhead. Low-level magic was not to be belittled on the battlefield, because while high-level magic was not something everyone could release, low-level magic was present throughout the entire battle.


    Saleen¡¯s water me had an unusual frequency. His focus was mainly set on doing the same thing, using the fluctuating frequency of the water me to process hundreds of arrowheads at the same time.


    Aini¡¯s method was even more fascinating. Within his death mes, a death creature had appeared. It was over ten meters tall, and if they had not been in the room of the temple, it would have broken through the ceiling. This death creature looked very much like a nt.


    The mages within the room were knowledgeable, but not a single one of them had ever heard of a floral death creature within the death dimension. Mages were not holy masters and agreed that nts had life too, but whether they had souls were something which many mages could not agree on.


    Many believed that nts did not have souls for a simple reason. Since ancient times, not a single death mage had been able to summon a floral death creature. The ancient humans that had been powerful enough to cross dimensions had not captured anything like it in the past, either.


    Now, Aini was controlling the death creature, and it looked like a tree from any angle. It had lush branches,rge roots, sturdy bark, and what looked like a nest upon its branches¡­


    After all two hundred arrowheads were sucked into the death mes, the branches of the floral death creature moved around like human arms and started manipting the death mes to draw magic arrays and magic patterns onto the arrowheads.


    The mages of Sregl Ind were shocked. Saleen¡¯s friend was an oddity among mages. Calling upon a nt to help him inbat? It seemed like he was mentally challenged.


    However, this nt was evidently incredibly useful, as Aini did not stop throwing arrowheads into his death mes. Taking him as the center, any space within a radius of one hundred meters was bathed in a green light. The floral death creature used its leaves to curl up the arrowheads after it had finished drawing the magic arrays onto them, carrying out the next step of the processing.


    The over-ten-meter-tall nt probably had hundreds of thousands of leaves. If every one of those leaves could do the same thing, there would be nopetition ¨C Saleen was sure to lose. However, all spells were bnced, and after Aini had thrown in over a thousand arrowheads, he stopped adding them to the death mes. Evidently, controlling the floral death creature required a huge amount of focus.


    Having to process that many arrowheads simultaneously without the help of any equipment or magic arrays was unheard of. Aini¡¯s performance was enough to win everyone¡¯s respect.


    Looking back to Saleen, he was not anxious. The water me in his hands had expanded to over a meter long, and as he ced another one hundred arrowheads inside, the mages from Sregl Ind could not see any changes taking ce within them. This was caused by a difference in grade. Unless a person¡¯s grade was higher than Saleen¡¯s by at least two grades, they would not be able to observe what was happening within the water mes. Not even a person¡¯s senses could prate them.


    The entire aura within the giant room became chilly. Even though the creature that Aini had summoned was a nt, it was still a death creature and the aura that it emanated from within the death mes left the living reeling.


    Saleen had not trained his Water me Alchemy spell to its maximum potential. With the outside temperature below freezing, he was doing his best to maintain control.


    The two of them busied themselves. In less than ten minutes, it suddenly started snowing inside of the room. This was magic released from the Water me Alchemy spell ¨C a level-6 snowkill!


    The snowkes spun lightly and cleanly around Saleen.


    Saleen could not stop himself. He said to the people within the room, ¡°Leave. It is hard for me to control these snowkes.¡±


    The mages did not dare stay. The person with the highest grade among them was only grade-4, and it would be hard for them to counter a level-6 spell. Only Nailisi remained in the room. She opened a scroll and released an ice te armor, protecting her body.


    The snowkes around Saleen started revolving in a greater radius. Finally, some of them spun out of control, floating to Nailisi¡¯s side. The fragile snowkes grazed against the ice te armor, producing a sharp sound. A deep mark appeared on what was known as the strongest ice te armor within mid-level magic.


    ¡°Nailisi, you leave too.¡± Saleen did not want to lose his concentration with these snowkes. Aini¡¯s alchemy skills were too unusual, being able to process thousands of arrowheads at once. Even if Aini could rest longer than him, he was winning too easily.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Nailisi was not afraid of the snowkes, as she had the means of protecting herself from level-6 spells. However, this was not a battle and it was not necessary to waste scrolls.


    Aini cocked his head and took a look at Nailisi. He remembered her from when he had first met Saleen, as she had already been by his side at that time. She had been able to use spatial equipment, which had led to a serious headache for Aini back then. He had thought she was a grade-5 or 6 mage.


    Nailisi giggled as she took a look at Aini and said softly, ¡°Aini, you must win.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Aini promised. A golden light floated from Nailisi¡¯s green eyes and left him a little distracted. The death mes started fluctuating violently, the leaves of the floral death creature going out of control and swaying in the violent winds.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen shouted angrily. Nailisi had used her demonic skills to distract Aini¡¯s focus. With his focus in disarray, his floral death creature could not process arrowheads anymore.


    Thousands of arrowheads fell from the leaves of the floral death creature, floating within the death mes.


    Aini was shocked as well. What skill had Nailisi used? His focus was already quite formidable, even stronger than that of some grade-6 mages. How could he have fallen for her tricks?


    He steadilymanded the floral death creature again, wrapping the arrowheads back in the leaves to continue his processing. This was an advantage of spirit alchemy. Unlike elemental alchemy, it would not endpletely even if it was interrupted.


    Nailisi ran out of the room without looking back. Saleen could not do anything anyways. He had been distracted earlier because of her, alongside Aini. It was fair now.


    Once Nailisi left, Saleen immediately released as much strength as he could into the Water me Alchemy spell. The meter-tall water mes expanded again, reaching more than two meters in diameter now, and another hundred arrowheads were sucked in. This time, the water mes became transparent. Some of the snowkes around Saleen¡¯s body went inside of the water mes, turning transparent and carving out lines of magic patterns upon the arrowheads.


    The temperature within the room fell even further. Half of the room was Aini¡¯s death mes while the other half was filled with the snowkes which Saleen had created.


    A big reason why Saleen had been anxious to learn the Water me spell was because when he was using it, it was able to activate a level-6 spell. The Water me Alchemy spell did not use up many magic chords and had a consumption simr to a level-5 spell, yet the magic that it released and was able to control was level-6.


    Saleen had no idea why all water-type magic had experienced strange changes in his hands since his magic chords had mutated.


    Outside of Saleen¡¯s room, dozens of low-grade mages and magic disciples waited anxiously. The door of the room was as transparent as crystal, and they could see all the changes that was taking ce.


    Ding¡­


    Ding dang.


    Arrowheads fell to the ground continuously. They were alchemy arrowheads that had been processed with the dual properties. The floor of the room was made from white stone gathered from the coast. Despite the arrowheads that were able to pierce through armor falling to the ground, there were no marks.


    The pile of arrows in front of Aini and Saleen grew bigger. Saleen did not stop, and Aini did not rest either. It was almost as if their magic chords and death mes were limitless.


    With theirpetition having gotten so far, Aini was already impressed with Saleen. The creature he had summoned was a rare floral death creature, and his death mes had also be incredibly big because of that. With the two effects helping each other out, hisbat skills were twice as powerful as those of death mages with the same grade.


    Saleen was an elemental mage and naturallycked thebat rigor which death mages possessed. However, Saleen had already created almost ten thousand arrowheads, and he still did not have any intentions of resting.


    Saleen was equally impressed with Aini. He must have had a lucky encounter, as a nt based death creature was something he had not seen in any books. His magic chords were twice that of mages of the same grade, and the Water me Alchemy spell was simr to a level-5 spell. He knew how long he could sustain it. Aini did not want to rest. It showed that hisbat powers were much higher than other grade-5 death mages.


    Thest time Saleen had won, it had been due to a loophole in his words. This time, the two of them were equally matched.


    Pasatilo and Kanuka were watching from outside as well, and they became even more determined to follow Saleen. A grade-5 mage who could grasp the Water me Alchemy spell would be a legend on the maind sooner orter.

 Chapter 320: Floral Death Creature (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 320: Floral Death Creature (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen and Aini¡¯s alchemy had won over all the mages within the temple. There was nothing more to be said of Saleen¡¯s Water me Alchemy spell, as this was one of the hardest alchemy skills to train. Aini¡¯s spirit alchemy was something unheard of. For a single person to control a floral death creature andplete thousands ofplex movements, Aini¡¯s focus must have been as strong as that of a grade-6 mage, or perhaps even a sorcerer.


    It was impossible to process fifty thousand arrowheads at once, and after processing twelve thousand arrowheads each, they had to stop. Saleen¡¯s magic chords were wiped clean while Aini¡¯s death mes were on the verge of copsing. The floral death creature within had shrunk to less than a meter tall.


    ¡°Aini, your death creature¡­ is very special.¡± Saleen looked at the death creature restoring itself within the death mes. He had activated his icy sight but could not find any weak points on this nt.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t yours special too?¡± Ainiughed, not sharing with Saleen the history of his floral death creature. He had read about the three kings in Saleen¡¯s letter, and it had swayed him. In addition to helping Saleen this time, he had another motive foring. If Saleen wanted to dominate the three kings, he intended to get one under his control too.


    As a death mage, if he could summon a creature with the capabilities of a death king, Aini¡¯s status within his family would immediately reach its peak. He would be inducted within the nuclear nning circle, and he could even be made the heir to the knighthoods.


    ¡°Has the family agreed to let you manage this city?¡± Saleen asked the important question. The four business families would eventually enter, forming apetitive environment. Regarding Aini, Saleen would definitely look out for him first. However, this could not sh with the benefits meant for Sregl Ind.


    ¡°Of course. I am a grade-5 mage now, which is rare within the family.¡± Ainiughed. In the history of the Myers Maind, a grade-5 mage his age had been incredibly rare. If he had not received the curse from the holy master of the Holy See, he would have aplished even more.


    ¡°Those three fellows aren¡¯t easy to deal with. I want two, and you can have one. How¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Aini was not greedy either. He already had a unique floral death creature, and its supporting abilities were much better than those of a normal death creature. Now, he only needed to summon a death creature which could help him inbat, and he would be satisfied. He would spend more time summoning once he became a sorcerer in the future. Then, he would be able to call upon arge number of death creatures and he would not care if he had one less king-grade death creature.


    Commanding death creatures required focus too. The higher grade the death creature, the more focus the mage would need to use. Aini was not Walnut, and he knew what was most suitable for him. It was not that Aini was not greedy, but for people in a big family, the first thing one learned was to choose wisely.


    With his rtionship with Saleen, he would gain endless riches in this city in the future. That was what Aini had his eyes on.


    Saleen was a true mage and a person from Sikeqinya. He had exined things to Aini clearly in the letter, and Aini liked such interactions. They came about easier and were happier than some of the conversations he had with the people in his family.


    ¡°What do I need to give you to know the secrets behind your contract magic?¡±


    ¡°Take it as me returning a favor,¡± Aini replied generously. Seeing Saleen squint, he added, ¡°I still owe my life to you, but I won¡¯t pay you back that way in case you be wary of me.¡±


    Saleenughed. Aini¡¯s reply was the reply of a true mage.


    ¡°I¡¯m d I met you from the beginning.¡±


    ¡°Me too. The situation on the maind is chaotic. Even though it hasn¡¯t broken out, once it does, the corrupt people within the family and those who do not know how to change will exterminate themselves. With you helping me, I am more confident about the future. Even though it¡¯s a little too early for such thoughts, if I end up managing the Clyde family, they will forever be friends of the Metatrin.¡±


    Aini solemnly mentioned Saleen¡¯s surname. For a mage, this was almost as good as an oath.


    ¡°Get your parents toe over too. Holy Rock City isn¡¯t a good ce to be. I had a premonition that with this chaos on the maind, Holy Rock City will undergo major changes.¡±


    ¡°Premonition?¡± Aini furrowed his brows. For a mage to mention premonitions was ridiculous. However, if Saleen was saying such to him, he must have thought long and hard about it and was not casually mentioning it.


    ¡°Have theme. I have benefits for you.¡± Saleen and Aini rested, the two of them not using any special means to restore their energy and waiting for their magic chords and death mes to restore naturally.


    ¡°What benefits?¡±


    ¡°Irene from the Williams family, do you know her?¡±


    ¡°I do. I beat her up before when we were young.¡± Aini¡¯s reply left Saleen speechless.


    ¡°She is pretty gifted but it¡¯s a pity she isn¡¯t a mage. The Williams family are richer than us but they do not have any decent mages. Otherwise, they would have stood out among the four houses by now.¡±


    Saleen thought for a while and realized Aini was right. There were only a few low-grade mages in Irene¡¯s hunting team. If even one of them had been a grand mage, the team would not have met with such an ill fate. A grand mage could have at least prevented the team from freezing or going hungry, ensuring that all the swordsmen could maintain theirbat power.


    ¡°The Williams family have a secret sea route in the north. I¡¯m sure the Clyde family wants to jump on this?¡±


    Aini¡¯s eyelids jumped. Looking outside the door, he said softly, ¡°I have heard about this before, but the Clyde family aren¡¯t good at building ships. Besides, the men in your hands seem decent too. Why are you giving me this benefit and not jumping on this yourself?¡±


    ¡°Because in the future, no matter who uses this sea route, they will need to be under my protection and I will collect taxes. Why get my men to risk their lives?¡± Saleen said candidly.


    ¡°I definitely do not have any problems with this. The other two houses will definitely give you benefits for an agreement. But why would the Williams family tell you this secret and still pay you?¡±


    ¡°Because in three years¡¯ time, the Holy See¡¯s fleets will appear in the regions around the sea route. I can then sink any ships in this area under the name of the Bitter Water Prefecture. The Williams family would not cooperate with the Holy See, would they?¡±


    ¡°Holy See!¡± Aini¡¯s teeth ttered against each other. The Holy See had almost caused him to lose all hope in his life. Even with his dark character, hearing that the Holy See was about to appear here, he could not hide his savage killing intent.


    ¡°Saleen, the bastards from the Holy See will definitelye?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± Saleen thought back to what the ck bishop had shouted ¨C heretic. The Holy See was a big group and could tolerate many things, but they could not tolerate heretics. If he remained in this city, he would attract the people of the Holy See like moths to a me. The maind and the south would not change much in the short term, only the seas. The sea route in the north would be the fastest option for the Holy See.


    ¡°Do you have a map of the sea?¡±


    ¡°Yes, a lot.¡±


    ¡°Good. Build a teleportation array as soon as possible. I will have my parentse here, and they will take out all their savings. I will provide the money, and you can provide the sea maps. I am doing this.¡±


    ¡°Does your mother¡¯s family have a loyal army?¡±


    ¡°Do youck swordsmen?¡±


    ¡°No, Lex can give me a real army. Regarding my teacher, he has many men, but I do not wish to expose them now. The secret route of the Williams family is a long-term source of revenue, and I can split it with you. However, the city needs to be build first and the port must have enough power to protect merchant ships. Time is tight now. I wish I could go to Sikeqinya and hire some grade-9 mercenaries.¡±


    Aini thought hard. Saleen wanted the family warriors from his mother¡¯s side, and Aini was very clear on the difference. If Saleen had wanted people directly from the Clyde family, that would have meant that he wanted deep cooperation. Now that Saleen wanted men from his mother¡¯s side, Aini immediately knew what that meant. Saleen was willing to split the benefits, but it did not mean that they were for the Clyde family. In Saleen¡¯s eyes, his status was higher than that of the Clyde family.


    That was, unless it was as he said. When he controlled the family in the future, Saleen would then be cooperating with the Clyde family.


    Saleen¡¯s methods could not be criticized. The city was newly founded and Saleen had not gathered together his strength yet. If he gave his benefits to the Clyde family right away, it was possible they would turn the tables on him.


    ¡°You trust me this much?¡± Aini looked at Saleen¡¯s youthful face with a solemn expression.


    ¡°Perhaps the Tanggsi Empire? Anyway, it will not be a small city,¡± Saleen joked. If there was a chance, Aini did not mind destroying that empire as revenge for his initial curse. In truth, Saleen was not worried that Aini would take over the city. With Sregl ind backing him, the Clyde family would not be able to do so even if they gathered all their power. He did not want to hurt the friendship he had with Aini.


    ¡°Then are we stillpeting?¡±


    ¡°No, it is a tie at best.¡± Saleen put away his water mes and said, ¡°I am assured of your abilities. Now, back to topic, how do we deal with the three of them?¡±


    Saleen was determined to win over the three death kings. Letting these three horrible fellows live in his city, even with all the mages from Sregl Ind here, was diforting.


    ¡°We need to think of the perfect contract trap.¡± Aini started thinking deeply. He took out a set of magic notes and handed them to Saleen. Saleen opened the book and looked at the words written on the first page ¨C unfair magic contracts. As he flipped through the pages, the contents burned into his brain, incredibly clear.


    This book essentially spoke of how a person could change the mainponents of contract magic to make it fatal. An oversight by the Nut Mercenary in the past had allowed Aini to control all of them, and this was indicative of how terrifying such contracts were.

 Chapter 321: Contract Trap (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 321: Contract Trap (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Contract magic had its roots in divine spells. It was then altered by humans in such a way that even without the supervision of the gods the contract magic would be effective and would bind both parties together.


    This showed that humans then already had the powers to rece the gods and they had the advantage of not being bound by the restrictions of the dimension. If humans had not lost their powers for no apparent reason, the dimensions next to the Myers Maind might have been conquered by humans.


    Even though contract magic was unique, it was a magic that showed fairness. One could not force another party to sign the contract. The deed could only be done when both parties were willing.


    As for a contract trap, it was to make use of a loophole in the contract magic to make a supposedly fair contract be dangerous assaultive magic.


    When it came to contract magic, there were only four grades in this world.


    Grade-1 to grade-3 was a grade in itself, and they were low grade professionals. Grade-4 to grade-6 was another grade, and these professionals were a backbone of the world. Grade-7 to grade-9 was a formidable force in this world. Above grade-9 was thest grade, and anyone within this grade could have the chance to gain powers like those of ancient humans.


    Contract magic could not be effective over more than two grades. In other words, a sorcerer could not sign a contract with a low-grade professional, only with a middle-grade one. If one was signed with a low-grade professional, the low-grade professional¡¯s benefits would not be protected.


    Contract magic was another more well-rounded magic. When it came to contract traps, there were many restrictions. Even if one was not a mage, one should understand the idea behind it. To let the three kings fall into a magic trap was too difficult, but the harder something was, the greater the rewards.


    ¡°I have thought about it carefully beforeing. The three kings are restricted to a grade slightly lower than grade-9 in this dimension. If they see through the contract trap, it will be almost impossible for us to live,¡± Aini said seriously while Saleen listened attentively.


    ¡°But if it seeds, with us together and the three kings behind us, even two grade-9 professionals wouldn¡¯t be a match for us. If we split, we can face against a grade-9 professional. Aren¡¯t the rewards enormous?¡±


    Saleen nodded and Aini continued talking, ¡°Since it is big, it is worth it if we give up a little more, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Think, what do you have on hand that might interest the three kings?¡±


    Saleen had thought long and hard about this. He had no idea what they were looking for. If he knew he would have set up a magic trap and immediately taken action once Aini arrived.


    ¡°Then let us think from another perspective. Which of the three kings do you think is easiest to deal with?¡±


    ¡°Diyabannersa¡­ no, Banchajanna. No, that doesn¡¯t work either, maybe Judikaka is the easiest to deal with.¡± Saleen realized with Aini¡¯s question that despite him observing the three kings for so long, he was unable to easily point out their weaknesses.


    He had mentioned Diyabannersa first because he was the least intelligent among the three of them. However, because he was not as intelligent as the rest he used brute force to solve problems. Such an existence was hard to deal with and no matter what tricks one thought of, it would be useless if he went around attacking people.


    As for Banchajanna, even though he was not as smart as Judikaka, he was a confused soul and could not control himself. When the first problem arose, Banchajanna had almost gotten Saleen killed. The second time, Banchajanna had let the ck bishop from the Holy See go. He had brought about countless problems for Saleen.


    If the ck bishop had been killed there they would not havee up with such big ns, though the Holy See would still continue sending people to investigate. Now that the ck bishop had brought back news of where the infidels were, the Holy See had not left much time for Saleen.


    For someone who could not even control his own existence, Saleen could not think of a stable trap that Banchajanna would fall for.


    Even though Judikaka was the smartest among them, he was the one that seemed most willing to make deals. He was not willing to solve problems with violence. If given the right method Judikaka could be the easiest to trick at the end of the day. This deduction left Saleen a little surprised, but made sense at the same time.


    ¡°Rtively easy? It still requires considerable bait, right?¡± Aini had not thought much about this. The Clyde family was rich and they had power and mages, but that was not enough to entice a death king. Aini was only responsible for the family business in the city and he could not assemble all the power from the Clyde family.


    He wanted to set the bait right now too, but he did not have any in his hands. He could only look expectantly towards Saleen.


    Saleen knew now was not the time to be stingy, but what was most troublesome was that he did not know what the three kings wanted. When someone did not have any desire, he would not have any weakness. The three kings definitely desired something, but Saleen had no idea what it was.


    If all the mages from Sregl Ind were there, there would not be a problem. He could solve his problem with brute force. Now Saleen only had two grade-4 and two grade-5 mages with him. As for the rest, they would not even be able to withstand a breath by the three kings. Together with Saleen and Aini, there were only six people there that could survive longer than ten seconds when facing off against the three kings.


    When the energy reached a certain limit, tricks would be useless.


    The sunken ship from the Second Dynasty? The three kings definitely could go into the deep sea to investigate. This did not require a contract and there was no way ofying a trap. After thinking for a while Saleen suddenly remembered that there were still the ruins from the Second Dynasty in the Chaotic Marshes, which could very well be upied by the Holy See.


    From a contract standpoint, Saleen could not be sure if the Holy See were inside the ruins now. When signing the contract he did not need to bring this up. If the three kings were to meet with people from the Holy See, they would most likely not strike and might even flee. If there were any white bishops in the ruins, they would definitely do so.


    If there was something like this again, he could set a magic trap to deal with this problem.


    ¡°Aini, I have thought of it.¡±


    Saleen said as he released a Quickcloud spell. The cloud of mist enveloped the room, everything within could no longer be seen or heard from outside. He was being cautious this time. If whatever he was about to say was overheard by the three kings, any little hint would not only lead to them being unable toplete the n but he and Aini would need to face the wrath of the three kings.


    ¡°Your magic¡­ is strange.¡± Aini¡¯s death mes expanded even further out, lighting up a spot within the cloud of mist. Speaking within this cloud of mist was even safer than a mute enchantment.


    ¡°Do you remember the first time we met?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you brought two beautiful women with you to sell gemstones at my shop.¡±


    ¡°I had passed the Chaotic Marshes. In there, I met a white deacon from the Holy See. Even though he was only a deacon, I think even with my skills now I still would not be a match for him.¡± Saleen thought back to Picasso. He felt this white deacon was a little different, or at least he was much stronger than the other two ck deacons that he hade across.


    ¡°The magic ruins of the Second Dynasty?¡± As Aini listened to Saleen, he felt this might be able to bait the three kings.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t been to those ruins before, I only know the position of its coordinates on the map. I can¡¯t be sure that the people from the Holy See are there with such conditions. Is it possible to set up a contract trap?¡±


    ¡°Should be enough, so long as you are sure that the three kings won¡¯t take action against the Holy See.¡±


    ¡°They definitely won¡¯t. They are probably hiding because they are scared of retaliation from the God of Light. They need to return to the demon dimension sooner orter. The God of Light might be able to make an appearance there himself.¡± Saleen analysed the worries of the three kings, guessing them almost entirely.


    ¡°But this would require us to go personally, so it will be dangerous.¡±


    ¡°Can you fly now?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Aini did not hide the truth. He had another flying spirit together with his floral death creature. It could carry him and let him fly around like a grade-6 mage.


    ¡°Me too, I am not any slower than a grade-6 mage. As long as there aren¡¯t any bishop level people from the Holy See at the ruins, we won¡¯t be killed instantly. Are you sure your contract trap will work?¡±


    ¡°Yes. So long as it is on the Myers Maind, even a god would be bound by such a contract.¡±


    ¡°How many men have you brought with you this time?¡±


    ¡°Two grade-3 mages and five-hundred swordsmen.¡±


    Saleen took in a huge breath. The Clyde family had indeed put down everything this time. Five-hundred swordsmen with at least fifty of them being swordmasters, perhaps even one-hundred. This should be the greatest amount of power they could assemble for Aini. With these five-hundred people, the city base was much safer.


    The Clyde family had also given Aini two grade-3 mages. They were nothing in Alchemy City, but in any regr city, they were a strong force, especially when defending the city. Grade-3 magic was not any lesser when it came to killing warriors. The only w was that the magic chords of a grade-3 mage were too little and he could not battle for extended periods of time.


    ¡°Keep these people. I still have a batch of people I can use but they aren¡¯t very loyal. Let¡¯s bring them to the Chaotic Marshes this time.¡± Saleen was talking about the pirates he had brought under his control. They had been split into two groups, and around one-hundred of them werepletely devoted to Saleen while the other one-hundred of them were still hesitant.


    From this one-hundred, Saleen did not intend to continue observing them any longer. Those that would not go with him would have to be sacrificed. They would definitely face enemies when going to the Chaotic Marshes with the three kings. Even if the three kings disguised themselves as Daniel¡¯s summoned creatures they would not want to fight personally. Most of the time, Saleen¡¯s men would need to do the dirty work and take care of the magic beasts within the forest and the marshes.


    The more people Saleen brought to the Chaotic Marshes, the more adamant the people from the Holy See would be in chasing them. The three kings would not be able to escape then. Saleen¡¯s only concern now was that the Holy See would not be there and they would waste the contract trap that they would beying. He had no idea what other ways there were for the three kings to take the bait.

 Chapter 322: Contract Trap (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 322: Contract Trap (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was not worried that these pirates would cause any trouble for him. Among the pirates that werepletely devoted to him, two of them had already broken the barrier of a high-grade swordmaster. As for the ones that were not devoted to him, there were only two beginner swordmasters among them and the rest of them were normal swordsmen.


    As mercenaries, these swordsmen would have been a formidable force, but Saleen was notcking swordsmen.


    The only problem was that if he and Aini were to leave the city, who would be responsible for the safety of it? With the three kings gone, if any trouble were to arise, Saleen was afraid that the mages from Sregl Ind would not be able to hold it back.


    Saleen and Aini talked within his cloud of mist for over an hour before they were sure of how to tempt the three kings.


    It was already deep into winter by now and it had snowed consecutively for many days. In a ce east of the temple one mile away from the harbor, Saleen chose a piece ofnd for Aini for the Clyde family to establish their base.


    The Clyde family had sent over five-hundred swordsmen though in reality they did not need so many swordsmen to do business. Ainimanded three-hundred of them to follow Saleen temporarily to help in the defence of the city. The Clyde family knew that this was a decent investment opportunity and because of that they were not stingy. Saleen did notck manpower as Lex had brought with her a third of her men. These three-hundred swordsmen were a timely help.


    The Clyde family was not interested in losing anything with this business. As long as Saleen could get over this period, they would definitely receive better treatmentpared to the other families.


    At the selected piece ofnd they started building a city hall. Building during the winter was incredibly trying, however most of the buildings there were made of stone and with the effects of magic, it would not affect the lifespan of the building.


    This was barely two miles away from the temple too. It was in a very good location close to the port and was on the east-west line of the city. Once the city was built, this plot ofnd would be very expensive.


    One by one, the temporary fortresses were built up. The standard equipment within was an alchemy crossbow and five swordsmen. A mid-sized alchemy crossbow like that required two swordsmen to operate it. The remaining three were there to protect it.


    Saleen was relieved. After these temporary fortresses were built there would not be any more people from the Holy Seeing during this winter season. Even though Banchajanna had not killed the ck bishop, he did give him a scare. Before they amassed enough power, the Holy See in the north would wait for assistance from Glorious City.


    Aini was building his own city hall while Saleen brought Nailisi to cut the cannon tforms in the stone mountains north of the port.


    This stone mountain was one entire piece of white rock. It was incredibly tough and as Saleen saw it, the stone mountain that was barely hundreds of meters could not be destroyed even with a level-9 spell. He could only use his water current to grind the rocks and create a space at the center of the stone mountain.


    He had to set up six different firing points within the space and had to process six different cannon tforms. Saleen¡¯s Water me Alchemy spell now had some achievements to it but time was precious and he could only create one cannon tform for now. Once the magic cannon was installed and the magic nucleus was iid he would be able to control the ships that wereing from the sea.


    Nailisi had two fully constructed puppets within her bracelet. Both of them had signs of life and could bemanded ording to one¡¯s will. With these puppets, Nailisi could control the magic cannons from the tform alone.


    It required a huge amount of energy to change the shooting angle of the cannons, but the equipped puppets had energy that surpassed even that of a middle-grade swordmaster when his sword aura exploded while revolving.


    There were two ws of the magic cannon, the first was that it needed a fixed base and it could not be moved. The magic cannon that Saleen had found now had eased this problem slightly. The second was that it required too much. A single shot from a magic cannon was akin to level-9 magic. One could only imagine how many magic nuclei it would require for a single shot.


    ording to the principal of the revolution of a magic nucleus, a grade-9 magic nucleus could contain enough energy to release six level-9 spells. On a magic cannon, this number would be reduced by half. In other words, only by iying twelve grade-9 magic nuclei could Saleen shoot the magic cannon thirty-six times.


    Saleen still had the nucleus of the dragonshard with him, but even iying that would not solve his problemspletely. Using the dragonshard as the power source for the magic cannon would let one shoot almost a hundred times. To let the dragonshard recover would take up to half a year though.


    Even so, Saleen still passed the dragonshard to Nailisi. She was nervous, as she had another dragonshard in her bracelet that had not been processed. She had kept it privately. If she used the two shards interchangeably, she could solve this problempletely. No matter how long a battle was, it would not require the magic cannon to be fired more than two-hundred times.


    Saleen had gained one-hundred and eighty-eight high-grade magic nuclei from Raphael¡¯s magic tower. These high-grade magic nuclei were magic nuclei that had been retrieved from a magic beast that was greater than grade-7. Raphael had killed countless magic beasts in his lifetime but when one was at Raphael¡¯s grade, magic nuclei were not the most important thing. He had not left behind too many of them in his magic tower.


    The four-hundred and sixty-six middle-grade magic nuclei could not be iid into the magic cannon either. The lowest attacking strength of the magic cannon was equivalent to a level-7 spell, so it needed at least a grade-7 magic nucleus to work.


    ¡°Master, you are going to the Chaotic Marshes. Why aren¡¯t you bringing me along?¡±


    ¡°With the three kings around, I won¡¯t be in any danger, but I need someone that I can trust here.¡± Saleen patted Nailisi on the head. He was finally taller than Nailisi and that left him gratified.


    ¡°Master, you have changed, do not rush in front of danger. There are the pirates and Daniel, they can do the dangerous work.¡± This was the first time Nailisi was separating from Saleen. She had no idea why she was bing a little sentimental.


    ¡°I know, I have brought the pirates with me to get rid of them. I have given them enough chances, but there are still some of them who aren¡¯t satisfied and want to lead their old lives. I have seen such things in books and I used to think it was incredible, but now I know that when one has gotten used to his life, it is hard to change.¡±


    ¡°Master, I think I have already gotten used to you.¡± Nailisi winked as she looked longingly at Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s face turned red but he did not have the heart to reprimand Nailisi. He coughed and said, ¡°I will be back soon. This will take at most three months. By then, the snow here won¡¯t even have melted.¡±


    ¡°I hate waiting. When I was at the temple, I waited for ten-thousand years. It felt worse than dying.¡± Nailisi thought back to when she was a prisoner in the temple and was not sure if it was pain or bitterness in her heart. Her voice was incredibly cold and lonely.


    ¡°If you have the time, train the warriors, but don¡¯t keep disturbing Soldier.¡±


    ¡°Master, that winged skeleton is incredibly crafty.¡± Nailisi knew that Saleen had found out that she had bullied the winged skeleton. He must haveined. The winged skeleton was a spirit and could talk directly to Saleen through their souls. As long as they were within one mile no one would know that they were interacting. Once Saleen was gone, she would deal with him herself.


    ¡°He isn¡¯t as crafty as you. Nailisi, when I¡¯m gone, you need to help me look after Aini¡¯s men. Even though Aini wouldn¡¯t pull any tricks on me, I am not so sure about the people from the Clyde family. Find the danger within and try to get rid of it, but don¡¯t be too obvious because it won¡¯t be good if others find out.¡±


    ¡°Master, if there is a spy among the Clyde family everyone will know once they are dead,¡± Nailisi warned Saleen.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen thought about it and indeed it was true. If he arranged one-hundred people in Alchemy City and two of them were spies, if the two of them were to die the people from Alchemy City would realize that it could not be by pure chance.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t I let Aini deal with it after I have found out?¡± Nailisi gave a suggestion.


    Saleen considered it for a moment and agreed. He wanted to be friends with Aini, but not the Clyde family now. Even though Aini was responsible for this city, he could not represent the Clyde family yet. Once he could push Aini up, these two problems could be considered together.


    He wanted to see what Aini would do. If he sent them back to the Clyde family, he wanted to be loyal to his family. If he helped him kill the spies, it meant that Aini wanted to start his own career. He could then consider working closer with Aini.


    Before they knew it, it was the start of December. On that day, Saleen went to look for Judikaka. The three kings had been looking for clues in different magic books every day and they had not seen Saleen in a while. With Saleen paying them a visit, Judikaka knew something was up.


    ¡°Saleen, what good news did you bring with you today?¡± Judikaka had been suppressing Diyabannersa¡¯s displeasure recently. Saleen had been providing enough magic books but for every ten of them, two were rtively low-grade and it was unnecessary to look at them.


    ¡°Master Judikaka, I have much to tell you, but I do not know how to start.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, just speak, we are bonded together. You know that besides Banchajanna, Diyabannersa and I have nothing against you.¡±


    ¡°Then can you tell me what you are all looking for in the Myers Maind?¡± Saleen lifted his head. Judikaka was seated in a special chair and he had to look down to even see Saleen¡¯s face.


    ¡°Saleen, why have you suddenly asked this?¡¯ Judikaka did not answer him directly. Saleen had never asked about this before and the fact that he suddenly did so today had left Judikaka a little surprised.


    ¡°If what you are looking for is rted to magic, I can give you better leads.¡± Saleen did not have any emotion to his voice and hid it very well. As long as Judikaka was interested, it would make what was about to happen much easier.


    Judikaka looked at Saleen for a while and asked, ¡°Saleen, do you not trust me?¡±


    ¡°This has nothing to do with trust, mages only believe in contracts. This lead isn¡¯t from me, but I cannot let my friend lose out.¡±


    ¡°The new mage that has just arrived?¡±


    ¡°Yes, him.¡± Saleenughed. Judikaka was following his train of thought. He was half-confident inpleting this sessfully.

 Chapter 323: Returning to the Chaotic Marshes (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 323: Returning to the Chaotic Marshes (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What can you give me?¡± Judikaka could not help but ask. He was different from Diyabannersa. If he had known of something like this, he would definitely find Aini directly. However, Judikaka did not want to ruin things. Humans were hard to control and even if they did not have the powers they had before, they could not be tamed easily.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t said what you are looking for.¡± Saleen was not willing to step back, he wanted Judikaka to say first.


    ¡°This, I cannot tell you, but it does have something to do with magic.¡± Judikaka did not dare tell Saleen that they were impeded by the scepter and they could not progress further.


    ¡°Something to do with magic? Then I am here for the right reason. My friend knows of a ruin of from the Second Dynasty.¡±


    ¡°What is that?¡± Judikaka was not familiar with the history of the Myers Maind. Hearing Saleen mentioned a ruin, he had already lost much interest.


    ¡°The Second Dynasty was a period where magic was prevalent, a mage like me would be amoner back then. If you are looking for something rted to magic, you would probably find leads in that ruin.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Judikaka stood up. At his full height Saleen only reached his knees and he had to raise his head even higher to speak to him.


    ¡°Of course, why would I lie to you? The Second Dynasty is also known as the Magic Dynasty. The mages in this dimension all crave to enter this ruin.¡±


    ¡°Haha, your friend is afraid that we would snatch his benefit, but wants to gain the objects in the ruins with our help too, is that it?¡± Judikaka thought his analysis was spot on. Saleen had not mentioned all this, but it was what he wanted to achieve.


    ¡°I want to have a share of what¡¯s inside too,¡± Saleen chuckled, ¡°To be safe, we should sign a contract.¡±


    ¡°Where are the ruins?¡± Judikaka asked.


    ¡°I cannot say unless you ensure our safety.¡± Saleen was not confused. If he had said the general location the three kings could go search for it themselves. Just like how Nailisi steered the alchemical boat to look for the sunken ship of the Williams family. As long as one knew the distance and the original location, the follow-up questions would not be tooplicated.


    ¡°Let me discuss with the others.¡± Judikaka did not immediately reply, however Saleen knew he was interested.


    ¡°Okay, I will wait with Aini outside. Hopefully it won¡¯t take too long. If you aren¡¯t willing to, I will leave here temporarily.¡± Saleen said as he exited Judikaka¡¯s room.


    Aini was waiting outside. As he saw Saleen exiting, he smacked away the snowkes on his body and asked patiently, ¡°How did it go?¡±


    ¡°We should be leaving today,¡± Saleen answered murkily. He did not dare mention the n with the three kings around. Any conversations could be overheard.


    ¡°Will they ensure our safety?¡± Aini followed the lines that Saleen had prepared for him.


    Judikaka had Diyabannersa and Banchajanna gathered in the room with him. In between them was a green space with Aini¡¯s and Saleen¡¯s image inside. Their conversation appeared clearly within the room. Saleen was right to be cautious, the three kings were indeed listening to their conversation.


    Aini and Saleen continued their act outside the three king¡¯s room as Aini said, ¡°Saleen, even my family does not know about this secret, I am telling you because I trust you.¡±


    ¡°I know, the thing that the three kings are looking for is important to them too. So long as they can find a lead, you won¡¯t lose anything that belongs to you. At most I will give them a portion of my share too.¡±


    ¡°They will need to sign the magic contract, if not I won¡¯t tell them where the ruins are even if I die. I am a death mage, their tricks won¡¯t do much to me, so they cannot force anything out.¡± Aini said seriously.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t let something like that happen. Don¡¯t worry Aini, if the three kingse after you, I will look for my teacher for help. Even though they are strong, they need to gain help if they want to continue staying in this dimension. If my teacher were to appear, they would need to return to the demon dimension and would be barred froming back to the Myers Maind again.¡±


    ¡°I do not care about that, I just want the magic equipment within the ruins.¡±


    Within the green death mes, their conversation could be heard word for word. Judikaka asked, ¡°What do you all think?¡±


    ¡°It is worth a trip.¡± Diyabannersa was the first to respond.


    Banchajanna said, ¡°This death mage is hard to deal with. If it weren¡¯t for him, Saleen wouldn¡¯t be like this, would he?¡±


    ¡°But the information is his, Saleen wants to benefit from it too.¡±


    ¡°I understand, at most we will sign another magic contract with him. What¡¯s the problem? When we go back to the death dimension, the contract will be annulled.¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is only a temporary contract.¡± Diyabannersa said. He had the worst temper among them and he had long found the restraints of the scepter unbearable.


    Judikaka sighed inwardly, his two friends did not use to be like this. When they had gotten the Shann scepter, their behaviours had been affected by it. As time passed it had changed them irreversibly. The three scepters represented lies, reality, and absurdness individually. As the three death spirits became kings, they werepletely assimted by the scepter and became unable to break away from it.


    For some reason, Judikaka was still unsettled. This feeling was just like when Shann had given them the scepter. However, he could not figure out what problems there would be when it came to exploring a ruin. For them this was not even considered an expedition. It was as dangerous as cleaning up a room.


    ¡°What if the ruins do not have what they want? Would the three kings get angry?¡± Aini saw that the three kings were still watching as he continued.


    ¡°If there isn¡¯t anything they want, I will give them twice the number of magic books. This can be written into the contract, it can also be me repaying my debt to you.¡± Saleen replied seamless, adding another chip. If he gave them too many magic books, the three kings might miss out something when they were searching. However, they could use their death magic to remember it again.


    ¡°Judikaka, promise them.¡± Banchajanna felt there was something amiss too, but he was even more determined to go the ruins to check it out.


    ¡°Judikaka if you¡¯re not going, I will go.¡± Diyabannersa rushed him.


    Judikaka nodded and settled the death mes before he called them softly, ¡°Saleen, bring your friend in.¡±


    His voice projected outside clearly as Saleen and Aini changed expressions. Pretending to be calm, they walked into the enormous room of the three kings.


    ¡°Respected kings, it is an honor to meet you all.¡± Aini put a respectful look on his face, giving a mage bow to the three kings. In his heart however, he was thinking what he would do once he had tamed them.


    No matter how strong the three kings were, they could not read a person¡¯s mind. The human soul was tooplicated and it would be hard even for a god to find out one¡¯s thoughts.


    ¡°Mage Aini, I have heard that you have the location of a ruin that could be of help to us?¡±


    ¡°That is true, however¡­¡±


    ¡°Saleen has already told us. You want to sign a magic contract to protect your interest, is that right?¡±


    ¡°Respected kings, please forgive the thoughts of a small human. To you these things might mean nothing, but for me, it is my entire future.¡± Aini replied in a determined voice.


    ¡°Alright, what do you want to sign on?¡± Judikaka was not angry. The three of them had already discussed and would not sign the contract that this mage had prepared directly. The general content had to be vetted through by them.


    ¡°I hope, before I leave the ruins, you will ensure the safety of Saleen and I¡­¡± Aini listed down all the things he had prepared in his speech. Judikaka listened carefully, waiting to find a problem within.


    Aini was not going overboard with his requests, the timing of the contract was short. So long as they returned safely to this city base, the contract would no longer be in effect.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that is very good.¡± Judikaka said slowly.


    ¡°What isn¡¯t good?¡± Saleen interrupted. He could speak much more freely with Judikaka. Although Aini had a tough character, he was a death mage. When it came to facing the death kings, he could only do his best to hold back the emotions within him.


    ¡°If you all do not leave the ruins and train there, wouldn¡¯t the three of us have to protect you forever?¡± Judikaka finally found a loophole.


    Technically, this was indeed a huge problem in the contract. If Saleen and Aini wanted to find a ce to train, they would need to find a safe ce. The city base definitely was not too safe. The people from the Holy See could make their way there and Judikaka knew that. If Saleen really wanted to find a ce to hide, having the three of them as their bodyguards was indeed a decent choice.


    ¡°Then what do you suggest?¡± Saleen was relieved upon seeing Judikaka thinking in the wrong direction.


    ¡°There must be a time limit. We cannot wait for you to die before the contract is annulled, right?¡± Judikaka was not very careful with his words. Saleen, however, did not care. The fish had taken the bait and the three of them would be their ves soon. They could only make aeback when Saleen and Aini had died.


    ¡°That won¡¯t do, searching the ruins is a very troublesome affair. There is a chance we might encounter powerful magic beasts. We don¡¯t intend to let you guys fight along the way, we would be bringing one-hundred men with us. A team like this would move very slowly. If the contract is too short, it would be the same as not signing it at all.¡±


    ¡°How about three years? Three years is definitely enough time to search a ruin.¡± Judikaka negotiated. Saleen was overjoyed, three years was perfect for him.


    He had already been there for three months. In three years, his teacher would definitely have made his way there with the mages from Sregl Ind. By that time, he would have his magic towers and thirty sorcerers. Even if they did not trick the three kings this time, three yearster, he could use brute force to make them submit to him.


    This was an additionalyer of insurance for him. Even if the people from the Holy See had not left anyone important in the Second Dynasty ruins, he would gain three years of precious time.

 Chapter 324: Returning to the Chaotic Marshes (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 324: Returning to the Chaotic Marshes (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini had not thought of that as he looked at Saleen, Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Three years then, but I will write the contract.¡±


    Judikaka was a little wary about Aini. He could not see through him and could not even find out where Aini kept his death mes. On the other hand, he was familiar with Saleen and he knew Saleen¡¯s magic powers more clearly. If Saleen were to write the contract, he would feel safer than if Aini were to write it.


    No matter how high the three kings grade were, so long as they had not surpassed grade-10, they could still be restrained by a contract of this world.


    Saleen took out a high-grade empty scroll carefully and started writing on it. He had just grasped the water me skill and was very familiar with the drawing of magic arrays and processing of magic patterns. The magic arrays on the contract were no longer something that bothered him. The three kings talked softly, discussing how to go on their way. Saleen wanted to bring with him one-hundred pirates. If they were in the death dimension, they could fly with all of them. In the Myers Maind, their powers were limited to slightly below grade-9 and it was a little troublesome to bring that many people along while flying.


    The two of them and the three spirits signed the most ¡°fair¡± contract ever signed in history in the giant room. On the contract, there was almost no way which the other party could use their powers against the other.


    Three years was fairly short for the spirits. The three kings could live incredibly long lives and this small amount of time was almost as if a human had taken a nap to them.


    Saleen and Aini had nothing toin about either. Even if the contract trap did not take effect, they had nothing to lose. The ruins from the Second Dynasty might have been taken over by the Holy See. Even though they had said that they would destroy anything that insulted the gods, in actual fact, they were incredibly envious of these ancient treasures. Developing these treasures and making them part of the Holy See¡¯s powers was what they wanted to do.


    If the ruins from the Second Dynasty had not been destroyed, there would be something inside too. The Holy See would send people to defend the area and squeeze dry everything of value within. Saleen might be in luck this time.


    The pirates were gathered together, they had no idea that their fates had already been decided by Saleen. In the city base these pirates that did not know their ce were about to suffocate. Now that they could go out and Saleen even allowed them to snatch any loot when they reached their destination, this was even better than the heavens that the Holy See had described to them.


    These pirates had always been in the sea towards the south and they had no idea what the Chaotic Marshes entailed. Saleen gave these pirates new armors and weapons. Daniel, with the help of the three kings, summoned one-hundred and twenty winged skeleton war horses.


    These winged skeleton war horses did not need Daniel to control them. They were entirely formed from the three kings. The remaining pirates stayed behind in the city base under themand of Jupiter. They knew vaguely what Saleen was about to do but not a single one of them warned their old partners.


    There were no true friendships between pirates. Many people became a pirate for the first time because they were forced by them. They had their own lives; businessmen, mercenaries, farmers, orborers. These people who longed for their old lives did not want to be pirates any longer. Working for Saleen was as good as working for Lex. With a legal identity, they no longer had to worry about being arrested. In the future when they formed a family, with kids, they would be able to get a share of and. They could use thend to grow crops or even get a house in the city.


    Saleen needed soldiers, the pirates that longed for an adventure could be the soldiers. The only problem was that they were not loyal enough. In the Qin Empire, loyal swordsmen could be found everywhere. He did not need to continue racking his brains on how to deal with these pirates.


    The one-hundred pirates were equipped, they received metal crossbows, knives, shields, and the winged skeleton war horses.


    The most majestic of all were the winged skeleton war horses. When the Qin Empire was being built, there had been many death mages that followed the Grukos family. The Qin Empire back then had a cavalry that rode these death creatures that would never tire out. These war horse¡¯s bodies were not bones, instead they were a horse body that was covered with a metal armor. Their head and limbs were white bones, within the eye socket of their skull there were two balls of soul mes that floated.


    A war horse like this could run a thousand miles a day, so long as the rider did not tire out. They did not need tnd to run on either. Even without any roads, they could still maintain their fast speeds.


    Aini did not bring anyone of his along, nor did Saleen. Aini¡¯s two grade-3 mages remained in the city base. Saleen had also left behind Nailisi and the winged skeleton.


    Daniel had no idea about Aini and Saleen¡¯s n. Seeing that Saleen did not bring anyone close to him along, he knew something was up. He tried to keep it to himself. In any case, Saleen had brought him along and would tell him the truth sooner orter. As for the three kings, he had had enough. On the surface, they seemed to be creatures that he had summoned but in actual fact, he had already be a servant to them.


    Saleen would still give him respect in front of others. He also knew what to expect by following Saleen. However, the three kings did not even ce him in their eyes,manding him around seemed normal to them.


    The pirates were done gathering when it suddenly started snowing. The three kings hid inside Daniel¡¯s death mes. Saleen saw neat rows of pirates and he waved at them. Not saying a word, the team set off silently.


    The war horses ran as quickly as they could in the knee-deep snow, even Saleen and Aini rode a horse each themselves. In this season in the north, there were no roads to be seen.


    The capes of the pirates had all been processed and they did not have much defensive abilities but they could protect them from the cold. Every pirate had a sk of wine too. They were still unable to get used to being restricted and as they got the horses to gallop, the group got a little messy.


    Saleen saw this and knew he was too na?ve in the past. These pirates could notpare to Lex¡¯s swordsmen indeed. Even if he were to train them for another ten years, it would still be the same. A loyal swordsman, on the other hand, did not need ten years of training to be a good sailor.


    The group travelled across the barren snownd for over ten hours before Saleenmanded them to take a break. The winged skeleton war horses were not the fastest war horses, but if it were any other horses they could not have traveled at such speeds for over ten hours. Saleen estimated that they must have traveled around six-hundred miles within ten hours.


    The magic wolves in the snow saw one-hundred death creatures speeding across thend. Even though they moved around in packs, they still stayed far away. Saleen did not meet with any dangers along the way.


    It was over two-thousand miles from Saleen¡¯s city base to Phoenix. With these winged skeleton war horses, they should be able to reach it within four days. It was another thousand more miles from the north to the west border of Phoenix. With this, it would take around a week for them to return to Deep Forest Town where Aini had been at the start.


    Setting up camp, Saleen and Aini stayed in the same tent. With the three kings around, Saleen only arranged for ten pirates for sentry duties, setting up a sentry post for show near the campsite.


    It was stated clearly within the contract that within three years, so long as Saleen and Aini were within the senses of the three kings, the three kings had to be responsible for their safety.


    Saleen and Ainiid down in their tent. Naturally, they started talking about what happened since they split.


    Aini went through even more unimaginable things than what Saleen had expected. After receiving help from Saleen, he no longer worried about money. The gold coins he had were enough to buy decent death mes.


    After the n to kill Baron Cook failed, Aini went into hiding for a while. After hearing that Cook had passed away mysteriously, he did not return to Holy Rock City. Instead he went to a city that his family controlled in the North. He had nned this for a long time and had long contacted the person who wanted to sell the death mes. However, when he reached the city, the man who wanted to sell the death mes had died.


    Aini used some of the power from his family to find any leads left behind by the dead businessman and he realized he had been murdered. The one who had gotten rid of the businessman was a hidden bandit gang. It did not seem as if they were after his death mes, but rather, a batch of goods that were only worth thousands of gold coins.


    This caused amotion in the city and the wealthy from that city had assembled arge number of swordsmen. A grand mage was even sent to investigate and topletely eradicate the bandit gang.


    The children of the businessman were not of age yet and the wealthy were in charge of managing his finances. They would only return it when his children had grown up. Any profits before then went to the wealthy, this included the death mes. The wealthy got a hold of the death mes and knew they were precious. They were not willing to sell them to Aini. Aini¡¯s family power in this city was limited and he could not do anything to the wealthy and could only me his luck.


    In Phoenix, Aini was also pushed to the brink of death before he poisoned the mercenary, Nut. In the Qin Empire, he did not dare murder any wealthy. At least not because they were unwilling to sell the death mes to him.


    The wealthy were asking too much too, they had only doubled the asking price. The business man had lowered the price considerably to get into the good books of the Clyde family, however, the wealthy had much influence in that region and did not need to give the Clyde family any face. Aini had no choice but to give up on those death mes. He used the news his family got while doing business to search all around before receiving news of a seller in the south.


    It was an underground auction and the things being sold there were all illegal. Aini brought the money to the south and at the auction, he met with another situation. The death mes, which were of a very low grade, had another buyerpeting for them. He had less gold coins than the other buyer and he could only watch as the other man bought the death mes.


    There were getting to be fewer death mes on the Myers Maind and Aini had almost lost all hope. Just as he was about to leave, he heard news that the man who had bought the death mes had died. The man was incredibly unlucky, the death mes had retaliated and he was eaten alive by them.


    The ball of death mes immediately became trash, who would want something like that? Aini managed to buy the death mes for only one-hundred gold coins.


    ¡°You dared to do something so dangerous?¡± Upon hearing that Aini had absorbed death mes that had caused the death of another individual Saleen was worried, even though Aini was standing perfectly alright in front of him.

 Chapter 325: Talking All Night Long (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 325: Talking All Night Long (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Of course, I would not do something so dangerous! But I have never heard of anyone dying as a result of absorbing too much energy from the death mes. In fact, I¡¯ve never heard of these death mes until now. But like they always say¡­ with dangeres opportunity. As a person from Sikenqinya, surely you understand where I¡¯ming from?¡± Aini said.


    ¡°How did you manage to do it?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Pure luck. At that time, I spent less than a hundred gold coins. Thus, I¡¯m not too bothered about this little loss. Being the mage that I am, I started to closely study the death mes. Somewhere along the way, I found out that these death mes already had death creatures roaming about inside of them. What was crazier was that this death creature actually reached out tomunicate with me!¡± Aini recounted his experience.


    ¡°Really?!¡± Saleen eximed in disbelief. Even though Saleen was not a necromancer, he had started reading up on them after meeting the three kings. With the help of Daniel and the Sregl Ind mages, Saleen had amassed nearly as much knowledge about the craft as ordinary necromancers. However, he had not expected the spirits of the dead to take the initiative tomunicate with humans ¨C especially before the contract was even signed. What blew Saleen¡¯s mind was the fact that this death creature was actually a nt.


    ¡°I could not really believe it either, so I¡­¡± Aini trailed off at thest sentence. However, Saleen already knew what Aini was implying. Aini had the ability to set a contractual trap. Thus, both parties had signed what seemed like a fair agreement.


    ¡°It¡¯s pretty simple actually¡­ the death mes did not contain just one death creature. During the fusion process, this random dude that wanted to be a true necromancer did not have enough mental power to see the entire procedure through. Thus, instead of bing the master of the magic, he became controlled by it. Thus, the death creatures contained within the death mes were implicated. Since they were scared of vanishing off the face of the dimension, they had no choice but to swallow the soul of that unlucky bloke. Don¡¯t be mistaken ¨C that did not benefit them at all. Luckily, one of the two death creatures was a floral death creature. Thus, it could actually digest the human¡¯s soul slowly, preventing the two of them from being wiped out under thews of this dimension,¡± Aini exined.


    ¡°What about the other one?¡± Saleen asked curiously. Aini had signed a contract with two death creatures in one go, with one of them being the floral death creature. Thus, Saleen expected the other death creature to be some rare creature he had never heard of.


    ¡°It¡¯s a fleshy death creature. Very rare. Very umonly seen. Sounds gross, I know. But it actually looks pretty simr to the living magic beasts you see everyday,¡± Aini rambled.


    ¡°You¡¯re too lucky!¡± Saleen eximed. Every single achievement that he had attained, be it a promotion, harvest, and so on, was almost always gained through pure hard work and grit. In fact, he had put his life on the line most of the time trying to achieve his goals. Aini, on the other hand, had not even needed to spend over a hundred gold coins to purchase such special death mes. They even came with two rare death creatures too.


    He was not jealous of Aini though. In fact, Saleen was happy for him. Anyone who knew Aini would also know that he had endured far too many hardships in his life. He could only imagine how agonizing and heart-breaking it was for a talented young mage like Aini to end up cursed and forced to witness the gradual depletion of his magic chords. However, Saleen did not think that it was all that bad. All the hardships Aini had endured as a young adult were not for nothing. If anything, they had been to prepare him for the fruits that he would reapter in his life.


    ¡°Really? I always thought you were the lucky one. You were so unskilled when west said our goodbyes. Now¡­ you¡¯re already a grade-5 mage. That¡¯s insane¡­ especially given that elemental mages have a harder time honing their magic to perfectionpared to necromancers¡­ well¡­ at least before they get promoted to the rank of a sorcerer, of course,¡± Aini said.


    Saleen smiled in response. How could Aini think that it had been pure luck? As a mage, Saleen had never believed in luck. All he knew was that he needed to depend on hard work to achieve what he wanted in life. If he left it all to fate, he would be no different from those ignorant adventurers. He recounted the story of how people had flocked to Kosan Prefecture upon hearing that a green dragon had been sighted. Quite a fair number of those people had only been junior swordsmen.


    Even though the green dragon was considered one of the weakest members of the dragon family tree, one breath of fire alone was enough to wipe out dozens of junior swordsmen. The dragon¡¯s me was not to be confused with the dragon¡¯s breath. The former was of a much higher level than thetter. In fact, one of the reasons why this was so was because of the fact that the dragon¡¯s me did not use up a lot of the green dragon¡¯s energy. A dragon could spit out hundreds of dragon¡¯s mes during a battle and not be tired out.


    Humans were strange like that, always trying to achieve the impossible when they knew that they were far from being able to do so. They were always so profit-minded. Just one green dragon alone was enough for hoards of people, who were apparently unafraid of death, to risk their lives in an attempt to capture and kill it.


    ¡°The weaponry shop over at Deep Forest Town¡­ is it still yours?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes. Is there something you need? I was given that shop by my n as a form ofpensation,¡± Aini replied.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to build a stronghold there. Don¡¯t you feel weird about the sudden disappearance of all those ck mages?¡± Saleen said.


    Aini processed Saleen¡¯s words for a bit, but chose not to reply. Aini guessed that their sudden disappearance had something to do with the Holy See. He was not about to discuss anything rted to the Holy See near the three kings¡­ unless the contractual trap came into effect, forcing the three kings to be both him and Saleen¡¯s bonded creatures.


    Saleen did not directly address the Holy See then, and he was not about to talk about the Holy See now. Seeing that Aini had already understood what he was implying, Saleen continued, ¡°This ce looks very remote. However, we can actually make our way to Sikeqinya via the Chaotic Swamp. This is the fastest way I can think of.¡±


    ¡°How fast?¡± Aini asked, his eyes suddenly lighting up with interest. If there was a direct path from Deep Forest Town to Sikeqinya, even if he had to go through the Chaotic Swamp, it would be worth it.


    ¡°Very fast. There¡¯s a secret tunnel to the north of Didypus. That tunnel will allow us to bypass the mountains and enter the Chaotic Swamp immediately. If we can gain control over that tunnel, we will only have the magic beasts left to deal with. The magic beasts over at the Chaotic Swamp, of course. However, to powerful mages like us, they won¡¯t be a threat. What do you think?¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°The location of that secret tunnel¡­ does it belong to Sikeqinya?¡± Aini asked.


    ¡°Of course not! Would I be bbing for nothing if that were true?¡± Saleen scoffed.


    ¡°Well¡­in that case¡­ we¡¯re going to need money!¡± Aini said as he quickly did up the math. He had invested nearly all his assets into Saleen¡¯s new city. Not only had he brought five hundred swordsmen over, but he had also provided copious quantities of building materials as well as grains, seeds, medicine, and so on. Once Saleen¡¯s city was up and running, the worth of all those items would multiply. The problem was that all these purchases had put a strain on his finances. Setting up a stronghold over at Deep Forest Town would exacerbate that strain.


    ¡°I can fork out a portion of the money,¡± Saleen replied cheekily.


    ¡°But that is my family business you¡¯re talking about! You want a piece of that too?¡± Aini protested.


    ¡°I intend to buy this small town for now. If this ce is our ticket to the fastest path to Sikeqinya, then the worth of this ce can¡¯t be measured in mary terms alone,¡± Saleen exined.


    Aini was rmed by Saleen¡¯s words. Buying a small town would cost a fortune! Moreover, this town belonged to the Grand Duke of Phoenix. Even if the rumors about how incapable and weak the new grand duke was were true, Aini was certain that the grand duke would not give up a city just like that.


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m crazy to be thinking of buying an entire city? It¡¯s actually not asplicated as you think. We can construct a small city to the north of the Phoenix Duchy. Then, we¡¯ll send a soldier carrying our g to see the grand duke. Surely, he¡¯ll yield then. Phoenix has never been threatened by anyone from the north. Those noblemen have been living peacefully for over a thousand years¡­ surely they would have forgotten how to fight by now. The only reason why they even managed to subdue those ck mages in the first ce was because of all the backing provided by Bitter Water Prefecture. Phoenix has tens of thousands of people in their army, but those tens of thousands of people only managed to capture a few ck mages on their own? Ridiculous!¡± Saleen said.


    As Saleen spoke animatedly, he realized then that he had trulye across too many of these situations to have the same viewpoint as Aini on these issues. If Saleen had told Lex about buying Deep Forest Town, Lex would have immediately asked him about how he was going to go about remodelling it, or something simr to that. She would not even have cared about the opinions of the Grand Duke of Phoenix.


    Why would anyone want to wait to seize control over a duchy as weak as Phoenix?


    If the Grand Duke of Phoenix was not aspliant as Saleen hoped he would be, building a city over to the north could anger the grand duke enough to expand Phoenix¡¯s territory north to counter the pressure brought about by Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s forces.


    Lex did not even have to go to such lengths to evoke the ire of the grand duke. Building a city on the ten-thousand-mile plot ofnd that no duchy or country had dared to even touch was already as insulting as spitting directly on the grand duke¡¯s face.


    ¡°Is Lex going to be the Empress of Phoenix or not?¡± Aini joked, hoping to ease the blow of Saleen¡¯s sudden announcement.


    ¡°She probably hasn¡¯t thought about it yet. But it will not be up to her anymore, at least in the future,¡± Saleen replied, his tone too serious for Aini¡¯s liking.


    Stunned, Aini thought about what Saleen had said before finally understanding what the grade-5 mage meant. Right now, Lex was going to focus on defeating the Holy See as well as umting her wealth. The day that Lex actually managed to overthrow the Holy See would also be the day when she had enough capital to build an entire empire. She would not have a choice of reject the role of empress then. The people under hermand would not ept anyone else as their leader.


    Not all those who stuck with their leader through thick and thin did so out of loyalty. There had to be some sort of incentive in order for noblemen to even consider pledging their loyalty to someone. The prospect of Lex bing an empress alone would cause hoards of noblemen to do just that.


    Although all these things might have sounded unrealistic, themotion over on the maind had already struck fear and panic into the hearts of some select wise noblemen. There were no signs that the war over at Lon was going to die down anytime soon. Bitter Water Prefecture seemed to have lost the majority of its control over Lon, and that alone would invite much spection. If Lex proved herself to be part of the stronger team, she would not even have to put in any effort to entice the noblemen into pledging their loyalty to her. They would do so willingly.


    Technically, Lex was neither rebelling nor revolting. The reason why Prince Safilos was so unwilling to be an emperor himself was due to his fear that doing so would invite protest and unhappiness amongst the noblemen living there. Even after Chanake the Great had passed away long ago, Prince Safilos had held no intentions of bing the emperor. After all, Chanake¡¯s son and daughter were still around, and the son had already chased Lex out of Bitter Water Prefecture. If Chanake¡¯s son were to be removed from his position, the entire empire would be sink into chaos.


    Lex was the second heir to the throne of the Qin Empire. If her younger brother died without leaving behind any offspring, she would be the one to sit on the throne instead of Safilos. What bothered Safilos the most was that even if the royal mages imed that they were not interfering with the politics of the country, they would, in one way or another, support anyone of Chanake blood until the day they died.


    The royal mages over in the Qin Empire had always been mysterious, to the extent that it was not an exaggeration for outsiders to say that they did not have a single clue about their movements or operations. However, Safilos was an exception. If he were to rebel, Bitter Water Prefecture would not be standing for long. Lex would have to rebuild the city from scratch.


    The current emperor, who was also Lex¡¯s younger brother, had been gued with many illnesses since he was young. Thus, he had always been cared for by the royal mages. If Safilos were to kill him, these royal mages would not hesitate to finish him off. Politically speaking, royal mages did not care about how killing off Safilos would affect the empire as a whole. Not a single hair on the emperor was to be harmed. They were emotionally-oriented, and would not sit back and watch the person that they had cared for and bonded with be killed off just like that.


    These nitty-gritty details were things that Aini had to ponder over carefully before he even had a vague understanding of them. For Saleen, he had learned all of these things through being with Lex all the time. Even if he was not a nobleman by blood, he already knew what was to be expected of a nobleman.


    The good thing was that learning magic seemed to help Saleen understand everything that was happening. Many mages who were as powerful as Saleen only had their horizons broadened when they explored the world. Most real-world happenings could not be learned through textbooks alone.


    ¡°Oh Saleen, you¡¯ve changed so much!¡± Aini eximed in awe. Saleen and Aini had pretty simr beginnings, yet the former was about to be someone very important, so important that there could be a historical book dedicated to his achievements. Although Aini did not fancy all the fighting and scheming involved, he knew that he could only be more powerful and knowledgeable through fighting and being calcting.


    A sessful mage was built from a pool of resources, even if they were not his or hers. Aini had been aware of this fact for a long time.

 Chapter 326: Talking All Night Long (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 326: Talking All Night Long (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I haven¡¯t changed much¡­ it¡¯s just that the things I want have changed¡­¡± Saleen said as he gently caressed the Ring of Gifts that sat prettily in his hands. This item was one of the rare high-grade magical artifacts that the Myers Goddess had created back in her day. It was only after acquiring this ring that he had changedpletely.


    ¡°Sikeqinyans love talking about achieving big goals in life while the Qins can¡¯t go one minute without bbing about the things they yearn to have. Saleen, you¡¯re no longer a Sikeqinyan,¡± Aini said as heughed uncontrobly at the little joke that hade out of nowhere. He felt so happy to have reunited with Saleen once again. The problem that he thought was going to ur had not popped up ¨C Saleen still regarded him as his friend.


    Even though the three kings were currently residing inside of Daniel¡¯s death mes, they did not forget to continue observing Saleen and Aini¡¯s every move. It was when they started talking about everyday affairs that the three kings stopped spying on them. Who would want to hear Aini bbing to Saleen about being a Sikeqinyan?


    The skeletal warhorses, which had not been sent back to the death dimension yet, stood quietly on the snowy ground. These low-grade death creatures were unafraid of the bitter winter cold in the north. If a person took a closer look, they could see the soul mes dancing wildly in their eyes. In the dead of the night, no magic beast would dare approach Saleen¡¯s camp. There were over two hundred of these warhorses standing guard in the northern wilderness.


    Over a dozen pirates that were standing guard had gathered together for a beer session in order to kill time. A bone-chilling breeze blew past, taking some snow along with it and creating a fog that seemed as though it was made up of ash, only whiter and more beautiful. The tent skeletons, which formed the basic structure of the tents that Saleen had brought along with him, were made up of metal. Not only that, but they were also fortified by magic. Even the cold, harsh winds blowing outside would not affect the temperatures inside the tent.


    ¡°Why is it so freaking cold? Why don¡¯t y¡¯all go back to rest? No one will attack us in this goddamn weather!¡± one of the pirates suggested to hispanions as he threw the now empty wine pot onto the ground.


    ¡°Okay, nighty-night,¡± hispanions said as they looked at their leader.


    This ¡°leader¡± was only in charge of eleven people and he was merely an intermediate swordsman. If he had been in the countryside, he would have been a high-ranking security officer by now. However, since he was under Saleen, an intermediate swordsman like him could only be assigned a role like this. In this Sregl Ind swordsmen¡¯s camp, most swordsmasters would not be aiming for a position like this.


    ¡°Good, it¡¯s not like we¡¯ll be in danger anytime soon,¡± the leader grumbled, trying not to shiver too much from the extreme cold. Even if he was an intermediate swordsman, the temperature was just too low for him to bear. Every single breath he took resulted in white misting out of his mouth. It would not be long until his scarf was peppered with icicles that had condensed from the water vapor in his breath. If Saleen had not kindly arranged for everyone to be staying in warm tents, these swordsmen would have turned into ice sculptures by now.


    Trying to remain as quiet as possible, the pirates shuffled back to their tents silently. By now, only a hundred-plus skeletal warhorses stood upright in the freezing blizzard. The disposed wine pot was covered by the snow in a matter of seconds.


    ¡°Master Saleen,¡± a low voice interrupted Saleen and Aini¡¯s conversation. The two of them had no intentions of sleeping, and had been chatting animatedly before they were cut off. As Saleen turned his head towards the entrance of the tent, he could make out the shadow of someone standing outside.


    ¡°Enter,¡± Saleen instructed, as he started sniffing out the essence of the person outside. He concluded that the voice belonged to one of the pirates under hismand.


    The ¡°door¡± was actually just a curtain made up of felt material. The pirate pried open the door as gently as he could. Once he entered the tent, he closed the door quickly to prevent snow froming in.


    The magicmp inside had done a good job of illuminating the tent. Saleen yawned as he sat upright, leaned against his pillow, and lifted his head to get a good look at the pirate. He was skinny to the point that it seemed as if he had not eaten for years. He had no weapons with him and had taken off his armor. All he had on him were some clothes made of cotton. His face was a pale yellow, and he had very little hair. He looked to be roughly over twenty years old. The most attention-grabbing feature about the pirate had to be his nails, which were unusually well-groomed and cleaned. They were so smooth that people would think that he had smoothed and polished his nails with magic.


    Hands as well taken care of as these were usually found on swordsmen as proof that they cherished and valued the art of swordcraft. The length of their nails would affect their ability to adeptly use their weapons, especially when they were still beginners. A fair number of swordsmen who did not inculcate the habit of keeping their nails short when they were merely apprentices ended up faring poorly in theter stages of their lives.


    Most people who took up the art of swordcraft did so to support their families. Only a minority treated swordcraft as seriously as mages treated their magic skills and knowledge. The only difference here was that most mages would not need to be on the frontlines during battle. Swordsmen, on the other hand, were constantly at risk of dying. Even the prospect of death did not bother these swordsmen enough to hone their craft properly. Either that, or they had already grown so customed to risking their lives that death did not scare them anymore.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen asked gently but firmly as he continued staring at the young pirate. His voice had a tone thatmanded respect. He was no longer a destitute young man. He was an archmage now, and he was going to let anyone who spoke to him know that.


    The pirate lowered his head, afraid that staring into Saleen¡¯s blue eyes would make thetter think that he was challenging him. He said meekly, but clearly, ¡°Master Saleen¡­ those pirates¡­ that were standing guard¡­ have gone back to sleep without your permission.¡±


    ¡°Oh? You came all the way here to tell me this?¡± Saleen asked as he continued scrutinizing the young pirate. He concluded that the pirate standing in front of him was probably older than him by a few years. Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s cryptic words, the pirate starting shivering uncontrobly with nervousness and fear. Heposed himself before mustering up his courage to reply, ¡°Master, you¡¯ve said that we are now part of an official army. You¡¯ve also said that we are not to go back to our bad habits and make the same mistakes. By doing this¡­ they are breaking military rules.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I did say that. This is a serious breach of military rules. Do you remember what is the punishment for a crime like this?¡± Saleen asked seriously.


    The young pirate shook even more uncontrobly as he replied, ¡°Decapitation.¡±


    ¡°Good, now help me carry out the beheadings. If you canplete this for me, I¡¯ll assign you to assist Daniel. Oh right, excuse me for being rude but¡­ what is your name?¡± Saleen said.


    As the young pirate listened closely to Saleen¡¯s words, a shiver ran down his spine before it disappeared as fast as it hade. Taking its ce instead was a warm feeling at the prospect of being a loyal follower to a mage, and one of Saleen¡¯s closerpanions at that. However, he dreaded the thought of having to deal with dozens of hispanions on his own. He was simply unable to fight all of them by himself.


    ¡°My name is Gurney,¡± the young pirate managed to say without stuttering.


    ¡°Gurney? What a weird name. Alright, I remember now. Run along,¡± Saleen said as he dismissed the pirate with a wave of his hand. Not daring to reply, Gurney exited as stealthily as he hade.


    ¡°Saleen, asking him to finish off his friends is a bit cruel, don¡¯t you think?¡± Aini asked Saleen as soon as Gurney stepped out of the tent.


    ¡°This Gurney guy might have long known the reason why we brought them here. If that¡¯s the case, we can either use him or kill him. Since I reallyck any form of help right now, I¡¯m going to use him. But I¡¯m not going to hire trash. If he can eliminate those pirates who have failed to execute their duties, it means that we can continue developing his abilities to their full potential. To answer your question about whether it¡¯s cruel, Aini¡­ well¡­ as a mage, I do value and respect life. But I won¡¯t allow my followers to ck off just because I can¡¯t bear to kill them,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Why so serious?¡± Aini chuckled, ¡°I feel like the way you handle things now is much more straightforward and clear-cut. If you can show me that you will always handle matters this way, I can put my mind at ease when working with you. If you must know, I have invested all the money that I have saved into purchasing these death mes on you.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Aren¡¯t you afraid that I¡¯ll let you down and you¡¯ll lose all your money?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to be afraid of? I was just like you in the past, down and out with absolutely nothing to my name. To a mage, no money in the world will make up for the loss of their magical powers,¡± Aini replied.


    ¡°Uh huh. Listen, Aini. The reason why I thought about working with you was because firstly, you¡¯re my friend. Secondly, you¡¯re one of the most legitimate mages I¡¯ve ever met,¡± Saleen said, chuckling as he reached the end of his little speech. Saleen was unusually happy and rxed today, to the extent that not even the incident with the pirates had put a dent in his joyous mood. Physically, Saleen was much strongerpared to ordinarymoners. Thus, he viewed himself as superior to those people. Killing them off would not make him feel guilty as they had not been on his level in the first ce.


    Those pirates were his prisoners. ording to thews of all countries, Saleen had every right to ughter all of them when he first captured them. Pirates had absolutely no human rights. They were only glorified in fables and myths. In fact, even a third-ss baron had the right to sentence these pirates to death if they wished to do so.


    ¡°Do you really wish to give Gurney the opportunity to assist you in important things?¡± Aini asked.


    ¡°Of course not!¡± Saleen scoffed, ¡°But I will get a swordmaster to teach him advanced swordcraft. Once he sessfully bes a swordmaster, his status will naturally be elevated as well. I focus on capabilities here, if you did not know by now.¡±


    As Saleen finished hisst sentence, he turned off the magicmp and stored it into his demonic ring. After that, he began meditating. He was not about to bother with helping Gurney eliminate hispanions. He had learned too many things from Lex, to the extent that he did not even know whether to call it a blessing or a curse. However, he knew now that a person would only cherish something that they had worked hard for.


    Once Gurney put his life on the line, his loyalty to Saleen would be much more genuine. If he were to ce this pirate in an important position solely because of this incident alone, Saleen was certain that Gurney would one day betray him like how he had betrayed his friends.


    For people to get followers to remain loyal to them, not only would they have to work hard, but they would also have to keep asking and expecting a lot from their followers. That would make the other party feel important. It was just like how a farmer maintained his or her tenure. A plot ofnd that had been maintained for decades would be like a farmer¡¯s second, if not first, home. It would be everything to that farmer, be it in terms of livelihood or assets. However, if a farmer were to be given a barren plot ofnd, no matter how intensely he fertilized thend, he would not feel secure calling that ce home.


    Aini did not really understand Saleen¡¯s train of thought. Even though he had been dragged into manyplicated affairs back when he had been with his n, he had not learned these lessons as directly as Saleen had from Lex. Right now, he was thinking the exact same thing as Saleen, which was how fortunate they were to have met each other in their most deste moments. Aini did not dare to think of what would have happened to him if they had not. Sunrise always camete during the northern winter. Thus, Saleen and Aini had already finished their second round of mediation before dawn even came. If other mages, who did not have the opportunity to be blessed with mentors that could pass down magic to them, saw how fast they were mediating, Saleen could imagine just how green with envy they would be.


    ¡°Master Saleen,¡± Saleen heard Gurney faintly call out from outside the tent. His voice sounded weak and frail, as if he had been badly hurt. ¡°Done?¡± Saleen asked, slightly impressed by how he had managed toplete his task without waking anyone else up in the camp.


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± Gurney replied.


    ¡°How severe are your injuries?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Not serious enough to slow us down, sir!¡± Gurney said.


    ¡°Take this. You can either drink it now, or save it forter when you sustain even more severe injuries,¡± Saleen said as he took out a crystal vial. Inside the vial was a fluid that was ten percent magic liquid and ny percent water. Without wasting any time, Saleen unleashed some of his binding magic to send the crystal vial out of the tent.


    Gurney, who was outside the tent the entire time, saw a corner of the tent flip outwards before a crystal vial flew towards him andnded in the snow. Saleen continued, ¡°This is magic liquid. It can only be created using level-7 magic. This contains two doses.¡±


    As Gurney kneeled in the snow to pick up the crystal vial, a tear rolled out of his eye, which rapidly froze into a raindrop-shaped icicle in a matter of seconds. He was more than satisfied with Saleen¡¯spensation for his services. A swordsman like him would never have been able to get his hands on an item as precious as magic liquid. That was, until he had met Saleen.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to say anything. Go find Daniel, and tell him I sent you. Tend to his every need because you are excused from the war, at least for now. Once you return, I will get someone to teach you swordcraft,¡± Saleen instructed.


    As Saleen slowly exined what was going to happen to him, Gurney continued kneeling on the snowy ground, giving the grade-5 mage kowtows every now and then, even if he knew that Saleen was not able to see him do so. He knew that now that Saleen had uttered these words, his life would change forever.

 Chapter 327: Acquisition of Deep Forest Town (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 327: Acquisition of Deep Forest Town (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As the sun gradually rose and brought forth a new day, the pirates who for some reason had decided to wake up earlier instantly panicked upon seeing the bloodstains. Chaos ensued shortly. Instead of Saleen, Daniel stepped out of his tent and started to use his magic to hold the pirates back.


    By now, everybody knew that the bloodstains belonged to those who had left their guard-posts without Saleen¡¯s permission. They also knew that Saleen was the one who had ordered their deaths. Some of the pirates, who had treated this journey as some leisurely hunt, started shivering in fear. Saleen had always been a peaceful fellow, and they rarely saw him angry. It dawned upon the remaining pirates that one should never treat the words of a mage lightly.


    The three kings did not feel that Saleen was too inhumane for ordering the execution of these pirates. Over in the death dimension, insubordination was simply intolerable. Just a little blunder could endanger the death mes. Killing the pirates but setting their souls free was the most merciful punishment that the three kings could think of.


    The group journeyed from camp once again. The pirates marched in a much neater formation, as if they were soldiers forging their way ahead in search for any signs of danger. In reality, it was nearly impossible to encounter any robbers along the way to Phoenix Duchy. What kind of bandit gang would choose a ce like this tomit robbery? The freezing cold aside, even during the summer, there would not be any merchants travelling through this path. There had not been any for the past one hundred and eighty years.


    As for magic beasts, there would not be any of them for miles ahead unless they travelled much farther north. Any ce within two thousand miles north of Phoenix would not be filled with magic beasts which were too powerful. That was because the sheer number of magic wolves crowded out the more powerful magical monsters. The good thing was that magic wolves were scared of skeletal warhorses, and they were not about to provoke a huge group of them. Thus, Saleen¡¯s team would most likely not meet with any problems along the way to Phoenix.


    Over on the Myers Maind, even though swordmasters depended on their capabilities to fight, numbers yed a role too. In the event that a hundred swordsmen were up against a little over a dozen swordmasters, it was not difficult to assume that the swordsmen would have an advantage. Saleen¡¯s team was one of the stronger groups. However, even if the mages were to sit there and do nothing in the face of danger, the sheer number of pirates would give an added advantage to Saleen¡¯s team when faced with other adventurers who could be a little hostile.


    A typical adventurers squad would consist of ten to twelve people. Out of those ten to twelve people, only two or three of them would be swordmasters. Back then, Canghong¡¯s squad had simply been too powerful. Who on earth would have gathered so many mages to go adventuring?


    Saleen¡¯s squad continued marching solemnly for a week before arriving at the fringe of the forest where Dead Forest Town was, as per the schedule. The pirates already had an idea of who had killed off theirpanions, and could not help but bear a little resentment towards Gurney. However, since Gurney had Saleen behind him, the pirates could do nothing but endure it.


    Aini had started to respect Saleen more and more. There was no rewind button for Gurney to press. After killing off his friends, Gurney could only pledge his loyalty to Saleen until the day he died. Anyone else who heard about what Gurney had done would shun him, and no one would even bother using him like Saleen was.


    There were over a hundred of these pirates still remaining. With so many pirates donned in full armor and making their way out of Phoenix on skeletal horses, it would have been hard for the local noblemen not to notice. However, the Grand Duke of Phoenix was not around to back them up, and Saleen had the badge of Bitter Water Prefecture that Lex had oh so kindly given him. Having been given the right to lead so many soldiers, three of which were mages, the local noblemen knew not to mess with him. If it had been Daniel though, a select few noblemen would have dared to confront him.


    Daniel had managed to break past the limits of grade-3 and had been sessfully promoted to a true grade-4 mage. Noblemen below the rank of an earl would be courting death if they ever thought about provoking Daniel. Even if Daniel did not have diplomatic immunity, Saleen did, and that was all they needed.


    Deep Forest Town belonged solely to a first-ss baron. Saleen¡¯s arrival, along with his troops, had startled the baron into thinking that his town was being invaded. His town did not have any mercenaries or adventurers during this time of year. Hiring them to fight for him, especially on such short notice, was next to impossible. He only had a dozen swordsmen under hismand, plus a group of farmers, if that could even be considered an army. The point was that there was no way the male baron would be able to repel Saleen¡¯s troops.


    As soon as the male baron realized that Saleen was an archmage who had brought even more archmages with him, he decided not to put up a fight. Instead, he brought two people along with him and requested to see Saleen. He had thought everything out. If Saleen were to seize the town from him, he would bring his family and flee to Bitter Water Prefecture since his position was recognized there. If he really could not go anywhere else, he would be like the grand duke and stay there forever.


    Even though it was hard to secure a royal position over in the Qin Empire, as long as he could prove that he had inherited his earl rank, the royal family would spare no expense to care for the male baron. That was, unless he hadmitted some heinous crime, of course. In fact, if the Qin royal family were feeling generous, they could even give him a new plot ofnd to call his own.


    Chanake the Great had used this method to get many noblemen to pledge their loyalty to him. Until now, Safilos had still been unsessful in his attempts to rece Chanake the Great. He meant so much to the local noblemen that nothing could get them to revolt against him.


    Saleen had so many people apanying him that his group took up half the street leading to the hotel that the male baron was in. The good thing was that the hotel was empty because there were no adventurers who needed a ce to stay during this time of year. Who would go hunting when it was freezing outside? Of course, even if the hotel had been bustling with people, a room would have immediately been made avable for Saleen.


    No adventurer would risk their lives to fight someone stronger than them over a room. These stories might have happened in fictional books, but definitely not in reality.


    As the male baron stood nervously outside of Saleen¡¯s room, he prepared himself for the worst-case scenario. The fact that the mage inside the room had not responded to the gift that he had gotten people to send up to him made him even more anxious. The male baron knew that if the other party wanted his town, he would not be able to fight back. But the mage inside still hasn¡¯t said anything yet. Does he want to kill me? The male baron thought as he felt giddy with fear.


    The reason why Saleen had not bothered to respond was because he had been chatting with Aini the entire time. In fact, he had forgotten about the male baron standing outside. He appreciated the male baron¡¯s gesture, but at the same time, he was a bit disappointed that the male baron had not put up more resistance.


    ¡°Aini, I heard that Qins are known to be some of the most courageous people around. How can this male baron give up his territory just like that?¡± Saleen questioned, his mind overwhelmed with emotions, mostly that of worry. If all Qins were like this, the Holy See would tten the Qin Empire after bringing Lon to its knees in no time. In fact, Saleen would not even have the two years that he had estimated earlier on. The Holy See¡¯s forces would reach his city in half that time.


    Aini scoffed and said condescendingly, ¡°Do you think that the people of Phoenix can be considered Qins? They¡¯re the lousiest people I¡¯ve ever met. They don¡¯t have a single redeemable bone in their bodies. All those cities in the south¡­ tell me¡­ is any one of them like Phoenix?¡±


    Saleen pondered Aini¡¯s question for a while before he realized that the other was right. The Grand Duke of Pompeii¡¯s decisiveness and callousness had left him unnerved to this day. That was back when he and Lex had nearly been captured over in Pompeii. Saleen still could not believe that the grand duke would viciously order the execution of a high-ranking viscountess. Even though the grand duke had not seeded in the end, he had still managed to usurp control over Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town as a result of this incident.


    Make no mistake, the Qin noblemen were very aggressive. The fact that their private armies could hold their own against the Holy See¡¯s forces over at Lon meant that aside from the fact that Chanake the Great¡¯s death had demoralized some of the Qins, the Qin noblemen¡¯s battle skills were far stronger than that of the Sikeqinyan noblemen.


    ¡°Since the male baron is not going to put up a fight, we will save a lot of time,¡± Saleen saidzily.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to snatch the town from him?¡± Aini asked, shocked that Saleen would even consider such a thing. Even though Aini had no qualms about killing off the male baron, he would only do so if his life was threatened and he had no other choice. If Saleen were to start fighting here, it would anger Holy Rock City. Even though the Grand Duke of Phoenix was a coward, the people on his side over in Holy Rock City would be able to convince his easily persuaded mind to spend a little money and deploy armed forces to attack Saleen¡¯s troops.


    The Clyde family was good with business, not battle.


    ¡°Who said anything about snatching? I¡¯m going to buy this town from the baron,¡± Saleen saidzily.


    ¡°But¡­ this territory¡­ his ancestors gave this plot ofnd to him¡­¡± Aini stuttered.


    ¡°Tell him to look for Viscountess Lex. There¡¯s so muchnd over in the north, we¡¯ll just give him a bigger piece of it! Aini, would you like to be the baron here?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Baron? Are you kidding me? I¡¯m a mage!¡± Aini eximed.


    ¡°Oh Aini¡­ you¡¯ve changed,¡± Saleen sighed upon seeing how afraid Aini was to take on new challenges. The Aini that he remembered was decisive, ruthless, and a risk-taker. The Aini now was of course more experienced, but also more prudent and unwilling to step out of his boundaries.


    ¡°I¡­ need to settle my parents first. They¡¯ve done too much for me,¡± Aini said seriously, rendering Saleen speechless. Thetter reckoned that if his parents were still around, he would probably have had the same views as Aini.


    After Aini¡¯s statement, an awkward silence filled the entire room. The male baron who had been waiting outside the entire time was sweating from nervousness even though it was a very cold day. The people inside the room would determine his fate. Yet, the same people had already forgotten about his existence.


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m a fair businessman. All I¡¯m going to do is have him sign a contract. Lex ising back soon. We¡¯ll give him another plot ofnd over in the north. Well, I can¡¯t guarantee that it¡¯ll be bigger, but oh well, we¡¯ll try our best. Plus, it¡¯s not like thend over there can¡¯t produce any grain or whatever. I¡¯m notmitting daylight robbery, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re implying,¡± Saleen told Aini smugly.


    Aini thought about it for a while before gritting out a reply, ¡°Fine. I¡¯m in on this n. The Grand Duke of Phoenix won¡¯t dare to do anything against two archmages, even if he is instigated to do so by the people around him.¡±


    ¡°d we¡¯re on the same page. The royal mages will have Lex¡¯s back too. But don¡¯t tell that to anyone else. Just remember it for when you need it,¡± Saleen cautioned Aini. Even if the Grand Duke of Phoenix really did want to send his troops to seize back control of Deep Forest Town, it was almost impossible to gather any mages at this time of year. An army, without the backing of any mage, would be easy to wipe out, meaning that Lex would not have too worry too much about them.


    Aini was smart enough to immediately understand what Saleen meant.


    ¡°Eh, I think the male baron is still outside waiting for us!¡± Saleen eximed, suddenly remembering his existence.


    ¡°What? I thought you left him outside to scare him!¡± Aini replied.


    Saleen did not know whether tough or cry in response. Even though he could look and y the part of someone in power, he was barely an adult. He had not experienced what it was like to be viewed by other people and have them form opinions about him. He had known that the male baron was still waiting outside. He would not dare to leave unless Saleen said he could. Saleen was very certain of that.


    ¡°Poor thing. Let¡¯s invite him in, shall we?¡± Saleen said before he raised his voice and continued, ¡°Pleasee in.¡± As he said those three words, he scattered the clouds that had been formed as a result of the Quickcloud spell.


    Just a simple three-word sentence caused the male baron to let out a gasp that he did not even realize he had been holding. All that nervousness and fear brought about by the wait was so unbearable that the male baron thought death was a better option. Had he waited any longer, he might just have gone crazy.


    The door opened with a slight creak, causing both archmages to look towards the door at the same time to see what the other party looked like. The first thing that they saw though was neither his facial nor bodily features. It was the fact that his entire face was covered in sweat. The middle-aged man looked to be quite plump and was dressed for the asion. In fact, his attire was shier and gaudier than the clothes that actors would normally wear on stage. His golden fringe was stuck to his eyebrows as a result of his excessive sweat. The only thing missing from the male baron¡¯s outfit was his saber.


    Qin males were allowed to have some sort of sword with them. In fact, the noblemen took pride in carrying these types of weapons with them everywhere they went. It was a symbol of honor and glory, at least to them. However, since the male baron was going to see the two mages, he had not dared to bring any pointy weapons with him. He knew that mages hated swords.

 Chapter 328: Acquisition of Deep Forest Town (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 328: Acquisition of Deep Forest Town (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Hello¡­¡± Saleen called out to the male baron once again, leaving thetter at a loss for what to do. The most powerful mage that he had ever met was merely a grade-3 mage, and that was back when arger than average adventurer squad had decided to go through Deep Forest Town in order to get to the Chaotic Swamp. Now that he was face to face with two grade-5 mages, the male baron, who was too nervous to speak, did not respond to Saleen. Who could me him though? The poor guy¡¯s face was as red as a tomato.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you recognize me, Piac?¡± Aini broke the awkward silence filling the room. If the male baron continued standing there like a block of wood, it was possible that Saleen would grow angry at his questions going unanswered. Saleen was considered quite an important figure now. He was not only the most prestigious mage back in Bitter Water Prefecture, but he also possessed experience over on Sregl Ind.


    ¡°Young Master Aini!¡± Piac eximed as soon as he recognized the grade-5 mage in front of him. Thest time Aini hade by this town, Piac had ensured that he was well-cared for since Aini was the direct descendant of an earl¡¯s n. Now that he knew that Aini was one of the two mages that would determine his fate, the male baron felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his chest. Surely he would not forget how well I treated him? The male baron thought merrily to himself.


    As soon as Saleen saw the male baron¡¯s face light up with happiness, he grunted lightly, causing Piac to instantly wipe that gleeful look off his face. Looks like it¡¯s the guy with ck hair who calls the shots, Piac thought in despair.


    ¡°Master Mage¡­ do you have anything you want to tell me¡­ since you¡¯ve summoned me?¡± Piac said as he treaded through his words as carefully as possible, while at the same time sounding diplomatic. He was considered the highest-ranking nobleman in this area. To be forced to act subservient to someone else was highly embarrassing to him. He felt that by saying that one sentence alone, he had discarded every ounce of dignity that he had in his body.


    ¡°I did not ask for you. You came to me,¡± Saleen said as he suppressed augh. Am I so scary? the grade-5 mage thought in amusement.


    Stunned, Piac stood there for a solid minute as he tried to process Saleen¡¯s words. Thetter was not wrong ¨C Saleen indeed had not summoned him. It was he who had taken the initiative tomunicate with Saleen for fear that something bad might happen to him. His gaze travelled to the gift box that sat prettily on the table, unopened. The mage had not bothered to open his gift. The gold-encrusted gift box had not even caught Saleen¡¯s fancy. In fact, the grade-5 mage could not have cared less about the contents of the box.


    ¡°So¡­ what brings you to Deep Forest Town?¡± Piac mustered up his courage to utter this sentence.


    Saleen smiled as he formted a speech in his mind. The more he remained silent, the more fearful Piac became. However, Saleen had absolutely no intention of scaring the male baron. Thetter was just being overly paranoid.


    ¡°Do you know about Bitter Water Prefecture, my dear baron?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes! Yes! I deeply respect and admire Viscountess Lex,¡± Piac gushed.


    Seeing that Piac had even dared to mention Lex¡¯s name, Saleen thought in displeasure, Don¡¯t you think Lex is way out of your league? However, he was not going to be to get angry over this trivial matter. Instead, he yed along and asked, ¡°Piac, since you admire Viscountess Lex so much, why don¡¯t you woo her?¡±


    ¡°Woo¡­ Viscountess Lex?¡± Piac asked, his face practically radiating delight. The fear of getting killed instantly vanished from the crevices of his mind. What reced it though were the pros and cons of undertaking Saleen¡¯s proposal. Even though being the Grand Duke of Phoenix¡¯s follower did not bring him many prospects, he did not have to risk his life in order to maintain his current position. He had heard that Bitter Water Prefecture was surrounded by the imprable forces of Holy Rock City. There was no way that he could even get to her. An unimportant nobleman, who had never even dreamed of getting involved with the strong and the powerful, was now unable to formte a reply in response to the sudden question thrown at him.


    But what if I refuse? Piac thought. It was not just an ordinary request. It was a request from a grade-5 mage, and a mage with over a hundred powerful swordsmen at that. Each and every one of those swordsmen had brought along with them skeletal warhorses, creatures which only appeared in legends. Although Saleen¡¯s troops might have been considered weak over in the Qin Empire, his forces were definitely enough to kill the male baron and his men a dozen times over.


    Piac was also unsure if the mage in front of him was truly sincere about letting him pursue Viscountess Lex. Who knew? Maybe Saleen wanted to snatch Deep Forest Town from right from under his nose, and this was just a way to lessen the blow or something? Even if he did give Deep Forest Town up, his future days would be filled with hardship. What was even worse about giving up his town was that there were no takebacks. The Grand Duke of Phoenix was not going toe back and make the decision for him.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really understand, Master Mage¡­¡± Piac said, trailing off at the end.


    ¡°Let me cut to the chase. I want Deep Forest Town. Since Aini has vouched for your character, I¡¯ll give you an option instead of simply taking yournd. Quote me a price. If it¡¯s too high, I¡¯ll speak to the Grand Duke of Phoenix himself. If I find that the price is right, I¡¯ll make you one of Viscountess Lex¡¯s men,¡± Saleen said.


    Besides the acquisition of Deep Forest Town, Saleen did not want to talk about anything else with Piac. Deep Forest Town was not considered big. There were only slightly over ten streets here. If not for the fact that the Chaotic Swamp was close by, no adventurer or mercenary would even bothering here. Piac did not seem to be someone of a higher status than a second-ss baron. Saleen¡¯s desire to acquire Deep Forest Town had demonstrated his foresight and ability to think ahead. Once he entered the Chaotic Swamp from here, he would be entering Sikeqinya¡¯s secret tunnel as well. The secret tunnel was wide enough for a huge number of soldiers to march through. Once the Qin Empire became implicated in battle, he would be able to deploy his soldiers to march from Deep Forest Town and attack the enemy from behind.


    All Saleen needed to do now was force a contractual bond with the three kings. Only then would he have enough skeletal warhorses to actually make it out of Chaotic Swamp. After all, the journey through the Chaotic Swamp was not just a one-day trip. The only problem now was that there were all sorts of powerful magic beasts over at the Chaotic Swamp. To emerge from the Chaotic Swamp in one piece, he needed at least one sorcerer. If he could resolve the issue regarding the three kings, the Chaotic Swamp would not be an insurmountable hurdle.


    ¡°Master Mage, my father left this town to me¡­¡± Piac said, seeing that Saleen truly did not want to kill him.


    Seeing that the male baron had the nerve to negotiate with him, Saleen replied curtly, ¡°Yes, I know how much this plot ofnd means to you. But don¡¯t you want a plot ofnd to pass down to your son?¡±


    Piac was instantly stunned into silence. Saleen was not one to negotiate. That, he understood now. What Saleen was implying was that if he died, he would not be able to leave anything to his children. Worse, if he killed his son as well, who would he pass his title down to?


    ¡°What about Holy Rock City?¡± Piac asked. He was standing between the devil and the deep blue sea now. He could not afford to provoke Saleen¡¯s wrath. Yet, if he chose to be Lex¡¯s follower, the supreme court over in Holy Rock City might just relinquish his title.


    ¡°The viscountess has the right to reinstate your position. What¡¯s there to worry about?¡± Saleen asked dismissively.


    Piac¡¯s face nched with fear at the thought of being forced to move his entire family to Bitter Water Prefecture. He had heard through the grapevine that it was a barren, infertile ce where nothing grew.


    ¡°How muchnd do you have here, Piac?¡± Saleen asked. He did not care whether the male baron agreed to his proposal. He was going to take hisnd no matter what, and he needed to take it now. He could not wait until the Holy See¡¯s forces came knocking on his door before he started remodelling the entire town. The Holy See already had five, maybe six blood knight troops. As of now, Saleen had not heard about anyone from Holy Rock City sessfully creating a single war puppet. These blood knights feared nothing aside from mages.


    Even though there were many mages over in the Qin Empire, there was no way Saleen could form an army consisting of only mages to deal with the blood knights. Doing so would wipe out at least half of the Qin reserves in one battle alone.


    Piac¡¯s face contorted with nervousness. He might have been able to lie to everyone else about the size of hisnd, but he had heard somewhere that archmages had the ability to see through lies. Thus, he replied with his voice barely above a whisper, ¡°Sixty square miles, Master Mage.¡±


    ¡°Oh? That¡¯s an illegallyrge plot ofnd you¡¯ve got there, buddy. You have guts, I¡¯ll give you that,¡± Saleen said as he smiled. When Piac said sixty square miles, he had meant that hisnd was about sixty miles long and probably more than one mile wide. Who knew whether he was telling the truth or rounding down the figures. Even if hisnd was exactly one mile in width, the amount ofnd that he possessed right now was well over the legal limit.


    The Qin Empire barred noblemen from merging theirnds together. A first-ss male baron was only allowed to have ten square miles ofnd, ording to thew. Saleen guessed that the reason why so many noblemen had plots ofndrger than the legal limit was because the Grand Duke of Phoenix had been toox withw enforcement. Now that he knew about Piac¡¯s little secret, thetter would have no choice but to sell Deep Forest Town to him.


    While other people might have simply let it slide on ount of the Phoenix n as well as thebined might, influence, and power of the Duchy noblemen, Saleen could not have cared less. Why would he be scared of those wimps when he was part of Bitter Water Prefecture?


    Piac stood there silently. As much as he wanted to kneel on the ground and beg for mercy, his legs were rooted to the ground like a deer in headlights. He could not seem to bend them over.


    ¡°Tell you what, Piac. Since you likend so much, let me make the decision for you. I can get the viscountess to give you double thend aspensation. How about that?¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°I would not dare ept this!¡± Piac said as he shook his head frantically. The only reason why he was okay with giving up Deep Forest Town was because he still had somend. Now that the issue ofnd size had been brought up, technically speaking, being gifted double thend he had now would mean that he would have an expanse ofnd befitting of a first-ss earl. Even if he had this muchnd over in the Tanggssi Empire, he would not have dared to talk openly about it.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much about it. We have started reimingnd over in the north. In fact, it won¡¯t be long until the new city ispleted. We will need the support of more noblemen then. Since you¡¯re the first to pledge your loyalty to us, giving you more benefits won¡¯t be considered stepping out of line. In fact, if you show us that you¡¯re good enough, your son might be a viscount one day,¡± Saleen said. Now that he was done scaring Piac, Saleen was trying to bait him into epting his offer instead.


    A viscount was someone with a lot of power. In fact, a viscount had even more power than the Grand Duke of Phoenix, as the former even had the authority to reward someone with the rank of an earl. Thus, having Lex promote Piac¡¯s son to the rank of a viscount was probably not a very hard task. Like Saleen said, the most loyal followers would always get more benefitspared to the others.


    Plus, out of the fifteen royal positions in the empire, a third-ss viscount was considered one of the lower-ss nobles. The reason why Saleen was able to make a decision on Lex¡¯s behalf was because he was certain that Lex would not mind offering such a lowly position to Piac¡¯s son.


    Both Lex and Saleen¡¯s original intentions were to work together and bring down the Phoenix Duchy¡¯s noblemen while the Grand Duke of Phoenix was still lounging in Holy Rock City. Piac was their first target. Saleen just had not expected everything to go so smoothly.


    ¡°Just agree to it, Piac. If you don¡¯t, you¡¯ll never have the chance again,¡± Aini piped up, taking pity on the male baron. Even though he hade from a royal background, it was still the first time he had seen someone force a nobleman to submit. His family would never do something like that. The Clyde family would only bait people with benefits. Never would they resort to violence.


    ¡°Young Master Aini¡­ I¡¯ll¡­ I¡¯ll agree to it¡­¡± Piac stuttered as he tried ¨C but failed miserably ¨C to tear his gaze away from Saleen¡¯s crystal-blue eyes.


    Saleen smiled before he replied, ¡°Good. I¡¯ll be here for three days. Go get the deed to yournd. We¡¯ll sign a contract then. If I can¡¯t offer you double thend like what I¡¯ve promised you, I won¡¯t touch your town. If I can¡¯t offer you a position equivalent to or higher than your current rank, thisnd will remain yours as well.¡±


    Piac heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words. The amount of conviction in thetter¡¯s words made Piac believe that Saleen was not lying. Furthermore, he had never heard of any archmages going back on their word. Since everything would be in writing, he would not be getting the short end of the stick. However, he wondered if thend over in the northern part of Phoenix was even arable in the first ce.


    After dismissing Piac, Saleen and Aini nced at each other before bursting intoughter. Since both of them were still young and immature, witnessing how embarrassingly poor Piac had conducted himself brought tears ofughter into their eyes. If Piac had put up more of a fight, Saleen would have been in trouble. He could not simply kill Piac off here. Lex was still based in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Even if the new city waspleted, it would never take the Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s ce. The new city was not located too far away from Holy Rock City. Once the houses were angered, even Lex would not be able to contain the situation.

 Chapter 329: Into the Chaos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 329: Into the Chaos (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    On the second day, Piac approached Saleen again. This time, he carried an additional item with him ¨C the deed to hisnd. True to his word, Saleen discussed the terms and conditions of the contract with Piac once again before getting thetter to sign over hisnd to him. Before Piac left, Saleen reassured him that he would get the benefits that they had discussed earlier.


    There were no traps present in this contract. It was not easy to use magic to take advantage of the loopholes in any contract and Saleen had notpletely mastered this on his own. He still needed Aini¡¯s help in order toplete the spell. However, since he was dealing with the likes of an insignificant male baron, Saleen could not be bothered to use magic to secure the contract.


    One of the reasons why Saleen had said that he wanted to stay in Deep Forest Town for three days was to give the pirates some time to rest. Technically, he did not have to treat them so well. Aini and Saleen both had their own spatial equipment. Besides the issue of heavy weaponry and tents, which were all carried by the skeletal warhorses, the pirates were all provided with food and water courtesy of Saleen. The main reason for this break was because Saleen knew that one week of non-stop marching would have definitely stressed them out. Thus, he felt that they had at least deserved a short break.


    Almost everyone knew not to enter the Chaotic Swamp during the winter season. In fact, the Chaotic Swamp was always more dangerous to explore during the winterpared to the summer. Although some magic beasts would be hibernating by then, there were others that did not. These monsters would be in constant starvation. Thus, a person could expect them to be very aggressive. Even the more docile magic beasts would attempt to make a meal out of anything and anyone who crossed their territory. That would also exin why there was not a single adventurer to be seen in Deep Forest Town at this time of year.


    However, once Saleen and his troops reached the forests located about fifty miles away from Deep Forest Town, they would be much safer. The most dangerous magic beast there was merely an insect believed to be closely rted to bees. They existed in droves and were able to live up to a few decades in cold environments. However, once winter came, all they would do was hide in their nests. They would not even bother trying to hunt for food. Even defenseless prey that passed their hives would not motivate these usually violent creatures to attack them.


    Gurney¡¯s wounds were healing pretty well, thanks to Saleen¡¯s magic liquid. Even though he knew that the magic liquid was precious, he did not want his injuries to hold everyone back. Leaving a good impression on Saleen was much more important than some magic liquid.


    The pirates, on the other hand, did not dare to have too much fun. They were afraid that they would lose their lives by viting some rule that Saleen had created. They did not want to end up like theirpanions who had lost their lives in the middle of the night for something as trivial as abandoning their posts.


    Three days passed by in the blink of an eye. Aini and Saleen had already prepared themselves for the long journey ahead of them. In fact, Aini had already fully memorized the map that Saleen had given him, which was technically Canghong¡¯s. Saleen missed Canghong deeply and wondered whether he had managed to escape the evil ws of the Holy See.


    Most of the Falcon mercenaries had been killed off in the Chaotic Swamp. In fact, there had only been two survivors. This meant that Canghong had incurred heavy losses. It did not help that all his life savings over in Sikeqinya had also vanished. Saleen could only hope that the riches Canghong had been blessed with over at Myers Temple would not be robbed from him.


    The same white deacon who had let Saleen go was the same person who had been sighted during the battle where Faerun ended up being killed. Saleen reckoned that the Holy See had found the Second Dynasty archaeological sites by now. All that was left for them to do was to wait for the three kings to breach the contract.


    Saleen¡¯s troops travelled along the streets of Deep Forest Town and exited through the western gate into the wilderness. They were still a distance away from the forests, but it was not as if there were vast areas of cultivated fields here anyway. Aside from Piac¡¯s farmers, the rest of the people who made up the town¡¯s poption were merchants who depended on adventurers for their livelihoods. The boulders over in the wilderness had been buried by the snow. In fact, it looked as if balls of snow had suddenly popped out of nowhere. It was a strange sight indeed. The winds here were much gentlerpared to northern phoenix, where the winds cut a person¡¯s skin even more sharply than a knife.


    The skeletal warhorses trotted through the snow, albeit unsteadily as their hooves sunk beneath the snow as soon as they made contact with the ground. However, the pirates sitting on top of the horses¡¯ back could hardly feel any bumps. They were all freshened up after the three-day break. The troops forged quickly through the wilderness and reached the edge of the woods in no time.


    Now that the leaves had been stripped off of the trees during wintertime, the forest did not look as ominous as it did during the summer. Under Saleen¡¯smands, the pirates collectively slowed down instead of dismounting from their horses straightaway. Saleen¡¯s forces acted like a long python and slithered their way into the forest.


    The journey was unusually silent. Besides the asional appearance of a few silver-beaked ravens, there were no other creatures that came out to grace Saleen with their presence. Even then, the ravens could not be bothered to attack Saleen¡¯s soldiers to steal their food. These lower ss magic beasts were smart enough to have saved up hoards of nuts during the autumn season. Thus, there was no longer a need for them to forage for food during the winter. No sooner had the silver-beaked ravens discovered the presence of humans did they fly away, not willing to be sitting ducks.


    As soon as the pirates passed through the forests, they saw a huge pile of gigantic white bones lying haphazardly on the path that they were on. It did note as too much of a surprise to them since magic beasts frequently roamed about this area. No one knew which type of magic beast these bones had belonged to. All they saw were bits and pieces of flesh and muscle that clung onto the skeletal remains. It was obvious that whichever predator had done this was not a very clean eater. Its skull had already been split open and the magic nucleus contained inside its brain was gone.


    Aini eyed Saleen for a split second before saying, ¡°Someone came here.¡±


    ¡°But he or she hasn¡¯t passed by Deep Forest Town yet,¡± Saleen piped up. Another reason why he had decided on a three-day break, besides giving pirates some time to rest, was because he wanted to gain information on the recent happenings in the area. So far, he had not been informed of anyone going into the Chaotic Swamp via Deep Forest Town.


    Saleen knew that no matter how vicious magic beasts could be when fighting each other, none of them would deliberately crack open the skull of their foe to retrieve the magic nucleus inside. This magic beast might have been killed by another stronger monster, but it was definitely a person who had taken the magic nucleus. People who dared to enter the Chaotic Swamp at this time of year were definitely not ordinary adventurers. If they were adventurers, they would not have gone around Deep Forest Town. Why would they do so when it was the only town for a few hundred miles with military supplies for sale?


    Both Aini and Saleen cracked the reins on their skeletal horses to get them to elerate towards the magic beast¡¯s remains. Once they reached their destination, Saleen sat upright and looked downwards. The hole in the beast¡¯s skull was unusually smooth, almost as if it had been created by explosives shot through a magic cannon. Saleen also noticed that the edges of the hole looked charred, as if it had been subjected to extremely high temperatures.


    Saleen unleashed a detection spell to heighten his senses and study the miniature crater.


    ¡°It¡¯s not magic. This hole was created using the sword aura,¡± Saleen concluded after a quick scan of the magic beast¡¯s skull.


    Aini, who had been scrutinizing the hole as well, stretched out his hands, balled them into fists, andpared them with the size of the crater before adding onto what Saleen had said. ¡°This person cracked open its skull using their bare fists. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s the same person who took the magic nucleus.¡±


    The two pirates who were right beside Aini let out a collective gasp of fear upon hearing his words. Even the skulls of ordinary animals were so hard that they could only be cracked open using very sharp weapons. How strong could this person be to be able to create such a big hole using their bare fists?


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s only a ck metal grand swordmaster who did this. We don¡¯t have to worry so much, Aini,¡± Saleen said as he looked at the charcoal ck crater. His senses had picked up traces of the sword aura, and thanks to that, he had managed to instantly identify the rank of the person who could have left such a mark. This ability had been borne out of experience thanks to the silver grand swordmaster that he had killed a long time ago. Most mages would have to experience countless wars and bloodshed before they could sessfully master this ability. The reason behind this was simple ¨C no silver grand swordmaster would willingly give their bodies up for research.


    ¡°Don¡¯t let the scouts move too far away. Make room for Daniel, please,¡± Saleen instructed while signalling for Daniel toe over.


    ¡°Daniel, release your summoned creature,¡± Saleen said.


    Daniel nodded and freed his pikoosi from the death mes. Since the arrival of the three kings, the pikoosi had spent his days in a deep sleep out of fear that honing his death mes would anger the three kings. Now that Daniel had released him temporarily, he could rx for a bit. The number of creatures that the death mes could amodate was very limited. The presence of the three kings had made his life hell.


    At the same time, the three kings had also sensed everything that was happening outside. ¡°Judikaka, do you want to release me so I can help you?¡± Diyabannersa asked, afraid that something bad would happen to Saleen. After all, they had signed a contract with one another.


    ¡°No need. Saleen can deal with a ck metal grand swordmaster on his own now. Plus, Aini and Saleen¡¯s powers are rtively strong. Nothing will happen to either of them,¡± Judikaka replied confidently.


    All three of them were under the control of the scepter. Although they had honed their craft to its maximum potential, their powers had continually deteriorated ever since they had arrived on the Myers Maind. By staying in the death mes, these death creatures felt that they were much closer to the death dimension, which meant that their strength would gradually recover. This led Judikaka into deep thought.


    If I can control a necromancer and force him to be my bonded creature, won¡¯t it mean that I can travel through both dimensions whenever I want? Judikaka thought. This prospect was just too tempting, especially since there was already a grade-5 necromancer standing in front of him. If Daniel could be a sorcerer, Judikaka knew that he would also get stronger and he would be able to unleash his full potential once he reached grade-9.


    The only reason why Judikaka was toozy to assist Daniel or Saleen was because he was busy thinking about how he could force humans into bing the bonded creatures of death creatures.


    Shann had been a powerful mage. Judikaka and the three kings might have been enved by Shann, but they had managed to glean a lot of magical knowledge that humans possessed while in captivity. He knew that forcing a bond with a human was not an impossible task. The reason why this was previously unheard of, besides the restrictions imposed by the interdimensionalws, was that humans in the past had been too formidable.


    Even during the more recent periods of time approximately ten thousand years ago, human mages who had arrived in the death dimension had also been very intimidating people. These humans took a liking to unusual death creatures and would stay in their dimension for up to a century at a time. Whenever they came, they would create patches of vacuum that scared the more intelligent death creatures into hiding.


    Times were different now. Humans were getting weaker and weaker. Even though the interdimensionalws still existed, they did not do much to restrict what the three kings could and could not do. Grade-9 death creatures had not shown up on Myers Maind for centuries. Judikaka knew that if he could reach grade-9, he would not have to worry about any god. Gods were unable to interfere whenever they wanted to if the mage and death creature were bonded by a contract. He just needed to somehow seize control over Aini¡¯s mind and body so that all three of them could roam freely about the Myers Maind.


    All Judikaka wanted now was for Aini to advance to the rank of a sorcerer as fast as possible. Otherwise, Aini¡¯s soul would not be able to withstand the power of his summoning, and something bad could happen to him.


    Judikaka slipped deeper and deeper into his train of thought, to the extent that he could not even bother trying to make sense of everything happening outside of the death mes. Diyabannersa was a very straightforward person. If Judikaka was not going, he was not going to bother either. Everything was decided by Judikaka anyway. It did not even cross Banchajanna¡¯s mind that his owners might have needed help in the first ce. Although he was obligated to assist Saleen given that he had signed the contract, technically speaking, Saleen¡¯s death would not be any of his business until the day both of them managed to find the Second Dynasty archaeological site.


    Banchajanna¡¯s thought patterns had been utterly screwed over by the scepter of absurdity. Even though he was not technically wrong, if Saleen were to die on him, he would never be able toplete the contract. Not only that, but Banchajanna was also responsible for saving Saleen¡¯s soul and preventing it from vanishing off of the face of this dimension. Otherwise, he would be bound by the contract forever.


    A contract like that would be a burden sooner orter.


    The three kings each had their own thoughts. Only a fool would not know that Saleen had opened up a big and was just waiting for them to jump into it themselves at the right time. The might not have been big, but once Saleen discovered the Second Dynasty archaeological site, no one would be able to escape the clutches of the.


    The effects of the contract could even override interdimensionalws.


    Seeing that Daniel had summoned the pikoosi, the pirates started bing a bit more courageous. The pikoosi was just as powerful-looking as the three kings. He had three heads, huge horns, and six eyes, each of which had the now-purple death mes burning inside of them. After Daniel had be a grade-4 necromancer, the pikoosi had also been promoted to a grade-7 death creature.


    Overall, Saleen¡¯s team was very strong. Unless they met with a holy masters like the ck deacon, the three kings would not need to step up and save them, even if they were face to face with an enemy

 Chapter 330: Into the Chaos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 330: Into the Chaos (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Chaotic Swamp during the winter was far colder than any other ce. During the summertime, swamp, ponds, marshes, and mosquitos that could kill you with their poisonous sting were verymon. Aside from mages, only powerful people with a rank equivalent or greater than that of a grand swordmaster would not be approached by these pesky nuisances. Whenever winter came, even though all the insects would have flown away to god-knew-where, the overall environment was not really any better. Aside from being an endless sea of white, the Chaotic Swamp was also well known for its bone-chilling winds.


    The difference between a swordmaster and a grand swordmaster was that the former could not force his sword aura to leave his body and do the fighting for him. In addition, they were not able to use their detection abilities for movements outside a given range. Thus, stronger grand swordmasters would always be able to detect the presence of a mage like heat-seeking missiles. For swordmasters who were not able to utilize their sensory abilities, they would be in grave danger if they stayed in the Chaotic Swamp, even during the winter.


    It was a no-brainer that swamps would freeze over during winter. However, there were holes and deep craters that would have been covered by heaps and heaps of snow. One little misstep and a person could fall through a natural pit around tens of meters deep. If no one came to help, this little misstep would be fatal.


    There were many rocky areas over in the Chaotic Swamp as well. The cracks, joints, and bedding nes were even deeper and more pronounced. Falling through these abysses was potentially fatal.


    The map that Saleen had on hand right now had been drawn out using only his memories of the ce. This ensured that his entire team could enter without a single scratch on their bodies. If Saleen had not done this step, a random mage would have needed to step in and ze a trail for them. If he got a junior mage to do it, they would be exhausted in no time. That was because junior mages had limited mental power. Once they had used all of it, they would need to meditate in order to rejuvenate and recharge.


    The person that hade here before Saleen¡¯s troops had been a grand swordmaster. However, it was not considered safe for a grand swordmaster to enter the Chaotic Swamp alone. If they were to encounter a hill cyclops or any other magic beast that was just as reckless and aggressive, even if they did win a fight against them, they would be severely injured.


    That person was either very proficient in their swordcraft or was too bold for their own good. Either way, Saleen had to proceed with caution. Even though Saleen had brought these pirates along with him with the intention of using them as cannon fodder, he was not going to have them sacrifice their lives for nothing. The most important person he had to keep alive was Daniel. With Daniel¡¯s current grade and capabilities, he was still slightly weaker than a grand swordsmaster. If thetter were to ambush him, he could easily perish.


    The troops stuck close together and walked in a neater formation. The scouts were only surveying an area within a distance of one mile from the other soldiers in order for them to easily ry information to the others. The three mages in this team were not very good with puppet magic. If they were, they would have been releasing paper puppets to survey the area by now instead of using the pirates.


    Under Saleen¡¯smand, the pirates each equipped themselves with a wooden gun. To Saleen¡¯s surprise, they vigntly observed everything and anything that was on the road. Because the weather was so cold, practically speaking, weapons like epees were not an ideal choice. Neither were machetes. Wooden guns, on the other hand, only had metallic tips. Thus, rtive to other weapons, they were lighter. Not only that, but they could also be operated normally even while wearing gloves.


    The troops gradually slowed down. Approximately a dozen pirates stood by Saleen. All of them were more ruthless and harder to tame than their counterparts. As of now, they had already attached the bowstrings to their steel crossbows and were ready to defend themselves against an ambush. These pirates hade to like leading the lives of adventurers. Regardless of whether they were sailing or onnd, they refused to lead peaceful lives. Being forced to take part in the construction of Saleen¡¯s city had been an even more torturous experience than sitting in jail. Now that they were out and about, their lust for blood was beginning to show. It was obvious from the fact that they were much perkier nowpared to the time when they had been over in the city base.


    Saleen had sensed the change in their attitudes and decided to observe a select few pirates. After a while, he had discovered that over twenty pirates disyed the same change in attitude, which meant that they might not be so reluctant to follow him after all. Upon reaching this conclusion, hemanded those twenty-plus pirates to be his personal bodyguards. They might have thought that they were protecting Saleen, but in reality, it was Saleen who intended to protect them.


    Saleen intended to enlist those pirates that had a penchant for fighting into his army. However, before that could happen, he would have to train them first and ensure that they reached the standards of an intermediate swordmaster before he could allow them to fight alongside him. Saleen did not know how much he could improve the skillsets of these pirates, but he did know that he would have to do battle with the Holy See¡¯s blood knights sooner orter. An army without anyone who had capabilities equal or higher than those of an intermediate swordmaster was bound to lose miserably against a squad of blood knights.


    The area up ahead was littered with boulders, pebbles, and other types of rock. The huge boulders, which were lying in the snow, looked as big as monsters. Although most of them werepletely covered by snow, because they were so big, they stuck out like sore thumbs.


    With a ng, Saleen heard the sounds of a sharp object, perhaps a knife, ripping apart a person¡¯s armor. This could only mean one thing ¨C a battle was taking ce.


    The scouts that were ahead of them had already stopped at the rocky area. Their gloves were changed and they had swapped out their wooden guns for longswords. Wooden guns were good for confrontational attacks. However, this rocky area provided too little space for anyone to twist their bodies in the air. Thus, weapons that were too long could not be operated.


    Even though most of the pirates only had experience fighting at sea, they were notplete fools onnd. Even before Saleen had given hismands, they had already equipped themselves with the most suitable weapons to use in this environment. There were even a few pirates who were preparing tounch arrows in case the defenses of Saleen¡¯s troops were broken. The lethality of these crossbows was not to be underestimated.


    The pirates who had been assigned the role of scouts became excited. Who would not have been if they were given a chance to ck? Since they were all riding skeletal warhorses, as long as theyid low enough, the skeletal warhorses would block everyst arrow shot from those crossbows. If Saleen¡¯s troops needed to fight, they would not even need to do anything during the first round ofbat.


    Furthermore, with an archmage like Saleen by their side, they would always have ess to restorative water. Those that were severely injured would also be healed via the Chunlun spell. It was pretty simr to how the Holy See knights were always healed by holy masters. Now that their morale was high, theirbat prowess would inadvertently be raised by a huge percentage as well.


    Upon getting closer to the source of the noise, Saleen discovered an empty plot ofnd surrounded by a wide variety of rocks. The snow that was originally on it had been swept away cleanly by the sword aura. On that plot ofnd was a thinly dressed man who was gripping a Qin eight-sided sword tightly in his hand. He had on a snowy-white cotton robe and his hair was as jet ck as dragon blood¡¯s ink. His brown eyes carried a hint of gold. His belt, like his robe, was also made of cloth. However, it looked different from ordinary belts. His belt was very long, and went twice around his waist before being secured with a dead knot. The tremolites that adorned his belt glittered prettily in the light.


    He was dressed exactly like an ancient swordsman and was even wearing a pair of hemp shoes. No part of his outfit was suited for the winter season. It was almost as if he was not afraid of the bitter cold.


    This young man was currently surrounded by four tall, bulky swordsmen. Each of them were riding a magic beast. Swordsmen who were able to domesticate magic beasts like that could only havee from one ce ¨C the Cloudflow Empire. The other three empires only produced horses to be used as steeds. Even the best horses were cheaper to rear than magic beasts. Thus, only the Cloudflow Empire would do something as expensive as rearing magic beasts. The reason for that was because there was too littlend over in the Cloudflow Empire for anyone to breed horses. Thus, these swordmasters would step up to fill the gap between theck of knights and suitable steeds.


    The young swordsman had azy look on his face, almost as if he did not view these four magic beast knights as a threat. He brandished his swordzily, cutting up snowke after snowke that floated down from the sky. Almost all of the snowkes had been split right down the middle. Without even releasing his sword aura, he had managed to clear the entire areapletely of snow.


    Only grand swordmasters were able to execute this technique with such precise control.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been chasing me for more than half a year. Aren¡¯t you guys tired of this?¡± the young man questioned, his voice smooth and unusually warm. In fact, Saleen could have sworn that the snow falling around him had melted from the warm tone of his voice.


    ¡°J, we respected you in the past because you were a prodigy in swordcraft. However, since you have tainted the princess, as her knights, we must wipe you off the face of this,¡± one of them gruffly replied.


    ¡°Knights? Are you so stupid that you think you¡¯re worthy of being knights? Does the Cloudflow Empire really house people as naive as you? Did your mother drop you on your head too many times as a child? How is it my business that the princess is pregnant? Just get a mage to ascertain the identity of the father!¡± J responded, exasperated.


    Upon hearing J¡¯s smug reply, the four magic beast warriors became so agitated that they positioned themselves to attack once more. However, before any one of them could make a move, the young grand swordsmasterughed, ¡°I¡¯m not the only lover than the princess has. Why don¡¯t you chase them instead? Why are you so obsessed with me?¡±


    ¡°Oh don¡¯t worry, those people won¡¯t live for very long either,¡± one of the knights burst out. The princess had gotten pregnant. However, the people who could have been responsible for her pregnancy had run away a long time ago, angering the emperor enough for him to hire magic beasts knights to eliminate them all.


    Even though the royal noblemen led absurdly promiscuous lives, they took steps to ensure that the women would not get pregnant. s, the princess just had to get pregnant and even give birth to the child. The emperor had originally intended to send the princess over to the Qin Empire to get married. However, given the values that the Qin royal family firmly believed in, the chances of the princess being epted into their family were now zero.


    Even though the Cloudflow empire was in a state of peril and needed allies like the Qin Empire, the princess had gotten pregnant at the most inappropriate time and ruined everything. In a fit of rage, the emperor had deployed hoards of magic beast knights to arrest the princess¡¯s lovers. J was the youngest grand swordmaster that the Cloudflow Empire had ever had. He was apparently used to be the mentor of the royal swordsmen. More than half of the magic beast squad that had chased him for over twenty thousand miles had been killed off by J, and one of theirrades had just been in by him as well. Now, it was four against one.


    The four magic beast knights knew that if J was desperate enough to kill off theirrades, he was probably not going toe back with them willingly. Even with their powersbined, it was possible that they would be no match for him. Four junior grand swordmasters might have been able to take on an ordinary ck metal grand swordmaster, but J¡¯s swordcraft was just too good to beat. Not a single ck metal grand swordmaster with the same rank as J would be able to defeat him.


    The reason why grand swordmasters were so strong was not because of the fact that their sword auras could exit their bodies and attack their enemies like a mage¡¯s spells. It was because the person manipting the sword aura had attained mastery in their craft to the extent that they could defeat a hundred opponents on their own.


    Aini and Saleen, who had heard every single word spoken, nced at each other silently. Their gazesmunicated the same question in their heads ¨C are these people out here to get us? Is this a trap?


    Four junior grand swordmasters and one ck metal grand swordmaster would mean a grand total of five grand swordmasters. Given these numbers, neither Saleen nor Aini would be able to deal with them on their own.


    The swordmasterughed and said, ¡°Idiots! My buddies are here. It¡¯s not toote to run now.¡±


    Buddies? The four magic beast knights had spent so much of their time and focus investigating J that they had not detected the presence of the pirates. Upon hearing J¡¯s words, they started to panic.


    If they had been dealing with J alone, they could still have enlisted the help of their magic beasts. However, they were now faced with over a hundred new foes, and not just any foes, but knights! Oh no! they thought in dread. They had no choice but to retreat slowly. Even though the emperor¡¯s orders were to be followed without any exceptions, they obviously had no control over the situation now. Staying put would mean sentencing themselves to death.


    Upon hearing J¡¯s words, Saleen could not help but bubble with anger. How dare he use my troops to protect himself? Saleen thought. Even if it was a trap, there was no way he could avoid being caught in it. Since we¡¯re buddies, you better be prepared to introduce yourself, Saleen thought sinisterly.


    ¡°Listen up! I will shoot my arrows if anyone dares to leave. We have over a hundred steel crossbows here. Even if all of you are grand swordmasters, you won¡¯t escape in one piece, trust me,¡± Saleen yelled, using magic to allow his voice to pass through the boulders.


    What Saleen was doing at the moment was meant to scare the five grand swordmasters into doing as he said. Out of all the pirates he had, only a dozen of them had their crossbows ready to fire. Even though steel crossbows were fairly lethal weapons, they were severely affected by cold weather. They had contracted slightly, bing even more taut and fragile than before. This meant that they were not as stic. They would only use these type of crossbows when they were in a defensive position.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s voice, the four magic beast knights panicked even more. They were not only knowledgeable, but had also seen the world enough to know that the voice belonged to a mage, and an archmage at that. They more or less believed J¡¯s words now. Given J¡¯s status, only an archmage would be worthy of bing friends with him.

 Chapter 331: Recovering the Juggernaut (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 331: Recovering the Juggernaut (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Daniel, it¡¯s up to you now,¡± Saleen yelled as he instructed the pirates to steady their crossbows, his confidence in beating all five grand swordmasters clearly showing.


    Daniel nodded in understanding and approached the grade-5 mage. However, instead of personally confronting the five grand swordmasters, hemanded the pikoosi to do it in his ce. The death creature sprang into action and leapt straight into the boulders separating Saleen and his troops from the five grand swordmasters.


    Saleen¡¯s only weakness now stemmed from his bodily limitations. Hisbat prowess was not poor at all. However, the pikoosi was a much better candidate for this scenario. He was not only a grade-7 death creature, but he could also unleash magic three times faster than any other death creature. If the pikoosi could prevent a swordmaster froming too close to him, it was possible he would even be able to win a fight against a ck metal grand swordmaster.


    The pikoosi was not scared of fighting anyone at all. He was a death creature who had an owner, after all. Thus, it would be hard topletely obliterate him. At most, he would be driven back into the death dimension. His enormous body rolled over the snow, sending clouds of it flying in all directions as he collided into those rocks.


    Bang! One of the stone pirs that the pikoosi came into contact with split into half almost instantly. Like a war puppet, he could not be bothered to run in a zig-zag to avoid his obstacles. He simply ttened them.


    For the first time since he had be Saleen¡¯s follower, Daniel let out a smug smile at how much he had managed to aplish. He felt unusually rxed just having the pikoosi do his thing. The pirates, who were witnessing everything unfolding before them, looked at Daniel in a different light, having looks of respect and fear. A death creature as enormous as that would already have been intimidating enough, with or without its magic powers.


    The pikoosi was one of the most special death creatures in existence. Senior death creatures were usually the best at death magic. However, it was not the pikoosi¡¯s magic that made him so fearsome, but his physical strength. The horns perched on top of his heads could shoot magic spells at any opponents that crossed his path. In fact, a person could probably mistake the six horns fornces! Since all his horns contained the properties of death magic, no magically-fortified armor could withstand even one swipe of the pikoosi¡¯s horns.


    The four magic beast warriors, who had originally wanted to flee, hesitated upon the mention of over one hundred steel crossbows. Since they had just been promoted to the rank of a grand swordmaster, they were not strong enough to deal with J on their own, which would exin why nearly ten of theirrades had been killed off by him. Their leader had been the first one to go, and he himself had been the epitome of a true ck metal grand swordmaster.


    The royal magic beast knight squad were all made up of advanced swordmasters. There were only five hundred of them, with their leader being a grand swordmaster. However, because they had not truly gotten the hang of their new craft, they would not be able to escaped unscathed when faced with hundreds of steel crossbows.


    Once the pikoosi made an appearance, the four magic beast knights¡¯ faces nched with fear at the realization that the other party had brought a necromancer with them. Fighting with J alone had consumed nearly half of their sword auras. They no longer had the capabilities to face a necromancer who seemed to be as strong as an archmage. Just one strike and all of them would be done for.


    ¡°J, how dare you liaise with the Qins!¡± the four magic beast knights chorused angrily as they red at J. They had huddled even closer together, their backsing into contact with each other. They did not dare provoke the death creature in front of them. If the pikoosi detected a hint of a challenge, they would be ttened before they could even beg for mercy. Thus, they resorted to only yelling at J.


    ¡°So what? I¡¯ve always been a Qin,¡± J said as nonchntly as possible, trying to hide the look of surprise on his face as he took in the sight of the death creature before him. However, his eyes betrayed him, for Saleen could see the shock in them. Unwittingly, he spun his Qin eight-sided sword even more quickly now, shredding the snowkes around him into a million pieces without them evening into contact with his weapon.


    ¡°A Qin? Have you forgotten how his Majesty treated you?!¡± one of the four knights bellowed in indignation.


    ¡°How could I forget? He sent two magic beast knight teams to eliminate me,¡± J scoffed, his tone as cold as ice. Both his parents had died when he was just a little boy. Somehow, he had ended up in the Cloudflow Empire to study the art of swordcraft. His efforts and talent had not gone unrecognized, for Emperor Jupiter had offered him a position as the mentor of the royal swordsmen. However, in his heart, J knew that Emperor Jupiter was just milking him for all he was worth. His sess today had nothing to do with him.


    If he had not been a ck metal grand swordmaster, would the emperor still have treated him so well? J was well aware of the answer to that question.


    As J continued reminiscing about his past, he did not forget to observe the pikoosi as well. The gigantic death creature was at least a grade-6 or grade-7 creature. It suddenly dawned upon J that he might have identally offended those people with his words. However, he was not too worried about having to deal with a necromancer. In fact, he knew that he could probably take them on with his eyes closed.


    As J eyed the pikoosi, who was busy staring at the four magic beast knights, he decided to make a move instead ofunching an attack. However, before he could even take a step, Saleen¡¯s voice rang in the air once again, ¡°J, why are you in such a hurry to leave? Don¡¯t you have to settle everything first?¡±


    The four magic beast knights looked at one another with fear written all over their faces. Looks like this it it, they thought sullenly. They knew that Saleen was going to kill them all, and they could not do anything about it.


    However, killing off four grand swordmasters was not an easy task. In fact, Saleen could even lose. With that, the four of them reignited their confidence and their killer instincts. J¡¯s pupils started to dte upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words. He knew that the mage outside had no intention of killing them. However, he had no intention of letting them go either.


    Really now? Let¡¯s see what you¡¯re made of! J thought, miffed that someone could say something so brazen.


    Saleen made sure that his nextmand could be heard even more clearly than before. ¡°All ten groups, scatter now and prepare the steel crossbows. Shoot anyone that moves too fast. In fact, shoot so many arrows at them that they look like porcupines. Our necromancers here do need some corpses to study, so why not?


    Saleen¡¯s words caused the four magic beast knights to discard any thoughts of fighting back. Being tortured by their enemies was something tolerable, but being tortured by a necromancer was not. They would be haunted by the necromancer even after death, with no hope of ever obtaining freedom.


    Death magic by itself was not a sinister form of magic. It was the way necromancers used it that gave death magic such a horrible, fearsome reputation. Thus, many people disliked even speaking about death magic.


    ¡°Discard your weapons ande out single file to my side. If not, I¡¯m releasing my poisonous fog,¡± Saleen said calmly. Even though the spell would not work well in this weather, the rocky area was not a very big ce. Moreover, grand swordmasters could not hold their breath for too long. Being surrounded by the poisonous fog would bring them harm sooner orter.


    The pikoosi monitored the five grand swordmasters, which meant that whatever movements the five of them made would also be seen by Daniel.


    J thought about it before deciding that fighting the people outside head-on was probably not the smartest idea in the world. He had only had a ¡°small disagreement¡± with the Cloudflow Emperor. If the other party were really Qins, they would not care about whatever had gone on between him and the Cloudflow royals. In fact, he doubted that they would send him back to Emperor Jupiter for sentencing. Upon reaching this conclusion, J stopped brandishing his Qin eight-sided sword and slotted it into the sheath that was on his back. Putting his sword on his back was something that was rarely practiced by both him and well¡­ any other grand swordmaster.


    All forms of swordcraft required the person practicing it to focus greatly on the precision and speed of drawing their sword. It was much slower to draw a weapon from one¡¯s back.


    Seeing that J had kept his weapon, the four magic beast knights looked at each other, knowing that it was game over for them. The four of thembined had barely made a dent on J. They were all exhausted by now, and knew that they might not even emerge victorious from the fight. Now, there were more than a hundred people joining in the fun. The worst part was that there was a necromancer among them. They sighed in resignation and kept their weapons before dismounting their magic beasts and making their way towards Saleen.


    Daniel, who saw everything through the pikoosi¡¯s six eyes, let out a huff as he thought, Never thought I¡¯d see the day where grand swordmasters would actually surrender. Saleen seems to be getting stronger and stronger. That means my chances of leaving are getting smaller and smaller.


    Whatever, he thought as he continued observing J and the four knights. He knew that if he had honed his craft by himself, he would not have been able to enjoy the benefits that he had now. If Saleen really did be one of the legendary mages, it would not be a bad thing to continue being his follower. Daniel also knew that he was one of the lucky few people who had the chance to learn from Saleen. Other people would have killed to be in his shoes right now.


    As the five of them walked out into the open, their jaws dropped in despair and anguish as they took in everything before them. The sight of three archmages riding on skeletal warhorses as well as more than one hundred knights who were also riding on skeletal warhorses greeted them.


    Saleen had not actually mobilized anyone. All he had done was make a lot of noise. If they had fled in the other direction, Saleen would not have bothered to chase after them.


    The five grand swordmasters gaped in shock as it dawned on them that they had been tricked by the mage.


    Mages hated to be called liars because they never fibbed, at least not when they conducted business deals. Mages were too proud to lie over things such as money. However, when it came to battle, mages were sone of the most cunning people.


    Even J realized that by now, thanks to the words of his mentor that he had recalled toote. Now, he was filled with regret.


    When he saw Saleen, he knew that he was not going to be able to escape from him. The grade-5 mage smiled cheekily at him, his eyes filled with amusement. It was obvious that the ck-haired mage had no interest in the magic beast swordsmen. However, it was toote for anyone to run. The gigantic death creature had positioned himself such that he was blocking the path leading to the area where they hade from. They could not just make a blind dash for it either. There were over a hundred swordsmen on skeletal warhorses waiting to sh them into pieces if they did so. If there was one thing that Saleen had not lied about, it was the fact that every single swordsmen on these horses really did have a fully loaded steel crossbow ready to fire at hismand.


    Steel crossbows could not be considered alchemy crossbows as it was very hard to aim with them. Thus, the arrows fired from them would not be able to hit concealed targets. However, it was because of this property that it was very hard to avoid the arrows shot from said weapon. If J had been locked on as a target using magic, he could easily guess where these arrows would end up. However, the steel crossbow was a weapon that was made with only lethality and strong prating power in mind. Even the people operating this weapon could not control it properly.


    The only way to win a war using steel crossbows was through numbers. A steel crossbow could fire three steel arrows at the same time. Ten of these weapons operated at the same time would mean thirty steel arrows fired at the same time. If they were fired from all directions, the arrows would descend on their target like a. If they were to be fired consecutively, J was confident that he could easily break the arrows in a few strikes. However, the party he was dealing with partly consisted of three strong mages. He would never be able to defend himself properly against their powersbined.


    What J did not know was that both Saleen and Aini could fly. ck metal grand swordmasters could not even fly for a short distance. Some could, of course, and they might even have been faster than a skeletal warhorse. However, they would not be able to fly for a very long time.


    ¡°J, long time no see,¡± Saleen said with a smile on his face, giving J goosebumps as a shiver ran down his spine. Why is this mage going along with whatever I¡¯m saying? What is he ying at? I don¡¯t even know him, let alone asking him to be my backup! J thought.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words of confirmation, the four magic beasts swordsmen sunk even deeper into despair. Now, they truly believed that this mage was J¡¯s friend.


    ¡°J, I got here as soon as I got your letter. Am I not the greatest friend in the world?¡± Saleen continued speaking to J derisively. J did not know how to respond. If he were to simply y along with the mage, who knew what other stories the mage woulde up with. J would potentially lose the chance to convince the four magic beast knights that he really did not know the grade-5 mage if he really dide up with more lies.


    However, if he did not y along, all the mage had to ask was, ¡°So you were using me just now?¡± and it would be game over for him. Darn it! Why are mages so hard to shake off! J thought exasperatedly.


    ¡°Do you want me to kill the four of them or let them live?¡± Saleen asked, not caring about whether J answered his question. Saleen had over a hundred witnesses right now, so there was no way J could lie his way throughter on. No matter what, he was not going to let this grand swordmaster go. His city base really needed more people. Once he got this ck metal grand swordmaster to be his loyal follower, his powers would be strengthened by leaps and bounds. Until he crossed paths with a holy master, a ck grand swordmaster would do wonders in relieving some of his stress.


    ¡°Master Mage, I apologize for being too rude,¡± J said, ultimately deciding not to y along. In fact, he just wanted to be as far away from Saleen as possible. The mage standing in front of him was just too unpredictable. One wrong move and he could end up in a trap. Getting tricked intoing out into the open had been a very good example of that. All the mage had to do now was spout a few words to convince them to drop their weapons.


    ¡°J, since when are you so formal with me? Is it because I came toote?¡± Saleen asked with a sad, shocked expression on his face.

 Chapter 332: Recovering the Juggernaut (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 332: Recovering the Juggernaut (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mister Mage, I don¡¯t even know you. But if I have offended you in any way, please ept my apologies,¡± J said as he took a step back and lowered his head. It might have seemed like an apologetic gesture, but in reality, he was just preparing to draw his sword.


    ¡°In other words, you admit to having used me just now?¡± Saleen asked, his voice suddenly cold. The snowkes that cascaded from the sky started spinning around him, forming a tornado-like shape.


    No matter how good J was at his swordcraft, he would never beat Saleen¡¯s keen senses. Saleen had been aware of J¡¯s killing intent for a while now, and there was no way he was going to just sit there and do nothing about it. No sooner had J lowered his head did he start to use water me alchemy tounch a Snowkill spell. This particr spell was not suited for closebat, but since Saleen was a powerful mage, he was able tobine his magic along with the snow to form a barrier that surrounded him in all four directions. J would not be able tounch a sneak attack on him unless he could break through this imprable barrier.


    Even if J did break through Saleen¡¯s snowkill defense, Saleen still had his ice te armor and water shield on hand. Not only could Saleen¡¯s azure blue water mes be used to refine gold, but they could also be used to destroy rhenium gold at the molecr level. Thus, the water mes by themselves were a very strong spell.


    Anyone struck by the water mes would be disintegrated into tiny particles the size of microscopic elements. Not even gods would be able to save that unlucky soul.


    Saleen had a dozen pirates around him acting as his personal bodyguards. Anyone who wanted to get close to him would have to get through those steel crossbows first. Without Nailisi and Sika by his side, Saleen decided to go about fighting J very cautiously. In fact, it was in these situations that Saleen realized the importance of the twodies. If any one of them had been present at the moment, they would have been able to block J¡¯s strongest attacks, giving Saleen a chance tounch a counterattack.


    During closebat, a grand swordmaster was always faster than a mage. However, if the grand swordmaster was to slow down by even a fraction of a second, it was possible he would be unable to leave the battlefield alive. After all, not all magic spells could be neutralized by the sword aura. Most powerful mages would have loyal followers to constantly protect them from surprise attacksunched by people in close range like J.


    All of a sudden, Saleen revealed his killing intent. His facial expression suddenly changed into one that was cold and calcting. J had never expected the mage in front of him to look so vicious. However, he had already started his wave of attacks. There was no stopping now.


    As J stretched his hand in Saleen¡¯s direction, the Qin eight-sided sword popped out of its sheath andnded elegantly in his palm. J charged towards Saleen so fast that his entire body became a blur.


    The sword aura, which made an appearance again, shone brighter than any magic spell that Saleen had seen. It glowed a bright gold, something that should have been impossible given that he was not even a silver grand swordmaster. Yet, the power of his sword aura rivalled that of a golden grand swordmaster.


    Upon seeing J do his thing, the four magic beast swordsmen finally realized how terrifyingly strong J was.


    If Saleen had not been a grade-5 mage, he would have died from one swipe of J¡¯s sword. Before J¡¯s sword aura even touched a single hair on Saleen¡¯s body, it already knew what its target was. This sword aura, along with J¡¯s killer instincts, worked well together to make J the powerful grand swordmaster that he was today. In fact, with the power that the sword aura was emitting, people might have actually believed that J¡¯s sword aura could split a mountain into two.


    Ordinarymoners, upon seeing this scene unfold before them, might have simply died of fright. Even professionals might not have been able to withstand the immense power that was radiating from J¡¯s body right now. However, Saleen was no ordinary mage. His mental strength would multiply exponentially with each advancement in grade. Plus, given that he honed his mental powers with his family badge nearly every single day, he was nearly immune to all sorts of debuffs.


    That was because no debuff would bring about as much pain as his family badge. Saleen had long since been ustomed to fighting in seemingly hopeless circumstances. No sooner had J charged towards him did Saleen yell, ¡°Fire the arrows!¡±


    His words seemed to affect the pirates mentally, for they immediately activated their crossbows as though they were some mindless zombies. More than a hundred steel arrows flew outwards, some not even aimed at J.


    J¡¯s white robe clung tightly onto his body as if he had been drenched in water with his clothes on. There was no way the average enemy could have cked his attack. It was the first time that he had attacked at such a fast speed. However, he knew that all he needed to do was subdue the mage long enough for him to escape.


    J had never thought of killing all the people present. He knew that he could not do it by himself anyway. The sword aura had its limitations. It was impossible to depend on it to kill over a hundred people. Everyone present had at least some form of fighting ability. Plus, they had an advanced death creature as backup. Thus, J could only hope to escape in one piece.


    Saleen remained calm. He knew that as long as he had not discovered the Second Dynasty archaeological site, the three kings would not allow him to die so easily. Plus, he wanted to use this opportunity to enrich his experience with stronger opponents. In the past, he had never done one-on-onebat with a formidable opponent because he had always had either Sika or Nailisi and sometimes even both of those women by his side. Those two would always rob Saleen of his opportunity to shine alone. J could not be bothered to deal with Saleen¡¯s pirates, and honestly, Saleen was so focused on J that he had forgotten about their existence. He knew that those pirates would serve more as a hindrance rather than help. Overall, now was the best opportunity to see whether he could truly hold his own against a strong grand swordmaster like J.


    The steel arrows descended upon J¡¯s silhouette like rain. He skillfully weaved in and out of the descending arrows like a snake. Only a few steel arrows actually made contact with his white robe. Each arrow that even came close to hitting J¡¯s vital organs was instantly deflected by J¡¯s clothing. J disyed such precise control of his difficult techniques that most grand swordmasters would have been shocked.


    However, Saleen had prepared himself long ago. In front of his body floated hundreds of icicles which were ready to strike J at any time. No sooner had J finished dodging everyst arrow did Saleenunch them at him. Every single icicle flew towards J like a heat-seeking missile. Well, technically, ¡°heat-seeking missile¡± was not really an appropriate term, given that these icicles could not actually follow their target. However, they did travel as fast as missiles, and were definitely faster than the steel arrows. What Saleen needed in order to sessfully strike J was precise judgement, and right now, Saleen thought that it would be a good idea tounch all his icicles straight ahead. At the same time, the tornado-like structure blew towards J, sucking him within.


    J¡¯s white robe could not deflect Saleen¡¯s icicles like it could with the steel arrows earlier on, because the icicles were much stronger. Plus, J was not able to predict the angle at which each icicle was going to attack since every single one of them was being controlled by Saleen. J¡¯s white robe was riddled with holes in a matter of seconds. Because of this attack, J could not move as fast as before. His intimidating front was nowpletely gone.


    Never in J¡¯s wildest dreams would he have thought that a grade-5 mage would be able to stop him with a simple Icicle spell. Unwilling to admit defeat, he willed an even stronger sword aura out of his Qin eight-sided sword. With one sh of his weapon, he obliterated the tornado. However, he was not able to stop the snowkes from travelling through the holes in his robe. Almost immediately after he had neutralized Saleen¡¯s tornado, he felt the sting of the snow cutting his skin, drawing copious quantities of blood in the process.


    Snowkill was a level-6 spell that was almost impossible for J to shield himself against. J¡¯s injuries made him even more ruthless. He did not bother with the wounds on his body. All he wanted to do was kill Saleen. The sword aura that emerged from the sword had nearly solidified by now. With a swipe, it came down on Saleen. Hard. He was less than ten meters away from Saleen. With his speed, it would only take half a second for his sword aura to fatally strike Saleen.


    With a simple wave of his hand, Saleen¡¯s water mes floated into the air andnded themselves on one of his huge water shields, effectively blocking J from reaching him. With a swipe of his sword, the water shield disintegrated. However, the water mes left a huge impression on J¡¯s sword. What was supposed to be metal was now reced by a huge hole. Just then, one lone icicle struck the sword from this very hole.


    Even though J¡¯s sword retained its shape thanks to the sword aura, that one blow had targeted the sword¡¯s weakest spot. Saleen had never used his mental power this way before. In an instant, he had managed to deduce all of J¡¯s methods of attack. It was the first time Saleen had actually applied his calctive abilities on the battlefield, and it proved to be very effective.


    Lex¡¯s mentor had once said that given enough time, Saleen would be able to use his Ice de spell to split even a golden grand swordmaster in half. Ever since Saleen had managed to absorb the powers of the goddess¡¯ ne, he was more powerful than ever. Now, as long as the enemy slowed down by even a little bit, he would have more than enough time to determine their weaknesses.


    Once he managed to do that, all he needed was another two frames of time in order tounch a counterattack.


    Ironically, if Saleen were to use level-5 or level-6 magic, he would not be able to achieve the desired effect. That was because releasing higher-level magic in a split second was still something that he struggled with. However, all he needed was a level-3 spell topletely shatter J¡¯s sword.


    As the broken piece of the sword flew through the air, the shrill grinding sound that the metal made with the air was even more piercing than the arrows whichc had been shot by the steel crossbows.


    J twisted his body around, his movements fluid and natural, as if he had anticipated Saleen¡¯s moves. With that, he managed to dodge Saleen¡¯s water mes and shatter the water shield. The water mes shrunk to about a meter in diameter. Just one turn of J¡¯s body had covered enough distance that he was now only less than three meters away from Saleen. It was as if everyst one of Saleen¡¯s movements was predictable to him.


    Three meters ¨C at this range, no mage would be able tounch an attack in time. J¡¯s lips curled up into a smirk as he allowed the sheath on his back to slide downwards into his hands. No sooner had the weapon made contact with his palm did he point it towards Saleen. The sheath looked quaint and ancient. Saleen did not know what material it had been carved out of, but it was obvious that it had note together with the long sword.


    As J bathed in the feeling of sess, he suddenly noticed Saleen¡¯s lips curling into the same smirk that he had now.


    ¡°You did not disappoint me alright!¡± Saleen yelled. A huge spider suddenly came out of nowhere, and it was none other than his witcher spider puppet. The puppet wasted no time in casting an illusion spell on J. It expanded to be two timesrger than the wheel of a car and was sorge that Saleen had to take a few steps back in order to give the creature enough space to stand between him and J.


    If J had been a brainless bloke, he probably would not have been afraid of dealing with this colossal phantom. However, he knew enough to recognize a witcher spider when he saw one, and he knew that these creatures were experts in shattering sword auras, magic shields, and divine barriers. Even if he did force the sword aura out of his body in order to prevent the spider from smashing it into pieces, he himself would be torn apart if he were unlucky enough to end up in its clutches.


    The illusion was so real that J forgot for a moment that it was not even possible for witcher spiders to be sorger. Any spider-rted magic beasts could only grow to a maximum length of half a meter.


    By now, Saleen¡¯s magic was no longer locked onto J, thanks to thetter¡¯s efforts. His sheath wobbled slightly in his grip as J brought it down on the witcher spider¡¯s two front legs. His sheath leaked out the essence of death, enough topletely destroy the spider¡¯s illusion. Illusions were usually obliterated using either destructive magic arrays or magic spells. However, the amount of power hidden in J¡¯s sheath literally wiped out the illusion in the air entirely.


    Instantly, the witcher spider reverted back to its original size. As it did so, a sh of blue electric current emerged from its body and struck J¡¯s hands. Instantly, J felt his entire body go numb and his head fill with dread. He had predicted earlier on that he would be attacked after destroying the illusion, but he also knew that there was nothing he could do to dodge the attack. No human could outrun or dodge an electric current attack.


    ¡°Seal him in a block of ice!¡± Saleen chanted as the pitch-ck fog that surrounded his body started to wrap around J, effectively trapping him. Six huge ice crystals appeared out of nowhere and crashed towards J, caging him in a huge block of ice.

 Chapter 333: Jola’s Request (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 333: J¡¯s Request (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell had been executed so quickly that no one could say for sure whether they even saw J being struck by the blue electric current. Even though the electric current was not too powerful, it gave Saleen enough time to finish preparing his ice attack. The entire time Saleen was finishing up his spell, J¡¯s body was numb and he could not even move a single muscle in his body.


    J was a creature of habit, and that happened to be his downfall. Everyone knew that the witcher spider was not a magical creature. To a grand swordmaster, magic beasts who could not do magic were easier to deal with than those who did, because they did not need to worry about being attacked from afar. Even though J had viewed the witcher spider as a threat, he had not anticipated the electric current attack. When he had, it was toote.


    Back in Daniel¡¯s death mes, Banchajanna opened his eyes suddenly and said with a hint of suspicion in his voice, ¡°I feel¡­ master¡¯s essence!¡±


    ¡°I feel it too!¡± Diyabannersa said nervously. ¡°No, I think it¡¯s master¡¯s lighting dragon? But it¡¯s too far away from us!¡± Judikaka could not help but blurt out agitatedly. Discovering this very essence proved thating to the Myers Maind had been the right thing to do. The three kings did not dare call Shann by his name. Instead, they resumed addressing the man as ¡°master¡±.


    The three kings did not even bother to watch Saleen in action. They found these battles petty and an insult to the humans who had lived before them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk about master behind his back!¡± Banchajanna said. They were deathly scared that Shann had not died. If Shann were alive, there was no telling what could happen. ¡°Okay then, let¡¯s sleep for a bit, shall we?¡± Diyabannersa said, without a hint of agitation in his voice when Shann¡¯s name was brought up.


    ¡°Yeah, okay. Will Daniel wake us up when we get there?¡± Judikaka replied. He was not behaving like his usual self, no longer disying any signs of intelligence. In fact, he even neglected to find the source of that essence. All he and the others wanted to do was escape the restrictions imposed by the scepter. They were not here to find Shann.


    Saleen scattered his Quickcloud spell as he watched the enormous icicles emerge from the clouds. The six ice crystals had fused into one, with J effectively sealed inside. J was not dead, of course. His sword aura was circling inside his body rapidly to prevent his muscles and blood vessels from freezing over. He felt depressed as he was now in a lose-lose situation. If he could crank up the power in his sheath, he could shatter the ice crystals instantly. However, doing this would cause his body irreversible damage. Even so, if he did not, he would lose this battle with Saleen.


    The grade-5 mage smiled as observed everything happening inside the ice crystals. After a long ten-minute wait, Saleen finally sensed J¡¯s sword aura weakening.


    What a powerful grand swordmaster! I like him, Saleen thought, delighted that he had been able to defeat a truly formidable opponent by himself. J was truly a master in swordcraft, and his sword aura was not only powerful, but also durable. Not only that, but he also possessed a powerful weapon. If the energy contained within the sheath were to explode, Saleen knew for sure that he would instantly die.


    However, Saleen knew that J would not allow that to happen as it would not benefit him. A strong grand swordmaster like him was now in deep freeze thanks to Saleen¡¯s adept skills. Unless Saleen scattered his spell, only death awaited the grand swordmaster.


    Of course, Saleen had no intention of killing J at all. He was going to overpower this grand swordmaster and force him to be his loyal follower. The purpose of not enlisting Aini and Daniel¡¯s help earlier on was to make J ept the oue willingly once he single-handedly defeated him.


    Saleen tapped his fingers lightly on the ice crystals as he revelled in the feeling of victory. He had not expected the electric current to be so effective, especially since it was the first time his witcher spider had used it in battle. He figured that he would be able to use this current to defeat even stronger opponents if the other party did not know about the ability.


    Even those that were used to debuffs would be unable to move a single finger after being struck by the lightning dragon. To be able to sessfully avoid getting hit by the current, one would have to be able to predict the attack beforehand and take necessary protective measures. That was because electric currents moved at a speed too fast for anyone to react to at a moment¡¯s notice.


    After another two minutes of not doing anything, Saleen figured that he had better release J soon. If not, the grand swordmaster inside might actually die. Saleen released the magic that he had prepared a long time ago to neutralize the ice crystals. Although it was always easier to scatter his own magic, Saleen could already easily scatter magic spells that were level-3 and below during actualbat, saving a huge amount of energy from his magic chords in the process. In other words, if he were to fight a junior mage, all he needed to do was use one spell and a dispersing scroll to finish him or her off.


    s, this technique could not be further refined during the archmage stages because the mages in the past had only focused on scattering low-level magic. If Saleen wanted to learn how to scatter mid-level and high-level spells during battle, he would have to dedicate a lot of time into studying it.


    The four magic beast swordsmen, upon seeing how J and Saleen had fought, decided topletely discard their intentions of fighting back. If they had been at the end of J¡¯s sword, they would not have survived the attack. Since that mage had managed to defeat J all by himself, they figured that they probably should not do anything to set him off.


    As the ice crystals vanished, J fell heavily onto the ground with a loud thud, half of his strength already zapped away by now. The sheath that was previously in his hand dropped into the snow, where it was picked up and passed to Saleen by a pirate.


    As Saleen attempted to use his senses to further examine the sheath, he realized that he could not, for he was blocked by an invisible power. It was strong, but that was all. It had no attack power. He did not try to force the barrier apart. Saleen had felt the essence hidden inside of the sheath before. It felt like a very intimidating, sinister, and ominous presence. He figured that the purpose of the sheath was to contain this power from leaking to the outside world.


    ¡°Now can we talk?¡± Saleen said mockingly as he looked down on J, both literally and metaphorically. J had injuries covering him from head to toe, some owing to the snowkill, and others from the icicle attack. Most of them hade from being frozen inside the ice crystals. He looked absolutely pathetic at the moment, but he was like a cat with nine lives. He would live. Plus, since the sword aura had not beenpletely destroyed, J¡¯s injuries would heal in no time.


    ¡°Okay¡­ so I¡¯ve been captured by you. I guess I¡¯m just unlucky. I¡¯ve apologized, what more do you want?¡± J spat out, his words gliding over his tongue smoothly without any pauses in between.


    ¡°Well, you see, my friend over here is a necromancer,¡± Saleen said as he pointed his finger at Aini.


    As J shifted his gaze to Aini, thetter exuded some of his aura on purpose to frighten the grand swordmaster. Indeed, his move scared J to bits. Aini¡¯s essence matched the unique essence that only the powerful force inside the sheath contained, which meant that killing people was essentially literally in his blood.


    ¡°I see,¡± J said as calmly as possible. He rolled his neck around and tried to sit up, but realized that he was locked in ce by Saleen¡¯s senses. After a brief struggle, he gave up.


    ¡°My friend over here needs a death creature to fight for him. You seem like a good candidate. Why not let him convert you into a death creature, and I¡¯ll forgive you for offending me earlier on?¡± Saleen asked.


    J replied with a defeated tone in his voice, ¡°Mister Mage, just tell me what you want from me.¡±


    Saleen replied seriously, ¡°I¡¯m not kidding. I feel that you will never agree to my requests, so I¡¯ll settle for the next best thing and convert you into a strong death creature. You will have the memories of your previous life and you¡¯ll retain your swordcraft abilities. Even though your sword aura will disappear, your strength will multiply by leaps and bounds. What do you say?¡±


    ¡°Just tell me what you want. I heard¡­ that death creatures are not allowed to court women,¡± J replied shamelessly, stunning Saleen for a while. After processing J¡¯s words, Saleen let out a heartyugh before saying, ¡°I do need a strong follower. If you¡¯re willing to be one, you won¡¯t have to be a death creature anymore.¡±


    ¡°I have a request,¡± J said.


    Seeing that J still had the nerve to negotiate with him, Saleen hesitated for a moment before agreeing, ¡°Shoot.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be your follower, if those four people be my men,¡± J said as he pointed at the four magic beast swordsmen


    ¡°Hm? But aren¡¯t they your enemies?¡± Saleen asked, looking at J and observing his reaction.


    ¡°No, the greatest enemy of any human is themselves. The reason why the four of them are still alive is because I chose not to kill them. I might not have killed them, but the emperor might once they go back empty-handed. If I don¡¯t step in, they may just die or be bandits. No one will dare take them in.¡±


    ¡°Then what makes you think that I will dare to take them in?¡± Saleen asked, putting stress on the word ¡°I¡±.


    ¡°If you have the guts to ept me, then you will ept just about anybody else,¡± J replied with a frank look on his face.


    Saleen nodded in agreement as he said, ¡°We will need to sign an agreement to make it official. As my follower, you¡¯ll have to fight for me, but you¡¯ll also get all the benefits stated in the contract.¡±


    J tried to pop his neck back into ce as he looked around before quipping, ¡°The people around you are so weird. And you don¡¯t even have a single woman. I doubt I¡¯d be satisfied by your benefits.¡±


    Upon seeing how crude his words were and how differently he sounded from a typical Qin, Saleen replied with a nk look on his face, not willing to converse with him any more than he needed to. ¡°Good, so you agree. We¡¯ll sign the contract here.¡±


    ¡°Here?¡± J asked, shocked that the mage would be so anxious to sign the darn thing. He considered himself to be a somewhat trustworthy person. If he agreed, he would keep to his promise for at least¡­ two to three years.


    If Saleen had known that J¡¯smitments onlysted three years, he would definitely have gotten Aini to convert him into a death creature. However, what J did not know was that Saleen still had Aini, and Aini knew how to set contractual traps. Thus, Saleen did not care if J went back on his promiseter on.


    Saleen took out an advanced scroll and began writing down the contents of the contract. His fingers moved deftly, as if he had done this a million times. The fog that surrounded his entire body began scattering again. Without any magical protection, the dragon¡¯s blood ink would freeze instantly once he took it out of his ring.


    As the advanced scroll floated in front of Saleen, he started writing the terms and conditions of the contract, along with the magic array and magic patterns, swiftly using a magic pen. Technically, all he needed for thepletion of the contract was just a normal scroll. However, the failure rate was too high for Saleen to risk anything. Plus, Saleen did not mind wasting a nk advanced scroll on a strong grand swordmaster like J. In fact, he thought it was a steal.


    J did not do anything funny, for he knew that no lie could escape Saleen. He left a few drops of blood on the scroll, signed his name, and stamped his fingerprint. Before the contract became official though, he would have to give up some of his mental power. Yes, people who had managed to be grand swordmasters did possess some mental power. In fact, the amount of mental strength they had easily rivalled that of an ordinary mage.


    As soon as everything was done, the scroll suddenly burst into mes and vanished into thin air, leaving nothing behind. J was taken aback for a second before he quickly regained hisposure.


    ¡°The four of you,e over and meet your new master,¡± J said as he stood up, his body no longer locked down by Saleen¡¯s senses. With a wave of his hand, he signalled for the four magic beast swordsmen toe over.


    The four magic beast swordsmen hung their heads in defeat and made their way towards J¡¯s side.


    ¡°Listen up, all of you. Your captain is dead. Even if you did not die here, ording to Cloudfloww, you¡¯ll be sentenced to death if you don¡¯t capture me. Even if you do capture me, since you¡¯ve lost so many of yourrades, you¡¯ll no longer be allowed to serve the royal family. Your days will be miserable either way. I¡¯m giving you a way out. This is Mage Saleen, my¡­ master. I¡¯ll be protecting him from now on, and I hope you¡¯ll do the same,¡± J said without a hint of emotion in his voice.


    ¡°J, I still have family back in the Cloudflow Empire,¡± one of the magic beast swordsmen said sadly, his eyes brimming with tears.


    ¡°All of you here are orphans. What family are you talking about? You only have wives and no children. Just think of changing wives like changing clothes. Don¡¯t you need new clothes every now and then? It¡¯s a good thing,¡± J said, refusing to be shot down by any one of the four magic beast swordsmen. His original status and ranking over in the Cloudflow Empire had already been higher than all of them anyway. Plus, what he said was the truth. Most of the stringent Cloudflowws had been passed down from the Fourth Dynasty. If the four of them refused to be Saleen¡¯s followers, they would really have nowhere else to go.

 Chapter 334: Jola’s Request (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 334: J¡¯s Request (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Seeing that the four of them were still hesitating, J turned his body to face Saleen and asked, ¡°Master, does your friend need four magic beasts to be converted into summoned creatures?¡±


    ¡°Sure, why not,¡± Saleen said, ying along. His encounter with J had been purely by ident. If those four junior grand swordsmen could swallow their pride and follow his orders, Saleen did not mind drafting contracts for them.


    If he did draft a contract for each of them, he would also be responsible for these four magic beast knights. Mages needed to provide their followers with weapons, money, and armor, as well as any other living expenses. When necessary, mages could even need to protect their own followers. The rtionship between both parties was veryplex. The reason why so many people willingly became followers was because it was not just giving without receiving.


    A powerful mage could even have over a hundred loyal followers by his side. They would treat each other like family and do anything to ensure the well-being and safety of the other. Take Lex¡¯s personal assassin, Bain, for example. Technically, Bain fell under the category of a ¡°follower¡±. He had his own family ¨C a wife and a daughter ¨C both whom were also under Lex¡¯s protection. Anyone who hurt even a single hair on their heads would have to suffer Lex¡¯s wrath.


    In addition, mages had to provide quite a staggering sum of money in order to take care of their followers¡¯ expenses, be it on necessities or luxuries. If Saleen had possessed good materials, he would definitely have created a suit of magic armor for J as well as a wide variety of powerful magic weapons suited for a variety of situations.


    To use Bain as an example again, when he had wanted his daughter to learn magic, Lex had wasted no time in gifting him a green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus. Even though it was too inferior to be considered a dragonshard, this artifact was valuable enough to fetch tens of thousands of gold coins in any auction.


    ¡°Master Saleen,¡± the four magic beast swordsmen said as they lowered their heads and proceeded with their Cloudflow greeting. They were still reeling from the recent events. Now that they did not have any backing from the royal family, even though they had just been promoted to the rank of grand swordmasters, there were no prospects for them.


    Right now, they were panicking over whether the mage standing in front of them was worth serving. If they chose to follow J, there would be no turning back for them. Even the emperor would be unable to pardon them.


    As Saleen eyed the four magic beast swordsmen who were still hesitating, he suddenly understood their inner turmoil and spoke out, ¡°If you follow J, you¡¯ll technically be my followers too. If you want, I can sign a contract with all of you.¡±


    Saleen was not going to care about what Emperor Jupiter thought. He already had a follower named Jupiter, and he did not care about what that Jupiter thought either. If he were to care about Emperor Jupiter¡¯s feelings, he might just need to change that pirate¡¯s name.


    ¡°Master!¡± the four magic beast swordsmen chorused in relief upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words. They had absolutely no faith in J and his words. Back in the Cloudflow Empire, he had been known as a womanizer, always making young female noblewomen swoon over him with his glib tongue. They would much rather be sentenced to death by Emperor Jupiter than allow J to control their fates.


    The four magic beast swordsmen knelt down on one knee simultaneously as they snapped their sabers over them. This gesture had a very symbolic meaning over in the Cloudflow Empire. Their swords belonged to Emperor Jupiter. Once they broke their swords, it meant that they would no longer be using those swords to fight their battles. Instead, they would dedicate the rest of their lives to fighting for Saleen.


    Saleen knew what the gesture meant, and was ted to see how dedicated the four magic beast knights were. Yet, at the same time, he felt that it was a waste to destroy four perfectly good, high-quality swords like that. The good thing was that magic beast knights had their own unique sets of weapons for war. Sabers were not the only equipment which the four of them could operate. The only problem now was that if the four of them were to be Saleen¡¯s followers, Saleen would have to pay for the manufacture of four new sabers.


    Gurney, who was right beside Daniel, watched the magic beast swordsmen with envy. His biggest dream was to be Saleen¡¯s follower. Unfortunately for him, he was not capable enough. Saleen would never ept a swordsman of his rank. However, he knew that if he put in the effort, he would be able to pick up advanced swordcraft. Once that happened in around two to three years from now, he would be a swordmaster. Only then would he be eligible to fight for Saleen.


    Saleen took out an extra set of his clothing and handed it to J. His gown had been created using magic, which meant that even if Saleen did not use magic to shield himself from the cold, wearing this gown would protect him. Thus, even when it became cold over in the city base, Saleen did not wear thick cotton outfits.


    Saleen recalled how pathetic he had looked when he was younger, always shivering during the winter because he could not afford winter clothes. At that point in time, he had decided that one day, if he became some legendary figure, he would buy the best fur coats money could buy. In fact, he would buy a new fur coat every day just for the thrill of it. However, once he actually had reached this level of sess, he had realized that he did not need all those materialistic items.


    Seemingly unashamed of his body, J took off his robe and top in front of everybody present and changed into the gown that Saleen had given him. The new robe instantly shielded him from the cold weather. Even though the robe looked thin and a bit small, J found that it did not feel tight at all. In fact, he did a few stretches with his arms and legs just to confirm it.


    Is this what mages wear? Amazing! What a luxury! J thought in awe.


    ¡°Master, can you give me a sword?¡± J requested yet again. His Qin eight-sided sword had been broken cleanly in half by Saleen. Since he was not a mage, it was obvious that he could not restore the sword to its original state.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you still have this?¡± Saleen asked as he took J¡¯s sheath from the pirate¡¯s hand and returned it to its rightful owner. Now that the contract had been signed, Saleen was not worried that J would go back on his word.


    ¡°Master¡­ it would not be best to use this weapon unless the user is in a dangerous situation,¡± J replied.


    ¡°Okay, but you might not be interested in whatever weapons the people here have on hand right now. Once we return, I¡¯ll refine a weapon specially for you,¡± Saleen said as he ordered one of the pirates to find a sword suitable for the sheath. Once a sword was found, Saleen handed it over to J.


    ¡°Return? Master, we have a nest?¡± J eximed.


    ¡°What nest? I¡¯m not a pirate!¡± Saleen scolded.


    J ignored Saleen and continued, ¡°I bet these swordsmen aren¡¯t really swordsmen. They look like they¡¯ve robbed people before. Even if they were not professionals in the past, they definitely look like criminals to me.¡± As he finished his little speech, he stared at the pirates with a venomous gaze. As people said, a leopard could never change its spots. This held true for the pirates that Saleen had brought along with him. Even after undergoing vigorous training, these pirates were still unable to get their pirate-like auras away from their bodies.


    ¡°Daniel, get J a warhorse please,¡± Saleenmanded, not bothering himself with J¡¯s words. He had already guessed that J¡¯s personality would be fairly unpredictable, and might not click with his. Thus, he could not be bothered to waste his breath over people like him.


    Daniel put away his death creature and summoned another skeletal warhorse from his death mes. The reason why he had extra warhorses was because Saleen had killed off the dozen pirates that had cked off earlier on. The warhorses that belonged to them had not been sent back to the death dimension. It was not like Daniel needed to do so anyway. He had the three kings to back him up. Thus, Daniel did not even need to lift a finger to ensure that the skeletal warhorses would also stay inside of his death mes.


    As J tugged on the skeletal warhorse¡¯s reins, he said, ¡°Master, I have another request.¡±


    ¡°Speak,¡± Saleen replied, slightly irritated. If J had not signed the contract, Saleen was not sure whether he would have been able to hold himself back from resealing the grand swordmaster into the ice crystals.


    ¡°Master, we haven¡¯t eaten in days. If we don¡¯t eat, we won¡¯t recover as fast,¡± J exined.


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. He had forgotten that J had no steed to transport him to ces where there was food. In addition, J was not a mage, and Saleen figured that he had not brought too much food with him. Grand swordmasters couldst a week without eating or drinking. However, Saleen knew that J had gone way past the one-week mark. There was nothing edible in the Chaotic Swamp during the winter.


    ¡°Let¡¯s set up camp!¡± Saleen ordered. Instantly, the pirates dismounted their skeletal warhorses and started to set up their temporary shelters. They were happy to finally get some rest, as covering such a huge distance in this weather was just too draining. Yet, they had not dared to ask their master to set up camp, for fear that Saleen would get angry at them.


    After Saleen was done ordering the pirates to prepare some food, he called for J and the four magic beast swordsmen and had them enter his tent. He decided to give each of them a sk of restorative water instead of magic liquid. The weakest one of them was a junior grand swordsmaster, which meant that all of their rejuvenative abilities were very strong. Saleen did not want to waste magic liquid on them.


    After they were allfortably seated, Saleen said, ¡°J, tell me more about the Cloudflow Empire.¡±


    ¡°Cloudflow Empire? Oh, it¡¯s great. The girls are so gentle anddylike, and so beautiful too. Their skin¡­ I guess you could call it fair¡­¡± J said dreamily as he reminisced the good times he had with those young noblewomen.


    Aini let out a coldugh in response. He wondered how J could be so talented in his craft while chasing after women all the time. Aini was certain that J was just wasting his gift. If he had been more focused on honing his swordcraft, he would have been far more sessful than he was now. Both Aini and Saleen were the hardworking type. Unless there were more important things to do, they pretty much spent all their time practicing their magic.


    While it was true that the world had many talented people, talent without hard work was nothing. J pretended that he had never even heard Ainiugh. He did not care what people thought of him. Since he was young, he had already understood how fragile life was. He did not see the point in pursuing something relentlessly and tiring himself out in the process. He figured that it would be better to just take things easy. All mages had to do was hone their magic until they were promoted to grade-7 mages. Once they reached that level of power, they would have double the lifespan that they had now. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for people who practiced swordcraft.


    No matter how strong a swordsman was, as long as he was not a true golden grand swordmaster, his lifespan would not differ much from ordinary people. Since J knew that he was going to die in just a few decades, he did not see why he had to be so hard on himself.


    ¡°I¡¯m asking about the royal affairs,¡± Saleen said exasperatedly. He did not want to try and change J¡¯s view on life. He did not want to interfere with his lifestyle either. J was not a mage. Thus, he did not feel obligated to tell him what the real world was actually like.


    ¡°I actually don¡¯t know much. I¡¯m just the mentor of the royal swordsmen. I only mentor people?¡± J said with a candid tone in his voice before pointing his finger at the four magic beast swordsmen and continuing, ¡°But maybe they know something. People usually b about royal stuff even when they¡¯re around.¡±


    ¡°Vinz, speak for us,¡± the three magic beast swordsmen (who were obviously not named Vinz) volunteered their well-groomed, decent-lookingrade.


    Vinz looked to Saleen for permission to speak. After Saleen nodded, he asked, ¡°Master, which part of the royal affairs do you want to hear about?¡±


    ¡°I heard through the grapevine that a team of Qin swordsmen were defeated in battle. I also heard that they fled to the Cloudflow affliated duchies. How did Cloudflow view and treat them?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Chanake¡¯s swordsmen¡¯s camp? They left. His Majesty actually red up because of this,¡± Vinz said, unaware that what he said might have been inappropriate. It was not polite to call the deceased Qin Emperor by his name, especially in front of a Qin. Plus, he had already pledged his loyalty to Saleen, which meant that he should not have been addressing Jupiter as ¡°His Majesty¡±.


    ¡°They left? When did that happen?¡± Saleen asked, puzzled.


    ¡°About two years ago?¡± Vinz replied, surprising Saleen. He had never expected the Qin royal swordsmen to leave the Titan Duchy so early. After all, Lex had never received any news like that. What went wrong? Saleen thought, extremely bbergasted. Lex had even sent people tomunicate with the Titan Duchy. In fact, she had even been expecting the arrival of the swordsmen that her father had left behind.


    Saleen¡¯s keen senses and gut instincts told him that there was a major problem at hand.


    Before encountering the Holy See¡¯s ck deacon, Saleen might not have been so sensitive. Now that he knew that the Holy See was busy assembling a group of blood knights, Saleen had a bad feeling about everything. If those Qin royal swordsmen had been captured by the Holy See and turned into blood nights, the entire maind would be in insurmountable trouble.


    Any strong neanderthal, upon being turned into a blood knight, would have the capabilities of a swordmaster. Most of the royal swordsmen were already swordmasters anyway. Once they were converted into blood knights, their strength would only be boosted.


    Saleen knew that he had to contact Lex as soon as possible and tell her this news. If Lex was doomed, then his efforts over in the hell of god¡¯s punishment woulde to naught. There would not only be less meaning behind building the city, but it would also be even harder toplete its construction.


    Oh Holy See! Why must you give me so many problems?! Saleen thought exasperatedly.

 Chapter 335: Spotting a Double-headed Eagle Again (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 335: Spotting a Double-headed Eagle Again (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As the sky gradually darkened, a snow fox was spotted gazing at the camppound. This magic beast was not very powerful. Actually, many magic foxes loved living near cities, and some even lived within them.


    Small foxes preyed on rats and fed on the rubbish thrown away by humans. Hence, they lived in peace with humanity. Certain foxes in the south could even capture snakes and insects, just like domesticated cats.


    Saleen sat atop arge rock, and his spirits were lifted when he saw such small animals moving about in the distance. No matter what happened, the city base would have to be developed.


    Once the city waspleted, it would have a defensework formed by the magic towers. By then, even the blood cavaliers would be helpless. Also, some snow foxes needed to be captured and bred in the city. No matter how beautiful a city was, there would be some parts which were neglected, and they would be filled with pests. With such animals around, the city would be much cleaner.


    In this makeshift camppound, the pirates had made a bonfire. The Chaotic Swamp wascking in many things except for dead leaves. By sprinkling some cheap magic powder onto it, the bonfire would be able tost for a long time. Saleen did not oppose such an action. His agenda foring to the Chaotic Swamp had been to attract the attention of the Holy See, not to sneak into the relic.


    Had Saleen wanted to sneak into the relic, he would not have brought so many people along in the first ce. It was a conspicuous affair to have more than one hundred pirates riding on bone horses. Anyone who paid slightly more attention than usual would know that a convoy was entering the Chaotic Swamp.


    However, the pirates had be well-behaved after Saleen had executed dozens of them the previous time, and none of them indulged in alcohol and songs anymore. From afar, the camp appeared to be neat and quiet.


    Saleen recalled the scene when he had been trying to escape from the Chaotic Swamp in the past. Back then, Nailisi had carried him on her back and run away frantically. At that point in time, Saleen was very afraid that the white deacon called Picasso would change his mind, as he did not even have the ability to retaliate at that time. Just how long ago had that been? At this moment, Saleen was actually making a grandeback.


    Saleen was now confident of achieving victory if he ran into a holy master who was the same grade as Picasso. The fight with J had built Saleen¡¯s confidence. The advantage a mage had was that they had many methods of obtaining victory over the enemy.


    A mage who only casts fireballs is not a good mage. This sentence made sense. Combining different spells could give rise to thousands ofbat techniques.


    Saleen might not have been versed in many spells, but he would always use different methods for each battle. By observing the differences in his enemies, Saleen would employ differentbat techniques. That was the advantage of a mage, which was understood by very little people. Most people thought that a mage¡¯s power stemmed from elemental control, but in reality, a mage¡¯s wisdom was more important.


    People who were not smart enough would never be outstanding mages.


    On the snowy ground in the distance, a lone snow wolf approached the camppound slowly. When it spotted the over hundred bone horses standing in the camppound, it hesitated for a moment before retreating. A magic beast was always more sensitive towards danger. A snow wolf would never be able to raid a camppound like this.


    Bam! Bam! Bam¡­


    In a farther location, an unknown colossal magic beast was woken up from its deep slumber, and was now flitting about. Perhaps other magic beasts had disturbed its sleep, or it was so hungry that it could not sleep and had to forage for food.


    Such was the reality in the Chaotic Swamp. Every single creature was fighting for survival, and none lived a peaceful life.


    ¡°Hm?¡± Saleen jerked his head upwards as a ck figure flew overhead. He quickly took out his alchemical binocrs and looked upwards. Flying above Saleen was a double-headed eagle.


    Saleen grew a bit nervous. A double-headed eagle? The ck mages are in the Chaotic Swamp? Saleen could no longer sit still. He jumped off the rock before hastily making his way back to the camppound.


    Aini was training inside of a tent while Daniel stood guard. Daniel helped Aini willingly, because Aini was also a death mage. Furthermore, Aini was at a higher grade, so Daniel felt that he could learn more things as well. Seeing that Saleen had put on a gloomy expression, Aini knew that something unexpected had urred. Saleen rarely revealed any negative expressions, unless there was something which troubled him deeply.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Aini retracted his death mes. At the moment, he and Saleen were in the same boat. Their rtionship was not just that of friends.


    ¡°I saw a double-headed eagle just now!¡±


    ¡°What?!¡± Aini thought he had heard Saleen wrong. In his entire life, thergest crisis had happened when he had been surrounded by ck mages in the baron¡¯s castle. ck mages were more abominable than rats, and just like rats, they had the ability to expand theirmunities.


    Daniel¡¯s reaction was much more subdued, because he had not experienced such things before. Naturally, he would not know the horrors of the ck mages.


    Saleen and Aini thought of the headless riders and the evil dragons. Once those things became too great in number, their team would be obliterated.


    The powerful evil dragons could break holes in the city walls, while the headless riders were simply swordmasters who felt no pain nor fear. Inparison, the blood cavaliers were easy to deal with. Even though a blood cavalier could not feel pain, it would no longer pose a threat as long as its limbs were chopped off.


    A headless rider was different. It did not even have a brain, and it could be hardly destroyed without using magic. As long as one limb of the headless rider was still present, it would be able to continue attacking its target. Furthermore, Saleen and Aini were in the Chaotic Swamp right now, where they did not have a castle to rely on, so it would be difficult for them to win with a smaller number of people on their side.


    Saleen took out a simple map before drawing a line across it, then said, ¡°The double-headed eagle flew in this direction.¡±


    ¡°It ovepped with the target, right?¡± Aini furrowed his brows as he came to a terrible conclusion.


    ¡°If the ck mages are hiding in the Chaotic Swamp, we¡¯ll be in big trouble.¡± As Saleen looked at the map, he kept drawing lines across the map using his finger. Saleen had drawn this map based on memory. Back then, he had managed to memorize the map after seeing it just once when Canghong showed it to him. This map only depicted one-tenth of the entire Chaotic Swamp. Saleen also made some additions, but the location of the temple was not shown on the map.


    The Chaotic Swamp spanned over a wide area. But in order to cross it safely, the only avable route was the one which Saleen had selected. The safety in this route was merely rtive. Saleen had used this route before. The terrain was simple and there were no powerful magic beasts. A creature like the hill cyclops did not have a specific territory, so they would not appear frequently.


    Now that the double-headed eagle belonging to the ck mages had appeared, it meant that the ck mages were hiding in the vicinity. No matter where they hid, their circle of activity would also obstruct Saleen¡¯s route.


    Saleen had bought Deep Forest Town as he wanted to develop a secret passageway in the Chaotic Swamp to allow swift travel to Sikeqinya. If the ck mages were really upying the Chaotic Swamp, then Deep Forest Town was already on the frontline. In the future, it would also have to deal with the vigorous assaults by the ck mages.


    The climate in the Chaotic Swamp was harsh, making survival difficult. However, the ck mages were just like death creatures. They could not have cared less about the climate.


    ¡°We should take care of the problem at hand first.¡± Saleen pondered for a moment, then said to Daniel, ¡°Put away the pirates¡¯ weapons. We will refine them once more before continuing on the journey. Currently, their weapons are inadequate for dealing with the headless riders.¡±


    Daniel nodded, while Aini asked, ¡°Do you want the three kings to give you a hand?¡±


    ¡°They might not agree to do so. Let¡¯s do it by ourselves for now. If this is the main camp of the ck mages, the three kings will only be able to help us escape. Do you still remember what happened back then? The ck mages seemed to have resurrected some kind of devil. That thing might not be a god, but we cannot withstand its attacks either.¡±


    Neither of them brought up the idea of leaving immediately. It was no easy feat getting the three kings to sign a contract with a trap, so this matter had to be aplished no matter what. Be it the Holy See or the base camp of the ck mages, the three kings could not avoid the agreement. They had to fulfill the promise stated in the contract.


    The offensive abilities of the pirates were simr to that of the baron¡¯s soldiers. Some of them were at the grade of a swordmaster while the rest were at the grade of a swordsman. However, there were only about one hundred pirates and there was no castle to depend on. In the event that the team ran into a huge number of ck puppets, the chances of the pirates surviving were dismal. Only people like Saleen, J, and those newly subdued magic beast swordsmen would survive.


    At this moment, Saleen could only refine the weapons ording to the main types of troops the ck magesmanded, so that the pirates would have a higher chance of survival. The movements of a ck puppet were not exactly agile, and many unnecessary deaths could be avoided by using a long weapon. As long as a few soldiers used long weapons to stab from a distance, they could easily take out the ck puppets. The crux of this method was in the coordination of the soldiers.


    Against a headless rider, one would need to use heavy weapons. Fortunately, the pirates had learned some basic swordsmanship, so even though their sword auras were not very strong, they would still be able to wield heavy weapons for a short duration without any problems.


    The pirates¡¯ weapons were all gathered and ced outside Saleen¡¯s tent.


    As the wooden spears were too short, Saleen and Aini needed to double the length of the spears¡¯ poles. Luckily, the space inside Saleen¡¯s demonic ring had expanded considerably, so the equipment brought along for this trip was enough for the pirates¡¯ use. The pole of a wooden spear was less than three meters, which was the standard for a cavalryman.


    Following the decline of the rider ss, thebat techniques of the riders had also waned. Only infantry soldiers wielded extremely long weapons now. A cavalry spear was no longer than seven or eight meters, unless its rider rode on a huge magic beast. The four newly recruited magic beast swordsmen did not use very long weapons. Also, their magic beasts were much bigger than a war horse, and they were omnivores.


    Saleen regretted not bringing Nailisi along. If Nailisi was here, her two fully constructed puppets would have wielded weapons which were effective against ck puppets. It would have been even better if Lex was here, as she owned quite a number of war puppets. A war puppet was more agilepared to a ck puppet, and it also possessed higher offensive power.


    At the moment, Saleen could only depend on himself. He rolled up his sleeves, like a cksmith, before picking up a wooden spear and studying it.


    ¡°Can I help with anything?¡± Daniel¡¯s alchemy would not suffice, but he did not want to do nothing at all. Saleen and Aini had begun refining the pirates¡¯ weapons. Since there were more than a hundred weapons, a significant amount of time was needed.


    ¡°Do you know how to refine medicine?¡±


    ¡°I have chaotic medicine, it will be useful against the puppets too.¡± Daniel was not stupid, and his answer made Saleen very satisfied.


    ¡°In that case, smear the medicine on the weapons, now.¡±


    As Saleen and Aini were talking, they had already extended the length of two wooden spears and were about to start testing the strength of those spears. The pirates were versed in spear techniques as well. During a robbery, they would have to jump onto the deck of the enemy¡¯s merchant ship, and the best weapon to use would be a long spear. asionally, the pirates would practice javelin throwing as well. At sea, the climate was humid, so it was very troublesome to repair arrows. Furthermore, alchemical crossbows were too expensive and needed to be maintained regrly, which would cause the pirates to lose more than they could gain.

 Chapter 336: Spotting a Double-headed Eagle Again (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 336: Spotting a Double-headed Eagle Again (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was more troublesome smearing magic medicine on weapons than doing so with poison. Magic medicine had a higher level of vtility, and only a mage would be able to ensure that the magic medicine on a weapon couldst for an extended duration. Even if a soldier possessed magic medicine, the magic medicine would be useless.


    Chaotic medicine was used to deal with summoning spells, but it also had the same effect on puppets. Even if a puppet was not controlled by a mage, it would still need a set of operational rules to distribute its energy so that it could battle autonomously. The moment a puppet was damaged by chaotic medicine, it would lose control over its movements. Not only would it attack its enemies, but it would also attack its ownpanions.


    This kind of medicine was the forte of a death mage. If an elemental mage tried producing it, it would be as difficult as producing high-grade medicine.


    After the wooden spears were refined, they became long spears which were over five meters in length. They were more suitable for use by infantrymen, as cavalrymen would need to undergo specialized training to learn how to wield such long weapons. However, Saleen had drawn some magic patterns on the pole of each spear, allowing the wooden spears to maintain their original weight. As long as the pirates gripped onto the center of gravity of the spears, they would not lose control of them.


    The best weapons against a headless rider would be weapons such as a square axe, a two-handed epee, or an explosive meteor hammer. A square axe would be able to cleave heavy armor because of its inertia. The two-handed epee was a swordmaster¡¯s favorite weapon as it allowed them to utilize the sword aura in a reasonable manner. The explosive meteor hammer was a rarer magic weapon. Besides delivering heavy blows, it could also produce a tearing effect.


    Swordmasters were rare in Saleen¡¯s team. Saleen had refined the square axes for the pirates to use. One of Saleen¡¯s fully constructed puppets also wielded a square axe. This weapon was extremely heavy and had unparalleled sharpness, and even magic armor could barely resist its attacks. The only problem was that this weapon was too heavy, and a lot of physical strength would be consumed trying to carry it.


    Fortunately, Saleen had bone horses in his team. One only needed to hang the square axe on the weapon hook of the horse to do the trick.


    These weapons did not pose much of a challenge, because metal and wood were rtively easily refined. Also, Saleen still had to produce new gloves for the pirates.


    Usually, the pirates only used a saber or a long knife. If they were to wield a square axe, they would need a pair of gloves which could withstand immense friction, so that the axe would not slip from their hands.


    At this point in time, the benefits of having followers were clearly exemplified. J and the four magic beast swordsmen protected Saleen¡¯s tent while the pirates streamed in and out of the tent continuously, distributing the newly refined weapons. With the protection of four grand swordmasters, Saleen and Aini would not need to worry about being assassinated.


    More often than not, a mage would select a very safe location to carry out their alchemy experiments. After all, when a mage was conducting alchemy, they would have to concentrate a huge amount of mental strength, which would cause their perception of the surroundings to be reduced.


    To a mage who was used to having everything under control, having a lowered perception was extremely dangerous. During such a time, a mage was more vulnerable to attacks than a swordsman.


    When J observed the weapons sent out of the tent, he said to the four magic beast swordsmen, ¡°You all should have the lord refine a weapon for you. Judging by this situation, the lord must have run into some trouble. Didn¡¯t you notice that the three mages looked nervous?¡±


    The four magic beast swordsmen looked at one another. They were still not used to regarding J as their partner. After all, they had been pursuing J for months. They could not bring themselves to disregard whatever had happened like what J was doing right now. The four of them were orphans who had been groomed into magic beast swordsmen by the imperial family. However, they did not swear allegiance to anyone. Furthermore, as magic beast swordsmen, they could not retreat if they met with danger.


    J despised the Cloudflow institutions. In order to make someone work hard, one had to provide some benefits in exchange. Magic beast swordsmen did not lead very good lives. They might have enjoyed higher statuses than civilians, but they were inferior to even a third-ss baron.


    ¡°We have just be beginner grand swordmasters. We still need some time to get used to our weapons. We don¡¯t even know what kind of special weapons we require, so¡­¡±


    One of the magic beast swordsmen hesitated, confessing his worries. To them, it was a very troublesome affair to ask Saleen to refine a weapon. The weapons they required were not some lowly products like the ones which would be given to the pirates. A premium alchemical weapon would apany a grand swordmaster for the rest of their life. Hence, the magic beast swordsmen decided that they would stabilize their skills before requesting that Saleen help them by crafting suitable weapons for them.


    ¡°Hey, has Jupiter made all of you stupid?¡± J objected, ¡°Before long, you are going to put your lives at stake. If you survive, the lord will treat you very well. In the future, you might even obtain somend, two wives, and a brood of children. Furthermore, the lord will hire a teacher to educate your children. By behaving like this now, it¡¯s obvious that all of you are not sincere in joining the lord.¡±


    The four magic beast swordsmen became flustered. They did not know how the outside world worked. They only knew that they had to continue fighting if they joined Saleen. However, they did not know that a follower would enjoy such privileges. If that was really the case, then they did not need to stand by ceremony with Saleen. If they distanced themselves too much, just as J said, it would mean that they did not regard Saleen as their lord at all.


    ¡°Is that the truth?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I feel that Sir will volunteer to help you all refine a weapon this time around. But if you still do not take initiative the second time, the situation will not be too good. You should know that a mage will probably have more than a hundred followers. The few of you were lucky. In truth, you can¡¯t even return to Cloudflow anymore. Yet, you were adopted by a grand mage, which is an opportunity others would dly ept. All of you must cherish this opportunity,¡± J continued spouting nonsense, but he was absolutely right. As a follower, one would have to ensure their master¡¯s safety. Hence, they needed to maximize their offensive abilities.


    The four magic beast swordsmen had decided to break their sabers as an exhibition of loyalty. Henceforth, they could only rely on their cavalry equipment. Furthermore, if they traveled on foot, they would no longer have any weapons suitable for use.


    ¡°Mr. J, thank you for your guidance,¡± a magic beast swordsman thanked sincerely.


    ¡°Just address me by my name in the future. In Qin, the title ¡®Mr¡¯ is only used to address mages. Don¡¯t bring trouble to yourselves.¡± Originally, J had been a swordsmanship instructor in the pce, so some students would address him in this manner. However, he knew very clearly that certain rules in Qin were stricter than they were in Cloudflow. J was fine with the four swordsmen addressing him in this manner privately, but if the other mages overheard, there would be unnecessary trouble.


    ¡°Okay.¡± The magic beast swordsmen stopped talking. They began brainstorming for weapons which personally suited them. An epee might have been the simplest choice, but they were well-versed in a variety ofbat skills, so an epee might not have been the most suitable weapon. During their time in Cloudflow, the magic beast swordsmen had only been able to carry sabers due to the nature of their job. They would not receive any special weapons.


    These five men stood guard outside the tent. Since they were already grand swordmasters, the frigid weather would not affect them adversely. Under nonbat conditions, the sword aura was just like a mage¡¯s magic in that it could provide afortable environment for the body.


    It was onlyte into the night that Saleen¡¯s voice came from the tent. ¡°The five of you,e inside.¡±


    J led the four magic beast swordsmen into Saleen¡¯s tent. Saleen¡¯s tent was huge. Now that the pirates had moved thest of the weapons away, only three mages remained inside the tent, making the interior look spacious.


    ¡°Sit down, let¡¯s eat together.¡± Saleen took out his premade meal from the demonic ring and ced it on the oilcloth which was spread out nicely. At the moment, he was not a grade-6 mage yet, so the space in the demonic ring was limited. Hence, Saleen would not bring along items such as tables and chairs. Unless Saleen¡¯s spatial equipment was like Lex¡¯s god¡¯s ring, he would not even think of bringing along those lifestyle appliances.


    J reached for the food and started eating. On the other hand, the four magic beast swordsmen were feeling perturbed as they had thought of weapons after being reminded by J. However, since it was mealtime now, they were embarrassed to make any requests, thus they felt very conflicted.


    Saleen was the first to finish his bread, then he used the Cleaning spell to put away the utensils. Then, he said to J and the magic beast swordsmen, ¡°J is right, we might run into trouble. I have thought of a weapon for J. As for the four of you, show me your strongest skillter on. I will help you design weapons.¡±


    ¡°Sir, what kind of trouble is it?¡± J took the initiative to ask Saleen. In truth, J was an easygoing person. Be it Saleen or Emperor Jupiter, there was not much difference to him. If his lord could not tolerate him, then he would simply bid them farewell. That was why J was not as restrained as the four magic beast swordsmen.


    ¡°Mm, we might run into some ck mages.¡±


    The five of them were not familiar with magic. Even though they might have heard some myths regarding ck magic, it was inevitably a thousand year old issue already. A few years earlier, some ck mages had appeared in Phoenix, but they had disappeared again very quickly, so nobody had really be rmed. This incident was only spread within the empire¡¯s royal family and had not created any ripples.


    ¡°I have fought with the puppets controlled by the ck mages. They are an annoying bunch.¡± Seeing that the rest of them were not really nervous, Saleen continued, ¡°A ck mage can create a huge number of puppets. Furthermore, those ck puppets which surfaced the previous time were obviously made from scarecrows. Just think about it, ck puppets might not be very powerful, but theye in massive numbers. If there are ten thousand ck puppets, can you all guarantee you will emerge victorious?¡±


    ¡°If we have ten thousand soldiers, we can win,¡± J chuckled.


    ¡°Do I need you tell me that? But we only have slightly more than a hundred soldiers. There might be more than one hundred thousand ck puppets. Also, a headless rider is far more powerful than a ck puppet. It is almost as powerful as a swordmaster. How many swordmasters can you handle at a time?¡±


    At this point in time, J furrowed his brows. If the battle was between a grand swordmaster and a swordmaster, the grand swordmaster could win even with his eyes closed. But in a chaotic battle, a dozen swordmasters would pose a threat to a grand swordmaster.


    ¡°Sir, I have underestimated the enemy,¡± J admitted unabashedly. Even though J was careless with his personal life, he took his job very seriously.


    ¡°One thousand years ago, it was no coincidence that the ck mages were able to create so much trouble. Right now, we don¡¯t have a city to rely on. And in the Chaotic Swamp, the ck mages will be able to unleash all their power. I am not sure if other puppets will appear, but the evil dragon will definitely make its appearance. It will be pointless for us to establish a simple formation. As long as the headless riders hide behind the evil dragon as they charged forward, we will not be able to hold the fort even if we have a huge number of steel crossbows with us.¡±


    ¡°Evil dragon?¡± None of the five grand swordmasters knew what an evil dragon was.


    ¡°It is one of the most terrifying weapons in the world, to its enemies, I mean.¡± Saleen recalled the time when he had discovered the evil dragon at the end of the road of bones. It was truly strange because evil dragons still had not appeared at any other locations. Now, it seemed that these things had gone into hiding in the Chaotic Swamp, and many more of such monsters might have been groomed after all these years.


    That tug-of-war in Lon would have provided the ck mages with the best nourishment possible ¨C suffering souls.

 Chapter 337: Jola’s Tears (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 337: J¡¯s Tears (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to be afraid. At most, the few of us will protect Sir and the rest will be abandoned.¡± J was still not taking the threat seriously. He thought that since he was well-versed in swordsmanship, it would be a piece of cake protecting Saleen. With J at the front blocking the attacks from the puppets, Saleen would be able to cast his spells easily, greatly amplifying their offensive power.


    ¡°J, Aini and I can use the flying spell,¡± Saleen said nonchntly.


    J became speechless. Since Saleen knew how to fly, his reliance on J would be greatly reduced. More urately, Saleen needed J during an attack, but if Saleen was on the run, J would instead be a burden.


    If J had known that such a day woulde, he would have worked twice as hard since it was not impossible for him to be a golden grand swordmaster. But had J been a golden grand swordmaster, he would not have been defeated by Saleen. It was unheard of for a golden grand swordmaster to be a mage¡¯s follower.


    A golden grand swordmaster had the ability to fly over long distances, and their offensive powers were also close to that of a grade-9 mage. Even a silver grand swordmaster could fly for three to five miles with ease. However, J was only a ck metal grand swordmaster. It might have been easy for him to cover dozens of meters in a single jump, but he would need higher level skills to be able to fly.


    ¡°Sir, where are we going?¡± a magic beast swordsman asked out of caution. The magic beast swordsmen had been jittery ever since they had entered the Chaotic Swamp. If this was the season when magic beasts were very active, they would have considered bringing along a pce mage. People such as Canghong, who would do anything for money, were extremely rare. Even at this point in time, the magic beast swordsmen were annoyed by the harsh climate in the Chaotic Swamp.


    Indeed, a grand swordmaster could tolerate a frigid climate, but their sword aura would be depleted in the process. A mage could remain warm by depleting magic nuclei on a magic robe. However, a grand swordmaster could only tap into their sword aura, or else they would freeze to death just like any other normal human being. That was why J had been in awe at the mage¡¯s extravagance when he had received Saleen¡¯s long robe.


    Even though there was no magic nucleus mosaicked into the belt of the long robe, the magic patterns on the robe still provided a certain amount of energy, hence J could remain rxed in such a climate.


    ¡°We are going to a relic which belongs to the era of the Second Dynasty.¡± Since these five people had signed a contract and were now Saleen¡¯s followers, Saleen did not need to conceal the truth from them.


    J and the four magic beast swordsmen became somewhat exhrated when they heard that. The Second Dynasty was also known as the magic dynasty. Besides the proliferation of mages, this dynasty also had the best magic armor and magic weapons.


    A typical enchantment spell allowed the magical effect on a weapon tost for dozens of years, while a higher level one could sustain the magical effect for more than one hundred years. A genuinely powerful magic weapon would remain unchanged even after thousands of years. The magic weapons from the Second Dynasty were very durable, unless they were destroyed during wartime.


    Such alchemy skills had been lost long ago. The main reason was the decline of humans, causing thergemunities who did extensive research and innovation to disappear.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be too happy just yet, there might be nothing there at all. I have the materials for crafting magic armor and magic weapons. I will make a custom set for each of you once we get back.¡± After killing the tiago, Saleen had stored many horns and bones belonging to that dragon. It would not be a problem for him to craft five sets of armor.


    Had the tiago not been on the verge of death, Saleen would never have been able to get close to it even with his current abilities. However, Saleen was no scrooge. The greatest talent of the people of Sikeqinya was loaning money and growing more gold coins from gold coins. Even though these materials would not decay in storage, they would not appreciate in value either. Giving the materials to his followers would allow the materials to unleash their full potential.


    Saleen did not reveal any more details. The four magic beast swordsmen went on to execute theirbat drills in front of Saleen, just like they would on any other day. No matter how big the tent was, the magic beast swordsmen would not be able to disy all their skills. However, using his Icy Sight, Saleen had already identified their energy usage patterns and habits inbat. He then began brainstorming suitable weapons for each of the four magic beast swordsmen.


    In order to enter the relic, the magic beast swordsmen would have to stop riding their magic beasts into battle and would have to travel on foot instead. With that being said, those weapons with long handles would pale inparison to normal spears. The handle of a normal spear could be longer than three meters, but the tip of the spear was like half of a longsword. It could attack in any direction with just a slight swing. Many spears were also serrated to increase their lethality. Spears with long handles were more suitable for cavalrymen as they could kill their enemies using the inertia of their spears.


    As Saleen was thinking, J and the others took the opportunity to memorize the map which Saleen had illustrated. A grand swordmaster¡¯s memory was very astounding. It was just that it was not as nimble as a mage¡¯s. In just a few minutes, the five of them had memorized all the details on the map. By this point in time, Saleen had already drawn out a weapon.


    Now that Saleen had just gotten the grasp of water me alchemy, refining weapons would allow him to be more familiar with this skill. Each weapon he refined was in fact one training session for him. The more Saleen brainstormed, the more beneficial it would be for him. Moreover, this refinement was for his own followers, which concerned his personal safety, so he would not take it lightly.


    Saleen drew four machetes with a weird structure. Each of these four machetes were different in their own right. With one nce, the four magic beast swordsmen had already found their favorite machetes. They were even more awed by Saleen in this moment. Not only did this process require proficient alchemy skills, but a thorough understanding of a swordsman¡¯s sword aura usage was also needed in order to design a weapon which would make the swordsman fall in love at first sight.


    Most swordsmen purchased normal weapons before getting used to them gradually. Only a minority of them possessed a bespoke weapon which was catered to their fighting styles. There were not many swordsmen like this. Basically, all of them were a mage¡¯s followers.


    ¡°Sir, this is just fantastic!¡±


    ¡°Mm, good that all of you like it. I will put an inscription on the weapon, then I will carry out another refinement once you advance to the next grade. By then, I should already be a sorcerer.¡± Saleen spoke indifferently, but the four magic beast swordsmen felt utter confidence emanating from Saleen.


    Not many mages dared to proim that they would be sorcerers. Saleen dared to do so because he possessed sufficient resources. While other people needed to work for training resources, Saleen simply needed to keep training, training, and training¡­


    When other mages advanced to grade-6, they would begin to fret over the materials needed to construct a magic tower. Yet, Saleen wanted to build thirty-six magic towers in one go, and every magic tower needed to have more than seven stories.


    When other mages were selecting a city to settle down in, they had to traverse across the maind for several years, and might even spend ten years to finally do so. Yet, Saleen was already building his own city at this moment. At the heart of the city was a temple, and since Saleen was the owner of the city, he lived inside this temple.


    ¡°Go and sleep. By tomorrow morning, all of you will get your own weapon.¡±


    ¡°What about me?¡± Seeing that Saleen had not designed a weapon for him, J felt a little strange. J was obviously far stronger than those four magic beast swordsmen, so Saleen should not have neglected his weapon.


    ¡°Stay behind and watch me carry out the alchemy.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± J pulled a long face. J wanted to sleep since he felt that it was pointless watching a mage carry out alchemy. However, he only needed a short period of rest as he was a ck metal grand swordmaster. Someone had to ensure Saleen¡¯s safety after midnight.


    The four magic beast swordsmen left, leaving Aini, J, and Saleen inside the tent.


    ¡°He will be in charge of refining your weapon.¡± Saleen pointed to Aini.


    Aini rolled his eyes, but did not refuse since he could lend a hand in this matter. In future battles, the three kings might not be able to protect everybody. With a powerful grand swordmaster like J around, any mage could have peace of mind and cast their spells, and a huge amount of magic chords could be conserved too.


    There would be less pressure on him if Saleen¡¯s offensive abilities increased.


    ¡°I need a sword which is as light as possible.¡± J did not stand by ceremony with Saleen. Since Aini was also a grade-5 mage, J did not despise Aini. Furthermore, Aini was a rare death mage. A weapon refined by a death mage was indeed verypatible with his sheath.


    ¡°Let me take a look at your sheath.¡± Aini looked stern when he spoke to J. He would only smile if he was in a conversation with Saleen.


    J was not angry either. He felt that one needed to have such a temperament in order to be considered as a death mage.


    Saleen did not care about how Aini would handle J¡¯s weapon. He simply released the water mes before taking out the special materials which he had umted. Then, he started refining weapons for the four magic beast swordsmen.


    These four magic beast swordsmen were extremely proficient. It was not without rhyme nor reason that they had been thest ones standing after so many people had tried to kill J. Also, the four of them had managed to achieve a breakthrough in the pursuit of J. In some sense, they were somewhat geniuses. Most people would lose many of their abilities in the face of danger, and only a very tiny group of them would gain new powers during such a phase.


    These people would ultimately be the experts of their time so long as they lived long enough.


    Back in the temple of Myers, Saleen had obtained a huge quantity of gems and some special metals. After the robbery of the Dragon Tooth Town, Saleen had again umted some metals. He now had enough materials to craft equipment for a brigade of soldiers.


    For some metals, Saleen simply soaked them in the dragon¡¯s blood. By now, the dragon¡¯s blood had already dried up and a portion of a mysterious substance had seeped into the metals,pletely changing the attributes of the metals. Even Saleen did not know what to call this kind of magic-infused metal.


    Saleenid all these precious materials in front of him, like a market hawker positioning his dishes, selecting them meticulously. J could not pull his eyes away from this scene. People who learned swordsmanship had some knowledge of metals. J had an interest in metals and was proficient in smelting. But even though the Cloudflow Empire was flourishing and had gathered the best mages across the empire, J had not seen so many precious materials in a person¡¯s possession before.


    The fallenstar was used to refine the de. Blue water mes quickly spread and melted this metal, causing a structure which resembled a machete to levitate in midair. The first de was two meters long, not having a wide arc and having a slender body. Because of the weight of the materials used, the shing ability of this de was not any less than that of a square axe. Saleen set a magic array on the interior of the de, allowing the fallenstar to absorb the sword aura, thus decreasing the weight of the de.


    Other mages would have to use the energy from a magic nucleus to stimte the magic array. However, Saleen had studied the attributes of the sword aura in the past and was familiar with the power of life from the Myers Goddess. As a result, energy from a magic nucleus was not required since the sword aura in the swordsman could be directly utilized.


    This might have taken a toll on the depletion of the sword aura, but it brought massive benefits for the swordsman. A swordsman would grow to rely on a normal magic weapon after using it for a long time, lowering the progress of his sword aura. His offensive ability might be boosted, but he would lose more than what he would gain in the long run.

 Chapter 338: Jola’s Tears (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 338: J¡¯s Tears (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was calcting furiously in his mind. At this moment, he was not just thinking about the weapons for the magic beast swordsmen, but he was also designing weapons for Sika, Nailisi, and the others.


    Aini stared at J¡¯s sheath for a long time, but did not make any moves.


    ¡°This¡­ Sir Aini.¡± J¡¯s grade was already akin to a sorcerer in the realm of mages, but he did not dare act rashly in front of a death mage. In the eyes of normal people, a death mage was much more powerful than an elemental mage, and they also had many unimaginable skills. J had dared to challenge a mage, but he did not dare provoke a death mage.


    At most, one would only die if they were defeated by an elemental mage. But if a death mage was angered, one could be transformed into a spirit. Even though such an action was insignificant to a death mage, it was an eternal torture which no one would want to experience.


    ¡°This sheath is not suitable for you.¡± Aini finally opened his mouth.


    ¡°I know, but¡­¡±


    ¡°The energy within is overwhelmed with negative emotions, and you are a person who is innately positive. That¡¯s why you haven¡¯t been trying to advance your grade. After advancement, this weapon will be even more unsuitable for you.¡±


    J was aghast. He had not expected a mage to be able to deduce so many facts from just a weapon.


    ¡°Actually, this situation is not entirely unsalvageable.¡±


    ¡°What is the solution?¡± J waspletely entranced by Aini¡¯s demeanor. Aini looked at the sheath with a great deal of concentration, engrossed.


    Aini lifted his eyelids and nced at J. With his mind still on the sheath, he said, ¡°Do you dare to trust me?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to be afraid of?¡± J shrugged his shoulders, looking nonchnt.


    ¡°Very well, we shall begin now.¡± As Aini spoke, he spit out the death mes from his mouth, then added materials which had been provided by Saleen into the death mes. Aini did not split the materials into any specific proportions, and the materials quickly formed the shape of a de within the death mes. The shape of the de was transforming continuously, with its final shape fitting J¡¯s sheath perfectly.


    This de was different from what Saleen was creating for the magic beast swordsmen. The de which Aini made was entirely metal, and there was not even a spot for the wooden grip. The green death mes gave off a frigid air as they expanded in size, before finally engulfing J. J¡¯s fingers trembled slightly, but he did not put up any resistance.


    J had chosen to trust Saleen, not Aini. Had Saleen wanted to deal with him, Saleen could have easily trampled him after freezing him, not to mention turning him into a death creature. At that point in time, J had no way of resisting.


    Furthermore, the temptation from Aini was too overwhelming. J did not want to abandon the sheath, but if he used this sheath to make a weapon, his swordsmanship training would be affected.


    The death mes fully enveloped J. They were cooling, unlike the pain which he expected.


    The de, which was in front of Aini, quivered in midair before sliding into that simple sheath, giving off a crisp sound. J¡¯s heart was also chilled. J ced his hand on the de and pulled it out from the sheath, then noticed that there were more than forty marks on the de.


    Those marks represented the origin of his swordsmanship and the secrets inside his heart.


    The de remained soft as mud, with its shape fluctuating continuously. J held onto the de in a daze, as he recalled his childhood.


    The first half of his childhood had been filled with jubnce. His father had been a powerful grand swordmaster who served a duke. From a tender age, J had already lived in a wealthy environment. Also, he had matured at a young age. By the time J had learned to walk, he had already learned how to wield a sword.


    This continued until one day, the duke¡¯s sessor was killed after provoking a mage. J¡¯s father was severely berated because he failed to protect the sessor. Thereafter, J¡¯s father fell into a ploy and was killed.


    J clearly remembered that his father still had enough power to retaliate after consuming the poisoned wine, but his father simply clutched onto the sword without pulling it out. His father¡¯s powers had diffused into the sheath. Those marks, more than forty of them, were the essence of his father¡¯s swordsmanship.


    The furious duke tore his father¡¯s body into pieces and threw the sword into ake. Young J went into hiding and managed to avoid being captured. Later on, he went to the bottom of theke to retrieve his father¡¯s sword, but realized that the sword had disintegrated, leaving behind only a sheath which was brimming with grief and indignation.


    This world was unfair. As the duke did not dare to trifle with the mage, he had vented his fury on J¡¯s father.


    J thus began his life on the run, and his days were extremely tough. Back then, he was but eight years old. J worked as a mercenary, a bandit, a bodyguard, and a hitman. He had also made a living in a casino before, until he met his swordsmanship teacher.


    J had not intended to recall all these memories from his past. But at this moment, as he was engulfed within Aini¡¯s death mes, all these memories came flooding back in a clear and picturesque manner.


    ¡°I just want to¡­ live happily, Father¡­¡±


    J held onto the de as tears ran down his cheeks uncontrobly, hitting the de. The pure tears were vaporized and permeated the de.


    ¡°Then, go ahead and live happily.¡± Aini took the de from J¡¯s hand. Those marks had faded away, forming strange magic patterns which spread throughout the de.


    A few drops of tears were already enough to make the de solidify.


    This longsword was white like snow, with hints of crystal. Between those mesmerizing magic patterns, there were lines which resembled streaks of tears. These streaks followed the ridge of the sword, flowing all the way to the tip of the sword.


    ¡°Done.¡± Aini¡¯s voice caused J to snap out of his trance, then J wiped away the tears at the corner of his eyes.


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°There are still some more things which need to bepleted by Saleen, I am not suited to do it.¡± Aini ced the longsword on the ground. On the handguard of this longsword were unique death patterns.


    ¡°J, quickly thank Mage Aini.¡± Saleen stopped his own refinement process and spoke.


    J was doubtful and fuming. He did not know what the death mage had done to evoke those memories which he did not want to recall. J felt very embarrassed that he had cried in front of two other men.


    ¡°This is heart alchemy, which is very taxing. The de symbolizes the past while the hilt symbolizes the present. You have to grip the present so that you won¡¯t be haunted by your past, and use the sword to seize the future.¡±


    Saleen recited these words from a magic book, but they were very representative of J at this moment.


    J was astonished. On the surface, he might have been happy-go-lucky, but he had actually not forgotten his past. Even if he went to assassinate that duke right now, he would still be unable to shake off that childhood trauma.


    What¡¯s the point of being loyal? In the end, what did Father get in return? He never understood why his father had not bothered retaliating. Father should have tried to perish together with other people since he knew that he was going to die anyway.


    Later on, J understood why. After his father¡¯s death, the duke had not tried to locate him. Had his father killed the duke, the duke¡¯s family would have used all their means to search for him, in order to exterminate his bloodline.


    Perhaps the duke was regretful. He regretted killing a loyal subordinate, but he would never get back his son.


    ¡°Sir Aini, thank you so much.¡± J stood upright. Even in front of Emperor Jupiter, he had never been so well-behaved before.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to thank me, Saleen asked me to do it. I just tried to make it perfect for you,¡± Aini answered weakly. Earlier on, he had used the shortest amount of time to refine the weapon which he was proudest of, and that process had exhausted nearly all of his strength.


    ¡°I need to rest. You need to protect these two. Take this sword.¡± Aini handed the sword over the J.


    ¡°Sir Aini, please bestow a name on this sword.¡±


    ¡°Is that the practice in Cloudflow?¡± Aini¡¯s voice was cold, the corner of his mouth twitching. After pondering for a moment, he said, ¡°Let¡¯s call it Tears then. It doesn¡¯t mean that a man is strong if he never cries.¡±


    ¡°Of course, as you wish.¡±


    Aini waved his hand and walked to the corner of the tent. Then, he opened a sleeping bag and snuggled in.


    ¡°J, the hilt still needs more refinement. I will need more time for this and will do it after we return.¡± After Saleen finished talking, he turned away and continued refining the weapons for the four magic beast swordsmen.


    J ced Tears back into the sheath and embraced it. Tears was like his blood. J was even aware of those magic patterns inside it.


    Most importantly, the magic patterns and the marks left behind by his father were congruent. From this moment on, whenever he employed his family¡¯s swordsmanship, he would no longer be affected by the grief and despair found within the sheath. All these emotions would be carried by Tears. This was a genuine magic weapon which could apany J for the rest of his life.


    Saleen did not suffer as much as Aini during the refining process. For every machete he refined, Saleen would meditate once, regaining his magic chords and mental strength. Before daybreak, the four machetes had beenpleted. Saleen took out the bloodcherry wood and smelted it into the hilt, fusing them into one.


    In Saleen¡¯s eyes, these four machetes were still very crude, inferiorpared to the club which Faerun had refined for Sika. Based on the materials used, the two weapons were already iparable. However, Saleen had spent too little time on them and had not set more magic arrays inside the machetes. He had simply used premium materials to make the machetes razor-sharp.


    There was still much room for improvement in these four machetes. Once Saleen understood the ins and outs of the magic beast swordsmen, he would alter the weapons once more to fit them perfectly.


    Aini was snuggled in the sleeping bag, but he was not sleeping. Even though he had consumed a huge amount of his mental strength this time around, he had also gained a lot. This round of utilizing heart alchemy might have caused Aini¡¯s mental strength to be greatly depleted, but it had actually be purer.


    At the same time, Aini¡¯s heart had been cleansed in the process. Within that sheath, Aini felt a father¡¯s love, causing him to miss his parents dearly. Aini might have been callous, but he was not cold-blooded. However, he had never appreciated the things his parents had done for him in the past.


    This time around, Aini finally understood. He decided that the moment he returned to the city base, he would bring his parents over. If the family did not ede, Aini would turn hostile. With Saleen around, Aini would be able to aplish many things which had seemed insurmountable in the past.


    The chatter outside the tent grew increasingly louder. Under the coercion by Saleen, the pirates woke up early and washed up, now mindful of their personal hygiene. The four magic beast swordsmen hade over early in the morning and waited outside of the tent.


    Saleen retracted his water mes and sighed secretly as he reviewed the machetes repeatedly. He had spent too little time learning alchemy. The materials of these four weapons were adequate for producing divine weapons. Yet, in his hands, he had only managed to produce four high-grade magic weapons.


    Even with such an achievement, Saleen felt embarrassed signing his name on the weapons!

 Chapter 339: Snowmen (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 339: Snowmen (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Vinz, Singiles, L, Gos, these are your weapons.¡± Saleen summoned the four magic beast swordsmen. In his mind, Saleen felt that in order to help the four men unleash their true offensive power, he needed to search for four magic beasts who were at a higher grade, and the magic beasts needed to at least be as powerful as the kol beast.


    ¡°Sir, should we rest for one more day?¡± Vinz was the undered leader of the magic beast swordsmen. He was worried that Saleen might have expended too much energy during the refinement process.


    ¡°No need, we will keep walking forward. There is a narrow crevice up ahead. If the ck mages have set a trap there, then we will have no choice but to make a detour of a few hundred miles.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡±


    ¡°I am fine. Aini, are you able to get up?¡±


    Aini, who was in the corner, yawned and stretchedzily before crawling out from the sleeping bag and saying, ¡°I can¡¯t sleep with all that noise. You can go ahead first. I¡¯ll be fine.¡±


    ¡°In that case, I will let the soldiers familiarize themselves with their weapons first. We will set off two hours after breakfast.¡± Saleen energetically blessed everyone with a Cleaning spell. Seeing that, the four magic beast swordsmen then had peace of mind. In the imperial pce of Cloudflow, the magic beast swordsmen did not have the right to do battle with a mage, so they had scant knowledge of mages.


    In Daniel¡¯s death mes, the three kings roughly knew what was going on outside.


    ¡°Judikaka, Saleen seems to be in trouble.¡± Diyabannersa was easily unnerved. For the past tens of thousands of years, that constant influence by the scepter had caused his character to changepletely.


    Judikaka replied calmly, ¡°It¡¯s fine. Even though I have never heard of the ck mages, they seem to be a bunch of people who were abandoned by their god. All those things like the ck puppets aren¡¯t even strong. One spell from us will already eliminate hundreds or even thousands of them.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I handle those guys? Otherwise, Saleen will want to take a break on the spot. It¡¯s so troublesome.¡± Banchajanna had changed his tone, bing a little simr to Diyabannersa. Banchajanna¡¯s next move was always unpredictable. To his enemies, that was a terrible thing, and to hispanions, it was equally as terrible.


    ¡°Ignore him. On this trip thus far, have you realized the humans are very much weaker than we expected? Do you all remember when thest time we saw humans was?¡±


    ¡°Was it nine thousand years ago?¡± Banchajanna was not too sure. To the spirit kings, time was not significant. Even if they could not break free from the scepter¡¯s control, they could still live for hundreds of thousands of years.


    ¡°In less than ten thousand years, the humans have already fallen to such a state. Even the ck mages can wreak havoc. We might not have to rely on Saleen in the future. Let¡¯s disregard his enemies for now. If we can look for a better partner, we will abandon him after this task.¡± Judikaka¡¯s soul mes flickered violently.


    If all humans are so weak, it will be a good idea to stay on this ne in the long-term. Now, he somewhat understood why the abyssal ne had tried to invade the death dimension. Even though the death dimension was horrible, it was a lot morefortable than the abyssal ne. To the spirits, the Myers Maind was like paradise.


    If a coordinate was properly constructed, spirits would be able to tap into a limitless supply of power from the death dimension for training purposes. And the power of life on this ne could be converted into strength for the spirits.


    If a huge poption of spirits were shifted to the maind, many of them would make a grade advancement, and many more kings would emerge. In less than ten thousand years, the entirety of the maind would be transformed into a second death dimension.


    It was truly a tempting notion. But the condition was that the three kings had to be demigods first, in order to avoid being attacked by the gods on this ne.


    By breaking free from the scepter¡¯s control, one would be able to be a demigod in the ne. Coupled with another million years of hard work, one would be able to transform into a real god.


    Judikaka cracked up inughter. Shann had left behind many riches for them, but the most important fortune of them all was the knowledge on how to be a god.


    It might have been slightly more difficult for a spirit to be a god, but they had an advantage which no other creature possessed. A spirit did not need to train its body. As long as the soul mes were fused with divinity, the spirit would turn into a demigod. Human souls were not developed with time, so humans would have to spend some time in this aspect, and they needed to have a person to guide them along too.


    Saleen¡¯s team spent two hours resting and checking their weapons before embarking on the journey. As they had the skeletal warhorses, they could spend more time on these minute details. Otherwise, given the quality of the pirates, marching them would be a troublesome task.


    In the beginning, Saleen had used Lex¡¯s technique tomand the pirates, but he quickly realized that the pirates were not Lex¡¯s swordsmen and could not obey every singlemand. When Lexmanded her swordsmen¡¯s camp, it was as agile as her own limbs. However, for the pirates, Saleen felt that controlling them was even more challenging than using prosthetic limbs.


    Currently, Saleen had altered the way hemanded the pirates. Anyway, there was only a small group of pirates, so Saleen decided that he would employ magic to transmit his message directly to their ears. Even though this method was more troublesome, it could at least guarantee that the pirates would not misinterpret themand.


    The scouts pioneered the journey, and they had already reached the crevice zone which Saleen had mentioned. This crevice was spacious. At the very least, Saleen¡¯s team, which had more than one hundred people, could pass through safely.


    The five scouts rode on the skeletal warhorses and traveled through the over two mile long crevice zone. Two of them stopped to stay on alert, while the other three charged back into the crevice. They did not know the meaning of such an action, but Saleen had instructed them to do so.


    Woo woo¡­


    As a strong wind blew, a strangely shaped bulge in the snowy ground became taller and taller, as though there was something concealed within the snow. The two scouts immediately discovered this abnormality.


    One of the scouts raised hisnce and urged the skeletal warhorse to move forward, before stabbing thence into the ground.


    Zhi¡­


    A piercing scream filled the air. The bulge in the snowy ground quickly transformed into a snowman. The snowman twisted its body as it tried to punch the scout.


    That was the first time this scout had witnessed such a scene, causing hisnce to tremble from fear. Not only was the tip of thence serrated, but it also contained magic patterns drawn by Saleen. Within the magic patterns, Saleen had concealed holy prose from the Myers Goddess. When thence trembled, a tiny amount of the power of life was released, and part of it was even contributed by that pirate scout.


    Any healthy person would be able to withstand this bit of depletion. However, that snowman could not. It was already a soul which should have dispersed a long time ago, yet it was captured by a ck mage and then transformed into a ck puppet.


    A loud bang came from the snowman¡¯s body, as if something had broken, and dark violet blood began spurting out from its body. As the scout¡¯snce was too long, the blood could not reach his body.


    Woo¡­


    Strong gusts of wind kept blowing. Something in the core of the snowman had been punctured by thence. The snowman could no longer maintain its shape, and it was felled by the frigid wind and broke down into snow. The dark violet blood on the snow was quickly frozen. Only a tiny bit of flesh continued twisting about.


    Ou¡­


    The scout was utterly disgusted. He had killed someone before, but the thing in front of him at this moment was not human at all. It actually resembled a certain human organ. His partner was stronger. When he saw such a sight, he bellowed from the top of a skeletal warhorse, ¡°There is indeed an ambush. We need to get back as soon as possible and report to Sir Saleen.¡±


    The nauseated scout waved his hand as he threw up his breakfast, then said, ¡°This is a sentry, not an ambush.¡±


    His partner was jolted. Had it been an ambush, the two of them would have been dead by now. The snowman left no traces in the snowy ground. Warriors at their grade could not detect the snowmen at all.


    However, these ck puppets were at too low of a grade, and their offensive powers were quite weak. When the scouts realized this, they urged their horses to stomp at the snowy ground. Very soon, another two ck puppets were discovered, and were duly killed by theirnces.


    ¡°Damn, these things are too creepy. Luckily, Sir refined our weapons for us.¡±


    At this point in time, the pirate scouts then understood why Saleen had taken all their weapons and returned them a few hourster with major transformations. It was because the transformed weapons were very effective against ck puppets. The two scouts became emboldened, they surveyed another three miles ahead before retreating.


    Without any heavy weapons sealing the crevice, it would be impossible to obstruct the skeletal warhorse convoy with just the ck puppets alone. Saleen¡¯s mission for the scouts had been straightforward ¨C to search for everyst dangerous heavy weapon.


    Take, for example, the magic trebuchet. This weapon could toss a rock weighing more than ten thousand kilograms. No matter how powerful a person was, he would still be killed if he was hit by such a rock. The crevice zone might have been able to fit dozens of horses at one time, but it was still very dangerous if there were any heavy weapons present.


    Very soon, Saleen¡¯s team entered from the other end of the crevice and travelled through more than two miles of the dangerous road before arriving at a second in. The scouts, who were conducting reconnaissance, then rejoined the convoy. The scouts who discovered the ck puppets proceeded to report their findings.


    Saleen briefly checked theirnces. For portability, theirnces were slightly shorter than the rest of the pirates. Bloodstains were spotted at the tip of thences, but those magic patterns which had been refined at thest minute were not damaged. This meant that this crude weapon could effectively take out ck puppets.


    These ck puppets were almost as powerful as those scarecrows in the previous incident. Without a custom weapon, the ck puppets would be a nuisance. But with a magic weapon, as long as they were low-grade, the ck puppets could also be easily destroyed.


    However, given the pirates¡¯ current offensive ability, they would be obliterated in the face of the headless riders.


    ¡°Daniel, if headless riders appear,mand the pikoosi to attack them. If the evil dragons appear, Aini and I will take care of them,¡± Saleen briefly instructed, then he allowed his team to slow down and get closer together.


    Since those ck puppets appeared as snowmen, soldiers who broke away from the main body could easily be assassinated. Saleen was d that he had decided to refine the pirates¡¯ weapons one more time, or else he would have had to expend arge quantity of scrolls against the ck puppets already. He could not possibly use his magic chords to battle with the ck puppets.


    Aini was feeling vexed. Even though a death mage was the nemesis of a ck mage, it did not mean that he loved fighting with ck mages. For every ck puppet produced, at least one soul had to be contributed. Once a death mage killed someone, they loved sending the soul to the death dimension and rarely dissipated the soul. A death mage and an elemental mage were the same. They loved achieving bnce.


    A ck mage was different. Once they destroyed something, it meant that it would be destroyed for good.


    But, if a death mage were to kill a ck puppet, it would be difficult to conserve the soul which had been used to produce the ck puppet. This situation was akin to two warring states. On one hand, one country would force its citizens to attack the other country. Hence, the defending party would have no choice but to kill those citizens, but it would feel extremely depressed doing so.

 Chapter 340: Snowmen (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 340: Snowmen (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Prepare for battle.¡± Saleen was expressionless as he instructed the pirates to check their weapons one more time and load the steel crossbows with arrows. Since the time spent on refining the weapons had been reduced so much, the steel crossbows would not be too effective against puppets at the grade of a headless rider. Also, there were too many regr puppets, so they were not really effective.


    The pirates did not know what the ck puppets were capable of, only having heard the report by the scouts. After knowing that four ck puppets were easily eliminated by the two scouts, the pirates became less jittery.


    The pirates, more than one hundred of them, affixed a pole onto theirnces, extending them. As the pirates advanced forward across the snowy ground, they resembled the riders who were present one thousand years ago. Even though the pirates had been transformed, they still had savage appearances. A person would know that they were not kind souls at a nce.


    From Saleen¡¯s current location, there was still a distance of more than five hundred miles to his destination, the relic of the Second Dynasty which was situated at the central region of the Chaotic Swamp. Traveling at this speed, Saleen would require at least two days to arrive.


    Saleen could not go any faster. Since the pirates were not of a high grade, rapid marches would greatly impact their offensive ability. Daniel decided that he would simply ride on the pikoosi, instead of a skeletal warhorse.


    In the Chaotic Swamp, the sky was always overcast, so the reflection off the snowy ground was not blinding. Since there were no hills, one would enjoy a very wide field of vision. This time around, the pirate scouts no longer advanced dozens of miles ahead. They trekked ahead cautiously within the range of Saleen¡¯s icy sight.


    After almost a one-hundred-mile journey to the west, a hill appeared up ahead. Saleen then ordered the team to stop and consume their meals.


    This location was unlike that in the south. The climate was freezing, and even for a simple lunch, one would have to set up a simple camp and ignite a bonfire. If the bread and dried meat brought along by the pirates were not warmed, they could not even swallow the food. At such a time , the pirates did not dare to drink alcohol either. They boiled water using the bonfire before putting tea leaves into the metal pot, cooking some turbid tea.


    The tea leaves were special produce from the south. The pirates were used to drinking tea, but since the premium tea leaves were too expensive, they could only drink inferior dregs. For people who lived at sea for long durations, those who did not drink tea were the ones who fell ill.


    In the hills, on a slope which measured over one hundred meters in height, was an abnormally thickyer of snow. The moment a bonfire lit up in the distance, an unknown being immediately started fidgeting under the snow.


    The scouts, who did not rest at all, quickly discovered this anomaly. They immediately took out a small g and began waving it into the distance. The pirates were well-versed in gnguage, and someone went to report to Saleen immediately.


    ¡°Hm? Get the people from Group 1 to Group 5 to carry out the construction work. We will wait here.¡± Saleen was reluctant to engage in battle with the ck puppets in the hilly region. At his current location, the terrain was t. Even if his team was weaker, the skeletal warhorses would be able to run faster than the ck puppets, and even a headless rider would not be able to catch up. If Saleen and his team entered the hilly region, the skeletal warhorses would already have less advantages.


    The pirates who were busy cooking the food immediately split up and got to work. The so-called ¡°construction work¡± was in fact using the snow to build a temporary fortress. This was no big deal to a mage. When snow came under high pressure, it would be transformed immediately into ice, and when the ice waspressed by magic, its degree of toughness would be close to that of steel. If the extent of thepression exceeded a critical point, the ice would be converted into ck ice, which was a material stronger than most metals.


    Saleen was not at that level yet, but he could construct a temporary fortress which was tougher than a brick castle. After all, he only had slightly more than a hundred men and another hundred or so skeletal warhorses, thus not much space was required.


    The pirates took metal shovels from Saleen, then immediately went to build a battle fortification using the snow.


    The three kings decided to observe the current offensive powers of humans. They hid inside Daniel¡¯s death mes, unwilling to render any help. Danielmanded the pikoosi to help the pirates trample a solid foundation into the snowy ground.


    Before long, a snow castle measuring two hundred meters in length and width was constructed. This miniature castle had walls which were about five meters thick. Saleen began casting magic in phases, condensing the tough snow into ice. The pirates dug out soil from under the snow, then mixed it with the wood ashes produced from the bonfire. Then, theyid the final product on the ground. Immediately, the ground was no longer slippery, and humans could walk on it.


    The outer walls of the snow castle were as smooth as a mirror. Saleen released restorative water onto the exterior of the outer walls, freezing it. If the ck puppets came into contact with such a wall, they would sustain serious damage.


    Saleen¡¯s restorative water had a shelf life of about two months. With such a protracted effective period, the restorative water would be able tost until the end of the battle.


    Aini kept himself busy too, refining metallic arrows inside his own tent. This time around, he used a traditional method. He used his family¡¯s alchemy models to help the pirates transform the arrowheads which were used with the steel crossbows. At the moment, he was already a grade-5 mage who possessed sufficient mental strength. The mistakes that he had made in the beginning would not happen again. Furthermore, the pirates had not brought along many arrows, of which one-third of them had been refined already, so Aini would not be in a rush.


    In the sky, a double-headed eagle approached from a distance. The ck mages had discovered Saleen¡¯s team. They were now getting impatient and wanted to take a closer look, but Saleen would never let their wishe true.


    The double-headed eagle flew at an altitude of almost eight hundred meters, and Saleen¡¯s magic did not have such a range yet. Saleen stealthily summoned J over, then asked, ¡°Can you shoot a crossbow urately?¡±


    ¡°Very urately, provided it is an alchemical crossbow.¡±


    ¡°Do you know how to operate an alchemical crossbow fitted with a pair of alchemical binocrs?¡±


    ¡°Alchemical binocrs? Those are good items, Sir. Can you give a pair to me?¡±


    ¡°What do you want them for?¡±


    ¡°To peep at those beautifuldies showering, of course!¡± J seemed like he had forgotten about yesterday¡¯s heartache, reverting to his usual self. Saleen very much wanted to give him a hard kick. A pair of alchemical binocrs was created with much difficulty. High-grade crystals were required, and a mage needed to meticulously craft them with magic. A pair of binocrs produced by a normal smith would have visual deviation, which would be unsuitable to be fitted on a weapon.


    ¡°I want you to shoot that thing out of the sky.¡± Saleen did not continue on the same topic as J. If J did well, he would gift him a pair of alchemical binocrs. Anyway, if J fell in love with any of Saleen¡¯s femalepanions, the consequences would be grave. Be it Nailisi, Sika, or Lex, any one of them would definitely teach J a lesson he would remember dearly.


    An alchemical crossbow fitted with a pair of alchemical binocrs was alsomonly known as a sniper crossbow, a device whose production was strictly forbidden in all four empires. None of the arms dealer dared to sell them. The nobles were afraid for their insignificant lives. This device allowed a normal person to possess the lethality of a mage, and he would be able to kill any professional below grade-7 from a distance of about one mile.


    Unless the target possessed an abnormal mental strength like what Saleen and Aini had, it would be hard to detect the attack.


    The alchemical binocrs containedplex magic arrays which could lock onto the target, allowing the user to take aim easily. It was a device the nobles were extremely fearful of.


    But, Saleen could not care less. Lex would never object to him producing a weapon like that, and Saleen had only made one of them in secret. If news of this device was circted, many innocent people would die.


    J epted the alchemical crossbow from Saleen. This alchemical crossbow was almost one meter wide, but it did not have a stand. The user would have to rely on his physical strength to wield it. J easily fiddled with the alchemical crossbow. He turned the wheel and loaded the arrow, before adjusting the alchemical binocrs.


    The arrow was a premium product. The arrowhead was filled with intricate magic patterns, giving off a dark gold hue. After the wheel was turned, the magic array on the alchemical crossbow was stimted at the same time, and six magic nuclei glowed weakly as the energy within them was swiftly depleted.


    J did not dare waste time. He raised his arms, aiming the alchemical crossbow at the double-headed eagle flying through the sky. Through the binocrs, the eagle¡¯s strange red eyes could clearly be identified.


    J¡¯s arms were as stable as a mountain. There was not even a slight quiver. As he pressed on the button above the magic array, those six pieces of level-3 magic nuclei dimmed immediately, and a blinding ray of light lit up in front of the alchemical crossbow.


    That was a true alchemical crossbow. The arrow possessed the power of level-2 magic and the powerful impact from a physical attack at the same time.


    This single attack had depleted all six level-3 magic nuclei. On the battlefield, such a weapon was inevitably pointless, as almost one thousand gold coins had to be spent in order to take out a single target. Unless the motive was to assassinate the enemy¡¯smander, one would lose more than what he would gain.


    Saleen knew that the production of a double-headed eagle was very challenging, so he was willing to part with so much money to exterminate those eyes in the sky.


    In midair, the alchemical arrow produced purple mes, but there was no sound of it piercing through the air. In a sh, the arrow hade before the double-headed eagle¡¯s eyes. The ck mage who was controlling the double-headed eagle could not even react in time.


    J¡¯s movements were too swift. He simply raised his arms andunched the alchemical arrow.


    A tough arrowbined with level-2 magic might not have been the most powerful attack, but the speed at which this arrow travelled had exceeded that of mid-level magic. It was simply too swift. Unless the ck mage had noticed J aiming, he could only depend on his mental strength for detection.


    Boom!


    More mes shot out from those intricate magic patterns, as the shaft of the arrow prated deeply into the eagle¡¯s abdomen. J had not aimed specifically at its head or neck. Firstly, to a puppet, those regions might not be fatal. Secondly, a double-headed eagle, as the name suggested, had two heads. One arrow could not possibly hit two targets at the same time.


    To be able to take aim instantly from a distance of eight hundred meters and strike the double-headed eagle¡¯s abdomen precisely, J¡¯s archery could already be considered the best. In the beginning, J had trained hard in swordsmanship because he had wanted to assassinate that duke. Even in the Cloudflow pce, no one had known that his archery was as proficient as his swordsmanship.


    Within a range of two hundred meters, J did not need any help from alchemical binocrs to be able to urately strike insects the size of a thumb.


    Purple mes burst out of the seven openings in the double-headed eagle at the same time. The magic on the alchemical arrow had been activated, destroying the nucleus of this puppet in that instant. A ball of ck fog was emitted, and in the blink of an eye, it was incinerated by those purple mes. Nothing was left behind.


    ¡°Aye, there goes a bunch of souls again.¡± As Saleen witnessed the double-headed eagle falling out of the sky, he sighed loudly. Producing a double-headed eagle required many souls. It could fly very fast, and even Saleen could not catch up to it. The ck mages always seeded in utilizing double-headed eagles to conduct reconnaissance missions on the enemy. It was just that this time around, they had never expected Saleen to possess a forbidden weapon, as well as have a skilled archer by his side.


    ¡°Sir, in reality, the people are already dead. Whether the souls are around or not or are destroyed or not does not matter.¡±


    J reluctantly returned the alchemical crossbow to Saleen.


    ¡°That¡¯s true. Even if those souls were present, they would still be in extreme suffering.¡± Saleen thought of the headless riders, with those skulls hanging by their warhorses. Whenever the ck mages refined souls, they would gain power by evoking pain in the souls. It was also a form of relief for the souls to be dissipatedpletely.

 Chapter 341: The Power of a Mage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 341: The Power of a Mage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In just an hour, Saleen had constructed a snow ice castle. Within those glossy outer walls of the castle were crystal magic patterns. The only w of these magic patterns was that their shelf life was too short, a little less than a month. However, Saleen would not even stay at this location for an entire month.


    If the situation got to a point of no return, he would have no choice but to leave the Chaotic Swamp. However, if the ck mages were not so powerful, then he would go all the way to the Second Dynasty relic to make sense of what was happening there.


    Anyway, the ck mages¡¯ Flying spell was not as proficient as that of elemental mages. J was right. At the very least, he could still escape.


    Before Saleen had arrived in the Chaotic Swamp, he wanted to seek out the holy masters from the Holy See. Some holy masters could really fly at insane speeds, and that posed a real threat to Saleen.


    On a hill in the distance, more and more snowmen emerged from the snowy ground. These snowmen had the shape of an adult man with distinct human features, being very lifelike. The more a snowman resembled a human, the more agile its actions were, and the faster its speed. In an hour, tens of thousands of snowmen had congregated in the hilly region. Those snowmen who were of a higher grade had already begun paying attention to the pirates building the fortification.


    The snowmen did not wield any weapons, but had razor-sharp fingernails which were formed from ice crystals. Unlike the scarecrows previously, most of the snowmen had a pair of lifelike eyes, and their eyeballs could even rotate.


    In the wilderness far ahead, the galloping of horses could be clearly heard. A cavalry regiment with more than four hundred riders had appeared on the snowy ground. The headless riders had finally appeared on the northern side of the snow ice castle. After the double-headed eagle was killed, the ck mages were appalled and enraged, and they had decided to deploy over four hundred headless riders in one go.


    Luckily, the snow ice fortification had been built!


    Seeing the headless riders in the far distance ahead, Saleen felt a chill in his heart. With the three kings around, he would not die, and he could also fly. However, those pirates around him might not be able to escape death.


    At the start, the pirates had not cared. But after the snowmen had finished congregating on the hills and the headless riders had appeared in their field of view, most of the pirates became paler than the snowy ground.


    The head of a rider was hung beside the headless rider¡¯s warhorse, with its face contorted in extreme pain and suffering. Within the head, a piercing sound was produced, as though it originated from a sealed container.


    A headless rider was suffering in pain every minute it existed. And this pain stimted the power of the headless rider. Even if the rider had been a normal swordsmen when he was alive, he would be as powerful as a swordmaster after being refined into a headless rider.


    Woo¡­


    A whimper was produced from the necks of the headless riders, and the more than four hundred riders began charging towards the snow ice castle, waving various kinds of weapons which sent chills down a person¡¯s spine.


    The headless riders at the front wielded giant poleaxes and meteor hammers. Such weapons were only given to the strongmen in the army for them to wreck the defenses of a city.


    ¡°Steel crossbows, get ready!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was unusually icy, causing the pirates to be tinged with fear. These desperados immediately woke up, as there was no use being afraid. Back at sea, everyone had also been putting their lives on the line in order to make a living. Those monsters up ahead would never be more intimidating than a mage. Recalling that there were three grand mages with them, the pirates regained their zeal.


    J and the four magic beast swordsmen rushed to protect Saleen and Aini, while Daniel used the pikoosi to block the gates which had been left open. The snow ice castle¡¯s area was too small, and it could not be defended in the long run. Once the strength of the enemy was diminished to a certain level, the team would have to quickly change their position.


    The headless riders travelled at an astounding speed, and their charging speeds were faster than most human cavalry. They had begun increasing their speed a mile away, and by the time they approached the snow ice castle, their speed was already at least sixty miles an hour. The warhorses of the headless riders were also dead, so it did not matter if they rammed into something at high speed. As those over four hundred headless riders charged over, they seemed unstoppable, just like those magic chariots in ancient times.


    Om, om¡­


    The chains of the meteor hammers gave out a rattling noise as they cut through the air, and the end of the hammers created a dark illusion. Over forty pirates were situated at the northern face of the snow ice castle, and they aligned the steel crossbows in a dense formation as they took aim at the charging headless riders.


    The walls of the snow ice castle were only four meters tall, and even though the pirates were standing on them, they did not really enjoy a high vantage point. The arrows were shot at almost zero gradient, hitting dozens of headless riders in a sparse manner.


    After sharpening, the alchemical arrows with a tearing effect prated the armor of the headless riders, tearing huge cavities in the bodies of the headless riders. Had the targets been human, they would not have been able to continue fighting no matter how strong they were. However, the headless riders simply produced some muffled whistles from their necks, then acted in a coordinated fashion and altered their cavalry formation. The injured riders went to the front to receive more arrows.


    Such a warring technique did not exist in human armies. In a human army, the wounded would retreat to receive treatment from a mage or a holy master. There were no soldiers as ferocious as these headless riders, who could continue battling even though they had been pierced by alchemical arrows.


    The pirates clenched their teeth and wielded theirnces. The city wall was too short, so the headless riders could simply toss their weapons at the pirates. As long as that giant meteor hammer came smashing down, any human d in armor would also be smashed into pulp. The pirates wore thin metallicposite armor with cotton shirts inside. Their actions might have been more agile wearing that, but their defensive ability was also greatly reduced.


    Saleen stood on top of the wall cidly. To his left were tens of thousands of snowmen who were making their way here slowly, and in less than a dozen minutes, they would epass the snow ice castle. To his right were the headless riders who were only two hundred meters away, and those human heads beside the saddle were clearly visible.


    The steel crossbows belonging to the pirates yielded no results, causing their morale to fall sharply. The pirates did not know that the headless riders did not have many weaknesses. As their steel crossbows were not those expensive alchemical ones, they brought little harm to the puppets. There would have been an obvious result if the target was a low grade being like the ck puppets.


    If the rider¡¯s head was destroyed, the headless rider would be damaged more extensively. It was a pity the pirates¡¯ archery was not as proficient as J¡¯s. Also, their steel crossbows were unlike the alchemical crossbows. They did not have such a high degree of power and uracy.


    Looks like I have to make a stand¡­


    As Saleen sighed in his heart, he had already prepared a series of spells. After all, the headless riders were not human. The reason they could charge faster than normal cavalrymen was because they had bodies which were not fearful of being hurt by their own power. However, their travelling speed and routes were easily predictable, so Saleen could effortlessly calcte the time required for an interception with magic.


    Untransformed warriors would be very frail in the face of a mage. Back then, when Saleen was still a grade-1 mage, he could already gather the people around him to kill two headless riders. Now that he was a grade-5 mage with offensive powers boosted by more than one hundred times, he would not be afraid of a cavalry regiment which only consisted of headless riders.


    As gloomy clouds condensed in the sky above, Saleen cast the Quickcloud spell, but he did not fly. Instead, he allowed the ck clouds with a width of one hundred meters to be suspended in midair as countless icicles formed. Then, the icicles came pounding downwards at the instant when the headless riders reached Saleen.


    Boom!


    The three headless riders in the front row werepletely smashed into crushed ice by this oveid spell. Arge crater with a diameter of more than twenty meters was formed in the ground. At the bottom of this crater was the flesh of the headless riders, and something was still twisting about in that pile of flesh. If a ck mage had been present at this moment, the three headless riders would have been restored.


    But the body of a ck mage was hundreds of times weaker than that of an elemental mage, and they would not have dared appear with the headless riders. At best, they would be hiding behind the evil dragons andmanding the battle.


    At the same time, the pirates were exhrated by Saleen¡¯s spell. They simply needed a powerful captain in order to muster the courage to rob a warship. Now that Saleen had disyed his powerful offensive ability, the pirates were once again filled with vigor.


    That was the difference between the pirates and a regr army. A regr army was used to receivingmands from theirmander. As long as themander gave an order, the soldiers would execute it methodically. On the other hand, the pirates had too many emotions guiding their battles. Their emotions had a huge impact on them. With a duration of just several months, Saleen could not properly train these desperados.


    Aini stood beside Saleen without making any moves. The targeting ability of his death magic was very strong. Aini would not get skittish even if the headless riders got close to him. He also knew that he could not regain his offensive powers as quickly as Saleen. By letting Saleen take the first wave, Aini would execute the second hit, which would allow Saleen to recover swiftly, thus forming a three-round magic barrage.


    After this three-round magic barrage, their offensive powers were not really depleted. But the dashing process of those headless riders could be quickly disrupted. If the headless riders were allowed to charge before the snow ice castle, the four-meter tall wall would not be able to obstruct the jumps of the puppet warhorses, given their strength.


    That was the most fearsome aspect of a headless rider. Back then, before the atrocitiesmitted by the ck mages, many small cities had lower walls. Only after the ck mages had swept through half of the maind did the rest of the countries start to be massive in size. Even a small city like Ceylon City had walls which were dozens of meters in height.


    A normal castle would have outer walls which were at least eight meters tall. Since Saleen was in a rush, the snow ice castle only had walls which were four meters tall. They would surely fail to block the headless riders. Allowing the headless riders to jump over the wall would cause the pirates to end up in a bloodbath.


    Saleen¡¯s attacks had not ended yet. In front of him, a magic light began glittering as a colossal ice bomb condensed into a circr ball with a diameter of one and a half meters, then wasunched. The pirates cheered boisterously when they saw the externalyer of the ice bomb vaporizing. Afternding into the midst of the cavalry regiment, the ice bomb had already begun burning, causing an intense explosion to ur.


    This attack was one which Saleen was extremely familiar with. He was so familiar with it that he did not even need to deplete any mental strength to be able to control it.


    The freezing effect of water magic could effectively neutralize the attack speed of a headless rider, but without a warrior¡¯s help, the headless rider would not bepletely terminated. Hence, Saleen had cast a transformed spell which carried the effect of fire magic with it.


    The shards of the ice bomb carried mes in them as they prated the headless riders, bursting into mes in their bodies. Shrill screams spread over a great distance across the wilderness. Even a puppet would suffer excruciating pain under the burning of these magic mes.


    Following that, Saleen did not continue wasting his magic chords. Those two double release spells did not deplete a huge amount of his magic chords, but the real depletion of his magic chords would take ce behind him. More than ten thousand snowmen were standing behind awaiting Saleen¡¯s attack, and it would not take much time for them to reach him.


    Saleen pped the gourd hanging around his waist and a green water flow measuring more than six meters flew out, circling in front of him.

 Chapter 342: The Power of a Mage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 342: The Power of a Mage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini¡¯s eyes lit up when he saw Saleen release that water flow. Saleen actually has such a mysterious item! Aini did not know what the shenhe was, but he was very sure that this water flow had at least the offensive power of level-4 magic, yet it would neither consume Saleen¡¯s physical strength nor magic chords.


    Strictly speaking, Aini was not a temporal person, but a person would tend to socialize with people who were as capable as them. Had Saleen been mediocre, Aini might have chosen to leave after arriving at the city base. Now that Saleen possessed such a mysterious capability, Aini was not jealous at all, he was actually full of admiration, because now he would havepetition in the future. Aini was a conceited person who regarded himself as a genius. He felt that everyone around him wasmonce. With a friend like Saleen, he would be driven by a powerful intrinsic motivation.


    I must outdo Saleen and be a sorcerer before he does!


    Thereafter, Saleen released his water mes, and the snowkill, a spell which exceeded his grade, appeared at the same time. Before the snow ice castle, four tornadoes which were formed by snowkes twisted horizontally towards the headless riders.


    Under the effect of magic, the lightweight snowkes condensed into pieces of razor sharp tiny des, enveloping the headless riders and shing at them in a willful fashion. If this had been a group of human cavalrymen, Saleen¡¯s spell would have obliterated at least one-fifth of them. Because a tiny snowke had six sharp corners, it could sh across the rider¡¯s body rapidly. Had the snowkes been inflicted on humans, they would have lost their offensive ability in that instant due to severe hemorrhaging, and if any of their vitals were injured, they would have died immediately.


    The freezing ability of level-6 magic was also unusually horrifying. If a swordsman with a strong sword aura had poor defense, his blood would be frozen. Even though the duration of the magic effect was short-lived, it would still be fatal if blood stopped flowing for a mere thirty seconds.


    The headless riders were covered in wounds, and their metallic armor became tattered and torn. The pirates could now easily look for a point of entry into the armor. Saleen had not expected a single spell to eradicate all the headless riders. After all, this spell¡¯s consumption of his magic chords was only that of level-5 magic, and even after casting it four times, only one-tenth of Saleen¡¯s mental strength was depleted.


    In order to control a spell with incidental release, one would have to expend at least ten times the normal amount of mental strength used. Saleen was only a grade-5 mage, and this was evidence of how powerful his mental strength was.


    Standing behind the city gates, Daniel suddenly tapped on the center head of the pikoosi. The pikoosi then raised its upper body, exposing its three heads beyond the wall. The six long horns gathered a grey light, before casting three spells at the same time.


    The breath of death permeated through the team of headless riders, and wherever that grey light went, everything in its path would be decayed. This time around, Daniel¡¯s attack was more ferocious than Saleen¡¯s. At least fifteen headless riders were sted into dregs by his attack and could not be pieced together again.


    Immediately afterpleting the attack, the pikoosiid on the ground hastily and began resting. At this moment, the pikoosi had regained its level-7 pinnacle powers, but it was limited by Daniel, so its magic casting ability remained inadequate even though the strength of its body had been fully restored.


    Inside Daniel¡¯s death mes, the three kings were helping the pikoosi regain its magic abilities with great reluctance. If they did not lend a helping hand, the pikoosi would absorb power from the death mes. This power would either be provided by the three kings or by the death dimension via the nar coordinates.


    If the pikoosi absorbed power from the death dimension, the coordinates could potentially attract the attention of the abyssal creatures. At this point in time, the three kings were feeling a little exasperated, yet the creature outside still gave them trouble.


    At this moment, they still did not want to take any action, but they had no choice but to help the pikoosi, this low-grade spirit.


    In reality, the pikoosi was a high-grade spirit, but in the eyes of the three kings, all spirits were of a low-grade. Their ambition was Shann, their previous owner. Only such an existence was of a high-grade.


    ¡°Those damned things, I am going to go out and tear them into soul fragments!¡± Banchajanna thundered.


    ¡°Banchajanna, don¡¯t be hasty, let Saleen be busied. We can afford this bit of depletion. That spirit doesn¡¯t dare demand too much of us, we can just frighten him a little.¡± After finishing his sentence, Judikaka returned to his contemtion. He was still fantasizing about how to make Aini his summoned creature.


    Banchajanna closed his eyes in a huff. In his heart, he was pondering about when to appear out of the blue so he could kill those people outside. Otherwise, it would be annoying because he kept getting harassed.


    After several rounds of magic barrages, the headless riders¡¯ assault slowed down, and Aini finally made his move. He opened his mouth, spitting out a ball of death mes. After the death mes were expelled, theynded beyond the wall and then assimted into the snow in the blink of an eye.


    Right after that, a dark grey bud grew out of the snowy ground swiftly, absorbing the power of the souls given off by the headless riders who had been killed. It grew at an insane speed.


    Compared to other spells, this floral death magic cast by Aini was much too slow. However, he was on top of the wall and was the defending party, so he only needed to grasp the rhythm of the spell properly. He did not need a very high speed.


    The dead headless riders, more than twenty of them, provided sufficient nourishment for this spirit nt. In the blink of an eye, it had grown to over ten meters in height.


    The soul mes in the three heads of the pikoosi began wobbling simultaneously since he was frightened. The death spell that Aini had cast was a rare spell in the death dimension. That tree was thought to have gone extinct in the death dimension.


    A gigantic spirit bird flew down from the tree, lunging at the headless riders. Originally, the headless riders wanted to ram into the castle¡¯s walls, but they were obstructed by this massive tree. They then tried to go around the tree, but were assaulted by the spirit bird instead. After getting struck, a few headless riders became stiff immediately and fell off their horses.


    The heads of those fallen headless riders burst with a bang, and the souls inside broke into shards. These shards were swiftly absorbed by that huge tree.


    The pirates were jubnt, but Saleen knew that the key to any spell was bnce. This nt spirit might have been able to absorb the power of a soul, but it could not be sustained for a long period. It was just like a magic wolf which assaulted a herd of sheep, but could not devour all the sheep.


    Indeed, this nt spirit was mighty by using the soul shards as nutrients, but its appetite was not infinite. Once it was full, those snowmen would begin their offensive.


    Aini was veryposed. The two summoned creatures were like Saleen¡¯s water flow in that they would not deplete the power of Aini¡¯s death mes. Even if the two summoned creatures became fatigued, he would not lose his offensive ability. The magical powers of a death mage originated from their death mes, and since Aini had not even used a single death spell, he would possess enough energy if he ever wanted to escape.


    Noticing that Aini¡¯s magic was effective, Saleen immediatelyplemented him by releasing an Icicle spell. This time around, he was not going to target the headless riders over arge surface area. He was using secondary release, stacking the icicles up and aiming at the enemy with precision.


    This level-2 spell would not wipe out the headless riders, it would only hinder their movements. Once the headless riders were curtailed, Aini¡¯s flesh spirit would be able to strike them more urately and easily.


    In the blink of an eye, Saleen had cast more than one hundred icicles. Every three icicles would cause a headless rider to stall for one second. Around another forty headless riders were assaulted by the flesh spirit, and their soul shards were absorbed by the nt spirit.


    Daniel was amazed. These ferocious summoned death creatures were much more powerful than his pikoosi. Even if Aini ran into a grade-6 mage, he would not be defeated. Unless he faced off with a sorcerer, his summoned creatures would be able to handle anything.


    The flesh spirit flew as fast as a bolt of lightning, leaving only an afterimage after every strike. Those headless riders who were inflicted by the Icicle spell had no way of avoiding its attacks.


    Witnessing this scene, J had peace of mind, as Saleen¡¯s and Aini¡¯s magic had exceeded his expectations. In that case, he would not have to spend much effort protecting these two people, and he would be able to exterminate more enemies. The forte of J¡¯s swordsmanship was its offensive capabilities, and if Saleen and Aini had inadequate attack power, J would have to stay beside them and would not be able to fully concentrate on the battle.


    ¡°J, don¡¯t advance.¡± Saleen deciphered J¡¯s intentions and stopped him. A headless rider was not easily defeated. Saleen and Aini were familiar with the warring techniques used by ck mages. They had also done their research on the enemy before and were both grade-5 grand mages. If J was allowed to go beyond the wall to kill the enemies, he would be besieged by the headless riders, and even though he was a ck metal grand swordmaster, he would not be able to aplish much.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    J protested in an upset manner, then Saleen replied, ¡°There will be many more enemies awaiting you tomorrow. You shall observe first and familiarize yourself with these things.¡±


    Saleen could not have cared less about J¡¯s objection. Tomorrow, he would continue advancing, and there could be more ck puppets and headless riders. By that time, without a snow ice castle to rely on, the usefulness of a grand swordmaster would be fully exemplified.


    Boom!


    A meteor hammer was volleyed by a headless rider, crashing into the ice wall. This hit caused a huge cavity measuring about one meter to be formed in the ice wall. Without even flinching, Saleen simply cast a spell to fill in the cavity.


    In such an environment, water magic could unleash its fullest potential, and its depletion would also be less than normal. Saleen was not concerned about the enemy¡¯s swarming technique. Anyway, the snowmen traveled sluggishly, and once they were barred by the city wall, even the pirates would be able to ughter them using thences. As long as the headless riders were dealt with by preventing them from jumping over the walls, this battle would be concluded with a victory.


    That was the power of magic. It could utilize the environment, climate, season, and everything else!


    ording to the customary differentiation, Saleen and Aini could at most achieve a draw in a battle with a beginner grand swordmaster. But in a real battle, their functions would be more pronounced than J, this ferocious grand swordmaster.


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s almost time.¡± As Aini spoke, he ended the flesh spirit¡¯s offensive, allowing it to return to the nt spirit and conceal itself among the dense leaves. The nt spirit had grown by a huge leap once again, and in front of it were the shattered heads of more than two hundred headless riders.


    The remaining headless riders seemed to have heard somemand as they began retreating. The snowmen from the hills had arrived. They moved lethargically, surrounding the snow ice castle.


    The intentions of the ck mages were clear. They wanted to trap Saleen and his team by outnumbering them, before dispatching the stronger puppets for an assault. Only one evil dragon was needed to be able to smash this snow ice castle up ahead.

 Chapter 343: Poly Spirit Beast (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 343: Poly Spirit Beast (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The headless riders retreated until they were out of the attack range of Aini¡¯s and Saleen¡¯s magic, while the snowman-shaped ck puppets mounted an offensive on the snow ice castle.


    The snowmen moved much slower than the headless riders, and even those of a higher grade were only nearly as nimble as an apprentice swordsman.


    Saleen was very doubtful of the phenomenon before him. Back then, the ck puppets had not been sluggish at all, and they could even jump over the walls of that colossal castle. But these snowmen right in front of him seemed to be a little too weak.


    Zhi¡­


    A snowman had wanted to sink its nails into the ice wall of the castle. However, it seemed more like it had put its hand into a pot of boiling water as it screamed in excruciation.


    There were more than a hundred pirates battling against more than ten thousand ck puppets. The ck puppets were not afraid of extermination, as their mere existence was already a form of suffering. Inparison, the pirates were not willing to suffer a worthless death no matter how ferocious they were.


    These over one hundred pirates, with the exception of those selected by Saleen to follow him around, were separated into dozens of small teams and then deployed to guard the perimeter of the wall. The snow ice castle had split walls and roads, and some pirates could even ride on the skeletal warhorses to execute their missions. With a two-meter wide gap between the walls, the pirates might not have been able to traverse that easily had they rode normal warhorses. A skeletal warhorse, on the other hand, was extremely stable, and even if one had poor horsemanship, he would not lose control of it.


    The moment the snowmen came into contact with the wall of the snow ice castle, those magic patterns within the wall took effect. Rays of magic lights shed, apanied by a tinge of the power of life, thus repelling the snowmen. Witnessing this situation, the pirates broke out into wildughter. Even though these puppets appeared in huge numbers, they did not really cause any psychological distress to the pirates.


    The pirates were ustomed to fighting under themand of a captain, and as long as the captain was around, the pirates rarely cowered away. Such a practice made the pirates difficult to crumble, even in the face of such strange ck puppets.


    Observing from the entrance of the castle, Saleen did not want to waste his precious magic chords on those low grade puppets. He did not even want to consume his scrolls for them. Saleen always brought along a huge quantity of scrolls, but he knew that no matter how many scrolls he possessed, there would be a day when all of them were exhausted.


    Sregl Ind stored an astronomical number of scrolls which had been umted over a period of one thousand years. Henceforth, Saleen would face even more battles, and if he relied on scrolls every single fight, his supply of scrolls would quickly dry up. If it was a truncated battle, Saleen would be able to achieve victory by depending on scrolls, but the conflict with the Holy See was a war which had spread throughout the entire maind.


    After many invalid attempts to get close to the wall, hundreds of snowmen charged toward the wall on the western side, stacking themselves below the wall. These snowmen quickly melted into a single entity, unable to move anymore, as the imprisoned souls within their bodies shattered.


    Then, another one hundred snowmen followed suit and charged forward. About less than a thousand snowmen were sacrificed. Beyond the western wall, a long slope had emerged, and all the snowmen congregated there, climbing up the slope.


    Aini and Daniel stared at the headless riders in the distance, disregarding the snowmen.


    The warhorse of a headless rider was a puppet in itself as well, and unlike a human¡¯s warhorse, these warhorses could elerate out of the blue, just like death creatures. The headless riders were loitering at a distance of three hundred meters, which happened to be the distance which a steel crossbow could not reach. A distance of three hundred meters was already sufficient for them to umte enough energy to jump over the city wall.


    The more than two hundred remaining headless riders were the real threat. After all, the pirates possessed the abilities of swordsmen, thus they could be considered to be a strong army. If they could not even deal with the weakest ck puppets, then there was no point to them staying at all.


    Aini and Saleen had the ability to fly, so they would not be trapped by those ck puppets. Saleen had built this snow ice castle in order to conserve the power of the pirates in this battle.


    Saleen and Aini were contemting the same issue at the same time. It seems like the Holy See¡¯s people have left the Chaotic Swamp. Otherwise, how could the ck mages have used this ce as theirir? Both of them had a sense of loss in their hearts. If the people from the Holy See had really left, then the contractual trap for the three kings might not be activated at all. In order to subdue these three guys, they would already have to brainstorm for another idea.


    However, there was still a glimmer of hope in their hearts. If the Second Dynasty relic still contained some items which tempted the three kings, then there would not be just one contractual trap.


    The pirates wielded theirnces, using their four-meter-long weapons to retaliate against the snowmen¡¯s offensive. The snowmen were using their razor-sharp nails to attack and were also ascending the slope. They did not have the slightest advantage whatsoever.


    After some simple training, the pirates could also work in tandem. Only threences were required to kill one snowman. The slope was not wide, and about twenty pirates would be able to hold the fort.


    Whenever the tip of ance, which was briefly refined, pierced a snowman¡¯s body, dark purple blood would spurt out. The dead snowman would then quickly crumble into a pile of snow, spilling across the slope.


    The pirates took turns resting. They were segregated into three groups, while the remaining four teams surveilled the other three directions. And just like that, only sixty pirates were used to defend a wall, effectively containing the offensive mounted by the snowmen.


    ¡°Sir, how about allowing me to go forth and deal with those things?¡± Noticing that the pirates killed the snowmen with great ease, J felt that he was wasting his time being here. Even though the headless riders were stronger, he was not fearful. They were only at the standard of a swordmaster, and once the snowmen were exterminated, those headless riders would only enjoy some minor advantages in terms of their speed.


    ¡°What¡¯s the hurry? These ck puppets are poorly made. Do you really think this is the power of a ck mage? They were not even trying to ambush us, it was purely a coincidence that we ran into them. But, if you must try, then go ahead and get onto a skeletal warhorse.¡± Seeing that J was very eager, Saleen decided to teach him a lesson.


    ¡°Sure!¡± J responded. Then, he pulled a skeletal warhorse over and got onto its back before charging down the slope in a sh.


    J simply wielded the longsword named Tears and did not disy any marvelous swordsmanship. He simply shed to his left and right. The moment a snowman came into the path of his longsword, it would quickly crumble even before the longsword sliced into its body. In the midst of all the snowmen, J nearly met with no resistance as he rushed down the slope, killing more than one hundred snowmen in the process.


    ¡°Eh?¡± Witnessing such a situation, Saleen was a little astonished. Tears seemed to possess a special suppressive ability against the ck puppets. Even though the snowmen were of a very low grade, they would still not crumble at the slightest contact with a normal weapon.


    Aini shrugged his shoulders, feeling smug. That had been his first time employing heart alchemy, and he had already managed to produce such a mighty weapon. Saleen might have produced a huge number of weapons, but they were all trash.


    Immediately, twenty headless riders prompted their warhorses and began charging towards J. Seeing this from afar, J immediately turned around and escaped back to the snow ice castle.


    ¡°Pu¡­¡± Saleen could not help butugh, chuckling loudly. J was not an idiot. He knew that he could not triumph over so many headless riders. The main reason was because he had poor control over the skeletal warhorse, so he did not have the advantage of speed, and if he remained outside the city, he would be besieged.


    Those headless riders gave chase until they were two hundred meters away from the city wall, where they came to a halt. At this distance, they could already be struck by magic attacks, and if they advanced any farther, a steel crossbow would be able to damage them.


    ¡°It seems like they really want to entrap us.¡± Saleen began chatting with Aini after witnessing this scene.


    ¡°It means they still have reinforcements to the rear who will be approaching anytime soon.¡± Aini did some mental calctions, then continued, ¡°Since that is the case, we don¡¯t have to wait any longer. Half of the snowmen have been exterminated. We canunch our offensive now.¡±


    ¡°We might not be able to outrun those headless riders. Are you still able to use your spirits?¡±


    ¡°In another ten minutes or so.¡± Aini shook his head. If his nt spirit needed to continue battling, it would require rest. nt spirits had ws as well. They digested souls very sluggishly.


    ¡°Okay. Everyone, get ready. Daniel, you will lead the way at the front, Aini and I will take care of the rear. Follow the n and set off in fifteen minutes.¡± Saleen had already deciphered the true motive of the ck mages. He had also utilized the snow ice castle to kill half of his enemies, and there were no losses thus far. But if he were to continue defending and the evil dragon made an appearance, this castle would not evenst for a minute.


    A ck mage had many different types of soldiers at his disposal. The ck puppets existed in massive numbers, so there were no concerns about losing them, and even though evil dragons were scarce, they could be used to invade cities. A headless rider had fearsome offensive abilities and the advantage of speed, which was beneficial for field battles. There were a dozen more types of soul puppets which could be created by ck mages, and they were suitable for all kinds of terrain and weather.


    It was unrealistic to use a simple fortification to battle with the ck mages. The only solution would be tomand a yellow dragon to kill them.


    In the past, when the ck mages had been wreaking havoc in Phoenix, the armies from Qin and Phoenix had managed to exterminate quite a number of their puppets, but not even a single ck mage was killed. Obviously, the ck mages were sly people. But this time around, Saleen was nning to assault the ck mages¡¯ir and capture one or two of them for interrogation.


    Originally, Saleen had built a city and a port in the north, and by coercing the less powerful nobles in Phoenix, he would be able to develop the city very swiftly. However, these ck mages were stuck in the Chaotic Swamp, which in turn disrupted Saleen¡¯s route to Sikeqinya. In this case, Deep Forest Town would be the frontline, losing its intended purpose.


    If the ck mages were not obliterated, Deep Forest Town would actually be a burden. Saleen did not possess much manpower. It was impossible for him to expand Deep Forest Town and engage in a protracted battle with the ck mages.


    J rushed back to the entrance of the city. After observing that the headless riders had stopped clear of the attack area, he then put away his longsword and said, ¡°Sir, look, they are trying to entrap us.¡±


    Even though J had been a swordsmanship instructor in the pce, he knew a thing or two about military tactics. The intentions of those ck puppets and headless riders were too pronounced, and it was impossible for him to not know. He had thus requested tounch an assault in order to ascertain this point. Had the headless riders pursued him desperately, it would have meant that the enemy¡¯s reinforcements were not far out. Now that the headless riders were in no hurry to damage their own strength, it meant that arger attack from the enemy was fast approaching.


    ¡°Mm, we will set off in twenty minutes. Don¡¯t wander too far away from me.¡± As Saleen agreed with J, his view of J changed. This man doesn¡¯t seem as wanton as he looks. At least during a battle, he has a clearer mind than most people. It seemed like J had the ability to lead an army into battle in the future. Secretly, Saleen gave J some brownie points.

 Chapter 344: Poly Spirit Beast (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 344: Poly Spirit Beast (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Twenty minutes passed by quickly, and another thousand snowmen were killed by the pirates. Even though the pirates¡¯ techniques were unsuitable, their physical attributes were much stronger than those of most armies. In this one-hour long battle, almost no one grew tired. At the very least, this battle was much more rxing than experiencing a storm at sea.


    Boom!


    The gates were the weakest part of the snow ice castle. With a crash, the pikoosi broke the gates and charged out. Daniel, riding on the back of the pikoosi, made a beeline for the over two hundred headless riders.


    He was somewhat fearful that the three kings would not lend a helping hand. This was because the previous time Saleen had demanded that Banchajanna kill the ck bishop, Banchajanna had refused to do so. His rtionship with the three kings was not as close as that of Saleen¡¯s. In the event that he ran into danger and the three kings turned a blind eye to it, he would not be able to defeat all those headless riders alone.


    Fortunately, there were more than one hundred pirates rushing behind him, making Daniel feel more assured.


    Those brainless things could not possibly target me alone, could they?


    Daniel charged towards the north, and when the snowmen realized that the people in the snow ice castle hade out, they began changing their direction in a sluggish manner. But by the time they made it to the north of the city, the pirates had already advanced by more than one hundred meters. These snowmen had no choice but to give chase at the back slowly.


    The headless riders hastily altered their formation before charging towards Daniel, wielding massive weapons. Daniel became afraid and did not dare conserve his abilities. With a tap on the pikoosi¡¯s head, the two horns on its head immediately began gathering a grey light, and a ray of soul corrosion was propelled outwards.


    A level-7 death spell was also a powerful ability. It was the only spell the pikoosi could employ after returning to grade-7. The pikoosi could not cast the rest of its spells because Daniel¡¯s grade was too low. The soul corrosion was the fundamental spell the pikoosi had, and its three heads could take turns casting it.


    The grey-colored ray from soul corrosion was like a magic cannon, bing massively thick after itsunch until it could not even be considered a ray anymore. At the same time, those headless riders who were charging head-on were struck urately, and at least five of them died on the spot. Those who were not struck fatally also fell off their warhorses, and when the warhorses of a lower grade were hit even a tiny bit, they rolled on the ground in excruciating pain.


    In dozens of seconds, both parties had attained terminal velocity, ruthlessly ramming into each other.


    Having a sturdy body, the pikoosi immediately sent three headless riders flying. Daniel, who was riding on top, ducked his head to avoid a giant axe which flew up in all that chaos, and became so appalled that he did not dare straighten his body again.


    When the pirates crashed into the headless riders, thences in the front row were fractured. However, thences had prated the bodies of the headless riders, causing the pirates to clutch their wrists in pain as the headless riders fell off their horses and rolled across the ground.


    Even though the weapons refined by Saleen could not kill the headless riders, the power of life from the Myers Goddess would still torture them until they lost all ability to fight, even if there was only a tinge of it.


    Noticing the phenomenon, the pirates at the back tossed theirnces forward. They were more urate tossingnces than they were shooting steel crossbows. Almost everynce which was flung struck a headless rider.


    Saleen was overjoyed. He had never honed theirnce-throwing skills in the past because he had enough steel crossbows to use. Nobody would have known that the pirates possessed this technique. From a short distance, the lethality of a javelin was much higher than that of a crossbow. In the first round of assault, the armor of the headless riders had already been reduced to shreds by Saleen¡¯s snowkill. And when these briefly refinednces pierced in, the sound of cold water being poured into hot oil was produced.


    Half of those headless riders who had previously almost killed Saleen and Aini were now being exterminated in this head-on blitzkrieg. Saleen had never expected his team to possess such strong offensive abilities.


    In truth, Saleen had set his expectations too high since he had seen Lex¡¯s swordsmen¡¯s camp before, so he had been very unsatisfied with the pirates. However, the Qin Empire had more than a billion people while Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp had only ten thousand soldiers. These swordsmen were the elites groomed by Lex over a period of ten years. Not many armies like hers could be found on the maind.


    These pirates had robust bodies and possessed unparalleled ferocity in battles. They could easily defeat normal mercenaries, unless their enemy was Lex¡¯s swordsmen¡¯s camp. The offensive power of these pirates was unmatched by any other normal army.


    Furthermore, other armies would definitely not provide their soldiers with magic weapons. Even though thences refined by Saleen were very crude, their lethality was not any less. It was just that the shelf life was too abrupt. In a weeks¡¯ time at best, the tip of thences would be destroyed, and even the metals would self-erode into dust.


    Because the metals used in these weapons were too low of a grade, they could not withstand the power of magic. That being said, Saleen did not need these weapons tost for a long duration. He just needed them tost until the current battle was over.


    Very soon, casualties started appearing among the pirates. Despite having the advantage of magic weapons, the pirates who were pioneering at the front paled inparison to the headless riders in terms of strength and skill, hence their wrists were injured and they could only use their left hands to wield longswords for the fight. As both parties ughtered one another, the pirates were almost immediately thrown off their horses by the headless riders.


    Some pirates were even smashed into pulp by sledgehammers while still on their horses. It was truly tragic.


    Be that as it may, Saleen still had the upper hand in the battle. He might have lost over twenty pirates, but more than half of the headless riders were eliminated, while the surviving ones were all rolling on the ground in pain. Using its enormous skeletal ws, the pikoosi stomped on the headless riders forcefully, smashing them into a grotesque pile of flesh. The pikoosi wagged its tail delightfully. Ever since it had begun following Daniel, this was the first time it could massacre to its heart¡¯s content. As long as the giant bone tail of the pikoosi swiped a headless rider, the headless rider would be hurled into midair, then a tiny death spell would beunched from the pikoosi¡¯s horns, destroying that headless rider.


    Death magic subdued ck magic. At this moment, Saleen had two death mages by his side, and if he still could not curb the situation, then he was an idiot.


    Aini summoned the flesh spirit. It spread out its wings and flew in the air, striking the ground from time to time. Its attack power might not have been as strong as Saleen¡¯s magic, but it definitely had the ability to restrain the headless riders.


    The pirates, who had finished tossing all theirnces, took out their longswords and began shing with the headless riders.


    Other than its weapon, the offensive power of a headless rider definitely surpassed that of a pirate. The pirates were also shrewd. Since the skeletal warhorses were very agile, the pirates decided to use the warhorse¡¯s front hooves to attack the enemy. The pirates abided by Saleen¡¯s training, teaming up in threes, and never got into a head-on fight with the headless riders.


    The few pirates with screws loose who thought that they were very powerful were all beaten to death by the heavy weapons wielded by the headless riders.


    The pirates only scattered the strength of the headless riders. The people who delivered fatal attacks were J and the four magic beast swordsmen. Riding on a skeletal warhorse, J¡¯s Tears gave off an air of ruthlessness which was even more intense than that of a headless rider. Even a gigantic axe would not be able to withstand a swipe from his longsword.


    Besides casting spells, Saleen also made an effort to observe J. He realized that J did not force the sword aura out of his sword. He only used a tiny bit of strength in his attacks. Even so, every attack could utilize the weapon and unleash the greatest effect.


    A snow-like white robe and a wind-like longsword. In the midst of the team of headless riders, J ughtered them willfully, giving off a rare glow of ardor from his eyes.


    Saleen¡¯s team advanced forward gradually, as the over two hundred headless riders crumbled slowly under all the spells and attacks from the grand swordmasters. More than thirty pirates had died, and the remaining eighty followed Saleen closely. They realized that the closer they were to Saleen, the less easily they were injured. As long as Saleen was shielded, his spells would be able to strike every single target precisely.


    At the moment when a headless rider almost chopped a pirate¡¯s head off with a cavalry sword, Saleen¡¯s ice bomb immediately struck its wrist, causing the cavalry sword to veer to one side. Then, the pirate swung his sword over, slicing the body of that headless rider.


    This headless rider had not died. It was just that since its wrist was broken and its body had been split into two, it had lost its offensive ability.


    Simr events happened several times, subconsciously nting a notion into the minds of the pirates. As long as Saleen was kept alive, they would be able to survive on the battlefield. The pirates acted in a more regr fashion. Besides the dozens of pirates who were following Saleen around loyally, the rest of them also took the initiative to iste the headless riders, allowing Saleen to cast his spells with peace of mind.


    At this point in time, two out of the four magic beast swordsmen could also make their moves without any worry, further decreasing the number of casualties among the pirates.


    The more than forty remaining headless riders battled on desperately, and the snowmen had finally caught up, trying to pester Saleen¡¯s team. Saleen decided not to bother with the headless riders. He called out to Daniel and steered the team towards the hills in the west.


    Saleen had lost a quarter of his warriors and killed at least four times more enemies. All the credit was due to the snow ice castle, which had greatly minimized the number of casualties. Had Saleen decided to execute a field battle, the mages and grand swordmasters would have been fine. But with more than five hundred headless riders, Saleen would not have been able toprehend the battle and control the situation.


    Especially those ten thousand snowmen, who could only unleash their terrifying power in the environment of a field battle.


    In the blink of an eye, Saleen¡¯s team had charged into the hilly region, with the headless riders pursuing him desperately. But in reality, the headless riders already had zero chance of prevailing.


    In the vicinity of the snow ice castle was a ground strewn with dead bodies. After Saleen and his team entered the hills, the fragments of these bodies began wriggling, gradually agglomerating with the flesh nuclei left behind by the dead snowmen.


    Other than the ck puppets and headless riders who had been killed by the pikoosi and Aini, the rest of the bodies underwent a transformation. Thousands of soul shards and flesh shards fused together at an increasingly fast speed. Finally, a monster measuring about six meters in length was born. This monster was d in tattered metallic armor. It had six limbs, six eyes and a bulky tail.


    This monster had fangs about one foot long, and its head looked like that of a tiger. It gazed in the direction in which Saleen departed, its eyes full of intense hatred.


    If a mage from a thousand years ago had been present, he would have recognized this monster.


    The poly spirit beast, an evil offering used in ck magic. A huge quantity of souls and flesh were required to produce this monster. A poly spirit beast almost never died, unless it was repeatedly cauterized by holy spells. Otherwise, whenever it was killed, more soul shards would simply be gathered and a new poly spirit beast would be born again. Every time a poly spirit beast died, it would produce the power needed for the ck mages to create a devil.

 Chapter 345: Toiling Secretly (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 345: Toiling Secretly (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ck mages thought that gods had been created by humans. This point alone exemplified that ck mages were the most presumptuous people in the world. Even the ancient humans had not had such thoughts.


    However, even though ck mages were arrogant, they had the right to be. Back in the early days when the ck mages were going through a period of chaos, they had managed to deal severe damage to the maind. And the reason they could do that was because they really had created a god, and more than one at that.


    All of these gods were derived from the negative emotions found in all humans. Each god possessed the ability to cause immense destruction.


    Abominable devil, terrifying devil, soaring devil, dark sky devil¡­


    Normal humans would never be able to put up a fight against these devils. No human had a perfect heart. In the face of the gods created by the ck mages, the weaknesses in their hearts would begin appearing and their offensive abilities would be reduced drastically. More often than not, the devils would not kill the humans themselves. They would let their underlings deploy puppets to kill those distracted people.


    Back then, only two groups of people had been able to resist the devil army. The first had been the army of mages from the Grukos family. These mages had been blessed by the secret magic of the Grukos family, making them impermeable to any kind of external influence. The second group had been the army from the Holy See. Back then, the Holy See had the holy cavalry regiment, the thorned monk regiment, and the oracle regiment. Out of the three regiments, only the thorned monk regiment enjoyed protection from the god. Furthermore, this regiment was formed by the fanatic believers, who were even crazier than the ck mages.


    Before the ck mages could create all seventy-two devils, they had already been exterminated. Since most of the devils¡¯ bodies could not be destroyed, they were simply buried in the middle of the maind, in the Purgatory Desert.


    The Purgatory Desert, an area where life was forbidden. Ever since the bodies of the devils were buried there, no one entered that ce anymore. That incident was the inflection point in the maind¡¯s history. After obliterating the devils created by the ck mages, the Holy See and the other three empires began to be increasingly estranged from one another. Eventually, an intense conflict erupted.


    After that, the ck mages managed to make aeback at some point in time. However, they were swiftly snuffed out by the four empires again. And that was when the poly spirit beast emerged for the first time ever.


    Because the ck mages could no longer acquire enough souls, they had created such a thing. It allowed a soul to be repaired repeatedly. Through continuous torture, other types of negative powers would be stimted, thus creating opportunities for the devils to be resurrected.


    If the ck puppets were the source of magic nuclei for the devils, then the poly spirit beast would be analogous to a dragonshard, which could be used many times over. The poly spirit beast possessed massive offensive power and also had some intelligence.


    In the past, the poly spirit beast had managed to revive the dark sky devil. However, before the dark sky devil could even escape from the Purgatory Desert, it had already been mysteriously defeated and banished back into silence once again. However, no one would be able to forget that mad slogan of revenge bellowed by thest batch of ck mages.


    As long as humans exist, the devils will never be dead. Be ready to go to hell!


    Saleen¡¯s team continued advancing west. A few more injured men died, bringing the total number to seventy-three. The pirates achieved victory. They managed to kill the enemy, who outnumbered them disproportionately, but they also lost a quarter of their manpower. If this had been a soldier¡¯s first time fighting on the battlefield, they would have copsed by now.


    At this point in time, Saleen then realized that the pirates were very useful. After winning a tough battle, these pirates were actually very rxed despite being exhausted. They were only afraid of unknown enemies. But once they learned that their enemies onnd were simr to those found at sea, their fears vanished. Because they realized that, as long as they were willing to fight, the enemy would surely be killed.


    To the pirates, there was no difference whether or not their enemy was a god. They were people without religion.


    Within a hill situated in the depths of the Chaotic Swamp was a piece of tnd spanning about four square miles. Thisnd was so level and smooth that it seemed as though it had been modified by magic before. There was not even a single protrusion from the ground. If a bucket of water was poured onto this ground, the water would quickly diffuse, but it would not flow in any direction. Strangely, on this four square miles of open space, not even a single piece of snowke could be found. The surrounding hills were snowcapped and there was a strong and frigid wind blowing from the north, but not even a single snowke was blown to this ce.


    At the center of this tnd was a partial magic tower.


    This magic tower was ck in color, with only five stories left. Its upper portion seemed like it had been struck by some gigantic weapon, causing it to be fractured away. Beside this magic tower was another ruined magic tower with only four stories. On the clean ground in front of these two destroyed magic towers, hundreds of headless riders did their patrols.


    On the fifth story of the magic tower was a prayer room. Inside the prayer room was an enshrined idol. A holy master d in a long white robe sat under this idol quietly.


    A holy master from the Tanggsi Empire was actually inside a magic tower which was being patrolled by headless riders. Furthermore, he had even constructed a prayer room. If this piece of news was publicized, no one would ever believe it.


    Two mages d in long ck robes knelt respectfully in front of this holy master. The holy master¡¯s golden pupils turned into slits, then he turned to look at the two mages.


    ¡°Sir Guise, the enemy is approaching, you should go into hiding,¡± the mages begged.


    ¡°Are you not confident of killing them all? Why are you afraid? Even if they manage to get away, I should be the one worried, right?¡± the holy master replied nonchntly.


    ¡°Sir, our¡­¡±


    ¡°Our agreement still stands. We are just colluding with the devil, right? The Lord of Glory will forgive me. As for the two of you, the devil is going to be resurrected soon. Why are you all still afraid?¡±


    ¡°Sir, the devil will really be revived!¡± The two ck mages began trembling in fear. They might have been d in robes belonging to elemental mages, but they were in fact ck mages who had been cast aside by the maind.


    ¡°That means you two are afraid that the dark sky devil is being revived? Look, I will never be afraid of my own god. How about you alle and worship the Lord of Glory too,¡± the holy master teased. He was not afraid of this matter being exposed. Who would believe that a white bishop was in cahoots with ck mages? The feud between these two parties was not any less than that between the ck mages and the Grukos family.


    One of the ck mages began kowtowing furiously, then said, ¡°Sir Guise, I can feel that the poly spirit beast has begun emerging. Furthermore, there are hundreds of thousands of ck puppets in the Chaotic Swamp. They will allow the poly spirit beast to be revived at least a hundred times. Previously, the dark sky devil was already on the verge of resurrection. Now that the poly spirit beast is around, the dark sky devil will surely escape from the Purgatory Desert!¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be better? Once the dark sky devil walks out from the desert, it will obliterate all of the surrounding empires. By then, all you ck mages will have your own territory already, and you won¡¯t have to hide in the Chaotic Swamp anymore.¡± This holy master was actually a white bishop, the strongest fighting force second only to the oracles.


    The ck bishop was attached to the inquisition, the red bishop was attached to the pivotal council, and the white bishop was attached to the oracles. In these three major powers, the bishops were always the mainstay. After all, the pope and the inquisitors rarely went out of town, and given a bishop¡¯s abilities, he could already wield a partial divine weapon, which meant that he was already as strong as a sorcerer.


    Despite Saleen and Nailisi¡¯s offensive power, they had also been defeated by the ck bishop. It was a testament to just powerful bishops were.


    ¡°Sir Guise, we have decided that we want to follow Lord Fycro and never turn back again. But the dark sky devil¡­¡±


    ¡°Besides my god, there is no other god,¡± Guise replied with augh. Then, he said, ¡°Okay, I permit the two of you to use all your power to kill those intruders. If the dark sky devil ever discovers that you all have betrayed him, my god will bear the consequences on your behalf.¡±


    The two mages looked at each other with immense frustration. The enemy was simply too powerful. Five hundred headless riders had been ughtered, and even the poly spirit beast had emerged. If these people managed to discover Guise, then their betrayal would definitelye to light. Whether or not the Lord of Glory would interfere in this matter was entirely dependent on Fycro.


    Even though he was the first oracle in the Holy See, Fycro had dared to collude with ck mages, which showed how fractured the interior of the Holy See was. Furthermore, this matter involved the inquisition. These two ck mages only had the abilities of a grade-4 mage. One simple misstep could prove fatal to them.


    Both of them were mages who studied theology, so they knew that the Lord of Glory would never descend on the Myers Maind due to the nar rules. However, the dark sky devil was physically present on the maind. As long as the dark sky devil was resurrected and left the Purgatory Desert, then the two of them could die at anytime.


    They were not afraid of death. However, death was not the end. After being killed by the dark sky devil, the devil would torture their souls repeatedly until it was satisfied.


    Guise stared at these two hesitating mages, then said, ¡°Do you feel that the dark sky devil is scarier than Lord Fycro?¡±


    After hearing Guise say that, the two mages stood up decisively and walked out of the door without even turning their heads.


    The dark sky devil could torture their souls, but so could Fycro. This first oracle from the Holy See did not wield any less power than Pope Theisio.


    Pope Theisio had three divine weapons while Fycro only had one, but it was already enough for Fycro to defy the pope, because every single oracle from the Holy See was rumored to carry the bloodline of the god on the Myers Maind. With the bloodline of the god, the oracle would be able to unleash the maximum power of a divine weapon. The divine weapon would be able to create a ce on the maind which would be simr to the interdimensional space. And in this space, the oracle¡¯s powers would already be close to that of the god.


    Fycro possessed the strongest powers. He was different from the other six oracles.


    Fycro was called the Son of God, the star of the Glorious ins, and was already almost a god. With his support, the inquisition had managed to expand, and had consequently gotten into a huge conflict with the pivotal council. The preaching of the Holy See was also affected. The preaching had lost the peacefulness it had retained for the past one thousand years, and was now filled with frequent violence.


    In the face of a person who dared to stand up against the pope, the two ck mages did not dare to rebel. They had no choice but to side with Fycro, because Fycro admired their abilities and felt that ck magic would be of use to the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°I want your faith.¡± Fycro had said this sentence in the past, and hence those two ck mages had be the Lord of Glory¡¯s believers. This man, who looked like god, was indeed scarier than the dark sky devil.


    More ck puppets and headless riders had gathered outside the magic tower. From the distant hills, the furious roars of the evil dragon could be heard.


    When Guise observed all these happenings, he furrowed his eyebrows.


    Lord Fycro had indeed gone overboard this time around, but what could he say? As long as the opinions within the Holy See¡¯s interior were not uniform, the glory of god would never be able to spread throughout the maind. Will Lord Fycro¡¯s dreame true only when all the empires on the maind are destroyed? By then, the pivotal council¡¯s opinions will no longer matter. Anyway, there will be no more secr empires on the maind. The Holy See will only need to wait and receive believers.


    The number of deaths will not matter. Anyway, the believers will be reborn in heaven while the sphemers will suffer in hell. The god has already said that life is only a temporary phase. It does not matter.

 Chapter 346: Toiling Secretly (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 346: Toiling Secretly (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    On the first story of the magic tower, an endless wave of puppets d in metallic armor exited through the door. All the armor on the puppets was tattered and torn, as though it had been through many intense battles. These puppets were expressionless as they walked out in a single file. Then, they got into a square formation before advancing east.


    Saleen¡¯s team was fast approaching the piece of tnd. At this point in time, the scouts discovered traces of the ck puppets, and a deafening rm was raised. The piercing sounds given off by the metallic whistle spread over a great distance. The snowmen with red eyes in the far distance heard the whistle and turned to look at Saleen¡¯s team.


    ¡°To high ground!¡± Saleen raised the reins on his bone horse and led J and the others up a hillside. There were no tall mountains in these hilly regions. This mountain was only two hundred meters in height. The bone horse traveled quickly, as though it was running on level ground. In the blink of an eye, all seventy-three people had made it to the peak of the mountain.


    Saleen took out his alchemical binocrs and looked into the distance. He saw that there were tens of thousands of ck puppets, headless riders, and soulless broken-armor puppets in between the hills. Additionally, a gigantic shadow could be vaguely spotted farther down. That was the evil dragon.


    Saleen also spotted the ruined magic tower, and his pupils contracted sharply. Because, on that door of the magic tower, there were holy texts. Indeed, the people from the Holy See had been here before, but how had this ce been dominated by the ck mages?


    However, this was not the time to discuss such a question. Anyway, Saleen and his team had arrived at their destination. It was time for the three kings to do their jobs.


    ¡°Judikaka, we are here, you cane out now,¡± Saleen yelled softly.


    The three kings emerged from Daniel¡¯s death mes unwillingly, then levitated in midair.


    ¡°Do you see the magic tower up ahead? Those are the remains from the Second Dynasty.¡± Saleen pointed into the distance, but he did not mention the presence of the ck mages. Either way, the three kings would be able to sense them too. If they were not willing to help, Saleen would not deploy the pirates either. These pirates were much more useful than he had thought. They were not suited to be used as cannon fodder.


    ¡°Not bad. There seems to be a colossal underground structure. This should be the ce. I can feel the vigorous elemental vibrations,¡± Judikaka roared withughter. He did not care at all about the puppets being controlled by the ck mages. No matter how many puppets there were, it would be useless. Other than the few big guys farther down, Judikaka would be able to terminate the rest of the enemies with just a single spell.


    ¡°Judikaka, you know the circumstances of the previous battles. My men were overpowered. If you three don¡¯t do anything, I have no choice but to go back,¡± Saleen dered honestly. He was very disappointed that the Holy See¡¯s underlings were not present. If the three kings decided to bezy, Saleen would rather go back and think of a solution to deal with the ck mages than wait around here.


    With the bone horse¡¯s speed, Saleen would be able to escape in time.


    ¡°No problem, let us settle this!¡± Judikaka led the other two kings and all three of them flew towards the ck puppets.


    The three kings looked very different when they were inbat. Banchajanna had six arms, six weapons, and an enormous tail. Judikaka¡¯s bone wings extended to about twenty meters wide, covering the sun. Diyabannersa resembled the spirit of a dead giant. He had a height of more than fifty meters, thergest in size among the three kings.


    The kings did not possess any illusory spells. Their bodies themselves were fearsome weapons after many centuries of hard training. Even if they could not release death magic, they would also be rare experts in this world.


    Banchajanna was the first to make a move. He knocked his six weapons violently against one another. This time around, the soundwave was only projected to the front. At the same time, a region of vacuum, with a width of one hundred meters and a length of almost one mile, was formed.


    Om¡­


    Judikaka and Diyabannersa, who were beside Banchajanna, then bellowed in response, ¡°Banchajanna!¡±


    That attack by Banchajanna had destroyed countless numbers of ck puppets and headless riders. However, Judikaka and Diyabannersa were also affected, and they almost fell to the ground. Banchajanna¡¯s attack was very strange. If the kings¡¯ powers had not originated from the same item, Judikaka and Diyabannersa would have sustained injuries by now.


    ¡°My apologies. Your turn now.¡± Banchajanna swiped his massive tail and went aside.


    Judikaka raised his scepter furiously, then bellowed, ¡°In the name of lies, I shall give you the truth!¡±


    At the same time, thousands of skeletons emerged from the ground, their numbers still increasing. The moment the skeletons appeared, they began charging at the ck puppets in the distance.


    When the two-headed eagle was shot out of the sky by J, the ck mages had not witnessed the scene. Thus, the ck mages continued deploying various puppets onto the battlefield.


    Diyabannersa decided to swing his weapons, casting a death spell at the ground. His attack was the simplest. The range of his spell exceeded that of an average spirit, as its range was at least thirty times that of a normal spell.


    Dark rays of light shed across the skies. This was simply a one-sided massacre. Even though the power of the three kings was restricted, the kings were still the nemesis of those puppets. Furthermore, the difference in grades was too big.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t the battle be long over had you all done that just now?¡± Saleen witnessed the scene from the hill, in disdain at the kings¡¯ intelligence. Had the three kings unleashed their power earlier, Saleen would not have had to waste so much time. Plus, they would have reached the magic tower long ago.


    The pirates¡¯ faces were as white as sheets when they witnessed the sheer amount of lethality exhibited by the three kings. The enemies, who the pirates needed great effort to quash, were like pieces of paper in the face of the kings. They finally understood why mages enjoyed such a high status in the empire. Soldiers like the pirates were already considered elites, but they would not be able to put up any defenses against these powerful spells.


    Of course, once a mage advanced to such a grade, they would already be unwilling to leave their magic tower. Since the mage would enjoy an extended life, they would thus continue studying magic and ovee other obstacles, in hopes of eventually achieving eternal life. If a mage left their magic tower, they would face more risks to their life. Take, for example, Emperor Chanake. He had gone to the frontline and had been ambushed by his enemies, causing him to die on foreignnd.


    After Banchajanna executed his first attack, it became slightly difficult for him to cast spells. If he had been in the death dimension, he would have been able to recover swiftly. However, he was relying on Daniel¡¯s nar coordinates right now, so there was a limit to how much power the death mes could absorb. Banchajanna then decided tond on the ground and get into a melee fight using his six weapons.


    None of the puppets could withstand Banchajanna¡¯s attacks. As long his weapons came into contact with a creature, be it a headless rider or an armored puppet, the creature would be smashed into pulp. Banchajanna then began absorbing strength from the soul shards of the fallen creatures. He seemed to have forgotten that such a process would attract attention from the gods in this world.


    Fortunately, the Lord of Glory was not on this ne, while the ck mages¡¯ puppets were souls which had been abandoned by the gods.


    The three kings swiftly cleared the path ahead, then Saleen announced, ¡°Let¡¯s follow them.¡± As Saleen spoke, he steered his bone horse and charged downhill. The three kings had already cleared a mile¡¯s worth of enemies. If Saleen still did not catch up, his team would break contact with the kings.


    Most of the spears wielded by the pirates had been destroyed in the previous battle. At this moment, the pirates were using scimitars produced by Saleen at thest minute. J and the magic beast swordsmen stuck close to Saleen, fearing for the safety of theirmander. It was very dumb for a mage to be pioneering an attack. However, there were no enemies in the one-mile path ahead. After Banchajanna had absorbed the soul shards, the flesh on the ground twisted about desperately, but it could not transform into the poly spirit beast no matter what.


    Without any effort, the three kings opened the path for Saleen and his team to charge towards the broken magic tower. Along the way, tens of thousands of puppets were obliterated. The ck mages had never expected three spirits with level-9 powers to be present on this ne.


    Simr grade spirits would already have been able to ughter the puppets created by the ck mages. Furthermore, the three kings also summoned arge number of death creatures. In a sh, the magic tower was besieged.


    From inside the magic tower, Guise was dumbfounded when he saw arge poption of death creatures surrounding the magic tower.


    New contents had been added into the Holy See¡¯s code. All death creatures and death mages were considered heresy. In truth, Guise did not want to use his subordinates¡¯ power to engage in battle, as the magic tower was very safe under the ck mages¡¯ protection. However, it was impossible for Guise to turn a blind eye to the sudden appearance of so many death creatures.


    Guise stood up and walked to the window. The two ck mages were nowhere to be found. Thousands of spirits were swarming towards the magic tower, and in this crowd, three gigantic spirits caught Guise¡¯s attention.


    The three kings might have been able to conceal their atmospheric vibrations, but they were simply too massive in size, and this could not be concealed. Furthermore, Banchajanna was using a warhammer to smash the evil dragon¡¯s head. In just one hit, the evil dragon¡¯s colossal skull had caved in. It could only howl in excruciating pain, but could not retaliate. Banchajanna¡¯s arms were unusually agile as he took turns attacking with the other five weapons. Compared to the evil dragon, Banchajanna seemed tiny.


    The evil dragon was not a puppet which was made for closebat. Simr to war puppets, it was a weapon for attacking cities. In order to engage in a melee battle with Banchajanna, one would have to be as skilled as a grand swordmaster.


    ¡°Heresy¡­¡± Guise muttered. He was holding onto a square-shaped piece of metal sheet filled with holy texts. This metal sheet gave off white rays of light, and these rays seeped into the ground.


    ¡°There it is!¡± Saleen hollered. At this moment, he had caught up and pointed to the broken magic tower standing in the distance.


    ¡°Hm? Let¡¯s go!¡± After finishing his sentence, Judikaka¡¯s body shrank quickly, then he had the summoned spirits continue battling. The three kings transformed into skeletons before making big strides towards the magic tower.


    Using their powerful mental strength, they had discovered the secret underneath the magic tower. There was a teleportation portal. This portal only provided transportation over a short distance, and it would surely lead to the remains which Saleen had mentioned. Even though the three kings were only spirits, they could feel the vigorous elemental vibrations. It was highly possible that there were even mineral veins!


    Humans loved constructing their magical structures atop mineral veins. Through harnessing the natural powers present, the power of the magical structures would be amplified.


    Back then, whenever humans had discovered some mineral veins, they had not bothered excavating them and had simply consumed the materials on the spot. After the power of humans had weakened, humans had then begun extracting the gems. Thereafter, they would segment the gems into different weights and sizes in order to uncover the underlying value.


    Saleen had not lied. Such a ce was indeed a relic belonging to the ancient humans. The three kings were grinning from ear to ear. Such a relic could really contain the things that they were searching for. Even though the ck mages had upied this ce, ck mages and elemental mages were governed by two different systems. Logically speaking, the ck mages should not have destroyed the items in this relic. They did not even have a use for it.

 Chapter 347: Guise’s Death (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 347: Guise¡¯s Death (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Every story of this magic tower was six meters tall. On the other hand, the skeletons which the three kings had transformed into were only about two meters tall, so they could easily enter the magic tower.


    Saleen looked back and said, ¡°Daniel, get some soldiers to stand guard outside, and clear the remaining puppets.¡± Then, he took out six grade-5 magic nuclei, handed them to Daniel, and said, ¡°If anything happens outside and you cannot hold the fort, go inside. There should be a short-distance teleportation portal inside. Use the magic nuclei to stimte it.¡±


    Daniel nodded in agreement and epted the six magic nuclei. Usually, Saleen would give him grade-3 magic nuclei, and Saleen rarely gave him grade-4 ones. This time around, the grade-5 magic nuclei were for contingency purposes. Daniel also knew that even though the number of puppets was not small, he would likely remain unharmed because the spirits summoned by the three kings were around. Saleen had given him these magic nuclei only in case of an emergency.


    Saleen followed the three kings and entered the magic tower. Beside him were J, a few grand swordmasters, and Aini. Saleen did not lead the pirates into the magic tower. He had decided that the pirates could be put to better use.


    These ill-disciplined pirates needed to have an authoritative leader. As long as Saleen could change his position to that of the pirate captain, the pirates would easily be controlled. Previously, when he hadmanded Gurney to kill dozens of insignificant pirates, the other pirates had not rebelled. Instead, they had be respectful of Saleen.


    An approach needed to fit the personalities of the target audience. Even though the pirates had lost a fewrades, they did not hate Saleen. Instead, they hated Gurney. Saleen¡¯s dominance had won the respect of the pirates. Following that, the pirates would try their best to aplish whatever orders Saleen gave. If a task was notpleted satisfactorily, then the problem was with the pirates¡¯ capabilities, not with their attitudes.


    Keeping these pirates by the side would be of great use to Saleen in the future.


    Not many people entered the magic tower, but it already felt cramped inside. After the three kings entered the magic tower, they saw a teleportation portal on the first story. Then, they looked up and suddenly froze in their tracks.


    The teleportation portal on the first story was the entrance to the relic, and it had just been used not too long ago. To the three kings, it was even possible for them to use their own powers to activate this portal, because such a portal would not consume much power. However, there seemed to be vibrationsing from a source of holy power on the upper stories.


    Those vibrations definitely had note from the gods created by the ck mages. They originated from a real god. The three kings were on the verge of leaving already. Although they knew that it was impossible for a god to be here, it was merely a believer who was causing all this.


    The three kings only had scant knowledge of the issue between the ck mages and the Holy See. Judikaka pondered for a moment, then decided that the person above was a sphemer who had betrayed his god.


    ¡°To the person above, you cane down now.¡± Judikaka¡¯s voice was majestic. Then, he said coldly, ¡°Let us kill you. Don¡¯t bother hiding, there¡¯s no point.¡±


    ¡°Filthy spirits, it is an atrocity for you to havee onto the Myers Maind. In the name of god, be cleansed!¡± Guise¡¯s voice was loud and clear as it emanated from the fifth story.


    Suddenly, a gentle white light flooded the first story. This white light could not be deflected, and itnded on everyone¡¯s bodies. Saleen raised his water shield in time against the oing light. The white lightnded on the water shield, creating a ripple on the surface of the shield.


    Saleen had already prepared himself psychologically. His water shield was not mixed with any other types of power, being purely elemental power. After the white light and the water shield came into contact, they did not attack each other, they merely separated gently.


    However, the three kings were not so lucky. This holy light was directed at spirits. Crackling sounds were given off from the surface of their bodies. The grey radiance intertwined with the holy light, giving off abrupt explosive noises.


    Guise had actually harnessed the power of the magic tower to increase the offensive power of his holy light. Furthermore, this divine spell was targeted solely at spirits. The three kings groaned at the same time. Diyabannersa spit out a ball of spirit breath, causing a thick grey radiance to envelope the three kings and Aini.


    J and the others were not affected by this attack at all. This divine spell was targeted too specifically. Its offensive power against spirits had been increased by dozens of times, but in return, it would not attack any other beings.


    Guise had no choice either. The three kings were simply too mighty. If he had not cast this divine spell, he suspected that he would have been killed in an instant by those three fellows.


    The three kings were very doubtful. The divine spell cast by that man was of extreme purity, it could not be casted by a sphemer. This meant that he had not yet been abandoned by the god!


    The cleansing light streamed out endlessly from the walls of the magic tower, trapping Aini and the three kings.


    Saleen sneered. At this critical point in time, the three kings were still being so overly cautious. It seemed like the trap in the contract would definitely take effect this time around. When Saleen thought of this, he signaled to J, then began making his way up the magic tower in a haughty manner.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Judikaka cried. Saleen did not even turn his head and his shadow disappeared at the bend in the stairway.


    ¡°What now?¡± Banchajanna asked Judikaka hesitantly. They did not wish for Saleen to take the initiative to attack. The oue was very unpredictable in a conflict against the believer of a god.


    ¡°We will go down!¡± Judikaka clenched his teeth, and was about to make his way to the teleportation portal. At this moment, he had decided to abandon Saleen. This mage made him feel very ufortable, and he could hardly be controlled too.


    ¡°Let me go, I want to help Saleen!¡± Aini hollered, concealing the smugness in his heart.


    ¡°Hmph, follow us.¡± Diyabannersa grabbed Aini¡¯s neck and raised him up in the air. Aini¡¯s body was much weaker than Saleen¡¯s. Even if Aini was stronger than Saleen, he would not have been able to withstand Diyabannersa¡¯s grip either way. He was like a small bird, being carried by Diyabannersa towards the teleportation portal.


    ¡°Judikaka, we have a contract between us, are you thinking of viting it?¡± Aini could still talk, and he decided to yell.


    ¡°Contract?¡± Judikaka nced at Aini, then sneered, ¡°At most, we will suffer the bacsh of the contract. Do you really think that you can manipte us? Ha¡­¡±


    By the time Judikaka finished talking, a hint of red magic patterns had already appeared on his forehead. At the same time, the three kings felt that there was a crack in their souls. A mysterious force had imprisoned their souls, and then carved ayer of intricate magic symbols onto them.


    ¡°Diyabannersa, you can let me down now.¡± Ainiughed, ¡°The power of this contract is immense. As long you are on the Myers Maind, this contract will definitely be effective. In order to keep the contract dormant, there is only one solution. That is, that you do not vite the terms in the contract.¡±


    ¡°Aini, what have you done?!¡± Judikaka was terrified. He wanted to grab Aini, but he realized that he could not move his limbs at all.


    ¡°Mm, Saleen, you cane down now.¡± Aini might have been grinning, but his gaze was frigid. Indeed, these three fellows did not harbor good intentions. They had already been thinking of deserting Saleen.


    Saleen had been waiting just beyond the bend at the stairway. He was not so dumb as to duel with the holy master. At this moment, the most important task at hand was to subdue the three kings. What Saleen had not expected was that the kings would go back on their word even before reaching the relic. In fact, that was better. Saleen could leave right away. He did not really care about the things in the relic. His only motive being here had been to subdue the three kings.


    Saleen had experienced many events in his life, and this, by far, was the smoothest one.


    Saleen returned to the first story of the magic tower. He adjusted his magic robe and chuckled as he stared at the three kings, unable to contain his jubnce anymore.


    ¡°Aini, which one do you want?¡±


    ¡°Judikaka, I like smart people.¡±


    ¡°Fat hope!¡± Judikaka mustered all his strength and pointed his scepter at Aini.


    ¡°Judikaka, you had all better wise up. Otherwise¡­¡± Saleen pointed at Banchajanna. In the past, these two fellows had tried to kill Saleen. Hence, Saleen had decided that he would do a demonstration first.


    All of a sudden, Banchajanna copsed onto the ground, twisting in agony. Vigorous grinding sounds emanated from the joints of the illusory skeleton which had been transformed from Banchajanna, as if a metallic war chariot was running over gravel.


    ¡°Just use the power of the soul. It will be more effective against spirits.¡± While looking at Judikaka, Aini bent his finger. Immediately, Judikaka felt like his senses had been blurred. Judikaka was in disbelief. Even though there was an undeniable difference in their grades, he could not resist Aini¡¯smands.


    ¡°Hmph¡­¡± Banchajanna sprang up from the ground and lunged at Saleen. He was indignant that he was going to be controlled by a tiny mage. Saleen did not move an inch at all and stood there waiting for Banchajanna¡¯s attack. Even before Banchajanna¡¯s bone finger touched Saleen, the red magic patterns on his forehead had already burst with a ray of red light, causing him to copse onto the ground once again.


    J and the others were aghast. This transformation was too astounding. They already knew that the three kings had not been summoned by Daniel and that the three kings were simply staying by Saleen. J had been extremely wary of the three kings. He had been afraid that the three kings might harm Saleen should they be angered. They could never have imagined that in the blink of an eye, Saleen and Aini now controlled the kings¡¯ freedom.


    ¡°I thought it¡¯d be quite troublesome. Mm, Saleen, we should kill the guy up top first. We can afford to not go into the relic, but that fellow is very dangerous,¡± Aini said to Saleen as he pointed upwards.


    Saleen pondered. The holy master up above might have been extremely powerful. If he were to leave now, the holy master might be able to track him down. By then, Saleen would have no control over the situation anymore.


    He could abandon the remaining pirates and instruct the three kings to fly the rest of them back to the city base. Given the kings¡¯ flying speed, Saleen believed that the holy master would never be able to catch up.


    Outside the magic tower, a continuous stream of different puppets blindly continued the offensive against the spirits. Judikaka had summoned more than four thousand spirits, hence outnumbering the enemies. Also, three evil dragons were ughtered by Banchajanna. Even though the headless riders had an advantage over the low-grade spirits, there were not even one hundred of them. It was obvious that the situation was irreversible.


    ck puppets were being continuously massacred. Bloody flesh was strewn all over the ground before it slowly converged together. On a distant hill, a poly spirit beast stood on the peak of the hill, staring coldly at the ongoing massacre. Following the deaths of the many ck puppets, countless soul shards gathered together, forming new poly spirit beasts. The new poly spirit beasts climbed up from the ground, but they did not enter the battle.


    There were less than ten poly spirit beasts. They upied the four corners of the square outside the magic tower, and stealthily began surrounding the pirates.

 Chapter 348: Guise’s Death (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 348: Guise¡¯s Death (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel did not notice the emergence of the poly spirit beasts. As he guarded the entrance of the magic tower, he was just concerned about whether or not the pirates were under attack. The spirits summoned by the three kings would not die. At most, they would only be banished back to the death dimension.


    At this moment, spirits were dominating the area outside the magic tower, and red soul mes could be seen everywhere. It was unknown whether or not Judikaka had summoned some high-grade death creatures on purpose. These death creatures hade forth after detecting the summons by the kings, and they themselves also had death mes.


    These spirits could even summon other weaker spirits. If the battle became tough, that four-thousand-strong crowd of spirits could potentially double in size.


    A king was not just a status of grade in the death dimension. Judikaka and his brothers actually had their own citizens. They were the kings of these spirits, possessing the ability tomand the spirits at will.


    When all of this bes mine, it will be great!


    As Daniel fantasized, he recalled the pikoosi and instructed the pirates to surround the magic tower. If anything went wrong, he would be the first to escape into the magic tower.


    Boom! Pa¡­


    An evil dragon¡¯s corpse exploded suddenly, causing bloody flesh to be flung in all directions, even killing some ck puppets at the same time. All of the ck puppets¡¯ flesh converged towards the poly spirit beasts, and this process took ce silently.


    ¡°What have the two of you done to us?!¡± Judikaka regained hisposure, feeling as if the chains around his soul had disappeared. However, he knew that although he could no longer feel the entrapment, Saleen and Aini would still be able to control them anytime they desired. It was scariest when one could no longer feel the bindings.


    The three kings had only been able to feel the chains from the scepter after one thouand years. However, the scepter had already trapped them for tens of thousands of years.


    ¡°This is just a small punishment,¡± Ainiughed. Then, he pointed upwards, wanting Judikaka to lead the attack,


    ¡°I will never¡­¡±


    Before waiting for Judikaka to finish his sentence, Aini said, ¡°Judikaka, if you don¡¯t go, I will reduce you to a low-grade puppet. At most, I will only waste some energymanding you. Saleen and I are only grade-5 mages, so our lives are extremely short. Once we die, you will all be free.¡±


    Aini lied. It was true that he and Saleen were grade-5 mages. However, it was a lie that their lives were very short. They were so young, and as long as they did not get into any idents, it would only be a matter of time before they became sorcerers. After bing sorcerers, their lives would be prolonged. If they managed to advance to grade-9, they would live for more than one thouand years. And if they went past grade-9, no one would know when they would die anymore.


    Indeed, a spirit king¡¯s life was protracted, but who could predict the life of a sorcerer?


    Judikaka clenched his teeth forcefully, producing a loud metallic grinding sound. However, he still turned around and went up the stairway. There was a believer at the top of this magic tower, but Judikaka did not care about that at this moment. He had really be someone else¡¯s contract creature. He was no longer a creature which had snuck through the nes.


    It was a joke given that Judikaka had still been nning to trick Aini. Unexpectedly, the three fellows who were over ten thousand years old had been cheated by two humans who were not even over forty years old, even with their agesbined.


    Back then, when Shann deceived us, it seemed like he was not even thirty years old, was he?


    Cunning humans, evil humans, wretched humans. Judikaka might have been cursing the humans in his mind, but he did not dare defy Aini¡¯s orders. He knew that it was only a matter of time if Aini wanted to kill them. The kings¡¯ souls possessed unparalleled power, but after being chained, a death mage like Aini would have countless ways of restraining them.


    Rules, nes, contracts¡­


    Judikaka grew depressed. The three of them had been too careless and overconfident. Hopefully, Aini will be right. Anyway, these two humans have short lives. I shall just regard it as¡­


    Judikaka consoled himself without a care for hispanions.


    Saleen pped his hands, then said, ¡°Banchajanna, Diyabannersa, go up now.¡±


    The two kings followed Judikaka upstairs obediently, but Saleen knew that only Diyabannersa was truly subdued. Diyabannersa would not betray him, but Banchajanna could create trouble. That fellow had a kind of uncertainty about himself.


    The three kings did not lose their morale because Saleen and Aini were not around. Even though their offensive power had decreased due to the contract, their powers were still at grade-9. This was another type of nar rule. Since the death dimension and the Myers Maind were not faraway from each other, the kings¡¯ abilities would not be reduced too much and would not drop to grade-8.


    Aini and Saleen were pretty excited. They had three grade-9 spirits as henchmen now! From this day onwards, they would not be harassed easily anymore. In a rare moment, Saleen was seen smiling in a strange manner as he began making ns for the city base once again.


    Back on the fifth story, Guise was desperately wanting to escape. He could feel three powerful beings approaching him slowly. But if he left just like that, what would happen to the mineral veins under the relic? Fycro would definitely kill him. But if Guise did not escape, he would be killed by those three people.


    Guise was extremely frustrated, unlike his usual calm self. He knew that if he escaped now, Fycro would never spare his life. Furthermore, Fycro would be mocked by the other oracles. Underneath this magic tower, there were dozens of divine officers, hundreds of monks, and many more riders and ves. These people dug at the veins day and night. The veins had been mined for several years, and at this moment, the main vein had been discovered. If Guise gave up now, Fycro¡¯s rage would be unimaginable.


    If there was only one spirit king present, Guise might have still stood a chance because he had a partial divine weapon gifted by the oracle. But if he wanted to fight against three spirit kings, he would have to wield a true divine weapon and be one grade higher.


    The three skeletons transformed from the three kings had reached the fifth story. There was no ceiling on this story, only pure light. The Cleansing spell was everywhere. Had the three kings been reduced to grade-8, they could possibly have been in trouble. However, with the undeniable difference in grades right now, the Cleansing spell did not cause much harm to the three spirit kings.


    However, the three kings were very annoyed at the moment, and they did not want to deal with the holy light. Without waiting for Saleen¡¯smand, Diyabannersa lunged at Guise.


    Diyabannersa was so swift that it caused Guise to see illusions. It was as though dozens of skeletons around two meters tall were charging forward, creating many shadows.


    With a boom, Diyabannersa¡¯s fist hadnded on Guise¡¯s chest.


    Psss¡­


    A piercing sound filled the air, and Diyabannersa¡¯ fist was burnt ck. A cavity had appeared on the thorax region of Guise¡¯s white robe, but Guise¡¯s skin was free from damage.


    What strong defense! Right at that moment, Saleen had walked up and witnessed this scene. Diyabannersa had not exerted his full force. As his speed had been increased, he had no time to muster sufficient strength. However, the impact from this punch was already beyond horrifying. Had Saleen received this punch, he would not even have been able to defend himself against it.


    It seems like divine spells are the nemesis of spirits. In the future, this must be noted. If there were higher grade holy masters around, the three kings would not have been able to win, Saleen warned himself mentally. He could not be smug just because he had subdued the three kings. The only thing a mage could rely on was their own magic chords.


    Diyabannersa had punched Guise, but he had only managed to bust a hole in his clothes. In fact, Diyabannersa¡¯s fist was severely injured. Those red soul mes in his eyes flickered vigorously, and another fist was delivered at lightning speed, hitting the same spot as before. This time around, even Saleen saw it clearly. A piece of holy text had appeared on the holy master¡¯s skin, blocking that punch by Diyabannersa. After the holy text negated Diyabannersa¡¯s punch, another thunderous sound was produced. Diyabannersa¡¯s fist was like a snowball which had been thrown into a fire, and his fist had be half its original size.


    Fortunately, the three kings possess such wicked defensive abilities. If I was the attacker, even the current cutter would be ineffective, right?


    Saleen did not know that Guise was secretly feeling helpless. That skill which provided protection through the holy texts had been gifted to him by Fycro. There was a grand total of twenty holy texts, so Guise would only be able to resist twenty of such attacks. The skeleton was too swift, so Guise could only employ such a skill. Otherwise, he would be killed by that skeleton in a second.


    ¡°If you leave, I will not kill you.¡± Suddenly, Saleen opened his mouth and began speaking gently to Guise.


    Pu¡­


    Diyabannersa had delivered another punch. He could not believe that a mere holy master could keep resisting his blows. Anyway, his fist would be regenerated. At most, it would recover in a few years. However, there was something wrong with the enemy¡¯s defenses. Since the power did not originate from the body, the enemy¡¯s defenses would eventually be prated.


    In reality, Guise had been fully concentrated. But after listening to Saleen, he became distracted. As a result, his protective holy text only appeared after Diyabannersa¡¯s third punchnded on his skin. A simple sentence from Saleen had caused his heart to waver.


    That damn grade-5 mage¡­


    As Guise thought to himself, he saw a massive axe descending from above. Banchajanna could not stand watching Diyabannersa fight like this. He was in a terrible mood, and wanted to vent his fury by killing someone. Banchajanna did not reveal his true form, simply using one of his six weapons, but his axe was still a very lethal weapon.


    A grey ray of light was trailing the axe. This was not a shadow, it was an air flow which originated from the numerous souls which had been ughtered by this axe.


    Boom!


    Banchajanna¡¯s axended ruthlessly on Guise¡¯s head, causing Guise¡¯s face to ripple. This time around, a piece of holy text had only appeared for less than a thousandth of a second before disappearing. All of a sudden, the skin on Guise¡¯s face exploded. All the flesh above his neck had been burst by a mysterious force in that instant.


    Banchajanna had merely used his axe and had already been able to turn Guise into a skeleton filled with bloody flesh.


    Guise tried to open the book in his hand. The book was his partial divine weapon. However, Diyabannersa delivered his fifth and sixth punches consecutively, causing Guise to lose all the strength in his hands.


    Banchajanna stared at the axe which was nearly destroyed. There was a chip on thisrge axe which was the size of a watermelon. Banchajanna could not believe that his axe, which had been fortified with fine gold, had been damaged by a human¡¯s skull.


    Out of the blue, a bone spear appeared in Judikaka¡¯s hands. This bone spear had been summoned using death magic. In the blink of an eye, Judikaka had stabbed more than one hundred times with the spear. After the barrage of attacks, only half a spear remained.


    Guise gave a deadly re at the three spirit kings. He had given up retaliating, and was only a thought away from dying in this magic tower. That snow white robe had been contaminated with his bloody flesh, looking like blooming cherry blossoms which were strewn across snowy ground. Saleen noticed that the holy master¡¯s skull had been exposed after the flesh was torn away. His skull looked amazingly clear and transparent, like a perfect piece of crystal.

 Chapter 349: Courting Trouble (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 349: Courting Trouble (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was both rmed and terrified. This holy master was actually a saint!


    It was possible that Guise had not even known that he was under god¡¯s protection. The Lord of Glory had already noticed Guise, it was just that he had not been able to disseminate a decree in time. Even if Banchajanna¡¯s axe was used against a mountain, the mountain would also be breached. However, at this moment, the axe had only injured Guise¡¯s skin. The bone beneath his skin remained crystal clear and unharmed.


    Currently, the three kings had no other option. They knew that they had trifled with someone they should not have. If the kings let this fellow escape now, they would face more trouble in the future.


    At the same time, the three kings took out their scepters and surrounded Guise.


    ¡°Thank you Shann, for giving me the power of truth!¡±


    ¡°Thank you Shann, for giving me the power of deceit!¡±


    ¡°Thank you Shann, for giving me the power of absurdity!¡±


    These three scepters were actually a single entity wielded by Diyabannersa. But in order to conceal their tracks after arriving on the maind, the scepter had been separated into three parts and wielded by the three kings. At this moment, the three kings were going to strike together. The scepters formed a triangle with Guise in the center, as illusory magic patterns shed between the scepters.


    Saleen and Aini retreated to the stairway at the same time. They looked at each other, petrified. What magic was that? They could feel an aura which originated from elemental destruction.


    As spirits, it was very strange that the kings were releasing elemental magic. Furthermore, the power from this spell was horrifying. It was not something which Saleen or Aini could handle, and if they were even slightly affected, they would end up in a miserable state.


    The cracking of bones could be hearding from Guise¡¯s body. This sound was clear andsting, as though someone was using a hammer to hit everyst inch of his bones.


    Pak, pak¡­


    Two gentle pops sounded. It turned out that Guise¡¯s eyes had popped out of their orbitals,nding on the ground. From the surface of his body, blood was spurting outwards, causing his long white robe to turn scarlet.


    ¡°Filthy spirits, sphemers, in the name of my god¡­¡± Guise struggled desperately, trying to finish chanting his prayer. However, this attack from the three kings was a spell which had been summoned from the scepter. Such a spell could not be utilized by modern mages. It belonged to an era tens of thousands of years ago. It was a strange spell which existed before the humans had gone into decline.


    A space was formed in between the three scepters. Within this space, the protective powers from the Lord of Glory were torn away gradually, turning into nothingness.


    Aini clenched his teeth as he witnessed this scene unfolding before him. He knew what the holy master in a white robe was trying to do ¨C a cursing spell.


    ¡°Kill himpletely, don¡¯t even spare his soul!¡± Ainimanded Judikaka. Previously, a cursing spell had nearly killed Aini, and had even caused his magic chords to disappear. Aini had almost been rendered useless because of such a spell. If not for his parents¡¯ aegis and blessings from his family, he would have already been a sickly man by now. A young and talented elemental mage had been forced to convert to cultivating death magic.


    Even without Aini¡¯smands, the three kings would not have spared Guise anyways. If they allowed Guise to ascend to heaven, their doings would be revealed to the gods.


    In this ne, gods were not omnipotent, so the kings were really lucky. By killing this holy master thoroughly, their secrets would not be exposed for the time being, assuming that the god had not cast any special blessings.


    ¡°All of you¡­will, die!¡± Guise experienced great difficulty trying to finish his sentence. Whenever a word came out from his mouth, a surge of blood would spurt out from his body. At this moment, there was a pool of blood under his feet, and the ground was stained with blood.


    ¡°What a load of crap.¡± Aini cast a deadly re at this holy master, as though Guise was the person who had harmed him from the shadows.


    ¡°Aini, remain calm,¡± Saleen reminded him. Even though elemental magic and death magic were two different schools of thought, they shared one thing inmon, which was that a mage¡¯s heart could not be blinded by any emotion. Obviously, Aini had recalled the incident which had happened to him, and that rush of vengefulness would in turn cause Aini to lose his rationality.


    ¡°I am very calm. Every time a quack like him dies, I be slightly happier.¡± Aini rubbed his face, trying to regain hisposure. Most opinions about holy masters were positive. After all, their daily routines were to save people. However, in the region where the Holy See and the other three empires crossed swords, holy masters would frequently vite their boundaries and carry out some ndestine activities. Noblemen who were privy to such ssified information never felt that holy masters were kind people.


    Even within the interior of the Holy See, the pivotal council was quite dissatisfied with some of the actions taken by the inquisition. However, the three inquisitors were simply too powerful. Thus, most cardinals would choose to steer clear from trouble, causing the officers in the inquisition to be increasingly appalling.


    A group even more obscure was the holy masters under the oracles. In name, the seven oracles of the Holy See were led by the pope, but in reality, the oracles who regarded Fycro as their leader would defy the pope¡¯smands. Furthermore, some dioceses under the pivotal council had no choice but to go under themand of these oracles. As a result, this had caused the Holy See¡¯s power to be even more fragmented.


    For the past hundreds of years, the only issue which the interior of the Holy See had cooperated on was the assassination of Emperor Chanake. Emperor Chanake had been too mighty, causing the upper echelons of the Holy See to be deeply troubled.


    This secr emperor had more than a million soldiers under hismand, and he still had grade-9 sorcerers ensuring his safety inside the pce. Furthermore, his own secret magic was unique on the maind. Be it against a grand swordmaster, a sorcerer, or a holy master, Emperor Chanake¡¯s family secret magic would be effective. Such a person had to die.


    As a result, the Holy See had dered a war on Lon in order to bait out Emperor Chanake. However, the Holy See had not expected Emperor Chanake to lead the attack and even go to the frontline. Immediately, the interior of the Holy See had created a perfect ambush under the pope¡¯smand. However, after this event, the interior of the Holy See did not be united. In fact, it became increasingly fragmented.


    Guise was feeling serene. He had lost his eyes, his mind was blurry, and almost all the blood had been drained from his body. However, in the depths of his soul, tens of thousands of holy texts had emerged, exploding vigorously before epassing his physical body. These holy words contained the power of glory. Even though his physical body was close to utter destruction, his soul remained unharmed.


    Even though I have done so much wrong, god still hasn¡¯t abandoned me. A sense of warmth filled Guise¡¯s heart. He had obeyed Fycro¡¯s orders and aided the development of ck mages in the Chaotic Swamp, which was a serious offence.


    Saleen¡¯s heart turned cold when he noticed a smile on Guise¡¯s bloody face. This lunatic can still smile at this point in time?


    ¡°Truth, is the nature of this world,¡± Diyabannersa said with a solemn expression as he waved his scepter about. His scepter controlled the illusory magic patterns engulfing Guise¡¯s body. Those holy texts which had burst from Guise¡¯s body crumbled. In front of this mysterious human spell, even holy texts would revert to their original form.


    ¡°Deceit, is the reality of this world.¡± Judikaka also raised his scepter andunched an attack. Guise¡¯s body exploded with a huge amount of force, causing the flesh and bone to be detached and leaving only a skeleton behind. This skeleton was no different from a newly formed skeleton soldier. The only difference was that flickering soul mes were not present.


    ¡°Absurdity, is theughter of this world.¡± Banchajanna executed the final blow. When he waved the scepter, all of the magic patterns disappeared. Guise copsed peacefully, his bones looking ever so crystal clear. In that final moment, Guise¡¯s soul shrank violently before going up in mes.


    At this point in time, Saleen felt that something was wrong. This spell cast by the three kings seemedpletely unrted to death magic. When the holy master in a white robe had been on the verge of death, his soul had not tried to escape. Instead, it had turned into the soul mes which were found in all spirits. This bundle of soul mes lingered in the air, with nowhere to seek refuge. Under Banchajanna¡¯s attack, the holy master¡¯s body becamepletely shattered. When a gust of wind came by, those crystal clear bones broke down into powder.


    Saleen felt unsettled. Those scepters in the hands of the three kings seem to havee from somewhere else. If only my teacher was here, he would be able to pinpoint the problem. It was a pity that Saleen¡¯s knowledge leaned towards that ofbat. He still knew too little about ancient equipment. In truth, Saleen could enquire about the kings¡¯ secret. However, he was afraid that if he asked, he would vite some kind of rule.


    If such a rule applied to Saleen¡¯s contract, then when Saleen asked the question, he would immediately lose his reins over the three kings.


    Perhaps the three kings were waiting for such an opportunity? Saleen and Aini were not the only people who knew how to create traps. The kings had been alive for tens of thousands of years, yet they had been deceived by Saleen and Aini. They must have been feeling unusually outraged. At this moment, the three kings quickly resumed theirposure, looking very obedient. And that was definitely an abnormal sign.


    All of a sudden, amotion could be heard under the magic tower. With a scan using his perception, Saleen discovered the problem. The teleportation portal on the first story had been stimted. An endless stream of the Holy See¡¯s riders were swarming out from the portal. They charged out ferociously, attacking the spirits outside the magic tower.


    Saleen pointed to the soul mes lingering in midair, then said to Aini, ¡°Is there any way to conceal that so that others will not be able to detect it?¡±


    Aini waved his hand, and that bundle of soul mes entered his mouth. Aini then simply swallowed the soul mes.


    ¡°The soul of a saint¡­¡± Aini was a little frightened, but he did not really care. All types of soul mes would be assimted as long as they fused with his death mes. That was the special attribute of nt spirits, which were necessary for killing people.


    Aini was a little uneasy. Committing sphemy against the soul of a saint was akin to spitting saliva on a god¡¯s face. However, the gods could not descend upon the Myers Maind. It would be better for Aini to not travel to the other nes in the future.


    ¡°Banchajanna, go down and kill those people.¡± Saleen knew that Daniel would not be able to hold the fort by himself. The pirates might have possessed higher offensive power than the ck puppets, but the Holy See¡¯s riders were regr soldiers. Inparison, the pirates would just be an unruly mob.


    The three kings maintained their silence, then they jumped out of the window and lunged at the Holy See¡¯s riders and officers. While in midair, Banchajanna reverted to his original form with his six arms and a colossal tail. With a boom, Banchajannanded on the ground, striking seven enemies at the same time.


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Ever since leaving Ceylon City, this battle had gone the smoothest. With the three kings by his side, he would not need to worry at all unless the enemy was a sorcerer.


    ¡°Aini, the contract might have taken effect, but why do I feel that the three kings aren¡¯t fully under control yet?¡± Saleen asked doubtfully.

 Chapter 350: Courting Trouble (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 350: Courting Trouble (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Who cares?¡± Aini did not care, and replied, ¡°This contract is of the highest standard on the Myers Maind. Even if they possess any secrets, they will not render the contract useless.¡±


    Saleen pondered it, then decided to suppress the uneasiness in his heart.


    On the square outside the magic tower, Daniel reacted swiftly to the situation. Immediately after spotting the Holy See¡¯s ridersing out from the teleportation portal, Danielmanded the pirates to steer clear. Then, by himself, he led the pikoosi to block the entrance to the magic tower.


    This broken magic tower only had one door. With a colossal creature like the pikoosi obstructing the path, it would be futile no matter how many more riders emerged. As the riders came out one by one, they could not really hurt the pikoosi. Furthermore, Daniel was experienced. He did not allow the pikoosi to kill the riders, simplymanding it to harass the riders to prevent them from all rushing out at once.


    When the three kings descended on the square, only less than ten riders had managed to exit the magic tower.


    Judikaka, who was usually calm and collected, also lost his temper at this moment. He had not expected himself to be duped by Saleen and Aini. Ten thousand years ago, the kings had been cheated due to inexperience. But after ten thousand years, they had already be kings, and yet they had still been deceived by human mages. This fact made Judikaka feel extremely humiliated.


    However, the kings knew that the contract was vicious, hence they could only vent their anger on the Holy See¡¯s riders. The violence from the kings scared the pikoosi away, and the kings began their killing spree inwards into the magic tower. By killing from the outside to the inside, they prevented any enemies from escaping.


    The riders from the Holy See were considered elites. ording to the secr ssification of professions, almost all the riders were at the standard of a high-grade swordsman. Since the riders were proficient inbat coordination, they would be able to kill enemies of a higher grade as long as they got into formation. At the very least, the pirates were no match for them. Only the elite swordsman¡¯s camp serving Lex would be able to match up to these riders.


    Unfortunately, they had run into three fuming kings. A massive amount of power erupted from these three fellows, destroying the walls of the magic tower. A boom emanated from the base of the magic tower, and then the magic tower copsed.


    There were seven other people in the magic tower, and they managed to escape before the tower copsed. Saleen and Aini each possessed their own flying abilities, while the faces of the five grand swordmasters turned grey in all that dust.


    Saleen and Aini were understanding. They did not punish the three kings. If they had been the ones who were deceived, they would have been experiencing simr emotions as well. Saleen did not n to use violence frequently to make the three kings to work for him.


    After the dust settled, the three kings shoved the remains of the magic tower aside, revealing a magic array in the center of all that debris. This magic array was unusually sturdy, and had already been operating perfectly for tens of thousands of years. Continuous shes of magic light came from the magic array. This magic array was about dozens of meters wide, and an endless stream of riders and holy masters emerged from it.


    The three kings were enjoying the massacre. Since they had reverted to their original forms, they could ughter most of these people with a single hit. Before bing kings, they had experienced a protracted war back in the death dimension, so their warring techniques were also far superior to those of those riders.


    Woo¡­


    There was a long moan. Among the ruins of the magic tower, an illusory piece of holy text emerged and flew into midair. It was already approaching the boundary of the sky. Saleen and Aini¡¯s expressions changed abruptly. That holy master had actually left a message!


    ¡°Diyabannersa!¡± Saleen yelled.


    Diyabannersa also spotted that flying piece of holy prose. Even though he was not willing to listen to Saleen¡¯smands, he was afraid of Saleen¡¯s punishment, and he was also worried that the holy prose was a marking left behind by the god. If the holy prose was not destroyed, the gods would surely learn of their doings.


    Diyabannersa raised his head and spit out a ball of green mes, engulfing that piece of massive holy prose and burning it fiercely.


    The piece of holy prose began disappearing at a speed which was visible to the naked eye. Just as everyone began to feel relieved, the holy prose burst out suddenly, and a blurry symbol flew out from the center. This symbol prated the clouds and disappeared in a sh. That green me engulfing the holy prose was broken up, sshing across the ground. A massive cavity in the hard ground, with a diameter of about three meters, was formed by the mes, its depth immeasurable.


    As Saleen stared at this huge cavity, and his mouth twitched. Diyabannersa had not beenzy. He had used his strongest attack, but it could not destroy the holy master¡¯s skill.


    ¡°Aini, it seems like we have gotten into trouble!¡± After a long while, Saleen only managed to say, ¡°Are you afraid?¡±


    Aini clenched his teeth, then said, ¡°It¡¯s only a matter of time before this matter is exposed. It cannot be kept under wraps forever. We should go back early, forget about this mineral vein. The Holy See would have dug most of it out anyway.¡±


    Saleen was dying to return to the city base. By the time Saleen returned this time around, he would already be able to officiallymand the three kings. Additionally, the kings would no longer be able to skive, and the city could continue its expansion. Even in winter, the movements of spirits would not be affected. The city¡¯s defenses needed to be constructed as soon as possible. Even if this matter was exposed, the Holy See would have no choice but to wait. Saleen did not believe that the Holy See could deploy its troops and fly all of them to the city base.


    If the Holy See¡¯s army traveled by sea, they would need to spend two years building the necessary ships. And if the Holy See¡¯s army traveled bynd, they would first have to destroy two empires and half of the Qin Empire.


    ¡°It¡¯s good if you don¡¯t regret anything. But, we have to clean this ce up first. I will not leave anything for the Holy See. As for the ck mages¡­¡± Saleen pondered for a moment, but he did not continue talking. During the battle, he had not spotted any ck mages at all, and there were also less evil dragons than before. Not all of the ck mages were hiding here. It seemed like the ck mages still had other hiding spots.


    Saleen could not waste too much time in the Chaotic Swamp. He had to get back to the city base as soon as possible.


    Aini was doing some calctions in his mind. He had already invested all of his savings into Saleen, and if Saleen¡¯s city failed, he would not even get a cent back. At this moment, he could only cooperate with Saleen, and he needed to move his parents to Saleen¡¯s city quickly.


    Judging from today¡¯s situation, the bnce on the maind cannot be sustained for long and will crumble very soon. The Clyde family should be fine, but most of Mother¡¯s family is located in southern Lon. They need to be evacuated quickly, as that area could potentially be the first to be implicated in the war.


    The three kings cleared the remaining Holy See¡¯s forces swiftly before charging into the teleportation portal, entering the relic from the Second Dynasty which was upied by the Holy See.


    Aini did not follow Saleen into the portal. Instead, he released his nt spirits. The bodies on the ground were absorbed into the roots of the nts, as the nts stored them for digestion.


    Death mages were frequently criticized for this behavior. They could create real skeleton soldiers using the bodies on this ne, and these skeleton soldiers would be more powerful than the summoned ones and would also be easier tomand. However, the secr rulers of the four empires did not like such a practice, so death mages rarely did so.


    Aini did not give a hoot this time around. The three kings had ughtered hundreds of riders who were warriors when they were alive, so they could be used to create strong skeleton soldiers. As these skeleton soldiers would possess greater offensive abilities than those of summoned bone spirits, Aini believed that Saleen would not be disgusted by him.


    Of course, Saleen would not stop Aini. He followed the three kings and barged into the teleportation portal before arriving at a sealed space. The three kings led the way, and when they burst out of the bidirectional portal, they managed to kill another dozen monks who were hiding underground. Nearly the entire space had been extracted by the Holy See. The buildings left behind by the Second Dynasty had also been sent back to the Tanggsi Empire. The only thing left was the mineral vein.


    If the three kings had not been spirits, they would have hit the roof by now. Their agenda foring here had been to obtain the things left behind by the mages from the Second Dynasty. It turned out that there was nothing left, and they had even lost their freedom in the process.


    ¡°You all¡­ had better destroy this mineral vein. Extract whatever that you can. For those that you can¡¯t extract, don¡¯t leave them for other people either,¡± Saleen said ruthlessly.


    Out of the blue, Judikaka turned around and swiped his gigantic w at Saleen¡¯s head. Saleen and Aini had split their rewards, and Judikaka belonged to Aini. Therefore, this attack by Judikaka did not activate the bacsh from the contract.


    However, Diyabannersa and Banchajanna retaliated at the same time. An attack from the left side and the right side caused Judikaka to be hurled away.


    ¡°You two!¡± Judikaka was enraged. He had seized the opportunity to assault Saleen when Aini was not around. Without his twopanions, Saleen would never have been able to retaliate.


    ¡°Judikaka, even though we are reluctant, we don¡¯t want to die.¡± Diyabannersa and Banchajanna blocked Judikaka¡¯s path. Standing behind the two kings, Saleen sneered, ¡°Judikaka, this will be the first and thest time. If you try anything funny again, I will mosaic you onto my ship.¡±


    Saleen had duped the three kings into signing the contract, so he did not want to be too chummy with them. So what if they hated Saleen? With the restrains from the contract, they would be trapped in Saleen¡¯s hands, even if they were spirit kings.


    ¡°You are right. This fellow will only live for slightly more than a hundred years,¡± Judikaka said between clenched teeth. Then, he turned towards the mineral vein and started to work. From his words, it was obvious that he was cursing that Saleen would never be a sorcerer. A normal professional would be able to live for one hundred and twenty years, but if one became a sorcerer, their life would be extended several times.


    Saleen sneered as he observed the three kings working in this colossal underground space. This vein was almost fully extracted, but if one dug deeper, they would be able to obtain some very precious ores. Otherwise, the Holy See would not have spent so much effort here already. In truth, there were still many more ck puppets digging for ores in this ce, but they had been massacred by the three kings.


    Saleen stood in this massive underground space and stared at the ruins. He was reeling in regret. The relic left behind by the Second Dynasty had been so majestic and beautiful, yet it had been destroyed by the Holy See. Everything valuable had been seized. Back then, Saleen was the one who had told Picasso of this location. The past few years had already given the Holy See enough time to pige whatever that was avable.


    The Tanggsi Empire, the eastern Glorious ins, the city of oracles.


    At the top story of a magnificent church, a gentle ray of light burst through a window. It was not just any light, but holy light. Inside the room, a man d in an ancient costume was seated on a wide chair. The man¡¯s robe was free from any sewing marks.


    ¡°Guise is dead, and even his soul has disappeared!¡±


    He stretchedzily, looking as serene as ever, as though he was not angry that his capable subordinate had been killed. He did not even show any signs of sadness.


    ¡°Lord Fycro, is the Chaotic Swamp in trouble?¡± a young man, who stood behind this man, asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother yourself with this. I will settle this issue¡­¡±


    This man was called Fycro, and was the leader of the seven oracles in the Holy See. This man was almost a god. He was the son of god, the star of the Glorious ins.

 Chapter 351: Building an Army, Building a City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 351: Building an Army, Building a City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The youth looked at his teacher doubtfully. Indeed, Guise was one of Fycro¡¯s most important subordinates, but this matter was not so serious that it required the oracle himself, was it?


    Even though the nucleus of the Holy See was set in the Glorious City, there were hundreds of thousands of believers in the Oracle City a few hundred miles away who would chant Fycro¡¯s name during their prayers. ording to the code, this was an honor which was bestowed by the god upon the first oracle. However, none of the oracles before Fycro had been able to ept such an honor with peace of mind.


    No one was sure whether the believers left out the Lord of Glory¡¯s title during their prayers or not. However, everyone knew that Fycro was the one who had changed the situation within the Holy See.


    For the first time, the number of churches and believers under the oracles¡¯mand hade close to that of the pivotal council. And it was during this period that the inquisition had managed to break free from the pivotal council¡¯s oppression.


    To the believers, a word from the oracle was equivalent to a holy decree.


    The pivotal council could no longer control all the believers. At the same time, the inquisition began to believe that darkness was also god¡¯s will as long as all evil could be exterminated from this world.


    Fycro, a person second only to Pope Theisio, was actually going to be personally involved in Guise¡¯s affairs! A look of scornfulness appeared on the youth¡¯s face because he felt that Guise was merely a white bishop.


    ¡°Aidan, you must be modest in order to stand a chance at bing the seventh oracle. Genesis died a long time ago, yet no holy decrees were disseminated. This will be a good opportunity for you,¡± Fycro said in an indifferent tone.


    The eyebrows of this youth named Aidan arched up, then he lowered his head and did not rebut his teacher. He knew that his teacher was a very prideful person, even though the Lord of Glory had descended personally and bestowed the virtue of modesty upon his teacher.


    Fycro¡¯s words made Aidan excited. Aidan had lowered his head in order to conceal his own emotions. Genesis had infiltrated the Qin Empire and died at the hands of an unknown mage. As a result, the seat belonging to the fifth oracle was empty. If this had happened in the past, holy masters from the pivotal council would have been eyeing that position. However, with Fycro around, everyone else would need to listen to him.


    Without a holy decree being issued by the Lord of Glory, the pivotal council did not dare to make a move. Consequently, the position of the fifth oracle was filled by the sixth, while the position of the sixth oracle was filled by the seventh. Hence, at this moment, the seat of the seventh oracle was empty.


    The seventh oracle possessed the virtue of generosity. Aidan did not feel that he was very generous. But, even his teacher had been able to be the first oracle and receive protection from god, so what else was impossible? With his teacher¡¯s support, the white bishops could only watch him ascend to the position of the seventh oracle.


    God was in charge of heaven, but the Myers Maind belonged to the saints.


    Back at the Chaotic Swamp, the three kings had cleaned the ce up after their outburst of rage. They used their brute strength to destroy thest mineral vein. Among the remnants of the mineral vein, Saleen obtained several pieces of green spirit by ident.


    After discovering the green spirit, Saleen could not contain his jubnce and beganughing out loud. He and Aini felt that it was heaven¡¯s will. These pieces of green spirit were of unmatched value and could be used to seal arge number of summoned creatures. Originally, Saleen had only one piece of green spirit left, so he was still fretting over how to store the three kings. He could not possibly have Diyabannersa and Banchajanna stay in Daniel¡¯s death mes, could he?


    If that really happened, Saleen would never feel at ease.


    The three kings could not vent all their anger, so when they returned to the surface, they went to kill all the ck puppets. The ck mages had escaped long ago. They had not even engaged in battle with Saleen¡¯s army. Now that Guise was dead, Fycro would never let the ck mages off. At this moment, the ck mages just wanted to rush to the heart of the Myers Maind ¨C the Purgatory Desert.


    They wanted to beg for forgiveness from the dark sky devil. It would be much easier than begging to Fycro.


    In the heat of all that rage, the three kings did not discover the special characteristics of the poly spirit beasts. After countless ck puppets, armored puppets, headless riders, and other creatures produced from ck magic were massacred, more than thirty poly spirit beasts had been formed. These poly spirit beasts did not continue the offensive. Instead, they retreated silently, as though they had received some sort ofmand.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Saleen walked out of the teleportation portal in high spirits. Even though he had not obtained anything left from the Second Dynasty, he had managed to reap quite arge number of gems from that ruined mineral vein. Furthermore, he now had the three kings under his thumb. Saleen was already feeling quite satisfied.


    Now that three kings had been subdued, small trouble would not pose a threat to his city anymore, as long as the Holy See did not deploy arge number of troops. Unfortunately, the power of the three kings had been reduced. His and Aini¡¯s grades were still too low, thus limiting the kings¡¯ abilities.


    Thousands of spirits were herded back the death dimension by the three kings. This time around, the pirates did not lose many men, and at the end of the battle, sixty-two pirates remained. Since the size of the team had shrunk by half, Saleen decided to be cautious on the journey back. There were many hardly detectable crevices in the Chaotic Swamp. Furthermore, it was winter, and the thickyer of snow caused the ground to be a natural trap. The route which Saleen selected was very safe. It had been paved by Nailisi when she was escaping in the past.


    Riding on the backs of their bone horses, the team did not really take any breaks. In less than three days, the team passed through the forests at the edge of the Chaotic Swamp and made their away out of Deep Forest Town. Saleen did not waste much time at this town which he already owned, while the pirates only enjoyed a restful sleep. The second day, the team immediately continued on their journey and rushed back to the city base.


    The team made their journey on horseback. In winter, the Phoenix Duchy appeared bleak and lifeless. Along the way, all the doors were tightly shut and there were no business convoys around. Saleen did not want to startle the nobles, so he decided to spend the night in the wilderness. Traveling at such a speed, his team entered the northern wilderness very quickly.


    ¡°Sir, do you want to take a break?¡± J was also riding on horseback. Currently, he was always to the left of Saleen and rarely left Saleen¡¯s side. Seeing that Saleen was desperately rushing back to the city base, he suggested that Saleen look for a city and get some rest.


    Saleen simply reduced the speed of the bone horse, then said to J, ¡°It¡¯d be better to return as soon as possible. You don¡¯t know the people whom I have offended. I keep feeling unsafe.¡±


    J replied, ¡°The Holy See is tens of thousands of miles away, there won¡¯t be any trouble. Furthermore, there are¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s because we have them that I don¡¯t feel safe. Let¡¯s talk when we return.¡± Saleen did not try to argue with J and simply increased the bone horse¡¯s speed again.


    At a certain point in time, the magic beasts which the magic beast swordsmen rode copsed due to exhaustion. Saleen ruthlesslymanded them to abandon those magic beasts, then provided them with four bone horses before continuing on the journey. On these boring and monotonous snowy grounds, Saleen¡¯s team was astonishingly swift. The magic beast swordsmen did not resist. Their magic beasts were of lower grades and had not been reared from birth, so they had no qualms abandoning them.


    At a speed which was twice that used in the journey out, Saleen led his team back to the city base. When he began to see the unfinished city walls which surrounded the city base, he immediately felt more at ease. With his years of experience, Saleen trusted his instincts and decided to rush back. Seeing that the city base was unharmed, Saleen finally heaved a sigh of relief.


    It¡¯s time to build a teleportation portal, Saleen secretly thought to himself.


    Teleportation portals were not only used to transport people. Most portals were used to deliver mail, because the levels of depletion when delivering mail and delivering a person were poles apart. Even if a letter had a bespoke outer shell, delivering it would still be one hundred times cheaper than delivering a living human.


    By constructing a teleportation portal, Saleen would be able to receive information quickly. Saleen would no longer have to fret over intercepted information, at least between the Bitter Water Prefecture and the city base


    Constructing a long-distance teleportation portal would consume special materials. These materials were easily attainable, it was just that their prices were exorbitant.


    The western wall of the city base had not been built yet. From afar, only the foundation of the wall could be seen. J grew disappointed when he saw that. This ce seemed like a vige piged by bandits. How was it a city?


    Saleenughed and patted J¡¯s shoulder, then said, ¡°We still have a few miles to go, why are you in such a rush?¡±


    In Saleen¡¯s city n, the wall at the western side would be pushed away until it was six miles from the temple. That way, the city would have a enough of a surface area to contain thirty-six magic towers.


    J did notment. But as he continued traveling east and followed Saleen to the administrative center, his mouth fell open. J could not believe that this city, which was nearly wrecked, would have such a mystical building.


    The administrative center was built entirely out of white rocks, and there were more than one hundred steps leading to the main entrance with huge columns all around. Even though the administrative center upied arge space, it did not seem inted. Instead, it was like a magic tower, beautifully slender. All this beauty came from the magic patterns on the building. When Saleen had been designing the administrative center, he had nned for it to double as a fort for battles as well.


    Even though J was knowledgeable, he could not help but be amazed by such a colossal structure. And when Saleen brought J to the temple, J became utterly speechless.


    J had already thought of himself as fairly arrogant beneath his loose appearance, but he had not expected this¡­


    He had not expected that his lord would dare to live in such a house. No wonder the lord did not even hesitate to give the order to kill when he discovered the high ranking officials from the Holy See. It seems like the lord has a deep feud with the Holy See. Before meeting me, the lord and the Holy See must have been at odds already. Was it too rash of me to join a mage like this?


    As the sword named Tears fluttered within the sheath on his back, J was awe-inspired. What was he thinking? Even though he did not believe in loyalty, he should not have been afraid after knowing that his lord¡¯s enemies were powerful. What was so scary about those quacks? The Holy See could not possibly traverse thousands of miles and send their holy riders here, could they?


    The lord has very powerful death creatures. With us, the five magic beast swordsmen, and a city with an established foundation, there is no need to be afraid even if there is an intermediate-sized army.


    Saleen dispatched the pirates back to their camp before leading the five grand swordmasters into the temple.


    ¡°Right now, I will give all of you a chance to leave,¡± Saleen said peacefully to the five grand swordmasters. Only Aini was beside him. Daniel was not around.


    ¡°My lord?¡± J addressed Saleen differently from how he normally would. He could not understand why Saleen had said that.

 Chapter 352: Building an Army, Building a City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 352: Building an Army, Building a City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°My enemies are far stronger than you think. Even I, myself, am not confident of surviving. In the beginning, all of you chose to follow me out of desperation. But right now, I will give you a chance to choose.¡± Saleen looked like he was narrating an event which was not rted to him. His blue eyes were as pure aske water in the spring, clear and cold.


    The four magic beast swordsmen looked at each other nkly, at a loss for what to say. Even if they were to leave Saleen, they would not be able to live peacefully either, unless Emperor Jupiter stopped pursuing them.


    With a solemn expression, J asked, ¡°If I choose to leave, will the sword be taken back?¡±


    The sword J was referring to was Tears, which had been specially made by Aini.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Saleen replied firmly.


    ¡°Then I won¡¯t leave.¡± J¡¯s reply was also equally tenacious. In his heart, J had his own thoughts. It is unknown how those three powerful spirits were subdued by Saleen. If I do leave, and Saleen decides to retaliate, then I will probably end up like the three kings. That will be the worst oue.


    ¡°My lord, we will follow you until death,¡± the four magic beast swordsmen replied at the same time.


    ¡°Very well. All of you shall stay here for the time being. Every day, you will practice with each other for four hours in front of me. Also, I will make a new set of equipment for each one of you.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡± A white figure charged into the room, crashing into Saleen¡¯s arms. Even though Saleen had a perception which surpassed that of a grade-6 mage, he had not been able to foresee that. Nailisi hugged Saleen tightly, felt Saleen¡¯s heartbeat, then muttered, ¡°You¡¯re not dead, you¡¯re really not dead!¡±


    The four magic beast swordsmen were stunned, while J¡¯s gaze glowed with passion. However, Aini withdrew himself, trying to steer clear of Nailisi. As a death mage, Aini did not know why he was afraid of a maidservant who had no status. Aini suspected that this might have been psychological trauma. Back then, Nailisi had indeed been a fearsome presence. Furthermore, up until now, he still could not find out what abilities Nailisi possessed.


    J had not seen Nailisi¡¯s violent side, so he grinned as he watched Saleen push Nailisi away, then asked, ¡°Sir, who is this beautifuldy?¡±


    Saleen pushed Nailisi aside, but Nailisi was not angry. She went back into his arms and pulled at them, fussing over him.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen raised his voice. In front of the new followers, he had to maintain his majesty and dominance no matter what.


    ¡°Master, are you going to punish me?¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice was filled with seductive vibes. Suddenly, Saleen¡¯s heart lurched as he recalled Nailisi¡¯s interpretation of a punishment. At this point in time, he noticed J¡¯s zing gaze.


    Oh no, J. This fellow even dared to mess with Emperor Jupiter¡¯s daughter. He will definitely pester Nailisi. Given Nailisi¡¯s character, she will most probably eat J, to experience what a grand swordmaster tastes like. Saleen remembered very clearly that Nailisi was interested in the flesh of experts. This kind of interest stemmed from her appetite.


    ¡°This is my servant, Nailisi. This is J, Vinz, Singiles, Gos, and L. They are my followers. When all of you are protecting me, you must also ensure Nailisi¡¯s safety.¡±


    ¡°I will use my life to¡­¡±


    Saleen interrupted J¡¯s oath, and said, ¡°Your life is mine.¡±


    J looked at Nailisi disappointedly. He could tell that Saleen and his maidservant shared an unusual rtionship. However, he did not mind. As long as Nailisi appreciated him, he would not give a hoot about who Nailisi had been with in the past. What disappointed him was that Nailisi had never even looked at him once all this while. More urately, ever since Nailisi had entered the house, she had focused all her attention on Saleen.


    ¡°All of you can go and rest now.¡± Saleen¡¯s sentence was interrupted by Nailisi. Saleen felt that he should not rush things. He would need at least a year to aplish his army training n. But in order for his army to reach the level of proficiency of Lex¡¯s subordinates, he would need at least ten times that duration.


    When J and the others had left, Saleen then said to Nailisi, ¡°Nailisi, J is a ck metal grand swordmaster, but he has the abilities of a silver grand swordmaster. Don¡¯t harm him.¡±


    ¡°Harm him? Why would I?¡± Nailisi was all smiles when she answered Saleen. This J looks just like a lecher. I don¡¯t have to do anything. When Lex returns, it will only get more interesting.


    Seeing that Nailisi looked shameless, Saleen was also helpless. He could not guarantee that Nailisi would not do anything.


    ¡°Aini, I have some things to say to Saleen. You need to leave the room for a moment,¡± Nailisimanded Aini in a stern manner. Aini¡¯s mouth twitched, but he did not rebut her nor did he be angry. He left Saleen¡¯s room obediently. If Aini was still afraid of anyone in this world, that person was surely Nailisi.


    Even in the face of the three kings, Aini had only been excited and nervous. But in front of Nailisi, he experienced a kind of unspoken fear. He did not know why, and he did not want to know why. Fortunately, Saleen was his friend, which made him feel slightly at ease.


    After Aini left, Nailisi then put on a straight face and said, ¡°Master, you have to speed up the project.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°The city is being built too slowly, and our army is too tiny.¡±


    ¡°I know all that, but this time around, Aini and I have subdued the three kings. In the future, we will have about five thousand spirits at our beck and call. And as for the construction of the city, I feel that we can begin constructing the magic towers.¡±


    ¡°Master, do you think Aini is reliable?¡±


    ¡°He is. Have you discovered something though?¡± Saleen rebutted.


    ¡°No, but I¡¯ve realized that he keeps avoiding me,¡± Nailisi said in a doubtful tone. However, she did not know that Aini avoided her because of an unspoken fear in his heart. Those were the sensitive instincts which death mages possessed.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much. Aini is almost as reliable as Lex, but less than you or Sika.¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡± Nailisi lifted her chest. However, in her mind, she thought, Master thinks that I am reliable? This is no good, I may have to do a lot more work in the future. In the past, things were so good. Master was worried about delegating too many tasks to me, so I had plenty of time to sleep and evolve.


    ¡°How is Jupiter?¡± Saleen asked Nailisi as he thought of the pirate whom he had left behind.


    ¡°Very good. He is pretty enthusiastic when ites to training the warriors.¡±


    ¡°What about the five hundred swordsmen which Aini brought?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not bad either, but their abilities¡­¡±


    ¡°Abilities can be trained, several battles will do the trick. They have a good foundation though.¡± Saleen enquired about the affairs of the city systematically. After he had left, Nailisi had effectively been the one running the city base. She was also the highest inmand among the people who stayed behind.


    The two of them spokete into the night. After Saleen understood all the matters which had taken ce when he was not around, he began nning for the future.


    Firstly, the city needed to have a name. This was not an important matter, and he would not need to wait for Lex to return to discuss it. Next was the size of the army. From north to south, this city had a width of four miles, and from east to west, this city had a length of six miles. Hence, it was not considered big. At least inparison with the central cities of some empires, this city was only a smaller intermediate city.


    Be that as it may, the number of soldiers required to defend this city was not very small either. At the line of defense on the eastern side, at least one swordsmen¡¯s camp had to be built. Plus, three swordsmen¡¯s camps needed to be built between the northern and southern sides. Also, the shore in the east had to have a navy on top of a mandatory swordsmen¡¯s camp.


    Even if everything was simplified, a city this massive also needed about sixty thousand soldiers for defensive purposes. If the number could not hit sixty thousand, then the soldiers would not be able to swap out amongst the defenses in the event of an intense battle. As a result, the city¡¯s defenses could be crumbled in just a few days.


    This number was not exaggerated at all. Even though this city was designed to utilize the magic towers as the main form of defense, mages also needed to rest. They could not possibly fight for the entire battle. Even Sregl Ind had swordsmen, not to mention Saleen¡¯s city.


    An alchemical crossbow used for defending the city required four soldiers to operate it. No matter how Saleen calcted it, the manpower could not be reduced any further.


    Lex had agreed to bring ten thousand men. And if Saleen had a chance to go out to sea next spring, he could continue recruiting pirates in order to get another ten thousand men. However, the remaining forty thousand vacancies would be hard to fill.


    The three kings were able to summon about five thousand spirits and station them on the Myers Maind, and that was the limit given their current abilities. If Lex could produce arge number of war puppets and then these puppets were merged with the spirits, then there would already be enough manpower to form a camp. The offensive power of this camp would be equivalent to that of two elite swordsmen¡¯s camps, but its depletion would also be greater. War puppets were fueled by low-grade magic nuclei, while the five thousand spirits had to bemanded by a mage in order to be an offensive force.


    Saleenmanded the three kings to begin expanding the city, before summoning everyone else and then discussing the issue of expanding the army.


    ¡°Master, if Sister Sika brings back enough people, she will be able to form a camp on her own.¡± This time around, Nailisi spoke to Saleen solemnly. Saleen felt reluctant. He felt that he was too indebted to Sika, and he did not want to implicate Sika in his conflict with the Holy See.


    ¡°Master, even if you did not appear, the lives of the Caucasus people would have still deteriorated. If they want to multiply their numbers in the north, sacrifices will have to be made.¡± Nailisi spoke like a schr found in history books. Saleen nodded in response. He knew that Nailisi was right, it was just that he felt uneasy.


    ¡°There are quite a number of priests among the Caucasus people. If they are merged with the barbarians, their offensive abilities will be greatly boosted.¡± Nailisi kept encouraging Saleen as she stood beside him.


    ¡°I get it. This idea will work.¡±


    ¡°Sir, we can also acquire mercenary groups,¡± J suggested. At this moment, he knew that Saleen was filthy rich, but Saleen did not have much manpower.


    ¡°Acquire mercenary groups?¡±


    ¡°Yes, some newly emerged noblemen obtained their private armies by acquiring mercenary groups since theycked a firm foundation.¡±


    ¡°What about loyalty?¡± Saleen felt that even though mercenaries might have been trustable, they would not be loyal. His city was too important. If it was ced in the hands of the mercenaries, he would never obtain peace of mind. In the past, if Aini had not deceived the Nut Mercenary Group, he and Aini could have been killed in Baron Cook¡¯s castle. They would not even have been where they were today.


    Saleen was a person who learned from his mistakes. From that day on, he had never trusted mercenaries again.

 Chapter 353: Raphael’s Magic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 353: Raphael¡¯s Magic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°It will be fine as long as the mercenaries fulfill the contract. Sir, if there aren¡¯t enough soldiers, we can simply hire a few mercenary groups, or we can ask them to station their forces here. Since this is a newly formed city, the mercenary groups will not charge you any fees as long as you provide them with amodation. And, they will help you defend the city too,¡± J exined to Saleen.


    Saleen said to J, ¡°This is my personal city. I will not ce its safety into the hands of untrustworthy people. Sometimes¡­ a contract is not binding.¡±


    ¡°But sixty thousand people are needed. Even if we spend a year acquiring them, we will only be able to recruit half of that number.¡± After J listened to Saleen¡¯s analysis, he knew that it was almost impossible to conscript soldiers. Almost all of the aboriginals had been captured by the Holy See, so Saleen could only rely on his wealth to amass manpower.


    Furthermore, this city would continue to expand. Two giant fortresses would be constructed in the north, forming the shape of two prongs and thus stabilizing the city¡¯s defenses. Since the city was amercial and military town, there would eventually be more than one hundred thousand soldiers stationed here.


    Saleen sighed, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t mention the hiring of mercenaries anymore. We will sit on this matter for the time being. Conan, continue recruiting the aboriginals. As of now, how many people are willing to settle down in the city?¡±


    ¡°Sir, when you were not around, almost one thousand people already signed up,¡± Conan answered solemnly. In the north, most of the barbarians had already been massacred by the Holy See. Of the remaining poption, most of them had already chosen to go to Saleen¡¯s city since they did not want to be exterminated, with the exception of some stubborn elders.


    ¡°Aini, your five hundred swordsmen¡­¡±


    ¡°They are my private soldiers,¡± Aini replied decisively. The reason why he had been able to bring so many people was because of other factors in addition to his family¡¯s support. In truth, these people had been acquired in exchange for money. There were also some who were followers of Aini¡¯s father. These five hundred swordsmenprised all of Aini¡¯s power.


    ¡°I want to establish a mercenary group and register it in the Bitter Water Prefecture. They can join the mercenary group. That way, it will be easier to control any external forces.¡± Saleen thought to himself, Once the forces from Sregl Ind are shifted here, I won¡¯t have to worry about all these problems anymore. Aye, my dear teacher, when can you bring those people over?


    ¡°No problem!¡± Aini clenched his teeth. At this moment, he was betting that Saleen would have a great future. If Saleen and his city were ruined, then Aini would not be able to recover even a single cent. However, if Saleen seeded and managed to resist the Holy See¡¯s attacks, then the city would bring immense fortune to Aini. Obviously, Saleen only wanted the city to have one mercenary group. The backbone of this mercenary group would be formed by the five hundred soldiers brought by Aini.


    ¡°Daniel, bring Gurney along and build the first camp. Right now, I can only spare you two hundred men. If that is insufficient, you will have to use the spirits to supplement them. J, you shall establish the second camp. I will not give you a single man. You will have to think of a solution yourself, but whenever youck money, you cane and look for me. Jupiter, you will build the third camp. By next spring, when I can go out to sea, I will then supply manpower to you. Pasatilo and Kanuka, you two will build a mage¡¯s camp, which is the fourth camp. As for the remaining two camps, I will think of something.¡±


    ¡°Sir¡­¡± Pasatilo and Kanuka were slightly hesitant. After all, there were two other grade-5 mages from Sregl Ind in the room at that moment.


    Saleen understood what they meant. Then, to the other grade-5 mages, he said, ¡°Kredian, Francis, the moment Lex gets back, you will rejoin the fleet with Basta.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡± These two grade-5 mages were overjoyed. Controlling the fleet was obviously a more popr choice than being onnd.


    ¡°Sir, what about me?¡± the barbarian named Conan asked nervously.


    ¡°You will wait for the arrival of the Caucasus people, then you will build the fifth camp. There is no rush on this matter.¡± Saleen felt that the fifth camp should be helmed by Sika, and was not to be managed by Conan. However, Sika did not seem like she was cut out to be a general. Saleen would have to spend some effort to search for a suitablemander. The barbarians and the Caucasus people possessed high offensive abilities, but without a good leader, they would be as useful as sand.


    Saleen could clearly remember how Lex¡¯s swordsmen looked when they charged onto a battlefield. Even if there had been an equal number of barbarians, the barbarians would still have been defeated by them.


    ¡°Saleen, you can recruit some soldiers from Laiyin Duchy,¡± Aini suggested as he stood beside Saleen.


    ¡°Why do you say so?¡±


    ¡°The Laiyin people are courageous and fearless during battles, and most of them are also infertile. In fact, many of the mercenaries in Sikeqinya are Laiyin people. With only a small sum of money, people wille forward voluntarily. Being a private soldier of a nobleman is much better than being a mercenary in Sikeqinya.¡±


    ¡°What about the Grand Duke of Laiyin?¡± Saleen was a little worried. The Grand Duke of Laiyin was as weak as the Grand Duke of Phoenix. Such actions would easily anger him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want me to establish a mercenary group? I will go to Didypus and build a base there before recruiting people from Laiyin Duchy. Thereafter, I will transport the people from Didypus back here. By doing so, the Grand Duke of Phoenix will not be able to say anything. By then, those who want to be mercenaries will follow me. If not, they will follow you.¡±


    ¡°The mercenary group has to be registered in the Bitter Water County. Lex needs to be back before we can proceed with this matter.¡± Saleen was in favor of Aini¡¯s suggestion, but he did not start on preparations right away. Thend of registration represented the home of a mercenary group, and the mercenary group was obligated to defend that ce.


    More than eighty percent of the mercenary groups on the maind were registered in Sikeqinya. Once a war broke out, these mercenaries would be Sikeqinya¡¯s manpower. That was why Saleen did not trust any mercenary groups. As of now, there was not even a single mercenary group registered in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Thus, if war broke out, there would not be any mercenaries fighting for Bitter Water Prefecture.


    The reason why such a situation would ur was because Saleen¡¯s newly built city was very remote, and not much effort was needed even if the Bitter Water Prefecture wanted to recruit more soldiers. As long as a magic notice was disseminated, tens of thousands of swordsmen woulde forward to join the army in a few months¡¯ time.


    However, if Saleen were to establish his city in the heart of Qin, the nobles surrounding his city would deploy their troops to conquer it, not to mention the disapproval from the Holy Rock City¡¯s parliament. The Qin Empire might have been vast, but the good areas had long since been divided among the noblemen. It would be impossible for Saleen to try and get a slice of that cake.


    As the rest of the people went off toplete their assignments, Saleen began his training. Many tasks could only be continued when Lex returned, such as selecting themanders for the army, equipment, training, etc.. Luckily, it was the end of the year already. Lex could potentially reach the city base by April, and hence, Saleen would not need to wait for a long time.


    Since the three kings had been subdued, Saleen dispatched the two grade-5 mages, Kredian and Francis, to Phoenix¡¯s border to wee Lex¡¯s men. As for the rest of the tasks, they were delegated to Nailisi.


    By now, Saleen no longer trained in a systematic manner like he once had. Instead, he specialized in water me alchemy and the crystal finger. In the past few battles, Saleen¡¯s life had been endangered, so he had no choice but to increase his offensive abilities. It was good that water me alchemy was a practical spell. It was extremely useful in helping a personprehend the water element. The crystal finger was a close range spell which possessed a high level of destructive power. Even though Saleen had many high-grade warriors around him right now, he still trusted his own magic the most.


    Against mages of a simr grade, Saleen already had nothing to be worried. He was most afraid of assassins and grand swordmasters, thus he really wanted to finish learning these two spells. This was especially true with the crystal finger, which was undefeatable within a distance of ten meters.


    ording to the magic notes left behind by Raphael, the crystal finger was a progressive spell, with its base level being level-6. Because of Saleen¡¯s special constitution, he could reduce the level of this spell by one. Hence, he could already learn it at grade-5.


    However, such an adaptation was not exactly prosperous. Had Saleen learned the crystal finger at grade-6, he would have been able to cast this spell twenty-four times in session. However, since Saleen was only at grade-5, so his magic chords could only support the casting of this spell twice.


    Even if Saleen were to cast level-6 spells at this moment, he would only be able to cast two of them. It seemed like the adaptation of the crystal finger had not been sessful. Fortunately, the crystal finger was a progressive spell. Once Saleen advanced to the next grade, the power of the crystal finger would be increased, and by then, he would be able to cast it many more times. However, Saleen was not sure how many more times would that be.


    Before acquiring this spell, Saleen had not really paid much attention to it, as he had adored the current cutter. Especially after the gourd had been refined, the current cutter almost did not deplete Saleen¡¯s magic chords at all, as it only depleted his mental strength. Furthermore, the current cutter had high vitality.


    The vitality of the current cutter could be replenished within the gourd. As Saleen¡¯s mental strength far exceeded that of his current grade, he loved the current cutter. The current cutter might have been strong, but it could not be advanced. Hence, it would not cause any harm to true experts.


    At the very least, Saleen knew that the current cutter would be ineffective against a sorcerer unless he became one himself. Plus, the release of the water flow was a little slow, and it could never be released instantly. Saleen had almost died the past few times because of the aforementioned reason. Thus, Saleen had begun paying more attention to the crystal finger, even though the crystal finger depleted arger amount of his magic chords.


    How strong was the crystal finger? Even an expert like Raphael, who had created the crystal finger, had needed to rely on the powers of magic equipment to withstand the bacsh from this spell.


    In his own room, Saleen ced a stack of white rocks in front of himself. These rocks were used to make drainage facilities, and holes had to be made into the middle of the rocks. Currently, Saleen used to them to practice his crystal finger, and at the same time, he couldplete some work.


    Saleen wore Raphael¡¯s crystal ring on his left index finger. Without chanting any mantras or making any magic hand gestures, the part of Saleen¡¯s left index finger which was below the ring suddenly became transparent.


    Saleen knew that his finger was not really transparent. Instead, water elements had formed countless facets on the surface of his index finger, transmitting the images at the back of the finger to the front. If his finger had really be transparent, then Saleen would have seen his bone already.


    Saleen rotated his wrist, causing his index finger to look slightly hollow. Between his index finger and all those rocks, a ray of pale blue light appeared. This ray of light was not very thick, and was only as thick as Saleen¡¯s left index finger. However, when that ray of blue light came into contact with the rocks, a hole which was the size of a bowl appeared silently in the middle of those rocks.

 Chapter 354: Raphael’s Magic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 354: Raphael¡¯s Magic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen noticed that the hole, which was the size of a bowl, had extended for over ten meters. The opening of the hole was extremely smooth, forming a perfect circle.


    Not only did the offensive power of the crystal finger exceed that of mid-level magic, it was also much more ferocious than the eruption of a grand swordmaster¡¯s sword aura. At the very least, Saleen knew that J would not be able to prate ten meters deep into this stack of rocks despite wielding Tears. If low-level magic was used against these white rocks, it would not even leave a scratch.


    Saleen then proceeded to check on the magic chords inside his body. Half of his magic chords had been depleted, no more no less. It seems like if Saleen did not run into strong enemies, then he could not use this spell! No matter how powerful a spell was, its meaning in battle would diminish if it could only be used twice.


    Saleen knew that the crux of this spell was in Raphael¡¯s crystal ring. Without the crystal ring, his arm would have disintegrated after the spell was cast.


    Ever since the demonic bracelet had been fused with the dragonshard, Saleen only needed half an hour to regain all his magic chords after a full depletion. If Saleen did not meditate and only absorbed energy from the dragonshard, then he would be able to regain his magic chords in an hour.


    Saleen did not continue practicing the crystal finger and started on water me alchemy. Blue mes emerged from Saleen¡¯s palms, levitating in midair, and tornadoes which were formed by the snowkill appeared in the room. A six-meter-long green water flow flew out from the gourd which was hanging around Saleen¡¯s waist before encircling his body.


    The temperature in the room dropped drastically, and ice crystals began forming on the walls. This series of spells from Saleen had freezing attributes. The temperature of the water me was the lowest, but its energy was introverted. However, the snowkill was the hardest to control. Six tornadoes pasted themselves to the ceiling, thus protecting Saleen, who was in the middle of the room.


    Saleen took out some materials and began refining weapons. Most of his subordinates were still wielding normal weapons, and after the journey to the Chaotic Swamp, the weapons which he had refined for the pirates were all ruined.


    Alchemical weapons had a shelf life. Saleen¡¯s alchemy methods could only be used in times of desperation.


    As Saleen refined the weapons, he controlled the six tornadoes formed by the snowkill at the same time. He finally understood why his teacher had dared to trifle with a mage who owned a magic tower.


    Many spells were formed by derivation. It did not mean that one had to reach a certain grade before being able to utilize a particr spell. However, the requirements for deriving a spell were very stringent. Mages without an inheritance would not even know that there was such a domain within magic.


    At the moment, Saleen was only a grade-5 mage, yet he could already release the snowkill which was equivalent to a level-6 spell. Furthermore, the durations of such derivative spells were rted to the conditions of the derivation. The snowkill would be able tost for at least half the duration sustained by the water me.


    Of course, this could only happen under nonbat conditions where elements were not being dispersed, which was why an mid-level spell couldst for so long.


    Water me alchemy was also a progressive spell. However, it was different from a normal progressive spell, as the level of water me alchemy would not follow the progress of the mage.


    More urately, water me alchemy behaved like this. A grade-7 mage would only be able to cast a level-7 water me. On the other hand, a grade-8 mage would have to re-learn the spell in order to grasp the level-8 water me. The moment the water me advanced to the next level, a lower level water me could not be cast anymore. However, the derivation of the water me alchemy was identical to that of other spells.


    At this moment, Saleen had cast a level-5 water me, and a water me at this level had never appeared before. The offensive power of the snowkill, which was derived, was one level higher, and this situation had also never happened before. The transformation of Saleen¡¯s constitution had a great impact on water magic. No matter how much talent other mages had, they would still be unable to produce such an effect.


    That was how Saleen practiced. He would practice the crystal finger once, before moving on to the water me alchemy. He would control the snowkill and the current cutter at the same time, allowing his mental strength to enter a state of quick depletion.


    Every single time after the water me disappeared, Saleen¡¯s remaining mental strength would only be enough for him to cast a level-0 spell. However, that was already enough. At this point in time, Saleen would then take out his n badge and cast a level-0 spell, causing his body to enter a debuffed state. Thereafter, he would recover using meditation.


    The results from such training were astounding. By February of the second year, Saleen felt that his umtion had begun taking off. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, he would be able to reach the edge of advancement if he continued training at this intensity for the next two years.


    There were not many changes to his magic chords. Without any progression in his grade, the amount of branching from his magic chords would not change. Saleen¡¯s mental strength underwent the most change, and he felt that his mental strength had already reached the standard of a sorcerer. This was because he could vaguely interact with some of a sorcerer¡¯s secrets. He might not have possessed the capabilities of a sorcerer, but he could already identify the direction he needed to head.


    The city was constructed at lightning speed. The three kings were reduced to coolies, as theymanded thousands of spirits in the swift expansion of the city. The spirits did not be fatigued. The city was built very quickly, and every day, more than ten buildings were constructed. In thest seventy days, the main structures to the east of the city had already beenpleted, and the city walls already had a rough shape. Furthermore, the buildings to the north and south were mostlypleted. The only structures left were the port and the magic towers.


    On this day, Saleen was refining his ne when Nailisi suddenly ran in and said, ¡°Master, Irene has brought some people over.¡±


    ¡°Irene?¡± Then, Saleen remembered that she was the female noble from the Williams family. After allowing her to leave, Saleen had not expected the Williams family to act so quickly. It had only been a few months and winter was not even over, yet they had already sent people here.


    ¡°Where is she?¡±


    ¡°In the town hall.¡± Nailisi had not brought Irene to the temple. After the three kings had been subdued, the temple had be a restricted area, and outsiders were not allowed entry.


    ¡°Who went to receive her?¡±


    Saleen had not waited for Lex to return. All in all, the construction had been progressing smoothly, but all of his people were here. No one had been appointed to manage administration yet.


    ¡°Daniel.¡±


    ¡°Have her wait. Tell Daniel to keep herpany for the time being.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi stared at Saleen in bewilderment.


    Saleenughed, then said, ¡°My ne will need a few more hours to be fully refined. As for the Williams family¡­ I am in no hurry to talk to them.¡±


    ¡°Truman!¡± Nailisi hollered to the mage who was waiting outside. Truman ran in hastily before bowing. This grade-3 mage was going to be Nailisi¡¯s sidekick very soon.


    Nailisi conveyed Saleen¡¯s words to Truman before dismissing him, while she herself stayed in Saleen¡¯s room.


    ¡°Master, it seems like those lightning dragon eggs are going to hatch.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± Saleen released the water mes, then tossed the goddess¡¯ ne into them. Following that, he added the green spirit, chlorite, and tourmaline. Saleen had already grasped all the calction forms in the goddess¡¯ ne, so he no longer needed the ne for knowledge. The ne had good attributes and it could contain a person¡¯s mental strength. At the same time, it also possessed the divinity of the goddess and the power of life. Now that the green spirit was added, the ne would be a piece of spatial equipment which could hold creatures within it.


    Of course, these ¡°creatures¡± referred to contract creatures. The goddess¡¯ ne had twenty-four segments, so Saleen decided to refine it into arge piece of sealing equipment. This ne would be able to contain twenty-four summoned creatures. Currently, the three kings were living in an external environment and did not need to be sealed. However, once those lightning dragon eggs hatched, special equipment would be needed to seal the hatchlings. Otherwise, it was possible that Saleen would have to wait for hundreds of years for the hatchlings to mature if he ced them in water.


    The green spirit and tourmaline were able to provide the special energy required for the growth of a lightning dragon. At this moment, Saleen had too many of such rocks in his possession. The tourmaline had been obtained from the lightning dragon¡¯s nest, while the green spirit had been extracted from the mineral vein under the relic. Furthermore, Saleen now had forty lightning dragon eggs with him. He could already feel the signs of life emanating from those eggs. Before the mages from the Sregl Ind could arrive, these small dragons would already have hatched.


    Hence, Saleen rushed to refine his ne, or else these forty lightning dragons would go down the drain.


    Within the twenty-four massive spaces in the goddess¡¯ ne, the walls in each of the space had be solidified. Various alchemy materials reinforced the spaces in the ne. Then, the chlorite fused all the spaces together, which in turn mixed with the goddess¡¯ divinity. All the spaces were flooded with countless magic symbols, as well as magic arrays and magic patterns which were formed by the tourmaline.


    Every space was filled to the brim with water. This water was pure, and its intensity was almost that of the water element already. The magic arrays on the walls continuously released a blue electric current. These currents were sealed within the ne so they did not disappear, they simply traversed back and forth within the ne.


    As long as Saleen kept providing energy in the form of magic nuclei, these spaces would be the best environment for a lightning dragon to live in. In the wild, a lightning dragon had to absorb electricity in order to grow and advance. When a lightning dragon had just hatched, it could still rely on its mother for help, but after a year, its mother would chase the child away. At that time, the dragon would face a lot of difficulty trying to grow.


    Saleen had learned this method of rearing a lightning dragon from Judikaka. Judikaka had used this secret in exchange for a portion of freedom for himself and hispanions. That was why Saleen and Aini had not sealed the three kings. Instead, they had allowed them to take charge of the spirits who were building the city.


    Naturally, Aini had also learned about this secret. However, he did not have the ability to control the elements. He could only wait for the eggs to hatch before transforming the hatchlings into spirits. Thereafter, he would use another method to rear the lightning dragons.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    J¡¯s voice came from outside the door. Besides practicing in front of Saleen every day, J and the four other magic beast swordsmen would stand guard outside Saleen¡¯s room to prevent anyone from entering.


    ¡°Yes?¡± Saleen controlled the water mes calmly. At the moment, he could already control the water mes perfectly. He even could use them to kill an enemy. A conversation would not cause Saleen to lose control of the water mes.


    ¡°Gurney¡¯s patrol team discovered some scouts.¡±


    ¡°Scouts?¡± Saleen was stunned. Which armies woulde in this weather? Saleen would never believe it if the army was reported to havee from the Holy See. The Glorious City was more than twenty thousand miles from this ce. It would be impossible for the Holy See¡¯s army toe all the way here. If it was not the Holy See¡¯s army, Saleen really could not think of anyone else who would already be interested in his city.


    ¡°Capture them, I want them alive.¡± After Saleen finished speaking, he continued refining his ne. As the blue water mes levitated in midair, all the materials disappeared into the ne. On the ck ne, the newly formed magic patterns grew increasingly lighter until they finally became faint, obscure prints. Then, the ne regained its original smooth and clean appearance.

 Chapter 355: Starting to Take Shape (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 355: Starting to Take Shape (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Located one mile east of the temple was the town hall, and the people from the Williams family had been given lodging in the first story of the town hall. Since the city was just starting to take shape, no hotels had been built yet.


    This time around, more than two hundred people from the Williams family hade. Besides a representative from a tradingpany, there were also one hundred swordsmen and two mages. These two mages, one at grade-3 and the other at grade-4, were not old. They only looked to be around forty or fifty years old. Of the one hundred swordsmen, about one-fifth of them were already at the standard of a swordmaster.


    It was evident that the Williams family had invested quite a bit of effort this time around. It needed to be noted that it was extremely difficult for an earl¡¯s family to recruit mages, even if the family had a great deal of wealth.


    This time around, Irene had brought two mages along, clearly disying the stance of the Williams family.


    Daniel was keeping Irene entertained. In reality, the two mages from the Williams family had been annoyed, but they were astounded when they saw Daniel. Even though it was rumored that the city was rted to the Bitter Water County, it only exemplified how profound the city owner was by having a grand mage host the guests. Back in the Qin Empire, even a grade-4 grand mage would be treated like a nobleman. Furthermore, Daniel was a death mage, his offensive abilities would be stronger than that of an elemental mage who was at the same grade as him. On the battlefield, this difference would be even more pronounced.


    A death mage could summon any type of spirit. cing a death mage on the battlefield would definitely boost the morale of the army.


    Daniel looked honest and upright, and people who were not familiar with him would definitely be deceived. Daniel did not discuss the city base with Irene, he simply conversed about the customs and practices of the Tanggsi and Cloudflow Empires. Many a time, Irene wanted information about Saleen, but Daniel managed to covertly deflect those questions.


    At the moment, Daniel waspletely loyal towards Saleen. Ever since he had learned that the three kings were under the control of Saleen and Aini, he had not formed any other ideas. He had signed a contract with Saleen. He might not have known about the trap in the contract, but he did not want to live the rest of his life like a puppet.


    Anyway, Saleen treated Daniel well. This time around, Saleen had even allowed him to establish a camp of soldiers. Even though it was a small matter, it proved that Saleen would provide him with good prospects. As for the threat posed by the Holy See, Daniel did not care about it anymore. If Daniel was captured by the Holy See, he would still be killed. Hence, he decided that he wanted to live an impactful life.


    In the past, Daniel had witnessed Saleen killing the Holy See¡¯s people without any hesitation at all. Because of that, Daniel had great admiration for Saleen. Anyone else in that situation would have had second thoughts given the massive background of the Holy See.


    If Saleen was not afraid, then Daniel further did not need to be afraid since he was Saleen¡¯s follower. However, Daniel could not understand why the Holy See would revert to its old path of using violence to make others surrender. People like Saleen and Daniel would never surrender no matter what.


    Irene was a little frustrated. When she had calcted her losses after returning home from the frozen sea, she realized that she had lost over two hundred thousand gold coins, and that was not even including the pension of the dead swordsmen. Her ship had been specially made for travel on the northern seas, and small ice cubes would not be able to damage the ship.


    If her mother had not been so dominant, the family would have definitely pursued the matter. Fortunately, she had managed to gather intelligence that the Bitter Water Prefecture was expanding its territory to the north. Hence, she had managed to convince her mother of her ns. On this trip, Irene had brought her own savings on top of the investment from the Williams family as she had decided to slog her guts out in this new city.


    Irene had confidence in Saleen, and not just because Saleen had many experts around him. Irene was most interested in the fact that Saleen had been able to sell her another ship very easily.


    The quality of this ship was not bad. In fact, it could even be used forbat. Irene knew that Saleen would surely have a ss of mature sailors, and that the ship was definitely not his best one.


    The ocean contained a massive amount of fortune. However, due to the limitations of navigation, most people could only dream of such fortune. The southeastern waters were dominated by Alchemy City, while the waters further south belonged to the Cloudflow Empire. Only the northern waters of Qin were not dominated yet. The location of Saleen¡¯s port was excellent. By traveling to the frozen sea from the port, one would be able to save on a huge amount of supplies, and the duration of a hunting expedition could also be lengthened.


    If a summer route could be developed, then the city would already be able to conduct long-term business with Sikeqinya. Even though this ce was not a frozen harbor, it was already enough for ocean trade to ur. It was only a matter of time before the secret route in the north used by the Williams family was exposed. In the past two years, Irene had always run into pirates whenever she went out to sea. If not for her ship, which was superior to that of the pirates, she would not have been able to continue with the business.


    Irene was very touched when Saleen announced that he could provide protection for the hunting ships. The Williams family would never be able to take all the fortune in the frozen sea for themselves. If the other families found out about this secret, they would surely vie for it too. When that time came, Lianyun City would be extremely important. Consequently, their nobles would also interfere in the issue.


    Irene would be better off working with the Bitter Water Prefecture than the nobles in Lianyun City.


    Before Irene arrived, she had already made up her mind. It was just that even though it had been such a long time since she had arrived, Saleen still had not appeared. Instead, Saleen had sent someone to ask her to wait. Atrocious! It seemed like Saleen did not even give a hoot about this female noble from the Williams family.


    The Qin Empire was not like the Cloudflow Empire. The women in Qin had societal status. They could even inherit positions of nobility, be city governors, or join the army. There were quite a number of female dukes throughout the history of Qin, and there had even been a female emperor. In thend of Qin, a nobledy like Irene with such a prestigious family background was not just a flower vase. Her mother was a living example of that.


    In the beginning, Irene was still receptive to Daniel¡¯s words, but she grew increasingly annoyed towards the end. If Irene had not been afraid of angering a death mage, she might have already acted rudely towards him.


    Just as Irene began feeling frustrated, Saleen¡¯s voice came from outside the door.


    ¡°Irene, sorry to keep you waiting. I have brought a person who you are familiar with.¡± Saleen was all smiles when he opened the door. When Irene raised her head and saw Saleen¡¯s smile, her anger dissipated.


    Standing beside Saleen was another young mage who was also d in a grey magic robe. As Irene stared at this handsome mage, she could not help but feel that he looked really familiar.


    As Aini looked at the grown up Irene, he felt amused as he recalled the events which had transpired when he was young. The Williams family and the Clyde family werepetitors, but they maintained a cordial rtionship on the surface. Furthermore, when othermercial entities wanted to set foot in Qin, the four big families would seamlessly cooperate with one another to deal with the outsiders. That was the secret to why the four big families had been able to prosper for such a long time.


    Hence, Aini, who was the son of the first wife, had met with his same-aged peers from the other three families in the past. Butter on, Aini had been cursed by a holy master from the Holy See, which had resulted in his magic chords disappearing. Then, he was banished by his family to Deep Forest Town, causing him to lose contact with his peers.


    Back then, Aini had been fearless, and he had even given Irene a painful beating in the past. Back then, Irene had still been young, so it was unknown whether she still remembered the boy who had beaten her up.


    Saleen¡¯s warm hospitality made Irene feel much better. However, that mage next to him made her feel ufortable. As Irene looked in those callous eyes, she felt a quiver in her heart as a tinge of a memory suddenly appeared in the depths of her mind, but she could not pinpoint anything specific.


    ¡°Irene, I am Aini, do you not remember me anymore?¡± Aini executed a mage¡¯s bow, then smiled at Irene.


    ¡°Oh!¡± Irene clenched her fist instinctively, wanting to punch Aini. However, she suddenly remembered that she was not in her family¡¯s city and she had grown up. Those events which had happened when she was young were really too embarrassing to be discussed.


    ¡°Aini, you are already a grade-5 mage!¡± Irene saw the markings on Aini¡¯s magic robe. There was a hint of sourness in her tone. In truth, Irene was very gifted in business, but she had gone to painstaking efforts to learn swordsmanship because of Aini in the hopes of beating him up one day.


    At the moment, Irene was only a high-grade swordsman while Aini was already a grade-5 mage. It seemed like she would not be able to exact her revenge just yet.


    But what disappointed Irene were her thoughts that her family had been the first to enter this city. She hadpletely not expected to see Aini here. This meant that the Clyde family had already¡­


    Seeing that the two of them were behaving awkwardly, Saleenughed and said, ¡°Irene, Aini is my friend. Even though there is littlemercial activity between the Clyde family and the Bitter Water Prefecture, we have already a signed a contract. But, you don¡¯t have to worry either. Since you are back, I will definitely arrange a good location for you.¡±


    Irene¡¯s face turned scarlet. Since Saleen and Aini were so close, it was not convenient for her to say anything else. Plus, she had secretly taken a liking to this mage who was so meticulous in his calctions. ording to what Saleen said, the Clyde family had not dominated the city¡¯s market yet. At the same time, her spirits were lifted, and the unhappiness from all that waiting had disappeared.


    ¡°Master Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°You can just call me Saleen.¡± Saleen smiled. He was not interested in Irene even though she was beautiful. After getting used to Lex and Sika¡¯s looks, Saleen was now basically immune to beauty. Furthermore, Nailisi, who looked exactly like the Goddess of Myers, was still pestering him every single day.


    Saleen simply did not like interacting with the elders in those families, as the elders became more and more astute as they grew older. He wanted to spend most of his energy on magic practice. He could not possibly haggle with them over the issue of profits every other day.


    ¡°Saleen, my people¡­¡±


    ¡°Daniel, lead Irene¡¯s men to rest. Mm, allocate the fifth avenue in the east to them. Then, select a site for the construction of their residence in the future.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sir.¡± Daniel behaved respectfully. He performed very well in front of outsiders. Even though Saleen did not really care, Daniel had already begun nning for Saleen¡¯s future. A person¡¯s majesty could not be built in a day or two. Given his current status, Saleen could no longer behave as he had in the past, when he had been content withmanding just one or two people.


    Irene was even more satisfied with this arrangement. Since she was going to stay in the east for now, it meant that Saleen was nning to give her somend which was situated near the port. To Irene, that was the best news ever. Actually, Irene still had a task which had been given to her by the family. However, when she arrived, she had seen the thousands of spirits who were working. After witnessing such a scene, she realized that the Williams family could not afford to trifle with Saleen given his power. Through that, she had actually been relieved of her burdens. The ideas those elders had were already outdated. She did not even need to try and deceive Saleen. As long as she maintained a cordial rtionship with Saleen, she would be able to get whatever she desired from the city.


    Viscountess Lex could not be trifled with. As Irene smiled, she suddenly saw a beautiful face show up behind Saleen.

 Chapter 356: Starting to Take Shape (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 356: Starting to Take Shape (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, it is dinnertime now.¡± No one knew when Nailisi had entered the room.


    ¡°Mm, have the people been captured?¡± Saleen turned around, looking at Nailisi.


    ¡°J has detained them in the southern side.¡± Nailisi spoke extremely softly, only Saleen could hear her. Even Aini could not hear Nailisi clearly.


    Before Saleen hade to the town hall, J had personally led some men to capture the scouts who were discovered to the west of the city. Indeed, J¡¯s capabilities were assuring. In less than a few hours, he had already captured all of the scouts.


    ¡°You are not needed here anymore. Go and find out where are they from,¡± Saleenmanded Nailisi. Aini was not sure about Nailisi¡¯s interrogation methods. He only knew that she had made a silver grand swordmaster confess in the past.


    Nailisi left reluctantly since she wanted to know what Saleen and Irene were conversing about. She was not that interested in interrogating prisoners. In the past, she had only been interested because her body needed to grow, and the flesh of those experts was beneficial to her progress. Now that her requirements for evolution were much higher, these tiny prisoners would not be of much help.


    Saleen was a mage. He could not possibly stay here and be the owner of the city. To Saleen, the top priority was magic training. The town hall would be the ce for the owner of the city to settle official business. As for the candidate who would seed this position, Saleen would have to discuss it with Lex beforeing to a decision.


    No matter who became the owner of the city, the real owner would still be Saleen. After all, the intention of the city¡¯s design was to attract the mages from Sregl Ind into stationing themselves here. Lex could not possibly deploy one person to manage the city, as she just wanted a safe and secure interdimensional teleportation portal. Only if the city belonged to Saleen would both parties never enter a conflict. In the future, once the Bitter Water County had enough sorcerers, Saleen would have the power to build his own teleportation portal.


    Seeing that Saleen looked so calm, Irene¡¯s heart fluttered. If only I could marry this mage. It would be nice to do him a favor¡­ As Irene became lost in her own thoughts, an infatuated smile appeared on her face.


    Aini noticed this and wasughing in his heart. However, he did not point it out because his bond with Saleen was already too strong, so his ideas would be different from those of other people. If Saleen could marry a daughter from the Williams family, Aini would face a lot lesspetition. Once a woman married a man, her n would naturally not be her top priority anymore. Aini had even thought of bing independent of his family. Otherwise, he would not have invested all of his savings in Saleen.


    ¡°Irene, please follow me.¡± Saleen did not notice any difference in Irene¡¯s behavior. It was not because his reactions were slow, but because he had never encountered such a thing before.


    Irene followed Saleen and Aini to the dining hall on the second story. This dining hall was catered solely to the workers of the town hall. However, as the structure of the city had not yet been constructed, there were no officials at the moment, so the only people eating here were the swordsmen from Sregl Ind.


    The town hall took up arge space and was rectangr in shape. The dining hall was located to the south of the town hall. There was a row of more than twenty windows, all fitted with cheap ss. However, these pieces of ss were not colored. They were purely transparent, looking like scrapped crystals.


    By this time, the sky had be dark. Saleen¡¯s subordinates had alle to consume their meals, causing the dining hall to bepletely filled. The moment Saleen entered, all noise in the dining hall ceased. The swordsmen and mages from Sregl Ind stood up and bowed to Saleen. Aini¡¯s men had their own lodgings, so they would note to the dining hall.


    Saleen nodded, then allowed everyone to sit down. In his heart, he was not used to such practices yet, but it would not be good for him to refuse them either.


    As they walked to the eastern side of the dining hall, there was a single room which was blocked by a screen. Irene noticed that this screen wasmonly used by the Cloudflow people. The screen was not new, and it had not been built locally. It seemed like Saleen was notcking any materialforts. Otherwise, he would not have spent so much effort transporting these lifestyle appliances over tens of thousands of miles.


    The chefs in the dining hall were from Sregl Ind. Originally, they were the chefs onboard the ships, but since the port was frozen, these people hade onshore. Only some of them had stayed behind on the faraway ind to look after the warships.


    ¡°Irene, the food here is not that good, I hope you don¡¯t mind.¡± At the moment, Saleen spoke very diplomatically,pletely unlike that forceful stance he had taken when he had first captured Irene. Saleen knew that Irene was nning to work with him since she had returned in such a hurry.


    The mute enchantment on the screen was activated, isting the room from all the noiseing from the dining hall. Immediately, the single room became sealed, and the people outside would not be able to hear their conversation.


    ¡°Master Saleen.¡±


    Saleen smiled and waved his hand, causing Irene turn her head around. Then, she said, ¡°Saleen, Aini¡­¡±


    ¡°Aini is my best friend. Irene, I would like to ask you, does the Williams family still possess another ship like yours?¡±


    Irene was stunned. After staying silent for a moment, she said, ¡°No.¡± Her ship had been a gift from her mother and hade from the Cloudflow Empire. The Williams family was not an expert in ocean trade, and her ship was their only vessel which could travel long distances across the ocean. If this ship sunk, her family¡¯s status would immediately decrease drastically. Saleen¡¯s words had hit a nerve in Irene¡¯s heart. Other than that route, she did not have any other bargaining chips.


    ¡°I thought so too. Even if they were to produce another ship at Lianyun¡¯s port, they will have to wait another two to three years for it to be finished.¡± Saleen was very knowledgeable in the concept of building vessels. An average small boat could be produced in a few months, while those expeditionary ships, which were almost two hundred meters in length, could be produced in about two to three years if the building process was quick. Of course, if the building process employed magic refinement, the speed of production would be greatly boosted. However, the cost of production would be hundreds of times more, and no one would be able to afford it.


    Irene looked dejected. She had borrowed money from others and taken a huge sum of capital from her mother in hopes of acquiring another ship from Saleen so that she could go out to sea by next spring and recoup her losses. Otherwise, the family would never support her risky endeavors again.


    However, judging by Saleen¡¯s intentions, it seemed like he wanted Aini toe onboard the n as well. When had the Williams family agreed to cooperate with the Clyde family?


    ¡°Irene,¡± Aini called out. Aini did not look as unfeeling as he usually did, as he was smiling at Irene.


    ¡°What?!¡± Irene immediately sulked. She had not forgotten the event from when she was younger, when Aini had almost broken all of her teeth.


    ¡°Saleen¡¯s intentions are very simple. You don¡¯t have to use the power of your family, you can execute this matter on your own. That route was not developed by your family, right?¡±


    Irene was astonished. She had thought of Aini¡¯s suggestion before, but it would have a low probability of sess. Without her family¡¯s backing, she would easily have been devoured by other powers. Indeed, she was the one who had discovered the route and wielded all the power, but her family had provided the swordsmen and capital in order for her to take that risk.


    ¡°You want me to betray the family!¡± When Irene thought of that, her eyebrows shot up into arches. Since she wore a cuss on her, she immediately pressed her palm against the hilt of the cuss. Indeed, the Qin people were loyal and sincere. Even though Irene was in the face of two grade-5 mages, she could not tolerate such provocation.


    Aini simply shrugged his shoulders, then said, ¡°What are you talking about? You are going to be married sooner orter. Do you think that marrying someone is considered betraying your family?¡±


    Irene blushed once again. Then, Saleen said, ¡°The three of us shall cooperate. You will provide the route, thus taking two shares. Right now, Aini is providing the manpower, so he will also take two shares. I will provide the ships and the warships for protection, and I will take six shares. Don¡¯t refuse it, I still have to give half of these six shares away. This city doesn¡¯t belong to just me.¡±


    Aini decided to strike while the iron was hot and said, ¡°Irene, you better consider this proposal carefully. By next spring, people from the Bitter Water County will swarm into this city. By then, it will be hard for you to even get two shares. I am just like you. If you want to provide manpower and money, you have to do it now. If you are slow, Saleen has other investors waiting for him.¡±


    Irene furrowed her eyebrows as she did some mental calctions. If I can get tweny percent, it will be more than what I can get from the family. But, she still asked, ¡°Saleen, if you will get the manpower in the springtime, why are you still as calcting as this?¡±


    ¡°This city might not be mine alone, but this business can be mine alone. I can deploy three warships¡­¡± When Saleen spoke of this, he could not help but feel annoyed. Lex had taken one warship and had promised to have the warship return first. However, the warship had not evene back. If Lex had met with trouble, the Qin Empire would have broken out into chaos long ago. It was unknown what kind of trouble Lex had faced which gave her no choice but to bring along the mages and swordsmen from Sregl Ind.


    ¡°Three warships!¡± Irene was really astounded. She thought that Saleen only owned thosergemercial ships which could be altered into exploration ships. She had not expected Saleen to have warships. A warship¡¯s defense greatly exceeded that of an exploration ship. Even if a warship traveled in the northern seas, it would be able to break the normalyers of ice as long as it did not collide with an iceberg.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, but Ick manpower. Of the three warships, one has to stay behind to protect the port. However, I only have a warship¡¯s worth of manpower. The people who Aini brought are his personal soldiers, and they aren¡¯t rted to the Clyde family. If you agree to this proposal, then this business will belong to the three of us.¡±


    ¡°Are there any special conditions?¡± Irene could not believe such a good deal existed.


    ¡°You have seen my city, it is newly built. In the next five years, you two will split the capital and manpower required for each expedition. After five years, the three of us will split the burden equally.¡±


    Seeing that Irene was hesitant, Aini said, ¡°You only need to provide the route for the first year.¡±


    Saleen nodded, then said, ¡°And after three years, I will have more ships, so the business can be expanded.¡±


    Irene then began thinking to herself. It may seem overbearing that Saleen wants a sixty percent share, but Saleen is the one providing the warships, which is something that I can never aplish. After five years, the three of us will split the capital equally, so I won¡¯t be on the losing end. However, since I am working on this alone without the family, the family will definitely be outraged, right?


    ¡°Irene, regarding the Williams family, I can promise you that you will get the same cut of the city¡¯s trade as Aini. As for the other two families, I will give them some special attention.¡±


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s promise, Irene obtained some peace of mind. If she could get a huge share of the city¡¯s trade, the family would be plenty satisfied.


    ¡°Okay, we shall¡­¡±


    ¡°The three of us shall sign a contract. You can look for a grand mage to ascertain the fairness of the contract. Once the contract is established, the three of us will be considered partners. If you really want to be independent in the future, the two of us will definitely lend a helping hand,¡± Saleen continued tempting Irene. If Irene had been male, Saleen would not have said that. However, Irene was female. And just like what Aini said, she would have to marry someone sooner orter. By then, she would not belong to the Williams family anymore. At least regarding her personal interests, Irene would have to n for herself.

 Chapter 357: Mayhem in Phoenix (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 357: Mayhem in Phoenix (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Dinner had been served. Saleen poured some wine for Irene before raising his crystal winess andughed, ¡°Mm, for the future.¡±


    ¡°For the future.¡±


    ¡°For the future.¡±


    A crisp sound was produced when the three crystal winesses nged together. Saleen felt satisfied, not really caring about the profit he would receive. It was just that with this working rtionship, the four big families would not be able to monopolize trade in the future if they decided to take root in this city. Saleen still remembered a story he had heard in the past. Apany with a profound history had been pushed out by the four big families when it had tried to develop in Holy Rock City.


    The four families had infighting, but when other powers tried to take a cut of the profits, they would immediately unite.


    Now that the representative from the Clyde family and the Williams family had been cated by Saleen, the other two families would not be able create any uncertainties anymore.


    Business affairs could not be settled with the use of force. The best solution was to have covert distinction.


    Once cooperation was affirmed, the three people warmed up to one another. It seemed like Irene had forgotten about her unpleasant childhood memories, as she began discussing about the location of thepany with Saleen and Aini. The site selection of apany was a deliberative process. Aini had the upper hand, but Irene had not arrived toote either. There were still some excellent locations for her to choose from.


    Before dinner was finished, Nailisi dashed in from outside.


    ¡°Master.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi,e over and take a seat.¡± Saleen was in a good mood and allowed Nailisi to sit next to him. He knew that Nailisi was not a reckless person. There must have been a reason why she had entered in such a hurry.


    ¡°Master, it is not an enemy.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Then who are they? The guts of them to deploy their troops here.¡±


    ¡°This¡­¡±


    ¡°It is fine, Irene is family,¡± Saleen replied as he decided to go with the flow. If Nailisi was going to speak about some ssified secret, she would not havee here. She would have waited for Saleen to return to the temple before revealing anything. The two of them had telepathy and chemistry.


    Irene did not know that Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s contract creature, and when she heard Saleen¡¯s words, she felt a little smug.


    ¡°Do you remember Baron Piac?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it will be good if he even has ten soldiers. Aren¡¯t they all scouts? Oh right, I instructed him to wait in Deep Forest Town for the time being. I will go receive him once I gather sufficient manpower. Has hee on his own?¡±


    ¡°Not only that, he has even managed to persuade two viscounts to defect to you.¡±


    ¡°Pu¡­¡± Saleen sprayed a sip of wine from his mouth. Right from the start, he had never looked up to Baron Piac. To think that he would do such an earth-shattering matter. A baron only owned a small town at best, but a viscount would already own a sizeable city. Saleen¡¯s hometown, Ceylon City, was the territory of a viscount.


    Piac was a down-and-out baron, yet he had managed to persuade two viscounts to abandon their cities and defect to such a faraway location. Saleen could not believe his ears. Was Phoenix in trouble or were there any movements from Holy Rock City? Saleen did not feel that he had a reputation which could tempt twondowning nobles to defect to him.


    Irene¡¯s eyes were wide open, staring at Saleen. Nailisi¡¯s words are too astounding. There are actually nobles defecting to Saleen. What magic does Saleen possess? Irene¡¯s mind was in a frenzy, clouding her judgmental ability. But in her mind, Saleen¡¯s image became even mightier than before.


    ¡°Mm, Nailisi, apany Irene to her amodations.¡±


    Saleen had lost all appetite. He simply wanted to meet with the two nobles at once, to find out what trouble Phoenix was in.


    ¡°Irene¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, go and settle your issues. We will discuss our matter tomorrow.¡± Irene smiled knowingly, her face full of amorousness.


    Aini¡¯s lips moved, but when Aini noticed Nailisi¡¯s hostile re, he corrected his words, ¡°I will go back for now, to n for the ocean expedition next year.¡± In truth, Aini had wanted to go with Saleen and take a look, but since Nailisi had signalled for him not to go, he had no choice but to put up with it.


    Saleen trusted Aini, but Nailisi did not. She trusted Sika the most, that silly girl. Even if Saleen sold Sika away, Sika would not even know.


    ¡°Miss Irene, you don¡¯t have to go back right away. Lodging has been provided for your subordinates, they are taken care of.¡± Nailisi grinned, then she instructed for Irene¡¯s soup to be swapped out and the dessert to be served. Aini stood up embarrassedly, unable to get angry. He hated himself for being so fearful of a mere maidservant.


    Saleen took his leave without helping Aini. He had the utmost trust in Nailisi. After so many untold dangers, he already understood that Nailisi was thinking of him most of the time. He was aware that Nailisi would reveal her true nature asionally. This incident might have been a pure coincidence, but there was a higher probability that there were unforeseen circumstances in the south. If Phoenix had really run into trouble, Lex could meet with danger when she returned next year.


    Saleen dispatched someone to summon J to bring along troops and leave the town hall, and go to the west of the city. The construction of the city was almostpleted, and there was a temporary garrison camp. Besides practicing magic, Daniel spent most of his time there training his soldiers.


    Upon meeting Daniel, Saleenmanded him to lead one hundred soldiers and two hundred spirits to leave the city and receive Baron Piac. On the other hand, Saleen himself waited in the campsite.


    Daniel had been ordered to establish the first camp. He only had two hundred pirates to start with, and even though the campsite was huge, only a portion of it was actually utilized. The moment Saleen arrived, the guards did not even have the time to rest. They quickly put on their armor and stood guard on both sides of the room. In reality, Saleen did not need the protection of these men. He already had J, who could defeat all the pirates.


    However, Daniel trained his soldiers strictly. Since Saleen hade personally, no one dared skive. With a death mage as theirmander, the pirates had already gotten used to executing orders without hesitation.


    Saleen thought of the situation in Holy Rock City, and he felt that once the city was fully constructed, the location of the army camp needed to be shifted to the outside of the city.


    ¡°Sir, are you worried?¡± J said. He could tell that something was bothering Saleen, so he took the initiative to chat with him.


    ¡°Mm, I don¡¯t know what is going on in Phoenix. ording to the n, even if Phoenix were to be in mayhem, it should only happen after three years.¡±


    ¡°Actually, it doesn¡¯t matter when the mayhem starts. In fact, the earlier the better. Sir, you have the spirit kings and five thousand spirit soldiers. Now that Phoenix is in turmoil, you can seize this opportunity to recruit manpower from Phoenix. With these two viscounts defecting, they will bring about one thousand people, and if Sir manages this well, more people wille.¡±


    ¡°Lex will cross the border from Phoenix next spring,¡± Saleen finally confessed his worry.


    ¡°Actually, after getting information from the two of themter, it won¡¯t be toote to think of a countermeasure.¡± At this moment, J was notughing cheekily. He spoke to Saleen solemnly.


    Saleen nodded, worried for Lex and Sika. Since these two people were imperative to Saleen, Saleen had be fidgety due to his concern for them. Had it been anyone else, Saleen would never have lost hisposure. J was right, and even if Phoenix had undergone some massive changes, Saleen would be able to deploy some men for an interception outside the border. This would allow Lex to make a detour to Lianyun City and travel by sea to return to this ce.


    Saleen grew bored from sitting. Since he was unwilling to meditate, he summoned a soldier to bring a chess set and began ying chess with J.


    After about two hours, Daniel finally led some people back.


    ¡°Sir, I have brought the people back. They are outside.¡± Daniel entered the barrack, reporting to Saleen.


    ¡°How many people are there?¡±


    ¡°A lot, about nine hundred of them.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the arrangement?¡±


    ¡°They will set up camp outside the city, and I will leave one hundred spirits with me.¡±


    ¡°Good job, what about Piac? Let him in, along with those two guests.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Daniel turned and left, and before long, a fat baron led two middle-aged men into the barrack. From a distance, Piac ran towards Saleen before bowing deeply to him.


    ¡°Piac, long time no see. These two people¡­¡±


    Saleen spoke tly. Saleen was a grand mage, and even though the other party was a baron, he did not need to reciprocate the greeting.


    The two middle-aged men were d in civilian attire. When they approached Saleen, they executed a nobleman¡¯s greeting, then introduced themselves, ¡°Great Mage, I am Suha.¡±


    ¡°Peter.¡±


    Both men announced their names briefly, but did not mention their surnames. Noticing that these two middle-aged men were fraught with worry and seemed to be in a daze, Saleen said, ¡°Gurney should be outside, get some guys to serve tea. The two of you, please take a seat.¡±


    Calming down, Suha and Peter sat on both sides. This was a barrack, and the table in front of Saleen was enormous, so he could open up a map. The three men sat far apart, and when the two men seemed to have wild thoughts running through their minds, Saleen opened his mouth to speak again.


    ¡°I heard that the both of you have abandoned your territory and decided toe forth. Is there perhaps a sudden change in Phoenix?¡±


    Suha and Peter stared at each other, not knowing how to respond. They were of noble status, and even though a mage enjoyed more prestige, it was still unheard of for a noble to seek refuge from a mage. This was despite the mage right in front of them owning a city.


    ¡°Piac, tell me.¡± Saleen did not want to waste any more time.


    Piac was not as distressed as before, since he had already regarded Saleen as hismander. Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s question, Piac smiled fawningly and said, ¡°Sir, it is true that something had happened in Phoenix. The¡­¡±


    Piac talked endlessly as Saleen listened intently, andter on, Saleen¡¯s furrowed eyebrows began to rx. Indeed, an unforeseen change had urred in Phoenix, but this change was not directed at him.


    This matter had to be traced back to the previous month. Back in November, news hade from Holy Rock City that the new Grand Duke of Phoenix had died under bizarre circumstances, and this piece of information sent huge shockwaves throughout Phoenix.


    Following the emergence of the ck mages, the cowardly Grand Duke of Phoenix had escaped to Holy Rock City and would not return to his territory no matter what. Saleen knew of this matter, which had be a ssic joke among the Qin nobles. But, no matter how cowardly the Grand Duke of Phoenix was, he was still the sole owner of this duchy, and even the Qin Emperor would be helpless.


    In November, the Grand Duke of Phoenix had died in Holy Rock City, and Holy Rock City could not rify his cause of death. To make things worse, the Grand Duke of Phoenix had not left a heir. Yet, after living in Holy Rock City for several years, he had suddenly bore a son.


    Holy Rock City had thus decided to let this one year old boy inherit the title of grand duke. The upper house had passed this motion and there was no objection by the lower house either. Naturally, the nobles in the duchy objected. The envoy from the capital was expelled, and a conflict ensued between the fewrge powers in the duchy. ording to thews of Qin, thend of the duchy would remain independent forever, belonging to the nobles living on it. As for the death of the grand duke, everyone believed that it was a conspiracy orchestrated by Holy Rock City.


    And just like that, a war erupted without any warning whatsoever.

 Chapter 358: Mayhem in Phoenix (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 358: Mayhem in Phoenix (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    During all thatmotion between the nobles in Phoenix, the Qin army stationed in Goodrid City had been able to invade Phoenix without any hindrance. Such an event had never before happened in the history of Qin.


    Besides managing the territory belonging to the imperial family and Holy Rock City¡¯s army, the Qin imperial family alsomanded the armies who upied the strategic towns along the border. In other words, the army in Goodrid City was under the direct purview of the Qin imperial family. After this army had invaded Phoenix, the empire was in an uproar. The local nobles had even begun questioning the legitimacy of Holy Rock City.


    Everyone knew that the current emperor had been fraught with sickness since he was young, and before the emperor reached adulthood, he had lived in a magic tower all along, relying on the magic of the sorcerers to prolong his life. After a long period of reading, the emperor would experience syncope, never having a chance to even practice martial arts. Obviously, an emperor like this would never win the respect of his people.


    At this moment, the nobles believed that Holy Rock City had been dominated by Prince Safilos. Prince Safilos did not dare ascend the throne, yet he tried to contrive against thend belonging to the Grand Duke of Phoenix.


    The nobles in Phoenix put up very strong resistance, because if Phoenix was nullified, they would be left with nothing. Safilos would definitely give Phoenix to his offspring and confidantes.


    Even though the centuries of peace had caused the defense in Phoenix to cken, Phoenix was still a part of Qin at the end of the day, and the culture of martial arts still lingered. Nobles across thend had cooperated with one another, impeding the offensive by Goodrid City for the time being.


    In all, the Qin army in Goodrid City consisted of four swordsmen¡¯s camps and one mage toon, and the soldiers were split into two teams. On one side, one team would advance two hundred miles north to capture Grant City, while the other team would seize the renowned Sr Castle. Doing so would effectively destroy all contact between Phoenix and Lon.


    Even though Phoenix was a duchy situated in the northern region, it relied on food for livelihood as its soil was fertile. The only w in this duchy was that it did not have metal mineral reserves, hence most weapons had to be procured from other ces. As a result, when the army from the Goodrid City disrupted Phoenix¡¯s route to the external world, the nobles in Phoenix grew flustered.


    As it was winter currently, troop movements were made difficult, so the nobles in Phoenix could still hold the fort. But once springtime came, the empire¡¯s army would definitelyunch arge-scale offensive. Since the route to the external world was cut off, the supply of weapons would crumble. Thus the empire¡¯s army could take their sweet time and encroach thend slowly.


    But what caused the nobles in Phoenix to be most terrified was that they had heard rumors of war puppets being produced by Holy Rock City. These puppets would be delivered to the northern region to be used to assault the duchy¡¯s city.


    The moment Piac learned of this news, he did not dare stay in Deep Forest Town anymore. He immediately took his assets, followed the map which Saleen had given him, and escaped to the northeastern direction. Piac had also formed a backup n. By abandoning his town and going straight to meet Saleen, it was possible that Saleen would kill him in a fit of rage. Hence, during his escape, he had specially gone to meet two of his friends, Suha and Peter.


    These two viscounts had already received confirmation that the war puppets from Holy Rock City had been delivered to Goodrid City, and not by springtime as stated before. If they still did not escape, they could possibly be obliterated by the Qin¡¯s army since they only had about one thousand soldiers in all.


    After listening to Piac¡¯s narrative, Saleen analyzed the aforementioned events and sighed in his heart. These nobles are too cowardly. They chose to abandon theirnd before the war puppets from Holy Rock City evn arrived. Wouldn¡¯t it be better throwing these people out? There is no use keeping them by my side.


    Saleen did not bother concealing his disappointed expression. The two viscounts noticed Saleen¡¯s expression, and their hearts beat wildly, feeling extremely pressured.


    ¡°Great Mage,¡± Suha mustered his courage and called out.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that we did not want to resist, but ournds do not even have a single mage. Once the war puppets descend upon us, there is no means of stopping them!¡±


    ¡°Without a mage, you can¡¯t defend yourselves against war puppets?¡± Saleen replied in a hostile tone.


    J, who was standing behind Saleen, then said, ¡°Sir, it¡¯s true. Unless there is a grand mage, the war puppets can easily tear down the defenses of a fortress.¡±


    Saleen pondered, and felt that J¡¯s words made sense. Ever since the demise of Emperor Chanake, Safilos has been busy manufacturing war puppets. It¡¯s already been two years, right? Given the capabilities of the empire and the fact that two years were spent building the war puppets, the war puppets should be extremely powerful. But wasn¡¯t Holy Rock City nning to use the war puppets to deal with the Holy See? Why were they deployed to Phoenix instead?


    What went wrong in Holy Rock City? Sending the empire¡¯s troops to attack thend belonging to the nobles is an act which will destabilize the empire¡¯s foundation. Surely Safilos isn¡¯t that dumb, right?


    Seeing that Saleen remained silent, Suha became a little nervous. He wiped away some sweat, then said obsequiously, ¡°Great Mage, we are willing to serve County King Lex loyally. We have specially brought along the elite troops from the family and the deeds to thend.¡±


    ¡°Oh? That¡¯s pretty good,¡± Saleen smiled. These two fellows had put in a lot of effort. By having the deeds to thend, Lex would enjoy a legal advantage should she amass enough power to vie for Phoenix in the future. However, it was impossible for the Bitter Water County to have infighting with Holy Rock City now. After all, the situation in Lon was deteriorating.


    Then again, the army from Goodrid City had cut off Phoenix from the external world, thus it would be kind of impossible for Saleen to enter Sikeqinya viand. If he wanted to get there by sea, the northern ocean would be frozen for almost half a year, even a warship could sail for only eight months at best, and the journey would be fraught with perils. In that case, to ess Lianyun City from Saleen¡¯s city, the only method was the port.


    This did not bode well for a newly constructed city. However, Saleen did not have the power to revolt against Holy Rock City. The strength of Holy Rock City¡¯s army was clearly imprinted in Saleen¡¯s memory. Saleen could only rely on the three spirit kings, but their powers were severely restrained. Holy Rock City simply needed to send a grade-9 mage and the three kings would be fleeing.


    Saleen was not sure if Holy Rock City still had other mages who were as powerful as Joey. At this point in time, Saleen realized that his promise to return to Holy Rock City to meet Joey had not been fulfilled.


    Saleen had no intention of repudiating this promise. If Joey was provoked, even Sregl Ind would not be able to resist this expert who had already exceeded the standard of grade-9.


    Seeing that Saleen was not talking again, the two viscounts rubbed their hands together anxiously. Saleen lifted his eyelids and nced at the two of them. These two middle-aged nobles were a little plump, but they were not as fat as Baron Piac. Also, the calluses on their palms had not faded. They must have still been practicing martial arts.


    Perhaps these two fellows aren¡¯t that cowardly. It is just that they do not have the help of a mage. That¡¯s why they had no choice but to flee.


    ¡°If¡­¡± Saleen dragged his voice, causing Suha and Peter to perk up their ears. Then, he said, ¡°If you devote yourselves to the county king, what do you hope to get in return?¡±


    ¡°Sir, we hope to leave our sons here, and hope that you will guarantee their safety. Whether or not the county king agrees to help us recapture thend, our swordsmen will always serve the county king loyally.¡±


    After hearing their sincere requests, Saleen¡¯s heart softened. If it was any other request, he would not have cared in the slightest, but¡­ this was a request from a father. If Saleen¡¯s father was still alive, he would surely have protected Saleen at all costs.


    Furthermore, these two people were very tactful. They had not requested for Saleen to deploy troops. They had simply said that they would wait for the future. In the future, if Lex had the ambition to conquer the world, then they would have a chance of recapturing their territory. If this day never came, they simply hoped that their sons would be able to live on safely.


    ¡°Okay, I can make the decision on this matter. But you have to hand your soldiers to me. Tomorrow, bring you sons to see me. I will take a look and get a teacher for them. As long as they do not leave this city, I will be able to guarantee their safety.¡±


    ¡°Great Mage, many thanks to you.¡± Suha and Peter bowed at the same time. At this moment, they were abjected nobles, and in the face of a grade-5 mage, they only possessed humility. Since Saleen wanted to seize the authority over their troops, they could only hand them over obediently. Before arriving, the two of them had already crafted a n. If Saleen did not possess sufficient power, they would act like bandits for once and upy the new city.


    However, Daniel, who had gone to receive them, had given them too much of a shock. A death mage with an army of spirits. It was obviously an unwise move to rival a mage with such powers. Hence, the two of them believed Piac¡¯s words and chose to submit to Saleen.


    ¡°As for your money, keep it. If you want to live in this city, you will have to purchasend.¡± Noticing that the two nobles grew anxious, Saleen finally smiled and said, ¡°Rx. Since you two havee early, I will charge a cheaper price.¡±


    ¡°J, you will be in charge of the viscounts¡¯ soldiers from now on. Settle their amodations, and go receive the soldiers tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±


    ¡°Piac, stay behind.¡± Saleen pointed at the fatty, and Piac remained in the room uneasily. Only after J led the two viscounts out did Saleen open his mouth and said, ¡°You epted their money, right?¡±


    Piac was dumbfounded and his face turned pale.


    ¡°Did you also say that as long you were the one making the request, I would surely ept them?¡±


    With a thump, Piac knelt on the ground. Had Phoenix not been in mayhem, he would not have been able toe here openly and wait for Saleen to fulfill the promise. But with mayhem in Phoenix right now, Piac had lost his usefulness. It was certain he could not defend Deep Forest Town, and if he lost Saleen too, he could only sit and wait for the soldiers from Goodrid City to capture him.


    ¡°Sir, please show me mercy.¡± At the same time, tears began streaming down his face. There was no way he could have faked that.


    ¡°Mercy? Since you have asked them to defect to me, then why did you still deploy your scouts? Are you nning tounch a sneak attack?¡±


    ¡°Sir, it¡¯s not my business. I only have ten soldiers, but each of them have hundreds of soldiers.¡± Piac was kneeling on the floor. He crawled two steps forward and hugged Saleen¡¯s thigh, stopping short of kissing Saleen¡¯s leg.


    Saleen kicked him away, then said, ¡°There is no one around now. If J had been present and you tried to get close to me, he would have amputated your limbs and handed you over to the death mage.¡±


    Noticing that Piac stopped bbering, Saleen then said, ¡°Hand over all the money you have taken from them. I will spare your life this time around.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, sir.¡± Finally, Piac had managed to salvage his life.


    ¡°Why are you thanking me? I am not done yet.¡± Saleen stared coldly at Piac, causing Piac to lower his head again.


    ¡°I will give you one hundred soldierster on. Once the county king returns and confers a new title upon you, you will lead these one hundred soldiers back to Deep Forest Town. That ce belongs to the county already. If the people from Holy Rock City want it, you shall tell them everything.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s instructions, Piac was aghast.

 Chapter 359: Sika’s Return (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 359: Sika¡¯s Return (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika was still wearing the set of clothes that she was wearing when she left. There were two young Cascausus warriors behind her, they were the only two people in the group that were in a magic armor.


    ¡°Have you be a true warrior priestess?¡± Saleen realized shockingly that Sika¡¯s focus had grown incredibly quickly. He could not determine how strong her focus was now, it might beparable to a sorcerer.


    ¡°Of course, if not how could I have brought so many people along with me?¡±


    ¡°Where is Lex?¡± Saleen realized that there were only Cascausus people in this group.


    ¡°She has returned to Bitter Water Prefecture. She will only move after a few months. Saleen, I¡¯m hungry¡­¡±


    Saleenughed as he said to the swordsmen that were taking over the group, ¡°Go tell Daniel to prepare breakfast. You, go find Mage Kredian. Ask him to tidy the houses near the garden and find a ce for all these people to stay temporarily.¡±


    The swordsmen took their instructions, Saleen took a look at a few elderlies in the group and asked Sika, ¡°Even the elders from your vige are here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, let me introduce you.¡±


    After a round of introductions, Saleen realized that Sika had brought with her all the people from three Cascausus viges. There was a total of two-thousand and seventy-two people. Half of them were warriors that could fight while the rest were women and children. Thebat skills of the Cascausus women were not to be looked down upon though. These women and children were not considered warriors but if a fight were to really break out, those above the age of ten could easily be used as a beginner swordsman.


    Along Sika¡¯s way back to Cascausus, she had already gained the recognition of the bone ne and had be a true warrior priestess. She was the first warrior priestess in her hometown in over a few hundred years. When she returned to her hometown, she had enjoyed enormous power. The two strong viges beside hers had also looked to her for guidance. Sika then talked about moving and provided much information and news about the happenings on the Maind. The elders of the three viges discussed before agreeing to her requests.


    Even if Sika had not mentioned it, they were nning to move anyway. The people from the Holy See had been harassing them and many battles had taken ce around them too. The Cascausus region was about to be embroiled within the war. The elders knew they could not avoid it and decided to move north into Laiyin Duchy.


    A warrior priest was a rtively high position and once Sika mentioned vastnds, the elders were naturally attracted to the idea. Even though the winters there were long, the conditions in the Cascausus region were incredibly horrendous too.


    The people from Cascausus were incredibly disciplined, over two-thousand of them were virtually silent. Many of the warriors were riding on magic wolves and they had a docile expression on their faces. When the team stopped, they lowered their heads andid obediently on the ground. Saleen could not let the group wait on the ground and so he personally led the team into the city center.


    The two warriors behind Sika in magic armor did not stop sizing Saleen up. This was the man that the warrior priestess was constantly talking about? He did not seem like much, his body seemed normal and at best could fend off an adult Cascausus.


    These two warriors were the strongest in the entire vige, this of course did not include the elders of the vige. Once Sika¡¯s position was confirmed, they had been sent to her side to follow her instructions.


    Sika had a simple content expression on her face as she and Saleenughed and walked all the way to the garden area south of the temple. This was usually meant for Saleen¡¯s personal soldiers to stay in. When Saleen saw that the Cascausus warriors that Sika had brought over were stronger than he had expected, he immediately decided to let the thousand over warriors, women, and children stay there.


    The reputation of the Cascausus warriors was extremely good. They were good inbat, loyal, and worked together. Saleen already had the idea that in the future, besides the swordsmen from Sregl Ind, he would only need the people from Cascausus by his side. This was because he saw a reflection of the Bitter Water Army in the Cascausus people.


    Pairing these warriors with some mages, he would have a group of elites. If enough magic wolves could be tamed, this regiment would be equivalent to half a swordsmen camp.


    Even though they were not prepared, after arranging for the Cascausus people¡¯s amodation, Saleen started discussing with the few elders.


    Saleenid down his thoughts directly. He hoped that the warriors of Cascausus would be his personal army. All expenses would be paid for by him and they would be based right there.


    The elders were a little hesitant as Saleen said, ¡°Elders, the Maind is on the verge of being thrown into chaos. I know you all do not like such a life, I can promise you that this army would only be in charge of the safety of this city. I will not let them go on any expeditions. If the war spreads here, I think all of us would still need to pick up our weapons. I can only create a regiment of a thousand people. I will also assign a mage to every group.¡±


    ¡°A mage in every group?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I will create magic armors and weapons. You all wouldn¡¯t be at a disadvantage when faced with a holy master or a mage.¡±


    The elders in the room started discussing among themselves. Atst, the oldest Cascausus said, ¡°Mage, as you know the Cascausus people are the most loyal warriors, but this concerns the entire tribe and we hope you will sign a contract. We will only be loyal to you. Besides you and Sika the warrior priestess, we will not ept any orders from anyone else.¡±


    ¡°You have my word!¡± Saleen promised, it was more than he could wish for.


    ¡°We have some children too, we hope you can choose a few of them to teach some swordsmanship or magic and they can join your army. At least one-hundred of them must follow Sika.¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡±


    ¡°Our rations¡­¡±


    ¡°As my personal army, anything you need will be provided for. We will expand and build arger enclosed camp. I will only choose those that I trust to stay in there. I have chosen some goodnd for you all outside the city, it can be used to grow crops. There are mages here to build a grain warehouse too, no one here will go hungry in the longest winter.¡±


    ¡°Mage, we have quite a few magic wolves as well.¡±


    Saleen took a look at Sika as she exined, ¡°To make sure the wolves keep their wild characteristics, we constantly bring them out to hunt. There are over four-hundred of these magic wolves among the three viges.¡±


    ¡°Okay, let me think.¡± Saleen considered before saying, ¡°A hunting ground can be set up south of the city. It isn¡¯t suitable for crop growing there because there are many mountains in the south. The north is more suitable to grow crops, which side do you all prefer?¡±


    ¡°Mage, does this mean that you will let us establish our vige?¡± The eldest Cascausus asked Saleen.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Saleen said. He thought if the Cascausus were to stay in the city all year round, they would start deteriorating.


    The elders and leaders were overjoyed, they decided to build their vige in the south in the end. The Cascausus still preferred the mountains and even though the vast ins in the north were good, it was notnd that they were used to.


    The matters with the Cascausus people were quickly discussed and Saleen estimated that with over two-thousand people, the rations would soon be a problem. The rations that his threebat vessels had brought over were quite a lot but there were less than one-thousand people in the city base at the start. Lex had brought with her over two-hundred people too. It was enough tost all of them for one to two years. Now with almost three-thousand Cascausus people and one-thousand barbarians, these rations could probablyst them only until spring of next year.


    Lex had left behind some rations when she left, but he could not count on them. If Lex returned two to three monthste, everyone would starve.


    The barbarians and Cascausus could still hunt but there was limited prey, hunting could not provide for the few thousand of them. Saleen had no choice but to get Francis to bring a few people to Lianyun City to buy some rations. As long as they couldst until May, Lex should be back by then.


    After making these arrangements, Saleen told Sika about his ns to go to the Oceanic Ice Block.


    ¡°Sika, could you stay behind to take care of them?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°No, I want to go with you.¡± Sika rejected his offer. Saleen had no idea why but he was a little d. It seemed like only Daniel would be staying behind, however, he was only a grade-4 mage while Kredian was a grade-5 mage. He could not let Kredian listen to Daniel.


    To ensure their safety during this expedition out at sea, they would need to bring the death kings. Saleen thought long and hard, he could only leave Diyabannersa behind. He did not feel safe leaving Banchajanna and Judikaka behind. Even though they were bound by the contract, Saleen was still worried that an ident would ur.


    Four magic beast swordsmen were left behind by Saleen to support Kredian. J had to follow Saleen and he knew he was not the same as before, he was responsible for more people¡¯s future and he could not take the risk. With J around, even if something happened to the death king, he would be able to deal with a professional that was grade-7 and above. So long as he did not encounter a grade-9 sorcerer, they could all still escape.


    With so many things going on, it was already night by the time everything was arranged.


    Irene was not happy, she and Aini had been called back to eat on the second floor of the city hall. Seeing Sika, she was even more sure that Nailisi was telling the truth. Thisdy from Cascausus was too beautiful. Irene had thought that Nailisi was an absolute beauty but after seeing Sika, even Irene felt inferior.


    Sika¡¯s eyes were too pure, almost like¡­ constetions.


    Was it this woman that had caused Saleen to lose control? Why were all her opponents so hard to deal with? She heard Viscountess Lex was a lover that captivated many men¡¯s hearts. Saleen did not keep the intimacy he shared with Sika a secret, it seemed the two of them already had a special rtionship.


    Irene did not taste what she was eating, everything tasted sour. Sika on the other hand swept up everything in sight, still the same as before. This made Irene feel a little better. Even though Sika was pretty, she did not have any proper upbringing, she was from Cascausus after all.


    After eating thestmb leg, Sika patted her stomach and said, ¡°I¡¯m tired, I¡¯ll go to bed now. Saleen, should I send two warriors to sentry for you?¡±


    Saleen shook his head and asked, ¡°Are you not staying over?¡±


    Irene¡¯s eyes widened before she heard Sika¡¯s reply, ¡°Not tonight, I need to return to make sure everything is in order. These fellows do not trust you yet.¡±


    ¡°Okay,e over tomorrow morning then.¡±


    ¡°Okay, see you tomorrow.¡± Sika stood up and patted Saleen on the shoulder before making her way out. Irene looked at Sika¡¯s back as she encouraged herself in her heart, ¡°This woman is a priestess, she cannot marry. If Saleen wants to control the Cascausus people, he cannot spend his life with Sika.¡±

 Chapter 360: Sika’s Return (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 360: Sika¡¯s Return (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I¡¯m tired, I¡¯m going to sleep too.¡± Saleen stood up and walked down the stairs. Irene quietly pulled on Nailisi¡¯s sleeve, she understood and stayed behind. Aini had to go back and manage his men as well. He had felt the hunt this time was too hurried and staying another day would allow him to give instructions to those from his family.


    ¡°That Sika¡­¡± Irene gave Nailisi with a questioning look.


    ¡°A Cascausus, what are you worried about?¡±


    ¡°She is joining the hunt, why doesn¡¯t she need to sign that damn contract?¡±


    ¡°Because the ship belongs to her partly.¡± Nailisi¡¯s reply left Irene deted, ¡°Sister Irene, why does it matter? The more women Saleen has, the less angry Viscountess Lex would be, right?¡± Nailisi¡¯s smile was innocent, yet her words were evil. ¡°You might not know, but Master is also a magic pharmacist. He has his ways to deal with many women at once.¡±


    ¡°That, isn¡¯t that good for Saleen, is it?¡± Irene was not a match for the demon. She could not help but blush, the words from her mouth did not make any sense.


    ¡°Beside mages that have died inbat, how many mages have you heard of that lived below the age of one-hundred?¡± Nailisiughed meaningfully as she took up a ss of strong liquor and downed it. The drink that the humans had brewed was good indeed, it tasted like the magma berry found in the demon dimension. It not only quenched her thirst, but was uplifting too.


    Saleen had no idea that Nailisi was promoting him, he returned to the temple but did not sleep. He was preparing things to set off tomorrow. Sika had returned, so he had no choice but to feed more people. Saleen walked to the basement of the temple alone. There was a small teleportation portal there that could send him within the vast space.


    Only with such uniquend conditions could one be created in such an enclosed space. The location of a temple was profound and under the temple was an entire piece of rock.


    This space was dug within the rock and to dig out such a safe space, Saleen had wasted a lot of energy.


    At the center of the space was an entire t surface of the rock, a teleportation array would be drawn there in the future. All around this space, there were arge number of stone holes that were carved out to store resources. These holes were empty now. Saleen took out a dimension stone and emptied all the materials used to build a magic tower out. He ced them all within these holes.


    Saleen had forty of such dimension stones and they could be ced within his Ring of Gifts. The space that they held was several hundred times greater than the Ring of Gifts. Emptying out the dimension stone, Saleen immediately left from the teleportation array and destroyed it after he was done. These materials used to build forty magic towers were the foundation of his city. It was a pity that with each passing day he did not receive any news from the mages from Sregl Ind. He could not start building the magic towers yet.


    Destroying the teleportation array was to keep these resources safe. Even if a mage was to reach the top of the space, they would not be able to find the general coordinate to restore the teleportation array.


    When he was done Saleen was relieved and he returned to his room.


    With the winged skeleton controlling the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, Saleen did not need too many mages for help. He was only bringing along J, Sika, Irene, Aini, Nailisi and another five low-grade mages. Saleen¡¯s original n was to make a trip to the Oceanic Ice Block himself, getting the precise sea route. When Sika had returned, his target was to get the prey too besides the magic nuclei.


    There were far more creatures in the sea than could be eaten. With the dimension stone, Saleen could store as many as they caught. The only trouble was that the prey in the sea could be terrifying predators too. He had no choice but to bring a death king with him.


    Banchajanna. Saleen¡¯s heart chanted silently, in front of him was a magic array. Banchajanna¡¯s shadow flickered and appeared within the magic array.


    ¡°It is sote, Saleen. You aren¡¯t sleeping and have called me here, is it to humiliate me?¡± Even though Banchajanna waspletely under Saleen¡¯s control, he still had his own consciousness. To be controlled by such a low-grade mage left him with an unspeakable rage.


    ¡°I am but a passing visitor in your long life, Banchajanna. If you wish to continue living, do not challenge my patience. Even though changing you into a puppetpletely will lower yourbat abilities, I will not stand your continued provocations.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was calm but Banchajanna stopped his venting. He knew Saleen well enough, this young mage would not put out empty threats. Once he spoke, it was thest time.


    ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± Banchajanna had no choice but to submit. Saleen¡¯s life was too short for him, there was not a point for him to continue fighting. Such forced contracts would naturally be annulled when Saleen was dead. Whether Saleen¡¯s death would harm his soul mes was dependent on Saleen¡¯s mood. In other words, if Saleen wanted to take Banchajanna down to hell with him when he died, there was nothing Banchajanna could do about it.


    ¡°Turn into a winged skeleton,¡± Saleen said to Banchajanna. Even though his room wasrge, he did not like to lift his head to speak to the giant Banchajanna.


    Banchajanna turned into a winged skeleton and sat in front of Saleen.


    ¡°I wish to go out to sea to hunt, I will bring you along. There are too many people in the city, and soon our rations will run out.¡±


    ¡°Such things are in your control.¡± Banchajanna¡¯s voice was deep as it echoed about the spacious room.


    ¡°I am going to the Oceanic Ice Block, it is not essible by normal ships and I need to take the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. The hunting mission will be left to you. Take this.¡± Saleen took out four dimension stones and handed them to Banchajanna.


    ¡°Dimension stones!¡± Banchajanna recognized them. They were too hard to create and their ingredients were not just expensive, the conditions needed to create them were incredibly strict and the sess rate was incredibly low. The greatest property of a dimension stone was not as a spatial equipment, though it did make it much easier to create spatial equipment. The dimension stone¡¯s greatest property was that it could be used to set up a giant magic array. If there was enough dimension stones, Saleen could make the entire city one big magic array. Even if the gods were to descend, they would not be able to do anything against such a defense.


    ¡°It is good that you recognize them, do not lose them. When we reach to the Oceanic Ice Block. Once we encounter any prey, you will go out to hunt. Use the dimension stones to store the prey. Once they are full, I will give you more dimension stones until the hunt is over.¡±


    ¡°This hunt, it is very dangerous, isn¡¯t it?¡± Banchajanna started thinking, he could hear the warning within Saleen¡¯s voice.


    ¡°We might meet some grade-9 magic beasts, are you confident in killing them?¡±


    ¡°Unless it is an evolved lightning dragon. If you do not mind how beaten up the prey would be, I can take on a grade-9 magic beast alone.¡± Banchajanna answered seriously.


    ¡°Very good. Unless the situation is dire, the alchemical boat will not be there to assist you. You must be prepared.¡±


    ¡°Is that all?¡± Banchajanna did not feel the rules were too strict, so long as Saleen did not mind how beaten up the prey would be. He did not think it was too dangerous. Even though a grade-9 magic beast was strong, magic beasts did not have any equipment. His scepter and the six pieces of weapons were specially created by Shann, defeating these magic beasts went without saying.


    ¡°That¡¯s all, I will need to process my weapon tonight, stay here as sentry.¡±


    Banchajanna stood up despondently and walked towards the door. Saleen did not care if he was ready to submit or not, as long as he could be controlled. He knew that going against Saleen would not lead to anything good. This mage had a determined heart and even if he destroyed him, he would not mind losing a helper.


    Saleen extinguished the magic lights and released the water me and started processing his weapon. Saleen was prepared for the worst with this expedition after past experiences. The alchemical boat could hold quite a few people and arranging for one-hundred swordsmen should not be a problem. Saleen only brought mages along with him such that if the alchemical boat was to be destroyed, he could escape easily.


    With Banchajanna around, flying away with a few mages would be easy. With his Quickcloud spell now, he could bring two people along with him too. Sika and Nailisi could be by his side fighting. Although the Oceanic Ice Block was tens of thousands of miles away, there were many ces along the way tond. This would reduce the danger even more.


    If they could not return on the water, Saleen had already made ns to return by air. The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat could descend into the sea and letting the winged skeleton control it, Saleen would not lose it. Saleen wanted to prepare alchemy crossbows that were of a higher grade to give out to the lower grade mages, letting them protect themselves too.


    The weakest thing about a mage was that he did not have many magic chords, he would not be able to fight inbat for long.


    In the garden south of the temple, the Cascausus people had already settled down. A woodhouse made from carving out a few giant trees at the center of all the buildings, was where the Cascausus elders were staying.


    The Cascausus people were simple but they were not pedantic, if so they would have disappeared as a tribe just like the barbarians. In the tall woodhouse, the elders sat in a circle around Sika, listening to the arrangements that she had made.


    ¡°I have said it before, I feel there is danger of us being wiped out. Just because we are here doesn¡¯t mean we are safe.¡± Sika said a little worryingly. ¡°Even though Mage Saleen can be trusted, what if he were to die? We wouldn¡¯t be able to find another protector like him again. I will choose three of the best children to stay behind and impart the powers of the priest to them. As for the other talented kids, they will stop being warriors. I will let Saleen train them to be mages.¡±


    ¡°Priestess, if that is the case, our tribe will not be able to develop,¡± two elders said even more worryingly.


    ¡°I have a responsibility to ensure more Cascausus people survive. You all should know that magic lineage is the same as the priest lineage, true magic technique is rare in this world. Saleen is one of those who owns such techniques. A Cascausus that has learnt magic is still a Cascausus person. If we are not able to get over this period, we will be like other powerful tribes in the past,pletely destroyed,¡±Sika said seriously. She was only regurgitating what she had read from the priest lineage within the bone ne. There was an incredible amount of prophecy-like information. Together with the information she got from following Saleen all these years, Sika was inclined to believe such prophecies.

 Chapter 361: Sika’s Return (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 361: Sika¡¯s Return (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika was still wearing the set of clothes that she was wearing when she left. There were two young Cascausus warriors behind her, they were the only two people in the group that were in a magic armor.


    ¡°Have you be a true warrior priestess?¡± Saleen realized shockingly that Sika¡¯s focus had grown incredibly quickly. He could not determine how strong her focus was now, it might beparable to a sorcerer.


    ¡°Of course, if not how could I have brought so many people along with me?¡±


    ¡°Where is Lex?¡± Saleen realized that there were only Cascausus people in this group.


    ¡°She has returned to Bitter Water Prefecture. She will only move after a few months. Saleen, I¡¯m hungry¡­¡±


    Saleenughed as he said to the swordsmen that were taking over the group, ¡°Go tell Daniel to prepare breakfast. You, go find Mage Kredian. Ask him to tidy the houses near the garden and find a ce for all these people to stay temporarily.¡±


    The swordsmen took their instructions, Saleen took a look at a few elderlies in the group and asked Sika, ¡°Even the elders from your vige are here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, let me introduce you.¡±


    After a round of introductions, Saleen realized that Sika had brought with her all the people from three Cascausus viges. There was a total of two-thousand and seventy-two people. Half of them were warriors that could fight while the rest were women and children. Thebat skills of the Cascausus women were not to be looked down upon though. These women and children were not considered warriors but if a fight were to really break out, those above the age of ten could easily be used as a beginner swordsman.


    Along Sika¡¯s way back to Cascausus, she had already gained the recognition of the bone ne and had be a true warrior priestess. She was the first warrior priestess in her hometown in over a few hundred years. When she returned to her hometown, she had enjoyed enormous power. The two strong viges beside hers had also looked to her for guidance. Sika then talked about moving and provided much information and news about the happenings on the Maind. The elders of the three viges discussed before agreeing to her requests.


    Even if Sika had not mentioned it, they were nning to move anyway. The people from the Holy See had been harassing them and many battles had taken ce around them too. The Cascausus region was about to be embroiled within the war. The elders knew they could not avoid it and decided to move north into Laiyin Duchy.


    A warrior priest was a rtively high position and once Sika mentioned vastnds, the elders were naturally attracted to the idea. Even though the winters there were long, the conditions in the Cascausus region were incredibly horrendous too.


    The people from Cascausus were incredibly disciplined, over two-thousand of them were virtually silent. Many of the warriors were riding on magic wolves and they had a docile expression on their faces. When the team stopped, they lowered their heads andid obediently on the ground. Saleen could not let the group wait on the ground and so he personally led the team into the city center.


    The two warriors behind Sika in magic armor did not stop sizing Saleen up. This was the man that the warrior priestess was constantly talking about? He did not seem like much, his body seemed normal and at best could fend off an adult Cascausus.


    These two warriors were the strongest in the entire vige, this of course did not include the elders of the vige. Once Sika¡¯s position was confirmed, they had been sent to her side to follow her instructions.


    Sika had a simple content expression on her face as she and Saleenughed and walked all the way to the garden area south of the temple. This was usually meant for Saleen¡¯s personal soldiers to stay in. When Saleen saw that the Cascausus warriors that Sika had brought over were stronger than he had expected, he immediately decided to let the thousand over warriors, women, and children stay there.


    The reputation of the Cascausus warriors was extremely good. They were good inbat, loyal, and worked together. Saleen already had the idea that in the future, besides the swordsmen from Sregl Ind, he would only need the people from Cascausus by his side. This was because he saw a reflection of the Bitter Water Army in the Cascausus people.


    Pairing these warriors with some mages, he would have a group of elites. If enough magic wolves could be tamed, this regiment would be equivalent to half a swordsmen camp.


    Even though they were not prepared, after arranging for the Cascausus people¡¯s amodation, Saleen started discussing with the few elders.


    Saleenid down his thoughts directly. He hoped that the warriors of Cascausus would be his personal army. All expenses would be paid for by him and they would be based right there.


    The elders were a little hesitant as Saleen said, ¡°Elders, the Maind is on the verge of being thrown into chaos. I know you all do not like such a life, I can promise you that this army would only be in charge of the safety of this city. I will not let them go on any expeditions. If the war spreads here, I think all of us would still need to pick up our weapons. I can only create a regiment of a thousand people. I will also assign a mage to every group.¡±


    ¡°A mage in every group?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I will create magic armors and weapons. You all wouldn¡¯t be at a disadvantage when faced with a holy master or a mage.¡±


    The elders in the room started discussing among themselves. Atst, the oldest Cascausus said, ¡°Mage, as you know the Cascausus people are the most loyal warriors, but this concerns the entire tribe and we hope you will sign a contract. We will only be loyal to you. Besides you and Sika the warrior priestess, we will not ept any orders from anyone else.¡±


    ¡°You have my word!¡± Saleen promised, it was more than he could wish for.


    ¡°We have some children too, we hope you can choose a few of them to teach some swordsmanship or magic and they can join your army. At least one-hundred of them must follow Sika.¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡±


    ¡°Our rations¡­¡±


    ¡°As my personal army, anything you need will be provided for. We will expand and build arger enclosed camp. I will only choose those that I trust to stay in there. I have chosen some goodnd for you all outside the city, it can be used to grow crops. There are mages here to build a grain warehouse too, no one here will go hungry in the longest winter.¡±


    ¡°Mage, we have quite a few magic wolves as well.¡±


    Saleen took a look at Sika as she exined, ¡°To make sure the wolves keep their wild characteristics, we constantly bring them out to hunt. There are over four-hundred of these magic wolves among the three viges.¡±


    ¡°Okay, let me think.¡± Saleen considered before saying, ¡°A hunting ground can be set up south of the city. It isn¡¯t suitable for crop growing there because there are many mountains in the south. The north is more suitable to grow crops, which side do you all prefer?¡±


    ¡°Mage, does this mean that you will let us establish our vige?¡± The eldest Cascausus asked Saleen.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Saleen said. He thought if the Cascausus were to stay in the city all year round, they would start deteriorating.


    The elders and leaders were overjoyed, they decided to build their vige in the south in the end. The Cascausus still preferred the mountains and even though the vast ins in the north were good, it was notnd that they were used to.


    The matters with the Cascausus people were quickly discussed and Saleen estimated that with over two-thousand people, the rations would soon be a problem. The rations that his threebat vessels had brought over were quite a lot but there were less than one-thousand people in the city base at the start. Lex had brought with her over two-hundred people too. It was enough tost all of them for one to two years. Now with almost three-thousand Cascausus people and one-thousand barbarians, these rations could probablyst them only until spring of next year.


    Lex had left behind some rations when she left, but he could not count on them. If Lex returned two to three monthste, everyone would starve.


    The barbarians and Cascausus could still hunt but there was limited prey, hunting could not provide for the few thousand of them. Saleen had no choice but to get Francis to bring a few people to Lianyun City to buy some rations. As long as they couldst until May, Lex should be back by then.


    After making these arrangements, Saleen told Sika about his ns to go to the Oceanic Ice Block.


    ¡°Sika, could you stay behind to take care of them?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°No, I want to go with you.¡± Sika rejected his offer. Saleen had no idea why but he was a little d. It seemed like only Daniel would be staying behind, however, he was only a grade-4 mage while Kredian was a grade-5 mage. He could not let Kredian listen to Daniel.


    To ensure their safety during this expedition out at sea, they would need to bring the death kings. Saleen thought long and hard, he could only leave Diyabannersa behind. He did not feel safe leaving Banchajanna and Judikaka behind. Even though they were bound by the contract, Saleen was still worried that an ident would ur.


    Four magic beast swordsmen were left behind by Saleen to support Kredian. J had to follow Saleen and he knew he was not the same as before, he was responsible for more people¡¯s future and he could not take the risk. With J around, even if something happened to the death king, he would be able to deal with a professional that was grade-7 and above. So long as he did not encounter a grade-9 sorcerer, they could all still escape.


    With so many things going on, it was already night by the time everything was arranged.


    Irene was not happy, she and Aini had been called back to eat on the second floor of the city hall. Seeing Sika, she was even more sure that Nailisi was telling the truth. Thisdy from Cascausus was too beautiful. Irene had thought that Nailisi was an absolute beauty but after seeing Sika, even Irene felt inferior.


    Sika¡¯s eyes were too pure, almost like¡­ constetions.


    Was it this woman that had caused Saleen to lose control? Why were all her opponents so hard to deal with? She heard Viscountess Lex was a lover that captivated many men¡¯s hearts. Saleen did not keep the intimacy he shared with Sika a secret, it seemed the two of them already had a special rtionship.


    Irene did not taste what she was eating, everything tasted sour. Sika on the other hand swept up everything in sight, still the same as before. This made Irene feel a little better. Even though Sika was pretty, she did not have any proper upbringing, she was from Cascausus after all.


    After eating thestmb leg, Sika patted her stomach and said, ¡°I¡¯m tired, I¡¯ll go to bed now. Saleen, should I send two warriors to sentry for you?¡±


    Saleen shook his head and asked, ¡°Are you not staying over?¡±


    Irene¡¯s eyes widened before she heard Sika¡¯s reply, ¡°Not tonight, I need to return to make sure everything is in order. These fellows do not trust you yet.¡±


    ¡°Okay,e over tomorrow morning then.¡±


    ¡°Okay, see you tomorrow.¡± Sika stood up and patted Saleen on the shoulder before making her way out. Irene looked at Sika¡¯s back as she encouraged herself in her heart, ¡°This woman is a priestess, she cannot marry. If Saleen wants to control the Cascausus people, he cannot spend his life with Sika.¡±

 Chapter 362: Sika’s Return (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 362: Sika¡¯s Return (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I¡¯m tired, I¡¯m going to sleep too.¡± Saleen stood up and walked down the stairs. Irene quietly pulled on Nailisi¡¯s sleeve, she understood and stayed behind. Aini had to go back and manage his men as well. He had felt the hunt this time was too hurried and staying another day would allow him to give instructions to those from his family.


    ¡°That Sika¡­¡± Irene gave Nailisi with a questioning look.


    ¡°A Cascausus, what are you worried about?¡±


    ¡°She is joining the hunt, why doesn¡¯t she need to sign that damn contract?¡±


    ¡°Because the ship belongs to her partly.¡± Nailisi¡¯s reply left Irene deted, ¡°Sister Irene, why does it matter? The more women Saleen has, the less angry Viscountess Lex would be, right?¡± Nailisi¡¯s smile was innocent, yet her words were evil. ¡°You might not know, but Master is also a magic pharmacist. He has his ways to deal with many women at once.¡±


    ¡°That, isn¡¯t that good for Saleen, is it?¡± Irene was not a match for the demon. She could not help but blush, the words from her mouth did not make any sense.


    ¡°Beside mages that have died inbat, how many mages have you heard of that lived below the age of one-hundred?¡± Nailisiughed meaningfully as she took up a ss of strong liquor and downed it. The drink that the humans had brewed was good indeed, it tasted like the magma berry found in the demon dimension. It not only quenched her thirst, but was uplifting too.


    Saleen had no idea that Nailisi was promoting him, he returned to the temple but did not sleep. He was preparing things to set off tomorrow. Sika had returned, so he had no choice but to feed more people. Saleen walked to the basement of the temple alone. There was a small teleportation portal there that could send him within the vast space.


    Only with such uniquend conditions could one be created in such an enclosed space. The location of a temple was profound and under the temple was an entire piece of rock.


    This space was dug within the rock and to dig out such a safe space, Saleen had wasted a lot of energy.


    At the center of the space was an entire t surface of the rock, a teleportation array would be drawn there in the future. All around this space, there were arge number of stone holes that were carved out to store resources. These holes were empty now. Saleen took out a dimension stone and emptied all the materials used to build a magic tower out. He ced them all within these holes.


    Saleen had forty of such dimension stones and they could be ced within his Ring of Gifts. The space that they held was several hundred times greater than the Ring of Gifts. Emptying out the dimension stone, Saleen immediately left from the teleportation array and destroyed it after he was done. These materials used to build forty magic towers were the foundation of his city. It was a pity that with each passing day he did not receive any news from the mages from Sregl Ind. He could not start building the magic towers yet.


    Destroying the teleportation array was to keep these resources safe. Even if a mage was to reach the top of the space, they would not be able to find the general coordinate to restore the teleportation array.


    When he was done Saleen was relieved and he returned to his room.


    With the winged skeleton controlling the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, Saleen did not need too many mages for help. He was only bringing along J, Sika, Irene, Aini, Nailisi and another five low-grade mages. Saleen¡¯s original n was to make a trip to the Oceanic Ice Block himself, getting the precise sea route. When Sika had returned, his target was to get the prey too besides the magic nuclei.


    There were far more creatures in the sea than could be eaten. With the dimension stone, Saleen could store as many as they caught. The only trouble was that the prey in the sea could be terrifying predators too. He had no choice but to bring a death king with him.


    Banchajanna. Saleen¡¯s heart chanted silently, in front of him was a magic array. Banchajanna¡¯s shadow flickered and appeared within the magic array.


    ¡°It is sote, Saleen. You aren¡¯t sleeping and have called me here, is it to humiliate me?¡± Even though Banchajanna waspletely under Saleen¡¯s control, he still had his own consciousness. To be controlled by such a low-grade mage left him with an unspeakable rage.


    ¡°I am but a passing visitor in your long life, Banchajanna. If you wish to continue living, do not challenge my patience. Even though changing you into a puppetpletely will lower yourbat abilities, I will not stand your continued provocations.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was calm but Banchajanna stopped his venting. He knew Saleen well enough, this young mage would not put out empty threats. Once he spoke, it was thest time.


    ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± Banchajanna had no choice but to submit. Saleen¡¯s life was too short for him, there was not a point for him to continue fighting. Such forced contracts would naturally be annulled when Saleen was dead. Whether Saleen¡¯s death would harm his soul mes was dependent on Saleen¡¯s mood. In other words, if Saleen wanted to take Banchajanna down to hell with him when he died, there was nothing Banchajanna could do about it.


    ¡°Turn into a winged skeleton,¡± Saleen said to Banchajanna. Even though his room wasrge, he did not like to lift his head to speak to the giant Banchajanna.


    Banchajanna turned into a winged skeleton and sat in front of Saleen.


    ¡°I wish to go out to sea to hunt, I will bring you along. There are too many people in the city, and soon our rations will run out.¡±


    ¡°Such things are in your control.¡± Banchajanna¡¯s voice was deep as it echoed about the spacious room.


    ¡°I am going to the Oceanic Ice Block, it is not essible by normal ships and I need to take the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. The hunting mission will be left to you. Take this.¡± Saleen took out four dimension stones and handed them to Banchajanna.


    ¡°Dimension stones!¡± Banchajanna recognized them. They were too hard to create and their ingredients were not just expensive, the conditions needed to create them were incredibly strict and the sess rate was incredibly low. The greatest property of a dimension stone was not as a spatial equipment, though it did make it much easier to create spatial equipment. The dimension stone¡¯s greatest property was that it could be used to set up a giant magic array. If there was enough dimension stones, Saleen could make the entire city one big magic array. Even if the gods were to descend, they would not be able to do anything against such a defense.


    ¡°It is good that you recognize them, do not lose them. When we reach to the Oceanic Ice Block. Once we encounter any prey, you will go out to hunt. Use the dimension stones to store the prey. Once they are full, I will give you more dimension stones until the hunt is over.¡±


    ¡°This hunt, it is very dangerous, isn¡¯t it?¡± Banchajanna started thinking, he could hear the warning within Saleen¡¯s voice.


    ¡°We might meet some grade-9 magic beasts, are you confident in killing them?¡±


    ¡°Unless it is an evolved lightning dragon. If you do not mind how beaten up the prey would be, I can take on a grade-9 magic beast alone.¡± Banchajanna answered seriously.


    ¡°Very good. Unless the situation is dire, the alchemical boat will not be there to assist you. You must be prepared.¡±


    ¡°Is that all?¡± Banchajanna did not feel the rules were too strict, so long as Saleen did not mind how beaten up the prey would be. He did not think it was too dangerous. Even though a grade-9 magic beast was strong, magic beasts did not have any equipment. His scepter and the six pieces of weapons were specially created by Shann, defeating these magic beasts went without saying.


    ¡°That¡¯s all, I will need to process my weapon tonight, stay here as sentry.¡±


    Banchajanna stood up despondently and walked towards the door. Saleen did not care if he was ready to submit or not, as long as he could be controlled. He knew that going against Saleen would not lead to anything good. This mage had a determined heart and even if he destroyed him, he would not mind losing a helper.


    Saleen extinguished the magic lights and released the water me and started processing his weapon. Saleen was prepared for the worst with this expedition after past experiences. The alchemical boat could hold quite a few people and arranging for one-hundred swordsmen should not be a problem. Saleen only brought mages along with him such that if the alchemical boat was to be destroyed, he could escape easily.


    With Banchajanna around, flying away with a few mages would be easy. With his Quickcloud spell now, he could bring two people along with him too. Sika and Nailisi could be by his side fighting. Although the Oceanic Ice Block was tens of thousands of miles away, there were many ces along the way tond. This would reduce the danger even more.


    If they could not return on the water, Saleen had already made ns to return by air. The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat could descend into the sea and letting the winged skeleton control it, Saleen would not lose it. Saleen wanted to prepare alchemy crossbows that were of a higher grade to give out to the lower grade mages, letting them protect themselves too.


    The weakest thing about a mage was that he did not have many magic chords, he would not be able to fight inbat for long.


    In the garden south of the temple, the Cascausus people had already settled down. A woodhouse made from carving out a few giant trees at the center of all the buildings, was where the Cascausus elders were staying.


    The Cascausus people were simple but they were not pedantic, if so they would have disappeared as a tribe just like the barbarians. In the tall woodhouse, the elders sat in a circle around Sika, listening to the arrangements that she had made.


    ¡°I have said it before, I feel there is danger of us being wiped out. Just because we are here doesn¡¯t mean we are safe.¡± Sika said a little worryingly. ¡°Even though Mage Saleen can be trusted, what if he were to die? We wouldn¡¯t be able to find another protector like him again. I will choose three of the best children to stay behind and impart the powers of the priest to them. As for the other talented kids, they will stop being warriors. I will let Saleen train them to be mages.¡±


    ¡°Priestess, if that is the case, our tribe will not be able to develop,¡± two elders said even more worryingly.


    ¡°I have a responsibility to ensure more Cascausus people survive. You all should know that magic lineage is the same as the priest lineage, true magic technique is rare in this world. Saleen is one of those who owns such techniques. A Cascausus that has learnt magic is still a Cascausus person. If we are not able to get over this period, we will be like other powerful tribes in the past,pletely destroyed,¡±Sika said seriously. She was only regurgitating what she had read from the priest lineage within the bone ne. There was an incredible amount of prophecy-like information. Together with the information she got from following Saleen all these years, Sika was inclined to believe such prophecies.

 Chapter 363: Long Voyage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 363: Long Voyage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Just as dawn broke, Saleen put down what he was doing and went into a deep meditation. When he opened his eyes again, Nailisi was already beside him.


    ¡°Master, everything is prepared.¡±


    ¡°Okay, go to the port. Banchajanna?¡± Saleen called on Banchajanna who had turned into a winged skeleton. He released a cleaning spell for himself and stretched his limbs before walking out of the temple.


    Five low-grade mages were waiting outside, Saleen did not see Truman, Nailisi whispered to him softly, ¡°I havemanded Truman to defend the White Rock Mountain.¡±


    Saleen furrowed his brows as he thought, if an enemy were to attack now the north, west, and south all had some form of city wall or fortresses. On the other hand, the coast towards the Oceanic Ice Block was not defended. Even though the pier was higher than the sea, it could not be used to defend.


    Nailisi had made the right choice leaving the magic cannon behind. Once an enemy tried to attack from the ice, a single shot would st apart the ice. It would prevent any enemy from invading from the sea.


    It was better to be prepared. Even though none of thebat fleet from the Holy See could reach there, the ones from the Cloudflow Empire could. Thebat vessel from Alchemy City had already been attacked, it was better for him to be careful.


    Aini and Irene were waiting on the coast, Aini was dressed in a grey magic robe which did not seem too fanciful. Irene on the other hand was in a gleaming armor, it was filled with hollowed out magic patterns. If there were not arge number of magic arrays drawn in the armor, it would not be able to defend even from a wooden spear.


    ¡°Just us?¡± Irene asked in shock as she saw Saleen bringing with him five low-grade mages.


    ¡°And Sika.¡± Saleen¡¯s reply was incredibly simple but it left Irene¡¯s speechless. Going to hunt in the Oceanic Ice Block, manpower was as important as a tough ship. There were arge number of low-grade magic beasts and to haul them up with a it needed at least one-hundred swordsmen to turn the gears together. Saleen¡¯s team was too small, it might be able to deal with single magic beasts but could not deal with millions of them. Irene did not know what Saleen was thinking.


    After around half an hour, Sika rushed over from the south.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I woke upte.¡± Sika had a look of ungratefulness on her that left Irene incredibly resentful. It was a cold day and the wind was like knives cutting into their faces, leaving their skin raw. She had the nerve to oversleep and made everyone wait for her. After listening to Nailisi¡¯s words, Irene knew Saleen treated Sika incredibly well and did not want to offend anyone. She could only hold it in.


    ¡°Everyone is here, let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen did not say much as he brought Banchajanna along and walked straight towards the sea.


    Thick iceyers covered the entire sea with snow on top of them too. Everywhere Banchajanna passed, the snow immediately disappeared making a path. Saleen looked left to the White Rock Mountains, on the sharp peak hid a ck hole.


    The magic cannon was already set up. If it shot right there now, he had no idea if Banchajanna would be able to defend against it. The magic cannon was too dangerous and besides a mage that he trusted, he would not let any outsiders near it.


    Ten people and a winged skeleton walked towards the vast sea. Saleen did not give any of them a Windspeed spell, instead, he used his legs to measure the width of the iceyer step by step. At the same time, he used his senses to check how deep the iceyer was.


    Within two miles of the coast, the iceyer was five to six meters deep. As they got further away from the coast, the ice got thicker. Many ces were deeper than ten meters. This was an unusual sight. Sea water was salty andpared to fresh water, it was harder to freeze. It should not be able to form such thick ice.


    He was not sure what caused this unusual phenomenon but Saleen was already relieved. With such thick ice, only a mage could slowly push his way through. It would be almost impossible for one to attack from beneath using normal soldiers.


    On the crescent-shaped ind, there was already a giant stone pir erected that formed a screen. Saleen brought them to rest at the ind and found the entrance that led underground. He then gave everyone a water shield. Under the protection of the water shield, everyone followed the secret tunnel into the ship warehouse under the ind.


    In the dark sea, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat floated silently, giving off a weak light. This was the magic light that the winged skeleton had released intentionally, it allowed Saleen and the rest to recognize the coordinates. Saleen waved as he brought everyone underneath the alchemical boat to the teleportation portal.


    ¡°Soldier, let us in,¡± Saleen called for the winged skeleton in his heart.


    A magic light shed past as all of them were transported within the alchemical boat simultaneously. Irene finally understood why Saleen was in need of magic nuclei after seeing this ship. The various signs pointed that Saleen possessed a great number of magic techniques, they could be used to create various types of magic equipment for battle.


    This ship was the perfect example. Irene estimated that to let this ship sail atop the Oceanic Ice Block, the number of magic nuclei needed would not be any less than the big ship of hers.


    She had no idea that the alchemical boat had a spirit pool. If it was not cruising at a rapid pace, it would not use up too much energy.


    Entering the interior of the alchemical boat, even Aini was a little shocked. This ship was much tougher than he had imagined. A Pan¡¯s Turtle did not usually have such a huge body and one that could grow to this size would have been incredibly hard to kill. Using such a huge turtle shell to create aplete ship was essentially a miracle.


    The ship had gone through another round of modifications and with the continuous processing from the winged skeleton, the spirit pool had be smaller. The ship¡¯s body was split into three parts. The middle was the cabin to rest in and the front was the control cabin. The back was used to store items and the energy cabin. After the structure had been simplified, the space had be bigger and the number of people Saleen had brought with him was too little. The ship seemed empty.


    Irene¡¯s eyes were sharp as she saw a giant crystal at the front of the control cabin. Besides the spirit pool in front of it, there was a new magicpass. The magicpass seemed incredibly familiar.


    Saleenughed as he said to Irene, ¡°I found your sunken ship, the magicpass there¡­¡±


    Irene shook her head and realized that the twenty percent of profits that Saleen had given her was indeed too much. This was because even without her sea map, Saleen could also slowly calcte the secret sea route using the magicpass. Even though that would waste a lot of time, Saleen could do it alone without her help.


    ¡°Since you found it, why not follow thews of that country? These things are yours now.¡± Irene¡¯s feelings wereplicated. Could Saleen have feelings for her, was that why he had interacted with her?


    In actuality, Saleen¡¯s thoughts were simple; he could not throw all his wealth into this expedition. If he wanted to open up the sea route to the Oceanic Ice Block in the future, he needed someone to invest. He could sit and take sixty percent of the profits, but that was an incrediblyrge sum.


    If everything was done by him, he had to take all the risk himself. Hearing Irene¡¯s description, there were many riches in the Oceanic Ice Block. He could not take everything by himself. If he had sufficient power in the future, he could invest more and still get the greatest share. No matter Irene or Aini, they could not own that many ships, much less a fleet.


    ¡°Soldier, let the five of them familiarize with the controls, you can take a rest.¡± Saleen ordered the winged skeleton. He brought the five low-grade mages to control the alchemical boat. With them around, if an intense battle was to break out, the winged skeleton could control the magic array and spirit pool better.


    ¡°Banchajanna, you shall wait here.¡± Saleen pointed to the two magic arrays that were at the entrance of the ship.


    The rest followed Saleen to the cabin at the middle of the ship, Saleen found his room. This room was to the left of the ship and took up half the space, the other room was prepared for Lex.


    The right of the cabin had three floors, they were prepared for the mages and the swordsmen. That left only two. At the bottom was a hall that was over thirty square meters while the top was the bedroom.


    The second floor only had four rooms. Besides Saleen¡¯s room, there were ones that were prepared for his followers. Seeing that there were only a few rooms, J started getting excited as he thought, ¡°It looks like I can stay with some prettydy.¡±


    There were other rooms on the ships, but Saleen had gathered everyone close to prepare for the worst. Seeing J¡¯s excited look, Saleen said, ¡°J, you will room with Aini.


    ¡°Gu¡­¡± J let out a weird noise as he felt a bitter tug on his heart. He had been arranged to room with the death mage, ¡°The death mage has some weird habits! I am a grand swordmaster, do I need to be the ything of the death mage?¡± He looked at Aini. Aini smiled at him and there was an air of awkwardness.


    ¡°Irene, Sika, choose your rooms. Nailisi, follow me.¡± Saleen brought Nailisi to his room.


    The entire center portion of the alchemical boat was nine meters long, it was eight meters wide on both the left and right sides. Saleen¡¯s cabin was only nine meters but ording to the standard of a ship that could go underwater, it was pretty big. The left side of the cabin only had two floors. The supports were tall and under the intricate design, it seemed even more spacious.


    There was a small bed in the room and Saleen said to Nailisi, ¡°You can take the bed.¡±


    Nailisiughed, ¡°Has master finally changed his mind?¡±


    Saleen immediately said, ¡°I need to continue practicing my Water me Alchemy spell.¡± With that, he sat on the ground and took out the unfinished weapon as he released the water me and started processing.


    Nailisi stared in shock, was this not more boring than being in the city? In the city, she had a big enough room. In here? She would need to live in this room for a few months! Nailisi almost banged her head against the wall.


    ¡°Aini.¡± J followed Aini into the room, his heart filled with trepidation.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Aini stared at J, almost as if he was smiling. Even though J could easily kill him with a single strike, Aini still looked at J as if he was looking at a prey.


    ¡°There seems to be only one bed.¡± J looked at the small bed, he felt as if his virginity was about to be lost.


    ¡°You can stay in the opposite cabin.¡± Aini took off his shoes. He had not had much restst night because he had mainly been arranging his swordsmen and mages. Spring next year, the city would have finished construction. By then, Saleen would send people to the north to start searching for quarries. The north had not been developed and there would be numerous mountains waiting to be mined. As long as they found a steady mine deposit, this port city would immediately be prosperous.


    He had no idea that Saleen had already sent the spirits to find two mining points that were closer. He was only waiting for Lex¡¯s manpower and resources to arrive. His judgement was incredibly urate, Saleen was not only looking to build a defensive city there.

 Chapter 364: Long Voyage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 364: Long Voyage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    J scrunched his face and said, ¡°I need to protect Master Saleen, I cannot stay too far away.¡±


    ¡°You are loyal, would you consider following me? A death mage has the power to extend one¡¯s life.¡± Aini tempted.


    ¡°I have signed a contract with Master Saleen.¡± J replied aggrievedly. He could not reject the death mage¡¯s kind intentions yet he could not agree to it.


    ¡°Ah, that is a pity.¡± Aini spat out the death mes. Lying against the bed, he let the death mes float above his body. The room was bathed in a green glow, J sat painfully on the ground. It was not that he did not want to leave, but this was closer to the pretty women. If he were to stay in the opposite room, he would have less of a chance of getting close to them.


    J was from the Qin Empire, but he grew up in the Cloudflow Empire. He had an incredible fear of death mages. He was not afraid of death, he was afraid of bing a spirit. If he became a spirit, he would not lust after pretty women. That was something scarier than dying to him. If he was a pure Qin Empire person, this fear would be much lesser. Death mages were not perverts, why would they change anyone into spirits? If death mages liked doing such stuff, they would not be respected in the Qin Empire.


    Irene was more dejected than J, her experience out in the sea did not mean much to Saleen. What was more infuriating was that Saleen had brought Nailisi into his room and closed the door to ¡°train¡±. Who knew what the two of them were doing?


    The happiest person on the boat was Sika. She was finally back by Saleen¡¯s side and even though she had the awakening of the priestess, her thoughts were simple. She was happy to be beside Saleen. She had already made clear ns with her return this time.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat steered silently under the ice cover towards the north-east. The five low-grade mages were controlling it expertly. They were all from Sregl Ind and knew how to read a sea map and use a magicpass. Using the magic array to control the ship was not a difficult task. The only thing they had to learn was to avoid the reefs in the sea by observing the images sent back by the Eye of the Dead. In actual fact, even if they struck against a reef, the ship would not be damaged. It was still cruising slowly and was moving around forty miles an hour, this could save a huge number of magic nuclei.


    If it was not to familiarize the mages with the workings of the ship, they could achieve such speeds by driving it with the spirit pool.


    Saleen was notcking with this magic nuclei. This was because If they met with any danger, the winged skeleton could control the magic array on the ship more precisely, letting him steer the ship was a waste.


    ¡°Master, what are you doing?¡± Nailisiid on the bed and asked Saleen, she could not hold her boredom in. Among his water me, there was a thin weapon. Nailisi had a feeling that the material of this weapon was the backbone of the Tiago giant dragon. The backbone of the Tiago dragon was unusually thick, but now it was even thinner than her wrist.


    Processing the dragon bone to such an extent must have cost Saleen much time.


    ¡°It¡¯s a weapon for you.¡± Saleen controlled it with all his might, letting as little snow as possiblee from the Water me Alchemy spell. By his side, a six and the half meter long dragon scroll surrounded him. The temperature had been separated by Saleen and the room did not be ice cold. Such processing was an immense training for his control.


    ¡°Master, I already have a weapon.¡±


    ¡°You will like this new weapon.¡± Saleenughed, he had realized he had a special talent for designing weapons. In the water me, the dragon bone of the Tiago dragon had be a whip. this soft whip was slowly shortening bit by bit, devouring itself. It quickly shortened to less than a foot.


    This was a snow-white dagger. Compared to the original Dragon Tooth Dagger, this dagger that was processed by a dragon bone could not be a ring. There were no magic patterns on the dagger either, only a trough at the end to iy gemstones.


    It was incredibly sleek, smooth, sharp, and bnced.


    Saleen painfully took out a dimension stone and iid into the strange looking trough. The dimension stone seemed to have melted as it was concealed within the trough, forming a triangr magic pattern.


    Saleen threw the dagger to Nailisi and said, ¡°Lex has created a few weapons for you, but they have all been destroyed. No matter how good the material of a weapon is, if it isn¡¯t suited for you, it will suffer the same fate. You have strong powers but they haven¡¯t been trained properly. I have created this weapon especially for you, using a dimension stone. If you like it, it is worth it.¡±


    ¡°Master, this is specially designed for me?¡± Nailisi grabbed the dagger happily, holding it in her palm. A weird feeling rose from within her heart, this dagger seemed to be a part of her¡­


    Nailisi flicked her wrist and the triangle pattern at the end of the dagger rippled together with it. The sharp de at the front of the dagger was flung out as the entire dagger became a long whip. This whip was incredibly simr to Nailisi¡¯s tail.


    ¡°At the end of the day, Master knows me best.¡± Nailisi squinted as she touched every joint of the dragon bone on the long whip. This dragon bone had been processed to the maximum. The three sides had formed a sharp de. Nailisi swung the snow-white whip, feeling as if she had another tail. She could control it easily.


    Even though demons had a memory lineage, most of the time they fought based on instincts. A dagger was most suitable for Nailisi, but this long whip would allow Nailisi¡¯sbat patterns to be more varied. This was because she had a tail simr to it.


    ¡°Our future enemies will mostlye from the Sacred Holy See. Nailisi, try your best not to reveal your original form in the future.¡± Saleen reminded her patiently. Once Nailisi met with danger, she would return to her original demon form. Even though after evolving she looked incredibly human-like, anyone could tell that her tail belonged to the demon tribe.


    Nailisi flicked back the long whip and the four meter long whip retracted, it became the snow-white dagger again in her hands.


    The most intricate part about this weapon was that because the dimension stone was within it, when it was a dagger, an enemy would not be able to tell that the dagger could have other transformations. A dagger was the shortest weapon and if it suddenly became a long weapon duringbat, it would have unexpected oues.


    The dragon¡¯s backbone withstood all the energy of it and was a hundred times tougher than a dragon tooth. Saleen had processed it to its maximum. Even though a dragon bone was not as sharp as a dragon tooth, its toughness was something that a dragon tooth could not bepared with.


    A dragon tooth could regrow if it had broken, it was brittle. The backbone of the dragon on the other hand had grown out in the entire lifetime of the dragon, until it became an adult dragon.


    Nailisi was overjoyed, she only had two of the eight powers she could possess. The powers of the giant dragon and the lightning protection from the lightning dragon. This weapon came at the perfect time. If she had this earlier, she would not have had such a hard time when fighting with the ck bishop.


    ¡°Master, I will protect you well.¡± Nailisi licked the sharp de of the dagger, feeling the taste of the giant dragon on it.


    ¡°I am giving you this weapon in hopes that you do not die. Nailisi, you are a demon, you will live hundreds of times longer than me. If one day I were to die, you have a chance to return to the demon dimension. I have heard that it is very dangerous and you are only an imp. I have to leave you with something to keep you safe. This dagger has the dimension stone in it, you need to feed it with your blood. It will have unimaginable powers in time toe.¡±


    ¡°Master, why would you die? You will live for hundreds of thousands of years.¡± Nailisi giggled, but a bitter feeling welled up in her heart. ¡°Saleen that bastard, he made it sound so sad. He must be lying to me, right?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, I am really not confident. Sregl Ind is strong enough and I have a secret interdimensional space too. The Holy See¡­ even Emperor Chanake was killed though. Do you know how strong he was? Until now, we haven¡¯te across any elite yet that can bepared to Emperor Chanake. Compared to him, it is like the Gods descending.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the use of saying all this? We are bound by a contract.¡± Nailisi suddenly sat up, she realized she was very afraid of Saleen dying. Right now, this terror was not because the death of Saleen would hurt her soul.


    ¡°There are loopholes in a soul contract, I am researching it. When I am done researching, I will return your freedom to you.¡± Saleen smiled, lying on the bed. His words hung in the air like a stone.


    ¡°Damned freedom!¡± Nailisi shouted in her heart, yet she could only hug Saleen from behind. Extending her long tongue, she swooped it in front of Saleen and licked his nose.


    ¡°I have lived for eighteen years, I am satisfied. Who else can be like me, bing a grade-5 mage from nothing in such a short time? I have killed a bishop from the Holy See, cheated a demon, be good friends with a viscountess, control a death mage, and a grand swordmaster. Heh, Nailisi, don¡¯t you think I¡¯m a genius?¡±


    ¡°Master, you are the greatest genius on Myers Maind. You even managed to trick the three kings. Those three fools, no doubt they are spirits. They do not have any hearts or brains.¡±


    ¡°Haha, I¡¯m starting to believe the words of a demon.¡± Saleen stood up and grabbed Nailisi and said, ¡°Let¡¯s go and eat, they must be running out of patience.¡±


    On the first floor of the cabin, Aini and the rest were waiting by the table. The winged skeleton called upon two more blood winged skeleton to bring serve them food. Irene had no appetite. The food was delicious, but the blood winged skeletons were too disgusting. Even Aini had lost his appetite.


    Only Sika had not. She ced her cudgel on the table, taking up one side of the table. One of her legs stepped on the chair, she was using her boomerang to slice up the smoked meat.


    J looked on, he had not expected such a prettydy to have such an open side to her.


    ¡°Soldier, bring these two away!¡± Saleen was not disgusted by them but he could understand how Aini and the rest felt.


    ¡°Master, it is just a small joke.¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice sounded within Saleen¡¯s heart, Saleen was stunned as he looked on with a smile. The winged skeleton had finally gotten out from Daniel¡¯s shadow and was no longer cold and unfeeling.

 Chapter 365: Single-Horned White Whale (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 365: Single-Horned White Whale (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The winged skeleton took a seat at the table as he sent the two blood winged skeletons away. Saleen could hear Banchajanna¡¯s eerieughter. Saleen pretended he had not heard it. He realized that the winged skeleton was ying a prank under Banchajanna¡¯s incitement.


    ¡°How far have we traveled?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°We are at the ce where I sunk my ship,¡± Irene replied. She was already looking at the sea map, providing the coordinates for the magicpass.


    ¡°You were in your room, you didn¡¯t even react when I called you.¡± Aini rolled his eyes. J looked weirdly at Nailisi, hoping to find out something from looking at her body. What left him shocked was that her hair was not even messy. The more J looked, the more stunned he was. He realized that Nailisi looked exactly the same as when she entered Saleen¡¯s room, there were no changes.


    Could this be a secret professional? J was cautious for the first time. He suddenly realized that everyone around Saleen was powerful. Even though Sika did not have any sword aura, she looked more dangerous than Aini. If that was the case, he needed to be more diligent.


    J warned himself that if he did not train hard, he would be amoner. If he became amoner, no women would appreciate him.


    ¡°This has overlooked my attention, Aini and I are mages and we can endure long periods of being alone, you all can¡¯t.¡± Saleen said as hemanded the winged skeleton to take over control of the alchemical boat. He then let the five magese over to eat.


    ¡°With this voyage, besides hunting, I want everyone to be familiar with the sea route. This route will be under my protection in the future and when summeres, I will send abat vessel to patrol. Besides us, no one else is allowed to go near the Oceanic Ice Block. How about this, during the day, everyone will interact here. Introduce yourself to everyone and share your past experiences. I can give you all some pointers on questions rting to magic. J, you can help Irene in her swordsmanship.¡±


    ¡°It seems we are stillcking a chef, I think no one wants to eat what the winged skeleton has prepared. If only we had the lifestyle mages that Lex had with her.¡±


    ¡°Master, I can serve you all.¡± A low-grade mage replied.


    ¡°No, the purpose of this voyage is for you all to familiarize yourselves with the alchemy ship. Preparing food isn¡¯t going to help with your control in magic, that needs a conducive environment. As for cooking, J, can you do that?¡± Saleen suddenly looked at J. He did have food with him wherever he went. It was usually all bread, smoked meat, and at most alcohol and tea. Sika was not picky when it came to food, but the rest might not be able to eat such simple food.


    ¡°I¡­ can.¡± J wanted to reject at first. He was a grand swordmaster, asking him to be a chef was humiliating. Sika, Nailisi, and Irene were all looking at him though. Under the gaze of three women, J gave in.


    J had led a hard life in the past and he was better at cooking than he was at his swordsmanship. In the past no one had taken care of him and he could only count on himself.


    J grudgingly went to the kitchen in the back. There was quite a lot of food on the ship and at this scale, hundreds of swordsmen could be on board. After modification, it could only take this many people.


    ¡°Irene, what dangers do we need to watch out for on this route?¡± Saleen watched J going to prepare food and started asking Irene about the sea route.


    Nailisi was pouring tea for everyone, Irene held up her tea cup and finally felt better. She thought hard and said, ¡°The Oceanic Ice Block is about twelve-thousand miles away from your city. Of course I am talking about the sea route distance, the discement might be smaller.¡±


    ¡°That far? Wouldn¡¯t it be very cold?¡± Saleen was shocked, he had assumed the Oceanic Ice Block was about three to five-thousand miles away. If it was twelve-thousand miles, this sea route would be harder to protect.


    ¡°Not really, the temperature in the north is almost the same. Even if we are near the Oceanic Ice Block, there are three to four months where nts can grow there. There are many inds in the north and even though they are big, they are uninhabitable. They are either infertilends with fatal nts growing there or have ack of water source.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you haven¡¯t seen other ships over the years?¡± Saleen thought back to Shenfeng Country. In the east, the ind countries were incredibly advanced when it came to navigating in the sea and there might be people entering the Oceanic Ice Block.


    ¡°I have only seen some ruins, those that are alive are probably only those from my family. ¡±


    ¡°You talked about a hunting ground thest time, is that within the Oceanic Ice Block?¡±


    ¡°No, my ships cannot enter the center of the Oceanic Ice Block. They can only hunt at the outside. I have told you the target before, it is giant prawn. We use a special that has magic medicine in it. When the prawn lose their assaultive strength, we fish them out.¡±


    ¡°You mentioned these prawn all have a grade-4 magic nucleus in them. With my calctions, your haul isn¡¯t that impressive.¡±


    Irene gave a bitter smile and said, ¡°They are grade-4 magic beasts after all. Every time I use the magic medicine, it is a huge investment. I need to haul a sufficient amount before I can recoup my losses.¡± Irene asked the next question with much trepidation, ¡°Saleen, are you only interested in the magic beasts on the Ice Block with this hunt?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m interested in the prawn. They are the main target.¡± Saleen had his own Alchemy spell and Irene had mentioned that fallenstar could be extracted from the front legs of the prawn. They were enough for Saleen.¡±


    ¡°But I do not see you preparing any or magic medicine.¡±


    ¡°They are not needed, you will understand when we arrive.¡± Saleen thought, who else was more suitable for this than Banchajanna? His horrifying skill was just right to deal with the magic beasts in the sea. So long as his weapon shed against each other, any grade-4 magic beast within the attacking range would be destroyed. Even if they did not die, they would lose consciousness. By then, Banchajanna would just need to use the dimension stone. He did not need to use any magic medicine or create any special at all. Saving on these costs, his revenue would be a huge amount. These were grade-4 magic nuclei!


    The price of a grade-4 magic nucleus could vary greatly but even the lowest grade-4 magic nucleus could sell for as high as the highest grade-3 magic nucleus. That was one-hundred and fifty gold coins. Not all the magic beasts in such seas might have magic nuclei, the quality could vary too. Saleen intended to have an enormous haul in his first try. The magic nucleus problem for his city would be solved then.


    Seeing Irene a little disappointed, Saleenughed and said, ¡°Even though you haven¡¯t helped much this time, I promise when we return, I will give each one of you a ship. In summer next year, you can bring your own people out to sea.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t afford such a ship.¡± Aini said.


    ¡°It¡¯s an ice-breaker, I will still need this alchemical boat for my defences. I can¡¯t use it to hunt in the future.¡±


    The color returned to Aini and Irene¡¯s faces. Saleenughed silently to himself, by then Irene would still becking in sailors and she would still need to rent from him. He would not be making a loss. If Aini and Irene wanted to break away from their family, they would need to get their resources from him.


    Once the two of them were sessful, they would naturally attract the youths from the other four houses to work with him. By then, his profits would snowball.


    Irene was still a little confused but Aini had already guessed Saleen¡¯s intentions. He was not losing out at all and it was true that he was dissatisfied with his family. Being independent was something he had always dreamed of. Saleen¡¯s conditions were too good and he could not refuse.


    Aini asked Irene, ¡°Irene, the people that you brought with you, will they obey yourmands without questions?¡±


    ¡°Yes, those people were arranged by my mother. Even the elders in the family have difficultymanding them.¡±


    Aini nodded, not asking further. It seemed like Irene was the same as him. Before meeting Saleen, she had considered her benefits clearly. Saleen had a powerful backer, but the two of them did not.


    Saleen had thought of it even more clearly, his main issue now was to build a powerful army to protect himself. When they went out to hunt it would be a huge investment, if they did not use the alchemical boat and Banchajanna. He did not want to spend such money. With this money, he could use it to buy rations and equipment.


    In Sikeqinya, a true merchant controlled the capital and would not do things himself. Letting the people from other families provide the money, he would provide thebat vessel and resources. Selling these would him arge revenue. Getting back sixty percent as profits, that was truly earning money.


    Irene was lucky, Saleen had wanted Aini to be the only model to attract more funds. Since she was there, Saleen did not want to waste any effort calcting the contents of the magicpass. The earlier he could get this to work, the earlier he would get rich.


    Letting the merchants from the Qin Empire get the benefits, when the Holy See built up theirbat fleet, the Qin Empire¡¯s wealthy and merchants would definitely be pissed. By then, Saleen would not need to do anything by himself. All the powers woulde together to protect this precious resource.


    Saleen¡¯s only concern was Alchemy City. He had not found a way to reject if the people from there wanted a share too. If he rejected cooperating with Alchemy City having thebat fleet from Cloudflowing would be a disaster for his city, even if they did note to snatch.


    Such backstabbing behavior was something the people from Alchemy City were capable of.


    ¡°Master, there is a magic beast following us!¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice sounded in Saleen¡¯s heart.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen stood up and walked to the front of the cabin. The image from the Eye of the Dead was very clear. Irene who had been following behind Saleen gave a scream, she saw the magic beast clearly.


    ¡®You recognize it?¡±


    ¡°Single-horned white whale, a grade-9 magic beast!¡±


    ¡°Is it dangerous?¡±


    ¡°Of course, however it would not attack our ship¡­ unless we snatch its food.¡±


    ¡°What does it eat?¡± Saleen had a bad feeling.


    ¡°Prawn. This beast doesn¡¯t have any teeth, it loves to eat the prawns near the Oceanic Ice Block. Do you see its single horn? When it is angry, it can break apart even an ice mountain.¡±


    ¡°There is still a few thousand miles to our destination, it wouldn¡¯t go there, would it?¡±


    ¡°Yes it will, we return early every year in fears of meeting this magic beast. Releasing any magic medicine within its hunting radius spells certain death.¡±

 Chapter 366: Single-Horned White Whale (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 366: Single-Horned White Whale (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°How fast is this single-horned white whale?¡± Saleen did not give up. The maximum speed of his alchemical boat was already at eighty miles an hour.


    ¡°My ship can go seventy miles an hour and it can easily catch up.¡± Irene broke his fantasy. To easily catch up to a target, its speed must be at least thirty percent faster than it.


    ¡°Soldier, slow down. Let it go ahead first.¡± Saleen gave hismand.


    Saleen did not want to take down this whale, the strongest person with him was Banchajanna. After he had been controlled by Saleen, his powers had dropped a little. Now he barely maintained a grade-9. Even if he had an advantage with his weapon, he would not be able to win against this beast in the water. If the grade-9 magic beast was to get angry, it could easily destroy the alchemical boat.


    The death mes within Banchajanna¡¯s eyes were shaking about violently. He was observing the image transmitted back by the Eye of the Dead. That giant whale was almost one-hundred feet long, it was basically an underwaterbat vessel. There was a faint green magic pattern on its giant body, almost like a smooth cloud pattern.


    The alchemical boat sank deeper to stay out of the whale¡¯s course. It swam away easily, a funnel of current formed from water element followed behind it.


    Banchajanna retracted his neck. In the death dimension, he was the strongest in existence. On Myers Maind, however, there were many things that could hurt him. The white whale was one of them. Just by swimming in the water it could bring about the intense water element currents. A magic beast like this was not something Banchajanna wanted to face.


    Only in the vast ocean would such a powerful beast be formed.


    The whale did not bother about the alchemical boat that avoided it, even though it was made from the shell of the Pan¡¯s Turtle. Once it died, the magic nucleus had been dug out and it no longer had any aura of life. Only grade-3 and grade-4 magic nuclei were powering the ship and the aura that it gave off was incredibly weak. The whale did not even look at it as it sped forward towards the north.


    ¡°Irene, are there living creatures like this in the sea near the Oceanic Ice Block?¡± Saleen had killed a Pan¡¯s Turtle before and he thought that the high-grade magic beasts in the sea would not be too hard to deal with. Looking at this single-horned white whale, Saleen knew he had overestimated his abilities. If the magic beasts in the sea were easy to deal with, Alchemy City would not need to form abat fleet every year to hunt.


    ¡°There are dozens of different species.¡± Seeing Saleen¡¯s face pale, Irene quickly added, ¡°These magic beasts are different from those on the maind. If you do not disturb them, most of them wouldn¡¯t attack you. Many magic beasts are just curious about humans and they have no intention of harming them.¡±


    ¡°Tell me about all these magic beast. In the future, these magic beasts along this sea route must be protected. No one is allowed to hunt them.¡±


    Saleen knew many magic beasts naturally did not mean any harm to humans. They were incredibly intelligent. The humans from ancient times had captured many living creatures from other dimensions to cross breed with the living creatures on the Myers Maind. They had created new species, many of them were easily tamed by humans.


    They were very precious and there was once a warrior horse on the maind covered with scales on its body. It had been blood red and it moved incredibly quickly. Due to its interest in humans, it was easily captured. Many countries had over-hunted it, it was almost extinct now.


    If all the harmless magic beasts were killed off along this sea route, many more magic beasts with stronger assaultive powers would appear. Saleen could not only look at the benefits in front of him. As a mage, he hated hunting a particr magic beast to extinction.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat descended to a depth of eight-hundred feet. The spirit pool¡¯s energy was not enough to maintain a high speed and could only move at forty miles an hour.


    J brought over a te of vegetables for everyone, it was served with fatty pork floss and a pepper smoked meat with bread and cheese. Although it was not a rich meal, it was much better than the smoked meat that Saleen was eating. There was no soup and J had found some white wine to go with it. Sika was almost done, she brought her bottle over to drink the wine herself.


    Nailisi was feeding Saleen at one corner, she helped him cut his bread and put some salt on his smoked meat. J could only look on jealousy.


    ¡°Sika, wine isn¡¯t to be drunk like this.¡± J saw Sika ruining the good wine. As a pce swordmaster, he was very intricate when it came to food. He wanted to show off some of his knowledge to Sika.


    ¡°I know, but there aren¡¯t any outsiders here. Is there any point acting like a wealthy? Do I still need to wear a helmet, greet everyone, choose a cup and side? That¡¯s right, why didn¡¯t you make any snacks? The floss isn¡¯t even meticulously prepared, the meat is too old, the bread should be a yellow bread and not a white bread, we aren¡¯t eating seafood, why did you bring over white wine?¡±


    This tirade of criticisms from Sika left J stunned, he had not imagined that this brazen Cascausus beauty would know this much. How was he to know that Sika had learned so much when she was staying at Lex¡¯s residence to give Saleen face. Even if she were to go out and act as a wealthydy, she would be able to pass off easily. With her character, she was toozy to do that, unless it would affect Saleen¡¯s image.


    Irene burst outughing, she liked Sika¡¯s character, she was not willing to act.


    J was not discouraged nor embarrassed as he said to Sika, ¡°As the pce swordmaster, this isn¡¯t my strong suit. Back then, I used to train hundreds of swordsmen¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re really lucky.¡± Sika sighed, ¡°There were thousands of youths from the many viges nearby to ask for my guidance. They were so annoying but I couldn¡¯t leave them alone too.¡±


    J was speechless. He knew about Sika bringing thousands of Cascausus people to back Saleen, however, he had not expected Sika to be of such high position among them. He was indeed a pce swordmaster in the past but Emperor Jupiter was probably finding out ways to get someone to kill him. Sika on the other hand still had thousands of men under her.


    ¡°Master, this hunt will take at least two to three months, a nd diet is indeed a problem. I will get some ingredients.¡± The winged skeleton voluntarilymunicated with Saleen.


    Saleen did not reject, he was obsessed with magic and could not care much about food. He was responsible for too many people now and he could not neglect their feelings.


    Within the spirit pool under the Eye of the Dead, twenty-four slender bone spirits were released. They looked like a snake with four legs but were much bigger, they were almost as big as the leg of an adult. These twenty-four bone spirits directly moved out through the crystal that was iid at the front of the ship and swam towards the sea.


    Upon seeing this, Banchajanna gave a loud, ¡°Hmph!¡±. He knew that Judikaka had helped Saleen to process this ship. When he had first processed the soul pond, Judikaka had only provided two bone spirits. Those bone spirits must havee about because of the winged skeleton. This winged skeleton actually had its own intelligence. It seemed like this winged skeleton must have had something to do with him being tricked with the contract. If not how would Saleen know the rules of a spirit in another dimension? Once he regained his freedom, he must crush the winged skeleton!


    The winged skeleton heard Banchajanna¡¯s voice but was not afraid. He was Saleen¡¯s contract creature. So long as Banchajanna did not dare touch Saleen, he would not dare touch him either. When it came to the difference in grade, even though the winged skeleton had the help of the green spirit, he was only a grade-7 spirit. He did not dare provoke Banchajanna, instead he focused on controlling his bone spirits to hunt for fish in the sea.


    ¡°J, if you have the time, you should guide Irene. She is a high-grade swordsman and with a little improvement, she would be able to protect herself.¡± Upon seeing J a little defeated, Saleenforted him. Seeing Sika again, Saleen realized her powers had increased again and she was not lesser than J. She had rose even faster than him.


    Magic training was a step by step process, but a priest could inherit the powers of previous generations. This was something he could notpare against.


    ¡°Alright, but I have no idea what Miss Irene wants to learn.¡± J was open minded, he immediately shifted his target once Saleen gave him something to do.


    Irene¡¯s face turned red even though for her, business came first. Among the people here, she was indeed the weakest. If anything happened, she would be the burden.


    ¡°I like to use a short sword.¡± Irene answered honestly. As a descendant of her family, she did not need to charge into battle and anybat she learnt was for self-protection. In the city, it was easier to bring a short sword and it was faster too.


    ¡°You are tall with long limbs, learning the short sword is a waste. Besides, a short sword is something assassins liked to use. If you use a short sword, you will attract mages first. Oh, there is a form ofbat in Cloudflow that uses a pair of swords, one long and the other short. I cannot help you with your sword aura, but suchbat is suitable for a woman to learn. I can pass it to you.¡±


    J spoke with ease, he was good at it. Back in Cloudflow, he counted on his words to live.


    Saleen was done eating when the alchemical boat slowed down and no longer needed a mage to control. He took this time to give the five mages a lesson.


    Saleen was now a grade-5 mage and had the ability to keep disciples, his foundation was strong enough. These five mages were from Sregl Ind and their foundation was strong too. Saleen¡¯s advantage was in hisbat powers. In Raphael¡¯s tower, he had gained arge number of magic books. They were all guides on how a mage shouldbat and Raphael¡¯s experiences.


    With these things, it was enough for Saleen to guide these five mages. They listened to him exin the use of low-grade magic inbat, they were ready to learn. They knew Saleen was Jason¡¯s student and had always assumed that Jason had not passed down much to Saleen and he was only lucky to be a grand mage. The things that Saleen was exining to them was stuff that was unheard of on Sregl Ind.


    The five low-grade mages were bought over, they knew magic knowledge could not be faked. As Saleen exined he tried to show it to them, the low-grade magic appeared on his hands and disappeared as easily. Every action was clean, natural and smooth.


    The five mages finally set their minds. Even if the mages from Sregl Ind came to Saleen¡¯s city, they would still follow him.


    ¡°Master, I have caught some fish. Get Nailisi to get them.¡± The winged skeleton sounded happy.

 Chapter 367: Innocence (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 367: Innocence (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen pointed to the teleportation portal and Nailisi immediately understood him as she left the ship from the portal.


    Upon seeing this scene, J was shell-shocked. This was over eight-hundred meters deep, even a swordmaster would have a problem moving in such depth. Nailisi had a demure look to her, but she could leave the ship directly like this?


    J could onlyfort himself. Perhaps Nailisi had special training just like the women in Cloudflow Empire that made a living through collecting pearls. She must be good in water


    ¡°Hu!¡±


    Nailisi took in arge breath as she returned to the ship from the teleportation portal. She took less than a minute. Outside the ship, she saw the twenty-four bone spirits painstakingly dragging a four-meter-long fish. Nailisi put the fish directly in her bracelet, not wasting too much time.


    ¡°Heh, Master, the prey isn¡¯t small. We can eat it for days!¡± Nailisi shook her wrist.


    ¡°Yes, bring it to the kitchen with J.¡± Saleen continued exining magic to the mages. He realized that as he was exining, he had a deeper understanding of the knowledge that Raphael had left behind. Through exining to the low-grade mages, he had gained more than them.


    ¡°Follow me.¡± Nailisi hooked J¡¯s finger as he grudgingly apologized to Irene. Irene turned around as she followed Nailisi to the kitchen.


    When designing this alchemical boat, it was made to bring more than one-hundred swordsmen with it in case of a surprise attack. The kitchen on the ship was not small and could provide food for around two-hundred people. Inside the gap of the turtle shell, there was a magic array that could create freshwater. So long as one had enough magic nuclei, it was possible to survive underwater in the ship for months.


    Nailisi came to the kitchen and mmed the four-meter-long fish onto the floor.


    ¡°Ah, red arrow kiss!¡± Irene eximed in shock.


    ¡°What is a red arrow kiss?¡± Nailisi was not very familiar with the magic beasts in the sea. The mouth of the fish was indeed slender like an arrow, it was incredibly sharp too. A single hit would be able to pierce through a normal ship floor.


    ¡°Nothing, it¡¯s delicious.¡± Irene¡¯s voice was filled with uncertainty. Even though J was good with food, he had not heard of such a rare fish.


    Irene thought in her heart; ¡°If Saleen eats this, would I be able to entice him?¡±


    Even though a red arrow kiss was not a strong magic beast, it was usually around grade-3. What was rare was that its meat was incredibly tender and its color was as bright as flowers. Making fish slices out of it was indeed a delicacy. The most delicious part was its brain, even though it was not vibrant in color. It also had the ability to attract people.


    ¡°Let me help, I am good with fish.¡± Irene hid this fact as she started thinking of how to create a dish that was irresistible to Saleen.


    J and Nailisi did not read too much into it as Nailisi did not care about any poison or aphrodisiac. In her survival experiences, there was not anything known as getting poisoned. J was still in shock, Nailisi was obviously using spatial equipment. In his knowledge, only a grand mage, one that was about grade-5 could use a space equipment.


    ¡°Was Nailisi a grand mage? Saleen made a grade-5 mage his maidservant?¡±


    J was getting dizzy, at the side, Nailisi was helping to take away the scales of the red arrow kiss. She did not even use a knife as she picked at the scales with her fingernails, putting them one by one into her bracelet. J was even more convinced that he was right.


    This was an adult red arrow kiss, the materials on its body could be used to create armor. If metals were not added to it, it was a simple magic armor and could be easily sold for thousands of gold coins. A hint of gold appeared within Nailisi¡¯s green eyes, she had already seen clearly the structure of the fish. She did not want to scare J though as she took out the dagger by her waist and started dissecting the fish.


    The dagger created from the dragon bone was sharp enough for the red arrow kiss. Irene started guiding Nailisi at the side on how to take out the meat without destroying its taste.


    The three of them worked in the kitchen for more than an hour while Saleen was temporarily done with his lesson. If he said too much, the five low-grade mages would not be able to digest anything.


    Nailisi took the fish meat and ced it into some airtight containers. She let Irene cut the fish head and ced it on the chopping board. After washing her hands, Irene took out a saw and slowly cut opened the fish head, taking out the brains.


    Its head was enormous but its brain was tiny, evidently it was not very smart.


    Inside Saleen¡¯s cabin, the five low-grade mages were repeatedly asking Saleen for guidance. They were trying to internalize whatever they had just learnt and understand itpletely. Saleen had exined to them on the mutual control between the different low-grade magic, but had included the Figaro Form within it. The five low-grade mages had all dabbled in the Figaro Form before but they could not calcte the weakness of an enemy in battle like Saleen could.


    The solution Raphael had provided was to calcte beforehand. Once one was familiar with an enemy¡¯s magic, one could predict and make use of the mutual control of magic to obtain the optimalbat effect.


    Such a method required repeated calction during normal times to understand the weakness of every low-grade magic. This would not affect the training of a mage and hence, was considered a useful skill.


    ¡°Why are they gone for so long?¡± Sika asked impatiently at the side.


    ¡°That is a magic beast, Nailisi will take out every useful part.¡± Saleen replied whileughing. He understood Nailisi perfectly, this imp was incredibly stingy when it came to materials. Saleen had heard from Nailisi that in the demon dimension, a low-grade demon would hide any food it had and store it in different ces. This was a method of survival.


    Only a supreme demon had the privilege of wasting, Nailisi was an imp and Saleen felt safe letting her run the show.


    The magic beasts in the sea were much more valuable than those onnd. This was because they were much bigger and besides magic nuclei, the ingredients that could be taken from them were several times more useful.


    Just as they were talking, Irene brought a porcin bowl over and said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, I made this for you. Try it, this is¡­¡±


    Saleen rubbed his stomach and said, ¡°I am so full already.¡±


    Sika reached out with her hand and grabbed the bowl, she poured the contents directly into her mouth. Irene pointed at her, surprised and angered at the same time. She was too quick and Irene did not have any time to react.


    Saleen furrowed his brows and asked, ¡°Sika, are you not full yet?¡±


    Even though he had no intentions of epting Irene¡¯s kind offering, Sika was too aggressive.


    ¡°Hmmm, it does taste good, is there any more?¡± Sika licked her lips. The fish brain was slimy and fresh with a little amount of life force in it. It was very nutritious for a priestess.


    ¡°Hm!¡± Irene left angrily. Going up the stairs, she returned to her room. She was angry that the fish brain stew that she had made was snatched away by the Cascausus warrior. Saleen did not even eat it. Such opportunities would be hard toe by in the future.


    J brought over a te of fish slices. Using a bamboo pick, he ate as he watched themotion.


    ¡°What happened to her?¡± Sika asked curiously. Was it not just a bowl of food? This was not the Cascausus region and food was plentiful, why was she angry?


    ¡°That was meant for master.¡± Nailisi said after seeing Sika¡¯s action, ¡°This fellow is much faster than before, it seems like I¡¯m no longer her match.¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Sika looked at the empty bowl in her hands. She had eaten until nothing was left and had licked the whole bowl cleanly, not leaving even a drop of the stew.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing, everyone go rest.¡± Saleen waved his hands, asking everyone to go back to their rooms to rest. The winged skeleton was controlling the alchemical boat now and was moving at between thirty-five to forty-five miles an hour. Once the mages had rested, they could power it with the magic nuclei again and advance forward. Seeing Sika embarrassed, Saleen did not want the rest to make fun of her.


    ¡°Sika, follow me.¡± Saleen remembered the present he had prepared for her as he called out.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Sika followed behind Saleen and Nailisi up the stairs.


    J was still leaning against the door, he was thinking back to Sika snatching the porcin bowl. Even though Irene was only a high-grade swordsman, her reaction was not slow. Her weakness was that her sword aura was not very powerful. With Sika snatching like that, Irene¡¯s hand did not even tremble. She was defenceless.


    If Sika had a long sword with her and had struck him then, he would be in a fix.


    J picked up a slice of fish and threw it into his mouth, thinking to himself angrily, ¡°Who were these people around Saleen?¡±


    Sika followed Saleen and Nailisi into the room as Saleen said, ¡°Sika, I have something for you, see¡­¡±


    Saleen said as he retrieved the green spirit from his ring. It was his best piece of green spirit from the skeleton of the magic beast found in Raphael¡¯s tower imprinted into it.


    It was almost as if Sika had not heard Saleen, she licked her lips and sniffed the air. She felt as if her body was heating up. The life force was quickly sucked into her body, different from when it was usually sucked in slowly. It quickly integrated with her body.


    ¡°This thing was meant to be harmless, what was happening? Could it be a holy medicine?¡±


    The Cascausus birth rate was not very high and there were people in the vige that specialized in creating such holy medicine to help a Cascausus woman to conceive. These holy medicines contained life force too and because of that a Cascausus woman was usually very valiant and strong. Sika knew what was happening even before she had be an adult. She was not unfamiliar with such stuff, but this was her first time taking it and the feeling was incredible.


    ¡°Saleen, you have grown taller.¡± Sika reached out to touch Saleen on his head.


    ¡°Sika, what are you doing?¡± Nailisi realized something was amiss too as she sniffed the air carefully. There was a devilish heat spreading from Sika¡¯s body.


    ¡°Nailisi, go out.¡± Sika herself was not nervous. She did not even use her priestess powers to get rid of the medicine effects, instead she startedughing. ¡°Irene isn¡¯t so bad after all, she knows how to help.¡±


    ¡°What did you say?¡± Nailisi was angered. Sika¡¯s reply was her cudgel instead.


    The giant cudgel swept towards Nailisi and she could not dodge it, she extended her hand to block. With a giant bang, the entire alchemical boat vibrated along. Nailisi could not stand her ground any longer as she was flung aside by Sika¡¯s cudgel.


    Sikaughed and walked to the door, making a face to Nailisi who was outside. She closed the door and used the rod to block the door.


    ¡°No one will disturb now!¡±

 Chapter 368: Innocence (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 368: Innocence (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Was there an earthquake? Irene was still angry in her room when the entire alchemical boat started shaking. The force from Sika¡¯s cudgel was too powerful. If the target was not Nailisi, any other human would not be able to withstand it.


    J quickly rushed up the stairs to the second floor. He saw Nailisi¡¯s gloomy face as she rubbed her arm. She had blocked Sika¡¯s attack with her hand and the bones in both her arms were so pain that it felt like they had broken.


    What could not be messed with in the demon dimension? It was a horned up male supreme demon. Once a male supreme demon had a target, it would courageously battle and kill any enemy.


    ¡°Where is Saleen? What happened?¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t your problem, go back to your room.¡± Nailisi gave a cold look from her green eyes. It was too embarrassing to have been kicked out of the room by Sika.


    J hesitated, not touching his long sword. He had no idea the rtionship between Sika and Saleen. He knew that anyone that was brought on this ship by Saleen, whether they had a contract with him or not, was someone he trusted a lot though.


    Saleen was a grade-5 mage and if his life was really in danger, it would not be possible that he would not cry for help. J turned to go down the stairs. He did not want to return to his room. Aini was in the room and the death mage made him depressed.


    This entire ship was filled with weird people, J returned to the first floor. He wanted to go to the front of the ship but he remembered Banchajanna was there. He was someone that should not be offended either.


    Saleen panicked upon seeing Sika throwing Nailisi out of the room. He retreated two steps and leaned against the wall, asking, ¡°Sika, what do you want?¡±


    Until now, he had not understood what was happening. He only knew subconsciously that Sika would not hurt him. After asking this amusing question, he saw Sika¡¯s innocent eyes.


    ¡°Saleen, I like you.¡± Sika rubbed her hands and walked towards Saleen.


    ¡°Yes, I know.¡± Saleen felt dizzy, this was an effect that usually only happened when he overused his magic chords.


    ¡°I wanted to say, thest time you peeped at me showering, you should have taken responsibility for it. I do not want such a lousy excuse. Saleen, I like you. I cannot let Lex get to you first.¡±


    ¡°Wait!¡±


    ¡°Wait what, you will live long enough, but I might not.¡± Sika did not allow Saleen to rebut. She removed the button on her belt with one hand and the magic amor she was wearing fell off easily, exposing her healthy figure.


    Saleen finally understood what Sika wanted, as a mage he should be able to resist it yet he was curious too. Since bing an adult he had wanted to try it out, whether it was the same as the books said it was or not. He had not expected it to be with Sika however.


    It was not that Saleen did not like Sika, he felt that he owed her too much. He was not sure what to do in the future. When it came to something like this, none of his magic knowledge mattered.


    Saleen was panicking, especially once Sika had unveiled her magic armor. He had no idea what to do. The wall was behind him and where could he run too? He could not escape now, Sika walked over and used her hand to touch his face. After that, he felt his cor tightening as his body felt like it had been thrown by a giant dragon. He could not defend against the enormous power as he fled to the bed.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡± Sika¡¯s face turned red, not because she was embarrassed but because the power of the red arrow kiss coursed through her blood.


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen was unusually nervous, he did not know if he should resist.


    As a mage, this had to be considered from two perspectives. The first was whether he should do it with Sika. What would the consequences be and would he fall deep into it? Secondly, it was whether he had the power to resist. He was a grade-5 mage, the room was small, and Sika was even more powerful than a magic beast.


    ¡°You should take more initiative.¡± Sika stepped forward to the bed and knelt before him. Her figure was soft and silent, even more graceful than a magic antelope.


    Saleen felt as if something within him was ignited. It was almost as if magic powder had met with mes, and exploded within his heart.


    Raphael said that not everything in books was correct. This thought had always been at the back of Saleen¡¯s head and had be an unwavering theory. ¡°Let me take more initiative then¡­¡±


    At this thought, Saleen hesitated no longer. He threw five consecutive cleaning spells at Sika and one for himself. There was no ce to shower on the ship.


    Sika burst intoughter, grabbing Saleen by the belt of his magic robes and gave it a jerk. She had not expected that a magic knot was not something that she could open. The magic robes did note off, instead the knot became even tighter.


    ¡°This thing!¡± Sika grabbed the robes with the dead knot in her hands and she gave it a loud rip. Just like a bow suddenly breaking Saleen¡¯s magic robes were ripped apart by her.


    ¡°Sika, that was very valuable.¡± Saleen frowned. He had forgotten that Sika was a very thrifty person too.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words, Sika stopped using her force. She rode on Saleen¡¯s body, patiently unbuttoning the buttons on his chest. Saleen was in a scramble too, taking apart Sika¡¯s belt.


    It was funny that both of them were in high-grade equipment. It was easier if they took off their own clothes. Within Saleen¡¯s magic robes, there was another piece of magic equipment. There were miniature magic arrays on the buttons. There was some power added to Sika¡¯s belt too and when Saleen touched it with his fingers, he felt a sharp pain. The five metal rings that were attached to Sika¡¯s belt were incredibly tight and Saleen had no idea where to start from.


    After going at it for a while, Saleen started sweating. He pushed away Sika¡¯s hands and started unbuttoning his own buttons. Sika only understood then as she took out the belt below. Her entire body seemed to have emerged from a cocoon as she got out of her clothes.


    Saleen felt the piercing white in front of his eyes and the familiar dark red.


    ¡°Sika¡­¡± Saleen had a gruff aura to him.


    ¡°You liked to see this the previous time, I will let you see it now.¡± Sika embraced Saleen as she used her legs to kick aside his outerwear. Saleen was still wearing his demon equipment, this time he took the initiative to take it off himself. Sika had already pinned him down, she buried his face in her chest. Saleen subconsciously opened his mouth to bite down.


    ¡°Such focus¡­¡±


    Saleen felt his focus vibrating, almost as if he was in danger. ¡°As a mage¡­¡± He quickly threw that thought aside. Grabbing Sika by the waist, he flipped them over.


    ¡°Yes¡­¡± Sika gave a satisfied moan, it was indeed incredible.


    Saleen started salivating, he felt something was wrong as he quickly released his grip and sat up. Seeing Sika¡¯s eyes looking at him in confusion, she was not angry.


    ¡°Saleen, what¡¯s wrong.¡±


    ¡°Did I hurt you?¡± Saleen thought he did something wrong.


    ¡°I heard the first time would be painful.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± Saleen did not know what to reply.


    Sika already parted her legs and gripped his waist and said, ¡°The elders said just be quick.¡±


    ¡°Oh¡­¡±


    Saleen understood what Sika was trying to say, what experience did she have? She grabbed downwards and held onto Saleen¡¯s hardness, pushing it into her body.


    The steps were right but Saleen felt an incredible pain. Who said it would hurt only for the female?


    Nailisi that had been listening from outside shuddered too, a painful feeling rose from deep within her soul. What was master doing? Was it not supposed to be something pleasurable?


    Sika stopped too, a dim glow emanated from the ne on her neck and soothed the pain of both of them.


    Saleen could not care less about his embarrassment as he stood up and released a Chunlin spell at the point the two of them were joined.


    ¡°Its bleeding!¡± Saleen was a little dazed, his heart beating hard.


    Irene was no longer angry after resting a while. She knew the possibility of Sika marrying Saleen was too small and she had no reason to be jealous of a Cascausus woman. From Saleen¡¯s action, he was well mannered and must be from a decent background. There was still a lot of time on the ship and Saleen would be attracted by her sooner orter.


    Irene believed that only if one¡¯s backgrounds are simr would admiration be formed. Just as she was consoling herself, she heard a huge sound from outside as Nailisi chased J away.


    ¡°A fight?¡± Irene was curious, cing her ear against the wall, she adjusted her breathing and started to listen sneakily.


    ¡®Saleen, slower.¡±


    It was Sika¡¯s voice.


    ¡°Okay, don¡¯t move about.¡±


    That was Saleen¡¯s voice.


    Irene¡¯s mood that had just turned better immediately became sour. Jealousy rushed through her and tears almost dashed out of her eyes. Was she not only less pretty than Sika? Saleen that fellow, judging one by appearance. She wanted to listen further when Saleen said, ¡°Wait a minute.¡±


    After that, all sounds had been blocked off. Evidently, Saleen had released some magic to stop any sound from exiting the room.


    ¡°What¡¯s the big deal? I have more than one-hundred swordsmen chasing after me in my family. That damn mage¡­¡±


    Irene took out her short sword and plunged it into her pillow.


    Irene was dejected, Sika was happy. Even though she did not have any experience the first time and the start was disastrous, the medical properties of the red arrow kiss left her enjoying the second half. Sheid wide-spread on the bed as her pristine white legs pressed against Saleen¡¯s stomach.


    Saleen felt like his body was about to disintegrate, this intense physical and mental stimtion was something he had never experienced before. He had it tough mainly because Sika was too strong physically, even if he had the body of a swordmaster he would have found it difficult.


    ¡°Saleen, why aren¡¯t you speaking?¡± Sika looked at the ceiling, feeling rejuvenated.


    ¡°When we return, let¡¯s get married.¡± Saleen replied breathlessly. He remembered from a poem that at a moment like this, that was the perfect reply.


    ¡°That won¡¯t do. Do you want the thousands of people that I brought with me to run away?¡± Sika was a little happy hearing Saleen¡¯s words, but had to still say what was on her mind.


    ¡°What does that mean?¡± Saleen regained hisposure, he had heard that a Cascausus priest could not get married.


    ¡°I am a priestess. Even though I am abat priestess, they are the same. A Cascausus priest needs to give everything to the vige.¡± Saleen kicked the air aimlessly.


    Saleen sat up anxiously, leaning his head against the bed, he stared at Sika and asked, ¡°What about us?¡±


    Sika extended her hand and pressed Saleen back down, letting him lie properly. She said, ¡°What are you scared of, the elders wouldn¡¯t care about our thing. The only problem is if I were to raise a kid, I need to nurture them into the new Cascausus priest or priestess. They could not learn magic with you.¡±

 Chapter 369: Nailisi’s third ability (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 369: Nailisi¡¯s third ability (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    One was a priestess while the other was a mage. As these two people discussed the issue of offspring from the perspective of a professional, the atmosphere was inevitably tense.


    ¡°Sika, I don¡¯t quite understand. Since a priestess isn¡¯t allowed to get married, why are they allowed to have children?¡±


    ¡°The people of Caucasus are like that. A priestess harnesses the power of nature. Take a look at the creatures living in nature, which of them are getting married other than humans?¡±


    ¡°Have you told the elders about us?¡±


    ¡°No, they will understand anyway, Caucasus people are not stupid. A priestess does have an obligation to bear children, because their descendants have a very high probability of bing a priest or priestess. There is a decreasing number of them among the Caucasus people, most of them died in battles. If this goes on, no one will be around to spread the religion and it will simply fade away.¡±


    ¡°Obligation? What does that mean?¡± Saleen felt incredulous when he heard that word. ¡°Having children was also a duty?¡±


    ¡°It means that I have to bear several kids, I need to have at least one. If you cannot aplish this, there are other people around.¡± Sika grinned from ear to ear as she looked at Saleen.


    ¡°Other people? I will kill anyone who touches you!¡± Saleen bellowed. He had quite a headache. Even though the Caucasus people relied on themselves, they still listened to Sika. Sika¡¯s status was sensitive, and if he could not bear a child with her, the Caucasus people could possibly contemte leaving since they had their own rules to abide by.


    Thinking of that, Saleen said dejectedly, ¡°But, ording to the books, childbearing is not a guaranteed affair.¡± At this point in time, Saleen thought to himself, ¡°This cannot do, I don¡¯t want to care about this city anymore. At most, I will leave with Sika. Back when I was only an insignificant mage, I never had so many concerns. It is so vexing now that I have so many considerations.¡±


    ¡°It is not guaranteed? I have an idea.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°We will do it a few more times, the chances of sess will be higher.¡± As Sika spoke, she flipped over and pressed against Saleen¡¯s body.


    ¡°Sika¡­ no! Uh, let¡¯s not do it now¡­¡±


    Under the veil of Saleen¡¯s magic, the earth-shattering noises from the room did not even spread out. Nailisi was in a deep trance as she sat outside the door.


    ¡°Seems like Master really adores Sika, otherwise the vibrations in the depths of my soul wouldn¡¯t be so intense. Oh no, a priestess¡¯ child might treat me unkindly.¡±


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat traveled north at a speed of forty miles an hour and at a depth of two-hundred meters. When Irene left the room to help the winged skeleton re-input the position on the magicpass, Saleen and Sika had not exited the room.


    An exhausted Saleenid on the bed. Despite blessing himself with the Chunlin Spell several times, he still felt fatigued.


    ¡°Sika, let¡¯s take a break, we cannot rush this matter.¡± Saleen then asked weakly, ¡°How are you so energetic?¡±


    ¡°Humph, do you know that there was something wrong with the fish brain soup Irene gave you?¡±


    ¡°There was something wrong?¡± In one quick movement, Saleen sat up on the bed with his back upright. This action was a standard posture adopted by a swordsman. The physique of a normal mage would never be as good as Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°Nothing serious, it was something like the Vigor Medicine. I think that woman wants to seduce you.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Saleen rxed. Before eating anyone else¡¯s food, Saleen would cast the Toxin Detection secretly. This spell could not detect any kind of Vigor Medicine. Even a person who was familiar with pharmaceuticals could not possibly analyze the contents of every single natural substance.


    ¡°By the way, this medicine wasn¡¯t effective on you right?¡± Saleen knew that a priestess was stronger than a mage in terms of their constitution. A priestess from Caucasus never died from a plot, even though they were not as cunning as other people.


    ¡°If I don¡¯t want it to be effective, it won¡¯t be effective,¡± Sikaughed loudly, feeling very smug. Just as she wanted to do this thing, someone gave her a helping hand, otherwise she would not have been so determined. Had she waited for Saleen to take the initiative, she might have to wait for at least three to five years.


    ¡°But you¡­¡±


    ¡°Me? Did you think that I would allow Lex to get ahead of me? So what if she has money and power? Saleen is mine.¡± As Sika talked, she hugged Saleen and kissed him with a great deal of force.


    Saleen could not decide whether to cry orugh. ¡°Who said that Caucasus people weren¡¯t possessive?¡± He embraced Sika, then said, ¡°What about Lex? There is nothing between her and I.¡± Recalling Lex¡¯s azure eyes, Saleen grew doubtful. He remembered being fond of that pair of eyes, yet this love had kind of faded already. ¡°Could Sika have cast witchcraft on me?¡±


    ¡°The elders don¡¯t think that way though.¡±


    ¡°Oh? What did the elders say?¡± Saleen did not dare despise those Caucasus people who had originated from the mountains, their intelligence was not low at all. They had their ownnguage, words, religion, society, and legacy.


    ¡°If you were just a low grade mage, then of course there¡¯s nothing wrong. Lex would simply be using your connections to tap into the power of the mages from the Sregl Ind.¡± Sika still portrayed a boorish appearance, but her words were filled with wisdom. Sika was never dumb, she was just ignorant and toozy to ponder aboutplicated matters.


    ¡°But it is starkly different right now. At such a tender age, you have be a grade-5 mage. Your teacher will push you to progress further, and you might be able to control all of Sregl Ind. Originally, the best partner for Lex would be a royal from any other empires or duchies, she just needed to look for an heir. You are the better choice right now though. Other than Qin, which other imperial families possess such a strong magic force?¡±


    ¡°Lex will never engage in a transaction,¡± Saleen replied tly. He still remembered how Lex treated the Cloudflow envoy back in Holy Rock City.


    ¡°I think she is interested in you, otherwise she wouldn¡¯t have¡­¡± Sika did not finish her sentence. She was in such a hurry because she was afraid that once Lex made her move, Saleen would not be able to refuse her.


    Saleen simplyughed. Sika was not scheming at all and that was what he loved about her. Saleen himself was not a calcting person either, but his life experiences gave him no choice but to be calctive, it was really tough on him.


    ¡°Humph, look at your smug face, do you still look like a mage?¡± Sika pressed down forcefully, causing Saleen to beg for mercy. Sika possessed way too much strength, if Saleen did not use any magic, he would have no means of retaliating at all.


    ¡°Oh yes, I remember you saying you have something for me.¡± Sika stopped torturing Saleen. She knew that no matter how sturdy his body was, it was still no match for hers.


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Here, you should remember this.¡± Saleen retrieved an arm ring from the Ring of Gifts. This arm ring was made out of bone. It was very simplistic, and no magic patterns were carved on it. Instead, there was a series of naturally-urring holy texts which were etched on top of it. A piece of the Green Ghost rock was mosaicked on the exterior of the arm ring.


    ¡°It¡¯s beautiful!¡± Sika loved the rustic feel of the arm ring. She snatched it over and wore it on her left arm.


    ¡°There is a set of magic beast bones sealed inside. You should have the ability to refine it now.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I might need some time, this set of bones is too mighty.¡±


    ¡°Since you are a priestess, you cannot cast magic. I have added a half spell into this arm ring. You will be able to stimte it with the Power of Life. This spell is a cured Water Shield, it will form a magic shield with a diameter of one and a half meters on either side of your body.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you still remembered to do all this for me, I thought that¡­¡± Sika was too touched to finish her sentence. For a mage, curing a spell would mean that his offensive ability would be reduced temporarily. Curing a spell for any type of equipment would result in the loss of some magic chords. These losses might require two or three years to be fully regained. Mages usually only carved magic arrays on their equipment, they were not willing to cure a low level spell.


    A cured spell was much more useful than a spell which was stimted from a magic array. A cured spell was cast instantly the moment it got activated, only two frames were required. That was not the case for a magic array. Not only did a magic array require arge quantity of magic nuclei, it was also constrained by the surrounding environment.


    Even Sika, who was a straightforward person, kept caressing the arm ring. She remained silent for a long time.


    ¡°When I was producing this, I didn¡¯t know that you would be a warrior priestess, hence I decided to put in more effort.¡± Saleen put on a rxed demeanor. In order to make this arm ring, he had lost about a quarter of his magic chords. Given his recovery speed, he would need almost one year to regain it. It was all worth it for Sika.


    In the beginning, he did not know how long Sika would take to be a warrior priestess. Sika might possess a lot of power, but she was most vulnerable to a mage¡¯s attacks. Saleen spent a long time crafting this cured spell on the arm ring. He even depleted arge quantity of dragon bones and high level magic nuclei.


    In fact, this half spell was created solely for Sika by Saleen. Only a person like Sika who possessed the Power of Life would be able to stimte it sessfully. Of course, if the believers of the Goddess of Myers were still around, they would be able to wield this arm ring too. Saleen designed this half spell by using the goddess¡¯ divine spells as reference.


    Now that Sika possessed this piece of equipment, it would not matter even if she fought recklessly on the battlefield.


    Dang dang dang!


    Someone was knocking on the door. Saleen removed the magic enchantment, then asked, ¡°Nailisi, what is it?¡±


    ¡°Master, I am very tired, I want to sleep.¡±


    ¡°Go to¡­¡± Actually, Saleen wanted to ask Nailisi to go to Sika¡¯s room, then he suddenly recalled that if he yelled, everyone aboard the ship would hear him. Then he corrected his words and said, ¡°Give me a moment.¡±


    At this point in time, Sika got a little embarrassed. She began looking for her clothes in a fluster and put them on. Saleen also donned his demonic set in a hurry. Seeing that Saleen had put on his clothes properly, Sika then jumped off the bed and went to the door to remove the club which was used to block the door.


    Once the door was opened, Nailisi stood there looking wearied as she dragged her feet into the room. She made a beeline for Saleen¡¯s bed. Once she got to the bed, she copsed onto it with a thump, going to sleep immediately.


    Sika stared at Saleen in astonishment, she could not be bothered being jealous of Nailisi. No matter how perfect Nailisi appeared to be, she was still an imp. It was impossible for Saleen to have any sexual desires for a demon. Sika was astounded because she could really detect that Nailisi was worn out and could not resist sleeping.


    ¡°Eh?¡± Saleen reached out to open Nailisi¡¯s eyelids. Nailisi¡¯s green pupils had turned golden in color.


    ¡°Evolving again?¡± Saleen could not believe it, but all the signs disyed by Nailisi indicated that she had acquired another space for growth. The moment she woke up, she would surprise Saleen.

 Chapter 370: Nailisi’s third ability (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 370: Nailisi¡¯s third ability (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi slept for one week straight. On the Myers maind, a week had six days. These six days represented the six elements, set in a cycle. The Holy See tried to disseminate the concept in the code by changing a week to seven days. Most people on the maind opposed it, hence only the Glorious ins adopted such a practice.


    Every day, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat would travel for eighteen hours at a speed of forty miles an hour, and six hours at a speed of sixty miles an hour. Consequently, the ship traveled over one-thousand miles daily. Nailisi slept for six days, and by then, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat had arrived at the periphery of the Frozen Sea.


    As the ship navigated underwater, it did not meet with much peril. Floating ice also did not pose a threat to it. Most sea magic beasts could not do much damage to the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. Only some tabby dolphins, which measured about twenty meters in length, trailed the alchemy boat out of curiosity.


    A tabby dolphin possessed a high level of intelligence. They could recognize a pan turtle, but they had never seen one who could swim without extending its limbs and tail. These grade-7 and above magic beasts followed the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. They followed it for over one-thousand miles, it seemed like they did not have the concept of territory.


    Originally, Saleen was a little concerned. He finally attained peace of mind when he saw that those tabby dolphins had chased away a sawtooth shark which tried to assault the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. The ocean was not just fraught with dangers, there were many interesting things as well.


    On this journey, besides monitoring Nailisi¡¯s condition, Saleen also provided lessons for the five low grade mages. From time to time, Banchajanna would be deployed to help Saleen collect biological samples of the creatures on this route.


    The farther north Saleen traveled, the more unique the samples got. These sea magic beasts could barely be identified from the illustrations. The most dangerous incident urred when the alchemical boat floated up to the water surface to travel at high speed. It was assaulted by a jellyfish. The immense mental strength of the jellyfish actually managed to destroy the defenses of the alchemy ship. It almost killed Irene and the low grade mages.


    When the tabby dolphins who were trailing the alchemy ship left, there was no choice but to deploy the twenty-four bonefish which carried the bloodstones. The jellyfish was injured by an explosion, and the alchemical boat immediately fled at a speed of more than eighty miles an hour.


    For a surface warship, eighty miles an hour was not considered its maximum speed. To the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, whose shape was not suitable for high speed travel, it needed to consume three times the amount of magic nuclei in order to attain such a speed.


    Saleen finally witnessed the might of the creatures in the Frozen Sea. He lowered the alchemical boat¡¯s speed, traveling safely underwater. Without using magic as a source of power, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat would hardly attract the attention of other magic beasts.


    Saleen obtained some tentacles from the jellyfish during that battle. He realized that the tentacles could be used to produce a potent anesthetic agent. A jellyfish did not prefer eating dead creatures, so this anesthetic agent would not kill anyone. It was something suitable for invasive surgery. Since the Chunlin Spell was a level-4 spell, it possessed strong treatment effects, but not everyone had the chance to enjoy it. On the battlefield, injured troops still reliedrgely on spells by a magic disciple for treatment.


    At that moment, Saleen cultivated a habit of writing magic notes. All the strange creatures he met along the way were recorded down.


    On the sixth day, Nailisi woke up when the alchemical boat arrived at the periphery of the Frozen Sea. In this deep slumber, she did not revert to her original form. Since her degree of evolution had been greatly elevated, Nailisi had already broken out of the category of a normal summoned creature ording to human standards.


    ¡°Master?¡±


    Nailisi was astounded to find Saleen by her side. Following that, she realized that their soul contract was firmer, so Saleen could foresee when she would wake up.


    ¡°Another evolution?¡± Saleen asked with much anticipation.


    ¡°Nope.¡± After a round of spirit cleansing, Nailisi was ready to disclose the truth to Saleen. ¡°Master, actually I have acquired a new ability.¡±


    ¡°That means your bloodline is truly special.¡±


    Noticing that Saleen did not probe about the things concealed from him, Nailisi was assured, then she replied, ¡°I can acquire eight types of abilities, but I will need to employ special methods to get them. In the beginning, I obtained the strength of the tiago. One day, my strength will be as massive as that of a dragon. The second ability is the power of the lightning dragon, whereby I will be immune to magic. This time around, the third ability is¡­ I¡­¡± Nailisi stuttered.


    ¡°What is the ability?¡± Saleen was jubnt, he did not know that Nailisi¡¯s bloodline was so unique.


    ¡°I can be human. It¡¯s not the power from the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill, I can be an authentic human. When I am in the form of a human, I will lose my demonic abilities though.¡±


    ¡°Ah? What benefits does this bring?¡± Saleen was a little disappointed after learning about Nailisi¡¯s third ability.


    ¡°This is a shapeshifting skill, and just like a spell, I can transform instantly.¡±


    Saleen groaned as he immediately understood the significance of this ability. As Nailisi had a demonic bloodline and was an imp, she could neither practice magic nor the Sword Aura. Once she became human, her body structure would be no different from that of other humans. It was not just her appearance which would undergo the transformation.


    In other words, Nailisi could begin learning magic or the Sword Aura from now on. To other races, this ability might be meaningless. Nailisi enjoyed longevity, and if she picked up magic, she could definitely be a grade-9 sorcerer. She just needed time. A human¡¯s life would at most be one-hundred and twenty years old without any training. Nailisi¡¯s life could possibly be longer than that of a spirit king if she did not meet with any harm.


    Noticing that Saleen understood her point, Nailisiughed and said, ¡°Master, what do you want me to learn?¡±


    While in human form, Nailisi could only select one path. It was either magic or the Sword Aura. These two were not mutually exclusive, but once the magic chords were formed, it would basically be impossible to learn the Sword Aura. Even if one did it, they would never reach the standard of a grand swordmaster.


    A mage like Lex, who was so qualified, only trained her body to the standard of a beginner swordmaster. If she continued training, there was no point other than wasting her own time.


    ¡°You shall learn magic first.¡± Saleen realized that Nailisi could release scrolls. She had no control over a scroll at all, however. She could only release it using conventional methods, which was too wasteful.


    ¡°Master, I want to learn swordsmanship.¡±


    ¡°Swordsmanship?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I don¡¯t need the Sword Aura because I possess sufficient strength. It wouldn¡¯t affect the learning of magic.¡±


    ¡°If you have the time¡­¡±


    ¡°Master, I might as well devour J.¡±


    ¡°No way!¡± Saleen was startled. As the three kings were unreliable, J was a powerful force beside Saleen currently.


    ¡°Heh, Master, I was just joking. J is an interesting fellow, I can learn swordsmanship from him.¡±


    Saleen gazed at Nailisi dubiously, as he thought, ¡°I am afraid you have noticed that J is lustful. The moment he tries to take advantage of you during the swordsmanship lesson, you will thus have a reason to eat him right?¡±


    ¡°Is your ability limited by time?¡± Saleen declined toment further. If Nailisi wanted to learn swordsmanship, J would make a good mentor. At best, Saleen could warn him beforehand.


    ¡°Yes, every transformation willst for a day. Then I will need to rest for three days before the next transformation.¡±


    ¡°Then you won¡¯t have an advantage in the practice of magic anymore.¡±


    ¡°Not exactly true. I can learn the fundamental knowledge while in the demonic form, then train the magic chords while I am in the human form.¡±


    ¡°So you will be human in the future?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Nailisi sighed. ¡°It would be great if I could really be human, Master would not be so repulsed by me and mess around with Sika. Damn Sika, fancy kicking me out of the room. Once I learn magic and swordsmanship, she will not be my match.


    As Nailisi thought of that, her green eyes curved into an evil smile.


    ¡°Master, while I was asleep the past few days, how many rounds have you and Sikapleted?¡± Nailisi suddenly asked.


    Saleen¡¯s face became scarlet, he was at a loss of how to respond. The past few days when they were together, most of the time was spent on helping Sika familiarize with that half spell on the arm ring. Both parties practiced using actualbat in the room. Sika was immersed in the thrill of controlling the half spell, and did not have much physical contact with Saleen.


    ¡°You¡­ are still a demon at the end of the day,¡± Saleen sighed.


    ¡°What¡¯s so bad about a demon? A demon can also bear children for humans,¡± Nailisi said indignantly as she pouted her lips.


    Saleen recalled how Nailisi originally looked. This sent chills down his spine and he trembled. He acknowledged the spiritual rtionship, but physically, he was very repulsed towards a non-human race. ¡°If a human can be with a demon, does it mean that they could also be with a spirit? What about giants? Or the mythical midgets? There are still the centaurs, snakemen, dwarfs¡­¡±


    The more Saleen pondered, the more disgusted he got. Then he left the room with a glum expression.


    Nailisi followed behind Saleen, the corners of her mouth arched upwards, and sheughed secretly. ¡°Humph, was this a mental barrier like mentioned in the books? If there is a chance, I must steal a kiss from Master. When that timees, I will just seduce Master, then he can¡¯t deny me, right? By killing Master, I will receive a bacsh on the soul. If I seduce him, there shouldn¡¯t be a problem, right?¡±


    In the front cabin, Irene acted as the navigator for the winged skeleton. The symbols on the magicpass were fully revealed already. As the alchemical boat was approaching the destination, Irene got a little jittery.


    ¡°Soldier, stop the ship and take a break.¡± Saleen came to the front cabin and interacted with Irene. The five low grade mages were led to there by Saleen himself, and everyone sat down at the table. Consciously, J went to prepare the food.


    Saleen regretted not bringing more people along. He felt bad making a grand swordmaster cook.


    He could not possibly let Irene or Aini do it, they were both his partners nominally. People might not be able to stomach Sika¡¯s food. As for Nailisi? She might poison the food just for the fun of it.


    At this moment, Saleen dearly missed the lifestyle mages serving Lex. Those mages could produce delicacies, and they did so using magic. On one hand, food cravings were satisfied, and on the other, they trained in an extraordinary way.


    Inhaling deeply, Saleen cleared his mind of all those distractions, then said, ¡°Irene, the hunting ground is up ahead. Please share your experiences with us, and the points to be noted.¡±

 Chapter 371: Treasure All Over (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 371: Treasure All Over (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Everyone was listening carefully, especially Aini. He had tagged along because he wanted to learn through experience. He believed that he would definitely expand the scale of their hunting when he had a ship of his own in the future.


    Although Irene had gotten first ce the other day and pissed Sika off, she was, after all, a disciple of a prominent n and understood the proprieties. She had signed a magic contract with Saleen, so in business, they had to advance and retreat together. Through hunting alone, she would be able to recover her initial wealth. Plus, Saleen had promised to give her a ship so she would not need to follow after him and get it by begging. Eventually, she would be able to build her own house and breakaway from her n.


    The four major ns were taken care by the imperial household and hence they were able to live fairly well-off. Now that she had to rely on Saleen and Viscountess Lex, it was a gamble, but it would be worth the bet.


    Lex had enough capital to open up a new territory ten thousand miles away from the nation. If she were to develop the territory, it would not be just a prefecture.


    Holy Rock City was unable to fend for itself. When the conflict with the Holy See exploded the following year, there would be no room to maneuver the situation. Now that Chanake the Great had passed away, the four major ns in Holy Rock City would lose half their family wealth. Even though the upper house would still be looking after them, everyone was aware that the upper house would be within Prince Safilos¡¯ reach.


    It was unknown how many people from the younger generations of the four major ns were out looking for opportunities like Aini and Irene. If the younger generation were to take advantage of their ns, then there was the possibility of them merging before their ns fell. This would enable them to either to recover their family statuses or to build a new n. The four major ns might have been wealthier than any noble family, but their best ranks were only earls. It would be nearly impossible to go against Safilos.


    In the past, the emperor had never raised the ranks of these four major ns in order to control them. As long as they were given feudal estates, they would not be distressed even if they were only marquises.


    What made Irene and Aini remain vignt was that Safilos had already nned to control Phoenix. The fact that he had dared to interfere with a duchy meant that he did not carry much hope towards the future of the ns. Even if he continued to support the four major ns, he would not be the same as Chanake the Great, who had allowed them to exploit more than twenty percent of the empire¡¯s business.


    Twenty percent of business was as profitable as things could get.


    ¡°Six hundred miles to the east is a strange hunting ground. I haven¡¯t been there this season, but I presume that the amount of red phosphorous prawn during this season will be greater than it is summer. Within a thousand-mile radius, there will be at least a hundred schools of them, and each school will not contain less than a million of them.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a lot!¡± Saleen had never thought that there would be billions of magic beasts in that hunting ground. He could not imagine that ever happening onnd. However, it was understandable since there was a magic beast known as the unicorn white whale which hunted specifically for those kinds of magic beasts. The world always had bnce. If there had not been such a huge amount, magic beasts like the unicorn white whale would have died of starvation.


    ¡°This is still the border of the oceanic ice block. We mainly need to avoid a few kinds of dangerous magic beasts. If you do not fight for food with these magic beasts, they will not attack your ship. Without this high-grade magicpass, even stronger warships would be sunk by the magic beasts.¡±


    Saleen recalled the warship from the Second Dynasty that was on the seabed, deep down in the sea. That warship had been equipped with magic cannons but had still been sunk by magic beasts. Even if all of the thundercloud wood on that ship had been attacked with mid-level magic, the warship would not have sunk.


    ¡°Do not provoke the unicorn white whales. There are more than hundred of them in this area of the sea. They do not need to cast any spells to sink a warship of any scale. Besides, the most dangerous creature is the venus cuttlefish. This kind of magic beast can tear iron and steel, and they are very smart too. Plus, their size is enormous, so, their targets include whales, dolphins, and evenrge sharks.¡±


    Bang!


    Irene had yet to finish what she had to say when the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat suddenly shook vigorously. The magic array on the table shed and showed the projection carried by the eye of the dead.


    At the bottom of the alchemy ship, there was an over ten-meter-long creature ramming into the ship. The impact it produced was immense. The head of the magic beast was not visible, and its entire body was round and covered with spikes.


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic. It¡¯s a ck bile fish. It likes to ram into things and will leave after a while,¡± Irene stopped Saleen¡¯s order to attack. ¡°Do not cause the prey to bleed in this area of the sea if it is not necessary. It will attract the daggers.


    Saleen had learned a great deal of new knowledge over the past few days. The dagger was a small beast, but could be bigger than its own body when it opened its mouth. This beast would eat anything and everything. It would even attack powerful beasts when it was triggered by fresh blood. They had sharp teeth, and their teeth could crush any shell-bearing beasts.


    ¡°The daggers are my target.¡± Saleen smiled. With Banchajanna and his peculiar method of attack, he would be most effective against the low-grade beasts. The only downfall was that the attack could not be carried out around powerful beasts, as it would provoke scary creatures like the unicorn white whale. Banchajanna¡¯s attack would not have much of an effect, but it would draw unnecessary trouble.


    Irene kept quiet because Saleen¡¯s smile revealed too much information. Saleen was very confident, and this had been built upon his strong foundation. In addition to grade-9 magic beasts, Saleen was confident in fighting other targets as well.


    This included the daggers, the terrifying marine magic beasts that were unable to eat warships themselves, but were capable of destroying things on the exterior of the warships such as the rudder and runner des. Once these two things were lost, any powerful warship would be stranded in oceanic ice block forever.


    But the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat could be driven by the spirit pool, and most spirits were not afraid of physical attacks. The ship had no runner des and instead advanced with a partially hidden water jet. As for the rudder, it could be fully retracted into the ship.


    This method of operation required a few hundred gold coins worth of magic nuclei, but it made the ship as solid as a rock. The pan¡¯s turtle was a magic beast that could move around in the deep sea and the thickest part of its shell was more than three meters thick. Besides its magic, it did not possess any powerful attacks. Because of those characteristics, the ship had been gifted with such great defenses.


    Most of the beasts would not dive into deep sea. Hence, they could only sink lower and slowly flee when they could not win against other beasts. At the border of the oceanic ice block, the water was more than two thousand meters deep. At some points, it was even more than four thousand meters deep. Most magic beasts could not live at such depths.


    The alchemy ship could stand the high pressure. After it submerged, it could still travel at a speed of twenty miles per hour.


    A confident man was always charming. Irene was lost in her thoughts for a while before saying, ¡°If you are doing this for the daggers¡¯ teeth, I suggest you don¡¯t waste time. Their teeth can only be used to make daggers and arrowheads. There aren¡¯t many of them, and they will not help much in producing weapons for an army. The spike on the head of the red phosphorous prawn is much more suitable.¡±


    Irene then asked for a piece of paper and produced a simple sketch upon it.


    ¡°This is the red phosphorous prawn. Its body is about one meter long and it has a-one foot-long spike on its head that can rip through most armor. One spike can produce almost twenty arrowheads, and this kind of arrowhead will cause constant bleeding unless treated with magic or a divine spell. Normal bandages won¡¯t help.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard it before.¡±


    Saleen grew suspicious since Irene had been sailing on this sea route for a few years. If she had hunted a huge amount of red phosphorous prawns, the material should have been easily found in the market.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t have any archmages with me so there wasn¡¯t any spatial equipment. There wasn¡¯t enough space on the ship so we wouldn¡¯t collect such materials. When we caught the red phosphorus prawns, I only wanted their magic nuclei,¡± Irene exined.


    What a waste!


    Saleen cheered in his heart. Who else owned as much spatial equipment as him? Only sorcerers could use high-grade spatial equipment. Although a grade-6 mage could also use spatial equipment, the space was too small.


    It was impossible for Irene to have such equipment. On the other hand, Saleen had the three kings and thirty-nine dimension stones. The capacity of these dimension stones was huge, and they wereparatively more stable thanmon spatial equipment.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I have enough space for this hunt and we can bring the prey back. I will provide the materials collected to your two swordsmen for free, and will charge you only for the manpower.


    ¡°I have some dimensional devices,¡± Aini licked his lips and said.


    ¡°You can bring as much as you can, but Irene¡­¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need them this time. Just don¡¯t forget that you promised me to give me a ship.¡± Irene smiled at Saleen, but he felt oddly nervous. Her expression looks strange¡­


    ¡°Look, gold coins!¡± Irene suddenly shouted, pointing at the magic projection. On the projection by the eye of the dead was a school of creatures that looked like turtles, each roughly three meters long.


    It was a beast that was solely depended on its shell¡¯s defenses to eat smaller fish and prawns. Their main characteristic was that their shells had defensive magic and their flesh had an irritating smell so no beasts liked to hunt them. There was aplicated picture on their backs which resembled a pile of gold coins, and they were shimmering in a golden color. Hence, the name ¡°gold coins¡±.


    ¡°That¡¯s a nice shield!¡± Saleen called Banchajanna and he left the head of the ship dully. He could easily go through the death magic array that had been prepared for the bone spirits, and that saved Saleen¡¯s expenditures on the teleportation portal.


    Banchajanna swam upwards without showing his body, taking his skeletal form instead. He held a hammer in his right hand and chased after the school of gold coins. Each gold coin fainted with one knock to their back before being stored into the dimension stone by Banchajanna.


    There was no challenge in this hunt. Banchajanna was upset as the gold coins were just grade-4 magic beasts and their attacks did not go beyond those of grade-2 magic beasts. It was embarrassing to have sent him, a death king, to aplish this task.


    Irene was watching too. When she had sailed over here in her massive ship in the past, it had taken a lot of effort to hunt down any sorts of magic beasts. It had also required a lot of money, either to buy magic medicine or special scrolls for the mage. With this skeleton, they could get more than a hundred gold coins per minute. It was as simple as bending down and picking them up on the road.


    Saleen could not help butugh. He did not want to put a burden on Banchajanna, but no one else on the ship could move freely in the deep sea aside from Nailisi. As for having Nailisi take the risk? Saleen would not allow such a thing.

 Chapter 372: Treasure All Over (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 372: Treasure All Over (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The magic beast known as gold coins had low offensive capabilities and low intelligence. Banchajanna knocked their backs, stored them into the dimension stone, then returned to the ship. Saleen nodded and felt reinvigorated for their hunting trip.


    Even if they were unable to hunt down any major magic beasts, catching the red phosphorous prawns alone would be enough to regain their expenditures. In the past, Irene had onlye here once a year, and each visit had brought her gains of more than one hundred thousand gold coins. Despite that, it was not as great of a business as it seemed once the cost was taken into consideration.


    The cost of a ship which could withstand drifting ice was close to that of a warship. With such arge ship, arge number of seamen were required, as well as a few mage apprentices in order to steer it. When they were hunting, they had to patiently avoid powerful magic beasts and put in arge amount of magic medicine. Not every red phosphorous prawn would have a good-quality magic nucleus.


    After deducting the cost, the ie would probably be only about ten thousand gold coins. Such yearly ie was considered well-off for a ship. However, it could not be forgotten that the pensions would be a great expenditure if anything bad were to happen. Previously, about three-quarters of the people on Irene¡¯s ship had not returned, and as a result, she had needed to pay an immense amount to the family members of those people.


    Irene could deny that such pensions had ever existed, but if she did, no one would dare to sail with her, let alone swordsmen and mages.


    Unlike her, all of Saleen¡¯s costs were on his ship. The magic nuclei consumed by the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat were not any less than arge vessel which was more than one hundred meters long. That aside, he only needed to send out Banchajanna in order to hunt the red phosphorous prawns.


    However, if he were to expand the scale of their hunting ventures, this alchemy ship could not be used often and Banchajanna would need to stay in the city to protect them from enemy attacks. Saleen would not risk losing his nest on an expedition out.


    When other people discovered this sea route, Saleen would also have to invest in warships to protect the route. Then, his costs would naturally rise.


    ¡°Where were we earlier?¡±


    ¡°I told you, you shouldn¡¯t obsess over daggers. Those beasts are useless aside from their teeth,¡± Irene replied, returning to her usual self. Thse one hundred magic beasts which they had caught earlier could be made into eight shields each. The shields could be made into magic equipment which could defend against attacks from mages.


    Magic attacks were unpredictable. But regarding long range attacks, most of the time, they would be based off of fireballs, especially during times of war when both parties were far away from each other. Control magic required closer distances and the variety was much more controlled. These shields would not help cavalry much, but would be practical for heavy infantrymen.


    The attacks of heavy infantrymen were on par with those of cavalry. Their only downfall was their slow speed, as they could easily be attacked with magic which coveredrge areas. With these shields, the heavy infantrymen could gather together with no worries, either to defend against enemy cavalry or to attack fortifications like a tight fist.


    Saleen did not think the same way. He wanted to gather enough materials for Sika¡¯s magic armor. Caucasus warriors with priest¡¯s blessings and magic armor would be terrifying on the battlefield. Plus, Caucasus warriors rode on magic wolves that had strong endurance and could continue for more than ten hours without stopping. With magic armor, Caucasus warriors could make surprisingly long distance raids without a mage¡¯s assistance.


    Making shields? Saleen was not so stingy.


    Even so, Saleen took Irene¡¯s advice. Since the red phosphorous prawns had speical materials which could be made into arrowheads, he would not go for the daggers. The daggers were too few in number and the red phosphorous prawns were more suitable for killing in batches. If there were billions of them in this area of the sea, they could not be hunted to extinction.


    Irene did not hide what she knew and continued sharing knowledge on the magic beasts that she was familiar with. She hoped Saleen would find a better method of hunting, too. Then, the next time she travelled north, it would not require as much capital.


    The five mages rested for six hours once they had meditated and then returned to their positions in the front cabin. The ship was still being steered by the winged skeleton towards the north. If there were any idents, the five junior mages would take over the ship and drive it with mid-grade magic nuclei to increase its speed to the maximum.


    The bone spirits in the spirit pool were released to push the ship forward in the water and its speed was increased to forty miles. Banchajanna was sent to lie on top of the ship to monitor any movements in this patch of the sea. Although hisbat power had been reduced, his mental strength remained. The distance that he could survey was greater than the magic array in the ship itself.


    Suddenly, the area ahead of them was filled with rapidly swimming magic beasts. Saleen could see this clearly and said via the sound magic array, ¡°Banchajanna, take action if there are no enemies nearby!¡±


    Banchajanna nodded and returned to his original body. He dragged his huge tail behind him, held a weapon in each of his six arms, and swam towards the red phosphorous prawns.


    The red phosphorous prawns might have been grade-4 magic beasts, but they were very timid. They were frightened as Banchajanna swam over and disbanded as though a tornado had swept through the area.


    Banchajanna did not chase after them. He knocked his six weapons vigorously against each other and visible waves dispersed in all directions. The waves of attack brought forth all the red phosphorous prawns within a mile.


    The red phosphorous prawns struck by the attacks twitched and fainted. Banchajanna held the dimension stone in one of his hands and collected all of the prey with the speed of lightning. The space of the dimension stone was both vast and stable, so Banchajanna had no worries and solely focused on opening up the space.


    Irene and Aini were dumbfounded. With one attack, Banchajanna had gotten a few hundred thousand red phosphorous prawns. Even if there was only one standard magic nucleus for every ten of them, there would be over ten thousand grade-4 magic nuclei.


    What made Irene green with envy was that Saleen had not invested in magic medicine at all. He had solved his problems with violence, and the cost was almost nothing.


    Saleen thought it was a pity since the three kings could not be used for these sorts of things in the long run. If his city was under attack, he would need them to give off good impressions for a short period of time. For this hunting trip, they would be away from the city base for at least two months. Seizing the opportunity that the Holy See had yet to send any terrifying opponents their way, Saleen felt relieved that he had brought Banchajanna along.


    Banchajanna¡¯s mannerisms did not emerge again, and he controlled his attack range well enough that the ship was not affected. Although Saleen had advanced another grade again, he was still not confident that he could withstand Banchajanna¡¯s peculiar attack.


    Banchajanna¡¯s speed was difficult to gauge with the naked eye, but he still took almost an hour to finish collecting the prey and return to the ship. Irene suddenly shouted, ¡°Get out of here now! There¡¯s a magic beast approaching!¡±


    The five mages looked at Saleen and he nodded. The five of them immediately activated the magic array on the alchemy ship. The two water outlets hidden on each side of the alchemy ship were opened, and water was drawn in from the front and spurted out from the back. The ship swiftly changed its direction of travel back in the direction they hade from.


    The magicpass showed a red dot approaching them quickly.


    Irene¡¯s voice sounded nervous as she shouted, ¡°Submerge! Submerge!¡±


    The mages carried out the order immediately. They understood the magicpass very well and were aware that the red dot signified the most dangerous targets.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat submerged all the way down until it finallynded on the sand at the bottom of the sea.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen saw that Irene¡¯s face was still terrifyingly pale.


    Irene had yet to calm. After panting for a while, she said, ¡°Damn, it¡¯s a prehistoric dragon beast. It¡¯s way more pesky than a normal dragon since it has no wisdom but acts savagely.¡±


    ¡°Prehistoric dragon beast? Aren¡¯t those extinct?¡± Saleen asked in shock. The prehistoric dragon beast and normal dragons were unrted by blood. Even the most knowledgable mage did not know when they had existed, but their bones had been discovered in the ocean. Mages had only managed to conclude that they were born at the top of the food chain and would consume any other creatures as food. To put it in simple terms, they were born as grade-9 creatures.


    Irene replied once she had regained herposure, ¡°Not the dragon defined by mages. Do you know of the evil dragon?¡±


    Saleen nodded. The evil dragon was pesky, but it was and creature which was forcefully created by ck mages. By studying its soul, it could not be considered a branch of creatures.


    The evil dragon was the embryonic state of a prehistoric dragon beast, specially researched and developed by ck mages.


    Saleen did not know much about it because every country kept very little information about the ck mages.


    ¡°This creature will submerge an extra five to six hundred meters before it stops its pursuit.¡± Irene put her hand on her chest and patted it. Her ship had been damagedst time because of an attack by a prehistorici dragon beast. If not, her ship would not have sunk on the way back. With the speed of her ship, the magic beasts she had met after would not have been able to catch up.


    Saleen pointed above and asked, ¡°How long will it stay?¡±


    Irene smiled and replied, ¡°At least half a day.¡±


    ¡°Mm. You guys can take a break.¡± Saleen let the five mages rest while the winged skeleton took control of the ship again. Banchajanna had returned to his skeleton form and Saleen ordered, ¡°Guard us here. If there¡¯s danger and we can¡¯t escape, press forward in face of enemy.¡±


    Then, he took the dimension stone and called everyone to the back of the ship.


    To the back of the ship, there was a kitchen, a storage cabin, and also a spare engine room. The kitchen was fairly big and Saleen was fondling with the dimension stone when he said, ¡°The speed will be very slow from now on. Since things have settled down, we can take a look at our haul.¡±


    ¡°I will go and rest.¡± Irene had already seen the red phosphorous prawns. She was feeling a little tired from the earlier shock.


    Saleen nodded. Aini did not leave but stayed and watched as Saleen took out a one-meter-long red phosphorous prawn and put it on the counter. This magic beast did not look any differentpared to a normal prawn, aside from the fact that its red, hard shell was covered with natural magic patterns.


    On the head of the red phophorous prawn was a one-foot-long spike. On the spike, there were sawteeth. Saleen took out a grade-3 magic nucleus and rubbed it against the sawteeth. The grade-3 magic nucleus was left with a scratch.


    ¡°So sharp!¡± Aini¡¯s face changed. No wonder they needed to invest inrge amounts of magic medicine when they hunted these. If they are not knocked out, there will be no fishing that was able to withstand cuts from the spikes.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes brightened. This is a good item. If it is made into arrowheads, it can be used repeatedly. This material can even rip through armor without the assistance of alchemy.

 Chapter 373: Irene’s Suggestion (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 373: Irene¡¯s Suggestion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The red phosphorous prawn¡¯s pincers were as hard as metal too. The magic beast¡¯s material had an advantage in that it could not be reced by metal, since metal could only hold magic after being mixed with other special materials. However, the shell of this magic beast was born as a magic material.


    On the red phosphorous prawn¡¯s head where the spike grew was a piece of hard shell which could be made into armor. Although the size was a bit small, Saleen was ted considering the amount they had caught.


    ¡°Nailisi, dissect it.¡± Saleen pointed at their prey on the counter.


    Nailisi nodded, drew her dagger, and dissected the body of the prawn. Her movements were smooth and skillful. It did not seem as though it was the first time she hade across it, but as though she had worked with it more than a hundred times.


    Nailisi removed the shell on its back and removed the standard magic nucleus from its brain. The magic nucleus was red and of decent quality. If they were to sell it at the market, it could be sold for six hundred gold coins or more.


    Nailisi casually sliced off some of its meat and put it in her mouth.


    ¡°Master, this thing tastes good. It seems to be many times more nutritious than beef.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen tried a slice. He then said happily, ¡°It¡¯s really not bad. How fortunate for us.¡±


    It was impossible for every prawn to have a magic nucleus, and even if they did, it would be difficult to guarantee their quality. However, with the meat and spikes, it had already been worth the risk of leaving the city. If they were to buy food, they could not buy much at once since most of the food was under the control of the local noblemen. With the prawns, Saleen had solved the issue of food. At least until Lex returned, no one would starve.


    ¡°Let¡¯s work for now. The ship is travelling at five miles per hour. It will take at least another two days until we reach our next destination, and we cannot float up for now,¡± Saleen said, as he took out dozens of prawns from the dimension stone and a strong fishy scent filled the kitchen.


    The school of red phosphorous prawns had been unlucky enough to run into Banchajanna. Otherwise, half of such a big school would not have immediately disappeared.


    Needless to say, Nailisi could dissect a prawn in a maximum of ten seconds, including the retrieval of the magic nucleus. Sika was slightly slower, but her boomerang was extremely sharp. She slit the back of the prawn¡¯s brain and twisted it lightly, and just like that, the prawn was dissected. J also used a dagger and dissected them with ease.


    The more interesting ones were Saleen and Aini, the two mages. They were not slow either.


    Saleen brought out the blue-green water current from his cbash. Controlling it with his mental strength, he could dissect two prawns simultaneously. Meanwhile, Aini was even more astounding. He spat out the death mes, summoned the floral death creature, and had the death creature release a low-level death spell ¨C the Corpse Dposition spell.


    ording to the concepts of elemental mages, death magic could only be considered level-0. From the abundant power of the floral death creature, it seemed that it could cast this level-0 magic constantly.


    The five of them were equally fast, and thus they beganpeting.


    Since Saleen¡¯s hands were free, he segregated the items into three categories and put them into separate dimension stones. Once they were dissected and stored into the dimension stones, their meat would not rot, nor would the magic nuclei degenerate.


    The quality of the school of prawns was fairly decent. There was a good quality magic nucleus in every ten to twelve prawns, but most of the prawns had yet to grow magic nuclei. Saleen also noticed that those who had yet to grow magic nuclei could not be made into good quality des or armor either.


    That was alright, since the number they had captured was immense. The armor that was not so great could also be sold for a few gold coins.


    Their speed increased rtive to their familiarity with the work, and they gradually became faster. J became depressed since he thought that he would be the fastest due to his experience in dissecting magic beasts, but the other four looked just at ease.


    After four hours, J finally broke down and set down the dagger in his hands. He said, ¡°Let¡¯s take a break.¡±


    Aside from Sika, no one listened to him. Sika was hungry. She removed the leather pouch on her waist and took out some seasoning. Then, she cut up a bunch of prawn meat and ate them with the seasoning.


    Aini was casting death magic wholeheartedly and had used up half of his mental strength. However, he could recover very quickly given the supply of magic nuclei.


    Nailisi looked to Saleen, so if Saleen did not stop, she would not stop either.


    Saleen was submerged in an amazing feeling at that time. He was bing proficient in manipting the blue-green water current and it was not so rigid anymore. He felt as though the water current itself was a life with wisdom and would get a huge chain of things done if Saleen kept the thoughts in mind.


    Since Saleen had previously been continuously facing formidable opponents, he had hardly thought about using the Current Cutter spell and thus the cbash had been left idle. His crystal finger had few achievements to its name as well, and when he released the water from the cbash, some delicate changes seem to have taken ce.


    It was synergized with him,pletely parallel to his other magic. No wonder the value of the shenhe was said to be immense. Saleenmented that if he had created water puppets with the water elements in the cbash, the water puppets could have grown with him. The water current could evolve with grade, but its attack power was limited. When he faced stronger enemies, the speed of the current would be its critical defect.


    The crystal finger was strong, like a magic cannon in human form. But with Saleen¡¯s magic chords, he could only use it twice before his magic chords were depleted. It would be very dangerous to battle with this spell.


    Fortunately, the water current hardly depleted Saleen¡¯s magic chords no matter how he used it. If he used the current during battle when he was full of mental strength, he did not need to be worried about how long the battle went on.


    That was Saleen¡¯s biggest motivator. As a mage, everyone had the same problem in their magic chords. A mage with exhausted magic chords was akin to amon since they would lose their battle power. With his water current, although it was not too strong, its capabilities in fighting long battles overtook that of many swordsmen.


    When Irene came down to summon him for dinner, Saleen stopped and the water current returned to the cbash by itself.


    Aini was exhausted. He leaned against the wall andined, ¡°Saleen, your mental strength is so strong. Are you hiding your true level?¡±


    He had wanted to defeat Saleen using his unique skill to summon death creatures, but he had failed. His movements were of the same speed as Saleen, but Saleen had better endurance.


    J stayed quiet since he could tell that the equipment Saleen possessed could be considered the natural enemy of a swordsman. Even if Saleen was approached by the swordsman, he would not be in danger. The speed of the current cutter was slowpared to instant magic, but to anyone below the grade of a swordmaster, Saleen was definitely at an advantage.


    No way. I have to be stronger. If not¡­ if not, in the eyes of the beautifuldies, I will just be a swordmaster who does nothing, J thought in a huff.


    Saleen and the others had been working continuously for nine hours and had dealt with more than twenty thousand of the red phosphorous prawns, which was about one-fifth of the total number. Among those twenty thousand prawns, Saleen had found one thousand and eight hundred magic nuclei over grade-4, which was a satisfactory result.


    Looking at the magic clock, they were just in time for dinner. Saleen left two prawns for J to cook.


    ¡°Soldier, how is everything?¡± Saleenmunicated with the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Master, we have avoided two batches of troublesome fellows. I suggest we stay low and advance. The further we travel north, the more dangerous things seem to get.¡±


    ¡°Alright, don¡¯t panic. Look after the magicpass,¡± Saleen told the winged skeleton telepathically. All of a sudden, he felt ufortable. Recently, when I have been with Sika, has the winged skeleton known everything?


    ¡°Master, I won¡¯t peep. As a spirit, I am not interested in those sorts of things,¡± the winged skeleton suddenly said. Saleen¡¯s expression became quite strange, and he took a look at Sika.


    Irene was sneaking looks at Saleen too. She felt depressed when she saw Saleen only looking at the Caucasus woman and said, ¡°Saleen, now that we have this ship, we have actually saved a lot of time and can consider hunting the giant bear.¡±


    ¡°The giant bear? You mean the creature named pale earth?¡±


    ¡°Mm, that¡¯s what it¡¯s called in illustrated handbooks of magic beasts, but it¡¯s just a bear.¡±


    ¡°A grade-9 creature. Very difficult to deal with.¡± Saleen shook his head. Banchajanna¡¯s strength was very close to grade-8, but the pale earth was definitely at the peak of grade-9. It might have been easier to deal with than the tiago, but Saleen had not forgotten his encounter with the tiago. The dragon had been severely injured and was likely dying, but it had nearly killed everyone.


    Irene smiled and said, ¡°The giant bear is not very smart. If I had not been rushing for time every trip, I would have been able to fight it. Our ship can travel at a speed of seventy miles per hour while submerged. Although the giant bear knows how to swim, its speed is only about forty miles per hour. Even if we can¡¯t beat it, we can flee.


    Irene had not lied. Every time she hade, she had needed to first hunt for red phosphorous prawn since they were the easiest magic beast to deal with and could at least secure the money that she had invested. But there was a problem with hunting the prawns, which was that she had to avoid the big magic beasts that consumed the prawns as food. When she was at the border of the oceanic ice block, she was ying hide and seek with the magic beasts most of the time. With the magicpass, she could hide ahead of time.


    There were times when they had been read to cast the since the magic medicine had already blended with the seawater, but had to flee since there were magic beasts approaching. That was the reason why her hunting costs had stayed high. Saleen did not waste anything and the hunt started wonderfully with Banchajanna. Even if there were not any good targets, no one would be too disappointed.


    ¡°No way. There are variations of pale earth that can cast powerful level-9 water magic which attacks from a great distance. We don¡¯t need to take the risk.¡±


    Saleen refused Irene¡¯s suggestion. Even though the value of a grade-9 magic nucleus could not be measured with gold coins, one needed to be alive to enjoy such a thing. He was different from before and he did not have to risk his life for these things anymore.


    ¡°Listen to my suggestion first.¡± Irene acted spoiled while trying to seduce Saleen with her eyes.


    Nailisi saw the scene from the side and thought, This woman is in heat too, but I won¡¯t help you.

 Chapter 374: Irene’s Suggestion (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 374: Irene¡¯s Suggestion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Your suggestion? What I¡¯m trying to say is, if you cannot withstand the roar of the deep sea, do not revolve an idea around the pale earth.¡± Saleen continued to shake his head. His strength had improved enormously but he positioned himself ordingly. He could deal with anyone below the level of a sorcerer easily, but he would rather make a detour if it was anyone above that.


    The sorcerers from Sregl Ind might have had methods of encircling and annihting the pale earth, but as for himself, even if he brought the three kings, he might not win.


    The pale earth was a type of giant bear in the ice field, about ten meters long and a grade-9 magic beast. Its primary magic was the terrifying deep sea roar. When it raged, the attack range of its level-9 magic was greater than five hundred meters.


    Five hundred meters was referring to its strongest attack range. Even if magic depletion was taken into consideration, the pale earth could still attack its target from one mile away. It could be said that it was the strongest magic beast onnd. Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell was at its peak, but his flying speed was at about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. In terms of seconds, it would be about thirty meters per second.


    In other words, if Saleen were to get close to the pale earth, attack it with the crystal finger, and it did not die, Saleen would need thirty seconds to escape the pale earth¡¯s attack range.


    Thirty seconds? The magic beast¡¯s magic was nearly instant. Even if Saleen had level-8 magic like mirror magic, he would still be killed by the pale earth.


    If Saleen did not use the crystal finger, he did not have any other magic that could harm the grade-9 magic beast.


    ¡°The magic nucleus of the pale earth can be traded for a magic cannon at Alchemy City.¡± Irene tossed out some bait.


    ¡°Magic cannon? I already have one. Give me twenty years¡¯ time and I can duplicate the magic array inside.¡± Saleen smiled and shattered Irene¡¯s dream entirely.


    Saleen has a magic cannon! Irene reevaluated the rtionship between her and Saleen. She did not know much about Saleen, and Aini was not willing to give her any information privately. She had not known that in addition to Bitter Water Prefecture, Saleen was also supported by Sregl Ind.


    Magic cannons and magic stone artillery were entirely different in character. The magic cannon represented the most powerful magic in existence. If Saleen¡¯s city had more than four magic cannons, his enemies with giant siege machinery, such as war puppets, would be rendered useless.


    Not being able to use giant siege machinery, the attacker would need to pay a grievous price to pound the city wall.


    ¡°Our main target is the red phosphorous prawns and the magic beasts above the ice, specifically those that are grade-8 and below. We still stay away from any grade-9 magic beasts.¡± Saleen did not speak to just Irene, but to everyone there. He had fought against the tiago and knew that when there was a certain difference in power, any and all tactics would not work.


    The best way to kill a grade-9 magic beast was tounch a siege. Among the attackers, there needed to be at least two sorcerers and one golden grand swordmaster to ensure their safety.


    There were a lot of silver grand swordmasters onnd, but there were hardly any golden grand swordmasters. Plus, when a golden grand swordmaster¡¯s swordcraft reached that level, his existence was like that of a sorcerer. Besides the terrifying attack range, they could also fly. Saleen did not think that he would be able to gather any golden grand swordmasters, so he had never thought about killing a grade-9 magic beast.


    If all the mages from Sregl Ind came, they might be able to use a enormous magic array to kill the pale earth easily, but he did not stand a chance by himself.


    But, Saleen had heard some useful information, which was that the grade-9 magic nucleus could be traded for a magic cannon. Saleen had gotten grade-9 magic nuclei in Raphael¡¯s magic tower and was persuaded when he heard that. He nned to trade these magic nuclei for magic cannons, but then thought, The mages in Alchemy City are not stupid. Why would they make a deal that would lose them money?


    The grade-9 magic nuclei must have had some special uses whose value overtook the magic cannon itself.


    ¡°Then what do we do now?¡± Aini saw that Saleen was not willing to hunt in a way that would endanger them, and with the ship crawling slowly at the bottom of the sea, he felt upset. He had wanted to listen to Irene¡¯s suggestion at first, but his summoned creatures included the floral death creature, which was useful when hunting onnd but weakened tremendously underwater.


    Saleen took a nce at Aini and thought, Aini is not cunning enough. Irene was unhappy with Sika, that was why she brought up the idea. If I were to hunt for the pale earth, Sika as a warrior would have had to protect me. The first one to get hurt would have been her.


    The daughter from a noble family is so petty, wanting to hurt Sika. Hmph. I will not share any benefits with you in the future, Saleen thought. Although he did not dislike Irene that much, she had cast herself away from his core interests.


    It was not that Aini was not smart enough, but he was like the past Saleen who had put all of his wisdom into practicing magic, so he did not have much perception towards matters between the two sexes. Hence, he had not thought about this. Saleen had only be more sensitive after what had happened between him and Sika.


    If Irene¡¯s level were to be higher, she could have been a threat and Saleen would have needed to rid of her. But, Irene¡¯s power was too low and the way he looked at Irene was just like a sorcerer looking at Saleen. In his eyes, she was insignificant. Even Sika could kill Irene easily. Thus, Saleen did not show that he was upset.


    ¡°The map in the magicpass is iplete, I am drawing the map.¡± Saleen replied. Irene had only drawn a map of the area above the water, but Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was searching underwater. So, the magicpass formed an underwater topographic map. Plus, the map that Irene had drawn in the past had a lot of empty areas, which were areas that Irene¡¯s ship could not reach.


    Saleen¡¯s goal was simple. He wanted to scan the border of the oceanic ice block before entering. The ship was moving slowing at the bottom of the sea so that no magic beasts would attack them and he could fill in the remainder of the map at east. With aplete map, it would be safer for his own sailing crews to enter and exit the oceanic ice block in the future.


    Irene did not know that Saleen had put his guard up against her. From what she had seen, Sika was merely someone Saleen was using. However, she did not know that to Saleen, Sika was the closest family he had in the world. Saleen had seen through her selfish calctions and she would never make much progress in the future.


    On the contrary, if she had not had some value, Saleen would have fallen out with her.


    Saleen did not notice that his character was slowly changing. In the past, it would have been impossible for him to hide this in his heart. If Lex had been here, she could have seen this clearly, and she might have thought that Saleen had improved and now knew how to deal with things ordingly.


    Saleen needed a huge number of magic nuclei. In addition to the city, he needed to reopen a pathway to the hell of god¡¯s punishment. The expense of an interdimension teleportation portal was terrifying. Lex¡¯s years of savings had almost been finished because of one transmission.


    They would spend the most magic nuclei the first time, when they were looking for coordinates. But even if the coordinates could be fixed, the expenses would not be lessened much. Saleen could not count on Lex to give away all she had. For the first transmission, most of those who entered the hell of god¡¯s punishment would probably be the mages from Sregl Ind. He would have to bear the expenses by himself.


    Sregl Ind was rich but Saleen did not want to rely on his teacher. Only if he was rich and powerful would his teacher be able to provide him with more support. Saleen clearly knew where his future was and he would not never live off of charity.


    After dinner, the mages wanted to rest and as the ship was crawling on the bottom of the sea, there was no need for them to operate it. Saleen went back to Sika¡¯s room and Nailisi trailed behind, but Saleen did not chase her out.


    Nailisi thought for a while and asked, ¡°Master, that Irene was trying to hurt Sister Sika. You are just going to let her be?¡±


    Saleen did not answer but Sika answered, ¡°Forget it. She¡¯s not Saleen¡¯s friend nor his underling. She¡¯s merely a partner. Plus, Saleen still needs her investments and he needs to take advantage of her reputation to attract more of the business families.¡±


    Nailisi and Saleen looked at Sika at the same time while Sika lied down on the bed and said, ¡°Don¡¯t think I don¡¯t know anything. You two, spit it out. What is it?¡±


    Saleen was looking at Sika in a new light. At first, he had been worried that Sika was no schemer and was easily cheated. Is it possible that Sika¡¯s brain was amended after bing a priest?


    ¡°Saleen, why are you looking at me like that? How do you think I got you thousands of Caucasians?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just¡­ very happy.¡± Saleen smiled. Sika is simply not calctive. It¡¯s not that she didn¡¯t know. That¡¯s great. I can worry less in the future. Plus, most people would be fooled by Sika¡¯s appearance, just like Daniel, who looked sincere and honest but was a ruthless death mage.


    If he and Lex had not known how to deal with Daniel, it would have been hard to bring that fellow under control. If Saleen were him, he could not guarantee that he would still be alive, being chased by the Holy See for twenty thousand miles. Daniel had only been a grade-3 mage back then.


    ¡°Master, are you really not going to punish her?¡± Nailisi asked in annoyance.


    ¡°Nailisi, what do you consider punishment?¡± Saleen asked seriously.


    ¡°Of course to kill her and take all her money.¡±


    ¡°Then who would do business with me in the future? Nailisi, I am a businessman, not a pirate.¡±


    ¡°Anyway, we can¡¯t just let it slip.¡± Nailisi was eager to see the world in disorder.


    ¡°At most, the ships I sell to her will be filled with magic defects. When she does something she shouldn¡¯t, I will sink them all.¡± Saleen smiled and pushed Nailisi out of the room. Then, he locked the door and casted a mute enchantment. Just as he had finished doing those things, Sika pulled him to the bed from behind and said, ¡°Why are you in such a hurry? We have so much time on the ship.¡±


    ¡°Sika, it¡¯s not like that¡­ I! Mm¡­¡± Saleen was pressed down by Sika and she sealed his lips with hers.


    After a while, Sika let go of Saleen and asked, ¡°Mm? What did you want to tell me?¡±

 Chapter 375: Do Not Believe in Demons (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 375: Do Not Believe in Demons (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was not angry at being chased out. She could tell that Saleen was not thinking of doing those sorts of things with Sika, but had something to tell her in secret. Those were the things that he did not want to let other people know, but were not necessary to her.


    But, with the way Saleen had chased her out, even adding a mute enchantment, everyone would think that it was to eliminate unnecessary sound without a doubt.


    Master is getting more and more cunning. Nailisi leaned against the front door while fondling with the dagger that Saleen had given her. The dagger that Saleen made for her could not be worn on her fingers as a ring anymore so she had to put it in a leather sheath on her waist. Nailisi had yet to get used to it.


    Although she was gifted withbat instincts, she did not have the same skill inbat as a human who had gone through many fights. Fondling her dagger, Nailisi thought, I have so much time every day. I should pick up swordcraft from J. Although I promised Master that I would learn magic, I can¡¯t change the fact that my body is flowing with demon¡¯s blood and reconfiguration spells can onlyst a day. If I were to fight, I would need to rely on my skills to fight hand to hand.


    Regrettably, I¡¯ll never be able to practice the sword aura because of my bloodline. Next time, when I get my fourth ability, I have to find a way to achieve long distance attack skills. If not, I won¡¯t be able to help Master.


    Just when she was thinking, she saw J waving at the stairs. Nailisi turned around and looked. Saleen had cast a magic lock on the door so there should not have been anyone rushing in, and Irene had no power to do so either.


    Nailisi stood up and walked towards J. Nailisi found it funny to see J sneaking down the stairs. He¡¯s a swordmaster, but he doesn¡¯t look prestigious at all. Everyone around Master is so weird, but they are quite capable.


    ¡°Why are you looking for me?¡± Nailisi¡¯s facial expression changed to one of apathy as she walked down the stairs. Her image was created based off of the Myers Goddess, so she immediately looked coldly elegant once she stopped smiling.


    J¡¯s heart was in his throat but he did not dare to have any thoughts since Nailisi was the maidservant of Saleen. He simply replied, ¡°Nailisi, I¡¯d like to ask for your advice.¡±


    ¡°I am just a maidservant. If there¡¯s a problem, please talk to Mister Saleen.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s better to not disturb Lord now.¡± J was smart. He saw that Nailisi had not left even though she had rejected him, meaning that there was space for negotiation.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m hungry. Make me ten portions of food. I¡¯ll wait for you,¡± Nailisi said bluntly.


    J listened and went to the kitchen. The storage in the kitchen was filled withrge amount of prawn meat. J prepared ten portions of prawn meat for Nailisi, apanied with some sauce he had made, and served them on a big te.


    Nailisi sat at the table and started eating slowly. Her appetite was not any smaller than Sika¡¯s, but Nailisi liked to copy human behavior and looked exactly like Lex when she ate.


    J looked at the way Nailisi ate and was certain that Saleen was from a huge family. There were some things that could not be picked up unless¡­ unless she was a demon.


    Maybe others would not have imitated Lex, but Nailisi was different since her feelings were more sensitive than any other human. The very first time she had met Lex, she could tell that each and every action by Lex had the power to influence the others. This skill had been umted by imperial kinsman for thousands of years.


    Nailisi had fully picked up Lex¡¯s way of behaving and that made J, a swordmaster who had a wealth of experience, fall head over heels for her.


    She¡¯s such a perfect woman, yet he made her his maidservant. Lord Saleen is so heartless! Plus, this woman could be a great mage. J became even more respectful towards her, which was a rare urrence for him. Even towards the daughter of Emperor Jupiter, J had thought of how to build a rtionship that was more than friendship. But towards Nailisi, he had no drive.


    ¡°Tell me, what do you want to ask?¡± After Nailisi had eaten some, she set down the cutlery and smiled faintly at J.


    ¡°Not much. I feel Lord Saleen doesn¡¯t seem to value me, so I wanted to ask for your opinion.¡±


    Doesn¡¯t value you? How so? Nailisi protested against the injustice on behalf of Saleen. She wanted to eat the bastard, but Saleen would refuse. That was how much she valued him.


    Nailisi showed no differences in her expression and replied, ¡°It¡¯s easy to get his attention. unt your advantages and Master will provide you with suitable opportunities.¡±


    ¡°But I have too many advantages!¡± J answered naturally and regretted doing so immediately. What he had said sounded frivolous, and Nailisi might belittle him.


    ¡°You are not loyal enough.¡± What Nailisi said made J jittery. He knew that Saleen yed his cards well. He had no idea how Saleen had gotten his hands on the three kings, and he did not think that he was any stronger than the three kings. He thought he was loyal enough being Saleen¡¯s follower.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be frank. From what I see, you are not as loyal as the five mages. If I were Master, I would not even bring you onboard.¡±


    ¡°How could that be?!¡± J felt very aggrieved.


    ¡°If Master could feel your loyalty, he would have made you a weapon himself. Your current weapon, Tears, was made by Aini, right?¡±


    J kept quiet and his thoughts were in a whirl. He then replied, ¡°What can I do? I was thinking that if I were to leave, Lord would make me disappear from this world.¡±


    ¡°Are you unsatisfied?¡±


    ¡°No, Lord Saleen will be very sessful in the future. Even if I be a golden grand swordmaster, it would not be embarrassing to follow him. But I don¡¯t know how to gain his trust.¡± J knew that Nailisi was the closest person to Saleen. He could not tell Saleen these things, but he could inform him of them through Nailisi. Thus, he was straightforward and sincere.


    ¡°Saleen likes actions over empty words. If you want to get a deserving position, go and do something.¡± Nailisi continued eating her seafood as she spoke.


    ¡°Like what?¡± J was puzzled. His abilities were inbat, but Saleen had plenty of strong people around him. There was no need for him to interfere in ordinarybat.


    ¡°Do you really want to know?¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡±


    ¡°What benefits do I have?¡± Nailisi changed her expression and J immediately sensed her bing friendly.


    He dared not act dissolute, but replied, ¡°You are the closest person to the Lord. What benefits could I give you?¡±


    ¡°Do one thing for me then.¡± Nailisi felt smug. Her behavior was really useful. No wonder Lex could control the swordsmen in her hands and so many were willing to devote their lives to her.


    ¡°What is it? Tell me.¡±


    ¡°I have not thought of anything yet, but if you promise to help me, I¡¯ll help you out with this.¡± Nailisi wiped her smile off of her face, and J felt tortured but could not do anything.


    ¡°Okay, I promise you.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t reply so quickly. Although I don¡¯t have Master¡¯s capabilities, your fate will be worse than anything you can imagine if you go against your vow.¡±


    J smiled and said, ¡°If you want me to die, I would not refuse.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just used to cheating girls. I hope I will only hear this once. The next time you say that, I¡¯ll make sure you die,¡± Nailisi said, and beckoned at J. J automatically walked towards Nailisi, her emerald green eyes shimmering with gold rays.


    She raised her hand towards J. Despite being afraid, J did not pull away. Nailisi drew lightly on J¡¯s forehead with her finger, then his blood seeped out and formed an eerie rune on his forehead. Then, Nailisi blew a breath of air towards the wound and the blood stopped. J felt dizzy for a second as though he had lost the ability to control his body for a moment.


    J instinctively backed off and Nailisi smiled, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I said one thing, and I would not lie. But if you do not do the one thing, hm¡­ have you seen the three kings?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have.¡±


    ¡°If you were to go against your promise, you will turn into a skeleton like them and no women will like you.¡± Nailisi smiled maliciously and J broke out in a cold sweat. Up until then, he had not known what Nailisi would do to him, but he believed that she was telling the truth.


    Nailisi enjoyed looking at J¡¯s expression. It¡¯s so fun to fool around with the human soul. It¡¯s such a pity that I am not a big demon and I only know limited tricks.


    J was unlucky. If he had known that Nailisi was an imp, he would not have let her finger touch his body. He would not have dared to allow it even if he had been a golden grand swordmaster, let alone lower his defenses to allow Nailisi to draw a demon rune on his soul.


    Promise one thing? Hmph, after one, there¡¯s another one, another ten or hundred or thousand¡­ believing in a demon, this man deserves it.


    ¡°J, it¡¯s useless to ingratiate yourself to me as I am just a maidservant. If you want to achieve Master¡¯s trust, you¡¯d better go for Sika.¡± Nailisi had secured her benefits and decided not to tease J any further.


    ¡°Sika? But she is Lord¡¯s ¡­¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not asking you to go after her. Sika brought three thousand Caucasians to seek refuge from Master. These Caucasians¡¯ fighting skills are suitable for battle but are not ideal for one-on-onebat. Aren¡¯t you a swordcraft teacher? When you return, suggest to Master that you do not want to form an army, but want to work for Sika as a swordcraft teacher.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡±


    ¡°Master is a mage, not a noble. He cares most about the people around him. Even if you had the ability to form an army, it would not be as strong as Viscountess Lex¡¯s. Why are you giving up what you are best at?¡±


    J was suddenly enlightened. He had mistaken Saleen¡¯s niche from the very beginning. He had thought that Saleen wanted to open up a territory to be a king, so he had never thought about what he should do. Saleen is a mage. Of course he will pursue the true meaning of magic. Why would he waste his time otherwise?


    When it came down to it, Saleen only wanted a safe environment for him to practice magic with no worries. Those Caucasians would be Saleen¡¯s most trusted army, and if he were to be on good terms with them, Saleen would of course hold him in high regard.


    ¡°Thank you, Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re wee. But remember, you promised me one thing.¡± Nailisi pushed away the te, and only then did J realize that when he had not been paying attention, Nailisi had finished the te of prawns that was enough to feed ten people.

 Chapter 376: Do Not Believe in Demons (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 376: Do Not Believe in Demons (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nailisi, Master might not be happy with what you have done to J.¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice appeared in Nailisi¡¯s mind.


    Nailisi was surprised. How can winged skeletonmunicate with my soul directly? Even though my soul has evolved into something stronger, the winged skeleton is a grade-7 spirit of the dead. This! This! This!


    ¡°What are you afraid of? We are both Master¡¯s summoned creatures. I have been able tomunicate with you ever since I surmounted grade-6.¡± The winged skeleton was not as respectful and cautious as before. It obviously showed no fear towards Nailisi.


    Nailisi replied angrily, ¡°Mind your own business and drive your ship!¡±


    J saw Nailisi go quiet so he slipped away. Nailisi continuedmunicating with the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Master has his own ns for J. Perhaps you didn¡¯t do anything wrong this time, but when you do something wrong next time, I will tell Master,¡± the winged skeletonughed coldly.


    Nailisi was getting anxious and impatient. An ominous look shot from her eyes when she said, ¡°Would you believe me if I said I would eat your soul?¡±


    ¡°No, my soul is bonded with Master. If Master doesn¡¯t die, I¡¯ll have the chance of being reborn.¡± The winged skeleton added, ¡°Unless you ate Master too. Then, I would die.¡±


    ¡°Do you think I wouldn¡¯t dare?¡±


    ¡°If you dare, go ahead and do so. Master is just upstairs with Sika.¡±


    Nailisi was burning in rage. She picked up the te and bit it. Nailisi chewed up the porcin te that was tougher than metal and swallowed it.


    ¡°Throwing a tantrum won¡¯t help. Anyway, I roughly know everything that you want to do.¡± The voice of winged skeleton could not be silenced.


    Nailisi grit through her teeth, ¡°So what do you want?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good question. I am always in the ship and I cannot leave, so if there¡¯s any opportunities for benefits in the future, count me in.¡±


    ¡°The greatest advantage is the ship. Don¡¯t feel discontented. Master is already nice enough to you.¡±


    ¡°Of course I know that, but Master has a lot of things to do and cannot take care of me everyday. I am a spirit of the dead and Master is an elemental mage. It will be difficult for me to advance again. Relying on this green spirit, I can slowly evolve. But unfortunately, it won¡¯t be much of help for Master.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I am now a grade-7 spirit of the dead. The green spirit can provide me with power, but too slowly. I¡¯ll need at least another three to five hundred years until I can advance to grade-8. As for grade-9, god knows how long it will take me. If I left this ship, I couldn¡¯t even fight against you. So, I hope you can help me.¡±


    ¡°What if I don¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll tell J that he has been tricked.¡±


    Nailisi suddenlyughed and said, ¡°Soldier, that¡¯s not any leverage against me. Anyway, I¡¯ll try not to get on this ship in the future. What can you¡­¡±


    ¡°Even if you don¡¯t get on the ship, Master will get on. This ship is the most powerful weapon that Master has. Don¡¯t you understand Master yet? If he can¡¯t fight someone, running away is the best choice. What other ships would be more suitable than this one for running away?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! I am not asking you what you want me to do. I¡¯ll ask this first. What benefit do I get for doing the things that you want me to do for you?¡± Nailisi was not afraid that the winged skeleton would y tricks on her, as neither her nor the winged skeleton could kill the other. This ship was the winged skeleton¡¯s territory, but Nailisi had nothing to be afraid of. She wouldn¡¯t work for the winged skeleton unconditionally.


    ¡°Benefit? I think the reason you tricked J was to get his power and get him to work for you obediently. You are worried that you will be useless when Master surrounds himself with more powerful individuals. Am I right?¡±


    ¡°Hmph.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, your lineage seems to be great.¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡± Nailiis replied proudly. Although she was just an imp, her bloodline was rare in the demon dimension. When she was fully grown, even supreme demons would have trouble killing her.


    ¡°If I were to give you the coordinates of the demon dimension, could you summon spirits?¡±


    ¡°You! What did you say?¡± Nailisi was shocked, The coordinates of the demon dimension? She had left the Myers Goddess¡¯ Temple for a few years, trailing behind Saleen while constantly looking for rted information. However, she could not even find anything about the coordinates of the demon dimension in Raphael¡¯s magic tower.


    Saleen had obtained a demon suit, but everything rted to the coordinates on the suit had disappeared.


    Nailisi remained silent for a while before she said, ¡°Soldier, Master is an elemental mage but doesn¡¯t really like summoning spells. The two of us may be hisst summoned creatures. Master may be nice to us, but he doesn¡¯t have much of an idea on how to help us increase our power. Let me be frank with you. If there are coordinates for the demon dimension, give me a few years¡¯ time and I would be able to summon demons and these demons would listen to me. Then, I would be able to form a demon army.¡±


    ¡°You told me all this. Aren¡¯t you afraid that I would demand more?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t hide it from you anyway.¡± Nailisi could not be bothered.


    ¡°I think if I were to tell you the coordinates now, you would go back on your words. I have realized that unless I have Master¡¯s contract magic, you won¡¯t be afraid of breaking the contract.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s trick had been discovered, but she did not fret. She said, ¡°What do you want me to do for the coordinates?¡±


    ¡°Do you remember the warship from the Second Dynasty?¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡±


    ¡°I want everything that is left on the ship.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll go and salvage them for you, but why didn¡¯t you go on your own?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not very safe for me to leave this ship now. There¡¯s something that I¡¯m afraid of on that ship. And¡­¡±


    ¡°What else do you want?¡± Nailisi pretended to be angry, but she had no reason to be. It would be worth it even if she needed to work as the winged skeleton¡¯s coolie for ten years. The coordinates of the demon dimension! Her soul was fixed in the dimension of Myers Maind, so she would not be restricted by grade when she summoned, and in truth, she could summon demons of a higher grade than herself. Those demons who were restrained by the rules of the dimension could only be enved by her.


    ¡°I want your dragonshard!¡±


    ¡°No way!¡± Nailisi vehemently refused.


    ¡°Then I won¡¯t give you the coordinates.¡± The winged skeleton looked as though he could not be bothered. He knew how precious the coordinates of the demon dimension were. It might have been troublesome for human mages since there was a huge difference between a demon¡¯s soul and any other creature, but Nailisi was not afraid of such things. With the coordinates, she would obtain powerful strength.


    Tears fell from Nailisi¡¯s eyes as she said, ¡°Soldier, the dragonshard is temporarily with me. Sooner orter, I¡¯ll have to return it to Master. Why don¡¯t I cut some pieces for you?¡±


    ¡°Do you think Master would care about that? I want the core, Nailisi. The one thing that I learned from Master is to never trust a demon. So, stop crying and give me what I want, and I shall give you the coordinates.¡±


    ¡°Damn you, spirit of the dead. If you dare leave this ship, I will tear you into pieces!¡±


    Nailisi did not intend to hide the fact that she had another piece of dragonshard from Saleen, but she felt bitter about giving it to the winged skeleton. She knew that Saleen would not punish her for it, but now that the winged skeleton wanted the dragonshard, Nailisi felt as though there was a knife cutting off her flesh.


    ¡°Nailisi, think about it. If you were to have a hundred demons as servants, Master would depend heavily on you. What can the dragonshard do? If you could deceive a supreme demon, would it be difficult to kill a dragon?¡±


    ¡°Soldier, if you know that I am a demon, don¡¯t try to trick me. Deceiving a supreme demon? Unless¡­¡± Nailisi did not continue. It was not impossible to deceive a supreme demon intoing to this dimension to be a ve, but she had to at leastplete her evolutions and possess the eight terrifying powers first.


    By then, she would be confident enough to kill the dragon herself, and there would be no need to deceive the supreme demon.


    ¡°So, you agree?¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice was echoing in Nailisi¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Of course. It¡¯s just a dragonshard.¡±


    ¡°Then, take out the dragonshard and leave it on the table. I want theplete one.¡±


    Nailisi had wanted to cut the dragonshard as small as possible and only give the winged skeleton the core, but it wanted theplete item and that made her depressed. She took out the enormous dragonshard and left it on the table. The dragonshard rotated on the table and then disappeared.


    ¡°Impressive. In this ship, how strong are you?¡± Nailisi looked towards where the dragonshard had disappeared and was shocked. Without a magic array, magic patterns, or runes, the dragonshard had been transferred into the winged skeleton¡¯s hands.


    ¡°Very strong. With the dragonshard, I can continue to transform this ship so that it won¡¯t be a burden to Master.¡± The winged skeleton smiled proudly.


    ¡°How about the coordinates?¡±


    ¡°Retrieve all the items in the warship of the Second Dynasty first. Then, I will pass you the coordinates.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t go back on your word.¡±


    ¡°Why would I? I need your demon army to work for me.¡±


    ¡°When did I promise you that?¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t, but you will help me. If not, I will disturb you everyday once I advance to grade-9.¡±


    ¡°Bastard!¡± Nailisi was burning in rage. Even if the winged skeleton were to advance to grade-9, he still could not kill Nailisi due to Saleen. However, he had the ability tomunicate with other souls. As he said, he could talk in Nailisi¡¯s mind and she had no way of resisting.


    ¡°Think about the benefits you could get. You are Master¡¯s summoned creature. How could I harm you?¡± The winged skeletonforted Nailisi when it saw her burning in rage.


    ¡°Give me the coordinates!¡±


    ¡°No way, I need the warship of the Second Dynasty!¡±


    ¡°What do you want it for?¡±


    ¡°When you get your coordinates, I will tell you.¡± The winged skeleton kept his lips sealed. Nailisi knew that it would be impossible to get the coordinates then.


    While Nailisi and winged skeleton were fighting, Saleen and Sika had finished with their lovemaking. Sika was lying on Saleen¡¯s chest when she asked, ¡°Why were you looking for me?¡±


    ¡°It was about Irene. I am worried that you will be cheated. And¡­ you are the leader of the Caucasians from now on, and that is a dangerous position. Anyone who wants to control the Caucasians will target you. The arm ring I gave you won¡¯t be enough, so I want to make you another set of special armor.¡±


    ¡°Special armor? Is it so special that you have to talk to me about it?¡±


    ¡°No, I have achieved divinity from the Myers Goddess and the armor is driven by divinity, I¡¯m afraid that you¡­¡±


    Sika smiled and touched Saleen¡¯s face. ¡°Caucasians respect the Myers Goddess. I am not against receiving her divinity.¡±


    ¡°But the Myers Goddess has passed. If you want the divinity to take effect, we have to sign a contract,¡± Saleen said as he raised his left hand to hold Sika¡¯s hand. He continued, ¡°In my left hand, there is power left by the Myers Goddess from the Tree of Life. I am worried that the power might be entric, but our enemy is too strong. The one who stays alive will be in first ce. Are you willing to take the risk?¡±

 Chapter 377: The Armor of the Goddess of Nature (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 377: The Armor of the Goddess of Nature (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°But, Saleen, I possess the power of a priest and I can already help, can¡¯t I?¡± Sika did not understand why Saleen had to make her another set of armor. She had enough room for improvement as a warrior priest. At the very least, she would not fall too far behind before Saleen became a grade-9 sorcerer.


    ¡°You have to dedicate your life for the power of a priest, Sika. I want you to live, not to sacrifice yourself in battle.¡±


    ¡°A priest will increase their life expectancy too. It doesn¡¯t mean anything to sacrifice ourselves a few times.¡± Sika forced a smile. Caucasian priests were decreasing in number, because when they fought in a battle, it was inevitable that they had to sacrifice their vitality. She had not known that Saleen would know that.


    Saleen did not exin things to Sika in detail. The higher grade he became, the more profoundly he understood the soul. Especially when he had obtained ownership over the winged skeleton, a death creature, the information that he had obtained from the winged skeleton made him scared.


    It was not that the soul would not die; otherwise, the death dimension would not have had so many wars. The Caucasians actually believed in a primitive religion, but because there was no god, the priests had to sacrifice themselves to bring power upon their nsmen. In the long run, not only did the priests have shorter lives, but they wouldpletely disappear after their deaths too.


    ording to the sayings of the Caucasians, the priests would be back to the embrace of the earth, but how could Saleen let Sika finish things that way?


    As for god¡¯s left hand, even if it had been a trap left behind by the Myers Goddess, he would have jumped in.


    The Myers Goddess was the god of the current dimension but her spiritual fire had been extinguished. Unless there was assistance from a power stronger than her, only the Myers Goddess would be able to reignite the spiritual fire, but there was not any deity who could do so. On the dimension of the Myers Maind, gods were utterly denied entry. The Myers Goddess could be consideredpletely dead, with no chance of resurrection.


    That was aplicated matter. Saleen did not know what his left hand would bring forth, but at least he could keep Sika alive instead of having her constantly sacrificing herself.


    ¡°It¡¯s up to you.¡± Sika flipped over and faced her back towards Saleen.


    Saleen flipped Sika around and looked her in the eyes. ¡°I know I can¡¯t make you go against Caucasus tradition. Since you are not willing to marry me, you have to ept my present.¡±


    Saleen then took off the Ring of Gifts from his finger and put it on Sika.


    ¡°Wait until you have obtained slight divinity. Then you will be able to use this ring.¡±


    ¡°This ring, you¡¯re willing to give it to me?¡± Sika knew what the Ring of Gifts was. It was something the Myers Goddess had left behind. It was mostly likely a semi-godly item, or even a godly item.


    ¡°Why would I find it hard to? When I first met you, I just wanted to abduct a stupid Caucasian. Sigh, back then¡­¡±


    Sika smiled when she heard Saleen talking about the past. She said, ¡°I thought you were amazing. I did not know that you were being chased after so disastrously. The vige chief told me that a mage is the presence of power. Look at you, when have you ever been powerful?¡±


    ¡°I will be in the future,¡± Saleen replied confidently.


    Saleen¡¯s achievements could be attributed to the luck brought about by the Ring of Gifts. The ring had been won when he gambled with Baron Minghui, and he had not spent a single penny. But the ring had changed Saleen¡¯s fate entirely.


    If not for the Ring of Gifts, it would have been impossible for Saleen to own spatial equipment when he was merely a grade-1 mage. It would have beenimpossible for him to enter the ruins of the Myers Goddess¡¯ temple, and he would not have gotten Nailisi. His harvest after that could not be forgotten either. Without those items, Saleen would not have known Aini, and he would not have known his future direction.


    Saleen had given Sika the Ring of Gifts as a gift, and Sika did not say anything. Even with her character, she nearly cried. Mages never spoke verbally of love or gods, but they would exhibit things through their actions. Saleen gave his most important item to me. At least I didn¡¯t pick the wrong guy.


    With Saleen¡¯s assistance, Sika started learning the holy prose on the Ring of Gifts and signed a contract with Saleen. The contract was actually just a connecting contract, but it was very important. If there had not been absolute trust between the two of them, they would not have signed that contract. The contract meant that Saleen and Sika had both added eternal coordinates to themselves. No matter how far apart they were, they would be able to find each other.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand would be able to provide Sika with the power required to cast spells.


    The borrowing of power was not restricted by distance, but their current grades were not enough for them to disregard the problem of distance. However, at least within the range of a few hundred miles, Saleen did not need to worry about the problem. When he reached the level of a grade-9 sorcerer, as long as Sika did not leave the dimension, the contract would be able to provide them with urate coordinates.


    Of course, the coordinates were dangerous too. If Sika were to be captured and the person who held her captive was a mage that was grade-5 or above, he would be able to find Saleen through the coordinates. It was very dangerous for Saleen because the people from Holy See would find a way to kill him. Once that happened, Saleen would not be able to escape even if he wanted to. The Holy See would only need to send a high priest who was on the level of a deacon and Saleen would be revealed.


    After signing the contract, Saleen then told Sika the problem. ¡°So, don¡¯t stay too far away from me and don¡¯t get captured by our enemies. Otherwise, I¡¯ll be in big trouble.¡±


    ¡°Even if you were to marry Lex, you¡¯d still want me to follow you?¡± Sika asked yfully.


    ¡°I¡¯m not marrying her.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so sure. I won¡¯t marry anyone but I won¡¯t control who you marry. After you marry Lex, you can receive the management rights to a kingdom with a big army.¡±


    ¡°I am a mage,¡± Saleen replied solemnly. Sika was not willing to marry him and that left him helpless. But he understood that tradition and beliefs were equally important to Caucasians.


    ¡°A mage, so what? No one specified that mages had to be single.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯m not going to talk to you about that. Stand up and let me measure your body.¡± Saleen did not want to continue that topic since it made him upset. Lex liked him, but not to the point of marriage. Since everyone knew that marrying Lex meant owning half of the prefecture, Lex¡¯s marriage was not just a personal matter.


    There was no use. No matter how nicely Lex treated Saleen, the upper house and the king would stop anything between them. Lex, of course, could opt to ignore them, but that would make her lose the kingdom¡¯s support entirely.


    Lex might not have cared, but what about the people around her? There were thousands of people following Lex and she had to consider them too.


    There was nothing certain between Lex and Saleen. Sika bringing it up only upset Saleen further.


    Sika stood up and her athletic body glowed gently under the magic light. Saleen had no time to appreciate the sight but started scanning her with his mental strength to note down her measurements for the armor.


    When the Myers Goddess was still alive, although the temple did not have many high priests, there were many temple warriors. ording to the standards of the Holy See, the Goddess of Nature¡¯s temple was too backwards and had no control over its believers. The Myers Goddess¡¯ code did not restrain her believers. The high priests did not spread religious teachings, but mostly treated human diseases and shared knowledge.


    The temple warriors held a special status. They were fanatic believers of the goddess. They admired the goddess, received the goddess¡¯ blessings, and owned the armor given by the Goddess of Nature.


    The armor was passed down but the attributes on the armor had disappeared after the goddess passed. So, it could only be disyed in a collection since the practical value had diminished.


    However, Saleen had the leaf from the Tree of Life which contained divinity left behind by the goddess, and that could be used to activate the goddess¡¯ divinity. With the assistance of the divinity, the armor would regain vitality and be more outstanding than any other magic armor.


    The armor of the goddess was not only strong because of its defenses, but it also contained a self-mending ability. The speed of its self-mending was impressive. The armor itself was nearly indestructible, and it also healed the warrior.


    Saleen did not have any ready-made armor, but he had blueprints. The blueprints had not been worth anything but now came in handy.


    Saleen took out the tiago¡¯s veins and started making a bra for Sika. As the armor of the goddess was not a fully enclosed suit of metal armor, besides the bra, there would only be some leather armor and bone armor which were affected by divinity. Then, it would be aplete set of nature armor.


    Saleen made Sika¡¯s bra using the demon suit as a model. The contractions of dragon veins were simr to the performance of the demon suit in that they would not affectbat if worn. The firmness of the dragon veins would be able to resist arrows better than dragon skin. A suitable dragon vein could only be obtained from an adult dragon. That was why there was no soft leather armor that was made of dragon vein on the maind. Even if there was, it would be difficult to find someone suitable to make it.


    Water me alchemy was not amon skill. It was considered the esoteric lore of the mages on Sregl Ind.


    Every detail of Sika¡¯s body was flowing in Saleen¡¯s mind. His demon suit had actually been remade so that it suited his body. With his experience, Saleen did not waste too much time making Sika¡¯s bra. The blue water mes were burning as tall as a human, with Saleen throwing in materials that could only be found on specific types of dragon. Magic runes were flowing rapidly in the water mes. Saleen did not add a divinity spell but added in some magic for Sika.


    The Chunlin spell, a level-4 water magic in the healing category.


    Adding this magic reduced the magic chords that Saleen had nearly recovered. If Saleen had not controlled the three kings, he would not have dared to use them so extravagantly. Luckily, the Chunlin spell was a level-4 spell so Saleen would only need three months¡¯ time to fully recover his magic chords.


    After three months, Saleen would return to the city base just in time. On the ship, Saleen did not think that he would face any major danger.


    Then, Saleen started making the soft leather section. This section required moreplicated materials. The most crucial part was the belt. Saleen took six dimension stones and threw them into the water mes.

 Chapter 378: The Armor of the Goddess of Nature (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 378: The Armor of the Goddess of Nature (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The dimension stones could not be found in the current dimension anymore. Besides Saleen¡¯s teacher, Jason, Saleen had never heard of anyone who had them. It seemed that his teacher was a really wealthy person who was hardly seen!


    Saleen threw six dimension stones at once into the belt that he was making with the water mes. Any mage¡¯s heart would have bled if they were to see that. Saleen did not care. If he did not throw in the dimension stones, the belt would have no potential for growth. He was only a grade-5 mage. Even if the water me alchemy was amazing, it could not create any equipment that was too strong. However, bnce could be found through the materials.


    Nailisi had devoted her life to saving him a few times because of the soul bond, but Sika had no need to do so. Of course, Saleen would not be so stingy as to refrain from using any materials for Sika.


    There were a total of forty dimension stones. He had given Nailisi one and Sika six, so he was left with thirty-three. He wanted to save thirty-six dimension stones so that he could make equipment that could evolve into a godly item once he became a sorcerer but he need to take care of Sika first.


    Saleen threw various precious materials into the mes as a smile grew on his face. With this Goddess of Nature armor, it will be difficult for anyone to harm Sika.


    What was the strongest characteristic of the armor? It was not the healing ability, but the attributes of the Myers Goddess. The goddess was a god born in the current dimension, so the armor would have corresponding resilience towards any attacks from this dimension. Most importantly, the divinity on the armor would predict danger. The armor could provide its owner with the abilities needed for any battle in the current dimension.


    If it had just been a simple piece of defensive equipment, why would Saleen have been willing to throw in six dimension stones?


    There was chaos within the space of the dimension stones. Saleen smelt them entirely with water mes. The armor of the goddess had the ability to absorb attacks, being normally iid with high-grade materials as the carrier. The tougher the iid material, the tougher the armor would be. The dimension stone was, of course, tough enough as it contained the attributes of space, and the endurance also increased tremendously.


    As long as it was not a physical attack, regardless of whether it was magic or divinity, the six dimension stones could absorb ten percent of the power. The six pieces of unremarkable stones formed a line on the belt, just like the stars.


    Saleen saw that the equipment he made possessed spirituality and was thrilled when he had mastered water me alchemy. If he was not willing to put in effort, he would need to wait until he became a sorcerer before he could perfect the spell.


    Saleen saw that the belt gradually formed its shape ording to his mind and the water mes in his hands grew uncontrobly intense. He knew that it was a rare chance so he called for Sika.


    Sika felt it too so she jumped off of the bed and took out the precious metals that she was carrying with her in a leather pouch. Saleen smiled and threw the metals collected from various dimensions by goddess¡¯ fanatic believers into the water mes.


    His skills might not have been as good as Faerun¡¯s in the past, but the smelting power of the water mes were far more powerful than a magic me.


    A set of goddess armor that was even more perfect than its original n was beginning to take shape. The soft leather was covered with dragon bones, forming beautiful scales. In the water mes, the shape of armor kept changing and finally became a set of full body armor that was rarely seen.


    The maroon metal helmet could fully cover the face but there was a gap on the forehead, so Saleen threw in another six dimension stones without hesitation. One dimension stone melted onto the gap on the forehead while the other five melted onto the four limbs of the armor and a floral pattern appeared on the chest.


    That was the symbol of the Goddess of Nature. The pattern covered the chest of the armor and formed two exquisite bumps. The left arm of the armor was shorter but the right arm of the armor was thicker, just like a solid metal shield with a high relief of the six magic beasts that had been enved by the Myers Goddess.


    The six magic beasts were said to have been created by the Goddess of Nature and had gone extinct long ago, but the relief was so lifelike that it seemed as though they were going to soar out from the armpiece.


    The goddess armor originally only had a breastte and vambrace, but this set of armor was almost full bodied. The back, chest, and abdomen were fully covered with metal sheets. The sharp metal sheets had been refined by Saleen with the water mes, bing soft but tough.


    There was suddenly a skirt below the belt and it was looked just like the leaves of some nts. They fluttered even without wind, floating in the water mes and gleaming dark green. The color of the entire set of armor turned from that of sheet metal into a dark green.


    Furthermore, below the armor were a pair of dragon head boots that looked just like the tiago. The originally empty left arm gained another long metal glove that could cover most of Sika¡¯s arm. It would likely only reveal her upper arm, right where Sika wore her arm ring.


    Saleenined of the suffering in his heart. His magic chords were quickly running low, and the power of life in his left hand was passing swiftly into the armor too.


    He did not know that the armor of the Goddess of Nature was not easily made. In order to get the armor back then, one needed to be a high-grade high priest of the goddess to have to courage to get it to work. Those high priests were at least at the level of grade-9 sorcerers.


    If Saleen¡¯s left hand had not absorbed power from the Tree of Life, he would have been emptied and turned into a skeleton then.


    The armor of the Goddess of Nature was no secret. There were many blueprints left behind. But if it was that easy to make, why wouldn¡¯t the descendants try to make it?


    There was no other reason. It was not like one could not make the armor due to the passing of the goddess. As long as one put in the power of life, even without an incantation of divinity, it would still be the strongest armor in the current dimension. The question was, which mage would be willing to do so?


    Sacrificing a few hundred years of their life in exchange for some armor for a swordsman? Even a mage who had lost their mind would not do that.


    Saleen did not hesitate. He took out the special magic nuclei that he had retrieved from the hell of god¡¯s punishment and threw them into the water mes. The magic nuclei fused into a magic array, embedding themselves on the armor, and the magic rune started growing on the armor and the absorption of the power of life slowed down.


    Saleen saw his left hand drying up. Just likest time, it turned into skin and bone and resembled the hand of a spirit of the dead. Luckily, the spiritual armor only absorbed things to that extent and had stopped absorbing power from Saleen, only floating in the water mes quietly.


    No wonder my teacher warned me not to use the water mes to make any powerful equipment. If he had been a grade-7 sorcerer, he could have stopped making the armor at anytime. Luckily, the armor was not a weapon. Otherwise, he would have been sucked dry and would not have been able to fulfill the requirements of the set of armor.


    Sika saw the change in Saleen¡¯s hand and yelped. Saleen retrieved the water mes slowly and felt that he had lost more than half of his magic chords. Losing so much of his magic chords, he might not be able to recover them in three months¡¯ time.


    Saleen forced a smile and told Sika, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. This armor was beyond my expectations. Try it on.¡±


    Putting out thest bit of water mes, the temperature of the armor had risen. Without the support of the water mes, it fell onto the floor.


    ¡°Your hand!¡±


    ¡°Half a year, or maybe a year. Don¡¯t be scared. Didn¡¯t we go through this before?¡±


    Saleen knew that it was because he added dimension stones into the armor. That was why the armor had absorbed so much of the power of life. However, there was a benefit. In the future, when the divinity on the armor was stimted, it would not need to borrow divinity directly from his left hand.


    This set of Goddess of Nature armor was fused with twelve dimension stones, and all these stones were filled with the power of life. The armor itself had be a container that could provide Sika with everything she needed for divinity.


    The loss outweighed the gain though. If he had known that this would be the oue, he would have waited. He would have waited until the mages from Sregl Ind had arrived so that he would not be afraid of decreasing hisbat abilities. Sika had increased her fighting ability because of this, but his own fighting power had dropped to less than half of what it was. He might not even be able to use the crystal finger.


    Fortunately, his magic chords were double those of mages on the same level. Otherwise, it would be a serious problem.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika knew that Saleen¡¯s injuries could be recovered, but she still felt heartache. She held Saleen¡¯s shrivelled left hand and blew lightly on it.


    ¡°I said I¡¯m okay. Put on the armor, quickly.¡±


    Sika nodded. Even if Saleen had not urged her, she had to put on some clothes. He had spent more than three days making the set of armor. She had fallen asleep by his side a few times since she was trapped on the other side of the bed and could not get her clothes so she could not leave.


    Normal armor required assistance from other soldiers to put on, but magic armor did not have the same problem. Saleen helped Sika put on her armor and Sika chanted the holy prose that Saleen taught her. The armor vibrated subtly and finally tightly hugged her body.


    Ka! Ka! Ka¡­


    The joints of the armor moved rtive to one another naturally, coordinating with Sika¡¯s body. The materials thrown into the armor had been above five hundred kilograms in total, but wearing it felt like it was only a few kilograms. The twelve pieces of dimension stones shared most of the power. Even external attacks would be shared with the dimension stones.


    Even though the material for the armor was not the most powerful, the defenses were not any weaker than that of glorious godly armor by the Holy See.


    Saleen saw Sika getting approval by the armor after putting it on and felt at ease. It was great to have money. If he had not had dimension stones, it would have been impossible to make the armor.


    Theplete set on Sika led to an indescribable power within her body. The power derived from the armor, but it was united with Sika¡¯s body. This magic equipment was called holy equipment, or a semi-godly item. Saleen knew that he was not capable of making semi-godly equipment since he even had problems making holy equipment.


    But in this world, there were many things that could be bought with money. Jason¡¯s wealth had allowed Saleen to steal a bargain. The material of the armor was highly sophisticated and it had potential for growth due to the addition of the dimension stones. It was just a matter of time until it became a semi-godly item.


    For Sika, it was all worthwhile.

 Chapter 379: The Skeleton of A Dragon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 379: The Skeleton of A Dragon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master?¡± Saleen finally exited Sika¡¯s room and Nailisi who was guarding at the door called him. She saw Saleen wearing a glove on his left hand. She was angry, she did not know what master did for Sika that spent so much power of life.


    Saleen felt Nailisi¡¯s dejection. He patted her head and said, ¡°Nailisi, where are we now?¡±


    ¡°We haven¡¯t entered the Oceanic Ice Block yet. Soldier is very careful, constantly drawing the map.¡± Nailisi then saw Sika walking out from her room with her full suit on, she instinctively stepped back.


    Sika made her feel a kind of danger, a power that could ruin her life. What was going on?


    ¡°Where¡¯s Banchajanna?


    ¡°He went out to hunt for red phosphorous prawn twice, the result was good. We are getting closer to the strong magic beasts¡¯ hunting territory, Banchajanna dared not offend.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good, I was worried that he would get himself into trouble. Let¡¯s go, Nailisi, I¡¯m hungry.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I¡¯ll go get J.¡± Nailisi felt the danger of Sika and she did not want to provoke the Caucasus woman. As Sika¡¯s character was more straightforward, no matter what trick that she yed on Sika it would get exposed. That would only lead to one oue; Sika waving her cudgel to smash her into meatloaf.


    It was okay if Saleen was next to her, as he would naturally stop Sika. If Saleen was not there, Sika would not care who she was. Nailisi smiled at Sika to show good will. That was the first time she realized that there were humans that demon could not deal with.


    Sika¡¯s temperament did not necessarily mean that she would be easily cheated. Everyone who wanted to y a trick on her had to consider the oue, which was Sika¡¯s fighting ability and her thinking method. Sika did not only have a cudgel anymore, she had a few thousand Caucasus warriors following her. If anyone pissed her off, they should be ready to be killed by the Caucasus people.


    The way Caucasus people treated their high priests was simple. If you were to harm their priest, they would trade their life for yours. Once a Caucasus believed in something, one would never be able to change their mind with other interest. That would be the most troublesome matter.


    In Nailisi¡¯s eyes, there were a few thousand passionate warriors behind Sika and there was no way to shake their belief.


    ¡°Forget it. No matter how strong you are, you slept with master anyway. Nailisi was thinking in her heart and that made her feel better.¡±


    Sika grinned at Nailisi and said softly, ¡°This armor can feel bad intention of others. Although you are Saleen¡¯s maidservant, don¡¯t have any bad thoughts about me. I know you but my cudgel doesn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°I know, Sis Sika, I am born that way. Please excuse me.¡± Nailisi almost never admitted defeat and Sika was surprised.


    The few of them came to the first floor. It was morning and the mages just got up. They were helping the winged skeleton to control the ship while it patiently added more map coordinates on the magicpass.


    The Oceanic Ice Block was really dangerous, there were many grade-8 magic beasts on its outer border. If it was not for the special attributes of the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat that made the magic beasts ignore them, those grade-8 magic beasts would make the ship sank then and there.


    The magic beasts were distributed regrly ording to the distribution of their prey. When the winged skeleton was drawing the map, it noted down the area with more dangerous nests. The ocean was only two thousand meters deep and some magic beasts could submerge to the bottom of the sea and damage the ship. Banchajanna did not attack, but only hunted some red phosphorous prawn at two spacious hunting grounds.


    He needed Saleen to make decisions on what magic beasts to hunt and it if failed, they had to think of way to escape.


    Even though Irene had the sailing route back then, the powerful magic beasts around were too fierce so she had to avoid them carefully at all times. She would leave after she got some benefit. If not for the Oceanic Ice Block being richly endowed, Irene would have been rich overnight, why would she be bothered by loss of a ship.


    J was ordered by Nailisi to go to the kitchen. He followed Nailisi¡¯s instructions without questioning and he did not cast eyes over other¡¯s property anymore. She belonged to Saleen. There was no use thinking about her.


    Saleen and the winged skeleton connected to enquire about the harvest of the past few days.


    The winged skeleton knew more than Nailisi. Saleen heard and he was satisfied that Banchajanna had quite a good harvest although he only went out a few times.


    The number of red phosphorous prawn was simr with thest hunt, but the quality heighten quite a bit. The closer they get to Oceanic Ice Block, the better the quality of the prawn. To a sorcerer, the prawn did not have much use. To a mage, the grade-4 magic nucleus in the prawn could be used for practice. For Saleen¡¯s army, the shell could be made into equipment. It was definitely the best choice.


    Those stronger magic beasts might be able to provide better materials, but even Banchajanna had no confidence that he would win against them. If the Three Kings were there, it would be possible, but there was only Banchajanna alone and he had the ship as a drag. Facing magic beasts above grade-8, he had to hold back.


    Besides the red phosphorous prawn, Banchajanna caught some magic beasts between grade-4 and grade-6. These underwater magic beasts¡¯ fighting power was decen,t but their magic nuclei were real. Most of the underwater magic beasts also had shells and it would be best to use them to make magic armor.


    The biggest problem about magic armor was its capital. Besides the cost of making it, there was the cost of repairing it.


    Even if a magic wolf reached grade-6, the bones that were able to be made into armor were not much. Toplete a set of magic armor, one needed to at least hunt for four magic wolves. Afterpleting the armor, if the armor were to be damaged, it would required material from a magic wolf to repair it.


    There then was one problem; it might be easier if it was a magic wolf, but some magic beasts were too little. Once the armor was damaged, it would be difficult to retrieve material to repair the armor.


    The advantage of the underwater magic beast was that the amount of them in a school was huge. For grade-4 magic beast like red phosphorous prawn, there were at least tens of thousands of them in every school. The amount in their actual breeding ce, was said to be over billions.


    Although the prawn were in grade-4, they could only stay alive with their humongous number. The Oceanic Ice Block was filled with magic beasts that could eat them. If there were not a huge number of them, the prawn would have been extinct long ago.


    Due to the humongous number, Saleen could use the material to make a big batch of magic armors and would notck of material he needed to repair them. These armors might be lower quality, but it was really important to Saleen. That was why he was not rushing to hunt for powerful magic beasts.


    The mages in Sregl Inds were not poor, but it was impractical for them to provide huge number of materials. The army that Saleen and Lex wanted to form was not small, most of the material on Sregl Ind were middle or high level. It would be a huge waste to make armor even for Elite Soldiers.


    To be blunt, using Saleen as an example, the material left on him was definitely not suitable to make equipment for the soldiers. The materials would not be wasted if it was to make equipment for the four magic beasts swordsmen that were under his control.


    Come to think about it, how did it feel if a gemstone worth ten of thousands were to be iid on the armor of the junior swordsman?


    The selling price for the magic nucleus of a red phosphorus prawn would be inconsistent. The better quality ones could be sold for six to seven hundred gold coins. The worse ones might only be sold for a hundred gold coins. These magic nuclei were suitable to be mounted on a junior swordsman¡¯s armor. When the warriors got promoted to swordsmaster level, they deserved magic nuclei that were more expensive in their equipment.


    ¡°Soldier, how long do you need toplete the map of the border of the Oceanic Ice Block?¡±


    ¡°Master, maybe another thirty to fifty years.¡±


    ¡°What? So long?!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not long. The Oceanic Ice Block is tens of thousands of miles. We had to be careful at the border, avoiding the trouble and the speed can¡¯t be faster than twenty miles.¡±


    Saleen thought and said, ¡°It¡¯s my bad. Then, I wouldn¡¯t considerpleting the map as of now. Using the sea route we have as central, search the left and right for one month and we should head back.¡±


    ¡°Head back? Master, are we not entering Oceanic Ice Block?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s too dangerous.¡± Saleen curled up his dried left hand and thought, ¡°My fighting power is decreasing linearly. Relying on Banchajanna alone, it wouldn¡¯t be sufficient to go against the high level magic beasts there. Sika¡¯s fighting power is not bad, but I can¡¯t let her take the risk. It is different from before now. To me, Sika is not longer just a warrior that ensures my safety.¡±


    Saleen did not know that his decision had saved everyone¡¯s life. Irene had never entered Oceanic Ice Block in that season before. In that season, there was a powerful magic beast in the Oceanic Ice Block awaking. The magic beast was far more terrifying than the single-horned white whale. Even if Three Kings were all there, they would only face failure.


    The winged skeleton did not say much as Saleen told it what to do and it would listen to his orders. It did not agree with Saleen to take the risk from the beginning, it believed that it was good enough to be able to steal some bargains on the border. The ship was slowly moving at the bottom of the sea, with no magic beasts asking for trouble. Sending Banchajanna for a hunt when they found a spacious hunting ground would be more stable than rushing into Oceanic Ice Block.


    The reason why Saleen changed his mind was simple; he used thirteen pieces of dimension stones and there were twenty seven left. It was sufficient to carry all the prey, but it was not necessary to go into inds in Oceanic Ice Block anymore. Irene said that there were open-air mineral veins on those inds, but that had to wait until spring the following year.


    By then, he could send some low level mages with a warship carrying a few hundred low level war puppets, as mining was a small matter. ¡°You can¡¯t be too greedy. Being able to defend the sea route so that the others can¡¯t find it is important. It is just a matter of time until all the things be mine.¡±


    Saleen wasmunicating with the winged skeleton when Banchajanna suddenly came in from outside the ship looking devastated. There was a deep crack on his white skull, it was obviously a new wound.


    ¡°What is going on?¡± Saleen cringed, he knew Banchajanna¡¯s character. The bastard was always doing things that were beyond his control.


    ¡°I¡­¡± Banchajanna did not know he would be in an unfavorable situation. Although his ability decreased as he turned into a skeleton, he did not expect a dead item with no soul would be able to cause such damage to him.

 Chapter 380: The Skeleton of A Dragon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 380: The Skeleton of A Dragon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°There is a dragon skeleton outside,¡± Banchajanna knew that he could not hide so he spat out the truth.


    ¡°Dragon skeleton?¡± Saleen knew that a dragon exoskeleton was the shedded skin of a dragon. The sea depth was more than two thousand meters, which was two miles. The pressure was strong and the sea water was strongly corrosive. A dragon skeleton that was in the sea for more than a hundred years would be fragile. This was not the dragon dimension and if it did not have anywhere to go before it died, its dragonshard would be eaten by powerful magic beasts.


    Magic beasts that swallow a dragonshard would normally die of explosion of their bodies, but a minority of them would mutate. Regardless of the circumstances, if the dragon skeleton before his eyes was more than ten years old, the quality would have dropped to the standard of a normal magic beast. If it was more than fifty years old, there was no need to retrieve it. If it was more than a hundred years old, even the dragon horns would have corroded.


    It was not weird to see a dragon¡¯s skeleton in a ce that was filled with grade-8 or grade-9 magic beasts. After the dragon was captured by human beings to be released on the Myers Maind dimension back then, it was not restricted. The Dragon could fly well and live in any tough environment. ces like the Oceanic Ice Block were not dangerous to a dragon, but were rich with plentiful food.


    After the dragon died, if it did not have a special hidden ce, its skeleton would turn into other magic beasts¡¯ snacks. That was the Myers Maind, the dragon was at the top of the food chain, but it lost its dignity after it died.


    The one before their eyes was weird, Saleen took a thorough look. The crack on Banchajanna¡¯s forehead was not serious, but taking in consideration of the fact that Banchajanna¡¯s skull was harder than magic nucleus, that one attack was tough. If it was the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, it might be a one foot deep crack.


    ¡°Is it that the spirit of the dragon has yet to dissipate?¡± Saleen asked casually. Banchajanna shook his head. If the spirit of the dragon had yet to dissipate, he would be extremely careful. He, as a spirit of the death, was extremely sensitive towards spirits and especially the strong ones.


    ¡°Soldier, do not go close. Send the bone spirits to look into it.¡± Saleen said carefully. There were not any magic beasts around the area and the bottom of the sea was filled with sand rocks, so there was not even a nt with weak magic. That kind of situation was simr to the surrounding of the lightning dragon¡¯s nest, all kinds of life needed to stay away.


    The bone spirits were death creatures that could be grown from the death pool everyday, their level would not be too high. Any high level spirit pool would not be able to breed any stronger bone spirits. The bone spirits had all the characteristics of a death creature. They were the best to send for probing.


    A few bone spirits that were like lizards went out from the head of the ship and went forward along the sand and rocks on the seabed. Saleen did not ask the winged skeleton to use the eyes of the dead because it would cause energy ripples if it were to extend its examination distance and that would reveal the ship.


    The image transferred by the bone spirits was monotonous, but it could roughly put together the target that Saleen wanted. The skeleton of the dragon wasplete, which was rare in the Oceanic Ice Block. There were lives all over the sea, from a normal magic beast that had no level to magic beasts up to grade-9. A lot of magic beasts that specifically ate dead bodies to survive; flesh, blood, and also the bones.


    The skeleton of the dragon was hard,mon magic beasts would not be able to eat it, but there were some small creature that were not able to be seen with the naked eye but had magic. They would slowly dpose the skeleton of the dragon and turn it into nutrients required by these small creatures. Any tough skeletons that went through long periods of corrosion and dposition would turn soft.


    Finding a set of magic beast¡¯s skeleton onnd, even after decades, one would gain a small fortune. In the sea, if it was not a fresh skeleton, it had basically no value.


    The set of skeleton before his eyes was not. The bone spirit was too small and it required images transferred from more than twenty bone spirits to piece together the entirety of the dragon¡¯s skeleton. The skeleton of the dragon was about two hundred meters long, most likely tens of thousands of years old. The horns on its head were extremely sharp. What was weird was, there were not any branches on the horns and they looked like two bended spears. The eyes of the dragon was missing from the eye sockets. The legend said that if a dragon lived more than five thousand years, the dragon eyes would be a treasures, they would be indestructible like a dragonshard.


    Below the skeleton, there were three pairs of thick and strong thigh bones. At the ending of thigh bones, the dragon w sunk into the sand rocks, not showing the number of toes. A pure blooded dragon was like a human, it had five toes. Saleen was convinced, even if it was a tiago dragon, it was not considered as pure blood lineage as it was found by human beings at the south sea. It was severely injured, so it would not be considered the strongest dragon. The skeleton of the dragon had another six legs!


    That bloodline could only be found in the dragon dimension and dragons that were captured in the dragon dimension and brought to the Myers Maind. All dragons with four legs after the second generation. This dragon skeleton was unexpectedly left behind by the first generation dragon.


    No wonder Banchajanna was convinced too. If there was only one bone that was not damaged, it could be used to make an extremely good equipment. Even a tiago dragon was not its match. The only pity was that the dragon skeleton would not stay long underwater as there were many shell parasites on the dragon bones. Even if it was not damaged, the spirit within the dragon skeleton would be gone, leaving the tough material that the small creatures could not dpose behind.


    If the dragon spirituality was within, it could be easily made into a semi godly item.


    Just when he was thinking, there were two thread of ck light like swordlight that stroked into the bodies of two bone spirits from inside the dragon¡¯s skull. The two bone spirits twitched and turned into a cloud of mist and dispersed along the wave.


    ¡°Sword spirit!¡± Saleen waspletely blown away. Banchajanna¡¯s wound, was actually caused by the sword spirit hidden among the dragon skeleton. The sword spirit was something cultivated by a Golden Grand Swordmaster. The sword spirit among the skeleton should be owned by an ancient dragon knights. No doubt that the dragon knight reached the limit of one¡¯s power as the sword spirit cultivated was still guarding the dead body of the dragon after tens of thousands of years.


    Banchajanna could live solely because he was a death creature. Banchajanna¡¯s scepter also bonded his spirit and at the same time protected his spirit. With one attack by the sword spirit, even if there was not any crack on Banchajanna¡¯s skull, his soul me would died out.


    To bring a sword spirit under control was troublesome and Saleen could not use it nor sell it. If he were to sell it to a Golden Grand Swordmaster, and to be absorbed by one, the Golden Grand Swordmaster would be a vital threat to mages. Even a grade-9 mage would not be able to take one attack by the sword spirit.


    To make it straight, the thing was like a seal of divine power. Even if Saleen went through all the trouble to get his hands on it, he could only keep it as he absolutely would not be able to use it. With the guard of the sword spirit, the skeleton of the dragon definitely had no damage. Saleen was extremely delighted as he had always envied the big ship at Devil¡¯s Horn that was made entirely from magic beasts¡¯ bones and could fly above water.


    The spirituality of the dragon skeleton had fully dispersed, but the toughness of it was rarely seen. To make a same ship, that would be much tougher. If he was lucky, its dragonshard should still be intact.


    After some thinking, Saleen decided to have the winged skeleton retrieve the remaining bone spirits and discussed how to deal with the sword spirit.


    If he were to take action himself, he was quite confident. The owner of the sword spirit had died, no matter how strong a dragon knight was, he would not have a mage¡¯s lifespan. The sword spirit was sharp, but no one was manipting it. It could be brought under control with a dimension stone.


    The problem was the speed of sword spirit was too fast. The one who was going to bring forth the sword spirit might be killed . Saleen was not willing to take the risk himself, he was not willing to send Sika or Nailisi out either. Only Banchajanna could move around in deep sea. As for the winged skeleton, Saleen needed him to drive the ship.


    ¡°Banchajanna, that¡¯s a sword spirit. Do you dare to try to retrieve it again?¡±


    Banchajanna found information rted to sword spirit in his memory and he felt helpless. ¡°No wonder I couldn¡¯t feel the sign of spirit wave. The sword spirit is not a real life so there wasn¡¯t any character of a spirit and the speed of its attack was faster than magic.¡± That was his disadvantage. If he knew that sword spirit was hiding there, he had dimension stones in his hand then and he could have kept it in the dimension stone ording to his experience.


    Banchajanna had a lingering fear from the attack earlier. He wanted to refuse Saleen¡¯s order, but he was afraid that Saleen would be angry so he was dithering.


    ¡°Banchajanna, I am looking forward for you to guard the city for me, why would I send you to die?¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± Banchajanna pointed at the crack on the top of his skull, his very first time pleading in front of Saleen. He was bonded by Saleen and he could not return to the death dimension. The crack was difficult enough to mend. If he were to go and catch the sword spirit, it was inevitable that he would be attacked multiple times. When he was injured all over, his ability would decrease tremendously. Relying on the green spirit given to him by Saleen would not help him recover his body. To let the crack disappear, he would need to sleep in the green spirit for three to five hundred years.


    There was no spirituality in the skeleton of the dragon. Even if Saleen was generous enough to give him a bone, he could not use it to mend his body.


    ¡°Hurry up, if you bring the sword spirit under control, I will give you a spiritual dragon bone to mend all your cracks!¡± Saleen was not polite then, he was pressing Banchajanna. He did have tiago dragon¡¯s bones. They might not be as tough as the ones before his eyes, but they could be used to mend the body of a spirit of the dead. It was a great deal for Banchajanna.


    ¡°Is it true?¡± Banchajanna was at loss as to what to do. ¡°That bastard, Saleen! He doesn¡¯t even blink when he lies.¡± How would he and his brothers be at where they were otherwise?


    Saleen had no alternatives. He took out a piece of dragon bone from the demonic ring and passed it to Banchajanna. Banchajanna held it in his hands and felt the power of life within the dragon bone. ¡°This dragon died not long ago! Saleen can kill a dragon?¡± Banchajanna was surprised by Saleen again. The tiago dragon and his level was simr, but that was ording to the calction in death dimension. In the current dimension, he definitely could not kill a tiago dragon.


    ¡°The evil human being must have used a treacherous method.¡± Banchajanna kept hisment to himself and left the ship dutifully. As he could mend his body and his spirit was difficult to be disappeared entirely, Banchajanna felt more confident. Even so, he mended his original form in the water. His six arms were holding onto the one dimension stone that was given to him by Saleen and he was ready to bring forth the sword spirit.


    Saleen looked nervous, he did not have much confidence. If Banchajanna was killed, he had no other way to deal with the sword spirit. In the deep sea that was two thousand meters deep, this was an area where most human beings were unable to move around.

 Chapter 381: A brawl between magic beasts (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 381: A brawl between magic beasts (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The alchemical boat was still more than two miles from the remains of the dragon. From afar, the bone spirits surveilled the dragon¡¯s remains. Banchajanna crawled cautiously on the waterbed in a way totally unbing of a spirit king. Banchajanna behaved more like a low grade magic beast who was afraid of startling the powerful creatures in its vicinity.


    Saleen knew how to torture Banchajanna as Banchajanna was helpless against his threats and temptations.


    There were skeletal dragons in the death dimension too. The body of a skeletal dragon would always be inferior aspared to the bones of a dragon which still contained vitality. Even if a skeletal dragon was in front of him, Banchajanna would not be allured. He currently had no choice but to risk his life for a few bones.


    Saleen also felt that the process was prodigal. The tiago dragon might have many bones, but only a few of them contained vitality. Things like vitality disappeared gradually the moment a dragon passed away. Lex would not be in such a hurry to soak the armor in the dragon¡¯s blood the previous time otherwise. Premium pieces of armor were ubiquitous in the national treasury of the Holy Rock City. If the dragon¡¯s blood was not utilized, it would be ineffective in the future.


    It was insignificant storing the dragon¡¯s bones in the Ring of Gifts, as the ring would absorb the vitality from the dragon¡¯s bones to stabilize its interior space. It was only after acquiring the Dimension Stone that Saleen managed to preserve the remaining bones.


    Those circumstances could not be helped. Back when Saleen first obtained the dragon¡¯s bones, he still had not grasped the Water me Alchemy. Also, Lex¡¯s alchemy could not unleash the greatest effect of those dragon¡¯s bones. Lex¡¯s ability at that point in time was also one of the factors why the armor and weapons crafted for Nailisi and Sika got damaged during the battle.


    Had Lex been a sorcerer, none of that would have happened.


    Banchajanna approached the remains of the dragon stealthily. In front of these massive remains, his body seemed minuscule. His six arms did not wield any weapons. Each arm was clutching onto a piece of the Dimension Stone as he prayed in his heart. ¡°Please do not let this sword spirit be too aggressive!¡±


    As Banchajanna drew closer and closer to the head of the dragon¡¯s skeleton, a ck thread shot out from the eye orbitals once again. This time around, Banchajanna kept his cool, he simply extended his six arms to form the structure of a magic array. That ck thread prated the center of the structure and could not go any farther. Banchajanna brought his six hands together at the same time, it caused the ck thread to be trapped and go haywire. The Soul me in Banchajanna¡¯s orbitals flickered violently, almost gushing out.


    At this moment, J and the rest had gathered at the front cabin, spectating Banchajanna¡¯s actions.


    ¡°Truly a king!¡± J did not know what Banchajanna was up against, but Banchajanna¡¯s extremely precise actions left him in awe. If J was the one doing it, he could only do so much. At such a depth, J could only hold out for at most ten minutes before he needed to escape back to the alchemical boat. His Sword Aura would be dispersed and he would be crushed into mash by the water pressure otherwise.


    Banchajanna possessed massive soul strength, hence he could control six Dimension Stones at the same time. This caused the sword spirit to crash into the six stones in a chaotic manner, but it could not escape. Luck was needed to store the sword spirit into a Dimension Stone. A sword spirit was not a dead being, its movements needed to be slowed down first before this difficult action could be aplished.


    All of a sudden, the dragon¡¯s orbitals lit up. A glowing fish, the size of a fist, swam out. This fish charged towards Banchajanna, it seemed like it wanted to rescue the sword spirit.


    Banchajanna swiped his colossal tail, causing the thorns on his tail to pierce this glowing fish. Saleen was on tenterhooks, but then he heaved a sigh of relief. With Banchajanna¡¯s attack, a huge hole appeared in the fish¡¯s body.


    Glowing blood spurted out from the fish¡¯s body, forming a clot of vibrant color in the gloomy ocean.


    ¡°Oh no!¡± Saleen shrieked. Irene also eximed at the same time.


    ¡°Nailisi, go and help Banchajanna. Within three minutes,e back and we will leave!¡± Saleen issued an order without any hesitation, as he stuffed a Dimension Stone into Nailisi¡¯s hand.


    This fish was a magic beast whose forte was psychological attack. It had a nice-sounding name, an aromatic snow. This magic beast lived in frigid waters and loved hiding in obscure spots, using its mental strength to hunt prey. Its blood was extremely delicious, and to any magic beast, it was very seductive.


    To make things worse, this magic beast lived in groups. Following Banchajanna¡¯s attack, this region of the ocean would be filled with the aromatic snow¡¯s blood. Before long, many magic beasts would gather at this location.


    Nailisi received the Dimension Stone. Without saying anything, she left the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat via the teleportation portal. As straight as a ramrod, Nailisi charged towards the remains of the dragon. The Soul me in Banchajanna¡¯s orbitals flickered even more vigorously now. Not only did he need to capture the sword spirit, he also needed to deal with the aromatic snow¡¯s mental assault.


    Dozens of aromatic snow swam out of the dragon¡¯s orbitals. All these invisible attacks caused Banchajanna to be deeply troubled. The sword spirit did not show any signs of slowing down, there was no way of storing it into the Dimension Stone at all.


    Nailisi ignored Banchajanna. Clutching the Dimension Stone in hand, she went directly beside the skeleton of the dragon, pressing the Dimension Stone onto its skull. The space in the Dimension Stone was tremendous, unrivalled by any other normal spatial equipment. The skeleton left behind by this dragon was way too huge. Suddenly, the Dimension Stone in Nailisi¡¯s hand produced a distorted illusion. Nailisi pressed onto her forehead as she felt the mental attack produced by the remains of the dragon.


    A giant whirlpool was formed. Tolerating the intense pain, Nailisi managed to absorb the skeleton of the dragon and the nearby seawater into the Dimension Stone.


    With a thunderous boom, a region of seawater was absorbed, and the consequent vacuum formed attracted a rush of the surrounding seawater. Nailisi and Banchajanna could no longer maintain their bnce. All that sand on the seabed got ruffled due to the vigorous wave, causing widespread chaos.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± J yelled. Saleen¡¯s expression became glum as he felt that Nailisi had gotten injured.


    ¡°Soldier, go and get them!¡±


    By this time, the winged skeleton had already activated the alchemical boat, and the five mages were also standing inside the magic array stimting the power in the magic nuclei. Within a span of three seconds, the alchemical boat was already traveling at more than forty miles an hour, and its speed was still increasing.


    With such exaggerated movements, it was impossible for Saleen to conceal himself anymore. He needed to rescue Nailisi as soon as possible. Of course, Banchajanna needed to be saved too. No matter how abominable this fellow was, he was in possession of six Dimension Stones.


    Sticking to the seabed, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat traveled speedily. Many magic beasts who had been living in the sea for many years could not even achieve such a speed. Once the alchemical boat entered into the midst of the muddy sand, Saleen crawled out from the teleportation portal. Even though the Water Shield had epassed Saleen¡¯s body, the massive water pressure still made him feel like his heart was going to explode anytime.


    As he could detect Nailisi¡¯s soul, he quickly rushed to the seabed, grabbing onto Nailisi¡¯s hand. As for Banchajanna, the sword spirit managed to break free and was now shing at his body furiously. In a sh, dozens of slits had appeared across Banchajanna¡¯s body.


    Nailisi¡¯s body twitched, and she woke up. If Nailisi was not a demon and she had fainted in an environment like this, the seawater would have entered through her nose and caused her lungs to burst. This would have happened even if she had the ability to withstand the water pressure.


    In water, Nailisi¡¯s breathing had stopped long ago. She was using her skin to extract oxygen from the seawater. When Saleen grabbed her hand, she used another hand to grab onto Saleen, stuffing the Dimension Stone into Saleen¡¯s Demonic Ring. Nailisi and Saleen could share equipment, it was an effect from the soul contract. Nailisi lost all strength after executing that action. Dragged by Saleen, they reached the underside of the alchemical boat and then disappeared in the shine from the teleportation portal.


    Dozens of corpses of the aromatic snow fish floated in the muddy waters, giving off a powerful glow. Even though Banchajanna did not know what the aromatic snow was, he knew that there was trouble when he saw Saleen risk his own life by entering the water. Being rich inbat experience, Banchajanna immediately abandoned the sword spirit, allowing the sword spirit to attack him freely. Banchajanna fled like a ghost, then he entered the alchemical boat through the roof.


    Unexpectedly, that ck thread-like sword spirit stabbed into his tail, following him into the alchemical boat.


    This time around, it seemed like Banchajanna was a changed person. He took out a giant ax, and chopped his own tail off forcefully. Banchajanna sliced off a segment of his tail which measured about half a meter in length. His other hand holding the Dimension Stone had already absorbed the tail together with the sword spirit.


    Since the space within the Dimension Stone was stable, the sword spirit could struggle for all it wanted. Had a normal spatial equipment been used for this absorption, it might have already been crumbled by the sword spirit.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Saleen urged the winged skeleton. The five low grade mages also stimted the magic array with all their might. At the same time, they mosaicked thirty grade-7 magic nuclei into the reserve magic array.


    This was Saleen¡¯s lifeline for escaping. With the grade-7 magic nuclei, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemy boat could even travel all the way south to Alchemy City at a speed of more than seventy miles an hour.


    An enormous ck shadow appeared on the magicpass, it was not a red marking. Irene still shrieked, ¡°Go back, go back! Go north!¡±


    Obviously, Irene did not want to face this magic beast which had appeared on the southern side. Besides this magic beast, every other direction in the south was lit with red markings. These red markings represented danger, and they were all converging there.


    Suddenly, the rumbling of the engine in the alchemical boat grew loud, and Saleen knew that he had acted rashly. The skeleton of this dragon did not pose much danger, but the aromatic snow which lived in it were the nightmare of many magic beasts. Now that the aromatic snow had been killed, mightier magic beasts would be attracted to this ce. These magic beasts would even try to ughter one another. Saleen did not want this alchemical boat to sink there.


    From both sides of the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, water flows were ejected, forming a powerful propulsion force. At the same time, the alchemical boat floated upwards, and its speed got even faster.


    Saleen carried Nailisi back to his own cabin. After some hesitation, Banchajanna decided to follow him.


    Irene¡¯s face was pale as she stood in front of the magicpass, helping the winged skeleton to man the rudder. Situated in front of the winged skeleton was the Spirit Pool. Pieces of the green spirit were mosaicked around the Spirit Pool, which stored many more bone spirits. The winged skeleton observed the danger in the surroundings nervously. The moment any trouble surfaced, he would release the bone spirits to attack and massacre.


    The winged skeleton was not very confident. The bone spirits were designed to deal with warships. It was not known whether they were effective against magic beasts or not.


    Banchajanna followed Saleen to the cabin. Saleen ced Nailisi on the table, and upon inspection using his mental strength, he realized that Nailisi did not sustain any serious injury. That violent wave had caused Nailisi to receive a strong impact, making her head dizzy. After casting a few Chunlin Spells, Nailisi opened her eyes.


    ¡°Master, it¡¯s so painful!¡± Nailisi gripped Saleen¡¯s hand tightly, unwilling to let go. When the wave of seawater crashed down fiercely, Nailisi thought that she was going to die. In that split second, she was petrified. It felt as though she was on the demonic ne, getting struck by a devil.

 Chapter 382: A brawl between magic beasts (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 382: A brawl between magic beasts (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen smiled, it was good that Nailisi was unharmed. As for the pain? A few Chunlin Spells would do the trick, Nailisi was simply acting like a spoiled child.


    Banchajanna¡¯s frame was stuck just outside the door. If he did not transform into a skeleton, it was impossible for him to enter Saleen¡¯s room.


    ¡°Mage Saleen¡­¡± Banchajanna handed over the six Dimension Stones, and Saleen noticed that his body was covered with injuries.


    ¡°That will do. I will not forget my promise to you, but I need your strength right now. Don¡¯t rest just yet.¡± Saleen felt that it was inappropriate of himself to say that. Even though Banchajanna still had the ability to attack, his body was filled with the slits caused by the sword spirit. He looked very pitiful. Given sufficient time, Banchajanna would be able to heal himself. At this moment, there seemed to be no solution which provided quick results.


    Saleen was a mage. His treatment spells were all based on water magic, he also had a holy spell called the Gift of Life. The problem was that if these abilities were used on a normal human, any life-threatening injuries could be treated. If they were to be used on Banchajanna, it would kill him. Banchajanna was a spirit, and if the Chunlin Spell was cast upon him, it would be akin to throwing him into a pot of boiling oil. If Banchajanna consumed the magic liquid, he would be severely injured.


    ¡°Master, you still have a set of premium magic beast bones. Give it to Banchajanna,¡± Nailisi reminded Saleen. At that point in time, Saleen then recalled killing a colossal magic beast back in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. Even though this magic beast was not of a high grade. Its bones were abnormally tough, its skull also contained a mystical magic array. The magic nucleus from that magic beast had already been refined into Sika¡¯s armor. Actually, the remaining bones were taken by Lex, but she gave it to Saleen just before she left.


    The spirituality of this skeleton was unbreakable. Its hollow skull also contained some magic runes, it was really magical. Saleen wanted to keep it for research purposes, but since Banchajanna was pelted with injuries at the moment, it could be given to him to repair his body.


    ¡°Okay, I shall give it to him.¡± Saleen nodded. Nailisi pointed to the rear, then she got up from the table. Banchajanna followed Nailisi to the rear cabin obediently. Since the rear cabin was spacious enough, Banchajanna would be able to repair his body peacefully.


    Saleen activated the magic array on the surface of the table, then he took a seat and observed the situation unfolding before him. J and Sika had also rushed back, but Aini and Irene remained in the front cabin.


    Aini was a death mage. If necessary, he could help the winged skeleton control the assault mounted by the bone spirits. The magicpass belonged to Irene. She could help the five mages control the alchemical boat, and dodge any attacks from the enemy.


    After Saleen¡¯s Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat left, a gigantic cavity appeared at the original location of the dragon¡¯s remains. At the bottom of this cavity was a massive egg. After the dragon¡¯s remains were taken away by Nailisi forcefully, this egg could no longer conceal its intense smell of life. Even magic beasts who were hundreds of miles away could clearly smell it.


    Various magic beasts swarmed towards their location, wanting to devour this vitality-filled egg. Based on instincts, these magic beasts knew that as long as they swallowed this egg, they could undergo evolution immediately.


    A colossal squid filled with golden streaks across its body was the first to arrive. Using its tentacles, it dug out the egg from the bottom of the hole. Even before it could swallow the egg, hundreds of tiny silver-scaled sharks pounced onto it, chewing at its tentacles wildly.


    The squid with golden streaks was enraged. Its tentacles swiped about in a crazy fashion, effortlessly slicing the one-meter long bodies of the silver-scaled sharks into shreds. The tentacles of the squid were like soft swords which were brimming with the Sword Aura. The scales of the silver-scaled sharks, which were tougher than steel, could not even withstand the squid¡¯s assault.


    A single-horned white whale swam above this region of the seabed. It had just filled its stomach, but as there was a seductive smell, it could not helping over to take a look. The white whale was bewildered when it noticed the appearance of the short-tailed sea lion, who would usually steer clear of it. The short-tailed sea lion flitted past the white whale, swooping downwards.


    More and more magic beasts gathered within a radius of a few miles. An insane massacre began.


    In the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, Saleen felt a sudden jerk, but he did not know which hidden magic beast had crashed into it. The alchemical boat was less than thirty meters, it was considered to be a little dot in these waters. This bump caused the alchemical boat to flip over and fly through the water at the same time.


    The magic beast which crashed into the alchemical boat did not give chase, it simply gave up attacking the alchemical boat. Then it sped off in the direction which Saleen hade from. Other than the winged skeleton, the rest of the people on the ship were tossed in mid-air following the flipping of the ship.


    Aini waved his hands, casting the gray colored Spirit Imprisonment, thus entrapping the five mages inside the magic array so that they could continue controlling the ship. On the other hand, Aini himself floated, as a bunch of bloody spirits stood behind him and supported his body in mid-air.


    Irene was flung out, she hit the roof and fell back onto the ground. Fortunately, her reflexes were pretty quick. Immediately afternding, she wielded her cuss and stabbed it into the flooring, stabilizing herself in position. Her head was bleeding.


    When the alchemical boat turned over, Saleen had already cast the Water Shield for Sika and himself, enveloping their bodies. Under the protection of the Water Shield, they would not get hurt no matter how the alchemical boat flipped.


    J remained extremely calm. When the first impact came, he was sent flying in the air. Using only one hand, he pressed it against the wall and stuck himself to the wall. Thereafter, during the rest of the flips, he never moved an inch.


    ¡°Is everyone okay?¡± Saleen¡¯s voice spread throughout the entire ship. Even though the alchemical boat had stabilized, the red markings which represented danger did not decrease in number. Those red markings simply grazed past the alchemical boat, none of the magic beasts dared to linger around it.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, but Irene is a little hurt.¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice sounded. He could monitor all information about the ship, so no matter what happened onboard, nothing could be concealed from him.


    ¡°Aini, bring Irene over.¡± Saleen did not go the front cabin. The table on the first story of his cabin was actually an operating tform, it could provide treatment for injured soldiers. The people of Cloudflow were well-versed in invasive surgery, so as to make up for the deficiency of holy masters. There were too few mages, and magic medicine was too expensive. A bunch of normal herbs and surgery would be the best method to aid a soldier.


    Irene held onto her head as she arrived at Saleen¡¯s cabin. Saleenid her down on the table, and noticed that there was an injury which exposed part of her skull. Saleen utilized the Chunlin Spell to stop the bleeding. Then he took out the magic medicine which he had already prepared and applied onto Irene.


    At this point in time, Irene¡¯s obstinate appearance crumbled as she broke out in tears. In the past whenever she went out to sea, she would be the captain. In the event of any danger, everyone would ensure her well being first. On this ship, Aini gave priority to the five low grade mages over her.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a small wound. Don¡¯t worry, it won¡¯t leave any scars,¡± Saleen consoled.


    Irene was not a small girl anymore. She tolerated the sorrow and wiped off the tears using her sleeve, as she tried to sit up.


    ¡°Wait.¡± Sika pressed onto Irene, and took out a handful of herbs from her leather pouch, before continuing, ¡°Saleen doesn¡¯t know anything. It is such arge wound, even the bone is exposed. It would be weird not to leave any scars.¡±


    Irene panicked. All along, she thought of herself as having outstanding looks. At the moment, the wound was tingling. She could faintly feel that it extended from the forehead to the eyebrows. If any scars were left behind, her looks would be ruined.


    ¡°Rx, I am around. I have been injured countless of times since I was young, but do I have any scars?¡± Sika went near Irene, allowing Irene to inspect her face.


    Irene shook her head. Sikaughed, then said, ¡°Only the people of Caucasus have these herbs. Lay still.¡± Speaking, Sika stuffed arge handful of herbs into her mouth and began chewing. Saleen salivated when he saw Sika¡¯s cheeks bulging, then he wiped the saliva away hurriedly. Very soon, the herbs were chewed into pulp. Sika spat it out and applied it directly onto Irene¡¯s head.


    Irene felt disgusted when she saw that, but she did not dare reject Sika¡¯s kindness. She was really afraid of having any scars. Sika took out a handkerchief and nced at it, then mumbled, ¡°Luckily, it¡¯s only a day.¡±


    Thereafter, Sika wrapped this slightly ckish handkerchief around Irene¡¯s head, securing it in ce tightly.


    At the same time, Irene¡¯s pale face became flushed with blood. Since youth, she had never used such a dirty handkerchief before. Now that this handkerchief was tied around her head, it was as though there was a snake lying on her head. Irene felt extremely ufortable.


    Saleen turned around, holding back hisughter. ¡°Who said that Sika did not hold any grudges?¡± This Caucasus¡¯ method of applying medicine was only employed when one did not have any avable resources in the wilderness. If in the vige, the Caucasus people would use a crock to stew the herbs until it liquefied before applying the medicine. Sika was disgusting Irene intentionally.


    ¡°Irene, where else are you hurt?¡± Sika pulled out another handful of herbs as she asked.


    ¡°No more.¡± Irene turned over and sat up. She did not want to receive treatment from Sika anymore. ¡°This Caucasus woman probably doesn¡¯t even shower right? How can Saleen possibly tolerate her?¡±


    Irene was still in the dark. Sika¡¯s handkerchief was not even used for cleaning her face, she used it to clean her boomerang. For the past few days, the boomerang was used to slice red krill, so there was blood on it. A red krill¡¯s blood would turn pure ck after coagting, that¡¯s why the handkerchief appeared filthy.


    In the corner, J said pitifully, ¡°Sika, my finger seems to be bruised.¡±


    Sika took a glimpse at J¡¯s clean and slender finger, then said, ¡°It seems to be infected. Amputate it, otherwise your life might be in danger.¡±


    J retracted his finger immediately and became speechless.


    Saleen smiled, but did not say anything. He turned around and asked Aini, ¡°What happened just now?¡± Saleen was in the center cabin, and even though he could observe the magic images depicting the surroundings of the alchemical boat, he could not view the magicpass.


    Calmly, Aini said, ¡°It seems like the magic beasts around us have gone insane. We are not their target, but they are going against the direction of our departure.¡±


    Saleen and Aini nced at each other, as a thought surfaced in their minds, ¡°Had a treasure appeared there?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, forget it. Even if there is a treasure, we don¡¯t have the ability either.¡± Aini blocked out that notion from his mind. Earlier on, dozens of magic beasts grazed past the alchemical boat, and every one of them were at least at grade-8.


    ¡°Soldier, is the hull damaged?¡± Seeing that the people onboard were fine, Saleen then inquired about the extent of damage to the ship.


    ¡°Master, there isn¡¯t much damage. Those magic beasts were not nning on attacking us, we simply bumped into them.¡± The winged skeleton inspected the external shell of the hull, discovering a scratch which was as deep as the length of a finger. Even if it was not repaired, the ship¡¯s operations would not be affected. The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was crafted entirely out of the turtle shell, with the thickest area having a width of more than two meters. With such a sturdy hull, coupled with a natural skeletal frame, there would not be any real damage even if the ship rammed into a reef or an iceberg.


    The impact which happened earlier was solely due to the ship not avoiding danger due to a rush for time. That was why it was sent flying. There was neither magic nor skill involved in it.

 Chapter 383: Rock Dragon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 383: Rock Dragon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Noticing that Saleen did not respond, Aini got anxious. Then he said, ¡°Saleen, we don¡¯t have to take this risk, this route wouldn¡¯t be revealed to any outsiders for the time being. You can control this route for at least five years, you don¡¯t have to spend so much effort securing it.¡±


    ¡°I know. Aini, if those magic beasts have gone insane, there must be something extraordinary though. Let¡¯s wait at a different location first, and we will return once those magic beasts revert to their normal selves. It will be good even if we only get to collect some bone fragments.¡±


    Aini sighed, ¡°There¡¯s no need to do this. This will be your territory for the time being, outsiders will not be able to interfere. There are materials all over this ce which will cause others to go green with envy, there¡¯s no need to take any more risks.¡± Aini was sparing a thought for Saleen. J and Sika could not move in deep waters, and if anything went wrong, those two people would be in grave danger after all.


    Saleen simply smiled in response, then said to Irene, ¡°Go and rest for a few hours. We will dock at an ind up ahead.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Irene nodded in agreement. Earlier on, she was physically exhausted. Now that Saleen allowed her to rest, it was a dreame true. Irene wanted to rush back to her room and remove that filthy handkerchief.


    Making sure that Irene had left, Saleen then said to Aini, ¡°Aini, I think that Irene will not be able to detach herself from the Williams family given her current capabilities. If she cannot aplish it eventually¡­¡±


    Aini¡¯s eyes shed with a decisive gaze, and he simply nodded. Aini and Irene were not good friends, he had too few friends among the four families. Thinking of this, Aini replied, ¡°If Irene cannot make it, I will help you search for another suitable candidate.¡±


    Aini was very clear about what Saleen required. Saleen wanted an example, an example who made it rich in their city. Only with such a temptation would infinite investments flow into his city.


    In order to operate a city, the amount of money needed was by no means small. Even a small town would require hundreds of thousands of gold coins. The ie tax received annually only amounted to a few thousand gold coins. Unless Saleen built a city like Alchemy City, he might as well not recruit anyone. He should just remain in the Frozen Sea to hunt.


    Saleen¡¯s ambition did not just stop there. He wanted to expand the city to form a central zone in the north, so that many people woulde forth to develop and make a living. Once this vision was achieved, the city would contain quality soldiers, thus attracting various experts. By then, even if the Holy See¡¯s army attacked, Saleen would be able to defend himself.


    Saleen¡¯s city would be like Alchemy City. Besides housing a huge number of mages, various families across the Qin Empire also had investments inside the city. The moment war broke out, these families would render assistance, helping Alchemy City to resist the enemy.


    Building atop this foundation, Alchemy City also developed its own farnd. That way it was a self-sufficient in food supply. Alchemy City was analogous to an independent kingdom already. With this foundation, Alchemy City then proceeded to develop its maritime territory, controlling thousands of miles of water. Even the indomitable Cloudflow navy rarely disturbed the peace.


    Clearly, Saleen¡¯s goal was to establish a nuclear city which was not inferior to Alchemy City. In that case, absorbing funds would be a bread-and-butter affair. Alchemy City also used various scarce resources as a bait in order to obtain astronomical capital from the ubiquitous tycoons across the maind.


    Saleen was jubnt when he learned that Aini could introduce a better candidate to him. Saleen did not really prefer working with a person such as Irene. Even though she had ambitions, Saleen and she were two different characters.


    ¡°Is the person you are rmending also from one of the four big families?¡±


    ¡°Yes, from the Rnde family. She might not be a direct descendant, but her father is very influential. Her father has done much business in Lon.¡±


    ¡°Her?¡± In Qinnguage, there was a huge difference in the pronunciation of ¡°her¡± and ¡°him.¡±


    ¡°Rx, she won¡¯t be a haggard olddy,¡± Aini joked. Saleen was not very astonished, women in Qin had a considerable standing in society. In Cloudflow, women were simply regarded as a tool for childbearing. In Tanggsi, women were not even considered to be a tool. Of course, the only country with absolute gender equality was Sikeqinya. Women in Sikeqinya still led a hard life. They had to work just like the men, they even had to grow crops and hunt.


    ¡°The Rnde family seems to be in the agriculture and livestock business right?¡±


    ¡°They are also involved in weapons and mining. They are small as they are oppressed by the other three families.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. I am just about to open up a wastnd, I will need their talents.¡± Immediately, Saleen had thought of a location for the Rnde family. Saleen would provide the castle and soldiers, while the Rnde family could supply the quality farmers and businessmen who ran food businesses. Saleen¡¯s soldiers would be responsible for protecting them, chasing away the magic beasts and bandits, and paving the way for the rest of the activities.


    Even though thend in the north could only be utilized for one season, the soil was extremely fertile. The Rnde family could still make a profit. Saleen did not want a cut of the profits, he just wanted the Rnde family to sell the food back to him and supply the army with rations. Since Saleen was going to build six camps, the meals for sixty-thousand people were a pressing issue. He might have the confidence to establish a fleet, but purchasing food was a very troublesome affair. Various farmers were controlled by the nobles, and if one wanted to procure food, he would have to fork out arge sum of money.


    ¡°Aini, you know me best.¡± Saleen patted Aini¡¯s shoulder, but Aini simply smiled coldly.


    ¡°Humph, there¡¯s something wrong with Irene¡¯s brain, she will never aplish great things. I believe the people around you have realized it¡­ the previous time.¡± Aini was referring to the incident whereby Irene tried to instigate Saleen to kill the Pale Earth.


    Saleen nodded, then Aini said, ¡°She is a person without a bottom-line. For a selfish agenda, she is willing to anger the people around you. That is very unwise of her. She is poles apart from her mother.¡±


    Saleen replied innocently, ¡°I didn¡¯t want to do anything with her, after all¡­¡±


    ¡°I know, but if you tried something, she wouldn¡¯t be angry.¡±


    Saleen blushed at the same time. He was never deft in the affairs of the heart. If Sika did not take the initiative, he would not have known any of this. Now that he understood, he would not go and mess around with Irene. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, trust was of utmost importance. He merely shared a working rtionship with Irene. Without that contract, there would not even be any trust to begin with.


    There were less and less magic beasts surrounding the alchemical boat. Almost all of the creatures nearby had been attracted by that anomaly on the seabed. The winged skeleton piloted the alchemical boat to a small ind, then the ship was docked.


    ¡°Master, should we advance farther north? I have discovered volcanic activity underground. In at most five-hundred miles north, there will be a volcano. Perhaps there are other magic beasts there suitable for capture?¡± the winged skeleton suggested to Saleen.


    ¡°This location is good.¡± In his heart, Saleen knew that the winged skeleton was reluctant to allow him to return. Even though it was dangerous up north, it was still safer than a brawl which involved hundreds of magic beasts.


    ¡°Saleen, shall we go up and take a look?¡± J was very eager. Onboard this ship, he was useless. Even those five low grade mages were more useful, at least they could help steer the ship. J might possess powerful offensive abilities, but he could not help Saleen at all.


    ¡°It seems that Banchajanna hasn¡¯t recovered,¡± Aini reminded Saleen. Even though Aini was brave, he did not want to take unnecessary risks. Since this ind wasrger, magic beasts might be present. Without thepany of Banchajanna, the offensive power of Saleen¡¯s team was greatly hampered.


    After pondering for a while, Saleen said, ¡°It¡¯s fine, thosend magic beasts can¡¯t run faster than me. If we are losing, we will simply flee.¡±


    Aini did not bother persuading further as he felt that it was very stuffy being underwater. The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat had an intricate design. During a battle, the magic array would not expel the exhaled gas, such an action would release many air bubbles which would attract unwanted trouble.


    Since the ship was not huge, the air would feel kind of polluted after being underwater for a long duration. Even though the magic array was producing fresh air continuously, people still felt very ufortable. The best solution was to allow the ship to float up to the surface to exchange gases.


    Originally, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was at a depth of a few dozen meters, suctioned onto an undersea cliff. After the winged skeleton received the order from Saleen, he floated the ship to the surface. Then, he steered the ship along the ind, in search of a location for going ashore.


    ¡°Master is going up?¡± Nailisi ran from the rear cabin.


    ¡°Where is Banchajanna?¡±


    ¡°Attaching his tail,¡± Nailisi replied with a giggle. ¡°Finally it¡¯s time to go up.¡± Nailisi abhorred being underwater, even though she was safest among the rest underwater.


    ¡°How are your injuries?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, the muscle was pulled, but the bone wasn¡¯t broken,¡± Nailisi answered.


    J stuck out his tongue. In the face of such a powerful wave, Nailisi only pulled her muscle. ¡°Her identity might be extraordinary, I must serve thisdy properly¡±.


    Saleen had peace of mind upon hearing that. He then instructed the winged skeleton to be ready to receive him anytime. Thereafter, he led the people out of the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat through the teleportation portal. The alchemical boat began the process of gaseous exchange. The magic array also started operating, repairing the damage to the machine.


    The five people stood atop the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat inhaling the fresh air, feeling refreshed in that instant. The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat docked at the northern face of this ind. The ind was not snowcapped. Since the beach was filled with gravel, it portrayed a grayish appearance. The center of the ind was raised, but it could not be considered a mountain yet. What made Saleen and the rest astounded was the presence of sparse vegetation.


    ¡°Strange, doesn¡¯t this ce get frozen?¡±


    ¡°There might be volcanoes.¡± Saleen furrowed his brows. For things like a volcano, one would not be able to withstand the impact from an eruption no matter how strong they were. Even a grade-9 mage would be burned into ash if he got sshed with magma.


    Saleen took a sniff, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, there are no volcanoes here. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Speaking, Saleen already cast the Quickcloud Spell, gliding towards the beach with Sika and Nailisi. Aini summoned his flesh spirits, and got transported ashore. J judged the distance between the alchemical boat and the shore, and then he leaped, covering over ten meters with this leap. Just as his feet came into contact with the water, a huge ripple appeared on the surface of the sea, spreading outwards. By then, J had already transformed into a gray shadow and charged onto the shore.


    ¡°J, not bad at all. If you can advance to a golden grand swordmaster, I will give you the sword spirit.¡± Seeing that J¡¯s actions were swift and clean, Saleen immediately made a wish.


    ¡°Really?¡± J was exhrated, he was really tempted when he saw the sword spirit. He knew that the sword spirit was a natural adversary to the mages though. Now that Saleen made such a promise, J had a favorable impression of him. Even though this condition was slightly insurmountable, J knew that if he was diligent, it was not entirely impossible for him to be a golden grand swordmaster.

 Chapter 384: Rock Dragon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 384: Rock Dragon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s true.¡± Saleen nced at J. ¡°Even though this ck Metal Grand Swordmaster possessed the lethality of a Silver Grand Swordmaster, he has to ascend systematically if he wants to be a Golden Grand Swordmaster. There are no shortcuts.¡±


    The difficulty of advancing to a Golden Grand Swordmaster was more than that of advancing to a grade-9 sorcerer. Compared to the people learning magic, there were hundreds or even thousands more learning swordsmanship on the maind. There were many more grade-9 sorcerers than Golden Grand Swordmasters.


    ¡°Once you be a Golden Grand Swordmaster, I would have already been a grade-9 sorcerer for a long time.¡± Saleen secretly thought, ¡°When I give you the sword spirit by then, it will not pose much of a threat to me anymore.¡± Furthermore, after such a long time, J might have abandoned the thought of leaving Saleen.


    J stood behind Saleen jubntly, very hopeful of his future. He was clear about how Saleen treated his subordinates. ¡°Besides training, this young mage will help his subordinates refine weapons and seek welfare.¡± Even though most orthodox mages would do that, Saleen very enthusiastic. After being deeply affected by those unfeeling mages back in the pce, J had already subconsciously acknowledged Saleen, and acknowledged his own identity as a follower.


    ¡°Aini, do me a favor.¡± Saleen walked forward slowly. Even though Saleen¡¯s perception had a one-mile range, this ind was too big, causing Saleen to feel helpless in his reconnaissance of this ind.


    Aini sighed in his heart. He did not have a backing like Saleen, it was too difficult for him to recruit sufficiently powerful followers. Aini favored a pugilist like J, but he could not bring himself to poach from Saleen¡¯s team. Saleen was a dear friend whom he met in poverty. When a fragile friendship was propagated, it would seem more precious than ever.


    The power of a death mage¡¯s perception was slightly stronger than that of an elemental mage. Aini had two ferocious death creatures. Only he could rece Saleen in the investigation of this ind.


    Aini allowed the flesh spirit to soar into the sky to conduct reconnaissance over a long distance. The five of them then walked across the beach and sat down at a piece of nd.


    Before long, the flesh spirit reported the rough situation of the ind. Aini then drew a map on the sandy ground.


    ¡°This ind has a length of eleven miles and a width of six miles. The southern area is taller while the northern area is lower. There is no discovery of any magic beasts¡¯irs, so it is safe¡­. Wha?!¡± Aini suddenly shrieked in rm.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    Aini¡¯s face turned scarlet, then said, ¡°Some magic beasts are discovered.¡±


    ¡°How many of them?¡±


    ¡°Around twenty of them,¡± Aini replied. That was why his face turned red with embarrassment. Twenty magic beasts was no small number to miss, and Aini still imed that there were noirs present.


    ¡°Prepare for battle, or we can escape,¡± Saleen said in one sentence, causing everyone else to burst out inughter. What Saleen said might be veryical, but it was true. Before these twenty magic beasts got discovered by the flesh spirit, they were definitely adept at concealing themselves. Usually, magic beasts who were good at hiding would prefer executing sneak attacks, and they would not be very powerful. This ind was located too near the Frozen Sea, it would be tough for a weak magic beast to survive.


    Sika immediately took out her weapon, that massive cudgel, from the Ring of Gifts. Nailisi had spotted the Ring of Gifts on Sika¡¯s finger a long time ago, and felt very sore. She still wielded her dagger and stood in front of Saleen together with Sika.


    The breeze on the ind was not strong, but it was frosty. J took a few steps forward, going past Sika and Nailisi. Aini then decided to summon his Floral Death Creature.


    At this moment, the Floral Death Creature was giving off a clear and faint glow. It had a height of more than fifteen meters, as though it was going to evolve already. The leaves on the crown were much denser now. The sagging branches twisted about freely, enveloping Saleen and the rest within. The sagging tree branches had formed a death region. Other than the people Aini wanted to protect, any other creatures would not be able to gain entry or exit.


    The Deprivation of Life was not a very powerful death spell, but the duration of sustained damage was protracted. All enemies in the area which was controlled by this Floral Death Creature would receive damage over time.


    ¡°All of you, don¡¯t take any action first, allow me to try,¡± Aini said cautiously. He knew that his offensive ability was inferior to the four of them, but it was more reliable this way. Everyone had a way to escape, if Aini failed, Saleen could use his elemental magic to obstruct the pursuit by the magic beasts. At the same time, Aini wanted to evaluate the progress of his death magic.


    ¡°Okay, be careful.¡± Saleen knew that since more than half of his magic chords were gone, his offensive ability would pale inparison to that of Aini¡¯s. It would be best to let a death mage make the first move.


    The flesh spirit hadnded on the ground. Under Aini¡¯s control, it provoked the twenty magic beasts, causing them to sprint towards the beach.


    A barrage of thunderous footsteps filled the air, and the ground began trembling as well.


    ¡°Damn, they are huge!¡± Aini immediately altered hisbat n. He began chanting a mantra, and he kept making magic gestures with his hands. In just half a minute, more than forty bone devils had appeared in front of these five people.


    A bone devil was a spirit who was of a much higher grade than a skeleton soldier. Some of them were like giant goris, with fangs which were more than a foot long. They had a stature which was more imposing than that of a bear.


    Saleen had forgotten that he wanted to be a spectator as he took out the silver magic book and got ready to strike anytime. Now that Saleen was wealthier than before, he actually got stingier. He rarely used a disposable item such a scroll anymore. The silver magic book could be used repeatedly, hence boosting the sustainability of a mage on the battlefield.


    Boom! Boom! Boom!


    As the ground vibrated, more than twenty lizards were pursuing the flesh spirit, as they charged towards the beach. Saleen and Aini actually felt more at ease when they saw these four-meter long magic beasts. They recognized these things.


    They were rock dragons, a grade-5 magic beast. Even though they were rarely seen, they did not possess a high offensive power. This magic beast could transform into a rock, it had an inborn spell called the Fossilization Spell. Against creatures who were at grade-4 and below, a rock dragon would have sufficient lethality. Against simr grade creatures, rock dragons would usually prefer to secure victory by outnumbering their enemy. Against higher grade creatures, a rock dragon would utilize its shapeshifting ability to conceal itself.


    Basically, these magic beasts who were rumored to contain the bloodline of dragons were simply creatures who bullied the weak and feared the strong.


    Saleen and Aini nced at each other. These two young mages possessed substantial knowledge. At the same time, they noticed a gleam of ecstasy in each other¡¯s eyes.


    A rock dragon¡¯s defense was astounding, but it did not contain much magic resistance. This was not the reason why they were happy. A rock dragon was fond of swallowing gravel, in order to absorb the weak metallic elements found inside. To uncover a huge poption of rock dragons, one would have to go to a location which had metallic mineral veins.


    This ind could just be a natural opencast mine. A mine which spanned dozens of square miles might be a little tiny. If it was opencast, it would be worthy of being extracted no matter how far the maind was. A rock dragon did not adore punching holes. Being able to devour opencast metals was the reason for their convergence.


    This ind should be a mountain which swelled from the seabed, exposing itself above the water surface. Other than thend portion, the water was considered to be gentle. The area avable for extraction would berger. Underwater extraction required the use of magic puppets, which were not cheap. If the metals were precious, then they were still worthwhile for extraction.


    Under Aini¡¯s control, those bone devils which blocked everyone¡¯s path charged at the rock dragons. The tiny eyes of a rock dragon were gray in color, with a tinge of bloodshot they looking extremely hideous. Their difference from a lizard was that they did not produce disgusting saliva. Their teeth were just as razor-sharp, and their speed was higher too.


    In an instant, clouds of sand from the beach filled the air. As the bone devils and rock dragons ughtered one another, an earth-shattering noise was produced.


    There were twice as many bone devils than the rock dragons. Though simr in size, dozens of bone devils were torn to shreds by the rock dragons in the blink of an eye. Almost no rock dragons were killed. The rock dragons then lunged at Saleen and the rest in a truculent manner. The rock dragons who got past the line of bone devils behaved more tardily. On the ws of a bone devil, there were three kinds of death poisons. They caused the effects of slowing, debility, and confusion.


    Two of the rock dragons had too poor a resistance. They changed their direction abruptly and charged east, crashing into a colossal piece of rock. The rock was smashed into smithereens, while they themselves cked out.


    ¡°This is more ferocious than a siege chariot!¡± J had witnessed thoserge military machines in action before, and these rock dragons could actually smash a rock. If they were used to crash into a city¡¯s gates, would it not just take one hit?


    ¡°It¡¯s useless,¡± Saleen put away his silver magic book, then said to J, ¡°A grade-3 mage is able to flip them already. These guys need to be fed with expensive metals, otherwise their outer shells will deteriorate.


    ¡°Do they really feed on rocks?¡± After witnessing Aini knocking dozens of rock dragons over with just a simple spell, J believed Saleen¡¯s exnation. J remained vignt. If this magic beast came anywhere near, it would also be potentially lethal to a mage. Even though J¡¯s Sword Aura was powerful, J could only deal with one rock dragon at a time.


    ¡°Of course not. A rock dragon can catch fish and hunt birds. asionally, they will capture somerger prey too. Their consumption of rocks is for maintaining the toughness of their external shells. Aini, keep one alive, let Sika give a shot.¡±


    At this point in time, Saleen had peace of mind. A rock dragon might be a nightmare to a swordsman, but it was a weakling against a mage. One death spell from Aini had extirpated more than half of the rock dragons. The remaining five rock dragons then contemted fleeing, but the damage by the bone devils started taking effect at that moment. The rock dragons could barely maintain their bnce as their limbs began quivering.


    ¡°Sure.¡± Aini casted four more gray rays, leaving only one rock dragon alive.


    Sika wielded her weapon and walked out of the area protected by the floral death creature, towards thest rock dragon. This four-meter long magic beast was merely a sandbag in Sika¡¯s eyes.


    As thest rock dragon noticed Sika approaching, it opened its bloody mouth wide hissing, trying to frighten this seemingly frail human.


    As Sika swung her weapon, she mumbled, ¡°Come on little guy, let me kill you with a single hit, and return into the arms of nature.¡±

 Chapter 385: The value of the dragon’s remains (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 385: The value of the dragon¡¯s remains (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Observing from behind, J was on tenterhooks. Even though the rock dragon was a piece of cake to a mage, Sika was a warrior. ¡°If such a delicate beauty got injured by the rock dragon¡­¡±


    As J thought to himself, he could not help but pull out the Tears.


    Sika stood at a distance of five meters from the rock dragon. Suddenly, she mustered strength in her feet, and appeared beside the rock dragon in a sh, even J could not see how she managed to do that. Without any frills, Sika bashed the rock dragon¡¯s head precisely using the club.


    Om!


    Everybody felt the vibration in the air, causing their eardrums to hurt as well. With Sika¡¯s blow, the Rock Dragon copsed onto the ground with its head buried within all that gravel, spewing blood from its mouth. Sika then executed a beautiful backhanded move, her club striking the rock dragon¡¯s ear, causing the four-meter long Rock Dragon to fly into the air.


    J¡¯s mouth was agape. His hand paused in mid-air, never touching the longsword on his back.


    Was she still human? Even though the four-meter long stature of the rock dragon was not thergest in the world of magic beasts, its outer shell contained a huge amount of metals. Its weight would be more astounding than somerge magic beasts. Sika managed to fling this fellow with just a single hit. ¡°Even if I use the Sword Aura, I might not be able to withstand this impact.¡±


    The others were also dumbfounded. Even Nailisi, who was used to Sika¡¯s immense strength, put on the same expression.


    It was an entirely different idea when one could hit an object which weighed more than ten-thousand catties into the air. Sika¡¯s attack had even exceeded that of Nailisi¡¯s tolerance capacity. Nailisi was not depressed this time around. In her heart, she secretly thought, ¡°You aren¡¯t Master¡¯s bodyguard anymore, you won¡¯t be able to rece me no matter how ferocious you get.¡±


    When Saleen recalled the massive strength Sika used to pin him down, his heart lurched. It seemed like Sika was already being abnormally gentle that time!


    ncing at the rock dragon which flew away, Sika then fixed her gaze on her own weapon.


    This cudgel, which was close to two meters long, was unlike its original appearance. The metallic portion at the front was filled with an abundance of magic patterns. The rear part was finer, making it more suitable for gripping. Sika had used the front end of the club to strike the rock dragon, and that portion was very exquisite. Sika was worried that the weapon might be damaged. In that previous attack, she relied on the power of vibration to smash the rock dragon¡¯s brain, but the rock dragon¡¯s skull did not break.


    Such a sturdy external shell!


    After making sure there was not even the tiniest of scratches on that the greenish gold metallic portion, Sika then had peace of mind. This weapon was refined by that old man, Faerun. Sika missed Faerun dearly, she did not want to damage the old man¡¯s inheritance just because of a simple attack experiment.


    Aini¡¯s mouth twitched. He did some calctions in his heart, ¡°If this Caucasus priestess possesses the highest abilities of a priestess, then my death spells will not have much effect on her. A summoned spirit can harm Sika, but Sika¡¯s offensive power is too strong. Even if I do summon the skeletal dragon, she could also smash it in a single hit right?


    Sika did not seem to be satisfied. She twisted the rear end of the cudgel, causing a sharp thorn to pop out from the thick front metallic portion. It looked like a mini spiked mace.


    Woo¡­


    Sika spun her cudgel as she approached another unconscious rock dragon, then she hit it. Her goal was the rock dragon¡¯s skull. Since the external shell of such a magic beast had an unparalleled toughness, she wanted to see if the thorn on the club could destroy it.


    It was not necessary utilizing the ability of a priestess. Once Saleen refined the magic beast bones obtained from the hell of god¡¯s punishment, he would not have to worry about the distribution of power during a battle anymore. Using a priestess¡¯ power for treatment would be more effective.


    Pi chi!


    The thorn on Sika¡¯s club pierced into the skull of the rock dragon easily, causing blood and brain matter to gush out. Sika backed away, not allowing this irritating stuff to spill onto herself. At this moment, Sika was d in an armor personally refined by Saleen, so she was not willing to dirty it.


    ¡°Master, could Sika be a descendant of the giants?¡± Nailisi could not help but ask. She possessed massive strength, butpared to Sika, it was slightly inferior. Sika¡¯s explosive power was unmatched by anything other than the tiago dragon. Perhaps only the mythical giants would possess such a horrifying physical attack ability.


    ¡°Nonsense,¡± Saleen berated, but in his heart, he felt that what Nailisi said was quite logical.


    ¡°Saleen, this thing doesn¡¯t pose a threat.¡± Sika put away her weapon as she walked towards Saleen.


    ¡°Mm, very good.¡± Saleen did not know what else to say, everyone was so bedazzled by Sika¡¯s strength. J was even thinking to himself, ¡°If a human can be so strong, then what is the use of practicing the Sword Aura?¡±


    Saleen swiftly straightened his thoughts, then he broke the silence and said, ¡°Do not reveal whatever happened today. Sika, in the future, do not take any action unless necessary. Or should I say, do not let other people learn about your special ability.¡±


    This special ability referred to Sika¡¯s massive strength which could be unleashed without help from the Sword Aura. Anyone else who saw Sika would never discover that she had such powerful offensive abilities, they would only regard her as a normal Caucasus warrior. A Caucasus warrior could easily reach the standard of a swordmaster, but it would be extremely onerous for them to be a grand swordmaster.


    Sika¡¯s attacks had already reached the proficiency of a grand swordmaster. As Saleen contemted their rtionship, he realized that they might encounter some special danger in the future, such as an assassination. If the enemy was in the dark about Sika¡¯s capabilities, Sika would remain much safer.


    In that instant, that was the first problem Saleen thought of.


    ¡°I will not say anything.¡± Aini was the first to agree, he also knew about the rtionship between Sika and Saleen.


    ¡°You are the master.¡± Nailisi shrugged her shoulders, she did not want to anger Saleen. Sooner orter, such a matter would spread to other people¡¯s ears, she did not have to ruin Saleen¡¯s mood though.


    ¡°Sir, I will not say anything even if I get killed.¡± J recalled the moment when Sika took that step forward with such speed. Had it been himself, he would not have been able to dodge, he could only use the weapon to block. Then again, could he even block Sika¡¯s weapon?


    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s go take a look what else is there on this ind.¡± Saleen signaled for Sika to put away her weapon. Nailisi stored the bodies of the rock dragons into the Dimension Stone gleefully. As the external shell of a rock dragon contained a high proportion of metals, it would make a good material even though it could not be crafted into magic armor. A Rock Dragon was a grade-5 magic beast, it would have some good magic nuclei.


    This time around, Aini was prudent. He summoned five skeletons to scout the route ahead. Saleen and the rest followed behind, as they walked once around the ind.


    Other than the rock dragons, the ind did not really have any other dangerous magic beasts. There were a number of nests on the southern cliff. These seabirds should be around grade-3. No matter how powerful a sea magic beast was, it would never fly into the air to threaten the seabirds.


    On the southern part of the ind, Saleen spotted their of the rock dragons. In the vicinity of their was a crimson hued opencast mine.


    ¡°Nailisi, bring some samples back. I want to analyze the type of mineral here,¡± Saleen instructed. Nailisi went forward immediately, collecting the samples of the nearby ores and storing them into her bracelet.


    Aini also summoned a few more skeletons to collect the mineral samples. The Clyde family owned many mining businesses, but the mines were mostly controlled by the imperial family and noblemen from various cities. As a result, the Clyde family could only get a tiny share of the profits due to its technical advantage. A huge portion of the profits were dominated by the nobles.


    If this ce had an extraction value, Saleen could only gain possession of it, but he did not actually have the ability to extract it. Aini did some calctions repeatedly. If this area contained more than one billion catties of metals, then it would be valuable for extraction. At the very least, Aini could rent Saleen¡¯s ship to transport the miners and various extraction machines over. Excluding the amount spent on renting the ship and an army, Aini would still make a profit.


    Since this ce was located near the hunting route, Saleen just needed to visit this ce twice a year. That way, he would be able to allow the fleet to provide resupply and bring back the finished metal ingots.


    It was a pity that Saleen did not bring any puppets over. Under normal circumstances, he would have left a puppet here in order to record the security situation. The next time he came, he could analyze and decide how many soldiers and mages were required in order to guarantee zero disturbance by any magic beasts.


    The main agenda of the expedition in the Frozen Sea was hunting, Saleen and Aini did not bring along any prospecting equipment. In order to understand a mine, one had to drill into the ground, it was not sufficient to just collect the surface ores. Fortunately, the both of them were mages. By collecting the surface nts, they could analyze the elemental content inside the creatures. In the process, they could alsoprehend the specific materialposition of this mine. If they did calctions using magic forms, they could even roughly determine the amount of mineral deposits.


    Neither of them had this ability, but the Clyde family had mages who specialized in such calctions.


    When the collection of samples belonging to the surface ores and creatures was almostpleted, Saleen then said, ¡°Nailisi, take out the dragon¡¯s remains. Let everybody study them.¡±


    The space in the alchemical boat was too minute. Ever since Nailisi stored the dragon¡¯s remains, Saleen still had not had a chance to study them.


    ¡°Give me some space.¡± After receiving the Dimension Stone, Nailisi did not even wait for everyone to back away before taking out the dragon¡¯s remains. This set of dragon¡¯s remains were almost two-hundred meters long, and they still contained seawater from when it was being collected, causing Nailisi to be sapped of almost all her mental strength in the process. It was not so tedious when the dragon¡¯s remains were taken out.


    As the waterlogged dragon¡¯s remains appeared on the nd, the seawater released from the Dimension Stone caused Saleen and the rest to be washed away. Fortunately, everyone was pretty skilled. As the seawater flowed north, Saleen and the rest held onto their magic shields as they stared daggers at Nailisi. It was apparent that Nailisi did that intentionally.


    Nailisi turned around, and said to everybody, ¡°This thing is too humongous. I don¡¯t want to control it, the amount of mental strength depleted would be equivalent to that of hours of consecutive battles.¡±


    Saleen was speechless. Indeed, a Dimension Stone could be used to collect enormous structures, but the consumption of mental strength was so much greater than using a spatial equipment. Therger the object collected, the more horrifying the consumption of mental strength. Even though Nailisi acted in such a brash manner, she could lower her usage of mental strength. Saleen did not have any reason to me her.


    ¡°Never mind, let¡¯s see what this big guy can do.¡± Saleen waved his hand and walked towards the dragon¡¯s remains which were lying motionless on the ground. Even though the skeletal wings of the dragon were retracted, its body still had a width of over ten meters. ¡°When this thing was alive, could it really soar in the sky?¡±

 Chapter 386: The value of the dragon’s remains (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 386: The value of the dragon¡¯s remains (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Such a pointless thought was quickly put to a stop by Saleen, and he began inspecting the dragon¡¯s remains.


    The dragon¡¯s remains wereplete, and none of its six ws were damaged. The five toes on each w gave off a frosty glow, looking like a refined magic weapon. The ws were actually unusually sharp. Structurally speaking, Saleen would have to amputate these six limbs if he were to manufacture a warship made out of this skeleton, though. He would have to install a propulsion device in ce of the limbs


    A warship made out of a dragon¡¯s remains was not as controble as that of a puppet. Its degree of toughness was higher than that of the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. A pan¡¯s turtle was a grade-8 creature, and even if its outer shell was tougher than that of a grade-9 magic beast, it would still be inferior to the bones of a pedigree dragon. After being soaked in seawater for tens of thousands of years, the dragon¡¯s remains did not even erode. In fact, it got even sturdier.


    ¡°If this thing was used to craft armor, it would be sufficient to equip an entire emblem group!¡± Saleen might be entertaining this thought, but he did not do it. Even if he possessed an emblem group of soldiers who were d in dragon bone armor, they also could not resist the blood cavaliers from the Holy See. A thousand against tens of thousands? Other than a slight advantage in terms of equipment, Saleen¡¯s offensive power was still inferior.


    It was an entirely different situation to use the dragon¡¯s remains to produce a warship. One could draw magic arrays to his heart¡¯s content aboard the warship. Since a warship was powered by magic nuclei, its speed would be faster than any other ships out there. If a mini magic cannon could be installed onboard such a warship, it would be able to bombard the enemy in a stationary position


    It was impossible for a normal stone artillery to destroy this dragon¡¯s body, but Saleen¡¯s magic cannon could easily wreck other kinds of warships. Unfortunately, if this mini magic cannon were to be installed on the dragon¡¯s remains, the toughness of the dragon¡¯s body would be greatly lowered. Only one shot was needed to damage the warship. If too many magic cannons were fired, the warship might even copse.


    Unfortunately, the second dynasty warship did not carry any rted magic arrays, so Saleen did not know how to install a magic cannon on the warship. Otherwise, he did not need to be afraid of the Holy See anymore. Even if he was being defeated, he could simply pilot the warship out to sea and the Holy See would be rendered helpless.


    As Saleen scanned the structure of the dragon¡¯s remains, he grew confident. After removing the ws, the skeletal wings would wield the power of the wind element. Once the wings got extended, this dragon bone warship should be able to glide on water. This warship might not be able to fly, but its speed would be unmatched.


    Without any water resistance, the gliding would allow the warship to reach an astonishing speed. The only problem was depletion. No matter how conservative the wings were, Saleen also would not be able to afford the depletion if the warship were to travel above the water surface.


    ¡°Seems like I have to wait for Lex¡¯s return, to see if I can obtain any useful magic arrays from the drawings gotten from Sky City¡±.


    ¡°Master, look!¡± Nailisi reached out and plucked a shell from the dragon¡¯s remains.


    ¡°Is it alive? Mm.¡± As Nailisi talked, she opened her mouth to bite the shell. With a crack, the shell split open. Nailisi frowned as she felt that her teeth were in pain. That was the first time she encountered such a tough object. Even segmenting a magic nucleus was an easy feat for Nailisi¡¯s teeth. This ebony shell, which was only slightly bigger than her palm, was so hard!


    Nailisi did not want to get mad at a shell. She used her dagger and cut along the crevice of the shell, prying it open. A thick smell of the water element permeated outwards, as a ball of green and misty light floated in Nailisi¡¯s palm.


    This parasitic shell on the dragon¡¯s remains was actually a treasure! Saleen was very perceptive, he noticed a mellow piece of pearl in the shell. The smell of the water element originated from this pearl.


    Saleen then shifted his gaze back to the dragon¡¯s remains, noticing many more inconspicuous shells densely spread across it. It was no wonder then that the sword spirit was still around. It turned out that these parasitic creatures had absorbed the spirituality of the dragon¡¯s remains, that was why all its spirituality had dispersed.


    The shell in Nailisi¡¯s hand jumped, trying to use its outer shell to mp onto her fingers. Nailisi simply stabbed inwards with her dagger, slicing the tendons inside, and removing the pearl at the same time.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up, ¡°This thing is more precious than a magic nucleus!¡± With such a pearl, Saleen would also be able to boost his training progress even if he did not have the dragonshard. The power of the water element stored inside this pearl was purer than that found in a magic nucleus.


    ¡°Nailisi, do it. Remove all the shells.¡± As Saleen fiddled with the pearl, his heart fluttered, then he ced the pearl directly into the gourd hanging around his waist. Saleen hade to a conclusion. Even though this pearl was good, it was troublesome storing it. It was not as stable as a magic nucleus, and if it was stored haphazardly, the water element inside would ebb gradually. Of course, the water element could be replenished. Without the attributes of a magic nucleus, it could only be used as an item for mosaicking though.


    Saleen¡¯s gourd contained a space which could maintain the stability of the water element. Now that this pearl was stored in the gourd, Saleen would no longer require the dragonshard in future battles. He could only use water spells anyway. With this pearl, he would be able to deploy other kinds of abilities. ¡°What if magic arrays were drawn on this pearl?¡± In that moment, Saleen felt self-satisfied. Luckily, he was envious of that flying ship in Alchemy City, otherwise he would never have taken the risk to collect this set of dragon¡¯s remains.


    After listening to Saleen¡¯s words, Nailisi immediately sprang into action and began collecting the shells on the dragon¡¯s remains. She stored all of them in the Dimension Stone. As there were simply too many shells, she did not have the energy to pry open each and every one of them to retrieve the pearls.


    ¡°Saleen, you have gotten yourself another fortune!¡± Aini was envious as he stared at the pearl. He did not contribute any effort in collecting the dragon¡¯s remains, so he was embarrassed to demand anything from Saleen.


    As Saleen looked at the dense arrangement of shells on the interior of the dragon¡¯s remains, heughed, then said, ¡°Aini, even though these pearls are precious, you don¡¯t have a use for them. I have a great use for them. You can use these shells to refine a set of death armor. Its defense would be astounding when underwater.¡±


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s words, Aini went forward and took a shell. Then, he released a bone thorn. With a crack, the bone thorn was fractured, but the shell remained undamaged.


    ¡°I want these!¡± Aini was overjoyed. As the defensive ability of a death mage was inferior to that of an elemental mage, a set of death armor would be a good solution topensate for this w. Death materials were too valuable and difficult to obtain, unless Aini went to the death dimension. The three kings might have some suitable materials too, but Saleen and Aini both knew that it was not a good idea to force them. Their contract was built upon a foundation of bnce. As long as they did not vite the uses in the contract, the three kings would be helpless. That being said, they still had to be careful not to disrupt the bnce of the contract. Once the contract became ineffective, they would have to face a violent retaliation by the kings.


    Once such a tough shell was converted into a spirit, Aini would be able to produce a set of unique armor. This armor would be formed out of hundreds of shells. The shells could either split up to attack the enemy, or converge to protect Aini.


    Even though these shells were present in colossal numbers, they were unusually precious. It was highly possible that there was not any other location which was so convenient. It was incredible; a set of ancient dragon skeleton that allowed the evolution of parasitic shells via the absorption of the dragon¡¯s spirituality.


    Saleen noticed that after a short while of collecting the shells, Aini stopped. While standing behind Aini, Saleen said, ¡°Take three-hundred and sixty of them. Once you advance to a sorcerer, it will be sufficient for you to power this many spirits.¡±


    Aini did not refuse either. Actually, he was too embarrassed to collect too many, because he knew very clearly how rare these things were. Saleen allowed him to do so, and if he continued refusing, he would seem hypocritical.


    After cleaning the dragon¡¯s remains, Nailisi rummaged through the head of the dragon for a long while. Then in a discouraged manner, she said, ¡°The dragonshard is missing.¡±


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s gone. Once the dragon dies, the dragonshard will have been absorbed by the other powerful magic beasts nearby.¡± Saleen did not have the intention to look for the dragonshard. He was already content with so many special shells.


    Not only was this dragoncking the dragonshard, the bone marrow in its bones had also been fully consumed by the parasitic shells. Besides a tough skeleton, this set of dragon¡¯s remains had no other value. Saleen also had a n in mind. When he returned, he would haul up the second dynasty warship. Then, he would use the thundercloud wood as a material, and it would be sufficient to craft a dragon skeleton warship.


    At the moment, Saleen¡¯s foundation on the maind was not very stable. In order to ensure his own safety, it was not enough to have only the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. He also needed adequate maritime power, so as to defend his new city. Jason had already considered this aspect when he helped Saleen to select the location. Even though the magical abilities of Sregl Ind were powerful, it was not adequate to deal with the Holy See. Jason chose such a site in the northern region because of that. It would force the Holy See¡¯s forces make a detour around the ocean beforeing in for an attack.


    Sregl Ind owned quite a number of warships and possessed adequate maritime experience. If the Holy See were to mount a sea assault, Sregl Ind would be sufficiently powerful to defend against it.


    When Jason traveled across the maind, he had already roughly grasped the power of each empire. It was purely an ident that he chose to train in Ceylon City. Jason was not a mage who would stay at home to conduct research. In terms of experience, one-hundred clones of Saleen could not evenpare to a single Jason.


    After the dragon¡¯s skeleton was cleaned, Saleen asked Nailisi to remove the six limbs. Thereafter, Nailisi put away the six limbs into the Dimension Stone before storing the dragon¡¯s skeleton.


    This toil caused Nailisi to be very exhausted. Too much mental strength was depleted in the collection of this two-hundred meter long dragon¡¯s skeleton.


    As Nailisi was resting, Saleen seized the opportunity to start nning. Saleen¡¯s main agenda foring up north was to hunt for a sea magic beast. The best oue would be to kill a single-horned white whale so that he could use its skeleton to craft a warship. When Saleen met the single-horned white whale, he dismissed the notion of hunting it. Hunt? If he did not get ughtered by this single-horned white whale, then it must mean that it had a kind nature.


    Now that he had obtained a dragon¡¯s skeleton, it was already the best item avable for crafting a warship, even though there was no more spirituality. Since Saleen had achieved his goal, he would not need to take any more risks. It had been a month since the journey started. Saleen decided to stay for two more months toplete the mapping of the neighboring waters before going back.


    There must be some extraordinary treasure at the location of the dragon¡¯s skeleton since there was a massacre involving so many magic beasts. If Saleen did not return to take a look, he would feel uneasy. This location was at the periphery of the Frozen Sea, it would be much safer than the Frozen Sea itself.


    What was underneath that dragon¡¯s skeleton which drove so many high grade magic beasts crazy?

 Chapter 387: Trouble in the lair (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 387: Trouble in their (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fundamentally, Saleen was not a greedy person. Due to the overwhelming stress caused by the ck Bishop the previous time, Saleen had to take this risk up north.


    If he could not amass sufficient power before the Holy See¡¯s army arrived, everything woulde to naught. When the Holy See wanted to exterminate a person, they would start by destroying the soul This was in order to remove all traces of the person from the face of the ne.


    Saleen¡¯s idea was very simple. The Cloudflow army was the weakest out of the four empires, it was even weaker than the mercenaries from Sikeqinya. Their navy was extremely powerful though. The Cloudflow navy had even sealed most of Tanggsi¡¯s waters, forcing the Tanggsi Empire to station their iron cavaliers along the coast. The Cloudflow fleet could easily deploy their troops onto the coast and conduct a raid otherwise.


    The Holy See might have countless of fearless warriors, but they were helpless against the Cloudflow navy. Saleen also wanted such a naval fleet. Out of all the ideas, this was the rtively simpler one.


    Even though Lex had groomed more than twenty-thousand elites over many years in Bitter Water Prefecture, it was still impossible for her to resist the Holy See. The sea was the only weakness of the Holy See.


    Against violent magic beasts, Saleen did not dare harbor any thoughts. Once the magic beasts dispersed, Saleen had to return to check that ce. If too much time had passed, anything valuable there would have also been devoured by the infinite creatures in the ocean.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go back.¡± Suddenly, Saleen felt a change in the goddess¡¯ ne which made him rejoice. The lightning dragons which just hatched finally had a presence of life.


    Saleen followed the notes in the magic book and used a magic array to incubate the lightning dragon eggs, he even added tourmaline in it. The hatched lightning dragons showed no signs of life even though they were overjoyed swimming in water. It seemed as though the lightning dragons did not have souls. Out of desperation, Saleen only stored twenty-four of them in the goddess¡¯ ne.


    Originally, the ne belonging to the Goddess of Nature and provided Saleen with a space for training his mental strength and calctions. It had now be a farm. Each lightning dragon upied a space. Just like that, they were reared by Saleen. It was only this day that Saleen felt the presence of a soul in those lightning dragons.


    Since the inspection of this ind had beenpleted, Saleen did not need to stay any longer. Even if there were any mineral deposits, he would have to analyze the samples back on the alchemical boat.


    Saleen summoned the winged skeleton, and the alchemical boat docked at the shore. This time around, Saleen did not make life difficult for J. He blessed J with a Water Shield, then everyone dived underwater to enter the alchemical boat via its underside entrance.


    ¡°I am going to take a break. Soldier, continue with the drawings. Once Banchajanna is done with his recovery process, ask him to continue hunting.¡± Saleen instructed sinctly, before returning to his own room. This time around, Nailisi followed at the back closely. Saleen did not call for Sika.


    ¡°Master, what happened?¡±


    ¡°The lightning dragons are starting to grow.¡±


    ¡°What about the rest?¡±


    ¡°You can eat them.¡± Saleenughed. Even if a soulless lightning dragon matured, it would not possess the special feature of an adult lightning dragon, it would simply be arge sized magic beast. By giving them to Nailisi, she could receive lots of nourishment.


    ¡°Master, I will stand guard for you.¡± Speaking, Nailisi wielded her dagger and sat down beside Saleen.


    ¡°Mm, other than Sika, you can take action if anyone elsees close.¡± When Saleen finished talking, he had already channeled his mental strength into the goddess¡¯ ne.


    The space in the ne was not big at all. Saleen was already jubnt at the fact that it could support life. There were twenty-four segments in this ne, and each segment reared a lightning dragon. What Saleen needed to do right now was to sign a contract with the lightning dragons before they grew up. He needed to turn these twenty-four lightning dragons into his own summoned creatures.


    Within one of the spaces in the ne, a finger-sized lightning dragon was swimming about freely. When it detected the entrance of Saleen¡¯s mental strength, it seemed to be frightened as it flipped its body hastily in the water. Saleen realized that this lightning dragon was different. There were magic patterns on the surface of its body which were formed by interweaving ayer of golden lines.


    Saleen¡¯s powerful mental strength enveloped this lightning dragon. Under the tremendous vibrations, the lightning dragon immediately got subdued. In the face of a powerful adversary, a young lightning dragon had zero resistance. Otherwise, given the unique attributes of a lightning dragon, it would have been the king of the ocean. Even though such a creature was indomitable, its younger form was extremely vulnerable.


    Saleen¡¯s mental strength vibrated within the space of the goddess¡¯ ne, producing various magic symbols condensed from the water element. The lightning dragon which was engulfed by Saleen¡¯s mental strength could not resist at all. Saleen could easily ce a soul imprint on it, and thus a soul connection with Saleen was established. Before this, Saleen could not do such a thing. It was only after Nailisi¡¯s evolution that Saleen obtained the ability to sign a soul contract with other types of creatures.


    Saleen was not that courageous either. He only dared to test it out with a young lightning dragon that just got its soul. Saleen would never want to run the risk of getting controlled by a magic beast¡¯s soul by dealing with an adult lightning dragon.


    Saleen¡¯s mental strength scanned all the spaces consecutively, not daring to have the slightest bit of tardiness. Even though a young lightning dragon could not retaliate, Saleen¡¯s soul would get damaged if he erred in the control process. Nailisi wanted to protect him and not let anyone get close.


    Dang dang¡­


    Hearing that someone was knocking on the door, Nailisi¡¯s eyebrows arched up.


    ¡°Is Saleen in? It¡¯s Irene.¡±


    ¡°Master is training. Come backter if you want to say anything.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡±


    ¡°If you don¡¯t leave, I will go out and ughter you immediately.¡± Nailisi was not joking. Her dagger was already in hand, and she had already deduced Irene¡¯s exact position. If Irene continued pestering Saleen, she would definitely use the dagger to prate the door and pierce Irene¡¯s heart.


    Irene stood outside the door stunned. Then, she remembered that when a mage was training, they could not be disturbed. That was why a mage would construct a magic tower once they got to grade-6, so as to ensure their own safety. That being said, Nailisi was being extremely impolite, and Irene could not tolerate it.


    ¡°Irene,e over.¡± J waved his hand at the end of the corridor. Holding back her tears, Irene walked towards J.


    ¡°J¡­¡±


    ¡°I heard that, don¡¯t say anything.¡± J turned around and led Irene down the stairway. Upon arriving at the cabin on the first story, J then said, ¡°Saleen is a mage. Don¡¯t behave the same way like you do in your family, otherwise you will be at the losing end.¡±


    Irene bit her lip as she recalled the first time she met Saleen. Indeed, Saleen portrayed a cold and unfeeling appearance. Was she not attracted to that appearance in the first ce?


    ¡°Mages are different from us. You will never understand their pursuits in life. You are in love with Sir Saleen, right?¡±


    Irene nodded, she had nothing to be embarrassed of anyway.


    ¡°Give it up, otherwise you will get into huge trouble.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because you don¡¯t know how to live with a mage. Just now, you still wanted to continue bbering despite Nailisi warning you to leave. You know, if you did not leave, she would have really murdered you. A mage¡¯s assistant will never joke with you.¡±


    ¡°She could do it? A maidservant? The guts of her!¡± Irene was enraged.


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    Irene was speechless. She was outraged because she hade forth this time around due to Nailisi¡¯s deception. She did not expect Nailisi to change her attitude so quickly, as though their conspiracy did not exist at all. All of a sudden, a notion popped into Irene¡¯s mind, ¡°This time around, I have tagged along to supplement the missing contents in the magicpass, and I had no reservations at all. Does Saleen want to silence me now that he has gotten what he wanted? It shouldn¡¯t happen. I have signed a magic contract with Saleen. Even Saleen himself wouldn¡¯t be able to vite it. If I were to get into a conflict with Nailisi, and Nailisi decides to be physical, who woulde to my aid? None of my family¡¯s swordsmen are on this ship, all of them are Saleen¡¯s people.¡±


    The more Irene imagined, the more fearful she got. Her expression became calmer, however. J did not know what Irene was thinking about, otherwise he might have given her a tight p. If Irene continued using the mindset of a noble to evaluate a mage, her thoughts would be increasingly chaotic.


    ¡°Why did you go to see Sir?¡± J did not know what Irene¡¯s n was. He was afraid that Saleen might be adversely affected if Nailisi had barred an important matter.


    Irene hesitated for a moment, then said, ¡°Nothing much. It¡¯s just that I had not seen him for a few days, and I would like to ask him where the next destination is.¡± Seeing that Irene had fabricated a lie, J was helpless. He could not possibly force Irene to spit out the truth.


    Back in the room, Saleen slowly opened his eyes and looked at Nailisi, then said, ¡°Did Irenee by earlier?¡±


    ¡°Mm, I chased her away. I was afraid you might be affected.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. The lightning dragons have been subdued. Inside this space, they will grow up swiftly, but their depletion will be enormous. We will have to stay at this ce for an additional month.¡±


    When Saleen was subduing the lightning dragons, he discovered that the speed of time within the ne could be altered. There were both pros and cons by making the lightning dragons grow faster. In order to help the lightning dragons grow, one would have to provide fresh meat and magic nuclei, otherwise the dragons could starve to death anytime while inside the goddess¡¯ ne. An adult lightning dragon was evenrger than a pan¡¯s turtle. Even though the frequency of meals was low, each meal they consumed a massive quantity of meat. At this moment, not only did Saleen have to take care of his soldiers, he also needed to rear these twenty-four lightning dragons. He had to umte enough food.


    A portion of the tourmaline rocks obtained from the lightning dragon¡¯s nest were going to be given to the lightning dragons, in order to develop their inborn magical spell. The intended purpose of these tourmaline rocks were for the offspring of the lightning dragon. Given the nature of a lightning dragon, it would never rear its descendants along a coastal area otherwise.


    The ne of the Goddess of Myers was definitely a godly item. In order to use this piece of godly equipment, one had to put in a lot of effort. Saleen had managed to collect tens of thousands of grade-4 magic nuclei this time around. Of which, only about four-thousand of them were of a good quality and arge portion of them would be fed to the lightning dragons.


    Be that as it may, Saleen could not possibly conserve these magic nuclei. If the lightning dragons could not mature quickly, then what would he use to protect the route to the Frozen Sea?


    A team of twenty-four lightning dragons might not be able to kill a grade-9 magic beast, but the magic beast would definitely not want to get close either. Only with the protection by these lightning dragons would Saleen be able to hunt freely in the Frozen Sea.


    ¡°Master, it seems that Aini has analyzed theposition of the ores from that ind.¡± Nailisi had gotten this information from the winged skeleton. In the process, she had realized an advantage of the winged skeleton; whenever she needed information, the winged skeleton could transmit it via the method of soul interaction. It was convenient and swift.

 Chapter 388: Trouble in the lair (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 388: Trouble in their (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini would not be able to conceal any information from the winged skeleton. Even if Aini used the Sealing Enchantment, he would not be able to avoid the winged skeleton¡¯s soul surveince. Currently, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was like an extension of the winged skeleton¡¯s body. Onboard this ship, even a person¡¯s heartbeat was under monitoring by the winged skeleton.


    When Judikaka refined this ship, he did not expect Saleen to have a summoned death creature. He had left this loophole for himself. No one expected the winged skeleton to be able to fuse his personal powers with the alchemical boat so easily. Judikaka¡¯s n was ruined.


    While Saleen was toiling away at the periphery of the Frozen Sea, the city base had ran into some trouble.


    The grade-5 mage, Kredian, stayed behind to manage the development of the city. Judikaka and Diyabannersa alsomanded their spirits day after day in the construction of the city. Only half of the city walls were built. The materials for constructing the city walls were long in ce. In order to build the upper portion of the walls ording to the drawing, many mages were required for a coordinated effort.


    This city was built using the temple as the focal point. It was unlike many other Qin cities, whereby their city walls and streets were built first before the houses got developed.


    Originally, it was very rxing for Daniel as he simply needed to lead his troops to conduct daily patrols. As this city base was located far north, there were no other cities in the vicinity. The remaining barbarians had been cated. There should not be any more disruptions, logically speaking.


    A month after Saleen had left, a naval fleet appeared on the sea. Of course, this fleet could not reach the port as the port was still frozen. The fleet had discovered the warships which were docked at that faraway ind.


    Those warships were left behind by Saleen. Both warships had about one-hundred people who carried out daily maintenance work. When the invaders realized that the warships were almost empty, they tried to plunder it without any hesitation. Only a mage, who was protected by a dozen swordsmen, managed to escape.


    This low grade mage then steered a lifeboat and rushed back to the city base, reporting the matter to Kredian immediately. Then, Kredian immediately called for Daniel to discuss a countermeasure n.


    ¡°Sumier, please describe what you saw.¡± After making sure that all key personnel had arrived, Kredian then started interrogating the low grade mage.


    ¡°The other party had twenty ships. It should have been formed by a merger of two fleets. There were two warships that were one-hundred and sixty meters long and four warships that were one-hundred meters long. The remaining vessels were dual-use ships, about one-hundred meters long, filled with a huge quantity of cargo.¡±


    ¡°What weapons did they use?¡±


    ¡°The warships were equipped with magic stone artillery, these weapons were very inurate and small in number. There were alchemical crossbows equipped on the sides of the ships. The dual-use ships were also equipped with weapons. They were only mini stone cannons, but there were no magic instations. The soldiers were d in purple leather armor, and they were wielded long knives with a small curvature.¡±


    Even though this mage called Sumier was only at grade-2, he was not timid as he did not get frightened by the enemies. In all that rush, the things that he memorized were very useful.


    ¡°Are you able to infer where they came from?¡±


    ¡°They look like Cloudflow people, but I cannot understand theirnguage.¡±


    ¡°Mm. The Cloudflow¡¯s fleet is muchrger than that, and it wouldn¡¯t have any dual-use ships,¡± Kredian replied as he nodded. The dual ships were in fact armed merchant ships. Due to the inadequacy of the hull structure, these ship could not be equipped with powerful weapons, they could only be fitted with mini stone cannons to carry out long-range assaults. An armed merchant traveled much faster than a normal merchant ship. Even with the best warships, an armed merchant in the fleet would not affect the formation at all.


    ¡°What about the rest of yourrades?¡±


    ¡°They have been killed.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡± Kredian was outraged, then he regained hisposure afterward. The one-hundred strong crowd on the warships were swordsmen from Sregl Ind, they were extremely loyal. Other than the dozen swordsmen who returned with Sumier, the rest had been killed by the enemy.


    The me could not be put on Sumier. It was impossible for one-hundred people to operate therge weapons on the ship. Sumier was the sole mage in the two ships, and he was the only one who could operate a lifeboat. Being a grade-2 mage, it was already extremely challenging for Sumier to operate a lifeboat. That lifeboat was intended for six people, but Sumier managed to bring back twice the number of people. He had already tried his best.


    ¡°I have brought back a recording rock.¡± Sumier was also feeling extremely furious. The enemies were ruthless by conducting a massacre, they were worse than the pirates. They were definitely not pirates as they owned some armed merchant ships which were guarded by several warships. It was not known where these enemies hade from.


    Sumier knew that he was overpowered. He had decided to take a piece of the recording rock, in hopes that someone could dissect the enemy¡¯snguage and find some clues.


    Kredian took one look at the damaged recording rock, then said, ¡°Take it for repair.¡±


    A low grade mage took the recording rock and left the room, making his way to the alchemyboratory to do repairs. This thing was only effective while inside a magic array. It could record voices, but the recording period was not long. It was itself a part of the magic sound array. Even though this recording rock was damaged, it did not matter. Even if there were only a few seconds of voice recording, they would be able to trace the origins of the enemy.


    ¡°Sir Kredian, they gave chase all the way to the frozen iceyer. They should be able to locate us very soon.¡±


    Kredian nodded, then said, ¡°Daniel, please bring Diyabannersa to the port and set up a line of defense. If the enemy wants to attack ournd, that will be their best choice. The southern side does not have any roads, they will need to make a detour of a few hundred miles if theye from the northern side.¡±


    ¡°I can simply bring Diyabannersa to ughter them.¡± Even though Daniel¡¯s offensive power was strong, he was still a grade lower than Kredian. Before Saleen left, he specifically instructed Daniel to takemands from Kredian. Daniel simply made a suggestion instead of acting on his own will.


    ¡°They will make their own way here. Daniel, even though you have traveled the seas, you are not familiar with this ce. It is challenging to traverse the northern route, and there are no avable spots for resupply. The enemy did note intentionally, they might have met with a storm. Now that Sumier has escaped, they will not let this matter slip. With just a pair of alchemical binocrs, they managed to travel to the ice, they would discover this ce within two hours. Since the two warships do not have any resupply items, they will definitelye here.¡±


    Daniel understood Kredian¡¯s point. Daniel had nevermanded arge-scale battle before, so Kredian was the most experienced. It was no wonder then that Saleen would ask him to listen to Kredian.


    Kredian continued, ¡°Sometimes, the warship might have somerge weapons that will pose a threat to Diyabannersa. Now that the sea is frozen, the enemy¡¯s warships will not be able to get close to the port, so they can only deploy their soldiers to walk on the ice. Don¡¯t make the first move, allow them to deploy as many men as possible.¡±


    ¡°How long should we wait?¡± Daniel was not clear about theposition of a fleet. He was afraid that if he retaliated too early, the enemies would be scared away.


    ¡°Just conceal yourself first. Use the crossbows to defend the port, but don¡¯t use any of your spells yet. Since there are twenty ships, each ship should not have less than six-hundred people judging by their size. The armed merchant ships are either filled with cargo or soldiers. If it¡¯s filled with soldiers, then there might be more than ten-thousand enemies.¡±


    ¡°Ten-thousand!¡± Daniel was perturbed. On the battlefield, it was easy for him to ughter five-hundred people. If there were more than ten-thousand soldiers, Daniel might get injured, especially so if there were mages in the enemy¡¯s formation.


    ¡°If the enemy doesn¡¯tunch a full scale attack, then the skeletons shall hide in the snow first. Don¡¯t expose their heads. I will request for help from the Caucasus people.¡± Kredian instructed Daniel as Daniel nodded and left. The enemy would not arrive immediately, so he still had time to retrieve therge crossbows from the treasury and position them on the coast.


    The port in the city base was almost fully constructed. After development, the harbor was about three miles long. On the other hand, Daniel only had about four-hundred soldiers, totally insufficient to defend the important locations. Luckily, the soldiers brought by Aini and Irene were added in. The barbarians also were deployed. All in all, Daniel managed to gather one-thousand people.


    Kredian alsomanded some soldiers, but they were needed to defend the northern area of the city. Even though there was a low chance that the enemy would make a detour, that area still had to be defended since there were too many enemies. Kredian personally paid a visit to the Caucasus elders, requesting them to deploy their soldiers to assist in the defense.


    The Caucasus people might have only deployed four-hundred people, but they were all riding on magic wolves. They could assault the enemies in the wilderness. At this point in time, Kredian then attained peace of mind. Thereafter, he sent some men to the White Rock Mountain to look for Truman.


    Truman was stationed on the White Rock Mountain, where he was waited upon by arge team of soldiers. As he was manning the mini magic cannon, he received the news. Kredian had sent some men to deliver a set of magicmps, which were used on a warship to make signals. Kredian would not descend on the frontline himself, he would be guarding Saleen¡¯s temple. On the roof of the temple, there was also another set of magicmps. They could deliver amand to any location in the city.


    At this moment, there was no choice because the city base had not been fully constructed. There was no way of using a magic sound array tomand a battle yet.


    The remaining Caucasus people dispatched another four-hundred people to help defend the temple. All of Saleen¡¯s supplies were stored in an obscure location under the temple. Even though it would be hard for the enemy to discover them, it was still better to y it safe.


    Judikaka did not follow Daniel, he actually followed Kredian. Since Kredian had more willpower than Daniel, it would be impossible for Judikaka to delude him. Judikaka was not afraid of Daniel at all. In fact, he was a little fearful of provoking the mages from Sregl Ind.


    That was the arrangement Saleen determined before he left. Previously, Saleen had warned Judikaka that Sregl Ind contained many sorcerers. If Judikaka had done anything wrong, even Saleen could not save him. Judikaka did not think that Saleen was just bluffing him. Judging by the equipment they wore, it was obvious that the mages from the Sregl Ind had originated from some massive power.


    Just as the sun set, all the defenses along the port had been set in ce. A temporarily built fortress had caused the harbor to be a militarized fortification. On this crescent-shaped ind, there was a huge number of skeleton soldiers lying in wait under all that snow. These skeleton soldiers were originally coolies, so they were not the decisive power in this battle. Even a normal soldier would be able to chop a skeleton soldier into shreds. If some farmers were emboldened, they could even deal with a stronger skeleton.


    The enemies were obviously elites, so Daniel did not ce any hope on the skeletons to be the decisive force in the battle. He was relying on Diyabannersa and his summoned spirit, the pikoosi.

 Chapter 389: Invaders from the east (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 389: Invaders from the east (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As there were one-thousand people scattered across a defense line which was about three miles long, the defensive power was very low. Fortunately, in the early stages of construction, Saleen had already regarded this ce as a military-oriented city. Both sides of the port had towers which were built by piles of white rocks. Inside the towers were magic arrays which maintained a constant temperature. Aach tower had an alchemical crossbow with a range of over eight-hundred meters.


    These white towers had two stories, and soldiers could be stationed on the first story. No basements were dug, they could only hold the fort until theirst breath. Such buildings were not used for obstructing enemies. This tower could defend against a bombardment by a magic stone artillery. Once the soldiers hid inside, they would not need to worry about the attack from a warship anymore.


    Now that more than one-hundred miles of the sea was frozen, the warships had no way of getting close at all. The towers¡¯ function was only limited to using the alchemical crossbows to seal off the frozen waters.


    There were dozens of such towers, and each tower contained an alchemical crossbow. A temperature-maintaining magic array allowed crossbow-type weapons to be kept in a good condition. Since these towers were almost sealed, there was no corrosion from the moisture of the sea. The alchemical crossbows were maintained in a state of battle readiness.


    At this moment, Daniel was hiding in one of the towers, and beside him was an intermediate-sized alchemical crossbow. This weapon was also the heaviest one Saleen could purchase. Arge alchemical crossbow had a range of several miles, but Saleen did not have the ability to procure it yet.


    Observing through the alchemical binocrs, Daniel saw a blinding shine of light, and on top of it was a dense formation of ck dots approaching from a distance. Even without using magic to calcte, Daniel could also estimate that there were at least six-hundred people in this group of invaders.


    If there were no grand swordmasters or grand mages in this six-hundred strong crowd, then Daniel would be confident of killing them all. The enemy had twenty ships. Given a fleet of such scale, grand mages were definitely present, not to mention the grand swordmasters.


    There were far too many magic beasts at sea. Without a certain degree of power, the strongest of ships would also sink.


    At this point in time, Daniel began to miss Saleen. If Saleen was around, Daniel would not have to be under so much pressure. He simply needed to wait for orders. Daniel was never a person who chased after authority. He just wanted to practice magic and be a free and mighty mage.


    Currently, Daniel could only analyze the situation cautiously in order not to make any mistakes. The enemy had only deployed a ship¡¯s worth of manpower, they did notunch arge-scale invasion. This gave Daniel a choice. He could either kill all of them, or continue to bait the enemy to increase their manpower. If Daniel chose to kill all of them right now, the enemy might choose to retreat, or even flee right away with the two warships. If that was the case, Saleen would suffer huge losses.


    Those two warships from Sregl Ind were definitely worth more than a million gold coins. If they were to be rebuilt, Saleen would need several years. He did not have trained workers, a dock, or sufficient mages. Manufacturing arge warship was so much more challenging than producing a twenty meter long boat. If any problem urred in any stage of the production process, the warship could simply disintegrate in water.


    Saleen might own the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat at the moment. If it was spotted by the sorcerers, it would lose the element of a surprise attack. In order to solidify one¡¯s standing in the northern region, one would still need to ownrge warships. Since Lex had taken one warship and had yet to return, the two remaining warships formed the backbone of Saleen¡¯s foundation at the moment.


    If the enemies managed to take off with the two warships, Daniel suspected that Saleen might break his bones and use them to build a new warship. Be that as it may, Daniel had only so much manpower, and he did not have any ships with him. In order to get back the two warships, he had to rely on his wits.


    ¡°Diyabannersa, pretend to be a grade-6 spirit. Then, go and capture two men. Take note, do not kill them.¡± When Daniel finished speaking, he wrote down his n. Then, he sent some swordsmen to return to the temple and report to Kredian.


    The swordsmen then left with Daniel¡¯s letter. Daniel picked up the alchemical binocrs once again, observing the situation on the ocean.


    This six-hundred strong team was extremely close, and they did not have any intention to conceal themselves. When they were about three miles away, Daniel could finally take a good look at their formation.


    This was obviously a well-trained army, there were three mages in these six-hundred men. ording to theposition of the Qin¡¯s army, every brigade would contain a mage. Clearly, the enemies were neither normal mercenaries nor pirates. The three mages were d in gray magic robes, this meant that they were at least at grade-4 already.


    Daniel was upset. A grade-4 mage was very useful in a battle. The enemy only had a six-hundred man team, did they really need to deploy three grand mages?


    Daniel might not know anything about thebat strategy of an army, but in arge-scale mercenary battle. The presence of a mage could influence the oue. If the three mages blessed the swordsmen with some magical ability, this six-hundred man team would be a tough nut to crack.


    On the crescent-shaped ind, Daniel had positioned more than three-thousand skeleton soldiers for an ambush. There were also another less than two-thousand skeleton soldiers waiting behind him. With the three grand mages, the skeleton soldiers would be rendered totally insignificant.


    These five-thousand skeleton soldiers were summoned by the three kings. If any of them got killed, there would not be any replenishment avable. This was because Saleen had taken Banchajanna with him, so it would be impossible to summon so many skeleton soldiers again. When each king summoned spirits on their own, they could only summon six-hundred skeletons at most. The three kings would need to coordinate in order to possess huge powers.


    Even if the enemies retreated and Daniel secured a victory, the construction of the city would also be dyed as the skeletons were deployed into battle. Daniel got so depressed. As he stared furiously at the three grand mages, he thought, ¡°Where did these peoplee from?¡±


    These grand mages were obviously not from Alchemy City, because their magic robes looked a little shabby. The dozens of swordsmen protecting the mages were all high-spirited. Had they been swordsmen from Alchemy City, they would surely be very low-profile, and would not put on such expressions.


    When this six-hundred man team was only twelve-hundred meters away, they stopped advancing. Instead, they got into a formation. The three grand mages began blessing the swordsmen at the front with the Potence Spell and the grade-2 Windspeed Skill. To the grand mages, these spells only had a wee bit of depletion. After blessing forty swordsmen with the spells, the grand mages then fell back, all the while being protected by those arrogant swordsmen.


    At a distance of twelve-hundred meters, it would be hard to strike a target unless arge alchemical crossbow was used. The enemy was clearly well-versed in the workings of military equipment. The mages did not advance recklessly, for fear that they would meet with a sneak attack and consume their magic chords incessantly.


    On the sea two-hundred miles out, twenty warships were dragging the two war trophies along, as anchors were dropped just outside the frozenyer. The gship was four stories tall. A pair of alchemical binocrs over three meters long was installed on its uppermost story. Such huge alchemical binocrs could spot a target from over thirty miles away. Any farther and the target would disappear off the horizon, and the alchemical binocrs would lose sight of the target.


    In the captain¡¯s cabin, a man d in an enormous armor was seated in the middle, surrounded by more than forty people. These people wore armor which contained a myriad of colors, and the armor was styled extravagantly. ording to the standards of Qin, this aggressive-looking armor was too shy and impractical. In fact, manyponents on this armor would affect its defensive ability.


    ¡°General, why didn¡¯t you send the main body to mount a direct attack from the shore?¡± a mage could not stand the silence and asked his leader who was seated in the center.


    ¡°Mage Youxi Maso, our fleet has met with a storm, causing us to lose four ships. The remaining ships have to go through maintenance in order to regain their speed. If the enemy has more warships, our fleet will be in grave danger if weunch an all-outnd attack.¡±


    The man who was addressed as ¡°General¡± gave due respect to the mage who was d in a ck magic robe. A ck-robed mage was an honored guest in any country. Even though the general spoke respectfully, he behaved in a condescending manner, unlike any other nobles on the maind.


    ¡°We have twenty-thousand men, sufficient to wreck the Lianyun City¡¯s fortress. General, please allow me to go forth using my magic chariot. In at most three days, we will be able to conquer this ce.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s better to be safe than sorry. This time round, the eighteen countries have merged their soldiers to invade the Myers maind. It was a bad omen when we ran into that storm. This is obviously a warning from the God of Wind.¡± The general, d in a colorful piece of armor, spoke domineeringly. His words were full of madness. If the Holy See¡¯s people were here, he would bebeled as a heretic. God of Wind? On the ne of the Myers maind, there were no other gods other than the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°General, the spies have reported that Qin is in internal turmoil while Phoenix is in an absolute mess. Since we have been blown to the northern region by the storm, we can consider upying Phoenix from the north first.¡±


    ¡°Of course. We have over twenty-thousand elite warriors among many other magic chariots and magic cannons. It will not be a problem for us to conquer such a small town. I am just worried that there are still remnants of Alchemy City here. Look at those two warships, they are obviously designed like those ships found in Alchemy City. In a real head-on battle, these two warships will give us a headache. Don¡¯t becent, now that the eighteen state Allied Army is separated, we should not rm the Qin Empire. When we go ashore this time around, we cannot let a single enemy get away.¡±


    ¡°Yes, General!¡± The rest of the generals got up and bowed, as they responded boisterously. In the eyes of these people, their fleet had the ability to destroy this small town which was located near the shore. Naturally, they should not even let one enemy escape. By using six-hundred people for the first assault, they wanted to frighten the enemy first, so that the flying puppets overhead would be able to locate the enemy¡¯s hideout swiftly. If the enemy did not own any other ships, then they would mount a full offensive.


    Therge alchemical binocrs, the flying puppets, and the magicpass on the gship were used to scan the nearby waters to prevent other warships from approaching. The armed merchant ships had tossed dozens of metallic pontoons into the sea, as a temporary dock used for mounting the frozenyer was being built.


    The edge of the frozenyer was not stable. In order to transport the siege equipment, the frozenyer had to be further reinforced. The eight armed merchant ships were not even carrying any cargo. Each one of them was filled with two-thousand fully-equipped warriors and various kinds of military appliances such as catapults, siege hammers, flying puppets, magic cannons, and war puppets.


    These items were gathered from eighteen different coastal states. Hundreds of coastal states had been nning for this day for the past thousand years. The eighteen state Allied Army was just the beginning. The moment war broke out on the Myers maind, these hundreds of ind states located in the eastern waters woulde forth and divide the maind into smaller pieces.

 Chapter 390: Invaders from the east (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 390: Invaders from the east (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Back when Saleen killed Fredrick, he did not have the time to investigate into the Shenfeng Country. He did not expect the ind states in the east to be so impatient, as they had already descended upon the Myers maind. One of the smaller fleets had arrived at his city base due to a storm. It seemed like they would create problems for Saleen.


    As Saleen¡¯s Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat cruised along the periphery of the Frozen Sea leisurely, the map of the sea was being drawn up. Saleen was not anxious at all. In the current season, no ships would appear at the city base. He had sufficient time to conduct a thorough research into this one-thousand mile area at the periphery of the Frozen Sea.


    More than six months had passed, and those ferocious magic beasts nearby seemed to have disappeared. Saleen felt tempted to return to the original location of the dragon¡¯s skeleton to find out what was going on.


    At this moment, there was peace onboard the alchemical boat. After Irene received that warning, she no longer behaved abnormally. Banchajanna was fully subdued by Saleen. Saleen gave every order meticulously and in an extremely detailed manner. Banchajanna had been doing his tasks faithfully, he did not make any mistakes.


    Nailisi also did not create trouble for Saleen, she had been busy learning swordsmanship from J. By now, she could wield her dagger deftly, even J was shocked by her receptivity. Without training the Sword Aura, Nailisi could execute many incredible moves, she could also release very strong explosive power.


    Other than not being able to release an isted form of the Sword Aura, Nailisi¡¯s offensive ability was no different from that of a grand swordmaster.


    Sika was stuck to Saleen all day long. While Saleen practiced his magic, she would study the magic beast bones. When Saleen rested, she would also take a break. Even though the both of them lived in their separate cabins, everyone else was self-aware and did not bother them.


    The people who received the most benefits were the five low grade mages. By operating the magic array on the alchemical boat every day, these mages learned a lot. They even began having faint signs of a breakthrough. Each of these mages from Sregl Ind had a solid foundation as they trained like Saleen. They would make their foundation extremely stable first. The moment they went through some special training, they would begin to show signs of advancement.


    For the past months, Banchajanna had only been deployed five times. One time was to kill a bunch of red krill, while the other four times were to ughter dozens of unique magic beasts whose grades were below grade-7.


    When Saleen suggested the idea of returning to take a look, no one objected. The winged skeleton would release the bone spirits to conduct long-range reconnaissance. Once there was any anomaly discovered, he would pilot the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat faraway to safety. Flee when in defeat. That was the most useful thing the winged skeleton learned from Saleen. He already knew that this master would not risk his life with the enemy. As long as there was no harm to their interests, Saleen would even encourage him to avoid the enemy and not get into some meaningless battle.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat stayed close to the water surface while traveling at thirty miles an hour. After about fifteen hours of travel, it had begun nearing the location of the dragon¡¯s remains.


    Judging from the images transmitted by the bone spirits, it was just a region of mess right now, the seabed was totally unrecognizable anymore. As the battlefield of the magic beasts had a radius of dozens of miles, Saleen did not get close. He simply sent Banchajanna to conduct a check.


    Helplessly, Banchajanna went out through the bow, he resumed his original form, and swam towards the seabed.


    The originally smooth seabed seemed like it had been bombarded multiple times by a forbidden spell. Crystallized stones, formed by high temperatures or high pressure, were strewn everywhere. Banchajanna was astonished when he saw that. In a pleasant surprise, Banchajanna discovered that a huge amount of death power had been amassed in this area. There were some powerful souls which had not dispersed yet.


    If he absorbed this power into his body and digested it, he would be able to achieve a breakthrough from his limit and reach the pinnacle of grade-9. Once Saleen¡¯s contract became ineffective, he would be able to advance to grade-10 on the ne of the Myers maind.


    At this point in time, Banchajanna got very agitated. He charged towards the seabed, wanting to absorb all this Power of the Dead immediately.


    Woo¡­


    In the depths of Banchajanna¡¯s soul, an intense pain appeared. At the same time, Banchajanna was awoken. He had defied Saleen¡¯s order. Saleen had instructed him to investigate the situation, not to advance his grade. Even though Banchajanna was outraged, he did not dare act recklessly. He had realized that Saleen was in total control of him, there was no way to resist at all.


    At this point in time, Banchajanna no longer had the mood for any investigation. After a simple search in the vicinity, he found there were no more living creatures, so he immediately returned to the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat.


    ¡°Its safe outside,¡± Banchajanna reported to Saleen lethargically.


    ¡°Master, the Air of the Dead is very strong here¡­.There are also undispersed spirits! Master, if I stay here for some time, I will be able to advance to grade-8!¡± the winged skeleton squealed in exhration.


    ¡°How long will that be?¡±


    ¡°Master, I will need at most half a month. I will be able to utilize the alchemical boat to store the power of these spirits and their souls, then I will bring it back to digest slowly. Master, please stay behind, the level of the Spirit Pool aboard is also too low. If I get to grade-8, I can refine the alchemical boat again. I can also produce a few spirits as helpers. That way, the mages onboard will only need to man the offensive magic array in the future!¡±


    Fearing that Saleen would not agree to it, the winged skeleton quickly exined the benefits.


    ¡°In that case¡­ we shall stay. Heh, don¡¯t let Banchajanna get anything. These gains are yours.¡±


    ¡°Master, I cannot absorb too much of it. The Air of the Dead is dwindling day by day. Let Aini absorb some too. His death creatures are having a hard time growing, the depletion is enormous.¡±


    Secretly, Saleen frowned. It was not that he was unwilling. If Aini were to leave the ship, he would have to bear the water pressure at a depth of two-thousand meters. If Aini died, then Saleen would not even have a friend in any of the four big families anymore.


    With an expression of worry, Saleen called for Aini and exined his concerns to him. Aini also hesitated. In order to survive at a depth of two-thousand meters, Aini would have to release his death magic with all his might so that he would not be crushed by the pressure. He would not be able to behave like Banchajanna.


    He very much wanted to absorb the power from inside the ship. That might affect the winged skeleton, and Aini might even have the ability to control the alchemical boat. Aini and Saleen might be bosom friends, but it did not mean that he could use Saleen¡¯s summoned creature as a training medium.


    ¡°Never mind, I will apany you.¡± In the end, Saleen still decided to take the risk. Saleen would be near the alchemical boat. If there was any danger, he could simply run for safety. Simr to Nailisi, Saleen did not care about the water pressure. He could swim freely in water, his only weakness was Aini.


    Aini was very grateful. Without any further ado, he stood shoulder to shoulder beside Saleen at the teleportation portal. Saleen then blessed him with a Water Shield, enveloping his body in a colossal bubble.


    After these two people were teleported out into the water, the immense water pressure caused the Water Shield to shrink to a quarter of its original size. The Water Shield was almost sticking to Aini¡¯s skin already. On the other hand, Saleen felt some burden on his heart, but there was no more feeling of peril.


    ¡°Two-thousand meters is still easy,¡± Saleen thought to himself. He might not know what his limit was, and he did not want to experiment with it. Once an intolerable situation urred, it would be toote for Saleen to cast his magic. The deeper the water, the more perilous it got. When one entered into a depth of above ten-thousand meters, they would meet with things which were not depicted on the magic beast illustrations. These magic beasts had existed since the ancient times. Unless one had the power of ancient humans, they would be doomed.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat floated slowly in the middle of the battlefield, as it began absorbing the Air of the Dead vigorously. Even though Banchajanna was green with envy, he did not dare snatch any. He had intense hatred for Saleen, but could not do anything to Saleen.


    Saleen did not give a hoot about Banchajanna¡¯s hatred towards him. No matter how well he treated Banchajanna at the moment, Banchajanna would also kill him mercilessly once Banchajanna regained freedom. That was why Saleen did not even give Banchajanna a chance to boost his abilities. If the winged skeleton got to grade-9, Saleen would no longer need to be afraid of the three kings even if they managed to break free from the contract¡¯s restraint.


    It was precisely this reason that Saleen never thought of boosting the powers of the three kings, even though they were Saleen¡¯s lifeline at the moment.


    As Aini was under the protection of Saleen¡¯s spell, he felt that the water pressure was manageable. He began summoning his Floral Death Creature and the flesh spirit. The massive Floral Death Creature was already over fifteen meters tall. The moment it was released by Aini, it immediately stabbed itswork of roots into the crystallized seabed, absorbing the surrounding Power of the Dead in a frantic manner.


    In the vicinity, there were countless other damaged souls of various sizes. Aini did not allow his death creatures to absorb them. Instead, he allowed them to be plundered by the alchemical boat. Aini was already full of gratitude that Saleen was helping him. If he continued vying for food with the winged skeleton, then he was going too overboard.


    Obviously, the speed of absorption by the Floral Death Creature was slower than that of the alchemical boat. When the alchemical boat was being refined, Judikaka had already thought of bringing it back to the death dimension, so he concealed arge number of death magic arrays aboard the ship. These magic arrays were used to absorb energy in order to further refine this ship.


    When the winged skeleton advanced to grade-7, he had begun erasing Judikaka¡¯s soul imprint gradually,pletely taking the ship as his own. Consequently, the alchemical boat became like a ck hole, it almost became a vortex of death energy.


    Banchajanna observed these events, his hatred grew increasingly intense. He knew that if the winged skeleton continued advancing, the winged skeleton would be a genuine high grade spirit. Onboard this alchemical boat, Banchajanna would not be able to deal with him anymore when that day came. With help from the winged skeleton, the skills of the three brothers would have almost zero effect on Saleen. It would be impossible to use death magic to assassinate Saleen


    Saleen¡¯s cautiousness brought fury and despair to Banchajanna.


    The winged skeleton was not really scheming. He just wanted to improve his abilities and protect Saleen. Once Saleen became a sorcerer, he would then have a chance to advance to grade-9 and eventually be an immortal spirit.


    Under an intense nourishment from the Power of the Dead, the alchemical boat began undergoing a massive transformation. A huge portion of the outer shells of the alchemical boat was hollow, with the magic nucleuses of the pan¡¯s turtle stored in them. At this point in time, these magic nuclei were broken down by the winged skeleton into pure energy, and then they were fused with the turtle shell. As a result, the outer shell of the alchemical boat became dark green in color and it became tougher too. Many new magic runes were also added to the magic arrays located on the exterior of the hull. The four propulsion water holes turned into a honeb-like structure. Next, the rudder which extended from the stern was now retracted, as it underwent refinement internally.


    With the honeb-like structured water holes, there was no longer a need for a rudder to be able to control the direction of the ship. The original alchemical machine was melted into a batch of high temperature liquid, as it began transforming into a new Spirit Pool. This Spirit Pool was much smaller than the one found at the bow. All the powerful souls which were absorbed from the outside were stored in it by the winged skeleton.


    With these powerful souls, the alchemical boat would still be able to produce new bone spirits endlessly even if the coordinates in the death dimension were lost. As the winged skeleton executed this process patiently, he felt a sense of unparalleled satisfaction. At this moment, he hadpletely forgotten about Daniel. He was no longer in pain over what had happened in the past.

 Chapter 391: The Unexpected Harvest (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 391: The Unexpected Harvest (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen saw that Aini was not in any danger as of then, so he started observing the surrounding sea area. The two thousand meter deep sea had almost no sunlight, but there was only a cloud of dim green light that was dispersing from Aini¡¯s death nt.


    To Saleen, the dim light lit up the seafloor like broad daylight. His icy sight only needed an extremely weak light source to enable him to see his surroundings clearly.


    Both the skills; eye of the dead under spirits of the dead series and god¡¯s vision which was a divine spell, did not require assistance of the light to be able to see everything clearly in the dark. Icy sight had its ws. After an element mage be a sorcerer, there was a magic called the darkness controller in dark magic. It provided amazing eyesight under any circumstances. Darkness controller under the dark element magic providedprehensive visual angle. With the release of the magic, an element mage could see three-hundred and sixty degree around him. That was something spirit of the dead series and divine spells could not do.


    The world was formed by substances and the basis of substance was elemental. When an element mage practiced to his ultimate level, he could master the truth of the world.


    Saleen¡¯s icy sight had its advantage too, which was that it would not be affected by enemy. Any skill or medication that caused hallucination would not be able to affect the magic. After activation of icy sight, any non tracking magic would be cast urately. Saleen¡¯s icy sight ability was achieved automatically when he got promoted, so it would not consume any magic chords when it was used.


    That ability was solely owned by a single elemental mage. Saleen did not know that there were mages that could only cast magic of a single element before, so he was not the first. When such mages got promoted, they might achieve a permanent constant magic and it would not consume any magic chords to function.


    It was a bnced world. When you lost something, God would give you something aspensation.


    Saleen was searching underwater. The battle had stopped for at least half a month but the entire sea area was still filled with a strong element wave. Crystallized gravel was all over the sea bed and there were some pits that were dozens of meters deep. Saleen was surprised that he did not see many dead bodies in the battle zone.


    There were not anyplete dead bodies. Once in a while, Saleen would find one or two pieces of carbonized bones or magic beasts¡¯ teeth and ws. He did not even see aplete tail, let alone aplete dead body.


    The battle was no doubt ferocious, but Saleen was well-aware of the body firmness of the high level magic beasts. Regardless of kinds of battle it would not make their dead bodies disappear.


    ¡°Maybe there were some magic beasts that survived and ate the dead bodies.¡± If Saleen could find any dead bodies, he could dig out a lot of high level magic nuclei. His dream was shattered. After the magic beasts died, most of the time, magic nuclei would be eaten by the other magic beasts. If they were not eaten, the magic nuclei would gradually dissipate based on their level.


    The magic nuclei sold in the human world were polished and cut so that it extended their lifespan. The magic nuclei in nature, besides some of the special attributes, could not be retained most of the time. The higher the level of magic nucleus, the longer it could be kept. A grade-9 magic nucleus could be retained for up to ten thousand years.


    Nature had its own rule too. The smell that a magic nucleus was giving off would draw a lot of other strong magic beasts to eat it.


    Saleen had only observed for less than five minutes, then he realized there was a pattern there. The arrangement of all the elements surrounded a point as their center formed a divergent circle. Of course, the arrangement was not obvious and it was disorganized. Saleen only managed to find some hint after observing for a very long time with his icy sight.


    The center of the element arrangement was empty with only a deep pit. It was the center of a battle, where the most ferocious struggles took ce. Saleen observed while he picked up the remains of magic beasts. These remains were too small, but they could be kept under such condition and that meant that they were materials that were extremely tough.


    Those material would not be able to be made into aplete armor set, but it could be made into weapon. Half a set of magic beast¡¯s teeth was as long as half a human arm and that could be made into the tip of a long spear.


    Saleen was satisfied with his harvest. He slowly swam to the bottom of the deep pit and found something valuable. In the middle of the deep pit, there were some broken pieces on the ground that were entirely crystallized. Saleen picked up a broken piece in his hands and looked carefully, he then found its pattern very quickly.


    The broken pieces were a finger thick, putting them together they would be an egg shape. The egg was iplete and some of the broken pieces seemed to be missing. Saleen could feel the power of life on the egg shell and he was thrilled.


    Obviously there had been a living creature that he had not noticed when he found the dragon skeleton. Saleen looked through every piece of the egg shells carefully and saw gnawing and chewing traces on it. Regardless of the type of creature that was in the egg, when it was first born, it already had scary teeth.


    The firmness of the eggshell outdid any kind of metal, the cracks on it were natural and if it were not for the cracks, the creature in the egg would not be able to pop out. The creature ate its own egg shell to supplement itself the needed elements. The thing that was inside of the egg was unfortunate, without the protection of its mother, it was probably attacked by the surrounding strong magic beasts that were drew over due to its smell. The little thing only managed to have two mouthful before it abandoned the remaining egg shell.


    Saleen collected the broken pieces of the egg shells with sympathy as the materials could be made into equipment. He felt sorry for the creature within the egg, even if it was a high level dragon, it would not survive against an attack by a huge number of magic beasts. If he were to escapeter, he might be able to discover the egg and bring it away.


    Sometimes, it was not really a good thing to be overly careful as one might lose an opportunity. The creature within the egg was at least the bloodline of an ancient era, which was captured by human kinds from another dimension. The difficulty to go through dimensions was beyond imagination then. Even if one could get the coordinates and crossed over, the human kinds had lost their strength from former times. It was impossible to capture these creatures now.


    Forget about capturing, to be able to flee from the attack of these creatures would be considered strong. The tiago dragon was captured by humankind back then and it was difficult enough to deal with then in the Myers Maind dimension. The tiago was a dragon that went through a few generations and its blood had mutated, so it had already lost part of its power.


    Regardless of the level of the egg, when it first incubated, it could be brought under control.


    The skills to bring incubated creatures under control were passed down by humankind from ancient times. Back then, humankind liked to rear creatures since birth and treat them as their own children. It might be a kind of guilty pleasure, but it provided the current humankind an opportunity to increase their strength.


    Take Saleen as an example, he used the method to rein in the lightning dragons. How would him be able to control twenty-four lightning dragons alone otherwise? Even if they were incubated in child form, their souls were quiteplicated.


    He did not know what magic beast ate the descendant of the ancient dragon, but the magic beast that ate the baby would turn into a scary creature and that was what worried Saleen the most. He viewed Oceanic Ice Block as his exclusive chunk of meat. If there was a ridiculously strong creature around, he would have a hard time in the future.


    Fortunately, the evolution process was slow. Saleen was calcting in his head, if the mages from Sregl Ind were toe over to the north, was there any way to gather around and wipe out the lucky creature? Allowing it to grow, one day it would take over the entire north sea area and no one coulde here as they wished.


    ¡°What creature was it? How did it find the egg?¡± Saleen had no idea.


    Saleen had no choice but to leave the problem aside and continued to look for more remains of magic beasts. ws, scales, teeth, bones, horns, and some special tendons. These bits and pieces were not any longer than half a meter. The smallest piece was only slightly bigger than the pearl Saleen got.


    Saleen kept them all into his dimension stone, anything smaller was also considered as flesh. The material was high quality, but it was such a pity that the attributes were not solitary and it would be difficult to use them in making major magic equipment. There was no information about the material in the Illustrated Handbook of Magic Beasts so Saleen had to use Figaro Magic Form to get a concrete analysis for the attributes of the materials if he wanted to use the material to make magic equipment. It was another big project.


    These materials must be more valuable than the grade-4 magic nuclei. To use them, it required too much time. Saleen could not do it himself as he had many matters to take care of and he had to continue practicing magic. He could only wait for his teacher to bring along the mages from Sregl Ind and pass it to them to handle.


    Saleen swept the battleground and returned to Aini. Aini¡¯s floral death creature obviously already knew Saleen. It extended its branches to let Saleen drill into its embrace. That was the advantage of a floral death creature. If it was any other spirit of the dead, it might show hostility to Saleen. Saleen had attributes of Goddess of Nature on him and that was repent towards most spirits of the dead.


    Aini was making an effort to control it, the fleshy death creature was absorbing the power too. Its horribly mangled wings extended to five meters wide and its flying ability was strengthen enormously.


    Saleen sighed in his heart as among all summoned creatures, the spirits of the dead were the most loyal ones. That was because after it signed a contract with humankind, it would be easier for them to evolve and more difficult for them to die out. After its owner died naturally, the spirit of the dead would be rewarded with the ability to go through two dimensions. Even though it was restricted, it was still considered as an ability to survive.


    If the spirit of the dead was attacked in the death dimension, it could escape to the dimension that its owner previously existed in.


    If the spirit of the dead was said to be the most loyal, a demon was the most difficult to control. Nailisi signed a soul bond when she was underage. She would bring Saleen more trouble or even risk his life otherwise.


    Luckily, he had the winged skeleton. Saleen turned around to look at the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. The outer surface of the ship had turned darker, into ck. Even under Saleen¡¯s icy sight, it seemed unclear.


    ¡°Master, do you really feel that I am better than Nailisi?¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice suddenly popped out and Saleen was surprised.


    ¡°Soldier, I do not allow you to peep into my thoughts as you wish!¡± Saleen replied angrily. He was not afraid that winged skeleton found out about that, but what if the winged skeleton was looking at what happened with Sika before? The thought itself gave him goosebumps.

 Chapter 392: The Unexpected Harvest (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 392: The Unexpected Harvest (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, I could only vaguely feel¡­¡± the winged skeleton obviously knew what Saleen thought and he wanted to exin, but he realized that if he were to continue talking Saleen would be furious. He could not be med, however. At first, he did not know direct soul connection would have such effects. Even when Saleen sealed off the soul pathway between the two of them, he could still see most of his master¡¯s thoughts.


    The winged skeleton forgot his pain and he realized Saleen was a good magepared to most of the other death mages. Not only did Saleen provide him with the best shelter, he also did not send him out for unnecessary adventures.


    Saleen did not continue talking as he could not just tell the winged skeleton that in the future, when he was making love with Sika, he was not allowed to appear. That was too forceful.


    Saleen felt vexed and he took a nce at Aini. Aini¡¯s facial expression made him jealous as it was the look of a mage that was inspired and concentrating in his own thoughts wholeheartedly, utter happiness was on his face. ¡°My foundation was solid and I never stop practicing everyday, but why isn¡¯t there any hope of promotion?¡±


    If other mages were to read Saleen¡¯s thought, they would definitely bash him up. Saleen was not even twenty years old and the time he practiced magic was way shorter than those like Lex, but he was already a grade-5 mage. Even though the process was dangerous and there were a few times that he nearly died, any mage would be willing to take on the risk.


    If taking the risk could make one a grand mage, the number of mages in the world would doublepared to swordsmen.


    The water shield on Aini looked like it was going to disappear and just when Saleen wanted to cast another one for him, Aini suddenly shot open his eyes and waved at Saleen. He pointed at the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. Saleen understood that the floral death creature had absorbed the power to its maximum limit and Aini needed to head back to stabilize his harvest.


    Retrieving his floral death creature and fleshy death creature, Aini and Saleen then returned to the ship. The ship was like a ck hole, continued absorbing the power of the dead in the sea area.


    Even the winged skeleton himself did not know that the sess did note without any effort. If Judikaka did not make the minor changes back then, the Pan¡¯s turtle shell and the power of the spirit of the dead would not be tightlypatible. Through infection by the spirit pool at the inner of the alchemical boat for a long period of time, the turtle shell had turned into death equipment entirely.


    Under the high pressure in the deep sea, among the intense power of the dead, the alchemical boat itself was like a living creature; it evolved together.


    Aini returned to his room hastily without greeting Saleen. Banchajanna turned into his skeleton form, then came before Saleen sadly and saluted, ¡°Mage Saleen, can I request something?¡±


    Saleen thought, ¡°You finally know how to respect humans¡­¡± but he replied, ¡°Tell me then. If it isn¡¯t too ridiculous, I will fulfil your request.¡±


    ¡°I saw some of the materials that you have collected. There were some magic beast bones. I would like to have them to mend my cracks.¡±


    Saleen nodded with a poker face. Banchajanna then continued, ¡°I know that these things are valuable in this dimension, so I can exchange them with some precious equipment of mine.¡±


    ¡°The equipment for spirits of the death wouldn¡¯t be useful for me. If I were to give it to the winged skeleton, I¡¯m afraid that there are restrictions that I am not familiar with and that might harm the winged skeleton, then I,¡­¡±


    ¡°No, this equipment is for a human mage. There is nothing rted to a spirit of the dead.¡± Banchajanna quickly exined and he understood the importance of the winged skeleton to Saleen. He was afraid that Saleen suspected that he wanted to y a trick on the winged skeleton.


    He had no other better way as Saleen gave him too few bones and the quality was not great. If he were to mend his body, it would reduce his fighting power. Especially the crack on his forehead, that was to protect his soul me so it could not be mended randomly.


    The materials that Saleen collected earlier were extremely precious to a spirit of the dead. He saw and he could not hold back his desire to get his hands on them so he suggested to exchange with equipment that he had collected.


    ¡°Banchajanna, I¡¯m only a grade-5 mage. If your equipment is too good, I can¡¯t use it. If it is too bad, it¡¯s not worth the exchange.¡±


    Banchajanna knew that Saleen was a master that did not lose the falcon until he saw the hare, so he took out one of the items and passed it to Saleen.


    ¡°Here it is, back then I kept it in secret, even Judikaka and the others don¡¯t know.¡±


    Saleen took over the equipment, it was a mask. He was not sure what it was made of. It was not that heavy and light green in color. The difference between this mask and themon ones was that the eye section was not hollowed out but iid with two pieces of ck crystal, like a swordsman¡¯s fully enclosed helmet.


    The surface of the light green mask had a bright and colorful magic pattern, its level ofplication exceeded Saleen¡¯s family badge. With one nce at the magic pattern would drown one uncontrobly. Luckily, Saleen had simr experience and knew that it was a three-dimensional magic pattern, not aiming for mental attack.


    ¡°This seemed to be for an assassin.¡± Saleen said casually and dared not probe the secret of these pattern.


    ¡°No, although I had never studied the mask before for its origins, I knew there was a rumor saying that there was a godly item on the Myers Maind. The power of this item shouldn¡¯t be second to a godly item.¡±


    ¡°Banchajanna, should I believe in you?¡± Saleen took the mask that he could not see through and asked.


    ¡°I have no idea. Sometimes I would do ridiculous things, such as trading when the value of the mask is definitely way higher than those bones.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I will take the mask and you can have these.¡± Saleen took out a few bones that were half a meter long from the dimension stone and passed them to Banchajanna. These stones would be sufficient for him to mend his most important parts and were way faster than recovering naturally.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Banchajanna took the bones and ran towards the back cabin. Only there, he would not be disturbed and be able resumed his original body as the space in the ship was too small.


    Saleen shook his head and put the mask onto his face. The mask suddenly stuck onto his face as though it was growing on it. Saleen was astonished. Then he realized that the mask did not perform any other action and he only needed to lift the mask to remove it from his face.


    Saleen calmed and he saw a weird scene through the ck crystals in the mask. Everything in his surroundings seemed to change. He was still in the alchemical boat, but the material of the ship looked as though it was transparent. In other words, Saleen could look through everything. That included the magic array in the internal of the ship, the magic rune in the shell mezzanine, and also the motion track of power within.


    In the past, if he wanted to analyze the motion track of the power and make prediction, that would required elerated calction. That was only able to be carried out using the power from the ne of Goddess. He then could see the motion track of the power clearly and the mask seemed to assist him in calction. The surrounding was filled with various energies and each energy could be urately gauged as to how it would move next.


    The item might not be a godly item, but it was definitely worth more than a godly item. At least to Saleen it currently was. He wanted to use the Figaro Magic Form in battle, but it was much too heavy of a burden to his body and he could not use it on an enemy that was a higher level than he was. The mask helped Saleen to analyze directly and Saleen was certain that he could then use his magic like Lex¡¯s teacher, to break the enemy¡¯s attack.


    Saleen released an ice bomb spell casually and turned it into a fire ball. Saleen caught thew of movement of the fire ball in the air and he released an icicle spell.


    The speed of an icicle was faster than a fire ball and it waspleted within a second. When the icicle caught up to the fire ball and hit the weakest point of the fire ball, it made a bang noise and was annihted.


    The power of Saleen¡¯s fireball was considered an intermediate magic but the icicle magic that he possessed was only a grade-2 magic. A grade-2 magic broke a magic that was at least grade-4!


    Saleen was extremely delighted. When he faced his enemy¡¯s locking magic, he could only fight against them with his water shield. Although he had calcting ability and he could use the toughest part of his water shield to block the enemy¡¯s attack, his water shield was a grade-4 spell and the expense was high. The icicle spell was only a grade-2 magic so the expense decreased by a hundred times.


    To a mage, controlling the expenditure of magic chords was extremely important. Saleen also had a bronze magic book. In the future, if the enemy was not sorcerer level, he could at least use the bronze magic book to deal with fighting instead of using any of his magic chords or wasting his scrolls.


    If he had a silver magic book, Saleen would be confident enough to face a grade-6 mage.


    To get such a powerful magic equipment, he only traded with a few bones! Although the bones were valuable, to exchange for such a powerful equipment, it was definitely not an equivalent exchange!


    The sudden happiness made Saleen dizzy. He had many different equipments before, but it required time to study or he might not even able to fully utilized it after much effort. The mask was the first item that he could use the very moment heid his hands on it and could give full y to its fighting power.


    Saleen could not control his emotions and started practicing magic in the cabin. One after another intermediate spell was cast and broken with icicle magic. The advantage of icicle magic was its speed due to its disability to lock, that was that fastest spell before grade-7.


    Saleen could predict the course of the element energy and casting icicle magic was almost beneficial in every way. If he drilled, he could definitely use it during actual battle.


    After ten minutes, Saleen felt himself feeling dizzy. He then realized that he spent half of his mental strength. He immediately removed his mask and breathed out. The power of the mask was great, but it required too high of a mental strength. If it was other grade-5 mage, they might not even withstand it for half a minute and they would be utterly emptied of mental strength.


    ¡°Half a minute? No, maximum three seconds, the mage wearing the mask will be turned into an idiot. Banchajanna, you bastard!¡±

 Chapter 393: Returning Home Early (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 393: Returning Home Early (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s face changed while he stood in the cabin on the first floor thinking. If it was not for his steel mental power that was built through the training of the badge, he would be doomed by wearing the mask. Only a sorcerer could touch it for a moment. Did Banchajanna really want to frame him?


    If he died, what benefit did Banchajanna have? Due to the contract, if he died, Banchajanna would not be able to return to death dimension at all and would be imprisoned on the Myers Maind. He would not even be able to level up. That was only considered as the mildest punishment. If Banchajanna intended to harm him, whatever he felt would take effect on Banchajanna¡¯s soul me as well.


    The three Kings were a unit. If Banchajanna was hurt, the other two Kings would bear the same pain. The pain was irreversible and if he really died, the three of them woulde to a bad end too. If they were to run into any danger, they would have nowhere to escape.


    The function of the mask was genuine, Saleen held onto the mask tightly, not willing to let go.


    Although the mask was dangerous, it was quite useful to his current self. As his magic chords were less than half at the moment. If he was in a short battle, his magic chords would finish before his mental power was emptied. In other words, he would not be in any trouble as long as he had enough power to take off the mask.


    Then, Saleen went back to his room quietly. It was impossible for him to punish Banchajanna for that as his and Banchajanna¡¯s level were vastly different. If he were to punish Banchajanna, he could not fight back. He could always loaf on his job during a battle in the future.


    Unless he want to turn Banchajanna into a Death Puppetpletely that was. Then, Banchajanna¡¯s fighting power would drop by one level, which was not much use to him.


    Saleen calmed himself down and tried not to think about the consequences of him being angry. He first took out two-hundred and forty pieces of magic nuclei, to put into each ne space. Then, there were red phosphorous prawns¡¯ flesh and a big amount of fish. In the ne space, time did not go by slowly. The lightning dragons were growing tremendously fast and they required huge amounts of food intake.


    To sustain the twenty-four lighting dragons, Saleen had to continue hunting at the border of the Oceanic Ice Block. Saleen had yet to have the ability to slow down time in the ne. He would need to wait for his teacher to continue transforming the ne.


    If so, Banchajanna had to continue taking the risk. It was only possible to not starve the lightning dragons to death with all the dimension stones filled with prey.


    As grade-8 magic beasts, lighting dragons would be fine with no food for a month, but the time in the ne was passing by too quickly. The lightning dragon¡¯s bodies were still small, but when they grew up, the amount of food required would be terrifying.


    Saleen did not want the lightning dragons to have any trouble as that was the first time he proactively signed a soul bond. The twenty-four lightning dragons would listen to hismands. When they grew up, there would be hardly any chance for him toe across any trouble underwater. Even if it was a magic beast like the single-horned white whale that had a strong defence power, a lightning dragon would be able to shock it until it passed out.


    When he waspletely calmed, Saleen was not angry at Banchajanna anymore. The spirit of the dead always turned everything topsy-turvy, even Judikaka had no way to control him. If he did not bring Banchajanna along, Banchajanna might have already gotten into big trouble in his city.


    The mask was really useful, but to fully utilize the mask, he had to level up his mental power to the level that he could wear the mask all year round without any danger.


    Saleen took out his family badge and fondled it in his palm. The badge had turned into a dark green and the pattern on it had gotten more exquisite. The lightning sign in the middle of the badge was still clear as though it was carved into it with a knife. Without the badge, he might have died many times.


    The power of a thunderbolt contained in the badge was impossible to attain, even to a lightning dragon.


    Thunderbolt and lightning were different. Thunder could only be heard when there was a huge energy released. Thunder was not a sound, but the sound was produced when the energy was released. The derivation of the sound was terrifying. Thunder in nature was even scarier than Elemental Storm Magic when it released energy.


    Lightning apanied with peals of thunder, was unbearable by any kinds of creature. Even a grade-9 sorcerer would not dare to fly into a thunderstorm.


    He had so many things in his hands that he had lost his direction. Saleen warned himself toy everything that he had with him on the bed and rearrange them at the same time, to clear his mind.


    The demon suit was the most practical equipment. Ever since Saleen wore the demon suit, he had no longer been troubled by the stability of elements in space. Even if he was in the magic array that other people had set up, Saleen could release his self formed magic with ease. The gloves and shoes in the demon suit had no damage in the past few battles. He reckoned the suit could be used as an armor, but it would not be able to defend against heavy weapons, such as Sika¡¯s cudgel.


    The demonic ring and demonic bangle were both good auxiliary equipment. The space in the ring was very stable and it would level up ording to his level. It would also expand automatically. Although Saleen did not ask for much after he had dimension stones, the biggest significance to own the dimension stone was not for it to be a spatial equipment, but to make it into special equipment. The demonic bangle was iid with a dragonshard and it made the recovery of Saleen¡¯s magic chords easier.


    The other mages would always prepare magic medicine so that they could recover their fighting power quickly during crisis, but Saleen did not need those. That was the function of the demonic bangle.


    Demonic magic book and a collection of element magic books apanied with usage of the mask was equal to him having extra amount of magic chords.


    Needless to say, the Goddess¡¯s Ne was a space that could hold creatures. It was certainly an item on the same par as a godly item and the speed of time passing in the ne could nurture young magic beast quickly, which saved him a lot of time.


    There were the two crystal rings. The white crystal ring was given to him by his teacher and the ring was quite useful as of then, as it could recover mental power quickly. Raphael¡¯s crystal ring was special equipment, it could only be used when he released the scary magic; crystal finger.


    There were many different gemstones left. If he was a mage that practiced alone, it would be sufficient, but he was leading a few thousand people and he was going to lead more people in the future. He wanted to build more cities. The number of gemstones in that light seemed to be pathetically meager.


    The green cbash was not bright yellow back then. The pattern on it seemed a bit crude, but he could refine it when he got promoted. The water current in the cbash was useful too, at least it was not as dangerous as the mask. The water current did not require his magic chords and it functioned like the sword aura of a swordsmaster. Short distance isted attacks were far more practical than crystal finger.


    With Saleen¡¯s current magic chords, he did not even dare to release crystal finger once. Crystal finger could only be used at desperate times. The water current in the cbash had weak points besides the speed of attack being slow. The problem with its speed could be resolved using calction. No matter how slow the speed of the water current was, it would be much stronger than the normal arrow and bow.


    There were two alive fully constructed puppets in the dimension stone and these puppets were at an advantage if they were fighting against swordsmen. The witcher spider puppet that he first got was hardly used recently. It was good for surprise attacks, but it was not as good for direct battle.


    Saleen looked back and forth at all his items on hand and thought he did not have enough fighting power. In actual fact, as a grade-5 mage, his fighting power was terrifying. His enemies were too strong though and that made Saleen unable to focus on his practice. If he were to run into the ck bishop again, within ten meter distance, Saleen was confident to bring him to death with one finger. After that his fighting power would be zero though.


    His enemies had immense power and he could not fight against them one on one. The only solution was to nurture a few helpers. The mages from Sregl Ind needed at least two years time before they could leave and Saleen had no other ways as the fire type element spirit was too precious. It was impossible for him to let his teacher give up.


    He had the Three Kings then, but Saleen was not carefree. Besides Diyabannersa, the other two Kings were troublesome. Judikaka was full of petty consideration and Banchajanna worked with no logic. Diyabannersa actually gave Saleen a headache as well. When that bastard was angry, he did not care about the consequences. Saleen could onlyfort him gently and he dared not give himmands that were too ridiculous. Banchajanna was easy to order around, even if he got angry sometimes, he would forget after a while.


    Sika walked into Saleen¡¯s room quietly and asked, ¡°When are we going back?¡±


    ¡°Go back? I am nning to stay back for another two months. Don¡¯t you know I brought twenty-four lightning dragon under control and in one year at most, the food needed is unbearable.¡±


    ¡°I did a reading earlier and our city seems to be in trouble.¡±


    ¡°Divination?¡± Saleen wanted tough. As a mage, he did not need to believe in divination, but his face grew awkward.


    ¡°You meant, the city base would have trouble?¡±


    ¡°I predicted that ording to the result of my divination, but forget it if you don¡¯t believe in it. I recently got the ability, I dare not assure if it was useful and the message was vague. There might be a mistake in my prediction.¡±


    Saleen was in dilemma. He did not believe in divination, but he remembered what happened to Lex. The prophecy by thest astrologer of the Qin Empire turned out to be true and Saleen experienced some of it first hand. When Saleen saw The Great Chanake, Saleen turned his nose up at astrology, he thought ¡°How is it possible for such a person to die?¡± The oue shocked him, The Great Chanake did die and he was murdered.


    If Sika was talking about something else, Saleen might not care at all, but what Sika was talking about was his city. It was the city that he built with his own hands. If something was wrong with the city, all Saleen¡¯s effort would be utterly wasted. There was his property that he brought over from Sregl Ind, two warships, and the city center that was taking shape. He also left an enormous amount of materials that he saved to a build magic tower in the secret room underneath the temple.

 Chapter 394: Returning Home Early (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 394: Returning Home Early (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was contemting if he should return to check on the city. If the city base was okay, he would be a joke as he believed in divination even though he was a mage.


    The most fundamental problem was, concern brought about chaos. It was impossible for Saleen to ignore the danger of hisir. Even if there was only one percent of the possibility, he would pay a hundred percent attention to it.


    The Oceanic Ice Block was far away from the city base and the ship was moving. Due to the factor of location coordinates, the sound transmission magic array could not be put to use. The expense of the sound transmission magic array was not minor, but it was more economicalpared to magic array that transferred material.


    Then, Saleen said, ¡°We don¡¯t need a long time to go back. After the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat leaves here, it can travel at high speed. At about two thousand miles everyday we only need two weeks max to rush back. It¡¯s almost February, I reckon we would reach home at the end of March.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I¡¯ll obey you.¡± Sika was worried too as there were a few thousand Caucasus people living in the city and the Caucasus people followed her to Saleen¡¯s city to look for a new homnd. Holy See created a foul atmosphere in the Caucasus Region and the limited priests were seeking a way out for the vige.


    ¡°Banchajanna!¡± Saleen shouted as he walked out of his cabin.


    ¡°Mage Saleen?¡± Banchajanna was still mending his body and he quivered in his heart when he heard Saleen¡¯s unfriendly tone. ¡°Is there something wrong with the mask? Master seemed to be fine when he wore the mask back then, nothing seemed to happen. Master¡¯s capability seemed to be stronger then Saleen, the mage. Even if master was fighting against Gods, he had the capability to fight, but Saleen¡­¡±


    Banchajanna then realized what went wrong. Due to soul bond, he revered Saleen as his master, but such awe made him overlook Saleen¡¯s that power was still too weak.


    The mask was stolen by Banchajanna from Shann. After he got the mask, only then did he realized that it was useless to spirits of the dead. He of course dared not return it to Shann and kept it in secret. Shann did not use the mask much and only Banchajanna knew about this while the other two Kings had no idea. Judikaka and Diyabannersa would have broken Banchajanna into pieces otherwise.


    ¡°You stole master¡¯s item, are you crazy?¡±


    The three Kings were afraid of Shann. What Banchajanna did was seen in Shann¡¯s eyes, but the mask was something that he would be well with or without it. The three Kings were nurtured by him personally, so there were feelings for them. Banchajanna always turned everything topsy-turvy and Shann was well aware of it, so he would not punish him for that.


    Banchajanna did not know, so he had been keeping the mask as he dared not take it out. That was until when he needed the bones in Saleen¡¯s hands, he was driven and pushed by evil to take out the mask to trade. From what he had seen, the master¡¯s item was of course extremely precious. To exchange it with Saleen¡¯s high level magic beast bones, was definitely not deceiving Saleen.


    ¡°Do you know that the mask nearly killed me?¡± Saleen said, but he did not take out the mask from his demonic ring.


    ¡°How is it possible?¡± Banchajanna replied with grievance, ¡°That item, I wasn¡¯t willing to show it the other two bastards. Mister Saleen, you are controlling my freedom. Although I am angry, I am not stupid. If I were to kill you, there would not be a good ending for me.¡±


    Banchajanna looked like a normal spirit of the dead then. He analyzed clearly and logically.


    ¡°How would I know if you intend to harm me? I think, it would be safer if I turned you into a puppetpletely.¡± Saleen did not act enraged, but Banchajanna knew that when a mage was angry, it was not necessary for them to show it. In actual fact, when a mage was getting ready to strike, he was at the calmest state. Only at that state, the magic would be able to organized urately and bring about the biggest damage.


    Banchajanna knew that Saleen might take action then. He changed the way he addressed Saleen. He used to call him ¡®Mage Saleen¡¯ and then he called him ¡®Mister Saleen¡¯.


    ¡°Master, the mask belonged to my previous owner.¡± Banchajanna identally exposed the secret so he continued the story. ¡°I forgot that the difference between you and my master is vast. I wore the mask before, but there was no effect and I didn¡¯t know what effect it held against humans. I just thought my master¡¯s item must be very precious.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± Saleen looked calm but his heart was stirred up with emotion. ¡°The three bastards had a master?¡±


    Although the lives of the three Kings were controlled by Aini and himself, the three bastards were not willing to call them master. Even when Aini and himself showed them their intention to have the three of them refer to them as master, the three Kings insisted to maintain their dignity. Looking at Banchajanna talking about his master, he looked as though he worshiped his master.


    Saleen knew how to read the facial expressions of the spirits of the dead then, including the frequency of the soul me when they were talking. ¡°Banchajanna was not faking it, where does his mastere from?¡±


    ¡°Bullshit, if you had master, why couldn¡¯t I feel it when I signed a soul bond with you?¡± Saleen questioned him.


    ¡°Mister Saleen, my master was missing for almost ten thousand years. He might have died or became a god.¡±


    ¡°Became a god?¡±


    ¡°Of course, with master¡¯s ability, it isn¡¯t weird if he were to be a god.¡±


    Saleen calcted quickly in his mind, his extremely strong calction ability allowed him to find an inkling. He smiled coldly and said, ¡°The three of you came to the Myers Maind to look for clues about your master.¡±


    Banchajanna was shocked. ¡°How did Saleen guess it?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you n to do, but what you did today nearly killed me. What do you think I should do?¡±


    Banchajanna had not recovered from the shock, so he replied blindly, ¡°You can do as you wish.¡±


    ¡°Okay, here¡¯s eighteen pieces of dimension stones, fill them up.¡± Saleen then threw the dimension stones to Banchajanna, not giving him a chance to reject. Banchajanna epted the dimension stones and wondered why was it such a light punishment.


    ¡°I want you to fill these dimension stones up in three days. I need to return home soon.¡±


    Banchajanna nodded in agreement and walked towards the head of the ship. He did not realize that three days was really a rush. To fill up six dimension stones everyday was such a difficult task.


    Saleen did not talk to Banchajanna then. He found out an important message from Banchajanna, which was that human could be a god. Although Banchajanna always turn everything topsy-turvy, he was quite knowledgeable and his master was a scary man. To be looked at highly by the Kings of the Dead signified the power of the person.


    Especially when it was a spirit of the dead like Banchajanna. One would not be able to bring him under control without any special method.


    No magic books talked about it before. Mages thought, a god was just another creature, a different kind from human. The birth of God was just like any other element spirit.


    Banchajanna said that his master might have be a god and that shocked Saleen. ording to the attributes on the mask, Banchajanna¡¯s master was a mage too.


    ¡°When magic was practiced at its peak, one could turn into a god?¡±


    There were countless strong humans on the Myers Maind back then, did all the people be gods and leave? Was that why the power of the Myers Maind declined quickly? ording to the records of history, the humans on the Myers Maind fought with gods, and to be able to fight against gods, their power should at least be on par with the gods.


    Saleen did not exclude the idea because ever since he got the Ring of Gifts, he had sessfully shown divinity and the divinity spell he used belonged to the Goddess of Myers.


    The Goddess of Myers had passed and he did not profess a belief in the Goddess of Nature. ording to thew of divinity, to release a divine spell, one must believe and receive favor of a god.


    Although Saleen absorbed a leaf of the tree of life, he did not profess a belief. He did not feel weird at first as he thought it was a special ability that the Goddess left behind. He then thought maybe humankind could give birth to divinity themselves. He would not be able to release a strong divine spell with just one piece of leaf from the tree of life otherwise.


    If the presumption spread, maybe the Holy See would not wait for a few years to build a warship and instead send everyone from the inquisition every way possible topletely exterminate such heresy.


    Such presumption could not be considered as heresy. Heresy was mostly referring to believing in other gods, but the presumptionpletely wrote off the teachings of God.


    If human could be gods, what was the meaning for existence of belief?


    The scary part of the thought was, if everyone were to believe in it, there would not be fear towards a god. Just like the human kind in the Myers Maind back then, they could fight against God directly. The confrontation was not from condemnation, it was from fear but those human back then saw themselves on the same level as God.


    Even back then, the Goddess of Myers lived well in the current dimension. The only reason was because humankind were not against God and the teachings of the Goddess were likeable.


    ¡°I like you so you can live. Is it still the same God that humankind knows now?¡± It was a pity that he had only gotten some gemstones from the Goddess of Myers¡¯s Temple, but no written record about the past. Saleen suddenly recalled that Lex said that, there were many ruins of the temple on the Myers Maind.


    From what Lex had gotten and what he had harvest, he could tell that every temple left different things behind. Maybe he could find more clues in other temples.


    Although the problem was urgent enough, as a mage, Saleen could not resist such temptation. If what Banchajanna said was true, the practice of a mage would have a higher aim.


    To be God, was such a great temptation that was hard to resist. Maybe the human back them did not care about it. They had long lives and strong power, but the humans now did not live any longer than a hundred years. If one did not practice hard, their power would be weaker than a magic beast.


    It seemed to be time to return and get in touch with Lex to ask her about the location of the ruins of other temples.

 Chapter 395: Training On The Way Home (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 395: Training On The Way Home (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At first, Saleen was not keen about looking for the ruins of temples. Now that he knew about the news, he started thinking about what Lex said before.


    Lex once told Saleen to gather people that he trusted and find all the ruins of the temples together. Saleen did not agree formally, but he had been taking precautions to find the ruins of the temples. Obviously, the ruins were built during the passing of the Goddess of Myers.


    A God would be sensitive to a such matter. Saleen was always worried that his encounter was a trap left behind by the Goddess. As a mage, even if they did not repel the Goddess of Myers, held their guard up.


    The achievement of the Ring of Gifts in Saleen¡¯s hand was not suspicions as the Goddess could not predict that there would be a bastard named ¡®Saleen¡¯ and that he had ced a bet with Baron Minghui. He won the Ring of Gifts from Baron Minghui and it was impossible for the two of them to intersect originally.


    Saleen was able to ce a bet with Baron Minghui because he was Viscount Gugger¡¯s guest. Viscount Gugger was willing to invite Saleen because he wanted to recover his family¡¯s reputation through the grand mage that backed Saleen up. Saleen was used because of Jason and Jason epting Saleen as an apprentice was merely an ident.


    All these incidents were not rted at all so Saleen did not believe that his fate was arranged by someone else. Everything was due to his hard work, to be able to achieve what he had.


    The origin of the ring was fine, but if the Goddess knew about her fall, what was her intention to build so many secret temples? From the myths, the Goddess of Myers was not an enthusiast of preaching. The cost to build so many temples was very high.


    Saleen would not buy the idea of the Goddess suddenly turning crazy. There was always a reason that human did not know when God was doing something. Saleen did not want to get involved and only wanted to live and be assured that he had bread everyday.


    Now that he had be a pure mage, suddenly there was a pathway right before his eyes and Saleen could not put off the idea regardless.


    ¡°Master, do you want me to leave immediately?¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s voice rang in Saleen¡¯s mind and Saleen shook his head.


    ¡°Soldier, you can continue. It¡¯d be best to suck dry all the power of spirit of the dead. You never know when the next time you would being here is.¡±


    The winged skeleton appreciated Saleen¡¯s effort, but he did not waste any time. He knew that Saleen was rushing to head back while he sent Banchajanna out to hunt. If Banchajanna did not follow the ship¡¯s movement, he might run into danger.


    What the winged skeleton was worried about did not happen, he continued to take in the power of the dead for three days and Banchajanna managed to get back in time. Saleen was worried too. He was not worried about Banchajanna, but he was about the eighteen pieces of dimension stones that he had given to Banchajanna.


    If he were to lose all those dimension stones, Saleen would weep, but he had no tears. When Saleen was making the armor for Sika, he already knew the value of the dimension stones and the twelve of them he used for Sika seemed to be wasted. If he had enough skill, only one dimension stone would have been sufficient to turn Sika¡¯s amor to be a semi godly item.


    Saleen found it odd ¡°Sregl Ind had such a good item, but why would they be attracted by the fire type element spirit.¡±


    It could actually be exined easily. Those dimension stones belonged to Jason. Among the mages in Sregl Ind, only Jason¡¯s water me could make these gemstones while the other mages would not study it.


    In Jason¡¯s n, the real function of the dimension stones were not to be made into any sort of magic equipment. In Jason¡¯s heart, the biggest function of the dimension stone was to use as spatial equipment. Jason was very ambitious, he was dissatisfied with Sregl Ind being positioned at the bottom of Alchemy City. How could he possibly design such a perfect city otherwise. This was a city that was specifically prepared for mages.


    To build such a city, the expenditure was huge. It took manpower, material, resources, and also time. To put the building material together would perhaps take decades without sufficient spatial equipment to transport it. The city would need centuries to be built. It required more man power to guard the materials.


    The material required to build a magic tower was a terrifyingly amount and most of the part where it required the most material were underground. A grade-9 magic tower was at least one square mile. The depth of the magic tower foundation was basically above double the height of the ground and all of the material was extremely precious.


    ¡°Banchajanna, well done. Let¡¯s go.¡± Thest sentence was to the winged skeleton.


    Heplimented Banchajanna faintly and passed Banchajanna a few pieces of bone casually. Banchajanna was covered with wounds and he had used up all of his skill for the three-day-hunt. Luckily, most of the stronger magic beasts had passed, otherwise, there would be a problem for him toe back alive.


    On the Myers Maind dimension, the power of the Kings of the dead were already restricted to the bottom of grade-9. After being controlled by Saleen, the Three Kings¡¯ power continued to be brought down. The three Kings might not be at an advantage when they were fighting against creatures in the current dimension. Of course, Saleen was considered as a creature of the current dimension and Banchajanna was very much afraid of Saleen.


    Although that was the border of the Oceanic Ice Block, it was still dangerous. After leaving the battlefield of the magic beasts, the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat did not float up quickly but continued going forward slowly underwater, in fear of provoking any strong creatures.


    Saleen knew that pressing would not help. After leaving the dangerous zone, the distance to the city base was more than tens of thousands of meters away. Even if the alchemical boat went forward in full speed it would require a week¡¯s time to get there.


    Instead of worrying his head about it, why not seize the time to consolidate their harvest? Five of the low level mages could manipte the magicpass on their own as they had achieved their status of grade-3¡¯s peak and they could be promoted to grade-4 mages anytime. The five of them were excited. Their qualifications were considered eminent above allmoners, but on Sregl Ind, they barely qualified to learn magic.


    If they were not good at solving each question rted to magic, Jason would not send them to Saleen. Intrinsically, the five mages would not have good prospects staying on Sregl Ind. At least they had better not expect themselves to build their own magic tower.


    As it was a journey back, Saleen let the others stay at the cabin opposite. He kept Nailisi and Sika with him to practice on the first floor everyday.


    Saleen¡¯s way of practice was by actualbat. Without outsiders, Nailisi finally showed her third ability, which was to turn into a human and learn magic from Saleen.


    What Nailisi needed to do was to attack Sika with a low level magic while Sika tried to defend with her magic armor. The set of armor was manipted with holy prose and through Sika getting familiarized, there was no magic nucleus needed. She only needed to activate the defence skill when Nailisi was going to attack.


    The magic armor had three defence methods, one was to constantly activate the defence magic array on the armor, second was to maintain the defence of the armor at a semi active state through repeated training, and the third was to let the armor auto defend. That was only activated when an enemy attacked.


    There were pros and cons for the three methods. The method that Sika opted required a high level of skill. Without going through training, the failing rate was ridiculously high. With long periods of training, the effect was almost the same as the third method and the magic nuclei used for training were not any less.


    The biggest advantage of Sika¡¯s training method was that she was able to develop all abilities of the armor. That was a skill of mages making their own equipment. With repeated training, armor would eventually be a part of Sika. By then, the set of armor that Saleen gave her would be considered a semi godly item.


    Saleen was looking at the two of them training with his mask on. Once Sika made a mistake, Saleen would cast an icicle or ice arrow magic to break Nailisi¡¯s attack.


    The training effect was obvious, Saleen could feel that he could withstand it for about fifteen minutes time before he faced the danger of him emptying his mental power. In actual fact, no matter how many magic chords a mage had, one would not be able to stand for fifteen minute casting the same level magic. Only therge scale joint magic would be prepared for few hours time and there was usually participation of magic array.


    If it was individual magic, even a curse, the preparation time was rarely more than three minutes. The mask was very useful for Saleen.


    There was a weird scene in his cabin.


    Firstly, a demon turned into a human and started casting low level magic while a Caucasus priestess was defending with her magic armor. There was a real mage that was looking coldly by the side.


    Nailisi could be considered a magic genius. Her magic chords were formed for only a day. Of course, that rted to the soul bond between her and Saleen. As Saleen was already a grand mage the sess was assured as her condition was special, although he could not turn Nailisi into a grand mage immediately.


    In other words, even if Nailisi did not practice much or did not make an effort to learn. With repeated meditation daily, releasing and recovering magic chords, she could be a grade-2 mage quickly. Until Saleen promoted to sorcerer level, Nailisi would be promoted to grade-4 mage as well.


    There was an exaggeration in leveling and that did not signify Nailisi¡¯s understanding towards magic and her fighting power. That could only exin that Nailisi had enough magic chords. Saleen got emotional and thought about how it nearly cost his life for him to achieve more magic chords when Nailisi could just sit back and rx. Not only did she faced no danger, she was promoted very quickly.


    Magic was bnced. When Nailisi achieved the ability, she had already payed the price before, which was her freedom. A mage was one that went after freedom, but not power. To give up freedom for power was something no mage would be willing to do.

 Chapter 396: Training On The Way Home (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 396: Training On The Way Home (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The effects of training was exceptionally obvious. Saleen mastered the method of using the mask very quickly and the mental power required had already reduced to about one third of its original amount. When he was leaving the border of the Oceanic Ice Block, Saleen could wear the mask for a total of one hour time.


    The only grief was that Saleen had yet to find the technique that would stop the mask from absorbing his mental power. Once he wore the magic mask, it would constantly absorb his mental power. If he was any other grade-5 mage, the mask would be life threatening. Even if one mastered how to use it, another mage would notst more than forty seconds.


    Saleen was d that he never cked. Even when his mental power had surpassed other normal mages, he still continued his training using the badge every day and his mental power had a steady growth.


    What Saleen did not know was, the mask was originally made for sorcerer and it was for a grade-9 sorcerer. His mental power had went through special training and experienced a magical transformation. He grasped the essence and only managed to reduce to the mask¡¯s minimum expenditure.


    If other grade-5 mages were to put it on, it would paralyze their brain that instant.


    Shann who made the mask back then had already surpassed the peak of a grade-10 mage. The equipment in his hands was made for humankind of back then, not for human then that had already degenerated.


    Any equipment must correspond with the user¡¯s capability. Saleen¡¯s white crystal ring given to him by Jason was like that. The ring was very good, it used the highest quality white crystal and the magic array was carved within the white crystal without showing.


    The amount difficulty to make the magic array was inverse of its size. The smaller the magic array, the more difficult it was to make. Ring equipment was always the most difficult to make.


    The white crystal ring was suitable to Saleen as there was no burden for him back then. Even though there was only one single function, it was very valuable.


    No matter how good the equipment attributes were, it would be rubbish if there was no way of using it though. The Giants¡¯ holy stone armor was an example.


    The armor only existed in the Giant dimension, the physical and magic defence was terrifying. The armor would not even be damaged one bit even if is was under attack by a sorcerer. Even a curse would be hard pressed topletely tear the holy stone armor open. The armor also had a self healing function and the speed of the healing definitely outdid the armor that Saleen made.


    The problem was, humankind could never wear holy stone armor. When the Giants were born, they were already seven to eight meters tall. The body size of an adult was even more ridiculous, some were taller than a hundred meters. Most of the creatures were like small lizards to the Giants and they could easily smack them to death. They would only used the holy stone armor when they were fighting against a strong opponent.


    Human¡¯s today were just like a badge in front of the holy stone armor. There was no way of them wearing it.


    Saleen did not use the collection of elemental magic books because he was only able to use water magic back then. The collection provided eighteen magic positions that were bnced. The six elements took up three each. To Saleen the bronze magic book equaled the chance to release three extra spells corresponding respectively to grade-1, grade-2, and grade-3 magic.


    Until Saleen learned about element conversion and mastered the ability, the elemental magic books were useful. Even so, Saleen did not use the elemental magic books to fight. The element conversion magic needed to be recorded in the magic book beforehand and it might not be useful during the battle.


    Saleen owning the mask was dangerous too. If Saleen were to lose his moving power when he took down the mask, without the attack of enemy, the mask would have taken away his life. It was not impossible if he were to be frozen for more than an hour with water magic or petrified by fossilization spell.


    Sika had a decent harvest. The set of body armor a had a very strong defence power and it was mainly directed at magic attack. The reason why most of the magic armor¡¯s defence power descend was because there were not enough magic arrays carved into the armor and Saleen made the magic array directly into the dimension stone. He could make as many as he wanted as long as the dimension stone could take it.


    It was an extremely extravagant matter. If other mages knew what Saleen did, they would be more than willing to exchange some better magic armor for those dimension stones.


    Saleen did not care about that kind of waste. With those dimension stones, he could upgrade Sika¡¯s armor anytime.


    Sika¡¯s harvest was not small. She could then control the defence power on the magic armor easily and her arm ring that Saleen gave her could make a water shield at anytime. It was a pity that she was not a mage, the water shield could only appear on a fixed position at her left side and there was no way to economize.


    Nailisi learned some low level magic, from grade-1 to grade-3. There was not much that Saleen could give her. Saleen might as well have taught Nailisi the element conversion magic. Saleen only knew the fundamental principle of the other five element¡¯s magic, but to demonstrate, he might need the other low level mages to teach Nailisi directly.


    Nailisi¡¯s human form had normal skill, but she could still release scrolls at that state. She could still use the spatial equipment. She could also release her gifted ability, such as the power of the giant dragon and the lightning guardian. With these abilities, Nailisi¡¯s human form was not weak. At least she possessed a degree of ability to fight hand to hand.


    Without the strong body of a demon as foundation, Saleen dared not let Nailisi use her dagger or soft whip. These weapons were powerful, but the risk was high too.


    With such a dagger, the distance between one and the enemy needed to be close to stab them. Fighting against one with long weapons, those who used daggers had to take the risk to shorten the distance. It was also incredibly difficult to manipte a soft whip, it might be the most difficult one among all the weapons. If there was a miscalction, one would be hurt.


    Besides training these skills with Nailisi and Sika, Saleen retrained his witcher spider. The witcher spider had a phantom magic array, but Saleen wiped it off and added a lot of new material to its body. All the material had the same attributes, which were their toughness. The material that did not turn into powder form during battle of the magic beasts obviously fell under that category of toughness.


    The witcher spider, before transformation by Saleen, was eight legged and all eight legs had piercing magic properties. Once mixed with other material, they would lose their special ability. Saleen was satisfied with the material of the puppet. If the dimension stones were not that precious, he would have iid one in the witcher spider¡¯s body.


    Saleen had mastered some of the high level skills to make magic equipment. He used water me to iy a dragon shard debris into the spider¡¯s body. In the future, when the spider used phantom magic, there would be no need for him to worry about the nuclear magic being used up to quickly. Saleen did not decide to remake an offensive phantom magic and instead he used a harmless water magic.


    In witcher spider¡¯s body, there were three magic arrays ovepping one another and also a spiritual imprint magic. Among the three magic arrays, two of them were driving magic while the dragonshard was only used for phantom magic. The other intermediate magic nuclei iid were enough for the witcher spider to fight a long battle. Saleen was getting wealthy again so he might as well give the purest grade-6 magic nuclei for the spider.


    Saleen remade the phantom magic, which was a moreplicated water magic. The magic did not have a fix name, only lifestyle mages learned it. The magic used water element to mock the natural environment and the natural environment was independent so it could use its mockup surroundings to hide the human or object in the magic array.


    If in the wild, the magic array of the witcher spider would make its body disappear into the surroundings of its natural environment. In the city, the witcher spider would mock the surrounding buildings such as houses.


    Saleen¡¯s intention was not to perfect the witcher spider¡¯s surprise attack. He thought the room in the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was too narrow and living under such environment for a long period of time would negatively affect human psychology. With the magic array, Saleen could create a phantom anytime in any corner of the ship. Even though it was fake, it could create a natural scene that would make people feelfortable. The phantom looked extremely realistic, if one¡¯s power was not high and one did not intentionally probe, no one would realize it was a spell.


    Saleen knew that it was useful. When he had enough ships in the future, he could consider providing such resting ces for his warriors.


    There were many factors that affect an army¡¯s fighting power and the psychology factor was the more severe one. When an army was defeated, the fighting power would decrease and arge number of soldiers would be cornered by an enemy with a smaller number. After living in suchpressed environments for a long time, it would affect soldiers greatly. If onnd, Saleen could use some gold coins to build arge enough army camp, but the space on a ship was limited.


    Saleen did so in an impromptu way, but it helped to turn the witcher spider into a more treacherous surprise attacker.


    After leaving the border of the Oceanic Ice Block, the winged skeleton buoyed up the alchemical boat to three-hundred meters away from the water surface. At such a depth, even sorcerers would find it difficult to trace the alchemical boat.


    Generally speaking, a mage was used to probing danger using mental power. When a human probed underwater, the distance would reduced by ten fold. If a sorcerer were to search using the same way as a probing water element, then he would find a space of a few hundred cubic meters at three hundred meters underwater without water elements. The alchemical boat would then be shown.


    That kind of probing that was at the level of microscopic view consumed too much mental power. Even a sorcerer would not be willing to spend their mental power that way.


    At a depth of three-hundred meters, it was not possible for the alchemical boat to travel too quickly as the water pressure there was terrifying. The five mages and the winged skeleton took turns to drive the ship and the average speed was kept at about fifty miles. The time to return to city base would be lengthened to ten days or more. Saleen did not urge the winged skeleton to go faster. If there was any trouble when they returned, he would not want the five mages under him to fully master the skill to drive the ship yet.

 Chapter 397: The Opportunity to Counter Attack (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 397: The Opportunity to Counter Attack (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s bad luck might be running out. On the journey rushing back, the ship had not had much trouble aside from one magic beast encounter.


    Irene was more virtuous, she might have epted J¡¯s advice or maybe she heard Sika¡¯s divination. She had been learning sword craft from J everyday and started working hard.


    As for the winged skeleton, besides driving the alchemical boat everyday, he got familiar with attacking while traveling high speed. That required high demand on his mental power, if he was not promoted, it might not be possible for him to control the spirit pool to attack urately with their travel speed. The bone spirits had various attack patterns, but the most powerful one would be to perish bombing the enemy using bloodstone.


    A bloodstone explosion in the current dimension was equal to a strong spell. No one could withstand the explosion close up, even an armored warship could not.


    As Saleen shortened the hunting trip, the whole crew finally got home at the end of March.


    The alchemical boat did not submerge into the boathouse at the city base as Saleen nned to take a look at the swordsmen on the two warships. These swordsmen from Sregl Ind were loyal, but they had been living for centuries under the protection of mages, so they never needed to deal with any trouble other than fighting. If they had outstanding talent the future generation of swordsmen would be taken into the circle of the mages. If it was not for the environment on Sregl Ind, they would never have had a chance to change their fate that way.


    Not many of them were like Saleen, who ran into such fortune. The number of humans on the maind was counted in the billions and that one idental encounter had turned Saleen into Jason¡¯s apprentice. Based on thew of probability, the possibility was close to zero, but it happened anyway.


    It was about a four-hundred mile sea route away from the city base, but Saleen felt odd when the ship was nearing the inds. The winged skeleton did not notice the two warship and there was no sign of life on the ind.


    It was a typical uninhabited ind with little nts. There were some sea creatures that came up to shore asionally. There were not many magic beasts on the ind itself. The ind was small to the point that Saleen could it probe easily with his perception.


    Due to the odd feeling, Saleen made the five low level mages stay in the ship. Then, they buoyed up the ship to the water¡¯s surface. Saleen and the rest stood on the ship¡¯s bow to observe using the alchemy telescope.


    Saleen took a look and he went into a great rage. He saw a pile of dead bodies thrown on the shore casually. Even without looking carefully, he could tell that those were the swordsmen he brought from Sregl Ind.


    ¡°The warship was attacked. Let¡¯s return to the city.¡± Saleen kept his alchemy telescope instead of observing further as there was not much left to see. There were some wooden houses on the ind originally, but they were all burnt down.


    Aini was worried about the underlinings that stayed in the city, but he reminded Saleen to take a look on the ind.


    Saleen said, ¡°There¡¯s no need to. I have counted roughly. Almost everyone on the ship is there. Only twenty of them fled at most. There is nothing left on the dead bodies, I want to go back.¡± Saleen clenched his teeth. He did not expect hisir to be wiped out while he took a trip out.


    He was confident the people who were kept in the city were safe. After all, there were the two Kings, five grand mages, a death mage, and the Caucasus people that recently joined. They could fight against the enemy even if there were three to five-thousand of them. Such absurd weather would increase the Caucasus peoples¡¯ fighting power.


    There was a magic cannon on the White Rock Mountain and if the enemy was to attack from the harbor, it would fall within the shooting range of the magic cannon. No matter how strong their siege machinery was, they could not move it to the shore. It would be difficult to rely on an individual force to conquer the harbor. There was a fortress specially built to set an alchemy crossbow. As there was no obstruction on the frozen sea surface, there was almost no blind angles for shooting.


    If they failed to defend with all the topographic advantages, the people that he kept were good-for-nothing.


    Irene did not look well as the swordsmen and mages that she brought along to Saleen¡¯s city were all her mother¡¯s trusted men. It could be said that these men listened to her instead of being devoted to the Williams family. ording to the contract she signed with Saleen, if there was any danger, the swordsmen had to coordinate for defence. It would be okay if Saleen¡¯s city was builtpletely, but the three city walls in the city had only few meters tall foundation and there was no proper building above. If there was an attack by the big army, the city walls would not help much in defending.


    Irene did not understand why Saleen started building his city from the center instead of from the city walls. It was not the time to question that though, she was more worried about the number of men she had lost.


    Saleen brought everyone back onto the ship and the ship submerge quietly. The winged skeleton used the spirit pool to drive the ship forward and he released the bone spirits that were in charge of spying to swim along the water surface. Even if they were seen, they would be thought of as fish that swam to the surface.


    The alchemical boat was going forward quickly and when it got close to the shore, it slowed down entirely and approached slowly. In the eye of the dead, Saleen and the others saw the fleet that was lying at anchor near the border of the ice sheet There were fourteen ships in total and two of them were Saleen¡¯s warships.


    ¡°Soldier, I want to see the situation of the two warships¡±


    The winged skeleton heard Saleen¡¯s order and immediately sent the bone spirits to cruise around the two warships from Sregl Ind. The two huge warships had no sign of battle, but the enemy did not activate the magic equipment on the warship. Instead, they only pulled the two ships along with a metal chain.


    ¡°Master, there were many people on the ship. At least twenty to thirty-thousand of them.¡± The winged skeletonmunicated with Saleen in their minds.


    ¡°So many of them?¡±


    ¡°These ships look like they¡¯re from an ind nation from the east!¡± The winged skeleton saw a warship from the east ind nation before, the fighting power of Frederick¡¯s ship seemed to be good. The scale of the ships before their eyes seemed even bigger and they were obviously regr warships.


    ¡°No matter who they are, they killed my people and none of them should leave. Soldier, are you confident enough to knock down all these ships?¡±


    ¡°Master, these ships will have strong mages. I don¡¯t know whether we would be counter attacked. If you want to attack and sink them, it will be difficult. Even if the enemy¡¯s warships are attacked, they won¡¯t sink immediately and the people on the ship could flee onto the ice sheet.¡± The winged skeleton exined the situation to Saleen carefully. Saleen had never been through a regr sea battle, but he knew that even if there was a big leak, it would take at least an hour or two for a big boat to sink.


    If the enemy found out that the warship was damaged beyond repair, they would order everyone to abandon the ship. If there was a mage on the ship, they could make the ship sink slower until all the people on the ship escaped onto the ice sheet.


    Saleenughed coldly and stared at the image of the sea surface and said, ¡°Soldier, send me back first. Nailisi, you stay back. If Soldier¡¯s attack is not sufficient to sink these ships, activate the attack magic array at the front. Use all the bone spirits and magic nuclei, leave no ship afloat.¡±


    ¡°What about our ships?¡±


    Saleen looked at the two warships that the enemy had captured and said,¡± They wouldn¡¯t use that kind of ship. Break the metal chain and save it. Soldier, attack during the night. I will head back to make some arrangements. I¡¯ll wait for them on the ice sheet.¡±


    Saleen was raging within, but his mind was clear. Sinking those ships would not be the end, the enemy would walk to the shore along the ice sheet. He had to return to make arrangements himself. Just like the winged skeleton said, there were tens of thousands of soldiers. The sudden attack would bring damage to his own city.


    ¡°The actual action time?¡± the winged skeleton asked Saleen carefully.


    ¡°Twenty two o¡¯clock, you take action. If the ships are to leave before this time, you do not need to wait for my arrangement. Seize the time before they keep the anchor and release the bone spirits to attack.¡± Saleen was making arrangements and he was d that the enemy was far too careless to have all the ships lie at anchor at one spot without a patrolling boat nearby.


    It would be a definite sess for the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat to make a surprise attack under such circumstances. The attack of the alchemical boat would sink the enemy, but not much damage would be done to the soldiers.


    Saleen hated that he was not a grade-9 sorcerer. If he was he could release a curse to fall like meteor rain and eliminate all the ships entirely without sparing anyone on the ships.


    Looking at Aini and Irene who were tensed up, Saleen grew calm and smiled, ¡°The two of you shouldn¡¯t be too worried, Kredian is a steady man. He wouldn¡¯t let your men take the risk first. These people have yet to attack and there were only some minor battles at the harbor.


    ¡°I know that, but it was difficult to gather those people.¡± Aini smiled. Saleen knew what they were thinking, but there was nothing to avoid. The swordsmen and mages that he brought were his trusted men too. If he were to lose them, he would feel resentful.


    The alchemical boat submerged to two hundred meters deep and drove towards the harbor. On the sea surface, high ranking officers were gathered on the gship and the atmosphere was solemn. The grand general that served as the leader was talking to the ck robed mage politely, ¡°Mage Youxi Maso, you said that there were high level spirits of the dead among our enemies. What should we do? To have our soldiers fight against the spirits of the death hand-on-hand, would be futile even if our soldiers are strong.¡±


    ¡°Your Excellency, not that I¡¯m not willing to help, but I tried my best to rush through the equipment needed. Our luck was bad, the ship that carried the sr chariot sunk during the storm. We could dash in right now otherwise.¡±


    ¡°We have twelve Magic Chariots now. Can¡¯t we fight against a high level spirit of the dead with those?¡± A general could not help but interrupted, but Youxi Maso did not answer him.


    ¡°Your Excellency, my mage group is working day and night . By tomorrow morning thetest, they can transform a chariot that can fight against the spirits of the dead.¡±


    The grand general in colorful armor paid attention to the mage then. ¡°The defence of the enemy is strong. During the few times of exploratory attack, we were counter attacked by their strong bows. There was only one closebat and we took the most damage then. The enemy did not only guard at the shore, but sent a troop out on the ice sheet to fight against our warriors too. That time, there were less than a hundred that returned from the three big groups as they had a ferocious death creature.¡±


    ¡°Then, what is the presumption of the situation by the the mage group?¡± the grand general asked for advice modestly. All the country¡¯s mage groups were wise and knowledgeable. A lot of mages were not any lesspetent than professional army when it came to battle strategy.

 Chapter 398: The Opportunity to Counter Attack (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 398: The Opportunity to Counter Attack (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ck robed mage replied in a reserved manner, ¡°Your Excellency, it¡¯s inconvenient for us to partake in this discussion, His Majesty would be furious when he hears this.¡±


    The ind nations from the east had a different culture whenpared to the Myers Maind. The position of a mage was not especially high and mages could not givemands in the army. Those who took part in battle strategy could only be professional army personnel. Mages were still respected because of their strong fighting power and broad knowledge though. The grand generalughed awkwardly and said, ¡°Mage, we shouldn¡¯t be courteous. ording to the observation of the flying puppet, the scale of the city isn¡¯t small, but it looked like it has yet to bepleted. Could we enter from other ces around the harbor and attack from thend?¡±


    The ck robed mage shook his head and said, ¡°Your Excellency, between here and the icebound sea area the nearestnd would be about a hundred miles away. If we were to go ashore from another ce, we would need to divide up the forces. The distance is too far apart, we would find it difficult tomunicate. The people on the Myers Maind like to build fortress-like towns around their cities to defend all sides.¡±


    ¡°I understand. If I had double our soldiers, dividing the forces would be a wise choice. I¡¯ll wait for the mage group toplete the chariot transformation and attack from the harbor then.¡± The grand general looked at his underlining who interrupted him just now. It sent shivers down his spine and he lowered his head.


    The ind nation from the east strictly enforced a hierarchy and the upper ss had rights over the lives of the lower ss. Although there was hardly anyone that did so, he dared not speak any more.


    The ck robed mage did not exin further. He did not care if anyone would talk bad about him in front of the King, there was aplete mage group under him. If he were to offend these soldiers, there would be someone from the mage group that would get punished on his behalf. Youxi Maso was not cold blooded. He had always taken good care of his mage group. These people from the ind nation of the east were different, they were the envy of the Cloudflow Empire, a.k.a the fourth dynasty.


    The feudal official was loyal to the master of the country and the master had to take care of the benefits of the feudal official. It was a perfect era. If allied forces defeated Myers Maind, they would have enoughnd to build a humongous city and to build their own mage family.


    After the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat entered below the ice sheet, it increased its speed to its maximum. It only took a little over one hour for them to return to the boathouse underneath the harbor. Saleen brought Sika and the rest off the ship, but left the five mages and Nailisi behind to attack the fleet. Saleen could not care less about who was his enemy. They had killed the swordsmen from Sregl Ind, it was a fight until the end for them. Even if these people returned his warships, he would not cease.


    There was a secret pathway in the boathouse that connected to the ground. Saleen¡¯s alchemical boat entered the boathouse and Kredian at the temple realized they had returned. That was the power Saleen left Kredian with before he left; to take over magic arrays that only he could use normally.


    ¡°Mister Saleen has returned. Hurry up, go usher him.¡± Kredian was delighted. Although they had sessfully defeated numerous attacks by the enemy, he knew that the enemy only sent soldiers to probe their ability. The real attack had yet toe.


    He did not have many soldiers on hand. Some were assigned to the harbor and some were assigned to the north of the city in order to prevent the enemy froming ashore from the north. Four-hundred Caucasus Magic Wolf Calvarymen were distributed into two spots and that gave Kredian a headache. If one side was under attack, reallocating soldiers for backup would required time too.


    The fighting power of Saleen¡¯s army was not bad, but there was not a proper calvary. Although the skeleton warhorses were useful, they were used for pushing on a journey as Saleen had yet to give them calvary training.


    The fighting method of a calvary required special training. It was not like you were considered calvary just because you had a horse. A normal swordsman, without special skill, would most likely hurt themselves first if they attacked withnces. Saleen returned and Kredian immediately found his back bone. With the return of Sika, the Caucasus people would go all out and send all their soldiers. It was much easier to set up a line of defence with the Caucasus people.


    Saleen saw Daniel first at the harbor and he looked haggard. There was no pattern for the enemy¡¯s attack. As he was in charge of defence at the harbor, he had yet to sleep well for half a month. The enemy seemed to know when the attack would disturb the work and rest schedule of the defence line. There was no other way. The number of enemies was great, but there were only one-thousand of them at the harbor. They could only be separated into two batches and each batch would need to hold on for twelve hours.


    Daniel had no choice but to let the pikoosi go on the battlefield to avoid their soldiers being harmed because of that.


    The pikoosi could turn it into a bloodbath, but the mage from the enemy side ran away and he even hurt the pikoosi with magic before he left. Daniel was upset, but he could not let the pikoosi rest.


    Looking at Daniel¡¯s blood shot eyes, Saleen patted his shoulders and said, ¡°Thanks for your hard work. J, stay back to take Daniel¡¯s ce. Daniel, head back with me to discuss how to deal with these enemies.¡±


    Daniel saw Saleen, a mage who was younger than himself. He felt calm and his weariness almost disappeared. Saleen was like the backbone of everyone. When he returned, the warriors at the harbor cheered as though the problem was already solvedpletely.


    Saleen had a lot on his mind. He reckoned he did not have many soldiers, but mostly had pirates and swordsmen from Sregl Ind. There were many uncivilized people, but their individual fighting power was strong while group fighting power was weak. The Caucasus people¡¯s quality was better, but when Sika was not around, some of them would not contribute. Saleen had yet to give them a corresponding position and they had no idea what to do.


    He brought Sika away, that was a mistake.


    ¡°Mister, I am just a swordcraft teacher, not a general. I might not beparable to the few magic beast swordsmen in leading the army.¡± J looked embarrassed when he told Saleen that. He was not pushing the responsibility, but as the line of defence was extremely important, he was afraid that he might do harm to the soldiers that were strongly entrenched in their position.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, just continue to guard against the enemy ording to Daniel¡¯s arrangement. We will counter attack at night. You don¡¯t need to hold on for long. Aini, Irene, transfer your people to the harbor to guard the line of defence at the back. Sika, return to South Court to contact your warriors. I need a troop of six-hundred heavy infantrymen, bring them along to the hall with you. I shall prepare armor for them.¡±


    When Saleen finished givingmands, there was a low level mage named Sumier that came to wee him at the harbor. Saleen saw the carriage that they sent to get him, but he did not get on. He instead cast a quick cloud spell and flew into the air. He told Sumier on the ground to return on his own.


    Looking at Saleen flying away in the air, Sumier envied him and gulped. He knew that Saleen was only a grade-5 mage, but he had such powerful flying skills when he himself could only move slowly on the ground. He was uncertain if he could even cast an effective windspeed skill.


    Aini and Irene returned to the city hall separately. Sika did not look towards Sumier¡¯s carriage and she called a Caucasus Magic Wolf Calvaryman that was patrolling nearby. She asked for his magic wolf to rush back to South Court where all the Caucasus people stayed.


    The speed of the magic wolves were faster than warhorses in short distances. Although the speed for long distance was slower, their endurance was higher. A magic wolf was not considered high level among magic beasts, but they could follow their prey for a few days time just to hunt for food. Sika sat on the back of the magic wolf and it started running as though it was flying.


    A magic wolf was a loyal creature. If anyone else sat on it, it would flip the person off and break their throat. Sika, the warrior priestess, only needed to whisper softly in its ear for the magic wolf to bring her obediently. The Caucasus warrior looked at Sika¡¯s receding figure with full adoration.


    He wished he had a chance to get intimate with the priestess, but the priestess seemed to like the mage. It would be great if it was the death mage as he heard that death mages could not give birth to sons.


    The Caucasus warrior shook his head with regret and thought, ¡°Even if the mage couldn¡¯t, it wouldn¡¯t be my turn. There are another two young and strong warriors in the tribe, which are the two most loyal bodyguards of the priestess.¡±


    If Saleen were to know what the Caucasus warrior was thinking about, he would be furious. Because of Sika¡¯s identity, even if she was uglier than a demon, there would still be tons of Caucasus people that would want to have a kid with her. That was the most primitive belief in a culture that was passed down for dozens of thousands of years.


    The temple in the city center had various magic arrays and there were dozens of teleportation portals among them. The material that Jason gave to Saleen was precious. The ce where Saleen used to stay had quite a few sound transmission magic arrays. It couldmunicate with a few important locations in the city.


    It was unnecessary to be so luxurious normally, but during war, it was an effective way tomunicate as the centralmand could be spread quickly.


    Kredian was waiting outside the temple when he saw a thick cloud streak across with lightning speed.


    ¡°Master, you finally returned!¡± Kredian could not suppress his happiness when he weed Saleen.


    ¡°Mm, let¡¯s talk inside. No one got hurt, right?¡± ( Updated by BOX NOVEL.COM)


    Kredian¡¯s eyes grew red when he said, ¡°We lost over one-hundred swordsmen.¡±


    ¡°I saw their dead bodies. I want to form a counter attack immediately.¡± Saleen said as he walked into the temple. At the first floor of the temple, Saleen saw two Caucasus warriors in their beautiful armor leading dozens of young Caucasus people.


    ¡°Why are you here?¡± Saleen asked.


    The two Caucasus warriors were Sika¡¯s bodyguards. When they saw Saleen, they were shocked. The two of them were mature, they did not ask Sika, but answered Saleen¡¯s question, ¡°The priestess told us to guard this ce until your return.


    ¡°Sika has returned. You don¡¯t need to return first but follow me. She wille along.¡± Saleen said and went to the second floor. The second floor had a model of the whole city¡¯s arrangement, with a sound transmission magic array tomunicate in every corner.


    Saleen entered his own huge room and let everyone who followed to take a seat. He then activated the magic array on the table and started broadcasting to all the other sound transmission magic arrays.


    ¡°I am Saleen Metatrin. I am back. The enemy is on the sea one-hundred miles away. In five hours, all their ships will sink. I want all of you to take revenge for the dead. Anyone who hurt the people in this city will have to pay the price with their life. Kill all of them.¡±

 Chapter 399: An Unfair Battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 399: An Unfair Battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s voice was cool, but everyone cheered when they heard his voice. Saleen spoke themonnguage from the maind, when the swordsmen from Sregl Ind heard the news, they reacted excitedly even though Saleen could not hear their voices.


    ¡°Mister Saleen, we will kill them all!¡±


    Truman who was stuck, guarding at White Rock Mountain, was extremely exhausted. He needed to monitor the ice sheet at all times. Once the enemy attacked, he had to counter attack aiming at the enemy¡¯srge scale weapon.


    The battle made them feel aggrieved. They were first robbed of two warships and one hundred elite soldiers were killed. Then, the enemy constantly taunted them, but did not attack with full force.


    Truman was very upset with Daniel¡¯smand. The first counter attack was too ferocious, none of the enemy managed to return. Their enemy was careful. If he intentionally let some slip away, the enemy would increase their attack power and they would be able to use their magic cannon in the battle.


    Kredian analyzed the enemy¡¯snguage and was certain that they were from an ind nation from the east. There were twelve ships that could carry dozens of thousand of people. If all of these people stepped foot on the ice sheet, he could kill a few hundred in one shot or make more enemies drop into the water. They were in trouble then as the enemy did not send the main principle force and that signified that a stronger attack was in the making.


    The disturbance was annoying. Those enemies from the ind nations did not seem to be afraid of death. They tried to break down the line of defence near the harbor multiple times and every time left some dead bodies behind. They were using the limited sacrifices to mentally torture the defenders, to constantly put them under pressure.


    Truman¡¯s magic standard was not high, but he liked to read books rted to war. He was familiar with all sorts of battle strategies. That small scale battle counted for nothing. Truman was a rare kind of mage that had the quality to be a general.


    If he was the one givingmands for battle, at least everyone would not be as tired. Daniel was pushing everyone too hard and that was not a good sign. When Truman heard that Saleen was back, he immediately gathered confidence. He did not think that Saleen would give bettermand, but Truman knew that with Saleen there, everyone would be encouraged.


    It was very easy when one talked about battle. If the suprememander brought about unifying force, it could increase the fighting will of the army. During the time when Saleen was away, Kredian could only try his best to make everyone guard at their positions, but he could not carry out any other orders.


    When Saleen returned, the first thing he told everyone was that he would take revenge for those who died. It did not sound like a mage, but like a nobleman. That was what the warriors liked to hear. Their weariness was caused by a psychological factor. One sentence from Saleen made everyone let go of the burden in their hearts.


    ¡°Master Jason¡¯s disciple is really amazing!¡± Truman was chosen by Jason for Saleen, so of course he was the same kind of mage as Jason. On Sregl Ind, about half of them supported Jason. It was just that Jason¡¯s level was not the highest on the ind so it would not make a difference even if he had more supporters. Jason did not want to break any rules himself either.


    He wanted to expand the the living space on Sregl Ind. All mages on the ind agreed, no doubt. The act of Jason supporting his own disciple to do so was suspicious and people wondered if he was abusing power for personal gain. The mages from Sregl Ind who had the ability to do so were trapped on the ind fighting against fire type element spirits. The remaining people¡¯s ability was insufficient and they did not have Saleen¡¯s kind of behind-the-scene backer, so no one objected.


    Speaking of support, it had to be a mage that Jason believed in. Truman was the representative of such a mage. These mages thought highly of Saleen as Saleen became a grade-5 mage at such a young age and it was a definite that Saleen was going to clinch the level of a sorcerer someday.


    Saleen was arranging warriors to prepare for a counter attack. On the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemy boat, the few mages and Nailisi were asleep. They would attack when the time came. The winged skeleton was keeping watch and the fleet would not be able to flee. For them to prepare to haul the anchor and set sail would take at least one hour¡¯s time.


    The outer shell of the alchemical boat was already dark green, in blended in with the sea water. Even one with perfect eyesight would find it hard to notice. The ship was originally the shell of a sea creature, Saleen did not add anything superfluous like a magic array. On the sea surface, a few lizard like bone spirits were paddling around while looking after the enemy¡¯s fleet.


    Among the fleet, themp signals were blinking. With the sky growing dark, it made it easier for the winged skeleton to monitor them. It was difficult to use any sound transmission magic array unless they were on the same ship. Anymunication magic array would require a stable coordinate. The ships were floating on the sea and it was extremely difficult to get a fixed coordinate.


    The winged skeleton stopped their ship right underneath the fleet. The sea water was less than three hundred meters deep. The area was considered as the extent of the maind so the water depth would not be like the deep sea. The winged skeleton could easily monitor those ships.


    The magic clock struck twenty-one and the winged skeleton released a bunch of nail sized bone spirits. Those bone spirits were self invented. They swam to the water surface and climbed onto the metal chains that held the warships from Sregl Ind. They started gnawing on the chains with their teeth.


    Saleen did not want to let two of their warships sink along with the enemy as those were gifted to him by his teacher and there was practicality in keeping them. If it was not for the fact that there was no one handling the ships, it would be impossible for those people from eastern ind nations to take them away.


    The small bone spirits had really sharp teeth. Under maniption of the winged skeleton, they climbed up the chains to the part just below water surface and starting gnawing. The warships from Sregl Indy at anchor at the spot too. It actually was not a suitable spot to lie at anchor as the water depth was too deep for a warship. If they wanted to haul the anchor to leave, the water depth would dy them greatly. Saleen saw that factor and that was why he let the winged skeleton stay to guard against them. It would be difficult for their enemy to flee, so attacking from both sides would be the best way to vent his hatred.


    At the end of the day, Saleen was a Sikenqinyan. If it was possible, Saleen would be willing to use gold coins to fight against the enemy instead of bloodshed and war, but Saleen had returned and saw a hundred dead bodies on the ind with their armor removed. On top of that, many of their hands and legs were chopped off. No matter how good Saleen¡¯s temperament was, he would not leave any of the enemy alive.


    Kacha kacha. The sound that the small bone spirits were making was inaudible underwater, hence the guards on the ships did not notice. A bone spirit was not a high level creature, but the metal chain that was connected was not alchemy metal. With about half an hours time, the metal chain was only one bite away from falling apart.


    The bone spirits stopped under the winged skeleton¡¯smand. With such a thin chain, there was no need to cut further. When the enemy¡¯s warship sank, the metal chain would automatically break.


    On the twelve ships, only the gship had lights. The remaining ships were in the dark. ¡°The enemy doesn¡¯t look like they¡¯re going to attack tonight.¡± The winged skeleton was delighted, the sess rate of Saleen¡¯s n had increased tremendously.


    A few transformations of the alchemical boat added the green spirit that Saleen had gotten in the swamp. Now the number of bone spirits saved was not considered too many.


    It could only produce twenty-four bone fish that could be used to attack warships daily, but there were many bloodstones. Most of them were used as fuel for the spirit pool and the remaining twenty-four pieces were kept for the bone fish.


    At the stern of the ship, there was a newly added small spirit pool that could only produce six bone spirits daily. They were higher level, but they would still have to attack with bloodstone as there were no new methods of attack. Most of the magic attack distance and damage would decrease underwater. Even though the attack method of the bone spirits was slow, the distance was far enough.


    The bone fish could then attack a target three miles away. The new bone spirits produced at the stern of the ship could attack a target six miles away.


    Back then Judikaka opted bone fish as an offensive bone spirit because the speed of the fish was extremely fast, up to hundred and twenty miles. In other words, within the distance of three miles, they could hit the target within one and a half minutes if the target was sitting still.


    A bone spirit was a type of death creature. As long as the distance between the enemy and the ship did not outdo the distance that spirit pool could control, bonefish could tail the target until it ignited the bloodstone.


    There were many green spirit gemstones iid around the spirit pool. Those low standard green spirits could contain summoned creatures, but due to their low level, the space was limited. Luckily, the bone fish were small so these lower standard gemstones were sufficient.


    The green spirit could store twelve days worth of bone fish produce in the spirit pool at the bow of the ship. The other bone spirits could only store very little. With a spirit pool that could store twenty-four bone fish daily, the winged skeleton had three hundred and twelve bone fish on hand. To fight against a warship, it would require at least twelve bone fish to ensure a steady win. Three hundred and twelve of the bone fish could attack twenty six targets at once.


    The enemy had twelve ships and the winged skeleton was very careful. He used twelve bone fish on each of the eight fully armedmercial ships, and as for the remaining four warships, the winged skeleton used four times the dosage to ensure that the four warships would be unrepairable and to sink entirely.


    The magic clock was slowly approaching twenty two o¡¯clock. The winged skeleton gradually released bone fishes and very quickly, there were over two-hundred bone fish that went through the magic crystal from the bow of the ship to wait for the winged skeleton¡¯s nextmand. The stomach of the bone fish bulged a little as all of them had a bloodstone that could explode anytime.


    Bloodstone wasmonly seen in the death dimension and it was very stable there, but on Myers Maind, where signs of life everywhere. Bloodstone would only be safe temporarily in the stomach of bone spirit. Once a bone spirit was attacked, the bloodstone would be ignited.


    The five mages and Nailisi woke up and looked at everything nervously. Although they were hidden at a depth of two-hundred meters, they had to be alert if the enemy had counter attack measures. A sorcerer mighte underwater to look for the ship and that would be the scariest. The five mages were prepared to drive the ship away at its top speed while Nailisi stood before the attack magic array. If they failed to flee, the Ice Bomb spell would be quite powerful in the water. At least the magic array that Saleen designed would not be affected by the underwater environment.


    This was the first battle using the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat and it had to face twelve opponents, even Nailisi was nervous.


    Ding!


    The magic clock made a light buzzing noise, it was twenty-two o¡¯clock.


    ¡°Start the attack!¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s voice resounded within the ship. Two-hundred and eighty-eight bone fish swarm upwards with lightning speed and formed a white line in the water.

 Chapter 400: An Unfair Battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 400: An Unfair Battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The gship¡¯s rm was only triggered when the bone fish got five-hundred meters away from the warships.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± An officer walked out of the cabin and asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. The magic rm went off, it seems that the enemy got close to us.¡±


    ¡°Where are the guards?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re at the mast, but they didn¡¯t see anything.¡±


    The officer thought and decided for safety reasons he should tell someone. He turned around and walked towards the captain¡¯s room to let the higher ups decide if they should issue the rm to the entire fleet.


    When he came before the captain¡¯s room, he saw the ck robed mage that was alwaysposede dashing out. The mage looked terrified as he ran towards the deck.


    The ck robed mage dashed towards to deck and dispersed his perceptions. Then, he heard explosions rising and subsiding there. More than a hundred living organisms hit all the warships. The ck robed mage could feel the deck shaking and he shouted, ¡°Mage group, abandon the ship! Quick! Abandon the ship!¡±


    Among the bone spirits that attack the warships, at least half of them ran towards the rudders first. Once the rudders were damaged, even if they could mend the leak at the bottom of the ship, they would not be able to leave. Even if they used magic to control water current, the ships could only go forward in a straight line, That made it easy for the enemy to trail behind.


    Bloodstones that the bone spirits carried ignited and made loud explosion noises, they could even feel the vibration from afar underwater. The alchemical boat was not even one mile away from the fleet under the ice. Such close attacks almost finished the battle within one minute.


    The enemy was too careless, they did not monitor underwater at all. On Myers Maind, underwater attacks were rarely seen, but it was amon strategy to consider.


    Among the twelve warships, the eight fully armedmercial ships received the most damage as all themercial ships were attacked by twelve bone spirits. There was no magic array defending the bottom of the ship. When the bone spirits knocked into them from the bottom, they knocked a few hole directly. The winged skeleton used multiple attack methods and one fully armedmercial ship was hit on the same spot by eight bone spirits. Its tremendous explosion almost broke the ship into two pieces from the middle.


    That was not the only ship and almost none escaped. Before the people on the ship responded, the bottom of the ship had a big hole that was four meters in diameter. The body of the ship cracked along the hole and slowly sunk.


    It was already night time, most of the sailing crews or the warriors were already resting. The minority of the patrollers jumped into the water to swim onto the ice sheet. Without a lifeboat and in seawater at such temperature, it made the human body lose its temperature very quickly. Even though the ice sheet was just a few hundred meters away from the fleet, these people lost their senses really quickly. Only a few swordsmasters could get through it with the sword aura in their body. They were shivering when they got to the ice sheet.


    The ck robed mage was surprised and angry, he flew in the air to look at the battle below. He had yet to see the traces of their enemy. He could not be med as warships from east ind nations and the unconquerable fleet in Cloudflow Empire were different. The fleet from Cloudflow Empire had boats that were in charge of guarding and they could cover dozens of miles of sea area, including space underwater.


    The alchemical boat might not be discovered by the monitor boats from Cloudflow, but once they attacked, that would expose their target.


    Very quickly, there were another four gray robed mages that flew into the air, next to Youxi Maso. They were all grade-6 grand mage that were unsure about the situation.


    ¡°You guys head back, bring everyone in the mage group to fight for lifeboats.¡± The ck robed mage knew that even if he found the enemy then, he would not be able to change the fact that the fleet sunk. He suddenly regretted his earlier actions, ¡°If we went onto the ice sheet earlier to trigger the final attack, would this be happening?¡±


    Four grade-6 gray robed mages flew back to gather people from the mage group to leave the ship. The ck robed mage guessed correctly, all the mages on each warship had not realized the danger that they were in. After the attack, the first thing these mages tried was to repair the warships with magic.


    To use magic to repair the warship was just a temporary solution, the correct way was to have mages mend the hole with magic and at the same time have the carpenter fix the leak with material. They must fix the hole entirely before the magic lost its effect. No matter how many magic chords a mage had, it was impossible to sustain the boat and prevent it from sinking otherwise.


    The person who was directing the carpenters had fled and those carpenters already ran to the deck to look for lifeboats. The four main warships were damaged too badly and those who were in charge of mending the ship knew that even with the mages¡¯ assistance it was impossible for them to fix the ship. On a two-hundred meter long warship, there were at least twenty holes now.


    There was a total of forty members in the mage group and these forty mages would not be able to block all the holes.


    The winged skeleton did well. He had forty-eight bone fish attack one ship at the same time, the defence magic array on the bottom of the ship would struggle for a while until it lost its effect. The bone spirits attacked in batches, they could attack the position on the bottom of the ship which had the weakest protection. They could also attack the same spot repeatedly. These defence magic arrays were not activated entirely, hence they could not take such frequent tremendous explosions.


    If they were the armored warships from Cloudflow, they could withstand the attacks for a while, but the warships from the eastern ind nations put their metal armor above the waterline. Their underwater defences were much weaker. By doing so they could increase travel speed and save on cost, but it was a vital w during battle.


    The two magic warships from Sregl Ind would not sink so quickly even if the defence magic was not activated. If the attack number was insufficient, the two warships would not be damaged much. As long as there were enough mages on the ship, they would be able to mend the leaks.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was not built as a warship. It was amazing enough for an underwater ship that was barely thirty meters long to have such strong attacks. The winged skeleton built a new spirit pool at stern of the ship, as he needed stronger attacks.


    The gship that had the highest defence was slowly nting to one side. Among the twelve ships, four out of eight fully armedmercial ships had sunk. The remaining four fully armedmercial ships were releasing lifeboats and there were swordsmen escaping and rowing towards the ice sheet constantly.


    The border of the ice sheet already had a simple harbor. Once they climbed on, they would survive.


    Hong!


    One of the lifeboats had an explosion, but it was because a low level mage shot out a fire ball to kill a few soldiers that were fighting for the boat with him. The low level mage did not know how to swim, even if he knew, he would die if he jumped into sea water that was that cold.


    In a myth, when adventurers lost their boat in the sea, they would be carried by the current until they met an abandoned ind. In actual fact, if there was no special skill or equipment, the temperature of the sea water was sufficient enough to take one¡¯s life away.


    The surrounding soldiers got pissed and drew their long knives, wanting to harm the mage. Before life or death, they had no respect for the mages. Suddenly, a grade-6 gray robed mage, raised his hands and released a Wind de spell to cut the swordsmen in half.


    ¡°Mage leaves first.¡± The gray robed mage looked coldly at the remaining soldiers. The soldiers were eager to take action, but they left the lifeboat quickly to go and fight for the other life boats.


    On the sea surface, there were a few bone spirits that were spying and sent images back to the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. The winged skeleton smiled, ¡°A motley force that knows no discipline. Master won¡¯t run into any trouble fighting them.¡±


    The winged skeleton was right, these soldiers were gatheredst minute as the situation in the eastern ind nations was special. Sometimes, there were dozens of thousands of people on an ind. Even if it was a nation, the nation had no ability to buildrge scale warships. The Eighteen-Power Allied Force was actually formed by multiple small countries.


    When there was danger, the soldiers panicked. Everyone knew that it was impossible that their own kings had deterrence. If they wanted to live, they had to fight for life boats with their allies.


    The mentality of inders was something the Qin people could not understand as well as the winged skeleton. If these soldiers cooperated, more than half of them could escape to the ice sheet. The distance between the warship and the ice sheet was only a few meters after all and the number of lifeboats were not too few. It would take at least half an hour for the ship to sink and this half an hour would be sufficient for the lifeboats toe back and forth for a few rounds.


    The fighting among themselves led to more death. Even if they lived, they would not have trust anymore and they would not be able to fight together. If Saleen were to attack then, the end of these people would be certain.


    More and more soldiers got onto the ice sheet and looked back at their ships that were slowly sinking. Then, there were three huge shadows that flew from the maind. Their bodies were eight meters away and there was no blood or flesh, but only soul mes in their eyes.


    Three huge spirits of the dead came before the border of the ice sheet, but they did not do anything to the soldiers. They only did one thing at the same time, which was to take out their scepters and stab them into the ice sheet.


    ¡°Thanks to Shann for giving me the strength of truth.¡± Diyabannersa¡¯s scepter was giving out a ear deafening roar.


    ¡°Thanks to Shann for giving me the strength of lies.¡± Judikaka looked far towards the sea and his scepter was quivering in his hands. It made a huge crack on the ice sheet.


    ¡°Thanks to Shann for giving me the strength of ridicule.¡± Banchajanna shot gray streaks of light from his scepter and set up a humongous death spirit magic array in front of them. More spirits of the dead walked out from the magic array and walked towards the soldiers on the border of the ice sheet.


    As the three Kings were doing this, they had a thought at the same time, ¡°Saleen is so treacherous.¡±


    Saleen gave them an order, which was to break the ice sheet, so that those soldiers could note ashore. If the enemy had strong mages, the three Kings only need to hold up the mages and Saleen would take care of the rest.


    As expected, when the ck robed mage realized the three terrifying death spirits were breaking the ice sheet, he could not help but bring four gray robed mages. He flew towards the three Kings.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Youxi Maso roared forgetting to speak the maindmonnguage.


    ¡°Mage, do you want us to stop? Then, fight a battle with us.¡± Judikaka said and flew into the air as he sighed in his heart. Saleen made a correct guess. The enemy had a sorcerer. Three fighting against one would not be much of a fight though. The rest of the four gray robed mages could not bring much harm to the Kings.


    On the ice sheet a few miles away, four magic beast swordsmen brought four-hundred Caucasus warriors on magic wolves looking from afar without charging forward. If the three Kings managed to attract the sorcerer, he could solve the remaining problem himself.


    It was an unfair battle, but it was their fault for invading.

 Chapter 401: A wolf’s fighting technique (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 401: A wolf¡¯s fighting technique (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was stationed in the temple, overseeing the overallmand. Whenever the magic sound array was activated, he would be able to monitor the frontline. Ever since leaving Ceylon City, this was the first time Saleen did not need to put his own life at stake.


    ¡°It would be great if the magic sound array didn¡¯t require stable coordinates. That way, the orders could be disseminated to every singlemander on the battlefield.¡± As Saleen was contemting such a possibility in his mind, J stood beside him. J and Daniel were swapped, Daniel was now manning the frontline at the port.


    J¡¯s personality was not suited for on-scenemand. J could wield his sword to kill someone, but it was challenging for him to be amander. Saleen knew that he would have to recruit people with leadership capabilities in the future. The battle this time around was not veryrge-scale. It was only limited to a city, so Saleen could deal with it himself. If the battle wasrger, then he would have to recruit talents like those who served under Lex.


    If the battle was part of a campaign, Saleen knew that he might not be able to deal with it since he only had book knowledge.


    In the sky above the port, the ck-robed mage stared coldly at the three kings who had gathered, then said, ¡°Trying to distract us?¡±


    Judikaka chuckled, and replied, ¡°Yes. Anyway if you do not leave with us, we will ughter your soldiers.¡±


    The ck-robed mage rebutted, ¡°I can kill your soldiers too, and I don¡¯t believe you can stop me!¡±


    If any mage from the Myers maind had heard that, they would have been in utter shame. On the Myers maind, a mage would never charge forward to kill low grade enemy soldiers. At the very best, they would bless theirrades with some Magic Shields or treatment spells.


    ¡°Please do so! Hahaha!¡± Judikaka¡¯s presumptuous voice spread across the frozenyer. ¡°We shall kill the soldiers. Let¡¯s see who will be faster, okay? At the end of the day, we will have even more spirits under ourmand.¡±


    In that instant, the ck-robed mage¡¯s expression became very intrigued. Had Saleen been there, Saleen might be concerned with his threats, but which of the three kings did not hate Saleen? Since Saleen¡¯s orders could not be defied, they had to execute it. Saleen had anticipated that the enemy might be thick-skinned and try to kill the normal soldiers. That was not his real order.


    ¡°Saleen¡¯s order was ¨C Judikaka, if you cannot ensnare the best mage in the enemy¡¯s team, you will receive punishment from the contract.¡±


    Judikaka was simply spouting lies. The ck-robed mage had never met a spirit who would lie, so he believed Judikaka. If the three kings went to massacre his soldiers, it would be disastrous for the allied army. He could not possibly kill faster than a high grade spirit, because the spirits themselves were carrying toxins in their bodies.


    The allied army was still stationed on the frozenyer, and there was no form of concealment on this one-hundred mile wideyer of ice. In the face of three flying horrifying spirits, the soldiers would have zero chance of escaping.


    The other party¡¯s soldiers were mostly based in the city with protection from fortresses. No matter how powerful he was, he also could not kill all of them swiftly. A spirit who was hovering in the sky spit out a ball of gray fog, as though verifying his worries. This ball of gray fog floated towards the soldiers on the frozenyer.


    The ck-robed mage immediately casted the Wild Wind Spell, destroying that ball of gray fog.


    In a timely manner, Banchajanna bellowed at the ck-robed mage, ¡°Despicable human, why don¡¯t you dare face us in a fair and square battle?¡±


    ¡°Fine!¡± The ck-robed mage knew that he had a solution to kill the three kings in one go. The soldiers on the frozenyer were still unworthy of getting tortured by them. In a soft voice, he said to the four grade-6 mages behind him, ¡°Follow me.¡±


    Speaking, the ck-robed mage abandoned his ground troops and flew north. The three kings were hot on their heels. If the ck-robed mage did not fight with them, they would not really care either, so long as the five humans did not escape. More specifically, Saleen was worried that the enemy¡¯s high grade mages would massacre his soldiers in a fit of rage.


    The main reason was because the city had not been fully constructed. The skies would have been a no-fly zone otherwise. Even a sorcerer would not be able to fly into the city.


    A sorcerer would have to enter through the city gates openly in ces like Holy Rock City and Alchemy City. If one wanted to leap over the city walls, they would have to use adder like the normal soldiers or step on theirrades¡¯ bodies. If one tried to fly over the city walls, they would receive a barrage of arrows from the alchemical crossbows.


    Alchemy City still had alchemy towers which formed awork prohibiting the use of magic. Once this massive magic array was stimted, no one would be able to fly in the skies. Holy Rock City was even mightier. Once the magic clock, which had been handed down since the ancient times, was sounded, any mages flying overhead would simply copse onto the ground due to the violent vibrations.


    Saleen¡¯s city would also possess such an ability once the thirty-six magic towers werepleted. As long as there was a sorcerer in any thirty-six magic towers, an enormous magic array could be activated, preventing all forms of flying.


    Humans had invented such a defense mechanism to deal with the flying magic beasts. Ancient humans did not even give a hoot about this matter. Back then, humans could build flying cities. Powerful experts were ubiquitous, no one was afraid of getting disturbed by any magic beasts.


    As the ck-robed mage left with the three kings, more and more allied troops came onto theyer of ice. These soldiers had escaped from their sinking ships, and many of them did not even salvage their weapons.


    The time taken for a colossal warship to sink was really long. Only after a full hour did the twelve warships sink into the ocean. The winged skeleton had achieved victory in his first battle, with a score of twelve to zero. With that being said, there were eight warships out of the twelve which had a weak defense.


    The ships from the ind states of the eastern sea were not slow at all. In terms of defensive ability, they were poles apart from that of Cloudflow¡¯s warships. The winged skeleton had used eight times his normal offensive power to attack four of the warships, and twice the offensive power against the armed merchant ships. The oue was not surprising at all.


    Nailisi was exhrated. She wanted the winged skeleton to float up to the water surface so that she could pursue the soldiers who were on the frozenyer. The winged skeleton refused to ede to Nailisi¡¯s request. Nailisi had to stay onboard the alchemical boat as a precaution. Saleen was afraid that the enemy might have some tricks to counteract the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. The purpose of the bone spirits was to handle the warships, while the offensive magic array onboard the alchemical boat could lock onto a single powerful target such as a sorcerer.


    If the alchemical boat were to float up right now and assault the soldiers who had juste ashore, it would be able to kill at least two to three thousand people. The average soldier would not be able to withstand arge Ice Bomb Spell or the Death Ray.


    ¡°Nailisi, Master has said that the alchemical boat should not expose itself to the enemy for the time being. Master will have a way to deal with those people. If you want to help Master, you can go up yourself, but the alchemical boat will not cooperate with you.¡±


    Nailisi licked her lips and pondered for a moment. She did not swim up just to spite the winged skeleton. Nailisi had no problems killing a normal soldier, but she was also afraid that the enemy might have a sorcerer with them.


    In a solo battle, she would not be afraid of a grade-7 sorcerer. This was the battlefield. There were definitely more than twelve-thousand soldiers who had swam up onto the frozenyer, there might even be fifteen-thousand people. It would be insane of Nailisi to duel with so many people.


    ¡°Little skeleton, when do we haul up the sunken ship?¡±


    ¡°When the battle is over.¡±


    ¡°I am referring to the second dynasty warship.¡± Nailisi was already getting impatient, she was thirsty for the coordinates to the demonic ne. If she could deceive some demons toe over and be her bodyguards, then she would not need to be fearful of such situations in the future.


    ¡°Humph, Master wants the materials onboard that warship. Nailisi, the agreement between us¡­¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s eyebrows jerked up, and in a moment of fury, she said, ¡°Are you going to renege?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be angry Nailisi. If you dare to disobey Master¡¯smand, I will have no qualms about it.¡±


    Nailisi got a little demoralized as she thought about it. The winged skeleton wanted all the materials onboard that warship. After Saleen acquired the dragonshard, he had decided to use those materials to produce an indomitable warship. The dragonshard alone was insufficient to produce the warship. Saleen wanted to obtain the thundercloud wood and divinecherry wood which were found in the second dynasty warship.


    Saleen was extremely determined to get these items. If it was not for the unforeseen circumstances back at the city, Saleen might have already collected the remains of the warship. Originally, the winged skeleton wanted to use the remains of the warship to reinforce the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. Since Saleen was eyeing those materials, the winged skeleton had no choice but to think of an alternative.


    ¡°Wait, little skeleton. When you were in the Frozen Sea, did the alchemical boat not already advance in grade? Currently, this ship should already be at the grade of godly equipment.¡±


    ¡°This has got nothing to do with our agreement. Nailisi, you better think of an idea to provide me with sufficient materials.¡±


    Nailisi felt extremely oppressed. Saleen could still block out any disturbances from the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton and she were Saleen¡¯s summoned creatures, so it was impossible for her to stop the winged skeleton¡¯s voice from appearing in her mind. Of course, she could use this matter to lodge aint with Saleen, but that would be too embarrassing.


    While Nailisi and the winged skeleton were arguing underwater, those soldiers who had escaped ashore just received the first wave of assault.


    Four-hundred Caucasus warriors, riding on their magic wolves, had wielded their bows and began shooting at the soldiers from afar.


    The archery skills of these Caucasus warriors were beyond petrifying, they were considered to be the elites among the warriors. Even though they had never cultivated the Sword Aura, they were at the standard of a swordmaster. These four-hundred magic wolf cavalrymen employed the ejection method, thus allowing the range of their bows to be about eight-hundred meters. From such a distance, even a normal alchemical crossbow would lose its uracy.


    The quivers of the Caucasus warriors were standard thirty-six arrow packs. Each warrior carried two quivers, having a total of seventy-two arrows. Since there were four-hundred of them, there were almost thirty-thousand arrows altogether. If a normal soldier were to fire these arrows, they would not be able to kill many people, especially because the arrows wereunched using the ejection method. The uracy of these Caucasus warriors was too high. After a few rounds of barrage, most people had already been killed when the arrows descended from the sky and pierced their skulls.


    The warships belonging to the allied army had a handful of horses. Since the ships were sinking, the soldiers were busy fleeing. None of them led the horses onto the frozenyer. On a lifeboat, a horse would upy the space of five humans.


    Immediately, amander ordered for a defense to be set up. About five-thousand soldiers had brought along their equipment, and around one-thousand small shields were gathered for the defensive effort. Nevertheless, more than seven-hundred soldiers were killed, while another six-hundred or so were injured.


    The Caucasus people were still ejecting their metallic arrows calmly from a distance of eight-hundred meters. Since the fleeing soldiers did not have arge alchemical crossbow with them, they could not retaliate at all. There were no cavalrymen present. As the four leading magic beast swordsmen witnessed this scene unfolding before them, they felt mncholy for their enemies.


    Had this battle took ce on a real battlefield, one army would be able to defend against such a harassment. At that moment, two-third of the soldiers did not wear armor, and one-third of them did not wield any weapon at all.


    The four-hundred magic wolf cavalrymen could execute their harassment offensive without any casualties. Sir Saleen¡¯s n was indeed effective.

 Chapter 402: A wolf’s fighting technique (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 402: A wolf¡¯s fighting technique (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The allied army from the ind states of the eastern sea was a regr force. When the death toll reached close to two-thousand people, a group of three brigades of soldiers had been convened. Each of them held onto a shield as they charged towards the Caucasus warriors. They knew that it was impossible for them to catch the guys on the magic wolves using their legs. They just needed to chase them out of the effective range.


    The low rankingmander formed his own team and gathered them towards the high rankingmander. Even though there was quite a huge number of casualties, he still had about ten-thousand men with him. As long as they could charge up the shore, the situation could be reversed.


    As the Caucasus warriors noticed the six-hundred man team approaching them, their expressions remained serene as the metallic arrows were ejected. The archery skills of the Caucasus people were astounding. From a distance of eight-hundred meters, their uracy was about thirty percent. With every ten metallic arrows fired, at least one person would be killed. If the other injured enemies were not treated, they would also quickly bleed to death.


    The Caucasus people were forced by their circumstances to hone their archery skills. The production of metals in the Caucasus region was low, so the moment a Caucasus person learnt archery, they would be extremely meticulous and calctive. Now that Saleen had prepared their favorite metallic arrows and told them to fire at will, the Caucasus people were no longer burdened.


    ¡°Sir Saleen is so rich. These metallic arrows could be considered to be beginner alchemical arrows already, and yet they were fired like they were gravel. The Caucasus people were feeling the pinch.¡±


    The shield-holding infantrymen were holding ontorge wooden shields which could stop the metallic arrows effectively. The Caucasus people did not even give a hoot about them. In order to maintain their formation, the infantrymen advanced slowly. They would need to walk for quite some time to cover a distance of eight-hundred meters. All this while, the four magic beast swordsmen did not take any action. At this point in time, they then grabbed the alchemical crossbows which were suspended at the sides of their skeletal warhorses. After fitting the alchemical crossbows with magic nucleii, they took aim at the approaching infantrymen and fired an arrow.


    The four magic beast swordsmen were wielding authentic alchemical crossbows. Usually, these devices were installed onto a frame or positioned in a fortress, in order to obstruct the enemy¡¯s charging iron cavaliers. As the infantrymen were holding onto wooden shields, these shields simply broke under the impact by the alchemical arrows. Three of the soldiers at the rear died. The only soldier who did not die was actually more unfortunate. His right arm was prated by the alchemical arrow, causing his shoulder bone to be smashed into smithereens.


    In such a setting, no one would care about him. In fact, he would have to die a more painful way, and that was to wait for death.


    That being said, the allied army could not be med. It¡¯s not that they could not afford metal shields. They were journeying a long way, the number of soldiers aboard the ships had to be maximized, so not much heavy equipment was brought along. Originally, this army contained a huge number of mages too. Even though the mages were not at a high grade, there were many magic chariots avable for use. Under the protection by a magic chariot, the infantrymen would be able to resist a barrage of arrows more easily. Once the enemyunched an arrow, the mage situated on the magic chariot would cast the Wild Wind Spell to blow the arrow away.


    When the four magic beast swordsmen noticed that their alchemical crossbows were effective, they chuckled in response. They put away their alchemical crossbows. When the shield-holding infantrymen were only one-hundred meters away, the magic beast swordsmen then said to the Caucasus warriors, ¡°Let¡¯s fall back.¡±


    The Caucasus warriors heard the message and put away their longbows. Then, they turned their rides around and retreated slowly. When the infantrymen saw that their enemy who was riding on magic wolves had retreated, they heaved a sigh of relief. All of them came to a halt, cing their wooden shields in position. They had no intention of giving chase, because they could not. The three brigades of infantrymen then prepared their bows and arrows. The range of their arrows were extremely short, and they did not have the ability to destroy armor. There was no choice though, the premium bows and arrows were sealed in the crates, and they had sunk with the ship.


    The premium bows and arrows were vulnerable to corrosion by the moisture of the sea. They would not be distributed to the soldiers before arrival. The soldiers were still using themonly seen soft bows, which had a short range and cheap manufacturing costs. Be that as it may, these soft bows were only gathered after much effort. In all that chaos, it was already very onerous to obtain so many soft bows.


    After retreating for over two-hundred meters, the magic wolf cavalrymen stopped abruptly.


    ¡°Brethren, let¡¯s change our weapons,¡± the Caucasus leader ordered. The four magic beast swordsmen were simply keeping the team in formation, they were not the leaders. Saleen did not want to make the Caucasus people feel ufortable. Their function was to kill any grand swordmaster who might be present in the enemy¡¯s army, so that the Caucasus people would not die unnecessarily.


    Every single Caucasus person urged their magic wolves and charged towards the shield formation held together by the soldiers. By this time, the soldiers from the Eastern Sea Allied Army had already held up theirnces behind the wooden shields. Seeing that the enemy was charging over, themander of the infantrymen was jubnt.


    A cavalryman might be more ferocious than an infantryman, but the fighting technique had to be taken into consideration as well. If the cavalrymen were charging into a strict formation formed by the infantrymen, the cavalrymen would suffer huge losses too. This was especially if the infantrymen were wieldingnces which were over four meters long. By charging recklessly, the cavalrymen would be seriously injured even if they were d in heavy armor.


    The Caucasus people hollered. Over a distance of one-hundred meters, the magic wolves could attain maximum velocity. The Caucasus people executed a uniformed action, they grabbed a small axe which hung by the side of their magic wolves and tossed it.


    Every adult Caucasus person had an ax. Their flying axes were a favorite among mercenaries, because they contained immense offensive power and were cheap to deploypared to a mage. Borrowing momentum from the charging of the wolves, the flying axes gave off a horrifying whiz and destroyed the wooden shields. Endless screams of excruciation filled the air, as the front row of soldiers got ughtered. After the second round of flying axes were tossed, the soldiers simply broke down. They ignored theirrades and fled towards the sea, abandoning over three-hundred bodies.


    Themander got lucky, he did not get struck by any of the flying axes. He was dumbfounded as he stared at the scene before him. A wooden shield might not be as sturdy as a metal shield, yet a tiny ax could smash it into shreds and even slice the head of the soldier behind it. ¡°Where did these peoplee from? Why are they so strong?¡±


    It must be noted that once a wooden shield was wrapped in beast skin, it could withstand a hit from a heavy weapon, even though it remained vulnerable against an alchemical crossbow. Those flying axes were not even heavy weapons. They weighed only a few catties, almost as heavy as a normal war de. It was still these exact flying axes, which after two rounds of barrage, had caused his soldiers to copse.


    Saleen got pretty lucky. The allied army¡¯s ships had carried quite a sizeable quantity of heavy equipment, sufficient to form genuine heavy infantrymen already. Due to the rapid assault from the alchemical boat, these things had sunk with the warships even before they could be unpacked.


    Items such as the magic chariots, heavy crossbows, various war puppets, and therge flying puppets had sunk together with the warships. Each of these items could easily solve the problems the soldiers were facing. They did not have the time to salvage all this equipment though.


    If only the ck-robed mage was present. The ck-robed mage, together with four grade-6 grand mages from the mage¡¯s toon, had been lured away by the three kings.


    Without the ck-robed mage, the mage¡¯s toon still contained forty people. Four grade-6 mages, eight grade-5 mages, twelve grade-4 mages and sixteen grade-3 mages.


    This toon could adequately deal with a team of only twenty-thousand people. On the other hand, the other mages who were below grade-3 could steer the magic chariots. That way, every brigade would enjoy the assistance of a mage.


    The allied army should havee ashore long ago, but the climate on the frozenyer was too terrible. The magic chariots could not be assembled yet, they could only stay in the cabin. If the alchemical boat did notunch that attack, then the soldiers would have an additional day to assemble all the magic chariots.


    A magic chariot was not some rare toy. This thing was like a portable magic tower, it could provide a stable elemental environment for mages. It also boosted their magic power. A magic chariot also carried an unspecified number of magic arrays. Once a few magic chariots were merged, arge-scale spell could be cast.


    The Qin Empire had a number of magic chariots. It was tough assembling these machines, however, and it was very challenging to deploy them in a field battle. After assembly, a magic chariot was very prone to wear-and-tear, its consumption was also immense. As a result, a magic chariot would only make its appearance in the event of a decisive battle or a siege.


    In some sense, the function of a magic chariot was simr to that of a portable battlement, though it was extremely difficult to transport them around. With that being said, their prices were poles apart.


    In order to ensure the capabilities of a magic chariot, it would be sealed in a special crate, and only be unpacked upon arrival at the destination. The cost of protecting the magic chariots would bring many headaches to themanders, otherwise.


    The retreated allied soldiers witnessed a scene which sent chills down their spine. Those wolf-riding people had walked to their original position and picked up the axes calmly. Their magic wolves chewed at the necks of those soldiers who were not dead yet.


    At this moment, the allied army still had dozens of grand mages on their team. They actually had twenty grand mages. Four had left with the ck-robed mage, while there were two unlucky ones who were trapped in the bottom cabin and did not manage to escape. Their cabin was directly hit, causingrge amounts of seawater to gush in in that instant.


    The Caucasus people picked up their axes and wiped off the blood, then they hung them back at the side of their magic wolves. Even though this short ax was only a few catties heavy, it was impossible to bring too many along. On this trip, Saleen only allowed each person to bring two axes.


    After putting away the axes, the Caucasus people took out their longbows once more. They then fired the remaining arrows in their quivers.


    Saleen¡¯s warring technique was very ptable to the Caucasus people. It was no wonder then that the great priestess was full of praises for this mage. A simple warring technique had caused the enemy to suffer huge losses.


    Had it been a head-on battle, the Caucasus people were confident of killing over two-hundred enemies. They would definitely suffer casualties in the process. On the battlefield, even the weakest enemy would have a chance of killing a person unless one was a high grade grand swordmaster. It was also impossible for a grand swordmaster to remain unharmed in arge-scale war. In a situation whereby the enemies were in the surrounding, the function of swordsmanship would be limited. When tens of thousands of people shed with one another, a soldier required some luck, other than his skills which were honed daily.


    The four-hundred Caucasus people emptied their quivers. Thereafter, they rode on their magic wolves and patrolled the grounds a few times in a provocative manner before turning to leave. By this time, the surviving soldiers from the warships had gathered. Themanders had also converged in front of the general to receive further orders.


    In front of more than a thousand bodies and many more injured soldiers, the general was beyond distressed. He did not expect his expedition to wind up like this. All of the warships in his possession had sunk, while there were two other seized warships floating on the sea. Those ships were operated differently from his, so it was impossible for him to use them to escape.

 Chapter 403: Ruthless (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 403: Ruthless (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s warring technique was not anything extraordinary. It was just that the enemies did not have heavy armor and metal shields, hence the arrows from the Caucasus people were so lethal. Saleen had learned quite a bit of military knowledge from Lex, so he knew that exquisite weapons would be sealed up before a battle.


    The technique of having cavalrymen wield bows and arrows to attack the enemy was not very effective against heavy infantrymen, unless expensive magic arrows which could destroy heavy armor were used. The thing was, magic arrows were disposable items. It was also more expensive to produce a magic arrow aspared to training a normal infantryman, so people would not do that. An alchemical arrow was not equivalent to a magic arrow. An alchemical arrow was simply an arrow which had been refined with magic, it did not carry any magical abilities. On the other hand, the magic array on a magic arrow could be activated the moment a magic nucleus was installed. It would possess the lethality of magic, which could not be resisted by normal armor. Updated b.y b o x n o v e l.


    The metal arrows which Saleen had given to the Caucasus warriors had been refined using alchemy, so they were unusually sharp. Whenunched from a longbow, they could easily break metal armor, wooden shields or even a low level Invisible Shield. Such metal arrows were useless against those higher level Magic Shields. Only at a very short distance would they be able to injure a low grade mage.


    Saleen might not have so many resources to produce magic arrows, but the enemy also did not have much money to produce magic armor for their soldiers. That was why in this assault, the allied army from the eastern sea could do nothing but watch the Caucasus warriors empty their quivers before beating a retreat.


    A grand total of about twenty-eight-thousand metal arrows had killed over four-thousand enemies. About one-thousand people were killed on the spot. On average, every twenty arrows would take out one enemy. In such a harsh climate, if an injured person did not receive prompt quality treatment, he would end up dead too.


    Only a Caucasus warrior possessed such massive strength to be able to fire so many metal arrows. If a normal soldier could fire a longbow ten times, he was considered impressive already.


    The function of equipment was fully exemplified in this setting. Each Caucasus warrior was wearing a pair of magic gloves to control the bowstring. Saleen had so many soldiers under hismand. Without superior equipment, this protracted harassment assault on the allied army would cause huge losses to Saleen¡¯s men.


    Saleen was still unsatisfied with the equipment his soldiers had. Unbeknownst to him, Lex¡¯s soldiers were the elites who were always positioned at the front row back in the Qin Empire. He followed Lex¡¯s military model to establish his own army, but his input was ten times that of a normal nobleman.


    Fortunately, Saleen had made such a drastic move. Given his current manpower, he would have suffered great losses against the enemy otherwise.


    Another factor which contributed to this oue was the terrain. Since the frozenyer was t, there was nothing else to act as a shield against the barrage of arrows. On this frozenyer, a magic wolf could also sprint more steadily than a warhorse. The magic wolves were magic beasts who lived in frigid environments. They would not slip even if they ran on ice.


    Even if the allied army had cavalry troops, they also would not be able to catch up to the magic wolves.


    Kredian¡¯s defense strategy was a fluke as it caused the allied army to be paranoid. As a result, the allied army concentrated on assembling the magic chariots instead of building a camp on thend. Then when Saleen returned, Saleen immediately went to execute a sneak attack on the warships, causing the magic chariots to sink into the ocean even before they could take effect.


    There was a myriad of reasons why the allied army lost this war. If they decided to split their troops and stationed some soldiers at the northern side, they would be able to cause Saleen¡¯s army to suffer a high death toll. They would be facing a city wall which was not yetpleted. They would also have help from the magic chariots.


    Other than that, the allied army could have deployed theirrge flying puppets to conduct the offensive. If that was the case, Kredian might lose hisposure and deploy his army to retaliate on the frozenyer. That way, both parties would bepeting in terms of the amount of manpower.


    If Kredian wanted to duel on the frozenyer, he could not get close to the warships. The warships contained the magic stone trebuchets, which could cause massive damage to his infantry troops.


    In conclusion, the failure of the allied army was not predetermined. All of this was a coincidence. The strangest of all was that Saleen¡¯s divination was actually true. Saleen also trusted Sika¡¯s intuition. If Saleen did not rush back, the allied army would have sessfully altered their magic chariots. By then, even with reinforcement from the spirit army, Kredian would also lose the port.


    At that point in time, Banchajanna was not around, so the other two spirit kings would definitely lose to the mage¡¯s toon. At the very least, if they took the initiative to attack, they would have suffered badly.


    This oue was also brought about by some intrinsic factors. The Eastern Sea Allied Army did not have anyrge-scalebat experience. The so-called king of the eastern sea might only own a tiny ind, with a poption of tens of thousands only. It was almost an insurmountable task for such an army to conquer the Myers maind.


    When any army on the Myers maind went to war, the number of personnel involved could easily reach one-hundred-thousand. Furthermore, each noble would contribute hundreds of soldiers to the imperial family as backup. Adding all these people together, the total number of people involved was astronomical.


    When Emperor Chanake set off for his expedition, thousands of low grade mages hade forth to join his army. When Emperor Chanake lost, quite a number of these mages managed to escape. Had this been the Eastern Sea Allied Army, their whole force might have already been killed.


    After receiving news from the frontline, Saleen immediately gave a second order. The pirates, who had followed Saleen into the Chaotic Swamp, gathered another two-hundred men. Together with the barbarians, they rode on the skeletal warhorses and came to the edge of the frozenyer. Then, theyunched the second wave of assault.


    ¡°General, we have to retaliate, otherwise¡­¡±


    Back at the seaside, the general of the allied army almost went berserk in the face with such a situation. The enemy had utilized their strong bows and crossbows for harassment. If they possessed enough arrows, this ten-thousand strong army would be dead after a few days. A few days were actually not needed. Since the warships had sunk, the supplies for the army were gone, so these soldiers would soon be overwhelmed with hunger and cold. If they could not find food, everyone would simply die on the frozenyer.


    The pirates did not have archery skills like the Caucasus people. They were using heavy crossbows, which only had a range of about four-hundred meters. Their skeletal warhorses were pretty stable running atop the iceyer. The allied army organized a few rounds of retaliation, but were deflected by the flying axes tossed by the barbarians.


    The pirates roared withughter without any tinge of sympathy. After being exhausted from all that shooting, they simply pointed at the soldiers from afar, but they did not return to the city. At least half a minute was required to load an arrow onto the bowstring, but the pirates were not in a hurry to kill the enemies. The barbarians felt slight disdain when they noticed those soldiers afar who were d in some weird-looking armor. ¡°These cowards. They are still not fighting for their lives at such a moment.¡±


    Nevertheless, there were too little pirates. Including the barbarians, there were only about five-hundred men in total. The enemy, however, had more than ten-thousand men. If the enemy decided to charge forward, the pirates and barbarians would definitely beat a retreat.


    From time to time, some flying puppets would soar into the skies and fly back to the city base. With protection from the barbarians, the apanying low grade mages did not need to do anything. They only needed to record the current battle situation and send it back to the city using the flying puppets.


    In the temple, as Saleen reviewed the battle reports piece by piece, his rage gradually disappeared. The current death toll of the enemy was now ten times that of his fallen soldiers, and this was not including the soldiers in the sunken warships.


    ¡°How is Judikaka¡¯s side doing at the moment?¡±


    ¡°There is no news yet, Sir,¡± a mage from the Sregl Ind answered.


    ¡°Mm, if the three kings work together, the battle will at least end in a tie. It will be impossible for them to lose. I am just afraid that the sorcerer will abandon the battle and return to create trouble for us.¡± Saleen moaned, then said, ¡°A swift battle will be the best. Make the enemies lose hope, lest that sorcerer decides to fight until hisst breath. If he has any powerful scrolls, our soldiers will not be able to take it.¡±


    ¡°Sir, the sorcerer will not fight with the normal soldiers,¡± another mage reminded Saleen.


    ¡°Those are the rules on the maind. These people are from the eastern sea and I am not familiar with their practices. How is Kredian¡¯s arrangementing along?¡±


    ¡°In about an hour¡¯s time, it will bepleted.¡±


    ¡°Mm, ask Daniel to gather his spirit army. Then, instruct the rest to retreat.¡±

 Chapter 404: Ruthless (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 404: Ruthless (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Aini, don¡¯t shake your head. If one-hundred of your most trusted subordinates were killed, what would you do?¡± Saleen rebutted when he saw Aini looking indignant.


    ¡°This is a battlefield, deaths are bound to happen.¡±


    Without any change in expression, Saleen said, ¡°Even though the age of cavaliers has passed, I am willing to pay the ransom if they have imprisoned those swordsmen. They have massacred my men, every single one of them. Am I still supposed to do a cost and benefit analysis? They have to pay the price, no one shall even think of staying alive.¡±


    Saleen went to look at the bodies personally. Many of these swordsmen did not resist. They had obviously surrendered, yet they still got killed. This was something which Saleen could not tolerate.


    Saleen had given an order to these swordsmen in the past. ¡°If the enemy is too strong, and there is no chance for escape, theny down your weapons.¡± In Qin, no one would kill their prisoners of war, because the prisoners of war were akin to their first pot of gold. Before the end of a war, these prisoners could act as freebor. Even after the war ended, it was not guaranteed that the prisoners would be freed. There was a high chance that they would be absorbed into a new family, where they would be the subordinates of a new noble.


    As for the swordsmen who were skillful, they would be sent into the army to execute dangerous assignments. It was precisely because of Saleen¡¯s order that the swordsmen did not put up a fight. They were killed by the enemy, because of that, Saleen¡¯s rage could not be appeased.


    ughtering a person who did not put up any resistance was a practice despised by the Qin people. Even the people of Tanggsi would not do such a thing. At most, they would send the prisoners to the Holy See, so that the Holy See could reform the prisoners. As for the method of reform, it was very malleable.


    Ever since Saleen picked up magic, he had killed a number of enemies. He did not like doing so. If it was not out of desperation, he would not have taken other people¡¯s lives. Even though a mage enjoyed prestige, they were alsomoners to begin with. Even a death mage would not kill others just for pleasure¡¯s sake.


    Saleen¡¯s own subordinates were ughtered just like animals.


    Saleen¡¯s impression of the people from the ind states of the eastern sea was very negative at the moment. Since the prisoners who were captured by Kredian had died, he did not have the chance to ask more questions. How did these people arrive at his city? If they said that Saleen¡¯s city was their ambition, then it would be totally imusible. Saleen¡¯s city was located very far north and the current season was unsuitable for staging an invasion. That being said, the enemy¡¯s armed merchant ships were filled with infantrymen. They were definitely not out for vacation, they had a destination in mind.


    Were they going to attack Lianyun City? It seemed that this fleet was slightly weak. Even though Lianyun City was unlike Alchemy City, it was also a massive harbor city in the north of the empire. Alchemy City had dominated ny percent ofmerce from the Cloudflow people, while the other ten percent was taken by the Lianyun City. This ten percent represented a colossal wealth, it would be sufficient for the owner of Lianyun City to support an elite army.


    Saleen¡¯s calctions were right. This twenty boat fleet would not be able to conquer Lianyun City. He would never imagine that the twenty kingdoms in the eastern sea had gathered many other smaller states to form such a massive fleet in order to conquer the Myers maind. To achieve this agenda, the ind states in the eastern sea had been nning for the longest time ever. Fredrick, who was killed by Saleen, was in fact gathering intelligence from the Myers maind.


    At that point in time, Saleen was still inexperienced, so he did not try to understand what Fredrick¡¯s intentions were. He would otherwise have learned of this matter long ago. Lex had thought of this issue before. The ind states in the eastern sea were simply too far from the Myers maind, so she did not think that a war would ur between them.


    ¡°Sir Saleen, the enemy has sent an envoy.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to meet him.¡±


    ¡°That man won¡¯t budge.¡±


    ¡°Then kill him,¡± Saleen replied decisively.


    ¡°Okay.¡± The swordsman who was the messenger turned and left. Before long, screams could be heard from the square outside. This swordsman was also filled with hatred. When Saleen allowed him to kill the envoy, he chopped off the limbs first, followed by slicing the head off.


    This swordsman hade from the Sregl Ind, and Sregl Ind was not a huge ce. Of those swordsmen who had died on the ind, some of them were his good friends.


    ¡°Why won¡¯t you hear what they have to say?¡± Irene, who was standing by his side, was perplexed.


    ¡°The enemies are in my hands now, there¡¯s no need to discuss. They have lost the warships. Without any resupply of food and weapons, they have zero chance of reversing the situation. They are either trying to surrender, or to assassinate me. No matter what it is, I am not going to ept it.¡±


    ¡°Sir, we have found this!¡± The swordsman who was in charge of the execution delivered an item over. Saleen received it, this item was a magic canister. A grade-7 magic nucleus was mosaicked into one end of the magic canister. Cautiously, Saleen removed the magic nucleus and gave it to Aini.


    Aini inspected it, and in an astounded manner, he called out, ¡°It was really for an assassination! This item can release a level-7 spell!¡±


    The magic canister was a suicidal magic equipment, and there were no grade requirements for it. After usage, it would explode. There were dozens of magic nuclei concealed inside, and when they were stimted, the power unleashed was equivalent to that of level-7 spell. It was not easy to fool Saleen and Aini. Even if the envoy was allowed entry into the temple, this thing would have also been discovered.


    Such magic canisters were extremely unstable, they could not even be stored. Besides being naturally stimted, this thing was a ticking time bomb, no one knew when it would explode on its own. No mages dared carry such things with them.


    Saleen nced at Irene, then said tly, ¡°See that, sometimes you don¡¯t have to showpassion to the enemy.¡±


    Irene remained silent. Even though she had encountered a number of conspiracies in the past, she had never seen such insanity before. Even if the invaders managed to kill Saleen, they would not be rewarded with victory. Instead, they would face a more vigorous bacsh. Now that this incident was exposed, Saleen would definitely reject their surrender.


    An hour passed very quickly. The mages on the iceyer began shrouding the magic array with snow. At the same time, Daniel¡¯s spirit army had set off towards the edge of the iceyer. There were a three-thousand strong spirit army, over twenty barbarians, and Daniel a grand mage.


    Daniel stood atop one of the pikoosi¡¯s heads. As long as the enemy did not have a sorcerer, not even a warhorse could outrun his death creature on this iceyer.


    At the periphery of the iceyer, a gray-robed mage looked worried as he told his general, ¡°Sir, the assassin I sent has failed.¡±


    The general seemed to have predicted this oue, as he simply nodded and replied, ¡°Failed? Then we can only fight to ourst breath. Disseminate my order, all the mages shall bless the army with magic. We shall advance.¡±


    ¡°Mage Youxi Maso is not back yet,¡± the gray-robed mage reminded his general.


    ¡°He should not be returning anymore. To think that I have been carefree for the past thirty years or so and have conquered multiplends, yet I am going to die here today,¡± the general sighed.


    ¡°Sir, you shouldn¡¯t say such demoralizing words!¡± a mage consoled. The general was considered a ferocious general in the eastern sea states. He was not boasting at all. He had conquered multiplends, but these countries never had a poption of more than fifty-thousand. On the Myers maind, ces with a poption of less than fifty-thousand could not be considered cities, they could only be referred to as citadels. The mage was groaning in his heart, ¡°If you have already lost all hope, then what would the soldiers rely on for the battle?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother persuading me. At this point in time, the only way out is death.¡± The general¡¯s ride had sunk with the warships, and now, he was mustering all his effort to stand up. He then briefed the people around him, ¡°If anyone of you survives and manages to see His Majesty, please help me tell him that I didn¡¯t surrender, but that I had died on the battlefield. Please ask His Majesty to treat my children kindly.¡±


    Finishing his sentence, the general wielded his sword and walked west without any expression on his face.


    The general¡¯s trusted soldiers could only follow suit. Such was the practice in the eastern sea states. Usually, a general would have to take the lead, cing his personal safety into the hands of his trusted men. With arrows flying about in chaos, a general would also die no matter how skillful he was. These soldiers might be carrying metal shields, but there were less than twenty metal shields.


    From afar, a thunderous tremor came from the iceyer. The general halted and looked towards the iceyer. It was a nket of white hue, as thousands of skeletons suddenly went berserk and began sprinting towards the general¡¯s battle formation.


    These skeletons were only low grade spirits. Spirits which were forcefully conscripted by the three kings to be coolies and were really weak. The Eastern Sea Allied Army had lost all confidence. Two rounds of assault from Saleen had made them realize that their expedition was an imminent failure.


    To make things even worse, death mages were almost non-existent in the eastern sea states, so a normal soldier did not understand skeletons at all. Now that there were so many skeletons in front of them, with red mes flickering in their orbitals, the allied soldiers were in a state of panic. No matter how much theirmanders berated them, they could not get into formation.


    Those generals were fearless, they were not afraid of the skeletons. It was toote for them to inform the soldiers of the weakness of the skeletons, however. The soldiers were not close to the generals, which was something that never urred in Qin. In the Qin Empire, themonest of nobles would also enjoy an intimate rtionship with their soldiers. They would not sting on money, they would help procure equipment for the soldiers and educate them.


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Daniel, who was standing on the pikoosi¡¯s head, noticed the enemy¡¯s leader. The leader was d in colored armor, he seemed like a flippant person. Even though his armor was impractical, Daniel felt that he was perilous.


    Currently, Daniel was already a grade-5 mage. In order for someone to make him feel in danger, that person had to at least be a beginner grand swordmaster. Daniel was unlike Saleen. If he did not have the protection of the skeletons, he would not even dare get close to the enemy¡¯s team. At the very least, Saleen could fly and escape out of the range of a crossbow.


    The originally high-spirited Daniel now slowed down, as he recalled Saleen¡¯s warning. ¡°Since there are so many enemies, there is definitely the presence of grand swordmasters. Don¡¯t get too close to the enemy¡¯s formation. Allow the skeletons to die, so as to toy with enemy¡¯s morale. When it¡¯s almost time, then get the barbarians to escort you back. By then, I will kill all of them in a single swoop.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s n was very simple. The skeletons would kill the normal enemy soldiers, even if it meant exchanging the skeletons¡¯ lives. Once Daniel began retreating, the enemy would definitely give chase in order to bolster morale. The enemy did not have much time to waste on the iceyer. It was also very likely that they would ride on this momentum to invade the city.


    As long as the enemy¡¯s general¡¯s brain was still functioning, then he would know that this was the only opportunity.


    Saleen had already prepared arge magic array at the port. As long as the enemy pursued Daniel, they would fall into Saleen¡¯s trap. Even if the enemy did not give chase, Saleen would not suffer much loss either. With this wave of assault, the enemy would sustain another batch of casualties. By then, they would not even be able tost through the night anymore.

 Chapter 405: Honor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 405: Honor (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Standing in the midst of the skeletons, Daniel observed the situation up ahead. The enemy¡¯s formation was still several miles from the sea, but they could not retreat anymore. In such a situation, where the soldiers had no more room for retreat, they would fight with all their might.


    Subconsciously, Daniel began tapping his toes gently, causing the pikoosi¡¯s heads to sway about. The pikoosi could feel his owner¡¯s cowardice and became annoyed. Daniel snapped out of his thoughts abruptly, ¡°what was I afraid of?¡± Even if the enemy fought desperately, Saleen did not give Daniel the order to fight until death. It would suffice to just kill a certain number of enemies. Saleen did not even allow Daniel to deploy every single skeleton.


    At this point in time, Daniel took the mini binocrs hanging around his waist. He had been tampering with them for a long time. Even though it did not have a range like Saleen¡¯s, the enemy was only a short distance away. He could still use it to observe the enemies¡¯ expressions.


    The Eastern Sea Allied Army¡¯s formation was not very neat andplete as many low rankingmanders did not manage to escape. The soldiers could only gather. Those high rankingmanders could notmand so many soldiers. They were also waiting for orders from the general. As a result, this ten-thousand strong team had very poor morale. They did not even put away their deadrades, simply allowing these corpses to lie on the ice haphazardly.


    Through the binocrs, Daniel noticed that the soldiers¡¯ faces were filled with anxiety, dread, hunger, and confusion.


    Daniel might not have learnt any knowledge regardingmand and control in a battle, but he was a death mage. He had some knowledge about human emotions. Seeing that the enemies were having such emotions, Daniel immediately took out a small drum which was only a foot in diameter. Then, he took out a piece of bone and began striking the drum with it.


    Dong! Dong!


    The beating of the drum gave off an empty and deste feeling as it spread across the iceyer, rousing all the skeletons. It was the Death War Drum. It could stimtebat awareness in a spirit. Under the urging of the war drum, three-thousand skeletons began striding forward with bone spears in their hands. They began charging towards the allied army¡¯s position.


    The allied soldiers were feeling cold and hungry. As their teeth chattered, a trembling sound was given off. It was simr to a skeleton grinding its teeth.


    Most of the soldiers did not even have ance, they only had long knives. The knives only had a one-meter long de, it was not advantageous forrge-scale battles. A skeleton¡¯s offensive power might not be strong, but in order to make them lose their offensive abilities, the best solution would be to use a heavy weapon.


    These soldiers did not even bring along their heavy weapons, all these weapons had already sunk with the warships.


    The general gave the order to attack calmly. Finally, themanders urged the soldiers to sound their horns. A thousand man team charged head-on against the skeletons. Both armies shed into each other ruthlessly, no fuss, no frills. The bone spears of the skeletons thrusted forcefully into the soldiers who did not have any shielding other than their own leather armor. The soldiers had no way of withstanding that attack.


    The allied army swiftly organized two thousand man teams. They approached from both sides. A head-on conflict was definitely disadvantageous to the allied army since they had insufficient equipment. Even though the skeletons were of a low grade, the soldiers were still highly vulnerable. The eastern sea states did not experience such a harsh climate. Some high altitude regions had snow, but the terrain was t, it was almost as if it was springtime all year round. In such an environment, a soldier¡¯s equipment would definitely have some special style.


    In order to grip onto a weapon tightly, a pair of gloves was a necessary piece of equipment. In the gloves owned by every soldier from the eastern sea states, the palm area was made of leather and sewed onto linen. This type of linen was very thick and sturdy. It was even waterproof, but it could not resist the cold. After a long time loitering by the seaside, the soldiers had lost all feeling in their fingers a long time ago. Now during battle, their weapons simply slipped off their hands during the battle.


    The soldiers were not peasant soldiers, they were a real army with at least five years of training. They had actualbat experience too. These elite troops were thoroughly dominated in the sh with these skeletons who were of the lowest grade.


    Three-thousand skeletons held onto their bone spears and charged forward, unfazed by the two prongs of soldiers. Under of the encouragement of the Death War Drum, the vitality of the skeletons was boosted. Without the presence of magic weapons, they could fight all the way to the end unless they were sliced into pieces. Spirits were not fearless, it was just that they were not afraid of the people in front of them.


    Daniel ignored the two-pronged attack, because a spirit was not human. Since these skeletons were not summoned by him, he had no control over their formation. This two-sided approach would not be fatal as the enemy did not have cavalrymen. Since they only had infantrymen, the crux of the battle ultimatelyid in the offensive power of each individual.


    The skeletons would never panic. No matter what sort of advantageous position the enemy had, the skeletons would still continue soldiering forward with their bone spears. They would either kill the enemy, or be killed by the enemy.


    The barbarians at the back of the skeletons were very agile. They did not charge forward blindly like the skeletons. Instead, they rode on skeletal warhorses and fired arrows. As the two-thousand soldiers executed the two-sided assault, the barbarians simply harassed them with arrows. The barbarians neither escaped nor reinforced.


    The efforts of the barbarians should not be underestimated. Even though they were using the softer bows which had no effect against metal armor, they could still cause damage against the enemy¡¯s soft leather armor. Using such bows which required little strength to pull the bowstring, the barbarians could fire hundreds of arrows without getting fatigued.


    Of course, all this credit went to Saleen because he had stringent standards for his soldiers¡¯ equipment. Even though the barbarians had only submitted to Saleen recently, each of them had already received a metaluncher de. With this item, one would not hurt their fingers during the firing process. The main source of propulsion came from the arm. It could increase the archer¡¯s offensive power.


    The sole w of auncher de was that it caused more wear-and-tear to the bowstring. Usually, if a normal bowstring was pulled using the fingers, it would only wear out after firing at least two-thousand arrows. When auncher de was utilized, the damage would be twice as much. In order to reduce the abrasion, one could either add grease or improve the quality of theuncher de. These two things would increase the cost.


    Every soldier under Saleen had twouncher des. One was made from alchemy to be used in bows which were extremely expensive. The other one was a normaluncher de, to be used in training or with a normal bow.


    Saleen had insufficient manpower, which did not require him to differentiate the arms specifically yet. He had learned one thing from Lex; the quality he would receive from his soldiers would be equivalent to his input into them.


    As the general viewed the battle from afar, he had no hope of achieving victory. At this point, he could tell that the spirit army had no intention of extirpating them. They were just here to damage his remaining forces. Once his forces were deteriorated to a certain degree, they would not be able to invade the city anymore. By then, the enemy would only need to guard the port in order to freeze or starve his people.


    If the general¡¯s warships were still around to enable his soldiers to be equipped adequately, these three-thousand skeletons would be no big deal at all. He only needed to set metal shields at the front, coupled with the two-pronged attack, to tear the spirit army to shreds.


    At that moment, all his soldiers were using sabers. There were no hammers, poleaxes, or halberds of any sort. The soldiers had no tools to protect against the cold, causing their limbs to go numb. If they used a standard longsword, which weighed about two catties, they would only be able to make a faint graze on a skeleton¡¯s body. That way, several shes would be needed in order to cleave a skeleton. No matter how strong theirmand abilities were, it was useless. Unless they could make their warships float up, to distribute the heavy equipment to his troops.


    As three-thousand soldiers and three-thousand skeletons were ughtering one another, there were about seven-thousand more soldiers at the rear without any weapon in hand. They could only look on.


    Suddenly, the general sighed. He told the mages around him, ¡°Leave. Use the Windspeed Skill to escape, the other party will not pursue mages.¡±


    ¡°General, we will not go. Mage Youxi Maso is not back yet.¡± A few grey-robed mages began panicking. Even though the sorcerer and the grade-6 mages had left, a few of them here could still be a decisive force in this battle.


    ¡°Can you catch up to a skeletal warhorse?¡± the general said as he pointed to the barbarians who were firing away.


    The grey-robed mages were left speechless. Even with the Windspeed Skill, it would take some time to catch up to a skeletal warhorse. While a warhorse¡¯s physical strength would deplete over time, a skeletal warhorse would not. At the very least, they would not be able to catch up before those people could escape.


    ¡°Do you see that spirit in their army?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°That is a grade-8 spirit, a pikoosi.¡± The general¡¯s voice was icy as he continued, ¡°That death mage¡¯s grade is probably lower, but that spirit¡¯s offensive power will not be lower than that of grade-7. Even if all of you are around, you wouldn¡¯t be able to help me. Don¡¯t even start on Youxi Maso, he might not even return anymore. All of you, just go.¡±


    ¡°But, Sir!¡±


    ¡°Our main fleet has gone to Lianyun City. All of you shall go to Lianyun City. Once you locate them, continue the battle. The situation here is irreversible already.¡± As the general spoke, he removed his strange-looking helmet and threw it on the ground. He then told the trusted soldiers surrounding him, ¡°This time around, you don¡¯t have to protect me. Just try to kill more enemies.¡±


    His helmet held arger significance. By wearing it on his head, it would actually affect his field of vision. The general never expected this day toe, whereby he would need to go forth and kill the enemy personally.


    As the remainingmanders heard their general¡¯s words, their gazes became void of life.


    ¡°Why are you all looking at me like that? You are dying on the battlefield as a soldier, are you all not satisfied?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault, why do you have to plunder the warships? Those warships were more advanced than ours. Naturally, the enemy would be very powerful. If it wasn¡¯t for your order, we wouldn¡¯t have been reduced to such dire straits!¡± One of themanders could not help but vent his rage on the general.


    The general sneered, ¡°When we first looted it, all of you were still discussing about the distribution of the loot. Now you are ming me?¡± With an icy gaze, he stared at everyone, then continued, ¡°We are here to conquer. Do we still have to do business with them?¡±


    ¡°But, we have the right to surrender!¡±


    ¡°No, at least not for you.¡± The general suddenly wielded his longsword, and took a step forward. He strode over five meter, then he pierced his longsword directly into the mouth of thatmander who had offended him. The longsword withdrew in a sh, drenched in scarlet blood.


    ¡°Anyone else want to surrender?¡±


    The surroundingmanders dared not make a single noise. Among thesemanders, many of them did not be a general based on valiance. Since the general had the power of a grand swordmaster, he alone could kill all of them easily. The general still had almost one-hundred trusted soldiers beside him.

 Chapter 406: Honor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 406: Honor (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Advance with me, for the honor of a soldier.¡± The general put away his longsword, before taking hold of ance from one of his trusted soldiers. The rest of themanders were crestfallen as they led their teams behind the general¡¯s main body of troops.


    There was a grand total of seven-thousand troops which were split into seven portions. The three-thousand men at the front wielded various types of weapons. For the other four-thousand at the back, some did not even put armor on.


    The one-thousand man team which crashed head-on with the skeletons had been obliterated. The two prongs of soldiers did not cause too much damage to the skeletons. Both parties had a strength of three-thousand people. If Saleen¡¯s soldiers were humans, they might have been at the losing end. The skeletons totally disregarded the assaultsing from the nks, however. They simply charged all the way forward. Only a few hundred skeletons on both sides copsed. These fallen skeletons had their heads chopped off. The Soul me flickered in their orbitals a few times before disappearing abruptly.


    They were notpletely dead, they simply returned to the death dimension.


    At this point in time, Daniel just barely managed to gain control of the front line. He halted the skeletons and redirected them to carry out the offensive in the opposite direction. Daniel only had this sole opportunity for a sprint, because the enemy¡¯s seven-thousand soldiers had gathered and an attack was imminent. Behind Daniel, there were still almost two-thousand soldiers, who had disconnected him from the barbarians. If Daniel still did not return, he would be sandwiched. Even though he could escape, he would definitely cut a sorry figure in the end.


    Around twelve-hundred enemies were killed, while six-hundred skeletons were lost. The kill death ratio was two to one. If the kill death ratio was one to one, it meant that the enemy was an idiot, since they could lose so badly against mere skeletons. The fallen soldiers would never be able to get back on their feet again. The skeletons¡¯ bone spears were infused with poison. It was tough for a bone spear to pierce metal armor, but it could prate leather armor. A simple scratch on the skin would suffice.


    The toxins in the skeletons were not potent, it could be treated using the Restorative Water. The enemy did not have time to treat their wounded soldiers though. If the injured were not treated and more than six hours hadpsed, even the magic liquid would not be able to revive them.


    The most important reason why Daniel could survive until now was because he was cowardly, and he could also maintain his cool. The fact that he could escape tens of thousands of miles despite being hunted by the Holy See was a disy of the toughness of his character. He could systematicallymand the skeletons to change their direction of assault. He totally ignored the main body of troops who were pursuing at the back.


    Back in the temple, Saleen had waited for the three kings to return. The three fellows seemed like they did not even have the strength to be skeletons. They were in their original forms as theyid on the first story of the temple. Fortunately, the temple was sufficiently tall and wide. Creaturesrger than them could also enter.


    Saleen and Aini had arrived to visit the three kings. After all, these three were their strongest hitmen. Unexpectedly, the battle this time around was so intense. The bones of the three kings were badly torn, and they could barely be stitched back.


    ¡°How did this happen?!¡± Saleen got a shock when he saw the injuries on Banchajanna¡¯s body. He knew that given Banchajanna¡¯s capabilities, Banchajanna was an expert in long-range or close-rangebat. Was the enemy not only a sorcerer?


    Judikaka was upset. ¡°How did this happen? It¡¯s all because of your contractual trap. Currently, our powers are only equivalent to that of a grade-8 spirit. In the death dimension, we aren¡¯t even the best anymore.¡± Even though the enemy was a grade-7 sorcerer, the difference in grades could not be calcted this way. A sorcerer¡¯s lethality could not be estimated in this manner.


    If it was not for Shann¡¯s scepter, the oue of this battle would have been uncertain.


    ¡°What about the five guys?¡± Even though Aini was concerned about Judikaka¡¯s injuries, he was more worried about the enemy¡¯s sorcerer. At this moment, he could not deal with a sorcerer. If the sorcerer gave chase, Aini would have to run for his life.


    ¡°Dead, none of them got away,¡± Judikaka replied weakly.


    Aini then heaved a sigh of relief. The enemy might have quite a number of grade-5 mages, but they would not pose much of a threat. Saleen¡¯s and Aini¡¯s offensive powers were way superior to that of other mages at the same grade.


    ¡°Saleen, from my understanding, the numbers don¡¯t add up since the enemy has so many mages. It is understandable if they are low grade mages, but the enemy has more than ten grand mages.¡±


    Saleen also felt very doubtful. Usually, an army would be filled with low grade mages, there would not be many grand mages. An emblem group would not even be allocated a mage. Even the Qin army did not have so many grand mages. How did the army from the eastern sea states attain such an advanced configuration?


    With twenty ships, the enemy could only carry about twenty-thousand men at maximum capacity. Half of which should be support troops. Only the regr soldiers escaped onto the iceyer. Ten-thousand regr soldiers deployed alongside twenty grand mages. This also meant that there would be two grand mages allocated to each emblem group, which was impossible.


    ¡°Forget it. We should keep some of them as prisoners so that we can extract informationter on.¡±


    As Saleen and Aini conversed, Judikaka suddenly raised his head and asked, ¡°Aini, can you give the souls on the battlefield to us?¡±


    Aini did not reply, he simply looked at Saleen. Saleen furrowed his brows and asked, ¡°Judikaka, what do you need those souls for?¡±


    ¡°The three of us are severely injured, we need treatment.¡±


    ¡°It would be the same to let Daniel treat all of you, right?¡± Saleen was not willing to let the three kings swallow the souls, as it made him uneasy. It was one thing to kill the enemy, but it was an entirely different issue to destroy their souls.


    Judikaka sighed, ¡°That sorcerer was too mighty, causing almost irreversible damage. If Daniel helps us, he might not be able to aplish other tasks in the next few years.¡±


    ¡°Why is that so, Daniel has a fixed set of coordinates.¡± Aini was perplexed too. He could feel that Judikaka was not lying this time round, but that Judikaka was concealing certain things.


    ¡°The Law of the Dead is also a kind of narw. Actually¡­¡± Judikaka hesitated as he thought to himself, ¡°Anyway it is only a matter of time before these two guys be sorcerers. There is no need to conceal this from them.¡±


    ¡°Actually, this is the same as elemental bnce. We devoured souls back in the death dimension to treat our injuries. Most of the souls would be wasted, then they will be converted back into energy before returning to the ne itself. This is the same as elemental dispersal. On your ne, magic equipment will need to be repaired unless it is godly equipment. Otherwise, a piece of equipment will also lose its effect gradually no matter how good it is. This is because elements will diffuse out from the equipment in order to restore bnce to the world. Only an item from another ne would enjoy almost no dispersal.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart lurched when he heard that, then he asked, ¡°Why won¡¯t godly equipment self-destruct?¡±


    ¡°Because godly equipment can traverse the nes, it doesn¡¯t belong to any specific ne.¡± In the face of such a stupid question, Judikaka could only answer it patiently.


    Saleen suddenly understood why the mages from the Sregl Ind were so fixated on the fire element spirit. The fire element spirit did not belong to the ne of the Myers maind. By using the fire element spirit to craft equipment, the equipment would possess the attributes of godly equipment. It would not be marred. The amount of energy contained in one fire element spirit was already extremely horrifying, it contained the power of a partial godly item. A partial godly item which did not need to be repaired was not much different from a godly item.


    ¡°So if you swallow these souls, the energy in the souls wouldn¡¯t get dispersed on the ne of Myers maind?¡± Saleen asked a critical question.


    ¡°This is an issue regarding energy recement. The injuries we have sustained is a kind of energy. Obtainingpensation on this ne would be the most reliable treatment method.¡± This time round, Judikaka¡¯s answer was not as concise. Saleen couldprehend it clearly, however.


    The light element and dark element would not negate each other, instead they would be converted to each other. This was a concept which all mages understood. Even though Judikaka¡¯s problems would prove to be moreplicated in an in-depth analysis, the fundamental principle was the same.


    Saleen did not make life difficult for Judikaka. He only asked, ¡°If you do not swallow these souls, what will happen to them in the end?¡±


    ¡°Most of them would be dispersed, returning to the most primitive form; nothingness. Some might linger around for some time due to special circumstances. The duration of preservation would depend on the strength of the soul itself.¡±


    ¡°Diyabannersa, is this the case?¡± Saleen did not trust Judikaka¡¯s words, so he decided to ask Diyabannersa who was the most honest.


    ¡°Yes, Sir Saleen,¡± Diyabannersa answered respectfully.


    Seeing that Saleen still remained silent, Judikaka said, ¡°Sir Saleen, the problem with a soul is extremelyplex. The three of us might not be able to exin it urately. Let¡¯s take the skeleton from the death dimension as an example. Once a skeleton is born, it will live for about ten years. If there is no evolution within this ten years, the skeleton will perish and turn into pure energy. When we swallow the souls, we are not obliterating them either. We do not have that power to do so. The source of a soul shouldst eternally. Only the soul¡¯s consciousness, its own imprint, will die out.¡±


    Saleen smiled, then asked, ¡°Aini, what do you say?¡±


    ¡°Just ede to their request.¡± Aini was worried that if the three kings were not by his side, his safety would not be guaranteed. As for the issue of swallowing souls, he was not repulsed by it. Judikaka was right; it was only a matter of time before the soul perished since those people had already died in battle. Even if the soul¡¯s individuality had not died out, it was no longer a ¡°human¡± anymore.


    ¡°As you wish.¡± Saleen smiled, as he thought, ¡°Isn¡¯t the most important thing in life individuality? All morality is built upon one¡¯s self.¡±


    Judikaka felt disgusted. ¡°This Saleen is surely cunning, what do you mean by ¡°as you wish¡±? You are simply shirking responsibility. If someone asks about this in the future, you will simply put on a ¡°none of my business¡± attitude.¡±


    As time passed second by second, no more flying puppets were seen returning from the front line. Saleen was not anxious either. At midnight, he finally received information from Kredian. The enemy had been exterminated. Only about one-hundred prisoners were captured, while the rest had died.


    Aini could not conceal his look of astonishment, there were more than ten-thousand enemies!


    ¡°Let¡¯s go and take a look.¡± Saleen allowed the rest who were waiting to get some rest. He only brought along J and Sika and went with Aini to the port. A massive hole had appeared on the iceyer which was directly facing the port. The ice which was several meters thick had disappeared, exposing the seawater underneath. Then, the prisoners were brought to Saleen. Saleen noticed that not only were the prisoners¡¯ eyes filled with terror, the gaze of his own soldiers were also filled with extreme awe.


    Truman must have fired the magic cannon many times to create such a colossal hole in the iceyer!

 Chapter 407: Saleen’s Winged Skeleton (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 407: Saleen¡¯s Winged Skeleton (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s trap was notplicated, however, it was hard to carry out. He had let Kredian bring all the mages that could be brought to the iceyer to set a fire trap, when an enemy rushed into the trap, it was surrounded within a sea of fire.


    The burning time of such magic mes did notst too long but it was incredibly hot. Even with that, it melted the thickyer of ice. When the mes surrounded an enemy, Truman had fired the magic cannon from the White Rock mountain,pletely destroying the iceyer. Any enemy within the target range was either sunk into the sea or killed by the magic cannon.


    It was hard for the magic cannon to strike a moving target, but for an enemy that was trapped in such a situation, a magic cannon was even more terrifying than a forbidden curse.


    ¡°Master, what do we do with these prisoners?¡± J asked at the side. He was worried that Saleen might kill the rest in a fit of anger. In Cloudflow, there was a saying that killing prisoners was not auspicious and would bring bad luck to the one who gave the orders.


    ¡°Separate them, then interrogate them¡±


    Naturally, someone went to carry out the orders, Saleen did not need to say much. So long as Saleen did not point out anything, those in charge of interrogating the prisoners would keep asking until there were no other questions to be asked.


    Saleen would not give the orders to kill these prisoners, there did not seem to be any important person among them. The enemy was almost destroyedpletely and Saleen¡¯s anger had subsided. His side did not lose too many people only because in the battle, he had the advantage of horses. Even though many were injured, the mages had already prepared arge amount of restorative water before the battle.


    Kredian did not look too good. When he was setting up the magic array, he did not know that together with the magic cannon. It could cause such devastating effects.


    Thousands died in the attack and those with weapons had almost been trapped to death by the magic array and struck down into the sea. The few soldiers that had not been trapped by the magic array were weapon-less and a single strike by Saleen¡¯s army had left them crumbling.


    Kredian had not imagined that he would kill so many people. If he was asked to killed thousands of soldiers, he would definitely be soft-hearted.


    The soldiers behind held onto the magicmp, Saleen looked at therge hole in front of him as he was deep in thought.


    The powers of this magic cannon were greater than what he had imagined. If enemies were to infiltrate the White Rock mountain and kill the defences at the top in the future. The magic cannon could destroy the fortresses near the coast. The destructiveness of this thing was many times more that of the magic stone artillery. It had a small body and could easily be taken away by enemies with a spatial equipment.


    ¡°Master, you can arrange for the fully constructed puppet to defend the magic canon.¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice sounded. Saleen was stunned before he finally realized that the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat must have already reached below him. He and the winged skeleton must be less than fifty meters apart.


    ¡°I know, Soldier. When this is over, go find the remains of the Second Dynastybat vessel. Then take any ingredients that are worth fishing up. Nailisi has a dimension stone with her, let her do it.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master, do you have any other instructions?¡±


    ¡°No, be careful ande back quickly.¡± Saleen sent the winged skeleton away before turning back to Sika and said, ¡°Sika, tell me, would there be any problem letting Judikaka and the rest swallow the spirits?¡±


    Even though Saleen was not a death mage, he could still feel the thick aura near the battlefield. It was the powers of the soul energy that had condensed after death. Only those who had died inbat would have such powerful energies.


    A priestess was very sensitive to such powers and Sika closed her eyes and silently felt before saying, ¡°There shouldn¡¯t be a problem. If this is left unhandled, there might be problems that way instead. Our city needs to do business. If the aura left behind from a battle is too strong, it will affect our ie.¡±


    ¡°Yes, let Judikaka and the reste then.¡±


    On the top of White Rock Mountain, Truman was still sitting beside the magic nucleus of the canon. It had been used up and when Truman fired it, he had only calcted the coordinates that it wouldnd. He had not expected such consequences by firing the magic canon consecutively.


    He had killed thousands with his own hands. Even though Truman was not any ordinary person and took death in his own strides, these thousands of people were killed by him and a rush of disgust shot up from the bottom of his heart.


    The magic cannon was not actually created forrge-scale killing. It was meant to be used to destroy an enemy¡¯s heavy equipment like a giant fortress hammer or a war puppet that moved slowly. Using a magic cannon to kill normal soldiers was too much a price to pay.


    If it was not on the iceyer, the number of enemies a single shot from the magic cannon could kill was limited. No matter if the enemy was a grand mage or a normal soldier, they were not any different to the magic cannon. The situation that Saleen had created was special and therge-scale magic array had controlled the enemy¡¯s movement. Using the magic cannon to destroy the ice surface, they would lose their lives when they fell into the sea even if the enemy was not killed outright.


    After much time, Truman¡¯s feeling returned to normal. Those people were already dead and anyway, they were thieves. More than a hundred warriors had been killed by them and they were not even resisting.


    At this thought, Truman no longer had that pressing feeling at his chest. Humans would always find excuses for their action, no matter how poor that excuse was or how real. They all had the same purpose. Truman was merely convincing himself that what he did was the right thing.


    Truman used his hands to touch the magic cannon, the second time woulde easier than the first time for such things. It was merely lighting a cannon, iying the magic nucleus, adjusting the coordinates, storing energy, and activating the magic array. Such simple steps could have been aplished by a grade-3 mage.


    The port settled down as the three kings were released to absorb the souls of the battlefield. Before this, Daniel had already let the pikoosi have his fill. The only one without any psychological burden from the battle was Daniel. As Daniel saw it, since the people had already decided to stir trouble on the maind, they had to be mentally prepared to die.


    Three-thousand skeleton soldiers had almost been lost in this battle. He could only wait for the three kings to call upon them when they had recovered fully. The remaining one-hundred skeletons also absorbed arge amount of the soul energy, evolving on Myers Maind. Daniel did not dare keep the eighty skeleton soldiers for himself, he knew Saleen had a winged skeleton in his hands.


    These eighty skeleton soldiers finally had evolved intelligence, they moved much quicker than before too. Even though theirbat powers had not increased and their bodies were still slightly weak, they could carry out moreplicated orders. Once these skeletons had their first evolution, they would slowly be more perfect.


    There were metal skeletons, winged skeletons, and even jade skeletons in the death dimension. They all had decent intellect and would even grow to an existence simr to that of the death kings. What was most unusual was that some of them could learn magic and be a skeleton mage.


    Even though there were arge number of skeletons, the intelligence they produced was miniscule. Among the three-thousand skeleton soldiers, only about one-hundred of them had intelligence and they all managed to survive in the battle. One could only say Saleen was lucky, he could hand over these skeletons to be dealt with by the winged skeleton to be his men. The winged skeleton couldmand them more precisely and use the spirit pool to process them, letting them evolve at a faster rate.


    Skeletons would not get tired and with the spirit pool, they would be able to survive. If they had the death mes, they could survive well in any dimension.


    Every time a war broke out on the maind, death mages would summon arge number of skeleton because even though theirbat powers are ordinary, they had a high performance to price ratio. So long as some of them were intelligent, they could be an officer among the spirits and allow the death mage to control more spirits in battle.


    It was alreadyte at night and many had fallen asleep. Saleen on the other hand, was still busy.


    During this expedition to the north, Saleen had gained many ingredients. Arge number of grade-4 magic nuclei, magic beast¡¯s shells, skeletons, and fresh meats. These fresh meats were kept in the dimension stones and would not turn bad.


    There was a magicboratory in the temple and Saleen had already analyzed the mineral reserves on that ind. It should have a huge reserve of steel, not the rhenium gold that Saleen was looking for though.


    This was normal, the supply of rhenium gold was little and it came from red copper fort. Finding arge mine was a decent find too. To process steel, one needed to have good metal. These exposed mineral vein were of high quality and the associated mineral had a great variety too. Saleen had found a windfall.


    In the Qin Empire, all the mines belonged to the royal family and any miners could only keep ten percent of the profits. This mine belonged to Saleen entirely. A processing facility could be built directly on that ind and the steel ingot mined could be directly shipped to there. Saleen had no intentions of selling them either. Instead, he was going to keep it for his army.


    Not only did any army require steel, Saleen had intended to reim the nearby wastnd and to do so there. The best way was to learn from Alchemy City and use low-grade puppets instead of animals to tend the pasture.


    These puppets that were only used for agriculture required arge amount of steel to ensure their structure. It did not matter if they was flexible. They would not be used inbat anyway, it didn¡¯t matter if they were a little clumsy. What was most important was that they were not easily damaged, minimizing any need for maintenance.


    A mile east from the temple was a tower form from a few structures. It was now used by Daniel and all those living inside were military personnel. They were responsible for the safety of the city. The over one-hundred prisoners were kept inside there. They were sent directly to the underground cells and locked away separately.


    Daniel was interrogating a low rank officer, he was probably a group leader. He was one of the highest ranking among those who were lucky enough to survive. The higher ranking the officers were in the army of the Eastern Sea inds, the more garish their outfit would be. It was almost like a light attracting enemies to attack. As Daniel saw it, such armor did not provide much defence against leather armor and wearing it was akin to seeking death.


    It was the same as telling enemies that they were the leader and to kill them.


    What stupid person would design such an armor? Daniel looked at the officer, his thoughts showed on his face. The group leader took it in, he felt that the death mage in front of him was incredibly savage and terrifying.

 Chapter 408: Saleen’s Skeleton (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 408: Saleen¡¯s Skeleton (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What is your name?¡± Daniel sat opposite the prisoner on the other side. He had a chair too, however, it was made from ice and it was notfortable sitting on it.


    The group leader endured the pain on his back side as he said to Daniel with tears pooling in his eyes, ¡°Respected mage, you have asked this question many times. I am Ri En, Ri En! I beg you, ask me something useful, I will tell you anything.¡±


    Daniel was expressionless as he continued, ¡°Alright, then tell me, what is your name?¡±


    Daniel had learnt this from Saleen. He had already been interrogating the prisoner for over an hour, asking the same question over and over again. If the prisoner did not answer, he would use magic to induce pain in the prisoner¡¯s soul. The pain would get progressively more painful and it was impossible for the prisoner to get used to it.


    This prisoner rubbed his fingers, not daring to stand up. He could only look at Daniel with pleading eyes. Daniel felt he was almost there, Saleen¡¯s n had worked and he did not want to use such boring methods of interrogation too. Besides his, torture methods were technically difficult.


    Some soldiers retrieved the prepared paper and pen and threw it on the table. Daniel said to the prisoner, ¡°I am going to take a rest, if you have thought of anything useful, write it out. When I am back, if I am not satisfied with what I see, we will continue.¡±


    With that, Daniel left the room. The prisoner had lost all will of resisting, he immediately grabbed the pen and paper and started writing. He wrote in themonnguage and even though the grammar was incredibly different than thenguage used on the Myers Maind, it was still understandable on paper. Luckily he was an officer who was literate. If it was any other soldier, they might not even be able to recognize the words.


    Daniel did not rest, he went to organize whatever he had gotten from the other prisoners. He startedparing them and analyzing which was true and which was false. These interrogation records were simr, the prisoners were from the ind country in the eastern sea tens of thousands of miles way. They were heading to Lianyun City. This expedition had over three-hundredbat vessels that were split into dozens of teams, moving towards the west.


    Along the way, they met with a storm and several ships were lost. They found themselves near Saleen¡¯s city and saw the twobat vessels moored at the small ind, leading to what happened.


    Over three-hundredbat vessels? If there were one-thousand soldiers aboard each vessel on average, this was an army with three-hundred-thousand people. This was only the main army and did not include the sailors and back ups. Those equipped merchant ships could not fight well, but the number of people it could carry was more than a powerfulbat vessel.


    To overthrow the Myers Maind with only three-hundred-thousand people, was the king of the country crazy?


    The group leader Ri En wrote down whatever he knew on the paper, naturally someone asked him to exin what he wrote and tranted it into the Qin Language. Just the ount from any normal soldier, Daniel already understood what was happening.


    Perhaps an army of three-hundred-thousand soldiers might not be able to conquer the maind, but it would not be a problem taking down Lianyun City. Lianyun City was a middle-scale city with over two-hundred-thousand people. It had around twenty-thousand people in the army and abat fleet made up of twelve boats. Besides the twenty-thousand soldiers in the city, there were some scattered mercenaries and private soldiers from the wealthy. They made up less than three-thousand people. To defend against an attack from three-hundredbat vessels was impossible. Besides the equipped merchant ships, all thebat vessels had magic trebuchets. Even the walls of Lianyun City would not be able to fend that off.


    Upon seeing the statements, Saleen immediately analyzed a result. He started getting frustrated again. One of thebat vessel that Lex had taken with her was in Lianyun City. Lex obviously wanted to bring a group of people from Lianyun City to there using the sea route. Some of them must be mages and if her people were still in Lianyun City, they would have no choice but to help the wealthy there to defend against the invasion.


    The other party had quite a few mages too and if it was a true invasion, there would be a grand mage for every one-thousand soldiers. Three-hundred-thousand people meant there were at least three-hundred grand mages. Lex did not have many grand mages with her and most of them were low-grade mages. If they really met with the other party, Saleen knew most of them would not be able to survive.


    What left him most frustrated was that there was not a teleportation array between there and Bitter Water Prefecture. He could not quickly send out any information. If he had a teleportation portal, no matter how much gold coins he would need to spend, he would warn Lex to change her route. Abat vessel did not mean much but the low grade mages with Lex were the most important. The money used to nurture them was enough to create hundreds ofbat vessels.


    Now, Saleen finally understood why the wealthy that owned cities could only save tens of thousands of gold coins every year. Even though the city brought with itrge revenue, to protect it, the investment was huge too. He was considered wealthy now and the precious ingredients he had with him were more than what some could gather in their lifetime. The intense hunt at the Oceanic Ice Block left him with a shocking number of magic nuclei too.


    Whichever grade one was at, he would have a rtive amount of spending. Saleen wanted to keep twenty-four lightning dragons and to nurture them at a speed one-hundred times that they would naturally. He wanted them to grow up within a year and the number of magic nuclei and food he would need to spend was an astronomical figure.


    The city needed to expand to the west, at least for more than thousands of miles before there was any meaning in developing. Only then could it attract more people toe forward and do business. Saleen considered building an army that needed at least six camps. This was equivalent to sixty-thousand people. Together with the back up army, Saleen could not afford to feed them.


    A set of soldier armor costs more than ten gold coins at the very least. ording to Saleen¡¯s standard, it might even go up to one-hundred gold coins. These armors would get damaged during training and needed weekly maintenance and repair, all that cost money too. Inparison, feeding these soldiers was akin to throwing money away every day. For them to have the will to fight, they had to have decent food with meat for every meal.


    To eat meat? He had to buy in bulk, if he were to build his own farm and raise the livestock, how muchnd would he need?


    These soldiers had families too and to let them fight peacefully, their family needed to be taken care of. A private soldier and amon recruited soldier were different concepts. The families of these soldiers were his men too. No matter who the enemy was, even if the pope was standing in front of them, these soldiers would charge without hesitation.


    Why were private soldiers so loyal? It was because the entire family counted on the leader. So long as the wealthy did not die, he would be responsible for the lives of the family members. The empire limited the number of private soldiers and at the end of the day, it was because they were afraid of a rebellion by the wealthy.


    Saleen had to use his money wisely now. As long as Lex was not back, the amount of money he could put in was limited. He had more than two-thousand Cascausus warriors with him now and that was already a formidable force. It was still insufficient to hold onto such a big city. His citycked a true teleportation portal and the one on the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat could only teleport a few meters away. A true teleportation portal could transport distances over few thousand miles.


    Like the dimension portal, it could only bepleted with Lex¡¯s Gods Ring. It was not something that could be solved with money.


    Luckily he had found an ind which was worth a handsome amount. It was rich in minerals. If he had not found it the money needed for Saleen to buy resources would have been a pain in the ass. Even though his expenses to the Oceanic Ice Block were a lot, if he bought equipment from the four families directly, he might as well die.


    No matter how good his rtionship was with Aini, he would not dare sell the equipment at a lower price. It was prohibited by the empire. Arge part of the Clyde family¡¯s revenue had to go to paying taxes, if not how would the emperor trust the four families. No other families entered this business because the emperor did not want to hand over such things to a higher-grade wealthy. Once any duke could run a mine, it would be a disaster for the empire.


    Saleen realized the minerals did not have to have their profits shed at Holy Rock City. Any ce that was not the empire¡¯s territory he could take as his magic territory, just like Alchemy City. In the inds outside of Alchemy City, there were bound to be precious mines too.


    Saleen did not care that much about these mines at first. After hearing Aini exining the rted problems, he suddenly understood. Inparison to the mines, the revenue from the magic nuclei did not matter. Even though they were more valuable than metals, it was not controlled by anyone and it could not be controlled.


    If Saleen did not have a huge mineral reserve to buy weapons, he would need to bear a heavy price. No matter how much money he had, he would not be able to hold back against other¡¯s raising their prices.


    His heart started beating fervently. Within his room, over eighty skeletons stood motionlessly. He had to quickly create smaller boats to let these skeletons go out to sea to explore the mineral vein. He did not need to many. If he found another three to five more simr inds, Saleen could ensure that his weapon production would not be limited by others in the future.


    He did not feel safe entrusting this to anyone, luckily the winged skeleton could discipline these evolved skeletons. He needed to let these skeletons quickly finish their transformation in the spirit pool, if not they would die soon.


    ¡°If this carries on, I would be a death mage,¡± he thought and sighed inwardly.


    A death mage was lucky to have so many trustworthy spirits to count on. Their contract was mutually beneficial, but what about elemental mages? Besides magic chords, there was nothing they could count on.


    He was still too young and had oversimplified the building of the city. Saleen thought that with his teacher¡¯s support and Lex¡¯s assistance, this would not be a big problem. Now, his city wall had not even finished being built and only the city center waspleted. The port had taken up much time too and if the entire city building was overseen by him, he would not have any more energy to train his magic.


    No wonder no mage was willing to work for the wealthy. For them, this time wasted was indeed a stupid thing.


    Who else around him could do it? J and the magic beast swordsmen had decentbat abilities but they did not have this skill. Sika? She had to manage the Cascausus people, they would only get more upset without Sika. It would be unlikely that Saleen couldmand them directly. He could forget about the barbarians, they could only hunt and fight. Nailisi? When she was upset, she could not care about any future problems and would even kill those around her. The demon had to be controlled by his side.


    He could not count on the mages from Sregl Ind either. They were trustworthy, but they could not be used to manage talents. The swordsmen from Sregl Ind were loyal but beside fighting, they did not care about anything else.


    The only one he could count on by his side now was Aini. Without his reminder, he might not have taken much notice of that ind. Someone from a business family was the most suitable for managing. Aini was a mage and he would not focus too much on things like that however.


    Irene? Forget it, he had already given up on her.

 Chapter 409: The Plan to Fuel War with Warfare (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 409: The n to Fuel War with Warfare (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the room, there were eighty seven skeletons that looked snow white. They were evolving to be jade skeletons. Compared to armor skeletons, the body of the jade skeleton were not as tough. The lifespan of the jade skeletons were longer when it fully evolved though. Even when Saleen be a grade-9 sorcerer, he might not live longer than a jade skeleton.


    If a jade skeleton did not die in a war, it could easily live for three to five thousand years. Comparably, the human kind was limited by their body so it would be difficult enough to live more than a century. Among dozens of thousands people, it was difficult to find a grade-9 sorcerer. The lifespan of a grade-9 sorcerer was only about one to two thousand years.


    The pce in Holy Rock City had three grade-9 sorcerers, and the three of them were only about seven hundred years old. They were at the prime of their lives. If the three of them did not die, it would be difficult for Holy Rock City to fall into the enemy¡¯s hands.


    Saleen observed the skeletons for a moment and redirected his thoughts to the ind nations from the eastern sea that tried to invade. It would be certain for the three hundred warships to conquer Lianyun City. It was located at the north of the empire, but there were connectingnd routes for war. If those invaders could really stand their ground, it would not be difficult for them to continue to send out soldiers.


    What made Saleen worried was, if Lianyun City fell, the first that the Eastern Sea Allied Army wanted to take control would be Phoenix Duchy. He had originally nned to seek gains in Phoenix Duchy.


    He made a clean sweep in the war with no sacrifice of life, but that was because he sank his enemy¡¯s warships and made them lose their equipment. They had to fight with bare hands. Topographically, he was at a great advantage. The set up was not thought of at thest moment, but when he decided to build a city there he had thought through a lot of ideas on how to defend against invasion. That one was only one of the many.


    Without the magic cannon, the magic array trap would not be able to kill all the enemy¡¯s selected soldiers. If there were a thousand or two of them escaped, it would inflict heavy casualties on his side too. His enemy had quite a number of grand mages after all.


    ording to Saleen¡¯s original n, the south empire was the most dangerous ce. It shared a border with Titan Duchy and it was influenced by the Cloudflow Empire. He decided to develop in the north as Phoenix Duchy was weak. He did not have many worries.


    Who would have guessed that Phoenix Duchy would stir up chaos first. The Empire sent an army to carry out an invasion. The ind nation from the eastern sea invaded Lianyun City. It seemed that they wanted to conquer the entire Myers Maind.


    Although it was ridiculous, the three-hundred-thousand strong army could at least keep the north of the empire unstable. It would be impossible for him to run a business in peace.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, Aini is here.¡± The soldier at the door said softly.


    ¡°Let him in.¡± Saleen returned to his table and took a seat.


    Aini looked tired when he walked in. Saleen asked, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you go to sleep?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t sleep.¡± Aini said straightforwardly.


    ¡°You are most likely worried about the corrupt situation at the north leading to failure of the investment.¡± Saleen smiled and let Aini take a seat. Saleen¡¯s table was an alchemy worktable. There was a solidified magic array and some experiment equipment. Aini was fondling the metal hourss before him as he remained silent.


    The two of them were suddenly drowned in silence for god knows how long. Then, Aini finally spoke, ¡°Saleen, aren¡¯t you worried?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no use of worrying. I have gotten myself into the biggest trouble in the world.¡± The trouble that Saleen was talking about was of course referring to Holy See. Comparably, he did not put the attack of the ind nations from the eastern sea in high regards. The Eastern Sea was too far away after all. It would be extremely difficult for them to send backup. From the confessions of the captives, they could tell that it sapped the vitality of the ind nations from the eastern sea to form the allied force.


    Even though the Qin Empire was strong, The Great Chanake only brought a hundred thousand people when he made an expedition. If there was one setback with the expeditionary force, they would not be able to stand proud anymore. It was different from Holy See. Holy See was basically the Tanggsi Empire and was as huge as the Qin Empire. He was merely a mage, even with Sregl Ind¡¯s support, the distance between them was still vast.


    Saleen remembered back then when he received God¡¯s punishment by the oracle, Genesis. He was thrown into interdimensional space. Genesis died but Holy See had another six oracles. He heard that the one named Fycro was the strongest among them all.


    If the Qin Empire did not block in the middle, no matter how perfect Saleen¡¯s city was, it would be ruined by the Holy See.


    ¡°If the empire can¡¯t control the north, what do you n to do?¡± Aini suddenly asked.


    ¡°Can¡¯t control the north? How is that possible?¡± Saleen asked in surprise. The empire had a huge number of garrisons in its north. In Guderian City. They invaded Phoenix Duchy and that would be Guderian City¡¯s power. From what Saleen understood, it would not be impossible for the allied force of ind nations from the eastern sea to fight against the garrisons in Guderian City, even though there was a huge difference in numbers.


    The north of the empire had many strong nobles. These nobles formed a tight knit defence. Within a hundred miles around a city, there must be other cities to support each other.


    The distance of a hundred miles was not anything to a cavalry. T an expeditionary force that came by ship, they would not have arge calvary. If infantrymen wanted to restrain the cavalry, they could only fight at their own main battlefield. The speed of movement would be its vital w otherwise. In the past, many wars had certified that point. Even when infantrymen put calvary to rout, they would not put off much of the enemy¡¯s living power.


    ¡°The nobles in Phoenix would feel aggrieved about it and they wouldbine forces with the expeditionary forces very quickly.¡± Aini said forcefully.


    ¡°What? Isn¡¯t that rebelling?!¡±


    ¡°They rebel, so what? The empire¡¯s actions had driven the nobles in Phoenix into a dead end.¡± Aini smiled forcefully. Although he was a mage, he knew where the benefits of a noble were and what their bottom line was. He was imperceptible influenced by what he heard and saw as a child.


    Phoenix was an important food production region. If the expeditionary force was supported by the nobles in Phoenix, the north of the empire would change.


    Saleen then sharpened his vignce. If the north of Qin Empire knew that Phoenix was going to stage a rebellion, his connection with the empire would be cut off entirely. By then, what could he rely on to feed his underlinings?


    To detour to Sikeqinya from the north maind through sea route, he would have no harbor for half a year¡¯s time. There was only one way to maintain the trading all year long. That was to drive the ship himself and transport the items with his dimension stones as the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat would not be affected by seasons.


    But if there was one mistake, he would fall into Holy See¡¯s hands and he would be doomed.


    Originally, he could take the secret pathway through Chaotic Swamp. Once Phoenix joined force with invaders from the ind nations from the eastern sea, it would be impossible for him to get their support. He was a fake residence of Bitter Water Prefecture after all. He could not even save Lianyun City, it would be equally useless for him to use the other sea route that he wanted to use.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Saleen thought, Aini was much more experienced than him when it came to this kind of matter. He asked for his suggestions for future nning.


    ¡°What option do I have? I am not the king of the empire. Saleen, we could only depend on mining to guarantee our own army¡¯s equipment is not limited by the others. To survive, that will not be enough. The unstable north would affect our business. My investment will really go down the drain. Do you remember that you told me, that you would let me form a mercenary regiment?¡±


    ¡°To make money depending on mercenary? This is too¡­¡± Saleen did not say that it was ridiculous but he could not help thinking it. Sikeqinya was a country filled with mercenaries but he knew that many mercenaries worked very hard for half their lives and they did not even earn enough for their old age. He was not interested in the industry at all.


    ¡°I¡¯ll fund it and you will be in charge of the training. Saleen, we are the organizers and we would take thergest cut. We would not need to risk our lives too.¡± Aini said straightforwardly and took out a piece of paper to list down the data.


    ¡°Look, this is how much we are putting in. As the north wanted to fight and many nobles relied on their own personal soldiers to guard against their own manor. They would spend money on hiring mercenaries to fight the battle. We train mercenaries and a mercenary regiment would only cost a few hundred thousand gold coins. Helping a city to fight against two times the enemy, we could get more than twenty thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°That little?¡±


    ¡°What I meant was profit. The payment of mercenary is very low and we don¡¯t need to take responsibility if they die.¡±


    ¡°This is¡­ too cold hearted, right?¡±


    ¡°This is the rule, plus you know that mercenaries on battlefield aren¡¯t disciplined. Sometimes, they were just like pirates. As long as they do not fight against themselves, we do not have to restrict them. That was part of their ie, they prayed.¡±


    Saleen thought about it and said, ¡°Easier said than done. Where do we hire them from?¡±


    Saleen was convinced with the business of mercenary but the problem was that mercenaries would not fall from the sky and to form a mercenary regiment wasplicated. If he wanted his business to take shape, he needed at least more than ten thousand mercenaries. Otherwise, if there were only three to five hundred of them, why not just go and earn on his own?


    ¡°Remember I told you that I wanted to introduce you someone from Rnde family?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I remembered, it was a woman.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, Rnde family is closer to Sikeqinya. They have ways to recruit mercenaries but you can¡¯t have the business all to yourself. I¡¯ll pay the money, she will use her connection and you will be in charge of the training. You can take forty percent while the two of us take thirty percent each.¡±


    Saleen was hesitating so Aini exined, ¡°Don¡¯t consider this being too little. Once there¡¯s a fight, our ie would be a lot. If you were to head over to Lianyun city to offer a registered army, Lianyun City would pay you ten thousand gold coins on the spot and help you to feed these people as of now. If they won the war, there would be reward. Rnde family has many connections. If you were to separate more for her, it would be beneficial for you. Lex had strong powers but it is only limited in the one city; Bitter Water Prefecture. Even our Clyde family is in awe of the business of Rnde family.


    ¡°I want sixty percent, don¡¯t you reject me first. Listen to me. To form a mercenary is not something that can be done in a short period of time. This requires support of Lex. If she doesn¡¯t give us any endorsement, our army is considered illegal. It would be excluded in every ce on maind so I have to give her twenty percent of the profit. About the mercenary, I have a different idea from you. I want to build it like a regr troop. Your money wouldn¡¯t be sufficient, you would need more from Lex and I.¡±


    Saleen thought if he was going to do it, he might as well make it big. If the Rnde family could recruit sufficient manpower for him, to share them twenty percent was decent enough. He had to be in control of that, otherwise if he was striped of power in the future, he would not have any sort of benefits left.

 Chapter 410: The Plan to Fuel War with Warfare (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 410: The n to Fuel War with Warfare (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini considered how calctive Saleen was andmented, ¡°You are not like a mage at all.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t look like one either.¡± Saleen said and the both of themughed. Saleen thought in his mind, Aini¡¯s temperament was not as extreme after he recovered his status as a mage and he was easier to get along then. What Aini learnt from his family was something Saleen had nevere across. What he learnt from Lex was imperialism and from Aini was thebination advantage of a businessman and a noble. He was a mage himself and that helped him a lot as well.


    Aini sighed with emotion. When his capability advanced by leaps and bounds, he practiced no concept of winning or losing. At the end of the day, Aini was also a pure mage. His biggest joy of life was researching about magic. To practice magic without sufficient money would not work. Although a death mage saved morepared to an element mage, it was not that much of a difference. Aini thought if he were to invest some money, he did not need to spend too much time or strength to worry about that. Saleen would be in charge of training, and that would be relied on by his underlinings. The biggest trouble would be Rnde family needing to recruitrge number of low level mercenaries from other countries.


    The investment would not be too little, but twenty percent of profit would be sufficient.


    Saleen told Aini, ¡°This is not like what you were thinking. I have a new n. This city would only retain the staff for two barracks. If there is need to expand the army, we will build in a mercenary model and I would change most of the rules for mercenary work on the maind and build my own mercenary system.¡±


    ¡°What? Saleen, are you crazy? The mercenary system now is very good. It requires little investment and it draws back big profits. If you were to change it, it would require a lot of time and it might not be suitable.¡± Aini objected immediately.


    ¡°Aini, have you seen a professional army? Compare mercenaries with them, mercenaries are bullies and loafers. The one who determines the win or loss of a true war is not the mercenary.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible, even the ones selected by the empire were not certain that they would win the war against Sikeqinya¡¯s grade-9 mercenary regiment.¡±


    ¡°There were more than a billion mercenaries that registered in Sikeqinya and a grade-9 mercenary regiment¡¯s staff limitation was ten thousand people. In actual fact, the Dragons and Roses Regiment that had garrisons at the north-east of Sikeqinya had twenty thousand people. The first ten-thousand were the main force and the second ten-thousand were like the auxiliary troops in a regr army. Even those auxiliary troops were elite among the mercenaries. Dragons and Roses Regiment did not form their unit ording to the regiment rules. Not only do I want them to make money for me, I also want them to guard the city. It is impossible for me to manage them like Sikeqinya.¡±


    ¡°So you thought it through beforehand, Saleen.¡± Aini heard what Saleen said and realized that even if he did not bring it up, Saleen would have built a mercenary team anyway.


    ¡°Yes, I have written twenty four mercenary rules, brand new rules. So I only wanted the lowest level mercenaries and I want them new. Those older folks were smart and afraid of death, so they couldn¡¯t be trained, let alone be loyal.¡±


    ¡°That is a troublesome matter.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Wait until Lexes back, we can form the first mercenary regiment as she has sufficient underlinings.¡±


    ¡°You sent someone to get her but there is still no news. I¡¯m not sure¡­¡±


    ¡°She is a grade-6 mage, stronger than the two of us and by her side, there is¡­¡± Saleen stopped himself and did not mention that there was a strong assassin by Lex¡¯s side. He reckoned that the fighting power of the assassin was not any lower than a grade-7 sorcerer. Back then, when the Silver Grand Swordmaster could not escape being killed, was because of the vital attack by Bain.


    ¡°Tell me honestly, how much money do you need? I don¡¯t even have one million gold coins on hand.¡± Aini asked anxiously.


    ¡°About money, you could sell your items at a discounted price. I need food and if the Clyde family could transport merge amount of food, I could pay you ording to market price.¡±


    Aini forced a smile and said, ¡°There is food, but the north is chaotic. How can I transport them here for you?¡±


    Saleen groaned and said, ¡°I don¡¯t need you for transport. I¡¯ll send Nailisi with the dimension stones. I want them all regardless of the amount.¡±


    Saleen had twenty seven pieces of dimension stones and he could not even use them all by storing food.


    ¡°Nailisi¡­ just her alone?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll send J and a few magic beast swordsmen with her. The city only needs the three Kings. I will also send two grade-4 mages. As long as they don¡¯t run into the mage group from the eastern sea, there won¡¯t be any problem.¡±


    ¡°From what I understand, you would need to pour inrge sum of money. Are you not worried about losing your capital?¡±


    ¡°Aini, this trip to the Oceanic Ice Block, I¡¯ve gotten my hands onto a big batch of magic material and I can put them into magic armor. Now with mine on hand, it is not a problem to make weapons too. Your family has professionals, I think they can help me to solve this, right?¡±


    ¡°Actually, you can look to Irene about this. The Williams family are experts in making weapons.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Aini, this is not like your usual style to pass up business.¡±


    ¡°At the moment, we can¡¯t get rid of her. Give her some benefits and there will be more people here to help you. If I help you with this, you would push my price really low and I¡¯m not willing to use most of my capital here.¡±


    ¡°That is true. I don¡¯t have much gold on me.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, as I can¡¯t sleep anyway. Tell me, what are your ns?¡± Aini pushed the task aside because he really did not want to waste too much of an effort on making weapons. Although the profit was high, it would be a matter of time until Saleen had his own alchemy factory. It was not a long term benefit.


    ¡°An ordinary mercenary regiment has no professional segregation. A soldier would do everything. Even if he is a swordsman, he might not be able to master everything, so it is considered a waste. A mercenary regiment would not have auxiliary soldiers too, so the selected one would have to disperse their attention on many tasks. That is an obstacle for training. I want my mercenaries to be the same as a regr army.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t the scale too big?¡±


    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be. The nobles that hire mercenaries wouldn¡¯t hire ten-thousand of them at once. Most of the time, they would only hire a few hundred mercenaries. If it was arge scale war, they would hire mercenaries in batches, but not hire a soldier camp all at once. My mercenaries would use regiment as one unit, without setting up camp. Every ten regiments would be lead by a general asmander.


    Aini heard and understood that instance. In other words, that was to cancel the entire level system of mercenary regiments to allow them to ept any business offer of any level. A small task would only require a regiment leader while the bigger task could be cooperated by a few regiments.


    It would then exclude the professional union and Aini was worried.


    Saleen knew what Aini was thinking about and he said, ¡°If the professional union has anyment, they could look to Lex directly. Lex is the county queen and within her county, what she says is thew. Our mercenaries were not formed to protect ourselves, but to save cost, they had to go get missions. There was no use for the professional union to make it difficult for us as we do not need their support.¡±


    ¡°But what about the Rnde family? They are our middle people.¡±


    ¡°They are getting twenty percent of the profit. Why would they care?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s difficult to earn your money. Luckily, I did not agree to make weapons for you.¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°If I don¡¯t do so, how could I tie down the Rnde family?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, please don¡¯t con me. I don¡¯t have many friends. You can¡¯t treat those that I introduce to you like how you treated Irene.¡± Aini him heard and felt nervous.


    ¡°Aini, I am working together with Lex. If the Rnde family does not sincerely want to work together, what do you think Lex would think?¡± Saleen reminded Aini then he suddenly realized that he was smarter than Saleen in business. In terms of these other matters, he was still not very sensitive though.


    ¡°So, there is no harm for you to take some losses here, as Lex would trust you then.¡± Saleen continued.


    ¡°Hmph, I do not need her trust, I am a mage. Do you really think I am a businessman?¡± Ainiined.


    ¡°Mage, so what? Do you know what it is like when you practice magic until the very end?¡±


    Aini did not understand why Saleen brought that up all of a sudden, he shook his head lightly. Saleen replied, ¡°I met a terrifying mage in Holy Rock City. That person was definitely higher than grade-9.¡±


    ¡°What? There is still someone like that on maind?!¡± Aini was shocked. That was the first time he had difficulty controlling his facial expression, he looked as though he was burnt by magic.


    ¡°This person, takes good care of Lex.¡±


    Aini was daydreaming. He had always thought that the highest level mage on maind was only a grade-9 sorcerer, but he had never guessed that there was an existence beyond grade-9 living at Holy Rock City. What was the concept of going beyond grade-9? That must be a mage that could cast forbidden curses continuously, without worrying about weak periods.


    The flying speed of a grade-9 mage was so fast that the fastest flying bird could not catch up. Once they go beyond grade-9, there would be a humongous change towards the understanding and maniption of elements. By then, the strong would not be referred to as a sorcerer but as a grand sorcerer.


    ¡°Aini, wait until Lex returns, show her more respect. She is much stronger than us now after all and plus, she isn¡¯t that bad of a person.¡±


    Aini nodded blindly and he asked after a while, ¡°Then, what is it when you practice magic until the very end?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea either. If youe across the person one day, asked him yourself.¡±


    ¡°That kind of person would not be in a mood to answer my questions,¡± Aini said disheartened. Even though he had his own pride, he was not arrogant. His goal was only to be a grade-9 sorcerer and he had never thought of going beyond that. He wasted some time during his youth and that had affected his practice of magic. Aini understood that perfectly so he was much calmerpared to before.


    The most troublesome part was that he did not have aplete inheritance. To learn death magic, it would require guidance of a teacher. A strong person was not one that could order a few strong spirits of the dead around.


    ¡°Forget it. Let¡¯s talk about equipment.¡±


    ¡°Equipment?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have used more than half of the magic nucleus that we found in Oceanic Ice Block. I can¡¯t sell them for money so I will use up the rest myself. I have ideas on how we should use those shells of the magic beasts. Your family specialized in making weapons, I would like some of your advice.¡±

 Chapter 411: 206 Worries (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 411: 206 Worries (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen then took out a stack of drawing papers from his drawer and spread them on the table. Aini took a nce and figured that those were the blueprints and all of them were weapons equipment.


    ¡°This is the cavalry armor? Is this pattern from a thousand years ago?¡± Aini felt odd and he took up a blueprint to ask Saleen. Then thought to himself, ¡°This is too heavy and it costs too much to produce so it would not be easy to maintain. If Saleen were to build a cavalry troop that only consists of two hundred of them, it would be understandable. But he wanted to build a mercenary regiment in arge scale, this kind of armor would be meaningless.¡±


    Such heavy armor would have to go with good warhorses as a normal horse would not be strong enough. Calvary in such armor could only get on the horse before charging against the enemy. Normally, they could only transport the armor on the war chariot and depended on the auxiliary soldiers to help them put it on before war.


    A good warhorse would be expensive, it might be even more expensive than some of the magic beasts. If Saleen did so, building just one regiment would use up all his money.


    Back then, there was still knight ranking. The fourth dynasty was extravagant, so the design of the armor was expensive and luxurious but impractical. The fourth dynasty owned the entire maind and it was easy for them to put together a few thousand strong calvaries. Saleen could not. Although there were a few ces in the north that produced horses, good horses that could transport such armor were limited.


    Although Caucasusians¡¯ magic wolves could carry a heavy load, once such calvary got on top of them, magic wolves would lose their advantage. The advantage of such calvary was the powerful attack, it could even hurt the heavy infantrymen. If the number of infantrymen was insufficient, the calvary that was wearing a few hundred pounds of armor could tear apart the formation of the heavy infantrymen.


    Saleen smiled, ¡°Why would I make such armor? Even if I have skeleton warhorses, I wouldn¡¯t waste such money. This is a magic armor produced with alchemy skill, the weight is only about a dozen pounds.¡±


    ¡°Magic armor? Doesn¡¯t it cost more?!¡±


    ¡°Magic armor is expensive, that was because we need to make magic attributes and magic defences. My armor only has one, which is a Tough spell. This thing can¡¯t even prevent a fireball.¡±


    ¡°The cost wouldn¡¯t be very low either!¡±


    ¡°Regarding cost, I realized that the seashells are good alchemy material and they could be cultivated. It is very easy to make such armor. There are a few hundred low level mages under Lex and a few thousand magic apprentices. Even to produce ten thousand sets wouldn¡¯t be difficult.¡± Saleen¡¯s smile implicated another meaning, ¡°Those mages have to practice on a normal basis, I would considered myself providing free materials.¡±


    Aini was left speechless, Saleen wanted to fully utilize Lex too.


    ¡°But this can¡¯t defend against heavy weapons, right?¡± Aini was really from the Clyde family. Even though he did not participate in weapon design, he could tell the armor¡¯s weakness in one nce.


    Saleenughed, ¡°This is not for the general, the enemies were just normal swordsmen, or not even a swordsmen. If the enemy was so strong, like J when he holds tears in his hand. A holy armor couldn¡¯t even defend against it, right?¡±


    ¡°That is true.¡± Aini blushed.


    ¡°The main function of the armor is to defend against bow and arrow and light weapons. They were best to fight against the enemy¡¯s cavalry. Even if our warriors lost their warhorses, with the armor, they could be strong infantrymen. A dozen pounds of armor, of course could not be considered as a heavy infantryman, but it will not affect their movement.¡±


    ¡°What is this thing?¡± Aini took up another blueprint, but he did not understand.


    ¡°Spearhead, it could be used as a dagger. The soldier would bring along a piece of fire glue. With suitable wooden pole, they could make a long spear within a minute.


    ¡°I know about that. I am asking about this one on the side.¡±


    ¡°This is a fire barrel.¡±


    ¡°What does it mean?¡±


    ¡°Element mages use magic powder to make a burning agent. Take the magic powder without dilution, then add in some sulphur and some magic beast bone powder. The power when it is lit up is strong, but it is hard to control so it could not be used to make metal. This is a doubleyer ceramic barrel and there is a magic array at the end, even a magic apprentice could activate it. The fire shot out would burn for at least a minute. Within the distance of five meters, there would be nothing left.¡±


    ¡°Five meters? That doesn¡¯t seem to be suitable for war.¡±Aini mumbled. He knew that Saleen would not design things that were useless, but on the battlefield, the worst arrow could shoot for dozens of meters in distance. Some infantrymen even held spears that were more than seven meters long.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a wild war. The item is to put on the city wall. When the enemy charges forward, it would be a great fire. It¡¯s a pity the powder isn¡¯t stable and can¡¯t be controlled. It would be great if we could control the explosion.¡±


    Aini looked at the blueprint on the table and asked, ¡°Did you design all of these?¡±


    ¡°Almost. I thought up most of them.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a waste that you do not produce weapons. If the Clyde family had someone like you, the Williams family would be out of business,¡± Aini sighed.


    Aini realized that the weapons that Saleen had designed had limitations, but they shared a simrity; they were all a low cost to produce. These weapons for the soldiers were meant to be mass produced. If the price was too high, the nobles could not afford them and would lose their business.


    Looking at the blueprints scattered over the table, there could not be any less than thirty types of weapon. From as big as thebination type shield wall to as small as a drinking water tumbler, they were all made of cheap material. After they would go through the processing of magic, they immediately had a higher practicality value.


    Aini was d that most of the weapon would need assistance from Lex¡¯s mages to make. The initial management of the material was the toughest, it was where the profit was the most minor. Even if Irene got the business, the ie would not be too much. ording to Irene¡¯s character, she was probably still obsessed with hunting and the business was something she would be okay with or without.


    Saleen promised to give the two of them a ship each, so even if Irene lost money, she would take the business deal.


    Then, Aini suddenly asked, ¡°Saleen, the ship that you promised to give us, it wouldn¡¯t be newly design too, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, how did you know?¡± Saleen asked curiously.


    ¡°Nonsense, you just wanted us to test out the performance of the ship, right? What if something happen?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll provide more lifeboats then.¡± Saleen answered patiently. He promised Aini and Irene that he would give them one ship each, but of course they would not be given for nothing. Firstly, the first harvest from the Oceanic Ice Block was Saleen¡¯s. Second the two of them had to familiarize themselves with the function of the ship. Saleen was not any noble that did charity, why would he give out two expensive ships for free?


    Back then, the pirate ships that Saleen took cost more than ten thousand gold coins. ording to the design of the regr warship, those dozens of ten-thousands of gold coins worth of ships were only considered as a small amount.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about Irene¡¯s. The ship that you give me, if it were to sink by ident, you will have to give me another one.¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡± Saleen agreed generously and added, ¡°If something¡¯s wrong with the ship, I will keep sending you more to try.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, your face must have solidified with some sort of Stone Skin spell.¡± Aini said helplessly. As long as Saleen¡¯s ship did not harm anyone, he was not taking any losses. At the end of the day, he would have a decent ship.


    Irene would not be considered to be taking losses either. The ship that Saleen give her had to be precisely made. At the very least, it would not sink immediately. Even if there was some problem, it would take a few trips to realize it. If the ship could take a trip to the Oceanic Ice Block and return safely, Irene already earned something.


    Saleen did so to earn himself some experience. He did not have anyone around him that was professional in making ships so he had to recruit from outside. Those recruited would not know much and most of them needed to be nurtured. To make a ship maker do well, they required another three years time or more. Within the three years, they could not have nothing to do.


    Saleen was a pure Sikeqinya at the end of the day. He had the talent of running a business in his bones. He did not need to calcte, but automatically knew how to do it.


    ¡°Aini, I am a mage. I can¡¯t put in too much energy on this, but there is no one around me that could help me. Luckily designing these items would help me with understanding magic, otherwise, I would go crazy.¡± Ever since Saleen started building the city, he had stopped sleeping normally, but he recovered using mediation most of the time.


    Meditation could not rece sleep entirely and all the mages understood that. Saleen felt that there was not enough time, especially after running into the ck Bishop from Holy See. He understood clearly that if he did not work hard, all the tough life he went through back then would be wasted as Holy See was ready to kick him into hell anytime.


    To Saleen, money might not be important but capability was very important. To operate the city safely, he had to maintain a fleet in case the Holy See attacked from the sea. How much did it cost to maintain a fleet? Although Saleen was not sure, he knew that to maintain a warship would cost tens of thousands of gold coins in a year.


    These were things that he had to do and had to think about. If he was still the magic apprentice that only thought of having smoked meat and some bread every meal as his life goal, he would not need to think much. Saleen was not the little beggar he was back then, his purpose of life was not only to fill his stomach anymore.


    Aini did not know what to say, but he understood Saleen¡¯s pressure. He could not help with these things. He had to practice magic himself and he knew how tight their schedule was. If he did not work hard, he might not be a sorcerer in his life. Not bing a sorcerer, one¡¯s lifespan would only be a hundred and twenty years at max. No matter where you were born, you would turn into dust and soil.


    ¡°Forget it, Aini. Let¡¯s rest. Have a drink and chat for a while, what do you think?¡± Saleen put off the magic light on the rooftop and lit up the magicmp on the table. In the huge room, only that ce was lit up. In the dark corner, in the eye socket of eighty-seven skeletons, a red color soulme was waving at afortable rhythm.


    ¡°Sure.¡± Aini took a seat again. He had lesser worries. He brought all his savings into the city and had feelings towards this city but the situation on the maind was not beneficial for the development of the city. He reckoned that the expedition forces from the ind nations in the eastern sea had conquered Lianyun city and the possibility of his investment failing was quite high.


    The sea route was cut off and thend route was cut off. Aini did not know where hopey and he did not know what would happen again the next day.

 Chapter 412: Worries (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 412: Worries (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen rarely drank. People from Sikeqinya and Tanggsi liked to drink hard liquor. Until Saleen got to Bitter Water Prefecture, he would drink wine.


    To a mage, hard liquor would affect the stability of mental strength but wine would not. When he was with Lex, Saleen had to maintain his form and only drink tea in front of the others. Privately, he would drink some wine asionally.


    He took the bottle out from his drawer, Saleen was not particr about it and threw it to Aini directly. The two of them had one bottle each and they drank up slowly.


    ¡°This is a good wine. We would need to try it in a narrow mouth crystal ss to get the taste. It would be best to leave it to rest for a while after popping the bottle.¡± Aini took a sip and he could immediately tell the character of the wine.


    ¡°I know but I like the coolness of taste.¡± Saleen raised his hands and showed Aini the water me that was dancing in his palm.


    Aini shook his head, ¡°Using magic to change the character of the wine, this is such a waste of power.¡± He did not know that Saleen¡¯s water me required very little magic chords as it mainly used mental power.


    ¡°Aini, I remember the distribution of the cities in the north of the empire. There seemed to be less citiespared to the south. Within a hundred mile, there must be a location to build a stronghold fortress though. Lianyun City would go down, but it would not be easy for the invaders to go deeper into the Qin Empire¡¯s hintend. I was thinking about if Phoenix would really join forces with them.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, what is going on with you? Didn¡¯t Lex tell you this? If the Grand Duke of Phoenix passes away and there is no next-of-kin, the duchy would be retrieved by the empire. The fate of the Phoenix nobles falls into the Grand Duke¡¯s hands. If it was retrieved by the empire, they would be controlled by the upper and lower house. It would be very difficult for the nobles to be bestowed a title in the empire as many peopleid their eyes upon it. These people had no foundation in Holy Rock City and the upper and lower house would divide up their ranks of nobility.¡±


    ¡°Then, we have no other way out. For at least half a year¡¯s time, we have to just sit here and wait. To send people to go through the Chaotic Swamp, we still have to face the nobles in Phoenix. If they were to vote for a leader, they wouldn¡¯t acknowledge Lex¡¯s superiority. Lex couldn¡¯t just sit and watch Phoenix cut off from the Qin Empire too.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m troubled by this as well. We have money on hand, we have material, we also have enough mages. We do not have people though. You want to build a fleet, but there are noborers or sailing crews. There are no businessmen in the city, no farmers in the wild. We only have the skeleton of a city, but there is nothing that we can do.¡±


    ¡°Lex will return either in March or April. Looking at the situation now, it would be troublesome for her to bring over her army. Even if she didn¡¯t mean to suppress a rebellion, those nobles wouldn¡¯t believe it. Bitter Water Prefecture is tens of thousands of miles away from Phoenix. If she were to bring the swordsmen¡¯s camp over, would anyone believe that she is only passing by?¡±


    ¡°Why not let Phoenix join Bitter Water Prefecture? Lex can guarantee the benefit of those nobles.¡±


    ¡°Lexid foundation in Bitter Water Prefecture. If she were to do so, Holy Rock City would attack Bitter Water Prefecture first.¡±


    ¡°The King would fight against his sister?¡±


    ¡°King? Aini, you are not quite clear with what happened in Holy Rock City, right? The real power of Holy Rock City is in Prince Safilos¡¯ hands.¡±


    ¡°So what? What a prince wants to do has to be under the king¡¯s name. Otherwise, the local nobles would stage a riot. Saleen, we do not want to gobble up the entire Phoenix, we only want a pathway to go to Kroraina. Don¡¯t we have three nobles from Phoenix that came to seek refuge? We might as well recruit more. The empire needs to face the eastern sea allied army and they would tacitly consent.¡±


    ¡°I am already doing that, I have buried a nail in Deep Forest Town. Piac will encourage his surrounding nobles. The things that I promised him will convince him.¡±


    ¡°It seems like we have to wait until the ice melts. Saleen, I am in a hurry.¡± Aini saw Saleen was as troubled, but he already did what he needed to do and knew that all he could now do was wait.


    ¡°Yes, when spring arrives, I would depart from here directly to Sikeqinya. I will buy some broken ships from Sikeqinya and fill them up with hired workers.¡±


    ¡°Sikeqinya built ship¡­¡± Aini shook his head.


    ¡°I can¡¯t just go to Alchemy City, right? Lianyun City is in between. The eastern sea allied army has another three hundred warships on the sea. What if I run into them? I would lose everything.¡±


    What Saleen said, was the truth. He wanted to buy pirate ships to transport the hired workers. They of course could settle these at Alchemy City but how could they return from there? His Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat could go through enemy¡¯s line of defence in secret, but those were just normal pirate ships. If they ran into enemy¡¯s warships, they would not be able to escape.


    The expense would be too high to hire mages in Alchemy City to escort them. Saleen would not be able to spare so much gold. Even if he could, he would not. If they were to be convoyed by the hired fleet in Alchemy City, the gold coins would be enough for Saleen to build his own strong fleet, including hiring the army on the ship.


    ¡°I thought my bad luck had reached its limit, but it is still continuing.¡± Saleen raised his head and took arge gulp of the wine to let himself rx entirely. Lying against his chair, the chair had water shield that he set up and formed a changeable back cushion. It was almost like he was lying on it. The consumed wine did not stimte his nerves as he was wrapped up by water elements that were beneficial for his body.


    ¡°It is not bad luck entirely. I think, with the invaders creating chaos on the north, Holy Rock City will definitely think of supporting Lex. If Lex could take care of the nobles in Phoenix, Holy City Rock might give way to let Lex progress in her ranking.


    ¡°Progress? She¡¯s already a county Queen, any further would be Prince, like Safilos.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re all from the Grukos family. The Grukos family has many branches, but very little domain. If Lex could concede and everyone would divide up Phoenix, it would be better than letting it turn into the enemy¡¯s food foundation.¡±


    Saleen did not quite understand this and Aini exin it to him, ¡°Turning Phoenix into the Grukos¡¯ domain, the royal family could kick the local nobles away by right and title. What is the upper house? It is a ce to protect the royals. The lower house wants to get involved with Phoenix and send an army directly, so what¡¯s the result? The local nobles stage a riot. The lower house has toe into mutual agreement with the upper house. Their responsibility is too big otherwise. Although Safilos represented the lower house, he was of direct line of descent in the Grukos family. If the King and Lex die, he could be the King.¡±


    That was easily understood. No matter how huge the conflict between Safilos and Lex was, it was within their family. If Lex were to give way for the upper house to carve up Phoenix, Safilos would tacitly concede to it. Safilos would not let his son take up important positions because both his sons were not capable. What if he could get a huge territory in the north? Safilos would definitely be willing to. They were his sons after all.


    Phoenix and Saleen¡¯s current location was at a different geographical location. Phoenix was very suitable for farming agriculture. Every year one season of farming was like the harvest of two seasons in the south. It was good being a noble in such a ce, even one without business talent. As long as they treat the farmer well enough, they wouldn¡¯t lose money.


    Saleen recalled the way Safilos fought on just grounds with The Great Chanake, he thought that the man might not act like how Aini described. The situation in the north had to calm down quickly as Kroraina was still waging war. If the war in the north could not settle down, the noble army that was fighting for the empire within Kroraina would immediately retreat to protect their own territory.


    ¡°Aini, would you me me for dragging you here? If you were to stay with your family, you wouldn¡¯t need to bother about this so much. All you needed to do was to practice magic in peace.¡±


    ¡°To practice magic in peace?¡± Aini took a huge sip of the wine as though it was hard liquor that came from Tanggsi. His chest heaved heavily and he said, ¡°Did you see my parents in Holy Rock City? Do you think they are practicing magic in peace?¡±


    ¡°No, they looked like they have many things to take care of.¡±


    ¡°Exactly, wait until I practice to a certain level, I have to rely on my family to be able to continue practicing. I need money, but once I epted my family¡¯s support, I needed to do a lot of things for my family. My parents¡¯ talents aren¡¯t any worse than mine, but look at them, do you think they could be grade-9 sorcerers?¡±


    Aini¡¯s tone was hidden with hatred but he also thought, ¡°If you want it, it was impossible for you to ask your family to give unconditionally.¡±


    ¡°My real enemy was Holy See. Have you ever thought that even if we are sorcerers, we might die in this war too?¡±


    ¡°Holy See?¡± Aini smiled in disdain and said, ¡°They couldn¡¯t even be better than swine. Don¡¯t you know? Those people couldn¡¯t live without the instructions of God. How pathetic. A human, a kind that could challenge God back then, having to worship God in the end. Let them believe in it for another tens of thousand years, until God is gone. I reckon they would start believing in magic beasts.¡±


    ¡°If you dared to say this before the Pope, I am sold.¡±


    ¡°Wait until I can fight against the Pope, I will say it to him myself.¡±


    What Aini said was bullshit, he would never be able to win against the Pope. The Pope had the ability of a grade-9 sorcerer and they had three holy items of Holy See on hand. Of course, one of them was with Saleen. Even without the three holy items, the power of the Pope was not one that mages like them could fight against.


    There was not only one Pope. He had the entire Holy See to back him up. Saleen calcted in his head. The Great Chanake could possibly be as powerful as Joey but such a powerful person had been schemed by Holy See too. Saleen would not send the Tanggsi Empire to death, Aini would not have the courage too.


    Then, the two of them drank while nagging about the situation then and discussed ways to solve the problem. The day grew bright eventually. The table was filled with wine bottles and Saleen fell asleep on the chair.


    Aini did not sleep. He took over the blueprints on the table and saw rows of magic forms on the back of the blueprints. Alchemy spells. Aini touched the end of his eyebrows and took out a pen to amend the blueprints.

 Chapter 413: A Huge Troop of Followers (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 413: A Huge Troop of Followers (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    That was the first time in Saleen¡¯s life that he had gotten drunk. Before he learned magic, he had no money to drink. After he picked up magic, he had been controlling his hobby strictly.


    It was after the end of the meticulously plotted war, Saleen finally rxed entirely and needed his rest. When he woke up, Aini left and it was Sika by his side.


    Saleen took a nce at the amended blueprints and he kept them while he asked, ¡°Sika, your people, are they satisfied with where they are staying?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re okay. The environment is nice. There are many treehouses in South Court and they like it. Just a bit troublesome when ites to rearing the magic wolves.¡±


    South Court was a garden that took up a couple miles ofnd. It was troublesome to set up a garden in the city, but Saleen¡¯s city was built in the forest. Where South Court was, there was originally a pond, which was strange. Saleen dug a manmadeke ording to the terrain, there were many dried trees around theke and they could directly make wooden houses on top of the trees. The Cascausus people liked treehouses very much as they were filled with the vor of nature.


    At first, besides his initial n to develop South Court into a garden, Saleen also nned to conduct small scale training there. He would not have saved such a big piece of natural area otherwise.


    ¡°It looks like they still want to move out.¡±


    Sika smiled and answered, ¡°Yeah, the Cascausus people like mountains. There is a forest dozens of miles away from the city in the south. Moving there could be beneficial for you too.¡±


    ¡°Sika, I need an army.¡± Saleen thought for very long, but he could only form that sentence. He did not know how else to tell Sika that he had his selfish motives for letting the Cascausus people toe to his city. The Cascausus people made very good warriors.


    ¡°I am a warrior priestess, I can form a Caucasus army but I could only form an army of a thousand people. The others, you would have to hire them.¡± Sika¡¯s hint was obvious, the thousand people required no money.


    ¡°No, Sika. I do not want the Cascausus people as an expeditionary force. I wish for them to protect this city like how you protect your vige. Regarding the number, your army will be fully managed by you. In the city, even I do not have the power to deploy them.¡±


    Saleen knew that without his own army he had no standing. He did not want Sika to be bullied in the future though. If Sika had her own selected troops, no one would dare to show her disrespect and make things difficult for her.


    ¡°The South Court could be for elderly Cascausus people and I would send people to build a vige at the south of the city. You will stay here, okay?¡±


    ¡°No, I want to stay with my people.¡± Sika rejected bluntly.


    ¡°Why?¡± Saleen asked in annoyance.


    ¡°If I stay here, it would be difficult for you to look for a wife.¡± Sika pouted and answered.


    ¡°With you, why do I need to look for a wife?¡± Saleen saw that there was no one in the room so he spoke loudly.


    ¡°You are so silly. You have such a great fortune and you would need to look for a woman to give birth to a son that carries your name, Metatrin. Otherwise, these things would be for the outsiders. You haven¡¯t named the city all this while. I think you should just call it Metatrin City and only the direct line of descendants can inherit thisnd in the future.¡±


    ¡°Sika, did you think-¡±


    Sika stopped Saleen and said, ¡°I did not misunderstand you, but I have my own responsibilities. My parents passed away when I was very little. I was brought up by the elders of the vige. Now that I have be a warrior priestess, I have to live ording to Caucasus¡¯s traditions. I could only leave when there are more priests among the Cascausus people.¡±


    When Sika said that, it sounded organized and clear. It was not anything like her normal casual manner.


    ¡°I can understand.¡± Saleen nodded and he was reminded of his childhood friend, Dick. Back then, only the little beggar would be willing to share some food with him. Saleen would rather take the risk of being chase after to let Dick flee instead of taking Ulysses¡¯s advice to kill him back then.


    Some loving kindness would not be repaid fully.


    Sika smiled and said, ¡°If you were to pick a woman randomly, we will have to see whether the woman can win against me in a fight.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Saleen looked at Sika¡¯s back subconsciously. He then was reminded that he had given Sika his ring of gifts. Her weapon was hidden in the ring. ¡°A woman that can win against Sika?¡± Saleen could not think of any few. ¡°Can Lex win against Sika? In the past, definitely, but it¡¯s hard to say now.¡±


    With a hit of Sika¡¯s cudgel, his water shield would break instantly. ¡°Saleen couldn¡¯t think of any armor that could withstand such strong attack. Even the way Nailisi looked at me was in grovelling manner. I guess my strength might have overtook the little demon.¡±


    Nailisi could tell the best, she would not see falsely.


    Looking at Saleen¡¯s facial expression, Sikaforted him, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if Lex was willing to give a dowry, it would be nice if you marry her and I wouldn¡¯t stop it. If it was Irene, then forget it though.¡±


    ¡°Sika, that¡¯s not what I meant.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, if your parents were alive, wouldn¡¯t they want you to have your own home with a lot of children?¡± Sika¡¯s questions shut Saleen up. He liked Sika from his bones and he tried thinking about it for the first time. Why would he think about marrying another woman? He could not fight back at what Sika said though. If his parents were alive, of course they would want him to have his own family and have kids to carry on his legacy.


    ¡°Forget it, I am a mage. There isn¡¯t any mages that think about this question at such an early stage.¡± Saleen left that aside and told Sika, ¡°As you are here, I want to build an army of a thousand people to take responsibility of our safety. The regiment would not be under any program but everyone who joined would need to sign a contract with me.¡±


    ¡°Contract?¡±


    ¡°Yes, if one betrays me, they would receive punishment like in those magic contracts.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that like follower?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but I want to militarize followers. Thousands of people have to be selected elites as I don¡¯t want them to charge on an enemy¡¯s line. I only want them to be in the city to protect ours and the city¡¯s safety. I want two hundred Cascausus people that ride on magic wolves.¡±


    ¡°Would you give them the treatment of followers?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but if they weren¡¯t up to my expected standard, they would lose the restriction of the bond and resumemoner status.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I believe there are still many of them that are willing to follow a mage. Saleen, why do you want so many followers?¡± Sika did not understand. Saleen might not be strong, but with his age, he could be a sorcerer in no time. By then, he could opt for higher level followers.


    ¡°Haha.¡± Saleenughed dryly, but he did not answer Sika. He actually did not need so many followers and the cost to take care of followers was way higher than maintaining an army after all.


    What Saleen thought was, if Sika really did have a child, he could send his followers to protect his descendant. He could wait until Lex returned, the city could be expanded entirely. A lot of people were eyeing his position. Spear thrusts in the open and arrows shot from hiding, it would be hard to prevent. He could nurture followers for now, and by then, he would have enough power to ensure Sika and their child¡¯s safety.


    Of course, the safest bet would be to be someone strong like Joey himself, but that was impractical. With thousands of followers, it was equal to the standard of a grade-9 sorcerer and it must be a rich sorcerer.


    Saleen was well aware that there would be many mages from Sregl Ind that would follow him in the future. Some Caucasus magic wolf warriors, and some talented Barbarians would as well. He would teach them sword craft and his troops of followers would not be too weak. They would be able to fight in a decent scale war. As for the city, he could pick someone among the followers to manage. At the end of the day, he had to research about magic and he could not be bothered by the troubles ofmoners everyday.


    ¡°Hmph, look at yourselfughing. You must be thinking about something evil.¡± Sika said while someone knocked on the door.


    ¡°Come in.¡±


    The one who came in was the grade-4 mage from Sregl Ind, Pasatilo. He saw Sika and he hesitated, but he said, ¡°Master, everyone seems to have something to discuss with you.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen creased his eyebrows and suddenly understood. Ever since they left Sregl Ind to follow him, they had no ranking. With their talent, it would be difficult for them to be sorcerers, but these low level mages would be grand mages. These people had to seek a way out. Luckily, he had a n for the future ready. He would not be able to answer them all of a sudden otherwise.


    ¡°Bring them here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Pasatilo bowed. After he left for a while, he brought all the mages from Sregl Ind into Saleen¡¯s room.


    Jason gave Saleen very few mages, there were three grade-5 mages, three grade-4 mages and eighteen grade-3 mage. There were many magic apprentices. These magic apprentices were selected ording to the standard of a sailing crew, to operate alchemy machinery on the warships.


    Lex took away one third of the mages and Saleen sent a grade-5 mage out. Then, there were sixteen mages left in the room. Even Truman, who was normally guarding at the magic cannon, came.


    Saleen looked at these mages, ¡°If these people were to be left on the maind, they would all be targets of recruitment by the nobles. On Sregl Ind, these mages were just to set sorcerers off though.¡±


    ¡°Teacher had let you all follow me and I already understood teacher¡¯s intention. Now, I, Saleen Metatrin, in magic¡¯s name, hope that you can be my followers. Will you?¡±


    The sixteen mages from Sregl Ind were thrilled, they bowed and answered, ¡°Master Saleen, we do.¡±


    Among the sixteen of them, there was one grade-5 mage that was at the same level as Saleen but the grade-5 mage was already over forty years old while Saleen had just be an adult. Everyone knew that with Saleen¡¯s talent, he would be a sorcerer before he turned forty. As his followers, they could use Saleen¡¯s magic tower and these people¡¯s lifespan would at least be one hundred and twenty years old. They even stood a chance to promote to a sorcerer.


    Following Saleen meant that they did not need to be troubled by practice as Saleen would take time to teach them about magic even though Saleen was not their teacher.

 Chapter 414: A Huge Troop of Followers (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 414: A Huge Troop of Followers (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked at the mages before his eyes, these mages were all older than him. They grew up in Sregl Ind, which was a better environment to practice magic. He was far ahead of them, however.


    ¡°As all of you are here, I have something to announce. I am going to build an army of a thousand people and it will be divided into five teams. Kredian, when Francis and Basta return, the three of you will be in charge of my fleet. These five teams would be under Daniel. Pasatilo, Kanuka and Guise will stay back to assist Daniel. Don¡¯t think too much, Daniel wouldn¡¯t be givingmands to you directly. One more team, to be assigned under J. I reckon, in a few years time, I would promote to grade-6. By then, I wouldn¡¯t purposely build a magic tower.


    ¡°Master Saleen!¡±


    When the mages heard that Saleen would not build a magic tower, they panicked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I am not building a magic tower because there are too many of you. Wait until I promote to grade-6, this temple will increase by two floors. The core of the temple is not any different than a magic tower. In the future, all of you will live here and there will be no need to head to east anymore.¡±


    When Saleen said so, everyone rxed.


    ¡°I will choose two hundred Cascausus people and separate them into the five teams, so there would be forty of them in each team. These Cascausus people know how to tame a magic wolf and their power of their throwing axes isparable to magic. Please treat them well.¡±


    ¡°Master, Cascausus people are good. They can be trusted but the number of people is not sufficient.¡± Kredian said suspiciously.


    ¡°People can be selected slowly, you can pick some Barbarians and there are swordsmen that are brought over from the ind. Pick those that are at least swordsmaster level. If the number of people is insufficient, it could be vacant as of now. These people require training all over again. All the warriors would be in five day rotation shift to guard the temple. The rest of the time, they would be resting at the area in the east.


    Saleen built huge buildings surrounding the temple within a mile distance. The north was a library, the west was town hall, the south was a garden, and the east was a huge geometrical building. There they held the enemy from ind nation from the eastern sea captive.


    ¡°Master, does it mean that I would only have a chance every five days¡­¡± A grade-3 mage asked the crucial question directly. As a mage, it would not be embarrassing to follow a mage that had a bright future. As a follower, there would be special benefits, such as being able to practice magic in Saleen¡¯s magic tower. ording to what Saleen meant, all the followers would be in five day rotation shift and they would only return to the temple every five days.


    Saleen had yet to answer when Kredian scolded, ¡°Master said that it would be a five day rotation shift, that we would be here on duty. Normally, when you want to practice, master doesn¡¯t stop you either.¡±


    Saleen nodded and acknowledged Kredian¡¯s reply. His temple upied a huge piece ofnd that could station an army. The core was like the magic tower, and could be used for practice. Even if he had as many low level mages as Lex, it could contain them all. For five days rotation shift, people around him would be able to receive pointers.


    These mages had stable foundation but magic knowledge that Saleen obtained was precious and it could not be learned anywhere else. This included Raphael¡¯s magic book and magic notes, it was the essence of experience of the people in the past. During Raphael¡¯s time, sorcerers were nothing rare. The magic civilization was much more prosperouspared to their time. If there was not an outbreak of war in maind, the world would not be like that now.


    ¡°Master, when Viscountess Lex returns, where will she stay?¡± A low level mage asked anxiously.


    ¡°Lex¡¯s feudal estate is at Bitter Water Prefecture, she would only have a prince¡¯s residence here at most. I would build it at the south of the city. There would only be us at the temple. Besides, it would required a team of people for city management and Lex will take care of. So in the future, you don¡¯t need to worry about town hall.


    The mages looked at each other in surprise. To have them take care of town hall to make money for Saleen would not be their specialty. There must be suitable talent around Lex, no doubt.


    ¡°Why do you all looked like this? When we built the magic tower and every mage from Sregl Ind moves here, regarding town hall, whose hands do you think it would be in?¡± Saleen did not hide in front of his own troops. Actually, if the sorcerers from Sregl Ind were willing toe, Lex did not mind whose city it would be. She only needed a safe entrance for herself to transmit to the hell of the God¡¯s punishment anytime.


    What attracted the strong was the sixth elements¡¯ space that Raphael left behind.


    Lex was already a grade-6 mage, one more step and she could practice in the six elements¡¯ space. Even now, she could rely on the power of God¡¯s ring to forcefully enter the six elements¡¯ space. But the God¡¯s ring was too important to Lex, she would not use the power within it frequently.


    Saleen thought, if he had a few years¡¯ time, teacher would be a grade-9 sorcerer and the city would be indestructible. Holy Rock City only had three grade-9 sorcerers and he could at least nurture another thirty-six of them.


    Time was what magescked the most. Even if one be a sorcerer, they would still have to race against time. Learning magic was like sailing against current, one could not even rest for a minute.


    After Saleenforted the mages, he delegated the recent tasks and signed follower contracts with each and every one of them. It was already evening by then.


    More news was found out through interrogation, Saleen received concrete news. The eastern sea allied army sent sixty warships and two hundred and forty armedmercial ships. Every armedmercial ship contained about two thousand soldiers. The amount was far more than what Saleen had expected.


    Among the soldiers, less than half of them were militia. In other words, there were actually three-hundred-thousand actual soldiers and that did not include the navy on the warships.


    There were so many soldiers on the armedmercial ships, their supply was at its extreme. The secret stronghold ind with its savings for over a century was emptied along the way. Once the army entered, they would plunder like locusts. Otherwise, the expeditionary force would be starved to death.


    Saleen heard the news and he was half happy and half sad. He was happy that the enemy did so and there would not be any nobles that surrendered. He was also worried about the same thing. These invaders had no turning back, they had to be extremely crazy.


    The Great Chanake had formed an expeditionary force of a hundred thousand people, but the entire Qin Empire was giving supply. When the expeditionary force got to Lianyun City, the food on the ship would probably be finished. Even though the mages¡¯ spatial equipment could be useful, only the sorcerer¡¯s equipment woulde in handy. Dimension stones were not something everyone would have.


    Among the expeditionary force, there were thirty sorcerers and one of them was taken down by the three Kings and they brought back four grade-6 mages. The three Kings were heavily injured. One could only imagine with such concentrated strength. Unless people from Alchemy City took action, they would not be able to withstand without relying on local nobles.


    The north would be devastated! In Sikeqinya, the war would be decided very quickly, but outside of the bigger cities of the Qin Empire would likely be magic towers. These mages would not be involved in matters rted to nobles normally. When there were invaders, the magic tower would be a part of city defence.


    With these magic towers, the war would be even more brutal.


    If the mage in the magic towers did not leave, the expeditionary force had to pour in ten times their strength to be able to ruin the magic tower. In other words, if there was a seventh floor magic tower at the outside of the city, the expeditionary force would need to have ten sorcerers to be able to win against them.


    The stronger the defence, the more brutal the attacks would be. Saleen was not from the Qin Empire, but he did not have any good impression of war. If the north became devastated, whose money would he be earning? He would be without money and without amercial team. Unless he depended on his yearly hunt in Oceanic Ice Block to sustain the expenditure of the city.


    If so, he would not stand a chance to expand his army. By the time when Holy See came, he would not have much defence power.


    Very quickly, Sika sent over two hundred Caucasus warriors and all of them would remain in the temple. Everyone of them had a magic wolf with them and these wolves had a ferocious look. Looking at Saleen, they settled down. Saleen was already a grade-5 mage, even without using magic, he would be able to disrupt the element stability around him. A magic wolf was a type of magic beast that had good evolve power. They were very sensitive towards elements and they knew that the human before their eyes was strong.


    Due to infertility of the Caucasus area, a lot of younger generation would leave home and seek a living outside but Cascausus people¡¯s reputation was very good. Looking at these selected warriors, Saleen felt delighted and he distributed the prepared contracts. After they signed the contracts, he got some help from Aini to measure each and everyone of their bodies to prepare to make them brand new equipment and armors.


    After more than a week of bustling, Nailisi returned from the sea with the dimension stones that Saleen had given her. She heard that Saleen built a troop of followers and sheined, ¡°Master, regarding this, how could you leave me aside? It¡¯d be great if you let me manage them for you.¡±


    ¡°My followers are not meant to be sent to death, Nailisi. Just stay by my side honestly.¡± Saleen was rude but he was in no doubt of the little demon¡¯s loyalty towards him. The fundamental problem was that Nailisi¡¯s temperament was even more impalpablepared to Banchajanna. If he were to let Nailisi manage these followers, who knows when she would feel a sudden urge to eat everyone up in order to get her a new power.


    Nailisiughed. If it was before, she would bug Saleen to at least give her dozens of people to be her underlining. Currently, she had her mind on what she promised winged skeleton. If she were to get the demon dimension coordinates, she had full confidence that she could hoodwink a few demons to be her underlinings.


    Nailisi was in a good mood. With her mental power, it would not be a problem for her to control dozens of demons. Every demons would be able to control a few little demons. Then below the little demons, there would be spirits. Below spirits, there would be magic bugs.


    ¡°If I were to abduct a few million magic bugs, master wouldn¡¯t need to be bothered by safety issues anymore, right?¡±

 Chapter 415: Saleen’s Preparation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 415: Saleen¡¯s Preparation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was imagining in her mind and her facial expression grew creepy, but luckily Saleen did not notice that. If Saleen were to see Nailisi¡¯s expression, he would find it disturbing. The little demon would only act so when she was hiding something important from him.


    Nailisi¡¯s n was good, but she did not think about how the living environment in the demon dimension was extremely harsh. If she were to summonrge amounts of magic bugs and she lost control of them, it would create a huge trouble in the Myers Maind.


    If there were only a few big demons, it would be easy for a gathering of the strong on the Maind to kill them. There were not many people like Joey, but it would definitely be more than one. When a big demon came to their dimension, just like the three Kings, their capabilities would be restricted unless they followed a strong master. They would then be able to avoid such a situation.


    It would be different for magic bug. A magic bug was a low level creature, even after it got summoned, its capabilities would remain almost the same. Every type of magic bug shared a simrity, which was a strong reproduction system. The magic bugs ate everything regardless of the living environment. Once they were to run rampant, Myers Maind would be in for a disaster.


    It would be impossible if Nailisi wanted to control millions of magic bugs, unless she were to reach Joey¡¯s level.


    The winged skeleton knew what Nailisi was thinking about. He was a spirit of the dead and he did not care how many people would die on Myers Maind, it would only turn into another death dimension at worst.


    Saleen did not pay attention to Nailisi. He took the dimension stones to the huge hidden space underneath the temple. Besides the material that Saleen hid there for preparation to build magic towers, there were many assets and equipments that Lex left behind. There were the magic beast shells and magic nuclei that he obtained from the trip to Oceanic Ice Block also. All of those did not even take up one tenth of the huge space.


    That space was not a magic space, but merely all the rocks were dug out from underground. The earliest pathway was sealed off entirely and they would only be able to enter via teleportation portal.


    Most of the material on the ground was dug out from the space and Saleen was satisfied with his work. Such a huge storehouse waspleted by him alone. To make the storehouse, he fully sharpen his maniption of the current cutter skill to perfection.


    The material in a dimension stone was taken out one by one. The sunken ship was not far away from the harbor, but Nailisi spent a week¡¯s time before she returned. It was difficult to retrieve due to its location in the deep sea. Saleen needed practical material and if they were all put into the dimension stone at her convenience, it would cause substance breakdown.


    The second dynasty warship was dissected into numerous materials and alchemy parts. The value of all theplete materials thaty in the sea would be unpredictable. If the deck of the ship was made of a piece of thundercloud wood and was to be made into shields, it could be made into dozens of them and everyone of them would have stronger defence than a stainless steel shield. How would a stainless steel shield not be able to store magic perfectly when the thundercloud wood itself was a magic material.


    Nailisi dissected them carefully without damaging the material. Saleen took out pieces of thundercloud wood and stacked them up. The thundercloud wood was from the giant dimension and he heard that a matured thundercloud wood tree would grow above the clouds and withstand thunder striking. Thundercloud wood was obviously one of the best material that the second dynasty used to build warships. The wood did not rot after tens of thousands years of being in corrosive sea water.


    The magic that was used to piece the woods together lost its effect. Glue would not be sufficient to hold its form as a warship. Nailisi was mainly facing pressure underwater when she was dissecting them.


    Divinecherry wood was one of the materials on the warship too. Besides that, there were some other smaller woods that were used to build the building on the deck of the ship. Nailisi collected all these woods with the greatest of care and Saleen was organizing them ordingly.


    There were many things that were corroded on the warship, such as alchemy materials that were frequently used. Nailisi did not bother with its condition but brought everything back. There were some weapon equipments that were stored in the box that was made of divinecherry wood. Saleen found many that could still be used and the weapons were at least holy equipment at the current time.


    The very first time when they discovered the warship remains, Saleen did not react too excitedly as he did not think there would be many items that could be stored underwater for tens of thousands of years. Now he was getting excited. The items that Nailisi retrieved were enough for him to duplicate another two hundred meter long warship. He could also use the dragon skeleton as the keel of the warship.


    Saleen also found twelve cannons, but they did not look like magic cannons nor stone artillery. They were three meter long circr metal tubes that were ced on a square metal stand. The cannon barrel was thickerpared to a magic cannon, hollowed with no crystal iid around the cannon tip.


    The cannons were badly corroded and the magic patterns on the cannons could not be identified anymore.


    God knows when Nailisi went through the magic array and got in. She spoke behind Saleen, ¡°Master, I need to tell you something.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen looked at Nailisi¡¯s furtive manner and found it strange.


    ¡°In the remain of the warship, there were some bones that I passed to winged skeleton.¡±


    ¡°That is all?¡±


    ¡°Master, the winged skeleton asked for those bones, would he want to rebel?¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about? Nailisi, are you hiding something from me?¡± Saleen only felt something odd then.


    Nailisi panicked and an idea popped in her mind, she replied smugly, ¡°Master, I of course am hiding something from you. I am a pure blooded little demon. You try to guess, what is it.¡±


    Saleen heard Nailisi¡¯s reply and he lost interest, ¡°If you want to tell me then hurry up. I am not in the mood for guessing otherwise.¡±


    Nailisi was smug with sess. She blinked her eyes and said, ¡°Forget it then. I will tell you sooner orter.¡±


    Saleen quickly changed the topic and said, ¡°Nailisi, go look for Aini and let the three Kings continue to mend the city. Although they have yet to recover from their injuries, they can summon new skeletons. It¡¯s been a few months, the city wall was only built halfway. I want them to prepare the material so when Lex¡¯s peoplee, they can start with thest part immediately.¡±


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ll go now, but¡­¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s your problem?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not me. I¡¯ve calcted, we should send someone to get Lex.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m preparing. This time I need to make a batch of armor. We have to at least send five-hundred people. Phoenix is far from tranquil, if we send any less people, even a mage might be attacked.


    ¡°Master, there are magic chariots in those warships from the eastern sea. Why not salvage them too? If we could repair them and use them to bring Lex¡¯s people, it would be much safer.¡±


    ¡°You went to see?¡±


    ¡°Yes, about seven to eight chariots that could be fixed. Master, I saw the storehouse of the ships. There was not any food, but there are some weapons that could be used instantly after retrieval.¡±


    ¡°You go ahead with it. I¡¯ll pass you a dimension stone. Don¡¯t lose it.¡± Saleen gave Nailisi a dimension stone. After she left, he was still at the huge space, looking at the pile of material and started thinking.


    Back then, when they brought swordsmen and sailing crews from Sregl Ind, they were not fully staffed. They only had half of a standard staffing. Saleen relied on the bigger number of mages to drive to their destination, but it was actually unnecessary to have too many mages on a warship. If he were to remove the mages, there would not be enough sailing crews as he only had enough staff for half a warship at the moment.


    To make a new warship, he only had material but no blueprint. Even if he had a blueprint, he had too little people that could make alchemy parts without equipment. He had to rely on the three Kings for that again.


    After the production of a new warship, technically all the sailing crews and the swordsmen of Sregl Ind had to be on it. He would only be left with a bunch of pirates then. Could he ask for swordsmen from Aini and Irene? Either one of them would be unhappy. Those two depended on their swordsmen on a regr basis after all. To leave everything from their family behind and to follow these two younger generations to a strange man¡¯s city was a lot to ask. Even if he wanted to use it himself, how to use it would be a problem.


    Using the barbarians as scouts, they would make do as mercenaries. Compared to a regr army, these were a bunch of rude people and difficulty to train would be a concern.


    It seemed that he could only used the pirates that he had taken control over as the core members. Fortunately, Gurney was a very capable person. With Saleen¡¯s support, Gurney managed to whip the two hundred pirates into obedience and they could carry out orders strictly.


    Among Jupiter¡¯s bunch, there were quite a number of carpenters and they could make simple armors and weapon. He had enough ready made armors as of then and those people would not be able to help much.


    Saleen shook his head and sighed. He could only vent his emotions when there was no one around him. He used a dimension stone to collect ready made armors and equipment, then he kept a number of red phosphorous prawns¡¯ shells and a grade-4 magic nucleus.


    The heavy armors were for the Barbarians. Although the Barbarians did not train for sword aura, their strength was parallel to the Caucasus people. It would not affect them much to wear the heavy armors. The Barbarians could not use any magic weapons, but they could use the normal alchemy arrows. A sharpened alchemy arrow with a tough bow would not be any weaker than a low level magic.


    Saleen picked corresponding materials and put them into the dimension stone one by one. He then left his secret storehouse.


    The task to usher Lex was more important. Saleen reckoned that Lex would return in another two months maximum. Within the two months, he wanted to put together a strong force to meet up with Lex in the south.


    ording to the situation then, even if the mages that he sent did not run into Lex, she would not return to Lianyun city either. Saleen only needed to usher Lex from Phoenix. ording to Saleen¡¯s presumption, Lex would at least bring forth a swordsmen¡¯s camp for the new city.


    The selected ten thousand would not have much of a problem. If they were to be in a war, healing would be troublesome. Him sending people to usher them was mainly to bring more supplies to them in case Lex¡¯s underlinings faced such problems.


    Besides that reason, Saleen wanted to show off his skill. Not to Lex but to Lex¡¯s underlinings. Those people would belittled him otherwise. Although he was a grade-5 mage,pared to Lex, he might be inadequate.


    ¡°Themoner¡¯s matters are so troublesome.¡± Saleen walked out from the teleportation portal and hid the magic pattern on the ground. Then, he shouted, ¡°Bring forth Kredian and the rest.¡±

 Chapter 416: Saleen’s Preparation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 416: Saleen¡¯s Preparation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Kredian and the rest gathered at Saleen¡¯s room quickly. Most of them stayed at the temple to ept any assignment that Saleen gave out anytime or to listen to Saleen talk about magic rted problems.


    Although a mage¡¯s job required a lot of time, in actual fact, these people saved a lot of time. They would not need to worry about gold coins as Saleen would provide them the fundamental materials for practice. To work for Saleen, if there was ie, Saleen would not withhold all the money. He would distribute parts of it to his followers.


    As a follower of a mage, many of them got better treatment than a lordling. A lordling might be bullied by a big personage, but there was hardly anyone that would be willing to provoke a follower of a mage. You did not offend one person after all, but a bunch of people. The leader of the people would at least be a grade-5 grand mage or above.


    Saleen pointed at dozens of metal bottles on the other side of the room and said, ¡°These bottles can store restorative water. You have to fill these up within a month¡¯s time.¡±


    The mages looked at the bottles that were half a meter tall and did not show any dissent on their faces. The healing effect of restorative water was amazing, but it was only a grade-1 magic. A mediocre grade-1 mage could produce twenty portions and above in a day. ording to the mages¡¯ ability on controlling elements, the production amount of restorative water would differ. Saleen¡¯s one portion of restorative water was at least dozens of times more than an ordinary mage.


    The task that Saleen had given was too easy toplete. Those mages only looked at those alchemy bottles in curiosity. The alchemy bottles were bronze in color and there were countless tightly carved magic patterns on them.


    The bottles were actually used in the warships back then to store magic liquid. The speed of the mages creating magic liquid back then was simr to their current speed of making restorative water.


    No matter magic liquid or restorative water, they had their time limit. Even the restorative water that Saleen made would be nullified after a month. Those made by a normal mage could only be stored for about six days. In these bottles, restorative water could be stored much longer.


    Saleen used the Figaro Magic Form and calcted in reversal. He realized the functions of the magic symbols on the bottles.


    These bottles were considered the lowest grade equipment as it did not have space attributes and it could not store much liquid. There was very little equipment that could store liquid with magic attributes then. If any mageid their hands on one, they would not sell it off.


    Saleen¡¯s dimension stones could be used to store food, but they could not stop restorative water from expiring. When he sent people to usher Lex, bringing a huge amount of restorative water would be useful. Even though Lex¡¯s army might not have gone through war, for such a long journey, there must be people who fell sick.


    Bitter Water Prefecture was in the middle of the empire while Saleen¡¯s new city was more than one thousand mile away from the border north of the empire. There were vast differences in weather for the two ces and it was inevitable to find some of them not ustomed to the climate.


    ¡°I want to fully arm a five hundred person army within a month. Within this one month, I want all of you to assist me in making armors. Kredian, I need your help to mend magic chariots as well.¡±


    ¡°Magic chariots! Master, could you salvage the sunken warship?


    ¡°Of course.¡± Saleen did not exin to them about how Nailisi did it. If it was someone else, they would need at least a sorcerer to do so. Even if they were a sorcerer, they had to be a sorcerer like Jason who had strong foundations and bizarre equipment to be able to do so.


    Many magics had restrictions underwater, even using a spatial equipment would be huge trouble. Only a demon who was not afraid of water pressure and able to control spatial equipment like Nailisi would be suitable for salvaging sunken ships.


    A normal way to salvage from sunken ship would be sending people to tie the body of the ship underwater with a buoy. After confirmation of location, they relied on another bigger ship¡¯s magic force to pull up the sunken ship.


    Capstan that used a magic nucleus was a monster that ate gold coins too. To salvage a sunken ship like that was huge and it could easily be failed. Besides, there were many weird ways to salvage a sunken ship, but all of them were troublesome.


    There were twelve sunken ships off ind nations from the eastern sea underwater one-hundred miles away. Nailisi and the winged skeleton were already on their way to salvage them.


    ¡°Among the five hundred people, more than half of them will be bowmen and all of them will be Barbarians. Then, I will put together two hundred swordsmen, who are pirates that I brought under control and can be managed and put to use now. The swordsmen from Sregl Ind will not take any action this time.¡± Saleen said and he felt a surge of emotions. He killed the murderers, but the death of a hundred swordsmen still made him feel badly.


    They were one-hundred of capable and loyal swordsmen. They all grew up in Sregl Ind since birth.


    ¡°Master, how many mages do you want to send?¡±


    ¡°Five hundred people¡­ Apanied with two magic chariots, although it may seem a little wasteful. Both chariots should have a grand mage and a grade-4 mage. I nned to use skeleton warhorses to pull the magic chariots and both chariots will need two of them. Kredian, you and Daniel will go. If there will any problem with the skeleton warhorses, Daniel can assist you.¡± Saleen thought for a while and said, ¡± Lex has many mages on hand. You don¡¯t have topare yourself with them. Regarding ushering, let Gurney take care of it.¡±


    ¡°Gurney?¡± Daniel found it strange as Gurney was originally a pirate too and he was so ferocious that even his underlinings were afraid of him. Ever since he had gotten Saleen¡¯s support, Gurney was different from the scrawny pirate that he used to be. He was learning as much as possible everyday.


    ¡°Mm, his capability to work is not too shabby. I am nning to train him.¡±


    Everyone was listening quietly. Saleen was the youngest in the room, but in this room that was longer than thirty meters, he was everyone¡¯s center of attention. Everyone had to rely on him to live a better life. Saleen wanted to announce everything that he had thought through one by one as they weighed heavily in his mind. He felt good being trusted by so many excellent people. He had to lead everyone to live better and not send these people to death on his behalf.


    ¡°Besides the magic chariots, we need to make another two normal chariots with methrowers.¡±


    Then, Saleen hesitated but said, ¡°All of you, if you have no choice but to appear on the battlefield in the future, try not to attack using magic directly. That is unless the attack is going to bring about a huge return. The battlefields should not be where a mage should appear, but without us those soldiers would die meaninglessly. What we need to do is, support the soldiers with magic and let them live. I would make a lot of low level equipment and the expense may be a little higher. You must be mentally prepared. During training of the soldiers, I would have all of you to participate too.¡±


    It was quiet in the room and it started snowing outside. There was a big piece of snow on the ss window and the world was covered in white.


    Saleen¡¯s clear voice sounded thin in the spacious room, which was suitable for his young identity. Daniel looked at Saleen¡¯s face that was rxed. He sighed in his heart, ¡°I should sign a new follower contract with Saleen. If I don¡¯t make a choice now, I might not have this opportunity in the future.¡±


    Daniel epted Saleen. Even though Saleen had such achievements that were inseparable from his teacher¡¯s support. If Saleen was not capable, there would not be so many mages that were willing to follow him. Other mages¡¯ lifetime goals were to build a magic tower, but Saleen already owned aplete city at such a young age.


    ¡°I designed armor for the Barbarians and I will need your help too. Regarding weapons, we could salvage some from the sunken ship. The quality of the weapons by ind nations from the eastern sea are decent and we have no need to purchase any as of now.¡±


    A regr soldier has more than five weapon on them, two of them are long weapons and the other three are short weapons. Most of the soldiers from the eastern sea did not even bring a dagger with them when they die in the battle. These weapons were all in the sunken ship. If there were enough people, Saleen could put together equipment for ten thousand people or above anytime.


    Equipment for ten thousand people was not a small amount. Viscount Gugger from Saleen¡¯s hometown would not be able to put together that much. A baron only had dozens of soldiers and in actual fact, Saleen¡¯s action then had already broke the restrictions of the empires¡¯ rules.


    Who would be there to discipline him? His city was built up using Lex¡¯s name after all. Before The Great Chanake passed away, it passed through the decision of the upper house that Lex could own an army of ten camps.


    The nobles made excuses to expand personal armies. Every personal soldier came with eight auxiliary soldiers and they would have the same equipment as the personal soldier. Servant soldiers in name, but in reality, they were all the nobles mainbat power.


    Saleen only nned to send five hundred people to usher Lex, but a five hundred person army was not any small force. There would not be any auxiliary soldier among the five hundred of them. If they were to expand it, there would be two thousand people, which was two regiments.


    Five hundred soldiers were something a First Viscount was entitled to. More importantly, Saleen had magic chariots.


    Magic chariots were not rare, but definitely expensive. Among all the items rted to magic, they were the item that was a little cheaper than a magic tower. In actual fact, magic chariots were like a miniature portable magic towers and their function was to stabilize elements and increase the power of the magic. As an item made for war, magic chariots were made for mage and at the same time they had a defence power.


    On a battlefield, a mage¡¯s living power was not strong. Among an army of ten of thousand people, there were many swordsmen. When arrows showered down, the expense of a magic shield was terrifying. Even Ice te Armor that was famous for its defence powers could not withstand for more than a few minutes.


    Even when a low level mage was sent on the battlefield, there would be swordsman dedicated to protect them while magic chariots were the best equipment to protect a mage.


    If Kredian lead four low level mages in the magic chariot, there had to be at least five mages of the same level to be his match. To kill him would be even more difficult.


    Qin Empire was called the magic empire. To conquer the Qin Empire, ind nations from the eastern sea spent national power to make big amounts of magic chariots. Saleen took a few straightaway. If these chariots were to be pulled onto thend earlier, the ending of the battle would have been uncertain.

 Chapter 417: A New Type of Army (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 417: A New Type of Army (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The King of the ind nations from the eastern sea was not stupid. If they did not have that many magic chariots, they would not dare toe and attack the Qin Empire. ording to the expeditionary force n, these chariots would be gathered and used to attack one city after another, to suppress the magic towers outside of Qin cities.


    If there was not such preparation, the army would be suppressed entirely by the magic tower outside of the city. Although the mages hardly got involved in the nobles¡¯ matters when there were invaders, these mages would not just look on with folded arms. The nobles had been providing for them all year long just to ensure the safety of their own manor.


    To talk about the disadvantage of the magic chariot, there were a few. Unlike a magic tower, a magic chariot could only increase one of the elements¡¯ power. The increment could be amended, but it would be quite difficult.


    They realized, for instance, that there was a strong spirit of the death in Saleen¡¯s city. To avoidrge amounts of soldier injuries, the grand general let the mages transform the magic chariots in order to restrain the power of the spirits of the dead.


    That was not wrong, but the mistake made was that they stayed at sea for too long and Saleen managed to rush back and sink the warship directly.


    The portability of the magic chariot was also a problem. The chariot itself was huge and required eight horses or a magic beast like the walking dragon to tow it. Saleen¡¯s solution for it was to tow it using two skeleton horses. If there were not any grade-4 death mages, that would not work though.


    The maintenance of the magic chariot would be a problem too. In order for the expeditionary force to reduce its expense, magic chariot would be taken apart and stored until it was needed then it would be put together. Even so, magic chariots required the frequent expense of magic nuclei to maintain the operation of the magic array. The natural capacity of the magic chariot would be reduced over time otherwise.


    The Qin Empire did not equip itself with too many magic chariots because of this reason. It was also easier to make something with fundamental material. They would not make such money draining equipment, unless the enemy invaded. Comparatively, the cost of making war puppet was higher, but it required less of an expense.


    The biggest expense of a war puppet was in its material. Before making a war puppet, it would require building a huge alchemy factory first. To build such an alchemy factory, the required amount would not be little. After making war puppets, the rest of the expense was basically an intermediate level magic nucleus and it could also be transported separately. Once the war got urgent, war puppets could travel far distance themselves too.


    After building a magic tower, it required almost no maintenance. A magic tower was a self healing building. The only weakness was that it was not portable.


    Saleen had many materials to build a magic tower and that was amassed by Sregl Ind. He could not afford to build either a magic chariot or war puppet. Now that he had ready built chariots, Saleen¡¯s fighting power had increased by a lot.


    That afternoon, Nailisi sent all the parts of the magic chariots to the temple. Gurney was called before Saleen and Saleen told him that his first army would be led by him. The scrawny man was thrilled, he knelt before Saleen and wanted to kiss Saleen¡¯s feet.


    Sika sat by the side and she immediately threw out her boomerang. Saleen¡¯s feet belonged to her too, she would not let anyone kiss him. Gurney was shocked and took back his hands while the boomerang shed half way through the ground. Saleen¡¯s flooring in the temple was covered with white rocks that were gathered at the shore and had a strength parallel to iron and steel.


    ¡°Hmph, speaking will do. Do not move.¡± Sika walked forward to retrieve her boomerang shooting Gurney a re.


    Gurney dared not go against Sika¡¯s instruction as he heard rumours that the Caucasus woman was Master Saleen¡¯s lover. No matter how much Saleen trusted in him, he would not be able to win against the one who spoke over the pillow to him.


    ¡°Gurney, your underlinings, I¡¯ve seen them. What do you think about their fighting power?¡± Saleen signalled Sika to leave for a while. Sika felt annoyed looking at Gurney as well, but she left Saleen¡¯s room. Although she knew that Gurney was loyal towards Saleen, she did not like to see anyone ingratiate themselves with Saleen.


    ¡°Master, these brothers of mine could barely fight. Without skills of coborating warhorses, they were not even heavy infantrymen on the battlefield.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m d that you know this, but I am giving you some Barbarians. Their riding skills are simr to yours. Everyone needs to train on skeleton warhorses, it could save a lot of trouble. This month, you can stop training them mounted spearing and instead learn how to use a machete from the magic beast swordsmen. Let them practice archery as well.¡±


    ¡°Master, without mounted spearing skills, it would be difficult to tear the enemy¡¯s formation apart!¡± Gurney read quite a number of books about war and was bing like a soldier.


    ¡°I am not making you into heavy infantrymen. The endurance of the skeleton warhorses are good, their charging power is weak. They mainly could not bear the attack for the calvary. The cavalry would require stronger strength on the skeleton warhorse. It would be okay for the Barbarians, but you will not be able to take it unless all of you be swordsmasters.¡±


    Gurney kept his head low as he knew that his pirates brethren would not be suited to horse warfare.


    ¡°With the Barbarians on hand, we could turn them into heavy infantrymen and calvary could be chosen from the Caucasus people. You can train the hussar for me.¡±


    Gurney could not hide his disappointment, but he nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Gurney, do not belittle the hussar. If a hussar had strong marksmanship, they could be the main force of the battlefield. In the past, when the human body was strong, they could ride on high level magic beasts.They could even ride dragons, then the heavy infantrymen and calvary in the air were the main character on a battlefield. Now, the hussar rely on bow and arrows and will be able to bring about strong damage.¡±


    ¡°Master, I understand.¡± Gurney waspletely convinced of his view. He understood the theory, but the most important part of the army would be heavy cavalry and infantrymen. The hussar could only be used for auxiliary purposes. At first, he was unwilling. He understood that not only was his background not as good though, his foundation was also poor. To be able to lead the hussar for Saleen was already considered a decent position.


    Saleen did not continue to speak, but he started thinking all of a sudden. He had never thought of taking cities and seizing territories, so he thought highly of heavy infantrymen and the hussar. The two had better defencepared to heavy cavalry, especially heavy infantrymen. Carrying steel armor that weighed fifty pound or more and forming a human wall that even heavy cavalry would have trouble taking advantage of were excellent defences..


    The thick steel armor made the normal arrow lose its function. Even if it was an alchemy crossbow, it would need to be middle sized or above to shoot through the defence of heavy infantrymen. The smaller alchemy crossbow would not be able to kill heavy infantrymen at all.


    He had Barbarians and Caucasus people. They could withstand the power of more than ten thousand heavy infantrymen. In the future, there would be more Caucasus people toe over and that was not just a dream. Did he really not want to expand his territory? If possible, he could take over Phoenix and build a country. With a country¡¯s power, he could provide for far more mages.


    Saleen thought about the pce of the Qin Empire, the enviable storehouse. The royals of the Qin Empire gathered equipment and information. Even to Saleen then, it was really enviable. It was an Empire¡¯s thousand years of umtion.


    There were not many mages among Qin Empire¡¯s army. If the royals wanted, they could expand their mage group anytime as the Grukos family could afford to.


    Such a tempting idea. If he were to prepare to do so, how much time would he have to practice magic? Saleen shook his head and gave up on the idea temporarily. Before he turned into a sorcerer, he did not want to waste too much time.


    Looking at Saleen shaking his head, Gurney hesitated but asked, ¡°Master, what is there about me that you are not satisfied with?¡±


    Now that Gurney and Saleen could converse, theirmunication was not one sided anymore.


    ¡°That is not the case, I am thinking about my own affairs. Gurney, you must do the things that I tell you to properly. Lex will be back and bring more people into the city soon. By then, I need someone to control the situation.¡±


    Gurney seemed to be awkward. If he were any other pirates, he would be patting his chest and telling Saleen that he would not disappoint him. Gurney read a lot of books and gained quite a bit of knowledge, he knew that the few hundred people that he trained would not be on par with Lex¡¯s elites.


    Training a group of crack troops would required at least five years time. How long had Saleen held them captive for?


    Saleen smiled andforted Gurney, ¡°I know that without a few years time, you wouldn¡¯t have ways to turn these people into crack troops. We can use equipment to fill in the gap. Although Lex is rich, I am not that poor either. Among the five hundred people, I would make magic equipment for each and everyone of you.¡±


    Gurney¡¯s eyes lit up, even though the hussar¡¯s position was not as good as the other soldiers. If they were wearing magic armor, they would be magic calvary and their ranking would not be lower than heavy cavalry!


    ¡°Master, I won¡¯t disappoint you,¡± Gurney replied respectfully.


    ¡°Mm, during this time, I will send Daniel and Kredian to train with you. You pick a hundred Barbarians and train them like heavy infantrymen. By then, the hundred Barbarians will be in charge of protecting the mages.¡±


    ¡°Master, I..¡±


    ¡°About fighting in the war, you would still be themander. Daniel and Kredian won¡¯t follow you all the time. I will send you low level mages in the future and they will be with the army all year long.¡±


    Gurney was thrilled. Even an army with a grade-3 mage, increased the possibility of them surviving by one fold. Sometimes, an arrow injury would be able to take one¡¯s life. Even if it did not shoot onto vital parts, the worsening condition of the cut might. To a mage, that was just something that could be healed with restorative water.


    A troop with mages would definitely be under direct control of a faction. Saleen said that he would send mages for him in the long term and that affirmed his hard work. Although Daniel and Kredian had strong fighting power, Gurney was really self abased in front of them. He would not dare tomand the two grand mages.


    Although it would not be easy tomand a low level mage, he could at least secure his decisive rights in an army.

 Chapter 418: A New Type of Army (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 418: A New Type of Army (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mm, you should return.¡± Saleen told Gurney all his demands and rushed the scrawny pirate out.


    Saleen pondered in silence before the alchemy work table then he started drawing alchemy blueprints. There were no immigrants in the city yet and he had less than ten cksmiths on hand. Luckily, the expeditionary force from the eastern sea presented him quite a number of weapons. He would need to wait until Lex returned to be able to provide his army any decent armor.


    Nailisi salvaged the sunken ships and sent all the equipment to the temple. All the mages got very busy. These armors and weapons were soaked in sea water so it they would corrode and rust really soon if they were not taken care of quickly.


    The armor from the eastern sea was simr to those from Cloudflow, they were both leaf armor that required leather ropes to hold them in shape. The cost to repair would be reduced by a lot and they would not require professionals to maintain them. The soldiers could disassemble and clean the armors up themselves.


    The armors of the generals from the eastern sea were worse, most of the military officers¡¯ armors were garish and there was a lot of unnecessary decoration. From the material, the armor was not any better than a soldier¡¯s. He reckoned that, although there were many nations in the eastern sea, none had mineral resources. Comparatively there were more than a hundred huge iron mines on the Myers Maind.


    Among armors that Nailisi brought back, there were quite a number of them that were made of bronze. The eastern sea probably produced bronze. Bronze was way more expensive than steel, but as an armor, it was not as solid as steel. Bronze was way heavier which was a burden for the soldiers.


    More armor parts were made of non-metal, many of them were made of parts of underwater shellfish. Saleen cut them with a normal steel knife and he could split it directly and cut open the leather armor behind.


    The defence power of the armor was extremely low! Saleen was upset, he did not expect there to be so much equipment that he had gotten. There were only a few hundred chosen ones that he could use. Most of the armor for the militia was decent, but if it was for the crack troops, it would be a joke.


    Saleen gathered all the mages and started making the armor that he designed. The harvest was not useless, at least the armor pattern was better than those Saleen had designed. They were easier to maintain.


    He made the shell of the red phosphorous prawn into powder and mixed it with magic medicine. He added rubber materials and used a magic array to make them into different parts of the armor. These magic beast shells were even tougher after refining. Saleen tried to split it again using the steel knife. He used the strength of a high level swordsmen. He did not manage to split the armor.


    Among the spoils of war, the inner leather armor was in decent quality. Apanied with the outeryer that Saleen refined, the defence power was one-hundred times better all of a sudden. Of course, the armor had no defence power against heavy weapons. If it was shed with a battle axe, the armor leaves that were tied together with leather rope would not have any cushioning effect. The soldiers would definitely be severely injured.


    It would be impossible for Saleen to make high level magic armor for all the soldiers. The defence power of the most basic creature armor was close to pure steel armor and it could easily be supported by magic. It could be considered as a terrific invention.


    That was the initial intention behind why Saleen made such armor. Lex had sufficient low level mages, but when mages cast magic on the soldiers, they were afraid that the soldiers were wearing metal armor. Most of the metal did not possess element affinity to support soldiers with magic, the expense of a mage¡¯s magic chords were a huge test.


    It was not a rule that a metal armor could not receive magic. The problem was, if a soldier wore a full set of steel armor and Saleen cast an ice te shield on the soldier, it would freeze the steel armor and the soldier would not be able to move an inch.


    The armor that Saleen designed was different. The shell of magic beasts possessed element affinity, even a low level mage could easily support the soldier with magic in such armor. Now that Saleen retrieved the magic chariots, mages casting magic in the chariot would save them a lot of magic chords.


    The armor that Saleen designed required arge number of magic beast shells. If it was someone else, even if they had such an idea, it would be difficult to realize it. Saleen hunted arge number of grade-4 magic beasts. The red phosphorous prawn at the Oceanic Ice Block came in handy. Normally, magic armor would be metal armor carved with magic patterns and filled with expensive magic material that possesses element affinity. The cost of it would be expensive. Saleen¡¯s cost of making the armor was not low either, but the repair would be easy.


    After making a set, Saleen left the matter of making armor to the mages and he started designing the weapon.


    With the spoils as reference, Saleen¡¯s mind was opened up. He first designed the most important main weapon for the Barbarians, the battle axes. Battle axes were trendy in other countries and they were one of the strong men¡¯s favorite weapons. There were sharp spikes at the front and it had a longer de, normally it would be heavier than sixty pounds.


    Such heavy weapon did a lot of damage, unless the enemy was wearing a fully enclosed heavy armor from the ancient times to disperse the attack power. Once hit, even if the armor did not crack, the human bones and nerves would break apart. If a heavy cavalryman was holding a battle axe, there was almost no armor that could not be broken open by it. The long spikes at the front would be able to pierce through the thickest part of that armor.


    Considering the fact that the Barbarians did not like long weapons, Saleen made the battle axes shorter while lengthening the de to maintain the weight. He designed and made the other side of the de into a mini crescent moon shape. The battle axes looked like abnormal double edged axes, but its ability to breakthrough armor was much stronger than a double edged axe.


    Saleen had his intentions with such weapon design. On the battlefield, the power of normal soldiers was not small and the power of the Barbarian was strong. It would not be a problem for them tounch a siege at a high level swordsmaster. The sword aura of a swordsmaster could not withstand such heavy weapons. War was not any private fight, there would be attacks from every direction. The skill of a swordsmaster would grow weaker consequently. With attack by more than three Barbarians, the ending of a swordsmaster would be tragic.


    When Saleen was a low level mage, he had calcted that it only required a little over twenty soldiers to kill him in a suitable situation. By that, he meant an environment where a mage could not make use of thendforms. A wide expanse of tnd and a bunch of soldiers surging forward like a swarm of bees, any low level mage would not be able to withstand that.


    If Saleen did not have the mysterious cbash and he could not frequently use the magic of current cutter, he would not be able to fight against a siege of twenty high level swordsmasters. Most importantly, Saleen could fly. No matter how strong a mage was, if one could not fly, they must not fight against too many enemies at a time.


    Saleen could fly on his own, but the mages under him could not. Saleen would not allow his mages to fight against the enemy directly, but instead support his soldiers with magic in order to heighten their fighting power. That was the function of a mage in a war.


    Even then, Saleen was not sure about the fighting power of each country¡¯s army on the maind. When he saw a swordsmen¡¯s camp in Lex¡¯s hands, he thought it was how an army was suppose to look. Later on, when he saw the Qin Empire¡¯s army in west town at Holy Rock city, he had an even stronger impression. In actual fact, how often did an army have soldiers that had the capability of swordsmen?


    Saleen tried the intensity of the armor himself. His body had achieved the standard of a high level swordsman and he was holding a sharp stainless steel de. He cut perpendicr to the armor and it was on top of a rock tform. Unless it was an equipment that was cast with magic, even an iron armor would be cut open with that one sh.


    Due to the misunderstanding, Saleen built a scary army by ident. It was not like any army had never been seen in maind history. Every soldier had a highly sophisticated weapon. That would at least be a few thousand years back that there had been such a thing. Before the fourth dynasty copse, royal swordsmen camp would be at such standard deployment that every soldier was wearing low level magic armor.


    Mages yed a decisive role in the war, but to win against the enemy, soldiers were indispensable. Saleen had to arm every soldiers to the teeth. In his army, even an auxiliary soldier must be able to withstand a strong attack, that was his thought. It might be unrealistic, but Saleen was doing it one by one.


    For the past few months, through some tactic, Saleen had taken over the army from the two nobles that came to seek refuge. These private soldiers¡¯ fighting power was decent. Saleen could not fit them into his own army as of then, but he let them go through private trainings separately. Comparatively, pirates wanted to follow Saleen wholeheartedly and that made Saleen changed his mind about pirates.


    Who did not want to be a cut above the rest? The pirates were not stupid, they found a good opportunity there with Saleen so they were practicing with an all out effort. Saleen was not clear, but the pirates were well aware that no one would invest as much as Saleen had invested on them. Now, the pirates had two alchemy weapon each and everyday they could consume meat for their daily meal. Even fish and prawn were carefully taken care of with expensive seasoning. These seasoning were normally used by nobles. Lex left quite a bit for Saleen, but did not know how to appreciate them so he gave them to the pirates.


    The four magic beast swordsmen had achieved the standard of a beginner grand swordsmaster level and their capability was good. They had been teaching the pirates fighting skills. Now that the pirates were holding a jambiya each, the inner arc was a sharp sawtooth. Such weapons could only maintain their sharpness via alchemy skill, otherwise, they would be ruined after a few uses.


    The most important task that Saleen did was to provide the the soldiers sharp arrows.


    All the soldiers had to practice archery. Other armies did not need to, but he wanted to set up an independent archery team. It was different with Saleen. At the very beginning, Saleen formed an army for defence purposes and crossbows became very important. To defend the city wall, one would shoot the crossbows downwards with their typographical advantage. Even when Saleen did not have enough people, he would be able to defend the city.


    At the same time, Saleen had another advantage. That was that all Caucasus people and Barbarians were specialized in archery or talented in archery. Now that Saleen retrieved arge amount of crossbows from the sunken ships, he could provide a crossbow casket for every soldier.


    Dozens of mages under Saleen made more than twenty sets of low level magic armor everyday. These amors could not store much magic, but they could easily support magic cast on it. A month¡¯s time passed by in the blink of the eye. It was already March but the weather did not grow any warmer. Saleen had to send people to usher Lex.


    The troops that were taken over from the two nobles were taking over the patrolling task temporarily. They were in charge of monitoring outside of the city. Five hundred people were gathered at the square before the temple waiting for Saleen¡¯s order.

 Chapter 419: Intelligence from Phoenix (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 419: Intelligence from Phoenix (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Every day, someone would be assigned to clean the square. As Saleen stood on the temple¡¯s podium overlooking the five-hundred soldiers who were assembled on the square below. He sighed, ¡°It is still too little!¡±


    When Saleen scanned the faces of the soldiers, he spotted the familiar Conan. Conan was inmand of two-hundred barbarians. He was standing silently next to a skeletal warhorse, looking up at Saleen.


    It was not true that the barbarians were not orderly. It was just that they had been oppressed for far too long, hence they never got the opportunity to establish their own civilization. After invading each other¡¯snd, the empires on the maind had grown sick of this exhaustion. Eventually, they maintained a bnce thatsted for almost one-thousand years. The barbarians never benefited from this bnce.


    The barbarians did not have their own country or their own home. Besides the ancient teachings which were passed down by mouth, they had no other knowledge. They did not possess a systematguage.


    Conan was d in armor which was twice as thickpared to other peoples, Saleen had crafted it solely for him. This set of armor had utilized material from the gold coin turtle, it was abnormally sturdy. Conan¡¯s armor was fitted with a skirt, which could withstand attacks from an infantryman effectively. Gigantic weapons were suspended on both sides of Conan¡¯s personal skeletal warhorse, an axe which was about two meters long and a massive triangr metal shield.


    The Soul me in the warhorse¡¯s orbitals was flickering steadily, such a burden was not taxing to a spirit. The warhorse was very earnest. After being summoned by the three kings, it had been assigned to the mage who was currently standing on the tform. Even though the skeletal warhorse¡¯s intelligence was not high, it could clearly feel that this mage could easily ughter it and prevent it from escaping back to the death dimension.


    All the death creatures summoned by the three kings had this feeling. This caused them to tremble with fear when faced with that mage and they did not dare go against him.


    Half of Saleen¡¯s left hand had recovered, but he continued wearing the magic glove. Saleen habitually stretched the fingers on his left hand and he could feel that the Power of Life had begun recovering. It enabled him to cast the goddess¡¯ divine spells.


    With this hand, Saleen would be able to cause real lethality to a spirit. That was why Saleen had peace of mind allowing the creatures summoned by the three kings to fight for him. A spirit would submit to a powerful person. To these creatures, Saleen possessed the power to determine their life and death. Naturally, they would not betray him.


    There were two six-meter long magic chariots with an extravagant appearance. Saleen had already used magic to conceal the vibrant and conspicuous exterior. From their materials, these two chariots were still very blinding. The enemy could spot them easily on the battlefield.


    Kredian and Daniel stood on both sides of the chariots, each of them was apanied by four grade-3 mages. When a spirit was summoned on the Myers maind, it still needed to eat. A spirit¡¯s food was energy absorbed from the death dimension. Without Daniel around for a long time, the death warhorses would be weakened.


    Alternatively, a contractual space could be provided for them. Since there were more than five-hundred skeletal warhorses, Saleen would not be willing to employ so many Green Spirits. Saleen did not actually obtain many Green Spirits from the Chaotic Swamp. A huge portion of them had been given to the the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Gurney!¡± Saleen called out.


    ¡°Here!¡± Gurney was d in armor as he stood out among the soldiers.


    ¡°There is a war down south, you will be in charge. If you run into County Queen Lex, let Daniel handle the liaison. Phoenix isn¡¯t very peaceful. If you are harassed, how will you settle it?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t fight with them. Reach Phoenix¡¯s southwest border as early as possible.¡±


    ¡°Very good, it¡¯s good that you remember. If there are any idents and you do not meet County Queen Lex¡¯s team, you have to get back by the end of May.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Gurney pressed his palm against the sabre, as he replied boisterously. At this moment, he felt that life was meaningful. Being a pirate was not impressive at all. Pirates had to hide in various ces to avoid capture, they were also afraid of running into the Alchemy City¡¯s warships while at sea. Now that Gurney was following Saleen, he had the opportunity to lead a five-hundred man army.


    ¡°Daniel and Kredian, take care.¡± Saleen did not give much instructions to these two mages. Thereafter, he raised his hand and released a patch of green light. This green light diffused into the body of every soldier.


    An unpopr level-1 spell, the Water-Based Brightness spell. It was not very effective as treatment, it was used to increase one¡¯s physical qualities. Saleen decided to learn this spell because it only depleted a minute amount of magic chords.


    The soldiers felt their minds bing very sober all of a sudden, and their strength had also been boosted. Their stares at Saleen became gradually fervent.


    Saleen knew that his forte did not lie in giving speeches, however he had learnt this technique by taking a leaf out of the Holy See¡¯s book. Whenever the Holy See assembled its believers, it would distribute holy water frequently.


    Holy water was only temporarily beneficial to a person¡¯s body. In the long term, it paled inparison to water magic. Saleen had used water magic to bid farewell to his soldiers, but there was not much difference in the intention.


    There was no choice. Saleen did not have the ability to give an emotional and motivational speech in front of so many people. That being said,nguage was not necessarily needed to encourage someone. Saleen had used a simple level-1 spell. Casting it neatly had naturally caused the soldiers to be in awe of him.


    In fact, even the mages from the Sregl Ind were very astounded. Saleen had casted a level-1 spell. Even though this spell did not consume a lot of magic chords, Saleen had to cast it on five-hundred people in one go. Furthermore, he still had to avoid the skeletal warhorses. He would have had to prepare arge number of spells in his hand in order to achieve that!


    Even Kredian knew that he would not be able to do it. Casting a spell on dozens of people at the same time was his limit. Saleen could utilize his magic calmly in the face of five-hundred men. Saleen was virtually superior to a sorcerer already.


    As the team left the square, Saleen watched his first ever self-established army leave. H exhaled tiredly. Sika held onto him at the side, but Saleen simply smiled and said, ¡°Its fine, I am just a little exhausted.¡±


    One Brightness Spell could only be casted on twelve people at once. Since Saleen¡¯s target was five-hundred people, he would have to umte more than forty of this level-1 spell. Even though the Brightness Spell would not explode, this process was also a rigorous test for Saleen¡¯s mental strength.


    At this moment, Saleen kind of admired the priests from the Holy See. Those old guys had been doing this for a long time.


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s go back,¡± Nailisi urged from behind, she was not interested in bidding farewell. Saleen¡¯s people were all present, so she was not willing to stay behind in the temple alone.


    J was indifferent since he was already used to the practices in the Cloudflow¡¯s pce. This time around, Saleen was already considered to be swift and decisive. There was not even the slightest dy.


    Saleen nced at the people standing behind him. There were more than ten mages from Sregl Ind. J, the four magic beast swordsmen, Sika¡¯s two personal guards, and a fully equipped twenty-man team were also there.


    Sika¡¯s personal guards were two Caucasus youths. These two people were d in Caucasus armor and followed Sika everywhere she went. This caused Saleen to be slightly displeased. It was because the Caucasus people were worried for the safety of their priest, so Saleen could not refuse this gesture either. These two Caucasus warriors might not have cultivated the Sword Aura, but their offensive power was almost equivalent to that of the four magic beast swordsmen already.


    ¡°I am going to take a walk outside. All of you can go do your own stuff.¡±


    ¡°I am going as well,¡± Sika and Nailisi responded uniformly.


    ¡°Mm, okay.¡± Saleen did not refuse. With two people by his side, he also felt safer. The two bodyguards behind Sika followed closely too, causing Saleen to feel helpless. Fortunately, these two people would not follow Sika at night. Otherwise, Saleen would not even have the chance to be intimate with Sika.


    Saleen traveled on foot towards the east. He did not rely on any spell. In an hour, this entourage arrived at the port. Along the journey, Saleen had been observing the progress of the city¡¯s development. The skeletons obviously could not carry out intricate work. They were just building the foundation and repairing the roads, but there were not many houses. The roadside was lined with huge trees which were originally part of the forest.


    When Saleen went past Aini¡¯s residence, he noticed that the door was left agape, but there was no one inside. The whole city was barren, a mystery as to when it would bustle with activity.


    At the harbor, the patrolling soldiers bowed when they spotted Saleen. Other than these soldiers, the only ones left were the puppets who were removing the snow and a magic disciple.


    Saleen took a look at his surroundings. He suddenly pointed to an empty plot ofnd, and said, ¡°I want to build a shop on this site, specializing in selling items unique to us only.¡±


    ¡°Unique? Master, are you thinking of abandoning Aini and Irene?¡± With her astute senses, Nailisi detected a strange smell. Saleen never broke his promises. The only items unique to him were the ones which were hunted from the Frozen Sea. In the future, the hunting ground would be avable to Aini and Irene too. Saleen would only charge them a toll.


    ¡°How is that possible? Nailisi, a person must be trustworthy. In order to maximize profits, I cannot let the two of them sell those items. Right now, I am thinking whether there are any features of this city which will attract businessmen from the maind. The deep sea magic beasts are clearly the best option.¡±


    ¡°Master, what if they do not agree?¡±


    ¡°Do not agree? Then they would have to own more ships than me. Once all the forces from the Sregl Ind arrive, do you think they would be able to make money without me?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s rolled her eyes, then said, ¡°But Master, Aini is your friend. By doing so¡­¡±


    ¡°Aini is my friend, so the only trouble remaining is Irene. Nailisi, have you been looking her up recently?¡±


    Nailisi shook her head. Ever since the incident on the ship, she had lost all interest in Irene. She realized that this woman could not influence Saleen at all.


    ¡°Mm, this city shall be called Metatrin City, but what about thepany? Let¡¯s save the trouble, it shall be called Metatrin Company. All the items obtained from the Frozen Sea will be put on sale through the Metatrin Company. This location is the best in the vicinity of the harbor. Even if other people want topete, they will not win.¡±


    After finishing his sentence, Saleen looked up to the towering white rock mountain on the left, as he thought to himself, ¡°If this ce is built ording to my methods, there will be a number of spies. That magic cannon should be protected. Truman cannot be relied on to defend it, but I can¡¯t possibly station a grand mage there all year round. All these troublesome issues are really vexing. Who canplete them for me, and give me peace of mind? Lex¡¯s people cannot possibly do it. No matter how close I am to Lex, her subordinates are still outsiders at the end of the day.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyebrows were deeply furrowed. Snow started falling from the skies once again. The severe winter had passed, however. Currently, the snow was much finer, it no longer appeared in huge chunks.


    ¡°Sir, look!¡± A soldier pointed to the frozenyer. A person was staggering atop it, it seemed like he would slip and fall anytime. Saleen was jubnt, it seemed like his city was still very attractive after all. The city had just been built, yet there were so many peopleing already. This man¡¯s agenda was unknown though.


    Saleen nodded. And immediately, five soldiers went down the harbor, approaching that man atop the frozenyer.

 Chapter 420: Intelligence from Phoenix (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 420: Intelligence from Phoenix (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Using the Icy Sight, Saleen was be able to look across a great distance. Saleen could see the man who was spotted by the soldiers even more clearly. The five soldiers were recruited from the two nobles who had submitted to Saleen. They could not enter the nuclear part of the city yet, they were confined to patrolling the city¡¯s periphery.


    The private soldiers of these nobles were quite strong, the only problemid in their loyalty. Saleen knew very clearly that even if he was a terrorizing mage, he would not be able make the soldiers obey himpletely. As long as the two nobles did not leave, the soldiers would execute their tasks withoutints, they would not even demand additionalpensation from Saleen.


    The soldiers were very experienced. Even though the person looked wobbly, they did not let their guard down. Two men went at the front, while the other three were at the rear as they approached that man. The three soldiers at the back pressed against their sabers, ready to spring into action any moment.


    When the soldiers were about four to five meters away, the man suddenly fell onto the iceyer. The two soldiers were pretty heartless as they did not go forward to help that man up. Instead, they came to a halt. ncing at each other, they wielded their swords.


    The two of them shifted their bodies sideways, one on each side, allowing a soldier at the back to go forward and take a look. With such an action, the fallen person might also get deceived even if he was feigning it. This simple act of halting exemplified the degree of coordination between the soldiers and their swath of experience. Saleen noticed it and felt envious. Nobles put in a lot of effort grooming their private soldiers. They disyed more passionpared to the empire¡¯s regr army. Every noble had the duty to rear soldiers for the empire. In actual fact, everybody was amassing power for themselves.


    These five soldiers were only at the standard of a beginner swordsman. When they acted in tandem, however, they could even kill a high grade swordsman.


    The soldier from the rear then approached the man and kicked him. Saleen frowned, but he was only spectating it from a distance. He did not stop them. The soldiers did not kick with much strength, but the area of impact was under that man¡¯s ribs. With enough uracy, the man would feel a piercing pain emanating towards his lungs. If the man was putting on a pretense, then he would not be able to fake it any longer.


    If this kick had sufficient force, the man would surely be severely injured. The tips of the soldier¡¯s boots were wrapped in metal.


    ¡°Woo¡­¡± The man gave out an excruciating noise when he got kicked. He squirmed about, but did not get up. At this point in time, the soldier then made way for the other two at the back to help the man get up.


    ¡°Master, that man looks like a spy, why don¡¯t I torture him?¡± Even though Nailisi had been behaving suspiciously with the winged skeletontely, getting busy with her own matters, she still had the agility in her. Upon noticing something amiss with that man, she immediately harbored the thought of torturing him herself.


    Currently, Saleen did not have a person who was suitable to conduct an interrogation. Daniel had been dispatched to receive Lex. For Aini, Saleen was embarrassed to ask him to do so. Matters like interrogation were usually reserved for the servants after all.


    Even if Nailisi did not employ her demonic methods, she still had thousands of other ways to make the enemy reveal information.


    ¡°Something¡¯s wrong, that person looks familiar.¡± Saleen¡¯s heart fluttered. That person lying on the frozenyer had an obvious scar on his face. Saleen suddenly noticed that the scar was fresh. Judging by this person¡¯s appearance, he looked like a swordsman from Sregl Ind.


    ¡°Bring him over quickly. No, send him there.¡± Saleen pointed to a fortress nearby. That fortress was a defensive structure located in the harbor, it functioned like a battlement. It was muchrger and was formed by piles of white rocks. It was extremely tough and soldiers could even hide themselves in the first story.


    When the other soldiers heard Saleen¡¯smand, they acted dexterously. They linked several wooden shields together. They tied thences¡¯ poles to the bottom of the shields, forming a stretcher. Then, they ced the man atop and carried him to the fortress appointed by Saleen.


    Saleen arrived at the first story of the fortress first and cleared out a room. Once the man was sent over, Saleen immediately cast the Chunlin Spell, applying treatment. He then instructed a soldier to let the man consume a cup of Restorative Water.


    The kick from the soldier was very light. That man was already injured and he was also starving and freezing, that¡¯s why he could not get back on his feet. After a few rounds of treatment, the man regained some energy. He immediately sat up and got down from the couch, bowing to Saleen.


    ¡°Sir Saleen.¡±


    ¡°You recognize me?¡± Sika and Nailisi stood behind Saleen, but Saleen was not afraid of an intermediate grade swordsman creating trouble. He felt that this man looked really familiar, he should have belonged to the batch of soldiers taken away by Lex. Saleen could not understand why he had walked up from the sea.


    ¡°Sir Saleen, Lianyun City is in trouble.¡±


    Saleen nodded, he was not shocked at all. A siege by three-hundred warships, it would only be weird if Lianyun City remained unharmed.


    ¡°Are you from Sregl Ind? What¡¯s with the injury on your face?¡± Saleen stared at the hideous scar on the swordsman¡¯s face. The scar still had a tinge of pinkness, it was obviously left behind recently. It had been treated with magic medicine, but the medicine¡¯s grade was too low. It could not get rid of the scar. To a soldier, being able to survive was already great. More often than not, people would not really care about scars whatsoever.


    ¡°Sir Saleen, after following Viscountess Lex to Lianyun City, everything was still smooth sailing. The owner of Lianyun City allowed us to dock the warship at his port. The Viscountess had instructed us to wait for her at Lianyun City. In March, she said that she would dispatch someone over, and then we would sail back.


    ¡°What other orders did Lex give?¡±


    ¡°The Viscountess ordered us to go out to sea once a week, to draw the map of the nearby ocean.¡±


    Saleen then realized that Lex did not allow the warship to return because she had seized the opportunity to conduct reconnaissance in the northeastern seas of the empire. Even though Lianyun City was the onlyrge harbor in the northeast, there were dozens other smaller port cities. These cities could only fit ships shorter than fifty meters,rge ships would not be able to dock there.


    As the Sregl Ind swordsman continued his narration, Saleen began to understand the events which transpired in Lianyun City.


    The vanguards of the eastern sea allied army had already reached Lianyun City a month ago. Even though Lianyun City was inferior to Alchemy City, it owned severalrge warships. One-third of them were surely patrolling the seas, while the other two-thirds would defend the port. Operating these warships might be costly, but the cities within a thousand mile radius would pay a sum to Lianyun City¡¯s owner, to protect their fishing boats from harassment by pirates.


    The strength of Lianyun City¡¯s military was mostly based at sea, theirnd defenses were extremely frail.


    When the vanguards of the expeditionary army arrived, they did not manage to avoid detection by the warships¡¯ radars. Both parties got into an intense sh. Back then, the warships from Lianyun City had a capability advantage. The enemy only had a few vanguards, and both parties sustained damage also. It waster revealed by the prisoners that the enemy still possessed a massive fleet. The owner of Lianyun City made an erroneous move. He recalled all the warships back to the port, as he attempted to use the nearby batteries to obstruct the enemy.


    The warship from Sregl Ind defied the order. Since they had been living at sea for a long time, they knew that the warships would get sunk if they did not set sail. The batteries could deal with a small number of warships. If there were more than one-hundred warships, a magic trebuchet¡¯s speed of catapulting could not match up, The enemy would be able to suppress it. The trebuchets on a warship were not an exhibit. Since the batteries were a fixed target, they would have been destroyed by concentrated assaults from the enemy.


    The owner of Lianyun City had forcefully disarmed the people from the Sregl Ind. From the start, Lex already did not leave many people behind. They could barely even operate a warship. As these swordsmen could not defeat the trusted soldiers of the Lianyun City¡¯s owner, they had no choice but to abandon the idea of boarding the warship.


    Fortunately, Lianyun City¡¯s owner did not imprison these disobedient soldiers. After a quick analysis by the two grade-3 mages who were left onboard, the mages felt that staying in Lianyun City would undoubtedly wind up horribly as the enemy simply had too many warships. There were norger noble-ownednds in the vicinity, so the chances of getting reinforcements was very low. Even if Holy Rock City was willing to send troops, Lianyun City would have long been razed to the ground by the time the troops arrived.


    These one-hundred people then abandoned the warship, leaving the Lianyun City secretly and making their way to Phoenix, before returning to Saleen¡¯s city.


    At that point in time, Phoenix was also submerged in war. The Qin army from Goodrid City had staged an invasion, trying to seize control of Phoenix. The noblemen in Phoenix had teamed up to put up resistance. When these one-hundred people entered Phoenix, they were immediately sucked into the war.


    ¡°Are you saying that the two mages have died?¡± At first, Saleen was still grinning. When he heard this news, his face turned frosty in that instant, like still water. Even though Saleen still had a youthful appearance, he already emitted the vibe of an influential person. With that change in expression, that swordsman from Sregl Ind immediately went on his knees.


    ¡°Sir, I was ipetent, please mete out punishment.¡±


    Saleen was stunned, then he said, ¡°It is not your fault. Let me ask you one more time, the two mages died in the hands of the Qin army?¡±


    ¡°Yes Sir, they had a grade-6 mage who could fly. We split up into five groups. I was lucky to have escaped, the mages who traveled with me were the first to be killed. The Phoenix border cannot be essed anymore, and many viges have been destroyed. The nobles dared not emerge to fight, there is no other solution. I could only escape to the sea. The coasts had been frozen and no one was at sea, I¡­¡±


    ¡°You have done well.¡± After consoling this soldier, Saleen was simmering with an unexinable rage. His mages would have definitely announced their origins, yet they were still killed by the enemy. The Goodrid army waswless, they neither respected Alchemy City nor Viscountess Lex.


    ¡°Once these mages returned, they would have be my followers. They were on the same team, yet they were killed without rhyme nor reason!¡±


    Due to Emperor Chanake, Saleen had taken a liking to the Qin Empire. After this incident, Saleen was now filled with hatred and outrage.


    ¡°The Goodrid army had quite a number of soldiers, and I want to go forth and reim justice? It doesn¡¯t seem possible. If you all want to dominate Phoenix, you will have to ask for my opinion.¡±


    Saleen was not fond of tussling for worldly power. It was no small matter if his subordinates were ughtered. If he did not take some action, who would want to follow him in the future?


    The situation seemed terrible. Half of Phoenix¡¯snd had been upied. The Qin Empire had also been deploying continuous streams of soldiers into Phoenix. At the moment, Goodrid City was not the sole invader anymore.

 Chapter 421: Dragon skeleton warship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 421: Dragon skeleton warship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Originally, Saleen nned to deal with the Phoenix¡¯s nobles slowly. After hearing this piece of news, he knew that he was wrong. The empire was bent on conquering Phoenix as it kept sending more troops for the invasion. Since Phoenix had not been at war for such a long time, it had no way of resisting this siege.


    Qin¡¯s techniques might contain many malpractices, but in the face of absolute raw power, Phoenix would also be helpless.


    People were dispatched to send this swordsman back to Saleen¡¯s followers¡¯ camp. Saleen had lost all mood to wander in the city already. He had a rough gauge of how the city would be developed. The city might only be in its initial stages at the moment, but once more workers arrived and there were sufficient mages. The city walls and various structures could be swiftly constructed. The skeletons were mainly used for paving roads and building the underground amenities.


    For a city of such scale, the drainage system alone was already a colossal project. After several months of almost endless work, the few thousand skeletons then managed toplete the underground pipelines. Next, mages had to be present in order to position magic arrays at the critical areas so that the city would be secure. These underground spaces could possibly be dominated by magic beasts otherwise.


    The swordsman who escaped was a wake-up call for Saleen. Even though the Sregl Ind swordsmen were elites, they did not have actualbat experience. The two mages died a wrongful death.


    Although the five hundred people deployed by Saleen were adequately equipped, they would still be in grave danger when faced with an army with a huge number of troops. Saleen had instructed them never to hassle the enemy, but there was always a lingering worry that they would be stuck in unfavorable terrain.


    At this point in time, Saleen could only hope that luck was in his favor. ¡°The five-hundred men were all riding on skeletal warhorses, hopefully they won¡¯t get into a head-on conflict with the enemy. As long as they weren¡¯t trapped, they could escape. Furthermore, Daniel and Kredian have the magic chariots. As long as the enemy didn¡¯t have more than two sorcerers, the enemy would be concerned. For the time being, thend forces will have to depend on Lex,¡± Saleen thought to himself. At this moment, he instructed the temple soldiers to look for Aini. Saleen was going to assemble the three kings and order them to refine a warship.


    Actually, Saleen did not want to let the three kings work anymore. Previously, that warship refined by them could only be operated by a spirit, and far too many materials were consumed. The current situation was unfavorable to Saleen. If a passage could not be opened on the ocean, his city would basically be lifeless.


    Saleen came to the fourth story of the temple where there was a gigantic room. He took at the dragon skeleton and ced it on the floor, awaiting the arrival of the kings.


    The dragon skeleton had been cleaned, so there were no scars on those ck colored bones. In the empty orbitals located on the dragon¡¯s gigantic skull, there was zilch spirituality. Only a pair of several meter long horns served to indicate that the dragon was so ferocious and majestic when it was alive.


    The dragon¡¯s skeletal wings wereplete, there was even a membrane which had not gotten eroded for the past tens of thousands of years. Thousands of weapons could be produced if such a massive dragon skeleton was used in weapon refinement. That being said, Saleen did not have so many swordmasters to wield the weapons, so he decided to use the whole skeleton.


    If this warship was sessfully crafted, its speed would rival that of the warship from the Devil¡¯s Horn. That warship which could fly over water would be weaker than Saleen¡¯s dragon skeleton warship. Once the dragon skeleton warship was built, Saleen would have no fear crashing it into any other ships out there.


    The structure of a dragon bone was very sturdy. The moment it was disassembled to manufacture equipment, it would lose many of its mystical properties.


    The three kings arrived hastily. Their injuries had not recovered, yet Saleen had forced them to summon more skeletons, causing them to be annoyed. In an upset tone, Diyabannersa asked, ¡°What is it again? We are already trying our best in the construction of the city.¡±


    ¡°I know. Take a look at this.¡± Saleen pointed to the dragon skeleton lying in the middle of the room, then said, ¡°I am going to use this to produce the skeletal frame of a warship, and eventually produce a ship which can fly over water.¡±


    As Judikaka stared at the dragon skeleton, he shook his head repeatedly.


    ¡°Saleen, you are too delusional. Even if we have recovered, we will not be able to do it.¡±


    ¡°You have to aplish it even if you can¡¯t. Also, use whatever premium materials you have. As for your losses, I willpensate you using the Green Spirits.¡±


    Back in the Chaotic Swamp, Saleen had discovered an almost fully extracted mineral vein. In the end, he found some Green Spirit rocks. The Green Spirit was an abnormally precious item to a spirit. The three kings had been moring for it, but they knew Saleen would not give it away. Right from the start, they never followed Saleen willingly.


    Upon hearing this, Aini realized why Saleen had summoned him. After all, Judikaka belonged to Aini, Saleen would not be able tomand him.


    Aini was in awe of Saleen. It was extremely rare to find a person who could talk to the three kings in this manner. Never mind that Saleen was forcing them to refine a warship, they were even forced toe up with the materials themselves. Although the Green Spirit was the remuneration, this was still a forced transaction. If the three kings were not under Saleen¡¯s thumb, they would never have stomached this.


    After Saleen¡¯s words, Diyabannersa exploded with rage. Even before he couldunch his attack, Judikaka had grabbed onto him. Saleen was no softie. If Diyabannersa really attacked, Saleen would immediately mete out the punishment. He might even erase Diyabannersa¡¯s Soul me.


    Saleen was not nervous either. If Diyabannersa really hit him, Saleen could disintegrate his soul even before getting struck by him.


    ¡°Listen up, none of you have a say in this matter. Stay here and making a drawing. In three days¡¯ time, I want to see a perfect drawing. Judikaka, since you are Aini¡¯s subordinate, are you willing to lend a hand in this matter?¡±


    ¡°Of course I am. We stand to gain the Green Spirit, we will not lose out,¡± Judikaka lied through his teeth. Judikaka hated Saleen to the core. Since Aini and Saleen were on the same team, there was no usementing to Aini. Aini would have also forced him to help Saleen make the ship.


    Judikaka now regretted helping Saleen produce the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, revealing his skills to Saleen. Back then, he only wanted to cheat Saleen of a turtle shell. He had implicated his brothers now.


    Putting on a straight face, Saleen left the room with Aini.


    Aini cackled, then said to Saleen, ¡°I never knew this side of you.¡±


    ¡°I am also a mage. Those three fellows still took me as a fool, I must make them suffer. Aini, do you know about the Mechanical Soul?¡±


    ¡°Mechanical Soul? Are you nning to install the Mechanical Soul aboard the warship? You should forget about it. A soul is vastly different from any other creature. Death mages can hardly control them, not to mention the three kings. Once such things spread across the maind, they will be even more terrifying than the ck magicians.¡±


    ¡°Then forget it.¡± Saleen was nning to ask the three kings to make the Mechanical Soul act as the source of power for the warship. After hearing Aini¡¯s exnation, he dismissed that notion immediately. When Daniel first discovered the appearance of the Mechanical Soul, he was utterly terrified.


    If a power was uncontroble, one should never try to own it no matter strong they were.


    In the room on the fourth story of the temple, Diyabannersa was bursting with fury.


    ¡°Judikaka, let me go and kill that damned fellow!¡±


    ¡°You will die before him.¡± Judikaka and Banchajanna pressed down on Diyabannersa. After that trip to the Frozen Sea, Banchajanna had be more normal. He realized that even though Saleen was abominable, Saleen would never allow him to be disadvantaged. Each time, he would receive some form ofpensation from Saleen. That mage must have been abiding by some principle.


    Even though Banchajanna was frequently in a state of contradiction and chaos, he was not dumb. He knew that if he tried to attack Saleen, Saleen could kill him anytime. Other mages might not possess this ability, but Saleen¡¯s left hand was appalling. Even a spirit at a king¡¯s grade could detect that strength which sent chills down the spine.


    The damned Power of Life, which could coincidentally restrain a spirit.


    Gradually, Diyabannersa calmed down, then he sat on the ground. When his bones mmed the ground, a thunderous noise was given off.


    ¡°Forget it. Diyabannersa, Master has left us many materials. In the past, they weren¡¯t precious. We can use them to deceive Saleen,¡± Judikaka consoled Diyabannersa. He was really afraid that Diyabannersa might erupt anytime and anger Saleen.


    Over time, Saleen had begun taking on the shadow of Shann. Judikaka was abnormally fearful of this young mage. He was afraid that if Saleen was riled, Saleen would not kill him. He feared that Saleen would instead employ other torture methods.


    ¡°Judikaka, I cannot tolerate this.¡±


    ¡°He is only human. Even if he advances to a grade-9 sorcerer, he will only live for about one-thousand years. Whereas we can live for tens of thousands of years.¡± Banchajanna used Saleen¡¯s words to persuade Diyabannersa.


    Diyabannersaughed bitterly, then said, ¡°Okay, I know my priorities. Don¡¯t let me see him for the next three days though. Otherwise, I am willing to pay with my life if it means teaching him a lesson.¡±


    If Judikaka was not a spirit, he would have rolled his eyes when he heard Diyabannersa¡¯s words. Knowing your priorities?


    Fortunately, Saleen did note to harass the three kings for the next three days. After putting in much thought, the three kings made three drawings. When they met Shann, the Myers maind was still in its second dynasty, where magic was rife. Even though they were no elemental mages, they had profoundprehension of magic.


    To refine such a massive warship, it was impossible to rely solely on the death magic by the three kings. There had to be a magic dock and gigantic magic arrays for assistance. Of course, Saleen would not contribute these materials. The three of them took out the materials from their private collection.


    Judikaka was right. Back then, the three kings were Shann¡¯s servants fighters. Many materials which Shann could not use were thrown to them for storage. And when Shann disappeared abruptly, these items became theirs. At that point in time, humans on the Myers maind could traverse the nes. It was not difficult obtaining some strange materials. These materials were not considered to be precious in the past.


    At the moment, many of these things had gone extinct on the Myers maind. To Saleen, these items were of the best quality, and they could not be purchased with gold coins.


    Take for example the thundercloud wood. Even the deck of the second dynasty warship was lined with it. If the Qin Empire of today had the thundercloud wood, they would have surely dissected it to produce high grade equipment, because humans could no longer ess the gigantic ne. Even if humans managed to locate the coordinates and go back, the giants might have reneged, unwilling to help the frail humans anymore.


    A giant might not have magical abilities, but it was immune to any spell below level-8. Even so, level-9 magic would not cause much damage to it. At this moment, only less than one-hundred experts on the Myers maind could defeat a giant. And out of these one-hundred people, not even one was willing to serve the dynasties.

 Chapter 422: Dragon skeleton warship (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 422: Dragon skeleton warship (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After returning to the room on the second floor, Saleen asked Aini, ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid that the contract might have some problems when I did that?¡±


    Aini answered in embarrassment, ¡°The contract already had problems to begin with.¡±


    Saleen was actually kidding, but when he heard Aini say that, he was dumbfounded.


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°The contractual trap is not owned by the Clyde family. In fact, it was passed down to me privately by my parents. No one knows the source of this magic. My father suspects that this spell originated during the era when humans were fighting with the gods. It was created in order to subdue the gods. During the divine wars in the past, humans would not keep any prisoners. If a god was captured, humans would use the contractual magic to control them for a few days. Before the magic lost its effect, they would then kill the god.¡±


    ¡°A few days?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Magic that can control a god for a few days will be able to control those spirits for at least dozens of years, or even longer.¡±Grinning from ear to ear, Aini continued, ¡°Before that happens, we will just think of a way to kill them. Once those guys break free from the restraints of the contract, they might turn around and wreak havoc for us otherwise.¡±


    Saleen was speechless. He thought that Aini¡¯s character had changed, but it seemed that Aini was still more ruthless than him. Then again, Saleen could not me Aini, he was greedy for wanting to control all three kings. It was natural for this spell to be wed. There was not an Imbnced spell in this world. Since this spell allowed a low grade human to control a high grade spirit, it was perfectly normal for it to be limited by time.


    ¡°What other problems are there with your contract?¡± Even though Saleen had already used the Figaro Form to calcte many times over, he was still worried that the contract might have other defects.


    ¡°There are some problems, but don¡¯t worry. Once you be a sorcerer, all these troubles will disappearpletely. Saleen, I myself, am no exception!¡± Aini did not reveal the hidden problem in the contract, and Saleen did not continue probing. At first thought, this problem had to be rted to their grades.


    Saleen was only a grade-5 mage whereas the three kings were at grade-9. It would only be strange if the contract did not have any loopholes. That being said, Aini did not look too anxious, which meant that the loophole was not serious.


    After three full days, Saleen immediately returned to the fourth story of the temple to check on the progress. The three kings had made three drawings for the warship. These drawings could only be activated with help of a magic array. Saleen took out some magic powder, meticulously crafting a temporary magic array. Then, he ced the drawings atop of it.


    Gray rays of light emitted in all directions, as a three-dimensional design appeared and levitated in mid-air.


    Saleen fell in love with this design at first sight, the warship¡¯s design was very meticulous. It had a length of almost one-hundred meters, a ratio of one to two on the drawing. The front most part of the ship was made of the raw dragon head without any sort of treatment. The horns extended outwards.


    Behind the dragon¡¯s head was the sharply angled ship¡¯s bow, wrapped in fine scales. As the drawing ratio was big, Saleen could clearly see that the teeth in the dragon¡¯s mouth had been removed. It formed a sealed space inside, and a human could be ced there.


    Sealing the dragon¡¯s mouth was a genuine Eye of the Dead. There was aplex magic array within the dragon¡¯s mouth, enabling a mage to control the Eye of the Dead from behind. With this item, the surveince range of the dragon skeleton warship was no different from that of a spirit king. That meant that even if the magicpass malfunctioned, this warship could still scan everything which was within a distance of one-hundred miles.


    The hull of the warship was the most peculiar part. Saleen had left behind a piece of the thundercloud wood for reference before, and the design by the kings made Saleen¡¯s heart flutter. The whole hull was covered in thundercloud wood, yet it would not look like a normal ship whereby the wood was spliced together painstakingly. Instead, a magic array would be drawn onto the dragon skeleton before the thundercloud wood was refined into it. The result was that the pieces of wood would be stacked atop one another, just like the scales of a dragon.


    These thundercloud wood pieces could effectively distribute any impact to rest of the materials. At the same time, such a design would reduce water resistance, allowing the warship to travel faster.


    The metal-armored warship from Cloudflow had also imitated patterns of fish scales onto the hull, in order to achieve the same effect. That form of imitation would decrease the warship¡¯s defense. The kings¡¯ design, however, had increased the warship¡¯s defensive ability.


    Of course, there was a precondition. Such a design required stringent standards in the dragon bones. Even if the impact got distributed, the bones would still receive the most damage otherwise. In other warships styled like this, the most probable oue after an assault was that the dragon bones would break, causing the warship to disintegrate directly.


    The hull of this warship was slender, it was not widened. It was simply designed around the actual body of the dragon¡¯s remains. On both sides of the warship, the bone wings were retracted, forming two colossal tforms. After doing some calctions, Saleen felt dizzy. It was primarily understood that when the bone wings were retracted, it would bring about a bncing effect. People could also stand atop the bone wings. When in close proximity to the enemy¡¯s warship, the warriors onboard the dragon skeleton warship could simply jump from the bone wings onto the enemy¡¯s warship. There was no need to use the gangnk anymore.


    The power cabin was situated underneath the bone wings. At this spot, the warship¡¯s armor was six times thicker than usual, it was also the warship¡¯s center of gravity. With the dragon¡¯s bone wings forming a bnced structure, the warship would be able to withstand the intense winds at sea.


    The dragon ws were not removed. A gigantic magic array was added onto the backbone of the dragon skeleton also. Thirty-six Green Spirits were drawn onto this magic array. That meant that this magic array was to be operated by thirty-six spirits at the same time.


    Usually, aplex magic array would only require at most six people. A magic array which required six times the manpower was in fact apound magic array.


    The power of apound magic array was not very much stronger than that of a normal magic array. There was one advantage though. During an actual operation, the operating requirements could be lowered. It would be just like Saleen¡¯s city. Even though Saleen¡¯s city had thirty-six magic towers, only six needed to be functioning in order to barely maintain the city¡¯s defense.


    Judikaka obviously had great insight into Saleen¡¯s thoughts. Saleen was a person who was afraid of dying. Judikaka put a backup n in his design because of this. This allowed the warship to maintain operation even if it got damaged, enabling it to escape even in times of insufficient manpower.


    There was a forty-meter long structure on the deck. Since the whole warship was two-hundred meters long, this building was rtively small. Four flexible nks, which grew out of the skeleton¡¯s back, were located at the front of the deck. They could be withdrawn. Below them was the entrance and exit passageway. The whole warship was sealed. Theoretically, this warship could travel underwater. Obviously, it could only dive for dozens of meters though. A sealed design like this could not withstand the water pressure in deep waters.


    Saleen was perplexed. Diving dozens of meters underwater did not really contain anybat purpose. A normal grand mage could easily discover such a ship.


    Judikaka hastily exined, ¡°In order to maintain the toughness and speed of the warship, the ship¡¯s floatation ability became insufficient. At maximum passenger capacity coupled with weapons, the ship will sink.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen¡¯s face turned glum, Judikaka quickly added, ¡°As long as the magic array begins functioning, the warship will float on the surface. When the warship is traveling, the magic arrays supporting the floatation can be switched off. The bone wings on both sides can provide a certain degree of floatation already. As long as the warship is traveling above twenty miles an hour, the magic arrays can be switched off to lower depletion. The warship has to stop at some point in time however. In a state of zero movement, a magic pod will be released from under the deck, using metal chains to connect the bones. At this point in time, you can still switch off the magic arrays, and the warship will rest underwater.¡±


    Saleen finally understood. Judikaka was too considerate, such a design could conserve a huge quantity of magic nuclei.


    Noticing that Saleen¡¯s face had lit up, Judikaka had peace of mind, then he continued, ¡°When underwater, the warship can be directly activated. By extending the bone wings, the warship¡¯s speed will immediately be boosted and it will burst through the water surface. If necessary, the magic pod can be abandoned, and the speed will reach terminal velocity in that instant.¡±


    A smile appeared when Saleen heard that. Throwing away the pod which provided floatation would allow the ship to travel at maximum speed. Since such a feature would not be utilized frequently, it was not considered important.


    ¡°Judikaka, are there naval battles in the death dimension too?¡±


    ¡°Of course. The three of us have territory spanning tens of thousands of miles, our waters are longer than the entire Qin Empire,¡± Judikaka replied. He did not disclose to Saleen that the maind in the death dimension was a hundred times wider than the Myers maind. Their death empires were not a veryrge force.


    Saleen listened, then he nodded and said, ¡°Mm, I understand. In the future, I will ord you the relevant respect.¡±


    Diyabannersa snorted derisively. At the moment, Saleen was saying very pleasant things. Just three days ago, however, he was forcing the three brothers to be coolies.


    Saleen pretended not to hear that. Judikaka proceeded to say, ¡°Sir, with this warship, you have to give up the old fighting techniques. Make use of speed to maintain a distance from the enemy. Use the long-range weapons tounch your offensive.¡±


    ¡°But the uracy of long-range weapons¡­¡± Saleen hesitated, awaiting Judikaka¡¯s exnation. Even the best magic trebuchet had poor uracy. At most, the attack range would be a few hundred meters. If many warships were deployed at the same time for the attack, the target would of course be hit. Saleen only had a few warships at the moment though, a saturated-type assault would clearly be impossible.


    ¡°This warship uses the dragon skeleton like a bone, so arger Spirit Pool can be built. There is no need to use magic trebuchets. The supply of bloodstones from arge Spirit Pool would be sufficient for your usage.¡±


    At this moment, Saleen then realized that there was a huge cabin situated at the rear of the warship, at the front end of the dragon¡¯s tail. Indeed, there was a magic array which was several timesrger than the Spirit Pool found in the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. This was a Spirit Pool which had a diameter of more than ten meters. Surrounding the Spirit Pool were many more Green Spirits. With so many mosaicked Green Spirits, the Spirit Pool could store all the produced bone spirits.


    The attack method of these bone spirits carrying the bloodstone was obviously mightier than that of a magic trebuchet. They had a further range and higher uracy. Even though a bone spirit was a very low grade spirit, the moment an order was given, it would pursue the target all the way until the bloodstone exploded.


    ¡°Why is the tail not treated?¡±


    Saleen noticed that almost one-third of the dragon¡¯s tail was not transformed. In fact, there were no cabins in the spaces within the dragon¡¯s tail. It was precisely because of this design which caused the dragon skeleton warship to have inadequate floatation ability. This dragon tail was almost solid. Other than doubling as a rudder, there seemed to be no other practical use to it.

 Chapter 423: Preparing for the naval battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 423: Preparing for the naval battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Judikaka replied respectfully, ¡°Sir Saleen, the dragon tail will be treated. Look at these magic runes. I am preparing to refine arge amount of starlight silver into them in order to reduce the weight and increase sturdiness. If any small warship tries to approach from the rear, a swipe from the dragon tail will smash it into pulp.¡±


    ¡°You are saying that this tail can actually move?!¡± Saleen was greatly astounded.


    ¡°Sir, the empire has war puppets fornd battles. This warship is a giant puppet on the sea, the whole ship is flexible. It would not be the fastest ship otherwise. This design allows the warship to change its direction of travel swiftly. Even though this warship is two-hundred meters long, its agility is simr to that of smaller boats who are only dozens of meters in length.¡±


    Saleen began calcting the spaces in the warship. This two-hundred meter long ship would require seventy-two spirits to be operated. Since Saleen had more than eighty evolved skeletons, this was no problem. Next, the magic array controlling the bone spirits would require six spirits too. Saleen would be self-sufficient, he would not need anyone¡¯s help.


    This warship was a purely magic warship. One death mage was needed, along with at least twelve low grade elemental mages. The sailors had to at least be high grade magic disciples. ording to the calctions, he would need three sses of magic disciples. Since so many magic disciples were needed, Saleen had to request assistance from Lex.


    In order to prevent the enemy from boarding the warship to kill the mages, a corresponding number of swordsmen were also required. Jupiter andpany could not be used anymore. The swordsmen from the Sregl Ind would have to take on this task.


    If a grade-6 mage was deployed aboard the warship, then this mage would be able to provide the spatial equipment to store food and water. The space within the warship could transport one-thousand soldiers.


    The offensive power of the warship seemed pretty good, just that the passenger capacity was slightly small. Be that as it may, the function of this warship was not for transporting soldiers, so Saleen could ept this design.


    Saleen had promised a batch of Green Spirits to the three kings however. If more Green Spirits were used on this warship, then he would have almost none left. It seemed like it was extremely costly producingrge equipment. After all, Saleen had discovered a mineral vein. All his ie was going to be depleted in the blink of an eye.


    Given the capabilities of the Qin Empire, it would take years to produce a war puppet. That being said, Saleen was not sure which was more costly, the war puppets or the dragon skeleton warship.


    ¡°Sir, actually this design will allow the warship to go ashore.¡±


    ¡°Go ashore? Judikaka, stop kidding me.¡±


    ¡°Sir, this warship is in fact a puppet made from a dragon. The whole warship is alive. The deck and exterior shell are shaped like scales, while the cabins are individually refined on to the dragon bones. The north will be frozen for more than five months. In these five months, there are no suitable docks to maintain this warship.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­ wouldn¡¯t it fall apart?¡±


    Judikaka cackled, causing his Soul me to flicker vigorously. Slowing down his tone, Judikaka said, ¡°Sir, the essence of the dragon skeleton might be lost, but its toughness could hardly be overwhelmed on this ne. A sorcerer can destroy the exterior shell of the warship, but the dragon bones won¡¯t be damaged. In the face of pesky enemies, this ship can run onnd temporarily, it will also be slightly faster than a normal horse.¡±


    ¡°Why do I feel that all your designs are intended for escaping?¡± Saleen asked suspiciously.


    Judikaka thought to himself, ¡°I am catering to your hobby. If you cannot win, you will simply run, it¡¯s better than dying at sea.¡± As Judikaka¡¯s mind swirled with these thoughts, his massive arm had pressed against the magic array on the ground. The light rays circted, causing that levitating drawing to begin moving. Saleen noticed that dragon ws had emerged from both sides of the warship, twisting their way forward. The middle section of the body did not twist a lot, while the dragon tail swayed vigorously in a regted fashion.


    The magic runes inside the warship flowed on the surface of the dragon bones. As the dragon tail swayed about, the tremendous stretching force was distributed to every single piece of bone. The cabins attached to the dragon bones did not tremble violently, but the magic runes were flowing atop each cabin. Clearly, in the event the warship went ashore, its depletion would be astonishing.


    ¡°Okay, that¡¯s all, I will take this.¡± Saleen pped his hands. Nailisi understood that signal and took out all the Green Spirit rocks in her possession before handing them to Judikaka.


    ¡°Other than the ones required to be mosaicked into the warship, the rest will go to the three of you,¡± Saleen said generously, but his heart was hurting crazily. There was no choice, he was a true-blue Sikeqinyan.


    Saleen did not know that Judikaka was feeling the pinch too, even though a spirit did not have any flesh. Judikaka¡¯s first design was good, but the other two designs could help him save on a huge amount of materials. The first design enabled the warship to go ashore, but this ability had a huge consumption. Judikaka thought that Saleen would toss this design aside after learning of this ability. Unexpectedly, Saleen took out the Green Spirits immediately, causing Judikaka to be momentarily stunned.


    The other two designs would make the dragon skeleton warship resemble a traditional vessel, with simr capabilities. The only inability was that the warships could not go ashore.


    Judikaka did not know that Saleen possessed powerful calction abilities. Saleen could analyze that the materials needed to build a warship like that contained high performance. Inparison, Saleen would not be making a loss by giving those Green Spirits away.


    ¡°Judikaka, not bad at all. If there¡¯s a chance, help me to design a ship too. I don¡¯t want it to be too big, and normal materials will suffice.¡± Aini could keenly detect Judikaka¡¯s intentions, so he decided to provoke this spirit king too.


    ¡°Sure, I can design a spirit ship for you. Other than it having weakness to the Holy See¡¯s divine spells, the capabilities will be pretty good.¡± Judikaka did not rebuke Aini. After all, Aini was his controller.


    ¡°Very good, then I will have two ships already,¡± Aini grinned, taking the opportunity to remind Saleen that he still owed him one ship.


    Saleen had received all the ie from the first hunting expedition, as he had promised to give one ship each to Aini and Irene. If this ship had the ability to travel across the ocean and reach the Frozen Sea, it would require one-hundred-thousand gold coins to be constructed.


    Saleen pretended to hear nothing. He would not repudiate this promise. At the moment, he was afraid of not being able to hire enough workers. He would have trouble producing those ships for Aini and Irene because of this.


    As the three kings watched Saleen take his leave, they had an unexinable uneasiness in their hearts. The Green Spirits Judikaka received were genuine though. To a spirit, such gemstones were way too precious.


    Even though the three kings knew the location of the coordinates to the death dimension, they did not have any help from a death mage. If they wanted to train on this ne, their training speed would be very slow. Their powers were also limited due to the contract, they needed to work even harder. Judikaka was doing fine as Aini would allow him to use the Death mes asionally. Banchajanna and Diyabannersa were not so lucky. Since Daniel had left, they could do nothing.


    With the Green Spirit, the three kings would be able to regain their training speed. At the very least, they could bring their powers closer to grade-9. Once Saleen and Aini advanced, the kings might even be able to recover their grade-9 abilities fully. If Saleen and Aini became sorcerers, the three kings would definitely regain their powers. Once Saleen and Aini seeded, the contract would be even more secure and there would be less loopholes.


    This kind of soul contract had a close rtion to one¡¯s mental strength. Since Saleen¡¯s mental strength was so immensely powerful that it could rival that of a sorcerer, he could control two king-grade spirits. The moment Saleen became a true sorcerer, the three kings would not even be able to create trouble for the next few dozen years.


    Judikaka was very clear about the crux of this issue. It was almost a dead cycle. Even if Saleen and Aini did not increase their levels, the kings would still be oppressed. If their grades got advanced, their restraint over the three kings would also get more powerful.


    At this moment, Judikaka could only hope that Saleen would travel on his own and run into an enemy at a location where he could not summon them. Once he got killed, the contract would no longer be stimted.


    Saleen was very cautious however. Previously on the trip to the Frozen Sea, he had brought along Banchajanna. If Saleen went to more dangerous locations, he would definitely bring along Aini and the three kings, which was what he did when he went to the Chaotic Swamp before.


    ¡°Judikaka, what do we do?¡± Banchajanna¡¯s Soul me flickered like he was one the weakest skeletons. He was feeling frustrated, so he did not bother suppressing the movements of the Soul me.


    ¡°We cannot do anything unless he¡¯s dead. He has to die somewhere far away. Let¡¯s get to work.¡±


    As he spoke Judikaka split the Green Spirits, putting away his own portion before handing them to Diyabannersa. After Diyabannersa made his selection, he then gave the rocks to Banchajanna.


    After the Green Spirits were distributed, Judikaka took out arge quantity of magic materials from his own spatial equipment, and he began setting a magic array in the room.


    After one whole month, Saleen received some news from the three kings. Given the kings¡¯ experience and power, coupled with sufficient magic materials, a ship whose materials had met the standards of magic refinement was finally constructed. Since there were too many trivial aspects, the three kings had to refine almost all of the materials once using the magic array. That included the divinecherry wood and thundercloud wood.


    The length of the dragon skeleton warship was not increased, but the warship¡¯s quality had been improved several times. When Saleen stored it, his mental strength was immediately depleted by half. For the past month, Saleen had been rearranging his teams. He grouped the Sregl Ind swordsmen and the sailors together, as he prepared for theunch of the dragon skeleton warship.


    During this period, the winged skeleton had been helping Saleen feed the evolved skeletons. Out of these skeletons, two of them underwent another transformation to be gold-armored skeletons. After recruiting eighty-seven subordinates, the winged skeleton was almost on the brink of breaking through grade-7 to grade-8 already. If he acquired grade-8 abilities, he would not be afraid of the tricks up the kings¡¯ sleeves anymore. The moment the three fellows tried to harm Saleen using their death techniques, the winged skeleton would be able to detect it.


    At the moment, Saleen did not have any grade-5 mages serving him. As a result, one grade-4 mage, twelve grade-3 mages, seventy-two jade skeletons, two-hundred Sregl Ind swordsmen, and about one-hundred sailors were deployed onto the warship. If this warship was not magical, these sailors would not even be able to control it. Currently, the sailors were only responsible for some simple cleaning tasks and to wait on the mages and swordsmen.


    Saleen did not test the warship¡¯s ability to walk onnd. Instead, he brought the Dimension Stone directly to the port. The mages, swordsmen, and sailors were all awaiting his arrival. Saleen also brought along one-hundred Caucasus warriors. Everyone was exhrated to see Saleen because they knew he had created a massive warship. This warship was even mightier than those metal-armored warships from Sregl Ind.

 Chapter 424: Preparing for the naval battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 424: Preparing for the naval battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The entourage of people arrived at the edge of the frozenyer. Saleen nced at the few hundred people following him. He did not know how to make a motivational speech, so he simply handed the Dimension Stone to Nailisi and said, ¡°Let the warship enter the water.¡±


    Taking out such a huge warship from the Dimension Stone put a toll on Saleen¡¯s mental strength even though his mental strength was no different from that of a sorcerer. Each storage and release process would consume half of Saleen¡¯s mental strength. Even if Nailisi had depleted her mental strength, she still possessed physical strength.


    Nailisi did not say anything. When she jumped into the icy cold water, the seawater rose up to her ankles, but she did not use any special skill. Without any shes of magic light, an enormous warship appeared abruptly. Everyone present felt an oing force, as if it was pressing down onto their hearts.


    This two-hundred meter long warship was in a cerulean hue. Located at the bow was a gigantic dragon head, without any decorations whatsoever. Two razor-sharp horns extended forward, as though it would pierce anything in its path even if a mountain was up ahead.


    Boom!


    Since such a massive item had appeared in the ocean, the disced seawater suddenly gave off an explosive uproar. As the water got sshed dozens of meters into the sky, Kanuka and Pasatilo released the Invisible Shield, preventing everyone from getting drenched.


    Ka¡­


    The warship twisted in the water, causing everyone to feel like they had just hallucinated. The gigantic scales, made from thundercloud wood, were rubbing against one another. They gave off an almost undetectable noise.


    ¡°Go onboard.¡± Saleen smiled. Then dozens of skeletons took a leap, soaring dozens of meters up onto the deck, before crawling into the cabin. The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat came to the underside of the warship slowly. The winged skeleton was insidemanding these skeletons as he managed to locate the magic array which controlled the warship. Even though the skeletons had some intelligence, they could not cast any spells. Under the guidance of the winged skeleton, they brought the magic nuclei and mosaicked them into the corresponding sites. At this point, the dragon skeleton warship then got activated, mooring towards the iceyer.


    The bone wing on one side opened up gradually, resting on the iceyer. After that everyone followed Saleen up to the deck of the warship.


    ¡°Kanuka, you will be the captain for the time being. This is the diagram of the warship.¡± Saleen handed a piece of paper to Kanuka. As the mages went to their specified positions, Saleen summoned the winged skeleton and said, ¡°I will only be leaving J in the city, you don¡¯t have to follow me. The moment anything happens in the city, inform me at once.¡±


    ¡°Master, our connection will be cut off if we are more than twenty miles apart!¡± the winged skeleton eximed nervously.


    ¡°I will go take a look at that natural port in the south. Do you remember that ce?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± the winged skeleton answered.


    The natural port Saleen was referring to was situated four-hundred miles south of Metatrin City. This location possessed better natural characteristics aspared to the Metatrin City. Even though it was only four-hundred miles away, the duration of frost was much shorter. Be that as it may, this ce was surrounded by mountains, and only one side was facing the sea. Other than maritime means, it had no other connections tond.


    Building a fortress there was still eptable. It was pretty unlikely to transform that ce into amercial city.


    This ce was always in the back of Saleen¡¯s mind though. Since he was developing a city, he had to consider the aspect of ie. Even if there was no trade, he had to conduct agriculture. This harbor was a piece of deadnd, thend area was only about ten square miles. It would be sufficient for a city to be built on such a big plot ofnd, but the city¡¯s rations would have to be transported via the sea.


    On the other hand, in Metatrin City, one only had to cross a few rivers to reach the ins in the north. In the south, there were alsonds with an area of a few hundred square miles avable for growing crops. Self-sufficiency would not be a problem at all. There was a breach in the mineral vein in the west of the city also. Through this breach, one would be able to reach the distant ins where there were more plots ofnd. One could also reach Phoenix.


    Saleen had done some calctions before. The speed of his warship could definitely exceed seventy miles an hour. Since the natural port was only four-hundred miles from Metatrin City, the journey would bepleted within six hours. This ce was easy to defend yet difficult to be attacked. A fortress could be built there to support Metatrin City.


    Once this fortress was built, the only way to assault would be from the sea, there was no need to worry about getting attacked fromnd. When the mages from Sregl Ind got there, many depots could be constructed to store food for the long-term. In the future, Saleen could store his procured foodstuffs in this location, where it would surely be safe.


    Of course, if Saleen owned a godly equipment like Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring, then he would not need to worry about the issue of storing food anymore.


    Half of the dragon skeleton warship entered the water. Only after the magic arrays were activated did it float up normally. Had the skeletons been tardy, the warship could have possibly sunk already. Once the mages and skeletons had assumed their positions, the shape of the bone wings on both sides were slightly adjusted. The stern of the ship swayed, causing the ship to change direction swiftly. Then, the ship sailed south.


    Saleen could feel that the turn-around speed of this warship was at least ten times faster than other simrly sized ships. When the dragon tail was wavering, the warship itself did not vibrate forcefully. At the rear deck, three magic arrays positioned in a triangr shape were stimted. In the center of this triangle, a gigantic magic sail about forty meters tall gradually emerged.


    This was a Death spell called the Shadow Sail, it had no offensive power. It was used to steer a ship in the death dimension. The skeletons raised the Shadow Sail, thus reducing the consumption of the nuclei¡¯s power.


    Saleen had given the skeletons grade-4 magic nuclei, it was not some high grade item. It was too prodigal using high grade magic nuclei to drive a ship after all.


    When the Shadow Sail was raised, the speed of the dragon skeleton warship did not increase. The huge warship simply traveled south in utter silence. Usually, a sailboat would only reach maximum velocity when traveling against the headwind. Traveling with the wind was a huge challenge to a sailor, they would need to control a ship with great dexterity.


    These skeletons would not be exhausted, so they would not make any mistakes. Saleen stood on the front deck with peace of mind as the warship sliced through the waters ahead, creating agitated waves.


    ¡°In order to let this ship possess offensive powers, the sailors and swordsmen will have to practice together continuously. This would be another expenditure!¡± Saleen thought to himself helplessly, ¡°The main source of power for this ship is the grade-4 magic nuclei. In an hour, six nuclei will be consumed. During battle, the depletion will be higher. Six grade-4 magic nuclei would cost more than a thousand gold coins even if they weren¡¯t purchased from a shop. As the magic nuclei are used in the power magic array, they must be of the best quality. Inferior ones can¡¯t be used. We will be lucky if the magic array does not function otherwise, because it could even explode.¡±


    The grade-4 magic nuclei which Saleen had obtained were those which were not sold. Since there were too many of them, the price of magic nuclei would fall drastically if they were put on the market. There was no meaning selling only a few of them anyway.


    One-thousand gold coins spent in an hour. The powering of the dragon skeleton warship was simply burning money. The speed of the warship brought great satisfaction to Saleen though. With the Shadow Sail recing part of the power, the ship could easily reach a speed of seventy miles an hour. At this moment, the depletion of the magic nuclei would at least be halved. Only during a battle would the magic arrays be fully functioning.


    ¡°If I don¡¯t go to the Frozen Sea, I won¡¯t be able to afford this warship even if I do own it.¡±


    In less than five hours, the dragon skeleton warship had arrived at the natural port. The frozen sea here only had a width of dozens of miles. Saleen was thinking of stopping the warship there so that everyone could take a look at that natural port. At the same time, they could draw a detailed map. That way a fortress could be conceptualized when they returned. Suddenly, a swordsman from Sregl Ind ran up the deck and told Saleen, ¡°Sir, the captain has discovered some warships approaching.¡±


    ¡°How close are they?¡± Saleen questioned. Saleen knew that they were not too far, as the magicpass had a finite surveince range. These warships which appeared abruptly should already be within a range of fifty miles.


    ¡°About eighty miles away. The warships are not huge, about eighty to one-hundred meters long, otherwise we would have discovered them earlier.¡±


    ¡°How many warships?¡±


    ¡°Six warships, one formation.¡±


    Saleen began calcting in his mind, ¡°If the enemy¡¯s warships possess good capabilities, they will discover the presence of my warship in at most half an hour.¡± Saleen was not afraid. A warship shorter than one-hundred meters could only carry a certain number of magic trebuchets. It would be impossible for them to pose a threat to Saleen¡¯s ship.


    No matter how superior a magic trebuchet was, its attack range was only around five miles. Even though Saleen¡¯s warship had not begun producing the bone spirits, there was no need to be afraid of these ships either. What were these ships doing in the north? There were no cities avable for docking in the north while Lianyun City should have been upied for a long time. These ships could only be from the eastern sea ind states.


    ¡°Did I not kill all of them the previous time? Did I allow some of them to escape, and cause the expeditionary army to discover my city?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s calctions were slightly erroneous. In order for a magicpass to discover a target, a familiar map had to be present for corroboration. It could also be that the target was too conspicuous. The reason why Saleen¡¯s dragon skeleton warship could probe such a great distance ahead was due to the Eye of the Dead on the dragon¡¯s head. The Eye of the Dead was working in tandem with the magicpass, so it could detect all live targets.


    It would be difficult, however, for the fleet to discover Saleen¡¯s warship as it was totally sealed. There were also only a few people standing on the deck, so the enemy¡¯s magicpass might not be able to pick it up.


    ¡°Sir, what do we do?¡± That swordsman was still waiting for Saleen¡¯s instructions.


    Saleen thought about it, ¡°If the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat was around, there would not be a problem dealing with these six vessels. I don¡¯t have the bone spirits now though. I can only use the dumbest method, which is to approach the enemy and board their ship for a battle. Even though I have fewer warriors here, I have three grand mages. Sika and Nailisi are around also. The oing warships won¡¯t have such powerful offensive abilities.¡±


    ¡°We will meet them. As long they aren¡¯t warships from the Alchemy City, sink them.¡±


    The swordsman was aghast, then he bowed and went below the deck. The warships from Sregl Ind also had horns. It was one to six however. The enemy¡¯s ships had to be sunk. This caused the swordsman to be in disbelief.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go down too,¡± Saleen told Sika and Nailisi, who had been following him around. Since the warships were going to crash into one another, the impact would be pretty intense. When the dragon skeleton warship was designed, only the internal cabins could decrease impact. If Saleen continued standing on the deck, he would definitely be flustered.


    Unlike a normal warship, the captain¡¯s cabin in the dragon skeleton warship was located under the deck. The building on the deck was to amodate the swordsmen. The swordsmen had assembled, awaiting orders. The moment the warship got entangled with the enemy¡¯s ship, the swordsmen would board the enemy¡¯s warship to start the fight. With help from the sailors, the swordsmen began putting on armor and inspecting their weapons. In the captain¡¯s cabin, Kanuka¡¯s eyes were fixated on the magicpass. The six targets on the magicpass were drawing closer. They had altered their direction. They were nowing straight for the dragon skeleton warship.

 Chapter 425: An involuntary battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 425: An involuntary battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fifty miles, forty miles, thirty miles¡­


    Both parties were getting increasingly close. A magic book was ced next to Kanuka, he was obviously doing somest minute preparations. It was a book introducing the deathnguage.


    Fortunately, the skeletons had evolved to possess intelligence. After Kanuka gave the order, the dragon skeleton warship began increasing its speed. The posture of the bow was also adjusted. It was now pointed ramrod straight, the pair of razor-sharp horns now resembled a rider¡¯snce.


    When both parties were at a distance of ten miles, the Eye of the Dead finally captured some crystal clear images. There were six metal-armored warships, without any markings of the Qin Empire. They were also not from the Alchemy City.


    Kanuka heaved a sigh of relief. If the other party were warships from the Alchemy City, he would have been at a loss of what to do. Even though Sregl Ind and Alchemy City did not have a subordinate-superior rtionship, such a huge power would inevitably be offended if a battle was ignited. Kanuka would not wish for such an oue.


    The six metal-armored warships were in a bronze color. At a distance of ten miles, they suddenly separated and slowed down. That indicated that they were preparing the magic trebuchets. The rock flung by a magic trebuchet was itself a magic item too, some might even weigh thousands of catties. No matter how tough the dragon skeleton warship was, it could also get damaged in a frantic bombardment.


    The Shadow Sail was withdrawn. Thirty-six skeletons stood within the magic array, activating the core power of the dragon skeleton warship. After a gentle twiddle, its speed increased abruptly, from seventy miles an hour to more than one-hundred miles an hour in that instant.


    The Eye of the Dead had captured the gnguage shared between the six warships. When Kanuka discovered the enemy¡¯s gship, he gave the attack order without any hesitation. The target was the gship. The gship contained the highest rankingmander. Once it was sunk, the enemy would lose theirmander.


    The dense air vibrations sounded unusually piercing in the wind as dozens of magic stone cannons flew into the air simultaneously, descending in the direction of the dragon skeleton warship. The enemy was actuallyunching while on the move, they must be experienced and elite soldiers.


    The magic stone cannons were stuck together in an abnormally dense formation, and theirnding points were not scattered. The enemy¡¯s uracy had exceeded Kanuka¡¯s expectations. Since the dragon skeleton warship had increased its speed out of the blue, the enemy misjudged. Dozens of magic stone cannonsnded behind the dragon skeleton warship. A magic stone cannon was not a spell after all. It traveled slowly and could not pursue the target. Its power was slightly weaker than the bloodstone which was carried by a bone spirit.


    The dragon skeleton warship was unharmed, but Kanuka¡¯s face was gloomy. He then said to Saleen, ¡°Sir, the enemy is able to employ the magic trebuchets while at high speeds. They must have grand mages on all six ships.¡±


    ¡°Six grand mages?¡± Saleen furrowed his brows, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t deploy the swordsmen. We will crash into them directly, to sink their ships. So what if they have the grand mages?¡±


    In his heart, Saleen was mumbling, ¡°These six ships will never be the main force no matter where they go, so why are there so many grand mages? The news of me sinking those warships must have been leaked. Damn it, I have attracted the attention of the eastern sea allied army. These six warships must be the vanguards, there might be more trouble to follow.¡±


    On this note, Saleen decided all the more he could not let any enemy escape.


    ¡°Nailisi, if the enemy mages can fly, you and Sika must take action. Kill all of them, I don¡¯t want any prisoners.¡±


    ¡°Yes Master,¡± Nailisi answered with a wide grin. She was fond of things like killing people. Saleen did not like it, so she usually got restricted. Now that Saleen was allowing her to kill everyone, Nailisi was pretty d.


    Saleen was not pedantic at all. The enemy might have more than six grand mages. If he did not surprise the enemy by killing a few of them, the consequences would be dire if he got besieged. Why did he not bring the three kings along this time around?


    Saleen did not bring the three kings because the city was left with too little defensive power already. After bringing along thest two grade-4 mages, the city was only left with the Caucasus people and a few low grade mages. If the three kings did not stay behind, and the city got invaded, then Saleen¡¯s abode would be reduced to nothing.


    The size of Saleen¡¯s city was not small at all, and he had little manpower. Every day, a few hundred people would ride on magic wolves or skeletal warhorses to patrol the outskirts. It was impossible to monitor every direction.


    The best solution would be to emte Holy Rock City, by constructing a small military town ten miles east and west of the Metatrin City. The best scenario was to build a magic tower in each town, otherwise, a lone city could hardly detect any approaching enemies. At this moment, Saleen could not even gather enough soldiers to guard the city walls, not to mention a small town. He could only concentrate his forces in the middle of the city, allowing the three kings to takemand. As long as the enemy was not a grade-9 sorcerer, the three kings would have their ways to deal with them.


    Warships on both sides had reached a speed of one-hundred and fifty miles an hour. A distance of several miles would be covered in the blink of an eye. Before the six warships could even react, Saleen¡¯s dragon skeleton warship had already collided with the gship.


    The gship carried less magic trebuchets, it only had three of them. With this strike, the grand mage standing in the middle of the three magic trebuchets had fallen to the ground due to the impact. The magic puppets responsible for carrying the rocks were flung away by the impact also, causing dozens of soldiers nearby to be hit.


    An earth-shattering sound spread across the ocean. After getting hit by the dragon skeleton warship, the bow of the metal-armored warship which had armor more than two centimeters thick was totally smashed. The keel of the warship was made of wood. Even though it could absorb the shock, the impact from this collision had exceeded the limit of this warship. In less than ten seconds, popping sounds could be hearding from the interior of the warship.


    The grand mage on the deck got back to his feet, feeling appalled as he stared at the dragon skeleton warship which had crashed into his ship. The massive dragon horns had torn into the warship¡¯s metal armor. The bow had disappeared, with fragments spewing in all directions.


    The warship opposite did not continue attacking the gship. It quickly turned around and lunged at another warship instead. This time around, the dragon skeleton warship knocked on to the side of the warship. The second warship did not even put up a struggle. A gaping cavity had been bust open the middle of it.


    The dragon skeleton warship did not need to continue the assault. Under the influence of the seawater, the metal armor in the middle was quickly broken. The warship sunk to the seabed in less than ten minutes.


    All the warships were less than two miles from one another. The remaining four warships had witnessed this scene. Their actions were slightly slowed. Only after the second warship had been destroyed did they continue tossing the magic stone cannons.


    The dragon skeleton warship swiftly dodged the descending stone cannons. While in the cabin, everyone was trying their best to stabilize their bodies. Even though the collision did not cause too much vibration in the cabins, the quick dodging actions had caused everyone to be swung around haphazardly. Only the more than seventy skeletons were not affected. They continued controlling the warship steadily.


    Nailisi¡¯s eyes zed with exhration, as she said, ¡°Master, this is too exciting!¡±


    Since Saleen did not know how to cast the Gravitation Spell, he could only hold on to Nailisi as he grimaced bitterly. The warship was so sturdy, it far exceeded his expectations. When the magic stone cannons struck it, only a small portion of the deck was ruined. The hull remained unaffected. As long as no one stood on the deck, such an attack would not cause any trouble for the dragon skeleton warship.


    When this warship swerved about sharply, Saleen wished he could tie himself to the ground, unless he flew into the air.


    As long as this warship was not trapped, it would not get hurt if there were less than twelve simrly-sized warships. The dragon skeleton warship was traveling too quickly, and it could speed up and slow down abruptly. It was challenging for the magic trebuchets to urately determine a goodnding spot. In the enemy¡¯s second barrage, only one-fifth of the stone cannonsnded near the warship.


    What made Saleen feel the pinch was the warship¡¯s dodging method. It had immediately amplified the speed of depletion by five times. Just a short action like that had caused tens of thousands of gold coins worth of magic nuclei to be consumed.


    ¡°Sir, they areing!¡±


    Saleen did not need a reminder, he could already see it from the images transmitted by the Eye of the Dead. Four mages were soaring in the air towards the dragon skeleton warship. Of the four, two were mustering a great deal of effort. Saleen determined that these two were grade-5 mages who had just grasped the flying skill. The other two were not sorcerers either. Their speed was almost the same as Saleen¡¯s, it was in fact slightly slower than Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud Spell.


    Theoretically, if the dragon skeleton warship ignored all operating costs and took off, these mages would not be able to catch up. There were three more warships which had not been sunk yet. If Saleen were to flee now, these three warships would be salvaged.


    ¡°Nailisi, you will team up with Aini to kill one person. Sika and I will deal with another one,¡± Saleenmanded calmly.


    ¡°What about us?¡± Kanuka and Pasatilo asked. These two grade-4 mages were very aggressive too. If the duration of battle was not protracted, they could barely kill a grade-5 mage together.


    ¡°Use the scrolls, just hold down the fort for two minutes.¡± Saleen licked his lips. It had been a long time since he participated in a fight personally. He could feel his heart raging with passion, as though he was looking forward to the uing battle.


    The remaining three warships ceased their bombardment of magic stone cannons. Since the grand mages had left, they could no longer control thending zone of the stone cannons precisely. In the worst case, they might even hit theirrades in the sky.


    ¡°Ha.¡± Seeing that the warship had stopped swerving about wildly, Sika let go of Saleen and took out her enourmous cudgel from the Ring of Gifts. Sika was not feeling stressed for the uing battle as her weapon could counter magic easily. As long as she got close to the target, any magic shield below the standard of a sorcerer would not be able to withstand her cudgel. Even though Saleen¡¯s Water Shield was superior to the Ice te Armor in terms of strength and toughness, Sika could still prate dozens ofyers of it.


    The only problem was that she could not fly. If the mages tried to escape, Sika could do nothing to stop them. The enemy was here to fight. If they tried to flee, the dragon skeleton warship could simply give chase and destroy their ships. Without their ships, the mages might not be able to survive at sea.


    Located in an intermediate size city in southwest Phoenix was Fort Strand. The city gates were shut. Situated fifty miles from the city was a continuous stretch of tents. The snow in the vicinity of the camppound was not cleared, indicating that this was just a makeshiftplex. Outside the huge tents, riders d in metal armor did their patrols. These riders looked solemn, with a high standard of discipline. On the torso region of their armor was a dark vermilion marking ¨C a six-winged flying snake.


    That was the symbol of the Grukos family. Other than the Qin imperial family, no one else could wear it.

 Chapter 426: An involuntary battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 426: An involuntary battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the main tent, Lex was fuming as she interrogated a mage.


    ¡°Nash really said that?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness. If you want to cross the border from Strand, the army musty down their weapons. He said that you can also choose to leap over the mountain, then you won¡¯t have to bother him.¡±


    ¡°Nash¡¯s father is a stubborn old man. To think that he is as obstinate and despicable. Okay, you can leave. Let everyone rest for a day first.¡±


    After that the low grade mage left the tent, a middle-aged man emerged from the shadows.


    ¡°Viscountess¡­ you are now a county queen, I should call you Your Highness.¡± That man who came out from the shadows was none other than the assassin called Bain.


    ¡°You cannot go assassinate the empire¡¯s general. All of them are rebelling. Nash didn¡¯t attack, he just didn¡¯t let me pass through Fort Strand. If he has the ability to defend the west side, he must have a grand mage with him, or he might even have a sorcerer. You might not be able to get close to him.¡± Lex knew exactly what Bain was trying to do.


    Lex was also helpless. She was nning to lead her swordsman¡¯s camp past the border. If it was not for the invasion by the Goodrid City¡¯s army, the nobles in Phoenix would not have obstructed her path. Now, Fort Strand was upied by the Goodrid City¡¯s army. The terrain there was tapered. If the troops could not pass through the city, then they could only climb over the mountains.


    In such frigid climate, the soldiers could not withstand such a torture even if they did not have to transport the military supplies. After marching for half a month, some soldiers who originated from the south had even been injured by the frost. If there were not so many mages apanying the army, the morale would have hit rock bottom.


    ¡°Your Highness¡­¡±


    ¡°Forget it Bain. Just call me Viscountess, I am more used to that,¡± Lex told the assassin who had followed her for dozens of years.


    Bain swept his nce across the mages beside Lex. He stared intently at a middle-aged mage d in a grey robe, making that mage shift about in uneasiness. Lex then said, ¡°Bain, Basta is trustable.¡±


    Basta was a grade-5 mage from the Sregl Ind who had followed her back to Bitter Water Prefecture. This voyage had already taken six months, Basta himself was also getting anxious. Lex¡¯s n could not be aplished in a day or two, so he could only bear with it for the moment.


    ¡°Viscountess, I don¡¯t care about the empire¡¯sws. If Nash continues holding you here without letting you pass, your troops might be in peril. Him talking so much nonsense is akin to dering war on you already. If you still cannot make a definite choice by tonight, then Nash will side with thew. By then, no one can say anything.¡±


    ¡°I am not worried about that. Fort Strand has a seven-story magic tower. Even though the mage is no longer around, Nash¡¯s mages in the army can utilize it. Since the terrain here is narrow, there is also no use having more manpower than him.¡±


    ¡°At least you can make a stand first. If they still do not give the green light, I will poison them. Saleen had given me a prescription. If anyone below the grade of a swordmaster consumes it, they will quickly die off. The only treatment is to use the magic liquid.¡±


    Bain¡¯s method was usible. Since both parties were hostile to each other, the other party would surely inspect the drinking water. On one hand, the serving of the magic medicine could not be too minute. On the other hand, if the serving was too big, it would be easily discovered.


    In that case, the enemy¡¯s offensive power should be reduced first. The principalmanders and mages would not be affected.


    ¡°Bain, I think the people in Holy Rock City are hoping for me to do that.¡± Lex calcted in her mind, ¡°My tracks aren¡¯t concealed from others. With a rough calction, Nash will be able to lead his troops to seal off this ce. If I cannot win against them, I can only use a farther route, since the other ces might not let me pass. It is even more impossible to just wait here. The other party has about ten-thousand men, while I have ten-thousand elite soldiers excluding the support troops. It will be too prodigal using these swordsmen to attack the city. Uncle, you are forcing me to battle with you! In this battle, no matter the oue, I have already lost half of it. Holy Rock City will no longer lend me any support in the future.¡± Prince Safilos did not have the right to seize Lex¡¯s County Queen position, but he could control the nobles in the parliament and use them to iste Lex.


    ¡°Your Highness,¡± someone called out from outside the tent.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°I have captured a spy, he says he is from the north.¡±


    ¡°A spy? Bring him in.¡±


    When Lex finished speaking, Bain had already vanished into the shadows. There were two other ck Metal Grand Swordmasters hiding in the tent. Lex was always very particr about her personal security.


    When the captured person saw Lex, he hollered, ¡°Viscountess, please let me go.¡±


    Lex was jubnt. She recalled that he was a pirate who had been subdued by Saleen. At this moment, the pirate¡¯s hands were bound by hemp rope and his weapon had been removed from his body.


    A female mage called Narnia, stood beside Lex. She produced a wind de in her hand, and then she cut the rope. The pirate had been trained by Saleen to be respectful. He bent his waist, bowing to Lex.


    ¡°Okay, get him a chair. Tell me, how did you get here?¡±


    ¡°Sir Saleen ordered us to receive you.¡±


    ¡°Us? How many people did Saleen deploy?¡±


    ¡°Five-hundred men, we are situated east of Fort Strand. Fort Strand had sealed off the main road, so we can¡¯t pass through. Only a few people were sent to go around the mountain.¡±


    ¡°Only five-hundred men¡­¡± Lex got slightly despondent. If Saleen had dispatched more than one-thousand swordsmen, then a two-pronged attack could be executed. Lex could bluff so that Nash would open the road in that case. If Nash could let her pass, she really did not want to fight with him.


    Noticing Lex¡¯s expression, the pirate felt indignant, then he said, ¡°Sir Saleen sent all his grand mages here.¡±


    ¡°Hnh¡­¡±


    Someone in the tent could not stifle hisughter. That person turned out to be Hu An, a lifestyle mage serving Lex. Hu An was already very outstanding. After Saleen came to Bitter Water Prefecture, Lex turned her focus to grooming Saleen. Hu An had be less significant. Later on when Lex left, Hu An could not follow along. He had steeled his mind to stay in Bitter Water Prefecture, to help Lex manage the residence. Currently, Hu An was the leader of the lifestyle mages already, he had also advanced to grade-4.


    Even though he pursued honor and fame, he never relented in his magic training. He was also a genius, his speed of advancement was really quick. After Lex went to Alchemy City, there were actually more mages in the Bitter Water Prefecture.


    All these mages only had one notion in their minds. Holy Rock City had forced the Viscountess to leave. As a result, everyone protected Bitter Water Prefecture, so it did not wane. During this protracted period of time when Lex was not around, Bitter Water Prefecture actually became a ce for mages to assemble in the central region of the empire.


    Even though Hu An was only at grade-4, he had hundreds of mages and almost a thousand disciples under hismand working for him.


    When the pirate realized that Hu An was mocking Saleen, he could not conceal his outrage. Even though most people were fearful of a mage and Hu An was d in a gray magic robe. That pirate had seen many mages daily, so he was not appalled by Hu An. The pirates stood upright, and told Lex, ¡°The Viscountess might not think much of it, but I think it is impressive that Sir Saleen can still deploy five-hundred people after that battle.¡±


    ¡°Battle? What happened there?¡±


    ¡°A fleet from the eastern sea conducted a sneak attack, but it has been resolved by Sir Saleen.¡±


    This time round, Hu An did not sneer. The eastern sea fleets had assaulted Lianyun City, and Lex knew about it. She led everyone across Phoenix¡¯s borders, instead of allowing the mages to travel by sea because of that.


    With a satisfied look on his face, the pirate said, ¡°There were more than ten-thousand enemies and twelve warships. Sir Daniel and I have also ughtered some people.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen has gotten so powerful already?¡± Narnia could not help but ask. Saleen¡¯s domination of the three kings urred only after Lex had left. Naturally, she would not know about it.


    The pirate continued, ¡°Sir Saleen has also deployed two magic chariots.¡±


    ¡°Magic chariots!¡± Lex stood up, she was really astounded.


    ¡°They were seized. Sir Saleen said that it is too expensive to produce these things.¡± After relieving his displeasure, the pirate felt much better. That mage in the tent was also no longer looking at him with contempt.


    ¡°Mm. Come, tell me what is theposition of these five-hundred people.¡± Lex began paying attention to Saleen¡¯s reinforcements. If there were really two magic chariots, then they could hold out against the attacks from the magic tower for the time being.


    ¡°Two magic chariots, and there are twenty normal chariots carrying some equipment and supplies. There are also two-hundred of my brethren, and three-hundred barbarians. Each magic chariot is helmed by a grade-5 grand mage, with four grade-3 mages. Sir Daniel is here too.¡±


    Even though Daniel was Saleen¡¯s follower, he was also an outstanding mage in other people¡¯s eyes. The pirates had been under Daniel¡¯smand, so they had long regarded Daniel as their leader already. Whenever Daniel was mentioned, the pirates would speak in a more respectful tone.


    ¡°Viscountess, if that¡¯s the case, we can give it a shot.¡± After listening to the pirate¡¯s words, Hu An began instigating Lex.


    Lex did not know how Saleen managed to recruit those barbarians. She thought to herself, ¡°This must be all of Saleen¡¯s assets already. If I allow them to attack from the east and too many casualties are sustained, then I will have let Saleen down.¡±


    Noticing that Lex was hesitant, the pirate said, ¡°Viscountess, all five-hundred of us plus the chariots are riding on skeletal warhorses. If we are losing, we can simply flee.¡±


    The pirate divulged the trump card. The reason why he actually was not afraid of Fort Strand¡¯s army was because the five-hundred man team could escape very quickly.


    ¡°Okay, then I will write a letter to Daniel. One of you shall follow him back and contact Saleen¡¯s men. We willunch the offensive at night.¡± Lex was decisive. She just had toy out the strategy, and themanders below would be able to formte a detailed battle n. She did not need to worry excessively. That was the advantage of Lex¡¯s background. She had all kinds of talent working under her, unlike Saleen who had to execute everything personally.


    A grade-3 mage volunteered. Lex immediately penned a letter, asking Daniel to cooperate with her team to make a feint. Lex purposely highlighted to Daniel to monitor the number of casualties. If there was too much pressure, then he would have to retreat first.


    Before long, the letter waspleted. The pirate received Lex¡¯s letter and left the tent with the grade-3 mage. The grade-3 mage wasted no time. He simply released a scroll, the Windspeed Skill, for the both of them. With that magic blessing, the two men were flitting as they sprinted towards the mountains.


    Lex wrote another letter, and duplicated it using the magic images. Then, she handed it to Hu An and said, ¡°Send this letter to Fort Strand. Whether or not they let us through, prepare to attack tonight.¡± This letter was Lex¡¯sst warning. She knew that Nash would not let her pass, this gesture was simply a formality, a charade.

 Chapter 427: Daniel’s attack (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 427: Daniel¡¯s attack (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After the pirate had departed, Lex ordered all the mages to undergo rehabilitative meditation in preparation for the night¡¯s battle. This time around, she had brought along many mages. Two grade-5 mages, about twenty grade-4 mages and about one-hundred mages below grade-3. There were also more than three-hundred magic disciples.


    These mages were not to be used for battles, but to be brought to Saleen¡¯s city to help expand its power. Since a battle was imminent, they were roped in to assist the soldiers. At any point in time, no matter how strong an army was, there would definitely be casualties in the sieging process. Without the presence of mages, the death-injury ratio would be greater, severely damaging morale.


    The moment Saleen was faced with a battle, he would be restrained. He would have to rest his brain for an idea, but he would still have to rely on the three kings in the end. On the other hand, once Lex made her decision, she would have a bank of talents to draw on.


    Lex had been umting her army for dozens of years after all. She also received the private handsel from Emperor Chanake. She neithercked manpower nor money. Equipment-wise, although Lex and Saleen had robbed Dragon¡¯s Tooth Town and acquired a simr quantity of weapons and armor, all of Lex¡¯s loot was soaked in dragon¡¯s blood.


    The dragon¡¯s blood was such a precious item, one would not even know where to begin looking for it.


    Lex¡¯s letter was shot into the city with an arrow. A soldier went to pick up and delivered it to Nash, the city¡¯smander. Nash¡¯s father was a noble in the Upper House, so he should be on intimate terms with Lex. After Emperor Chanake¡¯s passing, the Upper House became leaderless, while the emperor himself did not have much capability either. Even though the Upper House did not really take orders from Prince Safilos, they had washed their hands of Lex¡¯s issue.


    Everyone might not have believed Master Merlin¡¯s prophecy in the past, but after Emperor Chanake died, the nobles in the Upper House wavered. As long as Safilos did not give the order to kill Lex, everyone else would simply acquiesce in the prince¡¯s oppression of the Bitter Water County.


    Be that as it may, Lex was still Emperor Chanake¡¯s daughter. Legally, she actually had the right to ascend to the throne, so the Upper House was in a fix too.


    Safilos¡¯ n was really sinister. By obstructing Lex without attacking her, he was forcing Lex to attack the empire¡¯s cities. By doing so, Lex would be at fault. There were only two routes from the empire through Phoenix. Even if Lex chose the other route, she would still run into a huge obstacle.


    In the past, Lex could still travel using sea means, since the nobles in Lianyun City were not under Safilos¡¯ control. Lianyun City was currently upied by the enemy however. As a result, Lex could only pass through Phoenix, there was no other alternative.


    No matter how meticulous Safilos was, he would never expect Lex to dare assault Fort Strand. Even if he knew that Lex would take action, he would not be able to deploy any more troops. At the moment, the north was in utter chaos. Hundreds of nobles in the vicinity of Lianyun City had died in the war. The nobles were actually pretty mighty, but because they were invaded abruptly, they had no time to unite. Consequently, the invaders managed to seize thousands of miles ofnd.


    A few cities in the central region of the empire had assembled their armies, forming an arc-shaped defense line, thus containing the invaders in the northern sea. It was not sufficient to just contain the invaders, Safilos had to gather even more troops to conduct an offensive. Once the invaders had adequate rest, such a loose defense line would be easily destroyed otherwise.


    Following the upheaval in the north, Lon also sank into disorder. Of the troops involved in the campaign, ten percent of them were nobles from the north. Their homes were already in peril or were already lost, hence these soldiers did not even have the will to fight. When this ten percent backed out, the remaining troops also were affected. Thend seized from Lon was not yet acknowledged by the Upper House and the Lower House after all. That way the nobles had no choice but to abandon the things at hand and retreat to Qin.


    Fortunately, the Tanggsi Empire had met with some trouble, thus it could not ride on the momentum. The Qin army would have met with yet another massive failure otherwise.


    In order to stabilize Lon, Safilos had to deploy the empire¡¯s elites ¨C the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp. These troops were the foundation of the empire, they were not affected by anything else. A certain number of troops had to be stationed in Holy Rock City, while a portion was sent to Lon. Some troops needed to be dispatched to deal with the Eastern Sea Allied Army also. All in all, Safilos really did not have any more manpower to dispatch to Phoenix at that time.


    It was only at this point in time that Safilos realized the difficulty of running an empire. He also realized how much stronger his brother, Emperor Chanake, had been. Safilos could only control Holy Rock City. Beyond Holy Rock City, his sphere of influence was definitely not more than one-thousand miles.


    For example Pompeii City, which was in cahoots with the Cloudflow Empire. Safilos knew about this matter, but he could do nothing other than be anxious about it. If the empire was in peace, he could simply write a letter to berate the Grand Duke of Pompeii. If the grand duke refused to adhere, he could simply send troops to mount an offensive. At this point in time, Safilos could only watch the southern nobles mess around though. The tax revenue received in the past two years had been on a straight decline, some nobles had even stopped paying taxes to Holy Rock City.


    The man named Nash who was assigned to Fort Strand was an inflexible blockhead. Safilos had sent him mail using a magic array. He told him to guard this ce, and never to let Lex pass the border no matter what happened. That was why Nash defended Fort Strand vigntly, standing ready for battle anytime.


    When the soldier handed the letter to Nash, Nash simply tore it without even looking. That action caused the letter to give off a ray of magic light, burning in his hands. It made Nash so appalled that he threw it away at once.


    ¡°Lex! She wants to stab me in the back!¡± Nash was enraged.


    A mage, standing beside Nash quickly advised, ¡°General, that was magic feedback. This letter had been replicated by Lex using the magic images. Lex already knows about your action.¡±


    ¡°So what!¡± Even though Nash responded in this manner, he tolerated the incident. Then he suddenly remembered that if he went to fight with Lex, he might not be able to quash her swordsman¡¯s camp.


    Since a long time ago, Nash had already heard of the twenty-thousand elites serving Lex. Even though he was skeptical about a woman¡¯s ability to manage an army, the number of mages in that army was several times that of a normal one.


    He had seen Lex¡¯s camppound before. There were at least ten-thousand elites, with an equal number of support troops. If he really needed to go out of the city to start a war, he had no confidence. Although Nash had a grade-6 mage beside him, he heard that Lex herself was already a grade-6 mage. She had many subordinates who were mages too.


    Even if Lex stood outside the city cursing Nash¡¯s family, Nash would have no choice but to bear with it. It was currently winter, and Lex¡¯s camp would definitely have a higher level of depletion aspared to his ny way. In order to prevent the soldiers from freezing, the magic materials providing warmth would consume thousands of gold coins daily.


    Qin was also known as the magic empire, its army was way mightier than that of the other three empires. It was precisely because its army had many mages, that was why it consumed a great deal of magic materials too. The winter in the north would inevitably cause frostbite to some of the marching soldiers. During encampment, the source of warmth for the soldiers was magic powder.


    If a battle was in the south, magic materials for killing pests, preventing high tides, and lowering the temperature were also provided. One could say that the Qin army would be able to unleash their usual offensive power in any kind of environment. The only concern was that these materials were very expensive.


    ¡°Mage Soron, tell me, do you think Lex will attack the city?¡± When Nash realized that his enemy was stronger than him, he suddenly became distraught. At first, he thought that Lex would not attack the city, but that letter reminded him. If Lex did not attack the city, would she return to the Bitter Water Prefecture? This time round, Lex had brought more than twenty-thousand people along, of which ten-thousand were elites while the others consisted of support troops and smiths. The cost of traveling from the Bitter Water Prefecture to this location was already an astronomical figure. Lex could not possibly tolerate this.


    The gray-robed mage sighed, then said, ¡°I am a mage. I don¡¯t intend to understand the affairs of the nobles.¡±


    Nash was no idiot either. Even though he was inflexible, he could understand what the mage meant. Be that as it may, he could not defy Prince Safilos¡¯ orders. Whether Lex was determined to attack the city or not, he could only defend it until hisst breath. He could not allow Lex to pass through.


    ¡°General!¡± A soldier entered Nash¡¯s room hastily.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°We have lost a team of scouts.¡±


    Nash was stunned, then he recovered immediately after. He did not deploy any scouts to the west. The eastern side was in trouble.


    ¡°Who did it?¡±


    ¡°General, the scouts never returned the flying puppet. We don¡¯t know what happened.¡±


    ¡°Send two brigades of cavalrymen¡­ and another two brigades of infantrymen to go take a look.¡± Nash became unnerved because of Lex¡¯s letter. He gave an order which he would undoubtedlyter regret.


    Four brigades contained a grand total of eight-hundred men. Nash only had five-thousand men with him. If it was for the current situation, there was no big deal making this move. These eight-hundred men might not be able to return anymore however.


    In Qin¡¯s army formation, a camp had ten emblem groups while an emblem group had five brigades, each brigade contained two-hundred people. Each brigade was further split into five teams, with each team having forty people. Forty scouts would be separated into five groups to conduct patrols. A flying puppet would be assigned to a forty man team. If there were any unforeseen circumstances, the flying puppet would be released back to the city or the main camp to report the intelligence.


    These scouts possessed the best warhorses and proficient archery skills. The leader of the scouts was at least an intermediate grade swordmaster. The disappearance of these five groups of scouts was obviously due to them running into Saleen¡¯s army.


    The five-hundred men deployed by Saleen were all riding on skeletal warhorses. The barbarians wielded hard bows while the pirates wielded soft bows. Traveling in a magic chariot, Daniel disseminated hismands to the soldiers. It was impossible for those scouts to escape a death mage¡¯s surveince. In less than half an hour, the battle had ended.


    Saleen¡¯s soldiers were injured by a few arrows, but they had received treatment already. Of the forty scouts, only two were kept alive and the remaining shot dead. The scouts were not useless, it was just that they did not wear any armor. In that barrage of arrows, they were basically walking to their doom. On the other hand, Saleen¡¯s soldiers were all d in magic armor. They also had been blessed by magic before the battle, making them resistant to arrows. What caused the scouts to be really astounded was that the warhorses of their enemies were not even afraid of arrows.


    Two prisoners were brought to Daniel. Daniel¡¯s Death mes levitated behind him, giving off an eerie green glow. With just a sentence, the scouts surrendered.


    ¡°There are dozens of mages here who can cast the Detection Magic. If you do not reply, or choose to lie when answering my questions, I will extract your souls and check it myself.¡±

 Chapter 428: Daniel’s attack (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 428: Daniel¡¯s attack (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel was just bluffing. In order to extract one¡¯s soul and peer into their thoughts, a death mage would have to be at least above grade-8 to just barely do it. Daniel was just a grade-5 death mage. He had methods to torture a person¡¯s soul, but he would not be able to obtain any urate information.


    The two prisoners were clueless about magic, so they believed Daniel¡¯s words. If they held out but the enemy still managed to acquire information, then they were simply troubling themselves. Even if Daniel did not frighten them, the two scouts would have also pissed their pants due to dozens of mages surrounding them.


    At once, the two men divulged Nash¡¯s strategy to Daniel, causing him to furrow his eyebrows. His path was obstructed by the fort, and he would have to climb over the mountains in order to get to the border. One or two people might be able to slip through. With five-hundred men and all the military supplies, they would have to make a detour of thousands of miles to find a less arduous route.


    ¡°Sir, since these people are blocking the viscountess, why do we not invade the city so that the viscountess¡¯ army can pass through easily?¡± The one speaking from the sidelines was Gurney. The battle this time around was under hismand, Daniel was just rendering some aid. He had eliminated all forty people while only some of his men were injured. This greatly bolstered Gurney¡¯s confidence. The other party were the regr soldiers from the Qin Empire, not some measly bandits.


    Those scouts had actually died wrongfully. No marching army would bring along a few chariots of arrows. Gurney¡¯s soldiers fired their arrows as if they did not cost any money, they did not even bother doing close melee with the scouts. In fact, Gurney only deployed two-hundred men. Since they had a weapon advantage, the few groups of scouts were totally overpowered. Had it been closebat, it would already be impressive if two of Gurney¡¯s men died in order to kill one scout.


    Daniel was thinking one step ahead of Gurney. He was thinking if Saleen would be implicated if they attacked the empire¡¯s army. Daniel could simply leave after killing the scouts, the other party would not be able to find out anything. If he invaded the city, it would be an entirely different issue.


    ¡°Sir, are you worried about Holy Rock City?¡± Gurney was actually a very intelligent man. He would not cling onto Saleen, bent on rising through the ranks in the army otherwise.


    ¡°Yes. Attacking the empire¡¯s city is a very big burden.¡±


    ¡°Sir, this city used to belong to Phoenix. I feel that Holy Rock City has lost control of the nobles here, otherwise Phoenix wouldn¡¯t have been in so much chaos already.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know anything.¡± Daniel rolled his eyes at Gurney. At this moment, Daniel had bound his future to Saleen¡¯s, he did not want to create any irreversible damage.


    Gurney was not fearful either, he simply told Daniel directly, ¡°Sir, I don¡¯t know how a noble will think. In the world of pirates, the captain will not stay captain for long if he cannot protect his people, no matter the reason.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Daniel was very astonished to be hearing a skinny pirate discuss the affairs of a state, and even using his own background as an analogy. Then Daniel said, ¡°What do you mean by that?¡±


    ¡°No matter what conflicts the viscountess has with Holy Rock City, she will remain a member of the imperial family. Now that Holy Rock City is doing something like this to their family member, the local nobles will definitely be like pirates, with doubts growing in their minds. Since Holy Rock City can turn against its own people, then who will be able protect the interest of the nobles?¡±


    ¡°Oh yes!¡± Daniel was enlightened as he himself was a noble. He immediately understood after listening to Gurney¡¯s exnation.


    Back then, the Tanggsi imperial family sold him out to the Holy See. Naturally, he would not be loyal to the imperial family. When he was on the run, there were some unfamiliar nobles who came to his aid. That happened because of the reason Gurney was exining.


    Since the imperial family could betray Daniel because of the Holy See, then they could also do it to other people in the future.


    ¡°There are five-thousand enemies, while we are only five-hundred men.¡± Daniel was not so conceited to think that he could battle ten times the number of enemies. The other party also had mages, though there were not as many as Daniel had. As long as mages were present, they would be able to neutralize his advantage and use their numbers to gain victory.


    Daniel had witnessed a regr army in action before, and he knew the pirates were no match for them. The higher the number of quality soldiers groomed, the greater the offensive power. A five-thousand strong army was a massive force anywhere. Daniel only had five-hundred people. The barbarians could not even execute a battle order properly yet, not to mention the pirates.


    ¡°Sir, that city has a magic tower in the west, while we are in the east. The control range of a magic tower isn¡¯t so far. As long as we can enter the city, we can use the magic chariots to set their camp on fire and burn it to the ground.¡±


    Originally, Fort Strand was not a military city, there were a number of civilians in the past. These deployed soldiers had constructed their barracks independently. If the magic chariots charged in and released fire magic, the oue would indeed be horrifying. Even if there were mages in the camp, they could do nothing as well.


    Two magic chariots coupled with Daniel and Francis would be able to resist a grade-7 sorcerer already.


    ¡°Mm, that sounds good, but the problem is the way into the city.¡±


    ¡°Sir, after killing these scouts, the other party will definitely leave the city to investigate. Since this terrain is narrow, we cany an ambush first and kill those people. We can then change into their clothes afterwards. The magic chariots will wait one mile from the city. Once the disguised soldiers seize the city gates, we will charge in immediately.¡±


    Gurney¡¯s idea was fraught with peril. If the enemy deployed too little soldiers, then the difficulty of seizing the city gates would be too high. Gurney was in it for the fortune, he could care less. When being a pirate, one could only make money by putting their life on the line.


    Daniel did not know Gurney¡¯s true intentions, he was actually in awe of his courage. After casting the Disturbance Spell to make the two prisoners unconscious, Daniel and Francis began preparing their spells.


    In the tents west of the city, Lex¡¯s soldiers had begun preparing for the invasion of the city. Lex had brought along chariots too. Since the journey was protracted, her chariots were stored in the God¡¯s Ring, so they had to be assembled now. This four-wheeled chariot could carry a mini magic trebuchet. A mini magic trebuchet was used to suppress the enemy¡¯s archers, it could not destroy the city walls.


    A huge quantity of war puppets were activated before being distributed to the low grade mages. If such a puppet was not controlled by a mage, its strength would almost be equivalent to that of a skeleton soldier. It would have a higher resistance to physical attacks. The main function of these puppets was to protect the soldiers and to push the heavy appliances to the city door so that the city door could be broken.


    If the enemy was bent on defending the city door by blocking it, the puppets could still climb over the walls so as to exhaust the enemy¡¯s arrows.


    Of course, if Lex had thoserge war puppets, then there would not be so much trouble. She simply needed to let the heavy cavalry charge ahead alongside the war puppets. Once the puppets destroyed the city gate tower, the heavy cavalry would be able to ughter their way in.


    The production of war puppets in Holy Rock City was almostpleted. It was not known whether they would be deployed to Lon, or to solve the problem in Lianyun City.


    Before the battle, the soldiers still had to organize the weapons. In fact, the weapons of somemanders would have to be blessed by magic first in order to achieve maximum effect. The steel crossbows needed to be greased, while the horses needed to be fed with special food. The horses could not eat too much, otherwise their physical strength would be hampered. The steel armor tes had to be inspected individually. Arge portion of a piece of Qin armor was interwoven with leather straps. These straps were prone to wear-and-tear. If they broke on the battlefield, the soldier would be in grave danger. Before some imperative war, themanders might even issue new leather straps to allow the soldiers to re-chain the armor tes.


    If a string weapon was used for long durations, it would experience abrasion. More often than not, it would not affect the weapon¡¯s usage. If there were any unexpected fractures, the bowstring would get damaged though. Some soldiers wore gloves which were equipped with steel ws. In the event that the city door would not budge, the magic trebuchets would bust a cavity in the city walls. Then, the soldiers would use their steel ws to ascend the walls. Before an invasion, the protectiveyer of grease on the steel ws needed to be removed before undergoing sharpening.


    An army with more than ten-thousand people would definitely haverge trebuchets. Arge trebuchet was not portable, however. They needed to be assembled within five miles of the city walls, which was also the range of the enemy¡¯s trebuchets. Currently, the soldiers were busy crafting makeshift wooden shields, in case they got hit by any stray rock fragments.


    There were a variety of trebuchets. A certain type could fire a huge quantity of small rocks, hundreds of them in one shot. These small rocks could not destroy arge structure, but they were lethal against infantrymen. No matter how strong a person was, his bone would get smashed, and he would no longer be able to fight.


    In the vicinity of the camp¡¯s walls, hundreds of crossbowman stared at the skies vigntly. If the enemy¡¯s flying puppets flew over at this point in time, they needed to be shot down. News of the imminent invasion would be exposed otherwise.


    Every single soldier was busy doing some pre-battle preparations. Even though they were some trivial matters, it allowed a soldier to slowly gather his concentration. This was a method of raising one¡¯s offensive power. The mercenaries also had simr rituals, just that they were not as professional as a regr force.


    For example that five-hundred soldiers on the east side of Fort Strand. If Lex was given a chance to evaluate them, she would regard them as a motley crowd. Without the skeleton warhorses, Lex could finish them off within thirty minutes using just half her manpower.


    The battlefield was not forparing an individual¡¯s courage, it was testing the coordination between soldiers. The barbarians were individually powerful, but on the battlefield, they would pale inparison to a normal soldier. That was also the reason why the barbarians declined, as they could never organize a powerful army.


    A re soared across the sky. Lex suddenly opened her eyes while she was meditating in the tent. She was momentarily astounded, then she said, ¡°They¡­¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, what is it?¡± Narnia asked.


    ¡°A battle has erupted on the east¡¯s city door. Daniel that scumbag has decided to attack earlier!¡± Lex spewed a vulgarity by ident. She quickly realized that her people had not yet climbed over the mountains. Daniel was initiating an attack because he did not know about Lex¡¯s n yet.


    Was that not seeking death? Five-hundred men were attacking a city with five-thousand men in it. The situation should have been in reverse.


    That being said, Lex could not leave Daniel in the lurch. Those five-hundred men were groomed by Saleen. The least she could do was to cooperate, otherwise the five-hundred men might all get killed.


    ¡°Messenger!¡±


    A soldier entered immediately. With a murderous look in her eyes, Lex said, ¡°Deploy the ninth and tenth emblem groups to attack Fort Strand.¡±

 Chapter 429: A motley crowd versus a regular force (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 429: A motley crowd versus a regr force (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ninth and tenth emblem groups consisted of infantrymen, these soldiers were equipped with inferior horses. Even though inferior horses were used, a distance of fifty miles could quickly be covered. Lex was furious, Daniel had ruined her n.


    If Daniel¡¯s five-hundred man team was extirpated, then the morale would undoubtedly be affected even if Lex managed to seize Fort Strand.


    She could not me Daniel though. Daniel was originally a small noble who only needed to wait for money to enter his pockets, he would not know how to fight a war. That was why Saleen instructed Gurney to lead the battle. Saleen had deployed the army which was under Daniel¡¯smand however. This caused a contradiction.


    When Gurney wanted to im credit, Daniel should have stopped him. Saleen¡¯s words had caused Daniel to have misgivings, after all, he was clueless about fighting a war. Since Daniel felt that Gurney made sense, he eded to Gurney¡¯s request.


    Gurney was a person who was not fond of a direct battle with the enemy. Very quickly, the soldiers sent for the investigation had sunk into Gurney¡¯s ambush. On a narrow road fraught with rocks on both sides, the barbarians hid behind the rocks. Up ahead, a team of pirates rode on the skeletal warhorses, pretending to run into the enemy by chance. Then, the pirates fled, luring the enemy into the ring of the trap.


    Daniel¡¯s death creature, the pikoosi, was hiding in the ground. When the enemy arrived, the pikoosi immediately emerged from the ground and cast a Death spell called Weak Space.


    In that instant, hundreds of cavalrymen with their horses were inflicted with this spell. A spell with such a huge range had caused the pikoosi to be exhausted. He did not bother fighting with the enemy, he simply turned around and escaped. The soldiers would not dare chase the pikoosi.


    The warhorses went limp and fell to the ground, while many of the soldiers in metal armor also fell down. The barbarians then leaped out from behind the rocks on both sides of the road, waving their giant axes frantically, causing Gurney to be outraged.


    When the soldiers from Fort Strand got struck by the giant axes, their armor was destroyed. This caused blood to spurt in all directions. All of their clothes were ruined. Gurney¡¯s n to change into the enemy¡¯s outfit was thwarted.


    If the soldiers were unqualified, any kind of n would alsoe to naught. Daniel and Francis were seated in the magic chariots, they did not take any action. They had to conserve their mental strength and magic chords in order to begin the battle after entering the city. At that moment, the responsibilityid on the two-hundred barbarians.


    Other than being a little crazy, the barbarians were fine. In the face of an enemy who outnumbered them two to one, they had the upper hand. Since the pikoosi¡¯s Death spell had not lost its effect, the enemy¡¯s strength was reduced by more than half.


    The hundreds of enemies present were not considered heavy cavalrymen, but they were not light cavalrymen either. After losing the warhorses, no one would be able to travel swiftly. That body of metal armor thus became the soldiers¡¯ burden. Had they been wearing leather armor, they might have been able to match up to the barbarians.


    The barbarians bellowed crazily. At the start, they were still pretty coordinated. After that, they simply charged into the middle of the enemy¡¯s formation and started ughtering the enemies in a wild fashion. If it was not for that Death spell with arge area of effect, at least half of the barbarians would have died. At that moment, only a few barbarians got injured by ident. The rest of them simply rode on their armor advantage and went on a rampage.


    The armor Saleen had crafted for the barbarians was thick, but not heavy. It was very suitable for a person who possessed brute strength. Even without armor, the barbarians would simply hack the enemy, they rarely dodged. Whoever was more ruthless would achieve victory. A fighting style like that was very disadvantageous on the battlefield. The enemy was already very weak, they could not wield their weapons anymore. Only the tips of their swords could hurt the barbarians.


    That was a very slow but effective way of fighting, on the condition that the enemy¡¯s offensive power had been greatly reduced. In some sense, the weapons crafted by Saleen had saved the barbarians. If the barbarians had wielded stone weapons, it would have been difficult for them to break the enemy¡¯s metal armor. The barbarians paled inparison to the Caucasus people. There was a number of forgers among the Caucasus people who could create razor-sharp metal weapons. The barbarians were using weapons crafted from the obsidian rock however. These weapons might be effective against a magic beast, but they would not work against human soldiers.


    Back then, when Saleen first recruited thousands of barbarians, he used his metal weapons to exchange for a huge quantity of obsidian rocks. These obsidian rocks had been umted for thousands of years. Some barbarians had even wielded the same weapon for dozens of generations already.


    Both parties were overjoyed. The barbarians obtained a stronger weapon, while Saleen had obtained the precious obsidian rocks.


    Gurney was helpless. He instructed the pirates to do a rear swing, using their crossbows to kill the enemy. At this point in time, the pirates¡¯ archer skills were exemplified, several barbarians got shot. Luckily, their armor was good, so they did not die. An injured barbarian was even more ferocious. With eyes bloodshot, they swiped their axes about as though they were insane.


    Gurney was dumbfounded. He greatly admired Saleen. ¡°No wonder Sir had given my team arge volume of the Restorative Water, he already expected this oue a long time ago.¡±


    The messy battle mysteriously ended in a victory.


    After about half an hour of intense battling, four-hundred enemies were massacred before the Death spell lost its effect. Of course, the armor on the corpses was tattered and torn, it could not be worn anymore.


    Fortunately, Daniel got quite lucky. Shortly after, another four-hundred infantrymen arrived. They were discovered by a flying spirit which Daniel had released earlier on. Gurney was for a moment muddle-headed, as hemanded the pirates to go for a head-on battle.


    At this point in time, the pikoosi had regained some energy, and he became the first one to lead the pack. The pikoosi was a grade-8 spirit, and even though its magic was restricted to grade-7, its physical strength and toughness were not reduced by a lot. That impact had fractured the formation of infantrymen. Nash was out of luck. He did not deploy any mages to follow these troops, and as a result, they were not prepared at all.


    In Qin, most infantrymen would ride on warhorses, but the warhorses were not of good quality. Such horses helped carry the equipment of an infantryman, such as a metal shields. If the infantrymen were allowed to assemble and form ayer of three metal shields for defense, the pikoosi would not have been able to charge through.


    There was also a number of swordmasters amongst these infantrymen. In the face of the pikoosi who could not cast any spells, they must have damaged his fundamentals. If there was even a Bronze Grand Swordmaster among the infantrymen, the pikoosi could have been killed. If there was a grand mage present, then Daniel would have cried buckets.


    There were no ifs on the battlefield though. Nash¡¯s order was wed. When these two teams of people were out for investigation, the infantrymen and cavalrymen got separated, both teams were detached from one another. There were no mages apanying them either. At first, the cavalrymen were killed by the Death spell, and after that, the infantrymen¡¯s formation were destroyed by the pikoosi. The pirates then rode on their skeletal warhorses, waving their longswords and ughtering the enemies.


    Strictly speaking, the pirates would have lost to the four-hundred infantrymen even if the pikoosi was present. After the pikoosi killed dozens of soldiers swiftly, dozens of swordmasters swarmed forward. One of the swordmasters managed to sh one of the pikoosi¡¯s heads. This caused him to charge forward frantically, he no longer coordinated with the soldiers.


    This pikoosi was unique. He was trapped on the ne of the Myers maind, so it was very difficult for him to return to the death dimension. If he died in battle, his soul would simply dissipate, unlike those summoned skeletons who could still return to the death dimension to be revived.


    It was always a tragedy for cavalrymen to be trapped in the midst of infantrymen. If the cavalrymen could not increase their speed, they would be massacred by the infantrymen. The elite infantrymen from Qin, who could kill a warhorse which had stopped moving in an instant, especially. Each infantryman had three short weapons, and one of them was solely used to deal with warhorses.


    Gurney¡¯s subordinates were riding on skeletal warhorses, however. A one-foot long metal thorn would not be able to cause harm to them at all, unless a magic-infused weapon was used.


    Infantrymen never had magic-infused weapons. In that period of time where these highly trained soldiers were out of sorts, dozens of them already got ughtered.


    The pirates might not be as skilled as the Qin infantrymen, but they were perceptive. Upon seeing the pikoosi escape, they immediately made the decision to follow the pikoosi out of the circle of infantrymen. That was the instinct of a pirate, no training was required. From afar, Gurney was on the brink of tears as he observed the battle. ¡°The army which I have put so much effort into is only capable of that?¡±


    It was this escape which salvaged the pirates. Nash¡¯s subordinates did not know that a skeletal warhorse could increase their speed abruptly, so they could not organize an effective barrier in time. The pirates abandoned a few bodies as they fled. This happened in a matter of a dozen seconds, Gurney never gave such an order.


    In a matter of dozens of seconds, the enemy killed four pirates as the pirates were not prepared. This caused the pirates to be overwhelmed with fear. They no longer dared charge into the enemy¡¯s formation to execute a massacre. Instead, they fired arrows from a distance away.


    If Nash¡¯s infantrymen were not detached from the cavalrymen, such a fighting method would not have been suitable. Be that as it may, the infantrymen were riding on inferior horses, they could not catch up to the skeletal warhorses. It was more challenging killing an infantryman aspared to a cavalryman though. Every infantryman had two shields. One shield was metal, used to form a defense formation, while the second shield was used to block arrows.


    A wooden shield could not resist an alchemical crossbow. It possessed a certain defensive ability against steel crossbows or longbows however. The infantrymen¡¯s offensive power was also high. In that barrage of arrows, only a dozen or so got killed.


    The infantrymen proceeded to wield their crossbows for a counterattack, but a crossbow¡¯s range was no match for that of the steel crossbows wielded by the pirates. After the counterattack, another dozen more infantrymen were actually killed. In less than two minutes, almost one-hundred infantrymen were dead. Had the enemy been a motley crowd, they would have fled in all directions by now. These two brigades of infantrymen retreated towards Fort Strand under orders from theirmander, as they used the wooden shields to defend against the steel crossbows.


    Three-hundred infantrymen had abandoned their horses. They retreated on foot in an orderly manner. Fort Strand was located just behind after all. No matter how strong the enemy was, they would not daree close. They never expected that the enemy¡¯s original intention was to charge into the city.


    Gurney felt that something was amiss. In the beginning, the four-hundred cavalrymen had died wrongfully due to the narrow terrain. They were also enveloped by the barbarians and under the effect of a Death spell. These infantrymen in front of Gurney made his heart lurch.


    A regr army was really powerful. The pirates had exhausted their steel crossbows. At this moment, they changed to their short bows, firing feather arrows. Currently, half of the pirates were too fatigued to continue firing their bows. If this went on, the infantrymen would make it back to the city.


    Out of desperation, Gurney came to Daniel¡¯s hideout. The magic chariots were concealed in withered grass. Gurney knocked on the carriage and whispered, ¡°Sir, the enemy cannot be eliminated.¡±


    Daniel had been observing the battle all this while. He knew that if he still did not take action, the pirates would have no choice but to retreat, and the enemy would escape.


    ¡°Okay, gather the barbarians to protect the chariots. We will conduct a direct assault.¡± Atst, Daniel had given a right order. His battle that day would have ended in tragedy otherwise, even though it started off with jubnce.

 Chapter 430: A motley crowd versus a regular force (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 430: A motley crowd versus a regr force (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The magic chariots charged out of the withered grass, pulled by two skeletal warhorses. They followed behind the barbarians, in pursuit of the enemy¡¯s infantrymen.


    In Qin, the infantrymen were not inferior to the cavalrymen. Their retreat process was very methodical. In the vicinity of a city, heavy infantrymen were the nemesis of cavalrymen. The pirates¡¯ suppressive fire had lost its effect, a mere one-hundred arrows would not be able to injure many infantrymen. As the injured infantrymen were under protection by the shields, their injured body parts would not even influence the battle.


    Saleen did not apply poison on the arrow heads. Poison had a shelf life, and it was more expensive. Other than the ones who were shot in the leg, the infantrymen still possessed more than half their offensive power. If Daniel did not use the barbarians for the pursuit, the enemy would have definitely escaped.


    Even though the barbarians were not methodical, the order disseminated was very simple. Not to be separated from the magic chariots. In fact, it was impossible for the barbarians to be disjointed from the magic chariots. A magic chariot could travel pretty quickly. On tnd, it was only slightly slower than a cavalryman.


    The low grade mages traveling in the magic chariots had blessed the barbarians with the Potence Spell, Stone Skin Spell, Restorative Water, and the Brightness Spell. Under the influence of the magic chariots, these spells did not deplete much of the mages¡¯ magic chords. The effect of these spells were even amplified several times.


    By nature, the barbarians could already sprint quickly, on top of their immense strength. With the blessings of various spells, they were basically flying already.


    If the magic chariots were filled with grand mages, and the barbarians were blessed with the Windspeed Skill, the barbarians might be able to catch up to a cavalryman over a short distance. That was the advantage of a magic chariot.


    Unfortunately, a magic chariot could only bless a limited number of soldiers. Only two-hundred people could receive the effect. Beyond this number, and a mage would be in danger. Otherwise the empire would have mass produced magic chariots already. Instead, the empire chose to use the war puppets to rece the magic chariots. A war puppet reigned over the battlefield, they possessed a variety of attack methods and could move horrifyingly fast. They were not restricted by terrain. The only w was that they had a very high depletion.


    When the pikoosi noticed his master charging ahead, he reluctantly went to obstruct the infantryman by nking from the other side. At this point in time, the swordmasters had lost the motivation to assault the pikoosi already. When they saw two magic chariots approaching, they became despaired.


    If the cavalrymen were still around, the situation would not have turned out like this.


    The barbarians¡¯ axes soared in the air. Under the effect of the Windspeed Skill and the Potence Spell, the charging barbarians leapt dozens of meters forward, cleaving apart the infantrymen whogged behind. The wooden shields crumbled under the axes, they could not put up a defense at all. A wooden shield was used to block arrows, and the lightest barbarian ax weighed more than thirty catties. If an ax was lifted up and smashed down, even heavy armor would be useless. It might not be able to break armor, but it could cause the soldier to be dizzy.


    Only the barbarians or the Caucasus people possessed the physical attributes to wield such weapons for long durations. If a high grade swordsman wanted to wield it, he would have to store it in a chariot first before wielding it for battle. Unlike the barbarians, who could march while carrying the axes on their shoulders.


    Themander of the infantrymen ordered half of his men to conduct a counterattack, while the other half would escape swiftly. He could tell that the enemies on the skeletal warhorses were too exhausted to fire any more arrows.


    A massive fireball descending from the skies made him lose all hope. Under the effect of the magic chariot, Francis released a fireball with a diameter of two meters. It struck the formation of infantrymen who were trying to flee. When the fireball exploded, it transformed into hundreds of tiny fireballs. It obliterated everything it came into contact with.


    That was Francis¡¯ first time tapping into the amplification ability of a magic chariot, it was as though he was in a magic tower. This giant fireball was a level-6 spell. Be that as it may, only one-sixth of his magic chords were depleted, not all of them were gone.


    Dozens of soldiers were incinerated right away. The remaining hundreds of soldiers rolled across the ground, trying to use the snow to extinguish the mes. The magic mes were created by the fire element, it could keep burning even while underwater.


    Only about thirty or so soldiers remained unharmed. Francis¡¯ attack had wiped out two-fifths of the enemy¡¯s strength. At this moment, the pirates then changed to longbows and returned with the skeletal warhorses.


    If there were as many barbarians as infantrymen, the barbarians would have been ughtered by them. At that moment, there were six times more barbarians than infantrymen.


    Francis did not continue casting spells. He began meditating in the chariot, allowing the low grade mages to continue with the battle. Forty barbarians were protecting the perimeter of the chariots. As long as the enemy did note close, Francis would be safe and sound.


    The pirates outnumbered the enemy while the barbarians were ying bully. Noticing this situation, Daniel cast another series of Death spells. This helped the barbarians to kill the infantrymen at the rear of the formation.


    There were no cries on the battlefield. The barbarians were astonished by the power of magic, so they simply swung their weapons about silently.


    Even though the barbarians were crude, they were a bunch of prideful people. A huge portion of the enemy, who was almost as powerful as them, got destroyed by a spell. This was not something which could be resisted by their brute strength.


    The battlested for half an hour. Francis did not take any further action, while Daniel decided to control the depletion of his mental strength. Unless his soldiers were in peril, he would not cast any more spells. The Qin infantrymen were really aggressive. In such circumstances, they still managed to kill more than twenty barbarians. The pirates, however, were unharmed. Other than the few who got killed in the beginning, they managed to stay in formation for the rest of the battle.


    Had this been a chance encounter, Daniel¡¯s soldiers would not even die. As long as the mages cast their spells, all the enemies would be exterminated. There were ten mages seated in the magic chariots. They still had to charge into the cityter on, so all of them were monitoring the depletion of their magic chords.


    Seeing that the battle was about to end, Daniel ordered all the mages to begin meditating in order to maximize their time.


    Daniel¡¯s Death spell had killed more than thirty soldiers. Of the dead soldiers, some swordmasters were d in a low rankmander¡¯s armor. The clothes of those who got killed by the Death spell remained in perfect condition.


    Gurney was inactive all this while. Only at thest few moments did he ride on a skeletal warhorse to stab an enemy. Gurney then instructed the pirates to remove the enemy¡¯s clothes, and to seize all their usable armor.


    ¡°Sir, how long will all of you take to regain your offensive powers?¡± Gurney came beside Daniel¡¯s magic chariot and asked softly.


    ¡°In one hour¡¯s time, I reckon that Francis will be able to regain all his magic chords.¡±


    ¡°Then I shall seize the city gates in an hour¡¯s time. You will wait at a distance of five miles. Since this is the warring road of the empire, the magic chariot can travel at a speed of fifty miles an hour. I will lead some men to guard the city gates for six minutes. If you do not reach by then, we will be in grave danger.¡± Even though Gurney was not as educated as a regr soldier, he could still execute a mission to seize the city gates. A pirate did not always rob at sea, they would also go ashore asionally to harass the smaller towns.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I will be there.¡± Daniel stopped chatting with Gurney, he needed to maximize his meditation time. He knew that charging directly into a city was a perilous task. Since he possessed the magic chariots, he could easily escape if he did not seed. Before Saleen left, Saleen gave him a piece of Green Spirit, and six skeletal warhorses were sealed in it.


    Even if the warhorses pulling the chariots were killed, Daniel could easily summon new ones to escape.


    People who were able to catch up to a magic chariot, other than cavalrymen, were naturally mages. If there were too few present, be it mages or cavalrymen, they would not dare pursue a magic chariot. If Daniel fled, the people from Fort Strand would not dare deploy too many troops to give chase.


    Over one-hundred barbarians changed into the outfits belonging to the empire¡¯s soldiers. Most of the armor was already tattered and torn, while many inferior horses were dead. The remaining twenty captured horses were assigned to the barbarians who wore themanders¡¯ outfits.


    The barbarians handed over their axes to the pirates to be hung on the sides of the skeletal warhorses. Once the city gates got opened, the barbarians would stand guard there while the pirates would rush in and give them their weapons.


    Every soldier drank a cup of the Restorative Water, while the injured personnel used it to wash their wounds. Due to the frigid weather, the wounds would not get infected.


    Everyone rode on the skeletal warhorses. When they arrived at a location five miles from the city, Gurney got down from his warhorse. After resting for ten minutes, he then led more than a hundred barbarians towards the city stealthily.


    If one was running for his life, a distance of five miles could be covered within half an hour. Gurney estimated that by the time he reached the city gates, Daniel and Francis would have regained all their offensive power.


    Gurney was poor in military strategy and tactics, but he knew that the crux of a warid in the soldiers¡¯ morale. As his team had just achieved victory, everyone was jubnt and motivated. If the rest time was too long, it would actually cause the soldiers to cken. He rushed to the periphery of Fort Strand without taking any breaks in between because of that.


    Fort Strand had focused all its attention on the west gate. In fact, the eastern side was the rear of the city. Two-hundred miles from here was a city stationed with the empire¡¯s troops. When the sentries noticed theirrades, who had gone out for the investigation returning in a wretched manner, they immediately opened the small gate and waved them in.


    Strictly speaking, this was not a mistake. There were only about one-hundred people outside. Since the path to the small gate was narrow, it would be difficult for the enemy to gain a breakthrough. As long as a brigade was stationed at this position, the brigade would be able to hold out for at least ten minutes. A duration of ten minutes was already sufficient for deploying the cavalrymen in the city to seal the city gates.


    Gurney¡¯s face was smeared with blood as he entered the passageway beyond the small gate. Then he noticed a white-robed mage standing one-hundred meters away and his heart lurched.


    In such a tight spot, this low grade mage only needed to cast a few spells to trap everyone in it. A mage possessed impable memory. Gurney did not feel that his blood-smeared face could deceive the mage. Saleen had reminded him in the past that a mage only needed to take a look at one¡¯s face once to be able to remember their appearance.


    Steeling his heart, Gurney followed J¡¯s technique. He inhaled deeply, causing the air in his lungs to expand. He then coughed vigorously, spitting bloody foam, before copsing onto the ground.


    The noise Gurney made attracted that mage¡¯s attention. The mage turned around, but Gurney¡¯s face was hung low as he fell towards the ground.


    Gurney was genuinely injured. Even though it was not serious, it was adequate for bluffing the mage.


    ¡°Great Mage, please save our captain!¡± the two pirates beside Gurney hollered. Their acting was proficient. The mage furrowed his brows, but he still walked over. From his perspective, this was an injury which could easily be treated with the Restorative Water.

 Chapter 431: Mages are Afraid of Gangsters (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 431: Mages are Afraid of Gangsters (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The white robed mage walked over while Gurney tried to regte his breathing. Heid on one side of his head and kept his ear close to the ground and listened to the mage¡¯s footsteps. His eyesight could not make out the symbol that was on the white robed mage, he was not sure of what level mage he was. If he was not a grade-1 mage, he could kill him instantly.


    Saleen taught Gurney a couple of times, so Gurney knew that the fastest released magic would be a Wind de spell. It could possibly split metal instantly too. He changed his magic armor and the white robed mage that walked over could kill him a dozen times in a second.


    The two pirates next to Gurney lowered their heads, showing their respect towards the mage. In actual fact, they were afraid that their enemy would catch them.


    The white robed mage was satisfied with the two pirates¡¯ action. The two pirates retreated while the white robed mage came before Gurney. Gurney could feel his heart pumping.


    It was too exciting to kill a mage. The white robed mage could feel the body changes of the military officer on the ground. He was an expert in anatomy of the human body and he knew that the officer had a lung injury and that was a normal response.


    To save mental power, the white robed mage stood one meter before Gurney¡¯s body and released restorative water.


    Unless he was prepared to release two spells beforehand, when a mage finish releasing the first magic, there would be a pause before the second spell. The time period was very short. For magic that could be released instantly, it would be less than a second.


    What Saleen said rang in Gurney¡¯s mind. He knew that he only had less than a second¡¯s opportunity.


    Gurney was not there to risk his life. To risk his life at such close distance, he would rather take two magic spells and hurt the mage. Then, his allies behind him could kill the mage. Gurney calcted precisely, before the restorative water slipped into his body. He sat up straight and head butted the lower body of the white robed mage.


    A man¡¯s vital part being harmed, the white robe mage groaned in pain. It sounded just like a high level magic Demon¡¯s Roar.


    A mage needed a stable elemental environment and stable mental state to cast magic. The mage¡¯s lifeblood was nearly broken by Gurney and his mental state would not be stable. He dared not cast any attack magic, otherwise, it was very likely that the magic would explode in his hands.


    The white robed mage released an invisible shield immediately. He was terrified and dared not attack Gurney, so he retreated. If a mage did not cast the Windspeed spell, how could he be faster than a swordsman.


    Gurney attacked all of a sudden and by then, there were more than twenty Barbarians that entered Fort Strand. They dashed towards the main entrance directly.


    Fort Strand was not a militarized fortress, so there was no magic set up at the door. The Barbarians ran to the door and took out a paper bag that was covered in oil from their pouch. They spat and pasted it onto the door. They then took out a magic match and set the paper bag on fire.


    At that season, Phoenix was so cold that the earth was frozen. Their saliva almost instantly turned into ice and froze on the door.


    There was magic powder wrapped in the paper bag, used for alchemy purposes. The burning temperature was extremely high and adhesive. Unless it was put out by magic, it would never be extinguish even with water.


    The six meter high wooden door was suddenly on fire. The ce where the fire began burning had a big hole that was almost a person¡¯s height very quickly.


    If Fort Strand had a strategic post, the city door would have broken dragon stone. With that, the city gate would be blocked by a huge rock. The city gate of Fort Strand was wrapped with metal and wood on the inside.


    The wood was processed and it could not be burnt, but magic powder had dissolving power, even metal could not resist. Of course, magic powder at such level was too expensive and most mages would rather use magic a nucleus to prompt the magic array than to use such magic powder to rece alchemy.


    There was a big hole at the city door and the defending soldiers could not be so stupid not know what was going on. The low level officer immediatelymanded the soldiers to pounce on their enemy.


    The Barbarians carried iron shields behind them and the defence soldiers w was that they did not notice. Why would a soldier that was escaping carry such a heavy item?


    Without suitable weapons, the Barbarians might as well have swung the iron shield with one hand and held the short sword with another while they guarded the city gate. Very quickly, there were more than a hundred of Barbarians that rushed in through the small gate and formed a shield formation.


    The iron shields of the Qin Empire were highly sophisticated and there were battle axe warriors among the defence soldiers. A battle axe of more than twenty pounds could ignite vigorous sparks and leave a mark on the iron shields but could not break them. As for crossbows, they could not damage the iron shields at all.


    The strength of a Barbarian was too strong, they were holding their iron shield and they could even withstand the calvary rushing against them. Of course, if there was a grand mage that threw magic over, all of them would vanish. That was, unless all of them were wearing the magic armor that Saleen made. Even when they wore the magic armor, it did not mean that the magic attack was ineffective, it would most likely reduce the damage.


    Fort Strand mages were mostly gathered at West Gate as the camp at the west was busy preparing for an attack and everyone was nervous. At the East Gate, there was only a grade-3 mage looking after it.


    If the grade-3 mage were to release magic from afar and support the soldiers with auxiliary spells such as a Potence spell, the Barbarian¡¯s defense would definitely be broken quickly. The white robed mage was in trouble, however.


    Gurney knocked onto his lifeblood and the white robed mage only managed to release an Invisible Shield. It was one of the spells he had learnt during his earliest stage. He could even release it when he was near to unconscious. All he wanted was to withstand the enemy for a while while he was aying his pain. A few more seconds and he would dare to release offensive magic again.


    The invisible shield was just a low level defence magic, but to a swordsman, it was indestructible. The white robed mage got it right and he could tell that Gurney was not that strong.


    Gurney¡¯s boss was strong, though. Saleen gave him a spike that was made of the horn of the diago dragon.


    The diago dragon had many horns, as luxuriant as grass. Compared to other dragons, its horns were not as valuable. Diago dragons were a grade-9 dragon though, its horns had strong effects of resolving magic. If a diago dragon was alive, it could knock a sorcerer to death. Ice te shield or any other high level mirror magic would not be able to withstand the horns of a dragon.


    Gurney was not a diago dragon, the level of the white robed mage and sorcerer were even farther apart. The attack broke the white robed mage¡¯s invisible shield like a bubble.


    Poof¡­


    The white robed mage spat out a mouthful of blood. He was preparing for a fireball, but the element went chaotic and it dispersed before it took form. That almost wrecked his mental power. Gurney¡¯s dragon spike had the power of the water element. When he drew out from the sheath, it could not hide its aura.


    The white robed mage opened both of his eyes wide as he could not understand why a scrawny soldier that he did not consider powerful would have such powerful weapon on hand.


    Gurney did not know that the white robed mage would not be able to release any magic for at least three days time. Due to life measure, the white robed mage had to at least rest for half a month to recover from mental damage. Elemental chaos was not any joke.


    Gurney got into the mage¡¯s reach and he himself was scared to death. Although the mage prefered to fight from afar, almost every close magic could killed instantly. He stuffed the spike into the mage¡¯s stomach and the mage spat blood while the wound on his stomach solidified instantly. Gurney thought he did not hurt him and he suddenly went crazy.


    He raised his head and knocked the mage¡¯s chin. Gurney¡¯s body was small and the mage was taller than Saleen. He knocked the mage at the right moment. Gurney¡¯s head was extremely painful. He had no chance to revolve into sword aura and used his skull as a hammer.


    Skull was much tougher than chin though, so the unlucky one was the white robed mage. The mage¡¯s chin shattered and he could not even recite a chant. Under a situation where the elements were chaotic, he could still chant slowly and release magic.


    There was no de on both sides of the dragon spike, the pration force was extremely strong. If it were a dagger, he only needed to pull it upwards to tear open the white robed mage¡¯s chest. The dagger had to be made of dragon teeth. A diago dragon was differentpared to other dragons. Its dragon teeth were more precious than its dragon horns and there were less of them. Saleen only gave the dragon tooth to Nailisi because of that.


    Gurney had other weapons. There was a cluster of fine silver needles that were shot out from his sleeves and these were only used by mercenaries where the shooting distance was extremely short. Those were given to Gurney by Nailisi. Gurney was smart to ingratiate himself with Nailisi. She would give him things that she did not use.


    The fine silver needles were polished from dragon bones, a Frozen spell was added during the process. The diago was a water element giant dragon and after the fine needles went through the white robed mages¡¯ body, half of the mage¡¯s body was frozen into ice.


    Gurney was worried that he did not die, so he pull out the dragon spike and stabbed into the white robed mage¡¯s eyes. The spike poked through his brain and even God would not be able to save him.


    The way Gurney fought was entirely how a gangster would fight. An elegant mage that was killed by a gangster. There was no other reason that that supporting the gangster, there was a rich bastard.


    The white robed mage did not understand even as he died. Why did the nonentity appear before him and seem to be specifically directed at him?


    Even though the city gate fell, the soldiers from afar were shocked by Gurney¡¯s fighting power. Within ten seconds, the white robed mage was killed, killed by an enemy¡¯s soldier!


    Gurneyughed malignantly while he retrieved the dragon horn to put back into its sheath. He took out his long swords and stabbed the mage¡¯s chest. The two pirates rushed over and stayed on both of his sides. Gurney wore a pair of gloves and stuffed his hands into the mage¡¯s chest. After searching, he finally retrieved the needles that were shot into the mage¡¯s body.


    The things were too precious. Gurney knew that if it was not for Nailisi¡¯s broad horizon, he would not have receive such weapons. He even brought along the syringe that was used to shoot the bone needles that he would bring to bed with him. It never once left his side and it finally came in handy.

 Chapter 432: Mages are Afraid of Gangsters (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 432: Mages are Afraid of Gangsters (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After retrieving the bone needles, Gurney was only left with the burning pain in his lungs as he mobilized his sword aura. The injury that he made earlier was real, otherwise, he would not have been able to cheat the mage. He took two steps back and the two pirates on his left and right sides were blocking the bows with wooden shields. Gurney took out a small bottle and drank a mouthful of magic liquid.


    When he left the city this time, Saleen gave Gurney three portion of magic liquid and told him that it could only be stored for three months or it would lose its function.


    Gurney of course would not save the magic liquid as there were hundreds of soldiers dashing forward from afar. As amander, he had to fight the battle himself. Gurney hardened his heart and catalyzed another portion of magic liquid with his sword aura to turn it into mist. He breathed it in to heal his injury.


    These little tricks were taught to him by J, Gurney was cruel not only to the others, but to himself too. This kind of healing method was extremely fast, but it required one to withstand more pain.


    Gurney then spat out a mouthful of purple blood and his face grew pale.


    Pfft!


    Gurney spat another sputum with blood in it, onto the dead body of the mage that was on the ground.


    ¡°You are a mage, so what? I killed you anyway.¡± Then, Gurney¡¯s eyes grew ferocious as he drew the short sword and dashed towards the city gate.


    The most narrow ce at the city gate was only six meters wide. There were six iron shields that were standing to obstruct the constant attack of the enemy. Gurney ran forward from behind with the two loyal pirates that blocked the feather arrows for him.


    An iron crossbow shot into one of the pirate¡¯s shoulders. It glided above the bone and shot through. The pirate was hurt and his face was wrenched in pain. He was really courageous, he changed the long swords into another hand as though his injured right hand was not his anymore.


    Gurney did not turn around. He ran to the city gate and the iron shield dispersed naturally to let the three of them pass. Gurney then was shot by a few arrows too.


    The hole at the city door was starting to stop growing. The Barbarians used the taken iron axes to continue breaking the city door so that the magic chariots could pass through. The Barbarian agreed upon one thing, if magic chariots could enter the city, they considered themselves to have won in the war.


    The situation on the battlefield was extremely tragic. The party that was guarding the city saw that the enemy was damaging the city door and knew that there would be more danger behind. They attacked the few rows of iron shields that were outside of the city gate vigorously. The Barbarians knew that if the city gate was taken back, the hundred of them would be killed by the other party.


    There were a thousand heavy cavalrymen at the west of the city. If they were to be transferred over, with only a hundred Barbarians, they would not be able to withstand them.


    At that moment, Gurney knew that he had miscalcted. From what he saw, the sudden attack would have made the other party panic, it would not be a problem for them to hold back for six minutes. When he was a pirate, he was fighting against nobles¡¯ soldiers or mercenaries, but the one he was fighting against then was the empire¡¯s regr army.


    The regr army quickly charged against them when they were under attack all of a sudden, there was no hesitation. Although those low level officers from the empire looked savage, theirmand was organized. Looking at the row of Barbarians that were being killed, the other row from the back came forward.


    The biggest problem with the Barbarians was that they lost their favorable weapons. If they had battle axes on hand, they would not let their enemy break the line of defence so soon. The empire¡¯s army had already started transferring the long spear soldiers over. They had seven meter long iron spears and when they formed a human wall to charge forward, no formation would be strong enough to withstand them.


    Tat tat, tat tat¡­


    They could hear horses hoof¡¯s tter clearly from outside of the city. The Barbarians cheered and exerted all their strength to chop the city door. The pirates under Gurney did not follow the magic chariots, but arrived one step earlier. The Barbarians¡¯ battle axes were hung on their skeleton warhorses. The soldiers on the city wall immediately shot arrows down.


    The pirates raised their shields, they wore the armor that Saleen designed. Unless the crossbows were intermediate size or above, they would not be able to kill them directly.


    The speed of the skeleton warhorses was extremely fast. They were at the city wall in the blink of an eye and the soldiers could not transfer heavy archery men to shoot them to death.


    The typography of Fort Strand was strange, it was a city built in between two tall mountain peaks. The city wall was built extremely high and it would be difficult to climb. Fort Strand did not build any enclosure outside of city gate, but only a city wall. The pirates at the front pulled their horses¡¯ heads up and leapt through the huge hole in the city door into the city. They took down the heavy battle axes and threw them on the floor, then turned around and dashed out again.


    Suddenly, there were dozens of battle axes passed to the Barbarians. The battle axes were extremely sharp and heavy. The Barbarians gathered together and started to damage the city door entirely with their battle axes. Within the time frame of one minute, the city door fell outside.


    The pirates braved the arrow shower from the top of the city wall and threw out ropes to pull away the city door debris. Very quickly, they cleared the path in front of the city gate.


    A few pirates that were good at shooting picked up the small alchemy crossbows and wanted to counter attack at the top of the city. Due to the inconvenientndforms, they could not even suppress their enemy.


    In the city, they had gathered big troops of long spear soldiers and they looked like they were going tounch an attack. The Barbarians that got their weapon past the line of defence formed by iron shield and charged towards their enemy that was ten times their forces and mounted a charge.


    The arrows were shooting down like rain and the Barbarians that did not have the suited armor were suddenly down by more than twenty of them. There were still over thirty of them that dashed through the formation of long spear soldiers. They did not dash into the formation but jumped into it.


    The front row of long spear soldiers raised their long spears vertically, even big sized magic beasts would find it difficult to break through such a formation. The Barbarians jumped a few meters high and there were two of them that were torn through by long spears from further back, even mages would not be able to save them if they rushed there.


    Most of the Barbarians avoided sharp spears and got into the empire army¡¯s camp. The long spear soldiers brought short swords too but the troops of long spear soldiers were an extremely close formation. They threw away their long spears and it was chaotic. How could short swords fight against battle axes? the Barbarians were definitely fighting with no n.


    They were surrounded by the enemy anyway. Swinging the battle axes everywhere, they would eventually hit a target with their eyes closed.


    The long spear soldiers were wiped out and they could not uphold their high morale. They had never seen an enemy that could use battle axes like that. Every Barbarian that was chosen by Saleen was a man of unusual strength. Such talent, with a little training at the empire army and they could be a low level nonmissioned officer. A low level nonmissioned officer could lead forty to fifty soldiers as a crack troop that were in charge of attacking a fortification.


    ¡°Mage, where are the mages?¡± Some low level military officer started shouting. The city gate was broken open and if the mages did note forth to block, everyone knew what was going to happen next. Although there were only a hundred pirates outside the city gate, which was a small number, everyone of them was on a skeleton warhorse. These empire officers knew that it meant there was a death mage among them and he was a grand mage.


    If one was unlucky, it was not a grand mage, but a sorcerer. Letting this death sorcerer into the city would release a huge death army. Fort Strand would be a lost cause.


    When mages were flying in the sky, they could still have their safety threatened by having arrows shoot in cluster towards them. It was the city defence after all. The top of the city wall and the high spots within the city had a lot of crossbows set up in them. If the mage were to enter from the ground, they could not pull off that kind of attack.


    At west of the city, there were two infantry regiments that were approaching Fort Strand¡¯s city wall. The mages in the two regiments had cast the Windspeed spell for the soldiers to avoid being shot by the magic stone bullets. The speed of a magic stone bullet was not fast, many mages could dodge all of them with a Windspeed spell. The weapon relied on throwing them in a cluster to cause damage and it was very effective when there was arge number of targets.


    The trebuchet on the top of the city wall could kill targets urately within two miles. The two infantry regiments stopped at the distance of two and a half miles away and started setting up their own trebuchet.


    The tworge troops of soldiers set up heavy archery defence around the trebuchet while the mage stood by the side cooly. At such distance, the trebuchet would need some luck to hit its target. The mages were expanding their magic chords to protect their trebuchet.


    That was the most stable strategy. Only when their trebuchet was sessfully set up, they could suppress the top of the city wall, to let their infantry dash forward. Half of the soldiers would be injured by the stone bullets before getting to the border of the city otherwise.


    A trebuchet was something that if you had one and your enemy did not, it would be very useful. If both sides had them, it would be a tight match. To fight against each other, they would need soldiers to determine the battle.


    Setting up a dozen meter tall trebuchet, the mages guarding next to the trebuchet were thrilled. Back then, the Qin Empire relied on mages and trebuchets to fight for sovereignty over rivers and mountains.


    That era, sorcerers would set up a huge defence magic before the trebuchets then use the attack like a meteor shower to damage the enemy¡¯s city.


    Such attack methods were very efficient, way more efficient than mages exploding everywhere. Even a sorcerer would have limited magic chords after all, but trebuchets only needed magic stone bullets to shoot continuously.


    Back when the Grukos family was strong, even Holy See had to make concessions for the sake of overall interest. Theypromised with other forces just to keep thest holy ground, Tanggsi.


    It had been more than a thousand years since thest time one had seen such a scene.


    Lex actually did not look to the two thousand cavalry regiment to win against Fort Strand. She attacked in order to loosen Daniel¡¯s pressure on the East Gate.


    Fortunately, when it happened, the soldiers of the Bitter Water army were almost ready. The war puppets were already activated to follow the two regiments of cavalrymen to outside of the city. These war puppets were in charge of moving magic stone bullets. As long as there were magic nuclei, these war puppets would not know what exhaustion was. Such an easy task would not required too much mental power by the mages thatmanded the puppets.


    The two regiments were just vanguards. Soon, there were another two regiments of cavalrymen that arrived at the position. They arrived almost one after another. The infantrymen were not heavy infantrymen. If they were arrayed and the enemy sent heavy cavalry to attack, these soldiers that relied on magic machinery would find it difficult to withstand.


    To leave the city and an attack was a dangerous strategy, but if properly carried out, it would cause huge damage to the enemy.


    People at the top of the city wall saw the Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s movement using an alchemy telescope and already summoned their mages to adjust the aim of the trebuchet at the top of the city wall. At that moment, the first who attacked would not be guaranteed an advantage. All of the trebuchets needed to be adjusted in order to ensure the range of cement. The invaders had to at least wait until the defending party started the attack to know the exact location of their trebuchet.


    The magic trebuchet that Lex brought along might not be able to ruin the city wall, but it could shatter the enemy¡¯s trebuchet.

 Chapter 433: Lex’s Determination (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 433: Lex¡¯s Determination (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As Lex¡¯s action took effect, her infantrymen set up the magic trebuchet. The defence force in the city would not have any thought about sending their mages to the east of the city.


    Even though Nash was tough at the very beginning, he could onlyin hardship to himself. He thought Lex would not have the courage to attack the city, but Lex had set up the trebuchet and she was supported by coordinated action on the east gate. Lex obviously wanted to butcher in arge number.


    Everyone knew that the number of mages in the Bitter Water army was few folds of a normal army. In a short battle, the advantage might not be obvious. With more mages, it meant that when the battle time was dragging longer, their recovery power would be shocking.


    It was said that Holy See used the same way to build the Sacred Knights. Every troop had a priest and those knights could release an unbridled sword aura.


    The number of soldiers in the city was already less than the Bitter Water army. If the battle time was shorter than them, it was impossible for Fort Strand to defend themselves. Lex did not attack the city at the beginning because she did not want to lose any of her soldiers.


    Lex¡¯s Bitter Water army had followed her since the very beginning. Some were the second generation. The father was discharged from active military service while the son took over. That kind of soldier loyalty was extremely high, Lex did not want them to lose their lives at the city wall. She wanted to set up a bigger scale of concealment magic at night, to sneak the trebuchet up to the city gate quietly. Then she wanted to make a chip on it with her advantage in speed. Now, they could only do it forcibly and that was what Lex was upset about the most.


    Lex¡¯s vehicle had arrived outside the city very quickly. Two low level mages released flying puppets to continue to spy on the movement within the city from the sky.


    The flying puppets were not the eye of the dead, what they saw would not be transferred back in an image form, but in magic wave. The mages depended on the magic wave to determine the message that was sent by the flying puppet. That was real empirics, a new mage would not be able to grasp the technique regardless.


    There were too many low level mages in Bitter Water Prefecture and more than a handful could control flying puppets.


    Very quickly, the mages updated Lex with thetest news. The war in the east of the city seemed to be extremely tragic and the fluctuation of elements was terrifying. Lex knew that the magic chariots had appeared.


    ¡°Daniel, that bastard, he got me into such big trouble.¡± Lex sounded unfriendly and she asked again, ¡°How long until the magic array is set up?¡±


    ¡°Three minutes, Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Then, we will wait for another three minutes. First, adjust the trebuchet, aim at the front of the city wall ording to magic formation. I am not sure where they set their trebuchets, but they were definitely distributed regrly. Be careful, do not let the puppets fly too near, they will be shot down.¡±


    Lex then closed her eyes and rested to attain mentalposure. The two grand mages looked at the sky. Although Fort Strand was not considered as a strategic post, they were afraid that their enemy had big scale flying puppets too.


    The big scale flying puppets could bring along a lot of magic material that could burn, explode, and quickly destroy the trebuchet.


    Three minutes passed by very quickly. There was a huge magic array set up on the ground and the entire ground was covered with food while there was a magic pattern etched on it. Lex came to the middle of the magic array, surrounded by six grand mages and she activated the magic array.


    A huge light soared up. Lex¡¯s image was magnified by a few hundred fold and cast in the air, facing Fort Strand. The defence force at the top of the city wall looked sallow as they had never heard of such magic.


    Lex was like God, overlooking the city. She slowly spoke.


    ¡°Nash, tell your mage to speak on your behalf.¡±


    Nash looked up at the huge magic image in the sky and he knew that he was washed up due to the sagging morale of his soldiers. Morale was really important and Lex used psychology of a normal human being to release a magic that was not offensive but developed fear in everyone.


    That was fear towards magic and Lex was the embodiment of magic.


    ¡°Grand mage Sauron¡­¡±


    The gray robed mage sighed and started setting up a magic sound array for Nash. Both partiesmunicating as such was something Lex was willing to see. If Nash refused to, every soldiers could only hear Lex, that situation would be worse.


    Sauron set up the magic sound array and beckoned Nash to speak. That valiant general of the empire looked up into the sky and spoke in a low voice, ¡°Lex Your Highness, did you want to attack the city of the Empire? Even if you are a royalty, this is treason.¡±


    Nash spoke and wanted to beat Lex by the way he talked.


    Who was Lex? She was smart since she was little. She smiled faintly and all the soldiers were attracted by her smile, they even developed a ridiculous thought involuntarily.


    ¡°Your Highness¡­ is a good person.¡±


    That was a magic hint. These strong young men had overlooked Lex¡¯s beauty and developed a friendly feeling. To the strong, the hint would not take effect, but to normal soldiers, the magic hint had strong effects. Sauron stood by the side and looked in silence. He had ways to eliminate such influence, but he could not as Lex was a grade-6 mage and she had a grade-8 sorcerer as her backing.


    Sauron practiced really hard to be a grade-6 mage and it would be really difficult for him to be a sorcerer. If he did so, he would most likely be killed by Lex¡¯s teacher.


    ¡°Nash, let me ask you, are you still loyal to my father?¡± Lex did not question him, but severely reprimanded. The soldiers were anxious, they suddenly felt that they were on the wrong side.


    Who was Lex? She was the Princess of the Empire. Her father, was the most friendly king. The Great Chanake was the most popr king in the entirety Qin Empire history. Not only were local nobles loyal to him, even the people had a good opinion of him.


    A king could easily make people revere him, but it would be very difficult to make people feel friendly toward him. The Great Chanake was such a person and Nash was suddenly at loss for words.


    Then, he replied bitterly, ¡°His Majesty is still the one that I respect the most, but the King now, is your younger brother.¡±


    ¡°Nash, the order was given to you by Safilos, but not my poor brother. Open the city gate and let me pass. I shall pretend that you did not make this mistake.¡±


    Lex did not exin whether she wanted to attack or why she wanted to attack. The moment she spoke, it was as though all fault was on Nash. Nash was carrying out a military order, what fault did he have? Unless he was going against Safilos for Lex there was none. Did he want to stay alive?


    Lex was observing Nash¡¯s reaction, but suddenly a bodyguard got close to Nash and talked to him quietly. Nash¡¯s expression changed enormously.


    The east gate was opened and damaged. That was alright. There were two magic chariots that rushed into the city!


    That was like building two mini magic towers in the enemy¡¯s city. Nash felt as though his organs were burning within and he suddenly screamed, he spat blood and fell on the ground.


    ¡°It was a losing battle!¡±


    He could actually use the calvary on hand to escape. Would Safilos let him slip?


    ¡°General Nash¡­¡± The gray robed mage looked at Nash who fell. He wished to speak, but he did not on second thought.


    Nash raised his head and his eyes showed hopelessness. He swallowed his saliva with blood forcefully and smiled sadly, ¡°I understand that you do not want to offend Lex, you shall leave.¡±


    Sauron looked embarrassed, he did not want to offend Lex because he did not have a powerful backing mage. What if he had got to grade-6? If he were to hurt Lex, the three grade-9 sorcerers in Holy Rock city would probably give him a lot of trouble. Most likely he would be killed by Lex. There were six grand mages with Lex just to make the magic image bigger.


    There were only about fifty mages in the city and most of them were low level mages, they were not their match. The mages were basically the same as him, no backing. A real affluent mage would not follow an army, but would find a ce to practice magic themself.


    The mages that followed an army might be richer than lordlings, but in other mages¡¯ eyes, they were all poor.


    Lex was helpless too. What she did would mean that she was at the opposing side of Safilos and there was no turning back.


    Those stupid bastards at Holy Rock city, what was the use for the empire to stretch continuously? The royals could not even protect their own imperial n and they could not even control their nobles. Safilos might be courageous, but would he be able to make all nobles submit with the threat of force?


    When her father went on expedition, nobles all over the country sent soldiers to participate. There were of course private interests, but most importantly they approved of her father.


    Now? Even weak nobles in Phoenix rose in revolt against Holy Rock city. Was it still the Qin Empire? Where was the honor of the Grukos family?


    Although her father died, Lex¡¯s belief grew firmer. She would not be affected by those predictions anymore. Merlin was great, but she could not ruin her own life for another great person.


    ¡°Your greatness was not rted to me.¡±


    Lex had let go partially of her pressure. As she shed all pretences of cordiality, everything about the Qin Empire in the future would not be safeguarded by her. Not unless she became the Queen of the Qin Empire.


    Bitter Water Prefecture should be something that she safeguarded, just like what people in Phoenix were doing. If Safilos continued to push her, then it would be war.


    ¡°Teacher¡­¡± A white robed mage called softly next to Sauron. He hesitated deciding whether he should defend the city for Nash.


    ¡°All of you, leave.¡± Sauron¡¯s face grew sallow. He had four students with him and they were all carefully trained, all of them were white robed mages. He was only about sixty years old and he was very proud of it. The one outside of the city was only about twenty years old, maybe? She was already a grade-6 mage. Sauron already felt discouraged.


    ¡°Teacher!¡± The four white robed mages were shocked. They did not care whether they were to leave, but it would be dangerous for their teacher to stay back.


    Sauron smiled bitterly, ¡°I would not attack the princess, but I have to at least ensure the general¡¯s safety.¡±


    A mage must have pride. If Sauron were to leave then, he had to conceal his identity and never appear before anyone anymore. Surrender was perhaps the best option. He had topete first though. To surrender before fighting was such a humiliation.

 Chapter 434: Lex’s Determination (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 434: Lex¡¯s Determination (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nash fainted. Safilos sent him because he had a one-track mind and he definitely would not let Lex pass. He was one track minded and so, once he knew that he could not defend Fort Strand, he could not take it.


    Fort Strand had five thousand garrisons, ording to Nash¡¯s understanding. If Lex wanted to attack, no matter how strong her army was, she must at least have a one to one destruction ratio. Lex would not dare to pay such a price.


    Who knew when he gathered arge numbers of troops at the west gate, something would happen to the east gate.


    Gurney was eager to contribute and he had implications of risking his life to rush to the city. At that time, the mage that Lex sent to contact Daniel had yet to return.


    The white robed mage was killed by Gurney with a spike. No one was able to break the line of the iron shield defence formed by the Barbarians and that provided time for the magic chariots toe forward. When the magic chariots rushed into the city, no one noticed that the enemy had big amounts of mages. They released magic directly and massacred the soldiers.


    There were about a thousand people at the east gate and some of them were distributed at the top of the city wall doing patrol. The two magic chariots blocked the sloping path at the city wall and cut through the defences at the east gate. Even if Nash sent backups then, it would be toote. The city door had been destroyed entirely and the skeleton warhorses were rushing into the city.


    Death creature that could suddenly increase in speed were more suitable to fight within the city. Thest ten vehicles arrived and the pirates started eliminating the remaining soldiers while the Barbarians quickly changed into magic armor.


    The city gate battle went on for another five minutes, there were another twelve pirates and twenty Barbarians that died.


    Such fruitful war results were because there was no one managing Nash¡¯s soldiers after they were injured. The moment Daniel¡¯s magic chariot arrived, basically all the Barbarians that were injured were healed. Daniel¡¯s party had no more dead once the magic chariots arrived.


    Once the east gate was broken, Gurney started a fire with a bunch of pirates. They did not know that the battle on the west had exploded and no one was able to deal with this side. The fire was big and it almost burnt up half of the sky. Phoenix had too many wooden buildings unlike the middle part of the empire that had many stone houses.


    The empire¡¯s army in the west could see the fire that was soaring up on the east of the city. Under the influence of Lex¡¯s magic, they lost all fighting will. Nash fainted and themand failed. Everyone was fighting based off instinct at the gate.


    Lex¡¯s trebuchet shot a cluster of magic stone bullets and they all showered down on the entire gate. Nash was dragged down by his bodyguard so he was not stoned to death, but he did not wake up either.


    Sauron did not leave, but he did not heal Nash. He was afraid that Nash would be crazy when he woke up. Losing the city was not any loss to him. Safilos could not me it on him as there were too many mages on Lex¡¯s side.


    Looking at the trebuchet on the top of the city wall raised to counter attack. Lex immediately figured out that the other party¡¯smand system had a problem. She sent infantrymen to enter the city without hesitation. They pushed a huge roller extensiondder over and put it against the city wall.


    Lex did not fly up to fight, she was afraid that there would be a soldier who would shoot her with huge crossbow when they panicked. It was definite that the city would lose defence and Lex did not need take the risk.


    The top of the city wall was chaotic and their general had fainted, the war puppet beneath had started to climb upwards via thedder. The low level officers were discouraged.


    The battle had a drastic change all of a sudden. One of the soldiers threw his weapon down and surrendered. It was as though the practice was contagious, more soldiers threw their weapon and ran down from the city wall. They did not run far but gathered and waited for Lex to take them over.


    If the enemy was any other country, the soldiers would not do so, but Lex was the princess of the Qin Empire and everyone heard her conversation with Nash. No one felt repulsion towards Lex and they knew that Lex would not kill captives as everyone there were people of the Qin Empire.


    Bodyguards that were supervising operations saw such a situation and they drew out their sabres. They wanted to force the soldiers to fight, but there were too many soldiers that surrendered. The bodyguards shared a look and stopped their movement.


    Nash did not pledge his life to resist before he fainted. If they were to force the soldiers then, they would ignite repugnance and even catalyzed a mutiny.


    At the city wall, Lex sent a big troop made of Giants that were two meters tall who were holding huge shields to protect the mages. The fragmentary feather arrow could not hurt these mages, but these men of unusual strength were trying to let the mages control the war puppets in peace.


    The war puppets climbed up the city wall, waving their weapon to chase away the soldiers. Once the puppets got up, the remaining soldiers did not resist. They were all from the north of the empire and this was Phoenix, not their homnd. The one opposite was not the wicked Tanggsi people, but the princess of their country.


    By then, Lex felt at ease.


    Even though setting up a huge magic array and trebuchets spent a lot of her money, there were no deceased soldiers and that was Lex¡¯s top priority.


    It could not be said it was winning a military victory without shedding blood as the battle at the east part of the city had quite a number of sacrifices. The soldiers that were severely injured had yet to be healed. Daniel could not care less, he was there to break the city and usher Lex.


    There were few residents in Fort Strand, the fire that the pirates set did not burn many to death. In actual fact, when they appeared, any courageous resident would have escaped when they saw skeleton warhorses.


    Until the west gate opened and Lex¡¯s big troop entered Fort Strand, the war at the east gate had yet to end. The soldiers of the Qin Empire did not know who Daniel and the others were so they fought with their lives.


    Lex¡¯s calvary rode through the city with a mage and they used sound amplification magic to announce that Princess Lex had taken over Fort Strand. Then, the battle stopped.


    The battle at Daniel¡¯s side was tough. Although no one diedter on, everyone was injured. Gurney had no experience. Hemanded the pirates to attack the soldiers at the gate tower, but the soldiers of the gate tower defended with their typographical advantage. There was no progress even after multiple attacks because of that.


    Lex straightaway took over the duke¡¯s residence and gathered all the surrendered soldiers at the square. They were surrounded by heavy cavalry. What made the surrendered soldiers calm was, Lex¡¯s soldiers did not tell them to strip away their clothing.


    Qin Empire¡¯s clothing was made ordingly to their needs and the standard wasplicated. The clothing of an army in the north protected against the cold. If they were to have their clothing stripped away, many of the soldiers would have frozen to death. The heavy cavalry, who was looking after the captives, were reced with long spear soldiers.


    The long spear soldiers were not equipped with bows and arrows, the captives felt even more rxed. Most captives were killed with bows and arrows traditionally. When a captive was killed with arrows, it would be difficult to find out how a soldier died from their corpse. Everyone was even feeling thankful towards Lex. That was not considered as ridiculous, but amon thing that could be seen at the battlefield.


    There were two magic chariots that were stopped at the duke¡¯s residence and the Barbarians surrounded them in a circle to protect the war chariots. The mages around Lex were envious when they looked upon the two magic chariots. They thought it would be nice if they were to own them.


    The magic chariots magnifying function would not be able to bepared with a magic tower, but they cost more than a magic tower. If one had not reached grade-6, they would not be qualified to build it.


    Although Sauron was qualified to build a magic tower, he had no money. That was the sorrow of a mage like him, he followed the army because he had no money. Following Nash, he would not run into any trouble. He ran into Lex and Nash spat blood and fainted directly. That was very awkward for Sauron.


    Every year he would received tens of thousands of gold coins from the empire, but he did not help Nash to fight when he needed him.


    What other methods were there? A normal soldier dared to sh at Lex because it was a war. Even if he died, Lex would not take revenge at their family. He was different, he was a mage. If he were to attack Lex, he had to deal with the grade-8 sorcerers that backed Lex.


    Daniel saw Lex and Lex kept a straight face and did not rage. Daniel killed hundreds of empire soldiers and among the soldiers that were injured, there would be a big batch that would die or be disabled. That was a war, Daniel was there to usher her.


    In the hall, there was only one person standing before Lex, that was the grey robed mage, Sauron. The others were all seated and looking at the grade-6 mage.


    Lex spoke, ¡°Sauron, be my follower and I will not kill Nash.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± Sauron was shocked. He replied immediately, ¡°Your Highness, I am a poor mage, it would difficult for me to improve in this life. You should let me go. Nash did not do you any damage, just let him go.¡±


    ¡°No damage? If it wasn¡¯t for the battle at the east gate, I would at least have lost another two thousand soldiers, just to pass through here. I must have a reason to not kill Nash, otherwise, anyone would dare to block my way in the future.¡±


    Sauron suddenly understood that Lex wanted him to submit to also to give him an out. If Nash was really killed, it would be a troublesome matter. There were another few hundred thousand empire soldiers within Phoenix and if Safilos gave another order, it would possibly crush Lex¡¯s army.


    If she were to let Nash go, like Lex had said, the pride of a princess would vanish. There would be no one who respect Lex in the future.


    If there were exchange terms, it would be different. If Lex let Nash go because she wanted to take a grade-6 mage under her control, everyone would think that Lex was hungry for talent and would not think that Lex took a loss.


    If he himself, surrendered to Lex to save Nash¡¯s life would be considered as thest obligation that he did for Nash.


    Sauron then had a high opinion of Lex. Lex was The Great Chanake¡¯s daughter after all. She could resolved difficult situation just like that.


    Sauron smiled bitterly. If he rejected Lex¡¯s recruitment, he had to take partial responsibility for Nash¡¯s death. If Lex releasing him and killed Nash, he would have to leave the Qin Empire to live. No one would hire him with even one gold coin otherwise.


    If Lex were to shirk responsibilities and shift the me of Nash¡¯s death, spreading the matter around, he could only continue practicing magic in Tanggsi Empire.


    Such a scheme, such brutal stratagem!


    Just when Sauron was ovee with grief and indignation, Lex spoke again, ¡°If you follow me, I would let you promote to a sorcerer before you turn a hundred years old.¡±

 Chapter 435: The Royal’s Stratagem (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 435: The Royal¡¯s Stratagem (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sauron was terrified! He looked at Lex in horror.


    He had no doubt about Lex¡¯s ability, but he could not be promoted to a sorcerer due to money. The speed of practice was originally slow and he had to figure out ways to earn money. That took up a lot of time.


    He was already sixty-eight years old. Although he had another good forty to fifty years of life, ording to his progress speed, he would not have any hope of promoting before he died.


    Promoting to grade-7 sorcerer, his lifespan would be lengthened for another century. Even if he stopped there, his lifespan would have been doubled!


    Sauron was convinced. He could not refuse such a thing.


    ¡°My only condition is that this would be a secret between us.¡± Lex had a poker face on.


    Sauron nodded, he was thrilled and he even wanted to sign a contract immediately. He was afraid that Lex would go back on her promise. Most of the mages that had decent a foundation would stop at grade-5 because the expense to learn magic was too high. Many mages had to work really hard for magic materials, they had to be hired to get magic books.


    If there was no ident, such mage would be grade-4 grand mage when they were fifty and then grade-5 grand mage when they were seventy.


    The lifespan of a mage was not certain. A mage could get hurt when they practiced too. If there was no special meditation principle or amendments of magic liquid, a mage would not live to more than one-hundred and twenty years old. Most of the time, they died within a century.


    Sauron had been a grade-6 mage for a dozen years, but he did not progress much as he was gathering money to buy material to build a magic tower. That was something he could not get help with. If he did not build a magic tower, he would not even be able to feel the threshold of sorcerer.


    To promote as a sorcerer, one had to be in an environment that was rich in elements. Naturally, there would not be such environment, at least not on the Myers Maind. The only way to create such an environment was to build a magic tower.


    If one had a sorcerer as a teacher, they could borrow the environment of a magic tower. That was a benefit of having a teacher.


    The reason Lex could reach such a level at such a young age was definitely rted to the fact that she had a grade-8 sorcerer as a teacher. Compared to Saleen, the promotion of Lex was smooth sailing. On the other hand, a miraculous mage like Saleen, his progress was exchanged with his life.


    Saleen¡¯s progress was made under circumstance that he was nearing the end of.


    Following Lex, Lex needed at most another twenty years to be a sorcerer. As the princess of the country, it would not be a problem for her to build a magic tower. Sauron saw hope and he would not let pride cloud his judgement at that time.


    Mages had pride, but they formed a strict hierarchy. Lex was way stronger than him. After promising such benefits, Sauron could resist no more.


    ¡°I can let Nash go but I have to bring along these soldiers.¡±


    Sauron nodded blindly. He could not care less about the soldiers. In the mage¡¯s heart, he could not contain anything else. He could only remember a word, sorcerer! Sorcerer!


    ¡°Princess, what do you want those soldiers for? You will need to take care of them.¡± Daniel did not understand Lex¡¯s intention.


    ¡°Bring them along. If my uncle tries to send more people to stop me, I will kill all of them.¡±


    Daniel quivered in fear and did not ask further.


    Lex snorted and stared at Daniel with her blue eyes, ¡°What a nerve! You only have five hundred people, how dare you rush through the city gate. If I weren¡¯t at the west gate, you would be dead! Do you know that?¡±


    Daniel answered anxiously and fearfully, ¡°Why would we? We would flee at most. You saw us, we have skeleton warhorses.¡±


    ¡°Skeleton warhorses? There are more than a few hundred thousand soldiers within Phoenix. Could you outrun all of them?¡±


    Daniel took another breath, one tenth of his five hundred people died even under a situation when their magic suppressed their enemy entirely. If they were surrounded and blocked by a few hundred thousand soldiers, the only one who could escape would be him alone.The pikoosi ran too fast and any mages below sorcerer level could not catch up.


    ¡°There were three sorcerers in Guderian city and to invade Phoenix, they at least brought one with them. Daniel, if you were to be watched by a sorcerer, could you escape?¡± Lex seemed to know what Daniel was thinking about.


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t escape.¡± Daniel felt bitterness on his tongue and replied honestly. This was not Tanggsi. Besides Saleen, he had no other backing. He could run away from the Holy See because of his familiarity with the environment. Running around Tanggsi and Cloudflow for many years, he had many friends. In Phoenix, he spoke with western ng, even a farmer could tell that he was not from the Qin Empire.


    ¡°Hmph, I do not know why Saleen would feel safe to let all of you out. You think you are indestructible with two magic chariots? I have dozens of ideas to fight against you, do you believe it?¡± Lex could not help but scold Daniel on behalf of Saleen. Daniel¡¯s actions were too adventurous, he could possibly have led the five hundred soldiers that Saleen put together to be wiped out.


    Lex did not care about the soldiers that Saleen put together, but she could tell that the people that Saleen picked had a good foundation. If they were to be properly trained, they would be an elite troop. With Daniel using them as he wished, the soldiers would be gone before training was carried out.


    Gurney hid behind Daniel and kept quiet. He was the one who came up with the idea. Although it seeded, now that he thought about it, there were many ws in his n. The only thing that he did that deserved apliment would be him killing the white robed mage. If he did not killed the white robed mage, the Barbarians that were blocking the city gate would have been gone.


    Lex did not continue nagging, but started asking about Saleen and Daniel answered the questions one by one. She heard that the city that Saleen built was attacked by the expeditionary force from the eastern sea and she was d. Luckily, Saleen pulled a good trick to sink the enemy¡¯s warship. That was rted to the season as well. If it was summer, those warships could have gotten close to the city directly and shot rocks randomly. Saleen¡¯s limited troop would have suffered a great loss.


    ¡°Saleen, that bastard was too lucky. He even brought the three Kings under his control!


    After a while, there was a bodyguard that came in and saluted, ¡°Your Highness, the fire has been extinguished. How should we deal with the captives?¡±


    ¡°Take off all their clothing and change them into cotton padded clothes. Gather them together ording to programme of auxiliary soldier and bring them along.¡±


    Lex thought that over in her heart that with the amount of captives, although it would required food, she had God¡¯s Ring and she could empty the army provision in Fort Strand. She could bring them back to act as coolies at Saleen¡¯s city first. If Holy Rock city wanted her to release them, they would either have to exchange money or meet conditions that she requested. One would be opening a pathway in Phoenix that belonged to Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Lex got tens of thousands of captives and half of them were regr army soldiers. Holy Rock city could not afford to lose that amount of soldiers.


    The military system of the four empires was veryplicated, but they shared one simrity. That was that they were affiliated to the royal army directly. These armies would not be transferred to other nobles. A garrison at Guderian city was directly under Holy Rock city.


    To train such soldiers, it normally required five years or more. Such soldiers were differentpared to auxiliary soldiers, they spent all their lives in the war. Even after they were old, the royals would take care of them.


    The soldiers surrendered because the target was Lex, who shared the Grukos surname. If the enemy was the army from Tanggsi, these soldiers would fight until the very end.


    Lex dared not kill these soldiers because of that. If she were to do so, it would be an irreversible damage to the Grukos family. These soldiers in Saleen¡¯s city would not do much heavy work. If they were private soldiers of the nobles, Lex would not hesitate to send them to dig and mine until they died.


    Lex brought such a big troop to the north, there were many talents among the army. Some were magic apprentices that were specialized in mineral resource prospecting. These people would be sent out to find mineral veins on the tundra in the north once Saleen¡¯s city settled down.


    Lex did not need to pay taxes for mining, so no matter how low the benefits of mining in the north were, she could earn gold.


    Lex and Daniel had no time for casual chat, there were constantly underlings that came into the hall to report and ry orders. Lex made arrangements one by one and Daniel conceded defeat. If these things were to pass down to him, he could not even get one done right.


    Lex was way stronger than him, not only in magic. Saleen seemed to be good too, at least he followed the correct person. If Saleen was not there to pressure him, Daniel would probably still be a grade-4 mage, it would have been impossible for him to promote to grade-5.


    The captives were settled, Lex finished most of the tasks and ¡°patrolled¡± the storehouse of Fort Strand. Military machinery, army provisions, gold coins, magic nuclei, ore, all of them were stored inside Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring. If it was Saleen, he would be worried about those mountain of foods that could feed five thousand soldiers for a few years.


    Lex did not touch the magic tower outside the city. The mage that built the magic tower back then was not there anymore, but she did not break the rule. The trebuchet in the city was dissected and taken along without leaving a part behind. If it was someone else, they could not do that. Only Lex, a mage with such a godly item would be able to bring so many items along.


    Nash finally woke up to find himself imprisoned. Lex did not go to see him and did not let anyone talk to him. She sacked the captured Fort Strand for three days, dug down for three feet and did not leave anything that she could take behind.


    Lex only left with an intention, she did not care about things that were invaluable. She stayed back to sack the captured city with the same attitude, ¡°I would have wiped out whoever¡¯s house that provoked me.¡± There were at least tens of thousands of Qin Empire soldiers at the nearby city. Lex sent scouts to probe for news.


    If Safilos were to be angry out of embarrassment and ordered the other army to attack, Lex would be safer in Fort Strand. These three days, besides sacking the city, she repaired the east city gate. If there were an armies assembled nearby, she would guard there. It was extremely near to Lon and if Lex really could not, she could hirerge amount of soldiers to help her fight the battle. She had brought along arge amount of money.

 Chapter 436: The Royal’s Stratagem (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 436: The Royal¡¯s Stratagem (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was unlike Saleen, she was the Queen of a country. Tens of thousands of people had to rely on her to live. Her every movement and every decision would be responsible for all those people. Gurney could take the risk for wealth, but Lex could not.


    She stayed in Fort Strand for three days. She looked as though she was looting the storehouse, but in actual fact, she was observing the army nearby.


    Fort Strand was just a small city. At the bigger cities nearby, there would be teleportation portal that was connected to Holy Rock city. It might not be able to transport a human, but it would not be a problem to transport items and sound. Three days time was more than enough for Holy Rock city to respond.


    The very next day after Lex attacked Fort Strand, Holy Rock city received the news.


    Safilos looked worried in the prince¡¯s residence, but he was not in violent rage like how the others predicted. He was not stupid, he knew that Lex¡¯s move implied that she broke off with him and she would even start a war.


    The Grukos family had never had such an incident before. From how Safilos looked at it, Lex who was smart should know to back off. Safilos had made a mistake, not only did Lex not back off, but she took down Fort Strand directly. Nash¡¯s situation was unknown.


    Safilos stayed in the residence for the entire day, without managing any official duty until the second night. He sent an order to the chiefmander in Guderian city, to allow him to pass.


    Safilos understood Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s capability. Lex¡¯s soldiers were not any weakerpared to the swordsmen in Holy Rock city. If they were tounch a siege forcibly, Phoenix would copse. They had yet to settle the fighting with the Eastern Sea Allied Army, Safilos could not let the north have any more incidents.


    Three dayster, Lex received the news. There were about fifteen regiments that set off for Sr city to attack thest fortress in Phoenix.


    Sr city actually was already surrounded by more than five swordsmen¡¯s camps. Half of the swordsmen¡¯s camp went over and it was only an embellishment to what was happening. Lex then rxed, Sr city would not be able to defend themselves because the nobles in Phoenix did not keep the mages in Sr city and all of mages had left.


    The army in Guderian city did not attack ferociously because they did not want to damage Sr city. Holy Rock city conquered Phoenix, not because of hatred, but to take the manor in. Sr city was a thousand year old city, the value was high. If it was ruined by fire, the loss would outweigh the gain.


    Lex understood Holy Rock city was retreating to let her pass.


    Lex did not hesitate, but immediately sent down orders of advancing. She brought ten-thousand soldiers and ten-thousand auxiliary soldiers with a few thousand immigrants. Now there were another four-thousand captives. Thirty-thousand people set out to the north of Phoenix in mighty contingents.


    Then, something Lex did not expect happened. Along the way, there were many Phoenix nobles that came to seek refuge. Some of those nobles did not resist Holy Rock city, some had yet to lose any manor. Holy Rock city would not kill all of the nobles in Phoenix as they had to rope in some of them.


    Those nobles decided to seek refuge from Lex and they even brought their own armies and some loyal residents.


    Although the lordlings only had a few hundred soldiers, putting them together, there were also five-thousand soldiers. Apanied with residents, Lex¡¯s troop grew to fifty thousand and more.


    The residents that the nobles brought along were not one that had free meals. Most of them were carpenters. If they could follow the nobles to leave, the nobles must have at least taken care of dozens of generations of the carpenter families. They must have exquisite craftsmanship.


    Even the farmers that followed the nobles looked very familiar to Lex. Specifically a kind of farmers that were alike to magic apprentices that mastered some agriculture skill that allow the soil to grow more food.


    Lex¡¯s troop was getting bigger. When she arrived at the border of Phoenix, there were a hundred-thousand people. If she did not prepare countless amounts of goods and materials, she would not be able to handle so many people because mages were ten times the number of a normal army.


    It was already March, but the north of Phoenix was still snowing. If these people did not have high level military tents. Many of them would freeze to death.


    Lex¡¯s expenses expanded by a few folds. Fortunately, the nobles that left Phoenix helped Lex to bring along the food that was saved over the years.


    Lex would not be considered as taking a loss. She got a huge amount of crop seeds, magic fertilizer that was hoarded by the nobles, and metal ingots that were in the storehouse. There were even some nobles that told their underlinings to dismantle their houses and bring everything that they could bring along.


    Lex could not feel happy at all. These nobles had given up their hope towards Holy Rock city entirely, but they knew that they could not resist so they decided to seek refuge from her. In actual fact, the empire was starting to break apart. It started in Phoenix and due to her appearance it increased in intensity.


    Merlin¡¯s prediction was being realized gradually.


    On the sea at east-north, the battle ended in less than five minutes. Four grade-6 mages flew towards the dragon warship. On the bow of the dragon warship, there was a sudden gray light that shot out of the dragon¡¯s mouth. A grade-6 mage¡¯s shield was broken that instant and he fall into the sea.


    That was the way a dragon warship fought against an enemy¡¯s huge warship. After shooting the first time, it required another six hours¡¯ time to shoot the second time. In other words, it could only be used once in one battle. Such a magic ray with strong prative force would not have any attributes, or it could be said it had mixed elemental attributes. Igniting such magic rays did not require any magic nuclei with special attributes, but the number of magic nuclei required was huge.


    It was originally discovered when the cast technique of a magic cannon was lost to the world. It was a pity that there was no any actual fighting meaning. It could only be shot once in a battle after all, it was close to meaningless.


    It would not be useful if the attack power was any stronger, it was a mono attack.


    It could not be said that the magic array was useless to use on the sea. Such attacks from the dragon warship only needed to be used against the warship with the strongest defence, or any gship would do.


    With one attack, it could win against the biggest threat.


    The four grade-6 mages were considered unlucky as they gathered to fly towards the dragon warship¡¯s attack route. Such a magic ray did not have any aiming power, it was used for big targets. A target that was worth activating the magic array was basically any huge thing that was bigger than a hundred meters. The four mages flew forward side by side, supporting a magic shield that could defend against a crossbow, which was about twenty meters wide.


    Jade skeletons decided that the danger that the four grade-6 mages posed would be parallel to a huge warship, so they activated the magic array immediately. The spirits of the dead would not be worried about money. The one shot was like killing mosquitoes with a magic cannon. It shot right one of the grade-6 mages. The power of life in the mage¡¯s body was suddenly reced by messy elements and he was dead over and over again.


    The rest of the three mages did not know that was a one-time attack and dispersed out of fear immediately. They flew twards the dragon warship in three different directions.


    The ferocious looking dragon warship was covered in huge green scales and rode the waves with swift current as though it was a mutated giant dragon.


    One of the magesnded on the front deck only a dozen meters away from Saleen. He flew into the air and his elements were unstable so he did not release magic from above. The young mage on the deck was not any higher than grade-5, so he did not mind finishing the battle with close magic.


    The mage was experienced and he could tell straight away that Sika was not a swordsman and she did not train any sword aura. He thought he need not to worry about a mage that was only grade-5 either.


    Empiricist would cost their life. The moment the gray robed magended on the deck, Saleen released the water current from his cbash. A six meter long dark green water current suddenly weaved into a dark colored water ball in front of him. The water ball flew towards the mage and after the water ball, Sika leaped forward.


    The magic shield that the grade-6 mage used was the rarely seen Stone Dust spell. That was the only intermediate defence magic that couldpare favorably with ice te armor. The only downfall was it was a level higher than ice te armor, which was ten times the expense. To a grade-6 mage, it was not considered as a heavy expense.


    Theoretically, current cutter that just got to grade-4 could not break the defence of the Stone Dust spell, but Saleen¡¯s water current was alive and could be manipted at his convenience and it would not use up his magic chords. The mutated water ball knocked onto the magic shield and turned into four snake head like spikes and poked through the ck dust.


    The dark green water current was suddenly cut short while the ck dust was in total disintegration. Sika waved her cudgel and leapt forward. The grade-6 mage suddenly released a Wind de spell and added an ice te armor for himself. In his hand, he immediately had an extra magic staff too.


    The young mage opposite broke his Stone Dust spell that instant and he got serious. The wind de was to kill the female warrior and the magic staff was to fight against Saleen. This magic staff had a grade-7 magic stored within it and it was sufficient to kill a grand mage.


    He belittled Sika. He wanted to kill a warrior priestess with a level three Wind de spell, that must be a joke. Sika was wearing the armor that was made with the water me by Saleen. Even if it was abat fight, she could resist it. That was not something for a normal soldier to wear, Saleen made it with the best material he had.


    Sika did not want to take the risk, her left arm suddenly appeared with a water shield to block the attack of the wind de. Then, her cudgel broke the grade-6 mage¡¯s ice te armor.


    When the cudgel hit the ice te armor, there were ten spikes that popped up at the tip and the ice te armor shattered.


    Sika broke the mage¡¯s waist with one hit. Sika¡¯s cudgel continuously broke dozens of Saleen¡¯s water shields, an intermediate magic would not be able to withstand it.


    To fight against Sika, either be like a swordsman and fight hand to hand ,or be like archer and dodge it. To fight hard, the consequences were certain. In Sika¡¯s cudgel, there was not only material from the giant dragon, the main material was Faerun¡¯s set of metal cubes. That mysterious metal was melted into Sika¡¯s weapon, and just the material alone was not inferior to a semi godly item.


    Faerun straightaway promoted to grade-7 sorcerer from a grade-6 mage because of the weapons he made. Anyone who belittled the cudgel died, there were no exceptions.

 Chapter 437: Nailisi’s Pleasure (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 437: Nailisi¡¯s Pleasure (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    On the left side of the deck, there was another grade six mage that fell behind. He just got to the deck and he witnessed the death of his ally. Actually, the mage that died could have used strong magic to attack Sika and the result would be entirely different, at least the grade seven magic that was stored in his magic staff could have hurt Sika, or even kill her.


    Belittling warrior was amon mistake made by all mages, especially a warrior that did not train for sword aura. From the mages point of view, such people were not any different from nonentity and could be easily killed with one magic.


    The grade six mage saw that tragic scene. He recovered and wanted to fly from the deck again. He had decided to flee, they lost two of them in the blink of an eye. He felt that the situation was not very encouraging as the death mage was looking at him as though he was a dead person.


    Damn, there is a death mage!


    The battle between an element mage and death mage would not end very quickly unless their difference was vast. The other party was a grade five death mage, he could definitely dy him with countless negative magic and mental magic to made him feel overly cautious. If he was dyed, he might not be able to hold out against the female warrior that killed his ally.


    To a terrible mage, there were many descriptions. The worst kind would be a cowardly mage.


    The mage was timid. He almost took off again shakily and at the same time, he casted dozens of magic shields continuously for himself. The way he manipted magic was skilful that he could almostpare favourably with Saleen. Saleen couldn¡¯t cast dozens of different magic for himself directly but the mage could do it within two seconds.


    He then shot a huge ice arrow at Aini, it was also a mutated magic. The ice arrow was three meters long. Although it was as huge as an ice spear, its speed was a few folds.


    One who could mutate magic or level up magic, would be a genius. At least his maniption and understanding of element was very close to a sorcerer. The grade six mage looked like he was only forty over years old. If there was no ident, he could definitely be a sorcerer within thirty years.


    The timid mage was too aware of his own safety but he gave Aini too much time. Within the two seconds, Aini prepared a death explosion. He summoned skeleton bats that were palm size, it looked just like his fleshy death creature. The skeleton bat flew forward and exploded.


    The element mage that had dozenyers of protection could feel ck smoke sipping into his skin and got panicked. He took out a silver bottle and drank a mouthful of magic liquid. The itchiness on his skin did not disappear.


    His movement was in an awful mess and he couldn¡¯t fly anymore. Then, Nailisi came behind him quietly.


    Aini pointed and a dark green long barrelled gun that was a few meter long appeared out of nowhere. But it was actually formed by dead soul me and it struck onto the chest of the element mage directly.


    His first magic was a mental magic, the skeleton bat was changed magically with mental strength. There was no poison that seeped through but the disturbance of Aini¡¯s mental strength.


    The mental image affected the judgement of the element mage and allowed Aini to make a deathly move.


    me gun did not belonged under the category of magic. It was a attack when a death mage concentrated their power, it was like crystal finger that Saleen had learnt. Although it might not be as powerful as crystal finger, it was sufficient to kill and the expend wouldn¡¯t be as terrifying as crystal finger.


    Dead soul me was a substance from another dimension, it could easily prate the element shield, but it wouldn¡¯t affect the mental strength much. The element mage casted many types of magic on himself but he was shot through by Aini¡¯s gun. The dead soul me was burning on the element mage¡¯s body and he started screaming. The pain was as though someone was sshing acid onto his soul.


    His scream stopped. Nailisi stabbed her dagger into the back of his neck and through his throat. Even the counterattack magic that he was preparing before he died had dispersed.


    Nailisi twisted her wrist and the mage¡¯s skull fell off from his neck. Fresh blood was oozing out and Nailisi dodged in disgust. The mage seemed have to a repulsive smell and that reduced the pleasure of her killing by a lot.


    The two mages died straightforwardly and innocently. Nailisi and Sika didn¡¯t practice for any sword aura but their fighting powers had achieved a swordmaster¡¯s level. Both of their weapon was something a swordmaster had dreamt of.


    Saleen knew that he did not have sufficient people, so he made effort in his equipment. He was even willing to use magic beast material to make armour for a normal barbarian, let alone the two closest person to him.


    Thest magended from the rear deck and did not see what happened at the front. He did not see the pathway to enter the internal of the warship from the rear deck and he stunned. But, he didn¡¯t know that all the cabin doors of a dragon skeleton warship was closed normally in order to avoid water leakage when the warship stopped.


    The cabin on the deck was also locked under order of Saleen. The metal cabin door that was locked required mage to open with magic. But when he got onto the ship, he wasn¡¯t there to waste his magic chords to open the steel door.


    Saleen was surprised that the battle in front was resolved. Nailisi and Sika walked before him again. The mural attack was far ahead of his magic.


    But Saleen didn¡¯t not wait for the mage behind him to escape. If they were to fight face to face, the four of them was sufficient to keep the grade six mage. He didn¡¯t even take one look at the dead body but brought Aini to the rear deck.


    The rear deck was even wider, the grade six mage saw Saleen, Aini and the rest. He still didn¡¯t believe in what happened at the front deck. How could his allies be killed by the two weak mages before him in the blink on an eye.


    Saleen smiled at him from afar, ¡°Mr Mage, your allies had died. Now, let¡¯s fight fair and square. What do you think?¡±


    The grade six mage was panic stricken but he knew that the young mage before him was not lying. Otherwise, his two allies wouldn¡¯t let the magee before him.


    ¡°Fair and square?¡± The grade six mage sounded stuttered. He didn¡¯t know how his allies died, but he reckoned they were framed and killed secretly. It was the other party¡¯s ship after all, it was unknown if there was anything weird about the ship. If they were to fight fair and square, he wouldn¡¯t take the two grade five mages seriously, even though one of them was the more annoying death mage.


    ¡°Yes, very fair. Four of us against you.¡± Then, Sika and Nailisi gathered around him.


    It might be the cultural difference between ind nations from eastern sea and Myer Maind. Although the mage did not think Saleen and Aini was a threat, he thought of retreating. Safety first. He was a grade six mage and his flying skills were very well. It was not too far from the shore. So if there was no weird magic beasts, there was no problem ofnding on thend.


    Then, his body exploded in colourful lights and ran towards Nailisi.


    This was his exclusive flying skill, the activation speed was very fast but it required a distance to glide. Nailisi was his breach. He saw the blood stain on Sika¡¯s club and her armour was an object of envy, so Nailisi seemed to be a better target.


    The skill of the mage was considered amazing on Myer Maind. He was the youngest mage among the fleet, not even forty years old. He could y around the six elements and form a weirder magicpared to anti gravity spell. He made his body extremely light and travelled along the wind.


    Such flying speed was way faster than wind glide spell and it was activated instantly. As long as it was not under circumstances that he was constrained, it would also be the best skill for escaping. The most important thing was, such flying speed had defence power and attack power. Attack and defend in one, plus speedy movement, such magic was definitely discovered by himself.


    He knocked towards Nailisi and his body ignited colourful lights that had element ation attributes. Even magic armour would have been destroyed that instance. The mages were afraid of assassin, but with such skill, in the ind nations of eastern that assassins run wild, he had nevere across such danger.


    Once activated the magic instantly, any strong assassin would not be able toe close.


    What shocked him was the scene that happened before his eyes, the body surface of the beautifuldy opposite him was covered with ayer of current in green and purple colour and it formed a tight knitted. Then, thedy weed the crash.


    In this world, there is someone who can manipte thunder lightning?


    Nailisi caught her enemy¡¯s eyes with terror and she smirked, smug with sess. She embraced the mage that was panicking and held his neck with her arms.


    The colourful element current got in touch with Nailisi¡¯s electric, it was as though snowke came in contact with wild fire that it suddenly melted. Even the other magic that the mage was busy preparing ceased.


    Nailisi paused on purpose and told the mage, ¡°Then, I am going to break your neck.¡±


    In the mage¡¯s eyes were all terror. He realised that he couldn¡¯t manipte the elements around him and he couldn¡¯t even move his magic chords. Strength that he depended on all his life was suddenly divested before his enemy. What kind of feeling was that?


    The mage felt hopeless. Besides magic, he didn¡¯t have any other skills. The woman with a pair of emerald green eyes told him coldly that she was going to break his neck next.


    ¡°Let me go, I surrender!¡± The mage shouted. He didn¡¯t want to die, he was certain that he would be able to turn into a sorcerer if he was given enough time. The reason why he followed the army to the sea that time was because the King wanted to give him a semi godly item. If there wasn¡¯t such benefit, he wouldn¡¯t ever leave the ind.


    ¡°Do you really surrender?¡± Nailisi loosen her grip.


    ¡°I surrender. I will be your servant, we can sign contract!¡± Mage shouted shamelessly.


    ¡°Alright, I will ept you as my servant.¡± Nailisi smiled. When she saw the mage rxed, she suddenly put forth her strength in both her arms and broke the mage¡¯s neck.


    Saleen smiled bitterly while Aini stunned.


    Nailisi turned around and told Aini flirtatiously, ¡°I didn¡¯t lie to him. I only killed my own servant. What¡¯s the big deal?¡±

 Chapter 438: Nailisi’s Pleasure (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 438: Nailisi¡¯s Pleasure (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi like to lie to people and Saleen knew that long ago. Actually, Nailisi didn¡¯t do anything just to deceive people, she just particrly enjoy the extreme mood of human kind, extreme happiness and sadness, from heaven to hell.


    In demon dimension, the demon would only hunt for preys when they were hungry but they would taunt them before they eat their preys. What Nailisi did was not at the acme of perfection but it was enough for a man with weak will.


    What Saleen did not understand was, why was Nailisi in a hurry to kill the mage. He was a grade six mage! Even though he had a slightly disreputable character, he would be useful if he was kept as of then. If they signed magic contract, he was not afraid that the mage go back on his words.


    Aini was originally afraid of Nailisi and that was because she left a shadow in him back then. The fact that he could be friendly with Saleen and got more intimate was inseparable with the threat that Nailisi pose in his heart. Aini was a talented person, his gut feeling was extremely urately that he could judge what was was dangerous and what was safe.


    Many mages do not have such ability, minority of those who had such ability would be able to walk further down the magic path.


    Aini felt that if he could be in good terms with Saleen, Nailisi wouldn¡¯t do much to him.


    Aini wasn¡¯t wrong on that, people on Myers Maind wasn¡¯t sure what Luoluokaluo¡¯s ability consists. She left scent on everyone that was close to Saleen. Even though it was not demon dimension, it would not be difficult if Nailisi wanted to find people that she left the scent on.


    Luoluokaluo, elf among demons, had strong growth. Alternative among the demons, under harsh living condition in demon dimension, there would be one in ten thousand Luoluokaluo that could grow into adulthood. Before adulthood, Luoluokaluo would not get eight different kind of abilities continuously, but they would blend among countless of demon.


    Unfortunately, Nailisi was caught to Myers Maind by human kinds and held captive since young without any proper care. But she was also lucky that the ce where she was held captive was special and she lived and had a chance to evolve into adult form. If she was in demon dimension, she would have died ten thousand years ago.


    Not every demon could live so long. A lot of demon could only live for a few centuries.


    Nailisi swept down her hand and the ring was taken out from the mage¡¯s dead body. She then kept it in her pocket. The space ring was not dimension stone so it couldn¡¯t be kept it in her bracelet. Ovepping such magic space would lead to copse of the space. Although there might not be any danger, the ring would be ruin entirely and there wouldn¡¯t be anything left.


    The mage¡¯s magic power was strong. It was a pity that Nailisi caught him close and he lost control of his magic chords. The electric hadpletely ruined him.


    With the protection of thunder and lightning, it had the power to resolve all kinds of magic. As long as his level was not two levels above Nailisi, they couldn¡¯t kill Nailisi directly with magic. Nailisi¡¯s level was linked with Saleen. As Saleen was a grade five mage, only a grade seven sorcerer could possibly hurt Nailisi and a grade eight sorcerer would have the power to kill her instantly.


    Even so, if she could get close, even a sorcerer would be in danger. Nailisi was scarierpared to any assassin. An assassin couldn¡¯t affect the mage¡¯s magic chords after all and it couldn¡¯t affect the stability of the elements in the space.


    The most important point was, no one could tell that Nailisi was a demon and wouldn¡¯t possibly know that she had such strange power. Aini knew but he wouldn¡¯t dare to tell anyone.


    A normal woman that had never practice magic and had never practice sword aura, which mage would pay attention her? If it was Sika, at least her weapon would alert her enemy. The most frequently used weapon by Nailisi was only a normal Dagger. Most of the time, she fought bare handed.


    Nailisi was here to collect her spoils of war but the battle had not ended. There were three warships that escaped towards different directions. Originally, if the skeletons did not shoot the element ray, they could sink a warship straightaway and it would be easier to just go after two. Now that the three warships were fleeing towards different directions, their speed was at their maximum.


    The warship from eastern sea too had their secret skill in increasing speed, those low level mages on the ship was observing the situation with alchemy telescope. Four grade six mages being killed like vegetable on a chopping board. Why would these people dared to stay?


    Dozens of sailing crew in the cabin on the bottom of every warship were caught by swordsmen and escorted to the middle of a huge magic array to be beheaded. The spot where it was shed, blood sttered was ck in colour, just like heavy smoke. It spiralled upwards and casted into the magic array.


    The pattern of the magic array was dazzling bright red and it gave out reeking of blood.


    The creepy magic array was activated, the speed of the warship immediately increased and the alchemy parts in the engine was letting out an ear deafening sound. A hundred metre long warship was suddenly going forward at seventy miles.


    Even if Saleen¡¯s Dragon Remainsbat vessel produced bone spirit and could attack far range, the flying bone spirit wouldn¡¯t be able to catch up with the warships.


    The bone spirits produced in the spirit pool were wed. Their life span was extremely short. Once released, it would die in a few minutes and it could never find its target again. The speed of the bone spirit flying was just like a normal bird, not evenparable to a grade six mage.


    The flying speed of a grade six mage was almost a hundred mile so he could of course catch up with the warships but the flying speed of the bone spirit could barely be over seventy miles. They could still possibly catch up if it was warship that was going on fifty miles. If a target was going at about the same speed, after some time of pursuing, it would automatically drown into the sea and die.


    If Saleen brought his Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship, it could of course split into three routes. He himself would go after one while the alchemy ship and the Dragon Remainsbat vessel go after the other two, but now they had to let one off the hook.


    The boundless sea, once a warship escaped and the magicpass lost the enemy¡¯s track, it would be difficult for them to track it back.


    Nailisi, you all go after one and I will go after the other one, we temporarily let go of the one that fled to the north. Saleen was decisive and his body was already enveloped by clouds of mist. He soared up in the sky and chased after the warship that fled to the south.


    The grade six mages on the warships were all dead, the danger of Saleen going alone was not huge anymore.


    Sika was looking at Saleen that flew off from the deck. She gritted her teeth and med herself for yet to train her magic beast bones well enough. Otherwise, she would be able to help Saleen.


    In the ancient times, warrior priest could fly too but Sika then had no ways to. She had only became a warrior priest for a very short period of time, she was blind to more than half the power that a warrior priest possessed.


    Even so, the viges nearby, tens of thousand Caucasus still worshipped her like a treasure. It could be seen that the culture of Caucasus had been declining to a certain degree. Ten of thousand years ago, a Caucasus would only control a vige at most, about a few hundred people.


    Aini looked at Saleen¡¯s receding figure, he didn¡¯t hide his envious expression. Aini was a rather conceited person, but when he flies, he would need to rely of fleshy death creature and he couldn¡¯t fly as swiftly as Saleen, as stable and as strange.


    Saleen¡¯s body was engulfed in clouds of mist, the water element might not be rich but the speed of him flying in the air was not any slower than a grade six mage, even close to a grade seven sorcerer. The mist was fifty meter in diameter and wrapped Saleen right in the middle so other mages wouldn¡¯t be able to corroborate Saleen¡¯s exact location.


    Water element was not rich but it was extremely pure. A pure element would repel other elements. In other words, under such situation, the power of many magic attack towards Saleen would be lowered by one sixth.


    As he was engulfed by clouds of mist, mono attack magic would not be able to aim. So to attack Saleen who was flying, the best way was to attack in cluster or with range magic. But two of those attacks would be paid with the price of sacrifice.


    If you were to shoot ten thousand arrows at the same time, the one that really threatened the target would only be dozens of them. The same applied to range magic, attack power calcted as a whole, the energy require to release a range magic would be ten folds more than a mono attack magic or even to a hundred times. But range magic¡¯s attack power to an individual were less than mono attack magic.


    Saleen¡¯s power to chase after enemy would be risky sometimes, but if it were to be used for escaping, it was far too perfect.


    Dragon Skeleton Warship started moving and chased after the warship that fled to the east. The east side was the deep sea. After entering the deep sea, the magicpass in the dragon skeleton warship had no sea map, so it couldn¡¯t determine the location of the enemy¡¯s warship. Exceeding the distance that the magicpass could probe, the enemy could be considered escaped.


    The three of enemy¡¯s warship had fled separate ways, the dragon skeleton warship could not hide its secret no more. The two skeleton wings on both sides extended entirely. In the magic cabin, jade skeleton iyed high level magic nucleus onto the magic array to push forward the warship with full force.


    The wind element was suddenly intense by ten folds and there was strong power under the skeleton wings on both sides of the dragon skeleton warships. The bottom of the warship was nearly off the sea surface and it flew forward.


    If they would want to make the entire warship fly, even iyed dragonshaft wouldn¡¯t do. But that was power produced with non magic. The warship shook off the resistance of sea water with the aid of air current and its speed was suddenly more than a hundred miles.


    A few people on the deck were suddenly unsteady. Aini nearly knock his head on the outer wall of the cabin, Nailisi nted both of her feet into the deck, while Sika plunged her club into the deck though she nearly fell on the ground.


    While the warship from eastern sea being chased after by the dragon skeleton warship, the low level mage that was still observing with alchemy telescope. He panicked as he saw a two hundred meter long warship flying.


    How does the spy work? Qin Empire had such warship, why didn¡¯t he hear it from them before!


    Suddenly, someone started to semaphore and asked to surrender. Kredian did not hesitate. Before Saleen left, he asked to sink the warship.


    Now that he knew that Saleen had the power to salvage a sunken ship. If he were to sink the ship, the things on the ship would eventually be his.


    They were all spirits of the dead operating the dragon skeleton warships, so they wouldn¡¯t have much sympathy but only knew to follow their owner¡¯s order. Once the warship that surrendered slow down, dragon skeleton warship immediately got close.


    They were only few miles apart and it was within the range of alchemy telescope. The dragon skeleton warship knocked onto the rudder from the back directly.


    The people of the dragon skeleton warship were suddenly shaken and the enemy¡¯s condition was obviously worse. At the end of the warship had a huge hole, the people on the warship took ten folds of the vibrationpared to the people of the dragon skeleton warship.


    The dragon skeleton warship suddenly stopped and mmed onto the sea surface. That sshed a ten metre high wave.

 Chapter 439: The Price to Stay Alive (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 439: The Price to Stay Alive (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen pursued one of the warships alone. He took heed from the previous example, four grade-6 mages were framed by Sika and Nailisi. If there was anything strange about the enemy¡¯s warship, he would not be able to withstand. When Saleen caught up to the warship, he did notnd but opted to attack with a magic scroll at the rear deck that had no alchemy crossbow.


    On the escaping warship, the soldiers and the sailing crews were terrified to see the cloud of mist in the sky that descended to a dozen meters above the rear deck. Among the cloud of mist, there was constantly low and intermediate magic cast out. The rear deck was broken in a sh and it revealed the cabin at the bottom.


    The most terrifying thing was, the first among those spells cast had destroyed the rudder. Without a rudder, the warship was like a fly without a head, its body was shaking vigorously.


    A magic warship and a normal sailing ship were different. In order to get speed, the stability was not as good. If there was no damage or no high speed travelling, there would not be any problem. Now that the warship had increased its speed to its highest and it had suddenly lost its rudder they were in trouble. Relying on the streamline of the hull, it would not be able to resist the water current.


    After Saleen took care of the rear deck and made sure that there was no target that could threaten him, he then released the water current from his cbash and let the water current split the warship.


    Saleen was extremely skilful in doing so as when he was building Metatrin city, he used the water current to cut stones. For a few months time, his mental strength was trained to be tenacious and pure.


    He learned that way from Lex. At Bitter Water Prefecture, the mages would use all kinds of methods to practice magic, a lifestyle mage was one of the examples. Even when they prepare and cook a meal, or cleaned up thepound, they would incorporate magic practice into their task.


    The method of practice was very beneficial for mental strength and it could let the mage¡¯s body react naturally. At any point in time the mage would be able to steady their status quickly, assemble elements, and make use of magic chords.


    ¡°Magic is everywhere¡±, that was the slogan for mages in Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Right in the middle of the warship, an amplification magic array projected the voices of people begging for mercy. The metal armor of the warship was split open by the current cutter and they dropped into the sea bit by bit. The warship looked like it was going to disintegrate from the back.


    The low level mages could not fly and could only surrender.


    Saleenughed coldly, ¡°The hundred of swordsmen that I have on the warship surrendered once, but you left their dead bodies on an abandoned ind. Eastern Sea Allied Army, once I see you, I will not let any one of you go.


    He had dealt with the people from the Ind Nations of the Eastern Sea before. Saleen had a very straightforward understanding of the people. They were treacherous and cunning, not one that was sincere. Once you believe in them, you would receive retribution very soon.


    These people had no sense of honor. After they surrendered to you, they would betray you again. Things that they promised you, they would not take to heart. People from the eastern sea only looked upon the benefits before their eyes. They only believed in those that they couldy their hands on.


    Saleen could not care less about them begging for mercy on the sea surface, but quickly opened another magic scroll and poured another spell.


    Mages who would bombard magic were not any good mages, but Saleen¡¯s aim was simple. He wanted to sink the warship before his eye with the safest method.


    The speed of releasing a magic scroll was slow and the gold coins spent were a lot, but it would not expend any of Saleen¡¯s magic chords. No matter what kind of ident, he would flee from the battlefield with his battle power maintained at his highest.


    He could kill three grade-6 mages thatnded on the dragon skeleton warship, the opposite party had never seen such case before.


    As long as he did not leave the protection range of the cloud of mist they could not do anything to him, unless they had a sorcerer of course. There would be hardly any sorcerers that would go out to the sea with the ships. Even if there was a sorcerer in the eastern sea allied army, they would be thinking about issues onnd regarding how to attack the middle of the Qin Empire instead ofing to the sea to look for a lost fleet.


    The warship on the sea surface lost its rudder and it could not turn around. The formation of clustered alchemy crossbows on the front deck could not threaten Saleen at all. Even if the warship could turn around, it was impossible to be any faster than Saleen¡¯s flying speed. Saleen was chasing after the rear of the warship for attack, he was not willing to expose his body under the attack of crossbows.


    Any alchemy crossbows that were able to threaten a grade-5 grand mage would be really heavy and required fixed support. For a warship on the sea, weapons like crossbow were two extremes. They were either delicate and could be used for close attacks by the soldiers or were the huge kind that could shoot fire arrows to set the enemy¡¯s ships on fire.


    What an alchemy crossbowcked the most against a mage was when the enemy¡¯s mage appeared, one¡¯s own mage would fight against them. The grade-6 mages on the warships were already dead and there was no mage that could ensure the warship¡¯s safety.


    Saleen felt overjoyed, the hundred of the swordmen¡¯s dead bodies on the abandoned ind had became a shadow that suppressed his heart and remained there. Even if he sunk the all enemy¡¯s ships and killed tens of thousands of their men, Saleen would still feel sorry towards the swordsmen.


    He was a mage that climbed from the bottom after all, he never had the attitude that looked uponmoners as nonentity. He was responsible for the deaths of those swordsmen. If he were to maintain one of the two warships running, it would not happen. He told them to surrender as he was afraid that the swordsmen would resist unnecessarily.


    Saleen was not angry at all, but sad. Those people that followed him died meaninglessly. If he did not make his enemy pay back ten-thousand fold, he did not know how to face himself.


    The safety feature at the rear deck was destroyed entirely, Saleen then released a few mutated fireballs calmly to set the warship on fire.


    Without the metal shell or the protection of a magic array, the warship that was built withrge amount of wood quickly turned into a sea of fire. A few low level mages tried to extinguish the fire with magic, but whenever the fire got weaker, Saleen would throw another fireball.


    The people on the ship were finally hopeless and there were people that jumped off into the sea. The environment was different from ind nations in eastern sea, the sea water was cold to the bone. Sailing crews who were familiar with water would still freeze to death within a minute. Even swordmasters that had sword aura could not resist for too long.


    Saleen did not go after people that jumped off into the sea. It was a few hundred miles away from thend. Even if they wanted to swim back, that would require half a day¡¯s time. His body was a body of water element magic and sea water would not damage him at all. Those people were just people that would die in a matter of time.


    A shadow flew up from the sea of fire in a wobbly fashion. It was a grade-4 gray robed mage. The mage was burnt all over and half of his hair and beard were gone.


    ¡°A grade-4 mage that can fly?¡± Even though he flew with the aid of magic staff, the mage¡¯s understanding towards the wind element certainly had reached the level of a grade-6 mage.


    ¡°That¡¯s a pretty decent genius,¡± Saleen looked at the mage coldly.


    The gray robed mage did not run towards thend, he knew that among the cloud of mist on the sky, there was a hidden mage that would not let him leave. The distance that he could fly was very short, he would most likely drop into the sea before reaching thend.


    The mage came before Saleen¡¯s cloud of mist and looked up miserably. He shouted, ¡°You! Why didn¡¯t you give us a way out?!¡±


    Saleen suddenlyughed. The mage used all his strength to maintain his flying, he could not even use his mental strength to open a magic scroll. The cloud of mist before Saleen went suddenly transparent to reveal his face to the gray robed mage.


    The voice of the gray robed mage stopped when he saw Saleen¡¯s extremely young features. Such a strong mage that did not even look any older than twenty. No wonder he could not control his emotion and was filled with a murderous anger, even more brutalpared to the other assassins.


    ¡°If he was young, any stronger would be easy to deal with.¡± The grade-4 mage steadied his mind and changed his tone, ¡°My dearest mage, we had surrendered. Please allow a few of my fellowrades onto a lifeboat. There were another four mages and dozens of magic apprentices. Our King would be willing to buy us back with money.¡±


    The grade-4 mage said this carefully andplemented Saleen once more.


    ¡°In your eyes, we might not be anybody. Why not exchange us with gold coins or rare magic material?¡±


    ¡°At first, I didn¡¯t even want to talk to you.¡± Saleen paused and continued, ¡°There is something that you don¡¯t understand. I¡¯m not killing you because I wish to, I wished that I had never seen you. It was all of you that came here from tens of thousands of sea routes away. If you are here, it was fate. Either you die or I die. Regarding money, do you know how many magic scrolls I just cast?¡± Saleen replied in a satirical tone.


    The gray robed mage¡¯s face suddenly grew embarrassed. The magic scrolls that Saleen threw down were at least eighty if not a hundred. That was not including intermediate magic scrolls. Saleen had spent tens of thousands of gold coins and it did not seem to wring his heart.


    ¡°To bribe me, you have to at least be more wealthy than I am.¡± Saleen took out a Silver Magic Book casually and held in his hands, ¡°Look at this, how much does it cost?¡±


    The gray robed mage was at a loss for words. A Silver Magic Book, even it was in the legendary Alchemy City, it was not something that could be bought with gold coins. With the Silver Magic Book, a grand mage had the chance to release an extra eighteen intermediate spells without expending of any magic chords.


    Saleen left the Silver Magic Book, but used one-timed items to attack the warship. He obviously did not mind about expending it before his eyes.


    He did not know, not that Saleen did not care. The concept that he upheld was to act ording to safety first. If he had a choice, he would never resort to using a magic book and magic chords. To be able to finish the battle with grade-1 magic, he would never use grade-2.


    After Lex left, even when Saleen was in the temple under strong protection, he would keep his guard up.


    Saleen suddenly changed his tone and said, ¡°If you want to leave, it¡¯s not like there¡¯s no way to.¡±


    The gray robed mage was delighted, ¡°This young mage had his weakness. It¡¯d be great to stay alive. In the future, if I have the chance, I will find a way to take revenge.¡±


    ¡°I want the sea map and constetion map from eastern sea to the Myers Maind.¡± Saleen smiled faintly.


    The gray robed mage¡¯s heart was suddenly in his stomach again. He did not have those things. The sea map from eastern sea to the Myers Maind would only be in the sorcerer¡¯s hands or with a family that was stronger.


    ¡°I want to drive my warship to the eastern sea for a trip. If you can¡¯t give me what I want, then you can only die.¡±

 Chapter 440: The Price to Stay Alive (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 440: The Price to Stay Alive (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen told the eastern sea mage to die straightforwardly. The grade-4 mage had thousands of ideas running in his head. Then, he realized that the young mage before him could not be moved with slick talk.


    In the ind nations of the eastern sea,nguage was the most powerful weapon. Even before a battle, both parties had to have a heated verbal exchange to suppress both parties¡¯ imposing manner. This young mage was like a lofty mountain by the side of the sea, sshed on by the waves for tens of thousands years without moving an inch.


    Saleenughed coldly. Looking at the mage, his right hand was pressed onto the Silver Magic Book. Once he flipped open the magic book, he would be able to release the stored magic. It was extremely convenient to use the magic book, the stored magic was dozens fold more powerful than a magic staff. It was sufficient enough to y the mage before him.


    Saleen wanted the sea map and constetion map of the eastern sea as he already set his mind on establishing the sea route. Although ind nations of the eastern sea sent tens of thousands of soldiers to go on a journey to the Myers Maind, Saleen could tell that the nations in the eastern sea were all too small and there were too many of them. It would be difficult to unite. They had yet to make a breakthrough at the north of the Qin Empire.


    The expeditionary force exposed itsrgest weakness and the warships from eastern sea were not strong enough, that meant that it was about the same as Cloudflow Empire. They could not even bepared with warships from Sregl Ind. As long as it was not sieged, Saleen¡¯s dragon skeleton warship could fight against dozens of them, one after another.


    If there was not any sorcerer among the eastern sea fleet, Saleen could even encroached on them with the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat through a surprise attack again and again.


    If there was not an expeditionary force that looked strong, Saleen would not have the idea to. Once the expeditionary force was defeated, the vitality ind nations of the eastern sea would be severely sapped. If Saleen had the sea map, he only needed dozens of warship to seize the eastern sea.


    He did not have dozens of warships then, but he would have them two yearster. There were not too few warships in Sregl Ind, and they had workers that specialized in ship making. As long as there was material, they could make many warships anytime.


    The grade-4 mage knew that it was a life or death situation as Saleen¡¯s eyes grew colder and he obviously lost his patience. He gritted his teeth and said, ¡°Mister mage, the sea route was in the hands of a sorcerer. It is impossible for me to have it, unless you held a sorcerer captive. Or, the grand general of the expedition force has it too. Small mages like us definitely would not have it.


    Saleen was surprised when the grade-4 mage called himself a small mage. On the Myers Maind, once one entered into grade-4, anyone would pay respect to a mage. It seemed that the position of mage was not high in the ind nations of the eastern sea.


    Saleen got it right, the ranking of mage and swordsman was about the same in the ind nations of the eastern sea. There was no special treatment, only bing a sorcerer would be able to receive respect. There were many assassins in the eastern sea and a mage would easily be assassinated before bing a sorcerer.


    Within a ten-thousand mile radius in the entire eastern sea, the political situation was rted to assassination. In the eastern sea, an assassin was the scariest type of person. There was no professional union but the Assassin Association.


    ¡°You are quite useless then?¡± Saleen did not see a death wish in the grade-4 mage¡¯s eyes. He knew that the mage had something to say, so he triggered him further.


    ¡°No, no, mister mage, there is another way to get the sea route.¡±


    ¡°Things that are too troublesome, I do not want to hear.¡± Saleen said casually, but he did not take action.


    The grade-4 mage said helplessly, ¡°Of course, I am willing to pay the price for the trouble.¡±


    Saleen saw that he was being a hoodlum, he could not help butughed. He said, ¡°Tell me.¡±


    ¡°Mister mage, can we talk down there? I can¡¯t hold on any longer.¡± The grade-4 mage pleaded. He relied on the stored magic in the magic staff and he could barely fly. The magic in the magic staf seemed to be running out soon. If he did notnd then, he would fall into the sea. ording to his body mass, he would freeze to death within half an hour.


    ¡°If I am unhappy with the things that you tell me, then¡­¡±


    ¡°Mister, I beg you to let myrades live.¡± The mage pleaded, the fire on the warship was still burning in rage.


    ¡°If you give me news that is important enough, I will kill all of them to shut them up. If I¡¯m not impressed at the news that you gave me, those people will die anyway. Just follow me.¡± Saleen would not care about the mage¡¯s request, but released a cloud of mist and engulfed the grade-4 mage to fly back.


    It was impossible for the mage to save hisrades. As long as everyone was dead, the mage would not be able to return to the eastern sea because they would not believe in the mage anymore. ¡°Why did everyone die and only you lived?¡±


    The human heart was the most difficult thing to fathom. Saleen learned the way of doing so from Nailisi.


    The magic staff could not release any power for flying anymore. The grade-4 mage was brought along with Saleen and he dared not do anything to Saleen as Saleen hid in the cloud of mist again. Without Saleen, he would drop into the sea.


    Saleen found the dragon skeleton warship very quickly and hended with the grade-4 mage. He directly entered the cabin on the deck. Nailisi saw that Saleen brought a captive and she rushed everyone out of the room besides herself and Sika.


    Nailisi did not think that Saleen would be soft hearted and keep any captives. When Saleen saw the dead bodies of the swordsmen from Sregl Ind, Nailisi could feel the sorrow at the bottom of his heart.


    The captive should have some secrets. If it was a secret, the less people that found out the better.


    Nailisi dared not rush Sika aways. Not only was Sika a better fighter than she was, Sika¡¯s position in Saleen¡¯s heart was not lower than hers either. ¡°This person would give birth to master¡¯s child, it would be unnecessary to get into trouble with her.¡±


    Nailisi passed a chair to Saleen and grabbed another one for Sika while she stood next to Saleen. The grade-4 mage saw that the young mage that held him captive kept two women next to him and thought to himself, what if he surprise attacked him?


    ¡°Forget it, there were a hundred swordsmen out there and a grade-5 mage too. Even if I hurt the mage, I wouldn¡¯t be able to escape. He looked at Saleen¡¯s facial expression that looked like he was smiling but not, he was suddenly awakened.


    So what if there was no one outside? Could he drive such a big ship alone? If he couldn¡¯t, did he want to swim back?¡±


    ¡°Mister mage, my name is Aesop Faustin.¡±


    ¡°Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Mister Saleen, I can sign a contract with you first to guarantee what I said was the truth.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to. There are loopholes in the contract. What if you said that you would follow the contract, but you hide something from me? I wouldn¡¯t be able to kill you. Say it straight, the people in this room will be able to tell if you lie to me.¡±


    Ever since he brought the Three Kings under his control, Saleen knew that the magic contract had ws too.


    The power of a magic contract was an inability to breach the rules. The sentences of the contract could create an illusion to make you feel the contract was just or extremely lopsided though.


    Aesop smiled bitterly and gave up on ying a fool of Saleen.


    ¡°Mister Saleen, let me tell you the important points. The sea map and constetion map from the eastern sea to the Myers Maind can only be retrieved from the sorcerer. Although you are strong, to capture a sorcerer among an army would be impossible.¡±


    ¡°Sorcerer! Last month, I¡¯ve killed one.¡± Saleen recalled the sorcerer that the three Kings killed and told him casually.


    Aesop left his mouth hanging. He knew that Saleen was just saying that, but not to refuting him. Even if Saleen could frame a sorcerer, it would be under special circumstances. It would be impossible if he were to really capture the person from the allied army.


    ¡°But, mister, if you want to go to the eastern see, it¡¯s not necessary for you to get the sea map and constetion map.¡±


    ¡°Are you talking about a magicpass? I¡¯ve tried. The mage had erased this piece of information from all the magicpasses on the ships.¡± Saleen knew what Aesop was going to say and cut it. The twelves ships that were sunk by the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, besides the fully armed merchant ship, had magicpasses. Everypass was taken care off. The eastern sea allied army obviously did not want anyone to find out the secret of the sea route and did a thorough job.


    Saleen only managed to analyze one thing. It was that every five hundred miles that the fleet went, they would purposely erase the trace of the sea route so that the magicpass was unable to recover the information. If the enemy held the warship captive, there would not be too big of a danger that way.


    To get to the eastern sea, was impossible without the constetion map and sea map. Especially the constetion map, they could tell the season and urately determine the safest time to travel the sea route. Between the eastern sea and the Myers Maind, there were tens of thousands of miles of coastal areas and territorial seas called the Stormy Sea. Gale-force wind battered there all year long. Not only the dragon skeleton warship, but not even a giant dragon would not want to move around there.


    The wind had its pattern, especially rted to season. The people from eastern sea spent years and sacrificed lives to be able to figure out a sea route.


    If it was only wind, Saleen could go through with the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat under the sea. A few hundred meters below the water, the effect of wind would have disappeared. The deep sea magic beast may not be any weakerpared to the Oceanic Ice Block though. There were grade-9 magic beasts everywhere. Saleen could remember clearly that he fled with the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat. In the deep sea, the human power was so small.


    ¡°Mister Saleen, only I know the secret¡­¡± Aesop hesitated. He did not intend to negotiate conditions with Saleen but said, ¡°On the warships of eastern sea, the alchemy telescope is extremely huge. The usage of it is different from the ones in the Qin Empire. Actually, suchrge alchemy equipment has memory.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen was interested then. He found the alchemy telescope on the sunken ship. Although Nailisi brought it back, Saleen threw it into the storehouse. Compared to the alchemy telescope of Qin Empire, the eastern sea¡¯s was too heavy and the effect seemed to be one third of the Qin Empire¡¯s.


    ¡°My grandfather was a pirate once¡­.¡± Aesop brought up about his family and he looked proud as though being a pirate was something to be boastful about, an even higher rankingpared to a mage.


    Saleen was not surprised, the people in the eastern sea had something wrong in their heads. There were many mages that did not research about magic, but ran to the Myers Maind to help the Kings from the smaller nation to invade. He listened to Aesop quietly as he was not concerned about Aesop¡¯s origin and he was not concerned if his moral standards were simr to his.

 Chapter 441: Rough Stone (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 441: Rough Stone (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°My grandfather has over forty ships, thergest is almost as big as thisbat vessel of yours.¡±


    Aesop¡¯s words left Saleen in shock. A pirate had over forty ships, this was a formidable force in the Qin Empire. Did Lianyun City have fortybat vessels? Probably not.


    ¡°Over forty ships? Then how did you be a mage and not take over the family business?¡± Saleen could not help but ask.


    He was not ridiculing Aesop. If he had inherited over forty ships back then, he would not have chosen to be a mage.


    A fisherman¡¯s roughed up boat was worth hundreds of gold coins, a pirate ship was probably worth over ten thousand gold coins. If he had four-hundred-thousand gold coins, the beggar back then would not have chosen the journey of a mage.


    ¡°Back then, my grandfather had a decent rtionship with a few big pirate gangs, they started threatening the safety of dozens of countries. The emperor hired an assassin group to deal with them because of that,¡± he sighed.


    Saleen felt that whatever he was hearing was incredibly extraordinary. An emperor hiring assassins to deal with pirates; if such wordsnded in the ears of the wealthy in Qin Empire, they would beughing their asses off.


    Aesop continued speaking angrily, ¡°These emperors had allowed my grandfather to be pirates back then. They then turned their backs and hired assassins, they are simply untrustworthy.¡±


    Aesop¡¯s words left Saleen reeling, the emperors had actually asked people to be pirates.


    This was not actually unusual in the Eastern Sea. There were many countries there and any war between them would hurt the vitality in the region, they would then be taken advantage of by other countries. The emperors would create pirates to harass other countries and steal their goods to replenish their warehouses.


    Some pirates¡¯ development was too good and would even take down their own emperor and form their own country.


    ¡°My grandfather had a spy in the pce and when he received the news, he ran away with his most trusted subordinate and hid in some other country.¡± Aesop could not stop talking about the glory of his family.


    Saleen quickly interrupted him and said, ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the important matters, how can I get to the Eastern Sea?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­¡± Aesop was a little embarrassed before he quickly stopped himself and said, ¡°To cross the Stormy Sea, the key is changing one¡¯s route during the different seasons. Even then, there is a certain risk to it. Twenty percent of the ships have been destroyed in just this expedition alone, a few of them were struck by magic beasts and had sunk. There would be a temporary gship among every group that has an alchemy telescope on it to record down everything along the way. All the information is stored within the gemstone in the core of the telescope. Upon reaching the destination, the gemstone will be reced.


    Was this not the same as not saying? Saleen had removed the alchemy telescope that had crossed the Eastern Sea but he had not found anything useful.


    ¡°For arge alchemy telescope, the base to iy the gemstone might have infused with the gemstone itself after many years of usage, however. As long as the base isn¡¯t destroyed, I can recover some of the information. Of course, there wouldn¡¯t be a magic illusion but I can deduce the time, coordinates and the angle of the constetion. This is the special skill of my grandfather.¡±


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t he a pirate?¡±


    ¡°Of course, he was a pirate first before a mage.¡± Aesop started being a little long-winded.


    ¡°It would be very troublesome to calcte it, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Saleen did not want to linger on such useless topics, he caught the crux sharply.


    ¡°It is a little troublesome, moreover, we set off from the Eastern Sea this time and it took five months to reach our destination. We had changed our routes a few times. To replicate the information from the base, we need to use the Kamar Form, which is what you all call the Figaro Form.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s face remained expressionless, he had already grasped the method of calcting it quickly. For other mages, using the Figaro Form to replicate the original information was aplicated process.


    Aesop did not know this and he could use this to get more information from him. Saleen then said, ¡°Five months worth of information would take fifteen years to replicate. Do you think I have a lot of time?¡±


    Saleen was right, replicating magic information would take at least six times longer than the time needed to record it. Of course that was if the information was calcted alone. If there were more mages who had grasped the Figaro Form, the speed would be much faster. Such calction did not need to be done alone.


    Mages that had grasped the Figaro Form needed to be at least grade-6. Under normal circumstances, there would not be that many grand mages wasting so much time and focus on a single person.


    Such calction, besides increasing their focus minimally, would not help their magic at all. To let a bunch of people on the verge of bing a sorcerer waste their focus on that, it was more unbearable than asking them to die.


    The boring replication of data was given to the low-grade mages to do. In that case the number of low-grade mages needed would be a horrifying number, even Lex would not be able to provide that many low-grade mages.


    ¡°No, no, no, Master Saleen listen to me; such calctions could be helped with a magic array.¡±


    ¡°Magic array? Wouldn¡¯t that waste a lot of magic nuclei?¡± Saleen askedughingly.


    ¡°Not necessarily, a rough stone could power the magic array too, especially such low-grade ones.¡±


    ¡°Rough stone?¡±


    ¡°It is a type of calcite that can rece low-grade magic nuclei. I know a mineral vein nearby. The few ships that you had sunk were preparing to take over the mineral vein, if not there wouldn¡¯t be that many mages too.¡±


    Saleen immediately became serious, this information was too important, important enough to exchange for Aesop¡¯s life. On the Myers Maind, magic nuclei could not be reced. Although the rough stone that Aesop mentioned could only rece grade-3 magic nucleuses and below, it was these low-grade magic nuclei that magescked the most.


    A high-grade magic nucleus was rare but not many people used it, there were not many sorcerers on the entire maind. It was different for low-grade magic nuclei, there were over one-hundred-thousand mages in the Qin Empire and every low-grade mage longed to get their hands on low-grade magic nuclei, not the high-grade ones.


    The people from the Eastern Sea had managed to find a recement! There was a mineral vein near Metatrin City!


    This was not just about getting rich overnight, since the people from the Eastern Sea found this mineral vein. They would obviously want to take over it. If he wanted to get his hands on the rough stones, he would need to fight his way past the expedition army of the Eastern Sea.


    This information was far more important than the sea routes of the Eastern Sea. If Saleen wanted to send a fleet to the Eastern City, he would need to prepare for more than a decade. With this rough stone, he could start a war right now.


    ¡°These few ships, they were sent by the allied army to find the rough stones?¡± Saleen repeated.


    ¡°Not exactly.¡± Aesop did not dare to hide anything as he told Saleen the truth.


    It seemed like among the Eastern Sea Allied Army, there had been a continuous argument on who should be the general. Only one of the country¡¯s royals knew about this mineral vein. They had controlled more than thirty ships among the fleet and had brought with them many mages. They intended to start mining on their own.


    These sixbat vessels used the excuse of searching for the missing ships to leave Lianyun City. These were the ships that Saleen had gotten rid of. As there were many resources on the ship, especially magic chariots, this act did not raise the suspicion of the other royals.


    ¡°How long has this secret been kept?¡± Saleen looked at Aesop, wanting to get something from his eyes.


    Aesop thought for a while before replying, ¡°I am not sure, you guys have sunk thebat vessels that were sent by the crown prince, but one of them got away. He might know about this in a week. Even if he knew about it, he would not start a war. With his character, he would choose to wait for the situation to stabilize before asking fornd in Phoenix. Then he would cut up this mineral vein and thend of others. If he continues to sendbat vessels here, it would affect his position in the allied army.


    Saleen thought in his heart, even if he were to send soldiers there, he would not let him get this mineral vein too. The low-grade magic nucleus was too precious and the magic nuclei used in a war were mainly low-grade ones.


    ¡°Aesop, I have considered, you should stay by my side. Now that you have told me all this, you will die if you return.¡± Saleen did not immediately ask where the mineral vein was, instead he gave Aesop some assurance.


    Only then did he have a relieved look. Now that Saleen had said that, it meant he was prepared to let him go.


    ¡°Master Saleen, I am willing to sign a contract.¡± Aesop said sincerely even though his sincerity was not very credible. The signing of this contract had nothing to do with the deal though. He would follow Saleen in the future and not be a free mage. Only with that would Saleen protect him. If not, once the deal was done, Saleen could kick him aside and leave him to fend for himself.


    Aesop could no longer return to the allied army or the Eastern Sea, having betrayed his side on the Myers Maind. If Saleen did not take him in, he knew what his consequences would be. Even though hismonnguage was clear, this war had broken out for a while and any Qin Empire person within the radius of the war could tell he was a foreigner.


    Those from the Qin Empire did not know how to speak themonnguage, but rather, thenguage of their country. It would be virtually impossible for him to survive in the Qin Empire.


    Nailisi stood beside Saleen, her respect for him only increased by the minute. No matter how vicious she was, she would not be able to squeeze out the secrets of her opponents slowly like her master, much less let him follow her after willingly.


    She had to quickly get the coordinates of the demon dimension. As Master¡¯s career got bigger, it was getting a little out of hand. Without sufficient manpower, Lex might even ride on top of her in the future, she could not let that happen.


    At this thought, Nailisi suddenly said, ¡°Master, if Aesop followed you, it might be a little inconvenient. It would bring trouble to you.¡±


    Aesop was shocked, he had just gotten himself out of death. Even though he had seen these two beautiful women, he had not thought much of them. Saleen had looked at Nailisi after agreeing to take him in, but now that she had suddenly said such words to stop Saleen from taking him in, he was almost scared out of his wits.


    ¡°Master!¡±


    Aesop wanted to say something, but Saleen waved his hands to get him to shut up before asking Nailisi, ¡°What is your opinion?¡±


    ¡°Let him follow me, I have some uses.¡± Nailisi said softly. Aesop was unusually ufortable. If he followed Saleen, Saleen could ensure his safety, but following this woman? She had not even trained her sword aura¡­


    Aesop looked pleadingly at Saleen with his brown eyes, Saleen thought for a while before nodding.


    ¡°Alright, he will follow you. The next time I capture any prisoner, you will choose first.¡±

 Chapter 442: Rough Stone (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 442: Rough Stone (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen ignored Aesop¡¯s pleas and threw him to Nailisi directly. Saleen knew that Nailisi was very picky with her food now and would not care about the meat on Aesop, she probably had other uses for him.


    Nailisi was smug, when she wanted to summon any demon in the future, she would need an excuse. Aesop hade from tens of thousands of miles away in the east, no one knew him on the Myers Maind. So long as she signed a double magic contract, she would be able to control himpletely, making him sign a ve contract with the demon she summoned.


    Very soon, there would be a powerful mage on the Myers Maind that summoned demons. This mage was her soul ve, however. By then no one would doubt her status, right?


    Saleen had a simple reason for throwing Aesop to Nailisi, he could not do everything by himself in the future if not he would not have a chance to be a sorcerer. No matter how unstable Nailisi was, she was very good at managing those around her and any property of hers would be taken care of well by her.


    Saleen was relieved, Aesop would live, perhaps even well.


    Thestbat vessel had managed to escape and he could not do anything about it. He had not had time to explore this region of the sea and the effect of the magicpass was very weak. It was okay if it was gone, at least thatbat vessel would not return to the south immediately, it must be worried that he was blocking over there.


    ¡°Aesop?¡± Saleen called.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°You can tell me the general location of the mineral vein now. Nailisi has promised to keep you, she will ensure your safety.¡± Saleen did not exin anything to Aesop and he almost cried out.


    Could the woman named Nailisi even protect herself? Could she even kill a chicken?


    This mage Saleen seemed to be very smart, why would he be affected by lust? If he had known, he would have given him one-hundred virgins in exchange for his freedom. It was toote now, he had revealed the mineral vein and had mentioned that he could provide the sea route of the Eastern Sea. Saleen would not let him leave now no matter what.


    As he had no choice, Aesop told Saleen truthfully the location of the mineral vein.


    He even took out a rough stone for Saleen to analyze. Saleen held it in his hand, it felt familiar. This was indeed a type of calcite. From its structure, it was very simr to a cordierite.


    A cordierite was a low-grade gemstone. Even though there was a lot of it, it was not cheap because this gemstone was suitable for all mages, from grade-1 to grade-6.


    Some abominable people would even use it as a Youlian rock. Their difference in price could be up to tens of thousands of times different.


    The rough stone in Saleen¡¯s hands now had a crystal structure simr to a cordierite, almost like a type of barite.


    ¡°This was a leftover stone!¡±


    Saleen finally remembered that even though a cordierite could be used throughout the year, it could be damaged and lose its properties. These gemstones that had lost their properties were known as leftover stones.


    A leftover stone was not entire useless though, it could be used to make magic medicine and different types of magic powder. There were many simr ingredients and using these leftover stones to process the ingredients was too time consuming, however. Many mages would just sell these leftover stones to the wealthy.


    The wealthy only cared if the gemstone was pretty or not, they could not care less about its properties. Selling these leftover stones to them would be enough to buy rted magic ingredients with the gold coins.


    ¡°Leftover stones could rece magic nuclei?¡± Saleen asked Aesop and he told Saleen that to get them to rece magic nuclei, they needed to be processed and even though it was troublesome, it was much cheaper than buying magic nuclei. If there was an alchemy factory, hundreds of magic disciples could produce enough pseudo-magic nuclei to get a family rising rapidly.


    Saleen did not care about the loophole in Aesop¡¯s words. If one had hundreds of magic disciples, would he need to use the word rising?


    ¡°Do you have the form to create these rough stones?¡± Saleen only asked the crucial question. Such techniques would definitely be kept a secret in Alchemy City.


    ¡°All the mages in the Eastern Sea know how to process these rough stones, many mages cannot afford to buy low-grade magic nuclei.¡± Aesopughed bitterly.


    Saleen was shock yet again but he remained expressionless.


    The Myers Maind had plentiful mineral reserves and there were many ces to mine gemstones. In most mineral veins, the gemstones that could be used were less than one in one-hundred-thousand, the rest were leftover stones. Not all of these leftover stones looked good and could be used to fool the wealthy.


    The prices of gemstones were incredibly high because the cost of mining was huge.


    Now that so many mages from the Eastern Sea had appeared on the Myers Maind, they would definitely start collecting leftover stones. It would not take long for the mages on Myers Maind to discover this secret.


    This secret was not much to other countries but for the Qin Empire, it would definitely affect the fate of the country. The Qin Empire had eighty percent of all the mages on the Myers Maind and many of them were low-grade and did not have enough magic nuclei. They could not exercise their powerfulbat powers because of that.


    A grade-1 mage could only release twelve grade-1 spells. It was not because he did not have enough focus but because he had insufficient magic chords. When he finished releasing them, he would need to take up to six hours to recover. With enough magic nuclei, one could use arge number of low-grade mages to set up magic arrays or to write scrolls.


    Magic nuclei could speed up the restoring of a mage¡¯s magic chords, that meant less usage and faster effects. If the Qin Empire started mining leftover stones and creating rough stones from them, their powers would soar rapidly.


    Lex had hundreds of mages with her and they were mostly low-grade mages.


    Seeing that Saleen had quieted down, Aesop was afraid something was wrong as he quickly said, ¡°It is easy to process these rough stones, even a magic disciple could do it, master you do not have to worry.¡±


    ¡°I am not worried, I am only thinking¡­ of building a second city quickly. Let¡¯s go, we will return to Metatrin City.¡± Saleen did not even take a look at the mineral vein that Aesop had pointed out, it was near where he had chosen to build his second city.


    Saleen was not very enthusiastic about building the city at first. He had built Metatrin City to get a safe teleportation ce for him to teleport between the Myers Maind and the hell of god¡¯s punishment safely.


    Once an interdimensional teleportation portal was built, it would not be able to change location. If the teleportation point was not safe enough, he could be killed directly by someone, even if that person was only a normal magic disciple.


    Now, Saleen knew that the leftover stones could be processed into rough stones and be used to rece low-grade magic nuclei. He immediately understood the importance of gaining territories. If he found a mineral vein near his city, he would immediately have the ability to nurture arge number of mages.


    Using the rough stones to rece low-grade magic nuclei, the middle-grade ones could be gained from the Oceanic Ice Block. With these, Saleen would have the capital to pit himself against the Holy See. It was not that he must deal with them, but the Holy See would never let him go.


    It was his luck that he had the powers left behind by the Myers Goddess in his left hand.


    The Dragon Skeletonbat vessel raised its shadow sail again and sailed forward. There were over seventy jade skeletons and thebat vessel could move along continuously for twenty-four hours so long as Saleen provided sufficient magic nuclei.


    Back at Metatrin City, Saleen immediately brought Aini and the rest back to the temple. He had no intentions of hiding this from Aini, after all, Aini was his friend. Why should he hide from his friend something that all from the maind would know sooner orter? Aini¡¯s family had dealings with gemstones too and might have arge number of leftover stones.


    In the temple, all the mages were incredibly shocked when they heard the news. The leftover stones that they had taken as useless could actually be processed into something that was of equal value as a low-grade magic nucleus.


    The mages from Sregl Ind were especially shocked, their theory knowledge was too broad. Once they heard this, they immediately connected the dots. So long as they improved their alchemy skills, it would not be a problem creating rough stones from these leftover stones. Alchemy was not unchanging and all alchemy skills were constantly improving and evolving.


    The reason why such alchemy skills did not evolve on the Myers Maind was because it was too big. Even though magic nuclei were expensive, mages could still obtain them. As for the countries in the Eastern Sea, they had to sail into the sea to obtain magic nuclei. The magic beasts in the sea were incredibly strong and the price to obtain them was unbearable for most.


    Under such circumstances, the mages from the Eastern Sea had to find a recement and hence, had researched an ingredient like rough stones.


    Even so, thend in the Eastern Sea was too small and there were not many mineral mountains. As for civilization in the countries in the Eastern Sea, they were all founded on magic and hence they wanted to invade the Myers Maind.


    All the people under the roof were mages, besides Nailisi. Even Sika was not able to stay there. The news that Saleen had brought back left them silent.


    This was not just an opportunity. It seemed like the Qin Empire would immediately be powerful, but in actual fact, it could be the demise of it.


    This was because Alchemy City was in the south-east of the Qin Empire along the sea. Alchemy City had always maintained an independent stance and not given the emperor a single gold coin in taxes. Alchemy City was still under the Qin Empire on paper, however. The mages in Alchemy City were not sufficient to control the maind, hence they were willing to be under the Grukos family.


    The Grukos family were not just the three sorcerers in the pce, there were over tens of thousands of royals and most of them had chosen to study magic. This was a tradition of the royal Grukos family. So long as one studied magic, the pce would give one opportunities. Even if one did not have much achievement, he or she would not need to worry about food and lodging.


    After thousands of years, there were less high-grade mages in the Grukos family, but more low-grade mages.


    Alchemy City did not intend to fight with the Grukos family for the royal position, it was pointless. With the rough stone, Alchemy City could expand infinitely and nurture hundreds of thousands of low-grade mages. This was an immensely destructive force.


    In history, all the demise of the four dynasties had something to do with mages. Now that Alchemy City was trying to destroy the situation on the Maind, they only needed one condition; that was sufficient mages.


    Saleen was a little confused too, he had no idea what the future held. Suddenly he had a thought, if the astrologers were still alive, what hint would they give?

 Chapter 443: Maidservant and Skeleton (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 443: Maidservant and Skeleton (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Metatrin City was very quiet. The three kings had called upon the skeletons again, continuing to build the city. The mages were gathered in the temple to train. The swordsmen and sailors from Sregl Ind had started training the barbarians and Cascausus people, letting them familiarize with the ship andbat at sea.


    There were over eight-thousand barbarians gathered in Metatrin City and they were all strong. Those that did not have anything going for them were long captured by the Holy See.


    The Cascausus people had found a suitable settling location at the south of the city, they had all moved out of the South garden. The only ones left there were the older elders and Sika¡¯s guards.


    The barbarians that have been trained and the Cascausus people started patrolling the sea on twobat vessels, preventing the previous misfortune from happening again.


    Under the iceyer at the port in the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat, Nailisi and the winged skeleton were fighting again.


    ¡°You damn skeleton, when are you going to tell me the coordinates of the demon dimension?!¡± Nailisi did not care about being womanly or godly. Her eyes shone a bright green as she stared viciously at the winged skeleton within the giant crystal.


    ¡°Maidservant, your ws and teeth are no threat to me. Instead of blowing your top here, why not go find what I need?¡±


    ¡°You imbecile, aren¡¯t you afraid that I will tell your secret to Master?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have many secrets yourself too? Go get working, do not disturb me while I¡¯m training.¡± The winged skeleton stayed in the crystal, not in the least bit afraid that Nailisi would cause a stampede.


    Unknowingly, he was already grade-7 and even if Saleen¡¯s contract did not exist, Nailisi would not be able to kill him in the ship. The entire alchemical boat had been processed by the winged skeleton into giant equipment and he was the core that controlled it.


    In the ship, the winged skeleton had full control. No matter how strong Nailisi was, she could only hurt him if she destroyed the ship first.


    ¡°Those things that you want, god knows what ces they are in!¡± Nailisi shouted angrily. The winged skeleton had not told her the coordinates of the demon dimension after so long and instead hadmanded her to do countless things for him.


    A demon was being tricked by a winged skeleton, how could she not be angry?


    ¡°Do not be anxious, maidservant, I have found another sunken ship. So long as you help me fish the things inside up, I will tell you the coordinates of the demon dimension.¡± The winged skeleton coaxed her patiently.


    ¡°As if! I have already fished up dozens of ships for you, you haven¡¯t even told me what you want. If there still isn¡¯t what you want, do I have to continue doing this?¡±


    Nailisi was not angry because of anything else, but the sea water being too cold. Even though an imp would not freeze to death, Nailisi that had already gotten used to the Myers Maind, she would much rather enjoy herself than help a skeleton in the deep sea. There was danger present everywhere in the dark sea.


    The damn skeleton was afraid of meeting with danger and hence had left her in charge of all these menial tasks.


    ¡°Nailisi, I am splitting Master¡¯s burden. Now that he has so little manpower, he has to use the barbarians to power up thebat vessels. They can¡¯t even tie a knot properly, how can they be good sailors? I will form a team of skeletons to help Master fight.¡±


    ¡°Fight? Master is a mage, you must be crazy.¡±


    ¡®What do you know? In any dimension, the powerful will always have more resources, only then can that solidify their position. We need to take down more territories for Master, only then can he train in peace and be as strong as a god.¡±


    ¡°What are the gods?!¡± Nailisi thought back to the humans that had captured her way back and she shuddered. Up until now, she had not met anyone on the Myers Maind that could even match up to a fraction of the humans then. Even the powerful oracle could only borrow the powers of the gods.


    As for the humans that had captured her and a group of supreme demons back then, they had torn a hole in space to get to the demon dimension and to capture arge number of supreme demons back to the Myers Maind. Even though she was not sure why these people were willing to service the Myers Goddess, she was very clear that the even the gods did not have the power to destroy dimensions. The gods did not dare do that.


    The winged skeleton had gained intelligence because it had swallowed the memories of an unlucky mage. He did a little searching in the mage¡¯s memories and said empathetically, ¡°That¡¯s right, what are the gods? Since they aren¡¯t much, you should get to work now.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going unless you tell me what I¡¯m supposed to be looking for.¡±


    The winged skeleton was stunned, he had not expected Nailisi to be this adamant today. She definitely was not losing her temper. Nailisi said harshly, ¡°At most, I don¡¯t want a demon ve any longer, I can catch a human as a ve anyway. The thing you want must be more important than mine!¡±


    ¡°In theory that is true. Even without you, I can still get what I want slowly. You can only get the coordinates of the demon dimension from me, however.¡± The winged skeleton patiently coaxed Nailisi. Seeing that Nailisi was not falling for it, the winged skeleton could not do anything and said, ¡°I only want to build a skeleton army and I need a few leaders to rece me to take charge, if not I will still need to leave this ship.¡±


    ¡°Skeleton army? Don¡¯t be funny, I can kill thousands of those shabby bones alone.¡± Nailisi sneered.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I want to create some special skeletons. They cannot be summoned from the death dimension, but they need to be created directly on the Myers Maind. Only then will they not be influenced by the rules of the dimension. They would be able to grow quickly and have intelligence.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s mouth moved, she held back her jeers. If she looked down on the winged skeleton¡¯s intelligence, would she not have been an idiot for having done so much for him?¡±


    ¡°The aura from the dragon remains have all dissipated and there are no mutations either, maidservant. All I want is the skull of a human elite and it must have been around for thousands of years and have not been destroyed. Look at me, how am I different from before?¡±


    Nailisi held back her anger upon hearing the winged skeleton¡¯s words, she came in front of the crystal and observed the winged skeleton.


    There were three pairs of wings at the back of the winged skeleton, they could fly around freely. His skull that used to be a dark red now had green magic symbols on it and it was much thicker. He looked taller than before too and was over two and a half meters.


    ¡°It seems¡­ your color has faded; did you take a shower?¡± Nailisi asked suspiciously.


    Do skeletons need to shower? This was unimaginable to a demon.


    The death mes within the socket of the winged skeleton started jumping around. He was angered by Nailisi, however, it was not intentional.


    ¡°Look at my head!¡± The winged skeleton lowered his head in the crystal. Nailisi wanted to try piercing her tail within the crystal and make a hole in the winged skeleton¡¯s skull. She was sure that if she moved, the winged skeleton would be able to feel it though. She could only suppress her desires as she studied his skull patiently.


    Under careful observation, Nailisi did find something unusual. The skull of the winged skeleton had started turning invisible, almost like a giant crystal. There were infinitelyplicated magic patterns within the crystal and some of them seemed like natural magic patterns, the rest were messy.


    ¡°Your skull has be transparent?¡± Nailisi was curious, she had not heard of a skeleton undergoing such changes before.


    ¡°Yes, I just need you to find such transparent skulls, the purer the better.¡± Seeing that Nailisi understood, he raised his head.


    ¡°Does it have to do with the magic patterns within?¡±


    The death mes in the winged skeleton started darting about again, Nailisi was right. After many bodies had died, their skull would change and be transparent. For them to evolve intelligence, they needed the natural magic patterns within.


    The winged skeleton had gained his intelligence because he had swallowed a soul. The changes on his skull had only been produced recently and only then had he stumbled upon the secrets of creating a skeleton soldier.


    The skeleton soldier he wanted to create had to be stronger than a grade-3 human warrior. It had to be flexible and fast, but the onemanding these skeleton soldiers had to be an intelligent spirit.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t looking to create a doppelg?nger, are you?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s words had left the winged skeleton shell-shocked. He was indeed looking at creating another copy of himself, how did Nailisi guess that?¡±


    The winged skeleton was stubborn by nature and he was afraid that the spirit he created would not listen to Saleen. He considered creating another copy of himself. To do so, it involved some ancient mysteries, however.


    ¡°Even if you do so, it isn¡¯t much. Master is on opposing ends with the Holy See anyway. Even if the gods were angered, master wouldn¡¯t me you.¡± Nailisi did not think much as she made the joke.


    ¡°Then will you help me?¡± The winged skeleton changed the topic.


    ¡°Tell me, do you really know the coordinates of the demon dimension?¡±


    ¡°I swear on master¡¯s name that I do know a detailed coordinate of the demon dimension and it definitely can be used to summon demons. Nailisi, if you help me create the crystal skeletons, I will help you summon the demons. Even though this is the Myers Maind, it would be hard for you to deal with a demon alone, right? Let us summon one right here in this boat, so long as the demon is summoned from the summoning portal, we can knock it unconscious directly.¡±


    ¡°That is a good promise! I will go now!¡± Nailisi was incredibly excited.


    Summoning demons was a technique that humans had managed to research only in the past one-thousand years. Before that, if humans wanted to enve a demon, they would go to the demon dimension to capture one, saving all these troubles.


    There was a special feature with summoning magic, one¡¯s focus had to be stronger than the thing being summoned. If not, one would not be able to control the living creature. Such powers included intelligence too.


    Demons were incredibly intelligent creatures and their focus went without saying. If a grade-9 sorcerer wanted to summon a demon, he could still find ways to force the demon into submission. If it was even one grade less, he would not have any good oue when summoning a demon.


    Usually, the fate of a mage had to do with the mood of the demon. Sometimes, a demon would pretend to be very obedient and help the mage before eating the mage up when they were about to leave. Sometimes, they would just get rid of the mage that had summoned them directly, wandering around for a while before returning to the demon dimension.


    Most mages believed this was an uncertain magic and the results were unpredictable because of that. Nailisi understood that so long as one could defeat the demon with brute force, the demon would still follow one obediently. She had wanted to call on Sika for help, but now that the winged skeleton had offered his services, he was much better than Sika. At least the winged skeleton could keep a secret.

 Chapter 444: Maidservant and Skeleton (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 444: Maidservant and Skeleton (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was hard for contract creatures to fight among themselves. Even if there was a loophole in the contract, this fact was hard to change. It was precisely because of this that Nailisi could not do anything to the winged skeleton.


    In the ship, it would almost be impossible for her to give the winged skeleton a good beating.


    ¡°Alright, Soldier. I am willing to help you, however, you mustn¡¯t forget that I want to summon a demon to help master. Don¡¯t you want him to be safer too?¡± Nailisi used another tactic to try and convince the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Do you really think that way?¡± The winged skeleton lowered his head to look at Nailisi. He was almost twice the height of Nailisi.


    ¡°Of course, everything of mine belongs to master.¡± Nailisi gave a pious look.


    ¡°It seems like demons really cannot be trusted.¡± The winged skeletonughed. Nailisi thought she saw wrongly for a moment. It seemed that on his transparent skull, was a smile. One must know that a smile was formed from the movement of muscles and sometimes only moving the tip of the mouth made one looked more like one was crying.


    ¡°The winged skeleton, whose face is made entirely of bones can actuallyugh!¡±


    ¡®You must be thinking, everything of yours is master¡¯s, but everything of master¡¯s is also yours, right? Maidservant, stop ying games with me, I must be stronger than you.¡± The winged skeleton said firmly.


    ¡°Damn you!¡± Nailisi kicked the crystal. Even though she could crush rocks with her leg, the crystal that the winged skeleton was in did not even budge. Instead, a shot of pain ran up Nailisi¡¯s leg.


    ¡°Unless you can destroy the entire ship with your kick, you should stop that in the future. I do not like that, if you continue doing so, I will¡­¡±


    ¡°What can you do to me? At most I won¡¯t enter this ship of yours ever again!¡± Nailisi shouted crazily.


    ¡°If you do that again, I will beg master to marry you to me.¡± The winged skeleton said seriously as Nailisi sucked in a huge cold breath. She turned sluggish in an instant.


    If the winged skeleton was not a spirit, such things would not happen at all. It did not matter who wanted to go to bed with her, Saleen would be able to feel it. The winged skeleton was a spirit and this so-called marriage would only be on paper. Saleen might really listen to the winged skeleton.


    The winged skeleton was more loyal than her and if such a thing were to happen, she might as well die.


    A demon¡¯s love was much more loyal than human¡¯s. This was because in the demon dimension, a family was an imprable safe group that took care of each other. Only then could a demon live and take care of its young. Such belief was ingrained within them and even the most ridiculous demon would choose its mate carefully.


    She liked master and she would not marry this skeleton no matter what.


    ¡°Alright, I just wanted to try a human dramatic performance and see if it was as effective as they say. Anyway, I have already promised you, I just want the coordinates ahead of time.¡± Nailisi¡¯s expression changed quickly and there was not any hint of anger at all.


    ¡°I want to give it to you as soon as I can too.¡± The winged skeleton said coldly, a scene shed past him.


    The ground was blood red and at the end of the road was a pce made up of bones. They were fresh and every cornerstone of the pce was made up of spirits. They were suppressed and crying out shrilly. Within the temple, there was a huge throne and a skeleton was sitting on it.


    It was transparent, almost as if it was carved from the most precious crystal. Under the throne, countless monarchs wereying on the ground. They were worshiping the transparent skeleton.


    That was once the only god in the death dimension and was the god of this dimension. It had evolved from the lowest-grade skeleton after all.


    This God of spirit had created a skeleton throne and stabilized the death dimension, turning it from one that was on the brink of destruction to a stable dimension.


    If the skeleton god had not fallen, it would have continued developing. Unlike now when the disgusting living creatures within the abyss woulde and harass for no reason.


    Skeletons could be gods.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s thoughts were abruptly interrupted, such scenes sprouted up regrly and he knew they were all real. From the moment his intelligence was turned on, he had gained these memories.


    ¡°If I were to be a god, wouldn¡¯t master be safer?¡±


    If the gods in the countless dimensions were to know of the winged skeleton¡¯s ns, they would definitely rip him to shreds. If he became a god, why would he still need a master? This was basically an insult to the gods. No matter how weak a god was, it would not bend to any other living creature. So many gods had fallen because they had pitted themselves against the humans in the central dimension initially before pitting themselves against each other.


    Of course, the most hated ones were humans. They did not live long, but they grew incredibly quickly and could evolve countlessly. If any one of them were to be a god, they would still regard themselves as a human and not follow the rules of the gods. If there were not any humans, the gods would long ago have conquered the core of the dimensions and created a world that only the gods had control over.


    The Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat moved slowly towards the deep sea, the ce where Saleen had chosen to build the city used to be an ancient battlefield. In the past and many ships had sunk here. The winged skeleton had already uncovered many ces with treasures, but the living creatures within the sea were incredibly tough. If he were to leave the alchemical boat, once he met with any dangers, he might not only die but misfortunes might befall the alchemical boat too. If that was the case, Saleen would have much to lose.


    By letting Nailisi do the dirty jobs, the winged skeleton was not afraid to die. He knew how important the alchemical boat was to Saleen and it was crucial when escaping.


    So long as he escaped into the alchemical boat, even a grade-9 sorcerer could not do anything to Saleen.


    A ck liquid started bubbling within the spirit pool, it had an incredibly low temperature and a bone would float up from it from time to time. Before long they would quickly be squashed by spirit power, turning into a bone spirit. They quickly grew and concealed themselves within the green spirits that were around the spirit pool.


    These bone spirits that were forcefully processed did not need to be obtained from the death dimension. He could produce thirty-six of them every day. It was a pity that the bone spirits produced in this manner had a short lifespan. Even within the green spirit, they could not survive for more than a few months. Once their lives ended, they would turn into the liquid within the spirit pool again.


    There was not a fixed passageway between the Myers Maind and the death dimension, so the spirits of all the living creatures that died on the maind would slowly dissipate and transform. Only rarely would they make it into the death dimension. In the Myers Maind dimension, the restoring speed of the spirit pool was incredibly quick and one could find negative energy to replenish it anytime because of that.


    The target was over twenty hours by the sea route and Nailisi was bored and could only start talking with the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Soldier, if you really want to help master, you can think of another solution.¡±


    ¡°What solution?¡± The winged skeleton did not want to anger Nailisi, but he did not want to be controlled by the demon. When Nailisi started talking to him, he did not remain silent.


    ¡°I heard that thebat power of the mechanical soul is incredibly strong, why don¡¯t you try creating a mechanical soul?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be silly, a mechanical soul cannot be created. It is too dangerous and even the three Kings cannot afford to offend them.


    ¡°I want to make a mechanical soul to ride on.¡± Nailisi was serious this time. She had talked about this with Daniel before and she knew a mechanical soul was very powerful, moreover, it would not be very affected on the Myers Maind. It¡¯s body itself was stronger than even the giant dragon and its restorative powers were shocking.


    ¡°Then I would want to ride on the supreme demon Anduxisi.¡± The winged skeleton pouted.


    The supreme demon Anduxisi had two unobservable states, the first was a human while the other was a unicorn in the spirit dimension. Human mages used to love riding on unicorns and sometimes there would be an Anduxisi in the mix. The oue for such a mage was imaginable.


    As for Anduxisi, it was one of the few demons that had the ability to cross over to other dimensions. A demon like that was even rarer than a grade-10 human professional.


    The winged skeleton was jeering at Nailisi¡¯s unrealistic thoughts when he said he wanted to ride an Anduxisi.


    A demon riding on a spirit and a spirit riding on a demon, that was an interesting thought.


    ¡°Anduxisi? Why don¡¯t you ride the God of Light?¡± Nailisiughed at the winged skeleton. Saleen¡¯s main enemy was the Sacred Holy See. As the winged skeleton was a death creature, he was naturally afraid of the divine skills of the Holy See.


    ¡°Heh¡­¡± The winged skeleton did not reply Nailisi, He thought to himself; ¡°If I be a god, I must help master get rid of the God of Light. Light conquering darkness? That was because it wasn¡¯t in the death dimension. If the God of Light went to the death dimension, its powers would be suppressed to a tenth of what it is now. This was despite the skeleton god having fallen.¡±


    Seeing the winged skeleton not replying, Nailisi could only take it that she had the upper hand as she started talking excitedly on magic topics with the winged skeleton. She could turn into an actual human body now and training her magic was no longer a problem.


    In actual fact, Nailisi had the bloodline of Luoluokaluo in her and once all her eight powers were assembled, she could still practice magic. At that time, the body of a luoluokaluo would have something resembling magic chords. The only thing was that no one knew how long it would take for her to assemble all eight powers and the absorbing powers of Luoluokaluo were based entirely on instinct.


    Only useful powers would be absorbed by Nailisi. Even if she were to eat up tens of thousands of living creatures, she would not be able to gain any powers.


    Her instinct could not be controlled, but it also prevented her from choosing wrongly.


    Nailisi now had the powers of the giant dragon and the lightning dragon; lightning protection and the ability to change into a human form. For each of them, they were all suitable for her to survive on the Myers Maind. If she was in the demon dimension, the three powers she gained would definitely be unrted to them.


    Demons rarely used magic forbat and the effects of the lightning protection was that important. So long as a demon was to grow fully, its powers would not be any less than a giant dragon. As for turning into a human, besides the strongest supreme demon Anduxisi, who else could change into a human form for no reason? That used to be a means of death and now, humans were weak and turning into them was the same as attracting demons to hunt and kill you.


    The winged skeleton realized Nailisi was no longer squabbling with him as he patiently exined his magic knowledge to her. The winged skeleton knew death magic naturally. At the same time, he also had the memories of a mage and he was a considerably powerful mage too. The knowledge he had was plentiful and was enough to guide a grand mage. It was more than sufficient to deal with Nailisi.


    The winged skeleton and the demon finally found a reason to get along on friendly terms.

 Chapter 445: Lex’s Plan (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 445: Lex¡¯s n (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was only until mid-April, when the patrolling soldiers that Saleen had sent out found Lex¡¯s vanguards. As Lex¡¯s team was too big and it was the bitter winter, she had no choice but to slow down to prevent any injuries or death.


    Knowing that Daniel and the rest had already linked up with Lex, Saleen did not send anyone else to escort her.


    Within Lex¡¯s huge army, Hu An said to Lex in a dissatisfied tone, ¡°Why hadn¡¯t Saleen sent anyone to fetch you? My viscountess, you have brought a camp worth of soldiers to help him.¡±


    Hu An had no opinion about Saleen rising up the ranks, after all, he had advanced in terms of grades faster than him. As to whether he would fetch her outside the city, that was a wealthy¡¯s problem. Even though Hu An was a grand mage now, he still could not shake off some opinions that the wealthy had.


    As there were too many people and most of them were not in the military. Lex¡¯s team was split into different groups. The one leading at the front was a group of cavalrymen.


    The one leading the cavalries was Tenesee, Saleen knew him. He was nowmanding a regiment of over one-thousand soldiers and he was on the brink of bing a grand swordmaster. After interacting for a while with the patrolling soldiers that Saleen had dispatched, he was brought to the outside of the city.


    The white city walls stretched for miles and were over twenty meters tall. The outside of the city gates were obviously still under construction. Across the vast ins, this was already a sight to behold. Thendscape on both sides towered over it. The city was wedged between a fault in the mountain range and was in an ideal location.


    The west side was the main gate and the giant gate was enveloped in white steel, it was an exorbitant expense. This city gate that was over eight yards tall was actually wrapped in white steel. It had been processed with magic and was not reflective. It blended incredibly well with the white city walls. There were magic patterns corroded on the surface of the white steel, making it less cold looking.


    At the top of the city gate there was an entire block of white stone ced horizontally. The words ¡°Metatrin City¡± were inscribed on it in the ancient Myers Language.


    ¡°Metatrin?¡± Tenesee¡¯s mouth quivered as he gave a smallugh. He was not sure what deal Saleen had with Lex, but Lex had not told him what happened in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. He knew that both Lex and Saleen were mages and they would be particr when it came to having a fair exchange though.


    Naming a city after his surname, it seemed like Saleen had great ambitions!


    There used to only be one city in the Qin Empire that was named after a surname and it was Grukos City. It was four-hundred miles south of Holy Rock City. That was a feudal estate of the royal family. As long as the Qin Empire was still around, it would forever be the private property of the Grukos family.


    ¡°I wonder what the emperor would have to say about this.¡±


    Tenesse, however, only gave a smallugh. The city gates were not sealed shut, but there was a metal chain at the back. A low-grade mage hade out a long time ago to greet them. After symbolically checking Tenesee¡¯s badge, the soldiers behind unlocked the metal chains and opened the city gatespletely.


    Tenesee saw that a part of the city walls near the city gates were empty, there was a capstan within. This giant city gate that was enveloped in white steel must weigh at least tens of thousands of pounds, even a fortress hammer would have a hard time breaking through it.


    The city walls were over twelve yards thick and it would definitely have some kind of equipment like the broken dragon stone within it or a concealed magic array. Even though the city had not finished construction, it was already the standard of a fortress.


    The number of soldiers at the top of the city walls were too little, there were less than a hundred soldiers. They were all gathered at the main gate, looking down. They seemed pretty ordinary and when they were maintaining their post, they should not do such actions even when an emperor came to the front of the gate.


    Tenesee made a correct guess, Saleen had gathered most of his forces at the top of the city wall to the city center and the port. The people here were the newly trained barbarians and every group only had a swordsman from the Sregl Indmanding them. It was hard to discipline these barbarians and they were nowhere near the Cascausus people¡¯s ability. The Cascausus people were familiar with strict discipline and they were born to be soldiers.


    Luckily, besides the giant trees left behind from deforesting for the city, there were still many vast ces. As Lex¡¯s people started entering the city they could still fix tents for shelter.


    As the city had not started revolving, Lex and her group of people were brought to the city hall and were put to rest temporarily.


    Saleen had prepared sufficient food and it was heated up and passed down. As there were more than ten times the number of people expected, the food was clearly insufficient. It could only be fed to the camp of soldiers first.


    Lex saw the slow progress of Metatrin City, but she was not anxious. She loved the style of the city and the foundation wasid strongly. All the roads and underground facilities had signs of being strengthened with magic. In some of the areas where therge numbers of trees were left behind, they were clearly meant to be used as gardens in the future.


    Lex was apanied by almost a hundred mages wherever she went and as Saleen weed herughingly, he said, ¡°Viscountess, how have you been?¡±


    The mages who did not recognize Saleen were all gasping silently. Even if Lex was not a viscountess, she was also a grade-6 mage and Saleen¡¯s attitude was a little disrespectful.


    ¡°I¡¯m not as free as you.¡± Upon seeing Saleen, for some reason, Lex felt relieved. She was overjoyed that Saleen hadid the foundations of the city strongly. This city was meant to conceal the interdimensional teleportation portal after all. Only by building it so that there were traces of magic everywhere could the intense elemental vibration from the teleportation be concealed.


    ¡°It has been a long time.¡± Saleen looked at the mages beside Lex. He recognized some of them from when he was still staying at the viscount residences, they had had a decent rtionship then.


    Any dissatisfaction in Hu An disappeared when he saw Saleen. Saleen gave off a mighty yet true to himself impression. This was a dignity that Saleen had gained unintentionally from spending thest half a yearmanding a city and being in charge of almost ten-thousand people.


    ¡°You all can rest here, I have something to discuss with Saleen.¡± Lex did not bother exchanging pleasantries. Under the surprised gaze of everyone, she left the city hall with Saleen.


    ¡°Viscountess, why are you in such a hurry?¡± Saleen apanied Lex calmly. The pressure that he had when he first met her was long gone.


    ¡°Whatever, there isn¡¯t anyone here, just call me Lex.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lex, how is Bitter Water Prefecture?¡±


    ¡°It is terrible, the west is engaged in battle and the two secret tunnels are useless. The east has been sealed by Holy Rock City and thoseing from the north are from the military. Arge number of wealthy from the north have transferred their soldiers back from Lon Duchy and half of Lon Duchy has already been lost. There is no business to be done in Bitter Water Prefecture and we have to survive on what we have. Luckily, I have taken over the cities andnd in the surroundings and I no longer have to buy rations from outside.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter, Bitter Water Prefecture is in a remote area. Even though it isn¡¯t suitable for development, it is easy to defend and so long as rations aren¡¯t a problem. Even if¡­¡±


    ¡°I will not let the Tanggualsi people step on the Qin Empire¡¯s soil.¡± Lex interrupted Saleen.


    ¡°Yes, I have the same problem too. I will take care of the Sikeqinya matter, I must get the passageway of this road. If not this ce can onlymunicate with Bitter Water Prefecture through a teleportation portal. That isn¡¯t something we can afford.The worst is on the sea, after all, the roads onnd are long. If we go by the sea route, we could have reached Lianyun City in no time¡­¡±


    ¡°When will Sregl Ind send people over?¡±


    ¡°How would I know? Before this, we did not even have the means to deal with the expedition army from the many countries in the Eastern Sea. They had over three-hundredbat vessels and I have already lost one of mine, I still have three big ships with me, one of them¡­¡± Saleen did not mention the Pan¡¯s Turtle alchemical boat but Lex understood.


    In the square before the temple, Sika was supervising as her bodyguards were training. They were an elite group of Cascausus warriors and they were all decked in the magic armor that Saleen had created. These armors were not tailor made and seemed a little coarse. Lex took one nce at them and she could tell the material of this magic armor was too good, however. It was polished from the shells of magic beasts.


    When it came to dealing with magic attacks, the effects of a magic beasts¡¯ shell and skin were almost the same. When it came to physical attacks, an equipment that was made from a polished magic beast¡¯s shell was far better. In actual fact, they were as tough as metal. Besides being hard to fix, there was not much difference between them when it came to their defensive capabilities. The magic beast armor was also lighter.


    Even for the royal soldiers of Holy Rock City, only an officer would don such an armor.


    ¡°Saleen, where did you get such materials? Did you buy them from Alchemy City?¡± Saleenughed as he recounted what happened with Irene before Lex said, ¡°You are good, cheating a girl from her family.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t cheat her, I wouldn¡¯t give her any less than what she deserves.¡±


    ¡°That is true, those thate from such families would be more concerned with benefits.¡± Lex had no intention of ming Saleen, Saleen and Irene both got something out of it. Irene must also know her rtionship with Saleen and leaning against Saleen was also because of his rtionship with her.


    Since it stemmed from benefits, it was a little stupid to talk about feelings.


    Sika greeted Lex from afar before continuing to train her bodyguards. She was passionate about this now and these Cascausus warriors listened to every one of her instructions. Some had even started learning and training their sword aura with J.


    Seeing these Cascausus warriors, Lex nodded in satisfaction. They were obviously different in terms of quality to the soldiers at the west of the city. They were not only disciplined, but were several times more skilled. They were essentially all swordmasters and were already better than the soldiers in her camp.


    ¡°Let me bring you to a ce.¡± Saleen secretly brought Lex to his room, then into the short-distance teleportation portal.


    The two of them quickly came to Saleen¡¯s underground warehouse. Lex realized that it was almost an entirely sealed space. Any elemental vibration in this space was virtually undetectable by the outside world. If all the magic towers in Metatrin City were to start revolving, it would be essentially impossible for anyone to realize this ce was there.


    ¡°How did you do this?!¡± This was the first time Lex was shocked.

 Chapter 446: Lex’s Pan (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 446: Lex¡¯s Pan (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleenughed smugly, no one was able to replicate what he had done. This was because even though quite a number of mages knew how to use the current cutter, he was the only mage that had the Shenhe. The current cutter within that cbash only required his focus to control it and did not require any magic chords. Even though it might be a little slow inbat, it was the strongest when it came to cutting anything.


    Even though a level-4 magic could not be considered indestructible, it was hard for something to not be able to be cut in this world. So long as Saleen cut it repeatedly, even gold and silver could be crushed by the current.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk here, no one will find out.¡± Saleen did not stock up on many lifestyle products in this giant warehouse. He had already prepared a table and chairs, though, and he let Lex sit down.


    ¡°You trained the soldiers to prepare them for war?¡± Lex sat down and asked Saleen a question first.


    ¡°Yes, the Eastern Sea Allied Army killed over a hundred of my swordsmen and sealed the sea, making this city cut off from the outside world. I intend to harass Lianyun City, using the advantage of thebat vessels to create trouble for them.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you are wrong.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Why?¡±


    ¡°If you are at the peak, you shouldn¡¯t put such things to heart. What you need to do most importantly right now is to protect this city. The Eastern Sea Allied Army will be defeated by Holy Rock City in no time. Once the war puppets are transferred over, they will be a joke. Do you think they can take down the entire Qin Empire with three-hundredbat vessels? If that was the case, Cloudflow Empire would have conquered the entire maind and would not be struggling to survive. The wealthy are waiting to watch a scene right now, reminiscing on the events of the Fourth Dynasty to fill the emptiness in their hearts. Qin Empire¡¯s problems are because of its internal affairs, this is something we both cannot solve. What we need to do right now is increase our powers and wait for opportunities toe.¡±


    ¡°Increase our powers?¡± Saleen gave a rare bitterugh and said, ¡°I have had a lot of chance encounters, but I have been stuck at grade-5 recently. I think it will be hard to break this barrier in the next decade. I can already taste what it is like to be a sorcerer, but I am nowhere close to being grade-6. There really isn¡¯t any shortcut when ites to magic training.¡±


    ¡°Sorcerer? I meanbat powers. Let me ask you, with the two of us, are you confident we can kill a grade-7 sorcerer?¡±


    Saleen thought for a while before saying, ¡°Yes, if the environment is in our favor.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, we have so many soldiers, they are a form of power too.¡±


    ¡°Talking about powers, I need to tell you something.¡± Saleen immediately told Lex about the rough stone. She was shocked by the news too.


    She said slowly, ¡°If that is the case, we need to do my n.¡±


    ¡°Your n?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there are many secret rumors floating around about the Grukos royal family. In the family history, there is something about a unified dynasty on the maind. I will not analyze theplicated parts of it. A conclusion that I have gotten over the many years is that from the first to the fourth dynasty, the ruler didn¡¯t use any high-end powers to defend the huge country but rather, used magic techniques.¡±


    ¡°Magic techniques?¡±


    ¡°Of course, the war puppets were passed down from then along with the Sky City, magic cannon, magic chariot,bat vessels, and flying puppets that could carry people. With these things, humans who were weaker in terms of strength could possess huge amount of power. The humans back then called magic a technique.¡±


    ¡°Many people thought that the decline of magic would bring about a rise in alchemy, but that didn¡¯t happen. Alchemy then cannot bepared with alchemy now.¡±


    ¡°That is natural.¡± Saleen nodded in agreement. Humans then could cross over dimensions, so they could gather many things that could not be found on the Myers Maind. It was rumored that the real war puppet was controlled by giants, they were hundreds of meters tall and could smash any city with a single step.


    Even though the war puppets now were strong, they needed many mages to control them at the same time. A mage was physically weaker than a giant and could not let the war puppets unleash their original powers. Some of them even had to modify these war puppets for them to be suitable for humans to control.


    ¡°Do you remember back then when I gave you teacher¡¯s Heart of the Sky?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°The blueprint of the Sky City too? I had gotten all of them from the temple of the Myers Goddess. You had also received the drawings of the twenty-five magic arrays, the one given to Joey. Those were taken from the temple of the Myers Goddess too. I am thinking, techniques from the ancient times might still be preserved in the temple. So long as we gather all of them, we would grasp the secrets of the Fourth Dynasty.¡±


    Saleen furrowed his brows and said, ¡°You want to find the remaining temple? ording to my analysis, we might have found one each. There are still at least twenty-two temples hidden away somewhere though. By the time we find all of them, we will be old and it might even affect our magic training.¡±


    ¡°You said it yourself too, the mages from Sregl Ind will take at least two years toe here, we cannot build the magic towers now. In this time, we still have a chance to go elsewhere.¡±


    ¡°Only one ce? You don¡¯t mean the Purgatory Desert, do you?¡± Saleen¡¯s face turned pale.


    ¡°Of course I meant the Purgatory Desert, it is rumored that that is where the Goddess had fallen. That must be the center of the Myers Maind, I guess, the core temple must have been built there.¡±


    Saleen kept quiet for a moment, he had said that there were twenty-four locations of the goddess temple. In actual fact he was intentionally avoiding the core temple, the twenty-fifth one. The location of this temple was definitely not a secret and many mages could deduce it too. No one dared to take the risk, it was already incredibly dangerous and on the fringes of the Purgatory Desert.


    To try to find any treasures in such a huge desert, was not much different from seeking death.


    The temperature there could go above seventy degrees in the day and under negative eighty at night. In such frigid weather, even a mage would quickly use up his magic chords and would not be able to release any magic to protect himself.


    ¡°Lex, the Sikeqinya people have a saying; ¡®To get wealthy, one must take risks.¡¯ You are already a viscountess though, is there a need for that?¡± Lex did not reply. Lex¡¯s words were direct, but finding the general location of the goddess temple required luck.


    ¡°I know what you are afraid of.¡± Lex smiled, looking rxed. She took out a map thenid it on the table and said; ¡°This is a map I got when I returned this time, it is the address of one of the temples. Let¡¯s go to this temple first and find its general location.¡±


    Saleen understood in an instant, the distribution of the goddess temple was systematic and it could be precise up to a meter. If they could get the general location of three of the temples, they could repeatedly deduce the location of the one at the center using a magic form.


    He and Lex each had the coordinates of one of the temples. So long as they went to see the third one and ced the coordinates of it on the map, they could deduce the core temple.


    If that was the case, they would not need to make any wrong turns in the Purgatory Desert. They could walk in a straight line until they reached the temple.


    Even though such calctions were incredibly troublesome, Lex had brought over one-hundred mages with her this time and they could split up the job.


    ¡°Using my one-hundred mages, it will take around three months to calcte the position of the core temple. Are youing along?¡± Lex looked at Saleen with a special gaze as he felt a gush of feeling welling up in his heart.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go, but what about the safety of this city?¡±


    ¡°I have brought an entire camp worth of soldiers, your city walls are decent. Even if one-hundred-thousand people were to attack, it couldst up to half a year. What person would use half a year to attack a city that isn¡¯t of any use to them?¡±


    Saleen immediately thought it through. He was constantly worried about his city being taken down before it waspleted, but he had neglected something. Any country or power needed a motive to attack this city.


    Attacking a city for no reason and using up half a year to send out hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses and not getting any benefits from taking the city down. Who would do something like that? Besides the sacred knights of the Holy See that was.


    Even if the Holy See wanted to attack there, they did not have anybat vessels to go by the sea route. It was still early and when they could reach there, the mages from Sregl Ind would have arrived. By then, the thirty-six magic towers would be up and running and even Alchemy City would not be able to do anything about their city.


    ¡°There¡¯s another thing, we both aren¡¯t sorcerers. When we enter the Purgatory Desert, we might need some powerful magic equipment. You have the Gods Ring but I don¡¯t have anything.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you¡­¡± Lex took a look at Saleen¡¯s finger before she realized that the Ring of Gifts was gone.


    Saleen gave an awkwardugh and said calmly, ¡°I gave it to Sika, she has be a warrior priestess and can use her focus to open the space in the ring. She can¡¯t use any other spatial equipment.¡±


    Lex said calmly, ¡°The ring is yours, you can give it to whoever you like, its none of my business. If we want to enter the temple, I¡¯m afraid we might still need it, however.¡±


    ¡°Then how did you enter the first time?¡±


    Saleen thought back to when he first entered the Goddess Temple, it was indeed because of the Ring of Gifts. Lex should have one for herself too.


    ¡°I made use of thest of the god¡¯s powers in the Gods Ring, there isn¡¯t any left now that I have used it.¡± Lex did not hide it. Her Gods Ring was an important treasure in the Grukos family and it was given to the most important person when it was passed down to every generation. The ring had another purpose, it represented the position of the user in the Grukos family.


    Emperor Chanake had given the Gods Ring to Lex which had enraged Safilos. Back then, he had incited the emperor of the Cloudflow Empire to ask for her hand in marriage because of this. If Lex married someone else in another royal family, she would have to give up the Gods Ring. To continue keeping it, Lex would either need to stay single forever or have the guy marry into her family. The child born would have to take the Grukos surname.


    ¡°This is troublesome.¡± Saleen had already given the ring to Sika and he would not ask it back no matter what. This ring was the key into the temple, though. The problem was that Saleen did not want to bring Sika into the Purgatory Desert, it was too dangerous there.


    If it was in the past, it did not mean much if Sika were to risk her life with him. After having such rtions with each other, Saleen started being overcautious.

 Chapter 447: Irresistible Temptation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 447: Irresistible Temptation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, this is not like you!¡± Lex spoke in a satirical tone, but it sounded like jealousy too.


    Saleen blushed as his intention was too obvious. Lex and him were blunt and frank to each other, but he did not know what to say.


    ¡°You still have time to consider this, we will first go to the third temple. There shouldn¡¯t be any danger there. Then, we will send the coordinates back here so that the mages can proceed with calctions. The shortest time to get the results would be at least three months. To go to the main temple, I have prepared for many materials and equipment. You take a look and give further thought about who to bring to help.¡±


    ¡°Help? What does it mean?¡± Saleen did not understand as there was no defence magic array in the temple. No matter which kind of magic array, it would stop functioning after tens of thousands of years time.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know? Back then, the dark sky devil that was being chased after by the four empires disappeared in the Purgatory Desert. Even if the dark sky devil did not live, he would have left behind something dangerous. You should understand ck magic, if it was notpletely rooted out, the devil would not disappear,¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t think that I have someone around me that can deal with the dark sky devil, did you? Even the three Kings can¡¯t do that.¡±


    ¡°The three Kings?¡± Saleen simply exined the origins of the three Kings and Lex thought before she spoke, ¡°The three Kings definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to fight against the dark sky devil, but the scariest thing about dark sky devil was not magic but itsbat power. Try to imagine, it has a power a hundred times what Sika has. That with the creepiness of Nailisi, apanied with ck magic. A monster with suchbination is incredible. The original dark sky devil definitely died, but we might run into its descendants.¡±


    Descendants? That¡¯s not that scary. The descendants of a walking dragon and a dark giant dragon are a few hundred times weaker in capability. ¡°But, Lex, what is there in the main temple. You definitely knew. You have to tell me now. I wouldn¡¯t let the others take the risk otherwise.¡± Saleen suddenly calmed down and he continued, ¡°These people that follow me shouldn¡¯t devote everything unconditionally. I am a mage, I have to give them just treatment.¡±


    ¡°Not much. The Goddess of Myers has four trees; the Tree of Life, the Tree of Element, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Tree of Taboo. In the main temple, there are seeds of these four trees.¡±


    Saleen was suddenly at a loss for words. The four godly trees possessed supreme godly power. He had gotten a piece of leaf from the Tree of Life and the godly power in him almost never die out. No matter how severe the expense was, as long as he did not die, his left hand would resume its original form eventually.


    It was only a piece of leaf. If it was a fruit, consuming it might make him immortal.


    If he had the Tree of Element, he would be the strongest mage. At least no matter what forbidden curse he used, it would not cause any pressure to him.


    As for the Tree of Knowledge, that would provide him infinite wisdom to see through all the secret in this world. If he had the Tree of Knowledge, he only needed a level one magic to break all the higher level magic.


    If he were to own a Tree of Taboo, he could break the bnce of the current dimension and give birth to a new God. To be God? This was unimaginable.


    ¡°The four trees, haven¡¯t they dried up?¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was hoarse. No matter how well his mentality was, he could not remain unshaken with such news.


    In the history of the Myers Maind, although Myers was not the demiurge, she was the first God that was born in the current dimension. She owned the four godly trees and every one of them symbolized an avatar of the Goddess.


    ¡°How do you think the Purgatory Desert came about? The Lord of Light wanted to take advantage of the Myers Maind, so hended regardless of the prohibition of dimension rules. That time, the four trees burnt and formed the Purgatory Desert. The Lord of Light nearly passed away and he had never dared tond at this dimension again and only sent his believers to preach.¡±


    That news was even more shocking. Saleen did not ask how Lex found out about all this as the history of Grukos family went way back to the Second Dynasty. Passing down secrets was a normal practice in such an age-old family.


    Saleen tried to make himself calm and asked, ¡°Lex, even if it¡¯s true that there are seeds for the four godly trees, how many years do these seeds take to grow into a godly tree?¡±


    ¡°Not too long, ten to twenty thousand years at most.¡± Saleen rxed as Lex continued to say, ¡°But I have ways to grow them within a few years time.¡±


    Saleen smiled bitterly while he said, ¡°You told me all this but, I cannot not go.¡±


    ¡°Why so? Leave our friendship aside, I dared not provoke your teacher. If you were to n not to go, I will find help from the others. Of course, don¡¯t you want the four godly trees?¡± Lex wore a cunning expression that was rarely seen. She was certain even that the Tree of Element alone would make it impossible for Saleen to reject the invitation.


    ¡°I have another question. The seeds of the four trees, besides you, who else knows?¡±


    ¡°No one else. When my father passed away, I got the information from the Ring of God. If I were to die, the person who inherits the ring would receive the news.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t ask if I knew.¡± Saleen replied sadly. The secret was only heard by him and there was nothing good about it, not even something to be boastful about.


    ¡°Saleen, you grew timid!¡± Lex sighed. She realized that Saleen had lost his drive.


    ¡°I have no choice, there are more people following me now. I have to be responsible to them.¡±


    ¡°You are not like from Sikeqinya.¡± Lex suddenly understood Saleen¡¯s meaning and she changed into an affectionate tone when she teased Saleen. She once had the same transformation so she understood what Saleen meant.


    ¡°Alright, forget about that. As there are no other people around, share your n.¡± Saleen knew that he had no choice but to go as Lex told the secret to him and if he were to not go, he would have too much trouble.


    ¡°Going to the main temple requires more than twenty people. There must be damage, you have to be mentally prepared.¡± Lex sounded cold, but Saleen understood. Such adventure relied on luck sometimes. Having sufficient power did not mean you would be fine. Maybe during ancient times, humankind could ignore God but now, the Purgatory Desert was enough to stop many strong people.


    ¡°Saleen, the danger was originally huge. Now that you have a ready-made magic chariot, it¡¯s safer. The skeleton warhorses won¡¯t be able to enter Purgatory Desert as the Goddess left behind her scent and that would burn the spirit of the skeleton warhorses straightaway. If we were to get a mechanical soul to pull the cart, we could save a lot of time in the desert.¡±


    ¡°Mechanical soul? You go and ask the three Kings yourself, what kind of a monster it is. We can¡¯t control them.¡±


    ¡°There is no spirit of the dead that can¡¯t be control. Once they make one and we bring it under control. I will then send all the grand mages to calcte the safest contract form to hold it captive forcefully.¡±


    Lex was definitely letting her imagination run wild, but the summon skill was developed like that at the very beginning. Capture a creature by force and calcte its weakness using a magic form, then the mage would design a contract tailored to that particr creature. Later on, the magic contract branched out to uncountable versions. Most of the creatures shared simr contract forms, so no one used the stupid way anymore.


    Not everyone could take such measure. They had to at least be like Lex and own arge number of mages to be able to.


    ¡°Alright, regarding the mechanical soul, that will be it. I will bring Sika, Nailisi and J. The rest of the people will be yours.¡± Saleen made a choice quickly.


    People around him; Sika and Nailisi were the most trustable ones and J¡¯s sword aura was the strongest. Although he was not on the same channel, hisbat power was undeniable. If Sika and Nailisi did not use their special power, they would not be able to win against J. They might not even be able to pull one trick before him.


    From that viewpoint, J might not be able to win against Nailisi and Sika. To kill enemies together, J would definitely overtake the two women by Saleen¡¯s side. When Nailisi killed ten of the enemies, J might already kill fifty or above. J also was a swordmaster. When he was supported with magic, the effects would be far more efficientpared to Nailisi and Sika who did not know any sword aura.


    Saleen made such choices because he did not want to bring the mages from Sregl Ind. The danger that the mages faced was far bigger in the adventure after all. There were many mages around Lex, so he would just let her fork them out.


    Lex smiled andforted Saleen, ¡°When I returned this time, teacher had prepared me sufficient magic liquid. If the person was not dead, I could at least let the injured person shower with magic liquid.¡±


    Saleen showed a hint of warmth. There was still a daily limit for how much magic liquid a grade-8 sorcerer could make. Lex¡¯s teacher prepared so much magic liquid and that would require a lot of his time. It would even affect his practice.


    ¡°I will bring two grade-5 mages, four grade-4 mages, and two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters. The rest of the people will be high level swordsmen. Also, there will be a cook.¡± Lex smiled.


    ¡°A cook?¡±


    ¡°The one I picked up from Holy Rock City in West Town. The strong man thatpeted with Sika.


    ¡°Ha!¡± Saleen recalled, the honest guy.


    After picking suitable candidates, Lex and Saleen continued to discuss about equipment. Before Lex returned, she preparedrge amounts of equipment. She knew that Saleen had mastered the water me alchemy skill, so Lex remade a new n to have Saleen make magic armor for the swordsmen that were following them.


    Then, Saleen and Lex started to measure the coordinates of the temple and started to build transportation portals at the temple and its surrounding. The transportation portal in the temple was very small and could be built first. The transportation portal might not be able to transport a living human or creature, but items would be much easier. Saleen then told Nailisi and Sika about what Lex said. He did not mention anything about the secret of the four godly trees to J, but he told J that it was an adventure that was definitely worth the risk.


    Saleen had no choice. He did not want to lie to J, but he could not tell him the truth. The less people to know Lex¡¯s secret the better.

 Chapter 448: Irresistible Temptation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 448: Irresistible Temptation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Making magic armor was rtively easy. Saleen¡¯s maniption of the water me was getting more skilful and Lex brought along a huge amount of blueprints. He did not have to design them himself anymore and he did not need to take a roundabout way to make them ording to the blueprints straightaway. Lex¡¯s magic armor blueprint was a secret among the Grukos royals.


    Summoning a mechanical soul was very troublesome, but the three Kings did not reject and they hated Saleen to bones. If the mechanical soul could cause a disaster in the Myers Maind, they would be even happier.


    Metatrin City would turn into chaos because there were another dozen thousand people. Even if the city took in another million people, it would not be too crowded. These people came there in a rush and they were nobles from different regimes though. The nobles brought alongrge amounts of assets and everything around that could be used over to Saleen¡¯s city. It was extremely beneficial to the city building. At the beginning, there must bemunication difficulty that lead to conflict.


    Luckily Lex¡¯s people could suppress them and there was no trouble.


    Such situation continued for over a month before Metatrin city regained its tranquility. Then, there was news that made Saleen slightly unhappy. The battle in Lianyun City had its initial result. Holy Rock City sent five elite swordsmen¡¯s camps and brought along war puppets. At rke in in the south of Lianyun city, they fought a battle with the eastern sea expeditionary force and killed half of the enemy.


    The maind shook. Although Safilos exposed the true power of the war puppets, he got some benefits too. They fought close to the border of Kroraina originally. The Tanggsi army, that was almost entering the empire, held their steps back and stopped going forward.


    Safilos continued to deploy his army and wiped out the turmoil that took ce in the south, then the empire temporarily quieted down. The expeditionary force was forced to retreat to Lianyun City and guard against trouble with the sea on their back. The situation would notst for too long. The army from the ind nations in the eastern sea did not bring enough food. Although they managed to plunder the Myers Maind, the nobles from the Qin Empire were very stubborn. If their city were to be destroyed, they would burn all their food too.


    The food that the expeditionary force from eastern sea managed to carry off could barely feed them. They could not waste because there were rumours saying alchemy city had sent out warships and prepared to help Holy Rock City to sweep the sea.


    Originally, if Alchemy City were to control Lianyun City, it would be even harder to be deal withpared to the eastern sea fleet. Saleen knew that the eastern sea fleet would attack Lex¡¯s ship, but Alchemy City¡¯s would not attack hers.


    Even if Lex and Safilos were to get to the term where they needed to meet at the battlefield, Alchemy City had to take Lex¡¯s identity into consideration. To fight against the royals, would get the Holy Rock City¡¯s guards up. Unless Alchemy City had already decided to expand its strength to control the entire maind that was. Lex¡¯s business would not be affected anymore and the sea route could be considered as opened up otherwise.


    They were kept busy until July. When even Saleen got a little anxious, Lex was finally done with all the preparation and ready to depart.


    Saleen made Daniel stay back to take care of the temple while there would be someone to take care of Lex¡¯s Bitter Water Army. Her prefecture rted business had been handed over to Hu An to manage. Saleen admired Lex¡¯s skills. Hu An was not considered as a strong mage. He had some power by Lex¡¯s side, but was not powerful enough to suppress everyone. To let him act for internal affairs, Hu An would not be able to y any tricks.


    Hu An was an ambitious person. He could not y any trick, he would take care of all the tasks with full cautious and conscientious, so that no one had anything against him. This was called making the best possible use of men and property.


    To use a person¡¯s specialty was a great thing. To use a person¡¯s characteristics would be an emperor¡¯s skill and that was someone capable enough to run a country.


    Two young Caucasus people wanted to follow Sika regardless, but Sika hushed them back solemnly. The two Caucasus had great capabilities, they were almost the strongest fighting force on Sika¡¯s side. They were normally responsible for Sika¡¯s troops of bodyguards.


    Before leaving, Saleen saw Aini privately and spoke in secret for half the night. The second day, a troop left Metatrin city in silence.


    There were four carriages in the troop and all of them were pulled by skeleton warhorses. The two carriages in the middle were transformed from magic chariots. The four skeleton warhorses looked slightly weird and their bones were obviously way thicker, there were also no soul mes dancing in their eyes.


    The four skeleton warhorses were mutated from the mechanical soul. There was a sharp spike on each of their foreheads, just like a death unicorn.


    The space in a magic chariot was much bigger than a normal carriage. The other two carriages for transporting goods were normal carriages and they carried some goods just for show. Saleen and Lex had huge magic space and in actual fact, they did not need another two carriages.


    That trip was to do something deceiving to the public after all. Metatrin city would not have any secret agents as of then. Going through Phoenix would still draw Holy Rock City¡¯s attention.


    Lex and Saleen both wore brocade robes from the Cloudflow Empire, instead of their magic robes. Lex¡¯s colorful magic robe was too eye-catching. Saleen did not need any magic robe as his demon magic robe was changeable.


    Nailisi was delighted to follow Saleen. Before leaving, that damn skeleton finally gave her the actual coordinates. Once she gathered things that she needed, she could start summoning demons. Summoning demons outside was not safe, Nailisi had no confidence of controlling them, but she could familiarize herself with the location of the coordinates and experiment constantly. Once she returned to Metatrin city, she could summon a strong demon and get the winged skeleton¡¯s aid to bring it under control.


    Most importantly, leaving Metatrin City, she did not need to salvage sunken ships underwater for the winged skeleton anymore. The cold sea water in the deep sea nearly made Nailisi fall ill. She even took less showers now and only requested Saleen to cast a Cleaning spell on her.


    What made Saleen worried did not happen. Although Sika was still intimate with him, she did not n and prepare to be with child. He was worried that Sika would really get pregnant on the way, that would definitely affect the risky adventure.


    J was happy and sad simultaneously. He was happy that there were five beautifuldies, but he was said that he could not touch any of them.


    When the troops entered the middle of Phoenix, Saleen slightly rxed. He then realized that there was a twenty-fifth person in the troop. The person was the mysterious assassin that was always by Lex¡¯s side. The power of the assassin obviously improved significantlypared to thest time they saw each other. The improvement was like a mage¡¯s promotion, the difference was vast.


    Saleen¡¯s mental power was no differentpared to a sorcerer. It took him so long to realize the existence of the assassin and that was sufficient to prove the assassin¡¯s power. Saleen also could sense the assassin because he was too familiar with the assassin. The assassin once fooled him with mental strength.


    With the existence of such a powerful assassin, a normal enemy could not threaten Saleen¡¯s troop.


    It was peaceful within Phoenix. The Sr City already gave in. The nobles in Phoenix found out about the appearance of war puppets and they surrendered. Maybe the resistance that they made at the beginning was just a show. Holy Rock City held the unknown baby in their hands and gave it the title of Grand Duke. Then, Phoenix would have any independence no more.


    Even the local nobles understood that. Safilos won that time, but his trouble from that day onwards had just begun.


    Saleen would not think about the situation in the Qin Empire, those were things that Lex should be worried about. His only concern was the seeds of the four godly trees.


    The troop passed through along the west border of Phoenix. They stopped for a short while in Deep Forest Town. Baron Piac that was sent back was still alive. When he saw Saleen, he teared up with joy. Saleenforted him and left him some gold coins and told him to stay for a little longer.


    Holy Rock City wanted to seized control of Sr city. The small town on the border of the city was close to the magic beast forest. Besides troops of adventurers, no one would notice.


    Baron Piac was helpless. His family members were all in Metatrin City, it was impossible not to listen to Saleen. If he knew that Safilos had not wiped out all the nobles, why would he seek refuge from Bitter Water Prefecture? Baron Piac regretted his actions.


    Saleen came out with Lex¡¯s magic map that time and it was a way smoother journey. Even in the wild, Lex could find suitable spots to set camp and there were not any magic beasts that came to disturb them. The troop took a months time to pass through the entirety of Phoenix and got to Kroraina.


    The army from the Tanggsi Empire was at one hundred miles away from the border of Kroraina. It was awkward as they did not know to charge forward or to retreat. Holy Rock City hadunched a general offensive against Lianyun city. Once the battle ended, they could deploy war puppets to Kroraina.


    Saleen¡¯s troop passed through the one hundred mile wide gap, without leaving any traces in the Qin Empire, and departed to Titan Duchy directly.


    Titan Duchy was a strong duchy affiliated with the Cloudflow Empire, it was almost two times bigger than Kroraina before copsing. If it was not due to its terrible location, the capability of Titan Duchy was sufficient enough to build a mini empire. It was in the innernd and there were enemies on the other three sides. Titan Duchy dared not breakaway from the Cloudflow Empire.


    The King of the Cloudflow Empire liked to keep up appearance. Even if it was just slight neglect verbally it would bring about attack from the army. The character of the people from Titan Duchy wasplicated. On one hand, they were a very careful people. On the other hand, a crazy Titan would do something shocking disregarding everything else.


    It was also a consequence of long term suppression. It made a country and people that were supposed to be strong into psychopaths.


    The third location of the temple was within the border of Titan Duchy. The Purgatory Desert was just on the south-west of Titan Duchy. Lex and the others only needed to find the exact location of the third temple in Titan Duchy to be able to send the coordinates back to Metatrin City. The mages could calcte the exact coordinates of the main temple that way. They could enter the Purgatory Desert then.


    Within the time frame, Saleen and the rest needed to stay in Titan Duchy for about three months time. Almost another year had passed by.

 Chapter 449: Hero (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 449: Hero (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The existence of the Purgatory Desert could be said to be good and bad. The good was that it would be difficult for both the Qin Empire and the Tanggsi Empire to surprise attack Titan as they would need to reroute away from the desert and there would only be a few routes to attack Titan. Titan had nevere across any sudden danger as of then.


    The bad was very obvious. Half of the soil in Titan Duchy was not suitable for agriculture and the weather conditions were bad.


    Titan Duchy was not actually close to the Purgatory Desert. In the radius of a few thousand miles to the Purgatory Desert, surrounding the desert, there was no domain owner for thend.


    There would not be anyone that came and stayed at such draughtynd. Even adventurers were not willing to go to the Purgatory Desert.


    The prefectures near to the border of Titan were not poor. The production of food was extremely little, but they were suitable for grape ntations so they possessed skilful technique to make wine and had countless wineries.


    The wineries there produced tens of thousands of barrels of grape wine every year and most of them were sold to the Qin Empire. It was not weird to see people from the Qin Empire appear in Titan Duchy. There was more businessmen from the Qin Empire than Sikeqinya.


    In Qinw, to make wine with grain was highly prohibited, so the sales of grape wine in Titan were shockingly good.


    Saleen¡¯s group with four carriages, brought along weapons that Titan people liked in exchange for grape wine. Such action blended among the public without drawing any attention.


    To preserve the quality of grape wine, it would be best if there were mages to take care of them during transportation. Lex¡¯s n was carefully constructed. The four carriages, with abination of dozens of swordsmen and a few mages, paid dozen of gold coins as tax entering Titan Duchy. Then, there was no one that would try to cause trouble along the way.


    Lex brought Narnia and sat in a carriage with Saleen. J was left out helplessly. This was because his sword aura was the highest among them all. He had to constantly ensure the troop¡¯s safety. He had to ride on a horse and followed alongside of the carriage.


    The skeleton war horses were kept in the green spirit and reced with normal horses. Lexid against the cushions in the carriage and found itfortable. The magic chariot itself was a mage¡¯s portable fortress, so it would of course be designed ording to the mage¡¯s habit and mentality.


    In the carriage, there were eight separated broad seats that were big enough for a mage to half lied down to rest. There was a low tform in the middle of the cabin. It was tough and extremely light, but it was an equipment that could set up ast minute magic array. The four walls of the cabin were covered with a hollowed pattern inted with unwanted crystal.


    Through the crystal, mages could observe outside of the carriage directly while when an outsider looked through the crystal, they could only see twisted images. They would not be able to tell what was inside exactly.


    The essence of the magic chariot was under the seats. Below the seats, there was a magic array that was arranged closely that had a corresponding magic nucleus iid that could increase the power of magic. When mages were familiar with all the magic arrays, they could make use of them to make a far distance attacks.


    With the effect of the magic array, the magic chords and mental powers of the mage was diminished to their lowest. Even if it was just an average mage, they could perform just like Saleen and release all magic that they learned instantly. On the chariot, there would not be chaos of element and there would not be a counter attack of magic.


    Lex stretched, which was a rare sight. Her hair was let down, it looked like she was enjoying the carriage. She said casually, ¡°Saleen, this carriage is not too shabby, give me one then.¡±


    ¡°Sure, I have seven and a half like this carriage, you want the half or¡­¡±


    What half of a carriage meant was the magic chariot that had not been repaired. The chariot was sunk to the bottom of the sea with the warship and there were many parts that were damaged. Saleen could put together aplete seven due to the fact that he has an irreceable salvager like Nailisi.


    ¡°I want this one that I¡¯m on, it suits me.¡±


    Narnia looked at Lex in shock. Her Highness seemed to have changed a lot, like a more friendly person. Lex was always nice to the people around her, but her elegance formed a kind of imposing aura naturally. Even she could not feel it, everyone actually still feared her.


    Saleen smiled, but kept quiet. Lex brought so many of her people to Metatrin City and there definitely were many people that did not concede to him. Lex asking for a magic chariot from him signified their closeness and meant that their rtionship did not build upon benefits. Many people that found out about this would cut short the idea of causing him trouble.


    Theoretically, Metatrin City belonged to Bitter Water Prefecture. In actual fact, the city was built by Saleen. Even without Lex, it might just be a smaller scale and developed in slower pace. With the help of Sregl Ind, it would not be difficult for Saleen to build a city anyway.


    Saleen could see through the tricks that the nobles were trying to pull in one nce. It seemed that he had such blood flowing in his bones.


    ¡°Lex, I¡¯m curious, why do we need to reroute for up to a thousand miles of the route?¡± Saleen was familiar with the map that Lex showed him. Originally, Lex would constantly head south after she left Kroranian, but she brought the troops to the West, to the border between Titan and Tanggsi.


    ¡°Bordeaux area is the most important wine production area in Titan Duchy. Their best wine masters there were the best too. Being next to Tanggsi, once there was war, the ce would be the first to be unlucky. I came early to hire a bunch of wine masters and bring them back to Metatrin City.


    ¡°Lex, Metatrin City is not suitable for a grape ntation.¡± Saleen said curiously, ¡°although I¡¯m not an alcoholic, I knew that the quality of grape wine is rted to its production region. The entire north, I didn¡¯t see any grape ntations.¡±


    ¡°But we have mages! Saleen, things like alcohol cannot be banned. If we were to not make alcohol, it would make the alcohol price in the north rise and people would use grain to ferment in secret. Caucasus people like to drink, regardless of the type of alcohol. If we do not take control of alcohol, it will affect the army¡¯s fighting power.¡±


    Saleen nodded to express that he understood. Lex nned to build a magic grape ntation, using magic to assimte environment that stimted the growth of grapes. The capital would be much higher, but to purchase directly from the south would be much more expensive.


    Metatrin¡¯s grain would not be able to self sustain in a short period of time. If there were people that made wine using grain and formed a bad culture, that would be worse. His understanding about magic waspatible to Lex, but for issues about taking care of a nation army, they were far apart.


    The winter in the north was cold, it was impossible to restrain the army from drinking. If they were to produce wine, they could turn the entire issue into an advantage. To seize control of alcohol for the entire army could heighten their morale.


    Lex was not the first to do so, Holy Rock City was already doing it. Not only just a small amount. They started nning before Holy Rocky City formed a nation, to have countless organization to write y and insult people that drinks hard liquor while praising grape wine that was lower alcohol content.


    Thousands of yearster, people from the Qin Empire were used to drinking wine that was made of fruit. Only those rugged men from Tanggsi would drink hard liquor that was made of grain.


    Until then, even noble themselves believed that drinking grape wine was something that suited their identity while drinking grain alcohol was a bad habit of the hooligans.


    The advantage that it brought upon the Qin Empire was huge. Environment that was suitable for grapes would not be suitable for grain. Environment that suited to make grape wine needed sand soil and it required vast differences in temperature. Grapes were most sensitive to rain storms, hail, and insect attack. They had no requirements for rich and fertile soil though.


    For so many years, the Qin Empire went through many floods and many draughts, but no one starved to death. That was due to royals that had been controlling the ntation and storing of food. The Qin Empire had some little ridiculous nobles, but rarely anyone dared to use the cultivatednd.


    ¡°The ce that we are going is the Princess Castle, the earliest feudal estate of Titan Duchy. Back then when the royals of the Cloudflow Empire tried to rope in The Grand Duke of Titan Duchy, they married their daughter to him and built a huge castle as dowry. The Grand Duke of Titan used all his strength to block the Sacred Knights of Holy See and died in front of the castle. The Princess of Cloudflow became a widow.¡±


    Lex introduced the ce to Saleen, it was history.


    ¡°That¡¯s not worth it.¡± Nailisi said softly.


    ¡°What not worth it? The princess left two descendants for the Grand Duke. From then onwards, Titan gained fame, won against the few nations surrounding it, and became a strong duchy. They had the Cloudflow Empire at their back, otherwise, they would have fallen long ago. You thought it was easy to build the four duchies? To live, it was way more difficult than for the four empires.¡±


    ¡°Master mustn¡¯t like the ending.¡± Nailisi was not afraid of Lex, she was entering mature period then, the power of Luoluokaluo was slowly taking shape. The grade-6 mage would not be able to threaten her any more.


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t talk nonsense.¡± Saleen cut in.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t talk nonsense. To sacrifice his own life for the thriving of a duchy, what¡¯s the meaning? The Princess of Cloudflow didn¡¯t have a good heart. The son that she gave birth to, it¡¯s hard to say whose kid he is. Sister Sika, what I said is correct, right?¡±


    Saleen keep his mouth shut. ¡°What the Cloudflow Princess and the Grand Duke of Titan did, does not rte to me. Why does the more the story go on, the more it sounded like it¡¯s insinuating Lex and I? Although there is nothing between Lex and I.¡±


    Nailisi lowered her voice and spoke directly into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°Master, why do you look guilty?¡±


    No matter how soft she spoke, she would not be able to hide from a grade-6 mage. Saleen was angry and he wanted to kick Nailisi, but he was afraid that he would hurt his leg. Lex seemed calm and she ignored Nailisi¡¯s tease. She continued to chat with Saleen.


    ¡°The Grand Duke of Titan was considered a hero. Even people in Cloudflow thought highly of him. That¡¯s why the Cloudflow Empire never ned to weaken Titan as they were worried it might trigger internal dissatisfaction.¡±


    ¡°Hero?¡±


    The word that popped into Saleen¡¯s head and he felt ridiculous. In his impression, all heroes in the novels, poems, and ys did not quite have a good ending.


    Just when he was thinking, there was a sound of chaos in front, someone shouted with their ear deafening voice like a gong, ¡°Hero, help!¡±

 Chapter 450: Hero (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 450: Hero (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were two people in front of their troop and they were both on ck warhorses. Lex¡¯s swordsmen were once out for many years and did training outside. Many of them had a different identity. The two swordsmen were mercenaries that owned official names in the Professional Union. This time they left, but wore the mercenary badge.


    It was not during the march to war, so the two high level swordsmen left their long weapons in the carriage. They did not hang them next to the saddle, but only hung a long sword on their waist. The Qin eight-sided sword was between a heavy and light sword. The force of splitting and chopping on a warhorse was powerful, it was considered a multifunctional weapon.


    The person who was shouting for help looked like he was in his thirties, wearing a pink robe. His skin was so pale as though he had been locked in the house for a dozen years without seeing the sun. This person had long sharp eyes and delicate facial features but was stubbly. The color of the shirt was awkward, neither that of fish nor fowl.


    The swordsmen at the front drew his long sword and pointed at him, ¡°Step back!¡±


    ¡°Hero, help! I ran into a bandit gang!¡±


    The two swordsmen from Bitter Water Prefecture looked at each other andughed at the same time. One of them said, ¡°There is only one bandit gang in Bordeaux, not many people know about them. You are the second person in charge of the bandit gang. Did you get robbed by a newly established bandit gang? That¡¯s embarrassing.¡±


    The person was uncovered directly and he justughed it off, ¡°Acquaintances then, have we met?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ve killed a few of your underlinings. It wouldn¡¯t be weird if we found out anything from them.¡± The two swordsmen were pointing at the leader of the bandit gang on both sides.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to be so tense. My hands just got itchy and I wanted to borrow some money to spend. If the two of you have a gold coin with you, I will let you pass through. How is that condition?¡±


    The two swordsmen were out all year round and they were familiar with all the robbers¡¯ rules. The leader of the gang could not be trusted. Even if he had scruples due to the capability of the troop, he would not only ask for one gold coin.


    ¡°Give him a gold coin. If he doesn¡¯t move out of the way, kill him.¡± The one who spoke was Narnia, but she was just retelling what Lex had said. In the magic chariot, the mages¡¯ perception was at their utmost sensitive state. Behind the leader of the robbers, there were at least a dozen people. Listening to the rhythm of their breathing, they were all tough fighters.


    Lex did not know if the people were ran into coincidentally or already schemed earlier. She threatened because of that, if the other party continued to bother then, they would be in big trouble.


    A swordsman took out a gold coin and threw it towards the leader of the robbers. He shouted, ¡°Get lost. If we see your face again, we will take immediate action.¡±


    Being humiliated face to face, the leader of the pack did not seem to be bothered. He raised his hands and took over the gold coin that flew over. He squinted his eyes and said, ¡°Thanks. There won¡¯t be any of our people in front. If you encounter any disturbance, go ahead and kill them.¡±


    The leader of the robbers said that and in a sh, he was hidden within the forest by the road.


    ¡°That person¡¯s footsteps were so fast!¡± Narnia saw the scene where the leader of the robbers left.


    ¡°It¡¯s an assassin, but he couldn¡¯t fight against J.¡± Lex saw the scary talent of the robber. The speed of him moving his body, the quiet footsteps, he would be easily schemed if they were in downtown. Lex was always apanied with arge troop wherever she went, she was not afraid of such a rascal.


    There was an even stronger assassin by Lex¡¯s side. All tricks that an assassin might y, were not foreign to her. She was not pressured and she could even gauged that instance that the leader was not J¡¯s match.


    The two guiding swordsmen were reced. The two of them came next to Lex¡¯s carriage and Lex asked, ¡°What is going on with the robber?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, we are not sure. It has always been peaceful in Bordeaux. There is only one gang and they move around the Tanggsi border most of the time. They do not run big business, there are quite a few strong ones, and the rewards are low. So no one has tiedy to wipe them out.¡±


    ¡°They don¡¯t do big business?¡± Lex could determine the problem behind that.


    Although there were gangs that specialized in small trades, the leader of the gang was not bad. If he were to join the army, he could easily be the captain. A captain was already the highest rank among the low level military officers. One without background, military exploit, and experience could be a captain; he must be outstanding in his talent.


    Such a gang could do very big business. Common mercenaries could not resist them. Unless it was a big mercenary regiment, it could not be bothered by the robbers. Such organizations did not do big business.


    ¡°Why? What¡¯s the problem?¡± Saleen did not understand much about the robber. He saw Lex crease her eyebrows so he asked that casually.


    ¡°This gang is supported by someone behind the scenes, but I¡¯m not sure whether it¡¯s people from Tanggsi or Cloudlflow. Maybe he collects money from both.¡±


    Lex made it so straightforward, it would be hard for Saleen to not understand that Lex was worried about the person behind the robber.


    ¡°Your Highness, why don¡¯t we chase after them and kill them all?¡± The two swordsmen outside suggested. There were twenty four of them in Lex¡¯s troop, none were weak. Those robbers had more people, but the swordsmen were confident to kill all of them.


    As long as they changed onto skeleton warhorses they were confidant. Skeleton warhorses were not afraid ofndforms, they were the most suited for ascending hills and going through rivers. The swordsmen riding on the skeleton warhorses were like mages cast with the windspeed skill consistently.


    ¡°We don¡¯t need to. Let Wild Bear go to the front. He can take care of whatever we encounter.¡±


    ¡°Him?¡± Although the two swordsmen were surprised, they carried out Lex¡¯s order thoroughly.


    Wild Bear was two meters tall and he was riding on a magic beast that was rarely seen. On the back of the magic beast, there was a huge bump just like a camel. Its hooves were much bigger and it had horns on its head. Its canine teeth were extended outside of its mouth, it did not look like one with good temperament.


    Wild Bear was the cook that Lex asked for from Holy Rock City in West Town. His talent in fighting was extremely high, so Lex brought him back and got someone to teach him swordcraft. After a few years time, he was almost bing a swordsmaster.


    Wild Bear was a simple and honest man. The people from Bitter Water Prefecture liked him, but Lex was afraid that he was cheated. She kept him in the prefect residence all this while. This time she brought him along to let him have more real battle experience.


    The swordsmen found Wild Bear and told him Lex¡¯s demand. Wild Bear patted his chest and said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. If I run into that scoundrel again, I will thump him to death in one hit with my hammer!¡±


    The swordsman heard Wild Bear¡¯s answer and quivered. He fought with Wild Bear before once. Contact with that hammer of his made a weapon either break or fly out of one¡¯s hand. Sword aura that was trained with much effort was useless before Wild Bear.


    When such an honest person set their mind on something, it would be extremely difficult to change their mind. Even if the gang had any ns, with Wild Bear¡¯s existence, the only way was to win against him first.


    Wild Bear was riding on the magic beast and got to the furthest front of the troop. J seized the chance to urge his warhorse and followed him.


    Wild Bear was extremely strong in learning to fight, but he could only speak the Qinnguage and themonnguage. In Titan Duchy most of them spoke the Titannguage and the Cloudflownguage. Sometimes there would be the Sikeqinyanguage, but the Qinnguage was rarely heard. The Commonnguage was only spoken during business. J knew manynguages, he followed Wild Bear as he was afraid that he would run into anguage that he didn¡¯t know.


    ¡°Where did you find J from?¡± Lex suddenly asked.


    ¡°I picked him up along the way. Why?¡± Saleen did not introduce J to Lex in details.


    There was doubt in Lex¡¯s eyes when she spoke, ¡°His eyes change color, did you notice that?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with that?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a characteristic of Cloudflow royalty. Did you know that?¡±


    ¡°Mm?¡± Saleen pricked up his ears. He of course did not know about that characteristic. He otherwise would have asked J long ago. J must be hiding something from him.


    ¡°The Qin royals that practice the royal secret arts, their eyes would have two colors; gold and blue. It exposed the attributes of the secret artspletely. The Cloudflow royal family has secret arts too. Their secret arts would make their eyes change color too. The higher the level, the more colors it changes. At most, there would be seven. I saw at least five colors in J¡¯s eyes.¡±


    So called secret arts was referring to unique practice methods for magic and sword aura. These skills were passed down in the ancient families, definitely not for dissemination. One must be in the direct line of descend to be able to inherit them.


    There were very little direct line of descendants in the Grukos royal family. Only followers of Lex and Safilos could impart. Due to Lex¡¯s practice of secret arts, she seemed cool since she was young until she had some result from secret arts. After that she felt closer to the normal people.


    ¡°Master, I think J might really have impregnated the princess of Cloudflow!¡± Nailisi was suddenly excited.


    Lex heard what Nailisi said and started questioning closely, she then found out how J knew Saleen.


    ¡°That could be understood. A princess that could inherit secret arts in cloudflow, must be some important figure. J was chased after, it might not be because he did that, but might be because the princess exposed the practice method of secret arts to him. Saleen, what do you think?¡±


    Saleen closed his eyes and said, ¡°It¡¯s okay. I believe in him.¡±


    J was following next to Wild Bear and he suddenly tensed. Just now, there was a swift and fierce aura that locked him down and was ready to attack him anytime. He couldn¡¯t find the origin of the aura!


    The person that locked him down was close to the standard of a Golden Grand Swordmaster!


    Hair all over J¡¯s body stood on end and he nearly drew his sword. He did not know who wanted to attack him, but the aura suddenly disappeared and it was hard to find again. J turned around and saw Saleen¡¯s carriage was following close behind without any movement.


    That made him feel safer. Him following Saleen might be the best choice. He had never been any big figure. To be able to live better, he had to sacrifice.


    ¡°Mm, if you believe in him, I shall let him go then.¡± Lex smiled faintly and did not bring anything up about J again.


    ¡°You Highness, don¡¯t let him go. J is a very lustful person. He peeped at me when I showered,¡± Nailisi incited by the side.


    ¡°Lex, ignore her.¡± Saleen saw that Lex raised her eyebrows and he knew that was bad. ording to Lex¡¯s character, she hated such unrestrained actions the most.

 Chapter 451: Night Raid (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 451: Night Raid (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex¡¯s expression calmed down gradually. She looked at Saleen and asked, ¡°Nailisi was bullied, aren¡¯t you angry?¡±


    Saleen felt helpless as he still could not tell Lex about Nailisi¡¯s identity and that did not rte to trust. Nailisi actually relied upon him. Once she exposed her identity, he was afraid that all mages on the maind would develop an interest in her.


    ¡°Lex, don¡¯t listen to Nailisi. J does not have the guts to.¡± Sika suddenly spoke.


    Nailisi sent a re at Sika, but did not do any other action. Lex was shocked and stunned. She suddenly felt that everyone around Saleen was a little weird and she could not understand them.


    The atmosphere was awkward and Saleen could only focus on the environment around, but not chat with Lex. It was an ancient road built with Cloudflow¡¯s method. Although it was a mountain road, not even a de of grass grew after thousand of years passed. Both sides of the road had thick forest. Such environment was best suited for robbery.


    In the north of Titan Duchy, there were few streams, but a lot of mountains. The space between cities was huge. The spaces were filled with mini fortresses in the viges and a lot of low level nobles.


    They owned a few hundred of the wine cers in Bordeaux, most of them were lordlings. The lordlings were very rich and they could afford a private army. Theoretically, there should not be space for such robbers to make a living.


    The way Titans treated robbers was more brutalpared to the Qin Empire. Basically, once all captured robbers were sentenced, they would be fed to the magic beasts. The gang was probably linked up with the local lordlings.


    The troops went through Pheonix and did not draw anyone¡¯s attention. They changed their horses in Kroranian and there was not anyone that knew Lex¡¯s identity. As long as their stratagem was not aimed at Lex, there should not be too much trouble. Maybe these lordlings wanted to plunder traveling merchants with dirty tricks.


    The sky grew dark and the swordsman riding along the carriage asked softly, ¡°Your Highness, do you want to continue or to take a break?¡±


    ¡°Anywhere to rest?¡±


    ¡°Five miles to the south, there is a small castle. The owner is a baron.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s only one ce to stop around here?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Titan doesn¡¯t allow the farming household to y host to travelling merchants. That is a noble¡¯s right. Of course, that¡¯s also part of the ie for nobles.¡± Lex exined to Saleen.


    ¡°We should continue then.¡± Saleen suggested.


    ¡°There¡¯s another day to the Princess¡¯ Castle. Even if we changed to skeleton warhorses, we need another half a day¡¯s time. Why?¡±


    ¡°That bunch of robbers want us to go into the castle. The nobles here are linked up with them.¡±


    ¡°A baron¡¯s castle, anyrger scale wouldn¡¯t exceed a hundred people. We can totally wipe them out if bothered.¡± Lex looked at Saleen, waiting for his reply.


    ¡°Maybe that baron was pushed out for dead and he himself didn¡¯t know. If it really happened, the Princess¡¯ Castle would send an army to encircle and annihte us. By then, the only way for us to get out of this, is to reveal your identity.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you are now a qualified partner.¡± Lexughed. What Saleen thought of, she had already envisioned. The gang made an appearance to nt fear in their troop. They appeared at such a location at this very moment to y around with human psychology. It was to make them spend a night at the castle and assumed that it would be safe.


    That was not the worst. The worst was, the castle itself was a trap, but one could not touch it. Once in contact with the baron in the castle, Lex and the rest would be framed as robbers or the robber that killed the noble. By then, there would be local robbers that appeared to testify, Lex would not be able to speak in self-defence.


    Revealing the series of stratagem would be useless. Once going in, it would be difficult to escape.


    ¡°Everyone work slightly harder, we will hurry on our journey.¡± Lex spoke to the people outside. She came to Titan to look for the remains of the third temple, not to be there to ask for trouble. With the capability of her troop, they would still be able to if they did not attack the city. The impregnable pass of Titan would be the line of the Princess¡¯ Castle, to prevent the Tanggsi Empire. The East did not directly connect with the Qin Empire. Lex could flee back anytime, without being besieged by a huge army.


    ¡°Tell everyone, if we encounter what happened during day time again, kill everyone.¡± Lex said and started meditation.


    She felt great meditating in the magic chariot, just like she was back in the magic tower. Although the effect was vastly different, there was a simrity. That was that mage could wake up from meditation anytime to join a battle.


    A thousand meters high in the sky, a flying puppet was trailing Saleen¡¯s magic chariot until they climbed over a red mountain range. Among the wild faraway, there was a bunch of robbers gathering around a gray robed mage.


    The mage was about sixty years old and there were two magic symbols on the gray robe. The leader of the robbers that was wearing a long pink robe asked, ¡°Mister mage, did they not go to the baron¡¯s castle?¡±


    ¡°No, they went to the west. They already passed Red Earth Ridge.¡±


    ¡°What nerve! They dare to go on with their journey through the night.¡± The leader of the robbers was upset. For the operation, the gang used all their strength. If they failed, all the invested gold coins would go down the drain.


    ¡°They arecking courage, Argus, you made it too obvious,¡± the mage said casually and destroyed the magic array. The ground and the flying puppet in the sky immediately turned and flew back.


    The leader of the robbers flushed and said, ¡°I never expected them to be that smart.¡± Then, realized that he did it too casually. If the other party carried treasure, why would they lower their guard.


    ¡°No worries. Send the double faced strong calvary. After the Red Earth Ridge is nd. Fighting against strong calvary, no one would be able to escape.


    ¡°Mister mage, we need to use the double faced strong calvary already?¡± The leader of the gang was not keen. The double faced strong calvary was the foundation of the gang. They relied on the double faced iron riders to wipe out the nobles when they encircled them.


    ¡°These people didn¡¯t stint their horses and are rushing towards the Princess¡¯ Castle. With their speed, they will be able to reach it before sunrise and those horses will be done too.¡±


    ¡°If so, mister mage, please help me send out the orders.¡± The leader of the robbers did not hesitate. Once those people entered the territory of the Princess¡¯ Castle, he would not be able to take any action. Although the Princess¡¯ Castle did not belong to the seat of the Grand Duke, it had a thousand strong calvary with another two regiments of elite infantry. Three thousand soldiers were definitely not something a gang like his should offend.


    No matter how strong the background of the gang was, they could not strike at the Princess¡¯ Castle. To attack the Princess¡¯ Castle, not only was that provoking the Grand Duke, it was also humiliating the royals in the the Cloudflow Empire. Although they were linked with Cloudflow, there were some things that could not be touched.


    Rumors said that there was another princess that was to be married to Titan again. The feudal estate should be around the Princess¡¯ Castle. The ho nest could not be stirred. Whoever touched it was said to die.


    The mage seemed to read through the concern of the leader. Then, he replied with a poker face, ¡°Argus, you have invested a lot. Even if you don¡¯t take action, I would still take my share.¡±


    ¡°I understand. Send down the order, please.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± The gray robed mage nodded and started to set up a magic array. He wanted to send updates to the double faced strong calvary that was waiting in ambush. The normal way would not work. If they sent people to send the letter, they might not be able to catch up with the troop.


    After the magic chariot climbed passed the red mountain range, it was nd and the troop slowed down. They did not continue to rush their journey.


    ¡°Rest here.¡± Lex took back the original order. Her swordsmen did not find it weird. During the march, such changes weremon. Themander in chief would change the n ording to actual situations.


    The campsite was built up quickly. Although it was only a campsite for about twenty of them, there were eight tents. There was an enclosure built on both sides with dried branches. The branches were sharpened into spikes to prevent any attack by calvary.


    The real defence was the magic traps set up at the outer border of the campsite. Almost half of the total number of Lex¡¯s troops were mages, apanied with two high level swordsmen and two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters. To set up the magic traps was too easy, a chain trap heavily protected the campsite. Even if there was a strong mage on the other party, it would be impossible for them to sneak into the campsite without contacting the traps.


    The two grade-4 mages inserted a few wooden sticks into the ground faraway. There were gems iid on top of these sticks. They were a mage¡¯s detection magic eye. Just like a magic staff, they were precious equipment. The needed wood and the gems were extremely special.


    Finished setting up, Saleen could only leave the magic chariot, everyone in the chariot were women. If they spent the night, it would not be too convenient if he stayed back. Although they stayed together for long in the hell of god¡¯s punishment, this was the Myers Maind. If Saleen stayed in the carriage, he did not know what Lex¡¯s swordsmen would think of him.


    Saleen did not get on the other magic chariot, but sat at the entrance of the campsite instead. Looking at the nd from far, he started daydreaming.


    It would definitely be an unrestful night. Saleen did not understand what was wrong with the troops that they got under people¡¯s watch. There were only two good wagons and there were not deep tracks. What did the robbers actually find out?


    There was no problem with the carriages, the problemy in the ten high level swordsmen. The swordsmen¡¯s armor was too expensive, if every one of their armors were to be sent to the store, they could sell for tens of thousands of gold coins. With such swordsmen guarding carriages, the robbers would of course treat them as a piece of fat meat. Saleen used the water me alchemy skill to make magic armor for Lex. Although he tried his best to hide the element fluctuations that the armour gave out, it could not be hidden from mages that were higher level.


    The robbers did note up with an evil n at thest moment. The moment Saleen¡¯s troop entered Titan Duchy, the news was sold. If Saleen¡¯s troop were to go to south after they entered Titan, they would have been in trouble.


    As the north of Titan was always calm, there was not any big gangs, it was safe all the way. The speed that they were on their journey was quick, the only northwest gang hid in ambush multiple times but missed the chance. There were mages that came along, the mage in the gang did not let the flying puppet fly too close. They could not get a hold onto their exact route.


    After a few mistakes, the gang immediately changed their n and wanted to deceive Saleen and his troop to the baron¡¯s castle while theyid an ambush there.


    Saleen did not know about that, but he knew when he get to the Princess¡¯ Castle, he would be safe. There were another three hundred miles of the journey left. Even if they did not change to skeleton warhorses, the troops needed another half a day to get there.


    Provided that, they went through the night.

 Chapter 452: Night Raid (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 452: Night Raid (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Wild Bear walked up to Saleen¡¯s side. He did not have much reverence for mages, so he sat down very close to Saleen.


    ¡°I know you.¡± Wild Bearughed lightly.


    ¡°I know you too.¡± Saleenughed too. Wild Bear looked very approachable. Such a huge body, besides his terrifying muscles, he was a nice person to talk to. As long as you did notpete your strength with him.


    ¡°Your female bodyguard, I feel likepeting with her again.¡± Wild Bear said solemnly.


    ¡°Oh? There¡¯s no need to. You improved a lot, but you are still not her match.¡± Saleen did not beat around the bush, Sika was rewarded some powers of a warrior priestess. To a mage, it might not be powerful, but mental attacks might not be weaker to a mage. Even with the purest strength, Sika would be able to suppress Wild Bear.


    If the two of thempeted in fighting, with Sika¡¯s one mental attack, she could flip the strong man with ease even without a weapon.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Wild Bear was a little disappointed. He never felt that Saleen was lying to him. The Viscountess told him the mage Saleen was someone trustworthy.


    ¡°Let¡¯s notpare among ourselves. There will be a surprise attack tonight. If you want topete, see who wipes out more people.¡±


    ¡°You think so too? I feel uneasy, I think that there will be danger.¡± What Wild Bear said shocked Saleen. This person who only trained his sword aura for a few years had developed telepathy like a swordsmaster had.


    That was an extremely sensitive intuition towards danger, Wild Bear could not analyze and judge. He could predict that there would be something happening that night though.


    To people that has such power, judgement could be wrong sometimes, but intuition would not be wrong. It was said that when one reached the level of Golden Grand Swordmaster, even during battle, one could avoid vital danger.


    It was equal to a mage using the Figaro form to calcte, but a thousand times that in speed. Such ability was what mages were envious of too.


    Saleen absorbed the power from the Goddess Ne and he could calcte many types of danger, but it was definitely much slower than intuition. During battle, he could only calcte by aiming at subjects.


    Such calction expensed quite a lot of mental power. A normal grand mage would need to meditate for a while before he could recover after one calction.


    Wild Bear¡¯s mental power must be very special. If he did not learn sword craft, but practiced magic, he definitely would have great achievements. Fate was something strange. No matter how great a person¡¯s talent was, without any opportunity, they would just lived their life and did not achieve anything. If he did not run into Lex and the group, Wild Bear would still be in Holy Rock City as a graceless chef.


    He was still a chef, but his rank was different. With Lex backing him up and hiring a teacher to teach him sword craft.


    ¡°Mister Saleen, hold on.¡± Wild Bear suddenly stood and turned to the carriage to get his other weapon. He left it on the floor and sat down next to Saleen again.


    It was an extremely long longsword. The de itself was about three meters long. Even a person who was two meters tall like Wild Bear holding it in his hand looked awkward.


    ¡°Single edged cut horse sword!¡± Saleen saw the long ck sword and recognized the weapon.


    The Fourth Dynasty once had an army of a hundred soldiers and everyone of them held a single edged cut horse sword. These hundred soldiers were specialized in breaking a strong cavalry¡¯s assault. No matter how strong the cavalry was, a hundred brawny warriors holding a single edged cut horse sword standing there could easily block and shatter the cavalry¡¯s attack.


    Saleen was surprised because the single edged cut horse sword was an ancient item and it was definitely left behind by the Fourth Dynasty.


    The weapon weighed about five-hundred pounds and amon person could not even hold it up, let alone wave it around to kill enemies. That was a weapon made of Fallenstar. It was made with secret silver in order to lower the weight.


    Wild Bear brought along the weapons and put it by his side, even Saleen felt his mind at rest. No matter what kind of metal or magic shield the enemy was using, before the single edged cut horse sword, they were all joke. A single edged cut horse sword only had one natural attribute, which was to tear. Wild Bear had yet to be a swords master, but he was born with a special power. With such a strong weapon, Saleen reckoned, any magic shield below sorcerer level could be splittered with one charge.


    Lex was the luxurious one. If Saleen were to get such a weapon, he would definitely melt it and remake it into other weapons. Fallenstar melted together with any kind of siderite could be made into weapons with the same effects.


    He did not know how many weapons Lex had. If she had all hundred of them, it would be a great trick to fight against the cavalry.


    The Qin Empire had the heavy de of a long spear, a heavy infantryman weapons used for attacking cavalry. The heavy de was only made of steel. There was no magic effect. The value was vastly weaker than single edged cut horse sword.


    ¡°Mister Saleen, your skeleton horses, can you give one to me?¡± Wild Bear chuckled in embarrassment. To ask for this was something embarrassing.


    ¡°You mean the skeleton warhorses? Those are the spirits of the dead. You are not a death mage, and you are also not a mage. Even if I give one to you, the skeleton war horse would lose its life very quickly.¡±


    Wild Bear sighed sadly and said, ¡± You don¡¯t know, the sword is even heavier than my hammer. If I were to hold it, I could only walk on my feet, the warhorses would be squashed.¡±


    Among the troop, only Wild Bear was riding on a magic beast. His batter hammer was about a hundred pounds, which was a big burden to a warhorse. A normal warhorse could carry a four-hundred pound load. It could be a considered as a kind of magic beast, its bloodline had a strong power. If it was an inferior horse, it could never bear the cavalry¡¯s power.


    Wild Bear¡¯s singled edge cut horse sword itself was about five-hundred pounds and he was about three-hundred pounds. This was under the circumstance of him not wearing armor. If Wild Bear were to be fully armed, he could possibly weigh a thousand pounds. Even if it was a skeleton warhorse, carrying him would be tough too.


    ¡°Wild Bear, wait until we return to Metatrin City, I will figure out a way for you. I have no death mage with me now.¡±


    Wild Bear could only sigh. He had not been to Metatrin City for long, but he knew Daniel. He saw Daniel riding on a grade-8 death creature and he was envious of him.


    He did not know that a grade-8 death creature would not let him ride on it. If he dared to touch the pikoosi, the pikoosi would burn his soul.


    Not everyone could sign a contract with a spirit of the dead. Wild Bear¡¯s mental strength was strong, but he did not have finesse at all when using it. He was definitely not a match for a high level spirit of the dead.


    Saleen was not tired, so he sat at the entrance of the campsite and chatted with Wild Bear. Lex did not appoint anyone as sentry. It was quiet in the wild, as thought there were only two of them. Under the starlight, the earth seemed a little pale.


    Saleen finally understood what took Lex so long when she returned. She moved all her resources, boughtrge amounts of food, and expanded her army. Bitter Water Prefecture incorporated twelve cities in its surrounding and expanded its domain by dozens fold. Relying on her twenty thousand swordsmen, Lex brought the nobles around under control very quickly and incorporated their soldiers.


    Now that Bitter Water Prefecture had increase the size of her swordsmen¡¯s camp to six, the one camp that she brought along was the oldest one. They were all swordsmen that had been following her for many years.


    Before the Great Chanake died, he already confirmed the scale of Bitter Water Prefecture. Although Lex used military force, it was permitted byw. What made Safilos pissed was, the Great Chanake allowed Lex to expand her army to ten swordsman camps and join the war in Kroraina.


    There was a secret pathway from Bitter Water Prefecture to Kroraina, they were all mountain roads. A big army would not be able to pass through the small road, but Lex could send a troop of two-hundred people to prate and train her troops repetitively.


    Winning over the nearby nobles, the people under Lex¡¯s management were more than a few million. The scale of a prefecture was taking shape. She expropriated the manors of the nobles that she won against and redistributed them apanied with new titles of nobility.


    The millions of people definitely could not feed an army of ten thousand people. Then, the nation would copse. Luckily the newly formed four swordsmen¡¯s camps would not be considered elite and their expenses would be much less. Lex moved one of the elite swordsmen¡¯s camps to Metatrin city, to share the burden.


    Saleen had to fork out money to support them too.


    ¡°If so, Lex had no money?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like she had no money. I heard it¡¯s called malfunction of capital turnover. The county king could still sell off her asset for money.¡±


    ¡°Oh I see.¡± Saleen finally understood Lex was in a predicament. The expandsion of her army was so fast. No matter how little she invest in it, it would be a very big pressure. Every month¡¯s pay and provisions were at least one gold coin for each soldier, that was not inclusive of investments in equipment. Now that Lex had six swordsmen¡¯s camps, every month¡¯s pay and provisions for the army would exceed ten-thousand gold coins, the officers¡¯ pay was higher after all.


    Lex plundered a batch of weapons and armor in Wolf Fang Town. It helped with the problem ofcking of equipment, but the soldiers had to eat. Their pay and daily consumption of food was not something receable by other items.


    No wonder Lex wanted to produce alcohol. Regardless of the type of alcohol, once there was business, they had to pay heavy taxes.


    ¡°Here theye!¡± Wild Bear pointed at the end of the horizon. Even if he did not speak, Saleen could hear the uncovered tter of horses¡¯ hoofs.


    ¡°Heavy cavalry? The robber was linked up with nobles as expected.¡±


    ¡°Humph!¡±


    Saleen snorted and looked upon the sky. There was a ck dot floating in the air, that was the flying puppet. It was flying too high up and he had not noticed it. Such height was the limit of a flying puppet. If the weather was slightly worse, the flying puppet would be destroyed.


    It was a pity that he did not have a crossbow, Saleen¡¯s magic would not be able to reach a thousand meters.


    At first, Saleen thought there would be people that seized the night tounch a surprise attack. He never thought that the other party wanted to meet force with force. It seemed that the robbers were very confident in their ability!


    They were really a bunch of silly people. Facing eight grand mages, they deployed a heavy cavalry for attack. What was the difference between that and asking for death?


    Heavy cavalry was an upation that burns money. Lex only had two regiments of heavy cavalry.


    Wild Bear stood up and shouted behind his back, ¡°Wake up and fight! Those bastards areing!¡±

 Chapter 453: Double Faced Strong Calvary (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 453: Double Faced Strong Calvary (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Wild Bear¡¯s voice was like a resounding roar. It was deafening in a quiet night.


    In the magic chariot, the mages took a look with the alchemy telescope and got up to tell the officers, ¡°It is heavy cavalry, be prepared to set up the alchemy crossbows.¡±


    All ten of the high level swordsmen were officers, they went to collect the alchemy crossbows from the front of the magic chariots. There were four sets in total that were set right in front of the campsite while there were two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters that guarded at the back of the campsite.


    The speed of the heavy cavalry far away was extremely slow. Their warhorses were one in a thousand, but even so before any heavy cavalry mounted a charge forward, they had to save their energy. If the warhorses were of a bad quality, they even had to get to a certain distance before they could wear their equipment.


    The destruction power of a heavy cavalry was huge, but its flexibility was bad.


    The silhouettes faraway were getting clearer, there were about two-hundred people. The two-hundred person heavy cavalry did not manage to wait for Saleen¡¯s troop at the original ambush spot, so they had to send flying puppets to probe their location again. They only then realized that Saleen¡¯s troop passed through Red Earth Ridge and stopped immediately to rest.


    The robbers were angry, but they had no choice. They had to let the heavy cavalry take a break before moving to the east.


    Doing it all over again led to the loss of dash for an originally spirited heavy cavalry and they became more careful.


    Saleen stood up and the ten high level swordsmen walked past him to set the alchemy crossbows before the campsite. The power of a crossbow varied, with the stronger ones an arrow could shoot through three fold magic armor. The weaker ones would rely entirely on the sharpness of the arrow.


    The weapon that the ten swordsmen had were weapon used in an army; alchemy heavy crossbows. Only the royal army was allowed to use such crossbows. If the others were to use it, they would be caught and hanged.


    If the enemy was light cavalry, they could speed up from afar and the swordsmen would not be able to set up the alchemy crossbow slowly and steadily. The heavy cavalry had to save the power of their horses. Even if it was a heavy cavalry that were riding magic beasts, they had to speed up within a certain distance.


    He felt that his icy sight had improved, he did not need the alchemy telescope and he could see things from eight-hundred meters away clearly. When the cavalry sped up, the dust suddenly flew over the ground and they could hear the heavy tter of the horses¡¯ hooves, as though a giant was hammering the earth.


    If the ones around Saleen were normal soldiers, they would have been terrified by such an imposing manner and have been stunned. The ten swordsmen only felt extremely ufortable, but they could still fix the crossbow and prepared to shoot.


    They were all elites. Theoretically, they would not shoot at the furthest distance a crossbow could shoot but instead wait until people were two-hundred meters in distance. It required a longer time to fix an alchemy crossbow, there was only one shooting time when they were using it against cavalry.


    The advantage of an alchemy crossbow was that its prative power was extremely strong and those who were shot would be dead on the spot.


    ¡°Do not shoot, wait for my order.¡± Saleen shouted and his voice rang like a magical melody. Although he had not specialized in mental magic, he could easily break the enemy¡¯s mental attack. He was a grade-5 mage after all and the enemy was only using the power of their armor.


    The ten swordsmen were awakened from their dream and were suddenly covered in a cold sweat.


    ¡°Magic heavy cavalry!¡±


    Saleen looked at the two-hundred strong cavalry that was getting closer and got serious. Magic heavy cavalry only existed in theory as to train magic heavy cavalry, one had to have two requirements. First, they have to be magic apprentices, so that they could move their mental power calmly to allow magic armor to be fully utilized. Second, the soldier must be at least a low level swordsman.


    It was not that difficult to achieve those two. What was difficult was, unless a teacher give him up, a magic apprentice would not turn over to sword craft and give up magic.


    It was easy to find thirty to fifty of them in one nation, but to form a regiment, it seemed impossible. The number of magic apprentices under Lex exceeded a thousand, only one tenth of them were able to be mages. Even so, these magic apprentices did not intend to give up their profession and turn to sword craft.


    The two-hundred strong cavalry before their eyes was obviously magic heavy cavalry. Everyone could move the attributes on the magic armor andunch attack. As it was a sound wave attack to affect their enemies mentally, the attack started from eight-hundred meters away.


    Such heavy cavalry could break any other battle formation. That was unless their enemies were a bunch of mages.


    In Saleen¡¯s campsite, not only were there a bunch of mages, there were two magic chariots. Besides the ten high level swordsmen that were slightly affected, such low level mental attack was useless to the rest of the people. Even Wild Bear was only triggered to the point where his eyes gave out killing vibes that were rarely seen. He grunted and brought up his three meter long single edged cut horse sword.


    The mages that were resting in the carriage found it odd and immediately there were dozen of spells cast from inside the carriage onto the ten swordsmen. Saleen cast a water shield for Wild Bear too.


    The defence power of water shield against magic attacks overtook ice te armor and it would definitely not affect any movement taken by the protected person. Saleen¡¯s water shield had reached a godlike level, a thinyer of water film stuck onto Wild Bear¡¯s body and changed its shape ording to Wild Bear¡¯s action.


    The two-hundred strong magic heavy cavalry was wearing purplish red armor and it was reflecting with blood-like rays. This armor was the rarely seen big-leaf armor, it looked like a three fold armor. The helmet of the cavalry was the pattern of the Fourth Dynasty, it was fully enclosed and the eyes were two polished crystals.


    The soldiers could look through the crystal to see things that were extremely far away. The effect was simr to an Alchemy telescope. Such equipment required its user to be at least a magic apprentice while an alchemy telescope could be used by anyone.


    The weapons in the heavy cavalry¡¯s hands were spears that were outdated. They were about four meters long, but seemed a little short. Saleen saw a circr spearhead that was iid with purple crystals, it obviously could shoot some magic. Even if it was only level one magic, it was annoying.


    Saleen saw that the enemy used such expensive equipment and he was even more certain that there must be a huge power behind the bunch of robbers. He would not be surprised if it was the Holy See.


    There were three parts of the Holy See. The part in charge by the pope definitely would not be linked up with the robber, but those in the detention center definitely could.


    Saleen was not worried though. Although they were close to Tanggsi, the border was a piece of Tanggsi Empire¡¯s abandonednd. Holy See did not care much about this area, the entirend only had a Red Shirt Church.


    There were multiple spells cast on the swordsmen¡¯s body and they were not affected by the sound wave anymore. They quickly readjusted their breathing and waited for Saleen¡¯s order.


    Lex did not move at all. She was still meditating in the carriage.


    ¡°Four-hundred meters, three-hundred meters, two-hundred meters¡­¡±


    ¡°Shoot!¡± Saleen gave the order to attack calmly.


    Such alchemy crossbows that were produced by the royals could scarily shoot a range of eight-hundred meters. They were definitely a weapon made to kill. No matter how strong the enemies¡¯ attack was, it did not mean that they could ignore the attack of alchemy crossbows. The item was made for attacking cities and it was awfully expensive. Normally, a regiment only had five.


    At a distance of two-hundred meters, the alchemy crossbow was indestructible. Even if Saleen cast tenyers of water shield, he would not dare to take the attack.


    Saleen was not a sorcerer yet. It was impossible for him to calcte faster than the speed of an alchemy crossbow. There was also a pattern on how magic was shot, it could be easily calcted. The attack for an alchemy crossbow had no pattern though, any miscalction meant death. The four alchemy crossbows that Lex had prepared obviously did not stop there, the four arrows whimpered while they flew out. The swordsmen dissemble the crossbow stand quickly and changed into new weapons.


    The weapon were all cross guns. Cross guns were specialized weapons that were used to break cavalry. The horizontal de was sharp, with a light hook. It would be able to chop off the horses¡¯ hooves.


    Four one meter long arrows flew out rotating, the surface of the arrow brought a ck air current and made a weird noises. The speed of the four arrows were too fast. They traveled the distance of two-hundred meters in the blink of an eye. The knights on the front row had yet to response and they were shot through continuously.


    Poof, gah¡­.


    The rotating metal arrow crushed the knights¡¯ magic armor and made a huge hole through their chests and flew to the back.


    The arrows were cast with three spells, the Sharpening spell, the Sundering spell, and the Element Counteraction spell. These intermediate spells were cast at thest moment, only people who had a few grand mages around like Lex could easily use such a battle strategy.


    The four arrows went through six bodies continuously before dropping to the ground. The twenty magic heavy cavalrymen rolled onto the ground and the rest of the heavy cavalry was shocked. They sped up with all their strength to rush towards the campsite.


    They were too worried. Not many armies would have the equipment to be able to shoot a crossbow that could go through six sets of magic armor. The cost of it was way higher than those higher level magic armors.


    Lex only had a hundred of them in two elite swordsmen¡¯s camps. Half of them were left in Bitter Water Prefecture and the rest were in Metatrin City.


    The swordsmen stepped back and let the magic chariots go forward. On the magic chariot, there was two grade-5 mages and two grade-4 mages. The mages that Lex brought with her had been following her since she was six. This was Qin Empire¡¯s imperial mage regtion. The direct line of royal descendants would be followed by mages.


    Losing one tenth of the power, was only the beginning. The mages in the magic chariot were observing the distance. On a location one meter away, there was suddenly a dragon wall.


    The wall was an example of Ground Magic. The spell was first created to resist floods, but it was a good one to deal with heavy cavalry. A wall suddenly popped out of nowhere, it was two meters high and horizontally blocked where the cavalry was charging forward.


    The heavy cavalry pulled the horses¡¯ reins and leaped, the warhorses that could carry heavy loads jumped over the two meter high wall and continued to dash forward.


    Light cavalry dared not jump over the wall, but the heavy cavalry with magic armor flew over like feathers.


    What greeted them on the other side were clusters of stone spears.

 Chapter 454: Double Faced Strong Calvary (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 454: Double Faced Strong Calvary (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Stone spears were not an instant magic, but they were triggered after the wall was up. It was just in time to dodge the magic heavy cavalry¡¯s sight. The magic heavy cavalry did not really know how to fly. They leapt over the wall and fell onto the sharp stone spears.


    The warhorses¡¯ armor was not as great as those that they were carrying and the stone spears pierced through the horses¡¯ chests and stomachs. Among the wailing of warhorses, the magic heavy cavalry that had not fallen into the trap suddenly slowed down their charging momentum.


    The scariest thing about the heavy cavalry was their high speed charge. Forget the fact that they were holdingnces, even if they did not carry anything, they would be able to knock the enemy dead with their charge. The quality of the cavalry was extremely high, therades in front were killed and the rest bypassed the wall and intended to pick up speed again.


    At one-hundred meters, the magic heavy cavalry could still increase their speed to their maximum.


    After two rounds of far distance attacks, the two hundred heavy cavalrymen lost forty people. Saleen¡¯s troop had only released one round of arrows and cast a chained magic.


    Saleen calcted the rhythm of the heavy cavalry that had picked up their speed again and he was getting ready to release some attack magic. These heavy calvarymen¡¯s spears were stored with level one magic. A total of one-hundred and sixty of them, releasing a level one spell altogether would be able to sweep the campsite clean.


    With such storage, the level one magic that magic apprentices stimted would not be able to attack any further than thirty meters, maybe only twenty meters. The mages in the magic chariot released a ranged spell called element counterbnce. Such magic could easily offset part of the attack power.


    As the magic heavy cavalry got closer, the magic in Saleen¡¯s hands was released like a phantom. A bunch of level one magic almost covered the entire emptynd before the campsite.


    A standard double release, dozens of level one spells were released in chains as though it was only one mage casting them. The two grade-5 mages in the magic chariots thought Saleen was being a busybody at first. Looking at Saleen¡¯s skills, they were impressed and immediately admired him.


    It was not difficult to release a level one spell continuously, but Saleen did it so perfectly and gracefully as though the dozens of spells were a big scale spell.


    ¡°Instant frost!¡±


    In the mid of August, Titan was at its height of summer, but the temperature suddenly dropped and the ground had a thickyer of ice and frost.


    The magic cavalry was still fifty meters away while Saleen¡¯s instant frost was cast on the location of thirty meters. The magic cavalry suddenly increased their speed to their highest. If they were to stop again, there would not be any impact when they dashed towards the campsite.


    They were reaching a distance of twenty meters, and the knights in front had no choice, but to lower their spears to fire the level one magic that was in the me that was stored within the spear.


    Over a hundred spears fired at the same time and broke Saleen¡¯s instant frost.


    When Saleen saw such a situation a he backed off. He already triggered the enemy to release their level magic earlier, he did not need to worry about the rest of the battle. No matter how fast the heavy cavalry were, they would not be able to dash through the defence of ten high level swordsmen. Behind the ten swordsmen, there were another four grand mages.


    Saleen retreated not because he was afraid of these heavy cavalrymen, but he did not want to expose himself. To hide his current identity, he could not charge the enemy¡¯s line personally. Lex wouldugh at him otherwise.


    Jason gave his closest mage to him, that had an implication. On Sregl Ind, Saleen already had the possibility to participate or even wield great power. If so, his identity was not any less than a county king.


    As expected, when Saleen retreated, Lex pushed open the carriage window and waved at him.


    ¡°Saleen, you don¡¯t need to worry about the rest of the battle. There are two magic carriages, they can take care of it.¡±


    Saleen smiled and reentered the magic chariot, ¡°How was my magic? Give me some feedback.¡±


    When Saleen spoke, he did not feel anything wrong at all. Narnia looked at him with rapt attention. Saleen disyed an unyielding personality unconsciously, but it did not seem skittish. That was a kind of self confidence, a passion towards magic.


    ¡°Justcking of magic chords. You would be a grade-6 mage long ago otherwise,¡± Lex was impressed. Ever since Joey transformed Saleen¡¯s body, he turned into a real magic genius.


    Saleenughed, ¡± We can¡¯t be in a hurry about magic chords.¡±


    He was clear with his own problem, he had less magic chords than other mages on the same level. It was already a miracle that the speed he leveled up with was as even-handed as the others. Now that he was even faster than the others, if he were to panic, that would simply be asking for it.


    ¡°It¡¯s the best if you are not in a hurry. Don¡¯t forget, you promised mister Joey that you would visit him at Holy Rock City.¡±


    Saleen heard Lex¡¯s reminder and recalled that he owed another person something. Joey was an expert that exceeded grade-9, Saleen would not break his promise.


    The things that mages said were like water that was sshed, in could not be taken back.


    To monsters like Joey, Saleen dared not go back on his words either. If he were to piss Joey off, he could only hide in Alchemy city, but Alchemy city might not want to offend people like Joey either.


    Maybe Joey would not be able to copse Alchemy City, but the people in Alchemy city had to go out after all, right? If they were to offend people like Joey, even if Alchemy city could guard against the city to death, it would be embarrassing.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry, Mister Joey wouldn¡¯t harm you.¡± Lexforted Saleen.


    ¡°What can I be worried about? I can¡¯t fight against him anyway.¡± Saleen did not say what he was thinking. If he were to be looked on unfavorable by Joey, Lex¡¯s n would fall through too. The rtionship between Joey and Lex seemed to be intimate, he guessed Joey would not do something that put Lex in a difficult position.


    Because of him, his teacher helped Lex. Even when Sregl Ind had problems in development, he would not consider relocating to far north.


    As they were talking, the battle in front was getting heated. The two-hundred man heavy cavalry arrived at the entrance of the campsite, Wild Bear bellowed in anger and dashed among the cavalry.


    The level one magic that was originally stored in the weapons of the magic heavy cavalry was used up on Saleen¡¯s magic earlier. Wild Bear was waving his single edged cut horse sword. With one horizontal sweep, he chopped the first cavalryman that dashed before him at his waist directly. The spear that was longer than Wild Bear¡¯s weapon did not manage to hit him.


    The cavalry held the bottom part of the spear while Wild Bear¡¯s de was three meters long. The sword had a brutal aura that raised a sky of blood rain. Along with the waist of the cavalry, the warhorses necks were chopped off too.


    The one sword shocked everyone at the scene.


    The neck of the heavy cavalryman¡¯s warhorses was wrapped up with armor, threefold magic armor with armor on warhorses were both split into two parts by Wild Bear with one swing. Wild Bear looked at ease, he charged the long sword to the front and prated another cavalryman¡¯s chest.


    The power of the cavalryman¡¯s momentum became his assistant. He nted both his feet on the ground and took simple advanced steps. He shed and chopped, every swing would kill a cavalryman.


    The ten swordsmen behind Wild Bear followed suite. Ten cross guns were shot out like poisonous snakes, giving out glittery rays. The ten high level swordsmen were experts in the army and they were very familiar with how to deal with the cavalry¡¯s skills. Using the cross guns to attack the horses legs first, horizontally with sharp des or hooks, it would break the leg bones of the warhorses.


    Although the knights that rolled down from the warhorses were wearing threefold armor, they had the strength to stand up. Why would J give them a chance to?


    J was wearing a long cotton robe, holding tears in his hand. He leaped like he was flying. Every sword would rip into the eyes of the knights that fell on the group. The purple crystals shattered one after another. Under the attack of tears, they were even more fragile than egg shells.


    The high level swordsmen cast with the Potence spell were not afraid of the enemy¡¯s charging power. Their cross guns pushed over one swordsman after another. J went on with one swing and he would not attack the second time.


    Lex smiled faintly in the magic chariot and she told Saleen, ¡°If the robbers sent light cavalry and disturbed us with arrow, it would be considered as trouble and we had not have any choice but send out mages. As for heavy cavalry, it would be okay if they were fighting against normal mercenaries¡­¡±


    As Lex had said, besides the first magic attack, the mages in the other magic chariots had yet to cast any attack magic. They had only been casting spells for their swordsmen asionally when the magic was disappearing.


    Attack magic could onlyst for very short periods, but the duration of defence magic entirely depended on the expense of the quantity of magic chords.


    A standard grade-4 ice te armor could definitelyst for more than a half an hour. On the magic chariot, mages could even diminish the expense.


    If only releasing supporting defence mage, these mages could probably take turns to continue the battle without worrying about the expense of magic chords.


    A high level swordsman that was supported with magic not only would increase their battle power by double, but they could strengthen their bodies and have protection from high level magic shields. They were all like Wild Bear, they could dash against the heavy cavalry.


    ¡°Most of the army failed because of their mistakes on battle strategy, but not because of the vast difference in capability. Even if there weren¡¯t magic chariots, the two-hundred heavy cavalry would not cause too much of a trouble to us.¡±


    Sika pouted, before absolute power, battle strategy was useless. Such cavalry that were wearing turtle shells, she was not afraid of at all. As long as they had weapons on hand, her club, everyone would be pounded into dust.


    Sika did not get it wrong. Lex had at least another three that had not been sent out; the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters and Bain who was hidden in the dark. If the three of them were to take action, the hundred magic heavy cavalry was just a pile of losers to them.


    Equipment was pretty important. If Sika did not have her unique weapon, it would not be that easy. The ck Metal Grand Swordmaster and Bain had weapons that could easily strike through magic armor too.


    If the two-hundred heavy cavalry were to be on a battlefield, it was sufficient to crush a regiment. Before Lex¡¯s selected troops, weapons did not act as advantage, but a burden.


    The killing before the campsite was still going on. The heavy cavalry lost their speed and Wild Bear dashed into their formation to slit and chop both sides. They were demolished. In almost ten minutes time, the two-hundred heavy cavalry was left with only forty. The rest of the heavy cavalry was grievous and indignant, but they knew that they lost the in the attack. Almost all the enemy were dead or injured, but the campsite was left untouched. The mages inside started casting attack magic and released spells wouldy one of theirrades down.


    ¡°Hold on a little longer. The enemy will definitely have one of their soldiers killed, but there is already no meaning to this battle.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±


    One of the heavy cavalrymen shouted and took the lead to flee. The ice te armor on Wild Bear was all broken. Both of his eyes were bloodshot red when heughed and said, ¡°You wanna go?¡± Then, Wild Bear threw out his cut horse sword and it stabbed through the armor on the back of the heavy cavalryman.

 Chapter 455: Orphan and Widow (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 455: Orphan and Widow (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    J did not seize the opportunity from behind then. He was not injured all this while. When the enemy retreated, he suddenly sped up and chased after them on his feet. The sword aura swept over and a three foot long sword ray appeared, he killed over twenty people in one shot.


    J then reached his greatest extent. To rip through magic armor with a sword aura by force was a big expense and he increased his speed forcefully to chase after the fleeing horses.


    ¡°I wasted my two-hundred people.¡± A mysterious voice rang out and Saleen immediately locked down the location of the voice.


    Right at the back of the campsite, there was a strong scent.


    Lex looked calm, as though she already knew of the enemy¡¯s existence long ago.


    ¡°Your men are almost all dead. You only appeared now, is there any special trick that you are pulling?¡± Lex sounded calm, one could not hear any fluctuation of emotion in her voice.


    ¡°Of course, my double faced strong calvary had two lives each. The battle is just getting started,¡± the treacherous voice reverberated in the air. Nailisi creased her eyebrows and wanted to dash out.


    Saleen held her back and said, ¡°It¡¯s okay. Lex can take care of them.¡±


    Lex nodded and replied, ¡°Go ahead then.¡±


    Just when Lex spoke, the calvary that was chopped before the campsite started twisting their bodies to stand up. The two ck Metal Swordsmasters pretended they did not see it, but drew their long swords and leapt towards the back of the campsite.


    The magic chariot before the campsite was suddenly giving out a mumbling noises. It was the four mages chanting at the same time.


    When they practiced to the level of grand mages, many spells did not require magic incantations, let alone to sing with special sybles. Suchplicated release of magic could only mean one thing. That was a magic that the four grand mages did not master entirely. It belonged to an intermediate magic that was extremelyplicated.


    The magic chariot yed a role in growing and stabilizing and the four grand mages still had to use an incantation to release such magic. Saleen could not help but push open the window to look outside.


    He saw it was suddenly dark before the campsite as though something was blocking off the star lit sky. Then a cloud of soft and gentle white rays burst into full bloom and soared up to cloud level in the night sky.


    The magic cavalry that intended to stand up were shined upon by the white rays of lights. They were like snowmen that were under the hot sun, they gradually grew weak and fell down. The magic armor on their bodies was melted like candy, it slowly deformed and melted down.


    Then, Saleen heard sad and shrill cries from the enemy soldiers. Underneath the masks of the magic cavalry, there seemed to be hidden magic beasts. The noises that they made did not sound like humans at all.


    The voice behind the campsite became terrified, but angry, ¡°The pr night aurora?! You! You¡­¡±


    The voice turned shrill and sonorous at the end. It was obviously a woman¡¯s voice.


    ¡°Of course I know who you are; you are the evil mage that leads the pink army. If you were to be able to live this long, you spent thirty years to put together such an army of double faced strong calvary, right?¡± Lex¡¯s voice dispersed in the night sky and spread extremely far.


    Saleen was stern, Lex knew who the enemy was all along, but she had not told him.


    Lex looked and him and smiled. She said, ¡°Don¡¯t take it to heart. The pink army is specialized in rearing miniature magic beasts and they are good at eavesdropping. If I didn¡¯t hide it from you, they wouldn¡¯t be fooled.¡±


    The pr night aurora was a restorative magic. It required many mages to prepare simultaneously with the assistance of special equipment to be released. Those four mages were not willing to leave the magic chariots as they were waiting for the double face strong cavalry all this time.


    The double face strong cavalry was an existence in between spirit of the dead and puppet. Normally they had human scent and wisdom. The spell was much stronger than the darkness warriors. Under the revival state of the second form, intermediate magic was almost nullified and could only fight against it.


    Every magic had its weakness, the magic that the double faced strong cavalry was weak to was the pr night aurora. A pure light magic had a definite damage towards double edged strong cavalry, but it would not be like now. It melted all of them into wax figures.


    Lex continued to talk to Saleen, ¡°I dragged longer at Bitter Water Prefecture, but did not return to your city immediately. I was preparing special equipment. This time, the journey wouldn¡¯t be peaceful. No matter how well we hide our chariots, people with bad intentions would be able to tell. If we didn¡¯t have these chariots, I would have prepared mechanical puppet to reced them. Those were things that attract greedy eyes.¡±


    Saleen was at a loss for words. Lex nned very carefully with every conceivable possibility taken into ount, she must have organized beforehand about what kind of enemy she might run into and made relevant preparation for battle. Compared to him, who went into Chaotic Swamp thoughtlessly, she was much stronger. He also knew the characteristics of the double faced strong cavalry. If these things were to take their second form, he had no other way to face them and could only flee.


    As for magic like pr night aurora, even if he was a sorcerer, he would not be able to release it.


    Lex continued talking to Saleen, her tone got gentler as she said, ¡°You are differentpared to before. As you have a city now, you can¡¯t do everything on your own. The people under you, depending on what ability they have, appoint them to do rted matters. Our focus should still be practicing magic.¡±


    ¡°You are right.¡± Saleen knew that Lex was giving him good advice, he could not invest all his mental power in inexhaustible tasks.


    ¡°Lex, you are really amazing. This time, I lost. Do you really think that you could go back to Bitter Water Prefecture alive? There are more people waiting for you ahead.¡±


    ¡°Hahahaha¡­.¡± The hidden womanughed maliciously and her voice suddenly stopped.


    After a while, Saleen smelled a whiff of blood. He then felt a kind of mental power, the assassin by Lex¡¯s side took action.


    Saleen could not help but asked, ¡°Did he kill her?¡±


    Lex shook her head and said, ¡°She escaped. The leader of the pink army is not so easily killed.¡±


    ¡°What it this pink army?¡± Saleen gained more and more magic knowledge, but he could hardly be concerned about different kinds of mysterious power on the maind.


    ¡°The story is long.¡± Lex rxed her body andid against the soft cushions. The swordsmen outside were cleaning up the battlefield. As there was nothing around, she was in the mood to exin the story to Saleen in detail.


    ¡°It was about thirty years ago, there was a genius in the Tanggsi Empire. He was unmatched by anyone. Both his magic and fighting skills were at a terrifying level.


    ¡°That is impossible!¡± Saleen shouted. That fact toppled his understanding towards the world.


    Once a person formed magic chords, they could not practice for the sword aura. Magic warriors were actually only magic apprentices that changed their profession. They could only cast simple grade-0 magic and activate the low level magic on equipment, but it was definitely impossible for them to use intermediate magic.


    Simrly, if a person practiced the sword aura and could embody it on a weapon, they would not be able to practice for magic chords. Saleen read rather ancient magic books, the most recent he read was at least three-hundred years old. He had no idea about what happened in the Tanggsi Empire.


    ¡°It was real. My uncle saw it with his own eyes.¡±


    Lex¡¯s uncle was of course Prince Safilos. Saleen had a strong impression of the person. After he became a grand mage, he was the only one that made him feel fearful.


    Although the Great Chanake was much stronger, he was more like a senior. Safilos was a cold Golden Grand Swordmaster. If Saleen were to block before him, Safilos only needed one sword to solve a grand mage like him without the power of a counter attack.


    If a person like Safilos saw it with his own eyes, it would not be fake.


    ¡°The Tanggsi King thought highly of the genius and gave him a title of nobility tomand arge number of troops at a young age. He was given the title of Marquis. Although the titles of nobility in Tanggsi are exaggerated. A first Marquis, with another promotion,entered him to the empire¡¯s inner circle and he became one that could affect the nation¡¯s fate. Who would have expected that the bastard triggered the Tanggsi King somehow.¡±


    ¡°Triggered?¡±


    ¡°Mm. No one knew what happened. Some say that he abducted the king¡¯s consort, some said that he took the soldiers pay and provision, and some even said he was secretly conspiring with the Qin Empire. Anyway, the Tanggsi King gave an order to take his life.¡±


    ¡°Is he dead?¡±


    ¡°Back then the pope wanted to rescue him from the Tanggsi King, but the old King did not listen to the pope¡¯s advice and tens of thousand soldiers closed in on him. Of course, he escaped.


    That ending did not surprised Saleen. If this person did not escape, there would not be the pink army then.


    ¡°It¡¯s not weird that he fled. What shocked people was that he brought along his family. He brought all his wives with him, without leaving any one of his loved ones behind in the Marquis residence.


    ¡°All his wives?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that man was very lustful. If he were to like a woman, he would find a way to get them to his side. Before he ran away, he had married seven wives and one of them was royalty in the Tanggsi Empire.¡±


    Saleen thought, this man was like J. Though J was not as strong as him, he could not abduct the Cloudflow King¡¯s daughter even.


    ¡°The Tanggsi King went on a rampage because the man didn¡¯t run to Cloudflow, but he entered the God Grace Duchy. God Grace Duchy was a dependant state of Tanggsi Empire. In the end, the man was living pretty well in God Grace Duchy. The Tanggsi King gave an order to have God Grace Duchy send him back to Tanggsi. God Grace Duchy refused in the name of the pope.¡±


    ¡°Later on, the man built the pink army?¡±


    ¡°No, the man¡­ he was struck by lightning and died. The Grand Duke of the God Grace Duchy wanted his wives as the man left his orphans and widows in God Grace City.


    ¡°What happened in the end?¡± Sika could not help but ask. Any tough woman would be curious. She was naturally curious towards this kind of thing.


    ¡°The Grand Duke of God Grace Duchy was killed by the widows. The widows fled from God Grace Duchy and built the pink army.¡±


    ¡°Killed by lightning¡­¡± Saleen mumbled to himself. He thought about the power of thunder that he saw in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. He had already got in touch with this secret, why should he go back and forth over other matters? As long as he mastered the power of thunder and lightning, even if it was Safilos, he didn¡¯t have to worry.


    ¡°That¡¯s pitiful!¡± Nailisi said unctuously with tears in her eyes.

 Chapter 456: Orphan and Widow (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 456: Orphan and Widow (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Pitiful?¡± Lexughed coldly and said, ¡°The pink army was only built for twenty years. Between God Grace and Titan, they killed almost a dozen thousand people. These women are wicked and merciless. They ughtered an entire vige just for a baby in the vige.


    ¡°What did they want the baby for?!¡± Saleen had a bad feeling about this.


    ¡°Of course to train for the army in the future.¡± Lex sounded like she was shivering.


    ¡°The two empires actually didn¡¯t care?¡±


    ¡°Of course they did, but the pink army is hidden in a spot that is too secretive. The area where they moved around is the gap between the two empires and they were afraid that it might lead to war for them to sendrge scale army.¡±


    Saleen blinked his eyes quickly and asked. ¡°The ce where they hide, could it be¡­¡±


    ¡°It is our first target this time.¡±


    Saleen was suddenly rxed. The genius turned out to have received treasure that the Goddess of Myers had left behind and he got such an encounter. It¡¯s a pity that the person¡¯s mind was not good and he could not practice in peace. The man had finally died and his soul disappeared.


    Did he not view himself as genius too? Before reaching twenty years old, he was already a grade-5 grand mage. The entirety of that was derived from the favor of the goddess though. If he did not get the Ring of Gifts, he would have died in the Chaotic Swamp.


    The location of the temples that the Goddess of Myers left behind were all extremely secretive and they required the key that goddess left behind to open them. The two empires could not sendrge scale troops to search so the pink army being able to live was not something strange.


    If he were to have nowhere to escape to, he could also go into the temple and close it. Unless there was really a God that had fallen into this world that would stop him, there would not be anyone that could find him.


    ¡°The pink army do it over and over again and are not only relying on concealing their tracks, right?¡± Saleen asked another crucial question.


    ¡°Yes. In the beginning, the pink army was very arrogant, but they ran into a few troubles and started to rein themselves in. The man that was struck dead by lightning left many magical things behind. The double faced strong cavalry was improvised by him. The power was much stronger than the original double faced strong cavalry. The pink army then formed their gang directly and passed all the messy things for the gang to deal with them while they only take charge of fighting.¡±


    ¡°If so, does it mean that we have to destroy the pink army to get to our destination?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s so. In the first destination, I¡¯m afraid there won¡¯t be many valuable items, but the coordinates had to be exhaustive. There might be deviation in our calction otherwise.¡±


    Saleen nodded to express his understanding. If the main temple was not at the Purgatory Desert, deviation was eptable. In the Purgatory Desert, a small mistake could take one¡¯s life.


    ¡°The leader of the pink army was the man¡¯s wife. Both of my ck metal swordmasters didn¡¯t manage to make her stay even for a moment. If you were to run into her alone, it would be very troublesome. From today onwards, don¡¯t be too far away from me.¡± Lex did not put her cards on the table, but Saleen understood. If the two ck metal swordmasters were to keep the leader of pink army for a few seconds to let the assassin by Lex¡¯s side rush over, the assassin would not only hurt her.


    Lex did not let the assassin go far away to prevent that woman from hurting her.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have be too anxious. She was hurt by Bain and he remembers her scent. If she wants to get close to us, it won¡¯t be as easy anymore.¡± Lex looked at Saleen¡¯s stern expression and immediatelyforted him.


    Saleen smiled. He was anxious because he knew how strong the assassin by Lex¡¯s side was. The assassin tried his best to attack, but he did not manage to keep the woman so that woman was definitely someone that he could not deal with. The assasin remembering her scent would definitely make it difficult for the woman to get close to Lex though.


    ¡°Are we still going to the the Princess Castle?¡± Saleen thought Lex took the route to lure the pink army tounch an attack. Now that the two-hundred double faced strong cavalry was wiped out, it would be safer to go to the south. Any further west, they would be too close to the Tanggsi Empire. Saleen was afraid of Holy See.


    ¡°Of course. We are not going to stop there long. I am only leaving some money to buy some wine maker and have them go to Bitter Water Prefecture. Then, there will be people that send them to Metatrin city naturally.


    ¡°Buy?¡±


    ¡°Heh, not as ves. Winemakers normally have to follow some nobles for life so it would be difficult to hire one. I might as well buy some from the nobles and sign a contract.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, we can go now.¡± the swordsmen outside were done cleaning the dead bodies up, but they did not find any useful clues.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Lex knocked on the carriage window, but the one driving the cart was her war puppet. The puppet alreadyssoed the carriage with the horse. When it heard Lex¡¯s order, it raised the horse whip and it made a clear whipping sound.


    It was also an advantage of the magic chariot. When a mage controlled a puppet in the magic chariot, the expense of mental strength was low. Such low level puppets were close to zero expense.


    The four carriages slowly left the Red Earth Ridge. On the faraway mountain, there was a short figureid out in the lond to look down the mountain with an alchemy telescope. She used red silk to cover her face and she was dressed in red too. Only her stomach had a patch of dark purplish color, fresh blood had soaked through there.


    ¡°By Lex¡¯s side, there is such a strong assassin. No wonder she dared toe to such a ce.¡± The masked woman was talking to herself. She finally sighed a breath of relief when she saw that the four carriages had left. She took down her face cloth and revealed a delicate and pretty face. The face did not show a trace of her actual age. If one ignored the hardship in her eyes, but looked at her skin they would think that she was just a young girl.


    The woman sat down on the spot and took out a medicine bottle. She poured all the pills into her mouth and regted her breathing there and then. Her brain only faintly felt like it was being stabbed and her stomach hurt.


    The wound did not bleed anymore. Thedy closed her ck eyes slowly and went into a meditation-like state.


    After Saleen¡¯s troop took off, they went forward full force. Although the roads were not like in the Qin Empire, they were about two cars wide. It did not even affect their speed when they were rushing.


    It was great when a normal carriage could hit the speed of twenty miles. A specially made chariot could go more than thirty miles. As for magic chariots, they could even reach the speed of fifty miles, but it bound down to the type of horses that were pulling the carriages too.


    If it was skeleton warhorses, it was nothing to hit the speed of fifty miles. If Saleen was to change into normal inferior horses, although the horses were tall and strong, their bloodline would not work. Running wild for the entire journey, their bodies would be damaged. When they got to the Princess Castle, even if they did not die, they would not be able to pull the carriage anymore.


    This was not the time to cherish the horses, the first attack of the pink army failed. If Saleen¡¯s troops were to slow down, the other party could calmly set up another trap on the way. The second trap would aim directly at the warriors and the carriages. If the enemy was strong, take away its wing, everyone understood that theory.


    During the journey, Lex exined more about the pink army. The formation of the pink army wasplicated. Most of the time, the entire army was more than ten thousand soldiers. Half of them were private soldiers from the Marquis Residence. The ability of the man who was struck dead by lightning to befog the minds of the people was quite strong. He fled from the Tanggsi Empire and his underlinings followed his footstep and got to God Grace Duchy to follow him one after another. Later on, as he was struck dead by lightning, the underlinings followed his wife and continued to fight.


    That was the foundation of the pink army. Leaving God Grace for almost ten years time, the pink army had blocked off the entire juncture of the Tanggsi Empire and the Cloudflow Empire.


    The pink army had all kinds of talent. There were a lot of them that snuck into each country to continue their business before and supported the pink army in secret. There was another bunch that recruited robbers nearby to expand the scale of the gang to control the business in the area entirely.


    ¡°I reckon Bitter Water Prefecture had a spy from the pink army. This time I brought only my senior underlinings to Metatrin. Even so, they discovered my whereabouts.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay. I brought the magic scrolls. No matter how many more people there are, they can¡¯t fight against our magic.¡± Saleen heard Lex¡¯s introduction and he felt at ease.


    The pink army was actually a gang of strong gangsters that took control of the area that was within nobody¡¯s jurisdiction. Seizing the existence of a tense rtionship between Tanggsi and Cloudflow. If Tanggsi and Cloudflow were on good terms and both parties sent out soldiers to hem them up the pink army would not stand a chance. It was only a ten-thousand person army, how could they withstand the pressing of two empires?


    God Grace Duchy was the one having dealings with the pink army all year round so God Grace Duchy would not be willing to wipe out the pink army. With their existence, it was like a warning magic symbol, they could keep an eye on Tanggsi Empire¡¯s movement. The pink army would also onlymit crimes far from the Princess Castle. The scale of the gang was controlled within five-hundred people so the Grand Duke of God Grace Duchy was confident.


    ¡°Huh¡­¡± Lex was smiling faintly. She looked at Saleen and said, ¡°We will be safe after we get to the Princess Castle. I am friends with the small Duke. No one else know about this yet.¡±


    ¡°Small Duke?¡±


    Saleen knew that the peerage system in Cloudflow was different to the Qin Empire. For the nobles in the Qin Empire, even if one were a Duke, one¡¯s son would be given the title of nobility. Before inheriting the father¡¯s nobility, they could only be called a baron. In Cloudflow, the noble¡¯s pomp was much bigger. For instance, the son of a Grand Duke of Titan, could be called a small Duke directly. In the Qin Empire, that wasw breaking.


    Lex was friends with the small Duke of Titan Duchy. Was she not practicing magic in Bitter Water Prefecture all this while? How could she know people from Titan Duchy?


    Lex creased her eyebrows and said girlishly, ¡°Don¡¯t think you are my only friend. I know the small Duke well too. Wait until you see the Princess Castle then you¡¯ll know. He is quite capable. I¡¯ve heard that the King of Cloudflow wanted to marry his princess to him, I reckon he is going crazy, ha¡­¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s bad about marrying a princess?¡± Saleen asked in shock.


    Lex blushed, but she immediately concealed the reaction and said, ¡°What¡¯s good about it? A princess is equal to a secret spy that cannot be expelled. No matter what happened around him in the future, it would be reported to the pce of Cloudflow in full detail by her.¡±

 Chapter 457: Sika’s agenda (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 457: Sika¡¯s agenda (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Then forget it, marrying a princess is no joke. That fellow J dared trifle with Cloudflow¡¯s princess, I don¡¯t know if¡­¡± Saleen stopped talking abruptly. It was pretty frivolous of him to be speaking in this manner. Saleen actually wanted to say that J might not have known the identity of the princess, however, it was rumored that the princess was already pregnant. It would be too disrespectful to mock in front of Lex.


    Lex did not really think much into Saleen¡¯s words. She simply said, ¡°Cloudflow wants more control over Titan Duchy, just like what my uncle did to Phoenix. Do you know something? The mages from Alchemy City have created a lot of trouble for the Tanggsi Empire, which was why the Tanggsi Empire never had the power tounch a powerful offensive. Upon learning that my uncle had produced war puppets, the emperor of the Tanggsi Empire even decreased his attack tempo. Such an issue should not drag on. Before the war between the four big empires erupt, the empires will conquer all the other smaller states first.¡±


    There were dozens of states surrounding the four big empires on the Myers maind, and many other independent cities. Only five duchies truly possessed independence. Qin was in control of two, while the other three belonged to Tanggsi, Sikeqinya and Cloudflow respectively.


    ¡°You want to help the duke?¡± Saleen deciphered the hidden meaning in Lex¡¯s words.


    ¡°Yes. Cloudflow wants to revoke Titan¡¯s authority, so he will no longer be a duke. He wants to give me some items from the princess¡¯ castle, while I will defeat the Pink Army in return.¡±


    Saleen was feeling displeased. If he had traveled thousands of miles just for a mere duke, then that would be too silly. That duke was not even his friend.


    ¡°Are you unhappy?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen did not bother concealing his emotions, he was no longer a tiny mage who had to rely on others.


    ¡°The princess¡¯ castle has a magicboratory with a history going back hundreds of years. The mages in the castle are inferior, however. The duke has promised to allow me to take theboratory and all of its materials.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s expression softened in that instant. A magicboratory!


    Saleen was not poor, he could even be described as wealthy. It required time to construct a magicboratory. Many appliances in aboratory needed to be constantly soaked in the elements as they were developed in a painstaking process. Genuine magicboratories would have centuries of history.


    Since the alchemyboratory in the hell of god¡¯s punishment belonged to Lex, Saleen wascking an agedboratory. Lex had his interests at heart.


    ¡°Why else would I bring two grade-5 mages over? Its to help you remove the materials from theboratory.¡± Lex¡¯s tone was lined with a tinge ofment, causing Saleen to cackle.


    ¡°Saleen, are we on the losing end?¡± Sika suddenly asked.


    ¡°Nope. Anyway we will be going to the first objective, we can lend a hand on the way.¡±


    ¡°The benefit you are talking about are unrted to me.¡± Even though Sika was blunt, she was not careless. Being a warrior priestess, she could not utilize many mage items.


    Nailisi was also annoyed by the fact that Lex had concealed this matter from Saleen for such a long time.


    ¡°Viscountess, is that duke doing this because he is fond of you?¡± Her words were really insidious. It was obvious that Lex adored Saleen, and she could also feel it. Her words served to sow discord between Lex and Saleen.


    ¡°Yes, he even requested the Duke of Titan to propose marriage, but my father rejected it.¡± Lex nced at Nailisi, answering her question breezily, as though she did not mind it at all.


    There was another mage aboard the carriage who never spoke a word. This female mage was at the standard of grade-4. Saleen had never met her before, and Lex did not bother introducing her.


    Seeing that Sika and Nailisi were taking turns admonishing Lex, the female mage was outraged, ring at them ferociously.


    Nailisi was feeling anxious that Lex was not triggered. When she noticed that the female mage was riled up, she was jubnt. Staring at the female mage through her green eyes, Nailisi said, ¡°It is very rude of you to be staring at someone like that!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart fluttered. By speaking in this manner, it was highly possible that Nailisi would kill her. This matter would not be so serious had it been someone else, but Lex¡¯s mages could not be trifled with. There was another assassin hidden outside the carriage, and Saleen could barely deal with this assassin.


    ¡°Rude? Aren¡¯t you all rude by speaking to Her Highness in this manner?¡± The female mage was about thirty years old. She was well-cultured, she did not get into a war of words with Nailisi.


    Saleen pressed against Nailisi¡¯s shoulder, but did not say anything. If the assassin was not present, he would not have obstructed Nailisi. That assassin was just like a mountain pressing down onto Saleen¡¯s heart.


    ¡°No matter how great a power is, it will also be useless if it is not mine. Humph, once I evolve the twenty-four Lightning Dragons into Flying Dragons, will I still give a hoot about the current situation?¡±


    Nailisi detected Saleen¡¯s emotions. She immediately retracted her words, and said, ¡°Master can build a city, why would he care for a magicboratory? I have heard of the principle of fairness in the world of mages. If Sister Sika didn¡¯te this time around, you would not be able to obtain anything. Is it wrong of Sister Sika to demand a fairpensation?¡±


    Nailisi was a demon after all, she knew how to locate the weakness in someone¡¯s psychological state. The moment she said that, the female mage became speechless. Saleen was not poor. When the female mage arrived at Metatrin City, she was taken aback by the outline of it. A normal human might not pick up anything, but she already noticed that the upper portion of the city walls was a miniature form of the Dante¡¯s Sequence. Once the white city walls were fully constructed, they would be a magic apparatus, just like a morphing magical tower. The only function of this magic tower was to aid the mages in battle.


    That was why this female mage was respectful of Saleen. No matter what Saleen told Lex, she would not feel offended. Nailisi was just a mere maidservant in people¡¯s eyes, the female mage would definitely disregard her.


    At this point in time, the soft-spoken Sika said, ¡°Viscountess, I am now the priest of the Caucasus people, tens of thousands of Caucasus people are following me. The moment Saleen summoned me, I got here. I cannot execute this task for free.¡±


    With a vexing headache, Lex said, ¡°Sika, there are very little items in the princess¡¯ castle which are suitable for the Caucasus people. The duke also will never release his rations. As for the weapons, the weapons in the princess¡¯ castle might not be better than what Saleen has given you.¡±


    Lex treated Sika so politely, even the female mage was astounded. A priestess was of utmost importance to the Caucasus people. Lex was, however, a grade-6 grand mage. She should not talk to a Caucasus priestess in this manner.


    Very few people knew that Lex and Saleen could enter the hell of god¡¯s punishment freely. Since these people had braved life and death, their rtionship was no longer that of viscountess and civilian anymore. The interests of both parties were intertwined. Coupled with friendship, Lex would not fume no matter what Sika said. Other than that statement of discord by Nailisi.


    ¡°I understand that the local nobles have the authority to extract the minerals from Cloudflow. They have much more power than the Qin Empire, am I right?¡±


    ¡°Yes. All the minerals in Qin belong to the Grukos family. Sika, you will not be able to move those minerals.¡±


    ¡°I want to mine those magic disciples.¡± Sikaughed, looking so innocent.


    As many magic disciples were hopeless in bing a true mage, they would switch careers, no longer practicing magic. A group of them was very unique and popr. The magic disciples specialized in extracting minerals. The special metals in those minerals could only be broken down by these magic disciples. Of course, a grand mage would be able to aplish this task, but why would they deal with minerals?


    Such magic disciples were basically monopolized by the huge noble families, and their treatment was no less than that of a normal low grade mage.


    ¡°Sika, I have many magic disciples!¡± Lex looked at Sika in bewilderment.


    ¡°Those men are yours. I want the magic disciples to belong to the Caucasus people, they will only be extracting minerals for me in the future.¡± Sika would not budge. Saleen had already discovered an iron mine with substantial deposits to be extracted for himself in the future. Saleen did not possess any suitable mining equipment nor magic disciples. Naturally, he would have to cooperate with others in order to extract it. By doing so, his profits would be pared down.


    ¡°Have you found a mineral vein?¡± Lex was astonished.


    ¡°Yes, an iron mine, but I require manpower.¡±


    ¡°Okay. Anyway, Cloudflow is going to take back everything, the duke won¡¯t be able to control those mines in the future. I will help you acquire those magic disciples, but you will have to sell those produced metals to me directly, what do you say?¡±


    ¡°Sure, I will be able to take care of more Caucasus people that way,¡± Sika replied with a wide grin.


    Saleen was filled with immense gratitude. Even though he was a Sikeqinyan, he always found it hard to make demands of his friends. Without Sika¡¯s help, the profits from the iron mine would definitely be measly.


    ¡°I also want the selling rights to alcohol.¡± Sika continued making demands as this was a very profitable aspect.


    Lex furrowed her brows in thought, then said, ¡°This will result in fixed price fluctuations.¡±


    ¡°You can discuss the issue of fixing the price with Saleen, I will only be responsible for selling the alcohol.¡± Sika was bent on securing her interests. She would not be exasperated over this issue, but Saleen had secretly revealed to her that the intent of this trip was to open the doors to the temple using the Ring of Gifts given to her.


    Without the Ring of Gifts, everything would be empty talk.


    Lex smiled bitterly, there was no way she could coerce Sika. Lex said decisively, ¡°What other requests do you have?¡±


    ¡°I want a hunting-prohibited area to be developed in Metatrin City, no one will be able to hunt the magic beasts willfully there. The Caucasus people will be in charge of managing that area. Unless the magic beasts harm someone, even the mages will not be able toy a finger on them.¡±


    This request by Sika was purely an attempt to secure welfare for the Caucasus people. The Caucasus people were skilled at rearing magic beasts. Given enough food supply, the Caucasus people would not even need to hunt magic beasts. Instead, they could transform the magic beasts into their able assistants. The mages would massacre all the magic beasts in the vicinity of the city, however.


    The northern region contained numerous magic wolves, the favorite choice of ride for the Caucasus people. Without stringent control, the Caucasus people would definitely get into a conflict with Lex¡¯s mages in the future.

 Chapter 458: Sika’s agenda (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 458: Sika¡¯s agenda (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Lex, just ede to Sika¡¯s request. I will resolve the issue of the magic nuclei.¡± Saleen finally opened his mouth. The magic wolf cavalrymen of the Caucasus people were not suitable to act as charging riders, since it was more expensive feeding a magic wolf aspared to a warhorse. A warhorse fed on specially produced grass while a magic wolf consumed meat. asionally, some magic powder had to be served in order to help a magic wolf maintain its powerful strength.


    Such cavalry mounts were simply too costly. It was too troublesome rearing expensive items and it would be too painful to lose a few of them. In the future, Saleen had nned to deploy the Caucasus magic wolf cavalrymen as the city¡¯s defenders or scouts. It was impossible to build arge formation of cavalrymen. The magic wolf cavalrymen were suitable for mountainous battles, and normal cavalrymen would lose out to them.


    There were countless of forests in the vicinity of the Metatrin City. If the Caucasus people upied that area, no one would be able to infiltrate Metatrin through the woods anymore.


    The capital required for hunting magic nuclei from the Frozen Sea would not be too high, since a huge quantity of magic nuclei could be obtained each time. Even if the warship¡¯s consumption and forecasted depletion were included, the price of magic nuclei would still be able to match that of the ones obtained from hunting onnd.


    ¡°Since Sika has spoken, I will agree to it. The Caucasus people will have the selling rights to alcohol and the rights to extract a mine. Every Caucasus person will be allowed to rear magic beasts, and not to hunt them.¡± Lex¡¯s words were equivalent tow in the Bitter Water County. Sika was overjoyed when Lex eded.


    Metatrin City was developed by Saleen, but it had to be attached to the Bitter Water County legally, otherwise the Holy Rock City would conquer it at all costs. As a result, Lex¡¯s agreement was needed in the aforementioned issues.


    If it was not for the chaos brought on by Nailisi, Lex might not have agreed to those things so easily. Sika patted Nailisi¡¯s shoulder, but did not say anything. That caused Nailisi¡¯s face to contort disgustingly, losing all her image. Sika knew that Nailisi was a demon, so Nailisi had to have a great physique. She did not withhold any strength. If Sika had patted Saleen, Saleen would have to bathe in magic liquid already.


    A nket of silence fell over the carriage suddenly. Sika had stopped talking, while Nailisi rubbed her shoulder, not intending to carry on sowing discord. Saleen felt slightly awkward, but was concerned about this duke who had suddenlye into the picture. He began thinking of ways to manage the rtionship with the duke. ¡°Lex¡¯s friend? Heh, he is more like Lex¡¯s suitor.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s guess was not entirely wrong. Five to six years ago, the small duke from Titan had went to the Bitter Water Prefecture in hopes of recruiting a batch of low grade mages. Back then, the Lex he knew was amazing. Despite Lex not being an adult yet.


    Afterwards, both parties shared a business rtionship, frequentlymunicating via letters. The small duke from Titan even acquiesced Lex to deploy her spies into the Cloudflow Empire using his duchy as a medium. This was no small matter. If those spies were captured, he would be responsible.


    It would be wrong to im that the small duke from Titan was Lex¡¯s admirer, at least he was not bent on marrying Lex. He simply wanted to please this female prodigy from Qin.


    Given the culture in the Cloudflow Empire, loyalty would not amount to much. The small duke definitely possessed the heart to love.


    The fact that Lex and the small duke could cover each other¡¯s tracks meant that they were excellent friends already. This time round, Lex was going to help him shift his assets around, which the Cloudflow Empire wanted to keep in their possession.


    If the Duke of Titan did not make a trip to Cloudflow, the Cloudflow Empire would have deployed their troops for an offensive, just like how Qin dealt with Phoenix. If the troops were deployed, the Duke of Titan would never have the chance to return to his duchy again.


    Lex did not give further thought into Saleen¡¯s issues, she began calcting the amount of fortune in Titan¡¯s treasuries. A duke¡¯s private assets could not be touched. Many treasuries were categorized as public assets, though, and they belonged to the Cloudflow Empire on paper. This was unlike Qin. Qin only demanded taxes from the local nobles, but Qin would never build a separate treasury.


    The small duke granted Lex twenty percent profits because she had the God¡¯s Ring, which could help him transportrge quantities of items. A twenty percent cut was not a small sum, a small duchy was very much richer than the Bitter Water County. Once the Pink Army got extirpated, its fortune would go to Lex. The small duke only wanted the Pink Army¡¯s secret base.


    Of the current fiverge duchies, Phoenix was fragmented while Lon had been razed to the ground, and Titan would soon be seized by Cloudflow. God Grace Duchy was also rumored to be in turmoil, where insurgents hadunched an offensive against the army of the Tanggsi Empire. Only Laiyin Duchy remained fine. The Sikeqinya Empire was no better, its emperor was only after profits.


    Once these duchies disappeared, the four big empires would share a border. There would be no more buffer regions anymore.


    It had to be noted that the small duke was extremely sagacious and decisive in wanting to seize all the assets in the duchy, leaving behind an empty shell for Cloudflow.


    When day broke, they were almost reaching the princess¡¯ castle. Lex allowed the convoy to stop and take a two hour break. The convoy only continued after the men had consumed some food.


    Staring out the window, the fields on both sides were extremely fertile, they were filled with oil-producing vegetables. Titan had done a great job in the area of irrigation. Saleen spotted a magic water wheel and some low grade puppets ploughing thends.


    A puppet was better than cattle because cattle would get sick due to effects of the weather. When dealing with high value crops, the wealthy nobles would procure some puppets and hire some magic disciples to care for the crops.


    Saleenpsed into gloominess when he realized that such a good farnd was going to be destroyed by the mes of war.


    By withdrawing thend of the Titan Duchy, the Cloudflow emperor was nning on participating in the contention. A few years back, they were still sitting on the fence, but they had finallye to a decision already.


    From afar, the princess¡¯ castle could be spotted. It was totally unlike what Saleen had expected. The princess¡¯ castle was void of any romantic vibes, it was a purely militarized castle. There were grey towers dozens of meters tall with tipped roofs, like a longsword piercing through the skies.


    Even though there were no extravagant metal battlements like those found in Goodrid City, there was a pitch ck magic structure at the front of the princess¡¯ castle. This structure could not be considered as a magical tower, it was a magic tform. Standing upright on the tform was a gigantic puppet with its eyes closed.


    Such arge puppet was the specialty of Titan. It was rumored to be constructed based on the form of the giants. Even the name of the duchy emted that of this puppet ¨C Titan.


    This castle gave people a feeling of oppression. On the lower portion of the grey city walls, the color was even darker, as though it had been soaked in fresh blood.


    Unlike the castles in Qin, the doors to the Titan¡¯s castle was very narrow and very tall. There were two protruding horse tracks located on both sides of the city gate. The ends of the horse tracks were elevated dozens of meters off the ground, they were very steep, almost perpendicr to the ground. During wartime, metal bridge nks could be slid down these horse tracks, allowing the cavalrymen to charge forward. At such an angle, the cavalrymen would need to be as proficient as a swordmaster to achieve that. Their warhorses would require at least five years of training.


    The castle made Saleen feel cold, a kind of frostiness which prated his bones.


    ¡°Damn it, mental magic is fused into this thing. Powdered obsidian is even fortified into the front tower!¡± Saleen quickly regained his senses, and stopped observing the structure of the castle. Since the crux had been discovered and Saleen was a grand mage, the obscure tricks of this castle would hardly be able to harm him anymore.


    A strange design like this was absent in Qin. If the enemy tried assaulting this castle, the normal soldiers would definitely be affected mentally, undoubtedly reducing their morale. The best method to deal with such a defense was to bombard it with several ancient magic cannons, in order to destroy the magical structure of the castle, before deploying the main army.


    The other magic war chariot emanated several rays of magic light, descending upon the apanying swordmasters. Lex¡¯s subordinates were slightly affected before reverting to their normal selves.


    ¡°Master, there is something amiss with this castle. I am afraid there might be a monster living inside,¡± Nailisi muttered bitterly. Even though she was not affected, she could detect the gruesomeness of the castle. It was simr to that of ck magic. In order to create such a mental effect, it was likely that many people had to die.


    Hurried trots were heard as a team of cavalrymen rushed out from the city gate. The leader of the team was d in extravagant hollow armor, trailed by a vibrant and colorful cape. With the gray castle as a backdrop, it looked very conspicuous.


    A youthful voice spread from afar, ¡°Your Highness Lex, you are finally here.¡±


    The warhorses in that team were robust, they had reached the front of the convoy in the blink of an eye. Saleen noticed the face of a Cloudflow noble. Behind the astonishingly weak helmet, a bundle of onyx hair danced along with the wind. Even the helmet was hollow, any simple arrow could easily kill the wearer.


    The riders following this youth were also d in identical hollow armor, extravagant but impractical. If Saleen¡¯s subordinates dared don such items, they would have been beaten into pulp.


    J, who was at the front, had his eyebrows locked in thought. ¡°This youth is not a weakling, if I don¡¯t have the Tears, it might be a little difficult to deal with him.¡± Such an outstanding pugilist did not dress flippantly because he was an idiot, but because he was confident. J did not wear much armor. His armor made by Saleen contained leather. Its defensive ability was not outstanding. An advantage was that it was lightweight, which would not affect his movements. At the same time, it possessed magic resistance.


    This person¡¯s metal armor had the same characteristics. ¡°It will be best not to let such a person get close to Saleen.¡± Instinctively, J stood in the way of the youth.


    The youth did not show a change in expression. He simply smiled breezily, he did not give a hoot about J. The riders behind him wielded onto des, pointing the tip of their des downwards as they stared at J.


    ¡°I am not Lex¡¯s subordinate, there is no use ring at me.¡± J observed the team of swordmasters. With a simply calction, there were about twenty cavalrymen who were at the standard of a swordmaster. He could not possibly deal with all of them. At the very least, he could not guarantee Saleen¡¯s safety.


    ¡°Since you are not Lex¡¯s subordinate, then Lex will not me me if I kill you right?¡± The serene youth suddenly shed his teeth at J. His snow-white teeth also emanated an insidious vibe.


    ¡°Yes. Even though you are a small duke from Titan, I will not show mercy when I take action either.¡± J would not budge. At this point in time, Saleen¡¯s voice came from the chariot.


    ¡°J, this is the small duke¡¯s territory, don¡¯t be rude.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Upon listening to Saleen, J then rode to one side.


    ¡°Lex, you have brought outsiders here?¡± When the youth saw that J had made way, he did not continue advancing. Instead, he froze in his tracks, a grim spreading across his face.

 Chapter 459: Saleen’s profit (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 459: Saleen¡¯s profit (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°He is not an outsider, he is my partner. The owner of Metatrin City and a grand mage; Mr. Saleen.¡± Lex pushed open the chariot doors, and she exited the magic war chariot. Saleen followed suit.


    ¡°Ha ha, so he is a valued guest.¡± That young man was naturally the small duke of the Titan Duchy. As Lex made her way down the chariot, a group of riders from the Titan Duchy was captivated by her.


    As Saleen and Lex had spent a lot of time together, Saleen was already oblivious to her beauty. It was different for those riders. Lex was a typical Qin person, with a head of long obsidian hair. Her eyes had a strange hue of ck. This hue of ck held traces of blue, as though it was formed by the stillness of the ocean, crystal and clear.


    Lex¡¯s pupils should have been blue, but due to her practice of her family¡¯s secret arts, her eyes took on a magnificent shade. Lex was older than Saleen by two years, she was aplete adult by now. d in a multi-colored magic robe, the curves of her body were obscurely exuded when the magic robe swayed with the wind.


    The small duke also became out of sorts, but he still managed to dismount from the horse and executed a noble greeting to Lex.


    ¡°Great Mage, I was ill-mannered just now.¡± The small duke did not forget to greet Saleen. Saleen viewed this small duke with more value, as a result.


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡± Saleen executed a mage¡¯s greeting in return, acting neither obsequious nor arrogant.


    Since Saleen was a grand mage and the owner of a city, the small duke was helpless. He exchanged greetings and said, ¡°Bifano De Agares.¡±


    Saleen never studied genealogy, but he had researched some books in the past in order to rify the history of his lineage. He knew that the ¡°Agares¡± name was as ancient as the ¡°Metatrin¡± name. He suddenly recalled that in the stack of loan vouchers left behind by his father, there was a fellow whose surname was Agares. Could that fellow be a rtive of this small duke?


    If that was the case, Saleen could take this opportunity to obtain some benefits.


    Of course, Bifano did not know what intentions Saleen harbored. Enthusiastically, he led Lex¡¯s entourage into the castle. It was only at the interior of the castle that one would discover the tightness of the security. After the castle gate was aplex barbican, with many short battlements. This was the first line of defense if the city gate gotpromised.


    If there were sufficient crossbows stationed on these battlements, they would cause huge fatality to the invaders. There was no way out from the barbican, one would not be able to defend against the arrowsing from all directions using just a shield. After passing through the barbican, one would arrive at a stretch of camps. Situated behind these camps were several towering rock podiums. Metal pirs were nted into the podiums, they were to be used for installing trebuchets.


    With such basal trebuchets, the range of a toss could possibly be farther than two miles. Even though they were not magic trebuchets, their lethality would already be very high.


    Along the way, fully-equipped troops with imposing demeanors were spotted. Obviously, these soldiers were the elites who had experienced bloodshed. Their movements brimmed with ferocity.


    This castle used to belong to the princess from Cloudflow. It had arger configuration, and its exterior was not even regr. It had obviously been expanded many times over. After the camps, there was a huge number of battlements and forts. The paths within the castle were paved with granite, they could hardly be destroyed.


    Bifano led the crowd to a building at the rear of the castle. One of the mages onboard one of the magic war chariots refused to disembark, choosing to stay back and meditate.


    Bifano did not seem to mind at all. He was full ofughter and smiles as he led Lex into the grand hall.


    As the maidservants began serving tea, Bifano waved his hands, chasing his soldiers out of the grand hall, leaving only him and Lex¡¯s entourage inside.


    ¡°Lex, you have be much more beautiful.¡± As Bifano smiled, his eyes veered towards the two women beside Saleen. ¡°The two women beside Lex¡¯s partner are sure alluring, but they don¡¯t look like professionals at all. They don¡¯t have the Sword Aura nor elemental vibrations. A grand mage with two normal women?¡±


    Surely Lex would not fall for such a frivolous person right? Bifano was more assured now. Other than shifting his assets and conquering the secret base of the Pink Army, Bifano invited Lex over with the intent of strengthening their rtionship.


    If he could marry Lex, then it would not matter even if he fell out with the Cloudflow emperor. Lex was a county queen in Cloudflow. If he could get together with Lex, he would still enjoy a grand duke status.


    ¡°Bifano, I heard that you are going to marry the Cloudflow princess, congrattions.¡± With a partial smile, Lex looked at Bifano, rebutting whatever he had said earlier on.


    ¡°If that was the case, I wouldn¡¯t have looked for you.¡± Bifano sighed. Even though he had steeled his mind, he still felt very indignant that thend which had been managed for dozens of generations was going to be seized.


    Lex stopped agitating him. By marrying his daughter off to Bifano, it was tant that the Cloudflow emperor wanted to take over the duchy owned by Bifano¡¯s family. Since Qin and Tanggsi had taken action, Cloudflow was not willing to remain passive, it also wanted to participate in the action. Cloudflow must be attempting to regain the glory of the fourth dynasties.


    Cloudflow¡¯s fleet was really mighty. That being said, Lex did not really give a hoot about its army.


    ¡°Bifano, I have developednd in the north, and now is the time I require materials. Regarding the twenty percent profits, I don¡¯t want any gold coins, I want it in the form of materials.¡± Lex no longer harped on the issue of the Cloudflow princess, she went straight to the topic Bifano and she discussed previously.


    ¡°That will be best. Even if the profits are discounted, I will still take a loss.¡± When Bifano talked about serious matters, he immediately got revitalized.


    ¡°My status is extremely sensitive. Should we deal with the Pink Army first? Or shift the assets first?¡± Lex had raised an imperative question. Her trip to Titan could not be concealed from Cloudflow for a long time. Once the Cloudflow Empire learned of her trip, they would have sufficient reasons to take immediate action.


    The worst thing was that no one knew what Sikeqinya¡¯s stance was. Cloudflow was inclined towards Qin, because its navy was almost useless against southern Qin. With Alchemy City, the best Cloudflow could do was to emte the navy from the eastern sea states by attacking Lianyun City first. That ce was too far from Holy Rock City. There was not much benefit dering war with Qin, it was even less beneficial than if they were to go round half the maind to invade Sikeqinya.


    At the moment, Sikeqinya¡¯s stance was a mystery. If Sikeqinya and Tanggsi cooperated, then the iron riders from the Tanggsi Empire would be able to go through Titan and make a beeline for Cloudflow. The Titan Duchy would not be able to hold out for long.


    ¡°Shift the assets first.¡± Bifano was already prepared. He took out a map. It was a detailed map of the Titan Duchy. Even though it was not a magic map, it clearly illustrated all the mountains and rivers in the duchy.


    ¡°This is the map of Titan. The important treasuries of the duchy are located in the ck snow mountains. We will start with the biggest four, before traveling east along the mountains, then emptying the remaining eight treasuries. In Fire Dance City, I have nted five emblem groups worth of manpower. Setting off from that location, we will be able to reach the secret base of the Pink Army in two days.¡±


    ¡°Five emblem groups are all you have left. You need to think this through, we might not be able to exterminate the Pink Army.¡±


    In a rare moment, Bifano¡¯s eyes brimmed with arrogance, and he said, ¡°Lex, don¡¯t underestimate Titan¡¯s warriors. These five emblem groups consist of the chosen elites who have been following the Agares family for generations.¡±


    Nailisi snorted softly, she had observed the double-faced strong cavalry in the past. Without the spells prepared by Lex beforehand, those two-hundred double-faced strong cavalrymen could defeat Bifano easily.


    Heavy cavalry had no way of invading cities. Bifano¡¯s operation this time around spanned thousands of miles. If an assault wasunched midway, those two-hundred double-faced strong cavalrymen would definitely massacre his army.


    Saleen red at Nailisi, while Bifano pretended to hear nothing. Lex and he had already arrived at an agreement in their secret correspondence, before luring the double-faced cavalry to attack. If thergest problem was not dealt with, the Pink Army, he would not dare invade the Pink Army¡¯s base either.


    The next step was for Bifano to act as bait by traveling south with Lex. The Pink Army would continue its offensive. By reducing the enemy¡¯s power outside gradually, it would be way easier attacking the Pink Army once their old quarters were located. He had spent ten years seeking the Pink Army¡¯s old quarters, but he could not gain entry. This time around, he was going to transfer the duchy¡¯s assets there. Henceforth, he would not care about what the Cloudflow Empire would do in the future.


    Even though Saleen red at Nailisi, he did not expect Bifano to disregard her contempt. If a noble decided to be shameless, even a forbidden curse would not be able to move them.


    At this point, Saleen had no choice but to speak up. There otherwise might not be another opportunity as good as this one to make the small dukepromise. Saleen told Lex, ¡°Beforeing here, you didn¡¯t mention about detouring to so many ces.¡±


    Lex understood tacitly. It was just that Saleen could not rub off any of those benefits which were granted to Sika. Even though the final objective was obtaining the seeds of the four divine trees, it was just a deduction. No one could be sure if these things were still around in the core of the temple after tens of thousands of years.


    In the event the temple was empty, then Saleen would have made a wasted trip. He would also still have to help Bifano move house.


    Looking apologetic, Lex replied, ¡°Saleen, before arriving, I didn¡¯t look at the map, so I didn¡¯t know that the things were not confined to one city.¡±


    Bifano¡¯s nose was almost contorted in rage. Indeed, Lex had not seen the map. She had however been in control of one region since she was ten, so it was impossible for her not to know why the duchy¡¯s treasuries would not be in one location. If the treasury was built in a city, and a mutiny or a great fire broke out, then the duchy could possibly go bankrupt.


    It was obvious that Lex did not want to offend this grand mage called Saleen. Bifano thought to himself, ¡°You, a grade-5 mage, want to get some benefits, you really don¡¯t know the severity of things.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen, you can wait for our return in the princess¡¯ castle.¡± Bifano¡¯s expression changed in a sh, as an air of superiority emanated from his demeanor. Saleen even dared kill a bishop from the Holy See, he would not care about Bifano¡¯s demeanor at all.


    ¡°Sure, I shall thank you for your generosity then. Please take your time to make the detours, I will wait patiently.¡± Saleen looked nonchnt, as Nailisi burst with jubnce.


    ¡°Master was sure an expert in piging. If this stalemate continues, the small duke will go bankrupt already.¡±


    Lex quickly said, ¡°Bifano, you have to rely on Saleen if you want to unlock the Pink Army¡¯s secret base.¡±


    In that instant, Bifano regretted. Lex did not mention anything in the letters, Lex only said that she had a way to open the gate to the base. He did not know that this inconspicuous grade-5 mage was the crux. Saleen¡¯s unhappiness was now clearly disyed, it was toote for Bifano to regret.


    A noble¡¯s tricks were useless against a mage. In order to tempt Saleen, benefits would have to be given.

 Chapter 460: Saleen’s profit (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 460: Saleen¡¯s profit (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°In that case, please state whatever you need, Great Mage.¡± Bifano decided to y an expedient, he thought that Saleen would not dare demand too much of him in front of Lex. By allowing the mage to state the demands, he would not lose too much.


    ¡°Your Highness¡­¡± Saleen looked at Bifano¡¯s chiseled face, but did not continue talking.


    Bifano waited for a long time, but Saleen never spoke a word. Finally, Bifano could wait no longer, and he realized Saleen¡¯s intention. Saleen was trying to point out that he himself could wait, but Bifano could not. The Cloudflow princess would arrive very soon. If Bifano did not shift his assets before then, he would lose that opportunity forever.


    In any empire, a princess was entitled to a manor, and she could also own private soldiers. Since the princess held such a high status, she could easily bring ten-thousand men over.


    Seeing that Bifanoughed bitterly, Saleen then said, ¡°I am a mage. You will not be able to give me the things that I desire. On this trip, I simply took it as a direct journey to my objective, no one knew that there would be a detour of thousands of miles. Do you know how many magic nuclei my magic war chariots have to consume each day?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only magic nuclei. Master Saleen, feel free to use my resources for the consumption of the journey,¡± Bifano said with crity.


    Lex interrupted, ¡°Bifano, this is where you are wrong. Saleen owns a city, he doesn¡¯tck magic nuclei.¡±


    Lex was already slightly upset when she understood Bifano¡¯s motives. At this point in time, she decided to help Saleen coerce Bifano. The benefits Saleen wanted were not for himself anyway. All of it would go to the development of Metatrin City. Currently, Lex¡¯s cash flow was also tight, otherwise she would not have agreed to Bifano¡¯s request.


    At the end of the day, her power paled to that of Holy Rock City. The past few years of lockdown had caused the Bitter Water Prefecture to lose ie frommercial activities. Relying on farming alone would not be able to support two camps of soldiers sufficiently.


    Lex had a high level of vignce. Seeing that Bifano tried to act intimate the moment they met, she already knew his intentions. She actually could have made Saleen the scapegoat, but Saleen and Sika seemed extremely intimatetely. If news of this got leaked, it would seem like a Caucasus person and her were vying for the same man.


    As for Bifano¡¯s motive, Lex was extremely repulsed by them. There were two secret mountain channels west of Bitter Water Prefecture which would lead to Lon. One channel was connected directly to southern Lon, enabling swift ess into Titan. If Bifano became a Bitter Water Prefecture citizen, he could naturally use this secret channel. Once the situation got better, he could simply deploy troops into Titan in order to seek revenge.


    Lex did not believe that Bifano was in the dark about the existence of those secret channels, which was why she was annoyed. She wanted to help Saleen extort Bifano because of that. Even though Bifano knew Lex for a longer time, Saleen and Lex had experienced life and death together. Saleen and Lex were friends who shared amon secret.


    Lex did not even need to consider the issue of familiarity.


    Since Lex had said that, Bifano could not possibly cajole Saleen anymore. He only said, ¡°I will be responsible for the consumption of all the battles during this journey. Furthermore, I will gift five-hundred warhorses to you, they are all pedigree Titan warhorses.¡±


    Saleen then chuckled, and said, ¡°I don¡¯t want the castrated ones.¡±


    ¡°Of course not!¡± Bifano forced out a smile. Even though Titan had premium horses, the level of production was low. The Titan warhorses were regarded as a quality species throughout the whole maind, but it was not easy reproducing them. Since Saleen had a city and army, the Titan warhorses would definitely tempt him. Saleen wanted the warhorses which could mate though. Titan would not have so many of such good horses either. If all five-hundred warhorses were converted into gold coins, each warhorse would be worth at least one-thousand gold coins.


    ¡°I am not short of magic nuclei. The gems on the two magic war chariots which I have brought along this time round are being depleted though.¡±


    ¡°Okay, we shall go collect the gemstones right away.¡± Bifano had straightened his thoughts. If he could obtain the Pink Army¡¯s base and set up a ce of refuge in Lon, before sending people to look for a ce to settle down in the Alchemy City, he would still stand a chance of regaining thend of Titan in the future. It was no big deal giving some benefits to this mage. He had agreed to give Lex twenty percent of the materials in the treasury any way.


    ¡°No hurry, you can discuss the itinerary first. Another thing, we aren¡¯t the only ones on this expedition right?¡±


    ¡°I cannot lead the regr emblem groups, I can only bring along five-hundred soldiers. The Cloudflow people will find out in less than a day otherwise,¡± Bifano stated matter-of-factly. If he lied, Saleen might possibly state more demands along the way.


    ¡°How many mages are there in Fire Dance City?¡± Lex had asked this question. In order to conquer the Goddess of Myers¡¯ temple, having the key alone was not sufficient, adequate manpower was also required. The Pink Army would have at least two-thousand swordsmen stationed there and there would not be too few mages either. Previously, that marquis from Tanggsi was well-versed in magic and martial arts. The number of skills handed down was countless.


    Lex was most fearful of the mages in the Pink Army. Themander could actually avoid the fatal blow delivered by Bain.


    ¡°Titan has no mage¡¯s toon. An emblem group would only have a grand mage. A brigade would be allocated either a grade-3 or grade-2 mage, then there¡¯s no more mages.¡±


    ¡°So few?¡± Sika interrupted out of astonishment.


    Bifano got extremely glum. This was Titan, not Qin. It was already very impressive that a brigade would have a mage. An emblem group would also have a grand mage. Such a ratio was already considered high in Cloudflow.


    ¡°It is indeed too little.¡± Lex furrowed her brows. She did not want to be involved personally in the invasion of the Pink Army¡¯s base this time around. Just like how Bifano was a grand swordmaster, but he would not charge at the front either. Lex did not even want to send the mages working under her. This time around, she only wanted to help Bifano open the doors to the temple, she did not n to partake in the rest of the issues.


    Be that as it may, if Bifano owned too few mages, many idents would ur during the battle.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I recruit a few mages from Fire Dance City?¡± Bifano probed.


    Lex sneered, ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid that your secret might be leaked? Or are you nning to silence them afterwards?¡±


    Bifano¡¯s heart shuddered. Actually, he had had this thought, but he realized that there were two grand mages right in front of him. If he imed to have that intention, Lex might be outraged.


    ¡°Acquire some scrolls, it will be best to get the higher level ones. Even if the scrolls are not utilized, you can store them. At the very least, the scrolls will not depreciate.¡± Saleen had made a very good suggestion.


    ¡°That is the only way I guess.¡± At this point in the discussion, Bifano had lost the mood to strengthen his rtionship with Lex. He sent some people to lead Saleen to the treasury to get the gems and magic nuclei. Afterwards, he arranged amodation for Lex and her entourage. In the evening, he wanted to host a banquet, but he was rejected by Lex and Saleen.


    In the princess¡¯ castle, only a few rooms were lit. Most of the castle was draped in pitch darkness. It was a cloudy night, one could barely see their own fingers in the dark.


    Saleen made his way to Lex¡¯s room openly. After entering, he closed the door and cast a magic lock.


    ¡°Lex, do you trust Bifano?¡± Saleen went straight to the topic.


    ¡°Why do you ask?¡±


    ¡°When he looks at you, his eyes are filled with evil intentions.¡±


    ¡°What does he dare to do? If he hurts me, Holy Rock City will definitely tten his duchy to salvage their pride.¡±


    ¡°What if he hase to an agreement with Holy Rock City? If he can contact you, why can¡¯t he get in touch with Holy Rock City?¡±


    Lex stood up abruptly and turned around, staring at Saleen. Saleen looked into Lex¡¯s eyes calmly, feeling serene.


    ¡°I can¡¯t think of any advantages he will attain by doing so. If he had really done it, why can¡¯t we retaliate?¡± Lex¡¯s eyes beamed with arrogance.


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, does it mean I can leave him alone if anything happens?¡± Saleen probed.


    Lex¡¯s eyebrows were tightly locked, then she said, ¡°Saleen, we don¡¯t have any allies right now. Without any evidence, I don¡¯t wish to touch Bifano.¡±


    ¡°Then forget it, I was still nning on getting a fortune.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense. If he dies in our hands, there will be trouble too. The Grand Duke of Titan might ride on the wave and give up his power, and the Cloudflow emperor would use this as an excuse to negotiate with the Holy Rock City. The Holy Rock City can¡¯t wait to sell me out, and I will not give them a chance to do so.¡±


    ¡°Lex, I am just making a remark, don¡¯t act so uptight. If he harbors any ill intentions against me, don¡¯t me Nailisi for acting swiftly. I won¡¯t be able to stop her.¡± After finishing his sentence, Saleen turned and left Lex¡¯s room.


    As Lex gazed Saleen¡¯s back view, an unexinable feeling welled up in her heart.


    ¡°Since when did this youth grow up, having his own ideas, he can no longer be controlled easily.¡± Of course, Lex would not wish for Saleen to remain sentimental and reckless. Such a change undoubtedly made her feel that something in her heart had flowed away, like an psing river which was surging forward, boisterous and irreversible. Lex rubbed her eyes, as she thought to herself, ¡°Didn¡¯t I wish for Saleen to be like this? Now that he has done it, why do I feel so depressed?


    Back in Saleen¡¯s room, the lights were dim. The princess¡¯ castle was a vital military instation, there was no extravagance, only practicality. Nailisi sat in front of a pir restlessly, using her fingers to fiddle with the mes. Under the candlelight, her hair gave off a demonic green glow.


    ¡°Master, you are back.¡± Nailisi continued toying with the fire.


    Saleen noticed that the nket had beenid out properly, then said, ¡°Nailisi, you can return to your room.¡±


    ¡°Master, do you want me to get Sister Sika?¡±


    Saleen replied tiredly, ¡°No need, I want to dwell on some matters alone.¡±


    ¡°Then I shall apany you, I can sleep on the floor.¡± Nailisi had mysteriously be very obedient today.


    Saleen rxed his muscles and nted himself onto the bed. Smacking the sides of the bed, he said, ¡°Nailisi,e over.¡±


    Nailisi came beside Saleen silently. When Saleen felt better, he asked, ¡°Nailisi, if I need you to kill Bifano, how long do you need?¡±


    ¡°If it was in the living room like today, I will need less than five seconds. If he has his soldiers around him, I cannot guarantee anything.¡±


    ¡°Got it. If I say ¡®small duke¡¯ in the future, take action immediately.¡± Saleen¡¯s gaze was filled with perseverance. Based on his instincts, Bifano definitely wanted to harm Lex, but Saleen could not get hold of any evidence.


    ¡°Master, it is not because he is fond of Lex right? You already have Sister Sika,¡± Nailisi said solemnly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t spout nonsense. If Lexes to any harm, our Metatrin City will be aughing stock.¡± Speaking, Saleen finally understood why he felt so anxious. Without Lex and her God¡¯s Ring, he would not be able to return to the hell of god¡¯s punishment. If that happened, then he would not be able to acquire Raphael¡¯s magical tower and the Six Elements¡¯ Space.


    If Saleen knew that would happen, then he should have brought the three kings along.

 Chapter 461: Everyone has their concerns (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 461: Everyone has their concerns (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The darknesspletely engulfed the princess¡¯ castle. Outside the window, the mist was thick as the clouds veiled the stars. It was going to rain.


    Nailisi did not lie on the bed. Instead, she paced about the room anxiously. As she sensed that the presence of lightning was in the clouds, she had an urge to charge into the skies.


    She could not, and did not dare to, however.


    The skill called the Lightning Guardian released too small a current. Inparison to the lightning in the skies, it was like a firefly in the face of the sun. The bloodline of Luoluokaluo was finite, it could not devour and convert all kinds of powers. The power of thunder contained the majesty of the ne, and even the gods would fear it.


    Saleen could not rest either, he had conjured the notion of killing Bifano. This was the first time he wanted to kill someone. It was not because this person was trying to harm him, but because this person might adversely affect his future.


    Whenever Saleen killed someone in the past, it was mostly out of desperation or vengeance. It was different this time around. Profit was the motivation this time.


    Finally, a torrential rain ensued. It was as though Saleen had returned to Ceylon City, a ruined city. When he was still a beggar, he always had to trudge forward in the rain. Back then, all he wanted was a mouth of rice.


    ¡°Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°Come over, and chat with me.¡± At the moment, Saleen was getting increasingly fatigued. It seemed as if he had veered off the path of magic, no longer pursuing the truth of this world. So tired¡­


    A sh of lightning shed through the darkness. Nailisi turned around, her face draped in green. Following that was a thunderous boom. The colored ss windows gave off a few bursts of crackles, it was really misleading.


    The room lit up for a moment, before sinking into darkness once again. Nailisi could sense Saleen¡¯s emotions. This time around, she did not try agitate him. She simply went to his bedside quietly and sat down.


    ¡°Master, what do you wish to say?¡±


    ¡°Tell me, if I be the most powerful person on this ne, will all my troubles disappear?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but I will help Master fulfill this ambition.¡± Nailisi lowered her head, using her hands to adjust her long hair hanging down.


    ¡°Why do you not speak the truth anymore? Nailisi, you are still craving for freedom, right?¡± Saleen was in low spirits, he was subconsciously transforming himself.


    ¡°I crave freedom, but I also can¡¯t bear to leave you Master,¡± Nailisi replied gently, totally unlike a demon.


    ¡°I should actually be overjoyed hearing you say that¡­¡±


    ¡°Master, I have read a poem written by a human in the past. Every youth will eventually die. That¡¯s why you are behaving like this, right?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t you miss your childhood?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. My childhood was filled with painful memories, I can¡¯t recall any happy days ever.¡±


    ¡°Same here, but I am still very depressed because¡­ I can never return to that phase.¡± Saleen buried his face in the pillow, his both eyes were dry, there were no tears.


    ¡°Master, do you adore Sister Sika more, or Lex more?¡± Nailisi asked an unrted question out of the blue.


    Saleen began contemting this question carefully. It would be a lie to say that he was not fond of Lex. The both of them had experienced immense suffering after all and Lex herself was an extremely outstandingdy.


    In the days where Lex and Sika were gone, he thought of Sika most of the time, however. Other than meditating, his memories consisted of the days spent with Sika.


    Back then, he was a mere grade-1 mage, traveling the mountains with Sika. After nightfall, they would snuggle in a cave, but still feel cold. Grade-1 mages guarded their magic chords fiercely. As a result, all the prey had been hunted by Sika. Saleen relied on Sika to leave the mountainous region. Sika still said that he performed outstandingly, however.


    Since there was such a Caucasus person, Saleen had to have her. Saleen did not mind spending a fortune on acquiring high level leather armor for Sika, and helping her to form a team.


    As Saleen was still basking in his memories, Nailisi whispered, ¡°Master, I finally understand. Do you want to hear my suggestion?¡±


    ¡°Say it.¡±


    ¡°If Lex objects the way Sister Sika treats you, then don¡¯t be with her. Even if she can give you the things you desire.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°If Sister Sika wants to have children with you, then go ahead. You don¡¯t have to care about what other people might think regarding such matters. You can still marry Lex. After marrying her, you won¡¯t have to be vexed over many issues anymore.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, I will not do such a thing!¡± Saleen suddenly spoke in a determined voice. He sat up on the bed, and in the darkness, he said, ¡°I will choose my own life.¡±


    As the violent rain pelted down on the windows, Saleen felt more collected. His motivation to kill Bifano did not form just because he was fond of Lex.


    ¡°Master, I am smart right?¡± Nailisi smiled smugly. She could keenly detect the concerns in the depths of Saleen¡¯s mind. If she did noty it out in in sight, Saleen might never know what he was being frustrated about.


    Saleen was also jubnt. This was the first time he felt that having a demon was pretty good. Even though the demon created trouble for him, its intelligence could help him solve many vexing issues.


    Opposite this building was a house with four stories. On the highest story of this house, a candle remained lit.


    Bifano¡¯s room was humongous. Behind a colossal table, Bifano was managing some official documents. His method of management was to toss stack after stack of documents into a magic array, shredding them.


    Seated across the table was a mage d in a gray robe. There were three magic markings on the chest of this mage.


    ¡°Bifano, why are you in such a hurry?¡± The mage¡¯s voice was quiet yet pronounced.


    ¡°Teacher, I can feel the symptoms of the appearance of the magic chords. I have to attain that person¡¯s legacy. I will otherwise die when the Sword Aura and the magic chords sh.¡±


    Bifano¡¯s words were as astounding as the thunder, he actually wanted to produce the magic chords. He was a person who had reached the standard of a grand swordmaster, while his teacher was a mage.


    The gray-robed mage sighed, ¡°Aye, Bifano, I have brought harm to you.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, this is my choice. Since someone has seeded in the past, then I can do it too.¡± Bifano handled his documents calmly, his hands being unusually steady.


    ¡°Can you feel how much longer it will take?¡±


    ¡°At most six months. Even if I stop training, the magic chords will also take shape.¡±


    ¡°Lex is not a person to be trifled with¡­¡±


    ¡°I know, I don¡¯t n to kill her. It doesn¡¯t matter even if she learns of this secret.¡±


    ¡°You also cannot trifle with the mage who came with her.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Bifano stopped fiddling with his documents and looked at his teacher in bewilderment.


    ¡°This person has hints of the Alchemy City, and several other soul imprints which I cannot identify. The secrets he has will not be any less than yours. If you cannot kill such a person instantaneously, then you shouldn¡¯t touch him at all.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡±


    ¡°No buts. If you regard me as your teacher, then dismiss the original n,¡± the gray-robed mage said worriedly. He could notice many astonishing things on Saleen¡¯s body. If he did not have the legacy of an astronomer, he would not have discovered those things.


    Saleen¡¯s destiny was even more contorted than Lex¡¯s was. To anyone who had the abilities of an astronomer, Saleen was akin to a catastrophe. They could not predict it, much less direct it.


    Bifano lowered his eyelids and went back to settling his documents. He did not really give a hoot about that mage¡¯s words. ¡°So what if it¡¯s the Alchemy City. As long as I can attain that person¡¯s legacy, I won¡¯t have to be concerned about anyone else.¡±


    Currently, the issue of utmost importance was conquering the Pink Army¡¯s secret base within half a year. Back then, that person came out from that ce.


    ¡°The Goddess of Myers¡¯ temple. Heh heh, it seemed like no one knew that so much fortune was hidden in every temple.¡±


    By possessing magic and martial arts at the same time, it was equivalent to destroying the rules of the ne. Only the gods on this ne could creature such a mighty skill.


    ¡°That Saleen cannot stay. Since he actually has the key to open the temple, he must know the location of at least one of the temples. Once I obtain both abilities, I will force him to reveal it. As for Lex? She must have secrets which are rted to the temple as well. Lex cannote to harm at the moment. Once I seize control of more than two temples, I won¡¯t have to worry about the Holy Rock City anymore.¡±


    In Lex¡¯s room, two female mages were apanying Lex. The torrential rain was getting increasingly intense, as continuous streams of thunder boomed. Unless a mage was in a magical tower, they would not meditate in such weather. The thunderp would disrupt all proceedings.


    At the moment, Lex was practicing a kind of weird skill. She spit out a ray of golden light, which lingered in the room. The two female mages kept casting low grade spells and the Magic Shield. All elemental magic disappeared wherever the golden light went past. It was just like the Elemental Annihtion, but there were zero energy vibrations.


    It was only when the two female mages had exhausted arge part of their magic chords did Lex stop, swallowing the golden light. When that ray of golden light entered her mouth, it ejected from her nose before being absorbed once again. This action repeated several times before the light got subdued by Lex.


    The two female mages were jubnt, then said, ¡°Viscountess, is it sessful?¡±


    ¡°Still a long way to go.¡± Lex inhaled deeply. Her family¡¯s secret arts had finally solidified, they now had real battle capabilities. This power was still measlypared to her father¡¯s though. If it was used against a sorcerer, it could only rely on the element of surprise. Nevertheless, a swordsman would pose a lesser threat to her now. Even a grand swordmaster would not be able to resist her golden ray assault.


    After several years, Lex was disappointed meeting Bifano once again. All she saw on Bifano was greed, ruthlessness, and hypocrisy. In a span of just a few years, Bifano had transformed into a different person. Lex still had to cooperate with Bifano. She had to aplish her objective on this trip.


    That was why Lex was so depressed. Furthermore, she did not have an avenue to let it out, so she could only remain in her room and practice the secret arts. Unexpectedly, she had achieved a breakthrough in the secret arts that evening, finally stabilizing them at the standard of grade-6.


    ¡°It is really impressive. Our Magic Shields couldn¡¯t even defend against such an attack.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because they were low level spells. If the Magic Shield was at level-7, then I wouldn¡¯t be able to break it, unless the enemy was using a scroll.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t we have other methods to deal with sorcerers?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t spout nonsense, the walls have ears.¡± Lex spoke strictly. It was better to remain vignt in this castle. This castle was built by the Cloudflow Empire, there might be some secrets to it.

 Chapter 462: Everyone has their concerns (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 462: Everyone has their concerns (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The protracted night was over, while the rain had stopped. The small duke called Bifano invited everyone for breakfast, but Saleen simply rejected it. By then, Saleen was used to consuming his own prepared food. Usually, when he was traveling, he would not touch other people¡¯s food.


    There were too many types of magic medicine which could kill a person silently and leave no clues whatsoever. The Detection Magic was not one-hundred percent urate either. Lex had the God¡¯s Ring, which could prevent any danger, but Saleen did not own any premium godly equipment.


    Since Saleen did not go, Sika naturally abstained from it too. The both of them had already prepared breakfast, while Nailisi apanied Lex to meet Bifano.


    Identical to the exterior of the castle, the dining hall was also simple and spacious, while its windows were narrow. The crystal chandelier which suspended from the ceiling only had six lights, causing the dining hall to appear dim.


    ¡°Bluefox, meet Her Highness Lex,¡± Bifano told a swordsman who was standing behind him.


    This swordsman was d in soft armor, with a longsword hung around his waist. With one knee on the ground, he bowed deeply at Lex.


    ¡°This is Bluefox, the captain of my trusted soldiers. For the trip down south this time around, my team will bemanded by him.¡±


    Lex nodded. Bluefox was about thirty years old. He had a calm demeanor, and every action he took was as sturdy as a mountain. Lex was too familiar with such a vibe, a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.


    Lex was not astonished. Even though it was difficult to be a grand swordmaster, there were still many more grand swordmasters aspared to sorcerers. Titan Duchy had a poption of almost ten-million, almost one-tenth of the Cloudflow Empire. It would be very normal for a duke to have several grand swordmasters serving him though.


    Northern Titan was inclined to prudence, it was very different from Cloudflow. Breakfast only consisted of corn porridge and white bread. Meat options only included two pieces of smoked meat, topped with twenty grams of cheese which was barely sufficient. Fortunately, the vegetables were fresh. They were coupled with some mushrooms and sauce, and a small bowl of soup. These items summed up breakfast.


    Habitually, Narnia prepared tea for Lex, and Bifano could not help but roll his eyes. Currently, Narnia was already a grade-4 mage, a grand mage. Bifano could not bear to see that she was using magic to brew tea.


    Another female mage helped Lex change her cutlery into a set of silver ones. Afterwards, she used the Detection Magic to check each and every food item, before giving it to Lex with peace of mind.


    They were used to doing such tasks. Even though the mages serving Lexcked experience, their safety awareness was extremely high, it would be extremely difficult to assassinate them.


    Bifano felt utterly embarrassed. He could not berate a the mages, those mages were not his subordinates after all.


    ¡°Bifano, please don¡¯t mind, they are used to doing such things.¡± Lex smiled gently as she consoled Bifano. She did not mean to do it either. There were many practices she did not wish for her subordinates to alter. It was good that these mages were serving her. If the lifestyle mages did not inculcate a simr habit, they could possibly lose their lives over trivial matters.


    Bifano was rendered speechless. Luckily, this was only breakfast, there were no multiple rounds of dishes. The Detection Magic was only employed once. It was normal for Bifano to feel upset as the integrity of his food was questioned right in front of him.


    Nailisi began eating the food, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. She was not interested in the food. At the moment, she was more interested in learning the etiquette of humans. As for any poison that might be present, it could be disregarded as long as it did not enter her heart. Everything in the demonic ne was poisonous. To Nailisi, the Myers maind was a little too pure already.


    The swordmasters brought by Lex were arranged to have their meals in the small dining hall, while the few grand mages had not left their magic war chariot yet. Just like that, breakfast was over without any fuss or frills.


    Bifano and Lex began discussing the situation down south as they drank some tea.


    ¡°Lex, the Pink Army will definitely attempt an assault during the journey. Please allow your swordsmen to be led by Bluefox for the time being, it will be helpful for the battle.¡±


    Lex broke into a smile, and said, ¡°No, the dozens of people have been following me since the Holy Rock City. They can only converse in the Qinnguage. If they were to operate with your men, you would have even more trouble. I will deploy them to protect my chariots.¡±


    Lex¡¯s words left no room for Bifano to rebut, but he did not have the intention to kill Lex and her men yet. He simplyughed it off and did not continue making any further requests.


    ¡°Out of my five-hundred soldiers, there are two-hundred cavalrymen, one-hundred shield infantrymen, one-hundred heavy swordsmen, and one-hundred archers. The cavalry will have three horses, while the rest of the men will have two horses. Their speed will not be too slow. You have seen the map too, the road conditions are pretty good. We will be able to cover at least two-hundred miles each day. By the end of the month, we should arrive at Fire Dance City.¡±


    ¡°That is verymendable to me. How are the preparations going on in Fire Dance City?¡±


    ¡°Other than theck of mages, the rest of the problems have been settled. Lex, what is Saleen¡¯s background?¡± Bifano could tell that even though Saleen belonged to the Bitter Water Prefecture on the surface, he was actually extremely independent. He was almost free from Lex¡¯s control. Bifano had never done an investigation into him, and it would be toote to do so now, so Bifano decided to get information from Lex.


    ¡°Mage Saleen is a great man. What do you want to know?¡± Lex smiled. She would not reveal anything to Bifano. She would never disclose the secret between the both of them to anyone else.


    ¡°I heard that all mages have an inheritance. Do you know anything about Mage Saleen¡¯s inheritance?¡±


    ¡°His teacher is from the Alchemy City.¡± Lex gave a murky answer. In Alchemy City, there were tens of thousands of mages and hundreds of grand mages. By giving such an answer, Lex did not reveal anything to Bifano.


    ¡°He is really from Alchemy City,¡± Bifano became guarded.


    ¡°He is indeed impressive. Saleen might be the youngest grade-5 mage ever at the moment.¡± Bifano was unlike what he had described himself to be, having zero knowledge in magic. In fact, Bifano had been continuously learning magic. He was only exposed to the theoretical knowledge of magic, so he could only be considered as a high grade magic disciple at the moment.


    ¡°Not true. When I became a grade-5 mage, I was younger than him.¡± Once again, Lex put a stop to Bifano¡¯s probing. Bifano did not realize anything, he only felt that Lex was being egoistic. She had the right to be.


    ¡°You are the publicly-acimed magic prodigy, Lex, he will never match up to you.¡± As Bifano spoke, he was carrying out some analysis in his mind. ¡°I heard that Lex had gone to the Alchemy City for a period of time. The Alchemy City should be supporting hernd development in the north. In that case, Saleen is really not a person to be trifled with. Teacher is right. I should deploy some people to collect information from Alchemy City first. If Saleen is an unimportant figure, then everything will be a piece of cake. If Saleen is the crux in the cooperation between Lex and the Alchemy City, then I will have no choice but to think of another solution.¡±


    ¡°Hypocrite!¡± Nailisi sagged her eyelids as she drank her tea. ¡°Master shouldn¡¯t worry about a person like that.¡±


    As usual, Lex smiled like how a noble should, refusing toment on Bifano¡¯s ttery. Bifano got slightly disappointed. Ever since Lex arrived at the princess¡¯ castle, her attitude towards him seemed to have changed.


    ¡°Lex, I will send fifty shield infantrymen to defend your chariots.¡± Realizing that he could not extract any useful information about Saleen¡¯s background, Bifano reverted to the previous topic.


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary, you should let them protect the archers. I have two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters with me. It will be difficult for the enemy to get close to my chariot.¡±


    Bifano felt his muscles cramping once more. Those two people were actually ck Metal Grand Swordmasters. They had not left the chariot, remaining onboard to protect the mages. Even though Bitter Water Prefecture was dozens of times smaller than Titan, its military prowess were not much weaker. At first, Bifano thought that it relied on its poption of mages, but it seemed like its army was really powerful too.


    ¡°If this army was mine, it will be fantastic. The damn Cloudflow keeps restraining Titan¡¯s military power. I can only deploy my troops privately. Other than the trusted soldiers, I cannot even form a camp. I can barely form five emblem groups, a total of five-thousand people. All of them have been positioned in Fire Dance City. Even if this n seeds, only less than half of these five-thousand men will remain.¡±


    As Bifano cursed in his heart, a smile of nobility remained pasted on his face.


    ¡°Lex, your horses will not make it. Before the journey starts, I will give each one of you two warhorses.¡±


    ¡°The ones pulling the chariots too, sorry to trouble you.¡± Lex did not stand on ceremony with Bifano. In order to rush here, all her horses had gotten injured. Lex also did not wish to use the skeletal warhorses in the mission with Bifano.


    As there were no death mages in the team, the skeletal warhorses were stored inside Saleen¡¯s Green Spirit. If they got killed by the enemy, they could not be summoned anymore.


    ¡°Of course, but the warhorses Mage Saleen was asking for¡­¡±


    ¡°Send them straight to Bitter Water Prefecture.¡± Regarding this matter, Lex made it very clear. Saleen requested for five-hundred warhorses which could mate, and she would get some benefits in the future as well. The poption of warhorses in Qin had been insufficient for a long time. The quality warhorses had been controlled by Holy Rock City. Even in Lex¡¯s swordsmen¡¯s camp, the cavalry regiment had been vexing over the warhorses.


    These warhorses would be ameliorated in Bitter Water Prefecture with help from the mages. In at most three to five years, warhorses suitable for the northern region could be cultivated. A skeletal warhorse had its ws too. Against the priests from the Holy See, they would be restrained by their divine spells. Furthermore, it was impossible for the three kings to apany the army for wars. There were also too little death mages in the Bitter Water Army and none of them was a grand mage yet. It would be impossible to use the skeletal warhorses to supplement the insufficiency of the cavalrymen.


    As for the magic wolf cavalrymen? There were too few of them, and Lex did not want to be indebted to Sika.


    ¡°Rest assured, once we arrive at the Fire Dance City, warhorses will have reached Bitter Water Prefecture.¡± Even though Bifano agreed generously, he was extremely reluctant. Thebined value of five-hundred warhorses was enough to produce a colossal main battleship already.


    The discussions went on smoothly. Other than the abrupt request for the warhorses, Bifano had prepared everything else already. By noontime, the five-hundred trusted soldiers stood guard around the new convoy as it set off on its journey.


    Within the new convoy, the two chariots which Lex brought along were left behind. The supplies on those two chariots would be disposed of by Bifano. As for task of procuring winemakers, it was left to the people in the princess¡¯ castle.


    Besides the two magic war chariots, the convoy had an additional ten huge chariots which were actually filled with military equipment and tents. When the convoy was setting off, Bifano noticed Lex and Saleen going aboard the same carriage, and he could no longer maintain hisposure. Suppressing the rage in his heart, he steered his warhorse to the front of the convoy. His trusted soldiers immediately followed, not knowing why their small duke was seething.


    The more terrible someone felt, the worse the events would be. Less than one-hundred miles after leaving the princess¡¯ castle, the rain started again. Since the next town was still more than one-hundred miles away, Bifano had no choice but to order his troops to select a piece of hignd which would not flood and set up camp there.

 Chapter 463: Cracks (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 463: Cracks (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The interior of the magic war chariot was spacious, it was much morefortable than the tents. As the torrential downpour continued, Lex and her entourage did not get down, they remained in the chariots. The drivers were the war puppets, so they did not need to hide from the rain.


    ¡°Viscountess, the small duke is here,¡± a swordmaster standing outside the chariot announced. A radius of ten meters around the chariots were dry despite rain. The depletion of such a spell was only grade-1 magic nuclei, and this was also an advantage of a magic war chariot. It was not affected by any weather changes.


    Lex frowned and nced at Saleen. Saleenughed and said, ¡°Let him in.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Come up here and let me study you, it will be easier for me to kill you in the future. Bifano doesn¡¯t know what¡¯s good for him, he still wants to pester Lex. After the Pink Army¡¯s secret base is located, I should just kill Bifano and seize the temple.¡±


    When the chariot¡¯s doors opened, Narnia cast a spell, rming Bifano. He was on the verge of wielding his sword already. Following that, the water on his body evaporated, drying his drenched armor.


    Originally, the chariot contained six people, and it still felt spacious. As Bifano scanned the chariot, he noticed two beautiful women sitting on either side of Saleen, while Saleen was seated across from Lex, causing his mood to brighten up.


    Lex pointed to a horizontal bench to her right, then said, ¡°Small duke, please take a seat.¡±


    The astonishment in Bifano¡¯s heart was not exposed. It was only aftering onboard that he realized that this chariot had been transformed into a magic war chariot. Which meant that the other chariot had to be a magic war chariot too. ¡°The Qin people are really wealthy. In the aspect of magic, the Titan Duchy can¡¯t evenpare to Lex¡¯s county.¡±


    Bifano was thinking too much. This magic war chariot was crafted by the allied states in the eastern sea, it was just that Saleen had piged a group of them. Lex also did not have any spare money to craft such items. Daily maintenance was already an issue, and the speed of the magic nucleus depletion was quicker than ten magesbined.


    Shamelessly, Bifano said, ¡°Lex, this chariot is warmer than a tent.¡±


    With a partial smile, Saleen said, ¡°Bifano, I guess you are already a grand swordmaster.¡± As he spoke, an Ice Bomb had appeared on his finger, twirling around the tip of it. Only a sorcerer possessed the ability to control the elements in this manner, but some talented grade-6 mages could also barely aplish it. Currently, Saleen could control water magic at will. At the very least, he could control spells he was familiar with at the standard of a sorcerer already.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, you have such good judgment,¡± Bifanoplimented.


    ¡°My judgment isn¡¯t great, but all mages are very sensitive. When a grand swordmaster gets too close, they will get uneasy.¡±


    No matter how shameless Bifano was, he could no longer hold it in. He was going to blow his top already, but then Lex said, ¡°Saleen is right, this chariot was prepared for mages only, even my men aren¡¯t allowed in here.¡±


    Saleen sneered. In a single action, he grabbed hold of the Ice Bomb on his fingertip and pinched it, causing it to disperse into thin air.


    Even though Nailisi and Sika were beside him, Saleen was still very vignt. There was little leeway in the chariot, and he was indeed ufortable in the presence of a grand swordmaster. Saleen also did not need anything from Bifano, so he was not afraid of offending him. Bifano was the one begging him to resolve the Pink Army issue.


    Saleen was no longer an insignificant mage, he did not have to treat himself unjustly.


    The moment Lex opened her mouth, Bifano lost all courage to unleash his rage. Suppressing his fury, he said, ¡°Mage Saleen, I need to speak to Lex.¡±


    ¡°Then say it. This chariot is mine, you won¡¯t be able to make me leave.¡± Saleen leaned backwards, he did not even bother looking at Bifano¡¯s face.


    Bifano had lost once. Previously when he tried to spite Saleen, he lost five-hundred warhorses. This time around, he could only tolerate it, pretending not to hear Saleen.


    ¡°Lex, if this rain gets too heavy, it will affect our journey.¡±


    ¡°In this season, it won¡¯t rain for consecutive days, right?¡±


    ¡°Actually it won¡¯t, but Titan has been experiencing terrible weather for the past two years. The rain is unpredictable, even the mages can do nothing about it. The crops are frequently destroyed.¡±


    ¡°Do you want to alter the route?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we will go to the Stone Statue Castle. There is a metal bridge there which will not be affected by the heavy rain.¡±


    ¡°You can make the decisions alone, why discuss it with me?¡± Lex asked in bewilderment. She had a crystal clear memory of the map. If the route was changed, they would go to one less town, which meant one less treasury. This held no significance for Lex.


    ¡°The earl of the Stone Statue Castle is an ally of the Cloudflow emperor. I want to kill him along the way.¡±


    ¡°If there is an earl, then there will be five emblem groups alongside another few hundred private soldiers. You don¡¯t have sufficient manpower,¡± Lex said slowly.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I wish to borrow your mages,¡± Bifano said with no change in expression. He was trying to kill the earl using Lex as a medium. By conquering the Stone Statue Castle, Lex would suffer a loss in power. By then, Bifano would not need to worry about Lex falling out with him at the pink army¡¯s base. This time around, he felt that he hadpsed. He thought that he could control the entire situation by inviting Lex over. Unexpectedly, Lex had two magic war chariots, and another six subordinates who were all grand mages.


    ¡°What for? You have decided to give up anyway, and that was your father¡¯s intention too. Did you just think of this n?¡± Lex did not ede immediately. It was too difficult invading an earl¡¯s castle, it would be good if she had brought along the swordsmen¡¯s camp from Bitter Water Prefecture. She did not feel confident now that she had to rely on Bifano¡¯s soldiers.


    If the earl was from Qin, there would not be so many troops. In Titan, an earl possessed a great deal of authority.


    ¡°My father allowed me to make my own decision. If it wasn¡¯t for the downpour, I wouldn¡¯t want to make a detour. If we do not make a detour, downstream of the Red River the bridge might be destroyed. When that happens, our convoy will not be able to pass through anymore.¡±


    ¡°Your father is still in Cloudflow. Aren¡¯t you worried something will happen to him if you kill the earl?¡±


    ¡°The Stone Statue Castle doesn¡¯t have a teleportation portal. Information is sent via messenger pigeons, which will take at least half a month to reach Cloudflow. By then, my father will be back.¡±


    ¡°If you can deceive them to open the gates, I will do it. Everything in the castle will belong to me though.¡± Lex did not continue refusing. After listening to Bifano, she realized that Titan and Cloudflow still enjoyed cordial rtions on the surface. If she killed the earl in the castle, the level of difficulty would be greatly reduced. Since the Stone Statue Castle did not have a teleportation portal, it also meant that it would not have a magical tower. Even if there were mages, they would not be greater than grade-6.


    ¡°Of course. Everything in the castle will act aspensation for your mages.¡± Seeing that Lex had agreed, Bifano could not conceal his jubnce.


    ¡°Is there anything else?¡± Seeing that Lex had agreed, Saleen felt embarrassed to continue objecting. That being said, he really did not want Bifano to stay in the chariot any longer.


    ¡°Nope. Before arriving at the castle, I will inform everyone in advance.¡± This time around, Bifano had no reaction to Saleen¡¯s words. Grinning, he disembarked from the chariot and left in the rain.


    When the doors were closed, Nailisi said, ¡°Master, this person harbors ill intentions.¡±


    ¡°Humph, of course he does.¡± Lex snorted, then said, ¡°The Stone Statue Castle doesn¡¯t have a magical tower, but there is a batch of Stone Statue Ghosts left behind from a long time ago. A low grade mage will be able to control them. If you are not cautious, those thing can even harm a mage.¡±


    ¡°Stone Statue Ghosts?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re like the abyssal creatures, I think there are some in the demonic ne as well. Usually, they will be in the form of a stone statue. They are quite troublesome to deal with, and there are many of them.¡±


    ¡°I know, I was just thinking that Bifano isn¡¯t hospitable at all!¡± When Saleen made that im, he had forgotten how he treated Bifano earlier on. Saleen treated Bifano even more poorly, he did not even bother concealing his contempt for Bifano.


    ¡°Never mind, my swordmasters are equipped with miniature alchemical crossbows. Each one of them has twenty explosive arrows.¡±


    Saleen chuckled the moment he heard that. An explosive arrow was a high level alchemical equipment, it should not have a problem terminating the Stone Statue Ghosts. Lex had made adequate preparations, it seemed like she already had the intention to guard against Bifano for a long while.


    A grade-6 mage was minimally required to manufacture explosive arrows, and Lex had a pathetically small number of grade-6 mages around her. A protracted duration was needed for her to produce two-hundred explosive arrows.


    ¡°If the Stone Statue Ghosts are below grade-4, then you don¡¯t have to waste the explosive arrows.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t intend to use them, they are acting as a precaution. Saleen, you shouldn¡¯t treat Bifano in this manner, at least before leaving Titan that is,¡± Lexmented.


    ¡°If I don¡¯t act as the bad guy, he will pester you every day, aren¡¯t you annoyed?¡± Saleen pointed out the root of the problem directly. Lex¡¯s face turned scarlet, but she did not dispute.


    Lex and Bifano were not at the stage of falling out yet. If Saleen did not act this way, she would not have to patronize him.


    ¡°Forget it, I have seen through him. I am just afraid that he may harm you.¡±


    ¡°Lex, you don¡¯t have to rush to gain allies, we should manage the north first. Anyway, the riders from the Holy See will not arrive in the next one or two years. This Bifano will not aplish much. In my opinion, you should seize his items. Titan will be obliterated sooner orter anyway, this ce will be under Cloudflow¡¯s jurisdiction in the future.¡±


    Lex frowned and said, ¡°If I take his recourses, who will want to form an alliance with me in the future?¡±


    ¡°If our capabilities are inadequate, no one will form an alliance with us no matter how good our reputation is. If he dares to harm me, I will strike immediately, he will not get a second chance.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, I concur. When he tried to borrow your mages, he wasn¡¯t harboring any good intentions,¡± Narnia agreed. The other female mage also nodded in agreement.


    ¡°That is logic, but he has nted five-thousand men in Fire Dance City. Do you think we can deal with five-thousand elite soldiers? Don¡¯t forget our agenda on this trip. If we kill him, theter tasks will be fraught with difficulties.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°I am not afraid of five-thousand elite troops as long as there are no sorcerers. Before entering the Purgatory Desert, I really cannot create too much trouble. This ce isn¡¯t too far from the Tanggsi Empire, it will be disastrous if I run into the Holy See¡¯s people.¡±


    The few people chatted aboard the magic war chariot freely without any restrictions. Even if there were mages outside, they would not be able to eavesdrop. The downpour had gotten worse. Obscure thunderps emanated from the sky, suddenly bing very ferocious.


    Lex softened her tone, and said, ¡°Saleen, listen to me this time around. You have heard it too, everything in the castle will belong to me. Aren¡¯t you curious to find out what in the castle has tempted me?¡±

 Chapter 464: Cracks (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 464: Cracks (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Other than the Stone Statue Ghosts, what else is there?¡± This time around, the curious person was the female mage whom Saleen did not know the name of.


    ¡°Let me think.¡± Lex closed her eyes, sinking into deep thought. She possessed a swath of memory too, but in a mage¡¯s memory, they could not pick out the corresponding information at will. Most of the time, they memorized the information using rote learning. When the information was required, they would have to organize it one more time.


    The interaction between Lex and Bifano did not take ce overnight. Naturally, she would be interested in the intelligence from Titan Duchy. Lex had used the Memory Spell to remember all news regarding the Stone Statue Castle. In deep thought, she finally recalled what else was in the castle.


    Lex smiled, and said, ¡°Saleen, there is an evenrger castle underneath this castle. It sunk due to an earthquake. Other than an abundance of materials, the Stone Statue Castle also has aplete alchemyboratory. A pity that there aren¡¯t many powerful mages around, it got shut down in the end. It seems like even the earl controlling the castle doesn¡¯t know about this set of treasures.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up, as he vaguely thought of something. Then he asked, ¡°Could it be the alchemy mold?¡±


    ¡°How did you guess that?!¡± It was Lex¡¯s turn to be astounded.


    ¡°Heh¡­¡± Saleenughed mysteriously. The magic notes which he obtained was dated back even further. If the Stone Statue Castle was a new town, he would not have known much about it. The Stone Statue Castle had a longer history than the Titan Duchy though, so Saleen actually knew some relevant information about it.


    The alchemy mold was good, but creating it was almost as difficult as trying to create a piece of godly equipment. Across all types of alchemy, one had to rely on handwork and a bit of refinement if they wanted to createplex items. Just like how Aini tapped on the tools to mass produce alchemical arrows. The end product would be defective, and its shelf life would also be shorter.


    In order to create true magic equipment, a mage would have toplete it bit by bit. The ancient humans saved on that trouble by inventing the alchemy mold however. They could simply pour the magic materials into the mold and createrge quantities of magic equipment, just like how metal ingots were produced.


    Such an alchemy technique was dozens of times faster than relying on a mage to refine it. The number of mages required was also much less. Usually, the method of depletion was to use the magic nuclei in a magic array to power the alchemy mold. As long as one had magic nuclei along with a sufficient number of mages, they would be able to use the alchemy mold to craft magic equipment.


    That being said, the equipment produced would pale inparison to the ones which Saleen created using the Water me Alchemy. The price would be much lower. If the alchemy mold for producing armor could be obtained, Lex could even help all her swordsmen¡¯s camps obtain magic armor.


    ¡°Why would no one pay attention to such things?¡± Saleen asked, puzzled.


    The alchemy mold was highly prized in Qin. Alchemy City had one and Holy Rock City had one, but there were no moreplete alchemy molds. The one in Holy Rock City was used to create armor. On the other hand, the one in Alchemy City seemed to be used for producing fundamental materials. Even so, Alchemy City had used their mold to craft arge number of magic warships. It is for refining puppets, and the materials must be simr to the Stone Statue Ghosts. Creatures summoned from other nes can¡¯t be considered as death creatures yet.¡±


    At this point in time, Saleen then realized that no one might recognize this piece of equipment anymore. Even if someone discovered it, they would regard it as an insignificant appliance. This item might bemonce in the past, when humans could traverse the nes. Creatures which were low in value and did not need to be domesticated would be simply refined into puppets. If the ancient mages were asked to carry out such a refinement, they might not even have the patience.


    Producing an alchemy mold to rece tedious handwork thus became a natural affair.


    This item was tremendously useful for Saleen and Lex though. The mold could be used to refine the creatures in the interdimensional space into puppets. After refinement, these puppets would not need to consume meat anymore, they could survive solely on magic nuclei. More urately, the ancient humans had created partial puppets.


    Their offensive powers might not be higher than a pure puppet, but they could carry out veryplex assignments.


    They would be mightier than the death creatures as death creatures could be restrained by divine spells. A partial puppet was almost like a human, one had very bnced attributes. There were no particr spells nor Divine spells which could restrain them.


    Only by getting this alchemy mold would the expedition by Saleen and Lex be worthwhile.


    When the rain started to let up, Bifano then organized his troops and changed their equipment. Metal armor was removed and reced by waterproof leather armor. The leather armor had been soaked in a special kind of lipid. Not only was it abnormally strong, it could not be set on fire either. As for the aspect of defensive power, leather armor would never match up to metal armor, unless it had been blessed with very powerful magic. When troops were marching to battle, convenience took top priority though.


    Once metal armor was drenched in rainwater for a long time, it would require maintenance, which exhausted time and effort. Only some high level metal armor was totally waterproof, but it was ridiculously expensive. A set of metal armor which would not be affected by moisture could fetch at least five-hundred gold coins, but it still required maintenance and conservation. The advantage of leather armor was that there were various methods of tanning it, it was also hundreds of times easier blessing it aspared to metal armor.


    Not only were the troops d in leather armor, they also donned waterproof capes. All of them also wore caps. Other than that, some low rankingmanders equipped themselves with waterproof sses. These sses were produced by polishing abandoned crystals. Once worn, the vision would not be affected, they could also guard against water, wind, and sand. They were considered a more valuable piece of equipment.


    It was impossible for the soldiers to stop marching just because of a torrential rain. The warhorses were fed medicine in order to prevent colds and rickets. Thereafter, the soldiers put on armor for the warhorses, as they prepared to carry on with the journey.


    That was the distinct difference between elite troops and normal troops. Elite troops possessedplete equipment, and had practical solutions in the face of unforeseen circumstances. Finally, the soldiers draped a ckish item on the surface of the wheels. That made the wheelsrger, preventing them from sinking into the sloshy ground. This ck substance was a type of gum, produced in small numbers. It was only produced in the southern seas of Cloudflow. Only in special situations would the troops bear to use such an item.


    Before the rain could stop totally, Bifano¡¯s team had continued on their journey.


    Saleen had mosaicked a level-3 magic nucleus into one of the magic arrays onboard the magic war chariot. This caused the crystals located on the hollow part atop the windows on both sides of the chariot to look like they had melted, as the whole window became transparent. This transparency was one-sided, it was impossible to look into the chariot from outside.


    Lex¡¯s swordmasters stood on both sides of the chariot, while Wild Bear had boarded the other magic war chariot. Even though he was unrefined, he was extremely respectful of mages. He would never act in a manner which would displease a mage. As a result, all the mages serving Lex were very fond of the guy who had absolutely zero talent in magic.


    The worst was J. He was following closely behind the magic war chariot which Saleen was in, his magic armor filled with water droplets.


    In the evening, the convoy was approaching the next town already. Be that as it may, the soldiers did not let down their guard. They maintained their strict formation. The clouds were less thick, there was even a hint of sunlight shining onto the ground. As the crimson sunlight shone across thend, reflecting on the puddles of water, a mesmerizing glow was produced.


    The soldiers were also fatigued. Seeing that the town was just up ahead, they sped up unknowingly. As the wooden huts catered for traveling guests came into view, a shrill magic rm suddenly sounded.


    The scouts actually did not discover the presence of the enemy, it was revealed by the magic rm.


    A dense rain of arrows descended from the sky, it was not known how many arrows were fired at the approaching convoy. Bifano snorted unfeelingly through his nose, he was toozy to give any orders.


    This was a tant act of harassment. Their current location was less than twenty miles from the town, it was impossible for the enemy to attack now. The town up ahead was licensed to contain an emblem group¡¯s worth of cavalrymen since this ce was proximal to Titan¡¯s borders. Such militarized towns weremonce hundreds of miles from the Princess¡¯ Castle.


    Bifano¡¯s trusted soldiers did not let him down either. When the sound of arrows piercing through the air first sounded, the soldiers had already set up their shields, protecting their bodies. The water vapor in the air was so thick it could almost condense onto one¡¯s skin. In such weather, any other kind of crossbow would be adversely affected, with the exception of the alchemical crossbow.


    The enemy was smart knowing the soldiers in leather armor were more susceptible to an attack by arrows. Bifano¡¯s troops carried shields withrge surface areas and were wrapped in glittery metal though, so they could not be prated by any arrows.


    As the razor-sharp arrows descended on the shields, the nging of metals filled the air, and the arrows fell to the ground lifelessly.


    The arrows had originated from a hill on the left, with a height of about one-hundred meters. All of a sudden, a team with only forty men branched out from the group of soldiers. This team rode on horseback towards the hill.


    The mountains in Titan were mostly mounds, very gentle and not arduous. These forty men were not cavalrymen. The moment they reached the peak of the mound, they immediately abandoned their warhorses and shields. Drawing their longswords, they leaped off their warhorses and charged towards the location the archers were hiding in.


    Another two groups of forty cavalrymen went around the hill, with the intention of cutting off the enemy¡¯s escape route.


    In the chariot, Lex told Saleen, ¡°Do you see this? These are real soldiers.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°If I am wealthy, I will never cultivate such an army. I will simplymand my soldiers to use a magic cannon to bombard the peak, or I will get a grand mage to set the hill aze. No matter what traps the enemy has, they will be destroyed, why go to so much trouble.¡±


    As if to humor Saleen¡¯s thoughts, a blistering explosion urred abruptly on the peak. The mes became widespread, countless of rocks flew into the air and spewed in all directions.


    Horrifying screams spread for more than a mile, and Bifano¡¯s expression changed abruptly. The enemy did not fire a second wave of arrows, it seemed like a batch of contraptions had been installed, and it was detonated on contact. The peak did not have many enemies, there was only arge magic trap.


    Themander of the pink army was a ruthless mage.


    Out of the forty soldiers who charged uphill, half of them were obliterated in that instant, while the remaining eighteen men were supporting their injuredrades. They had abandoned their weapons as they escaped from the hill. Some magic traps were sequential, so none of them dared linger atop the hill for more than a minute.


    ¡°The pink army was trying to rile Bifano,¡± Saleen said inly. Saleen might not have any talent in warring techniques, but his understanding of other people was not inferior to anyone else. In such a small battle, Saleen had an even keener intuition.


    Setting a perfectrge scale magic trap was pretty expensive, but it would not actually create many fatalities. This was just the first harassment, and if Bifano continued getting tricked, he would get extremely jumpy. When that happened, the real offensive would then be unleashed.

 Chapter 465: Ruthlessness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 465: Ruthlessness (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even though the pink army was fundamentally made out of bandits, they possessed foresight. Now that the maind was in turmoil, they could capitalize on the chaos.


    Still an intense collision was imminent, be it in Cloudflow or Tanggsi. Sandwiched between two empires, they had nowhere to run. They actually were still fearful of Titan Duchy, but were now at the end of their rope. Basically, it would not end well if one assaulted a regr army.


    Bifano was really furious that more than twenty of his trusted soldiers were dead. A trusted soldier was an elite among all private soldiers. These trusted soldiers had outstanding fighting skills. If it was not for therge magic trap, a group of one-hundred average bandits would not be able to besiege them.


    The injured soldiers were ced onto the carriages, while the few who managed to flee appeared to be ashamed. No matter how much training they had undergone, they still could not resist the fear in their hearts when in the face of magic.


    Magic was an item like this. If one did not understand it, they would have a phobia of it. When one understood it, they would be in awe of it.


    ¡°You all should have seen how many enemies were atop the hill.¡± Bifano¡¯s voice was frosty. He did not want to vent his rage on his trusted soldiers, these people had unquestionable loyalty.


    ¡°About forty of them, all dead from the explosion,¡± a soldier replied after mustering his courage.


    ¡°That¡¯s ruthless.¡± Bifano nced at the short hill. Some contraptions which could fire a barrage of arrows were installed atop the hill. Once the target was baited up the hill, the magic trap would be stimted. All the people controlling the machines were also dead. The pink army had nned on sacrificing its soldiers.


    ¡°The few of you.¡± Bifano said to the soldiers who managed to escaped, ¡°Return immediately. The person executing the ambush must have gotten this news along the way, realizing that we have altered the route. There aren¡¯t many viges nearby, find out who leaked the news, then kill all of them!¡±


    Even though Saleen¡¯s magic war chariot was located faraway, Saleen could hear Bifano¡¯s words clearly. ¡°This small duke is so ruthless. Even if the vigers were acting as the pink army¡¯s informants, it had to be out of desperation. Even if he wants to kill for deterrence, he doesn¡¯t need to conduct a massacre. These vigers are his citizens, paying taxes to him annually. The Pink Army could control his viges because of his ineffectiveness, he should not me the vigers. How are the unarmed farmers going to stand up to the bandits?¡±


    ¡°Very cruel, isn¡¯t it?¡± Lex looked at Saleen¡¯s expression, as she spoke in an icy voice.


    ¡°He doesn¡¯t have humanity.¡± Saleen raised his head, looking directly into Lex¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°So what do you n to do now?¡± Lex turned her head slightly sideways, her face was without a single hint of smile. She was not mocking Saleen, she felt that there was something amiss with this matter.


    ¡°What can I do, these people will be sucked into the mes of war sooner orter, unless I can eradicate the ambitions of the emperors.¡± Saleen leaned backwards. It was soft andfortable lying against a pillow, and the air within the chariot was fresh, but not cold, totally unlike the exterior surroundings. Nailisi leaned against him snugly, massaging his legs.


    ¡°The sadness for such nobility, you are really an orthodox mage.¡± This time around, Lex¡¯s words had the intention of satirizing.


    ¡°Bifano isn¡¯t my friend,¡± Saleen answered indifferently. He would not save those viges, and he had no way of saving them either. At the moment, he could not fall out with Bifano.


    ¡°He is not my friend either,¡± Lex said harshly. The Bifano she used to know was not like this at all. Back then, that small duke had lofty ambitions and was passionate, without the airs of a noble. After just several years, he had be a cold blooded noble.


    Since the people atop the hill were dead, it was not necessary for Bifano to linger around there anymore. He thus gave the order to advance. The convoy¡¯s speed had increased considerably. In at most an hour, they could reach the next town. The soldiers were not willing to travel in such terrible weather, and the sky was also getting dark. Even though Titan did not have many magic beasts, it was never really safe in the wilderness.


    All this while, the two chariots worth of swordmasters responsible for protecting Saleen did not make any move. They only used their longswords to defend against the rain of arrows, but werezy to do anything else. To them, Bifano¡¯s elite troops seemed like any other group of soldiers. If such soldiers could activate a mage trap, then they would be swiftly exterminated in the face of a real enemy.


    The rest of the journey was free from any harassers. Bifano¡¯s team arrived at the next town hastily. This was a town with a poption of about ten-thousand people, all the people lived in a castle in the vige, and the mayor was not conferred a title. When the mayor learned that the small duke was arriving, he arranged amodation for these five-hundred plus people in a haphazard manner.


    Saleen saw the true difference between Cloudflow and Qin. The ranking of a noble reigned supreme in this location. Everyone disyed extreme respect for Bifano, and this also made Saleen understand why the Agares family was so reluctant to lose their authority.


    All the way from the time they arrived, the people serving them had never raised their heads at all.


    Unlike Qin, a town of this status in Titan did not have an official dwelling to host the nobles. Bifano and his team were lodged in an enormous mansion. The mansion belonged to a local noble, but the noble was not around, so the manpower left behind was little too.


    Saleen and Lex had been arranged to stay in two different houses, with a distance of several hundred meters apart. Saleen knew that this was Bifano¡¯s wish, and he could not be bothered about it. Once the Pink Army¡¯s hideout temple was located, he would act ordingly again. If Bifano¡¯s army suffered too huge a loss, he would let Nailisi ughter him. Saleen would never take a liking to someone like that.


    The banquet hosted by the mayor was absented by Saleen, as usual. He remained in his room, diligently practicing magic. Ofte, Saleen realized that he was too distracted by worldly happenings, he was no longer as diligent in his practice. If this went on, he would never be a sorcerer even in the next thirty to fifty years.


    In the dining hall, Lex was not present, only Nailisi went to collect the food. She sat at her seat arrogantly, ignoring all the customs of a noble. The trusted soldiers beside Bifano were outraged, the mage¡¯s maidservant was insolent.


    The trusted soldiers might be enraged, but they did not dare mention anything as they could not afford to trifle with a mage. Even Bifano treaded the waters carefully while around Saleen. The mage treated him with hostility, and if he did anything to Nailisi, the whole cooperation might just fall through.


    ¡°Sir, urgent information!¡± A soldier paced in, delivering a mini piece of paper into Bifano¡¯s hands.


    Bifano took a look, his eyebrows arching up. After a moment of pondering, he said, ¡°Get Her Highness Lex.¡±


    The soldier received the order and went away. He returned after a long while and said, ¡°Her Highness Lex is meditating, she is not willing toe over.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Nailisi asked rudely.


    ¡°You¡­¡± The soldier wanted to say that Nailisi was not qualified, but Nailisi had interrupted him and said, ¡°I can convey the message to Lex, but don¡¯t even think of talking to her.¡±


    The soldier immediately shut his mouth and turned to look at Bifano. Bifano had a glint in his eyes, then told Nailisi, ¡°The Princess¡¯ Castle has a war situation. The Tanggsi Empire has finally taken action, about two camps worth of soldiers are gathering at the border. The vanguards might already be in the vicinity of the Princess¡¯ Castle.¡±


    ¡°This matter is indeed imperative, I will go right now.¡± With a shove of the table, Nailisi stood up. Bifano and his men could only overlook her rudeness. It was only after Nailisi had left the dining hall that Bifano said through clenched teeth, ¡°Once I get to Fire Dance City, I will make sure she learns her lesson!¡±


    Unbeknownst to Bifano, Nailisi heard every single word he said, even though he spoke softly. A smile appeared on Nailisi¡¯s face, as she thought to herself, ¡°It will be best if you can no longer hold it in, otherwise I will never know when Master will get angry.¡± Since Nailisi was going to summon demons, she had to prepare some blood food for them.


    Back in Metatrin City, Nailisi could not get suitable food for the demons, but she did not need to have any concerns in Titan. The small duke was going to be dealt with sooner orter, she should just feed him to her subordinates.


    A normal demon was not as picky as the Luoluokaluo. Consuming a powerful man would be more enjoyable since they would be muscr and chewy. As Bifano was immersed in his thoughts of how to torture Nailisi once he got to Fire Dance City, he did not know that Nailisi was already regarding him as food.


    Wild Bear was standing guard outside Lex¡¯s room, while the two female mages were inside apanying her in the practice of her family¡¯s secret arts. When Nailisi arrived, Wild Bear did not stop her. He knocked on the door, and Lex allowed Nailisi to enter.


    ¡°Tanggsi has taken action? That¡¯s early.¡± When Lex received the news, she remained veryposed. It was a good thing for Qin that Tanggsi¡¯s emperor was dealing with Titan first. It was a little too soon though. She thought that the war would erupt after the next winter, since there was no news from God Grace Duchy yet.


    ¡°Viscountess, this will not affect our journey right?¡±


    ¡°Why not? Bifano must be thinking of picking up the pace in order to reach Fire Dance City as soon as possible. Now that Tanggsi has taken action, Cloudflow will definitely want to seize Titan in the shortest time possible. His good days will soon be over. Nailisi, tell Saleen that we will not do anything. After conquering the Stone Statue Castle, we will go straight to Fire Dance City.¡±


    At this point in time, Lex realized that if Tanggsi started an invasion, she would not be able to return to the Purgatory Desert from this ce, she had to use an alternative entrance. The more time was dragged out, the worse the situation would get. If she ran into Tanggsi¡¯s army on Titan¡¯snd, her only way out would be to fly back to Qin using magic. If the other party did not have a sorcerer, she could escape.


    No matter how estranged she was from Holy Rock City, she still had tremendous value in the eyes of the Tanggsi Empire. Once she got captured, the Tanggsi Empire would be able to find various reasons to invade Qin. The most probable oue was that the Holy See¡¯s people would wipe out her intelligence, transforming her into a human puppet, before igniting a war using the name of the Bitter Water County. By then, the internal resistance of Qin would be greatly weakened, since this would be a civil war, and not an invasion.


    Using her status as Emperor Chanake¡¯s daughter to usurp the throne, at least one-fourth of the nobles in the empire would consider supporting her. This was not a good thing, it would in fact prove fatal to her.

 Chapter 466: Ruthlessness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 466: Ruthlessness (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Such was this world. Once the mboyant outeryer was removed, one would discover that a vibrant civilization was actually established upon brute cruelty. Inparison, Bifano¡¯s move could not even be considered as ruthless.


    Ever since losing their powers, the behavior of humans had be much more evil. Even the sinister creatures from the dark ne would feel that they were inferior.


    None of the nes, including the dark ne, had a species which would convert most of the maind to be suitable for themselves only. That kind of species was humans.


    Back then, the creatures from the various nes who got captured by humans gradually fell into extinction on the Myers maind. Their ferocious offspring were also mostly killed by humans. In the past, humans had captured these creatures to act asbor, rewarding them asionally. The humans who came after that simply killed all these creatures, they mutted them and oppressed their souls.


    Once these creatures became extinct, humans then turned against their own kind. Even though there were wars before this, the maind had all along been under a unified dynasty. After the fall of the fourth dynasty, the humans on the Myers maind became fully divided.


    There was an endless list of hatchets between the four big empires. The most recent being the assassination of Emperor Chanake. Going further back into history, the Holy See was almost withered by the other three empires, it only managed to recover some of its vitality in the past one thousand years.


    Cloudflow¡¯s fleet had plundered the other three empires along the coastlines in the past. Qin only managed to escape some trouble because of the presence of Alchemy City. Sikeqinya, also known as themercial empire throughout the maind, not a good nation either. All the bandit gangs across the maind were somehow rted to Sikeqinya.


    The Tanggsi Empire did not need any further exnation. That empire had thergest ve market, and those ves were not even from Tanggsi. People from different countries were sold in Tanggsi. One would be able to purchase them as long as they had money. These ves were basically obtained by robbing other nations.


    The Qin Empire seemed clean, but it was merely an illusion suppressed by the imperial family. In the past two-hundred to three-hundred years, all the affairs involving the local nobles could not be brought to light. As long as Holy Rock City remained in the dark and there were profits up for grabs, the Qin people would not have any fewer shady affairspared the rest.


    The grand duke of Pompeii, in the south, was in cahoots with Cloudflow. They were involved in the condoning of the pirates. If the decay was not deep-rooted, a duchy as huge as Lon would not crumble so swiftly, before being partitioned by the Qin nobles in the end. Unfortunately, before the Qin nobles could solidify their foundation, they were exiled by the Tanggsi army.


    Laiyin Duchy, which was affiliated with Sikeqinya, only produced two things. Those things were mercenaries and bandits. Sometimes, when people got tired of being mercenaries, they would simply switch to being bandits, and vice versa.


    The Myers maind was not as glorious as what was portrayed on the surface. In some sense, the Holy See was not that wicked. Other than preaching about that illusory paradise, only its inquisition was frowned upon.


    Nailisi left Lex¡¯s room to look for Saleen, telling him whatever she had heard from Bifano. Saleen then began doing some calctions.


    Was there still a need to deploy the five-thousand strong army in Fire Dance City? The Titan Duchy would not hold out for long, it would be extremely perilous for Lex to remain on this piece ofnd any longer. Be it the Tanggsi people or Cloudflow people, someone would try to capture Lex the moment they discovered her. If Bifano was killed and his men were not extirpated, Lex and her team would be thrown into a huge crisis when Bifano disclosed information about her.


    ¡°Master, hold on for a while. Get rid of that fellow when you get to the temple,¡± Nailisi advised Saleen.


    It would be best for Nailisi to summon the demons in the temple. The space there was stable, it would be easier to open the nar passageway. It would also be difficult for people outside the temple to discover anything. Once Bifano¡¯s army entered, a massacre would be executed, then it would be toote for them to flee.


    It was thrilling imagining events such as leading the demons to massacre humans. The creatures from the demonic ne would not have the guts to do it, right?


    ¡°Humph¡­ I, Nailisi, will be the noblest demon in all of history, the strongest Luoluokaluo!¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, what are you thinking of?!¡± Saleen noticed a weird expression on Nailisi¡¯s face, which would only appear whenever she was conjuring some evil notion. Saleen had already familiarized himself with some of Nailisi¡¯s habits, so he immediately questioned her.


    ¡°Master, that Bifano wants to acquire me to be his wife. I was just thinking that once I capture him, I will make him experience a slow death.¡± Nailisi said between gritted teeth. Saleen simplyughed, but did not continue probing, he had been lied to by Nailisi.


    Even though Saleen could not marry a demon, he would turn nasty if anyone else tried to touch his summoned creature. After all, Nailisi had mentioned in the past that Saleen could sense whatever special emotions she was experiencing. They had a soul contract between them. If anyone married Nailisi, it would be akin to them marrying Saleen as well.


    This would thus be the biggest insult to a mage, so Saleen would never take pity on Bifano.


    The second morning, Bifano hade to an agreement with Lex, he continued on the journey. He had no time to bother about the troubles over at the Princess¡¯ Castle. Titan had stationed two camps worth of manpower in the Princess¡¯ Castle at the moment. The Princess¡¯ Castle was not huge, two camps of soldiers would be sufficient for defending it. From Bifano¡¯s perspective, time was running out, he had to withdraw all his assets before the two empires shed andy low in the temple, so that he could stay out of the war.


    Once he had mastered magic and martial arts to a certain degree of proficiency, he would then return to conquer thends. With the wealth from the temple, he was confident in developing a powerful empire.


    The princess¡¯ castle was not as safe as imagined. It was already September, deep into autumn. Fifty-thousand soldiers had gathered at the borders of Titan. It was in stark contrast to the two camps of soldiers as reported in the intelligence. This fifty-thousand strong army did not include the support troops and logistics troops, it also did not include the ve soldiers and a team of sacred knights from the Holy See.


    The crops had been harvested, so the Tanggsi Empire forcefully deployed one-hundred-thousand farmer soldiers to clean up the borders of Titan. If such an event urred in Qin, the local nobles would have staged a rebellion long ago. With the oppression by the Holy See, the local nobles in Tanggsi did not have the guts to do so.


    Northwest of Titan Duchy, the amount of troops gathered had already reached a horrifying level of two-hundred-thousand. The Princess¡¯ Castle only had twenty-thousand soldiers. It was impossible to defend this intermediate-sized fortress.


    The Princess¡¯ Castle had been totally sealed. The crops in Titan had been harvested and stored in the treasury. The castle was in utter chaos, and there was no response to the information sent to the small duke. The vanguards from the Tanggsi Empire had arrived at the periphery of the castle, their camps stretching several miles long. Even though the vanguards had not attacked the city, every Titan soldier was carrying a heavy heart.


    The Tanggsi Empire actually had the confidence to start a war on both ends, dealing with Cloudflow and Qin simultaneously. They might have already dealt with Sikeqinya, or, it was also possible that they had formed an alliance with the Sikeqinyans.


    The real danger was always unseen. As the soldiers focused their attention on the Tanggsi army stationed in the north, a ten-thousand strong army had begun killing their way in stealthily from the west side of Titan.


    This army swiftly paved a passageway hundreds of miles wide, cutting directly into the rear of the Princess¡¯ Castle. A grand total of six towns, which held more importance, had been seized from north Titan by this army, severing all contact with Titan.


    This ten-thousand strong army was actuallymanded by the members of the inquisition, all dressed in uniform colors. All the soldiers were d in totally sealed metal armor, riding on ck warhorses. These soldiers were fearless and would not get exhausted. In each emblem group, there was a ck deacon acting as themander. Underneath that sealed metal mask, every soldier had a face of stupor.


    If Saleen was here, he would have noticed that these soldiers were barbarians, barbarians who had been transformed into blood knights.


    Each blood knight had an ability not inferior to a beginner swordmaster. ten-thousand beginner swordmasters could adequately obliterate north Titan. Even if there were mages, the ck deacons would not be stopped. Titan was not Qin, it had a pathetic number of mages, and not every city had a magic tower.


    The Tanggsi army did not seem to be in a hurry to conquer Titan. They had seized north Titan in order to test the capability of the blood knights.


    In the rural areas of Titan, there was a kind of fortress which only had walls about three meters in height. A fortress like this served the farmers. In times of war, the farmers would take shelter in the fortress, to resist the aggressors. Usually, an army would not spend too much time on such a small fortress. It was not worth their while.


    Using a regr force to wreck a fortress like this, the casualty ratio would still be one to one. It was too much effort just to kill farmers, so no nobles were willing to fight a war in this manner.


    It was different this time around. The warhorses of the blood knights could easily leap over the low walls of the small fortresses. Ten-thousand blood knights d in blood-colored armor swept through the viges, destroying all the fortresses along the way.


    Wherever the blood knights went past, the ce became void of life.


    The people of Titan were valiant in wars, the offensive power of the farmers was not low at all. They had run into an enemy never seen before, however. The armor of the blood knights was sturdy, and even if a weapon were to break the armor and pierce into their bodies, these soldiers who could feel nothing would not die. This feature of the blood knights was extremely simr to that of the headless riders, who were created by the ck magicians.


    Whenever the blood knights fell down, they would regain their footing under the control of the ck deacons. What should have been a golden autumn was now dyed scarlet by the blood knights.


    When Saleen and the rest arrived at the Stone Statue Castle, the Princess¡¯ Castle had be an isted city. The news could no longer be contained. Two prefectures in north Titan had sunk. Other than the Princess¡¯ Castle, all the other cities had been destroyed by the Tanggsi Empire. An estimated three-hundred-thousand people were escaping south, while most of the people had died in battle.


    Never was there a war where so many civilians were ughtered, even the ck magicians in the past did not reach such a bodycount. Before the Stone Statue Castle, a eunuch stood there blocking the way. He stood in front of Bifano¡¯s horse, and berated him, ¡°His Majesty has given an order. The Agares family was powerless in protecting theirnds, causing millions of civilians to lose their lives. They will lose their titles with immediate effect. Don¡¯t even think of entering the Stone Statue Castle, all of you shally down your weapons. Bifano, return to Cloudflow with me to await His Majesty¡¯s punishment!¡±

 Chapter 467: Torn City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 467: Torn City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The eunuchs in Cloudflow did not have much rank. This eunuch looked arrogant, if Bifano wanted to kill him directly, he could. Bifano waved his hand as a bodyguard rushed forward and brought the eunuch on the horse in front of Bifano.


    One of them took out a short sword and ced it at the eunuch¡¯s neck.


    ¡°I ask, you answer. If you don¡¯t, I will kill you. If you answer too slow, I will kill you. If you answer wrong, I will kill you. If you lie, I will kill you. If I think you are lying, I will kill you. Do you understand?¡±


    The eunuch struggled a little, but there was no fear. Heughed coldly and said, ¡°Do you think people like me are afraid of death?¡±


    ¡°What happened to my father?¡± Bifano did not care what the eunuch had to say as he started questioning.


    ¡°He escaped. The emperor was mad and had sent people into Titan Duchy. Do not think you are much, I am no different from you now, we will both die soon.¡±


    Bifano knew that this eunuch was stubborn but he did not want to die, so he continued asking, ¡°How many people havee to Cloudflow?¡±


    ¡°When I left, the emperor had already sent two vanguard forces.¡±


    ¡°Vanguard forces? They actually used the royal swordsmen?!¡± Bifano was shocked. There were soldiers stationed at Titan Duchy. To take down the Agares family, one could just use these soldiers. The royal swordsmen were one of the few strong infantry troops in Cloudflow, the other elites were at sea.


    Once the vanguard forces were deployed, there would be at least thirty-thousand people going after. There were less than ten-thousand elites in the capital. Sending out half of them at once, were they not afraid that the local warlord would do something wicked?


    There were twelve camps worth of soldiers in Cloudflow Empire and there were one-hundred and twenty-thousand people in the main forces. Among them, twenty-thousand took turns to station outside. Each rotation was three years and it maintained theirbat powers. There were less back up troops in Cloudflow and the capital counted on the royal swordsmen¡¯s camp soldiers to protect them. Even though there were twenty-four other camps worth of soldiers, they were stationed in other counties near the capital. If something were to really happen, they would take half a month to all assemble.


    There were certain risks as to what the Emperor of the Cloudflow Empire had done.


    ¡°Bifano, the Gauss family has been toppled by the emperor. He has prepped and assembled an army of two-hundred-thousand people. Do you think you can still hold on to Titan Duchy?¡±


    ¡°The Gauss family has fallen?!¡± Only now did Bifano¡¯s face turn pale. The Gauss family was the strongest force in the empire and even the capital could not do much to them. After the new emperor had ascended the throne, over the decades, he had been trying to fix down policies. The Gauss family had conquered tworge counties near the sea and were said to even have a secret ind in the sea to nurture in warriors.


    Whether it was wealth, power, or the connections with the wealthy from other ces; they were not necessarily any weaker than the royal pce.


    Since Emperor Jupiter had ascended the throne, he had always given off an ipetent look. Who knew it was all a show? To be able to topple the Gauss family, Emperor Jupiter might have started nning even before he ascended the throne.


    Bifano looked at the stone statue castle from afar, it was so tall that it went high up into the clouds. Its peak was right within a cloud of mist and could not be seen.


    The emperor knew his tracks and even the Pink Army knew where he was too! Bifano started suspecting himself in the moment, would he still have a chance to make it? Were the bodyguard around him spies of Emperor Jupiter too?


    Impossible! The bodyguards from the Agares family were chosen from the most loyal people. They had been following the Agares family for many generations. No matter how special Emperor Jupiter was, he could not make these bodyguards betray him.


    ¡°Kill him.¡± As Bifano gave hismand, the short sword of one of the bodyguards had entered the eunuch¡¯s neck. With a squeeze, fresh blood spurted onto the ground.


    There was another forty man team behind the eunuch. They were the defenders of the stone statue castle. Seeing Bifano killing the follower of the emperor, they were sent into a flutter as they started escaping towards the stone statue pce.


    It was over a mile away from the stone statue pce and Bifano made a sign. Immediately, another small team of his bodyguards started chasing them on the horses. Releasing arrows, they shot down the soldiers one by one from their horses.


    Bifano rode his horse beside Lex¡¯s chariot and said softly, ¡°Viscountess.¡±


    Lex was in the chariot and she saw everything clearly. It was impossible to hoodwink their way into the stone statue pce now. Bifano hade to ask for help,


    ¡°Saleen, what do you think?¡±


    ¡°If you are confident then let¡¯s take action, if not we will go around it.¡±


    Lex considered carefully before saying to Bifano outside, ¡°Let¡¯s retreat a few miles first and let me calcte.¡±


    Bifano¡¯s team retreated by five miles and started setting up a defensive camp. This was too close to the stone statue pce and the pce might send out their calvary to attack.


    There was a huge stone house by the roadside, but its ceiling was made from wood with tree bark and ropes on the top. There were a few coats of paint on it and it was meant to be a resting ce for the soldiers. As they knew Bifano¡¯s team mighte across it, the soldiers had long taken it down.


    Lex came down from the magic chariot this time and entered the house. She used a Cleaning spell to get rid of the rotten smell within the rooms and set up a table. Bifano went to produce the stone statue castle¡¯s blueprints and map and handed them to Lex.


    Saleen caught up with them and looked over the two drawings with Lex.


    The stone statue was along the Chishui River, it was in the east-west direction and eventually flowed into the Hantze. It was a huge innerke that was between the borders of Titan Duchy and the Qin Empire. The Chishui River made three curves around the stone statue castle and there was an incredibly wide steel bridge at the top. To cross the iron bridge, one had to take down the outer structures of the stone statue castle.


    It was still considered rtively t there and the chariot could run along it. Near the stone statue castle, the terrain was uneven and at some ces, even reached over one-hundred meters high. This protected the castle incredibly well.


    Because of these formations, it would require a huge amount of forces to attack the stone statue castle. They could only attack from two narrow roads. The stone statue castle was sixty to seventy meters above the water and it was impossible to make use of the Chishui River.


    Looking at the drawing of the castle again, the castle was an irregr hexagonal shape and it took up over two square miles. It could hold a lot of people, even up to one-hundred-thousand people. The Cloudflow¡¯s force were not that big and there were only five-thousand people inside. These peasant soldiers would not fight with their best abilities. The Agares family had spent a long time on this plot ofnd and the Cloudflow royals could not control them after all.


    ¡°There are at least six-thousand enemies inside.¡± Bifano cut the crap. When it came tobat, he did not have the ws of a wealthy. He instead acted like a general that had fought in hundreds of battles.


    ¡°How many elites?¡±


    ¡°Earl Wynner has over five-hundred elites, he should have another five-hundred private soldiers with him. They might not be good atbat, but they are incredibly loyal. The five-hundred soldiers are sent by the Cloudflow Empire on paper, but they have actually been transferred from Titan Duchy. They are much more skilled than the peasant soldiers but they aren¡¯t as strong-willed.¡±


    Bifano told Lex whatever he had analyzed as directly as he could. He did not have a mage and had no choice but to ask Lex for help, this was something unavoidable. As he was in a hurry to push his group along, he only had some simple equipment in histen chariots, he could bring trebuchets though.


    The drawing was very detailed, the Agares family would definitely strengthen the defences in a ce like the stone statue castle. They had long ago sent a spy to replicate the original drawing and mark up any changes made yearly.


    As there were only two roads into the castle, the defences were concentrated at the east and west. Even though the drawing was not a three-dimensional magic image, it had marked up every facility in a detailed fashion, including the six trebuchets near the east entrance. They were six fixed trebuchets and had a giant metal structure protecting it normally, only when there was a war would they be removed.


    Lex let Bifano retreat his team because of these six trebuchets. Such fixed trebuchets might be easily destroyed, but the could aim urately and every one of them controlled a fixed radius outside the east entrance. The coordination was longpleted and so long as any familiar magic disciple controlled it, it did not need any adjustments to be able tond rapidly and urately.


    When all six of them released at the same time, Bifano might lose twenty percent of his four-hundred strong bodyguard team at once.


    They could only defend against arge ordnance such as an enemies¡¯ war puppets and magic trebuchets. To deal with mages, it still required mages and archer towers.


    There were over twenty archer towers at the east entrance and they had a middle-sized alchemy crossbow fixed on it. If a grade-6 mage wanted to fly into the castle, these alchemy crossbows would definitely start shooting.


    The over twenty archer towers were to make up for the fact that there were not any magic towers. All of them had a middle-sized alchemy crossbow and over thirty small crossbows. Unless they were a grade-8 sorcerer, any mage¡¯s defences would decrease while flying. It would be harder for them to control their magic too. Facing a rain of arrows, Saleen who was skilled at defence, was not confident in surviving either.


    Of course, Saleen could use his cloud of mist to hide himself and the enemy could only shoot based on their luck. If Saleen wanted to dodge, it would be a game of luck. Even for a set of alchemy mould, Saleen did not need to risk his life.


    Lex looked at the drawing and said to Bifano, ¡°We can¡¯t trick them to open the castle gates. If we want to attack it down, we needrge-sized equipment. I did bring two trebuchets with me, but they cannot hold back against the six in the castle.


    ¡°How about the flying puppets?¡±


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°Those twenty archer towers aren¡¯t decorations. A flying puppet might be fast, but it cannot hide from the alchemy crossbow. It would be shot down even before it reaches the trebuchets.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, I will give you everything in the warehouse of the next city!¡± Bifano made a decision immediately, he did not believe that Lex did not have any way to attack down the stone statue castle. It was blocking them from reaching the steel bridge across the Chishui River. The water level was at a maximum level besides the bridge. They would need to swim upstream for five-hundred miles to cross the river.


    ¡°Two cities!¡± Lex negotiated on the spot. She needed to put in many resources to take down this castle. The warehouse from a single city might not be enough to cover the cost or she might gain nothing from it.


    ¡°Deal!¡±


    Seeing Bifano making such a quick decision, Saleen changed his impression of him. He was exceptional in some areas and was not just an ipetent wealthy.

 Chapter 468: Torn City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 468: Torn City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was a pity no matter how outstanding Bifano was, he was not even a tenth of Lex. Lex was the one who wanted to take down the castle, but now it became Bifano who was pleading with her.


    One must know that when Lex returned, she would need to cross the Chishui River. That was the fastest route and there were many uncertainties downstream. Destroying the stone statue castle, she would be able to obtain the alchemy mould in it. She could clear the obstacles and make Bifano pay for it.


    No matter how one thought of it, this deal was a win.


    The warehouse in the two cities would have arge number of rations. Once a war broke out, they would be hard to buy. It was still alright in Bitter Water Prefecture, it was in a remote area and the war would not reach there. It could count on the surroundingnd to feed itself. Metatrin City, however, could not. It was a desertednd all around and to grow suitable crops, one would need to take two or three years.


    ¡°Give me fifty in warriors.¡± Lex looked at the drawing and made a request of Bifano. He did not hesitate and nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Let the war horses and soldiers change into heavy armor. When I break open the castle gates, they will charge in. These fifty in warriors will protect the chariot and attack from here.¡± Lex pointed at the center of the stone statue castle. There was a great structure there and all the mages and stone statue ghosts were gathered there. Even though it was not a grade-6 mage level yet. Lex did not know how many stone statue ghosts were there and she needed the in warriors to pave a way for her mages.


    Only by killing the mage that were controlling these ghosts could one make them stop. This structure was Lex¡¯s goal and there was a tunnel under it that led to the old castle. The alchemyboratory was underneath it.


    Bifano knew what Lex wanted the in warriors for, he immediately transferred fifty warriors holding shields. Lex took out the armor and let them change into it. These were the armors that she had gotten from Dragon Tooth Town. They had been soaked in dragon¡¯s blood and they could be considered a magic armor. Their defensive abilities were shocking.


    Every one of them took one of the machetes that Saleen had fashioned. They had saw like teeth on them and were the best weapon to deal with mages. The shields that they were carrying were changed too as Lex handed over a rectangle shield to all of them. When they touched the ground, only the head of the soldier could be seen. When a dozen of them joined together, they could seal off a narrow street.


    The castle was hard to take down, but its weakness was too obvious; the wooden castle gates¡­


    After arranging the in warriors and getting them familiar with the equipment, Lex started taking out materials from the Gods Ring and assembling a giant chariot.


    This chariot was like a low-grade magic beast, it had a sharp tip and its entire body was a steel shell. It had eight wheels that were incredibly wide. It was thick and heavy with a small sealed cabin. Only one person was concealed inside; Wild Bear.


    This chariot was meant to take down city gates, but it was meant for small towns. Big cities would not have a castle with a wooden gate. Wrapping steel around the city gates was something all the countries on the maind were used to doing. A steel wrapped-wooden door could prevent enemies from attacking with fire and even a magic attack would be severely limited.


    ¡°My people will take down the door while yours will rush in, clearing the area in front of the castle gates. Many war chariot will then enter and take down the ghosts. They do not have any high-grade mages any way, it will be easier.


    Lex¡¯s words left Bifano dejected. If he had a suitable equipment, he would only need two-thousand people to take down this castle. He did not have anything and the infantry troops were stuck from advancing there, however. He had no choice but to count on Lex for help.


    Lex had learnt this n from Daniel. Even though it was brutal, it was effective. The defence troops in the castle were not united at all. Besides the one-thousand men from the duke, the remaining five regiments all leaned towards the Agares family.


    If the castle gates did not fall, these five-thousand people were their enemies. Once it fell, they would immediately lose their will to fight. Lex was very clear on how the wealthy controlled their army. Even though Titan Duchy was not a match for Cloudflow, if Emperor Jupiter wanted to control everything, he would still need a long time and this was why she dared to stay there.


    Of course, Lex had not finished setting up, she took out arge number of weapons and asked Bifano to hand them down. They were used to destroy the archer towers and the trebuchets. The trebuchets were still alright. Once they rushed into the castle, they would not be a threat to Bifano¡¯s army, but the archer towers could fire from any angle. It was a killer force that might hamper Bifano¡¯s army.


    Atst, Lex took out two fully constructed puppets and said to Saleen; ¡°You shallmand theses two. The archer towers won¡¯t be chopped down that easily, let the force of the puppets do the job.¡±


    Saleen nodded, the bottom of the archer towers only had a little metal on them. In actual fact, Sika could go up and push it down. That was a risk and Saleen had no intention of taking, however.


    Seeing Lex¡¯s chariot and equipped puppets, Bifano was incredibly jealous. Titan had war horses while the Qin Empire had mages. Looking at his magic equipment against Lex¡¯s, he would never be able topare with her.


    The equipment and scrolls were passed down and Bifano finally could heave a sigh of relief. Lex had invested heavily and such a chariot was incredibly sharp, it would definitely knock down the wooden gate. It was not only meant to attack the gates, it had many other uses too. Once it took down a city, it could not be used any longer.


    Lex gave the mages over a hundred scrolls, giving Bifano much confidence. He was worried about the stone statue ghosts at first, but seeing Lex giving out that many scrolls, he knew they would not struggle too much unless there was a sorcerer hidden in the castle.


    Making use of the remaining sunlight, Bifanomanded his army to follow behind Lex¡¯s chariot.


    The chariot was dragged by four horses and it went straight along the road, moving towards the castle. There was a watchtower there and when they were two miles away, the enemies came within their sight.


    The quality of an alchemy telescope varied and even though that one could see up to five miles away, the image was blurry. Only when they were a mile apart could they make out what it was.


    Titan Duchy did not have such a thing, the chariot was made from a lot of metal and it was stunningly heavy. Without a high-grade Alchemy spell, it could not be fashioned out. Even if it did, a war horse could not pull it.


    It started charging when it was eight-hundred meters away. The four war horses pulled along the war chariot that weighed hundreds of tons and charged towards the gate. Before this they had already started elerating from a mile away for it to reach its top speed.


    The magic array within it revolved in a stable manner and the magic nucleus iid in it was quickly used up. Without the magic array, the four war horses would not be able to pull such a heavy load.


    Wearing an eye patch, the war horses that had been powered by magic knocked against the city gate. With a loud boom, the chariot behind crushed the castle gate and the four horses into pieces. The six-meter-long chariot hit into the castle gates and the whole building vibrated.


    From eleration to striking against the castle gate, the chariot only took a little over a minute. The trebuchets in the castle did not even have time to react. Before the castle gate was destroyed and Bifano¡¯s cavalry appeared within their sight, the castle gates were already in pieces.


    A shrill metal noise sounded and filled the entire castle. The chariot split from the center as the magic array spun ording to how it was programmed. The body that had split apart wanted to roll from both sides to form a metal bridge that was four meters wide. The wheels had long been flung apart and now, even Wild Bear could not pull it away from the city gate.


    Its design had long taken such things into consideration. The modified chariot would be a wide and steady metal bridge into the castle.


    There was another door within the castle, but it was much weaker. Wild Bear jumped out from within the chariot, a hammer in his hand. He looked up before noticing that there was not any Broken Dragon Stone within. He immediately brought the metal hammer and raced towards the second door.


    The castle was thrown into disarray as the five regiments within the defence group realized the one who attacked the castle was a small duke. How would they have any will to fight? As the castle gate was blown apart, they immediately dispersed, no one cared about the second door.


    The hammer in Wild Bear hands flew out with a metal chain attached to it. It smashed into the hinges of the second door.


    Such a wooden door did not have any magic added to it and for Wild Bear, it was no different than paper. The giant hammer smashed the hinges apart and Wild Bear went forward to give it a push and the entire door fell inwards.


    He threw the hammer into the castle as he grabbed a giant shield and machete from behind his back, then he leapt forward.


    If there were arge number of soldiers in front of the door, Wild Bear would be in for a tough battle. There were only a handful of them then and they were the personal soldiers of the earl. Half of them flew away after being struck by his shield. At a distance of two-hundred meters, Wild Bear took less than twenty seconds to make his way to below the archer tower.


    He used his machete and started hacking at it. It was made from giant wood and as there was no one nearby distracting him, his knife worked hard at it and he chopped off a pir. The remaining soldiers did not dare approach and took out their bows to prepare to shoot.


    He ced his shield behind him and without even looking at the few soldiers, he continued dealing with the second pir. The few soldiers had nowhere to aim and only a few arrowsnded on his shield and ricocheted aside.


    The city gates had fallen and Bifano¡¯s cavalry stepped over the metal bridge that was transformed from the chariot. They rushed into the castle.


    The earl¡¯s henchmen were all controlling the trebuchet and archer towers, most of the defence troops had dispersed. Some of the remaining ones had even took down their badge and thrown it to the ground. Following behind Bifano¡¯s cavalry, they rushed to the center of the castle.


    Saleen¡¯s magic chariot followed them. Upon seeing this scene, he finally understood why the emperor wanted to deal with the Agares family.


    They were too influential to the local people. Just like the Phoenix family, the emperor could not allow such a family to be around when he was gathering all his forces.


    These huge duchies were a deformed property. If the four empires had not signed a contract at the start, they would not be able to survive for thousands of years. When these huge duchies disappeared, it would be the start of a full on war between the four empires.

 Chapter 469: Trapped in One’s Trap (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 469: Trapped in One¡¯s Trap (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen could not care less about those soldiers, his magic chariot had charged straight for the building at the center of the castle under the protection of the in warriors. It was a six storey building.


    Zhi¡­


    A shrill noise sounded and a creature that had small wings flew up from below a window. It was a stone statue outside of the window that had suddenlye alive, charging towards Saleen¡¯s magic chariot.


    Zhi zhi¡­


    More stone statues came to life and in a blink of an eye, over thirty of them had flown in front of the chariot.


    The fifty in warriors¡¯ faces turned pale, they had not faced such a creature before. The swordsmen from Lex¡¯s army definitely would not have had such a reaction. The people there even dared to capture and kill a green dragon.


    ¡°J!¡± Saleen cried out, J took out Tears and left his war horse. His actions were fast, but Lex had already rushed out of the magic chariot, with her body wrapped in seven colors, she flew into the sixth floor window.


    Saleen had not expected Lex to risk her own life, besides him, no one else had the ability to fly. Upon seeing Lex entering the building, the sword light on Tears burst out and cut apart two stone statue ghosts. J jumped with both legs to the third floor window and with a kick against it, he flipped onto the fourth floor.


    There were stone statue ghosts attacking from both sides, they were not big and had a stooped figure. Their ws were sharp and the eyes were blood-red. The pped their tiny wings and had acid spewing from their mouths, they looked incredibly vicious.


    J¡¯s long sword turned at his hips and flew out, forming an arc in the air, it cut two ghosts at the waist. J then went up another floor, Tears returned to his hands with a beckon.


    Using his sword aura and controlling a weapon, this was something only a white grand swordmaster could do. J had trained this for more than half a year and had finally surpassed this barrier. His swordsmanship reaching another level.


    The two ghosts hadrge wounds on their waists, they did not bleed and immediately returned to their stone form. If it was on the floor, this would not have been a bad idea, but this was over twenty meters above ground. The two ghosts that had reverted back into stone fell onto the ground and shattered into many pieces.


    At this moment, J had jumped another floor and flew into the window on the sixth floor.


    Earl Wynner¡¯s army came from all four sides and the scene was chaotic. The soldiers from outside the city gate had rebelled and joined Bifano¡¯s army. Earl Wynner¡¯s soldiers did not trust theirrades and in an instant, the neat formation became chaos.


    From numbers, Bifano¡¯s army was bigger as almost half of the five regiments might have turned their back against the castle and would not listen to the orders of Earl Wynner. There were more stone statue ghosts around the building and they flew down to attack. From time to time, these ghosts would even shoot out an intense ray from their eyes. Some of the soldiers shot were unharmed, but some disintegrated or were even fossilized.


    The fifty in warriors had long changed into a magic armor and their defensive abilities were incredibly high and were alright even after getting shot a few times. They became bold, with their shields protecting most of their bodies, they formed a protectiveyer around their surroundings and surrounded the magic chariot. The mages in it started releasing scrolls.


    Giant fire dragons, ice arrows, totems, and ice shards started raining down. A five meter long giant stone lizard was summoned and it rushed towards the building. With a loud boom, it dented the base of the building before disappearing.


    There were many low-grade mages in the building that were controlling the ghosts. The mages outside the building in the chariot were releasing scrolls almost as if they were free and in an instant, suppressed all magic that wasing from the building. More urately, before even waiting for the mages inside to attack, the magic chariot had used all its abilities to suppress them.


    ¡°Master¡­¡± A blood smell filled the streets as Nailisi licked her lips, a little excited.


    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to go.¡± Saleen looked out of the window, Bifanomanded his bodyguards to fight to their deaths. He was covered in blood, but Saleen knew this duke had not used his full might yet.


    Just by using his swordsmanship, J could take down this fellow. The Agares family had ruled the Titan Duchy for thousands of years though, who knew what secret equipment they had. Saleen had not expected that when the city gates were breached, half of the soldiers within the castle would turn their backs. If not, Bifano¡¯s bodyguards would not have it so easy. There was ten times the enemy after all.


    In Bifano¡¯s eyes, Nailisi was still a useless maidservant, let him continue to think that.


    Indeed, Bifano was not using his full might, with a mutiny in the castle, his bodyguards did not even need to be at the frontline. He stole a cold nce at Saleen¡¯s magic chariot and realized the grade-5 mage had no intention of taking any action. The magic released from the chariot was those stored in scrolls, they had on hand. Lex had rushed into the building though.


    Bifano was a little scornful of Saleen, it seemed like he was not a mage that knew how to fight.


    In the Qin Empire, this would not have been much of a problem, however, in other countries a mage¡¯s most important skill wasbat. A mage that did not know how to fight would have no standing in a ce like Titan. Saleen now had amassed much experience and had a steady temperament. Even if he wanted to kill anyone, he would not show it. No matter how vast Bifano¡¯s magic knowledge was, he would not be able to read him.


    ¡°Lex will be alright, right?¡± Sika was still thoughtful and was worried something might have happened to Lex.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go too.¡± Saleen stopped Sika and said, ¡°J can manage.¡±


    J could onlyin now. Even though he had entered the building only ten secondster than Lex, when he entered the window on the sixth floor, he could no longer see Lex.


    On the sixth floor, there was a vast darkness. Lex¡¯s clothes had vanished in the darkness and J did not dare dash into it. When it came to magic knowledge, he did not know much, but he had heard about this magic.


    The darkness screen started from a level-4 magic and a grade-4 mage was able to release it all the way to a grade-9 sorcerer. This was a spell that could advance in level and it followed the grade of the sorcerer, getting increasingly stronger.


    J struck Tears out and the darkness around its tip disappeared. The shining silver sword aura shone through the darkness screen, not producing any noise.


    Even though J did not use all his strength, the sword aura was solid, but it was soon cancelled out. Anything that could cancel out his sword aura had to at least be a level-7 magic! A level-7 Darkness spell left J helpless for a moment.


    Lex was only a grade-6 mage and seeing that she had entered the darkness screen, she might be in danger. J could not enter or retreat now. Biting down hard, he took out a ck cloth and tied it around his eyes, blindfolding himself. This was an equipment that J had brought with him that Saleen had helped him process.


    After blindfolding his eyes, J could see the room despite the darkness.


    It was not clear, but his gaze prated the ck cloth and everything dark became gray instead. The room was presented as weird lines and figures and none of them looked like what they were originally.


    A few gray skeletons were moving about continuously. A transparent thing was vaguely encasing them. It must be their muscles, skin, and armor. The distinction was clear.


    J saw Lex and in his vision, she was a skeleton. Her muscles and organs could vaguely be seen. The only thing different was that she had a ring on her that was giving off a golden light.


    It was the Gods Ring, even a level-10 magic would not be able to change its properties.


    J puckered his guts and entered the darkness screen, he felt a chill go through him as his sword aura slowed its revolution. In a split second, his entire body felt as if it had been weighed down with lead. J¡¯s cloth could only let him see vague images, it could not cancel out the powers of the darkness screen.


    If J was only a swordmaster, he might not be able to move by now. He tried opening his mouth, but no noise came out. He wanted to shout and let Lex know he was there, but his voice traveled less than half a meter before it disappeared. This was even when he had forcefully pushed his sword aura.


    Lex walked forward calmly, there were two grade-4 mages in front that were controlling a magic array, trying a different attack. The darkness screen¡¯s powers were cancelled by Lex¡¯s colorful robes. This set of magic robes that Joey had created moved about in the darkness, it was Lex amassing her elemental energy.


    If others entered the darkness screen, they would not only be unable to see anything. They would not be able to amass the elements either. Within it, one could only use dark type magic.


    Lex opened a scroll and water elements rushed and gathered in front of her, forming a sharp ice spear. This ice spear had a hexagonal tip and was giving off a bright light.


    The icy light spear was the nemesis of dark type magic. This magic had an incredibly slow release speed, but unless one used a scroll, it had nobat purposes.


    The darkness dissolved and there was no longer any darkness where the light from the Icy light spear reached.


    Wu¡­


    The ice spear flew into the air and split into two, piercing through the chest of the two grade-4 mages that were releasing spells.


    Its speed was not considered fast, but these two grade-4 mages were powering the magic array at full force and they could not move. The mages nearby were controlling the darkness screen again and could not save them. Once they moved, the darkness screen would disappear.


    J squatted and felt the floor with his hands. It was made from an icy stone material with intricate magic patterns inscribed on it. J gave a coldugh. ¡°If I cannot move, does that mean I cannot destroy your magic array?¡± He grabbed Tears as the sword aura spewed out from the tip and he pierced down with all his might.


    Buzz!


    Tear was bent until it formed an arc as sparks erupted from the ground. With this force from J, even if the ground was metal, he would be able to pierce through it. This stone material was tougher than steel!


    J was unsessful at destroying the magic array, but he caught the attention of the mages controlling it. He saw two skeletons making weird hand gestures at him and with a chill in his heart, he stepped forward without hesitating.


    J felt his body getting heavier, but the mages in front of him were scared shitless. The swordsman that had entered the darkness screen could see where he was and was walking over with a long sword. The darkness screen was powered entirely by the magic array and besides controlling it, they could not release any other magic.

 Chapter 470: Trapped in One’s Trap (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 470: Trapped in One¡¯s Trap (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The darkness weighed onto J and he used his immense sword aura to fight back. This building was essentially a modified magic tower. Even though it was not as powerful as the magic chariot, there were dozens of magic arrays inscribed on it and it was pretty powerful itself.


    If the mages in this building were to fight in the normal way, just a few of them would be able to cause massive destruction to Bifano¡¯s army. Lex¡¯s mages could not control every area.


    The mages were hiding inside andmanding the stone statue ghosts to attack. The strongest few grade-4 mages were hiding inside the darkness screen and defending to the end.


    Within the level-7 darkness screen, these grade-4 mages could not release any magic themselves and could only control the magic array to continue the attack. The darkness screen could not kill their enemies, they could only watch as their enemies killed them.


    They were being trapped in their own trap, J slowly lifted his long sword. The sword aura was hesitant as it pierced through the chest of the mages in front. He could now see the long sword piercing through between the bones of the skeleton and sliding cleanly into the heart.


    J had not expected it to be this easy to kill a mage.


    Lex opened another scroll, this was a light magic; the Glitter Spell. With three mages dead, the darkness screen could only count on the magic array to continue working and could no longer subdue Lex and J actively. A low-level spell like the Glitter spell was enough to momentarily cause disruption to the core of the magic array.


    Ka¡­


    A crack formed on the ground below as the magic array that even J¡¯s long sword could not destroy split apart by itself.


    There had never been a light type magic emerging from the core of a dark type magic before and this elemental sh was incredibly intense. Lex did not expect it herself. She immediately retreated and grabbed J with her. J and Lex retreated to the window. Lex did not even turn back as she jumped down with J behind, they both flipped down.


    ¡°Crap, it¡¯s going to explode!¡± Saleen saw something was wrong as a chirping noise sounded from the top of the tower and it started shaking. A terrifying aura seeped out and the few war horsesid t on the ground with foam at their mouths.


    There were hundreds of stone statue ghosts frozen in the air as they all dropped onto the ground.


    Saleen threw the fully constructed puppet off the chariot to chop the reins, the two fully constructed puppets dragged the two chariots and fled towards the east desperately. Saleen released two scrolls consecutively, they were the water shields he had created. They were a little too big and directly encased the two chariots entirely in a bubble.


    Lex flew towards the east, but she did not forget to give J a Windspeed spell. J fell from over twenty meters, but bounced back up like a balloon. His body was surrounded by a flow of air current. Seeing Saleen and Lex escaping, he did not dare stay there.


    J was not slow to begin with and with the Windspeed spell, he ran for over a thousand meters to the edge of the castle before stopping.


    Bifano¡¯s face was pale as he ran together with his horse behind Saleen¡¯s chariot, that was being pulled further away.


    Less than three-hundred of Bifano¡¯s bodyguards managed to run out too, there were still around two-hundred of them that were battling it out at the center of the castle. The building vibrated and exploded without any warning. The ground shook with it as countless pieces of shrapnel flew up and shot out everywhere. Bifano could not help but curse as heid against his horse¡¯s back, not daring to even to lift his head.


    The intense air current blew away anything that was near the building, the roofs of all the houses nearby were stripped away. Half of the six storey building had disappeared, almost as if countless trebuchets had fired at it at the same time. The pieces of rocks shot everywhere from the center of the castle.


    The intense air current formed a five-hundred meter radius where everything was destroyed. All the soldiers there lost their lives and many soldiers that were outside the radius were struck to death by the flying rocks too.


    Bifano did not stop cursing, but he did not direct his curses towards anyone. He did not dare scold Lex. This disaster was caused by her, but he finally knew how scary a mage was. Not only scary, but troublesome too.


    This explosion directly destroyed all the defences of the Stone Statue Castle and Earl Wynner would not be able to form up such a counterattack again. Many of Bifano¡¯s men had perished too and even more had died from the mutiny. More than two-hundred of his personal bodyguards had died and he felt the loss in his heart, but he could not say anything bad about Lex.


    It was a battle and there was the danger of death. At least Saleen managed to bring the in warriors with him when he escaped. Many of them had been injured by the attacks of the stone statue ghosts, but because Saleen was quick. Only three of them were crushed by the huge rocks. The rest managed to escape with injuries only.


    The soldiers that were a little smarter hid at the pir of the wall, avoiding being crushed by the stone pieces that rained from above. Some of themnded on top of the magic chariot and were deflected by the bubble.


    These stone pieces were not from a honing magic and using the water shield to defend against them was just right.


    Lex flew incredibly quickly in the air and she had flown above five-hundred meters before she looked down and saw a huge empty spot at the center of the castle. The chaotic elements had formed an elemental storm and it was preparing for the next explosion.


    What an amazing reaction, by releasing a light type magic within the center of the magic array together with the powerful dark magic, this is what would happen.


    Lex thought for a while and understood what had happened. Such things did note about easily as at the center of the dark magic, every other element would be suppressed. With this magic robe created by Joey and the Gods Ring, it formed an independent elemental space to release the light type magic.


    If not for her own grade, she would not have been able to see anything within the darkness screen, much less release the light type magic.


    Why did the Icy light spear at the start not produce such an intense reactions? Lex thought hard.


    ¡°Lex is amazing!¡± Nailisi stuck out her tongue and thought back to how she wanted to go in to kill earlier on. Luckily, she did not leave the magic chariot, when Saleen felt danger, she realized there was danger too due to Saleen¡¯s soul vibrations. If she was within the building, the explosion might have happened even before she could run out.


    ¡°Saleen, what happened just now?¡± Viscountess¡­¡± Narnia looked at Saleen, her soul had not settled. If she was not in the magic chariot, she would not have escaped too. The two fully constructed puppets managed to drag the chariot away before the explosion happened, it was faster than even a Windspeed spell.


    Saleen was deep in thought too, he could vaguely feel something had happened in the building, but this was illogical. It was just two spells with differing properties, how could such an intense reaction have taken ce?


    Light and dark elements were not entirely ipatible. In level-7 magic and above, there are ways to use these two types of magic together.


    The other female mage looked at Saleen too before he reacted. He lifted his head and looked at the top of the chariot, his gaze pierced though it and he found Lex floating above in the air.


    She was deep in thought too, evidently mystified with what had just happened.


    ¡°Lex is alright, she is above.¡± Saleen pointed to the sky.


    Bifano rode his horse over to Saleen, Saleen did not allow him to say a word as he said, ¡°Ask your soldiers to leave the castle for now, there is still some trouble and normal soldiers cannot handle it.¡±


    Bifano immediately stopped bothering Saleen as hemanded the remaining soldiers to leave the Stone Statue Castle. Hiding themselves at the corners of the castle walls.


    At the center of the Stone Statue Castle, an elemental storm had formed and was expanding outwards silently.


    Everywhere it went, everything turned to dust. Whether it was stone, wood, metal, or ceramics; they all seemed to have gone through thousands of years of degredation and had be ashes.


    Lex flew even further into the sky, she took out her alchemy telescope and upon seeing this scene, she was relieved. The elemental storm now was mping down and its properties were that of the dark type magic. It would disappear quickly.


    Lex did not think of the soldiers andmoners at this point, there was no use too. Within the castle, a one-thousand meter radius of empty space had formed and such an elemental storm moved incredibly slowly. All the people around the edges had escaped and those inside were all dead.


    At the west of the castle, a group of people rushed out, two-hundred soldiers protected one person and ran towards the west. Lex took in the scene, but did not give chase. That must have been Earl Wynner and there was no point killing him.


    Earl Wynner was already scared out of his wits and he had no idea what happened at the center of the castle. After the explosion, he was brought away by a mage to escape the danger zone.


    Among these two-hundred soldiers, only a handful of them were his bodyguards. The rest of them were scared shitless too and had no intentions of defecting. To them, such things were unimaginable.


    Most of the army had seen mages and observed them releasing magic from close up. Those that could perform for them and be trained to adapt were grade-3 mages and below. Something like this that baffled even Saleen and Lex was even more illogical to them.


    In the eyes of themon soldier, a mage could only release a fireball or some acid.


    After more than an hour, the elemental storm finally subsided and Lexnded on the ground. Bifano, under the protection of his bodyguard, walked towards Lex while suppressing the fear in him.


    ¡°The castle is destroyed, we can cross the river now.¡± Lex said calmly, almost as if the thing that had happened had nothing to do with her.


    ¡°Viscountess!¡± Bifano raised his voice.


    Lex looked at him coldly and said, ¡°You didn¡¯t mention this magic building in the castle. If you had told me it was there and given me more benefits, I would have entered. If there was a grade-6 mage in the house today, not all of us would have escaped.¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± Bifano looked left and right in defeat. His bodyguard all looked horrified, not a single one opposed Lex¡¯s words. He knew that these soldiers might no longer dare to do anything to Lex in the future.


    ¡°Magic! One of these days, I must possess such powers too.¡± Bifano screamed in his heart, his face was calm by now.


    ¡°Viscountess, this castle must still have some undestroyed warehouses, besides, I want to go in and tidy up the corpses.¡±


    ¡°Alright, but let¡¯s wait another six hours, the castle still isn¡¯t suitable to enter.¡± Lex turned towards the magic chariot upon seeing Bifano giving up any intentions to pursue the matter. She was a little scared too, if she left toote just now, she would have to use the powers of the Gods Ring or else she would have definitely died.

 Chapter 471: Titan (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 471: Titan (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex went into the magic chariot before Saleen asked, ¡°What happened?¡±


    Lex shook her head, she did not want to make wild guesses and only said, ¡°The mages from Titan Duchy used some hidden powers underneath the magic tower to power the grade-7 magic array. I¡¯m afraid even they were unsure of the powers they had borrowed. When the elemental storm has subsided, we will go in and see.¡±


    As Lex said that, a swordsman from Titan said in a wavering voice from outside the chariot, ¡°Viscountess,e out and take a look!¡±


    At this moment, Bifano was interacting with one of his swordsman from afar. The walls of the castle were still intact, but the building inside the castle was destroyed. He was considering getting someone stationed there. Inside the castle, an intense noise suddenly sounded.


    At the center of the elemental storm, in the dusts from the destroyed magic building, a giant hand had extended out. It pushed away the debris. It was made entirely of a silver metal, but was not reflective. It was covered with unusual patterns.


    What followed was another simr hand. These two hands were over two meters long and ording to normal ratio, the owner of these hands had to be over twenty-five meters tall.


    What came next was a head, it was also made of metal, but if it was not too big and was not made of metal. One would definitely suspect it was a young giant.


    This unusual metal puppet quickly emerged from under the ground, looking down around him. He seemed a little dazed. He soon found something to do.


    Wherever the elemental storm had passed by, besides metal, all else was crushed. Even most of the metals had melted and cooled, forming different shapes. This giant metal puppet used its meter-long fingers to poke around in the debris for a while and found a solidified piece of metal. He then threw it into his mouth.


    After swallowing a few pieces of metal, he still was not done. When he stood up, he was over thirty meters tall. He started to move and walked towards the edge of the castle. As he was so heavy, the ground started shaking with him.


    There were soldiers left behind by Bifano at the city walls and when they saw this, they were shocked again. Lex heard the vibrations within the castle too and she let the two female mages stay in the chariot as she took a look at Sika. Saleen nodded before Sika left the magic chariot with Lex.


    The outside of the castle already had adder on it to get to the top of the castle walls for observation. Lex did not fly as her flying skill used up magic chords too. She brought Sika up the city walls and took out an alchemy telescope, looking into the castle.


    When the giant puppet¡¯s feet hit the ground, its movements were still a little jarring. The more metal it swallowed, the faster and smoother it moved. On the face of the puppet at the center of its forehead was a gap, like an eye that was wide open.


    Lex looked at the metal puppet from her alchemy telescope, she was shocked. Even though the fully constructed puppets that she and Saleen had were showing signs of life, this thing was at a whole other grade. Could this puppet be the legendary Metal Titan?


    The Metal Titan came from a mysterious dimension. All the living creatures there were formed from metal and they swallowed metals to grow bigger until their bodies were unable to maintain their own weight.


    Humans used to capture such creatures to help them inbat and the Metal Titan was the most famous. As it grew incredibly quickly, it only took a year for a young Metal Titan to grow over one-hundred meters tall. Such life was easy to control too and it would not live over a decade, there was not any chance of betrayal.


    The Metal Titan¡¯s attacking powers were simr to that of a grade-8 creature, its defensive powers were greater than grade-9, this was the hardest part. A free Metal Titan was not impossible to capture, but one needed the powers of the ancient humans.


    If what was in front of her was that, Lex had no choice but to give up everything in the castle. This was because unlike other creatures, once a Metal Titan was born, its defensive powers were that of a grade-9 creature. It was said that some Metal Titans could even release magic, that made it even more horrifying.


    The design of the war puppets from the Qin Empire took inspiration from the Metal Titan. Such huge bodies could not be stopped by any castle walls.


    ¡°Lex, what is that?¡± Sika looked afar, she could see clearly from even a mile away.


    ¡°We can¡¯t beat that thing.¡± Lex was a little depressed. Under the castle was another hidden underground castle and now that the Metal Titan hade out from under the ground, there must be nothing left. The alchemy mold must have been eaten by it.


    Sika believed Lex¡¯s judgement, the weird puppet was looking in their direction. All three of its eyes were shining with a silver-white light. Sika could even feel what these three eyes were signifying.


    This creature was hungry.


    Lex grabbed Sika¡¯s hand without hesitation and released a soaring spell. It was tough for her to fly with Sika along, but she managed. She jumped down from the castle wall and glided beside the magic chariot.


    ¡°Bifano, bring everyone, I do not want the things from the castle anymore, let¡¯s run.¡± Lex did not give any further exnation as she got into the chariot and hurried Saleen. Saleen was incredibly quick as he released a skeleton war horse from the green spirit and kept the fully constructed puppet. It dragged the magic chariot away, not giving Bifano any time to question them.


    Bifano¡¯s casualties had not been settled and after hearing Lex¡¯s words, he wanted to ask what had happened. Upon seeing Lex¡¯s magic chariot bolting down the road, he immediately shouted andmanded all the soldiers to get onto their war horses and run behind the magic chariot.


    All the soldiers and war horses were decked out in metal armor and for Metal Titan, they were a delicious meal.


    Bifano¡¯s bodyguards that had survived were lucky too. The injured soldiers had removed their armor and even though they were injured while riding their horses, they could still keep up.


    The earth shook even harder as the Metal Titan that was in the castle sniffed harder. It could smell arge amount of metal outside the castle. It took a squat and quickly bounced up. Its body was incredibly coordinated. This jump took him over one-hundred meters and in a few leaps, he reached the walls of the castle.


    Looking at the castle walls, the Metal Titan raised its fist and smashed down. The castle wall that was formed by giant rocks came tumbling down. There were a few metal pirs within the castle walls and the Metal Titan grabbed these metal pirs that were thicker than a human¡¯s leg, shaking them violently. Shaking off the debris on the pir, the Metal Titan bent down and took arge bite. The metal pir that had been twisted like a noodle was bitten cleanly apart by it.


    As he was eating over here, Bifano¡¯s team had already escaped to underneath the metal bridge. It was over six meters wide and could allow two chariots to pass through. There was a thick metal chain across the bridge. Earl Wynner had ordered this ce to be sealed and now that he had escaped, the chain was still blocking the road and the chariot could not pass through.


    It was less than a mile between the metal bridge and the castle gates and the Metal Titan was still chewing away at the metal pir in the castle wall. With such a short distance and looking at its speed earlier, it would be able to catch up in a little over ten seconds.


    Saleen did not ask Lex what had happened now, he had seen the thirty meter tall Metal Titan. Saleen still did not know that in a matter of a minute, this Metal Titan had grown over two meters.


    Nailisi stuck her eyes in front of the crystal at the carriage wall. Looking at the Metal Titan from afar, she calcted in her head. Even a demon would not be able to win against such a powerful living creature.


    ¡°Chop the chains apart!¡± Bifano was flustered. If that thing caught up, all his soldiers would die.


    Of course, all the soldiers had stripped naked and were running for their lives, the Metal Titan might not give chase. On the chariot in front, a grade-5 mage released a middle-level unlocking spell. The giant metal chain remained unmoved.


    Two soldiers went forward to chop it with their heavy swords, however, it only left a few marks on the metal chain.


    ¡°Move aside!¡± With a shout, Wild Bear pushed forward with a war axe in his hand. With his height of over two meters, he used his hands to push aside the heads of the soldiers in front.


    The metal chain that had sealed the bridge was made up of six chains twisted together, they were part of the defences of the stone statue castle. With the bridge sealed, he would not be able to bring anyrge equipment unless he had a god weapon like Lex even if someone wanted toe from the other side.


    Wild Bear swung the axe up and chopped down viciously. A shrilling noise was emitted as his axe stuck the metal chain.


    This swing did not chop through the chain, but it had attracted the Metal Titan¡¯s attention. It raised its head and looked towards the Chishui River. On the river was a metal bridge and it was too big a temptation for the Metal Titan.


    Ka¡­


    The Metal Titan swallowed a metal pir and pushed aside the castle wall with his hand, forming a hole as it walked out from the wreckage.


    ¡°Wild Bear, let me.¡± J took out Tears from its sheath. At the top of Tears, a silver sword light spewed out, like its essence.


    Wild Bear gave up on the war axe as he stepped aside. J swung down with his long sword, the tipnded urately on the metal chain. He moved his wrist and with a simple swing, released blinding light from the sword. The sword lightnded urately on a position. Even though the material of the metal chain was unique, it could not withstand the powers of a white grand swordmaster and was chopped apart.


    J waved his hand as the two magic chariot rushed forward onto the metal bridge.


    Boom! Boom!


    The Metal Titan leaped forward consecutively,ing within one-hundred meters. Bifano¡¯s soldiers fled in terror, they knew they would not be a match for the creature with the weapons in their hands.


    The Chishui River was wide and the metal bridge was over eight-hundred meters long. The Metal Titan had already made its way under the bridge and took a look at the humans escaping on the bridge. He seemed to be thinking.


    After three seconds, the Metal Tian gave up chasing its prey. Instead, he bent down and started chewing on the body of the bridge.


    The bridge shook slightly and what followed was a huge vibration. The Metal titan had bitten off a huge chunk of the bridge and was tearing through it with both hands. Wherever its massive palm had gone, the metal bridge was torn down almost as if it was paper.

 Chapter 472: Titan (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 472: Titan (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The metal bridge vibrated violently, people had been defending the Stone Statue Castle from the opposite bank, but they had long escaped. No one wanted to die defending it. There was another metal chain at the south bank of the river that was blocking the chariots and horses though.


    The metal chain was strong, but if Saleen were to use his current cutter, it would definitely be chopped apart within half a minute. The Metal Titan was destroying the bridge at the back and he had no idea when the bridge was going to crumble. By then, everyone would fall into the water and only some would survive. This Chishui River was a natural barrier and the currents were rapid. Mages were not afraid of it, but the warriors who fell into it with their metal armor were bound to die.


    Besides that, Saleen did not want his magic chariot to end up in the water. If it did, fixing it would be another huge expense. Even though it Would kill Bifano¡¯s soldiers at the same time, it was not worth it.


    ¡°Sika, go with J to cut the chains.¡±


    Saleen still did not allow Nailisi to do anything, her dragon tooth dagger had a freezing effect and was unusually sharp, cutting the metal chain would not be a problem. Saleen was already determined to kill Bifano and he wanted to conceal Nailisi¡¯s powers, only then could he have an unexpected effect.


    Bifano and those around him had not seen through Nailisi¡¯s facade and had only taken her as Saleen¡¯s maidservant.


    Sika had found it boring and since reaching the castle, she had wanted to join in the battle, but was stopped by Saleen.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Sika took out her boomerang and jumped out of the chariot, jumping directly onto J¡¯s war horse. She pinned her legs onto both sides of the horse¡¯s ass without moving her upper body at all. J kicked hard on the stomach of the war horse as it charged forward, Tears was condensing the sword aura again.


    Sika squinted as the boomerang in her hands shone with a ck color before flying out of her hand.


    With a whirring noise, the metal chain was cut into five pieces by Sika¡¯s boomerang, leaving one behind that was barely the size of a finger. J¡¯s sword aura flew out and struck urately at the gap that Sika had caused. He bent his body and grabbed hold of the metal chain that had broken, throwing it off the bridge with all his might.


    This series of action was incredibly fluid and the two of them seemed to have practiced this many times. Bifano¡¯s soldiers apuded as they forgot about the huge trouble behind them.


    J was a little smug, since bing a white grand swordmaster, his sword aura could attack from a distance. Earlier on, he managed to urately strike the gap in the metal chain in such a short time, that was an ability outside of his swordsmanship. It was the technique of a grand swordmaster controlling the sword aura with his focus. Such a technique would allow a grand swordmaster to deal with a mage when trained to perfection.


    Sika casually grabbed back the returning boomerang and J was immediately listless. Sika managed to cut the metal chains just by using her powers and the sharpness of her weapon. She could even calcte the angle which the boomerang would return, this skill was much harder than his technique.


    A group of men and horses rushed down the metal bridge, it was already close to crumbling.


    ¡°Master J, good job!¡± The soldiers slowed down and showed their respect to J. They did not see the difficulty of what Sika had just done, but J looked suave with the silver sword aura shooting out. The noise from the explosion reached up to the clouds.


    ¡°Continue pushing forward!¡± Bifano shouted at his soldiers loudly, even though the Metal Titan was attracted by the metal bridge, no one knew when it would go crazy again and chase after his team. His sight was much better than his soldiers and he had seen Sika¡¯s attack clearly, this made him wary. The Cascausus warrior¡¯s weapon was so eerie. With the ck light, one could not tell what powers it had.


    If that crescent shaped weapon were to attack him, would his armor that had been passed down generations be able to defend against it?


    Bifano looked at Sika¡¯s silhouette, suddenly overwhelmed with jealousy. Such a beautiful woman with strong powers, yet she belonged to that dandy mage.


    ¡°Hmph, why must I be jealous of him, so long as I master both magic and swordsmanship, what woman can I not get?¡± Bifano suppressed the desire in his heart. Under the protection of his bodyguards, he sped towards the south.


    ¡°How do wee back?¡± Saleen asked Lex inside the magic chariot. Titan Duchy could hold back against the Tanggsi Empire mostly because of this Chishui River. It would freeze even in the winter and was a natural barrier. The entire river was over four-thousand miles long with only three ces suitable to cross. One was upstream, but close to the Cloudflow Empire. Another was here, a wide metal bridge connecting the south and the north. Thest was the ce where the Chishui River intersected with the Hantze. Due to the terrain there, the currents were slower and there was an ancient stone bridge there for chariots and horses to pass.


    The problem was that it was close to the Cloudflow Empire too and it was not very safe.


    ¡°Of course from here, I did bring a ship after all.¡± Lex shook the Gods Ring that was on her hand.


    The space within the gods ring was far greater than the spaces in all of Saleen¡¯s dimension stones. The resources that Lex stored inside were sufficient for her to deal with any form of trouble.


    ¡°You want to tame that creature?¡± Saleen heard the underlying meaning of Lex¡¯s words.


    ¡°Of course, with that thing, it would be much easier to deal with the war puppets.¡± Lex exined to Saleen, ¡°Thebat powers of the war puppets and their attacking style are much stronger than the Metal Titan, but their defensive powers aren¡¯tparable and they aren¡¯t as quick. You saw it for yourself, that Metal Titan can easily destroy the castle walls, unless it is the castle walls of Holy Rock City. After you have finished building Metatrin City would it be able to defend against the attack of the Metal Titan? A normal city to it is no different from a straw house.


    ¡°I won¡¯t do it.¡± Sika immediately shook her head, the power of this creature was not something that she could defend against. All her skills were useless in front of the Metal Titan.


    ¡°Me too.¡± Nailisi followed Sika, thinking in her heart that unless she could summon a demon army, even her speed would not be a match for the Metal Titan. She could not defend against it directly.


    ¡°Saleen, what about you?¡± Lex looked at Saleen, she did not expect that the two of his strongestrades would reject her.


    ¡°Why are weplicating this? Our goal isn¡¯t the Metal Titan.¡± Saleen slowly said his decision.


    ¡°This thing is important. Have you thought about how we could use it? So long as we ced the Metal Titan under the mines, it could help you process steel. Even if we cannot find any workers temporarily, we can still start mining on arge scale.¡±


    ¡°Without a sorcerer, we cannot make this thing submit.¡± Saleen shook his head, He was naturally very drawn to the Metal Titan, but he knew that it was too strong and it did not have any unique weakness.


    ¡°Saleen, if we do not take any action, by the time the people from Tanggsi arrive, it will be tamed by the Holy See and will be used to attack your city.¡± Lex said the most worrying consequence and Saleen had nothing to say.


    The Tanggsi Army had long infiltrated the Titan Duchy and to the north of the Chishui River, there was not muchnd that belonged to Titan Duchy. This Metal Titan would meet with the Tanggsi Army sooner orter and by that time, it would be a massacre. The Holy See had enough people to deal with this creature and if the Holy See did indeed get their hands on the Metal Titan, he could only pray that the mages from Sregl Ind would quicklye to Metatrin City.


    Thinking back to how quickly the Metal Titan had demolished the castle walls, Saleen shuddered. No matter how stable Metatrin City was, it needed the cooperation of a sorcerer to be an impregnable pass. The attacking powers of the war puppets were stronger than the Metal Titan and if Holy Rock City were to fall out with them and send an army to attack. It would be an even more troublesome enemy to deal with than the Holy See.


    The Holy See was stationed at the west of the Maind and was too far away from Metatrin City though. Holy Rock City could reach Metatrin City within a week by and or sea attack.


    ¡°What good idea do you have?¡±


    ¡°None, only a stupid one.¡± Lex admitted, if she were to use the powers of the God Ring, she would be able to make the Metal Titan submit, but the powers of the God Ring could only be used once a year. Unless it was a matter of life and death, she would not use it.


    ¡°How stupid?¡±


    ¡°Incredibly, but it isn¡¯t very dangerous, or perhaps even has no danger at all.¡±


    ¡°Say it then.¡± Saleen could not reject, Sika pouted but listened intently to what Lex had to say.


    ¡°This is a young Metal Titan and it has an incredibly low immunity to a Fossilization spell, this is the best magic to deal with it. From today, we will keep making Fossilization spell magic scrolls. A level-3 Fossilization spell can make it fossilized for one point five seconds, that is ny frames. We have eight grand mages, they can control the Fossilization spell magic scrolls within three frames.


    ¡°You are a grade-6 mage, this thing must at least be grade-8, the rate of a forced contract failing is incredibly high.¡± Saleen reminded Lex.


    ¡°So I must create more contract scrolls to forcefully make it submit.¡±


    ¡°Lex, do you know how many scrolls that will waste?¡± Saleen did not count, but was getting a headache already. A grade-6 mage forcefully using contract magic would have a sess rate of less than a thousandth.


    ¡°I can prepare ten-thousand Fossilization spell scrolls; our focus will not degenerate on the magic chariot and we can continue releasing such low-grade scrolls. So long as we can make it submit to us, it is worth it.¡±


    ¡°We only have two months.¡±


    ¡°We can hire some mages in Fire Dance City to specially create Fossilization spell scrolls.¡± Lex said in determination.


    Saleen thought for a while, this n was not without its risks. If all the scrolls were used up, but the Metal Titan was not tamed, all these investments would be for naught. By then, his people would only care about escaping and it would not be possible to tame the Metal Titan.


    Lex and her resources were limited now. If they did not seed, their losses would not just be the materials and gold that they put in.


    ¡°Alright, I can probably exchange tens of thousands of gold coins with the things I have on hand.¡± Saleen said without any choice.


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary, I have taken most of the low-grade empty scrolls from Holy Rock City, don¡¯t tell anyone.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± Saleen was a little dazed, he knew Emperor Chanake had doted on Lex a lot, but he did not expect him to actually give Lex so many resources. Empty scrolls did not have an expiration date and the most magic resource that a country would store were empty scrolls. Lex managed to bring out most of the low-grade empty scrolls from Holy Rock City. In future battles, she would have more than enough capital.


    Emperor Chanake was indeed crazy, it seemed like whatever he did then was a sign that he would die inbat.

 Chapter 473: What Professional (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 473: What Professional (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Titan Duchy was already in a mess, the Tanggsi Empire had invaded, the Princess¡¯ Castle was surrounded, and the north of Chishui River had fallen into the enemy¡¯s hands. The Cloudflow Empire had led an expedition and conquered most of the territory on the south of the duchy. The armies were gathering at the Stone Statue Castle to prepare for war. Countless wealthy that were loyal to the Agares family had been in and the Cloudflow Empire had recruited soldiers, forcing many farmers to join the army in the Northern Expedition.


    As Bifano¡¯s team had caught the early opportunity, they had escaped the Cloudflow¡¯s northern army and followed the Chishui River to the east. They had wiped clean all the warehouses in the cities along the way. Most of the people in the armies of these cities had escaped and some of them followed Bifano to the east all the way to Fire Dance City.


    Fire Dance City was not the capital of Titan Duchy, but it was Bifano¡¯snd. His most loyal army was there and his reserves from many years too.


    Those following Bifano were professional military people and many soldiers families had run into the mountains. Bifano did not make things hard for them. Lex had gained huge resources just as she wanted and if she did not bring them away, they would be wiped clean by the Cloudflow people. Bifano did not feel any loss now, he had meant to take the resources from only the big cities, but now he did not even let those in the small cities go.


    At every city, Bifano would open the warehouses and give out arge amount of gold coins and rations for the people to take away. He would let Lex keep the remaining spoils in the Gods Ring.


    Essentially, there was no-one who stopped him, the Cloudflow Empire¡¯s method was too direct. At least the Qin Empire had created a kid and said he was the descendant of the Grand Duke of Phoenix and he had no intentions of destroying Phoenix. Cloudflow had bluntly sent out their soldiers, taking over thend and stripping the wealthy of their ranks.


    Thousands of years ago, the four empires had taken a step back to ensure a stable situation in the Maind. Now, this situation could no longer be stabilized and not a single empire was willing to stand down.


    Optimistically, the Qin Empire was the most powerful among the four empires, this was because their weapons were the most advanced. They had the most mages and the richest citizens. They also had the most minerals. The Qin Empire was unlucky though. First, Emperor Chanake had passed away inbat, causing the wealthy in the region to be flippant. Next, the many countries from the Eastern Sea had invaded, leading to the people living in the North to live in massive poverty.


    The Qin Empire had two affiliated duchies and when Lon Duchy was defeated, Safilos had immediately dealt with Phoenix, taking control of all the warehouses in the North. So long as the invaders were defeated, the tension in the north would slowly diffuse. The wealthy in the south would be able to take a breather too. By that time, everyone would still support Holy Rock City to rule.


    The actions of the Qin Empire had tugged at the heartstrings of the other three empires, the Tanggsi Empire dealt with God Grace Duchy first. Now, the Cloudflow Empire wanted to eliminate Titan Duchy. Even though Laiyin Duchy did not have any movement, with Sikeqinya Empire being brazen, invasion would only be a matter of time.


    Even though the Qin Empire people hated the Tanggsi people the most, they still had to admit that only those from Sikeqinya would betray anything.


    As the team approached Fire Dance City, Saleen got increasingly calmer. The amount of resources Lex had gained was too plentiful, Titan was always peaceful and their savings were bountiful. All the warehouses in the city were piled to the brim with rations. Every corner was filled and they had arge amount of weaponry. Some of them had been sealed away for centuries and had rusted, but if they were polished again, they could still be used.


    The soldiers following Bifano had reached three-thousand and everyone had one thought; to reach Fire Dance City and to protect thend of the small duke. There was over a dozen infantry armies making their way towards Fire Dance City too and they were all of different scale. The smallest only had a handful of people that weremanded by a baron while thergest had thousands of people and there was at least an earl to support them.


    The geographical location of Fire Dance City was not good and could even be considered dangerous, however, it was easy to defend and hard to attack. Along the Hantze, half the city was on high ins and this ce was almost built just to defend.


    When Saleen¡¯s magic chariot reached Fire Dance City, he was captivated by the city immediately.


    Fire Dance City was a red city. The mountains were some form of red granite and were incredibly tough. Using these stone materials, Fire Dance City was built incredibly mightily even though it did not take up muchnd. There were three levels to it. The one at the bottom was over ten square miles long and the terrain got increasingly high as the second city wall was around the center of a mountain.


    At the top of the city was a nine-storey magic tower. Of course, there were no longer any mages in this magic tower. The strongest mages in Fire Dance City were grade-6 mages. Grade-6 mages could dispatch some of the forces from the magic tower though. The grade-9 magic tower controlled a good half of the safety of the city, making it imprable from the air.


    Lex softly introduced the defences of Fire Dance City to Saleen as he was heavily inspired. Even though this city did not have many powerful mages, it made use of these continuous mountain peaks to build countless stable trebuchet tforms. There was an even more unusual defence mechanism, they had dug long tunnels through the body of the mountains and set the tunnels with wind magic arrays. The giant stones that were shot out from these tunnels could fly over ten miles.


    The giant stones that shot out had no magic added to them. With such a long trajectory, it brought with it tremendous force and could easily destroy any equipment used to attack the city.


    Such an instation made it impossible to aim and even more incapable of controlling the angle and distance. Everything was left to fate. The problem was that the enemy could not urately defend against such an attack either and could not make any effective judgements.


    If Bifano had such a city, why would he still need to find the temple? Could it be that the Cloudflow Empire had a secret weapon too and could destroy this city?


    The door of Fire Dance City was shut tightly, some of the soldiers had slid down a rope from inside the city. They were overjoyed to see Bifano. They still took over the badge from Bifano¡¯s bodyguards though. Someone only opened the door after sending it back.


    From inside the magic chariot, Saleen looked at thesemon soldiers. An unusual feeling rose within him. The strongest among them was probably only a beginner swordmaster, notparable to Lex¡¯s swordsman camp. They had a simr temperament though. The way they looked at people was genuine and pure, not hypocritical at all.


    Perhaps Bifano was not a good person, but his soldiers were. They were counting on the small duke for survival and their entire family had to look at the wealthy to support their lives. They gave their loyalty and strength to him because of that. When needed, they would have even given up their lives.


    A mage was almighty and many would not care about what thesemoners were thinking. It was precisely them that made up this world. The fate of these people could not be changed by them alone.


    The unrest on the Myers Maind would only get more intense and thesemoners would be sucked bone dry by it.


    It turned out that Lex wanted to build a new world not because she was hypocritical, neither was she unreasonable. If this world was as fair as what it were between mages where fairness could be executed like a contract, why would he have had such a childhood?


    After getting himself out of trouble after trouble, he had be the protector of the world¡¯s rules. The elite were respected and they no longer needed to care about the small things. Lex who hade from the royal family, was instead thinking about the problems of this world.


    Lex was a powerful person, at least in heart, she was much stronger than he was.


    Saleen followed Bifano¡¯s team silently. He came to the main hall of the city and it was arranged to stay there. Bifano wanted to assemble his army to head south to find the old nest of the pink army. He needed to gather five-thousand elites this time and they would need at least two days before they could move out. Saleen kept to his room alone and started pondering silently.


    He was swayed when Lex said she had the seeds of the divine trees. This was because the seeds could give him power. Lex obviously was not driven by power, she would be a sorcerer faster than him, entering gods hell. In the six-dimension space, she could even be a grade-9 sorcerer before she turned forty.


    A grade-9 sorcerer had a long life and it was possible for her to advance even further, reaching an existence simr to Joey.


    Lex wanted the seeds of the divine tree for another reason.


    Saleen thought back to his teacher. Jason was a genius too. From the city that he had designed, the Dante sequence was used on the city walls to form a magic structure that was chain-like, connecting all the magic towers in the city. Such a thought was not even proposed by any of the mages in Alchemy City.


    What did his teacher want? Obviously not the prosperity of Sregl Ind. Jason had let him build the city and gods hell was but a surprise. Even without the interdimensional space, Jason was obviously prepared.


    He wanted to build another Alchemy City, not something that mages owned. Just like Lex, he was thinking of the greater good.


    Why did they give so much for people that were not rted to them?


    Saleen was from Sikeqinya and he believed that everything deserved something in return. Whether it was Lex or Jason, Saleen could not see any observable benefits to their hard work.


    Boom, boom¡­


    A slow knocked sounded at the door.


    ¡°Enter.¡± Saleen released the magic lock that he had ced casually as Nailisi silently entered Saleen¡¯s room.


    ¡°Master, you seem uneasy.¡± Nailisi came in front of him. She sat on her knees, just like a submissive summoned creature.


    ¡°Nailisi, if you be the strongest demon and you returned to the demon dimension, what do you intend to do?¡± Saleen asked a weird question.


    Nailisi was stunned, a hint of confusion welled up in her green eyes as she said after a moment, ¡°If I was the strongest demon, I would bring you to the demon dimension and remove the contract. Then I would make you my contract creature.¡±


    Saleen was not angry and only asked calmly, ¡°Nailisi, is that your way of taking revenge?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, what revenge is there for me to take? I only want freedom, but I do not want to leave you. The best conclusion is for us to exchange ces.¡±


    ¡°If that is the case, I will lose my freedom.¡±


    ¡°Only then can Master understand my feelings.¡±


    Nailisi, if you want freedom¡­¡±


    ¡°No, I am still not the strongest demon.¡± Nailisi interrupted Saleen, she lowered her head, thinking about something.

 Chapter 474: What Professional (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 474: What Professional (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was scared too, as she got mature, she understood some things naturally. Her bloodline was special and had much room for growth. It was hard for an imp like a Luoluokaluo to grow up. She was special, she had gained almost unlimited life to grow on the Myers Maind.


    Sooner orter, her powers would break free from the bond of this dimension and she would escape Saleen¡¯s grasp.


    Nailisi had no idea too what she would do when that day really came. At least for now, she was still sure what she was going to do tomorrow; help Master be strong.


    ¡°Nailisi, once I am out of the Purgatory Desert, I will be going to Holy Rock City to see Joey. Follow me then.¡±


    ¡°He is a dangerous person, isn¡¯t he?¡±


    ¡°Yes, perhaps the most dangerous in the world. I promised him and if I don¡¯t go, I will be going against my word.¡±


    ¡°Will Sister Sika be going too?¡±


    ¡°No, just you and me.¡±


    ¡°Master, Holy Rock City doesn¡¯t seem too friendly to you.¡± Nailisi reminded Saleen.


    ¡°Then are you scared?¡±


    ¡°What is there to be scared of? At most¡­¡± Nailisi almost spilled the truth, she estimated that by the time they left the Purgatory Desert, she would have already summoned the demon. At most she would escape to the demon dimension with Saleen.


    Even though it was equally dangerous there for a Luoluokaluo with three powers, it would not be a problem protecting a grade-5 mage like Saleen. She already had the ability to use magic. She would get all the remaining contract scrolls from Lex and by then capture arge number of demons to work for her. Then a supreme demon would not dare to offend her.


    Nailisi was from the demon dimension and so long as she had the coordinates and summoned the first demon, she would have her ways to return to the demon dimension. By then, very little people on the the Myers Maind would be able to threaten her safety. If she could get Lex¡¯s God Ring, entering and leaving the dimensions would be even safer.


    It was a pity that master would not promise her, Nailisi shook her head in defeat.


    Saleen patted her head and said, ¡°Rx, my badge can would be recharged soon. Even a grade-9 sorcerer won¡¯t be able to withstand the powers of lightning. It is a shame your powers are only defensive and they can¡¯t be used to kill enemies.¡±


    ¡°Master, those lightning dragons that you have been keeping, can¡¯t they?¡±


    ¡°They need to evolve first before they can leave water. I do not have enough magic nuclei on hand. The amount of food they go through every day is incredible.¡±


    ¡°Master, I have a n.¡±


    ¡°What n?¡±


    ¡°You will know in time.¡± Nailisi thought. What does the demon dimension have the most? Magic insects. Some of the magic insects on the demon dimension wereparable to a whale. They would be enough to feed the lightning dragons. Once she called upon enough demons, she would let them hunt for magic insects for Saleen. He would no longer need to worry about food for the lightning dragon by then.


    ¡°Nailisi, do not let the lightning dragons eat people.¡± Saleen had assumed that Nailisi wanted to kill humans for him. When he entered the city, he had gained certain enlightenment and he would never do such a thing again.


    ¡°Master, human flesh isn¡¯t nice, I don¡¯t even want to eat it.¡± Nailisi licked her lips, giving a wronged expression.


    ¡°Alright alright, I know. Nailisi, Bear with it for a while more. From today onwards, do not leave my side until¡­¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Nailisi immediately broke into a smile. Killing Bifano was not anything difficult. The way he looked at her was lecherous and defenceless. His armor was a little weird. The Dragon Tooth Dagger might not be able to pierce through it, however, there was no armor on his neck and a single bite would do.


    Nailisi had not seen anyone who could still live with a broken neck, she was the best at biting the necks of her prey.


    Bifano was not a dandy and when he returned to Fire Dance City, he had met with the wealthy who hade forward to seek refuge, redistributing the defensive n, giving out the rations, and stabilizing the public. He then started gathering his army and prepared to attack the pink army¡¯s nest. Lex and Saleen were temporarily forgotten by him and he did not worryabout them.


    Bifano had decided to give up Fire Dance City at the start, however, many wealthy had followed him this time and the army of Fire Dance City had expanded to over twenty-thousand people. This did not even include his five-thousand elites. With these twenty-thousand people, he could defend the citypletely.


    The terrain of Fire Dance City was incredibly special, the army around the side was hard to move and only cavalry could enter quickly. They could not bring with them anyrge-scale equipment to attack the city. Only the front of the city needed to be defended and twenty-thousand people was enough to fend off a one-hundred-thousand strong army. Not only that, looking at the situation now, more people woulde there to seek refuge. His father was missing and once he heard that he had settled down there, he would definitely figure out a way to return.


    If his father returned, he would be able to attract more people. By then he would be able to use the two strongholds of Fire Dance City and the Myers Temple to defend against the invading Cloudflow army.


    It was a pity that there was not any arablend near Fire Dance City. The terraced fields on the mountains did not produce much and needed the irrigation from the magic disciples. He had no choice but to give up onrge groups of farmers and could only sustain his troops with the rations that they had gotten through extortion. This was not a long-term n and sooner orter, he would need to choose a side to support. It would not be much if the Cloudflow Empire admitted the Agares family again, but if they did not, supporting the Qin Empire would not be a bad choice.


    If he captured Lex and took her to Holy Rock City, the emperor had to ept him.


    Lex was not cking away either. Bifano had not revealed her identity. even though some of the grand mages were strong, they did not dare restrict her freedom.


    Although Fire Dance City had strict security, the shops were still open. She had sent mages out for two hours and they had managed to hire dozens of mages there.


    Someone had tipped Bifano off, but he heard that she was only recruiting mages to create scrolls and he did not take it to heart.


    Lex was not satisfied. If she was in Bitter Water Prefecture, she would only need a month to create ten-thousand scrolls. She would not even need to do it herself. The mages that she hired now were mostly grade-3 and only two of them were grade-4 mages. They could only produce several hundred scrolls daily.


    This was also because she had high-quality empty scrolls, if not she would be lucky to create twenty to thirty scrolls a day.


    Luckily she had brought with her two grade-5 mages and four grade-4 mages. They had an incredibly high sess rate of creating grade-3 scrolls, making very little mistakes. The entire process was basically a process of using the forms and besides the restoration time needed while meditating, the rest of the time, Lex was creating the Fossilization spell scrolls.


    Even though a grade-3 Fossilization spell was not very good, it was a waste not to keep it. It was a single target magic, it was effective against creatures under grade-3. Against those above grade-3, it could only be used as a controlling magic without much killing power, unless it was targeted.


    The Metal Titan was suppressed by the Fossilization spell, but it only slowed him down for around a second. Saleen had closed his room door the moment he reached here, not meeting anyone. Lex did not want to force him to meet anyone. She reckoned that he was preparing something to help him with their trip to the Purgatory Desert.


    Lex was right, Saleen was replenishing the energy of his badge. His badge could contain the powers of lightning. Since Saleen had the twenty-four young lightning dragons, he would constantly ce the badge in the ne to absorb the energy that the lightning dragons released.


    The young lightning dragons did not have much attack powers, but as Saleen constantly let the badge absorbed it, its replenishing speed was much faster than if he were to do it himself. The lightning dragons released the powers of lightning and there was no damage to the badge as it absorbed. ording to Saleen¡¯s predictions, it would take at most another two days for the badge to recharge with enough energy to release that powerful lightning strike again.


    This was Saleen¡¯s strongest attack and even if he were to meet with any grade-9 magic beasts, he was confident in killing it with a single shot. It was a pity that the powers took too long to amass and it was a one-time attack.


    In the Goddess ne, the lightning dragons grew quickly. Saleen fed them with red krill every day and used up many magic nuclei. The time in the ne passed incredibly quickly and the badge was constantly stimting the lightning dragons. They grew almost twice the speed which he had predicted.


    Saleen kept counting the amount of food that he was using up and he had no choice but to slow down the passing of time in the Goddess ne.


    After seven days, Lex repeatedly asked to stay in Fire Dance City for a longer time to prepare the equipment to deal with the pink army. In actual fact, she was rushing the production of the fossilization magic scrolls, she had long prepared the equipment to deal with the pink army. Bifano could not reject as he needed her help to enter the Myers Temple.


    At the start of October, she finally made a move on Bifano¡¯s request. He gathered over five-thousand cavalries and hundreds of chariots worth of resources, moving south. Along Hantze was one of the strongholds of the Agares family. The Cloudflow army had crossed the Chishui River and did not immediatelye to clean up.


    Saleen¡¯s skeleton war horses had long returned to the green spirits, the magic chariot was dragged by four handsome war horses now. Inferior horses did not have much explosive powers and were not suitable to charge into battle.


    The terrain near the Hantze region wasplicated and the pink army¡¯s nest was among a patch of swamp. It was impossible to enter from the south and waspletely isted from the Cloudflow Empire. Entering from the north during autumn was not a bad decision. The water entering the Hantze had fallen and this swamp was affected too.


    Compared to the Chaotic Marshes, this was still a safe ce, the threat of magic beasts was small there after all. Bifano looked at the map in detail again. The army carefully passed a dangerous zone, reaching the center of the swamp almost without any losses.


    Thend there was already incredibly firm and there was tall grass as tall as the height of two people there. Bifano¡¯s army was stationed on high ground, it was impossible to set up any post on the lower grounds of this swamp as there would be a flood after a storm. Even in autumn, they had to be careful.


    Bifano came beside Lex¡¯s chariot and asked carefully, ¡°Viscountess, there is less than half a day until we reach our destination. The enemy might notice us any time, are you prepared?¡±


    ¡°Bifano, don¡¯t worry, I will assemble the equipment fifty miles away, the terrain here isn¡¯t good and assembling them too early would use up too much resources while moving.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Bifano quietly retreated, hatred welling within him. When he had his own powers, he would no longer need to amodate others. ¡°Lex, you won¡¯t be cocky for long.¡±

 Chapter 475: Temptation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 475: Temptation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex had no intention to be cocky, she had designed a massive magic equipment to attack the Myers Temple. Even though it could move on the road, it used up more magic nuclei than arge sized puppet. There was no road there at all and for arge sized equipment to move. It would have to be transported by machinery, almost like a war puppet.


    The five-thousand strong army was split into three groups; the frontline, the center, and the reserves. The frontline was just a regiment of one-thousand people. These one-thousand soldiers had changed into their equipment earlier on and took down the metal tes from the resource chariots, putting them on.


    The war horses had a new set of leather armor too. After they had quenched their thirst and rested for a while, the regiment moved forward to the valley regions first.


    Even though it was called a valley, it was incredibly wide there and the narrowest part of the valley was over a mile. The depths of the swamp were a little strange. Even though there were many huge stones, they were rtively soft and a normal weapon could easily pierce into them.


    Deep in the autumn season, the number of poisonous insects within the swamp had decreased significantly. The soldiers still wrapped their face in a cloth, spraying themselves with medicine that chased the insects away though. Bifano chose to attack during this season because the poisonous insects were fewer, if not, he would not dare lead his army into this swamp.


    A regiment had two grade-3 mages attached to it was limited in battle, but they could provide an alert system to the army, preventing them from falling into a magic trap. Bifano¡¯s bodyguards did not recognize magic traps, dozens of them had perished.


    The two mages sat in the chariot, they were different from the mages in the Qin Empire. Perhaps it was because they did not exercise regrly, they looked weak and their faces were pale. One of them had a little streak of purple in his eyes, that was a sign of poisoning. A mage that dabbled in creating medicine in the long-term would have some toxins stored within his body.


    A mage with a lineage would use different process methods to prevent any harm to their bodies. Lex¡¯s body was stronger than a normal swordsman while Saleen¡¯s body was almost as strong as a beginner swordmaster. A realbat mage could ride a horse, but releasing magic on a horse was as hard as releasing a spell while flying, it was too much for a mage.


    Thebat powers of these two mages were normal. The chariot was stable and it would not affect theirbat powers too much.


    The mages under Lex started getting busy, two magic chariots were ced in the center of the army. The mages took the parts that Lex had taken out and assembled them together, taking an hour toplete it.


    Next was iying the magic nucleus and flushing it with magic medicine. A metal machinery eight meters long and four meters wide waspleted. It was three meters tall with sharp features and sixteen mechanical feet at the bottom, allowing it to move forward slowly. The front of this magic machine was a beehive like structure with hundreds of magic arrays inscribed within the countless holes.


    The back of the magic machine was another smaller piece of equipment, however, it was a movable magic trebuchet. This small trebuchet shot out magic bullet heads that would burst into mes when they struck anything.


    Lex had designed two suppressive magic weapons for Bifano. The attacking powers of these two objects were not great and against a middle-grade mage, it would not hurt them at all. For a normal soldier, these two machines were a nightmare.


    The slightlyrger machine could shoot out hundreds of me wasps from its tiny holes. me wasps were a rtively unknown low-grade magic as they did not have any honing abilities. That meant the person releasing the spell could not control it. Besides using up little energy, this grade-2 spell had almost no use.


    If Lex had not assembled the hundreds of magic arrays, the only use for these me wasps was to release fire.


    Releasing hundreds of them at once, the mes would cover a huge area and did not need any magic honing at all. The small-sized magic trebuchet had a simr effect. What was different was that the attacking method of the trebuchet was from top to bottom and it could get past defences like city walls.


    Lex¡¯s mages passed the two machines over to Bifano¡¯s low-grade mages after they were done assembling it. These two machines were easy to use and even though they were only a little more powerful than the alchemy crossbow, a grade-1 mage would be able to unleash their powers fully.


    Saleen was sure that even though these two machines were known as low-grade magic, their attacking powers were incredible. When Saleen first learned the grade-1 icicle spell, it was able to pierce through stone walls. His house had very strong stone walls that were even stronger than granite.


    A grade-2 spell was sufficient to pierce through most metal armor. A low-grade magic was still deadly for armies on the battlefield.


    ¡°Lex, we are only fifty miles away from the core area, it is a little strange that the pink army hasn¡¯t appeared yet.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, this is where you are unclear.¡± Lex was not speaking just to Saleen, she was teaching the mages around her as well. She said to Saleen, ¡°The pink army might seem strong, but in fact they are just rootless grass. Any soldier dead is one less soldier for them. This valley is too wide and there is no way they can set a trap. If they fight head on with Bifano¡¯s army, Bifano can afford the losses, but they cannot.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it very passive for them to only attack at their doorstep?¡±


    ¡°The Myers Temple entrance will definitely be narrow and they only need to set up a few hundred people there to fend off an attack of thousands of people. By taking turns to defend, they can reduce any unnecessary losses. They do not believe that we can open the Myers Temple¡¯s door.


    Lex¡¯s guess was almost spot on, the pink army had indeedid quite a number of traps along the way. Bifano¡¯s army suddenly changed direction and the invasion from the Tanggsi Empire had rendered their ambush useless. They had instead met with blood knights and suffered heavy casualties.


    The leader of the pink army, the female mage, had almost died at the hands of the Holy See people. She had escaped all the way back to the marshes and had long known that Bifano had assembled an army at Fire Dance City. She ran straight back to her hideout. Under such circumstances, how would she dare face Bifano head on? She could only get everyone back into the valley to hide in the Myers Temple.


    The key was in her hands and she did not believe that Bifano could enter. Only her former husband knew the secret of the Myers Temple. It was a pity he had left the world, leaving behind a bunch of kids and widows. Luckily, the key was always with her, if not she would not be able to find a ce to settle.


    The frontline troops charged ahead without any resistance,ing to a vast area. The terrain there was unusually t and they were made entirely of soft stone materials.


    There was no hindrance within a two mile radius, no stray rocks, no hills, not even a de of grass.


    The scouts were deployed out and they did not find any ambush, Bifano¡¯s central army quickly reached it, leaving behind only five-hundred heavy cavalrymen to await orders.


    Bifano¡¯s mages took out magic equipment that was simr to apass andpared it to the map. They quickly found the secret that was hidden there.


    Bifano came beside Lex¡¯s chariot again and asked humbly, ¡°Viscountess, we have found the entrance, we still need your help in opening it.¡±


    Lex softly cut him off and said to Saleen, ¡°Will you do it or shall I do the honors?¡±


    ¡°I will go.¡± Saleen said as he took the Ring of Gifts from Sika and exited the magic chariot. J tagged along behind him closely. Inside the chariot, Lex called out for Wild Bear. He followed behind Saleen, decked out entirely in armor.


    Lex did not exit the chariot, she took out a grade-7 scroll and prepared to assist Saleen. A level-7 magic attack had a range of over five-hundred meters and in the magic chariot, Lex could control the scroll properly.


    Under the gaze of thousands of people, Saleen came to the empty ground the soldiers had surrounded.


    Four low-grade mages gave a mage bow as Saleen walked over and said to him, ¡°Master, here it is.¡±


    Saleen looked thoughtfully at the soldiers all around, most of them had given up their war horses and only the cavalrymen were still on their horses. Dozens of crossbows were aiming there, if Saleen was still a low-grade mage, he would definitely feel a chill. Now, besides the alchemy crossbow, it would be hard for any other crossbows to pierce through his water shield.


    ¡°Let the soldiers retreat at least forty-five meters away.¡± Saleen¡¯s calction skills could be thought of as horrifying. Just by using his eyes, he could already calcte how big an area the entrance of the Myers Temple would take up if it appeared.


    Many low-grade mages around gave the orders to the officers nearby and they immediately instructed their soldiers to retreat.


    Saleen touched the Ring of Gifts on his left hand, it was this ring that had changed his fate. Opening a temple for the second time, he had no idea if it had already been destroyed by the pink army. The ingredients in the temple were incredibly precious and even the rocks on the floor were steel rocks.


    If Saleen had not gotten the magic tower ingredients that his teacher had given him, he might even be tempted to return to the temple in the Chaotic Marshes to take away all the ingredients he could take there.


    A white light was emitted from Saleen¡¯s left hand as Saleen recited the holy prose inscribed on the ring. The ground immediately started twisting as cracks appeared on the even stone. Just like a magicttice, the fragments shifted around orderly. A ck entrance appeared silently.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t a teleportation portal!¡±


    The ck hole was over ten meters high and from all four sides it looked the same. Suddenly, hundreds of arrows shot out from the ck hole, they had no target and J swiped them all away at once. His sword aura was activated and all the arrows that were shot towards Saleen were crushed by the sword aura.


    Saleen turned back and said to Bifano, ¡°We can enter now.¡±


    Bifano was suspicious, when he had first opened the temple, he had created quite a ruckus, how did Saleen do it this easily?


    Of course, he did not know that the key to opening the Myers Temple was whether the godly power was still abundant. Among the equipment left behind by the goddess, their godly powers were incredibly weak. The Ring of Gifts could not store so much godly power. The pink army had rarely opened the entrance of the Myers Temple as the key with the army could only open the temple every half a month, it needed time to replenish its godly powers.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand had absorbed a leaf of the Tree of Life. If he did not conceal it, even the Holy See people from thousands of miles away would be able to sense the presence of the godly powers from it.


    ¡°The temple was already opened, should I give the order to kill Saleen now?¡± Bifano twitched his eyes, Saleen was surrounded by his soldiers and there were at least forty crossbows aiming at him.

 Chapter 476: Temptation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 476: Temptation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Other than the volley of arrows there were no other attacks. This moment felt almost as if it took forever to Bifano. To kill or not to kill?


    J looked at Bifano almostughingly, twisting his wrist. Tears gave off an intense noise.


    Almost instantly, Bifano broke out into a cold sweat. Saleen had alreadye to less than ten meters away from him. At this distance, a grand swordmaster was a big threat to a mage.


    He must be crazy, the two fellows besides Saleen were incredibly powerful. J was at least a silver grand swordmaster while Wild Bear¡¯s powers were equally terrifying. He was almost like a human-shaped magic beast. If his attack failed, he would need to do it himself and he would need to face off with the two of them. If he retreated and extended their distance, Saleen would be able to attack him with his magic calmly.


    Bifano gave a dryugh and made an inviting gesture. Saleen red at him coldly before walking calmly back to Lex¡¯s magic chariot. He intentionally rubbed shoulders with Bifano as J whispered in Bifano¡¯s ear, ¡°Small duke, why haven¡¯t you taken action?¡±


    This sentence had two meanings as Bifano retreated sternly, not saying a word. Seeing Saleen going into the magic chariot. He instructed his soldiers, ¡°Second regiment, prepare to enter!¡±


    The second regiment were heavy infantry. Even though Titan¡¯s heavy infantry was not as good as the Qin Empire¡¯s, their equipment must have weighed over thirty kilograms. The soldiers were wrapped in a chain lock armor. Holding heavy shields, their weapons were instead double-sided des that were slightly shorter than a cross spear.


    Among the one-thousand people in the regiment, there were six-hundred heavy infantry troops. They were now split into three groups. They formed a small phnx, preparing to enter the temple. Their attacking powers were deadly and the double-sided de was incredibly heavy with a row of saw teeth at the center. Even a mage would be unlucky to be surrounded by them.


    Bifano¡¯s five-thousand strong elite were the capital of the Agares family. Seeing the six-hundred heavy infantry troops gathering together and entering the ck hole, he felt the fierce aura emanating from them.


    Only when one had killed would there be such a fierce aura. Titan had always been peaceful. When the soldiers of the Stone Statue Castle met with an attack, they were chaotic. As for Bifano¡¯s soldiers, they actually had powerfulbat experiences. This was the result of the secret training by the Agares family. Every year, Titan would buy a group of prisoners on death row or ves, to be massacred by their private soldiers.


    The prisoners and ves would also be given weapons, if they were to survive in the brawl, they would regain their freedom. Only by using such brutal methods the private soldiers of the Agares family have such powerfulbat abilities. Soldiers that had not gone on any battlefield would always be new soldiers.


    Saleen looked back at Lex and realized she was not bothered by Bifano¡¯s soldiers at all. The soldiers from her swordsman camp had undergone bloodbaths too and were not any weaker than Bifano¡¯s soldiers. The Qin Empire had been going on expeditions in the recent two years, the ck mages had caused trouble, Lon Duchy had been invaded, and Lianyun City had fallen into enemies¡¯ hands. They did not cause the downfall of the Qin Empire, but instead toughened up the powers of the wealthy in the Qin Empire.


    Sika who had been keeping silent finally opened her mouth, she silently took over the Ring of Gifts that Saleen passed to her and said, ¡°Viscountess, earlier on, Bifano wanted to kill Saleen.


    The conversation in the magic chariot was blocked off to anyone outside. Lex looked at Sika and rubbed her finger, saying a little difficulty, ¡°It isn¡¯t good for us if we take action now.¡±


    ¡°I do not care about that, he wants to harm Saleen, he needs to die.¡± Sika¡¯s words did not leave any room for discussion.


    Lex furrowed her brow, she could understand Sika¡¯s feelings, however, Bifano now had over five-hundred soldiers. If they killed him, the consequences would be disastrous.


    Nailisi shot a look at Sika before saying, ¡°Sister Sika, do not worry, it is good for me if we keep him.¡±


    Sika kept silent, her hand leaving her boomerang. Nailisi had more ideas than her and she definitely was not lying. Her rtionship with Nailisi was much closer than her rtionship with Lex.


    In actual fact, the ck hole was just a space tunnel. Both sides were on the same dimension and they were not far, it was unusually stable. Saleen and Lex both knew that the temple was not near their location and could be hundreds of miles away, connected by this tunnel.


    If they could have such skills, it would be much more useful than a teleportation portal. The teleportation portal could only bring a few people with it at once and it used up a tremendous amount of energy. So long as this space tunnel was not across dimensions, the amount of energy used up could be ignored.


    Even the Sacred Holy See did not have such means. Saleen and Lex naturally did not ask for much. So long as they could find the main temple and get the seeds from the four divine trees, they would have the power to go against the Holy See.


    The dark tunnel was only a mile long and at the end of the tunnel was a bunch of magic machines that had been abandoned. These magic machines were incredibly simple and only needed a magic disciple to control them. Hundreds of arrow tubes were aimed at the tunnel, all the arrows had been shot out earlier. The first heavy infantry officer was a little suspicious, he had no idea how the arrows from these arrow tubes could have shot over a mile. He was in no mood to investigate and waving his hand, forty soldiers immediately came forward and used the double-sided de in their hands to destroy the magic machineries.


    The ck ground was inscribed with a mysterious magic pattern, at the front was a huge door that was over thirty meters tall. No one was waiting in ambush; the tunnel was too long and the magic machines that Lex had prepared was not even used. The pink army was hiding inside the temple and would not show themselves no matter what.


    If the pink army rushed out of the temple to fight, once they got out of the tunnel, they would be burned to death by the fire wasps.


    The two giant magic machines moved slowly. Entering the mile-long tunnel and passing through it, they reached the outside of the temple door. The soldiers repositioned the two magic machines properly, aiming at the door.


    The soldiers outside the tunnel did not dare ck off either. Besides the heavy cavalry troops resting under their horses, taking turns to put on their heavy armor, the light cavalry had been patrolling nearby. The mages had also released the limited flying puppets, setting hundreds of magic rms.


    The attack from within the temple was not scary. The worst was if the enemy attacked from both inside and outside, there would then be a heavy death and injured toll.


    Saleen was rxed on the other hands. Lex and Bifano¡¯s agreement did not include helping him destroy the pink army. In actual fact, the space within the temple was incredibly wide and was suitable for mages to fight. The problem was that Lex did not want her mages to take the risk, it was best to avoid such unnecessary dangers.


    Bifano personally led his soldiers into the tunnel, the two magic chariots waited outside the tunnel. Lex¡¯s ten swordmasters, two ck metal grand swordmasters, Wild Bear, and J waited beside the magic chariot and took a break.


    The soldiers in charge of security looked at Lex¡¯s swordmasters in envy, the magic armor they were wearing was of the highest grade. In theory Saleen could already create high-grade magic equipment. These magic armors were processed from the outer shell of magic beasts and the inside was a soft armor made from metal silk. They were light yet strong at the same time.


    The swordsmen sat on the floor, taking out their grinding stones, they started to sharpen their weapons. Besides the weapons that Saleen had processed for them, the equipment that they had brought along with them was not magic equipment and needed to be maintained.


    Buzz¡­


    A vibrating noise filled the air and from afar, a ck patch of poisonous insects flew towards the tunnel. A blinding light appeared from one of the magic chariot and a patch of fire started dancing in the air, burning away the poisonous insects.


    Bifano¡¯s soldiers tried their hardest to hold back their vomit. They had already brought with them medicine to chase the poisonous insects away and they must definitely belong to the magic beast grade of poisonous insects. Luckily there were mages around¡­


    At the front of the door of the temple, fourbat puppets were carrying a huge metal hammer and charging towards the door of the temple under themand of the magic disciples.


    Boom!


    The huge metal hammer had sunken in while thebat puppets were flung away. There was only a shallow mark on the door of the Myers Temple.


    Bifano walked about nervously, the interior structure of this temple was entirely different from the ones he had gone to before. This was something he had never imagined. Arge door was in his way and if he could not open it, assembling five-thousand soldiers would have been a waste entirely.


    Should he go back? That was obviously not an option. Fire Dance City could not be defended entirely and if they did not get this temple, his personal bodyguard would be defeated by the Cloudflow Empire sooner orter.


    After four huge metal hammers weighing over two tons had been destroyed, there were still no signs of the temple door being damaged. If this continued on. The soldiers¡¯ morale wouldpletely ck off.


    Magic waspletely ineffective against the door. The few mages¡¯ magic scrolls could not be opened there. Even though magic could be released, it would be hard to amass the elements and they would not be stable. After going at it for over an hour, the door still had no signs of opening.


    ¡°Master, should I go ask the Viscountess?¡± A soldier whispered into Bifano¡¯s ear.


    Bifano nodded his head in defeat, he had long wanted to go, but he was holding on to a sliver of hope. He was not willing to entrust this to her. Lex was not his tomand and asking her for help meant that he would need to pay the same price.


    Bifano could not bear to do so, most of the warehouse in the cities of Titan Duchy had not been wiped clean in time and Cloudflow had sent out their people too quickly. The speed at which the Tanggsi Empire had been invaded had surpassed his imagination and he might not be worth more than Lex now.


    Outside the tunnel, Lex had started to y games with Saleen out of boredom. Just like they were in god¡¯s hell, they started releasing grade-0 and grade-1 magic and used another spell to dispel them. After not ying it for such a long time, they still had chemistry and were even more skilled than before.


    The other two female mages in the chariot were amazed at this, using magic to dispel magic was something they had only read about in books. They had never seen it in real life before. As grade-4 grand mages, they knew how hard it was. Lex and Saleen both used instantaneous magic, no matter howrge the space in the chariot was, they could not be more than five meters apart. Narnia¡¯s heart had gone up her throat, afraid that Saleen or Lex would hurt someone with any mistake.


    ¡°Master Saleen, Bifano hase out.¡± J reminded softly from outside the chariot.


    ¡°Come out? Seems like he is in some trouble. Lex, this is a good chance.¡± Saleenughed wickedly. He knew that Bifano definitely needed Lex¡¯s help and this was the perfect opportunity for a daylight robbery.

 Chapter 477: Impregnable Wall (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 477: Impregnable Wall (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Viscountess, can youe out for a while?¡± Bifano asked as softly as he could from outside the magic chariot. He did not want to enter the chariot and be angered by Saleen, but he did not want to speak with Lex from outside the chariot either.


    ¡°Okay, wait a minute.¡± Lex did not go out immediately, instead she red at Saleen. Bifano was already angered by Saleen. From her perspective, if they had not taken action, they should be living harmoniously. Saleen had kept this in mind for so long, but he was not as able to endure as before.


    Saleen snickered and opened the door for Lex.


    Bifano did not use any of the speech that he had prepared upon seeing Lex. He bit his lip silently. He had no idea what magic Lex had used to make him unable to speak.


    ¡°Vi¡­Viscountess.¡±


    Titan Duchy had already been dismembered when the Tanggsi and Cloudflow Empires moved off. Bifano¡¯s title as a small duke no longer existed in theory and Lex had appropriately gave off her higher-ranking aura. Standing at the side of the magic chariot, she lowered her head and looked at Bifano before asking, ¡°Small duke, what is it?¡±


    ¡°I have found the Temple¡¯s door, but I can¡¯t open it.¡±


    ¡°There are many enemies?¡±


    ¡°There are none at all. The door¡¯s magic seems almost immune to everything, even the huge metal hammer has nothing to it.¡±


    ¡°Magic immunity? Hmm, this is interesting, but¡­¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, what requests do you have? Please state them.¡±


    ¡°Small duke, we are friends, that is too polite of you. I do want to stay up to a month in this temple.¡±


    ¡°Alright, how much space do you need?¡±


    ¡°Two areas. There should be twenty-four temple halls here, you can arrange for your men to stay there too.¡±


    Lex wanted to stay a month there to wait for news from Metatrin City. Once she got the precise coordinates, she could send the information back there and let the mages in Metatrin City calcte the general location of the main Myers Temple. Such calctions were notplicated, but they required much energy and needed hundreds of mages to do. It could take up to a month for the coordinates of the main Myers Temple to be calcted.


    During this period, she did not want to run around Titan Duchy. It was wartime now and it would not be easy to deal with any armies from Cloudflow or the Tanggsi Empire.


    Of course, Lex definitely did not just want to simply stay there for a month, the temple belonged to Bifano. Even though the things inside had long been wiped clean by the Pink Army, Lex believed that there were some hidden ces that others would not be able to find. She had the Gods Ring and should be able to find some of its hidden secrets.


    Nailisi listened to Lex¡¯s request in the chariot and was overjoyed. She suddenly opened her mouth and said, ¡°Lex, I want a ce for myself too.¡±


    ¡°Alright, then we would want three areas.¡± Lex promised casually and Bifano almost lost his temper. How could a maidservant could afford to be this cocky? He decided that he needed to find some way to get rid of Saleen. It seemed like his rtionship with Lex was incredibly close, even his maidservant could call her Lex. This was what all the seniors around her addressed her as, all the new followers called her Viscountess or Her Highness Lex.


    Lex said a few words to a ck metal grand swordmaster and he turned around to go to the side of the other magic chariot, passing on Lex¡¯s words. Lex could not let both magic chariots enter the tunnel, it would not be able to sustain one for long. If something happened, it would be easier to escape if there was only one chariot inside.


    Lex released the two fully constructed puppets and walked to the front of the chariot. Only Wild Bear and J were by the side, they were able to get along perfectly now. With J doing things half-heartedly and Wild Bear being simple there would not be any conflicts.


    Nailisi could not help but lick her lips, she wanted one area of the temple to summon her demon. The temple was almost cut off from the outside world and summoning the demon would not cause any trouble anywhere else.


    Summoning a demon required a sacrifice. Back when humans captured demons, they needed to feed and nurture them. Demons that were incredibly intelligent would not follow blindly and they needed something in exchange to being summoned.


    Bifano had five-thousand soldiers and they were a good sacrifice. She had to do such things in secret. If she was found out from the start, Saleen would stop her. Feeding humans to demons would cause chaos after all. Before this, she needed to instigate some trouble between Bifano and his soldiers to force him to take action.


    Nailisi had made up her mind, but was afraid that Saleen would notice something so she started talking to Sika. Sika was bored too. Since she started a rtionship with Saleen, Saleen would not let her do anything dangerous in battle. She did not like to speak to Lex and Nailisi was someone who knew her intimately after all. Now that she went up to talk to her of her own ord, Sika did not give Nailisi any disrespect.


    Lex¡¯s magic chariot entered the tunnel, she and Saleen felt the change in the space coordinates at the same time. This was because Lex had the powers of the Gods Ring while Saleen¡¯s focus had already reached that of a sorcerer and was incredibly sensitive to space.


    The mile-long tunnel was actually linking two ces that were hundreds of miles apart.


    Before long, Lex saw the huge door of the Myers Temple, she held back the excitement in her heart. The patterns on the door were different from any magic pattern that she already knew. They were probably left behind by the Second Dynasty. If the holy prose and the magic patterns could bebined together, it could eliminate any effects from a magic attack.


    Even though the value of these patterns were huge, what was more valuable was the two doors. Not every material could have these patterns inscribed on them and produce the same effect.


    Saleen also saw the two doors through the crystal, he immediately had the intention to strip them down. The defences of his temple would increase tremendously by installing these doors onto it.


    Nailisi could sense Saleen¡¯s emotions acutely, she was overjoyed. It was good that master remembered to think about these things. when she went overboard, master would then think she must have her reasons too. Humans needed excuses for anything that they did. Demons, on the other hand,would fight for anything they wanted directly unless their enemies¡¯ power surpassed their own.


    ¡°I can¡¯t get past this door.¡± Lex looked at the door that was still slowly self-restoring as she broke the terrible news to Bifano.


    ¡°That is impossible, Viscountess, I know you have your ways. Whatever your request is, I will agree to it. Please open this door!¡± Bifano was a little flustered, if this door could not be opened, would he really need to defend Fire Dance City? Fire Dance City did not have any strong mages. Its magic tower would not be able to unleash its greatest effect and when a huge army arrived, it was a matter of time before the city was taken down.


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°Small duke, do not worry, we can still focus on the walls at the two sides.¡±


    ¡°Walls?¡± Bifano looked at the ck tall walls. It was an enclosed space, the walls were linked to the tip of it and it seemed there was no way one could get through them. The ck walls were created from steel rocks and no matter how he looked at it, they seemed harder to deal with than the door. It was not that he had not tried it, but when the huge metal hammer knocked against the steel rocks, not a single piece broke off.


    Lex ignored Bifano as she walked over to the walls, feeling them with her hands. As expected, the steel rocks had been solidified with magic and were one single piece. Unlike the doors, the steel rocks did not have any magic immunity though.


    ¡°Saleen, it seems like you need to do something,¡± Lex said as Saleen got down from the magic chariot.


    Saleen came to the edge of the wall and ced his hands on it, letting his senses run deep. He quickly found the secret of this wall. The steel rocks had been turned into a metal through some immense powers. They were not only tough, but had be a single entity. These walls seemed to have been formed from pouring molten metal into a mold. Forget about a huge metal hammer, even a magic fortress hammer would be useless against them.


    The pce ahead of him seemed to be almost two miles wide, there was a mile-long wall like this on both sides of the door. If it were one meter high, Saleen could do it. To process something this huge at once, only humans from ancient times would be able to do that.


    ¡°I can open the wall, but I have a request.¡±


    ¡°Say it.¡±


    ¡°I want both the walls and door to take back. Don¡¯t be annoyed without me, even a sorcerer could only use water to grind the stones away and slowly excavate.¡±


    ¡°Then please, do what you can.¡± Bifano did not want to argue any longer. After he killed Saleen, it would still belong to him after all.


    ¡°Let the soldiers rest for four hours, this wall is too thick and I will need some time,¡± Saleen said calmly as he sensed Bifano¡¯s evil intentions. He had only recently gained such powers and it seemed like he was on the edge of advancing again.


    The soldiers took a rest on the spot and Saleen tapped the cbash at his waist, releasing the six meter long green current. The steel rocks that had been turned to metal were harder to deal with than the white stone materials in Metatrin City. They did not have any magic immunity and Saleen¡¯s current cutter did not use up any magic chords. He could slowly deal with the wall.


    All the stone materials of the city walls in Metatrin City had been excavated by Saleen, his current cutter skills were already incredible.


    The weight of the metallized steel rock was unchanged, what changed was only its properties. Such materials were much better at creating armor than metal. The weight of this steel rock was only a fifth that of steel. In other words, if this material was used to create the armor of the heavy cavalrymen, the armor could be five times thicker without changing the load.


    Such characteristics were not special to a cavalry troops, but they were even more important for an infantry trooper. Infantry troops could not take as much weight as cavalry troops and the strongest heavy infantry soldiers in the Qin Empire could take a load of over fifty kilograms. The price to pay was slower movement speed. If the load of the heavy infantry troops was to be reduced to a fifth, its mobility would be horrifying.


    Now, Saleen could only hope that this wall would be thicker. If he had a huge amount of this precious material, it would be enough for him to form a few swordsmen camps.


    The green current cutter slowly drilled a small hole in the stone. The current spun rapidly and rubbed intensely, yet it did not produce any noise as it slowly entered the wall. Once he started, Saleen knew that he was not wrong to let the soldiers rest for four hours. Even though this metallized steel rock did not have any magic immunity, the current was still used up quickly. With his speed now, the current would need to return to the cbash to rest for thirty minutes after cutting for an hour, four hours might not be enough time to cut through the wall.


    The pink army¡¯s hideout was indeed an impregnable bastion of steel. If there was a magic tower at the front of the temple¡¯s door, not many people would be able to forcefully attack their way in.

 Chapter 478: Impregnable Wall (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 478: Impregnable Wall (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As Saleen sighed, the six meter long green current had already disappearedpletely into the wall. This wall was over twenty meters thick and its thickness was not the same all the way throughout. The outside of the wall was as t as a mirror while inside it was uneven. At the thinnest part, it was around twenty-four meters while the thickest part was nearly thirty meters.


    With the wall being this thick, even if it was not built from the metallized steel rocks, it would not be able to be destroyed by the metal hammer. Bifano did not have any powerful mages among his men and they could not measure the thickness of the wall.


    Saleen was overjoyed, even if he directly used the metallized steel rocks to shape shields, he would be rich immediately. The constructions of all the Myers Temples were different, but the simrity was that they all used precious materials. These materials weremon a long time ago, but humans now could no longer cross dimensions freely and their value had be higher immediately.


    It seemed like if time permitted, he should really find the location of all twenty-four Myers Temples. Once the mages from Sregl Ind arrived, he would be able to find the remaining locations through vast calctions.


    Getting all the mages to do the same thing for a long period of time was not realistic, however, he could wait. Even if it took a year to calcte the position of the temples, it was worth it.


    He had arge number of magic array drawings and they were of huge value. Without the appropriate materials, these magic array drawings would not be able to be replicated even by the analysis of mages that were good with magic arrays.


    Saleen took ten minutes to cut out a square meter of metalized steel rock out. This was much slower than cutting the white stone for Metatrin City. With this speed, he would only be able to form a tunnel of one square meter at the thinnest part.


    Putting the material in the Demon Ring casually, Saleen called Bifano to his side and exined his judgement.


    Bifano stroked his chin, he had not shaved in the past few days and there were ck patches of hair all over his face. After preparing for so long, another day or two would not make much of a difference.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, the people in there must be overconfident that we can¡¯t open the door and are very sure of their wall. Why don¡¯t you dig a one square meter tunnel, but do not break it through all the way. I want them to know that we can enter from the wall. They will definitely open the door then and fight until the end with us. If they continue defending, we will have no choice but to waste more time for you to expand the tunnel for the cavalry to enter and to dig through thest meter.¡±


    Bifano¡¯s and Saleen happened to share the same view. If the pink army realized their wall was not reliable, they would very likely open the doors and charge out to attack. If that was the case, he would not need to waste so much time.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go with your idea then.¡± Saleenughed as he continued his job.


    Within the temple, the pink army bandits were staring anxiously at the door, there had not been any impact noises on the door for a long time. These bandits had joined the pink army at ater time and the early followers had long died in battle.


    Even for those that joined the pink army when it first started, their feelings for it had long faded over the years. After the marquis had disappeared, many of them followed his wife to where the marquis had found the ruins. After many years, the pink army was still struggling to survive and had not be stronger.


    ¡°Do you think the Titan Army will get in?¡± A swordsman in leather armor asked his partner beside him.


    ¡°Who knows, if we need we will surrender.¡±


    ¡°Shh! Are you tired of living?¡± This person looked around cautiously and realized all the soldiers were listless, resting in various spots. Some of the older soldiers had even taken out their cigarette paper. Crushing some tobo, they filled it and started smoking.


    The north of Titan was suitable to grow such tobo and they had the best tobo leaves. The tobo that the soldiers were smoking might not be any less quality than the tobo of the Tanggsi wealthy. A low-grade leader walked in the door. Seeing the soldiers smoking, he shook his head, but did not bother. It was not that the pink army did not have the ability to retaliate, the leader had prevented them from going out to battle and kept them in the temple to defend.


    This had lowered the morale of the soldiers, they were already incredibly undisciplined and had no regard for the safety of the temple. When the enemy charged in, they would definitely not fight to their deaths.


    At the center of the entire temple, there was a huge pce. The core members of the pink army were gathered inside the temple. Most of them were beautiful women that were around thirty years old. There were some youths too and a few gray-robed mages.


    The leader was the female mage that Bain had injured.


    ¡°Sister, why don¡¯t we fight to the death with them?!¡± A female warrior in magic armor asked loudly. She was another core leader of the pink army, one of the other wives of the marquis. From her looks, she was barely thirty and was at the period where a woman was at her most mature and pretty. She gave off an explosive energy from top to bottom and on the table in front of her was her weapon; an incredibly long sword. The de itself was over two meters long.


    ¡°Fourth sister, we have fought with them head on before, not a single one of the two-hundred double-face strong cavalrymen made it back alive.¡± The female mage had a dark expression. She had tried her best, but the Tanggsi Empire had invaded at the time and all the powers that she had set up were not put to use. This was not apse in her judgement, no one could have calcted the movement of the Tanggsi Empire.


    Even the Tanggsi wealthy that had dealings with them secretly did not give any appropriate information. She could only me her luck.


    ¡°They will break down the door sooner orter. Our cavalries can¡¯t be of any use here, the infantry troops definitely wouldn¡¯t be as good as them.¡± A shrewd looking woman said worryingly.


    ¡°The Agares family does not have that much time. Not only has the Tangsi Empire invaded, Cloudflow is entering Titan from the south too. At most in a month, Bifano will pull back. If not he will not be able to hold Fire Dance City.¡± The female mage said confidently.


    ¡°Aunt Eleanor, I don¡¯t think so. Bifano has connections with people from the Qin Empire and has brought with him many powerful mages. They will definitely have some idea of how to break down the door rapidly. You even said they couldn¡¯t open the tunnel, but aren¡¯t they in it now?¡± A youth in white magic robes contradicted the female mage.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, Aunt Eleanor, father has been gone for so long. You should tell everyone what his secret is. Please Do not say that we shouldn¡¯t know.¡± Another mage added.


    ¡°The two of you, what attitude is that?!¡± An even younger swordsman pointed at the two youths with his short sword.


    ¡°What attitude? Brother, did Aunt Eleanor leave all the good things to you?¡± Father was good at both magic and swordsmanship, why can¡¯t we be as well? You, mother and son, have been dominating the army. What ideas do you both have?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t hidden anything that father left behind.¡± Upon hearing the excessive words from the younger generation, the female mage raised her eyebrows. She said angrily, ¡°Was it you mother¡¯s wish that you would say such things?¡±


    ¡°Big sister, I would not dare. What do you all say?¡±


    The females around the table stuck close to the female warrior in magic armor. They threw the female mage ,Eleanor, a cold look. Besides her son, the rest looked at her questioningly.


    Sister ties, blood rtionships; they were all fake at the end of the day. When trouble came, these people only thought about how they could get any benefits, not one really wanted to keep their foundation.


    The hall was incredibly noisy at that moment. The women that had a shrewd look stopped themotion and eased the tension. She said to the female mage, ¡°Big sister, we still have three-thousand cavalrymen, we can choose to look to anyone for support, why wait here for our death?¡±


    ¡°This is My husband¡¯s life¡¯s work.¡± Eleanor replied sadly.


    ¡°If that is the case, why aren¡¯t his secrets of both magic and swordsmanship here? Big sister, if that is the case, you are treating us as outsiders. How do you want us tomand the army to battle?¡±


    ¡°My husband¡­ even if you found the secret that he has left behind, do you think we can be who he was immediately?¡±


    ¡°There is still a hope, you made so many people follow you. There can¡¯t be no results at the end of the day. The eldest child is already a high-grade swordmaster, another step and he will be a grand swordmaster. Such talents are hard to find even in the empire. If he doesn¡¯t get the secrets of both magic and swordsmanship and be a mage, what hopes are there left?¡±


    ¡°You all assume that I have taken my husband¡¯s secrets for myself, but have you seen me practice any swordsmanship? I can¡¯t touch the legacy that he has left behind. Why else would I be willing to hide away here?¡± The female mage said calmly. She was the marquis¡¯ formal wife. When he was alive, everyone lived harmoniously. Now, these women had different ideas and wanted to force her hand. Even though she was calm on the surface, she was hurting inside.


    ¡°That is hard to say, our husband had created so many secret magic medicines, surely one of them can let one learn both magic and swordsmanship? Our fourth Son is still small, but he is already a swordmaster. Is this not the work of these secret magic medicines? Since they can elerate one¡¯s swordsmanship training, why can they not form magic chords as well?


    ¡°Stop this!¡± The female mage was furious. The marquis did leave behind many magic medicines, if not all his children would not be geniuses and have decent abilities now. She really had no idea about any magic medicine that could allow one to be good at both magic and swordsmanship. If there was such a thing, why would she be stingy? The marquis had left behind the prescription for these medicines. She was a grand mage and she could easily create more.


    At this moment, a bandit rushed in, knelt and eximed, ¡°Master, they are digging through the wall!¡±


    ¡°Let them.¡± A female swordsman was just about to scold the bandit when another bandit rushed in and said, ¡°Master, they have almost dug through!¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The female mage stood up in disbelief, that metalized steel rock could not be dug through within a year and a half with a magic machinery. How could anyone outside do that?

 Chapter 479: Sword Aura Sealing Spell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 479: Sword Aura Sealing Spell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen already dug more than twenty meters deep. He had almost dug through the wallpletely. He already stopped and released his witcher spider. It was drilling through the one meter wide cave and caused a lot of noise.


    The robbers behind the wall immediately heard the noise and the experienced senior soldiers realized that the people outside were almost breaking through the wall. They were suddenly panicking.


    Bifano could have dug a hole and snuck people in through the hole if he wanted. He had never expected that the morale of pink army was extremely low and the core members were having an internal fight. If he knew, he would not have pulled any tricks. After losing the double faced strong calvary, the leader of the pink army¡¯s position was at risk. With arge army bearing down upon the border, the situation was already chaotic before the enemy entered the temple.


    Saleen could not care less as he was only in charge of making the hole. The wall was almost broken through. If the people from inside were to dash out, it would be none of his business. He would only need to returnter to cut the two mile long walls on the both sides of the gate and keep them into his dimension stone.


    Saleen had not considered getting rid of Bifano in the temple. His thought was simple; he wanted to take care of the matters regarding the temple first then deal with the other matterster. After that, he had to make a trip to Holy Rock City. Bifano could enter and exit the temple whenever he wished. Unless Bifano was harmful to him that was. If he was he could wait until his twenty-four lightning dragons evolved into flying dragons then he would return again. By then, even if Bifano had a sorcerer, he would not be afraid.


    If he evolved lightning dragons that could fly, they would not be restrained by the environment anymore. It did not matter whether they were in water or not. By then, it would be as though he had twenty-four grade-9 magic beasts as his hatchet men and every single one of these grade-9 magic beasts could release thunder and lightning. Even fighting against an oracle, they might not lose.


    Within ten minutes time, there were noisesing out from behind the gate. A small gate appeared on the big gate and there was a chain of fireballs that were shot from behind the small gate.


    The heavy infantrymen that were guarding by the side of the gate were wearing their armor and were holding their magic heavy shields while they stood there to block.


    The fireballs knocked into the magic heavy shields and ignited a heavy explosion with me flying all over. A few heavy infantrymen were sent flying by the Fireball spell, but they only experienced minor injuries. The magic shields were melted and dented, but they were not burned through.


    Bifano spent a lot of money on his heavy infantrymen¡¯s equipment. Unless it was a genuine grade-5 grand mage that released the grade-4 Fireball spell, a low level magic would be insufficient to burn through the heavy infantrymen¡¯s magic shields.


    Saleen saw and he was thrilled. The magic shields could be used like that too! It would be much easier if he were to cut metalized steel rock to make them into shield tes, the defence power would be two levels higher than the equipment that Bifano¡¯s soldiers had.


    It was very suspicious that Bifano promised to let him take the materials of the two walls. He had mages under him too and he naturally knew that it would be useful material to make into magic equipment. Bifano agreed without hesitation and there was definitely something fishy about it.


    Saleen was a mage that went through life and death situations and he was not dense. It was impossible that he could not guess what Bifano was thinking in his mind.


    The small gate was also about four meters high. It was referred to as a small gate due toparison with the twenty meter high big gate of the temple. Right after the mages inside released dozens of spells, there were calvarymen dashing out from inside. Awaiting them was clusters of crossbows.


    Crossbows were considered as expendable. The colleagues that had arrows shot through their armor were considered useless. It would be much cheaper than hiring a mage. Hundred of arrows flew out and the first batch of cavalrymen were all shot down.


    The small gate grew wider and there were infantrymen behind them. The infantrymen carriedrge shields. Unless it was crossbow that was medium sized or above, it would be hard to prate the shields.


    Saleen looked closely at the fight and realized that Bifano¡¯s regr army was much stronger than the pink army. Firstly, there was difference in level of soldiers. Although the pink army was strong among the robbers, the soldiers were normal low level swordsmen, hardly any swordmasters. Bifana¡¯s army was much more impressive. They had more high level swordsman and beginner swordmasters weremon too. To meet force to force, the result was that Bifano¡¯s heavy infantrymen pushed through into the small gate.


    The small gate the became a big gate. The width was bigger than six meters. There were war puppets behind it that were pushing two therge scale magic machines that Lex made through the gate.


    There was a sudden change in attack and defence. me bees and magic trebuchet started shooting right after they entered. There was a sea of fire in the za behind the gate.


    Bifano¡¯s soldiers were extremely disciplined. During the process when the heavy infantrymen pushed in, the crossbowmen followed closely behind to counterattack the enemy¡¯s archers and mages for the heavy infantrymen. The single pawn crossbow would not be able to hurt the mages, but it could break the mage¡¯s rhythm of casting magic. The process of counterattack was natural and smooth as though it was rehearsed a thousand times.


    Saleen¡¯s two magic chariots did not join the battle. Bifano¡¯s mages and the mages in the temple were equally matched so it would depend on the quality of their soldiers.


    Saleen originally thought the battle would go on for a very long time as the people in the temple were more in number than Bifano¡¯s soldiers after all. Before half an hour¡¯s time, the pink army¡¯s counter attack had copsed.


    Saleen was shocked. He did not know that it was because the higher ups within the pink army were already fighting internally. The marquis¡¯s few wives and children were fighting against each other. The legendary harmonious family was broken under pressure by the outsiders.


    There were twenty-four halls in the temple and Bifano¡¯s soldiers took one down after another. After the strong resistance in the first halls, it got easier and easier.


    Just when Bifano was smug with sess, a green shadow flew past him at incredible speed. The green figure broke through the gaps among Bifano¡¯s soldiers and when the soldiers swung their weapon, no one managed to hit the green figure.


    Saleen saw clearly that the green figure was a female mage and she looked beautiful. He shouted, ¡°J!¡±


    The female mage was injured, her face was full of anger and hopelessness. If it was not for those damn women¡¯s internal dissension, the counterattack at the big gate would not be broken up by the enemy so quickly. Everything was in aplete chaos. The dream, the family; those were all vanishing with the disappearance of the marquis. Those years of maintaining the pink army was just an illusion. He left and took everything away.


    The female mage¡¯s eyes welled up with tears. She was wearing a green bracelet on her hand that was giving out a gentle light that she was engulfed within. Within the green light, her speed was faster than any elerating magic, even faster than a grade-6 mage flying speed. The equipment that the marquis left was all very powerful.


    J chased after her on his horse. The green figure was getting further and further away, but Bain did not intend to help. Saleen did not want to let this woman run loose. The equipment this woman carried was definitely rted to the marquis.


    J saw that his pure blooded warhorse could not catch up to the female mage. He bent down to take a long crossbow and he took five feather arrows from the back of a swordmaster. His silver sword aura prated into the feather arrows and the carving at end of the arrow turned into dust.


    J did not need the tail feathers to bnce the arrow. The silver sword aura ran through the feather arrow and long crossbow, and formed a huge loop. A strong air explosive sounded and the five feather arrows flew out simultaneously.


    J loved to mix around with women, but ever since he followed Saleen, every beautiful women that he came across could not be touched. Although the female mage¡¯s age was older, her appearance could be considered outstanding. He could not bear killing her directly. One of the five leather arrows flew faster than the others and it circled back to fly towards the female mage.


    The female mage was suddenly obstructed. As she was severely injured she relied on the power of the bracelet entirely to defend herself. She would not even dare to block the arrow containing the sword aura even during her peak power. She stopped and the feather arrow fell right in front of her perpendicrly. The four other feather arrows arrived then and glided over her four limbs closely. The sword aura surged and shook her bones weak and her muscles numb. She fell onto the ground then.


    J chased on his horse and bent down to grab the female mage¡¯s belt and pull her up. The female mage bet on her life to move her magic chords, but J¡¯s sword aura seeped into her body and into her brain directly.


    The female mage suddenly felt like she was flying towards heaven like an immortal. She could not even feel her injuries anymore. Her whole body grew weaker and she lost her power to release any mental attack, let alone move her magic chords.


    ¡°Sword¡­¡± The female mage started to shout hoarsely, but could not struggle anymore. J carried her back to Saleen¡¯s magic chariot and left her right outside the carriage. He said, ¡°Master, I caught her.¡±


    J¡¯s chain of action could not be hidden from the mages in the magic chariots. Lex was deep in thoughts while the two female mages were looking at Saleen enviously.


    J caught her beautifully. Forget about the five arrows, thest trick that he used to bring the female mage under control was the legendary Sword Aura Sealing Spell.


    The Sword Aura Sealing Spell referred to when a swordmaster used their sword aura in vitro to seal the mental region in the mage¡¯s mind. That way the mage could not move their magic chords and would lose their fighting power entirely. The skill was a signature of a Gold Grand Swordmaster. A Silver Grand Swordmaster theoretically could cast it too, but it would require pointers from a Gold Grand Swordmaster. It would not be a Sealing spell, but murder otherwise.


    Not only could such skill be used on humans, magic beasts could also be controlled by the Sword Aura Sealing Spell. Although J was not a Gold Grand Swordmaster, he must have inherited something left behind by one. He would not be able to control a gray robed mage otherwise. With inheritance from a Gold Grand Swordmaster, J could definitely be a Gold Grand Swordmaster.


    Having a Gold Grand Swordmaster as follower, was every mages¡¯ dream.


    J¡¯s trick was beautifully pulled. The two female mages even developed a different kind of thought about him. It would be difficult for a female mage to marry someone, unless there was a male mage that would not risk his life for magic that was willing to marry them. Amoner would only revere a mage and how would they be courageous enough to marry one as their wife otherwise?


    Narnia had liked Saleen because Saleen had two beautifuldies by his side so he did not look like one that would contribute all his life to magic. In the end, Narnia realized that Lex also had a feelings for Saleen so she had to give up.


    A Gold Grand Swordmaster¡¯s life was very long and they could fly as well. They were not much different than a sorcerer. It would be great too to marry a Gold Grand Swordmaster! In the Qin Empire, there were at least a few hundred female mages that wanted to marry to Safilos.

 Chapter 480: Sword Aura Sealing Spell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 480: Sword Aura Sealing Spell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor was left on the magic chariot, but she was not panic stricken. She had seen various tricks pulled by the marquis, it was not as though she had never seen anything more magical than the Sword Aura Sealing spell. Years of painstaking work was ruined in a night and both her sons were killed in war, her running out from the tight encirclement was out of instinct. The moment she was caught by J, it was as though she let go of everything and was looking at her own body as a bystander.


    The carriage door was opened and Eleanor lifted up her head subconsciously. She saw a male mage in the carriage and five other charming beautifuldies. It tugged her heartstring when she saw the male mage was looking at her! If he was like the marquis, was she not¡­


    ¡°Master, she used transformation magic.¡± What Nailisi said shocked Eleanor. Her appearance was well hidden. When the marquis first saw her, he was immediately fascinated by her. How could she out of all his admirers be the official wife of the marquis otherwise?


    After marrying the marquis, he taught her transformation magic. Besides when she was with the marquis, no one else knew her original appearance.


    ¡°I am a little curious.¡± Saleen smiled maliciously as he saw a hint of fear in the female mage¡¯s eyes. Transformation magic was a very disturbing skill, but not true magic. Like Nailisi, she was born with it. There were some tribes that all were. This woman could master transformation skills so she could possibly be from one such tribe.


    Eleanor gritted her teeth and said, ¡°Don¡¯t ever think of taking anything from me.¡± Then, she pursed her lips tightly. She looked like she would rather die than submit.


    ¡°Is it transformation magic?¡± Saleen smiled and saidmandingly, ¡°Nailisi.¡±


    Nailisi stood up, walked to the side of the carriage, then bent down and waved her hands around. In a blink of an eye, the female mage¡¯s equipment was wiped away.


    ¡°Master, her underwear is very weird. It is enchanted. Should I take it down?¡± Nailisi caressed the body of the female mage evilly. Her hands had long finger nails that were sparkling like jade. Not many people could ever tell anything from the her hands, they would only find them beautiful. Eleanor could feel the menacing nature of Nailisi¡¯s hands though. The bracelet that the marquis gave her was almost one with her and it was impossible to remove it from her wrist, but the talldy casually rolled it and the bracelet that had not been taken down for a dozen years was sudenly taken away.


    Eleanor¡¯s lips were quivering and she suddenly scolded Saleen crassly, ¡°You shameless bastard, you call yourself a mage?¡±


    Saleen looked at her coldly and said, ¡°Because I am a mage, you can save the moral of themoners for yourself. As you are also a mage, I will not waste time then. Let me ask you, what do you have to offer in exchange for your freedom? If there isn¡¯t anything, I will treat you like a magic beast.¡±


    ¡°In exchange for freedom?¡± Eleanor was stunned. She never thought that what Saleen would ask for would be that. She thought Saleen would let her die more straightforwardly.


    ¡°I did not want to attack this temple, so you are considered lucky to have be my captive.¡± Saleen said calmly. He knew that as long as a human had hope, they would hardly be likely to give it up. He promised to give her freedom and the female mage definitely would not reject.


    Eleanor was in a daze for a very short period. When she fled from the main hall, those who attacked her were soldiers from Titan and the two garish carriages did not take any action. They did not participate in the siege against the pink army, so she believed in what Saleen said.


    ¡°What to offer in exchange for my freedom? The things that the marquis left behind were not hidden so the other of women would be able to find them, Bifaso will definitely find them too. I brought the most important thing with me, but it was already taken away by thedy with green eyes.¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡±


    ¡°Here¡¯s the contract.¡± Saleen threw out a scroll and itnded before Eleanor. Her mental power was sealed and she could not move her magic chords, but she could still move her limbs. She did not know when Saleen had gotten the contract ready. It was as though he knew all along that she would be captured and fall into his hands.


    ¡°If you give something that I am satisfied with, I will give you your freedom.¡± Saleen emphasised the word freedom again.


    With the contract in hand, Eleanor knew that Saleen would not go back on his word.


    ¡°I¡­¡± Eleanor was still hesitating. She did not know what to say. Saleen smiled and told Nailisi, ¡°Bring her in.¡±


    Although Bafino was busy givingmands to the army, the appearance of the female mage and her being captured by J was under his watch too. Saleen brought the female mage into the magic chariot and Bafino felt angry. That woman was important and Saleen was obviously trying to take advantage. The woman almost escaped just then. If it was not for J, he might not have been able to even capture her.


    Closing the door, Saleen said, ¡°Now only the people in the carriage can hear you, you may speak.¡±


    Eleanor did not hesitate anymore, the young mage might not be patient for long. She said, ¡°I know holy prose and I can teach it to you.¡±


    Saleen did not show it, but he was satisfied. In this world, there was almost no one who knew holy prose. Even the people in Holy See were learning it in fragmented pieces. It was said that only the pope could read holy prose and use divinenguage to cast a Divinity spell. The rest of the people, even the seven oracles, could only cast Divinity spells through prayers.


    The female mage knew holy prose and her origins were definitely not simple. Why would she be willing to be the leader of the pink army? It was not anything that secured a bright future.


    ¡°Okay, you teach me holy prose. Until I learn it, I will keep you with me.¡± Saleen said carefully. He raised his hands in the air and retrieved the scroll. He made amendments and threw it back to Eleanor again.


    Eleanor took the scroll, read the contract once and did not find any contract trap in it. She then bit her fingers with no hesitation and dripped her blood onto the contract while Saleen only left his spiritual imprint on it. The scroll was burnt into ash and it would be impossible for the both parties to go back on it.


    ¡°Let me introduce myself, I am Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor.¡± The female mage did not say her surname and Saleen did not ask.


    ¡°How long will it take to teach me?¡± A scream outside the carriage was deafening and the blood smell was so strong that it made one dizzy suddenly. Saleen chatted casually with Eleanor and Lex did not seem to be taking any action.The situation was under control. With me bees and the miniature trebuchet, the enemy had no power to counterattack anymore.


    Eleanor was stern. She knew that the pink army had already copsed, but the battle continued for so long because Bifano did not intend to hold anyone captive. In the very beginning one-thousand people who surrendered had been killed by Bifano¡¯s underlinings. Who else would dare to surrender then? Giving up their weapons led to death, not giving them up led to death as well. When a human was facing death, they would either give up struggling or fight back all they could.


    ¡°Bifano was already so brutal, these were obviously people that Bifano invited and they were definitely not any weaker than Bifano.¡±


    ¡°Holy prose is veryplicated. If you managed to pick it up quickly, it would require about two years time. If your ability to pick upnguage is normal, it might possibly go up to eight or ten years.¡± Eleanor did not hide the fact that she started learning holy prose when she was a child. She had not finish learning even before meeting the marquis. She knew that there was genius in the world that was extremely sensitive towardsnguage. Even if it was from a civilization that was lost, as long as there was information in magic that was left behind, a human could research about thenguage.


    ¡°I am still young, I¡¯m in no hurry.¡± Saleen smiled. It required such a long time to pick it up, so he had to protect Eleanor¡¯s safety as of then. That was not any good news. Eleanor could make up her mind to teach her enemy holy prose, that might not be because of such considerations.


    Even if he released Eleanor immediately, she had nowhere to go. Titan was in a mess and she lost the army she had under her. Although she was a grand mage, with no money, she could only be a robber. If she were to fall into the hands of tribunal, it would be scarier than entering hell with how beautiful she was.


    Lex looked at Saleen and kept quiet. If the secret in the main temple were to be found out by Eleanor, she could only kill her. Saleen promised to give the woman freedom, but she did not promise her anything. ¡°Saleen probably had that in mind. When did he suddenly grow up?¡±


    The massacre continued through the night. The space within the temple was extremely huge. Besides the five-thousand strong fighting power, there were the people¡¯s family members and ves that they held captive. Bifano was ruthless and he killed every one of them. As for Eleanor, Saleen held her captive and Bifano pretended that he did not see.


    Out of twenty-four halls, Saleen picked three. One of them was the core of the twenty-four halls. The measurement of the coordinates could be sent to the mages in Metatrin City for calction after measuring.


    Nailisi took one of the halls for herself and closed the gate tight. She prohibited anyone from entering.


    There was no one in the temple. Nailisi sat right at the center of the hall and looked around. She thought it looked like the ce that she was once held captive. Luckily, there was not any holy prose that sealed off dimensions and the summoning magic array could be easily built.


    Nailisi took out a piece of dimension stone. There was sufficient material in the dimension stone. She took out a magic pen and absorbed all the magic liquid. She then started drawing a summoning magic array on the ground. The first time she summoned, she did not want too many demons as it would be a situation that was too hard to control.


    Two loops of summoning arrays were drawn and in between the loops the demonnguage was written.


    Nailisi took out ten dead bodies from her dimension stone. She collected them in secret. There were too many dead bodies, Bifano had not finished managing them and he could not keep track of them. Bifano had no need to calcte anyway as he only need to make sure that there was no living enemy in the temple.


    After ten dead bodies were thrown into the summoning array, a small ck dot floated into the air and swirled around quickly. More floated up and the small dots that were floating spun in all different direction. The dead bodies that were thrown inside were ground into meat hash and poured into the summoning magic array. The red flesh and blood turned the ck demon writing to purple and they gave out fluorescent light.


    Nailisi continued throwing dead bodies until about a hundred were thrown in, the summoning array was lit up entirely.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that difficult.¡± Nailisi smiled to herself. As a demon, summoning a demon was very easy. The only troublesome part were the coordinates. As long as the bones did not fool her, she would be sessful her first time.

 Chapter 481: Luoluokaluo (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 481: Luoluokaluo (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After the summoning magic array lit up, the entire hall was colored blood red. Nailisi took out a pile of magic nuclei carefully and crushed them into pieces. Magic nuclei were crystal structured. Although they were slightly fragile, they were more solid than stainless steel. If anyone were to see Nailisi break the magic nuclei with her bare hands, they would definitely mistake her for a silver grand swordmaster.


    The magic nucleus powder was blended into the summoning array. Under the function of the demonnguage, it gave out a disturbing fragrance. The fragrance was intertwined with the smell of blood and it became extremely tempting. Even a human would be fascinated with the smell.


    The six high level magic nuclei iid in the magic array quickly became dull. At the core of the summoning array, the dimension was twisting intensely. The blood smell was suddenly much stronger and there were four tall figures that appeared at the core of the summoning array.


    Hong!


    The air explosion sound reverberated in the hall. One of the ck figure lifted its head and showed its face that was covered in magic patterns.


    The appearance of the demon was close to a human, but its body was slim while it was still about two and a half meters tall. It was wearing a leather skirt and a pair of metal wrist bands. It obviously was a high level demon that had intelligence. Its face was peacock blue with a hint of green. It was covered in spikes near its ears. Its ears were bigger than a humans and moved around flexibly.


    On top of the demon¡¯s head, there was a pair of short horns. The horns were not bent, they were more like two spurs that were long and ck.


    It took one step forward and walked out of the magic array. It looked around and finally saw Nailisi.


    ¡°Human, where is my sacrificial offerings? I smelled the scent of blood.¡± The demon opened its mouth and showed its sharp teeth. It licked hits saliva that was already dripping onto its chin.


    ¡°Sacrificial offering?¡± Nailisi smiled maliciously and beckoned the demon, ¡°Come here.¡±


    The demon saw Nailisi contemptuous behavior. It was angered and he took a huge stride toe before Nailisi. Humankind had not appeared in the demon dimension for the past ten-thousand years. In the recent thousand of years, there were dangerous rumors going around about the demon dimension, but reliable sources certified that humankind hade down in the world and they did not own power anymore.


    Many demons that were summoned could do as they wished. In the recent thousand years, there were hardly any demons that were summoned. It thought it was lucky that it coulde to the current dimension to fill its stomach without risking anything.


    Nailisi raised her hand andnded a punch right into the demon¡¯s stomach. The power of that one punch was more than what the demon had expected. It bent down stiffly and it could not step back to unload the force.


    Nailisi took half a step forward and stepped onto the demon¡¯s foot. Her two horns suddenly popped up from the top of her head and she knocked against the demon¡¯s chest. The demon¡¯s chest was immediately punctured with two holes.


    ¡°Imp!¡± The demon was shocked and angry. It was shocked because it was summoned to the human dimension by an imp. It was angry because it was hurt by an imp. Its fresh blue blood was oozing out and Nailisi opened her mouth to the point where her face changed shape. She opened her mouth to about half a meter wide and caught all the demon¡¯s fresh blood in it.


    The demon was dissatisfied in being captured with no resistance. Although it lost its first chance, its enemy was just an imp and she dared to vite the demon¡¯s dignity. She should die!


    The demon hugged Nailisi with both its arms and gave out a dark scent. Weaken space, was its gifted skill. ¡°No matter how powerful the imp is, she will be crushed into pieces after weakening.¡±


    The demon was daydreaming while Nailisi had lightning glistening all over her body. The ck scent met the blue electric current and immediately vanished. The electric current seeped under the demon¡¯s skin and its bones were softened all of a sudden.


    Nailisi raised her hand to grab one of the demon¡¯s horns and pull it down. The demon was then kneeling before her.


    ¡°Submit to me or you die!¡± Nailisi¡¯s green eyes were glistening with gold rays. The demon that was caught seemed to recall something as its eyes sparkled.


    ¡°I will give you twelve sands time. Don¡¯t think anymore, I am Luoluokaluo!¡± Nailisi spoke in the demonnguage as she dug her nails into the demon¡¯s skull. The demon was crushed by the electric current and its body would not recover in that instance. Its gifted skill was useless before Nailisi and it suddenly admitted defeat.


    ¡°Your Honor, don¡¯t kill me, I will listen to you!¡± Sands time was the method that demons used to calcte time, twelve was equivalent to six seconds. Why would the demon dare to continue considering. If it were to believe in what the other demon said, it was asking for death by hesitating. Nailisi said she would give him twelve sands time, but her nails had already scratched a streak in its head almost reaching its brain.


    Although the summoning array summoned four demons at the same time, every demon had to go through the summon array toe over to the current dimension one by one and each required sixty sands time. Nailisi brought the demon under control swiftly so that it could help her to deal with the demon that wasing out next.


    ¡°Humph.¡± Nailisi did not continue to dig with her nails, but quickly drew a contract symbol on top of the demon¡¯s head. The contract symbols were covered in blood and it reached deep beyond its skull.


    A strong mental power seeped through, but the demon did not struggle. The contract symbol was glistening and it disappeared into the wound.


    Nailisi swung the demon off. Then, she opened a scroll with Chunlin spell and threw it to the demon. The demon was not a darkness creature, it was not spirit of the dead either, so the Chunlin spell effectively recovered part of the demon¡¯s stamina and the muscle that was attacked by the electric current was recovered too.


    That moment, the second demon happened to walk out of the transportation portal.


    The demon¡¯s body was bulky and its height was simr to the first demon, but it weighed three times more. Its body had no scales, but it was fair and fat. Besides its face that was dark in color with glimmer of blue light, it looked like a human butcher. Its upper body was naked and it was wearing a full metal armor.


    Humans would not make such armor. Only demons would have such strength to waste.


    It took a nce at the demon kneeling before Nailisi and it hesitated. It walked towards Nailisi and knelt down too. Nailisi smiled faintly and walked towards the fat demon. She raised her hands and wanted to write contract symbols on top of its head. Then, the demon smiled maliciously. Nailisi poked her finger into its forehead and there were ripples. It turned out to be an illusion.


    The real body of the fat demon immediately popped up behind Nailisi and it hugged her tightly. ¡°This female, has good ability to bear babies! I have to capture her and make her my wife!¡±


    Nailisi kicked backwards and hit urately at the fat demon¡¯s lower body. The fat demon was wearing a half body metal armor, below its groin there was a sharp metal spike. Nailisi kicked onto the metal spike and the spike caved in that instance.


    The fat demon cried in pain and it jumped. Nailisi turned around and released a Death Ash spell from the scroll toward the demon that jumped six meters high.


    It was a grade-6 scroll. Its rarity surpassed a grade-9 scroll, but Nailisi did not hesitate.


    Dark and ground restorative magic urately hit the unlucky demon and the metal armor turned into ash in an instant. Even the demon¡¯s skin was peeled off by ayer and it was covered in blood. It was gifted unusually that its resistance towards magic was extremely high. It could have died otherwise.


    It still wanted to struggle, but the instant itnded on the ground, the other demon who was brought under Nailisi¡¯s control wanted to show its loyalty. It came forward to step on its the fat demon¡¯s thighs. The demon bent down andnded a heavy punch on its ear. If Nailisi was a human, it would not be making an active effort. As they were all of the demon bloodline, it knew deep down that if it did not show its loyalty, it might be killed by Nailisiter on.


    The third demon dashed out from the magic array. It saw the situation before his eyes and ran directly at Nailisi.


    ¡°Block it!¡± Nailisi said and knocked into the fat demon¡¯s throat heavily with her knees. The demon that was brought under control turned around and ran towards the third demon. Nailisi drew a contract symbol on the fat demon¡¯s forehead calmly.


    The sound of continuous strikes could be heard. The two other demons were entangled while exchanging punches and kicks. The ground cracked into a pattern of a chrysanthemum. The tough steel rocks shattered during the two demon¡¯s fist fight.


    Nailisi rolled out another Chunlin spell scroll to heal the fat demon. The demon was severely injured though. Itid on the ground like a dead snake without moving an inch.


    Nailisi turned around and ran towards the third demon that walked out from the summoning array.


    The demon appeared and immediately understood the situation, so it wanted to kill Nailisi. The summoning array itself had very minor restraint towards a demon, but a normal mage did not know that. That was why they would often be cheated by demons. When the third demon saw that there was one of their kind that was helping the human to bring the fat demon under control, it realized that the situation was not indifferent.


    It underestimated Nailisi¡¯s ability though. Nailisi was giving out electric rays all over. Her body again, looking like a sea of blue. The third demon¡¯s body was the tallest among them all and its arms were full of spurs. It wore metal armor that had a delicate pattern on it. It might be one of the supreme demon¡¯s underlinings back in the demon dimension. It saw that Nailisi was covered in electric current and it dared not attack her with its fist, but there was suddenly a short spear in its hands and it stabbed it towards Nailisi.


    Nailisi had learned a fair bit of sword craft skill from J recently. With one step, the short spear glided over her face as Nailisi¡¯s dragon teeth dagger stabbed into the third demon¡¯s metal armor.


    The diago giant dragon¡¯s cold aura seeped into the demon¡¯s body and made its action stiff and rigid. Nailisi removed the dagger then jumped and sat on the demon¡¯s shoulder. Her tail appeared from behind and wrapped around the demon¡¯s neck then its sharp tip poked into the demon¡¯s eyelid.


    Even though it was not frozen, the demon dared not struggle. Nailisi seized hold on the demon¡¯s long horns while she drew a contract symbol on the demon¡¯s forehead.


    Then, the fourth demon finally walked out of the summoning magic array. It was about eight meters tall with a pair of wings on its back. Unlike most of the demon¡¯s that were packed with muscles, it was slim. The demon was carrying shield on its left and sword on its right. The long sword was about six meters long and there was no shine at all on the de.


    Once the demon appeared, both of its eyes were immediately drawn towards Nailisi.


    ¡°Great devil, is this an adult Luoluokaluo?¡±

 Chapter 482: Luoluokaluo (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 482: Luoluokaluo (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi looked at the tall demon with her green eyes coldly and she felt oddly nervous. The body shape of the demon was definitely one of the highest level demon. Just like there was Luoluokaluo among imps and there would be strong bloodlines among demons too. Once they had grown up to adults, they would be able to fight against a supreme demon.


    Although there were four levels in the demon dimension, the power of each level was not equal. Nailisi summoned four demons and the fighting power of the four were very different.


    The first demon had strong strength and a darkness weakening skill. If Nailisi did not have thunder lightning protection that could eliminate some magic of the parallel level, her powerful strength like a giant dragon might not be the demon¡¯s match.


    The second demon was cunning and treacherous. Its real fighting power was above the first demon, but it survived by relying on schemes and intrigues. Nailisi did not even manage to see through its illusion magic. If it did not intend to counter attack, but to escape, Nailisi might not have been able to keep it.


    The third demon had the weakest fighting power of them all. Compared to the two previous demons, it was good at countless weapons and itsbat power was outstanding, but it did not possess strong magic power. Its resistance towards magic was extremely low. When such a demon fought against human warriors, they were more powerful though. Nailisi¡¯s dragon tooth dagger only managed to tear its skin. If there was not the diago dragon¡¯s ice cool power too, it would have been difficult to suppress it.


    This was thest demon. Its whole body was giving out a strong aura. Even if the three demons beforebined together, they might not be his match.


    Nailisi originally nned to first summon four demons and bring them under control. She then would rely on the four demon to sign more contracts with more demons. If she could control twenty-four demons, at the very end she could try to summon a supreme demon as her underlining. Even if her twenty-four demons were wiped out, it would be worth it.


    She had never expected that the fourth demon would be almost as strong as a supreme demon.


    The eight meter tall demon walked towards Nailisi and Nailisi tried to not move an inch. The demon that she brought under control the earliest stood in front of her courageously, but it was so nervous that it felt its heart pumping. It blocked before Nailisi and looked up at the bigger demon.


    The demon swung its hand and the demon was pped away and knocked into the temple¡¯s wall. The wall suddenly cracked and a piece of broken stone fell.


    Poof¡­


    The demon spurted blue blood and its blood dripped on the ground. It corroded a small hole on the steel rock.


    After the tall demon pped the first demon away, it suddenlyid prostrate and put its forehead to the ground. It then said to Nailisi, ¡°Your honor, please allow me to follow you, to take over this world.


    Then, the demon took out a piece of broken skin with a magic pattern on it. He carried it in his palm and raised it up before Nailisi politely.


    ¡°Why do you want to sign a contract with me?¡± Nailisi looked at the strong demon with her pair of green eyes.


    ¡°Your honor, have you not heard about the rumors in demon dimension?¡±


    ¡°I left the demon dimension a very long time ago.¡± Nailisi said.


    ¡°A Luoluokaluo in a different dimension, will have pure human blood. The four devils will summoned, sunlight was cast upon demon maind. Ten-thousand years of waiting, concludes the flower of purgatory¡­¡±


    ¡°Stop reciting. Just tell me, how does it rte to me?¡± Nailisi stopped the demon from reciting the poem. Demons and humans shared a simrity; their knowledge and history would need to be passed down verbally and written into poems. The demonnguage was tooplicated, so when it was recited, it would be ornate and lengthy.


    ¡°Your Honor, on the demon maind, every strong demon has heard about the legend. When the demon dimension was gradually sealed off, they say there would be a day that a strong Luoluokaluo opens a pathway between the human dimension and demon dimension forcefully. It will summon four strong supreme demons to go into battle in the human dimension, to build a demon kingdom. You can control the power of thunder and lightning, I think the poem was referring to you, your honor.¡±


    ¡± Strong? I can¡¯t even fight against you.¡± Nailisiughed coldly. She did not believe what the demon said even though the demon wasying prostrate before her, looking incredible polite.


    ¡°You have yet to inaugurate half of your strength and you already can control thunder and lightning. Your Honor, please believe in my loyalty.¡± The demon said scrupulously.


    ¡°Even then, the four of you wouldn¡¯t match the name of devils, would you?¡±


    Nailisi did not take over the piece of skin. The skin was condensed with the demon¡¯s mental strength, it had a spiritual imprint. Once Nailisi left her spiritual imprint on it, the contract between the two demon would be formed.


    A devil was not a god. It was just a name to call the strong in the demon dimension. Long ago, demons that followed humankind into battle, those who were over grade-9 would be given the name of devil. Not only was a devil¡¯s power strong, it also had a strong spirit that dared to face God directly. When demons reached that state, they could be like a human and learn the element magic. A normal demon, even if it was a supreme demon, would fight relying on their gifted magic fighting power. It would be difficult for them to pick up more skills.


    The four demons that Nailisi had summoned could not fight against God. Once God appeared, they would feel weak and be on the ground with no intention of resisting.


    ¡°Your Honor, Luoluokaluo can give us more growing space. If you would allow us to, we will eventually evolve into supreme demons.¡±


    ¡°Such thing can happen? Great.¡± Nailisi smiled and took over the piece of skin that was in the demon¡¯s hand, she left her spiritual imprint on it.


    ¡°Ha¡­.Hahaha!¡± The demonughed creepily and slowly stood up. It said to Nailisi, ¡°Little one, I didn¡¯t expect you to be easily cheated.¡±


    ¡°You! What did you do?!¡± Nailisi covered her head and started panicking.


    ¡°Nothing, just a soul bond. Of course, whoever that has stronger soul, will be in charge. If you had already gotten eight types of skills, I would flee immediately but you don¡¯t even have half, right?¡±


    ¡°If you are much stronger than me, why did you want to lie to me?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s easy to kill you, but it would be difficult to stay in this dimension if I did. I finally came here and I don¡¯t feel like going back just yet. You listen to me obediently, summon more demons for me and I¡¯ll spare your life.¡±


    ¡°If I were to refuse?¡±


    ¡°Then¡­ Ah!¡± The tall demon was twitching all over. It tried to attack Nailisi¡¯s soul and realized that his own soul tingled and it jerked in quick spasms as itid down again.


    Nailisi smiled and raised her leg. She then kicked at its nose brutally.


    It cried out in pain, the demon¡¯s nose was broken with Nailisi¡¯s kick and fresh blood was dripping.


    ¡°Whoever has stronger soul, we¡¯ll follow, right? Little one? When I was born, your ancestor was just a magic bug.¡± Nailisi had yet to feel better so she kicked again at the demon¡¯s eyes.


    It moaned in pain and covered its face and eyes, but it still teared up from Nailisi¡¯s kicks. Nailisi held the two long horns of the demon and let the electric current run through her hands into the demon¡¯s brains. The demon lost control of all its muscles and it was in great pain. Its body was twitching uncontrobly form the electric current.


    ¡°Impossible, you¡¯re just an imp!¡±


    ¡°I already have a master that hads a strong soul. My master has some summoned creatures that have strong souls too. You have to be stronger than all of usbined. Is a purgatory demon¡¯s soul really stronger than Luoluokaluo anyway?¡±


    As Nailisi spoke, she held on the demon¡¯s ears. She poked her finger through its earlobe and tore it. She tore a big opening on the demon¡¯s ear.


    ¡°Although you offended me, as my first ve, I will award you.¡± Nailisi spoke and attatched the bracelet that she took from Eleanor into the demon¡¯s wound on its ear. The demon¡¯s wound healed very quickly and the bracelet was attached to its ear like an earring.


    The other three demons were almost fully recovered and they were looking at how Nailisi was dealing with the strong demon cautiously. They were d that they did not resist Nailisi further.


    ¡± Come here, the three of you.¡± Nailisi gave out an order and the three demons walked over quietly.


    ¡°Take off your pants, let me see if you are male or female.¡± Nailisi was arrogant and dominant. The demons dared not go against her order and took off their pants.


    ¡°Bastards. None of you are female!¡± Nailisi was angry. She took in a bunch of male demons, would Saleen be angry? She suddenly had an idea.


    Nailisi turned around and caught the long horns of the demon that was on the ground. The purple magic pattern on its body glistened and extended to about ten a meter range to engulf the tall demon within it.


    The purple magic pattern constantly shrunk. While the magic pattern shrunk tighter, the tall demon¡¯s body shrunk too.


    ¡°The ultimate shapeshifting skill!¡± The fat demon was shocked. It then believed that Nailisi was the purest of the bloodline of Luoluokaluo. Only they could change the shape of all living things.


    The unlucky demon turned into a human woman gradually under Nailisi¡¯s control. Its armor was not made by magic, so when it shrunk to be slightly shorter than Nailisi, it was entirely naked. His male genital naturally disappeared and became a hairy mound just like a human woman.


    Although it was not considered castration, it would not be able to return to its original state without Nailisi¡¯s approval.


    ¡°M-m-m-master¡­¡± The fat demon quivered in fear while he called her. It was the womaniser among them. It would rather die than be turn into a female.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t, I will turn you into a magic bug, the kind of magic bug that is hermaphroditic.¡± Nailisi showed her teeth and threatened it.


    ¡°Master, I will do whatever you please!¡± The very first demon that was brought under control stood before Nailisi with no hesitation. The ultimate shapeshifting skill was not a joke. If one turned into a hermaphrodite magic bug, they would be constantly bothered by single gender magic bugs. If Nailisi threw them back to demon dimension, dealing with a big bunch of magic bugs that were in heat, they would bepletely ruined.


    ¡°Mm, good. All of youe together. It¡¯s very quick and painless.¡± Nailisi threatened the other two demons to stand closer and cast the ultimate shapeshifting skill again. Very quickly, there were another four naked beauties in the temple and everyone of them looked upset.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know how to smile?¡± Nailisi¡¯s face changed.


    ¡°Smile? Ha, Ha¡­ Master, you see, haha¡­¡± The four demons smiled sadly, they had never thought that the consequence that was awaiting them in the dimension that they fought to enter would be this.

 Chapter 483: Conflict (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 483: Conflict (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The four demons could not smile. Any male that came across such a matter would not be able to smile.


    Nailisi tried again and again, but the four demons still looked sad. She said helplessly, ¡°All of you, think about the good side. I turned all of you into such to avoid the humans discovering your identities. It has been a while since any demons appeared in this dimension. Once there are any human that discovered that you are demons, you will be captured for experimentation or killed. That is the alternative.¡±


    The four demons¡¯ eyes were welled up with tears when they looked at Nailisi.


    ¡°I¡¯ll ask my master to make you magic blood agent. How about that?¡±


    The four demons¡¯ eyes were suddenly brightened. Magic blood agent was very precious in the demon dimension, it could help demons evolve. Material for such agent was not expensive, but the rate of sess to make it was very low. There were very few that were good at medicament and at the same time good at magic. Only the King of the strong demons had such a talents to make the agent.


    ¡°If you are still dissatisfied, I will look for humans to rape all of you!¡± Nailisi was impatient.


    ¡°Master, we are very happy with this.¡± The fourth demon said. Although they smiled, it was forced. They did not continue to tear up though.


    ¡°That¡¯s right. We do not have enough material now.¡± Nailisi looked at the summoning magic array that had almost disappeared in annoyance. That summoning array that was interdimensional expended mostly high level magic nuclei. There were limited high level magic nuclei in Saleen¡¯s hands and he was saving them to be used when he became a sorcerer. Nailisi used some of them in secret, she wondered if Saleen would be angry.


    There were many cracks on the ground and wall of the temple. When the few demons were fighting, the mess that they had caused was not small. Nailisi did not know recovery magic, but she could take out a low level magic scroll and release a Cleaning spell to clean all the blood stains and remains off the magic array.


    ¡°The four of you must have human names. You, the strongest, will be called Tracy.¡± Nailisi pointed at the demon with the earring. It was the strongest among all four demons.


    The other three demons were going tough, but Nailisi already pointed at each and everyone of them and gave them a name.


    The demon who was good at using weapons was L, the fat demon was called Trisha and the powerful demon was called Eva. The three demon then realized that under Nailisi, their fate would be the same.


    Nailisi took out four sets of women¡¯s clothes and made the four demon put them on. Although the four demons were not happy to wear women¡¯s clothing it was better than being naked. Nailisi kept their armor and weapon and started to prepare for the next step.


    Saleen was taking a break in the hall as he had nothing better to do. After bringing Eleanor under control, he seized the oportunity to learn holy prose while Lex built a temporary transportation portal to send a copy of the date over to Metatrin City. That way the mages in Metatrin could proceed with calction of the next temple¡¯s coordinates.


    Nailisi asked for a hall, but Saleen had no idea what she was nning to do with it. He was the only one that could hear the noises in the hall. He thought Nailisi evolved some kind of skill and was in training.


    Three days time passed in a blink of an eye. Bifano searched through the entire temple, but he did not manage to find the secret that the marquis had left behind.


    That made him panic. If there was not a secret skill to train magic and fighting skill simultaneously, he would be a sword master that had no future. The soldiers under his control persuaded him, ¡°Master, the pink army¡¯s leader was caught by the mage. I think, what you¡¯re looking for is with her. Why don¡¯t we ask for¡­¡±


    Bifano replied grumpily, ¡°That pathway has been closed. I have yet to find the keys to open the pathway. If I were to take action and if they were to give their all, the key would be ruined and none of us could even leave.¡±


    When Bifano spoke, he wanted to p his own mouth. If he would sacrifice a few hundred soldiers, he still could capture Eleanor. The key to unlock the pathway was definitely in Eleanor¡¯s hands. Now that it was taken by Saleen, the temple was not considered his anymore.


    If he were to go against Lex, it equalled to trapping himself in the temple. The temple was not too shabby and it could contain ten-thousand people without cramping up the ce. It could also storerge amounts of food, gold coins, machinery, and clean drinking water. The problem was, how could he leave if he did not have the key?


    In the middle of the temple, Eleanor wasmunicating with Saleen through holy prose.


    ¡°I realized that when your name is read in holy prose, it seems to be more suitable. Is it that you have a god¡¯s bloodline?¡± Saleen asked Eleanor curiously.


    ¡°Of course not. The earliest era for gods had no words and everything was passed down relying on memory entirely.¡±


    ¡°You are not a human, are you?¡± Saleen asked casually.


    Eleanor hesitated then nodded. Saleen¡¯s female servant could tell that she used the shapeshifting skill with one nce. She might have the power to recover her original appearance too. She realized that it was easier tomunicate with Saleen as long as she did not try to lie to him.


    ¡°What is the temple¡¯s key?¡±


    Eleanor took out a ring from her mouth. Saleen recognized it in an instant. It was one of the Ring of Gifts that the Goddess made long ago, but the level of her ring might not be as high as the one he had. The inner side of the ring had no holy prose carvings and the one that he gave to Sika had twenty four verses of holy prose carved in the inner side of the ring. It could form four sets of Divinity spells and semi Divinity spells.


    Saleen took over Eleanor¡¯s Ring of Gifts and said, ¡°I can¡¯t give this back to you. If we want to leave here, we have to pass this to Bifano.¡±


    Eleanor said lightly, ¡°My life is in your hands, what do I need this ring for?¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°You teach me the way to swallow the ring and I¡¯ll give you equipment aspensation.¡±


    The Ring of Gifts itself had spatial ability, Eleanor¡¯s level could use spatial equipment too. The Ring of Gifts besides could be used as a key to enter the temple, it had no other powers. Saleen gave her a spatial equipment naturally considered as equalpensation.


    Eleanor was stunned as she did not expect Saleen was an easy person to talk to. She then said, ¡°This is a power of my bloodline. You are not of my tribe, you won¡¯t be able to learn this.¡±


    ¡°Then, forget it.¡± Saleen kept her Ring of Gifts and took out a spatial bracelet. ¡°This is for you. Your things were taken away by Nailisi and I won¡¯t be able to ask them back. You try to teach me more things, I will pay my tuition fees.¡±


    ¡°If you help me to kill Bifano, I¡¯ll tell you another temple¡¯s location.¡± Eleanor took over the bracelet and suddenly stated her demand.


    ¡°You must be kidding. He has five-thousand soldiers and we have less than twenty of us.¡± Saleen seemed like he would reject Eleanor, but what he actually meant was that ¡°I can¡¯t win against him now. If I could, it would be a great deal.¡±


    ¡°Kill him, I am willing to pay an equivalent price!¡± Eleanor understood what Saleen meant and obviously one temple¡¯s location did not move Saleen.


    ¡°Then you have to tell me what tribe you are.¡±


    Eleanor kept quiet while Saleen looked at her attentively. There was nothing that could be presumed from his expression.


    ¡°Why do you want to know?¡± Eleanor asked.


    ¡°I am a little curious. Regarding the fall of this ce, I am partially responsible too. Why do you hate Bifano so much over me?¡±


    ¡°Without you, he would still attack here. Of course you knew that he was well prepared and extremely familiar with thendforms in the swamp. Between you and him, there was only a hiring rtionship. If it wasn¡¯t for Bifano, my family wouldn¡¯t have died here.¡± Eleanor sounded as calm as Saleen, but Saleen knew that she hated Bifano to his bones.


    ¡°Mm, understandable. Killing him is a troublesome matter though. I am only interested in your tribe¡¯s special skills. About magic, what you can teach me is very limited.¡±


    Saleen had been learning holy prose from Eleanor for three days and theymunicated a lot. He roughly knew the level of the female mage. Eleanor knew a lot of thugs and Saleen did not know anything but magic, Saleen¡¯s skills were way past Eleanor in magic.


    Eleanor took a nce at Sika who was not far away, she was learning fighting skills from J. Her fighting skill wasparably more coarse. If she was not supported by her strength, she would never be J¡¯s match.


    ¡°J is my follower. Sika, is the one I trust the most.¡± Saleen told Eleanor.


    ¡°I came from the elf dimension.¡± Eleanor said as she observed Saleen¡¯s expression.


    ¡°Oh.¡± Saleen nodded. It was close to what he had guessed. Back during the time when humans and gods fought, every dimension was tightly knitted. The elf dimension was once the human¡¯s allies. In the end, elves betrayed humans. When the time passed, humans could not find an elf that was alive. The legend said the elf dimension was destroyed by God and there were rumors that said the dimension was transformed by God and could not be entered anymore.


    ¡°I can teach you elf magic, it is naturally a branch of magic. It is very simr to the Goddess of Myers¡¯ Divinity spells.¡±


    ¡°Branch? Is it that the Goddess had believers in the elf dimension too?¡±


    ¡°Yes, the goddess of Myers was not only a god on this maind.¡±


    Saleen thought this through thoroughly. He heard that the elves¡¯ lifespans were very long and the natural magic that Eleanor knew did not require magic chords, but mental power. This was an alright deal but¡­..¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, it¡¯s difficult to kill Bifano now. Do you need a deadline?¡±


    Saleen had made up his mind. If it seeded, he could return in secret after he left Holy Rock city. He could enter the temple as he wished and it would not be difficult for him to frame Bifano.


    ¡°I¡¯m in no hurry. Whenever you kill Bifano, I¡¯ll pass you the natural magic.¡±


    There was a sudden noise from outside. Saleen eye signalled J and J went to the hall. He returned after a while and told Saleen, ¡°Master, Bifano has some soldiers missing.¡±


    ¡°Missing?¡± Saleen felt suspicious. The space in the temple was fully enclosed, it could possibly be thousands of meters deep in the ground. In such an enclosed space, how could there be someone missing?


    ¡°Master, those soldiers wanted to search here.¡± J reminded Saleen. The noise outside earlier was because Bifano¡¯s soldiers and Lex¡¯s swordmaster had some conflict and there were a few people that were injured by Wild Bear.

 Chapter 484: Conflict (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 484: Conflict (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let them search then.¡± Saleen was innocent as he had been learning from Eleanor for the past few days and he had no time for Bifano.


    ¡°Master, would it be Nailisi¡­?¡± J reminded Saleen again. He knew that he could not mess with Nailisi and she could pull more powerful schemes, but Nailisi wanted her own hall. She must be having some sort of secret transaction. The soldiers missing might be rted to her.


    Saleen creased his eyebrows and told J, ¡°Open the door!¡±


    He could faintly feel something was not right. If it was Nailisi¡¯s doing, he had to immediately take action against Bifano. Five thousand soldiers could not be dealt with easily. Most importantly, killing Bifano meant offending the Agares family. Although Cloudflow wanted to take back the power of the Agares family, there were some things that could never be taken back.


    In Fire Dance City, Saleen had already understood that concept.


    Even if Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City was destroyed, the only thing was that he would have major losses. There was support from Sregl Ind behind him and Saleen could rebuild his empire.


    Behind the Agares family, there must be some figure with simr power.


    Saleen wanted to solve some issues in Holy Rock City and return after. When he moved around outside, he might run into other members of the Agares family. It had to be done in secret. If Nailisi were to touch any of Bifano¡¯s people though, Saleen would not retreat regardless.


    J pushed open the door alone and there were two-hundred soldiers lining up in order outside the door, it was a big troop. These soldiers were fully armed and they were the most annoying shieldmen. Their magic shields could block against the attacks of low level magic. The previous battle, Saleen could see clearly that Bifano spent a lot of time and effort to deal with mages.


    ¡°Who¡¯s the Lieutenant?!¡± J was familiar with Cloudflow and Titan¡¯s army hierarchy, the captain was called a Lieutenant.


    ¡°Your Honor¡­¡± a low level military officer walked forward.


    J cut him off and said, ¡°This side of the temple belongs to my master. I do not know what attitude you Titans practice towards mages, but let me tell you, you can bring your people to search around inside. If they¡¯re here, it will naturally be solved by my master and your small duke. If you can¡¯t find anything, all of you will stay here and part with your heads. Please enter.¡±


    J then stood by the side and beckoned politely.


    What he said was illogical. If they found the missing soldiers in Saleen¡¯s hall, Saleen would yield to Bifano. If they did not, the soldiers would all die. Of course, it was not what Saleen told J what to say. J was only following Cloudflow¡¯s rules and trying to scare off the normal soldiers.


    The captain suddenly looked embarrassed. They did not prevent them from searching, but if they wanted to search, they had to pay a price. He saw J¡¯s action, but a Swordmaster who shot five arrows and brought a grand mage under control straightaway was definitely not one that he could win against. The two-hundred people behindbined, might not be able to win against J. There were another two grand mages in the hall as well.


    If he were to turn around to get more people, that would be different from what was incited by the small duke and it would really piss the young mage off. Coincidently, Saleen had his back turned to the entrance when he sat right in the middle of the hall that was empty as he continued to speak with Eleanor. He did not even turn around. He realized that ever since he had followers, it had been much easier to deal with these sort of issues. Whatever J had said, he could not be bothered to tell the soldiers, but J could.


    It was an undernourished conversation, and a naked threat.


    The captain gritted his teeth and bowed lightly at J as he said, ¡°Thank you.¡± Then, he waved and the soldiers behind him walked towards the main entrance immediately. J did not stop them, but looked at the soldiers and smiled coldly.


    Saleen had spatial equipment. Even if he had killed a few people, he could hide the dead bodies. They would not be able to find anything in the hall. The soldiers came in anyway though. After searching the ce, would they resign themselves to defeat and let Saleen ughter them? Bifano was a little too confident.


    Although J was not a mage, his hearing was extremely good. There was a soft voice from the captain¡¯s helmet, he obviously had received Bifano¡¯s orders.


    Although the space in the hall was not small, Saleen threw everything out and it was empty. The two-hundred soldiers had finished searching within ten minutes and they of course could not find anything.


    The two-hundred shieldmen turned around and looked, J was holding his sword, guarding the main entrance. He obviously did not intend to let them leave.


    ¡°Mister mage, we are¡­¡± Lieutenant that led them came before Saleen and wanted to talk to the young mage. Saleen raised his eyes to look at him and cut him off.


    ¡°I understand, don¡¯t worry. All of you will die without suffering.¡± When Saleen finished speaking, the entire hall became heavy with ck fog and the magic array on the ground that was activated could be roughly seen. Where Saleen sat was exactly the core of the magic array.


    Bifano brought many people and in the enclosed space, how could Saleen not make preparation beforehand? It was a low level magic; poisonous fog. It was not damaging, but the range was wide and the duration time was very long. Casting this magic at such space was terrifying.


    J left the hall and closed the door. Engulfed in the poisonous fog, he would not be hurt, but it would expend his sword aura.


    Eleanor looked at Saleen in shock. She was a grand mage and poisonous fog would not hurt her. She was able to see everything clearly in the fog. Saleen was still smiling as he took action to kill. The young mage was serious when he made a decision to kill.


    Sika pouted as she walked towards Saleen and took a seat next to him. The poisonous fog could not go near. It surrounded her body and formed a clear space.


    ¡°You really have to kill so many people for Nailisi?¡± Sika asked unhappily.


    ¡°What would you do if you were me?¡± Saleen asked.


    Sika thought about it, but did not say much. If she were to make a choice, she would have done almost the same thing, but not as brutally as Saleen. Nailisi was one of them after all, Bifano¡¯s underlings came in arge number and they probably had no good intention.


    Among the poisonous fog, the intive cries reverberated in the hall. Some low military ranking officers who were swordmasters had yet to be poisoned, but they could not see in the fog and could only swing their double ded swords at Saleen¡¯s direction ording to their memory.


    A high level swordsmen could hold their breath for half an hour, but the poisonous fog could seep through their pores and that was something a swordsman could not resist. After awhile all the soldiers would die of poison without Saleen making a move. These low ranking military officers of course had to give their all.


    Saleen smiled coldly. Bifano had six-hundred shieldemen to fight against mages. These armors and shields on heavy infantrymen were all magic equipment. Unless it was a grand mage, a normal low level mage would definitely be killed with maltreatment.


    Mages were not idiots that only knew how to release fireballs, the magic resistant equipment was too low of a level. It was technically useless against poisonous fog at that sort of range magic. Even if it was not poisonous fog, another big range burning spell would be sufficient to kill the soldiers under the metal armor with heat.


    Metal made magic armor was naturally wed, it was not reversible with any trick.


    Of course, in the mage¡¯s eyes, rhenium gold and zither silver were not considered as metal. Even in the Qin Empire it would not be possible to use rhenium gold and zither silver in army equipment. Even if it was only a two-hundred soldier army.


    The Lieutenant was terrified and angry. He was a high level swordsmen and the poisonous fog was yet to affect him, but he could not see anything. He could only hear the breathing of the mage at a spot about six steps forward. He threw his shield and double ded sword, the took out his saber and took a huge stride forward.


    With one stride, he felt both of his legs go numb and then there was an unbearable pain. A sharp object blocked before his feet and cut both of his legs off straight away.


    A high level swordsmen that was covered in magic armor, how could Saleen not be prepared? The water current from the cbash hadid in ambush and dealt with the most annoying man quietly.


    Sika took a seat next to Saleen. She caught her boomerang and threw it out again. Every time she threw it out, there would be a swordsman that was cut at their throat. Eleanor¡¯s face grew pale when she saw what was happening. She lost her bracelet and she definitely could not dodge Sika¡¯s boomerang. Then she understood that the young mage was really polite towards her.


    Everyone around the mage was life threatening and they were all well coordinated.


    ¡°Am I too cruel?¡± Saleen looked to the side and asked Eleanor.


    Eleanor nodded and Saleen smiled. He said, ¡°A while back, I was still bothered about this kind of matter, but I thought about it. Some people have done even more brutal things, but earned their ce in history. I am still me, as long as they don¡¯t find trouble with me, I wouldn¡¯t do so. I didn¡¯t invite them into my hall. Even before they entered, J made it clear.¡±


    ¡°You actually don¡¯t need to feel bad¡­¡± Eleanor said halfway and suddenly stopped. She did not know why she suddenly consoled Saleen. Even though she did not hate the mage much, she was a captive of the mage.


    ¡°You could tell. Yes, feel bad. Murderers always feel bad. That¡¯s normal. If I don¡¯t feel bad, I will turn into that kind of person that I hate. If I do, that wouldn¡¯t be beneficial for me either.¡±


    Eleanor listened quietly. Saleen¡¯s voice was young, the content that he was talking about did not go with it.


    ¡°I let you go because I am still young. Eleanor, you are so lucky.¡± Saleen sighed in relief.


    ¡°Lucky?¡± Eleanor smiled bitterly. She lost her family and she was all alone. It was impossible for her to return to the elf dimension and her lifespan was still long. She had no idea about the future of the Myers Maind.


    ¡°Saleen, if Bifano were to lead his troops here for an attack, what should we do?¡± Sika stopped Saleen from expressing his emotions and brought up a very realistic concern.


    ¡°What can we do? Nailisi made a move, I have to give her a lessonter.¡± Deep down in Saleen¡¯s soul, he could feel happiness that was from Nailisi, that was thefort after a massacre.


    As she already made a move, she should not regret it. They only had five-thousand people. They were all in halls that were enclosed. If he defended to thest, they would burn Bifano out too. Saleen was not stupid that he would go and fight head to head. Bifano¡¯s five-thousand selected elite troops could not be easily killed. If the two-hundred people did not get into the range of the magic array, he would have needed to put in more effort.

 Chapter 485: Slowly Strangled to Death (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 485: Slowly Strangled to Death (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A Cleaning spell was cast repeatedly and the hall was finally clean. J opened the door and Saleenmanded the fully constructed puppets to throw the dead bodies out and take off all the equipment that was on the dead bodies.


    The dead bodies that were corroded by the poisonous fog looked miserable. The scariness of a mage was disyed entirely at that moment. If it was in the wild, although poisonous fog was condensed, it could not withstand the wind. Strong light could go through poisonous fog too, so that the people within could retain slight visual ability. In such an enclosed area, the damage of poisonous fog would be increased by a dozen times.


    It was also because there was no mage among the people that Bifano had sent. It would not be difficult to disperse the poisonous fog with one.


    Bifano was panicking. Regarding the missing soldiers, he did not not put Saleen in the wrong. There were really soldiers that were missing and the numbers were increasing. It was unbearable for Bifano as the number of missing soldiers were not few, but over two-hundred people.


    Among the selected elite troop that he brought along, there were only two-hundred that died during the fight with the pink army. The five-thousand soldiers were what his dad gave him to protect his life. Forget about two-hundred, even if there were only two missing, he would look for them. Of course, the two-hundred infantrymen that were sent to search Saleen¡¯s hall were intended to probe Saleen¡¯s standing too.


    Those people that were sent to search the central hall were hit by Wild Bear and the two-hundred soldiers that were sent to search Saleen¡¯s hall had no returning news. There were underlings that reported that there were another two-hundred soldiers missing.


    Even since the missing soldier incident, Bifano gave orders that during action, they had to at least move as a small troop in a unit. They should move ording to a big troop¡¯s principle and not go separate ways. This time, those who went missing were a big troop of two-hundred soldiers, mainly light armored infantrymen who were in charge of guarding their assets.


    Bifano would not be able topare with Lex. Lex had a godly item that could store countless asset while the mages under Bifano were only grade-4, so they could only use the most simple spatial equipment. In such normal equipment, the biggest space would not be more than a load in a carriage. Normally, it would only be the standard size of a box.


    Bifano did not bring much food, but the pink army did not burn their assets so he could wait in the temple. His soldiers would be starving otherwise.


    ¡°What about the items they were guarding?!¡± Bifano lost control. That was the first time he did not care about the soldiers, but the assets and food. It was not like he was not concerned about the soldiers that were lost, but if they lost the food too, everyone was doomed.


    The soldier who was there to pass the message was pale when he answered, ¡°Master, the items, were lost¡­.¡±


    Bifano could not help but pressed his hands onto his sword. He fought his urge to kill. It was not the responsibility of the soldier before him.


    ¡°The few of you, follow me to see her highness Lex.¡± Bifano told the few mages around him.


    The four mages followed Bifano and he brought along two hundred soldiers to the hall that Lex was staying in directly. In the temple, theyout was not t. In between the halls were of different heights and the center hall was the highest. It was surrounded and protected by twenty-four halls that were different in size.


    When the Goddess of Myers was still alive, these halls had their own responsibilities. Each hall could contain more than a thousand believers and the main hall could even take in up to ten thousand believers.


    In between the halls, there were other buildings, but mostly functional houses. They were used for storing food, clean water, medicine, equipment, and so on. Although the Goddess of Myers was a god, humans did not send troops to suppress her like they did with the other gods. It was very strange, those who knew of such history could not exin it.


    At least half of the gods that humans were hostile towards survived, but the Goddess of Myers that humans believed in passed. Along with her fall, there were another twenty-four deputy gods.


    These deputy gods were actually trained from humankind. The temple of the Goddess of Myers was designed for human habitation. With a little transformation here and there, it would turn into a tough militarized fortress.


    Bifano brought soldiers to the door of the central hall. They saw Wild Bear carrying his war axe and staring at the za before the hall with hostility. He did not look like he would let anyone in.


    Bifano had a headache. Wild Bear was a barbaric person with hair all over his body. It was useless to talk any sense with him. If Lex were to order him not to let anyone else in, he would carry out the order strictly and he would not be the least bit negligent.


    Bifano belittled Wild Bear. Wild Bear was a simple man, but it was not like he had no wisdom. He knew clearly why Lex made him stand outside, so he pretended to look unreasonable. Wild Bear used to be a cook, regardless of his hands or his heart, his acute sensitivity was notparable with anyone else.


    Most of the people had no power so they became smart, but it did not mean that those who were powerful would be stupid. Creatures like giant dragons and supreme demons would all be idiots otherwise.


    Wild Bear saw that Bifano and his troop came to the za. He put down his huge war axe heavily and it made a loud thud. The de of the war axe was face down and nted before his feet. At such an angle, it was the easiest way for him to raise his war axe.


    Five meters before him there was a line drawn with chalk. Wild Bear¡¯s eyes disyed strong hostility, no matter how ignorant Bifano was, he understood that if his men were to go past that white line, they would be attacked by Wild Bear.


    The hall door was half closed. If he were to set up a strongbow, Wild Bear could hide in there.


    Bifano¡¯s soldiers were fuming with righteous indignation. No matter how honorable Lex¡¯s identity was, it was too much for the small duke. Bifano hesitated, but he dared not approach on his own. Although Wild Bear was only the standard of a high level swordsmen, he was gifted with strong power. With his advantage of weapon, Bifano going up to him would be difficult if he were to go crazy.


    At the awkward moment, Lex¡¯s voice was heard from inside the hall.


    ¡°Bifano, your missing soldiers had nothing to do with me. I¡¯ll stay here for a month and before I leave, I will pass you the temple¡¯s keys.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, not only did my soldiers go missing, food that I found went missing too.¡± Although Bifano did not want to fight against Lex, without more food, the food that the army brought along could only maintain them for another week, which was six days time.


    ¡°Are you suspecting me?¡± Lex¡¯s voice obviously sounded unhappy.


    ¡°I dare not. Just that Mage Saleen is not with you. I think this might be rted to him.¡± Bifano had no choice so he came out and said so.


    The hall was quiet as Lex was thinking. She was busy practicing for the past few days, but she did not care about anything happening outside. There were only a dozen of them and food relied on her. With her door closed, she had nothing to ask for from Bifano, but she was not certain what Saleen did it.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll ask Saleen then.¡± Lex decided.


    ¡°That¡¯s unnecessary.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice came from behind Bifano.


    Behind Saleen, were Nailisi and Sika. J was with them too. Nailisi looked crestfallen, she had obviously been given a lecture by Saleen.


    Bifano felt chilly in his heart, when had Saleen and everyone around him arrived without making a sound?.


    ¡°Mage Saleen¡­..¡± Bifano looked at Saleen and he took two steps back unconsciously, closer to the mages around him. ¡°Four grade-4 mages should have no problem to fight against a grade-5 mage, right?¡±


    ¡°Bifano, you sent two-hundred heavy infantrymen to my hall, what does that mean?¡± Saleen raised a difficult question and questioned Bifano directly. Bifano could not find any reason to attack him.


    ¡°My soldiers¡­¡±


    ¡°What do your soldiers have to do with me? I did not give you the key to the temple, do you think you can leave here alive?¡± Saleen spoke coldly with a threat.


    Bifano suddenly felt that he was not in a desirable position as he was afraid that Lex was angry, so he brought two-hundred of his soldiers. Now that Saleen was behind him and Lex was before him, although he had more people, Lex¡¯s few grand mages were obviously stronger than his. If there was a conflict, it would most likely be instant death.


    ¡°If you want to know where your soldiers went, I can¡¯t help you with that. I can certify that it has nothing to do with me.¡± Saleen said as he walked forward. He released a strong mental power to oppress Bifano¡¯s soldiers. These soldiers that had seen blood and killed others were forced to open up a way to let Saleen pass through ande before Bifano.


    ¡°You follow me in then, all of us are here. If you are here with me and there are still soldiers that get into trouble, would that be sufficient to prove that it wasn¡¯t me?¡± Saleen smiled at Bifano, showing his snow white teeth.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Bifano replied without thinking.


    ¡°Alright then, follow me.¡± Saleen said and walked past Bifano. The few grade-4 mages did not dare to make a move because there was suddenly a stream of green water current that came from Saleen body and wrapped around Bifano.


    The water current was equal to a grade-4 magic and these four mages were dumbfounded. They had seen how the water current cut metalized steel rock and the speed was not achievable regardless of any magic they cast.


    Saleen¡¯s face was cold when he brought Bifano into the central hall. There were too many soldiers under Bifano. If he took immediate action, the effect would not be good. Why not control him first and send the few bastards that Nailisi found to kill soldiers slowly outside. When the soldiers were demoralized entirely, even Bifano would not be able to reignite their morale.


    Saleen spoke high sounding words and those soldiers dared not make a move. If Saleen were to kill Bifano directly, these people that were loyal to the Agares family would fight until the end. Although Saleen was rude and unreasonable, he made it clear that he only wanted to testify to his innocence. How would these soldiers dare to take such a risk, their small duke was in Saleen¡¯s hands after all.


    Nailisi hung her head low and followed behind Saleen closely. She felt that her master was really strong. What he did was much more than her own scheme. She only did surprise attacks while Saleen was using a technique of warm water poached frog to let the four demons that she summon slowly eat up Bifano¡¯s entire army.


    Wait until the army was almost eaten by the demons, Bifano would then have no affect. To take care of him then would be better than killing him immediately. To kill him immediately, those soldiers from the Agares family would fight with their all. Bifano¡¯s army was different than the pink army, they would not give up their battle because of anyone¡¯s death.

 Chapter 486: Slowly Strangled to Death (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 486: Slowly Strangled to Death (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had that idea at thest moment. After he found out what Nailisi did, he gave her a lecture and used his family badge to make Nailisi understand that she was still his summoned creature. She could not make decision as she wished and ruin his n.


    After that, Saleen brought Nailisi to see Lex for a discussion on how to solve the problem. When he saw Bifano standing in the za of the central hall, he immediately had a new idea. Walking past Bifano was something a normal mage would not do. Bifano was a swordmaster, after all, and his response speed was too fast.


    There were three strong hatchet men around Saleen though. Everyone of them had the ability to suppress Bifano, so he naturally had no worries about his own safety. Using the water current from his cbash to tie Bifano up, even a sorcerer would not be able to dispel the water current. Saleen¡¯s mind was at ease.


    As long as Bifano did not die, his underlings would not fight to the death with him. The stratagem was not worth anything once revealed, but no one knew Nailisi had already summoned four strong demons.


    Saleen brought everyone around him together and Lex¡¯s people were in the hall. No matter what happened outside, no one would think that it was rted to him.


    Once he proved that he was ¡°innocent¡±, Bifano wouldfort his soldiers and he would have the idea to take his anger out on the innocent and the guilty. Saleen did not believe that Bifano had no hidden agenda to deal with him.


    Bifano¡¯s face grew awkward as his body was wrapped up with the terrifying water current. He had seen with his eyes when Saleen used it to cut the steel rock and he knew that his magic armor could not withstand such an attack. He could only follow Saleen into the hall helplessly.


    ¡°Your Highness Lex, what do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Nothing.¡± Saleen interrupted, ¡°The two-hundred soldiers that you sent over to my, I have killed them. I brought you in case you made an unwise choice.¡± Saleen spoke as he controlled the water current. Bifano could not help but sit down with Saleen. His body was tied up with the water current that could cut metal. Saleen of course would not let him move freely.


    When the water current was not in attack mode, it did not expend much mental strength. Saleen was fully charged with mental strength, even if he ran the water current on Bifano constantly, he could persist for ten days.


    ¡°Wild Bear, close the door.¡± Lex was not bothered by Bifano, but called Wild Bear to return and close the door of the hall tightly.


    Bifano¡¯s face grew worse, but he heard Saleen killed his two-hundred people and he calmed down. He belittled the mage, he dared to make a move without hesitation.


    Outside the central hall, Bifano¡¯s soldiers could only guard there helplessly. Their small duke was captured and they could only listen to the few mages. The mages could onlyfort every one. If within a few days time, there was not any danger, Princess Lex would not make it difficult for the small Duke. That was an unspoken rule between the nobles.


    If noble captured another noble, there was hardly any incident where they killed one another. Unless they bore a deep grudge against the other noble they would not murder.


    The soldiers in the za could not return. They guarded at the entrance and made sure there was no one that left from the entrance. There was no day or night in the temple and they only relied on the magic mechanical clock for time keeping. After six hours, there was more unfortunate news. This time, those who were killed were the carpenters that Bifano brought.


    The few mages discussed it and came to a mutual agreement that there must be someone left behind from the pink army and they wereunching attacks in the dark. Although Bifano¡¯s army went through a few sacrifices, there were more than four-thousand of them gathered in the temple hall.


    Bifano¡¯s assistants were mainly the mage and some magic apprentices that were more knowledgeable. The mage was in charge of his safety and his fighting while the magic apprentices were in charge of management.


    The tasks were delegated quickly. The four-thousand soldiers were reorganized into four regiments to check each hall one after another. The rest of the soldiers were made to protect the carpenters and farmers. Bifano brought some farmers and they were mainly there to take care of the warhorses.


    Such focused action could search every spot that one could hide thoroughly. They looked for two days straight, but there was no clue and there were not any deaths within those two days too.


    The morale of the soldiers began to fall. The small duke was captured, everyone that Princess Lex brought was in the central hall, but someone died after that so it obviously was not done by Princess Lex¡¯s people and the people in the central hall were no longer suspects. Still no one dared to ask Princess Lex to release the small duke.


    In the central hall, Bifano had lost his drive. Saleen did not take one nce at him since bringing him in. He could notpare to a mage, he needed to eat, drink, and use thevatory. Saleen could remain stagnant for a few days, but Bifano could not.


    A swordmaster could already control blood and muscle. Without eating for two days, he would not die of starvation. The thing was, Bifano¡¯s stomach was extremely bloated. There was a ce behind the hall for him to get rid of it, but he could not move as he was still wrapped up in the water current.


    On the third night, Bifano could not hold on anymore. He would not want to be a swordmaster that died from holding his waste.


    ¡°Mister Mage, please allow me to go for a quick moment.¡± Bifano had no choice, but to say his demands straightforwardly. If he were to beat around the bush, he was worried that Saleen would pester him.


    ¡°It¡¯s urgent?¡± Saleen opened his eyes and stopped meditation. Besides meditation, he used his badge to continuously absorb the excessive electric current that lightning dragon gave out for the two days. The badge was fully absorbed with energy. Saleen believed that if he were to take out his badge when he was attacked, the electric current would be released automatically. This would be more securepared tost time.


    ¡°Very.¡± Bifano gritted his teeth. He was afraid that any of his extra movement would cause bad consequences.There were a bunch of females in the hall. If he were to embarrass himself in front of these people, he would want to die anyway.


    ¡°J, take him.¡±


    ¡°Master, you can¡¯t make me do that!¡± J panicked. ¡°What kind of mission is this?¡±


    Saleen squinted his eyes and asked, ¡°If you don¡¯t, who will?¡±


    J looked around, it seemed like only Wild Bear was another suitable candidate. With Wild Bear¡¯s temperament, he¡¯d rather not cause any trouble. Wild Bear might not be his match, but it would be unnecessary to piss Lex off.


    Saleen retracted the water current into his cbash to continue nourishing. Bifano felt his body grow light and J was already before him. J grabbed his belt and lifted him up.


    Bifano felt humiliated, but he could only let J lift him and walk to the back of the hall. J¡¯s sword aura had seeped into his body. If J could control a grand mage, he of course could control Bifano.


    J lifted Bifano and spoke as he walked, ¡°Small duke, are you dissatisfied with me?¡±


    Bifano could not answer, he was afraid that he would let loose with one breath.


    ¡°Swordmasters have five roots of sword aura. Do you believe that I could seal off all your roots and make you disabled?¡± J had slight sympathy towards women, but towards men like Bifano, he did not have a good attitude. In the Cloudflow pce, he had seen many nobles. He would not be pressured because of Bifano¡¯s identity.


    Bifano was dumbfounded. Only a swordmaster that had inheritance like him would understand what J said. Amoner that practiced sword aura would never hear of that their entire life.


    ¡°Your Honor, please forgive my attitude.¡± Bifano admitted defeat. He was afraid that J would really do it.


    ¡°Humph.¡± J threw Bifano onto the ground and pointed at the room in front, ¡°This is a washroom. Go to the back and you will see the toilet bowl. If you do anything funny, I will make you a disabled person that instant.¡±


    Bifano rolled and crawled into the washroom quickly. A building with such structure had not changed in trend, he was not afraid that he could not find a toilet bowl.


    Behind the washroom was the toilet. Bifano found the toilet bowl and sat on it. He immediately took something out from under his clothing. It was a metal box which was palm sized.


    There was a detailed andplicated magic array in the metal box. It also had six high level magic nuclei iid in it. It was a transportation portal. As it was too small, it could not transport any items, only messages that were prepared beforehand.


    In the temple, a normal transportation portal would not be able to be built. Bifano once entered a temple and he knew the characteristics of the temple. He had his teacher make him an equipment that could send out messages from inside the temple.


    Lex did the same and made a special transportation portal to send messages back to Metatrin City.


    The message in the box was extremely easy, it was just to inform his teacher he was in trouble. His teacher was supposed have left the Princess Castle and was not stranded by Tanggsi army.


    Bifano might not be as smart as Lex, but he was also a genius, not an idiot. Saleen did not hurt him on the surface, but he could feel danger.


    The young mage had no emotional fluctuation. That only proved one thing, that he had made his decision.


    Bifano was a high level apprentice and he could activate such magic arrays that were prepared beforehand. He transferred his mental strength into the magic array and the brilliance of magic lit up. The six high level magic nuclei then lost their shine that instant.


    ¡°What are you doing?!¡± J felt the ripples in the space. He was not any ordinary swordmaster and he could feel the element changes. How could he fight against a mage otherwise. J took out Tears and rushed into the washroom and kicked open the door.


    He saw that Bifano was sitting on the toilet bowl while holding a metal box in his hands. The inside of the box had a delicate magic pattern. The elemental fluctuation and space changes that urred earlier were from the box.


    Bifano was suddenly energetic and told J, ¡°Why raise your sword? I have already sent out the news. If I were to get hurt, all of you shall wait for the Agares family to take revenge.¡±


    ¡°I thought that was it.¡± J sheathed his long sword and looked unbothered.


    Bifanoughed coldly, ¡°You thought when Titan was finished the Agares family would be done? Go ahead and ask Lex. If so, why would she coborate with me if I was supposed to be useless?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s none of my business.¡± Jnded a heavy punch on Bifano¡¯s left eye. The punch was entirely based off strength of his body without any additional sword aura. Although J was pdash, he actually received brutal training when he was younger. Relying on his body strength only, he could also punch Bifano¡¯s eye to ck and blue and it was instantly swollen.


    Bifano¡¯s pants were half way down his legs and he could not counter attack. He looked at J in shock, wondering what got into J.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t like you from the very beginning. If my master didn¡¯t stop me, I would have chopped you into hash. It is in your best interest you don¡¯t think of any other fishy moves. Take off all your clothes.¡±


    Bifano was terrified. ¡°Take off my clothes? Does J have that kind of hobby?¡±


    In Cloudflow, there were many nobles that took a liking towards men. He could tell with one look that J was from Cloudflow. How could Bifano not be afraid to take off his clothes before J in such a ce?

 Chapter 487: Magic bugs (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 487: Magic bugs (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What do you think is happening?! Even if you were willing to do that I find you abominable! Remove them now, let me see what else you have hidden on your body.¡± J suddenly thought of that. The fact that Bifano could stimte a magic array despite being a grand swordmaster rmed him. If there were any other simr gadgets which could harm Saleen, there would be trouble.


    Bifano¡¯s screams could be hearding from thevatory.


    ¡°No!¡±


    ¡°Give that to me!¡±


    ¡°Please¡­¡±


    ¡°To hell with you!¡± J let out an expletive.


    ¡°Ow¡­¡± Bifano was struck in another area. This time around, he was in so much pain that he could not say anything.


    In a few minutes, J had stripped Bifano. Indeed, a few more pieces of equipment were concealed in his magic armor. Together with the armor, J bundled all these things up using a rope, before hauling them over his shoulder.


    ¡°Open your mouth!¡±


    Bifano¡¯s face was filled with viciousness as he struggled, then said, ¡°Trust me, I will bite off your¡­¡±


    ¡°What the hell are you thinking of.¡± Seeing that Bifano would not budge, J decided to wield the short de hanging around his waist. He stuck it into Bifano¡¯s mouth. Underneath Bifano¡¯s tongue, he discovered a strand of metal wire. This metal wire was hollow. By using the Sword Aura to propel it, it would carry a tremendous amount of power, which could pierce through a Magic Shield.


    This item was very valuable. The value of this metal wire was almost equivalent to that of J¡¯s Tears. When in the mouth and at a close distance from a mage, a grand mage could fall prey to this trick when one spat it with a great amount of effort. Saleen acted first, however, trapping Bifano using water. Unless Bifano was seeking death, he would not dare use such a method against Saleen.


    J grinned as he wrapped the metal wire around his finger, then said, ¡°Luckily I searched you. Give me whatever you are still hiding, otherwise I will dissect you.¡±


    J had witnessed Eleanor¡¯s ability to swallow objects into her stomach for storage, so he was naturally afraid that Bifano possessed such a skill too.


    ¡°Kill me if you want, I will only die!¡± Bifano was really enraged. He could not keep his cool after all the insults from J.


    ¡°Why should I kill you? At most, I will request Sir to prepare some magic medicine, and soak you inside, causing your skin to be unable toe into contact with anything else ever again. Do you understand?¡± J threatened.


    Bifano knew of such a torture technique. In the past, there was a noble who angered a sorcerer. The noble was then soaked in a type of magic medicine for three days and three nights, transforming his skin. Even if a flynded on his skin, he would feel a pain akin to being stabbed with a knife.


    After that the noble lived his life naked and he died after holding out for two months.


    J then continued ruthlessly, ¡°In the hands of a mage, do you think being fearless will suffice? Sir has many ideas to make you wish you were dead.¡±


    J had zeropassion for Bifano. A slip up had enabled him to transmit a message out of the temple. Even though the content of the message was unknown, it was definitely detrimental to Saleen.


    J felt kind of reluctant when he first followed Saleen. After spending a long time with Saleen, J understood that Saleen was not a person who wouldmand his subordinates at will. Saleen valued the people around him. By following Saleen, J could admire beautiful women whenever he wanted, and his training pace was also quickened, unlike the days when he dawdled.


    This sense of urgency was not forced upon by Saleen. In fact, Saleen¡¯s hard work had unknowingly influenced the people around him.


    If this continued, J would stand a chance of advancing to a Golden Grand Swordmaster. With hope, J¡¯s life would be different, and his outlook on matters would also change.


    ¡°This Bifano was saying that the Agares family will not spare us? That means that he was trying to ruin his whole life.¡±


    Bifano was only d in a pair of shorts. J dragged him by his hair, tossing him back into the hall.


    Lex and Saleen stared at J without a change in their expressions. J then said, ¡°Sir, he used this to transmit a message.¡± J handed the metal box to Saleen.


    Saleen received it and took one look at it before giving it to Lex.


    ¡°Well done. This thing can only send a message which had been prepared beforehand. This thing functions as an rm, the people outside will only know that he is in danger. They still might make the connection to us though.¡± Lex had more experience, her grade was also higher than Saleen¡¯s. At one look, she could decipher the function of this appliance.


    As Bifano observed Saleen¡¯s and Lex¡¯s expressions, he suddenly regretted what he had done. He thought that by transmitting the message, these two people would not harm him. Unexpectedly, the first thing Lex thought of was how to remove her own involvement in this matter.


    ¡°Nailisi,e over here.¡± Saleen summoned Nailisi to the corner of the hall, then he set up the Mute Enchantment, preventing anyone else from listening in on their conversation. He said; ¡°How do you control the demons which you have summoned?¡±


    Nailisi cried buckets and said, ¡°I only allowed them to rx for a while, who would have known that¡­¡±


    ¡°I am asking you, can they be contacted?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Ask them to hurry up, do not deal with the mages first.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s eyes lit up, Saleen was going to start the ball rolling personally.


    Bifano did not know what Saleen and the woman were discussing, but he could vaguely feel an impending doom. Nobody asked him anything. J threw him on the ground, as J¡¯s Sword Aura sealed the five vital points in his body. Bifano could not deploy any fighting technique now. This was so much easier than the Sword Aura Sealing Spell. Since a grand swordmaster was handling another grand swordmaster, he would know his weaknesses.


    ¡°Oh yes, Nailisi, didn¡¯t you mention that humans did not taste very nice? Why did your summoned demons devour humans?!¡± Saleen suddenly recalled a crucial problem. If these demons were fond of consuming humans, then he would have to ask Nailisi to send them back, they could not be kept by his side.


    ¡°I also summoned some magic bugs¡­¡± Nailisi had no choice but to spill the beans. The four demons were indeed uninterested in human flesh. Unless they were ravenous, they would not hunt humans like the magic beasts. A magic bug ate anything and everything though, they could not care less whether their target was man or animal.


    ¡°Magic bugs?¡± Saleen began to have a headache as he had some understanding of magic bugs. These creatures had unequal offensive powers. A strong magic bug could handle a normal demon, while the weak ones could be easily killed by a normal man. The most dangerous aspect of a magic bug was its powerful reproductive ability. In a sealed space like this, the magic bugs could quickly expand to a very horrifying number by consuming those soldiers.


    ¡°Master, I summoned the magic bugs to help you feed the lightning dragons,¡± Nailisi whispered.


    Saleen¡¯s heart softened, he did not me Nailisi. In order for his lightning dragons to develop swiftly, food was a must. Since there was an astronomical number of magic bugs in the demonic dimension, the magic bugs were indeed a good choice of food for the lightning dragons.


    Outside the central hall, Bifano¡¯s soldiers had run into a huge crisis. An entire emblem group of soldiers had been killed inside one of the halls. From that particr hall, a wave of bugs hade rushing out, it was unknown how many magic bugs were present.


    These bugs came in various sizes, the big ones wererger than a horse while the small ones were the size of an earthworm. Most of them had grown a shell, and at least half of them could fly. Most of these bugs possessed razor sharp teeth. No metal armor could withstand the chews from hundreds of bugs.


    The mages were astounded. Bifano only owned dozens of mages. Even though their grades were not high, they could recognize the origin of the bugs.


    ¡°Magic bugs!¡±


    ¡°Is this ce connected to the demonic ne?¡±


    ¡°Someone must have summoned them!¡±


    ¡°By summoning so many magic bugs, that person¡¯s mental strength would be depleted and they would die!¡±


    ¡°Our missing soldiers have been devoured by these bugs. It¡¯s been three days, and they have reproduced!¡± a mage hollered in despair.


    Despite their hopelessness, the mages still staged a retaliation. The scrolls which were not usually used were taken out. Countless fireballs and firewalls began burning, shutting the cavity which the magic bugs wereing out from. Many soldiers were burnt to death though, and the mages led the remaining troops into another hall.


    ¡°Shut the door! Shut the door!¡± a low rankingmander yelled as if he had gone berserk. These elites actually stood a chance against the magic bugs. The mages were fleeing though, so the elites also lost their will to fight.


    Due to insufficient materials, Nailisi only managed to summon hundreds of magic bugs. After three days of intense reproduction, only tens of thousands of magic bugs were created. The premium steel weapons wielded by the soldiers could easily kill these newly produced magic bugs, it was not too difficult.


    In an unfortunate twist, a mage¡¯s words had caused the soldiers to lose their will to resist. A mage spected that this ce might be connected to the demonic ne.


    The legends surrounding the demons were no longer like the original version. For thousands of years, everyone believed that the demons were a powerful presence. Even a mage could not subdue them. If the humans from ten-thousand years ago were here and they found out that this ce was connected to the demonic ne, they might have already rushed here in order to capture a few demons for themselves.


    Even in that era, a demons were regarded as a precious species, it was difficult to obtaining them. A huge amount of energy was required to traverse the nes, and not everyone was willing to do so.


    The four demons were stunned as they stared at the humans fleeing frantically. Bewildered, the one called Cuisi said, ¡°They have more than three-thousand people. If all of them gathered, they could easily win. Why are they so afraid of a bunch of bugs?¡±


    The other three demons could not answer that question. The enemy still had mages with them. Two grade-4 mages with a dozen swordmasters could already pose a threat to the demons. There were another twenty mages on the opposite side who could release level-4 scrolls, coupled with hundreds more swordmasters. If a battle ensued, all the demons, with the exception of Cuisi, would have to flee.


    The magic bugs had weak offensive powers. These soldiers were escaping faster than when they ran into a demon though.


    ¡°Boss, do you think the legend in the demonic ne is true?¡± The chubby demon named Tolesi asked Cuisi. Cuisi was his leader. Even if Nailisi did not appoint anyone, they would not dare oppose Cuisi naturally.


    Indeed, there was a myth in the demonic ne, but Cuisi did not believe it. After all, Nailisi was still very weak, she could not rival a demon. No matter how powerful the Luoluokaluo¡¯s bloodline was, she might need a long time to develop fully.


    ¡°Given the current situation, Sir Nailisi would be able to conquer this ne as long as she summoned sufficient magic bugs!¡±


    Tens of thousands of magic bugs swarmed out, pursuing the human soldiers. The offensive power of these magic bugs might be low, but that was in the demonic ne. They had a set of razor sharp teeth and they were venomous and fearless. These factors were extremely fatal to human soldiers. If the appliance for exterminating magic bugs was present, a beginner swordsman could easily kill dozens of magic bugs though.


    In light of the current situation, it could only be described as a massacre. Once a mother bug swallowed a soldier, it backed out of the battle stealthily, in search of a ce toy her eggs. The number of bugs in battle had decreased drastically, but the human soldiers did not notice it at all. Instead, they had escaped into arge hall and sealed the doors, afraid of evering out again.

 Chapter 488: Magic bugs (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 488: Magic bugs (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What do we do?¡± The demon named Lu, who wielded a short spear. He stared at a corpse as he asked this question, feeling disgusted. A demon would only be interested in flesh when they got hungry, just like humans. If one was not hungry, who would be willing to cook human meat?


    ¡°Let the magic bugs surround this ce. The more time pses, the more magic bugs there be in the battle. Let¡¯s go and visit Sir Nailisi¡¯s master.¡± Cuisi was toozy to break down the door. The structures in this temple were too sturdy, it was too difficult to break down the doors. The people inside could not hold out for long though. Once they could not stand it any longer and rushed out, there might be more than one-hundred-thousand magic bugs already.


    One-hundred-thousand magic bugs were akin to one-thousand elite human troops. As long as there were a few skilled magic bugs amongst this crowd, their offensive power would grow exponentially.


    In the demonic ne, there was a huge poption and a variety of magic bugs. Many magic bugs were the favorite food of the devils and imps. Nailisi had summoned the warring-type magic bugs however. The weak imps and spirits would usually control such warring-type magic bugs to protect themselves.


    At Cuisi¡¯s grade, the extra help a magic bug could give him was almost non-existent.


    ¡°Hmm? Sir has given the order, to ask us to¡­ ha ha, we have already done it!¡± Cuisi became jubnt. Nailisi had ordered them to take action as soon as possible, to kill all the soldiers in the temple. Even though thest hall still contained thousands of soldiers, the magic bugs had blocked its entrance. Since the soldiers did not dare emerge, the problem was almost resolved already.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we will lead ten-thousand magic bugs to remove thest trouble.¡± Cuisi did not want any dys. The feeling in this temple was making him feel uneasy, it would be better for him to leave this ce with Sir Nailisi. Long ago, the Goddess of Myers was extremely powerful. Even if only a tiny bit of majesty was left behind, it could also cause the creatures who were almost devils, such as Cuisi, to be very sensitive.


    A menial task likemanding the magic bugs would of course lie on the shoulders of the other three rtively weaker demons. Cuisi walked at the front alone, not used to being in a woman¡¯s body.


    ¡°I have to implore Sir Nailisi to terminate the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill as soon as possible. I will get used to this form if too much time goes by, and that will be the most troublesome issue. There are perverts in the demonic dimension too, if¡­¡±


    Cuisi did not dare think further, he was just very afraid that Nailisi would turn out to be a male demon. If that was the case, he would wind up in a terrible state.


    The bugs which could be summoned by Nailisi were pretty inferior. After a long time, the three demons amassed a group of ten-thousand magic bugs. Many magic bugs had eaten their fill and were nowying their eggs. Also, some of them had lost their teeth in an attempt to bite off the magic armor. Even though the magic bugs were creatures which had strong vitality, their teeth would only grow back after a few days¡¯ time.


    The ughtered magic bugs became the best food for the other magic bugs. The uninjured magic bugs were led by the four demons as they made a beeline for the central hall.


    The low grade magic bugs were ill-disciplined, but Cuisi was not willing to be involved. After much effort, the three demons then brought these ten-thousand magic bugs under control. Very soon, they had arrived at the za outside the central hall.


    Four mages were the first to discover the magic bugs. Even though they were grade-4 mages, they obviously had morebat experience. Immediately, some mages released magic scrolls, casting the Firewall Spell in order to obstruct the progress of the magic bugs.


    These two-hundred soldiers were the best elites serving Bifano. The moment the magic bugs were spotted, they did not get flustered. Instead, they wielded their handheld crossbows to shoot the flying magic bugs.


    In Titan, a mage rarely used magic scrolls in battle, because a scroll was too expensive. The materials for making a scroll were also difficult to obtain. This was in contrast to Sregl Ind. The mages on Sregl Ind did not use magic scrolls because they were disadvantageous in helping the mages experience the details of a battle. All the scrolls were created to help increase their control over the elements.


    Be that as it may, the mages on Sregl Ind had arge quantity of scrolls at their disposal, they were not impoverished.


    A handheld crossbow was a cheap attack-type weapon, its special feature was a high firing speed. Its ws were having a low offensive power and uracy. Its range also made it seem unsuitable to bebeled a ¡°crossbow¡±.


    Almost all the crossbows had a range of more than two-hundred meters. Only a handheld crossbow had a lethal range of a dozen meters, just like the weakest bow. A well-trained archer would enable the handheld crossbow to enjoy the same firing speed as a bow, yet it would consume less stamina.


    Two-hundred soldiers fired their handheld crossbows, shooting more than half of the flying magic bugs out of the air. Even though these affected magic bugs did not die, they had lost their offensive abilities for the time being. That being said, the arrows which got shot into the bodies of the magic bugs were corroded by their bodily fluid, so they could not be reused even if they were taken out.


    Hundreds of magic bugs managed to make their way above the two-hundred soldiers, before lunging downwards. The soldiers drew their short swords and shed at them calmly. The mages were also blessing the soldiers with magic, so the magic bugs could not swallow the soldiers¡¯ armor and their bodies.


    Most of the magic bugs which flew through the barrage of arrows possessed a tough shell. Whenever the steel des descended on the shells, sparks would be created. A huge portion of these two-hundred soldiers were swordmasters, they possessed a great deal of strength. As a result, the bugs still fell to the ground even though their shells were not broken. They rolled across the ground, feeling giddy from the impact.


    In a solo battle, each soldier could ughter these magic bugs effortlessly. The magic bugs also had their fair share of ws, and their ws were pronounced. Their wings and eyes were areas which got damaged easily.


    The tremendously strong demon called Aiwa noticed that the magic bugs who went around the firewall had gotten into a stalemate with the soldiers, and he got impatient. He bent down and picked up a magic bug the size of a dining table, and then tossed it over the firewall powerfully.


    This table-sized magic bug attacked by spraying toxic liquid. The toxic liquid carried microscopic bone pins. These magic bugs did not have eyes and they relied on heat signatures tounch their assaults. Most creatures would contain a higher temperature around their nasal and mouth regions, and these regions also had the lowest defensive power. As the magic bug was confused by the firewall, it could not locate the enemy at all.


    Aiwa simply threw it into the formation of soldiers, and a soldier¡¯s head was struck by its bulky shell. The soldier fainted, while the magic bug flipped its body over, totally unharmed. As its feelers swayed about, it had located its target.


    Pfft¡­


    A burst of toxic liquid was ejected, hitting a soldier square in the face. This soldier had been blessed with the Stone Skin Spell, and in less than half an hour, the toughness of his body had be sturdier than leather armor. The toxic liquid streamed down his face and it did not injure the solider. The bone pins had prated the stone skin though, piercing into the soldier¡¯s nose.


    ¡°Ah!¡± The soldier¡¯s cry was cut off as the toxins had invaded his brain, causing him to copse onto the ground. The magic bug pounced on him, inserting a slender hollow tube into the soldier¡¯s facial injury, injecting even more toxic liquid. The flesh underneath the soldier¡¯s skin decayed swiftly, turning into a delicacy for the magic bug.


    Seeing that it was effective, Aiwa was overjoyed, he then continued tossing more of such magic-defeating magic bugs.


    The three demons had ways to extirpate these two-hundred soldiers, but a demon generally did not like dealing with a mage directly. The few mages kept releasing more scrolls. As their lives were at stake, no one dared use their magic chords carelessly.


    ¡°These cute magic bugs!¡± Cuisi eximed. A demon was not vulnerable to the toxins in a magic bug. A magic bug would attack a demon using only their teeth, which was ineffective. A magic bug was also not as strong as a demon. Even if a demon was besieged by thousands of warring-type magic bugs, they could still escape and they might not even get injured.


    A magic bug¡¯s mental strength was very low, a demon could use their unique mental strength to control a magic bug. If a human couldunch mental assaults repeatedly, they could harm the magic bugs too. It would even be more effective than a massacre by a demon.


    Be that as it may, humans were vulnerable to all kinds of poisons. If the soldiers were not blessed by the mages, they would have died due to all those toxins.


    Just like how the demons had lost some of their advantages over the magic beasts found in the human ne, the humans were also helpless in the face of these magic bugs.


    ¡°Agreed, these magic bugs are very useful, but they are difficult to rear. Sooner orter, they will all die out,¡± the three demons echoed. Throughout the past few days, Cuisi had subdued all of them. As Cuisi was oppressed by Nailisi, he had to vent all his anger on hisrades.


    A magic bug had a short life, and they ate a lot too. If food was absent, the reproduced magic bugs would quickly kill one another, or starve to death. Cuisi had discovered the w in the magic bugs. On the human ne, in the absence of the environment found in the demonic ne, the mother bug¡¯s ability toy eggs would get increasingly weaker. Eventually, it would just stop producing new magic bugs, and they would go extinct.


    In a short-lived battle, these things were more effective than the skeletal soldiers though. Three not-so-powerful demons could control thousands of magic bugs each, while a human mage of a simr grade could only control a few hundred skeletons.


    ¡°Humph, you three better buck up. If Sir Nailisi¡¯s n is dyed¡­¡± Cuisi urged the three demons. The three of them were behaving slowly, unwilling to participate in the battle.


    Within the central hall, Lex heard the sounds of battle outside. The soundproofing ability of the temple¡¯s structures could be controlled. People outside could not hear what was going on inside, but the people inside could still hear everything. She looked at Saleen doubtfully, but Saleen simply smiled at her signaling that there were no problems.


    Nailisi was secretly surprised. ording to her original n, the few hundred magic bugs would require two to three months in order to make up a sufficient number to pose a threat to Bifano¡¯s army. Unexpectedly, so many magic bugs had been reproduced in less than a week. The news from Cuisi had caused Nailisi to be in disbelief.


    Tens of thousands of magic bugs could actually exterminate an army of a few thousand humans. Even though this oue was rted to the battle environment, was it not a little too ridiculous?


    Nailisi secretly whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear. When Saleen heard the description by Nailisi, he also could not quite believe his ears. There was going to be a protracted battle with Bifano, how did it end so quickly?


    ¡°Master, how should we conceal the issue of the magic bugs?¡±


    ¡°No need to conceal it, Lex will discover your identity sooner orter. Since the men she brought along could enter the temple, their loyalty is unquestionable. Other than Bifano, no one else will disclose your secret.¡±


    ¡°Should I get rid of him now?¡±


    ¡°Keep him alive a little longer, I want to find out more about the Agares family. We have gone a little overboard this time around. If we do not have a deeper understanding, it might be difficult for us to return to Metatrin City.¡±


    ¡°Master, I was too impetuous.¡± Nailisi lowered her head. She also realized that Saleen had made the right choice. A person like Bifano would not only be backed by the Fire Dance City. Ever since the beginning, no powerful characters had appeared, which was incongruent with the status of the Agares family.

 Chapter 489: Decisive (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 489: Decisive (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not interact directly with Bifano. Instead, he came beside Lex and whispered to her, describing everything that was happening outside.


    Lex also got a headache. Compared to Saleen, she had a greater understanding of the Agares family. Other than Titan, the Agares family still had various hideouts throughout the maind. By returning to Fire Dance City and wanting to establish the temple as his base by putting up a strong resistance, Bifano wanted to send a symbolic message to the people ruled by the Agares family. That was that the family they were serving had not copsed.


    This was an intelligent move. As the representative of the Agares family, Bifano simply needed to remain active in Titan to give hope to the people ruled by the Agares family. They would not be seized by Cloudflow.


    The Qin Empire, though, did a thorough job. After the Grand Duke of Phoenix died, Holy Rock City immediately assigned a youth to inherit his position. Even though Phoenix Duchy objected strongly, it still gave in eventually.


    If Bifano was killed now, it would mean that the Agares family would lose most hopes of regaining their duchy. Even if there was an opportunity to integrate the powers, too many advantageous terms would have been lost. This would be the hatred caused by the dissolution of the duchy. By then, the powers that belonged to the Agares family, would definitely seek harsh vengeance.


    Arge duchy would definitely have a sorcerer. Phoenix¡¯s sorcerer had been sent away by Holy Rock City, but Cloudflow did not have the authority to do so.


    ¡°If the Agares family¡¯s sorcerer was deployed to deal with me, there will be a lot of trouble.¡±


    Lex nced at Nailisi in exasperation, ¡°This strange woman has created so much trouble. Judging by Saleen¡¯s attitude, he still won¡¯t abandon her.¡±


    ¡°At least one month will be needed for the Metatrin City to calcte the position of the main temple. We will remain here, and Bifano cannot be killed. If he is killed, we will need to act immediately and rush to the Purgatory Desert.¡± Lex paused for a moment, then continued, ¡°We will need to wait in the Purgatory Desert for half a month.¡±


    ¡°Does the Agares family have the ability to intercept us?¡± Saleen probed.


    ¡°They can¡¯t, but as long as news of me in Titan is leaked, Cloudflow and Tanggsi will deploy massive manpower to capture me.¡± Lex¡¯s tone inevitably had a tinge of annoyance.


    She had the God¡¯s Ring, which could withstand a blow from a grade-9 sorcerer. That was only one chance. After usage, the God¡¯s Ring would need to be recharged. If Cloudflow or Tanggsi was pursuing her, the number of people deployed would be humongous. They would also clip her wings first. By then, she might not be able to protect Saleen and the rest anymore.


    Originally, the cooperation with the Agares family was going to be a long-term affair, and Bifano was a crucial part of it. If Lex wanted to kill him, she would need to wait until Titan was stable. Lex had the same thoughts as Saleen. Anything else would have to wait until after entering the main temple and obtaining the seeds belonging to the four divine trees.


    At the moment, Nailisi had messed everything up, it would be useless even if she was handed to the Agares family. five-thousand elite soldiers from the Agares family had been wiped out, this was no small matter. These five-thousand men had the ability to withstand two regr swordsman¡¯s camps from Cloudflow.


    Saleen clenched his teeth, and said, ¡°I will not abandon Nailisi. Since the deed has been done, it should be done thoroughly. We shall leave immediately and enter the Purgatory Desert, I don¡¯t believe those people can chase us all the way there.¡±


    Lex nodded her head ruthlessly, as she thought, ¡°If I knew this would happen, I would have brought Daniel along so that Bifano could be converted into a spirit, and more information could be obtained. It is impossible to obtain the secrets of the Agares family by interrogation. These pedigree descendants have a special secret skill to protect themselves. Even if I was imprisoned, I will not reveal the secrets of the Grukos family.¡±


    ¡°What are you trying to do?!¡± Bifano struggled wildly as he tried to sit up, but J simply kicked him in the waist. Bifano had already lost his Sword Aura, so it felt like his intestines were being stabbed by hundreds of small knives. He spit out blood and lost consciousness.


    Bifano was being a smart aleck. Even if he did not transmit a message to the outside world, Lex and Saleen also would not kill him immediately. As long as Bifano remained alive, there would be another chance. At this point in time, Saleen had no choice but to enter the Purgatory Desert earlier. Bifano could not be kept alive any longer.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we shall leave.¡± Saleen released the skeletal warhorses from his Green Spirit, while two fully constructed puppets were in charge of steering the chariots. Lex¡¯s swordmasters also got on the skeletal warhorses. As the doors to the hall were pushed open, a thick bloody smell filled the air. Other than Nailisi, everyone else stared at the scene outside in horror.


    Bloody corpses were strewn across the ground. Countless bugs were perched atop the bodies. Thergest bug was as huge as a warhorse while the smallest was only the size of a fist. Deafening creaks filled the air, as the bugs devoured the bodies and the armor of the fallen. To make things more ridiculous, there were four alluringly beautifuldies standing amidst all the bodies, their beauty was unparalleled.


    These four women wore pale-colored long dresses, without a single stain of blood on them dresses.


    Nailisi knocked on the chariot¡¯s window, and told the fourdies, ¡°Come onboard.¡±


    The four demons boarded the magic war chariot in an orderly fashion, and they immediately noticed that a young mage was observing them. That mage had a pair of azure eyes, and his eyes contained a symbol which flowed about constantly. The symbol contained a kind of destructive power. The scary thing was, his soul was even mightier than all their four soulsbined!


    Saleen¡¯s eyes contained the secret lines of lightning which originated from the badge. Unknowingly, in the process of rearing the lightning dragons, he had forged stronger bonds with the badge.


    The four demons knelt down at once in front of Saleen and addressed him as their ¡°Master¡±.


    Saleen sighed, ¡°These four are the demons, it seems like their offensive powers are almost the same as Nailisi¡¯s. They will definitely be of great help to me.¡± The demons had appeared at an inopportune time though, Saleen had no way of exining it to Lex.


    ¡°Go sit in the corners. Take care of everyone in the chariot, no one shoulde to harm.¡± Saleen gave the first order.


    The four demons nodded their heads inpliance, then they took their positions at both ends of the cabin. Lex stared at the fourdies strangely as they possessed neither magic chords nor the Sword Aura, which was extremely simr to Nailisi.


    Cuisi lowered his eyelids, catching sight of the ring on Lex¡¯s finger. He was astonished by it, it was godly equipment! Unlike the other three demons, he had attained very high status in the demonic dimension, he did not even need to behave lowly in front of the devils. Cuisi had a wider exposure. The Monarch of Demons possessed powerful equipment too, but none could rival the ring on that woman¡¯s finger.


    The magic war chariots left the square in haste, as hundreds of magic bugs abandoned the corpses and followed behind stealthily. The swordmasters following the war chariots felt chills in their heart, but they did not dare make any noise. They simply rode on the skeletal warhorses, silently tailing the war chariots. Fortunately, the magic bugs did not get aggressive.


    In front of the main entrance to the temple, Saleen looked at the two colossal walls regretfully. At least for now, he had no way of obtaining those metallized steel rocks. If he knew this would happen, he would have dug at the walls first.


    ¡°Saleen, this chariot is too packed.¡± Lex did not say anything else, she simply shoved open the doors and flew into the other chariot. Saleen was too embarrassed to hold her back. It was indeed more packed now that there were four more demons inside.


    ¡°Master, is the viscountess angry?¡± Nailisi asked gingerly.


    ¡°Who cares.¡± Sika patted Nailisi¡¯s shoulders. For the first time, she felt that Nailisi had done a good job. Finally, Lex had been driven away. While Lex was here, Sika felt very ufortable.


    Since Sika had said that, Saleen did not have any other opinion. As the war chariots exited the gates, Saleen used the Ring of Gifts, given to him by Eleanor. He used it to open the channel, and the whole group of them left the temple.


    In Saleen¡¯s hands, this ring became totally different. Saleen had a deified left hand, he could exert divine strength at will, so the openness of the temple was no longer limited by time. After leaving, Saleen did not forget to re-seal the channel. The magic bugs and remaining soldiers in the temple would never be able to leave.


    Unless someone opened this channel from the outside, those humans would starve to death even if they did not get killed by the magic bugs. Long ago, the temple which Nailisi sought refuge in contained many devils who died as a result of being trapped inside.


    Previously, when everyone entered the swamp, they behaved cautiously. Without the burden of the army, this perilous swamp was akin to a piece of tnd for these magic war chariots and the forty riders.


    In the other magic war chariot, Lex had a face full of worry. Other than the four grand mages serving her, there was another middle-aged man too. He was Bain, who had been in concealment all this while.


    ¡°Viscountess, why are you worrying, Saleen doesn¡¯t have any intention to kill you.¡± Seeing that Lex never spoke a word, Bain decided to console her.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Of course, when those four monsters came onboard, Saleen felt even more anxious than you.¡± Bain noticed every single detail, but he also could not decipher much about those four people. He could see right through Saleen though. In that moment, Saleen was ready to spring into action.


    ¡°Those things, are magic bugs right?¡±


    ¡°You are a mage, you should know more than me.¡± Bain smiled. His powers had increased dramatically, he was now Lex¡¯s number one subordinate. After Faerun died, he had unknowingly be Lex¡¯s most trusted aide.


    ¡°Since they are magic bugs, those four women should be demons then,¡± Lex mumbled to herself.


    ¡°Nailisi should be one too, didn¡¯t you hear them addressing Saleen as their master?¡± Bain reminded Lex.


    ¡°This is too dangerous.¡± Lex was extremely concerned. As a mage, she knew how difficult it was to control a demon. She would never expect Nailisi and Saleen to have the most stable connection, a soul contract. Those four demons were wrapped around Nailisi¡¯s fingers, they would not dare rebel.


    ¡°Viscountess, Saleen must have his way of controlling a demon. Long ago, Nailisi had followed him to the Bitter Water Prefecture. If something could happen, it would have happened, it wouldn¡¯t be dyed until now.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°If possible, you should get Saleen to help you subdue a demon.¡±


    ¡°I have you around, I don¡¯t need a demon,¡± Lex interrupted Bain¡¯s sentence.


    ¡°Viscountess, my training has run into some problems. Even though I can withstand a single blow from a Golden Grand Swordmaster, I am not a Golden Grand Swordmaster. I am also old, I will not be able to follow you for long, but a demon is a creature with a very long life.¡±

 Chapter 490: Decisive (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 490: Decisive (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Bain¡­¡± Lex felt a little mncholy. Bain¡¯s training actually had not run into problems, it was just that he was injured. Back when Lex left Holy Rock City as a child, Bain had been protecting her all the while. His injury was left behind at that time.


    ¡°Viscountess, I hope my daughter can learn magic from Saleen,¡± Bain suddenly muttered.


    Lex was momentarily stunned. Bain¡¯s daughter had begun learning magic, but she did not have an official teacher yet. Even though Saleen was a grand mage, he was a little too young.


    ¡°He has the legacy of the Sregl Ind, he will be a powerful mage,¡± Bain exined. ¡°Only if youe forward, will he ept students.¡±


    Lex nodded. She understood that Bain was hoping the two of them would not have any conflict.


    ¡°I can implore Joey,¡± Lex smiled forcefully. ¡°Bain¡¯s body must be on the verge of breaking down already, otherwise he wouldn¡¯t say such things.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, you can make a request, but please don¡¯t use it on me. All my years of hard work will go down the drain otherwise.¡±


    Back in Saleen¡¯s magic war chariot, the four demons looked around as they got admonished by Nailisi. This made the two remaining female mages feel very awkward. Even though they had guessed that the women were demons, they could not put everything down and leave like Lex did. Lex made them stay in hopes that they could observe the demons.


    The demons were at such a short distance away, making the two female mages very uneasy. They subconsciously leaned towards Saleen, afraid that the demons would go berserk and devour them.


    With the exception of Cuisi, the other three demons were kind of fearful of the two female mages. At such a distance, a demon would have an absolute advantage over a mage. The problem was, the equipment on the female mages was very powerful. The mages serving Lex were different from Bifano¡¯s subordinates. At the very least, they were wealthier and owned many pieces of equipment.


    The demons did not feel at ease with their new master called Saleen. After all, their scaled skeletons were quality materials for equipment refinement. The demonic ne did not have a chasm in history. All the demons knew that after the decline of humans, the humans began treating them horribly.


    Saleen kept sizing the four demons up, it would be a lie to say that he was not upset. It was just that these demons would never be as loyal as Nailisi.


    The two war chariots reached maximum velocity, as the skeletal warhorses kept running without getting fatigued. The war had not spread to this ce, and the road conditions were terrific. The magic bugs could not fly as fast. When they seemed like they were going to be out of sight, Nailisi took out the Dimension Stone and put the magic bugs away.


    After these magic bugs entered the Dimension Stone, they would die after a short while. Their flesh would be kept fresh and tender, so it could still be used to feed the lightning dragons.


    While traveling north, Lex stubbornly insisted that the convoy returned to the Stone Statue Castle, as she wanted to subdue the Metal Titan.


    The north of the Chishui River had fallen, with the Tanggsi Army swarming the area. In order to reach the Purgatory Desert, the convoy had to pass through this dangerous region. At the very least, the current was not so rapid at the location of the Stone Statue Castle, so it was easy to cross the river.


    Along the journey, the convoy did not get sniped. The north of the Chishui River had mostly been seized by the Cloudflow Empire, but there was still a substantial part of this region which refused to surrender. The Grand Duke of Titan had escaped to Fire Dance City and was currently forming resistance, so the Cloudflow Empire was helpless at the moment. As there was still arge enemy at the north of the Chishui River, it would be too big a price to invade Fire Dance City. If there were any missteps, the Tanggsi Empire, which was located at the river¡¯s north, could easily take advantage of the situation.


    From this aspect, Cloudflow¡¯s tactics were not as good as those of Qin.


    At that moment, Saleen could not be bothered to conceal his capabilities. As the skeletal warhorses charged forward with all their might, the smaller armies would not dare obstruct. By going around therge city, Saleen had reached the south bank of the Chishui River in less than half a month. Situated opposite this bank was the Stone Statue Castle.


    The huge metal bridge over the river was missing. Lex disembarked from the chariot, and used a pair of alchemical binocrs to view the opposite bank.


    The Stone Statue Castle was in ruins, it had obviously went through another round of battle. Tanggsi¡¯s army had been there before, but it seemed like they did not manage to subdue the Metal Titan. The thunderous noisesing from the castle indicated that the big guy was still roaming around.


    Saleen also came out of the chariot. Currently, his Icy Sight enabled him to view more than one-thousand meters into the distance. Even though the Chishui River was wider, he could vaguely make out the scene on the opposite shore. It was not as clear as the images seen through the alchemical binocrs though.


    ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Do you have confidence?¡± Saleen looked at Lex.


    Lex rubbed her face childishly, rxing her mind. She then said, ¡°With only about three-thousand scrolls, it can only be controlled for a very short time. It depends on luck.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°My badge and your God¡¯s Ring can be used to control the Metal Titan. A pity our equipment can only be used once before needing to rest for a long time. Entering the Purgatory Desert is way more perilous, no matter what, they cannot be used here.¡±


    ¡°What should the bait be?¡±


    ¡°A fully constructed puppet.¡± Lex was reluctant, but she still came to a decision.


    Saleen had eight lifelike fully constructed puppets and one more which was not affected by the Divine spell, but its value was still equally tremendous. It could only be abandoned there as bait.


    ¡°Let¡¯s cross the river.¡± Lex took out several kayaks from the God¡¯s Ring. These kayaks were considered as the lowest grade equipment. The magic arrays atop them only needed to be stimted in order to fill them up with air instantly.


    Of course, the God¡¯s Ring could store arger boat, but arger boat would rm the Metal Titan on the opposite bank. The magic war chariots and the skeletal warhorses had to be put away for the time being. Four kayaks, containing about twenty people, were rowed slowly across the river towards the opposite bank.


    The skies were clear and the sunlight shone across thend, causing the river to shimmer. As the wind blew, a stench could be detected in the air. The powerful Metal Titan was on the opposite bank, but Saleen never felt so serene. As his perception was spread out, all areas within a radius of hundreds of meters were under his surveince. The Chishui River did not contain any powerful magic beasts, but it was still better to be cautious. If an ambush wasying on the opposite bank and an alchemical crossbow began firing, the people onboard the kayaks would be in deep trouble.


    Saleen¡¯s subordinates would do fine, the ones at risk were the ten swordmasters and Eleanor. Eleanor¡¯s injury had not fully recovered and in the past few days of traveling, Saleen could not give her the magic liquid. He could only cast the Chunlin spell repeatedly to provide treatment.


    Eleanor had long dismissed the idea of escaping. The appearance of the four demons made her realize that even if she was not injured, she would never be Saleen¡¯s match.


    Saleen felt weird though. They had crossed the river, but he still did not see the assassin emerging. Could the assassin be underwater?


    In this position, the Chishui River was only about eight-hundred meters wide, and the two banks were slightly steep. As the kayaks were about to reach the opposite bank, a shadow flew out from beside Lex. Leaping dozens of meters into the air, it flew towards a rock on the bank. This person wielded a broadsword about two meters long, and he hacked at the rear of the rock as hended.


    Blood gushed into the air. There were five soldiers from the Tanggsi Empire hidden behind the rock and they were wielding miniature steel crossbows. The person who killed them was a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster who served Lex. In a single stroke, he killed five people without any hesitation.


    These five soldiers were pretty unlucky. Many people were assigned to patrol the riverside, but the Chishui River was too long. An area of a few miles was not even protected by anyone. These guys ran into Lex¡¯s men though. Even though they had steel crossbows in hand, they did not even have the chance to use them.


    The ck Metal Grand Swordmaster picked up a steel crossbow and studied it, as he used another hand to catch the rope which was tossed from below the bank. He pulled the kayaks onshore one by one.


    ¡°Viscountess, they weren¡¯t waiting for us, it¡¯s just a normal patrol team.¡± That ck Metal Grand Swordmaster was professional military personnel too. With one look at the enemy¡¯s equipment, he could roughly understand the enemy¡¯s formation and the amount of manpower they had.


    ¡°How long will such scouts take to change their shifts?¡±


    ¡°One day.¡±


    ¡°Mm, the sky is getting dark, we don¡¯t have much time. Go to the main road to keep a lookout, and stay away from this location.¡± Lex dismissed the swordmasters and the ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, allowing them to lead the skeletal warhorses and magic war chariots far away from the shore.


    All the mages stayed behind. Lex took out a huge quantity of items from the God¡¯s Ring, and began setting a magic array. Other than Eleanor, the rest of the mages went to work.


    This was Saleen¡¯s first time seeing a magic array which was more than one-hundred meters in diameter. Most of the materials Lex took out had been prepared beforehand, but the connecting portions had to be reced by magic powder.


    The setting up of aplex magic array was fraught with difficulties, but Lex was intending to ce a temporary trap. Nothing should go awry with eight grand mages working their magic at the same time.


    The ground was made as t as a mirror, as thousands of magic symbols were continuously drawn on it. When the sky was almost dark, the magic array was thenpleted. Lex began distributing the scrolls containing the Fossilization Spell. Thereafter, a fully constructed puppet was taken out and instructed to walk towards the Stone Statue Castle.


    The Metal Titan had eaten half of the bridge, and had fought with the Tanggsi¡¯s army, so it was currently resting inside the castle. The moment the fully constructed puppet got close, it discovered the puppet. The metallic smell from the fully constructed puppet was too alluring, it had no way of resisting it.


    The people outside the castle heard an earth-shattering roar, and then a one-hundred meter tall monster stood up abruptly.


    If the material of the fully constructed puppet was not so special, the Metal Titan, would have ignored it. A two-meter tall fully constructed puppet was not even sufficient for the Metal Titan to use it as a toothpick.


    Even before the fully constructed puppet could get close to the walls, the Metal Titan had already strode beside the wall. Using a pair of golden eyes to scan the surroundings, it immediately discovered the tiny thing on the ground.


    Metal Titans were considered intelligent beings, but this Metal Titan was obviously dumber. It would not loiter around here after the fight with Tanggsi¡¯s army otherwise. The moment it saw the delicacy, it immediately threw caution to the wind, charging towards the fully constructed puppet. The fully constructed puppet took off immediately, and even though it had a lower speed, it managed to enter Lex¡¯s magic trap in time.


    Om¡­


    A thunderous metallic boom sounded as the Metal Titan leaped into the air, going straight into the magic trap. At the same time, dozens of auxiliary magic arrays got stimted simultaneously. The mages lying in ambush followed the protocol, casting their Fossilization Spell scrolls.


    The Metal Titan had almost zilch resistance to the Fossilization Spell. If it was not for its mighty vitality, it would have been killed in that instant. In a sh, the surface of the Metal Titan¡¯s body was shone upon by magic light, fossilizing it totally. This caused the Metal Titan to be frozen in a jumping posture.


    Lex was jubnt. As long as the Metal Titan was captured and then fitted with fossilization-resisting armor, it would immediately be a tool which was in no way inferior to a war puppet.

 Chapter 491: Hit and run (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 491: Hit and run (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was really nothing interesting in dealing with a Metal Titan. After the first Fossilization spell scroll was released, the Metal Titan was rendered immobile already. Lex went forward, and began casting the contract magic at the fallen Metal Titan.


    Whether or not the contract magic would seed was dependent on two factors. The first was the difference in the grades of both parties, and the second was the gap in their mental strength.


    Even though Lex¡¯s mental strength was weaker than Saleen¡¯s, it was not much weaker than that of a grade-7 sorcerer. Coupled with the special powers in the God¡¯s Ring, she would have no problems dealing with the Metal Titan. Both parties had arge gap in their grades, the Metal Titan¡¯s vitality was much more powerful than Lex¡¯s. Despite releasing dozens of Contract spells, Lex could not even feel the slightest hint ofpliance from the Metal Titan.


    Out of desperation, she began using the scrolls to cast the Contract spell. Using this method, the probability of sess would be further reduced by half.


    It was good that Saleen and the rest returned earlier. If they had remained in the temple for one more month, the Metal Titan could have been captured by the Tanggsi people instead. By returning earlier, the Tanggsi Empire had not prepared sufficient manpower toe to the Stone Statue Castle. The armies nearby would not even dare get close to this ce. A normal soldier was obviously not the Metal Titan¡¯s match. Arge number of holy masters and grand swordmasters had to be gathered in order to deal with this colossal creature.


    In this world, every gain was apanied with a loss. Simrly, if one had lost an opportunity, another opportunity would quietly surface too. If the timing was not ripe, Lex might have to face a bombardment by Tanggsi¡¯s army when she tried to subdue the Metal Titan.


    The Tanggsi¡¯s army was afraid of rming the Metal Titan, so it only deployed a patrol team in the vicinity. Since the bridge had been destroyed, this location would not be the best ce to cross the river, hence the Tanggsi people did not even construct a temporary fortress there.


    In order to fortify a fortress, metallic materials had to be added. With the Metal Titan around, such metallic materials might be dug up even if they were buried underground.


    Lex¡¯s swordmasters did not bother concealing themselves, they prepared the magic war chariots near the main road, awaiting Lex¡¯s return. The two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters took turns scanning the area, they did not dare let their guard down.


    Lex kept casting the Contract spell. The ck magic runes rained down on the Metal Titan¡¯s skin, before disappearing promptly. The Fossilization spell scroll¡¯s level was too low, at best, it could only fossilize the Metal Titan for one and a half seconds. For safety, the eight mages would have to release a scroll every second, bombarding the Metal Titan continuously.


    The Metal Titan¡¯s body was too enormous, it remained still whilst in the magic trap, almost upying all the space in the trap. Lex could feel the rage in the depths of the Metal Titan¡¯s soul, but she was not affected at all. She simply opened the scrolls one by one, casting the Contract spell continuously.


    Lex had distributed about three-thousand scrolls, sufficient tost for an hour before the Metal Titan had to be abandoned. It was more important to run for safety if they ran out of scrolls. The Metal Titan could not move its eyeballs, it could only re at Lex with immense fury.


    Time went by slowly, and half an hour had passed. The Metal Titan still showed no signs of yielding.


    Saleen was beginning to get anxious already, as all these scrolls cost a fortune. If they were used in vain, it would adversely affect Lex¡¯s and his ns. If these scrolls were given to low grade mages, the low grade mages could greatly amplify the offensive power of an army. If these scrolls could not help capture the Metal Titan, then they would go down the drain.


    ¡°Nailisi, I have an idea now!¡± Saleen recalled that the four newly recruited demons might be of some help to Lex.


    Nailisi gestured using her finger, and the four demons went to Saleen obediently.


    ¡°Help Master capture that monster!¡± Nailisi said concisely. The four demons simply looked at one another.


    Cuisi said, ¡°My powers are simr to this fellow, but his body is too strong, I cannot defeat him.¡±


    ¡°Master, I can cast the Intimidation spell, I can give it a shot.¡± The chubby demon Tolesi volunteered. The other two demons were more brawny, they could not render much help either.


    Lex overheard the conversation between Saleen and the demons. She understood the Myersnguage, the demons did not use any generalnguage. If the Intimidation spell seeded, it could indeed raise the probability of sess of the Contract spell by a lot. Lex quietly made a space for Tolesi to stand next to her.


    Tolesi did not stand at that position, instead, he climbed atop the Metal Titan¡¯s head and stood on its nose, casting the Intimidation spell into its eyes.


    This was Tolesi¡¯s gifted skill, it did not consume any physical strength when used. Through the eyes of the Metal Titan, Tolesi¡¯s appearance kept changing, causing the Metal Titan¡¯s eyes to be bewitched.


    Finally, in that one instant, fear appeared in the Metal Titan¡¯s eyes. Lex cast the Contract spell promptly, but it still failed. Lex was not disappointed though. Since the probability of sess was much higher now, she was hopeful of subduing this colossal creature.


    Tolesi kept casting his Intimidation spell, and the frequency of the Metal Titan experiencing fear became increasingly higher. Finally, at one moment when it felt fear, the magic runes released by Lex deeply prated its fossilized skin.


    An unforgettable pain was unleashed in Lex¡¯s brain, but the Metal Titan experienced even more pain. As a ferocious creature renowned throughout all dimensions, the Contract spell was forcefully applied on the Metal Titan. It was in essence a kind of damage as well. Be that as it may, its powerful mental strength also reflected off Lex.


    At the same time, blood gushed out from Lex¡¯s facial orifices. Lex remainedposed, she immediately consumed half a bottle of magic liquid, thus recovering from her injuries.


    Coincidentally, one hour was up. If there were any more dys, the Fossilization spell scrolls would have been fully depleted. With a tumble, Tolesi fell off the Metal Titan¡¯s head. He had passed out due to the consecutive casting of the Intimidation spell, causing his mental strength to be overdrawn.


    ¡°Aiwa!¡± Nailisi gave one order, and Aiwa immediately rushed forward to support Tolesi.


    The tter of horses¡¯ hoofs could be heard from afar. The sky had turned dark. There was a chance that people could being to investigate the disappearance of the patrol team which had been ughtered by the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.


    ¡°You all should return to the chariot,¡± Saleen told Nailisi. Nailisi led the four demons and left swiftly. Sika was still beside Saleen, and she had already taken out her weapon from the Ring of Gifts.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s only a team of forty people.¡± Lex waved her hand as she took out a sealing rock. This rock was refined from the Green Spirit, it could be used to collect contract creatures.


    The Metal Titan had just been subdued, and its mental strength was gravely injured, so it could not be used for battle yet. Lex had also depleted arge portion of her mental strength. After mustering all her effort to store the Metal Titan in the sealing rock, her body felt like jelly.


    Narnia quickly grabbed hold of Lex, and whispered, ¡°Saleen¡­¡±


    ¡°Rest assured, I will protect Lex.¡± Saleen signaled for everyone to return to the magic war chariots. Even though the mages were only casting low level scrolls, all of them were exhausted after continuously doing it for an hour. Only by returning to the magic war chariot would they be able to revert to their optimal state quickly.


    Sssp¡­


    The sound of arrows flying could be heard from afar. Narnia¡¯s face changed, then she quickened her footsteps and returned to the magic war chariot with Saleen. Saleen pondered for a moment, then told Nailisi, ¡°Lead the four of them to protect the rest of the mages.¡±


    He knew that the powerful assassin must be protecting Lex, but the mages in the other chariot had to be protected too.


    ¡°I will get rid of them.¡± Wild Bear grabbed a poleaxe, before charging in the direction of the tter.


    ¡°J, you go too.¡± Speaking, Saleen urged the two fully constructed puppets to steer the magic war chariots, rocketing off in the eastern direction.


    In the magic war chariot, Lex regained her consciousness quickly. She opened her eyes and smiled at Saleen, then said, ¡°It was worth it.¡±


    ¡°Mm, it was worth it.¡± Saleen was equally overjoyed. Even though the Metal Titan¡¯s mental strength was damaged, it would recover in at most two or three months. By then, it should be able to partake in battles. With such a huge fellow guarding Metatrin City, Metatrin City should be safe. At least before the mages from the Sregl Ind arrived, he would not have to worry about an invasion.


    Wild Bear waved the poleaxe, as he made a beeline for the enemies. There were forty light-armored cavalrymen, and each of them wielded a cross spear in their hands. As the forty cavalrymen saw a bulky heavy-armored rider waving a poleaxe atop a skeletal warhorse charging towards them, they got a little flustered.


    Wild Bear bellowed, ¡°Useless things!¡±


    He could feel the fear in the enemies. The poleaxe rose into the air, and with a snow like glimmer, it chopped the first cavalryman and his warhorse into four pieces.


    He swung the poleaxe at lightning speed. In an instant, he had killed another two people. Those light-armored cavalrymen were not his match.


    Wild Bear already had the ability of a Bronze Grand Swordmaster, and he possessed terrifying strength. When a poleaxe that weighing more than forty catties was swung about, even heavy armor would not be able to provide much protection.


    The remaining riders actually did not dare to fight. They split up in two directions, and were about to turn around to flee.


    ¡°Don¡¯t give chase.¡± At this point in time, J had caught up, and was yelling at Wild Bear. Wild Bear hesitated, then J said, ¡°Go back to protect the viscountess.¡±


    Wild Bear immediatelyplied. He turned his skeletal warhorse around, charging to the eastern direction along the main road.


    J stared at the over thirty cavalrymen who were less than one-hundred meters away. He removed a bow from beside the saddle and shot another ten more cavalrymen. Then, he too, turned his horse around and followed Wild Bear.


    The skeletal warhorses had a very high speed. As long as they were not harassed by the enemy, they could quickly break free from the enemy¡¯s stronghold. After those thirty over cavalrymen were shot at continuously, they did not have the courage to pursue any further, they simply watched J and Wild Bear leave the ce.


    Dozens of minutester, a two-hundred strong cavalry regiment arrived, but Saleen and the rest had already traveled a great distance. If Wild Bear chased the remaining cavalrymen, he might have ran into this two-hundred man cavalry regiment. High grade swordmasters were present in this regiment, and Wild Bear might not have been able to escape unscathed by then.


    Based on his experiences since youth, J would notmit such a mistake. After he and Wild Bear caught up to Saleen¡¯s magic war chariot, Saleen also had peace of mind.


    By then Lex could sit upright. She opened a simple map and pointed at a spot, then said, ¡°There are three areas in the vicinity of the Stone Statue Castle which can house soldiers. We will run into the least enemies by going east. We will travel another two-hundred miles before going north, going straight into the Purgatory Desert.¡±


    ¡°How are your injuries?¡±


    ¡°Before reaching the Purgatory Desert, I have to recover for a while. My men will be under yourmand for the time being.¡± After Lex finished her sentence, she passed the map to Saleen before entering a state of meditation. Fortunately, she was in a magic war chariot. If this was a normal chariot, the chariot would have to be in an extremely stable condition in order to allow a mage to meditate.

 Chapter 492: Hit and run (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 492: Hit and run (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A magic war chariot was described as a portable magical tower. Even though its offensive power was much weaker than that of a magical tower, it allowed a mage to meditate whenever they wished, which was its most important function. Onboard a magic war chariot, a mage¡¯s consumption was lowered while their recovery was heightened, which was in fact a great boost to their offensive powers.


    Lex handed themand of her subordinates to Saleen, then she began meditating. This journey would not be peaceful. They were not harassed by Tanggsi¡¯s army at the Stone Statue Castle, but it did not mean that they would not be attacked in the future.


    Saleen decided to get J onboard, and showed him the map of Titan.


    There were a few mountains north of the Chishui River, so the magic war chariots could advance very swiftly. It also meant that the cavalrymen from the Tanggsi Empire could do so too.


    J took one look at the map, then said, ¡°Sir, we have to travel more than seven-hundred miles. The skeletal warhorses might be able to endure it, but the swordmasters will not hold on forever. We need to ensure that when we are entering the Purgatory Desert, everyone has their offensive powers. All of us should rest for at least eight hours daily, and the mages should help everyone rejuvenate their bodies. Excluding the three mealtimes and time taken to set up camp, we can only travel for ten hours every single day.¡±


    ¡°Ten hours, will the swordmasters be able to hold out?¡±


    ¡°We should have three hours of rest time. As long as there is sufficient sleep, they can hold out. The skeletal warhorses are easy to handle.¡±


    ¡°That means there will be nine hours left, and we can travel at a speed of forty miles an hour.¡±


    ¡°Sir, you cannot calcte in this manner. You have to take into ount the rivers, mountains, enemies, and other kinds of situations.¡±


    ¡°So how long will it take?¡±


    ¡°If luck is in our favor, four days.¡±


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. The Agares family would not be able to react in a span of four days. As this ce was already seized by the Tanggsi Empire, they only needed to guard against the Tanggsi¡¯s army.


    Seeing that Saleen was kind ofcent, J said, ¡°Sir, we have to be careful of Tanggsi¡¯s army, especially the ones who are rted to the Holy See. Those people aren¡¯t afraid of dying. To them, death is the simplest method to enter heaven.¡±


    ¡°What suggestions do you have?¡± Saleen knew that he could not win the war by marching an army, so he sought advice from J. J was no expert either, but he was more familiar with Cloudflow and Tanggsipared to Saleen.


    ¡°The mages are very exhausted. If the viscountess can provide constant-fire alchemical crossbows to lessen the work of the swordmasters, we can maintain our speed. Once a person is tired, they won¡¯t even be able to travel in a chariot, much less ride on a skeletal warhorse.¡±


    Lex opened her eyes and nced at J. She then took out twelve weirdly-styled alchemical crossbows. A normal alchemical crossbow was about two meters wide, and a rack was needed for support. The width of these twelve alchemical crossbows did not even reach a meter. There was a protruding case on the top of each crossbow, where a gear was supposedly ced, but in its ce were two magic arrays.


    Such an alchemical crossbow could be swiftly loaded as the arrows in the magazine would flow into the groove automatically. Its firing speed was faster than that of a bow. The only w was that a magic nucleus had to be mosaicked into it, so the cost of production and maintenance was exorbitant. On average, before the shelf life of this alchemical crossbow was up, every arrow it fired would cost around three gold coins.


    It must be noted that a soldier¡¯s monthly remuneration was only one gold coin, some earned even less. A swordmaster¡¯s pay was between three to five gold coins, this was the standard rate of a professional army. A mercenary earned more, but they were responsible for their own equipment. In actual fact, they did not earn a lot more, unless they were willing to take risks and put their lives on the line.


    To prevent quick depletion during battle, Lex had mosaicked level-5 magic nuclei onto all the alchemical crossbows. The magic nuclei in the magic array could only be installed by a mage.


    The convoy traveled through the night as they had not broke free from the troops stationed near the Stone Statue Castle. They could not rest for this night.


    As it was October, deep into autumn, Titan was slightly chilly in the evenings. Fortunately, it did not rain continuously like winter in Cloudflow. It was not very overbearing either.


    During the journey, the convoy ran into some leftover soldiers, they were the private soldiers belonging to Titan¡¯s nobles who had been defeated by the Tanggsi army. J did not hesitate at all. He led ten swordmasters and charged over, ughtering these thirty leftover soldiers.


    Saleen hesitated for a moment, but did not stop J. His team traveled in between Titan¡¯s cities, as most of these cities would have Tanggsi¡¯s soldiers. Even though the leftover soldiers did not pose a threat to Saleen, they might leak information.


    The convoy rushed all the way to dawn, it only stopped when the swordmasters could no longer stomach the fatigue. J found an obscure forest for everyone to rest in. If a brigade of soldiers camped in the forest, there would be trouble. Saleen¡¯s team was very small, and many of them were elites. They were actually safe in the forest because of that. They would not be easily discovered.


    In order to subdue the Metal Titan, Lex¡¯s mages had severely depleted their mental strength. All of the mages were resting in the chariots, while Saleen created the Restorative Water for the swordmasters. Each of them was also blessed with the Chunlin spell.


    After the soldiers were cated, Saleen set some magic traps to y it safe, then he intertwined many metal wires around the branches of the surrounding trees. These metal wires did not have any magical attributes, they were just hidden between the leaves. If someone wanted to conduct a sneak attack from above, the attacker would get trapped in the metal wires.


    J was still alert, he apanied Saleen all this while, and Sika did not leave Lex¡¯s side at all. She knew that Saleen would need Lex¡¯s help in order toplete the uing tasks.


    After this very tiny camp was set up, Saleen did not return to the chariot. Instead, he built a tform between the treetops, andid in a formed by the metal wires.


    This forest was not considered very dense, so the moonlight could prate the treetops. Gazing at the star filled sky, Saleen could not get to sleep no matter what. He took out the n badge and caressed it. In the middle of this ck badge, that deep imprint of the lightning star carried a touch of azure hue.


    ¡°It is an unknown as to when I can return to Ceylon City, Earl Sufonso should still be alive. With the whole world in turmoil, Sikeqinya cannot be spared either. Yaoyang City, which Earl Sufonso resides in, is still a port city. It is a pretty good resupply point in the north of the maind.¡±


    Saleen felt that he was homesick, as an unexinable wave of affection overcame him.


    ¡°Master.¡± Nailisi climbed up the tree sneakily.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you protecting those mages?¡±


    ¡°Cuisi and the rest are around, I don¡¯t have to be there. Master, aren¡¯t you waiting for me?¡±


    ¡°Waiting for you?¡±


    ¡°Of course, there are four demons, you need to understand their offensive powers and fighting techniques. I was still thinking of asking you to help them craft some equipment.¡±


    As Saleen had just experienced some abrupt emotions, he did not bother arguing about the issue of Nailisi and the demons, he simply nodded his head.


    Nailisi began exining in detail the demons¡¯ races, their abilities, suitable fighting techniques, and the equipment they required.


    Saleen took note of every single detail, then he asked, ¡°Nailisi, how many of such demons can you summon?¡±


    ¡°Master, if too many are summoned, they cannot be controlled. If you are talking about spirits, a few hundred can be summoned. We can select them, and they can be at the standard of a high grade swordmaster.¡±


    ¡°Is Cuisi stronger than you?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± With a lingering fear, Nailisi confirmed, ¡°If he didn¡¯t try to be a smart aleck, I might not have been able to see Master ever again.¡±


    ¡°I need demons like Lu, who are proficient at using weapons.¡±


    ¡°Master, this depends on luck. Such demons usually follow a devil. It is very difficult to summon them. If there are any mistakes, and a devil is summoned, all of us would be doomed.¡±


    ¡°What about the magic bugs?¡±


    ¡°Magic bugs achieve victory in numbers, they consume more food than Master¡¯s lightning dragons. I summoned the magic bugs to feed the lightning dragons. Some magic bugs in the demonic ne are extremely huge, and their offensive power is really low. They look like worms which have been magnified thousands of times.¡±


    Saleen felt disgusted when he heard that, but Nailisi continued introducingmon knowledge about the demonic ne.


    ¡°Master, the magic bugs will only be valuable in an enclosed space like the one in the temple. If the enemy was the ten swordmasters serving Lex and they donned sealed magic armor, each of them would be able to ughter tens of thousands of magic bugs. The life of a magic bug is short, they are not very useful. All the imps feed on magic bugs.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, isn¡¯t an imp stronger than a spirit? Why did you say that a spirit at the standard of a high grade swordmaster can be summoned?¡±


    ¡°A spirit¡¯s appearance is highly simr to that of a human, they can emte human martial arts very quickly. If their equipment is good. I am saying, they can have an offensive power equivalent to that of a high grade swordmaster.¡±


    ¡°I read in the books that a spirit might be a hybrid of humans and demons, and they can learn human magic. Is that true?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, a spirit¡¯s inborn strength is hundreds of times stronger than that of a human. If Master didn¡¯t use magic, you would definitely be defeated by a spirit.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s physique was akin to that of a beginner swordmaster, but he did not have the corresponding skillset. Saleen was clear about his own weakness.


    ¡°Is it very difficult to summon a demon?¡± Saleen analyzed meticulously, discovering the loopholes in Nailisi¡¯s exnation. In order to possess high offensive power, it was impossible to rely on the spirits. In the demonic ne, a spirit¡¯s status was even inferior to that of an imp.


    Nailisi replied hesitantly, ¡°Master, this matter¡­¡±


    Saleen immediately felt that something was amiss, Nailisi would only speak non-fluently when she got into trouble.


    Seeing that Saleen was staring at her, Nailisi knew that she would have to spill the beans sooner orter. She bit the bullet and said, ¡°I used some of Master¡¯s high grade materials, and six high level magic nuclei to summon them¡­¡±


    Saleen was extremely angry, a high level magic nucleus was an item which did not have a market price. Other than getting high level magic nuclei from the temple and the hell of god¡¯s punishment, Saleen had never seen more than two level-7 magic nuclei anywhere else. In an equipment shop, all magic nuclei above level-7 were sold separately, and only a sorcerer had the rights to purchase them.


    After Saleen advanced to a sorcerer, he would have to rely on the high level magic nuclei to regain his magic chords in a short time. Nailisi had used six of them in one go.


    ¡°Master, please punish me.¡± Nailisi pressed herself against Saleen, looking guilty.


    ¡°How long can those four demons stay on the Myers maind?¡± Saleen suppressed his rage. If they could only be summoned temporarily, then he would have suffered great losses.


    ¡°As long as I don¡¯t die, they will not be sent back!¡± Nailisi replied with her head hung low.


    ¡°Six magic nuclei, aye! Nailisi, give me the remaining magic nuclei for safekeeping.¡± Saleen stretched out his hand. Helplessly, Nailisi took out the high level magic nuclei which Saleen gave her for storage.

 Chapter 493: Eye of Lightning (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 493: Eye of Lightning (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nailisi, you must know how to do your sums. I may seem like I have many high level magic nuclei, but these items are not disposable. It is very difficult to procure them. Once I advance to a sorcerer, those normal magic nuclei will be useless to me in battle.¡± Saleen stored the magic nuclei in his own Demonic Bangle as he consoled Nailisi.


    Nailisi¡¯s tears fell against her will, and Saleen wiped them off her face. Then he said, ¡°Are you trying to conjure a demonic army by summoning those demons?¡±


    ¡°They are for protecting Master.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, you must do the math. Once we return to Metatrin City, you can use a much smaller price to summon demons in my underground space. The intermediate level magic nuclei from the Frozen Sea can be umted to open a magic array.¡±


    ¡°I was trying to¡­ surprise you.¡±


    ¡°Surprise? It was more of a shock. Forget it, since the deed has been done, there is no point harping on it. If there are things like this in the future, you mustn¡¯t hide them from me. If¡­ If you had gotten eaten by the summoned demons, I would be filled with immense regret.¡± Saleen ced his hand on Nailisi¡¯s head, gently stroking her hair, feeling like she was a real human and not a demon.


    ¡°Got it, Master.¡± Nailisi smiled secretly, then she suddenly said, ¡°The winged skeleton has also been up to some activities behind your back, Master needs to be careful.¡±


    ¡°Humph, don¡¯t try to sow discord, I just scolded you!¡± Even though Saleen was berating Nailisi, he felt very helpless.


    ¡°It¡¯s true. I needed the coordinates of the demonic dimension when I was summoning the demons, and he was the one who told me the coordinates. He also threatened me into helping him salvage a number of those sunken ships.¡±


    Nailisi was fuming, and revealed whatever she could say.


    ¡°Let him be, Nailisi, the winged skeleton is more loyal than you. Since you are a demon, I won¡¯t need your loyalty. Don¡¯t be calctive about the freedom I give him, Daniel has hurt him in the past.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen was eagle-eyed, Nailisi was upset. She threw her face onto Saleen¡¯s chest and rubbed it all over his magic robe, wiping her tears off. Then, she jumped down from the tree.


    As Saleen caressed the moist part of his torso, his mood lightened up. No matter what, he would not really me Nailisi. Long ago, he had deceived her as an underage imp. In actual fact, Nailisi had a more pitiful past than him. It must be really terrifying for her to endure tens of thousands of years of imprisonment.


    In the magic war chariot, Lex did not sleep. She locked eyes with Sika for a long time, then finally said, ¡°I heard that a war priestess will be able to advance into a totem priestess then will be a nature priestess if they advance any higher. Almost every single Caucasus person will obey the order of a nature priestess.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s correct, you really are knowledgeable about the Caucasus people.¡±


    ¡°You should be a totem priestess by now.¡±


    ¡°Kind of.¡±


    ¡°You are not even twenty years old yet.¡± Lex sighed.


    ¡°You are very young too.¡± Sika pointed out.


    ¡°Can you tell me why?¡±


    ¡°Why what?¡±


    ¡°In thest thousand years, you might be the only Caucasus person who can advance to a nature priestess. A nature priestess cannot form a family, so why did you choose Saleen?¡±


    Sikaughed. Her eyes were pitch ck, as if the whole night sky was concentrated within them, with a tinge of starlight.


    ¡°Viscountess, you are thinking too much. The Caucasus people are simple and straightforward. Since I am fond of Saleen, I will not allow others to take advantage of him. I will go forth and get whatever I desire. As for the future, everyone will have to return to nature eventually. When Saleen bes a grade-9 sorcerer, he will only live for twelve-hundred years. If by any chance I be a nature priestess, my life will not be more than one-thousand years. It might be ten times more than others, but it¡¯s still too short. When people are alive, they should fight for what they want, they shouldn¡¯t have regrets.¡±


    Sika¡¯s way of talking was just like her fighting style, causing Lex to be stumped for words. Sika did not think about the future, she was like any other Caucasus person who lived their live ording to their heart.


    The most infuriating thing was, Sika was referring to someone when she said that she would not allow others to take advantage of Saleen.


    Lex had thought of her rtionship with Saleen before. In her eyes, if she could get together with Saleen, it would be uneptable. Even though Saleen had a powerful backing behind him, he was a person who did not have ambitions. If no one pushed Saleen, he would be like Sika, living in the moment without nning for the future.


    If Lex had to build a dynasty in the future, she was fine with making Saleen the emperor. Such a person was really rare in this world already.


    Lex did not ponder about this matter with much urgency, but she felt like she had been abandoned after Sika had the upper hand. Lex had never experienced such profound emotion before, so she thought that she was jealous of Sika. It was only after that day¡¯s conversation that Lex realized she adored Saleen, but it was not that kind of unforgettable love.


    Her fondness was solely due to Saleen¡¯spatibility with herself. Saleen was a mage who possessed the same style as her.


    Sika did not snatch Saleen away. She was Saleen¡¯s first love, so no one would be able to rece her position in Saleen¡¯s heart.


    Lex had been indifferent to thispetition. Now, she felt like she had lost and she had lost to a Caucasus person.


    To think that when Lex first met Sika, this beautifuldy who took her breath away had a head of messy hair. If Saleen did not force her, she might not even shower at all.


    ¡°Viscountess, it¡¯s not entirely impossible for you to marry Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Why would I marry him?!¡± Lex raised her voice, feeling strange at her own agitation.


    ¡°It¡¯s better if you don¡¯t marry him.¡± Sika was giggling, and once more, Lex felt like she had been defeated.


    ¡°I have too many things to aplish, I might not even finish all of them in the next one-thousand years.¡± Lex sighed again, changing the topic.


    ¡°Same here. Anyway, no matter how many tasks there are, they will not impede our childbearing ns.¡± Sika spoke tantly, causing Lex to feel helpless for the first time in her life.


    As Sika was not a fanciful person, a noble would not be able to deal with her straightforward character.


    At this point in time, Nailisi opened the chariot¡¯s doors and came onboard. Lex was astounded, then said, ¡°Why aren¡¯t you on the other chariot?!¡±


    Lex had guessed that the four women were demons. Lex¡¯s heartbeat had gotten faster knowing that four demons were left alone with her mages. If those four demons went berserk, her mages were doomed.


    ¡°Viscountess, please rest assured, the mages are in safe hands.¡± Nailisi spoke respectfully, but her concept of respect was non-existent. She only loved the pretense humans put up in front of others. Unlike Sika, Nailisi loved to act smart and was scheming. As to whether it would yield results, she did not care. The eventual solution would still involve her teeth and ws.


    The problem was, no matter how respectful and obedient Nailisi acted, Lex would not be so dumb as to think that she couldmand Nailisi. Her attitude, thus became a form of provocation towards Lex.


    Lex was helpless as Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s subordinate. As long as she did not attack Lex, Lex could only continue patronizing her.


    When Saleen was around, Lex did not have such strong feelings. Now that Saleen was absent in order to avoid suspicion, she discovered that these two women beside Saleen were not easy to deal with at all.


    Saleen did not know that Sika and Nailisi were causing so much frustration to Lex. There was another reason why he went into hiding; to practice magic. The effect of practice was better onboard the magic war chariot, but Saleen had been studying the magic patterns found on the badge and the lightning dragons. All the magic patterns could be expressed using words. The purpose of magic words was to trante a certain power, so that humans could use their mental strength to control it.


    Regarding the secret of the badge, it could not be disclosed to anyone, even if the person was Lex.


    The stupidest idea would be to use the Figaro Form to decode the magic patterns. The difficulty of doing double calctions was thousands of times higher. Firstly, the meaning of the magic patterns had to be studied, then the power of the magic patterns had to be described using the magguage, before being verified one by one. Even if Saleen could calcte thousands of times faster than other people, he would die due to exhaustion. Even after dying from all that fatigue, he would still fail to decode even one percent of the power contained in the magic patterns.


    This was more challenging than creating a new spell. With so many magic beasts in this world, humans could emte the different magic patterns to produce countless spells.


    Saleen was inevitably envious of Nailisi. Nailisi only had to swallow a few lightning dragon¡¯s eggs to obtain a portion of the lightning dragon¡¯s abilities. Even though she could not release the electric current for long distance attacks, it was already akin to her donning a piece of armor which was immune to elemental magic.


    Saleen could only use another route, by signing a soul contract with the twenty-four lightning dragons. The moment he was free, he would go experience the soul vibrations produced when the dragons released an electric current. The mental strength was also rted to the soul. After one was familiar with the soul vibrations, they would be able to simte the secrets in a lightning dragon¡¯s lightning release process.


    Even if a spell for releasing lightning could not be produced, a control appliance simr to Saleen¡¯s n badge could be manufactured. Such an appliance would have to release lightning autonomously, it should not be like the badge, which had to be fully charged with energy before being able to release a lightning attack.


    Even if Saleen¡¯s lightning dragons were reared to adulthood, they would also require about one month to recharge the energy in the badge.


    Within the Goddess of Myers¡¯ ne, the twenty-four lightning dragons swam about cheerfully. Saleen had thrown all the magic bugs given by Nailisi into the ne. Since the bodies of the magic bugs still contained the special energy from the demonic ne, they were considered supplements for the lightning dragons. In the spaces of the ne, time flew past very quick. The moment the lightning dragons ate arge amount of food, they would develop at a speed which was observable by the naked eye.


    Each of these twenty-four lightning dragons were about two meters long. Golden magic patterns glistened atop their slightly transparent skin. Not only did Saleen have to feed them, he also had to add the Restorative Water into the ne constantly. He cast wind magic to replenish the air in the water, so that the lightning dragons would not suffocate.


    No matter how big the spaces in the ne were, the air in water would be depleted really quickly due to the flow of time.


    When the twenty-four lightning dragons felt the exploration by Saleen¡¯s soul, the surface of their bodies released a pale blue electric current. Since they had not matured, their electric currents were weaker than that released by Nailisi. Following the frequent release of electric currents by them, the strange color of those magic patterns in Saleen¡¯s pupils had grown paler by a few shades. His pupils started to assume a slight tinge of gold.

 Chapter 494: Eye of Lightning (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 494: Eye of Lightning (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not detect the changes happening to his own body. Every time he trained, he would use the n badge to stretch his mental strength. In the process, the badge had altered his constitution.


    As his soul vibrations emted that of the fluctuations from the lightning dragons, the magic patterns in his pupils became clearer and moreplicated.


    As the soul vibrations became more intense, Saleen¡¯s mental strength was also adjusted, causing his eyes to release an azure light. The power produced by mental strength was far weaker than that produced by the elements though. This ray of light could only travel for about one foot before it dispersed.


    Even though the change was so slight, the world was already different in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Everything seen through his eyes was now gray in color. I was like the best piece of magic paper which got incinerated by the mes of the elements, forming a bunch of delicate ashes, then a gentle breeze blew, causing the ashes to break down.


    Everything became gray particles, and they were constantly disintegrated. In front of Saleen¡¯s eyes, aplete magic patterns appeared in that azure ray of light.


    This three-dimensional magic pattern was almost identical to the one found on Saleen¡¯s badge, it was just smaller in size. Before Saleen could make sense of it, this magic pattern quivered ever so slightly before disappearing. Pitch darkness filled Saleen¡¯s vision, he could not see anything at all.


    Saleen was greatly rmed, he immediately halted the mental training with the lightning dragons. He then closed his eyes and started meditating.


    Half an hourter, Saleen opened his eyes again, and everything was back to normal. He recalled everything which took ce just now in great detail, then he mustered his mental strength on his own ord. Then his eyes released the azure light once again. Once more, the world was thrown into grayness, and a magic pattern appeared in front of Saleen, but it quickly vibrated before disappearing.


    This time around, Saleen captured the principle guiding the vibrations. Even though it was very slight, it was at the same frequency as that earth-shattering vibration in the badge.


    This was the power of lightning!


    In variousnguages, within the system of the ancient Myersnguage, lightning and electricity were two separate words. Lightning represented the agitation of the elements between the skies and the earth, releasing immense power. Electricity was another kind of power. These two powers always shared an association. In nature, lightning and electricity were inseparable.


    Lightning was invincible, while electricity was imprable.


    In stormy weather, mages did not dare to fly as they were afraid of bing struck by electric currents, and turning into ashes. If one was struck by lightning, they might simply disintegrate.


    The simrity in being struck by these two powers was death, no one was an exception.


    Mages did research into many materials, some materials could obstruct the flow of an electric current, but an electric current wielded tremendous power. Even if these materials were used, they could only block electric currents which contained less power. Almost no materials could resist the electric currentsunched from the clouds.


    As a mage¡¯s magical tower was very tall, they would bury metal needles into the ground in order to lure lightning into the ground. Only the earth had an infinite withstanding ability.


    The magic pattern which Saleen saw, was a lightning pattern. It was just that it existed for a brief period, so in other people¡¯s eyes, it seemed like it had never appeared. Only Saleen could see some trace of it.


    This did not mean that the magic pattern was useless. The power of lightning could destroy elemental stability. Any spell which got struck by lightning would be dispersed, and this was the logic behind why Nailisi¡¯s body was protected by lightning. As long as the enemy was not at a much higher grade than her, elemental spells could hardly injure her.


    Saleen¡¯s magic pattern could also be utilized in this manner, it could even be more autonomous. As long as he could make the lightning pattern form at a farther distance, he would be able to destroy his enemy¡¯s magic at will.


    In the second experiment, Saleen also lost vision of everything in front of him. He did not panic this time around, because there was no damage to his body, the blindness was only temporary.


    The eyes were the weakest organs in humans, while lightning was the strongest power in the world. After Saleen understood the reason, he immediately stopped the practice. He could not possibly stop only after getting injured, otherwise, many mages would lose their lives during experiments.


    He had gained much more this time around. He did not meditate, he recovered naturally. In only ten minutes, his eyes had reverted to normal. In just a few months of training, Saleen could finally muster the magic pattern on his own, and he was really surprised. He did not expect the acquired power to be released through the eyes.


    No mantras were required. By using mental strength, the speed of spell casting would reach maximum magnitude, and the spell would be instantaneous. Other instantaneous spells required repeated practice in order to achieve the instantaneous effect. This spell was immediately instantaneous upon mastery though, it could not be any slower.


    Saleen¡¯s heart was aze with the mes of passion. The power of the lightning pattern released via his eyes was so weak, it might not even be a ten-thousandth of the lightning from the clouds power. With sustained practice, the might of this lightning pattern would get increasinglyrger though. Even if it could not be used to damage someone, it could be used to disrupt the enemy¡¯s magic.


    ¡°If this lightning pattern was illustrated, and made into a three-dimensional magic array, such as the one in my temple, then a magic-prohibiting space could be formed. Other than myself, no one would be able to cast any elemental spells there.¡±


    The more Saleen pondered, the more unbearable he felt. He wanted to practice so badly, but was worried that his eyes could not withstand such frequent training.


    ¡°Forget it, I will train one more time before going to sleep!¡± Saleen could not resist the temptation. Once again, he mustered his mental strength and formed the lightning pattern two feet from his eyes. As the lightning pattern broke into pieces, Saleen felt a soothingfort in his heart.


    After regaining vision in the eyes, Saleen again could not resist the temptation and began practicing one more time.


    ¡°This is thest one, once I am done, I will sleep.¡± Saleen kept telling himself that until dawn. It was only when the swordmasters in the camp were preparing breakfast that he had no choice but to stop training.


    There were no anomalies in his eyes, the temporary blindness arose due to the over-consumption of mental strength. The lightning pattern did not break in his eyes, so it would not cause injury to them. If light was involved, then it might have scalded his eyes.


    It was not Saleen¡¯s fault that his determination was so weak. Any mage could not be more restrained than Saleen after acquiring such an ability. In fact, most mages would be more enthusiastic than Saleen. Saleen was already considered a more prudent mage.


    The mages disembarked from the chariots and walked about, consuming breakfast with the swordmasters. That was the difference in Lex¡¯s mages, they rarely treated the soldiers protecting them with condescendence.


    A mage was powerful, but inparison to a warrior, a mage spent less time in battle. If there was arge number of sand scorpions in the desert, a grade-4 mage and a high grade swordmaster could easily kill all of them. A mage would be slightly exhausted after killing a dozen sand scorpions. After killing more than one-hundred and twenty sand scorpions, their magic chords would be almost fully depleted.


    As long as the high grade swordmaster had a powerful weapon, they would be able to soldier on until their Sword Aura was gone.


    With a powerful weapon, a swordmaster could easily pierce the shell of the sand scorpions without using much of the Sword Aura. As long as a high grade swordmaster was not besieged, he would not feel tired even after killing hundreds of these sand scorpions.


    Lex had brought along ten swordmasters in order to take out the weaker magic beasts. The Purgatory Desert was fraught with perils. If a mage had to deal with all the dangers themselves, then the mages would get into a precarious situation as they would exhaust their magic chords every day.


    Saleen did not notice that Lex did not rest well. He was immersed in his new spell, and just like any other fanatic mages, he had be oblivious to his surroundings.


    After Nailisi failed to sow discord between Saleen and the winged skeleton, she returned and managed to discover the hatchet between Sika and Lex. She then immediately teamed up with Sika, greatly angering Lex. She was just worrying that Saleen would discover that something was amiss, but Saleen looked like he was out of sorts. Nailisi rejoiced secretly, before summoning the four demons to serve Saleen¡¯s breakfast.


    All along, Lex was waited upon by other mages, but these mages were only involved in magic practice. Nailisi¡¯s four demons looked totally powerless, they looked just like normal beautiful women, causing Saleen to be portrayed as a nouveau riche. As Saleen was still pondering about the spell, he did not notice anything wrong. Under the service of four demons, he finished a standard meal which was usually prepared for an army.


    As Lex was feeling very upset, she did not even share her tea leaves with Saleen.


    At this moment, Sika then saw the good in Nailisi. If it was not for her hunger, she wished to have a longer chat with Nailisi. They had a good conversation yesterday, which led to Lex being infuriated.


    Sika was in a dilemma herself too. She was clear about her responsibilities, but she did not want Saleen to live with anyone else. ¡°If Saleen married Lex, he might even be conferred an imperial salutation and be involved in various matters. If Lex could dismiss this notion of hers, that would be great.¡±


    Unbeknownst to Sika, Lex would not feel the importance of Saleen if it was not for her and Nailisi. This was a small girl¡¯s mentality, but Lex had never loved a man before, so she was not mature in this aspect.


    The only thing Lex rejoiced about was that her mages had regained a portion of their offensive power. In another two to three days, they would recover fully. It was so different having a magic war chariot. Lex turned her attention to the issues in the Purgatory Desert, but those four demons kept hovering around her. They were serving tea and food to Saleen, cleaning his face and tidying his outfit. They just stopped short of massaging him.


    Lex was so furious that she went into another magic war chariot, unwilling to sit in the same one as Saleen.


    Nailisi felt bored. Lex had arge withstanding ability, there was no use making further provocations. Thus, she instructed the four demons to protect Lex.


    Saleen noticed this though. He felt that Nailisi had matured a lot. Right then, she knew how to show concern for herpanions. Secretly, Nailisi wasughing so much that her tummy hurt. For a demon, Nailisi¡¯s muscles were hurting so badly from all thatughter.


    This time around, the only ones left in the chariot were Saleen¡¯s subordinates and the two female mages who served Lex. Without any order from Lex, those two female mages would not switch chariots. The journey continued, with Saleen having thepany of four beautifuldies.


    As Saleen did not sleep a wink that night, he immediately plunged into a deep slumber the moment he reached the chariot. Nailisi sat on the floor of the war chariot, serving Saleen meticulously. As the four women watched Saleen sleep, each one of them had a different expression.


    Nailisi was jubnt, Sika was satisfied, and Narnia was slightly disappointed, while thest female mage was curious.


    ¡°Was this young mage really the heir to a great inheritance from Alchemy City? He looks really handsome and talented, somewhat like a noble from Cloudflow.¡±

 Chapter 495: Royal heritage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 495: Royal heritage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The team traveled in the northeastern direction, with J leading the pack, even the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters were convinced of his swordsmanship. There was no problem with the team¡¯smand. In a small team like this, an individual¡¯s offensive power was of a higher priority.


    Saleen¡¯s luck seemed to have gotten better. Along the way, J tapped on his sharp intuition to avoid many patrolling teams from the Tanggsi Empire. As the team was traveling east, their location was too far from the main battle zone. The pathetically low poption of mages from the Tanggsi Empire were not deployed to this region, not to mention the holy masters.


    The blood knights had gathered in the southwest, preparing to invade a city located along the upstream of the Chishui River. Saleen¡¯s team actually managed to pass through dozens of towns of varying sizes, finally arriving at the periphery of the Purgatory Desert.


    This feat was not entirely dependent on ability, luck had a part to y as well. With dozens of towns containing tens of thousands of soldiers, the smallest town would also have more than four-hundred troops stationed there. The Tanggsi Empire had expended all their resources, it was bent on seizing every inch of Titan¡¯snd.


    The Purgatory Desert was located in the center of the Myers maind, with a radius of thousands of miles. The terrain of the periphery wasplicated, but at least half of it was wide and open. Legend had it that the Goddess of Myers had fallen there. Saleen and the rest were nning on passing through two-hundred miles of mountainous roads. These mountains were originally earthy hills, but an unknown forbidden spell was used, causing the soil to melt and crystallize.


    This was a totally lifeless region, but it was actually safer. The wide and open areas contained poisonous scorpions and magic beasts. Even though these areas contained sources of water, it was not worth the risk. Since Lex had brought along very little people, her team could survive just by relying on the mages to create water.


    Adventure teams could not enter the depths of the Purgatory Desert because they did not own as many skeletal warhorses as Saleen. Before Saleen left for the journey, he had allocated two warhorses to each person, he sealed all these warhorses into the Green Spirit rock. These skeletal warhorses had been summoned by the three kings. As this ce was too far from the Metatrin City, the warhorses would gradually weaken, and eventually return to the death ne.


    Even with the sealing ability of the Green Spirit, everything had to bepleted within six months. It was already November, which meant that Saleen and his team had about four more months left.


    After entering a brown colored mountainous region, Lex had almost fully recovered, she then ordered the team to take a break.


    This was an adaptive rest. Lex took out appliances from the God¡¯s Ring, and built a sturdy camppound. Now that Titan was in extreme turmoil, it was possible that some defeated soldiers would seek refuge in this location.


    Eight fully constructed puppets were released. Two protected the magic war chariots, while the remaining six patrolled the area. Two flying puppets were released into the skies, they would be in charge of alerting the team. Four alchemical crossbows were erected at the four corners of the camppound. Lex also took out one-hundred war puppets in one go. The abilities of the war puppets could only be unleashed when they were controlled by a mage. In an unrestricted battle, their offensive power was simr to that of a high grade swordsman, but their consumption remained unchanged.


    As the camp was constructed in a mountainous region, no battlements were built. Instead, the war puppets were deployed to climb the mountain sides and erect powerful crossbows. None of the swordmasters or grand swordmasters participated in the patrols, they could truly rest now. Two mages took turns controlling the flying puppets.


    The continuous battles and traveling took a toll on everyone mentally. If they did not do some adjusting, they would wind up in a bad state the moment they entered the desert.


    At this moment, Lex had no mood to ponder about Saleen¡¯s problem anymore. She took out fourteen pieces of genuine magic armor for the swordmasters to wear.


    The so called genuine magic armor could only be worn by people above the grade of an intermediate swordmaster. A certain level of mental strength was required in order to unleash the true defensive ability of the armor.


    These fourteen pieces of armor were identical. The fully sealed helmets were carved out of an entire piece of metal. The face guards were flexible, they could be pushed upwards. The magic arrays etched at the interior of the face guard allowed the wearer to breathe freely, while the eye region contained polished crystal rocks. The skins of grade-6 magic beasts were used to make the lining of the helmets. The ear areas were fortified with separate magic arrays to block off any vigorous vibrations. At the same time, these two magic arrays also had the capability to transmit sounds.


    The aural magic arrays in a normal helmet could only transmit simple sounds, and themander also needed to use a kind of magic war drum to convey a message. This high level helmet could allow people to converse freely even if they were several miles apart.


    The savage looking metal face guard was coated with fine metal scales. Arrows shot from any direction would not be able to pierce through it.


    The upper section of the armor was filled with thick and bulky armor tes, alongside miniature arm shields. At the torso area, a protective heart lens which was polished into a matte finish was in ce. The pelvic region was as wide as a palm, it had a simr design as a magic robe. It was secured behind the waist as the frontal portion was concealed beneath armor tes.


    On the back of this magic armor was a row of metal thorns which extended down the spine. In actual fact, these thorns were used to prevent injury to the spine. At the same time, they prevented the enemy from attacking the wearer from behind. The essential purpose of the row of metal thorns was to thicken defense by severalyers, and to provide support at the same time.


    When a soldier wearing this set of magic armor stood still, almost all his weight would be absorbed by this metal skeleton. The thorns extended all the way to the heels of the boots. As a result, when the soldier moved about, the thorns could share some of the weight too.


    At the outer forearm portion there were two sealed notches, allowing magic equipment, such as a miniature alchemical crossbow, to be mosaicked into the armor. These two notches could also be used as a weapon. The soldier only needed to move his arm to defend against the enemy¡¯s weapon.


    The lower section of the armor was styled ording to the skirt armor used in Qin, this was to allow a soldier to ride a warhorse with flexibility. The sheath for a short sword was installed at the outer side of the boots, and not around the waist. The Qin¡¯s short sword and the triangr sword were simr, they were armor-piercing weapons. When the enemy¡¯s armor was too bulky to be prated, one could wield the short sword to stab the enemy. This action required immense closebat ability, so as to unleash the prating effect.


    The most special part of this magic armor was the gloves. The ends of the gloves were very long, tied directly to the metal wristbands. The bone fragments of magic beasts were stitched into the back face of the gloves. Not only was the defensive power high, the dexterity of the soldier¡¯s hands would not be affected either.


    Even an average mage would feel envious seeing this pair of gloves, they were sewn from the skin of a high grade magic beast, no seams could be seen on the exterior.


    As Saleen stared at this savage looking ck armor, he said with some envy, ¡°Isn¡¯t this¡­¡±


    ¡°The Spirit Snake Armor from the Grukos royal family, all the materials are extracted from a magic snake. It is the most flexible armor on the maind. Every set of armor requires a continuous refinement process by ten mages. Only one set can be produced per month.¡± Lex answered Saleen¡¯s question, as her eyes beamed with pride.


    The symbol of the Grukos royal family was the Six-winged Flying Snake, but the Six-winged Flying Snake had long disappeared from their ne. The Grukos family owned an imperial manor south of Holy Rock City, where there was a facility rearing spirit snakes. These spirit snakes contained the bloodline of the Six-winged Flying Snake, so they could provide the high level magic materials.


    A spirit snake could live for a hundred years, and the Grukos family was not allowed to ughter them, so they could only extract their materials after their death. Rearing a spirit snake required the feeding of magic nuclei, and their consumption was also huge. The royal family could only create a dozen sets of this armor every year because of that.


    Other than the batch which was manufactured during the developmental years, the quantity produced by the Grukos family for the past thousand years was not even sufficient to equip a swordsman¡¯s camp.


    Even so, this armor produced by the royal family of Qin made others go green with envy. The Cloudflow people had been pining for such an armor. They had made countless exchange requests, but were all rejected by the Grukos royal family.


    Obviously, Lex had the authority and capabilities to produce this armor, because the set given to Wild Bear was made to measure, it was not simply taken from the storeroom.


    Even though the outer metal of the Spirit Snake Armor was expensive, the more precious material was the lining which was made from the skin of the spirit snake. It was thisyer of spirit snake skin which enabled the wearer to possess a powerful resistance ability.


    Saleen swallowed a mouth of saliva. Every empire had powerful weapons. Out of the four empires, this set of armor was exclusive to Qin however.


    The Spirit Snake Camp of the Grukos royal family was not located in Holy Rock City, it was located five-hundred miles south of Holy Rock City, on a piece of manor which belonged to the imperial family permanently. That area, which had very fertilend, had a mausoleum which housed the previous emperors from the Grukos family. The most loyal of citizens and a huge poption of mages also lived there. After Qin was built, the Spirit Snake Camp never left the manor.


    It was the Bidemia Basin, the most mysteriousnd throughout the maind. It could support the lives of millions of people, but for the past thousand years, no one from other countrys could enter it.


    Even the emperor of Qin could not deploy the Spirit Snake Camp. The Spirit Snake Camp was responsible for maintaining the fundamental force of the Grukos family. As long as the Bidemia Basin did not copse, the Grukos family would be able to make aeback.


    The children of the first wife in the royal family had the authority to create the Spirit Snake Armor. Every year, a batch of materials for making the armor would be delivered to Holy Rock City. Other than producing a set of Spirit Snake Armor, the remaining materials could act as repair materials. The materials that went into making Wild Bear¡¯s armor were actually sufficient for manufacturing two sets of Spirit Snake Armor.


    Lex smiled, then said, ¡°I cannot give you this, I don¡¯t have the authority either.¡±


    Saleenughed dryly, then said, ¡°What about J¡¯s set?¡±


    ¡°That set is different, the spirit snake¡¯s materials weren¡¯t used, and the magic array is also different. You can imitate it though, as long as you have enough magic beast materials.¡±


    Saleen pondered for a moment, then he understood that this was a benefit which Lex had given to him. Saleen had sufficient magic beast materials, obtained by hunting red krill in the Frozen Sea, which gave him too many shells. Those shells might not be as good as the materials from a spirit snake above grade-6, but after repeated refinement, their quality would be almost identical.


    Such a magic armor was too important, it was then no wonder that Lex had brought along ten swordmasters. Once a swordmaster donned this set of armor, their offensive power would immediately be boosted to that of a grand swordmaster. Be it offense or defense, the swordmaster would be able to perform like a grand swordmaster, although they still would not be able to fly over short distances.


    Saleen was clear about the significance of having a grand swordmaster in an army. Back when a Silver Grand Swordmaster barged into Lex¡¯s camp trying to kill her, Lex might have gotten into hot soup if it was not for the trap set by Faerun and the rest of the soldiers. At that point in time, Lex still could not fly over long distances.


    Saleen was actually vexing over the blood knights from the Holy See, but with magic warriors, this problem would be much lessplicated.

 Chapter 496: Royal heritage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 496: Royal heritage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Following that, Lex took out the armor for the warhorses, and equipped them. A skeletal warhorse possessed great strength, although its defense was not outstanding. With the armor, the warhorses would be safer. The torso region of this armor had a protruding horn. If infantrymen were struck by this horn, they would surely be smashed into pulp.


    In the camppound, the mages were meditating while the swordmasters were training in order to get used to the magic armor. Lex took out a map and began discussing things with Saleen.


    The area marked out on the map was humongous, but it only contained information about the Purgatory Desert. Within the area of the real Purgatory Desert, there were no useful markings at all.


    ¡°Generally, we have to advance more than six-hundred miles, or perhaps even a thousand, in order to reach our destination. In the day, the temperature in the Purgatory Desert will be more than eighty degrees, even with the magic armor, the soldiers will not be able to hold out. At night, the temperature will be about negative forty degrees.¡±


    Nailisi sat at the side listening intently, as she thought to herself, ¡°On the demonic ne, this is considered a harsh region already.¡±


    ¡°I am not sure what kind of creatures are in the desert. I am very sure of one thing though; in that environment, the number of creatures will not berge. Those that are there will be very powerful though.¡±


    ¡°How long are we going to wait here?¡± As Saleen gazed at the map, he grew uneasy. ¡°Is the presence of powerful creatures really the reason why those greedy adventurers do not dare enter certain ces?¡±


    ¡°Around twenty days, we have to see when Metatrin City will be able to calcte the coordinates.¡±


    ¡°Twenty days? At this position, will we really be safe from an attack?¡± Saleen pointed to the rear of the map, then said, ¡°This is Duoluo City which we avoided, even though it is the smallest city, it can house more than five-thousand soldiers. Our tracks thus far cannot be concealed, if the people from the Agares family¡­¡±


    ¡°Then we will enter the Purgatory Desert earlier, didn¡¯t you realize that I did not even build a teleportation portal?¡± Lex replied nonchntly.


    Saleen could only express admiration at Lex¡¯s idea. Once in the Purgatory Desert, the Tanggsi army would not dare enter even if they had millions of soldiers. In that harsh environment, a normal soldier would no longer pose a threat to them. Once the Tanggsi Empire could not outnumber them, then the battle would depend on the experts.


    Entering the Purgatory Desert in such an abrupt manner was very perilous for Lex¡¯s team too, because they had zero knowledge of the things in the desert. The purpose of resting at this ce for twenty days was to condition them.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I send some men to check out the area up ahead?¡±


    ¡°No, your men might not be able to return safely. The manpower I have prepared this time around is the strongest already. Once we reach the center of the desert, I am afraid¡­ that some people may not return.¡± Lex rejected Saleen¡¯s proposal.


    ¡°Let¡¯s use a flying puppet then, I will make one right now.¡±


    Lex nodded this time around. A flying puppet was like a dynamic form of a mage¡¯s eyes. Its biggest function was not for attacking the enemy¡¯s trebuchets or battlements, it was for reconnaissance.


    The problem with a flying puppet was that its consumption of magic nuclei would be greatly increased if it were to fly for an extended duration, and it would be difficult to control it too. The best record ever was when a mage had flown a flying puppet for more than one-hundred miles and had it return safely, the puppet never crumbled in mid-air.


    Originally, Lex¡¯s team was nning to enter the desert directly, but because of Bifano, they arrived at the desert¡¯s periphery in advance. They had an extra twenty days of time because of that. Even if the flying puppet could only scout an area of fifty miles, it would be tremendously helpful to the uing expedition.


    Saleen began producing the flying puppet, the drawing and materials were provided by Lex. Saleen possessed the Water me Alchemy, which came in handy in this situation because an alchemyboratory was absent.


    Lex still had a bank of flying puppets in the God¡¯s Ring. A flying puppet was considered the weakest puppet though. Once in the desert, there would be drastic temperature differences. Higher level materials had to be used in the production process.


    Seeing that there was nothing much to be done, Nailisi went back to Sika, and began discussing things with Sika.


    ¡°Sister Sika, can you tolerate the environment of the desert?¡± Nailisi probed.


    Sika nced at Nailisi, then said defensively, ¡°Why are you asking this, if I cannot take it, Saleen would not have allowed me to tag along.¡±


    Nailisi licked her lips, then said, ¡°Sister Sika, since you are not good at riding a horse, you can remain in the war chariot, which means you are a lot less beneficial to Master already.¡±


    Sika actually wanted to use the same point to rebut Nailisi, but she recalled that Nailisi had summoned four demons whose offensive powers were very high, which meant that the four demons were indeed more useful than herself. Nevertheless, Sika refused to disclose anything, she simply shook her head, unwilling to reveal the trump card she had.


    Nailisi was just too smart. With a mysterious tone, she said, ¡°I notice that you do not look concerned at all, are you going to draw the big guns already?¡±


    The big guns Nailisi was referring to was the gigantic magic beast skeleton Sika obtained from Raphael¡¯s magical tower. Sika insisted that she could refine the skeleton, but after leaving the ocean, Nailisi had never seen her take it out even once.


    ¡°Humph, why are you asking this, are you afraid that I will kill you out of the blue?¡± Sika snorted with hostility.


    ¡°Of course not, I have been helping you all this while.¡±


    ¡°Kind of, but I do not like the four guys you summoned.¡±


    ¡°If you are unhappy with them, just call them over and wallop them, they will not dare retaliate,¡± Nailisi said ruthlessly.


    ¡°What are you trying to say?¡± Sika asked impatiently. She knew that Nailisi was doing insignificant stuff most of the time. The situation was now different however. The future was at stake, so Nailisi must be brainstorming of ways to avoid all those perils.


    ¡°I want to learn how to control bones.¡±


    ¡°You are¡­ it¡¯s useless even if you learned it, do you understand the state of mind of nature?¡±


    ¡°Why would I not? In the demonic ne, there are beautiful ces too. Not everything there has to do with killing¡­¡±


    ¡°Are you thinking of dealing with the winged skeleton?¡±


    Sika¡¯s words made Nailisi feel very surprised. ¡°How did this dumb girl manage to hit the bullseye?¡± Nailisi of course would not want to share Saleen with a summoned creature. The winged skeleton was very loyal, and Saleen had a good impression of it as well though. Now that the winged skeleton controlled the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, it was almost impossible to kill it.


    Sika¡¯s ability to control bones was far more powerful than what Nailisi imagined. Sika could re-inject life into a magic beast skeleton which had been dead for thousands of years. She could still control them in battles even.


    The winged skeleton was only a mere skeleton, if Nailisi learned such a skill, she would thus be able to subdue it secretly.


    ¡°The problem is, how did Sika understand my thoughts?¡±


    ¡°The simpler a person, the harder it is to deceive them.¡± Sika waved her hand, dismissing Nailisi. She still had to practice her new skill in secret. If she could not fly, then she would be a burden to Saleen.


    Nailisi realized that she had failed yet again, even Sika was not tricked by her. Nailisi was so terrible at being a demon. She continued pestering Sika, unwilling to let it go.


    ¡°Sister Sika, why don¡¯t I summon a few demons to be yourckeys, what do you say?¡±


    ¡°No, Saleen mentioned that you have wasted a lot of his materials.¡±


    ¡°Woo¡­¡± Nailisi made a strange noise, as she looked downcast. Saleen did not recall all of the materials, he only took back the high level magic nuclei. It was not that Saleen did not trust Nailisi, but Nailisi was simply too prodigal.


    ¡°Sika even knows about this matter, I don¡¯t know when Master told her about it.¡± If Sika agreed to Nailisi¡¯s terms, and Nailisi went to summon new demons, all the expended materials would be Sika¡¯s responsibility. By then, Saleen would not me Nailisi.


    ¡°If you do not leave, I am going to hit you,¡± Sika threatened. Nailisi softened her stance, she was not afraid of mages, but was afraid of Sika. Sika¡¯s boomerang and cudgel could really hurt her.


    From a distance, the four demons watched Nailisi leaving Sika looking dejected, and they were all gloating. The four fellows did not disy it though. Instead, with an indignant attitude, they told Nailisi, ¡°Sir, that woman doesn¡¯t know what¡¯s good for her, I will help you teach her a lesson.¡± Cuisi took the lead and spoke up, while the other three demons concurred.


    ¡°Do you want to die?¡± Nailisi red at them, putting one hand to her hip while pointing the other at their noses, then said ruthlessly, ¡°That is Master¡¯s lover, if you touch her, you will end up worse than getting captured by a Soul-splitting Demon.¡±


    Cuisi pouted. His offensive power was the highest, other than being fearful of Nailisi, he was not even afraid of J.


    Seeing that her advice was not working, Nailisi sneered, then said, ¡°Aiwa, you have the most strength. Go to Sika and say that you want to duel with her. The few of you, stay aside and watch what happens. If you want to punish her, you have to defeat her first right?¡±


    Aiwa clenched his fist, feeling very eager to give it a shot. Seeing that Nailisi was not joking, he immediately approached Sika.


    In her peripheral vision, Sika noticed Nailisi admonishing the few demons. Now that she saw Aiwa walking towards herself, she did not know what he was trying to do, so she stood up.


    ¡°Are you called Sika?¡± Aiwa shook his fist about rudely.


    Sika pouted, then she clenched her fist and tried to punch Aiwa. Even though Aiwa had transformed into a female human using the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill, his strength was still present despite looking very frail. Seeing that Sika was trying to punch him, Aiwa was jubnt, and decided to use his fist to receive Sika¡¯s blow.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to kill this woman, I will just break all of her bones.¡± Even before Aiwa¡¯s mouth could arch upwards into a smile, he felt like he had been hit by a mountain. His whole body was trembling from that immense force. In that instant, all his muscles rxed. As a result, mucus, tears, sweat and urine were all released from his body in that instant.


    Oo¡­


    Back at the camp, even the lousiest warrior was an intermediate swordmaster. It was impossible for the soldiers to miss such a raucous noise. Everyone turned around, and they saw a beautifuldy being flung into the air in front of Sika. Thedy flew backwards, flying directly out of the camppound.


    Even Cuisi was dumbfounded, ¡°How is it possible that this female human is so powerful? This sort of power only existed before the humans declined!¡±


    The three demons could toss a person weighing dozens of pounds into the air, they could even make them fly farther. The person in question was Aiwa, the strongest one among the demons. The best way to deal with Aiwa was to use technique, even Cuisi could not be bothered to pit his strength against Aiwa.


    ¡°Cuisi, do you want to try? You are much more powerful than Aiwa, and you might be stronger than me. I have to remind you though, it¡¯s because of your strength that Sika will not go easy on you. If you are killed by her, I will torture your soul!¡±


    Cuisi hesitated. Nailisi¡¯s words appeared to be a threat, but it was more like an encouragement for Sika.


    ¡°But if you triumph, I will ask Master to produce a set of high level equipment which will fit your true form.¡± Nailisi tossed a bait, grinning widely as she looked at the demon called Cuisi.

 Chapter 497: Goddess’ envoy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 497: Goddess¡¯ envoy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Before Cuisi could make up his mind, he heard Saleen saying, ¡°Nailisi, if you are really that bored, get the four of them toe give me a hand.¡±


    Saleen himself also knew that Nailisi was a person who had to be upied, so he rarely allowed Nailisi to be out of his sight for a long time. The moment Nailisi left for an extended duration, she would always create trouble for Saleen.


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s call, Nailisi immediately dismissed the notion of plotting against Sika, she went to look for Saleen. The demon who was flung out of the camppound had also gotten back on his feet, and had returned to the camp in extreme embarrassment. His injuries were not serious. Given the strength of a demon¡¯s body, he would recover in no time. He, however, had grown really fearful of Sika.


    When any kind of intelligent life was defeated in the aspect of their forte, a mental scar would definitely be left behind. Aiwa was no exception. Sika¡¯s punch made him feel totally helpless.


    Nailisi had sent him to test Sika because of his tremendous strength. If Nailisi did it herself, she would also be able to subdue Aiwa using her own strength. She just would not be as swift and decisive as Sika.


    This meant that Sika¡¯s strength had already exceeded that of Nailisi¡¯s strength of the dragon. Sooner orter, Sika would be a human even more ferocious than a real dragon.


    In the middle of the Purgatory Desert, ck sand stretched for thousands of miles into the horizon. Under the zing sun, heat waves could be seen vibrating above the ground, causing the scenery to be blurry. A ck sand dune gave off a humming sound as it moved with the wind. An immovable sand dune had a height of over one mile, and a radius of more than ten miles. This ck sand dune remained still, disying a sharp contrast against the surrounding dunes.


    A temple stood atop the sand dune. This temple had a ck hue, almost blending in with the desert. The pirs on the frontal of the temple had been destroyed, but it was not due to the effects of time. An intense battle had obviously taken ce there, some unknown weapon had fractured the two colossal rock pirs.


    This ck rock material was not made from steel rocks, instead, it was like a carved magic nucleus which had been magnified countless times. It looked crystal clear.


    Under the pir, stood a man and a woman. The over eighty degree temperature of the Purgatory Desert did not affect these two people at all, there was not even a single bead of sweat on their faces.


    If one did not pay attention to the heavy vicissitudes in their eyes, they would think that these people were only in their early twenties. They had the ck hair of Qin people and the blue eyes of Cloudflow people. Both people were d in a linen long robe, with a silk belt secured around their waists, as they stood barefoot on the ground.


    The man wore a crown with thorns, while the woman¡¯s hair was tied up using a dark green metal wire, hanging behind her. If it were ten-thousand years ago, everyone on the Myers maind would have recognized them based on their appearance. They were the goddess¡¯ envoys.


    The envoys of the Goddess¡¯ of Myers were different from the envoys of the Holy See. The Holy See¡¯s envoys enjoyed a high rank and powerful status, while the Goddess of Nature¡¯s envoys were mostly people who had pure faith and enjoyed helping others. The activities they were most involved in were helping impoverished people, giving alms, treatment, and dispelling disasters.


    The man looked up at the blinding sun, then said to the woman beside him, ¡°Jessica, it has been about thirteen-thousand and eight-hundred years, when will we be able to leave?¡±


    ¡°Why do we need to leave?¡± The woman called Jessica asked, ¡°Gauf, the goddess is no longer around, there is nothing for us to defend. If I wanted to leave, I would have left.¡±


    ¡°That creature has been resurrected, and it has escaped. Aren¡¯t you worried for the goddess¡¯ people? Gauf spoke nonchntly, he did not seem very anxious either.


    ¡°If you want to pursue it, then go ahead, but the Goddess¡¯ people? This world has been invaded by gods from the other nes, do you know how many people have given up their religion? If you were to leave now, you might not even see a believer anymore.¡±


    ¡°Your words are too harsh. The goddess has fallen, you cannot expect those normal humans to carry on holding onto their faiths. We shouldn¡¯t give up hope.¡±


    ¡°But if we leave, we will age very quickly and die.¡± Jessica also looked up at the sun. In the center of the sun, within the fiery mes, there was a ck spot.


    ¡°The elements on the Myers maind are on the verge of eruption. I think the humans will regain their powers before long, what¡¯s there to be worried about?¡±


    ¡°If we carry on living like this, there is no meaning either.¡± Gauf¡¯s tone was filled with destion.


    Jessica said dejectedly, ¡°You said that you will apany me forever. It¡¯s only been about ten-thousand years and you are sick of it already?¡±


    ¡°I am not sick of it, but when I realized that the Dark Sky Devil had been resurrected, I suddenly felt like I was dead. Jessica, the normal human beings aren¡¯t the only ones who lost their faiths. Do you miss the goddess?¡±


    Jessica fell silent. She knew that she still loved nature, but she no longer missed the goddess. The greenery, mountains, and rivers in the temple were hers now, they no longer belonged to her religion.


    ¡°The goddess has said that someone might find their way here to inherit her faith,¡± Jessica exined.


    Gauf stared at her, but did not expose her. He also felt nostalgic towards life. Once he left the temple, he would begin to age like any other human, just how much longer could he live? one-hundred years, or two-hundred years? Many years of waiting in the desert would lead people to hallucinate that they were already part of the desert, causing them to feel like they did not have a mind of their own.


    As the most intimate envoys to the goddess, they had the right to live here and maintain eternal life. If they left, then thest memories of the goddess would also disappear.


    If the goddess did not copse, they would never care about death. Death was only a transition point, the soul and the physical body would return to nature and await a new beginning. Since the goddess had fallen, the envoys¡¯ only difference from other humans was that they possessed immense powers. Nevertheless, they would still undergoplete obliteration.


    ¡°Jessica, if I leave, what will you do?¡±


    ¡°I will wait for you to return,¡± Jessica answered firmly.


    ¡°What if I die outside?¡± Gauf asked.


    Jessica nted her body to caress Gauf¡¯s face, then said gently, ¡°Then I will die as well.¡±


    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s leave together. I don¡¯t want to continue this, let us return to nature.¡±


    ¡°How is it different from being here? The temple also has the sceneries you love.¡±


    ¡°But there are no believers here. I am going out to preach, to make everyone remember that the goddess was the one who protected this maind.¡± Gauf¡¯s voice was filled with slight agitation, as he spoke with a certain degree of fury.


    ¡°If we go out, we will be noticed by the gods. A powerful god is paying attention to this ne.¡±


    ¡°He won¡¯t be able toe here. Even if we kill his believers, he can do nothing about it. Since the goddess has fallen, it will not be considered a holy war if we take action. Since it¡¯s not a holy war, he wouldn¡¯t be able to transcend the nar rules.¡±


    ¡°How long have you been contemting about this?¡±


    ¡°About six-hundred years, but I only nned on leaving the day the Dark Sky Devil escaped.¡±


    Jessica shrugged her shoulders, then said, ¡°There is no difference. Since you have made up your mind, I cannot possibly leave you to die alone. Give me a moment.¡± Finishing her sentence, Jessica turned and entered the temple.


    The space within the temple was unusually huge, totally unlike what was seen from the outside. It was just like the world in that metal pir Saleen saw in the hell of god¡¯s punishment. In this ce, there were mountains, rivers, stars, a sun, and a moon. There were no animals though, the green forest seemed void of life.


    On a peak far into the distance, a colossal white temple sat hidden in the clouds. This was the main temple of the Goddess of Myers, a world which was developed.


    Jessica stood beside a river, then she bent down and took out a wooden box from her ring. She opened the wooden box, revealing an egg inside. The shell of this egg was filled with fine and tiny magic patterns pale red in color.


    Jessica used her finger to sh her wrist, causing blood to gush out. All her blood spilled onto the egg, and this thumb-sized egg absorbed all the blood.


    The wound on Jessica¡¯s wrist was quickly sealed. Once again, she shed it, allowing blood to seep into the egg.


    She repeated this process thrice. The egg then shook in her hand, and with a crack, it opened. Jessica was relieved. She waited patiently for the creature in the egg to emerge.


    Cha¡­


    A creature smaller than a four-legged snake crawled out of the shell with much difficulty, falling into Jessica¡¯s palm, it was quivering. This little creature lifted its head and looked into Jessica¡¯s eyes. This was no ordinary creature, it possessed intelligence the moment it was hatched.


    ¡°Eat up first.¡± Seeing that the creature neithercked arms nor legs, Jessica finally had peace of mind. The little thing turned about and prostrated atop the shell, chewing at it. Very soon, it had devoured the shell. After consuming the shell, this tiny thing seemed to have gotten much stronger, it could stand on Jessica¡¯s palm steadily while swaying its tiny tail. Six scales, each the size of a sand particle, grew out of its back.


    Jessica¡¯s face turned pale, as the blood she had released contained the essence of her body. If it was not for the past ten-thousand years of umtion, this creature would not even be able to break through the shell. Seeing that the incubation process waspleted, Jessica imprinted the Ring of Gifts, which was on her hand, onto the creature¡¯s forehead. Twenty-four holy prose emitted a sh, as they permeated the creature¡¯s brain.


    This tiny creature seemed to be frightened. It leaped backwards, almost jumping out of Jessica¡¯s palm. Following the disappearance of the holy prose, it quietened down, before lowering its head once more. Then it began licking Jessica¡¯s finger.


    Jessica ced her hand into the river, and this little fellow was washed a great distance away by the water. It screamed shrilly, as if it was begging Jessica to save its life. Following the thrashing of its limbs, the creature suddenly realized that it could control the current very easily, it did not drown.


    ¡°Go, go and create more life. Protect the temple, don¡¯t let anyone take the seeds of the divine trees,¡± Jessica told this newly hatched creature.


    Chi¡­


    This little creature screamed sharply, but Jessica did not have any nostalgia for it. She simply turned and left the riverbank, making her way towards the exit of the temple.


    Under the pir at the exterior of the temple, Gauf waited patiently. Seeing that Jessica hade out, he took one step towards Jessica and grabbed her hand, raising it up, then he noticed the scars which had yet to disappear.


    ¡°Have you hatched it?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I only released half of the blood of essence, this temple has to be protected by someone.¡±


    ¡°Half of the blood of essence, are you insane? This will cause your powers to be reduced!¡±


    ¡°Leaving with you is already an insane idea.¡± Jessicaughed inly. Then, she grabbed hold of Gauf¡¯s hand and dragged him out of the corridor.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we can still catch up to the Dark Sky Devil.¡±

 Chapter 498: Goddess’ envoy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 498: Goddess¡¯ envoy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Across the ck desert, the two people walked side by side. They might have appeared to be traveling very slowly, but in actual fact, every step they took covered almost a mile. At such a speed, they were way faster than a mage who was flying. The flying skill of a mage tapped into the power of the wind element, while the two goddess¡¯ envoys were borrowing the power of the earth.


    More urately, they were not just utilizing the power of the earth. Earth, water, wind, light, darkness; these six elements were mutually convertible, none of them were dispensable. Located at the core of the earth was fire, coupled with rivers. On the other hand, the environment above the earth was enveloped by an endless supply of the wind element. Situated beyond the earth was space, where light and darkness was present.


    None of these elements were ever separated. Yet, when a mage was at too low a grade, they could only cast spells containing a single element. It was impossible for them to fuse the different elements together.


    Saleen had already grasped the initial stages of elemental conversion, but he only managed to do so because of his constitution and guidance from Joey. Even if he had be a sorcerer, he would still need to master these skills gradually otherwise.


    When all of these hadpletely fused with one another to the point of zero distinction, then that was the power of the Goddess of Nature. Thereafter, the seventh power, life, would be created. After the birth of life, death would be subsequently derived.


    After the two goddess¡¯ envoys left the temple, the towering ck sand dune began sinking into the ground slowly. Eventually, the ground became t. The temple had also sunk into the desert, leaving no traces behind. With the original position of the temple as the nucleus, countless microscopic runes quivered in the midst of the ck sand particles, as though they were fish in water. These runes expanded outwards, eventually forming a region with a diameter of one-hundred miles. In this region, everything remained still.


    In the blink of an eye, Gauf and Jessica had already walked hundreds of miles. They stopped at an area filled with gravel, where all the rocks were white in color. The sandstorms which urred in the past ten thousand years did not erode them into powder. As a result, this white gravel looked extremely blinding against the backdrop of the ck desert.


    Gauf scanned his surroundings, before bending down in front of a rock which was one and a half times taller than a human. He then extended his hand and caressed the rock.


    ¡°It escaped from here. Seems like it hadn¡¯t fully recovered yet, it only regained ten percent of its power. For some unknown reason, its recovery process has stopped.¡±


    ¡°Poor rock.¡± As Jessica gazed at this rock, her eyes were filled with sympathy. To the goddess¡¯ envoys, this rock also had life. Aftering into contact with the Dark Sky Devil, its life had quickly ebbed away.


    As if to verify her words, the rock burst open with a crack the moment Gauf lifted his hand.


    ¡°Since it hasn¡¯t fully recovered, it will go into hiding. It will be really challenging to locate it,¡± Jessica said worriedly.


    ¡°Since we have left, we shouldn¡¯t be too anxious. It is a devil, it must have believers in order to regain more of its powers.¡± After a round of short discussion, the two goddess¡¯ envoys altered their direction of travel, they began walking southeast. Even though both of them imed that they were not afraid of the believers of the god from a foreign ne, the two envoys did not want to get into a conflict for the time being. The scent of that god was very concentrated in the northwest direction, so the two envoys had to avoid that area temporarily.


    After such a long time, they were clueless about the situation on the maind. Other than that devil, which was extirpated in the past, giving them information about the current turmoil on the maind, no one else had entered the Purgatory Desert.


    South of the Purgatory Desert, within the ck Rock Mountain, Lex¡¯s camp had spent the past fifteen days and fifteen nights uneventfully. The ten swordmasters, two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, Wild Bear, and J had already limatized to their new magic armor.


    With the Spirit Snake Armor on their bodies, the swordmasters¡¯ actions were unrestrained, it was as though they were wearing normal cotton clothing. As the armor was almost weightless, the weapons of the swordmasters had also undergone some adjustments. As a result, they had to train for half a month before being able to adapt to the armorpletely.


    The swordmasters had changed their weapons, the Qin Eight-sided Swords were changed into the more suitable double-edged serrated knives. Short weapons included the armor-piercing short sword and an axe. The soldiers only had one long weapon, the double-ded spear. This spear could be detached in the middle. Even if all the parts were connected, it was not very long either, less than three yards. The body of this spear was crafted from an extremely lightweight metal. The swordmasters would put the spear in a spear pouch and sling it over their shoulders.


    Each person got an alchemical crossbow, while the skeletal warhorses were fitted with intermediate-sized metal shields.


    The swordmasters¡¯ backpacks were filled with fresh water. Even if the swordmasters got separated from the mages, they could still survive for several days.


    Each mage was allocated hundreds of scrolls, Lex did not dare be thrifty at this point in time. As she did not bring along many people, she would lose a great deal of offensive power the moment any one of them died. The quality of her mages was very high, and they were not old either. In the future, some of these mages would definitely be sorcerers.


    The magic war chariots were repaired. Saleen returned Eleanor her original robe, as her equipment had been seized by Nailisi. Saleen gave Eleanor ten level-4 scrolls, twenty level-3 scrolls, and one level-6 scroll.


    Eleanor was grateful towards Saleen. Even if Saleen did not give her these items, it would not be considered a breach of contract. In an environment like the Purgatory Desert, it would be ideal to have the magic chords untouched though.


    Logically speaking, Bifano had the worst luck. Saleen was obviously the one enjoying all the benefits, yet Eleanor hated Bifano.


    In these fifteen days, other than learning holy prose from Eleanor, the only thing Saleen did was to produce a set of equipment for each of the four newly recruited demons.


    This was Nailisi¡¯s request, which Saleen did not refuse.


    These four sets of equipment were not of a very high level, but their materials were precious. They were highlypatible with the fighting styles of the four demons.


    Aiwa was given a set of heavy armor. Even though a single piece of metal was not even used, the shell of the red krill had been repeatedly refined. As a result, his armor was still dozens ofyers thick. The whole set of armor was filled with a kind of thorn which was exclusive to the red krill. Even though the thorns were slightly brittle, they were razor-sharp. These thorns were the strongest attack this grade-4 magic beast could offer.


    If the thorns broke off, they could always be replenished, wastage was not a problem.


    Aiwa¡¯s forte was his strength, Saleen specially produced a shield for him using the metallized steel rocks from the temple. The shield was almost as tall as Aiwa, it could withstand any straight line attacks.


    Aiwa¡¯s weapon was pretty interesting, it was a meteor hammer. It actually was not suitable to pair this weapon with a heavy shield. Aiwa could wield the shield single handedly though. Coupled with the meteor hammer, he would enjoy both offense and defense.


    Saleen thought of the Silver Grand Swordmaster who assaulted Lex¡¯s camp in the past. His meteor hammer was really mighty, so Saleen decided to imitate his weapon.


    Lu¡¯s forte was long weapons, his skills were in no way inferior to that of humans. Saleen had imitated the Spirit Snake Armor, producing a magic armor which emphasized flexibility. Lu had another advantage over others; his leaping ability was really outstanding. With just one leap, he could jump even farther than J. With such agility, there was no need for him to use a long weapon anymore. Saleen crafted a horse-killing sword for Lu. A horse-killing sword could barely be regarded as a long weapon, but its method of usage was simr to that of a normal longsword, it could deal with targets d in heavy armor.


    The magic beasts in the desert would surely have tough shells, otherwise Lex would not have equipped her swordmasters with the armor-piercing short swords.


    Tolesi¡¯s ability was immense mental strength. He could learn magic, but Saleen had no time to groom him, so Saleen crafted a set of leather armor for him. This armor would not affect his ability to unleash his mental strength. As a demon, Tolesi¡¯s strength was pretty great too, so Saleen made twelve pole javelins for him.


    The javelins could be used for melee fights, or they could be tossed at the enemy. Given Tolesi¡¯s strength, him tossing a javelin would be more horrifying than an attack from a heavy crossbow.


    Saleen spent the most effort making Cuisi¡¯s equipment because Cuisi was mightier than the other three demonsbined. He needed costlier equipment.


    Saleen had used his savings of rhenium gold to craft a set of metal armor etched with magic patterns. Luckily, Cuisi was slightly shorter than Nailisi. If he had an eight-yard tall frame, Saleen would have already gone bankrupt trying to produce his armor.


    Nailisi told Saleen that Cuisi possessed outstanding martial arts skills and knew how to cast several inborn spells. This was the advantage a demon had over a human, they could possess magic and martial arts at the same time.


    Saleen had never witnessed Cuisi in action, so he sought Cuisi¡¯s opinion. Cuisi actually gave Saleen a drawing which was annotated in the ancient Myersnguage.


    Most demons knew how to write in the demonguage, but those who could write in the ancient Myersnguage were definitely high grade demons. Some of the powerful skills and knowledge of the humans had circted to the demonic ne during the ancient times. Consequently, many demons had learned human skills, and thus learned the ancient Myersnguage.


    When the bloodlines of these demons were passed down, their descendants almost dominated the demonic ne. Even though humans had declined, the powerful demons still had a tinge of fear towards them.


    Such fear was only present in the face of mightier humans. In the eyes of a demon, the average humans were actually thought to be less delicious than a magic bug.


    Cuisi wanted a soft whip as his weapon. On a real battlefield, no one was seen wielding a soft whip, but Cuisi still wanted it. All the annotations had proved that this weapon would be indomitable on a battlefield with tens of thousands of people.


    The soft whip had a length of sixteen yards. Saleen had used colloid found on the red krill, this material was even smaller than a finger. The colloid was refined to be the mainponent of the soft whip. The mightiest part of this colloid was not its toughness, but its ability to repair itself. Even if the red krill had died, the colloid still retained its properties.


    At the end of this sixteen yard long whip was a razor-sharp hook, produced from the teeth of a sea magic beast. This was not the main killing technique of this soft whip. Sharp horns were mosaicked onto the surface of the whip, with a finger spacing in between every horn. These horns originated from the horns of the tiago dragon. Saleen had used the Water me Alchemy to refine them into the soft whip.


    If one was struck by this soft whip, even their magic armor would be torn to shreds.


    After obtaining this whip, Cuisi became more loyal to Saleen, he was no longer as arrogant like he was in the beginning. He knew that it was extremely difficult refining the horns of a dragon in such a short time, even if one was a supreme demon. Saleen only used ten days to craft this weapon for him. In Cuisi¡¯s eyes, Saleen was considered a partial expert already.


    Cuisi did not like using magic, but he had a spell which was very practical. It was the rare Arrow of Darkness, a dark spell conjured by tapping into the mental strength of a demon. For this spell, Saleen had mosaicked two tiny white crystals into Cuisi¡¯s armor, allowing Cuisi¡¯s mental strength to recover twice as fast.


    Everything had been prepared, what was left was to set off. Metatrin City still had not sent any information over after a long time. Lex and Saleen were beginning to get anxious because the flying puppet recently spotted some cavalrymen from the Tanggsi Empire nearing the periphery of the Purgatory Desert. If the enemy had discovered the team¡¯s tracks, people might be dispatched to this location, which would lead to an unnecessary battle.

 Chapter 499: Blood knights (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 499: Blood knights (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    No matter how anxious they were, they still had to wait. Without urate coordinates, it would be impossible to find the exact location of the temple in this colossal Purgatory Desert.


    Be it in the Bitter Water Prefecture or Metatrin City, resources were tight. Other than having the seeds of the divine tress, the temple might also have many other types of precious materials. Once the main temple was located, more urate coordinates might be obtained, and the remaining temples could be excavated too.


    If some temples were within Saleen¡¯s and Lex¡¯s sphere of control, they could be dug out immediately.


    The first time Saleen entered a temple, he had obtainedrge quantities of magic nuclei and metal materials, which he had not finished consuming yet. If all twenty-four temples could be found, or if only half were found, it was still a humongous fortune for him.


    Saleen had a premonition that the items in each temple were different. Lex had obtained a tremendous fortune, while Saleen himself had gotten magic nuclei. If they had entered the temple earlier, they might even have obtained arge number of demons.


    Those supreme demons were dead, Nailisi had taken them as food. Even the bones, which could be used for refining equipment, were not left behind.


    If Saleen could obtain the remains of a giant, then he could rival that of Lex¡¯s Metal Titan. So far, there was nothing the Water me Alchemy could not refine.


    Saleen and Lex were bent on locating this temple, they would not return to Metatrin City empty handed. If they did that, then Saleen would rather stay at the temple, where the pink army hid themselves for two more days. That way he could collect all those metallized steel rocks and that door which was made from a special material.


    No matter what, Lex had also gotten a Metal Titan despite losing a huge number of scrolls, yet Saleen got nothing so far.


    Once night fell, Lex deployed an extra mage to monitor the reactions of the flying puppet. Every day, this flying puppet would be deployed more than ten times. Each time, it could remain airborne for less than an hour before needing to be repaired. If the flying puppet was not consuming low level magic nuclei, Lex would not have deployed it so frequently.


    The brilliant moon hung in the sky, as the temperature fell drastically. The air within the ck Rock Mountain was dry. There was no frost, yet their breath showed in the air.


    ¡°Humph!¡± One of the two mages in charge of keeping watch through the night snorted, as he furrowed his brows. The other mage, who was actually resting, also opened his eyes. Out of the blue, the mage beside him got attacked mentally. His partner could no longer observe the images sent back by the magic array.


    The flying puppet had been attacked, and it was attacked by a human!


    All the magic rms within the tents sounded. The swordmasters put on their magic armor calmly. The Spirit Snake Armor could be put on independently, the wearer could don it on their own.


    The four demons did not even remove their armor, they guarded the four corners of Saleen¡¯s tent. The moment the magic rm sounded, none of the demons stood up, they simply remained seated around Saleen.


    ¡°Is it finally here?¡± Saleen sat up, putting on his magic robe.


    ¡°Master, ignore it, we should check out the capabilities of that magic armor first,¡± Nailisi reminded Saleen. Even though Lex was a reliable friend, it was always better to understand her subordinates and their abilities if Saleen wanted to continue interacting with her.


    Lex only took out the Spirit Snake Armor after such a long time living together, and this caused Nailisi to be immediately guarded.


    Saleen cackled, but did not say anything. He was still controlling two fully constructed puppets, who were surveilling from a nearby hilltop. Naturally, he would be able to observe the situation outside anytime. The moment the magic rm sounded, he had already contacted the puppets.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go and see Sika, you will summon J. There might be arge team awaiting.¡± Saleen instructed Nailisi to get to work.


    The four demons then followed Saleen to Sika¡¯s tent. Sika was not trying to avoid any taboos by living alone, she was working very hard to refine the skeleton of that magic beast. Sika ignored the magic rm even though it had sounded. Other than having ten swordmasters and two grand swordmasters, Lex had also deployed arge number of war puppets in the vicinity.


    These war puppets represented half the offensive power of an emblem group. They had simr capabilities to a skeleton soldier, they were not afraid of many physical attacks. Even if their brains were missing, they could still fight under a mage¡¯smand. Sika was not stupid, she would not fight for anyone else except for Saleen. ¡°Let those puppets hold the fort first.¡±


    The area of the ck Rock Mountain was very huge. The ce where Saleen and his team had set up camp was on a slightly elevated and narrower terrain, so it was not advantageous for a battle against cavalrymen. Loud and non-uniformed vibrating noises came from the south, unnerving everyone.


    Ten swordmasters and two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters had gotten on their skeletal warhorses, while the mages returned to the magic war chariots. The soldiers on the warhorses took out two segments of their spears and connected them, as they waited for Lex to give her orders.


    Each one of them were very calm, and Saleen was very envious of that. Back when Saleen led the pirates to battle, the pirates were not of such quality. Even though the pirates were no longer unorganized, they still could not form an army, they were like untrained soldiers.


    The tter of horses¡¯ hooves became clearer. From afar, it looked like a blood cloud tumbling over, dashing towards the camppound while remaining pasted to the ground.


    ¡°Attack!¡± Lex calcted the right distance swiftly. Even before the enemy could get close, she hadmanded her soldiers tounch an attack. Without any hesitation, the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters led the ten swordmasters and charged out while Wild Bear stayed behind to guard the entrance of the camppound.


    On the battlefield, grand swordmasters were often seen leading elite troops into a fight, but a reserve team would always be prepared. Even though Lex¡¯s reserve team had only one person, she was not worried. Sharp thorns were installed on the metal racks surrounding the camppound, it would be impossible for the enemy and their warhorses to leap over them.


    Twelve riders made a beeline for the blood cloud like a gust of ck wind, but the blood cloud actually contained more than one-thousand knights d in red armor. The knights¡¯ warhorses did not wear any armor, but they were also red in color. Their skin was tattered and torn, as blood dripped from it.


    The blood knights from the Holy See had finally appeared, and the pioneer toon was as big as an emblem group.


    Sensing that something was amiss, the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters tossed their spears while they were still more than a hundred yards away from the enemy. The ten swordmasters followed suit without any reservations. The twelve spearsnded urately on the chests of twelve blood knights. Because of their huge inertias, these spears which were not infused with the Sword Aura easily prated the torsos of the blood knights.


    The hearts of the twelve blood knights were pierced, then they tumbled off their warhorses. The two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters removed therge shield from the warhorses, then they wielded the double-edged serrated knives. The other ten swordmasters behind wielded their knives simultaneously. In a sh, these soldiers had dashed into the midst of the team of blood knights.


    The pungent stench of blood caused the swordmasters to be a little shaken. Fortunately, they were riding on skeletal warhorses which would not be affected. They otherwise would have been thrown off their warhorses.


    After the skeletal warhorses were equipped with metal armor, their weight increased by a third. As this tremendous inertia carried the twelve riders into the formation of blood knights, the double-edged serrated knives danced about, slicing the necks of the blood knights. This technique required great skill. If there were no skeletal warhorses, this slicing action would have required immense strength or a great amount of Sword Aura.


    Thum¡­ thum¡­


    The sound of war drums could be hearding from afar. About two miles out, there were holy masters striking war drums, urging the blood knights to carry out a massacre.


    The weapons used by this emblem group of blood knights were not uniform, there was an assortment of weapons. After the twelve riders charged into the midst of all those blood knights, they tried to break out of the formation, but they had lost the effect of inertia. As a result, they were sucked into battle.


    The two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters discovered the crux quickly. The double-edged serrated knives were more suitable for fighting with a blood knight aspared to a spear. As long as their hearts were not pierced or their heads chopped off, the blood knights could continue battling.


    The tter of the horses¡¯ hoofs became chaotic as Lex¡¯s expression turned ghastly. Her twelve riders were not getting trapped, but it was impossible to dy this emblem group of blood knights. Even if the blood knights were injured, they could still fight.


    Whether the user thrusted forward or bent their wrist, the double-edged serrated knife could produce a shing motion. Lex, however, had too few riders. If she had a brigade of soldiers, the oue would not have been like this.


    Hundreds of blood knights leapt over Lex¡¯s riders, making a beeline for the camppound.


    Lex¡¯s war puppets gathered behind Wild Bear, awaiting the enemy¡¯s assault. These war puppets were almost three yards tall, they would not be at a disadvantage fighting with the blood knights. Even if Wild Bear was not on horseback, he was also more than two yards tall. If he rode on a skeletal warhorse, he would tower over those blood knights.


    The poleaxe in Wild Bear¡¯s hands began swaying about. Wild Bear was a little nervous since it was his first time facing such an opponent. Luckily, the war puppets stood behind him, so he did not experience any negative emotions. There was utter silence in front of the camppound.


    Swiftly, the blood knights had reached a position where they were less than one-hundred yards away from the camppound. The mages scrambled to activate the traps, causing almost half of the blood knights to fall into the magic traps. Ground thorns, swamps, freezing, burning, and other effects emerged. Their blood warhorses moaned in agony as they fell down, but they did not die.


    The blood knights who fell into the traps had sustained serious injuries, but under the encouragement of the war drums, they soldiered on desperately.


    A magic beast might be scary, but an insane human was more petrifying. Hundreds of blood knights fell into the magic traps, and only dozens of them managed to hold on to their warhorses. The rest of the people dragged their torn limbs while some were on fire, as they continued charging towards the camppound. Observing the unfolding scene through the fully constructed puppets, Saleen had chills.


    It was not known whether the people beneath the red armor were from Tanggsi or the missing barbarians. These people had long lost control of their will, they had been transformed into puppet-like beings by the holy masters.


    A blood knight was like a in warrior, they endured the magic traps using their physical bodies.


    The mages were also stunned. No matter how strong an average person was, they would lose their offensive power the moment they got burnt by magic mes. What magic could be used to deal with these red monsters?!


    Lex secretly felt regretful. If she did not subdue the Metal Titan, those low level Fossilization spell scrolls would have been a good weapon to deal with these things.


    The reverse charging yielded no effect. The two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters activated the magic arrays in their helmets, then they began giving orders to the ten swordmasters.


    ¡°Go back, and chop the heads off the enemies.¡± Speaking, they ignited the powerful Sword Aura on their bodies, using their shields to strike dozens of blood knights. After paving a road sttered with blood, the two grand swordmasters led the ten swordmasters back to the camppound.


    ¡°Viscountess, we¡­¡± A grade-5 mage began, as he wanted to help with the fight.


    ¡°Don¡¯t move. The war puppets will be able to handle this emblem group. There are still holy masters behind, I have already detected their damn scents.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± The mages could also feel the power of divinity. A mage never adored a holy master. It was the first time these Qin mages were facing holy masters in a head-on battle though, they did not dare let their guard down.

 Chapter 500: Blood knights (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 500: Blood knights (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Contempt was not equivalent to belittling. The fact that the enemy could destroy the flying puppet swiftly, and locate the exact position of the camp, meant that there was at least a holy master who was equivalent to a grade-6 mage present. Since there were so many blood knights, there had to be a huge number of low grade holy masters too.


    Lex was lucky. The Tanggsi army had discovered her tracks veryte, so even though they traveled quickly, they were still afraid of letting her get away. Consequently, they deployed the blood knights, who traveled the fastest, to harass her. It was not a nned operation. If there were holy masters among the blood knights, the blood knights would not have been obstructed by the magic traps and fell off their warhorses so easily.


    The Tanggsi Empire did not dare risk the lives of their holy masters. The Tanggsi people knew that there was a mighty presence apanying Lex. If the holy masters had entered recklessly without the protection of soldiers, they would be easily ughtered by the grand swordmasters serving Lex.


    Since the holy masters were detached from the blood knights, Lex¡¯s war puppets came in handy. Under Wild Bear¡¯smand, the war puppets wielded bulky des, shing at the blood knights ferociously.


    As Lex had insufficient mages with her, the war puppets could not be controlled individually, so they had to act on their own. As a result, the war puppets behaved inflexibly even though they could move swiftly. Fortunately, the enemy were blood knights who had lost their senses and the holy masters were not around to control them either. Banking on a higher amount of strength, the war puppets ughtered all the blood knights who managed to avoid the magic traps as though they were vegetables.


    Wild Bear only made two return trips into the midst of the blood knights and he could not see any more of them already. Human heads and amputated limbs were strewn across the ground, it was an extremely grotesque sight. Wild Bear actually calmed down. These monsters could actually be killed, and they could be killed easily.


    Once the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters saw this scene, they slowed down, then they led the swordmasters back into the heat of battle once more. Given their richbat experience, they immediately identified the weakness of the blood knights. The blood knights possessed inferior skills, they relied on their fearless bodies and immense strength to triumph, which was very simr to some low grade magic beasts.


    Even though the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters were lousier than J, they had killed countless magic beasts too, so they were not afraid of those monsters.


    To a real warrior, there was nothing to be afraid of as long as the enemy would die. Via the Sound Transmission Magic Arrays in their helmets, the two grand swordmasters disseminated the crux to winning the battle to their swordmasters. Coupled with good chemistry, the twelve people got into an arrowhead formation, before piercing straight into the team of blood knights.


    This time around, Lex¡¯s swordmasters had abandoned their usualbat style. They instead began cooperating with one another. Five swordmasters used therge shields to form a circle, while the ck Metal Grand Swordmasters chopped the heads off the blood knights who could not maneuver swiftly in the circle.


    asionally, a blood knight would use his giant axe to strike the huge shields, but he would only leave a faint scratch on the metal surface. Most of the impact had been negated by the shield itself. The heavier an object in mid-air was, the more difficult was it to agitate it. A giant axe weighed less than one-hundred pounds. After the impact was negated by the huge shield, it would be impossible to use brute force to injure the person holding the shield.


    Since the Spirit Snake Armor was sealed, the stench of blood in the air only reached the noses of the swordmasters after being filtered by a magic array. The smell still nauseated them though. The flesh of a blood knight smelt like it had been rotting for a few months. The swordmasters could only concentrate on killing the enemy in order to temper the feeling to vomit.


    The magic array only filtered toxins, not smells.


    When the double-edged serrated knives sliced the neck of a blood knight, blood would spurt out, gushing in all directions. Most of the blood knights were killed by the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, while the ten swordmasters seemed to have acted as guards. Their armor had long been drenched inrge amounts of blood. If it was not for the self-cleaning function of magic armor, scabs of blood would have formed on their skin already.


    Saleen suddenly felt a sense of being shaken. He felt that he was a spectator in this battle, even though he was also the enemy¡¯s target. That being said, the blood knights only rushed here desperately after receiving information about Lex¡¯s movements, their intention was to harass Lex.


    When half the face mask of a blood knight was destroyed, revealing a bearded face, Saleen then recognized that they were barbarians.


    The barbarians captured by the ck Bishop were shipped back to the Tanggsi Empire. Now, they had appeared in this location.


    Barbarians did not care about etiquette nor hygiene, and they were not as disciplined as the Caucasus people, so they were never really well liked. Saleen knew that the barbarians were pure at heart and easygoing. If the barbarians had lived in a city long enough, they would also learn to live like a Qin person.


    Even though they received asional mocking, the barbarians would only wave their fists in displeasure, they would not really wallop anyone.


    Saleen did not groom those barbarians into very good soldiers, but in his heart, he had already epted those barbarians as his citizens. There was no difference between a barbarian, a Qin person, or a Sikeqinyan. All of them could cry,ugh, fume, and think.


    The barbarians had already be a part of Metatrin City. Now that so many barbarians, who were captured by the Holy See, had appeared right before him, Saleen no longer felt that he was a spectator in this battle.


    ¡°Even though it is a war, don¡¯t the people of the Holy See have some conscience?¡± Saleen could not help but blurt out a na?ve thought. Given his experiences, he should not have posed such a question. Given the current situation, he did not know how to express his emotions


    Nailisi was jubnt, then said, ¡°Master, you humans have a saying; if this world is not up to par, then one should either tolerate it or rebel, but they should never ask why.¡±


    Saleen cut off the connection with the puppets, as he remained upset. Nailisi propped Saleen up, then said, ¡°Master, stop sulking, we should prepare to leave.¡±


    ¡°Leave?¡±


    ¡°Lex cannot hold the fort, we have to enter the desert earlier.¡±


    Saleen did not ask why. He was in a bad mood, so he did not think about this question. With Nailisi¡¯s reminder, he came to understand that Lex was depending on just a dozen people. Even though she had a powerful assassin with her, it was impossible to continue camping in the ck Rock Mountain anymore.


    The people from the Holy See could attack this ce endlessly, or they could even besiege the area. By then, Saleen would not be able to leave even if he wanted to. The reason why Lex did not give the retreat order was because the blood knights were too fast, they could even catch up to a skeletal warhorse.


    If this emblem group of blood knights was not extirpated, it would be difficult to solve the problem even if Lex¡¯s team had fled into the desert. Lex¡¯s subordinates could not be abandoned, only the war puppets could be abandoned.


    Lex had already recalled the injured puppets. In the fight against the blood knights, many more injuries were added onto the bodies of the war puppets. Since the puppets had coarse skin and thick flesh, almost none of them were fully destroyed. More than half of them could not continue fighting already. Some puppets even lost a whole arm. Since the puppets had lost their weapon, they could only kick the enemy, so there was no point for them to remain on the battlefield.


    Saleen really wanted to ask Nailisi to release another ten-thousand magic bugs to devour those blood knights. Summoning magic bugs depleted a great deal of resources though, and there was no time to set a secure magic array.


    Aiwa was responsible for storing the tent. Indeed, Lex¡¯s subordinates were also dismantling the tents. These tents were specially produced magic appliances. One would not even be able to pitch a tent in the Purgatory Desert otherwise.


    Lex was also dispirited. She was going to receive information from Metatrin City, yet she got discovered by the Tanggsi army. It was likely that the news released by Bifano had been discovered by the Agares family.


    For the past twenty days, Bifano had stopped transmitting further information, which meant that he was dead. The Agares family would have deployed many men to investigate into this matter. After Lex left, she tried her best to avoid the cities, yet she could not avoid the viges. Since the Agares family had managed Titan for such a long time, they were in control of most farmers, so there was no way Lex could hide her movements from them.


    ¡°Since the Agares family knew that they couldn¡¯t capture me, they decided to leak the information to the Tanggsi Empire. If I were in their shoes, I would have done so too. The Agares family had acted too quickly though, I cannot even stay for two or three more days.¡±


    The sound of the war drums in the distance were drawing closer. It seemed like the Tanggsi army had met with some trouble, so they could not follow the blood knights closely. It was possible that they had rmed the ferocious creatures at the periphery of the desert due to the presence of theirrge manpower.


    The magic beasts in the Purgatory Desert were different from the ones outside. Due to ack of food, they were highly aggressive. This was the reason why Lex was not willing to bring along arge number of people, instead she was willing to use the pricey war puppets. Had she brought along an emblem group, the blood knights would have been wiped out swiftly.


    Lex could not waste any more time, she spoke into the Sound Transmission Magic Array, ¡°Longqi,e back. Leave the war puppets behind to defend the rear. Saleen, put away the fully constructed puppets, don¡¯t have such a high level of consumption for now.¡±


    Saleen nodded. The fully constructed puppets controlled by Nailisi and him were mosaicked with the fragments of the dragonshard, but the other fully constructed puppets were using intermediate level magic nuclei. The dragonshard could self-recover slowly, but a magic nucleus was a disposable item.


    Lex¡¯s ck Metal Grand Swordmasters were actually the leaders of her first emblem group. Once the order was given, the two of them immediately led the swordmasters away from the encirclement of the blood knights.


    The blood knights gave chase fearlessly, so the swordmasters had no choice but to turn around and use their alchemical crossbows to shoot the blood knights¡¯ warhorses. The arrow of a miniature alchemical crossbow did not have a tail. Its head was triangr, sharp, and wide. It could amputate the leg bone of a warhorse.


    After traveling for hundreds of yards, over a hundred blood warhorses copsed. Without legs, a four-legged animal could not run no matter how ferocious they were. The fallen blood knights thus began running on foot. Lex¡¯s swordmasters dashed into the formation of war puppets quickly, allowing the war puppets to clean up the rest of the enemies.


    By now, the mages had boarded the magic war chariots. Other than the tents and alchemical crossbows, the rest of the appliances in the camppound were abandoned.


    This time around, Lex personally gave the directions, leading the rest of the people through the ck Rock Mountain, towards the east.


    Without coordination by Wild Bear, the remaining over one-hundred war puppets lost their oppressive advantage, thus they were swiftly drowned out by the hundreds of oing blood knights. Lex¡¯s method of guarding the rear was a sess though. As long as the core of a war puppet was not destroyed, they could continue fighting. The cognition of a blood knight was inferior to that of a magic beast. As long as the war puppets kept moving, the blood knights would pound them ferociously.


    About one-hundred war puppets could actually hold back a group of blood knights many timesrger than them.

 Chapter 501: Black William (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 501: ck William (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen finally understood why Lex was so determined to capture the Metal Titan. If the Metal Titan could partake in the current battle, it only needed to stomp a few times to terminate those pesky blood knights. On the battlefield, tremendous brute strength was sometimes irreceable.


    Of course, if Lex¡¯s mages charged into battle, they could also kill the blood knights. It would be unwise for them to join in the battle though, whether they were using scrolls or the magic chords to cast spells.


    The scrolls would be depleted bit by bit, while the magic chords required more than two hours to be regained. This was also only because Lex¡¯s mages were extremely ferocious. Out of a few hundred mages, they were the selected few.


    Many mages required six hours to regain their magic chords. They still had to consume medicine and wear the relevant equipment too.


    Lex¡¯s team was very small. The moment they abandoned the war puppets, they immediately broke free from the blood knights. As this team of people escaped east, the sound of the war drums in the distance became softer and softer.


    It could not be considered an escape. At worst, if both parties fought, everyone would sustain heavy damage. The Tanggsi Empire had assembled this army in a fluster, so they did not have a targeted solution to deal with Lex¡¯s team.


    Lex was a grade-6 mage. On her team, she had brought along two grade-5 mages, four grade-4 mages, an assassin who was almost a Golden Grand Swordmaster, two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, and ten swordmasters d in the Spirit Snake Armor. Given such a force, a sorcerer was needed to quell this team. A normal army had to have huge manpower in order to stop Lex from leaving.


    Four demons had suddenly appeared beside Saleen too. Of these four demons, Cuisi¡¯s offensive power might be much higher than that of J¡¯s. Saleen himself also possessed various extraordinary methods to deal with a warrior. One example was the water flow in his cbash. Its offensive power was akin to a level-4 spell, yet it did not consume any magic chords at all.


    Saleen looked back indignantly. Under the effect of the Icy Sight, everything became so clear. The blood knights and the war puppets hacked one another relentlessly, all order had been lost. A few blood knights, who did not fall off their warhorses, persevered and gave chase. J then used his bow to shoot them in their hearts, causing them to fall off the warhorses, never to get up again.


    A Silver Grand Swordmaster was really a mighty presence. With a distance of more than three-hundred yards, a normal soldier could only fire three arrows at most even if they had immense strength and had undergone tough training. Their fingers might be fractured otherwise.


    Within a distance of one-hundred yards, a normal soldier could only fire six arrows. Since a crossbow was fitted with a gear, it could allow a soldier to fire infinitely, provided there were arrows avable. The firing speed of a crossbow was too slow if it was not an alchemical crossbow though. If a soldier using a crossbow, which had a range of three-hundred yards, could fire three arrows in a minute, he was considered a good archer.


    J could fire a rain of arrows, and never seemed to get exhausted though. This meant that his skills were equivalent to that of a high grade professional archer already.


    The team continued east. They actually could enter the desert directly if they traveled south, but Lex chose east to avoid consuming strength prematurely. By traveling one-hundred miles east, the mountain would lead deeper into the desert, and if the Tanggsi army wanted to surround the team, they would have to enter the desert in advance. On the other hand, if the Tanggsi army chased behind the team, they would find it hard to keep up with Lex¡¯s pace.


    The temperature got increasingly lower while the radiant moon was suspended high in the sky. Frosty air infiltrated the exterioryer of their armor, but was blocked out by the magic beast skin. The swordmasters did not feel any difort, while the skeletal warhorses did not even care about such a temperature. In the death dimension, the temperature was below zero degrees perennially and there were also volcanoes there. Whether the temperature was high or low, a spirit might get killed, but its actions would not slow down.


    The magic war chariot was a little jerky because no amount of magic arrays could ever eliminate all vibrations. The wheels enveloped in isinss brought the vibrations down to an eptable level, since the team was dashing insanely at more than forty miles an hour.


    ¡°Someone is chasing us!¡± Nailisi¡¯s danger awareness was keener than anyone elses. Before Lex could discover the scent of danger, Nailisi was already pointing to the rear and yelling.


    Very soon, a ck figure appeared in mid-air, cutting across the sky.


    ¡°Reduce speed.¡± Lex immediately gave an order to make the magic war chariot slow down. The skeletal warhorses also controlled their pace. They walked in a circle before turning around to face the oing enemy.


    Lex was not worried at all. The person was flying at less than one-hundred miles an hour, so he was not a sorcerer yet. If the enemy was a holy master, then he should be at the grade of a ck pastor, it was unlikely that he was a bishop.


    When that ck shadow noticed that the team on the ground had stopped, he was stunned. He also slowed down, then he levitated in the air more than one-hundred yards from Lex¡¯s magic war chariot.


    A mage usually preferred to limit their attack distance to one-hundred yards. Any farther, and they could not reduce the consumption of mental strength.


    Even though a grand mage could attack from more than two-hundred yards away, or from a horrifying five-hundred yards away, mages were still used to fighting at an intermediate distance.


    The man in the sky was d in a long ck robe and wore a leather cap, he was obviously not used to the low temperature. This was the difference between a holy master and a mage.


    This man had a neatly shaved ck beard, but it was impossible to decipher his age, one could only tell that he was between thirty to fifty years old. As he looked down at the ground. Lex, who was in the magic war chariot, did note out. As though protesting, the ten swordmasters raised their miniature alchemical crossbows which hung on their left arms. These alchemical crossbows could definitely hit this ck-robed holy master who was levitating in the air.


    Since he was wearing a ck robe, he had to be from the inquisition.


    The subordinates of the pope would wear a red robe when they reached this grade, while the subordinates of an oracle would wear a white robe. Even the inner ranks of the Holy See had much dissatisfaction at the inquisition because the inquisition was despicable. Other than their god, the inquisition only thought of themselves.


    ¡°Your Highness Lex, you are traveling too quickly.¡± The ck-robed holy master had a gentle voice which could spread for more than one-hundred yards easily. He did not even raise his voice.


    The doors of the chariot flung open, and Lex revealed her near perfect face. She leaned against a cushion, lookingckadaisical, as though she was resting in her own residence.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting a powerful figure from the inquisition toe, which one are you?¡± Lex employed an even more rxed tone to chat with this man.


    ¡°The three old men have six disciples, I am the fifth one. They call me ck William.¡± The ck-robed holy master seemed to be warming up to Lex, as he spoke at a leisurely pace.


    The three old men referred to the three leaders of the inquisition, the three head inquisitors who were not known to the outside world. These three men controlled the one-hundred-thousand adjudicators from the inquisition. No matter how much displeasure the inner ranks of the Holy See had towards the inquisition, they would not dare anger these three men. The man who pursued Lex was actually their disciple.


    Lex cackled, then said, ¡°ck William? Are you the kindest one out of the six killers?¡±


    ¡°Indeed I am, that¡¯s why I am here. If the other five were here, you would surely die.¡±


    The inner ranks of the Holy See were split into factions, and there was serious infighting. The oracles, pope and head inquisitors each held onto one faction. The pope controlled the most people, the oracles controlled the ascetics, while the head inquisitors controlled the most number of fanatic believers.


    The power of an oracle came from the blessings of the god. In order to resist the oracles, the head inquisitors decided to groom six sessors. These six men were nicknamed ¡°killers¡±. This nickname was actually given by the inner circle of the Holy See, and not the victims of these six people. The unlucky ones who got killed by them would not even have the chance to give them nicknames.


    All along, the style of the inquisition wasplete extermination. If one got onto their cklist, they could either hide in silence, or their whole family would be massacred.


    The most ridiculous time was when the inquisition decided to extend its sphere of influence into Alchemy City. In the end, Alchemy City lost a sorcerer, but the inquisition stopped sending people into the city. Both parties epted this oue in silence. If other powers tried to wreak havoc in Alchemy City, they would have faced severe retaliation.


    After the pope ambushed Emperor Chanake, Alchemy City dispatched a group of mages to create trouble in the Tanggsi Empire. Because of that, to this day, the Tanggsi Empire still could not deploy all its forces to attack Qin. When the eastern sea allied army appeared in northern Qin, Tanggsi would have rode on the situation to stage an invasion. It would not have seized Titan first.


    ¡°I heard that the inquisition had a part to y in killing my father. Are those three fellows dead or paralyzed?¡± Lex¡¯s voice suddenly became frosty, a tinge of frost even appeared on the skin of her face.


    ck Williamughed, but he did not get angry. Then, he said, ¡°Emperor Chanake was a great man. The pope still hasn¡¯t recovered after getting hurt by him, it seems like the next pope will be ascending the throne soon. The head inquisitors are extremely grateful to the emperor.¡±


    The moment Saleen heard ck William¡¯s response, he immediately understood that this guy was a difficult problem, because no one could direct his emotions.


    ¡°If they are really grateful, they should apany him.¡± Lex did not continue along the same topic. She realized that ck William had no intention to kill her.


    ¡°That is a matter of time, there is no rush.¡± ck William continued to respond in a serene manner. ¡°But, Your Highness, is it a wise decision to take such risks?¡±


    ¡°What are you trying to say?¡± Lex did not want to beat about the bush with ck William, this man was simply too perilous. He had the support of the three head inquisitors. As the disciple of those three old men, ck William¡¯s offensive power might already be higher than that of a ck Bishop. ¡°His flying speed just now should be a pretense to make me let my guard down.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I know about the conflict between you and Holy Rock City¡­¡±


    ¡°I am a Grukos.¡± Lex interrupted ck William¡¯s sentence.


    ¡°This is indeed a sticky situation, but has Your Highness ever thought of establishing your own dynasty?¡±


    ¡°My dynasty would not allow the existence of a church either.¡± Lex was never more determined.


    ¡°This should be left to the choice of the citizens.¡±


    ¡°Citizens? This word was invented by the Sikeqinyans right? Is the Holy See using it too?¡± Lex spoke in a sarcastic tone.


    ¡°Master, the viscountess has been agitated by that guy. The situation isn¡¯t too good.¡± Nailisi whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Lex is doing this on purpose.¡± Saleen affixed his gaze on ck William, trying to identify any weaknesses. No matter how hard he observed or used the Figaro Form to calcte, he could not identify any spell which could destroy the perfect bnce in that man¡¯s body.


    A full round moon shone behind the spot where ck William was levitating. It was as though all that moonlight was a halo shining down from his body.

 Chapter 502: Black William (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 502: ck William (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Holy See had two methods of treating believers. The first was that a person could be a believer after being baptized, and the Holy See would not care about the purity of their beliefs. The second category only required pure believers. All the bogus believers would be exiled from the capital, so that the light of god would never descend upon these opportunists.


    ¡°Sikeqinyans¡± was the synonym for bogus believers. To obtain money, they could believe in the Lord of Glory, but they could also believe in the Dark Sky Devil. They also could always return to believing in the Goddess of Myers.


    The Sikeqinyans were people who were good in learning lessons from the past and then using them to change the status quo. They felt that the average person was the main part of a nation, while the monarch was a symbol for uniting the people. When the Sikeqinyans invented the word ¡°citizens¡±, they were actually denying sovereignty and theonomy.


    Finally, there were some changes to ck William¡¯s expression. Even though the changes were microscopic, Saleen still noticed it. ¡°This person¡¯s heart isn¡¯t all that perfect either.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I am very sincere. I havee forth in hopes that we can cooperate.¡±


    ¡°Cooperate? Do you think that possible?¡± Lex vented her emotions through this sentence. If she had powerful abilities, she would have obliterated the Glorious City, banishing the Holy See to hell.


    ¡°Why not? Is it solely because of your father?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I will state the simplest reason, I despise all of you. Instead of being normal humans, you all chose to believe in some god. That is so pathetic.¡±


    ¡°Having no religion is the biggest sorrow.¡± ck William could no longer speak to Lex indifferently.


    ¡°Ha, since the discussion is falling through, are you thinking of taking action already?¡± Lex had altered her posture. Her eyes narrowed to slits while being slightly bent. She maintained this expression.


    ¡°Why would I take any action? I am kind William. I can follow you. You can¡¯t be in the Purgatory Desert without any motives. Since my men cannot pursue you, I thought that I could stay beside you. No matter what you try to do, I will destroy it. Your Highness, are you having a headache now?¡± ck William asked smugly.


    ¡°Do you have to be so hardworking? Don¡¯t be too proud that you are stronger than me. If I really want to kill you, you will not live either,¡± Lex said nonchntly. If ck Williamnded on the ground, Bain could definitely assassinate him. Lex seemed to be showing signs of weakness by saying this sentence.


    ¡°Your Highness, returning to heaven is always a happy thing, there is no use threatening me with it.¡±


    At this point in time, Lex finally understood that the inquisition had thought that she was conjuring some big n bying to the Purgatory Desert. They immediately deployed people to disrupt her journey. ¡°This ck William can fly faster than me. Perhaps I have the ability to kill him, but if he doesn¡¯t initiate an attack, I am really helpless against him.¡±


    For an expert, such an action was really shameless.


    If Bain was not an assassin, he could still fly in the air and fight. He however had learned the ways of assassination, so his flying ability was inferior to that of J¡¯s. J could easily fly for hundreds of yards and do battle in the air, but his Sword Aura would be severely depleted. Bain¡¯s offensive power on the ground was exceptionally powerful, he could even kill J in a head-on duel, but he could not do anything against a person like ck William, who was good at flying.


    If ck William was actually any closer, even the four demons could entrap him. The problem was that this guy was more than one-hundred yards away, as though he was ready to flee anytime.


    This person could only be described using one word; mucker.


    ¡°How do you want to cooperate?¡± Lex did not continue provoking ck William. She knew that his team did not follow him. The moment they caught up with him, she would be ableunch an assault immediately. The biggest problem a huge army faced in this region was that the various arms could not be deployed simultaneously. If ck William did not participate in battle, he would not be able to protect the lives of his subordinates. If he joined in the fight, Lex could send Bain. Lex did not need to worry anymore because of that.


    Lex discovered that not many people from the Holy See were there. ck William did not seem to have any intention of capturing Lex.


    ¡°My teacher ns to support Your Highness in building a country. Of course, you will remain a representative of the Grukos family, but it is not for you to oppose the Holy Rock City¡¯s reign.¡±


    ¡°One family, two emperors?¡± You must be kidding me.¡±


    ¡°Why not? We can divide Sikeqinya or Cloudflow, you don¡¯t have to oppose your family.¡±


    ¡°I have just one question. If a family can have two emperors, does that mean that a ne can have two gods?¡± Lex¡¯s words were extremely insulting. Saleen possessed divinity, and Lex knew that. This divinity hade from the Goddess of Myers. If she obtained the seeds of the four divine trees, she would also possess divinity no matter which seed she received. To the Holy See, such a presence was intolerable.


    ¡°This matter should be left to the future.¡± ck William¡¯s answer caused Saleen to be astounded.


    He was one of six sessors to the inquisition, sohe was one of the highest levels of power in the Holy See. ck William had actually said words which were sphemous to his god. The Lord of Glory once said this, ¡°Other than myself, there can be no other gods.¡±


    Even though ck William did not affirm Lex¡¯s insinuation explicitly, he did not reject it outright either. This was already equivalent to a betrayal of religion. This incident made Saleen recall the few holy masters he had met in the past. They had the purest of beliefs, with the exception of that white deacon called Picasso.


    ¡°What do those old men want?¡± Lex realized that the problem was huge. ck William did note here by chance, he definitely had some obscure agenda.


    ¡°If the inquisition helps you establish a dynasty, the head inquisitors want one of the seeds.¡±


    The moment William¡¯s voice died down, William could feel intense murderous vibes emanating from the two magic war chariots.


    Saleen had already released a cloud, he was about to fly out of the chariot and duel with ck William. As long as Saleen was within ten yards of ck William, he would be able to kill him with the Crystal Finger. ck William was at most two grades higher than Saleen, and given the power of the Crystal Finger, ck William would not even be able to resist the blow.


    Lex had even taken it a step further. She even wanted to use the power within the God¡¯s Ring to trap ck William.


    ck William knew about the existence of the divine trees however. The head inquisitors must have told him that. Even if ck William was killed, the situation would remain unchanged.


    ck William subconsciously retreated one-hundred yards. In his heart, he was fearful, he had a fear that his life was about to be forcefully taken away in that moment.


    It was no misconception. Such an instinct had already saved his life dozens of times. Even though he was the disciple of the head inquisitors, he also had to carry out assignments personally, and every single mission the inquisition took on was fraught with danger.


    After a long while, Lex said, ¡°If the pope is dead, I can consider the proposal.¡±


    ck Williamposed himself while staring at the two magic war chariots on the ground, as he calcted in his heart, ¡°If this deal doesn¡¯t seed, can I really harass them until the subordinates of the head inquisitors arrive?¡±


    ¡°He is trying to buy time.¡± Nailisi saw through his antics.


    ¡°I know, but this guy cannot be taken out easily.¡± Saleen was helpless against ck William.


    ¡°The pope is not your enemy. If this is your only demand, I think you will regret it.¡±


    ¡°And why would I regret it?¡±


    ¡°Because the pope is dying soon.¡± ck William¡¯s words caused Lex to stifle her breath. ¡°The pope is dying? This is considered ssified information in the Holy See, so why is ck William having no qualms telling me this?¡±


    ¡°Sorry, I don¡¯t feel like cooperating anymore. If you are willing to follow me, then go ahead. I hope you can continue flying in the desert.¡± Lex then turned around and instructed the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters to continue the journey. She suddenly recalled that if ck William followed her into the desert, it would be almost impossible for him to continue flying.


    If a ck sandstorm of the Purgatory Desert appeared, even a grade-9 sorcerer would be concerned. ck William also had the holy powers of the Lord of Glory. The farther he advanced into the desert, the closer he would be to the temple, and the weaker he would be.


    As the Lord of Glory discriminated against other gods, other types of divinity would also reject him. Even though the Goddess of Myers had fallen, her temple would still possess powerful holy power.


    The moment Lex finished speaking, she stood up from her seat. Then she flew up and entered Saleen¡¯s magic war chariot.


    ¡°If he gets close, we will take action together and kill him.¡± Lex spoke very softly, but given ck William¡¯s ability, he could definitely hear it.


    Indeed, ck William did not daree close. Even the oracle could not kill Lex personally, ck William was very familiar with the power of god¡¯s punishment. ¡°Lex must be in possession of powerful equipment¡±. The legacy of the Grukos family might not be as rich as that of the Holy See, but as Emperor Chanake¡¯s daughter, Lex¡¯s skills caused ck William to be very fearful too.


    Secretly, Saleen made a decision, ¡°If I manage to be within ten yards from this ck William, I will cast the Crystal Finger immediately and kill this pesky fellow. Even though there will be serious after effects after using the Crystal Finger, it isn¡¯t too difficult to recover from them. If the head inquisitors get personally involved, I will use the badge.¡±


    Since the motive of this expedition had been exposed, there was no point concealing it anymore.


    The Crystal Finger was a sorcerer¡¯s spell. Even a sorcerer would need to don Raphael¡¯s Crystal Ring in order to negate bacsh from the Crystal Finger. If Saleen were to cast the Crystal Finger, his magic chords would be fully depleted, and he would not be able to use any method to regain it quickly. He would also sustain grave injuries, which would require treatment.


    With the power of the Crystal Finger, Saleen could kill a sorcerer in a second. No Magic Shields could withstand this invincible finger. His only regret was that the range of this spell was too small.


    Once again, the magic war chariots elerated, while ck William followed from a great distance away. He maintained a distance of about eight-hundred yards.


    ¡°Saleen, use your Water Shield to iste the chariot,¡± Lex said urgently.


    Saleen did not ask why, he immediately cast a gigantic Water Shield. This spell was his forte. He was most familiar with it, and it provided him with the most sense of security. A bubble expanded, pasting against the interior of the magic war chariot, taking on the shape of a rectangle.


    Lex then cast a Mute Enchantment, and said, ¡°We are in big trouble. This time around, we are facing the leaders of the inquisition. Saleen, we have to think of a way to kill ck William. The three head inquisitors will be able to locate us easily otherwise.¡±

 Chapter 503: Setting a trap (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 503: Setting a trap (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Head inquisitor?¡±


    ¡°This is not Qin. Even if the three head inquisitorsunch their assaults together, Alchemy City will not give a hoot.¡±


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Understood. Even if they decide to interfere, we will be dead by then, revenge is meaningless to us.¡±


    ¡°Good that you understand. Once we enter the Purgatory Desert, no one will be able to discover our tracks, they won¡¯t even be able to intercept us at the desert¡¯s periphery. With ck William following us, he can leak our movements to the people from the inquisition. If we do not kill him, we will run into an ambush no matter which direction we travel in.¡±


    ¡°I see. Lex, how fast can you fly?¡±


    ¡°My maximum speed is one-hundred and sixty miles an hour, but it wouldn¡¯t hold out for more than half an hour. My usual speed is one-hundred and twenty miles an hour.¡±


    ¡°Mine¡¯s also around one-hundred and twenty miles an hour.¡±


    Saleen and Lex gave each other a bitter smile. Even though their flying abilities were at the standard of a grade-7 sorcerer, they still could not catch up to ck William. ck William had to be wearing speed-enhancing equipment, otherwise with his powers, he would only be able to fly at a speed between one-hundred and twenty to one-hundred and fifty miles an hour. If Saleen and Lex gave their best shot, they should be able to catch up to him.


    ¡°We have to kill him, even if it means offending the three leaders of the inquisition, but we cannot catch him.¡±


    Lex pondered for a moment, then she instructed the two female mages, ¡°Narnia and Kaya, you two will sit in the other chariot, you don¡¯t have to return to this chariot anymore.¡±


    The two female mages were dumbfounded. In that instant, the chariot had slowed down, before graduallying to aplete stop. Saleen removed the Water Shield, allowing the two female mages to disembark and go into the other chariot.


    ¡°Nailisi, what ideas do you have to deal with this ck William?¡± Lex humbly asked for advice. She had seen in some notes that the special powers of a demon were simr to that of a human. Perhaps, the four demons would have a solution.


    By dismissing the mages serving her, Lex had made clear her stance. She knew Nailisi¡¯s identity, but she would not expose Nailisi. The people apanying her to the Purgatory Desert were her most trusted mages and swordmasters. Those two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters had been protecting Lex since she was a child.


    The war chariots started moving again, continuing the journey. In the sky, ck William followed slowly. He was a little astounded that the war chariots were traveling at a speed of forty miles an hour. His flying speed was already faster than that of a grade-8 sorcerer, so he was not worried about losing them. If the chariots entered the desert, the terrain would not be so rugged anymore. By then, even if ck William followed on foot, he could still track them from a long distance away.


    Nailisi looked to her left and right, but the four demons simply hung their heads low. Even though the demons were not under many restrictions on the Myers maind, their forte did not lie in flying. Earlier on, Saleen and Lex had disclosed their flying speeds, which the demons would not even be able to match up to.


    In front of Lex, Nailisi was embarrassed to wallop the demons, so she simply snorted as a sign of displeasure at the ipetence of the four demons.


    Nailisi was also frustrated. There were demons in the demonic ne who could fly well. In fact, some spirits could only fly and notnd. Such spirits would lose most of their offensive power the moment theynded. The problem was, Nailisi required a few days of preparation to summon a demon, and she also could not predict which demon she would summon. It was possible that Saleen and Lex were bankrupt, so no useful demons would be summoned.


    The alchemical crossbow could not be used either as Lex had too little manpower. If ten-thousand alchemical crossbows fired at the same time, ck William would definitely be injured. Since there were only ten alchemical crossbows at the moment, there was no point. The arrows were very costly, they should not be consumed unnecessarily.


    Eleanor suddenly opened her mouth, and told Saleen, ¡°If you two split up, can you kill that holy master?¡±


    Saleen and Lex nced at each other, nodding slowly. Either of them had their own method. Other than the God¡¯s Ring, Lex¡¯s family secret arts were already at a certain degree of proficiency, and that power was stronger than her magic. Saleen also possessed the Crystal Finger skill. As long as they snuck up to ck William, they could conduct a sneak attack on him.


    Raphael had created a spell like the Crystal Finger, but it had not been circted around. Even if someone knew about it, they would never expect Saleen to be able to release this level-7 spell since he was only at grade-5. More urately, the Crystal Finger was a level-8 spell. A grade-7 sorcerer would even need to don special equipment in order to cast the spell once.


    ¡°If you two split up, who will ck William pursue?¡±


    ¡°He wille for me,¡± Lex replied.


    ¡°I feel that he will chase me.¡± Saleen waved his left hand in front of Lex. ck William must have discovered that Saleen¡¯s body contained divinity. This divinity, was the crux to obtaining the seeds of the divine trees.


    ¡°Let¡¯s set a trap. I will escape, while you chase me. Once all of you separate, ck William will definitely want to take action.¡± Eleanor suggested, but Saleen was hesitant.


    ¡°Once I use the Crystal Finger, I will be exhausted. If I lower my offensive power, I might not be able to kill ck William. What if Eleanor decides to harm me after I be exhausted?


    ¡°Saleen, how confident are you?¡± Lex asked worriedly. She had the God¡¯s Ring, so even if ck William did not die, she would not be captured by him. She was not sure what secret skill Saleen possessed though.


    ¡°If Nailisi is with me, I have absolute confidence.¡± Saleen left a backup n, he had to have someone around who could protect him. Nailisi could run very quickly. Even if she piggybacked Saleen, she could still escape from the enemy¡¯s clutches.


    ¡°Do we do it or not?¡± Once again, Lex sought Saleen¡¯s opinion. This operation was risky. If Saleen got into trouble, she would not be confident of opening the temple and obtaining the seeds of the divine trees herself.


    ¡°Let¡¯s do it. Eleanor, you have to contribute as well.¡±


    ¡°My bangle¡­¡±


    ¡°I cannot return it to you, I have given it to Cuisi already,¡± Nailisi rejected tly.


    Cuisi would of course not return it. Even though he was furious that he had to put on an earring which was transformed from a bangle, that bangle had increased his offensive power. Be it speed, power or mental strength they were increased from it. That bangle had a space for storing items also. It was definitely an equipment above the standard of a godly equipment.


    ¡°I need an equipment to help you. ck William is too powerful, he will have holy equipment by his side. He has to be killed in one hit. If he escapes, he will never be deceived again.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°A holy master¡¯s attack range is shorter than that of a mage, but for their truebat range, both parties will ovep. No mage will cast a spell from the maximum limit of theirbat range. If ck William were to attack me, he would control me from a distance of eighty to one-hundred meters first before attacking. He will not do it within a range of ten meters.


    ¡°What equipment are you looking for?¡±


    ¡°What about my other items? The materials I require aren¡¯t found in this world.¡±


    Reluctantly, Nailisi took out all the loot she took from Eleanor¡¯s possession, cing them in the center of the chariot. Eleanor only took a piece of two-foot long dark green wood, and passed it to Saleen. Then she said, ¡°Treat this wood with your alchemy first to remove the impurities. I will give you a drawing, help me to produce a short bow. As long as he uses a Divine spell to attack you, I will be able to use this bow to control his movements.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He received the wood and immediately used the water mes to quench it. The water mes were not really mes, in fact, they were really frigid. Now, Saleen was very familiar with the Water me Alchemy. There were no morerge tornadoes circling him, and the Snowkill Skill was invisible.


    Nailisi quickly put away the other items, causing Eleanor to cackle. If Saleen could produce the Elf Bow ording to the drawing, then she was fine with not having the other items. She was a little unwilling to see the bangle go as it was a gift from the marquis though.


    Seeing that Saleen immediately started producing the Elf Bow without asking any questions. Eleanor could not help but ask, ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of me running away?¡±


    ¡°Run? To where? The inquisition?¡± Saleen did not stop his work, he simply posed a question to Eleanor.


    Eleanor was dejected, she had no home anymore, she was all alone by herself. Saleen¡¯s question had hit the bullseye. As she was probably the only elf on this ne, she had never felt a sense of security wherever she went.


    Even though the people around Saleen were vicious, they would not do anything to her. Ever since being imparted with Saleen¡¯s holy prose, Nailisi¡¯s attitude towards her had improved greatly. The Sword Aura Sealing Spell on her body had disappeared, and J had stopped prohibiting her abilities. Saleen allowed a grand mage like her to remain by his side, as though he had peace of mind.


    ¡°So it is because he knows I have nowhere to go!¡±


    Of course, Saleen knew what it was like being homeless. He also had experience dealing with Nailisi, so it was much simpler for him to handle Eleanor. After all, an elf was not a demon, they would not have anyplicated motives.


    Saleen also had his own agenda by leaving Eleanor by his side. Other than Daniel, the rest of his mages were from the Sregl Ind. These mages could be trusted, but they were given to him by his teacher, and Saleen did not want to keep relying on Jason.


    Saleen had observed Eleanor for many days. Eleanor took her tasks seriously, making Saleen very happy. If she could stay with him voluntarily, then he would have an extra grand mage.


    Saleen was not totally ignorant about the holy texts. Other than the twenty-four holy prose on the Ring of Gifts, Raphael¡¯s magical tower also had some magic notes which contained an analysis into holy texts. Even though not many were right, it could help Saleen expand his horizons. Eleanor did not lie to Saleen. Saleen could judge for himself that the holy texts he learned were genuine and useful.


    From a mage¡¯s perspective, the gods were considered a race too, there was no segregation based on status. It was just that this particr race was infinitely more powerful than the magic beasts. The mages also yearned to learn the knowledge possessed by the gods. Long ago when the humans warred against the gods, their objective might not have been the abilities of the gods.


    Eleanor did not continue specting about Saleen, she began drawing. Some magic arrays needed to be fused with the Elf Bow. Most importantly, the arch of the bow had to be pure in order to allow the power of the elves to be infused into the feather arrows. To increase the might of the Elf Bow, a simpler method would be to refine the relevant feather arrows. That would be much easier than refining the arch of the bow.


    The team only stopped traveling when the sky became dark, then they set up camp on the outermost area of the ck Rock Mountain. The terrain there was more tapered. If one traveled farther north, they would arrive at the pure desert region. ck Williamnded atop a mountain, and from a great distance away, he observed Lex¡¯s swordmasters setting up camp. He surveilled them keenly, trying to identify the weakness of the team.

 Chapter 504: Setting a trap (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 504: Setting a trap (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Kind William was only rtive to his other fiverades. When being cruel to others, he preferred using methods other than violence to solve problems. When he had to use violence, he would be ck William, the butcher¡¯s knife of the inquisition. He rarely acted alone, but this mission had an urgent timeframe. With the head inquisitor away in the capital, the people around him did not have the ability contain a mage like Lex, so he had no choice but to act alone.


    He was a little overjoyed that Lex had rejected his terms. The team in front of him was like a hedgehog, it was challenging to take action. The worst thing was that Lex was traveling too quickly. He had deployed an emblem group of blood knights, but they were unexpectedly terminated by Lex¡¯s war puppets. Even though Lex also suffered substantial losses, he had lost all the pawns avable to obtain Lex.


    The heavy infantrymen could definitely pester Lex¡¯s subordinates, but the horses and chariots for transportation could not be provided. Huge losses were sustained in the war with Titan Duchy, so the heavy infantrymen could only rely on inferior horses d in armor for transport. They had to select a battlefield which the enemy could not escape from.


    Given the speed of the infantrymen, it was basically impossible for them to catch up to such a swift team.


    The riders from the Tanggsi Empire were greatly disadvantaged by heavy infantrymen during the war in Lon. Other than the imperial army, Qin had to procure most of their warhorses from Cloudflow. The local warhorses were either of an inferior species, or they were in insufficient quantities. As a result, Qin¡¯s infantrymen were all along the strongest out of the four big empires.


    If William¡¯s heavy infantrymen were like that of Qin¡¯s, then he would not be in such a dilemma. The heavy infantrymen from Qin could march at a speed slightly slower than light cavalry. With the help from mages, they could cover more than two-hundred miles in a day, and equip two pieces of heavy armor in half an hour.


    At the moment, ck William could only harass Lex¡¯s team on his own. Once the head inquisitor could free himself from the chaos in the capital, it would just be a matter of days for him to rush over.


    The Tanggsi Empire might not have a teleportation portal like the one in Qin, but they could still teleport a person to the borders. Once the head inquisitor reached the border, he would be able to get there swiftly given his speed.


    ck William consoled himself, ¡°It is not my fault that I cannot solve the problem independently.¡± He had learned from history when the whole upper management of the Holy See was greatly damaged in the assassination of Emperor Chanake. Since Lex was Emperor Chanake¡¯s biological daughter, ck William was afraid that his ns would go awry. The Grukos family was not to be trifled with, ck William did not even want to partake in this task personally.


    This time around, Lex decided to construct a wooden house for her soldiers to live in. The mages did not even disembark from the magic war chariots. By remaining onboard a magic war chariot, these mages, who were two to three grades lowers than ck William, would pose a threat to him. All of the protection duties were fulfilled by the fully constructed puppets, while the swordmasters went to rest.


    If the army from the Tanggsi Empire got there, Lex could easily abandon the wooden house anytime and flee.


    ck William admired her as he observed such an arrangement. His n to exhaust Lex¡¯s men by making them travel endlessly had failed. Lex did not even give a hoot about his surveince. As long as there was no huge manpower present, Lex would continue doing whatever she was doing.


    Lex had the same exact thoughts too. Before killing ck William, she had to wait for information from Metatrin City no matter what.


    Eleanor gave the equipment drawing to Saleen, it was drawn intricately. Lex noticed this drawing, she did not demand another one, but she paid attention to it. This magic shortbow was moreplicated than a usualrge magic appliance. If it was not produced using a skill like the Water me Alchemy, but in a normalboratory, then the size of thisboratory would have to be unusually huge. Instead, Saleen simply threw all the materials into the water mes and used his mental strength to control the details within the bow, it did not seem taxing for him at all.


    Lex also had her own refinement methods, but they were inferior to the legacy from Sregl Ind. She was not envious of Saleen though, as long as she could return to Raphael¡¯s magical tower, she could utilize theboratory in the tower to create any type of magic equipment.


    Nailisi slept, Sika trained, and Saleen refined the short bow while Eleanor continued the recovery of her injuries. The team had halted just like that. Only some magic arrays were positioned to guard against a sneak attack. Every day, two mages would man a special magic array, listening for any vibrations in the earth. If a huge group of people were approaching, the team would retreat immediately, they would not try to respond anymore.


    If the flying puppets were released at this juncture, they would definitely be destroyed by ck William. Lex had straightened her thoughts, she would allow ck William to observe all he wanted. There were no secrets in the camppound anyway.


    The nights were abnormally frosty. ck William waited for three days and two nights, but Lex made no movements. He was even toying with the idea of summoning the army already. He knew that the moment an army got close, Lex would start running again. Unless these twenty people could be surrounded, any other efforts would just be in vain.


    Just as ck William was feeling depressed, the dead camp suddenly emanated a thunderous explosion noise as ck plumes of smoke rose dozens of meters into the sky. A slender shadow rushed out from the campgrounds, making a beeline for the south.


    ck William put up a lens in front of his eyes. Through the lens, he saw that the person frantically running was ady. Her build was exquisite, and there was a noticeable air flow encircling the surface of her body.


    This woman donned a cotton coat, Titan styled. It was simple but the hem was short. She was a mage, but she was not wearing a magic robe.


    Following that, two more people rushed out from the camp. One of them had a vague cloud-shaped air flow on the surface of their body, he was using an unknown speed-enhancing spell. The other guy was a warrior d in sealed armor. This warrior was almost the same build as the mage, but he could run as fast as the mage who was blessed with magic.


    Several more swordmasters ran out of the camp too, but were immediately recalled. A warrior d in magic armor decided to jump atop a chariot, and used the alchemical binocrs to look to ck William¡¯s direction.


    That warrior¡¯s alchemical binocrs could obviously spot ck William¡¯s position, then he made an insulting hand gesture out of the blue.


    ck William was outraged. He stood up, wanting to go over to Lex¡¯s camp to teach that fellow a lesson, but he immediately dismissed this notion.


    ¡°Could it be a trap? Heh, Lex has powerful equipment with her, I will not be able to get close easily. That legendary expert might be hiding in the camp. If Lex had set a trap, she will not make it so obvious. I really do not dare enter her camp though. The problem is, that mage who gave chase is at grade-5. Judging by their speeds, that mage who escaped is not lower than grade-5 either. Lex sent a grade-5 mage and a warrior to pursue another grade-5 mage, which means that she doesn¡¯t dare deploy more manpower. I do not dare face Lex directly, but would I be afraid of facing an average grade-5 mage?¡±


    As ck William thought of this point, he immediately leaped off the mountain. While in mid-air, he had already morphed into his flying posture. A ck book had appeared in his hands.


    ¡°The warrior on the chariot must be baiting me by making such a gesture at me. I might not dare enter your camp, but will I be afraid of chasing a lone mage?¡±


    ck William¡¯s speed increased abruptly, drawing a ck line across the night sky as he trailed behind Saleen.


    The guy making that offensive hand gesture was J, he was a little worried, and he had thought of that gesture at thest minute. If that holy master assaulted Lex¡¯s camp, then Saleen would not need to take the risk.


    J was not afraid of this holy master at all. He was already a Silver Grand Swordmaster, he would not be inferior to a grade-7 professional. If ck William did not travel so quickly, J would have conducted a sudden attack from a distance of one-hundred meters. If a Silver Grand Swordmaster wanted to fly, they could reach an altitude of one-hundred meters with effort, their speed would be much higher than that of a grade-6 mage.


    Unexpectedly, ck William was extremely vignt, he still chose to pursue Saleen.


    ck William¡¯s speed was more than double Saleen¡¯s speed, and the distance between both parties was not that huge either. In less than two minutes, he was just behind Saleen. Saleen had also caught up to Eleanor. A green water flow appeared in his hands, and went to encircle Eleanor¡¯s body immediately. The mes on the surface of Eleanor¡¯s body appeared with a sh, but they got destroyed by the green water flow.


    Eleanor flipped over and crashed to the ground. When ck William noticed the despair in Eleanor¡¯s eyes, a ravaging urge welled up in his heart.


    ¡°The three of them must not get away!¡±


    Saleen turned around sharply, putting up a crystal clear shield in front of his body. While floating in mid-air, he swiftly took out a silver magic book, wielding it in his hands.


    ck William was jubnt. Even though he was not a mage, he knew the value of the silver magic book. As long as this mage was killed, the book would be his, which could be exchanged for high level equipment or even holy equipment in the Holy See.


    The temperature of the air dropped even further. ck mist rose up from the silver magic book, and in the blink of an eye, it had covered thend ahead of Saleen. The book in ck William¡¯s hand had opened up too. When hended on the ground, a golden holy prose from the ck book levitated in mid-air. In the center of this golden holy prose, there were ck lines which twisted and intertwined about one another.


    ¡°Shackles!¡±


    With just one word, a humongous golden shackle descended from the sky, engulfing an area dozens of meters around Saleen.


    A page was flipped, causing more golden holy texts to levitate in mid-air. Then, ck William spat another word, ¡°Disperse!¡±


    Suddenly, hundreds of golden light rays emerged from within the ck mist, causing the mist to be reverted to water droplets that crashed to the ground.


    As ck William was about to flip to the third page, he saw that the mist had dispersed, and the female mage who had fell down was now wielding a one-meter long short bow. A transparent arrow was loaded onto the bow, it was actually crafted using expensive crystals!


    He was tricked.


    ck William felt a vigorous vibration in the air, and that transparent crystal arrow entered his lower abdomen.


    ¡°The other party didn¡¯t aim for a vital point!¡± ck William got even more anxious. He felt as if a giant block of ice had been forced into his lower abdomen. There was no pain at all, but the sensation was so numbing that it obstructed his breathing.


    ¡°Have I really fallen for such an inferior plot?¡± ck William¡¯s organs contorted, causing his usually mild face to appear very hideous in that instant.

 Chapter 505: A designated universe (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 505: A designated universe (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Burn!¡± ck William¡¯s hands trembled vigorously. Even though his body had been temporarily frozen, he still managed to flip the page of the book.


    At the same time, scarlet mes appeared out of nowhere. Unlike normal magic, the mes produced by this Divine spell directly engulfed Nailisi, who was making a beeline for ck William.


    Within the mes, a blue electric current radiated throughout Nailisi¡¯s body as she dashed forward. She covered a distance of one-hundred yards in the blink of an eye. ck William still had a crystal arrow in his stomach, causing his actions to be restrained and Nailisi arrived in front of him.


    Nailisi¡¯s longsword was for show only, to fool others. Her swordsmanship was actually really lousy. She then decided to throw the longsword away, before punching ck William¡¯s chest.


    Gigantic holy prose shed on ck William¡¯s long robe, and Nailisi¡¯s fist was in so much pain that she felt like it was broken. She then quickly withdrew her hand. The Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger appeared in her left hand. Nailisi sidestepped, then swiped the dagger at ck William¡¯s neck.


    ck William was greatly damaged by Nailisi¡¯s punch, as blood started flowing out from the corners of his mouth. He did not dare tussle with this ferocious warrior. He straightened his back then used one hand to grab onto the tail of the crystal arrow and pulled it out forcefully.


    The moment the crystal arrow left his body, ck William immediately felt the numbing sensation be much weaker. He caught sight of the two mages who had tricked him, they had already cast a speed-enhancing spell and were rushing back to the camppound. He did not dare approach Nailisi, yet he was reluctant to let the two mages escape.


    After the grave impact by the crystal arrow, ck William had be slightly disoriented. He had even forgotten what methods the man used to break away from his level-7 divine shackle.


    To be able to break away from the level-7 divine shackle was a testament to the mage¡¯s abilities. ck William¡¯s rage had taken over his rationality, however. He was determined to kill those two mages in order to remove his humiliation.


    He had been infighting with his five otherrades for over thirty years now. If news of this got circted, his status in the inquisition would be greatly affected. ck William was indignant. It was not like he had never been injured before, but this was the first time he was hurt by a mage who had used a non-magic skill. This mage was still two grades lower than him also.


    After removing the crystal arrow, the wound on his stomach closed up slowly, sealing the blood in. The two mages had traveled for several miles by now. ck William clenched his teeth and took out a bottle of high level holy water, then consumed it. The numbing sensation in his lower abdomen hadpletely vanished, and his speed had reverted to normal. ck William flew up, breaking away from Nailisi who was assaulting him.


    A pair of ck wings grew out from two corners of ck William¡¯s long robe, doubling his speed that instant.


    The mage at the front seemed to have eyes on his back, as he suddenly flew into the air with the female mage. While in the process of flying up, thick clouds with a diameter of more than one-hundred yards appeared around the male mage¡¯s body, concealing the two mages.


    ck William sneered, he flipped to thest page of the ck book, and three-hundred and sixty holy prose flew out, encircling his body. A ck sickle, about one yard long, had appeared in his hand. This sickle was slightlyrger than one used for agriculture, it was stained with rust and carried a hint of ckish red hue.


    ¡°This mage¡¯sbat awareness is pretty good, hiding in mist tounch his magic attacks covertly. A pity though, I have a holy weapon given to me by the head inquisitor; the Soul Reaper.¡±


    This sickle could destroy elemental shields. Relying on his speed, ck William could even get close to other pugilists and kill them with a single hit. ¡°Does this mage think that he will be unharmed by hiding?¡±


    ck William increased his speed. The sickle left his hand, levitating autonomously in front of him, ready to attack at any moment.


    He was too swift, he had already gotten close to the edge of the cloud. As long as he advanced two more yards, he would be able to detect the position of the mages. The Soul Reaper sensed a person¡¯s soul, so all confusion techniques were useless, unless the target did not have a soul.


    At this moment, in an abrupt change of events, the cloud in front of him suddenly slowed down and dispersed. ck William observed that the young mage had turned around and stopped at the edge of the cloud, less than five yards away from him. The silver magic book had disappeared from the mage¡¯s hand, but there was a bundle of bright green radiance which converged to a small point there instead.


    ck William could feel his heart rate double. With a sh of that bright green light, an unstoppable power rushed towards ck William. He was only just able to use his mental strength to control the Soul Reaper to block the blow.


    The Soul Reaper, a weapon of status in the Holy See, turned to dirt and crumbled on impact. The bright green radiance was only as thick as a finger, but it prated ck William¡¯s defensive holy prose. The holy prose exploded with many crackles, as though a bowl of cold water had been poured into a pot of sizzling oil.


    Eleanor witnessed the scene with utmost disbelief. When Saleen carried her and flew up, she was already greatly astonished. Saleen was a grade-5 mage, she was very sure of that. A grade-5 mage could barely fly even with help from equipment, but Saleen could fly as fast as a grade-7 sorcerer with her in tow.


    When the cloud dispersed, she noticed that the sickle in front of ck William and was utterly petrified. She knew what the Soul Reaper looked like, in the Tanggsi Empire, this weapon was renowned. Thousands, if not hundreds, of people had been ughtered by it. None of these victims were average people either.


    ck William wasbeled as kind because he neverid a finger on a normal person. In most circumstances, the inquisition would not care whether one was a normal person or a professional.


    Of course, killing hundreds of people was not considered diabolical. The inquisition was in charge of exterminating the heretics after all. Whenever ck William went out for a mission, he would have a retinue in front of and behind him, he only dealt with the toughest of targets. Since Eleanor did not have her bangle, she thought that she was doomed the moment she saw ck William wielding the Soul Reaper.


    At this point in time, Saleen suddenly pointed gently at ck William, and the Soul Reaper crumbled. That ray of light had obliterated the holy prose overflowing from the holy weapon, directly prating into ck William¡¯s chest.


    A ferocious elemental vibe exploded and that wound that was as thick as a rod, transformed into a pile of shreds right before Eleanor¡¯s eyes. ck William had been torn apart by the torrent of the elements. The wound no longer existed, because ck William had disappeared from the face of the world entirely.


    ¡°What type of spell was that?!¡±


    Eleanor could feel the invincible vibration thenshe saw Saleen, who had delivered that horrifying blow, falling to the ground. Eleanor could barely fly, so she immediately ducked and rushed downwards. On the ground, Nailisi had already dashed over and managed to catch Saleen in her embrace.


    Nailisi saw Eleanor descending, then sneered, ¡°What is it? Are you trying to harm Master now that he¡¯s exhausted?¡±


    Eleanor was left speechless, she knew what Nailisi was capable of, so she did not dare trifle with her. She simply took a few steps back and stood there, at a loss for words. She had heard Lex and Saleen discussing that they were confident in killing ck William on their own, and she thought that they would aplish it through a bitter struggle. ck William had even continued battling despite being shot by her arrow, and Eleanor even thought that she had angered ck William. She thought that she might not be able to return to meet up with Lex.


    Without any warning whatsoever, ck William had died, just like that. Laying in Nailisi¡¯s embrace, Saleen¡¯s eyes were shut tight.


    Saleen had suffered heavy injuries this time around. Employing the Crystal Finger alone would not render Saleen unconscious. At the moment when the colossal golden shackle trapped Saleen, he immediately used the Eye of Lightning to destroy that level-7 Divine spell. During that period of time, Saleen was almost blind, he could only rely on his perception for movement.


    Since Saleen had mustered hisst bit of effort to cast the Crystal Finger, it would be weird if he had not gotten injured. Nailisi hugged Saleen in her embrace, and red ferociously at Eleanor. Nailisi then leapt into the sky as though she was flying and in the blink of an eye, she had already run hundreds of yards. Eleanor simply followed behind silently. She found herself using the Windspeed Skill with all her might, but was still getting farther and farther away from Nailisi.


    ¡°If only my bangle was here¡­¡±


    Eleanor stopped thinking further as she understood Nailisi¡¯s character. It was impossible to get back anything from Nailisi¡¯s possession. Even if Saleen agreed, Eleanor would not want it either. Nailisi would make her regret it. Eleanor was still wielding her Elf Bow, but she never thought of using it to harm Saleen.


    Just like what Saleen said, she had nowhere to go. At least by following Saleen, she would receive a bit of security.


    In the conversation between ck William and Lex, Eleanor discovered shocking news. Saleen and his team were there to look for the seeds of the divine trees which were left behind by the Goddess of Myers.


    ¡°Since Saleen allowed me to stay by his side, it means that he doesn¡¯t have the intention to let me leave.¡±


    Eleanorughed bitterly, as sourness welled up in her heart. By chance, she had arrived on this ne and met a human which she adored. To think that this human disappeared out of the blue, leaving behind a huge mess. Eleanor had organized the marquis¡¯ subordinates because she had a premonition that the marquis would return. That lightning which descended from the sky did not kill the marquis, it only transported the marquis to a location she was unaware of.


    She did not have any attachment to the items owned by the pink army, she was only waiting for the marquis to return.


    The marquis did not return, but there was infighting in the pink army. Then the small duke from the Agares family attacked, destroying everything. Eleanor was a little disheartened. The life of an elf was very long, and they would not experience many negative emotions. Even though all her family members on this ne had died, she did not suffer a mental breakdown.


    She did not want to die just yet. Once she died, she would never get another chance to look at the marquis again.


    ¡°I will follow Saleen then. As long as he doesn¡¯t kill me, I will do anything he asks of me.¡± Eleanor tried her best to increase her speed, making a beeline for Lex¡¯s camp.


    Lex waited outside the camppound. When Lex saw that Nailisi was carrying Saleen as heid motionless in Nailisi¡¯s embrace, she was astounded. She turned and entered the camppound. Lex instructed all the swordmasters to leave the barrack, then she took out a huge wooden tub from the God¡¯s Ring, and filled it to the brim with Restorative Water.


    Lex had umted a lot Restorative Water, the total volume was sufficient to serve a camp of soldiers.


    ¡°Sika!¡± Lex bellowed for Sika to enter the barrack. She handed Sika a silver bottle, then said, ¡°This is magic liquid. Strip Saleen naked and ce him in this wooden tub and soak him in the Restorative Water. If the color of the Restorative Water bes pale, then add three drops of magic liquid in.¡±


    After finishing her sentence, Lex left the barrack and returned to the magic war chariot, noting out again.


    Lex was feeling slightly frustrated, ¡°If Sika wasn¡¯t around, then I would be the one treating Saleen, right?¡± At this juncture, Lex mysteriously felt jealous of Sika.

 Chapter 506: A designated universe (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 506: A designated universe (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Sika noticed Nailisi carrying Saleen, she did not panic. Saleen rarely did things he was not confident of. Since he was the one who baited ck William intentionally, his life would not be in danger.


    There was no one else in the barrack. Sika and Nailisi stripped Saleen naked before cing him in the wooden tub.


    The Restorative Water was chilly. When Saleen was ced into the water by Nailisi, goosebumps were raised on his skin. The Restorative Water appeared to be transparent, but it actually had a slightly pale gray hue. If this pale gray color vanished, it meant that the Restorative Water¡¯s vitality had been fully depleted and it had lost its healing effect.


    Nailisi brought a chair for Sika, allowing Sika to sit beside the tub, so that she could observe any changes to the water.


    ¡°What happened to him?¡± Sika probed.


    ¡°He can¡¯t be dead.¡± Nailisi worried, recalling the power of Saleen¡¯s finger she felt terrified. A demon¡¯s body had the ability to heal itself, but if it got impacted by that attack, a demon would immediately die without a chance for recovery.


    ¡°What about Eleanor?¡±


    ¡°I have warned her, so she is very obedient now,¡± Nailisi announced smugly.


    ¡°Saleen wants to subdue her, don¡¯t create trouble for Saleen.¡± Sika understood Saleen, it was just that she did not like to talk. She was rarely ignorant of Saleen¡¯s ns.


    ¡°Subdue her?¡± Nailisi¡¯s eyes became wide open, then asked, ¡°Isn¡¯t Master with you? Why does he want that old woman.¡±


    ¡°What nonsense. Without the bangle, she is also a grade-5 mage, she will make a good assistant. This woman also doesn¡¯t pursue fame nor power, it will be easy to take care of her.¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika, I thought Master had fallen in love with her. I have said it before, this woman might be hundreds of years old already. Her Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill will not fool me, but¡­¡±


    ¡°But what?¡±


    ¡°Why is Master¡¯s thing weird?¡± Nailisi pointed to Saleen¡¯s lower body.


    Despondent, Sika said, ¡°Which part of it is strange?¡±


    ¡°Why are there no thorns here?¡± Nailisi stared at Saleen¡¯s limp penis curiously, she even put her hand into the water to fiddle with it.


    Sika shoved Nailisi, then said, ¡°He is not a demon, can you stop fooling around?!¡±


    ¡°I am not fooling around. Sister Sika, without the thorns, it wille off easily when you two are doing the deed, won¡¯t it?¡± Now that Saleen was unconscious, Nailisi spoke with no filter.


    Nailisi only stopped bbering when Sika stared daggers at her. After a long while, she noticed that Sika had added three droplets of the magic liquid into the wooden tub. Saleen¡¯s body was voluntarily absorbing the power of the Restorative Water, which was a positive sign.


    The Restorative Water was much more useful to a mage aspared to a normal human. A normal human would absorb the power of the water passively, while a mage would absorb it actively. The difference in effect was more than ten times.


    ¡°Sister Sika.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it a little too small even without the thorns?¡±


    Seeing that Sika had stretched her hand to take the boomerang suspended around her waist, Nailisi quickly said, ¡°I am not mocking Master, but it is really small!¡±


    ¡°What do you know? It gets bigger during usage.¡± Only Sika could say such things. If Lex was the one saying it, Nailisi would have blown her top.


    ¡°Really? Sister Sika, when you two are doing it in the future, can I be around to watch?¡± Nailisi had a look of innocence.


    ¡°Do you want to die?¡±


    ¡°Why are you angry? I am Master¡¯s contract creature, we have a soul contract. I feel Master¡¯s emotions too. Do you really think I don¡¯t know what you two are doing when I am not around to watch?¡±


    Sika burst intoughter, then pointed to Nailisi and said, ¡°You should be angry, right? No matter how hard you try, Saleen doesn¡¯t want you.¡±


    ¡°That might not be the case, I can transform into the body of a real human now.¡±


    ¡°I know, but in human form, your offensive power is pathetic.¡± Sika¡¯s words made Nailisi feel like a total failure. Not only did she fail to tease Sika, she was instead provoked by Sika¡¯s words.


    Looking at Sika¡¯s well-proportioned and strong body, Nailisi thought to herself jealously, ¡°She might not be human, she might even have transformed from a magic beast. If I can get stronger than her, then¡­¡±


    Before Nailisi could think of a way to deal with Sika, Saleen suddenly opened his eyes and spit out a mouthful of blood, then his body sank back slowly into the water. Nailisi quickly grabbed onto Saleen, helping him to sit upright.


    ¡°Master, are you okay?¡±


    ¡°I am fine now, but it hurts so badly!¡± Saleen felt as though his finger had been smashed thousands of times by a warhammer, he had never experienced such a pain before. He had practiced the Crystal Finger before, but the practice target was not human. When the Crystal Finger destroyed the holy prose protecting ck William, Saleen could also feel the damage from the holy prose.


    Fortunately, the damage was only confined to his finger, and a huge portion of the impact had been absorbed by the Crystal Finger. Saleen would have broken all his bones otherwise and there was no solution for that.


    ¡°Ke¡­¡± Saleen started coughing again, and he coughed up more blood. He quickly snatched the bottle from Sika¡¯s hand and poured the magic liquid into his mouth.


    ¡°Saleen, how long will you take to recover?¡± Sika was a little concerned now, Saleen¡¯s injuries seemed to be worse than she imagined.


    ¡°Very quickly. With the magic liquid, my injuries will take at most three days to recover. It¡¯s my fault this time around. If I was a sorcerer, I would not get injured at all. If there is such a perilous task next time, I will let Lex do it.¡±


    Saleen was speaking sincerely. Since Lex was a higher grade than him and she also had the secret arts of the Grukos family, she would not feel such immense pain if she was the one who killed ck William.


    Unbeknownst to Saleen, ck William possessed a partial godly weapon, but he never got a chance to use it against Saleen. The Crystal Finger could kill with just a point. ck William never expected a grade-5 mage to possess such a fearsome spell, so he was killed due to carelessness. Had ck William took out the partial godly weapon, Saleen would be the one dead.


    The partial godly weapon was also destroyed by Saleen. Despite his Crystal Ring absorbing almost all of the bacsh, it did not even have a single crack. Raphael¡¯s Crystal Ring could already rival a godly equipment in terms of quality.


    ¡°J!¡± Sika hollered, and J entered the barrack.


    ¡°Tell Lex that Saleen needs three days to recover, then ask her how the journey will be nned.¡±


    Saleen never used amanding tone to speak to J. J¡¯s immunity to beautiful women was immensely weak though. After hearing Sika say that, J left gleefully.


    ¡°Master, why were you so sure that ck William would go after you?¡± Nailisi asked Saleen about his tactics. Sika also listened in.


    ¡°This person had high status, he was not be satisfied with just doing surveince. At first, when pursuing me, he wanted to see whether he stood a chance or not. I didn¡¯t let anyone else follow, because only Nailisi would disallow him from identifying her hidden powers. A holy master above grade-7 can easily deal with a grade-5 mage who is unprotected by any swordmasters. I did that to make him let his guard down. If J followed me, I would be safe, but he might not have taken action.


    Nailisi nodded, signaling that she understood. Saleen was only toying with human nature, even a grade-7 holy master would have the tendency to take advantage of others. Seeing that he could bully Saleen easily, he would of course give it a shot.


    At this moment, J returned and told Saleen, ¡°Lex said that she will allow you to rest until tomorrow afternoon, then we will need to enter the desert. Since the holy master is dead, the three leaders of the inquisition will definitely hear about it. The capital of Tanggsi has a teleportation portal to the borders of Titan, those three old guys will be able to reach here in three days.¡±


    ¡°Got it. J, go and rest as well, don¡¯t bother about keeping watch anymore.¡±


    J was hesitant, but Nailisi simply pushed him out and said, ¡°With me around, Master will be safe.¡± J smiled, ¡°Have I finally internalized my role?¡± He was now genuinely concerned about Saleen¡¯s safety.


    After a short while of effectiveness, the Restorative Water had lost its medicinal properties again. Saleen closed his eyes and meditated while Sika emptied the remaining magic liquid into the wooden tub. She would not help Lex conserve the magic liquid. Magic liquid was stored in very tiny containers, and it had high requirements for the containers. As this silver bottle was pretty good, Sika gave it to Nailisi.


    Lex was inside the magic war chariot, with Bain seated across her. The rest of the mages had left the chariot.


    ¡°Viscountess, Saleen¡¯s attack was truly horrifying.¡±


    ¡°Aspared to the God¡¯s Punishment?¡±


    ¡°The God¡¯s Punishment is mightier, but his skill is prative, it is totally different.¡±


    ¡°Are you reminding me that the God¡¯s Ring might not be able to block his attack?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Do you not trust Saleen?¡±


    Bain remained silent for a moment, then said, ¡°Right now, I do trust him. Any kind of trust is limited though. I feel very jumpy with you beside him. I cannot even block that spell of his.¡±


    ¡°Bain, in that one year when Saleen and I were in the hell of the God¡¯s Punishment, we saved each other¡¯s lives.¡±


    ¡°People do change.¡±


    ¡°Not you. Bain, let me ask you, are you still nning to let your daughter learn magic from him?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great, you shall pretend as if nothing had ever happened.¡± Lex proimed confidently, ¡°I have always been urate in evaluating people. Bain, you should trust my judgment.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess¡­¡± s, Bain still did not say what was on his mind. He was not worried that Saleen would harm Lex, he was worried that all of Lex¡¯s assets would one day be in Saleen¡¯s possession.


    ¡°Some people wouldn¡¯t mind, but some others wouldn¡¯t be able to take it. As long as Lex remains a viscountess, the swordsmen serving her would be contented. Other than the mages beside Lex, there is still a batch of nobles. These people are secretly helping Lex resist the Holy Rock City, but what are they hoping to achieve? Forget it, I am dying soon, I cannot keep watching over Lex. I can only execute the mission given to me by the emperor until the day I die. Lex will have to rely on herself for future matters.¡±


    Bain leaned against the cushion tiredly, totally unlike an assassin. He looked more like an elderly person who already had one foot in the grave.

 Chapter 507: Slowly chasing (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 507: Slowly chasing (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were no anomalies in Saleen¡¯s injuries. Even though the Crystal Finger had damaged his body, his mental strength did not sustain any huge damage. As long as he had the magic chords, he could still cast magic. The Crystal Finger was not a lousy spell. It had tremendous power and its aftereffects were not fatal. There would not be any adverse effect to Saleen¡¯s magic training in the future.


    This time around, Saleen was clear on it; the Crystal Finger was not invincible. If ck William¡¯s protective holy prose was as mighty as Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring, then the power of the bacsh could kill him.


    This made Saleen wake up. If he ran into the three leaders from the inquisition, the Crystal Finger would be useless. Even if he could kill one of them, he would pay with his life and die along with the enemy.


    Raphael was definitely a genius, creating such a brutal and unavoidable spell. If he was still alive, he might have already surpassed the limits of grade-10.


    A grade-11 mage? It seemed like there was not one known in history yet.


    Lex had sent people to deliver another half a bottle of magic liquid. Saleen had very little magic liquid, while Lex obviously had a bank of it. She was also very anxious for Saleen to get better. If Saleen could not move, she would not be able to leave this ce. It was no small hatchet killing a disciple of the head inquisitor. Up until now, the three old guys had only groomed six people.


    The next day, Saleen could already move about, but it was still quite cumbersome for him to fight. Lex actually nned for the convoy to move out at noon, but the weather was sweltering, so she decided to move at night. She set up a temporary teleportation portal, as she attempted to make contact with Metatrin City.


    For any kind of temporary teleportation portal, only some noises or images could be transmitted. To send a tangible item, a fixed teleportation portal was still needed in order for it to be safe. The transmitted substance could possibly be disintegrated by the turbulence in space otherwise.


    What made Lex surprised was that Metatrin City had replied with the coordinates of the main temple. At the same time, another piece of news was received. The army from Holy Rock City had besieged Lianyun City, while the eastern sea allied army in other locations had been extirpated or driven into Lianyun City.


    The war would end at the end of the year. Holy Rock City and the local nobles had issued a tax-exempt order. Any citizen living in thends which had been afflicted by the war would not need to pay tax for three years.


    As the tax-exempt order was disseminated by Holy Rock City and the local nobles, it meant that the civilians who were inflicted with the venom need not to pay a single cent for the next three years.


    Lex discovered more clues. If Holy Rock City wanted to counterattack Lon, then they would not deploy the armies belonging to the northern nobles. They instead would deploy troops in the south. Holy Rock City was very confident of their own main force. Even if troops from the south could not be dispatched in time, Holy Rock City¡¯s army could still deal with the knights from the Tanggsi Empire on their own.


    Lex felt that this was a little inadequate, unless¡­ unless Holy Rock City had formed an alliance with the Sikeqinya Empire. In this case, Laiyin Duchy would participate in the war. The deadlock in Lon would be resolved immediately.


    Lex¡¯s intelligence agency was not stationed in Metatrin City, so Lex had to make contact with Bitter Water Prefecture as well. Upon contact, she learned that the Holy See had released a new code ofws. There were fifteen newws, and several hundred more rules. The main message was that the Holy See wanted to allow the glory of god to shine upon the whole maind.


    The Holy See was actually trying to ignite a holy war!


    The phrase ¡°holy war¡± had only surfaced in thest one-thousand years. When the Goddess of Myers was around, the maind did not have any religious wars. The Goddess of Myers had never forced anyone to believe in a religion.


    The appearance of a holy war was rted to the Holy See. Back when the Holy See wanted to spread its teachings on the maind, it was obstructed in the Qin Empire. Qin people would rather seek help from a magic disciple than a holy master and the nobles were unusually vignt towards the influence of the Holy See.


    The Holy See could ownnds, but it did not need to pay any taxes. It was actually depriving the nobles¡¯ interests. The Holy See even had its own army and financial institutions. The war between the four empires was in fact a holy war.


    After the holy war, each empire made apromise with the exception of Phoenix. The other four duchies acted as buffer zones, while the power of the Holy See was absorbed by the Tanggsi Empire. In order to establish the Holy See and to preach, they would have to obtain permission from the local nobles first. The emperors of the four big empires would have no say in this matter.


    It seemed like the Holy See had achieved its objective. In actual fact, other than Qin, even the local nobles in Sikeqinya did not really care for the Holy See. The Cloudflow people were even more conservative. As a result, the Holy See only managed to expand its power in the God Grace Duchy, but it barely made any progress in the other three empires.


    In Qin, no churches could be developed. Even if a noble in a certain area had been bribed, they would immediately be oppressed by the surrounding nobles. That way the church would also be torn down eventually.


    In the previous holy war, the Holy See got the shorter end of the stick. After umting power for thest one-thousand years, it tried to ignite arge-scale holy war again. Lex was astounded as the issues she had ran into might not be a coincidence at all. From when she was ambushed while on the way to Holy Rock City, to the conflict in Holy Rock City, the shadow of the Holy See was always present.


    ¡°ck William might not have been talking nonsense when he said he wanted to cooperate with me. He was actually trying to tap into my status to allow the Holy See¡¯s preaching be epted by Qin¡¯s nobles. If I got captured, it would be scarier than death. The Holy See will never let me die, it will transform me into a puppet, and extend its feelers into Qin by controlling me. This risk, is not that worthwhile anymore.¡±


    As Lex¡¯s heart of vignce got stimted, she instructed the rest of the people to prepare for the journey without any hesitation. ¡°If the Holy See had a plot long ago, then every minute here is dangerous.¡±


    As Saleen was injured and had not fully recovered, Lex still rode in the same chariot as Saleen while her mages sat in the other chariot. Lex had made up her mind. If it was difficult to obtain the seeds of the divine trees and the situation was perilous, she would immediately activate the power of the God¡¯s Ring and flee with Saleen.


    ¡°Once I get back to Metatrin City, I will immediately construct a magical tower. With a magical tower, a few grand swordmasters, Bain, and Nailisi¡¯s four demons, even a sorcerer will be defeated. Worst case I will empty my savings to recruit a few mages from Alchemy City. By then, I don¡¯t believe the Holy See will be able to deploy an army to invade Metatrin City¡±.


    Lex never discussed these things with Saleen, and Saleen never asked why the journey was continued. The coordinates to the temple had been calcted, Saleen would not want to dy any further either.


    After the convoy entered the Purgatory Desert, it immediately slowed down. The ck sand was not as soft as the normal yellow sand and the magic war chariots could not advance quickly despite having their wheels changed. The swordmasters were all on high alert. As it was midday, the sun was toxic, so the magic arrays on everyone¡¯s armor was activated. Even holding a conversation would deplete the magic nuclei.


    The team advanced stealthily. The person leading the pack was Wild Bear. Even though he was bulky, his mental strength was extremely intricate, his perception to danger even exceeded that of J¡¯s.


    As suggested by his name, Wild Bear was like a powerful magic beast. A spider, the size of a fist,id atop his skeletal warhorse. This spider was Saleen¡¯s witcher spider. Saleen was fond of this big fellow too. If Wild Bear got attacked by any magic beast, the spider could team up with him. It was more synergistic than when the spider cooperated with Saleen.


    No one would ever expect a ferocious person like Wild Bear to possess an insidious technique like the witcher spider.


    Lex had left at an opportune time. Half a day after she left the camppound, two holy masters d in identical ck robes arrived. These two holy masters were around the same age as ck William, they were also dressed in the same manner. They were followed by hundreds of warriors. The warriors donned ferocious-looking ck armor, and wore fully sealed helmets iid with brown crystals.


    The inquisition did not have many soldiers, the most renowned troops were these hundreds of wardens.


    The Crystal Finger had reduced ck William to shreds, and Saleen did not bother cleaning up the battlefield. After the two holy masters inspected the area, their faces turned ghastly.


    ¡°Fifth Brother is dead.¡±


    ¡°Lex has entered the desert. She has been gone for about twelve hours now, her scent cannot be tracked.¡±


    ¡°What do we do now?¡±


    ¡°Teacher will arrive in two days, but in two days¡¯ time, we will totally lose Lex.¡±


    The Purgatory Desert did not only have a harsh environment, the elements there were not very stable either. Very soon after a person passed by a certain area, their scent would bepletely erased. If three days had passed, even a grade-9 sorcerer would be helpless.


    Neither of the holy masters wanted to shoulder this responsibility, it was very perilous to just enter the Purgatory Desert like that.


    ¡°Second Brother, we didn¡¯t bring a lot of water.¡±


    ¡°Fourth Brother, if Lex managed to escape, then it will mean that we have lost to the pope¡¯s men. Our teachers will also be embarrassed, and our future will be doomed.¡±


    The two people kept arguing, but ck William was not mentioned at all. They were afraid that Lex had employed some skill which killed their fifth brother instantaneously, neither his soul nor body was left behind. Even though ck William was not as powerful as either of them, he still possessed a partially godly weapon. He had died just like that, in such a thorough fashion.


    When Lex left, she did not put away the tents, she simply left them as they were. ck William had died outside the camppound. Judging by the marks on the battlefield, ck William seemed to have been monitoring the camppound. Eventually, the people in the camp emerged and killed him.


    ck William¡¯s speed was faster than the both of them. If Lex had such an expert working for her, how could they go after her recklessly? It was not so bad with five-hundred wardens around, but the wardens had a low speed. If they did not bring the wardens along, then they would face the risk of getting killed though.


    ¡°Fourth Brother, since we are students from the same teacher, should we be more candid with each other?¡± The killer did not want to waste any more time. With every word spoken, it meant that Lex would be slightly further away.


    ¡°Candid? Then I will say it. The person who killed Fifth Brother can also kill us.¡±


    ¡°Then we will bring along the wardens and chase them slowly, what do think?¡±


    ¡°This idea sounds good. Even though we cannot leave behind our scents, we can leave behind physical objects. When teacher gets here, he will be able to catch up.¡±


    Both of them looked at each other and smiled, understanding that they were both afraid of death. After acknowledging each other¡¯s choices, the two led five-hundred wardens into the Purgatory Desert, following the trail left behind by Lex.

 Chapter 508: Slowly chasing (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 508: Slowly chasing (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The five-hundred wardens d in ck armor were all fanatic believers. These people had varying abilities, with the weakest being a beginner swordmaster. In order to capture Lex, the inquisition had deployed the strongest people they could recruit at the highest speed, but they were still one step behind.


    Back at the Stone Statue Castle, a patrol team from Tanggsi¡¯s second-tier army had discovered Lex¡¯s tracks and reported them immediately. The intelligence could not be confirmed, so the inquisition only deployed a ck deacon. Lex¡¯s team was traveling too quickly, so the ck deacon did not find anything. At this point in time, the Agares family had received news that Bifano was in trouble.


    The Agares family leaked information about Lex¡¯s movements. At the periphery of the pink army¡¯s base. Men from the Agares family discovered Lex and her party, but Bifano¡¯s army was nowhere to be seen. Due to an intelligence error and mimunication, the people guarding the periphery of the swamp also did not stop Lex.


    Once these men initiated contact with the family, it was discovered that Bifano had already sent out a distress signal.


    Lex had managed to escape through this crevice. By the time everyone reacted, she and Saleen had already arrived at the perimeter of the Purgatory Desert. The Agares family immediately deployed people to enter the swamp, but the temple¡¯s entrance could not be located. Bifano no longer transmitted information, so they knew that something bad had happened to him.


    Five-thousand elites and the first son of the Grand Duke of Titan had died, this was a massive loss. Lex had correctly predicted the actions of the Agares family, they intentionally leaked information to the Tanggsi Empire.


    The inquisition then followed up by dispatching ck William. ck William only brought along one-thousand blood knights and a few assistants for the trip. The imperial capital of the Tanggsi Empire was in a lot of trouble, so the upper management of the Holy See did not leave. In the end, ck William got tricked by Saleen. By the time wardens from the inquisition arrived, they could only find some remnants of Lex.


    The disciples of the three head inquisitors held the rank of adjudicators in the inquisition. It was a rank just inferior to an inquisitor. They were the most able assistants to the head inquisitors, and were groomed to be their sessors.


    The weakest out of the six of them was a grade-7 professional; ck William. The other five were all grade-8 professionals. The fact that the inquisition deployed such a powerful person meant that they looked up to Lex. Even though a holy master¡¯s offensive power was lower than that of a mage, this statement only applied when a holy master did not have any equipment and was at the same grade as the mage.


    Once a holy master¡¯s grade was superior to a mage, they would still possess overwhelming power.


    Number two adjudicator Dse and number four adjudicator Fanyin were grade-8 holy masters. They were already absolute high level powers in the Holy See. When they saw that the number five adjudicator, who owned a partial godly weapon,was killed, they became wary.


    ck William was a smiling tiger, he was ruthless and had many tricks up his sleeve. If he used the partial godly weapon, neither of them would be his match. Judging by the marks left behind by the battle, ck William was killed in a single move, it would be strange for Dse and Fanyin not to be fearful.


    They did not know that Saleen did not even give ck William a chance to wield the partial godly weapon. If ck William used that partial godly weapon, Saleen could still have killed him, but Saleen would also have died or sustained serious injuries.


    Five-hundred wardens paved the way ahead. The word ¡°warden¡± was just theirbel, they were the backbone power of the inquisition. Their powers were simr to that of the guards protecting the Tanggsi emperor.


    The wardens forged ahead cautiously. The people walking at the very front pointed theirnces downwards. They were oracles who possessed mighty mental strength, so they could detect any approaching danger.


    The speed of progress was very low, but Dse and Fanyin never rushed their subordinates. They simply followed behind slowly. This group of people traveled in this manner until deep into the night when the temperature got horrifyingly low. The two of them then allowed the wardens toe to a halt.


    The starlight in the sky was dim while the desert was ck. The lifeless taste of the air almost drove these people, who had had close shaves with death, crazy. No magic beasts emerged to attack them, even the most renowned sand scorpion was nowhere to be seen. The more quiet it was, the more psychological pressure everyone felt.


    The Purgatory Desert was not named to frighten people. Before it became a forbiddennd, countless adventurers had died in it.


    ¡°Let¡¯s set up camp.¡± Feeling that the wardens were very exhausted, Fanyin decided to bring it up to Dse.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Even before Dse¡¯s voice faded away, the wardens at the front began screaming frantically.


    ¡°Sand scorpions!¡±


    ¡°No need to yell!¡± Dse admonished, and there was no more chatter. In this pitch ck night, hundreds of colossal sand scorpions had gathered. These sand scorpions were not smaller than a washbasin like how the myths had depicted them, they were actually bigger than a wheel. This was not including the three-yard long tails the sand scorpions had.


    ¡°Damn it, stay together, don¡¯t fall behind!¡± Dse and Fanyin wielded their equipment at the same time. In the face of hundreds of sand scorpions, they were not confident of limiting the number of casualties.


    The sand scorpions swayed their tails. At the end of their tails was a bone thorn which gave off a frosty glow. This bone thorn had unparalleled toxicity, and as long as it drew blood, it would kill a person in half a second.


    Lex and her party had also ran into trouble. Even though they traveled slowly, their speed was still several times more than that of the wardens who walked on foot. Her team first met the sand scorpions, but this batch of sand scorpions was small in size. In two hours¡¯ time, the ten swordmasters had killed all of them. After cracking the skulls of the sand scorpions, they only obtained level-3 magic nuclei. These magic nuclei had unmatched pureness, Lex had never seen a magic nucleus with better quality than theirs.


    This made Lex and Saleene to realize a serious problem. There were no nts in the Purgatory Desert. In the knowledge base of a mage, when magic beasts preyed on one another, there had to be a humongous basicmunity. Thismunity usually fed on nts for survival. The sand scorpions were also obviously evolved magic beasts. It must be noted that the elements were in some kind of chaos in the Purgatory Desert. Other than Saleen and Lex, the rest of the mages who left the magic chariot could hardly cast a spell stably.


    The magic nucleus of a sand scorpion was abnormally pure in order to adapt to the desert¡¯s environment. No matter how one looked at it, the environment of this desert could not support too much life.


    Saleen and Lex were not afraid of facing individual powerful magic beasts, they were fearful of meeting hordes however.


    A slender metal drill dug into the ground of the camppound. Lex originally thought that this appliance would not be used, but it was not prepared in vain.


    Lex was looking for water. In most circumstances, water would be present dozens of yards underneath the sand, but it would be in very tiny volumes, it could only moisten the sand. Lex instructed her men to drill one-hundred and eighty yards into the ground. For every yard advanced, a portion of the sand brought out by the magic machine would be conserved and ced in a porcin bottle. This bottle would then be delivered to the magic war chariot.


    Lex had set up somepact equipment on the small tform in the middle of the war chariot. There were several ss beakers and bottles there. The sand sample was added. Lex did the work personally, incorporating magic medicine into each beaker.


    Under the effect of the magic medicine, the water in the sand particles was separated before being channeled into a ss pipe. It then was injected into the tiny ss bottles.


    ¡°Saleen, give me a hand.¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Help me to analyze it and determine whether these samples have the power of life or not.¡± Lex pointed to the sand in the beakers.


    Saleen was suddenly jolted. Many organisms could not be seen by the naked eye, but manyrge creatures relied on them for food. There was a type of mushroom spore which could be directly absorbed by the Dibasian Beast. It was was more than three yards long, taking in the nutrients essential for life.


    Very quickly, Saleen discovered that this sand was not dead. Indeed, there were signs of life in this ck sand,these creatures were just weak. Saleen was not well-versed in this aspect, he simply relied on the divinity of the goddess for detection. As for what type of life was present in the sand, Saleen had no way of analyzing it. Only if he possessed the Tree of Wisdom would he be omniscient of all life in this world.


    Lex also managed to analyze the data she wanted quickly. She told the people in the chariot, ¡°The Purgatory Desert¡¯s¡­ precipitation is not low at all. The permeability of this ck sand is much higher than that of normal sand though. There will definitely be water sources one mile from here, there might even be an underwater river orke of some sort.¡±


    ¡°How is this useful?¡± Nailisi asked, as she did not understand. She also had a desire for human knowledge.


    ¡°Some nts have roots that extend for hundreds of yards. As the water source of the Purgatory Desert is located too deep underground, it is very hard to find an oasis, but it doesn¡¯t mean that there won¡¯t be life present. If a nt has roots which extend for more than a thousand yards into the ground, then they will be able to survive in the desert.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t heard of nts that evolve like magic beasts.¡± Saleen shook his head.


    ¡°Daniel has a death nt, anything is possible. Where did those sand scorpionse from otherwise?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true, but it doesn¡¯t help our current situation at all.¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily. This information might seem useless right now, but it might save your life in the future.¡± As Lex spoke, she put onbels stating the depth on the sand samples before putting them away. She was going to bring the samples back to Metatrin City for the mages to analyze. Following that, she injected the Restorative Water into one of the beakers.


    At the bottom of this beaker was a ck sand particle as thick as a finger. After the beaker was filled to the brim with Restorative Water, this sand particle suddenly shook.


    This time around, even Sika was observing the beaker, it was not known what Lex did.


    Ripples were created in the beaker. Suddenly, from within the ck sand particle, dozens of creatures as small as dust crawled out. These creatures swam about the water, growing rapidly. The Restorative Water itself was full of nutrition, if one consumed it, their thirst and hunger would be dispelled.


    In the blink of an eye, these creatures had grown to the size of a finger. They had the exterior of a fish, but they also had transparent wing-like structures like those found on an insect.


    Saleen and Lex fell into silence at the same time. In their minds, they were trying to recall which book contained information about such a strange creature.


    ¡°Tama fish beasts!¡± Saleen and Lex yelled in unison.


    The two of them reacted swiftly at the same time. Lex used Frost Ray, while Saleen simply put his hand on the cup, casting the Frosty Touch.


    Ka¡­


    The water in the beaker was frozen, but then it cracked open rapidly as the tama fish beasts broke free from the ice. They then jumped out of the beaker.


    The people in the chariot all reacted with lightning speed. Nailisi and the four demons acted at the same time, grabbing the tama fish beasts with their hands. Every demon executed a simr motion. They used their fingers and pluck off the beasts¡¯ heads without any hesitation.


    Seeing that none of the beasts escaped, Saleen and Lex then dispersed the attack spell they were about to cast. By now, they had already broke out in a cold sweat.

 Chapter 509: Application of magic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 509: Application of magic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, what is a tama fish beast?¡± As Nailisi observed the bodies of the fish beast in her hands, she did not feel that they were very dangerous. These creatures could grow horrifyingly fast though.


    ¡°It is themon name for several types of fish species. Lex, you tell them, I have very little knowledge on this aspect.¡±


    ¡°Give me one.¡± Lex took one of the dead tama fish beasts from Nailisi, and inspected it carefully. After a while, she then said, ¡°Tama fish beast refers to more than forty species. Their survivability is extremely high. Usually, once a fish leaves the water, it will die very quickly. A tama fish beast can live for several more days and it can also fly¡­¡±


    ¡°This one is a coldteeth fish beast, and its inborn spell is chewing. If one got bitten by it, even magic armor will notst long. These creaturese in hordes, they are much scarier than the piranhas.¡±


    Nailisi did not rebut. These coldteeth fish beasts were killed by the demons and Nailisi with a single pinch, but they were just newly hatched creatures. They already had the ability to fly though. It had to be noted that they had broken free from hard ice. If a low grade magic beast was frozen by the two spells cast by Saleen and Lex, it might have possibly died on the spot already.


    ¡°The crux lies in the fish eggs. Any fish will produce thousands of eggs every single time, some will hatch tens of thousands of eggs. The eggs from the tama fish beast can also be preserved onnd, turning into microscopic dust particles. The moment water is present, they will hatch immediately. This is a species specific to the desert only. There isn¡¯t much edible prey in the desert, so such creatures rarely develop into huge monsters. Once food is exhausted and water is absent, a mature fish beast will choose to die off immediately after producing eggs.¡±


    ¡°If there is a torrential rain¡­¡± Saleen did not finish his sentence. Everyone in the chariot, humans and demons alike, felt chills go down their spines. There was only a handful of ck sand particles in the beaker, yet there were already dozens of fish beast eggs inside. If there was a heavy downpour, then billions of fish beasts could be hatched.


    ¡°Whether or not they hatch depends on the amount of food avable. If there is no food, the eggs might continue their deep slumber even in rain.¡±


    Lex¡¯s words did not really relieve everyone¡¯s worries. To the fish beasts, they were food. If the people from Holy See pursued them, then there would be more food.


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s return to Metatrin City, this desert is too abominable.¡± Nailisi tossed aside the tama fish beast in her hands, as she spoke in disgust. She was not really fearful of this creature, but to a mage, the tama fish beast was horrifying. They existed inrge numbers, while a mage had limited magic chords. A puppet might not possess adequate lethality against this thing, but what about the normal soldiers? The normal soldiers would be a pile of moving food for the fish beasts.


    ¡°What weakness does this thing have?¡± Sika was actually the calmest person. The Caucasus people believed that every creature had a weakness, and all creatures could be tamed.


    ¡°Their weakness is having a weak mental strength, the Mental Assault spell will be able to destroy them. Only a young person can use this method though.¡± Lex¡¯s answer still could not ay everyone¡¯s fears. A mage¡¯s mental assault would have a more pronounced effect by directly using it, but the number of uses was pathetic. By using this spell repeatedly, the mages themselves would crumble.


    ¡°The tama fish beast contain more than forty species, and every species has different attributes. Other than a weak mental strength, anothermon weakness is that they cannot fly that fast.¡±


    Lex adding this piece of information was akin to not saying anything at all. No matter how slow they flew, they would still be faster than a human running on two legs. Of course, the demons were an exception. If a mage were to fly in an environment like the Purgatory Desert, their speed would be greatly reduced. A lot of magic chords would be consumed to handle the unstable elemental environment. Unlike creatures who used their wings, a mage would only fly as fast as a normal warrior once their magic chords got fully depleted.


    ¡°Let¡¯s hope it doesn¡¯t rain, we will try our best to avoid ces which may be sources of water.¡± After Lex said her piece, even she herself felt weird. In a desert, water was most precious. If there was a downpour, it could even save many lives. She now wished that there would be no rain, she did not even want to run into a waterbody.


    Saleen¡¯s true worry was not these fish beasts. The tama fish beast was not a powerful creature. Before adulthood, they only had strong resistance towards water magic. If fire magic was applied, they would also be wiped out. The worst thing was that the fish beasts would appear in colossal numbers after hatching, which meant that they would be a source of food for other magic beasts out there.


    Before maturity, most tama fish beasts would be prey for other magic beasts, many magic beasts had already undergone evolution to possess skills meant for handling a fish beast. This was nature¡¯s cycle. Before the powerful fish beasts could develop, they would provide an opportunity for survival for other magic beasts.


    ¡°Aye, let¡¯s deal with these fish beasts first. Saleen, we will rest for half a day, and concentrate on producing the Fire Ring of Resistance magic scrolls.¡± Desperate, Lex summoned her own mages, taking out a pile of nk scrolls and handing it to them.


    The Fire Ring of Resistance was a level-3 defense spell, its attributes could curb the tama fish beasts. Lex had no choice but to waste her scrolls for this spell because her swordmasters required protection. Once the tama fish beasts appeared in hordes, those high grade swordmasters would need magic for protection. The few spells on their armor would not be able to defend against the devastation caused by the coldteeth fish beasts. On the other hand, the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters would do fine. The moment they donned the Spirit Snake Armor, they would be able use their Sword Aura at will.


    The existence of magic armor was for humans to deal with their own kind. Against magic beasts, varying techniques would have to be employed.


    Saleen rummaged through his Demonic Ring for the stored scrolls, then said to Lex, ¡°I have two Mental Storm Scrolls, both are level-6, what about you?¡±


    ¡°I have four,¡± Lex answered. The Mental Storm could handle the tama fish beasts perfectly, however, very few people produced this scroll. Saleen had hundreds of scrolls as backup, but he only possessed two of such scrolls. Lex owned more scrolls than Saleen, but she only had four of these scrolls.


    Even though the Mental Storm was an area attack, it was not an area spell. The area of attack was only a few hundred square yards. A mage would use such a spell when they were surrounded by swordsmen. Since the mental strength of a swordsman was inferior to that of a mage, a mage only needed to cast the Mental Storm once to turn the situation around.


    A few hundred square yards might soundrge, but in actual fact, the battle radius was only dozens of yards. This distance was most suitable for attacking swordsmen below the grade of a grand swordmaster.


    After Lex replied, she ignored Saleen, she began producing the Fire Ring of Resistance scrolls.


    Fortunately, all the mages around Lex were grand mages, so the probability of sess for producing a low level scroll would not be lower than eighty percent. Lex¡¯s forte was fire magic, so she could deal with the young fish beasts without breaking a sweat. They were afraid of a heavy downpour because it would cause countless of fish beasts to emerge.


    Saleen did not participate in the production of scrolls as he never learned the Fire Ring of Resistance. It also was not necessary for him to waste effort on deducing how to convert the water element into this fire spell. He did not skive either though. He instead went to collect more ck sand particles and ced them in a crystal bottle. He then injected the Restorative Water before sealing the bottle.


    The power of the Restorative Water helped the fish eggs hatch quickly. Two fish beasts crawled out from the ck sand and began swimming about in the Restorative Water. As the crystal bottle was hundred times sturdier than a ss beaker and did not have any elemental attributes, it managed to trap these two young fish beasts.


    Saleen decided to take out a me stove. After adding magic powder in and mixing thoroughly, he ced the crystal bottle on top of the stove and heated it. Saleen was already very familiar with this technique back when he was learning how to create magic medicine, the temperature of the mes was controlled nicely. Not long after, the temperature in the crystal bottle began to rise, but the two fish beasts were not anxious at all. Following the increase in temperature, Saleen tracked the temperature. The water in the bottle was already on the verge of boiling, yet the fish beasts remained indifferent.


    In a sealed space, water pressure would increase after water was heated, so its temperature could also exceed the usual boiling point. Many magic medicines were created under huge pressure. This time around, Saleen was nning to find out the tolerance level of the fish beasts.


    When the temperature slowly rose to two-hundred and twenty degrees, the two fish beasts started crashing against the walls of the bottle, but Saleen simply ignored them. He just kept adding different burning agents into the me stove to increase the temperature. Eventually, the temperature in the crystal bottle reached a horrifying eight-hundred degrees, which was as hot as some low level magic mes.


    The two fish beasts simply flipped over, and floated upwards at that point.


    Saleen recorded his findings in his own magic notebook, then told Lex, ¡°The Fire Washing Spell will be able to deal with the newly hatched fish beasts.¡±


    The four demons gazed at Saleen in awe. The research ability of a human was not existent in a demon. More urately, demons were toozy to conduct research. Now that Saleen had discovered the tolerance of a young fish beast, the mages could deal with them more easily.


    The Fire Washing Spell was a level-0 spell. Its original function was to remove toxins, and at the same time, to dry clothes and clean one¡¯s body. This was a life assistance type spell. The Fire Washing Spell was rarely used in battle because the mes produced were not hot enough, and its effective duration was short. To the fish beasts, who naturally detested fire, the Fire Washing Spell was adequate to kill.


    How many level-0 Fire Washing Spells could a grand mage cast? Saleen never calcted before. If only the Fire Washing Spell was used, Saleen would be like a grand swordmaster, he would be able to battle for a long time without needing to worry about his magic chords being depleted.


    Lex immediately instructed her subordinates to do an experiment. Under the effect of the Fire Washing Spell, the newly hatched fish beasts died. The Fire Ring of Resistance would thus kill the fish beasts instantly. Inparison, the lethality of water magic against the fish beasts was pathetic. A mage would need to cast level-4 and above Water spells to kill those weak things.


    Lex¡¯s swordmasters also joined in the experiment. In a sealed barrack, the fish beasts were hatched, then the swordmasters used their various weapons and skills against them. Eventually, the Qin Eight-sided Sword was chosen.


    In order to kill a fish beast, it was insufficient to only rely on the sharpness of a weapon. The best solution would be to use the Sword Aura to create vibrations. The brain of a fish beast was extremely frail, while its exterior shell was very tough. Even though the swordmasters could not detach the Sword Aura from their bodies, they could infuse it within their weapons easily. The Qin Eight-sided Sword was the easiest to be infused with the Sword Aura, so it was much more useful against the fish beastspared to Wild Bear¡¯s poleaxe.

 Chapter 510: Application of magic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 510: Application of magic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had seen the four demons in action before, so he knew that the fish beasts did not pose a threat to them, but what about Sika? He was a little worried for her.


    After ncing meaningfully at Sika, Saleen left the barrack. Sika followed suit.


    ¡°How do you feel about the fish beasts?¡±


    ¡°They are weak, I can handle them with the Roar of the Beast Spirit.¡±


    ¡°What is the Roar of the Beast Spirit?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a warrior priestess¡¯ skill, not limited by grade. It has many functions. Look, my warriors can cate the magic wolves even though they are wild, and they don¡¯t attack the Caucasus people frequently. That is just one of the branched skill of the Roar of the Beast Spirit; cating a magic beast.¡±


    ¡°Can you try it out?¡± Saleen was rarely naggy, but there was too much danger this time around. He was afraid that Sika might get into trouble. No matter how strong a warrior who possessed neither magic nor Sword Aura, was, they would not have too many ways to deal with a colossal number of tiny creatures.


    Sikaughed, then said, ¡°Why are you so worried for me, I will tell you if I am in danger. If you are so afraid, we can test it out right here.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Saleen had a hand full of ck sand. This ck sand was obtained from the depths of the desert and it had the presence of life. Saleen then grabbed a ball of Restorative Water. The ball of water epassed the ck sand. Soon after, the fish beasts were hatched and they rushed out from the ball of water.


    Saleen released a cloud which stuck to his body, as its periphery started burning, causing the fish beasts to go for Sika. Saleen watched nervously, standing ready to lend a hand if needed.


    Sika¡¯s lips moved slightly, but Saleen did not hear anything. Immediately, the pouncing fish beasts slowed down. By the time they arrived beside Sika, they no longer had the intention to attack her. After dancing about Sika for a while, the fish beasts then flew into the distance.


    Saleen was dumbfounded, then he said, ¡°Why didn¡¯t they bite you?¡±


    ¡°Even the poisonous mosquitoes from the Caucasus region do not bite me. Do you believe me now? In such a situation, the fish beasts will still go berserk if I had attacked them though.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s enough.¡± Saleen was jubnt, then said, ¡°As long as you don¡¯t need special protection, I will have peace of mind. In that case, I will leave the battle to the other mages.¡±


    Sika pursed her lips, disying a gentle smile which was rarely seen. She then extended her hand to caress Saleen¡¯s hair. Thatyer of me engulfing Saleen¡¯s hair did not even scald her hand.


    ¡°See, the power of a warrior priestess isn¡¯t any weaker than that of a mage.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mood brightened. Even though his me was only an evolved level-1 spell, it was still an elemental me. The fact that Sika remained unharmed despite touching it with her naked hand showed that her power was indeedparable to that of a mage¡¯s.


    ¡°Why are you smiling foolishly?¡± Sika was puzzled. All the while, Saleen had appeared respectable. Yet his appearance today was somewhat simr to Sika¡¯s.


    ¡°I was just thinking that the pressure from the Holy See had been worrying me all this while. It¡¯s my fault that I hadn¡¯t rxed even for one moment. If the Holy See wants toe, then I will let hime, our lives still have to go on. As long as you are fine, I will be happy.¡±


    Sika pouted, every Caucasus person understood this logic, yet Saleen only figured it out after so many years. Sika was of course overjoyed that Saleen could say something like that. This meant that Saleen, a mage, had been influenced by Sika, who was a Caucasus person. ¡°Does that mean that I have a chance of bing a nature priestess?¡±


    When Sika thought of this, she also began smiling foolishly.


    From a short distance away, J was observing them, then he thought to himself, ¡°Why is Saleen smiling so strangely? Aye, I have such a bitter life, there are so many beautiful women around me, but I cannot woo any of them. Nailisi¡¯s subordinates seem fine, but I have a feeling that those women are all very dangerous. Each time they get close to me, my heart rate increases greatly, this is so inconceivable to a Silver Grand Swordmaster.¡±


    Lex¡¯s men were not asckadaisical as J, the ck Metal Grand Swordmasters were very concerned about the current situation as people from the inquisition would definitely enter the desert. It was okay if there were only a few of them. If there were many people from the inquisition, the grand swordmasters were not worried about being captured, they were in fact afraid that these people would be food for the magic beasts in the desert.


    Once those fish beasts consumedrge amounts of food, they would be mature, which was a terrifying matter. They would be fish who could fly and cast magic on top of having high magic resistance. The worst thing was that no armor could withstand the chewing from this fish. It was not worrying when the fish beasts were young, but the moment they grew up, they could devour a person¡¯s brain with just one bite.


    The mages had already exined the features of the fish beasts to the warriors, and everyone also knew how to tackle them. If there were too many fish beasts present, everyone knew that they would not be able to leave the desert alive.


    Even though they had pledged their lives to the viscountess, they could not ept having a meaningless death.


    The two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters reminded the swordmasters of that. With the Spirit Snake Armor, the swordmasters could use some skills of a grand swordmaster. Without the skills of a grand swordmaster, the swordmasters would have to consumerge amounts of Sword Aura to deal with the fish beasts.


    Wild Bear was distressed because he was taught by a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster individually, he was taught spearing techniques. While other people used a sword, Wild Bear used a spear because the Qin Eight-sided Sword was like a toy to him. Since a spear had a one-foot long edge, it could also ughter the fish beasts effectively.


    The fish beasts were not omnipresent, it was just that Lex¡¯s camp was coincidentally situated above a dried waterbody currently. Lex had dug out the remaining fish eggs, so there weren¡¯t many beneath them anymore.


    These fish eggs were incubated using magic, then they were used to train the soldiers. Very quickly, the swordmasters grasped the technique to shock the fish beasts to death using their Sword Aura as they engaged in adaptive training.


    In the beginning, the mages only incubated dozens of fish beasts. Later on, they simply hatched hundreds of them at once to allow the swordmasters to practice.


    In the hands of Wild Bear, a gigantic metal spear seemed lightweight and tiny. As he swiped the metal spear, using the thornden de to slice the thumb-sized fish beasts, he grew bored and depressed.


    These things with tough shells made him unable to keep up. As the fish beasts flew in the air, it was an extremely energy-consuming task to kill them with brute strength.


    Feeling very dull, Wild Bear told the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster, ¡°I will go seek some advice from J.¡±


    That ck Metal Grand Swordmaster was of course more than willing to let Wild Bear go, because he was extremely in awe of J¡¯s swordsmanship and his technique of utilizing the Sword Aura. This ck Metal Grand Swordmaster was pretty young, he was only about thirty years old. J was younger than him and J was already a Silver Grand Swordmaster.


    Such a situation was actuallymonce. The cultivation of the Sword Aura was easier to grasppared to magic, but it was more difficult for one to be an expert. A mage could still rely on years of umtion, but if a swordsman had not be a swordmaster before reaching the age of twenty, then their achievement would not be too great. If they had not be a grand swordmaster before thirty years old, then it would be impossible for them to advance to a Golden Grand Swordmaster.


    Wielding the metal spear, Wild Bear came to J and giggled, then said, ¡°J, I need something from you.¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡± J had a good impression of Wild Bear, it was easy interacting with such a straightforward person.


    ¡°How good is your spear technique? I need a teacher.¡±


    ¡°Are you a high grade swordmaster already?¡±


    ¡°Almost there.¡± Wild Bear smiled with an honest appearance.


    ¡°Stab me with all your might.¡±


    Woo!


    Wild Bear was verypliant. As the metal spear produced the sound of air exploding, it had already arrived before J. Since J allowed him to use all his might, he mustered all his strength. He caused the tip of the spear to sheen with the blinding Sword Aura.


    J extended his hand, pressing a finger against the tip of the spear. The Sword Aura was dispersed by this. Following that, a section of the steel tip melted, as though it had been scorched by magic mes.


    ¡°Do you understand now?¡± J asked.


    Wild Bear furrowed his brows and pondered for a moment, then said, ¡°A little.¡±


    ¡°Exin to me what you¡¯ve learned.¡±


    ¡°Your Sword Aura was hidden in your finger, it wasn¡¯t released, and it was more concentrated than mine.¡±


    ¡°Anything else?¡±


    ¡°It seemed like you could predict the path of my attack.¡±


    ¡°Go on.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t initiate the attack. The quality of my Sword Aura isn¡¯t as good as yours, so it got dispersed with a strike.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s pretty good understanding already, I didn¡¯t know you were so intelligent,¡± J teased. Wild Bear might appear honest, but he could resist ten men after bing a swordsman. J only gave a simple demonstration and he could already decipher so many things.


    ¡°What else is there?¡± Wild Bear asked modestly.


    ¡°When your Sword Aura crashed into mine, it got controlled by my Sword Aura. I didn¡¯t release the Sword Aura through my finger, I simply used the crushing power of your Sword Aura to destroy the tip of the spear. If it wasn¡¯t the tip of the spear but a fish beast, I would be able to smash its magic nucleus with my finger, and its exterior shell would be totally useless.¡±


    ¡°With the frequency of the Sword Aura? I haven¡¯t learned it yet.¡± Wild Bear scratched his head. Lex had hired a good swordsmanship teacher for Wild Bear, so he had a thorough understanding of the Sword Aura and its future developments.


    ¡°If you are up against a single creature, you don¡¯t have to grasp all the techniques, you just have to remember one of the frequencies.¡± The moment J exined it to Wild Bear, Wild Bear immediately understood the concept.


    Essentially, if the frequency of the Sword Aura could be controlled, a grand swordmaster would be able to destroy any singleyered Magic Shield. In the instant when a weapon came into contact with a Magic Shield, or even before they came into contact, a grand swordmaster would be able to calcte the vibration frequency of the Magic Shield. They would be able to adjust their Sword Aura in order to destroy the Magic Shield.


    This skill was extremely difficult to master, it was just like using the Figaro Form to calcte the weakness of a spell. Most mages could do it, but they could not apply it in battle. The speed of calction was too low, one would already be dead the moment they managed to deduce it.


    J could not do it either, however, the structures of the magic beasts were identical. After killing the first fish beast, J had already grasped the weakness of the fish beasts. In the future, he just needed to stabilize the frequency of his Sword Aura in order to kill these creatures easily. A mature fish beast would undergo some changes, but that was not a big deal, J could simply capture one and study it.


    ¡°My weapon is ruined.¡± Wild Bear said in a depressed tone, as he noticed that the steel tip had melted into a clot.


    ¡°Go look for Sir Saleen, he will help you produce a new spear.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Wild Bear was ecstatic. He had long wanted to seek help from Saleen, but he did not dare to. Lex could produce it too, but her method required the use of an alchemyboratory. Saleen could readily produce weapons and armor.


    ¡°Just tell him that I have destroyed your weapon, and Sir Saleen will help you.¡±


    Even before J finished his sentence, Wild Bear began striding towards Saleen. He was a man who did things simply. Wild Bear came before Saleen and handed over his spear, as he looked at Saleen with his head lowered.


    Saleen suddenly broke intoughter, he had heard everything J said. Looking at Wild Bear¡¯s appearance, he also grew fond of Wild Bear. Lex was really good at judging people. Who would not adore such an innocent fellow who was also a genius in swordsmanship?

 Chapter 511: Black sandstorm (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 511: ck sandstorm (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    While Saleen produced a spear for Wild Bear. Half of Lex¡¯s mages had almost depleted all their magic chords in the production of scrolls. The other half continued producing more scrolls because of that. These mages did not rest, they were helping the swordmasters incubate the fish eggs.


    The mages relied on self-recovery, the magic chords would take about three hours to be regained. The magic traps outside the camp kept getting triggered, so the mages could not rest at all. They had to apany the swordmasters to investigate the traps.


    The result was worrying. Most magic traps had beenpletely destroyed, but not a single corpse was found. The sand scorpions did note. The magic beasts who came acted alone, but they were hundreds of times more powerful than the sand scorpions.


    After falling into the magic trap, the magic beasts did not get enraged, instead, they backed away calmly. Such magic beasts possessed intelligence, so it would be harder to deal with them. Lex and her team had stopped at this location because they wanted to study the features of the fish beasts in order to avoid hysteria if they ran into a huge number of fish beasts.


    The team could not possibly loiter around here to do research. The harsher the environment, therger the variety of magic beasts. The magic beasts there were extremely different from normal magic beasts. If the team kept doing research, Saleen would eventually die of old age before he could even conclude the study.


    Lex had a total of twelve warriors. If Wild Bear and J were included, then there would be fourteen warriors. The mages prepared twenty-four Fire Ring of Resistance scrolls for each person before continuing on the journey. This time around, Lex put away all the apparatuses of the camppound, but she did not abandon them.


    Saleen did not know how to create a Fire Ring of Resistance scroll, Eleanor had helped him to make almost a hundred of these scrolls though. After producing all these scrolls, Eleanor did not have many magic chords left, so she went to meditate in the chariot.


    Saleen gave the scrolls to Nailisi. At the moment, Nailisi could release a scroll with a certain degree of proficiency. Saleen could not possibly bless the demons with magic during battle though.


    Currently, Lex¡¯s team had entered the Purgatory Desert for one and a half days already, but they had only advanced less than one-hundred miles.


    The Spirit Snake Armor could provide appropriate protection for the warriors, but it would consume energy equivalent to that of a low level magic nucleus every hour. In the day, the temperature was not that high, only about fifty degrees, but the temperature in the evenings could reach negative twenty degrees. Normal metal armor could be deformed under such a huge temperature difference, it might even crack.


    In general, this team would consume more than two-hundred gold coins worth of magic nuclei for every hour they spent in the desert. This was the reason why Lex only brought along ten swordmasters. If the team was huge, then this figure would have been multiplied several times. Even though Lex had very little manpower at the moment, each one of them could maintain their offensive powers at the highest level of stability.


    The wheels of the magic war chariots were enveloped in a wide rubber ring. Such rubber, which was extracted from sea fish, was extremely durable. If the center of the rubber was mixed with metal particles, the rubber couldst for three or more years. It was precisely because of these rubber rings that the wheels did not sink into the sand, it actually helped the chariots maintain a speed of twenty miles an hour.


    The scenery outside the chariots¡¯ windows was extremely dull. Whenever wind blew across the ck desert, the dunes would give off a rustling sound, as though there were countless gophers chewing on something. It was very foreboding.


    Trouble surfaced at this point in time. A two-yard long earthworm suddenly emerged from the sand, lunging at Wild Bear. Wild Bear removed his poleaxe from beside the saddle, swiping it at the earthworm. He was not familiar with the newly learned technique, but the earthworm weighed about three-hundred pounds, so it could not stop in time despite being in mid-air. As a result, Wild Bear¡¯s poleaxe simply shed into the earthworm¡¯s brain.


    As the cloud of blood dispersed, the earthworm mmed against the ground with a thud, still twisting its body.


    From all corners of the ck desert, dozens of ck earthworms appeared, surrounding the team. Wild Bear bellowed, ¡°The shell of this thing is really tough, they might be at least grade-5 magic beasts!¡±


    ¡°They are just grade-2 magic beasts, your armor will be able to resist their magic attacks.¡± Lex¡¯s voice emanated from the helmet correcting him.


    After hearing that, the swordmasters felt relieved. The grade of a magic beast was basically dependent on its magic nucleus, the main criteria was the level of their spells.


    Unless the creature in question was something like a dragon, a magic beast could be ovee by outnumbering it with hunters, no matter how strong its body was. The rock lizard or the gray mountain bear were like that. They wielded unparalleled strength, but they could only cast low level spells. To the swordmasters who donned the Spirit Snake Armor, a grade-2 these magic beasts were not a threat at all.


    The defense of a grade-5 magic beast was useless since everyone had a miniature alchemical crossbow. They would not even need to consume their Sword Aura to kill those magic beasts.


    Suddenly, the earthworms began creaking in shrill voices. Thergest earthworm stared daggers at Wild Bear as the other earthworms fled towards the south frantically.


    The south was the periphery of the desert while the north was the hintend of the desert.


    At this point in time, buzzing sounds filled the air. At once, a mage decided to release a firewall. A ck cloud flew over, it was a cloud of countless flying ants.


    ¡°They are rock ants, don¡¯t worry.¡± Lex did not even need to give any instructions, the mages immediately blessed the swordmasters with the Potence spell.


    Rock ants were considered more terrifying creatures, their razor-sharp teeth could devour sand and rocks. The rock ants had a lower resistance towards fire, however, even a grade-1 mage could kill them.


    Since the swordsmen were d in sealed metal armor, the rock ants could barely hurt them. The rock ants fed mainly on the microscopic creatures atop the sand particles, and they swallowed sand and rocks in order to develop their shells. Those earthworms were fleeing because they were afraid that their shells might be eaten by the rock ants. Even though the rock ants would not go for their flesh, the earthworms would still die.


    The rock ants went around the firewall and pursued the fleeing earthworms. They could not even be bothered with Lex and her team.


    Lex observed the flying rock ants, then said worriedly, ¡°This is bad. Since there are so many rock ants, it must mean there was rain.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s take a detour then,¡± Saleen suggested. There were actually no roads in the desert, one could only change their direction of travel. Lex nodded helplessly. There might be a torrential rain up ahead, which would cause a huge number of fish beasts to hatch. A young fish beast already had a tough exterior shell, they would be a food bank for the rock ants.


    If there were no idents, ten percent of the fish beasts would survive. After the battle with the rock ants, these fish beasts would mature.


    Lex felt strange. No matter how weird this environment was, the mages should still be able to hear the sound of thunder even if they could not detect that there was a downpour.


    The team veered east, they turned an additional twenty degrees and carried on moving, but they heard a humming sound in the distance.


    ¡°Sandstorm!¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, it is too huge, we won¡¯t be able to avoid it!¡±


    The mages then realized that danger was just a stone¡¯s throw away. In at most one or two minutes, the sandstorm would descend upon them.


    Lex exited the war chariot, taking out several items from the God¡¯s Ring.


    ¡°J, use your strongest attack to bust a hole in the ground!¡± Lex had also lost herposure in the face of an oing sandstorm. It would be fine if the sandstorm onlysted for a short duration, but if itsted for a long time, the magic war chariots might not be able to hold out.


    This time around, J did not seek Saleen¡¯s opinion. He simply took the new spear from Wild Bear and leaped dozens of yards into the air. He then ducked and stabbed the ground.


    With a boom, a huge crater, with a diameter of half a yard and a depth of dozens of yards, appeared in the ground. The cutting edge of the Sword Aura was not seen.


    After that blow, J became wobbly, he then tossed the spear aside. The swordmasters ignored him, they quickly went to Lex. A steel chain, which had an anchor-like metal piece on one end, was tossed into the crater. The swordmasters then expertly assembled the items which Lex had taken out from the God¡¯s Ring.


    A metal house was swiftly constructed. The four corners of this house had chains attached to them. These chains were in turn connected to the one in the ground. At the bottom of the hole, that anchor-like metal piece sprung open and countless of metal wires shot out. At the same time, dozens of openings appeared, sting mes outwards.


    The mes were melting the ck sand, so that the ck sand would fuse into one with the metal wires.


    Wild Bear dragged the fatigued J into the metal house. Lex stored the magic war chariots while Saleen stored the skeletal warhorses. Then they proceeded to seek shelter in the house.


    The width and length of the metal house were the same at six yards. The space in the room was even smaller while the walls were half a yard thick. Once everyone entered the house, the house seemed a little packed.


    ced in the middle of the metal room was a circr table, and atop the table was a fixed disc. The mages rotated the disc, drawing the chain underneath into the middle of the house, causing the house to sink into the ground.


    Boom!


    A thunderous crashing sound filled the air, as the metal house began to vibrate vigorously. Afterwards, the house gave off a noise simr to a war drum, as though there were infinite arrows pounding against it.


    The faces of the mages turned pale, this sandstorm was much scarier than any of the ones they hade across. It must be noted that Lex¡¯s metal house weighed about one-hundred-thousand pounds, and the chain underneath was still cemented deep underground by magic. Be that as it may, the metal house still shook violently following the assault by the sandstorm.


    If a mage wielded a Magic Shield at this point in time, they would definitely be sucked into the sandstorm, moving with the wind. In the sandstorm, the ck sand particles would strike the Magic Shield, which meant that there would be thousands of hits urring every second. It was entirely possible that these grand mages would fully deplete their magic chords in a minute.


    Those swordmasters would not survive either. Other than the horrifyingly immense air pressure produced by the sandstorm, the sand particles could also prate their magic armor too. When a mage wanted to cut metal, many of them would use water and sand to create a waterjet to spray against the metal.


    The Spirit Snake Armor might be sturdier, but the sand particles¡¯ attack frequency was too tough. It was akin to having tens of thousands people attacking a single target at the same time. Even if the attackers were very weak, the Spirit Snake Armor might not be able to put up a defense when all their powers werebined.


    Even the four demons were appalled. They never expected the Myers maind to have such a horrifying environment. No matter how strong a demon¡¯s recovery ability was, they would still be ground to death alive.


    Bain finally showed himself. At this point in time, given his powers, he would also not be able to survive in the desert. There was nowhere else to hide in the metal room. Bain stood beside Lex, looking pale as a sheet. Saleen did not need to look, he could identify Bain through his aura. Saleen had fought with Bain in the past, so he was very familiar with Bain¡¯s aura. If it was any other person, they would have surely regarded Bain as a mere low grade assassin.

 Chapter 512: Black sandstorm (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 512: ck sandstorm (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The sandstorm appeared unusually fast. If Lex was not prepared by designing such a metal house beforehand, everyone would have been exterminated in the sandstorm no matter how powerful they were.


    The atmosphere in the room was very tense. ck sand particles pounded the exterior of the metal house. The mages were silently calcting. They were calcting how long the metal in the house could hold out for.


    ¡°This is the material used for making the giant shields wielded by the war puppets, with an additional ten-thousandth of copper and two hundred and forty-thousandth of thorium. It has a thickness of half a yard. The innermostyer contains only stainless steel, with a thickness of half a centimeter though.¡± Lex provided the specific details of the metal house.


    ¡°If the sandstorm doesn¡¯t stop, this house will be able tost for six hours.¡± Saleen was the first to calcte the duration.


    The rest of the mages heaved a sigh of relief, it was impossible for a sandstorm tost for six hours. Even if a sandstorm didst for six hours, it would not remain at one location.


    ¡°Something outside is attacking the house.¡± Nailisi pressed her ear to the wall, listening intently.


    Everyone¡¯s faces changed. It was not strange for a magic beast to be able to detect signs of life behind a half-yard thick wall of metal. The scary thing was that the magic beast attacking the house might have originated from the sandstorm.


    How strong would a magic beast have to be in order to survive in a sandstorm? Saleen knew that a grade-9 mage could, but a grade-9 magic beast might not be able to do so. A mage was human, possessing intelligence, they could use many techniques which a magic beast did not possess. The world was not ruled by strength. The magic nucleus of a grade-9 magic beast could definitely store more energy than a grade-9 mage¡¯s magic chords, but a grade-9 magic beast would not be able to kill a grade-9 mage.


    ¡°Not to worry. A fish can swim by nature, even though humans have learned swimming, they will never match up to a fish. That magic beast outside might be one that can live in a sandstorm naturally.¡± Noticing that everyone was fearful, Lex quickly reminded them.


    Ka¡­ka¡­


    The creature outside kept chewing at the metal house. This magic beast should not be able to swallow metal. After a long time of biting the mages did not realize anything amiss with the vibrations of the wall.


    Had the magic beast bitten a deep hole in a certain part, there would have been changes to the vibration frequency. The magic beast might be ferocious, but it could not swallow metal, so everyone was relieved.


    The chewing noises suddenly stopped. Even though the sand particles continued their assault on the wall, the surroundings appeared abnormally quiet. Out of the blue, there was a raucous boom. The mages managed to control the soundwaves in time, otherwise everyone would have fainted due to the impact. An unknown thing had attacked the metal house, causing the house to roll about.


    A protrusion appeared on one face of the wall.


    This time around, Lex could not maintain her cool anymore. The metal house was attached to the underground chain, while the end of the chain was already solidified with ck sand that was melted by fire magic. It was solid as a rock, yet this attack managed to tear the chain apart.


    Ra!


    A deste noise filled the air, but then it got further and further away. Now that the metal house had lost the stabilization provided by the chain, it was sucked into the sandstorm and was now flying in the air. This horrifying power was actually more powerful than a sea storm.


    In the deep sea, a storm could capsize a more than two-hundred yard long warship from Cloudflow. This sandstorm could cause a metal structure to fly through the air though.


    At that moment, the difference in everyone¡¯s power was evident. Bain could still stand on two feet on the floor despite the overturning house. He was like a metal statue which had been drilled into the ground.


    Lex stood upright while leaning against Bain. It was unclear whether she was relying on her own strength or receiving help from Bain, but she looked veryposed.


    Wild Bear pierced his spear into the ground, as his gigantic palms gripped onto the pole, preventing himself from rolling about. J also stood rooted to the spot calmly, but he was very nervous.


    Nailisi supported Saleen, while Saleen was pulling onto Sika. They were three people and six legs sping tightly on the ground, yet there were three different powers in use at that moment.


    Nailisi¡¯s shoes were transformed with the shapeshifting skill. In actual fact, she was barefoot. At that moment, her nails had stabbed into the metal flooring, so she was extremely stable. On the other hand, ayer of ice had appeared underneath Saleen¡¯s feet, freezing him to the ground. Sika simply grabbed onto the both of them, not even using an ounce of strength. Her body was like glue, soft and fluid, as she pasted herself to the ground. Sika was using a technique Saleen was unaware of.


    The two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters had flipped out the thorns on their boots as they did with their gloves. They leaned against the wall, with their four limbs in a fixed position. The swordmasters were prostrate on the ground, using the magic array on their Spirit Snake Armor to stick themselves securely to the ground.


    The four demons followed the swordmasters and prostrated themselves on the ground. They were very clear-headed, the positions they were in coincidentally surrounded Saleen.


    The worst was Eleanor. She had used earth magic, raising a rock spear from the ground. She simply hugged onto this rock spear to stabilize herself.


    Lex nced at Saleen, she was very familiar with this feeling. Back in Raphael¡¯s magical tower, the both of them had walked through a very long passageway after entering the metal pir. In the passageway, both of them were rolling over one another as they slid through and Lex had created a mess by vomiting.


    As Lex looked for Saleen, she realized that he was looking at Eleanor and felt a little disappointed.


    Even though Eleanor had the abilities of a grade-5 mage, her body was not as strong as Lex¡¯s, it was tough for her to be hugging onto a rock spear. It was not known as to when the sandstorm would end. Since the metal house was sucked into the sandstorm, it was impossible to wait for it to pass by anymore. It was possible that the house would fly for a protracted duration.


    Saleen decided to bless Eleanor with the Water Shield. A giant bubble engulfed Eleanor along with that rock spear. Even though earth spells could be cast, the house was metal. The house was currently in the air, so any earth spells would be dispersed quickly.


    After Saleen blessed Eleanor with a Water Shield, he released another twelve ice thorns to epass Eleanor.


    The rock spear crumbled at that moment. The gigantic bubble formed by the Water Shield rocked about the twelve ice thorns a few times before freezing firmly together with them.


    Eleanor nodded gratefully at Saleen. Even though such a tumble could not really hurt her, it was true that she did not have any good countermeasures for it. If she were to roll about haphazardly in front of a group of swordmasters it would be shameful.


    The metal house was suspended in air for about an hour before smashing to the ground with a thud. Everyone was prepared, so no one got hurt. After the mages cast the Chunlin Spell, the swordmasters who fell in a regted fashion soon regained their consciousness. Their fatigue was also removed.


    Fortunately, none of the people vomited.


    ¡°How do we get out?¡± Saleen asked Lex. The metal house was built in a modr format, so it was tightly sealed, even water could not seep in. If it was not for the mages casting wind magic to create fresh air, everyone would have suffocated inside. A mysterious creature had struck the exterior of the house, deforming one side of the wall.


    It was impossible to use magic to unlock the metal house anymore. Lexughed bitterly, then said, ¡°It¡¯s up to you.¡±


    The remaining people could grind the wall away, it was just that Saleen¡¯s water flow would not consume many magic chords, and was quicker. Since there might be danger outside, everyone had to maintain their offensive powers.


    Saleen pped the gourd hanging around his waist, and a green water flow flew out, and began drilling a hole in the wall. The hardness and strength of this metal wall was simr to that of the metallized steel rocks in the temple. Nevertheless, Saleen only needed half an hour to cut a one yard square opening.


    Two swordmasters crawled out swiftly, followed by Wild Bear.


    The mages were thest to exit. When Saleen left the metal house, he felt fortunate when he saw the situation outside the structure. The ck sand particles had worn away almost half of the extremely sturdy metal wall. It would have been impossible for him to make an opening so quickly otherwise.


    That also meant that everyone¡¯s calctions were wrong. The metal house had only been in the sandstorm for less than two hours, yet half of its thickness was gone by then. If the sandstormsted for four hours, the ck sand would have definitely prated the house.


    ¡°Something is amiss!¡± Nailisi looked up to the sky, and there were clouds. The clouds were thin, but the strange thing was that the sun could not be spotted. It was not strange to see clouds in a desert because there sometimes was rainfall. It was broad daylight but there was no sun though. This caused Saleen to feel like he had returned to the hell of god¡¯s punishment. Everything around him had be unfamiliar.


    The thin clouds were converging towards each other. Lex turned around to look at that colossal metal house. Saleen immediately understood that the metal was very expensive. The house was too huge, and given Lex¡¯s mental strength, she could not store the whole thing.


    ¡°I will segment it, you can calcte our bearings.¡±


    Saleen wasted no time, he continued using the water flow to dissect this lifesaving metal house. Lex took out the magicpass, trying to determine their current position. She realized that the needle of the magicpass was turning about chaotically, it was impossible to measure a set of definite coordinates.


    The warriors had scouted the surroundings, there was currently no danger. In front of them was a huge crater. The terrain there was simr to that of Gobi, the ck sand was very shallow.


    Lex immediately took out the magic war chariots and instructed the mages to go onboard first. Saleen also seized the opportunity to release the skeletal warhorses. Lex then took out the remaining dozen war puppets. The war puppets would act as cannon fodder, protecting everyone at the periphery.


    ¡°Our bearings cannot be calcted.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± Saleen¡¯s hands never stopped working, they were still segmenting the metal.


    ¡°Thepass has malfunctioned as there is no sun. I can¡¯t even calcte the coordinates using the other method.¡±


    Every mage who knew alchemy would have a magic clock. If the sun could be seen, they would be able to calcte their geographical coordinates by referring to the sun¡¯s position and the current time. There was no sun at the moment though.


    ¡°Are we lost?¡±


    ¡°Whether or not we are lost, we have to leave at once.¡± Lex looked at the yet to be segmented metal house with much pain, the pieces of armor that house could create! Even if the copper and thorium were extracted from the metal, it was still a sizeable fortune.


    If everyone cooperated, the metal house could be segmented instantly. The depleted Sword Aura and magic chords could not be replenished immediately though. The clouds were gathering though, the moment it rained, there was a possibility that there were billions of fish eggs in the huge crater up ahead.


    ¡°Saleen¡­ leave it.¡± Lex turned around and nced at it with much reluctance, then she boarded the magic war chariot. Now was not the time to be stingy.


    Saleen was also helpless. It was precisely because the quality of the metal was too good that he could not segment it swiftly. If it was normal raw steel, or preliminary steel ingots, his level-4 water flow could cut them like blocks of wood.


    The wind brought along traces of water vapor. Saleen withdrew his water flow, then dragged Sika and Nailisi aboard the magic war chariot.


    What ought to be given up, had to be given up.

 Chapter 513: Chaos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 513: Chaos (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At this point in time, Lex showcased her leadership capabilities, she remainedposed despite all that danger. The clouds in the skies were getting denser by the moment, rain would descend anytime. She ordered to team to travel full speed against the wind.


    Saleen¡¯s calction speed was faster than Lex¡¯s, but he did not make a judgment beforehand. That was a problem with hismand ability. If they were to calcte the position of rainfall using the changes in the concentration of water vapor in the clouds, Saleen could calcte more than ten times quicker than Lex.


    Not everyone possessed the abilities left behind by the Goddess of Myers. For Saleen, the Goddess of Myers¡¯ ne had altered his constitution thoroughly, enabling him to possess abilities which could rival that of a magic prodigy.


    The direction in which the wind was blowing was safer. Hunters loved to say this sentence, as it contained countless blood lessons. This sentence, was also acknowledged by the mages.


    At the moment, Lex¡¯s team sprinted against the wind, which would double the consumption of the magic war chariots. Before long, the wheel axles would have to be changed.


    If there were no skeletal warhorses, Lex could only bless the warriors with the Windspeed Skill, and they would have to travel on foot. When warriors were blessed with magic, they would be adversely affected and get fatigued quickly. Fundamentally, the Sword Aura shed with elemental magic. Once the warriors got blessed with the Windspeed Skill, it would be more difficult for them to release their Sword Aura.


    Qin was so powerful because it had so many mages, so the warriors could receive coordination training every single day. Qin was known as the empire of magic because of that. It did not mean that Qin would send their mages to be the pioneers in war though.


    Woo woo¡­


    The wind grew stronger, luckily it was not another sandstorm. As the ck sand particles were drawn into the strong winds, they hammered the armor, producing shrill noises. The Soul me in the eyes of the skeletal warhorses flickered vigorously. The skeletal warhorses would not get exhausted, they were also unafraid of heat or cold, they could do battle until death.


    The rain drops were sparse and hurried, and a stench filled the air. Suddenly, hundreds of bodies fell from the skies, they were all small magic beasts.


    On the ground, in the ck sand particles, microscopic creatures began emerging, slithering their bodies as they made a beeline for the bodies. As Saleen witnessed this strange cycle in the desert, he broke out in cold sweat. If it was not for Lex¡¯s metal house, they would have been part of those bodies falling from the sky.


    Every step the skeletal warhorses took with their gigantic hooves, pale green mes would be spattered. These mes were extremely frosty, they were the sinister mes exclusive to a spirit. It was because of these sinister mes that the warhorses¡¯ hooves did not sink into the sand.


    Ke chi, ke chi¡­


    A humongous shadow appeared up ahead. Saleen used his Icy Sight to take a look, and he saw a magic beast which was dozens of yards tall. This magic beast might be several yards away, but because it was too huge, the desert could not conceal its stature.


    The skeletal warhorses grew very uneasy. In fact, there were two warhorses who dodged to the side without beingmanded. Even though a death mage was not present, Saleen could still control these skeletal warhorses. They were now out of control though. It seemed like the skeletal warhorses had a bad impression of the gigantic creature up ahead.


    Lex was more knowledgeable than Saleen. She picked up the alchemical binocrs and looked into the distance. Puzzled, she asked, ¡°What is that thing?¡±


    Lex did not recognize it, causing Saleen to feel that something was amiss.


    Narnia took the alchemical binocrs from Lex, and began observing the magic beast. The magic beast did not travel quickly. Once the warriors took control of the skeletal warhorses, they would be able to avoid it easily.


    Lex told Saleen, ¡°Narnia has seen the illustrations of every creature, that is why I brought her along for this trip.¡±


    Saleen nodded, signaling that he understood. Narnia was a newly promoted grade-4 mage, so her offensive abilities would definitely pale inparison to an average grand mage. Since Lex had brought her along, it must mean that she had some special skills.


    ¡°Viscountess, we should hide from this thing. It will be best to use this ce for our coordinates, then continue the journey forty-five degrees from our current position.¡±


    Narnia felt that her mouth was dry, but she continued, ¡°This is a Sindika from the Sixth Abyss.¡±


    An abyssal creature!


    All the mages and swordmasters began to have a headache. The swordmasters had a headache because of the ferocity of an abyssal creature. The mages had a headache because it was impossible for abyssal creatures to appear in this location. There were only two exnations for this. Firstly, someone had summoned the abyssal creature, but taking into ount Sindika¡¯s grade, it was not very usible. Secondly, the space in the desert was in disorder, so there was a passageway connecting to the abyssal ne.


    Out of all summoned creatures, creatures from the abyssal ne were the most unlikeable. When a mage summoned an abyssal creature, the creature would attack the mage first, which was in sharp contrast to the behavior of death creatures.


    Only after defeating a summoned abyssal creature would the mage be able tomand it to fight for him.


    The problem was, the abyssal ne was also called the chaotic ne. No matter how proficient a mage was in the summoning spell, they might also make an error and summon an abyssal creature hundreds of times mightier than they were.


    If summoning demons was dangerous, then summoning abyssal creatures was suicide. When a demon was in a good mood, it would help the mage carry out some tasks. When an abyssal creature was in a good mood, it would kill the mage to derive pleasure.


    Of course, when an abyssal creature was feeling down, it would also kill the mage so as to appease itself.


    Sindika was only a grade-8 creature, but it was genuinely at grade-8. Even after traversing the nes, Sindika¡¯s power would not decrease by a lot. At the very least, it was not any different from a grade-8 creature on this ne.


    Grade-8 only represented Sindika¡¯s ability to manipte the elements. In the aspect of physical strength, Sindika was definitely at grade-9.


    Those skeletal warhorses began fleeing when they saw the Sindika because they recognized such a monster. It had been some time since the abyssal ne invaded the death ne, even the three kings got so annoyed that they came to this ne to attain peace. Since the skeletal warhorses were not even qualified to resist such an abyssal creature, they felt they had to try to escape.


    When Sindika was still more than one mile away, Lex¡¯s team had totally altered their direction of travel. To their rear would be the area of rainfall, so they could not turn around. Lex listened to Narnia¡¯s suggestion by shifting them forty-five degrees from their current position before continuing on the journey.


    There was a rambunctious boom, even the ground trembled. The Sindika had copsed onto the ground, while the pale red mes which emitted from its body had been extinguished.


    The drizzlended on the Sindika¡¯s body. It convulsed, as the corrosive rainnded on its body.


    Lex looked at Saleen, but Saleen simply shook his head. The Sindika might have fallen, but Saleen was not greedy. That might be a trick by abyssal creatures, or the Sindika might have already sustained serious injuries earlier on, thus erupting in this position. Even so, it would be harder to deal with the creature which harmed the Sindika.


    If Saleen tried to take advantage of the situation, he could possiblye face to face with the human or creature which harmed the Sindika.


    A grade-8 abyssal creature was extremely beneficial to a mage, even if it was dead. Sindika had the best material for equipment refinement, because the toughness of its body was that of a grade-9 magic beast.


    The value of this Sindika far exceeded that of the metal house which Lex abandoned. Saleen was tempted, but he did not want to change his ns just because of this bit of profit.


    If the main temple could be discovered, then an infinite number of Sindikas would not be able to outweigh it. If the main temple was not found, then the efforts by Lex and Saleen would go down the drain.


    Lex knocked on the chariot¡¯s window, and the swordmasters increased their speed. They did not even bother looking at the fallen Sindika.


    Even though the swordmasters had donned the Spirit Snake Armor, possessing the same kind of power as a grand swordmaster, they also would not be Sindika¡¯s match.


    The Sindika resembled the walking dragon on this ne, just that it was uglier and had less skeletal thorns. The scales on the surface of their bodies were very simr, but a Sindika could emit mes that¡¯s power was simr to that of the Fire Ring of Resistance.


    To the grand mages and swordmasters d in the Spirit Snake Armor, a level-3 spell was no big deal. It was not the Sindika¡¯sbat technique however. It was only a kind of natural behavior for the Sindika to spew mes from its body, just like how humans breathed.


    If a mage could achieve the effect of level-3 magic just by breathing, then other humans would definitely regard that mage as their leader.


    The fallen Sindika had already noticed the team of humans faraway. Being extremely weak, it wanted to lure the humans over. Unexpectedly, that team of humans altered their direction of travel, totally disregarding its injuries.


    The Sindika roared furiously and wanted to stand back up. After struggling on the ground for a few minutes, the mes on its body did not recover and it did not manage to stand up.


    Om¡­


    The sound of air trembling filled the air. Sindika¡¯s three eyes moved at the same time, noticing that a ck colored hole had appeared in front of it. This ck hole was only the size of a fist, but the Sindika could not measure the depth of the hole using its eyes.


    It was as though one could not look away anymore after staring at it.


    Following that, an arm formed by bones extended from within the hole. This arm was very slender, but it was angr as though it had been grinded with a trowel.


    With a sway of that skeletal arm, the ck colored hole was opened and a skeleton jumped out. This creature was not actually a skeleton, it was just that its shape resembled that of a skeleton.


    This was a strange spirit. The bones on its body did not have an arc-shaped structure, instead, they were angr.


    The Sindika could feel the terror of this spirit because it was a member of the team who invaded the death ne. It had killed numerous spirits in the past. The Sindika and its abyssal army tried their best to avoid interacting with this spirit who was right in front of it at the moment.


    It was the Mechanical Soul. Against a normal spirit or an abyssal creature, it was a disaster.


    This skeleton had a rectangr skull and square-shaped eye orbitals. Even though the Soul me in its eyes flickered in a regr fashion, it was not a genuine Soul me. It was a kind of magic image. If one stared at it for a long time, they would be entranced, and might do some unimaginable deeds.


    Ga¡­


    The Mechanical Soul hollered for a moment, causing its lower jaw to sound like it was going to break. With a stretch of its arm, its bone fingers had already pierced into the Sindika¡¯s forehead.


    The Sindika tumbled across the ground. Its forehead was dozens of yards from the ground. When the Mechanical Soul extended its finger, it had leaped into the air, reaching a suitable height.


    Using a finger, the Mechanical Soul pierced the eyes located on the front of the Sindika¡¯s forehead.


    Ow¡­


    Even though the Sindika was a high grade creature and knew how to speak three differentnguages, it actually roared like a magic beast when it was stabbed by the Mechanical Soul.

 Chapter 514: Chaos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 514: Chaos (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After the Mechanical Soul stabbed its fingers into the Sindika¡¯s eyes, it began whirling about furiously. The Sindika¡¯s plump body quivered violently, contracting inwards. After shrinking to almost half its original size, it expanded swiftly, attempting to shake off the Mechanical Soul.


    The power from the flicking and contracting motion could almost rival a blow from a Silver Grand Swordmaster. The power of humans would never be able to match up to the power amassed in the bulky and colossal body of the Sindika.


    With a fold of its body, the Mechanical Soul pasted itself onto the Sindika¡¯s temple, like a fly which could not be chased away.


    ¡°Let me go, the twelve leaders of the Sixth Abyss have decided to enter the Myers maind. If you kill me, you will die too!¡± the Sindika bellowed in the deathnguage.


    The Mechanical Soul was unaffected. With several cracks, the bones on one arm separated into several pieces, before regrouping into a long drill. As the Mechanical Soul drilled into the Sindika¡¯s brain, it sneered, ¡°Stupid fellow, are you saying that the Sixth Abyss dares to invade the Myers maind? You have obviously fallen into this ce by chance, are you trying to lie to me?¡±


    Realizing that this spirit could not be deceived, the Sindika knew that he would die if he did not put up a fight. A Mechanical Soul was adept at absorbing any kind of energy to strengthen their own body. If the Mechanical Soul managed to drill into the Sindika¡¯s brain, then the Sindika would die on this ne. Everything in its body, including the soul, would be digested by the Mechanical Soul.


    The Sindika suddenly mumbled a string of strange sybles. The wound on his forehead closed up swiftly, while his destroyed eye suddenly transformed into a substance as tough as crystal. The Mechanical Soul¡¯s arm came to an abrupt halt, it could no longer continue drilling inwards.


    The other arm of the Mechanical Soul remained sped on the scales of the Sindika¡¯s forehead. At this point in time, the arm loosened its grip before turning into a skeletal knife. The length of this skeletal knife exceeded the height of the Mechanical Soul, and it had a small arc. A row of razor-sharp serrated edges lined the de of the skeletal knife. The scariest thing was that the serrated edges were in constant motion, the Mechanical Soul did not even need to carry out any shing action. It simply pressed the skeletal knife against the Sindika¡¯s brain. As sparks flew, his steel-like skin was cut open by the Mechanical Soul¡¯s skeletal knife.


    The body of the Mechanical Soul was not as strong as that of the Sindika though. After the epidermis was broken, the skeletal knife began cutting at the Sindika¡¯s skull, producing a deafening noise. The serrated edges of the skeletal knife began breaking off, sending bone fragments flying in all directions.


    The Sindika mustered all its strength to stand upright. Though his six legs were sunk into the ck sand, he stood up in an abrupt motion. Then, the Sindika¡¯s one finger thick skin cracked from the top of his head, as he climbed out of his own skin.


    Decisively, the Mechanical Soul plucked out the arm which was stuck in the Sindika¡¯s eyes. Then, the over two-hundred bones of its body regrouped swiftly, transforming into a triangr bone piece. At the center of this bone piece was a death magic array. The Mechanical Soul then flew up abruptly, fleeing into the distance.


    The Sindika had abandoned his own skin, as his bloody flesh emitted dark brown abyssal mes. The Sindika roared boisterously, spitting a chain ofplex abyssalnguage. Suddenly, a bundle of red clouds appeared in the sky, obstructing the path of the Mechanical Soul.


    Originally, the Sindika had sustained grave injuries after identally traversing the nes. Its skin had dissimted, there was no way he could use his skills. The Mechanical Soul had helped him remove his skin though. By sacrificing his skin, he finally broke free from all that distress.


    After traversing the nes, the Mechanical Soul had lost a great deal of its power, otherwise it would not have attacked the Sindika, who was more powerful than itself. Noticing that the Sindika had cast his skill, the Mechanical Soul, which had transformed into a triangr bone piece, flew in the opposite direction. It produced sharp whistles in the air. The direction it was flying in was coincidentally the one which Saleen¡¯s team was traveling in.


    Lex was observing thepass. This ce was weird, there were no objects for reference nor a sense of direction. The skeletal warhorses were running in an arced path. As the Mechanical Soul came up from behind, Lex could not identify it, and she did not care either.


    Wild Bear urged the warhorse to stop, but the warhorse refused toply. It did not want to stop at all, it continued sprinting forward. It could not afford to trifle with the Sindika, much less a Mechanical Soul.


    At the same time, Wild Bear was fuming. He then punched the warhorse¡¯s head. That raw physical strength almost dispersed the Soul me in the orbitals of the skeletal warhorse. The skeletal warhorse trembled, then it came to a stop.


    Wild Bear did not wield his spear, he went to take his poleaxe. Then, he tossed it backwards.


    The Caucasus people were deft at throwing flying axes, but there was too huge a difference aspared to Wild Bear¡¯s poleaxe. The de of Wild Bear¡¯s poleaxe was only half a yard wide. As it flew upwards in a rotating motion, explosion-like noises filled the air.


    This was a noise produced only by a heavy alchemical crossbow. When the speed of an object reached a certain magnitude, it would separate air, thus bing a lethal skill.


    A cyan vortex encircled the poleaxe, stronger than the Wind de Spell. The poleaxe flew directly into the oing Mechanical Soul.


    The Mechanical Soul adjusted its flying angle in an instant. The sharp bone horns at the front of the Mechanical Soul destroyed the vortex, cutting it into two pieces along with the poleaxe.


    Wild Bear stared at the unfolding scene with his eyes wide open. Behind those crystal lenses, his vision was greatly increased. He clearly saw that the triangr bone piece was traveling almost as fast as his flying poleaxe, and such a flying speed was unheard of in any other creature. The sharpness of that bone piece was too horrifying. Wild Bear¡¯s poleaxe had been made with thorium and lead, so its degree of toughness was higher than that of the soft swords exclusive to Qin.


    Besides toughness, the metal also contained viscosity, so it was very difficult for it to be broken by other weapons.


    ¡°Viscountess help me!¡± Wild Bear hollered, as he knew that he could not handle this monster. As he spoke, he wielded a gigantic shield to protect half of his body.


    Lex¡¯s team was pretty lucky. Had another swordmaster been in this situation, they would definitely not shout for help like Wild Bear did. In Wild Bear¡¯s heart, he was still a chef, so there was nothing embarrassing calling for help. He would not worry about formality.


    Even though Lex did not know what a Mechanical Soul was, Wild Bear¡¯s shouts made her wake up. The mages in both chariots took action at the same time.


    As the triangr bone piece flew in the air, almost all the mages used fire magic to attack it, except Saleen. Saleen used a water-based Imprisonment Spell, which appeared in front of the Mechanical Soul abnormally slowly.


    Over thirty phoenixes were destroyed by the triangr bone piece, then they crashed into the Imprisonment Spell released by Saleen.


    The level-4 Imprisonment Spell was not affected by the surrounding environment anymore. Even in a ce like a desert, it could unleash its fundamental power. The Mechanical Soul, which flew at an insane speed, got trapped in a puddle of water, and its speed got decreased.


    Even so, the Mechanical Soul still flew faster than a grade-6 mage, it could even rival the speed of a sorcerer.


    When Saleen first arrived at the location of the present Metatrin City, he had encountered a Mechanical Soul. Back then, everyone got the shock of their lives. No one knew what a Mechanical Soul was. They were simply dumbfounded at how fast this thing, which did not look like a living animal, could fly.


    When the Mechanical Soul¡¯s speed slowed down, Bain acted without hesitation. At one look, he could tell that there would definitely be casualties if he did not take any action.


    Bain¡¯s elderly shadow appeared behind the Mechanical Soul in an instant. Bain¡¯s daggercked shine and had a dull gray hue. In a sh, his dagger stabbed into the center of the triangr bone piece, destroying that death magic array instantly. At the same time, Saleen¡¯s Imprisonment Spell was ruined by Bain¡¯s dagger. The Mechanical Soul fell towards the ground, but before itnded, its over two-hundred bones had regrouped into another shape.


    Bain pursued the Mechanical Soul as if he was a meteor, he never thought that his dagger would not kill this strange thing. By the time the Mechanical Soulnded, it had already transformed into a dog-like bone spirit, lunging at Wild Bear¡¯s skeletal warhorse.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± When Bain realized that the monster did not even give a hoot about his attack, his dagger finally gave off a blinding radiance. Then Bain tossed his dagger.


    The dagger prated the Mechanical Soul at its pelvic region, causing the huge skeletal dog to be cut apart at its waist, and everything below its waist was exploded into smithereens. An assassin also cultivated the Sword Aura. That attack by Bain was almost as powerful as an attack by a Golden Grand Swordmaster.


    The Mechanical Soul still continued biting the skeletal warhorse. With a tear, it bit off the front legs of the skeletal warhorse. Ignoring the fact that it had lost half of its body, the Mechanical Soul chewed frantically, devouring the skeletal warhorse¡¯s thighs.


    When the dagger returned to Bain, he saw that the exploded bone fragments tumbling across the ground the moment theynded, regrouping into beetle-like structures. These beetles then charged towards Lex¡¯s swordmasters.


    ¡°Use the Fossilization Spell! This is a Mechanical Soul!,¡± Saleen yelled.


    ¡°Mechanical Soul?¡± Lex¡¯s eyes glinted. She had used up almost all the Fossilization Spell scrolls already. Even so, she could not possibly use the low level scrolls against the Mechanical Soul.


    Since Bain¡¯s Sword Aura could not destroy such a creature, low level magic would be useless too.


    Without any hesitation, Lex casted a level-6 Fossilization Spell. Under the influence of the magic war chariot, the power of the Fossilization Spell was mightier, almost at the standard of a high level spell.


    Saleen did not dare act carelessly. He knew that those swordmasters would never be able to withstand an assault by the Mechanical Soul. He leaped out of the war chariot, holding two pieces of Green Spirit rocks in his hand. After blessing himself with the Windspeed Skill, he charged towards the death beetles.


    Almost one-thousand death beetles were dashing over. J was the first to arrive beside Wild Bear, his Tears brandished into an impervious metal ball. The surface of this ball was made up of the tip of his sword. Wild Bear¡¯s skeletal warhorse was down and Wild Bear abandoned his spear, then he used a warhammer to smash the Mechanical Soul which had been fossilized in that instant.


    With a thunderous boom, the Mechanical Soul broke into even more bone fragments, crumbling to the ground. By then, the Fossilization Spell had lost its effect, so all the bone fragments transformed into beetle-like structures, besieging Wild Bear and J.


    While Saleen and his team were battling with the Mechanical Soul, the Sindika who had his skin removed was making his way over. He had serious injuries, so he could not move fast. Saleen and the rest, however, were being pestered by the Mechanical Soul. There was no way they could flee.


    Eleanor stared at the approaching Sindika with abhorrence, then said with intense hatred, ¡°Disgusting abysmal creature. If I had some more crystal arrows, I would definitely be able to kill him.¡±

 Chapter 515: Hunting (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 515: Hunting (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor¡¯s Elf Bow might be a powerful weapon, but without a crystal arrow with space attributes, it would not be able to unleash its might. Even ck William, who was so powerful, almost died when he got hit by that crystal arrow. It simply showed how powerful the attributes of the crystal arrow were.


    The materials of a crystal arrow were too costly and rare though. Saleen had only made one for Eleanor.


    Eleanor had never seeded in producing a crystal arrow before, otherwise she would not have gotten injured during the pink army¡¯s infighting. If she was not injured, coupled with the ability of the bangle, J would not have been able to capture her that easily.


    ¡°Go help Master,¡± Nailisi instructed the four demons.


    The four demons alighted from the chariot. While aboard the chariot, their powers did not receive any amplification. The gifted magic of a demon was unlike that of an abyssal creature. Most of their spells were not elemental magic, and these spells were not really affected by any nar restrictions.


    Since they were not restrained, they would not be able to enjoy the amplification effect either.


    Nailisi did not get down from the chariot. She looked at Eleanor, then said, ¡°I am very sorry for taking your bangle, but the item has been given to Cuisi. I cannot get it back either. I have witnessed the power of your crystal arrow. Does it mean that a crystal arrow can be produced as long as there are materials with space attributes?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Eleanor did not know why Nailisi mentioned her bangle.


    ¡°If you impart your archery skills to me, I will ask Master to help produce special arrows for you, their power will be simr to that of a crystal arrow.¡± Seeing that Eleanor did not respond, Nailisi continued, ¡°I have observed that you have the intention of following Master, that¡¯s why I pleaded on your behalf. These materials aren¡¯t any cheaper than crystals. I only want to learn your archery skills, it shouldn¡¯t go against¡­¡±


    Nailisi did not express her thoughts explicitly, so Eleanor nodded and said, ¡°I cannot guarantee that you will be able to master them.¡±


    ¡°I will grasp it, I have always been a good student.¡± Nailisiughed profoundly. ¡°If I don¡¯t master them, I can simply eat you and absorb the blood of an elf.¡±


    Nailisi did not deceive Eleanor though, she was in possession of a huge number of divinecherry wood pieces which were obtained from the sunken ships. The second dynasty had chopped down many divinecherry trees in the abyssal ne, using the wood to create crates. Divinecherry wood was abundant in the First Abyss. Since humans could no longer travel to the abyssal ne, it had be unusually expensive.


    Divinecherry wood could be used to craft spatial equipment, but it was more suitable for making arrows, especially the arrows for an Elf Bow. An arrow produced from divinecherry wood also had the ability to travel through space, allowing the arrow to reach insane velocities. As long as the archer had an urate aim, a divinecherry wood arrow would behave like a crystal arrow. It could suddenly appear in the enemy¡¯s body.


    The production process of such an arrow took up too much time. Even though Saleen was a proficient mage in the Water me Alchemy, he could only produce one arrow per day. If he had to produce a quiver of twenty-four arrows, then he would have to spend a month making them. In this one month, the he could not do anything else, he would not even have the time for meals.


    Of course, arge alchemyboratory could also produce arrows like this, but the depletion would be pretty horrifying.


    This was amon problem among special equipment, especially depletion-type equipment. The production process required a long time, strict standards, and a huge amount of resources. The finished product would also be rendered worthless after a short time of usage.


    On the elf ne, a powerful elf would only carry three of such arrows because the materials were rare. The elves did not possess profound magic like the humans, so it was more tedious for them to produce such arrows.


    Saleen could still manage the production of such equipment, and increase his proficiency in the Water me Alchemy at the same time. A long production time meant that his magic practice would be postponed, which might not be worth it though.


    Lex sat on the sidelines. Seeing that Nailisi could persuade Eleanor with just a few words, Lex was envious. ¡°Saleen¡¯s demon is too useful.¡±


    Eleanor was undisturbed as she was different from everyone else. She still had a long life ahead, but she did not have many demands. She only had two wishes. Firstly, that she might get the opportunity to see the marquis again. Secondly, if possible, she wanted to go home, to return to the elf ne. On this ne, she was too lonely as she did not have anypanions of the same race.


    It was not uneptable for her to follow Saleen. As for the secret skill of elves, part of them had been leaked when she gave Saleen that drawing. Revealing more secrets would not be a big deal anymore. If Saleen did not lend a hand, Eleanor would have difficulty surviving because her powers were drastically reduced after losing the bangle.


    Eleanor was very clear on why Saleen kept her by his side, it was because she had knowledge Saleen needed. Saleen wanted to learn, and to a mage, that was the biggest reason to do something.


    In the years where the marquis was missing, Eleanor operated the pink army. She did so because she wanted the marquis to know that she was helping him sustain his family assets when he eventually returned. She did not have any attachment to the army, she was an elf, not a human.


    ¡°Anyway, I am a mage. When the contract is being signed, a time limit can be added in. When the marquis returns, I will leave Saleen.¡±


    Unbeknownst to Eleanor, those who had been picked up by Nailisi would no longer have a chance to leave.


    As Saleen flew in the air, he opened the silver magic book. Casting an Icewall Spell, he separated the beatles and the swordmasters temporarily. He then began using the Green Spirit rock to store those beatles.


    Saleen only did some simple actions. When an Ice Bomb Spell descended onto the ground, it would strike a beatle, and freeze it for almost a second. Saleen would then forcefully seal this affected beatle in the Green Spirit immediately.


    The quality of this Green Spirit rock was not high, but the size of the beatles was not veryrge either. After storing about three-hundred beatles, Saleen threw the rock into the Dimension Stone. The Dimension Stone was not normal spatial equipment. Even if the beatles broke free from the Green Spirit, they would not be able to escape from the Dimension Stone.


    The magic war chariots went around the wall of ice, and all the mages began acting in sync with Saleen¡¯s Ice Bomb spell. If the Mechanical Soul had not met Bain, it would not be broken so easily. If a person like Saleen was not around, the broken Mechanical Soul would be able to regain its powers quickly through devouring, before reorganizing itself.


    The Sindika stopped in his tracks. Seeing that the Mechanical Soul was getting destroyed by a group of humans up ahead, the Sindika grew hesitant. He was already seriously injured, having lost most of his abilities, so he was only left with his sturdy body now. His body had already lost ayer of skin, and it would require at least one to two months for a full recovery. For the time being, the Sindika would not be able to resist most attacks.


    ¡°Should I provoke these humans?¡±


    After Saleen stored all the fragments of the Mechanical Soul, he stared at the Sindika who was a few hundred yards away. Bain was actually staring at Saleen from the sidelines. This young mage was the most intelligent one he had seen before. Of course, this young mage was very wealthy too. Even if other mages thought of such an idea, they would not have the Dimension Stone.


    Seeing that Wild Bear was fine, J went to Saleen, then asked, ¡°Are we going to deal with that monster?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s see what Lex thinks.¡± Saleen neither agreed nor refused.


    At this point in time, they were at the periphery of the area of rainfall. Due to the wind, they would not experience much rain even if they did not move about. The abyssal creature had such a humongous body, it would be a good source of food for the lightning dragons.


    The question was, was it worthwhile to attack this abyssal creature?


    ¡°We¡­¡± Lex wanted to leave, but a ck hole suddenly appeared between Saleen and the Sindika. This ck hole had a diameter of a wellhead. A bug wriggled out of it.


    ¡°Magic bug!¡±


    Lex¡¯s men had witnessed the terror of magic bugs. When these things were in small numbers, even farmers could kill them with a pickaxe. When their numbers got huge, their lethality would increase exponentially.


    All the mages eximed, ¡°A nar passageway!¡±


    From the principles of magic, a nar teleportation portal could be established as long as there was sufficient energy avable. Before the birth of teleportation portals, legend had it that creatures relied on nar passageways to traverse the nes.


    Back then when humans participated in wars, besides the ground troops, the experts would directly open nar passageways. A wide nar passageway could allow an army to pass through, while the smaller ones could only fit one or two people.


    This was not some remote knowledge. The moment Saleen saw the appearance of the passageway, his expression turned ghastly. Gesturing at Bain, he returned to the magic war chariot. Just now, Saleen had no choice but to leave the chariot because he had to use the Green Spirit to put away the beatles. In order to conserve mental strength and the magic chords to increase offensive power, it was still safer to seek refuge in the chariot.


    ¡°This is a chaotic space.¡± Lex¡¯s face was also very gloomy. Everyone knew that the Purgatory Desert was a perilous ce, but they never expected it to be this dangerous. Soon after entering the desert, they were drawn into a sandstorm, causing them to tumble into a chaotic space.


    The chaotic space was not an individual ne, it was still on the Myers maind. Such a space was in extreme disorder. nar passageways could appear anytime, connecting to other nes.


    It was no wonder then that the sun could not be seen, and bearings could not be determined.


    ¡°It seems like this chaotic space has just appeared, I don¡¯t know how long it willst for.¡± Saleen knew that a chaotic space was not permanent, it would notst for a long duration. In such a space, one had no way of exiting it, unless they possessed the mighty abilities of ancient humans to tear through space at will.


    ¡°There is no way of determining its duration, we have to depend on luck. Since this is a chaotic space, any direction will be the same. Let¡¯s kill that Sindika, and divide the materials equally, what do you say?¡±


    Saleen felt that Lex was being too formal. In the past, whenever there was such an event, there was not even a need for discussion, the oue would always be equal shares. Saleen immediately realized that that was because he was on a solo adventure with Lex. At the moment, Lex had brought along powerful assassins, grand swordmasters, swordmasters, and grand mages. Of course the share of profits had to be made known beforehand.


    ¡°That Sindika seems to be injured, it doesn¡¯t seem like it can cast any magic.¡±


    ¡°Let Wild Bear give it a shot and we will know.¡± Speaking, Lex summoned Wild Bear to the chariot. She took out the twelve pole javelins from the God¡¯s Ring, while Saleen gave Wild Bear a skeletal warhorse.


    ¡°Attack that fellow from one-hundred yards away, I will instruct the magic war chariots to back you up from a distance of fifty yards.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, give me a new shield.¡± Wild Bear disyed his gigantic shield. Scars were strewn across this shield. Under the intense chewing of the beatles from the Mechanical Soul, this Magic Shield was gravely damaged, thergest scar almost sliced through it.

 Chapter 516: Hunting (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 516: Hunting (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex gave Wild Bear a golden shield, then he went off happily. Even the two grand swordmasters could not toss a javelin and cause effective lethality from a distance of more than one-hundred yards. Wild Bear¡¯s divine strength might be inferior to that of Sika¡¯s, but he was already considered special among other humans.


    J could achieve such a feat as well, but Lex would never allow Saleen¡¯s subordinates to go into a battle first. J was more effective against a team of people after all.


    ¡°I thought that such a setting only existed in books.¡± Saleen had a lingering fear. It was not really possible for a spatial passageway to appear in a person¡¯s body, it would only exist in air. If a spatial passageway appeared around a person¡¯s body, it would be fairly dangerous. This was a unidirectional passageway without any elemental vibrations whatsoever, if some scary creature appeared suddenly, one would not even be able to react in time.


    ¡°There is a chance this might happen. The materials in that Sindika¡¯s body are exceptionally precious. Do you know, even a person like Joey would not be able to enter the abyssal ne?¡±


    Saleenughed, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me, I will regard this as a hunt. There is an assortment of strong and weak creatures. The strong ones would be like the Sindika. After passing through a narrow spatial passageway, it is already exhausted by the time it arrives on the Myers maind. The weak ones would be like that magic bug.¡±


    Saleen pointed out the window, as the magic bug had been squashed into a pulp by Wild Bear¡¯s skeletal warhorse.


    A skeletal warhorse was of a higher grade than a skeletal soldier, but it was merely a grade-3 creature. A few swordsmen could deal with it. The magic bug which got trampled on by the skeletal warhorse had pathetic speed and poor defense.


    ¡°It is indeed a pretty good hunting ground. No matter what direction we travel in, we will not be able to leave. We can only wait for the chaotic space to disappear.¡± Lex nced at the sky once more. It was gray and dull, and the sun was nowhere to be seen.


    Sika looked at the Sindika in a dismal way. She had met yet another creature which she could not defeat, she was definitely weaker than the Sindika. The Sindika was about fifty yards in height, as tall as a nine story magical tower. If Sika¡¯s cudgel transformed into its second form, it could only break the Sindika¡¯s surface flesh. It would not be able to hurt its muscles and bones.


    The surface area of the Sindika¡¯s body was too huge, and he had immense explosive power. No human could withstand his attacks.


    Humans possessed equipment however. Wild Bear dashed for over two-hundred yards. After securing the golden shield, he then removed the twelve pole javelins from his back. The head of this kind of javelin was crafted from stainless steel and sharpened by scrap crystals, while the edge was filled with a variety of crystals. As for the shield, Wild Bear only wanted to obtain a higher grade one from Lex. It would be impossible to use it to resist the Sindika¡¯s attack.


    Since the hardness of a crystal was extremely high, the biggest advantage of a crystal was that it could be used to help the javelin prate an elemental shield.


    After elerating for thest two-hundred yards, the skeletal warhorse was now traveling faster than a mage blessed with the Windspeed Skill. Wild Bear¡¯s equestrianism was average, but the skeletal warhorse itself had outstanding speed. Tapping in on the sprinting force of the warhorse, Wild Bear tossed three javelins simultaneously. His thick hand was abnormally agile, as he swiftly removed another three javelins from his back.


    The javelins flew towards the Sindika, producing sounds of air bursting.


    The Sindika felt very mncholic. If he was not injured, he could easily destroy those javelins byunching a simple spell. Now that he had lost all magic, he could only resist them using his physical body.


    He felt regretful of following the Mechanical Soul. When the Mechanical Soul escaped, he should have seized the opportunity to flee, and not pursue it in hopes of getting some benefits by devouring those humans. That tiny human was extremely sly by attacking from over a hundred yards away, making him unable to retaliate.


    Wild Bearunched consecutive assaults, tossing all twelve javelins.


    The bulky body of the Sindika wriggled a little, causing huge amounts of blood to gush out. More than twenty gigantic scales grew out of its muscles swiftly. Wild Bear¡¯s javelins pierced in ferociously, getting stuck in those scales.


    The scales were about one foot thick. Wild Bear¡¯s javelins could prate those scales because they were newly grown, their toughness was still inadequate. Be that as it may, Wild Bear¡¯s strength was also part of it.


    The javelins stabbed the Sindika¡¯s body, giving off humming noises. The sharp des of the javelins had been sharpened by crystals before, but the sharpening was only confined to the de, the other portions were only made from stainless steel. The blood of the Sindika possessed great corrosiveness, so it swiftly eroded Wild Bear¡¯s javelins.


    Twelve javelins crashed to the ground, as Wild Bear turned around and fled.


    Nailisi narrowed her eyes, then told Saleen, ¡°Master, look, the blood cannot corrode the ck sand.¡±


    Saleen took a nce. Indeed, the blood whichnded on the ground did not corrode the surrounding ck sand, even though the corrosiveness of the Sindika¡¯s blood was even stronger than that of a demon.


    The ck sand surely had some special attributes. Saleen nced at Lex, then Lex said, ¡°Let¡¯s take care of this creature first, then we can collect the sand.¡±


    She also knew that such sand might only be present in a chaotic space. If all the ck sand in the Purgatory Desert behaved in this manner, it was likely that humans would have entered the desert in a frenzy and collected it.


    The effects of this ck sand on equipment refinement was not clear yet. There were many materials which were resistant to corrosion after all. If a material was used to construct a military instation, then it would take on a whole new life.


    Many spells contained strong corrosive abilities, especially area spells. Mages rarely took part in invasions, but if they did, they would definitely use such spells to destroy the walls of a city. If a city¡¯s walls were made with this ck sand, then there would be an additional defensive attribute to them.


    Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring was a godly equipment, it had no problems storing an infinite number of items. Saleen would definitely have to calcte how much ck sand his Dimension Stone could carry though. Even though the space in a Dimension Stone was huge, it was still finite.


    Wild Bear ran back, he did not dare get close to the Sindika. The Sindika also did not dare pursue Wild Bear, as Wild Bear had too many tricks up his sleeve. The Sindika could only use his body to battle, so he had no confidence.


    As a result, Saleen and the rest witnessed a strange scene unfold before them. As Wild Bear rode on horseback escaping, the Sindika twisted its plump body around, trying to flee in the opposite direction.


    ¡°Do we chase?¡± Saleen asked, because the direction the Sindika was escaping was into the area of rainfall. It was highly likely that an astronomical number of fish beasts had appeared in the area of rainfall.


    ¡°Let¡¯s observe further.¡± Lex alighted from the chariot, before taking out dozens of pieces of alchemical equipment for the swordmasters to assemble. The equipment turned out to be arge alchemical crossbow.


    This alchemical crossbow had a width of about eight yards. Even with the effect of a magic array and the gears, a skeletal warhorse was still needed to pull the bowstring. After therge alchemical crossbow was put in ce, another ck hole had appeared in the vicinity. This time around, a fish with mes covering its body emerged from the hole.


    Despite having read countless books in the past, Lex and Saleen still could not identify which ne the fish originated from.


    No one really cared though.


    A swordmaster raised his hand, about to fire an arrow using his miniature alchemical crossbow. The arrows Lex had given them were all sharpened with crystals. This arrow made the ming fish explode, causing mes to spill across the ground.


    ¡°Ah ha! Cuisi, you guys go attack.¡±


    Noticing that the ming fish was so weak, Nailisi deployed the four demons who had yet to board the chariot. The reason was simple. When the ming fish exploded, a shiny magic nucleus also fell into the dust at the same time. There were more ming fish charging out of that passageway.


    Judging by the size and purity of that magic nucleus, it was definitely at an intermediate level. The ming fish was at least a grade-4 creature. After passing through the passageway, their powers were reduced, so Lex¡¯s swordmaster could kill them easily.


    Lex simply cackled, she did not try topete with Nailisi, because the arrows used by the swordmasters were quite costly. Lex also had noticed that the alchemical arrow itself had be charred after exploding the ming fish and the arrow head waspletely destroyed. Even if this alchemical arrow was shot into steel, it could still be plucked out for reuse, otherwise Lex would not be so willing to produce them inrge quantities.


    The four demons lunged at the ck hole, stopping near it, then they took out their own weapons. Cuisi¡¯s whip was curled near the opening of the hole, pulling out a ming fish. The other three demons flogged this fish using their weapons, causing it to explode.


    Even if the power of these ming fish was not decreased, they still would not be able to match up to the four demons. The diameter of this ck hole expanded gradually, while the ming fish which emerged became increasingly stronger. In the end, the ming fish which Cuisi drew out had a length of over four yards, and the consequent magic nucleus which dropped out was already that of level-6.


    Nailisi decided to exit the chariot, she came beside the four demons and began collecting the magic nuclei. Other than a magic nucleus, the resultant mes from the explosion also yielded pieces of hard objects. They were like bones and metals.


    Five-hundred yards away, another ck hole appeared in mid-air. This hole only had a diameter of about one yard, and arge snake dozen of yards long slithered out. After this snake emerged, it began shedding its skin.


    ¡°Eh? A creature from the subcontinent ne!¡± Lex was extremely astonished. The spatial passageways appearing in this chaotic space were soplicated, they could connect to any nes. The subcontinent ne referred to a ce which resembled the Myers maind, just that this ne was smaller, and had more than one kind of intelligent species.


    There were humans on the subcontinent ne too. When humans from the Myers maind first arrived on the subcontinent ne, they found that the humans there were really weak and small. Without giving much thought, they called this ce the subcontinent ce, which meant that it was a ce inferior to the Myers maind.


    On the subcontinent ne, humans were not the masters. All kinds of intelligent creatures were gathered on one ne, depending on each other for survival. The magic beasts on the subcontinent ne were very mighty. Long ago, humans from the Myers maind loved to go there for hunting trips. High grade magic beasts were everywhere, they could not be wiped out. As a result, the subcontinent ne became a good location for humans to obtain high level magic nuclei.


    A human youth suddenly emerged from this same ck hole. This human was d in exquisite silver armor and wielded a short sword. He was obviously very fatigued aftering out from the ck hole as he simply fell to the ground. Seeing that there was a giant snake shedding its skin up ahead, he was actually helpless.


    Nailisi saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation. That giant snake could be a high grade magic beast, and it was extremely frail at the moment. With a stride covering dozens of yards, Nailisi had appeared behind the snake in the blink of an eye. With a dagger in hand, Nailisi stabbed the side of the snake¡¯s body.


    That youth who emerged from the ck hole hollered. Nailisi could tell that he meant no harm, he was simply reminding her to be careful. Nailisi turned around and smiled at the youth, then she raised her Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger.


    When that youth saw Nailisi¡¯s smile, he was momentarily stunned.


    Nailisi did not wear any armor, she only wore a fitting soft armor which Saleen crafted specially for her. On the outside, she was dressed in a style simr to her original one. She wore a long dress, with the only additional essory being the pair of boots which had been made from a dragon¡¯s muscles and skin.


    Nailisi¡¯s smile was extremely captivating. The youth immediately forgot about the present danger as his mind had went into a flurry.

 Chapter 517: Su (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 517: Su (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Seeing that the youth was mesmerized, Nailisi was pretty surprised. It¡¯s not that she did not have confidence. In name, she was Saleen¡¯s maidservant, and in reality, Lex¡¯s swordmasters never dared look her in the eye. Nailisi¡¯s appearance was a replica of the Goddess of Myers, just that she did not look as cordial.


    This youth was pretty powerful, Nailisi felt that he could rival J. If it was not for the injuries sustained after going through the spatial passageway, this youth would not be any weaker than that giant snake.


    J was a lustful person, but after bing a Silver Grand Swordmaster, his perception to danger was very much heightened. Each time Nailisi approached him, he would get very fidgety. Sometimes, he would even avoid Nailisi subconsciously.


    A demon was perpetually dangerous, because no one could control their thoughts. On ount of Saleen, Nailisi would not try to harm J, but in the event that Saleen would receive more benefits if it meant that J be sacrificed, a demon would not be sentimental at all.


    J¡¯s crisis awareness was formed naturally after his powers had reached a certain degree. This youth seemed more qualified than J, yet he had no danger awareness.


    Nailisi held back the urge to kill this youth out of convenience. She turned around once more, securing her dagger around her waist. When that giant snake got stabbed by the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger, half of its body got frozen in that instant. Nailisi then dug her fingers into the snake¡¯s wound. With a pull, she ripped apart the snake¡¯s skin, and began rolling it up.


    The skull of the snake was still intact, Nailisi did not break its head to extract the magic nucleus. Instead, she made a cavity in its abdomen using her fingers. With a tug, she removed its internal organs. Observing this string of actions, the youth was bedazzled, and a look of shyness covered his face.


    Nailisi¡¯s actions seemed simple, but even J could not clean out a dozen yards long snake in just ten seconds in reality.


    By now, the magic war chariots had edged forward, while the four demons were still busy killing the endless supply of ming fish. Nailisi stored the remains of the giant snake in her bangle, then she opened her mouth and asked the youth, ¡°What is your name?¡±


    There was a wide variety ofnguages on the subcontinent ne, probably about one-thousand differentnguages. Nailisi did not expect a human who just came out of a spatial passageway to understand her words.


    Indeed, the youth looked utterly confused.


    ¡°Narnia, go.¡± When Lex saw such a scene from the chariot, she realized that only the erudite Narnia might have a chance of establishingmunication. The Myers maind had a record of thenguages spoken on the subcontinent ne, but it was highly fragmented. Most mages would not bother studying it. Since Narnia was an insane schr, she could absorb any knowledge swiftly. Among Lex¡¯s mages, she was the one who understood the mostnguages and spells.


    When Narnia heard what Lex said via the Sound Transmission Magic Array, she alighted from the other chariot and went to the youth.


    When the youth saw Narnia approaching, he forced himself to stand, before bowing at Narnia. His short sword remained in his hand. After all, when any person went to a foreign ce, they would definitely be vignt. The youth was already thoroughly embarrassed at the fact that he got distracted earlier on.


    Narnia spoke to the youth using words she knew. ¡°This is the Myers maind, whatnguages can you speak?¡±


    ¡°Myers! This is Myers?!¡± The youth bellowed, losing his just-regainedposure. He cheered jubntly, but he spoke in anguage which was highly simr to ancient Myersnguage; the predecessor of the magguage.


    Narnia heaved a sigh of relief. This was the Karennguage, it was still used on the Myers maind. Many mages understood the Karennguage so that they could grasp the origin and rhythm of magguage. The pronunciation of the Karennguage was moreplex than the dragonnguage. Other than a mage, no one else was willing to learn it. It was thus quite weird that this youth could speak in thisnguage because he was not even a mage.


    Nailisi could not understand the Karennguage, so she grew bored and walked towards Saleen¡¯s chariot. The youth looked at her figure from behind, then he opened his mouth, but he recalled that Nailisi could not understand him, so he became depressed.


    Very soon, Narnia began interacting with the youth, and led him to Lex¡¯s war chariot. When the doors opened, the youth observed the scene within the chariot. The woman he was attracted to was sitting beside a man, and they were chatting intimately.


    ¡°Your Royal Highness.¡± The youth bowed. This greeting was ancient, it was possible that people from the Myers maind had spread such a practice to the subcontinent ne.


    Now was actually not the time for chatting. In a chaotic space, there was not much difference between moving and staying still. After Lex queried the youth, she found out his origins.


    This youth was a disciple from a family back in the subcontinent ne. In order to acquire the family badge, he had to undergo a trial. Hence, he entered a dangerous region on the subcontinent ne to hunt a young dragon snake. In the end, he hade into contact with an almost mature dragon snake identally. After a few rounds of battle, he could not kill it, and then he got sucked into some spatial turbulence by chance.


    The youth was exhrated, because ording to the legends, experts were aplenty on the Myers maind, so he would be able to pick up countless of skills. This ce was also not as dangerous as the subcontinent ne as humans were the dominant species.


    Lex was ashamed. After further probing, she realized that this youth was a rare expert on the subcontinent ne, hence she had peace of mind. If people like the youth were abundant on the subcontinent ne, then the youth would have been pretty disappointed. On the legendary Myers maind, humans had long declined.


    ¡°Master, this fellow cannot return to the subcontinent ne anymore, let him follow you.¡± Nailisi whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear. Lex heard her words clearly and she knew that she could not vie with Saleen. This youth was abnormally respectful towards Lex, but he did not treat Nailisi in this manner. If Saleen wanted to persuade him, Nailisi only needed to say a few words to do the trick.


    Nailisi was also very bored. Ever since J became a Silver Grand Swordmaster, he began treating Nailisi very formally. This youth was different, he was not afraid, it was way more intriguing.


    Saleen felt that this idea was good, so he said, ¡°Are you willing to follow me?¡±


    The youth nced at Saleen, then he lowered his eyes and answered, ¡°Mister Mage, I think your grade is not high enough for me to follow you.¡±


    Saleenughed, ¡°He is not entirely captivated by beauty, he is a pretty good kid.¡±


    At this point in time, Lex said something. She told the youth, ¡°Mage Saleen is my partner, he has his own city with tens of thousands of subordinates. Like me, he also has dozens of mages of such caliber. With such a power, what do you think is his standing in the subcontinent ne?¡±


    The youth was awe-inspired, he quickly bowed at Saleen again, then said, ¡°Great Mage, I was too impetuous.¡±


    The subcontinent ne was simr to the Myers maind, it was ruled by whoever was mightier. It had absolutely nothing to do with lineage that Saleen could achieve such a status.


    ¡°What¡¯s your full name?¡± Saleen did not mind at all. If this youth had agreed unabashedly, Saleen would then feel uneasy.


    ¡°Yaronsuksi Su Rhode.¡±


    ¡°Su, the passageway which you traveled through is unidirectional, I am afraid you cannot return to the subcontinent ne anymore. It is purely out of kindness that I offer to recruit you. Regarding your doubtfulness of my abilities, I cannot answer your question. I cannot defeat you without killing you. Once my skill is released, you will definitely die.¡± Saleen spoke solemnly, and Su never doubted his words.


    If Saleen wanted to triumph over Su, there were only two methods. Firstly, he could use the Crystal Finger. Secondly, he could use the power of lightning from the n badge. No matter which skill was used, there was no holding back.


    There was a dictum on the subcontinent ne; mages had no lies. The youth did not know whether the Myers maind had such a phrase or not, but the practice of magic was closely rted to a mage¡¯s quality. A mage who loved to deceive would not amount to much, this logic was the same anywhere else. The world of magic was most real, there was no deceit to it.


    Seeing that the youth agreed, Saleen did not take out a contract immediately. Instead, he cast the Chunlin Spell and let J protect the youth for the time being.


    After the youth saw J, he believed Saleen¡¯s words even more because while J was as powerful as him, J obeyed Saleen wholeheartedly. Saleen¡¯s treatment spell was also mightier than the ones by the mages on the subcontinent ne. Back at the subcontinent ne, a treatment spell would only take effect after about half a day, yet Saleen¡¯s spell was almost immediately effective.


    Lex ordered a camp to be set up once again, because a spatial passageway would usually appear in wide and open areas. A camppound could prevent the formation of a spatial passageway in the vicinity.


    The passageway where the ming fishes came out from had disappeared, and a new passageway had appeared just up ahead. This time around, an ugly creature with a pair of horns climbed out. The moment the four demons noticed the appearance of this fellow, they charged forward excitedly.


    It was a demonic spirit. The four demons felt suffocated after they had been transformed into human females by Nailisi. When they saw this demonic spirit, they had at the same time found an avenue for them to vent their emotions.


    After passing through the spatial passageway and arriving on the Myers maind, the demonic spirit was still dazed. When four human females with faint demonic scents suddenly appeared, he got very frightened.


    The four demons did not give a hoot about the demonic spirit¡¯s feelings. They put away their weapons, and began raining punches and kicks on the demonic spirit.


    The four demons controlled their attacks. Even though the demonic spirit¡¯s screams could be clearly heard hundreds of yards away, his life was not really in danger. Lex¡¯s subordinates were watching in cold sweat. Those four women were too violent. If a woman behaved in this manner, a man would never think of marrying her.


    To this demonic spirit, it was his unlucky day. To his life as a whole, he was fortunate. If he had run into these four demons in the demonic ne, he would be dead. The four demons would never let him die now. Since they were controlled by Nailisi, who could they bully if there was not a weaker being around?


    The demonic spirit was walloped until he was on the verge of dying, then he was dragged towards Saleen¡¯s war chariot.


    The four demons nced at Nailisi ingratiatingly. They handed over the ming fishes¡¯ magic nucleuses first, then they asked Saleen, ¡°Master, we have captured this demonic spirit, what should we do with it?¡±


    ¡°Keep it for yourselves, but don¡¯t beat him like that anymore. This demonic spirit is still useful.¡±


    The four demons were overjoyed. It was fine not hitting him, because from now on, they had ackey. They would not have to carry out trivial tasks anymore.


    ¡°Demonic creatures?¡± The youth was curious as he stared at the demonic spirit. ¡°Why is this demonic creature so weak?¡± On the subcontinent ne, the demonic race was a tough problem. The demonic nations were constantly warring with the human nations, such bloody conflicts were never ending. The youth¡¯s family had lost a huge number of experts in the fights against the demonic race.

 Chapter 518: Su (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 518: Su (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Does the subcontinent ne have such creatures?¡± Saleen decided to ask after noticing the look Su had on his face when he saw the demonic spirit.


    ¡°The demonic race is the enemy of most races. Great Mage, it will be very perilous to keep it by your side.¡± Even though the youth could not understand what Saleen told the demons, he could decipher their actions.


    The four demons surrounded the demonic spirit, treating it in a haphazard manner. The treatment provided by the demons was questionable, but the demonic spirit did not dare resist, it simply gritted its teeth. Of the four demons, only Cuisi had the ability to use spatial equipment. He took out a torn armor, giving it to the demonic spirit.


    ¡°In the future, you will be our ve.¡± Cuisi patted the demonic spirit on its shoulder.


    ¡°Very straightforward,¡± Saleenughed. Given the power of this demonic spirit, Saleen could not even be bothered to sign a contract. The number of contracts a mage could sign was rted to how much mental strength they had. Even though Saleen had a vast amount of mental strength, he would not waste it on such a low grade creature.


    Nailisi felt the same way too. Nailisi only cast the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill on Cuisi andpany because they were useful. This demonic spirit would be left alone with its ferocious appearance.


    It was possible that the four demons felt that this demonic spirit was too weak as no one tried to argue with Cuisi. The remaining three demons pushed the demonic spirit to one another. Eventually, Aiwa recruited this demonic spirit as his ve.


    Demons were cunning and scheming. Afraid that the demonic spirit could not be controlled, they wanted to sign a demonic contract to prevent it from attacking Saleen abruptly. Aiwa gave the demonic spirit a random name; Grimace.


    ¡°Viscountess, that big creature is back!¡± some swordmaster hollered. From the chariot, Saleen looked into the distance. The Sindika, whose body was drenched in blood, was making a beeline for the camppound. There was an unknown number of fish beasts on the Sindika¡¯s body, chewing away furiously at his flesh.


    The fish beasts on the Sindika¡¯s body were mostly the size of a fist, their mouths were filled with rows of sharp teeth. Unlike the two rows of teeth found in a normal creature half the surface area of their mouths was filled with teeth.


    This abyssal creature actually possessed the fire attribute. He, however, had lost his skin. Even before he could recover, he had ran into an astronomical number of newly hatched fish beasts. The stench of blood on his body immediately drove them berserk, causing them to attack him in huge hordes.


    The Sindika¡¯s muscles twitched continuously, but there was no way to stop the pervasive attacks of the fish beasts. The fish beasts who fell to the ground immediately sprung up again, lunging at his body.


    ¡°I will do it.¡± When Saleen saw the mages preparing to cast their spells, he stopped them.


    Saleen set a Swamp Illusion along the path the Sindika was traveling in. Before the Sindika could enter the area under the influence of the Swamp Illusion, dozens of icicles suddenly emerged from the ground. The Sindika could not control its steps. After crashing into the icicles, it fell into the Swamp Illusion.


    The Swamp Illusion was actually a level-3 spell, it could not contain a grade-8 creature like the Sindika. Saleen only wanted to slow down his movements. Thereafter, the Swamp Illusion began burning.


    The fish beasts atop the Sindika¡¯s body detested magic mes, they did not even like the mes from the natural environment. Even though the area of the Swamp Illusion was not huge, it could epass the Sindika. The moment the mes began burning, all the fish beasts began falling off the surface of its body. Only the fish beasts who had infiltrated his body continued swaying their tails, desperately trying to wriggle into his flesh.


    At this point in time, the strongest alchemical crossbow in the camppound fired an arrow. This four yard long arrow produced a strange whiz, prating the Sindika¡¯s torso. Slightly more than half the arrow pierced into him.


    No matter how strong this abyssal creature was, it was now on the verge of death after being tortured by the Mechanical Soul and fish beasts. The attack by thatrge alchemical crossbow finally destroyed the Sindika¡¯sst breath. It crashed into the ground, ruffling hundreds of pounds of ck sand.


    This alchemical crossbow was originally used for attacking cities, it could burst a small city wall with one arrow. The arrow head was not only sharpened with crystals, magic arrays were added too. The swordmasters could not operate such an alchemical crossbow alone, a mage was also required. This alchemical crossbow was less urate than a miniature alchemical crossbow. The Sindika had fallen into a trap though. Given its colossal body, even an inferior archer would not miss the shot.


    ¡°Unscrupulous¡­¡± The Sindika only managed to mutter one word before dying. This poor grade-8 creature, if it had not lost most of his powers in the spatial passageway, the Mechanical Soul would not have seeded in its sneak attack. The Mechanical Soul had ruined the Sindika¡¯s third eye, causing him to lose hisst few long-range attack methods.


    The people in the camp did not dare be careless. A war puppet and a fully constructed puppet were deployed. The body of the Sindika was still aze with mes. The two puppets went in for a close observation undermand. After the all clear was given, Lex then sent people to dissect the Sindika¡¯s body.


    An abyssal creature might not have a magic nucleus, however, the resources on any part of a grade-8 creature was valuable. Had this taken ce on the abyssal ne, no one, other than Bain, might be able to resist this creature. Even though the Sindika was filled with injuries after the chewing of the fish beasts, his bones remained in perfect condition, even the ones in the torso region. The gigantic alchemical arrow had went through the crevices of his bones after prating his body.


    If arge alchemical crossbow was absent, it would be extremely difficult to kill the Sindika. It would also be very tedious to kill all those fish beasts if it was not for Saleen¡¯s water and fire spells. At the very least, the process would have consumed a huge amount of resources. Saleen and Lex would not have any dispute over a grade-8 creature, each person took whatever they needed. The skin belonged to Lex while the bones went to Saleen. Items like the fascia could be divided into two equal portions. The remaining things were the flesh and intestines, which Saleen took to feed the lightning dragons.


    Saleen and Lex no longer needed to do such menial tasks. Seizing this short period of free time, Saleen and Su signed a contract.


    The enforcement of a follower contract was not very strong. The only use which could not be vited was that neither party could harm the other. Since Su understood a range ofnguages, Saleen arranged for him to learn the Myers maindnguage first because Saleen realized that it would be difficult for him to return to the subcontinent ne.


    The four empires shared amonnguage, but the nobles would have to study thenguage of each nation, while the average civilian never got such an opportunity. Su needed to learn themonnguage first, so that he would not be reduced to being a mute on this ne.


    Mages never faced many barriers in the learning process of anguage. They could use special magic to facilitate the process after all. When Saleen was at a tender age, he had already grasped manynguages. A swordsman did not have many shortcuts, so Su could only adapt slowly.


    The arrow shot into the Sindika¡¯s body was retrieved. The arrow head was damaged and the magic array was also destroyed, so it had to be refined once more.


    Spatial passageways continued appearing in the vicinity. These passageways were unregted, and the connected nes were also very weird. Not every spatial passageway yielded creatures, some only produced rocks and nts. Some of the spatial passageways existed for a long duration, so they had to be guarded vigntly, there was no room forcency. Some others only appeared for a split second.


    The fighting process was guided by a mage. When there was no need for a mage, a mage would not attack. The swordmasters had alchemical crossbows, flying axes and javelins. All these weapons had huge consumption levels, but as a precaution against unexpected events, the mages were very conservative, they tried their best not to deplete their magic chords.


    Fortunately, at least half of the in creatures left behind excellent materials. Inparison, the profit could negate the depletion.


    As Su observed the warriors battle, he was full of admiration. He could tell that the swordmasters were inferior to him, but with factors such as equipment and coordination, they could handle those newly emerged creatures effortlessly.


    Many of these tactically coordinated movements were not present in the subcontinent ne. Back in the subcontinent ne, countries were tiny, and the society¡¯s ideals in each country was inclined towards individual valiance. A powerful knight could lead a group of farmers into war, their equipment was also not as good as that in the Myers maind.


    ¡°I wonder what has happened to my hometown. The borders of my country aren¡¯t too peaceful, the half elves are eroding the surroundingnd while the orcs are experiencing a famine. By winter, the nearby cities have to be invaded. I can¡¯t even return though. Even if I do, I have not finished the trial, so I cannot represent my family to join the army.


    ¡°Su, are you thinking of going back?¡± Saleen¡¯s experiences were hundreds of times moreplicated than that of Su¡¯s, so he could understand Su¡¯s worries.


    ¡°Sir, my hometown¡­ needs warriors.¡± After finishing this sentence, Suughed shyly, then said, ¡°I know, traversing the nes is something which I cannot achieve though.¡±


    Saleen remained silent. If one wanted to tear through space and traverse through it, their standard would have to be higher than that of grade-11. Even a grade-10 person was very rare on the Myers maind. Su was pretty pitiful. Like Nailisi, he was trapped on the Myers maind.


    ¡°Sir, I am still pretty lucky.¡± Su¡¯s psychological state remained healthy, as he told Saleen, ¡°If I didn¡¯t meet all of you, I might have been dead already.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart stirred. The events in the Purgatory Desert were strange. This chaotic space was like a natural hunting ground. Many creatures were drawn towards it, there was also be sudden rain to allow the fish beasts to hatch.


    There were too few records regarding the Purgatory Desert, Saleen could not deduce anything at all.


    Setting aside his thoughts temporarily, Saleen asked, ¡°You know how to ride a horse, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Su had long been very envious of those skeletal warhorses. Back in the subcontinent ne, there were many death mages, but it was too expensive to hire them. The value of a skeletal warhorse far exceeded that of a piece of magic armor.


    Saleen released a skeletal warhorse from the Green Spirit, letting Su ride on it. It then became much more convenient for the both of them to interact. Su kept standing outside the chariot window. By getting atop a horse, his height would just reach the window.


    ¡°What weapons are you good at wielding?¡±


    Su pondered, then said, ¡°The weapons in the subcontinent ne might be different from the ones here, but I like to use des. I don¡¯t really care about the style, as long as it¡¯s long enough.¡±


    Saleen selected four weapons from his Demonic Bangle, then he gave them to Su. One of the weapons was the double-edged serrated knife. This knife was more than three yards long. Originally, it was crafted for Wild Bear. But during the production process, something went wrong, causing the center of gravity to be shifted backwards. Wild Bear could not get used to it.


    ¡°Saleen, the frequency of the appearance of the spatial passageways has lowered, we have to leave.¡± Lex had been monitoring and calcting, and told Saleen at this point in time.


    Saleen nodded. He recalled the demons to the war chariot, leaving behind the fully constructed puppets. The materials in this camppound were costly. The swordmasters dismantled it bit by bit, before Lex put it away in the God¡¯s Ring. Then the team prepared to leave.


    At this point in time, the light in the sky had gotten more intense, all the mages could feel the spatial vibrations.


    This chaotic space was going to disappear soon. Everyone prepared to cast magic in case there were any unforeseen circumstances.

 Chapter 519: Maze (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 519: Maze (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Many lines appeared across the sky. This scene was very peculiar. In the perception of a mage, the six elements were in extreme disorder. If the mages were to leave the magic war chariot under such conditions, they would not even be able to cast a level-0 spell.


    Following that, the whole sky broke with a crack, just like a gigantic ss bottle. Blinding sunlight shone on the ground, causing the temperature to rise sharply.


    The mages actually heaved a sigh of relief. When the chaotic space was formed, numerous spatial passageways were initiated. If a situation like this urred during the disappearance of the chaotic space, it was possible that the people there might get sucked into others nes by ident. This was still a good oue. Passing through a spatial passageway was unlike going through a teleportation portal, it would deplete one¡¯s power.


    While in the chaotic space, Lex¡¯s team had hunted so many strange creatures, at least half of these creatures were mightier than Lex. They had however traveled through a spatial passageway, so their powers had hit rock bottom. That caused them to be ughtered by Lex¡¯s team.


    Had Lex¡¯s team been sucked into a spatial passageway, they could only depend on luck. When they reached another ne, they would lose all abilities, so they could only hope that there were no dangerous creatures on the other side.


    The moment sunlight appeared, the magicpass in Lex¡¯s hand also regained normalcy. Wild Bear led the way, leading the team into the direction Lex had pointed out. The team traveled north all the way without any rest in between.


    While Saleen was in the chariot, he cleaned the skin of the Sindika, using the water flow to segment it. This skin was extremely tough. If the water flow was not used, there were almost no other des which could cut through it.


    The Sindika¡¯s skin was naturally infused with level-8 fire attributes. In the abyssal ne,va spewed everywhere. Even the fire resistance of a grade-1 creature would not be too low.


    Saleen¡¯s water flow did its work slowly. After several hours, a set of materials were cut out. Nailisi was very intrigued, so she asked, ¡°Master, why are you cutting out so many fragments?¡±


    ¡°Su¡¯s magic resistance is very low, I want to produce a set of soft armor for him.¡± As Saleen replied, he stored the segmented skin into the water mes for further refinement.


    Nailisi snorted in her heart, but she did not disy her displeasure. ¡°Master is going to personally produce a set of magic armor for a neer?¡±


    Of course, Saleen would have known Nailisi¡¯s thoughts, however, Lex was beside him, so he was too embarrassed to say anything. Saleen just said, ¡°Nailisi, I also want to practice the refinement of magic equipment. I have been wanting to craft a flying cape for you. It is too difficult though. I have failed a number of times, wasting a huge amount of materials.¡±


    A flying cape was mage¡¯s equipment. When a mage was at grade-5, they could not fly. If they had flying equipment, they would be able to transcend their grade restrictions and soar in the air like a grade-6 mage.


    The moment Nailisi heard that, she was jubnt, ¡°Master still cares about me!¡± The materials involved in such a production was at least at level-7. Since Saleen had failed a few times, it meant that he had already suffered significant losses.


    From the sidelines, Sika said, ¡°Nailisi, Su is all alone, and he is still young. It is possible that he will never return to his homnd for the rest of his life. You should show more concern for him¡­¡±


    Sika snorted as a sign of her discontentment. Nailisi only wanted to vie with others and she did not care about how important these people were to Saleen.


    The four demons stared daggers at Sika, but Nailisi berated, ¡°The four of you, go and take care of Su. His injuries have not recovered, his powers must still be inadequate. If he gets into any danger and dies, I will make sure all of you¡­¡±


    Before Nailisi could finish saying her peace, the four demons had exited through the window dejectedly. As they sat behind the magic war chariot observing Su who was following beside it, they very much wanted to crush him. That poor demonic spirit followed behind the team on foot. Fortunately, his running speed was not affected by the Purgatory Desert. Given the speed Lex¡¯s team was traveling at, he would be greatly fatigued otherwise.


    Saleen took out a Green Spirit, giving it to Nailisi, then said, ¡°Let them ride on the warhorses.¡± As he spoke, he continued refining the materials, not bothering to exin to Nailisi what he was doing.


    Indeed, the demons needed some restraints, but they could not be under constant supervision. Since Saleen wanted to use them forbat, he had to provide certain conditions. Saleen knew that the sprinting abilities of demons were very outstanding, however, it was not worthwhile to deplete their stamina on such tasks.


    After ck William was killed, the four demons had expressed respect and concession to Saleen¡¯s powers, so they should be given some privileges in the future.


    The most challenging part of making a magic armor was on how to make it possess magic attributes, defensive power was actually secondary. Since the Sindika¡¯s skin possessed fire resistance by nature, Saleen could easily produce this set of soft armor.


    The team traveled for more than one-hundred miles before halting. Back in the chaotic space, everyone had been battling, they did not get to rest much. After the chaotic space disappeared, everyone began traveling again, so they were very exhausted. The mages were doing fine as they could swiftly recover in the magic war chariot. The magic armor worn by the swordmasters did not have such powerful capabilities.


    A camppound was built again. Saleen summoned Su to his barrack, and gave Su the newly produced soft armor to change into. This soft armor did not actually have a magic array, all its defensive power stemmed from the Sindika¡¯s natural defensive ability. If it was not for the mighty attributes the Sindika possessed, Saleen would not even have taken its skin.


    Su was dumbfounded. He knew that there were benefits being a mage¡¯s follower, but he never expected Saleen to gift him a set of high level magic equipment in less than a day after bing his follower.


    In the subcontinent ne, such equipment was not rare. Despite the status Su had in his family, he could not get his hands on it either though. It was simply too expensive, each piece of such equipment was produced with blood and sweat. There were many powerful creatures on the subcontinent ne. If humans wanted to hunt them, they could only achieve victory in numbers. Swordmasters who had been groomed for dozens of years could simply lose their lives in one simple hunting mission. Such equipment was rarely sold on the market, most of it was kept by powerful ns and nations for their own use.


    ¡°Sir¡­¡± Su emted J¡¯s way of addressing Saleen, but he still was not used to it yet.


    Saleen patted Su on the shoulder, but did not say anything. He left the barrack and returned to the magic war chariot. In the barrack, Su teared as he held onto the soft armor Saleen had given him. It was neither out of gratitude nor exhration, but because he discovered that he could not return to his home anymore.


    He had overheard what Sika said on the chariot, but his reaction was slightly dyed. Now that he was feeling better and was more rxed, a kind of sadness began oveing his heart. This youth might not understand the grief of parting, but he was actually bidding farewell to the subcontinent ne.


    Su was also muddleheaded. He did not realize why he could understand Sika¡¯s words. Without Saleen¡¯s permission, the words in the magic chariot would never have leaked out. Sika had spoken in the ancient Myersnguage. After a brief round of learning, Su had grasped arge vocabry, there was almost no difference with the othernguage he knew.


    Only Saleen knew this information. Even though Saleen did not make Sika say those things, Saleen intentionally allowed the noise to leave the chariot.


    Lex¡¯s team had avoided a catastrophe for the time being. On the other hand Dse¡¯s and Fanyin¡¯s team had sustained massive damage though. Dozens of wardens got unlucky. Their armor was prated, thus they died due to poisoning. The toxins from the sand scorpions took effect swiftly. By the time the holy masters undid their armor, the hearts of the wardens had already stopped beating.


    Following that, a sandstorm came. Dse and Fanyin had no choice but to use arge area Divine spell, epassing all those wardens. Some were then blown away by the sandstorm and entered a chaotic space.


    At that point in time, Lex and Saleen were in the metal house, so they could not observe the happenings outside. They still did not know that all things movable standing in the path of a sandstorm would be sucked into a chaotic space.


    The team from the Holy See had entered this spacete. By the time they entered, there was already a huge downpour. Rainwater quickly filled a deep cavity to the brim, hatching an astronomical number of tama fish beasts.


    The remaining over four-hundred wardens battled against the fish beasts. By the time they broke out of the clutches of the fish beasts, they had lost half their people. At that moment, Dse and Fanyin regretted entering the Purgatory Desert. The status of these wardens was akin to that of the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp in Holy Rock City. The wardens were the fundamental offensive power of the inquisition, their equipment was also much better than that of the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp.


    Even though the ck armor contained the power gifted by the Lord of Glory, it was still torn into shreds by the fish beasts. The worst thing was that Divine spells were restrained in this weird space. As a result, it could not draw on the power of religion from the outside world. This meant that a mage could still use a magic nucleus to replenish their magic chords, but a holy master would not be able to pray and regain their divine power.


    Dse and Fanyin possessed the essence of divine power, so they could refill whatever they had depleted. The remaining over two-hundred wardens were not so lucky. The wardens faced consecutive attacks by the fish beasts, causing their number to shrink dramatically. Finally, only about eighty men were left. These eighty men possessed the standard of a high grade swordmaster, one of them was already a beginner grand swordmaster. Due to their inadequate abilities, all of them became food for the fish beasts.


    In order to protect the wardens in the sandstorm, Dse and Fanyin both lost a holy equipment. The loss of these two pieces of equipment could not salvage the destinies of the wardens.


    When the chaotic space was destroyed, only a dozen wardens remained beside Dse and Fanyin. These wardens only survived because of the treatment provided by the Holy spell cast by Dse and Fanyin. If it was not for these two powerful holy masters, they would have died even if Saleen andpany were around to feed them magic liquid.


    Dse and Fanyin were extremely upset. Such a huge loss would cause an immeasurable impact on their status.


    Of the three leaders of the inquisition, two had already died, so there were two temporary recements at the moment. If the six of them did notmit any mistakes, they could quickly rece the positions of the two head inquisitors already. They had faced a chain of problems however, even the sole head inquisitor left would not be able to protect them anymore.


    ¡°What now?¡± Dse had lost his cool.


    ¡°We shall go to the center of the desert, that Lex must have entered the desert to seek the temple. We cannot confirm the location of the temple, but it would not be too far from the center of the desert. As long as we get to the center, we can find her tracks. If we do not catch up now, then¡­¡±


    ¡°Understood, I will try my best this time around.¡± Dse spoke through gritted teeth, he now harbored utmost hatred for Lex. If it was not for Lex¡¯s father, the inquisition would not have been so powerless now. If it was not for Lex, he and Fanyin also would not have met with such serious trouble.


    ¡°The members of the Grukos family are damned jinxes, I will kill each one if I ever meet them.¡±

 Chapter 520: Maze (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 520: Maze (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Dse had those thoughts, he could not possibly be thinking from the perspective of the Grukos family. Which dynasty on the maind would adore the Holy See? Even the Tanggsi emperor was secretly fearful of the Holy See. After so many years, the imperial family had been infiltrated by the Holy See. Even though the seeding emperors were considered rare prodigies, they also could not shake off the Holy See¡¯s control over the Tanggsi Empire.


    The long robes of these two adjudicators were tattered and torn. Other than the fish beasts, they still had to handle the monsters emerging from the spatial passageways. These monsters lightened the mood of these two men though. The Purgatory Desert actually had such a weird space. If this information was fed to the Holy See, it could greatly negate their mistake of losing five-hundred wardens.


    Of the remaining sixteen wardens, one was a Zun Grand Swordmaster while the remaining fifteen were high grade swordmasters. At this moment, they were already very exhausted. A Divine spell could repair the physical trauma on their bodies, but it could not calm their moods. When this team of people set off on this journey, they thought that it was a simple mission. Whenever three adjudicators went out for an assignment, problems were rarely left unresolved.


    Noticing that the two superiors wanted to go deeper into the Purgatory Desert, barely veiled fear was pped across the wardens¡¯ faces. No one dared rebel against Dse and Fanyin however. The reputation of these two men might be inferior to that of ck William, but they could kill without even blinking. Without these two adjudicators, the wardens would not be able to leave the Purgatory Desert.


    Fanyin noticed the expressions of the wardens, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid, Lex¡¯s team has also run into a sandstorm. Their situation will not be any better than ours. You all don¡¯t have to worry aboutbat anymore, I kept you all alive so that you can testify to all the events which urred here.¡±


    Fanyin might appear to be consoling the wardens, but he was actually threatening them. This time around, they had overstepped their authority by bringing so many wardens along. The whole inquisition only had five-thousand wardens, with most stationed in the Glorious City and the imperial capital. The two of them had led all the deployable wardens there. If they did not yield some results, the two newly promoted head inquisitors would definitely not treat them kindly.


    The wardens were flustered because they knew about the situation Fanyin and Dse were in. They were afraid that Fanyin would silence them before pushing the responsibility to someone else. Now that Fanyin had said this, they were still afraid, but at least they were slightly hopeful.


    After water was distributed to the wardens, the wardens were instructed to put on their face guards. Dse never said one word, he simply identified the direction and began walking towards the depths of the desert.


    The ck sand in the Purgatory Desert was very heavy. Luckily, this was the case, so people would not sink in too deeply when they walked on it. That conserved quite a bit of strength. Since Dse and Fanyin had received blessings from the Lord of Glory, they were rich in divinity, so they could handle any situation. A surface with mirror-like shine grew beneath their feet. As the two people walked forward, it was as though they were sliding across ice. They traveled at a speed of about twenty miles an hour.


    This was the most stamina-conserving method. Of course, they could travel even faster, their flying speeds were not lousy at all. After meeting with a sandstorm, Dse and Fanyin no longer dared fly across the Purgatory Desert.


    The armor of the sixteen wardens were mosaicked with holy crystals, so its function was simr to that of a magic armor. The wardens could barely keep up with the two adjudicators. As they traveled north in a hurry, they never saw anyone else. In a giantke few hundred miles behind them, dozens of fish beasts were already maturing, their lengths exceeded twenty yards. They had six pairs of fins which acted like wings, allowing them to fly in the air.


    The scariest thing was that when these fish beasts flew in the air, their bodies would be enveloped by clouds, just like Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud Spell. With these clouds, the fish beasts could spend a long duration outside water and their offensive powers would not be limited at all.


    These dozens of horrifying fish beasts were currently encircling a tall human. This person had a build simr to Wild Bear, just that he was taller, so he appeared slimmer.


    This person was fully naked. His pupils were red, and a pair of curved horns grew on his head. If he had a tail, then he would have resembled a demon.


    This man grabbed corpses out of the thin air, tossing them at the fish beasts, as his eyes were filled with satisfaction.


    Those bodies had been drawn there by the sandstorm. The wardens from the inquisition were among these bodies, and their clothes had been peeled away. When this person grabbed hold of the wardens¡¯ bodies, his gaze was filled with extreme contempt.


    ¡°Abominable holy power, the believers of the Lord of Glory have actually entered the desert? Could they have located the Goddess of Myers¡¯ temple? Heh, even if they have located it, they can hardly get close. A bunch of idiots. If the Goddess of Myers was so easy to deal with, the Lord of Glory wouldn¡¯t have spent thest tens of thousands of years trying to open the seal, and still fail to enter the ne of the Myers maind.¡± This weird person mumbled to himself as he tossed the wardens¡¯ bodies at the fish beasts.


    After a while, this man halted his actions, looking ever hideous.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I chase them and give them some directions. That way, I will have a reason to go to the temple. Those two scumbags won¡¯t let me enter the temple, they don¡¯t even allow me to enter the center of the desert. Discovering theckeys of the Lord of Glory should justify an exception right?¡± The two scumbags this person was referring to were of course the goddess¡¯ two envoys from the temple.


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe those two jerks are still alive after so many years. If they are dead, the things in the temple will all belong to me!¡± This man calcted while being affected byplex emotions. He could not ascertain whether the protectors of the temple were alive or not.


    He nced left and right. After forcefully gathering creatures, he had cultivated another thirty-two fish beasts. Including the original eighty-seven of them, there was now a grand total of one-hundred and neen fish beasts.


    ¡°One-hundred and neen grade-8 creatures should be sufficient to resist those two people for a while right? As long as I obtain the items left behind by the goddess, it doesn¡¯t matter even if I lose all my amassed power. If this body doesn¡¯t get changed, it will start to dpose. The damn demons actually rejected a religion!¡±


    This person grabbed a short de out of the thin air and shed at his horns furiously. The short de produced raucous noises as the horns got increasingly shorter. Finally, the horns were chopped off.


    This man threw the chopped horns into nothingness angrily, then he put away the short de and rubbed his hands, fixing his gaze into the distance.


    ¡°Because of this body, Myers didn¡¯t ept my religion. Without this body, how could I have lived for over ten-thousand years and achieved such a height? He let his thoughts run wild, as his red pupils were slightly dazed. Then the fish beasts encircling him began bellowing boisterously.


    The roars of the fish beasts were shrill, reaching straight for the sky.


    ¡°Shut up!¡± The man was outraged. He was recalling memories of the Goddess of Myers and got interrupted by those beasts. With a kick full of rage, he sent a fish beast over twenty yards long flying into the air. This grade-8 fish beast burst into a pool of blood under his feet.


    ¡°I must not get furious, must not!¡± The man hollered, causing the muscles on his face to be contorted.


    ¡°After leaving this ce, my powers have reduced drastically. I still have to depend on these fish beasts to get close to the temple. Damn it, this thing under my feet cannot be removed, it seems to have grown together with the earth.¡±


    He stamped his feet, causing the water surface underneath his feet to sink for about half a foot, revealing a t stone surface.


    This surface was tiny, about thirty square yards only. The water level continued falling, gradually exposing the terrain. The rain attracted by the Divine spell had dispersed. The water in the pond quickly dried up as it seeped into the ground.


    Beneath this person¡¯s feet was actually a towering stone pir, and a huge portion of it was buried in the ck sand. The ancient Myersnguage and divinenguage were carved atop this stone pir. A metal chain was attached to this person¡¯s ankle, and this chain was stuck deep in the pir, trapping him to the peak of this thirty square yards stone pir.


    The divine power held in this metal chain was uncontroble, as it gave off a brilliant radiance. An endless stream of divine power diffused from the stone pir into this man¡¯s body, raising his strength to the highest possible theoretical level.


    This chain was a form of imprisonment, but it also provided him with massive strength. That was why he could produce the horrifying sandstorm, capturing so many creatures across the desert.


    As this person stared at the metal chain, his eyes were filled withplexity. ¡°Myers, Myers, I don¡¯t need a religion anymore!¡±


    At this point in his thoughts, he grabbed onto the metal chain furiously, pulling with all his might. Even the ground trembled, giving off a thunderous noise. Other than the fish beasts at the core of this pir, those fish beasts which had not matured were all knocked unconscious.


    ¡°Break!¡± This man tugged at the metal chain around his ankle desperately. No matter what, this metal chain showed no signs of loosening.


    ¡°Is this the power of the earth? Humph, since I want to leave, don¡¯t try to stop me.¡± The man grabbed the short de out of thin air once again. This time around, he hacked at his own foot.


    The nging of metal filled the air. The razor sharp short de only amputated half of his foot, but no blood gushed out. Tolerating the excruciating pain, he shed again. This time, the foot bone had broken, his foot was only dangling from a bit of flesh.


    ¡°Don¡¯t, don¡¯t try to trap me, I don¡¯t need it anymore!¡± Going berserk, he hacked a third time. His right foot finally broke away. The metal chain whined as it lost the divine light, it wilted on the ground like a dying snake.


    This man stared at his foot on the ground, he clenched his teeth but did not pick it up. Instead, he nonchntly cast a Divine skill, and at the severed area of his leg, a new foot grew out rapidly. He looked at the new foot in dissatisfaction. The new limb would surely be weaker than the original one, yet it did not have much of an impact on his offensive power.


    Lowering his head, he told the lifeless metal chain, ¡°I am leaving, you shall wait here for the goddess¡¯ return. Heh, if I be a god one day, I might considering back to visit you.¡± When he said this sentence, the confusion in his eyes had disappeared, and in its ce was a tinge of evil.


    ¡°I, Bedagsi, will be the new God of Nature as long as the divine trees are still around. By then, you will be mine.¡± After venting his anger on the metal chain, he summoned the fish beasts andmanded them to move. A divine light emanated from his body, but it had a dark green hue. In the blink of an eye, he had already left the bulky stone pir.


    The moment he left, that stone pir suddenly broke down, turning into a pile of dust and dispersing with the wind.


    From the depths of the earth, came an enraged roar. It was as though an ancient giant had awoken and realized that his most precious item had been stolen.

 Chapter 521: Maze (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 521: Maze (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was impossible for Saleen and the rest to know what had happened back there. After his and Lex¡¯s team took a short break, they continued on the journey.


    Suddenly, an oasis appeared up ahead. The area of this oasis was pretty huge, and there was also a city.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    Lex¡¯s swordmasters yelled. Lex and Saleen witnessed this scene through the chariot¡¯s window, but they were skeptical.


    ¡°That is not an oasis!¡±


    ¡°A mirage?¡±


    ¡°It seems pretty real, what should we do?¡±


    ¡°We will know once we get close to it.¡±


    The team approached the city. Indeed, after walking for several minutes, the edge of the oasis began blurring.


    ¡°Heh, Lex, have you noticed something.¡±


    ¡°Noticed what?¡±


    ¡°This is my first time seeing this mirage, why would it appear so real?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Lex did not spread her perception as far as Saleen¡¯s. Immediately after that, she was momentarily stunned, then her breathing became rapid.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a mirage! Stop, stop!¡± Lex had spoken a little toote. Given the speed of a skeletal warhorse, the team could advance forward without facing any obstacles. This was originally a good thing, but it was now a disaster.


    Wild Bear, who was up ahead, had already led the swordmasters to the city.


    It was an ancient city, with a moat at the front. The water in the moat was real, giving off the powerful scent of the water element. The moat was actually extremely shallow. The water was umted from the asional rain, and it was about to dry up soon.


    The city walls had a dark brown hue and their structure was seamless. It was built from a mysterious material, and there was a dense formation of potholes on the walls. The city¡¯s tower was bare and the top of the walls did not have any protrusions. The gates were shut. On the gates, a column of ancient Myers letters were carved on it; Lorga.


    Lorga was a mythical city which existed during the first dynasty, it was situated west of the maind within the borders of the Tanggsi Empire. The site still remained, but it had been seized by the Holy See, and was redeveloped into a brand new city.


    This city right in front was definitely not Lorga.


    Lex lowered her eyes, staring at the magicpass which had begun spinning about furiously. The magicpass had malfunctioned again!


    Lex had an expression of anguish, it was no longer meaningful whether the convoy stopped or not. Wild Bear urged his horse to stop in front of the moat. He then noticed a stone tablet with the map of the city carved in it.


    ¡°This is¡­¡± J came beside Wild Bear. As he saw the images on the map changing continuously, he knew that something was amiss. He turned around to look, but everything had be indistinct. Shrill whistling sounds filled the air as strong winds began blowing.


    ¡°We have no choice but to go in now.¡± Saleen recalled some of the records on a certain magic notebook, this city was in fact the Lorga Maze!


    Legend had it that the humans captured too many powerful creatures in the past, creating slight chaos on the ne of the Myers maind. The Goddess of Myers became upset, thus she imprisoned all the creatures who were wreaking havoc. The ce which held all these creatures had a name; The Lorga Maze.


    There were many records regarding the Lorga Maze, but they were all very vague, this maze built by the goddess was in fact a colossal magic illusion. The creatures trapped inside could not escape, while the people outside would find it difficult to gain entry.


    Back then, not many humans could converse with the goddess, and these people would of course be uninterested in a maze. A normal mage would not possess such strong abilities to see through the fa?ade of the Lorga Maze.


    As the sharp whistling sounds became clearer and clearer, Lex¡¯s face was ghastlier than Saleen¡¯s. She also knew that the presence of these noises meant that a sandstorm was nearby. Her metal house had been destroyed, and if they did not enter Lorga, her men would be flung away by the sandstorm. If she did not use the God¡¯s Ring, everyone would die.


    ¡°Enter.¡± Out of desperation, Lex gave the order.


    Wild Bear¡¯s warhorse leaped over the moat valiantly, arriving at the gates. Lorga¡¯s gates were huge, they were about twenty yards in height. The dense formation of potholes on the city walls was due to the prolonged assault by the sandstorms over the years.


    Wild Bear raised his spear to shove the city gates. He used very little strength, but the gates opened silently, revealing a crevice which could allow people to pass through.


    Wild Bear entered the city gates on horseback. J hesitated for a moment before following suit. The environment beyond the city gates was unlike modern cities, it was very spacious. Wild Bear might appear boorish and crude, but he had his areas of meticulousness too. As he traveled ahead on horseback, he circled around the city gates first. Seeing that there was no danger, he then leaped off the horse and pulled open the gates.


    The city gates were extremely thick and heavy, but Wild Bear did not even use much force to open them. The moat was not deep at all, but it was impossible for the magic war chariots to cross over. Once again, Lex took out a pile of appliances, while the swordmasters swiftly assembled them. The magic war chariots then proceeded to enter the gates.


    Wild Bear was thest man in, he closed the city gates behind him. A mage cast the Earthwall Spell and Fossilization Spell, sealing the gates tightly. A sandstorm appeared once more, pounding against the city gates.


    No one was very nervous. Even though the sandstorm produced raucous noises and the city gates were trembling, this city was still standing after such a long time in the Purgatory Desert, this meant that it could effectively resist a sandstorm.


    The mages looked upwards to observe their surroundings. They noticed that the sky above the city seemed to have been covered by an invisible lid. ck sand filled the sky, but not a single grain fell into the city. The team never advanced, they simply rested near the gates. The sandstormsted for over an hour before dispersing.


    Two swordmasters went to open the gates, but they realized that it was like an iron te. The gates would not budge no matter what they did.


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother trying anymore. Once a person enters the Lorga Maze, it will be difficult for them to leave.¡± Lex stopped Wild Bear as he thought of using the poleaxe to cleave the gates.


    ¡°What should we do now?¡± Wild Bear rubbed his temples in frustration. He knew that since these gates could withstand a sandstorm, he would not be able to open them.


    ¡°Lorga Maze isn¡¯t only a prison, it is also a ce where believers of the past converged. The structure of this city is a maze, religious believers can enter and exit this ce freely.¡±


    What Lex said was redundant. The goddess had already fallen. Even if they were to practice a religion now, there would be no target.


    ¡°This is the unsolvable Lorga Maze?¡± Saleen gazed into the interiors of the city. The buildings were all arranged haphazardly, while the streets were all distorted, no one street could lead to the other.


    ¡°Do you also know about this?¡± Lex probed.


    ¡°I tried decoding it,¡± Saleen replied. The mystery of the Lorga Maze was a picture mages used to train their calction abilities. In fact, that picture was drawn with reference to Lorga City.


    ¡°Have you decoded it?¡±


    ¡°If this was on paper, I could still manage it. I think the structure of this city will change any moment.¡±


    Of course, Lex understood what Saleen was talking about. If Lorga City was a normal maze, everyone could simply leap over the walls and the problem would be solved. This was a fully sealed region, even the sandstorm could not barge in.


    ¡°Lex, since you let everyone in here, you must have a solution right?¡±


    Lex caressed the God¡¯s Ring on her finger, she did not reply to Saleen. It was not impossible to leave, but the power of the God¡¯s Ring would have to be utilized. If Lex used it now, then everyone¡¯s lives would be in danger once they entered the temple.


    ¡°There is a solution to the Lorga Maze.¡± Eleanor suddenly said.


    ¡°What?¡± Lex was little astounded. Based on the records of mages, no one could decode the real Lorga Maze. Saleen¡¯s solution only applied to one picture. There were numerous versions of such mazes. A mage would have to spend arge amount of time to solve each maze. Lorga City was equivalent to abination of all the Lorga Mazes. Even if one took all the correct steps, they could not leave quickly.


    The only rule of the Lorga Maze was that once a person walked through a door, the door would bepletely sealed, preventing the person from going back. This was why Lex remained at the gates. Once a person went deep inside, they could not turn back anymore.


    ¡°I know a few secrets of Lorga City. The very first time, the goddess developed it because she wanted to protect her believers. Later on, it was because humans had captured creatures from various nes as though they were nning to do something. Of these creatures, the ones not mighty enough were removed and thrown away. The humans were also toozy to send them back to their respective nes. These abandoned creatures were very powerful, so the goddess sent them to Lorga City, making them the defenders of this city.¡±


    Eleanor spoke calmly, it was as though she had returned to the times when the marquis would tell her anecdotes. At that time, her life was so happy and simple.


    ¡°There is no need for calctions. We will walk along the left side. There will be a guard at each door we pass through. If you defeat this guard, the maze will not have any new changes. We only need to walk along the left side to locate the exit.¡±


    ¡°Surely it isn¡¯t so simple right?¡± Saleen asked doubtfully.


    ¡°No, if you are a believer of another religion, this city will transform into a ce of massacre. All the defenders who were once present in this city will be resurrected and they will attack you.¡±


    Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Fortunately, no one in Lex¡¯s team adored the Lord of Glory. Everyone would be doomed otherwise. ¡°All the defenders? Back then, the creatures humans captured were as powerful as supreme demons. Even those who got abandoned should be at grade-8 too.¡±


    Nailisi whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°Master, those guards¡­¡±


    ¡°No!¡± Saleen admonished. He could understand that Nailisi loved to ughter guards, but it was too perilous. Even if the guards were killed, Saleen also would not allow Nailisi to collect their remains. Since the goddess had left behind this city, there might be other unknown dangers present. If some powerful presence was provoked, then their whole team would be doomed.


    ¡°What if I run into something that I need?¡± Nailisi did not give up this time around.


    Saleen pondered for a moment, then said, ¡°Inform me first, I will evaluate when the timees.¡±


    Nailisi nodded in agreement. She was just unsatisfied with her few abilities. Without all eight abilities, she would never be able to unleash the pinnacle power of the Luoluokaluo.


    ¡°Everyone, get down.¡± Lex instructed all the mages to exit the chariots, then she stored them. There were many ces in this city which the chariots could not pass through. As the swordmasters inspected their own equipment, Nailisi summoned the four demons over. Shemanded them to protect Saleen all the way.


    The four demons had already submitted themselves to Saleen, but J could not have peace of mind, so he left Wild Bear and came beside Saleen. Saleen also put away the skeletal warhorses. In this city, the power of death creatures had been reduced to the lowest level. Those fully constructed puppets, which had begun showing signs of life, were unknowingly gaining a boost in power though. It was as though there was some invisible energy seeping into their bodies allowing them to undergo an evolution again.

 Chapter 522: Demonic spirit’s answer (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 522: Demonic spirit¡¯s answer (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without the skeletal warhorses, Lex¡¯s warriors had changed their weapons as the bulky and long heavy weapons need not be used anymore. Even Wild Bear wielded the spear Saleen had crafted for him. With the warhammers and poleaxes put away, the warriors had only three weapons left; the Qin Eight-sided Sword, a short sword, and a miniature alchemical crossbow.


    Bain had also appeared beside Lex and he stopped concealing himself. Wild Bear remained the pioneer paving the way while the two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters followed closely behind. The team was split into two groups as they walked forward along the city walls on the left side.


    The city walls appeared to have a height of more than thirty meters. If these walls were installed in any other location, the city would be majestic. It was incongruent with the huge reputation of Lorga though. It must be noted that many of the creatures captured by humans were almost one-hundred meters tall. To such creatures, these city walls would only be a sill.


    It was not known how long ago these walls were built, they were unlike those in the maind cities now. There were neither horse roads nor reinforced slopes. After walking for about a mile, the team spotted a covered bridge. This bridge extended from a tall building on the right to the tip of the city. This wooden bridge seemed to have decayed, and there were only a dozen pirs underneath it.


    ¡°Stick to the left side,¡± Eleanor reminded. Holding onto a spear, Wild Bear followed Eleanor¡¯s instructions, walking through the left most pir.


    The scenery at the front immediately changed. This was a small square surrounded by short houses. Signboards hung from the houses facing the square. Their windows were also opened, supporting a row of stalls.


    This was a vintage trading market, only Sikeqinya still had such ces.


    ¡°Ha ha, how many years has it been, food has actually appeared!¡± A voice filled the air, it was echoing and annoying. This voice obviously originated from a mouth, but it was so booming that it made people cringe and have difficulty thinking. It was as if there were thousands of people chattering beside one¡¯s ears, even a mage would be unsettled listening to this sound.


    ¡°Who are you, show yourself!¡± Wild Bear waved his spear, his eyes darting to the left and right. He couldn¡¯t understand the ancientnguage it spoke.


    ¡°Right here.¡± The strange voice changed to the Myersnguage. From a magic array at the center of the square, a colossal shadow emerged.


    Wild Bear raised his head, feeling depressed as he saw an enormous figure. Ofte, the monsters he ran into were always much bigger than him causing his build to appear extremely frail.


    This was a ssic demon-type creature. The horns atop its head were well-proportioned while the skin of the face was blue with natural magic patterns. This creature was about three meters tall with a thick tail behind it. A gigantic image of a grimace was naturally generated on its naked torso.


    ¡°A Mendel Supreme Demon?¡±


    Lex¡¯s mind went into a flurry, the first guard was actually a supreme demon. This spelled big trouble. Demons were cunning, while supreme demons possessed tremendous powers. This obstacle was too onerous already.


    Letting out a squeal, Nailisiughed. She leaned in close and whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°This is an illusory demonic spirit, he is even weaker than an imp. He is not using the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill. If you were trained to a sorcerer¡¯s standard, you would be able to see through the fa?ade using your own eyes.¡±


    ¡°Why do I feel that this illusory demonic spirit is more like a death creature?¡± Aftering into contact with many spirits, Saleen was very sensitive to the scent of a spirit, and this illusory demonic spirit made him detect the intense scent of death.


    ¡°Master, there are many types of demonic spirits, but they do not live for long. The longest only lives about eight-hundred years. This city was built thousands of years ago though¡­¡±


    ¡°Mm, it seems like the goddess used a method to prevent their souls from dispersing so that they can still preserve their original appearance and skills.¡±


    Noticing Saleen and Nailisi whispering to each other, Lex let out a cough.


    That illusory demonic spirit was still trying to scare Wild Bear. ¡°Human, are you nning to sacrifice your body, or your soul?¡±


    Sika was already very impatient. An illusory demonic spirit might deceive a mage, but it could not trick a Caucasus priest like her. The abilities of this demonic spirit was too inferior to hers, and she could not be bothered to take any action. Thus, she yelled at Wild Bear, ¡°Big guy, this fellow is cheating you, hurry up and take him out so that you can ask for directions.¡±


    Hmm? At this point in time, Wild Bear then felt that something was amiss. This big fellow might be imposing and had exerted effective psychological pressure on Wild Bear, but after bbering for a long time, he still had not taken any action.


    Wild Bear was fixated on the thought of himself being a chef, but hisbat instincts were really sharp. He could not possibly have advanced to a high grade swordmaster after a short training by Lex otherwise. Such progress was not only dependent on a good teacher, the student had to be very gifted too.


    The moment Wild Bear heard Sika¡¯s reminder, he immediately swiped his spear, perfectly disying that technique of controlling the Sword Aura which he had learned from J. The Sword Aura had gathered at the tip of the spear, but it was not released. Instead, it could produce even sharper cries in the wind.


    The attack speed was not high because the swiping technique was employed. The strongest attack of a spear was of course a straight stab.


    To a pugilist, swordsmanship was the highest level skill. Swordsmanship was in fact derived from spear techniques though. The chops and swipes of a longsword were all inferior to the power of a spear.


    Even if a wooden spear was used, the force from the umted power was also really great. That illusory demonic spirit moved about swiftly. Wild Bear intentionally slowed down his attack, and the demonic spirit avoided it effortlessly.


    The people standing behind Wild Bear were very anxious. The swordmasters had aimed their alchemical crossbows at the illusory demonic spirit, ready to attack anytime.


    The illusory demonic spirit dodged the spear, and Wild Bear was actually relieved. If the enemy was very powerful, they would not have dodged this attack. Because this was the renowned Dragontail Spear Skill.


    Wild Bear¡¯s spear swiped the air, sweeping a huge arc, before jerking back vigorously, continuing its assault on the illusory demonic spirit. This rebound attack moved more than two times faster than before. Other than speed, the power was also higher.


    On the battlefield, where enemies wereing from all directions, this spear tactic was very horrifying. If a grand swordmaster used the Dragontail Spear Skill, he would be able to dominate the battle with just a spear. With each rebound, the power of the spear would increase, until the spear could no longer support the stress. The illusory demonic spirit¡¯s forte was not offensive power, and he was also not as strong as Wild Bear. He knew that the best time to disrupt the Dragontail Spear Skill was in the first attack, but he did not have the guts to touch Wild Bear¡¯s spear.


    Saleen spectated the battle from the back. He only saw that Wild Bear¡¯s spear was drawing several arcs in the air, and the Sword Aura in the tip of the spear had not been released despite having converged. The speed of the spear got increasingly faster, causing the demonic spirit to be very distressed. He tried using a mental illusion spell to influence Wild Bear¡¯s actions, but the moment Wild Bear¡¯s Sword Aura kicked in, Wild Bear would not be affected no matter how much trickery was attempted.


    Saleen had some knowledge about the source of Sword Aura. In order to understand the principles of the Sword Aura, he had attempted repeated experiments on a Silver Grand Swordmaster. It seemed like his understanding was not sufficient after all.


    Wild Bear was only at the standard of a high grade swordmaster, it was still very difficult for him to release the Sword Aura. The power of the spear was getting mightier, it could even destroy the Magic Shield of a grand mage in just one hit.


    This situation was unlike how Sika broke Saleen¡¯s Water Shield. At the very least, Sika had partially relied on her powerful weapon, but Wild Bear was using pure skill.


    ¡°If the skills of pugilists were constantly refined, then they might one day be real powerful characters, just like the mages.¡±


    Saleen sighed in his heart, but it was not because he was worried, as mages also possessed simr skills. His Water Shield could be adjusted to achieve maximum defense based on the enemy¡¯s attacks. His level-4 defense spell in fact had the toughness of level-6 magic already. Before bing a sorcerer, the Water Shield was the safest defense spell Saleen could use.


    It was no big deal if Saleen could only defend. As Saleen possessed powerful calction ability, he could even deduce the principles of the operation of Sword Aura, thus he could use low level magic to destroy a swordmaster¡¯s attacks.


    Even though Saleen was merely a grade-5 mage, he had alreadye into contact with the secrets of an expert.


    The power of a sorcerer did not lie in their ability to cast forbidden spells, but because they could use a level-1 spell to achieve maximum possible lethality.


    Once a person had advanced to a sorcerer¡¯s grade, their magic chord would have grown to a special height, so casting a level-1 spell would not affect the magic chords by a lot. If only level-1 magic was used in battle, a sorcerer would not even need to rest. As long as their mental strength permitted, they could continue battling.


    Saleen understood all these principles, but he never had such impactful emotions like today. As Wild Bear utilized his techniques, he had given Saleen a lesson.


    Wild Bear got more and more exhrated as he fought on. That illusory demonic spirit did not dare resist anymore, he simply relied on his speed to dodge Wild Bear¡¯s attacks.


    ¡°Stop hitting, stop hitting, I surrender!¡± The illusory demonic spirit could no longer hold out as Wild Bear¡¯s spear got increasingly swifter. In at most a minute, he would be hit.


    Bam!


    The spear struck the illusory demonic spirit¡¯s shoulder ruthlessly. A cloud of ck air dispersed as the illusory demonic spirit howled in agony, prostrating on the ground. On a second look, he had already reverted to his original form.


    When Lex saw the original form of the illusory demonic spirit, she could not help but giggle.


    It was a very adorable demonic spirit, small and exquisite, while his body was filled with white bristles. He had a pair of purple eyes, and a face which highly resembled that of humans. He was supporting his shoulder in pain, as he pleaded with Wild Bear to show him mercy.


    ¡°Tolesi, go and ask him.¡± Nailisi ordered a demon to conduct interrogation. As Tolesi¡¯s forte was mental strength, the illusory demonic spirit could never deceive him. A demon also had great terror over demonic spirits, Tolesi simply needed to release a little demonic scent to make this illusory demonic spirit give up all notions of resistance.


    Tolesi¡¯s original form was a fair and chubby demon. Now that he had transformed into a human female, his attractive figure could not be concealed despite having armor on. He walked slowly to the front of the illusory demonic spirit, before releasing a tinge of demonic scent.


    The illusory demonic spirit shuddered. If he was not transformed into the appearance of a partial death spirit, he might have peed his pants in that instant.


    ¡°I will ask the questions and you shall answer. If I am not satisfied with any of your answers, I will hand you over to my master.¡± Tolesi¡¯s words struck even more fear in the illusory demonic spirit.


    Besides a supreme demon, who else could be the owner of a demon?


    ¡°First of all, how do we get out of here?¡± Tolesi went straight to the main point, he would not allow the demonic spirit to y any tricks. If the demonic spirit said that there was no way of leaving, then he would be worthless, and could be ughtered already.

 Chapter 523: Demonic spirit’s answer (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 523: Demonic spirit¡¯s answer (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The demonic spirit¡¯s mouth twitched several times, but he did not reply immediately. Tolesi stared at the demonic spirit, his eyes void of sympathy. In the demonic ne, supreme demons and demons never regarded demonic spirits as food. It¡¯s just that the reproduction ability of demonic spirits was too high, so if they were not removed from time to time, the supreme demons would suffer a famine.


    It was the same case for the demons too. The reproduction ability of a demon was only a little better than that of a supreme demon, and demons also abhorred seeing demonic spirits everywhere. Both parties would never have a harmonious rtionship.


    Tolesi did not have much patience, as his eyes involuntarily released a green light, epassing the illusory demonic spirit. Since Tolesi was three grades higher than the illusory demonic spirit, the mental terror received was at maximum magnitude. With a thud, plumes of ck smoke diffused out of the demonic spirit¡¯s seven apertures, then he died.


    Tolesi opened his mouth to suck in the smoke, and after a thorough investigation, he still could not find anything useful in the demonic spirit¡¯s memory. In a fit of pique, he kicked the demonic spirit, feeling perturbed as he did not know how Nailisi would punish him.


    Seeing Tolesi¡¯s expression, Nailisi knew he had failed. Nailisi did not get furious, she simply asked, ¡°Share information about this ce, just reveal anything you can think of.¡±


    ¡°Lorga¡­ is a dead city. After the fall of the goddess, the guards here were transformed into half-spirits.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Nothing else. Other than his instincts, there are no more memories.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that akin to not saying anything?¡± Nailisi stared coldly at Tolesi with her jade green pupils. Tolesi¡¯s heart shuddered, but he heard Nailisi saying, ¡°Her Highness Lex is friendly, you can say anything, it will be fine.¡±


    Tolesi hung his head low, he knew that Nailisi was giving him face.


    ¡°Sir, this illusory demonic spirit knows the location where the goddess stored the Divine Crystal.¡±


    ¡°What did you say?¡± Nailisi regretted her decision, this Tolesi actually managed to retrieve such important information. If she knew that, she would not have allowed him to disclose it in front of Lex.


    A Divine Crystal was the energy a god gave to their followers, it was much purer than a magic nucleus. If a magic nucleus was not ced in a special space, its energy would be dispersed automatically. Given the degree of agglomeration of a Divine Crystal, the energy inside would not even show any signs of dispersal after one-hundred-thousand years.


    An item like a Divine Crystal was useful to a mage. This thing was much stronger than a white crystal. With a Divine Crystal in possession, a mage would be able to replenish all depleted mental strength at will.


    To Saleen, if he had a perfect piece of Divine Crystal, he would be able to control the water flow in the cbash and continue battling. By then, normal soldiers would no longer pose a threat to Saleen¡¯s safety. No matter how many people were there, Saleen also would not need to be worried, because his mental strength would always be full.


    To Nailisi, she could absorb the energy in a Divine Crystal to gain the fourth ability because she was a Luoluokaluo. No matter what type of ability it was, Nailisi would be satisfied as long as it was the power of the Goddess of Myers.


    If the Goddess of Myers was still alive, Nailisi would not dare harbor such thoughts. The goddess was not around anymore, no one would know if she stole a bit of the goddess¡¯ power.


    Nailisi cleared her throat, then turned around and asked Saleen, ¡°Master, what do we do now? Look for the Divine Crystal first, or to look for the exit route?¡±


    Saleen furrowed his brows. He definitely craved for the Divine Crystal. This item was usually gifted to the clergy by the Holy See, it could notbe bought anywhere else. The problem was that the Lorga Maze was a deadnd, and Saleen did not want to waste time here.


    ¡°Lex, what do you think?¡±


    Saleen pushed the problem to Lex. Lex also hesitated. No matter how good the Divine Crystal was, it would not be as important as the seeds of the divine trees. If she obtained the Divine Crystal, she could unleash more power from the God¡¯s Ring. She also would not have to wait one year for the ring to replenish the consumed energy.


    ¡°Let¡¯s look for the Divine Crystal first. Lorga City is hostile to outsiders. With the Divine Crystal, we will have more of the goddess¡¯ scent, in case we get assaulted by the guards. This guard might be weak, but it doesn¡¯t mean that the ones behind are the same too.¡± Lex could not stave off the temptation either, she decided to look for the Divine Crystal first.


    Lex was not greedy, but the grain-sized Divine Crystal would allow her to control all the abilities of the God¡¯s Ring immediately. If she could control this piece of godly equipment, then she wouldn¡¯t need to keep avoiding the Holy See¡¯s forces already.


    Saleen did not raise any objections. When he asked for Lex¡¯s opinion, he already knew that Lex would make such a choice. It was no longer important whether Lex¡¯s words made sense or not, the important thing was that a Divine Crystal was ten-thousand times more precious than a high level magic nucleus.


    The Holy See had more than a billion followers, but the Divine Crystal precipitated annually from the Glorious City was only slightlyrger than a sesame seed. A Divine Crystal was different from a magic nucleus, there was no grading ssification. If the number of believers was insufficient and they had inadequate purity, the Divine Crystal could not be produced.


    ¡°Tolesi, how many guards are there in the Lorga City?¡± Saleen was meticulous, he knew that demons could not be dealt with easily, they had to be hiding some things. It was okay to conceal certain information, because Nailisi would extract it sooner orter. He had to know the number of guards in the city though.


    ¡°Master, there is only one living guard.¡±


    ¡°What about the ones who are dead?¡±


    ¡°One-hundred and twenty-seven-thousand of them.¡±


    Saleen was extremely pleased with Tolesi¡¯s skills. In the time taken for a breath, he had already obtained all information from the demonic spirit. In the future, all interrogation tasks could be delegated to him already. The only problem was that Tolesi was not as attached to Saleen like how Nailisi was, and he also was not as loyal.


    One-hundred and twenty-seven-thousand guards. Even if all the guards were at the standard of this demonic spirit, it was also a massive headache. These guards were merely the pitiful things which the goddess adopted. On the Myers maind, without protection by the goddess, these guards would be killed immediately after creating trouble. With the passing of time, no one on Myers maind today could deal with so many guards simultaneously.


    ¡°The Divine Crystal isn¡¯t protected by the living guard right?¡± Lex suddenly asked.


    Tolesi hesitated for a moment, then said, ¡°The living guard is guarding the exit.¡±


    Everyone cast their gaze on Tolesi at the same time, this piece of news was indeed devastating.


    ¡°What do you know about that guard?¡± Saleen began growing impatient at this kind of questioning, so his tone had be frosty.


    Tolesi nced at Nailisi, then said, ¡°It is a grade-10 supreme demon.¡±


    Other than Saleen and Lex, everyone else experienced despair taking root in their hearts. ¡°A grade-10 supreme demon?¡± Even if one had thousands of soldiers and horses, they could not handle such a creature too.


    Lex thought to herself, ¡°Seems like the God¡¯s Ring have to be utilized already.¡±


    On the other hand, Saleen was thinking that the God¡¯s Ring should be able to protect everyone after the Divine Crystal was obtained. ¡°It seems like the n badge has to be used to handle the appearance of this supreme demon.¡±


    Even Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger could not handle a grade-10 supreme demon. Unless he had a sacrificial spirit, whereby he could unleash the greatest might of the Crystal Finger to kill the supreme demon, and kill himself in the process.


    It must be noted that all spells below level-6 were useless against a grade-10 creature. Lex could force herself to cast a level-7 spell, but it was highly likely that the supreme demon was already immune to it.


    Nailisi possessed the strength of a dragon, but a grade-10 supreme demon could fight the presence of a dragon alone. Nailisi¡¯s strength of a dragon was not really the power of a dragon, otherwise she would not have lost to Sika in terms of strength. As for the four demons, their faces lost all color the moment they heard about the grade-10 supreme demon.


    ¡°Tolesi, where is the Divine Crystal?¡± Saleen disrupted the awkward atmosphere, he could feel the morale going downhill.


    ¡°At the center of the city. We can find it by following the instructions in the holy prose.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, you and Tolesi shall lead the way. Cuisi, protect them.¡± Saleen nted his body, then told Lex, ¡°I will handle the supreme demon. Just ask your guys to create a three frames window for me, I have to lock my aim onto the target.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you use my power?¡± Lex thought that Saleen was going to use the Crystal Finger. She knew the jeopardy of such a skill. Previously, Saleen had sustained grave injuries in the duel with the adjudicator from the inquisition. Thus, Saleen might not survive the battle with the grade-10 supreme demon.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I am in no danger.¡± Saleen smiled, he noticed that the rest of the people had calmed down. He was a mage, so he would only say things which he was confident of. Even though Lex¡¯s men would not trust Saleen blindly, they knew that both Saleen and Lex had tricks to deal with the supreme demon after listening to their conversation.


    By now, Saleen could easily execute the trick to soothe people¡¯s emotions. The four demons were still jittery, a human would never be able to relieve their fears of a supreme demon.


    Nailisi was actually jubnt. No matter what, she had to devour this supreme demon. A grade-10 demon would allow her to gain a new ability.


    As for the method to kill the supreme demon, it would have to depend on her master already. Nailisi knew that her master had a horrifying attack technique which was way mightier than the Crystal Finger.


    Tolesi paired up with Eleanor reluctantly. Eleanor had studied holy texts. This city was barren, but the structures were in fact very dense. As the far as the eye could observe, holy proses and weird symbols filled the ce. As demons did not understand holy texts, Eleanor had to exin it to Tolesi one by one, then she wouldpare it with information Tolesi got from the demonic spirit. Thereafter, Eleanor would search for the route into the center of the city.


    Only the believers of the goddess would be able to enter and exit this city freely. Saleen had a premonition that he could leave the city if he casted a divine spell. He was not sure if he could take the rest of the people with him though.


    Lorga¡¯s style was widely different from Qin¡¯s. Buildings on both sides of the street were mostly made from wood. If it was not for the invisible cover in the sky above the city, all these structures would have dposed already. The wooden structures were also taller than some magic buildings. Saleen exerted his perception outwards. He realized that these buildings were not blessed by divinity, it¡¯s just that their architecture was abnormally perfect. It was likeyers andyers ofplex magic arrays built atop one another.


    The believers of the goddess and those adopted guards once lived in these buildings. The feeling Saleen got was that this was a dead city though. Even though there were many powerful forces veiled by the many images of holy texts, these forces were already not much different from the three spirit kings.


    Lorga, once known as the city of beliefs¡­

 Chapter 524: Walking to the left, walking to the right (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 524: Walking to the left, walking to the right (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor seemed to be more astute than Saleen. Along the way, she consciously avoided the mightier presences. The team advanced in a bendy manner towards the center of the city.


    It was not difficult for one to enter the core of Lorga City, the onerous part was exiting it. Those powerful presences hidden behind the holy prose and magic arrays would not emerge now, but when one wanted to leave, there would be trouble.


    Saleen even smelt some hints of a conspiracy. ¡°Could the goddess have left behind the Divine Crystal in order to make someone inherit her religion? If a person does not have faith in the goddess, they will not be able to leave.¡±


    Based on the understanding mages had of the gods, gods survived on faith. Even though the goddess had fallen, she could be resurrected, provided there were sufficient believers and a long time had passed.


    Then again, this did not seem to be the case. The goddess¡¯ main temple was located in the Purgatory Desert, so no one would enter at all. Saleen andpany were banking on the fact that Lex had an extremely powerful godly equipment to help them escape anytime. After entering, the oue would mostly likely be bleak otherwise.


    Before the goddess fell, she built twenty-four obscure temples, and there had to be a reason for her to do that.


    Saleen shook his head vigorously. It was no big deal even if he believed in the goddess for the time being. Anyway, in the Goddess of Myers¡¯ doctrines, there was neither heaven nor hell. A person believed in the goddess solely for the intention that they could return to nature after death. Other than being a believer and needing to devote oneself to the world, there was no sh between the goddess¡¯ doctrines and a mage¡¯s principles.


    Mages did not really engage in sacrificial acts, they loved to have equivalent exchanges. If one wanted to obtain something from a mage, they would have to pay a corresponding price.


    The mages were standing on the inside while the swordmasters stood outside. All the magic armor had been blessed with more than two kinds of spells. The team advanced cautiously, no one dared make any noise. The magicpatibility of the Spirit Snake Armor was considered to be perfect. The mages could bless it with magic effortlessly, and there would not be any errors. Saleen noticed this feature, then he thought to himself secretly, ¡°I have to obtain a set of perfect magic armor drawings. Lex would surely not give me such things, but Sregl Ind would have it.¡±


    The team reached a forked road. Atop the street up ahead was a covered bridge extending out from the third story. The boundary of this forked road was underneath this covered bridge.


    ¡°To the left,¡± Tolesi announced.


    ¡°To the right!¡± Eleanor immediately rebutted.


    Tolesi nced at Eleanor frostily, then said, ¡°What right do you have tomand me?¡±


    Eleanor shut her mouth. From behind, Saleen said, ¡°Eleanor, exin why do we have to head right.¡±


    Hearing Saleen¡¯s question, Eleanor then pointed to the holy text carved into the covered bridge, and said, ¡°It states that the left side leads to a deadly restricted area, a ce where dangerous creatures are imprisoned. To the right is a church.¡±


    Tolesi furrowed his brows and said, ¡°I hate churches.¡±


    Standing beside Saleen, Cuisi was outraged when he heard that. He then told Tolesi, ¡°If you dare talk to Lord Saleen in this manner, I will remove all the bones in your body, do you hear me?¡±


    Hearing Cuisi¡¯s warning, Tolesi felt chills go down his spine. He did not dare rebel against Cuisi, this demon was at least ten times mightier than him.


    It was purely coincidental that Cuisi was defending Saleen. Cuisi had remembered Saleen¡¯s words when Saleen requested Lex¡¯s subordinates to harass the supreme demon for three frames in order to create an attack opportunity for him.


    Given Cuisi¡¯s powers, Cuisi could actually harass the supreme demon, but his life would be in peril. When Saleen disallowed him from risking his life, he had already grown fond of this master. Cuisi was a high grade demon, so he knew certain events which took ce between the demons and humans. He was not very repulsive towards the idea of following Saleen. As long as this master behaved almost the same way as the humans in the past, he could ept it.


    From Cuisi¡¯s perspective, Saleen would die very soon, but Cuisi¡¯s own life was very long. Once Saleen died, he could receive quite a bit of benefits, so it was only right for him to be loyal. It was different for Tolesi. If Saleen became a grade-9 sorcerer, Tolesi might even die in front of Saleen.


    Cuisi also had tremendous intelligence. From Nailisi, he had seen the attachment Luoluokaluos had towards the humans. After Saleen¡¯s death, this Luoluokaluo would be his superior, guiding him into the future. By creating a good rtionship with Saleen, Cuisi would be able to survive better in the future.


    Towards Nailisi, Cuisi was full of admiration. A Luoluokaluo who had already developed three abilities would enjoy unlimited prospects.


    Saleen was taken aback, but he still asked Tolesi, ¡°Now tell me, why we should go left?¡±


    Tolesi hesitated for a moment, then said, ¡°For us, going left will not have any have fatal perils. This city is only left with one living creature, who is at the exit. We will only face half-spirits along this road. They do not possess death magic and have lost their inborn abilities. If we were to fight, they will only be as powerful as me.¡±


    ¡°But the right side is very safe.¡±


    ¡°Many skeletons are buried on the left side, they belong to creatures from various nes. Master, if you want those skeletons, you should use this route in order to extract those remains.¡±


    Lex said, ¡°Saleen, the Divine Crystal is of utmost importance.¡± Seeing Saleen being slightly tempted, Lex quickly reminded him on what they should ce emphasis on and what they should give up.


    After getting a warning from Cuisi, Tolesi no longer dared give Saleen an attitude, but he did not give a hoot about Lex.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t want to go left, then suit yourself.¡±


    Lex was slightly annoyed, and the swordmasters around her also turned to stare at Tolesi. Not being fearful at all, Tolesi said icily, ¡°A skeleton belonging to the Six-winged Flying Snake is buried in the cemetery on the left. I don¡¯t believe you do not want it.¡±


    Lex lost her fury in that moment. The Six-winged Flying Snake was the guardian totem of the Grukos family, it was also a very powerful creature. If Lex was not currently in Lorga City, she would have obtained the Divine Crystal first before returning to consider whether or not to extract the remains of the Six-winged Flying Snake. This city was an enormous maze though. The moment one went to the right, they might take several years to look for a particr road again.


    One could only advance, there was no going back. This was the feature of the Lorga Maze which infuriated people. The moment someone took a wrong step, all their previous efforts would go down the drain.


    Nailisi whispered stealthily into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°Master, go to the left, Tolesi should have discovered some things which are more valuable. He is more afraid of death than we are.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s words made sense. Out of the few demons, Tolesi was the most fearful of death. Demons from Tolesi¡¯s race did not have long lives. At most, they could live for two-thousand years, but most lived for only eight-hundred years. Since Tolesi was already at an intermediate age, he would not have much time left, he would ce more emphasis on life. If it was too dangerous going left, he would have given up that idea secretly, he would not have told Saleen about the treasures.


    Even though demons were different from humans, they were both intelligent species. They would have the same natural instincts of trying to gain benefits and avoid harm.


    ¡°Cuisi, go and protect Eleanor, we will go left.¡± Seeing that Lex also could not stave off the temptation, Saleen did not continue talking. If danger was mentioned, then entering the Purgatory Desert was thergest danger already. If they were afraid of everything, they should have simply hid in Metatrin City and waited for his teacher to arrive.


    The moment they entered the road on the left, the ce became spacious. The houses on both sides appeared to have retreated hundreds of yards, forming an extremely spacious region. The transparent cover in the sky was now gray and dull. Tolesi and Eleanor walked at the front and suddenly, they crashed into an invisible wall and entered it, creating ripples in the air. J and Cuisi could not react in time, thus they also crashed into the wall immediately.


    ¡°Halt!¡± Lex yelled, and the swordmasters who were about to enter the wall froze in their tracks.


    ¡°Why are we stopping?!¡± Seeing that Eleanor had disappeared behind the wall, Saleen got anxious. He still had not learned a great amount of knowledge from Eleanor. He had also promised to protect her. Now that Eleanor and two demons had disappeared, Saleen would definitely be nervous.


    Lex caressed the God¡¯s Ring on her finger, feeling it, then told Saleen, ¡°Look at your surroundings.¡±


    Saleen released his perception, surveilling the surroundings thoroughly. At this point in time, he realized that his team had unknowingly fell into a sealed environment. Invisible walls were situated in all directions. These walls were not fixed, they were constantly changing.


    ¡°If we follow them now, we will not be able to locate them either. We should not split up.¡±


    ¡°There is no choice but to split up now.¡± Having fine perception, Saleen could identify that the surroundings were not filled with walls, they were filled with the power of space separation. It was still easy for three to five people to enter the same space, but it was almost impossible to allow an entire team to do so unless Lex utilized the God¡¯s Ring now.


    ¡°Master, there is no such as thing as a cemetery in the demonguage,¡± Nailisi suddenly said.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Demons don¡¯t need a graveyard. The closest word to it would be battlefield, or¡­, killingnd. If such words appeared, Eleanor would have mentioned it. She only said that there was danger.¡±


    ¡°So what is behind this?¡±


    ¡°I cannotprehend holy prose. Master, since you have been studying it for such a long time, you can try analyzing it.¡±


    After Nailisi said that, Saleen then began thinking about this matter. After a protracted duration, he then said to Lex, ¡°This is a Countless Door, a button in a maze. We will get to a location in the end, as long as we make it through. I don¡¯t know for sure what we have to do. Five people to a team, there can be no more than that.¡±


    ¡°You are definitely sticking with Sika right?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡± Answering Lex was Sika herself. Sika shrugged her shoulders, not feeling any shame at all. No matter how jealous Lex was, it also could not change the fact that Sika had gotten Saleen first.


    Due to her identity, Lex could not argue with Sika. She simply nodded her head, then told Saleen, ¡°Be careful, we will meetter.¡±


    On Saleen¡¯s side, there were just five people. He and Sika, Nailisi, and two demons. On Lex¡¯s side, there were more people. ording to the method of three warriors protecting two mages, Lex¡¯s team was split into four groups. Lex had one more person in her group, the assassin Bain seemed to be confident in keeping pace with her.


    Saleen sighed. Seeing Lex¡¯s men enter the invisible wall, he grabbed Sika¡¯s hand, then told Nailisi, ¡°Follow closely.¡± Speaking, he walked forward. Ripples, like those found in water, brushed past his body, feeling extremely cooling. Saleen even felt that his perception had been greatly expanded as a result.


    Sika actually bellowed violently. She raised her leg to kick, sending a pouncing monster flying. The two demons, stood on both sides of Saleen, while Nailisi turned around to protect Saleen¡¯s back. At this point in time, Saleen then realized that he had been besieged.

 Chapter 525: Walking to the left, walking to the right (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 525: Walking to the left, walking to the right (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As Saleen saw the monsters approaching him, he immediately regretted allowing Lex to have Su.


    This newly recruited follower might not be as powerful as Nailisi and Sikabined and he might not even be able to defeat Sika, but a grand swordmaster was the best person to deal with this monster who was right before Saleen now.


    It was a Stone Statue Soldier, a creature from the subcontinent ne.


    Unlike a Stone Statue Ghost, a Stone Statue Soldier possessed extremely high magic resistance. It had a sturdy body and lived in groups. In a group of Stone Statue Soldiers, there was only one of them who had a higher level of intelligence. As long as this soldier, who was the leader, did not die, the rest of the Stone Statue Soldiers could be resurrected.


    On the subcontinent ne, this creature was rumored to have originated from hell. Even a demon would remain dead once they got killed, there was zero chance of resurrection. If a Stone Statue Soldier got crushed, it could quickly transform into aplete entity again.


    The method to deal with the Stone Statue Soldiers would be to kill them swiftly and locate the leader. As the leader was weaker, the Stone Statue Soldiers could no longer be resurrected once the leader got killed.


    As the skills of a Silver Grand Swordmaster were refined, they could sh the Stone Statue Soldiers into shreds. The resurrection process would be fraught with difficulty and take a long time. In Saleen¡¯s group, other than the demon Lu, the rest of the people did not have intricate skills. Lu¡¯s weapon was the horse-killing sword.


    The horse-killing sword and Aiwa¡¯s meteor hammer were considered heavy weapons. They were definitely effective against human soldiers, but they would be pretty taxing on strength in the face of these Stone Statue Soldiers who could not feel pain.


    Sika would do fine because her weapon advantage was obvious. Nailisi only had the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger, it was almost impossible for her to crush a Stone Statue Soldier. If Su or J were around, their Qin Eight-sided Swords would be able to handle dozens of Stone Statue Soldiers simultaneously.


    Having a two-yard height and a green body, the Stone Statue Soldiers looked like cloud rocks.


    ¡°Help me hold the fort for five minutes, I will calcte the position of their leader.¡± After Saleen finished his sentence, he stopped attacking the Stone Statue Soldiers. He began calcting on the spot.


    The space was humongous, so it was likely that there were about one-thousand Stone Statue Soldiers. In order for the leader to control the offensive of the Stone Statue Soldiers, there had to be some form of pattern. By using their attacking speed, attacking angle, time between attacks, order of recovery, and many other factors; the rough position of the leader could be determined.


    Saleen would only calcte during battle because he possessed powerful calction abilities. In most circumstances, such events would only ur in arge scale battle. There had to be at least hundreds of mages calcting at the same time in order to identify the weakness of the enemy¡¯s formation.


    Sika stood the front. Swinging the cudgel in her hand, she smashed a Stone Statue Soldier with every attack. After destroying more than thirty Stone Statue Soldiers, Sika already noticed some patterns, so she could conserve her strength. The sharp thorn had long appeared at the end of her club, the bulky bodies of those Stone Statue Soldiers had no way of resisting it at all. Every attack Sikaunched would smash a Stone Statue Soldier into twenty-four pieces.


    This degree of attack could conserve the most strength. The Stone Statue Soldiers would require more than two seconds to be resurrected.


    Aiwa did not exert much strength either. Even though the Stone Statue Soldiers were annoying, he was not fearful at all. Wielding arge shield in his left hand, every attack he executed would send a Stone Statue Soldier flying apart. Even though the meteor hammer in his right hand was not moving too quickly, a Stone Statue Soldier would be smashed into two-hundred over pieces if it got struck.


    Incessant thunderous booms filled the air, as stone fragments spewed in all directions. Aiwa unleashed his might, fully utilizing the advantage of his strength.


    If Aiwa was here alone, it was a matter of time before he got killed by the Stone Statue Soldiers. The Stone Statue Soldiers could recover at lightning speed. Even if they were smashed into two-hundred pieces, they would recover in just a dozen seconds.


    On the subcontinent ne, a group of Stone Statue Soldiers had less than one-hundred members. There were almost a thousand of them right now though. Their leader must have evolved, that was why their recovery speed was so horrifying.


    Lu was struggling a little. Since his horse-killing sword was very long, it could seal an area when it was swung about. All Stone Statue Soldiers who got shed by the horse-killing sword would break into five pieces from the core, they were very equal.


    Upset, Nailisi took out a rarely used weapon from the bangle, a blood red machete. The blood color on this machete was dynamic, the blood was really dripping onto the ground. The machete contained the scent of massacre, even the Stone Statue Soldiers could feel it. Every Stone Statue Soldier who got struck by Nailisi¡¯s machete required more than five seconds to recover even if they only broke into two pieces.


    Even though Saleen regretted not keeping Su by his side, the people around him were ustomed to violence, so they could resist the frantic offensive by the Stone Statue Soldiers. Saleen concentrated on observation. After grasping the attack frequency of the Stone Statue Soldiers, he immediately deduced the timing of the second round of assault. In a minute, Saleen had already deciphered the sequence of attack of the Stone Statue Soldiers.


    A Stone Statue Soldier enjoyed high defense, but it could not move fast. Even Lu¡¯s horse-killing sword could handle dozens of them in one go. In less than five minutes, Saleen had calcted the position of the leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers.


    The leader was right in front, about twenty yards from Sika. The leader felt that he was cunning, so he did not hide at a faraway location. He never expected that there was a mage among the humans who could calcte his exact position.


    Saleen had discovered the rough position of the leader, but he could not identify which Stone Statue Soldier it was. Afraid that the information would be leaked because of the variety ofnguages spoken in the subcontinent ne, Saleen used the unfamiliar Caucasusnguage, telling Sika, ¡°Twenty yards ahead, six targets.¡±


    The Caucasus people were the oldest humans on the Myers maind, but they had never left this ne, so it was impossible for theirnguage to appear on other nes. Upon hearing Saleen say that, Sika understood his intention in that instant. Laughing boisterously, she called out, ¡°Nailisi, follow me.¡±


    Speaking, Sika leaped into the air, this leap of hers covered more than twenty yards. Nailisi followed Sika like a shadow, but she had actually burst out from a crowd of Stone Statue Soldiers. The two demons stood on either side of Saleen, protecting him. At this moment, Saleen released the Water Shield, causing three gigantic bubbles to appear. As the Stone Statue Soldiers wielded weapons like stone axes and stone pirs, they either bounced off or slid away when they hit the bubbles.


    Saleen had depleted quite a bit of mental strength in this round of calction. He was toozy to attack, so he only used a defensive spell to protect himself and the two demons while waiting for Sika to do her job.


    Nailisi¡¯s machete was as fast as lightning. A flurry of shes descended on the target area selected by Sika. The Stone Statue Soldiers had poorbat skills, so each sh could hit them. The moment the Stone Statue Soldiers were hit, it meant that there was a five-second safe duration.


    On the other hand, Sika used her cudgel to smash the enemy. Saleen did not tell her the exact target, but her hunch was much stronger than that of Saleen¡¯s. A warrior priest could identify the differences in the enemy. The leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers might look like his men, but his mental strength and degree of flexibility were hundreds of times mightier.


    These two people were cooperating for the first team, yet they were wless. Nailisi had exterminated the surrounding Stone Statue Soldiers, while Sika had killed the leader in one hit.


    A Stone Statue Soldier was a grade-4 creature, unfortunately, this grading was only reflected in their defensive power. If the Stone Statue Soldiers had faced any other opponent, they would have worn out their adversary.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel came crashing down, and the leader wanted to dodge that attack. At the same time, Sika¡¯s cudgel shone with a pale ck light, engulfing the leader. Thereafter, there was a ng.


    The leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers was utterly smashed. Sika bellowed loudly, and with a turn of her wrist, she rode on the momentum and crushed another five Stone Statue Soldiers in the vicinity.


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s done!¡±


    Seeing that the Stone Statue Soldiers were no longer resurrecting, Saleen said, ¡°Aiwa, protect me. You all split up.¡±


    Aiwa sniggered. The Water Shield on his body had disappeared. He gripped therge shield, and with a great leap, he went to defend Saleen. Sika and the rest charged into the midst of the Stone Statue Soldiers, carrying out thest of the killings.


    Saleen was astounded. This battle was extremely abrupt, it even seemed very straightforward. If his team did not have such aposition, a two-hundred man elite army would have been needed to take out these enemies.


    Spells below level-3 were useless against the Stone Statue Soldier, even Saleen could not be bothered to use magic to attack those monsters.


    Sika and the rest began clearing the remaining Stone Statue Soldiers furiously. Even without their leader, the remaining Stone Statue Soldiers were only extirpated after dozens of minutes.


    If must be noted that Sika, Nailisi, or Lu never needed a second hit to take out a Stone Statue Soldier.


    Saleen arrived at the position where the leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers had died, then he began collecting all the fragments. All the Stone Statue Soldiers here were considered to be half-spirits. After storing the fragments into the Green Spirit, Saleen could indeed feel that the fragments were slowly fusing with one another, there were signs of recovery.


    A Green Spirit rock could provide treatment for spirit-type beings. Saleen was secretly overjoyed, ¡°If all the creatures in Lorga City are like that, I can use the same method to subdue them all.¡±


    When a normal spirit got killed, it would actually return to the death dimension. For these half-spirits, they had nowhere to go, they would thus start to disperse gradually. ¡°I can finally be like a death mage, having thousands of soldiers and horses at my disposal.¡±


    As long as the leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers could be revived, the rest of the Stone Statue Soldiers would also be revived. As for how to control the leader, a mage would have many ideas. A Stone Statue Soldier did not have high intelligence, but their leader couldmunicate. A mage could even control illiterate magic beasts, not to mention these Stone Statue Soldiers who had their ownnguage.


    After destroying all the Stone Statue Soldiers, Sika and Nailisi were coping well, but the two demons were extremely fatigued. Nailisi had zero sympathy, she immediately instructed the two demons to start collecting the fragments of the Stone Statue Soldiers. The moment she saw Saleen using the Green Spirit to collect the leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers, she already had an inkling of Saleen¡¯s motive.


    ¡°Saleen, why are you collecting this?¡± Sika was puzzled, as the Stone Statue Soldiers were so weak in her hands. If they were used to protect Saleen, they would be useless in the face of an expert. An expert could leap over these Stone Statue Soldiers and make a beeline for Saleen.


    ¡°To defend the city of course, do you really want me to recruit soldiers and buy warhorses? At most, these Stone Statue Soldiers will feed on mineral g, they won¡¯t even consume any magic nuclei.¡±


    ¡°Master, how do we leave?¡± Nailisi felt that something was amiss. This space was about one mile long horizontally and vertically. Since the Stone Statue Soldiers had been exterminated, an exit should have appeared, but the space remained sealed, there were no signs of change at all.


    ¡°It will not be so simple, the Stone Statue Soldiers are just the beginning. The real trouble hasn¡¯t appeared yet.¡± As Saleen spoke, he blessed everyone with the Water Shield. This time around, the Water Shield pasted tightly on the surface of their bodies. Even though there was less impact absorption, it would not affect the attack movements.


    Before Saleen could finish his sentence, a shadow was slowly emerging from the ground at the center of the square.


    ¡°So you all are humans, not bad, are you guys believers?¡± This shadow, who was getting increasingly clearer, turned around, revealing his face as he stared at Saleen andpany.

 Chapter 526: A New Follower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 526: A New Follower (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This face filled Saleen¡¯s heart with disgust and dread. Even if he was a mage and was used to the sight of monsters, Saleen still found it difficult to ept a humanoid creature as ugly and disgusting as this.


    This creature might have the body shape of a human, but it had a rotten and deformed face. In the ce a nose were just two cavities with a few slits of crushed flesh that moved in rhythm with its breathing. As for its mouth, it was filled with bulging sharp teeth of a dark and grim color. One could see that the rotten flesh on the creature¡¯s face had the ability to heal only to start rotting again once it was fully healed. As a result, the flesh was constantly moving and wriggling.


    Compared to this monster, even a evil dragon or swamp zombie looked a hundred times better.


    Saleen groaned in his heart, ¡°Goddess of Myers, surely you aren¡¯t that full of love? This is clearly a pure-blooded creature of Purgatory, and still, you have chosen to protect it?¡±


    Not only Saleen, even the two demons felt disgusted upon seeing this creature. The demon dimension was full of ugly-looking creatures. The two of them were not too pretty themselves, but this monster was just simply¡­


    Cough ¡°Mister Mage, may I know if you are disciples of the Goddess?¡± What made Saleen most ufortable was the monster¡¯s eyes, which were clear and pure, a stark contrast with the rest of his face.


    Since the creature was polite and well-mannered, Saleen could not use violence immediately. The Goddess¡¯ Lorga City was not meant to be a battlefield, and many of the Guardians could be persuaded and convinced. That made any fighting unnecessary.


    ¡°We are not disciples of any Gods.¡± Even as Saleen was finishing his sentence, he purposely produced a spark of godly power from his left hand.


    ¡°You do have the Goddess¡¯ blessings though. So, Mister Mage, do you wish to defeat and subdue me? Or do you want me to let you pass?¡± The monster asked a strange question with a sigh.


    ¡°What is the difference?¡± Saleen was patient while cautiously keeping his distance.


    ¡°Defeat me and I can follow you, like a stone statue soldier. If I let you go, you can head straight to the heart of the city, which is the Temple of Grace.¡±


    ¡°There is a temple here too?¡± Saleen was shocked and confused. Although Lorga City was abyrinth built by the Goddess, he had never heard that there would be any temples, since no High Priests had been sent there.


    ¡°We built it ourselves, even the Goddess is unaware.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen was now hesitating, the monster said, ¡°Mister Mage, I will not kill you. I have intelligence, which makes me different from the stone statue soldiers. What good does it do me if I were to kill you?¡±


    Saleen could sense that the creature was trying to lure him into battle. He became even more cautious and asked, ¡°How may I address you?¡±


    ¡°Ismail Augusto. I am from the purgatory dimension and I like to collect items. Mister Mage, I have collected a number of decent items.¡± This creature who called himself Ismail spoke politely and in a fast but clear pace. If you closed your eyes, you might have mistaken him to be a well-mannered schr.


    Saleen felt like vomiting upon hearing what he said. A dweller from the purgatory dimension? Collecting items for a hobby? Surely, he must be the one creating the Abominations and Evil Knights? ording to the Handbook of Monsters on the Myers Maind, dwellers from the purgatory dimension were notorious. Many experienced mages had also warned in their magic notes against trying to summon such a creature.


    Saleen thought, ¡°If I let you follow me, no one else would dare to follow me anymore.¡± Purgatory dwellers could flesh and soul into pieces before meshing them together again, creating new life.


    ¡°And if I choose to leave?¡±


    Ismail smiled, a piece of rotten flesh almost falling off his face, and said light-heartedly, ¡°The Goddess might not like the idea of me killing you, so you can leave someone else behind instead. After all, I have been hungry for many years.¡±


    While he stated his request nonchntly, on the other side, the two demons were overwhelmed with fear. Saleen could neither leave behind Sika nor Nailisi. If the condition was to leave someone behind, then he would surely pick one out of the two demons.


    They would they not resist, they would have escaped long ago if they could.


    ¡°I will not leave anyone behind,¡± Saleen¡¯s hands produced a bubble that floated to the front and said, ¡°Unless you can burst this bubble.¡±


    The bubbles that Saleen possessed in the beginning had all been used up. This was a water shield that he had just created and given life to.


    Ismail looked at the bubble that was half transparent andughed before saying, ¡°Mister Mage, as a loyal disciple of the Goddess, I cannot defeat the godly power that she has left behind.¡±


    The two demons were originally gripped with fear, but finally felt more at ease upon hearing the conversation between Saleen and Ismail. Saleen was not that bad a master after all and was not as depraved as the other people from Myers.


    ¡°Then let us pass.¡±


    No matter how powerful this purgatory dweller was, Saleen did not wish to keep him by his side. He might not be able to totally control this creature. Creatures from the purgatory dimension belong to a master the moment they were born. Once the master came calling, Saleen would lose all his control as the new master. Even if Ismail¡¯s master from the purgatory dimension did note along, Saleen did not dare to take this risk.


    This purgatory dweller was of a much higher grade than him and could not be controlled easily. He might be unable to suppress his urges and decide to kill everyone around Saleen, just so he could piece them back together again as part of his grotesque creations. It would be toote for regrets by then. This creature was definitely much more dangerous than the demons.


    The purgatory dweller did not collect materials nor tools, but sought after differentponents from all sorts of creatures. His keen interest in new and freshponents was a stark contrast to his entire body that was only made up of stale and rotten flesh.


    ¡°Mister Mage, I am a disciple of the Goddess. Even if you do not trust me, surely you should have trust in the Goddess?¡± Ismail lectured.


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°The Holy See is filled with a bunch of bastards, and every single one of them might have been ten-thousand times worse than the Lord of Glory.¡± but he quickly stopped himself. He was a mage and he should still maintain a certain level of respect towards the Goddess of Myers.


    ¡°Besides, even if you pass through me, there are still others that you have to pass through. Without my help, there is no way you can reach the Temple of Grace,¡± Ismail revealed.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that they can just let us through?¡±


    ¡°If you leave someone behind for me, I will be happy to send you through. If you intend to pass through without leaving anyone behind for me, I cannot possibly disobey the wishes of the Goddess and allow you to reach the Temple so easily.¡±


    Saleen groaned in his heart. If this was indeed the case, then he was left with no choice but to ept him.


    Nailisi whispered in Saleen¡¯s ear. He nodded and said, ¡°Ok, I can ept you as my follower, but you have to sign a contract with me.¡±


    Ismailughed uproariously as the holes in his face squirted out some green and sticky liquid. Upon contact with the ground, the liquid slowly crystallized and became little gemstones.


    ¡°Hand me the contract!¡±


    ¡°Wait.¡±


    Saleen took out an empty scroll. This was a scroll of excellent quality that was given to him by Aini¡¯s parents. He had nned to use it to create a scroll of forbidden curse in the future, but now it seemed that he would need to use this scroll on Ismail. Saleen¡¯s gut feeling told him that using a scroll of normal quality for the contract would not be able to ensure Ismail¡¯s allegiance and loyalty.


    Due to the discrepancy in their grades, Saleen would not be able to control the purgatory dweller easily. Naturally the contract would contain a trap. Once the trap was triggered, the purgatory dweller would inevitably end up like the Three Kings to bepletely reduced to the status of a ve.


    Saleen quickly finished the contract and included his spiritual imprint on the scroll, before throwing it to Ismail. Without even taking a nce at the contract, a string of Holy Prose flew out from his eyes and entered the scroll, turning it into ashes instantaneously. He thought that there was no way a weak mage like Saleen could have any tricks up his sleeves.


    The two demons were unsure of what was going on, but since Nailisi was the one who came up with the idea, they would not have dared to oppose it anyway. Sika knew how Saleen managed to trick the three Kings of Death and felt more assured. Once the contract had been signed, Saleen said, ¡°Your current image is not suitable to be my follower. Some changes need to be made.¡±


    Ismail wriggled his mouth apologetically and said, ¡°Please go ahead.¡±


    Nailisi gleefully stepped forward and cast the Ultimate Transformation spell on Ismail. This time around, she did not dare to y a fool, since Ismail was much stronger than her and Saleen did not have full control over him yet. She transformed Ismail into a male human body that was muscr and fit and was about two yards tall.


    Ismail was already wearing a ck robe originally, so now with this new body, he looked like a judge that worked for the Holy See.


    With the intention of lowering Ismail¡¯s guard towards him, Saleen asked him directly, ¡°You said you have collected many items? Show me.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master Saleen.¡± Ismail reached into his sleeves and took out two items. Saleen¡¯s eyes widened. One of the items was a piece of armor that he had seen before in the Handbook. It could be tied to the forearm, and was made from the rare Chaos crystal. Although the Chaos crystal could not enhance one¡¯s magic powers, it was stronger than any other metal, making it a very useful armor.


    The two Chaos crystals had been sculpted into the shape of leaves, marking this armor as the ones typically used by the temple troops of the Goddess of Nature. This armor could be given to J. He was highly-skilled and would be more than capable of wielding this armor that would not be too heavy for him. It could rece his old armor. In fact, if J was a disciple of the Goddess, he would have an even better chance of maximizing its potential.


    What caught Saleen¡¯s attention, however, was not the armor. When he saw the second item, his heart filled with glee.


    It was a cbash that was green and yellow in color, no bigger than a palm in size, and had not undergone any modifications. Saleen recognized straightaway that this was a Shenhe. His own Shenhe had already been used previously to refine the water element. Now that he had another cbash, he would have the chance to refine the water puppet while he was still in grade-7.


    ¡°I know master will feel ufortable towards my other collections, so I shan¡¯t bring them out. These two items were gifts to me from the Goddess, I hope you will ept them,¡± Ismail said politely.


    Saleen took the Chaos armguard and Shenhe, and nodded.


    ¡°Surely you must know what type of creature we will be facing next?¡±


    Ismail said, ¡°Master, it is a grade-7 Flying Dragon. It is big in size so it can serve you as a coolie, if you wish.¡±


    Saleen could hear the arrogance in his voice. Although the Flying Dragon was a Wurm, a grade-7 Flying Dragon was still capable of killing a grade-8 beast. He asked, ¡°So what is your grade then?¡±


    ¡°When I am at full strength, I am grade-9. Now, I am probably at the level of a grade-8,¡± Ismail answered seriously.


    ¡°In that case, I shall count on you to settle the Flying Dragon,¡± Saleen said with a smile.


    ¡°That goes without saying. Since you are now the master and I am your follower, of course I must settle such problems for my master.¡± With that, Ismail turned and crossed into a wave of ripples. Saleen did not even realize the appearance of this formless barrier until now.

 Chapter 527: A New Follower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 527: A New Follower (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Aiwa!¡± Nailisi called. Aiwa held up the shield helplessly and followed Ismail into another dimension. He walked in front and was closely followed by Lu, then Nailisi and finally Sika and Saleen.


    Even though the two demons paved the way ahead, Saleen maintained his water shield. This was an all-rounded andprehensive shield that was much more powerful than a normal mage¡¯s. At the end of the day, he still did not trust Ismail. A grade-9 creature signing a contract without even bothering to take a look at it, how could Saleen be at ease?


    Switching dimensions was supposed to be an extremely difficult thing to do. After the Goddess built Lorga many years ago every magic array was seamlessly tied to the city and supported by it. Such a grand feat had not been seen in the past thousands of years since.


    Even Holy Rock City, which contained a powerful magic clock that couldbine all the magic powers within the city into one was nothingpared to Lorga City. Saleen had just entered the new dimension when he saw Ismail chatting andughing with a flying dragon in anguage that he did not recognize.


    Upon Saleen¡¯s arrival, the flying dragon switched to themon humannguage and said, ¡°Master Saleen, please ept me as your follower.¡±


    The flying dragon¡¯s tone was respectfulpared to Ismail¡¯s. After all, he was a grade-7 wurm that still held a tinge of fear towards humans. What was more, his life was almost at its end and his soul would have been destroyed if not for the Goddess¡¯ Divine spell. If he did not sign a contract with a human to be a follower, the day that Lorga was destroyed would be hisst living day.


    Saleen felt troubled. In the past, he encountered so many difficulties trying to recruit followers. Now, all sorts of powerful creatures yearned to follow him but he had no idea what their true intentions were.


    ¡°Oh well, they are all half-dead and are the enemies of the Holy See anyway. I might as well take them in. When the Holy See starts finding trouble with me, they will have no choice but to fight too.¡± Now that he already had a purgatory dweller, Saleen did not mind having a four-, no, a six-legged flying dragon. ¡°Six legs, that¡¯s how impure its blood is.¡±


    Saleen took out an empty scroll. This time, it was just a middle-grade scroll. It was much simpler dealing with a flying dragonpared to a purgatory dweller. Once the contract had been written, Saleen passed it to Nailisi, who then flew to the flying dragon. The flying dragon naturally bent down its two-yard long head and spit out a ball of bloody mist that sank into the scroll.


    Saleen made sure that the scroll had burned and turned into ashes before asking Ismail, ¡°How many more checkpoints are there and how many more of yourpanions?¡±


    Ismail smiled. He knew he could not hide for long anyway, so he said, ¡°All the creatures in this city cannot wait to follow you. Unfortunately, you cannot keep them all. You are only a grade-5 mage, how many contracts can you sign?¡±


    Ismail heard Saleen snorting but he did not mind, and instead continued, ¡°Once someone with godly items arrives at Lorga, the city will not be able to withstand it and will fall, destroying all of us along with it. I suggest for the subsequent checkpoints, you might as well turn them into creatures that you can summon instead of bing your followers.¡±


    ¡°How did you know?!¡±


    ¡°Of course it was the Goddess who told me. The girl, that came here at the same time as you is almost about to reach the Temple of Grace. Without her godly item, she would have died long ago.¡±


    ¡°I thought the Goddess forbade you from killing humans?¡±


    ¡°The Goddess would not have allowed you to simply pass through either,¡± Ismail said nonchntly. Saleen lost his smile. The Goddess had fallen and now this creature no longer had any entity to ce his faith in. Indeed, it would be unrealistic to still expect him to follow the Goddess¡¯ rules still.


    With that, Ismail climbed onto the six-legged flying dragon and gave it a pat. The flying dragon gave Saleen a mysterious smile before bringing Ismail into another dimension.


    Saleen¡¯s facial expression changed, but still managed to suppress his anger and regret. Until Ismail gave Saleen his word, there was still a chance that he might start killing. A creature of such a high grade would never allow others to summon it unless the summoner was stronger than him. Saleen was only a grade-5 mage now that did not even dare to attack him with Crystal Finger. Without a certain level of abilities, it was better to resign to his fate.


    In any case, he did manage to capture the stone statue soldiers, so that was better than nothing.


    ¡°Go.¡± Saleen summoned Sika and Nailisi before arriving at the next dimension behind Ismail.


    Nailisi and Sika were both frustrated as well. They had been thinking long and hard about it, but had yet to discover Ismail¡¯s weakness. Who knew if this purgatory dweller was a mage type or warrior type? From his body, not only could they detect elemental vibrations, but also power from the gods. His fighting skills seemedparable to Sika¡¯s too.


    This was simply a monstrous creation by the Goddess. Whoever heard of purgatory creatures possessing godly powers?


    ¡°Wait until you meet the psychic from the Holy See. That¡¯s when you shall suffer,¡± Nailisi thought cruelly.


    In the next dimension, sixty Knights of Darkness were already standing in an orderly fashion. These Knights of Darkness were made of metal from top to bottom, and even their eyes were sealed by crystal. The warhorses that they rode were covered in scales with a single ck horn protruding from their heads.


    The number of contracts that a mage could sign was dependent on the amount of mental strength he possessed. Regardless of how much mental strength Saleen had, it was impossible to capture all the creatures of Lorga City. As for the sixty Knights of Darkness, Saleen was reasonably satisfied. They were grade-6 creatures with Dark attributes. If they were at full strength, they could be used as grade-7 warriors.


    Saleen secretly peeked at the number of green spirits in his demonic ring. He knew that if he were to give up the skeletal warhorse that he had been keeping as backup, he would be able to capture another two-hundred creatures. That was a number that his mental strength could still keep up with.


    To his surprise, all sixty Knights of Darkness did not even wait for the contracts to be signed before climbing down from their warhorses to kneel before Saleen, acknowledging him as their master.


    A Knight of Darkness¡¯ abilities were actually not anything to be sniffed at. Within the dimensions that they dwelt in, there were just too many strongerpetitors, hence reducing them to mere soldiers. Ismail had already contacted them prior, with the intention of saving their souls. In fact, within the next few thousands of dimensions, there would be millions of creatures that would want to follow Saleen.


    Chancing upon such a rare opportunity, the Knights of Darkness were not going to let it pass.


    Saleen¡¯s expression was stoic as he took out his scrolls and began to write the contracts. He was extremely familiar with this procedure by now and was doing so with calmness andposure.


    Ismail was in a hurry to get to the Temple of Grace. Ismail quietly waited for Saleen to settle the contracts before climbing onto the flying dragon to head to the next dimension to look for thepanions that he had gathered.


    Thesepanions were once his subordinates. He did not have the heart to abandon them, so the next best solution was for Saleen to capture them. That way they could at least still keep their souls. Purgatory dwellers were supposed to be heartless, but it seems that after spending long periods of time with the Goddess of Myers, he seemed to have developed some kindness after all.


    Just based on this point alone, it seemed that the Goddess¡¯ rehabilitative efforts were still somewhat sessful. Even a creature from the purgatory was willing to convert to be her disciple.


    Saleen did not want the Knights of Darkness to be following him everywhere, so he captured them as green spirits directly. Nailisi watched on with jealousy. She was not jealous of Saleen, but rather of the fact that these Knights of Darkness were eventually going to join the ranks of the Skeleton army at the end of the day. Inparison, she had only two demons by her side and could not help but wonder when she would ever lead her own army.


    In contrast, Sika did not care to lead her own army. She knew that once shepleted refining the bones of the monster, her power would increase by leaps and bounds and there would be no need to fear Ismail anymore by then.


    After passing through several more dimensions and capturing more than a hundred different types of creatures, Ismail led Saleen back onto the road just as the sky suddenly turned gray and foggy.


    By now, Saleen felt calmer and more at ease. Aside from Ismail, the creatures here were not that powerful. They had received protection from the Goddess of Myers because they had been abandoned by humans in the first ce.


    ¡°Master, the Temple of Grace is just ahead.¡± Ismail stood on top of the flying dragon and pointed forward.


    The streets were wide, and at the very end sat a huge and spacious-looking temple. In front of the temple were twenty-four enormous pirs with a very small open space for a za. The magnitude of the Temple of Grace was small,pared to the other Goddess temples that Saleen had seen in the past. Most temples consisted of a cluster of buildings, but this was only made up of one main building.


    At the za, Lex waited with herpanions.


    aleen stole a nce at his mechanical watch and realized that nearly a day had passed. Why did they not feel hungry at all in Lorga City?


    Upon seeing Saleen, both J and Su breathed a sigh of relief and walked towards him.


    Saleen immediately told Ismail. ¡°These two are my followers and the one in front is a mage like me. You will not hurt them.¡±


    ¡°Master, I am not insane,¡± Ismail replied with a smile. He thought to himself, ¡°My powers have not fully recovered enough such that I can deal with these two swordsmen. As for the woman, she possesses a deadly godly item. I better not seek death.¡±


    To lose one¡¯s life over the hobby of collecting items, now that was stupidity.


    Eleanor hesitated before walking over. There was a horrible smell on Saleen¡¯s body. As an elf, she had no love for purgatory creatures. If not for the Ultimate Transformation that disguised Ismail¡¯s original appearance, she would rather leave than stay by Saleen¡¯s side.


    The six-legged flying dragons came with a positive reputation. Seeing Ismail standing on top of a six-legged flying dragon made her doubt her initial judgment, which she kept to herself.


    ¡°Lex, this is Ismail¡±. Saleen observed that there were no new creatures in Lex¡¯s team. He did not know if the new creatures had been captured and kept in the god¡¯s ring or she just simply did not capture any new creatures.


    After a single nce at Ismail, Lex nodded and said, ¡°Let¡¯s enter the temple.¡±


    Ismail knew he was no match for this woman who possessed the godly item, so he turned away coldly without acknowledging Lex¡¯s presence. He told Saleen, ¡°Master, I will stand guard outside.¡±


    ¡°Alright, the rest of you will follow me.¡± Saleen could not help but worry about Ismail and thought to himself, ¡°Even if you do not trigger the trap set in the contract, I will let Joey deal with you when we head to Holy Rock City.¡±


    Ismail did not know how many more times Lex could still use her godly item, so he did not wish to enter the temple with her. He only wanted to be as far away from her as possible. His life was already at its end, but he was still left with his soul and physical body with the protection by the Goddess. If he was attacked by Lex¡¯s godly item, he would bepletely destroyed.


    Sika tugged at Eleanor and followed Saleen into the Temple of Grace. Eleanor knew how to read the Holy Prose, so her help would be needed in the search for the Divine Crystal.

 Chapter 528: Destruction of Lorga (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 528: Destruction of Lorga (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    If the differences between the Goddess of Nature and the Lord of Glory were to be made known. Theologians would not even be able to state all of them in a year. To secr people, there was only one difference which stood out the most.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s church was constructed using donations from the believers, while the Goddess of Nature¡¯s temple was developed using the goddess¡¯ own resources.


    The Temple of Grace up ahead was not even sufficiently huge for a temple, it was only a twenty-fourth of a normal temple. This represented the essence of the believers in Lorga City, and all the materials were mostly from other nes.


    The ck temple with crystal windows was not constrained at all. Rays of mild light descended into the temple, nicely engulfing the goddess¡¯ statue. The goddess did not like humans crafting statues of her, so all of the goddess¡¯ temples had recorded her centuries of grace in the form of murals.


    These creatures from foreign nes had built a statue of the goddess based on their own thoughts. The face of this statue was covered by ayer of yarn-like fog which never dispersed.


    At this point in time, Saleen already knew that these creatures from the foreign nes had never seen the face of the goddess before. Nailisi¡¯s appearance would have aroused a lot of suspicion otherwise.


    Saleen and Lex executed a mage¡¯s bow in front of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ statue. Saleen was not very anxious in looking for the Divine Crystal, instead, he began observing the architecture of the temple.


    The material of the temple contained countless precious items, but Saleen did not want to demolish the temple. He only wanted to obtain the things which could not be found on this ne. Of course, the Divine Crystal remained the most important object. Other than a statue, this huge hall had an altar, and an emerald-green branch was ce atop the altar. This tree branch was extremely thick, having a diameter of almost half a yard. As Saleen used his perception to scan it, he felt astounded.


    ¡°Could this be thundercloud wood? Such a thick and huge tree branch, but it is only a tiny bud at the end of some kind of nt.¡±


    Eleanor noticed this almost ten yards long tree branch upying the entire altar then felt agitated. Then, she told Saleen, ¡°This is from the Tree of Eternity.¡±


    The Tree of Eternity was a nt exclusive to the elf ne. It was not as renowned as the Tree of Life, but it was much more useful than the Tree of Life as equipment material.


    The best bows in the elf ne were made from the Tree of Eternity. It seemed that there used to be elves in Lorga City who worshipped the Goddess of Myers.


    Everyone waited in silence for Saleen and Lex to take action. Even though it was the era where humans were not fearful of the gods, the Goddess of Myers was still a presence people revered. It did not seem appropriate to be stealing the offering for the goddess in her own temple.


    Saleen sighed, then told Lex, ¡°Let¡¯s do it. They didn¡¯t follow me inside because they knew what we were going to do, but they cannot stop us.¡±


    Saleen was partially correct. Ismail did not want to follow Saleen inside because he could not tolerate seeing the humans destroy the temple in front of him. He was not confident of dealing with Lex.


    That being said, Lex¡¯s actions held special significance for him. The modern day Lorga had be a cage for all the creatures here. The creatures¡¯ souls were still around, but their physical bodies had died. They were notpletely exterminated because of the goddess¡¯ power. A half-spirit¡¯s ability was actually widely different from that of a spirit.


    By leaving Lorga, Ismail would be able to regain his powers gradually, he might even get back his life.


    Even though the goddess had fallen, some nature Divine spells were still present. These Divine spells, including the Gift of Life, did not need the goddess to bestow anything to bepleted.


    Many creatures simr to Ismail also yearned to leave Lorga. This was the real reason why Lex and the rest of the people could arrive at the Temple of Grace.


    ¡°We must have hearts of reverence,¡± Lex mumbled.


    Saleen walked up to the altar, storing the gigantic tree branch into the Dimension Stone. He knew that he had to be in awe, but what had to be done must be done. It was just like how humans challenged the gods in the past and carried out expeditions into the various nes. Saleen never believed that this event urred due to the desire for power, it was more likely out of desperation.


    The humans who already enjoyed extreme freedom had no need to conquer the gods. The Goddess of Myers also never shackled them, so why would they do such a thankless thing?


    Lex did not vie for the Tree of Eternity¡¯s branch with Saleen, she only followed Saleen to the altar. Under the tree branch, there was an enormous rack, and Lex loved the materials on it, so she put them away in the God¡¯s Ring.


    The mages did not move, only Lex and Saleen were taking action.


    Saleen released the water flow from the cbash and segmented the materials which he thought were valuable. He did not want to touch the statue of the goddess. The temple had no pirs, and everything wasid out in the open except for the Divine Crystal.


    Logically, the Divine Crystal should be on the altar, but the tree branch from the Tree of Eternity was on it. The goddess loved such natural objects. The Divine Crystal was not hidden under the branch, so Saleen could only tear the temple apart bit by bit until the Divine Crystal was found.


    Saleen acted cautiously because he did not want the temple to copse. After about four hours, Saleen had removed all the materials which could be removed from the temple, then he shared them with Lex. The Divine Crystal still had not been found.


    ¡°Eleanor, tell me, where will the Divine Crystal be?¡± Saleen had no choice but to ask this elf who was well versed in holy prose.


    ¡°It has the highest possibility of being inside the statue.¡±


    ¡°Statue?¡± Saleen¡¯s perception immediately infiltrated the statue. Suddenly, he discovered that the Divine Crystal was in the head of the goddess¡¯ statue. A portion of the Divine Crystal was exposed, which was at the goddess¡¯ eyes.


    The statue of the goddess was about eight yards tall while the head was less than a yard long, it had the perfect ratio. It was unknown what material the statue was made from. The Divine Crystal in the head had been umted naturally after a very long time. As the goddess had fallen, the Divine Crystal had lost its prestige, so Saleen could determine its size.


    In the head of the statue, the irregrly shaped Divine Crystal had a diameter of more than half a yard. This Divine Crystal was notplete, it was formed by hundreds of crystals connected together. The part of the Divine Crystal at the eyes had an emerald-green hue, just like Nailisi¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°To take or not to take?¡± Saleen was still hesitant. ¡°Should I have a heart of reverence or not?¡±


    ¡°Master, the goddess¡¯ own temple never had a statue.¡± Nailisi suddenly opened her mouth.


    Saleen had a moment of epiphany. This statue had been established by the believers of the goddess from the other nes, the goddess herself had never descended on this ce. Since the goddess never allowed her believers to carve statues, then Saleen was not being disrespectful by tearing this statue down.


    ¡°Nailisi,e over.¡± Saleen controlled the water flow, immediately encircling it around the statue¡¯s legs. He was going to remove the statue from its base.


    Lex hesitated. Saleen smiled at her, then said, ¡°Let¡¯s hurry up and leave this ce, we will divide it when we get back.¡± As his mental strength had been slightly depleted and the statue had a huge surface area, Saleen asked Nailisi to collect the Divine Crystal. The aptitude of one¡¯s mental strength would determine how many items one could store in the Dimension Stone.


    ¡°Should the statue be left with Lex?¡± It was not that Saleen did not trust Lex, but he had noticed the look of greed on the faces of Lex¡¯s mages.


    Mages were not guaranteed to be nobel. This piece of gigantic Divine Crystal was much more valuable than a high level magic nucleus of the same surface area. Any mage would be afraid of depleting their mental strength. Without mental strength, one could not cast any spell no matter how many magic chords they had. With mental strength, one could still force out level-1 magic even if they had consumed all their magic chords. To a mage, the value of this Divine Crystal could not even be measured in terms of gold coins.


    The water flow finally managed to remove the statue about an hourter, Nailisi then swiftly stored the statue in the Dimension Stone. Those mages stared at Nailisi helplessly. Since Lex did not raise any objection, they could not say anything either. Luckily, Saleen had been cooperating happily with Lex before this. This young mage never did anything which reneged on his promises.


    Ka¡­


    Out of the blue, a tiny crack appeared in the ground. Even though the ground here was not paved with steel rocks, colored granite rocks were used. They had been fused into one with a Divine spell. Even if low level magic bombarded it haphazardly, it also would not crack.


    ¡°Let¡¯s hurry¡­¡± Before Saleen could finish his sentence, the temple shook, causing the rocks on the ceiling to fall abruptly. Saleen swiftly blessed everyone around him with the Water Shield. Lex¡¯s mages also cast magic, charging outside the temple.


    Ismail waited patiently in the small square. When he noticed the temple crumbling, a hint of grief appeared in his eyes. Purgatory creatures should not have emotions, but when Ismail saw the Temple of Grace copsing, a single tear flowed down involuntarily.


    As the tear fell from the corner of his eye, Ismail caught it with his hand, then he took out a bottle carved from a gemstone and stored the tear in it. He might be the first purgatory creature who ever cried, this tear was one-of-a-kind in this world. Ismail could use this tear droplet to exchange for whatever he wanted from Saleen in the future.


    Saleen and the rest made a beeline for the square. The temple behind had already crumbled, sending dust flying into the air. Saleen looked at the ruins regretfully. If he knew earlier that the temple would copse after removing the statue, he would have emptied the temple first. Saleen took out a piece of material from the Dimension Stone cautiously. Seeing that it did not transform into powder like the rest of the materials in the temple, he felt much more relieved.


    ¡°Lex, we¡­¡± Before Saleen could finish speaking, the buildings surrounding the temple ruins began crumbling, the copse spread outwards in the shape of a ring. Incessant thunderous booms filled the ears, even the sky gave off the sounds of breaking ss.


    ¡°Sir Saleen, Lorga City was destined for destruction the moment all of you arrived,¡± Ismail said nonchntly on the sidelines. At this point in time, not even a hint of sadness was detected in him.


    Lorga City was a maze which had been built out of space. Following the copse of the buildings, countless spaces gave out crisp bursting sounds as they shattered, as though they were bubbles. Those creatures which could not escape from the bubbles in time were utterly obliterated.


    Saleen was greatly astonished, ¡°This Ismail is so evil. In order to leave Lorga, he doesn¡¯t mind sacrificing so many lives.¡±


    As though he knew what Saleen was thinking about, Ismail said, ¡°Sir, you have freed them. Without a religion as a goal, it will be painful even if the soul is eternal.¡±


    Gradually, Saleen straightened his thoughts. Other than relying on the Divine spell cast by the goddess, those souls, whose bodies were dead, could carry on living because of the crystals produced by their faith. Since the crystals had been taken away by Saleen, those creatures would definitely be destroyed unless they had signed a contract.


    If given time, it was not impossible for the statue to have be a true god.


    It was thus likely a lie when the Lord of Glory said that he could grant humans eternal life in heaven. Did the gods gift eternal life to humans, or did humans gift it to the gods?

 Chapter 529: Destruction of Lorga (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 529: Destruction of Lorga (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had an immense amount of knowledge, but he was not considered an erudite person. He had focused all his efforts into the study of magic. For all knowledge outside of magic andbat, he had used the Memory spell to store it in his brain. He did not spend much time reviewing this knowledge.


    Recently, while learning holy prose from Eleanor, Saleen had concentrated on understanding the moreplicated parts of theology.


    It was precisely because of this understanding that caused him to have the misconception that he was disrupting the resurrection of the goddess.


    ¡°No, the goddess wasn¡¯t a god who required huge amounts of faith. Even if this statue became a true god, it wouldn¡¯t be her either.¡± Saleen was a little dazed as the surrounding environment was continuously being altered, the ruins were expanding. A great distance away, a furious roar filled the air, and this sound was clearly transmitted to everyone¡¯s ears.


    A Supreme demon!


    The Lorga Maze contained numerous spaces, and the creatures in the spaces managed to hold on to their dying breaths because of the presence of the statue. The grade-10 supreme demon was not part of this group.


    A supreme demon¡¯s life was extremely protracted. In Lorga City, he did not need to fight, and he also had not face the risk of dying young. Under the effect of the goddess¡¯ Divine spell, even a human with no grade could enjoy the longevity of a sorcerer. Obviously, this supreme demon was not at the end of his life, he also did not need any protection from the statue.


    The roars were drawing closer and closer, it was obviously directed at Saleen andpany. Even though Saleen did not understand the demonguage, he could feel the extent of fury the supreme demon was experiencing.


    He had destroyed Lorga City, so this supreme demon must be desperate already. If other people were in this situation, they might not have such thoughts. In the past, Saleen had obtained a book of notes penned by a supreme demon, so he understood the emotions of demon-type creatures.


    Unlike purgatory creatures, a demon¡¯s emotions were as rich as those of human. The equipment currently worn by Saleen was left behind by a supreme demon. This supreme demon had been wandering on the ne of the Myers maind for a very long time in hopes of tracking down the traces left behind by his master.


    ¡°It is very likely that the supreme demon guarding Lorga City has a higher degree of attachment to the Goddess of Myerspared to that supreme demon who was deeply attached to humans.¡± Saleen felt his scalp tingle when he thought of that.


    It was impossible to stage a sneak assault at this point in time. At this moment, it was no longer a test, this outraged supreme demon would kill everyone. Should Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring really be used in advance? If it was used, then everyone would have no protection in the event that they met with trouble in the main temple.


    ¡°Saleen, give me a segment of the Tree of Eternity¡¯s branch.¡± Eleanor suddenly opened her mouth. Without any hesitation, Saleen took out that tree branch from the Dimension Stone, using the water mes to cut out a piece of wood as long as his arm.


    The material of this Tree of Eternity¡¯s branch was much tougher than metal, yet it was extremely lightweight. Eleanor held it in her hand, using her nails to cut her finger, then she began writing the elfnguage on the wood with her blood.


    Scarlet words seeped into the wood. Judging by Eleanor¡¯s writing speed, Saleen felt that she would die from excessive bleeding. The voice of the supreme demon was drawing closer. If the peripheral space waspletely broken, the supreme demon could make his way there in less than three seconds given his powers.


    Even though Ismail was bewildered as to why Lex did not use her godly equipment to kill the supreme demon, he did not say anything. He decided to observe the capabilities of Saleen¡¯s subordinates first, so that he could have a sense of how to handle matters in the future. ¡°If they are very weak, I will kill them off one by one, and those stitched monsters and evil knights that I have collected can help Saleen in battles.¡±


    As a purgatory walker, Ismail was not very sure of his judgment, ¡°The people around Saleen could hardly be deciphered. Especially that woman called Nailisi, she could actually cast a shapeshifting skill on me against my will.¡± Ismail did not even want his current appearance, it was forced upon him by Nailisi.


    In just a span of a dozen seconds, Eleanor had finished writing. She passed the wood to Saleen, then said, ¡°Make it into the shape of a feather arrow.¡±


    The water me on Saleen¡¯s palm only brushed over the wood gently, and the wood had been processed into the shape of a feather arrow, just that its tail was an emerald-green leaf.


    This piece of alchemical weapon was extremely crude. In the instant when it took shape, Saleen could feel the power of life growing out of this wooden arrow, it was like a living thing, with natural cycles taking ce in it.


    Eleanor nced at Nailisi coldly, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t you want to learn archery? What you have seen today is called Life Archery, remembered it.¡±


    When Eleanor was writing the elfnguage, Nailisi never took her eyes off it even once. She had remembered everything. When Eleanor posed that question, she simply nodded in response. Eleanor continued, ¡°Due to time constraints, I only used ten years of my life in this arrow, it can definitely stop that supreme demon for an instant. Saleen, are you confident of killing him?¡±


    Saleen nodded his head, feeling pained. Even though Eleanor was an elf who had a long life, it still made Saleen extremely sad that such a skill had immediately depleted ten years of her lifespan.


    ¡°An expert might have the ability to ovee the Arrow of Space, but the Life Arrow¡­¡± Eleanor looked pensive. She picked up the short bow, loading the newly crafted Life Arrow, then hollered, ¡°Go!¡±


    The green arrow flew out, trailed by its own blurry shadow. In front of the Life Arrow, the shadow of the supreme demon had emerged less than one-hundred yards away. This supreme demon was about three yards in height, but his silver scaled armor was draped over his body just like how humans wore armor. Only demons above grade-9 could fade their inborn keratin naturally to create the mightiest demonic armor ever. The weapon in the supreme demon¡¯s hand was a colossal meteor hammer. Rushing out with his shadow, his roars exploded into powerful soundwaves.


    When the Life Arrow appeared in front of him, the supreme demon extended his hand to catch it. With a thud, the Life Arrow prated his arm.


    The supreme demon was waving the meteor hammer about, he never expected himself to be injured by an arrow. The supreme demon became paralyzed in that position in that instant. The meteor hammer in his hand had already locked onto Saleen, and was flying over.


    The meteor hammer had a diameter of about half a yard, the thorns atop were made from a type of translucent crystalline material. Connected behind the hammerhead was a shadow. The end of the hammer was still in the supreme demon¡¯s hand, and the head of the hammer was assaulting Saleen across a distance of one-hundred yards. Saleen could barely move his limbs. He felt that the thing flying towards him was not a meteor hammer, but a mountain.


    ¡°If this meteor hammer hits me, I will definitely wind up like I just got crushed by a mountain.¡±


    After experiencing so many life and death situations, Saleen finally disyed an extraordinary side of himself. Under the condition of being locked on by the supreme demon¡¯s mental strength, Saleen still managed to take out his n badge. A blue electric current shed in his hand, as the power within the badge had been stimted.


    The only person not oppressed by the supreme demon¡¯s mental pressure was Sika. Even Bain was startled. Sika had already wielded her cudgel, sweeping it towards the meteor hammer.


    Boom! Boom!


    Bain¡¯s reaction was slightly slower, but he was faster than Sika. Both of them sprang into action one after another, flying into the air at the same time.


    The moment Sika¡¯s cudgel came into contact with the meteor hammer, her legs had left the ground. There was no other choice. Had she forcefully tapped into the power of the earth, her body would be smashed into pulp. Only by flying up would the impact from the meteor hammer be lessened. On the other hand, Bain had mysteriously appeared behind the supreme demon. After stabbing him once, Bain was flung into the air by the supreme demon¡¯s tail.


    Consecutively, the two people flew at least one-hundred yards away.


    Saleen¡¯s long ck hair was agitated by the wind. At this point in time, Nailisi leaped into the air, jumping over the meteor hammer. Wielding the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger, she shed at the shadow behind the hammer head once, then she also got flung away.


    In such a brief period of time, Saleen had done another three things. He released a Water Shield and a fully constructed puppet. Lastly, he had opened a scroll.


    The supreme demon was nailed to the ground, but his mental strength was still controlling the meteor hammer. Lex and her subordinate mages released defensive spells desperately. The Crystal Guardians, Stonewall Spells, and Earth Totems were all obliterated by the meteor hammer.


    Saleen did not even move his legs, he totally ignored the approaching meteor hammer. He knew that this was an attack which had been locked in by the supreme demon¡¯s mental strength, so there was no way to avoid it given his own speed. Saleen raised the badge towards the supreme demon. A bolt of dark blue lightning, apanied by deafening thunder flew towards the supreme demon¡¯s chest.


    This lightning was the energy Saleen had amassed for almost a year. It was much smaller than the previous release, and the color was also purer. It was impossible for the supreme demon, who had been locked on by the Life Arrow, to outrun the speed of lightning. The Life Arrow had caused the supreme demon to be paralyzed for more than half a second. By the time Saleen¡¯s lightning was released, the supreme demon was also struck in the chest by the lightning at the same time.


    A plume of green smoke appeared. The supreme demon was split in half by the lightning. Everything in the path of the lightning was turned into ash.


    Ismail was dumbfounded that his master actually possessed such a mighty weapon, it had already exceeded his imagination. A devil would not even be able to resist this attack, not to mention a grade-10 supreme demon.


    ¡°No wonder Master is on equal standing as that woman with the godly equipment. Unless there is a special restraining skill, anyone who got hit by an attack of such magnitude would only end up dead.¡±


    Ismail¡¯s observation was more thorough than anyone else. In the instant when the lightning came into contact with the supreme demon, an immeasurably high temperature was attained. By then, the sturdy body of that supreme demon was no different from a paper person, it got torn apart immediately.


    A bubble suddenly appeared on the supreme demon¡¯s meteor hammer. Saleen actually blessed the meteor hammer with defensive magic. Following that, the tall fully constructed puppet lunged at it, and it got smashed into a metal pancake. Thest thing to take effect was Saleen¡¯s scroll. All of a sudden, an enormous three-sided ice tower emerged from the ground, blocking the meteor hammer¡¯s path.


    The meteor hammer had already slowed down. When the ice tower appeared, the hammer seemed to have lost its target, flying towards the left of Saleen.


    Saleen had used a spell he was unfamiliar with; Prism Refraction, to disrupt the supreme demon¡¯s mental aim. The supreme demon was already dead, so his original aim had shifted due to the effect of the Prism Refraction. If the supreme demon was still alive, it would not have been affected by a level-5 spell. Saleen dared to take such a risk because he was sure that he could kill the supreme demon in a second.


    If the supreme demon did not die just now, Saleen would be the one who was dead.


    Saleen¡¯s body swayed. Ismail wanted to support him, but Cuisi extended his hand to block Ismail. He said icily, ¡°You are a follower. Next time, remember not to hide when there¡¯s danger.¡±


    ¡°Ker¡­ Saleen, are you okay?¡± In the ruins one-hundred yards behind, Sika climbed out. Her pupils were slightly red, but she did not sustain any serious injuries.


    Ismail¡¯s pupils shrank, he took a step back and did not argue with Cuisi. He had realized that everyone around Saleen were very powerful. Even if he was still in possession of grade-9 power, he could hardly deal with them if he did not deploy his subordinates.

 Chapter 530: Tailing (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 530: Tailing (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¨C


    Saleen only just realized that except for Cuisi, none of Lex¡¯s subordinates were nearby. Even Su and J had been sent flying. Just one hit of that hammer was enough to result in instant death as long as it made contact with one¡¯s body, regardless of any magic defences.


    Bain returned to Lex¡¯s side with a grim and gloomy face while she sat on the floor, trying to regte her breathing. Everyone was injured. The swordsmen who had been blown away by the Meteor Hammer would have been severely handicapped if not for the protection by the Spirit Snake Armor.


    ¡°Eleanor, thank you.¡± At this moment, Saleen understood the value of that one arrow. If Eleanor had not sacrificed ten years of life in exchange for that moment of pause, he would not have been able to strike the Supreme Demon.


    Eleanor only smiled indifferently in response. Based on her status, if she were in the elf dimension, she would have been able to replenish her life again with the Fountain of Life. On the Myers Maind, these ten years of life were gone for good.


    The n badge was a formidable weapon of attack, unfortunately the interval between each time it could be used was even more limited than the God¡¯s Ring. Saleen kept the badge and saw that Nailisi was falling from the sky while retrieving the corpse of the Supreme Demon.


    The ground shook again. The Supreme Demon had used a power equivalent to the Forbidden Curse to ensure the stability of the outer dimensions. With its death, the outer dimensions were now starting to copse. These dimensions were already weak and fragile to begin with, but were kept in bnce by very precise and calcted arrangements. The moment the core that maintained this bnce was destroyed, it was inevitable that Lorga City would also fall.


    The Supreme Demon¡¯s actions had allowed creatures to escape from some dimensions though. Having lost the power given to them by the statue of God, these creatures would not be able to live for long. Now, they had lost all their sanity and had started to kill one another.


    ¡°Disciples¡­¡±


    Saleen felt a tinge of sadness when witnessing this scene. Without religion as a goal, these disciples had all turned into demons.


    Sadness aside, Saleen did not have the intention to help them from their predicament. Even though the creatures were killing one another, they would not affect Saleen at all. Smoke and dust was everywhere as the barriers between dimensions opened, creating a buffer between the danger and him. Once the creatures were more or less dead, Saleen would leave.


    Lorga, which existed even before the second dynasty had been built, was finally falling. Even with the protection of the Gods, it could not exist forever. Lorga¡¯s demise woulde down to something simple; the removal of a statue of God by Saleen.


    ¡°Ismail, do you feel any regret?¡± Saleen could not help but ask.


    ¡°Why should I? All this was bound toe to an end.¡± Ismail¡¯s voice wasced with defeated eptance, but his expression was stoic and hard.


    ¡°So you did not help me just now because you thought I was going to die sooner orter anyway, right?¡± Saleen¡¯s question caught Ismail off guard. At first, he thought he could escape from Saleen¡¯s control, but after witnessing the bolt of lightning that Saleen could release, Ismail was afraid. He knew that if he angered Saleen enough for him to use that bolt of lightning on him, not even the ashes of his bones would be left behind.


    Saleenughed coldly and said, ¡°That will be thest time.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master Saleen.¡± Ismail did not argue. Although he had lived for a very long time, he still failed toprehend humans¡¯ way of thinking. Saleen was no longer able to use the badge again, so he needed to knock some sense into Ismail.


    Faced with Saleen¡¯s threat, Ismail wisely chose to obey. In the near future, if he chose to go against the contract, his physical body would disintegrate and his soul would wander aimlessly. In the long run, he would not be able to return to the purgatory dimension. Basically, he had nowhere to go, now that he was tied to this contract. Mages would be able to locate his position, so as long as he was still in this dimension, he must put up with Saleen¡¯s threats.


    The mages led by Lex no longer had any objections towards the coboration between her and Saleen. No matter what Saleen¡¯s background was at Bitter Water Prefecture, everything was different now.


    Everything was more or less what Lex expected as she had always known that Saleen was skilled. What caught her by surprise was how destructive his powers were. Even a grade-10 creature could not survive one blow of that. Initially, she was only interested in Saleen¡¯s background, and if he did not encounter any good mentors, she could take him under her wings and train him into a mage. He would not be anywhere near what he was now without her.


    Even if she considered the perspective of a Sikenqinyan, Lex¡¯s gamble was correct. The mages that represented Sregl Ind needed to be reputable and were often chosen from Alchemy City. Because of this, Lex¡¯s status was equally important in order to be considered as a mage of Sregl Ind.


    As long as they needed each other, the opportunity for coboration would continue to exist.


    The dust had settled and more than ten hours had passed before Lorga¡¯s copse was finallyplete. Lex and herpanions found their bearings and began to pack up their camp. After boarding the magic chariot and summoning the skeletal warhorses, they began to set off for the north.


    With Lex around, the team did not face any issues with logistics as all sorts of resources that they might need could be found within her God¡¯s Ring. As for Saleen, although the Dimension Stone which he possessed did not contain unlimited dimensions, it contained a muchrger capacity for dimensionspared to most holy equipment. The scorching heat of the Purgatory Desert would have driven everyone mad otherwise.


    Although the Spirit Snake Armor could provide protection, the armor still needed to be removed in order to sleep. The mages could not possibly be using their powers against the sweltering hotness and the bitter cold all the time. The field packs and equipment that Lex had prepared was put to good use on this asion. Although Saleen was not afraid of the harsh environment, he still chose to follow J and Su in wrapping himself up with a nket.


    Instead of staying in the magic chariot, he was riding a skeletal warhorse along with two Silver Grand swordmasters.


    Saleen realized that although the magic chariot provided an ideal environment for battle, it was still different from the Magical Tower. In the Tower, mages could undergo self-training in any type of magic. In the magic chariot, his senses and mental strength felt slightly different from normal.


    These slight differences could not be felt during battle, but were obvious during self-training. Saleen purposely left the magic chariot in hope of urately assessing the effects of the magic training that he had undergone recently.


    The moment he alighted, Sika wanted toe along too. Saleen whispered in her ear, and eventually only brought Nailisi along, leaving Sika back in the chariot.


    Even though temperatures were low while travelling at night, it was definitely more bearable than the scorching heat of the day.


    Nailisi followed behind Saleen while the flying dragon trudged slowly ahead, with Ismail still on its back. Although it was awkward, it was dangerous to fly in the Purgatory Desert, so the six-legged flying dragon had no choice but to travel on foot.


    About three and a half miles behind Saleen¡¯s team, two Supreme Court adjudicators and two wardens were traveling with much difficulty. Dse and Fanyin counted themselves to be extraordinarily unlucky. They were leading about ten other wardens towards the north when they suddenly met with a sandstorm. Everyone tried to hide underground but the moment they entered the sand, the attack came unexpectedly.


    The thing that troubled the two of them most was that the strongest Zun Grand swordmaster had died in the attack. Now they were left with two wardens that had survived by sticking to them closely. As they possessed the Divine Crystal, they managed to survive the attack by using Divine spells. Once the sandstorm blew over, almost no one else was left for them to lead. At this point, it was impossible to leave the desert simply because they hadpletely lost their directions.


    Arrogance was a trait shared by Dse and Fanyin, so they chose to follow Lex¡¯s team into the desert. In the end, not only did they not catch up with her, they lost almost all of theirpanions during the journey.


    Out of anger, both of them made up their minds to bring along the remaining two wardens and flew at a low height for more than a hundred miles before reaching Lorga City.


    They tried to enter the city, but could not find the city gates. They then tried to climb over the city walls, but were almost killed by the defences mounted on them. With no other choice, they decided to rest outside the city gates for the day. In the middle of their sleep, Lorga City began to copse.


    Dse and Fanyin lost their drive and escaped as far away as possible. When they finally decided to return to investigate, they saw Lex¡¯s team a very long distance away. The range at which the God¡¯s Eye could measure distance was extremely wide. When Lorga City fell, all its surrounding restrictions had also vanished. The two of them followed behind, but did not dare to get too close.


    If this was anywhere else but the desert, they would have been discovered long ago. In an environment such as the Purgatory Desert, Lex was unable to release the Flying Puppets for patrolling purposes. The team could only depend on her senses and the scope for patrolling was limited to a mile because of that.


    As far as Dse and Fanyin were aware, Lex definitely possessed the Alchemy Binocrs. They decided to keep at least three miles between them, for fear of rousing her attention.


    As of now, more than five-hundred wardens had already died. If a battle were to start, the two of them had little confidence that they would win. Although they were not aware that the city that had copsed was Lorga, what was certain was that the city that they had failed to enter was the same one that Lex¡¯s team managed to escape from. There must be something that their team possessedthat the two of them did not.


    This pursuit was tough for the two Holy See adjudicators. Lex and herpanions were riding chariots and horses at about twenty miles an hour. This was an extremely fast speed considering they were traveling in the desert. As for the two of them, they could only travel on foot. They did not dare to use any Divine spells for fear of being discovered by Saleen, even if they were ten miles apart.


    The physical body condition was essential for the use of low-level Divine spells. Compared to mages, the physical bodies of Holy Masters were rtively weaker. On top of that, the two of them had not been training their bodies for many years, so this pursuit had been extremely tough thus far.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we borrow power to kill Lex before forcing the other mages to tell us the location of the temple?¡± Dse spoke with hatred in his voice. He was lying in a prone position on top of a sand dune, observing that the team had stopped and was starting to set up camp.


    ¡°Borrow power? Are you saying¡­,¡± Fanyin almost agreed, but feeling that something was amiss, said, ¡°Have you forgotten how Genesis died?¡±


    Dse was speechless. Although they looked down on the Oracle, it was able to use the Lord of Glory¡¯s godly punishment, which was one of the most powerful attacks of the Holy See. It was killed by Lex¡¯s counterattack instead though.


    ¡°We just need to follow them until they reach the temple and reveal their location to the head inquisitor. I am sure he will pardon us for our mistakes in the past.¡± Fanyin had wrapped his body with a thickyer of fur as the low-level Divine spell was unable to eliminate the coldpletely.


    Dse suddenly jerked his head downwards just as a mage in the camp raised the Alchemy Binocrs towards their direction. Even with a distance of more than three miles between them, a mage that was using the binocrs would be able to see his face clearly.


    At this moment, Dse could barely suppress his frustrations. The other party was resting in warm tentages while he could only sleep in the open. The other party had skeletal warhorses that could gallop on for a full day and night before resting for more than ten hours straight while he had to stick closely to their schedule, so much so that he did not even have time to relieve himself.

 Chapter 531: Tailing (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 531: Tailing (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    On another sand dune nearby, the two wardens were also spying on the camp. They did not have the ability of God¡¯s Vision, and could only rely on mage equipment and Alchemy Binocrs.


    The only thing that the spies on the two sand dunes were afraid of was that Lex would suddenly uproot camp, causing them to lose their target.


    If Dse still had five-hundred wardens, he would not have to carry out the spying personally. Now, he could only spit out the sand in his mouth in anger and scolded, ¡°Wait until I catch that woman. I will throw her into the ck Dungeon, then send magic images of her to the Grukos family.¡±


    Along the seas of Tanggsi, there was an ind in the central area. That was where the Supreme Court¡¯s prison was located. The Supreme Court knew it as the ck Dungeon, but outsiders called it by many other names, none of which sounded pleasant.


    The people of the Supreme Court were aware of how outsiders thought of them, but instead of feeling sad, they took pride in it. Dse did not dare to face Lex head-on at the moment, so he could only settle for cursing at her.


    Humane was a foreign concept in the ck Dungeon. Even if a sow was thrown in there, its suffering would be unimaginable, what more a prettydy like Lex.


    After close to twenty hours of travelling, Lex finally set up camp again. The night was extremely cold. Lex used magic to measure the temperature and realized that it had dropped to seventy-two ice points.


    How cold was seventy-two ice points? If the swordmasters did not have the Spirit Snake armor, they would have lost all their sword aura within three minutes and bepletely frozen. The two ck Metal Grand swordmasters mightst up to half an hour while Saleen¡¯s two Silver Grand swordmasters mightst until close to dawn, but they would definitely not live to see the sun.


    Luckily Lex brought along these special barracks. They were made of one-yard thick lightweight stone materials which were internally filled with small holes like air bubbles. As a result, its insting effects were superior to most other buildings. In the northern cities, this type of stone materials created by magic were so expensive that only ns of Earl status and above could afford them.


    The average n would usually use these materials to repair their bedrooms. The cost of the materials was inexpensive, but the difficultyy in finding mages to create them for you.


    Within the barracks, specially-made bronze urns were filled with burning charcoal. The smoke produced by the charcoal flowed out of the barracks through a pipe, while a water container boiled on the urn. There were several shelves of human-height ced around the walls of the barracks for swordmasters to store their Spirit Snake armors. The mages washed the armors with magic before letting them dry naturally.


    Although the temperature in the rooms were more than seventy degrees, the swordsmen were still wearing their woollen coats.


    There were a total of three such barracks, and they had been arranged together in the formation of a triangle. There were two swordmasters standing guard outside. They would patrol in their armor in the bitter cold for two hours before ending their shift.


    This was also why Lex refused to bring low-level soldiers along, because only warriors that were swordmasters and above were able to adjust their sleeping patterns automatically.


    Saleen¡¯s barrack was filled with people.


    Sika, Nailisi, four demons, Eleanor, J, and Su were inside. The six-legged flying dragon was too big to enter, but luckily it was a half-dead like Ismail, so they possessed very high tolerance towards extreme temperatures.


    Aside from Su, even Eleanor warmed up towards Saleen as the atmosphere within the barracks was rxed. Ismail was not in the barrack so Saleenid on a piece of animal hide, almost buried within the long white fur.


    Nailisi was not tired either so she stayed by Saleen¡¯s side. The four demons stood guard at the door.


    Su was uptight. He knelt in front of Saleen while wearing a ck hide. Saleen asked, ¡°Two stalkers have been tailing us, but I cannot pinpoint their location. I can only conclude that the two of them must be much stronger than me. Does anyone have any suggestions?¡±


    ¡°Let them follow then, Lex will be the one dealing with them anyway,¡± Nailisi said as she massaged Saleen¡¯s arm.


    ¡°If you could detect their presence, surely Lex must also be aware too?¡± Finally Sika and Nailisi came to the same conclusion. She did not approve of Saleen handling these two stalkers either. Anyone who could enter the Purgatory Desert must have a certain level of power. Although Saleen¡¯spanions were powerful, Lex had more mages, and an assassin that had been a source of worry for Sika.


    Nailisi and Sika had nothing against Lex, but both of them disliked the assassin. Once an assassin reached the level of Bain, fewer would like him because even a sorcerers might not be a match for him.


    It was obvious how this could impact Sika and Nailisi. Nailisi¡¯s role was to protect Saleen at all times. With this assassin around, she was constantly on her guard.


    The God¡¯s Ring that Lex possessed would protect her from any harm, so there was no way Nailisi would be able to use her to threaten the assassin. One way was to spring a sudden attack on the assassin by holding onto him and using Lightning Guardian to paralyze him. The problem was that the assassin¡¯s speed was scarily fast, so such a n was never going to work.


    ¡°How about we let Ismail handle them?¡± J had no love for that creature. Beneath Ismail¡¯s expressionless face must hide many cruel intentions.


    ¡°Forget it. If he goes, he will only bring more trouble.¡± In Saleen¡¯s mind, his fear was that if the Holy See knew about a purgatory creature travelling with him, they would immediately send over someone of Oracle level.


    The purgatory dimension was like a ho¡¯s nest to the Holy See. If Saleen could provide the coordinates of the purgatory dimension, the Lord of Glory would probably give a God¡¯s Order immediately to pardon him for all his past doings. Even the Gods could no longer locate the purgatory dimension.


    The opposite of heaven was the purgatory. The Lord of Glory used the purgatory to illustrate the fate of sphemers and non-believers.


    ¡°Let¡¯s put this aside first. Now, I will tell everyone your roles in battle from now on.¡± Saleen knew that things would get worse if he asked Ismail to look for the two stalkers. He decided to focus on the more important task at hand; reassignment of roles.


    ¡°Now we have two mages. Everyone has also witnessed Eleanor¡¯s powers. Eleanor, will you choose to follow me from now on? If you are willing, please take a look at this contract.¡± Saleen handed over a contract to Eleanor.


    Eleanor gave a sweeping nce indifferently and said, ¡°Ok.¡±


    She read it very clearly. There was an end date to her contract; one hundred years. Without this contract, she would still be willing to fight alongside Saleen if he met with danger. In this dimension, there was no one else she could trust except for Saleen and his team.


    The contract automatically burned into ashes. Only then did Saleen say, ¡°Daniel is a Death Mage. Death mages that manage to level up to grade-6 will be a force to be reckoned with. Eleanor is an Element Mage and has superb archery skills. Closebat skills are not her forte, unlike the swordmasters. J and Su, the both of you will be responsible for Eleanor¡¯s safety from now. Nailisi alone will be responsible for my safety instead.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± Su was unwilling.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°This is only a temporary arrangement, since we are here. Once we return to Metatrin City, all of you will be given new assignments again. Su, have you recoveredpletely?¡±


    ¡°Yes, thanks to the Lord¡¯s magic liquid.¡±


    ¡°We now have two mages who will lead our attacks. Cuisi, your abilities are suitable for attacking rather than to protect. From now on, you will be responsible for keeping an eye on Ismail. If he tries anything funny, you need to dy him for more than one second.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Lord.¡± Cuisi was satisfied with this task because Saleen did not specifically tell him what he should or should not do, and how much power he could use. If the right opportunity came along and Ismail was killed, Saleen would not me him..


    ¡°The three of you will be responsible for the six-legged flying dragon,¡± Saleen ordered the other three demons. Although he did not know how Ismail was nning to leave, when he did leave, Ismail would definitely attack him. Trusting demons was ridiculous enough, but if he were to trust purgatory creatures as well, then he might as wellmit suicide.


    Saleen was not worried about Ismail¡¯s fighting abilities at all, because of the trap that he had set in the contract. If Ismail decided to go against him, he would be on the receiving end of a severe punishment. Even if that did not kill him, it would at least weaken him so much that he would not be able to use his powers fully. Saleen was confident that with four demons and Nailisi by his side, they would definitely be able to overpower a weakened purgatory dweller.


    Of course, these were just preventive measures. As of now, Ismail was still extremely useful to Saleen.


    ¡°Eleanor, I will refine a Crystal Arrow for you. Don¡¯t use the Life Arrow anymore.¡± Saleen recalled that ordinary-looking arrow that wiped away ten years of her life just like that. No words could describe how he felt. Although elves typically lived very long lives, there was still a limit. If she used this ability too often, even Eleanor would eventually die of old age.


    Followers were not squires. Their lives could not be sacrificed for victory.


    Eleanor¡¯s facial expression did not hint at any appreciation, and she only agreed indifferently. Saleen spoke to Sika again, ¡°When you will finish refining the Bone Totem?¡±


    ¡°If the team stops, I canplete it within three days at the most. If we continue to proceed, I should be able toplete it by the time we reach the temple.¡±


    ¡°What abilities will you have?¡±


    ¡°A lot. Most importantly, I will be able to fly. You have to make a weapon for me.¡±


    ¡°What weapon?¡±


    ¡°I will draw a diagram for you.¡± It was rare for Sika to be so secretive.


    Outside of the barracks, Ismail climbed on top of the six-legged flying dragon before they rose into the air. Six-legged dragons¡¯ flying abilities were far superior to ordinary double-legged flying dragons. It could suspend itself in mid-air by fully controlling the air currents within one yard¡¯s range.


    The moon hung brightly in the night sky and the ck sand below was piercingly cold. Ismail peered at a sand dune that was far away, and his eyes revealed murderous intentions.


    ¡°Under which God were these disciples? They have such a disgusting aura!¡± Seeing that there were no clouds in the night sky, Ismailmanded the six-legged flying dragon, ¡°Fly higher, I want to see what the enemy looks like!¡±


    The six-legged flying dragon obeyed and rose another five-hundred yards. At this distance, the barracks on the ground were the size of toys. Behind him, a huge phantom shadow in the shape of an eye appeared.


    Within a few miles of his circumference, Ismail could see everything in great detail. On a sand dune that was a long distance away, two wardens were using an Alchemy Binocr to look in their direction. As Ismail flew higher, they raised their binocrs as well. When they saw the gigantic eye behind Ismail, the two wardens were stunned.

 Chapter 532: Purgatory Space (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 532: Purgatory Space (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The eyes which appeared on Ismail¡¯s back had already be crystal clear, as though they were real. In the ck eye orbitals, four purple pupils rotated continuously. The two wardens felt their breathing bebored, as though their souls were going to crumble.


    Ismail did not use any attack skill, he only used his terror. The two wardens were from the inquisition, so they were unusually familiar with the Lord of Glory¡¯s depiction of purgatory.


    This eye was extremely renowned in purgatory. It was the Eye of Hades.


    Only the immediate subordinates of the evil god of the purgatory; King Hades would possess such a skill. This skill was given by King Hades, no one could cultivate it on their own.


    The two wardens were dreadful, because they suddenly thought to themselves, ¡°Why are there purgatory creatures on the Myers maind? Have the gates of purgatory been opened? I¡­ have only vited the teachings of my god asionally, he must be trying to mete out punishment now!¡±


    ¡°Is the world going to be destroyed? Why did god open the gates to purgatory?¡±


    The two wardens were distraught, and they recalled that the newest code disseminated by the Holy See had mentioned the doomsday trial for the first time ever.


    Those who abandoned god would eventually be destroyed; the sphemers would surely fall. The fire of purgatory represented the anger of God, there was only one thing which could be done; salvation. The aforementioned things originated from the Holy See¡¯s seventh code; the Doomsday Revtion.


    The two wardens were weak and disoriented, the magic nuclei mosaicked into their armor had dimmed. Frost engulfed the armor in an instant. A crack was heard, it turned out that a warden had crushed his own ribs. These two men no longer made any noise, as the low temperature of the Purgatory Desert swiftly took away their lives.


    Ismail did not do anything. He only intimidated them, and these two wardens, who were at the standard of a high grade swordmaster, had perished. Dse¡¯s and Fanyin¡¯s expression took an abrupt turn. They had a skill called the Eye of God which enabled them to observe things several miles into the distance.


    Could that man standing atop a flying dragon in the sky above Lex¡¯s camp be a purgatory enforcer?


    A purgatory enforcer was the mightiest fighter serving the Hell King, they did not have emotions and could not feel pain. They simply obeyed the Hell King¡¯smands, even if it meant challenging other gods.


    In the divinenguage, such a creature was known as a demigod. The Lord of Glory did not acknowledge the existence of other gods, even the Hell King wasbelled as an evil god by him. In fact, the Hell King was like the Goddess of Myers, he was a god who had been birthed from the purgatory ne, and he had never left this ne.


    Such gods did not usually emphasize the power of faith, so they were not passionate in preaching.The demigods who served them wielded horrifying power.


    It was no wonder then that Dse and Fanyin had misjudged the situation, because Ismail had used the Eye of Hades so effortlessly and his appearance had also been fully transformed by Nailisi. Had Ismail been in his original appearance, these two adjudicators would have immediately recognized his identity as a purgatory walker. The problem was that even a grade-9 sorcerer could not expose Nailisi¡¯s Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Dse and Fanyin yelled. The long ck robes over their body turned into a pair of wings suddenly, as they soared into the sky.


    Fanyin¡¯s ck robe also transformed into a pair of wings, but he actually dashed in Ismail¡¯s direction.


    Dse spun around mid-air, chasing after Fanyin. He did not do so because he wanted to die with Fanyin, but because he had recalled that the flying speed of a Six-legged Flying Dragon was several times faster than his wings. Besides being less flexible than Dse¡¯s wings, the Six-legged Flying Dragon¡¯s flying could be considered perfect.


    A Six-legged Flying Dragon could remain airborne for long durations, it was not afraid of magic and its defensive power was astonishing. Its dragon¡¯s breath was also very powerful. It was a rare type of wurm who possessed simrly powerful offensive abilities to a dragon. Other than lifespan problems, a Six-legged Flying Dragon was almost a pedigree breed of dragon.


    Dse did not even know how he had been discovered. In the Purgatory Desert, the perception and the elements were all in disorder. A person who could exert their perception for hundreds of yards was already considered powerful. Dse was stalking from over three miles away. Logically, he should not have been discovered.


    He did not know that Saleen was an extremely meticulous person. Every twenty miles or so, Saleen would toss a bubble into the sand. This bubble did not contain any detection magic abilities, but since Saleen¡¯s special spell had been infused with the goddess¡¯ Power of Life, the telepathic distance between Saleen and the bubbles was extremely protracted.


    Saleen could feel that people were following him from behind. He had only discovered the two wardens, he did not discover Dse and Fanyin. Under the protection of a divine spell, Dse and Fanyin were heavily obscured. The wardens had exposed their existence.


    Ismail had realized that Saleen was feeling uneasy, so he used the power gifted by the Goddess of Myers to locate the scent of the stalkers. Since Ismail believed in King Hades, he was extremely sensitive to believers of other gods. Even though King Hades had never left the purgatory ne, the believers of other gods hade forth in the past to ignite wars.


    That being said, this Ismail was also a monster. Most creatures could only believe in one god. If they believed in too many gods, it meant that all their beliefs, with the exception of one, were bogus. Bogus believers could not obtain the abilities gifted by the gods. Ismail had actually obtained two different powers from King Hades and the Goddess of Myers despite having faith in the both of them.


    The thing more horrifying was that those stitched monsters and evil knights created by Ismail also believed in King Hades. With faith, one could use a Divine spell. Given Ismail¡¯s experience, and provided he had help, he could still deal with two adjudicators even though his powers had declined to grade-8.


    ¡°Humph! Your scents are so abominable!¡± As Ismail spoke, he unraveled his long robe. As his robe danced with the wind, dozens of monsters flew out from it. Those monsters had mottled skin covered with scars. The scars had been stitched together using needle and thread, forming a weird human like appearance.


    King Hades resembled a human, and the stitched monsters Ismail created also looked like humans. Small wings were sewn onto the backs of these stitched monsters. They flew at very high speed, towards the two adjudicators.


    Due to extreme fear, Dse immediately wielded his strongest weapon; the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory.


    It was a crimson book, and drawn on top of it was the Eye of Hades that was found on Ismail¡¯s back. The image of the Eye of Hades on the book cover had been bound by chains, this represented the power of the Lord of Glory.


    Even though Fanyin was more decisive, he was also greatly rmed. ¡°If the demigod directly under King Hades had appeared, then¡­ a struggle will not amount to much.¡±


    Fanyin alsomitted a mistake. He had taken out a duplicate of the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory; A Flower in Blood. The purple book opened up in Fanyin¡¯s hand.


    When these two books were used individually, they were different in their own ways. When used together, they would establish a purgatory space. This space simted the environment of a purgatory, all substances in the space could be used to attack the target. In this space, Dse and Fanyin were like mages whose magic chords and mental strength never got depleted.


    Such a space created by the Holy See¡¯s holy equipment would allow these two people to be invincible against anyone who was of the same grade as them. Even if the enemy had stronger powers, the enemy would also be restrained by the rules of the space, causing their powers to be greatly reduced.


    These two people were in state of confusion. Ismail was originally a purgatory creature. Were they not seeking death by simting the purgatory environment?


    Ismail and the dozens of stitched monsters rushed into the purgatory space, even the Six-legged Flying Dragon under Ismail did not hesitate.


    ¡°The mes of purgatory are so familiar, maybe the two of you don¡¯t have to die after all,¡± Ismail teased. He grabbed a ball of pale mes out of the sky and swallowed it.


    Hoo¡­


    The mes emerged from Ismail¡¯s nose, then Ismail spit it out.


    ¡°I am upset again since the temperature is too low, so the both of you shall die!¡± Ismail grabbed a spear from the gigantic eye on his back. This spear was about five yards long and its pole was green, it was an iconic weapon of the Goddess of Myers.


    The two adjudicators were very apprehensive in the purgatory space, but they were still familiar with the Elemental Spear. The Lord of Glory had done countless of things to nder the Goddess of Myers. As a result, the higher echelons in the Holy See actually had a deeper understanding of the Goddess of Myers.


    The Elemental Spear was not a weapon condensed from the elements. On the contrary, this spear could destroy all elements. Even if a grade-11 mage was holding up a Magic Shield, the mage could not withstand a stab from the Elemental Spear. Even though Ismail¡¯s spear, which was more than five yards in length, was not the seven yard long genuine item, it was an imitation personally crafted by the Goddess of Nature.


    Dse and Fanyin were both believers of a god, but they could not understand who this man, who had tossed all those stitched monsters and surrounded them, was. They could not understand why this man would have the horrifying Elemental Spear in his hand.


    The Elemental Spear did not just destroy elemental defense, it could also ruin divine magic.


    Not mentioning the content of how the Lord of Glory ndered the goddess, judging by their explicit disy of jealousy, one could already guess that this weapon created by the goddess might have caused the Lord of Glory to suffer before.


    There was something Dse and Fanyin could not understand. Since the person in front of them could control the stitched monsters, he should not have the Elemental Spear in his possession. The Elemental Spear was only owned by the believers of the goddess, and they had to be devout believers to earn one.


    This Elemental Spear was obviously taken out from the Eye of Hades.


    Woo¡­


    A metal chain flew out of Dse¡¯s hands, trapping a stitched monster. A stitched monster was not some powerful creature, it could not even be considered as a creature, it was only a half-puppet like object. The stitched monsters created by a purgatory walker were actually rted to the walker¡¯s abilities. Most purgatory walkers had already reached grade-9, but after leaving purgatory, their powers would be drastically reduced.


    At the moment, Ismail was at least a grade-8 creature, so the stitched monsters might not be that mighty. With a thud, it had broken Dse¡¯s metal chain.


    ¡°Manacle!¡± Dse hollered. The fragments of that metal chain retraced its steps, transforming into a single entity once again, entrapping the stitched monster. This time around, holy words had appeared, staining the metal chain.

 Chapter 533: Purgatory Space (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 533: Purgatory Space (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ismail simply snickered. It was impossible to wipe out the stitched monsters using such equipment. The stitched monster had been trapped by the metal chain, and its body had expanded, causing the parts in contact with the metal chain to bloat. This stitched monster continued expanding. Less than three secondster, the metal chain had burst open with a p.


    Nauseating slime spewed out. Even though Dse stood a great distance away, his clothes were still stained by it.


    The protective holy prose on Dse¡¯s body shed two times before being extinguished. Grabbing onto the robe with one hand, he tore it away and tossed it aside, revealing soft armor inside.


    On Fanyin¡¯s side, he kept summoning mes which descended from the skies. Those mes traveled faster than an arrow, striking the stitched monsters urately.


    The stitched monsters continued charging forward energetically. More debilitated weapons had appeared in their possession, it was not known when they had appeared.


    A wound had been corroded into Dse¡¯s body. At this point in time, he realized that a stitched monster was not afraid of entrapment by holy proses, they could make themselves explode. If other creatures were tied up by Dse, they would be helpless as long as the metal chain was not destroyed. Even though the holy words on the chain were not personally written by a god, it had been soaked in the holy water of the Glorious City for centuries.


    Why were these evil creatures not affected?


    Ismailmanded the stitched monsters to besiege the two adjudicators. When the mesnded on the stitched monsters, there was vigorous burning. Purplish ck liquid oozed out of the stitched monsters¡¯ dposed skin, producing sizzling noises, but the stitched monsters would not die.


    The mes in this purgatory space were a simtion of the purgatory environment. The materials of the stitched monsters¡¯ bodies were collected by Ismail in purgatory, so their resistance to purgatory mes was ridiculously high.


    The flying dragon flew extremely quickly. Ismail had already arrived behind Fanyin with the Elemental Spear. Fanyin inhaled a breath of air sharply, causing his body to glow with holy radiance, and a longsword appeared in his hand.


    The longsword was transparent. Countless microscopic holy words flowed within it, giving off a golden glow.


    This three-yard long longsword was very lightweight in Fanyin¡¯s hand. When Ismail tried to stab him with the spear, Fanyin¡¯s sword abruptly extended over seven yards long. The sword then cleaved downwards.


    The space formed by the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory was not very huge, it even paled inparison to the holy weapon wielded by the ck deacon in the past. Fanyin¡¯s attack was about to slice the sky into two parts, but Ismail did not even bat an eye. The Elemental Spear struck the tip of his sword urately.


    Crisp crackling sounds filled the entire space. Fanyin spit out golden blood as he fell towards the ground. Ismail¡¯s Elemental Spear had been destroyed, but he took out another from that gigantic eye on his back. The Elemental Spear was never a tangible object. As long the Eye of Hades was not destroyed, the Elemental Spear could be recovered anytime.


    Even though each destruction would cause the power of the Elemental Spear to be slightly reduced, an adjudicator like Fanyin would not be able to make it lose its might.


    This Elemental Spear was personally crafted by the goddess. Even a god would be injured if hit.


    When Fanyin crashed towards the ground, dozens of stitched monsters swarmed towards him, lunging at him. The stitched monsters still carried purgatory mes on the surface of their bodies, causing Fanyin to scream in agony. The wings on his back crumbled, as a strong golden light emerged from the crevices in the stitched monsters.


    ¡°Run now!¡± Fanyin bellowed, then the whole space trembled vigorously. The dozens of stitched monsters who were grabbing him were flung away by the impact as a golden man dozens of yards tall crawled out of Fanyin¡¯s body. The golden giant¡¯s weapon was a il.


    This mammoth il hit the stitched monsters ruthlessly. This time around, the stitched monsters were smashed into a pulp. Shreds of flesh danced in the air, disintegrating into fine dust at an observable speed.


    Dse was a little stunned when he saw that Fanyin had released his source of power from his body. Dse¡¯s metal chain was now woven into a, entrapping the stitched monsters who attacked him. Turning around, he noticed that Ismail was wielding the Elemental Spear, charging forward.


    More than a hundred evil knights rushed out from the Eye of Hades on Ismail¡¯s back, surrounding the godly entity that Fanyin had turned into.


    A purgatory walker!


    Dse groaned in excruciation. A purgatory walker would always bring along a group of evil knights. In a purgatory space, these evil knights would enjoy a substantial boost in their powers. ¡°Why was I so stupid, how can I exterminate the enemy in this space.¡±


    The Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory was a powerful holy weapon, it could ambush the enemy and be converted into twelve spaces. Each of these twelve spaces represented a type of harsh environment found in purgatory. The current space they were in was me purgatory. To a purgatory walker, there was no hindrance at all.


    A purgatory walker was originally a person who helped the Hell King get rid of the rebels. Their mission was to battle against those who dared oppose the Hell King. As such, there was not an environment in the purgatory that could restrain a purgatory walker.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Seeing that the divine crystal around the eyebrows of Fanyin¡¯s godly entity were shrinking continuously, Dse knew that he had to escape, because Fanyin would be banished into his original form very soon. It was impossible for him to fly out of the desert using his Divine spells because the Six-legged Flying Dragon could fly much faster than him.


    Using the spear, Ismail stabbed directly at Fanyin¡¯s head.


    The invincible Elemental Spear crumbled once again, Fanyin¡¯s godly entity also began breaking down. Countless rays of golden light returned to Fanyin¡¯s body, but he could no longer stand up.


    At this moment, Ismail took out another Elemental Spear. If one used a mage¡¯s perception to observe, they would realize that the color of the third Elemental Spear had paled, it was obvious that it had sustained serious damage.


    ¡°Why did you ask me to stop?¡± With a wave of his hand, the dozens of trapped stitched monsters exploded gradually, while the one-hundred yard metal chain broke into a dozen segments.


    ¡°We are in possession of the seeds grown by the gods. If you kill us, you will incur the wrath of the gods.¡± Dse might appear unyielding, but he was actually pleading for mercy.


    ¡°Oh, the wrath of the gods, that is really troublesome.¡± Ismail seemed to be in thought. Dse then wanted to continue persuading Ismail, but the Elemental Spear in Ismail¡¯s hand had already been tossed, urately striking Fanyin who was below him.


    Fanyin was merely a holy master, his body was not even as tough as a magic beast. When the Elemental Spear prated him, his body was shattered, sputtering in mid-air, like a group of burnt particles.


    ¡°I have already killed one, so how are you going to persuade me now?¡± Ismail mocked as he stared at Dse.


    Dse was rendered speechless. He was begging for mercy because anyone killed by the Elemental Spear would have no chance at resurrection. Every single part of a person¡¯s body would disappear from the face of the earth, turning into energy for other beings. Even the Lord of Glory could not reverse this situation.


    ¡°If I let you go, your god will not spare me either. Just let me kill you.¡± The flying dragon under Ismail¡¯s feet drew closer gradually. Pained, Dse took out the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory, lifting it with both hands, then said, ¡°Your Highness, I am willing to surrender, please spare my life.¡±


    ¡°I can spare you, but only if¡­¡± Ismail looked at Dse. Dse¡¯s face was lowered, his head hung low. ¡°If you follow me, and switch to another god.¡±


    ¡°Impossible¡­¡± Dse¡¯s voice was so low, it was almost inaudible.


    ¡°What did you say?¡± Ismail taunted Dse. Dse raised his head, then said,


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    The pages of the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory began flipping urgently. A holy prose flew out from each page, bumping into one another vigorously in mid-air.


    Ismail jeered, then he bent down and grabbed the thorn behind the flying dragon¡¯s neck. With a leap, he jumped into the Eye of Hades behind him.


    When the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory reached thest page, the whole space shrank before exploding. Hundreds of evil knights screamed. In the space, countless mes, ice particles, acids, and other substances crashed towards the center fiercely.


    Dse¡¯s body turned into ashes in that instant, but a golden soul flew out, breaking out of the space and flying into the upper atmosphere.


    The purgatory space expanded and contracted several times before finally copsing.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± Ismail yelled furiously, then he burst out of the Eye of Hades. The flying dragon under his feet looked withered, as it fell towards the ground. Ismail¡¯s Eye of Hades had moved out of the space directly, but it could not salvage those evil knights.


    Ismail had led those hundreds of evil knights out of the purgatory ne, they were his fundamental assets. Dse had destroyed the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory while Ismail escaped, but those evil knights had been turned into mere powder within the space.


    The purgatory space disappeared, and in its original position, a torn page drifted and fell slowly towards the ground. Ismail tried to grab it, but a shadow on the ground leaped up and snatched it from him.


    This person was Nailisi. ncing at Ismail, she said, ¡°You are in trouble, Master demands your presence.¡±


    ¡°Humph.¡± Ismail did not bother arguing. Only one page of the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory remained. Even if it was repaired, there would only be one space left. To Ismail, it was not very useful.


    That bit of golden light flew increasingly faster in mid-air. Under sustenance of a divine spell, Dse¡¯s soul tried to fly back to the headquarters of the Holy See. As long as his soul was conserved in the Glorious City, he could be revived in the future.


    In the blink of an eye, Dse¡¯s soul had reached an altitude of about one-thousand yards. Out of the blue, a gigantic hand appeared out of thin air, enveloping Dse¡¯s soul, then it retracted into nothingness once again.


    This Dse was not very familiar with the Purgatory Desert. If flying was allowed in the sky of the desert, Lex would have located the goddess¡¯ temple long ago, she would not have to crawl on the ground in the magic war chariot.


    A creature from an unknown origin was hiding in nihility, waiting to capture anyone who dared fly. In the Purgatory Desert, anyone who flew more than five-hundred yards would be in danger. In the end, Dse¡¯s soul still did not return to the Glorious City, it had be food for a monster.


    Ismail withdrew the Eye of Hades slowly. Landing on the ground, he did not even take a second look at the ailing flying dragon. He walked towards Saleen¡¯s barrack alone.

 Chapter 534: The Unyielding Soul (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 534: The Unyielding Soul (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi kept the remnants of the twelfth Purgatory Movement in the bracelet, then went to the six-legged flying dragon and looked at him from head to toe. Her green eyes shimmered with golden lines. The six-legged flying dragon was afraid, but after being dragged into the Eye of Hades by Ismail, he should count himself lucky that he was only immobilized and not dead.


    Ismail did what he did to save him, so he could notin. With Nailisi looking at him threateningly, he could not help but think, ¡°Ismail, you bastard. How could you leave me alone?¡±


    ¡°I know you can talk, so say something.¡± Nailisi wore a smile on her face as her clean and white fingers brushed the scales under the six-legged flying dragon¡¯s neck. Normally, if anyone dared to do this, he would have retaliated with Dragon¡¯s Breath immediately.


    Now, he dared not. There was magic power in Nailisi¡¯s fingers and the six-legged flying dragon felt a strong numbness in the areas that she had touched.


    A physical body protected by grade-six magic was frail and vulnerable against Nailisi¡¯s slender fingers.


    ¡°If you are still not going to talk, then you shall not talk ever again.¡± Nailisi¡¯s fingers stopped at the six-legged flying dragon¡¯s vocal chords. The position of his vocal chords was lower than most other creatures. Nailisi¡¯s fingers pressed into his scales and her nails were already piercing through them.


    ¡°What¡­ do you want to hear?¡± The six-legged flying dragon felt the threat of death. ¡°This woman is for real.¡±


    ¡°Six-legged flying dragons exist in many dimensions, but they should not have any allegiances with any particr type of creatures. What motive do you have for following Ismail?¡±


    ¡°He needed me to fly him around and there was no way I could have defeated him,¡± the six-legged flying dragon¡¯s answer was so simple and straightforward that Nailisi could not help but be stunned for a while.


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Of course, that¡¯s it. Based on my power, what can I do? Purgatory dwellers are more powerful than you think.¡±


    ¡°Powerful? He must fly very slowly on his own, or why would he need you?¡± Nailisi grinned as her fingers moved away from his neck. The six-legged flying dragon breathed a sigh of relief until Nailisiughed, ¡°You are Master¡¯s follower. By right, I will not do anything to you.¡±


    Upon hearing this, the six-legged flying dragon knew that something was amiss. His body waspletely paralyzed as Nailisi continued to send electric currents into his body. She even released the freezing power of the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger and now, he was lyingpletely still on the floor and could not even lift his head. Nailisi finally drew out the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger and lightly cut around his entire neck. With her robes flowing in the air and her actions resembling a dance, it almost seemed like she was putting on a performance.


    The six-legged flying dragon¡¯s neck now showed a cut from the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger, which froze his wound and prevented any fresh blood from flowing out. Nailisi flipped herself on top of his back and hugged his head tightly before whispering, ¡°Listen, since you are Master¡¯s follower, then you shouldn¡¯t have just let anyone else ride you. Learn to be smarter in your next life.¡±


    With that, Nailisi twisted her hands and the enormous dragon¡¯s neck broke. A green phantom shadow flew out from its head. Although the soul of a six-legged flying dragon could not be destroyed, its physical body had decayed long ago. The moment the neck broke, his body immediately turned into dust. With a glow of light in her hands, Nailisi quickly captured the six-legged flying dragon¡¯s soul and kept it in a Green Spirit gemstone.


    Next, Nailisi unrolled a scroll and cast a Cleaning spell. Dust that was once the six-legged flying dragon¡¯s body was blown away and amidst the ck sand. It was almost as if nothing happened there at all. She pped her hands in satisfaction and returned to Saleen¡¯s barracks.


    Inside the barracks, Ismail wore an expression of defiance as he raised his head to look at Saleen, who wasfloating in mid-air.


    Nailisi entered the barracks and announced to Saleen, ¡°Master, I have killed the six-legged flying dragon.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡± Ismail was infuriated and was beside Nailisi in one big stride. Nailisi smiled at him coldly and did not move an inch.


    ¡°I am Master¡¯s summoned creature. If you dare to touch me, you are dead.¡±


    Originally, Ismail was nowhere bothered by Nailisi¡¯s threats. Once he recalled the badge in Saleen¡¯s hands, he stopped whatever he was doing and said, ¡°Master Saleen, what is the meaning of this?¡±


    ¡°Ha, haha,¡± Saleenughed and replied, ¡°The person that the six-legged flying dragon signed a contract with was me, yet he kept letting you ride on him, don¡¯t you think that is very funny? I saved the both of from Lorga, but how did you two treat me? Someone to entertain for a while before escaping at the first opportunity?¡±


    Ismailughed coldly as well and said, ¡°Do you think you can deal with me just because you have powerful resources? Do you know that I can kill you at this very instant if I wished?¡±


    Saleen looked at him tauntingly and said, ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Neither do I.¡± Nailisi raised her head, looked at Ismail and said, ¡°You are just a purgatory dweller. Without a master, do you think you can survive on the Myers Maind? Let me tell you, the Goddess has already fallen. No one else is going to protect you. The God of the maind is now the Lord of Glory and he absolutely detests creatures like you.¡±


    Ismail quietened down. He looked around the barrack and realized that everyone was looking at him without any fear. He felt incredulous. If they were counting on him being restrained by the contract, no one in this room was his match. As long as he could stop Saleen from using the badge, everyone was as good as dead.


    Why were they not afraid? Although Saleen¡¯s badge attack was indeed scary, it would be difficult for him to aim urately, unless Eleanor used her special skill to stun Ismail momentarily. Now that he was prepared for such an attack, there was no way Eleanor would have a chance.


    Ismail was originally looking for loopholes to exploit, but right now, he dared not be hasty.


    Saleen looked down at him and said, ¡°You can either sign a master-ve contract with me, or you can scram. This is the choice I am giving you.¡±


    Saleen did not want things between Ismail and him to turn ugly, but the trouble that he had created was simply too big. Although Dse¡¯s soul did not manage to escape, the news of what happened and how the two adjudicators died could not possibly be hidden from the Supreme Court for long.


    His God¡¯s Strength was too strong. Even Saleen who only possessed two and a half Divine spells could clearly sense it, what more the Glorious City. They must be going crazy over it.


    Chasing Ismail away was perhaps a wise choice. The people from the Holy See would never consider capturing him alive and would kill him immediately. Lex and he needed to leave the Purgatory Desert before the Holy See found Ismail. If not, the people from the Holy See would swarm all over them like flies. If the Holy See activated their strongest forces all at once, even if Lex and he had godly items, it would still be difficult to escape death.


    If Ismail refused to leave, Saleen did not mind using all his powers to kill him.


    Although Ismail was strong and powerful the trap in the contract had already been set. Once he initiated an attack, his powers would be stripped away immediately.


    As expected, Ismail fell for the taunts and began tough maniacally. Behind him, the Eye of Hades suddenly appeared. This time, the eye did not open slowly, but pierced through the entire room. With a loud explosion, Ismail was in the air. His hand went through the Eye of Hades, trying to retrieve the Element Gun.


    nk! An invisible lock kept Ismail¡¯s hand firmly stuck in the Eye of Hades. J and Su leapt up together, each holding a javelin, and rushed towards Ismail.


    In the Purgatory dimension, Ismail¡¯s speed was exceptional. On the Myers Maind, his agility was greatly reduced. Ever since he converted his faith to follow the Goddess of Myers, the powers gifted to him by the King of Hades became minimal. The tip of the javelins carried by the two Silver Grand swordmasters bore silver-colored sword aura and had also crystallized. Even if his body was made of metal, the javelins could still pierce through the two cavities.


    Eleanor drew out her Elf Bow and notched an arrow, but could not shoot it. Ismail only had one hand trapped in the Eye of Hades. His other hand was lightning quick and managed to snatch the two javelins. This left hand immediately started bleeding.


    ¡°Ow!¡± Ismail roared in anger. The two javelins actually managed to hurt him. The fresh blood that was flowing out now had taken him thousands of years to umte. His physical body had decayed long ago. Only through Godly Power did he manage to try and form a new body bit by bit so that there was a possibility of recovering his abilities. The sword aura on the javelins pierced through his body and absorbedrge amounts of his essence. This made him mad.


    What was making him afraid was that the Eye of Hades seemed to be fading away along with the shrinking of the invisible lock. If itpletely faded away, then his right hand which was stuck in it would also be taken away.


    Ismail¡¯s strongest power had been restrained. He clenched his bloody hand and turned the two javelins into a twisted shape. His palm seemed to contain an enormous suction force. With one hand, he manipted the two javelins into a metal ball and threw it at Saleen. There were purple mes burning noisily on the surface of the ball. The ball shrank very quickly and its surface became liquid.


    Ismail was much tougher than the Three Kings. Although they were creatures of the same grade, Ismail received blessings from two Gods. The trap set by Saleen in the contract could only restrict the powers of his Eye of Hades, but not immobilize himpletely.


    Aiwa held his big shield and stepped in front of Saleen. Cuisi used a whip to pull Aiwa away. At this moment, Saleen released his Water Shield. The burning metal ball instantly bored through Aiwa¡¯s magic shield. If Aiwa was still standing there, the metal ball would surely have prated his body and left it with a huge hole.


    Ismail had lost tens of Abominations and hundreds of Knights of Fear to Dse¡¯s calcted strategy. Now he had lost his most powerful ability for no reason and one of his hands was trapped in the Eye of Hades. Even so, one simple throw from him could still almost kill a demon.


    When the metal ball made contact with Saleen¡¯s Water Shield, it did not burst the gigantic bubble. Instead, it sank into the bubble for almost a full second before piercing through it. By now, Saleen was also in the air, so the metal ball smashed into the ground and left a crater that was one-and-a-half yards wide in the ck desert.


    Ismail flew up and joined Saleen in the air. Although J and Su could also fly, they chose not to. The amount of time that Silver Grand swordmasters could stay in the air was too short. If they could not kill the enemy instantly, they themselves would also be put in a dangerous situation.


    The loudmotion of the fight had rmed Lex long ago. She walked out of her barrack to see Saleen surrounded by fog and in the midst of battle with his follower.


    ¡°Do you need help?¡± Lex shouted.


    ¡°No need.¡± Saleen stared straight at Ismail and said, ¡°Now, will you surrender?¡± After witnessing Ismail using the Eye of Hades, Saleen decided that convincing him to surrender might be a good choice. This power that was currently restricted by the contract was frightening. If Ismail was able to release it, perhaps only Lex and her God¡¯s Ring would have a chance against it.

 Chapter 535: The Unyielding Soul (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 535: The Unyielding Soul (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Give in? Except for Myers, no one else can make me give in!¡± Ismailughed maniacally. The ck robe he wore began to expand aggressively before letting out a ripping sound. The countless pieces of ck fabric floated into the air before transforming into two-yard long zombies that dashed towards Eleanor.


    Ismail was still afraid of Eleanor¡¯s Life Arrow. This was a skill that required the exchange of life. A creature with a soul would not be able to dodge it. If his abilities were at least two ranks above Eleanor, he would not have feared such an attack. Now he was only one rank above Eleanor. A difference of three grades was not enough for him to ignore such a devastating skill.


    To Ismail, if he was hit by Eleanor¡¯s arrow, there was no way he could escape from Saleen¡¯s attack. There was also no way he could survive Saleen¡¯s attack, even if he was at his strongest.


    The gigantic eye behind Ismail became more and more blurry, before finally disappearing into thin air. His right hand had also vanished along with the Eye.


    The zombies that were created from Ismail¡¯s ck robe fell from the air. What he did not know was that Eleanor was only trying to give him a scare by taking out her bow. In order tounch an arrow, not only did it require Eleanor¡¯s lineage, grade, and skill, she also needed suitable materials. Saleen did not manage to refine more arrows for her. Her Elf Bow would not be able to shoot any Crystal Arrows or Life Arrows.


    ¡°Bain, do you think Saleen will be alright?¡± Lex watched the battle from afar and asked worriedly.


    ¡°Saleen has always been someone who was afraid of dying. If he was not confident, he would have asked you for help.¡± Bain¡¯s reply put Lex¡¯s mind slightly at ease.


    All of a sudden, a skeleton that was eight-yards tall appeared in front of Sika. This skeleton was what she obtained from Raphael¡¯s magic tower. Since then, the skeleton had changed in size, its shape was more well-proportioned and its bones were covered with countless ck runes.


    Sika stood on the skeleton and was quietly chanting. Lex felt her hair stand up due to coldness. With Sika as the source, the invisible Mental Storm created a long spear that shot towards the airborne Ismail.


    In the past, the impact released by the skeleton almost took the lives of everyone. By now, Sika clearly had a better control over part of the energy that the skeleton possessed. Although she was not fully proficient in using the Mental Assault, she could not fly yet either. With such a long distance between Ismail and her, she would have to make do using the Mental Storm as her choice of attack.


    J and Su were protecting Eleanor and fighting with the zombies. The zombies were Ismail¡¯sst resort, so all of them were formidable with bodies as hard as steel. They had nails that were half a foot long and mouths that spit poisonous gas.


    J and Su wielded their sword aura confidently and did not fear the poisonous gas. Eleanor did not seem too concerned with the poisonous gas as either as she added defense magic on the two Silver Grand swordmasters. She also wore an Ice te armor and began to attack with magic.


    There were tens of zombies surrounding the three of them, but not all of them could attack at once. More than ten of the zombies that were unable to attack began to surround the demons instead. Closebat was not Tolesi¡¯s strength, so he quickly escaped. He would not be able to join in the fight for this battle. Aiwa¡¯s shield had been destroyed by Ismail, but he was still left with the Meteor Hammer. The moment he began to wield the Meteor Hammer, zombies within ten yards from him began to scream.


    Once the Meteor Hammer hit a zombie, its body shrank into a small piece, unable to recover for half a day. This was only the effect of the Hammer making slight contact with the body. If the zombies were hit straight-on, one would hear the breaking of their bones.


    Lu¡¯s Horse-killing sword was having difficulties with the zombies as their limbs were as hard as steel. Aiwa¡¯s big sword was unable to cut through either, but his skills were exceptional and was able to attack and retreat freely, even when surrounded by many zombies.


    Saleen pretended to get ready to attack Ismail. He managed to catch Ismail¡¯s attention, allowing Sika¡¯s Mental Storm to strike his head.


    Ismail fell from the sky as his hand held his forehead. Saleen urately released his ice attack and six ice elementsbined together in the air and froze Ismail.


    If Ismail still possessed his Element Gun, he would have been able to burst through a grade-10 Icy Light Spear, much less an ice attack.


    Even the Goddess of Myers would not have been able to go against the rules of this dimension. A little trap in Saleen¡¯s contract was enough to take away Ismail¡¯s most powerful ability.


    Ismail was trapped by ice. He wriggled his body and the huge ice pieces began to crack. This attack had caused him to lose his ability to fly.


    Saleen was unusually decisive this time. When he sent Nailisi to look for Ismail, he already decided that the six-legged flying dragon needed to be eliminated. Without the six-legged flying dragon, Ismail¡¯s flying ability was not outstanding. Now that Sika¡¯s Mental Storm had struck Ismail down from the sky, the situation was stable and within control.


    Sika continued to stay at the back and was still chanting a mantra. Ismail felt unbearable pain in his head and was not able to gather enough focus to use any skills.


    Whip!


    Cuisi¡¯s whip was sixteen yards long and was filled with sharp spikes, with a hook at the tip. The whip struck Ismail¡¯s face and pulled off a huge chunk of flesh. This injury was even more severe and the essence that he had umted fastidiously spilled out.


    Lex and her onlookers could not help but feel pain. They imagined that if the whipnded on themselves, surely they would have lost all will to fight? The flesh on Ismail¡¯s face had been torn away, revealing the bones within.


    Nailisi was already dashing towards Ismail with her fist raised. Her fist was flowing with electric current and with one punch, Ismail was forced to bend over by the impact.


    Although the Ultimate Shapeshifting skill did not weaken Ismail¡¯s physical body, when Nailisi delivered the punch, she immediately figured out Ismail¡¯s body structure and sent the electric current directly to his weakest spot.


    Nailisi raised her leg and delivered a knee into Ismail¡¯s face that was already a bloody mess. Her knee also released electric current. Nailisi was able to transfer her ability to use electricity as protection into herbat moves. Not only did this save energy, the effect was also less detectable.


    Nailisi¡¯s expression was cruel. Everyone heard the breaking of Ismail¡¯s bones, but Nailisi had no sympathy. She turned to Ismail¡¯s side and used her arms to mp onto his right arm. She gave it a hard twist.


    Ismail¡¯s elbow immediately turned and was torn from the shoulder. Then, Nailisi turned to Ismail¡¯s back and pierced the Dragon¡¯s Tooth Dagger into his heart. His back froze instantaneously.


    Ismail tried to use his left leg to kick backwards at Nailisi. Cuisi used his whip to curl around Ismail¡¯s calf and gave it a hard tug. Immediately, Ismail¡¯s calf was now left with exposed white bone.


    Nailisi stomped her foot furiously on Ismail¡¯s thigh bone. Nailisi¡¯s closebat skills were developed partly due to her own talent, but also because she learned them from J. Ismail was still numbed by Nailisi¡¯s electric current, while being punched by her like a sandbag.


    At this moment, Saleen could not interfere at all. The purgatory dweller was sandwiched in between Nailisi and Cuisi and was being heavily tortured.


    ¡°God!¡± Ismail roared, wanting to summon the strength of the King of Hades. His Eye of Hades had vanished and the King of Hades was in the purgatory dimension. There was no way he coulde to the aid of this Myers Maind subordinate of his. Ismail¡¯s cries only seeded in inviting even more of Nailisi¡¯s cruel attacks.


    Nailisi clearly did not intend to kill Ismail. In fact, even if she did, she still needed to rely on Saleen to do so. It would be difficult topletely destroy Ismail otherwise.


    Ismail was lying on the floor from Nailisi¡¯s barrage of kicks, while Cuisi¡¯s whip continued to be relentless. Ismail¡¯s body appeared full of bones and there was hardly anyplete piece of skin to be found.


    Nailisi could not be further apart from her image as ady as she kicked at Ismail¡¯s face furiously with her boots. If it were others, kicking Ismail¡¯s face might have broken their legs. Nailisi¡¯s legs were covered with electric current, resulting in Ismail¡¯s inability to retaliate.


    Seeing Nailisi¡¯s crazed behaviour, even Lex broke into cold sweat. ¡°So this is a demon¡¯s true colors. She might be cheerful and bubbly most of the time, but this is how cruel she can be when ites down to a fight.¡±


    Saleennded on the ground and stood in front of Ismail ungentlemanly and asked, ¡°Do you give in?¡±


    ¡°No way, you piece of-¡±


    Bam!


    Nailisi gave Ismail¡¯s forehead such a hard kick that it bent backwards as if the neck had been broken. She did not stop hitting Ismail because she knew that there was a chance that he might retaliate the moment she stopped. Even after such a violent bout of punches and kicks, Ismail only broke a few bones, and those bones that had been severely injured were already healing very quickly.


    If Nailisi did not have the ability to protect her body with electricity, just based onbat skills, she would have died from the impact of striking Ismail.


    Saleen could not believe how tough and resilient Ismail was. If not for the fact that he hated the Holy See, he might even have considered giving him to the Lord of Glory. ¡°I might not be able to subdue you, but the people from the Holy See can definitely do it.¡±


    ¡°How pathetic. You have two faiths, but neither of them can save you,¡± Saleen taunted Ismail, hoping to expose a weakness in his heart.


    ¡°The King of Hades will not forgive you.¡± Ismail tried to keep his eyes opened and stared at Saleen.


    ¡°The King of Hades? Ha, let¡¯s see if he can evene to Myers Maind. Now you are in my hands. If you choose not to surrender¡­¡±


    Pooh!


    Ismail bit off his own tongue and spit it out. The section of tongue was wriggling as if it was alive and flew towards Saleen. Saleen¡¯s Icy Sight was extremely sharp. He could see that the tip of the tongue contained a smaller mouth that was full of piercing teeth. If he was struck by the tongue, it would surely result in a huge gaping wound.


    Saleen used his Water Shield as a barrier and Ismail¡¯s tongue was unable to prate through Saleen¡¯s strongest defense magic. Saleen¡¯s expression changed. His left hand was glowing with white light as he grabbed the tongue and pinched it with force.


    With such a pinch, the Goddess¡¯ Power of Life was activated. Ismail¡¯s tongue burst into a ball of bloody mist while Ismail violently rose from the ground. All the holes in his body were spilling blood and even his eyeballs were ejected from the eye sockets.


    ¡°King of Hades!¡± These words came out from his throat. Saleen did not understand how Ismail could still speak without a tongue.


    uddenly, a stream of ck light shot out of Ismail¡¯s forehead and struck Saleen in the face. Saleen was taken by surprise and frantically used his left hand to wipe his face, only to realize that there was nothing to wipe. The ck light had been absorbed into his skin and had left a faint mark on Saleen¡¯s forehead.

 Chapter 536: Wrath of god (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 536: Wrath of god (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen used his finger to draw across the air, and a crystal clear ice mirror appeared in front of him. In the ice mirror, Saleen could see that the faint ck marking on his forehead was swirling continuously, as if it was a plume of smoke.


    The white light on Saleen¡¯s left hand lit up again. Saleen used his finger to wipe his forehead, causing the marking to disappear. The moment he removed his finger, the ck marking appeared again.


    ¡°Ker¡­.¡±


    Nailisi kept kicking Ismail¡¯s abdomen, causing Ismail to spit out a piece of his internal organs. Nailisi was really enraged this time around. She never thought that Ismail could trick Saleen under such circumstances.


    ¡°Nailisi, it¡¯s fine, it was a mark of hatred. All believers of the Hell King will attack me the moment they detect this mark. If I enter the purgatory ne, the Hell King may even kill me personally. Am I right, Ismail?¡±


    Ismail made some muffled gurgling noises with his throat. At this moment, he could no longer speak.


    ¡°Actually, I wanted to spare your life, but it seems like there is no need for that anymore.¡± In a rare moment, Saleen¡¯s voice had became frosty. Indeed, he never intended to kill Ismail. At this point in time, Ismail had left a mark of hatred on Saleen¡¯s body, so they were in a situation whereby one of them had to die.


    Saleen never expected Ismail to be so tough, Ismail was willing to die rather than concede. This was in stark contrast to the believers of the Lord of Glory. Unless one was a fanatic believer of the Lord of Glory, they could be subdued by force. This Ismail believed in two gods, he was scarier than a fanatic believer.


    This made Saleen puzzled, ¡°Since Ismail had submitted himself to the Myers Goddess, why can¡¯t he concede to me?¡±


    The only constion for Saleen was that Ismail had been imprisoned in Lorga City for too long, so he did not understand the current situation on the maind. To date, no one on the Myers maind could enter the purgatory ne and the gods in the purgatory ne could not influence the Myers maind either.


    If the Hell King could travel to the Myers maind, Saleen would of course be wary of the mark of hatred, but the problem was that even the Lord of Glory could note to the Myers maind. Since the Hell King did not even have a single believer here, it was even more impossible for him toe to the Myers maind. Even if he got here, he would be exterminated by the believers of the Lord of Glory. The best oue would be the destruction of several divine avatars, while the worst oue was the Hell King slipping into a deep slumber, causing the purgatory ne to crumble.


    Gods were absent in the death ne, that was why it got invaded by the abyssal ne. The god of the ne of the Myers maind had only fallen a short while ago, and the Lord of Glory had alreadye forth to spread his religion. Saleen did not believe that the Hell King would risk searching for the Myers maind in this colossal universe to avenge one his subordinates.


    ¡°Nailisi, stop hitting him, I will settle this.¡± Saleen stopped Nailisi¡¯s bashing. After he crushed Ismail¡¯s tongue, Ismail was only left with half his life. As Saleen talked, he came before Ismail, bending down and cing his left hand on Ismail¡¯s forehead.


    Ismail¡¯s eyeballs were hanging outside his orbitals, so he could not see what Saleen was trying to do. His face remained savage, with no intention of giving up. Saleen sighed as the white light on his hand carried a tinge of green hue, infiltrating Ismail¡¯s head.


    Who told him to believe in the Goddess of Myers? In terms of the divinity of the Goddess of Myers, Saleen was one was much higher than that of Ismail¡¯s. Usually, Saleen would not have a chance to use his left hand to touch Ismail. Now Ismail was gravely injured, so he had no strength to resist at all.


    Saleen¡¯s hand entered Ismail¡¯s head, before withdrawing quickly, and a crystal clear divine crystal had appeared in it. Indeed, Ismail had preserved his believer¡¯s conviction. After being in Lorga for so many years, a divine crystal had condensed in his body, which was why he could wield the Elemental Spear so easily.


    Seeing that Saleen had finished off the enemy, Lex then led her men over.


    Saleen put away the divine crystal, while Nailisi swiftly stored Ismail¡¯s body in the Dimension Stone. If she dyed any more time, the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill would be exposed. Even a demon could not bear to look at Ismail¡¯s hideous true appearance.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Lex asked a vague question, she was not sure why Saleen killed his own follower. She knew that Saleen valued talent more than herself, he would not do such a thing without rhyme nor reason.


    ¡°This is ¡­¡± Saleen didn¡¯t know how to exin it. Thus, he simply said, ¡°He had killed two people from the Holy See and he had released more than two kinds of divine powers, you felt it right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I thought that¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t go on anymore, we should get going. In at most three days, Holy See¡¯s people will enter the desert in arge-scale fashion. This time around, I promise that there will be enemies we cannot handle.¡±


    ¡°We will set off at sunrise, there are four more hours,¡± Lex replied worriedly.


    Cuisi led the few demons to put away the zombies which had reverted into shreds of clothing. Such a method of producing zombies was never heard of on the Myers maind. If one could grasp such a skill, they would possess a very mighty weapon. These zombies did not look strong, but Cuisi knew that they were very horrifying because none of the demons could kill them despite spending so much time trying to.


    Aiwa¡¯s and Lu¡¯s weapons were magic equipment, yet the meteor hammer only caused light damage to the zombies. Had they been magic beasts, Aiwa would have ughtered hundreds of them.


    After killing Ismail, Saleen still felt uneasy. There was no time for him to do further calctions though. Seizing the four-hour rest time, Saleen began helping Eleanor produce arrows.


    The Crystal Arrow could not be produced anymore. The crystals with space attributes were too expensive and Saleen did not have many of them. Nailisi took out some divinecherry wood and handed it to Saleen, then she began studying the divine crystal, which Saleen had given her, quietly.


    Ismail¡¯s power was really strong. If he had not been deceived by Saleen, he could not have been killed even if Lex¡¯s men pitched in.


    Now that Saleen knew how perilous the situation was, he no longer held back his capabilities. To date, he had trained until the water mes had a diameter of about two yards, so it could refinerger equipment. Saleen had longmitted the drawing provided by Eleanor to memory. When the divinecherry wood was added into the water mes, many changes took ce. Eventually, pieces of emerald-green feather arrow shapes were formed, allowing Saleen to input magic patterns on them.


    Elvish magic and elemental magic were not very different. Saleen had some understanding of natural divine magic, so the refinement process was more secured. Eleanor also never imagined that she could one day own her dream weapon. Even though the Crystal Arrow was stronger, it was more prone to damage. The divinecherry wood was also very renowned on the elf ne.


    In the sacrednd, there was a divinecherry branch which had to be watered using water from the Fountain of Life. In a year, it would only grow sufficient materials for crafting one feather arrow.


    The elf ne was too far from the abyssal ne and that branch was left behind by a human back then. At this moment, Saleen was going to produce a quiver of elvish feather arrows for her in one go. Finally, Eleanor had some sense of security.


    A quiver belonging to the elves was a standard spatial equipment, it could only be used to store arrows. One quiver could contain one-hundred and twenty feather arrows.


    Saleen produced elvish arrows for Eleanor because her archery could paralyze the target, and he valued such an advantage. Even though Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger was powerful, it could only engage the enemy within a range of ten yards. If a grand swordmaster got close to Saleen, Saleen would be as good as dead at a distance of ten yards. If Saleen wanted to kill the enemy using the Crystal Finger, he had to strike before the enemy did.


    Nailisi was feeling vexed. She had obtained the body of the supreme demon and Ismail¡¯s divine crystal, but she did not dare devour them. The moment Nailisi tried to absorb the strength of these two mighty beings, she might fall into a deep slumber. Nailisi had no time for rest at the moment.


    Nailisi¡¯s bloodline was unique. At this point in time, she was secretly absorbing the power of the divine crystal obtained from Ismail¡¯s brain, thus gaining a wee bit of divine strength. Once utilized, it was very onerous to regain the powers which had been amassed by faith, unless one was a fixed believer. Fortunately, Ismail¡¯s divine crystal was very pure and sizeable, otherwise Ismail could not have been able to wield the Elemental Spear.


    Nailisi began trying to open the remaining page of the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory. The torn page might appear destroyed, but as long as the power of the divine crystal was added, it could still be unleashed.


    Dse wanted to destroy the spaces of the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory bymitting suicide, but he was not that powerful. This space in thisst remaining page was actually muchrger than the me purgatory. The me purgatory and the neighboring spaces might have been obliterated, but thisst darkness purgatory space was the sturdiest of all.


    Originally, the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory was a spatial equipment created by the Lord of Glory to simte the purgatory. His divinity was light, but the Lord of Glory possessed a deeper understanding of darkness. The Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory was created using the darkness purgatory as the core. Nailisi had obtained the nuclearponent of this equipment.


    After much hesitation, Nailisi still did not dare swallow thest page of this holy equipment as she was afraid of the presence of some underlying trap inside. ¡°If the energy in this equipment is converted into my own power, I might be transformed into a piece of equipment too. If that happens, it will not be worthwhile anymore.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s prudence had saved her own life. If she had refined this piece of equipment, all her vitality would have been absorbed by the equipment. Even though Saleen had a duplicate of her soul, Saleen also could not salvage her life. She was also making the right choice at the moment. She had used Ismail¡¯s divine crystal to repair the torn page from the twelve Notes of the First Purgatory. Onceplete, this equipment would no longer be rted to the Lord of Glory.


    Ismail¡¯s divine crystal contained the power of the Goddess of Myers. The Goddess of Myers might have fallen, but her divinity could still denude the imprint left by the Lord of Glory, thus turning this equipment into an ownerless item.


    Currently, Titan Duchy had sunk into utter chaos. The Agares family had cowered and gone into hiding. As a result, only the confrontation between Cloudflow¡¯s army and Tanggsi¡¯s army remained.


    Tanggsi Empire had seized all control of the northern Chishui River while the Cloudflow Empire dominated the southern part of the Chishui River. The metal bridge at the Stone Statue Castle had been destroyed. Even though the iron knights from the Tanggsi Empire could still cross the river, the support troops could hardly keep up. Consequently, the scale of battles between both parties was limited, but the destruction caused by these fights was not small at all. Holy masters and mages had joined in the battle. Over thirty cities situated on both sides of the Chishui River had been ruined, sending the people of Titan fleeing in all directions.

 Chapter 537: Wrath of god (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 537: Wrath of god (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    War could eradicate everything. At first, the people of Titan who were escaping thought that they were facing a massacre from the Tanggsi Empire, but at this moment, the blood knights had been secretly recalled. The blood knights had gathered upstream of Chishui River, getting ready to cross the river anytime. The ones responsible for cleaning the duchy were now the regr knights¡¯ group.


    The pastors began recruiting believers tantly, leading to the development of hundreds of churches. As long as one believed in the Lord of Glory, they would be spared and could still reim their lostnds and peasants.


    The Titan nobles did not harbor as much hate for the Holy Seepared to the Qin people, especially the small nobles, who had no opinion of the Holy See. As the Agares family had disappeared and no longer made any noise, a number of smaller nobles had begun leaning towards the Holy See to recover their freedom and riches.


    The disobedient nobles were captured by people from the inquisition and then thrown into the ck Dungeon, where they would never get out again. As a result, a short-lived peace was actually present at northern Chishui River, as if the war had already ended. It was currently deep into autumn, and winter was just around the corner, so the farmers did not need to work. Most of them weremanded to restore the ruined cities.


    The Holy See had put it in a very nice way when in fact more than half of Titan nobles were still killed. Where did the extrand for building additional churchese from? A portion of the nobles were spared so that the Holy See could spread the heart of tolerance of their god. The moment Titan nobles got segregated, they could no longer converge to oppose the Holy See, and that was how the northern region got suppressed.


    The Holy See had thousands of years of experience in such affairs, they could handle it perfectly.


    By upying the northern Chishui River, the southern part of Tanggsi Empire had immediately gained an additional barrier. It was already no longer possible for Cloudflow Empire to achieve a breakthrough onnd and pose a threat to the Tanggsi Empire. The Tanggsi Empire only needed to defend the vital coastal cities, preventing Cloudflow¡¯s fleet from dropping off soldiers, to amass their forces in peace. They then could try to break through the impasse in Lon again.


    The soldiers of Cloudflow were very much inferior to the sailors. The Tanggsi Empire was very fearful that Cloudflow mightunch a two-pronged offensive, attacking from sea andnd. If that happened, the Tanggsi Empire would be in a very precarious situation, even though Cloudflow¡¯s army was lousier than Tanggsi¡¯s iron knights.


    Once such an event happened, the Tanggsi Empire would be warring on three fronts. By then, who could guarantee that Sikeqinya would not seize the opportunity to cause even more damage? Sikeqinyans were people who valued money, as long as there were benefits, those mercenaries would appear in hordes.


    It was out of desperation that the Tanggsi Empire invaded Titan, unless Cloudflow was willing to sign an alliance treaty with Tanggsi. The problem was that the Holy See had too many demands, so the imperial family of Cloudflow would notpromise. Just on taxes alone, the Holy See would im almost half the ie received by the royal family of Tanggsi.


    That meant that the Tanggsi Empire had the lowest ie even though the surface area of itsnd was thergest out of the four big empires because the blood-sucking Holy See was around. As a result, taxation in the Tanggsi Empire was alwaysplicated and demanding. Be that as it may, the Tanggsi Empire still could not get out of its dire straits.


    The civilians of the Tanggsi Empire led the toughest lives. As the Holy See frequently distributed alms and helped the poor, it had an excellent reputation. The peasants would not know so much. Without the Holy See, the Tanggsi Empire would not even demand so much taxes. The Holy See had upiedrge amounts ofnd. Besides using thesends for constructing churches, the Holy See also had their own farnds.


    This time around, the Tanggsi Empire and the Holy See had conspired to take over the world, and their first step was to invade Lon. The lifestyle in Lon was extravagant, far from the ferocity found in Qin. Who knew that the Qin emperor would personally lead an invasion, disrupting the favorable situation. The Holy See yed along, ambushing the Qin emperor. When the Qin emperor died, the inner ranks of the Holy See also suffered huge losses.


    Because of this, the situation in Lon was once again equalized. On the other hand, negotiations between Tanggsi and Cloudflow had fallen through, so Titan was immediately invaded to stabilize the situation at the border.


    Everything was going smoothly, until this day.


    Glorious ins in Holy City; his ce contained thergest church in the empire. This church was also the center of theocracy, where the thirty-second pope handled official business.


    The Nico Cathedral was made up of over one-hundred building clusters. Situated at the peak of the center point was an open air altar. This altar had a radius of one-hundred yards with an open air design, it was the nucleus of the whole city.


    Holy prose, such as images, lines, and mysterious symbols were carved into the center of the altar. There was a grand total of twenty-four towering pirs surrounding the altar. No matter the time of the day, there would be sunlight passing through the crystals ced atop the pirs, causing the converged rays of light to bathe the altar in brilliance.


    The altar was originally t, but there was now a stone tform on top of it. The Holy See¡¯s code was ced atop this tform. In front of the stone tform was an elderly person d in a long golden robe, standing there with an earnest expression. Gathered behind him was a group of bishops in red clothes.


    At the center of the altar, in the middle of the image used for sacrifices, was a burnt human body.


    The sacrificial process of the Holy See demanded the use of live humans. This live human was originally an elite in the Holy See. After going through god¡¯s baptism, his powers were immediately boosted by two grades. He had been qualified to be a cardinal. In this round of sacrifice, the god was furious, and this believer with a bright future got incinerated into ashes.


    Beside the pope, a middle-aged man in a long yellow robe held up a code, flipping it to the pages at the back. Lips trembling, he scanned the rows of words, remaining silent for a long time.


    ¡°Sharjah, what is going on?¡± The pope stared at the burnt human, feeling very perturbed.


    After the battle with the Qin emperor, the power of the pope suffered the greatest loss, while the power of the seven oracles remained fairly unaffected. Currently, the oracles were secretly harboring the thought of leaving the pope, as Fycro had toorge an ambition. If Fycro seeded, then the Holy See would suffer its first ever fission since establishment.


    This red deacon was handpicked by the pope out of thousands of people, his power was already equivalent to that of a grade-7 human sorcerer. After god¡¯s baptism, he could immediately be a grade-9 expert. Unexpectedly, the god was outraged, thus implicating the innocent. In less than a second, this elite had been killed by a holy light.


    The Red Bishops maintained their silence out of fear. Theisio had announced to the public that he himself had sustained serious injuries and would die soon. In reality, he was not close to dying even though he had sustained serious injuries. A few disloyal people had already been directly killed by the pope, so these Red Bishops did not dare try anything.


    Sharjah was the pope¡¯s chief of affairs, which meant that he was the pope¡¯s personal servant, and he did not wield much authority. If the pope died in an ident, and there was no appointed sessor, then he would be the temporary pope. At the same time, as the pope¡¯s chief of affairs, he also had a very important holy equipment of the Holy See; the Ring of Many Gods.


    Legend had it that the Ring of Many Gods was created after the Lord of Glory went on a crusade in the godly realm and killed countless other gods. The power of this holy equipment was stronger than the three holy weapons the pope possessed. The Ring of Many Gods could only unleash its greatest might in the hands of the Lord of Glory, humans would never be able to control it fully.


    Sharjah closed the code, then said, ¡°Your Excellency, god has¡­ given a holy decree.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Not only were the Red Bishops astounded, the pope was equally shocked as well. Usually, the Lord of Glory would only disseminate a holy decree after some special ceremony. The royal decree also had never been directly tranted into words to a code before.


    ¡°Many believers of other gods have appeared on the glorious maind.¡±


    Sharjah¡¯s words had caused everyone to go numb. All these years, the activity the Holy See was most involved in was killing pagans. After killing for two three hundred years, the original believers would have also died even if they did not get captured because humans had finite life. The Holy See had secret agents all over the maind who specialized in sniffing out believers of other religions. It could be said that for the past over five-hundred years, there were no real pagans, with the exception of the ck magicians.


    The devil worshipped by the ck magicians was not a real god, their god also could not use a religion to preach. The god was so enraged because the pagans which had appeared were obviously believers of a real god.


    That bit of divine power in Saleen¡¯s body was in fact brought about by the Tree of Life, there was actually no religion in it, so it was hardly noticed. When the ck Bishop returned to Tanggsi, he did not report this to the pope. He instead tried to resolve the problem using the inquisition¡¯s sphere of influence, and that gave him great merit.


    The divine power exerted by Ismail was the genuine power of religion. He frequently wielded the Elemental Spear and the Eye of Hades, and he did so while in the purgatory space personally created by the Lord of Glory. Even though the Lord of Glory could not descend on the ne of the Myers maind, it was impossible for him not to detect it.


    Two of his powerful believers were ughtered by Ismail. After so many years, no one on Myers maind had ever challenged his authority. Had this been a normal person, the Lord of Glory would not even care. This matter was created by a believer of some other god, thus causing the Lord of Glory to blow his top.


    The worst thing was that Nailisi still used the power in the divine crystal to slowly remove the holy imprint on the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory, leading the Lord of Glory to think that a pagan was challenging his ego.


    This situation was like if one went to someone else¡¯s home and then killed their servants. Then thereafter, they still wanted to alter the title deed in order to seize the house.


    ¡°The holy war must be brought forward. All those who refuse the gift of god shall be killed.¡± Sharjah¡¯s tone was that of anguish because he knew that, on the maind, the Holy See did not have such capabilities yet. This was god¡¯s order, it could not be defied.


    Pope Theisio remained silent for exactly five minutes, then said to Sharjah, ¡°So, where is Fycro?¡±


    ¡°Sir Fycro is not in the Holy City, he has been away for several months now.¡±


    ¡°Get the head inquisitors over¡­¡± Theisio sighed deeply. Even though the Holy See had ignited a war, the scale of the war had been controlled very well, a holy war was different. The moment a holy war was initiated, the Holy See had to deploy all forces tounch an all-out offensive against the enemy.


    Ismail never knew that he would create so much trouble by killing two adjudicators. At this moment, not only was he dead, but countless other living beings would also be dead soon.


    Sharjah bowed and took his leave. The pope turned around and observed the dozens of Red Bishops, then said icily, ¡°What are you all still standing there for, arrange for me to meet His Majesty. Tomorrow, by this time, I want him here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sir Pope.¡± The Red Bishops left in a fluster, the events of this day were too astonishing. After so many years, this was the first time their god was so incensed. These Red Bishops would inevitably experience some fear, their usual actions were not in much conformance to their doctrines. It was not known whether their god knew about their actions or not.


    The burnt body was pulled off the altar, and then thrown into a mass grave. Those who had been killed by the god had no rights to enter the Holy See¡¯s graveyard, even if this person was very staunch and his morals were wless.

 Chapter 538: Oracle Fyro (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 538: Oracle Fyro (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nico Cathedral was heavily guarded and the people of the Holy See were nervous. The Pope did not intend to be secretive about any news of the Holy War. Within this holy city, it was even rumoured that mages from Alchemy City were lying in ambush.


    After the passing of Emperor Chanake, Holy Rock City¡¯s support for Alchemy City began to reduce, but that did not deter Alchemy City mages froming over for revenge.


    If anyone thought that mages should face each other outrightly and challenge each other to a proper magic duel, then they must be mistaken. In order to achieve the objective, death mages sometimes might even resort to releasing poison to kill an entire city¡¯s worth of enemies and create even more death troops. Although such incidents only urred during wars between countries, suffice to say, mages were not a pedantic group.


    The Holy See murdered Emperor Chanake and angered the mages of Alchemy City. To date, at least four sorcerers were still in the Tanggsi Kingdom, waiting for an opportunity to wreak havoc of a massive scale.


    The knights in front of the cathedral were not worried about the sorcerers at all. The Holy City was where the Holy See¡¯s headquarter was located and powerful Holy Masters were everywhere. If the sorcerers dared to attack the Nico Cathedral, they might as well forget about leaving.


    Within the Holy City, almost all the Cardinals had gathered at Nico Cathedral, but less than ten were genuinely participating in the meeting.


    Beside Pope Theisio sat Chief Pope Sharjah, and on his other side were five red bishops. Sitting opposite him were two people; one wore a ck robe and looked to be around seventy years old, while the other wore a white robe and looked to be slightly past thirty years old.


    ¡°Your Excellency, since God has passed the decree and the Holy War has begun, then I shall utilize the Knights of Darkness from the ck Dungeon.¡± The elderly man in the ck robe clearly did not respect Theisio. His tone was casual and did not sound like a request at all.


    ¡°Precisely. One of our duties as Oracles is to spread the faith. Your Excellency, ording to the Code, we have the right to gather knights too,¡± the middle-aged man in the white robe agreed. His bodynguage was arrogant.


    ¡°Humph!¡± Theisio snickered. He had a full head of white hair that seemed to glow with holy light, suddenly brightening up the dark meeting room.


    ¡°Head inquisitor Lucashenko and the Second Oracle, do you think that our current strength is sufficient to conquer the Maind?¡± Seeing that there was no rebuke from the two, Theisio continued, ¡°The royal family of the Sikenqinyans have developed a strong and powerful army that never leaves the royal city. No one knows the size of this army, nor the kind of equipment they have. Cloudflow has an invincible fleet that can spring a sneak attack on our cities by the sea. Although it is a blow to Qin that Chanake died, are you confident in destroying Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°The Sikenqinyans can be bribed.¡± The ck-robed head inquisitor did not continue to go against Theisio. He knew that if the Holy See continued to build up strength for another fifty years, the situation on the Maind would changepletely. In fact, just twenty years would be sufficient for them to defeat the three Kingdoms. Right now, they needed allies in order to achieve victory though.


    You can bribe them, but so can others. The Sikenqinyans are not reliable and the Cloudflows are not on friendly terms with us. We might as well think of how to recover back to our full strength as soon as possible. The number of Blood Knights are just too little,¡± Theisio gave Lucashenko a sharp re.


    ¡°Your Excellency, the Supreme Court has about one-hundred-thousand Blood Knights. They should be sufficient to withstand any attacks from the Cloudflow Kingdom,¡± Lucashenko revealed, before continuing, ¡°For the Supreme Court to support the Sacred Knights, it is necessary to deploy forces from the ck Dungeon. Besides, it is time for us bring out our experiment.¡±


    The Second Oracle let out a dreary sound, obviously showing displeasure towards what Lucashenko said. The disagreement between the two of them had been ongoing for more than a couple of days, even Theisio was troubled over this. The experiments from the Supreme Court were of extremely evil nature and clearly did not fit the doctrine. It was a Holy War now. As long as the enemies could be destroyed, then it would be allowed by the Gods.


    The Oracles were strategizing on how to build a Holy Kingdom army. This was equivalent to an attempt to undermine the Sacred Knights, and not allowing the Pope to control everything. Such an act was even more despicable than the Supreme Court.


    At this point, Theisio said, ¡°Okay, the ck Dungeon may be opened. Lucashenko, I will announce God¡¯s Order. You can pick and choose whatever powers you need for the Supreme Court to go alongside the Sacred Knights and attack Lon. Within half a year, Lon needs to be fully under control. By autumn next year, I want the situation to be stabilized.¡±


    ¡°Second Oracle, the First Oracle is not around, so you can hold on for the time being with regards to the construction of the Holy Kingdom army. The number of Holy Masters gathered for the expedition is insufficient and we still need to utilize the Ascetics. By spring next year, we willunch an attack against Laiyin Duchy. Do you have an opinion?¡±


    The Second Oracle spoke, ¡°Lord Pope, the Ascetics have always been under the Oracles¡¯ control. Their strength does not lie in expedition battles.¡±


    ¡°This is God¡¯s will!¡± Theisio said with rage.


    ¡°God¡¯s will?¡± The Second Oracle smiled before shutting his mouth.


    Theisio calmed himself down before saying, ¡°With regards to the Holy Kingdom, the Pivotal Council will consider it again once the First Oracle returns.¡±


    There was nothing that the Second Oracle could do. Fycro was not around and the Pope was using the status and position of the five powerful Cardinals against him. Only Fycro had the ability to stand against the Pivotal Council. As for the rest of the Oracles, their powers were more or less the same as a Cardinal. For this internal strife, the abilities gifted by the Lord of Glory could not be used. Based on this fact alone, the Supreme Court had the upper hand. Those lunatics would resort to using even heresy powers to eliminate others.


    The Pope¡¯s promise was vague, but Fycro was not around so there was nothing that the Second Oracle could do. He might appear strong, but ultimately just wanted to make sure he did not lose out on any gains to be had.


    ¡°The Cardinals have constructed twelve legions of knights at full strength. Each legion will require one-hundred Ascetics. Second Oracle, will you be able to settle this?¡± Theisio asked, as if there was room for discussion.


    ¡°Y-yes, I can.¡± The Second Oracle had wanted to say that they needed some time to discuss amongst themselves. Doing so would reduce his standing amongst the other Oracles. Fycro was not around so he had to make the decision. Twelve-thousand Ascetics was still a manageable figure.


    There were one-thousand to three-thousand Ascetics under themand of every Oracle. After the unlucky Genesis died, the new Oracle that took over would never disobey his order. Each Oracle would contribute fifty Ascetics and the Sixth Oracle would be deployed to lead them. Then there would be no need to argue further with Theisio.


    ¡°Very well. Since that is settled, we can now begin to discuss the movement of the troops,¡± Theisio breathed a sigh of relief after the Second Oracle agreed. The Holy See¡¯s twelve legions of Sacred Knights constituted the main force, but without Holy Masters, they would be easy targets for high-level mages. The Pivotal Council were notcking of Holy Masters, but they were all the forces that the Council had. If all of them were to join the army, the Holy City would be defenceless.


    With the heritage that belonged to the Holy See today, where a religion could stand against a mighty kingdom, they would not be so foolish as to give in to internal conflicts and disputes. Theisio exerted a bit of pressure and the Second Oracle relented, so he also took a step back in turn, and things did not turn ugly between the two parties.


    Unless the three big kingdoms copsed and the Holy See could gain control of Myers Maind, then Oracles would have strived to break apart on their own. The construction of the Holy Kingdom was Fycro¡¯s idea. He wanted a kingdom simr to heaven to be built on the Myers Maind, so that even those who were not able to go to heaven could have a chance to enjoy the greatest honor a disciple deserved.


    The meeting in Nico Cathedral continued for a full day and night, many of God¡¯s orders were passed down. With the holy city as the core, countless troops began to move and gather on the ins.


    At this very moment, a young man dressed in a white robe arrived just outside of Metatrin City. He was fit and fair-skinned, with soft facial features and a pair of ck eyes. His hair was of shoulder length and was let down. This young man who seemed harmless and powerless was actually the secretive First Oracle of the Holy See; Fycro.


    He raised his head and peered at the towering city walls. He snickered at the sight of skeleton soldiers patrolling the walls.


    ¡°Heresies, and to even think of building a city that can stand for eternity. Dante¡¯s Sequence? What a talented guy. Looks like he does have the capability to work with me.¡± Fycro muttered to himself. This strange young man who was peering into the city in the cold and snowy weather had long been sighted. A small group of Caucasus soldiers on magic wolves soon came riding to him.


    ¡°Who are you?!¡± The leader of the Caucasus soldiers bellowed in the Common Language. He held a sword and approached Fycro with caution.


    ¡°I am a merchant dealing with weapons, and am also a mage,¡± Fycro smiled and pointed at the two rows of magic symbols on his white robe. These were symbols of a grade-2 mage.


    ¡°Mister mage, you¡­¡±


    ¡°I am a friend of Master Saleen. He has invited me here to discuss weapons with him,¡± Fycro lied easily. The Caucasus soldier was cautious and asked, ¡°Do you have any tokens of proof?¡±


    Fycro casually took out a badge and passed it to the Caucasus soldier. Obviously the soldier did not recognize it and said, ¡°Master Saleen is not around. You can follow me into the city. I will have to check the authenticity of the badge.¡±


    Fycro did not mind and gestured for them to proceed. This badge was the symbol of a major Sikenqinyanpany that was secretly funded by the Holy See, so there was no way anyone would be able to find any issues with it.


    With Fycro¡¯s status, forging an identity was just too easy.


    He followed the Caucasus soldier and entered the town hall. Coincidentally, both Aini and Irene were at the town hall when the badge was sent for inspection. They did not find any problems with it and so, Fycro was arranged to stay at an inn designated for the workers of the town hall where he would await Saleen¡¯s return.


    In the past few months, many people hade looking for Saleen, so Fycro¡¯s arrival did not seem out of ce. Even Aini was not be able to expose his real identity and powers.


    The town hall wascking in manpower and no one was avable to apany Fycro, so he eventually ended up wandering around in the city. Since his identity was a grade-2 mage, Daniel did not pay him too much attention. After sending someone to observe him for some time, Daniel eventually let him be.

 Chapter 539: Oracle Fycro (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 539: Oracle Fycro (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without anyone spying on him, Fycro feltfortable moving around freely. He noticed that this city was bustling with business even though it had just around one-hundred-thousand people. Most of the people that came over from Phoenix were merchants and reputable ns.


    Although the tax system in Metatrin City wasplicated, the rates were actually very low and any business could be profitable. Most of the things avable here could hardly be found in most other cities. Even the Qin garrison in Phoenix had took notice of the existence of Metatrin City.


    Due to the Holy Rock City¡¯s acquiescence on top of the inessible location, the garrison of Phoenix had no intentions of attacking. Instead, they sent caravans over to buy magic nuclei and wood.


    After Saleen left, Daniel organized manpower to hunt on the seas, so the supply of magic nuclei was still sufficient. He had twobat vessels which used up a lot of magic nuclei whenever they were used for hunting, but the sea provided a rich amount of resources. Whenever they went out to the seas, they were guaranteed huge returns. Including the magic nuclei that Saleen left behind, it was no wonder that Metatrin City had developed a reputation as a business city.


    If Fycro arrived at the west gate instead of the north, there might not even be any patrols around to question him at all.


    Fycro¡¯s pace was neither too fast nor too slow, but very soon, he had almost walked the entire perimeter of Metatrin City. He did not explore the core of the city as even more skeletal soldiers would be patrolling there. What puzzled Fycro was that the people in the city did not show any signs of fear towards the skeletal soldiers. To mages, skeletal soldiers were like a motley crew that they could destroy easily. For normal humans to be unafraid of skeletals was strange though.


    He could sense the aura of the Three Kings. He was not afraid, but in any case, he came to Metatrin City for other reasons and not to destroy it. He pretended that he was just a grade-2 mage and patiently waited in the city for Saleen¡¯s return.


    On that day, Fycro was exploring the east side of the city and came across a shop that sold shells of sea monsters. He thought they were interesting and wanted to buy them. These things were useless to most people since there were too little of them. Fycro had his own way of refining and could still create miniature weapons from them.


    Just as he was discussing the prices with the shop assistant, someone dashed in from outside. His face had traces of blood and his clothes were torn and tattered. The moment he entered the shop, he immediately grabbed one of the long swords from a shelf. His face looked ferocious. By now, tens of soldiers that were on patrol had blocked off the entrance of the shop.


    Fycro could tell immediately that this man had the abilities of a grade-1 swordmaster. With a long sword in hand, there was a sturdy and fearless aura about him. The soldiers at the entrance were all only at the level of swordsmen. The moment they saw that the man was armed, they quickly drew their crossbows, but did not rush in immediately for fear of hurting the customer and shop assistant in the shop.


    The shop assistant who was discussing prices with Fycro was panicking by then and retreated to hide behind the counter. The fugitive armed with the long sword nced at Fycro and was shocked to realize that there was a mage there! Immediately, he dismissed the thought of using Fycro as hostage.


    ¡°Why are they after you?¡± Fycro was indifferent and began to question this man. He was stunned and clearly did not understand what Fycro said.


    Fycro spoke in the Qinnguage with a Sikenqinyan ent. The man clearly did not understand and appeared flustered while holding onto his long sword.


    The man¡¯s expression did not arouse any suspicions in Fycro. He was very clear by now that within Metatrin City, as long as one did not get too close to the core of the city, security was quitex. Based on the fact that the person who was supposed to be spying on him had already left long ago. Metatrin City was developing into a business city, so there was no need to scrutinize a grade-2 mage. When human traffic in the city increased in the future, how many spies would be needed in order to carry out spying activities on such arge scale otherwise?


    ¡°Mister mage, save me!¡± The fugitive opened his mouth and spoke a strange version of the Common Language.


    Although the Common Language evolved from the Myers Language, the difference could be huge. Needless to say, it was almost unrted to ancient the Myers Language. Luckily, Fycro was well-learned and although this man¡¯s ent was very strong, he was able to understand quickly by using his calcting ability. It was just some changes in the scale of sound. All mages were proficient in this, much less a Holy Master that mainly cultivated his spirit as his training.


    Fycro looked out of the shop¡¯s huge window and saw that more soldiers had gathered, and even a magic apprentice had arrived with a few skeletal soldiers. Skeletal soldiers did not have strong fighting abilities if the battle was on a major scale. In a closebat like this, skeletal soldiers were not afraid of knives and could use their bodies to control the enemy since they were of no loss even if they were sacrificed.


    Fycro walked out of the shop and waved to the captain of the soldiers. The captain was a swordsman of a high level and was extremely young. He used to be a private soldier of a reputable n, which then defected to Lex and the whole family moved to Metatrin City. Since there was no need to have so many soldiers at hand anymore, more than half of the private soldiers were bought over by Lex.


    This captain was well-trained. He saw Fycro¡¯s attire and did not dare to be rude. He took a few steps in front and bowed to Fycro, saying, ¡°Mister mage, that is a fugitive. Please do not interfere.¡±


    Fycro frowned and said, ¡°I heard that Qin has banned the ve trade.¡±


    Fycro was not wrong. The Qin Kingdom had banned the ve trade and although Metatrin City was not and of Qin, it was close to Bitter Water Prefecture. Thews of the prefecture were no different from Qin so ve trade should not be urring here either. Fycro also hated the ve trade because he felt that ves¡¯ faiths were unpure. Once they were freed, they were more likely to betray the Godspared to normal humans.


    The Holy See allowed for ves in Tanggsi Kingdom in order to reduce the power of the kingdom and at the same time, give the Holy See sufficient freedom and empowerment. This did not mean that the ve trade was beneficial to the Holy See. In the long term, the ve trade should be demolished, or the Holy See would start to experience a bottleneck and would be unable to expand further.


    In the past two years, the war between Tanggsi Kingdom and Qin had proved this point. Usually, more than ten-thousand ve troops would be massacred by a Qin g group, even implicating the elite troops that led these ves. Qin presence in Lon consisted of only local forces and their abilities were nowhere near the Qin royal swordsmen¡¯s camp. Even so, the battle in Lon was still locked in a stalemate.


    If Qin was against the ve trade, why would there be an urrence of ves being bought or sold here?


    ¡°Mister mage, this man is not a Myers.¡± The captain was a bit embarrassed, but still exined to Fycro patiently.


    Fycro understood immediately. Holy Rock City had created war puppets and from what he knew, they destroyed the Eastern Sea Allied Army. Even the millions of troops in the Eastern Sea Allied Army could not stand against the swarms of soldiers from Holy Rock City. After a few major battles, the number of captives from the Eastern Sea Allied Army were more than two-hundred-thousand. These captives, ording to thews of the Qin Kingdom, could be bought and sold.


    Since they were not from Myers Maind, to foreign invaders, Qin was considered merciful by not executing them.


    ¡°Mister mage, please save me! I don¡¯t want to go to the mine. I am willing to be your follower!¡± The captive from the Eastern Sea Allied Army shouted loudly from inside the shop.


    Fycro smiled and said, ¡°How much do I need to pay to buy this man?¡±


    The captain seemed to be put in a difficult position and said, ¡°Mister mage, originally he would not have cost much, but he escaped and injured a few of our soldiers in the process. If you are Qin, it will be difficult to buy him.¡±


    ¡°I am Sikenqinyan,¡± Fycro said honestly.


    ¡°Then that would require one-thousand gold coins as a deposit. If he does not create any trouble for our country within a year, you will only receive a return of five-hundred gold coins. It is not worth it,¡± the soldier tried to dissuade Fycro, out of goodwill. Using one-thousand gold coins to buy a grade-1 swordmaster was indeed too expensive. Usually, gold coins were still extremely valuable to a low-level mage.


    ¡°Where can I sign the contract for purchase?¡± Of course, Fycro did not care for the one-thousand gold coins. Now that he heard that the swordmaster was supposed to be sent for mining, there were some questions that he wanted to ask him. With regards to the Eastern Sea Allied Army, he was also interested to understand more about that too. The Holy See had never had any control over the seas, and to Fycro, that was a huge miscalction.


    If they could develop fleets like Cloudflow, the Holy See would have expanded to the maind long ago.


    ¡°In that case¡­ Mister mage, please follow me to the town hall.¡± The soldier had already tried his best to dissuade him, but since Fycro was still insistent, he could not be bothered to persist any further. Mages usually tended to be strange people, so who knew what he was thinking.


    Fycro managed to purchase the swordmaster sessfully and spent a total of more than one-thousand and two-hundred gold coins. Amongst them were one-thousand gold coins¡¯ worth of deposit. It was unlikely that he would get the deposit back.


    Fycro brought the swordmaster back to his room and signed a follower contract with him before questioning him.


    Fycro was a bit disappointed after the questioning. Although the swordmaster was the military officer of one of the Eastern Sea countries, that country was a small one and was not even able to construct its own vessels. The situation in the Eastern Sea was ideal. Hundreds of small countries located on more than three-thousand small inds, such ces were perfect for the spreading of faith.


    The countries of the Eastern Sea suffered huge losses in this expedition. If the Holy See could seize the opportunity, they would definitely be able to convert a lot of new disciples.


    The only trouble was that the Eastern Sea countries also had a religion of their own. Their faith did not lie in any Gods, but with a royal family. ording to legend, a noble family from the first dynasty came over to the Eastern Sea inds and built a unifyed kingdom. The empire did notst long and broke apart soon after. Nevertheless, the subsequent emperors or kings all acknowledged this noble family to be their spiritual leader.


    ¡°The descendants of the first dynasty?¡± Fycro analyzed and decided that it was still possible. If this family was that powerful, it would not have allowed the kingdom they built to copse.


    The issue about the mining was simple. There were quite a few mines in the northern part of Metatrin City. The Supreme Court had conducted reconnaissance of the area before, but did not treat it with importance since it was so far away. Metatrin Cityid im to these mines and allowed noble families and merchants to invest and mine.


    The noble families of Phoenix had escaped here, but the journey was not entirely a rush and they had time to bring along all their family properties and were still very affluent. The only thing theycked was manpower.


    Irene was in charge of organizing the manpower, so she bought many ves in Lianyun City and then sold them to the investors of the mines. The ves were sent to the northern side for mining.


    Due to ack of suitable mining machines, this method was the fastest way to earn profits.


    After what the swordmaster told Fycro, he thought to himself, ¡°Since I did not kill the swordmaster and have already spent more than one-thousand gold coins on him, I might as well keep him as my runner.¡± The purpose of himing alone was to strike a deal with Saleen. He left all the fighting and killing to the Pivotal Council and the Supreme Court.


    In any case, the deal that he was trying to strike was a major one. If he seeded, he would no longer be restricted on the Myers Maind.

 Chapter 540: Discovering the temple (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 540: Discovering the temple (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Of course Saleen did not know that one of the most powerful figure from the Holy See had snuck into his own city, awaiting his return. Out of fear that people from the inquisition could determine their location based on the spots where the two adjudicators were killed, Saleen and Lex left that ce as soon as possible, advancing towards the depths of the desert.


    This time around, Lex would travel in the day and rest in the evenings. There were some horrifying creatures in the Purgatory Desert which were nocturnal. During the zing day, these creatures would basically hide themselves in the sand and rest.


    Without the protection of the mages, the swordmasters with the Spirit Snake Armor would also not be able to follow Lex into the desert. Without the patrols done by the swordmasters at night, battling all those magic beasts, the mages could hardly rest either. Just like that, the team lived in the desert for half a month. Finally, Saleen¡¯s team had arrived at the central region of the Purgatory Desert despite experiencing a few shocks along the way.


    This route was actually not so long as to require half a month of travel. Saleen had witnessed the might of the imperial soldiers, he had also seen how these dozen of swordmasters and grand swordmasters spent their gold coins.


    Indeed, the Spirit Snake Armor was worthy to be called the best armor on the ne. Under protection of the Spirit Snake Armor, none of the ten swordmasters sustained serious injuries. Out of hundreds of big and small battles, and thousands of ughtered magic beasts, less than ten percent of the situations required intervention by the mages. Most of the time, the mages only blessed the swordmasters with defensive spells.


    If he had not seen it with his own eyes, Saleen would never have believed that the ten swordmasters and two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters possessed such powerful offensive abilities.


    At the same time, the Spirit Snake Armor had quite a high level of consumption. Each night, after the camp was set up, Lex would personally help the warriors repair their armor and change the magic nuclei. Saleen rendered some help and he had learned quite a bit about magic armor. Saleen himself had also crafted magic armor in the past, but it was nothingpared to the Spirit Snake Armor. If it was not for the sturdy materials used, Saleen would be too embarrassed to even disy it.


    Saleen did some simple calctions. After entering the core of the desert, the ten swordmasters, two ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, and Wild Bear would each consume about two-hundred gold coins worth of resources daily. This price was not even the market rate. As Lex had prepared all the materials herself, and she was repairing the armor on her own.


    The total daily depletion was about three-thousand gold coins. During thisst period of time, Lex had consumed tens of thousands of gold coins. If Lex had not brought along arge number of mages and instead recruited a team of people and horses, she would have spent at least ten times more ording to the current market prices.


    This day, the team came to a halt urgently, because a sandstorm was approaching. The mages swiftly constructed an underground fortress using earth magic. Everyone crawled inside, and only emerged after the sandstorm went past.


    The magicpass had malfunctioned. In order to calcte the specific position of the temple, Lex would have to wait for the stars to appear at night before matching them with the star as. After the camppound was rebuilt, Saleen had created arge quantity of ice cubes to lower the temperature. Given the over seventy degrees of sweltering temperature in the Purgatory Desert, the normal soldiers would have already died from the heat if there were no mages present. Only ice cubes created from intermediate level magic would not melt easily. Even though there was low level water magic which could be used to create many ice cubes, the mage casting it would be extremely exhausted.


    Lex¡¯s team could only be described as extravagant. There was not even one sorcerer amongst them. In most circumstances, the aspect of logistics would have faced much difficulty, but coincidentally, Saleen possessed the Dimension Stone while Lex had the divine equipment; God¡¯s Ring.


    At night, the mages measured wind speed and humidity. After confirming that there would not be any sandstorms in the near future, they began assembling a set of metal equipment. This appliance was actually very simple. Magic was utilized to create six stone foundation tforms in the ground, and after stabilizing a metal rack atop, a set of crystal wafers wereid on the rack.


    These crystal wafers had been made by grinded discarded crystals. Its sole feature was a very high degree of transparency, there were no ws. Such an item was of no use to a normal mage, only a mage with proficient alchemy skills would collect it. Its price was not considered cheap either.


    Precise patterns, calibrations and axes had been etched into the crystals using magic. Once these crystals were put in ce properly, the mages followed Saleen and Lex and sat beneath it. They then started proofreading the details.


    After all the details had been adjusted, Lex then went to observe the stars through the crystals.


    The elements and geomaism in the desert were experiencing disorder, while the magicpass had malfunctioned, but the sky was still pure. Their current position could be calcted using this expensive crystal star as. Following that, the coordinates sent over by Metatrin City could be used to determine the exact location of the temple.


    Everything was still influenced by money. This crystal star as might be pricey, but the thousands of coordinates calcted by the mages could not be bought with money.


    The night sky was unadulterated. The Qin Empire used to have the best astrologer. Other than mages, the high ranking leaders also had to be familiar with the knowledge of constetion. Lex had been learning about constetions systematically since she was young. Of course, it was not for her to predict the future, but for her to be well-versed in the elemental fluctuations urring on the Myers maind by matching them to the pattern of change in the constetions.


    It was profound knowledge, it could not be mastered just by memorizing a few mantras.


    Even though Saleen could control the depletion of magic chords very urately, he was inferior to Lex in this aspect. Lex¡¯s allocation of her magic chords was basically in tandem with the natural changes taking ce in this ne. She could enable a spell to unleash its greatest might while minimizing its depletion.


    Jason might be a good teacher, but he did not teach Saleen knowledge about the constetions. At the moment, Saleen could only watch from a corner, as he wanted to learn this rare skill Lex possessed.


    The light magic released by Lex prated the crystal star as, conducting several rounds of checks, then it corresponded to the coordinates of the stars in the sky. The mages immediately recorded the data, and began calcting. The whole process took less than an hour before the desired oue was achieved.


    ¡°Viscountess, the temple is located northeast, twenty degrees, six-hundred and one miles from here!¡± The mages reported the data jubntly. Saleen was full of admiration that the distance was urate down to the nearest mile. With so much manpower around, the entrance of the temple could definitely be found as long as everyone spread out.


    ¡°Over six-hundred miles!¡± Lex was a little annoyed, but joyous at the same time. She was upset because a distance of over six-hundred miles would require more than three days of travel even if the team rushed the journey. On the other hand, she was d she had brought along the crystal star as. There was actually a six-hundred mile discrepancy when the naked eye was used to observe the celestial signs otherwise!


    With a six-hundred mile error, it was possible that they might not even locate the temple after two or three years if they went searching around the desert.


    Lex still did not know that there were two goddess¡¯ envoys in the temple, but they had already left. If the goddess¡¯ envoys were still around, Lex might spend an eternity and she still would not be able to locate the temple.


    It could be said that Lex was pretty lucky. After Lex had maneuvered in the desert for half a month, the inquisition had just deployed almost a hundred ck deacons. They were deploying many people to seal the exits of the southern end. The Purgatory Desert might be wide and spacious, but there were not many suitable ces for entry and exit.


    The manpower deployed by the inquisition was also fairly insufficient, at the moment the manpower at God Grace Duchy had been assembled, while the blood knights were getting ready to cross the Chishui River anytime. As a result, the avable manpower was not even sufficient to seal the whole Purgatory Desert. The inquisition was taking a gamble by setting up defenses along the southern side.


    The inquisition had three head inquisitors, of which two of them were groomed after the death of the Qin emperor. The inner ranks were tumultuous, and it was also very exhausting to contend with the pope. This was actually favorable to Lex.


    Had the three head inquisitors entered the desert and ran into Lex, Lex could only hope that she would have the ability to escape back to Qin. By then, there would not be a need to discuss about the temple anymore.


    After traveling for four days, Lex¡¯s team then stopped to await nightfall.


    At this point in time, even the faces of the mages were peppered with frost. The Purgatory Desert was a really hostile environment. The mages would hide in the magic war chariots, and they had to bless their own bodies with magic whenever they wished to relieve themselves. They could be killed abruptly by the sand scorpions which crawled out of the sand otherwise.


    Nevertheless, these mages had also made invaluable gains. Usually, these mages would undergo coordination training with the army, but it was way inferior to the grind in the desert. During this period, the mages Lex brought into the desert had experienced arge increase in their offensive powers. The stealthy magic beasts were great training targets.


    The moment night arrived, Lex set up the crystal star as once more, measuring the exact position of the temple for thest time. She discovered some discrepancies, but this time around, it was only a difference of three miles.


    The central temple left behind secretly by the Goddess of Myers was three miles away.


    ¡°We will rest for one night, then set off tomorrow!¡± At this point in time, Lex was not anxious anymore. There might be danger in the temple. Currently, everyone was severely fatigued. If they met with powerful adversaries, all thesemanders and mages Lex had spent so much effort training would be wiped out at this location.


    This time around, the camppound was not constructed very sturdily, half of it was submerged in the sand. Lex also did not connect the barracks, she simply used magic to produce a colossal stone house. Even if a sandstorm appeared, she would not get flustered.


    Everyone was in the stone house. The light from the magicmp glowed gently. As Lex and Saleen sat in the middle, they nced at each other. Saleen nodded his head, then Lex opened her mouth to speak.


    ¡°Everyone is clear about our objective here. Yes, it is the temple of the Goddess of Myers. This temple is the nucleus of all the temples on the maind and no one has ever entered it. Legend has it that the Goddess of Myers once lived there.¡±


    Lex¡¯s voice was not very loud, but she could be clearly heard throughout the stone house. The mages were filled with anticipation. The Goddess of Myers was the god of this ne, she had created beautiful magic in the past for mages to emte. Even though humans were very powerful in the past, they were simply relying on their instincts then. It was only after the fall of the goddess that humans slowly gained the mighty ability of creation.


    The magic left behind by the goddess was the most practical of all. If the temple contained traces of the goddess, then it would be the most precious fortune a mage could have.


    ¡°I am not sure of the dangers hidden in the temple. All of you know that I have the God¡¯s Ring though. If I am willing, we can escape anytime. Once we enter the temple, the magic war chariots can no longer be used, so none of you can be more than five-hundred yards away from me. If I give the order to leave, all of you have toe beside me within three seconds. Understand?¡±


    The mages and warriors nodded their heads solemnly. At this moment, all the past statuses were unimportant. A temple once inhabited by the goddess could be said to be the holynd of the people on the Myers maind. The Lord of Glory would not be able to erase the presence of the goddess no matter what.

 Chapter 541: Discovering the temple (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 541: Discovering the temple (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex repeated her instructions, so that everyone would understand something. The moment she felt danger, everyone would have to flee immediately. If the temple was located, they could alwayse back again if they did not get the opportunity to get the seeds of the divine trees this time around. As long as the God¡¯s Ring could unleash its power, it would be akin to the Goddess of Myers having one more life.


    Saleen remained silent for the whole night, he did not rest. Instead, he was helping Eleanor craft the sixth divinecherry arrow. The power in the badge had been fully consumed by him. The next time he ran into trouble, he would have to rely on Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring. Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger could kill a sorcerer, but Saleen knew that his life would be in peril if he tried to kill a grade-8 sorcerer. Even if he did not die, he would lose all his offensive abilities.


    If possible, Saleen would never use the Crystal Finger again, unless he had already be a sorcerer and possessed sufficient magic chords and mental strength to feed his own consumption.


    The temple was only three miles away, but Lex slept very peacefully. At the central region of the desert, almost all the magic beasts had disappeared, and no more sandstorms were appearing. All the mages consumed a portion of magic liquid, ensuring that their bodies were in tip top condition. On the other hand, the swordmasters drankrge amounts of Restorative Water, and began altering their rations.


    Within the Qin army, the mages would blend food for the high rankingmanders and grand swordmasters. Large amounts of magic medicine were added into the food, which could repair any injuries and raise the ability of the physical body.


    Such food was not expensive, at the very least, Lex could afford it. The storage was a hassle though. Even if the food was ced in the God¡¯s Ring, its maximum shelf life would only be six days. The mages had blended six days¡¯ worth of food. After entering the temple, the swordmasters would not need to excrete. This food was almost as pure as a magic nucleus.


    This also meant that for the next six days, no one would need to remove their armor, they could maintain a state ofbat readiness.


    When the sun was just rising, it was the best moment in the Purgatory Desert. The temperature was increasing slightly, but it still remained below freezing. Lex separated the team into two parts, then they advanced northeast. Leading the pack was her own team of mages protected by the swordmasters. Walking at the rear was Saleen¡¯s team. J and Su were in charge of ensuring Eleanor¡¯s safety, while Saleen was protected by Nailisi and the demons.


    Lex and Saleen were people who could detect the presence of the temple. Lex used her God¡¯s Ring to do that, while Saleen relied on his left hand. Saleen¡¯s hand bone had already been transformedpletely. It now possessed the power of the Goddess of Nature, so it had a basal perception towards the temples left behind by the Goddess.


    ¡°It¡¯s right in front of us!¡± Lex¡¯s voice cracked with joyfulness. After searching high and low for more than three hours, and repeatedly matching the bearings, the God¡¯s Ring finally had a reaction. Saleen¡¯s brows were furrowed. He had long realized that he himself could be within the radius of the temple, but he could not locate the temple¡¯s entrance at all.


    Lex rushed hundreds of yards forward, then gathered everyone. Saleen closed his eyes, as he slowly said, ¡°We should already be on top of the temple, but this ce¡­¡±


    ck sand was flowing underneath their feet, producing whimper-like sounds in the wind. In such an environment, there would not be any teleportation portals around.


    Hesitating for a moment, Saleen said, ¡°Protect me closely.¡± After finishing this sentence, he took out the newly attained Ring of Gifts, then he began chanting a holy prose.


    Eleanor looked at Saleen in astonishment. She had only started teaching Saleen the holynguage and even if Saleen had learned all the holy words, it did not mean that he could cast a Divine spell. Saleen was obviously using aplete Divine spell at the moment though.


    With a simple ending to the verse, a chain of holy prose flew out of Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts. These holy prose glowed with a pale green hue, infiltrating the sea of ck sand.


    Saleen did not even know what effect this partial Divine spell had, but he believed that the goddess had left behind the Ring of Gifts so that her sessor could use it to enter the temple. Given the circumstances in the past, could a grade-1 mage with zero knowledge about holy proses enter a temple by luck? Saleen would not buy it.


    These holy prose flew into the ck sand, and the earth immediately began trembling vigorously.


    The mages lifted off the ground, but they did not soar into the air. Instead, they blessed the warriors in armor with magic, then they levitated in the air at a height of about two to three yards. Grade-4 mages could not fly, but Lex had blessed them with the Flying spell. While the grade-5 mages forced themselves to maintain levitating at this altitude.


    The ck sand threshed about, like the waves on the ocean. A ck mountain peak emerged. The body of this peak was obviously made out of ck sand, but as the ck sand on the peak flowed downwards, the peak only grew taller and taller. Its speed of growth far exceeded that of the loss of ck sand.


    When Saleen saw the ck mountain peak appear, he was very displeased. Even though he liked the goddess, the current situation seemed like a conspiracy. ¡°Could an unrted Divine spell and a normal Ring of Gifts summon the temple?¡± The agenda of this expedition was to gain entry to the temple and look for the seeds of the divine trees. Even if the goddess had ced the seeds directly into Saleen¡¯s hands, Saleen would dly ept it.


    ¡°I cannot possibly abandon the things I need just because this matter smells fishy.¡±


    Helpless, Saleen also flew into the air, then he saw Sika release the magic beast skeleton and flew up too. Sika giggled as she stopped beside Saleen, then said, ¡°Look, what do you think about this little guy?¡±


    Saleen was astounded, because even though the magic beast skeleton had wings, the wings never pped at all. It was solely relying on elemental power to fly. Sika was not controlling it using her mental strength, or it could be said that Sika and the magic beast skeleton had already merged as one. That skeleton¡¯s flying ability was totally in Sika¡¯s control.


    Sika then took out several javelins from the Ring of Gifts, cing them on her back. Nailisi gazed at the skies, feeling a little upset. At the moment, she could not fly, she could only maintain her body¡¯s bnce as she stood on the gradually growing peak.


    A pair of humongous wings grew out of Cuisi¡¯s back violently, they had a width of six yards. Effortlessly, Cuisi flew beside Saleen, then he nced down. A short practice had enabled him to control his transformed body at will. The mightiest feature of the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill was that people could not see through it easily. Even if the body had been transformed, one could still exhibit most of their abilities. This was unlike a normal shapeshifting skill, whereby one would lose all their special powers after transformation.


    The mountain peak grew increasingly taller. Gradually, it had reached a height of five-hundred yards, but it still had not stopped growing. ck clouds in the skies began assembling, and Saleen got worried. If there was an impending rain, it meant that lightning would be present too. If a mage flew in the air, they could be electrocuted easily.


    As the sand on the ck mountain peak flowed down endlessly, the temple¡¯s silhouette was gradually revealed. Saleen sighed, pointing at the entrance of the temple. Without any hesitation, Cuisi made a beeline for it.


    Cuisi¡¯s body was the strongest one in Saleen¡¯s team, even Nailisi¡¯s body was weaker. With a p of his wings, he had arrived at the entrance of the temple. Staring at the temple¡¯s gates which were wide open, Cuisi became hesitant.


    At this point in time, the swordmasters who had gained a stable footing in the flowing sand also dashed towards the temple. Very soon, they were standing next to Cuisi. Originally, Cuisi possessed a charming appearance and an alluring figure. Now that he had a pair of wings on his back, those swordmasters felt apprehensive.


    If they still could not sense that something was amiss with Saleen¡¯s subordinates at this point in time, then something was really wrong. Lex was not fearful and she did not warn them at all. These swordmasters simply kept a distance where they could wield their swords promptly, they did not retreat.


    An easy entrance to a ce found after many tribtions? Saleen and Lexnded on the ground. They were both skeptical as they stared at the entrance of the temple.


    ¡°Viscountess, allow me.¡± Wild Bear waved his shield as he spoke to Lex.


    Lex nodded. Wild Bear used the gigantic shield to protect his body as he stood in the middle of the temple¡¯s gates. Then, he hollered into the temple, ¡°Is anyone there?¡±


    Everyone thought that Wild Bear was going to rush in, unexpectedly, he actually bellowed from outside. At the same time, the atmosphere became strange, and it lightened quite a bit. Wild Bear swayed hisrger than average head, then he took a step forward cautiously, walking into the temple. His right hand was wielding the javelin specially crafted by Saleen. The tip of the javelin was pointed downwards, ready to unleash a powerful attack anytime.


    There was no reply at all, the temple was simply empty. The moment Wild Bear entered the temple, the scenery in front changed drastically. It became a verdant world with fresh air and a pleasant temperature. It was tens of thousands of times more refined than the space created by Raphael.


    Wild Bear¡¯s javelin vibrated, the Sword Aura had been amassed, but it was not released. Scanning the surroundings vigntly, Wild Bear could not see any creatures other than some harmless insects.


    ¡°Come on in, it seems safe.¡± Wild Bear hid behind his shield, he never advanced farther in.


    The warriors then swarmed in like a school of fishes with Lex and Saleen in the midst of them. Lex held up a pair of alchemical binocrs, observing the depths of the temple. She realized that the environment here was a paradise.


    The safer it was, the more suspicious they got. The team had encountered countless perils along the way after all. Even though Lex did not even lose a single person, each one in her team had experienced more than ten crises already. All of them moved with trepidation. The team had been able to get here intact because of their powerful equipment, not because of their individual might.


    ¡°What should we do now?¡± Lex asked subconsciously.


    ¡°Set up tent here, and create a set of coordinates first. I want to help them prepare a batch of suitable equipment. The authentic temple isn¡¯t far from here.¡± Saleen pointed at a mountain peak in the distance. At the river, a temple could be vaguely seen in the clouds.


    Lex nodded, she was worried about her personal gains and losses. In a rare moment, she had lost her assertion. Saleen did not alter the original n, everything was in ordance with the n. If this was a massive trap, he would want to give up anyway. If the grade-5 mages stood alone, and the Holy See had swept through the maind, people at Saleen¡¯s grade also would not be affected. Saleen could not, as he had an unresolvable conflict with the Holy See.


    ¡°I cannot rely on others, I have to obtain the seeds of the divine trees,¡± these were Saleen¡¯s thoughts.


    The door behind them did not disappear. Beyond the door was a boundless desert, and the sand particles within the winds stopped right in front of the door. It was warm as spring in the temple.


    ¡°Set up camp!¡± Lex ordered, and the mages began piling into the ground, putting in metal coordinates. The team would not lose their way even if they were deep inside the temple that way. The elements within the temple were no longer in disorder and the magicpass could be used. The coordinates in this space could not be corresponded to the coordinates on the Myers maind, one had to install it on their own.


    Lex asked Saleen doubtfully, ¡°What is this ce? A half ne? Or is it¡­¡±


    Saleen raised his head, looking at the strange sun suspended in the sky, then said, ¡°This should be the goddess¡¯ world. I heard that once a god attains a certain level of power, they can create their personalized worlds. This isn¡¯t too strange¡­¡±


    Lex nodded. Indeed, this was not strange. Even Raphael could create his own world, of course a god could.

 Chapter 542: Mythical Beast? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 542: Mythical Beast? (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ever since Saleen left Ceylon City, nothing had been smooth for him other than discovering the temple. From past experiences, he would surely encounter even more troublesome obstacles, so he kept to himself in the barracks while creating weapon equipment.


    Saleen had actually already created arge volume of equipment, but they were mostly semi-finished. Divinecherry wood was an example, he had already refined six divinecherry arrows for Eleanor and also created an entire case of shafts. All that was left would be the final touches.


    Aiwa¡¯s shield was destroyed, so a new one would need to be made. The use of a magic shield was more important than the armor that a mage wore. Su¡¯s weapon would need to be upgraded with even more magic equipment, or his fighting ability would drop drastically.


    Unexpectedly, the four demons only needed some minor repairs done to their armor and to change a few essories. The demonic spirit that had been driven out by the four demons was basically not included in Saleen¡¯s fighting forces.


    The mages took turns using the Alchemy Binocrs to observe the rivers and mountains that were a long distance away. Throughout these observations, the magic array on the binocrs did not sound off any rms. This world created by the Goddess was almost too safe and everyone felt paranoid about it.


    The purgatory desert had exhausted too much energy from the warriors and mages. Everyone rested for a full day and a half before continuing with their journey again. After slightly more than an hour, Saleen and Lex finally arrived at the river.


    The river was approximately half a mile wide and there seemed to be no end to it. Where they were right now seemed to be the narrowest part of the river. A warrior threw a block of wood into the river and it sank.


    Boats would not be able to cross the river, so Lex took out a flying puppet. This miniature flying puppet was only one-yard long. Lex threw it out and it began to p its wings and flew towards the opposite bank. Within less than ten yards, the magic array on the flying puppet began to produce green smoke and disintegrated.


    Lex could not help but frown seeing a flying puppet that was worth more than one-thousand gold coins just drop into the river.


    Taking out their heavy Alchemy Crossbows once again, the swordmasters began to arm themselves. Heavy Alchemy Crossbows could shoot a distance of one mile with a rope. Across the river was a big tree. By shooting a huge arrow over, a suspension bridge could be created and the swordmasters would be able to move across the two banks freely.


    The heavy Alchemy Crossbow was set up and aimed at a big tree on the opposite bank.


    Equipment that was six yards wide let out a splitting sound of explosion on the three gigantic golden stands. After some magic modification, the three-yard long arrow created a powerful sonic boom.


    The speed of this heavy Alchemy Crossbow exceeded even some magic. The naked eye would not be able to track its path, except to see a pathway. It was half a yard wide, it pierced through the air and could form a hole about one-hundred yards long.


    A fish beast suddenly leapt out from the river and bit off the heavy crossbow arrow. The front half of the arrow even dragged the fish beast in the air for a distance before diverging from the original target and eventually dropping into the water.


    The mages looked at each other. No one had sensed the presence of such a creature in the river.


    Saleen and Lex gave each other a knowing look. They had both figured out the problem. It was not a fish beast, but a phantom. The problem was that this phantom¡¯s attacks were real. Fish beasts were extremely powerful creatures, but not to the extent where they could bite off a flying Alchemy Crossbow arrow in mid-air. The distance between the arrow and the surface of the river was about one-yard high. In normal circumstances, the fish beast would have to start leaping even before the arrow had been shot in order to be able to bite onto the target.


    Lex held up her Alchemy Binocrs, mounted a piece of high-quality magic nucleus, and opened up the magic arraypletely. She observed the upstream and downstream for one full minute each and shook her head, saying, ¡°No bridge.¡±


    A row of people stood in front of the river, feeling helpless that they were blocked by this five-hundred yard wide river.


    ¡°Give me abat puppet.¡± Saleen pondered for a moment and thought of a solution. This was the Goddess¡¯ world and only those that obeyed her rules would be able to enter. Needless to say, thend that they had been traveling on was not part of the Goddess¡¯ world. This river was the real boundary.


    Lex took out a miniaturebat puppet. This puppet was only two-yards tall. Saleen released the water shield in his left hand to envelope thebat puppet entirely before pushing it down into the river.


    The gigantic bubble contained thebat puppet and floated towards the opposite bank. Everyone stared at the bubble intently. Five-hundred yards was the limit of Saleen¡¯s magic. The bubble depended on inertia to send thebat puppet all the way to the opposite end. The puppet made it to the opposite bank and the puppet burrowed out from the bubble to climb ontond.


    With a swoosh, the water temperature system returned without any obstructions.


    Saleen¡¯s water shield waspletely sealed. After infusing the power of life from the Goddess, thebat puppet did note under any attack while being protected by the bubble. It was now on the opposite bank, patiently waiting for orders.


    Lex finally felt relieved. If crossing a river alone required the use of the power of the God¡¯s ring, then there was basically little to no hope of everyone leaving this world. Although this ce looked peaceful, it was actually much more dangerous than the Hell of god¡¯s punishment that Saleen and she entered. The phantom that appeared out of the river was basically equivalent to a grade-7 mage.


    Saleen remained unmoved and silently thought to himself, ¡°My water shield is unique in the sense that it is shaped like a bubble. Will the Goddess figure it out?¡± The river was clearly a barrier that could not be crossed over by mages from grade-6 and below. If he did not absorb the leaves of the Tree of Life or any special kind of magic, then there was no way he could reach the temple that was far, far away.


    Was all this just a trap set by the gods?


    She was not a disciple so the Gods would not be able to descend upon her. None of the people in her team were disciples of any faith either. By right, if the Goddess wanted to be revived, she would not have pinned any hopes on this team. Compared to Gods, this team was too insignificant.


    ¡°Who will cross first?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I will!¡± More than ten voices shouted at the same time. Saleen looked and realized they were all Lex¡¯s swordmasters and grand swordmasters. Even Wild Bear was pping his chest as a form of self-volunteer.


    Combat puppets did not possess any life strength and Saleen could not be sure if the bubbles could transport an entire person over. The first person to attempt to cross the river would definitely be taking a risk that could be fatal. Amongst Lex¡¯s subordinates, none were afraid of death.


    Inparison, Saleen¡¯s subordinates all kept their mouths shut, unwilling to make such a sacrifice. Saleen was pleased because he knew that if he did give the order, one of them would volunteer to take the risk. At least that unlucky demonic spirit would not be able to escape. Saleen did not have to say anything and these people already knew how to protect themselves.


    This was not cowardice nor even intelligence. It was more of an attitude towards survival.


    The ten swordmasters all looked to be of the same size, so Saleen randomly picked a person¡¯s name. He came to Saleen. His eyes were hidden under the helmet and blocked by the dark-colored crystals so Saleen could not see his expression.


    ¡°I cannot guarantee your safety,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°I understand, Master Saleen. Please cast the spell,¡± the swordmaster answered honestly. He somewhat despised the reaction from Saleen¡¯s subordinates. They were all on an adventure together, yet none of them were willing to take risks. He was very clear that Saleen was very much stronger than them though. Even with the Spirit Snake armor, his own team did not possess an overwhelming edge over them. It was not worth it to let the stronger person take the risk.


    Without a word, Saleen released the water shield again, enveloping the swordmaster. The swordmaster realized that he was still able to control the forward or backward direction of the bubble through his own actions. There was no need for that though. Wild Bear gave him a hard push from behind and he was in the river.


    This was the advantage of the Spirit Snake armor, otherwise Wild Bear¡¯s strength would have just slipped off instead of being exerted on the water shield. If he had pushed with the intention to attack, the force would have been entirely absorbed by the water shield. Of course, the assumption was that Saleen was not controlling this magic.


    Lex kept her eyes locked on the swordmaster that was floating towards the opposite bank. The force that Wild Bear used was just nice, so the bubble was just about able to reach the opposite bank without any control from Saleen. Although the river current was calm, in contrast, Lex¡¯s heart was still a little flustered. In order to maintain secrecy, the people that she had brought along were all extremely loyal. Even the mages were those that followed her from the very beginning.


    As the bubble reached the opposite bank, the swordmaster exerted strength from his legs and leapt up bursting through the bubble andnding beside thebat puppet.


    Over on this side, the swordmasters let out a loud cheer. Lex¡¯s subordinates were often solemn and grave, but after more than a month of anxiety, they finally let loose for a moment.


    The water shield that Saleen had newly constructed was the only one that possessed life strength, so he could only send people over the river one at a time. The three water shields that he originally possessed had already been digested by his cbash long ago.


    ¡°Take care of safety. The two of you will go over first.¡± Lex saw that the method worked and decided to send the two ck metal grand swordmasters over.


    The ck metal grand swordmasters were more powerful than a normal swordmaster. After the two of them had crossed the river, Lex immediately arranged for a grade-5 mage to cross as well. With abination of a mage and grand swordmasters, they would be able to put up a fight should there be any dangerous creatures on the opposite bank.


    All her worries were unfounded though. Lex crossed the river and still did not encounter any attacks. Saleen was thest to cross and he did it by holding onto the water shield and flying across directly. Afternding on the opposite bank, a small creature suddenly emerged from within the river. The creature was only the size of a palm and it stared directly at Lex¡¯s team. Saleen jerked his head back and discovered him.


    If the Goddess¡¯ Oracle, Jessica, was there, she would have been furious. She spent so much energy on catalysis for this creature to guard the temple. Just before she left, she specifically instructed the creature to protect the temple, but it apparently returned back to the river instead without fulfilling its role of protection.


    It had no choice. It was too weak and small and was not given enough time to grow. The intelligence of this creature had not fully matured either, so it would take another three-hundred to five-hundred years before it would fullyprehend Jessica¡¯s orders.


    What it knew was that the temple belonged to him, and no strangers should get close to it. He was not powerful enough, so he could only tail behind Saleen andpany. Who knew that Saleen would discover its presence the moment it emerged. This creature possessed the life strength of the Goddess.

 Chapter 543: Mythical Beast? (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 543: Mythical Beast? (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without hesitation, Saleen took out a scroll. The speed at which he took out the scroll was almost as fast as how mages released their magic. A huge hand appeared out of thin air and grabbed the palm-sized creature from the river.


    ¡°Ice seal!¡± Saleen did not stop and continued to release a grade-6 spell immediately. He would not be able to use the scroll this time. Saleen would have to control the uracy of the magic directly. The weak-looking creature only opened its mouth and chomped a few times and it was able to bite through the Elemental Hand. Saleen¡¯s ice seal technique was a monomer magic with the smallest circumference, but with control that was ten times better than the ice attack.


    A transparent crystal body of not more than one yard in diameter froze the little creature within. At this moment, the mages in the team finally reacted.


    Saleen saw that the creature was not strong, but he did not dare to becent against any objects within the Goddess¡¯ dimension. He used his most powerful attack; a grade-6 spell. Even if his body type was special, this attack alone expended half of his magic chords.


    Saleen approached the crystal and looked at the creature within.


    This was a small creature that was shaped like a dragon but it was definitely not a dragon. On the back of this creature were wings. Its teeth did not bulge out of its mouth. Its four ws could extend and retract, which was a big differencepared to dragons that had non-retractable ws.


    The body surface of this creature looked scaly but in fact, it was actually a body of hair. It was thick with individual fine hairs that formed beautiful patterns that looked like the scaly armor of a normal monster.


    The tail of this adorable creature was not like the hard and sharp tails of dragons, but was slender and thin instead. Saleen could tell that the patterns on its tail were the same as those on its body, which were actually holy prose with aplicated structure.


    A real mythical beast!


    After the fall of Goddess of Myers, the maind had not seen another mythical beast. In the mages¡¯ handbook of creatures, the strongest creature that could exist in the most different dimensions were the few varieties of mythical beasts that hadpletely disappeared.


    This mythical beast was too small and could only be considered to a new born, much less an adolescent. While Saleen observed it, the water element crystal suddenly let out a ripping sound. The small creature¡¯s eyes filled with rage. It whipped its tail, which was barely the size of a toothpick, and managed to escape the hold of the ice seal.


    As a mage looking at what could possibly be thest mythical beast of the Myers Maind, there was no way Saleen was going to let it escape.


    Although the Goddess of Myers was a god, a lot of element magic on the Myers Maind was created by her. As a mythical beast that was raised by her, it would be difficult to control this little creature with element magic. Saleen did not know of any Divine spells that were of attacking type, and death magic still only remained as a theory, but his left hand could harness godly power.


    The palm-sized creature struggled and escapedpletely from the ice seal magic technique and fell directly onto Saleen¡¯s magic palm.


    The little creature opened its mouth and wanted to bite, but Saleen¡¯s hand released a green glow and infused the light into its body. The light made it feel a sense of warmth, familiarity, andfort. The creature was now confused.


    Mythical beasts and demons were simr in the sense that they both inherited intelligence. Mythical beasts did not grow as fast as demons and besides, this mythical beast was forcefully created by Jessica. To possess true intelligence, it would need another few hundred years.


    In the eyes of Jessica, the purgatory desert was a ce of no return. The temple was hidden beneath the desert, so except for people who had inherited the Goddess, there was no way it would be discovered. ording to her calctions, if humans wanted to recover their original power, they would need at least another few thousand years. She left after creating this mythical beast because of that. In her opinion, no humans would be able to enter the temple in the near future. After the mythical beast was fully grown, even if someone did manage to enter, they would not be able to seed in taking away the seeds of the divine tree, unless this personpletely converted to the Goddess.


    Saleen released his palm gently and the green glow disappeared but the aura that the mythical beast had begun to grow fond of did not. Saleen saw that the creature was lying t on his palm and was not struggling. He finally smiled happily.


    ¡°Oh mythical beast, young mythical beast. Even if it would not be able to help in battles, it would be a joy to care for it as a pet.¡± To mages, to be able to observe the nature of mythical beasts and to uncover the secrets of the holy prose on their body it was enough.


    ¡°Master¡­¡± Nailisi rushed over.


    Saleen stared at her viciously, ¡°The mythical beast cannot be eaten by her.¡± Nailisiughed mockingly and said, ¡°I just wanted to take a look. So cute!¡±


    With that, Nailisi wanted to touch the mythical beast. The little creature was scared and retreated, while opening its mouth and revealing its teeth that were still not fully grown. It growled at Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Sika shouted from the side. She loved the mythical beast the moment she saw it. No other special reasons. In the past, when Caucasus was a strong country, there were three nature priests that were gifted a mythical beast each by the Goddess. Ever since the three beasts had died from old age, Caucasus had be weaker and weaker.


    ¡°Sister Sika, don¡¯t worry I will stay away.¡± Nailisi took two steps back as she saw Sika¡¯s fierce gaze. She knew that her pretense would be seen through by her, so she might as well dismiss the thought of swallowing the mythical beast. Luoluokaluo need not swallow the strongest creature. The strongest part about her bloodline was that the power she obtained could still evolve on its own.


    By sticking with Saleen, there would be plenty of opportunities to encounter high-level monsters. If she ate this mythical beast, she would have to fall into deep sleep for a thousand years. She might as well depend on the abilities of her bloodline and evolve gradually. That would be the safest n in the long-term.


    To fall into deep sleep for a thousand years? Saleen would probably be close to dying of old age by then.


    Cuisi licked his lips and coveted the mythical beast too, but did not make any dangerous moves. He was not Luoluokaluo so even if he ate the mythical beast, the benefits would be limited.


    Lex and the rest came nearer and the small mythical beast grew withdrawn and leaned its head against Saleen¡¯s chest.


    ¡°This is a Tourmaline!¡± Lex said in shock.


    ¡°Tourmaline?¡± Saleen had close to zero knowledge regarding mythical beasts, so this name sounded foreign to him. Tourmalines were supposed to be a type of precious gemstone, which he did possess. They were alsomonly known as the electrical stone. Could it be that this thing could release electricity?


    ¡°As one of the three types of mythical beasts that the Goddess reared, it could fly in the clouds and rain and absorb electricity, even though it does not attack with electricity. Besides the lightning dragon, there were less than two types of other creatures in this world that could use electricity. Unfortunately¡­¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately, what?¡±


    ¡°Mythical beasts do not ept contracts, unless one is a creature as powerful as a god.¡± If the disciples of any faith heard what Lex just said, they would surely be arguing with her about how she ssified gods as a type of creature. That was just a habit of mages. Although humans had fallen, their attitude towards God remained unchanged. This was also the reason why the Holy See wanted to start the Holy War. Without a mixture of fear and respect, who would believe in religion?


    ¡°Sounds good to me.¡± Saleen lowered his head and looked at the mythical beast in his hand. He turned to Eleanor and said, ¡°I am sure it can understand what I say, but I am not entirely confident in my pronunciation of holy prose. Can you ask it whether it is willing to follow me?¡±


    Eleanor smiled and came nearer to him. She spoke a long stream of Holy Prose to the mythical beast in Saleen¡¯s palm. The beast nodded furiously and Lex sighed with relief. She liked the mythical beast too, but they could not be controlled, unless one received its acknowledgement or was at least grade-12.


    Without the abilities of at least grade-12, there was no way one could sign a contract with the mythical beast.


    What was grade-12 like? Some false gods and demi-gods were only about grade-10 or so. Grade-12 would be the level of the weaker Gods.


    For the Professionals on the maind, grade-9 was the maximum. There were definently less than ten people like Joey.


    At this juncture, Lex sighed again. ording to legend, the emperor of the first dynasty had the abilities of grade-18. What kind of concept was grade-18? If the Lord of Glory descended upon this dimension, it might not even defeat the emperor of the first dynasty.


    Grade-18 represented the peak. Traveling beyond dimensions would be as easy as eating and drinking. It was said that the strongest of the first dynasty had all crossed over to other dimensions in search of better ces to live, or else the second dynasty would have never existed.


    Even the second dynasty was one that dared to spar against the gods. Besides the Goddess of Myers of this dimension, the gods and disciples of other dimensions would have been chased away by the second dynasty. It was not for nothing that it was known as the ¡®Dynasty of sphemy¡¯.


    Comparatively, the third dynasty was smaller and weaker, but the number of people that were grade-12 and above still outnumbered the number of mages that existed now. Even the fourth dynasty saw quite a number of mythical beasts acting as warriors that guarded over kingdoms.


    The mythical beast in Saleen¡¯s palm was not as ignorant as everyone thought. It still had its own ability to think. Although it could not put up a resistance, perhaps it was best to follow the man with godly power. In any case, these people must be trying to steal the seeds of the divine tree. If it did not follow, it would not know the fate of the seeds.


    ¡°One day, I will get the seeds of the divine tree back!¡±


    Saleen smiled and put the Tourmaline on his shoulder. Lex and the mages finally took their gazes away. Lex sighed, ¡°Let¡¯s go that way and take a look.¡±


    The location that Lex pointed to was a temple on the top of a mountain that was a long distance away. The mountain was so high it reached the clouds. It did not seem too far away though. It would take about a day on the road by foot.


    Both Saleen and Lex had entered the world created by Raphael before, so they were aware of the how strange and weird this dimension could be.


    Saleen was pleased. Although the mythical beast was still weak and small, it could destroy elemental magic, which made it much stronger than the witcher spider. Saleen had not used witcher spider for a very long time, precisely because its attacking abilities could not ovee most middle-grade magic. Its strengths were best utilized in situations such as sneak attacks.


    This Tourmaline was different. His best grade-6 magic could only contain it for a few seconds. Such a strong and resilient body type simply could not be reced by any other monster.


    As thepany walked towards the mountain, Sika followed behind Saleen and looked at the Tourmaline that was lying t on his shoulder. A thousand thoughts crossed her mind. In the end, she could only sigh like Lex. If she wanted to rely on the abilities of a priestess to gain the mythical beast¡¯s acknowledgement, she would have to be a nature priestess of the highest grade.

 Chapter 544: A grade-5 expert (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 544: A grade-5 expert (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As that mountain peak came into closer view, Lex and the rest cast the Windspeed Skill. They still walked for a total of ten hours before reaching the foot of the mountain. At this point in time, the mountain peak no longer appeared to be hundreds of yards tall, it was thousands of yards in height. Half of the peak prated the clouds, it stretched for hundreds of miles. The temple atop could no longer be seen clearly.


    ¡°Good technique!¡± Saleen eximed. This was actually a genuine colossal world formed by making use of a narrow space. The journey seemed to only require about an hour, but it actually consumed ten times the duration. The real height of the peak could only be determined when one got close to it. One could surveil the temple from afar, but they could not do so at close range.


    With such a method of space management, long range spells, trebuchets, magic cannons, or magic crystal cannons would also lose their efficacy. One could not even aim properly. All sense of distance had be illusory, even if magic props were used for measurement, there would be a great deviation too.


    The elements in this space were extremely concentrated, it was quite easy to use the magic chords to deploy them. The elements were also arranged in an orderly fashion, it was not chaotic at all. Saleen eximed that the goddess¡¯ techniques were sophisticated though. This space was not created by some magic array, instead, the goddess had made apletely new rule here.


    Even though the journey was undisturbed, Lex still ordered everyone to set up camp at the foot of the mountain, they would rest one night before ascending the mountain. There did not seem to be any danger inside or outside the temple. The temple on the peak seemed to be the ce where the goddess had conserved the seeds of the divine trees. If there were any protective magic arrays, or runic arrays from the realm of gods, then a certain magnitude of power would be required to ovee them other than relying on Saleen tomunicate via his divine power.


    A mythical beast had a life of ten-thousand years. It had been so many years since the goddess had fallen, so all the mythical beasts should be dead by now. Lex did not understand how that mythical beast standing on Saleen¡¯s shoulder survived.


    Saleen was not tired, he sat under the peak and looked up. The peak was green and lush, emanating a very intense scent of life, but there were no powerful magic beasts around. Saleen¡¯s Icy Sight could observe two or three miles into the distance. At this distance, there was no other danger other than some insects and weak animals.


    Tourmalineid on Saleen¡¯s shoulder, in disapproval at the humans¡¯ vignce. Everything in the temple was gone. Other than itself, there were no other mighty forms of life in this space anymore. ¡°These humans are really cowardly, they should just go up and retrieve the seeds of the divine trees, there is no need to beat about the bush. Mother has asked me to protect the seeds of the divine trees, it¡¯s not that I never did my best, just let them take them. I shall follow this mage and see what they are going to do with the seeds.¡±


    Jessica hatched the mythical beast forcefully, causing Tourmaline to think that she was its mother. Mythical beasts did not have the notion of a master. If it was not for the scent of the goddess on Saleen¡¯s body, it would have escaped at the first opportunity. It also loved Sika¡¯s scent, but it was exceptionally guarded against Nailisi.


    In front of Saleen, a ball of water me levitated in mid-air. The quiver crafted by Eleanor was engulfed in this water me. This mage called Eleanor possessed archery skills which were more horrifying than her magic. It was just that her archery skills needed relevant equipment in order to unleash their full power. Before meeting Saleen, Eleanor possessed a plethora of abilities, but she could not release her strongest offensive power.


    If she was in the elf ne, she would have many ideas toplement her skills by using simr materials. On the Myers maind, the resources were different from those found on the elf ne.


    Saleen observed the arrangement of elements in this space, slowly deducing the method the goddess used to fold spaces. It was impossible for him to replicate such an ability, but it would be extremely beneficial if he could just learn a ten-thousandth of it. If he had learned the skill, the quiver he was refining at the moment would be able to store three-hundred and sixty divinecherry arrows.


    This would thuspensate for the inadequacy of the long range attacks of Saleen¡¯s team. When a divinecherry arrow was paired with an elvish shortbow, the range would exceed most level-6 spells already. Eleanor also was a grade-5 mage, so all attacks within five-hundred yards would not deplete her mental strength. If a divine crystal the size of a rice grain was mosaicked into the elvish shortbow, the problem of Eleanor¡¯s insufficient mental strength could be solved immediately. Within one-thousand yards, she would be able to shoot urately.


    A distance of fifty to five-hundred yards was the area Saleen could control. In this range, be it the magic chords or mental strength, Saleen would have an overwhelming advantage over mages of the same grade as him.


    Within fifty yards, Saleen had three people he could deploy, J, Su, and Nailisi. At less than fifty yards, the four demons and the demonic spirit would be a good offensive forces; especially Cuisi. Even though Cuisi rarely took any action, Saleen knew that Cuisi¡¯s offensive power was definitely stronger than that of Nailisi, it was just that he did not have a space for development like what Nailisi had.


    ¡°Saleen, I want a divine crystal.¡± Sika approached Saleen from behind,ing beside him and then sitting down.


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Saleen was momentarily stunned. The divine crystal extracted from Ismail¡¯s brain had been given to Nailisi, while the one obtained from the goddess¡¯ statue was to be shared equally with Lex.


    Sikaughed, then said, ¡°I have spoken to Lex. You can cut from the top, I can settle for a piece with standard surface area.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± Saleen was also afraid that Lex might be paranoid, so he did not dare to touch thatrge divine crystal. Lex had many mages serving her, while Saleen had to take care of the poption of mages from Sregl Ind. Even though this divine crystal was huge and totally sufficient to be shared by two persons, Saleen did not want to arouse anyone¡¯s suspicion.


    It was not that Saleen did not want to split the divine crystal immediately, but a divine crystal was exponentially sturdier than a magic nucleus. Segmenting a magic nucleus was a task which required days, so this divine crystal might require one to two years to be segmented. Saleen nned to let Lex carry out this task when he returned to Metatrin City where there was suitable alchemical equipment.


    Sika demanded a divine crystal with a standard surface area. Even though this task would be very tedious, the required size could still be segmented in one night.


    Saleen took out that colossal divine crystal, then he pped the cbash hanging around his waist, causing a green water flow to spurt out. Saleen then grabbed a handful of ck sand. This ck sand was refined from the sand in the Purgatory Desert, it could increase the power of the tornadoes by several times. This was something Saleen had learned during the sandstorm. The ck sand in strong winds was like countless knives grinding repeatedly. No matter how strong one¡¯s defense was, it would also be worn off eventually.


    After the ck sand was refined, it had be tougher. Once it got adulterated with the water flow, it would amplify the cutting ability of the water flow by several times.


    Currently, Saleen¡¯s grade was not high enough. If he was over grade-7, he could make the water flow turn into the essence of the water element naturally, bringing its sharpness to that of a level-7 attack. By then, the Current Cutter would be a really powerful spell.


    If Saleen could be a grade-9 sorcerer, he would be able to control the water flow freely and create a crystal drill from the water flow anytime. Basically, all magic shields below level-9 could be cut apart by his water flow in an instant. Even a level-9 magic shield would not be able to hold out for too long.


    From this perspective, Saleen did not suffer many losses when he did not use the Shenhe to produce water puppets. The sustained attack duration of the water flow was extremely protracted, and it would not consume any magic chords either. Once it reached level-9, its offensive power would be stronger than most level-9 spells. As long as Saleen did not fight with a Golden Grand Swordmaster, he would always have an advantage over the opponent.


    Fortunately, the second Shenhe Saleen had obtained was also condensed from the water element, so it could also be used to produce water puppets.


    The water flow permeated the ck sand, creating shrill friction noises on the divine crystal. It cut out hardly visible fine marks. Saleen was multitasking. As he used the water flow to segment the divine crystal, he was also helping Eleanor refine her quiver.


    From a short distance away, Eleanor observed Saleen at work. At this point in time, she was full of admiration for him. By carrying out two tasks at once, it showed that Saleen¡¯s mental strength was at the level of a sorcerer already, normal grand mage could not achieve such a feat no matter what.


    So far in his life, Saleen had led very little peaceful days, so his patience had been greatly cultivated. As he was cutting the divine crystal and refining the quiver at the same time, he appeared to be at ease, there was not even a sign of haste. It was as though he had done such things countless times already. Saleen was not doing this without rhyme nor reason though. As the foundation forbat magic, double release, and advanced release required precise handling. Saleen had trained his controlling ability to the maximum limit of a normal mage, and if he wanted to continue making progress, he would have to look for another method.


    Disying two totally unrted skills at the same time was the practice method Saleen had honed.


    The process of refining the quiver required the water mes to refine the holy words and magic array on the divinecherry wood continuously. On the other hand, segmenting a divine crystal required the water flow to be maintained at the right angle in order to cut it into a standard shape so that it could be mosaicked into any equipment.


    Be it a magic nucleus or divine crystal, one segmented piece with standard surface area could only have twenty-four facets at most. If the size of the facet and angle it was cut at was wrong, then the segmented piece would wasterge amounts of energy during usage. Segmenting a magic nucleus was also a way low grade mages made a livelihood because a normal person would never be up to this task.


    The goddess¡¯ statue in Luo ka City had been absorbing the power of faith from hundreds of thousands of creatures, thus the resultant divine crystal was of unparalleled purity. That was why Sika only needed a segmented piece with standard surface area. A divine crystal was different from a magic nucleus, it did not mean that the effect would be greater if the size wasrger. Instead, the more standard the cut, the better the effect.


    Saleen gradually felt that his own mental strength had increased noticeably, the speed of depletion wasgging behind the speed of increase. He had discovered a novel method to control the elements. Saleen giggled secretly. Six tornadoes were released, and after being mixed with the refined ck sand, they encircled Saleen.


    From afar, Eleanor noticed that Saleen was suddenly enveloped by a huge Wind spell. This Wind spell was originally translucent, but Saleen¡¯s silhouette could not be seen at all now. Many ck lines encircled Saleen, causing Saleen¡¯s image to be greatly distorted, one could not even see his real appearance.


    Saleen had actually created a powerfulplex spell while working! Other than the tornadoes, falling snowkes had appeared outside the tornadoes. These snowkes seemed very fragile when in fact each of them possessed an offensive power equivalent to that of a level-6 spell. As a grade-5 mage, this spell released by Saleen was both offensive and defensive. Even though it could not be considered as a long range spell, it would render a warrior helpless, even if this warrior was a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.

 Chapter 545: A grade-5 expert (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 545: A grade-5 expert (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°All of youe in.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice came from within the tornado. Sika stepped forward without any hesitation, followed by Nailisi. Eleanor was stunned for a moment. After seeing two people enter the area epassed by the tornado withouting to any harm, Eleanor gritted her teeth and barged into Saleen¡¯s tornado.


    Within the tornado, the elements were abnormally bnced, there were no fluctuations either. Eleanor was astounded to see that Saleen had not stopped working, he was still refining the quiver while segmenting the divine crystal at the same time.


    With a slight air of arrogance, Saleen told the few people beside him, ¡°From today onwards, I alone will be equivalent to all the mages serving Lex!¡±


    Eleanor¡¯s eyes were wide open. She had only witnessed such an ability from her uncle. Her uncle was the leader of amunity, a true elf who carried the bloodline of the imperial family, and a grade-9 expert. The ability to control all these spells without any interruptions at such a high level of intricacy was shocking.


    Without Saleen¡¯s permission, it would be impossible for Eleanor to enter the tornado and go to Saleen.


    This spell did not have the ability to differentiate between friend and foe. Eleanor did not get injured by the tornadoes solely because of Saleen¡¯s precise control. Had this been a Water Shield, it would not be a big deal, but the tornado could act as an offensive spell. The speed of the wind element exceeded that of Eleanor¡¯s feather arrows. At such a high frequency of attack, Saleen could still allow the three of them to enter whilst maintaining the basis of magic. This experience had totally subverted Eleanor¡¯s understanding of magic.


    When Saleen mentioned that he would be equivalent to all the mages serving Lex, he did not mean that he was more powerful than all those magesbined. He meant to say that he himself could execute the magic coordination done by those mages.


    What was Saleen considered to be now? A grade-5 expert? Even if Saleen was thrown into the midst of a ten-thousand strong army, he also could not be killed easily.


    ¡°That¡¯s it!¡± Saleen extinguished the water mes. The moment the water mes disappeared, the tornado also disappeared. Saleen¡¯s tornado was the derived products from the Water me Alchemy, personally, he could not cast wind magic. ¡°Here is your quiver.¡±


    An emerald-green quiver levitated in front of Eleanor. There were red elf words on the quiver which were hardly visible. There was a dark green ribbon on the two corners of the quiver, and Eleanor saw them clearly. The ribbons were made from the muscles of a magic beast, they were used to secure the quiver to one¡¯s back. Within the muscle of a magic beast, there was a bewildering energy channel which enabled Eleanor to feel the changes happening in the quiver.


    This quiver was an item frequently used by an elf, it could increase their firing speed. Whether it be the number, shape, or type of arrows, Eleanor did not need to do a visual check; she could feel it. Eleanor only needed to raise her hand to draw an arrow.


    Once a human expert had undergone training, their archery skills might not be inferior to that of an elf, however, the elves were still more proficient than humans in terms of the ability to craft archery equipment. Humans possessed a variety of novel skills, but the elves were best in bows and arrows. A normal person would not live as long as an elf, so they would never be able to cultivate archery skills as proficient as an elf.


    ¡°Thank you¡­¡± Even though Eleanor had acknowledged that she was following Saleen, she was still reluctant to address him as Sir. ¡°An elf¡¯s ego¡±, Eleanor thought to herself.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the time to craft elvish armor for you. We will be ascending the mountain tomorrow, we will discuss this when we return to Metatrin City.¡± As Saleen spoke, he took out a segment of the divinecherry wood, and began helping Eleanor craft the seventh divinecherry arrow. At the moment, Saleen was consciously helping people around him to arm themselves. Ismail had killed two important figures from the Holy See, so the Holy See would surely not let this matter go. In the future, all their troubles would be hundreds of times more challenging than ever.


    Unbeknownst to Saleen, the Lord of Glory was already outraged by Ismail¡¯s actions. The Lord of Glory had already gave the order to his believers on this ne to ignite a holy war and resolve all problems.


    As Saleen and Eleanor were not in their barracks, the demons and two Silver Grand Swordmasters stood guard patiently a short distance away. Su was originally very proud, even though he was a little lost after arriving on this ne. He was the youngest Silver Grand Swordmaster in his family, and after following Saleen, he thought that he would be Saleen¡¯s mightiest follower.


    Unexpectedly, the rest of Saleen¡¯s followers had their own signature techniques even though some were weaker than him. Su could not decipher Nailisi and Sika, while J¡¯s offensive power was at least ten to twenty percent stronger than him.


    At this point, Su calmed his emotions. When he witnessed the coordination between Lex¡¯s subordinates, he got even more astounded. When the ten swordmasters, whom Su thought were really weak, put on a high level magic armor and cooperated with the mages, they could actually kill a huge number of magic beasts. None of them got killed.


    The most important thing was that those mages did not even use much of their abilities, they only released some support spells cautiously, allowing the ten swordmasters to unleash the power of a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.


    ¡°Protect a mage well! No wonder Father kept telling me this.¡± If Saleen and Eleanor did not die, Su would be able to sustain his offensive powers as long as a Golden Grand Swordmaster even though he could not attain a Golden Grand Swordmaster¡¯s powers.


    Su learned from all those battles the swordmasters participated in. He had learned how topliment a mage, and how to protect a mage. He knew that when Saleen advanced to a sorcerer, his own offensive powers would be boosted exponentially. Even if he came face to face with a Golden Grand Swordmaster one day, he might not necessarily be killed.


    Saleen¡¯s team could kill any magic beast below grade-9. As long as a mage was present, the possibilities were limitless.


    In the barracks, Lex was not resting either. To a grade-6 mage, arge portion of a week was used for regaining the mental strength and stamina. Only one day would be used for sleep.


    ¡°Viscountess, those people around Saleen are getting more and more cohesive,¡± Bain said.


    ¡°What about it? Isn¡¯t that good?¡±


    ¡°It is good, but he has demons around him,¡± Bain spoke uneasily. He was extremely guarded against creatures like demons. ¡°I feel that he trusts the demons a lot.¡±


    ¡°No way.¡± Lexughed, then said, ¡°Saleen is a orthodox mage, him trusting a demon?¡±


    ¡°Viscountess, when you return, you can request for some demons from him. That Nailisi will surely have a way to make it happen.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Lex was puzzled.


    ¡°If that Nailisi is truly loyal to Saleen, she wouldn¡¯t try anything funny. The demons she gives you will be obedient.¡±


    Lex pondered for a moment, and felt that what Bain said made sense. ¡°Saleen trusts Nailisi, but I have to test it out for myself. I am not too assured of Bitter Water Prefecture, even though Teacher is looking after it. If there are a few demons protecting the city, it will be safer in the event of a war.¡±


    A demon still had a certain edge over a mage, because many demons possessed high magic resistance and knew how to cast magic. Once they appeared next to a mage, they could cause immense damage to them, be it using their ws or a demonic monomer magic. Bitter Water Prefecture was a risky region. Without mages around to help invade this city, it would be impossible to breach it using only warriors.


    If Bain was in Bitter Water Prefecture, he could assassinate the enemy¡¯s mages. Without Bain, a few demons could also do the trick though.


    Another night had passed. Saleen finally segmented a standard size divine crystal for Sika, and Sika immediately mosaicked it into the skull of the magic beast skeleton.


    This magic beast skeleton was obtained from Raphael¡¯s magical tower. Thest evolution was finallypleted. After the divine crystal was mosaicked into the magic array in the skull, it melted instantly, before diffusing into the skeleton. Not only did this divine crystal contain the power to replenish mental strength, it could also double as a magic nucleus. A standard size divine crystal was sufficient to evolve a ten yard long magic beast.


    Sika¡¯s magic beast skeleton produced cracking sounds, then it contracted swiftly. Very soon, this skeleton had shrunk to less than four yards in length. The bone wings on both sides became very narrow and long.


    The three pairs of bone wings glowed dimly. With a leap, Sika mounted the magic beast skeleton. On the skeleton, ck runes shed vigorously as Sika stood on its back. After the skeleton re-absorbed these ck runes into its body, it flew up abruptly without any warning whatsoever.


    The body of this magic beast was not long, but its tail was six yards in length. Sika stood on the back of the skeleton, finally feeling the satisfaction of being able to control it at will.


    It did not mean that an Nature Priestess only had powers when standing on the ground. It actually meant that they could wield the power of the earth in any environment, so they were known as a Nature Priest. Sika wielded her weapon, and a metal thorn sprang out from her gigantic cudgel. The magic beast skeleton carried her, dashing towards a over one-hundred yard tall rock.


    The magic beast skeleton wriggled violently. Sika was parallel to the ground, but her legs were firmly nted into the skeleton¡¯s back. Her cudgel then struck that giant rock horizontally.


    There was a dull thud. This giant rock had a diameter of about ten yards, and Sika had bust a cavity in it with one hit. This cavity had a depth of over six yards.


    ¡°Ha¡­¡± Sika wanted tough boisterously, but she suddenly recalled that it might be embarrassing. It did not mean that she thought it was a bad idea tough, she was just afraid of embarrassing Saleen. A Caucasus person would not care.


    If Sika had be a Naure Priest sooner, she would not have gotten flung away when battling with the supreme demon. With a ferocious weapon and the power of the earth, no one could resist Sika¡¯s attacks in a melee fight, unless the enemy possessed more sophisticated skills than Sika.


    J and Su were dumbfounded when they saw the cavity caused by Sika¡¯s attack on that giant rock. They knew that Sika was very powerful, but was not that a little too ridiculous?


    Sika circled in the air for a moment beforending. She then put away the magic beast skeleton. After all that exhration, Sika suddenly felt depressed as she hugged her weapon. It was not for this weapon refined by Faerun, her body would not have been able to withstand the impact even though she possessed the power of the earth.


    ¡°It would have been great if Faerun didn¡¯t die!¡±


    ¡°So powerful!¡±


    Lex¡¯s men were already putting away the barracks, and when they witnessed Sika¡¯s performance, even Bain was astounded. Bain could execute such an attack multiple times without feeling any stress, but it was obvious that Sika had tapped into a power which did not belong to her. Sika almost did not sustain any depletion at all. In theory, an attack of such magnitude could be used infinitely.


    In a solo battle, Bain could still triumph over Sika based on technique. If Sika was ced on the battlefield, she would be as horrifying as an item like a war puppet though.

 Chapter 546: The Mountain Without End (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 546: The Mountain Without End (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen silently wished that Sika would act out in front of everyone. Assuming the strengths of both his and Lex¡¯s teams were the same when they finally discovered the seeds of the divine tree, in order to justifiably split it equally, Sika¡¯s acting out would have helped. If it was just based on the rtionship between Lex and him, even if he only got half of the seeds, Lex¡¯s subordinates would still feel that the arrangement was unjustified.


    In this world, there would be no status without power. Regarding the interdimensional space, Lex did not rify with her subordinates. It was inevitable that some of them would be unhappy that they were coborating with Saleen.


    Right now, Lex¡¯s subordinates were still trusting and were easy to handle. In future, if Lex were to expand territories and recruit new manpower, things might not be the same.


    Sika said to Saleen smugly, ¡°Look, now I don¡¯t have to climb the mountain like the rest of them.¡±


    ¡°Yes, but your¡­ why did it be so small?¡± Saleen pointed at the monster bones and asked. The bones originally would be able to carry around four people, but now it could only carry Sika.


    Sika knew what Saleen was asking and said, ¡°This thing can only be used by me. If the others wish toe up, they will first have to be able to handle Mental Storm.¡±


    Saleen had nothing to say to that. Aside from mages, normal warriors basically had no resistance against Mental Storm. Only ck metal grand swordmasters and above could one maintain fighting abilities while under the effects of Mental Storm. Those were only applicable if Mental Storm was an area attack though. It could also be a single point of attack, like what Sika used to attack Ismail.


    Inparison, a single point of attack was also its weakness and could enhance one¡¯s survivability against Sika¡¯s Mental Storm. Mental Storm was not real magic, it did not have the ability to lock on and chase its target. Ismail was unlucky and was moving too slowly to be hit by Sika¡¯s attack, allowing Saleen the chance to capture him.


    Lex met with Saleen at an area and she felt envious as well when she saw Sika¡¯s transport. Sika was the priestess of the Caucasus people and had secret lineages, so her abilities could not be learned. There was no point envying. After the monster bones had beenpletely refined, Sika would have the ability to fly and would no longer be just a normal warrior that could only depend on strength when fighting onnd.


    Saleen was pleased. Sika¡¯s breakthrough was the biggest help to him. He had also helped to refine Sika¡¯s boomerang again and it was now considered to be another magic equipment. Although the boomerang only had one mode of attack, its sharpness could not bepared to middle-grade magic.


    Nailisi felt angsty. If she swallowed Ismail, she would also obtain a flying ability. Unfortunately, she did not have the time to digest now, she had to wait until they were back in Metatrin City. She would obtain the powers of Ismail and the supreme demon, no matter what.


    The great power of the golden grand swordmastery in his ability to fly and his powerful attacks, aspared to mages.


    Cuisi noticed the ugly look on Nailisi¡¯s face and was considerate enough not to use his flying ability. He was instead climbing the mountain with his own feet like everyone else. If he flew towards the mountain, without question, he would have been badly beaten up by Nailisi after that. Although he was more powerful than Nailisi, he had signed a contract and he could not go against it. Besides, he saw the possibility of advancement from Nailisi.


    Cuisi was of a different breed amongst demons, and it was unfortunate that he did not have Nailisi¡¯s bloodline. Although his abilities wereparable to some supreme demons, he would never have the chance to improve in his lifetime. The ability of Luoluokaluo gave him a glimpse to the possibility of advancement. By that time, he might even have a chance to advance into a devil, which was even better than a supreme demon.


    The other three demons were probably sopromising because they realized this as well. In the demon dimension, there was no room for Luoluokaluo to grow, and it was rare to find a mature body in ten-thousand years. Nailisi¡¯s appearance was an incredible coincidence for the four of them.


    There were no paths leading up the mountain. The swordmasters were wearing Spirit Snake armor so they were able to use their limbs to climb up the mountain effortlessly. Unlike the desert, this environment was much more suitable for the swordmasters to show their true strengths. The two teams worked together and were able to climb up the mountain twice as fast as when they traveled in the desert.


    After climbing for eight hours with maximum effort, the temple on the mountain still looked far away. Within the Goddess¡¯ dimension were systems made from stars that were filled with thick element, rendering the magicpass useless. Without thepass, Saleen was unable to calcte the real distance to the temple.


    Saleen had seen the Goddess¡¯ ne before and was already impressed with the Goddess¡¯ ability to manipte the dimension. This mountain that seemed unreachable made him fully realize the difference in abilities between him and the Goddess of Myers. At his best, Saleen was only able to help Eleanor refine her arrow case. A normal dimension equipment was already beyond him. The arrow case was still a type of Elvish magic and was not something within Saleen¡¯s knowledge.


    Raphael, who had simrly created a dimension, did not have the ability to create his own rules. Within the dimension of the metallic column, the rules were no different from that of the outside world. The six elements¡¯ space was not created by Raphael either. Some special materials were used and the rules were excited out of these materials and into existence.


    In the Goddess¡¯ dimension, everything was created by her.


    Everyone found a suitable spot to rest and stopped. Lex and Saleen discussed, ¡°If we keep moving upwards, I think it will take at least half a month to reach the top. What if¡­¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly and said, ¡°I think we will not be able to reach it even within a month. If you n to go ahead first, then only the both of us can go together. Why don¡¯t we each bring along a person with flying abilities and go ahead first? There are no dangers here anyway.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Saleen said what was already on Lex¡¯s mind. There might be fighting involved when they entered the temple, but the mountain was so tall that the swordmasters would not be able to help much by entering the temple. In the event that they had to escape, there would be nowhere for them to run when they were trapped on such a high mountain. Only those with flying abilities would be able to escape easily.


    As long as Saleen still had some mental strength left, he could easily use a flying spell of the wind element to help him leap down from the mountain. Inparison, the silver grand swordmasters would not be able to do this. They could only rely on the sword aura within their bodies to sustain a short period of flying. Eventually, it would not be enough and they would fall to their death or be caught up by enemies.


    By observing the mythical beast¡¯s behavior so far, he guessed that the temple was not too dangerous. If too many people tagged along, it would be difficult to split the goods when it came down to it.


    When it was time to choose, Saleen chose Sika and Lex chose Bain.


    Nailisi was unhappy, so Saleen pulled her to the side and said, ¡°I have two tasks for you. The first is to monitor Lex¡¯s men and make sure they do not act on their own, in the name of protection and safety. I still do not know what other things may appear in this dimension. Number two, one hour after I leave, I want you to ask Cuisi to follow me and wait for me outside the temple. He must not enter. Do you understand?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s expression was unwilling, but she nodded. Saleen warned, ¡°Entering the temple this time around is extremely important for all of us. You must not create any trouble. If Ie back and find half of Lex¡¯s men gone, I will take it that you ate them.¡±


    Nailisi hung her head. Saleen rubbed her hair and said, ¡°Wait until we are back, I will find a safe ce for you to train in peace. I know you are about to attain a flying ability very soon. Don¡¯t be like this.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Nailisi swallowed her unhappiness. It was a fact that she still could not fly now, so there was no point saying more.


    Lex spent a few hours to set up camp on a t terrain beside the mountain slope. The two barracks were made of metal and were positioned together in the shape of a horn. Saleen gave instructions to Nailisi time and again before finally departing with Lex, along with Sika and Bain.


    Sika was having it the easiest. The power contained within her monster bones was even stronger than a grade-9 monster, so she was only borrowing its strength to fly and she only had to control the flying style. Lex and Saleen were both proper mages, so aside from the fact that they were carrying heavy equipment, they were still flying freely like sorcerers.


    It was the first time that the assassin, Bain, disyed his flying ability. Although his grade was not yet on par with the golden grand swordmaster, his abilities were. Bain flew at a speed that was not too fast nor too slow and stayed close to Lex. On the other hand, Saleen was surrounded by fog and stayed close to Sika. In the blink of an eye, the four of them were traveling at a speed of more than one-hundred miles an hour.


    The Wind Travel spell was a type of grade-6 magic. One would be able to maintain it for about one to two hours each time it was cast. Lex¡¯s equipment would be able to help her sustain this magic to its limit, so every time it was cast, Lex would be able to use it for at least two and a half hours. As a grade-6 mage, she could use twelve types of grade-6 magic.


    Lex did not wish to use any kind of methods to extend her flying time. Below them was not a big ocean where they would not be in any danger even if they were to fall. After flying for around ten hours, Lex and Saleen stopped.


    Just how high was this mountain? Flying for ten hours was equivalent to more than one-thousand miles. In the human world, no mountain this tall should exist because they would be crushed by their own weight if it was too tall. Besides, air was limited in any dimension, so the higher one went, the thinner the air. After one-hundred miles, it was unlikely that anyone would still be able to breathe.


    Lex and Saleen had already flown one-thousand miles vertically. They would have to be fools if they had not realized by now that there was something strange about this mountain.


    ¡°What should we do?¡± Saleen was also at his wit¡¯s end. The rules in this dimension were created by the Goddess, so there was no way anyone could change it. If he had the ability to change the rules, then he would already have no use for the seeds of the divine trees.


    Lex tried to recall any information rted to the Goddess of Myers from her memory, but to no avail. No one had ever described this dimension.


    ¡°Could it be the Mountain Without End?¡± Saleen did not search for any information regarding the Goddess, instead he found a possibility based on another dimensions.


    ording to legend, the Mountain Without End was the highest mountain in the giant dimension and was a ce that joinednd to sky and where the strongest n of the giants lived. In the eyes of mages, beyond the skies were stars that had no limits nor boundaries. In fairy tales and in some dimensions, the sky was like a nket with an end to it.


    The Mountain Without End was one-hundred and eight-thousand miles tall.


    It was already tiring enough to fly for ten hours continuously. If they maintained this speed, they would need another ten days to reach the mountain top. If the swordmasters had followed, they would need at least a year before they could reach the top.

 Chapter 547: The Mountain Without End (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 547: The Mountain Without End (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let me inform them.¡± Lex wrote a letter and took out a flying puppet to deliver it to the others. Luckily, they had been leaving site markers along the way, so the flying puppet would still be able to fly back without getting lost. Lex released the flying puppet after changing its magic nucleus to a higher grade, then said to Saleen, ¡°I will ask them to wait. Don¡¯t worry.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± Saleen nodded in agreement. He thought to himself, ¡°If I can have this dimension all to myself, is there still a need to return to Metatrin City?¡±


    Of course, Saleen did not intend to take his own sweet time to climb up the mountain. Sika and Bain were different from normal warriors too. After resting for four hours, everyone continued to push forward. Just like that, the four of them flew for two months before finally reaching the top of the mountain.


    Once they reached the mountain top, everyone besides Sika was so tired they felt like their bodies would break apart. Sika had an easy time because she used the monster bones¡¯ strength, but for the others, the journey had taken its toll on their mental capacity.


    The mountain top was as they imagined. A gigantic temple was in the center and there was a moderate-sized za in front of it. In the center of the za was a huge stone tablet.


    After a short rest, Saleen and the others came to the stone tablet. The words inscribed on the tablet were in the ancient Myersnguage. As Saleen read the words, his heart was filled with waves of emotions.


    The words on the tablet described how the mountain came to be. Saleen¡¯s guess was right, this was the Mountain Without End indeed. What he did not know was that the mountain was transported over from the giant dimension and not created by the Goddess.


    The history of the mountain was rted to the first dynasty of the Myers Maind.


    During the first dynasty, humans were formidable. Even so, the Goddess of Myers was still the only god of the maind and had many disciples. When the first dynasty had waged war against the gods, they retaliated, but it was ultimately ineffective because the humans at that time were extremely powerful and had many allies.


    In the end, the gods came up with a n and killed one of the gods that dwelled in the skies of Myers Maind; the Sun God.


    The Sun God was the subordinate of the Goddess of Myers. Although it was a false god, it was still extremely important. After the Sun God had been killed, the Myers Maind instantaneously sunk into the depths of darkness. Even if a recement sun could be found, without a God to control it, it would not be able to enter the orbit quickly enough before it left the Myers Maind again.


    That was when the Goddess of Myers intercepted. She used her spell to secure a sun into the orbit and allowed it to rotate freely. This staved off a potential disaster on the Myers Maind. Although it was of little difference to those with power, the ordinary human would have died without the sun.


    In those times, Gods could still enter the Myers Maind dimension freely, so the incident with the Sun God was bound to happen. The Goddess of Myers decided to use her godly powers to seal up the Myers Maind dimension. Other than humans, even the God¡¯s powers would not be able to infiltrate the dimension. One of the consequence of this was that the Goddess of Myers would no longer be able to leave.


    The Emperor of the first dynasty was extremely grateful for the Goddess¡¯ help. He decided to collect countless rare and special items and creatures from every dimension and offered them to the Goddess as a show of gratitude.


    The Mountain Without End was what the humans transported over from the giant dimension.


    Saleen once tried to imagine what the humans were like at the peak of their powers, and how much strength they possessed. He would never have imagined that they could even move the stars. Although the Mountain Without End was huge, it was nothingpared to that.


    Based on the astrologer¡¯s ancient ssics, the sun was an enormous ball of fire, bigger than even the Myers Maind. The temperature on the sun was so high that it could melt many types of metal directly, including rhenium gold. It was hard to believe that the sun hanging up in the skies of Myers Maind was actually transported from another gxy by humans.


    No wonder the humans dared to attack the Gods at that time! That was not arrogance. If Saleen had that kind of power, he would probably have developed the same kind of wild ambitions.


    The Goddess of Myers already foresaw her fall, so she used these offerings from various dimensions to fill up this dimension of hers to create a burial site for herself.


    The conditions attached to taking away the seeds of the divine tree was simple. As long as one signed a contract on the stone tablet, opened up all the Goddess¡¯ temples on the maind, and convert one-hundred-thousand disciples; one would be able to inherit all the fortunes that the Goddess had left behind including the seeds of the divine tree.


    There was a deadline to this contract. The conditions must be fulfilled within one-thousand years, or else the soul of the person who had signed the contract would be locked up within the stone tablet for eternity. Regardless if the seeds of the divine tree had already started to grow, they would disappear and return back to the temple.


    Obviously, at the time when the Goddess created this stone tablet, humans still led very long lives. Now, amongst the Myers Maind poption, only grade-9 mages could live past one-thousand years.


    Saleen hesitated. Opening up all the temples should not be difficult because the Goddess would surely have left behind coordinates. The difficult part was converting one-hundred-thousand disciples.


    Without miracles, what are the chances of converting people?


    Saleen did not believe for a second that the contract was fake. It would be the most terrible punishment if one¡¯s soul was to be locked up forever.


    After reading the words on the stone tablet, Lex was hesitant and Saleen did not dare to write down his own name either. Indeed, he was only a grade-5 mage with a lot of enemies. He had Sregl ind behind him as well as Lex¡¯s support though. He might not need to fear the Holy See. If he wait it out for another two years or so and wait for Sregl ind to start anew and mages to head towards Metatrin City, all his troubles would be resolved. With thirty-six magical towers for defence, Saleen could not imagine how anyone could sessfully attack Metatrin City.


    If there was enough time for the sorcerers of Metatrin City to enter the six elements¡¯ space, he would have a group of grade-9 sorcerers to back him up. As for himself, it would not be difficult for him to be a sorcerer. After his advancement, the six elements¡¯ space would also help him to be a grade-9 sorcerer in no time.


    Saleen¡¯s family background was already very distinguished. Was there still a need to take this risk?


    If he wanted to convert one-hundred-thousand disciples, he would have go against the Holy See head-on. There would be no turning back. The people of Metatrin City alone would not be enough. The Goddess would never want false disciples. Only genuine disciples would fulfil the contract¡¯s condition.


    ¡°Saleen, what is written on it?¡± Sika¡¯s literacy skills were worse than Saleen¡¯s. When she saw the same expression on the faces of Saleen and Lex, she knew that he had encountered trouble.


    Saleen exined the conditions of the contract to Sika patiently. There were twenty-four temples spread around the entire maind. To use these temples as the foundation to spread the faith, the maind would first need to be unified. If one were to venture into the Tanggsi Kingdom to try to spread the Goddess¡¯ faith, the Holy See would somehow be able to kill your pastors on the grounds of peace.


    There would be peace if there were no disciples of other faiths. That was the Holy See¡¯s way of thinking.


    ¡°Saleen, do you have any other way?¡± Sika asked directly.


    Saleen nked out for a moment before thinking it through carefully. ¡°Would the Holy See let me go even if I did not ept the Goddess¡¯ contract? I do possess natural godly power after all and now I have a mythical beast by my side. The Holy See will definitely leave no stones unturned toe after me. Even if I can hide in Metatrin City temporarily, do I want to live the rest of my life in hiding?¡±


    Sika¡¯s question hit the nail on the head. Saleen had always thought that he already had an answer to such a scenario. At this moment when he was really confronted by it, he realized that he was still unsure.


    ¡°No matter what, I will be with you all the way. Now you should ask if Lex dares to put her name down,¡± Sika looked at Lex with the intention to provoke. If Lex did not dare to sign the contract, then she would lose the right to the seeds of the divine tree.


    ¡°Princess, please don¡¯t!¡± Bain gave Sika a stare furiously.


    ¡°Why not?¡± Lex asked coolly. She had yet to take her eyes off the stone tablet. The words inscribed on it were daunting. Not only did they contain the events that happened during the war with the kingdoms of God, they also described many things that took ce during the first dynasty.


    Bain was at a loss for words. The Grukos n had nevercked geniuses, and Lex was one of the best. If she continued her training, she would be one of the strongest on the maind even without the seeds of the divine tree.


    There was no way the maind could be unified by one person, no matter how strong that person was. To destroy all kingdoms in order to start new worlds and restore the Goddess¡¯ faith, all this would be much more difficult than achieving grade-10.


    If they did not aplish all this within one-thousand years, Lex¡¯s soul would never be able to escape. Lex came from the Grukos royal family. She should not take the risk. There was no need to.


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°Breaking this stone tablet would take the strength of a grade-18 mage. Inparison, it would be much easier to build a unified dynasty.¡±


    Bain did notck strength, but there was nothing he could do to sway Lex¡¯s determination. Lex continued, ¡°My father¡¯s biggest wish was to unify the maind. He wanted to rece the rotten rules that restricted the people¡¯s way of thinking with thews of Qin. Inparison, my wish is a much smaller one. Since father is no longer around, I am willing to fulfil his great ambition on his behalf.¡±


    Lex¡¯s voice grew louder as she spoke until finally, she released an icicle to prick her finger and used the fresh blood to write her name on the stone tablet.


    ¡°Humph!¡± Sika made a sound in contempt. She used her boomerang to cut her finger and left her name on the tablet too. She turned to Bain, who was rubbing his hands, and said, ¡°There are four seeds. If you don¡¯t put down your name¡­¡±


    What Sika meant to say was clear. If Bain was unwilling to put his name on the stone tablet and sign the contract with the Goddess, the seeds of the divine tree would be divided amongst the three of them.


    Bain looked at Sika with fury. Even so, he still took out a dagger to cut his finger. He put down his name beside Sika¡¯s. ¡°Your turn, Saleen.¡± Bain¡¯s voice was cold. He had not expected things to turn out like this after reaching the mountain top.


    Saleen did not stop Sika. He quietly cut his finger and was thest to put his name down. He was well aware of Sika¡¯s character. As for himself, he had really left himself with no other way. Even if he were to do it for Sika, he would also have to aplish the Goddess¡¯ wishes now. As for the reason behind the Goddess¡¯ doings, it was simple. She wanted to be revived.

 Chapter 548: Raid (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 548: Raid (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Just as Lex was about to enter the boundary of the temple, Saleen suddenly bellowed, ¡°Come out!¡±


    A short distance away, a pale green rock cracked gently, and one of its fragments transformed into a mesmerizing woman who turned out to be the demon, Cuisi. Cuisi clearly looked embarrassed, then he said awkwardly, ¡°Sir¡­¡±


    ¡°Humph, since you know about this secret already,e over and write down your name!¡± Saleen did not allow Cuisi nor Lex to harbor any more thoughts, then he asked Cuisi to leave his name on the stone tablet.


    Cuisi appeared flustered, but he was actually rejoicing in his heart. Even Bain could not discover him, while Saleen could only do so because Saleen knew that he had been following behind all along. Saleen asked him toe out of hiding so that he could be entitled to a portion of the loot from the temple too.


    There were only four seeds from the divine trees, but the rest of the items in the temple would have to be shared among the people who entered. Other than Lex herself, it was not very possible for those grade-5 and grade-4 mages to fly up. It was not that a grade-5 mage could not fly, but a normal grade-5 mage could only rely on equipment to fly over short distances, unless they were like Saleen who had created his own spell. They were not much stronger than a Silver Grand Swordmaster otherwise.


    Back when Jason was in Ceylon City, he could only fly when he wanted to go over the city walls. At that point in time, Jason was only a grade-5 mage.


    Of course, Lex felt that this arrangement was inappropriate. After all, if there was one more person, it would mean that Lex would receive a smaller share of the items in the temple. Since Cuisi hade along, she could not possibly ask Saleen to kill him, and she needed Cuisi keep the secret too. In that case, the best option would be to allow Cuisi into the temple.


    At this suitable juncture, Saleen pointed out that Cuisi would not have the right to get a seed because he hade along selfishly. Bain could not raise any further objection either. Bain desperately wanted to enter the temple just so that Lex could obtain one more seed.


    ¡°If there is an odd number of seeds, then Cuisi will have the right to get thest seed.¡± Sika was not dumb, as her suggestion was seconded by Lex and Bain. Anyway, ording to Lex¡¯s deductions, there was definitely an even number of seeds.


    Sika did not think that way. As long as there was a glimmer of hope, she would help Saleen seize one more seed.


    Cuisi was not worried about the one-thousand year restraint. If Saleen did not fulfill the contract, Nailisi would also drag Cuisi down. Cuisi was very clear about this, so he would rather enter the temple and be Saleen¡¯s confidante. With the restraints of the contract, Nailisi would definitely aid Saleen unreservedly. She would summon sufficient manpower from the demonic ne and initiate a campaign on the Myers maind.


    That way, it was possible that the famous myth circting the demonic ne could turn into reality.


    Five people walked to the entrance of the temple. Other than Saleen himself, the rest of the people would have to be transported in with his help. Saleen¡¯s Divine spell was really pathetic, each person could only enter the temple¡¯s gates with his Water Shield which possessed divinity. The stone tablet made it very clear, if one was not a believer of the goddess, they would be prohibited from entering. As long as one was engulfed in the Goddess of Myer¡¯s exclusive divinity, they would be acknowledged as a believer.


    Even Lex knew that this was no loophole, it was actually a backdoor left behind by the goddess. She did not know how Saleen had acquired divinity, but she knew that Saleen was definitely not a believer.


    The architecture of this temple was not mboyant. The Goddess of Myers never allowed her believers to adorn the temple with precious objects. Other than the steel rocks as the material for the temple, the rest of the design was very simple. Those exquisite patterns and carvings were easily achieved by humans of the past, as they could be attained using divinity or intermediate level magic. The stone pirs in front of the temple were over thirty yards in height, which was very astonishing for humans. If they had been built by giants, they would be just a toy though.


    Giants over one-hundred yards tall were aplenty, it would be simple for them to build a temple for the goddess.


    The temple¡¯s gates were wide open, a stone wall was engraved with numerous murals weing the guests. These murals were of no use to a normal person, but to a believer, they would be able to receiverge amounts of information just by ncing at them. Humans tens of thousands of years ago were not any less intelligent than modern humans, their absorption ability was immense. The sizeable amount of information hidden in a mural allowed a believer to receive knowledge swiftly. When the goddess was still around, these murals would change constantly. At the moment, the murals were fixated on one scene, there were no more alterations.


    Lex exined this to Saleen, and led everyone around the stone wall before entering a hall. This temple was constructed atop the Mountain Without End. This mountain might seem tapered, but with the goddess¡¯ powers a temple as big as the ones built on t ground could still be developed, it did not lose out in size.


    There was utter silence in the temple. These five people passed through dozens of barren halls before arriving at the core area.


    The fa?ade of this hall was astonishingly huge, while its height had exceeded that of the surrounding halls. When Saleen looked up, he had to use the Icy Sight to observe the ceiling. The interior of this temple was also unlike the temples Saleen had been to in the past. This hall was not barren, there were four dead trees standing upright.


    A colossal podium was situated behind the four dead trees, with hundreds of boxes carved from tremolite ced atop it. These boxes had an unchanged style, it was used to store ashes. This was also the first time Saleen had seen an extravagant item in a goddess¡¯ temple.


    The quality of the tremolite used was very high, it was not some normal nephrite. The stone with the lousiest quality was jasper. Mosaicked into the top of these ash-carrying jade boxes was sheet gold, which was more precious than refined gold. Sheet gold was the essence of refined gold, moreover, rhenium gold had to be added in ordance to a certain ratio.


    If one wanted to abstract these precious metals, they would need an astronomical amount of gold coins to do so. Even the maind ne could not provide any more gold coins.


    Even though Saleen was very tempted by the precious sheet gold, he did not dare touch it. These ashes were left behind by the goddess¡¯ oracles.


    A mage would not rob an expert¡¯s grave, even a death mage would not do that. If one did not respect an expert, they would receive retribution. Saleen did not believe that these ashes would not have any protection.


    What made Saleen more intrigued were the four dead trees. If there was no mistake, these four dead trees were the four divine trees created by the goddess; the Tree of Life, the Tree of Element, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Tree of Taboo.


    A hint of flush appeared on the face of the everposed Lex. A little agitated, she told Saleen, ¡°The seed of a divine tree is different from a normal nt, it is found in the trunk. Even though these four divine trees are withered, only your left hand will be able to break them. We would require many years and almost one-hundred sorcerers to get the seeds out otherwise.¡±


    Saleen did not even realize the mystical feature of these dead divine trees. With Lex¡¯s reminder, he used the Icicle Spell to test them out. When an icicle with the offensive power of level-3 magic crashed into a dead tree, it disintegrated instantly.


    Saleen was aghast, ¡°This thing is sturdier than the pan¡¯s turtle shell! It would be too tedious to use this material to craft armor. Even the water me may not be able to deal with such a solid material.¡±


    Saleen put his left hand on a withered divine tree, and green light seeped into it. An unexpected event happened. He could clearly feel the pulse of the divine tree. Within the trunk of this withered divine tree, a seed containing an immense power of life behaved like the human heart, beating slowly.


    Solely relying on the goddess¡¯ perception, the seed suddenly broke through the trunk, flying into Saleen¡¯s hand at the speed of light.


    Lex also pressed her hand against another divine tree. Her God¡¯s Ring glowed with a pale golden hue, and a seed flew out,nding in her hand.


    Without hesitation, Saleen went to collect a second seed. Indeed, there was only one seed in each divine tree. ¡°Seems like I have to depend on luck, I hope to obtain the seeds of the Tree of Element and the Tree of Knowledge. With these two items, it will not be impossible for me to be the mightiest mage.¡±


    The seeds of the divine trees were all green in color with a diameter of about half a yard. In hand, the seeds felt weightless. On each seed, there were dark green patterns, and holy words were veiled within the patterns. As Saleen held onto two seeds reading them meticulously, he grew disappointed.


    He had gotten seeds of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Taboo. The seeds he desired were in Lex¡¯s possession. Since Lex was also a mage, she would never exchange with him.


    Even though Lex did not understand holy words, Saleen could not possibly deceive her. The Tree of Life was good, if it could be grown, Saleen would attain an endless supply of the Power of Life, which was much stronger than magic liquid. As long as he was not killed in an instant, Saleen would not need to be afraid of getting injured anymore.


    What could the Tree of Taboo be used for? To be a god? Saleen had never thought of bing a god. A mage knew clearly that a god was simply a type of creature, there were still many other taboos. For example, the Lord of Glory could never enter the ne of the Myers maind. Humans were different, as long as they possessed sufficient power, they could travel to any location.


    The power of a human did not rely on any faith, it stemmed from the individual. The potential of humans was exemplified when the ancient humans moved the sun from another ne to put it in the sky above the Myers maind.


    ¡°I will study it slowly.¡± Helpless, Saleen stored the two seeds into the Demonic Ring. He did not even exchange opinions with Lex. As the goddess¡¯ space was a little odd, Saleen did not want to loiter around, he wanted to leave as soon as possible. ¡°I have been gone for six months already, right? I wonder what has be of Metatrin City.¡±


    Lex looked at the four dead divine trees. In slight exasperation, she told Saleen, ¡°Only your Ring of Gifts can collect them, even my God¡¯s Ring cannot do it.¡±


    Saleen nced at Sika. Sika then ced her hand on one withered divine tree, and another event which made Saleen astounded urred. Just like that, Sika had put away the one-hundred yard long divine tree into the Ring of Gifts.


    These withered divine trees were items which could not be valued in terms of money, not to mention the preciousness of the trunk¡¯s material. The leaves at the crown had also withered, but every leaf had hidden holy prose in them, so there could be another use for them.


    ¡°These were the benefits the goddess has left for me, but I will have to pay a humongous price for it in the future by unifying the maind and spreading the goddess¡¯ religion. With a huge number of believers, and as long as time is abundant, it will not be impossible for the goddess to be resurrected.¡±

 Chapter 549: Raid (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 549: Raid (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When he thought of that, Saleen decided to let it go, then he told Lex, ¡°Let¡¯s split up. Other than the ashes of the oracles, gather the rest of the items, and we can split it amongst ourselves.¡±


    Naturally, Saleen was a little indignant. The seeds of the four divine trees were of immeasurable value, but the goddess¡¯ demand was an insurmountable task.


    ¡°Unify the Myers maind? Luckily the goddess¡¯ temples are all built on the maind. If there were temples situated overseas, would that mean that the whole Myers ne would have to be unified? If the Holy See is not destroyed, the goddess¡¯ religion cannot be poprized.¡± Having these thoughts, Saleen did not have any more reservations about plundering the goddess¡¯ temple. ¡°This temple cannot be demolished, and the ashes of the oracles cannot be touched. The rest of the items must be removed.¡±


    It was not that Saleen did not have the intention to do so. Since there was a probability that the goddess could be resurrected, and she would realize that the ashes of her oracles had been removed, there might be dire consequences.


    The five people immediately raided the temple, the goddess clearly did not leave any prohibitions. The size of Cuisi¡¯s and Bain¡¯s spatial equipment was limited, so they had to go to and fro to clear their filled spatial equipment. Saleen and Lex could simply empty the resources in an entire room. After Sika¡¯s Ring of Gifts stored the four withered divine trees, the space actually gotrger as though it was a nourished creature.


    Back in the central temple, the enormous cavities left behind after the four divine trees were collected had begun closing up slowly, as though the four dead divine trees never existed. On emptynd in the temple, more and more items were piled up one after another. Bain and Cuisi did not give much consideration. As long as something could be removed, they would transport it there.


    In the past, the goddess used very simple items. In this day and age, humans could hardly obtain these materials anymore. Divinecherry wood was no big deal in the past. Humans only needed to travel to the First Abyss once to be able to acquirerge amounts of divinecherry wood.


    If possible, Saleen would rather pige the pce of the first dynasty, the items there were really precious. Even though humans really adored the goddess¡¯ lifestyle, the items umted were not really good. Except for the four divine trees of course.


    Unfortunately, the pce of the first dynasty was rumored to have been flown to another ne. Some people also said that the first dynasty had conquered a godly nation, thus it had shifted there. Even the remnants of the second dynasty were very rare. Like the first dynasty, the second dynasty was also extremely luxurious.


    The third dynasty was more low-key, but it had been a long time since it disappeared. Only the fourth dynasty had left behind a great deal of remnants. Amidst the chaos of war, the Cloudflow Empire had plundered the remains of the fourth dynasty, so all the items were sent to Cloudflow.


    Cuisi and Bain did not stand on ceremony at all. They were extremely thorough, transporting all the removable items to the central temple.


    When Lex and Saleen got back, they were very satisfied at the result of everyone¡¯s efforts.


    Like Saleen had expected, this temple had arge bank of magic nuclei. The Goddess of Nature was very fond of magic, so a number of her oracles were even sorcerers. Besides having protection by Divine spells, there was a variety of magic arrays in the temple, and all these instations had to be powered by magic nuclei.


    The thing which made Saleen most d was that most of the magic nuclei in the mountainous pile of them were a high level. Other than the seeds of the divine trees, everything was to be split into five portions. Saleen would take three shares, while Lex would take two. That way, the mages from the Sregl Ind would possess sufficient magic nuclei for training. They would no longer be constrained by resources and be hampered in their advancements.


    All of the magic nuclei were not segmented. Lex took out a massive weighing scale, measuring the mass of the magic nuclei. Then, they were split into five shares. A huge quantity of precious metals were also split. Today, humans could hardly obtain such metals on this ne.


    Almost all the items had to be refined once more, with the exception of some weapons and armor. The goddess had divine guards, who formed the backbone force of the Nature Temple. The divine guards were all above the standard of a grand swordmaster, so they could also cast Divine spells. Their armor was not any weaker than the Spirit Snake Armor.


    The goddess only had five-hundred divine guards though. Lex gave all five-hundred pieces of armor to Saleen, in exchange for the bows and arrows stored in the only armory found in the temple.


    The bows and arrows left behind by the goddess were all magic equipment, they had a horrifyingly far range. If an archer could cast magic and stimte the Icy Sight, they would possess a shooting uracy of more than five-hundred yards.


    In a normal army, soldiers depended on luck to hit a target who was more than two-hundred yards away. To an army, this batch of bows and arrows held significant meaning.


    Saleen did not have high expectations of bows and arrows. He had Eleanor beside him, so he would possess the production method of an elvish bow. With a new design, Saleen could also muster his own magic bow army.


    Saleen faced much challenge in crafting armor. His followers, including the demons, wore high level magic armor. The attributes of their armor were a result of the high level materials used though. If Saleen could only use normal materials to craft armor, he would not have the ability to produce armor like those donned by the divine guards.


    What made Saleen extremely skeptical was that Cuisi had collected a pile of tableware. This tableware was made from wood, there were pots and pans, and some jars for seasoning.


    Lex was overjoyed. She told Saleen, ¡°These things are magic equipment, they weren¡¯t considered special in the past. Look at this pot. It is made from wood, but it can steam food at high temperatures, because it utilizes the power of magic.¡±


    ¡°What use does this have?¡±


    ¡°Speed!¡± Lex stared at the tableware, grinning from ear to ear. ¡°It is still okay in normal environments, but the morale of soldiers is extremely precious in a harsh environment. In some ces, it is difficult to make fire, and in some other ces, we could be easily discovered by the enemy once fire is ignited. In order to maintain the speed of marching, soldiers will only consume rations that are prepared beforehand most of the time, and these rations taste horrible. Only themanders have the right to eat rations prepared by a mage.¡±


    At this moment, Saleen understood the importance of tableware. With a set of such equipment, it would mean a lot to the logistical support of an army.


    ¡°Can we let Eleanor study it first, before we imitate it?¡± Lex suggested.


    Saleen nodded in agreement. He also had arge number of troops. If such equipment was mademonce in the army, it would be tremendously beneficial to him too. Since this equipment could prepare good food swiftly, it had to have special effects too, just like the Restorative Water, which could reduce fatigue and heal injuries.


    ¡°It is said that the believers of the goddess do not fall sick, so I guess they use these items to consume their meals?¡±


    Sika was thest to return. When she returned, Tourmaline, who wasying on Saleen¡¯s shoulder, suddenly leaped off and snuggled into her embrace. Sika caressed Tourmaline¡¯s head, then she took out a rice grain and fed it.


    Almost half of the staple food Qin people ate was rice, just like the Cloudflow people. At a nce, Saleen had recognized that this green rice grain was a type of grain recorded in the picture chart. It was not produced in huge quantities, but it was very beneficial to a warrior¡¯s body. Be that as it may, this rice was only produced in a small region in Qin and Cloudflow. It was tightly controlled by the imperial families of both empires, not even one grain was circted around.


    Giggling, Sika poured that green rice out from the Ring of Gifts, piling it over two yards high. That Tourmaline was full after eating just one grain. It burped once and decided to stay in Sika¡¯s arms.


    Lex got even more jubnt, she stored a portion of the rice, then said to Saleen, ¡°This is green cloud wheat, it is grown only in special environments. When we get back, we should look for a ce to build a magical house so that we can cultivate it indoors.¡±


    If a magical house was used to set up a special environment to cultivate rice, the price of the rice might be astoundingly high. Based on the divine beast, Saleen also knew that a normal person might be able to fill their stomach with just a mouthful of this rice. To a mage, this might not be of much use, but to a warrior, it was the best food they could consume.


    During battle, a warrior would deplete hundreds of times more stamina than a mage. The food consumed by Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp had also been altered by the mages, but its effect was nothingpared to this green cloud wheat.


    ¡°Seems like my foresight is still shallow and inferior to Lex¡¯s.¡±


    Originally, Saleen had a heart of vengeance when he asked everyone to pige the temple. Now, it seemed like the items left behind by the goddess, even a toilet bowl, possessed some unique functions.


    Saleen grew less interested in the issue of splitting the loot. Other than some disposable items like the magic nuclei, he and Lex could imitate the rest of the items. ¡°I have Eleanor who can decipher holy words, while Lex has a colossal backing of mages. In one year, we will be able to producerge quantities of imitated equipment.¡±


    At this juncture in his thoughts, Saleen whispered to Lex, and Lex nodded her head. Saleen then instructed Cuisi to remove the toilet bowls and the waste management building from the temple. He specified that these things could not be damaged at all.


    Upset, Cuisi went off. Saleen split the rest of the items with Lex.


    Saleen wanted to obtain those items on a whim, because people had obviously lived in this temple before, but it remained spick and span. The goddess definitely had a way of managing all that garbage.


    The more people there were in a city, the worse the degree of pollution, causing the nearby rivers to be affected. Even an empire like Qin, who had an abundance of mages, was also like that. The nobles wanted the city to be clean, but they could only use magic to remove the rubbish. They could not make the city totally clean.


    Metatrin City was itself a magic city with an effective drainage system. The problem was that the treated sewage would eventually flow into the ocean, so it would still cause pollution. The mages knew that this was not beneficial to humans, but they had no solution to deal with it yet.


    It was clear that the Goddess of Nature had a solution. In the past, there were not as many humans, so pollution was not considered dire. To date, there were several cities with more than a million Qin people, and there were even more cities containing hundreds of thousands of people. If the problem of pollution was not thoroughly resolved, it was likely that Myers maind might be filled with polluted rivers in less than one-thousand years. That would lead to serious adverse effects on agriculture.


    This time around, the looting yielded substantial results. Lex and Saleen were very eager to go back, people were still waiting for them at the foot of the mountain. It had been around three months, and if they still did not return, those people down there might go berserk from all that waiting.


    Just as they were discussing when to leave, Cuisi rushed back excitedly, then told Saleen, ¡°Sir, I have discovered an entrance!¡±


    ¡°What entrance?¡±


    ¡°An entrance to an underground pce!¡±


    Lex and Saleen were overjoyed. When they came here, they had realized that there were not many shocking items, other than the rich materials in the temple. Since Lex and Saleen had entered other temples, both of them felt that this temple was odd. As the core temple, it should at least contain some items which could not be found in other temples.


    The moment Cuisi discovered an underground pce, their worries were dismissed. If there were no unique items left behind in the central temple, then it would be really abnormal.

 Chapter 550: The Troubles that the Goddess Left Behind (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 550: The Troubles that the Goddess Left Behind (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    To be urate, the entrance of the underground pce was not discovered, but created by Cuisi¡¯s brute force.


    This was originally a room to keep rubbish. It was obviously not created by the Goddess, but by the things that were needed by her disciples¡¯ basic such as eating and drinking. This included her disciples of all grades, including grade-12.


    A small room within the temple was dedicated to the processing of rubbish. In the center of the room was a three-dimensional magic array. One only needed to throw the rubbish into the magic array and it would be disintegrated into its smallest atoms and categorized ordingly.


    Saleen came to the room and saw the magic array that had been destroyed by Cuisi. Before giving him a chance to explode at him, Cuisi quickly said, ¡°Master, this magic array almost killed me!¡±


    Saleen pondered, ¡°This pce must have been vacated for many years, probably at least seven-thousand years? A magic array that could still function on its own despite not being taken care of, that must mean that its core was made up of something like dragonshard. There were five of such three-dimensional magic arrays that remained, even if Cuisi damaged one, it can still be repaired.¡±


    The crater in the ground was about ten yards deep and two yards in diameter. Saleen took one look and knew immediately that it was created by Cuisi¡¯s whip. The weapon that he had refined for Cuisi had saved his own life.


    The magic array was a three-dimensional structure and was sixteen yards thick underground. If Cuisi did not prate itpletely, he would have been processed by the magic array like how it used to process rubbish, being disintegrated into atoms.


    The Mountain Without End was already one-hundred and eight-thousand miles in height, so a sixteen yard thick underground crater was nothing inparison. Saleen swept the entire area of the underground pce with his senses and was relieved to realize that the area below was not small. Even as he broadened his senses to a mile away, he still could not detect any boundaries.


    ¡°Cuisi, well done. Who will go down first?¡± Although it seemed to be an open question, Saleen was already looking at Lex.


    ¡°I will go.¡± Bain cut to the chase. He was the best candidate.


    Bain silently slid down the crater. After nting his feet firmly on the ground, he threw out a transparent sphere. The sphere bounced a few times on the ground, then stuck itself to a pir that was a distance away and finally lit up.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay. Come down,¡± Bain shouted casually. If there was any danger there that he had missed, there was no way the other four would have realized it either if they were in his ce. The assassin possessed certain attributes that even mages could not match.


    The four of them slid down in order. Lex used illumination magic and observed her surroundings.


    This was a ce that resembled a storage room. There were tall shelves, boxes and all sorts of antique furniture gathered in one corner. In another corner, Saleen saw a few broken puppets. These puppets were about six-yards tall and had four arms.


    Although the puppets looked delicate, Saleen knew that the humans at that time possessed alchemy skills that was a hundred times better than now. Back in those times, these puppets would definitely be considered to be crudely-made. Such puppets were basically created for the transportation of goods and not for battle purposes.


    These puppets could be found in big harbors and cities that mainly functioned as transfer stations. There were many goods that would take up too much time if they were transported by humans. On the other hand, these six-yard tall puppets could transport more than twenty-thousand pounds of goods at one go. twenty-thousand pounds was the maximum load for most magic carriages.


    The harbor of Metatrin City was building this exact type of puppets. This room looked like a warehouse. Other than a big space, there seemed to be nothing special about it.


    Saleen and the rest had found quite a few things on top, there were no warehouses, only storage rooms. All the materials were limited.


    ¡°Cuisi, I think your luck is pretty good.¡± Saleen patted Cuisi on the shoulder and praised him.


    Cuisiughed bitterly, ¡°I am in the same boat as you now. If we don¡¯t fulfil the Goddess¡¯ contract¡­¡±


    ¡°I know. I will do my best. You better not give up either.¡± It was rare for Saleen to have a conversation with this demon. All along, he had only been giving orders.


    Cuisi¡¯s lips moved, but he did not say anything else in the end. From the moment he put his name down on the stone tablet, he had already made up his mind to go all the way with Saleen. He was different from the other demons. He had already reached the ceiling of his growth as a demon. In order to possess powers close to a supreme demon¡¯s and to be able to live up to ten-thousand years, he would have to grow some more. This desire for growth was what made him different from the other demons.


    If he did not give it a shot and Saleen died in the end, he could still return to the demon dimension and continue to be a fighter for some supreme demon.


    Lex frowned and said, ¡°Should we split ways, or¡­¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s stay together,¡± Sika suddenly interrupted. She pointed to the door and said, ¡°I think there is danger down there.¡±


    Sika had barely finished her sentence and Bain was already at the side of the door, as quick as lightning. His body was so close to the wall that in the eyes of Saleen and the rest, it was almost as if Bain had suddenly disappeared and had be one with the patterns on the wall.


    Sika looked around and concluded that the room was still not suitable for flying even though it had ample space. She took out her cudgel and faced the big door.


    Lex took out a scroll and released a wall that stood in front of Sika. Cuisi took out his whip. He gave Saleen a nce, before dashing stealthily to the left side of the wall. Once there, Cuisi disappeared too. This time, Saleen saw very clearly that Cuisi had transformed into a part of the wall and had attached himself to the end of the ten yard wide wall.


    A demon who knew illusions was much more useful than other demons like Aiwa, who only knew how to charge ahead aggressively. In small-scale fights like this, intelligence was especially important.


    Bang!


    The door seemed to have been hit by something and let out a loud noise.


    Saleen thought for a while and released a water shield for Sika. He flew up to mid-air and used fog to cover his body.


    Bang!


    A crack appeared on the door before it crashed down. Saleen was shocked to see a group of small and short creatures behind the door. They held metal war hammers in their hands and looked over the door viciously.


    ¡°Dwarf demons?¡±


    ¡°Dwarf demons indeed¡­¡± Saleen swallowed his saliva and his heart was uneasy. These little creatures did look like dwarf demons. Their skin color, the weapons that they wielded, and the ugly-looking facial features; they all resembled what was recorded in the maps. The only difference was that the maps mentioned that dwarf demons did not wear armors, but these ones were d in metal armors from tip to toe. Although they looked bulky and clumsy, these armors seemed to be made from chimpanzee metal.


    Chimpanzee metal was not like star metal and was a red-colored type of metal. The best thing about this kind of metal was that it was incredibly malleable, so they could prevent attacks from blunt objects and absorb strong impacts. To create an armor with this metal, one only needed to add a thinyer of armor tes and it would be able to defend against any type of weapon.


    Dwarf demons were incredibly strong, but could not move fast and could be killed easily by archers. Now that they were d in armor, fighting with them in a tight space like this would not be a wise choice.


    This was bad!


    Saleen looked at the dwarf demons that were rushing into the warehouse below him. He sullenly began to prepare his magic. Just as Saleen was in the midst of preparing his magic, a few dwarf demons rushed to the wall and began to smash at it with their hammers.


    Uh!


    Even Lex was taken by surprise. She had released the wall for fear of any huge monsters that woulde rushing through behind the door. Instead, it was a group of dwarf demons. These demons did not seem to be very intelligent. They could have bypassed the ten yard wide wall, but were stubbornly choosing to smash it down instead.


    Although the wall was created from low-grade magic, it had the ability to repair itself. As long as the element had not beenpletely expended and unless it was smashedpletely with one hit, there was no way the wall could fall. Ground magic was more resilient than water magic on some asions.


    The dwarf demons were trying their hardest to take down the wall, yet none of them discovered Bain who was hiding behind them. Saleen still did not rx. Although Bain certainly possessed powerful attacking abilities, seeing how the number of dwarf demons just kept increasing with no signs of stopping, there was no way he would be able to deal with them alone.


    By now, the ten or so dwarf demons that had been smashing the wall with their war hammers had realized that the wall was able to repair itself instantaneously. Even if they were not too intelligent, they were still able to conclude by now that there was something strange about the wall.


    Immediately, another ten or so dwarf demons rushed towards the puppets in the corner. They must all think that the wall was an enemy that must be destroyed. These dwarf demons took out magic nuclei and mounted them on a few of the broken puppets.


    Saleen was surprised to see that these puppets, who already looked rusty and broken, suddenly sprang to life. They took the war hammers from the dwarf demons and rushed towards the wall.


    The wall was only two-yards tall. Under themand of the dwarf demons, the puppets wielded their war hammers and were fully intent on breaking down the wall, totally ignoring Sika who was behind it.


    The dwarf demons had already appeared for a full minute but none of them had attempted to bypass the wall. They were all focused on battling against the inanimate wall. Although the puppets did not have much fighting abilities since they were designed for transporting goods, they had a lot of strength. With four arms wielding warhammers and attacking the wall like a tornado, the low-grade magic finally yielded. The wall suddenly gave way and revealed a hole of five-yards wide.


    Soon after, something happened that amused Saleen so much that he did not know if he shouldugh or to cry. Three of the puppets¡¯ bodies started to make noises of things breaking and ck smoke began to appear. After that, their eyes turned from white to red and began to swing their war hammers wildly while attacking the dwarf demons around them.


    The sounds of the war hammer making contact with armor was continuous and the dwarf demons were sent flying towards the walls by the immensely strong puppets. The walls of this pce were made of ck granite. When the metal armor worn by the dwarf demons made contact with the granite, the sound echoed almost unendingly in the warehouse.


    These puppets could actually go into attack mode, but they were unable to distinguish between friend and foe.


    By now, the number of dwarf demons had already exceeded two-hundred and was still increasing. They wailed while rushing towards the three puppets that had lost control. Saleen realized that the dwarf demons did not sustain many injuries even after they crashed into the granite wall. They only rolled a few times on the ground then sat up again.


    These dwarf demons looked shaky and dazed. By right, the ability of the chimpanzee armor to absorb impact was extremely strong, but the craftmanship was poor, so this ability was reduced and could not totally absorb immense impact.


    Even so, these dwarf demons were still troublesome. The armor covered their entire body except their faces. In order to kill them, the only way was to attack their face. It was easier said than done, since they had long arms, brute strength, and were constantly wielding their war hammers.


    Lex controlled herself and did not allow Bain to initiate any attack. Although the dwarf demons were troublesome, it was still manageable if everyone worked together. Her only fear was that there were other tougher creatures behind that gigantic door.

 Chapter 551: The Troubles that the Goddess Left Behind (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 551: The Troubles that the Goddess Left Behind (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The number of dwarf demons in the warehouse kept increasing. These creatures were one point two yards tall on average, and the stronger ones could even reach up to one and a half yards. Despite theirck of height, the dwarf demons were actually creatures that came from the abyssal ne. These creatures were able to spread to many other dimensions and were more adaptable than magic bugs.


    At least the magic bugs would always be stuck in the demon dimension, but the dwarf demons were said to even exist in the Kingdoms of God.


    Unfortunately, there was no hiding. If they left the warehouse, the dwarf demons would be able to burrow through the sixteen yard long tunnel and eventually take over the entire Goddess¡¯ dimension, possibly even reach the purgatory desert and reproduce there. Judging by the attributes of the dwarf demons, they were simr to sand scorpions in the sense that they would be able to survive even in harsh conditions.


    Although the Goddess did not request for the protection of the temple as one of the conditions, for the temple to be fully opened and ready to ept disciples, there needed to be enough space for them to at least settle down and build a home for themselves. At the rate that these dwarf demons could reproduce, they would soon upy the entire dimension. They had to get rid of the dwarf demons.


    Even the creatures of the abyssal ne treated the dwarf demons like locusts. The armies of the abyssal ne did not recruit the dwarf demons because they ate too much and reproduced too quickly. If they had recruited the dwarf demons they would run into many logistic problems very quickly.


    Lex flew up as well. Sika decided that she might as well release her monster bones, she stood on top of them and flew to mid-air. Luckily. The space in this underground pce was big and the warehouse also measured about fifty to sixty yards in height.


    Now, only Cuisi and Bain were still left on the ground. Both of them could fly, yet chose to remain hidden.


    ¡°What should we do?¡± Lex and Saleen began to discuss. More and more dwarf demons were at the door and many of them had started to look upwards at the big hole above them. Dwarf demons did not possess many ranged attacks, except for hurling rocks.


    ¡°If we escape, we will need to bury this hole again. The dwarf demons know how to dig, so this hole¡­¡±


    Lex knew as well that burying this hole again would not be easy. The dwarf demons already knew that this hole was their way out so they would keep digging as if their lives depended on it.


    ¡°I am curious to know how the dwarf demons have been able to survive all this while.¡± Sika looked at the countless dwarf demons in the warehouse. By now, there should be more than one-thousand of them.


    ¡°Damn it. There must have been a lot of food kept in the Goddess¡¯ storage, but they have eaten it all!¡± Saleen said furiously.


    Back on top, they only managed to find some seeds, but down in this warehouse, there might have beenrge quantities of food and grains. Looking at how many dwarf demons there were, no amount of food that the Goddess left behind would be enough. The food that the Goddess had left behind must have had a long shelf life. If Saleen and Lex could get their hands on this food, they would not have to worry about Metatrin City¡¯s shortage of food in the near future.


    ¡°Damn it, these dwarf demons will eat anything. The food supply in the warehouse must be mostly depleted by now. The Goddess might be able to manipte the dimension and the food supply probably mostly consisted of green cloud wheat, which was extremely filling, but there was no way that the supplies were unlimited for the dwarf demons.¡±


    ¡°If I had not opened up this pce, these dwarf demons would have starved to death sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°These dwarf demons must have been left behind by the Goddess. The Goddess did not like to kill for no reason. Dwarf demons are extremely capable in digging, so they must have been used to create the foundations for this huge pce. After they hadpleted their tasks, the Goddess must not have had the heart to kill them. After the Goddess fell, these creatures were locked up¡­¡± Lex did not continue, but Saleen understood anyway. Without the Goddess, there was no one else that could control them from reproducing.


    Lex might not be entirely right, but she was probably not too far off either. At that time, the different types of creatures that humans had captured were just too many, so some of them must have been offered to the Goddess, including the dwarf demons. These remaining dwarf demons must have been surviving on the food supplies that had been kept in the warehouse. Without the intelligence toprehend poption control, they must have reproduced rapidly and armed themselves up as if they were still on the abyssal ne.


    Within the underground pce were metals, food and medicine that the Goddess had left behind for Saleen andpany. They had all been used up by the dwarf demons. If Saleen andpany had note now and the dwarf demons began to turn against one another, they would not have survived for more than three to five years.


    Therge amounts of supplies that the Goddess had left behind were clearly to help those who were willing to sign the contract with her, so that they could quickly set off to spread the faith and unify the maind. Unfortunately, even Gods make mistakes sometimes. The Goddess¡¯ mistake was to leave these dwarf demons behind. Aside from the food supplies, the Goddess had also left behind some agricultural produce. The humans that signed the contract with her could use magic to turn them into eggs. These had been eaten up by the dwarf demons too.


    With these food supplies, Saleen could have fed an army of more than one-hundred-thousand and still would not have to worry about food-rted logistics for another one-hundred years.


    Just as the astrologer had said, one could never predict the future entirely. The Goddess might have predicted that the Lord of Glory¡¯s faith would spread, that Myers Maind would divide itself and that the fourth dynasty would dissolve. She never would have guessed that a small form of life would destroy all her resources.


    ¡°Sika, give it a try.¡± Saleen wanted to confirm the level of defence the dwarf demons possessed. Sika nodded and took out her boomerang. The boomerang looked totally different now. It was now a crescent-shape and transparent metallic weapon. This transparent metallic weapon was very thin, yet much heavier than its previous version. Saleen had added metallic materials that even he himself could not bear to use.


    Sika did not possess any ranged attacks, so Saleen refined this new boomerang ording to the diagram that Sika had given to him, no matter the cost.


    Saleen had conducted a test. He found that Sika¡¯s boomerang could now easily cut through war puppets that were d in heavy armor. Although the war puppets¡¯ bodies were not made of metal, their bones were the same as those of low-grade demons. A small boomerang could now cut through a war puppet entirely. This was because it could now release power that was equivalent to the sword aura of swordmasters.


    In order to achieve this result, on top of the mysterious totem pattern on the inside of the boomerang, Saleen also included some dragonshards. Without these, Sika would not have been able to use typical swordmasters¡¯ attacks just based on her abilities alone.


    Sika understood Saleen¡¯s hint and did not need another reminder. Suddenly, the boomerang disappeared from her hand and was cutting through a dwarf demon¡¯s waist in the next moment.


    The dwarf demon cried out pitifully as it fell. Saleen¡¯s icy sight saw everything clearly though. The armor that had been covering the demon¡¯s waist had now beenpletely sliced open and there was a huge gaping wound at the waist caused by the boomerang. The injury only reached the dwarf demon¡¯s fatyer and its internal organs were still intact.


    ¡°I hate these creatures.¡± With a twist of her fingers, Sika¡¯s boomerang did not return back to her hands like it used to. Instead, it flew straight to a second dwarf demon. This second dwarf demon had already noticed this strange weapon and wielded its war hammer at it. The boomerang suddenly jerked in mid-air like a butterfly before bypassing the war hammer and cutting across the dwarf demon¡¯s neck.


    With the sound of a ¡°crack¡±, the dwarf demon¡¯s neck did not break but fresh blood was spurting out wildly. This dwarf demon made a hissing sound and the blood stopped quickly.


    ¡°They¡¯re like cockroaches that can¡¯t be killed!¡± Sika grumbled. Her finger twisted around again. The boomerang now flew towards the face of another dwarf demon. It was as if there was an invisible barrier in front of the dwarf demon¡¯s face. The boomerang was jerky as it slid through at the top and cut off the dwarf demon¡¯s face. The cut was not deep enough to reach the bones.


    ¡°How is it?¡± Saleen asked as he saw Sika recalling the boomerang.


    ¡°Tough. The defence of the armor can only be ovee by middle-grade magic. The attack would have to be focused on a single point; a multiple target spell would be disastrous.¡± Sika knew how powerful her boomerang was right now. Even magic with element attributes might not be stronger than it. If she controlled the attacking rhythm and slowed down the speed, Sika¡¯s boomerang could still inflict some serious damage on the dwarf demons.


    The problem was that the dwarf demons¡¯ rate of recovery was too fast. The dwarf demons that were injured at the neck and waist were already climbing up and were waving their war hammers in rage.


    Saleen was troubled upon hearing Sika¡¯s reply. If it was true that only middle-grade magic would be effective, then the icicle magic that he was most familiar with would be useless. Icicle magic was only a grade-1 magic on its own. It had now reached grade-3 after Saleen had continuously refined and modified it. That was probably already its ceiling.


    If the icicle magic was to be upgraded to grade-4, it would transform entirely into another type of magic. The magic chords that would be required for it would also be beyond a grade-1 magic.


    Before Saleen could figure out a solution, the dwarf demons below had already started to attack. They were throwing their war hammers at the three of them in the air in quick session.


    Sika had the easiest time. She was standing on the monster bones and their hardiness was unimaginable. Even after it was hit by war hammers that weighed more than ten pounds, there were no traces of the impact that Saleen could detect using his mental strength.


    Saleen¡¯s defence was simple and came in the form of his water shield expanding into a huge bubble and enveloping his entire body. Shrouded in a fog, the war hammers flew around him aimlessly as there was no way to throw at him urately. Even if they did manage to hit the water shield, the nature of the shield was able to negate the effectiveness of heavy weapons such as the metal war hammer.


    Saleen was able to calcte where the war hammers wouldnd and then control the water shield so that it would easily avoid the location where the war hammer would create the most impact. This way, the war hammer would just slide past on the side.


    Lex used her technique and also released her grade-0 magic; the Wind Dance spell. While in the air, the war hammers were diverted away by the element of wind and were never close tonding a hit. Although using this spell would exhaust mental strength, Lex had so much equipment and resources that this was never an issue.


    ¡°Lex, use a scroll to seal the door.¡± The way Saleen saw it, avoiding the war hammers was not the solution. They would need to attack. Even as he spoke to Lex, he had already taken out a grade-6 magic scroll. Although multiple target spells would deal lower damage, a grade-6 multiple target spell should still beparable to a grade-4 magic with single point of attack. Since the dwarf demons¡¯ defence could be prated by an attack of grade-4 magic, it was worth a try to use multiple target spells instead. If they continued to kill the dwarf demons one by one, it would probably take them until next year to finish them off.


    If only Lex¡¯s metal titan had already fully recovered from its injuries. She could have unleashed it and the dwarf demons would all be stomped to death in no time. The attacking prowess of these dwarf demons were not too strong, and Three King¡¯s grades and above would be able to ughter them all easily. The body type of mages were just too weak for this though.


    ¡°Alright,¡± Lex took out a grade-7 magic scroll without hesitation. Only a person like her would be able to take out the right kind of scrolls for situations that specifically called for them.


    Crystal guardian!


    A transparent wall instantaneously materialized and sealed off the door. Saleen took a breath and gently revealed the grade-6 magic scroll in his hands.


    Fire st, a grade-6 multiple target spell, was the lower-grade version of the fire enchantment.

 Chapter 552: Hob meat (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 552: Hob meat (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex possessed the Fire Enchantment, but the duration of this spell was too long. That would cause Bain and Cuisi, who were hidden below, to be defenseless. The attack this time around was an experimental one. If it was effective, and the Fire st was resolved, then this level-6 magic scroll would be much cheaper than a level-7 scroll.


    Lex did not have many level-7 scrolls in her possession. Since she did not know how many dwarf demons were there underground, the consequences might be disastrous if she had used all of her scrolls.


    ¡°Abominable creatures!¡±


    Even Lex¡¯s brows were locked in disgust. Dwarf demons were unorganized creatures, they did not have a fixed leader. The one-thousand dwarf demons which had appeared in this warehouse might have a dozenmanders, and even if thesemanders had died, the dwarf demons would continue attacking, making them more challenging to be dealt with aspared to demonic spirits. A demonic spirit did not contain as high magic resistance and defensive power as a dwarf demon.


    Lex had zero sympathy for these dwarf demons, and Saleen felt the same way too. When a creature could not even be extirpated by the gods, one would not feel anypassion for them.


    In the subcontinent ne, dwarf demons would have gone rampant and seized all thends had the demonic race not brought them under control.


    Orange mes spewed out from the ground. The dwarf demons shrieked wildly, rolling about haphazardly. The temperature of the mes was extremely high, and their armor was crude, so they could not iste the mes no matter how good the armor¡¯s material was.


    It was unknown what technique Cuisi and Bain used, they remain shrouded within the mes, but they did not expose themselves. Those dwarf demons could not hold out any longer. The Fire st and the Fire Enchantment were simr, they were spells which were suited to be cast in a sealed space. Even though this warehouse was colossal, there was a hole around the top, this caused the mes to be sucked upwards, increasing the power of the spurt exponentially. Several tiny dwarf demons were flung up by the mes, it was their unlucky day. Their face guards were melted away, and in the blink of an eye, their faces were burnt to the bone.


    The mes found their way through the damaged face guards. The magic resistance of the dwarf demons was still inadequate to handle level-6 magic. Following the destruction of the face guards, these dwarf demons suffocated first before getting killed by the high temperature within their armor. The moment the interior of the armor was invaded by the mes, the armor actually became a receptacle which could withstand high temperatures and high pressures. This caused the dwarf demons to die off abnormally quickly.


    As hundreds of dwarf demons were killed, the Crystal Guardian had been broken by a dwarf demon outside the door. This dwarf demon who entered the warehouse this time around was a different variant. It was over two yards tall, wielding a gigantic poleaxe.


    By now, the Fire st had ended. The dwarf demons who dashed in were stunned, then they surrounded the tall dwarf demon and began hollering. Dwarf demons had anguage, but it was very unrefined. Theirnguage was the worst throughout the abyssal ne. When dwarf demons talked, it seemed like they were quarrelling with one another.


    Saleen did not pay much attention to the tall dwarf demon who entered the warehouse. At this point in time, that dwarf demon over two yards tall suddenly leaped into the air, waving the poleaxe about as it tried to sh Saleen. It was possible that this dwarf demon could tell that Saleen was the easiest target to pick on out of the three humans.


    What made Saleen astounded was that this dwarf demon had leaped fifty yards in the air. Since it possessed such a horrifying jumping ability, coupled with immense strength for support, it was no wonder then that the Crystal Guardian could be broken. Even though the dwarf demon¡¯s poleaxe was a magic weapon, the poleaxe was not mosaicked with any magic nucleus, it was merely a little sharper and heavier.


    Saleen never dared underestimate a person who could destroy magic using brute strength. He had apanion like that beside him. Even if Sika was not holding any magic weapon, she wouldn¡¯t give a hoot about low level magic. Be it the Fire Ring of Resistance, Invisible Shield, Stone Skin spell, or other simr spells; Sika could destroy them just by hitting them with a mere stick.


    This dwarf demon might have consumed some substances which spoilt its tummy, causing it to mutate and grow to over two yards in height.


    The poleaxe descended in mid-air. Even though that dwarf demon could not determine Saleen¡¯s specific position, Saleen had released too small a cloud. The dwarf demon¡¯s perception was not weak, it remained charging towards Saleen and shed at Saleen¡¯s shoulder. This time around, Saleen did not dare block with his Water Shield. There was no use casting a few more Water Shields, Saleen could move in mid-air.


    Barely dodging the dwarf demon¡¯s poleaxe, a water flow flew out from the cbash hanging around Saleen¡¯s waist. The water flow immediately entrapped the dwarf demon, tightening its grip around it. At the same time, the dwarf demon got bound by the water flow, crashing towards the ground. The water flow darted about its armor rapidly, but it could not slice the armor. The dwarf demon¡¯s poleaxe had been broken by the water flow.


    Saleen sighed in his heart, ¡°It is really difficult to cast spells in mid-air when I am not a sorcerer yet. If I only release scrolls, it will not be as flexible as magic. It will be great if I had refined the water puppets instead of the Current Cutter. A water puppet can cast their own spells while flying, they are much more flexible than a sorcerer.¡±


    It was risky for a mage to release magic while flying. A sorcerer could minimize the danger, but it was very onerous for them to cast spells effortlessly as opposed to when they were onnd. In this aspect, a holy master had the upper hand. A holy master had a small range of Divine spells, unlike a mage who had a plethora of abilities to choose from.


    That dwarf demon mmed against the ground. The nearby dwarf demons immediately tossed their weapons aside in a frenzy to undo that water flow. This water flow was not made of rope. When the dwarf demons tried to break it, a few of their fingers were cut off by it. The gloved portion of the armor was the weakest and the dwarf demons had ced their fingers in between the water flow and the armor. Given the high speed of the Current Cutter, these dwarf demons suffered greatly.


    The dwarf demons shrieked, but none of them dared take any further action. The water flow harassed the tallest dwarf demon persistently. In a minute, it finally cut open its exterior armor, shing the mutated dwarf demon into shreds.


    At this point in time, Saleen had realized that if he did not mind the consumption of time, this unique water flow could kill the rest of the dwarf demons. The dwarf demons did not possess the ability to disperse magic, they would not be able to resist the cutting by the water flow over long durations no matter how tough their armor was.


    Saleen could not waste any more time on these dwarf demons, so he could only rely on scrolls to massacre them already. The problem was that scrolls were very costly, even Saleen could not bear to waste such a huge amount of resources. A level-5 or level-6 scroll was needed to kill a dwarf demon, but a level-4 scroll could only release a single spell.


    Lex could use tens of thousand Fossilization spell scrolls without any hesitation because those were low level scrolls. As long as there was money and a huge number of low grade mages, these scrolls could be produced anytime. The probability of sess was more than ny percent.


    The price of an intermediate level scroll was drastically higher, and the probability of sess was less than fifty percent. Even if a sorcerer produced it, the sess rate would not be ny percent either. When the need arose, one could not even use gold coins to purchase intermediate level scrolls.


    ¡°Saleen, the bones of these dwarf demons and their armor are very valuable, why are you still being so stingy.¡± Sika swayed her cudgel as she reminded Saleen.


    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Saleen was abruptly awoken. An intermediate level scroll might be precious, but these dwarf demons could be wiped out with one-hundred and eighty scrolls. The armor of these dwarf demons had been crafted from gori metal, and mixed with some random precious metals. If all these materials were abstracted, it could make up for the losses of the magic scrolls.


    Lex had also been confused by the dwarf demons. To creatures who were like cockroaches, it was simply not worthwhile to kill them using intermediate level scrolls. If they were not killed, they would go rampant. The moment Lex heard Sika¡¯s reminder, she steeled her mind in that moment, then told Saleen, ¡°We cannot leave either, so we shall do it. How many intermediate level scrolls that are above level-5 do you have?¡±


    Saleen contemted, then said, ¡°I can take out fifty group attack scrolls, you can take out fifty too. If they are still not obliterated yet, we will think of another solution.¡±


    Since the two of them had made up their minds, this issue could be easily resolved. Lex cast the Crystal Guardian once more, sealing the gates. Saleen and Lex began casting intermediate level scrolls, ughtering the dwarf demons.


    The dwarf demons had almost no retaliation ability. asionally, a mutated dwarf demon would appear, but it would get killed by Saleen¡¯s water flow, it could not even pose a threat to the mages flying in the air. Saleen did not know that the dwarf demons would devour anything. There was arge reserve of arrows in the underground pce, but the dwarf demons were not adept at shooting, so they ate all the arrows and the wood on the bows. If these thousands of dwarf demons fired into the air, Saleen and Lex would be in trouble even if the shooting was not urate, and their release of scrolls would be affected.


    The dwarf demons had a very strong will to live, their reproductive ability was horrifying and they were powerful in closebat. If the dwarf demons did not have any weaknesses in long rangebat, they would have dominated the abyss already.


    Each time, Saleen and Lex could kill about eight-hundred dwarf demons. After two to three rounds of attack, they would have to utilize their spatial equipment to collect the bodies. The dwarf demons charged into the warehouse endlessly. Later on, some began scaling the walls, trying to ascend to the top via the hole. Unbeknownst to Saleen, the dwarf demons had little food left, if they did not get out, they would starve to death gradually in the underground pce even if they did not die in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    The two people had used up all one-hundred intermediate level scrolls, but the dwarf demons continued swarming in, causing Saleen to feel numb. Saleen and Lex might possess a strong mental strength, but casting scrolls in mid-air would consume several times more mental strength. If this went on, the two of them might consume too much mental strength.


    Boom!


    As Saleen was tossing a Stone Giant scroll, the Crystal Guardian sealing the warehouse gates was destroyed by a ten yard tall dwarf demon. This dwarf demon was the most fearsome mutated dwarf demon of all, it was wielding a twenty yard long spear. If the support structure of the goddess¡¯ temple was not built so tall, this dwarf demon could not even move in a normal building.


    With a whoosh, Cuisi¡¯s whip mysteriously extended over, binding the legs of the monster tightly. Bain, who was hiding beside the door, attacked for the first time. A sh of golden light appeared, as the neck of this dwarf demon was sliced wide open by Bain¡¯s dagger. Its head jerked backwards, and blood started gushing out.


    This dwarf demon did not actually die yet. Its spear jumped up. Bain¡¯s finger tapped on the tip of the spear gently, then he was sent flying into the air, directly through the hole Cuisi had busted into the ceiling, then he disappeared.


    Saleen could feel his heart shudder, ¡°The magic array on top has been ruined by Cuisi. If I obstruct this cavity recklessly, that dwarf demon killed by Bain¡¯s sneak attack can possibly re-open it.¡±


    Bain flew out. He could feel his internal organs vibrating vigorously, he only suppressed his injuries after spitting out a mouth of blood. The power of this dwarf demon was too petrifying, if it could fly, it would be the nightmare of every mage out there.


    When Cuisi attacked, he also exposed himself at the same time. Saleen¡¯s Stone Giant was affected. Before it could be fully released, the scroll exploded, so Saleen had tossed it out in advance. In the warehouse, over eight-hundred dwarf demons surrounded Cuisi. Cuisi wasted no time, a pair of wings grew out of his back, and he flew towards Saleen straightaway.

 Chapter 553: Hob meat (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 553: Hob meat (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°This won¡¯t do!¡± Saleen yelled to Lex.


    ¡°Mm, let me think about it.¡± Lex was also frustrated. It seemed like the number of dwarf demons remained astronomical. Saleen and her had already used one-hundred intermediate level scrolls.


    There was already a low quantity of group attack spell scrolls to begin with, and Lex had left a huge batch of them in Bitter Water Prefecture and Metatrin City. She only brought along slightly over a hundred of them. Saleen had a ton of nk scrolls, but he did not have as manypleted scrolls as Lex.


    These dwarf demons seemed like they could not be extirpated and they were not afraid of death. They were simply a bunch of hob meat. Even if one massacred all of them, they would sustain substantial losses too. The armor worn by the dwarf demons was originally left behind by the goddess for Saleen and the rest, but they now had to pay such a huge price to obtain it.


    ¡°If the area of the underground pce was as big as the one on the surface, then it wouldn¡¯t be weird to spot hundreds of thousands of dwarf demons. The area of the temple is too colossal and the goddess had left behind too many rations. The dwarf demons have been able to reproduce without any worries, they must have filled the underground pce to the brim already.¡±


    ¡°Why are there creatures like the dwarf demons in this world?!¡± Lex almost had the urge tosh out at someone.


    ¡°Saleen, I will do it with Cuisi. Let Bain deal with the stronger one,¡± Sika requested out of her own initiative.


    Saleen hesitated for a moment, then said, ¡°Bring along the fully constructed puppets, I will be more than fifty yards away from you.¡±


    Lex did not waste any more time talking, she immediately released six fully constructed puppets. Sika nodded at Cuisi. Rousing his whip, Cuisi swooped downwards.


    Lex immediately flew into the hole in the ceiling, using magic to create anding spot, then she began meditating. She had to regain her mental strength.


    Cuisi¡¯s n was very simple. He used the whip to entrap one dwarf demon, before using it as a meteor hammer. A sixteen yard long meteor hammer was brandished, creating an empty space for Sika at the same time. Only a demon like Cuisi would possess almost the same amount of strength as Sika. Sika was now a nature priestess, her strength was not actually very useful in this situation.


    Sika¡¯s magic beast skeletonnded on the ground, its wings retracting at the same time. Riding atop, Sika¡¯s legs could straddle the magic beast skeleton, like a pair of stirrups. All six fully constructed puppets were either behind or next to Sika. Sika swayed her cudgel about, making a beeline for the densest formation of dwarf demons.


    Cuisi got out of the way, waving his whip about, helping Sika fend off the blowsing from the rear. asionally, one or two dwarf demons would slip through, but they would be obstructed by the six fully constructed puppets.


    Sika¡¯s dashing speed was not fast. When the dwarf demons finally noticed that the enemy wasing for them, they hollered wildly, waving their dozen pounds heavy metal warhammers at Sika.


    Sika¡¯s beast skeleton only had a four yard long body, but its tail was over six yards in length. Not knowing fear, the dwarf demons lunged at Sika. Unexpectedly, Sika¡¯s beast skeleton opened its mouth wide, it thrashed forcefully and devoured the dwarf demons one by one. No armor could withstand the razor sharp teeth of Sika¡¯s beast skeleton, a bite from it would result in thorough pration through the armor.


    Sika actually dashed into the midst of the dwarf demons, the cudgel in her hand danced in the air, smashing recklessly to the left and right. No dwarf demons could get close to her body. With six fully constructed puppets securing the rear, Sika did not even need to turn around, she only needed to tap into the power of the earth to smash the dwarf demons with her weapon.


    There were simply too many dwarf demons, so there was no room for skills anymore.


    Thrashing their way out, the six fully constructed puppets and Cuisi charged ahead valiantly. Sika turned her beast skeleton around, and began killing inwards. After two rounds of this, bodies were strewn across the ground, at least one-hundred dwarf demons were ughtered by Sika¡¯s cudgel, while those struck by the fully constructed puppets suffered grave injuries. No matter how powerful their recovery abilities were, the dwarf demons would not be able to fight for the time being.


    A fully constructed puppet required a mage¡¯smand. Even though Saleen had gifted the Power of Life to the fully constructed puppets, they were not truly intelligent creatures. Most of the dwarf demons did not die, those who did were simply unlucky to have gotten fatally struck by a weapon weighing more than one-hundred pounds.


    Sika only attacked in one direction, conserving much of her physical strength. No matter how strong she and how powerful the magic beast skeleton was, she would also get fatigued otherwise. The repeated trips caused the fully constructed puppets to deplete their magic nuclei first.


    Lex¡¯s fully constructed puppets were not mosaicked with the dragonshard. So, Saleen had no choice but to take the risk andnd on the ground. Under Cuisi¡¯s protection, Saleen helped change the magic nuclei in the fully constructed puppets.


    After meditating for half an hour, Lex decided to swap ces with Saleen. Saleen actually did not want to do that, but he still allowed Lex to take over his task.


    Saleen did not consume much of his magic chords and mental strength, but he was feeling nervous. If he did not rest, he would also get exhausted eventually. After an hour, the two of them would switch ces and one would begin meditating. The situation was finally looking up.


    Enduring two hours of battle, the fully constructed puppets were now covered in scars. Fortunately, the fully constructed puppets could resist blunt weapons better than magic sharp weapons. Sika and Cuisi did not get exhausted, but against an endless stream of dwarf demons, Cuisi was a little bored. Bain never took any action all this while, he was hiding atop the wall. He did not sustain serious injuries from that hit by the tall dwarf demon, if such a dwarf demon appeared again, it would be best for him to handle that.


    No one could rece Cuisi, so Cuisi tried to let the fully constructed puppets fight most of the time. He did not attack voluntarily so that he could limit the consumption of strength.


    Saleen was not skiving either. He had discovered a weakness of the dwarf demons; their fingers. Armor created by dwarf demons was not like those metal armor crafted by the humans. The fingers portion of their armor was a pair of gloves sewn from beast skin, while the back of the glove was fused with metal pieces. Saleen realized that his own water flow could easily severe the fingers of a dwarf demon. He frequentlynded to use the Icicle spell to attack those dwarf demons.


    Saleen was most skilled in the Icicle Spell, it could be cast instantaneously and enjoyed a quick release. The depletion by a level-1 spell was negligible to a grade-5 mage. When an icicle hit a dwarf demon¡¯s hand, it could not prate the metal pieces, but could freeze them. This caused the frozen fingers to be stuck to the warhammer. Consequently, the swaying action would cause the fingers to break away and the warhammer to slip from their grip.


    The more Sika battled, the more valiant she got. The magic beast skeleton under her would frequently activate its wings. The three pairs of its bone wings were like razor sharp long des, all dwarf demons in their path would be sliced into two pieces.


    The magic beast skeleton had at least been struck ten-thousand times by the dwarf demons, but it remained undamaged. If it was not for its low frequency of attack, Sika could actually have set it free to battle with the dwarf demons individually. Whenever a dwarf demon¡¯s warhammernded on the magic beast skeleton, it would simply bounce off. Some of the mutated dwarf demons possessed too much strength, which actually caused their metal warhammers to be smashed out of shape.


    The level of consumption was not low at all. Under such intense fighting conditions, the six fully constructed puppets would require a change of magic nuclei every ten minutes. Saleen could not bear to use high level magic nuclei, so he could only use intermediate level magic nuclei to power the puppets.


    Saleen also noticed that Sika was not in any danger. Several powerful dwarf demons which emerged were all assassinated by Bain. The elderly assassin did not sustain any serious injuries either, he could still carry on fighting. The only upsetting thing was that a huge quantity of magic nuclei had to be consumed in order to guarantee safety, which was simr to expending scrolls.


    After eight hours of battle, Sika finally could not endure any longer, she got a little exhausted. Even though it was much easier controlling the magic beast skeleton aspared to a mage controlling a puppet, eight hours of battle would also cause one to feel fatigued. Sika was not injured, thanks to the ridiculously low level of intelligence of the dwarf demons, none of them actually thought of tossing their warhammers at her.


    If Sika was soaring in the air, they would toss their warhammers upwards. On the ground, they would only charge forward barbarically, it was totally unmethodical.


    If there were hundreds of metal warhammers flying in madness, it would be much more horrifying than magic stone cannons.


    Steering the magic beast skeleton, Sika flew up, then she climbed out of that hole and rested in the upper pce. Everyone followed Sika and left. It was much easier guarding this holepared to the gates below.


    ¡°How many were killed?¡± Sika was panting a little as she sat down on the floor immediately. Putting away her weapon, she took out a small bottle and swallowed some medicine. The medicine of the Caucasus people was really precious. It had originated from the mysterious hignds, an extremely frigid region. Its effect was mightier than a mage¡¯s magic medicine, but its level of production was very low. It could not be mademonce.


    ¡°At least twenty-three-thousand I guess.¡± Saleen did not keep track either.


    ¡°One-hundred-fourteen-thousand and sixty of them.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± Hearing Lex¡¯s words, even Sika herself was astounded.


    ¡°I mean including the ones killed by Saleen and I,¡± Lex replied in slight exasperation. Magic could massacre a huge number of dwarf demons. Sika was courageous and skilled, but no one would know how many more days were needed in order to exterminate the dwarf demons.


    ¡°Lex, don¡¯t be discouraged, if our army can don the armor of those dwarf demons, then the goddess¡¯ wishes can be easily fulfilled,¡± Saleen consoled Lex.


    ¡°I know that, but we have left Metatrin City for too long, I am afraid of any changes that might have happened. To go back to Metatrin City, we have to get to the desert, it is impossible to establish a teleportation portal to the outside world here.¡±


    ¡°The three kings are holding the fort, everything is fine unless a grade-9 expert is personally involved.¡± Even though Saleen said that, he felt worried. ¡°It has been over six months since we left, can Daniel control the three kings?¡±


    Boom!


    A fully constructed puppet brandished its square ax, sending a dwarf demon who climbed out of the hole back to the ground. Lex came to the hole, then cast an Earthwall spell.


    The dwarf demons had begun scaling the walls. If someone was assigned to guard the hole, they would get annoyed eventually.


    Back at the foot of the mountain, several months after Lex had left, those mages had already gotten impatient. Nailisi sat on the sidelines, not feeling anxious at all. If Saleen was in danger, even if he was in another ne, she would also be able to detect it. When those few mages were discussing about going up to look for Lex, Nailisi would only shake her head in response.


    ¡°Master wants me to stay here, I will never leave.¡±


    ¡°What about Cuisi?¡± a mage probed.


    ¡°Are you the one in charge?¡± Nailisi rolled her eyes, treating the mage with disdain.


    That mage was hopping mad. He had never been disparaged by anyone, even Lex treated him politely. When that mage considered the fact that Nailisi might be a demon and there were two Silver Grand Swordmasters next to her, he made a wise move not to hurt her.


    ¡°I will go up myself, you won¡¯t be able to do anything to stop me,¡± the mage said spitefully.


    ¡°Go ahead. If you run into any enemies along the way, don¡¯t get killed, the others will have to be my witness,¡± Nailisi replied with a cackle.


    This mage was demoralized. Cuisi was gone, and Lex¡¯s subordinates had been withholding their curiosity about Cuisi¡¯s whereabouts. ¡°If Cuisi is hiding in ambush up ahead, and I go forth alone, I might not be able to triumph over a demon.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi¡­¡± Seeing that the situation was deadlocked, J wanted to advise Nailisi because he knew that the cooperation with Lex was very important to Saleen, but Nailisi red ferociously at him. J was rendered speechless in that instant. Even if he was not afraid of Nailisi¡¯s ability, he also would not offend a beauty for the sake of Lex¡¯s subordinates.

 Chapter 554: On Mountain Without End, There is a God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 554: On Mountain Without End, There is a God (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi¡¯s smile was a little arrogant. She looked down on Lex¡¯s men. If they were really worried about Lex, they should not have given up, no matter what kind of danger there was.


    ¡°Just wait patiently in the camp. If anything happens, don¡¯t me me for not reminding all of you.¡± With that, Nailisi took Eleanor¡¯s bow and left to practice her archery skills. It was not that humans could not learn elvish arrow skills, it was just a fact that humans led shorter lives than elves, so many types of training methods were not suitable for them. If they really wanted to learn, they would have to ovee many obstacles, especially their lifespan.


    Nailisi¡¯s lifespan was definitely longer than any elf, so naturally she could learn Eleanor¡¯s arrow skills. Ranged attacks had always been Nailisi¡¯s weakness. She had been yearning to pick up ranged attacks for a very long time.


    Picking up magic was much more difficult than elvish arrow skills, so she had not seen much improvements in that aspect.


    Lex¡¯s mages looked at each other. They did not have a leader amongst them. After Lex left, they were still able to handle things in the short term. As time passed, none of them could make rational decisions without Lex.


    ¡°The two of us will go up.¡± Two of the grade-5 mages finally made the decision and told the rest.


    No one opposed. Although the two ck metal grand swordmasters held high ranks, they did not have the authority tomand mages.


    The two grade-5 swordmasters knew that they should bring along a few warriors for their own safety. They also considered the fact that the warriors would be too slow and if they were to boost them with spells, they would be exhausting their own magic chords. Although they held the same grade as Saleen, his actual abilities were at least two times more powerful than theirs.


    Saleen could bring along two powerful warriors by his side, boost them with spells anytime, and it still would not affect his own fighting strength. The two grade-5 mages were different. Thebined amount of spells they could release were equivalent to what Saleen alone could produce. Based on the difference between how quickly they exhausted their magic chordspared to Saleen, if they were to attack him together, they would surely copse first.


    ¡°Lu, follow the two of them.¡± Nailisi saw that two of the mages had finally decided to climb up the mountain, so she also decided to arrange for a demon to tail them.


    ¡°But¡­Master, what do I need to do?¡± Lu did not understand Nailisi¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be daft. The range of your senses should be very wide. Humph¡­¡± Nailisi thought about it and said, ¡°If the two of them have a chance to live, then save them. If not, then kill them yourself. I want their spatial equipment.¡±


    ¡°Master, I cannot go up against two grade-5 mages.¡± Lu¡¯s expression was one of helplessness. The order that Nailisi had given him was too difficult to carry out. Grade-5 mages could release grade-6 magic as a final resort if they had to. He certainly did not have the same kind of abilities as Cuisi.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± Nailisi cursed and said, ¡°It¡¯s not like I am asking you to kill them directly. Do you really think this mountain is safe and there is no danger? That¡¯s because of the warriors in the camp and the mages¡¯ protection. Those two mages will definitely run into trouble. If they do not survive, you will destroy their bodies by burning. Make sure it is thorough.¡±


    Lu drew a long face and said, ¡°Master Nailisi, I still cannot go up against them. If the two of them were to die, I¡­¡±


    Nailisi knew that Lu was afraid and said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. You have signed a special contract. No one can control your soul nor take over your body. If you really encounter trouble,e back here as fast as you can. Do not run towards the top.¡±


    At this point, Nailisi paused before saying, ¡°There is a God on this mountain who is still unconscious.¡±


    ¡°God?¡± Lu suddenly felt goosebumps.


    ¡°A God that has yet to be conscious, so what is there to be afraid of? It is probably¡­ never mind, I cannot reveal. Just be on your guard when you encounter people or creatures that look frail, and do not initiate attacks on any creature. Go.¡± Nailisi did not exin further to Lu. Deep down, she knew that she was probably the safest because she had a soul bond with Saleen. Since Saleen possessed the power of life from the Goddess of Nature, she was basically safe from any attacks by creatures of godly attributes within this dimension.


    As long as Saleen was safe from danger, then so was she. As for Lex¡¯s men, there was no way they would sign any soul bonds with Lex. They were safer staying in the camp. The camp was well-designed to be sturdy and did not have openings in its defences since there were puppets standing guard at various positions.


    ¡°Those two grade-5 mages will be seeking death if they choose to leave the camp. Did they really think there is no danger in this dimension? Of course, if they were Saleen and Lex, then yes, nothing is considered a danger since Lex possesses the God¡¯s ring.¡±


    The two grade-5 mages left the camp and Lu followed suit. He was careful to make sure he kept a distance of one mile between them. Theoretically, grade-5 mages would still be able to sense his presence at this distance, but in normal circumstances, mages would not waste their mental strength this way. As long as Lu was cautious about suppressing his aura, even if the mages did check once in a while, they would still not be able to detect him.


    About two days after they had set out from camp, Lu suddenly discovered an intense fight just ahead. He took a risk and approached. He saw from afar that the two grade-5 mages were battling each other, as if they were foes.


    Lu could tell right away that they were being controlled by creatures that were very simr to soul eater demons. In fact, these creatures should be much stronger than soul eater demons. These were two grade-5 mages that were very familiar with each other. In order to infiltrate their souls, only a creature that was above grade-5 would be able to strike in the instant when the two mages were caught unaware.


    There was a vicious bond signed between Nailisi and himself, but at this point, that bond was insurance for his soul instead. As long as Nailisi did not lose control, his soul would not be taken away. To force Nailisi to lose control, one would first have to control Saleen. To control Saleen, one would have to first deal with winged skeleton and the souls of twenty-four lightning dragons.


    Lu decided to observe from a distance. The two grade-5 mages were exhausting their magic chords quickly as their spells were sting away the rocks, mud and trees around them. There was pain and suffering in their eyes. Their souls had not dissipated, but had just been suppressed temporarily.


    As their magic chords dwindled, so did their chances of fighting back and regaining control of their bodies. A mage¡¯s magic chords and mental strength had a unique rtionship that was connected to the soul. Withoutpletely exhausting the magic chords, the creature that had infiltrated their body would not be able to fully control them.


    Lu felt fortunate that everyone in his team had signed bonds with Saleen. The effect that the souls had on each other might not seem big, but in actual fact, they had already formed an interconnected web. To infiltrate his soul, one must first destroy this webpletely.


    Within half an hour, the two grade-5 mages had copsed on the ground, all their magic chords and mental strength was spent. Their eyes stared nkly ahead and seemed to be at a loss. After another minute, the two grade-5 mages looked at each other and stood up.


    That was when Lu walked out and unsheathed his horse-killing sword from behind.


    The souls of the two grade-5 mages had already been devoured and were nowpletely different creatures. Lu did not hesitate. With a burst of speed, he had dashed to the front of the two mages in the blink of an eye.


    The creatures that were controlling the two mages were caught by surprise. They did not expect that the bodies they controlled to be so weak. They knew in this instant that they would not be able to outrun the enemy, no matter how hard they tried.


    ¡°Lu, what are you trying to do!¡± One of the mages shouted.


    ¡°Kill.¡± With one sweep of Lu¡¯s horse-killing sword, this mage was cut in half at the waist. His wound did not spurt out blood. Instead, ayer of thick and gooey fluid flowed out andpletely sealed up the wound. The upper half of this mage¡¯s body was now desperately using both his hands to climb down the mountain. The other mage was running up the mountain instead.


    They had only just gained full control of the mages¡¯ bodies so they were not able to transfer the mages¡¯ magic chords at all. Even if they did, the magic chords had yet to replenish so they would not have been able to release any spells anyway.


    Two grade-5 mages who could not release spells had no chance against a demon. Remembering Nailisi¡¯s suggestion before he departed on this journey, Lu naturally knew what must be done. Within two steps, he caught up with the mage that was trying to escape upwards and with one stroke of the sword he split him in half from behind.


    A thin and small purple creature flew out from this mage¡¯s brain. Lu used the horse-killing sword to pierce through the creature. Then, he caught up with the other mage, split open his brain, and killed the other parasitic creature as well.


    Lu did not recognize these parasitic creatures, but he knew that they were extremely horrifying. Once they managed to infiltrate sessfully, the soul would be devoured but the body would still possess its original fighting strength. By then, what they were controlling was effectively a walking corpse.


    If these two grade-5 mages had not been killed immediately and they went back to camp, they would have seeded in convincing the others and blending back in. After these two creatures reproduced, more and more people would be controlled.


    By logical deduction, this type of creatures would not be able to reproduce very quickly, but the problem was that they were hard to uncover. If not for Nailisi¡¯s reminder, Lu might not have dared to kill the two grade-5 mages directly.


    The bodies of the mages had been poisoned so Lu spread some magic powder on their corpses before burning them. ck mes quickly turned the corpses into ashes. Lu took only their rings and nothing else.


    The spatial equipment of grade-5 mages were typically horrible, so Lu did not bother to look inside and stuffed them into his pocket directly. Nailisi had told him not to climb up the mountain and he did not want to take such a risk either. Only Cuisi had the abilities to act alone. As for himself, his biggest weakness was theck of ability to fly.


    It was difficult to dispose of the two parasitic creatures that he had killed. Lu burnt one of them and used Cuisi¡¯s bottle to keep the other. There wereyers of words in the demonnguage on the bottle, so even if the parasitic creature somehow revived, there was no way it could escape.


    Everything was cleaned up, including burying the mages¡¯ ashes. The ashes were lingering with the smell of demon fire and Lu wanted to eliminate any possibility of arousing suspicions.


    He turned around to head back down the mountain. Unknown to him, two green parasites that looked like leeches had jumped out from a tree behind him. These parasites had thin slits for mouths on both sides and had more than ten eyes. They let out sharp cries, but did not dare to chase Lu. They seemed to know that it was almost impossible to control Lu¡¯s soul anyway.


    Chirp chirp¡­


    The cries of these two parasites began to invite a chorus of simr sounds throughout the mountain. Lu had already departed for quite a distance so he was not aware that there were actually plenty of these parasites. Even so, he could feel a numbness in his scalp so he used the fastest possible speed and kept sprinting down back to the camp.

 Chapter 555: On Mountain Without End, There is a God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 555: On Mountain Without End, There is a God (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Hidden amidst the grasses and trees along the way were the parasites. These parasites attacked by using a Soul spell to cause their targets to lose control first, then they would burrow through the body and infiltrate the brain.


    Even without the mark of the bond, Lu¡¯s soul was too strange to be used as a target. The parasites only chirped, but did not attempt to attack the sprinting Lu.


    They were still incapable of going up against a demon even if they tried their hardest.


    Lu¡¯s senses were extremely sharp, especially towards creatures that were near him. Even if they were much stronger than him, he would still be able to detect them. Along the way, he could sense that there were countless parasites that wanted to attack him. Precisely because his senses were sensitive enough to detect all these things is why it was so terrifying. ¡°On the Mountain Without End, there was a God that has yet to wake.¡±


    This was what Nailisi had said and he believed every single word now. He had never seen such creatures before and he dared not entirely trust his life to a bond. If he was surrounded by the parasites and there turned out to be a loophole, then he was finished.


    What Lu did not know was that after Saleen had left, Nailisi took the chance to devour Ismail¡¯s divine crystal under the protection of J and Su. Now, Nailisi possessed arge amount of Holy Prose and her sensitivity towards godly powers had improved dramatically.


    After a month of deep sleep, Nailisi had absorbed some of Ismail¡¯s abilities. If she could devour his body, Nailisi would immediately develop her fourth special ability, rather than it being just a vague feeling.


    The length and width of the Myers Maind was not even one-hundred and eight-thousand miles. The height of the Mountain Without End was so long that if it wasid down horizontally, it could definitely split the Myers Maind in half. With such a big piece ofnd, it shoulde as no surprise that there would be gods here.


    The Mountain Without End was transported over from the giant dimension. After the Goddess died, there was nothing else to stop the mountain from developing spirituality and producing Gods.


    Nailisi was willing to stay obediently in camp because she had already obtained arge amount of knowledge through Ismail. She now understood how terrifying this dimension was.


    The humans at that time were able to extractrge amount of materials from other dimensions. This allowed the Goddess to quickly build up this dimension that was filled with various substances.


    The humans at that time possessed such abilities too. To them, creating a dimension was meaningless and was a waste of effort when they could easily travel across all dimensions. Thend, mountains, rivers and stars of this dimension were not created by the Goddess, but were transported over by humans for the Goddess to control.


    That river that could submerge any object was probably the River of Nothingness from the abyssal ne. Further away was the jungle that seemed to have no boundaries, and was probably taken from the elf dimension. As for thend, its depth was thicker than the boundaries of the Myers Maind. It was probably something simr to aplete and whole crust from the subcontinent ne.


    If this mountain could produce Gods, then so could the River of Nothingness. Even the jungles,kes, stars and basically everything possessed such a possibility now that the Goddess was no longer in control.


    Based on this point alone, the Goddess must be revived. Many Gods would be produced in this dimension otherwise. These Gods were not produced on the Myers Maind, so they were not restricted to only one dimension. Once they decided to leave this dimension, the Myers Maind would be at risk of being conquered.


    These Gods would destroy the barriers between dimensions and gather all the creatures from their own dimensions to rece the humans on the Myers Maind.


    This was the most effective way to conquer a dimension, unlike what the Lord of Glory was doing by spreading his faith amongst the human poption.


    The reason why Nailisi had instructed Lu to destroy the two magespletely was to prevent any shards of their souls from being left behind. If the Gods here became conscious and were able to recognize the unique features of the human soul, they would be able to find its weakness immediately.


    Gods did not have souls. Compared to all other sentient creatures, gods were actually pitiable. Without souls, Gods could only exist within a dimension and depend on the dimension¡¯s powers to prolong their own lifespan. If gods desired to leave their own dimensions, they would either have to advance to a higher level or spread their faith in other dimensions.


    By right, the gods that would be produced in this dimension did not belong to the Myers Maind dimension. Since they were controlled by the Goddess prior to being produced, they would be able to survive on the Myers Maind though. They would already bare the marks of the Goddess of Myers. The fall of the Goddess gave them the chance for freedom, but simrly, they would all be under her control again if she was revived.


    Back when humans helped the Goddess to create this dimension, it was out of gratitude for the Goddess who had created a sun that belonged to the Myers Maind. Unfortunately, an act of gratitude of the past have now created a potential crisis in the present.


    Nailisi understood this, so even if the Goddess had not left behind a bond, she would still have convinced Saleen to spread the Goddess¡¯ faith again so that she might be revived.


    At first, Nailisi did not really care if humans were to survive or perish. Ever since she could travel from the Myers Maind dimension to the demon dimension, she had treated the Myers Maind dimension as one of her targets.


    She was under Saleen¡¯s control so even if she summoned many demons and formed them into an army, it would not be considered as an invasion of Myers Maind. Helping Saleen to gain control of the Myers Maind was like helping herself. Her Master¡¯s lifespan was not as long as hers, after one-thousand to two-thousand yearster, she would be able to build a demon kingdom on this dimension.


    Lu reached camp on the fourth day. He secretly passed Nailisi the two rings and the bottle that contained the corpses of the parasite.


    Nailisi asked Eleanor along and the two of them began to dissect the corpse of the parasite.


    The parasite was about half a foot in length and its body was slender and soft yet very stic. There were no scales on the surface of its body, only a very sharp mouthpart. On both sides of the mouthpart were slightly more than ten eyes that were of different sizes. Lu¡¯s horse-killing sword might have pierced through the parasites¡¯ bodies, but it did not fully impale them. Their bodies were incredibly stic and what should be a huge gaping wound had vanished.


    The parasite died very thoroughly and no longer possessed any aura of life. Even so, its body was still repairing itself automatically.


    Upon opening up its brain, they found no crystallized substances in it. Nailisi groaned, but Eleanor began to record the Holy Prose found on the insides of the parasite¡¯s body instead.


    ¡°What is there to record?!¡± Nailisi asked impatiently when she saw Eleanor recording down the Holy Prose with pen and paper.


    ¡°Forparison,¡± Eleanor answered coolly. She was not bothered by Nailisi¡¯s tone at all. This woman was mentally unsound. If she had time to argue with her, she might as well put in more effort to train up her spells.


    Nailisi was extremely sharp and immediately figured out what Eleanor was doing.


    Within the knowledge of spells and magic,parison was not a major subject. By makingparisons between specimens that were very simr, mages would be able toe up with many hypotheses.


    Nailisi made a few cuts on the parasite¡¯s body with her dragon¡¯s tooth dagger, then carefully dug out its eyes one by one. The biggest of them was only about the size of a grain of rice. Nailisi tried to squeeze one with her fingers and was surprised that it were not crushed.


    Although Nailisi¡¯s fingers might not be as strong as Sika¡¯s crushing a stone should be an easy feat. The parasite¡¯s eyes could be as hard as a magic nucleus. Nailisi did not have powerful mental strength like Saleen. She was not proficient with spells and did not know how to use alchemy equipment to conduct analyses, so she could only keep the eyes very carefully.


    By deduction, the main ability of these parasites must be rted to the eyes. Although the mouthpart was sharp, its body was so fragile that there was no way it would be used in a direct attack against a strong warrior. In fact, a group of ordinary soldiers were more than capable of turning these parasites into minced meat.


    After Nailisipleted the dissection, she came to the conclusion that the mages must not be alone, or else they would be vulnerable to sneak attacks by the parasites. Unless the mages could be alert at every moment or their mental strength had reached the level of a grade-7 sorcerer, they would have no chance against the parasites once they rxed.


    On the other hand, the sensing capabilities of warriors were tuned towards sensing the presence of life forms. Compared to the mages, they would be able to detect such parasites much more easily. Even Lex¡¯s ten swordmasters would be able to kill the parasites with ease. After giving some instructions to Eleanor, Nailisi called for Tolesi and asked him to keep an eye on Lex¡¯s mages. If any mages still wanted to climb up the mountain in search of Lex, they would either be stopped, or Lu would continue to tail them and dispose of their corpses.


    Saleen and the rest had been fighting in the temple for six days. The middle-grade scrolls had more or less been used up so the speed at which they were exterminating the dwarf demons had reduced drastically.


    They fought for six hours everyday and used another six hours to repair the fully constructed puppets. Saleen¡¯s magic nuclei had not been cut at all. Without Nailisi by his side, he would have to do it himself.


    Within these six days, not only had the number of dwarf demons reduced, there were no longer anymore mutated dwarf demons. It was only a matter of time before the dwarf demons werepletely destroyed.


    On that day, Saleen was cutting magic nucleus and Lex was repairing the fully constructed puppets when she suddenly stopped and was staring ahead nkly.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°Two of my mages have died.¡± Lex¡¯s expression was terrible as she looked at the God¡¯s ring on her hand. The God¡¯s ring would never be wrong, two very powerful grade-5 mages under hermand had indeed died.


    Saleen also stopped and was quiet for a moment before saying, ¡°Nailisi is fine and has not been in battle. They must have left the camp and encountered danger.¡±


    ¡°What danger did we encounter on our way up?!¡± Lex was agitated and suspected that Nailisi was behind the deaths of her two mages.


    ¡°We used Flying spells toe up here, but they could only travel by foot. You should know howplicated the creatures on the mountain may be.¡± Saleen was unhappy that Lex was suspecting Nailisi.


    Lex stopped. She did know how dangerous the mountain could be. Those creatures might not pose any danger to Saleen and herself, but that was not the case to her mages.


    ¡°Princess, we must quickly exterminate these dwarf demons.¡± Bain reminded Lex. He must also have sensed that the there was something not quite right about this mountain.


    ¡°Do you remember what the sixth tost sentence on the stone tablet was?¡± Saleen suddenly asked Lex.


    Lex shook her head. The words on the stone tablet were mostly the ancient Myersnguage, but some of them were in Holy Prose. She barely understood a tenth of the words of the sixth tost sentence.


    ¡°On the Mountain Without End, there has been a God for thirty-six-thousand years,¡± Saleen repeated the sentence word by word.

 Chapter 556: Breakout (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 556: Breakout (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was dumbfounded, ¡°This mountain will give birth to gods?¡±


    Thirty-six-thousand years might seem like a long time, but the history of humans¡¯ disappearance was already about thirty-thousand years long. No one knew exactly when humans moved this mountain there, if¡­


    ¡°Did the stone tablet record the year?¡± Lex recognized too few holy words to read, so she could only ask Saleen for help.


    ¡°No, humans back then didn¡¯t seem to have the concept of era. The Kuse dynasty dates back longer than we think. Their calendar is calcted ording to the paths of the constetions. It is different from our methodology. I only know that this mountain has been standing here for more than thirty-thousand years.¡±


    ¡°If gods are born here, there will be many new species appearing at the same time too,¡± Lex said astringently.


    ¡°Along the way, we didn¡¯t even see any powerful creatures.¡±


    ¡°Many new species will appear¡­ on thisnd, this is the goddess¡¯ world. She wanted to create a new world.¡±


    ¡°But why didn¡¯t she leave behind a religion? Some powerful believers should have survived!¡±


    ¡°The new goddess isn¡¯t the original Myers.¡±


    As Saleen and Lex conversed, some problems became increasingly clearer.


    ¡°The death of two mages is just the beginning, if we do not return soon, the people at the bottom will be in peril.¡± Not hesitating anymore, Saleen said, ¡°In that case, we shall not conserve the scrolls, with your scrolls and mine, we should be able to wipe out the dwarf demons soon. We must return within three days.¡±


    Lex and Saleen¡¯s analysis was not urate, but they reached the right conclusion. In the past, two goddess¡¯ envoys had stayed behind, and these two people did not know what methods the goddess had employed. They only lived in the periphery of the temple, waiting in loneliness. The power of these two envoys struck fear in all life in the space created by the goddess, even the gods who had yet to be awakened did not dare to increase their powers tantly.


    The two goddess¡¯ envoys had only left for a brief period, but these gods had already begun creating new species, intending to dominate this space. The parasitic body was just one of them. If the goddess¡¯ envoys were still around, these things would have been exterminated the moment they appeared.


    Lex and Saleen opted to use level-7 magic scrolls, starting a straightforward massacre. Lex was naturally anxious since she had lost two grade-5 mages. Now that she knew this ce would give birth to gods, she got even more uneasy. The birth of a god was an extremely protracted process. Before it some creatures would appear in this space. Such creatures would be increasingly stronger, and the strongest of them all might even be a demigod.


    These creatures would defend the birthce of the god, and provide food for the new god. What did a god want? Souls and faith!


    The cleaning of the underground pce took up another two days. Lex and Saleen had used all their high level group attack scrolls, they were only left with single attack magic scrolls at the moment. The five people began a search of the underground pce, as they made preparations to leave.


    The area of the underground pce was slightlyrger than the one on the surface, it also had two stories. The underground pce did not have an altar nor amodation for believers, it only contained warehouses, warehouses, and more warehouses¡­


    Saleen and Lex found a substantial amount of rations, but inparison to therger warehouses, these rations could only be considered dregs. The weaponry had been destroyed by the dwarf demons. Anything edible had been devoured by the dwarf demons, including magic heads, beast skins, magic nuclei and medicinal materials. Many crates found in the warehouse could maintain the quality of food for countless years, but they were also eaten by the dwarf demons.


    Other than metals, stones, and some poisonous items; the dwarf demons had transformed the underground pce into a junkyard.


    Bones, fecal matter, and the disorganized armor and weapons crafted by the dwarf demons umted over a long period filled the ce. Saleen and the rest patiently searched every corner, killing all the remaining dwarf demons. Thereafter, they collected every edible item, including the remains of the dead dwarf demons.


    Lex used a level-7 spell to seal the exit tightly. There was nothing edible left below, even if there were some surviving dwarf demons, it would be impossible for them to reproduce anymore. The sixteen yard deep hole was covered by the Elemental Rock. In order to create an opening, there had to be at least more than ten-thousand dwarf demons taking turns to excavate.


    After settling all the matters in the underground pce hurriedly, Saleen, Lex, and the rest of the people left the temple, rushing down the mountain peak.


    It was much easier flying downwards, their speed was doubled. In about a month, Saleen and the rest had arrived outside the camppound.


    The camppound was an utter mess, it had been besieged by some unknown creatures. The exterior metal wall had been repaired countless times, the barracks within thepound were also reinforced with manyyers of metal materials, while the four battlements leaned against the body of the mountain. They were almost fully sealed.


    Atop a battlement, a hole was revealed, and Nailisi¡¯s face poked out. From afar, she yelled, ¡°Master,e in now, it¡¯s going to be dark soon!¡±


    The magic trap in front of the camp began shing immediately, and the all-clear logo appeared.


    Saleen and Lex waved over, then returned to check their own barracks first. In the barracks, J was watching over Eleanor alone. Eleanorid on a bed and she was obviously injured.


    Seeing Saleen enter, Eleanor smiled, then said, ¡°I knew you didn¡¯t die, my magic liquid has been used up.¡±


    Saleen immediately took out some magic liquid, giving it to Eleanor. Sika asked, ¡°Where are the rest?¡±


    ¡°The demons have gone to assist Lex¡¯s swordmasters, Su is helping Nailisi man the battlement,¡± J replied.


    ¡°Well done. Eleanor, tell me, who attacked all of you?¡±


    ¡°It was a kind of magic beast, they looked like monkeys and are not very big in size. They can use magic attacks and moves pretty fast too.¡±


    ¡°Do you not recognize them?¡±


    ¡°I do not, they are not even listed in the illustrated book,¡± Eleanor replied. Saleen knew that Eleanor recognized many more magic beasts than he did. This elf was much older than himself after all. Other than progressing slower in terms of magic, Eleanor¡¯s knowledge and experience was more profound than Saleen¡¯s. If even Eleanor could not recognize them, then it was possible it was a new species.


    ¡°Did they have a leader?¡±


    ¡°They didn¡¯t seem to have one, but these magic beasts knew how to use simple weapons, they should have amonnguage I guess.¡±


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you all leave?¡±


    Eleanorughed bitterly, then said, ¡°Lex¡¯s men weren¡¯t willing to descend the mountain, and it is also easier to defend on a slopepared to tnd.¡±


    ¡°Understood. Cuisi, switch with Nailisi, ask her toe see me.¡±


    Cuisi nodded his head and left the barrack. When Nailisi saw Saleen, she immediately dashed forward and hugged Saleen, saying, ¡°Master, you didn¡¯t die, that¡¯s really good.¡±


    Saleen did not know whether tough or cry, then said, ¡°Quit fooling around, if I were dead, you would be the first to know. Tell me, what happened?¡±


    Nailisi then revealed that she had sent Lu to follow the two mages, and thus obtained information about the parasitic bodies. She also disclosed the theological knowledge she had gotten from Ismail, as well as her own deductions.


    ¡°Tell me, why did the magic beasts only attack at night?¡±


    ¡°In the beginning, there were magic beasts harassing the camppound in the day. After getting hammered by Lex¡¯s mages, those magic beasts then decided to attack at night,¡± Nailisi answered.


    ¡°Eleanor, your injuries¡­¡±


    ¡°I was only using my magic too frequently without rest, I will make a full recovery in a day or two.¡± After consuming magic liquid, Eleanor looked much better already. She consoled Saleen, and did not conceal any information about her own health.


    ¡°J, go look for Lex, ask her toe over and discuss the matter of leaving.¡±


    Very soon, Lex came to Saleen¡¯s barracks. The mages in her team had used the crystals to record the scene during battle, so she had a more detailed understanding about the magic beasts who attacked the camppound. Nailisi did not vie for the battle spoils with Lex¡¯s men, all of the corpses were managed by Lex¡¯s warriors.


    Lex had brought along a batch of intermediate level magic nuclei, while those magic beasts who attacked the camppound were all creatures above grade-4.


    A lone grade-4 creature was no big deal, but if in groups, they would be very troublesome. No wonder even Nailisi was not willing to leave the camp, she would rather defend this ce until herst breath. The sturdiness of this camp was equivalent to that of a miniature fortress. With alchemical crossbows and ten swordmasters taking turns to guard the main entrance, the camp would not suffer a sneak attack.


    The flesh of these magic beasts was toxic, while the rations left behind by Lex were about to be finished soon. If Lex still did not return, these people would have to take the risk of ascending the mountain to look for her.


    Saleen listened intently to the description of the battle by Lex and her mages, as he thought to himself, ¡°It is obvious Nailisi didn¡¯t tell Lex¡¯s men about the goods I have given to her. If I reveal it now, there may be some misunderstandings. Seems like I have to have a good chat with Nailisi. To Lex¡¯s men, you cannot take everything out, but you cannot sit aside and watch them sink into danger either.


    ¡°Viscountess, it seems like the attacks by the magic beasts are not very frequent, we can still take turns to rest in the day. We shall rest for two days, repair all the armor and equipment first, then we will breakout and leave.¡± Saleen was of course worried about Eleanor¡¯s injury. He only had this one mage with him, while the rest of the people were very energetic, especially the few demons.


    The moment a battle erupted in the demonic ne, it would either end very soon, or it would result in several months of pursuit and extermination. The demons had long limatized to such a life.


    ¡°Okay, take this, I will let Nailisi¡¯s subordinates give you a hand.¡± Lex did not say anything. The Spirit Snake Armor of her swordmasters was in need of huge repairs, their weapons were also greatly damaged. As the spatial equipment of those mages was too small, the mages could not bring along too many resources, they could only help replenish the depletion of magic nuclei.


    From this location to the desert, the journey would take a few days. It was likely that the team would meet with danger along the way, so they had to be sufficiently prepared before leaving.


    Saleen received the memory crystals. Seeing that Lex had left, he then red at Nailisi and asked, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you help Lex¡¯s people? You had food and water.¡±


    ¡°They suspected me of killing those two mages, if they had sufficient food, they might have targeted me,¡± Nailisi argued. Even though Nailisi¡¯s words made sense, Lex¡¯s men would not try to kill her because they would have considered Saleen¡¯s rtionship with Lex.


    Saleen snorted, the demons had already returned at this point in time. When Saleen noticed the tattered and torn armor on the demons, he knew that the battle was indeed very tough, so he stopped berating Nailisi. He instructed the demons to remove their armor, then he began repairing their equipment.

 Chapter 557: Breakout (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 557: Breakout (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Most of the materials Saleen used to craft armor for the demons were obtained from magic beast shells from the sea. These shells might be precious, but they had their fair share of ws too. They were too lightweight. To a human, a lighter armor could raise their efficacy during battle, however, a demon¡¯s strength was too shocking. A demon was actually better off having heavier armor.


    The heavier the armor, the better. It could absorb impact from a weapon, thus having better defense against heavy weapons.


    At the moment, Saleen had gained immense knowledge about crafting armor, he had also obtained arge amount of gori metal. He decided to produce new armor for the four demons. As for the style of the armor, Saleen would imitate the Grukos family¡¯s Spirit Snake Armor.


    The production of armor might appear easy, but it was actually the most fundamental way for a nation to disy its capabilities. Even dumb creatures like the dwarf demons could craft armor, but the quality of their armor was too inferior. Even with a precious material like the gori metal in their possession, the dwarf demons¡¯ armor was totally useless in the face of Lex¡¯s and Saleen¡¯s intermediate level magic.


    A genuine magic armor was only considered a sess if it could resist intermediate level magic for a short time.


    Even though the demons never gave a hoot about such battles, they were overjoyed when they learned that Saleen was going to craft new armor for them the moment he returned. It meant that their master¡¯s master did not regard them as cannon fodder.


    Like always, Saleen maintained a calm disposition, crafting armor for the demons while interacting with Eleanor at the same time.


    Eleanor¡¯s injuries were not serious, it was just that Lex¡¯s team did not deploy any mages to help her. As a result, she had to fight alone and had gotten deprived of rest. Her consumption of mental strength was a little overbearing and coupled with her original injuries, it resulted in her old injuries rpsing.


    Eleanor¡¯s constitution had a solid foundation, as long as she returned to Metatrin City with Saleen to recuperate, she would make a full recovery.


    Once again, she reyed the images in the magic crystals. In the images, hundreds of magic beasts were spotted surrounding the camp, using magic attacks to pound the camp grounds. These ape-like magic beasts could cast an assortment of spells, but each of them could only cast one type of spell. There should be some differences between these magic beasts.


    There were three main attack methods. The first was magic mes, the mes released by the magic beasts had a range of about two-hundred yards, they would form three fireballs before flying towards the target in a rotating fashion. The flying speed of these magic mes was slightly slow, but unless three mages retaliated at the same time, one fireball would survive and strike the barracks.


    The metal barracks contained a magic array which could defend against the level-4 fireballs, but it would deplete magic nuclei. Judging from the situation on the battlefield, Lex¡¯s mages were very smart. They only used a low level spell to ruin the stability of the fireballs, causing two of the three fireballs to disappear autonomously, so only onended on the barracks.


    At the end of the day, humans were still the ones who could battle whilst consuming the least amount of resources. Those magic beasts did not destroy the walls intentionally. The walls were very difficult to be destroyed, but they were short, so the magic beasts could simply leap over them. The problem was, if the walls were not destroyed, the assault efficiency of the magic beasts would be very low.


    Saleen broke out in sweat as he reviewed the images. If he was the one who built the camppound, he would have made the walls six yards tall and ced a battlement directly behind the walls. In such a scenario, the magic beasts would then try to destroy the walls out of desperation. Since there were so many magic beasts, it would be too easy for them to destroy the walls.


    Lex¡¯s walls were only two yards tall, so the magic beasts could leap over them without much effort. The thickness of the walls were increased by three times though.


    Saleen went back to re-study the defenses of the campplex, and then understood the necessity of many details.


    The other two spells were also offensive, a magic beast did not know any auxiliary magic. One of them was the Ice Arrow, which Saleen was proficient in. It was originally a level-3 spell, but Saleen had already advanced it. It now possessed the lethality of grade-4 magic. These magic beasts had also cast level-4 Ice Arrows.


    The Ice Arrow was a spell peskier than a fireball, especially in the aspect of destroying armor. An Ice Arrow could make the texture of most substances brittle, lowering their defensive power. Lex¡¯s mages did not have any effective solutions to deal with the Ice Arrow, they only prepared an extra Ice crystal Shield in the defensive magic array on the barracks. This was an unpopr defensive spell which could weaken the attack of water magic.


    The scars in the barracks were created by the attacks from the Ice Arrows, the mages had to repair them after daybreak.


    The third spell those magic beasts used was the Berserk spell. The Berserk spell was a level-4 spell, but it was very onerous for a human to master it. Once a magic beast went berserk, the surface of their body would undergo fossilization, they would also grow taller and bigger.


    The berserk magic beasts leaped over the walls, and began thrashing at the humans warriors.


    After seeing the three skills disyed by the magic beasts, Saleen knew that Nailisi could have escaped easily if she was not bent on guarding the camppound. These three skills did not pose a threat to Nailisi at all. Be it a fireball or Ice Arrow, it would not cause sufficient damage to hurt Nailisi¡¯s lightning-protected body. A berserk magic beast would not be able to defeat Nailisi, who could rival the strongest demon in the world.


    Nailisi¡¯s melee fighting ability was about to reach the standard of a supreme demon already, just like Cuisi. If Nailisi wanted to flee, those magic beasts would not have been able to stop her. Nailisi was waiting for Saleen and had to look after Eleanor, so she stayed behind to resist the magic beasts¡¯ offensive.


    After reviewing all the magic images, Saleen then found out that Lex¡¯s mages suspected Nailisi after learning about the deaths of two mages, so they were not willing to deploy people to aid Eleanor.


    Lex¡¯s mages possessed magic equipment which could conduct soulishmunication, so they knew whether theirrades were dead or alive.


    ¡°Nailisi, you did the right thing.¡± Saleen was also upset by this matter. Those two mages did not heed Lex¡¯smand, they were determined to meet her on the mountain peak. Their behavior would already add more trouble at that point in time. In order to increase their traveling speed, they did not bring along swordmasters for protection, they were simply seeking death. Even if they had brought along only two swordmasters for protection, it would not have been so easy for the parasitic bodies to kill them.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t pamper her,¡± Sika warned. When she noticed the smugness on Nailisi¡¯s face, she really wanted to use her cudgel to smash Nailisi¡¯s head.


    ¡°No, Sika, some people around Lex aren¡¯t very reliable, Lex herself might not even know that. Even though she has many loyal people around her, I feel that these people aren¡¯t as reliable as the demons.¡±


    Seeing that Sika still did not understand, Saleen said, ¡°On this trip out, I had been so calctive with Lex because of her subordinates. Of her subordinates, some swordsmen followed her out of loyalty, but there are many who follow her simply because of her status as a member of the Grukos imperial family. The moment there are any unforeseen circumstances, these people would be a hindrance, take for example the total separation from the Holy Rock City. Even the former group of people isn¡¯t very beneficial to us. If I didn¡¯t vie for anything, they would feel that everything should belong to Lex, and it would be a natural thing to them.¡±


    Saleen had hit the bullseye. Lex might have announced Saleen¡¯s status as her partner, but her subordinates thought otherwise. In their eyes, everything should go to Lex, it had nothing to do with Saleen¡¯s effort.


    To Lex, this was a disy of loyalty, but to Saleen, this was hostility.


    ¡°It¡¯s so troublesome.¡± Sika muttered, but she did not go on. If Saleen married Lex, these problems would naturally be resolved. From Sika¡¯s perspective, Saleen had been grinding for more than a year. In less than two years, the mages from the Sregl Ind would arrive. By then, Saleen¡¯s power could rival that of Lex.


    In such a situation, Sika would never agree to let Saleen marry Lex.


    At the moment, Sika was the highest ranking priestess among the Caucasus people, so it was impossible for her to get married to Saleen. She also did not want Saleen to tide over hard times by relying on such methods. If Saleen became rich in the future, he would own many soldiers and mages and Sika would not disagree with him marrying Lex, because that would be an annexation of Lex¡¯s assets. At this point in time, Saleen would have to depend on Lex however.


    As a result, Sika was jubnt when Saleen was so calctive with Lex. As for the admonishment of Nailisi, she was just worried that Nailisi would create unresolvable trouble for Saleen. Even though Nailisi imed that she had sent Lu to protect the two mages, Sika did not believe her at all. If the two mages were protected by a demon, they might not have died. At best, Lu was there to do surveince.


    ¡°The breakout is simple, but I do not wish for all of you toe to any harm.¡± Even though Saleen spoke to Eleanor, he was also directing his words to the three demons.


    ¡°There won¡¯t be just one kind of magic beast, the magic beasts who came to harass the campgrounds were suitable for battles on slopes. Once we leave the mountain, there will be more challenging adversaries.¡± Saleen also did another round of calctions in his heart, ¡°The whole process of entering the temple took about five months. The fights in the temple were simple, but many magic beasts had appeared outside the temple in these five months. This means that the day of the resurrection of the gods in this space will not be too far into the future. Maybe one two hundred years, or only eight to ten years.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, once you recover, we will leave. I will request one mage from Lex to aid you in battle. J, you and Su shall lead the four demons to protect Eleanor, let Sika and Nailisi protect me.¡±


    Speaking, Saleen pondered for a moment, then he took out twenty level-5 magic scrolls. These scrolls contained single attack spells, they were not used in the fight against the dwarf demons. Handing those scrolls to Eleanor, Saleen said, ¡°When the fight gets tough, try not to use your magic chords for battle, you can use these scrolls instead.¡±


    Saleen still could not rest assured. Since Eleanor possessed vast knowledge, he even nned to not let Eleanor shoulder any of thebat matters when they returned to Metatrin City. He wanted to ask Eleanor to impart special knowledge, such as elvish magic, to the mages around him. A mage like Eleanor was extremely precious to the mages on the Myers maind.


    Eleanor smiled and pped the bow beside her, then said, ¡°I still have this.¡± She had already gotten ustomed to Saleen¡¯s form of generosity. He had his evil instances too, such as the time when he refused to return the bracelet to her.


    As though there was telepathy between them, Saleen broke intoughter, then said, ¡°That bracelet belongs to Cuisi now, I cannot return it to you. Once I get back, I will craft another piece of equipment for you. You will use this first, but you have to return it to me in the future.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he gave his White Crystal Ring to Eleanor. This ring was gifted to him by Jason, it was also an extremely valuable item. Saleen could not bear to give this object to anyone, it was the first present from his teacher. Eleanor¡¯s mental strength might seem very powerful to others, almost at the standard of a sorcerer, but if her magic chords were emptied, she would have to fight using the bow. Using an elvish bow would deplete the mental strength too.


    Without that bracelet, Eleanor¡¯s mental strength would definitely show signs of insufficiency, a normal mage would never possess skills like hers. The divinecherry arrow was also one of Saleen¡¯s secret weapons.

 Chapter 558: The Myth of the Demonic Realm (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 558: The Myth of the Demonic Realm (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor took over the white crystal ring. While she was not exactly moved, she did feel warmth in her heart. She knew Saleen did not do this with any ulterior motives, so she did not feel any pressure epting the ring.


    As a mage, it was somewhat depressing to relegate to bing someone¡¯s follower. She could even be considered as Saleen¡¯s ve. During this period of time when they had been together, Saleen did make Eleanor feel better about her situation. She had also began to seriously consider how she would lead her life on the Myers Maind.


    Although she was bound by the bond with Saleen, there was actually no such need. Saleen was aware of her identity so he could easily reveal that she was an elf and countless people would be after her in no time. Therefore, there was no way she could betray Saleen. Instead, the bond with Saleen acted as a form of insurance for her. The bond was mutual and acted both ways, so Saleen was bounded to guarantee her safety as well.


    What a thoughtful mage!


    Eleanor¡¯s gaze followed Saleen as he turned towards Nailisi for the umpteenth time and reminded her of the things to look out for when they broke out of the encirclement. There was a tinge of disappointment in her heart.


    ¡°Too bad he is not an elf, or I could have taught him real Elvish magic.¡±


    Prior to this, the equipment of Saleen¡¯s followers and those that were bonded to him were all refined individually by him. As his water me alchemy skills advanced, it became more and more obvious that the equipment that he had refined in the beginning was very poor.


    After they had been together all this while and now that there was an opportunity to refine the equipment again, Saleen knew exactly what kind of equipment everyone in the team needed.


    The attacks at night seemed like only a formality. The ape-shaped beasts stayed outside of the walls and cast some spells asionally before the beasts that had turned berserk jumped into the camp. Lex¡¯s warriors would engage them while the crossbows from the arrow tower kept the other beasts from advancing.


    Both sides were not giving their maximum effort so there were no casualties at all.


    This went on for six days before Lex finally healed her injured mages and more or less finished repairing the swordmasters¡¯ armors.


    Both teams worked as one as Nailisi led the demons from the rear. Bain, Lex, Saleen, and the others were in the middle, while the front was headed by the two ck metal grand swordmasters. Both sides of the team was nked by a total of ten swordmasters. These ten swordmasters were d in spirit snake armor and held an additional shield each. These shields were rectangr in shape and were very thick. They were made from woodced with wrought brass and the surfaces were ted with ayer of ck sand crystals from the desert.


    The shields were also refined by Lex. When Saleen showed her the specimens of the parasites, she did not have any solutions. The parasites were physically weak, but were able to attack a human¡¯s soul. Lose focus for a moment and a mage would be in trouble.


    On the other hand, the warriors d in spirit snake armor were much safer. Even if they lost focus for a while, the parasites would still be unable to prate the armor since it waspletely sealed. The warriors were also better able to detect these parasites via their sensespared to the mages. Within these shields were magic arrays that were interlinked. Since the swordmasters were nking the team on both sides, the entire area would be sensitive towards the presence of parasites and they would not be able to creep up on them.


    This type of defence was better than nothing. Luckily, the parasites seemed to gather towards the top of the mountain so there were very few of them at the foot of it.


    The best way to avoid the parasites was to travel with speed. Parasites only disyed tremendous speed when they wanted to attack. This exined why Lex and the others did not encounter any attacks when they flew up the mountain.


    To a normal human, climbing a mountain was easy, but getting down was difficult. For grand mages and warriors that were above the level of swordmasters, it was the other way around. The entirepany was travelling as fast as thirty miles an hour and there was no different from sprinting on t ground.


    If not for the very steep slopes on the mountain, Saleen would have traveled on skeletal warhorses instead.


    Bringing up the rear were six people; Nailisi, the four demons and the unlucky demonic spirit. The demons were happy. Not only had Saleen helped them refine powerful armors, he also allowed Nailisi to give them the freedom to switch between human-form and their original bodies.


    Without Nailisi¡¯s permission, there was no way they could change forms. Cuisi was the only one stronger than Nailisi, he had a pair of wings in his original form. Now that the four demons could use their original forms for battle, their armors were also redesigned ordingly.


    No more sinister-looking appearances. The four armors now looked magnificent and were designed like an elf¡¯s armor.


    In the areas where the armor was hollow, crystals were mounted. The inner surfaces of these crystals have been inscribed with Holy Prose using alchemy. Saleen had emted some of the secrets of this dimension. The true colors of these armors would be revealed only when the demons changed back into their original forms.


    Within the demon dimensions, such armors were called devil armors.


    When supreme demons trained and advanced into devils, they would be able to transform into many different shapes and sizes. Their armors would also have to be able to adjust ording to their transformations. The four demons were pleasantly surprised to receive these armors. Saleen had gained their full respect and loyalties now. Even if they came up with some minor tricks once in a while, it would be due to the nature of demons in general and not out of any other motives.


    The four demons were different from Nailisi. When they were in human-form, their fighting abilities were greatly reduced. Aside from Cuisi, the fighting abilities of the remaining three demons were reduced to the level of swordmasters. Even if the superior lifespan of demons were taken into ount, they were at most at the level of zun grand swordmasters.


    When they were able to return to their original forms, their fighting abilities increased immediately.


    Saleen did what he did in order to gain their loyalties and also to give himself another level of insurance. These armors could actually act as traps as well. The crystals on the armors had the ability to manipte space. Once Saleen triggered an activation in the Holy Prose on the crystals, he could change the shapes of the armors anytime. He had the ultimate control over these armors.


    Saleen had the ability to change the spatial structure of the devil armor anytime and crush the demons who were d in them into minced meat.


    Saleen did trust these demons, but it was also a fact that they were totally under the control of Nailisi. These armors were extremely precious, even more so than spirit snake armor, so they must never fall into the hands of others. If the demons were to be captured, Saleen would destroy the armors immediately. If someone decided to wear this armor to fight Saleen, it would be suicidal.


    The demonic spirit was not given such privileges, but at least he was also given a set of armor that waspletely sealed. Demonic spirits had no need for transformations so his set of armor did not have the same abilities as that of the devil armor.


    Nailisi still looked the same. She had long hair that reached her shoulders and wore a fur coat with a long dress underneath. Saleen only helped her to refine a new pair of boots. Although her attire might seem defenceless, Nailisi¡¯s lightning guardian was much more effective than devil armor. Spells that were grade-7 and below were totally ineffective towards her.


    If mages wanted to kill Nailisi, aside from using high-level spells, the best solution was to gather arge number of mages and cast spells at her continuously. Nailisi could run away from the spells, which the mages would then need to give chase using their flying spells. Mages in mid-flight would not be able to cast spells easily.


    Perhaps it was because Nailisi was holding the fort at the rear, but the front that was led by the ck metal grand swordmasters encountered quite a few beast attacks while the rear was always peaceful and safe.


    Lex¡¯s men methodically taught Saleen and the mages how to add spells onto the spirit snake armors so that they could automatically retaliate against beasts that could cast spells. As such, the team did not meet with much resistance and did not slow down their speed by too much even after various encounters with the beasts either.


    About ten miles behind thepany, a team of beasts tailed Saleen and the rest. This team was different from the others that had tried to attack them. This team had a leader. The leader was also in ape-form but was very tall. From a distance, it looked like a very strong and muscr human.


    Its face was gloomy. The team of ape-form beasts were clustered together and pressed forward until Lex and the rest had reached the foot of the mountain. After Lex and the rest had set up camp there, the leader of the beasts let out a loud howl before leading his own team to retreat.


    Within a team of beasts of not more than a few hundred, a leader with intelligence had already emerged. With the vastness of the Mountain Without End, it was entirely possible that there might be one-hundred-thousand beasts with such intelligence in this area.


    Once they reached the foot of the mountain, Aiwa kicked the demonic spirit from behind and scolded, ¡°Can¡¯t you see that the adults are setting up camp? Go help them!¡±


    The demonic spirit rushed over frantically. The four demons looked from afar, the thought of helping out never crossed their minds. Nailisi was very easygoing this time and did not force the four demons to help out.


    ¡°Hehe, Master Nailisi, it looks like Master Saleen is really thinking of summoning a group of demons,¡± Tolesi was caressing his devil armor while trying to trick some information out of Nailisi.


    ¡°Even if that is the case, so what?¡± Nailisi¡¯s mouth twitched.


    ¡°You see, we were the first group of demons summoned by you. If too many demons appeared¡­¡±


    Nailisi looked at Tolesi and asked, ¡°So you are hoping that I will summon more demonic spirits in future? What good are those? Now you are worried about where you stand? In the beginning, all of you didn¡¯t seem too willing toe along.¡±


    Nailisi began tough coldly, so Cuisi quickly said, ¡°Master Nailisi, I know there is a limit to the number of demons you can summon. If you summon too many and you are not able to control them¡­¡±


    ¡°So what are you trying to say?¡± Nailisi¡¯s nce swept across the demons with a glint in her eye.


    Even Cuisi was taken aback and quickly exined, ¡°Although the few of them only have average fighting abilities, they have very strong mental strength. If you are willing to teach us the ability to summon demons, we can help you to share the load too.¡±


    ¡°Hoho, the bonds between us are not soul bonds,¡± Nailisiughed. She had been wondering how to broach this topic but luckily Cuisi gave her the perfect opportunity.


    ¡°Soul bond¡­¡±


    Cuisi hesitated. He did not care much about master-ve bonds, but soul bonds were a whole different matter. In essence, all kinds of bonds utilized the soul. Soul bonds were linked to the mark of life. The soul bond could not be erased even if one were to reincarnate or enter the kingdom of God.


    ¡°Are you afraid that I will live for too long?¡± Nailisi¡¯s tone was impatient.


    ¡°Hahaha!¡±


    The four demonsughed forcefully. Of course they would not dare to agree. Even without a soul bond, there was no way the four of them could escape from Nailisi¡¯s clutches easily. Once the soul bond had been made, even if they were to be devils one day, they would still be under Nailisi¡¯s control. The lifespan of a Luoluokaluo was just too long. There was no way they could outlive her if she were to die of natural causes.

 Chapter 559: The Myth of the Demonic Realm (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 559: The Myth of the Demonic Realm (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Scared? Yet just a moment ago, all of you were so excited.¡± Nailisi used her finger to poke at the demons¡¯ heads.


    The demons dared not argue back, but all secretly thought, ¡°Since when were we excited?¡±


    ¡°Actually, I have nothing to lose. I intend to trick a few supreme demons over, one by one. Once theye over, we will all subdue them. We can do this three-hundred or even five-hundred times, surely there is bound to be one who is willing to be bonded. I can only be bonded a few times, so if one of the supreme demons agrees, I will not need demons anymore. At most, I will look for demonic spirits,¡± Nailisi said. The four demons began to panic. If Nailisi managed to subdue a supreme demon, then the four of them would be worthless to her.


    Freedom or survival? Usually, demons would choose freedom. If Nailisi really were to be the strongest Luoluokaluo one day, then she could very well be a God or even something else that had never been seen before.


    If that was the case, then the four demons still had a chance of bing demi-gods and their lifespan could easily increase by up to one-hundred times.


    To be able to obtain great power along with an incredibly long lifespan was abination that even demons would find hard to refuse.


    What if Nailisi were to be killed? Then the four demons would lose a part of their souls though.


    ¡°All of you seemed to have mentioned before about a myth from the demonic realm.¡±


    Cuisi nodded. The myth did not appear out of nowhere. It had been passed down for tens of thousands of years and its source was unknown to even some supreme demons that had lived for more than ten-thousand years.


    ¡°I did not give the design of the devil armor to Master. Now that the four of you are wearing it, haven¡¯t you thought about what it could mean?¡± Nailisi was an expert in maniption. The soul bond must be a mutual agreement and it must bepleted without any resistance from either side. Even if Nailisi threatened them with death, these four demons might still not agree to the soul bond.


    The myths of the demonic realm were few and far between because the lifespans of supreme demons were simply too long. A few devils had even lived for more than ten-thousand years. Unlike other dimensions, myths from the demonic realm would have been passed on for more than ten-thousand years without too much changes or exaggerations to its contents.


    This myth was different though. This myth described how a Luoluokaluo would lead four devils to conquer every dimension and build a demon kingdom. Supposedly, this took ce in the two-hundredth demon era. By estimation, this meant it took ce around three-hundred to five-hundred years ago.


    If this prophetic myth were to happen onto Nailisi, then the four demons who had been given the devil armor could very well be the four devils that supported her.


    Devils were all advanced from supreme demons. An ability of the Luoluokaluo would be to advance a demon directly into a devil.


    ¡°I will begin what I said once we return to Metatrin City. All of you still have time to consider,¡± Nailisi spoke patiently. Instead, the four demons began to answer frantically.


    ¡°Lord Nailisi, we are willing to follow you forever.¡±


    That was when Nailisi finally smiled. Saleen was not willing to be bonded with these four demons because he was worried that if anything bad were to happen to him, Nailisi would be the one to suffer the consequences.


    ¡°If I were to be bonded to these four demons with soul bonds, then Saleen will also be able tomand them directly and none of them will be able to resist.¡±


    ¡°Very well. Once we return to Metatrin City, I will sign the soul bonds with you. Capturing a supreme demon is still something we have to do. All of you must have some ambition. Don¡¯t you wish tomand a supreme demon into battle?¡±


    ¡°No, no, no. Master Nailisi, let¡¯s sign the bond now!¡± Tolesi was smarter than the rest. Even if the four of them did not fully believe in Saleen, they hadplete faith in Nailisi. Proactively signing a soul bond was entirely different from signing it passively. Besides, Saleen had also done many unexpectedly good things for them.


    ¡°What are the few of them doing?¡± Lex, who was overseeing the setting up of camp, asked Saleen.


    Lex did not feelpletely at ease with those demons taking the rear.


    ¡°There are enemies that are tailing us. They will stay at the rear so that we will not be taken by surprise,¡± Saleen answered calmly. The range of his senses went much further than the demons¡¯. He knew that there were still beasts on the mountain that were spying on the swordmasters setting up camp. There might not be many of them, but that made them even more dangerous.


    ¡°Oh.¡± Lex did not think further. Bain was also keeping a lookout for anything from the mountain, while the two ck metal grand swordmasters were also on guard on the other side. Neither teams would leave themselves unguarded when setting up camp.


    ¡°You are all very obedient. I like that.¡± Nailisi led the four demons behind a huge rock. The four of them knelt and Nailisi began to write demon words on their foreheads.


    It was much simpler for her to sign a soul bond on her own since it was one of Luoluokaluo¡¯s specialties. The first time she signed a bond was with Saleen. Nailisi was still filled with grief and indignation on that thought. A demon that prided herself on her ability to cheat still could not believe she was cheated by a human.


    It was impossible to take revenge on Saleen now so she might as well vent her anger on others. Nailisi had faith in these four demons. She knew their fighting abilities very well. Average demons were not as powerful as Aiwa and the rest. Even Tolesi¡¯sbat skills were still considered excellent amongst demons, he also possessed unique spiritual attack skills.


    These four demons would be her trusted subordinates and they would also be able to sign bonds with other demons on their own. In that case, the number of demons she controlled would increase tremendously.


    Cuisi and the rest were respectful throughout the entire ceremony and stood up only when it wasplete.


    ¡°The myth should not be trusted entirely. Our Master is in so much trouble and there are tens of thousands who want him dead on this dimension. If Master dies, there is no meaning to my life either.¡­,¡± Nailisi pretended to be in a difficult position. Although the four demons were taken aback, they still tried their best to help Nailisi think of a solution.


    ¡°My lord, lord Saleen is very powerful. This devil armor possesses spatial maniption abilities, even supreme demons might not have been able to build this armor. I think his ability to help others upgrade their fighting skills is something rarely seen on this dimension. We should help sir to recruit even more men.¡± Cuisi was not bootlicking Saleen. He was the strongest among the four demons so he had also seen and experienced the most. He knew that the meaning behind Saleen refining these devil armors was significant.


    Saleen had also helped him to refine his whip again, and its power was iparable to the previous version. The original whip was handy and smooth to use, but the current one had doubled his fighting abilities.


    ¡°Yes, Master¡¯s water me¡­,¡± Aiwa became a bit naggy at this point. He had seen Saleen performing alchemy before and the water me seemed harmless and unimpressive so he wanted to try and touch it. He almost lost his life. ¡°Master¡¯s water me is really powerful. I think he can kill a supreme demon with it.¡±


    That was exaggeration on the part of Aiwa. If a supreme demon stood still on the spot, of course it would be killed by the water me. Saleen¡¯s water me was not a spell for attack and could only be controlled within a very limited distance from him. It could not be manipted in different directions nor initiate attacks on any targets. Unless the supreme demon was stupid, there was no way one could be burnt to death by the water me.


    The only way a supreme demon could be burnt to death by the water me was if he was subdued for Saleen to burn him. In that scenario, one might as well stab him to death with a knife.


    ¡°Yes, yes. Master¡¯s finger is incredible!¡± Lu added on. Saleen¡¯s crystal finger was indeed powerful. If these four demons were within ten yards after Saleen had locked onto them as targets, there was no way they could escape.


    ¡°Master still has Metatrin City. I had never even heard of that city before when I was in the demon dimension,¡± Tolesi¡¯s face was filled with envy.


    Nailisi chuckled and said, ¡°The four of you need not try to make me feel better. If we really want to build an army of demons, we need to help Master be even stronger first. Master has quite a few decent items that can equip arge number of demons. Demons are hard to control, so we will start with imps first. Among the imps, there is a n called Spanvis. Their build is very simr to humans. Do you know of them?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but Spanvises are not very strong imps.¡± Cuisi thought it was strange that Nailisi would choose such a n.


    ¡°So they are not powerful just because they are not very strong? Humph.¡± Nailisi did not borate. In any case, the four demons would not be able to go against her ns. Spanvises might not be strong, but among humans, only those that were at least the level of swordmasters would be able to possess simr amounts of strength.


    If these imps were to be paired up with skeletal warhorses, they could form cavalries and be a force to be reckoned with in a battle on an open field.


    ¡°Of course, there is some sense in what my lord has said. If Master wishes to conquer the maind, he will definitely need heavy infantry!¡± Cuisi reminded Nailisi. When attacking a city, foot soldiers would be extremely important. No matter how strong one¡¯s cavalries might be, they would not be able to ride their warhorses over the city walls. In fact, the city walls of some bigger cities had magic arrays that could stop flying, so the best way to attack a city was still to use foot soldiers with weapons to attack the wall.


    Of course, it would be even better if a grade-9 sorcerer could use a forbidden curse on the city. Doing so would lead all the great powers into a big battle and even if the city was eventually won, it would be so badly destroyed that there would not be any value in conquering it.


    ¡°Now is not the time to talk about this. Don¡¯t worry. Since I have decided to use all of you, no supreme demons will take your ces. Just do what you are supposed to do. There is trouble behind. Cuisi, go and settle it.¡±


    Cuisi nodded. A few powerful beasts had crept down from the mountain and looked to be trying to sneak up on them. Along the way down, the demons used certain methods and ways to detect if anyone was tailing them. No matter how good these beasts were at covering up their tracks, there was no way they could turn invisible.


    Ow¡­


    Cuisi rushed up the mountain. The swordmasters heard the beasts howling the moment they finished setting up camp. With weapons that finally suited their grip, the fighting abilities of the demons had increased tremendously. Cuisi did not need any help to dispose of a few grade-5 beasts.


    Lex heard the sounds of fighting at the foot of the mountain and finally believed that the demons stayed at the rear for security reasons.


    It did not take long for Cuisi to return with a few magic nuclei in hand. Nailisi hadpletely won the loyalties of these demons. She felt very satisfied and said, ¡°For magic nuclei of this level, you can all keep them for yourselves in the future. I will teach all of you a technique to absorb magic nuclei when we return.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, who will keep guard tonight?¡± Lex sought Saleen¡¯s opinion. She had be aware of how her mages refused to help Eleanor and was afraid that there might be estrangement between both of them because of that.


    ¡°I will do it. I will only need to rest for one night before we reach the river.¡± Saleen was really not tired. Figuring out how to build the devil armor made him very excited. On top of that, it seemed that Nailisi had aplished the task of taking in those demons. Saleen felt like his soul had be more powerful and his mental strength had increased considerably.


    It seemed that signing a soul bond provided many benefits other than gaining control.


    Night gradually came and there were beasts howling all around them. Within a few months, the number of living things in the Goddess¡¯ dimension had be countless. It looked like the God was really about to appear!

 Chapter 560: Devil’s imprint (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 560: Devil¡¯s imprint (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen requested to keep watch overnight because he wanted Lex to have peace of mind by proving that there was no estrangement between her subordinates and himself. Saleen also knew that the demons could easily kill the magic beasts, and he could obtain intermediate level magic nuclei.


    An intermediate level magic nucleus did not appear to be more valuable than a high level magic nucleus, their exchange rate was very disproportionate. The function of an intermediate level magic nucleus could not be reced by a high level one.


    It was just like how an intermediate level magic nucleus could not substitute a low level magic nucleus. The function of each type of magic nucleus had their own special significance. On the battlefield, an intermediate level magic nucleus was the most important strategic asset.


    Due to low quantities of high level magic nuclei, they could not be distributed to an army. Even if there was a corresponding quantity of high level magic nuclei, a sorcerer was required to be present to stimte the energy within them safely.


    After allocating the guard duty tasks, Saleen rested in his barrack with Sika. He took out the n badge. He caressed it in his hand and felt more assured. In the past six months or so, the lightning energy within the n badge had been fully recharged, the badge was ready to release another attack.


    Six months might seem very long, but Saleen had made the badge absorb the power of the twenty-four lightning dragons in the goddess¡¯ ne to ensure that the badge couldunch another attack within six months. Had he relied on himself, he would have to spend a very long time in order to recharge the badge.


    The goddess¡¯ ne made Saleen have a love-hate rtionship with it. Without the goddess¡¯ divinity, it was impossible for one to enter the space ne. A normal human, even with the sturdy body of a swordmaster, would be crushed into smithereens the moment they tried to enter the ne. Only a dead item could be stored in the ne, but it would also lose its original attributes gradually.


    The ne could not be used as a spatial equipment, but the twenty-four lightning dragons were living in itfortably. Since they had a soul contract with Saleen and had obtained the Power of Life during incubation, they could make the ne their abode.


    The development process of these twenty-four lightning dragons was very strange. The flow of time within the ne¡¯s space was not regted, so it was very onerous for Saleen to control the dragon¡¯s development. The lightning dragons had once grown to forty-five yards long, but they had reverted to one yard at the moment. After every round of intense transformation, Saleen would obtain a batch of lightning dragon skin. The defensive power of these skins was very high, but in Saleen¡¯s hands, their greatest use was to be made into scrolls.


    If Saleen became a sorcerer, he would not have to worry about getting materials for high level scrolls anymore.


    The current lightning dragons could not even aid Saleen in battle, they could only double as an auxiliary power for the badge so that the badge could regain energy as soon as possible. This n badge was Saleen¡¯s trump card, as long as the aim was locked onto a target, no one could resist its attack. That supreme demon in Lorga City was killed in one hit by Saleen, it was very decisive and thorough. At that point in time, Saleen could not even believe it had happened.


    The barrack was designed ording to the bunk in a Qin¡¯s camp. Even though it was an eight-man barrack, it could in fact contain forty people. An elite troop would be assigned with four support troops. Under battle conditions, be it a heavy cavalryman, light cavalryman, or heavy infantryman; these soldiers would live with support troops so that they would be ready for battle anytime.


    The standard allocation to a heavy cavalryman was two to three horses, three long weapons, four short weapons, and four support troops. Every soldier in Qin would be given horses. Only the mountain troops, light infantrymen and scouts did not have support troops around to take care of things. Their training and fighting would be greatly hampered.


    Even though the scouts had horses with them, they had to take care of the horses independently. The warhorses were very special. No matter the circumstances, they would not move about restlessly and make any noise. The scouts also acted alone because the presence of support troops would affect their concealment and speed of travel


    That way, an emblem group of one-thousand men could easily balloon to three-thousand men during wartime. If it was an emblem group of heavy cavalrymen, there might be almost six-thousand people.


    All along, Lex had little support troops, but the barracks were designed in strict ordance to the standards of the Qin army.


    In Tanggsi Empire, the status between a support troop and an elite soldier had arge difference; they were not allowed to live together. Tents would be set up outside the barracks to house the support troops.


    Eleanor sat on the bed meditating while J and Su remained next to her. Su was still young, so he was not interested in maturedies like Eleanor, but J¡¯s eyes were affixed on Eleanor, never leaving her once.


    As Sika was Saleen¡¯s woman, J did not wish to provoke her. J was obviously a Silver Grand Swordmaster already, but he could not defeat a Caucasus person. This made him disinterested in seducing Sika.


    Getting rejected and walloped was way better than being despised.


    Sikaid on Saleen¡¯s bed, she did not even remove her armor. This armor was newly crafted by Saleen, it wasfortable and contained a permanent Cleaning spell.


    Nailisi led the four demons outside to keep watch overnight, thus the barrack was silent. Only the demonic spirit had nothing to do because his offensive power was a little too low, so he was thrown into the barrack by Nailisi.


    Saleen lifted his eyelid, and asked, ¡°Yes?¡±


    The demonic spirit felt a shudder in his heart. Just as he was about to say something, Saleen said, ¡°What is your name? Never mind, it¡¯s not easy to remember it, so you shall be called Erbai.¡±


    ¡°Erbai?¡± The demonic spirit heard this name, and looked confused. Saleen had other ns, it was said that many demonic spirits resembled humans, so they could be used to form a scout toon.


    A demonic spirit¡¯s status in the demonic ne was slightly higher than a magic bug, they were even inferior to the imps. Demonic spirits were best in riding with the situation, concealing, escaping, and observing. This demonic spirit was at a low grade, even if he did not sign any special contract, he would not betray Saleen. Back in the demonic ne, other creatures would control their destiny, they had gotten used to that.


    ¡°Erbai, what is it?¡± Saleen asked again.


    The demonic spirit Erbai was aghast. He wanted to chat with Saleen, so that the master of his master¡¯s master would have a good impression of him. ¡°If possible, I willin about Cuisi and the rest. The best case scenario will be to make Saleen sign a contract with me, so I don¡¯t have to put up with those demons anymore.¡±


    As Saleen¡¯s azure eyes stared at him, those pupils with unparalleled purity contained an irresistible majesty.


    Yes, it was majesty. That pair of eyes struck a special feeling in the demonic spirit, it was like when he was chased by an imp when he was young, where he eventually escaped to the peak of a mountain. At that time, there was a storm happening, so he crawled into a hole and held his breath, thus only hearing the rumble of thunder.


    The thunder prated the soil directly into his ears, sending shudders into his heart.


    Saleen was only gently ncing at Erbai, yet it caused him to feel like he had returned to that day when he was hiding in a hole. Saleen was akin to the ferocious lightning in the sky.


    Saleenughed, then said, ¡°If you are going toin about Cuisi andpany, save your breath. If you do not have any special abilities, I can only keep you from being eaten by them.¡±


    The demonic spirit was spared because Cuisi andpany wanted an avenue to vent their anger. If they got tortured by Nailisi, they would still have a ce to vent their fury. Saleen knew about this, but he did not want to settle the problem for the demonic spirit.


    The demonic spirit was not human, no matter how tough his life was, it was none of Saleen¡¯s business. The demonic spirit¡¯s power could not even pose a threat to Saleen at all. With this demonic spirit around, Cuisi andpany were obviously happier than before.


    Seeing that this human mage was so intelligent, the demonic spirit had dismissed the notion of tricking Saleen. He only said, ¡°Sir, my vision is very powerful. With some simple training, creatures of my race make proficient archers.¡±


    ¡°Archer?¡± Saleen maintained his smile, as he thought to himself, ¡°With an elf like Eleanor around, you are nothing.¡±


    ¡°Sir! My memory is very good, my sense of direction is very strong. Without a horse, I can still run for several days without resting. I am the best choice to be your scout!¡± The demonic spirit exined to Saleen in a song-like rhythm.


    ¡°Do you have a deep understanding about the demonic ne?¡± Even though Saleen had long wanted the demonic spirit to be a scout, he did not agree immediately. Before Nailisi summoned more demonic creatures, he did not want this demonic spirit to cken. A position attained through hard work would appear more precious.


    Saleen only made a passing remark. Unexpectedly, the demonic spirit Erbai immediately said, ¡°Of course, even Master Nailisi will not know more than me. I was originally an isted piece of trash in the demonic ne, but a devil valued me, so I became a servant. Even though I was only in charge of cleaning, I had heard many secrets about the world of magic in the devil¡¯s pce. I have learned the demonguage, Sir, I can learn magic!¡±


    Erbai answered in one go, then looked at Saleen. Saleen also looked at him, then with a thud, Erbai suddenly knelt before Saleen, pleading, ¡°I beg Sir not to allow Cuisi and the rest to continue hitting me, I am willing to give everything to Sir. Yes, a demon may not be loyal, but a demon also has a heart, I will be grateful to Sir forever!¡±


    Sika was actually pretending to be asleep, but when she heard the mushy confession by this demonic spirit, she could not help but cackle.


    ¡°It¡¯s only a beating and you cannot take it? What if you fall into the enemy¡¯s hands, are you going to reveal everything about me?¡± Saleen was notughing, he actually became frosty.


    While crying and sniffing, Erbai replied, ¡°Sir, Tolesi is a¡­ soul demon!¡±


    ¡°Are you afraid of him?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I am deathly afraid of him!¡± The demonic spirit was not embarrassed, he answered honestly.


    ¡°Seems like you aren¡¯t afraid of me, you dare to spread rumors about them in front of me.¡± Saleen stared by Erbai with a partial smile, thinking to himself, ¡°A devil¡¯s subordinate should have a devil¡¯s imprint on them I guess. Since he is so fearful of Tolesi, it means that Tolesi is of a high value. Even a devil¡¯s imprint cannot stop Tolesi¡¯s soulish attacks, seems like Nailisi has summoned only talents for me!¡±


    ¡°Sir, of course I am afraid of you. Sir isn¡¯t a demon though, you are reasonable. By pleading with you, I still have a chance of staying alive.¡±


    ¡°Staying alive? Cuisi andpany do not n to kill you.¡±


    ¡°Sir, if I disclose the devil¡¯s secrets by ident, I will die at once!¡± Erbai had begun wailing.


    ¡°Oh? You were just saying that you will present everything to me, does it mean that the devil will spare you if you tell me his secrets?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sir, please remove the devil¡¯s imprint from me!¡± The demonic spirit Erbai prostrated on the ground furiously. Luckily, creatures from the demonic ne had the toughest skulls, and he was not seen bleeding.

 Chapter 561: Devil’s imprint (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 561: Devil¡¯s imprint (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Ha ha, I don¡¯t know how to remove a devil¡¯s imprint though.¡± Saleen rejected the demonic spirit¡¯s request.


    ¡°Sir, the devil has hundreds of thousands of subordinates like me, if any of the imprints disappear, the devil will just think that I have died. I¡­¡± At this point, the demonic spirit suddenly stopped talking, it was obvious that his words were going to expose some of the devil¡¯s secrets.


    ¡°You said that you helped the devil clean his pce, so what do you know?¡± Saleen snorted, he was starting to get impatient with the demonic spirit¡¯s actions.


    The demonic spirit¡¯s eyes were bloodshot, he really wanted to spill the beans, but he did not dare do so. Saleen pped the demonic spirit¡¯s forehead, his left hand producing a green glow as this radiance seeped into the demonic spirit¡¯s brain.


    It was a contractual symbol!


    Saleen was a little disappointed. In the demonic spirit¡¯s brain, there was only one demonic contractual symbol which contained the devil¡¯s imprint. This imprint was not considered very powerful, but if Saleen did not possess divine power, it could not be broken unless his magic had attained the standard of level-10.


    In an instant, the Power of Life in Saleen¡¯s left hand melted the imprint left behind by the devil, then it transformed the imprint and absorbed it. It was not because Saleen was mightier than a devil, but because this demonic spirit held a lowly position among the devil¡¯sckeys. The devil could not be bothered to use any powerful abilities.


    After removing the devil¡¯s imprint, Saleen did not retract his hand. The green radiance continued searching the demonic spirit¡¯s body, and it found the demonic spirit¡¯s soul after a short while. If Saleen was the goddess¡¯ believer, he could control the demonic spirit¡¯s soul withouting into contact with the demonic spirit¡¯s physical body.


    Twenty-four holy words were etched into him in a sh, and then Saleen withdrew his hand with a smile. A god¡¯s skill was indeed very mystical, especially against a soul.


    Even though a devil carried a holy character with them, they could not even be considered as demigods. The technique executed by Saleen was a secret skill which simted one of the many divine powers the goddess had.


    The demonic spirit only felt a moment of pain before everything reverted to normal. He had been controlled by a devil before, so he knew what Saleen did. Smiling bitterly, the demonic spirit got up from the ground, then said gingerly, ¡°Sir, I have gotten some perks, can I rest first?¡±


    Saleen nodded his head. He had controlled the demonic spirit by simting a divine spell, however, some Power of Life was depleted in the process. This bit of divinity-infused Power of Life would also be absorbed by the demonic spirit. Once Erbai absorbed this power, he would never be able to break free from Saleen¡¯s control. Despite not being a believer, the demonic spirit would also carry some divinity after absorbing the goddess¡¯ Power of Life. The mental strength, soul power, and vitality of the demonic spirit would be amplified. Those were his perks.


    ¡°Gods are really evil!¡± Saleen was astounded after sensing the rewards reaped from contributing such a small bit of divine power.


    The demonic spirit had gotten some benefits, and so did Saleen. Saleen had left an imprint in the demonic spirit not only for controlling him, he also wanted to do an experiment. The strength of this demonic spirit was measly, Saleen did not value it at all. The soul of the demonic spirit had been diluted by Saleen¡¯s divine power, then Saleen absorbed a little bit of it. This bit of soul could not be reced by divine power. The divine power Saleen desired would be slowly provided by the leaves of the Tree of Life, and this tree might never wither. The speed of growth of soul power was even tardier, it could not be boosted by medicines.


    Nevertheless, a mere imprint had allowed Saleen to collect a tiny share of the demonic spirit¡¯s soul.


    Saleen was very clear that magic would begin to be rted to one¡¯s soul after reaching above level-7. Mental strength could not be developed infinitely unless one¡¯s soul was extremely powerful. The diluted portion of the demonic spirit¡¯s soul had been converted into pure soul power, then it was absorbed by Saleen. As a result, the growth of Saleen¡¯s soul was instantaneous.


    Such an intense method of boosting one¡¯s soul required the target to be agreeable in order to work. The soul power would be impure otherwise, the adverse impacts from the absorbing it would be too great.


    ¡°But, a god can slowly amass souls. I guess the Lord of Glory should have one-hundred, if not eighty to ny million believers on this ne right now. As long as all these people enter into a deal with the god, it will be akin to them sacrificing their own soul power. If each prayer came true, then the god would receive a present. What¡¯s more pathetic is that the believers of the Lord of Glory are going to enter paradise after death. Their souls will enter a space constructed by the god, so it will mean that they will gift themselves to the god. Damn it, a soul is an essentialponent of life. If all the soul power on a ne is absorbed by a god, then that ne will cease to have life in the future. The Goddess of Nature wasn¡¯t willing to use this method to recruit believers because the humans and she were creatures from this ne. If this ne was destroyed, then the goddess will have to live in a lifeless world.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s line of thought became increasingly clear. He had vaguely gained some breakthrough in the areas he did not really understand in the past.


    ¡°If the Lord of Glory is allowed to gain more believers, the ne of Myers maind will eventually be a ce like the hell of god¡¯s punishment. No, the hell of god¡¯s punishment still contains some beings, I am afraid Myers maind will be totally ruined.¡±


    The more holy words Saleen learned, the more exposure he gained into the knowledge of gods, consequently, he became more guarded against the gods.


    ¡°Luckily I agreed to help resurrect the Goddess of Myers. As the god born on this ne, the Goddess of Myers will never allow the ne of the Myers maind to crumble. Perhaps this is also the reason why the Goddess of Myers helped the humans to do battle against the other gods. So it turns out that the main issue between the gods is also profit.¡±


    Saleen and the Goddess of Myers only shared a contractual rtionship, but after understanding the link between a god and their believers, he broke out in cold sweat. ¡°If I do not remove the religion of the Lord of Glory from this ne, it may not matter to me, but what about my descendants?¡±


    What sent chills down Saleen¡¯s spine was that the Goddess of Myers never allowed her own ne to be ruined, she would rather fall and prevent the other gods from descending upon her ne. In one-thousand years, the Lord of Glory could turn this ne into hell already.


    The perseverance of a god was not any lesser than that of humans.


    Saleen never expected himself to gain so much enlightenment from removing a devil¡¯s imprint. ¡°Seems like I have to work faster to exterminate the believers of the Lord of Glory.¡±


    It was deep into the night, the time when the magic beasts emerged. Incessant roars could be heard outside the camppound. Lex deployed some people to establish a firing point. They installed an alchemical crossbow, but they would not provoke those magic beasts. Nailisi had ordered the four demons to go out in pairs to ughter all the magic beasts who got close to the camp.


    The weather appeared to have be chillier, thick clouds had also gathered in the sky. The weather in this space, which was all along clear, had begun changing.


    Without the rotation of the four seasons, there would not be many different life forms. Following the signs of the birth of a god in this space, the weather in it had also started undergoing vigorous changes.


    ¡°Erbai,e over, tell me about things in the demonic ne.¡± When it was almost daybreak, Saleen opened his eyes and summoned the demonic spirit.


    After consuming the leaf of the Tree of Life which contained divine power, the demonic spirit had made progress. When he heard Saleen¡¯s call, he did not dare rest anymore. He came to Saleen¡¯s bed and began describing the things he had learned from the demonic ne.


    This Erbai was pretty lucky, he was about seventy years old, so he was still considered young and able amongst the demonic spirit race. The first thirty plus years of his life were spent on the run. The moment he was born, his mother had been eaten by magic bugs. During his journey of escape, Erbai had once fell into a crypt, then he devoured all the bug¡¯s eggs in it and developed rapidly.


    In most cases, when a demonic spirit had no family, they would be swiftly hunted by the demons or imps. Erbai had escaped from fatal threats time and again, and one day, he suddenly ran into a devil.


    This devil had just made an advancement, so he neededrge amounts of manpower, hence he captured Erbai to be hisborer. Erbai was very intelligent, he quickly learned demonguage and amassed vast knowledge. He became a stronger presence among the other demonic spirits. The most fortunate thing which happened to him was when he mastered a spell; the level-0 Cleaning spell.


    In the human world, a low grade magic disciple could already grasp a level-0 spell like this. If humans from ten-thousand years ago were present, it was likely that every single one of them could cast this spell easily. A demon was not talented in the aspect of magic practice, only those with special bloodlines or who were devils could learn magic. In fact, those inborn spells were not considered a big deal, they were even inferior to a demon¡¯s melee attacks.


    An example was Nailisi, who had taken the opportunity to obtain the ability of releasing scrolls. Even if she possessed an infinite number of scrolls, she could never defeat a grade-5 mage using magic.


    If Nailisi could travel as fast as a grade-5 mage, she would be able to tear them to shreds using just her hands and teeth.


    Since Erbai had grasped the demonguage swiftly and could cast the Cleaning spell, the devil was very satisfied with his performance, so the devil allowed him to enter the study room. Demons also possessednguage inheritance, but unlike humans, their study room was a warehouse stored with many ssics.


    When Erbai entered the study room, he was in charge of removing the dust in it. His job was very simple, so he would have some spare time every day, thus he could follow the devil and wait on him. For more than thirty years, Erbai had peeked at countless of demonic ssics and interacted frequently with a devil, hence he was privy to a number of the devil¡¯s secrets.


    As Erbai¡¯s power was mild, the devil did not mind that he knew so many forbidden secrets. Erbai¡¯s soul contained a devil¡¯s imprint, the devil could kill him anytime, and his soul would also bepletely dispersed.


    As Erbai followed the devil, he managed to survive. He would long been devoured given his original capabilities otherwise. He would never have lived for more than seventy years.


    Previously when numerous spatial passageways appeared in the Purgatory Desert, the other end of these passageways led to locations with unstable spaces. There were wars in the demonic ne as well. As that devil was newly promoted, the nearby devils deployed troops to invade his pce. In that intense battle, the space sunk into chaos, causing Erbai to be sucked into a spatial passageway and arrive on the Myers maind.


    ¡°Why are there wars in the demonic ne?¡± Saleen asked a seemingly unimportant question.


    Erbai answered earnestly, ¡°Because a demon has a long life and their survivability is too strong. If they do not fight, the whole ne would run out of space very shortly.¡±


    ¡°Did youe up with this?¡±


    ¡°No, the devil told me himself.¡± Erbai stood in front of Saleen respectfully, waiting for Saleen to continue asking more questions.


    ¡°So, how does a devil control his army?¡±

 Chapter 562: Glory Dimension (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 562: Glory Dimension (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was curious to know how the devil controlled his army. Although the demon dimension also hadnguage and words and even cities, generally it was still dested and uncivilized. Since they possessed so much power, demons had no interest in building fanciful cities. In the demon dimension, creatures that possessed the demon bloodline always ruled.


    Supreme demons, demons, imps, demonic spirits; these demon bloodlines would always have an overwhelming advantage over magic bugs and beasts.


    Since they were so strong and powerful, there was no need for fortresses. Armies did exist in the demon dimension, which made Saleen wonder what they were for. Mages did not have much records on this.


    ¡°My Lord¡­,¡± Erbai was very careful. Although he had signed a soul bond with Saleen, he still called him ¡®Lord¡¯ rather than ¡®Master¡¯. He learned this from the four demons. Nailisi was the only one who could call him ¡®Master¡¯. If he said ¡®Master¡¯ as well, that would be directly challenging Nailisi.


    ¡°I am the only one who can call him ¡®Master¡¯!¡± This was what Nailisi once said. She only had to say it once for the demons and demonic spirit to remember it by heart. Nailisi could be extremely vicious and that was something Erbai never doubted. If he were to vie with Nailisi for Saleen¡¯s favor, no bonds in this world would be able to save his life.


    ¡°My Lord, the Myers Maind dimension is rather stable, but inparison, the demon dimension is not. There are many unstable passageways between other dimensions and the demon dimension. Although these passageways do not usually appear for very long, it is long enough for big armies of more than one-hundred-thousand from other dimensions to pass through.¡±


    ¡°I see!¡±


    ¡°So, after every supreme demon advances into a devil, they will build a big city to secure the dimension¡¯s passageway. Battling with creatures from other dimensions is actually a good way to reduce the number of demons.¡± There was no tinge of sorrow when Erbai said these. For the past one-hundred-thousand years, things had always been this way for the demons.


    For a demonic spirit like him, the average lifespan was about one-hundred years. If there were no wars, he could easily live to three-hundred or five-hundred years old.


    ¡°A devil¡¯s ability is equivalent to that of a human golden grand swordmaster, or even stronger. Advancing into a devil will also allow it to use some false god techniques or cast some spells. Even if they were of the same grade, a human would not be a devil¡¯s match. They will stand a chance only if there are four to five of them against one devil. One devil can control twelve supreme demons as his generals. These twelve supreme demons are all grade-9 and have signed life bonds with the devil. Even if the devil was to lose its powers or even if it was on the brink of death, the supreme demon generals still will not betray it.¡±


    ¡°Life bond?!¡± Saleen felt incredulous. Life bonds were not as effective as ve bonds and there might even be some loopholes.


    ¡°Once a life bond is signed, the supreme demon will have a chance to advance into a devil.¡±


    ¡°You haven¡¯t told me how a devil controls his army.¡±


    ¡°The devil¡¯s city will contain a poption of about a million. All the inhabitants possess fighting abilities. The devil¡¯s twelve generals will control twelve demon armies and each army consist of thirty-six-thousand soldiers. Every army is like a gigantic family.¡±


    ¡°Family?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Under the devil¡¯s rule will be twelve armies so that is equivalent to twelve families. In the devil¡¯s city, the children of the demons do not meet with any idents unless they are on the battlefield. High-ranking officers in the army are all as strong as Cuisi. Once the supreme demons have had their fill, they can go about a month without eating again. The demon armies usually have an easy time in terms of logistics. We don¡¯t have many soldiers in support roles, at most we make the imps and demonic spirits do it¡­¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen thought to himself, ¡°This is no different from how humans always ask their ves to do the most dangerous things in a battle.¡±


    ¡°If there is an oue to the battle between devils, then it will stop there and then. If it is an invasion by other dimensions, the mages among the demons will order countless magic bugs into battle.¡±


    Saleen was a little disappointed upon hearing this. So, it turned out that the demon armies were maintained through blood ties. This was the same in human armies too. Many of the private armies of noble families were actually part of an extensive family tree as well. These soldiers were treated well and were also very loyal. Saleen did not have so many rtives, and even if he did, he had no intentions of acknowledging them.


    When he was still very young, those people took away all the family fortune that was left behind by his parents for him. To Sikenqinyans, blood ties were not always reliable. This demonic spirit definitely had his own ulterior motives for voluntarily signing a soul bond with Saleen.


    Saleen started, ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that you know the secrets of the devils?¡±


    ¡°Oh, so this fellow knows the secrets of the devils! Master, I am curious to know too. Please ask him to tell us quickly.¡± No one knew when Nailisi entered the barrack. The demonic spirit¡¯s back was facing the entrance so he had no clue at all. Nailisi¡¯s voice was not loud, yet Erbai was already trembling.


    ¡°Hmm, you have already signed the bond. Just speak quietly.¡± Saleen frowned. The demonic spirit put on a disy of immense fear towards Nailisi in front of him. He must have intentions other than pure fear.


    ¡°Master, Lex is worried so she asked her grand swordmaster to keep guard for the night. I might as well take a break.¡± Nailisi grinned and bypassed the demonic spirit to sit beside Saleen¡¯s bed.


    Erbai was flustered and dared not look at Nailisi. He only spoke with his head down, ¡°I wonder what my Lord would like to hear?¡±


    ¡°How would I know what secrets the devils may have that they doesn¡¯t want anyone revealing? Whichever you think it is, just say it.¡± Saleen squinted. He was not pleased with how the demonic spirit had performed so far. ¡°Still thinking of how to drive a wedge in the rtionship between Nailisi and I? Although it is very discreet, I already have a rtionship with him that is based on the soul bond. There is no way he can hide those changes in his emotions from me.¡±


    The demonic spirit bore hatred towards Nailisi. There was fear too, but not as much as he had acted it out to be. Saleen and Nailisi had already been bound by the soul bond for many years so his senses towards the soul were very sharp. If it was another mage that had just learned about soul bonds, he might not have been able to grasp it as deeply.


    The demonic spirit suddenly understood. He could sense the anger in Saleen¡¯s heart and knew that he had gone overboard with his acting. He knew that Saleen was not pleased with him now. If he could sense Saleen¡¯s emotion, naturally Saleen could also do the same.


    ¡°I know some of the devil¡¯s weaknesses, ns, and their tendencies in battle and formations¡­¡±


    ¡°ns? What ns?¡±


    ¡°The devils are seeking a stable dimension such as the Myers Maind dimension. They are looking for teleportation portals of at least thirty-thousand years old and have already found a few. They are trying to repair them.¡± The demonic spirit rambled on whatever came to mind. Whatever Saleen wanted to know, just let him ask. He dared not keep Saleen in suspense anymore.


    ¡°Oh? I am not interested in those,¡± Saleen replied indifferently. It would be extremely difficult for the devils toe to the Myers Maind dimension alone, what more the multiple armies of demons. Even if they did make it to the Maind dimension, they still had to go up against a strong opponent, the Holy See.


    To buildrge-scale dimensional teleportation portals that could reach the Myers Maind would probably require tens of years of preparation. Nailisi was already close to the level of a supreme demon, yet she could only summon four demons. The amount of energy required for a dimensional teleportation portal would be unimaginable and even a devil would have a hard time sustaining it. After spending so much effort teleporting his troops over, they would probably face the onught of the Holy See immediately. The Holy See would never be caught unaware by their advances.


    The body of a supreme demon was a treasure chest by itself. Kill a supreme demon and one would be able to help himself to the many materials that were of very high grade.


    ¡°Master, I think this fellow is spouting nonsense and is trying to deceive you. Let me question him for you.¡±


    Upon hearing Nailisi¡¯s threat, Erbai¡¯s hair all stood on end. He immediately shouted, ¡°My Lord, I know the devils¡¯ secret. They killed a God!¡±


    ¡°Killed a God? Humph, still trying to lie to Master!¡± Nailisi growled.


    ¡°Its true! All eighteen devils in the demon dimension were involved and they have even created a God¡¯s skin war drum out of it and armed millions of demons!¡± Erbai had no choice and hurriedly revealed everything he knew.


    ¡°A God¡¯s skin war drum?!¡± Saleen had been studying theology recently and countless anecdotes had mentioned about the uniqueness of this God¡¯s skin war drum, which left him with a deep impression. If the devils had created God¡¯s skin war drum, then they really must have killed a god.


    ¡°Say no more!¡± Nailisi stared at Erbai viciously while facing Saleen and pointed towards the outside. Saleen knew that Nailisi just did not want Lex to hear about what Erbai had just said about the demon dimension.


    During the war between humans and Gods, humans also refined a God¡¯s skin war drum. Countless creatures from various dimensions obeyed the beat of the drum, attacking and retreating as one. That was how humans managed to sessfully fight their way into several kingdoms of God plundered those unlucky Gods.


    Compared to the God¡¯s skin war drum, war puppets were like child¡¯s y. Even the metal titan was probably only worth one ten-thousand of a God¡¯s skin war drum.


    If the devils of the demon dimension had really refined such a thing, then the Myers Maind was in deep trouble. If one were to take the God¡¯s skin war drum for oneself, it would be like possessing the strength of a demi god and one would be able to increase the fighting abilities of every soldier multiple times.


    Tens of thousands of years ago, humans had arge group of grade-10 sorcerers. Combine that with a God¡¯s skin war drum and the total power was terrifying. ¡°Although the Holy See is certainly powerful, if I can get my hands on the God¡¯s skin war drum, there is no way I can be defeated. The Lord of Glory will not be able to descend onto this dimension.¡±


    ¡°Master, this matter¡­ we should discuss it with Teacher when we get back.¡± Nailisi was calmer than Saleen and he was shocked. ¡°That¡¯s right. Why am I already thinking about the power of the God¡¯s skin war drum? It is still in the demon dimension. Even if a devil brought it along, am I even a match for him?¡±


    That would be a strong foe that has surpassed grade-9 and was equivalent to Joey¡¯s standard. Even if it was slightly weaker, it would still be much stronger than an ordinary grade-9 sorcerer.


    ¡°A golden grand swordmaster that knew magic and could cast divine spells? Damn, I am too greedy.¡±


    ¡°You idiot¡­¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, my Lord, my name is Erbai.¡± The demonic spirit knelt in front of Nailisi, with his head on the ground.


    ¡°Whatever you have spoken to Master today, if you tell anyone else about it, I will kill you. I don¡¯t care if it was you or someone else who leaked it out. Do you understand?¡± Nailisi was no longer as cool she was earlier, but every word was firm.

 Chapter 563: Glory Dimension (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 563: Glory Dimension (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi took matters into her own hands and chided Erbai. Saleen only nodded his head in agreement with what Nailisi said.


    Erbai wanted to cry, but no tears woulde. Saleen said, ¡°J, Su, keep this a secret.¡±


    Eleanor recovered from her meditation. Saleen and her exchanged nces. Eleanor then said, ¡°If I were to leak this out, may I never receive my ancestors¡¯ acknowledgement and may my soul be buried in the seventh abyss!¡±


    Seeing how Eleanor made such a vow that was considered the most vicious thing that an elf could swear on, J immediately said, ¡°My Lord, if I were to leak out even half a word, may I turn into a woman!¡±


    Saleen smiled. J¡¯s vow was not a joke. Nailisi had the full capability to turn him into a woman and could even make him give birth. For a man as chauvinistic as him, this was even worse than going to hell.


    Su was stunned for a moment before saying, ¡°My Lord, I am willing to leave my n and be your most loyal bodyguard.¡±


    Saleen was stunned in return. Just as he was about to refuse his offer, Su already took out a half-sword and plunged it directly into his left arm. There was no blood, instead the wound split open and a small creature flew out. Without any hesitation, Su grabbed the creature in his hand and squashed it into a bloody mess.


    Once this was done, Su¡¯s wound was already patching up and blood finally flowed.


    Su¡¯s face was pale. He exined to Saleen, ¡°This is the soul-delivery beast of my n. If I die, it will teleport back to the holynd of my n with everything that has ever happened to me in my life. Nothing will be a secret at that point in time.¡±


    ¡°Why are you doing this?¡± Seeing how Su had destroyed his n¡¯s spiritual creature, Saleen knew that Su had no wish to turn back anymore. That spiritual creature was his only chance of going home. Now that he has ruined it with his own hands, there was no way he could go back to subcontinent ne, unless Saleen was able to reach grade-12.


    Su hesitated before saying, ¡°I want to be stronger. The subcontinent ne may seem like a dangerous ce, but it has actually already achieved bnce. On the other hand, the maind dimension, is also called the glory dimension. It is still growing. I must know there is no more turning back in order for me to break through my psychological barrier and really settle down here.¡±


    ¡°Glory dimension?¡±


    ¡°It is a saying of the subcontinent ne. The humans on the subcontinent ne supposedly came from Myers Maind in the beginning as well. ns with very long histories have all passed down all sorts of legends about the maind dimension. Although the humans in the maind dimension are weak, the dimension is still growing. It is the only one that is doing so. It is where humans originated from.¡±


    Su was incoherent, but Saleen understood most of it. The humans of the subcontinent ne no longer had any chance to advance, but the humans on the Myers Maind dimension were just about to wee the second era of glory. This was also predicted in the arcane literature. At that time when Saleen read it, he thought that humans just could not ept their failures and were looking for excuses. Now, it seemed that the Myers Maind had been simmering for a while now and the time for a breakthrough was about toe.


    If humans could get rid of the Lord of Glory¡¯s religion and stop any Gods from leeching off this dimension anymore, they might just have a chance of going back to those glory days.


    ¡°My Lord, the Myers Maind belongs to humans. No matter what, it must never¡­,¡± Su did not continue. A tint of strange colors shed across Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Were past glories so important to humans? Even a human from the subcontinent ne took pride in them.


    If the devils¡¯ armies were toe knocking on the doors of the Myers Maind, the strong humans would still find a way, but the average person would easily be the demons¡¯ food. Demons were just like any other creature; they feared the strong and preyed on the weak. To the demons, if you were weak, then it would not matter even if you were rted to the strong.


    The demons would find it easier to ept if only the strong ones were left instead. Long ago, the demon dimension was also a force to be reckoned with in the war between humans and Gods. Demons had been used to humans being strong, so if one was weak, the demons would not even treat you as a human.


    Simply said, the demons did not judge one by bloodline, but by abilities. Saleen was acknowledged and followed by the four demons only because he possessed the badge capable of killing a supreme demon and his formidable crystal finger. Without these abilities, Cuisi and the rest would have thought of ways and means to get out of the bond without any punishment. They might even have killed him off.


    Now, Cuisi and the rest were focused on how to help Saleen get stronger so that he could lead everyone to conquer this dimension.


    Saleen felt a bit helpless when he thought about the oue the demons were working towards. He was still too weak and he could only rely on his n¡¯s badge. Every time he used the badge, he would have to wait for another half a year before he was able to use it again. The amount of waiting time would have been longer if not for the Goddess¡¯ ne which contained twenty-four lightning dragon hatchlings that provided him with electrical energy.


    Neither demons nor humans of the subcontinent ne could forget the glories of the past.


    Saleen could never empathize because of his background. Even if he were to be a grand mage, deep down he was still the same orphan that had no one to depend on. Even the warmth that Jason had given to him had never changed that aspect of him.


    When a person¡¯s only goal was to survive, there was simply no room for ambitions nor for glory.


    Every day, there must be bread to eat. It had to be white bread and not the coarse ck bread. Maybe that was what Saleen once wanted. The other things that came after were never really what Saleen truly wanted from the bottom of this heart.


    ¡°A mage exists to gain insight into the truth of this world, but I became a mage just so I need not worry about my meals every day.¡± Within a few seconds, many images of the past shed across his mind.


    ¡°In the chaotic swamp, the swordmaster that begged me to bring the green dragon¡¯s magic nucleus back to Lex¡­Earl Cook, who wanted to set up Aini, died protecting the pce even if he was facing countless ck puppets¡­The silver grand swordmaster who rushed into the camp alone and died at the hands of Bain¡­Faerun who expended his entire life strength when facing Genesis¡­The wall paintings and stone tablets of Pompeii City¡­The grand door of Alchemy City¡­The raging supreme demon in Lorga City¡­Ismail, who never yielded¡­¡±


    A dark and hidden corner of Saleen¡¯s heart suddenly copsed and tears flowed uncontrobly. Although these people had died, they had all left behind their own unique marks on his heart that could never be erased.


    Those were the glories of pride and determination in the face of death.


    Time seemed to slow down and Saleen could clearly feel that the elements around his body had almost stopped moving and transforming. His senses had never been as clear as this moment. He used his hands to catch his tears and held them in his palm.


    The droplets of the tears suddenly burned and shot out from between the gaps of this fingers.


    Nailisi raised her head in shock and looked at Saleen. ¡°Master is advancing!¡±


    Based on the hard work that Saleen had put in and his deep understanding of water-element spells, he should have advanced into a grade-6 mage long ago. His heart was weak and was not able to see the truth of this world before though.


    Until today. What Su had said had finally shaken the core of his heart.


    All along, Saleen has never properly considered the issue of responsibility. Although he was always trying his hardest in all that he did and for the people around him, he did not have a true purpose nor direction. If given a choice, he might have followed Sika back to Caucasus and led a life in seclusion.


    ¡°The world is about to be even more chaotic. If I continue to be lost, how can I answer to the people who are following me? How can I answer to Sika?¡±


    The past glories of humans were always so far away and unattainable to Saleen. Only now did he realize how insignificant he was. Since he had always felt small, he had been hiding from thinking about the future.


    In the future that he imagined, teacher would always be supporting him from behind. This was the thing holding Saleen back from advancing.


    On the other hand, even though Su hasdheard about the huge armies that the devils were building and the God¡¯s skin war drum that they possessed, he still chose to stay behind in Myers Maind to realize his dream.


    J¡¯s eyes smiled for a split second. ¡°Saleen has finally taken another step forward. I don¡¯t need to leave anymore. How old is Saleen this year? Twenty? At this age, he is already a grade-6 mage. If Lex did not possess the God¡¯s ring, Saleen would have be the world¡¯s youngest sorcerer!¡±


    The magic chords in Saleen¡¯s body did not grow uncontrobly like how they did when he advanced in the past. Instead, they grew thinner and became transparent. The magic chords of a grade-6 mage could easily manipte the elements around one¡¯s body. Even if he did not undergo much practice, he would still be able to cast low-level spells easily without too much danger.


    There was a mysterious connection between the magic chords and the elements in space. Once the magic chords evolved again and grew out of his body, Saleen would be able to control the elements as he wished. By then, he would have be a sorcerer.


    Only sorcerers could cast spells while flying in mid-air because they would haveplete control over the elements. Low-level and middle-level mages had to depend on the synchronization between the magic chords in their body and the elements in space before being able to cast a spell. On the other hand, sorcerers used their magic chords to control the elements directly.


    In an instant, Saleen not only understood that he had advanced into a grade-6 mage, but also the path he would need to take in order to be a sorcerer.


    In the opposite barrack, Lex suddenly opened her eyes from meditation. She looked in Saleen¡¯s direction in disbelief. If her senses were urate, Saleen had advanced!


    ¡°Has he finally grown up?¡± Lex felt a mixture of disappointment and joy. She was disappointed that Saleen might be able to advance into a sorcerer much faster than her now that he was a grade-6 mage. She was also happy because her only friend was no longer lost.


    The threshold between grade-5 and grade-6 was without any shape or form and required the heart to be enlightened. Jason had not been able to advance at Sregl Ind so he traveled to maind and settled down in Ceylon City.


    After Jason understood the path he had to take, he returned to Sregl Ind. Not before long, he advanced continuously within less than ten years and became a sorcerer.


    Advancing from a grade-5 mage was all about understanding oneself and not about experience. Lex also advanced to grade-6 soon after her heart was shaken by Faerun¡¯s death.


    Back in Saleen¡¯s barrack, even Eleanor had climbed down from the bed and joined the others in surrounding Saleen. Everyone was protecting Saleen because aplicated magic symbol had materialized in front of his eyes. This symbol was gold in color and was incredibly clear. In the instant that Saleen advanced, his eye of lightning also achieved a breakthrough. He could barely feel a thing now as he was immersed in this unique spell.

 Chapter 564: Metatrin City’s teleportation portal (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 564: Metatrin City¡¯s teleportation portal (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The eye of lightning did not possess any offensive ability at the moment, but it was simr to Nailisi¡¯s lightning guardian, they could both decode many spells. Saleen¡¯s eye of lightning did not carry out passive decoding like Nailisi¡¯s skill. If Saleen cultivated it sessfully, it could execute long range decoding. This was the strongest aspect of the eye of lightning.


    Despite not having any offensive power, it would also render the enemy¡¯s mages useless.


    When Saleen was still at grade-5, the eye of lightning would cause temporary blindness after usage. Saleen himself was also looking forward to find out the oue after advancing the eye of lightning¡¯s level.


    With regards to being unable to use the power of lightning for offense, Saleen was still bothered by it. He had already grasped the magic patterns found on the surface of the lightning dragons, but he could not release electric currents like the lightning dragons.


    When a grade-6 mage practiced special magic, they would seek refuge in their own magical tower to avoid getting ambushed. Everyone knew about this principle, so they stood guard beside Saleen, waiting for him to wake up.


    No one knew what spell Saleen had invented, but this spell appeared very exquisite. Golden light would beunched from the eyes, but were there spells which were released from the eyes? It seemed like some wurms could use their eyes to shoot fossilizing rays, but these rays had a gray hue. Saleen¡¯s eyes shot out golden beams.


    Saleen had realized what happened. He had converted the magic patterns on a lightning dragon¡¯s body into a magic symbol. This magic symbol was invented by him, but it was notplete yet. In order to expound this magic symbol, other magic symbols were needed to supplement it. When Saleen got promoted, he had only refined the training guidelines, there were still many details yet to be ironed out.


    Even so, the power contained in Saleen¡¯s magic symbol at the moment was still hundreds of time mightier than before.


    Saleen gradually retracted the golden light shot out from his eyes and the magic symbol also disappeared into thin air. By the time this round of research waspleted, the sun had risen. Lex¡¯s men were making fire to prepare breakfast.


    The moment the sun rose those pesky magic beasts had also retreated. The demons and ck Metal Grand Swordmasters who kept watch overnight seized this opportunity to rest, as the team was going to begin its journey at noon. Lex¡¯s camp and barracks were constructed beforehand, there was arge amount of metal materials. The mainponents could only be moved by a puppet or grand swordmaster and these things had to be connected together.


    For each journey or time setting up camp, they had to expend at least half an hour. Such a barrack had been specially prepared by Lex for this expedition. Had she used a normal barrack it would have been destroyed by the magic beasts already.


    Saleen was not tired. After advancing, his mental strength had increased exponentially. Saleen was sure that his mental strength would undergo qualitative changes once he became a sorcerer. By then a mage could thene into contact with knowledge about the soul. When Saleen exited his barracks he noticed that Lex was building a type of puppet he had never seen before.


    This puppet was four meters tall. Its materials were simple, but it had aplicated structure. The body of the puppet was an exterior shell made from countless metal strands woven together. The material of the metal strands was average, it was made by fusing copper with some light metals. It was definitely weaker than steel strands. The problem was that copper was more expensive than steel, but it was much easier to refine than steel.


    The four yard tall puppet had four arms and at the end of each arm was a rarely seen palm and four fingers with a weapon affixed onto them. This weapon was a knife wheel, usually only seen inside the illustrated handbook.


    The knife wheel had a triangr shape and when it was spun furiously it would turn into a razor sharp circr weapon. This object was designed to be used by a puppet. It was not only heavy, the user could also injure themselves easily. The lower body of the puppet had the structure of a horse, there were four legs and a tail.


    Ever since Saleen advanced to a grade-6 mage, his thoughts had be more agile while his observation ability had been strengthened dozens of times over. At one nce, he could decipher the function of this puppet.


    While running at high speed those four arms could wield four knife wheels. This weapon was the best when one was surrounded. This puppet could attack in all four directions. By defending the sides it could thus lessen the pressure a mage would face.


    ¡°Why?¡± Saleen inquired. The survivability of such a puppet was not strong, but it consumed many magic nuclei. It was less valuable than a fully constructed puppet. It must be noted that a Silver Grand Swordmaster could not even destroy a fully constructed puppet and it could still recover from its injuries. This four-armed puppet with a horse body could basically be sliced into two by a grand swordmaster, not to mention the difficulty involved in controlling it.


    Lex did not stop working either, she continued assembling a second puppet. At the same time, she told Saleen, ¡°Saleen, our harvests are huge this time around, we cannot be stingy. If only I had brought along more puppets, then¡­¡± Lex got a little depressed at that thought. The loss of two grade-5 mages had caused her to be heartbroken.


    She could do nothing, it was impossible to revive the dead. When she returned, besides cating the families of those two grand mages, she also had to seek suitable sessors and spend huge sums of money to groom them.


    This was the method members of the Grukos imperial family used to retain mages. This did not apply only to the mages, Lex¡¯s swordsmen were also treated in the same manner. Bain¡¯s daughter was already more than ten years old and was learning magic in the Bitter Water Prefecture at the moment. Bain was not a noble, he did not havends to groom a mage. His daughter¡¯s future would have to depend on Lex.


    Lex was very generous. Lex had given that Green Dragon Magic Nucleus, which Saleen gave to her previously, to Bain¡¯s daughter. Even though the Green Dragon was of a low grade and could not produce a dragonshard, its magic nucleus would not be fully depleted easily either. At least before Bain¡¯s daughter became a sorcerer, the supply of magic nuclei would not be a problem for her anymore.


    Saleen felt a little awkward when he heard that. He was not present at that point in time, so he did not have any solutions either. Since those two grade-5 mages were not willing to bring along any swordsmen, it was more unlikely for them to bring along a demon up the mountain. In Saleen¡¯s team, only J had a good rtionship with Lex¡¯s mages. Saleen had instructed J and Su to protect Eleanor, so J would not disobey Saleen¡¯s order to protect Lex¡¯s mages.


    When those two mages prepared to ascend the mountain, their fates were already sealed.


    ¡°I still have thirty-six skeletal warhorses,¡± Saleen told Lex. He was reminding Lex that they had left for more than six months now. Of the skeletal warhorses Saleen brought along he was now left with one Green Spirit worth of reserves only. Saleen was not a death mage. The moment a skeletal warhorse was taken out, their Soul me would be depleted, causing them to weaken over time.


    If an elemental mage controlled a spirit it would be extremely exhausting for them. It was akin to a magic disciple casting a level-1 spell. An elemental mage could only help a spirit maintain a small portion of their abilities. If Danielmanded these skeletal warhorses, the warhorses could not only run faster, they could still aid the rider in battle.


    From the Purgatory Desert to Metatrin City the distance was estimated to be about twenty to thirty thousand miles. With only thirty-six skeletal warhorses it would be impossible for them tost until they reached the city.


    ¡°We only have to exit the desert, Metatrin City will have built a teleportation portal by now. We will use it to get back,¡± Lex proimed confidently.


    The elements in the Purgatory Desert were not stable. It did not mean that a teleportation portal could not be established there, but it would be very dangerous as the portal could copse anytime. Even if there were precise coordinates transmission errors might ur.


    ¡°The¡­¡± Metatrin City had been building a teleportation portal a long time ago. At that point in time Saleen had too little manpower and insufficient materials, so he could not develop it sessfully. Lex had led a huge influx of mages to Metatrin City though. Since Saleen had left for almost a year, it would be strange if Metatrin City still had notpleted the teleportation portal.


    Lex smiled beautifully disying a mischievous demeanor in that rare moment.


    ¡°Saleen, will you also contribute something to this teleportation portal?¡±


    ¡°That goes without saying.¡± Saleen replied casually. Lex had contributed most of the materials for building Metatrin City¡¯s teleportation portal. Once it was constructed, it could not be demolished. It would be a permanent logo of Metatrin City in the future.


    The operation of a teleportation portal was extremely taxing on magic nuclei. For distances above twenty-thousand miles, high level magic nuclei had to be used. If it was not for the substantial loot from the goddess¡¯ temple, Saleen could never bear to use the teleportation portal after it got built.


    ¡°I have twenty-one men on my side while you have eleven. That means there is a total of thirty-two people. This teleportation portal can only transport four people at any one time, it is already very economical for it to use six level-8 magic nuclei each time. How many of the sixty-four level-8 magic nuclei do you intend to contribute?¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly, then said, ¡°I will provide all of it, okay?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s more like it.¡± Lex burst out inughter. Previously, when Lex¡¯s teacher tried to save her, he constructed a nar teleportation portal. That attempt almost consumed her entire warehouse of magic nuclei. This round of rewards had finally shored up her reserves. ¡°That damned Safilos has dominated the national treasury. I didn¡¯t listen to Father in the past, it was a mistake to take away the pce¡¯s inventory.¡±


    Saleen did not care about these magic nuclei, as he knew that Lex was a little displeased with him being so calctive. That could not be helped though. Saleen had a group of people to take care of, so he could not be too generous. This time around, with the exception of the seeds of the divine trees, Saleen had obtained three-fifth of the loot from the goddess¡¯ temple while Lex took two-fifths. It was all thanks to Lex that they could be teleported back this time round. Lex should not have to contribute any magic nuclei because of that.


    Lex was not having it easy either. She had assembled more than twenty puppets and released the remaining war puppets. With her ensemble of puppets and Saleen¡¯s fully constructed puppets, they could basically breakout of the magic beasts¡¯ siege already. This operation required the depletion of huge quantities of magic nuclei. Lex currently possessed three swordsman¡¯s camps. Two were in the Bitter Water Prefecture while one was in Metatrin City. These three camps were all elites and they consumed a substantial quantity of magic nuclei every day because they had been allocated with a huge number of mage toons.


    ¡°Lex, don¡¯t worry too much, the Frozen Sea has many intermediate grade magic beasts. They are easier to deal with aspared to the ones onnd. I will provide the army¡¯s magic nuclei, you can help me train a batch of warriors like yours. Metatrin City will be sufficient with a fifty-thousand man army.¡±


    Since Lex had ten-thousand elites in Metatrin City, Saleen meant to say that he wanted Lex to train another fifty-thousand elite soldiers.


    These fifty-thousand elites were only the beginning, if Saleen and Lex wanted to dominate the world, fifty-thousand soldiers would not be adequate. Myers maind was simply toorge, the four big empires had territory which spanned for more than ten-thousand miles. Due to the tense situation, almost ten-thousand miniature fortresses had been constructed in Qin alone. These miniature fortresses contained two-hundred soldiers each. Even if Saleen had fifty-thousand men, he would not even be able to make a noticeable impact.

 Chapter 565: Metatrin City’s teleportation portal (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 565: Metatrin City¡¯s teleportation portal (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    If Lex did not lose two grade-5 mages, her mood would not have been so foul. Now that she had a stable source of magic nuclei and the Metatrin City was developed well, she would be able to enter the hell of the God¡¯s Punishment as long as the mages from the Sregl Ind arrived and set up a teleportation portal. Her teacher would definitely be the first batch of mages to enter that ce. In a year or two, her teacher could advance to a grade-9 sorcerer, prolonging his life to more than twelve-hundred years. If there were no idents, he could live for at least another seven-hundred or eight-hundred years.


    ¡°I will gather all my grade-6 mages and quickly promote them to grade-7 sorcerers. Very soon, they will also have the right to enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space. With arge number of grade-9 sorcerers as backup, the mission of destroying the Holy See would be usible already.¡±


    Saleen needed sixty-four level-8 magic nucleuses, but he only had a dozen segmented ones on hand at the moment. Luckily, Nailisi was a demon with teeth which could segment magic nuclei, so this task actually became very easy.


    After putting everything away, Lex¡¯s and Saleen¡¯s team began the journey. As expected, there was arge number of magic beasts in the ins up ahead obstructing their way. Fortunately, these magic beasts were not under the control of a god yet, they had not formed a horde. Nevertheless, the number of magic beasts present was horrifying. More than a thousand magic wolves creeped up from behind, while there were many more swarms of magic beasts up ahead.


    Luckily Lex and Saleen were in the goddess¡¯ space, so certain rules were simr to the ones in the outside world. Since the magic beasts appeared in huge numbers, it meant that their individual power wouldn¡¯t be too strong. The mightiest magic wolf would not exceed grade-5, while those anonymous magic beasts never reached grade-7. Moreover, whenever a magic beast died, the other magic beasts in the vicinity would vie for their corpses.


    Saleen did not take out the magic war chariots. All the mages rode on the skeletal warhorses, sprinting across thend desperately.


    Magic beasts were aplenty on the mountains and the ins, but only a few hundred of them could get close to Saleen and Lex.


    Sika and Wild Bear led the team. As Sika was riding atop her magic beast skeleton and charging forward, even a grade-5 magic beast would be killed when her skeleton rammed into it. As long as there were no grade-7 magic beasts, Sika did not even need to take any action. Furthermore, that magic beast skeleton gave off an air of dominance, and with the herding ability of a Caucasus priest, only a few magic beasts stood in Sika¡¯s way.


    Wild Bear wielded his gigantic poleaxe, helping Sika to ughter those outliers. Since the team also had a strong assassin like Bain guarding the rear, they were traveling at a speed of more than forty miles an hour. Both sides of the team were nked by the four-legged puppets, and these puppets had absorbed all the magic attacks by the magic beasts. Within three days, after sacrificing all her low grade puppets, Lex led the team to a river.


    In most situations, Lex would require at least a fullyposed swordsman¡¯s camp to prate a herd of magic beasts. Including the depletion of magic nucleuses, the consumption by those puppets would expend at least a million gold coins if all their materials were purchased from the market and not made by Lex.


    Most of the puppets were captured by the magic beasts, Lex could not even recover their metal materials.


    At the riverside, everyone knew that they had to rely on Saleen. The original n was to use the branches of the divine trees to craft a boat, they would have surely made it across. However, Saleen didn¡¯t have so much time, he simply casted a spell and transported everyone over. From the shore to the far bank, there was not even one magic beast at all.


    Saleen was thest to cross the river. Observing such a situation, he got a little frustrated. There were no magic beasts here because the magic beasts in the goddess¡¯ space only appeared due to the influence of the gods who had not been born yet, these creatures were not the creations of the goddess. The lives produced by the new gods couldn¡¯t cross the River of Nothingness, so they were temporarily trapped in this space.


    Tourmaline, who had sleeping on Saleen¡¯s shoulder, opened its eye at this moment. As Tourmaline looked at the river behind, it appeared a little reluctant. Saleen took it down from his shoulder, and then embraced it. Tourmaline shrieked for a while before giving up, then it continued sleeping in Saleen¡¯s pocket.


    Tourmaline could enter the goddess¡¯ ne too, but the Lightning Dragons had upied the space inside. As Tourmaline was still too weak, it might be devoured by the Lightning Dragons after entering the ne.


    Without any disturbances from any magic beast, everyone decided to rest beside the river to fully recharge themselves. Thereafter, they would continue the journey, striding towards the gates of this space.


    As the goddess¡¯ envoys had left and the magic beasts hadn¡¯t grown up yet, Saleen and the rest had an easy life. The expedition this time round was the smoothest one ever since Saleen became a mage. If he wanted to enter this temple in the future, there would be much trouble. The magic beasts in the temple would continue to evolve, deriving new races, before finally dominating the entire space.


    By then, there would definitely be grade-9 magic beasts, the intelligence of these creatures would also be greatly increased. In order for the temple to amodate humans and allow the believers to upy this space, all the gods born in this space would have to be extirpated.


    This matter should be aplished early. If Saleen waited for a few hundred years, all the gods might have been awakened already. After a god was birthed, they would usually hibernate for some time. This period was very brief, measuring about one-hundred years. Saleen had to exterminate all of them before they awaken, otherwise he would have to face a group of beings who possessed the abilities of a demigod.


    If Saleen waited for one-thousand years, these gods would possessplete divine powers. By then, Saleen could only dream of killing them already.


    Even though he knew the progression of things, Saleen still had to act systematically. The moment the team reached the exit of the temple, everyone felt relieved. The Purgatory Desert might be dangerous, but as long as they avoided the sandstorms, they could still exit it swiftly by utilizing the advantage of their equipment.


    Outside the Purgatory Desert, the army from the Holy See awaiting Lex¡¯s return had long been withdrawn. There was no information for six months, so everyone thought that Lex had died in the desert. Such a thought was very normal as no one knew that Lex had brought along a vast amount of resources. On this expedition, the amount of materials depleted by Lex and Saleen was sufficient to form a one-hundred-thousand man army already.


    If it was not for that small error which resulted in the deaths of two grade-5 mages, Lex would have created a miracle.


    Of course, the creation of this miracle was not totally unrted to the escape of the Dark Sky Devil and the goddess¡¯ envoys leaving the temple. If Lex ran into the Dark Sky Devil, she would have no choice but to use the God¡¯s Ring to flee. It would be hard to say how many people she could escape with, not to mention entering the temple and facing the two envoys.


    The team managed to avoid a dozen sandstorms before finally making it out of the desert with much difficulty. They then arrived at the eastern region of the Purgatory Desert, a canyon-shaped exit. This was the border shared by Lon and Titan Duchy. Actually, there were more than four-thousand soldiers from the inquisition, however, the Holy See had deployed all the main forces to Qin¡¯s borders due to the copse of Lon.


    Only about a hundred of the Holy See¡¯s knights were stationed at the canyon-shaped exit, there wasn¡¯t even a holy master around.


    Lex andpany charged out of the canyon, and in less than half an hour, they had ughtered all these knights. Lex¡¯s horse carried on sprinting, dashing for more than one-hundred miles. After finally exiting the region of the Purgatory Desert, she immediately built a teleportation portal.


    This group of thirty-two people required the portal to be used eight times, it was not possible to build a one-time teleportation portal. This teleportation portal could not be left behind either, otherwise people from the Holy See could use it to infiltrate Metatrin City.


    After using this teleportation portal, they still had to destroy it. It was really prodigal, but there was no other way. One could not assign people to watch over a teleportation portal twenty-four hours a day, thus a teleportation portal was never built between two cities belonging to different nations, even if this portal could only transport one person.


    During wartime, a one-man magic array could lead to massive trouble too. Just take Bain for example, if an assassin like him had entered the enemy¡¯s city to kill themanders, even a grade-8 sorcerer would find it hard to capture him.


    In order to ensure the safety of a city, one had to fulfill two criterions. Firstly, the coordinates of their teleportation portal could not be leaked. Secondly, one should never build a teleportation portal between two cities.


    If the coordinates got exposed, and the enemy possessed powerful mages, the enemy would be able to identify the loopholes and create a special portal, then they would try various means to send their experts into the city. This was much simpler than using flying magic to get over the city walls. No expert could ever fly over the Holy Rock City¡¯s city walls, not even a grade-9 sorcerer.


    The production of a restricted airspace wasn¡¯t difficult at all, it consumed more resources, but it was the nightmare for every person who could fly. As a result, in most invasions, mages weren¡¯t willing to fly above the enemy¡¯s city to mount an offensive. If they reached a high altitude and lost their flying ability, they would fall to their deaths. If they flew too low, they would be shot by the heavy alchemical crossbows, even a grade-9 sorcerer would be vexed.


    Hence, the most reliable method to invade a city would be to use the normal soldiers to scale the walls, while the mages who could fly would strike fear into the enemy from afar. When the enemy activated a restricted airspace, it was detrimental to one¡¯s own defenses too. Only lifeless things could fly in the skies above both parties, like a flying puppet. Or a magic beast who used its own flesh to fly.


    In this case, a magic beast had to have wings, its flying ability could not be dependent on the control of elements.


    A teleportation portal with over fifty yards in diameter was established. Thousands of magic lines were carved into this colossal portal, this figure was equivalent to that after connecting dozens of magic arrays together. At the same time, a miniature magic array was built. This magic array couldn¡¯t transport life, it could only transport small items.


    Lex contacted Metatrin City, obtaining the urate coordinates of the teleportation portal. In a day, therge teleportation portal was then fully built. At this moment, Saleen then realized that he had to deplete an extra thirty over intermediate level magic nucleuses atop of the eight high level magic nucleuses for each trip in order to ensure the stability of the portal,.


    Previously, Viscount Gugger had used magic nucleuses to bribe Saleen, he had only given Saleen five-thousand gold coins and ten level-3 magic nucleuses. However, this time round, the value of magic nucleuses Saleen would deplete could no longer be calcted in terms of gold coins anymore.


    The first few people to be sent back were Sika, Eleanor and the two Silver Grand Swordmasters. This team was very powerful. Even if there were any unforeseen circumstances on the other side of the portal, the four of them would be able to hold the fort for a while given their abilities.


    After experiencing a moment of dizziness, Sika had appeared in arge teleportation portal in Metatrin City. The magic light had not been dispersed yet, the four of them were definitely safe. They were in a sealed hall, where soldiers were standing guard all around the teleportation portal. There were also several metal houses in the hall, each of them had a fully metal structure with a few holes for shooting. If the people inside wanted to leave, they would have to walk through an underground passageway.


    ¡°Daniel, you are looking great!¡± Sika waited for the vibrations from the magic array to ceasepletely before walking towards Daniel, who was standing outside the magic array. Daniel looked refreshed and his face was flushed, he did not even look like a death mage at all. He was extremely exhrated that Saleen was going to return. He had stopped everything he was doing and led his most trusted soldiers to wee Saleen personally.


    The Daniel of today controlled thousands of soldiers, the mages from the Sreeger Ind were also under his purview. Throughout this one year of cultivation, his demeanor had transformed into that of an important figure already.

 Chapter 566: Expansion of Power (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 566: Expansion of Power (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Only four people could go through the teleportation portal in one go. The next teleportation could only begin after the elements between the dimensions had stabilized, which would take about three minutes. Sika and the rest were already armed and wearing masks. The soldiers waited outside of the portal anxiously.


    Daniel could tell it was Sika¡¯s voice, but still dared not let down his guard. He took a step back and prepared to strike if necessary.


    Sika was amused, but chose not to scare Daniel anyway. She walked out of the portal and told Daniel, ¡°I am Sika, where are my people? Why don¡¯t I see them?¡± Sika was pushing up the mask on her armor as she spoke.


    Daniel breathed a sigh of relief after seeing Sika¡¯s face. Sika did not look like she had been taken hostage. He pointed at the door and said, ¡°Your people are all outside.¡±


    Sika nodded and walked out of the door, only to see hundreds of Caucasus people. There was a team of wolf riders that were guarding the door, never taking their eyes off it. Once Sika stepped out, all the Caucasus people cheered.


    Su walked out of the door with Sika. More than ten sturdy-looking men walked towards Sika and were screaming crazily at the same time. His hand instinctively reached towards the half-sword on his waist.


    J grabbed Su, meaning that he should not do anything. By then, Sika was already a distance away while being surrounded by the Caucasus people.


    ¡°Sika!¡± J called out.


    From far away, Sika turned her head back and said, ¡°I am going to South Court. Help me tell Saleen that I will be back tonight!¡± With that, Sika jumped onto a magic wolf and rode off with the other Caucasus people and vanished with a turn.


    Su was stunned. Sika rode off like a hero and it was breathtaking. J tapped his shoulder and said, ¡°Don¡¯t look anymore. Sika is the leader of the Caucasus people.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Su rxed. He looked in the direction where the troops had disappeared to, not exactly sure what he was thinking.


    On the other hand, Eleanor was captured by the sights and sounds of Metatrin City. Although the designs of the buildings on both sides of the streets were not as exquisite as those in the elf dimension, there were no other human cities that could match their magnificence. The style of this city was simple yet very new.


    This young city was immersed in a sea of green and Eleanor was pleased. The ancient trees were tall and strong and full of life. Some of these trees might already be a few thousand years old. Eleanor saw a treehouse just behind a short parapet.


    What a beautiful treehouse! It was built with materials from a dead ancient tree, and yet there were fresh leaves and the beginnings of new branches growing from the ancient tree¡¯s dried branches. This was how the elves would have decorated. Although the magic patterns on the treehouse were not elvish magic, they still caught Eleanor¡¯s attention.


    This city was full of elf like elements!


    The elf dimension had been through its fair share of battles and gradually, the elves learned to build their cities within the forests and made do with whatever resources they could find to build their homes. Elves were vain by nature. Every item they used would not be repeated again, just like this building before her eyes.


    A distance away stood a troop of soldiers. There were about four-hundred of them, fully armed. They were nicely split into two battalions. It was the autumn season and the soldiers stood there braving the chilly wind, not saying a word nor changing their stances.


    About six-hundred yards in another direction were another two battalions of soldiers. These soldiers were d in heavy armor and stood solemnly. Eleanor could sense that more than a thousand soldiers surrounded the houses behind her and more than ten mages were hidden in the near vicinity as well.


    ¡°These are Lex¡¯s men,¡± J whispered in Eleanor¡¯s ear.


    Eleanor nodded. This city did not look too bad, but there was an unknown source a distance away that was releasing a thick aura of death.


    The next people to appear out of the teleportation portal were Lex¡¯s swordmasters. They were still wearing their spirit snake armors and were extremely tensed. Once they saw Daniel, they pushed up their masks and began to keep their weapons.


    The third batch of people that appeared from the portal were another four swordmasters, followed by two swordmasters and two ck metal grand swordmasters. After that, Lex¡¯s mages appeared followed by the four demons and finally Lex, Saleen, Bain and Nailisi appeared in thest batch.


    The four demons took a look at the city and were satisfied. From buildings to roads, this city looked firm and sturdy. There were even underground facilities. Nailisi even squatted down and tried to scratch the ground with her nails. It was painful and the white stone pavement only produced a faint line.


    A few people d in ck armor suddenly appeared beside the teleportation portal that was just beyond the purgatory desert. They walked towards the portal, but before they could get close enough, the gigantic portal suddenly looked like it was being twisted and squeezed.


    These warriors in ck armor panicked and turned back to escape, but it was toote. The portal exploded and everything within a mile from it turned to ashes. The ck mes shimmered for less than three seconds, but it was enough to make the entire teleportation area disappear.


    For safety reasons, Lex was in thest batch to be teleported back to Metatrin City. Before departing, she left behind destructive magic equipment so that the entire magic array would self-destruct after they had been teleported back.


    The resources required for this self-destruction took up more than ten grade-8 magic nuclei and more than one-hundred middle-grade magic nuclei. Its power was equivalent to a few sorcerers casting grade-8 magic at the same time. It creating a destructive elemental explosion.


    The warriors only managed to escape to a few hundred yards away before the explosion melted their armors and turned their bodies into ashes. Elemental annihtion urred continuously, which twisted the dimension so that no one would have a clue as to what had happened there, much less find out the exact coordinates of the teleportation portal in Metatrin City.


    There were no survivors. Only when Lex appeared on the battlefield would the supreme court realize that she had escaped from the purgatory desert. They were alreadyte by a few months.


    Once they reached Metatrin City, Saleen and Lex bade each other a temporary farewell. Saleen led his people back to his temple while Lex led her mages back to her city hall.


    Although Lex could build a pce since she possessed the status of a Duke, out of respect for the fact that the city was Saleen¡¯s, she only built a duke mansion two miles north of the temple.


    Saleen only smiled when he heard that the Caucasus people had brought Sika to South Court. Sika was now an earth priestess, so amongst all the existing Caucasus priests, no one else possessed a simr level of influencepared to her. This extended even to the elders in the city. From now on, they would also have to obey Sika¡¯s orders.


    From now on, Sika would be the leader of the Caucasus.


    Having left for about a year, Metatrin City seemed to have be more prosperous. Saleen walked on the streets and headed east while being surrounded by soldiers. He saw many merchants with their horse carts gathered near the town hall, most likely toplete some documents.


    What Saleen did not know yet was that the Tanggsi empire has already upied the majority of Lon¡¯snd, blocking off Sikeqinyans¡¯ trade route. Now, the trading activities in the north were only limited within the Kingdom of Qin, which was a bit depressing. Metatrin City, Lianyun City, and Alchemy City have all became very importantmercial ports in the east for Qin goods arriving from the sea.


    Since the construction of Metatrin City¡¯s port had beenpleted,mercial ships from Cloudflow would travel north and reach these three ports of Qin every day.


    This northern city was bound to prosper.


    The ports of Metatrin City would be frozen when winter came though. Nevertheless, merchants would always find a way to get more gold. Not before long, some caravans began to park themselves permanently in between Phoenix and Metatrin.


    The goods sold on Metatrin City¡¯s side were simple and included ores, wood, magic nuclei, and beast parts.


    Lex¡¯s army had already drawn up many maps and thend within one-thousand miles have already been tested. The mages drew up an area and tested the new location for building a city.


    Anyone with intelligence would be able to guess that Lex, as a Duke, was going to build a duchy in the north. Arge number of ves, mostly prisoners-of-war from the Eastern Sea allied army, had been bought for this purpose. Everything was done in the open without any opposition from Holy Rock City.


    The prisoners-of-war could not possibly be fed for doing nothing, yet they could not be released either. An invasion on such arge scale was not something Qin would let go so easily. Selling them to Lex was a good way of solving King Safilos¡¯ problem.


    Many merchants had bought thend here, contributing to the high speed at which Metatrin City was prospering. Saleen even felt a bit foreign. If not for the fact that thends in the east of the town hall was forbidden and not for sale, he might not have recognized this city at all.


    On the east side of the town hall, a group of death troops weed Saleen¡¯s return. Leading them was Diyabannersa. Daniel did not trust Banchajanna while Judikaka belonged to Aini rightfully, so Diyabannersa became the leader of the death troops. Now that Saleen has returned, the power would be transferred back to him.


    Diyabannersa was getting impatient until he finally saw Saleen. He became spirited and rushed up towards Saleen, taking Eleanor and the rest by so much surprise that they almost attacked him.


    ¡°You! You!¡± Although Diyabannersa had changed his form, he was still two yards tall. He looked down at Saleen in disbelief. Saleen had only been away for less than a year and he had already advanced to grade-6!


    ¡°What about me? Diyabannersa, are you alright?¡± Saleen asked with a smile.


    ¡°My Lord, I am fine.¡± Diyabannersa was certain that he was right. This fellow who tricked him has really advanced. If that was the case, then there was almost no hope of leaving Saleen anymore.


    Eleanor finally felt at ease after seeing the powerful spirit of the dead bow his head to Saleen as a form of greeting. Su was taken aback. Diyabannersa was much stronger than him and might even be stronger than J. He had now seen much more of the world and had developed a deeper understanding of it. He had originally thought that as a silver grand swordmaster, he would be the strongest aide beside Saleen. Now, it seemed that Saleen was much more powerful than he thought.


    Further east was a troop of Caucasus soldiers waiting to wee Saleen. The armors they were d in were all magic armors. These were the most elite soldiers that Sika had left behind for Saleen. These Caucasus people lived in the temple and could be considered Saleen¡¯s most trusted subordinates.


    Upon seeing the Caucasus people Saleen waved his hand and said, ¡°All of you need not follow. Go to south court. Sika¡­ wants to see you.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± The Caucasus soldiers replied loudly. Two leaders stayed behind while the rest rode south on their magic wolves.


    ¡°My Lord! You are back!¡±


    The temple was already within sight. Another group of people stepped forward in wee and the one leading them was Gurney. This small and weak pirate had actually be a high-level swordmaster. He led about one-hundred soldiers with ten or so mages behind. The mages were from Sregl Ind.

 Chapter 567: Expansion of Power (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 567: Expansion of Power (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was only familiar with some of the warriors behind Gurney. Gurney said warmly, ¡°My Lord, the mages wanted to wee you, but I was afraid that something might happen at the temple so it had to be here instead¡­¡±


    ¡°You did well, Gurney. You have worked hard. Later I will send you to Lex so that you can learn even more from her.¡±


    Gurney was overjoyed. If one wanted to learn swordsmanship, Saleen was the right person to go to. If one wanted to learnmand of armies and politics, then Lex would be the right choice. Saleen did not have anyone who had such abilities. By saying this, it meant that Saleen was prepared to groom him.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± The mages rushed to him. Saleen¡¯s heart was filled with joy as he saw their familiar faces. Kredian, Francis, and Basta were all here, but what made him happiest was seeing Pasatilo and Kanuka because the both of them had advanced from grade-4 to grade-5 mages and were the same as the rest now.


    Although the people around him were getting stronger, it was a pity that he did not have any sorcerers. As Saleen headed towards the temple, there was a huge team behind him now.


    The neers to his team, including the four demons and the demonic spirit, were all awed by how imposing the temple was.


    The construction of the temple had beenpleted. It stood at six levels, it was eight-hundred yards in width and looked magnificent. In Saleen¡¯s eyes, it seemed as if the temple had been totally reconstructed. Every level was twelve yards high, so six levels would equate to seventy-two yards. It was already taller than a grade-9 magical tower.


    A grade-9 magical tower was only fifty-four yards tall. The height of the temple might increase even more. Other special constructions would be built on top of this temple in the future. Jason possessed the blueprint of Sky City and while it was impossible to replicate it entirely, they could still build a miniature version; a Floating Tower!


    ¡°Finally, I have some capital!¡± Saleen could not hide his delight as he led everyone into the temple.


    Indeed, the temple had been reconstructed. On the interior of both sides of the door were mezzanines and within them were soldiers standing guard. The entire first level had been constructed so that it was a wide space without walls, but with a tform that was six-yards tall in the middle of it and about sixty huge pirs evenly spread around it. The pirs were hollow and their insides were spiraling staircases that led to the second level.


    On the exterior of the pirs were stone carvings. With one nce, Saleen knew immediately what the carvings were about legends and myths that had been passed down all these years. Stories of the battle between humans and Gods!


    If one walked up the stone steps onto the tform and raised one¡¯s head, he would see that there was a small courtyard above it that led directly to the highest level of the temple.


    At this moment, extendable metal staircases were let down from the four corners of the courtyard. Everyone took them to reach the second level. Daniel said, ¡°The second level is for bodyguards. The meeting room is on the third level.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s not have a meeting first. Everyone is tired,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°No problem. Constructions here alreadyplete so there are all sorts of facilities.¡± By the time he finished, they had already reached the third level. Daniel led everyone past the long corridors and reached the meeting room before saying, ¡°My Lord, there is a resting room here for cleaning up. For meals, you can have them in the meeting room if you like.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay. I suppose there is a canteen here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, this level is for meetings and discussions and can hold up to one-thousand people. I did not take in any servants, so my Lord can consider using some puppets.¡±


    Saleen nodded. There were secrets hidden underneath the temple and it would eventually serve as a home for the people from Sregl Ind in future, so there should not be any outsiders. In times of insufficient manpower, they would have to make do with puppets.


    Some soldiers brought Eleanor and the rest to wash up. These soldiers were also swordsmen from Sregl Ind. There were too many sailors in the city after the defences for the port had been constructed and the twobat vessels on patrol only recruited pirates and some neers. Daniel was cautious to recruit those sailors that were without a job and were trustworthy enough to work at the temple.


    Saleen need not wash up as he could use the Cleaning spell. When mages bathed, it was more out of enjoyment than necessity. Eleanor was ufortable to be served by the swordsmen so she stayed behind as well.


    Daniel and Diyabannersa led Saleen, Eleanor, and Nailisi into a moderate-sized room. This was a small meeting room. The big meeting room could hold up to one-thousand people so there was no need for them to use it now. Behind them were the mages from Sregl Ind.


    After everyone had sat down, Saleen asked, ¡°Daniel, tell me all the things that happened after I left.¡±


    Daniel finally started to talk. Shortly after Saleen and the rest had left, many noblemen, including those from Phoenix and Lun arrived to take refuge. It seemed that when Lex had went to Caucasus initially, she had also solicited a group of noblemen from Lun.


    After the Grand Duke of Lun died in battle, these noblemen had neither support nornd anymore. Many of them flooded into Qin while some escaped to Laiyin Duchy.


    Daniel followed what was done previously and sold a few houses andnds to these noblemen. The duchies with affiliations to Qin had simr practices to them. When the noblemen escaped, they brought along all their craftsmen as well. Arge number of bodyguards, craftsmen, ves, farm animals, mages, grains, and coins all came together along with the noblemen from Lun.


    Those that were willing to take refuge here must be in it for the long haul. Although the location of the city was remote at least it would not be at risk of being embroiled in the war. When Lex invited them, she also promised that they would have newnd and ranks of nobility again. When they arrived, they were led out of the city shortly after to pick their ownnds from those that could be cultivated.


    Amongst the four empires, only Qin¡¯s noblemen treated their farmers decently, so many of them also came along. These farmers should not be mistaken for poor peasants as they were actually farmers with decent fortunes. Some of them might even be richer than the lowest-ranking Baron from the noble families.


    In the present moment,rge portions of thend north of Metatrin City had already been given to these noblemen. Most of their wealth was still kept in the empire¡¯s bank and could not be taken out yet. They had no choice but to take loans out from Daniel. Many castles had been built since then.


    Metatrin City had plenty of stones and wood and therge number of ves made the work much easier. Most of the noblemen that had arrived in Metatrin City had been satisfied so far. Although the terms and conditions that came with the loan was a little strict, at least all their new castles were designed by mages.


    Daniel was also wise to ensure that the distance between the noblemen¡¯s castles were near to each other. It might give one the impression that their proximity was to enable them to look out for each other, but in actual fact it was to ensure that they would not be able to expand their influence.


    Although these noblemen had not lost too much of their wealth, they had little cash on hand. As a result, they had not been able to recruit and feed too many soldiers and most of the avable private soldiers ended up being taken in by Daniel instead.


    At the moment, Saleen had more than twenty-thousand soldiers under hismand. On top of that, he still had Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp. The defence of the city was finally a force to be reckoned with. Even if the Three Kings had summoned arge number of death troops, the city walls should still be safe after some replenishments were made.


    After a few rounds of construction, the three city walls of Metatrin City were six-miles long and would be difficult to defend without at least ten-thousand soldiers.


    Aini and Irene had also used their own channels to buyrge amounts of grain. The entire north and Phoenix¡¯s grains could not be sold to Qin so most of them had all been bought by Metatrin City instead.


    Out of the twenty-thousand soldiers under Saleen, eight-thousand of them were new and were Caucasus people. Aside from the four-thousand or so barbarians, the remaining ten-thousand or so soldiers were originally from Lun and had escaped here. Lex¡¯s men helped to train them before splitting them up into two swordsman¡¯s camps.


    Both the Rnde family and the Tiffany family had also began to extend their reach to Metatrin by buying businesses and opening shops in the east of the city. Now all the four biggest Qin families were invested in Metatrin City, one way or another. The influences of these four business families could not be dismissed. Half of the city¡¯s businesses were sustained by them.


    A battle also took ce during this period of time. Abat vessel from Lianyun City came to Metatrin with the intention to take over the sea route, but was eventually sunk by three patrollingbat vessels.


    After the new Grand Duke of Lianyun City lost the battle, he was forced to use gold to redeem his warriors andbat vessel. Since then, the sea routes had been safe. The Grand Duke of Lianyun City did not have enough money to redeem all his warriors, so he had to use ves in exchange. There were a total of about four-thousand soldiers that were captured and each soldier was exchanged with five ves. Without spending too much money, Daniel managed to obtain about twenty-thousand ves and most of them had been sent to the east for mining.


    It was clear that the battle was only to feel out Metatrin¡¯s defences and was something that Holy Rock City had tacitly consented to. After Metatrin City won, there was no more news from Holy Rock City as they were busy deploying most of their troops and puppets to the west border to guard against Tanggsi empire.


    ¡°So this means I am about to have another city?¡± Saleen heard that a new city was being built west of Metatrin City and was pleased. With this city as a buffer, Metatrin City finally had a barrier against invading forces.


    ¡°Yes, it is about two-hundred miles away from Metatrin, just beyond the mountain. The foundations of the city has beenpleted, but the stone materials are taking some time to transport over. Although the roads have been constructed we do not have enough wagons. It would be too expensive to rent more.¡±


    At this point, Daniel was seething in his heart. The prices set by the Tiffany family were too high. He would rather take a longer time to build the city than to rent their wagons to transport the stone materials. The city walls of the new city must be built with the white stones from Metatrin City. The stone materials there were too brittle and could only be used to build the buildings within the city.


    ¡°The Rnde family are selling weapons at a really cheap price, my Lord. I think they are being sold at close to cost price. Taking into ount the expenses of transportations and logistics, they may even be making a loss.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Who is heading the Rnde family now?¡±


    ¡°Baroness Guya, my Lord. She wants the weapons business here and has promised to continue selling weapons to us at the same price in the future.¡±


    ¡°Have you given your word?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. For such matters, it is best if you discussed it with her yourself.¡±


    ¡°There is no way we will allow her to dominate the entire weapons business. I will gather the leaders of the four big families and let theme up with the prices themselves. I will take over this. Let me think about it.¡±


    Saleen could see that his city was finally taking shape and was pleased in his heart. He asked again, ¡°How many castles are there now?¡±


    ¡°There are two middle-sized castles and one-hundred and seventy-two small sized ones in the east and west of the city. Those that guard the roads all belong to us. Winter ising and construction work will have to stop soon. By next year, we should be more than three-hundred castles. Those that have not been repaired are too far away.¡±


    ¡°So many! Do we have enough soldiers?¡±


    ¡°It was Lex¡¯s men that came up with the idea that even if it was just a Baron, we will also be in charge of building a castle for them. They are just small castles built for one-hundred to two-hundred people anyway. When they have enough money, they will have to pay us back. In the north, we have already explored as far as fifteen-hundred miles. There are manynds suitable for cultivation, but they will need to use puppets since the buffalos will be captured by magic wolves.¡±


    At this point, Daniel smiled. Lex¡¯s men were cunning. If those noblemen wanted to continue living, they would have to rely on Metatrin City from now on. Without the help of mages, it was close to impossible to cultivate thends in the north.

 Chapter 568: Disguise (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 568: Disguise (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Daniel was feeling very smug, but Saleen felt that something was amiss. There are more than three-hundred castles here. Excluding the thirty plus castles that I have to control, at least two-hundred nobles havee forth to seek shelter. Each of these nobles own their private armies and their titles are high, some of them might even be mages. Will I be able to suppress them? This isn¡¯t a problem which could be resolved using force. The power of these nobles aren¡¯t fearful enough, I can execute them anytime I want. But the moment such things happen, no one will flock to this city anymore. Metatrin City will surely be an isted city. If this issue develops in this manner, then I can only tap on Lex¡¯s status to resolve matters already! Lex has ten-thousand men here while I have more than twenty-thousand troops, I am afraid this number isn¡¯t even sufficient to make up an emblem group of her vanguards.¡±


    Saleen became inert out the blue. Daniel did not know whether he had said anything wrong, so he also shut his mouth.


    Nailisi¡¯s thoughts were almost telepathic with Saleen¡¯s one. She nudged Saleen from behind, then whispered, ¡°Your teacher will arrive in at most two years, you don¡¯t have to be worried about this.¡±


    Suddenly, Saleen gained epiphany, ¡°I only have to hold out for two years, Lex will not really try to vie anything with me, and she is chasing after the Six Elements¡¯ Space in the hell of the God¡¯s Punishment. Without support from the Sregl Ind mages, she won¡¯t even dare open the nar teleportation portal. In two years¡¯ time, even if these nobles tried to conspire, all of their efforts will also be fluff once I build all thirty-six magical towers.¡±


    When Daniel heard Nailisi¡¯s words, he realized Saleen¡¯s concern. Smiling oddly, he said, ¡°Sir, the castles of those nobles were designed by us. You can enter anyone¡¯s castle anytime, no one can stop you.¡±


    Saleen swept his nce to the mages surrounding him, then he noticed that the mages from Sregl Ind were holding back theirughter. At this moment, Saleen realized that his worries were unfounded. ¡°If the nobles want to fight, let them be, but they will never be able to oppose me in the area of military affairs. With so many people seeking refuge here, the poption of my city has increased swiftly, themercial activities are thriving and there are many ves around. In two years, no one will be sure of the number ofnds I will own. I still have to make a trip to the Holy Rock City. Since I have made a promise to Joey, I have to fulfill it. No one can control that kind of person. The moment he bes furious, even Teacher will not be able to protect me, unless I flee to the Sregl Ind and never appear again.¡±


    After Saleen asked Daniel about all the happenings which took ce in his absence, Saleen calmed down gradually. The situation was better than what Saleen had thought. The poption of the city would be increased several times very soon, while a number of farms had been developed on the northern and western sides of Metatrin City. The defensive power of these farms might not be as high as a castle, but it was adequate for housing the farmers.


    Daniel had built a charcoal field north of the city, as there was a coalmine three-hundred miles north. That way, the farmers could live through winter without any problems. There were people moving over from Phoenix, and they were the true assets to Saleen.


    ¡°I have no problems advancing to a sorcerer. Once I enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space, I can be a grade-9 sorcerer in no time. By then, my life will be around twelve-hundred years long. I will be able to aplish many things in twelve-hundred years.¡±


    ¡°Viscountess Lex is here,¡± Daniel reminded Saleen.


    Saleen noticed that there was a tiny magic device in Daniel¡¯s ear, it was a piece of silver maic stone. This object could be used to make the smallest sound transmission magic array. Other than being a little expensive, it had no other ws. It was easy to be crafted yet difficult to be damaged, and it consumed the fragments of a magic nucleus. A level-1 magic nucleus would suffice.


    Very soon, Lex had arrived at this small meeting room, she didn¡¯t bring along anyone else. Saleen¡¯s men also rushed over, taking their seats around the table.


    Clearly, Lex had already understood the changes that took ce when she wasn¡¯t around as she was in a pretty good mood. Metatrin City had been developed so quickly. Only the magical towers were yet to be constructed, but the rest of the projects were on the right track.


    ¡°Saleen, I have to discuss something with you. Since everyone is here, you will make a decision.¡± Lex looked at Saleen with a gentle smile on her face.


    ¡°Judging by your look, it shouldn¡¯t be a bad thing.¡± Saleen was jubnt that the atmosphere was harmonious, and when he said that, everyone else also felt relieved.


    ¡°No, I believe you have heard from Daniel about the events which took ce in Metatrin City, and you have a problem.¡±


    ¡°What problem?¡±


    ¡°Identity. If you are just a city owner, you have to be my subordinate, and you will have to interact with those nobles.¡±


    The moment Lex said that, the mages from the Sregl Ind could not help but appear enraged. ¡°Who do you think Saleen is? A student favored by Jason is one of the people who has a chance of inheriting Sregl Ind. Even if Lex is an emperor, Saleen will never ever be her subordinate, not to mention that she is just a viscountess.¡±


    When Lex noticed the expressions of the mages, she cackled. She was afraid that these people would not care. If they didn¡¯t care, it meant that Saleen did not hold a high status in the eyes of Sregl Ind. Saleen had not discussed with Lex in detail about the Sregl Ind, so Lex did not know what Saleen¡¯s position was. When she saw the faces of those mages, she felt more assured already.


    ¡°That is why I have thought of a solution for you, but I don¡¯t know whether you are willing to be a noble or not.¡±


    ¡°Say it.¡± Saleen wasn¡¯t actually very agitated, he knew that Lex did things secretively and carefully, she wouldn¡¯t say something for the sake of provoking his subordinates.


    ¡°Your identity in the Sregl Ind cannot be exposed at the moment. The past few years, I have been asking people to investigate your background. The ¡®Metatrin¡¯ surname was once glorious back in the fourth dynasty. Since many of the files regarding the fourth dynasty were destroyed, the ones I can find aren¡¯t that reliable.¡±


    ¡°Are you asking me to disguise as a noble from the fourth dynasty?¡± Saleen understood Lex¡¯s n at once, and he was a little reluctant to do so.


    ¡°I am not asking you to disguise. I have found a swath of information. In the past two-hundred years, on the route where your family migrated along, there was no person with the surname ¡®Metatrin¡¯. Not even the peasants. Which means that in thest two-hundred years, in Sikeqinya, your family was the only one with this surname. Even though the more recent information is murky¡­¡±


    Saleenughed, then said, ¡°If you really want to do this, I can provide some clues.¡±


    This was the first time Lex wanted tomit fraud, and she was going to do it to the ranks of nobles on the maind. At first, she was a little perturbed, but when Saleen said that, she immediately nodded her head.


    Saleen took out a stack of loan receipts from the Demonic Ring, cing it on the table, then said, ¡°My family was indeed very wealthy in the past, all these receipts are proof that other people owe me money. However, too much time had psed, I cannot demand them to return the money anymore. Take a look, if you can find out any of their descendants, you might be able to find out more information about my family¡¯s history.¡±


    Lex was jubnt, Saleen actually had real evidence. There was sure to be something useful in all those receipts.


    ¡°But Saleen, this matter takes time, it will require at least three to five months. I don¡¯t have to deploy anyone from the Bitter Water Prefecture as I have information about many empires. I will face some difficulty with regards to the Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°I was just nning to go to the Holy Rock City, I should return in three to five months. Lex, what identity are you going to create for me?¡± Saleen asked curiously.


    ¡°The surname ¡®Metatrin¡¯ belonged to a king in the fourth dynasty. Kings with unusual surnames were very rare in the fourth dynasty, and it remained like that for thousands of years. The remaining files about the fourth dynasty are in Cloudflow, we have no ess to them at all.¡±


    ¡°If the surname is confirmed, what benefits will I have?¡±


    ¡°It will prove that your bloodline is noble and you can consider re-establishing a state.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t that¡­¡±


    ¡°Your status will be equal to mine. After all, I still have the Holy Rock City above me, but the dynasty above you has already disappeared.¡±


    At this point in time, the faces of the Sregl Ind mages lit up. They were the trusted subordinates Jason had given to Saleen, so Saleen¡¯s future prospects was also where their futureid in.


    ¡°If the Cloudflow people¡­¡±


    ¡°Then topple them,¡± Lex interrupted Saleen. In actual fact, the Cloudflow Empire was the residual power from the fourth dynasty. In the Cloudflow pce, there were some files which could indeed disprove Saleen¡¯s bloodline. But the problem was that Lex and Saleen had already signed a contract with the goddess, so the Cloudflow Empire was also one of their targets.


    ¡°That¡¯s true, but it will be onerous to prove this matter. I better establish a duchy first. Anyway, so many nobles have already defected to me. As long as you give the all-clear, this issue should be more or less confirmed. The Holy Rock City can¡¯t possibly deploy troops to attack us, they can¡¯t even settle their own troubles.¡±


    Lex thought to herself, ¡°That is the way to go. Since you are willing to take risks, I will apany you. But if you aren¡¯t willing to take any initiative, then there won¡¯t be much hope ofpleting the goddess¡¯ task. It is really an unknown as to whether the Holy Rock City will deploy troops or not. If Qin can salvage the situation in Lon, it will not be difficult for them to conquer Metatrin City out of convenience. Before the magical towers are built, Metatrin City¡¯s defense will surely be weaker than that of the Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    At this point in her thoughts, Lex took out a thick book from the God¡¯s Ring and handed it to Saleen, then said, ¡°This is the ancestral record I have forged for you, you only have to the imprint the n badge on it. If you are willing, I will support you to be the Grand Duke of Metatrin. Once you affirm your identity, even if you have just a wee bit of rtion, you can also establish a state and bebeled a king.¡±


    Saleen received the ancestral record forged by Lex. There was no image of any n badge on the dark golden cover of this book, the pages inside were tattered and torn. Using his perception to investigate, Saleen discovered that this forged book actually contained thousands of years of history. This ancestral record had surely been created in thest two years, it could give a mage a false impression, and it might even have been created by the God¡¯s Ring. ¡°I am not the only one who possess equipment which can speed up the flow of time.¡±


    ¡°Okay, this matter is set. However, I have to travel to the Holy Rock City in a week, I am deathly afraid of Master Joey,¡± Saleen said helplessly.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care who you bring along, but I will let Narnia follow you so that she can impart the customs of the fourth dynasty to you along the way. You must learn these things. You just have to promise me one thing though.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Guarantee Narnia¡¯s safety.¡±


    Saleen moaned, then Lex said, ¡°I will not return to the Bitter Water Prefecture for the time being, I will wait here for you. The cashflow here is already sufficient. By the time you return, there will be five swordsman¡¯s camps here, and including mine, that will make sixty-thousand regr soldiers. As for the nobles, I will help you manage them first, don¡¯te into contact with them for the time being.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡± Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. The people around him had given him sufficient details about the current situation of Metatrin City, he really did not have to do anything. As for the issue of pretending to be a noble, Saleen felt that it was no big deal. Being around Lex for several years, he had learnt many things. Even without Narnia around to provide guidance, Saleen would not give away any loopholes either.

 Chapter 569: Disguise (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 569: Disguise (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even though this world revered the experts, one needed the support of the local nobles if they wanted to dominate the world. Without having a suitable identity, the nobles would not follow a person. Saleen had been vexing over this matter, but with Lex¡¯s help, all these troubles would be solved inherently.


    Saleen also knew that Lex had said such words in front his close subordinates to convince them, and both parties would stand a chance of enjoying long term cooperation.


    If a duchy was really established, then both parties, regardless of rank, would be bound together. If the fraud was exposed, no one would stand to gain anything. Saleen would lose his influence over the nobles, while Lex¡¯s reputation would be worthless.


    After ironing out some details, Lex left. She still had many things to tend to on her side. Other than ensuring her army¡¯s standing in Metatrin City, she still had to manage those defected nobles, and all these tasks couldn¡¯t bepleted in a day or two.


    Saleen did not dismiss the rest of the people, he began allocating new jobs to them.


    ¡°On my trip to the Holy Rock City this time round, Sika and Nailisi will not follow me.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi was anxious. Even though Saleen was a grade-6 mage, his offensive power was greatly lowered if Nailisi was not around.


    ¡°Nailisi, you shall stay behind and learn from Eleanor,¡± Saleen said with determination. ¡°When I return, I don¡¯t wish to see that you are still at this level of proficiency.¡±


    Nailisi had tears in her eyes, but after some contemtion, she agreed. She was going to summon demons in Metatrin City. It was only safe when she summoned them in Saleen¡¯s shrine.


    ¡°Sir, do you want me to tag along?¡± Daniel spoke. Since he was a death mage, he could summon many spirits forbat if any trouble arose. At least in terms of number, Saleen would not be at a disadvantage.


    ¡°No, I will bring Aini along. Daniel, you need to control the army, you cannot leave everything to Lex.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, once I leave, you shall stay here. Nailisi, you are not allowed to leave Eleanor¡¯s sight. If she gets into any danger, you can forget about following me anymore.¡±


    At this moment, Nailisi realized why Saleen made her stay behind. Eleanor was of extreme importance to Saleen. This elf had aplicated identity and she possessed too much knowledge, it was possible that she was a royal among the elves.


    ¡°Master, then bring Cuisi along, she can protect you.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I will take Cuisi with me. Su, you need to follow me too. J, you shall stay behind, I want you to train an emblem group, the best emblem group, can you do it?¡±


    ¡°Stronger than Lex¡¯s one?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I need five years, and the candidates will have to be selected by me.¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± Seeing that J asked for a duration of five years, Saleen knew that he was serious about it.


    ¡°All of you¡­ need to pay special attention to safety. On the most recent trip, Lex and I have lost two grade-5 mages, which was a huge loss. If anything crops up, let Daniel¡¯s and Gurney¡¯s army handle it. Your only mission is to practice magic,¡± Saleen instructed the mages from the Sregl Ind.


    The temple¡¯s guards and the army defending the city belonged to two different systems, these people consisted of the elite Caucasus people and barbarians, as well as the pirates who had followed Saleen from the beginning. The area where the mages were active in would not be out of the temple¡¯s perimeter, which meant that it was and with a radius of almost nine square miles.


    Almost one mile from the temple, there was a plot of emptynd reserved beforehand which hadn¡¯t been developed yet. Thisnd would belong to the Sregl Ind mages in the future.


    After delegating these matters, Saleen said, ¡°Daniel, you shall settle the remaining matters. Su, you and I shall go to the port to take a look.¡±


    ¡°Master¡­¡±


    ¡°Stay with Eleanor.¡±


    Saleen wanted to go to the port because he wanted to check out the defensive instations. ¡°If the port is safe, then I better bring along the winged skeleton. I will ask the winged skeleton to travel down south on the ocean. If I meet with any danger, I will have to flee, and there are two options. One, I can go north and return to this city directly, but I will be easily intercepted along the way. If the winged skeleton waits for me at sea, then I will be able to go east. As long as I go underwater, even a grade-9 mage will have no tricks to deal with me.¡±


    However, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was in charge of the port¡¯s safety, so Saleen had to witness it for himself to decide whether to bring along the winged skeleton or not. By allowing the winged skeleton to wait for him at a few regr spots, Saleen could build a sound transmission magic array and contact the winged skeleton anytime.


    Su followed Saleen and left the shrine on foot. When Su arrived at Metatrin City, he received quite a shock. In his eyes, Metatrin City was a ce which was like the center of the world. In the subcontinent ne, pces usually stretched for about four miles, which tranted into an area of sixteen square miles. However, the nuclear region of Metatrin City alone already spanned for almost nine square miles.


    If such a city was ced on the subcontinent ne, it would undoubtedly be one of a kind. And this was actually a city which had not beenpleted, and there were countless of castles surrounding it for defense.


    ¡°What are you all following us for.¡± Saleen turned around, looking at Gurney. Gurney led four-hundred soldiers, closely following Saleen.


    These soldiers seemed very ferocious, it was obvious that they had seen blood before. In the past, Saleen went to the Chaotic Swamp once and trained a batch of experienced soldiers. And now, these soldiers were following Gurney.


    ¡°Sir, it is to ensure your safety.¡± Gurney would not budge. ¡°If Saleen met with harm in his own city, then it would surely beughing stock. Currently, there is a number of nobles in the city, and these nobles had their own private soldiers. Some might be less wise, thus provoking Saleen. No one recognizes Sir either.¡±


    ¡°Okay fine, but ask them to spread out. You can lead 50 men and follow us from afar.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sir.¡± Gurney waved his hand, and thisrge group of soldiers immediately split into eight small teams, with each team having fifty men. Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Theposition of this army still needs to be improved, but this shall be left to Lex. I should resolve the issue in the Holy Rock City first, it is not a good thing to let a grade-10 expert pine for me.¡±


    About one mile east of the temple was the ce where the Sregl Ind swordsmen were stationed. There was a tall building here, which also acted as a pass. Only by attacking this building could one travel east and breach the temple.


    Metatrin City was built on an extremely humongous rock, and it was almost impossible to dig underground passageways into this white rock. Even if Saleen possessed the capability, he would also waste a lot of time.


    ¡°Su, do you miss home?¡± Saleen was not much older than Su, but his experience was definitely hundreds of times more interesting than Su¡¯s. Saleen¡¯s words might appear old-fashioned, but Su didn¡¯t mind at all. Right now, Saleen was themander, and Su had also decided to follow him for the rest of his life.


    ¡°Yes, but my father hopes that I can carve out my own career, he doesn¡¯t want me to be confined to the family. If I am in the subcontinent ne, I will be able to lead troops afterpleting my mission. I will be guarding the borders, and be battling with the demonic race.¡±


    ¡°I am bringing you along to the Holy Rock City so that you can witness some of the experts, and true power, in this world. Metatrin City is iparable to that city.¡±


    ¡°How powerful?¡± Su did not look fearful, he only had exhration in his eyes.


    ¡°The person I am going to meet cannot be defeated even if a Golden Grand Swordmaster teams up with a grade-9 sorcerer, how powerful do you think he is?¡±


    Su inhaled a breath of cold air, ¡°On the subcontinent ne, a Golden Grand Swordmaster is already an indomitable presence, not even a grade-9 sorcerer can beat them. If both characters team up, they can defeat a city with a few hundred thousand people already. This is indeed the main ne, people like that still exist in this world!¡±


    ¡°By following me, you may not have to fight with the demonic race, but danger is still apparent.¡±


    ¡°If the sword is not grinded, it will never be sharp.¡± Su didn¡¯t waver.


    As the two persons chatted, they had already reached the port. Currently, Metatrin City¡¯s port was very busy. As the frozen period was just round the corner, the cargo ships were busy trying to transport all the goods. Qin had all along effected tough protection over their forests, only such premium wood could be found in the north. In the Qin Empire, even the mines were controlled by the imperial family, but there were premium ores sold in the Metatrin City.


    In the middle of the port, there were magic disciplesmanding some puppets to moverge crates around. Even though the sky had turned dark, work hadn¡¯t stopped yet. There was a huge number of magicmps illuminating the entire harbor, it was as if it was still daytime. On the metal tracks, there were snaking lines of freight trains producing raucous noises, Saleen even saw businessmen from Cloudflow rushing some giant spirits to move their goods.


    It was cheaper hiring a spirit than a puppet, because hiring a puppet meant that a magic disciple had to be hired too. The mages onboard a merchant ship weren¡¯t willing to engage in menial work, while the disciples had to steer the ship. Of course, those colossal spirits had been summoned by the three kings. No money had to be spent, and there was more flexibility in controlling them.


    Hundreds ofrge ships were docked at the port. Thergest merchant ship was over one-hundred meters in length, it belonged to Cloudflow. The smaller ones were also more than fifty meters long, and most of them were from Lianyun City. After the Grand Duke of Lianyun got defeated in war, he had to sign free trade agreements atop of paying reparations. As a result, the rtionship between both parties actually became intimate.


    The towering stone mountain on the left had been fully protected, and there were fortresses at the foot of it. Structures were constructed atop the mountain, there were magic cannons watching over the entire harbor. The buildings in the port were also constructed to be sturdy, many two-story buildings contained magic trebuchets.


    Along the way, Saleen did not see any soldiers patrolling the grounds, but each harbor had strict checkpoints. Whenever someone passed through a checkpoint, they had to pay taxes.


    ¡°Su¡­¡±


    When there was no response behind him, Saleen¡¯s heart shuddered, and an intense wave of devastation swept over him. Without hesitation, Saleen released the Water Shield, protecting his whole body. Turning his head around sharply, he realized that no one was behind him.


    The scenery had changedpletely, as the sights of the port became blurry, and Saleen got engulfed in a ball of white light.


    Su was taken aback, he wielded his sword, but he didn¡¯t know how to deal with that ball of light. Saleen¡¯s silhouette had disappeared in it. Gurney rushed forward and blew his whistle. Out of nowhere, hundreds of people appeared, they were all fully equipped.


    ¡°Sir Gurney, what¡¯s going on?¡±


    Gurney¡¯s face turned pale as a sheet, he waved his hand and said, ¡°All of you can go back, its fine.¡±


    ¡°Gurney!¡± Su was very anxious as Saleen had disappeared into thin air in front of him just like that. As a follower, he had a responsibility he could not shake off.


    In Saleen¡¯s hands, the water mes began burning. ¡°I got ambushed by someone, and I didn¡¯t even see the enemy¡¯s shadow.¡± The enemy was too powerful, and perhaps other than Joey, no one in this city was Saleen¡¯s match.


    ¡°Mage Saleen, why are you so nervous? I mean no harm.¡± A youthful voice filled the air. Before Saleen, a silhouette emerged. This silhouette went from being blurry to clear in less than three seconds.


    Even though Saleen had seen someone, he realized that his mental strength couldn¡¯t lock onto that person. He decided to retract his water mes, then said, ¡°Who are you?¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± This young man smiled and said, ¡°My name is Fycro, they say that I am the person who is closest to God.¡±

 Chapter 570: Coercion (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 570: Coercion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fycro!


    Upon hearing this name, Saleen felt like giving up. Fycro was the first oracle of the Holy See. There was no way he could not tell that Saleen possessed the godly power of the Goddess of Nature. Without a doubt, both of them stood on opposing sides and no amount of strategizing or pleading would change that.


    ¡°You should not havee.¡± The first words out of Saleen¡¯s mouth were not what Fycro expected.


    ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I havee?¡± Fycro was curious and asked. He had enveloped Saleen into a dimension that he had refined so the people around him would not be able to find him. Although Saleen was a grade-6 mage, there was no way he could fly straight up to heaven.


    Saleen thought about using his n badge to attack him by surprise. In this dimension, aside from the white light, he could not sense any other elements and his mental strength had also been slowed down greatly though. If only he still had the ring of gifts. Now that he had kept the badge within the demonic ring, he was unable to retrieve it.


    Fycro was standing only five yards in front of Saleen, but Saleen did not dare to attack him with the crystal finger. By attacking someone as strong as Fycro, even if he was only injured, Saleen might not survive the counterattack. Saleen could clearly remember a simr incident in the past. The crystal finger was powerful enough to kill people that were two or three grades above him, but the price to pay was great.


    If Fycro was hurt, Saleen would probably lose his life very quickly too.


    Whatever he had learned in the past would have no effect on Fycro. The first oracle of the Holy See looked about Saleen¡¯s age, but the former only looked youthful on the outside. His eyes showed maturity. When he looked at Saleen, he did not look down on him. Instead, he was smiling as he looked at Saleen as an equal.


    The God¡¯s pet possessed a humble character and the brightest stars. He was a wless disciple.


    ¡°These are thends of the empire. I recall that there is a bond between the Holy See and the empires that stated that should someone of your gradee to ournds, it was equivalent to challenging the pride and honor of Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen, you must be reasonable.¡± Fycro¡¯s reply stunned Saleen. ¡°This fellow wants to talk reason with me? Who could believe him?!¡±


    ¡°Indeed, there is such a bond in existence for the past one-thousand years. I am afraid that you might not be too clear about its details. As a mage, you killed my subordinate, high priest Kosian. I have the right to look for you on my own. You see, I have been here for a few months now and I have not done anything in revenge. In fact, I have even helped you solve some problems in your city.¡± Fycro said to Saleen with a smile.


    Saleen might be able to deceive Picasso, but that would not work on Fycro. He did not have the courage to refute Fycro¡¯s im that he killed Kosian. Saleen discovered something strange in Fycro¡¯s eyes that should not be there; arrogance.


    It was not that Fycro could not destroy Metatrin City if he wished, it was that he simply did not care to do so. Even the Lord of Glory said that he was a humble guide, so why was there arrogance in his eyes?


    Even if that was the case, Saleen had no intentions of admitting defeat. Fycro did not try to kill him immediately so that meant that there was still room for negotiations.


    ¡°You did note to kill me, right?¡± Saleen decided to keep his water shield. Fycro¡¯s powers were immeasurable. Putting the water shield aside, even the grade-8 crystal reflection would not have been able to defend against his attacks.


    ¡°Killing you is just one of the options. I hope that things will not have to end up that way.¡± Fycro did not care that Saleen knew his demands or whether Saleen had anything to threaten him with. If Saleen refused, Fycro would just have to kill him. He would rather think of other ways to reach apromise with Saleen.


    To reach apromise with a mage would be a stupid decision. A mage¡¯s bond possessed a restricting effect that was as powerful as godly strength.


    ¡°Even if I do not agree to whatever you are going to demand, wait for a few more months before killing me.¡±


    ¡°After a few months?¡± Fycro did not know whether tough or not while looking at Saleen, waiting expectantly for him to borate.


    ¡°I have an appointment with someone. If I don¡¯t turn up, he will be upset. I am afraid of that.¡±


    ¡°Someone with as much guts as you yet you is afraid? Who is this person you are meeting? I am interested to know.¡± As Fycro said this, Saleen caught another hint of arrogance in his eyes.


    ¡°A person named Joey in Holy Rock City.¡±


    Fycro became serious and stared at Saleen and asked, ¡°Does he have a head full of red hair?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to test me. His hair is green,¡± Saleenughed coldly.


    ¡°Green? He has actually reached grade-10. Unbelievable. So, do you n to die or coborate with me?¡± Clearly, Fycro knew who Joey was, but he was not about to be thrown off by what Saleen said.


    ¡°You threaten me with death. Is that still considered coboration?¡± Saleen could tell that Fycro did note to kill him or he would not have spent so much effort talking. With his abilities, Fycro could enter the purgatory desert alone. Saleen was basically nothing to him. Saleen realized that he had been too full of himself just because he was able to be a grade-6 mage at a young age and had been recognized as a genius. He thought that he would be able to ovee any danger, and yet look at what was happening now. It was only when the first oracle stood before him that he realized that the little bit of magic he knew was pathetically insignificant.


    ¡°How can this be a threat? If I wanted to threaten you, I would have told you that if you do not give me what I want, I will trap your soul in the purgatory fire to be burnt forever even if the Gods fell.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyelids jumped. What Fycro had just said was not very respectful to the Gods. When he mentioned the gods falling, he was clearly referring to the Lord of Glory. Fycro definitely had the ability to trap his soul. Killing him was a lighter punishment inparison.


    ¡°Tell me what you want. If I cannot agree to it, I can only say I am sorry.¡± Saleen continued to maintain hisposure even though he was actually so scared that his sweat had already evaporated.


    ¡°Of course, it is to join forces. Your left hand and my right hand.¡± Fycro stretched out his right hand. There was a warm and white glow on his wless right hand. This hand possessed surging godly strength and this strength was clearly not borrowed. Instead it has already fused into Fycro¡¯s body. It could regenerate on its own without praying even if it had been used. It was exactly like the left hand that Saleen was stretching out now.


    The left and right hands of God!


    ¡°I have prepared a dimensional teleportation portal that requires your godly strength. Are you willing to help?¡±


    ¡°Ha!¡± Saleen thought he had just heard the funniest joke in the world and said, ¡°You are the first oracle. You already have so much godly strength, why would you still need me? Do you think I will believe you?¡±


    ¡°This is the only way for me to transport my disciples safely out of the Myers Maind. Saleen, war ising and many will die. I do not like that. If you agree to help me, I will be able to help countless disciples leave this dimension.¡±


    Saleen calmed down at this point, but he did not believe in Fycro¡¯s words. Since when did people dying ever matter when different religions shed?


    ¡°Originally I may not even need you alive. But for this matter, I also need Lex¡¯s help.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you have not convinced her?¡±


    ¡°Might as well do it together.¡± Fycro stretched his hand into the white light behind Saleen and pulled. Lex suddenly appeared in a state of disorder. Her hair was messy and she almost knocked into Saleen¡¯s chest.


    Saleen helped steady Lex and said, ¡°You want her God¡¯s ring? You can just snatch it from her.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be silly. I am a disciple of the Lord of Glory. How can I use the God¡¯s ring?¡± Fycro did not mind revealing his weakness. He needed both the left hand of God from Saleen and God¡¯s ring from Lex, but he was not able to use those two powers himself.


    It was the first time Lex felt so embarrassed. The powers of the God¡¯s ring could not be used because shecked the abilities required to activate its true potential. Fycro captured her so easily with just a pull and she did not even have the chance to retaliate.


    When she finally had the chance to speak, Lex adjusted her magic robe and said to Fycro, ¡°Of course, you can use the power of the God¡¯s ring. Once you used it, it would mean that you have also betrayed the Lord of Glory, am I right?¡±


    ¡°There is some sense in what you said,¡± Fycro replied without any care or concern.


    ¡°In your eyes, I am a heretic. Even if I helped you, I will not have a good ending anyway right?¡±


    ¡°That may not be the case, your Highness. If you can help me to open up the channel to an interdimensional space, we may never meet again. Whatever you choose to believe in will have nothing to do with me.¡±


    Lex did not know what to say to that. Fycro¡¯s words were treasonous. If the Lord of Glory heard what he said, even if Fycro was the first oracle, he would have been banished to be a useless person.


    ¡°You want to betray the Lord of Glory?¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was bitter. The meaning behind what Fycro said was even more incredible than him letting Saleen go.


    ¡°How is that possible? I am just helping God save the lives of his disciples. I do not foresee that the war on the maind will end up well. By helping these sacrificialmbs find a way out and creating a heaven, that is the truest and purest form of faith.¡±


    Saleen and Lex looked at each other, both not knowing how to feel about this absurdity.


    ¡°If you are agreeable, then sign the bond,¡± Fycro said and flicked out a cluster of white light. The light gradually materialized into two scrolls of contracts.


    Saleen knew that no good woulde out of resisting, so he took the scroll to have a look.


    The words on the scroll were plenty and were written in the ancient Myersnguage instead of the magguage. As for the contents, Saleen already knew that as long as he helped Fycro to build a stable dimensional teleportation portal, Fycro would not bother him anymore and would pretend that Metatrin City did not exist.


    Saleen looked at the scroll in Lex¡¯s hands. The contents were simple; Fycro wanted Lex to use the God¡¯s ring to help him open up an interdimensional space channel and determine the coordinates of the dimension.


    ¡°So, you intend to hide this from the Lord of Glory¡­¡± Lex understood what Fycro was trying to do now. Fycro could have used his own powers to build a dimensional teleportation portal, but this would not go undetected by the Lord of Glory.


    Fycro smiled and said, ¡°You see, this is such an important matter that I am not hiding anything from you. If you don¡¯t sign the bond, there is no way I will let you leave. If you were to spread this to others, I would have no choice but to leave this dimension on my own. You have nothing to gain from that.¡±


    Saleen and Lexughed bitterly. Fycro made himself out to be pitiable, but was there any chance they could say no? If they said no, they would die immediately. Fycro¡¯s request was not unreasonable. In fact, this might even benefit both Saleen and Lex. They already nned to overthrow the Holy See. By bringing away such arge number of disciples, Fycro was actually doing them a favor.


    Within the Holy See, the most powerful group were not the zealots in the supreme court, but the ascetics under the oracles. The zealots were warped in their hearts while the ascetics were pure. They also possessed greater strength and were more likely to receive blessings from God.

 Chapter 571: Coercion (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 571: Coercion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The terms and conditions that Fycro was offering were attractive. Not only would his people not bother Lex and Saleen anymore, he would leave Metatrin City alone too. Besides, the teleportation portal that Fycro wanted to build was in five years¡¯ time.


    ¡°May I know where will this teleportation portal be built?¡± Saleen asked carefully.


    ¡°Chaotic swamp.¡± Fycro had no intentions of hiding it. Both Saleen and Lex would not be able to leave if they chose not to agree. There was no one in Metatrin City that would pose any threat to him so he was not worried at all that Saleen and Lex would be able to flee.


    ¡°Then I would like to add another condition. If not, you can kill me.¡±


    Fycro smiled and asked, ¡°Mage Saleen, what earth-shattering condition is this? Do tell.¡±


    ¡°I want to build a tunnel for smuggling purposes in the chaotic swamp. You cannot bother the group of people involved in the smuggling.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Smuggling? Sure. You write the contract and I will sign it.¡± Fycro did not seem to mind, which made Saleen doubt if he meant what he said. If he signed a bond with someone of grade-10, would the restricting powers still take effect?


    Since Fycro had already agreed, it was better than nothing. As Saleen took out a magic scroll, he felt that the pressure on his body has lightened and his mental strength could be adjusted freely again. There was an impulse to take out his n badge, but Saleen was afraid that he would not be able to kill Fycro with it. He chose to take on a passive approach and took out his magic brush from the demonic ring and began writing the bond.


    When the bond was being signed, Saleen felt that something was very wrong. Although he was being forced into all this, the terms and conditions of this bond were actually beneficial to him. If the oracle had not done what he did and the Holy See decided to attack the city, it would take at least two years. The reason was even if the Holy See had vessels, they would not have been able to deploy enough holy masters to follow the troops.


    Once the battle on the maind began, it would be toote to try and build a navy.


    Even if the Holy See was given another two years, they might not be the clear winner. It would depend on the progress of the battle at Lun, whether Cloudflow¡¯sbat vessels would carry out any harassments on the sea and other factors that might crop up.


    Saleen was aware that his ability to analyze the big picture was weaker than Lex¡¯s. He decided to keep quiet and would discuss it with Lex when they returned.


    There were three bonds in total; two were written by Fycro and one by Saleen. There were no traps in Saleen¡¯s bond because he was afraid that Fycro would be able to find them. In any case, not setting a trap was also advantageous for Saleen. Once the tunnel in chaotic swamp waspleted, the armies of the Holy See would not appear here.


    If the Sikenqinya and the Tanggsi empire started a war with each other, Saleen would be able to use this tunnel to sell resources to Sikenqinya. If both empires formed an alliance, the tunnel could be used to spring a surprise attack on Sikenqinya¡¯s nk. As for unifying the maind? Saleen estimated that it would take one-hundred to two-hundred years at least.


    The fourth dynasty¡¯s copse spanned across two-hundred years. Adding another one-hundred years of fighting, the dynasty basically survived three-hundred years of turmoil. Saleen¡¯s goal of reviving the Goddess¡¯ faith and unifying the maind would surely take longer than that.


    There were no signs that Fycro was going to disappear, but once the bonds were signed, the three scrolls turned into bright spots before vanishing into thin air. With that, Fycro¡¯s body vanished as well as if his body was devoured by the elements.


    What technique was this? It could not be stopped!


    Saleen was taken aback for a moment then decided not think about it anymore. Lex and he reappeared on the pier and found themselves surrounded by close to one-thousand soldiers. Once the both of them appeared again, Su rushed to them and looked nervously behind Saleen.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay. Dismiss everyone. The viscountess and I need to talk. Hmm, Lex, let¡¯s go to my temple.¡± At this moment, Saleen also realized that he would probably need Eleanor¡¯s help as well. That elf knew more about gods than any humans could.


    Once Saleen and Lex left, the pier quickly went back to normal. The soldiers returned back to their ambush spots while some of the sailors, who had been shocked by what happened, could finally breathe a sigh of relief.


    When they were back in the temple, Saleen went straight to the fifth level, which was where he lived. Nailisi appeared soon after, but Sika was nowhere to be found.


    ¡°Go and get Eleanor here. We have some things to discuss.¡± On the fifth level were all of Saleen¡¯s trusted aides. Saleen brought Lex to the canteen, sat down, and began to tap his fingers on the table impatiently.


    Eleanor was also staying on the fifth level. Saleen did not wish to rm too many people and decided that the fewer the people that knew about this the better.


    The doors of the canteen were shut and the canteen was left with Saleen, Lex, Su, J, Eleanor, and Nailisi.


    After the magic arrays had been set to contain their voices, Saleen recounted everything about how they signed bonds with Fycro. He then asked Eleanor directly, ¡°What do you think?¡±


    Eleanor was stunned for a while and said, ¡°It¡¯s very simple. This Fycro, he wants to be a God himself and wants to lead the disciples to an interdimensional space that the Lord of Glory would not be able to find. There are already so many disciples on this dimension, he just needs to take some away and turn them into his.¡±


    ¡°He wants to be a god?¡±


    ¡°Yes, he must have already possessed the ability to retain faiths. Didn¡¯t you say that his right hand contained divinity that was independent on its own?¡± Eleanor shared freely, as if these were verymon and normal incidents. Her knowledge of theology was rich and she understood many of gods¡¯ secrets. In fact, elves probably did not respect gods all that much because they already knew of the many ws of gods.


    Saleen suddenly remembered Ismail. That fellow seemed to possess the ability to retain faith too!


    ¡°Then do you think we will be in any danger?¡±


    ¡°In the near future, no. Until Fycro bes a God, he will not go against the bond. Neither he nor his disciples wille for you unless you attack him.¡±


    ¡°What if I tell the Holy See what has happened?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it,¡± Lex interrupted Saleen and said, ¡°Your Metatrin city and my Bitter Water Prefecture will both be destroyed by him.¡±


    ¡°Why would Fycro do that?¡± Saleen did not understand.


    Lex said, ¡°The Holy See has started the Holy War, but that may not bother the three big empires. If the war does not go well, even if the Lord of Glory is unable to descend onto this dimension, he will still think of ways to send his strongest subordinates here. If that happens, Fycro¡¯s position will be shaky. It will be very normal to n ahead.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s thoughts gradually cleared and said, ¡°In that case, Fycro is of no threat to us in the near future.¡±


    ¡°At least not for the next five years,¡± Eleanor was confident in her reply. Saleen felt relieved that he had not killed this elf back then. Without Eleanor¡¯s knowledge, he probably would not have figured out what Fycro¡¯s real goal was.


    Fycro left behind the state of mess that the Holy See was in and came to Metatrin City for half a year on his own. Clearly, he did not care about the Holy War. Saleen deduced that Fycro might even hope for the Holy See to be defeated, then he would be able to bring away even more disciples. While Fycro was in Metatrin City, he must have been observing his city. If he decided that the city had a future, it was entirely possible that he might give it a boost so that the Holy See might be defeated sooner.


    Fycro said that he helped Saleen settle some problems. He was probably referring to thebat vessels from Lianyun City.


    After the countries of Eastern Sea were defeated in their expedition, Lianyun City gained arge number ofbat vessels. Inparison, Metatrin City only had twobat vessels other than the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The oue of the battle was that Lianyun City¡¯s three mainbat vessels were sunk, which led to a crushing defeat.


    While the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat could certainly defeat one mainbat vessel, there was no way it could defeat three at one go. Fycro did help him out in this matter. It seemed that he did not have any tricks up his sleeves, but just wanted to use Saleen¡¯s left hand and Lex¡¯s God¡¯s ring.


    ¡°J, from today onwards, you will take over Daniel¡¯s tasks. Let Daniel build another army.¡±


    ¡°My Lord?¡± J did not understand. Daniel was already put in charge of Metatrin City¡¯s defence, why would Saleen want to take away his authority?


    ¡°Humph, the victory over Lianyun City was not as simple as it seemed. I want Daniel to form an army for offensive operations. You just have to look after the city. He is a death mage and has an advantage over you in field operations. When I am back, I will use Lianyun City as an excuse to attack Phoenix.¡±


    Deep down, Saleen knew that little progress would be made if he did not merge Metatrin City and Phoenix together. Although Phoenix¡¯s climate was simr to Metatrin, they produced much more grains and needed to be taken over. In the future, this would pose as a potential threat to his country if he were to expand it, but still rely on imports for grains otherwise.


    Lex¡¯s goal was probably the Qin empire. She only needed to win over the majority of the noblemen¡¯s support in order to seed the throne. With Saleen coordinating on the outside, it was even possible for Lex to be Emperor. Only when all these were in ce would they have a chance of spreading the Goddess¡¯ faith within one-thousand years.


    Saleen was not against the Goddess¡¯ revival. After all, magic was more popr when the Goddess of Myers was still around. The Goddess of Nature viewed magic more favorably than the Lord of Glory because most elements of magic were taken from nature itself. On the other hand, the Lord of Glory¡¯s light had nothing to do with the light element from the six great elements.


    At this point, Saleen said, ¡°Lex, regarding the building of an army, I will have to trouble you to help out.¡±


    Lex already knew before Saleen even asked. She supported Saleen building his country, in return, Saleen was also going to help her return to the center of Holy Rock City¡¯s power where she belonged. If she had been the one to expand hernds continuously, she would have attracted the attention and pressure of the other powers instead.


    ¡°Rest assured. When you are back, you will see a proper andplete army. Now¡­,¡± Lex paused andughed. If Saleen¡¯s army were to fight against her swordsman¡¯s camps, they would be crushed. To conquer Phoenix, they could not use her men yet so they had no choice but to take the tougher route of training up a proper army for Saleen.


    ¡°Let¡¯s eat.¡± Saleen waved his hands. He had thought that things would get easier when he returned from the purgatory desert. Who knew that something like this would happen? Although this might seem like a good thing in the near future, if Fycro really were to be God, who was to stop him froming over from another dimension? Saleen knew that Fycro was from the Myers Maind. If he became a God, the rules of the dimensions would not stop him from descending into this dimension anytime he wanted.


    Although there seemed to be more harm than good overall, there was no other choice. What Fycro did was simply coercion and there was no way Saleen could refuse.


    Food had been ready for some time. When it was served, Saleen was shocked beyond words. Food was served by a group of spirits of the dead and grade-3 skeleton warriors. Their phnges had been polished thoroughly and their bodies washed countless times, even a trace of blood could not be found.


    Jughed bitterly, ¡°Daniel said that this is an important ce and the people that served you must be the most loyal and trustworthy ones. At the moment, there are not enough of these people so we will just have to make do with spirits of the dead for the time-being¡­¡±


    Saleen nodded. At this moment, he realized that although his city¡¯s poption and army had expanded by more than ten times, the people that he could really trust were still those that had been with him from the beginning. He would not be around in Metatrin City most of the time, there was not going to be a quick fix to solving this issue of loyalty.

 Chapter 572: Telensu Town (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 572: Telensu Town (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The formation of the army could not be dyed, but Saleen could not stay behind either. He had to go to Holy Rock City. Saleen had already made a promise to Joey, and now that he had hopes of bing a sorcerer, he would be in hot water if he still did not go.


    Everything there had to be left to Lex. The defense of Metatrin City would be left to J while the formation of a new army would be left to Daniel. This sort of delegation was rted to Daniel¡¯s profession too. In the event that a war erupted a death mage would have an endless supply of resources. Deploying Daniel onto the battlefield would not affect his training.


    Daniel was born in the Tanggsi Empire, he would not be attached to Qin. He would not have any psychological barriers when attacking Phoenix either. Even if Daniel was sent to invade the Tanggsi Empire, would be very exhrated, Qin would be no problem.


    After enduring for five days and delegating all the tasks Saleen came to the port to look for the winged skeleton when he felt that Fycro might not be surveilling him anymore.


    At the moment, there were no humans aboard the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, everyone onboard were spirits. The scent of death was so thick in the alchemy ship. If Saleen was not the winged skeleton¡¯s owner he might have already died from all that poison a short while after boarding the ship.


    Setting the coordinates on the map, Saleen instructed the winged skeleton to travel to a small port in eastern Qin toy low and await his news. Fortunately, the winged skeleton was a spirit, so he would not get bored no matter how long he waited. Only by fixing a position could Saleen use a sound transmission magic array tomunicate with the winged skeleton.


    Saleen left the port and went to the southern garden where he told Sika of his itinerary. Sika did not insist on following Saleen, she only warned Saleen not to hook up with the female mage. She herself also had to stay behind to manage the newly joined Caucasus people. More than fifty-thousand Caucasus people were depending on Saleen, most of them were young and strong. Other than the trusted guards Sika had selected, most of the people were living in the southern part of the city. They did not enter the center of Metatrin City.


    The Caucasus region had fully crumbled as Lon was in battle. There was an estimated fifty-thousand more Caucasus people who would arrive. Sika really could not leave.


    This time around, Saleen neither brought along Sika nor Nailisi to Holy Rock City. Su might be powerful, but Saleen¡¯s coordination with him was poor. Saleen brought along Cuisi because of that. Cuisi¡¯s abilities were definitely mightier than Nailisi. Cuisi had entered the central temple and signed the goddess¡¯ contract, so their lives were intertwined.


    Saleen threw the sleeping Tourmaline at Sika, ¡°This thing cannot be brought along, who knows when it will begin growing rapidly. Someone needs to be there to give it guidance.¡±


    Narnia had been assigned to Saleen. Saleen was going to learn the customs and knowledge about the fourth dynasty from her.


    Another person traveling with Saleen was Aini.


    Aini¡¯s body had grown faster than Saleen¡¯s, he was already a tall and masculine youth. After getting rid of his illness, he had recuperated well. He did not look like a death mage at all. He had unusual closebat abilities, Aini could be considered a freak among mages.


    This trip to Holy Rock City was to be done in Aini¡¯s name, Saleen was basically nning to fetch Aini¡¯s parents. Of the four big families, he was only assured of Aini¡¯s Clyde family. He did not even bid farewell to Irene before leaving. In the days when Saleen was not in Metatrin, the Clyde family had given him much assistance. The assistance was a form of investment. At the same time it showed that the Clyde family had great foresight.


    When Saleen was in need the Clyde family would rather lose money and help Saleen build his city. Saleen still hoped that Aini¡¯s parents woulde to Metatrin, otherwise Aini would never have peace of mind. The moment Safilos started eyeing the Clyde family his parents living in Holy Rock City would be in danger.


    The winged skeleton set off from the port stealthily. He went to the eastern sea to wait for Saleen¡¯s news, while Saleen¡¯s team set off from the west exit of Metatrin, advancing towards Phoenix Duchy.


    This time around, they could not travel in the magic war chariot. The chariot¡¯s capability was unquestionable, but it had too high a consumption. Not only did it deplete magic nuclei, it also required constant repair. If it was brought to Holy Rock City and it caught the attention of the powerful figures there, should Saleen hand it over or not?


    The straight line distance from Metatrin City to Phoenix measured more than one-thousand miles. About two-hundred miles west there was a newly built city which had not taken shape yet. Passing through the mountains from this location before veering southwest, they would be able to reach Phoenix Duchy after walking about two-thousand miles.


    The size of Saleen¡¯s team was not small. In order to be inconspicuous this team was in fact packaged as a light merchant convoy.


    Traveling with Saleen was another team from the Rnde family with a total of tenrge chariots. This time around, the Rnde family was transporting a batch of level-4 magic nuclei and hundreds of sets of armor. Since Metatrin City possessed premium steel ores the Rnde family had crafted equipment in Metatrin before selling it to Qin.


    The merchant convoy Aini represented had twentyrge chariots. He was bringing live magic beasts to Qin, there was a total of eighty magic wolves. These magic wolves were specially selected by the Caucasus people, they were all the unwanted ones. These wolves were between three to five years old, so they still could be tamed by a mage.


    Northern magic wolves were extremely ferocious, but after getting tamed they would be more useful than the guard dogs in an army camp. They could defend, patrol, rescue, and cooperate with soldiers to invade small fortresses.


    Qin had many mages, so these magic beasts who could be tamed could be sold for a good price. The profit margin from selling these magic beasts was much higher than that of selling magic nuclei. At the same time Aini had brought along a batch of low level magic equipment which had been produced directly in Metatrin City. It was going to be sold with the armor made by the Rnde family.


    With merchant convoys from these two families everyone would be able to pass through Phoenix Duchy and travel along the route of Guderian City. The roads on the journey were well-paved, so their speed would not be affected.


    The Rnde family seemed to be dominated by women, the person leading the merchant convoy was ady over thirty years old. She was still beautiful despite her age. She also brought along a girl who was about fifteen or sixteen years old who was the direct descendant of the Rnde family. With just a nce Su secretly told Saleen that this girl already possessed the power of a Zun Grand Swordmaster.


    The protection team for the Rnde family consisted of two-hundred men. If the drivers and servants were included there were actually more than five-hundred people. It was clear that the servants also possessed offensive power, Saleen only pretended not to notice it. The people from the Rnde family did not recognize Saleen, they regarded Aini as the leader. After acknowledging Aini¡¯s presence everyone began the journey.


    Aini did not behave conspicuously. Before leaving he had sealed all the skeletal warhorses into the Green Spirit. Unless there was a need to flee it would be best not to employ those warhorses.


    Aini¡¯s merchant convoy only had fifty guards and twenty servants. With the drivers, there were only a little more than a hundred people. Saleen had led a one-hundred man mercenary group. Aini had discussed this matter with Saleen beforehand. This mercenary group had been secretly assembled, no one knew that it belonged to Aini.


    If this merchant convoy with almost a thousand people sold inferior merchandise they would surely make a loss in this journey which spanned more than ten-thousand miles.


    Saleen knew that a grade-5 mage in the Rnde family had brought along arge quantity of magic nuclei to sell, they would surely make a fortune. The price of magic nuclei in Metatrin City was extremely depressed and there was arge supply of it. When sold to Qin, the price of a level-4 magic nucleus would jump tenfold.


    This was an intentional move by Saleen, the level-4 magic nucleus had be a trademark of Metatrin City. Since the price of magic nuclei in the city was cheap it would definitely attract a horde of mages toe forth.


    Saleen was currently riding in Lex¡¯s chariot. The convoy¡¯s speed was not slow. Roads had been paved from Metatrin to Phoenix. Each day, the convoy would journey twice. Each journeysted for four hours and they traveled at a speed of twenty miles an hour. Only arge business family had the capability to achieve such a feat. When the convoy reached Phoenix it could further increase its speed.


    Saleen did not pay attention to the details of the Rnde family¡¯s convoy. During the journey he was busy learning from Narnia. Whenever there was free time he would observe the sights and sounds in his surroundings.


    It was onerous developing this road. More than a year had passed and many viges and towns had sprouted along this two-thousand mile route. In order to avoid war the Phoenix people had shifted north, thus forming a sizeable presence there.


    When the convoy neared the borders of Phoenix, they increased speed and halted at a small town in northern most Phoenix. This small town only consisted of about one-hundred households, there was not even a noble around to manage them. When the colossal convoy entered it almost flooded this isted city situated at the border.


    There were many empty houses in this town, some of which were in ruins. Without security officials and soldiers Saleen andpany decided to take over a street.


    Before they could rest the Rnde family had sent a swordsman over. This swordsman came before Aini, then said respectfully, ¡°Sir Aini, Master invites you to go over.¡±


    The four big families had been infighting in Qin, however they hade to amon understanding in Metatrin City. They did not have any more shes in the area ofmercial interests. Aini nced at Saleen and Saleen nodded his head. Bringing along the people around him, Saleen and Aini went to the Rnde family¡¯s camp.


    As many of the walls in the houses had copsed the Rnde family was like Saleen, they were looking for barrennd to set up camp unwilling to live in those houses.

 Chapter 573: Telensu Town (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 573: Telensu Town (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Su had a youthful face, but his technique of maintaining his bnce while using his finger to release the Sword Aura and break the table had stunned that beautiful middle-ageddy.


    Su red at that middle-ageddy icily, then continued, ¡°Even an assassin doesn¡¯t dare boast before me. If you try anything funny, no one here shall think of leaving this ce alive!¡±


    ¡°Su¡­¡± Saleen coughed gently.


    ¡°Sir.¡±


    ¡°Forget it, why argue with her, just let her leave.¡± Saleen was of course a person who would not stomach an insult. Since that woman had allowed him to leave, he would also use the same tone to chase her away. If she did not leave Su would really take action.


    Su could tell that this woman was an assassin and Saleen was still very guarded against assassins. One who concealed their own identity especially. This woman was definitely at a lower grade than Su. If Su was willing he could indeed ughter everyone in this house.


    Su came from arge family on the subcontinent ne and he was still a direct descendant of the first son. A person like him was most sensitive to assassins. Even though the middle-ageddy veiled her identity very well she could not deceive a Silver Grand Swordmaster who had fought with assassins for many years.


    Since she was an assassin Su would chase her away unceremoniously. Saleen might not be afraid of allowing an assassin to stay beside a mage, he still had many tricks up his sleeve and there was still a Narnia around.


    Narnia¡¯sbat experience was limited. Even though she was a grade-5 mage she would be at risk dealing with an assassin around her grade. Su did not mind getting rid of this threat before it developed into something worse.


    ¡°Aini!¡± That little girl furrowed her brow.


    Aini waved his hand, then pointed to Su and said, ¡°He is not my subordinate. I cannot do anything either, your men were the one who tried to chase other people away first.¡±


    The girl was helpless, then she said, ¡°Auntie, please leave the room.¡±


    That beautiful middle-ageddy stood up silently and left the room. She was really afraid that the youth would try to harm her. If an assassin did not approach their targets stealthily, this youth could basically kill her in a second with just one hit.


    ¡°Why did you call me over?¡± Aini did not want to bother himself with the assassin. With Su around no one would try to be hard on him. Aini could not help but envy Saleen¡¯s fortune, ¡°Never mind if he has one Silver Grand Swordmaster, he actually managed to recruit two Silver Grand Swordmasters. The newest one is still younger than the previous one. If these two Silver Grand Swordmasters were following other people, they could defend a city already.¡±


    ¡°Aini, why don¡¯t you introduce him?¡± The girl asked as she pointed at Saleen.


    ¡°My friend, Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen, my name is Sharman, nice to meet you.¡± The girl was very courteous to Saleen. ¡°Who allowed a white-robed mage to follow a Silver Grand Swordmaster? It is simply atrocious.¡± Sharman regarded Saleen as a descendant of some powerful family, not some kind of wastrel. ¡°How powerful is his family such that they had to pair him up with a Silver Grand Swordmaster?¡±


    Even though Su did not reveal his identity, Sharman was a Zun Grand Swordmaster herself, so she could decipher Su¡¯s actual ability.


    ¡°Pleasure meeting you,¡± Saleen answered politely.


    ¡°Aini, someone is following us,¡± Sharman said worriedly, she did not continue exchanging pleasantries.


    ¡°I know.¡± Aini smiled slyly. With a demon like Cuisi around it was impossible not to know that someone was following the convoy. With Cuisi¡¯s warning he and Saleen had known long ago that someone was stalking them.


    ¡°Humph, the goods we are bringing along this time are very valuable. Aini, something is wrong with this town, I think they will take action at night.¡±


    Sharman¡¯s power was very strong especially since she was younger than Su. Once she reached Su¡¯s age, she might have be a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster already, which was an extremely odd-defying feat. As for Su, he had been trained in the harshbat environment of the subcontinent ne. The support of his family, coupled with talent, enabled him to advance to a Silver Grand Swordmaster.


    ¡°You are afraid of the banditsmitting arson right?¡± Aini was not unfamiliar with Sharman, it was just that Sharman was still a child and he had no friendship with her. The rtions between their families were not strained, at the very least, it was better than the ties with the Williams family.


    ¡°Yes, I only brought along two mages, one at grade-5 and one at grade-3. We have over three-hundred guards. They still dare follow us, it means that this bandit gang has at least one-thousand members.¡±


    Aini pondered for a moment, then said, ¡°At best, a one-thousand man bandit gang will have one mage.¡±


    Sharman¡¯s face turned scarlet. Aini was very intelligent he understood that there was a possibility the two mages from the Rnde family were adept in using the fire element. They were skilled in offense, but did not possess many defensive abilities. If the enemy used fire magic to attack the chariots, then the chariots would be gone.


    Mages groomed from suchrge families usually made imbnced progress. Sharman¡¯s grade-5 mage would not make any further improvement during his lifetime. Only this method could swiftly cultivate a mage with strong offensive power. Of course, the mages groomed by the Rnde family were for battle.


    Sharman was not worried about the bandits, she was concerned about her cargo. If the chariots were incinerated these hundreds of pieces of armor could not be transported anymore. These goods were worth hundreds of thousands of gold coins.


    Even the Rnde family could not possibly possess a godly equipment. At this point in time Saleen realized the importance of Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring. No matter how many items there were Lex could carry all of it on her own.


    ¡°It is not a problem for my Dimension Stone to carry a few hundred sets of armor, but do I need to do this?¡± If Saleen did not care about the attention he would get, he could simply fly to the Holy Rock City with Cuisi, it would be much faster. Saleen would not get to enjoy the scenery along the way. On this trip Saleen nned to walk on the roads and prepare for his future battles.


    Other than Saleen, no one else in this room would possess such arge spatial equipment. Since Saleen kept quiet Sharman could only get increasingly vexed. She could fathom the strategy the bandit gang would employ. They would destroy the chariots first before trapping her team in the town. By then, the bandits would be able to call for backup and surround the town.


    When did such a huge bandit gang appear in the north?


    Aini said, ¡°Saleen, please help with this matter.¡±


    ¡°Sure. If the enemy uses fire arrows, magic, and trebuchets to destroy the chariots, I will get rid of them.¡± Saleen did not try to make life difficult for Sharman.


    ¡°Thanks. Sharman, if the enemy¡¯s mage get close tell your aunt to kill them. If the enemy hasrge magic beasts, I will take care of them.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Brother Aini, then my men shall be in charge of keeping watch overnight.¡±


    Saleen sighed, then said, ¡°Forget it, I will install magic traps and magic rms in case the bandits try to organize a sneak attack.¡±


    Since a bandit gang possessed many offensive methods Saleen was also afraid that there might be losses to the goods. The value of the goods in both convoys amounted to more than one-million gold coins. If the bandit gang could not be exterminated using conventional methods, then thismercial route would be disrupted in the future.


    In just one year many bandits had appeared along this route. If they were not wiped out they would prove to be a trouble for Metatrin City.


    ¡°Saleen, the bandits must be removed, but¡­¡±


    ¡°But what?¡±


    ¡°They might have slipped from Laiyin Duchy, if that¡¯s the case, it will be troublesome.¡±


    Saleen understood Aini¡¯s meaning. Laiyin Duchy and Lon shared a border, since Lon had fallen, it meant that the Holy See¡¯s army would invade Laiyin Duchy soon. Laiyin was a ce which produced mercenaries and bandits. If it sank a huge number of bandits would flee to Qin. Thus, in the foreseeable future, there would be no peace.


    Laiyin Duchy was the smallest out of the five duchies, but it had a poption of more than ten-million. It was no surprise that it contained a few hundred thousand bandits.


    When Saleen was in Sikeqinya he had heard many stories about how some ces in Laiyin Duchy only consisted of mercenaries or bandits.


    asionally, bandits would ask mercenaries to help them out, a mercenary would not mind bing a bandit. Everyone knew that Laiyin Duchy¡¯s security was not that good. The Sikeqinyans could not care less. Without the bandits, the mercenaries would be out of jobs.


    That was why the regr mercenary groups would not try to remove the bandits, both parties relied on each other for survival. The Sikeqinyans would be thest to wish for a peaceful world.


    Profits reigned above all. It was precisely because of this shameless survival concept the Sikeqinyans had that made it so difficult for the Holy See to spread its teachings. A Sikeqinyan would betray their god the very next day. Their only religion was money, not some god.


    Some servants arrived to ce a table. Naturally, Saleen and the rest stayed behind for a meal.


    Sharman looked at Saleen with great interest, a pity Saleen was not very intrigued by her. Not caring about being polite he used the Detection Magic to test every dish before letting Cuisi touch the food.


    Sharman looked at Saleen with increasing interest, ¡°This white-robed mage put on more airs than Aini. He even brought along a maidservant, while being protected by a grade-5 mage and Silver Grand Swordmasters.¡±


    As a demon Cuisi¡¯s abilities were overlooked once again. For the first time ever he recognized Nailisi¡¯s efforts while slicing bread for Saleen. ¡°By disguising us as humans and veiling our powers, these dumb people will never notice me. Humph, it will be much easier to kill these people then.¡±


    ¡°Mage Saleen.¡± Sharman called out leisurely as she sipped on fruit juice.


    ¡°Mm?¡±


    ¡°Are you married?¡±


    ¡°Not yet.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I introduce someone to you? My sister, Baroness Guya.¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Saleen thought that she was going to discuss some official matters, to think that she would make a marriage proposal.


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, because I am a Metatrin.¡± Saleen did not wish to beat about the bush. There was no one else in the room anyway.


    ¡°Oh!¡± Sharman eximed. Then, she said, ¡°Are you the son of the city owner?¡±


    It was no wonder Sharman thought that way. Even though Saleen wanted to keep a low profile the bodyguards beside him were too powerful. He did not look like the owner of a city either.


    ¡°My identity has to be kept a secret.¡± Saleen blinked at Sharman, he neither acknowledged nor denied her im.


    ¡°Okay, but Brother Saleen, you must think this through. My sister is a nice person.¡± Sharman appeared very na?ve and Saleen simply smiled in response. There were definitely no innocent people in the Rnde family.


    When Aini was at her age he was already extremely scheming. Currently, he might look vibrant and energetic, but he was actually harder to deal with. Luckily Saleen met Aini first, thus gaining understanding into people fromrge families. Saleen would have really gotten deceived by the innocent appearance of this little girl otherwise.


    ¡°Sir Aini,¡± someone called out from outside.


    Aini nced at Sharman, then Sharman said, ¡°Come in.¡±


    A mercenary entered and knelt on the floor, then said, ¡°Sir, the people who went out to re have returned. The road south of the town has been fully sealed. Both east and west of the town is filled with human activity, each side has about five-hundred people.¡±


    ¡°What about people from this town?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid they are the bandits¡¯ aplices. We have done an investigation, the original inhabitants have long fled, it is impossible to have anyone here.¡± The mercenary replied with a worried look. There were about four-hundred to five-hundred people in the town. Including the bandits outside, there was a grand total of fifteen-hundred people. ording to his experience these bandits were only the vanguards.

 Chapter 574: The Power of the Death Mage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 574: The Power of the Death Mage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, the bandits are nothing to be afraid of.¡± Saleen was calm. He had seen enough by now to know that the strength of a band of bandits was nothingpared to Aini¡¯s private soldiers, much less Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camps.


    The bandits might have the numbers, but Saleen had more than enough weapons to deal with them.


    ¡°We should first chase away all the bandits in the town.¡± Aini could no longer sit still. Compared to Sharman, his goods were more easily damaged. Sharman was only shipping armors while he was shipping beasts. These were not just any beasts, they would be used for domestication purposes. Once they died, their prices would drop drastically.


    ¡°Need help?¡± Sharman asked.


    ¡°Leave two-hundred men behind as guards, the others will chase the bandits in the town towards the south. If they resist, just do what you have to do.¡± These bandits were disguising themselves as citizens. There were no noblemen in these two groups, so they must have a legitimate reason to justify killing someone.


    Not only did bandits know how to steal, they also knew how to frame and set people up.


    Aini left in a rage. He felt embarrassed that he had not realized that those people in the town were in disguise. Although he did say that they would only kill the bandits if they put up a resistance, in actual fact, his heart was already set on bloodshed.


    Aini spent another ten minutes summoning fifty skeletons before leading them together with fifty of his own bodyguards to visit every household to flush the bandits out. The swordsmen disguised as mercenaries had retreated for the time-being.


    At the first household, Aini was already making his move. His bodyguards were all light-armored knights and they were armed with guns with a de at the tip. These weapons were useful whether on horse or on foot. There were four middle-aged men in the house. At this point, Aini could tell that in such times of chaos, it might still be reasonable to expect a household left with elderly and children. These four men were strong and well-built and had calluses on their hands that must have been due to the handling of weapons for many years.


    Twelve skeletons rushed in to attack with three of them surrounding one man. Aini¡¯s knights began charging from about ten yards away. A normal horse would not have been able to pick up speed from this distance, but Aini¡¯s knights did not depend on their warhorses¡¯ momentum to attack. With their de-tipped guns held in their right hands, they attacked in almost a perfectly straight line.


    Blood sttered all over. Although the knights were not rushing in with great speed, the four men were already trapped by the skeletons. The skeletons might not have much fighting ability, but they were not afraid of death or injuries. They only needed to hold the enemy for a while.


    They had killed the upants of three households consecutively, none of them older than forty years old. Aini was certain that these men were only of average swordsmen¡¯s standard.


    By this time, the bandits disguised as citizens had decided that they would not just be sitting ducks. A group of them gathered on the streets and tried to block Aini¡¯s way.


    Aini was overjoyed. These bandits were only wearing quilted armors that had been discarded by the army and not even leather armor. Quilted armors were not durable so once they were past their expiration date, the defence they could provide dropped drastically. These men were armed with an assortment of weapons. Most of them held long swords while some of them wielded epees or even daggers. There were more than two-hundred of them yet none possessed ranged weapons. About ten or so bandits at the front of the group held hunting bows, but their range was only twenty to thirty yards. They could not even prate leather armors.


    Under Aini¡¯s control, fifty skeletons released a strange howl and rushed towards the bandits. The bandits were brave and had no fear even after seeing the spirits of the dead. They charged ahead with their weapons as well.


    Aside from these low-level skeleton soldiers, Aini did not cast any other high-level spells. Just the skeleton soldiers were enough. They slowed down the enemies¡¯ charge and split them into four columns. The effect of weapons on their skeletons were such that swordsmen of middle-grade and above would have been able to turn them into a heap of bones while swordmasters would have been able to kill them all within seconds.


    Unfortunately, the bandits had to face a second wave of attack. Aini¡¯s knights charged through the columns that the skeletons had formed and wherever they passed, blood sputtered out with a sound as if gigantic beasts were panting.


    The bandits¡¯ hunting bows were of no use against the metallic armors. The fifty knights killed off close to one-hundred men before the mercenaries finally arrived from behind.


    ¡°Mob!¡± Aini waved his hand and a mage stepped from amongst the mercenaries. He took out a scroll and more than ten clumps of spider webs descended from the sky and trapped more than twenty of the bandits together.


    Before the remaining bandits realized what was happening, they were killed by the mercenaries¡¯ arrows.


    Slightly more than ten of the skeletons survived while the other thirty or so skeletons had been chopped into pieces by the bandits and had returned to the death dimension.


    Aini shouted, ¡°Rise!¡±


    With that, the bandits¡¯ corpses rose shakily and walked slowly towards Aini. He smiled and stopped chanting the curse suddenly. The corpses immediately fell back to the ground in a heap.


    Aini¡¯s bodyguards were indifferent, but the mercenaries were fearful. One of them said, ¡°Master Aini, is this death magic?¡±


    ¡°Yes, to get rid of evil spirits. Death mages can control the corpses that they have killed and use them to attack the enemy¡­¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s incredible,¡± one of the mercenaries said.


    Aini smiled. This group of mercenaries were gathered by him so they were yet to officially be part of Lex¡¯s team. These mercenaries were trained by him and Daniel. Considering this was the first time they witnessed death magic, they were quiteposed.


    Summoning skeletons and expelling corpses were two different things. It seemed like thetter was much more disgusting.


    This was also a death mage¡¯s biggest strength. Long ago when the four countries were at war, once a death mage killed the enemy¡¯s soldiers, they would be revived to attack against the next city. There were no exceptions, even those that were controlled by ck magicians. Once they died, they became the tools of the death mages.


    On the other side of the town, Sharman¡¯s guards were also chasing the bandits away, but they suffered considerable losses.


    When Aini returned to the barrack, he found Sharman seething in anger. It turned out that after both of them had split up, Aini was decisive in killing all the bandits, but Sharman lost quite a few soldiers.


    Nevertheless, this was still considered a major victory. Aini had the advantage of using spirits of the dead. He could use the skeleton soldiers to carry out the most dangerous tasks because they could be summoned again even if he lost them.


    ¡°The town has been cleared. This is only the beginning. We don¡¯t know how many bandits there are beyond the city. Sharman¡­¡±


    ¡°Humph, I know. I will ask them to follow your orders.¡± Sharman was not proficient in organized battle operations. There were too many enemies now and it was beyond her ability tomand.


    ¡°Give your orders now. I will arrange men for patrol.¡±


    Aini grinned as Sharman gathered themanders of her troops and instructed them to take orders from Aini.


    ¡°Telensu town belongs to Baron Telensu. He is a first-ss Baron and has affiliations with Qin.¡± Narnia had already finished gathering the necessary information and passed it to Saleen. This data on officials were usually recorded with spells. Narnia did not manage find them at first because she was searching from the information on Phoenix noblemen.


    Baron Telensu¡¯s enfeoffment was supposed to be north of Phoenix but he was in fact a Qin nobleman. This strange twist wasted some of Narnia¡¯s time at first.


    ¡°Leave it alone for now. We are just crossing borders. We can look into this when we return.¡± Saleen hinted at Narnia not to bother too much about it. In any case, Baron Telensu was no longer here. He was probably the empire¡¯s spy. Before Qin empire still deployed some trusted aides in Phoenix, such as Baron Cook.


    Emperor Chanake was already dead but these spies continued to exist, even though they longer meant anything to Lex.


    Narnia kept quiet as Aini carried out Saleen¡¯s suggestion after a discussion. He turned all the dead bandits¡¯ corpses into spirits of the dead and ordered them to block off the northern side of the town.


    The city walls of this small town measured at about five-hundred yards with one door each on the north and south side. A few hundred spirits of the dead blocked off the northern door and they were apanied by a mage that had hidden amongst the mercenaries and another ten of Aini¡¯s knights.


    Night fell and howls began to sound outside of the city. The group of people that were making the sounds approached the northern gate and hesitated when they saw it wide open.


    The person in charge of guarding the northern gate immediately signalled to Aini. He could not even afford to take a short rest before being disturbed. He got up and knocked on Sharman¡¯s door to wake her up and said, ¡°I am going to guard the northern gate. If anyone attacks from the south, just take orders from Saleen. I have left one-hundred mercenaries for his deployment.¡±


    Aini had no intentions of disclosing that Saleen was one of the sponsors of the mercenaries. In fact, this group of mercenary soldiers were funded by what Saleen and he had put together.


    The battle began abruptly. These bandits clearly did note from the same ce as there wasck of propermand and order. Nevertheless, they were better equipped than those that had been disguised as citizens in the town as most of them were d in leather armors. Some of them were wearing metallic armors and were all at the level of swordsmen.


    There were more than one-thousand bandits at the northern gate and although they were disorderly, they were definitely more highly-skilled than those that had been killed in the town. When a small group of bandits tried to enter the city, they saw a few hundred corpses standing in the streets and staring back at them.


    Some of the corpses were still recognizable but others already had their heads cut off. Blood has already clotted and who knew what that white and fluffy stuff was!


    While this small group of bandits were still hesitating, the corpses created by Aini had already charged at them in a craze. These corpses were only grade-1 and did not possess much intelligence. They no longer knew how to wield the weapons that they once possessed when they were still alive. Now, they could only depend on the ten centimeter-long sharp nails on their hands to attack.


    The nails were covered with poison that was fatal once they made a scratch on one¡¯s skin.


    ¡°Death mage! Run!¡± Someone within the group of bandits shouted and everyone panicked before the corpses were even close. Those that were leading the group were the first to run while some of those at the back were too stunned to move and were trampled by those that were running away.


    The strongest amongst the bandits were only middle-grade swordsmen. Once they heard that there were death mages amongst the enemies on top of the disgusting corpses in front of them, all of them lost the courage to fight and were scared off from the city by Aini.


    The corpses were not fast so by the time they reached the city gates, the bandits had already fled for at least five-hundred yards and only their backs were left in sight.

 Chapter 575: The Power of the Death Mage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 575: The Power of the Death Mage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were two types of death mages; one was a support-type and the other was the fearsome battle-type. Amongst these bandits some were smart and knowledgeable enough to know that there was no chance of winning the fight the moment the corpses appeared.


    There was no limit to the number of corpses that death mages could create and it was unrted to mental strength. With time on his side, a death mage could create an entire army of death troops. Although Telensu Town was a small city, its walls were still firm and stable. Attacking the town through the city walls was meaningless. It was wiser to retreat and form a siege around the town to attack the caravans.


    ¡°I must give it to them for how fast they can escape.¡± Aini looked at the fleeing bandits and knew that there was no way the corpses would be able to catch up with them. He ordered them to block the city walls and brought the bodyguards and mercenaries back to camp.


    The bandits could be considered lucky. Aini¡¯s corpses only needed to be triggered slightly to be berserk corpses, where their speed and strength would have increased by more than ten times. The only problem was that berserk corpses only had a few hours of activity before their energies were exhausted and they would disintegrate into pieces.


    The corpses were still considered as spirits of the dead while the berserk corpses could be considered as magic puppets that could only be used once.


    Saleen noticed the bitter look on Aini¡¯s face and that Sharman was looking solemn, and said, ¡°What¡¯s the rush? Someone must be inmand of the bandits. An attack wille sooner orter. I have an idea, not sure if you want to hear it though.¡±


    ¡°Just say it and cut the crap.¡± Aini was frustrated. If he was not selling magic wolves, he would not have cared so much about the bandits. Death mages were least afraid of sieges. The more the people involved in the siege, the more materials he would have to create corpses. Right now, he was only worried about his goods.


    Out of the eighty magic wolves that he was selling, twenty were caught by Caucasus people and were already partially domesticated and could fetch high prices. The remaining sixty wolves were about two to three years old. Excluding the costs incurred for buying them and transporting them, he could still make a profit of five-hundred gold coins per magic wolf. This trip could potentially him forty-thousand to fifty-thousand gold coins and that was excluding the magic nuclei that he was carrying.


    This was the amount of profit he would make after excluding the costs incurred. The expenses incurred for the logistics of this journey, the capital to buy the magic wolves, and the expenses of the soldiers would also be paid for by whatever profit he earned. If he lost the magic wolves, he might have to lose more than ten-thousand gold coins.


    ¡°There are alreadyrge-scale caravans in Metatrin City. About eighty percent of them used the sea route, but this route is also used by about twenty percent of caravans. So many caravans have used this route yet I have never heard of anyone being attacked by bandits. We actually have quite arge number of soldiers at the moment.¡±


    Sharman and Aini nodded. There were about three-hundred and fifty soldiers on both sides. Including the servants that could fight as well, they had eight-hundred men in total. Typically, a band of bandits numbered about one-thousand members and they would normally only attack when they outnumbered their targets by five times.


    ¡°If these bandits have been upying this area all this while, how did the merchants leaving from Metatrin City pass through this ce? Since these bandits were gathered here in a short time, as long as we break through the siege very suddenly and take them surprise, they will not dare to do anything to us. I bet that whoever is inmand of the bandits is still in the midst of making preparations. We cannot keep wasting time here. Once dawn breaks, we leave through the south.¡±


    ¡°We will suffer substantial losses on our way out.¡± Although Sharman knew that what Saleen said made sense, she could not bear the thought of losing even one of the guards that she had brought along from her n.


    ¡°No worries. The enemy¡¯s main force is not here so I can help you settle the rest of them.¡± Saleen then turned to Aini and said, ¡°I will ask them to try to leave behind corpses that are still in one piece. By tomorrow, we will have more than one-thousand corpse soldiers. By then, even if the number of enemies increased, there is nothing for you to be afraid of, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Aini curbed his anger and knew that it was pointless to direct them towards the enemy. He tried to console Sharman, ¡°I am only worried about the goods. Let¡¯s not worry too much about the bandits.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself that Sharman¡¯s goods could actually be transported easily with his dimension stone. What mattered now was only Aini¡¯s goods, so the situation was actually not that dire. As long as the enemy did not spring a surprise attack, Saleen could always use his n badge to instantly kill anyone below grade-9.


    Besides, he and Aini possessed flying abilities so they could always use that to escape if they could not win the fight.


    Sharman was still worried. It was the first time she was leading a caravan, so if something happened this time, there was no way her mother would let her take the lead again in the future.


    Aini was also weighing his gains and losses. If something really were to happen, at most Saleen would have to help to carry the magic wolves¡¯ corpses so that he could still cut the losses. He tried to console Sharman again, ¡°We have three grand mages and one silver grand swordmaster. The enemy will need at least a grade-9 sorcerer to defeat us. Even if they had a grade-8 sorcerer, there is nothing for us to fear. Do you think there will even be sorcerers in a band of bandits?¡±


    ¡°By right, no¡­¡±


    ¡°Then just leave it to me.¡± Aini did not want to boast to a young girl. His mood was totally different once he ignored the safety of the goods. He pulled Saleen away from Sharman¡¯s barrack and went back to his. Narnia and the rest followed closely behind.


    Once they were back in Aini¡¯s barrack, Saleen told him, ¡°I was thinking along the way that I was right all this while. Someone is trying set up a trap for Metatrin City. If a major caravan was robbed on its way from Phoenix to Metatrin City, business would surely be affected. What do you think?¡±


    Aini pondered for a moment before saying, ¡°Between Telensu Town and Metatrin City were all prosperous towns and viges so you can still use your own men. This town over here belonged to Phoenix. The Grand Duke of Phoenix¡­ that child is still under the control of Holy Rock City. If you wish to take over this town, you will have to talk to Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°This town is only two-thousand miles away from Metatrin City and more than ten-thousand miles away from Holy Rock City. What is there to talk about? upy this town and let Holy Rock City acknowledge my authority here.¡±


    ¡°You are not afraid of starting a war?¡±


    ¡°No. You?¡±


    Aini smiled and said, ¡°Neither am I. You can upy this town with our troops in the name of vanquishing the bandits. The real problem will onlye in the future on whether Holy Rock City will do anything about your presence here.¡±


    ¡°I will need your help.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± Aini was surprised. His abilities were limited. In terms of business, he was perhaps equal with Saleen. When it came to setting up base troops, he did not have the necessary qualifications and experience.


    ¡°I need you to help me train up a few death mages. Don¡¯t reject me yet. There is something in it for you. Leave the dead soul mes to me.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you ask Daniel?¡± Aini did not refuse. Saleen said there would be something in it for him so it should be something worthwhile. He still had his doubts. Daniel was also a grade-5 death mage. If Saleen asked Daniel to train up death mages, expenses would definitely be lower. Daniel was Saleen¡¯s follower while Aini was just a friend to Saleen. Things were different.


    ¡°Once the issue with Holy Rock City is settled, you won¡¯t need to travel around anymore, whereas Daniel will go on expeditions for me. He will not have the time to take students. This is the border of Phoenix. I need a few death mages to be on guard. Death mages advance the quickest amongst mages, so as long as I am willing to spend, I should be able to have grade-3 mages within a few years.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s thought process was simple. Death mages were of utmost importance to armies. Element mages were used to counter holy masters, while death mages could kill offrge numbers of enemy troops. When attacking cities and countless numbers of corpse soldiers and skeletons were desperately climbing up the walls, it would put a lot of pressure on the enemy.


    ¡°Okay, I promise you.¡± Aini epted readily. Helping Saleen was like helping himself. It was also Saleen¡¯s idea that they head to Holy Rock City to bring his parents out. Once they were out of Holy Rock City, Aini would feel more assured about carrying out his tasks.


    Aini¡¯s parents had killed many people from the Holy See before. Now, since Qin and Tanggsi empires were officially at war, Aini¡¯s parents were no longer under so much restrictions. Even if the n released them, Holy Rock City would not interfere too much.


    ¡°We will need your maximum effort tomorrow. The bandits do not have too many horses so once we break through, they will have to rely on the few bandits who will be riding on horses. I will lend you fifty alchemy crossbows. Make sure they stop chasing us.¡±


    ¡°Heh.¡± Aini did not reject the n. He did not have any rank of nobility so his bodyguards would not be allowed to use the alchemy crossbow. Both Saleen and Sharman did not have a rank of nobility either. The bandits would never care about thew though. They would most likely possess alchemy crossbows of their own as well. If Aini and his soldiers only used their own iron crossbows, their range would be shorter than the enemy and they would be in trouble.


    The bandits would be able to afford to cluster at a safety distance and make full use of the advantage of the alchemy crossbows to disrupt the caravans.


    If only Aini was a death sorcerer, he would have been able to summon grade-6 death knights, who were powerful and could charge at a speed that far surpassed what human knights could.


    ¡°Narnia and I will not interfere. We will have to trouble you.¡±


    Saleen did not wish to expose his identity. These bandits attacked the caravans despite knowing that their opponents had a few grand mages, so they must not be typical bandits. There must be a mastermind who was supporting them, but Saleen was not sure who it was. He must be patient until the real enemy was revealed. Whoever was trying to control this trade route, Saleen must destroy them.


    This road was his. From Metatrin to Telensu, from Telensu to Deep Forest Town, and from Deep Forest Town to Didypus through the chaotic swamp; he would not allow any other forces to upy any parts of this road that was a few thousand miles long.


    After finalizing the arrangements for the battle, Saleen left behind the alchemy crossbows and returned to his barrack. The sky waspletely dark and the bandits within Telensu Town had already been chased out. There were spirits of the dead guarding both the north and south entrances. The bandits that were forming the siege did not attempt to attack during the night so the night passed quietly.


    In the morning of the second day, the caravans gathered and prepared to set off.


    The servants in charge of the big wagons began to distribute wooden shields and long swords. All the wagon-pulling horses had already been switched to skeletal warhorses. On Aini¡¯s side, the servants in charge of the wagons had already been armed with iron crossbows while his knights had changed to the alchemy crossbows that Saleen has lent him.

 Chapter 576: Berserk Undead Soldier (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 576: Berserk Undead Soldier (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sharman¡¯s guards helped pave the way for the merchant convoy, they were all light cavalrymen. Each person in the convoy had a horse. Even though the servants were not riding on warhorses their speed was not any slower too.


    When the bandits, who were observing from afar, realized that their target had charged out instead of guarding the town, they were in a dilemma.


    The person who hired the bandits had asked them to entrap the merchant convoy in Telensu Town, but before the bandits could recruit sufficient manpower their target had left the town instead of defending it as thought. The bandits had no choice but to mount an offensive.


    Bandits hiding in the eastern and western sides of the town gathered, over one-hundred cavalrymen gathered, then they tailed the convoy. They did not dare oppose the convoy as they had insufficient manpower. There were more than three-hundred troops in the convoy wearing metal armor. The bandits were in contrast mostly d in cloth armor, they did not even have many pieces of leather armor.


    Out of the over one-hundred bandit cavalrymen there were five holding onto alchemical crossbows. These weapons had been given to them by their employer and the bodies of the alchemical crossbows still contained an ordnance number which originated from the Qin Empire.


    These five bandits who wielded alchemical crossbows chased after the convoy. When they reached a distance of three-hundred yards they still had not taken aim. Even though an alchemical crossbow had a range of five-hundred yards the bandits¡¯ power was too low. An alchemical crossbow had to have an aim and these five bandits did not possess such powerful vision.


    Fifty of Aini¡¯s trusted guards turned around uniformly, then fifty alchemical crossbows fired simultaneously. At a distance of three-hundred yards an arrow from an alchemical crossbow could pierce armor. As the five bandits were d in leather armor more than ten cavities were busted in their bodies. Even though Aini¡¯s trusted guards did not possess high uracy one-third of the fifty arrows still hit their targets.


    ¡°Alchemical crossbows!¡± The bandits behind got flustered, as they bellowed frantically, ¡°Stop the horses!¡±


    These bandits never expected their target to possess alchemical crossbows. If people were traveling as a regr merchant convoy they would face seriouswsuits if their use of alchemical crossbows was reported to the authorities. When the bandits came to a halt hundreds of undead soldiers rushed out from the forests on both sides of the road. They lunged at the bandits on the horses.


    Aini¡¯s calctions were extremely precise, he had ced the undead soldiers outside the city the night before. The bandits hade from east and west of the city, they did not even discover this trap. The undead soldiers did not need to breathe, they simply allowed the mosquitoes to feed on them not even moving an inch. Hiding in piles of dposed leaves, the bandits had no way of discovering them at all.


    The eyes of the usually slow-moving undead soldiers turned purple at this point in time and their moving speed increased dozens of times. They pounced onto the bandits at lightning speed, then used their fingers to scratch at the bandits.


    The strength of a Berserk Undead Soldier was higher than that of a swordmaster. The bandits were totally caught off-guard, they were just thinking of how to flee, they did not even think of retaliating.


    Battling with a group of undead creatures was unwise. The problem was a Berserk Undead Soldier could catch up to a warhorse on foot. The bandits were captured one by one, getting dragged off their horses. On average, three undead soldiers were attacking one bandit. Shortly after these bandits had been torn to shreds.


    As the undead soldiers were too far from Aini, they could not bemanded anymore, they were simply relying on their instincts during the battle. After finishing off those bandits who were riding on horses the undead soldiers charged in the direction of Telensu Town approaching the bandits who were pursuing on foot.


    The bandits who were at the rear were suffering more as they were traveling on foot. At this moment, they came face to face with the Berserk Undead Soldiers and thus got trampled on.


    A Berserk Undead Soldier had many weaknesses. They did not wear any armor, and the sturdiness of an undead soldier¡¯s body was inferior to that of a human swordmaster. They also could only fight using their instincts when they were notmanded by a death mage. The fighting techniques they possessed when they were alive were not preserved, so they fought in a very crude manner.


    The undead soldiers were very hideous, their bodies were drenched in blood looking utterly abominable. The only weapon derived from an undead soldier was their long fingernails. These nails were razor sharp. They could cut through leather armor easily, but were not so effective against metal armor.


    The undead soldiers could fight with a regr army only if they were d in armor and were under the control of a death mage. Fortunately, the enemy were disorganized bandits. The moment the bandits saw these horrifying undead soldiers they panicked.


    Some courageous bandits wielded their des and sliced downwards. The undead soldiers did not bother dodging, they allowed the bandits to chop their faces into two and then they used their ws to scratch the bandits¡¯ faces.


    The fingernails and fluids of the undead soldiers containedplex toxins. Whenunched, several other bandits copsed in agony simultaneously.


    If there was a death mage in the vicinity. The death mage could still make the undead soldiers explode causing everyone within a radius of a dozen yards to be stained with the poisonous fluid. If a grade-5 holy master was not present, these victims would not be able to survive. Unless they had worn fully sealed heavy armor, but any other measures would be futile.


    A death mage still possessed many other simr offensive methods to inflict excruciating pain to the enemy on the battlefield.


    The cost of production of fully sealed armor was very high, average people could not afford it. The bandits were living in extreme poverty, they could not be as generous as Lex. The trademark of a low ss baron in Qin was having a high grade swordsman as a bodyguard. This swordsman would wear a set of fully sealed metal armor.


    Those bandits who had no horses were obliterated by the Berserk Undead Soldiers, none of them managed to escape. The Berserk Undead Soldiers were also getting exhausted causing their speed to be increasingly slower. Before they could return to Telensu Town, they had already copsed to the ground as their insides crumbled, then they turned back into a pile of minced meat.


    Aini had ordered them to ughter their way back to Telensu Town. Unfortunately, undead soldiers who were created in haste had weaker bodies. After the intense massacre their bodies could not be sustained anymore.


    Telensu Town still contained over three-hundred bandits who stayed behind. When they saw the undead soldiers copsing to the ground, their faces turned pale as sheets. Some of them even began vomiting.


    Onboard Saleen¡¯s chariot Aini was holding a giant crystal ball in his hands. The ck dots of light within the crystal ball were disappearing one by one. Aini put it away, then said, ¡°We are safe for now.¡±


    ¡°Brother Aini, you are awesome!¡± Sharman stared at him with eyes wide open, but Aini did not respond.


    Saleenughed, ¡°They were stupid for trying to outnumber a death mage.¡±


    Cuisi looked on in slight disagreement, ¡°Those undead soldiers are useless against a demon. A demon isn¡¯t afraid of those toxins. A few hundred imps will be able to kill more than ten-thousand undead soldiers.¡±


    Su also did not really favor such a spirit. If the duration of battle was short, those toxins could be dispersed using the Sword Aura. When a Silver Grand Swordmaster was in battle they could even resist magic, not to mention some venom which did not possess any offensive power.


    Aini got a little smug, then said, ¡°I thought that there would be interception up ahead. Judging by the looks of it the bandits should have been organized in haste. Without three to five thousand people I will be able to handle such an offensive.¡±


    Saleen said, ¡°Now that you have done this, the mastermind might not emerge already.¡±


    Aini thought to himself, ¡°It was all your idea. With Sharman around, we cannot execute any risky actions. Let¡¯s terrorize the enemy first. Once we return and deploy more manpower to upy Telensu town, the rest of the issues can be settled easily.¡±


    ¡°Eh?¡± Sharman¡¯s ears perked up suddenly. Her small ears could move about freely, as though they had picked up something.


    ¡°It is a powerful figure. Sir¡­¡±


    Su had also picked up the tter of horses¡¯ hooves. He and Sharman were grand swordmasters, so they could roughly fathom the ability of the enemy just by hearing their horse¡¯s hooves. There was a total of three horses traveling at insane speed, these horses were fast approaching the rear of the convoy.


    Sharman¡¯s mouth twitched, but she did not summon the mages at the front of the team. The other grand mage she had brought along was not with her at the moment. Since the grand mage Narnia was also in the chariot Sharman thought that Saleen would order Narnia and Su to deal with those three presumably powerful people.


    ¡°No worries, they are but three Zun Grand Swordmasters.¡± Saleen waved his hand, then Su rxed and leaned against the soft cushion behind him.


    Indeed, after several seconds, the tter of the horses¡¯ hooves stopped. After all fifty of Aini¡¯s trusted guardsunched their arrows, the experts among the bandits got frightened away.


    ¡°Fifty alchemical crossbows are no joke. The attack range of a Zun Grand Swordmaster isn¡¯t increased, they have tounch an attack within ten yards so as to be stable. The other party has so many alchemical crossbows, it means that they must have an urate aim.¡±


    The three leaders of the bandits looked at one another. They had rushed all the way up to find bodies strewn across the ground. They were outraged. They did not give a hoot about a death mage, it was still easy for three Zun Grand Swordmasters to defeat a death mage.


    Who would have expected their enemy to have so many alchemical crossbows? From a distance of fifty yards, the Sword Aura alone would not be able to resist an attack from an alchemical crossbow.


    ¡°Damn it! Who gave us this intelligence?!¡± one of the bandits¡¯ leaders berated. ¡°The enemy doesn¡¯t only have a mighty death mage, they still had so many alchemical crossbows. How are we going to triumph? Unless there a regr army is present, my ill-trained subordinates will have no way of defeating the enemy.¡± The three leaders charged over hurriedly, they did not even don armor or shields, they were still d in leather armor. ¡°Even with shields, I cannot protect the horses, and I still won¡¯t be able to catch up to the enemy.¡±


    Above the heads of the three bandits¡¯ leaders a silver-beaked raven took off at a leisure pace. A few minutester this raven arrived at Saleen¡¯s chariot andnded.


    Aini opened the windows, allowing the silver-beaked raven to hop in. It hopped onto his palm, then began crowing.


    Aini listened to it for a moment, then said, ¡°Someone is indeed behind this. A pity that a spirit can only narrate, it cannot identify their ents.¡± Speaking, Aini regurgitated the information obtained from the silver-beaked raven.


    ¡°We will go around the next town and set up camp in the wilderness,¡± Saleen said with a smile. Their speed had exceeded the expectations of the enemy, so the enemy could not organize an effective assault or even gather sufficient manpower.


    Traveling another fifty miles would cause the enemy to lose their judgment ability. If the next town was also controlled by the enemy it would be better for Saleen andpany to set up camp in the wilderness. At the very least, the enemy would expose themselves.


    Since the entanglement and harassment was ineffective, the bandits decided to retreat after they could not catch up to the merchant convoy. The convoy increased its speed. The roads there were the regr roads of Qin. The creatures pulling the chariots were now skeletal warhorses. By noon, the convoy had arrived at the next town.


    No soldiers were stationed in this town, but there were tax officials from Phoenix standing at the gates. When they saw the skeletal soldiers traveling amongst the convoy, these officials pretended not to notice this convoy of a few hundred men, allowing it to pass through. The convoy cut through this town and continued rushing without any breaks. When the sky fell dark it had already covered another one-hundred miles.


    The team stopped and set up camp. As Saleen observed the servants from both families he felt very envious. The quality of these servants were better than those pirates Saleen first recruited. If a battle erupted the servants would be qualified soldiers the moment they donned armor.

 Chapter 577: Berserk Undead Soldier (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 577: Berserk Undead Soldier (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt that it was a little weird not having Lex around. Even though the barracks set up by the merchant convoy were pretty good it was still poles apart with the ones brought along by Lex.


    Sixtyrge chariots were positioned in the middle of the camppound forming a circle. Tents were ced outside therge chariots and beyond the tents were the sturdy temporary barracks. Since the merchant convoy did not possess Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring all their barracks were made of wood and they were transported by therge chariots. Traps and wooden perimeter walls were built outside the barracks.


    Each of the eight sentry posts were enveloped by a one-yard tallrge shield. Aini had also deployed skeletal soldiers to guard the sentry posts. A skeletal soldier might not possess adequate offensive power, but it would not get exhausted. They also had a high level of alertness, the moment someone got close the skeletal soldiers could quickly warn Aini.


    Cuisi noticed the dissatisfaction Saleen had towards the camp grounds, then he whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°I will keep watch tonight, I won¡¯t be sleeping.¡±


    Saleen then felt more assured. Usually, a demon would remain alert even if they did not sleep for a few days unlike humans who would be so lethargic if they did not sleep for just one night.


    ¡°Okay, if any bandits appear, kill them carefully. Allow Aini to collect some usable materials,¡± Saleen reminded Cuisi. Cuisi¡¯s whip could disintegrate a person the moment it entrapped them and they could not even be made into a Berserk Undead Soldier if that happened.


    Since some of the enemies were at the standard of a grand swordmaster, Saleen did not dare becent. In areas Aini could deal with Saleen would not let Su fight. An undead soldier was the best thing for helping a mage conserve strength. Aini himself could control several of them effortlessly. If they were intelligent zombies it would already be good if Aini could even control a dozen of them.


    Whether it was a regr army or bandit gang, one would conduct a night assault when it was around dawn. At this timing, one¡¯s vignce was the lowest and they would be in deep sleep. Even if they woke up, their offensive power would be at the lowest point too.


    Saleen had brought along his own barrack, so he separated from the merchant convoy and Narnia stayed with him. Since they were mages they had to meditate and practice in the evenings, there was not any inconvenience at all.


    Since a mage had high mental strength, they needed less sleep. During special periods where they had little sleep they could still be as energetic as a demon who had not slept for a few days. A mage had to have time for meditation still however.


    After Narnia meditated she did not fall asleep immediately. Instead, she discussed magic with Saleen.


    Since Narnia possessed profound knowledge, Saleen could not offer her much. He decided to talk aboutbat techniques. Even though Narnia was a lifestyle mage, her mental strength and magic chords were both higher than that of abat mage.


    ¡°Saleen, I want to learn your Water Shield, is that okay?¡± Narnia was actually fond of Saleen, but she had dismissed this notion after feeling that she could never be superior to Lex. She was jubnt that she got to travel with Saleen this time around. It had been a long time since Narnia learnt new techniques, so she decided to seek help from Saleen.


    ¡°This is¡­¡±


    ¡°Is it inconvenient?¡± Narnia was a little disappointed as Saleen¡¯s Water Shield was very powerful, it was even mightier than the Ice te Armor. A grand mage was most in need of such a defensive spell.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that it¡¯s not convenient, but you have to advance to a grade-7 sorcerer before you can achieve the same effect as my Water Shield. Even a grade-7 mage may not be able to cast this spell instantaneously like me. If a defensive spell cannot be cast immediately during battle a mage will be greatly disadvantaged.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s no big deal. I am not abat mage, I can release the Ice te Armor before releasing the Water Shield.¡±


    Saleen was thinking in the right direction. Even though the Ice te Armor could not resist a skill like the poison fog one could breathe while within the Water Shield. All the toxins in the air would have been filtered by the water element. A lifestyle mage would not fight at the frontline. The function of this skill was more pronounced than an instantaneous spell.


    ¡°Okay, now release a Water Shield for me.¡±


    Narnia¡¯s face was a little red. Disying Saleen¡¯s forte in front of Saleen himself made her slightly embarrassed. She still chanted the mantra and prepared to cast the spell.


    Thirty secondster, Narnia¡¯s spell was consideredpleted as a translucent shield appeared before her. This shield was condensed from the water element and it was pretty tiring to maintain the shape of the shield. As ripples of water emerged, the shield seemed like it would break anytime.


    This was just a fa?ade. The Water Shield was in fact a low level spell with tremendous defensive power. The biggest w, other than it being made from water, was that it could not be cast instantaneously. This seemingly frail spell could actually resist a level-4 magic attack. In thirty seconds, the enemy would have already cast a high level spell. Indeed, such a defensive spell with slow movements had almost zero significance in battle.


    Saleenughed, then said, ¡°Do it again.¡±


    Speaking, Saleen released the Quickcloud Spell, causing thick clouds to fill the barracks. ced in between Saleen and Narnia was water vapor which was fully transparent and not in a cloud-like appearance. The water element was abnormally thick at this point in time.


    Narnia slowly dispersed the Water Shield from her hand, then begin chanting the mantra again. After about fifteen seconds, a second Water Shield had appeared. This Water Shield had developed twice as quickly, its area was also two-thirds bigger than before.


    Just as Narnia was about to answer, the ring of a magic rm filled the air. Saleen said, ¡°Ignore that, lets continue.¡±


    Narnia nodded. Maintaining the Water Shield, she said, ¡°If I cast the Cleaning spell to make the water element thicker, the casting speed of the Water Shield will be increased, right?¡±


    ¡°There is another alternative. Cast the lowest level water spell to make the water element more intense than usual. That way you can cast a high level water spell faster. The starting verse of many mantras for high level spells are simr to that of low level spells. Now, you shall follow me and chant the mantra first, try to alter a spell that has already beenpleted.¡±


    After finishing his sentence, Saleen began chanting a mantra slowly. This was actually pretty unfamiliar to him. To Saleen, casting water spells rarely required him to chant extended mantras.


    The sound of massacre could be hearding from outside the barrack. Saleen appeared not to notice anything, he continued exining the technique of the Water Shield to Narnia.


    Outside the barrack, Cuisi stood in the shadows, he had already drawn his weapon. After signing a soul contract with Nailisi, he had given up trying to make Nailisi help him revert to his original gender. It was pretty good using the body of a human female, Nailisi had allowed them to regain their demonic forms during battle at least.


    The Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill was great. Cuisi had met several people, including Bain, but all of them only knew that Cuisi was a demon by guessing. If only vision or perception was employed, even a grade-9 sorcerer would not be able to determine his identity.


    The sounds of arrows whooshing exploded in the surroundings of the camppound. Hundreds of bows were firing, causing the people in the camp to be startled. The soldiers guarding the merchant convoy had donned their armor while the servants grabbedrge shields. All of them stood guard at the camp¡¯s periphery.


    Thisrge shield contained threeyers. Ayer of skin, ayer of wood, and ayer of metal. A miniature alchemical crossbow could only prate it if shot at close range.


    By shooting the arrows perpendicr to the ground the bandits could not even hurt anyone in the camp. After a few rounds of barrage the bandits began tilting their bows downwards. Both Sharman¡¯s and Aini¡¯s trusted soldiers possessed bedazzling martial arts. They used their longswords to deflect the arrows descending from above and still had some strength to protect those servants holdingrge shields.


    The servants from both merchant convoys remainedposed. Wielding magazine crossbows, they waited silently for the enemy to rush into the campplex. The range of a magazine crossbow was almost the same as a hunting bow, but within ten yards its lethality was pretty high. Its firing speed was also high, they would be more effective against the bandits who were not wearing metal armor.


    Aini had already woken up calmly. He wasmanding the skeletal soldiers, making them advance out of the camp in pure darkness. After the skeletal soldiers were transformed by Aini they were now ck in color. Aini had only used magic to dye their bones. Unfortunately, a spirit¡¯s eyes were filled with the Soul me, so a spirit could not be totally invisible.


    Of course, Aini would not attack in such a straightforward manner. Dozens of spiders the size of a wheel crept out stealthily. These spiders had been newly summoned by Aini.


    A death spider traveled much faster than a skeletal soldier. Their eight legs flitted about and they dashed towards the bandits quickly. The offensive power of a death spider was not high. These spiders spat out cobwebs swiftly entrapping over thirty bandits. As the webs contained toxins, those trapped bandits only managed to struggle for a while, then they ceased all movements permanently.


    A few bandits at the grade of a swordmaster immediately rushed forward, shing urately at the death spiders. They had no magic weapons and a spirit could well tolerate physical attacks though. The death spiders soldiered on as they continued spitting out spiderwebs.


    Once the death spiders were killed, the team of bandits who were preparing to charge forward had already lost more than three-hundred men. The skeletal soldiers at the rear charged forward, dragging the bandits¡¯ bodies back to the camp.


    The swordmasters tried to give chase, but were pushed back by the arrows fired from within the camp.


    The skeletons had seized over one-hundred corpses and Aini began creating new undead soldiers joyously while being protected by the shields. If these skeletons were to fight with the bandits, it would already be impressive if they could even kill a dozen bandits. They decided to snatch the bodies causing the other bandits to be hopping mad.


    One by one, new undead soldiers were created. The skeletons rushed out again, capturing another over eighty bodies. Aini produced another two-hundred undead soldiers. The bandits outside could no longer take it. They wanted to harass the merchant convoy first, firing arrows at it till daybreak beforeunching a direct offensive. This time around the bandits had gathered more than two-thousand men coupled with some mercenaries from the Laiyin Duchy. Their offensive power was greatly boosted.


    From the bandits¡¯ perspective, the bows and heavy crossbows were ready, they could totally damage the merchant convoy. Who would have expected the enemy to use skeletal soldiers disrupting all their ns. The enemy¡¯s death mage had lost almost one-hundred skeletal soldiers and a dozen grade-3 death spiders. More than three-hundred bandits were ughtered still. If this went on, the enemy¡¯s death mage would be able to summon another batch of skeletons.


    Skeletons were the most worthless spirits, the bandits could not afford to waste resources on them.


    After a period of turmoil, the bandits reassembled and attacked. One-hundred bandits d in heavy armor formed up neatly. Raising shields in front of them, they began charging forward. Since the camppound was only surrounded with wooden walls the bandits could use their handy short axes to hack them down.


    In the campplex, elemental vibrations became increasingly vigorous. Ainiughed secretly. The grand mage beside Sharman could not hold back any longer. One-hundred heavy infantrymen dashing forward was a pretty astounding event. If they managed to breach the camppound there would be massive casualties even with assistance from the undead soldiers.


    These bandits were really dumb as well, they knew that there was a grand mage there, but did not organize heavy cavalrymen to charge ahead. Even though a heavy infantryman had better defensive power, their speed was slower. From a distance of one-hundred yards, a grand mage would have adequate time to prepare a group attack spell already.


    ¡°Violent Stone Shards!¡± Sharman¡¯s mage bellowed, causing Aini to be dumbfounded. ¡°You are still in the mood to shout a spell¡¯s name during battle? This is surely a narcissistic mage. I will let him show off then, anyway there aren¡¯t many opposing heavy infantrymen. After these heavy infantrymen are removed, it will just be the bandits and you shall watch my Berserk Undead Soldiers!¡±

 Chapter 578: Black Dragon King (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 578: ck Dragon King (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini could not understand this element mage¡¯s style of roaring and shouting. A mage should just keep quiet, except when chanting curses. Shouting out the name of the spell would not increase its power anyway. There must be something wrong with his brain.


    To his credit, the element mage¡¯s spell was powerful as more than one-hundred huge stone shards protruded from the ground and pierced into the sky. These stone shards intersected with each other very closely and the one-hundred heavy infantrymen were in a mess because of them.


    Each stone shard was six yards long and was extremely sharp at the tip. Even the heavy armors on the soldiers could be prated and more than half of the infantrymen were impaled by the stone shards and were screaming in pain in mid-air.


    ¡°me totem!¡±


    The element mage¡¯s voice suddenly became sharp as a row of three-yard tall me monsters appeared and charged towards the remaining heavy infantrymen.


    Aini thought to himself, ¡°If we only have one such mage within the caravan, at the rate that he is using his magic chords, they will bepletely used up in no time and everyone will be in danger then.¡± This grade-5 mage was able to cast spells with great speed and his spells were extremely destructive. The me totem was so effective that in the blink of an eye, the metal armors on the infantrymen had been burned beyond recognition and the me beasts had also vanished thereafter.


    With two of the grade-5 mage¡¯s spells, the one-hundred heavy infantrymen were decimated so quickly that only a few were left.


    Both these spells were grade-5 so a typical element mage could only cast twelve of those consecutively before needing six hours of quiet meditation to fully restore the magic chords. If the environment was not suitable for meditation, they would need at least a day to recover naturally.


    Even though Aini looked down on Sharman¡¯s mage, he had to admit that the spells were extremely effective andplemented each other well. He first used the stone shards to slow down the infantrymen¡¯s charge, then he used the me totem, which had an area effect, as the finishing blow. The first spell required some time before casting so one must be able to predict in advance, while the second spell could be cast almost instantaneously so the enemy would not be able to react in time.


    These two grade-5 spellsbined to destroy almost the entire one-hundred heavy infantrymen leaving less than ten survivors. In order to destroy the enemy¡¯s elite forces, even if using the strongest spells required exhausting a lot of magic chords, it was still worth it. Element mages were different from death mages. Death mages possessed powerful summoning abilities and could afford to use the spirits of the dead that they have summoned to wear the enemy down. On the other hand, element mages were able to use the most powerful attack to strike at the enemy¡¯s weaknesses.


    What Aini was upset with was that the me totem had turned all the bandits into ashes so he would not be able to turn them into corpse soldiers. If only the bandits had been killed by poison or a simr methods instead, Aini would have gotten himself another one-hundred corpse soldiers d in metal armor. With such armors, the corpse soldiers¡¯ fighting abilities would have increased.


    In the barrack, Saleen was still sitting calmly despite hearing the loud explosion from the me totem. Narnia asked, ¡°Sharman¡¯s mage is already using grade-5 spells. Aren¡¯t we going to help?¡±


    Narnia¡¯s suggestion was not wrong. If they went to help, the grade-5 mage would be able to rest and recover some of his magic chords. If a few mages took turns to attack, he would be able to rest even longer.


    ¡°Narnia, you must trust Aini¡¯s abilities. If I had not advanced, I may not be his match either.¡±


    Narnia sighed and said, ¡°Saleen, you have changed a lot after one year.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Saleen did not understand why Narnia suddenly changed the subject.


    ¡°Back when you were still a junior mage, you were cautious in everything you did. Now you are very assured, just like¡­ like viscountess Lex.¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°One thing has not changed.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°We are still friends, right?¡±


    Narnia hung her head before raising it again and said, ¡°Of course, we are still good friends.¡±


    Mages always watched what they said. It meant a lot whenever mages of simr grades became friends. When mages¡¯ powers werebined together, the effect was not as simple as one plus one equals two. When Saleen said that Narnia was his friend, it meant that in future if Saleen built a magic tower, she would be able to use it for training.


    Based on Narnia¡¯s background, there was no way she would have the money to build a magic tower unless Lex helped. Other mages would never have allowed her to use their magic towers for training either. After what Saleen said, Narnia¡¯s mood brightened.


    ¡°Let¡¯s continue.¡± In Saleen¡¯s hand, many miniature water shields that were the size of pearls were floating, spinning and changing. On the surface of the miniature water shields were magic patterns of a faint green color that were also constantly changing.


    ¡°If the water shield became smaller in size, its defence ability would increase. As long as you can predict where the enemy will attack from, this is also a way to protect yourself.¡± Saleen was demonstrating while exining to Narnia how to shrink the water shield. The entire room was filled with the fog that Saleen had released and visibility was close to zero. Su was already at the door entrance, so bored that he was watching the battle from afar.


    There were many enemies, but Su was not concerned at all. Based on his abilities alone, although he might not be able to defeat all of them but at the very least, they would not be able to stop him if he decided to escape. Cuisi hid in a dark corner and had yet to strike. He realized that Sharman was nervous purely because she was worried about the loss of her goods. Her guards were all actually very strong and if this was all that the bandits coulde up with, there was no way the bandits would win.


    Cuisi recalled what Saleen reminded, ¡°Don¡¯t do your utmost for others.¡±


    This camp was set up on a very good location. One side was facing the mountain and the other was facing the road. If the bandits were toe from the road, they would have no cover. Aini¡¯s bodyguards hid behind the big shields with their alchemy crossbows, not intending to rush out to battle with the enemy.


    The few leaders of the bandits outside of the camp were extremely anxious. They had not expected the situation to be so difficult. With merely two spells, one-hundred heavy infantrymen were gone just like that. The focal point of their attack had disappeared in the blink of an eye.


    ¡°The ck dragon king is here!¡± Bandits from a distance away began to create a din. The ground shook as the sound of horses¡¯ hooves were as loud as thunder and came closer and closer to the camp.


    The ck dragon king was a bandit gang that roamed the border of Laiyin Duchy. Sikeqinya has tried to capture them many times but to no avail. No one knew how many members there were in this gang, but it was rumored that the leader was a dragon knight.


    Dragon knights had only been heard of in myths because real dragons would never allow themselves to be ridden by humans. It was still possible with monsters that were wurm-types since they had been known to be subdued by humans.


    Even if they came riding on thorned dragons or bronze-armored dragons, it was still terrifying.


    The sound of the horses¡¯ hooves caught Su¡¯s attention. He entered the barrack and whispered to Saleen. He then took out the alchemy binocrs and handed them to Su.


    Su left the barrack and scurried up the roof to use the binocrs to observe. He only saw a group of knights from far away that were heading in their direction in a hurry. Leading the knights were three heavy-armored knights that looked tall and strong. They were riding on three metal-armored dragons.


    Compared to the bronze-armored dragon, the metal-armored dragon was less formidable in terms of speed and defence. Nevertheless, it was still a grade-5 wurm-type and could make a huge impact upon collision. If these three metal-armored dragons were to charge at this barrack together, the barrack would be crushed.


    The heavy armors that the three riders were wearing were the same metal as those on the dragons. Su had only seen such designs in diagrams and pictures. The subcontinental ne had no dragon knights so all information he had on dragons all came from myths.


    These three leaders were at least high-level swordmasters and could possibly be zun grand swordmasters. Including the metal-armored dragons and the magic armors that they were wearing, their abilities might be close to that of ck metal grand swordmasters. Behind them were one-hundred heavy-armored knights and they were riding on metal-armored giant lizards. Only grade-4 beasts like them would be able to take the weight of the heavy-armored knights. Even the best warhorses would not have been able to take their weight and travel for such long distances.


    Behind the one-hundred heavy-armored knights were four-hundred light-armored knights. These knights were wearing metal armors. Although light armors had lower defense abilitiespared to heavy armors, they were still more than able to protect against normal arrows.


    A troop of knights such as this could definitely robrge-scale caravans.


    After what he saw through the binocrs, Sumented, ¡°Don¡¯t tell me the robbers in the maind dimension were these ferocious! This gang of bandits is definitely more powerful than a conventional army!¡±


    Of course, Su was not aware that even amongst the four empires on Myers Maind, conventional army troops might not necessarily have such beast knights. These one-hundred bandits riding on metal-armored giant lizards could definitely go up against the private armies of an Earl.


    Behind these five-hundred knights were even more bandits that were riding on low-quality horses and were definitely not knights. Typically, only conventional armies would arrange their forces in this way, where the foot soldiers would ride on horses in order to increase the speed of the entire army. The bandits that attacked Aini¡¯s caravan earlier on were the typical bandits that would not have been able to form a decent group of knights even if they tried.


    Everyone had something to ride on so the expenses incurred by these bandits in order to reach there must have been huge. Those giant lizards were carnivorous so they would definitely cost more than warhorses.


    The bandits that were originally getting anxious finally received a boost to their morale when they saw that help wasing and it came in the form of the notorious ck dragon king bandit gang. The person that hired them had promised great rewards. As long as they could keep the caravans here, their rewards would be so great that they would not have to work for a year.


    The ck dragon king bandit gang wasing closer and Sharman¡¯s mage was devastated. He had totally used up the me totem and could only use violent stone shards one more time which would not be enough to deal with the three grand swordmasters. In fact, it might not be enough to deal with even the one-hundred bandits riding on the metal-armored giant lizards since every suit of armor had been boosted with spells.


    There must be a grand mage amongst this group of bandits. No bandit gang was powerful enough to solidify the spells on the one-hundred knights, so they must have been boosted temporarily by a grand mage.


    ¡°Lord Aini!¡± The mage gave up his pride and walked out from the crowd to bow in apology to Aini.


    Aini frowned and nodded to the mage and said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will find Saleen for help.¡±


    The element mage was taken aback. The enemy was almost there, yet Aini was going to seek help from the white-robed mage? ¡°Oh yes, the white-robed mage had a follower, which was a silver grand swordmaster. The silver grand swordmaster will definitely be able to fight against the three dragon knights.¡±


    Sharman was called to Saleen¡¯s horse carriage. Saleen did not want anything to happen to this girl from the Rnde family. The Rnde family had been on friendly terms with Metatrin and was of great help during the construction phase. Saleen was interested to interact with Baroness Guyana. Sharman was her sister so if she died, things would be tricky.


    The Rnde family had also built something simr to an army barrack. This temporal barrack could contain up to ten people. Saleen and Aini entered but a swordsman tried to stop Su. Aini shouted at him to back down.


    ¡°Aini, you are impressive!¡± The little girl sat on the floor with a very short table in front of her. Beside her was a middle-ageddy. She was the leader of the caravans.


    Saleen wore a white mage robe while Narnia was honest and wore a gray mage robe. No one took notice of Saleen. Aini made himself at home and sat down as servants served food. Seeing that Saleen and Su were also about to take a seat, the middle-ageddy beside the little girl said, ¡°The two of you. This is thedies¡¯ room. Shouldn¡¯t you take your leave?¡±


    Saleen did not mind. After all, he was the one that chose not to reveal his identity and to wear a grade-2 mage¡¯s robe. Su could not bear it anymore though. He was Saleen¡¯s follower and he could not stand seeing his lord being shamed like this.


    Su reached out his hand and used his nails to draw a line across the table and said, ¡°It¡¯s fine as long as my lord does not cross this line.¡±


    The line was drawn horizontally. The middle-aged woman was slightly upset and pushed against the table to stand up. No one expected that the moment her hands touched the edge of the table, the table broke from the middle and all the soup and water had spilled onto the floor.


    Suughed coldly and said, ¡°If you are impolite to the mage, I will kill you.¡±

 Chapter 579: Black Dragon King (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 579: ck Dragon King (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The element mage knew that those three bandits were false dragon knights and the silver grand swordmaster would definitely be able to deal with them. With the silver grand swordmaster in front of him, he would be able to cast spells with confidence and assurance. At most, he would use the scrolls given to him by the Rnde family and protect thedy.


    The mage had already made up his mind to go all out and use the scrolls that he had been unwilling to use until now. If he had known that back then, Saleen and Lex had destroyed more than 10,000 scrolls in order to subdue the metal titan, he would not have been able to bear that thought, and his heart would have bled in pain.


    Mages like him that depended on noble families were actually very poor. A middle-grade magic scroll would cost at least 1,000 gold coins, and that was just the price of an empty scroll. If he could create such a scroll on his own and infuse it with spells sessfully, his profit would have been 100 gold coins. Vice versa, his expenses would also be 100 gold coins if he failed.


    The equipment worth 100,000 gold coins d all over his body was all given to him by the Rnde family. If he could only depend on himself, he would probably still be stagnating as a grade-two mage.


    Aini made 200 corpse soldiers stick against the wooden wall before entering Saleen¡¯s barrack. Su jumped down from the rooftop and blocked Aini¡¯s path.


    ¡°Mage Aini, our iing opponents are beast knights. The element mage will not be able to handle them on his own. Let me help.¡±


    ¡°Your weapon¡­¡± Aini looked at Su, meaning that he should look for Saleen for a proper weapon. The weapon that Su held at the moment would not be suitable for dealing with knights.


    Su was wearing magic armor with his mask still on. On his back was a long sword, with another half-sword on his waist. The knights of the ck dragon bandit gang were all armed with long weapons.


    ¡°No worries, I know what to do.¡± Su waved his hand and pulled Aini back to the front door of the camp. Behind both sides of the wooden walls were corpse soldiers.


    In the barrack, Narnia felt uneasy and asked Saleen, ¡°We really don¡¯t have to go out and help?¡±


    ¡°The enemy¡¯s main forces are not here yet. No hurry.¡±


    ¡°Not yet?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Those forces that have been settled by the mage must have been heavy infantrymen. You have been with Lex for a long time. You must know how much a suit of armor of a heavy infantryman costs.¡±


    ¡°Minimally 700 to 800 gold coins. If they are magic armor, 10,000 may not even be enough.¡± Although Narnia was a lifestyle mage, she was still knowledgeable about weapons.


    ¡°It took two rounds of grade-five spells to settle them, so surely each suit of armor must cost about 2,000 gold coins? So 100 soldiers alone would cost 200,000 gold coins. These heavy infantrymen would need at least two horses each and to be served by another two servants. Every ten of them would require a wagon. In total, these 100 men cost 300,000 gold coins. Were they really bandits? If they were, how many caravans do you think they would need to rob to gather so much money?¡±


    ¡°They are actually conventional armies!¡± Narnia¡¯s voice tightened. Thews dictated that sales of weapons of every empire came with expensive taxes. If the weapons were ordered by the empire¡¯s armies, then the prices would be much lower. Otherwise, the emperor would never be able to afford any armies.


    ¡°Not exactly. Over at Laiyin Duchy and even Sikeqinya, it is not umon for noblemen to create their own weapons in private. People with connections will be able to buy them at a cheaper price. A basic suit of heavy armor, excluding manpower, only costs about ten gold coins each.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s so cheap!¡± It was the first time Narnia was hearing about this.


    ¡°Of course, but the mines were always under the control of the royal family so the noble families could only mine a small area in private. Why would merchants from around the country travel to Metatrin to buy ores, otherwise? That¡¯s because the profits are high. Even if the cost was 80 percent of the total revenue, they would still profit.¡±


    ¡°So, what is your n?¡±


    ¡°To be able to carry out an attack of such arge scale on this road, the mastermind must be someone of significance. If we allow him to continue hiding in the shadows, he will pose a threat to Metatrin sooner orter. After this round of attack, we will leave immediately. I will pass a message to Lex, asking her to find an excuse to upy Telensu Town and build three castles that will be able to look out for each other and control this trading route for the time being.¡±


    ¡°Three castles will not be enough.¡± Narnia was knowledgeable. She knew that a castle, even without any inhabitants, could only contain 1,000 soldiers. Three castles meant 3,000 soldiers, which would not be enough to maintain order on this road.


    ¡°It has to be small scaled. If we scare these people away, they will not dare to attack anymore.¡± Saleen smiled. If he built castles here, the enemy would definitely think of ways to get rid of them. What Saleen was most afraid of was that these people would disappear without a trace. He would not be able to deploy people just to track them down.


    Rather than let these people continue hiding, he might as well lure them out.


    Su came to the front door of the camp and drew his long sword. This sword had been refined for him by Saleen ording to his preferences. The sword was ck in color and concealed many magic patterns. Without these patterns, it would have just been a normal eight-sided Qin sword.


    This long sword had three special traits; it was light, sharp, and durable.


    This standard eight-sided Qin sword weighed around the same as a heavy dagger. As for its sharpness, aside from the tip of the sword being crystallized, the magic patterns also added to the sharpness of the de, infusing magic into it at the same time. Saleen used the water me to refine this sword. No other ordinary weapon would have been able to withstand the high temperature.


    Su once tried to use the sword aura to curl this long sword up. The three-foot sword curled for five rounds before springing open again automatically. It was still a straight line without any trace of curvature.


    Su held the long sword in his left hand while his right hand reached for the half-sword at his waist. This half-sword was two times longer than a dagger. It was silver-white in color and there was a hollowed-out pattern in the center of the sword. This pattern was also a magic symbol.


    The patterns on the half-sword were simple, but the ones on the tip of the sword were more eye-catching. Su¡¯s only expectation of this weapon was that it must allow for sword aura to be released beyond the tip of the sword without increased effort.


    If it was someone else, they would have had a difficult time creating such a weapon for Su. Saleen understood how sword auras worked so he was able to refine this half-sword for Su. Saleen added some branches from the tree of life because without them, he would not have been able to refine such a wonderful weapon.


    Su casually twirled the ck sword that was as light as feather. On both sides of the silver-white half-sword, sword aura was suddenly released from the tip of the de and shot out as far as a few yards.


    Aini was taken by surprise. If this sword aura were to attack him unexpectedly, he might be badly injured. Nevertheless, he did not step back and continued to stand beside Su.


    ¡°Send some skeletal soldiers to follow behind me. If I am injured, let them cover me for a while; if I were to win, let them bring the corpses of those three men back.¡± With that, Su closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing behind the door, all the while listening intently to the sounds outside.


    The men of the ck dragon king bandit gang had traveled a long way. They would definitely join up with the other bandits and rest first before attacking. Su had other ideas. As the men of ck dragon king bandit gang swaggered past the door, Su jumped out from behind the door while more than ten skeletons crawled out from the ground and followed behind him.


    The skeletons were simply unable to catch up with Su. It was almost as if his legs had been fitted with springs. He was already on the road with a few jumps and was charging from the side at the three bandits riding on metal-armored dragons.


    What he was using was a skirmish sword technique from the subcontinental ne. With two swords, one long and one short, he would be able to kill men within ten yards with the sword aura from his half-sword while his long sword was light and could pierce armor and block arrows at the same time. Such double-sword techniques could only be used by a silver grand swordmaster. Inparison, the ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s sword aura would not be released far enough from his body. Even if his weapon could help him achieve that effect, it was not sustainable for long.


    This was a skirmish sword technique and not a solo fight, so it was essential to have control over the sword aura for a long period of time.


    As Su was charging forward and his body was advancing via bounces, hepletely stopped the release of sword aura from the half-sword in his right hand. He pounced like a magic leopard.


    The three bandits were not weaklings either. When they saw a youth fully d in armor and charging at them with a long and short sword in each hand, the metal-armored dragons all stopped and turned. The dragon in the middle opened its mouth and spat acid at Su.


    It spat in the blink of an eye. Su exerted force in his legs and suddenly jumped six feet high, evading the spit that flew past him. He was already in front of the bandit in the middle. The long sword in his left hand struck the metal-armored dragon¡¯s chin.


    The ck-colored long sword pierced through the gaps between the metal-armored dragon¡¯s scales without a sound. The chin was the only part of the metal-armored dragon where the gaps between the scales were slightly bigger than the others. With how sharp Su¡¯s long sword was, one strike was all it took to severely injure this grade-five magic beast.


    Su withdrew his long sword gracefully and used the momentum to spin his body in half a circle. The three false dragon knights attacked Su at the same time with theirnces. The metal-armored dragon in the middle was already severely injured and crashed towards the ground, so its rider¡¯snce was not in the right position. It identally shed with thence of the bandit on the right. Su responded with the half-sword in his right hand and swept it towards another bandit who was within ten yards.


    This bandit felt a chill on his neck. Su¡¯s sword aura had cut through the soft armor that was protecting his neck. Threeyers of beast skin were not enough to protect against Su¡¯s sword aura.


    Su had identally killed a bandit leader. His body was still spinning and the long sword in his left hand struck downwards with force. The bandit in the middle was leaning forward at the same time as his dragon was crashing down. The long sword struck the bandit¡¯s back directly.


    Su had a good feel for his sword. The moment it struck the bandit, he knew that he would not be able to cut through the enemy¡¯s heavy armor in one blow, so he wriggled his wrist. The ck long sword suddenly hummed and the ripples appeared from its tip. With a forceful drag, the long sword that had been lodged in the bandit¡¯s back cut a hole two feet wide in the armor.


    Su drew back the long sword a little before aiming its tip downwards at the opening in the armor and pierced the sword into the bandit leader¡¯s body.


    Thest bandit was scared out of his wits to see the other two bandit leaders die instantaneously. His metal-armored dragon seemed to feel the same way as it charged forward and out of Su¡¯s attacking range. The 100 heavy-armored knights followed closely behind. Su took one look and knew that it would take too much work if he wanted to kill them all. Those two bandit leaders that he had killed were still strapped to the metal-armored dragons by their armor and could not be taken away.


    Su let out a sigh and gave chase in the bandit¡¯s direction.

 Chapter 580: Surrounded (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 580: Surrounded (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Su sighed for a reason. Those three bandits were indeed powerful, if they did not underestimate their enemy Su would not have been able to triumph so easily.


    The three bandits had connected their armor and the metal-armored dragon into one entity in order to improve their coordination with the metal-armored dragon. This caused their actions to be restrained, they could not be as agile as a true grand swordmaster. Su managed to slice the bandits¡¯ throats urately by releasing the Sword Aura in mid-air. He himself could not even understand how that happened.


    If the enemy had transferred their Sword Aura into the armor and the areas of the armor below the mandible were made of magic beast skin, Su¡¯s Sword Aura could not have prated it. The effect would be akin to striking someone with a heavy hammer, the enemy would get dizzy.


    Su had nned to cause a moment of giddiness in the enemy, he did not expect to kill them directly.


    The two bandits had died wrongfully, they had utilized an external equipment, but could not coordinate seamlessly with it.


    At this moment, dozens of skeletons rushed up, separating Su from the heavy cavalrymen. Sprinting on foot, Su managed to catch up to the bandits who were fleeing. Swiping his cuss, he amputated the metal-armored dragon¡¯s tail which was attacking him. He then tossed a longsword into the air. Carrying a razor sharp Sword Aura, it prated the bandit¡¯s body.


    Su took a few steps forward and pulled out his longsword. The skeletons behind him had been trampled into shreds by the heavy cavalrymen and hundreds of arrows wereunched. Su pushed up his own face guard. As Sword Aura circted throughout his body, his armor emanated a brilliance. Forcefully resisting the barrage of feather arrows, Su ran back to the camp.


    If he possessed a ride like the metal-armored dragon, he would have dared charge in the opposite direction. Since the enemies were riding on one-hundred metal-armored earthworms, Su did not want any idents to happen. These metal-armored earthworms were grade-4 magic beasts after all. Since he had ughtered the enemy¡¯s leaders, there was no need to take further risks.


    As the main road was not far from the barrack and Su sprinted extremely quickly, he arrived back at the camp in a sh, then he leaped over the walls.


    The men from the ck Dragon Bandit Gang witnessed their three leaders getting killed, yet they could not catch up to the killer. Su managed to get away. This caused the one-hundred heavy cavalrymen to be outraged. They then began charging towards the camppound.


    Alchemical crossbows installed in the camp immediately fired in a frantic fashion. Three rounds of barrage took ce. Dozens of heavy cavalrymen had their armor prated by the alchemical crossbows. A few were unfortunately shot at their vital sites which caused them to die on the spot.


    As the one-hundred heavy cavalrymen did not know how many alchemical crossbows there were in the camp, they did not dare advance any further. The cavalrymen at the front with the metal-armored earthworms veered into a new direction. They then separated and fled the threat posed by the alchemical crossbows.


    An alchemical crossbow could pierce heavy armor within one-hundred yards, but if the distance was more than one-hundred yards, its effect would be greatly diminished.


    Su was a little fatigued. Panting, he shoved his face guard aside, then told Aini, ¡°Your skeletons were sacrificed.¡±


    Without waiting for Aini to respond, he put both swords back into the sheaths, then walked towards Saleen¡¯s barrack.


    ¡°Sir¡­¡± When Su entered the barrack, Saleen had already retracted his cloud. Noticing that Su was a little exhausted, Saleen told Narnia, ¡°Sorry to trouble you.¡±


    Narnia nodded her head, then cast the Chunlin spell. A stream of green radiance diffused into Su¡¯s body, causing Su to be energized in that instant. Even though his Sword Aura had not been regained, his physical fatigue hadpletely disappeared. The effect of a level-4 treatment spell was not that good if one was not injured.


    ¡°Why did you take part in the fight?¡± Saleen said, his words peppered with a tone of admonishment.


    ¡°There were three men riding on metal-armored dragons, they are as powerful as a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.¡±


    ¡°Aye, you thought that Aini couldn¡¯t handle it? Forget it, I won¡¯t continue lecturing you. Look at how mature Cuisi is. As long as the enemy doesn¡¯t enter the camppound, he will never take action.¡±


    Su was momentarily stunned, then he understood what Saleen meant. He got lucky in his sneak attack. If there were some powerful figures in the enemy team, he would have been killed outside. In the camp where mages were in close proximity, there would never be a situation whereby one would get killed instantly.


    If the enemy possessed alchemical crossbows, Su would have sustained serious injuries if they fired arrows. Fortunately, those heavy cavalrymen were using steel crossbows, which could be resisted by his armor and Sword Aura.


    ¡°Sir, when I was at home, I was groomed ording to the requirements of a general. I will not be so impulsive in the future. Unless Sir gives me a team, I will not act alone anymore.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good that you understand. A person¡¯s ability is always limited, Ismail was really powerful, but he still got killed in the end.¡±


    Su listened to Saleen¡¯s lesson modestly. Alchemical crossbows were extremely rare in the subcontinent ne and there were no other especially powerful items. Although alchemical crossbows existed in small numbers on the ne of Myers maind, a powerful person would never be deprived of such weapons.


    Saleen smiled, then said, ¡°You were learning warring skills. Now that you see J leading troops, you must be envious.¡±


    Su nodded his head in embarrassment. He was envious of J, who could personally groom a squad of elites.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think you are better because you are younger than him. Let me tell you something, your talent is not better than J¡¯s. He can lead soldiers while ensuring that his swordsmanship training is unaffected, but you cannot do that. I am hoping for you to be a Golden Grand Swordmaster first before allowing you tomand troops.¡±


    Su wanted to rebut because bing a Golden Grand Swordmaster was much more difficult than bing a grade-9 sorcerer. He held himself back when he heard the confidence in Saleen¡¯s tone. ¡°Perhaps the rules on the maind ne are different from that of the subcontinent ne?¡±


    ¡°Rest first, once you recover, go and take over Cuisi¡¯s ce. Don¡¯t allow Sharman to die. Given Aini¡¯s powers, you don¡¯t have to protect him. He is not an elemental mage, he possesses way more survival techniques than me.¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± Su bowed respectfully and apologized at Narnia. He then found a bed andid down.


    A grand swordmaster was unlike a mage, the best way for them to recover was sleep. The secondary method was adjusting the Sword Aura.


    ¡°That guy has a bright future!¡± Seeing how Su interacted with Saleen, Narnia felt that this young Silver Grand Swordmaster had unlimited prospects. When most pugilists had attained such a grade, they would grow arrogant. Due to an increase in strength, they would have reverse psychological effects towards their past experiences.


    Before a swordsman became a grand swordmaster they would be suppressed by the mages. Once they advanced to a Silver Grand Swordmaster and gained the ability to kill a mage in one second, the attitude a grand swordmaster had towards a mage might undergo subtle changes.


    ¡°Yes, it is only a matter of time before Su¡¯s achievements exceed that of J¡¯s, he isn¡¯t asplicated as J.¡±


    As the two people engaged in a conversation in the barrack, Aini who was outside had already summoned the Floral Death Creature to obstruct the doors to the barracks. Quite a number of people had died. When the Floral Death Creature was summoned, it could absorb these scents of death without Aini needing to deplete any energy. He knew that if the one-hundred heavy cavalrymen forcefully attacked, the fifty alchemical crossbows wielded by his subordinates would not be able to resist at all.


    The archery skills of Aini¡¯s subordinates were simply too lousy. Those metal-armored earthworms could crash through the wooden walls easily. Once the exterior defense was gone the enemy would be able to observe the interior of the camp clearly. By then it would be more challenging to put up a defense.


    Of Sharman¡¯s subordinates, only that grade-5 mage could observe the situation clearly. He could kill those three bandits by himself, but he would have to cast about six level-5 spells to do so. Six level-5 spells were equivalent to half his magic chords already. His remaining magic chords might be insufficient to deal with the one-hundred heavy cavalrymen. Even if he could kill everyone, the light cavalrymen at the rear would be able to kill him.


    An elemental mage holding up a Magic Shield was not totally safe either. If he got surrounded by the enemies he did not have the ability to fly.


    Su¡¯s actions had struck fear into those bandits, many of them had witnessed the three dragon riders getting killed by the enemy in one go. At the moment, the bandits had gotten a little hesitant about this mission.


    The intelligence report did not state that the enemy would be this powerful. Since the enemy could kill three dragon riders, he had to be at least a Silver Grand Swordmaster.


    A Silver Grand Swordmaster was not invincible, these one-thousand men would be able to overwhelm him easily, but the enemy still had a grade-5 mage. Thebination of a Silver Grand Swordmaster with a grade-5 mage had caused the bandits to be fearful.


    The difference in abilities could not be resolved using bravery. These bandits had originated from different parts of the maind, they were not a close-knit team.


    It was already impossible to flee. With thousands of bandits under their control, the people from the ck Dragon Bandit Gang began formting a new strategy.


    Seeing that the enemy did not organize another assault, the elemental mage retreated and set up camp, encircling thispound which leaned against a mountain. Putting aside his worries, he went to look for hisdy superior.


    Over at Saleen¡¯s side, Saleen was still exchanging pointers about magicbat with Narnia. Narnia was really smart, she had already grasped the initial steps of casting the Water Shield quickly. After imparting crucial knowledge, Saleen began teaching Narnia a new skill; Ice Arrow.


    Narnia could cast the Ice Arrow. Her Ice Arrow was a level-2 spell, whereas Saleen¡¯s Ice Arrow could attain the lethality of level-3 magic.


    The most critical problem with Narnia was that she was a grade-4 mage, so her magic chords was insufficient. The moment the enemy donned magic armor she would have to battle with level-4 magic in order to kill the enemy. Even though the Ice Arrow had the offensive power of level-3 magic, it carried the effects of freezing and disintegration. It was a pretty good choice to use the Ice Arrow as the first attack to destroy armor. Saleen could even use aplex Icicle Spell to produce the effect of destroying armor, and this spell could still cause group damage.


    Once the utilization technique of water magic was mastered, water magic would not be any weaker than fire magic.


    Sharman¡¯s mage was proficient in fire magic, but in the face of powerful adversaries, he could only his strongest magic attack. The thing Saleen had taught Narnia was to use low level magic to achieve the effect of intermediate level magic.


    As Saleen had grew older and developed an intimate rtionship with Sika, he was not as ignorant as he was in the aspect of emotions. He roughly knew that Narnia was fond of him, but he did not harbor any mutual feelings for her.


    Narnia was young and beautiful, she possessed profound knowledge and had a good character. She was also a mage, but Saleen was fond of Sika and this could not be changed.


    Since he had no way of reciprocating Narnia¡¯s feelings, Saleen just wanted to provide more help to this female mage.


    A mage like Narnia never demanded much of their own offensive abilities. This world was currently on the brink of utter chaos, so Saleen hoped that Narnia would possess some abilities to preserve her own life.


    Lex would face many enemies. As her subordinate, Narnia would definitely meet with many perils.


    Narnia did not think so much, she was already very joyous that she got to spend some time alone with Saleen. Saleen was imparting exclusive magic knowledge to her although she did not like this type of magic knowledge.


    When Saleen was getting tired from all the talking, Narnia began teaching Saleen knowledge about the fourth dynasty. Certain practices need not be learned, Saleen only had to learn some special details and rules which were usually passed down in a family. In the future when Saleen interacted with a real noble, it would be these details which would arouse other people¡¯s suspicions.


    Saleen could not rely on the Sregl Ind forever, he would have to recruit substantial manpower. Why should these people follow him unless he was a prominent noble who possessed the authority to confer titles upon others? If he established a state, he could even attract many people with lofty ambitions.


    Each time a dynasty changed, new nobles would emerge, Saleen just had to act like one. With Lex at the side lending her influence, the issue of recruiting subordinates would be much simpler already.

 Chapter 581: Surrounded (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 581: Surrounded (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Not long after, Cuisi also entered. He then told Saleen about the events urring outside in a soft voice.


    ¡°How many people have the bandits gathered?¡± The moment Saleen learned that the bandits were nning to use the besieging technique to deal with the merchant convoy, he no longer thought of attacking them as he felt uneasy.


    ¡°About four-thousand people. The number is still increasing.¡±


    Even though Saleen did not read military books, he knew that the technique of surrounding the target required more than ten times the target¡¯s manpower in order to be stable. ¡°The enemy is a little delusional to be trying to besiege a one-thousand man merchant convoy with only over four-thousand people. My team has four grand mages, one Silver Grand Swordmaster, and a few Zun Grand Swordmasters. In terms of equipment, my side has sufficient arrows. No matter how inurate the fifty alchemical crossbows were, they can also create a tangible impact during the breakout process. By firing forward recklessly, a small opening can be created to allow the merchant convoy to charge out. Of course, this is the solution to use when we n to give up the cargo. If Sharman is unwilling to part with her goods, then no one will be able to flee.¡±


    Saleen was not worried whether his life would be in danger or not. He could bring Narnia and soar to the sky and if Cuisi recovered, Cuisi could fly with Su as well. Aini had his own flying spirits for escape.


    Logically speaking, a sorcerer would not join a bandit gang as it was too dishonorable. Those arrogant mages from the Alchemy City might even emerge to get rid of such scum. Without a sorcerer around, Saleen was not even afraid at all.


    The crux was Aini¡¯s eighty magic wolves, these wolves could not be stored and carried in the Dimension Stone. Saleen¡¯s goddess¡¯ ne could not contain the magic wolves unless he had subdued them. By allowing the magic wolves to possess the divine power of the goddess, even if it was a wee bit, they would be able to enter the goddess¡¯ ne.


    ¡°But that means that I have to buy this batch of magic wolves and I don¡¯t even need them. Sika has many Caucasus people who are proficient at training such magic beasts. Magic wolves are the local produce from the northern wilderness. If I want them, the Caucasus people can capture three to five hundred of them for me anytime.¡±


    ¡°Narnia, do me a favor.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    Saleen took out a Dimension Stone and ced it in Narnia¡¯s palm, then said, ¡°This is a Dimension Stone. Go look for Sharman and identify yourself, then ask her to transfer the goods into this Dimension Stone. Tell her to dismantle therge chariots and reinforce the camppound.¡±


    Narnia was aghast, then said, ¡°What about Aini¡¯s goods?¡±


    As Narnia was talking, Aini entered.


    ¡°Saleen, do you have low level contract scrolls?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I need eighty of them.¡±


    ¡°Cost price.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great, thanks.¡± Aini heaved a sigh of relief. These eighty scrolls were also worth a sum of money. Since Saleen was selling them to him at cost price, their value would not be calcted at market price, which was a great difference.


    ¡°Are you nning to transform the magic wolves into your contract creatures and turn them into spirits?¡±


    ¡°Mm, then I will dismantle the chariots and reinforce the campplex.¡±


    ¡°The losses are huge!¡± Saleen reminded. Even though eighty spirit wolves were an offensive force, it was totally free to summon them from the death ne. Aini could purchase eighty spirit wolves from Saleen and once these wolves get obliterated they could never be summoned again.


    ¡°I know, but the enemy has three metal-armored dragons and one-hundred metal-armored earthworms now. The value of all those magic nuclei will not be a small sum. If I get rid of them, you will be too embarrassed to vie with me right?¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly, then said, ¡°But of course.¡± He was not willing to fly away because he wanted to make use of the people around him to eradicate a portion of the bandits obstructing the route. Since Aini was willing to sustain losses, Saleen would of course be too embarrassed to snatch that loot from Aini.


    Since Aini needed no persuasion, Sharman was even more straightforward. Very soon, therge chariots in the camppound had been dismantled and the campplex was fortified. The walls at the periphery had be threeyers thick. This time around, even the metal-armored earthworms would find it hard to break the walls open.


    Aini received Saleen¡¯s scrolls, then he went to his chariot and began subduing the magic wolves one by one. Luckily he was a grand mage and had sufficient mental strength, otherwise using so many scrolls consecutively could cause a person to be deeply exhausted. As those magic wolves were already partially tamed and their grades were pretty far from Aini¡¯s, the signing of contracts progressed without a hitch.


    After signing the contracts, Aini released the Floral Death Creature. The crown of the Floral Death Creature enveloped every single magic wolf, as its underground roots burst out of the soil and bound the magic wolves. The magic wolves did not put up any resistance, they allowed Aini to transform them into spirits without making any noise. Aini carried out this process clenching his teeth. He did not me Saleen because he had to be a merchant sooner orter. If these bandits were not extirpated it would be really troublesome for the Clyde family to only travel by sea.


    Sea transit was very fast, but was not safe. As the Clyde family did not own any warships, they had to hire warships to protect their convoy and ensure cargo safety. When goods were transported from Metatrin City to Lianyun City, they still had to be sent to the inds via Lianyun City. The amount of time saved was not really substantial. In the process, the family still had to pay taxes while in Lianyun City.


    For this route, Saleen had already secretly told Aini that he nned to develop a road to the Chaotic Swamp and subsequently connect directly to Sikeqinya. This way, the Clyde family could conduct the business in the northern region as usual even if the sea was frozen.


    Even though Aini was captivated by magic, the business-mindedness passed down in his family¡¯s bloodline was very concentrated. Aini could tell how valuable this road was. It was okay even if he suffered losses now because Saleen wouldpensate him in the future.


    ¡°Luckily I was in the same predicament as Saleen in the past, thus bing friends with him. The Clyde family would never dominate such an advantageous feature otherwise. No, this has nothing to do with the Clyde family. Once my parentse to Metatrin City, I will be independent, it isn¡¯t too bad to stand on my own feet either. Once Saleen affirms his identity, he can make my parents nobles. They won¡¯t have to rely on the Clyde family anymore. The important figures from the four big families haven¡¯t visited Metatrin City yet. Venturing in Metatrin City are all the descendants from the four big families. These young people are indignant that I have an affiliated status in my family, they are all hoping to carve out a future here. Even the baroness from the Rnde family had visited Metatrin City personally, it goes to show how much emphasis the young ones have ced on this city. Even though Baroness Guya has a high position in the Rnde family, she will never be the sessor in the family. Same goes for Irene and the new talent from the Tiffany family. They have all taken root in Metatrin City.¡±


    ¡°The damned bandit gang!¡± Ainished out. After all the magic wolves had been transformed into spirits, their magic nuclei had disappearedpletely. The offensive power of these wolves was simr to that of the metal-armored earthworms, but they weren¡¯t grade-4 creatures. After a metal-armored earthworm got killed, a magic nucleus could still be extracted. Many materials could also be obtained by dissecting it. Once a magic wolf was killed, it would return to the death ne and could not be summoned anymore.


    As Aini set up defenses, Sharman¡¯s subordinates helped him. Sharman could no longer sit still in her barrack, so she went to pay Saleen a visit. After learning that Narnia was Lex¡¯s subordinate, she became surer of Saleen¡¯s identity. Even though he was just a white-robed mage, she would not disrespect him.


    As the Metatrin City had five months where it was frozen, the port could not be opened all year round. The port was not very valuable in the eyes of the four big families. That was just the mindset of the elderly in the family, Sharman and her sister thought otherwise.


    If the sea route was closed, they could still travel onnd. If materials from Metatrin City could be marketed for six months in a year, the profits were tremendous enough already. Thend business only needed to do well enough to support the manpower in Metatrin City, while the sea business would be pure profits for them.


    ¡°Brother Saleen, I have to thank you for the goods.¡± Sharman knew that Lex¡¯s mage would have to take orders from Saleen. She did not think that Narnia would raise the topic of the goods voluntarily.


    These young people from the business families were very shrewd. If Irene was not fond of Saleen in the past, she would not have done those stupid things she did.


    ¡°Why? Are you here to make a marriage proposal again?¡± Because Aini had straightened his thoughts, Saleen was overjoyed, so he joked with Sharman.


    Sharmanughed, but she did not y along. She said, ¡°Brother Saleen, what are you nning to do, a breakout?¡±


    ¡°No, this road is extremely important to the four families, they have to be cleared thoroughly. I n to exterminate these bandits. Let¡¯s wait for them to gather more people, it will be easier to remove them in one go.¡±


    Sharman nodded to show understanding. ¡°At the moment, Metatrin City needed these four families. Once it gets developed, people like us will need to depend on Metatrin City. Without that mysterious city owner building a city in the north, no one would know that the barren and frigid northern region would contain so many riches.¡±


    The young generation of the four families never thought of snatching this fortune because the backer of Metatrin City¡¯s owner was Viscountess Lex. Since they could not seize the fortune, then they had to render as much help as possible from the beginning.


    The words of this young mage had already revealed that people living in Metatrin City were beginning to value the four families.


    ¡°Brother Saleen, did you let these bandits surround us on purpose?¡±


    ¡°Of course, if I wanted to leave, do you think they could really stop me?¡± Saleen smiled breezily. The grade-5 mage behind Sharman was about to say something, but he saw Su getting up as his gaze was coincidentally on Su.


    This grade-5 mage lowered his head, quickly retracting the words he had nned to use to mock Saleen.


    ¡°This Saleen might just be a white-robed mage, but I cannot trifle with his followers. In such a small room, I would be dead meat if the Silver Grand Swordmaster drew his sword.¡±


    Saleen had noticed his actions. Saleen felt that it was pathetic for a mage to have a heart of jealousy. ¡°When I recruit mages in the future, I cannot emte these nobles. Once a mage gets spoon-fed, they would lose their fundamental principles and won¡¯t be able to attain the highest achievements.¡±


    ¡°Brother Saleen, you are amazing!¡± Sharman resumed her innocent appearance. She turned around as though nothing had happened, ring at her mage.


    As Saleen¡¯s side was discussing how to bait the bandits to attack, another group of people had arrived at the bandits¡¯ camp.


    In this group of people, there was a grand mage. On his gray colored magic robe were three magic markings. Other than this grade-6 mage, a grand swordmaster had tagged along. The bandits led by this grand swordmaster were d in the same colors, donning the standard essories issued to a Lon soldier.


    This high level armor contained magic attributes. There were also hundreds of warhorses and a battering chariot!


    The number of bandits had exceeded five-thousand and was still continuing to increase.

 Chapter 582: Saleen’s Wild Ambition (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 582: Saleen¡¯s Wild Ambition (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Very soon, the news of the bandits¡¯ battering ram reached Sharman.


    ¡°Sister Narnia, what do you think is going on?¡± After the issue of Sharman¡¯s goods had been resolved, she became more rxed. With the increase in the number of bandits on top of the battering ram, she could not help but ask this out of concern.


    Although Sharman was smart, she was still too young and subconsciously still felt that Lex¡¯s mage must be stronger than Saleen, so she asked Narnia instead of him.


    The Rnde family specialized in selling weapons, but they had yet to have the guts to start selling battering rams.


    All battering rams were created by the royal family, so no noble families had the authority to possess them. During wartime, the royal family would distribute the battering rams to various noble families depending on situations.


    Simply put, the battering ram was basically a rail vehicle operated on spells that could charge forward with great speed and knock down the city gate. Once the gate had copsed, the ram would open itself up automatically to form an arch bridge for the soldiers to charge into the city.


    The caravan¡¯s campsite had only been fortified with a few rows of wooden walls and metal poles and was in no wayparable to the standard of Lex¡¯s campsites. Even without the battering ram, the heavy-armored knights riding on metal-armored giant lizards would also have been able to break through. The ground here was t so the enemy would only need a low-level mage to turn on the battering ram then use therge number of men to their advantage to charge into the gap. Even if the caravan was able to seal up the gap, the other heavy-armored knights would be able to find ways to break down the walls at other spots.


    ¡°That ram is not meant to deal with us,¡± Saleen said with utmost certainty. ¡°Have you heard of anyone using battering rams to attack the campsites of caravans? I think they brought this along to attack the city.¡±


    ¡°Attack the city!¡± Now Sharman really felt uneasy. Now matter how strong a bandit gang was, there was no way they could match up against an army so attacking a city was basically courting death. Unless they were backed up by an enemy country that was nning to invade Qin. The Tanggsi army was still engaged at Lun and there have not been any news that they were nning to attack Qin.


    ¡°It is not just Qin. There are roads leading to Laiyin Duchy too. Perhaps the Sikeqinyans have finally decided to try and take advantage of the situation.¡±


    ¡°No way, unless Sikeqinya ns to form an alliance with Tanngsi empire¡­¡± Narnia was Lex¡¯s subordinate after all, so she could catch Saleen¡¯s drift immediately.


    ¡°Why not? They could support the mercenaries of Laiyin Duchy in secret and attack Phoenix. I think the Sikeqinyans want to capture Phoenix. For the past two years, Phoenix has not been in good shape and will not be able to defend itself.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t there Qin army troops?¡± Sharman did not like what she was hearing and questioned Saleen back.


    ¡°The majority of the Qin army has already returned to Guderian City. Now Phoenix¡¯s main forces constitute of troops that were newly recruited by the noble families that had stayed behind. Their forces are weak.¡± Saleen exined slowly, not at all concerned about the enemy¡¯s battering ram.


    ¡°Even if they intend to use it to attack a city, what do we do now?¡± Sharman was nervous now. Saleen had a silver grand swordmaster by his side so he would have no problem fleeing. On the other hand, she would never be able to escape the thousands of bandits.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will destroy these bandits. Where is your aunt?¡±


    ¡°She is outside.¡± Sharman did not understand why Saleen would want to know. Her aunt was an assassin. She was aware that it was extremely disrespectful for an assassin to enter a mage¡¯s room so she did not let her aunt in.


    ¡°Oh, please tell her that when the fight breaks outter, she should only target those that are injured. I will ensure your safety.¡±


    Sharman wanted to argue but stopped herself because of the way Saleen spoke with confidence andposure. Her aunt was older than her but lower in statuspared to Sharman and her sister. A Zun grand swordmasters would always be lower in status than mages. In big families such as theirs, abilities were also important considerations in determining status aside from bloodline. Therefore, her aunt was responsible for her safety while she would be the one making decisions.


    ¡°Cuisi, take this. After Aini lures the enemy into the trap and they send forth their heavy-armored knights, that¡¯s your cue,¡± Saleen instructed as he passed Cuisi a ck-colored magic scroll.


    Magic scrolls had three colors; white for low-level spells, gray for middle-level spells, and ck for spells that were at least grade-7.


    Cuisi could use scrolls like Nailisi and their limitations on the usage of scrolls were also simr. Saleen was now a grade-6 mage so due to the limitation, the highest grade of magic scroll that Cuisi could use was grade-7. Based on his own abilities, he could easily use even a grade-9 scroll otherwise.


    Sharman was aware of the color coding of magic scrolls and what they meant. When she saw Saleen handing a high-level scroll for his servant to use without any hesitation, she was puzzled. ¡°The servant named Cuisi can use high-level magic scrolls? Who is she?¡±


    When Sharman let go of her pride and took a serious look at Saleen, she was certain of her judgement. Saleen must be the son of the Lord of Metatrin City, which would exin why he would have a grand mage and silver grand swordmaster by his side.


    ¡°Su, you will protect Aini and ensure his safety. The enemy may possess alchemy crossbows that are more powerful. He is not an element mage so he will be vulnerable to sneak attacks.¡±


    Su nodded with an unwilling heart. Before he had departed on this journey, Nailisi had pulled him aside and asked him to protect Saleen. It seemed that Saleen did not need his protection and had asked him to protect someone else instead.


    ¡°Nailisi¡­¡±


    Su had feelings for her even though he guessed that she might be a demon. Nevertheless, it was not that umon for humans and demons to be together on the subcontinental ne. Unfortunately, Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s subordinate so he should not bear such thoughts. Su dismissed them and left with his sword drawn.


    ¡°Let your aunt in.¡± Saleen changed his mind and decided to personally instruct Sharman¡¯s aunt on her role.


    Sharman nodded and followed Saleen¡¯s arrangement without thinking too much. When the beautiful middle-ageddy entered the barrack, Saleen spoke to her directly, ¡°I n to destroy the enemy¡¯s heavy-armored knights so ask your men to step back first until I am finished. I will ensure Sharman¡¯s safety so you just focus on killing the bandit leaders that are injured.¡±


    Her face froze but then she saw a wink from Sharman. She immediately understood, bowed her head and said, ¡°Yes, Lord mage.¡±


    She knew that her niece was extremely sharp and would never put herself in disadvantageous positions. Now that her niece was the leader of the caravan, she understood the hint and decided not go to against her and left the barrack.


    ¡°What do I do?¡± Sharman noticed that Saleen did not intend for her to y any role in the fight and felt ufortable. She was still a zun grand swordmaster after all. Based on her abilities, she should be able to lead a g group in an army.


    ¡°Just wait here. We will have a chat,¡± Saleen replied nonchntly. He had no intentions of joining the fight. The enemy only had a grand mage at most. If even Aini and Su were not able to handle them, it would be useless even if he joined the fight. On top of that, he still had Cuisi. If Cuisi was forced into desperation, he could still revert back to his original form and be airborne. He would possess the abilities equivalent to a grade-7 sorcerer by then.


    Saleen wasughing coldly in his heart. He was too na?ve in the past. The chain of events that took ce in the Myers Maind dimension was not because of him. They could not have been stopped. There must still be something about the Goddess¡¯ fall that he was not aware about, or even about the fourth dynasty after that, where humans¡¯ strengths deteriorated drastically.


    From what he had heard from Cuisi, the powers of the demon dimension had never changed, and neither had the elf dimension ording to Eleanor. Although Ismail did not mention anything rted, the God of the purgatory dimension must still be around, which meant that there had not been major changes. The death dimension had never been very strong, but the Three Kings that appeared amongst humans were already considered to be very formidable.


    The Myers Maind dimension was the only one that had deteriorated. This was a main dimension and its humans once went to war with Gods.


    Now, the Myers Maind was finally gaining back its powers. The number of sorcerers in Alchemy City were increasing, as with the mages in Sregl Ind. Even without the six elements¡¯ space, humans¡¯ magic abilities were bound to improve by leaps and bounds within the next three-hundred to five-hundred years.


    Now that humans had expanded their forces into the sea,rge numbers ofbat vessels had been manufactured to hunt for beasts in the sea. With that, the problem of the depleting supply of magic nuclei would soon be solved.


    Being born in this era where the fate of humankind was on the brink of change, it would be too na?ve to still hold onto the mindset that he was somehow special and at the center of these changes.


    Saleen could not be sure if obtaining the seeds of the divine tree was an ident or because he was chosen by the Goddess. In any case, he should still adhere to the Goddess¡¯ suggestion to spread her faith. The Goddess¡¯ faith was also the Myers Maind¡¯s source of power. It gradually became clear to Saleen that humans¡¯ abilities would strengthen as more of the Goddess¡¯ temples were reopened.


    Eleanor¡¯s husband, the Marquis from Tanggsi empire must have opened the temple and obtained mysterious strength. Unfortunately, he then tried to use it to seek fame and wealth from the Tanggsi empire and now his whereabouts were still unknown.


    Saleen had never thought about saving the world, but he also understood that he would have the chance to stand at the very top and be a respected figure amongst mages. In his possession were both seeds from the tree of life and tree of taboo. With these two seeds, he could even be a God if he really wanted to.


    In order to possess the abilities of the very best and eternal life, everything would have to start now. He would build a kingdom and conquer the world.


    Doing these things were usually considered boring by mages. Saleen needed to protect himself in order to grow the divine trees though. It was not enough just guarding Metatrin City. He would also need to destroy his enemies.


    Since he was only a grade-6 mage, everything would have to start from basics. For now, he would have to kill off this bandit gang that was trying to invade Phoenix so that the men behind them would be forced to appear.


    The corner of Saleen¡¯s mouth curled upwards. He was originally worried about not being able to find any reason to enter Phoenix. Now that the Sikeqinyans had set their sights on this ce, if Qin could not handle the attacks from two empires, he would use his own forces to take down Phoenix. Surely Holy Rock City would not be upset if that happened.


    In any case, Phoenix would still belong to Bitter Water Prefecture in name. What he would really be targeting was Sikeqinya.

 Chapter 583: Saleen’s Wild Ambition (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 583: Saleen¡¯s Wild Ambition (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Although Sikeqinya was to the north of Phoenix, its borders were surrounded by mountain ranges, and its climate was highly affected by the warm currents from the west. Its average temperature in a year was slightly higher than Phoenix¡¯s. Due to its unique geographical location, Sikeqinya need not face Tanggsi empire¡¯s iron knights head-on, nor worry about its naval forces since the Tanggsi empire¡¯s coastal areas were affected by cloud currents.


    The roads leading from Sikeqinya to the south were limited, and they all basically began from Laiyin Duchy. There was only one road leading to God¡¯s Grace Duchy, and the road contained three impregnable passes. That eliminated any possibility of Tanggsi empire¡¯s invasion.


    If Tanggsi empire wished to invade Sikeqinya, the best route would not be through God¡¯s Grace Duchy. Instead, they should enter Laiyin Duchy from the eastern part of Lun, then enter Sikeqinya from Laiyin Duchy. This was a much longer route that would increase their mileage by an additional 10,000 miles, which would be a headache in terms of logistics.


    Entering Sikeqinya through Qin would be much easier. Qin¡¯s borders were very close to Laiyin Duchy¡¯s, and some of Phoenix¡¯snds even ovepped with Laiyin Duchy¡¯s. Pass through Laiyin Duchy, and you would reach Sikeqinya¡¯s great wall. The great wall must be guarded heavily, so Sikeqinya empire was willing to put up with the Dragons and Roses Regiment.


    This grade-9 regiment consisted of two very powerful leaders whomanded more than 10,000 of the most elite members. Their numbers surpassed what a normal regiment should have. Nevertheless, the Sikeqinya empire needed them to guard the borders, so they chose to turn a blind eye to it.


    Saleen knew that it was hopeless to attack from Laiyin Duchy unless hemanded an army of 10,000 with more than ten sorcerers. He could enter Sikeqinya from the side through the chaotic swamp, though.


    Saleen was no longer the clueless youth that he had been in the past. Now, he was more aware of what was going on in the maind and also understood the various possibilities avable to him. Invading Phoenix was a necessity. Although the north had mines, wood, and even a sufficient supply of beasts, they did not have enough grain.


    Although thends of the north were fertile, the issue was that there was only one season throughout the year that was suitable for agriculture. Excluding the crops that the farmers would keep to feed themselves, there would not be much left. Once a war broke out, the farmers would not be able to farm and would have to buy grains from external sources. If they reached that stage, the enemy would only have to seal up all the roads, and Metatrin would be an isted city.


    Taking Phoenix was a must. It would serve as a granary. The noble families of Phoenix might not be the richest, but they definitely possessed the most grain in the world.


    During wartime, grain might not be avable even for all the money in the world. Therefore, it was essential to stock up before war fully broke out throughout the maind. Metatrin City¡¯s advantage was that there were arge number of mages. Saleen definitely had the resources to build a huge granary to store all the grain.


    Ordinary grain could only be kept for three to five years, but if they were stored in granaries built by mages, they couldst up to 30 to 50 years instead.


    Metatrin City had been stocking up on grain all this while. They sold most of their ores for grains, with only 20 percent being sold for gold coins.


    Sharman was intelligent but was also limited by contextual knowledge. Based on their size, the Rnde family might be bigger than a Marquis family and could be considered as a grade-1 Earl. Therefore, the issues that were on Sharman¡¯s mind were still stuck at the level of an Earl. She was still a young girl. Naturally, she would not know what Saleen was thinking.


    Seeing how Saleen looked, she could no longer pretend to be na?ve and said defeatedly, ¡°In any case, these are all the men that I have. If they all die, there is no way my sister will allow me toe out like this in the future.¡±


    ¡°That is not possible. The losses that you have suffered can be fullypensated by those goods.¡±


    ¡°I am talking about mage Buharin,¡± Sharman said in frustration. ¡°He is the top mage under my sister. If he dies, my sister will hate me forever.¡±


    ¡°Grade-5 mages will not die so easily. See, I am not afraid at all.¡±


    Saleen spoke and took out a tea set from the demonic ring at the same time. Soon, he was starting a fire and boiling water.


    ¡°Is there wine?¡± Sharman was one head shorter than Saleen and was still a young girl no matter how you looked at here. When she requested wine, Saleen shook his head and said, ¡°Let¡¯s drink tea. Mages do not like to drink wine.¡±


    ¡°I just want some wine to boost my courage. You must protect me. I am only 15 years old, and I don¡¯t want to die.¡± Sharman unbuckled the half-sword at her waist and put it on the table. Her hands cupped her face, and she was in a daze while watching Saleen boil water.


    ¡°15 years old? How old is your sister?¡±


    ¡°19 years old. When she was 15, the rank of Baroness was personally assigned by the Emperor to her instead of the House of Commons.¡±


    ¡°I heard that for the women of noble families, the topic of marriage wille up when they are 16, and by the time they are 18, they are usually married.¡±


    ¡°The Emperor said that he will make the decision on my sister¡¯s marriage. Subsequently, the emperor¡­ died and no one in the family dared to bring this up for fear of upsetting Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°Ah, no wonder you havee to Metatrin City. This is something that Lex will be able to settle.¡±


    Sharman could not help but squint her eyes after hearing what Saleen said. Saleen mentioned the Duke of Bitter Water¡¯s name casually, which meant that the two must be very close.


    ¡°My sister does not know how to bring it up.¡±


    ¡°I will talk to Lex.¡± Saleen used magic powder to light up the charcoal and created restorative water to make tea.


    ¡°Brother Saleen, you have a good rtionship with the Duke?¡±


    ¡°You could say that.¡±


    ¡°I would like to ask, what is the rtionship between the Duke and Metatrin City?¡±


    ¡°Why do you ask?¡± Saleen did not stop what he was doing. After the water has boiled, he washed the tea to remove the dirt on the tea leaves before draining way this first round of water.


    ¡°Because my sister cannot make up her mind. I can see that you and Aini are very close. I tried to persuade her to follow you, but she still prefers the Duke.¡±


    ¡°If she follows Lex, your sister will still be under the control of Holy Rock City for the time being. If she follows Metatrin City¡­ what does your sister want?¡±


    Saleen was nomittal, but Sharman could not tell and continued, ¡°Sister¡¯s Baroness status was assigned by the Emperor and is not something that the House of Commons can just take away. The current Emperor dares not order the House of Lords around. It is only a matter of time before the Prince controls the House of Lords. You may not know, my sister was assigned the title of ¡®Baroness¡¯ because the emperor¡­ the Emperor felt that she resembled the Duke. The prince is aware of this. There is no time to take stock of things now, but if they were to remove my sister¡¯s title in the future¡­¡±


    ¡°I understand now. Is your sister a mage?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my sister is a grade-4 mage,¡± Sharman replied with pride. The two sisters were highly regarded in the Rnde family partly because of their abilities. She became a high-grade swordmaster when she was very young while her sister became a grade-4 mage about three years ago.


    These two sisters would have been treated with respect even if they were in the royal family. What she did not know was that Saleen did notck mages but needed grand swordmasters like her instead. She was only 15 years old and would advance into a ck metal grand swordmaster within five years at the most. Around 30 years old, she could very well be a silver grand swordmaster.


    Even though Saleen was a mage with strong and resilient physical attributes, he was no match for a grand swordmaster when it came to charging into battle. Saleen did not care much for Baroness Guya¡¯s grade but was interested in this little grand swordmaster instead.


    ¡°The surname of Metatrin¡­ was reputable during the fourth dynasty,¡± Saleen did not continue further and gave Sharman the freedom to guess what that meant.


    Sharman came from a family of merchants, so she immediately knew what Saleen was trying to say. Chaos wasing and those with abilities would not wish to be overlooked. Most of the ns of the fourth dynasty now resided in Cloudflow, so those that were able to survive in Qin must possess a rich heritage.


    ¡°500 miles north of Metatrin City is a river. I will be building another city there to look after the mining activities in the north. If your sister can bring me craftsmen that can create weapons, I will free her from the Rnde family¡¯s control. As for the rank of Baroness, I will not be able to give her that now.¡±


    Sharman was a little disappointed and said, ¡°My sister does not care for the title. She is only worried¡­¡±


    ¡°Worried about the safety of Metatrin City?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Sharman replied directly.


    ¡°No hurry,¡± Saleen said with a smile. He did not mind Sharman¡¯s tone and poured tea for her while saying, ¡°Within one year, I will invade Phoenix. I suppose your sister will want to achieve a breakthrough and be a grade-5 mage, or she would not dare to make any demands.¡±


    Sharman was stunned because Saleen had hit the nail on the head. Indeed, her sister had hopes of achieving a breakthrough to be a grade-5 mage. After Guya received Emperor Chanake¡¯s assignment as Baroness, she recruited a group of fighters. She also had 20 bodyguards who were all high-level swordmasters younger than 30 years old.


    As long as one possessed some intelligence, one would definitely be able to be a high-level swordmaster by 60 years old. To be a high-level swordmaster before 30 years old, one would have a high chance of advancing into a grand swordmaster.


    The two sisters had money, abilities, and the Emperor¡¯s support. Within a year, their statuses had risen quickly within the family. The sudden passing of Emperor Chanake had caused Baroness Guya to be uneasy. Luckily, Holy Rock City had yet toe looking for trouble, so she still had some time to make ns for her future.


    Once she received news from Aini toe to Metatrin City, she brought all her trusted followers along immediately. Once she was there, she was indecisive because she could see that there were two camps in Metatrin City that were in positions of power. One of them was the Metatrin family that owned the city and had their external affairs handled by a death mage, while the other was the army from Bitter Water Prefecture.


    With limited time, Baroness Guya could not figure out the rtionship between these two camps and Aini was also unwilling to reveal too much. She has not been able to make up her mind and had been observing all this while.


    ¡°Let your sister observe for another year. By then, she should have made up her mind.¡± Saleen held up the teacup and sipped lightly.


    ¡°Humph! My sister will not wait for another year. The family has already¡­¡± Sharman stopped suddenly. She realized that if she continued on, she would be losing leverage for negotiations.


    ¡°Then bring all those that she can bring along over to Metatrin City. The Rnde family will not dare to do anything to her.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°The majority of the Rnde family¡¯s business operates in the northern part of the empire, which will soon be controlled by Bitter Water Prefecture. I am sure they still want to carry on with their businesses.¡± Saleenughed coldly. Money and interests had always been the four big families¡¯ priority so they must have thrown their support behind Prince Safilos by now. Nevertheless, Saleen was not worried. If their caravans still wanted to continue operating their businesses, they could not afford to upset Bitter Water Prefecture either.


    Lex was more ambitious than Saleen. Now that she had the Goddess¡¯s bond to fulfill, she would definitely think of ways to invade the north of Qin first followed by the central Maind. As for Saleen, he had set his sights on Phoenix and Sikeqinya.

 Chapter 584: Abducting a young girl (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 584: Abducting a young girl (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In a dazed state, Sharman said, ¡°Brother Saleen, you are so ridiculous, what will we do now? My bodyguards are here and my sister will kill me.¡±


    Sharman was exaggerating. Saleen simply smiled, then asked, ¡°Sharman, you are only sixteen years old, but you are already a Zun Grand Swordmaster. Have you ever thought of joining an army?¡±


    ¡°Joining an army?¡±


    Saleen pondered for a moment, then said, ¡°The Metatrin family was the imperial n during the fourth dynasty, and the nobles who were following us do not exist anymore, so my family needs to confer a new batch of nobles. If you are willing, you can follow me.¡±


    ¡°Brother Saleen, if the both of us die here your proposition will mean nothing.¡± Sharman¡¯s tone was getting more and more depressed. She was currently surrounded by more than five-thousand people, it would be a lie to say that she was not afraid. ¡°So what if I am a Zun Grand Swordmaster? It is already very impressive if I can survive this. What if I abandon my trusted soldiers and mages? Then that will be no different from dying in battle.¡±


    ¡°Sharman, if I can get you and that mage out safely, then will you follow me?¡± Saleen tossed the bait. Even if Sharman did not agree to follow him, he would still save her. The Rnde family was good in crafting weapons and armor, they also had many high grade smiths. If these smiths were be sent to Metatrin City, then Saleen would not have to sell ores anymore. Crafting weapons from those ores would fetch much more money.


    ¡°Follow you? What use am I, you already have a Silver Grand Swordmaster.¡± Sharman was astounded by Su¡¯s capabilities, she felt that she was insignificant. This made Saleen secretly jubnt.


    ¡°Su is my follower, but he still has to learn many things. I cannot let him leave my side. As for you, do you want to be a general?¡±


    ¡°General? You mean an admiral?!¡±


    ¡°Of course, an admiral who willmand thousands of soldiers and horses.¡±


    Sharman was really tempted. Her character was bubbly and lively, but she also had the virtue of patience. ording to a mage¡¯s principles, it meant that she was slightly unpredictable. A person with such a character could not be a mage, but there was no harm for them to learn swordsmanship. To achieve victory in battle, she could endure extreme conditions, but she could not tolerate loneliness in order to learn magic.


    With the same talent, she had picked up swordsmanship while her sister learned magic. It also was not some uneptable thing for Saleen to make her a general. Since Qin had baronesses, it could also have female generals. When the empire was still in infancy, some duchesses had even appeared before.


    ¡°Humph, you better not lie to me, how many people could Imand?¡± Sharman did not realize what was Saleen trying to do, she did not feel that she was very important in the Rnde family. Without her sister around, she would lead a tough life in the family given her character. Her arrogance was built upon swordsmanship. She did not feel that she herself was a qualified general though.


    ¡°That depends on your ability,¡± Saleen replied with a smile. He also knew that Sharman did not possess the makings of a soldier at the moment. Everything could be cultivated. Once Sharman became a qualified soldier, she might have already advanced to a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.


    Even though one¡¯s valiancy was not very important on the battlefield, a general at the standard of a grand swordmaster was a great morale booster too. Without the powers of a grand swordmaster, one could easily be ughtered the moment they ran into a grand mage.


    Even though it was challenging to groom a grand swordmaster into a general, Sharman was still very young, so she would have sufficient room for development. Tricking a grand swordmaster to jump ship was much easier than training a general into a grand swordmaster.


    As for the usage of his grand swordmasters, Saleen had his own ns. With J having such a character he could only remain in Metatrin City. If he led soldiers out of the city, Saleen would be on tenterhooks. Saleen had high hopes for Su.


    ¡°Su has a great character. He also has no one to rely on in the Myers maind, he only has me. Such a person cannot be forcefully recruited.¡±


    As for Sharman, it would be Saleen¡¯s own mistake if he let her go.


    They sat across one another. Just as they were experiencing silence, a thunderous boom came from outside the barrack. That was the ringing noise produced during a magic explosion.


    Sharman¡¯s expression changed, but Saleen said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, the bandits only outnumber us, they do not have any genuine experts.¡±


    Since Saleen had a pretty good idea of the situation, Sharman held back her urges, she did not rush out to kill the enemies. Outside the barracks, torches lit the skies brightly. The battering ram delivered by the bandits had already knocked down the wooden walls and opened up to form a metal arch bridge. More than ny heavy cavalrymen charged forward, ramming dozens of skeletal soldiers in their path.


    The heavy cavalrymen were riding on metal-armored earthworms, they were not even afraid of the death scents emanating from the skeletal soldiers. The bones on the skeletal soldiers also could not withstand the impact from those metal-armored earthworms. The barracks were just up ahead, the heavy cavalrymen dashed up the metal arch bridge and made a beeline for the infantrymen below.


    The infantrymen beat a hasty retreat. From both sides of the heavy cavalrymen, more than one-hundred undead soldiers pounced out. Under Aini¡¯s control, these undead soldiers kept going berserk. Exploding with immense might, they fought with the heavy cavalrymen.


    The heavy cavalrymen riding on the magic beasts did not rely on their impact to fight. Even if they slowed down, the potential lethality was still massive. It would be very onerous to rely on infantrymen to resist this type of riders. After getting assaulted by the Berserk Undead Soldiers, the heavy infantrymen removed their longswords, then they began hacking about wildly. Behind the heavy cavalrymen, hundreds of bandits in lightweight clothing had already ascended the metal arch bridge.


    Cuisi sneered, then said, ¡°Aini, cut off their route of retreat.¡±


    Aini smiled bitterly, ¡°This Cuisi is very rude.¡± Nevertheless, Cuisi could release a level-7 magic scroll, so he could notin much either. Such an ability was a notch higher than Aini¡¯s.


    Aini hollered, ¡°Up!¡±


    That Floral Death Creature who was hiding underground crawled out swiftly, appearing outside the camppound. In that instant, it had blocked hundreds of bandits outside the camp. Seeing that the enemy¡¯s vanguards had rushed inside, Cuisi no longer hesitated. Saleen was targeting these over ny heavy cavalrymen. If Su was left to deal with them alone, it would be very exhausting for him.


    These over ny cavalrymen were swordmasters who rode on grade-4 magic beasts, Saleen would never agree to let Su deal with them alone. Saleen had not forgotten the time when a Silver Grand Swordmaster from the Holy See tried to barge into a camp on his own. Eventually, this man got ambushed. If a grand swordmaster was veiled within the enemy¡¯s heavy cavalrymen, then Su would be in great danger.


    ¡°A grand swordmaster is afraid of magic right? Since I can set a trap, there is no need to utilize weapons.¡±


    When Cuisi noticed that the Floral Death Creature had grown to over ten yards in the blink of an eye and its crown had engulfed an area spanning dozens of yards, he knew that it was time to take action. He opened arge quicksand scroll, trapping those over ny cavalrymen at the same time. Thereafter, he slowly released the ck magic scroll Saleen had given to him.


    Within a radius of fifty yards, mes measuring more than twenty yards in height sprayed out from the quicksand, these mes had a purple hue. The most incredulous thing was that these mes had consistent thickness from top to bottom, it was as if there were hundreds of water pirs spewing towards the skies. The temperature in these hundreds of mes needed no introduction. The metal-armored earthworms were still covered in ayer of leather armor, but the mes had burnt through it together with the earthworms¡¯ tough scales.


    These cavalrymen seemed like they had almost zero resistance. A grand swordmaster hidden in their midst was also struck by this level-7 spell. He leaped off his mount in agony.


    A dense of fire had caused the heavy cavalrymen to have nowhere to escape. They were burned to death together, along with almost one-hundred Berserk Undead Soldiers. Without these Berserk Undead Soldiers obstructing the way, Cuisi¡¯srge Quicksand spell would not have been able to dominate the situation instantly. Even if the secondary level-7 spell was casted using a scroll, a preparation time of a dozen seconds was still required.


    Sacrificing some Berserk Undead Soldiers was no big deal, Aini could stomach this loss. These heavy cavalrymen were the elites among the bandits. If the heavy cavalrymen were not extirpated, all the guardsbined from both merchant convoys would not be able to triumph. The bandits who traveled across the metal arch bridge crashed headfirst into the fire matrix. These hundreds of bandits, together with the metal arched bridge, were burned out of shape. The other over two-hundred bandits behind began to see smoke emerging from under their feet.


    It was only after the remaining over one-hundred Berserk Undead Soldiers charged over did Aini have peace of mind. The enemy had breached the campgrounds, but they did not expect the interior of the camp to be segregated as well. Arge Quicksand spell coupled with a level-7 spell had kill these over ny heavy cavalrymen straightaway. This made the bandits outside negligible already.


    ¡°Shoot them!¡± Seeing that the over two-hundred bandits were putting up a strong resistance, Aini ordered his fifty trusted soldiers to wield their alchemical crossbows and shoot them. The Berserk Undead Soldiers had no weapons and their fingernails were moving too slowly.


    Since there was no need to protect the undead soldiers, this barrage of arrows had caused more than thirty bandits to copse in that instant. Aini was still dissatisfied, ¡°My soldiers are really not cut out to be archers. At such a short distance, a third of the arrows were actually shot off target.¡±


    The mes had already disappeared, the power of this group attack spell was strong, but its effective duration was too brief. Luckily those metal-armored earthworms were dead. The remaining bandits had been badly burned. Aini waved his hand. Then his trusted soldiersid down their alchemical crossbows, before drawing their longswords and charging forward.


    At this moment, Sharman¡¯s soldiers then reacted. They wielded their bows and arrows, then began firing at the bandits who were tussling with the undead soldiers.


    Sharman¡¯s aunt and the grade-5 mage were hiding behind the soldiers, observing the entire situation clearly. When over ny heavy cavalrymen rushed into the camp, both of them thought of escaping. They had the urge to run into the barrack and rescue Sharman. In the end, Cuisi¡¯s two scrolls had incinerated the enemy¡¯s strongest forces.


    The grade-5 mage swallowed hard, as he thought to himself, ¡°A level-7 group attack spell scroll is worth a lot of money! If I was the one in that situation, I would never bear to use it unless I was in the face of death.¡±


    Sharman¡¯s aunt also knew the value of a high level magic scroll. She thought to herself, ¡°This Saleen is really wealthy, that woman called Cuisi didn¡¯t even hesitate to use an intermediate level and high level scroll.¡±


    In the barrack, Saleen already sensed that Cuisi had consumed the high level scroll. A level-7 magic scroll might not be powerful, but the heavy cavalrymen had only themselves to me for barging into the campplex. If used in narrow terrain, the power of this group attack spell would immediately be increased dozens of times. If used on a road, it could only trap a dozen cavalrymen at most. Once the magic wore off, a few cavalrymen would be able to get away.


    The price of a level-7 magic scroll was simr to that of a level-8 one, it started at one-hundred-thousand gold coins. There were hundreds of times more mages who could use a level-7 scrollpared to those who could employ a level-8 scroll. If someone spent hundreds of thousands of gold coins, they could only kill about a dozen more people in a field battle. Unless crazy, no one would ever want to use a scroll to determine the oue of a battle.


    Boom!


    The wooden walls on the right side of the camp had been knocked down. A dozen bandits, holding onto arge wooden ram, charged into theplex directly. For pleasure¡¯s sake, Sharman¡¯s aunt kept mum, waiting for Aini to give his orders.


    When Aini saw that more people had charged into thepound, he was overjoyed instead of astonished. He was not satisfied with just killing those elites, he wanted to deal a severe blow to the five-thousand bandits who were surrounding the camp. He bellowed, ¡°Su, prepare to lead my men for a retaliation. Cuisi, don¡¯t let anyone enter the barrack!¡±


    Speaking, Aini took out a Green Spirit rock, as he began releasing the spirits he had stored inside it.

 Chapter 585: Abducting a young girl (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 585: Abducting a young girl (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini had shamelessly asked for a Green Spirit rock from Saleen, because he really had no items to exchange for it. The most representative sealing-type gem of all was the obsidian rock. The Green Spirit existed in small numbers, not everyone had the chance to purchase one. Saleen had obtained a number of Green Spirit rocks in the Chaotic Swamp. Even though their quality was not the best, they were still much better than an obsidian rock.


    Aini¡¯srgest asset was the powerful spirit he had sealed beforehand.


    Since he was now a grade-5 death mage, he would have no stress summoning a grade-4 spirit. Of all the grade-4 spirits, the ones most suitable for conducting a massacre on the battlefield were the knight of darkness and the green-bronze zombie. Technically, the green-bronze zombie was considered a foreigner in the death ne, but it contained all the attributes of a spirit. It could still be summoned by a death mage.


    A green-bronze zombie was as tough as metal from head to toe, it did not use any weapons and could spit poison. While other zombies had slow movements, a green-bronze zombie could flit from ce to ce even if it had not gone berserk.


    For the past year, Aini had been summoning one green-bronze zombie almost every other month, sealing them inside the Green Spirit. If the sealing gem was the obsidian rock, these zombies would have lost most of their powers after a year. Only the Green Spirit could allow the zombies to live inside it, replenishing their energy, and help them recover from injuries.


    In a year, Aini had summoned twelve green-bronze zombies. On the battlefield, these twelve zombies were much mightier than twelve grade-4 magic beasts. A zombie possessed intelligence. They could cooperate with a death mage and they were unafraid of death or injury. A green-bronze zombie could face a grade-5 magic beast alone and it would be an even match.


    The Floral Death Creature might be powerful, but given Aini¡¯s current grade, he could not allow it to move about freely. It could only stay in one position to fight. Its attack radius was not more than one-hundred yards. The moment the twelve green-bronze zombies were released, they immediately lunged at the bandits who trespassed into the campplex. Following behind the green-bronze zombies were servants from the Clyde family.


    These servants wore half-body armor and wielded sharp des. Wherever the green-bronze zombies went past, none of the bandits survived. The bandits who were scratched by the zombies¡¯ nails went numb immediately. The servants at the back would then sh them with des. asionally, some bandits would escape, but they would be swiftly dissected by the servants.


    A trusted servant of a noble led a better life than a civilian. During wartime, they were the most reliable offensive force a noble possessed.


    Cuisi retreated to the entrance of the barrack. Since he had released the scroll, his mission waspleted. As long as no assassins came near, the battle was basically over already.


    Cuisi knew that no assassins would pose a threat to Saleen given Saleen¡¯s offensive power, unless the assassin was someone like Bain. An assassin¡¯s instantaneous lethality was very powerful. If Cuisi dyed their attack, Saleen¡¯s magic would be able to kill an assassin of any grade though.


    Fundamentally, an assassin was like a mage. They had low defensive power but high offensive power.


    In the barrack, Saleen actually became more rxed when he heard the sounds of killing. Grinning from ear to ear, he told Sharman, ¡°Aini has eradicated the enemy¡¯s heavy cavalrymen, we are out of danger.¡±


    Sharman then had peace of mind, she was most worried about the heavy cavalrymen. A normal cavalryman was still restrained by their equipment and could not execute long-range raids, but those heavy cavalrymen were riding atop metal-armored earthworms, they could run for more than one-hundred miles. If on a warhorse, a fully equipped heavy cavalryman who could run for a mile was already considered the cream of the crop.


    Any merchant convoy who ran into such bandits would thus face the fate of destruction.


    ¡°So now, just follow me.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone at this point in time was totally unlike a mage. He knew that given Sharman¡¯s character, talking to her in a mage¡¯s style would most likely not yield any results.


    Indeed, Sharman¡¯s mood brightened, she nodded and said, ¡°Brother Saleen, I can follow you, but I am not confident of persuading my sister.¡±


    ¡°Heh, she will straighten her thoughts.¡± In his head, Saleen was thinking, ¡°Lex might be a stronger backer, but being Lex¡¯s subordinate means that you will be restrained by Holy Rock City, at least for the next one or two years. Before that, Lex will not recruit anyone, to prevent the Holy Rock City from abetting anyone secretly and cause them to revolt. My Metatrin City is different, the experimental attack by Lianyun City was crippled badly by my men. In the short term, Holy Rock City will actually not attack their own people. Baroness Guya is a smart person, as long as I clear thismercial route this time around and Lex does not vie for control over Phoenix, she will definitely opt to follow me.¡±


    As for the issue whether anyone was eyeing Metatrin City or not, Saleen was not worried at all. With the three kings holding the fort, all enemies were simply seeking death, unless a person like Fycro was present. Three grade-8 spirits could resolve most internal troubles.


    ¡°Brother Saleen, do I have to call you ¡®Your Highness¡¯ or ¡®Sir¡¯ in the future?¡± Sharman looked utterly innocent, but Saleen would surely not be deceived. He replied, ¡°If you want to lead troops, you have to call me ¡®Sir¡¯, but if you join politics, you have to call me ¡®Your Highness¡¯. If you are willing to be a noble of the Metatrin family, you can address me as you please.¡±


    ¡°Be a noble of the Metatrin family? I am not so sure about that¡­¡±


    ¡°The Metatrin family ruled over one-hundred and fifty counties north of the maind during the fourth dynasty, they have the authority to confer the title of ¡®duke¡¯. Above a duke would be a grand duke who ownsnds, but the royal family can give orders to a grand duke.¡±


    ¡°I get it now, so the royal family is ranked slightly lower than the imperial family, but above the status of a grand duke?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not about the status. Even if all the direct descendants of the royal family were dead, the family still possesses a legitimate inheritance. Which means that, like an imperial family, a royal family also contains a noble bloodline, thus having an obscure legacy.¡±


    Sharman remained silent for a moment, then said, ¡°A grand duke can be conferred, but a royal title cannot be conferred, is that what you mean?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, a royal family is only so because they have innate abilities. A grand duke can be conferred by the emperor, and he can form a duchy. As for bing a duke, you only have to make a contribution, so anyone can be a duke.¡±


    Saleen was randomly fabricating lies at this moment without any worries because the ability he possessed right now was indeed unattainable by anyone else. The secret technique to controlling lightning would surely make the ¡°Metatrin¡± surname recognized.


    His descendants would be able to cultivate this technique much more easily than others, this was the so-called inheritance mages talked about. As to whether the bloodline was noble or not, it was just a fa?ade for bluffing the civilians. Saleen was born a beggar, everything he owned at the moment was a result of his abilities.


    ¡°Ha ha!¡± Sharman used the cuss¡¯ sheath to hit on the table,ughing boisterously. She was feeling a little supercilious, then said, ¡°Brother Saleen, I want to be your noble, I want to be the first female grand duchess in this world, the Grand Duchess of Rnde!¡±


    As Sharman spoke, she was dancing with joy, almost hitting the tea cup in front of her out the window.


    Saleen was overjoyed, this world had an empress already, but there was no grand duchess yet. If Sharman wanted to be a grand duchess, she did not only have to follow Saleen, she would also need to lead troops on campaigns and kill countless people. ¡°Am I being too evil for doing this? She is still a child.¡±


    Noticing the strange gaze Saleen had, Sharman¡¯s face turned scarlet, then she sat down. She said, ¡°I will mind my manners, don¡¯t worry, I have learned such things from my youth.¡±


    ¡°Great, once we get to Qin, we will split up at the east-west road. You can hire a team of mercenaries to transport the goods to your destination, then you will return to Baroness Guya¡¯snd. Try to bring as many people back to Metatrin City as you can.¡±


    ¡°Brother Saleen, that Dimension Stone¡­¡±


    ¡°The Dimension Stone was a gift from my teacher, I cannot give it to you. The value of one Dimension Stone is higher than all your goodsbined.¡±


    Sharman stuck out her tongue, but she did not act coy. She knew her ce, and she knew that it was a little improper to be discussing this topic with a mage. Magic equipment could never be gifted to another person at will, especially if it was an irreceable piece. A mage would never sell something like that.


    The battle in the camp was drawing to an end. Almost one-thousand people had charged into the camp throughout the whole battle. The over four-hundred men at the start had been killed by magic and the Berserk Undead Soldiers, while the other five-hundred at the end were finished off by the green-bronze zombies and the convoy¡¯s guards.


    The convoy¡¯s guards and servants suffered some losses, about forty people had died and many more were injured. There were mages around, so all of them were treated.


    The other five-hundred bandits and five leaders who cameter on were assassinated by Sharman¡¯s aunt. Su led Aini¡¯s trusted soldiers, charging out of the opening in the camp, and exterminating all the bandits at the rear. When the grade-6 mage amongst the bandits saw the appearance of a Silver Grand Swordmaster, he knew that the situation had spiraled out of control. He decided not to take any action, instead, he fled with his trusted aides.


    This was the shrewd aspect of Aini. With Su around, the enemy¡¯s mage would surely not take the risk to kill his trusted soldiers. In fact, about forty of the soldiers who remained in camp were killed.


    If a Silver Grand Swordmaster who led fifty swordmasters could not even disperse a group of bandits who were at the grade of a swordsman, then that would be too ridiculous.


    The bandits had lost more than one-thousand men, on the other hand, the convoy¡¯s guards and servants had lost less than one-hundred people. This greatly assured Aini. The spirit wolves need not be deployed onto the battlefield anymore.


    The bandits actually had another agenda. After losing a huge number of elites in the camp, the leaders hated their target to the core. Without a grade-6 mage around while the elites from the ck Dragon Bandit Gang were dead, they had lost all motivation to attack the camppound.


    Seeing the bandits retreat, Su did not chase after them, he led Aini¡¯s men back to camp. Aini¡¯s subordinates were full of respect for Su. Under Su¡¯s leadership, the fifty men weaved in and out of the bandits, killing them. Even though each one of them were injured, none of them had gotten killed.


    With a grade-5 mage traveling with the merchant convoy, these injuries would not pose a threat at all.


    When Aini saw the bandits retreat, he did not rx, he continued allowing the Floral Death Creature to block the gates of the camppound, in case the bandits decided to make aeback. Su returned to Saleen¡¯s barrack alone to report the battle situation.


    ¡°Sir, you were right, the enemy has retreated, but Aini didn¡¯t chase after them.¡±


    Coincidentally, Aini entered at this moment. When he heard Su¡¯s words, he felt his face flush.


    ¡°Forget it, Aini doesn¡¯t have cavalrymen, he would not be able to capture the bandits¡¯ cavalrymen.¡± Saleen helped Aini to get out of that situation. Even though Aini¡¯s trusted soldiers rode on horses, they could not be considered cavalrymen. On horseback, the offensive power of these soldiers was weaker than when they traveled on foot.


    In Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp only two emblem groups were truly cavalrymen, but all the infantrymen also had warhorses. Asking an infantryman to fight on horseback was already a very retarded action. Saleen originally thought that the bandits would be relentless, but they had actually escaped after losing one-thousand men.


    All the soldiers and servants went to clean up the battlefield, while Sharman, her aunt and the mage returned to their own barrack. Once she entered the barrack, Sharman could not wait and told her aunt what Saleen had said. Then, she asked, ¡°Auntie, tell me, can I trust Saleen?¡±

 Chapter 586: Killing with a Borrowed Knife

    <h4>Chapter 586: Killing with a Borrowed Knife</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sharman¡¯s auntughed and said, ¡°He is a mage. Since both of you have alreadye to an agreement, if you were to go back on your words, your sister will not be able to help you.¡±


    Sharman was taken aback and said, ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°At this point, you can only ce your trust in him unless he does something harmful to you. If you were to go back on your words, he will definitely take revenge on your sister and maybe even the entire Rnde family.¡±


    ¡°Surely brother Saleen is not someone like that?¡±


    ¡°What do you know? A mage¡¯s pride cannot be taken for granted,¡± Sharman¡¯s aunt sighed.


    ¡°My sister is a mage too, and she is of a higher grade than him!¡±


    ¡°Higher? What grade is Cuisi? What grade is Su?¡±


    Sharman was speechless, but she became happy very quickly and said, ¡°If Saleen is as strong as you say, I will be better off following him than continuing to stay with the family.¡±


    ¡°Of course. Your sister¡¯s status dropped the moment the Emperor passed away. If she had not been given the title of ¡®Baroness¡¯, she could still continue to stay on in the family just by being a direct descendant. Now, all the elders are worried that her rtionship with the Emperor will have an impact on Holy Rock City¡¯s¡­ Forget it, you know what I mean. Since your sister has gone to Metatrin City, it means that she has decided to be independent. Aren¡¯t the children in other families the same? If you follow Saleen, you might even do better than your sister.¡±


    Sharman was puzzled and asked, ¡°Auntie, why do I feel that he seems to think more highly of me than sister? She is a grade-4 mage!¡±


    Sharman could not understand why this was so. On the Myers Maind, even if you were a ck metal grand swordmaster and could suppress grade-4 or even grade-5 mages, you would never be given the same level of respect as a grade-4 mage. The mage in a team would be able to lead everyone, but a grand swordmaster would never be able to do so unless he has at least reached the level of silver grand swordmaster.


    ¡°Silly child. You have been staying in Metatrin City for a few months now, haven¡¯t you realized that Metatrin City has nock of mages?¡± Sharman¡¯s auntughed bitterly.


    Aini personally oversaw the cleaning up of the battlefield. There were a total of ny-three grade-4 magic nuclei taken from the metal-armored giant lizards. Saleen did not need these magic nuclei and had already promised to give them to Aini. All the magic nuclei would not even have been able to make up for the loss of a grade-7 scroll. Although the skins of the metal-armored giant lizards had mostly been burnt, they could still be used as materials to create high-level leather armors. Not only did these high-level leather armors provide the same level of defense as metal armors, they were also much lighter.


    Of course, Saleen did not care for these materials, he already possessed dragon skin. If he wanted more materials, he might as well go to the oceanic ice block to hunt for red krill. Their armor provided better defense, were lighter, and were easier to be enchanted with magic.


    On top of the magic nuclei, there were more than five-hundred corpses that were more or less intact. Aini kept them and slowly began to create undead soldiers. The advantage that undead soldiers had over skeletal soldiers was that if they were given sufficient time to train, they would be able to wield human weapons. In berserk mode, they could even be used to attack.


    These undead soldiers were much more agile than skeletal soldiers. They could ovee obstacles and even use their nails to climb up straight walls. When undead soldiers attacked a city, bows and arrows would be useless against them. Only huge rocks or pouring hot oil would be effective against them. These two forms of attack would take a long time and would still not be able to defeat arge number of undead soldiers. Ultimately, the only way was still to fight them head-on.


    Most of the heavy-armored knights¡¯ armors had been destroyed andrgely melted. Aini kept them anyway. Cleaning up the battlefield required one to be detailed and meticulous in order to try to recoup whatever was still avable. These armors were made from refined metal that had been mixed with refined bronze, as well as pure iron that was as thick as a finger. Even if they were to be melted, they would still be able to fetch more than one-hundred gold coins.


    Inparison, the losses suffered by the bandits were far more than Saleen¡¯s. Saleen only expended two scrolls while the bandits lost three zun grand swordmasters, one-hundred heavy-armored knights, metal-armored giant lizards, and more than one-thousand men. In total, excluding the three zun grand swordmasters, the bandit gang lost more than one-hundred-thousand gold coins.


    Wars never built and only destroyed. The caravans were not any better. The metal-armored giant lizards¡¯ magic nuclei could be sold for at most four-hundred gold coins each and were less than forty-thousand gold coins in total. Including the other materials, they would only be able to recoup about sixty-thousand gold coins. The caravans lost about forty men and the money that they would have to pay for their death benefits would be more than ten-thousand gold coins.


    Aini¡¯s magic wolves had already been turned into death magic wolves and would be hard to sell. These things were not worth much to a death mage and element mages did not like them either. The entire batch of goods had gone to waste so Aini could only keep them for himself.


    There was no other way. No one knew if the bandits would retreat or continue to fight on. If their numbers kept increasing, they could very well have seeded in breaking through into the camp. By then, Aini would not have been able to escape with the magic wolves and would have to leave them behind. If that was the case, he would not even have any death magic wolves.


    Saleen lost two scrolls and some arrows that he had given to Aini, but was physically unhurt. Saleen managed to seed in convincing Sharman by using the two scrolls, ultimately it was still worth it.


    If Sharman was more mature, Saleen would have to give up a lot more in order to pull her to his group. A sixteen year-old zun grand swordmaster was bound to have a bright future.


    At the end of the day, the problemy with the Rnde family. Even if Sharman was only a swordmaster before she left for Metatrin City, her sister was already a grade-4 mage. The Rnde family was willing to let go of such a talent for fear of how Holy Rock City might treat them.


    There was a map on the table in Saleen¡¯s barrack. It was not very detailed as the magic map that was manufactured at that time did not include the present northern territories of Phoenix.


    There were three routes leading south from Telensu Town. Saleen chose the middle route and proceeded for two-hundred miles before arriving at a bigger city.


    ¡°We have to repick the route that we want to continue on. My flying puppets have chased for two-hundred miles, but are unable to tell which direction the bandits were headed towards.¡± Saleen gestured on the map as the men that had been summoned over were a little muddled.


    ¡°You want to chase after those bandits?¡± Sharman shouted. She has already lost some soldiers and did not wish to go into battle again.


    ¡°No no no. The bandits¡¯ battering ram has been destroyed here. Their original aim was to attack a city. Without a ram, they will need to use more soldiers. We will just catch up with them and see how the noble families of Phoenix will deal with this.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that the same thing?¡± Sharman muttered to herself.


    ¡°It¡¯s not the same thing. If the bandits manage to take the city, we will follow and exact revenge for the noble families of Phoenix. If the bandits fail, then we can just ignore them.¡±


    ¡°You wish to take over a city? We do not have enough men!¡± Aini cautioned. He wanted to take over Phoenix¡¯s city too. The more ces that Saleen controlled, the more benefits the caravan would be able to reap in the future. Right now was clearly not the best time to try and take over a city. There were less than one-thousand men in the caravan, including the servants. Even guarding a small city with a circumference of one mile would be a tall task. That was already taking into ount that a death mage like him was present.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that difficult. I have already sent a message to Lex. Whichever city is attacked down these three routes, they are only two-thousand and four-hundred miles away from Metatrin City. To get here from Metatrin City, a light-armored knight will only need six days while a foot soldiers will need just about ten days[1].


    ¡°Surely the bandits will seed in less than ten days!¡± Aini still did not understand.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I want to follow. Once the bandits seed in taking the city, we will chase them out. We will not guard the city. Instead, we will let the puppets and spirits of the dead destroy whatever defences the city still has. Once we are more or less done, we will leave immediately. If the bandits were toe back and try to repair the defences, they will not have enough time because Lex¡¯s troops will have reached by then. The bandits will be no match for her forces.''¡±


    It finally dawned on Aini that Saleen wanted to destroy the city because no one in the entire north had been able to defeat Lex¡¯s knights on the fields of battle. If Lex were to help the noble families of Phoenix win back their city, there was nothing Holy Rock City could say.


    If the noble families of Phoenix wanted their city back, they would have to pay Lex gold coins. The city was not destroyed by Lex so she would not need to pay them anything. She could just take their money and go. The noble families of Phoenix would be left with a city without walls and defense. Sooner orter, this ce would belong to Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s ns were tightly linked to one another. If the bandits had an objective that they wanted to achieve, they would attack again sooner orter. If this went on for a few more rounds, most of the noble families of the northern part of Phoenix should more or less have been killed by then.


    All the noble families of Phoenix with fighting forces had already left for Metatrin City. The remaining noble families were those that were only eking out a living.


    After figuring out Saleen¡¯s intentions, Aini sent out fifteen knights and divided them into three teams to chase after the bandits. They would only need to chase or a few miles to find out which city the bandits were intending to attack.


    Sharman could see that Aini and Saleen supported each other very well. She thought to herself, ¡°I have already decided to follow Saleen, surely I need to do something? Aini has allowed Saleen to make use of all his troops, as for mine¡­¡±


    ¡°Brother Saleen, since I have decided to follow you, I have about one-hundred soldiers with me. I am not good atmanding. Please go ahead and deploy them as you please.¡±


    Saleen did not stand on courtesy and nodded. Nevertheless, he followed military guidelines and only used one-hundred and twenty soldiers and split them into three troops. The remaining thirty soldiers continued to follow Sharman, ensuring her safety. Even the bravest general of an army would be protected by bodyguards when he went to battle.


    Under normal circumstances, the strongest officer would have two-hundred bodyguards with him to form the core of the entire army. Leading at the front would be the suicide squads, light-armored knights on both nks, foot soldiers in the center, and heavy-armored knights bringing up the rear. The officer and his bodyguards were the core of the battle. Even though Sharman was highly-skilled, Saleen would never let her go into battle alone.


    The bandits¡¯ strategy of attacking with heavy-armored knights would have been effective against any single type of soldiers, but would be destroyed by any conventional armies.


    After Saleen took over Sharman¡¯s soldiers, the servants followed since the wagons were already gone. In this caravan, only the horses that Aini¡¯s fifty bodyguards rode were real warhorses. The servants¡¯ horses could only be used to carry tools and equipment while traveling.


    Even so, Saleen was still pleased. He armed everyone with iron crossbows. The soldiers¡¯ crossbows could be hung on their horses¡¯ stirrups to notch arrows while the servants¡¯ crossbows could only be operated manually with a notch wheel so it was twice as slow to notch an arrow. There were still more than eight-hundred men in the caravan. Now that almost everyone was armed with an iron crossbow, they were more than prepared if they were to encounter the bandits again.


    Sharman¡¯s aunt did not say anything. She understood the level of wealth of Metatrin City based on how Saleen armed everyone with iron crossbows. Those eight-hundred iron crossbows should cost about one-hundred gold coins, so that was a total of eighty-thousand gold coins¡¯ worth of equipment.


    [1] The elite foot soldiers in this book rode on horses as well, except that they were of poorer breeds. The soldiers were required to carry many equipment and usually travelled along with wagons. When the road conditions are optimal, their travelling time is close to half of that of a knight¡¯s.


    Keeping an army was like throwing away money. Although the Rnde family was rich, the number of elite foot soldiers that they kept did not exceed the limits set by the empire. These iron crossbows were only used by elite soldiers. Normal soldiers were only armed with handheld crossbows or bows. Without iron crossbows, one could only watch the enemy¡¯s heavy-armored knights charge all the way towards you before you could engage them.


    When it came to business, Saleen was no match for Aini, but when it came to leading armies into battle, Saleen was undoubtedly better. Aini decided to give Saleenmand of his bodyguards. As a death mage, he now possessed twelve green-bronze zombies, eighty death magic wolves, more than five-hundred undead soldiers, and more than fifty skeletal soldiers. He was not worried about his own safety.


    Aini did not have too many green spirits and would not be able to spare any even if Saleen asked for it. Saleen had another death mage under hismand anyway. Aini also knew that Saleen had a death creature that was bonded to him. This creature possessed intelligence, could use death magic, and also needed green spirit.


    Aini could only urge his undead soldiers, death magic wolves, and skeletal soldiers to push on along with the caravan.


    They could no longer really be called a ¡®caravan¡¯ anymore since all their big wagons had been destroyed. The group all rode on horses and slowly headed towards the south. Soon, five small troops returned with reports that the bandits had split into two groups. One group headed down the middle route while the other group seemed to be heading to attack the city on the left route.


    ¡°We can ignore the city in the middle. They can hold the fort. The bandits split up their forces to engage the city in the middle so that they would not be able to send help to the other cities.¡± Saleen made a decision quickly before leaving behind a few servants to rush off to meet up with Lex¡¯s army. As for himself, he brought along two troops from the caravan and headed to the city on the left.


    Cexing City originally belonged to a Viscount. There used to be several small towns surrounding the city but after the troubles created by the ck magician and the invasion by Qin, these towns were destroyed. The noble families were not able to recover totally from these setbacks and even Cexing City had not been fully repaired.


    It was already October and the wheat should already have been harvested. What Saleen saw was that the crops in the fields grew to be only as tall as the wild grasses.


    After two rounds of chaotic battles, Phoenix has been reduced to its current state of disarray.


    Saleen had been controlling a flying puppet to scout two miles ahead of him, while another ten light-armored knights scouted five miles ahead. Unfortunately, Saleen was only a grade-6 mage so two miles was the maximum distance at which he could control the flying puppets.


    When a typical army advanced, they would always leave behind a strength of about a battalion to prevent attacks from the rear. These bandits were formed together haphazardly. Although they had the numbers theycked a propermand. Saleen¡¯s troops managed to follow them all the way to Cexing City without being discovered.


    Saleen decided that they might as well set up camp fifty miles away from Cexing City while waiting for the bandits to attack. He left the task of spying on the bandits to Aini so he sent ahead a grade two skeletal soldier to observe the situation.


    Death mages were often envied for their ability to make use of the magic array on a spirit of dead to create a temporal projected illusion that could detect up to fifty miles. Of course, this would exhaust arge amount of magic nuclei, but even so, it was nothing to Saleen. He would only need to go to oceanic ice block one time and he would be able to sessfully obtain magic nuclei that couldst him for a few years.


    Although there were grade-6 mages amongst the bandits, they did not think that a spirit of the dead would be tailing them and did not bother to check for anything behind their own camp. The bandits were facing a small city that was rectangr in shape with city walls that were one mile wide. Luckily, there were already holes in the city walls that were temporarily filled up with mud by the Lord of Cexing City. Although the mud had been added with adhesives, it was still the weakest parts of the entire wall.


    Unfortunately, these holes were the only spots that the bandits could attack. The gates of the city still stood very firm. Close to eight-thousand men now surrounded the city. Amongst these bandits were mercenaries and some private soldiers and servants left behind by lowly noble families. In any case, there were very few peasants.


    Amongst the eight-thousand bandits were only one-thousand horses so most of them traveled on foot. Clearly, these men had no intentions of upying the city. They only wished to loot the city and leave.


    Saleen waited for close to a day before thest batch of bandits, about one-thousand of them, arrived. These batch were all the leaders of the bandits.


    Even the men of the ck dragon king bandit gang had sent their leader to the bandits¡¯ giant tentage to receive orders.


    Thest batch of bandits were wearing brightly-colored clothes and armors and their troops were organized ording to the military guidelines of Qin. If these troops wore badges, one might mistake them to be private soldiers of a grade-1 Earl. These bandits did not look poor and all wore full-body armor. Not only were their horses armored, so were the few hundreds ves that were rushing along with the wagons that carried equipment for attacking the city.


    These formations resembled that of the Tanggsi Empire. Qin did not allow the usage of ves as soldiers. They only allowed for servants or support soldiers. These support soldiers were not treated with the same respect as normal soldiers, but their death benefits were the same. This was different from ves, no one cared if ves died. One could just buy more.


    Now that thest batch of bandits had arrived, the total number of bandits attacking the city had increased to ten-thousand and they had also provided the backbone for the troops. The bandits began to construct catapults. Although these were not magic catapults, they could more than damage the city wall that was already not in perfect condition.


    Cexing City had less than one-hundred elite soldiers and even if the peasants joined in the fight, there were less than one-thousand in total. The peasants of the north were strong and resilient, but they were untrained so the most they could do was to help to guard the city walls. If the bandits broke through, there was no way the peasants would be able to fight them in the alleys.


    Aini¡¯s skeleton brought back news. Saleen had a bad feeling that the city would fall within a day. By using the catapults to break down the city walls, the bandits would not need to expend too much manpower to attack into the city.


    ¡°Su, bring ten knights with you and protect this apprentice.¡± Saleen pointed at the swordmaster that was originally a magic apprentice and said, ¡°I will give you five flying puppets. Once you reach the rear of the bandits¡¯ camp, use the puppets to attack their catapults then retreat.¡±


    These knights were bodyguards indeed. They showed no fear despite that it was ten of them against ten-thousand bandits. In any case, Saleen only wanted them to attack the catapults from the rear. It would not be too difficult. On top of that, they had a silver grand swordmaster with them so they would not need to worry about the enemy¡¯s mages.


    Once a mage discovered a silver grand swordmaster, they would hide in the camp and not give chase.


    ¡°Bring one-hundred servants and light-armored knights with only crossbows and half-swords and ambush them twenty miles ahead. If anyone gives chase, you will shoot them with arrows from both sides of the road. Retreat after you have used up a box of arrows.¡±


    Saleen gave orders to a high-level swordmaster before turning to the grade-5 mage and said, ¡°Mr mage, this is a grade-6 scroll. You will ambush ten miles ahead. If the enemy reaches you, use this scroll when you have exhausted one-third of your magic chords.¡±


    The grade-5 mage nced at Sharman, but she chose not to look at him. He had no choice but to receive the scroll and acknowledge Saleen¡¯s order. There was no other way. By Saleen¡¯s side was Cuisi who was even more obedient to his orders and she was a mage that could use a grade-7 scroll!


    This grade-5 mage had mistaken Cuisi for a grade-6 mage. What he did not know was that this sweet and dainty beauty was actually a male demon.


    ¡°Aini, use your undead soldiers to ambush five miles ahead. If the bandits are somehow able to go past the mage, use all your undead soldiers to attack them so that we can retreat temporarily.


    Once Saleen had given his orders, he took out five flying puppets to construct them and fixed some boxes onto their abdominal areas. Within these boxes were magic powder that was explosive. After exploding, it would form ten fireballs to burn any mmable objects in the surrounding area.


    The five flying puppets were not fragile and could be hung on the horse¡¯s saddle. The ten knights protected the magic apprentice and left first. Su was leading them and was armed with two swords and a bow. Although Su¡¯s archery skills were not as formidable as J¡¯s, the range of a silver grand swordmaster could definitely threaten mages that were grade-7 and below.


    The twelve men got onto their warhorses and rushed towards Cexing City. Behind them were two-hundred servants and light-armored knights.


    Without any baggage, the knights managed to travel fifty miles in just over an hour. Once the magic apprentice reached the rear of the bandit¡¯s camp, he was overjoyed. The campsite constructed by the bandits was loose and was not joined together properly in many areas.


    Su decided to take the risk by leaving the warhorses outside of the camp while the twelve of them brought along the flying puppets and snuck into the camp through the gaps.


    Saleen only had a single purpose; to destroy the bandit¡¯s equipment that could be used to attack the city walls. Without this equipment, the bandits would have to use their lives in exchange for conquering the city. As long as the noble families in the city were brave enough, one-thousand men guarding a city could easily kill enemies that outnumbered them by up to five times. If the noble families¡¯ soldiers could deplete the bandits¡¯ forces, Saleen would have a much easier time taking the cityter on.


    With Su in the lead, the other eleven men did not encounter any bandits on patrol and managed to reach within a mile from the catapults. This was when Su inspected their surroundings more cautiously and realized that there were no mages either.


    The apprentice began to mount the magic nuclei and the two-yard long flying puppets began to fly.


    With a distance of just eight-hundred yards and the targets were catapults that were fixed on the ground, there was no way the apprentice would miss. The five flying puppets flew at lightning speed and crashed into the catapults without any warning. The magic powder exploded and the fireballs burst in all directions. The catapults were made of wood and began to burn in no time.


    ¡°Piece of cake. Let¡¯s retreat.¡± Once Su confirmed that the five catapults were hopeless, he led the eleven swordmasters into retreat. What Su did not understand was that even until now, no bandits had discovered them yet. Su returned to his warhorse calmly. Saleen¡¯s original n was for them to lure a group of bandits into chasing them, hence the multiple ambushes along the way. That way they could destroy some of the bandits¡¯ forces.


    Instead, they had managed to destroy the enemy¡¯s catapults yet they had yet to discover who did it. If Su and his team left just like that, the bandits would probably take a long time before they picked up on their traces.


    ¡°What is this? What rubbish?!¡±


    Su raged. He instructed the eleven swordmasters, ¡°You will all go back first. I will lure some bandits into chasing us.¡± With that, he did not care to know if the eleven swordmasters agreed with his decision or not. He rode his warhorse and charged into one of the bandits¡¯ camps on his own.

 Chapter 587: Amounting to nothing (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 587: Amounting to nothing (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The eleven swordmasters were flustered, they did not escape on their own but had followed Aini, rushing into the camppound.


    Ever since Su began following Saleen, he had been spending his days in danger. It was only after returning to Metatrin City that he witnessed a regr army from this world. Lex¡¯s army caused Su to be dumbfounded, while the swordsman¡¯s camp in the Bitter Water Prefecture was valiant and ferocious. Even Su himself could not infiltrate them.


    Su originally thought that all the armies on Myers maind were like that, but the bandits¡¯ camp was veryx and normal. The bandits only reacted after Su had barged into their camp and knocked over two tents.


    The bandits charging forward towards Su did not even wear armor, they only wielded short knives and swarmed forward. Su wielded two swords, shing at this left and right as his eyes darted around looking for other pesky enemies.


    Su led eleven men and traveled through this small camp twice. After almost destroying the ce, he then saw a brigade of cavalrymen rushing out from another camp. Su noticed that there was a white-robed mage traveling with this brigade of soldiers. Mages who dared travel with cavalrymen were usually of outstanding quality.


    Su could not care less about the grandeur of a mage. Since this mage followed the bandits, it meant that he deserved to die. Removing the longbow from his back, Su yelled at the soldiers behind him to retreat, then he loaded feather arrows on the bow and fired into the distance.


    Su had trained his archery back in the subcontinent ne. After following Saleen, he was lucky to have gotten some tips from Eleanor, thus improving his archery skills. His feather arrows covered a distance of over five-hundred yards in a sh, which had even exceeded the range of a steel crossbow.


    That white-robed mage on horseback was enveloped by the bandits, so he was caught off guard by a feather arrow descending from the sky. In a moment of haste, he could only wield an Invisible Shield. A ring on his finger red brightly, then he opened the Fire Ring of Resistance.


    The Invisible Shield obviously could not block a feather arrow containing the Sword Aura, it cracked with a p. As the feather arrow nted, the Fire Ring of Resistance had already been lit up. The attack principle of the Fire Ring of Resistance was to burn the arrow, while its physical defense was simr to that of the Invisible Shield.


    Su¡¯s feather arrows had been personally crafted by Saleen. Even though they were low level alchemical arrows, one Fire Ring of Resistance was not sufficient to destroy the arrowhead. The body of this arrow grazed past the left side of the mage¡¯s neck, just into the area where his arteries were.


    Fresh blood spurted out, causing this mage to be petrified. He immediately cast a Freezing spell onto his own neck, freezing arge block of dark red blood. The mage then turned around and fled, mping his hands around the warhorse¡¯s neck.


    It would be strange for him not to escape. One arrow from the enemy could ovee two of his defensive spells, no matter how stupid this mage was, he could figure out the standard of his enemies.


    Seeing that the white-robed mage was fleeing in shock, Su took out another three arrows andunched them. These three arrowsnded on three bandits who were d in exquisite armor. Despite these three bandits wearing beautiful armor, they died quickly.


    Although the remaining bandits had elegant equipment, Su already lost the intention to harm them. Su alone could not massacre all the bandits. As the powerful force among the bandits had not emerged yet, he just wanted to bait them to chase him.


    Su and J were different. Even though he was still young, he handled matters much more calmly than J. If J was to bait the enemy, he might even go to the enemy¡¯s main camp to massacre them and embarrass those he did not like. Even though Su already possessed the ability of a Silver Grand Swordmaster, he still followed Saleen¡¯s instructions earnestly.


    It was very clear that Saleen did not only want him alone. If Su was the only one who could fight while the rest of the subordinates were ck, then Saleen¡¯s n would be fruitless.


    Saleen had allowed Su toe along to ensure the safety of those eleven soldiers.


    After killing the three bandits who looked like the headmen, Su fled on horseback. His warhorse might not contain some noble bloodline, but it had been carefully selected. Its endurance and sprinting abilities were all above average. The enemies were more than five-hundred yards away, their bows were helpless against Su. Just like that, Su had abandoned a chaotic camp, escaping with eleven swordmasters.


    The bandits at the rear were outraged. If Su had only wrecked one of their camps, they only had to reorganize and arrange their defensive measures, the big picture would not be affected. This person had attacked the men in the camp and burned five trebuchets.


    Five trebuchets were destroyed, and it would be very difficult to purchase them again. On the other hand, if the bandits were to build the trebuchets themselves, they would waste a lot of time, and the trebuchets would be inurate and would no longer fire magic stone cannons.


    Thus these bandits quickly gathered some horses and gave chase.


    The soldiers in Cexing City had already given up hope since the enemy outnumbered them and possessed military-grade trebuchets, which could swiftly reopen the cracks in the city walls. These soldiers had already nned to die in battle. Out of the blue, there was amotion outside the city, and the soldiers immediately discovered that the enemy¡¯s trebuchets had been set aze.


    Judging by the color and shape of the mes, an experienced soldier would know that the mes were a result of magic fuel, there was no way of salvation. News of this spread, and cheers could be hearding from the city.


    The owner of Cexing City was a third ss viscount. He already had the notion ofmitting suicide, but this abrupt change outside the city energized him instantly. Rations were aplenty in Cexing City, as long as the city walls were not broken, it would not be too difficult to assemble the farmers to act as guards. Someone outside had destroyed the trebuchets, so the bandits would surely allocate some manpower to deal with the threat, lowering the number of attacking forces. He would be able to manage the situation.


    As long as he held out for a few days, reinforcements from Huoxing City would arrive. Since the bandits did not have any logistics support, they would naturally retreat by then.


    Saleen wished for such an oue. If the defending soldiers had lost morale, the city could be overtaken very soon. Only five trebuchets were ruined, but to the people in the city, that was akin to a lifebuoy.


    Outside Cexing City was arge camp which had extremely strong defenses, and this was where the bandit leader lived. Within a huge tent, a bandit entered to report about the destroyed trebuchets. That bandit leader was considered calm. In a low voice, he asked, ¡°Who did it?¡±


    ¡°We do not know, they have also ruined a campplex, ck Dragon¡¯s people have gone after them.¡±


    ¡°Gone after them?¡± This bandit leader appeared youthful, but he was very meticulous. He immediately said, ¡°Get those people back!¡±


    The light cavalrymen from ck Dragon had traveled for arge distance. Since the bandits in camp had no fast horses, it was impossible to recall them. This young bandit leader immediately ordered the diverted bandits to assemble and rebuild a camp around hispound.


    The soldiers in Cexing City had been observing the situation outside. When they noticed these measures the older soldiers were filled with regret. If Cexing City had a grand mage, the mage could have set fire to the enemy. The bandits¡¯ camp was too dense, there were no corresponding defensive methods either. A mage could attack it easily.


    Fifty miles away, in Saleen¡¯s camp, Sharman was harassing Saleen by talking to him incessantly. Saleen was helpless. This little girl might be clingy, but her character was not detestable. She also spoke respectfully. Saleen could tell that the grade-5 mage serving her was obviously reluctant.


    Sharman must have exhorted him repeatedly. Even though the grade-5 mage listened to Saleen¡¯s orders and stopped the enemy, he still looked glum.


    Since Sharman was so sensible, Saleen did not get angry. If she behaved like Irene, Saleen might even have the notion of killing her.


    Since the mage was not around, Sharman took the opportunity and told Saleen, ¡°Brother Saleen, ignore him. Fourth Brother¡¯s temper is like this, but he listens to my sister.¡±


    ¡°Fourth Brother?¡± Saleen felt ufortable when he heard this nickname. In any other ce, a grade-5 mage would be addressed as ¡°Sir¡±. Since Sharman called him that, it was obvious that she did not treat him as a grand mage.


    ¡°Heh, the Rnde family has groomed four grand mages, he is the fourth one. When my sister came to Metatrin City, only he was willing to tag along, the other three are¡­ ha ha.¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Got it.¡± In his heart, he was thinking, ¡°This mage should be fond of Baroness Guya, that¡¯s why he is willing to follow her even though her future is uncertain. Sharman has been wanting to introduce her sister to me, no wonder this mage treated me in a hostile manner. There is no point getting jealous over this, I have Sika, I will not think about Guya.¡±


    ¡°Brother Saleen, are you confident this time around?¡± I feel that the bandits will gather more manpower to invade the city.¡± Sharman did not continue harping on the previous topic, she was worried for her subordinates. The one-hundred men who went to set up an ambush were not the fast cavalrymen. If they made an error, they might not be able to run back in time.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, with Su around, your men will not get into any big trouble,¡± Saleen consoled Sharman. He was not very concerned about the safety of the servants. One-hundred steel crossbows would execute an ambush shot, and they would escape after using all the arrows. They would not even need to do closebat. If there was a melee fight, those servants would be very much inferior to Sharman¡¯s and Aini¡¯s trusted soldiers given their caliber.


    The situation unfolded like what Saleen had predicted. Su, along with the eleven swordmasters, controlled their speed as much as possible. Su had ran more than thirty miles before getting caught by the bandits. Only about two-hundred bandits pursued Su, the rest of the bandits at the rear hadgged behind. These two-hundred over cavalrymen fired arrows, they were hot on Su¡¯s heels.


    Phoenix¡¯s roads were wide enough to contain tworge chariots traveling side by side. Trees were rarely nted on the sides of the road. As the bandits were chasing feverishly, they did not notice that there was a sparse forest beside the path up ahead. After the first dozen of riders went past, a barrage of arrows flew out from this forest, knocking over forty bandits off the horses.


    More of the bandits¡¯ warhorses were shot. They ran for a few steps before getting abandoned.


    Even in an elite squad, it was difficult for the cavalrymen to don full armor for a warhorse, it was the same case for these bandits. When the barrage of arrows was fired, its main target were the warhorses. The bandits who got ambushed did not have a chance to swerve around, they only charged forward desperately hoping to get past this forest.


    In the blink of an eye, these over one-hundred cavalrymen had went past the area manned by the archers, as they continued pursuing Su¡¯s team. The bandits who fell off their horses were petrified as a second wave of arrows had beenunched.


    Seeing that over one-hundred cavalrymen were still giving chase, Su decided to turn around and ughter his way through. ¡°Sharman¡¯s elemental mage had set a trap in front. Even if I lead the enemies over there, it would only result in a waste of scrolls. I thought the enemy will send a huge number of people to chase me, but there are only two-hundred over men.¡± Su was a little disappointed.


    Realizing that Su wasing their way, two bandits charged forward together, each of them wielding two des in their hands. A de was useful in infantry battles, but was obviously lousier than ance while battling on horseback. It was even worse than a cross spear. Those bandits who gave chase definitely do not ride horses frequently, and they did not even have enough time to change their weapons into something suitable for horse battle.


    When Su saw the enemies rushing towards himself, he put his two swords in the sheaths, then looked at his enemies and bellowed loudly.


    After the two bandits were hollered at by Su, their bodies began trembling vigorously, almost falling off their horses. By then, Su¡¯s warhorse had already went past them, and Su had stolen one of their des.

 Chapter 588: Amounting to nothing (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 588: Amounting to nothing (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were only eleven men following Su, but these eleven people were dozens of times mightier than that hundreds of servants in terms of offensive power. They swerved around and caught up with Su, and those two bandits who were still dazed got decapitated by the swordmasters who came not long after.


    Qin¡¯s battlefield skills were very detailed. There was a variety of sabers, but no matter which type was used, it could not slice through heavy armor. The bandits were d in light armor while their necks were covered in beast skin. The swordmasters identified the enemy¡¯s weakness, thus chopping off their heads in one sh. Even the tiny iron chains lining the interior of the beast skin were broken.


    Su charged forward on horseback, the de in his hand poking left and right at lightning speed. Every strike he made caused a bandit to fall off their horse and sustain serious injury. Su did not kill anyone. Even though a de was not suitable for horse battle, its user was important too. Such a weapon had a wider de, as long as it pierced into one¡¯s body, it would cause them to lose their offensive ability and bleed profusely.


    The w of a de was that it could break easily. Su¡¯s Sword Aura dominated the battle. The de danced in mid-air. The bandits did not even see iting, they could only feel the intense Sword Aura, and then they were knocked off their horses by Su.


    In a few breaths¡¯ time, Su had already passed through the entire team of bandits. More than twenty bodies appeared behind him, and another twenty or so who had fell off their horses and were gravely injured. The ones dead were actually killed by Aini¡¯s trusted soldiers.


    It was not that Su could not bear to kill someone. He had received education, so he did not care about the enemy¡¯s life. On the battlefield, causing irreversible damage to the enemy was the best strategy. If the enemy tried to save their injuredrades, then they would have to pay an evenrger price.


    The dozen riders swerved around once again and ughtered their way back. After four barrages of arrows raining on the road beside the forest, the dozens of bandits who fell off their horses were all shot dead. Not a single warhorse escaped either. The archery skills of the servants were not great, but they were ruthless. Fifty servants went out to the road, wielding their short swords and stabbing each body once more. They then plucked out the arrows and stored them. The other fifty people went to the middle of the road, taking out triangr nails from their pouches and scattering them on the ground.


    Thereafter, these one-hundred people split up into five groups. Two returned to the forest to collect the shields in order to seal the roadpletely.


    Each of these one-hundred people held a shield in their left hand and a short sword in their right. It was the standard method to deal with cavalrymen. The shape of a short sword was simr to that of a triangr sword, it had been designed to break armor. Once pierced into the body, it would leave a deep wound, even heavy armor could hardly resist its attack.


    The servants and trusted soldiers in theserge families were the reliable forces for the nobles. They were skilled and cruel.


    None of the experts from the bandits¡¯ camp gave chase. Su led eleven swordmasters by himself, thrashing left and right, he could not be stopped. Those bandits also could not organize aeback. They tried to flee, but their route of retreat had been cut off.


    Three bandits rode on horseback and dashed towards the servants holding the shields. They got shoved off their horses by a dozen shields, then the servants stabbed the bandits haphazardly. Dozens of holes appeared in the bandits¡¯ armor, then the bandits died in the blink of an eye.


    The servants whose shoulders got injured by the warhorse retreated into the forest, while the others at the rear took their positions. The bandits had nowhere to run, some of them even leaped off their horses and prostrated on the ground to surrender.


    Su felt bored. He did notplete the mission Saleen had given him as too little bandits were lured over. The moment the bandits entered the ambush area, their morale hadpletely dispersed. They could not even put up a resistance against Su and the eleven swordmasters.


    At the end of the day, bandits would never be stronger than a regr army. Even if their individual capability was stronger, their offensive power would in fact be weaker than that of a normal soldier.


    The eleven swordmasters acted faster than Su. After a few rounds of quick assault, less than twenty bandits remained. These bandits only remained alive because they had prostrated on the ground.


    Su could not be bothered to kill them either. He told the servants, ¡°Take these warhorses and prisoners back, I will guard the rear.¡±


    Su was prudent, he was afraid that more bandits would appear from the back. By then, the servants would really get injured. Saleen¡¯s agenda had been partially fulfilled, the loyalty of these servants had been tested. The servants were only d in light armor and held onto shields, but they dared resist the assault from the light cavalrymen directly. Even though their strength was slightly weaker, they were willing to risk their lives.


    With mages around, those bruises caused by the warhorses could be easily treated. Su¡¯s team followed behind slowly. This time around, the battle had yielded over one-hundred warhorses. Even though this number was lower, it was arge blow to the bandits. All this while, a bandit gang had very little warhorses. Losing two-hundred horses meant that they had suffered a loss of over ten-thousand gold coins.


    Saleen¡¯s worry did not exist, because the bandits were too inferior. Su had made such a judgment. If he was given a camp¡¯s worth of manpower, and the soldiers¡¯ caliber were like Lex¡¯s subordinates, he would not even give a hoot even if there were more than one-hundred-thousand bandits.


    The stories narrated by a traveling poet always had some powerful bandits who even dared plunder the imperial family¡¯s army. In reality, such a thing would not ur. Even if the bandit gang had a Silver Grand Swordmaster, it was also useless. A te of scattered sand would never be able to match up to an army, unless the bandits were present in astonishing numbers.


    Just like the current situation, where there were ten-thousand bandits besieging Cexing City. Cexing City only had slightly more than one-hundred regr troops while the remaining people were peasant soldiers. If there was not a city to rely on, the nobles in Cexing City would havemitted suicide long ago.


    Fortunately, more than twenty prisoners were captured. The lousiest of these bandits was also at the standard of a beginner swordsman, they were considered the elites among the bandits already. Once Su returned, he could surely extract some useful information from them.


    Half an hour after Su left with the swordmasters, some bandits then caught up. Seeing bodies strewn across the road outside the forest, these bandits hesitated, they did not carry on pursuing their enemy. Theirrades who were shot by arrows were also stabbed in their necks, causing the necks to be fractured. The bandits felt chills go down their spine, they were afraid to continue giving chase.


    Seeing that no bandits caught up, Su then increased speed. Along the way, he also led Sharman¡¯s grade-5 mage back to camp. Those over one-hundred undead soldiers remained five miles from the camp, in case the bandit organizationunched a massive offensive. If the undead soldiers went berserk, they could totally stop such an offensive.


    Upon returning to the camp and finding that the security was tight, Su felt jubnt. Even though Saleen was not proficient in warring skills, he was much stronger than those bandits. Even in the subcontinent ne, it would take a famous general to set a defense array like this.


    The situation back in the barrack appeared very rxed. Su and the grade-5 mage entered to see that Saleen had arranged wine and meat on the table, awaiting their return.


    ¡°Sir.¡± Su bowed, but Saleen waved his hand to tell Su not to behave in this manner.


    ¡°Those bandits you have brought back are very interesting, they actually want to defect to me. Tell me, do I look like a bandit?¡± Saleen joked with Su. Saleen¡¯s status as a grade-6 mage already made him hardly approachable. If his followers were also so stiff, then Saleen would be the most ufortable person in the room.


    Su thought about it solemnly, then nodded his head. The rest of the people could not help but cackle, even Saleen himself could not stopughing. Saleen recalled the things he had done in the past, ¡°I was really like a bandit back then. Especially my n this time around, allowing the bandit gang to attack the city. I didn¡¯t render any help, instead, I wanted to wait until the bandit gang attacked before I stabbed them from behind.¡±


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, it was only right to do something like that. Of all the nobles in Phoenix, those willing to side with Metatrin City had already left. Those who stayed behind were either allies of the Holy Rock City, or arrogant fellows. The Holy Rock City was attacking the aristocratic power of the Phoenix Duchy. If one did not take a side, they would be devoured sooner orter.


    The name of Viscountess Lex was still very attractive, moreover, the capabilities disyed by Lex could rival that of the previous Grand Duke of Phoenix.


    ¡°Su, sit down and talk.¡± Saleen pointed at the seat beside him. Seeing that Su had seated, Saleen then said, ¡°The abilities of these bandits are pretty good. There was a grade-6 mage, but this mage will not attack the city, he only protects the bandit leaders from getting assassinated.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because of an agreement between Alchemy City and the Holy Rock City. A mage is not allowed to participate in the invasion of any of Qin¡¯s cities. Unless a mage can guarantee that they will not be killed by the Alchemy City.¡± Saleen exined for a moment, before recalling that Su did not belong to this ne. In front of Sharman, he also did not continue exining.


    Su understood, then said, ¡°If we were to kill them from the rear, that grade-6 mage will attack us.¡±


    Su had no idea what Alchemy City was, but he could infer that it was a massive power formed by mages, and this power was so big that it could extend its influence over all the mages in the Qin Empire.


    ¡°This is the current situation. The prisoners you have captured are from the ck Dragon Bandit Gang. This bandit gang has a few thousand men, but they are usually separated into groups of less than one-hundred people to carry out their heists. This bandit gang is considered to be powerful and the rest of the bandits had been hired to attack this city.¡±


    ¡°Hired?¡± On the subcontinent ne, a bandit would not ept employment, so Su was a little confused.


    ¡°Humph, there are mercenaries among these people too, but they are all mercenary groups below grade-4, not very credible people.¡±


    ¡°Have you found out who is the leader?¡±


    ¡°No. The bandits who attacked Cexing City have a leader from the ck Wind Bandit Gang. Currently, north Phoenix is extremely barren. Basically, with more than ten-thousand bandits assembled, a small city like Cexing city will not be able to defend itself.¡±


    ¡°What does Sir n to do?¡±


    ¡°Are you confident of killing that grade-6 mage?¡±


    Su contemted, then said, ¡°He is too far, I cannot do it. After all, a grade-6 mage is able to fly already.¡±


    A Silver Grand Swordmaster could fly too, however, their flying altitude and durability paled inparison to a mage. If that mage had nned on fleeing from the start, Su would be helpless.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if he flies, then he will really be dead meat.¡± Saleen¡¯s words caused Sharman¡¯s mage to furrow his brows. This time around, it was not out of disdain, but because he realized that Saleen had revealed a tinge of an expert¡¯s vibe.


    ¡°If he cannot fly, I will be able to deal with him even if he is a grade-7 sorcerer.¡± Su did not act humble this time around. The rank of a Silver Grand Swordmaster was equivalent to that of a grade-8 sorcerer. As long as a mage did not fly, they could hardly defeat Su. Back then, Lex¡¯s men tried various ways and means to kill a Silver Grand Swordmaster. A Silver Grand Swordmaster was no small fry. It was Saleen¡¯s good fortune that he managed to recruit two followers, such a thing would never happen again.


    ¡°That¡¯s great, then you shall kill that grade-6 mage, the rest of the people will not pose a threat. Cexing City canst for two to three days. Two dayster, we will advance. If Cexing City has been invaded, we will help the nobles there to recapture theirnd.¡±

 Chapter 589: Taking the City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 589: Taking the City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Brother Saleen, aren¡¯t you worried about the people behind these bandits?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to worry about? Within the next ten days, Lex¡¯s knights will arrive and this city will be part of Bitter Water Prefecture within a month,¡± Saleen replied nonchntly. He was genuinely unafraid. He had already met someone like Fycro so there would hardly be anyone else on this dimension that could still scare him.


    If the people behind these bandits were really as formidable, then things would just turn out like how it did with Fycro. They would head straight to Metatrin City to thrash out terms and conditions with Saleen or Lex. They would then either have to agree or be killed.


    It was clear that they were not as strong as Fycro, otherwise they would not need to use such underhanded tactics like invading Phoenix¡¯snds while the northern regions were deserted.


    The people of Cexing City were still unaware that the reinforcements from outside of the city had no intentions of saving them. For three consecutive days, the bandits attacked the city fiercely and hastily. It was originally unnecessary for them to do so, but Saleen¡¯s forces disappeared after taking them unawares one time. This caused the bandits to be nervous and constantly looking over their shoulders so the only way was to take down the city as quickly as possible.


    Besides, the food supplies that the bandits had brought along would only be able to sustain them for another one week or so, unless they managed to take down the city. There was a huge granary in Cexing City that the Grand Duke of Phoenix had asked a mage to build in the past. The grain in the granary could feed the entire city for a few decades.


    Another push factor was that not many of their men were sent to engage Huoxing City so within two or three days, Huoxing City would be able to send over reinforcements.


    Since the bandits had lost their catapults, they could only resort to usingdders to climb the walls and attack aggressively.


    This was not something that the bandits were used to. On the other hand, there were only about one-hundred soldiers in Cexing City and about one-thousand men if the trained peasants were also included. If they needed to rest, they would only be able to defend one wall at a time. They would have to depend on the city¡¯s youths to make up for the rest.


    The buildings in the cities of north of Phoenix were made of rocks, so the soldiers in the city took down half of the houses and used the rocks to fortify the city walls. The city still had sufficient equipment except that they were running low on arrows. The bandits were only rushing at the city walls, but were not utilizing their bows and arrows to do so.


    There was no way of replenishing the supplies of arrows in Cexing City so they were all used up within the first day.


    The mage who was amongst the bandits did not interfere as Phoenix was still part of Qin in name. If the mage joined in the attack, the mages of Alchemy City woulde after him.


    Under normal circumstances, a city like Cexing City that had city walls of about fifteen yards in height should not be taken down easily without the necessary equipment, even if the troops in the city were not made up of elite soldiers.


    There were just too few guards. Ten-thousand bandits could be split into four batches to attack non-stop, regardless of day or night. The city guards were not able to rest and by the third day, about one-hundred bandits managed to sessfully reach the top of the city wall. Although they were sent back down very quickly, it was clear that Cexing City would not be able to hold them back for long.


    For three days straight, no city guards were able to rest so they were all extremely worn-out. The bandits chose to attack only three of the city walls, leaving the south gate alone. The inhabitants of the city knew that the bandits had more than one-thousand knights. If they were to flee from the city, the knights would catch up with them very quickly and they would be doomed faster than if they were to stay in the city.


    Saleen¡¯s troops arrived at the city walls just as the bandits sessfully managed to enter through the north gate. The bandits that were attacking the west and east gates immediately rushed over to the north gate. The city guards had fallen and there was no stopping the bandits from rushing into the city.


    With Aini¡¯s fifty knights as the core, the guards and servants of the caravan followed closely behind the bandits and charged into Cexing City as well.


    It spoke volumes about the bandits¡¯ck of discipline that no one realized that a one-thousand strong troop that were not part of their gang had also entered the city. Aside from the goods that Baroness Guya and Aini transported in the big wagons, there were also magic nuclei transported by spatial equipment, hence they could bring along such arge number of soldiers. Typically, caravans only consisted of about one-hundred soldiers to hold off bandits along the way.


    Before reaching Cexing City, Saleen had already reorganized his troops. He followed the military guidelines and instructed the servants to be support soldiers to support the bodyguards in battle. The bodyguards were wearing full-body armor that were metallic and light while the servants wore high-grade leather armors. At one nce, one might even mistake them for bandits as well.


    Cexing City was shaped like a rectangle and was about one mile between the north and south gates. Once the north gates fell, the Viscount could not care less for the pride of a nobleman and led his over twenty bodyguards and over thirty servants out of the south gate on horses.


    Cexing City had limited warhorses. No one in the city knew that they had fled, so they continued fighting.


    It was evening when the gate fell and the sun resembled the blood spilled and the wind was chilly. The bandits did not have war drums nor horns, so theymunicated with each other using a metal whistle. The whistle was sharp and high-pitched and pierced through the mundane sounds of killing. By the time Saleen and his men reached, more than half of the bandits have already entered the city.


    The sounds of swords and knives shing against armor were piercing. The bandits¡¯ handheld crossbows were finally put to good use in urban warfare. With the advantage of being able to shoot very quickly at a distance of more than ten yards, there was nothing the city guards could do against them. Cexing City¡¯syout was simr to those of many other Qin cities where the streets were broad, so it was obvious to any onlookers how much the bandits outnumbered the city guards.


    Three to five bandits would surround one peasant soldier before killing him. The poor peasant soldiers had only received two months of training every year and although they wore metal armor, they were not as used to it as the leather armor that they wore during training. At least the leather armor was light and nimble while the metal armor distributed by the Lord could only befortably worn by beginner-level swordsmen.


    Since the peasant soldiers were not used to the weight and the angle of the armor tes, their movements were off-bnced. When they were attacked, they could only use their armor to defend while counter attacking with their spears.


    No matter how good their armor was, the peasant soldiers would not be able to handle the wild hacking of the bandits. Often times, the peasant soldiers¡¯ weapons would first be hacked off then their armor would be torn off by the bandits¡¯ long swords slipping through the gaps.


    The braver bandits would use a delta dagger to try and break the armor, but most of the time, two bandits would hold down a peasant soldier while a third would stick his half-sword into the soldier¡¯s throat.


    The only casualties the bandits suffered were when some of them charged in too fast and found themselves surrounded by peasant soldiers.


    When Su entered the city, he saw chaos. The bandits had already entered through the south gate and locked it behind them. After the Viscount had escaped, the city was in a mess. With no one tomand the peasant soldiers, they were like dogs with their teeth and ws plucked out. These bandits did not care to take them as prisoners even if the peasants put down their weapons or surrendered. All the bandits did was shoot from afar with their handheld crossbows before charging in for the kill.


    Those peasant soldiers without armor would be shot to death by the arrows while the remaining ones were too few in numbers to stand against the rest of the bandits and could only await death.


    Su came from a noble family and always held a high regard for peasants. The bandits¡¯ cruelty and recklessness in butchering them angered this silver grand swordmaster greatly. The only thing holding him back from trying to save the peasants was that Saleen had instructed him to keep an eye out for the bandits¡¯ mage. The mage had yet to appear and Su had no idea where he might be hiding.


    Cuisi had already changed into a full body armor. This armor was newly refined by Saleen, but it was designed to look fearsome. In between the armor tes were long and sharp spikes that could cause serious damage to any enemy that got too close to Cuisi.


    Demons had a knack for knowing a human¡¯s heart. When Cuisi saw Su raging, he knew that it was time for him to help Saleen maintain their rtionship.


    ¡°Su, you continue to watch for the mage. Give me twenty men, I will help you kill those idiots,¡± Cuisi said as he rode over to Su. Su nodded and pointed out twenty knights for Cuisi.


    Cuisi was wielding a huge horse-killing sword instead of his whip and charged towards where the bandits were gathered. The twenty knights behind him were armed with machetes distributed by Saleen. These machetes were crafted simrly to those that they had obtained from the soldiers of the Supreme Court. Every one of them were enchanted with magic, allowing them to pierce through heavy armor.


    Cuisi was riding on a skeletal warhorse that was d in full body heavy armor and the enormous horse-killing sword he wielded weighed more than two-hundred pounds. Wielding a gigantic sword and charging in full speed on a skeletal warhorse, Cuisi quickly left behind a trail of destruction. The twenty knights behind him only needed to help Cuisi look out for attacks from the nk.


    Cuisi was enjoying the killing spree and released his mental assault. Although his mental assault was not as powerful as Tolesi¡¯s, he was facing normal bandits that were mostly low-level swordsmen so their mental strength was no match for a powerful demon like Cuisi.


    The bandits that were attacked by the mental assault mostly became shaky and the weaker ones began to bleed from their orifices and died immediately while those that have trained up some sword aura were not able to stand on their feet. Cuisi excitedly used his skeletal warhorse to trample on them, a form of attack that only a skeletal warhorse could carry out.


    The total weight of Cuisi with his warhorse and heavy armor was close to two-thousand pounds. The hooves of the skeletal warhorse were covered with metal and when they trampled on the bandits¡¯ bodies, blood and flesh sttered everywhere. Cuisi still wanted more. He decided to aim at the bandits¡¯ heads instead, so now the red color of blood was mixed with the white color of brain juice. His gigantic horse-killing sword was cutting up the limbs of the bandits instantaneously, it was almost like a scene from purgatory.


    The twenty knights behind Cuisi trembled in fear as they felt ufortable with Cuisi¡¯s wild rampage. This woman was just too strong. Typically, three-meter long huge horse-killing swords were only for disy in shops that manufactured weapons instead of actually being wielded. They usually used it only to show off what wonderful craftsmen they were.


    Only Su was enjoying the sight of the rampage. Noblemen never pitied bandits. In normal circumstances where bandits were caught, noble families would think of ways to torture bandits to death.


    Su was overjoyed by what he was seeing and led his troops to take over a tall building nearest to the city gate then arranged for the servants to upy the highest points of the building with their iron crossbows. As for Su, he took down the longbow behind his back and prepared to deal with the grade-6 mage.


    Even as the bandits were rushing into the city, they were shot by the rain of arrows let loose by the servants. These bandits even thought that it was the city¡¯s final resistance. Although the servants did not have a good aim, they were too close to miss so most of the bandits rushing through the city gate were either injured or killed.


    Only after killing for half an hour did the bandits realize that they were not the only ones that had entered the city.


    Two-hundred knights began to charge towards the north gate from the nk. This time around, the arrows shot by the servants were less effective. These two-hundred knights were the elite forces of the bandit gang and wore twoyers of armor with animal skin in between. Their helmets were extremely firm and solid so they could easily deflect the arrows shot by the iron crossbows.


    With the blink of an eye, these two-hundred bandits were already charging towards Su.

 Chapter 590: Taking the City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 590: Taking the City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The battle formation mostmonly used by the bandits was concave-shaped. Since the caravan¡¯s bows and arrows were weak, this formation was optimal in pressuring the caravan guards and reducing damage caused by the archers.


    On the interior of Cexing City¡¯s gate was a moderate-sized za that was supposed to provide a strategic location for city guards to counterattack. The two-hundred bandits quickly got into their usual formation and prepared tounch an attack on the caravan from both sides.


    Their opponents were not the caravan guards, but were bodyguards that have been trained by the four big families. Saleen¡¯s one-hundred and twenty soldiers armed themselves with alchemy handheld crossbows and calmly shot a round of arrows when the two-hundred bandits charged at them.


    Both sides were only about fifty yards apart. The alchemy crossbow had high prability and the bandits¡¯ metal armor was useless against them. The first round of arrows alone already caused half of the bandits to fall off their warhorses.


    The one-hundred and twenty soldiers calmly kept their alchemy crossbows and took up their cross spears. The de on the spear was only a foot long and was extremely sharp at the tip while two other des extended outwards from the sides. The cross spear functioned like a delta dagger when attacking heavy armors. The two des on the sides prevented the entire weapon from prating too deep while the middle de was long enough to pierce through the gaps of the armors and kill, yet could also be pulled out easily.


    If the bandits were wearing light armor, the des were so sharp that they could even be cut in half.


    Saleen¡¯s troops held the upper hand in the battle on the north side and exterminated the two-hundred bandits. With the help of the servants, the one-hundred and twenty soldiers finished off the remaining one-hundred bandits.


    Saleen¡¯s mages had yet to be deployed, but at this point, the situation at the north gate had finally gotten the attention of the bandits¡¯ leader. In total, more than one-thousand bandits had been killed by the enemy that had appeared at the north gate. More than one-tenth of their men had been killed. The bandits¡¯ main forces had already reached the House of the Lord, but now that a mysterious army has appeared behind them, the bandits¡¯ leader began to feel nervous.


    The leader was just about to lead his troops into an attack on the House of the Lord when he received news that two-hundred of their elite forces had perished. That was when he realized that something was amiss.


    He might be a bandit, but he had once studied at Holy Rock City before, so he possessed knowledge that a normal bandit would not have. He knew that even though there were ten-thousand of them, they would be no match for two g regiments from Qin.


    ¡°Ask Jumar to take some men and finish off those reinforcement troops.¡± The leader stroked his beard with a cruel expression on his youthful face. ¡°Kill everyone and I will reward him fifty-thousand gold coins!¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± His most trusted aide immediately left to look for the mage. The mage did not follow the main troops in attacking the House of the Lord. He was not a part of the bandit gang; he was hired by the people behind this bandit gang to help out in this attack. His main duty was to protect the bandits from any spells cast by the enemy¡¯s mages. There were clearly no mages in the House of the Lord so Jumar was taking a break.


    There were no signs of any mages at the north gate either. The bandit leader did not have the right tomand the mage around so he could only resort to using gold coins as a reward.


    Saleen instructed his soldiers and servants to take up advantageous positions and they were able to continue killing the bandits as they entered the city.


    Sharman led her mage and the bodyguards given to her by Saleen to a small barbican at the north gate. They positioned themselves at the highest point and observed from there. Any bandit that tried to leave the city would be killed by her and her men.


    At the north gate, one could only enter, but not get out.


    Since no bandits managed to escape sessfully, the bandits that were still rushing into the city had no idea that the north gate was a trap.


    Saleen had less than one-thousand men in total and only two-hundred of them could be considered as strong fighters. The difference in equipment and weapons between the two groups was too stark. Saleen¡¯s men knew that they had a few grand mages on their side along with a silver grand swordmaster. Their morale could not be higher.


    The size of the za was not big enough to contain too many people. Su alone was enough to stabilize the situation there. Su has yet to unleash his full power as he continued to wait patiently for the grade-6 mage¡¯s appearance.


    As the sky began to darken, Saleen asked Narnia to cast a few Illumination spells in the za. The bandits that had yet to enter the city mistook the Illumination spells as spells cast by their own mage and all of them rushed towards it like moths flying towards a fire.


    ¡°Narnia, it¡¯s all yours.¡± Saleen saw that more and more bandits were entering the city and ordered his soldiers to retreat to the streets, leaving behind a small space on the za where they had been upying previously.


    The za was fifty yards wide and one-hundred yards long and could contain up to one-thousand people easily.


    Narnia smiled. Killing ordinary humans was considered boring to mages and most of them would not be willing to do it. In this case, the enemy were bandits so Narnia had no qualms doing so.


    She began to prepare for her spell by chanting aplicated mantra. By the time more than six-hundred bandits had gathered in the za, that was when Narnia cast her first spell.


    It was the Phoenix spell.


    This phoenix was not like any other that Saleen had seen before. There was a period of time when Lex and Saleen shared with each other about the offenses and defences of spells so Saleen¡¯s understanding of the phoenix spell was about the same as Lex. Nevertheless, he was still taken aback by Narnia¡¯s spell.


    The phoenix was huge, with a wingspan of sixteen yards. It was not made from restorative magic, but from advanced magic that was unique to Narnia.


    A standalone grade-4 spell that was created solely by Narnia.


    The phoenix¡¯s feathers were clear and natural as if they belonged to a real creature and were not arranged ording to the elements. The gigantic phoenix rose into the air and swooped down.


    ¡°How dare you!¡± A voice shouted in rage from the sky in the south. Saleen turned back and saw a ck-robed mage flying over. This mage was very powerful, definitely more powerful than Narnia. Saleen smiled. He had been waiting for this mage to appear. If not for him, Saleen would have instructed his men to go ahead and kill all the bandits. It was not for no reason that they were all gathered together in one ce.


    If he had been separated from his men and they encountered this mage, all of them would have been massacred.


    Only mages that were at least at the level of a sorcerer would be able to cast spells while flying. Those that were below grade-7 would have difficulty even using their scrolls if they were flying in a hurry. For Saleen, he would only be able to cast spells while airborne if he could stabilize his body. He would not have been able to do so under suboptimal conditions.


    Mages could still use their scrolls if they flew at a slower speed. Even though the speed at which they could use the scrolls was also much slower, it was better than nothing. As the ck-robed mage flew towards the za, he could see a female mage unleashing a huge phoenix that swooped towards the ground. It behaved like a real creature as it pped its wings and the bandits that were close to them died instantly.


    A grade-4 magic could be sustained more than ten times longer than a low-level spell. The phoenix¡¯s killing spree left no survivors in the za yet it did not vanish. It instead flew out of the city under Narnia¡¯smand. This was Narnia¡¯s specialty. Although her spells exhausted twice as many magic chords, their sustainability and manoeuvrability had already reached the standard of high-level spells.


    This was the level of destruction that element magic possessed, along with its ability to manipte its summoning spell. It was as if the phoenix was a creature summoned from another dimension by Narnia. It pped its wings and turned everything it touched into ashes.


    Bandits that were still conscious enough to try to flee were immediately killed by the fireball unleashed by the phoenix.


    Saleen calcted. Excluding the adjustments she had to make before he gave the order, Narnia took almost fifty seconds just to chant the mantra for this spell. This spell would not be useful in a one-to-one battle between two mages. In this case where the enemy consisted of more than one-thousand men, the effectiveness of this spell definitely surpassed Saleen¡¯s badge.


    Although the badge could destroy a grade-9 creature effortlessly, it functioned by shooting out a straight line and would disappear after that. On the other hand, the phoenix could fly and attack on its own.


    The grade-6 mage that was still airborne was furious. The spell cast by the female mage had already flown out of the city gates. The phoenix was not showing any signs of losing the bnce of elements, which meant that it could still sustain for tens of seconds. With that amount of time, this gigantic fire-element spell would be able to kill thousands easily.


    Beside the female mage was a white-robed mage. How dare these two junior mages ignore his presence?!


    The mage descended quickly, while the rest of his men were still a few streets away. He decided that he could do this alone anyway.


    Su drew an arrow from the quiver on his back. This arrow was given to him by Saleen and could be infused with his strongest sword aura. Taking in a deep breath, Su turned back and realized that Saleen was no longer there.


    Su did not think too much. He drew his long bow and instantaneously locked on to the grade-6 mage¡¯s aura. Due to the difference in their grades, the mage did not realize that he had been targeted.


    Saleen suddenly appeared out of nowhere on a small street. He was riding on a skeletal warhorse and was charging towards the ck-robed mage.


    The ck-robed mage had only just descended and was taken aback. Had the white-robed mage gone insane? Even if the white-robed mage cast a spell in close proximity, the low-level spells would never be able to hurt him.


    ¡°Ha¡­¡±


    The ck-robed mage stopped midway through hisughter. He had originally thought that the white-robed mage wanted to get closer to him so that he would have a chance ofnding his spell. The ck-robed mage did not expect that the elements surrounding the white-robed mage would start to vibrate and a thick fog appeared suddenly.


    No, this was not fog, but was water element that was abnormally solid. This was no low level mage. Based on the rate at which the water elements were gathered, this was at least a grade-6 mage!


    There was no time for hesitation on the battlefield. The ck-robed mage was only stunned for a moment, but it was enough for an arrow to fly through the sky and prate through his ice te armor to result in a footlong hole in his body.


    Su¡¯s body shook while the warhorse underneath him copsed. There was nothing fanciful about this shot. It was like when he first learned archery; every action was kept to the most simple and straightforward. This shot also gathered the strongest sword aura from the silver grand swordmaster.


    The ck-robed mage immediately copsed and died from this shot.

 Chapter 591: The art of killing and economics (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 591: The art of killing and economics (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    With one hand on the ground as support, Su stood up slowly. He was unusually astounded by the effect of that arrow. Recalling thebat method Saleen had told him and his incredulous order, Su¡¯s eyes brimmed with admiration.


    This arrow had indeed traveled at maximum velocity, its offensive power had also reached that of high level magic. The mage was killed in one second, but Su still could not kill a grade-6 mage alone.


    That mage did not die wrongfully. Saleen had disguised himself as a white-robed mage and charged over on a skeletal warhorse so that he could attract the ck-robed mage¡¯s attention. When Saleen fully revealed his power, the ck-robed mage¡¯s perception had been attracted to Saleen. There was no way the mage could have expected Su¡¯s arrow.


    That split second of distraction had been calcted by Saleen with unparalleled precision.


    That meant that Saleen had calcted the timing when Su¡¯s Sword Aura was the mightiest and when it had to be released. Saleen had almost fully unleashed his own abilities within a thirtieth of a second after Su fired the arrow.


    The ck-robed mage was only distracted for less than half a second, but in that brief moment, Su¡¯s arrow had prated his chest. It might seem like this mage was killed by Su, but without Saleen¡¯s precise calctions, the mage could still have fled despite being injured.


    Not only did Saleen have a thorough understanding of himself, he also had clear knowledge about his enemies and subordinates.


    That was how a grade-6 mage got tricked by a Silver Grand Swordmaster and another grade-6 mage.


    Saleen rode his horse towards the ck-robed mage. The clouds had not dispersed yet. Within those clouds, Saleen leaped off the horse and began searching the mage¡¯s body.


    He found two rings and one bangle. These three items were now in Saleen¡¯s his.


    Even the meekest creature could leave behind something of value, not to mention that the enemy was a grade-6 mage. As long as there was spatial equipment, it would be worth more than one-hundred-thousand gold coins. It did not matter even if there was nothing inside the spatial equipment. Saleen dly put these three items into his own Ring of Gifts.


    The level of his Ring of Gifts was not as high as the original one. Saleen had given the previous Ring of Gifts to Sika already. At the moment, the only advantage of this ring was that spatial equipment could be stored in it, and the stored items would not be ruined.


    Collecting the loot, Saleen then mounted the skeletal warhorse. Standing at the entrance of the street, he began preparing a spell. Since the enemy¡¯s strongest mage had been killed, he would not get distracted trying to protect the normal soldiers.


    Saleen was preparing the Icicle spell. Thisplex spell created by him could engulf an area of more than one-hundred yards, while its lethal area was more than fifty yards.


    The elemental vibrations in the air were extremely violent, even a grade-1 mage would be able to detect them.


    The bandits who arrived afterwards did not witness the scene where the ck-robed mage was killed. They only saw a cloud epassing the center of the street.


    Even though the bandits had no strategy, they were very valiant. Seeing a suspicious cloud up ahead, the over two-hundred bandits charged over without hesitation.


    While in the cloud, Saleen¡¯s hands cast the spell at the same time, causing the surrounding temperature to drop drastically. When he was still a low grade mage, he had already created a ferocious attack, but he was more adept this time around. Hundreds of icicles took shape instantly, crashing down directly, enveloping all the bandits inside.


    Saleen could not direct every icicle at the enemy, but such a dense attack did not only originate from the prative power of the icicles. Thunderous rumbles spread throughout Cexing City, Saleen¡¯s Icicle spell had knocked these bandits off their warhorses in an instant. Those bandits who got hit urately were dead, while those whose armor got grazed by the icicles were frozen by the low temperatures, causing them to fall to the ground.


    All these oues still had to do with calctions. When Saleen was preparing this spell, he had calcted the attack distance and the bandits¡¯ speed. Only one area spell was used, and none of the targets managed to escape Saleen¡¯s onught.


    Those bandits lying on the ground could not even moan, then they saw a white-robed mage emerging from the cloud. A cbash was hung around the waist of this young mage. Thereafter, a six yard long green water flow spurted out from the mage¡¯s cbash¡­


    The water flow released from the cbash flew forward, swiftly decapitating the bandits who were not dead yet. No matter how tough the bandits¡¯ armor was, it also could not withstand the wringing of the water flow.


    The bandits who arrived in session came to this junction. When they saw this scene, they were scared out of their wits. In the eyes of these bandits, this mage had no conscience, he was a person determined to kill.


    The city remained in turmoil, but Saleen had nothing else to do already. ¡°The biggest problem has been resolved. Su and Cuisi alone can totally suppress those bandits. Sharman still has a grade-5 mage. Since I have removed this grade-6 mage, that grade-5 mage will possess an absolute advantage already.¡±


    That grade-5 mage was at the city¡¯s entrance, standing next to Sharman. He had clearly observed the coordination between Saleen and Su, and his face turned pale.


    Sharman actually began pping, then said, ¡°I knew that Brother Saleen had been lying all along. Fourth Brother, he is a grand mage, you should be convinced by now.¡±


    The mage wanted to rebut, but that mage killed by Saleen could already fly with ease, which was a trademark of a grade-6 mage. The coordination between Saleen and Su had ughtered a grade-6 mage in one second. No matter how arrogant he was, he would not feel that he was superior to Saleen anymore. Both of them were grand mages, in this abrupt battle, there was nothing to conceal.


    If he and Sharman were the ones in the fight, they could only manage to escape in the best scenario.


    The battle continued, and Aini¡¯s undead soldiers arrived. The undead soldiers were originallyying an ambush outside the city, as Saleen was worried that there might be some indomitable experts in the enemy. The Berserk Undead Soldiers could stall the enemies for a while while Saleen andpany would escape. At the moment, Cuisi had been darting amongst the bandits for several rounds, but he did not release any distress signal. That meant that there were really no experts among the bandits.


    If this was a field battle, Saleen would be afraid of sustaining too many casualties. Now, he was in the city, and his team had seized an advantageous position, thus killing over two-thousand enemies in all that chaos. Saleen had no need to worry anymore.


    After a short discussion with Aini, Aini began summoning the undead soldiers into the city. Eighty spirit wolves were still lurking outside the city. Saleen had taken into consideration the worst scenario. A spirit wolf¡¯s attack might be weaker than a grade-4 magic beast, but it could move about pretty swiftly. In a short sprint, even a grade-7 sorcerer would not be able to catch up to them.


    The undead soldiers hiding outside the city were summoned by Aini¡¯s spell and at the same time, their berserk abilities were stimted. Hundreds of soldiers stabbed the bandit gang in the back. At the moment, there were only more than one-thousand bandits outside the city. Most of the bandits had been burned to death by the phoenix. The remaining bandits were at a loss of what to do, and the appearance of the undead soldiers from the rear created even more confusion for them.


    As Saleen soared in mid-air, he could observe everything, then he sighed in his heart. ¡°The individual offensive powers of these bandits aren¡¯t weak, at the very least, their abilities are simr to the pirates which I recruited in the past. Back then, I was still nning to form a powerful army using those pirates, it was such a joke. Whenever such bandits run into a regr army, the oue will be total destruction. There were more than ten-thousand bandits, but a third of them were massacred by less than one-thousand of my men. There were many more injured servants in this battle, but none of them died. Including the over one-thousand people who were killed by the phoenix, the bandits have already lost half their manpower.¡±


    This was totally different from the stories told by traveling poets. At this moment, Saleen had gained an understanding. Hooligans were inferior to bandits, bandits were inferior to a normal army, a normal army was inferior to a noble¡¯s private soldiers, and these private soldiers were inferior to the swordsmen from the imperial family.


    In those tales narrated by traveling poets, the powerful bandits could single handedly exterminate an entire army!


    It was no wonder then that the nobles never restrained the poets¡¯ verbal freedom. Anyway, in the eyes of the nobles, the stories told by a poet were all jokes and were the lousiest of jokes. Thergest fortune in this world was grasped tightly in the hands of the mages and nobles, it would be strange to see bandits getting powerful.


    If the bandits were organized, disciplined and had more mages, that phoenix could not have possibly killed more than one-thousand of them. This spell might seem mighty, but it was only used against normal humans. Saleen only needed to use a spell of the same grade to destroy it. A phoenix traveled slowly after all.


    There was still quite a number of bandits in the city. Over at Saleen¡¯s side, other than the servants who were in charge of firing arrows, the rest of the people were injured. The bandits existed in overwhelming numbers. The team was slowly assembled, the injured personnel were treated with the Restorative Water first, then they were issued steel crossbows. Those servants who were originally shooting arrows now wielded weapons and joined the battle.


    The city gates had been thoroughly cleaned. Forces from both merchant convoys were gathered. Under Su¡¯smand, they advanced into the heart of the city.


    Cexing City was not huge. The city owner¡¯s residence at the middle of the city had been conquered, but the bandit leader had learned that his men at the rear had been exterminated. This young bandit was actually very decisive. A grade-6 mage had been lost, he did not want to lose all his forces here as well.


    This bandit leader ordered the remaining bandits to advance north and receive Saleen¡¯s army, while he himself led a few trusted aides and fled from the southern door.


    The enemy did not have a grand mage. Saleen followed behind Su, calmly casting spells withrge effective areas, causing the bandits to copse in groups. This battle had already be meaningless, it was simply a massacre. If this was a war between two nations a mage or holy master would only take on an auxiliary function, they rarely charged at the front. The enemies were bandits, they could be killed without a judgment.


    There were nows nor moral obligations restraining a mage from ughtering these bandits. When the bandits realized that their leader had escaped, they began dispersing. Cuisi had led twenty cavalrymen on several killing sprees in the city, he was already very satisfied and did not want to kill any more people. He also knew that Saleen was not nning to kill all the bandits, otherwise Saleen would have alreadyid traps outside each entrance.


    One party was giving chase while the other fled. As long as there was a way out, these bandits would not fight. If the city was blockaded, the soldiers would inevitably get hurt too.


    Eventually, over two-thousand bandits fled from the city. Sharman joyously led her limited manpower on a hunt for the injured bandits in the city.


    Saleen asked Sharman toe back. He said, ¡°Why are you doing that?!¡±


    ¡°Brother Saleen, they are bandits. Look, they all have tattoos.¡± Sharman picked up a human head and used a short knife to shave off the long hair, revealing tattoos on the scalp. Saleen never expected a youngdy like her to be able to carry out such gruesome acts.


    Seeing Saleen furrowing his brows, Sharman said, ¡°Each head can fetch one gold coin. Since a few thousand people are dead, that means they are worth a few thousand gold coins!¡±

 Chapter 592: The art of killing and economics (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 592: The art of killing and economics (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°All this is small change,¡± Saleen said in disagreement.


    ¡°Brother Saleen, you might not know this, but when someone kills a bandit, not only will they receive gold coins from the empire, they will also gain merit. Once a certain number of merits is umted, they can be conferred as a noble. I don¡¯t care about that, but these merits are transferable, which trantes to another source of ie for me.¡±


    Saleen smiled in response. He did not want any prisoners this time around, since Sharman wanted to earn money, then so be it.


    Peace was resumed in the city. The bandits had invaded the city in a hurry and Saleen¡¯s army arrived not long after, the number of casualties in the city was not very high. Other than the people who fought alongside the city owner, most of the people who hid in their houses had survived.


    There were about three-thousand regr residents left in Cexing City. The task of cating these people was left to Sharman¡¯s aunt, while Saleen led the rest of the team into the city owner¡¯s residence and began discussing how to clean up the aftermath.


    Cexing City had been invaded during the turmoil brought about by the ck magicians, andter on, it had also gotten invaded when the Qin army came. To date, it was no longer flourishing. This ce was originally the distribution center for rations. Since the ck magicians¡¯ army consisted of ck puppets, no rations were plundered. The Qin army also would not do something like that. After the nobles of Cexing City surrendered, the granaries were actually preserved.


    If this was not the case, Saleen would not have been so determined to seize this city. Currently, Saleen was notcking money, hecked rations. Cexing City might be small, but it had enormous granaries.


    Legally, these granaries belonged to the Grand Duke of Phoenix, but Saleen could not care less. ¡°The Grand Duke of Phoenix should be wetting his bed right now, he will not cause trouble for me. Cexing City has crumbled, it is very normal for it to be missing some things.¡±


    Cuisi was sent by Saleen to collect the rations. Five Dimension Stones should be sufficient to empty the granaries.


    Aini and Sharman sat with Saleen, discussing how to split the loot. Without Saleen and Su, Aini and Sharman could not have possibly achieved such a feat. Without their trusted soldiers and servants, Saleen could not have killed so many bandits either.


    ¡°Brother Saleen, I am going to follow you anyway, I don¡¯t want those items, I only want the human heads. Humph, my sister keeps saying that I am still young and will not aplish great things, I will go back and prove to her otherwise.¡±


    Saleen could not stifle hisughter, as he finally realized why Sharman wanted those bandits¡¯ heads.


    Dozens of minutes into the discussion, Saleen then realized that the returning servants did not find any ounting records from the city owner¡¯s residence. Cuisi had returned and passed the five Dimension Stones to Saleen. Scanning them using his perception, Saleen was very pleased. The rations were present in huge quantities, filling up the Dimension Stones.


    In order to cate Phoenix¡¯s nobles, the Qin Empire did not purge the city like they would when dealing with traitors. Cuisi whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°Sir, there is one more warehouse filled with rations, should I empty it too?¡±


    ¡°Does the warehouse belong to a noble, or is it used for distributing food to the civilians?¡±


    ¡°It belongs to the nobles.¡±


    ¡°How much food is there?¡±


    ¡°One stone will be sufficient.¡±


    Saleen immediately handed Cuisi a Dimension Stone, then Cuisi left. Saleen told Aini, ¡°If your parentse over, I think you still have to manage the business, those two elders are too passionate about their professions.¡±


    Aini nodded, then Saleen said, ¡°Many of the weapons and armor left behind by the bandits are damaged, and nothing valuable can be found in the city owner¡¯s residence. The rations are mine. There are actually numerous pieces of body armor in the other warehouses, but you may not like it. In that case, I will convert these items into gold coins. You will receive a third of the money.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Aini¡¯s parents have treated me well. As long as Aini leaves the Clyde family to strike out on his own, it will surely be worthwhile for me to support him. By supporting my friend, youngsters from the other noble families willpete and emte one another and Metatrin City will not be short of talents anymore.¡±


    Aini replied, ¡°You are really generous, but I am really short of money. I have lost eighty magic wolves this time around, so I will not stand on ceremony with you.¡±


    Thereafter, Saleen told Sharman, ¡°You might have decided to follow me, but you don¡¯t have to give everything to me. You still have to purchase equipment and cultivate private soldiers, and all these things require money. I cannot help foot the bill for these matters. I will still give you a cut of the ie from each battle.¡±


    Sharman grinned and said, ¡°Brother Saleen is so kind, I will ept it then.¡±


    Saleen smiled, then said, ¡°I am not kind, this is the rule on the maind. I have a batch of followers too, and I have to take care of them. I know how scary the expenses can be.¡±


    ¡°Scary?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Once I return to Metatrin City, I will announce the revival of the Metatrin family, by then, I will give you the power to assemble one-thousand private troops. Grooming one-thousand elites is way more difficult than you think. These people are not servants, have you seen Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camps before?¡±


    Sharman nodded, then Saleen continued, ¡°A swordsman¡¯s camp does not contain auxiliary troops. For example, if there are ten-thousand elites, it means that the monthly consumption will incur a few hundred thousand gold coins. Of course, this only applies to a normal noble. Lex and I have our own ie and we don¡¯t have to purchase magic nuclei from the market, so our expenses are much lower. Even so, in a year, more than a million gold coins will be needed to maintain such a swordsman¡¯s camp.¡±


    ¡°Then how much will it cost if there¡¯s a war?!¡± At this point in time, Sharman realized that it wasn¡¯t so easy being a general.


    ¡°Not much more. Since Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp undergo frequent training, their equipment losses are simr to that during wartime. Rations, magic nuclei, equipment, and warhorses are items which will incur a great deal of expenses. During wartime, pensions will have to be included as well. Defeating the enemy doesn¡¯t equate to victory, the soldiers¡¯ losses have to be limited. Spend more money to purchase equipment, otherwise the soldiers you have been training for the past ten years will die and you will have to spend even more money to groom new personnel.¡±


    Sharman listened intently. At this point in time, a servant entered to report that officials from Cexing City were requesting an interview. The noble had fled, but he did not bring along the officials managing this ce. Since Saleen had taken over the city owner¡¯s residence, the low ranking officials hade over enquired to understand Saleen¡¯s ns.


    If Saleen nned to upy this ce, then the officials would leave. It was akin to them defecting to the enemy otherwise. Usually, no one would make life difficult for them. These people had no influence, their main skill was city management.


    ¡°I will not meet them. Tell them that I will leave three dayster, they can go look for their owner.¡± Saleen could not be bothered to meet these insignificant people. Within three days, he would have emptied Cexing City. The position of this city was vital, Saleen would have to rebuild it sooner orter. At the moment, these officials could not be killed. Saleen decided to wait for Lex so that this small city could be handled properly.


    There was a Huoxing City in the west, where an army of a few thousand people was stationed there. If Saleen upied this ce, he still had to guard against the army in Huoxing City.


    When the officials waiting outside the residence heard this news, they heaved a sigh of relief. They noticed that those mysterious visitors were extremely ferocious, killing people without even batting an eyelid. If these visitors decided to seize this ce, they would be helpless.


    Saleen continued calcting the profits hispanions would receive. As the servants returned, Saleen recorded the items found by them, pricing these items ordingly.


    What made Sharman and Aini astonished was that items worth millions of gold coins could still be found in this ruined city.


    Armor, weapons, some magic nuclei, appliances, and a miniature equipment-crafting factory were left behind in the warehouse. Cexing City had few merchants, most of the people here were farmers who lived in the vicinity. This was originally a military town, so those farmers had to receive training too.


    Aini had suffered substantial losses from the magic wolves, but he finally had peace of mind after receiving the gold coins Saleen had given him. There were over three-hundred-thousand gold coins, it was impossible for Saleen to carry so much money with him. Even if they were the deposit tickets from the empire¡¯s bank, Saleen would only possess a few hundred thousand gold coins. Metatrin City was a ce which created wealth, but Saleen incurred huge expenses too.


    Eventually, Aini agreed to go out to sea during springtime next year. Saleen had promised to give him five-hundred-thousand gold coins worth of magic nuclei calcted at market price.


    Aini was filled with immense gratitude, he did not say much. Once he struck out on his own, he would have to pay Saleen huge taxes.


    For the time being, Aini still did not possess the ability to venture into the Frozen Sea alone. Saleen was controlling the route, and there was an annual quota, one could not simply go there at will. Saleen was taking care of Aini by giving him an additional five-hundred-thousand gold coins worth of magic nuclei.


    Saleen did not reveal the true ie from this battle. The value of those rations was immeasurable, not to mention the looted materials which were worth more than a million gold coins. Saleen only did some simple calctions. The rations collected by Cuisi were sufficient to feed Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City for a few years already.


    Such food was called stored wheat in Qin. Its taste was inferior to new grain. During wartime, no one would care about taste, filling their stomachs was most important. With this batch of food, all of Saleen¡¯s ns would be usible, otherwise he still had to expend resources to resolve the issue of procuring food.


    When that grade-5 mage saw Saleen¡¯s actions, he was utterly convinced. He had to work extremely hard for a few thousand gold coins, yet Saleen had simply given Aini five-hundred-thousand gold coins worth of magic nuclei.


    ¡°If I follow a person like that, I don¡¯t have to worry about magic nuclei during training anymore. Fortunately I left with Guya. In the Rnde family, I was ostracized by the other three mages, I was treated the worst. I cannot quit, otherwise I will be mocked and other nobles might not want to take me in.¡±


    Saleen observed his reaction, and knew that it would be easy to subdue this mage in the future. By letting him follow Sharman, Saleen would not have to specially assign a grand mage to Sharman.


    Aini and Sharman were undoubtedly people from business families, but Saleen was a Sikeqinyan, calcting profits and losses was in his blood. In this mission, he had deployed over eight-hundred soldiers and servants who belonged to his twopanions, while he and Su only killed a grade-6 mage. In the end, this city would still be received by Lex. There was way too much profits, Saleen could not even believe it.


    Saleen never stayed for three days. Two dayster, the scouts outside the city had discovered traces of the bandits. Saleen immediately left Cexing City without any hesitation. If the bandits dared return, it meant that they had gathered sufficient manpower or some powerful force. Saleen¡¯s team only had around two-hundred elite soldiers, there was no need to defend the city.


    Lex¡¯s army would arrive soon, so Saleen decided to leave Cexing City behind. Choosing a magic disciple from the city, he handed the over one-hundred undead soldiers to this disciple. Traveling light, Saleen led the team and advanced south quickly.


    A weekter, Saleen had led the team to the vicinity of Phoenix¡¯s borders.


    ¡°Sharman, in the city up ahead, you will hire a chariot convoy and transport the cargo west. I am going to enter Qin via Guderian City. The war in the west isplicated, you have to be careful.¡± Saleen no longer treated Sharman like a kid, he instructed her solemnly.


    Sharman nodded without any emotion. Saleen leaped onto a skeletal warhorse, then waved his hand gently. With Aini¡¯s team and his fifty cavalrymen, they went around the main road and sprinted in the direction of Guderian City.

 Chapter 593: Sikeqinyans (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 593: Sikeqinyans (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen continued to have his reservations even as he allowed Aini¡¯s servants to depart along with Sharman. Upon entering Qin, what they encountered at Phoenix should not happen again. Even if they were to meet with danger, they should be limited to skirmishes only. There was no harm bringing along another one-hundred servants.


    Servants that came from noble families were typically well-trained. This time around, they would not have to spy on Sharman but just keep a record of the things that she did after departing. Sharman was heading towards the borders of Qin, which was where Lun and Laiyin Duchy intersected. The situation there wasplicated so it was probably safer to have more men by her side.


    Saleen¡¯s target was Holy Rock City and he did not expect any trouble along the way. The person he was meeting was Joey. If Joey had intended to harm him, no matter how many people Saleen had with him it would be useless. It was just like how Fycro managed to coerce him into signing the bond with him. He was in Metatrin City with all his men by his side, but none of that mattered the moment Fycro appeared. Even the Three Kings were not able to detect Fycro.


    Naturally, the security in Guderian City was heightened to guard against Phoenix. Although the noble families of Sr City had bowed down to Qin, that did not mean the other noble families in other cities had no intentions of rebelling.


    Compared to Metatrin City, Guderian City did not awe Su too much. He was still very envious. If the subcontinental ne was as majestic as this, they would have a much easier time fighting against the Asmodians.


    The number of mages on the subcontinental ne was few and far between, the presence of magic in Guderian City was so strong that even the bricks in the city had been refined by magic apprentices. If the subcontinental ne wanted to build a city as strong and sturdy as this, they would have to gather the resources of most countries. Over in Qin, this was just one of the cities located at its borders.


    Passing through Guderian City proved to be a breeze. Aini had his Clyde n badge and he was leading fifty guards; one white-robed mage, one gray-robed mage, one warrior, and a female servant. To all the soldiers that were patrolling the streets, Aini¡¯s group was amon sight in the city.


    Although the Clyde family only held an Earl position, it had a glowing reputation in Qin. Naturally, no soldiers would suspect anyone from the Clyde family of harboring any ill-intentions towards Guderian City.


    As the soldiers courteously allowed everyone to enter the city, one of Aini¡¯s bodyguard stuffed a handful of silver coins into the soldier¡¯s hand. The soldier did not decline. This was just how the members of the four big families went about doing things. If it were someone else, the soldier might not have dared to ept.


    Since the Qin empire has dedicated so much effort and resources into the battle on the western front, they could not pay any attention to Metatrin City. They did not even send any spies there. Saleen andpany rested for a day in Guderian City. While they were there, they managed to sell a batch of magic nuclei for ten-thousand gold coins. Then, they set off again.


    After leaving Guderian City Aini changed everyone¡¯s horses into skeletal warhorses. He was a grade-5 death mage and there was no reason to hide it. Death mages and element mages stood as equals in the Qin empire. Tanggsi empire dered that they would be capturing and killing all death mages. Qin viewed death mages on even friendlier terms since Tanggsi empire was now theirmon enemy.


    This time, thepany was led by Aini. There were fifty-five of them in total and they were traveling at full speed on skeletal warhorses. Skeletal warhorses could travel at a speed of sixty miles an hour and this was potentially dangerous for those that were below the level of swordmasters because they could be severely injured if they crashed into a tree. On the other hand, mages could still protect themselves with magic shields.


    They made sure that they kept their speed to a maximum of fifty miles an hour. Within the group, Narnia was the only one who had a slightly frail physique. Although she trained every day, she was still no match for the swordsmen. Saleen and Aini took turns to boost her with spells so that she could keep up with everyone.


    Saleen boosted Narnia with Chunlins spell while Narnia also cast potence spell on herself. Thebination of these two spells allowed Narnia to possess great strength along with high endurance.


    Aini boosted Narnia with power of the dead. Combined with her skeletal warhorse, the effect was simr to that of the element spell.


    Not before long, the group had traveled five-hundred miles. After traveling for ten days consecutively it was time to choose a suitable location to set up camp and take a break. Holy Rock City was ten-thousand miles away from Guderian City. Saleen was satisfied that half of the journey only took ten days of traveling.


    After setting up camp, Saleen did not practice his spells. Like everyone else he took out his cooking utensils and prepared to make a fire and cook some food for himself. Narnia rarely saw Saleen not practicing his spells whenever he had the chance. She had thought that Saleen was a young mage that would be practicing his spells every moment he could find instead of cking off like now.


    Saleen saw the confused look on Narnia¡¯s face and said, ¡°At my level, it is useless to practise with the elements any further. If I want to advance, I cannot use that stupid method anymore.¡±


    Narnia was shocked and said, ¡°You are going to advance again?¡± Although she considered herself to have known Saleen for some time, it had only been a few years after all. Saleen was still a grade-2 mage back then, and now he was actually preparing to advance into a sorcerer.


    ¡°How can that be? To advance into a sorcerer, I will need to build a magical tower and gather even stronger power, otherwise everything will be for nought.¡± Saleen thought to himself, ¡°There is a theory that the six elements¡¯ space could also function as a magical tower, but it was only applicable for sorcerers. I am not very talented so it would be nearly impossible for me to advance to a sorcerer without the help of a magical tower.¡±


    Thinking back, Saleen realized that the principles of elements could be found everywhere in Joey¡¯s residence if one cared to look. The courtyard alone was a shape-shifting magical tower. Even someone like Joey was no exception so what made Saleen think that he could go against the rules?


    Narnia sniggered and said, ¡°If it is useless, then what are you still training so hard for?


    ¡°Because your grade is not really rted to your fighting abilities.¡± Saleen said casually. At the same time, he was setting up a metal stand and preparing magic powder beneath it.


    Narnia was familiar with what Saleen was doing. By mixing a certain amount of charcoal with magic powder, the temperature of the me could be lowered which would allow it to burn for a longer time. This magic powder was originally used for refining metals. Now that they were being used to roast meat, if one was not careful, the meat could easily turn to ashes.


    ¡°You already own a wealth of resources, what do you need fighting abilities for?¡± Narnia could not understand Saleen¡¯s thinking. As a mage, the most important thing was to grasp the crux of spells. Fighting should be left to the soldiers and not mages.


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯s just a sense of insecurity. In this era that we are living in many batches ofbat mages will appear soon. Narnia, you should try to learn more too. Your phoenix spell was pretty impressive.¡±


    Narnia blushed and said, ¡°Although they were all bandits, I still feel a bit disgusted to have killed so many people.¡±


    ¡°Is that all it takes to disgust you? What if they were God¡¯s disciples?¡±


    Narnia was stunned for a moment and said, ¡°That is not the same. Bandits are still humans, but God¡¯s disciples have already sold their souls, so they are just an empty physical body.¡±


    ¡°But bandits are also humans that have sold away their souls. Anyway, enough of this. I rarely see you usingbat spells. What else do you know?¡±


    ¡°I am simr to the Viscountess, mostly¡­ I know fire element spells that I have learned from the Master. I have also picked up lifestyle spells of the other five elements so there would not be an imbnce.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He specialized in water element spells. To bnce his sensitivity towards the other five elements, he relied entirely on his water spells by manipting them into imitating the other elements. Without bncing his sensitivity towards the other five elements, he would have difficulties advancing to sorcerer. During this period of time, he began to follow the notes that Joey had given to him. The notes clearly described Joey¡¯s understanding of the elements. Saleen had already clearly understood the process for interchanging the six great elements. He was not a sorcerer yet so the number of spells he could use to imitate the other elements were limited.


    ¡°Saleen, the Viscountess has asked me to carry out a task when we reach Holy Rock City. I have no intentions of hiding it from you.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Tell me then.¡± Saleen knew that Narnia was telling the truth since she did not turn her back against Aini.


    ¡°Actually, the Viscountess is still under the control of Holy Rock City in name. Over there, we have a Duke¡¯s mansion. The things that happened at Bitter Water Prefecture must be recorded into a case report and a copy must be submitted to Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°Are you saying that we are going against the rules by going to Holy Rock City?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, you are not the Viscountess¡¯ subordinate. Once we are there, we will need to split up so that I can settle some of the things over at the Duke¡¯s mansion.¡±


    Saleen finally understood. He smiled and said, ¡°I promised Lex to guarantee your safety. We will leave together.¡±


    What Saleen had just saidcked a little validity. If Safilos came after him, there was no way Saleen would be a match for him. The only way was if Aini released his floral death creature. Even a golden grand swordmaster would have some difficulties killing a floral death creature. Saleen also possessed his n badge so that was another way to kill a golden grand swordmaster.


    The only problem was whether Aini would be willing to go against the Prince of the empire for Saleen.


    Going to Holy Rock City, Saleen¡¯s only concern was the Prince. Others might not know, but he was fully aware of how powerful a golden grand swordmaster could be. Although there was only a difference of one grade between golden grand swordmaster and silver grand swordmaster, this grade was like how a sorcerer was also one grade apart from a grand mage. The difference was huge.


    Narniaughed happily. She ignited the magic powder and began to roast the fresh meat once there was me. Saleen was the first man that she had fallen in love with. Even before she had the chance to confess to him, she already understood that this man would never belong to her. As a mage, there was no way she would share someone else with others.


    Narnia¡¯s character was not like Sika¡¯s, where she could afford not to care about status and reputation.


    It was still an incredible feeling when the man she loved said that he would guarantee her safety.


    ¡°Someone ising!¡± Su whispered to Saleen.


    ¡°Caravans.¡± Aini pointed at the slope and said, ¡°There is fountain water here. Big-scale caravans will not be able to bring alongrge supplies of potable water so they will usually set up camps at certain fixed locations.¡±


    There was indeed a sighting of fountain water below this hill. If this was not the countryside of Qin, it would have be a ce where beasts would gather, making it extremely dangerous.


    Aini¡¯s words soon came true. From a distance away, a gigantic caravan approached gradually. Saleen¡¯s icy sight could not detect where the caravan ended.


    Saleen looked at this caravan and suddenly sighed, ¡°I finally understand why there are people that will choose to be bandits. There are so many wagons here, if they were robbed¡­¡±

 Chapter 594: Sikeqinyans (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 594: Sikeqinyans (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini red at Saleen. His n was given the rank of nobility only because of their businesses. As such, Aini bore a deep hatred towards bandits.


    ¡°I¡¯m just kidding. Hey, I was just thinking this caravan doesn¡¯t seem like they belong to Qin.¡±


    Aini continued ring at Saleen. As the caravan came closer, he could see the caravan¡¯s guard that was leading the way.


    ¡°Sikeqinyan mercenaries? That¡¯s strange!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s so strange about that?¡± Saleen was puzzled. Sikeqinyan mercenaries could travel across all the four major empires. A small-scale mercenary usually apanied arge-scale one and these small-scale mercenaries were usually the ones that moved across the countries. They could handle bandits, but would be no match for the armies of other countries.


    The other three major empires did not fear such small-scale mercenaries, besides, they could bring inrge amounts of taxes for the empires. Qin was currently preparing for war and would purchaserge amounts of resources so it was no surprise to see Sikeqinyan caravans. At the very least, this meant that the Sikeqinya empire was still on friendly terms with Qin.


    ¡°It is a grade-8 mercenary, their main forces are there too,¡± Aini said uneasily.


    ¡°What exactly are you worried about? Even if it is the main forces of a grade-8 mercenary group, there is nothing much they can do.¡±


    ¡°Who said so? If they all died in Qin, it would immediately sour the rtions between Qin and Sikeqinya.¡±


    Saleen did not ask further. He immediately understood what Aini was trying to say. Looking at the current situation on the maind, Sikeqinyans were extremely important to Qin. If Sikeqinya formed an alliance with Tanggsi, the situation at the battlefront would immediately turn in their favor.


    In Sikeqinya, only mercenaries of grade-7 and above were given cities. In other words, mercenaries of grade-7 and above were equivalent to half of a conventional Sikeqinyan army.


    ¡°Maybe you are being a bit too paranoid¡­,¡± Saleen tried to console Aini.


    ¡°Perhaps. Why don¡¯t we travel with these mercenaries? They must be heading to Holy Rock City as well. Such arge-scale caravan must be transporting huge amounts of resources.¡±


    ¡°Too slow.¡± Saleen frowned.


    ¡°Not at all. It is good to travel with the caravan. We will be able to reach Holy Rock City before New Year and it is safest for you to be there just before New Year. Even if¡­¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Saleen did not wish to argue with Aini. He was indeed rather worried about going to Holy Rock City. His Metatrin City was beyond Holy Rock City¡¯s jurisdiction and he did not have a suitable identity either. Unfortunately, he was not Lex¡¯s subordinate. Their rtionship was one of partnership so Metatrin City was considered to have set up beyond Qin.


    Even though he was considered a Lord now, it was still difficult entering Qin on his own.


    Following the caravan was indeed a good way of entering the city undetected. He needed to stabilize his eye of lightning. If he could improve this skill further, his badge would truly be invincible. By using his eye of lightning to paralyze the enemy momentarily before using his badge to release electricity, even a grade-9 opponent would not be able to dodge this attack.


    ¡°Just take it as using the extra time for training,¡± Saleen consoled himself. He did not wish for rtions between Sikeqinya and Qin to sour either. Aini¡¯s worry was not without reason. As a death mage, his sensitivity towards bad omens was stronger than an element mage.


    The location that Saleen and hispany chose to set up camp on was a good one. It was on high ground and a sentry post was set up further down, guarded by five skeletal soldiers. Magic rms were also set up beyond the sentry post so no bandits would go undetected.


    There was arge and open field below that was suitable for setting up camps. The next city was about two-hundred miles away. The sky was already darkening and there was no way the caravan would travel in the dark. Even if they did not run into bandits, beasts were still a possibility. Even low-level beasts would pose a problem to the caravan.


    As expected the caravan came closer and more than twenty men rode on their horses towards the spring water.


    Saleen¡¯s camp was on high ground and was well-hidden so the knights did not notice it from afar. Aini called a bodyguard over and gave him some instructions. This bodyguard then mounted a skeletal warhorse before riding down without any intentions of hiding himself. The twenty knights noticed him immediately and got into a triangr formation.


    Although they were part of a grade-8 mercenary group, they had never left Sikeqinya before and were unfamiliar with thends of Qin. The sudden appearance of a swordsman on a skeletal warhorse made them nervous.


    Aini¡¯s bodyguard came closer. He did not draw any weapons and only shouted from a distance, ¡°I am from the Clyde n. Which business group are you from?¡±


    The Clyde family¡¯s businesses had reached Sikeqinya and was rather reputable. Nevertheless, the twenty mercenaries did not rx. Only one of them said, ¡°We are from the royal business group.¡±


    The royal business group was well-known in Sikeqinya as well. It was started up by some affiliates of the royal family instead of the Emperor himself.


    ¡°My Master has set up camp on top of the hill and will be happy to host your leader for a drink.¡± The bodyguard¡¯s tone was proud, but the mercenaries were not offended. They replied courteously, ¡°I will convey the message to my leader. Many thanks to your Master.¡±


    The bodyguard nodded before returning back to the camp. The two sidesmunicated in the Common Language but clearly, the mercenaries were still suspicious of the bodyguard. Amongst the twenty of them, one of them said, ¡°That is a high-level swordsman right?¡±


    ¡°No, at most a middle-level swordsman wearing magic armor.¡±


    ¡°Magic armor?!¡±


    ¡°No need to be so shocked. The number of mages in Qin is hundreds of times more than ours, so the price of magic armor is much cheaper there.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s still very incredible. If only I could get myself a suit of magic armor too.¡±


    ¡°Stop spouting nonsense. What did I tell you before we set off? Go and check the source of the water and see if there are any problems with it. I will go back and report this to the leader.¡± The knight that was taking the lead turned his horse back towards the caravan.


    On the high ground, eighty death wolves strolled in front of the campsite while over forty skeletons stood around nonchntly. Alchemy crossbows were set up at the four corners of the campsite as the soldiers in the camp were warming themselves up or cooking. In front of the barrack two soldiers were standing guard.


    Within the barrack were three grand mages and one silver grand swordmaster. It was rather ironic that the two soldiers standing guard outside were supposed to protect the three of them.


    On the road, the mercenaries made sure all the wagons had arrived before choosing a location to set up camp. The mercenaries were very professional in their choice in that it should close to a source of water. More than a hundred mercenaries brought their water bags over to the spring to fill them up while the coolies in the caravan began to set up tentages. The trees around the campsite were chopped down and formed a pile of wood. Saleen even saw some low-level puppets.


    There were more than three-hundred big wagons and five-thousand mercenaries. This was a hugepany. Saleen believed that even though the caravan was huge, five-thousand mercenaries for protection still seemed unnecessary. Even if this caravan would need to pass through the side of Lun, they should not be attacked as long as Tanggsi empire had not dered war with Sikeqinya.


    The conditions of the central parts of the Tanggsi empire were poorer than Qin, so their need for goods was hundreds of times more than Qin. If the Tanggsi empire offended Sikeqinya, they were basically on their own.


    When the campsite was almostplete one-hundred mercenaries escorted a few men towards the hill. Within a few moments they had already reached the sentry post.


    The caravan¡¯s leader led the way. He was a middle-aged man that looked just over forty years old. He wore a long brocade robe of the Cloudflow empire and there was a small bag on his waist that was decorated with gemstones. It was not any kind of equipment for magic though. There was also a long sword on his waist and it seemed that he should be a decent fighter. While riding the horse, he did not have to bring along any reins or lean on the saddle. His posture was straight and upright yet had a good grasp of bnce.


    Upon seeing the sentry post formed by five skeletons, the leader was stunned for a moment. ¡°They have grand death mages? Low-level death mages are not be able to keep their skeletons moving for a sustained period of time.¡±


    He was only stunned for a second before recovering himself. He led his men up from the side and eventually came before a moderate-sized camp. Tens of death wolvesid in front of the entrance. These death wolves were clearly of a very high level. Once they sensed the mercenaries approaching, only two of the wolves jumped up and looked ready to attack.


    A soldier walked out and shushed at the two death wolves. Only then did the wolves lie back down and began to doze off again.


    Upon seeing the eighty death wolves, the caravan¡¯s leader knew immediately that they were in no position to be arrogant or prideful. The other party had at least one grade-5 grand death mage.


    ¡°My Master wees you.¡± The soldier was courteous. The leader dismounted from his horse and smiled, ¡°Please lead the way.¡±


    His two followers and the other mercenaries followed his lead and dismounted. Immediately, all the death wolves stood up together. The soldier smiled and said, ¡°You have too many people with you. Our camp will not be able to take all of you.¡±


    The leader picked ten mercenaries randomly along with his two followers. Without a word, they followed the soldier into the campsite. They saw skeleton soldiers that just stood rooted to a spot and more than ten soldiers cooking their meals.


    When they arrived before the barrack entrance, a young voice from inside said, ¡°Invite them in. Bring the mercenaries to their meals and make sure they are well-treated.¡±


    The caravan leader could only wave his hand and allowed the ten mercenaries to go and have their meals. The soldier that had led them there was warm and hospitable as he led the mercenaries away so there was nothing the leader could say either.


    From the outside, the barrack looked to be of a decent size, but upon entering the leader realized that it was actually quite small. The barrack wasyered so that there was some form of protection against attacks from heavy weapons.


    The leader was originally unhappy with the Clyde family. He felt that it was rude to summon them over like this. Once he saw the few people sitting in front of him, his anger dissipated immediately.


    In front of him sat three mages and two of them wore gray robes. These were grand mages!


    ¡°Cuisi, please provide seats for our three guests,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Yes, my Lord.¡± Cuisi took out three small stools before setting up a long and narrow table in front of the three of them.


    The caravan leader was confused. He had thought that Cuisi was merely a female servant, but Cuisi could make objects appear out of thin air and that was a skill that only grand mages possessed. This woman was also the subordinate of a white-robed mage.


    The caravan leader bowed cautiously before sitting down and asked nervously, ¡°Your Excellency has summoned me. May I know if you have any instructions?¡±

 Chapter 595: Chasing profits (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 595: Chasing profits (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When the leader of the merchant convoy spoke, his eyes darted about, he was very distressed as he did not know who to direct his words at.


    Saleen smiled, allowing Aini to speak. Saleen took out some good wine, and asked Cuisi to pour it for the three of them.


    ¡°I asked you here to inquire about something, what¡¯s going on with that grade-8 mercenary group?¡± Saleen might treat the convoy¡¯s leader politely, giving him wine, but Aini went straight into interrogating the other party.


    ¡°Great Mage.¡±


    ¡°My name is Aini.¡±


    ¡°Sir Aini, we have been invited by the Qin Empire toe forth and assist in the defense of the southern side.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Assist in the defense of the southern side? Has the Cloudflow Empire allied with Tanggsi?¡±


    ¡°No no no!¡± The convoy¡¯s leader denied vehemently and hesitated a little. Aini said, ¡°Just spit it out, I am also not from the House of Commons.¡±


    The convoy¡¯s leader coughed, then said, ¡°Sir, it has got to do with the internal affairs of Qin. It is rumored that the nobles in southern Qin are harboring ill intents, but Holy Rock City cannot possibly invade them just because of a rumor. They recruited four groups of manpower from Sikeqinya to form a line of defense at the south¡¯s Red River. If a battle erupts, then these mercenaries will be useful.¡±


    ¡°What goods are you transporting?¡± Aini suddenly probed.


    ¡°Weapons and armor, but there are no sieging appliances, therge devices are for defense.¡± The convoy¡¯s leader did not conceal anything. These matters had been approved by the House of Commons, there was nothing which could not be brought to light.


    Aini took a nce at the twockeys behind the convoy¡¯s leader. These two followers seemed like high grade swordmasters, and in one or two years¡¯ time, they could advance to a grand swordmaster. Mages rarely misjudged a person, unless the other party¡¯s grade was very much superior to their own, or there was some special equipment present.


    ¡°Are the goods going to the Holy Rock City, or Red River?¡±


    ¡°To Holy Rock City, these goods are bespoke items, they are produced out of great materials. They are partially finished products, mages from the Holy Rock City still need to work on them.¡±


    Aini nodded his head. That was basically how the Qin Empire procured materials, there were not so many outstanding mages overseas. If the empire only purchased finished products, the products¡¯ attributes might not be as goodpared to the ones gotten from in-house processing, not to mention the costliness.


    ¡°I would like to travel with your convoy to Holy Rock City, may I?¡± Aini asked.


    The convoy¡¯s leader was stunned, then replied, ¡°You will have to ask Sir Dennis.¡±


    ¡°Dennis?¡±


    ¡°He is the temporary leadermanding the mercenary group this time around, he is a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster, but he has two grade-6 mages as subordinates,¡± the convoy¡¯s leader answered cautiously. Aini wanted to travel together, but the leader could not make the decision because the mercenary group was responsible for the cargo¡¯s safety.


    ¡°Two grade-6 mages? What is the name of this mercenary group?¡±


    ¡°The Purple Smoke Mercenary Group, its badge is an image of a Cloud Beast, this group is pretty renowned in Sikeqinya.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to ask him, my team only contains about fifty people, you should only ask for his permission if there are more than one-hundred people. Take a look at this.¡± Speaking, Aini took out his n badge.


    The convoy¡¯s leader stood up immediately, walking forward to receive the badge. He was no noble, but he had studied the art of badges in the past. When he traveled and ran into powerful families but did not know them, he would be at a disadvantage otherwise.


    The Clyde family was quite famous too. Inspecting it carefully and making sure that it was not a fake, he quickly returned it to Aini, then said, ¡°Great Mage, are you thinking of¡­¡±


    ¡°We are only requesting to travel together. During the setting up of camp, we will not demand to enter yourpound, we will select our own location.¡±


    The convoy¡¯s leader then felt relieved, and said, ¡°Since that¡¯s the case, I will mention it when I get back, Sir¡­¡±


    ¡°Ha ha, don¡¯t be nervous, stay for a meal.¡±


    As Saleen andpany had returned to the barrack, the kitchen outside was manned by the trusted soldiers. Very soon, the barbecued meat was sent in. Aini tightened his clutch around the convoy¡¯s leader, starting a conversation with him.


    Not wanting to offend Aini, the convoy¡¯s leader sat down reluctantly.


    Seeing the convoy¡¯s leader staying behind, Aini then asked for his name, the leader did not dare get annoyed. A mage treating an average person in this manner was not considered impolite, most mages were not even willing to socialize. Even nobles would not me a mage for disying abrupt behavior.


    The convoy¡¯s leader was called Julian, he was a pretty influential headman in a royal trading firm. In Sikeqinya, his status was equivalent to that of a baron who peddled merchandize in the empire. Of course, such a position was not much respected in the other three empires. Only Sikeqinya¡¯s emperor was so shameless as to sell noble titles, but the emperor did not ord any special treatment.


    Even though Aini put on airs, the topics of discussion were of interest to Julian. Upon hearing that Aini had a business in Metatrin City and could acquire cheap magic nuclei, Julian became tempted. Towards the end, Julian was greatly motivated, he had decided to organize a merchant convoy to go purchase merchandise from Metatrin City.


    A material like wood could still be easily transported. ces which were not close to the sea would not require high grade wood like the one found in Metatrin City. There were countless of primeval forests north of Metatrin City. Trees around a thousand years old were aplenty there, some trees which enjoyed longevity even had a history of more than ten-thousand years.


    In the hands of a mage, such wood could be crafted intorge sealed cabins, thus producing warships. The toughness of some wood was simr to that of metals. If it could be processed in Metatrin City before being transported by spatial equipment, then it could be marketed to the coastal areas of Sikeqinya where it could be used to produce warships.


    The most important objects were still ores and magic nuclei. The transportation of ores was a little challenging, but it was extremely easy to transport magic nuclei.


    The best produce from Metatrin City was level-3 and level-4 magic nuclei. Level-4 magic nuclei had great price differences, its price could range from three-hundred to one-thousand gold coins. Each time one of Saleen¡¯s ships sailed, the cost would be below two-hundred-thousand gold coins if there were no casualties. It would not be a problem to obtain more than ten-thousand magic nuclei in one expedition. If Saleen was personally involved, he would travel in the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, and the process of collecting magic nuclei would be akin to picking money from the floor.


    Even if a normal warship was used for the hunt, the cost of a level-4 magic nucleus would only be about one or two gold coins. These magic nuclei were sold for two-hundred to five-hundred gold coins in Metatrin City, much cheaper than any other shops out there. Saleen had already the ones with better quality, but even so, purchasing magic nuclei from Metatrin City could fetch tremendous profits.


    Even if a normal person only brought back one magic nucleus on each trip, they also would not take a loss.


    Nevertheless, there was a quota for buyingmodities from Metatrin City. A businessman also knew that. If the quantity of magic nuclei were too high, the price would be depressed. Even so, the profit from selling a magic nucleus was around one-hundred gold coins. Reselling one-hundred magic nuclei would trante to a profit of ten-thousand gold coins. Other than dealing with armor-type equipment, this market was the most profitable one already.


    Saleen did not want to establish brands across Qin. To him, it was safer letting businessmen from various ces to resell these magic nuclei. Saleen¡¯s men would hunt in the Frozen Sea, sell the goods in Metatrin City, and then let the businessmen reap the profits. Saleen would simply sit down and receive gold coins.


    There was one more point. Saleen demanded that at least half of the sales of magic nuclei had to be barter traded. This meant that a businessman would have to deliverrge amounts of supplies if they wanted to purchase magic nuclei. This would help Saleen save on the trouble of acquiring supplies.


    For example, Saleen wanted rations. The businessman would have to pay half of the price in gold coins and the other half in rations, to purchase magic nuclei. If Saleen had to procure rations himself, he did not possess so much manpower to do so, not to mention the wastage of time.


    Sikeqinya also produced rations. Even though Sikeqinya¡¯s farmers were theziest, the soil in the country was very fertile. The number ofnds suitable for agriculture were almost equal to that of the sum ofnds in the other three empires.


    Most of the grains in Sikeqinya were used to brew wines, and the wines were subsequently trafficked to Tanggsi or Cloudflow. Qin had not opened the sales channel for such wines, because Qin people preferred fruit wine, they were not interested in stronger-tasting grain wines. Julian was thoroughly exhrated when he learned that grains could be used to exchange for magic nuclei.


    Because bandits rarely plundered grain. Grain took up a lot of space and were onerous to be transported. To a bandit, it was more substantial to kidnap someone or rob gold coins. As a result, merchant convoys transporting grain were the safest.


    Saleen had robbed Cexing City of a batch of grain, but he wanted to expand his territory. By having more residents in his city, he had to stock up a sufficient supply of grain. The current inventory of grain was surely inadequate, so obtaining grain remained the most pressing matter for Saleen.


    At the moment, Saleen was only worried about one thing. He had lowered the prices of magic nuclei, so he wondered whether Alchemy City was angry or not. Even though the waters controlled by Alchemy City were not as rich as the Frozen Sea, they contained a considerable amount of magic nuclei too. This amount was so high that it allowed the mages in Alchemy City to train without any worries. By lowering the prices of magic nuclei, some mages from the Alchemy City would definitely be tempted, and woulde forth to Metatrin City.


    Julian gradually let his guard down, then Aini reverted to the topic he originally wanted to broach.


    Lex understood the situation in Qin, just that Saleen was a great distance away at the moment, so he could not stay in constant contact with her. From Julian¡¯s mouth, Saleen still managed to find out the content he needed to know.


    The situation in Qin was not optimistic. In the Red River, the stream was traveling west, and it would eventually enter arger water body where it would connect to Titan and Cloudflow. The southern nobles here were originally the confidantes of Emperor Chanake. After Emperor Chanake¡¯s death, these nobles grew extremely dissatisfied with Safilos¡¯ control over the Holy Rock City. Some rumors circting even said that many of the southern nobles were preparing to establish their own dynasty.


    These news had been intentionally leaked by the southern nobles to test the reaction of the Holy Rock City. If the Holy Rock City deployed troops on a whim, then the southern nobles would have a reason to rebel, and also have a reason to be independent. Prince Safilos was also a cunning person. On paper, he was purchasing wartime resources from Sikeqinya, but in fact, he had recruited more than ten-thousand mercenaries sessively. These mercenaries were stationed at the Red River¡¯s basin.


    Holy Rock City nned to deploy thirty-thousand mercenaries at the Red River¡¯s basin, which would conserve a lot of military manpower. The battle situation in Lon was terrible, almost the entire duchy had crumbled. The castle which had been conquered by the northern nobles previously had now been seized by the Tanggsi Empire once again.


    The only good news was that Alchemy City had agreed to deploy sorcerers to Lon¡¯s borders to aid in the war. Holy Rock City only managed to remain stable because of its war puppets and the mages sent by the Alchemy City.


    The battle situation in the Cloudflow Empire was bad. Almost the entire Titan Duchy had been upied by the enemy. The Holy See¡¯s army had crossed Chishui River, and its vanguards had advanced to Cloudflow¡¯s borders already.


    Cloudflow¡¯s army had all along been subpar. If the Cloudflow Empire got conquered, then Qin would really be facing a multi-pronged invasion.

 Chapter 596: Chasing profits (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 596: Chasing profits (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The situation in Sikeqinya was still considered stable, because Sikeqinya was bordered by many mountains. The knights from Holy See could not breach it for the time being. The thing so worrying was that mercenaries from Sikeqinya had seized the opportunity to enter Lon, because Sikeqinya was not involved in the war.


    The Tanggsi Empire had hired many low grade mercenary groups to defend the castles, while its own army was assembling at Lon¡¯s border. This meant that these mercenaries had helped the Tanggsi Empire save on a lot of manpower, thus the empire could concentrate all its efforts on dealing with Qin, which was a tough nut to crack.


    Mercenaries and businessmen were the same type of people, they could not care less whether or not the Tanggsi Empire would turn around and invade Sikeqinya after achieving victory. At the moment, Tanggsi had obtainedrge amounts of resources in Sikeqinya, using less than half the original duration to ship these things to Lon¡¯s borders.


    ¡°Stupid people!¡± Saleen thought to himself. Even though Sikeqinya was his home country, he had great contempt towards the short-sightedness of Sikeqinyans.


    ¡°Aini¡¯s concern shouldn¡¯t being true. Holy Rock City had hired more than ten-thousand mercenaries to be stationed along the Red River. So this five-thousand man mercenary team in Qin¡¯s hintend should not meet with any trouble. Who is able to attack such arge group?¡±


    Julian was forcefully held back, he only returned to camp after the meal.


    The Purple Smoke Mercenary Group did not cause trouble for Saleen. Towards a team with less than one-hundred people, this five-thousand man mercenary group was not worried at all. This mercenary group had two grade-6 mages and a dozen low grade mages, it was also considered a mighty force.


    Su returned. Using a pair of alchemical binocrs to observe the surroundings, he came back and told Saleen, ¡°Sir, this bunch of mercenaries are formidable!¡±


    Saleen was intrigued, then asked, ¡°Why do you say so?¡±


    ¡°We have used less than one-thousand people to defeat more than ten-thousand bandits, but we surely cannot replicate our victory in a fight against these five-thousand mercenaries.¡± Su¡¯s eyes were aze with energy. Ever since he arrived on the maind ne, he had only seen Lex¡¯s army, but he knew that Lex¡¯s method of cultivating an army was very costly. Those mercenaries he just observed possessed inferior equipment aspared to Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp, but their offensive power was much higher.


    ¡°If you charge into their camp alone, can you kill Dennis?¡± Saleen recalled the incident where a Silver Grand Swordmaster had charged into Lex¡¯s camp.


    ¡°No, they have two grade-6 mages and numerous other swordmasters. Theyout of the camp is very systematic, I don¡¯t have any idea of how to achieve a breakthrough. I might get surrounded after killing a few hundred people.¡±


    ¡°How many people do you need to triumph over this mercenary group?¡±


    ¡°If Sir is apanying me and soldiers of simr quality are avable, I will require two to three thousand people. If I have Lex¡¯s soldiers, I only need one-thousand people. If my men are wearing the Spirit Snake Armor¡­ I will be able to defeat them with a hundred men.¡±


    ¡°Only a hundred men?¡±


    ¡°Sir, these one-hundred people are high grade swordmasters. After donning the Spirit Snake Armor, their abilities will be equivalent to that of a Zun Grand Swordmaster. Even so, I cannot exterminate the enemy, I can only defeat thempletely.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s more like it, the trusted soldiers serving a normal noble are only swordsmen, and even a wealthy person like Aini can only gather fifty swordmasters. One-hundred high grade swordmasters wearing the Spirit Snake Armor will trante into a very high cost too. Even though I cannot manufacture the Spirit Snake Armor, I haveprehended its principles. A few more expeditions to the Frozen Sea and I will be able to amass the materials needed to craft armor for an emblem group. Currently, it is meaningless for me to expand the army, but it is still necessary to groom a one-thousand man team. These one-thousand people can be expended as if they are ten-thousand men.¡±


    ¡°Su, when we return to Metatrin City, I will allow you to form an emblem group to follow me into battle. In this emblem group, everyone has to at least be at the standard of a high grade swordmaster. They will don magic equipment and a mage will be allocated to the five brigades. There will also be an additional five-thousand auxiliary troops. The standard of the auxiliary troops will emte that of the Purple Smoke Mercenary Group.¡±


    Su smiled, ¡°Sir was still very generous, he is willing to spend so much money to equip an army. This is the magnanimity of a monarch. Mm, Sir is a mage, not a monarch, but it is the same. Even though I cannot return to the subcontinent ne, it will be pretty good to carve out a career on this ne too.¡±


    In his mind, Saleen was thinking, ¡°The real crisis will only unfold after a year. No matter how weak the Qin army is, it will not allow the knights from the Holy See to breach their defenses in one year. In a year, Lex¡¯s Metal Titan will have recovered. By then, even if the Tanggsi people possessrge sieging appliances, the Metal Titan will also destroy them. Withoutrge equipment, it will be impossible to breach Metatrin City with simple tools likedders. Fycro has said that the subordinates of the Holy See¡¯s oracles will not aid the Tanggsi Empire in battling Metatrin City. Since the Holy See will be fighting on several fronts, it is not possible for it deploy so many holy masters to my city. The longer the duration psed, the more advantageous it will be for me. Two yearster, mages from the Sregl Ind will arrive. Once the thirty-six magical towers are constructed, Metatrin City will be solid as gold. In this one year gap, I can hire Sikeqinya¡¯s mercenaries to help me guard against Phoenix Duchy¡¯s line of defense. As long as the mercenaries can hold the fort for one year, I don¡¯t have to worry anymore. Sikeqinyans, aye¡­¡±


    The team only set off at noon on the second day. The whole merchant convoy was located in the middle, while Saleen¡¯s team was ced at the rear. Apanied by people from the merchant convoy, Dennis specially sent a brigade of two-hundred men to merge with Saleen¡¯s team.


    He was not too worried about any ill intentions the guards from the Clyde family might have, he was concerned that the merchant convoy would be threatened from the rear. If these over fifty people got flustered, then the whole team would be affected.


    After learning that Aini¡¯s subordinates were swordmasters, Dennis¡¯ two-hundred mercenaries had peace of mind. Seems like the Clyde family had lived up to its reputation, a small team like that would not be frightened by bandits.


    The advancing speed of the team caused Saleen to feel a little astonished, the speed was actually about fifteen miles an hour. This speed could almost rival the marching speed of the elite infantrymen from the empire already. The elite infantrymen from the empire had horses and their chariots were bespoke, but they traveled at twenty miles an hour only.


    Saleen quickly realized that all the mercenaries were also traveling on horseback. As long as the convoy from Sikeqinya¡¯s royal trading firm did not veer off Qin¡¯s roads, it could advance full speed ahead. If it traveled at the usual five miles an hour, then this merchant convoy would never make money.


    Saleen was no longer anxious. All along, he never intended to fly to Holy Rock City, he wanted to learn some things along the way, such as redrawing a magic map. The flying puppets soaring in the sky consumed a substantial quantity of magic nuclei daily, but it was worthwhile. Saleen had memorized all the roads he walked past using magic, so that he could develop coordinates for his own magic map.


    Once Saleen possessed sufficient powers, he would many mages redraw the map of Myers maind. Frankly speaking, Lex¡¯s map was not satisfactory. Its foundation was made up of things from tens of thousands of years ago, then it was supplemented one thousand years ago. The positions of many of the mountains and rivers had changed, so their coordinates had also been altered.


    Saleen decided to take out his magic chariot, this was the irreparable one out of the chariots which were seized previously. It could not be used for battle, but it was still an excellent tool for mages. At least within the chariot, the elements were very stable, and not many magic nuclei were depleted.


    Saleen called Aini and the rest onboard, while the fifty trusted soldiers walked alongside the chariot. Julian was invited over for a chat, this convoy¡¯s leader was now very willing to get chummy with Aini. After all, Aini owned a business in Metatrin City. If Julian wanted to make a fortune in the future, he would have to receive guidance from Aini.


    Walking for about half a month, Saleen even got familiar with Dennis, the leader of the mercenary group. This interim leader only led one-thousand men in the Purple Smoke Mercenary Group. On this trip, the group leader had shoved four-thousand men under hismand, making him a delegation leader, which was also a deputy group leader.


    He was more than happy to be on intimate terms with a grade-6 death mage like Aini. After bing more familiar with each other, he made a request to Aini, wanting to purchase ten spirit wolves from him. He originally thought that such creatures could hardly be bought, since such grade-4 death creatures were very precious.


    In the end, Aini agreed to sell twenty to him, Aini wanted to form a friendship with him.


    Dennis was overjoyed. He had a grade-4 death mage in the group, but due to unsuitable summoned creatures and ipatible creatures from the death ne, this mage had been stagnant. Even though these spirit wolves were not as good as the ones from the death ne, their grades were high.


    Indeed, Dennis had to appreciate the fact that Aini agreed to sell twenty spirit wolves to him in one go.


    Aini also felt jubnt, because these eighty spirit wolves were kind of a burden to him, he had to use the Green Spirit to replenish their Soul mes daily. Aini already owned the Fleshy Death Creature and the Floral Death Creature. He had better coordinates which enabled him to summon spirits like the green-bronze zombies, so there was really no need for him to keep the spirit wolves which did not hold much significance.


    Saleen indirectly hinted that he possessed excellent magic equipment which could be supplied to mercenaries in bulk. Dennis then began valuing Saleen. Recalling the praises Julian had for Saleen, he expressed willingness to purchase Saleen¡¯s equipment.


    Saleen thus took out the armor he and Lex had plundered from the Dragon Tooth Town. This armor could not be upgraded anymore, and it had been soaked in dragon¡¯s blood. If Saleen had not obtained arge number of red krill shells, he would not have sold this armor no matter the circumstances.


    Dennis was pleasantly surprised, because the armor offered by Saleen was of premium quality. Saleen¡¯s asking price was still forty percent cheaper than other weapon stores. With such arge mercenary group, a weapon shop would only give him a twenty percent discount even with bulk purchases. Saleen had actually offered Dennis double the discount.


    Saleen stated that he could sell two-thousand sets of armor, with each set selling for six-hundred gold coins. This amounted to a total of twelve-hundred-thousand gold coins, which made Dennis frustrated. It was impossible for the mercenary group to raise such a huge sum of money, not to mention that he could not afford it. A grade-8 mercenary group was not poor, but they had to maintain a one-million gold coins deposit in the empire¡¯s bank. If they failed a mission, then this money would be reimbursed to their employer.


    Dennis only possessed disposable cash of about two-hundred-thousand gold coins.


    ¡°Leader Dennis, the Purple Smoke Mercenary Group has a grade-8 reputation, so payment for this armor can be converted into other goods. You can ask your men to send these goods to Metatrin City. Twenty percent of the payment will be made in grains, ten percent in gold coins, while the remaining seventy percent will be taken as my deposit for hiring you.¡±


    Upon hearing Saleen say that, Dennis was exhrated immediately. It represented more than eight-hundred-thousand gold coins in deposit, and the Purple Smoke Mercenary Group was coincidentallycking business opportunities too! It would not have epted employment from the Holy Rock City otherwise.


    ¡°Tell me, where do you want us to be stationed at?¡±


    With a smile, Saleen answered, ¡°Phoenix, Cexing City, Huoxing City, and Yaoxing City!¡±

 Chapter 597: Encounter with Joey Again (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 597: Encounter with Joey Again (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen said, ¡°I will take down these cities, then you will be in charge of guarding them for one year. If you encounter any difficulties that you cannot ovee, Metatrin City will send reinforcements.¡±


    ¡°No problem!¡± Dennis was overjoyed. Although the terms of employment with Saleen were a little troublesome this time around, he was aware of the situation revolving around Phoenix. Holy Rock City would not be able to interfere within the next year. Saleen had only tasked him with guard the cities for a year. If their services were to be extended the prices could be negotiated again.


    The price that Saleen was offering was more than reasonable. Even if some battles broke out the Purple Smoke mercenary group would not be on the losing end. After all, they had already epted two-thousand suits of high-level armor. The armor were worth forty-thousand gold coins and if no major battles broke out in the three Phoenix cities, it was almost as if they took the armor for free.


    This was when Saleen understood just how powerful the Purple Smoke mercenary group was. By right, this grade-8 mercenary group should only be allowed to have ten-thousand men, but in actual fact just their main forces alone consisted of twenty-thousand men and were already controlling three cities. This time around, Dennis was leading a regiment of elite forces and four regiments of secondary troops.


    This grade-8 mercenary group could definitely satisfy Saleen¡¯s requirements of controlling the three cities he wanted.


    Saleen has yet to take over Huoxing City and Yaoxing City, but he would expect someone to attack these cities after his departure so Lex would have an easier time afterwards. With a grade-8 mercenary group guarding over the cities he would not need to worry about bandits stirring up any troubles between Metatrin City and Cexing City. Mercenaries loved to kill bandits too because they could fetch one gold coin per head.


    The grade-8 mercenary group was highly credible. There were Sikeqinyan banks in every country on the maind. For mercenary groups of this level, they would have a deposit of at least one-million gold coins in their bank ount. If they failed their mission their employers could collect the agreedpensation through any bank.


    Saleen could feel a weight lifted off his shoulders. In two years¡¯ time, Sregl Ind¡¯s strength should be on par with Metatrin City. By then, the city would no longer require Lex¡¯s Bitter Water armies. In other words, Lex¡¯s elite forces could be better used for conquering othernds instead of being stuck with guarding a city.


    It was about time Saleen constructed a powerful army of his own. He was extremely unhappy with Qin¡¯s military system so he had been thinking about how to go about building an army.


    Right now, the biggest problem was auxiliary soldiers. One knight would require at least two auxiliary soldiers to serve him. Under normal circumstances seven or eight auxiliary soldiers were considered an eptable number. Even though Lex¡¯s swordsmen camp consisted of about ten-thousand men, they would actually need to recruit a lot more men to fill these auxiliary roles if a real battle was to break out.


    If Saleen wanted to advance into a sorcerer, how would he have the time to bother with these matters? Amongst his subordinates; J was good at handling internal affairs, Daniel could lead eight-hundred soldiers at the most, and Sika¡¯s Caucasus people should be utilized for guarding cities instead of fighting at the frontline. Su had potential and his family had been training him as a general since he was a child. He was still young and would require more training. As of now, Saleen did not have anyone suitable.


    The only advantage he had over others was the sheer number of mages on Sregl Ind. In the future, no matter how many armies he recruited, he would not need to worry about ack of mages to apany each army.


    The newly-recruited Sharman was still young and her ability to lead was at the same level as Su. She would not be able to conquer the entire maind on Saleen¡¯s behalf. Saleen needed a real general who would be able tomand all his armies.


    After conversing with Dennis for a few days, Saleen gained a lot of information. He now knew that it was impossible to recruit mercenaries. Mercenaries would never acknowledge noble families. They were polite to him only because he was a mage. It would be too difficult trying to convert mercenaries into proper armies.


    Loyalty would be a big issue as well. It was not possible for Saleen to sign bonds with everyone. There was a limit to the number of bonds a mage could issue and it was rted to the mage¡¯s mental strength.


    Even a sorcerer could only have two-hundred followers at one go in a lifetime. Any more than that and the effects of the bonds would weaken. If the mage was someone like Joey, then signing bonds with even one-thousand followers was possible though. By the time one reached the same level of Joey, there would be no use for bonds anymore.


    After gaining a simple understanding of the maind¡¯s situation, Saleen gradually stopped conversing with Dennis. Thepany traveled one-hundred miles a day and after a month they finally arrived at Holy Rock City.


    Mercenaries were not allowed to enter the city so only Dennis and about ten of his men entered. The rest would set up camp at a town in the north. Saleen and his men split up from the mercenaries after their identities had been checked at Northtown and headed straight to Holy Rock City.


    Although this was the second time Saleen was in Holy Rock City, he was still in awe. The previous time he was here, Emperor Chanake rang the magic clock for Lex and Saleen was fortunate to benefit from that. This time around Holy Rock City was quiet. The towering city walls, ferocious drawings, and the ever-present magic arrays had all seemed tobine together and transformed into a mythical beast thaty prowling on high ground and was looking down at everyone else.


    Su was the one who was most taken aback. There were countless majestic cities that had been built on the subcontinental ne to defend against the Asmodians. Every different n would put in effort together to build these cities and even the small pces in viges were extremely sturdy. Compared to Holy Rock City, the cities on the subcontinental ne were like shacks.


    Grand swordmasters could use their senses to explore and detect, but Su did not dare to do so. He was a silver grand swordmaster and his mental strength wasparable to a sorcerer. The power that had been infused into the city walls was definitely not a result of any sorcerer¡¯s spells. They were the result of countless brave souls that participated in the terrible war from a thousand years ago.


    The battle of Holy Rock City had persisted for many years, but the city walls remained intact. The traces of battle from those years had been repaired as much as possible, but those that have been infused into the city were still very fresh even after one-thousand years.


    Metatrin City was unique too, but it was not as big as Holy Rock City. Without a magic tower in the former it was difficult to measure the differences anyway.


    Metatrin City would be simr to Holy Rock City only if it had also withstood thousands of years of history and had been a part of countless battles.


    Even if Qin were to be left with only Holy Rock City as its only city, it would still be able to continue existing as a country. Such was the gravity of history and status of Holy Rock City, something that Metatrin City had yet to achieve.


    Seeing how the city walls were joined together with parts of a mountain area. Su could imagine that a normal swordsman would need to be well-equipped in order to climb the walls and not be scared off by the threatening aura released by the city. Such a city was problematic for mages too. With abination of anti-magic fields, spells of grade-7 mages and below would be useless.


    Mages¡¯ mental strengths would also be affected severely. The best solution was to depend on armies like Lex¡¯s. They would be armed with equipment like spirit snake armor and attack the city walls by mountingdders on them.


    ¡°My Lord¡­¡±


    ¡°What are you afraid of? It¡¯s not like the city can move on its own.¡± Saleen knew what Su was thinking. Qin was so powerful that there was no way Metatrin City would be able to conquer it.


    Saleen¡¯s n was to wait until he had umted enough wealth, then he would go to oceanic ice block to gather the necessary resources to build a floating city. With a floating city one-thousand yards in the air, they could attack from above and conquer Holy Rock City.


    Su was a little embarrassed even as he smiled. While Holy Rock City was firm and sturdy, it could not move.


    Holy Rock City had war puppets that could render an enemy¡¯srge-scale attacking equipment useless, but Lex had metal titans that could easily destroy these war puppets.


    There were soldiers deployed at the city gates for inspection, but Saleen andpany passed through without any issues. Narnia was heading to the Viscount¡¯s mansion while Aini was going to the Clyde n¡¯s mansion. Su and Cuisi looked at Saleen, not knowing where they should be going.


    As the three of them continued walking, Saleen recounted to them what it was like the previous time he met with Joey. After some time, he said, ¡°Su, Cuisi, the person that I am meeting is rather entric. No matter he says or does, do not do anything.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Su could not help but ask.


    ¡°Because even if he attacked Metatrin City on his own, all of us will not be his match.¡±


    ¡°A grade-9 sorcerer!¡± Su gasped.


    ¡°If a grade-9 sorcerer attacked Metatrin City, I would definitely be able to kill him there. Su, this person has no ill intentions towards me. So please bear with it, no matter what happens.¡±


    A mage¡¯s memory would never fade. Saleen eventually found the small alley and walked in. At the end of the ally was the familiar ancient wooden door. Saleen knocked on it.


    The door was opened by a child of twelve or thirteen years of age. The child looked at Saleen and smiled, ¡°You are finally here. Follow me.¡± He did not acknowledge the presence of the other two people that Saleen had brought along. Su and Cuisi hesitated before following Saleen into the courtyard.


    As they passed through the courtyard and arrived at the wooden building, Saleen was taken aback. The two mysterious big trees were no longer there. He could remember very clearly how he wanted to cut down a tree branch and make a magic staff for himself. He estimated that the two ancient trees would be able to create thousands of magic staffs. At that time, Joey only helped Lex to create one, while Saleen received nothing.


    Now, the two trees were gone and in their ce were wisterias. They were growing all over a huge rock. No! That was nephrite and not any ordinary rock.


    Damn it, such a huge piece of nephrite being used as a stand for wisterias to grow all over.


    ¡°Saleen? Pleasee in,¡± Joey¡¯s voice rang. Saleen felt ufortable, but had no choice but to enter the wooden building. Su and Cuisi followed behind him.


    The interior design of the wooden building had remained simple like how it was in the past, but only a mage like Saleen could tell how precious and valuable each item was. Joey was not boasting, but it just so happened that the items he fancied were all extremely rare.


    Joey was seated on the floor. In front of him was a structure made up of metal spell. It was three yards wide and six yards tall. The entire structure was built with very small and miniature parts, but without any joints. It looked even moreplicated than the one Saleen saw at Faerun¡¯s. The Figaro Magic Form definitely did not require more than one-million metallic materials.


    Joey turned his head and gave Saleen a nce. Nothing had changed about his look. His hair was still long and green and his face was handsome and pale. He was wearing a rainbow-colored magic robe.


    ¡°Not bad, you have be a grade-6 mage already and you even have a silver grand swordmaster as a follower. Oh, this is a demon and his level is close to bing a supreme demon.¡±


    Joey only needed one nce to see through Cuisi¡¯s disguise and Cuisi began to sweat nervously. To be able to see through the ultimate shapeshifting skill one would not only have to be above a grade-9 mage but also possess equipment of the level of godly items. The ultimate shapeshifting skill of Luoluokaluo could not even be seen through by the devil.


    Joey seemed to be in a good mood and said to Cuisi, ¡°Don¡¯t be scared. If I wanted to find a test subject, it will have to be a high-level supreme demon.¡±

 Chapter 598: Encounter with Joey Again (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 598: Encounter with Joey Again (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Cuisi crumbled onto the ground. He was well aware that in this era it was extremely difficult for mages to get their hands on demons. Saleen already had Nailisi by his side so he would not be too interested in researching about demons. Even if he did he could easily get his hands on one. This mage in front of him was just too powerful, so powerful that he did not even harbor the notion of resisting. He only prayed that he would not be used for dissection.


    In the past the armies of demons must have felt the same way when they faced their human counterparts in battle.


    ¡°Sit,¡± Joey pointed at the floor. Saleen decided that he might as well sit beside Cuisi. Su sat down as well, not showing any hints of doing anything rash.


    ¡°Master Joey, you have asked me toe. I am here.¡± Saleen did not really know what to say. He had no idea why Joey had asked him toe.


    ¡°Oh, your body is in good condition. You have recovered well. It will not affect your advancement into a sorcerer,¡± Joey said casually. Saleen suddenly realized that the magic metallic structure in front of Joey was transforming slowly. The mechanics lookedplex, but did not make any sounds.


    ¡°Is it regarding what you requested previously?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the hurry? Don¡¯t tell me you offended someone you couldn¡¯t afford to?¡± Joey smiled. Compared to the first time when he did not even bother to look at Saleen, the way Joey treated him now was totally different.


    ¡°Not really. I am Sikeqinyan so I don¡¯t like to feel indebted.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Joey looked surprised. Suddenly, he reached out and pulled Saleen towards him with some kind of magic until they were only four to five yards apart. Saleen was scared out of his wits. He could feel that the technique used by Joey was beyond magic and more like a swordmaster¡¯s skill.


    Su drew his sword in rm.


    ¡°Sit down!¡± Joey roared. Su felt as if his brain had been hammered by a gigantic warhammer. With a plonk, he crumbled down again.


    Joey looked pleased and said, ¡°Hmm, a swordmaster¡¯s techniques are interesting. They are much quicker than magic. Too simple though. Saleen, let me take a look.¡±


    The moment he finished, Joey grabbed Saleen¡¯s cor and pulled it apart. Saleen¡¯s clothes were pulled apart along with his demonic magic robe, revealing his chest.


    Saleen looked at Joey quietly and did not resist. Joey put his palm on Saleen¡¯s chest and Saleen felt a cool aura entering his body. This was an elemental power, but he could also feel that it was extremelyplicated. It resembled the Goddess of Myers¡¯ power of life and seemed to contain boundless information.


    This power circted Saleen¡¯s heart once before being reabsorbed by Joey.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen knew that Joey did not intend to kill him. There was no need to.


    ¡°Did you meet anyone recently? From the Holy See?¡±


    ¡°Fycro, the first oracle. He forced me to sign a bond,¡± Saleen answered honestly. What he had been worried about hade true. Fycro had done something to him. Saleen was in a hurry to meet Joey, partly to confirm his suspicions. Fycro was more powerful than him by such an overwhelming margin that Saleen did not manage to detect what Fycro did even though he possessed God¡¯s Left Hand.


    ¡°It is not the power of the bond. The bond that you struck with him must have been a fair one, otherwise he would not have done anything else to you after that. Fycro, hehe, it¡¯s funny a proud person like him would actually resort to such methods against you. This means that he holds you in high regards.¡±


    ¡°Is there any way to remove it?¡± Saleen asked carefully.


    ¡°Yes, but he will realize it immediately,¡± Joey replied. He seemed to be deep in thought as he looked at Saleen.


    Saleen decided to ask him outright, ¡°This Fycro, can you defeat him?¡±


    Joey did not try to hide from the question and said, ¡°If we were to fight in this courtyard, he would be as good as dead.¡±


    ¡°And if you were to fight somewhere else?¡±


    Joey stared at him and said, ¡°Wishful thinking. I will not go to Metatrin City with you. Mages are definitely more powerful than holy masters, but the difference between us is small. He possesses a godly item that I will not be able to deal with if I leave this ce, but he will never be able to kill me.¡±


    ¡°Even if he became a God?¡±


    ¡°Be a God? Him? Ha¡­,¡± Joeyughed dryly. He seemed to know Fycro very well. Saleen knew that he could ask no further so he kept quiet.


    ¡°I remember, you promised me one thing,¡± Joey said.


    ¡°Two.¡±


    ¡°Alright, there are two things, but you must do one of them for me first. Let me tell you, the power that he has left in your body can kill you anytime, but that can only happen after the bond between both of you has beenpleted. I will nowbine this power with some of my own. If you can survive this the power that I have added will cause a retaliation of a very strong curse.¡±


    ¡°Survive it? I don¡¯t think I have that ability,¡± Saleen replied in frustration.


    ¡°It¡¯s not as troublesome as you think. He can kill you easily, but he chose not to do so because he wanted to kill you secretly without interfering with the bond. If you are able to drag the bond out and notplete it for the next twenty years, I will diminish this power so that if you are a sorcerer by that time, it will not be able to kill you.¡±


    Saleen understood and sighed, ¡°Alright.¡±


    Joey¡¯s n was to use a more conservative method to diminish what Fycro had put in Saleen¡¯s body. It could not be removed totally or Fycro would realize immediately. As long as Saleen was able to advance into a sorcerer before the bond waspleted, he would be able to survive the attack.


    Joey¡¯s suggestion was very safe. If Fycro realized what was going on, Saleen had little confidence of his chances of survival.


    Joey was pleased with Saleen¡¯s answer and said, ¡°Remove your clothes. This equipment is for demons. What are you thinking?¡±


    Seeing the bitter look on Saleen¡¯s face, Joey patted his head and said, ¡°It¡¯s not difficult to refine a magic robe that is fitting. Give me eighty-thousand to one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei and I will do it for you.¡±


    Saleen breathed a sigh of relief. This demonic robe was extremely important to him. It was the main reason why at his current level, he could already cast spells while flying. The robe was also able to protect him from knives and swords. Even a swordmaster would not be able to destroy a demonic robe easily.


    Nheless, Joey was still able to pull it apart so easily. Saleen certainly believed that Joey could refine something better. Coincidentally, Saleen did have eighty-thousand to one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei with him.


    Joey was stunned to see Saleen starting to retrieve magic nuclei from a dimension stone. He did not think that Saleen would actually have one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei with him right now!


    Saleen was afraid that Joey might feel awkward. Instead, Joey smiled generously and snatched the dimension stone over and said, ¡°I will return this to youter. You got yourself a bargain. Give me the demonic robe and I will refine it for you. It will be suitable for you even if you reach my level in future.¡±


    Saleen removed his robe and put on an ordinary shirt. Then, he retrieved all his dimension stones from his demonic ring. Seeing how many dimension stones Saleen possessed, Joey was tempted to take some, but he was not sure if Saleen would agree to it.


    Saleen noticed his expression and said, ¡°This was given to me by my teacher. If you like, I can give you one.¡±


    ¡°Humph, why should you give it to me for free? Tell me, what should I use to exchange for it?¡±


    ¡°I really mean to give it to you. It¡¯s already the second time you helped me when I had issues with my body.¡±


    ¡°Since you put it that way, well, I heard that you have built a city with many mages under yourmand. You must need magic equipment. Unfortunately, those two trees of mine have been chopped down and given to Lex and I still need to use the branches. You¡­ must be envious of the spirit snake armor?¡±


    Saleen nodded then Joey said, ¡°I will give you the blueprint of a real magic armor and I will help you create ten suits of armor that are of golden grand swordmaster level. Once a follower of yours puts it on, they will be able to fly like a golden grand swordmaster. This kind of armor can only be worn by those that are at least ck metal grand swordmasters though.¡±


    ¡°Is there any armor that can enable swordmasters to fly?¡± Saleen saw the opportunity to press further. He was both fearful yet appreciative of Joey. Without him, Saleen would have died long ago. This time around, he was less fearful of Joey and felt closer and more familiar with him instead. He asked his question very naturally.


    ¡°Of course. It is something even you can design, except my design will inevitably be better. If you want a swordmaster to fly, hmm, he will need to be a middle-level swordmaster at least so that he would have the corresponding mental strength. Quite arge amount of magic nuclei will need to be used. Using all these resources on a swordmaster seems wasteful.¡±


    Saleen was overjoyed and said, ¡°I will not create too many. There are not too many middle-level swordmasters anyway. I also want to know how many magic nuclei is required for an armor like this to fly for one-hundred miles?¡±


    ¡°Not a lot, about six pieces of grade-4 magic nuclei,¡± Joey answered easily.


    Saleen¡¯s heart jerked. Grade-4 magic nuclei would suffice! This was too cheap. Others would need to spend a fortune on magic nuclei, but this was not a problem for him at all.


    ¡°Can you create a spatial equipment to be used by swordmasters? It need not be like a mage¡¯s. It is only for carrying items around easily.¡±


    Joey smiled and said, ¡°Of course. It is approximately twenty cubic yards and the space is very small. Each time you open it, you will need to use up one piece of grade-4 magic nucleus.¡±


    Saleen was ecstatic to hear that. Since the usage of magic nuclei was not a consideration for him he was now one step closer to building a strong and powerful army. Just imagine, a regiment of swordmasters who could fly and did not require any auxiliary soldiers. Such an army has never been seen before on the maind.


    Joey seemed to know what Saleen was thinking. He said, ¡°This kind of armor is not rare and was actually verymon during the third dynasty. Subsequently, the amount of avable magic nuclei was depleted so the fourth dynasty could not afford to use them. By the end of the era, this kind of armor was no longer in use. It is not difficult for mages to create it again, but it is just not practical.¡±


    Saleen agreed with what Joey said. A regiment of swordsman using this armor meant that one-thousand spatial equipments would need to be created. Each time they were triggered, a piece of grade-4 magic nucleus would be used. ording to the market rate, that would be four-hundred-thousand gold coins. It seemed that even if he sessfully created such an army, it would only be used as a normal army most of the time. Only in crucial moments would they leave behind their auxiliary counterparts and fight independently.


    Nheless, his equipment could be extended to the officers. If they did not have their own supplies of magic nuclei, then the armor would be totally useless. He could use this as a means to control the leaders within the army.


    Forget it, there was no point thinking too much. All these thoughts would not help him in his magic training. Saleen suppressed his excitement and told Joey, ¡°Then I shall count on you. Please ept this dimension stone in exchange.¡±


    Joey was satisfied and smiled, ¡°That¡¯s the way. Hmm, Saleen, Lex asked me to help you. What can I do for you?¡±


    Saleen was stunned. The way Joey put it, it seemed like Saleen did not have to give him the dimension stone in exchange. Seeing Joey¡¯s mischievous smile, Saleen smiled bitterly and said, ¡°Then I shall not stand on courtesy.¡±

 Chapter 599: An equivalent exchange for a godly equipment (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 599: An equivalent exchange for a godly equipment (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Joey told Saleen that Lex had requested help from him, Saleen then realized that the two of them might be on very intimate terms. ¡°Joey has no reason to harm me, my spection in the past was actually incorrect. The prerequisite is that I cannot do anything to rile Joey. It seems like Joey isn¡¯t an extraordinary person after all, he also has his humorous moments.¡±


    Even though it was a loss to give away the Dimension Stone, Saleen had won Joey¡¯s favor, so he did not regret his decision either.


    ¡°It¡¯ste, go and rest. Bryan.¡± Joey had no intention to continue the conversation. That child who looked about twelve or thirteen years old entered the room, then waved at Saleen andpany.


    Saleen noticed that Joey had allowed him to stay behind and live here, he knew that his requests were going to be fulfilled. As for the request Joey had broached, he still had to think about it for a while.


    Bryan led Saleen andpany to a house east of the courtyard. Joey obviously had no guestrooms, this house was an abandonedboratory. Even though all the items atop the alchemy tform were unusually clean and the whole house did not even have a single speck of dust, Saleen knew that Joey had no use for these things anymore.


    In the middle of the house was an appliance for alchemy experiments, a tabletop assembled from eight metal pieces. This appliance was very valuable, Saleen wanted to take it. Even though his alchemy skills did not require such items, Metatrin City had several outstanding mages who did not know how to cast the Water me Alchemy.


    The suite was not small, it was a storeroom in the past, but was now cleared. Bryan pointed to this barren house, then told Saleen andpany, ¡°So sorry, Teacher has never hosted any guests before, please make do with this.¡±


    ¡°Thank you very much.¡± Saleen took out three sets of sleeping bags,ying them on the floor. Mages were not very particr about their sleeping environment, more often than not, they might even sleep while sitting.


    Bryan shrugged his shoulders. If Saleen had begged him, he would have taken out the beds, but Saleen this fellow had actually brought along sleeping bags. ¡°Didn¡¯t Teacher seize his Demonic Ring?¡±


    Seeing Bryan leave, Saleen told Su and Cuisi, ¡°If you guys aren¡¯t hungry, then go to sleep.¡±


    ¡°I am hungry,¡± Su and Cuisi answered simultaneously. In the small building, they were greatly oppressed by Joey¡¯s stature, as though they had undergone a few consecutive hours of battle. They had depleted much of their physical strength, it would be weird for them to not feel ravenous.


    Saleen took out two packs field rations, tossing them at them. He then sat down, observing his surroundings. There were windows on both sides of this room, one side faced the small yard at the wooden building, while the other faced a garden. Colored ss was fixed into the windows, but its degree of transparency was high, and there were no defensive measures like magic arrays.


    Joey had mentioned that if Fycro came to this courtyard, he could easily kill a dozen people like Fycro, but Saleen could not identify the mystery of this courtyard.


    Su and Cuisi consumed their food in silence, and they finished it very quickly. Cuisi then said, ¡°Sir, how did you get to know that¡­ Joey?¡±


    Saleen narrated the events which took ce in Holy Rock City long ago and mentioned how Joey had resolved the troubles in his body. Saleen recounted his experiences calmly, as Su and Cuisi listened intently.


    ¡°Sir, you are incredible. In these few years, you have be a grand mage, a grade-6 grand mage. In the subcontinent ne, the youngest person to attain this grade is eighty years old.¡±


    ¡°Sir, why did Joey ask you toe back?¡± As a demon, Cuisi would never interpret someone¡¯s intentions in a positive light.


    ¡°To see whether I am dead or not. If I am not dead, then he will continue conducting experiments on me, probably just for this,¡± Saleen replied.


    Su and Cuisi did not know how to console Saleen. Fortunately, Joey was not some evil mage. As long as Saleen kept the end of his bargain, Joey would not harm him.


    These three people slept in the storeroom for one night. Only Saleen had a restful sleep, he did not even meditate.


    The morning after, that child named Bryan came over to summon the three of them to meet Joey. Within one night, Joey appeared to have gotten younger once more, the pale color on his face had also gotten more vibrant. This made Saleen very doubtful. The first time he met Joey, he knew that he was already a few hundred years old, but Joey looked very young.


    This time around, Saleen felt that Joey had gotten younger again, and it was only within a span of one night. Joey seemed to have gone against somews of nature, he would appear younger than he was the previous day.


    On Joey¡¯s body, Saleen could no longer observe that kind of pure power belonging to a mage. It seemed like he could control the Sword Aura, holy spells and elements, and he did not need to chant any mantras.


    As usual, Joey asked the three of them to sit on the floor. He took out a bottle, tossing it at Saleen, then said, ¡°Ask that demon to drink it.¡±


    Saleen hesitated for a moment, then passed the bottle to Cuisi.


    Cuisi felt a shudder in his heart, but he did not dare disobey Joey¡¯smand. He opened the bottle and detected the stench of blood. With a jolt of his heart, he quickly gulped down the contents in the bottle.


    With a thud, Cuisi copsed onto the floor straightaway. Joey waved his hand, retracting that colossal metallic magic structure in the center of the room. Cuisi¡¯s body expanded rapidly, in the blink of an eye, he had reverted to his original form, and was still undergoing further changes. His original eight yard height had lengthened by another yard. If it was not for the unique space in Joey¡¯s building, Cuisi would have burst through the house.


    Cuisi¡¯s body quivered violently. In his eyes was extreme pain, but there was also exhration within all that pain. The horns on his head gradually lengthened, while the color of the wings on his back grew paler, and his scales became more transparent.


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother about him, he is advancing to a supreme demon. Saleen, this is the demonic set which I have newly refined for you, it should be called the devil set now.¡± Joey handed over this set of equipment, which he refined overnight, to Saleen.


    Saleen was extremely agitated as he held that equipment in his hands. ¡°An equipment crafted for a grade-10 expert and it was tailored for me, this is priceless.¡±


    This set of personal clothes had turned from ck into pure white, and they were still extremely stic. Saleen realized that his perception could not even infiltrate it, this was a sorcerer¡¯s grade equipment. After donning it, not only would Saleen attain elemental stability, the enemy would not be able to detect any changes in his body. Many predictive spells, as well as detection spells, could not be used against Saleen.


    The exterior clothing was a colorful brocade robe. The bangle had disappeared, but the Demonic Ring was still around, and six more holes for mosaicking gems had been added into it. It was a space-embedded approach, whereby a standard size gem could be mosaicked into these holes. The brocade robe contained sturdy armor pieces which protected the vital parts of the body. Saleen noticed that there were eighteen sites for mosaicking on the belt.


    ¡°The principle behind your magic armor is pretty good, I have used it for a while. This set of clothes can transform into a fully sealed mage¡¯s armor, it will be sufficient for you until grade-9. After grade-9, you can then craft an equipment which truly belongs to you. This set of equipment can be handed down to the student who will inherit your clothing.¡±


    Saleen appeared as though he did not hear Joey¡¯s words, as his gaze was fixated on a mask which was part of this set of equipment.


    It was a bronze mask, and a rhombic-shaped gem was mosaicked into the forehead area, like an erected eye. The expression of the mask was a little hideous, but the lines were gentle. Using his mental strength, Saleen could not even get past the surface of this mask, but he could feel that the material of it and that gemstone was superior to all the materials he knew of.


    ¡°Sir Joey, this present is too precious.¡±


    ¡°I know, I still have something to give you, I only want one item from you.¡±


    Saleen was momentarily stunned, then he immediately understood what Joey meant. ¡°Joey must be eyeing the Seal of Divine Power. That is a godly equipment, and only a godly equipment can be used to exchange for that mask.¡±


    The Seal of Divine Power was a godly item the Holy See had lost for a thousand years. The moment Saleen took it out, the Holy See would know about it. He had ced this item in the Ring of Gifts, and he only did the switch while inside the goddess¡¯ temple. Within the normal space of Myers maind, he would definitely not take it out.


    Saleen removed his own Ring of Gifts. Ismail had given this ring to him, and he did not have much use for it either. The best Ring of Gifts had already been given to Sika. Saleen took out the Dimension Stones from the Ring of Gifts, leaving only the Seal of Divine Power behind, then he ced the ring before Joey.


    Joey did not take the Ring of Gifts, instead, he began exining to Saleen, ¡°That mask is the criticalponent of the devil set, it can enable you to transform into the second form anytime. That sword is in fact made of wood. Like a mage¡¯s staff, it can store three spells. As for the devil set, I have personally affixed six level-7 spells into it.¡±


    Saleen almost choked, then he quickly retracted the words he wanted to say.


    The Seal of Divine Power was undoubtedly an irreceable godly item, but Joey had affixed six level-7 spells in Saleen¡¯s equipment! Even the mages from Sregl Ind would not be able to do that, because affixing a level-7 spell would create immense loss for a mage, only a mage above grade-8 had the ability to do so.


    After executing magic affixation, a sorcerer¡¯s abilities would be drastically reduced for an extended period and there was no way to regain the abilities quickly. Not only would this lower offensive power, it would also affect a mage¡¯s research into new spells, thus affecting their advancement. Unless it was for a great price, a mage would not do something like that for other people.


    ¡°These six level-7 spells can be upgraded. Once you reach grade-9, you can allow these six spells to be level-8. The magic nucleus on the mask belongs to a grade-12 magic beast, its effect is no different from that of a level-9 dragonshard.¡±


    The difference between a magic beast and a dragon was not only confined to their grades. At best, a fight between a grade-12 magic beast and a grade-9 dragon would end in a tie, the quality of its magic nucleus was also very simr to that of the dragonshard. Joey did not want to take advantage of Saleen. The Seal of Divine Power was very important to him, with this thing, he would be confident of facing Fycro already.


    The value of this set of equipment, which contained the devil ring, devil mask, devil armor, the magic brocade robe, magic sword, gloves, and boots might not be equal to that of a godly item, but there was not much difference either. Joey had said that there was something else for Saleen. Saleen was utterly convinced, Joey¡¯s assets were way more substantial than he thought.


    ¡°Joey should be getting the magic nucleus for his student. His possessions cannot be sold, and no one is willing to sell things to him too. I guess no matter what he wants, the pce will give it to him. Joey doesn¡¯t want it for free, on this note, he has adhered to the principles of being a mage.¡±

 Chapter 600: An equivalent exchange for a godly equipment (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 600: An equivalent exchange for a godly equipment (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mm, another Ring of Gifts. This follower of yours doesn¡¯t have a suitable weapon yet. Before you leave, I will prepare a suitable one for him,¡± Joey remarked casually. Seeing that Saleen had changed into the devil set, he then took out ten sets of armor and two drawings.


    ¡°These are the drawings for the devil armor, and ten sets of finished armor. Using this drawing, you have to craft armor for the swordmasters, you can do it on independently by following the drawing. As for the task you need toplete for me¡­¡± Joey paused for a moment, then continued, ¡°It has something to do with Fycro, I will go look for you when the time is ripe.¡±


    When Joey first asked Saleen to do something for him, he had not even thought about it yet. He only said that on a whim to exert pressure on Saleen. Joey could not ignore the fact that Fycro and Saleen had signed a contract, Saleen had to carry out certain tasks. A deed executed by the first oracle had to be pretty horrifying. Not realizing the consequences, Saleen had eded to Fycro¡¯s demands, but he did not know that this thing might create a catastrophe for Myers maind.


    ¡°Sir Joey, can the Sound Transmission Magic Array be used in this armor?¡±


    ¡°There is a range of ten miles. If in the mountains, the straight-line distance will be shortened to between six and eight miles. Any farther, and the user can only transmit very simple sounds, like magic passwords.¡±


    Even though a distance of ten miles was slightly short, no fixed coordinates were required. To an army, this was pretty good. Usually, an assault undertaken by a normal army and the coordination between the different arms were reliant on experience and training, while message transmission depended on the war drums or g signals. Only an elite squad would be equipped with the Sound Transmission Magic Array. In most circumstances, only themanders would use it tomunicate information.


    ¡°During the third dynasty, the power of humans had begun deteriorating. As a result, many appliances which helped to boost human abilities emerged, and the proliferation of these items peaked during the fourth dynasty. Of course, in those days, a normal human would be around the standard of a swordmaster even without cultivating the Sword Aura. Back then, grade-12 magic beasts were still roaming Myers maind and the dragon race have not gone extinct yet. The drawings and armor I have given to you are items from that era.¡±


    Saleen listened in silence. Cuisi had stopped moaning softly, as his body gradually shrank and reverted to the appearance of a female human. He appeared extremely frail, but very exhrated. A bottle of unknown medicine had opened the channels for his advancement. In less than a month, he would be able to evolve into a true supreme demon.


    Joey nced at Cuisi, then handed a piece of magic paper to Saleen, and said, ¡°This is a prescription. This medicine doesn¡¯t possess much risk to a demon. Imps and demonic spirits have a one-third chance of dying immediately, and another one-third chance of having no effect.¡±


    ¡°Would a demon evolve into a supreme demon after drinking it?¡±


    ¡°Impossible, he already possessed the possibility of advancing to a supreme demon, that¡¯s why there was such an effect. For a normal demon, their powers will only be boosted to their peak, but they will not undergo advancement.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°This is not bad at all. Nailisi can abduct arge number of creatures from the demonic ne. Demonic spirits at this grade are still a little weak. If she summons imps or demons, she will consume too much strength, so there will be a limit to how many creatures she can summon. With this prescription, Nailisi will be able to summon arge number of demonic spirits, then make them undergo forced advancements. Since Joey adheres strictly to the principle of fair exchange, I have no reason to refuse either.¡±


    Cuisi eased, then immediately prostrated on the ground and kowtowed. He said respectfully, ¡°Thank you so much Sir.¡±


    Joey pretended to hear nothing. He had no emotions towards a supreme demon worshipping him.


    ¡°Saleen, in at most a year, Holy Rock City will be able to push the battle back to central Lon. I heard that Holy Rock City is extremely dissatisfied with you, you better be prepared. I will help you write a letter to ask an earl to defect to you. He can lead troops and is trustworthy. As for Fycro, I will have to wait until you be a sorcerer before thinking of a way to kill him. All these things should be able to equal a godly item right?¡±


    ¡°It should be equal. Even with that godly item in my possession, I don¡¯t dare use it.¡± Saleen acknowledged Joey¡¯s reasoning. The Seal of Divine Power was an offensive godly item, containing immense power, but it was a hot potato in Saleen¡¯s hands. If this thing got discovered, the Holy See woulde after him no matter what. Even Fycro might think of a way to dissolve the contract and kill him first.


    It was very fair to exchange a godly item for a bunch of rtively low level equipment and an earl¡¯s loyalty.


    ¡°In that case, we have no more transactions between us. Lex asked me to help you, but I don¡¯t have the patience to travel to Metatrin City. Stay here for a week, I will give you guidance on magic. How much you can absorb will depend on your luck.¡±


    Saleen knew that Joey could give him many items, but it would be better to increase his own power first. If Saleen died in an ident, then it would difficult for Joey to trick Fycro.


    It was a pretty good option that Joey was willing to coach Saleen for a week. It was no problem for a mage to stay awake for a week. In these six days, Saleen would try his best to absorb magic knowledge so as to pave the way for his advancement to a sorcerer.


    In this world, there had to be some loss with every gain. Saleen had nned to take the Seal of Divine Power to the hell of the God¡¯s Punishment and study it. There, he could wield this godly item at will. That could only take ce after bing a sorcerer, where he could examine godly items. After advancement, his top priority would be entering the Six Elements¡¯ Space and bing a grade-9 sorcerer as soon as possible.


    Saleen did not mind losing a godly item, he had already obtained the four withered divine trees and two of their seeds. After bing a grade-9 sorcerer, he would be able to use the withered trees to produce items which were as sturdy as godly equipment. Following the increase of his powers, these items could be repeatedly refined. Those four withered divine trees were thus Saleen¡¯s most treasured possessions.


    ¡°Come over.¡± Joey pointed at Su. Su stood up, then came before Joey and sat down. Joey observed his armor, then said, ¡°Saleen, so you are the heir to Sregl Ind. The Water me Alchemy is considered a very powerful skill already.¡±


    Saleen felt astounded. It was really inconceivable that one could tell the remnants of inheritance from a piece of equipment. After the production of every equipment, a universal technique called curing would be applied. Other than being able to identify the level of attributes in a cured equipment, no one could yet determine the type of alchemy skill which had been applied to it.


    ¡°Joey seems to be omnipotent!¡±


    ¡°Such a young Silver Grand Swordmaster, it is a little unsuitable for you to be wearing magic armor. I have a set of leather armor here which hasn¡¯t been touched in a few hundred years, I will give it to you.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have anything to exchange for it.¡± Su lowered his head, he could not promise Joey anything on behalf of Saleen.


    ¡°You are not a mage, you don¡¯t have to follow certain habits. I just find you very pleasing, so here¡¯s a gift for you.¡± Not epting rejection, Joey took out a set of leather armor.


    This leather armor was thick and filled with magic patterns. Without these magic patterns, it would look like a set of seamless armor which had been crafted by alchemy. The whole armor did not contain any traces of seaming, riveting or sewing.


    ¡°A grade-10 assassin had worn this before, even though it belongs to an assassin¡­¡± Joey did not continue talking. Back then, he had just advanced to grade-10, and then he ran into such a powerful assassin. If it was not for someone¡¯s help, he would have been dead. The person who aided him carried the Grukos surname, and as a result, he owed his life to the Grukos family.


    The Grukos family never demanded him to return anything, until Lex¡¯s generation.


    Due to a sense of indebtedness, his grade had remained stagnant, there was neither improvement nor deterioration, he could not advance. Since the Grukos family, especially the biological daughter of Emperor Chanake, had met with trouble, Joey had to help. Once Lex¡¯s troubles were resolved, he would leave the Holy Rock City and go overseas to seek the disappeared remains of the second dynasty.


    The second dynasty reigned over arger area than the first dynasty because the states in the Eastern Sea were within its area of dominance. Before the fourth dynasty, nobles were already absent in that ce. Gradually, the local aboriginals gave rise to thousands of countries.


    Joey thought that he would never repay this favor anymore, because the Grukos family was too powerful. There was conflict between Lex and Prince Safilos, so Lex had to tap on Joey¡¯s might, giving him a chance to repay this favor. From Joey¡¯s perspective, Lex was the best candidate to inherit the throne, so he had peace of mind helping her.


    When Joey was teaching Saleen, he had chased Su and Cuisi out of the room. Saleen took out the second Shenhe he had obtained, then said to Joey, ¡°Sir.¡±


    ¡°I will be coaching you for six days. You are not considered my student, but you can call me Teacher,¡± Joey interrupted Saleen.


    ¡°Teacher, this is the Shenhe, I want to produce a water puppet, but my current powers are inadequate.¡±


    ¡°You are a grade-6 mage already, and your mental strength is very much stronger than other average grand mages, why can¡¯t you produce grade-6 water puppets?¡±


    Saleen extended his left hand, then said, ¡°I want the water puppet to have life, so the Power of Life has to be added in. I am powerless.¡±


    To Joey, producing water puppets was a piece of cake. As he received the Shenhe, a concentrated water element suddenly shot out from the small cbash. Joey kneaded this water element, forming the shape of a transparent human. Saleen did not dare be tardy, a green radiance was released from his left hand, and then it infiltrated the embryo of the water puppet.


    Naturally, the Power of Life formed the skeleton, blood vessels and organs. Nevertheless, all these things were condensed from the water element. Joey had his own methods, so he was not envious of Saleen¡¯s Power of Life. In the space structure of his room, the outside world wouldn¡¯t be able to discover the presence of divine power in here.


    This was also the reason why Saleen asked Joey for help. Crafting water puppets unabashedly in any other locations would easily attract the Holy See¡¯s attention, unless Saleen did not want this water puppet to possess the attributes of life.


    The water puppet gradually took shape, having human features, it looked energetic, just like a live human. Just that its body was transparent, and its internal organs had a pale green hue. Saleen had never crafted something so sessfully before, the whole process only took half an hour. In this thirty minutes, he had been assembling the internal structures of the water puppet, the functions of these structures were simr to that of a magic array.


    In the past half an hour, Saleen had gained more insight into alchemy than all the other past attemptsbined. Joey had simply used the power of elements to sculpt the water puppet, like a hawker who sold candies shaped like living things. His control over the elements had reached a legendary level. Any magical spell had be part of his body, there was no need for any preparations.


    A sh of golden brilliance appeared in Saleen¡¯s eyes, then a foreign magic symbol imprinted itself on the forehead of the water puppet. At this point in time, Joey was a little astounded, then he asked, ¡°What is this?¡±

 Chapter 601: Elemental Eye (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 601: Elemental Eye (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°I must have guessed correctly. Joey does not know this electric technique. It is only natural that a powerful mage like him will want to know more when he encounters something that he does not really know.¡±


    ¡°This is a technique that I discovered on my own; eye of lightning,¡± Saleen replied directly.


    Joey kept quiet. Surely he could not ask Saleen to teach him this technique. It was something that Saleen created on his own, which meant that he was the only one in the entire world who would know how to use it. What could Joey use to exchange for this? He had already promised to guide Saleen in his spells. There was no way he could use that to exchange for the technique.


    ¡°I want to learn,¡± Joey said with difficulty. He was a proud person, but in the end he still chose to open his mouth and asked.


    ¡°Sir, as you wish,¡± Saleen smiled. He did not bring up any requests. If he did and Joey was able to fulfil it, thetter would be satisfied. Saleen should not be the one to bring it up. He would have to leave this to Joey.


    ¡°Ha,¡± Joey smiled and shook his head, ¡°If you had not inherited Sregl Ind, I wouldn¡¯t mind epting you as my disciple. Unfortunately, I will be overpowered by the sheer number of people on Sregl Ind even if their abilities were mediocre. I cannot afford to offend them. Tell you what, I will teach you a spell that I created, a water element spell.


    Saleen did not believe Joey entirely. His inheritance of Sregl Ind was now in danger. There were only over thirty sorcerers and none of them were grade-9 sorcerers. If he had not figured out the six elements¡¯ space, it was entirely possible that the inheritance of Sregl Ind would be lost in the next three-hundred to five-hundred years.


    ¡°Do you want to learn a spell for offense or defense?¡± Joey did not take matters into his own hands. Instead he asked Saleen for his preference. Towards someone like Saleen who could create his own spell, Joey was genuinely fond of him. New spells should constantly be introduced to magic so that there was room for improvement and advancement.


    The ancient spells were long gone. If the current generation of mages did not innovate and only wanted to keep recycling from the past, there would nevere a day where magic would prosper again.


    ¡°What are they?¡±


    ¡°The spell that is used for offense is a grade-6 icy light spear. The spell that is used for defense is a grade-7 darkness shield. The icy light spear is a water element spellbined with light element spell while the darkness shield is advanced from fog of confusion and isbined with dark element spell.¡±


    ¡°I choose the darkness shield.¡± Saleen made his choice immediately. The icy light spear was definitely powerful, but he already knew crystal finger. Once it reached grade-7, it would almost be on par with the icy light spear. On the other hand, darkness shield was a technique that had advanced from fog of confusion, which was a grade-1 spell.


    Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell included some traits of fog of confusion. If he couldbine it together with a darkness shield, he would possess strong defense even while flying.


    ¡°A wise choice. When you understand the principles of defense, you will also then know how to attack. Inparison, defense is much harder than offense.¡± Just like that, Joey began to exin the darkness shield to Saleen.


    It was not difficult picking up the darkness shield. Saleen was fully capable of learning grade-7 spells now and his mental strength was also able to support his learning. Long mantras,plicated hand gestures, maniptions of the mental strength, and the many different ways of controlling the elements. They were all easy to pick up because Joey was extremely meticulous in his teaching.


    Within a few hours, Saleen had already remembered all the contents of darkness shield. He began to ask questions. The way he asked questions was queer. He asked from the perspective of the spells that he usually used. He wanted to know the effects of using other spells alongside the darkness shield.


    By asking questions in this way, it was like Joey was giving Saleen guidance on all his spells. It was interesting and Joey was more than happy to answer them.


    Darkness shield was simr to Saleen¡¯s water shield in the sense that both spells provided all-around defense. Once this grade-7 spell was cast, a structure shaped like a beehive would envelope the mage. Compared to the water shield, this hexagonal structure was better able to withstand physical attacks.


    Since it was a grade-7 spell, the darkness shield was also better able to defend against element spellspared to water shield. The darkness shield would not take effect immediately. It would require at least one-fifth of a second for it to be cast.


    Saleen began to discuss with Joey on how to ensure darkness shield would bepatible with the rest of his spells. His idea was tobine the darkness shield with his water shield and Quickcloud spell so that the instantaneity of water shield might cover up darkness shield¡¯s weakness of a slight dy before casting.


    Joey casually recited a new mantra for Saleen. This mantrabined the three spells together. Saleen used the Figaro Magic Form to calcte again. After spending a full day¡¯s time, he finally managed to rearrange a few simple notes. It was not perfect, but it was still considered a sess.


    In actual fact, this was not a standalone spell. Casting this spell would exhaust an amount of magic chords equivalent to casting the three individual spells. This was a type of restorative magic except that they have beenbined together seamlessly.


    This spell could release a modified water shield instantaneously. When this water shield had been attacked and could no longer hold on further, it would transform into the grade-7 darkness shield. This transformation could also be controlled by the caster. Simrly, the water shield would also release a Quickcloud spell when it broke.


    The transition between water element spells were much easier. Saleen spent the next two days studying ice de magic, restorative icicle magic, current cutter, and other spells.


    Darkness shield would use up half of Saleen¡¯s magic chords. Even so, Saleen would still be able to cast the same number of spells as any other grade-6 mage. The magic chords he possessed were twice as many as other mages of his grade. In other words, amongst all grade-6 mages, Saleen was the best of them all.


    Once he was able to utilize a grade-7 shield, all grade-6 mages would be no match for him unless they attacked him together.


    When grand mages wanted to kill a sorcerer, they would usually also gang up on him. Grade-6 mages would never be able to catch up with a grade-7 mage¡¯s speed of flight, therefore sorcerers were basically considered invincible to the mages beneath them.


    Saleen was picking things up very quickly but he was not aware that this was due to Joey using plenty of energy to transfer knowledge to him using a secret technique. His aim was for Saleen to achieve his desired oue within six days. The lightning technique was too important to Joey. Anyone who was at his level would all be at very simr levels of proficiency in the usual techniques. If he could master the use of lightning, Joey would have the confidence of going overseas to look for traces of the second dynasty.


    The worst thing to encounter at sea was a storm. Even mages of his grade would not be able to fly in such weather. Once he mastered the lightning ability, it would be much safer for him to fly at a low height. He had so many magic chords that it would not be a problem for him to travel across oceans and seas.


    In these six days, Saleen felt as if his brain was on the verge of exploding. He stared out of the window in a daze and saw that the night was about to end. The stars were shining against the dark sky, yet Saleen saw them as a perfectbination of light and dark elements. In this instant, his icy sight advanced.


    Saleen had always been puzzled with this ability of his. The way his icy sight could be utilized was like a magic beast in the sense that he could use it any time, was not restricted by his mental strength, and did not use up too much magic chords. He never imagined that icy sight could advance and could do so in such an unobtrusive way.


    Saleen could see the elements in space. This was a grade-9 spell; the elemental eye.


    This was a support ability. The elemental eye allowed its user to see as far as one-hundred miles away. The distance one could see was still limited by the contours andndscapes of the maind.


    Having the ability to clearly see how each material was made up of different elements a mage would gain a higher level of understanding of spells. In other words, Saleen would only need to use his elemental eye to observe a spell once to be able to pick it up and learn it on his own in a very short time.


    The elemental eye would also allow the user to pinpoint the enemy¡¯s weaknesses in magic spells, divine spells, and sword aura. This was a grade-9 spell though. How could Saleen, a grade-6 element mage, possibly attain the elemental eye?


    Saleen quickly withdrew this skill. Even though it would not use up many magic chords, it was still a grade-9 spell and would be demanding on his mental strength.


    Joey taught Saleen tirelessly for six straight days. On the final day, Joey saw that Saleen had finally achieved self-mastery and he could not help but reassess Saleen again.


    To Joey, Saleen was still the same mage that he once knew. Not very bright and no outstanding qualities aside from his resilience. Although Saleen¡¯s hand was a plus point, it was something that he attainedter on in life and was not born with. Compared to Joey¡¯s disciples, Saleen possessed ordinary qualities. Why was he always so lucky?


    Joey could not figure it out. It was just too bad that there were no longer any more astrologers on this dimension so no one would be able to tell what Saleen¡¯s fate was.


    Saleen took out a scroll and used magic to inscribe words on it. A total of three-hundred and sixty words were written on the empty scroll which Saleen then passed to Joey and said, ¡°These are the lightning runes. Let me rest a while and I will tell you how to use it. I¡­¡±


    Saleen did not manage toplete his sentence. His body crumbled and herid down on the floor. He was not like Joey who could afford to train for six consecutive days without rest. His mental strength had taken a major toll. Once he was sure that all the knowledge he needed had been crammed into his brain, Saleen could not take it anymore. After speaking to Joey briefly, Saleen went into a deep sleep directly in front of him.


    Joey casually infused a fire spell into Saleen¡¯s body. Fire element spells were usually destructive in nature, but this fire spell could be hidden in one¡¯s body to boost it with energy or heal wounds or to be used in battle. The different ways Joey could utilize his spells were far beyond Saleen¡¯s level of understanding.

 Chapter 602: Elemental Eye (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 602: Elemental Eye (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Although Saleen was in deep sleep, his body was still able to react instinctively. The fire spell that Joey infused into Saleen¡¯s body was much more powerful than a typical grade-9 mage¡¯s. Naturally, his eyes began to absorb this power.


    Eyeballs were the weakest parts of the human body. Usually, only swordmasters would be able to train up this body part slightly. Now, Saleen¡¯s eyes were evolving automatically and were absorbing the power of the fire spell.


    The red-colored power of fire element, blue-colored power of water element, and gold-colored electric runesbined together in Saleen¡¯s eyes. Saleen looked like a magic beast more than ever before and his body began to transform.


    Three-hundred and sixty gold-colored magic runes were finally injected with green-colored power of life. Joey could sense the changes taking ce in Saleen¡¯s body and infused his body with another fire spell, followed by grade-9 water-colored soul runes, grade-9 Spring Returns to the Earth, wind spell, Shining Bright, and Night of Deep Sleep.


    Joey used all the atypical grade-6 healing spells on Saleen and a cycle was created in his eyes. The six major elements maintained a delicate bnce and were gradually absorbed into Saleen¡¯s eyes. Finally, Saleen¡¯s eyes turned ck again.


    Once Saleen¡¯s condition had stabilized, Joey began to look through the scroll that Saleen had given to him. Out of the three-hundred and sixty runes on the scroll, Joey could tell that a small portion was simr to the patterns on a lightning dragon. The only reason why Joey could not be entirely sure was that lightning dragons were rarely captured so his knowledge was all based on pictures.


    Nevertheless, he was convinced that these three-hundred and sixty runes were what helped Saleen to attain lightning ability. What Joey could study was limited if Saleen did not wake up. He could only follow the pattern in which Saleen wrote the runes and familiarize himself with how they were created.


    Joey took out a nk scroll and wrote four lightning runes on it. The moment he finished writing, ck smoke began to appear from the scroll. A silver-colored electric current shone on the surface of the scroll and it was burned immediately.


    Joey took out another nk scroll and began to write down lightning runes ording to his own understanding. For the next twenty scrolls he tested on, all of them were burned. These runes possessed lighting abilities, but Joey had yet to learn how to control them.


    Saleen was too tired so he had only written down the magic runes and not the magic patterns. Even if he had the energy to do so, he had yet to study how to draw them onto the scrolls.


    It was not that Joey did not have grade-10 nk scrolls, but he did not want to use it for no good reason. It was difficult to find grade-10 creatures on Myers Maind now. It would be a waste if he encountered such a creature but did not have any grade-10 scrolls with him.


    After six hours, Joey was able to copy all the lightning runes urately, but was still unable to create the scrolls. Fortunately, Saleen regained consciousness at this point. He opened his eyes and felt a strange power within them. It was as if another set of magic chords had appeared in his body.


    A pale gold light shone from Saleen¡¯s eyes. The light solidified into aplicated magic pattern five yards in front of him. There were moving magic runes within the magic patterns. Thisplicated magic pattern gradually vanished after three seconds. Saleen had controlled the lighting power within them.


    Saleen was pleased that there was no difort in his eyes. Whenever he used eye of lightning in the past, he would lose his vision temporarily. Half an hour of blindness in a battle was too long.


    Joey was surprised yet he could also understand that somebat mages would use alchemy to tattoo magic arrays and magic patterns onto their bodies. This would shorten the amount of time required to prepare for certain spells. To Saleen, it was as if he had attained one more natural magic array that could improve his abilities anytime.


    Saleen was aware of his transformation. The golden light that shot out from his eyes actually concealed two faint paths of electric current. They could be controlled and when they merged together, that was when theplicated magic patterns and runes were produced. At this moment, Saleen only knew how use this ability to paralyze an enemy, but not to kill yet.


    The most incredible ability of Saleen¡¯s eyes was that he could now see the movements of elements and could immediately pinpoint an enemy¡¯s weakness. He used his elemental eye to look at Joey and realized that the elements that surrounded him were dense and bnced. Even if Saleen created a magic array, he would not have been able to achieve a simr level of bnce.


    In other words, Joey had no weaknesses.


    The attacking range of eye of lightning was only six to eight yards, which was too short. On the other hand, elemental eye could see as far as one-hundred miles so Saleen would no longer need alchemy binocrs to have a sight of enemies that were a long distance away. Once he utilized this ability, he could see further than anyone else.


    ¡°Saleen, do you understand what has happened to your body?¡± Joey looked at Saleen with an expression that could not be deciphered.


    Saleen shook his head and Joey continued, ¡°You should be able to see how the elements functioned in general. Let me ask you, how much longer can you hang on?¡±


    ¡°Half an hour should be alright.¡±


    ¡°In the future, try to keep using this ability even if you may not be in a fight. That is the key to breaking through grade-9. Once you be a grade-9 mage, this ability will mature and you will save a lot of time by then.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± Saleen thanked Joey sincerely. Regardless of what Joey¡¯s motive was, more than half of Saleen¡¯s improvement must be attributed to him.


    ¡°I want to discuss something with you,¡± Joey said very seriously.


    ¡°Sir, please go ahead.¡±


    ¡°I wish to pass on this lightning ability to Bryan. A mage like me will only ever have one disciple.¡±


    Saleen thought about it and said, ¡°If he can turn out to be like you, I have no objections.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I will ensure that the lightning technique will not be recorded down nor simply passed down to anyone without good reason,¡± Joey was very serious. He hoped that such magic could be spread to many people, but he also understood the current situation on maind. This technique was extremely important to Saleen. The consequences would be great if others got a hold of the technique.


    Saleen took advantage of Joey¡¯s good mood and asked, ¡°Why can¡¯t I see your weaknesses?¡±


    Joeyughed as his green eyes revealed a tinge of slyness. He patted Saleen on the shoulder and said, ¡°I do have weaknesses, but you will not be able to see them until you reach grade-9. It will be the same even if you possessed a godly item. The only way anyone below grade-9 can defeat me is to go head-on against me along with hundreds of other sorcerers.¡±


    Saleen was in disbelief. Joeyughed and said, ¡°I am not stupid. If I can¡¯t win, of course I have to run. Only hundreds of sorcerers will be able to block off all my escape routes.¡±


    ¡°You run away from battles?¡± Saleen could not believe his ears.


    ¡°Of course, how else could I have lived till today? Mages are able to calcte their opponent¡¯s abilities. If you already know that you will lose, why bother fighting on stubbornly?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s very true,¡± Saleen calmed down and began to exin to Joey about the secret behind the three-hundred and sixty lightning runes.


    Even someone as powerful as Joey understood when to attack and when to flee. Hearing it directly from his mouth deepened Saleen¡¯s understanding of this principle.


    Even the strongest would have moments where they would need to retreat. Even the Goddess could fall and would need to rely on others to revive. Saleen decided after he returned to Metatrin City from Holy Rock City, he would build a magical tower and advance into a sorcerer immediately. If he continued to rely on eye of lightning and his n badge, he would die sooner orter.


    Saleen¡¯s thought process simplified and benefitted his magic. This was amon urrence among grade-6 mages that were about to advance into a sorcerer. Other than having a deeper insight into elements, they would also attain a higher level psychologically that wasparable to other powerful mages. Every mage¡¯s learning point was unique. For Saleen, what he learned was that taking a step back would allow him to perceive every event from a long-term point of view.


    From now on, Saleen would no longer be bothered with the temporal losses and would consider long-term issues instead. He was also finally able to let go of past events that he had been holding on tightly to, such as the conflict with Earl Sufonso.


    Once again, Joey proved just how powerful he was. He understood everything that Saleen said. Saleen had been going on and on for more than two hours when Joey suddenly chanted a mantra and put his palms together and produced a stream of electric current between them. He then released the electric current which struck a wall that was five yards away.


    Saleen saw the electric current disappear upon contact with the wall. Joey¡¯s small wooden tower was stronger and sturdier than any magical tower. A weak lightning power could never harm this wooden tower.


    Joey looked at his palms. They had not been hurt by the lightning. He sighed and said, ¡°Saleen, now I think you are a genius. Even if I had a lightning dragon, I may not have realized the secrets of lightning. For you to be able to pick up such a crucial detail, I must say that you are really born to be a mage.¡±


    Saleen smiled awkwardly. He did not dare to call himself a genius in front of Joey. He took about a year to study this lightning power, but Joey took only two hours to master the Paralysis spell.


    ¡°Saleen, leave immediately after you familiarize yourself with the six grade-7 spells on the devil equipment. The twopanions that came with you can no longer wait,¡± Joey was referring to Su and Cuisi. Both them could not enter Joey¡¯s courtyard and had no idea what happened to Saleen.


    No senses could prate through Joey¡¯s courtyard for any form of detection. It was like an independent dimension in which magic could not exist.


    ¡°No, I better leave soon. I have a feeling that the House of Commons do not think well of me. If I stay here for too long, something may happen.¡±


    ¡°They will not dare to do anything if I am around.¡± Joey smiled confidently. The House of Commons did not belong to the Grukos n and was apromise between the royal family and the noble families. Safilos controlled the House of Commons and that would remain a fact even if the Grukos n was extremely powerful. Within Holy Rock City, Joey feared no one.


    Saleen thought about it and nodded. Six grade-7 spells had been fixed onto his devil equipment. They would serve as hisst means of protection. No one would expect the armor of a mage to contain so many high-level spells. These six spells were grade-7 spells of the six major elements. Once Saleen familiarized himself with them, he would no longer have to fear grade-7 sorcerers.

 Chapter 603: A county king guarding the borders (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 603: A county king guarding the borders (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In order to obtain the Seal of Divine Power, Joey had invested heavily in Saleen. This devil set had been permanently affixed with six level-7 spells, and these spells contained magic from the six elements, achieving a perfect bnce.


    The six level-7 spells were; the Stone Statue Army of earth magic, Frost Magic Pattern of water magic, Vacuum Imprisonment of wind magic, Roar of a Fire Spirit of fire magic, Phantom Flurry of light magic, and Endless Night of dark magic.


    These six level-7 spells were extremely unpopr, and each of them was upgradeable, which meant that Saleen could increase their power in the future. As long as his Water me Alchemy reached level-10, he would be able to use the water element to simte the other five elemental spells.


    The Stone Statue Army spell might not appear powerful and the production speed of stone statues was low, but its sustained duration was protracted. As long as the surrounding environment wasnd, this level-7 spell couldst for a horrifying three hours. In these three hours, the earth would repeatedly condense six-yard tall stone statues and the mage would be able to direct them to assault any target. As long as the spell did not disperse, the stone statues would be produced endlessly. On average, six statues could be produced every minute.


    The Frost Magic Pattern was an auxiliary spell. After casting, it would enable a mage¡¯s water spells to carry the effect of freezing, raising their offensive powers by two to three times. Naturally, the speed of casting would be elerated too. Such an auxiliary spell which was used on oneself was more useful than imagined. Most of the time, water magic would face the problem of having insufficient offensive power.


    The Vacuum Imprisonment spell of wind magic could be cast in any environment,nd or water. This was also a spell a sorcerer hated to face while flying. The learning difficulty of this spell was extremely high, its attack range was also inferior to that of a normal high level spell. Be that as it may, this control-type spell was very powerful. The moment the enemy got impacted, they could only use brute strength to ovee it, thus causing them to deplete even more physical strength.


    The Roar of a Fire Spirit would create a colossal fire element creature behind the mage. Each appearance would produce a different type of fire element creature. This spell wouldst for an hour. Within this hour, the fire element creature could assault the enemy in a crazed manner until it got defeated or the spell ended.


    The Phantom Flurry could be sustained for half an hour, creating three to six phantoms which resembled the appearance of the mage. The attributes of these phantoms would be simr to that of the water puppet. The phantoms could alsounch magic attacks.


    The Endless Night was also a control-type spell, but its lethality exceeded that of the Vacuum Imprisonment by arge magnitude. This spell could also be described as one which contained the double effects of attack and control. At the same time, if one spent too much time inside the effective area, this spell would cause long-term mental damage to them. The dark element was an element which could easily erode the physical body. This was one of Saleen¡¯s favorite spells, because his mental strength was much mightier than other mages. If mages with a weaker mental strength got afflicted with this spell, they would not be able to escape.


    Affixed spells faced many restrictions. The quality of the devil set might be at the pinnacle level, but each level-7 spell could only be casted once every six hours. The devil set would not be able to handle all that stress otherwise.


    That meant that for every affixed spell on the devil set that got cast, Saleen would have to wait for six hours before he could cast them a second time.


    This was sufficient already. For example, once a spell like the Stone Statue Army was cast, it could allow Saleen to do battle for three hours. Even if the enemy was so powerful that they kept destroying the stone statues, the duration of the spell also would not be less than half an hour. That was one-sixth the duration of aplete spell.


    For other spells, the brief ones only had an effective duration of half an hour, while the extended ones couldst for more than an hour. Joey had racked his brain preparing these six spells for Saleen, trying his best to allow Saleen to possess the offensive ability to fight for an extended period of time. These six spells also contained multiple effects. They did not really increase offensive power, but would improve Saleen¡¯s control ability.


    Saleen was a mage who possessed wealth and authority. He simply needed to toss the Vacuum Imprisonment at the enemy, he did not need any other offensive skills. Then his Silver Grand Swordmaster would attack and the enemy would basically be dead meat.


    Saleen could not practice excessively either, these six affixed spells would deplete high level magic nuclei. Saleen would not feel the pinch if intermediate level magic nuclei were required, but he did not bring along many high level magic nuclei. Even though the Stone Statue Army spell was at level-7, the number of magic nuclei it consumed was equivalent to that of about six or seven level-7 spells. The spell¡¯s effective duration was very long.


    A level-12 magic nucleus was mosaicked into the mask of the devil set. Other than converting the shape of the armor, this powerful magic nucleus also provided Saleen with a certain degree of protection and recovery ability. As long as the mask was not destroyed, the set could regenerate on its own.


    As for that longsword, it was Joey¡¯s quaint habit, it made Saleen look like a swordsman. The material of that longsword was obviously simr to that of Lex¡¯s magic staff, it could store three spells.


    When the enemy saw a petite swordsman wielding a longsword, they would never expect that this longsword could release powerful magic attacks.


    Saleen finally realized why Joey had longevity, ¡°This fellow must have been unscrupulous when at a low grade. It was no big deal to expose a small trick like this, but if a person ran into it for the first time, they would be at a great disadvantage.¡±


    This longsword still seemed very average to Saleen, he was not too used to Joey¡¯s style. If this weapon was given to Nailisi, it would be a different story. Nailisi could stimte the three spells hidden inside this longsword, while using it as a weapon at the same time.


    The longsword might be made of wood, but the toughness of its material might have even exceeded that of crystallized metals.


    Joey had developed the space within the devil ring to a horrifying extent, so much so that Saleen could even abandon the Dimension Stones already.


    The devil set did not contain any affixed defensive spell, because the basal defensive power of it was already very high. It was immune to all control-type spells below level-7, and could weaken spells above level-7 to varying degrees.


    Saleen lived in Joey¡¯s courtyard for ten whole days before bidding farewell. Before leaving, Joey gave him six scrolls which contained the lightning-type paralysis spell. The scrolls created by Joey only had an attack range of about eight yards, and this was the distance where Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning could unleash its greatest might. Any farther, and the effect would be exponentially weakened.


    ¡°Go now, that kid from the Clyde family is very anxious.¡± At this moment, in Saleen¡¯s eyes, Joey no longer gave out a condescending vibe. At the end of the day, this expert was also a mage.


    In the pce of Holy Rock City, the great hall where Emperor Chanake used to make decisions was shut tightly. The new emperor was reusing the study which had been upied by the emperor two reigns ago. This study was not huge, the light was dim and no magicmps were lit.


    The emperor was slouched in the chair, quietly gazing at the few people in the study.


    These people were his paternal uncle, maternal uncle, teacher, and those ministers which might not obey hismands. The new emperor, His Majesty Ojarvis, was barely listening to these people talking, he had zoned out.


    The ministers were reporting on the situation in Lon, as well as the inclinations of the southern nobles. These matters had to be decided by his paternal uncle. He was just present to provide his signature.


    ¡°Teacher has been trying his best to teach me the ropes, but the problem is that my body has just recovered not long ago, so I couldn¡¯t learn much knowledge in the past. There are plenty of youths who are more capable than me in the Grukos family, why was I chosen to be the emperor? I will be the emperor if they want me to. Coincidentally, the Tanggsi Empire is beginning to behave more aggressively. Almost all the duchies affiliated to Qin have been upied by the enemy, only the few important castles proximal to Qin¡¯s borders are still in the empire¡¯s hands. If Sister was here to handle these issues, everything would have been much simpler. Uncle doesn¡¯t adore her, the Bitter Water County has all along been discriminated by the House of Lords. I heard that Sister has brought her men to the region north of the Phoenix Duchy, do people even live there? Why is Uncle coercing my sister? Is Uncle trying to usurp the throne? Not very likely, Uncle¡¯s two sons still do not hold any authority to date. In the army, they are onlymanders with intermediate ranks, the number of people under their control cannot even form one camp.¡±


    Ojarvis nced at his uncle with hatred, ¡°If Sister was here to assist me, the current situation would also be much better, at least Sister can cate some of the southern nobles. So what if the throne was given to Sister? She is already a grade-6 grand mage, and a mage wouldn¡¯t give a hoot about such things. Other than my bloodline, the three pce sorcerers are also part of the reason why I can sit on this throne. These three grade-9 sorcerers are definitely loyal to Father. The disciples and followers of the three sorcerers are in control of all the magic clocks in the Holy Rock City. Without all these, would Uncle change his mind and stop assisting me?¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty¡­ Your Majesty!¡± The minister for military affairs had to raise his voice, he realized that Ojarvis was not even listening to him.


    Safilos was a little annoyed, he coughed once boisterously, ¡°My nephew is really not cut out to be an emperor.¡±


    Ojarvis¡¯ body was getting better by the day. As long as Ojarvis sired a son, he would havepleted his mission. Safilos also would not try to force his nephew to be some noble emperor. ¡°The best lineage of the Grukos family must be passed down to future generations, if Ojarvis dies, I will not know what to do, I will either have to substitute him or get Lex toe back.¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡± Ojarvis said one word softly.


    ¡°Your Majesty, Titan Duchy is almost fully conquered, and the Tanggsi Empire is fighting on two fronts. We must seize this opportunity to recapture Lon.¡±


    ¡°Mm, well said Jabari,¡± Ojarvis answered casually.


    The minister for military affairs sighed helplessly, ¡°If Emperor Chanake was still alive, we should be in the midst of invading God Grace Duchy right now.¡± Since Ojarvis was still listening to his statement, he seized the opportunity and said, ¡°Your Majesty, our weakness is currently situated between Phoenix and Laiyin Duchy. The army in Guderian City cannot be withdrawn, the moment Laiyin Duchy takes any action, they can quickly enter Qin from the rear, which will cause problems for our army. I hope that Your Majesty can consider deploying the army belonging to the Bitter Water county king to aid in the defense.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Ojarvis could not believe his ears, ¡°Have the ministerse to a consensus? By allowing Sister¡¯s army to travel to the border, it means that we will be acknowledging the progress of her county and we will also have to provide economical support for it.¡±

 Chapter 604: A county king guarding the borders (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 604: A county king guarding the borders (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Approved.¡± A sense of warmth overcame Ojarvis¡¯ heart, ¡°My mind will be more at ease knowing that Sister is going to the borders. Even though his body was frail, it didn¡¯t mean that he hadn¡¯t learned anything, he was still very clear about the various forces in the family. Sister has two elite swordsman¡¯s camps currently, of which one has been deployed to the north. If it crosses Phoenix¡¯s borders, it can swiftly arrive before Laiyin Duchy.¡±


    Safilos sighed in his heart, ¡°Ojarvis is still not wary of Lex, my niece is recruiting soldiers and buying horses in the north. If we do not deplete her forces by sending her men to the frontline, she can quickly expand her influence across the whole of Phoenix. Phoenix¡¯s resistance is really troublesome. When my soldiers entered, they had almost advanced unhindered to Sr City and they only fought once in Sr City. Lex¡¯s army is not inferior to that of Guderian City¡¯s, if she wants to devour Phoenix, she will be able to aplish that in at most three months. Several nobles in Phoenix have defected to her. I am helpless, I can only think of this method to slow down the expansion of Lex¡¯s army.¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, we cannotmand County Queen Lex¡¯s army, we need Your Majesty to pen a letter to Her Highness.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I will get Uncle to write it for me.¡± Ojarvis¡¯ spirits were lifted. As a member of the Grukos family, he was not a good emperor, but he would not cower either. ¡°The Qin Empire cannot wane under my rule.¡±


    ¡°Aye¡­¡± Ojarvis hesitated for a moment, then asked, ¡°Did Sister send a letter to the House of Lords to make a request for this matter?¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡± Without his expression changing, the minister for military affairs answered, ¡°Her Highness has requested to develop a road at west Phoenix, it will begin from Metatrin City, spanning all the way to God Grace Duchy. Her army will help Your Majesty guard the borders.¡±


    Thest sentence had been added in by the minister for military affairs. The former portion was indeed Lex¡¯s request. In actual fact, she wanted the secret passageway in the Chaotic Swamp, but she could not be upfront about it, so she requested for an extra few hundred miles of road. She requested for control over the area so that she could guard against Laiyin Duchy easily.


    Originally, this demand would not have been approved, but the internal affairs of Qin were unstable. The imperial swordsman¡¯s camp had not regained its vitality, while the manpower surrounding Holy Rock City could not be dispatched. The northern nobles had sustained heavier losses and the southern nobles could not be deployed easily. If Lex seized Phoenix by force, Holy Rock City would not have any effective countermeasures either.


    The northern nobles might not be willing to battle against Lex, so Safilos decided to approve Lex¡¯s request. He wanted Ojarvis to give his permission so that Lex would face consequences. She could only control a small part of Phoenix, not the entire territory.


    In Qin¡¯s history, it was not surprising for a county king to guard the borders. After all, Ojarvis would not be as cunning as those senior officials. He still thought that the House of Lords and the House of Commons had the intention to mend ties with his sister, so he was overjoyed. He did not realize something. Even though Lex had twenty-thousand elites, she had to protect a county and a newly developed city. She really did not have much manpower left.


    ¡°Your Majesty, a mage serving County King Lex is in her residence, Your Majesty can summon this mage into the pce and give direct orders to her.¡± The minister for military affairs had to ensure that this matter was certain, otherwise he would not have peace of mind.


    ¡°Okay, invite that mage over, I will exhort her personally. Uncle, you will pen the letter,¡± Ojarvis said.


    The ministers in the study then began discussing the next issue. As Ojarvis felt a little exhausted, he decided to continue slouching in his chair to rest. South of the city, Saleen andpany left Joey¡¯s house, then they saw a few swordmasters up ahead who had been waiting for a long time. Aini emerged swiftly, he actually did not live in his house. Instead, he had been put up in a hotel across the street.


    ¡°What¡¯s the rush?¡± Saleen was a little puzzled.


    ¡°A few elders from the family areing tomorrow, I am afraid they will oppose to my parents leaving. If you still haven¡¯te out, I would have knocked on the door,¡± Aini said urgently.


    ¡°Why, is there someone in the family who is objecting to your departure?¡±


    ¡°Yes, because I haveid my foundation in Metatrin City and the family has begun valuing that city. They want to make me stay while they send another person over.¡±


    Saleen sneered, ¡°If they send another person, I will ask him to scram.¡±


    ¡°The message will not get across to those old fellows. Saleen, we have to leave the city tonight, otherwise we will run into them tomorrow. I have left behind the spirit wolves to bribe the elders in Holy Rock City. I have got my parents out, they are staying in a hotel near the northern gates.¡±


    ¡°What about Narnia?¡±


    ¡°She was summoned to the pce. She sent a letter to me, asking us to leave first.¡±


    ¡°No, I have promised Lex I will return with her.¡±


    ¡°Narnia will have her own way. She was most likely summoned to the pce by the emperor. She wants us to wait for her at Kol City. At most, she will reach there a dayter.¡±


    Saleen pondered for a moment, then said, ¡°You leave the city first, I will follow ten miles behind you. Your family¡¯s elders can be bribed with merely sixty spirit wolves? I feel that this matter isn¡¯t so simple.¡±


    ¡°What are you afraid of, my father is a sorcerer. Including the both of us, will we still get attacked when we leave Holy Rock City?¡±


    In the midst of their conversation, a pair of patrolling soldiers approached from afar. The team leader bellowed, ¡°You, what are you doing?!¡±


    Saleen was bewildered, he and Aini were obviously people who could not be trifled with, that team of soldiers were too ignorant. Aini red at thatmander icily, then summoned a skeleton which walked towards him.


    Themander was outraged, he wielded a longsword and hacked the skeleton into shreds, then yelled, ¡°It is an atrocity to use magic within Holy Rock City,e with me!¡±


    Saleen was startled, ¡°This is obviously directed at Aini and it is premeditated. If these patrolling soldiers arrest Aini, he will have to waste a day¡¯s time no matter the verdict. If that¡¯s the case, Aini¡¯s parents will face huge problems trying to exit the city. Aini is really¡­ he should have let his parents leave the city first, he shouldn¡¯t have waited for me.¡±


    Aini could not possibly harm this team of soldiers. If he took any action, it might attract the attention of the sorcerers in this city. Holy Rock City was a ce which did not condone violence, anyone who came here had to abide by Qin¡¯sws.


    ¡°Can¡¯t magic be used in the city?¡± Joey¡¯s voice traveled from the end of the alley. The sky suddenly grew dim, as a ck cloud began forming above Saleen¡¯s head.


    Themander hollered, ¡°Atrocious, breaking thew despite being aware of it, all of you shalle with me!¡±


    At the same time, Saleen gained realization, ¡°Thismander was obviously a greenhorn, he didn¡¯t know who lived in the alley. Someone might have arranged all this. The person who plotted this have forgotten one thing; Joey will not be intimidated by thews which only target low grade mages. As long as he didn¡¯t attack the pce, no one will raise any objections even if he had cast arge-scale spell.¡±


    The ck cloud in the sky pressed down vigorously, engulfing that whole team of soldiers in an instant. Saleen tugged at Aini¡¯s robe, then said, ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±


    The Darkness Screen was veiled in this Cloud spell. Those soldiers were doomed, as long as they moved their fingers, that level-8 spell would be stimted. After entering the darkness, they would be fortunate to die immediately, but if they were unlucky they would go insane.


    Aini also became alert, he ordered his subordinates to meet him outside the city. He and Saleen blessed themselves with the Windspeed Skill and rushed towards the northern gates. Along the way, they also ran into other patrolling soldiers, but their speed was too fast, the soldiers could not even stop them for questioning.


    Reaching the hotel near the gates, Aini tossed two gold coins at the boss, then he asked his parents to leave the room before making a beeline for the city¡¯s gates with Saleen.


    ¡°Someone in the family was ying tricks, luckily the Clyde family isn¡¯t very influential in Holy Rock City. By leaving the city so abruptly, the person who wants me to stay will not be able to react in time. Even if they learn about it, they will not be able to try anything funny either.¡±


    When Aini¡¯s parents saw Saleen, they only smiled briefly, ¡°This youth has finally grown up, it is Aini¡¯s good fortune to have met a friend like that.¡± They had been wanting to leave Holy Rock City, but because they thought of their son¡¯s position in the family, they restrained their urge. Now that their son had his own power in the north, the both of them would of course not want to remain there and be hostages.


    The incident which happened back then was always the Holy See¡¯s fault. Even if the Holy See was not in the wrong, Aini¡¯s parents also would not tolerate the Holy See.


    There was a total of six people, Aini¡¯s parents, Aini, Saleen, Su, and Cuisi. These six people did not stop at all, they did not even exchange a single pleasantry as they sprinted towards the city gates.


    The security in Holy Rock City was strict, but the inspections for passing merchant convoys were extremely swift. Of these six people, Aini¡¯s parents had changed into normal merchant clothing. Aini dressed like a mage, while Saleen wore an armored brocade robe which made him look like a swordsman. None of them disyed any abnormalities, so the soldiers at the gates could not detect any problem.


    ¡°Stop those people!¡± Saleen andpany then exited the city gates. The tter of horses¡¯ hooves came from behind them, as the lead rider bellowed. The soldiers near the city gates swarmed forward quickly, and sixnces were pointed at the riders who were approaching at high speed.


    The lead rider held a family badge in his hand, then yelled, ¡°I am Earl Clyde¡¯s¡­¡±


    Whoosh¡­


    An arrow descended from atop the city walls, urately prating the head of the rider¡¯s horse. The entire arrow had almost entered the warhorse¡¯s skull, causing it to moan in agony, then it mmed to the ground. The rider atop the horse rolled across the ground in shame, then he stood up.


    ¡°Who allowed you to ride horses in the capital? Capture them!¡± There was arge number of soldiers near the city gates. Amander walked over, leading more than a hundred fully equipped swordsmen, encircling the riders from the Clyde family.


    Ainiughed boisterously, as he summoned a few skeletal warhorses from the Green Spirit. After everyone had boarded the horses, Aini¡¯s father then told Saleen, ¡°Behind the city gates, even if you are a grand duke, you are also not allowed the travel on horseback. The guards are from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp, they will not give anyone face. Trying to use the badge of the earl¡¯s residence to stop us, it was really¡­¡±


    Aini cackled, ¡°Really stupid, but the family had solicited a number of people from the south, it is a problem.¡±


    ¡°Who cares, once we get to Saleen¡¯s city, what can they do to us?¡± Aini¡¯s mother smiled and talked as she looked at Saleen.


    Saleen said, ¡°Of course. Auntie Lanny, once you all get to Metatrin City, no one cany a finger on you, even if the emperor is present.¡±

 Chapter 605: Safilos’ Bait

    <h4>Chapter 605: Safilos¡¯ Bait</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s words might be a bit disrespectful to the Emperor, but he was a grade-6 mage after all and he was also familiar with the Emperor¡¯s sister. It was difficult have any respect for the sickly Emperor.


    Aini¡¯s fifty bodyguards had already left the city and were waiting about ten miles away. Arge group of them could not possibly travel any other way in Holy Rock City other than to cut straight through the four towns. Other areas were mostly mountains or small castles that could seek help from the four towns anytime. If Holy Rock City wanted to shut itself from the rest of the maind, there would be no way out across the entire one-hundred miles.


    The only issue was that the Clyde n¡¯s actions were of their own and not under the orders of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There was no way to coordinate with the army. Saleen and the rest passed through Northtown without any issues.


    Saleen refused to travel any further when he was twenty miles away from Northtown. It would be difficult to exin Narnia¡¯s absence to Lex. He and Narnia were in the midst of learning more about the fourth dynasty. Even if he did not intend to verify his own identity, there were still many things to be learned from the fourth dynasty that would greatly benefit his magic training.


    Narnia belonged to the category of mages that had a knack for knowledge and intelligence and she always seemed to be very analytical as well.


    A mage like this would be valuable to any of herpanions. Saleen did not know the reason why Narnia had been summoned to the pce. Even though he did not sense that it concerned her life and death, he was still worried.


    At this moment, Narnia was having a meal with Emperor Ojarvis. He was about the same height as Saleen, but looked much thinner. Simr to Lex, Ojarvis had a pair of blue eyes and pale skin. He did not exude the aura of a mage like Lex, but he did not disy any weaknesses either.


    Ojarvis looked just like an ordinary youth of a noble family. His hands fiddled with the badge that Narnia had given to him and he seemed to be in a good mood.


    This was an ordinary badge that all swordmasters of the Grukos family would have. On the badge was a pattern of a six-winged flying snake. The only difference was that a secret spell that was unique to the family had been sealed in this badge. It was a grade-7 defense spell; crystal guardian.


    This meant that this spell could now be used in battle without harming the caster. What also made Ojarvis excited was that Lex had hinted that she could be advancing into a sorcerer soon¡­


    Ojarvis only had vague memories of Lex. When Lex was in Holy Rock City before, he had just recovered from his sickness and the people around him had nothing good to say about Lex. At that time, Ojarvis behaved unlike a youth because he chose to bear with it. As a member of the Grukos n, he knew that the people around him said what they said about Lex only because of power and benefits.


    Since father did not pass down the title of ¡®Emperor¡¯ to his sister, naturally she would not try to strive for it. In fact, now that the Tanggsi empire was trying to go forth on invasions everywhere, his sister would have plenty of opportunities to capture manynds so there was no point trying to fight with Ojarvis for Holy Rock City. The facts had proven him right. His sister did not make use of the family¡¯s power nor find any supporters from the House of Lords. Instead, she went to the northern part of the world and built a new city there.


    Sister wanted Phoenix and this was clear to everyone including Ojarvis. In front of his advisers, he had to pretend otherwise.


    Although he had the support of three grade-9 sorcerers, Ojarvis was very different from the past Qin Emperors. His health was an issue and he was not proficient in his family¡¯s secret spell, swordsmanship, or magic.


    It was a helpless feeling. If his sister and he were to die, their family¡¯s bloodline would be lost. Within three years, all the advisers would forget about him entirely and would choose anyone with the surname of ¡®Grukos¡¯ to be the country¡¯s Emperor.


    Chanake¡¯s son might be weak in health, but his brain was working perfectly. Ojarvis did not have the opportunity to train in anybat or magic due to his sickness, but he was still able to gain a lot of knowledge with the help of the grade-9 mages. To Ojarvis, survival was much more important than being Emperor.


    Lex¡¯s badge contained a grade-7 defense spell and the meaning was clear. Stay alive, have a son and destroy the ns of those advisers.


    Qin¡¯s motto was; ¡®The crystal man gives nothing away for free.¡¯


    Lex¡¯s grade-7 spell was crystal guardian. Once it was cast, Ojarvis would be enveloped by an armor that was made of an element simr to crystal. As long as the spell was still activated, even high-level spells would not be able to affect him.


    Narnia ate gracefully. She was in no hurry. Objectively, she felt that Ojarvis was a decent person, but with a terrible fate.


    Bravery was the most important trait in order to be a Qin Emperor. As the symbol of the empire, Emperor Chanake was popr and respected amongst his people because of his authority and bravery.


    Ojarvis might also treat his people well, but hecked authority. Aside from the swordmen camps that were loyal to the royal family, the armies of the other four towns rarely obeyed his orders.


    Narnia put down her bowl and cast a Cleaning spell to clean up the table. She finally spoke.


    ¡°Your Majesty, I understand your intentions. The Viscountess will ensure the safety of Phoenix. Please rest assured.¡±


    ¡°I will try to ensure that the army of Guderian City stays put in Qin and does not do anything reckless.¡±


    Narnia smiled and said, ¡°Your Majesty, there is no such need. The army of Guderian City are all men of Prince Safilos¡¯. Although the Prince has not treated the Viscountess well, he is still on the side of Your Majesty. Nothing good wille out of it if the two of you are in conflict with each other.¡±


    ¡°Humph!¡± Ojarvis did not say anything else. Other than the pce and the swordsmen camps, everything in Holy Rock City was under the control of Safilos. Ojarvis simply could not extend his influence beyond Holy Rock City.


    ¡°Once the conflict between Your Majesty and the Prince is out in the open, the ns in the south will start to stir up trouble and call for independence. Some might even decide to join the Viscountess. In any case, it would not be easy to settle these issues,¡± Narnia said directly. Ojarvis became doubtful upon hearing what Narnia had just said. ¡°This mage is really pretty! Just like¡­just like sister.¡±


    ¡°Sister¡­ still does not have faith in my abilities!¡± Ojarvis was a little depressed. He was merely an Emperor in name. ¡°Doesn¡¯t she have anything that I can help her with?¡±


    Narnia thought about it then took out a metal box and put it on the table.


    ¡°What is this?¡±


    ¡°The Viscountess passed it to me and instructed that I should pass it to you should we meet alone. Open it one month after I leave. This metal box was sealed with magic. Only grade-9 sorcerers can handle it.¡±


    ¡°So mysterious.¡± Ojarvis took over the metal box. It was small and t and looked like it only contained a piece of paper.


    ¡°The Viscountess was afraid that Your Majesty would be too reckless. Alright, we have had our meal. When can I leave?¡± Narnia¡¯s attitude towards Ojarvis was simr to Saleen, she could not conjure up any feelings of respect or fear.


    ¡°You have otherpanions?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but I think they have already passed Northtown and are waiting for me.¡±


    ¡°Let me get the swordsmen camp to send you there,¡± Ojarvis said.


    ¡°Even without the swordsmen camp, I¡¯m sure Prince Safilos will not send anyone after me. I am merely an unimportant mage that serves the Viscountess,¡± Narnia said with a smile.


    Ojarvis thought, ¡°Sister instructed you to pass the metal box to me personally, how could you possibly be unimportant?¡± He did not say anything, but persisted in sending arge group of swordsmen camp of the royal family to send Narnia off. Whatever needed to be said had been said, now Ojarvis would just have to wait for Lex to deploy her troops to defend Laiyin Duchy.


    One royal swordsmen camp was made up of two-hundred men and a grade-4 mage and they traveled at lightning speed. No patrolling soldiers interfered with them so Narnia had no opportunities to interact with them. The soldiers of the royal swordsmen camp were all covered with armor and had holes on their face guards for breathing. The material that covered their eyes was made up of polished crystal.


    Winter was about to arrive in Holy Rock City and some of the trees still had their leaves. The wind brought about by the speed at which the two-hundred knights were traveling resulted in many of the dried leaves finally falling from their trees. When one looked back, it was as if there was a trail of yellow flying snakes that were slithering across the streets and rushing through the city gates.


    Without any instructions from Safilos, no one in the city would dare to cause trouble for the swordsmen camp. Ojarvis was overly worried. The city was split into those that were controlled by him while the majority were controlled by Safilos. Whoever dared to defy them would be torn into shreds.


    Once they were out of Holy Rock City, the group traveled at a slower speed, but still managed to pass through Northtown and meet up with Saleen before nightfall.


    ¡°Thank you for your service. Please return,¡± Narnia was panting slightly while speaking to the officer. Her physique was unlike Saleen so traveling at great speed took a toll on her body. The warhorses of the royal swordsmen camp were different from skeletal warhorses in the sense that the former were not as stable and did not have the riding equipment that suited Narnia. The tens of miles of traveling had caused abrasions in her inner thighs and they did not worsen only because she had used magic to heal them over time.


    ¡°The Majesty¡¯s orders were to escort you back to Metatrin City. If the Viscountess wishes for us to stay, we need not return to Holy Rock City either,¡± the officer answered respectfully.


    The royal swordsmen camp were Emperor Chanake¡¯s trusted army, but they were not against the order given by Ojarvis. To pledge their loyalty to Viscountess Lex was better than staying in Holy Rock City, where they still had to deal with Prince Safilos. The royal swordsmen camp would pledge loyalty to Prince Safilos only if Ojarvis and Lex were no longer in the picture.


    Just as Narnia was about to refuse, the officer said, ¡°Besides, there are people chasing after us. It is safer for us to be around to protect you.¡±


    Saleen said, ¡°Yes, there is a regiment. Within them, there are forty heavy-armored knights that are riding on unicorns.¡±


    The officer looked at Saleen in shock. Saleen was wearing his devil suit and looked like a swordsman instead of a mage. His elemental eye could see up to one-hundred miles away. As this was t ground, he could see the group that was tailing them very clearly.


    Narnia saw the officer hesitating, so she introduced, ¡°This the Lord of Metatrin City.¡±


    The officer immediately saluted and said, ¡°The men behind us are not here to cause any problems. Just ahead is Green Dragon Stone, where men from the Holy See will lie in ambush to attack us. The men behind us were sent by Prince Safilos to follow us and use us as bait to lure the men from Holy See out and exterminate them.¡±


    ¡°How would you know?¡± Saleen asked with a frown.


    ¡°Your Excellency, Prince Safilos had sent words to us at Northtown that if we are not able to ensure the safety of everyone here, we will all be sentenced to death,¡± the officer replied calmly. It seemed that Prince Safilos¡¯ order did not unnerve him at all.


    ¡°Use us as bait? The Prince is really smart. The Holy See will be appearing very near to Holy Rock City. If anything happened to them, won¡¯t he have to take up the responsibility?¡±


    The officer chuckled, but did not reply. The secret pockets of Holy See men in Qin had already been monitored so this time around. Safilos was only trying to lure out those that had yet to be found. Before Saleen and his men arrived, the Prince¡¯s subordinates had already spread the word that a special envoy of Viscountess Lex would be arriving to discuss about the battle situation at the borders.


    The Holy See¡¯s presence in Green Dragon Stone was originally sparse and their task was only to spy on Holy Rock City. The city was heavily guarded and there was no way they could get within one-hundred miles so they could only observe the traffic and types of noble families that traveled back and forth the road. These information were usually too vague to be of any value.


    This time around, capturing Viscountess Lex¡¯s envoy would be a major victory. Even the people of the Taggsi Empire were aware of the animosity between Viscountess Lex and Prince Safilos. The envoy must be bringing news or information between the Viscountess and the Emperor.


    Safilos had created a situation that was rare toe by and it was no wonder that the Holy See was tempted.


    As for whether Safilos spread any other false news to trigger the Holy See to send forth so many men and horses, the royal swordsmen camp was not aware. Nevertheless, Green Dragon Stone could only contain a few hundred men so the two-hundred soldiers of the royal swordsmen camp did not feel threatened at all.


    ¡°The Holy See is incredibly stupid,¡± Saleen sighed and waved for everyone to proceed, allowing the royal swordsmen camp toe along. He had two-hundred and fifty highly-trained soldiers by his side. Without the swordmasters, these two-hundred and fifty soldiers were more than sufficient to guarantee his safety even if the enemy had a grand mage.


    The officer pushed his horse hard and they caught up. The horse looked impressive and was unafraid of Saleen¡¯s skeletal warhorse.


    ¡°Your Excellency, the men of Holy See are not stupid and are fearless. If a fight really urster, please stay in the middle and let us protect you.¡±


    Saleen appreciated the kind intention and slowed down his skeletal warhorse to allow the royal swordsmen camp soldiers to lead the way. Both sides were already officially at war so the Holy See might be more desperate and send high-level high priests to Qin.


    Before bing a sorcerer, Saleen was still susceptible to the enemy¡¯s traps. His Quickcloud spell would only allow him to fly at about one-hundred miles an hour, but within the Holy See¡¯s high priests, several of them could fly extremely fast and could still cast spells within the first ten miles or so. Unless Saleen could fly at two-hundred miles an hour, he would still be in danger.


    Green Dragon Stone was actually a small town with a single source of water and about one-hundred families living there. Holy Rock City has ordered that no shops or businesses were to be conducted here. Instead, Green Dragon Stone mainly functioned as a station with many inns to amodate the noble families¡¯ envoys for free. Private caravans would have to build their own campsite instead.


    Holy Rock City was one-hundred miles away. There were only a few hundred small noble families spread out within one-thousand miles so they did not pose any threat to Holy Rock City. The puzzling thing was that Holy Rock City did not station any troops there so this area seemed especially deserted.


    Green Dragon Stone was about thirty miles wide and was full of gravel and six mountain tops that were three-hundred to five-hundred yards tall and surrounded the small town. These mountain tops resembled the shape of six gigantic dragons. Green Dragon Stone was in the middle of them and was a circr-shaped t ground. The town seemed lonely without any trees or animals.


    There was a gust of wind and sounds of whimpering. Not a single soldier was left in Green Dragon Stone. The smell of blood was thick. A few golden-eyed crows perched on the city tower and watched the road that headed towards the south.


    Green Dragon Stone was a dead city. The blood stains in the alleys remained uncleaned. A few hundred soldiers dressed in white robesy in wait in windowless houses. In the middle of Green Dragon Stone, the roads were empty and a huge statue stood in the middle of the small town. The face of the statue was blur and below it stood three men, with a red-robed holy priest leading them.


    The holy priest was upset and said, ¡°Who allowed you to kill all the people here? Don¡¯t you know this will give Qin even more reason to fight us to the death? Don¡¯t you know what kind of trouble this will cause to the Pope?¡±


    The two men that were being berated by the red-robed holy priest were defiant. They were dressed in ck robes which were marked with the symbol of the supreme court.


    One of them had a face full of scars as if they have been left behind by some form of torture. He was about thirty years old, had sparse eyebrows, and had purple eyes. He did not care much about what the red-robed holy priest said and replied, ¡°Master, Qin people deserve to die anyway. The Holy See has been around for one-thousand years yet Qin still could not be converted. The problem does not lie with the Qin Emperor, but with the people themselves. They are all heresies.¡±


    ¡°Is this what the old geezer at the supreme court has been teaching you?¡± The red-robed priest¡¯s tone was cold. These two deacons from the supreme court were supposed to help him capture the Viscountess¡¯ envoy, but they were filled with bloodlust and ordered for everyone in Green Dragon Stone town to be killed. If the target appeared half a dayter, this whole ce would be surrounded by armies by tomorrow morning.


    ¡°Old geezer? Hehe, the head inquisitor will not care what you say about him,¡± the two ck deaconsughed dryly. The red-robed holy priest was furious. Unfortunately, all the manpower that he had was all deployed by the supreme court. Even though he held the highest position amongst all of them, he would not be able to control them.


    The other ck deacon had a paleplexion and said, ¡°Master Bishop, it is no use worrying. We have no control over those zealots. We should focus onpleting the task quickly, then we can leave and you can have peace.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t say!¡± The red-robed high priest was a Bishop, but he could not control the lunatics of the supreme court. ck deacons were a lower position than him, but only the head inquisitor would have the authority to deal with them. Even the Pope was the same.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s not waste any more time and go and set up the trap.¡± The two ck deacons bowed and left.


    The red-robed high priest stood at the foot of the statue and noticed that it was covered with fresh blood. More than a hundred corpses were piled up behind and he felt disgusted. This was not God¡¯s will. The people of Qin were lost so all the more they should be loved and converted instead of massacred like this.


    Within Green Dragon Stone, a gigantic holy prose has just beenpleted. Over forty men wearing hemp clothes kept their pens and looked up at the sky. The sky was dark, but it did not look like it would rain. This gigantic holy prose could be maintained for twelve hours at the most, but would onlyst an hour if it rained.


    About ten miles away, Saleen andpany were approaching. One-hundred and twenty knights of the royal swordsmen camp led the way while the remaining eighty were deployed at the rear so that Saleen and Aini¡¯s fifty soldiers were in the middle. These fifty soldiers did not say much about this arrangement. They knew that the men of royal swordsmen camp were on par with them in terms of skills and they had a lot more equipment so naturally, they had the bragging rights.


    These were Aini¡¯s bodyguards so protecting Aini was their first priority and not their own ego.


    Aini¡¯s parents had been through many experiences so this did not faze them. The royal swordsmen camp did not send any mages so if a real battle started, they could not possibly leave Saleen to face the enemy alone.


    Once they entered Green Dragon Stone, they would need to hang on for ten minutes. If the Holy See deployed men to seal off the entrance once they entered, Prince Safilos¡¯s soldiers would need even more time before breaking through. This amount of time would be sufficient for holy priests to cast a powerful divine spell.


    It was not going to be easy being a bait. They were going head-on against the men of Holy See and they were aware that only mages would be able to deal with holy priests.


    Saleen and Aini traveled side by side. Saleen¡¯s elemental eye could already see the city walls of Green Dragon Stone. The town had not been militarized so the city walls were only five yards tall to prevent magic beasts and bandits from entering. There was no one in sight within the city gates. There was no sight of divine spells or spells in the sky either so it seemed that the enemy was prepared to do battle on ground.


    Within a pinhole on the city tower was a faint light that seemed to be reflected from an equipment simr to an alchemy binocr. Even though the crystal lens had been coated, it could not hide from Saleen¡¯s elemental eye.


    ¡°Aini, there are quite a lot of people in the city. Prepare your spells and summon the skeletal soldiers first.¡±


    Aini was a little unwilling and said, ¡°Divine spells can control death spells. Skeletal soldiers are too low-level and will be purged easily. It will be a waste to deploy them. Once skeletal soldiers die, they will not be able to return to the death dimension to be revived. It will be a waste of time to summon them again.¡±


    ¡°I know, but surely the Holy See are not that stupid. They must have used divine spells to set up a magic trap for us. Divine spells like that can be easily influenced by other divine spells. If the enemy used glorious divine spell to purge your skeletons, it would dy the effect of the array. By then, Narnia and I will be able to conjure up a powerful spell to destroy their array.¡±


    ¡°And if they don¡¯t purge my skeletons?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that even better? We will meet them head-on. I don¡¯t believe there will be any strong opponents lying in wait. Their strongest men should only be at our level.¡±


    Saleen was extremely confident. Little did he know that there was a red-robed Bishop lying in wait ahead. Red-robed Bishops held a slightly lower position than Cardinals, but there was little difference in their powers and was about equivalent to a grade-7 mage. The only difference from mages was that some mages were not rich to start with and would be even poorer after advancing into a sorcerer. On the other hand, a red-robed Bishop was supported by the Holy See so they were well-equipped.


    ¡°Alright. I will prepare fifty skeletons. I just hope that you are right,¡± Aini said and gave his father a nce.

 Chapter 606: A fog in Green Dragon Stone (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 606: A fog in Green Dragon Stone (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What are you looking at.¡± Aini¡¯s father Fellett red at his son.


    ¡°Our son is trying to ask you for help, there might be some experts in the city.¡± Lanny sighed. She never expected herself to be bait for Safilos. They had left in a hurry this time around and in order not to arouse any suspicion she and her husband did not take all their possessions from their house. They had left behind many appliances necessary for the Clyde family.


    The so-called experts were professionals above grade-7. Lanny was very clear that if a professional above grade-7 had set a trap they could wield more offensive power aspared to a head-on fight. Without quality equipment this imperial swordsman¡¯s camp would suffer massive casualties. Saleen¡¯s idea was to add an extra barrier and fifty skeletal soldiers, which could not really change the oue.


    At that moment Saleen grinned and said, ¡°Uncle Fellett, if you have brought along any powerful equipment, go ahead and use it. Viscountess Lex and I willpensate your losses.¡±


    ¡°Humph, we do not necessarily have to use powerful equipment, I heard that you have puppets right? Release all of them, including your witcher spider. These puppets are unaffected by holy spells. As for myself, I will try my best.¡± Fellett also red at Saleen.


    Saleen shut his mouth obediently. As he did not have parents, he had all along been envious of Aini. In fact, Saleen actually liked the way Fellett and Lanny treated him. Fellett had treated Aini and him equally, causing Saleen to experience a kind of unexinable emotion.


    Themander had also been apanying Saleen. After hearing Fellett¡¯s words, he then learned that Saleen was a mage. Observing the strange equipment Saleen wore, themander thought to himself, ¡°I couldn¡¯t have misjudged his capabilities.¡± No matter how he observed, he could not tell that Saleen was mightier than him. At only forty years old he was a Zun Grand Swordmaster and Saleen was at least half his age. ¡°Could he be a grand mage? It¡¯s possible though, that Narnia is a grade-4 mage and she isn¡¯t even twenty years old yet. Seems like the people around viscountess Lex cannot be underestimated. If I have made up my mind to follow the viscountess, I will have to be on good terms with these people.¡±


    This middle-agedmander made a hand gesture and the warriors from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp slowed down as though they had eyes on the back of their heads. Themander then told Saleen, ¡°Sir, why don¡¯t you release the puppets now?¡± He spoke in a negotiating tone, because even though the puppets could keep up with the warhorses, there was another ten miles to go. By letting the puppets sprint, they would sustain huge depletion, it would be akin to them fighting with all their might.


    ¡°Sure.¡± Saleen released twelve war puppets first, these puppets had been given by Lex for him to conduct research. He then told Narnia, ¡°You should be able to control these twelve puppets.¡±


    Saleen then took out another two fully constructed puppets and said to Cuisi, ¡°You shall control these two. You don¡¯t have to let them fight, just control their positions in case the enemy has assassins which can get close to our mages.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Cuisi was not very interested in the battle this time around, because there was an army behind with more than a thousand men rushing over. Even though the team had slowed down, and the enemy was fifteen miles away, that army could cover this distance in a short time given its abilities. The Holy See had set this trap in a rush, they were basically walking to their doom.


    From Cuisi¡¯s perspective the people from Holy See were not stupid, they had another n. He was not sure what the agenda for sacrificing these people was. In any case, it had nothing to do with Saleen.


    Cuisi did not express his thoughts. Even if these humans died, he also would not feel heartbroken. It would be fine as long as Saleen made it back to Metatrin City safely. After returning to Metatrin City, Cuisi wanted to get a good rest, so that he could grasp the abilities of a supreme demon as soon as possible. ¡°That Joey is too scary. With just a bottle of medicine, he could help me achieve a breakthrough in my limits and advance smoothly.¡±


    Even a devil from the demonic ne could not achieve such a feat, Cuisi was totally captivated by Joey. He remained immersed in his own thoughts not reminding the rest of the people.


    Su had a nonchnt attitude towards this task. He could definitely protect Saleen for half an hour unless the enemy was a Golden Grand Swordmaster. The moment a person who cultivated the Sword Aura attained the proficiency of a Silver Grand Swordmaster they would have the capability to resist a mage. Even if the enemy was a grade-7 mage Su was confident of dealing with them.


    Saleen¡¯s witcher spider had be very tiny, itid atop the head of a skeletal warhorse. The team increased speed rushing towards the Green Dragon Stone.


    The setting sun disyed a blood red hue as the team traveled against the wind. Saleen¡¯s brocade robe fluttered violently in the wind like a brightly colored g.


    Even though the city gates hade into view the people from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp could sense that something was amiss. No matter how faint the stench of blood was it was also too obvious for warriors like them who had seen blood before their eyes. At once, eight cavalrymen separated from the formation, they were going to enter the city gates to conduct reconnaissance first. From the center of the team, eight spells flew out,nding on their bodies.


    Everyone was blessed with a Fire Ring of Resistance, this spell was almost immune towards divine spells. In other words, fire magic and divine spells could always offset each other. If fire magic was used to attack a divine spell the effect would not be too ideal. There would only be exceptions if both parties had a great gap in standards or there was special equipment which contained an assortment of attributes.


    On the battlefield low level magic would not interfere with one another. As these eight cavalrymen had been fortified with an additionalyer of magic protection, they were emboldened. They sped up, splitting away from the team, and dashed towards the city gates.


    Beyond the city gates was a wide road. Even though Green Dragon Stone was a small ce the road in the middle of it was wide and t. During wartime this ce would function as a supplementary station for refilling water, it could allowrge battalions to pass through swiftly.


    The eight cavalrymen charged into the town, they ran for over one-hundred yards and never detected any anomalies. Just as they were about to split up eight white-robed warriors charged out silently from the alleys on both sides of the road. Each of them wielded a cross spear. The cross spears hooked onto the warhorses¡¯ legs, and with a tug, the warhorses copsed in excruciation. Only the leading rider¡¯s horse remained fine because its legs had been fitted with special armor.


    The eight white-robed warriors immediately abandoned their cross spears, wielding razor sharp cusses, then they lunged forward.


    Loud bangs filled the air. Eight of them rolled across the ground with mes on their bodies. Before they couldunch their cusses, they had been repelled by the Fire Ring of Resistance.


    ¡°Retreat first!¡± The warrior with the unharmed warhorse wielded a longsword, then he swerved his horse around wanting to exit the town. Out of the blue, a huge fog appeared at the city gates. This fog was emerging from the surrounding houses. It was very moist, carried a tinge of blood red color, and had an extremely pungent stench.


    ¡°There¡¯s poison!¡± The warrior atop the horse bellowed, then he immediately sealed the breathing vent in his helmet activating the magic array on the armor. After this armor was totally sealed it could allow a warrior to continue battling for three hours without needing to open his armor. This equipment belonged to the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp, solely used for dealing with poison fog spells.


    The roof of the houses were made up of colossal tiles. All of a sudden, these tiles turned into magic beasts which measured over one yard in length. They then charged down the street besieging the eight imperial swordsmen.


    The people outside the city gates were only in time to see the eight swordsmen getting surrounded. The fog then became so thick that it obstructed their view, they could no longer observe the happenings in the city.


    Narnia wanted to take action, but Saleen stopped her. Saleen signaled to the group of warriors beside him to seal their armor, then he urged his skeletal warhorse to stop before the city gates.


    He opened a scroll containing the Wild Wind Spell, stimting this spell beyond the city gates. A violent gust of wind quickly dispersed the fog, but the eight warriors had disappeared.


    ¡°Sir, should we retreat and wait for the people behind to catch up?¡±


    ¡°No need. Aini!¡± Saleen bellowed in a low voice, then fifty skeletons charged into the city gates. Saleen andpany never thought that the people in the city wouldunch an offensive before their main forces arrived. It was as though they were not worried that Saleen¡¯s team would not enter the Green Dragon Stone.


    This was not an ambush, it was a provocation.


    Su came beside Saleen. Saleen told Su, ¡°Protect Narnia, I will be with Aini. There won¡¯t be any problems, there is still Cuisi around.¡±


    Su knew that Cuisi possessed tremendous strength, so he nodded his head and urged his horse to trot towards Narnia.


    ¡°Enter the city!¡± Seeing that Saleen did not object themander wanted to save hisrades. He did not believe that eight powerful swordmasters would die in such a brief period.


    The skeletons charged into the city. Indeed, they were not purified, the enemy¡¯s holy masters were hiding somewhere and did not bother attacking the skeletons. Dozens of white-robed warriors dashed out of the alleys wielding long knives as they hacked the skeletal soldiers.


    Aini and the rest were riding on skeletal warhorses, so they were not afraid of weapons like a cross spear because the warhorses¡¯ legs were as tough as metal. All the warriors had sealed their armor while the remaining people were protected by magic. Fog diffused throughout the alleys, only one street was clear after being cleansed by the Wild Wind Spell.


    Magic beasts measuring more than one yard in length as well as white-robed warriors, were continuously pouncing out of the fog. These white-robed warriors looked unfeeling and unafraid to die. Both parties shed swiftly, there was zero strategy.


    While battling in a city the effect of a formation would not be too pronounced. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye could clearly observe the silhouettes of the people within the fog, it could also determine whether one was friend or foe, but it could not identify the person controlling the fog.


    Over two-hundred people entered Green Dragon Stone and the city gates were obstructed with fog once again. This fog was getting increasingly concentrated, it had already begun diffusing towards the exterior of the town. Very soon, the whole Green Dragon Stone had been enveloped by a pale white fog. The entrance could no longer be clearly seen.


    The imperial swordsmen had no choice but to pull back surrounding Saleen andpany. The crystal pieces before their eyes were also magic equipment, but in such a thick fog, their line of sight was only about ten yards. Even the range of a handheld crossbow was also about ten yards. If they charged in recklessly, there would be much peril.


    ¡°There is an expert here. Our route of retreat has been disconnected, the enemy should have used a maze-type holy spell.¡± Saleen analyzed the situation swiftly. Since there was no way out in the sky above, the only way to ovee the siege by the fog would be to kill the person who was controlling this divine spell.


    There was a dumb method too, which was to obliterate all the warriors inside the fog. The duration of this holy spell array would notst too long, it would automatically disperse in at most half a day. A divine spell was unlike magic, it was not sustained using magic nuclei, but by the amount of power a god had lent to humans. The borrowing duration was decided by the god. Humans could only request for a time limit before activating the spell.


    ¡°What should we do now?!¡± Themander of the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp was anxious. It was okay for him to die here, but if Saleen andpany got killed, then it would mean that he had failed the mission. That would put his family to shame and his son might not be able to enter the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp anymore. These small families who served the imperial family loyally ced a lot of emphasis on honor. Currently, he was not thinking about his own life, he was thinking of a method to get Saleen and the rest of the people out.

 Chapter 607: A fog in Green Dragon Stone (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 607: A fog in Green Dragon Stone (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The fog in Green Dragon Stone was getting increasinglyrger and increasingly concentrated. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was adversely affected, it could no longer differentiate between the things within the fog. It could only identify living targets or moving things. Be that as it may, Saleen andpany appeared extremelyposed.


    Especially Cuisi. In the demonic ne, there were many environments like this. Many demons had already grown ustomed to hunting without any visibility, some even developed abilities which were superior to vision. Many demons had a pair of long horns. Besides acting as a fearsome weapon, these horns also possessed sensitive perception abilities.


    Unlike humans, a demon¡¯s sensory organs were separated into two categories. One of which were horns and scales, these two types of organs did not contain any pain receptors and they could also regenerate. Even if the whole piece was gone, it could still grow out again.


    Cuisi had already advanced to a supreme demon. His horns possessed extremely sensitive perception, they could identify all targets within a hundred yards. If Cuisi controlled his horns intentionally, they could even release perception like what a mage usually did. That extended his sensory distance.


    As for Su, his ability to evaluate danger originated from an ability of a Silver Grand Swordmaster; prediction.


    In the instant before danger urred, Su would receive a soulish warning, and thus he could urately determine how to deal with it. This was the mightiest aspect of a Silver Grand Swordmaster. For a Golden Grand Swordmaster however, they could even possess predictive abilities like the ones brought about by astrology. For example, if a person tried to assassinate Safilos, Safilos could even determine when it would take ce. He would not know which direction the danger woulde from though.


    With regards to a swordmaster¡¯s judgment about danger, the uracy would be increased the closer it was to the timing of the urrence.


    As for Aini, he was a death mage, so he could use skills like the Eye of the Dead to observe all targets within the fog. The skeletons under his control were not affected. In fact, he was ready to release the green-bronze zombies anytime.


    Within the white fog, the white-robed warriors from the Holy See tiptoed over, trying to execute a sneak attack. Aini pretended to see nothing allowing a dozen white-robed warriors to creep past the spaces between the skeletons. When the warriors were fifty yards away Aini then released a bone hammer he had prepared beforehand smashing them to the ground one by one.


    The Holy See¡¯s warriors were smashed into pulp as blood gushed out furiously. They copsed to the ground, then seeped into the ground silently. Even though the Green Dragon Stone was small its ground was paved with tough green stones. To date, the magic adhesives added in the past had not lost effect yet, so not even one crevice could be found in the ground. This allowed huge chariots carrying military equipment to travel on it swiftly.


    Fresh blood seeped directly into the stone causing the white fog to be even more concentrated. The divine spell called life conversion had its sinister aspects. The flesh of Holy See¡¯s warriors was used to reinforce the array installed in Green Dragon Stone. The more people Saleen and his team ughtered, the mightier this array would get.


    ¡°Something is wrong!¡± Saleen¡¯s perception towards the elements was the most sensitive, his eyes could already observe all the minute changes taking ce. He realized that the water element in Green Dragon Stone was in imbnce. While the presence of the other five elements was vague, they were on the verge of disappearing already.


    The white-robed warriors emerged endlessly and some soldiers from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp were starting to get injured. The armor worn by the soldiers provided dense protection. The injured soldiers immediately retreated to the inner side of the formation as Narnia cast magic to treat them. This cycle continued. By the time more than three-hundred Holy See¡¯s warriors were killed, Saleen¡¯s team still had not suffered one fatality.


    The magic beasts transformed from the tiles hadpletely disappeared by now. Saleen estimated that around three-thousand men could conceal themselves in Green Dragon Stone. If this went on, the enemies lying in ambush would be wiped out in at most two hours. ¡°The enemy¡¯s holy masters hadn¡¯t taken action, while I have mages helping to hold the fort. Even though my vision is slightly restricted, the difference in powers is just too big. Such a sneak attack will be meaningless.¡±


    Outside Green Dragon Stone, an emblem group of cavalrymen were quickly approaching. They noticed that at the end of the road ahead Green Dragon Stone had disappeared and in its ce was a gigantic fog. This fog had a radius of several miles. The strangest thing was that the white fog had formed a three-dimensional shape of a castle. It was fluttering constantly in the frigid winds.


    ¡°Shieldmen, protect the mages. Heavy armor brigade, charge!¡± Themander of the emblem group gave his order without any hesitation. All the soldiers pulled down the mask hidden in their helmets, sealing venttion. Their armor was different from the ones used by the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp. A filtration device had been installed at the breathing vents. They could battle in poison fog for a longer time, but the armor was not totally sealed, they could not go underwater.


    The armor donned by the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp was too expensive, only themanders of the armies from the four towns possessed simr equipment.


    On the metal masks of these soldiers, the eye regions were still fitted with polished crystals, allowing them to observe dozens of yards ahead in the fog. The white fog slowly produced soldiers one by one and these soldiers charged at the Qin troops.


    Most of the Qin troops wielded spears, some also had custom made long knives suitable for horse battles. As the knives and spears shed at the bodies of soldiers produced from the white fog the feeling was like hacking a puppet made from leather. These elite Qin troops possessed sufficient strength, thus killing the white fog soldiers in one hit. The dispersed white fog swiftly converged though. A minute or twoter another soldier would appear.


    The lowest rank of a generalmanding Qin¡¯s emblem groups was also a viscount, there were no imbeciles. Whenever they noticed such a situation they would immediately strike their personal war drum and disseminate orders.


    The soldiers got into a formation made up of threeyers. The outermostyer of soldiers used their spears to destroy the white fog soldiers, the middleyer was in charge of providing warning and assistance, and the innermostyer removed a leather pouch from their saddle. The appearance of this pouch was strange, it had a metal seal and there were grooves on this seal. The soldiers would ce their razor sharp des in the grooves. With a tug the magic powder within the grooves would seep into the de of the weapon.


    After the innermost soldiers had done all this, they swapped ces with the ones at the outermostyer, using their powder-infused weapons to kill the white fog soldiers. The effect was pretty good. After the troops which were condensed from the white fog were struck by these weapons they could no longer be reassembled again.


    The elite armies of Qin would carry magic-countering powder. It was dirt cheap, but it would greatly erode a weapon. Only in situations like the current one would themander give an order for the soldiers to put this powder on their weapons. Basically, weapons which were dabbed in the magic-countering powder would be corroded into a heap of waste metal within two or three days. After several hours of usage the weapons would not be as sharp as before.


    A regr Qin army would carry five weapons, while an elite squad would usually carry seven. These weapons all had a spot reserved for smearing powder. In front of these well-trained Qin soldiers the fog people produced by the divine spell did not stand a chance.


    Themander of the emblem group altered the rhythm of drumming, then the two white-robed mages which were being protected removed arge leather pouch from the back of their warhorses. It was such a huge spatial equipment, but the real space inside was less than one cubic yard. This was a special equipment belonging to the Qin army specially crafted for low grade mages.


    The two white-robed mages took out four shiny ck objects from the leather pouches, these items resembled gigantic apples made from steel. The white-robed mages handed the steel apples to the warriors beside them. Eight warriors holding onto the steel apples carefully approached the center position of a squad, then they leaped off their warhorses. Hanging rubber bands on the squad¡¯s warhorses they then swiftlyunched the eight steel apples forward.


    Such simple catapults could only be utilized in alley fights, the flinging distance was only a few hundred yards. Theirrgest function was tossing magic bombs.


    As the eight steel apples were flying in mid-air the two white-robed mages quickly released their spells which had been prepared beforehand. The magic arrays in the eight steel apples got stimted, then they exploded with a thunderous boom.


    Special mmable powder was hidden inside tiny metal balls within the steel apples and there were holes all over these metal balls. Once the magic array got stimted and the magic powder began burning. These tiny metal balls would thus be mini fireballs and they could burn for an extended period of time.


    Almost one-thousand tiny metal balls were spurting mes as they spread throughout the white fog. Wherever they rolled past the white fog would be extirpated by the magic mes. The two white-robed mages were only at the standard of grade-3, yet they had used a low level magic equipment to open a colossal sanctuary for an entire emblem group of soldiers.


    As the white fog was corrosive, no one knew whether the soldiers¡¯ armor could endure being inside the white fog for a protracted duration. The soldiers charged forward into the cleansed area, then began inspecting their armor.


    There were ck Metal Grand Swordmasters and professional assassins hidden in this emblem group, but the enemy¡¯s holy masters did not emerge. The grand swordmasters and assassins could not unleash their might. The emblem groupmander realized that this mission was more troublesome than usual, so he decided to strike his war drum once again.


    The white-robed mages took out firework signals, handing them to the soldiers forunch. This time around, the equipment had malfunctioned. As the fireworks wereunched to an altitude of over thirty yards, they suddenly exploded. The signals could not be ryed to Northtown.


    The atmosphere was horrifyingly quiet. Everyone was sealed in their armor, even the mages were protected by the Invisible Shield. They could notmunicate via talking. The worst thing was that they had followed the pre-calctions and charged into Green Dragon Stone. Until now, be it the grand swordmasters or mages, no one had discovered any traces of the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp.


    The armor of both parties contained magic telepathy. If there were allies nearby the mages would surely know. In an environment where friendly fire was prone to happening, the soldiers from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp would definitely not conceal the telepathic ability of their armor.


    Safilos¡¯ n had been ruined by arge spell array by the Holy See. The elite soldiers from Northtown could not locate the warriors from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp. They could only kill the fog soldiers aimlessly, they could not even orientate themselves. Fortunately, that intense fire element had dispersed a portion of the fog, so these one-thousand soldiers would not need to fret about their breathing and equipment for the time being.


    The military might of Qin was the strongest precisely because the main forces possessed ample magic equipment to deal with all sorts of environments.


    The emblem groupmander pulled his mask aside, then yelled, ¡°All of you don¡¯t have to worry. Even though we are trapped, Northtown will send reinforcements if they do not receive any information from us within an hour. By then, grand mages wille and destroy this array.¡±


    Even if he did not say that the morale of the troops would not waver. This emblem groupmander possessed vast experience. That shout from him totally changed the moods of his soldiers. Tens of thousands of troops were stationed in Northtown, there were also dozens of grand mages and sorcerers. Northtown was less than one-hundred miles from Green Dragon Stone. The moment reinforcements were deployed, any kind of trouble could be resolved already.


    The emblem groupmander was in the foulest mood, ¡°Where is Viscountess Lex¡¯s envoy?¡±

 Chapter 608: Trap within a Trap (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 608: Trap within a Trap (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Under Su¡¯s protection, Narnia did not sustain any injuries. She would have been able to deal with her opponent easily even without Su. Mages would usually try to put an end to a battle quickly because they would not be able tost in a prolonged battle like a silver grand swordmaster.


    Facing an enemy of this grade, Su did not care too much about how much sword aura he was using. As long as he could direct his sword aura from the tip of his long sword through the enemy¡¯s armor, the white-robed warrior was as good as dead. Most of the white-robed warriors that were charging towards him had already sustained wounds caused by the soldiers of the royal swordsmen camp.


    Su felt a bit guilty to be dealing with opponents that were below the grade of swordmasters that were already injured. If he was still in his n, this type of opponents would have been dealt with by the bodyguards. His main target should have been the enemy¡¯s mage or general.


    Saleen¡¯s expression became colder. The proportion of elements were incorrect and the imbnce was too great. The water element was so dense that the temperature began to drop. The fog continued to absorb heat and so more and more dense clouds began to appear in the sky.


    ¡°Uncle Fellet!¡±


    ¡°Saleen. What happened?¡±


    ¡°Look, the enemy seems to be preparing an even more powerful attack, but I cannot find the array¡¯s weakness.¡±


    ¡°The enemy¡¯s target is not Narnia, it is the entire group of soldiers. We have been trapped. If the reinforcements have also been trapped here, Northtown will send even more reinforcements.¡±


    Realization suddenly dawned on Saleen. ¡°Yes, Narnia is extremely valuable to me, but not to the Tanggsi Empire or the Holy See. I was too blind!¡±


    The Holy See should not have gone to such great measures just for an envoy, even if Safilos¡¯ rumors might have yed a small part. Looking at Fycro, surely not everyone in the Holy See was stupid. Those that were would not have been able to continue surviving in the Holy See.


    Even so, this divine spell would likely seed in killing all the soldiers. At this point, Saleen decided to take out a dimension stone, retrieved gigantic metalponents, and began to piece them together into a metal barrack. This barrack was given to him by Lex, who used it to survive the sandstorm in the purgatory desert. Back then, the men from Holy Seecked such an equipment, so all of them perished.


    This barrack was built only for fifty people and Saleen had two-hundred and fifty men with him now. If everyone tried to squeeze in, it would be cramped like the storage room on a fishing boat.


    The materials of this barrack were not rare, but the cost of creating it was high. Saleen borrowed it from Lex to study and see if he could find any other suitable recements and use them in his own army. Just nice that it could be put to good use now.


    ¡°Cuisi, I want corpses that are fully intact.¡± Saleen could vaguely sense the critical points of danger. Although he would not be able to thoroughly destroy the array, at least he knew how to minimize the damage.


    The white-robed warriors attacked without any care for their own lives. Once they died, their souls were absorbed by the array within Green Dragon Stone. The men of the Holy See were preparing for their final attack.


    Cuisi took out his long whip. It had been newly refined and was eighteen yards long. They were no longer covered with sharp thorns. Instead, the end of the whip had a magic totem in the shape of a serpent. The long whip whipped through the clouds with a loud hiss, but the sound and exact location of where the whip wouldnd were not the same.


    Cuisi handled his weapon deftly. Every time the long whipshed out, a white-robed warrior¡¯s brain was smashed then pulled over to Saleen. Saleen used his dimension stone to keep these corpses. Cuisi was extremely fast and very soon, Saleen had taken more than one-hundred white-robed warrior corpses.


    The dimension stone could buffer against the effects of divine spells so the souls of these warriors were all kept safely.


    In the center of Green Dragon Stone, the red-robed Bishop suddenly felt the turning of the array begin to slow down. He scanned the area and discovered what Saleen was doing.


    ¡°A dimension stone!¡± The red-robed Bishop was agitated. This item was extremely precious to holy priests.


    Dimension stones were simr to chlorites as both could contain divinity. Before chlorites had been mined to the point of being fully exhausted, dimension stones were rarely found on the Myers Maind. Mages and holy priests had searched the entire maind, but did not manage to find any mines that contained dimension stones.


    ¡°This damned mage is actually using a dimension stone to do such a disgusting thing!¡± He could not do anything about it except tolerate it. The array had not been fullypleted so he could not leave his ce. If he asked the ck deacons to take the dimension stone, they would surely keep it for themselves.


    At this point, the red-robed Bishop began to worry. If the two ck deacons discovered the mage¡¯s dimension stone, would they try to take it for themselves? If that was the case, not only would he not get the dimension stone, the array could not bepleted either!


    The dimension stone was more expensive than the ice ind rock. Within the Holy See, the ice ind rock was awarded by the Pope to the most pious disciples and only six were given out every year.


    Saleen was not aware that his actions had been seen by the enemy. His original intention was to force the enemy into unleashing their attack prematurely. He released all his puppets to construct the metal barracks with the soldiers. After killing more than two-hundred men, the metal barrack had beenpleted. Saleen said, ¡°Let¡¯s all go in. Leave the warhorses behind.¡±


    ¡°No!¡± The soldiers of the royal swordsmen camp were so anxious that they forgot about Saleen¡¯s status as a mage and rejected him outright. These warhorses were theirpanions, how could they leave them behind?


    Saleen was not upset because he understood what the warhorses meant to them.


    ¡°This is a gigantic trap. Once it isplete, all the fog will turn into mes. I cannot protect so many warhorses.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was infused with a queer wind-element spell. The change in frequency could not be detected by humans, but it had an effect of convincing the listeners. The warriors were no longer so agitated, but they still could not bear to leave behind theirpanions.


    Saleen also felt that it was a waste. Now was not the time to be stingy. He gave Aini a nce. Aini had been observing Saleen¡¯s actions all this while. He tried to transform the enemy¡¯s corpses into undead soldiers, but that only hastened the dposition of the corpses. Now that Saleen had given him the green light for the warhorses, Aini did not hesitate.


    Death transformation!


    This was a grade-4 spell that was used only on creatures that were grade-3 and below. These warhorses had been trained well and possessed the bloodline of grade-2 beasts, otherwise they would not have been able to carry soldiers d in metal armor into battle for such a long time.


    Grim beams of light appeared and the warhorses were being transformed by Aini into spirits of the dead. Their flesh was being torn away from their bones and they cried out in pain. The warriors were furious, but there was nothing they could do against a grade-6 death mage. All of them were red with anger, but it was covered up by their faceguards.


    The red-robed Bishops realized what Saleen was doing and was momentarily taken aback. He did not think that Saleen would bring along such a huge metal house


    Although the mage was dressed in a queer fashion, he must at least be grade-5 or he could not possibly own such an expensive spatial equipment.


    The dimension stone was different from the devil ring in that the former could be used directly while thetter would need to be refined by a mage. If one was lucky, one might be able to pick up a dimension stone in the wild. An equipment that took up such arge space could nevernd itself in the hands of an ordinary mage.


    Saleen was killing the warhorses so that they could be transformed into spirits of the dead and be stored in the green spirit gemstone. His train of thought was clear and he knew what the final result of the array would be. It would be a terrifying trap. Without such a huge metal house, all the soldiers around him would be burned to death. Only those that he was able to protect would survive.


    As for those Qin elite soldiers that hade to attack, Saleen could not afford to care about them. He vaguely saw about one-thousand knights approaching before being trapped in an independent dimension. They were only a few hundred yards apart, but they could no longermunicate with each other.


    ¡°Narnia, I need your phoenix spell,¡± Saleen requested. His metal barrack has been constructed and both death warhorses and skeletal warhorses had been kept by Aini.


    Seeing Narnia¡¯s hesitation, Saleen said, ¡°Take these first.¡±


    Saleen gave Narnia a crystal white ring and a piece of dragonshard. The core of the dragonshard had already been used up so only a few shattered pieces were left. These two items could quickly restore mental strength and magic chords each.


    Upon seeing these two items, Narnia stopped hesitating and began to prepare her spell.


    ¡°Aini, escort your parents in.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need my help anymore?¡± Fellet asked with a smile. He was pleased with how Saleen wasmanding withposure.


    ¡°The real battle has yet toe. Let¡¯s survive this round first,¡± Saleen said and began to prepare his spells. Aini¡¯s bodyguards had all entered the barrack while the soldiers of the royal swordsmen camp insisted on leaving behind a small troop of fifty men to help Cuisi with the white-robed warriors that were still fighting on.


    Saleen took in a few deep breaths and said to Narnia, ¡°After I say ¡®begin¡¯, release the phoenix ten seconds after thest note ends.¡±


    Narnia could not open her mouth so she only nodded.


    The red-robed Bishop did not know what Saleen was up to. He noticed the two mages preparing their spells and ignored them at first. When the female mage released a gigantic phoenix that was paired with a restorative magic cast by the male mage dressed in a colorful robe, the phoenix began to rise. Wherever it passed, water elements that had solidified into fog began to burn.


    The red-robed Bishop was shocked. Making water elements burn was something that existed only in high-level divine spells and could only be cast by at least a grade-8 holy priest. This was also the key to the array. That mage was now burning offrge amounts of the fog prematurely which would greatly reduce the power of the array.


    If the two mages could not be stopped, then the only thing left was to start the attack earlier.


    The red-robed Bishop helplessly took out a book, gently flipped it open and began to chant the prayers.


    ¡°To the mighty God, my Father, please listen to my plea¡­¡±


    The red-robed Bishop¡¯s prayers had only just begun and the temperature of the fog in Green Dragon Stone was already increasing rapidly. Outside of Green Dragon Stone, the six enormous mountains were also revealing a red light.

 Chapter 609: Trap within a Trap (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 609: Trap within a Trap (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen could not afford to care about maintaining the transformation of the elements around the phoenix. He pushed Narnia into the metal barrack and he entered quickly after her before Su enteredst. Sutched the door and Saleen immediately cast a spell topletely seal up the metal door.


    ¡°Narnia, use some earth-element spells!¡±


    Saleen knew that his water-element spells would not be effective. Narnia nodded and produced yellow-colored crystallizations of the earth element to change the door into a wall without any gaps.


    When this metal barrack was constructed, it was rectangr in shape and could only fit fifty people. Now that it was being used as a temporary hideout for two-hundred people, it was a tight squeeze. Narnia took out a small case. There were two wind-element magic arrays on top of it along with a low-level magic nucleus.


    Even though it was powered by a low-level magic nucleus, this case was something used by Qinbat vessels to supply air. In the beginning when Qin was still studying and building submarines, they were built with plenty of this magic equipment. Without them, the crews would have perished without a sufficient air supply.


    Saleen had only just entered the metal barrack when Green Dragon Stone became a sea of mes. This huge inferno burned rapidly and the sky was painted red. Even if the reinforcements from Northtown had not used any signalling res, Northtown should have realized by now that something had cropped up.


    Under the influence of divine spells, water elements would break down into even smallerponents and burn rapidly at terrifying temperatures. Saleen and Narnia hid in the metal barrack nervously and cast one spell after another through the thick metal walls.


    The spells cast by Saleen and Narnia were sticky traps which possessed an area effect. Once the spells had been cast, a thickyer of sticky substance formed around the metal barrack. This kind of substance was hard to burn off and was even more durable than solid ice.


    All the white fog around Green Dragon Stone floated towards the room in which Saleen and the rest were hiding. They acted as fuel for the fire and the attack persisted.


    The sticky trap could notst long but fortunately it was a low-level spell so Saleen and Narnia could cast it over and over again without exhausting too much mental strength or magic chords. To a grand mage, he would not even have to consider these two factors at all. Narnia had just cast a modified Phoenix spell so she was not able to help Saleen for too long.


    Fellet chuckled and took over Narnia¡¯s position. The sticky trap was a spell that he was not familiar with. Since this spell was only used to act as a buffer against the burning mes, he only needed to make sure he was in sync with Saleen.


    After half an hour, the temperature within the metal room inevitably rose. If this continued, the temperature in the room would reach boiling point or even beyond. The people in the room would all be cooked like vegetables that had been put into a steamer.


    This was when the men of the royal swordsmen camp finally revealed their horror. Their magic armor could certainlyst for half an hour under the attack of mes. In this case, they could feel the effects even though spells had been cast to protect them from the direct impact of the mes. They began to doubt if their armor would be able to protect them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it is just a high temperature,¡± Saleen tried to assure them even as he changed the spell that he was casting at the same time. In his hands appeared a sphere of green water mes. They burned cleanly and both Tornado and Snowkill appeared outside of the metal barrack.


    Snowkill was a spell with an abnormally low temperature that had a freezing effect. Saleen had no intentions of using this spell to extinguish the mes. The snowkes that were formed from the water elements floated in the air like razor and danced in the midst of the tornado. The wind elements buffered the burning of the mes, but not the lowering of temperature due to the freezing.


    The sticky substance that covered the metal barrack was now quickly transforming into ice and the entire barrack had turned into a gigantic ice block.


    Saleen¡¯s only objective now was to lower the temperature within the barrack. Green Dragon Stone did not burnpletely as there was still plenty of white fog everywhere. As long as no outsiders destroyed the formation of the divine spell, it could remain functional for an entire day.


    Even a sorcerer would not be able to withstand an entire day of high-temperature attack.


    When the red Bishop noticed the ice blocks appearing on the barrack that the mage had constructed, he immediately knew that things were not going ording to n. If this went on, more heavy-armored soldiers from north town would be sent over and he would fail to kill his original targets. His objective was to capture the envoy of Bitter Water Prefecture alive, hence he resorted to using a pressing method such as this instead of a more destructive skill.


    This kind of area attack would not be fatal to a grand mage. As long as the time factor was well-controlled and the grand mage was thoroughly exhausted, he could still be captured alive. No one imagined that there would be three instead of one grand mage. Due to a godly item that he had brought along that was effective in countering spirits of the dead, the death mage was not an important consideration. Amongst the Holy See equipment, there were few that could effectively counter spirits of the dead. Without it, the death mage would have been much harder to handle.


    The red Bishop realized that things might be getting out of hand. He flipped to the end of the book and began to chant a new prayer.


    ¡°To the mightiest God, there are lost souls on earth that are not able to return to the right path. They are not innocent. I seek the me of hell to purify these heresies. Nevertheless, this goes against my religion. Your forgiveness has also made me doubtful and lost¡­¡±


    This prayer was three pages long. In a battle between two people, the other party would never allow him toplete the entire prayer. In other words, this divine spell could never be used in the heat of a battle. It could only be used to control or force certain situations.


    One of the regiments of Northtown has been trapped within the white fog traps. They were still charging and attacking left and right and had killed arge number of fog men. All of a sudden, the speed at which the fog men were attacking and their numbers increased tremendously. Half of the white fog in Green Dragon Stone began to transform into all sorts of creatures and attacked the soldiers of Northtown.


    The creatures formed from the white fog were not shaped like humans and were of all sorts of shapes and sizes. Although all the Northtown soldiers were elite, the magic medicine that they brought along was limited and they did not have any grand mages in their group. Their spatial equipment was pathetically small so there was no way to carry more resources.


    ¡°We have been trapped! What do we do?!¡± shouted the officer that had beenmanding the soldiers on the exterior. The amount of white fog has diminished but the number of weird creatures increased. The fight was even. The soldiers relied on thest row of crossbow arrows to hold their defence. The moment their formation was broken through, it would be even harder to defend.


    The two white-robed mages went pale. They had thought that this was just a small mission where they would then receive three months¡¯ worth of magic nuclei in exchange. They never imagined that they would be involved in a trap that they could not handle.


    A grade-3 mage¡¯s senses should already be very sharp, yet they could not pinpoint any weaknesses in this array. Typically, every array had its weaknesses. Those within the array would not be able to counter against these weaknesses, but those outside would be able to do so much more easily.


    The two grade-3 mages could not even begin to understand this array, much less think of how to find its loophole.


    The regiment captain heard his subordinates¡¯ desperate pleas, but there was nothing he could do. Any magic or divine spell must have its limits. An army officer of his grade only received monthly training from experienced mages who would share with them what to expect on the battlefield.


    Therefore, the captain understood that this array was beyond what his army could endure. In other words, his army would copse first before the array could be put to a stop.


    ¡°Protect the mages. Use your heavy swords to draw straight lines on the ground. We will attempt to break through,¡± The captain¡¯s voice was calm, but there was zero confidence in his heart.


    The soldiers tried their best to protect the mage. Any creatures made up of the white fog that tried to get close would be attacked. The two mages did not join in the fight. Instead they prepared restorative water again and again to heal the soldiers.


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    There was a loud but short shout. A huge white snake that was more than ten yards long bit a soldier on the waist and dragged him into the white fog. This soldier was a middle-level swordsman, which was the weakest level in the entire regiment. After battling for half an hour, he was fatigued and in a moment of carelessness, he was taken by a creature formed from the white fog. The people around him could not react in time to save him.


    The soldier¡¯s armor was the weakest in the entire regiment, but the white snake still did not manage to bite through it. After being dragged into the white fog, his nose and mouth were stuck by sticky substances, causing him to be unable to breathe or make any sounds. He became quiet very quickly and soon fell into aa.


    The soldier¡¯s faceguard was lifted so his face torn apart very quickly and soon turned into a bloody mess.


    The red Bishop witnessed all this. His expression was sullen and he bowed his head as if in a prayer. He was not a zealot and never favored using such methods to spread God¡¯s faith. Unfortunately, the situation that he was in now did not afford him the luxury of thinking about other alternatives.


    More and more Northtown soldiers were dragged into the white fog. Many of the soldiers that arrivedter had all pushed up their faceguards, but the magic nuclei on their magic armor could not sustain for long. Within about ten minutes all the soldiers that had been dragged into the white fog began to find it hard to breathe. As the white fog was still able to dpose the weaker parts of the metal armor, the magic array on the armor began to be activated. By trying to seal up the armor, more magic nuclei were used up instead.


    Once the magic nuclei waspletely used up, the soldiers would die sooner orter.


    These dead soldiers suddenly stood up again one by one. They began to behave strangely. They started to swallow the white fog around them and every time they swallowed, their bodies would swell up. The more white fog they swallowed, the bigger their bodies became.


    These were not undead soldiers created from death magic. The weapons in their hands grew bigger as well. This unbelievable transformation stunned the soldiers that were still alive. They were soon surrounded by more than one-hundred giants that stood as tall as twenty yards. These giants were all once their fellowrades.


    These one-hundred giants joined in the attack. They reached out their gigantic hands and began to grab the surrounding soldiers.

 Chapter 610: Genesis (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 610: Genesis (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A real giant would be over one-hundred yards tall, but giants had long disappeared from the face of the ne. A twenty yard tall fellow already could not be stopped, at least not by them.


    The mages cast several Quicksand spells obstructing the several mutated soldiers. There were over a hundred soldiers who were that tall while the magic chords of a grade-3 mage could only release twelve level-3 spells. The two mages had been maintaining their battle rhythm, so they were still left with eighty percent of their magic chords, but it still was not sufficient to deal with so many gigantic enemies.


    Very soon, over a hundred soldiers had been captured, then they were tossed into the white fog a distance away. These soldiers began swallowing the white fog. Gradually, their bodies started expanding.


    ¡°My God, I do not wish to use such a cruel technique anymore. I hope the enemy will retreat and stop deploying more reinforcements.¡± The red bishop mumbled as he put away the book in his hand.


    ¡°Hypocrite!¡± A ck deacon suddenly appeared.


    ¡°What are you doing here?!¡± The red bishop was startled.


    ¡°Rx, the spell array has beenpleted, I havee over to see if any assistance is required. To think that you are more ruthless than us, using such a technique. The souls of those soldiers should be disintegrated.¡±


    ¡°Are you here to insult me? Turns out that the head inquisitors have already overridden the pope!¡± the red bishopshed out as he lost hisposure.


    ¡°I am not, you are the leader of this mission. I am just here to take a look. If you do not want my help, I will leave right away.¡±


    ¡°Help? Fine, then go break that metal house.¡± The red bishop pointed at the metal barrack standing amidst the sea of mes.


    ¡°Break it? Great Bishop, please look at the type of spell surrounding that house. If I am not mistaken, it is the snowkill. Given my abilities, I will be dead meat if I go over.¡±


    ¡°Scram if you cannot help.¡±


    ¡°Oh dear, you are the most devout believer, but you are starting to spout vulgarities.¡± The ck deaconughed as he soared into the sky and entered an even thicker fog.


    This time around the inquisition had recruited two ck deacons and a dozen soul reapers at the rank of a first ss high priest to cooperate with the red bishop and set a trap there. The inquisition did not really have the intention to respect this red bishop. This n was originally conceptualized by the inquisition. After the head inquisitors managed to persuade the pope the pope then ordered this red bishop who had been concealing himself in Qin for many years to execute the n.


    In the heart of the ck deacons the head inquisitors reigned supreme while the pope could only govern those who were inflexible. The red bishop was one such inflexible follower. He was obviously killing people, so why was he particr about the methods used?


    At the northern gates of Northtown another emblem group had been assembled. This time around this emblem group contained ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, grade-5 grand mages, grade-6 assassins, and a fewrge chariots which were clearly carrying intermediate size magic equipment.


    More chariots were gathered following behind this emblem group. They were catapults that were able to attack from several miles away.


    A grade-4 mage stood beside themander of this emblem group. This gray-robed mage held apass in his hands. Thispass had partitions in it and there were over five-hundred tiny red dots depicted on the part indicating the northern region.


    ¡°We have lost four-hundred and thirty-two men. If we still do not go over the whole army will be exterminated,¡± the grade-4 mage imed.


    Qin¡¯s elite troops were permanently affixed with a level-0 spell, so their life status could be determined within a distance of one-hundred miles. Normal soldiers or peasants did not receive such treatment. The moment these people were confirmed to be killed in action, pensions would be immediately disseminated. The family members of the soldier would be arranged to enter the army and thus receive the corresponding treatment.


    This was also one of the methods a general used to evaluate a battle. The one-thousand man team of elite troops had been depleted by half, while the second emblem group had to carryrge appliances. There was no way to render aid quickly. There were another over three-thousand auxiliary troops at the back who were transportingponents used for buildingrge chariots.


    An hour had already passed. The rescue team set off while there were two-hundred soldiers left at Green Dragon Stone. These two-hundred soldiers were above the standard of a swordmaster, there were some mages too. That was why the rescue mission had to proceed. In fact, even if these people were dead, Qin would still recover their bodies.


    The emblem groupmander just could not understand why the general was not willing to send more people. The general should have deployed sorcerers for the rescue. It seemed sufficient to bring along huge quantities of equipment to Green Dragon Stone even though it did not really conform to the rules.


    Saleen and over two-hundred soldiers sought refuge in the metal barrack. The snowkill would continuously lower the temperature of the barrack, so the soldiers inside would not feel any difort. The volume of air was still adequate, as the magic instation kept providing fresh air. As long as there was a magic nucleus in this instation it could continue working until the shelf life of the equipment was up.


    Since there were so many grand mages within the metal barrack, they could absorb the polluted air into their spatial equipment. Saleen even utilized the Dimension Stone. These people would have died long ago in this tiny space otherwise.


    ¡°Sir, we shouldn¡¯t havee in. If you allowed me to go over, I would have identified the person controlling the array.¡± Su pressed his hand against his longsword, seemingly indignant. He was a Silver Grand Swordmaster, it was definitely possible for him to kill the person controlling the spell array. At the moment, the spell array had beenpleted, so it was much more challenging to do so now.


    ¡°Aye, this trap is much moreplicated than you think.¡± Saleen did not exin much. The enemy had used some kind of skill to screen a mage¡¯s perception of danger. It was only at this moment that he realized some obscure details.


    The imperial swordsman¡¯s camp had almost fully recovered under the effect of magic. At this point in time they were speechless. Without them Saleen andpany might not have run into this fix.


    Given the situation back then, Saleen would have opted to make a detour if he had discovered anything amiss with Green Dragon Stone. Everyone entered Green Dragon Stone because of the swordsmen¡¯s insistence.


    ¡°The offensive hasn¡¯t begun, we are just trapped in here,¡± Saleen continued.


    ¡°Indeed, this incident is fraught with anomalies,¡± Fellett said. Fellett was a sorcerer. Even though he did not don a ck magic robe, his few spells had already exposed the fact that he was of a higher grade than Saleen. Fellett did not bother concealing his identity, he intentionally allowed the experienced imperial swordsmen to learn about it.


    Fellett did that so as to win their hearts. ¡°There is a sorcerer and a powerful death mage present. If a few talents from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp can be recruited, they can help my family and Saleen groom better soldiers. If Lex gifts a few of these professional soldiers they will definitely execute their task with determination.¡± Fellett hoped that Aini and Saleen could subdue them convincingly and not rely on Lex.


    The effect of a normal soldier on the battlefield might be small, but if that colossal spell array was not present. These over two-hundred soldiers could have possibly be the decisive factor. ¡°I only need one person to hold the fort against the holy masters while the soldiers attack crazily. The enemy¡¯s wings will be clipped that way. During the battle between the experts, those swordmasters will be the most vital tool.¡±


    ¡°Since we are trapped Northtown will send reinforcements. This massive spell array can possibly devour more than ten-thousand soldiers. The Holy See is not targeting us, it wants to teach Holy Rock City a lesson.¡± Saleen spoke slowly, as his train of thoughts became clearer and clearer.


    ¡°Since we aren¡¯t the targets, let¡¯s charge out.¡± Su was not impatient, he was feeling aggrieved by hiding in this manner. He could not care less about the scalding mes. A Silver Grand Swordmaster¡¯s offensive power was enduring, the mes would not be able to burn Su¡¯s body. Only spells above level-7 could affect him.


    ¡°Su, the situation has be like that because the enemy is flexible. If we rush out now we might be their new targets. We will surely sustain casualties.¡± When Saleen said that, the faces of the imperial swordsman became increasingly pale.


    Originally, they were the targets, but the approaching reinforcements were now the targets. If they remained in hiding they would remain safe under the protection of the grand mages and sorcerers, but the soldiers from the Northtown would be doomed.


    Even if they held onto the notion of honor and tried to change the oue it would be futile. In order to leave this house the mages would have to take action. It was clear that the mages would not obey them.


    Qin armies had stringent regtions. For mages belonging to affiliated armies, an emblem groupmander could onlymand those below grade-3. From grade-4 onwards, the emblem groupmander could onlymunicate with them via discussions. The mages had the choice to reject the order. If the mage was a sorcerer even the highest ranking campmander could notmand them. Only the imperial family could exert influence over them.


    There were people in the army who specialized in coordinating rtions with sorcerers, these people were nobles with superior statuses and powerful backgrounds.


    In the entire metal house, only Cuisi was feeling overjoyed. The mes outside were burning vigorously, but to Cuisi, the danger from these mes was inferior to that of a certain enemy hiding in the raging fire.


    This enemy might be a grade-7 holy master or a holy knight. At the moment, Cuisi could also detect the danger area, but he could not locate that target. Even if he found the enemy he would not want to take any action. The people who would die were Safilos¡¯ subordinates anyway.


    ¡°Let¡¯s wait, the manpower from Northtown is sufficient to destroy all the enemies in Green Dragon Stone,¡± Saleen said.


    At this point in time the people from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp realized that the person giving orders was the mage wearing strange-looking armor. It was neither the sorcerer nor that death mage. Even County Queen Lex¡¯s envoy obeyed him.


    Whenever the temperature outside the metal barrack reached a dangerous level, Saleen would cast the Water me Alchemy to produce the Snowkill spell so that the temperature would be lowered. As for that emblem group which came to provide assistance, there was only about one-hundred men left. The two grade-3 mages were enraged, they could no longer protect the soldiers and engage in difficult battles. By now their magic chords were down to about twenty percent, no spells higher than level-3 could be cast. The mages could only rely on level-0 spells to exert slight pressure on the enemy.


    It was an entire emblem group of soldiers! Only about one-hundred people remained, ny percent of manpower had been lost.


    The surviving over one-hundred soldiers were still trying to escape. On the ground, a one-hundred yard line had been drawn. The interior of this line was smeared with magic powder to ensure no disturbances by any illusion and it was ramrod straight. They had to at least draw a line measuring one-thousand yards in order to be totally rid of danger.


    There was no time left¡­


    More than eight-hundred giants had encircled the surviving soldiers. These colleagues of the past had now be deadly killers.

 Chapter 611: Genesis (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 611: Genesis (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The greenery proximal to Green Dragon Stone had been totally eroded by the white fog, forming a region of vacuum with a width of almost one mile. The white fog had stopped expanding, but its concentration was one-hundred times higher than before.


    A gigantic eagle formed by the white fog appeared in the sky. It was circling above, observing the targets on the ground.


    In Northtown, dozens of miles away, the army had set off. This time around the auxiliary soldiers were included, the army consisted of almost five-thousand people. Back in Green Dragon Stone the remaining soldiers who were trapped were protecting the mages and the emblem groupmander. They were still wildly hoping that the important figures of the enemy would emerge, so that the mages andmander could still kill a few of these important figures.


    The emblem groupmander gazed at the circling gigantic eagle above as though he had thought of something. In the past, when he first learned knowledge from a mage, he had asked a very na?ve question during the lesson; what was the strongest holy spell, and how could one ovee it?


    That sorcerer never mocked him, the sorcerer shared tons of knowledge with themander and hisrades. There was one particr thing which he had almost forgotten already. The sorcerer said that such a divine spell required the involvement of a god in order to bepleted.


    The current situation before him was very simr to the divine spell described by the sorcerer. Its power was not that great though. The process and form of this divine spell was unusually simr to the one depicted by that sorcerer.


    It was a type of ultimate divine spell that was simr to the forbidden spells of magic; Genesis.


    In the god¡¯s code ofws the god had created this world and all life originated from god. Qin people did not believe this, but such a divine spell still existed.


    Within the range of this divine spell all killed beings would be continuously resurrected and would evolve until the world created by this divine spell crumbled.


    ¡°If this spell is really Genesis, then a camp of soldiers would also be useless right? Before the divine spell disappeared all efforts would be useless no matter how many targets were killed. This world was cyclical and developing. The more external power added, the stronger the creatures created by Genesis. At the very start, the fog people were very frail, a normal soldier could kill them in one hit. If the sword was smeared with powder, then it would be even simpler to kill the fog people. Various monsters began appearing as time progressed. About three to five soldiers are needed to kill each of them. At the moment, a gigantic eagle has appeared in the sky and most of myrades have turned into giants. If this spell is truly Genesis, then these giants could be a few hundred yards tall by now. The current divine spell should be a truncated version of the Genesis. That sorcerer have said that one will not be affected as long as they do not get close to such a divine spell. Once trapped inside, even the sorcerer himself would not be able to escape anymore.¡±


    ¡°My brothers, we will never be able to escape.¡± The emblem groupmander said calmly, ¡°This is a divine spell akin to a forbidden spell. By remaining here we will only attract more people who will try to rescue us. We should have died long ago. They didn¡¯t kill us because we are being used as baits. My brothers, for ourrades in Northtown, we¡­we should die¡­¡± After the emblem groupmander finished his sentence, he wielded a cuss and aimed it at his own heart.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    The two mages looked even more shocked. They had guessed the enemy¡¯s technique, but they were not willing to die. They had kept quiet. Since the emblem groupmander had spoken, they could no longer be reluctant to die. No markings of life were ced on a mage¡¯s body, these markings only existed on a soldier¡¯s body.


    Once the soldiers died, no one would try to enter this ce to rescue them anymore.


    The remaining over one-hundred soldiers did not react very vigorously. Simultaneously, they stopped resisting, then they pointed their weapons at themselves. All the creatures who were produced by the fog stopped their assault.


    ¡°Ah!¡± The emblem groupmander used the cuss to stab his own heart without hesitation. He knew that no one could save him, but he could salvage many other Qin soldiers. An icy sword pierced into a fiery heart. As the sword was lined with poison, the emblem groupmander died within seconds.


    The other soldiers acted at the same time piercing their weapons into themselves. The two mages looked extremely grieved. Without these soldiers the Northtown army would discover that the army had been wiped out. Consequently, the reinforcements would only try to destroy the spell array from the periphery, they would not send people in to conduct rescue.


    The two white-robed mages nced at each other sighing helplessly. They also began preparing spells, but they did notmit suicide. Genesis had its ws too. Being inside it, the mages did not want the enemy to use their bodies.


    The bodies of the two mages began emitting mes, burning from the inside out. The temperature of these mes had exceeded that of the fire still burning in Green Dragon Stone. In an instant, the two mages had been incinerated into ashes. All creatures near the two mages were also destroyed and burned into nothingness.


    ¡°Hmm?¡± The red bishop realized that this team of soldiers hadmitted suicide and he felt dazed at this event. He never thought that Qin people were so ardent, they were willing to give up their lives rather than bing his baits. ¡°Could these people have been tempted by the evil god? Why did they choose death without any hesitation?¡±


    The red bishop was stunned momentarily as a chain explosion took ce at the spot where the two mages immted themselves. Air gushed into the region of vacuum, then began burning once again. Hundreds of creatures were incinerated. These creatures had been formed into very real beings, they even howled in agony while being burned by the mes. At the same time the giants, which had been transformed from the Qin soldiers, were also destroyed.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± A moment of distraction had caused the red bishop to lose hundreds of giants. He had nned to use the giants to attack the metal house. It could not be opened using mes. The mages inside kept using slimy fluids and snow to lower the temperature of the house. It was possible that the mages¡¯ magic chords would not even be half depleted by the time Genesis ended.


    The red bishop stood under a colossal statue, it seemed as though that statue and he had be one entity. That moment of distraction caused him to expose himself.


    ¡°I have discovered their leader!¡± Cuisi was exhrated, the person was actually a high grade professional.


    ¡°Don¡¯t make any noise, Uncle Fellett, please sustain the spell.¡± Speaking, Saleen sat down and closed his eyes. In that concentrated white fog, a fist-sized spider prostrated on the ground. It was the witcher spider which had been modified by Saleen.


    The core of the spider was now a fragment of the dragonshard. Its appearance was very normal, all the magic patterns had been concealed and magic words filled itsplicated pupils.


    Joey¡¯s technique had caused massive changes to the concealment ability and control method of the witcher spider. The illusory magic array was still around, but it was not an offensive instation. At the moment the witcher spider had received Saleen¡¯s order, it was using its eyes to scan the fog on behalf of Saleen.


    White fog began converging the surface of the spider¡¯s body. The witcher spider, which had been engulfed by white fog, looked like any other creatures in Genesis. The naked eye would not be able to identify the differences.


    The witcher spider crawled forward cautiously, the other creatures in the white fog did not attack it. The spider¡¯s eyes had been obstructed by the fog, Saleen was only relying on his perception to steer the witcher spider to the location where the leader had appeared just now.


    The statue which the red bishop sought shelter at had a base measuring over two yards in height. The witcher spider crawled up along the base. When it reached the edge, it stopped advancing, it simplyid there and waited in silence.


    Saleen was extremely patient. The statue¡¯s base was not small and the witcher spider was at least five yards away from the target. Launching an offensive rashly would be unfruitful. Saleen only needed to wait like an assassin.


    As long as the enemy could not release a high level Magic Shield or divine spell instantly they would not be able to withstand those pincers which could tear through Sword Aura, no matter how powerful they were. A wee bit of poison was also added onto the witcher spider¡¯s pincers. Saleen had extracted this poison from the withered leaves of the Tree of Taboo.


    Saleen had learned this extraction method from Eleanor, any withered nt would contain some residual toxins. The higher the nt¡¯s grade, the scarier the toxins. When the Tree of Taboo died, the poison produced by it was stored in the leaves. Even a god would sustain severe injuries when infected by the poison. A high grade professional would surely be killed.


    What an elf would do was to activate such toxins, it was not some simple negative energy.


    No one would expect a tiny witcher spider to contain such a horrifying substance. Joey had told Saleen before; the more neglected the enemy, the more perilous they were.


    On the road from the Northtown towards Green Dragon Stone all the red dots in thepass representing soldiers had been extinguished. The grand mage told the emblem groupmander helplessly, ¡°Sir, the targets are all dead.¡±


    ¡°All dead?¡±


    ¡°Yes, over a hundred people died at the same time, they must havemitted suicide. They were bait and we were to be the next wave of targets for the enemy. Request reinforcements from Holy Rock City, we cannot deal with a trap which made an emblem groupmander kill himself.¡±


    This emblem groupmander contemted, ¡°Since the rescue targets are all dead, then the initial objective is no longer important. What¡¯s important is that there are such mighty enemies hiding at a location so close to Holy Rock City. This matter has to be reported to Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°Everyone, stop advancing. Mr Guderian, please send a letter to Holy Rock City.¡±


    This team with almost five-thousand people came to a stop slowly. The emblem groupmander wrote a letter, then handed it to a grade-5 mage. This grade-5 mage immediately built a teleportation portal and sent the letter back to Holy Rock City.


    A one-time use teleportation portal did not require any assembly or carvings, it could send small items back to Holy Rock City¡¯s teleportation portal directly.


    The mage then began drawing another one-time use teleportation portal on the spot, awaiting orders from the Holy Rock City.


    In less than three minutes, a sh of light appeared. A small metal box appeared out of the teleportation portal. The metal box contained a reply from Holy Rock City. The message was simple, ¡°Travel to Green Dragon Stone immediately and deploy magic equipment at the periphery to destroy everything in Green Dragon Stone. Do not enter rashly and don¡¯t try to rescue County Queen Lex¡¯s envoy, all this shall wait until the manpower from Holy Rock City arrives.¡±


    The red bishop felt anxious. The genuine Genesis couldst for up to a year, there were no enemies it could not kill. This one was a simplified version. At best, it could onlyst until daybreak. There were insufficient souls forbustion, while the low ranking warriors from the inquisition had been used to maintain the array of this divine spell.


    When the red bishop¡¯s attention was slightly deflected the witcher spider hiding at the edge of the statue¡¯s base moved. It quietly climbed up to the tform approaching the red bishop from behind.

 Chapter 612: Sacrifice (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 612: Sacrifice (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Four-thousand men and horses continued on their journey. There was a special presence in thepany, a grade-6 mage, who was under constant protection by two ck metal grand swordmasters. This mage wore a magic robe with three rows of symbols and a n badge. This was a mage from a noble family and he carried himself withposure and arrogance.


    Aside from the two ck metal grand swordmasters, there was also arge group of soldiers within the regiment designated to protect this mage. It was clear that this mage was of a very high status as he was being protected in the same way as a sorcerer.


    Bringing up the rear were many auxiliary soldiers who were in charge of looking after therge-scale and moderate-scale equipment that the army had brought along. These soldiers possessed decent fighting abilities and were much stronger than most mercenaries. Other than the noises made by the rumbling of the wheels, the entire army was silent throughout their journey. This was a very powerful army.


    If one could recognize the n badge on the mage¡¯s chest, one would realize that one of the six biggest Dukes of Holy Rock City¡¯s House of Commons belonged to this n.


    There were a total of twelve Dukes in Holy Rock City¡¯s House of Lords and House of Commons who governed the city¡¯s military and financial affairs. Every Duke¡¯s n had a very rich heritage. This grade-6 mage was young and was not even forty years old. It was clear that he was groomed by his n to be a mage. His n badge was the symbol of a white rose.


    The white rose n had a longer history than even the Qin Empire and had held a very important position in Holy Rock City since the country was built. Even if he was not a mage, the regiment leader would not dare to order him around. It was the mage¡¯s idea to travel with the army.


    It was a good thing that although Qin mages could be overbearing, they would not cause any dy to military matters. This mage from the white rose n would never try to influence the regiment leader¡¯s orders or try to take action on his own. If the regiment leader needed him to take any action, it could be discussed. If the mage felt confident with what the regiment leader was requesting, he would do his best.


    Arrogance was part of his nature, but that did not mean that he did not care about rtions. He decided to serve the army mainly to bring honor to his n.


    In the city patrol headquarters of Holy Rock City was a room with faint light that had been sealed up. A young man had been locked up inside this room. He was extremely anxious. ¡°It has already been a day, why is there no reply?¡± After escaping from Green Dragon Stone and personally delivering the news to Holy Rock City, he expected to be hosted at the military hall under the House of Commons minimally and not locked up in the city patrol headquarters.


    These were two different offices that governed very different things. This young man was a professional assassin. He had chanced upon the massacre that the Holy See was carrying out at Green Dragon Stone. He eventually managed to escape to bring this piece of news to Holy Rock City. He had thought that he would be rewarded handsomely, possibly even being given the title of a Baron.


    The moment he entered the city, he was captured by the patrolling soldiers. He did not even have the chance to meet anyone from the royal swordsmen camp.


    The door suddenly opened and light shone through. The young assassin tensed. A middle-aged man with a tall and strong build entered. This person grew a short moustache and seemed to be a person of power.


    For some reason unknown to the young assassin, he felt extremely fearful of this man that had just entered. He stood up and almost instinctively struck the man.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be nervous. I heard that you bring a very important piece of news and I am here to personally assess it.¡±


    ¡°You are?¡±


    ¡°I am from the Prince¡¯s mansion.¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, the news is very important, but I¡¯m afraid that it is toote. Green Dragon Stone was attacked by many men of the Holy See and it should be a bloody mess by now. All the inhabitants and some merchants that were unfortunate to be passing by were all killed.¡±


    ¡°How did you escape?¡±


    ¡°I am an assassin and I was outside of Green Dragon Stone.¡±


    ¡°Do you have anypanions?¡±


    ¡°No, I am not affiliated to any ns,¡± the young assassin answered honestly. He thought he was about to be recruited by this middle-aged man. Noble families often took in some assassins to help them settle matters that required underhanded methods.


    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± the middle-aged manughed. He flicked his finger lightly and a beam of golden sword aura pierced through the young assassin¡¯s head.


    The young assassin¡¯s corpse slowly crumbled to the floor. The middle-aged man left the room and said to the person in charge of city patrol who was waiting outside, ¡°Those that have seen this young man, secretly transfer them to the House of Commons¡¯ military intelligence department. I don¡¯t want to have to kill you so please forget whatever happened here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness.¡± His face was covered in sweat. He knew why Prince Safilos did what he did, hence he also understood that if he could not keep the secret, his whole family would be killed for sure. Those that would be transferred to military intelligence department would be killed off sooner orter while ¡®carrying out their missions¡¯.


    The Prince was kind enough not to add on any crimes to these soldiers¡¯ names so that after their death, their families would still be well-taken care of. Looks like he would not have to die, as long as he could keep his mouth shut.


    Even Prince Safilos came down personally to settle this messenger, so all he had to do was to pretend that this messenger never existed.


    This little mess in Holy Rock City had been settled and no one would bring it up again. The assassin would never know the reason behind his death. He did what he did for the Qin Empire. Safilos did not even ask him any significant questions before killing him directly. Meanwhile, the men from Holy See were setting up the gigantic array¡­


    The army of more than four-thousand men was closing in on Green Dragon Stone. Even though they were traveling with their baggage and supplies, they were less than one-hundred miles away and would reach in three hours. The road was t so the carriages would travel at a very high speed.


    The six gigantic rocks around Green Dragon Stone that were as tall as mountains had turned back into their original colors. It was as if they were looking down on Green Dragon Stone that was still engulfed in white fog. The areas that had been totally enveloped by white fog now looked like a small city of white fog. On top of the city walls were soldiers that were created from white fog. They looked unusually real and concrete, except for the wisps of fog emanating from the surface of their skin. The armor that they wore was still in metallic color.


    Genesis was a method that God used for creation. Other than the fact that these creatures would not have a soul, everything else would be more and more real.


    The over four-thousand soldiers entered the area, but steered clear of the small city of white fog. They began to set up their formation one mile away. The auxiliary soldiers began to construct all sorts of puppets and catapults while the heavy-armored knights led the frontline and the warhorses rested at the side. Once anyone from within the city tried to destroy the magic gadgets, the heavy-armored knights would charge forward and kill them off.


    Although it was already night, the auxiliary soldiers still worked close to perfection. Magic lights had been ced around them to provide them with some light. The auxiliary soldiers were familiar with everyponent of gadgets and their serial numbers and how they were supposed to be constructed. The five catapults werepleted the fastest, followed by the ten stone-armored puppets. These were the cheapest kinds of puppets as they were made entirely from rock materials. The mage would give them a boost at the very end so that they could fight for up to ten minutes.


    Once the eight-yard tall stone-armored puppets had beenpleted, the mage began to infuse magic into the materials so that they would not be destroyed by the enemy so easily. These rock materials were not very stable after all.


    After that, the soldiers would fit the puppets with even more gadgets. They were soon carrying metal hammers or projectile weapons such as spears, stones, and magic bombs. The captain did not wish to risk his soldiers¡¯ lives so he decided to attack with catapults first before sending the puppets in to wreak havoc.


    Once a safe area has been cleared, the soldiers would enter. Now, the mage would be able to n what magic he would want to use, but first he must clear up the fog.


    The red Bishop discovered the enemy outside of the Genesis¡¯ array. The attack had already begun. The magic catapults began to hurl magic rock bombs that had beenbined with some magic burning bombs. The fog began to burn. The red Bishop knew that it would be difficult toplete his mission now unless heunched an attack on his own to cut open the metal house. The enemy on the outside refused to enter while he was unable to destroy those that had been trapped inside.


    Just as the red Bishop was deep in thoughts, a witcher spider was approaching him from the statue behind and was baring its fangs. With a leap, it glided silently onto the red Bishop¡¯s back. He turned around violently. There was no time to cast a high-level protection rune. He stretched out one hand and pierced through the witcher spider¡¯s eyes.


    If this was a real witcher spider, the Bishop¡¯s finger would have burst the spider¡¯s brain, except that this was a puppet. The witcher spider¡¯s legs grew sharp hair that cut the red Bishop¡¯s finger. They were able to destroy magic and could even easily ovee a grade-4 magic shield.


    Saleen felt pain in his head. He immediately cut off his mental connection to the witcher spider that he was controlling. The spider fell onto the floor and its actions became a bit rigid.


    The red Bishop¡¯s finger became numb and began to bleed immediately. He was horrified to see that the blood that was oozing out of his finger was dark green in color. ¡°What kind of poison is this? I was blessed by the Gods!¡±


    The red Bishop acted decisively. He pinched his injured finger and pulled hard. The entire finger was torn off, but the stump where his finger originally was was still bleeding dark green blood.


    The red Bishop¡¯s heart turned cold. He drew a half-sword from his waist. It was a holy equipment. He cut off his entire arm with the half-sword. Due to the effect of holy equipment, there was little blood at the location where he made the cut, but the blood was still dark green in color. The red Bishop felt faint momentarily. If he cut even higher, he might as well cut off his head.


    He could still use divine spells to restore an arm but not his head. Reviving using divine spells required aplete body and not a headless one. He took out a small bottle, crushed it, and stuffed the pill into his mouth. Soon, the red Bishop copsed on the floor and he never opened his eyes again.


    It was forgivable for the red Bishop to die at the hands of a puppet that was modified by Joey. The poison that Saleen used was extremely limited. A few hundred dried leaves would only produce one drop of poison. Saleen was the only one who could create this poison because he was the only one who possessed a dried divine tree. He was also the only one with an elf as one of his followers.


    If it was anyone else, the red Bishop could not have been killed by such a sneak attack. No matter how powerful a poison was, it would not be able to kill a grade-7 holy priest so quickly if it did not contain elements of divinity.


    Grade-7 holy priests had received God¡¯s blessings and should have a very resilient life and immunity to most poison.

 Chapter 613: Sacrifice (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 613: Sacrifice (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The red Bishop was down while the witcher spider was almost paralyzed so Saleen was no longer able to control it. The red Bishop destroyed the witcher spider¡¯s magic array and almost managed to injure Saleen with his finger. The fact that even the magic array created by Joey could not withstand the red Bishop¡¯s attack showed how powerful his closebat skills were.


    Saleen knew that the enemy was dead.


    He opened both his eyes and said, ¡°No one is controlling the array now. Within one hour at most, we will be able to leave.¡±


    Below the big statue, a ck deacon appeared. He was shocked to see the red Bishop¡¯s dead body.


    ¡°The old fellow is dead!¡±


    The other ck deacon appeared too. He saw the situation and shook his head and said, ¡°Let¡¯s just go.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t. We have already been surrounded.¡±


    ¡°Humph, then we shall all die together. That was the head inquisitor¡¯s intention anyway. Ignore what the religion has taught us. We will surely go to heaven.¡± The two ck deacons discussed amongst themselves for a while before entering the white fog again to prepare for their final attack.


    Saleen and the rest did not dare toe out from the metal house immediately partly because the house had beenpletely sealed. It would take some time and effort to open it again. Once it had been opened, it would be impossible to seal it again. Only by changing a particr gadget could the barrack continue to be used.


    The stone-armored puppets charged into the fog. They climbed onto the city walls very quickly and killed all the soldiers there. Every time the soldiers fell, they stood up again, but stronger. Nevertheless, the damage on the city wall was irreparable. The fog outside of the city walls was bing thinner. At this moment, the six rocks outside of Green Dragon Stone that were as tall as mountains began to transform again.


    These six rocks were originally ck in color, but now they began to reveal a red light before turning into purple color. The great power that had been residing in these rocks could no longer be concealed. Within the Northtown army, the grade-6 mage from the white rose n turned around quickly and discovered that the huge rocks from far away were changing.


    Over four-thousand soldiers had surrounded Green Dragon Stone, but they in turn were surrounded by the six gigantic rocks instead. The grade-6 mage said to the two ck metal grand swordmasters, ¡°There is danger, I cannot hold it off!¡±


    ¡°What the¡­,¡± One of the ck metal grand swordmasters did not even manage toplete his sentence before the six rocks exploded.


    The sound of the explosion travelled more than one-hundred miles away. Even the magic clock in Holy Rock City slightly trembled due to the explosion.


    In the Prince¡¯s mansion, Safilos had returned and he sighed. Two regiments of soldiers had died just like that. Nevertheless, they did not die in vain. The enemy lost a red Bishop, two ck deacons, and a few of Oracle¡¯s subordinates had also perished in the explosion.


    This time around, the Holy Seeunched an attack at a ce that was very near to Holy Rock City and they even managed to kill an important member of the white rose n. By now, the noble families should finally realize that Qin had be a battlefield. Was anyone still going to continue holding back?


    If anyone still refused to lend their armies and go against him, then it was as good as going against the entire Qin empire.


    ¡°Although the number of casualties this time around was not as devastating as the time when elder brother died, this meant much more¡±. This time around, the Holy See deployed arge number of men to thend of Qin. This should not be tolerated. This insult to Qin¡¯s pride should be repaid with blood. Qin armies must march forth and trampled on Holy Seends.


    It was a pity that two-thousand elite soldiers and a few hundred thousand gold coins¡¯ worth of equipment had all been destroyed. The irony was that if there had been no casualties, the noble families of the empire would still think that Qin was safe and that the Holy See armies would never attempt to fight there. At the borders of Lun, the military was still mainly made up of the armies of Holy Rock City and not from the noble families.


    If not for the fact that such a huge army was gathered to fight against the Eastern Sea Allied Army, Tanggsi would have already charged past their borders and the north would already be at war.


    The white rose n possessed significant power in the south. Not only did they lose an important mage, they also lost more than five-hundred soldiers. Through this incident, the southern noble families would now be able to demonstrate their attitude and allegiances.


    Safilos fiddled with the ring in his hands. This was the only item that Emperor Chanake left for him. This ring was so valuable that he could easily exchange it for an army of one-million. He would not consider doing so until there was no other way out for the Qin empire.


    ¡°If elder brother was still alive, would the situation still be as difficult?¡± At this thought, Safilos¡¯s hatred towards Lex deepened. ¡°If elder brother did not listen to Lex and tried to invade Lun personally, he would not have died and the southern noble families would have continued to be steadfast and honest. Based on elder brother¡¯s abilities, living until three-hundred to five-hundred years old will not be a problem for him. If not for Lex, Qin would have had a powerful emperor with a long life who would be able to lead the entire country better than the other three big empires. If only Lex was the one who was sacrificed back then¡­¡±


    Back at Green Dragon Stone, one-third of the four-thousand strong army died in the explosion. Very soon after, the ground began to shake violently. It was as if an ancient giant creature was about to crawl up from underground and was causing the ground to tremble. Not only were there mes from the burning of the white fog, they were bursting through the cracks on the ground as well. As the fire burned countless wind elements went berserk and began to tear open the warriors¡¯ armor.


    Four huge rocks exploded and they all exploded in the same direction; the Green Dragon Stone.


    The area within a circumference of ten miles was like hell. The four-thousand strong army could notst past one hour before being burned to ashes. Thest person to die was the grade-6 mage from the white rose n. He eventually realized that it was hopeless to use any magic to try and escape from the mes.


    Almost all the elements were absorbed by the array of divine spell and his own magic chords could not be adjusted. The spells that he had stored up in his scrolls had all been used up long ago and when he used up all the spells in his magic staff, he finally gave up. He used a spell to send a metal box underground and wondered if anyone would ever manage to dig it out in the future.


    Within Green Dragon Stone, Saleen¡¯s metal house was thrown into the air by the earthquake. Luckily, Saleen was experienced enough to stick himself to the ground. When the metal house was hit by rock fragments from the explosion, the rocks quickly turned into dust, but they also caused a loud echo within the house.


    A few mages took turns to cast wind-element spells to minimize the damage to the ear drums.


    The royal swordsmen camp and Aini¡¯s bodyguards were thrown all over the ce. Their armor was of no use in this case. They were not prepared in the first ce so besides the few that were more powerful, the rest were all thrown into a mess.


    It was impossible for Saleen to cast any spells under such violent shaking and could only release scrolls at the most. Only Fellet was still able to cast low-level spells and he was doing so very calmly. The metal house was covered with dents and scrapes as it was struck by rocks, burned by fiery mes, and cut by wind elements.


    The sticky trap was a spell that was used for attacking while its defense abilities were onlyplementary. It was innovative to use an attacking spell for defense, but it was not a defense spell after all. Other than acting as a buffer against the mes, it could not defend against other attacks.


    Fortunately, the metal house was simply too resilient. It was covered with damages that were as deep as half a foot, but no pration.


    After an hour, Green Dragon Stone finally settled down. By now, the metal house was damaged beyond recognition. No one could stand steadily and even Saleen felt nauseous. The magic nuclei on the warriors¡¯ armor had all been used up, but they still continued to use it because the loud echo had to be buffered or they would have died.


    Saleen did not open up the barrack immediately. He waited until every warrior had changed to new grade-4 magic nuclei before cutting open the wall with Aini.


    Aini¡¯s role was to use death dposition to create a few holes then Saleen would use current cutter to open these holes further until they were big enough for them to pass through.


    The mes were still burning, but without the red Bishop Genesis had been stopped because no one else was able to keep this divine spell burning. A skeleton climbed out from the metal house. Remnants of godly power caused the skeleton to withdraw a little, but since the power was not directed at the skeleton, it managed to climb out safely.


    Another skeleton climbed out from the hole. In total, Aini released ten skeletons to form a circle on the outside. He then released another four green-bronze zombies to guard the entrance. After that Su climbed out, followed by Cuisi.


    The warriors of the royal swordsmen camp came out at the third wave. They were speechless at the sight of destruction.


    Everything had been turned to ashes in Green Dragon Stone. No one could identify the corpses because they had all been ground into small particles. Only the armor was still big enough to be identified, but they were only the size of a finger.


    All the blood had already evaporated so there was nothing left for anyone to try and investigate.


    This divine spell was so destructive that it would not matter how many men north town sent over. Six holy equipments were used to activate this divine spell. These six holy equipments were hidden within the six gigantic rocks that surrounded Green Dragon Stone. The six rocks crumbled along with the holy equipments. They crumbled with so much force and energy that they contributed to the finale of Genesis.


    The six holy equipments and the burning of six high-level disciples¡¯ souls prolonged the Genesis¡¯ finale. It was as if the end of days had arrived and the divine spellsted for close to an hour.


    If they fought head-on, the holy priests and Holy See warriors would not be a match for the two regiments. By using such a suicidal trap as a form of attack, the two regiments and close to six-thousand people were killed.


    A sorcerer once said that divine spells were not frightening, but the Gods could drive these people crazy. Magic would always triumph over divine spells, but a mage would often fare badly against a holy priest. The calmest holy priest would still have a side of lunacy.


    On the other hand, the craziest mage would always maintainposure.


    Saleen looked at what was once Green Dragon Stone and was silent for a long time before saying, ¡°Let¡¯s go. Holy Rock City will capture us and bring us back for investigations if we stay.¡±

 Chapter 614: Boarding the ship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 614: Boarding the ship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s words did not incur any bacsh. In their hearts, the people from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp were very clear that Northtown had sustained huge losses. The people from the prince¡¯s residence would surely be outraged. ¡°Since our men aren¡¯t hurt, it is normal to be taken back for investigation. Even though we will not be charged, the impact on our actions will be dire. Leaving with County Queen Lex¡¯s people and never returning again is another offense. That was His Majesty¡¯s intention anyway.¡±


    Saleen andpany did not think of how Safilos never expected Saleen to enter Green Dragon Stone, it was very obvious that Green Dragon Stone had been scourged by people from the Holy See. Logically, Saleen only had about two-hundred men, so they should have made a detour and not entered the ce. That was why Safilos¡¯ men still had not moved.


    Saleen asked Fellett to help him put away the damaged metal barrack, then urged everyone to continue on the journey. The magic arrays on this metal barrack had been ruined, if the array set by the Holy See was sustained for another half an hour Saleen and the few mages would have had to face that horrifying attack. All the metalponents could not be detached, the house had to be stored away as one piece.


    Aini released the death warhorses and skeletal warhorses. The whole team traveled full speed ahead along the northern road, they only came to a halt at daybreak. They had went past two small towns along the way, but they never stopped to take a break. After Saleen andpany had traveled for over three-hundred miles half a camp of elites then appeared at Green Dragon Stone.


    This time around, there was also a sorcerer from Holy Rock City who had entered the region of Green Dragon Stone. Standing beside the ck-robed mage was an older general, the both of them walked into Green Dragon Stone. Everything there was in smithereens, but the foundation of the city walls could be vaguely seen.


    ¡°Seems like all of them are dead?¡± That general wore a purplish gold armor, he had an imposing manner.


    The sorcerer used his eyes to do a brief sweep of the surroundings. He noticed therge cavity made by the metal barrack, then he bent down and picked up a piece of armor fragment. Smelling it, he said, ¡°The county queen¡¯s envoy is still alive, Her Highness Lex owns a metal room, I didn¡¯t think that she would allow her envoy to wield such arge equipment.¡±


    ¡°Metal room?¡±


    ¡°Mm, it smells of rhenium gold and Song gold. Usually, mages will be very meticulous when ites to using these two types of metals. Arge amount of it has to be used in a metal room. A metal room is a portable barrack, it can guarantee the safety of the general. Only the Qin imperial family can afford it. Even if other empires have precious metals in their possession, they also wouldn¡¯t have so many mages to slowly refine and fuse these metals.¡±


    ¡°I heard that the viscountess has over one-hundred mages serving her, is that true?¡±


    ¡°Her Highness¡­ has at least one-thousand mages as subordinates and some mages who are not under hermand. If the county is in crisis, these mages wille forth to render assistance. You don¡¯t have to report today¡¯s matter.¡±


    That general pondered, then said, ¡°I understand now, the county queen values the interaction with His Majesty this time around. The prince doesn¡¯t have the intention to kill the envoy, so we shouldn¡¯t be nosy.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s best if you understand all these affairs belong to the imperial family. If you poke your nose in it, you won¡¯t even know how you die,¡± the ck-robed mage told the general sternly. Seeing that the general was feeling a little awkward, the ck-robed mage continued, ¡°I have known you for over forty years, so I am worried for you. The county queen isn¡¯t to be trifled with. Think about the consequences if you offended over one-thousand mages.¡±


    That general trembled. He had more than ten-thousand elites at his disposal, but if he offended more than one-thousand mages, then it would no longer be a matter of life and death. Many mages would be willing to conduct magic experiments on him and that was the scariest thing.


    More armies from Northtown and Easttown were dispatched to Green Dragon Stone. Gradually, a camp of elite troops and fifty-thousand auxiliary troops had gathered at the perimeter of this town which had vanished. Over sixty-thousand men encircled the area of Green Dragon Stone. They searched inch by inch, looking for any evidence which could be preserved.


    Three teleportation portals were established, so that any information could be sent back to Holy Rock City anytime. A piece of news circted swiftly within the Qin Empire; ¡°The Holy See hadmitted murder at a location about one-hundred miles from Holy Rock City, killing many innocent Qin people. As many as seventeen-hundred people were killed. The perverse believers of Holy See killed more than five-thousand of the empire¡¯s troops and obliterated everything here in an attempt to destroy evidence.


    A wave of outrage spread across the Qin Empire. Originally, Qin people only bore hatred towards the Holy See people, but it was different now. The Tanggsi people had actually massacred civilians at a ce so close to Holy Rock City!


    It was the responsibility of the soldiers and nobles to fight and sacrifice their lives for the empire, but civilians had been ughtered. No noble had ever given an order to conduct such an unconscionable massacre.


    The nobles also experienced the same level of rage because there were many people amongst the dead were soldiers who had an inextricable rtionship with them. There were four towns surrounding Holy Rock City and the soldiers in these towns had pure family backgrounds. Most of them came from the vassal families of the nobles. Themanders had blood rtions with the nobles, but they had no chance of inheriting any titles.


    Another piece of news was also circting among the nobles. The nobles heard that the young emperor was outraged and wanted tounch an offensive against the Tanggsi Empire immediately. At the same time the twelve dukes in Holy Rock City also lent their support to the emperor, even the prince supported the emperor¡¯s idea.


    ¡°Because the Holy See people tried to kill County Queen Lex¡¯s envoy, does that mean the conflict between the county queen and the prince has disappeared?¡± Some of the southern nobles who leaned towards Lex began contemting. If they were asked to obey Safilos, they would definitely be reluctant, but the emperor was obviously going to value the county queen now. There would not be any estrangement.


    If the prince could not suppress the emperor, allowing County Queen Lex to enter Qin¡¯s pinnacle echelon of authority, then these nobles would not mind cooperating with Safilos.


    Of the southern nobles, at least one-third of them were willing to follow Lex. The county king had already maximized her capabilities in Bitter Water Prefecture. That barren ce was managed very well by Lex even though themercial aspect was average, the agriculture there was totally self-sufficient.


    County Queen Lex had a huge following of mages, she herself was already a grade-6 grand mage. She could surely ascend to a sorcerer. A sorcerer¡¯s life was pretty long, the nobles could protect their long-term interests by following Lex. This was one of the reasons why the southern nobles were willing to follow Lex.


    Some people even hoped that Lex could be the emperor. If Lex advanced to a grade-9 sorcerer, she could live for over one-thousand years. That way the figures of authority would not keep changing.


    Fortunately, Emperor Ojarvis would not enjoy such a long life, so these nobles had the patience to wait. As long as the two people did not sh the nobles could reach apromise with Holy Rock City.


    Back in Holy Rock City¡¯s pce, Emperor Ojarvis was furious, ¡°Sister¡¯s envoy couldn¡¯t be located and the over one-thousand re riders also cannot locate her. Only one of uncle¡¯s sorcerers said that the female mage didn¡¯t die, as Sister had given her a metal room. Not only did the female mage not die, the two-hundred soldiers which I sent to protect her could still be alive too. Holy Rock City¡¯s re riders cannot locate Saleen either, where did Saleen go to?¡±


    It turned out that on the second day, Saleen had asked Aini to lead the two-hundred men from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp himself, while Saleen changed into a mercenary¡¯s outfit and switched to a smallermercial route. Saleen led Narnia and Aini¡¯s parents east towards the sea where they went to meet up with the winged skeleton¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    By traveling on the sea, not only could they bypass Guderian City, they could also avoid any idents at Phoenix¡¯s borders. Their speed would be much faster too. When the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat traveled on the surface of the sea, its speed could exceed one-hundred miles an hour and there was no need to rest. It was way faster than riding a horse.


    From the central region of the empire to the sea, the distance was only around five-thousand miles. If they had gone to the borders the journey would be close to ten-thousand miles.


    It was necessary for Saleen to be cautious. From the information obtained by Narnia, Safilos had nned to make peace with Lex temporarily. The truce between Safilos and Lex did not equate to a good rtionship between Safilos and Saleen. ¡°I only have one city, and my Sregl Ind background cannot be publicized yet. Alchemy City cannot be provoked. In Safilos¡¯ eyes I am a person who can be sacrificed anytime. Since the people in Green Dragon Stone have been sacrificed, he will have no qualms doing that to me too.¡±


    Aini continued traveling north with the intent of surveilling the situation at the borders. Aini would stay for a week at the borders, so that he could position arge number of spirits to collect intelligence. At the same time he would purchase a batch of rations to bring back to Metatrin City. Saleen had estimated that his own city would face war in at most two years¡¯ time.


    Stocking up on rations would forever be the most important matter. No matter a grand swordmaster or sorcerer, one would have to eat. Without rations one would not be able to defend their city no matter how many mages or soldiers they had.


    Saleen andpany rushed to the seaside. Other than Cuisi, no one was not exhausted. Using magic to recover one¡¯s body was not the same as natural rest. Seeing that everyone was greatly fatigued, Saleen stopped.


    The coast of the central region of Qin had many mountains and inferior ports, but the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was not very huge either. Saleen found a secluded spot, then established a Sound Transmission Magic Array. He followed the pre-determined coordinates to try and contact the winged skeleton, he managed to do so on the third attempt.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had secretly berthed at a location one-hundred miles away, where there was only a tiny fishing vige. It was winter, so the fishermen did not go out to sea while the schools of fishes were absent. The coast was abnormally quiet.


    Saleen led the group of people who could barely move their feet to the seaside and a ship about thirty yards long was berthed on the sea. Saleen noticed that the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had gottenrger, ¡°The exterior shell should have been thickened with an extrayer of tough crystalline substance.¡±


    If Aini was present, he would have recognized that this one yard thick crystal was the giant spirit armor from the death ne. A giant spirit armor was not some exotic item, it only had above average attributes. In the face of attacks, a giant spirit armor would shatter itself, releasing energy which would negate the attacks. This one yard thick crystal was actually separated into a dozenyers. Each time it got attacked, only oneyer would be destroyed.


    This armor was naturally produced on the bodies ofrge spirits. When ced on a ship, it actually became the best armor. In a naval battle most attacks were extremely brief, ayer of the giant spirit armor would be able to negate them. A giant spirit armor with a dozenyers could at least withstand dozen of attacks at the same spot before being prated.

 Chapter 615: Boarding the ship (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 615: Boarding the ship (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The thirty yard long ship could not dock beside the shore. Saleen took out a leather raft. After inting it he let Aini¡¯s parents apany Narnia up the ship while he, Su, and the fifty trusted soldiers were the second wave to board the ship. Cuisi wasst to go up.


    With a distance of about fifty yards, Saleen flew onto the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Su leaped over, he did not even use his flying skill.


    Saleen got startled, ¡°A Silver Grand Swordmaster can actually leap over such a great distance, I must be careful the next time I meet one. A range of fifty yards is within his attack area. I thought that ten yards was the best attack range for a grand swordmaster. Now, it seems like different grand swordmasters possess different abilities to control distance.¡±


    After entering the interior of the hull via the teleportation portal on the turtle¡¯s back, Saleen noticed that the alchemy ship¡¯s interior had been totally altered by the winged skeleton. ¡°This fellow has done many things, he has totally destroyed the initial setup made by the three kings.¡± Saleen almost could not recognize that this was his ship.


    Saleen had not seen the full appearance of the alchemy ship, the one who had changed the most was the winged skeleton.


    The winged skeleton led one-hundred subordinates and met Saleen at a hall in the middle of the cabin. He was fully d in armor, measuring two and a half yards in height, with a crystal mask on his face. Saleen observed that behind the crystal mask the winged skeleton¡¯s skeleton had be pale green in color and as smooth as crystal. The Soul me in his orbitals had be ck, flickering slowly.


    ¡°Master!¡±


    Saleen could sense the jubnce in the depths of the winged skeleton¡¯s soul, ¡°The winged skeleton is progressing very quickly, if it wasn¡¯t for me, he might have advanced to a grade-8 spirit long ago.¡± At least for now the soul of the winged skeleton was not any weaker than the three kings, he did not continue evolving because he was restrained by Saleen¡¯s soul contract.


    If Saleen advanced to a grade-7 sorcerer, the winged skeleton would immediately progress to grade-8. When Saleen advanced to grade-8, the winged skeleton would rise to grade-9 at once. His powers would be sufficient to suppress the three kings by then.


    One-hundred jade skeletons stood behind the winged skeleton, they were dressed the same way as him. All of them were d in armor crafted from special materials with a crystal mask on their faces. This outfit was obviously for countering divine spells.


    ¡°Soldier, I am very d.¡± Saleen pulled the winged skeleton up, sizing him up. Currently, this spirit had progressed into a new state. He had clearly healed from his psychological trauma and there were no more leakages. The Soul me in his eyes would not have be ck in color otherwise.


    ¡°Even the three kings¡¯ Soul mes are red. The winged skeleton has undergone a thorough evolution, he can totally advance with me. If I ever surpass the limits of grade-9, the winged skeleton can also follow me and attain a higher standard.¡±


    ¡°Master, can the people onboard be trusted?¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice rang in Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention anything about this ship and your situation,¡± Saleen responded in his mind.


    ¡°Master.¡± The winged skeleton said, ¡°After you left, I constructed six skeletal warships, they are the size of a main battleship; one-hundred and eighty yards long. They can rival the main battleships of Alchemy City.¡±


    Saleen smiled, then said, ¡°It¡¯s been tough for you. You don¡¯t need to eat, but is there still a kitchen on this ship?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is specially prepared for mages, I will send someone to cook some food now.¡±


    ¡°Sir, we aren¡¯t hungry, we just want to sleep.¡± Aini¡¯s trusted soldiers were extremely exhausted. The rushing of the journey had caused their thighs to be frazzled many times over, they only managed to endure because of Saleen¡¯s magic treatment.


    ¡°Okay, go and rest. Uncle Fellett, Aunt Lanny, what about you guys?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, we also have to rest, send the food to the room please.¡± Fellett did not know that the winged skeleton couldmunicate with Saleen spiritually. Afraid that they might have some secret conversation, Fellett took the initiative to leave.


    Narnia smiled, then she followed a jade skeleton to look for her own room. Everyone left until only Cuisi and Su remained. The winged skeleton then asked, ¡°Master, where are they from?¡±


    ¡°This is Su, my follower, and this is Cuisi, a demon summoned by Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°Master, they are very powerful, I can rest assured now. If I am not on this ship, I cannot even defeat them.¡±


    The winged skeleton¡¯s words caused Cuisi to roll his eyes, while Su pretended to hear nothing. The winged skeleton was obviously Saleen¡¯s contract creature, Su would not be jealous over such things.


    In Fellett¡¯s room, the couple were in the midst of a conversation.


    ¡°Lanny, Saleen¡¯s capabilities might be stronger than we think.¡±


    ¡°Are you worried for Aini?¡±


    ¡°No, you have seen Aini¡¯s letter, he is different from the youngsters from the other families. He has deep ties with Saleen, he can stand independently in Metatrin City. I am thinking of helping Aini increase his powers.¡±


    ¡°Shall we look for Teacher?¡±


    ¡°Yes, have you recognized Saleen¡¯s ship?¡±


    ¡°I guess it is a pan¡¯s turtle.¡±


    ¡°Mm, no wonder he ns to devour the northern route. With such a ship and that skeleton who can manufacture skeletal battleships, he can indeed dominate the northern waters. Aini is a mage, he has to spend time training, but he has too few subordinates. Let¡¯s go ask Teacher to give more manpower to Aini, so that Saleen can give him a better status. Saleen¡¯s future is unlimited. We cannot just rely on friendship, otherwise Aini will feel a sense of loss.¡±


    ¡°You are right, so our¡­¡±


    ¡°Our things can only be given to Aini two yearster or when he advances to a sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Mm. Fellett, tell me, do you think Saleen will be in danger?¡±


    ¡°Safilos hasn¡¯t noticed him yet. With us around,and Metatrin city being over ten-thousand miles away there won¡¯t be any idents. Worsees to worst, Saleen and Aini can flee to this ship. Onboard this ship, who do you think can harm us?¡±


    Fellett¡¯s judgment was very urate. The offensive power of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat might be insufficient, but if the ship was used for escaping no one would be able to think of any effective countermeasures. Even a person like Fycro would not be able to dive thousands of yards deep into the water to carry out repeated searches. As long as Saleen boarded this ship almost no one would be able to capture him.


    ¡°Soldier, why did your appearance change?¡± Saleen noticed that the winged skeleton¡¯s looks had changed a lot. Since there was no one else around, the two of them would not need tomunicate via spiritual means anymore.


    ¡°Master, Nailisi got me a soul crystal that was a few hundred thousand years old from the sea. I absorbed the fluid inside the core and I underwent evolution. All my past wounds have been repaired, no, my body has beenpletely restructured. This armor is a fossil, it is originally a type of wood from a foreign ne.¡±


    ¡°An armor specially made for skeletons?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I currently have two-hundred jade skeletons as subordinates. They are pretty smart. About twenty of them are needed to control onerge warship.¡±


    Ka da¡­ ga¡­


    The one-hundred jade skeletons standing behind the winged skeleton emitted strange noises, they were responding to his words.


    ¡°Can¡¯t they talk?¡±


    ¡°They can, but Master needs to gift them the ability ofnguage. In the future, you will be able tomand them directly.¡±


    Saleen took a nce, these one-hundred jade skeletons were two yards in height with an alienated frame. The Soul mes in their orbitals were purple in color. Saleen secretlyughed, ¡°Nailisi is on the losing end this time around. She might have gotten the coordinates to the death ne, but she has to be the winged skeleton¡¯s ve for a pretty long time. The winged skeleton has an additional two-hundred mutated jade skeletons, just imagine the amount of soul crystals they have to consume! The whole pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat has been transformed, in the sea, Nailisi must have searched countless ancient sunken ships. Six one-hundred and eighty yard long skeletal battleships could have been assembled using the remains of therge marine creatures in the sea. Daniel actually abandoned such an intelligent skeleton to sign a contract with the Pikoosi, so stupid of him.¡±


    ¡°Soldier, in the future, you shall help me to manage the fleet. I n to have three fleets, you will be in charge of the spirit fleet and the northern fleet while I will look for people to manage the southern fleet.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± The winged skeleton was overjoyed. Saleen said that the winged skeleton would manage the northern fleet and spirit fleet, that also meant that the winged skeleton would manage the route along the Frozen Sea in the future.


    The southern fleet might berger as it would be used to conquer Cloudflow in the future, but to the winged skeleto, the Frozen Sea was more important. With the rich resources there his skeletal warships would receive nourishment continuously, he would not need to worry about ack of precious materials. The offensive powers of the bone fish and bloodstone could never satisfy the winged skeleton¡¯s demands. He had already advanced to the next grade sessfully, he could very well create a mightier offensive weapon.


    ording to what humans said, such weapons were not valued for money. The winged skeleton was certain that as long as the route was protected any amount of contribution would be worthwhile.


    ¡°Go and do your work.¡± The winged skeleton waved his hand and the one-hundred jade skeletons bowed at Saleen before leaving.


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s go to themand center,¡± the winged skeleton said.


    ¡°Okay, you all shalle too.¡± Saleen looked at this hall, it was indeed not a conducive ce for conversation. ¡°This ce should still be in the process of rebuilding, the winged skeleton¡¯smand center is the real core of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.¡±


    Themand center was located at the front of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and outside themand center was the spirit pool at the ship¡¯s bow. Themand center was a room measuring ten yards in length and five yards in width. Its four walls were iid with crystals, Saleen felt the pinch looking at them.


    ¡°Master, these are spirit crystals, they are worthless.¡± The winged skeleton knew what Saleen was thinking about, so he quickly consoled him.


    Saleen then felt relieved. Su and Cuisi were greatly astounded by the extravagance of themand center. Some kind of death spell had clearly been used on the spirit crystals on the walls. The images in the crystals depicted the environment surrounding the alchemy boat at the moment. The alchemy ship did not dive, it was currently traveling at high speed. The waves aroused on both sides of the ship seemed to be just beside them only.


    Underneath their feet was the ocean. The winged skeleton had used some kind of spell to make the images below extremely clear. Up to two miles deep, the images were still clear. In the center of this room was an alchemy tform. There were no instations on it, but it had been reserved. It was obviously for Saleen.


    Themand station was located on both sides of the alchemy tform. There was an alchemy device atop themand station and Su could not even recognize one percent of it. He only identified some of its materials. Two jade skeletons stood behind eachmand station, steering the alchemy ship forward.


    Beside the central alchemy tform the winged skeleton had stimted a magic array causing a three-dimensional transparent image to appear out of thin air above the alchemy tform. It was a structural diagram of the entire alchemy ship. Every detail in the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was depicted clearly in this three-dimensional diagram.


    ¡°Master, here, you control anyone in this ship,¡± the winged skeleton proimed smugly. This ship had encapsted all his efforts. Other than him and Saleen, no one would be able to control it.

 Chapter 616: Saleen’s Luck (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 616: Saleen¡¯s Luck (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Su was shocked to discover that in this picture, all the people in the cabin were depicted on it as transparent human figures. Other than the over fifty people on board this ship, there were also hundreds of spirits of the dead at work. The spirit pool at the bow of the ship was still gathering energy and slowly producing bloodstone and bone fish.


    At the head portion of the pan turtle shell, there were four underground passages that could suck in water currents before ejecting them out from both sides of the leg portions providing forward momentum. This power required minimal elemental vibrations and could not be detected easily. If it was deep underwater, the water surface would not be able to detect thisrge-scale magic machine.


    ¡°Soldier, this is even better than the type of boat in the Viscount¡¯s drawing!¡± Saleen understood the purpose of this type of construction and was impressed.


    ¡°This was what I found from my earliest memories. It is alchemy from the machine dimension,¡± the winged skeleton replied.


    ¡°Machine dimension?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is a very small dimension without any Gods. There are countless different types of creatures and the ones who ruled the dimension are alchemy machines. It is pretty interesting.¡±


    Saleen was not surprised to know that alchemy machines could develop self-awareness. In order to be a powerful being, one would need a sufficiently huge dimension and not to be suppressed by any Gods, or else one would just be like living the life of a puppet.


    A small dimension and ack of resources meant that alchemy machines were unable to evolve. The entire evolution for such creatures usually required millions of years. A small step of evolution would require millions of years and a proper evolution usually required more than billions of years. Unfortunately, the lifespan of such a small dimension was usually not long.


    In other words, without the optimal conditions, those alchemy machines would never be able to evolve into entities like humans.


    All the servants on board the alchemical boat were spirits of the dead. Saleen did not know how long Nailisi made the winged skeleton work as a coolie. The winged skeleton created many spirits of the dead with intelligence and could interact with humans. They did not possess the aura of a different dimension and their abilities were not restricted by the dimensional rules.


    ¡°Master, are we traveling on the surface of the sea or underwater?¡± The winged skeleton asked again. If they traveled underwater, their speed would be around sixty miles an hour; if they traveled on the sea surface the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat could travel more than one-hundred miles an hour. This was equivalent to the fastest speed at which small alchemical boats could travel.


    ¡°On the surface, of course. There is no more danger right?¡±


    ¡°There is no more danger, but after the Eastern Sea Allied Armies have been defeated hundreds of small ships that managed to escape might still be lingering around.¡± The winged skeleton referred to them as small ships inparison tobat vessels, but it was still about the same size as the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    ¡°That¡¯s strange, why don¡¯t they return?¡± Su roughly knew what happened. Regarding the Eastern Sea Allied Armies¡¯ invasion of Qin, he has heard of many stories from those in Saleen¡¯spany. The Eastern Sea Allied Armies tried to attack Qin, but were defeated three times in a row by the armies deployed by Safilos. All the mainbat vessels were destroyed and the army of one million men suffered crushing defeat. Hundreds of thousands of men were captured as prisoners-of-war and were sold as ves. Su could notprehend why the remaining soldiers did not flee back to where they came from.


    ¡°The Eastern Sea was too wide and their ships were too small. They could not go back.¡± Saleen knew the reason why. The seas along Qin¡¯s coastlines were rather peaceful, but as you went further the chances of storms and even cyclones urring became more and more frequent. A small ship that was only a few tens of yards long would have no problem fighting battles or catching fish in the shallow seas, but returning home would be impossible.


    Su¡¯s face turned red. He suddenly remembered that this was the Maind dimension where the seas were far and wide. The subcontinent ne did not have such big seas. On the subcontinent ne,bat vessels of a hundred-yards long were already the maximum because there was no need to build them any bigger. Normalbat vessels were only around fifty yards.


    ¡°My Lord, this¡­,¡± Cuisi hesitated for a while before saying, ¡°Let¡¯s not waste time on these bandits. Let¡¯s hide ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Oh? This is unlike you.¡± Saleen was surprised by Cuisi¡¯s suggestion.


    ¡°Returning back to the city is priority. Even if we caught the Eastern Sea bandits, they would just be sold as ves. I am afraid that there might be ships from Alchemy City nearby.¡±


    ¡°Alchemy City?¡± Saleen thought about it. Indeed, their current location was a few thousand miles away from Alchemy City, but on the sea such a distance merely meant a journey of two to three days. Thebat vessels of Alchemy City could stay out at sea for three months on their expeditions. It was entirely possible that they were patrolling this area to guard against any small pockets of Eastern Sea bandits.


    Saleen did not wish to encounter any Alchemy Citybat vessels. Although he was not afraid of them, he did not wish for anyone to find out about the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. If they battled against anyone from Alchemy City, the secret about this ship¡¯s abilities would be out in the open.¡±


    ¡°Soldier, where do you say we should go?¡±


    ¡°If it were me, I will head straight to the east then turn north when I am one-thousand miles away from the coastline. Not a lot of time will be wasted. When I came, the pockets of small ships from Eastern Sea Allied Armies did not dare to venture further than three-hundred to five-hundred miles away from the coastline. The men from Alchemy City are only patrolling the south to stop them from escaping.¡±


    ¡°Humph, I bet they want to urge them towards Metatrin City. Soldier, we will not worry about Alchemy City for the time-being. Since the deep seas are safe, we will go in that direction.¡±


    The winged skeletonmanded the jade skeletons to change their directions. All of a sudden, Saleen felt uneasy and said, ¡°Soldier, how long has it been since the battle at Lianyun City ended?¡±


    ¡°About half a year.¡±


    ¡°There is no way Alchemy City has not managed to capture these small ships yet. If these small ships wanted to survive. Not only would they have to fish, they would also have to go to shore to rob. The Qin inhabitants of the small towns along the coastline are all resilient and strong. It will be difficult for these small ships to survive. Alchemy City must be nning¡­¡±


    ¡°Master, there is no way their small ships can sail through the big sea and bring them home.¡±


    ¡°Nothing is impossible!¡± Something seemed to have dawned on Saleen and he continued, ¡°If it was me who wanted to find out the sea route from the Ind Nations of the Eastern Sea to Myers Maind, I will first suppress whatever remaining forces they have before creating an opportunity.¡±


    ¡°I understand,¡± Cuisiughed.


    ¡°I understand too.¡± Although Su was still very young, he had learned a lot about strategies.


    ¡°Allow the Eastern Sea people to steal a big ship and tail behind them as they try to return home. Just like that, the sea route will be uncovered. No wonder in the battle at Lianyun City, Alchemy City sent out so fewbat vessels!¡± At this point, Saleen suddenly felt defeated. At present, he did not have the abilities to go against Alchemy City. Even if he had figured out Alchemy City¡¯s n, there was nothing much he could do about it.


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°My Lord¡­¡±


    ¡°Master, you¡­¡±


    ¡°Forget it. No matter how good Eastern Sea is, I cannot conquer it at the moment.¡± Although this was what he said, Saleen has not entirely resigned to his fate.


    ¡°Master, there may be a way.¡± The winged skeleton could see that Saleen was still not quite able to ept it so he thought of an idea.


    ¡°What way can there be, except this ship¡­¡±


    ¡°Two-thousand miles east from here, I have hidden a small boat that can also go underwater. I can deploy a group of spirits of the dead to operate that ship and track them under the sea.¡±


    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s not care about Alchemy City for now. If that boat were to be sunk by Alchemy City and they manage to retrieve it, they would be able to dismantle it for research. Before long Alchemy City would also be able to build simrbat vessels then we will lose the only advantage we have over them.¡±


    ¡°Master, is Alchemy City really so powerful?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you might be a silver grand swordmaster, but even golden grand swordmasters are as good as dead if they travel to Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Master, why not¡­ why not allow me to follow?¡± Cuisi suggested to Saleen. Now that he had advanced into a supreme demon, staying underwater for a long period of time to tail a ship would not be a problem.


    ¡°This issue with Alchemy City must have involved at least ten sorcerers. If you are caught¡­¡± Saleen did not feel he needed to borate further. Cuisi was a demon. If he was caught by the mages of Alchemy City he would be dissected immediately, but they would also do everything they could to ensure Cuisi did not die.


    Cuisi said no more. Once he heard that there were more than ten sorcerers, he did not feel that he would be so lucky to escape from them.


    Alchemy City was daunting because there were too many powerful mages. Even someone like Cuisi, who had just advanced into supreme demon, did not dare to provoke them.


    Su did not have any solutions either. If he was a golden grand swordmaster, he could still operate a small ship, but not as a silver grand swordmaster.


    Tailing an Alchemy Citybat vessel was like ying with fire. One would get burned if one was not careful.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just go. We will discuss this again in future. When Alchemy City wants to invade the Inds of the Eastern Nations in future, they will surely set up supply points along the way. If we can find these supply points, we will be able to follow them. Once the interactions between Eastern Sea and Metatrin City increased, it will be hard to keep this sea route a secret.¡±


    There was one thing that Saleen did not say. He did not believe that there were no Sregl Ind spies in Alchemy City. It was entirely possible for Alchemy City to keep their ns a secret, but only from Holy Rock City and not from their own people.


    ¡°Master, I will deploy some spirits of the dead to find these supply points. Their lifespans are short, but they should be able to record down the coordinates.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Alchemy City wants to provide the Eastern Sea prisoners-of-war a big ship, but they will surely not provide sufficient supplies for them to return home. The Eastern Sea men must secretly sail to the secret supply points that only they know of, which should be hidden on the inds within five-thousand miles. As long as they did not enter the secret channel my spirits of the dead should not be discovered by anyone.¡±


    The winged skeleton was rather vague, but Saleen understood.


    ¡°I guess this is the only way. Soldier, let¡¯s head home!¡± Saleen let go of the temptation and regained his calmness. The winged skeleton nodded in agreement. Around the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat were twelve death sharks that swam away and no longer followed the alchemical boat.


    Both nks of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat were propped up by bony wings that were made up of twelve pairs of white bones. The speed at which the alchemical boat was traveling immediately increased to one-hundred and twenty miles an hour.


    Saleen¡¯s decision helped him escape from yet another trouble. One dayter, a lot more Alchemy Citybat vessels came in this direction and tens of sorcerers monitored the entire area within one-thousand miles. The remnants of the Eastern Sea Allied Armies had no other way out but to gather more than eighty small ships and captured a one-hundred and fifty yard long armed merchant vessel.


    These bandits killed all the crews onboard and threw them into the sea.


    More than a hundred Alchemy Citybat vessels waited patiently in all directions. This armed merchant vessel headed south first, which was where Saleen andpany had stopped at. Then it headed east and eventually went down into the deep sea. If Saleen was still there he would not have been able to resist the temptation and would have decided to follow this armed merchant vessel underwater.

 Chapter 617: Saleen’s Luck (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 617: Saleen¡¯s Luck (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Pan turtles were never very fast creatures, but after it had been modified the ship was able to travel very quickly on the sea. Most pan turtles also had poor eyesight and often crashed into reefs. Luckily their shells were thick and heavy so the reefs would end up being crushed upon impact. Grade-8 beasts often did not have to care too much about what was ahead of them.


    Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was the same. There were many sea creatures, but since this was not the oceanic ice block, all the powerful creatures were in the deep sea. When the alchemical boat sailed over, all the low-level beasts had already escaped.


    On both sides of the alchemical boat¡¯s lounge were crystals where one would be able to observe what was happening on the outside. Everyone on board possessed considerable abilities and even the least skilful were at least beginner-level swordmasters. Aini brought along fifty of his best bodyguards on board in order to receive his parents. They were all the men he had at hismand.


    Even Aini¡¯s parents were impressed by this boat.


    ¡°Saleen, are you selling high-speed merchant vessels?¡± Lanny was able to estimate the speed that this boat was traveling just by looking at the sea water on the outside. If merchant boats could travel at this speed, there would be no need to fear pirates anymore.


    ¡°Auntie Lanny, the Clyde n do not have many ships, I suppose.¡±


    ¡°Yes, the Clyde n usually operated onnd for our businesses.¡±


    ¡°Not only were there pirates at sea, there were also thebat vessels from Alchemy City and Cloudflow empire to worry about. I would have gone into it if this business was worth doing. Lex has nock of materials, craftsmen nor money.¡±


    ¡°I knew it.¡± Lanny most certainly already knew about this. It was just that the profit margin for maritime trade was very high as boats could transport many more goods and could travel much fasterpared to wagons. This was a huge temptation for all merchants. Back then, Viscount Gugger of Ceylon City was able to maintain one of his cities after borrowing one of his father-inw¡¯s boat for smuggling.


    Ceylon City did not have much to tax for and Viscount Gugger also built up a reputation for providing duty-free and food. They managed to survive solely on maritime trade.


    Saleen saw that Lanny was a little disappointed andughed, ¡°I did promise Aini that I will give him a good ship.¡±


    ¡°You are a good kid,¡± Lanny smiled as well. A good boat was worth at least one-hundred-thousand gold coins. To own a fleet of boats, one would have to spend millions of gold coins and that was why most could not afford to participate in maritime trade. Most people with that kind of wealth would have built themselves a castle and hired some peasants instead.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?!¡± Something flew past like a sh, but Cuisi managed to catch a glimpse of small ck dot.


    ¡°Flying fish. Only the Eastern Sea has them.¡± The winged skeleton had spent countless days on the sea and was extremely familiar with all the sea creatures.


    ¡°There is money on the flying fish¡¯s back.¡± Cuisi¡¯s eyes was able to see the demon dimension¡¯s magic parasite inplete darkness. These parasites were the size of the tip of a needle and were as long as a grain of rice. Flying fishes were one-yard long and even though they were a distance away, Cuisi still managed to see their unique characteristic.


    ¡°Haha!¡± The winged skeleton began tough. ¡°Master, this is a money flying marlin. There is a bone that is half a yard long from their spine to the spike on their head. You can use it as a weapon. These creatures travel in groups and there should be at least tens of thousands within the next one-hundred miles.¡±


    ¡°How many can you catch?¡± Saleen asked the winged skeleton.


    ¡°It is difficult to catch them alive because they are flying too fast. It is also impossible to try and breed them because their range of activities are too wide. During summer, they will swim to the north and can reach as far as oceanic ice block. During winter, they will swim to the south for close to ten-thousand miles. They are not creatures that can be bred in a pond.¡± The winged skeleton knew what Saleen was thinking.


    ¡°Not even as bonded creatures?¡±


    ¡°Master, this type of beast¡¯s level is not too high or low and will be useless as a bonded creature. Even if you kept it as a bonded creature, it will not be able to reproduce.¡±


    ¡°Uncle Fellet, the three of us shall hunt them as much as we can.¡±


    Once Saleen heard that this creature could not reproduce, he did not think further. Anyway, only Cloudflow had arge-scale operation in ce to breed these beasts while the other empires only had small-scale ones. If there were tens of thousands of money flying marlins nearby, it would be easy to kill one to two thousand of them. That would be sufficient to arm a regiment. The bone on the money flying marlins was even better than metal as a weapon.


    The main weapons used by Qin include the long spear, but the biggest problem was that it was difficult to pull them out once they have been pierced into an enemy¡¯s body. On the other hand, these bones of the money flying marlins could be pulled out easily.


    It would have been suicidal if the money flying marlins used the spikes on their heads to attack other creatures and were not able to pull them out easily otherwise.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat slowed down. The spirits of the dead that had been resting were all woken up by the winged skeleton and released to patrol on the sea. Saleen, the winged skeleton, and Fellet were all on the boat¡¯s deck and Saleen was observing with his elemental eye.


    The surface of the sea was misty, but that did not affect Saleen¡¯s vision. He searched left and right, but did not manage to discoverrge schools of fish for the time-being. An intense battle had urred here in the past involving Eastern Sea Allied Armies and all the beasts had been scared away leaving behind some metal back seagulls circling in the air in hopes of corpses floating onto the surface. These seagulls were not daring enough to attack live creatures.


    ¡°Uncle Fellet, to the north!¡± Saleen¡¯s elemental eye caught a glimpse of arge school of money flying marlins. There were at least ten-thousand of them.


    The winged skeleton was the first to fly up. The spirits of the dead released from the alchemical boat had received more information and all three pairs of wings on the winged skeleton¡¯s back opened fully and produced a violent whizzing sound. The winged skeleton flew quickly to the north-east direction to drive the marlins towards the boat. It was still dangerous to try and hunt these marlins when there were so many of them gathered together.


    A bony spike protruded out of the head of the money flying marlin and it was extremely sharp. This was the marlins¡¯ main weapon. Some of the more powerful marlins were even able to cast short-range spells from this bony spike. If one tried to stop these marlins from where they were going, it was as good as standing on an open field and being attacked by ten-thousand archers.


    The only difference was that the amount of damage that archers could cause was limited. As long as the arrows did notnd on any crucial parts, a mage usually would not die from arrows. If one was pierced by the money flying marlin, it was equivalent to a gaping hole created by a long spear and one would lose blood quickly and the wound would not be able to heal.


    The winged skeleton did not wish to be attacked by ten-thousand flying fish. He made sure that he was high enough above the marlins before releasing grade-7 creature¡¯s coercion. Money flying marlins were not of high levels and the highest was only grade-4, which was not evenparable to red krills. Their physical attacks were extremely powerful.


    The winged skeleton was employing a methodmonly used by magic wolves when they hunted. Drive the target into an area where they would be surrounded or killed.


    Saleen and Fellet has already caught up from behind. The winged skeleton drove hundreds of money flying marlins towards Saleen. They tried to dive underwater.


    Fellet was a sorcerer so he could cast spells even while flying. Due to safety considerations, he only cast a low-level spell; ice arrows.


    Every ice arrow was a yard long. Fellet¡¯s water element spells were quite powerful. The ice arrows were gathered close together and every one of them could kill off the money flying marlins. Even if the arrows did not strike crucial locations, the ice arrows also had freezing abilities that would reduce the marlins¡¯ resistance and drop them into the sea.


    There were spirits of the dead that were patrolling the sea and they would try their best to collect these marlins and hand them over to the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton did not attack but only continued to drive small pockets of flying fish away from the school of marlins so that Saleen and Fellet could kill them.


    Saleen was having some difficulties. He was only a grade-6 mage so he was taking quite a bit of risk by casting spells while flying. He was still able to use some special spells like eye of lightning.


    Saleen flew amongst the fog and released eye of lightning on those marlins that had been separated from the rest. Within ten yards, the marlins would have no resistance to the attack. They would be paralyzed once struck by the lightning and would fall into the sea.


    After his eye of lightning had advanced, Saleen no longer had the trouble of temporary loss of sight and could use it continuously. He was now able to have slight control over the intensity of the lightning. Using it against creatures that were grade-4 and below, such as these money flying marlins, he only required lightning of low intensity to paralyze them.


    The spirits of the dead that were dwelling in the sea would charge forward to kill these paralyzed marlins before passing them over to the winged skeleton. The speed at which Saleen was killing the marlins was almostparable to Fellet¡¯s.


    Not before long, Saleen and Fellet had already killed more than one-thousand money flying marlins. The winged skeleton also no longer had the energy to drive the marlins towards them anymore because the school of marlins were already swimming further away towards the north.


    The money flying marlins¡¯ corpses and their blood floated on the surface of the sea. The winged skeleton¡¯s space equipment could not store too many items so Saleen approached the sea and stored them in his Goddess¡¯ ne instead. At the same time, he ordered his twenty-four lightning dragons to eat up the flesh, but not the bones.


    Time passed much more quickly in the nepared to the real world. These small lightning dragons now possessed huge appetites and Saleen did not want the flesh to go to waste. The three of them returned to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat after the winged skeleton returned to Saleen the hundreds of marlin corpses that he had kept initially. Standing on the deck, the wind carried with it the heavy smell of blood. Carrion birds other than metal back seagulls also appeared in search of flesh, but on this rare asion did not find any.


    Saleen used elemental eye to observe his surroundings again to ensure that there were nobat vessels nearby before returning to the cabin with Fellet.


    ¡°The beasts of the sea are able to provide resources, but it¡¯s a pity that I do not know where to find a moreplete beast map,¡± Saleen said regretfully.


    ¡°You can buy one at Alchemy City. I heard that Alchemy City has maps that has collected up to ten-thousand types of sea beasts and each beast has at least ten types of transformations.¡±


    ¡°Is it very expensive?¡±


    ¡°Extremely. You cannot make a copy of it after you buy either and you need to sign a bond.¡±


    Saleen did not mind. He intended to collect fees after he has built a library in Metatrin City too. There was a price to knowledge and while he did not intend to set very high fees, it was Alchemy City¡¯s right if they wanted to sell their maps at a high price.


    ¡°But you are lucky. As long as the bones of these marlins have not been damaged, they can be refined into decent equipment,¡± Fellet said.


    ¡°Uncle, you have a share too,¡± Saleen said with a smile.

 Chapter 618: Uncle Fellett (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 618: Uncle Fellett (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The pan turtle alchemical boat sped up, advancing north. In the great hall Fellett and Lanny were educating Saleen.


    ¡°I know you are wealthy, Aini told me that your business rakes in huge profits. By purchasing picture charts of sea magic beasts from Alchemy City, you must consider that Alchemy City will have some reservations. If you want to make a fortune from the ocean, you have to rely on your own abilities to verify every single information.¡±


    ¡°Uncle, I don¡¯t have so much time.¡± Saleen smiled bitterly. He did not want to give huge amounts of magic nuclei and gold coins to Alchemy City, ¡°There are three tribes within Alchemy City and Sregl Ind¡¯s power is the weakest. It will be better off giving these magic nuclei to Teacher.¡± Nevertheless, the creatures in the sea were soplicated. Saleen would have to spend a lot of time identifying and studying those creatures and he did not have the luxury of time.


    Even though Joey surely had his ways to deal with Fycro, Saleen could not possibly ce all his bets on Joey.


    ¡°If I want to rely on one of them, I can only rely on Sregl Ind.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have a long-term n?¡± Fellett asked in dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Uncle, please give me guidance.¡± Saleen was in fact very modest. From Aini¡¯s narrative, Saleen could infer that Fellett and his wife had an extremely high status in the Clyde family in the past. They also had very vast knowledge and a mage like Saleen could not bepared to them.


    ¡°I heard that you have plundered rations from Phoenix, is that true?¡±


    Beads of sweat appeared on Saleen¡¯s face due to embarrassment, then he quickly rified, ¡°Bandits had attacked while the city owner abandoned the city. When I arrived, the city had almost zero resistance left. After chasing away the bandits, I didn¡¯t have the power to defend the city, so I took the rations.¡±


    ¡°Humph, you put it in such a nice way. Let me tell you, Holy Rock City chose to ignore this matter. If they want to pursue it, they can even use you of being in cahoots with the bandits. You won¡¯t even have an avenue to lodge an appeal.¡±


    ¡°I am prepared for such a situation.¡± Saleen smiled, not fearful at all. When Saleen was in Cexing City he had set a fire to burn all the warehouses before leaving. Logically, since Saleen was not a sorcerer, he could not have carried so much grain. If Holy Rock City wanted to mete out punishments, then they could only make someone the scapegoat, like Fellett said.


    Saleen was least afraid of such a method. If that really happened, then he would have no more concerns, he would not need to think about Lex anymore. As a mage, he only needed to think about achieving a bnce.


    If Holy Rock City reasoned with Saleen, then Saleen would be reasonable. Likewise, if Holy Rock City was despicable, Saleen would do tit for tat. Metatrin City was more than fifteen-thousand miles from Holy Rock City, it was impossible for Qin to deploy troops there for the time being. Saleen had signed a contract with the Goddess of Myers, it was only a matter of time before he would need to battle Holy Rock City. He need not be afraid of falling out with them.


    Lex would be in somewhat of a dilemma though. In Holy Rock City, Safilos had left a bit of leeway, while her brother Ojarvis had utmost trust in her. In such a situation, Lex could only cooperate with Saleen to tamper with Phoenix, they would not be able to touch Qin¡¯snd. Once the Qin nobles got disappointed it would be difficult for them to recruit followers otherwise.


    ¡°Of course you aren¡¯t afraid, you are eyeing all of Phoenix.¡± Fellett¡¯s words startled Saleen. ¡°If Fellett knows about my intention, then Safilos would definitely be able to guess it as well.¡±


    ¡°The probing technique was pretty good. Phoenix¡¯s nobles have hatred towards Holy Rock City. Despite you stealing so many rations no one sought advice from Holy Rock City. Do you know something? County Queen Lex¡¯s army arrived after your departure and they seized Cexing City and Huoxing City.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen had been busy all this while, he never had a chance to contact Lex. He never thought that Lex had already conquered these cities thoroughly. She did not hire any mercenaries, which was not per the initial agreement.


    ¡°You want Phoenix, but Lex also wants it!¡± Fellett sighed.


    Saleenughed out loud, then said, ¡°Uncle, you are reading too much into it. Lex upied these cities so as to divert Holy Rock City¡¯s attention away from me.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps you two have an evenrger agenda, but Lex is the pedigree descendant of the Grukos family. She has the right to inherit the throne, she will never allow your men to upy Phoenix,¡± Fellett dered sternly.


    Saleen felt astounded, ¡°Oh right, I missed this point, Lex is a Grukos! Lex might not be harboring this intention when she supported me to establish a county, but once I build a county, I cannot seize Qin¡¯snds anymore.¡± When he thought about this point, Saleen felt a sense of loss, but he immediately adjusted his mentality.


    No matter how close Saleen was to Lex, he could not request her to make such a huge contribution. If Lex wanted Sregl Ind, Saleen would never ede to her request either.


    Saleen fell silent, awaiting Fellett¡¯s lesson. It was good fortune to have someone with such wisdom. Fellett was willing to enlighten Saleen, which made Saleen experience an unexinable emotion. Of course, Fellett and his wife were undoubtedly looking out for Aini. Back then when Saleen was not so rich this couple had already treated him well and that could not be faked.


    The incident where Fellett and his wife fought with the Holy See over their son made Saleen recall the time when his teacher went to create trouble for Earl Sufonso. A mage¡¯s temperament could not be disguised, Saleen would never cast doubts on the character of Fellett and his wife.


    ¡°Phoenix might be important, but it is inferior to Lon. Lon is facing enemies on three fronts, it is the crux of the war. Since the Tanggsi people want to fully conquer Lon, they have to maintain a good rtionship with Sikeqinyans for the time being. Saleen, the moment anything happens you can go forth and obtain Laiyin Duchy!¡±


    ¡°Laiyin Duchy?¡± Saleen got a little frustrated. Laiyin Duchy was much stronger than Phoenix, there was a grade-9 mercenary group in its borders and there was also another grade-9 mercenary group near Sikeqinya¡¯s borders.


    ¡°There are four grade-9 experts in these two grade-9 mercenary groups. Especially the Dragons and Roses Regiment located at Didypus¡¯ border, its leader is a Golden Grand Swordmaster. With this Golden Grand Swordmaster around, all efforts will also be futile no matter how many soldiers I have unless I can gather a dozen sorcerers to surround that Golden Grand Swordmaster.¡±


    ¡°You can purchase that grade-9 mercenary group,¡± Fellett gently reminded Saleen.


    ¡°I cannot afford it.¡± Saleen smiled bitterly, ¡°Even though that mercenary group isn¡¯t as mighty as the Dragons and Roses Regiment there are also two grade-9 sorcerers helming it. I want to let two grade-9 sorcerers work for me?¡± Saleen did not feel that this n would be usible.


    ¡°You have to buy them even if you cannot afford it, you just have to bribe two grade-9 mages. Think about it, who isn¡¯t jealous of your fortune in Metatrin City? Only a mage can be trusted. Give them money and they will work for you. You are also a mage, so they will not feel any embarrassment or shame.¡± Fellett hit the bullseye with onement.


    Given Saleen¡¯s current wealth, people would have plotted against him long ago if it was not for Qin¡¯s internal turmoil. Would he still have been able to develop a city?


    ¡°As long as those two grade-9 mages can be bribed, the whole mercenary group will follow suit too. Without these two mages the mercenary group will immediately be divided into four grade-8 mercenary groups. They will not be able to dominate Laiyin Duchy by themselves.¡±


    ¡°Uncle Fellett, you know everything.¡±


    ¡°But of course, even though we are imprisoned the family still has to send intelligence to us for analysis. These years, we have been observing the affairs of the four duchies. Other than being a little surprised by the incident in Phoenix, the whole situation in Lon turned out like what we had analyzed.¡±


    ¡°So I guess you will know a suitable candidate to bribe the two grade-9 sorcerers, right?¡± Saleen was overjoyed, the disguise put on by Fellett and his wife was totally unexpected by Saleen. Aini¡¯s parents wielded more power than Saleen could imagine.


    ¡°Of course, the leader of the grade-9 mercenary group in Laiyin¡¯s borders is a Silver Grand Swordmaster, he is forty-eight years old. His son is twenty-six years old and is also a Silver Grand Swordmaster. The father and son did everything they could to construct a nine-story magical tower for the two sorcerers. Tell me, what should you use to lure those two sorcerers to leave?¡±


    Saleen did not even ponder and replied, ¡°I will present a ten story magical tower to them.¡±


    ¡°Saleen you are indeed smart, those two grade-9 sorcerers are too arrogant, and that¡¯s why they didn¡¯t enter Alchemy City. If you dare build a ten story magical tower, you will surely move them. Once youplete the drawing, I will send someone to persuade them.¡± Fellett was jubnt, ¡°Saleen is smart and observant, he picked up the crux of the problem in just a short while.¡±


    These two grade-9 sorcerers were like biological brothers training together. If they went to Alchemy City, their status would not be too low either. They were willing to endure in Laiyin Duchy, not even stepping into Qin once. They surely felt dissatisfied, indignant, and furious.


    When Qin was established it made an agreement with the Holy See to never build a magical tower with more than ten stories.


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°At the moment, a grade-9 sorcerer is still out of reach for me. Once the mages from Sregl Ind arrive and enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space to train, these two grade-9 sorcerers will be nothing.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, once the two grade-9 sorcerers leave you can bribe the Red Tiger Mercenary Group. You will receive the manpower from the other mercenary group, while the people from the Red Tiger Mercenary Group can enter your state and be a regr army. Just remember to confer a title to them. After that you can send your own men to take over the base of Red Tiger Mercenary Group. That way, you will rightfully own a piece ofnd in Laiyin Duchy already.¡±


    Saleen was in utter admiration, Fellett¡¯s n was extremely shrewd. ¡°The problem will be solved from the root up. Without the two grade-9 sorcerers, Red Tiger Mercenary Group will be easily bribed. Those two Silver Grand Swordmasters will not be able to resist the temptation of a noble title. In Laiyin, the status of a mercenary wasn¡¯t high and there was no inheritance either. Once a mercenary dies they cannot leave behind much for their family. By turning the Red Tiger Mercenary Group into a regr army I will have an extra ten-thousand men and they can be stationed in Laiyin Duchy. These people from big families are indeed ruthless and decisive. The moment I enter Laiyin in this manner, coupled with Lex¡¯s help, I will be able to take over the other mercenary group in Laiyin swiftly and thus stand independently. Luckily, because of Aini, I went to build a good rtionship with Fellett.¡±


    ¡°Uncle Fellett¡­¡±


    ¡°Saleen, am I very powerful?¡± Fellettughed boisterously, looking very innocent.


    ¡°Fancy you being so smug!¡± Lanny used her fingers to smack her husband¡¯s forehead, then said, ¡°This matter isn¡¯t settled yet, we don¡¯t even know if Aini can handle it or not.¡±

 Chapter 619: Uncle Fellett (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 619: Uncle Fellett (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Aini is already off to settle this matter!¡± Saleen was astonished.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Aini went to look for his uncle first, my remaining fifty trusted soldiers are all there. They areing to Metatrin City as well. When Aunt Lanny and I learned that Aini had brought the trusted troops and family to your city, we knew that he had already made up his mind to throw his lot in with you,¡± Fellett sniffed.


    The couple originally harbored high hopes for Aini, but with Saleen around, Aini¡¯s achievements would appear unsatisfactory inparison. Fortunately Aini ced more emphasis on his magic achievements. Aini was still young, he could easily be a death sorcerer. His parents were content with that.


    Aini¡¯s prospects were not very bright because the Holy See wanted to exterminate all death mages though. Aini had also mentioned to his parents the conflict Saleen had with the Holy See, Saleen¡¯s case could not be resolved either.


    By carving a career with Saleen Aini still had some form of insurance that he would never get betrayed.


    As for the Clyde family, Fellett and his wife had already grown disappointed over their son¡¯s decision. Since Aini wanted to be independent and leave the family they began supporting him secretly, Lanny especially. Her family was also of prominence. For the past one-thousand years her family still had a third ss viscount.


    This title might be insignificant, but the power within it was not small. During the period when the both of them could not leave Holy Rock City Lanny had asked her family¡¯s people to work in secret. Aini had a ce to train in peace after bing a death mage as a result. He could receive the manpower and fortune his parents had left for him.


    ¡°Before Aini bes a sorcerer, it is not suitable for him to be active in the outside world. I allowed him to act alone this time because there are two imperial swordsman¡¯s camps following him. Within Qin¡¯s borders no nobles will dare try anything funny. If there are bandits, the bandits will not have the ability to kill him either.¡± Saleen could not help but me Fellett and his wife, ¡°But Aini is their son, since they aren¡¯t worried, I cannot say much either.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Aini is a death mage, most people will not be able to harm him,¡± Lanny consoled Saleen. Saleen also knew that if a death mage tried to flee, it would be very difficult for the enemy to capture them. Aini had run for tens of thousands of miles before, but he also did not get caught by the Holy See.


    ¡°Uncle Fellett¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡± Seeing that Saleen was hesitant, Fellett smiled. Saleen had an extra tinge of sunshine about his bodypared to Aini. Ever since Aini and Saleen reunited, Aini¡¯s murderous aura had lessened a lot. To a mage that was a good thing. As for their love towards Saleen, Fellett and Lanny only treated Saleen using the mindset of an elder.


    Saleen tolerated, he did not express his innermost thoughts. He said, ¡°Once we get to Metatrin City, I will construct a nine story magical tower for you guys.¡±


    ¡°Not one with ten stories?¡± Lanny teased.


    ¡°Heh, it would be offensive to build a ten story magical tower as that would mean expressing our stance to the Holy See. If Uncle can surpass the limits of grade-9, I will build a magical tower with ten stories,¡± Saleen answered calmly.


    Saleen was courageous and rich. He was in definite conflict with the Holy See already. Even if he did not anger the Holy See, the Holy See would still send troops to destroy him because his left hand contained divinity and could cast the divine spells belonging to the Goddess of Myers. After experiencing so many tribtions, Saleen¡¯s courage would have grown no matter how small it was.


    ¡°Since you are willing to listen, I will share with you.¡± As they were talking, Narnia entered the cabin. Without skipping a beat, Fellett said, ¡°I also heard from Aini that your army isn¡¯t very good.¡± He did not continue discussing the matter of seizing Laiyin Duchy because at the end of the day Narnia was Lex¡¯s subordinate.


    ¡°I know.¡± Saleen was helpless too. He had money and the materials to craft the mightiest and toughest armor and weapons, but he did not have qualified soldiers. On the other hand, Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp needed no further exnation. The people in the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp were valiant and ferocious and they also knew how to fight.


    ¡°You need to start from the minute areas. Build an emblem group first, then use this emblem group as a nucleus to develop more armies,¡± Fellett instructed patiently.


    ¡°One emblem group? That will only be one-thousand people, it isn¡¯t even enough to defend a city.¡±


    ¡°I have heard about the size of Metatrin City, it is hard to invade it even if there is only a group of farmers defending it. What you require now is an army that is proficient in long-range attacks and field battle. That way, enemies will find it difficult to surround you.¡±


    ¡°I have the Caucasus people.¡±


    ¡°The best functions of the Caucasus people are sneak attacks, cutting off the enemy¡¯s route of retreat and burning wheat. In a head-on battle the offensive power of the Caucasus people will only be simr to that of my trusted soldiers.¡±


    ¡°So what should I do?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have a death mage serving you? You can establish an army of magic cavalrymen first.¡±


    ¡°Made up of only magic cavalrymen?¡±


    ¡°Yes, all the soldiers will only use skeletal warhorses or death warhorses, while all the servants are spirits. This emblem group will only have one-thousand humans. Each brigade should have one death grand mage, each battalion should have a death mage above grade-2, and eachpany should have more than three death magic disciples. All the soldiers will don magic armor and wield only alchemical weapons.¡±


    ¡°The amount of depletion would be huge!¡± Even though Saleen was very exhrated listening to Fellett¡¯s description, he immediately recalled the problem of consumption. If such a cavalry team traveled urgently for one day and one night it could cover one-thousand miles.


    ¡°I have the drawings for many types of magic armor, I can craft bespoke armor and weapons which are most suited for warriors of different grades. With the help of a death mage this army will have around two-thousand to three-thousand spirit servants. The offensive power of this emblem group will not be inferior to that of Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp. Other than having a slightly higher level of consumption, this will be the fastest method to increase offensive power. No! I have Nailisi, she can summon demons, assembling a demonic army is the most economical solution.¡± Saleen immediately dismissed the notion of building a magic army. If Nailisi was not in the equation, then a magic army would be the best suggestion.


    ¡°Uncle Fellett, I have a better idea. In the future, I am still nning to deploy death mages to sail out to sea.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Fellett did not probe on the better idea Saleen had. Given Saleen¡¯s temperament, he would not bber nonsense. If Saleen was not confident, he would not open his mouth.


    ¡°But it is indeed a good idea to use a death mage to create an army. Because Aini was present the previous time the spirits were charging at the front during many battles. Our losses would have been massive otherwise.¡± As Saleen spoke, he suddenly said to Narnia, ¡°Narnia, what do you think?¡±


    ¡°Of course, when Qin was developing there were many death mages in the army. The death knights struck a lot of fear into the enemy.¡± Narnia replied casually, such an impression was deeply engraved in the bones of Qin people. As long as a mage could triumph over the enemy, it did not matter what kind of mage they were.


    The Holy See¡¯s code ofws harbored the motive to extirpate all mages. In the eyes of Qin people this was an insult in its rawest form. When Qin was built death mages contributed the most. By doing something like that the Holy See was insinuating that the people who built Qin were evil creatures who deserved to be ughtered.


    Be that as it may, the Holy See wielded much influence in the Tanggsi Empire. The nearby death mages had long escaped to Qin, not many people opposed the Holy See in Tanggsi.


    ¡°What about demons?¡± Saleen asked Narnia.


    ¡°Demons? Their reputation has been bad for the past one to two thousand years. Before the fourth dynasty, their reputation was still okay.¡±


    Narnia spoke the truth. The power of the humans today had dwindled, while a normal demon possessed the abilities of a swordmaster. Humans would have to train hard in order to be a swordmaster before thirty years old. A genius like Su was rarely seen. Since humans could not control demons, the reputation of demons naturally became bad. In the past when humans were sufficiently powerful, demons were their most loyal fighters.


    ¡°That means Holy Rock City will not approve of me having a demonic army?¡±


    ¡°Holy Rock City isn¡¯t afraid, but the local nobles are!¡±


    ¡°Sir!¡± Su opened his mouth. ¡°The demonic race cannot be trusted!¡±


    Cuisi smiled faintly, ¡°If you are strong enough, you can trust demons.¡± If Su became a Golden Grand Swordmaster an astronomical number of demons would be willing to sign a contract with him. Even now there were also many demons who were willing to follow Su and sign contracts with humans. As long as the contract was not a soul contract a demon could still reap sizeable benefits, especially with a powerful human who could enable a demon to acquire more abilities and enjoy a longer life.


    On the subcontinent ne demons actually belonged to a hybrid race, they were not creatures from the demonic ne. It was not as tough surviving on the subcontinent ne aspared to the demonic ne, but those creatures with demonic blood still did not dominate it. It was really an insult. The experts on the demonic ne knew about the existence of the subcontinent ne. Sometimes, demonic creatures would try to summon demons, but the demons would in turn devour the demonic creature.


    ¡°Demons cannot be trusted? Saleen recalled that book of magic notes he had obtained. It was written by an ancient supreme demon. ¡°That supreme demon and his master had already developed a kinship found only between humans. In order to find a tinge of his master¡¯s soul, how many nes did that supreme demon traverse? They cannot be trusted? What a joke. Luckily Nailisi isn¡¯t around, otherwise Su would suffer.¡±


    The winged skeleton remained silent. He pondered Saleen¡¯s words, it was clear that Saleen did not want the army to consume too much money. Saleen¡¯s idea of creating his own fleet was great, but this fleet would spend the most amount of money. An entireposition of spirits would have to rely on the unlimited resources in the ocean.


    All these resources had to be given to Saleen, so that Saleen could develop an army onnd which was as tough as steel.


    In Saleen¡¯s heart, he finally had a rough n of the army¡¯s structure after listening to Fellett¡¯s reminder. ¡°Without suitable soldiers, I shall summon demons first. Since the demons are too powerful, they will not be easy to control, so I shall summon imps or demonic spirits. These creatures with the demonic bloodline will not require treatment after getting injured. I can heal them myself and they will definitely be good material for being soldiers. As for other people¡¯s opinions of me? I will think about that after securing Metatrin City. Once I return, I will never leave Metatrin City again. I should think of a way to advance to a sorcerer first. As for the acquisition of civilians, I don¡¯t n to use that letter Joey gave me. I will obtain an earl¡¯s loyalty immediately. The business will only feel solid if I carve it out on my own.¡± At the moment, the people following Saleen wholeheartedly were actually the pirates who had no future. The others who had arrived in Metatrin City all had their own motives.

 Chapter 620: Lack of Talent (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 620: Lack of Talent (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat turned north after traveling one-thousand miles from shore. As expected, they did not encounter any trouble. Fellet and Lanny spent most of their time talking to Saleen. Saleen concluded that he was still too na?ve.


    In the beginning, he had considered Aini to be analytical, butpared to his parents he was still very innocent.


    In the blink of an eye, it was already December and Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had returned to the northern seas. The alchemical boat traveled underwater for one-thousand miles when bypassing Lianyun City to avoid rming the Lianyun Citybat vessels.


    Saleen had much to gain from talking to the Fellets so he did not mind the slight dy to the schedule from traveling underwater.


    Saleen felt rxed on the boat and could feel his magic chords growing. Unfortunately, they were not transforming yet and were still very far away from advancing into a sorcerer. Even so, the magic chords he currently possessed were twice as much as most mages of the same grade.


    On this day, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat stopped by the shore. They were now at the natural port that was seven-hundred miles south of Metatrin City. Some time ago Saleen came to know that there was a mine there that could produce magic crystallites. He did not have enough manpower so he never began mining there and only instructed the dragon skeletonbat vessel to patrol this area once in a while.


    This time around, construction had begun at this natural port.


    This location was seven-hundred miles away from Metatrin City and the waters would only freeze in December. Only the dragon skeletonbat vessel could go ashore. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was sighted when they were fifty miles away.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel released two small boats which approached the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Once they saw the boat, they turned around and returned.


    Saleen frowned when he realized that the security wasx. The winged skeleton then said, ¡°Master, thebat vessels already have a way of recognizing each other. When I was creating the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat in Metatrin City, I had also created a few small tug boats for transportation of goods. They can recognize us.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s take a look ashore. Uncle Fellet, pleasee along.¡± Saleen knew that he did not spend a lot of time in Metatrin City so what the winged skeleton and the rest had managed to aplish was actually impressive. In his ns, Saleen had intended for the port to follow a military port, so regardless if the iing boat was familiar or not, it should still be thoroughly inspected before being allowed to enter.


    Saleen walked onto the deck with the Fellets. Narnia stayed below. She was involved in the designing of this port and was not interested to see it again.


    When the alchemical boat entered the port, it was empty except for a few small boats. The security on shore was much better. Saleen¡¯s elemental eye could see more than twenty magic stone artilleries. On a cliff that was a distance away, countless darkrooms were chiselled into it to set up alchemy crossbows.


    The port was not intricately designed, but there were two castles built on both sides of the port that were more than twenty miles apart. They were chiselled out from two mountains.


    Saleen calcted that each castle could contain up to ten-thousand men. On top of each castle was an unfinished magic tower. Under normal circumstances, such castles could contain two-thousand soldiers. Since these castles were meant to protect the port and had strong military implications on the city behind them, they could contain more than five-thousand soldiers each instead.


    The remaining vacancies could be filled by craftsmen, mages, servants, and auxiliary soldiers.


    ¡°The Lord has returned! The Lord has returned!¡± The men that were working on the pier began to mor and the winged skeleton unrolled the g on the boat.


    ¡°My Lord, you are back early!¡± Gurney brought some men over as Saleen¡¯s boat approached the shore.


    ¡°Hmm? Why are you here?¡± Saleen was confused to see Gurney there.


    ¡°Lord Daniel said that this is an important site that should be heavily protected for the time-being, so he sent me to here to monitor,¡± Gurney said excitedly. Daniel had begun to trust him, this meant that he was beginning to enter Saleen¡¯s inner circle.


    ¡°How is the construction of the citying along?¡±


    ¡°Those three old fellows have yet toe. We have been using ves so it has been slow. It will have to wait until summer next year before the new city can house people.¡± Gurney was talking about the Three Kings. No one couldmand them around since Saleen and Aini had left so they only focussed on training in Metatrin City. Without the help of the Three Kings, very few spirits of the dead could be produced and utilized.


    ¡°How dare they not take their job seriously? Hmm¡­¡± Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Once I advance into a sorcerer, I will not have to fear those three fellows anymore. For now, I shall put up with them first.¡±


    Gurney brought Saleen and the rest more than ten miles towards the west before they could see the new city. This city was situated in a strategic location as its city walls could be built to join together a valley that was two miles wide and a fortress could be constructed once the mountains on both sides had been slightly adjusted. The geographical location meant that armies could only attack from the sea. The other regions were mountainous so there was no other way in or out.


    If not for this, Saleen would not have chosen to venture seven-hundred miles to build Metatrin City at its current location. In terms of defense and security, this location was one-hundred times better than Metatrin City.


    ¡°Why are the docks not constructed yet?¡± Saleen¡¯s elemental eye could clearly see the entire port and one-hundred square yards of empty space. He did not see any underwater docks, but for some unknown reason, a deepwater port had been roughly chiselled out.


    ¡°My Lord, we are focusing on building the shipyard first. At the moment, we don¡¯t have enough sailors to build fleets yet,¡± Gurney replied.


    Saleen knew that this port¡¯s main purpose was to build shipyards and factories to refine magic crystallites and not for transaction of goods. The construction progress was simply too slow. Had they not bought enough ves? Those ves from Eastern Sea should be fully utilized. This ce was so cold and isted that it seemed like there was no sense of urgency.


    ¡°My Lord, there is no hurry here.¡±


    ¡°How can there not be any hurry¡­,¡± Saleen sighed and stomped his foot. He could not expand his territories onnd for now, he had to resort to building a city in this wilderness. On the sea, if he could find the route to reach the Ind of Eastern Nations, he would need a fleet ofbat vessels immediately. There were a number of inds in the northern sea. He would need more than one-hundred boats in order to conquer them all.


    These inds also acted as the supply points from the southern seas to Metatrin City. They were not worth much when Metatrin City had not been constructed. Now that the city was prosperous, many merchant boats would head north every summer. Alchemy City would surely take note of this.


    If Alchemy City or Lianyun City invaded these inds, it was equivalent to closing off the sea route. If they chose to collect taxes, then Saleen¡¯s business would suffer severely.


    The roads leading to Metatrin City were too far. Phoenix alone was two-thousand miles away. Only the sea route was the quickest way to link them to Qin¡¯s businesses. If the sea route was controlled by others, it would be difficult for Metatrin City to be a business hub.


    Lianyun City once deployedbat vessels to harass Metatrin City, but were destroyed by dragon remainsbat vessel. The people of Lianyun City might not have given up yet. Saleen only possessed one dragon skeletonbat vessel and two Sregl Indbat vessels to guard Metatrin City. He could not even use these vessels to attack, much less defend more than one-hundred inds.


    At the end of the day, Daniel was not wise enough to understand the importance of the sea. He chose to devote every energy and resources into building Metatrin City and spared very little for this new city. Luckily, Saleen chose to take a look or he would still be unaware of what was going on here.


    Saleen was not in the mood to continue further. He said to Gurney, ¡°You have a lot of free time here. I will send someone else to oversee the construction of the city. Use the time to practice your swordsmanship. You will never amount to anything if you don¡¯t be a grand swordmaster. You are not young anymore.¡±


    Saleen was barely twenty years old himself, but sounded like an old person when reprimanding Gurney. Gurney nodded and said, ¡°My Lord, indeed I am not suitable for such matters. It was just that you were not around and Lord Daniel did not dare to hand this task over to anyone else.¡±


    Gurney was grateful. He was already close to forty years old, but was still a swordmaster and not a zun grand swordmaster. He was not talented so he would only have a chance if he worked hard and Saleen gave him a good teacher.


    ¡°I will send someone over in two or three days then you will return to Metatrin City. Hmm, since constructions have just started here, put a stop to it first. Pass me the diagrams. I will bring it back and redesign it again,¡± Saleen instructed. Fellet was watching from the side and began tough.


    ¡°Uncle Fellet, what are youughing about?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you are too hasty. If you want to aplish big things, you need to rely on more people and not always be so skeptical of others.¡±


    ¡°Uncle you are right.¡± Saleen thought, ¡°Looks like I have to look for the Earl that Joey rmended. An Early can definitely govern a city. Since Joey said that Earl could be trusted, then¡­ then I shall use him.¡±


    Once onboard, Saleen was dispirited. His mind rang with the winged skeleton¡¯s voice, ¡°Master, I can take my time regarding thebat vessels. It is not a must for bonebat vessels to be operated by spirits of the dead. Their structure will be the same as a magicbat vessel. We can use magic stone artilleries for weapons so I have reserved a fort. If we ignore the portion of spirits of the dead operating the vessel, I can create a batch very quickly.¡±


    ¡°What about the sailors?¡± Saleen asked gloomily.


    ¡°Master, it will be difficult to recruit suitable ones even if you had the time. Let¡¯s groom the sailors on our own. Didn¡¯t we buy many Eastern Sea ves? Let me take charge. They will be obedient.¡±


    ¡°I guess this is the only way,¡± Saleen thought. Even if he managed to hire any sailors, they could not be deployed on thebat vessel. Lex would not be able to help either. Bitter Water Prefecture was in the inner mainds and there were no rivers, they had no need for sailors.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat took six hours to travel over seven-hundred miles. The shore has already frozen so the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat went underwater. Saleen saw that under the crescent-shaped penins was an underwater fortress. Countless spirits of the dead were patrolling very tightly underwater.


    When the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat passed through, the spirits of the dead followed. The winged skeletonughed and said, ¡°Master, haven¡¯t I guarded this port well for you?¡±


    ¡°These are spirits of the dead?¡±


    ¡°Master, these spirits of the dead were created by me and not summoned from the death dimension.¡±


    ¡°You can create spirits of the dead?¡± Saleen was shocked. Only grade-9 death mages could create spirits of the dead. The winged skeleton was only grade-7, but could create spirits of the dead. Clearly, he was different from the norm.


    Spirits of the dead that were created were easier to use than those that had been summoned. Their only weakness was that once they had been killed, their soul me would be lost and it would be difficult to revive them.

 Chapter 621: Lack of Talent (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 621: Lack of Talent (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, the spirits of the dead that I have created are all on the boat. Three Kings are around so let¡¯s not waste our own effort,¡± winged skeletonughed deviously. After being around Nailisi for such a long time, even the way he spoke resembled her now.


    Saleen¡¯s mood improved greatly. The Three Kings¡¯ abilities could definitely summon arge number of spirits of the dead and could solve the issue of Metatrin City¡¯sck of defense. Right now, Lex¡¯s men were there, Sika¡¯s Caucasus people had settled down, Saleen had recruited many soldiers, and now spirits of the dead could help with the building of the city.


    ¡°Sika, I wonder how Sika is?¡±


    Saleen became less frustrated once he thought of Sika. Sika was rarely troubled. The things she would be troubled over were usually trivial issues such as finding more food for Caucasus people for theing winter. Ironically, she was able to maintainposure when it came to big issues.


    This was the best mindset in life. One worried only because one felt insufficient. If one already possessed a lot and was still upset, then this person would never be satisfied. At this thought, Saleen began to smile.


    One must strive, but to lose oneself in the midst of achieving certain targets was not what a mage should be doing.


    ¡°Saleen, are you still troubled over theck of talent that you can utilize?¡± Once they had safely reached Metatrin City, Fellet was happy and relieved. It was reflected in the way he spoke. He knew that he was in possession of quite a few items. The elders in Holy Rock City only let him escape because of their carelessness. They must be regretting it now. There was nothing they could do once Fellet reached Metatrin City.


    ¡°Yes, Uncle Fellet. The winged skeleton is a powerful spirit of the dead who can help me to solve the issue ofbat vessels, but I do not wish for my city to be full of spirits of the dead. Only a few of the people I recruited have proven to be capable. As for the rest¡­¡±


    ¡°How many people are there in Metatrin City now?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not too sure. When I left, those that had settled down permanently were about two-hundred-thousand.¡±


    Fellet was taken aback by this figure. It was not an easy task to build a city with a poption of more than ten-thousand. Typically, new cities would take three to five years to be prepared for ten-thousand people. Metatrin City had only been built for a year and it already contained more than two-hundred-thousand people!


    ¡°Master, ording to thetest records from the town hall, there are three-hundred and forty-thousand inhabitants and that is excluding the noble families and their followers that are seeking refuge here.¡±


    Qin noble families usually took care of their followers. Even if the families encountered difficulties their followers still did not give up on them. Many of the noble families of Phoenix and Lun had already sought refuge under Lex. Under her orders, a portion of them decided to seek refuge with Metatrin City.


    These noble families had many followers. Lex helped Saleen allocatends to them. The winter here was long and cold. The peasants were usually only able to harvest for one season, but the crops in that season alone was more than two seasons¡¯ worth of crops in the south. Although life was tough, the peasants were satisfied and were willing to continue following the noble families.


    These people were authentic peasants and their agriculture abilities were as valuable as the powers of a mage. These noble families each brought along at least more than ten peasant families and some even brought along close one-thousand. There must be at least one-hundred-thousand peasants in total. Manyrge plots ofnd in the north of Metatrin City had already been leased out to these peasants.


    The noble families had gold coins while Metatrin City had manpower and spirits of the dead, the former were able to build quite a few castles. The north and west of Metatrin City was now filled with many viges.


    Before that year¡¯s winter came, the peasants had already harvested. Thends were not properly settled in for agriculture yet the peasants still managed to harvest enough crops to feed themselves. They were already more than content.


    The noble families were also pleased that Sika had deployed Caucasus people to patrol around the viges. As a result, there were rarely any beasts for the past half a year. Poption was bing denser. In the near future no beasts would step foot into these areas even without the Caucasus people patrolling.


    One could say that Metatrin City was like a city that a Duke would own. If the poption continued to grow over to one-million it would be at the scale of a royal city.


    ¡°Saleen, there are more than three-hundred-thousand free people in your city. Surely there must be some swordsmen or mages looking for job opportunities. I¡¯m afraid there aren¡¯t any officials in your town hall that conducts screening of skills.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± Realization dawned on Saleen after hearing what Fellet said. During the fourth dynasty, some big noble families would set up departments in the town hall to recruit talents and groom people from amongst themoners. They could join the army or be directly promoted to be an official. Such an organization had been lost ever since the copse of the fourth dynasty.


    Only Cloudflow still had such practices, but it was very rare.


    ¡°You can do that¡­,¡± Fellet whispered into Saleen¡¯s ear.


    ¡°I can do that?¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°Master, it¡¯s not a big deal to set up a fighting arena,¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s voice appeared in Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Arena, arena¡­,¡± Saleen repeated the word. His mind drifted to the historical records on the magic notes.


    During the second dynasty, arenas weremon and professionals would fight to the death against creatures of all dimensions in order to earn money, ranks of nobility, and honor. It wasmon for hundreds to die everyday. If a country had one-hundred cities, there would be ten-thousand deaths per day.


    Amongst these deaths, at least one-third of the professionals would either die on the spot or suffer severe injuries so much so that they could no longer return to the arena. Those that survived would find it difficult to continue surviving against such strongpetition for a long time unless they left early. Usually, eighty percent of the professionals that continued to stay in the arena beyond a year would die. Less than one percent of professionals would still be active in the arena after three years.


    Saleen might not be able to search for strong creatures from every dimension to participate in the arena, but he had Three Kings who could summon very strong spirits of the dead. He also had Nailisi who would be able to summon demons so he could still set up an arena if he wanted to.


    By doing so he would be creating a lot of unnecessary deaths and injuries though.


    The mages at the temple had already gotten news that the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat has entered the underwater dock. Nailisi could not wait and led some men to the port first. Saleen had only just left the underwater dock and was walking up the steps leading tond when he was embraced by Nailisi.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisiughd. She used too much strength and almost choked Saleen.


    Cuisi saw Nailisi and shivered. He had thought that he could get rid of Nailisi since he had advanced into a supreme demon. Unfortunately, the moment Nailisi appeared, he realized that she had evolved too. The fourth ability must have already appeared and Nailisi¡¯s power had surpassed him again.


    Cuisi lowered his head and looked at the ground. He was afraid that Nailisi might know what he was thinking.


    Saleen forcefully pushed Nailisi away and coughed a few times before hitting her head and said, ¡°Are you trying to kill me? Can¡¯t you be gentler?¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika hugs you like this too, I saw it before!¡± Nailisi pouted but did not dare to retaliate. Her strength had increased by leaps and bounds and she was still unable to control it entirely, hence almost choking Saleen.


    Saleen was stunned by Nailisi¡¯s words. Nailisi must have secretly stalked them when Saleen was with Sika. It was only at that moment that Saleen was too distracted to sense her presence.


    ¡°Where are Daniel and J?¡± Saleen did not wish to continue the conversation and quickly changed the topic.


    ¡°Daniel is at the town hall and is extremely busy. J is training swordsmen at the campsite. Sister Sika is there too.¡±


    ¡°I want you to personally bring Uncle Fellet and Auntie Lanny to Aini¡¯s mansion and settle them down, then ask Daniel and J to meet me at the temple.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master,¡± Nailisi grinned and went to greet Fellet and Lanny. Saleen headed straight to the temple under the escort of Caucasus warriors. Three demons that had been following Nailisi set off separately to inform J, Daniel, and Lex of Saleen¡¯s return.


    Once he returned to the temple, Saleen did not rest. He instead headed straight to the third level to await the arrival of Daniel and the rest. Sika was the first to return with two young Caucasus people. The abilities of these two Caucasus people had drastically improved during the time that Saleen was away. He felt pleased. J had not been cking and Metatrin City¡¯s overallbat skill was still decent.


    ¡°Saleen, you are back so early!¡± Sika smiled, leaving Saleen gasping for breath.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it good that I am back earlier? Originally I had wanted to return in March next year.¡±


    ¡°Early is good, early is good.¡± Sika was smiling so widely her eyes could barely be seen. She pulled Saleen and said, ¡°Why don¡¯t you and I go to South Court first?¡±


    ¡°There are some things that I need to talk to Daniel about,¡± Saleen felt awkward and was thankful that Nailisi was not around.


    Daniel came very quickly and there were two Sregl Ind mages and a Sregl Ind swordmaster with him. He had strictly adhered to Saleen¡¯s instructions not to utilize people that were newly recruited.


    ¡°My Lord!¡±


    ¡°Ha, Daniel, you are at grade-6?¡± Saleen noticed that Daniel looked confident and assured. Although the elemental eye could not reveal the grades of death mages, it could roughly see that Daniel¡¯s overall abilities had improved by more than two times since he left. This should be the hallmark of a grade-6 death mage.


    ¡°Yes, I have been busy with matters at the town hall so I have been training less. Somehow I advanced unexpectedly still.¡± Daniel was much older than Saleen. Being able to advance suddenly was good news for Daniel. Once death mages reached the sorcerer phase, the rate of progression would be much slowerpared to element mages. Only those that advanced early would have a chance to reach grade-9.


    ¡°Daniel, after this, I want to you split up the work at town hall and I want you to take charge of only the important things. Other than that, focus on your training.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, we don¡¯t have enough manpower!¡±


    ¡°There are magic apprentices in the city. Take some in and let Lex¡¯s men train them. We can still begin to start our recruitment of army troops even though we arecking soldiers and officers. By the way, I have decided to build a fighting arena. Please gather the necessary funds.¡±


    ¡°Fighting arena?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, Judikaka must be so bored. Let¡¯s find some things for them to do to keep them out of trouble.¡±


    At this point, Saleen¡¯s mind was already made up.


    When doing something like building a fighting arena, one must not turn back once the decision had been made. There were so many free people in Metatrin City and the number of noble families was many times greater than other big-scale cities so it should not be an issue finding willing donors. Although Saleen¡¯s funds were insufficient for now, they could stille up with something. As long as Lex did not oppose it, this n could be implemented as quickly as next year.

 Chapter 622: Nailisi the voyeur (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 622: Nailisi the voyeur (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was thest to arrive. By the time she came, Saleen had already learned about all the events which happened in his absence. Metatrin City was developing well. Since it was winter now, the port was frozen, so there was no business. There were several merchant camps in the city though. Onnd the route leading to Phoenix was still in operation.


    The people from the Tiffany family had organized arge merchant convoy carrying hundreds of magic beasts. These magic beasts were camel horses which had rough skin and thick flesh, they could simply survive on hay. With these hundreds of camel horses the people from the Tiffany family could still conduct business and sustain the operations of their shop in Metatrin City.


    The other trading firms emted them causing the price of such low-cost magic beasts to increase by several fold.


    The baroness and the people left behind by Aini had begun assembling a mercenary group. At the moment, this mercenary group had expanded to consist of more than one-thousand men. Only mercenaries registered with Metatrin City plied this two-thousand milemercial route.


    Even more Caucasus people had arrived. Lon had been upied and the Caucasus region was fully invaded by forces from the Holy See discing countless Caucasus people. There were at least more than fifty-thousand Caucasus people in Metatrin City now.


    Almost every Caucasus person was a warrior. Under Sika¡¯s leadership a Caucasus camp with ten-thousand people had been developed.


    Untrained Caucasus people could not partake in invasions, but in the aspects of defending a city and patrolling the wilderness, they were the mightiest warriors. At the moment the task of patrolling the nuclear regions of Metatrin City was under the control of Sika¡¯s Caucasus camp.


    That was good, at least no outsiders could infiltrate the vital areas of Metatrin City anymore.


    The mages from Sregl Ind only engaged in training, while the municipal administration was solely left to Daniel. The skeletal battleships left behind by the winged skeleton were patrolling the ocean. In this season, no one would try to harass Metatrin City though.


    As for the temple, Nailisi was in full control of it. Nailisi¡¯s three demon subordinates hadpleted the authority transfer process, they were now in charge of the temple¡¯s defense.


    The poption in the city had ballooned to three-hundred and fifty-thousand, these people had already registered their identities in the town hall and became Metatrin people. There were numerous nobles in the city, one-hundred and twenty-four of them. In this city, with over a hundred nobles, there were about twenty-thousand servants and trusted soldiers.


    Many of the defected nobles had already constructed castles north of Metatrin City. The development of a castle was tedious, but with the three kings around, there was naturally an endless stream of spirits for usage. In order to build their castles the nobles had spent huge amounts of gold coins and these gold coins flowed into the town hall turning into Saleen¡¯s wealth.


    Lex¡¯s two swordsman¡¯s camps, which had over fifty-thousand people, built a small town west of Metatrin City. The city only had two emblem groups worth of manpower, they were stationed in the vicinity of Lex¡¯s residence.


    All these arrangements might seem disorderly, but in actual fact, Metatrin City was extremely organized.


    Lex had already helped Saleen train two camps of soldiers, these two camps were in charge of Metatrin City¡¯s defense. There was no war at the moment, the manpower was not in shortage.


    Currently, Metatrin City was expanding Northtown. They wanted to emte Holy Rock City and station professional armies outside the city. Once Saleen¡¯s army was sufficiently staffed, Lex would then withdraw her army from Westtown.


    ¡°Lex, I want to develop an arena.¡± This was the first thing Saleen told Lex.


    ¡°Saleen, aren¡¯t you a little too anxious?¡± Of course Lex knew what an arena was and she was a little repulsed by such things. It was difficult to limit the lethality in an arena.


    ¡°I am afraid there are too many professions in Metatrin City. If there is no arena, trouble might ensue. Since Metatrin City is newly developed, these people who have arrived have not adapted to this ce yet. Once they settle down there will surely be a number of private organizations, it will be better for me to manage such a situation in advance.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true, but building an arena will cost a lot.¡±


    ¡°That applies to other cities. This time around, I want to use the three kings.¡±


    ¡°I am talking about the daily operational expenses when the arena bes functional. The sries of the workers, the rewards for the victors, and the maintenance fees.¡±


    ¡°As long as you do not object to it, all that will not be a problem,¡± Saleen proimed confidently. He knew that he had arge amount of cash at the moment. It was fully adequate to support this arena. An arena would reap profits too. Since there were so many free citizens in this city the sale of tickets would already be a huge source of ie.


    At the moment, Saleen was thinking about the establishment of a gambling outlet to allow the residents of Metatrin City to ce their bets.


    The Cloudflow nobles were often involved in such affairs, while the Qin nobles felt that this was a disy of poor upbringing. ¡°I am still a mage, if I get involved with such things, I will definitely be scolded by other people.¡±


    Setting up a gambling outlet could boost the ie by more than three times. If Saleen did not want to earn this amount of money, then he would not be a Sikeqinyan.


    ¡°Okay, since you want to do it, I will get Narnia to stay behind and help you design an arena. The drawings in her brain are very holistic, just allow her to give you ideas regarding the design of the arena.¡±


    Saleen concurred, ¡°I cannot let the mages from Sregl Ind handle this matter. The knowledge in my brain isn¡¯t rted to unpopr construction either. I can only seek help from Narnia.¡±


    Saleen discussed matters with Lex regarding the training of an army and the developments in Cexing City, then he bade her farewell. He then discussed with Nailisi and the rest about the development of Metatrin City.


    Metatrin City was built around the temple. It was split into four parts, having four cities in the north, south, east, and west. The southern part was a more isted environment, there was only a tiny grasnd outside the city and mountains surrounded the city. A towering mountain measuring more than two miles in width was situated near the coast and there were no exits there at all. The Caucasus people lived there, living a life of nature in the mountains, just like their ancestors.


    The eastern part was themercial area near the harbor. There business families of all sizes were gathered. The youth from the four biggest business families had established their residences there. The one with the best position was Aini¡¯s residence, this part was the most open area.


    The northern city housed all the nobles who had defected to Saleen. This city was filled with superior buildings, there were almost no civilians there.


    The western city housed most of the free citizens. It would be best to establish an arena in the western city. Metatrin City¡¯s free citizens were not impoverished. These people had to have some wealth considering the fact that they had moved thousands of miles here to be free citizens. Back then when Saleen was selling the houses in the western city, he made sure not to sell them at too high a price.


    The free citizens in the western city led prettyfortable lives, itcontained the most workshops and craftsmen. The professionals who came to try their luck in Metatrin City had also congregated in the western city, such as some low grade mages, swordsmen, the rarely seen wizards, assassins, and pirates.


    As the sky gradually grew dark Saleen allowed everyone to go and rest. He was taken back to the room by Sika.


    ¡°Saleen, did you miss me?¡± Sika turned around and locked the door tightly with a grin.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Thene over.¡± Sika beckoned, causing Saleen to swallow hard. Saleen ran to the door, closing his eyes and using his perception to scan his surroundings. Nailisi was peeping from the room next door.


    Saleen wanted to open the door to dismiss Nailisi. Unexpectedly, Sika grabbed his cor from behind and carried him on to the bed.


    ¡°Saleen, I have missed you.¡±


    ¡°Wait, I will do it myself!¡± Saleen was startled, even though his devil set was extremely sturdy, he was still worried that Sika might damage it.


    ¡°Rx, I know the consequences.¡± Sika helped Saleen remove his long robe, but Saleen had to undo the belt himself. Beneath the long robe was a tight-fitting magic robe. After Saleen removed it, he quickly used the Cleaning Spell.


    ¡°The Cleaning Spell is not good, a bath is morefortable.¡± Sika took out a gigantic wooden tub. The fact that she kept such a thing in her Ring of Gifts made Saleenugh.


    Using magic to create huge volumes of water, the wooden tub was swiftly filled to the brim. Sika removed her clothes quickly, then jumped in.


    ¡°Saleen,e in.¡± Sika gestured. Saleen could not resist the temptation, so he joined her quickly.


    ¡°Sika, do you remember the first time we met?¡±


    ¡°Of course, you were staring lecherously at me.¡± Sika rub her chest against Saleen¡¯s body.


    Under the effect of magic, the water temperature rose quickly, causing steam to fill the room. Nailisi was eavesdropping next door, she could hear that the two people were bathing slowly and chatting. Nailisi punched the floor violently, then mumbled to herself furiously, ¡°You two haven¡¯t seen each other for a long time, yet you are still wasting time!¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t a lecher, you had hit me too!¡± Saleen cried. Back then, he was still very young. He only felt that Sika was very beautiful, but he did not have any other motives.


    ¡°I have already hit you, but you can stare at me now.¡± Sika embraced Saleen, feeling overjoyed.


    ¡°Sika, marry me.¡± Saleen could not help but blurt out his thoughts.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you mine by now? The Caucasus people will not agree to our marriage. If I get married to you, I might lose my powers.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Saleen could not understand the logic behind Sika¡¯s loss of power. As a mage, he believed that something which belonged to oneself would not be lost unreasonably.


    ¡°Don¡¯t as me to give up my power, if you want a wife, ask Lex. She will probably ask you soon enough. I feel that someone wille forth to make a marriage proposal by next year.¡±


    ¡°Marrying someone else? Then what about you?!¡± Saleen was flustered.


    ¡°Me? When I miss you, I shall see who will dare obstruct me.¡± Sika said boisterously. At the same time, she turned her back to Saleen and said, ¡°My back is itchy, help me to scratch it.¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly, ¡°Indeed, Sika is an earth priest now, not many people will dare trifle with her. Even Lex will not want to offend someone like Sika. The problem is, do I want to marry another woman?¡±


    ¡°Use some strength Saleen, a penny for your thoughts.¡± Sika felt that her back was even itchier now as Saleen was using his hand to draw circles on her back.


    ¡°Master, use some force!¡± Nailisi nagged from the next room, ming Saleen in her heart, ¡°Why are you not getting to action after such a long time?¡± At that moment, someone knocked on the door gently.


    ¡°Come in.¡± Nailisi quickly sat upright after returning to her chair.


    Cuisi entered. Coming before Nailisi, he bowed respectfully. ¡°Master, I have¡­¡±


    ¡°Advanced?¡± Nailisi allowed her eyelids to sink, she did not even bother looking at Cuisi.


    ¡°Yes, Master. I drank some medicine given by a mage. I then advanced to a supreme demon. I still don¡¯t have the abilities of a supreme demon yet, I have to strengthen them slowly.¡±


    ¡°Why are you telling me this? Isn¡¯t it good that you can be rid of my control once you be a supreme demon?¡± Nailisi¡¯s tone was t, but Cuisi¡¯s heart trembled. He could sense that Nailisi was not in a good mood. He would never expect that Nailisi¡¯s foul mood was because she was interrupted from peeping at Saleen.

 Chapter 623: Nailisi the voyeur (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 623: Nailisi the voyeur (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, I will never betray you.¡± Cuisi prostrated on the ground, not daring to look up.


    ¡°That¡¯s because you know I have acquired the fourth ability, do you want to know what is it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I really want to know. What I am even more curious about is when Master will acquire all eight abilities!¡± Cuisi lifted his head, his gaze smothering with passion. He was really full of anticipation.


    As a contract creature of a Luoluokaluo, Cuisi could possibly advance to a devil. There was an even higher position above a devil even. Given his bloodline, it was actually impossible for him to attain such a position, but Nailisi had given him this possibility.


    ¡°Eight abilities?¡± Nailisi used a doubtful tone to question Cuisi, remaining silent for a long time. Cuisi felt perturbed, he prostrated on the ground and awaited Nailisi¡¯s response.


    ¡°Cuisi, Master has the intention of forming a demonic army. I n to establish six legions, you shall be the leader of the first legion.¡±


    Cuisi was overjoyed, Saleen was going to build an arena. If Cuisi got sent to manage the arena, it would mean that he would not have much future. ¡°Since I have be a supreme demon, the only way for me to obtain stronger powers is to go out for battle.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± Nailisi paused.


    Cuisi lifted his head and said, ¡°Master, I will fulfill whatever requests you have.¡±


    ¡°Nothing, leave first,e look for me tomorrow.¡± Nailisi waved her hand. Cuisi left cautiously, not knowing what was on Nailisi¡¯s mind.


    At this point in time Nailisi was thinking that since Saleen wanted to unify the maind she would have to unify the demonic ne in order to provide sufficient support to Saleen. Dominating the demonic ne would require at least a dozen devils to do so. Cuisi had just advanced to a supreme demon, he would not be of much help either.


    Nailisi chased Cuisi out because she felt that Saleen and Sika had already gotten into the thick of the action.


    In Saleen¡¯s room Sika was scrubbing Saleen¡¯s body earnestly. She controlled her strength very well, Saleen did not feel any pain at all.


    ¡°Saleen, tell me, why don¡¯t we have children?¡± Sika asked feeling a little displeased.


    ¡°How would I know, a mage does not know about such things,¡± Saleen answered innocently.


    ¡°Because we are doing it too little, don¡¯t you think?¡± Sika tossed the towel aside, then she hugged Saleen and rolled onto the bed. Saleen struggled for a moment, then allowed her to straddle him.


    ¡°Saleen, I will be staying here this month, I will not return to the southern gardens!¡± Sika gently caressed Saleen¡¯s stomach. Saleen felt that Sika¡¯s hand was unusually warm, causing his blood to flow about faster.


    ¡°Sika, Nailisi seems to be eavesdropping on us from the room next door.¡± Saleen was exhrated, but after specially scanning his surroundings he discovered that Nailisi was next door using her perception to spy on him. That was why Saleen wanted to stop Sika.


    ¡°Just let her peep, if the maidservant dares to disrupt us, I will smash her into pulp.¡± Sika was still talking very loudly. It was only recently that she discovered that Nailisi was peeping. She could not possibly publicize such matters. Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s contract partner. Even if Nailisi did not peep, Nailisi would know that Sika and Saleen had engaged in intercourse.


    Since she could not stop Nailisi, Sika pretended that Nailisi did not exist, she could not possibly ask Saleen to dissolve the contract with Nailisi.


    ¡°I will go lecture her!¡± Saleen tried to get off the bed to go look for Nailisi.


    ¡°What is the use of it, Saleen,e back now.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen was struggling to look for Nailisi, Sika took out her weapon from the Ring of Gifts. Her cudgel was almost as tall as her. Sika tossed the cudgel violently. The cudgel flew towards the wall, which was made by blending the locally produced white rocks with steel rocks, prating it. At the same time, Nailisi was leaning towards the wall. Nailisi was totally caught off guard when that cudgel appeared. She got so frightened that she rolled across the floor.


    The cudgel stopped, lodged within the wall. Sika had managed to detect Nailisi¡¯s position and actions despite being blocked by a wall which was half a yard thick. The intention of this warning was clear. If Sika wanted to kill someone, that cudgel would have pierced right through the wall and continue assaulting the target. The metal thorn at the end of the cudgel would have also sprang out.


    Nailisi broke out in a sweat, she had witnessed the lethality of Sika¡¯s cudgel and knew the amount of materials which had been fused with the cudgel. If it was not for the sustenance by a magic array, the weight of the cudgel would be astonishing. Even if Nailisi had reached the standard of a supreme demon, she would not be able to lift the cudgel.


    ¡°Luckily Cuisi has been dismissed, otherwise I would be so embarrassed.¡± Nailisi stood up, secretly feeling d.


    Sika¡¯s attack had startled Nailisi, but it also reminded Saleen. ¡°What should I say to Nailisi? When Sika and I are doing the deed, you have to stay away? This will inevitably be too ruthless to Nailisi. When my life was in danger, Nailisi had used her own life to protect me.¡± Saleen though. ¡°Sika, let¡¯s forget about it. She is an imp, she is not human,¡± Saleen said awkwardly. ¡°Such matters couldn¡¯t be concealed from Nailisi, if only I continued pretending to be in the dark.¡±


    At this point in time, Nailisi stood up and went to the wall. Using her finger to press against Sika¡¯s cudgel, she pushed it back gently. With a thud, Sika¡¯s cudgelnded on the ground, revealing a bowl-sized cavity in the wall.


    ¡°Sister Sika, your weapon,¡± Nailisi said cowardly.


    Nailisi had disguised her emotions very well, speaking in a submissive tone. From Saleen¡¯s room, one could see a jade-green eye darting about through that deep cavity.


    When Sika saw such a situation, she actually startedughing. She did not bear much enmity towards Nailisi, she was just worried that this demon would betray Saleen. After experiencing so many obstacles, Sika was now sure that Nailisi would never betray Saleen. She had long tossed the past unhappiness out the window. In Sika¡¯s eyes, Nailisi was like a child in an adult¡¯s body when she behaved in this manner.


    ¡°Nailisi, stop creating trouble¡­¡± Saleen stopped speaking midway, he did not know what to say to scare Nailisi. If he used gentle words, Nailisi would not give a hoot. He could not bear to use harsh words against her either. ¡°No wonder mages of the past were not willing to make a demon their contract creature, it is really difficult to manage a situation like this.¡±


    Looking through that hole, Nailisi swallowed. ¡°Master¡¯s body is so good! It is almostparable to that of a demon¡¯s.¡±


    This was not a misjudgment on Nailisi¡¯s part. After transformation, Saleen¡¯s body was no longer that of a skinny and frail mage anymore. The muscles on his body were well-defined and not too big, they were well-proportioned. Usually, only swordmasters who had undergone tough training would attain such a figure. As a mage, Saleen¡¯s physique might be the best of all mages.


    Even though a demon was very strong, their bodies were ridden with scars due to their living environment. Inparison, Saleen¡¯s body was more perfect and charged with power.


    ¡°I dare you to keep staring!¡± Saleen cast an Ice Arrow, blocking the hole. His Ice Arrow was almost fully transparent though. After the hole was blocked, another green eye seemed to have appeared at the area filled by the Ice Arrow.


    ¡°Aye, what a headache.¡± Saleenid on the bed, he was helpless against Nailisi.


    ¡°I told you so, just leave her alone.¡± Sikaid next to Saleen using her hand tofort him.


    Nailisi turned around slowly, then sat down leaning against the wall. She could feel that her master had once again be excited. There was a transparent hole just above her head, she really wanted to look and observe how Sika treated her master. She did not dare for fear that her master would really angry.


    ¡°If only I could get married to Master.¡± This thought suddenly emerged in Nailisi¡¯s mind. Once this notion appeared, it could never be quelled again.


    In the demonic world, it was no big deal to be married to a foreign race. There would not be a hybrid demonic race otherwise. The hybrid demonic race was the product between humans and demons. One of the most ferocious devils in the demonic ne even married a frost giant. Demons loved fire, so it was not known how that devil lived for the rest of his life.


    ¡°But humans? Humans might find it difficult to ept a unity between two different races. During the ancient era, humans even despised the idea of marrying elves. In the human world, elves were considered beautiful creatures. Master already has Sika, why would he want me? Sika seems like she wants Master to marry Lex. If Master really marries Lex, then I will not stand a chance anymore. Demons don¡¯t like sharing their partners with others, most demons will only have onepanion. Even if their partner dies, they will not look for a new partner. If Sika marries Saleen, I can still stomach it, but Lex? That human royal¡­Mm¡­


    Nailisi moaned, feeling her own body getting increasingly excited, she even felt her bones go to jelly. The hole above her head was so alluring, but it was transparent. If she stood up to observe the two people behind the wall would surely find out. She could only lean against the wall and stave off the temptation in her heart.


    ¡°How about using the Ultimate Shapeshifting Skill to transform into Lex¡¯s appearance?¡± Nailisi thought of another evil idea. ¡°No, Master and I are bound by a Soul Contract, he could definitely tell the difference.¡± Nailisi found out that a soul contract enabled her to share many benefits with Saleen, but when she was faced with Saleen, she could hardly keep any secrets from him.


    The air of love flooded the room next door, as snow began falling outside the window. A thick tiger skin wasid on the bed as Saleen and Sikay under it. Originally, Sika was energetic, but at this point in time she had be very weak.


    ¡°Saleen, you possess quite a lot of strength now.¡± Sika panted while Saleen wiped sweat off his body.


    He then said, ¡°We have to work hard at making children.¡±


    ¡°If we don¡¯t have kids, does that mean you do not want me anymore?¡± Sika snorted, and stopped moving.


    ¡°Of course not, I am a grade-6 grand mage now, Sika.¡±


    ¡°So what, is that a big deal? I am an earth priest.¡±


    ¡°No, I heard that once humans get to a sorcerer¡¯s grade, it will be difficult for them to have children. Usually, a sorcerer will have to wait one to two hundred years to produce a descendant.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Then let¡¯s hurry up and maximize our time!¡± Out of the blue, Sika regained her strength, as she grabbed onto Saleen. This time around she was not willing to be on top.


    On the other side of the wall, Nailisi had been overwhelmed with a second wave of excitement. The feelings brought about by a soul contract were intense, especially at such a short distance away. If Saleen and Sika were three to five hundred miles away, Nailisi would not experience such powerful feelings. At the moment, she could feel things vividly leaning against the wall gently while moaning softly.

 Chapter 624: Demons’ City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 624: Demons¡¯ City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It began to snow suddenly outside. Pure white snow danced wildly in the wind and gently sttered against the ss windows. Saleen and Sikaid on the bed. The ice arrow that Saleen cast earlier into the hole in the wall had now disappeared. It had be water element that was without shape or form and has dissipated into the air.


    ¡°Saleen, suddenly I cannot bear to see you get married,¡± Sika spoke out of the blue while looking at the ceiling.


    Saleen said happily, ¡°Have you decided to make yourself avable for marriage?¡±


    ¡°How can I? I have to dedicate myself to nature eventually. Nature priestess¡¯ cannot marry or they will lose their abilities as a priestess. I don¡¯t really care about that since I can fight as long as I have powers. Only by being a nature priestess will I be able to live as long as you. If I die early, you will still look for other women after that. I might as well live for a thousand years or so then I can look after you and you won¡¯t be able to find other women.¡±


    ¡°I am a mage. Other than being with you, where will I find the time to look for women?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Humph, I think your female servant has set her sights on you. Nailisi, am I right?¡± Sika suddenly shouted. Saleen felt a bit awkward.


    ¡°Yes, I like Master,¡± Nailisi replied through the adjacent wall. To professionals of their grades, the hole in the wall was like a door that had been opened wide. Even the softest sounds could be heard.


    Sikaughed and Nailisi was secretly pleased by that. It seemed that Sika no longer detested her as much as before, that meant one less enemy. Nailisi was not too worried about Lez either.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we get up?¡± Saleen said to Sika.


    ¡°No, I am not going back today.¡± Sika leaned on Saleen¡¯s body and pressed tightly onto his arm. There was no way Saleen could get away from Sika. He did not have the strength.


    Saleen did not wish to leave Sika of course. Sika said she was not going back, so he decided to go along with it. Ever since he started learning magic, he had been training hard every single day. He had forgotten when thest time heid on the bed like this was. The only thing that troubled Saleen was that Nailisi was only next door and the hole in the wall had yet to be mended. If only he knew ground-element spells.


    ¡°Saleen, do you like Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°What?!¡± Saleen was nervous. Nailisi was an imp so Saleen never thought about her that way. Nevertheless, he could never forget how she looked when Saleen first met Nailisi. She had silver magic patterns, green scales and a pair of beautiful horns. From a mage¡¯s perspective, he loved Nailisi. To be with her though? It was not like he was a demon himself.


    ¡°The two of you are bonded by your souls. That¡¯s very troublesome. You cannot hide from her so you might as well treat her like a human female servant.¡± Saleen breathed a sigh of relief after hearing what Sika said. He could never treat Nailisi as a female servant. In his ns, Nailisi would eventually lead a demon army.


    ¡°Sika, let¡¯s talk about this again another time.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to talk about? Nailisi, are you still there?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Nailisi replied from the other side. She could clearly hear Sika and Saleen¡¯s conversation. She had always been afraid of Sika, but at that very moment, she felt close to her.


    ¡°If you are there, thene over and serve us. Help us pour the water,¡± Sika ordered.


    ¡°Yes, Sister Sika.¡± Nailisi was overjoyed. She dashed out from her room and reached Saleen¡¯s room in no time.


    Saleen could sense the joy in Nailisi¡¯s soul. Although he and Nailisi were not connected telepathically, strong feelings such as this could still be felt by the other person. He sighed and did not say anything.


    He would be d if Sika and Nailisi could maintain an amicable rtionship. Although Sika was powerful, he would feel more assured if she was protected by Nailisi. Nailisi could easily turn out to be a mistake. Sometimes, even a master might not be able to figure out what their demon was thinking.


    Nailisi came to help Saleen change water. Both Saleen and Sika were drenched in sweat so it was extremelyfortable to soak themselves in warm water.


    Nailisi obediently stood behind and massaged Saleen¡¯s shoulders. The big wooden tub was made from dried ancient trees that could only be found in Metatrin City. The entire body of the tub was dug out from the huge branches rather than being pieced together. Sika¡¯s eyes were half-closed. She was face to face with Saleen and could see Nailisi who was standing directly behind him.


    ¡°Nailisi, what are your ns?¡± Sika started.


    Nailisi said, ¡°Of course, I will listen Sister Sika.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, Saleen will be busy doing big things in the future. Most likely, he will really not have the time to find women, but nevertheless, you must still look after him for me.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare to look after Master!¡± Nailisiughed and while she did not make the promise, she had already acknowledged Sika¡¯s request in her heart. Whatever she did in the future would have been ording to the wishes of Sika anyway so Master could not be angry with her.


    ¡°The four female servants that you found for Saleen are all demons?¡± Sika did not persist for an answer. Sika might be a simple person, but she was very clear about what Nailisi was thinking.


    ¡°Yes, they are demons and they are all males,¡± Nailisi did not wish to hide anything from Sika.


    ¡°In that case, you can summonrge numbers of demons, right?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. Summoning demons will use up magic nuclei.¡±


    ¡°Do you still have enough magic nuclei? Find me two powerful demons too. My current two guards are males and it¡¯s inconvenient,¡± Sika did not stand on ceremony. Nailisi said happily, ¡°Sure, Sister Sika. Let me think of a way to lure two powerful demons over.¡±


    Caught up in a moment of excitement, Nailisi identally revealed that she had been using a deception technique instead of summoning spells. She would lure the demons over first before defeating and conquering them.


    ¡°Sika, what do you need demons for?¡± Saleen did not understand. Caucasus people usually were not fond of demons.


    ¡°I can fly now but none of my Caucasus people can do so. I want two subordinates that can fly,¡± Sika revealed.


    ¡°Oh yes, you can fly now.¡± Saleen was thinking which of the diagrams given by Joey would suit Sika. He wanted to create a suit of armor for Sika that was better than devil armor.


    ¡°Sister Sika, demons¡­ are hard to subdue. Why don¡¯t I teach you some methods to control demons?¡± Nailisi tried to be nice. She knew the way Saleen thought. As long as she pleased Sika, Saleen would forgive her for anything she did.


    ¡°No need. I have my own way of controlling them.¡± Sika opened her eyes and looked at Nailisi with a half-smile on her face.


    Nailisi did not mind and focussed her attention and massaging Saleen. Saleen was not as awkward now. He felt troubled by what he should do with Nailisi. Breaking the soul bond was impossible even if Saleen might be willing to do so. There would definitely be consequences if he broke the soul bond and Saleen would rather not try unless necessary.


    If he decided to keep Nailisi then he would have to think through how they would all get along. Demons usually thought very differently from humans although Nailisi was not too different. There were a few demons under Nailisi that Saleen was not confident of controlling unless throughbat skills. Once the demon surpassed a human by two grades and above, the former would be ambitious and uncontroble.


    ¡°Nailisi, do you have any solutions topletely control demons? I am referring to arge number of demons.¡± Saleen brought up a question that he has been thinking about for a long time. For the past one-thousand years, mages have not had much sess controlling demons. Even powerful sorcerers could only control one to two demons. As for supreme demons, only grade-9 sorcerers would dare to give it a try. None would keep a demon by their side like what Saleen was doing.


    ¡°Master, if you have the guts¡­,¡± Nailisi paused for a moment before slowly saying, ¡°Then build a demons¡¯ city on the Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°A demons¡¯ city?¡±


    ¡°Yes. In the demon dimension, there were supreme demons or devils that would build demons¡¯ cities. Demons and supreme demons that had been subdued would never rebel once they became a part of demons¡¯ city. It is a gigantic demon magic array. As long as a demons¡¯ city was still around, the demons would never rebel. If the demons¡¯ city was destroyed, the demons would die along with it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s ruthless!¡± Saleen was given a shock. This was a paradox. Such a secretive spell was already imbnced. He had heard that demons¡¯ cities could contain millions of demons.


    This was different from controlling the Three Kings. The Three Kings were now controlled by Saleen and Aini, but it was not stable and the former could still find a way to escape back to the death dimension if thetter were not careful. Saleen and Aini¡¯s grades would determine if the Three Kings would backstab them. As for controlling demons, one might as well let them die along with their city.


    ¡°Demons¡¯ cities will boost their strengths like the Holy See¡¯s praying technique,¡± Nailisi added carefully. It might not be difficult to convince Saleen to build a demon¡¯s city, but once humans were aware of it, Nailisi knew very well what their reactions would be like.


    Demonic spirits and imps could reproduce very quickly while demons and supreme demons were the opposite. As such, it would be dangerous to the Myers Maind if they allowed too many imps and demonic spirits toe through.


    Saleen leaned against the wooden tub andughed, ¡°What am I afraid of? Nailisi, Sika, don¡¯t you know that I have nothing to lose? Use the port seven-hundred miles south from here to build the demon¡¯s city. I was troubled over how to improve that city anyway.¡±


    Indeed, Saleen had nothing to lose. He had signed a bond with Goddess of Myers to spread her faith within one-thousand years. It might seem a long period of time, but it was actually very short, especially when it came to matters such as the spreading of faiths.


    Not only would Saleen have to ovee the fact that humans had already forgotten their own Goddess and Myers Maind¡¯s guardian, he would also have to face the threat of the Lord of Glory¡¯s disciples. The Lord of Glory would never allow the existence of another faith on this dimension. Any disciple of the Goddess of Nature was immediately the enemy of the Lord of Glory.


    Sika did not ask Saleen for the reason. No matter what enemy Saleen would face, she was determined to face them with him. Nailisi did not ask either. She knew that Saleen would not have hidden it from her if he could say it directly.

 Chapter 625: Demons’ City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 625: Demons¡¯ City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, leave this to me. The only thing is that the demons¡¯ city will need a Lord. Who do you want it to be?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s curiosity was piqued by Nailisi¡¯s question and he asked, ¡°Can the Lord of demon city not be of demon bloodline?


    ¡°Of course. The Pope is not a God, but he still oversees a group of disciples with godly nature.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s reply left Saleen feeling torn. Who amongst his subordinates would be suitable to be the Lord of a demon city? The mages of Sregl Ind would not be suitable. If they were, Saleen would not have been troubled over theck of talent to manage things in Metatrin City. The pirates¡¯ grades were too low.


    J should stay in Metatrin City to train and guide warriors while Su should be leading armies and not demons. As for Daniel, Saleen was prepared to let him lead Metatrin City when he was not around. At the very least, Daniel could be tasked with the daily administrative duties.


    ¡°Saleen, let Nailisi be the Lord of the demons¡¯ city,¡± Sika said.


    ¡°Master, I don¡¯t want to!¡± Nailisi rejected immediately. Although she yearned to lead a demon army, she did not wish to leave Saleen.


    ¡°What about Cuisi?¡±


    ¡°Not advisable. Master¡­ Cuisi knows some of the weaknesses of demons¡¯ cities. I don¡¯t entirely trust him to take up this responsibility.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have anyone else that I can use. Lex does have a few mages who are already grade-5 and are quite capable.¡±


    ¡°Humph, don¡¯t tell me you miss Narnia?¡± Sika pinched Saleen¡¯s nose.


    Saleen felt wronged and said, ¡°She is only grade-4.¡±


    ¡°By the time demons¡¯ city has been built, she will probably have advanced to grade-5,¡± Sika was merciless. She was not jealous, but she was certain that Narnia was fond of Saleen. It was obvious from the way she looked at Saleen.


    Narnia was a nicedy so Sika would not treat her like how she treated Irene. Should Narnia confess her feelings one day, then things would be hard to handle.


    ¡°Sister Sika, why don¡¯t you be the Lord of the city?¡± Nailisi¡¯s green eyes blinked quickly as she stood behind Saleen. Sika wanted to reject, but suddenly changed her mind. She smiled and said to Saleen, ¡°Why don¡¯t I give it a try? Sounds like it will be more fun managing a bunch of demons than Caucasus people. What do demons eat? I can¡¯t do anything about that.¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika need not worry about that. Demons¡¯ City will have a huge magic summoning array where many magic bugs can be summoned from the demon dimension. Since we will have many magic bugs, all we need to do is to find some good cooks so that the demons can have delicious meals. Ingredients are not a problem.¡±


    ¡°Cooks? Who will dare to be cooks for demons? For all you know, they will be the ones eaten by the demons.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi¡¯s tone sounded like she was acting cute.


    ¡°I¡¯m just kidding. Demons don¡¯t really have any particr tastes, but they do need to replenish their salt levels so we need to have suitable vegetables to do that. Demons don¡¯t just eat meat after all. We need to quickly find salt.¡±


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s just open a saltworks outside demons¡¯ city. We are just beside the sea so we don¡¯t need to buy anything.¡±


    ¡°I am too overwhelmed.¡± Saleen patted his head. In Qin, salt was exclusively sold by the royal family. Even the noble families needed to get permission from the royal family and also pay arge amount of tax before they could sell salt. It was not within Holy Rock City¡¯s jurisdiction, even Alchemy City would create their own salt.


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s not be too loud about it. It¡¯s good enough that we have our own source of salt and our mages can help to refine it further. It should not be for sale or Holy Rock City might not be too happy about it.¡± Sika was cautious when it came to the big picture so she made sure to remind Saleen.


    ¡°I know. If we intend to feed a city of demons with our own salt, we probably won¡¯t have extra to sell to others anyway.¡±


    ¡°Master, shall I begin preparations tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°Alright, this matter is urgent. Can youplete this task within a year?¡±


    ¡°A year¡­ it will be tight because I don¡¯t have enough materials and resources at hand.¡±


    ¡°Go find the winged skeleton. You and he try your best to find salt. Keep whatever you find from the sea. You don¡¯t have to give it to Metatrin City, unless you find very useful or rare items¡­


    ¡°Of course, I will keep them for Master.¡± Nailisi was overjoyed that Saleen was giving her permission to keep valuable items.


    Saleen knew Nailisi¡¯s intention in salvaging items from ancient sunken boats. She was bonded to him so her possessions were equivalent to his. He did not care too much about it so as to satisfy Nailisi¡¯s greed.


    Demons were generally possessive and Nailisi was no exception. Even if Nailisi salvaged items that were useless to her, she would still keep them in her spatial equipment so that she could take them out to admire once in a while.


    As for the winged skeleton, he was extremely loyal so all the resources that he and Nailisi salvaged together in secret were all used to expand Saleen¡¯s navy. Right now, Saleen did notck materials for building of boats because the winged skeleton had supplied them to him long ago. Saleencked sailors instead so the winged skeleton allowed his subordinates, the jade skeletons, to stand in as sailors for the time-being.


    This arrangement had to be temporal. It would not be appropriate for Saleen, a human, to own ghost ships and demon cities


    The winter nights in the north were long. Saleen finally managed to have a good night¡¯s rest and even dreamed. Mages rarely dreamed because they could control their mental strength very well. This time, Saleen dreamed that he had expanded his territories beyond ten-thousand miles and was wearing a devil¡¯s suit. He was leading millions of demons towards the pearl of the glorious ins, the Holy City.


    The ins were filled with corpses everywhere including death knights and corpses of disciples. Daniel and Aini used their death magic and the corpses began to get up and attacked the armies of Holy City.


    Suddenly, a strange beam of light appeared from the sky and struck the center of Saleen¡¯s army.


    That was God¡¯s punishment spell! Millions of armies were struck by God¡¯s punishment and were sent straight to hell before being turned into ashes by the explosion of a volcano there.


    In the dream, Saleen was calm. The demons and spirits of the dead that had died were all revived in the mes. They were gathered in front of Raphael¡¯s magic tower and Saleen was standing on it. The pride he felt while looking down at his own army was unimaginable.


    There was lightning everywhere and it wasing out from his n badge. It tore open the dimension and his army appeared on the glorious ins again. Saleenughed with glee when he saw the shocked expression on the Pope¡¯s face.


    The dream suddenly ended and Saleen woke up. Sika was staring at him.


    ¡°Why do you have a silly smile on your face?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing. I dreamed of Pope Theisio.¡±


    ¡°Theisio? You saw his magic images?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, but I know it¡¯s him,¡± Saleenughed and got up from the bed. One dream meant nothing, but Saleen suddenly had a feeling that the Holy See¡¯s strength was not as powerful as he thought. The Pope had three godly items and one of them had been given to Joey. Once the three godly items had been separated, the Pope¡¯s power would be drastically reduced. He would not have lost so many men in the attack on Emperor Chanake otherwise.


    ¡°Sika¡­¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Since Nailisi is not around, let¡¯s go for another round!¡± Saleen¡¯s energy has fully recovered after a good sleep.


    ¡°What are we waiting for?!¡± Sika smiled and pressed herself into Saleen. The hole in the wall was still there, but Nailisi has left long ago to look for Cuisi. Sika felt more at ease knowing that no one else was around to disturb.


    In Cuisi¡¯s room, he was standing and listening to Nailisi¡¯s dressing down. At the end, Nailisi finally revealed her purpose foring over and Cuisi was overjoyed.


    ¡°Master wants to build a demon city? I volunteer!¡±


    ¡°I already said, you will lead the first demon army. Sika will settle the demon city.¡±


    ¡°Sika? She is nothing!¡±


    ¡°Bastard!¡± Nailisi gave Cuisi a punch. It was a heavy one and Cuisi felt his bones almost break.


    ¡°Remember this. Even if you advance into a devil, do not upset Sika. I will ask Master to draw out your soul and let it burn in hell for ten-thousand years if you do.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Cuisi bowed his head and asked, ¡°Master, I will not upset her. What if shees looking for trouble?¡±


    ¡°What if I give you a p? What will you do?¡±


    ¡°Of course I have to bear with it since it is Master who did it. I will bear with it even if I am angry.¡± Cuisi did not dare to deceive Nailisi and answered honestly.


    ¡°If Sika pped you, you will also bear with it. That is the woman that my Master values the most. If anything happens to her, both of us are finished. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°I understand now.¡±


    ¡°Any other questions?¡± Nailisi saw the expression on Cuisi¡¯s face.


    ¡°How strong is Sika?¡±


    ¡°If you fought with her in your human form, you would lose. By the time you fully possess a supreme demon¡¯s powers, she will probably have advanced as well. Her subordinates are Caucasus people and some of them are very strong.¡±


    Cuisi was convinced after what Nailisi said. Sika was stronger than him, there was nothing wrong with submitting to her. The demon dimension worked that way, the weak would submit to the strong.


    ¡°Alright, Cuisi, do you have the diagram of a demon city?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Give it to me. After the city has been built, make sure you build a good rtionship with Sika. The soldiers making up the first demon army will be chosen from the demon city. If you serve Sika well, you will be give the best demons for your army. Do you understand?¡±


    Cuisi finally understood. Profess his loyalty to Sika now so that he would be able to reap the benefits in future. He gave the diagram of how to build a demon city to Nailisi. She was satisfied and left with the diagram.


    She was never going to allow Cuisi to lead an army and be Lord of a city at the same time. She would not be able to control him otherwise.


    As for Sika? Sika did not have such a strong thirst for power. Even if she was given morends, she would still be a Caucasus priestess at the end of the day.


    For the rest of the day, Saleen and the rest of the mages studied the diagram on how to build a demon city. Nailisi was also there to trante the demonnguage. ording to the diagram, the city of thergest scale could contain more than five-million demons.


    There was only a small in near the port downstream. The entire in would be almost used up if such a big city was to be built there.


    Fortunately, this was not a city for humans. Demons did not like to wander around nor deal in businesses. They did not care for roads either. The surrounding mountainous areas were sufficient for the demons to move around.


    The port that was beside the sea would remain unchanged. They would be building a shipyard there that would contain more than twobat vessels. This matter would soon be handed over to the winged skeleton. Even Saleen was afraid to let spirits of the dead and demons be neighbors and for humans to live there.

 Chapter 626: Lex’s departure (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 626: Lex¡¯s departure (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had a positive dream in the morning, but unbeknownst to him, Pope Theisio had a nightmare.


    It was rare for a mage to dream, but even rarer for a pope to dream. A mage¡¯s mental strength was concentrated and would not be affected by any external factors, while a pope¡¯s mental strength was protected by their god. Theisio had not experienced a nightmare for over fifty years.


    That was why Theisio paid attention to this event, that youth in his dream was leading an army from a foreign ne as they destroyed the Glorious ins. ¡°This is surely a reminder from God asking me to beware of certain people.¡±


    The problem was no matter how much Theisio valued his dream he could not use a holy decree to disseminate his intentions. He had no choice but to think of another method to solve this problem.


    Secretly contacting the people from the inquisition, the pope delegated their missions. The headquarters of the Holy See, the inquisition, and tens of thousands of people were deployed to infiltrate the other three empires stealthily. These people only had one mission; to look for an evil young mage and send information about him back to the Holy City. No one was allowed to act on their own and the target also could not know that the Holy See was searching for him.


    The pope did not ask the seven oracles to help with his mission. Until now Fycro¡¯s location was unknown and this caused Pope Theisio to be on guard.


    To the colossal Holy See this incident did not send create many shockwaves as the current war was in a precarious state. Lon was one of the biggest duchies and the Tanggsi Empire and the Holy See had pumped in more than one-million troops into the battle. This army with more than one-million men, coupled with an evenrger logistical support, still could not breach the borders of the Qin Empire despite battling for a long time. It was winter at the moment, which made the Holy See frustrated.


    Fortunately, half of Titan Duchy had been seized. Cloudflow¡¯s army had retreated, guarding the borders of Cloudflow tightly. Since Cloudflow¡¯s imperial family did not have the ability to retaliate onnd, they deployed three fleets to harass the waters surroundings Tanggsi Empire. They stood ready to invade the coastal cities.


    Back in Metatrin City, the construction of the city had been halted due to the frigid temperatures of the winter season. The poption of the city had in fact exceeded five-hundred-thousand. This was arge number, luckily Saleen had already purchased huge amounts of rations and looted some from Cexing City. These free citizens could live a life free of worries.


    Nailisi was in control in the temple and the issue of building a demonic city had begun.


    The port south of Metatrin City was seven-hundred miles from Metatrin City, a normal warship would need to travel for a dozen hours to reach it. Even the dragon skeleton warship would require six hours of travel to arrive when traveling at full speed. The skeletal warships could travel very quickly, but it still took about eight hours of sailing.


    The locally produced white rocks from Metatrin City were slowly taken to the site of the demonic city using Saleen¡¯s Dimension Stones. Saleen then realized that the white rocks from Metatrin City were a kind of invaluable construction material. The toughness of them wasparable to that of steel rocks, the only w was that it was difficult to bless them with magic. The colossal number of skeletons summoned by the three kings became coolies, while the ves purchased from the eastern sea were assigned to carry out the intricate work.


    After Cuisi¡¯s drawing of the demonic city was altered by the mages from Sregl Ind the workload became increasinglyrger.


    There was a huge amount of rocks left from the development of Metatrin City because many gigantic rocks had to be ttened. A drainage system also had to be dug under the ground and massive underground warehouses were built. These rocks were stored in the warehouses, they could be used directly. The size of the demonic city was simply too huge, Saleen had no choice but to mine rocks outside the city and send them to the construction site.


    The supply of rocks was definitely sufficient. The first structure to be built in the demonic city was a demon-summoning array.


    Saleen did not seek Lex¡¯s opinion regarding the construction of a demonic city because Saleen was very sure that Lex would not partake in it even if she nodded her head. Saleen provided all the materials needed for building the summoning array.


    Saleen had many magic nuclei in his possession, however, he did not have many of the materials required for building a summoning array. Nailisi had to resolve this problem on her own. Nailisi had amassed more materials than Saleen, but she still had to borrow some materials from the winged skeleton in order to obtain all the resources required to build a demon-summoning array.


    It was a summoning array with a diameter of six-hundred yards, such an enormous magic array had not been built on the Myers maind before. This summoning array had to be fully sealed, which meant that a space spanning six-hundred yards had to be built on the magic array and it had to be a structure without any pirs.


    Even a mage would find it challenging to construct such a structure. There was no choice. The core of the demonic city had shifted another dozen miles towards the mountainous region. A lofty mountain on the ins was selected and the demon-summoning array was built inside this mountain.


    Saleen had to do this himself, but he also roped in all the mages from Sregl Ind. After using magic to surveil the underground portion of the mountain, Saleen used the Current Cutter to cut out a hole in the core of the mountain, expanding from the interior of the mountain to its exterior. All the mages had to monitor the situation simultaneously to see whether the load bearing portion of the mountain was sturdy enough or not. They also had to use magic to reinforce the mountain.


    As Saleen and the mages were developing the magic array Daniel led a huge number of spirits to aid in the construction.


    At this moment, a piece of information was ryed back by one of the spirits deployed by the winged skeleton. This spirit had discovered a secret resupply point along the eastern sea route. That was an ind with a radius of less than one-hundred miles. This ind was more than seven-thousand miles from the coasts of Qin, its position was closer to the perilous waters. In a year it would be afflicted with hurricanes for about ten months.


    Even though Saleen still had almost ten warships at his disposal, he could not participate in Alchemy City¡¯s mission to look for the route. He could only let the winged skeleton continue monitoring the situation and search for the next resupply point while he would lead the mages and develop the demonic city as soon as possible.


    In the blink of an eye it was the end of the year again. The foundation of the demonic city had finally been set in ce. Considering the fact that there were tens of thousands of spirits and ves working at the same time it was actually very slow that the foundation waspleted in about three months. Given the frigid climate, Saleen was pretty satisfied with the progress of the demonic city.


    This was a city with a diameter of twenty miles, it was colossal. Almost every inch of the foundation was covered with traces of magic. Executing such challenging work, the abilities of Saleen¡¯s mages got boosted by arge magnitude.


    Saleen then understood the reason why Lex had set up the role of a lifestyle mage back in Bitter Water Prefecture. By fusing magic into a mage¡¯s daily life, they would surely make progress.


    In Metatrin City, springtime came in April and farming could only start towards the end of May. After thepletion of the foundation he had the time to return to Metatrin City. The moment he returned he learned that Lex was going to leave.


    Saleen dashed to Lex¡¯s residence. In Lex¡¯s residence the swordsmen were packing the luggage. They had changed into new armor, ready to set off anytime. Had Saleene a day or twoter Lex would have departed already.


    In the study, Lex was organizing her books. She had been in Metatrin City for about a year now and was operating a few businesses. She had to delegate her work properly before leaving.


    Seeing Saleen rush over, Lex asked someone to pour some tea while she stopped working.


    ¡°Are you leaving just like that?¡± Saleen was a little anxious. Metatrin City was currently facing a shortage of manpower. When Lex was around, she would render some help, frequently sending her officers to help Saleen. Given Daniel¡¯s ability, it was impossible to govern such a huge city otherwise.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will leave half of the officials behind, I will only take the elite swordsman¡¯s camp. My ten-thousand men will help you guard the city. Including the fifty-thousand people you have trained in the past year, it will surely be sufficient.¡±


    Saleen then calmed down, Lex was not going to leave for good. ¡°Are you in a hurry to leave because of the issue at the borders?¡±


    ¡°Not really, I am going to bring these ten-thousand men to the borders. I will be returning to Bitter Water Prefecture. The Tanggsi people in Lon haveunched an offensive, I am nning to use the small path behind Bitter Water Prefecture to attack the Holy See¡¯s army from behind, so as to coordinate with the direct offensive at Lon¡¯s borders.¡±


    ¡°When will you return?¡± Saleen asked, feeling a little reluctant.


    ¡°Why are you so anxious? I wille back in about a year and a half.¡± Lex replied with a smile, but Saleen felt a sense of loss. After a year and a half his teacher was also going to arrive. Lex was hinting that the cooperation between the two of them would be perpetuated. Saleen did not want to hear things like that.


    Lex smiled, then she suddenly cast the Ice Arrow Spell in an instant, aiming it at Saleen. Instinctively, Saleen used the Icicle Spell to negate Lex¡¯s spell.


    ¡°Saleen, did you think that I would not be returning?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s face turned red. Lex¡¯s actions made him recall the time when the both of them were in the hell of god¡¯s punishment practicing magic together for a long time. Saleen had not forgotten it and neither had Lex. ¡°So Lex actually has a ce in my heart, but because of my identity, I don¡¯t want to think about such things. Sika had long noticed it, so¡­ so she got to me first. My reaction towards Lex is actually much more slow than Sika.¡± It had been a year and Saleen only had such feelings when Lex suddenly announced that she was departing.


    ¡°Saleen, the camp I left behind isn¡¯t as proficient in field battle aspared to my elite swordsman¡¯s camp. If an enemy tries to invade Metatrin City after I leave, use the perimeter fortresses to blunt their lethality, never go for a field battle. Your army is even lousier in field battles, just camp in the city. In the past year themercial route from Metatrin to Phoenix has been opened. Some people are surely eyeing this route, you can simply find a random reason to start a war there. I have conquered Cexing City and Huoxing City. I have about five-thousand soldiers stationed there. If you have excess manpower, send some people over.¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± Saleen could not think of anything else to say. ¡°Even though Lex is leaving just like that, she still left substantial wealth for me.¡±


    ¡°Other than thatmercial route in Phoenix Duchy, don¡¯t touch the other cities. My troops are stationed in Cexing City. The moment any trouble arises you will be fine as long as you monitor the flow of information. Holy Rock City has organized an army with more than one-million troops to invade Lon. Don¡¯t put your forces in. The moment war starts, the most important thing is to continue developing the wilderness and build small towns so that you can receive the victims of the war.¡±


    ¡°What about yourself?¡±

 Chapter 627: Lex’s departure (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 627: Lex¡¯s departure (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Myself?¡± Noticing the look of reluctance on Saleen¡¯s face, Lex said, ¡°The moment war starts, countless of victims will flow into Bitter Water County. Since I don¡¯t have sufficient rations there, I will be have some difficulty. At the moment, I don¡¯t wish to conquer Lon¡¯snd. I am going to seize the intersection between Titan Duchy and Qin, which is located southeast of Lon.¡±


    ¡°It will¡­ be difficult to coordinate logistical support there.¡±


    ¡°I am going to upy it totally, the level of production of grain is very high over there. I am nning to rescue the victims of war in my own capacity and it will be impossible for me to take care of so many civilians just by relying on the barrennds in the county.¡±


    At that point in time Saleen understood that Lex was going to lead an elite swordsman¡¯s camp to war. Holy Rock City had requested for Lex to stabilize the border situation at Phoenix, Qin, Lon, and Laiyin. This task was a little onerous, but Lex still agreed to it because it was a request from her brother.


    There was no need to station so many troops at that ce though. This just served to restrain the enemy. Eventually, Lex would only leave behind one camp of manpower, any additional manpower needed could be topped up using mercenaries.


    Lex really could not leave too much manpower for Saleen, the ces she was going to were the intersections between several nations. They were extremely difficult to conquer. Without sufficient elite troops Lex would be ame duck.


    ¡°Bring one of my camps back, I need to train soldiers.¡± Without waiting for Lex to reject him Saleen professed his own reason. His soldiers endured the same level of training intensity as Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp, but many of them had never seen blood or fought on a battlefield before. In this aspect, Saleen¡¯s army was inferior to Lex¡¯s swordsman¡¯s camp. There was a huge difference.


    ¡°Okay, but I willmand them like my own army. If there are any casualties don¡¯t me me.¡±


    ¡°Of course, I also want to let Su follow you, he will be themander of this camp.¡±


    ¡°Can you bear to let Su leave?¡±


    ¡°I cannot teach him the art of war, he has to train with you.¡± Saleen had steeled his heart by handing his Silver Grand Swordmaster to Lex. By doing so, his city would have one less key helper.


    ¡°Okay. I cannot guarantee the safety of your ten-thousand men, but I will make sure Sues back in one piece. He will at least learn the capability to lead three camps worth of troops.¡± Lex¡¯s brows arched up as she spoke to Saleen with utmost confidence.


    ¡°That is your promise.¡±


    ¡°Of course, if you want to train soldiers, then you need to have a n. Besides Su, give me another dozen people who are at least at the standard of an intermediate grade swordmaster. They cannot be older than thirty years old. These people can live a long life on the battlefield, it will be worthwhile grooming them.¡±


    Saleen agreed, but he still felt forlorn, ¡°Lex is leaving and she will be away for more than a year.¡±


    ¡°I will hand Narnia over to you, treat her nicely.¡± Lex suddenly said and Saleen agreed to it. At this point in time the winged skeleton¡¯s voice appeared in his mind, ¡°Master, Nailisi has obtained something interesting,e over and take a look.¡±


    Saleen then came to his senses, ¡°It is useless behaving in this manner. Even though Lex is leaving she wille back sooner orter, it is more important to settle the official matters.¡± Quickly bidding farewell to Lex, Saleen made a beeline for the harbor.


    Currently, the ice on the harbor was very thin, people could no longer stand on it. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was berthed at the underground boat shed. When Saleen entered the underground boat shed, he noticed that Nailisi and the winged skeleton were together looking nervous.


    ¡°What is it you¡¯ve found?¡± Saleen was a little curious. In the past Nailisi and the winged skeleton had discovered quite a number of sunken ships, they also found a huge number of good items. Objects which did not get eroded despite being underwater for so many centuries were basically high level materials. It was their first time calling Saleen over instead of taking such an item for themselves though.


    The winged skeleton and Nailisi were Saleen¡¯s contract creatures. Saleen was not afraid that they would plot against him.


    ¡°Take it out now!¡± The winged skeleton urged Nailisi.


    Nailisi took out a Dimension Stone from her bangle, then took out the thing she wanted to show Saleen from the Dimension Stone.


    The underground boat shed was humongous. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat floated in the water, while the space on the shore was dimly lit. Several crates were ced on the ground, Nailisi had hauled up all these items from the ocean. The thing Nailisi wanted to give Saleen was ced atop a wooden crate.


    When this thing was taken out the whole boat shed lit up. Gentle golden light filled every corner of this boat shed. ced atop the crate was a mechanical item with a height of one yard.


    The whole thing was perfect. It appeared slender and had six corners. The microscopic lines on its surface were concise and no gears nor levers were seen. Its exterior was sealed with only a few magic interfaces. Its golden brilliance was not emitted by magic, it was naturally given off by the material of this machine.


    ¡°A metal crystal!¡± Saleen blurted, the surface of this machine was a whole piece of metal crystal that was gold in color. This was the essence of fine gold. Even an entire mine of fine gold might not be able to produce so many metal crystals.


    Saleen fully unleashed the power of the Elemental Eye to observe this mechanical item in detail.


    Saleen could not see through it as the whole thing had an exterior shell of the metal crystal, it was likely that theponents were like this as well. The strangest thing was the six magic interfaces. Saleen was not familiar with other alchemical parts, but these magic interface had not undergone much changes for the past tens of thousands of years. The whole exterior surface of the machine only had six interfaces. These six interfaces would be connected to six magic arrays, the magic arrays of the six respective elements.


    There were no elemental vibrationsing from any of the six magic interfaces. The machine was very clean as if it was just taken out from an alchemyboratory.


    No, even an item taken from an alchemyboratory would have been subjected to experiments, its magic interfaces would not be free of any hints of the elements.


    The entire one yard tall alchemy machine was as clean as the nuclear portion of a dragonshard.


    Such a situation was out of the norm. Saleen had never seen, much less heard of such a high level alchemical machinery. ¡°I really don¡¯t know the function of theponents inside.¡±


    Seeing Saleen in a daze, Nailisi extended her hand smugly using her long nails to gently tap the roof of this alchemical machine. Saleen wanted to stop her, but it was toote.


    Silently, this alchemical machine opened up like the petals of a flower. Saleen did not even catch a glimpse of how such perfect metal opened. Logically, it was not strange that an alchemical machine could be opened using such a gentle method. This alchemical machine opened up so quietly Saleen could not even detect any noises.


    Opening the interior of the machine, Saleen saw tens of thousands of minuteponents. Each one of them was crafted from metal crystals. A metal of such a level could only be crafted by a mage above grade-8. Saleen felt a little dizzy seeing so manyponents inside this machine.


    ¡°Master, look.¡± Nailisi pointed to the petal-like alchemical machine where there was an empty slot in the middle of it. Saleen¡¯s pupils contracted violently, ¡°That spot is used for containing a dynamic substance, it might be a magic nucleus, or it could be¡­¡±


    Saleen suddenly recalled that the shape of this empty slot was totallypatible with an item he had seen previously. It was the core of Sky City which Lex had given to Saleen¡¯s teacher.


    ¡°Could the Heart of the Sky be mosaicked into this machine? If that¡¯s the case, then this machine is aponent of Sky City and it is a coreponent.¡±


    The part Nailisi touched was the machine¡¯s switch. After the essence of a human was added in it would open up and one would be able to ept the Heart of the Sky. This machine did nott contain any offensive power, but it was extremely sturdy. Every single inch of it had been crafted from metal crystal, even high level magic might not be able to destroy it.


    Nailisi touched the switch of the core once again and the alchemical machine closed slowly. Saleen could not see any crevices and could not detect any traces of elemental vibrations.


    ¡°Where did you get this thing?¡±


    ¡°From the boxes below.¡± Nailisi pointed to the pile of crates beside the ocean.


    ¡°What is else is inside?¡±


    ¡°Some machineponents, the ones which I brought back have not corroded. There are a few hundred ships at the ruins of that shipwreck.¡±


    ¡°A few hundred! Have you found out which era they came from?¡±


    ¡°Master, I didn¡¯t dare disclose this to the other mages, only the two of us have seen this thing. I think they are from the second dynasty,¡± the winged skeleton answered. Death magic also had alchemy magic and could determine the origin of an item. It was not as urate as elemental magic though.


    ¡°A few hundred, a few hundred ships¡­ don¡¯t you feel that you have fished out too many items?¡±


    Saleen looked at Nailisi and the winged skeleton as this spirit and imp nodded their heads. Of course they would feel puzzled because they did not just begin searching for sunken ships. The farther north they traveled the more sunken ships they discovered. There was no maind in the north, so why were so many shipsden with cargo going towards the northern waters?


    ¡°Do you want to ask Eleanor? She has been on this ne for a long time, she might know a thing or two.¡± Nailisi advised Saleen.


    ¡°Eleanor¡­¡± Saleen hesitated, ¡°On the Myers maind, this elf trusts only me, but her lover might not have died. If that marquis returns alive Eleanor would most likely go back to him immediately. I shouldn¡¯t let her know too many of my secrets unless her lover is dead and she sees his corpse for herself. The coreponent of Sky City holds a lot of significance to me because Lex had given Teacher the Heart of the Sky and a drawing. Even if the drawing of Sky City is present, Sky City cannot be produced because most of the materials required for building it are obtained from other nes. It is very difficult to obtain them now, but the hardest thing to obtain is this alchemy machine which is used to contain the Heart of the Sky. With this item it will still be very easy to craft a miniature flying instation even if the Sky City cannot be replicated.¡±


    In Saleen¡¯s heart, he really hoped to make a flying magical tower. With this core machine and the Heart of the Sky this wish of his could definitelye true.


    ¡°The two of you, draw a map of the route you used to retrieve all those sunken ships. Use a magicpass to deduce the water current and positions of the constetions. I want to do some calctions to find out the destination of these ancient ships.¡±


    Saleen swiftly straightened his thoughts, ¡°Even though I don¡¯t know why these ships converged in the northern waters I can use the Figaro Form to calcte their destination. This destination might just be the crux as to why there are so many sunken ships there.¡±

 Chapter 628: Nailisi’s Collections (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 628: Nailisi¡¯s Collections (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The boxes that were piled up at one side had all been opened up one by one. They contained huge mechanical parts. Saleen did not recognize what these parts were for, but he knew that they were all made from metal crystallites.


    ¡°They are indeed treasures but¡­ we can¡¯t use them for now. The two of you, follow me to the warehouse. Show me thetest items that you have salvaged,¡± Saleen said gloomily.


    ¡°Master, you cannot take away my things,¡± Nailisi said, as if she had been wronged.


    ¡°What are you talking about? Master only wants to organize the items. You only care about how much they are worth, but do you know what they are used for?¡± The winged skeleton lectured Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi, that is indeed the case. What would I steal your things for?¡± Saleen felt strange. His own bonded creature still wished to keep her own private items? Saleen could not bear to tell Nailisi that all her possessions belonged to him.


    ¡°Master, you have to return them to me!¡± There were tears in Nailisi¡¯s eyes. She almost did not want to show Saleen the core mechanics from Sky City. Her gut feeling told her that it was important and she knew too little about alchemy, so she still decided to show Saleen. Who knew that Saleen would also want to see the other items after that?


    Saleen originally had forty dimension stones. He was left with thirty-eight after using two. He passed half of them to Nailisi. These dimension stones were practically filled with the items that Nailisi had salvaged from the deep sea.


    Nailisi¡¯s physique was resilient and strong, but all the salvaging still took a toll. The collections were important to Nailisi. She even quarreled with winged skeleton for a while when splitting up what they had salvaged. Now that Saleen also wanted to take a look, she had no choice but to bring him to the secret warehouse under the temple.


    In order to build a demon city, Saleen had already expanded this underground warehouse. It was six miles under the temple¡¯s teleportation portal. There were tens of levels to the secret warehouse and the area of each level was the approximate size of the temple. After digging awayrge amounts of rock materials, the area looked empty.


    Whatever resources the winged skeleton salvaged, he would use directly to createbat vessels or construct the port. The inds within three-hundred miles of Metatrin City¡¯s sea had all been upied by the winged skeleton¡¯s spirits of the dead and they had been used for military reasons. There were very few items that the winged skeleton could take out. He did not have dimension stone either as the death dimension was not as big as the dimension in Saleen¡¯s devil¡¯s ring.


    Saleen was taken aback by Nailisi¡¯s collections. In the beginning, there were still a few equipments that were still intact. At the very end, the items were either full of rust or were just very small parts.


    Fortunately, every item was valuable in its own way. On a dposed metal sword, there was a magic symbol that was refined from wrought gold. These tens of grams of wrought gold were worth a fortune on their own. Although the magic sword was already in bad shape, it could still be refined to produce about half a pound of rare metal.


    Amongst these materials, most were thundercloud wood and divinecherry wood and they were all arranged nicely by Nailisi. These two types of wood were often used to make boxes in the ancient times. Tey were best used to create elvish bows and arrows or refine low-level spacial equipment.


    Very soon, Nailisi filled up an entire warehouse level. The three of them went down to the next level. More than half of Nailisi¡¯s dimension stones had yet to be emptied.


    Saleen felt helpless and said, ¡°Nailisi, give those broken things to me so I can refine them. If you continue leaving them where they are, you are just wasting the dimension stone¡¯s space.¡±


    ¡°Master, these are not simply broken things. They were found under thousands of yards below the sea and have beenpressed and dposed for the past ten-thousand years. Even a pile of rust must have its special use. Demons can refine them into something like magic medicine.¡± Seeing that Saleen was about to take away all her ¡®broken things¡¯, she decided to be honest.


    ¡°What can they be refined into?!¡± Saleen pretended to be angry. He knew that Nailisi was not entirely truthful and was trying to outsmart him. This kind of behavior must not be tolerated. Once Nailisi was used to getting things her way, who knew if she might do other unimaginable things in the future?


    Nailisi answered obediently, ¡°Master, I saw the armor that Cuisi was wearing. It was refined by Joey right? It was not refined correctly. In the demon dimension, when devils build their cities, they usually choose six strong supreme demons to run the cities for them. These six supreme demons will each possess a powerful army and they will all be equipped with devil armor. A real devil armor must be made from these metals that have not been dposed for tens of thousands of years.¡±


    ¡°Continue,¡± Saleen¡¯s tone became gentler.


    ¡°Based on magic craftsmanship, alchemy on the demon dimension is not as good as that on the Myers Maind. The materials found in the demon dimension were more superior than those on Myers Maind. For example, metals with queer properties such as these are verymon on demon dimension. The devil possesses six types of armors and they all require such materials.¡±


    ¡°Which six types?¡±


    ¡°Devil¡¯s flying armor, devil¡¯s light armor, devil¡¯s rotten armor, devil¡¯s purgatory armor, devil¡¯s breaching armor, and devil¡¯s emptiness armor. Master, these six armors are very different from each other and they can adapt themselves to different extreme environments. Although Lex¡¯s six-winged flying snake armor is powerful, it is nothingpared to these six armors.¡±


    ¡°How did you know all this?¡±


    ¡°Master¡­ after you left, I swallowed the remains of half a devil that I had secretly kept. Master, I took it from the temple, but I still cannot bear to eat myst meal. I have achieved the fourth ability, which is devil incarnation. I got hold of much devil knowledge at the same time.¡±


    ¡°Devil incarnation? Let me take a look. Does it look the same as on the map?¡± Saleen¡¯s curiosity as a mage had been piqued.


    ¡°No, Master, a devil looks really ugly. It has three heads and six arms and is much taller than this bone shelf,¡± Nailisi shook her head. It was not like Saleen was in danger now. No way she was transforming into a devil.


    Saleen smiled and did not force Nailisi. Her description was simr to what he saw on the map. He was going to see it sooner orter anyway. If Nailisi was in danger, she would definitely transform into a devil.


    ¡°Are you able to refine these six types of armors?¡±


    ¡°Yes, the alchemy in the demon dimension is different from that in the Myers Maind. Master, I cannot refine weapons like you do. I need a factory, toxic fire and many demon artisans. I can only be responsible for creating the materials and the final enhancements.¡±


    ¡°Can humans wear the devil armor?¡±


    ¡°People like J and Su will be able to. ck metal grand swordmasters can barely make it. They have enough power, but their physique is unlike a demon. Once they wear the armor, their bodies will be severely damaged. If a zun grand swordmaster fought for one hour in devil armor, he would turn into a puddle of flesh and blood after that.¡±


    ¡°In that case, this equipment can only be used for the demon armies.¡± Saleen had some regrets. He tried to create an imitation of spirit snake armor, but it was not as good as the original. Now, this devil armor was better than spirit snake armor, but humans were unable to wear it.


    ¡°Master, the demon city will belong to Sister Sika in the future. What are you worried about?¡±


    ¡°Master, a few rare types of spirits of the dead can wear devil armor too,¡± the winged skeleton chimed in from the side. Nailisi rolled her eyes. The winged skeleton was taking advantage of the situation! Once Saleen heard that, he asked Nailisi to help the winged skeleton¡¯s soldiers refine armor too.


    Saleen suddenly thought back to how Nailisi single-mindedly encouraged Sika to take up the position of Lord of the demon city and realized that she did it to give Saleen assurance. This imp had learned how to please people.


    ¡°Tell me, what are the special characteristics of these six types of devil armor? If they are that good, I will provide you with a few mages to help you with your work.¡± Saleen made this promise and Nailisi was pleased. Even if she had her own ves to help her with her work, refining metal was not an easy task. It was not something that demons were good at. If mages were involved the quality of the devil armor would be more consistent. That would be key to surpassing Lex¡¯s spirit snake armors.


    No matter how good the spirit snake armor was, it could not containrge-scale equipment. On the other hand, devil armor was the mostmonly used equipment in the demon dimension, every devil had devil armies that were one-million strong.


    Luckily Nailisi swallowed the body of half a devil and gained the all-important fourth ability. Otherwise¡­ otherwise she would have lost control of Cuisi. Nailisi was fortunate that she was not toote. She could not believe that Cuisi was so lucky as to advance into a supreme demon so quickly.


    ¡°¡­ Master, devil¡¯s flying armor is an armor that allows the wearer to fly and only demons those more powerful can wear it. Imps and demonic spirits are not able to wear it. Devil¡¯s light armor can defend against divine spells and negative magic and is considered to be a heavy armor. Devil¡¯s rotten armor is an armor that can grow on the demon¡¯s body and need not be worn. It is extremely flexible and the wearer will not feel like he is wearing an armor. It also possesses strong self-healing abilities.¡±


    Seeing how closely Saleen was listening, Nailisi continued, ¡°Devil¡¯s purgatory armor is an enclosed armor. Even if the demon warrior fell into the purgatory dimension, he will not be affected at all. Devil¡¯s breaching armor can be worn by anyone with demon bloodline regardless of abilities. This type of armor is suitable for armies in battle. The demons wearing the armor will be able to instantly sense what theirmanding officer¡¯s orders are and will be able to react immediately. Devil¡¯s emptiness armor is worn by high-level devils. It possesses strong resistance against physical attacks and powerful spells. A devil wearing this armor will still be able to cast his own demon spells.¡±


    As Saleen listened to Nailisi borate about the characteristics of each devil armor, he was actually taken by surprise. He had thought that magic on the demon dimension was not advanced and so they would not have any special equipment. After hearing what Nailisi said, Saleen finally understood that demon dimension also contained an intelligent civilization. The nature of these six devil armors would still be extremely powerful in the human world.


    The devil¡¯s breaching armor especially, the wearer would not be able to refuse themanding officer¡¯s orders upon wearing it. Even if themanding officer ordered the demons to fight against gods, they would still charge forward bravely.


    With this armor, the demon army would be a courageous one with high morale all the time. His dream mighte true after all. As long as Saleen had enough demons, he would stand a chance of reaching the glorious ins and destroy the Holy See¡¯s headquarters.

 Chapter 629: Nailisi’s Collections (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 629: Nailisi¡¯s Collections (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was one catch to building a demon army and that was if they were not well-controlled, imps and demonic spirits could take over the Myers Maind just by their incredible rate of reproductivity. Although demons did not reproduce as quickly as imps, they possessed better survivability and couldmand imps and demonic spirits to invade morends. This was not even taking into ount the supreme demons and devils.


    If a devil arrived in the Myers Maind dimension, it would be disastrous.


    The Qin poption reached billions, but they had less than one-million elite soldiers. Even as a member of the royal n, Lex possessed her father¡¯s wealth and weapons, yet only had two elite swordsmen camps. If the demons managed to get out of control on the Myers Maind, there would be no turning back.


    The demon city and the six types of devil armors that Nailisi mentioned gave Saleen some assurances.


    The demon city would control their loyalties and the devil armors would boost their fighting abilities. The most basic demon soldiers could be controlled by the devil¡¯s breaching armor.


    After listening to Nailisi¡¯s exnation, Saleen decided not to take away her collection. Until now, the elite soldiers under Saleen numbered to about one-thousand and most of them came from Sregl Ind. Now that Nailisi could build up a demon army, Saleen could allow his own soldiers to train up on their own and just focus on defending Metatrin City.


    Nevertheless, Saleen still asked Nailisi to transfer most of the items she had salvaged to his warehouse. She would be allowed to keep those materials that he could not use directly.


    Even so, the items that Nailisi salvaged from the sea easily filled up three levels of Saleen¡¯s warehouse.


    Lex left eventually. She left with ten-thousand elite soldiers, a swordsman camp that Saleen had sent to her for training, and twenty-thousand of her auxiliary soldiers. forty-thousand men and horses rushed back to the borders of Phoenix. Although Holy Rock City had requested for them to arrive a few months earlier than now, winter had just passed. Holy See did not organize any attacks during this period of time either.


    Saleen calcted that Sregl Ind could be opened soon. Within a year and a half, the mages of Sregl Ind would arrive inrge numbers. This gave Saleen confidence. The Holy See¡¯s army would never be able to breach their defense in such a short time. Besides, he had a deal with Fycro. Surely Fycro would look out for him and dissuade the Holy See from making trouble in his city.


    Everything was well-thought out. It never urred to him that his ns had already been revealed.


    The Pope was offering a high reward to find a young mage that he saw in his dreams. Someone that looked like Saleen. His godly instincts convinced the Pope that the dream was real. The two of them somehow managed to be connected through the dream and Theisio had now discovered Saleen¡¯s secret.


    The Pope even gave a secret order to find this mage. In the end, the ck Bishop from the supreme court who almost killed Saleen before finally told the Pope about what had happened outside of Metatrin City.


    Once the Pope heard that there was a city in this world with that fellow that held onto an evil faith, his heart went cold. The Pope always listened to God¡¯s every order and a few years back, one such order said that a disciple of evil faith had appeared in their world. The Pope did think on it too much back then, but now that he had heard what the ck Bishop said, he immediately thought back to God¡¯s order and knew that he had been toocent.


    There could be no other gods.


    This was what the Lord of Glory had written on the Code of the Holy See. Any disciples of other faiths that appeared in the Myers Maind must be killed immediately.


    This mage was real. When Pope Theisio gave the order to find this mage, he was not sure if anything woulde out of it. He could not believe that the people of the supreme court had known about this mage¡¯s existence all the while.


    The Pope would not punish the supreme court because of this, even though they should have informed him earlier. Now, this mage¡¯s city must already possess a strong defense.


    The idiots of the supreme court must have wanted to deal with this mage on their own in secret. They did not have the time nor the manpower so they continued to hide from the Pope. They only decided to tell the Pope after he gave the orders and they realized that they could no longer hide from him. The Pope would still have been kept in the dark if not for that strange dream.


    Even if Theisio had a good temper, he still thoroughly hated the ck Bishop who hid all these information.


    Right now, the Holy See¡¯s forces were divided into twenty percent stabilizing Titan Duchy, twenty percent fighting with Sikeqinya, and more than half were gathered at the borders of Lun and Qin. They nned to break into Qin once and for all, how would they have the spare energy to deal with this evil mage?


    ¡°Lord Pope, why don¡¯t we organize a voluntary expedition that willunch an attack from the borders of Phoenix?¡± A Cardinal suggested to Theisio.


    ¡°Voluntary expedition?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we can recruit voluntary disciples and request for Tanggsi Empire to activate an army. Altogether, we will gather a one-hundred-thousand strong army and destroy that city.¡±


    ¡°What about the general? Are we going to let those rotten noble families lead our disciples?¡±


    ¡°We can deploy someone from the ck Dungeon. This time around, the three Head Inquisitors will not go against you.¡±


    ¡°ck Dungeon, hmm, might as well. Those people¡­,¡± the Pope did not continue. The people of ck Dungeon were all cruel and terrifying. They were the most suitable people to unleash on those disciples of evil faiths. Such opinions must not be said in the open. It was best not to unleash people of the ck Dungeon or they would be hard to control.


    ¡°You go and settle this.¡± The Pope did not personally look for the three Head Inquisitors. Such things must never be known. He had no choice either. Only the ck Dungeon still had many holy priests. These priests were in the ck Dungeon either because there were some problems with their faith or because theymitted some crimes. Theisio did not wish to be linked to these people so he let the red Bishop handle this.


    The red Bishop had merely given a suggestion and did not expect tond himself in trouble. Once he was linked with the people of ck Dungeon, he would have zero chance of fighting for the position of the Pope in the future. He did not dare to go against the Pope¡¯s order so he proceeded to discuss with the people of the supreme court.


    By May, an army had been gathered at God¡¯s Grace Duchy. This army could be split into two parts. The core was made up of an army from Tanggsi Empire and was twenty-five-thousand strong. The other part was made up of one-hundred-thousand volunteers. The ultimate goal of this army was Metatrin City.


    For the past two weeks, the Holy See¡¯s intelligence department managed to collectrge amounts of information on Metatrin City. It was a city with a poption of about one-hundred-thousand, there were thousands of warriors and barbarians. There were also a few mages, but no sorcerers. A one-hundred-thousand strong army including ck high priests from the supreme court and five-thousand jail guards would definitely be able to take down the city.


    There were also three mysterious characters from the supreme court¡¯s ck Dungeon in the army. The three of them had allmitted crimes before and were sentenced by the supreme court. Under the influence of the three Head Inquisitors, the three mysterious men became a part of the supreme court and were usually tasked with carrying out secret assassinations.


    Although only twenty percent of such a huge army was trained, they were more than enough to destroy a small city.


    Theisio thought that the defense of a city that had just been built should not be too formidable. Although the news he received was from half a year ago there was no way a city located in wintrynds could develop much within this period of time.


    By right, Saleen could not have known that the Holy See was preparing to wage a battle against him just ten-thousand miles away. One morning, Saleen suddenly received a letter.


    This letter was kept in a small magic array and was sent directly to the town hall. The mages at the town hall checked the letter and confirmed that there was no danger before delivering it to the temple before Saleen.


    Saleen saw half of the holy prose on the envelope and thought it must havee from Fycro. He had no idea why Fycro would initiate contact with him so he opened the letter. The contents of the letter gave Saleen a scare. The Holy See had sent out a one-hundred-thousand strong army to destroy Metatrin City at all costs.


    He did not think that one-hundred-thousand men could take down Metatrin City. The army in his city was close to one-hundred-thousand, although they were not elite soldiers, the core strength had increased to five-thousand. There were also more than ten-thousand Caucasus people under themand of Sika. On top of that, Metatrin City¡¯s walls were unique, it should not be a problem keeping out a one-hundred-thousand strong army.


    Saleen was actually more worried about Lex¡¯s army. On their way to Metatrin City, the Holy See would pass by the area that Lex was defending. Lex only deployed a ten-thousand strong army there and she might not have left any elite swordsmen camps there. She probably deployed two-thousand soldiers and eight-thousand auxiliary soldiers.


    If that was the case, those ten-thousand men under Lex would be destroyed in no time by the Holy See army.


    ¡°Damned it, can¡¯t they wait for another year?¡± Saleen still remembered what Lex said before her departure. Her soldiers could defend a city, but would lose out in a battle on an open field against most conventional armies. Although only twenty-thousand of the Holy See¡¯s army were trained, the numbers were still too huge. Of Lex¡¯s ten-thousand men, most of them were probably only at the level of mercenary soldiers.


    ¡°Master, the Holy See army will travel along the borders of Phoenix. They most likely do not wish to be attacked by Phoenix. See, they will pass through Deep Forest town,¡± Nailisi pointed along the red line on the magic map and told Saleen.


    ¡°Deep Forest town is too small. It can¡¯t serve as a point of obstruction,¡± Saleen took one look and already objected to it.


    ¡°Master, let Lu and Judikaka go. Judikaka can summon spirits of the dead while Lu can lead a small group of mercenaries. If they can kill off a few holy priests, it will be worth it.¡±


    ¡°We have to alert Lex¡¯s army. Let Tolesi go. That fellow¡¯s illusion spells are pretty good and will help him to escape if need be.¡± Saleen calmed down very quickly. There was still a lot of time before the Holy See arrived. The distance between God Grace Duchy and the borders of Phoenix was about ten-thousand miles.


    An army that was hastily formed by the Holy See would not be able to travel fast. The fastest they could travel should be about one-hundred and fifty miles a day so they would need more than two months to cover ten-thousand miles. The borders of Phoenix were five-thousand miles away from Metatrin City. If he sent one person over, he should reach it within half a month.


    ¡°Master, I feel that we can make use of this opportunity to train up our soldiers. We can divide a camp of soldiers into five and deploy them to different locations to act as points of obstruction against the Holy See army,¡± Nailisi suggested.

 Chapter 630: The arrival of the grade-9 mages (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 630: The arrival of the grade-9 mages (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Split into five teams to stop the expeditionary army? We are talking about twenty-five-thousand regr soldiers.¡± Saleen disagreed with Nailisi¡¯s suggestion. It was right to seize this opportunity to train the troops, but if a camp was split into five portions each team would only have two-thousand people. That was akin to two emblem groups, the enemy would have ten times the manpower.


    With more than ten times the difference in manpower of the Holy See¡¯s army could even use the besieging technique to extirpate two emblem groups of forces.


    ¡°Master, you don¡¯t know something. While you were away Daniel selected one-hundred people to inherit death magic from him. Currently, about eighty of them are high grade disciples already. As long as the dead soul me is present twenty people can immediately transform into low grade death mages. We just have to assign two death mages to each team and we will be able to deploy two-hundred skeletal warhorses.¡±


    Saleen moaned. Among his soldiers, most of them had not undergone a real battle, with the exception of the pirates and the swordsmen from Sregl Ind. In a bloody battle the morale of these soldiers would be difficult to sustain. Only soldiers who had experienced the tribtions of war could be trusted.


    The Holy See did not deploy the sacred knights, it allowed Tanggsi¡¯s imperial family to send their army of twenty-five-thousand regr soldiers. In a field battle, these twenty-five-thousand men would definitely enjoy an absolute advantage. ¡°A death mage can preserve one-hundred skeletal warhorses. Even if I send all my death mages there will only be twelve-hundred skeletal warhorses. That will not be adequate for my men to attain a speed advantage. I still have to deploy the three kings, otherwise this camp of mine will most likely be devoured by the Holy See¡¯s army.¡±


    ¡°Banchajanna does things incoherently while Diyabannersa has the tendency to act impulsively. I shall let Judikaka notify Lex¡¯s army, then he will return and receive the sixth camp. We have two months to prepare.¡± Saleen conjured an idea in a sh. It was necessary to stop the Holy See¡¯s army. If it could arrive at Metatrin City without getting damaged Saleen would have a tough time defending his city.


    Lex had taken the first camp to Bitter Water Prefecture to participate in the war, leaving Saleen with the second to sixth camps. Saleen had set up the sixth camp when Lex was about to leave, while the other five camps had been trained by Lex all this while.


    The sixth camp consisted of a mixedposition, there were barbarians and Caucasus people in it. The core of themand was made up of swordsmen from Sregl Ind. Saleen¡¯s agenda for creating this camp was obvious, he wanted to establish a human army which was fully in his control. All the recruited soldiers could only be twenty years old at max. The sixth camp did not want anyone who was older than twenty years old.


    No one in this young army had an aristocratic background, Saleen could deploy them without any worry. The recruitment of these ten-thousand people took several months. Many people registered, but only few were epted. Eventually, some skilled Caucasus people trained by Sika had to be added in so that theposition of this camp wasplete.


    The proportion of Saleen¡¯s troops to the number of civilians was on the higher side. As a result, during the nning of the troopposition, the auxiliary troops did not belong to any specific camps. They would be assigned to whichever camp was going out for a field mission. The main objective of the five camps was to protect the city. During the defense of the city the scale of logistical support would be very small. Even if there were only twenty-thousand auxiliary troops it would be sufficient for use by the five camps.


    As Saleen assembled the sixth camp he decided to use a mixedposition for it with the intention of lowering the demand for logistical support. The sixth camp had ten-thousand men and it was split into emblem groups. As long as two emblem groups were together an offensive formation could be formed already.


    As Qin had many mages it could coordinate logistical support more easily than the other empires and it was the same case for Saleen¡¯s sixth camp. Each brigade was fitted with a low grade mage, an emblem group would require at least one grade-4 grand mage.


    The sixth camp had more than one-hundred low grade mages. Each emblem group could be paired with more than ten low grade mages. These low grade mages would not be useless. During battle,the lethality of a low grade mage was equivalent to that of a few swordmasters. With the presence of low grade mages the warriors would be able to obtain a steady supply of treatments such as Restorative Water.


    A low grade mage could activate a special spatial equipment in the army. These special equipments were crates with a volume of about one cubic yard. They relied on a magic array to maintain their bnce and the space inside was only two cubic yards. The interior space might only be double the exterior volume, but the function of these wooden crates was immense because such crates were extremely sturdy. The volumes of logistical items ced inside were calcted by their specific volume. A normal box with five to six cubic yards of space might not even be able to contain these items.


    Even though this army only had this one advantage its transportation capacity was five times that of a normal army.


    Saleen assigned Gurney, who had been recalled back to Metatrin City, to this camp as a deputymander. The position of the chiefmander remained vacant. At the moment Gurney still did not have the ability to take up the role of a chiefmander.


    This battle did not involve arge scale confrontation between two armies, so Saleen did not assign amander to Gurney. This mission would be split into five parts and two emblem groups would act together.


    These emblem groupmanders were swordsmen from Sregl Ind, the lowest grade of them all was an intermediate grade swordmaster. It was difficult to look for a grand swordmaster, but the people from Sregl Ind were reassuring. They were not old and it was only a matter of time before they all advanced into grand swordmasters.


    Saleen meticulously nned the advancing and retreating route of the army, he also specially created ten maps. He gave them to the grand mages serving the ten emblem groupmanders. Saleen had arranged for someone to draw these maps. No one had ever created such a specific map of the region north of Phoenix to date.


    He then went to organize the logistical matters. Disposable items like crossbows, rations, and intermediate-size magic equipment which could be dismantled needed to be supplied.


    Judikaka had been deployed in advance, the spirit king was going to inform Lex¡¯s army to get ready in advance.


    Death mages had also been allocated to each emblem group, they were responsible for the logistical support. With skeletal warhorses, the logistics elements would not affect the advancing speed of the army.


    Feeling that everything was in ce, Saleen asked Sika to deploy another few hundred Caucasus magic wolf warriors to Deep Forest Town to gather intelligence.


    It was only when the sixth camp left Metatrin City that Saleen began considering that he needed to resolve a problem; his identity.


    Lex had left and Saleen had already prepared all the things needed to create his false identity. Narnia also came by every day to train him. At the moment, Saleen¡¯s actions vaguely resembled that of a noble from the fourth dynasty already. It was fortunate that the fourth dynasty did not have too many rules for its nobles, so Saleen did not face much difficulty grasping these rules.


    J gave Saleen a suggestion. When Saleen heard J¡¯s idea he nodded in agreement.


    Saleen was to execute this n starting with the youngsters which had separated from the four big families; Aini from the Clyde family, Irene from the Williams family, Renee from the Tiffany family, and Sharman from the Rnde family. When these four youths came out of their families they had brought along huge amounts of funds, experienced businessmen, and a certain number of private soldiers.


    Aini and Irene would surely collude with Saleen. Even though Irene had some conflicts with Saleen, Irene herself knew that she wanted to carve out a career Metatrin City. She would be impartial. It was indeed a little troublesome to rope in the other two youths.


    The people from the Tiffany family had been engaging inmerce and investment earnestly all this while. Even though the Rnde family had interacted with Daniel many times Baroness Guya still had no intention to initiate contact with Saleen ever since Sharman returned.


    Guya was waiting and observing the situation, she was eyeing the benefits Saleen would give. Saleen still had not openly epted the nobles who came forth to settle down, there was no status. If Saleen was incapable even a youngdy would not invest her assets in him.


    J¡¯s idea was to use the two iing grade-9 mages to convince the youths from the other families. Once the people from all four families were converted, Saleen would then use this circle of nobles as a core to expand his own influence.


    Originally, Saleen was still thinking of a location to build the ten story magical tower he had promised to gift the two grade-9 mages. Now that the Holy See had deployed its forces to invade his city Saleen had lost all worries. He nned to choose an ind to build the magical tower for the two grade-9 mages. At the moment he decided that he would construct the magical tower west of Metatrin city in the town where Lex¡¯s army was stationed.


    Aini¡¯s parents did not deceive Saleen, those two grade-9 mages were indeed persuaded by their friend and they wereing to visit Metatrin City. Currently, Metatrin City had been fully developed. Other than the magical towers, the rest of the amenities were fully built. Saleen could receive the two grade-9 mages already. What Saleen needed to do right now was to wait for the mages¡¯ arrival. He would then have to convince them to settle down for good.


    After making this decision Saleen no longer felt anxious. There was news about the two grade-9 mages, they would be arriving within the next two to three days. Seizing the next two days of free time, Saleen went to visit the arena.


    The construction of the arena was very smooth, it was located west of the city. This location, spanning almost one mile, housed a cluster of public buildings. Other than this central arena a dozen other mini arenas were designed and scattered in the vicinity. As the main works werepleted, the spirits had been withdrawn. At the moment, there were many smiths in the arena who were building chairs for the spectators, they were also drawing and engraving various patterns along the passageways.


    Seeing the arena getting built, Saleen knew that many professionals woulde to Metatrin City to try their luck very soon. By then, Saleen would have many more options.


    ¡°The demonic city is good, but before my foundation is stable, I still have to maintain a low profile.¡±


    Just as Saleen was about to discuss the rules of the arena with Daniel someone suddenly came and reported that the two grade-9 mages had arrived. The mages were waiting in the temple for Saleen. The moment Saleen learned about this information, he was inevitably flustered. He quickly ordered people to invite Aini¡¯s parents over, then asked Diyabannersa and Banchajanna toe and meet him.


    Saleen had to take some precautions, the visitors were grade-9 mages after all. With two spirit kings by his side the two grade-9 mages would not be able to kill Saleen swiftly. This would buy Saleen some time to take out his n badge, which would pose a threat to the grade-9 mages too.

 Chapter 631: The arrival of the grade-9 mages (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 631: The arrival of the grade-9 mages (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen behaved as if he was facing a powerful adversary, he asked Nailisi and Cuisi to follow him while Sika would lead the Caucasus people to do patrols outside the temple. After summoning Banchajanna and Diyabannersa Saleen rushed over to the temple.


    Unlike what Saleen had imagined, he saw that J was entertaining the two mages and engaged in a jovial conversation when he returned to the second story of the temple. The two grade-9 mages looked about thirty years old. Saleen knew that once a mage attained grade-9, their lifespan would be up to twelve-hundred years and they could control their appearance.


    There were also demons in the room serving the mages, one was Lu while the other was Aiwa. Tolesi had been deployed by Saleen, he was not stationed in Metatrin City.


    Upon seeing Saleen, J smiled and said, ¡°Great Mages, this is the city owner, Saleen.¡±


    The two grade-9 sorcerers were tall with a striking appearance, their eyes were brown and their hair bunched up. Seeing Saleen lead an entourage into the room both mages nodded their heads in a friendly manner. Given their statuses, their attitude towards a city owner was very good already. This made Saleen pleased.


    These were two mages were not used much solitude, they couldmunicate using conventional methods.


    The two grade-9 sorcerers were also observing Saleen, they had been persuaded to visit Metatrin City and they were not very hopeful before arriving. They wanted some change in their lives, so they viewed this trip as a vacation.


    ¡°Master Frankie, Master Anthony, my name is Saleen Metatrin.¡± Saleen executed a mage¡¯s bow.


    The two grade-9 sorcerers noticed that this young mage was d in a strange-looking brocade robe. It looked like a mage armor, but the style was more ancient. They had not seen anyone dressed in this manner for the past two-thousand years. As for Saleen¡¯s identity, they were told he was a descendant of a prominent family from the fourth dynasty.


    When these two people entered the city, they were extremely astounded when they saw the scale of Metatrin City and its unique city walls. They knew that an impoverished person could never have orchestrated such a construction. There must be some colossal power behind this city owner.


    These two grade-9 sorcerers were members of a mercenary group and they never thought of spending their whole life as mercenaries. They were different from that couple from the Dragons and Roses Regiment, they were more orthodox mages. They hoped to ovee the limits of grade-9 and achieve true freedom.


    A mercenary group could not give them such things and the ie could hardly provide them with more training materials. Just on the aspect of magic nuclei, they were impoverished. If they defected to Alchemy City, they would be submerged in a sea of mages. They would have to vie for power constantly, they did not like that kind of lifestyle either.


    Fortunately, the two people had advanced to a grade-9 sorcerer very early on in life. They seeded before reaching one-hundred years old, so they had around one-thousand years of life left. If someone supported them, allowing them to have sufficient time to practice magic without needing to worry about financial matters, then that was the best option for a mage.


    This city was clearly very wealthy, its wealth had exceeded what they had imagined.


    After seeing the group of people behind Saleen, the two grade-9 sorcerers were even more assured. ¡°There was actually a supreme demon, and spirit kings!¡± This city owner was clearly not after their abilities. Even though a spirit king would be restrained on this ne they also possessed abilities which were close to the standard of grade-9. A supreme demon was even better, such creatures would not be restrained by any nar rules while on Myers maind. Humans were fond of capturing demons because of this reason long ago because a demon was the best fighter in any ne.


    Saleen took out exquisite porcin cups and poured a cup of magic liquid for the two grade-9 sorcerers. They thing had been created by a level-7 spell and Saleen was learning it. Of course, a grade-9 sorcerer would not be short of magic liquid, this was simply an act of respect. Even though Saleen was backed by the Sregl Ind, he was still full of admiration for powerful mages.


    Magic practice was an extremely tough affair. It was already very onerous for normal humans to be a high grade disciple. One would have to sacrifice a whole lot more in order to attain grade-9.


    ¡°Master of the city, why have you invited us over?¡± The two sorcerers were extremely polite. They had already decided to settle down in Metatrin City, but they still exercised some restraint.


    ¡°Last year, the Holy See released a new code ofws. Itbeled death mages as heretics, I guess you two masters have heard about it.¡±


    Anthony and Frankie nodded their heads at the same time, but they did not know why Saleen had broached this matter.


    Saleen said, ¡°One of my best followers and my friend Aini, are grade-6 death mages, so the Holy See will only have peace of mind after killing them. I have received information that the Holy See has gathered a one-hundred-thousand man army and is rushing towards Metatrin City now.¡±


    ¡°There is actually such a thing?!¡± Anthony furrowed his brows, then said, ¡°We are willing to kill a few holy masters, but¡­¡±


    Saleen smiled, then said, ¡°Of course I am not going to let you two handle this matter. I am just reminding you that Metatrin City is a target that has to be destroyed in the eyes of the Holy See.¡±


    Frankie said, ¡°Sir Saleen, the Holy See and Metatrin City are twenty-thousand miles apart, would they deploy their army just because of a few death mages? I am afraid they are here because of the Qin Empire.¡±


    ¡°I have concrete intelligence. The Tanggsi Empire has an army of twenty-five-thousand people with an additional one-hundred-thousand volunteer expeditionary soldiers, they have already set off from God Grace Duchy. They will travel along the borders of Phoenix, entering the northern region, then they will travel east and attack my city directly. County Queen Lex has a camp of soldiers stationed at the borders. I have already sent an army to reinforce them. This matter cannot be faked.¡±


    ¡°If it is the Holy See¡¯s army, we will definitely lend a hand. In Laiyin Duchy we still have tens of thousands of people that are deployable.¡± The two grade-9 mages clearly bore hatred towards the Holy See. Before they became sorcerers they had toured the Tanggsi Empire in the past and they almost had gotten killed there.


    That conflict broke out because the two of them were assisting a death mage. Saleen¡¯s words were coincidentally aligned with their thoughts.


    ¡°I have invited you two masters over, but not because of the war. As you know a sorcerer has to be inmand once an imperial city is developed. My teacher is busy with some matters, so he cannote at the moment, Uncle Fellett rmended the two of you.¡±


    ¡°Imperial city?¡±


    ¡°Of course, the Metatrin family is a royal family with a different surname. Since I am going to recover my family¡¯s glory, this city has to have an imperial status.¡± Saleen answered very naturally. The first few portions of his ancestral record were not fabricated, only the parts from the fourth dynasty until the present day were falsified. The Metatrin family had indeed flourished for a period of time during the fourth dynasty.


    The two grade-9 sorcerers were actually hesitant now. They were not very rich at the moment, the ie given by the mercenary group was not sufficient to build a magical tower. If Saleen was addressed as a royalty, they were not even willing to contribute a token sum to him.


    It was perfectly normal for a royalty to hire sorcerers, the sorcerers were also treated pretty well. If Saleen wanted to build a residence the sorcerers could not save on gifts because that was a matter of prestige.


    Of course Fellett knew about their situation, so he continued the conversation, ¡°Saleen is my nephew, he and Aini are like brothers. I didn¡¯t lie about anything when I invited the two of you over, Saleen is nning to construct a magical tower for you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, I am going to build a ten story magical tower for both of you. It will be sufficient for your usage.¡± Saleen struck while the iron was hot.


    Anthony and Frankie turned to look at Saleen and Saleen nodded his head gently, signaling that this im was true. The two sorcerers burst out in boisterousughter, then said, ¡°Then we will stay, but do we have to sign any contracts?¡±


    For magical towers with more than eight stories the required material was steel rock and the costs for building the interior was evenrger. The fortune which the both of them had amassed was for building a magical tower for themselves, but since Saleen was going to gift them a ten story magical tower, it would be sufficient for them. The sorcerers had amassed quite a substantial fortune, they would not lose their dignity in front of Saleen¡¯s subordinates.


    Being a mage for royalty was different from joining Alchemy City. Alchemy City had many more rulespared to Holy Rock City. By following Saleen they would not need toply with orders, they just had to protect the cities near their magical tower. If Saleen had any further requests he would not need to spend more money. Nevertheless, Saleen also would not bother them with trivial affairs.


    Since the two sorcerers were talking about contracts, Saleen understood what the implicit meaning was. In a magnanimous tone, he said, ¡°A contract must be signed. I will state my demands. If you find it unsatisfactory feel free to raise objections.¡±


    ¡°Sure, please say them.¡±


    ¡°The ten story magical tower will surely be built by me, it will bepleted within one month. Within the magical tower, I will send four grand mages to serve the both of you perennially, please give them guidance. As for magic disciples, there will be sixty of them.¡±


    Anthony and Frankie nodded, even though they did not ept students Saleen¡¯s requests were not overbearing. On paper, the four grand mages would serve the two sorcerers, but the real people suffering were the sixty magic disciples. The four grand mages would actually learn from them.


    ¡°Every week, I will send a batch of low grade mages over, please exin one spell to them.¡±


    Anthony nced at Frankie, this request was still eptable. Per week, they just had to exin one spell. As long as they exined it in detail, not much time would be expended. The both of them nodded again.


    ¡°The magical tower will be built outside Metatrin City, nearby a small town. If you are willing a few six-story magical towers can be built in the vicinity too. As for the town¡¯s defense, neither of you have to take any action if there aren¡¯t any unforeseen circumstances.¡±


    ¡°City owner, you are too courteous.¡±


    With a straight face, Saleen replied, ¡°A sorcerer is honorable, they cannot be constantly embroiled in worldly affairs.¡±


    These words came from the bottom of Saleen¡¯s heart, he would not need two grade-9 sorcerers to resolve the trivial problems. When Saleen¡¯s teacher arrived at Metatrin City in the future he would not be involved in the trivial matters either. Saleen was going to advance to a sorcerer soon, he knew that a sorcerer required time for practice.


    ¡°I can provide the level-6 magic nuclei you use for your experiments, as for high level magic nuclei¡­ I will hunt them in the ocean. Both of you can follow the ships out to sea and you can get twenty percent of the ie.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Both sorcerers were bewildered. Saleen was providing level-6 magic nuclei, and the supply was unlimited, but the sorcerers had to obtain the high level magic nuclei themselves. They could only receive twenty percent of the ie and they still had to sail out to sea to hunt!


    ¡°City owner, the risk of hunting at sea is too high. We do not mind a twenty percent cut though¡­¡±

 Chapter 632: Confidence (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 632: Confidence (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen smiled and swiped his finger across the table to open the magic array and disyed the magic images.


    ¡°This is the dragon skeletonbat vessel and this is the skeletal warship. If you use them to go on a long expedition, the dragon skeletonbat vessel can ensure your safety. Even if you encounter a grade-9 beast, you will not need to care about protecting the vessels. You will only need to focus on attacking the beast.¡±


    The two grade-9 sorcerers were speechless when they saw the dragon skeletonbat vessel.


    Both of them would have an easy time if they traveled on this vessel. They would probably only need two percent of their powers. With such a vessel, even if they did note along, Saleen¡¯s hunting should not be too dangerous. Billions of gold coins would not have been able to buy such a vessel. The amount of wealth this Saleen had was astounding!


    The wealthier Saleen was, the more loyal the two sorcerers would be towards him. Mages were not bandits so their mindset was that as long as they were able to fulfil the tasks given to them by Saleen, they would have plenty of time and resources to train in peace. Even battles were counted as training as long as they did not leave the magic tower.


    Saleen was satisfied and he decided that the magic tower would be in western town to make it even harder to be taken down. One must pass through western town in order to attack Metatrin City, but the army in that town would be able to contain arge army.


    Without the magic tower, the enemy would surely remove western town from the picture first before advancing towards Metatrin City. The importance of the two grade-9 sorcerers could not be understated.


    The two grade-9 sorcerers would definitely be no match for a one-hundred-thousand strong army but as long as they did not leave the magic tower, they would still be able to contain them. The enemy would have to activate many of their strong warriors in order to control the magic tower and the other soldiers.


    To have both of them settle down in Metatrin City would not be an issue. The red tiger mercenary group of Laiyin Duchy have been removed and had temporarily lost the right to be a grade-9 mercenary group. Saleen¡¯s men could go forth and try to poach them. Those two silver grand swordmasters were difficult personalities too.


    The two sorcerers were satisfied and Saleen was even more so. Now that the grade-9 sorcerers would be participating in the hunt, Saleen would be able to target grade-9 beasts and would definitely be rewarded. Without the grade-9 sorcerers, the dragon skeletonbat vessel would only target beasts that were grade-8 and below. The drop in number of magic nuclei would be significant.


    This was not about Saleen being strict. Even Alchemy City did not have equipment like dragon skeletonbat vessel to hunt for beasts. Saleen did not have much, but such a superior equipment was one of a kind.


    The hunt would be simple. If they encountered grade-9 beasts, the sorcerers would kill it. They would be exhausted after the kill so they would return to thebat vessel to recuperate. Thisbat vessel was resilient and sturdy, there was no way other beasts would be able to attack it.


    Safety was priority. If the beasts were so easy to kill, high-level magic nuclei would not be selling at such premium prices.


    ¡°Finally, I have a personal request,¡± Saleen saw that the two sorcerers were satisfied and finally decided to state his request.


    ¡°Lord Saleen, please go ahead.¡±


    ¡°There are quite a number of noble families that have sought refuge in my city, but there are four that I wish to establish good rtions with. I am thinking of inviting them over for you to meet each other. In the future, hopefully you can be generous with them and not kill any of their men for no reason,¡± Saleen said very courteously.


    ¡°No problem,¡± the sorcerers promised easily. Such things weremon in Holy Rock City too. There would always be a few noble families that would be given a more generous treatment from the pce mages. They did not know that Saleen was actually using them to show off his power. Once the Tiffany and Rnde families saw that even the sorcerers had followed Saleen they would not dare to be overly ambitious anymore.


    Even Dukes might not be able to recruit two grade-9 sorcerers!


    Everyone around Saleen knew what he was up to but none of them gave anything away. Nailisi was impressed and thought to herself, ¡°Master is simply too cunning. On the surface, it seems like he was asking the sorcerers to look out for the noble families under him, but actually he was using the sorcerers as a means to control the noble families.¡±


    The Fellets would also keep quiet. Their son¡¯s prospects depended on whether Saleen would be able to build a solid foundation after all.


    Just like that, the two grade-9 sorcerers settled down in the temple and Saleen arranged for a magic tower to be built. He had more than enough resources. The amount of magic tower materials that Jason had given to Saleen could build forty magic towers. That was the wealth umted by Sregl Ind for a few thousand years.


    Saleen invited Aini and the rest to the temple as guests and introduced the two grade-9 sorcerers to them.


    As Saleen expected, Tiffany family¡¯s Renee, Rnde family¡¯s Guya, Williams family¡¯s Irene, and Clyde family¡¯s Aini all agreed to be Saleen¡¯s noble families upon seeing the grade-9 sorcerers.


    With Aini facilitating from within, the other three families agreed to Saleen¡¯s terms and conditions very quickly.


    These four young men and women had pledged their allegiances to Saleen with all their wealth. Saleen would be King and they would be given the titles of Dukes and thends that they had been given for now were all within the vicinity of Metatrin City.


    The kingdom was named Metatrin and Saleen was named Saleen the First. Thews and regtions mainly followed the fourth dynasty, but with minor adjustments and these were all prepared by Saleen. The four of them were dered Dukes and could build their mansions within the city. Since they had yet to perform any meritorious services, they were only third-grade Dukes. These titles were hereditary which meant that as long as the Metatrin family lived on their future generations would always inherit the honor and glory of Dukes.


    Now, the gains and benefits of these four young men and women would be closely tied with Saleen.


    Now that Saleen had reached that stage, he had no choice but to consider Joey¡¯s suggestion. Joey had given him a letter that could convince an entire Duke¡¯s family to pledge allegiance to him. As long as Saleen brought along the letter to the Duke, the Duke would definitely swear fealty to Saleen with his entire family.


    To show respect, Saleen sent J to deliver this letter personally along with three skeletal warships to Lianyun City. It was faster to travel by the sea than on a road.


    News of Saleen dering four Dukes spread very quickly within Metatrin City. At the same time, Saleen had no intentions of concealing the fact that two grade-9 sorcerers had also came onboard to lend their support to him. Many noble families were tempted.


    Saleen also designated a location as the King¡¯s mansion, but he did not live there. The King¡¯s mansion would be a ce where administrative duties would be settled. Metatrin City would still need a Lord of the City, the duties of this position had been managed by Daniel so far.


    Daniel did not have any other intentions. He knew that the city would ultimately be controlled by Sregl Ind. Saleen¡¯s teacher would bring along many sorcerers, whoever was the Lord of the city would still have to defer to these over thirty sorcerers.


    The fourth dynasty did not have a House of Commons, only the Senate. Saleen had no intentions of installing the Senate because he did not have any offsprings yet. He was the only person in the family so it was meaningless for the Senate to be set up. Saleen was putting in ce an administration that was simr to Cloudflow, where the status of noble families in the pce would not be hereditary.


    Most of the pirates that had followed Saleen steadfastly had enlisted in the army except for Gurney and a few others who has taken up important positions. Saleen¡¯s main bodyguards would still be the mages from Sregl Ind. Now that the governing of the city involved the four members of the newly designated Duke families, the city became livelier.


    On the first Monday of May, Saleen arranged for a meeting in the temple. Those that were present at the meeting were the four Dukes and the twelve Earls that had pledged their allegiances to Saleen. These twelve Earls represented the twelve families that had also thrown their support behind Saleen. They had now been rewarded for their decision then.


    The meeting room contained a long table that was twelve yards long. Saleen sat at one end while Nailisi stood behind him. On his left were Sika, Daniel, Aini, Irene, Renee, and Guya. On his right were the twelve Earls.


    The guards were made up of barbarians while the servants were two demons and a few skeletons. There were no outsiders in the room and there was no possibility of any spies, everyone spoke freely. No outsider would be powerful enough to disguise themself as a skeleton.


    ¡°Your Highness¡­¡±


    Renee of the Tiffany family began to speak. Saleen quickly waved his hand and said, ¡°I am a mage. I don¡¯t want this salutation.¡±


    Renee was a youngdy of around seventeen to eighteen years of age. Upon hearing what Saleen said, she said shyly, ¡°Then do I call you Master?¡±


    ¡°I am not a sorcerer yet¡­ the four of you can call me by name while the Earls can call me ¡®My Lord''¡±.


    Guya smiled and said, ¡°You are the King. We can¡¯t afford to be so casual.¡±


    ¡°ording to the rules of the fourth dynasty, you are the first to be dered as Dukes so you can call me by name.¡± Saleen recalled what Narnia had taught him and quickly filled up the loophole.


    ¡°Alright then, Saleen¡­,¡± Renee was blushing as she faced Saleen and said, ¡°I have a question, which I believe is what the twelve Earls wish to know too. There are plenty ofnds around Metatrin City that are valuable but not being utilized. Can we buy them over?¡±


    Metatrin City looked very different from how it was designed initially. The city contained morends and they were just open spaces since they were not being utilized. A city did not need so many open spaces, especially when they were no buildings or statues in them.


    Saleen smiled. Thesends would serve as the locations for the Sregl Ind mages¡¯ thirty-six magic towers.


    ¡°Everyone, thesends have been left empty by me.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, this would not be making the best use of them,¡± Guya thought that Saleen had wanted to keep thesends now in order to sell them for good prices in future. Metatrin City was developing very well now. Once the ice at the port melts, many merchant boats woulde along. Once thesends had been developed then sold to merchants, the amount of taxes they would receive daily would be huge.


    ¡°Guya, thesends are left behind for my teacher. Within two years, my teacher will be settling down in Metatrin City. He will also be bringing along thirty-six sorcerers,¡± Saleen smiled and replied.


    What Saleen said stunned everyone.


    The two grade-9 sorcerers might have pledged their allegiances to Saleen because they had been offered attractive terms and conditions, but Saleen was also a great mage himself and supporting behind him were another thirty-six sorcerers! These thirty-six sorcerers were all more powerful than Saleen!


    These members of noble families felt a tinge of fear and respect towards mages. At the same time, they also felt pleased that there was such a powerful force on their side. Saleen¡¯s n to expand his territories was not just empty talk. When the noble families brought everything that they could from their homes to Metatrin City, never in their wildest dreams did they imagine that they could one day reim the honor of their families.

 Chapter 633: Confidence (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 633: Confidence (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even though Aini knew a little about Saleen and where he received his training in the past, he was still taken aback by Saleen¡¯s background. Aini could not help but admire his parents¡¯ foresight. The Fellets had really bet everything on Saleen.


    The happiest amongst everyone must be Guya and her family. As women, even though their status in Qin was already higherpared to other empires, they would never be considered as the leader of their families, much less have the possibility of bing Duchesses.


    Initially, they supported Saleen because they saw business opportunities. Now, it seemed that aside from wealth, they would also have the opportunity to earn a hereditary Duchess position.


    Saleen pondered deeply for a while. The construction of demon city was halfway done and would bepleted in the next six months. Within a year, they would be able to summon about ten-thousand demons. By the time the Sregl Ind mages arrived, Saleen would be able to build the first camp of the demon army.


    With the demon army, Saleen¡¯s own armies would no longer require so many mages and they would be able to stay in Metatrin City to help in construction. After one and a half years, Saleen would not have to worry about the defense of Metatrin City.


    Saleen¡¯s teacher would also be bringing alongbat vessels, sailors, and swordmasters. Regardless if it was onnd or sea, every possible loophole could be filled with winged skeleton and Three Kings.


    By then, these noble families would no longer need to keep too many private soldiers by their side in Metatrin City.


    ¡°Everyone, Metatrin Kingdom needs to expand its territories, but we are allies with Bitter Water Prefecture. We will not attack Phoenix for the time-being. We will set our sights on Laiyin Duchy.¡±


    ¡°The four Dukes can have one-thousand private soldiers and lead up to thirty-thousand soldiers while the twelve Earls can have six-hundred private soldiers and lead up to ten-thousand soldiers. Every private soldier can be supported by three auxiliary soldiers. For the conventional armies that you lead, I can sell equipment to you at cost price. I will soon be establishing a joint bank with Viscountess Lex and everyone will enjoy the privilege of top-tier loans.¡±


    Everyone heaved a sigh of relief after Saleen touched on the issue of military. Usually when a country was still in its early stages, low-level noble families would not have the power to have private soldiers or lead armies. Clearly, Saleen did not intend to restrict them in this aspect. Although the number of private soldiers had been reduced, the limit for soldiers they could lead had been increased.


    Besides, Saleen has given them discounts on the purchase of equipment and they also had the option of loans. This meant that Saleen was using concrete actions to show his support for the noble families to expand their powers.


    With loans, they would be able to recruit more soldiers to take over morends. Some of thesends might even be rewarded to them.


    ¡°Now that Viscountess Lex has returned back to her country, western town¡¯s defense was left with ten-thousand soldiers. Although the numbers are sufficient, in two months¡¯ time, the Holy See¡¯s army will reach the west of Metatrin City. I have already sent an army there to dy them. Nevertheless, I expect their army to be one-hundred-thousand strong by the time they arrive here. For the next two months, everyone can recruit soldiers and stop the Holy See¡¯s army at western town.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, we don¡¯t have enough money at hand!¡± The first Earl on Saleen¡¯s right said.


    ¡°Western town already has ten-thousand men and can take in a maximum of forty-thousand more soldiers. All of you will only need to recruit three-thousand men each. There is a ten story magic tower there so it will help a lot for defense. Unless the Holy See army split up their forces, otherwise just hold the town. You don¡¯t have to engage.¡±


    Everyone thought about it carefully and realized that it was true. Western town was not big and could only hold an army of fifty-thousand. With another twenty-thousand logistics soldiers, there was no room for residents. It would be simpler to defend the town without having to care for the safety of residents. On top of that, there would be two grade-9 sorcerers guarding the magic tower that Saleen would be building so the enemy would only be able to attack from the west. It would be easy for fifty-thousand men to defend one side of the city wall that was only a mile wide.


    As long as the enemy did not possess anyrge equipment like war puppets, there should not be too many casualties from defending western town.


    Although the noble families would be spending their own money to defend western town for Saleen, this would be their first opportunity to perform meritorious service for this new kingdom. How they performed this time around would determine whether they could be noble families of even higher tiers.


    When these noble families came to Metatrin City, they still had about three-hundred to five-hundred private soldiers with them. It would not be too difficult to expand this number. After the battle was over, everyone would have the chance to select the capable soldiers to be their own private soldiers.


    Saleen actually wanted to let them participate in this battle partly to let these noble families start to expand their powers. Saleen could not possibly spend his own money to help them expand their armies.


    Saleen easily helped the noble families settle down after exining clearly the terms and conditions of getting loans. The twelve Earls left to prepare for recruitment of soldiers while the four Dukes stayed behind.


    Guya and the rest were different from the Earls. Their families were not in trouble at all. These young men and women simply detested the old-fashioned rules that their families were still sticking to and just wanted independence. They were all wealthier than the twelve Earls and were also able to offer more men and resources.


    Guya and the rest even had grand mages and zun grand swordmasters under theirmand. Now that they have been given titles and received new n badges, they had officially be independent from their families. Saleen has prepared for them the titles of third-grade Dukes, which far surpassed the status of the leaders of their families.


    This meant that their original families would no longer be able to ept them back. Now that they were Dukes, there was no way they could be the heads of their families anymore. If there was such a possibility in the first ce, Guya and the rest would not have wanted to leave their families anyway.


    Of course, the price to pay for leaving their families was high. It was worth it since they would now have the chance to build something for themselves in Metatrin City. The four major families would never resort to violence to solve such a problem.


    Saleen was no longer afraid of the four major families because the amount of magic nuclei and metal supplies that Metatrin City owned could already allow him to conduct business anywhere on the Maind. He would no longer have to give any considerations to the four major families.


    Saleen also knew that while the twelve Earls¡¯ finances were tight, Guya and the rest were very wealthy. After splitting from their families, everyone including Aini, transferred all the funds that they could utilize to Metatrin City. Saleen asked them to stay behind to discuss about investing in the fighting arena.


    Everyone, including thedies such as Guya and Irene, was extremely interested in the fighting arena.


    Saleen has alreadypleted the construction of basic foundations. The biggest portion that required investments was regarding setting up an outlet for gambling. Qin was strictly against gambling and this type of gambling that was organized by noble families only existed during the fourth dynasty. It was during the early years of the fourth dynasty.


    Saleen had thought that this would be a simple issue but who knew that they could not reach a conclusion even after night came. Saleen did not wish to be authoritative about this. What he was suggesting would greatly deviate away from traditional Qin attitude towards gambling so he would need support. Fortunately, the issue of the fighting arena was settled within an afternoon. Now they were only left with gambling.


    It was dinner time when Eleanor, who had been training on her own all that while, suddenly appeared and gave Saleen a solution.


    What Saleen wanted was to leverage onpetitions held in the fighting arena to make profits rather than losses. Eleanor said directly, ¡°You can sell tickets just like Cloudflow Empire¡¯s theatres. One will only need to spend a few silver coins to watch a fightingpetition.¡±


    Silver coins? Saleen was stunned for a while. The biggest arena could sit tens of thousands of people. If every seat was sold for two silver coins and the match was a sellout, they would be earning close to one-hundred-thousand silver coins, which would be equivalent to a few thousand gold coins.


    Although it might seem less profitable than hunting for beasts in the sea, the sale of magic nuclei was such that the more one sold, the more the prices would drop.


    Would the people of Metatrin City ept the price of two silver coins? It was probably too high! The people here worked hard and could possibly earn more than ten gold coins a year, but on a monthly basis, they would not earn more than one gold coin. It was too much to expect of them to spend one-fifth of their wealth to purchase a ticket.


    Eleanor said, ¡°The biggest arena can sit up to fifty-thousand people. If every seat is sold for two silver coins, we will earn one-hundred-thousand silver coins, which is equivalent to ten-thousand gold coins. This will be too expensive. Everyone¡¯s ticket can be used as a chip for betting. When they purchase their tickets, they can predict the oue of the matches. Whoever manages to guess correctly the oues of all the matches will win a gold coin or more.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t we be making a loss?!¡± Sika did not understand the calctions involved and immediately objected.


    ¡°How can that be?¡± Saleen smiled. He grasped the essence of what Eleanor said immediately. This was also a standard question in the Figaro Magic Form. When a magic sequence could produce two possible oues, each oue had a fifty percent chance of urring. This portion of the Figaro Magic Form was also the hardest to predict and was known as Magic of Uncertainty.


    On the surface, it seemed as if both the first and second choices each had a probability of fifty percent getting it right. In actual fact, the probability of getting the second choice right was not even twenty-five percent. The more times one guessed, the lower the probability of guessing the correct oues.


    Even if Saleen did not control the oues of the matches, it would still be extremely difficult to correctly guess the results of all the matches. Amongst an audience of fifty-thousand, it would be a miracle if even a few hundred people won.


    Aside from mages that had studied and learned the calction form, the average person would not understand the catch behind it.


    ¡°The two silver coins can also include a meal and drink. Most people will be attracted by the prize and will not care too much about the entrance fee,¡± Narnia said.


    ¡°No, I will only sell a ticket for a silver coin¡­No, fifty bronze coins!¡± Saleen quickly calcted the profits to be earned. If they followed the original n, he would only organize matches on a weekly basis so that the people in the city would not have to spend too much. If they charged a ticket at fifty bronze coins, he could organize matches everyday and every match would be a sellout.


    If every seat cost fifty bronze coins, they would earn twenty-five-million bronze coins or two-thousand gold coins a day. Half of the gold coins would be set aside as prizes in order to continue attracting the crowds.


    In that case, he would be able to collect one-thousand gold coins every day. In one year, just one big fighting arena alone would earn him more than ten-thousand gold coins.


    ¡°Eleanor, your idea is brilliant!¡± Saleenplimented wholeheartedly.

 Chapter 634: A raving army (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 634: A raving army (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°That is nothing. Back then, the marquis¡­ had already thought of something like that. I just told you as it is.¡± When Eleanor mentioned her lover, she no longer experienced the sadness of the past. She led a pretty good life in Metatrin City, she had already advanced to a grade-6 mage. Without the bangle she had already regained her pinnacle powers on Myers maind.


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Your husband better be dead by now. He is too scary, no wonder he could rise to prominence so quickly in a ce like Tanggsi.¡±


    Even though he harbored these thoughts, Saleen did not dare say them out. He told Eleanor, ¡°Why don¡¯t you be in charge of this matter, what do you think?¡±


    Eleanor said, ¡°I am a mage and you are letting me do this?¡±


    ¡°No one around me other than you can do it. You came up with this idea and I would feel the mostfortable with it in your hands.¡±


    ¡°Forget it Saleen, you know I won¡¯t be willing to do this. Tell you what, you choose a few people and I will teach them. They can master such trivial things in about half a month.¡± Eleanor rejected Saleen¡¯s wishes.


    Saleen was not surprised at all. If he had to do such a thing, he would also be reluctant. To a mage, having to spend so much time every day was a waste of their life. It was the best oue that Eleanor was willing to teach others.


    Since this matter had been resolved, Saleen began training in the temple.


    A grade-6 mage already needed a magical tower so that they could gather the concentrated elements and increase the pace of magic practice to enter the ranks of the sorcerers as soon as possible. Without a magical tower a mage would have to expend ten times the effort in order to have a chance of bing a sorcerer.


    In terms of quality, Anthony and Frankie who had defected to Saleen were one-hundred times stronger than Saleen. They had no money to build a magical tower though, their training speed was average.


    In fact, on the sixth floor of the current temple where Saleen lived in. The interior decoration was no different from that of a magical tower. The interior design could not be seen from outside the temple. Besides the mages serving Saleen, there was also a humongous alchemyboratory on the sixth story. The whole architecture of the sixth story, coupled with the other five stories below, made up a colossal magic array.


    The material of the temple was steel rocks and white rocks, but the critical material was still the steel rock. The concentration of the elements where Saleen lived was even sufficient for a grade-9 magical tower. All the mages from Sregl Ind, Daniel, and Eleanor were assigned by Saleen to live in the temple.


    There were not many rooms on the sixth story, so each room wasrge enough. Saleen had one room which was permanently closed, it had never been opened before. Even when Saleen entered the room he would use a teleportation portal. He was willing to waste a few magic nuclei. The whole room waspletely sealed, only the ceiling had venttion vents which linked to the outside world.


    Saleen was in this very room right now, the entirely sealed room was flooded with water. Saleen floated in the water, his eyes gleaming with jubnce. Beside Saleen, a six yard long lightning dragon encircled him.


    This lightning dragon had grown to a length of six yards inside the goddess¡¯ ne. Very soon he could help Saleen in battle. The golden magic patterns were already very obvious on the pale green skin of the lightning dragon. As it swam, those golden patterns underwent regted changes. As the room was not very big, Saleen only released one lightning dragon at a time to feed it.


    The food he fed the lightning dragons was frequentlyced with Restorative Water or even magic liquid. Within the spaces of the goddess¡¯ ne the souls of the lightning dragons were growing normally. Their growth could even be considered as powerful, but due to the absence ofbat found in the natural world the toughness of the lightning dragons¡¯ flesh was slightly inadequate. A lightning dragon was never a creature who fought melee battles, so the skin of these six yard long dragons still had a pale green hue.


    Saleen was not sure about the habits of a lightning dragon and there was not any useful information in the magic notes either. It was only in recent times that Saleen realized that a lightning dragon loved to eat the tough shells of sea magic beasts rather than just meat. In the past, Saleen used to tear the meat into smaller pieces to feed them. Only recently did he allow them to eat meat in huge chunks.


    At the moment, the skin color of these lightning dragons was pale green with a tinge of silver. Saleen knew that if a lightning dragon absorbed too little substances during its development process their growth would be adversely impacted.


    Saleen had to organize one more hunt for this reason. This hunt had to take ce in the Frozen Sea.


    Teasing the lightning dragon, Saleen kept releasing tiny Water Shields. The Water Shields cast by him were only as big as a thumb, they formed chains of bubbles in the water.


    Saleen used his mental strength tomunicate with the tiny lightning dragon. It released bolts of silver electric current that struck each Water Shield urately. Each electric current was not very powerful, but the Water Shields were destroyed by these mild electric currents.


    This was the effect of countering magic which was the function of a lightning dragon¡¯s electric current. Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning had this effect. Saleen¡¯s body was not as tough as that of a lightning dragon, the electric current released by him had a range of barely ten yards.


    To a mage, an attack with a range of ten yards and a magic-countering effect was too close forfort. Saleen had thought about it before. Since his Eye of Lightning was not going to be upgraded, its range would never be more than fifty yards. He would not cast it for the time being. Even at this moment, the lightning dragons could aid Saleen in battle. Of course, the battle had to take ce in water.


    If twenty-four lightning dragons released their electric currents simultaneously, even a grade-9 magic beast¡¯s defensive spell would be utterly destroyed.


    Currently, Saleen would spare some time every day to practice coordination with his lightning dragons. The twenty-four lightning dragons were grasping it. Whenever Saleen wanted to attack a target they would detect Saleen¡¯s intention almost immediately after. This meant that Saleen would have the ability to cast electric currents instantaneously.


    ¡°If only the lightning dragons could leave the water.¡± Saleen caressed the golden patterns on the lightning dragon¡¯s body. The tiny lightning dragon prostrated on Saleen¡¯s body and Saleen could detect the simmering electric current in it.


    ¡°Aye, it cannot be forced.¡± Saleen sighed, then stored the lightning dragon back in the goddess¡¯ ne. Saleen felt that it was almost noontime already. After lunch, he still had to learn the methods one could use to practice magic in their daily life from Narnia. Saleen was going to impart these skills to the mages from Sregl Ind in the future. At night, he had an appointment with Eleanor. He was going to learn elvish skills with Nailisi.


    Saleen was going to learn elvish magic, while Nailisi was going to learn archery.


    Since Eleanor was willing to impart these skills, it meant that she would not be enemies with Saleen even if she were to leave in the future. The abilities of an elf were almost extinct on the Myers maind already. Eleanor¡¯s imperial archery and elvish magic were pretty significant in actualbat.


    Other than Narnia, Lex also left behind a group of mages for Saleen. In fact, these mages were Lex¡¯s reserves. In case there were any changes in Bitter Water Prefecture, she would still have a group of mages to help her make aeback.


    Just like that Saleen practiced day and night every single day. In the beginning of June, there was news from the borders saying that Lex¡¯s army had run into the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary troops. Lex had brought along twenty-thousand of her men. Five-thousand of which belonged to her swordsman¡¯s camp while the rest were auxiliary forces who were rtively weaker in the aspect of offensive power.


    Out of three encounters, Lex¡¯s twenty-thousand man army was defeated all three times. The loss of manpower was not great, but she had lost three towns. Being the defensive party, this twenty-thousand man army still could not match up to a one-hundred-thousand man army.


    Lex did not lose many soldiers because of Saleen¡¯s intelligence. Lex¡¯s army did not engage in head-on battles. After depleting the enemy¡¯s power by a certain level, it would beat a retreat.


    The Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army had entered Phoenix from Laiyin¡¯s borders. It advanced north by traveling along the western side of Phoenix. This route did not contain many developed cities, these small towns could never obstruct the progress of an expeditionary army.


    Each time the letter pigeon delivered news, Saleen got more and more terrified. His sixth camp kept harassing the resupply route located at the rear of the expeditionary army. The losses were substantial though. Of the over ten-thousand people deployed, about one thousand people had died after a dozen days of battle. There were about three thousand injured troops. The army had to leave the battlefield, otherwise the injured would have died as well.


    When the expeditionary army left God Grace Duchy, it contained around one-hundred and sixty-thousand people. One-hundred and twenty-five-thousand soldiers made up thebat forces while the remaining forty-thousand were the logistical support. At the moment, the logistical squad of the expeditionary army was almost fully wiped out, but the regr forces had only lost less than ten-thousand men.


    Many of Saleen¡¯s injured personnel managed to escape because Judikaka was rendering assistance in the dark by summoning a huge number of skeletal warhorses. Looking at the intelligence report, it seemed that the Holy See¡¯s army was very powerful. Even though it was not a regr army which underwent constant training, it possessed an astonishingly high morale. The worst loss it sustained was from the logistical group that got assaulted by Saleen¡¯s men.


    These logistical troops were unafraid of death. When they died, they were still smiling.


    At this point in time, Saleen realized why the Holy See was so horrifying. This sort of enchantment power was more useful than any other magic out there. As long the believers were told that they would enter paradise after death, the believers would not care about their target or whether they would triumph or not.


    Unlike what Saleen had expected, there was a huge number of holy masters within the expeditionary army. With these holy masters present the Holy See¡¯s soldiers could get back on their feet very quickly and continue fighting as long they did not die. Even though treatment-type divine spells would shorten a human¡¯s lifespan, it kicked in quickly and was really effective. It was stronger than normal magic.


    Magic treatment would improve one¡¯s constitution and there were no after effects, but its treatment speed was much slower than that of a divine spell. On the battlefield, the soldiers¡¯ rate of recovery would have a huge impact on the army¡¯s morale.


    The Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army charged past Phoenix, then it advanced east and wasing for Metatrin City. Saleen felt that he had underestimated the enemy this time around, he actually tried to use an army which was just assembled a few months ago to attack a bunch of lunatics who were not afraid of death.


    The nobles within the city still could not gather their troops fast enough. Given the Holy See¡¯s marching speed, its army could cover these few thousand miles in a month.


    ¡°There is a fifty-thousand man army stationed in the western town, can they really stop these lunatics? Damned Fycro, he didn¡¯t even tell me the identities of the people who are at the core of power in this army. How many holy masters are there? The Holy See has more than one-hundred-million believers, if every single one of them fights in this manner, then when can they be exterminated?¡±


    ¡°Get Daniel over, we are going to distribute equipment to those nobles,¡± Saleen told Lu helplessly. He wanted the nobles to assemble an army with forty-thousand soldiers, he could not allow those armies to die out. Saleen would surely not make it if he started training the soldiers now. He could only distribute higher level equipment in order to lessen the number of casualties.

 Chapter 635: A raving army (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 635: A raving army (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen would rather spend time with the lightning dragons every day than to bother himself with these matters. The current trouble was closely rted to the contract he had signed with the Goddess of Myers. The Holy See must be destroyed, so Saleen had to bite the bullet and do it. He had to seed.


    As a huge number ofbat equipment was being distributed Saleen was contemting another issue. He had summoned Banchajanna and Diyabannersa over. These two spirit kings were leading a pretty good life in Metatrin City, however, they had to summon arge number of spirits asionally for Daniel¡¯s usage.


    Since Daniel was already a grade-6 death mage and had a dozen low grade death mages as his subordinates the three kings no longer needed tomand the spirits for him.


    At the moment, the three kings frequently lodged themselves in Saleen¡¯s library to look for information. Was their previous owner dead or in hiding? If they could not find their owner they would never attain freedom.


    ¡°If our owner didn¡¯t die, he can easily destroy the contractual trap set by Saleen and that damned death mage easily given his powers. Following our original owner is better than following Saleen.¡±


    After the two kings were summoned, Saleen carefully briefed them on the things he needed them to execute. Along the route towards Phoenix, Saleen had built a small town every one-hundred miles so that the traveling merchants could take a break. To date, these small towns were thriving already. Each town contained two to three hundred households and there were about a thousand long-term residents.


    There were so many people there to ensure the stability of thismercial route. If these people were massacred by the Holy See¡¯s army Saleen could only rely on the marine route to maintain his city. There were five months in a year where his city could not be essed via the sea though.


    He could not just protect Metatrin City. At the moment, Saleen could not deploy arge army to receive the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army. Even if he triumphed, he believed that the consequences would be disastrous. If there were too many casualties Metatrin City would be doomed.


    The best idea would be to withdraw those people in the small towns first.


    Currently, Saleen still had four camps worth of manpower. Since the Caucasus people could not be assembled yet, he let Sika take charge of the city¡¯s defense. Four camps of soldiers amounted to forty-thousand people only and including the deployable barbarians, there would only be fifty-thousand men. With these fifty-thousand men, Saleen knew that it was impossible to stop the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army from advancing.


    The fourth and fifth camp had been deployed by Saleen, each camp brought along many chariots and mages. The mission of these twenty-thousand men was to rush to the small towns as soon as possible and fetch everyone back to Metatrin City.


    At the borders of Phoenix, two emblem groups from Metatrin City¡¯s sixth camp wereying in ambush beside the mountain road, waiting for the Holy See¡¯s army to pass by. The road there was only about four yards wide, the other side of it was a gigantic slope. These two emblem groups nned to retreat to Metatrin City because they had lost more than twenty percent of their manpower. Of the original two-thousand men, only sixteen-hundred remained, about six-hundred were wounded. In fact, only one-thousand were ready forbat.


    The Holy See¡¯s army did not travel on the main road, it was going to use a nearer route to advance and the scouts had discovered this information. Commanders of both emblem groups had a brief discussion, then they decided to conduct an ambush there.


    Even though there were many casualties, the soldiers did not lose their weapons and most skeletal warhorses were in these two emblem groups. They were actually supposed to be thest ones to retreat. With these skeletal warhorses, the soldiers basically had their weapons with them. They also carried the weapons which had been abandoned by the other emblem groups ahead of them.


    Among these one-thousand people, there was a total of two-hundredrge crossbows.


    Arge crossbow was not a heavy crossbow. Mainly, their long distance lethality was inadequate, but its short distance prative ability was great and its cost was cheap too.


    There were two-hundredrge crossbows while each soldier held one small crossbow in hand. These one-thousand soldiers camped along the roadside and awaited the Holy See¡¯s army to pass by. After expending all their arrows, they would then retreat.


    Both emblem groupmanders were high grade swordmasters from Sregl Ind, they were valiant and ferocious. It was a miracle that they had not sustained an injury yet. Both of them had brought along miniature alchemical crossbows. An alchemical crossbow had great prative ability and high uracy. There was even a chance that themanders could kill the enemy¡¯s holy masters.


    Those holy masters were abominable. As long as a soldier did not die, they could be resurrected by the holy masters. No matter how severely injured the soldiers were, they would regain their offensive ability two to three dayster.


    Using such treatment methods, these soldiers would not live for long. Those who were twenty years old would not live past forty and if they experienced multiple divine treatments, they would not even live past thirty years old.


    This skill was that effective. The sixth camp used crossbows as their mainbat equipment. If it was not for the huge number of holy masters within the enemy, the over one-thousand people from the sixth camp who sacrificed their lives would have been exchanged for the lives of more than ten-thousand enemies already. A pity though, the Tanggsi people who got injured would be able to rejoin the battle in a day or two.


    After two rounds of battle the sixth camp began targeting the enemy¡¯s holy masters, but there were too few alchemical crossbows avable. Their concealment was not good enough. During battle, the Holy See¡¯s warriors would use their body to block the arrows so as to protect the holy masters.


    ¡°Commander, they are here!¡± A scout dashed over while riding a skeletal warhorse. He charged into the forest by the roadside.


    ¡°Get ready!¡± Themander of the ninth emblem group gave an order and everyone else stopped fidgeting. They adjusted their armor, lugged the quivers, tightened their boots, changed into archer¡¯s gloves, and tightened the crossbow chords.


    Even though these two emblem groups had lost more than half their manpower, the psychological state of the soldiers was excellent. Skeletal warhorses were present, so they had a higher chance of escaping from the battlefield. They would only fire arrows this time around. The soldiers who were familiar with war would know that this assault would only serve to lower the enemy¡¯s advancing speed by a little.


    Since they were not going to fight to their deaths, everyone¡¯s actions were slow but steady.


    The tter of horses¡¯ hooves could be heard from afar. The warhorses of the Holy See¡¯s army were fitted with metal horseshoes, unlike Saleen¡¯s army which used materials from magic beasts. The nging from the metal horseshoes was raucous, it could be heard from a great distance away. Thousands of warhorses were running at the same time, it was as though the earth was emitting thunder.


    These were the vanguards from Holy See, usually, there would be three-thousand cavalrymen. Of the three-thousand cavalrymen, there were one-hundred heavy cavalrymen who were d in holy armor. This type of armor was extremely lightweight, suitable to be put on for a long time.


    The remaining cavalrymen were mostly light cavalrymen, theirbat method was to fire bows, while their main weapon was the Tanggsi scimitar. The heavy cavalrymen needed to work with the auxiliary troops as their equipment was transported by therge chariots, they usually followed the main body. It was the same case for the infantrymen. Tanggsi had many ces for rearing horses, so even the infantrymen could travel on inferior horses.


    This time around, many soldiers participated in the expedition. The pope¡¯s order was very insistent. On average, each expeditionary soldier had one horse. Other than the infantrymen who traveled in chariots, each cavalryman was allocated two warhorses.


    Before entering Phoenix the Holy See¡¯s army had lost a massive number of warhorses. Due to their high traveling speed, many warhorses died because of exhaustion. Only a ce like the Holy See would disseminate orders which were hated by their military.


    The expeditionary army replenished their warhorses in Lon before continuing on the journey. In the battle with Lex¡¯s army they lost another huge quantity of warhorses again. No matter how powerful the holy masters were, they could not save the soldiers and horses altogether. Many warhorses died because of ineffective treatment.


    Be that as it may, this colossal army still managed to cover over one hundred miles per day. If this army was made up of only cavalrymen then this speed was extremely slow, but this was a mixed army where infantrymen consisted two-thirds of the total manpower.


    These people only had one agenda; Metatrin City. The pope¡¯s order was very simple, to go there and destroy the city.


    It was actually very risky for one-thousand people to wait by the roadside to ambush three-thousand cavalrymen. Only one-hundred of the cavalrymen possessed holy armor, the rest were d in light armor. There were not many holy masters who would be the targets the crossbowmen were looking for either.


    The vanguards of Tanggsi¡¯s cavalrymen charged into this mountain road, their speed was maintained around twenty miles an hour. The horses¡¯ physical strength could still be sustained at this speed, but if the speed was raised to sixty miles an hour, only a skeletal warhorse could sprint at this speed for a long duration. Even if a skeletal warhorse was used it would get crippled after running at sixty miles an hour for a long time.


    When the first two-hundred cavalrymen were about to enter the ambush area, themander of the ninth emblem group did not give the attack order. He instead allowed these two-hundred cavalrymen to pass through. Very soon, the main body swarmed into this tapered passageway. At this point in time, the trusted soldiers of themander blew their war horns.


    ¡°Fire!¡±


    Two-hundred arrows pierced through the air. No matter what, the soldiers of the sixth camp had undergone a few months of training. Their main training subjects did not include closebat, all efforts were focused on honing their arrow formation in battle.


    Three secondster, the second wave of arrows was fired. Another three secondster, the third wave of arrows wasunched.


    For the first two-hundred people, the sixth camp had used therge crossbows. They caused over one-hundred enemies to tumble over, but handheld crossbows were used for the enemies at the back which had less of an effect. Those over one-hundred enemies had to be dead. Those who got struck by the handheld crossbows would not end up intact even if they had received treatment from the holy masters though.


    Thergest magnitude of lethality came from falling off the warhorses because these people would be trampled by the warhorsesing from behind.


    ¡°Enemy attack! Enemy attack!¡±


    ¡°In the forest!¡±


    The Holy See¡¯s cavalrymen began to be flustered, but theirmanders began barking orders at them. The cavalrymen at the rear wielded circr shields to block their bodies, then they charged into the forest. The forest was not very dense, but it would not allow a warhorse to gallop through it either. The moment the cavalrymen entered the forest, they immediately leaped off their horses. Wielding their scimitars in one hand and a shield in the other they started surrounding the Qin people who had ambushed them.


    Awaiting them was the offensive by the crossbows. Even though the range of a handheld crossbow was short, a location like this forest was the battlefield where a handheld crossbow could unleash its might. In an army deployed for field battle, their handheld crossbows could not do burst shots. Their lethality was much stronger than a consecutive-fire crossbow.


    Since the Tanggsi cavalrymen were holding circr shields, they could not protect their whole body. The soldiers from the sixth camp fired arrows at their lower body. The battle zone only spanned for dozens of yards and these dozens of yards caused an immense casualty rate for the Tanggsi people.


    The first wave of attacks from therge crossbows took out over one-hundred cavalrymen, while the next wave of offensive by the handheld crossbows injured more than five-hundred cavalrymen.


    ¡°Retreat, retreat!¡± Themander of the ninth emblem group bellowed. His trusted soldiers immediately blew a different rhythm using their war horns.


    The Tanggsi people dashed into the forest in a raving fashion, they still had the upper hand in terms of numbers. The vanguards and the rear army could arrive here in at most two hours, or even in an hour. As long as the Tanggsi people pestered their enemy, then one-thousand of Saleen¡¯s soldiers would be wiped out.


    Ignoring all injuries, the Tanggsi people approached the crossbowmen, causing the two emblem groupmanders to immediately have the notion of escaping. Before setting off, Saleen had instructed the ten emblem groupmanders to lessen the number of casualties while helping the soldiers to be familiarized with the battlefield and lead the soldiers back to Metatrin City.


    Without the holy masters, the enemy¡¯s idiotic way ofbat would result in all three-thousand cavalrymen getting killed. The presence of holy masters only resulted in at most one-hundred people dying while the rest could be saved though. This situation would perpetuate if the battle continued, the cavalrymen would use the circr shields to protect their vital organs and use their number advantage to get closer to their enemies. Saleen¡¯s soldiers did not even have the opportunity to use their cusses to kill the Tanggsi people who had fallen to the ground.

 Chapter 636: Broken Blade Pass (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 636: Broken de Pass (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Tanggsis attacked like locusts. If both sides had one-thousand soldiers each, Saleen¡¯s swordmasters would have won. The Holy See¡¯s soldiers did not care about their own injuries or casualties so even if Saleen won, he would suffer many losses as well. Now that the enemy outnumbered his own by many times the two regiment leaders were decisive and gave the order to retreat.


    Fortunately, the crossbows could unleash arrows very quickly. While the one-thousand men retreated into the forest, those armed with crossbows would shoot at the enemies¡¯ thighs or warhorses. The Tanggsis soldiers that stayed on their horses had a difficult time advancing so they got down to give chase.


    In the forest a warhorse provided its rider a height advantage at the expense of a loss of speed.


    Saleen¡¯s men were all well-trained in retreating. This forest was originally a very wide one, but before they carried out the ambush, the two regiment leaders ordered the soldiers to cut down a patch of trees at the back and the skeletal warhorses and death mages were supposed to stay put there. Judikaka was no longer there as he had left with the injured soldiers long ago. The only death mages left were those that had been ced there.


    The purpose of the forest was to stop the enemy¡¯s knights. If the forest was too wide it would be difficult for Saleen¡¯s men to retreat. Speed was the priority so none of the one-thousand men were wearing heavy armor. Only one-hundred were wearing light armor while the rest were d in leather armor. If the Tanggsis caught up with them, these armors would be useless against the knights¡¯ heavy machetes.


    Even though the crossbows had already shot down a few hundred men, more and more Tanggsis continued to give chase. Although the terrain was t, it was still a mountainous area. The skeletal warhorses were not able to run at top speed and the soldiers were not very good at riding either.


    Once they reached an empty space, the one-thousand soldiers automatically split into five groups and retreated in different directions. Although there were some slight grievances from not having fought the enemy properly and losing two-hundredrge crossbows, they still managed to kill three-hundred enemy soldiers. Another six-hundred were also injured by the crossbows, but that would only use up some of the holy priests¡¯ energy.


    The two regiment leaders each led a group and escaped towards the east. Both of them regretted not asking Judikaka to stay behind. If only they had known that the enemy would not retreat and instead would forcefully give chase into the forest.


    They also thought to themselves that the spirit of the dead might not obey them. It was alreadymendable that he was willing protect those that were injured. If not for Judikaka, they might not have been able to inflict so much damage on the Holy See¡¯s army. They managed to kill and injure so many enemy soldiers only because Judikaka had kept arge group of holy priests engaged. If they wished to ask Judikaka to bring up the rear, perhaps only Master Saleen would be able to give themand.


    The Holy See¡¯s soldiers charged through the forest quickly to see the Qin riding away on their skeletal warhorses. The Tanggsis that were extremely strong tried to shoot them down with theirrge bows, but the swordsmen were too agile and managed to dodge the arrows.


    ¡°Stop chasing. Let¡¯s go back.¡± The officer from Tanggsi Empire saw the situation and gave the order.


    ¡°Officer!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say anymore. The enemy has death mages. There is no way we can catch up with their skeletal warhorses. Humph, we shall go forth and tten their city. We shall see if they will escape into the sea by then.¡±


    An ambush of more than one-thousand bows and arrows only resulted in such minimal damages. The Holy See¡¯s army managed to find a shorter route to continue towards the east and cut down on a few hundred miles of traveling.


    Behind the vanguard was a ten-thousand strong regr army, followed by the army in the center. The troops that were bringing up the rear had already merged together with the logistics troops. Saleen¡¯s attempt to disrupt their logistic troops was quite effective. The Holy See¡¯s army was now traveling at full speed. They needed to reach Metatrin City before they ran out of food.


    Saleen¡¯sst two regiment leaders were quite fortunate. They managed to flee in time to avoid encountering the ten-thousand strong army.


    The Tanggsis were traveling along the borders of west of Phoenix without too much trouble. They would eventually need to turn towards the east and would have to travel on more than two-thousand miles of narrow routes without any big cities though. Riots had urred in Phoenix in the past so the cities at the borders had been left empty. When the Holy See¡¯s army passed through, there was nothing left for them to loot.


    After killing the residents of a few sporadic viges, the Tanggsis lost interest in robbing. They realized that turning an entire vige upside down would only get them a few hundred pounds of low-grade flour in return.


    Saleen¡¯s sixth battalion had almost returned to Metatrin City, thanks to Judikaka¡¯s escort. Only the remaining two regiments with more than one-thousand soldiers were still riding on their skeletal warhorses and were rushing back. The distance between them and the Holy See¡¯s army widened. By the middle of June, they reached a small town in the north.


    This small town had already received news that the demons of the Tanggsi Empire would being to ughter the city. Everyone, regardless of residents that has permanently settled down or merchants that were there for business, were advised to leave as soon as possible. The battle at Lun had already proved that Tanggsis killed with no regards, they even killed innocent people.


    The eighth and ninth regiments bumped into the fifth battalion who hade forth to assist in the retreat. Traveling at full speed had tired out the death mages in the two camps. They changed onto normal warhorses and assisted the residents in fleeing.


    The small town was not far away from the borders of Phoenix, but was more than one-hundred miles away from Phoenix itself. It was a small town that Saleen had built on the western edges of his territory. Merchants used to pass through the town and it was beginning to prosper. Once there was news that a big army was heading there the residents had no choice but to uproot themselves and leave their homes.


    To the Holy See, war was a method for the spreading of faith. To the average person, war would always be terrible.


    This small town was the first stop after leaving Phoenix and was a few times bigger than other small towns. There were three-thousand inhabitants. Fortunately, Saleen had sent two battalions that possessed a good mixture of mages there. They could fully utilize the military equipment to help the residents transport their household items.


    This small town had stored more than one-hundred-thousand pounds of their crops so transporting them without the help of any grand mages would have been troublesome. The army helped the residents to register their items and transport crops along with other valuable items. Their homes would have to be deserted. The residents only prayed that the Tanggsis would not burn down their houses when they passed by.


    After two days, the army of Metatrin City has already finished packing most of the items and were prepared to transport the residents. Once they have left, the soldiers bringing up the rear burned down the entire small town.


    This was an order from Saleen. They would just have to rebuild the entire town. If they left behind houses the Holy See¡¯s army would be able to take advantage and set up camps there. Even if Saleen¡¯s armies were to defeat the Holy See¡¯s armies, the Tanggsis could still make use of these small towns to stop Saleen from giving chase. To avoid all these regrets, the best way was to burn it to the ground.


    After two days, the army of Tanggsi Empire reached the small town. Upon seeing an emptynd and burned city walls, the officer was furious. He knew that being upset would not solve anything so he gave the order for the troops to set up camps outside the town. This acted as a preventive measure against running into any traps within the town.


    The one-hundred-thousand strong army was giving chase behind Saleen¡¯s army and were heading towards the east. Along the way, Saleen ordered the armies bringing up the rear to burn down all the towns that the enemy might make use of to set up campsites and left no grains behind. Tanggsi Empire¡¯smander was raging. Saleen had burned down too many of their baggages so they were only left with grain stored in the red Bishop¡¯s space equipment. A one-hundred-thousand strong army required arge amount of grains and supplies. They could still resupply if they were within the boundaries of Lun. Now that they were in Qin Empire territories, they could only depend on the resources that they have brought along.


    Most of thends in Metatrin City were deserted and there were no nature viges between the sea and the first small town in Phoenix. All the viges were within close proximity of Metatrin City. The seeds in the west have only just begun to grow this season. Surely the soldiers could not feed themselves on seeds.


    Saleen¡¯s soldiers were unable to be stronger within such a short period of time, but were able to carry out procedures for retreats very well. The entire small town that was one-thousand miles in circumference was burned to the ground. There was nothing left behind for the Holy See¡¯s army to take advantage of.


    The Pope had given orders not to trespass and loot Phoenix. It would take up too much time. The borders of Phoenix were also very poor. The chaos caused by the ck magician and the invasion by Qin has left Phoenix in a very poor state.


    As such, the vanguard of the Tanggsi army charged ahead and finally reached a mountain pass that was slightly more than two-hundred miles away from Metatrin City. Whoever wanted to reach the ins of Metatrin City would have to pass through there. As Saleen had poured all his resources into Metatrin and had not expected any invasions viand, the mountain pass was not properly secured. Within two months¡¯ time the city wall at the mountain pass has been built up to more than thirty-yards. By leveraging the mountainous terrain, the pass could now be considered as impregnable.


    Saleen¡¯s second battalion was stationed here along with a few small mercenary groups. The entire second battalion and their auxiliary soldiers were only twenty-thousand men. Saleen did not have enough auxiliary soldiers. In addition, there were many Caucasus people located at both sides of the mountains to prevent enemies from infiltrating through the mountains.


    There were no residents in this militarized city pass and its name was filled with a murderous aura; the Broken de Pass. The amount of grain stored there could onlyst five days and the mission given by Saleen was to hold the pass for three days.


    The purpose of these three days was to force the Holy See¡¯s armies to use up thest bits of their remaining grain. If the enemy¡¯s attacks were not powerful enough and they could hold on for another two days, it would be an impressive feat.


    There were ten forts within Broken de Pass that would be used for big crossbows to stop the enemy¡¯s holy priests from flying in.


    Anyone below grade-9 would not dare to risk flying past such big crossbows. They would fall to their deaths if they were hit by alchemy crossbows.


    Knights would not be able to attack the city walls and would have wait for the soldiers to arrive. There were close to thirty-thousand men in Broken de Pass. By right, they should be able to defend against one-hundred-thousand men. Since this was a mountain pass, attacks would onlye from one side. There should be enough men to defend it. The only thing was that there were no magic towers so it would take a lot of effort to defend it.


    The catapults in the city were only sufficient to destroy the enemy¡¯s catapults, but not enough to killrge numbers of enemy soldiers.


    Saleen could have let the Tanggsis pass since he was confident that Metatrin City would definitely be able to defend against the Holy See army. He has been deserting many small towns along the way and this might have a negative impact on morale though. If they could contain the Holy See army for a few days, it would demoralize the enemy.

 Chapter 637: Broken Blade Pass (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 637: Broken de Pass (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Behind Broken de Pass was the ins of Metatrin which were only two-hundred miles wide. There were no cities other than western town in the middle. There were many viges and castles built by many noble families on these ins though.


    Originally, Saleen had nned to reconstruct Broken de Pass and seal off Metatrin¡¯s ins in July. This ce was very safe. Even if small armies managed to infiltrate through the mountains, they would not be of any threat to the castles.


    Typically, Metatrin City¡¯s threats mainly came from the north or the seas. The mountain pass in the west more or less guaranteed that there would not be any trouble there. The Holy See¡¯s army came so quickly that Saleen did not have time to carry out his ns. Before he knew it he was facing the first major battle since his kingdom was built.


    Within three days, the Holy See¡¯s main army finally arrived at Broken de Pass. After encountering battles and ambushes by Saleen and Lex, the Holy See army had lost many auxiliary soldiers and the remaining soldiers were having a hard time traveling. Aside from the officers, everyone else has lost the privilege of being helped into armor, massages, washing of feet, being cooked for, and more.


    Fortunately, there were many holy priests in the army. At the rate that the soldiers were bing fatigued they would also have fallen sick long ago otherwise. Illnesses could spread easily and even though it might sound ridiculous, it was a proven fact that a soldier¡¯spanions would also start to fall sick if he did not recover quickly.


    The army arrived and set up camps outside of Broken de Pass. Using the stars as guides, this location was not far from the sea. The holy priests in the army only miscalcted by less than one-hundred miles. Even without a map, they could still estimate that Metatrin City should be less than three-hundred miles away.


    If they could break through this impregnable pass, that heretic city would be within sight and reach.


    The Holy See¡¯s army saw the Broken de Pass as Metatrin City¡¯sst line of defense. This pass towered over them at thirty yards high. Behind the city walls was a formation of big crossbows. The vanguard released a few flying puppets to try to re what was behind the walls, but were shot down immediately.


    The soldiers on the city walls were d in fresh clothes and armors. For a newly built city to expand to such a stage, it should not be concealing any more forces. If it was that powerful it would not need to destroy all the small towns along the way.


    They had no idea that this was exactly how Saleen wanted them to think. He did not intend to have his army fight with the enemy in a long-drawn battle. If they fought on the ins of the north Saleen would surely lose.


    Saleen only built six battalions in total, which was already the limit. One of the battalions was even taken away by Lex. Amongst the remaining five battalions, the sixth battalion had encountered the Holy See army a few times and always ended up with casualties. Overall, they managed to survive because of the skeletal warhorses¡¯ speed and the caution exhibited by the regiment leader.


    The thirty-thousand soldiers recruited by the noble families were all relocated to western town. These soldiers were not as capable as the five battalions under Saleen so they ended up supporting the remaining battalion that Lex had left behind to defend the city.


    The narrowest mountain pass at Broken de Pass was about a mile wide. That was too narrow for a one-hundred-thousand strong army. After the vanguard¡¯s attempts to infiltrate from the sky were shot down, they dismissed the idea of using flying puppets as a mode of attack.


    When the main army arrived, they did not attack the city immediately. Instead, they rested for one day beforeunching their first attack in the afternoon.


    There were three doors at Broken de Pass. The two side doors were less than four yards wide while the main center door was twelve yards wide. The width of Qin¡¯srge wagons were two point eight yards. A capable driver would be able to drive four wagons through this city gate.


    The Tanggsi army first tried to attack using catapults, but there was immediate retaliation. Both sides were heaving rocks at each other at around the same rate even though Broken de Pass possessed a slight height advantage. After battling this way for a few hours, both sides¡¯ catapults were destroyed.


    It was inevitable. The terrain in Broken de pass was narrow so it was useless even if they had more catapults. If they were to rebuild again in future, they would be able to construct an underground warehouse and set up real magic catapults. Right now, they could only retaliate in the same way that their enemy was attacking. Fortunately, there were a few mages who were still alert enough to keep the number of casualties low when both sides were iling rocks at each other.


    The battle situation eased a little when both sides¡¯ catapults were destroyed. The men in Broken de Pass had no other choice but to try and destroy the enemy¡¯s catapults because they had very few. When the enemy was attacking the city, the catapults would be able to injure many of Broken de Pass¡¯ archers otherwise.


    At four in the afternoon, both sides no longer had the capability of using catapults as a mode of attack. The Holy See¡¯s stepped wagons came closer and the archers on these wagons began to shoot at the Broken de Pass.


    Qin city walls contained bronze watchtowers within them that could defend against magic and divine spells. The watchtowers were added with high-quality rock materials and wood that had been strengthened by magic. Saleen had more than enough rock materials so he used them to build more than ten watchtowers of varying sizes.


    These watchtowers were not damaged during the catapult attacks. There were holes in the watchtowers for archers to shoot at the Tanggsi soldiers on stepped wagons. Inside the watchtowers were big crossbows. With the help of alchemy machines, one set only required two people to operate it.


    There were many different models of big crossbows and one of them was designed so that one shot would release a spread of more than two-hundred arrows. In big battles such as this, uracy was not the most important thing. When the enemy was a distance away, the most important things would be range and damage. Not everyone was at least the standard of middle-level swordmasters. To achieve uracy, one would have to undergo tough training.


    There was a swordmaster in every watchtower operating a smaller model of alchemy crossbow that was ready to take aim at the enemy¡¯s stronger warriors at any time. The others would use the bigger crossbow to keep shooting and force the enemy back.


    The Tanggsi army deployed two groups of heavy-armored knights to attack from both nks while a vehicle approached the city wall with soldiers hiding underneath it. Within the embrasure on the city wall, soldiers were shooting with their arrows. The soldiers hiding underneath the vehicle approached cautiously. The arrows struck the vehicle but did not prate it.


    Behind the two small doors on the nks of Broken de Pass were knights that had yet to get onto their horses. The enemy¡¯s heavy-armored knights were already putting pressure on both nks. Once the knights in Broken de Pass tried to charge out to attack, the heavy-armored knights would be able to push their way through.


    The main force leading the charge on Metatrin City was a conventional army of the Tanggsi Empire. There was nothing unexpected about their strategies, but there were also very little loopholes. First, they would use catapults to induce the enemy¡¯s retaliation. After confirming the locations that the enemy was retaliating from, they would deploy the stepped wagons to suppress the watchtowers in the city in order to allow foot soldiers to approach the city wall.


    The heavy-armored knights would put pressure on the nks so that the city would not be able tounch a surprise counterattack. These sequences were exactly the same as those written on military books. The most impressive thing was that the majority of the soldiers were recruited at the veryst minute. After a very short period of training, they were actually able to transition across different phases seamlessly.


    Saleen¡¯s caution helped him to avert a disaster. If he had activated an entire battalion to go head-on against the Holy See¡¯s army the oue would have been more disastrous than he could imagine.


    Hundreds of soldiers reached the edge of the city walls under the protection of the vehicle. They took out shovels and tried to dig under the city wall.


    nk!


    Sparks flew. Although these soldiers had yet to be trained in swordsmanship, they were as strong as first-grade swordsmen. They dug with all their might, but their shovels only struck rocks. The rocks were so hard that the shovels were blunted.


    ¡°We cannot dig through!¡± Some soldiers called out.


    ¡°Don¡¯t dig anymore. Just pour down acid directly!¡± The officer amongst the soldiers ordered.


    The soldiers unhooked the water bag from their waist, which contained acid created from divine spells.


    Hiss¡­


    White smoke began to rise. The city wall¡¯s foundation was made from the white rocks dug out from Metatrin City. The acid only managed to rot away ayer as thick as a fingernail. Tens of soldiers tried to approach the city gate. It was made of wood so the acid should be able to create holes in it regardless of its thickness.


    The moment they reached the center entrance, a metal hole suddenly appeared from above and hot oil came pouring down, followed by fire arrows.


    The hot oil burned in front of the city gate and the officer at the back frowned upon this sight. If the other party was willing to set fire just outside of the city gate, it meant that the wooden door would not catch fire. Such an attack would burn down their own door even if it would cause great damage to their enemies otherwise.


    Indeed, the hot oil burned furiously and quickly spread to both nks, killing more than one-hundred Tanggsi soldiers. Some soldiers¡¯ limbs were so badly burned that they would not be able to continue fighting. They would not be able to flee even if they wanted to as the vehicle that they came on had also been burned.


    Even though this attack was meant to test the strength and defense of Broken de Pass, hundreds of casualties was not a minor loss. The officer in the Pass was overjoyed when he heard about this news. All of a sudden, there was an explosion. All the soldiers that had been injured by the hot oil had taken out holy prose curses and carried out their final suicidal attack.


    The simultaneous explosion of a few hundred holy prose curses was equivalent to a middle-level magic attack. If this explosion took ce in a battle, hundreds of people within the vicinity would surely be affected. If it was a close-ranged battle, there would probably be thousands of casualties.


    These few hundreds of soldiers were blown to pieces and their flesh and blood were stuck to the city walls. The soldiers in the city were horrified by the sound. Fortunately, the foundation of the city walls was made from white rocks, otherwise the acid and the explosion would have caused cracks in the wall.


    Although the white rocks produced by Metatrin City could not be infused with magic it was harder than iron. Saleen had to use a grade-4 spell, current cutter, to collect the rocks gradually. An explosive attack such as this had little effects on white rocks.


    A few hundred men gave up their lives only to blow up one big rock. The city wall was thirty yards high and its foundation was twelve yards deep. The explosion only blew off the foundation by a thickness of a finger. If the enemy chose to use this method to blow up the city wall, they would probably need the entire one-hundred-thousand strong army.


    ¡°Humph! Prepare the siege engine!¡± The Tanggsi Empire¡¯s officer gave the order. This was merely the beginning. The initial attacks helped him to understand that the only way to destroy this city was to either charge through the city gates or to climb over the city wall. If this was the case, it was time to show the Qins the courage and faith of the Tanggsis!

 Chapter 638: Murdering the three kings (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 638: Murdering the three kings (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Metatrin City.


    Due to the assault by the Holy See¡¯s army, Saleen¡¯s arena could not be opened as scheduled. The residents of the city were worried, Saleen had to think of the concerns the nobles had.


    Saleen also could not sail out to sea to hunt, thus, he allowed the winged skeleton to steer the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat on his own to hunt for red krill in the Frozen Sea. There was no need to think about hunting the other high grade magic beasts yet. The winged skeleton was merely a grade-7 spirit, without the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, he could not even enter the Frozen Sea.


    Saleen did not even send Nailisi to apany the winged skeleton. Currently, Metatrin City was the most vital asset. If there were any losses it would be challenging for Saleen to start fresh. The invasion by Holy See was a touchstone. If Saleen managed to defend his city, then many people would flock to him in the future. If he failed, then he could only rely on his teacher to make aeback.


    If that happened, Saleen¡¯s teacher might not even give the Sregl Ind to Saleen.


    The worst thing was that the Holy See¡¯s army had affected themercial activities in Metatrin City. Last year this time, there was an endless stream of merchant vessels at Metatrin City¡¯s port. At the moment, there were some small ships docked to purchase magic nuclei, but there was no one peddling grain. Everyone was fearful of getting implicated in the war and losing their investments.


    Saleen did not abhor the Holy See, but there was no room forpromise between him and the Holy See. He had epted the benefits from the Goddess of Myers, he had to work for the goddess. Since Saleen had obtained the seeds of two divine trees and withered branches of the four divine trees, all these materials would be sufficient for Saleen to surpass other mages at simr grades after bing a grade-9 sorcerer.


    Exceeding the limits of grade-9 was no longer out of reach.


    There was never a mage who was so certain of their own achievements so early on in life. At the moment, Saleen only needed to ovee the limits of grade-6 to be a grade-7 sorcerer, so that he could enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space and advance sessfully to a grade-9 sorcerer. After bing a grade-9 sorcerer, the withered branches of the four divine trees would be the materials for crafting equipment, he would be able to create items as powerful as godly equipment. On the other hand, the two seeds could help him advance to a grade-10 mage.


    There were not many obstacles in this journey. Right now, Saleen just needed time.


    ¡°Master, why are you frustrated? You are a mage!¡± At the moment, Nailisi was constantly beside Saleen, she was afraid that the Holy See might send some powerful assassins. Sika wasmanding the Caucasus people to tighten security within the city, only Nailisi was not assigned with a task. Her only job was to apany Saleen.


    Nailisi was massaging Saleen¡¯s back. On the bed, Saleenid on his stomach, with a map of Metatrin City ced in front of him.


    ¡°Without the magical towers, our defense is wed.¡± Saleen sighed. ¡°Because I have sufficient materials, I had nned to build the magical towers a yearter. Had I known, I would have built them first. As long as there are six grade-6 mages, Metatrin City¡¯s defense could still be boosted. Now, there isn¡¯t even one magical tower, this is really inexpedient.¡±


    ¡°The three kings are around. Even if they do not dare face the holy masters directly, their spirits can cause the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army to suffer massive losses too.¡±


    ¡°They are more cowardly than you think. They were asked to assist the sixth camp, but look what happened? The sixth camp lost one-thousand men and many more were wounded. They didn¡¯t even kill a high grade holy master and fled secretly. They still told me that at least they didn¡¯t get into trouble and the Holy See doesn¡¯t know of their existence.¡±


    ¡°Since they are not obedient¡­ how about letting me eat them. If I devour the three kings, I think I can obtain the fifth ability.¡± Nailisi seized the opportunity.


    ¡°Judikaka belongs to Aini. The contractual trap also isn¡¯t as stable as you think. If I really want to kill them, the contract has to be dissolved first. By then, I won¡¯t even be able to strike fear into them anymore.


    ¡°In that case, Master, as long you can take full control of them, does that mean I can eat those three abominable fellows?¡±


    Saleen closed his eyes, remaining silent for a long time. The arrival of the three kings had once resolved a huge problem for him. Even though there were some conflicts in the process, Saleen still triumphed in the end.


    ¡°Can I really bear to kill the three spirit kings? As a mage, I shouldn¡¯t have a heart of mercy. If the situation was reversed, would the three kings spare my life? No, the three kings are monarchs from the death ne. By treating them in this manner, I already have enmity with them. These are just excuses. Just because Nailisi wants their powers, I am making so many excuses so as to have peace of mind. Peace of mind? The three kings have only spent a long time with me, but Nailisi is my closestpanion. By killing the three kings, Nailisi will obtain the power of a spirit. Nailisi will be able to summon spirits and control demons at the same time, she will thus be my strongest assistant! Is that wrong?¡±


    Saleen opened his eyes, then said, ¡°Nailisi, are you trying to harm Soldier?¡±


    ¡°Master, you cannot use me.¡±


    ¡°use you?¡± Saleen did not even need to turn around to know Nailisi¡¯s expression. Nailisi had been unable to harm the winged skeleton. In their fight, she was always on the losing end.


    If she absorbed the power of the three kings, she would be mightier than the winged skeleton, she might even be able to control him.


    ¡°Master, can¡¯t you just let me have the upper hand for once.¡± Nailisiid softly on Saleen¡¯s back, whispering into his ear, ¡°Each time we sail, he forces me to collect this and that. Even though I am a demon, I can still get exhausted.¡±


    ¡°What are you doing!¡± Saleen could feel that Nailisi¡¯s tail had grown out, winding around him.


    ¡°The thing you were doing with Sister Sika, can you do it with me as well?¡± Nailisi did not know what was happening either, she suddenly felt like hugging Saleen. After hugging him, she recalled the scene where Saleen was being intimate with Sika. Nailisi managed to take a peek at the hole in the wall the previous time. Ever since then, that scene had been etched in her heart.


    She was a little jealous of Sika, but Sika was not the winged skeleton, she could do nothing to chase her out of Saleen¡¯s heart.


    If it was not for that tail Saleen might have been sessfully tantalized by Nailisi. That tail caused Saleen to remember that Nailisi was a hideous demon.


    As if peering into Saleen¡¯s thoughts, Nailisi said gently, ¡°Master, my third ability helps me transform into a true human. If you don¡¯t like demons, I will turn into a human, okay?¡±


    ¡°Get lost.¡± Saleen admonished, but he was not angry. He recalled how Nailisi looked in the past. Back then, she had not matured. At that point in time, sheid beneath his bed, apanying him and withstanding the pain from using the family badge.


    Currently, Saleen still used the family badge to train his mental strength, he never stopped training. This pain had very much lessened, the negative effects had almost disappeared too. Nailisi¡¯s tough days were finally over, however, Saleen could not forget those years. Nailisi was there to share his suffering, he then managed to maintain inner peace during the training process because there was a demon apanying him, and this demon neverined once.


    Nailisi could sense Saleen¡¯s feelings, she knew that Saleen was not genuinely angry. She wanted to continue teasing Saleen, but Saleen suddenly said, ¡°Nailisi, if you can convince Aini to hand Judikaka over, then do it. I cannot partake in this matter, otherwise the contract will be destroyed in that instant. The three of them would be able to escape back to the death dimension.¡±


    ¡°Master, are you for real?!¡±


    ¡°Mm, but, you cannot bully Soldier in the future. I have a method to make him more powerful than the spirit kings,¡± Saleen dered solemnly.


    Nailisi felt dejected at the same time, she did not give a hoot about the kings¡¯ abilities. It was better summoning a demon as opposed to a spirit. Once a spirit entered another ne their powers would be reduced, there were no exceptions even for powerful spirits like the three kings. Summoning demons still enabled the demons to retain their offensive powers.


    She had already obtained the best coordinates to the demonic ne, there was no need for any other summoning magic to get a bunch of spirits who had neither blood nor flesh.


    ¡°Why? Are you regretting it?¡±


    ¡°Master, I just want to bully that skeleton once, just once!¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid that he will take revenge?¡±


    Nailisi was speechless, the winged skeleton was the smartest spirit she had evere across. The three kings might have be stupid after living for such a long time, but the winged skeleton could trick Nailisi in almost every instance.


    ¡°Stop thinking about that. Let me tell you, the three kings have a very mysterious background, their bodies contain an enormous secret. If you absorb their power, you are in for a surprise. If you offend anyone, I will back you up.¡±


    ¡°Master, you already have Daniel, why¡­¡±


    ¡°Daniel is trustable, but, Nailisi¡­ my life is limited, I cannot keep apanying you. Once I die, you must be a devil. Only then can I leave in peace.¡±


    ¡°Master, don¡¯t say such touching things, I cannot take it.¡± Nailisi hugged Saleen, gently grinding him.


    ¡°Okay, go out now and get Daniel. I want to ask him about the distribution of the military equipment.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t go. Master, Daniel haspleted this matterst week.¡±


    ¡°Mm, then you continue.¡± Saleen felt that his back was aching. Since he already possessed magic chords, he could not cultivate the Sword Aura. No matter how strong his constitution was, it would only be at the standard of a swordmaster. For this reason, Nailisi would massage Saleen every day and use the power of her devil¡¯s body to help Saleen transform his body. She hoped that Saleen would make further progress and be a mage with a sturdy body.


    ¡°Master, killing the three kings is a more troublesome matter, I have wait until Soldier returns. You have to help me. If I am the one asking, he will take the chance to cheat.¡± Nailisi was fearful of the winged skeleton, so she wanted Saleen to give the orders.


    ¡°Tell him yourself, just agree to whatever requests Soldier has.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°Soldier will not take your benefits for free.¡± Saleen smiled, ¡°Even though the winged skeleton and Nailisi want to get into my good books, this spirit is definitely loyal towards me. At least he will not harm Nailisi. Asking him to kill the three kings is risky too. If I give the order, the winged skeleton might risk his life to help Nailisi. Nailisi knows this too. If I give the order, Nailisi might use this opportunity to harm the winged skeleton.¡±

 Chapter 639: Murdering the three kings (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 639: Murdering the three kings (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had agreed to Nailisi devouring the three kings because of another reason. All this while, he could not determine the origin of the three kings. He only managed to find out that the three of them had followed a powerful human in the past.


    It was extremely perilous leaving something like that beside him. Metatrin City was actually full of loopholes and there was ack of powerful characters protecting it. Saleen had no choice but to trick the three kings. At the moment, there were two grade-9 sorcerers in the western town, thus forming an interdependent rtionship with Metatrin City. Fellett and his wife lived in the city while the winged skeleton protected the waters, so there was no need for the three kings anymore.


    ¡°As long as the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army is defeated this time around, Metatrin City will remain safe within the next one and a half years. In at most a year, my demonic city can begin producing huge numbers of demons. By then, Cuisi¡¯s abilities should be as strong as the three kings or perhaps even stronger. I will have sufficient power at my disposal already. When that timees, Judikaka will already guess that their presence poses a threat to me. Will the three kings remain passive? Definitely not, I should just attack them now to catch them off guard. If I wait until the Holy See¡¯s army is defeated, then the three kings might be the ones who act first.¡±


    ¡°Master, Soldier requires at least three months to get back, will it be toote by then?¡±


    ¡°No, the broken-edged barrier might not be salvaged, but the Holy See¡¯s army does not have sufficient rations. Very soon, there will be high grade holy masters transporting huge amounts of logistics over to reinforce the army. The crux is rations. Looking at Metatrin City, they will know that they cannot take it down in the foreseeable future and I will not initiate an attack either. We can tussle with this expeditionary army for around six months at the least.¡±


    ¡°Then Holy Rock City will take action!¡±


    ¡°Yes, I will not attack and they cannot breach the city either. Holy Rock City will surely react, however, it won¡¯t be so soon because I have already leaked the information and deployed people to pen a letter. Whether or not Holy Rock City will help my empire, they will have to debate about it among themselves for some time. That¡¯s why I said that there will be a period of stalemate for around six months.¡±


    ¡°In six months, I can evolve into the appearance of a devil and totally grasp the fourth ability. Master, if I eat Eleanor, I can even transform into an elf, what do you think?¡±


    ¡°Nonsense, Eleanor is my follower. Even though the contract has a time limit, I will banish you to the demonic ne if you dare touch her before the contract ends and you shall never return again.¡± Saleen spoke in a harsh tone.


    ¡°After that?¡±


    ¡°You also cannot do it!¡± Seeing that Nailisi was not afraid of him and was still trying to argue her way out, Saleen said, ¡°The function of your third ability, transforming into a human, isn¡¯t great. You shall use the human form to learn the skills of an elf, the effect will be better.¡±


    ¡°Got it, Master.¡± Nailisi knew that Saleen was right. By transforming into a human, Nailisi could learn many skills which could not be learned by a demon such as the archery skills of an elf. Nailisi¡¯s powers were growing by the day, in the future she would not need to veil her identity. Disguising herself as a human would be apletely unnecessary thing. If she did not learn the skills unattainable by a demon, then having this ability would be futile.


    ¡°Nailisi, Eleanor might be a royal among the elves. Tell her that you want to learn her best archery skill. If she agrees to it, then give her this.¡± Speaking, Saleen took out a short bow from the devil ring.


    This short bow was only as long as Saleen¡¯s arm, it was even shorter than the Qin Eight-sided Sword. The body of the bow was a dark green color. There were no magic patterns on its surface, only some natural wood grain patterns. Both tips of the short bow were fitted with a horn. Saleen had crafted them using the horns of a dragon. The bow chord was suspended atop the dragon horn. The bow chord was fully transparent and slightly thick with three dimensional green magic patterns in it.


    At one nce, Nailisi knew that this shortbow contained an immense power. It was as though there was an infinite number of ovepping spaces in the wooden body of the bow and these spaces contained every single attribute in Nailisi¡¯s knowledge.


    ¡°Master, where did you get this item?!¡± Nailisi asked in rm, she could sense that the bow itself was a horrifying weapon. Even if she transformed into a devil, her soul could get broken by this short bow.


    Saleen¡¯s short bow was crafted using the branches of the Tree of Taboo. It was rumored that the Tree of Taboo contained all the rules of every ne. Once a person mastered all of them, they would be a supreme god.


    ¡°Stop prying, if Eleanor agrees to the request, I will also make a bow like this for you too.¡± Naturally, Saleen would not reveal the contract he had signed with the Goddess of Nature. Nailisi would be implicated if he did, and Saleen would not know what consequences there might be.


    Afraid that Nailisi would probe further, Saleen added, ¡°If you want the three kings, then you need Eleanor¡¯s help. Her crystal arrow can subdue the three kings. If you master this skill, it will be of great help to me.¡±


    Of course Nailisi envied Eleanor¡¯s archery skills. She put in a lot of effort into learning it, but Eleanor did not want to impart her forte to Nailisi. Nailisi was filled with resentment and wanted to eat Eleanor.


    After seeing this bow, Nailisi knew that Eleanor would surely agree. A human expert would not be able to resist the temptation of owning this bow, not to mention an elf.


    Saleen would not force Eleanor to impart her secret skill nor use emotions to influence her. Instead, he decided to use a straightforward Sikeqinyan¡¯s method; equal exchange.


    Even the emperor of the elves would not be able to obtain a branch from the Tree of Taboo. The four divine trees were born only because of the Goddess of Myers.


    Receiving the short bow, Nailisi could not stifle her jubnce. Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Go on, I want to practice magic now.¡±


    Nailisi nodded, then went to look for Eleanor.


    Eleanor¡¯s room appeared slightly bigger, its length had exceeded two yards. Situated at the end of her room were numerous human-shaped shooting targets. These targets were made from different materials, there were some made of metal, white rock, thundercloud wood, and divinecherry wood. Eleanor was naturally gifted in magic, but her strongest skill was the Elf Emperor Arrow.


    As shecked materials in the past, she could not produce an elf short bow, so she could only use magic against her adversaries. Now that Saleen had produced a few powerful elf short bows for her, Eleanor began restorative training.


    Nailisi did not knock, she simply entered Eleanor¡¯s room, causing Eleanor to be a little displeased. Eleanor tolerated it, knowing that Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s contract creature.


    ¡°Did Saleen ask you to look for me?¡±


    ¡°Kind of. Sister Eleanor, I would like to learn the Elf Emperor Arrow.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Eleanor rejected tly. Other than this skill, she could teach Saleen or Nailisi anything else.


    ¡°There is a condition.¡± Nailisi smiled smugly. Looking at her expression, Eleanor hesitated. Eleanor had to abide by the rules of the elfish race, but it was not like the Elf Emperor Arrow had not been imparted to other people before. ¡°The marquis exchanged that bangle to learn my archery skills. But¡­ I had my own motives at that time, I wanted to bring the marquis back to the elf ne and make him join the elfish race.¡±


    Eleanor already knew that Nailisi was a demon and it was impossible for demons to learn the Elf Emperor Arrow. Nevertheless, Nailisi was sent by Saleen and Saleen would never do things he was not confident of.


    From her bangle, Nailisi took out the elf short bow which Saleen had handed to her, causing Eleanor¡¯s jaw to drop. Her mouth was almost fully opened, any further and her chin would get detached.


    ¡°Teach me the skill and this will be yours.¡± Nailisi dangled the short bow, looking full of herself. Only Nailisi could make such an expression without looking detestable because of her looks. If anyone else did that, Eleanor might have blew her top and walloped them already. Nailisi¡¯s current appearance was that of the Goddess of Myers and the image of the goddess would stop people from producing evil thoughts.


    Eleanor inhaled deeply, then said weakly, ¡°I agree.¡±


    Nailisi squinted as she looked at Eleanor, thinking to herself, ¡°The sound of her breath is very much like that time when Sister Sika was on the bed!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s great that Sister has agreed to it.¡± Nailisi addressed Eleanor as ¡®Sister¡¯, but in actual fact, Nailisi could be Eleanor¡¯s ancestor. Not everyone could live for ten-thousand years in the sealed environment of a temple.


    Receiving the short bow from Nailisi, Eleanor was stuck between feeling mncholy and joyfulness. ¡°The quality of this bow can rival that used by the emperor. The material of this bow can contain any kind of power. A mage can use this as a magic staff, but a swordsman can use this to release the Sword Aura. Judging by its material, this short bow can withstand the power of a Golden Grand Swordmaster¡¯s Sword Aura.¡±


    This was an almighty elf short bow, Eleanor did not even dare use it to fire arrows immediately. She was afraid that the arrow would create a huge opening in Saleen¡¯s temple.


    The essence of archery was in pration. If an elf¡¯s archery had reached its peak, an elf could even shoot an arrow from one ne to another. Archery like this could destroy the power of nar rules.


    ¡°A pity, this is such a good bow, but I cannot craft better arrows,¡± Eleanor sighed.


    The feather arrows produced from divinecherry wood were terrific, but if they were used to exemplify any skill from the Elf Emperor Arrow, they would disintegrate at once. Even on the elf ne Saleen¡¯s crafting ability was also considered to be very proficient. Be that as it may, Saleen could only allow the divinecherry arrows to be disposable items.


    Nailisi¡¯s heart lurched, ¡°Saleen said that he will make another short bow for me, which meant that Saleen still has adequate materials. Given Master¡¯s character, if he doesn¡¯t have a huge amount of such materials, he wouldn¡¯t give it away so easily.¡±


    ¡°Heh, Sister Eleanor, if you are willing, Master can help you produce a quiver of feather arrows. You have to do me a favor though.¡±


    ¡°What favor? If it is killing someone, I will not do it.¡±


    ¡°Definitely not killing people.¡± Nailisi answered earnestly, ¡°The three kings are spirits, not humans.¡±


    ¡°Okay, then when should I act?¡± Eleanor also knew that there had to be a pretty big problem for Nailisi toe look for her. Nailisi was much mightier than Eleanor, she would not need Eleanor¡¯s help.


    ¡°We have to wait for three months. During this time, I want to learn the archery skills. By then, Sister¡¯s feather arrows will be produced. Master isn¡¯t willing to participate in this matter, when the timees, I still have to depend a lot on Sister¡¯s powers.¡± Nailisi said with a grin, thinking to herself, ¡°If you conceal anything from me and do not impart your mightiest skill, it will be exposed when we are facing the three kings.¡±

 Chapter 640: Collapse (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 640: Copse (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen experimented a few times and discovered that there were no reactions to the bond between the Three Kings and him. He knew that the constraints of this bond were beginning to loosen. If the Three Kings colluded with others against him, he would not be able to sense it. Saleen was finally determined to eliminate the Three Kings.


    It was not easy to take advantage of the rules, they could only use those that were already in their grasp. After being controlled by himself and Aini for such a long time, it was about time the Three Kings would try to break free. They were so strong that if Saleen had been in the death dimension, he would have been killed by Three Kings easily.


    The battle was also something Saleen needed to worry about. Many buildings were being constructed east of the temple. These buildings would be used temporarily for Saleen to create equipment.


    Although Lex took away many mages, she also left behind many magic apprentices and grade-1 mages because they would not be able to survive on the battlefield. They could still be used to control the magic array and help to refine armors.


    Based on power and strength, Saleen¡¯s soldiers would lose to the Holy See army so they would have to depend on their equipment. The devil armor could not be worn by humans, but Lex had given Saleen some diagrams which he would have to modify a little before mass producing them.


    The objective that Saleen had set for Broken de Pass was to hold it for three days. Based on the pass¡¯ geographical location, by right it should not be vulnerable to being surrounded from the front and back. Nevertheless, Saleen still deployed his only troop of heavy-armored knights to defend the east of Broken de Pass.


    Broken de Pass was built on a fault that was traveling from south to north in the mountain and almost reached the most northern part of Metatrin City. It was at least more than one-thousand miles away from Metatrin City. If the Holy See army wanted to bypass Broken de Pass, they would have to travel for an additional three-thousand miles. Even if they only deployed knights, they would still need more than half a month to travel.


    Saleen was only worried about the Holy See¡¯s light-armored infantry soldiers cutting through the mountainous terrains and blocking off the route behind Broken de Pass. Saleen did not wish to take this risk even though it would be extremely difficult to cut through a few thousand yards of mountainous terrains. The fault was less than fifty miles wide at this area.


    A mountainous route of fifty miles could still be ovee if the holy priests boosted the soldiers with divine spells. At most, they would sacrifice some soldiers which was something that the Holy See would not care for. Even if only one-thousand out of three-thousand men survived the terrains and managed to block off the route behind Broken de Pass, the operation would still be a sess.


    For this reason, Saleen sent Cuisi over along with a newly advanced grade-4 mage. A total of two-hundred heavy-armored knights, four-hundred light-armored knights, and four-hundred Caucasus people would also patrol behind Broken de Pass. If any enemies were discovered, the light-armored knights would engage while the heavy-armored knights would charge.


    The Broken de Pass was one-hundred and eighty miles away from western town. As long as there were enough wagons, reinforcements in the form of infantry soldiers would reach in less than half a day. Even if all the wagons had been destroyed and there were no warhorses, soldiers would still be able to retreat fully in a day as long as they would not be disrupted by enemies along the way. The first thing that Saleen¡¯s soldiers was trained in was fast marching.


    Retreat if there was no chance of winning; that has always been how Saleen managed to conserve his forces.


    Saleen¡¯s move was ineffective. The battle taking ce in front of Broken de Pass was fierce. The Holy See¡¯s army never nned to cut through the mountains to block off the retreat route. They had always thought that it was only a matter of time before a one-hundred-thousand strong army broke through the city gates.


    Saleen¡¯s second battalion upied the most strategic location while the Caucasus people patrolled the mountains on both sides. There were no enemies in sight. The Holy See army focused their forces only through the front gate.


    The way the Holy See¡¯s army attacked, it was clear that they did not care about how many casualties they would incur. The stepped wagons would not be able to suppress the arrows from the city¡¯s watchtowers. The soldiers on the city walls could even shoot down at the stepped wagons easily.


    The siege engines had been moved to the city gates many times, but countless soldiers from the city were willing to sacrifice themselves to destroy these engines. Soldiers also pushed big boulders off from the city walls to cause great damage to the siege engines. Both sides suffered major losses.


    Broken de Pass possessed a more strategic location so they only incurred more than two-thousand casualties while the Holy See¡¯s army lost more than five-thousand men. All of them died within a fighting area less than five-hundred yards.


    Including mercenary groups, Broken de Pass only had about twenty-thousand men. Now that they had lost two-thousand men, they no longer dared to be reckless and charge out of the city to attack. They would now block off the city gates. The Holy See¡¯s army responded by usingdders. They city had no other choices. The few times they charged out to attack, they were quickly eliminated by the enemy¡¯s heavy-armored knights. If they did not change strategy to focus on blocking off the city gates, they would continue to suffer more losses.


    As such, the battle focused on the city walls. Broken de Pass had two sets of city walls. The second wall was taller than the first by five yards and they were eighty yards apart. This was within the range of a normal archer. The first set of city wall had to be given up after a day and the army retreated back to the second wall.


    The space between the two walls had been sealed off. The Broken de Pass army waited until twenty-thousand Holy See men entered this space before releasing the reservoirs on both sides of the mountain, flooding this space that was eighty yards wide and two miles long.


    Thousands amongst the twenty-thousand Holy See soldiers drowned. These soldiers died as they were d in heavy armor and could not float. The other soldiers managed to survive only because they had received protection by the holy priests. The Holy See¡¯s army quickly removed all the objects that were blocking up the city gate on the first wall and the water supply subsided so much that it could no longer pose as a form of attack.


    The warriors of the second battalion finally understood why Saleen wanted to build such huge reservoirs in such a militarized pass.


    When the news reached Metatrin City, Saleen was not happy at all. The Holy See¡¯s army only lost less than ten-thousand soldiers before oveing the first city wall. Just as Broken de Pass did not have enough time to build big-scale defense facilities, the Holy See¡¯s army did not have time to bring along too much equipment either. Besides, the Holy See¡¯s army had already traveled more than twenty-thousand miles. By right, they should not have much energy abilities left.


    If the Holy See had not diverted most of their forces into attacking Qin and deployed even more armies there, they would be trying to break through Metatrin City by now.


    It was a miracle that the Qin armies were able to resist Holy See attacks at the borders.


    Left without a choice, Saleen began to send out wagons in preparation for retreat. The second city wall should be able to hold the attacks for another two days. If they did not retreat by then, the second battalion was history.


    The fighting over the next two days was crueler than Saleen expected. Once they had ovee the first wall, although the Holy See army were unable to utilize the watchtower to shoot arrows at the second city wall, the holy priests were able to stay on high ground and boost the troops below with divine spells.


    The Holy See¡¯s army kept charging non-stop and the morale within Broken de Pass was low. A few small-scale mercenary groups have already lost more than half of their forces and could already retreat, ording to their bonds. The main force of the second battalion was still more or less intact but many of their auxiliary soldiers were already dead. As such, the main forces had to split themselves up and some had to be purely archers.


    There were two magic cannons that had been ced on both sides of the mountain on the east side of Broken de Pass, but the second battalion had to retreat in one and a half days. The Holy See army gave chase maniacally, but the two magic cannons kept firing at them and forced them to stay on the west side.


    Arge number of holy priests came forth with heavy-armored soldiers to take over the magic cannons. The soldiers and magic apprentices saw that their side was already retreating and decided to blow up the magic cannons as well before fleeing.


    Without the magic cannons, the heavy-armored soldiers were able to push through to the east gate very quickly.


    From the moment the vanguard reached Broken de Pass until the Pass was broken through, all these only took three and a half days. The Holy See army did not have to cut through the mountains. They just single-mindedly attacked head-on until Broken de Pass was broken through.


    After breaking through Broken de Pass, the east city wall onlysted for slightly more than two hours. Most of the soldiers in the pass were already dead. The Holy See sent three-thousand knights to give chase, but was ambushed by a regiment of the third battalion and had to return back to Broken de Pass.


    There was little chance of sess for three-thousand men to chase a ten-thousand strong army. Besides, the Holy See armies had been fighting continuously for a few days and even though the soldiers have been boosted by the holy priests all these while, it was time to rest and recover.


    Saleen was very disappointed by his army¡¯s fighting capabilities. If Lex was the one holding Broken de Pass, she would have been able to hold it for half a month. During the battle at the city wall, the ratio of deaths on both sides was one-to-one. Every Tanggsi soldier that managed to reach the city wall was able to drag a soldier from the Pass down with him.


    By right, both sides¡¯ fighting capabilities should be around the same. The soldiers that Saleen recruited had already been trained in swordsmanship while the Holy See army could not be considered as a conventional army. Twenty-five-thousand of their army did not participate in the battle at all. They only utilized the new recruits and the result still turned out to be like this. Saleen finally realized that he had underestimated the three empires.


    Sika exined to Saleen, ¡°Your soldiers signed up only to make a living. They do not know what they are fighting for. The Holy See¡¯s army are fighting for a chance to go to heaven and this is where the difference lies. If you build your kingdom and give these soldiers a home, they will also be willing to fight to the death in order to protect their homes.¡±


    Saleen knew that Sika was right. Metatrin City was a business city and the peasants that dwelled on the outskirts were only beginning to grow their crops and had yet to treat this ce as home. The soldiers joined the army only for money.


    As for the Holy See, their ability to manipte the hearts and minds of people was not something that Saleen could outdo.


    Fortunately, there was no way to retreat from Metatrin City. Those in the city were facing the threat of life or death. Metatrin City would definitely be able to repel the Holy See army¡¯s attack.


    There were two grade-9 sorcerers in western town so the enemy would have to split their troops up and send at least thirty-thousand soldiers to stop west town from sending reinforcements to Metatrin City. In that case, the army attacking Metatrin City would only consist of fifty-thousand soldiers.


    It was time to activate the Three Kings. Before finishing them off, Saleen still wanted to fully utilize them first.


    ¡°Send Aini over, hmm, and Guya and the rest.¡± Saleen decided that before he withdrew his defences, he would teach the Holy See army a lesson. His five battalions could no longer be moved around. He would ask the noble families to use their soldiers, along with the Three Kings, to carry out a real ambush.

 Chapter 641: Collapse (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 641: Copse (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The second battalion took a day¡¯s time to retreat back to Metatrin City. When they returned a special army departed from the city. This army only consisted of two-thousand soldiers and they were all riding on skeletal warhorses.


    Saleen requested for the twelve Earls and four Dukes to send one-hundred and two-hundred soldiers each respectively so there were two-thousand elite soldiers in total. Along with these two-thousand soldiers were ten mages and the Three Kings. Their location of ambush would be in a hilly region that was more than ten miles away from western town.


    Regardless if the ambush was sessful or not, this army must lure the enemy to bypass western town. The ten story magic tower was on the east side of western town. When the Holy See¡¯s army saw this magic tower, they would surely go mad.


    In other words, this army would only need to flee for twenty miles or so.


    Besides, Lex had left behind another battalion in western town which was made up of over thirty-thousand soldiers contributed by the noble families of Metatrin City. The defense of this city had been built up for more than a year and would be more than capable of stopping the Holy See¡¯s army.


    Lex¡¯s battalion would not be as weak as Saleen¡¯s army. In such a battle where they were the defending side, they would be able to disy might multiple times of their fighting capabilities.


    Saleen had no idea that the Holy See¡¯s army was attacking so frantically because they did not have much food left. If they did not take down Broken de Pass quickly, they would all have to starve. They would have to wait for the Holy See to send aid or even be forced to retreat and attack Phoenix instead.


    There was no food in Broken de Pass as Saleen had only left behind five days¡¯ worth of grain for the second battalion and mercenary groups. They did not manage to bring the grain along when they retreated, but a day¡¯s worth of food for twenty-thousand soldiers would not be enough for the Holy See¡¯s army that still consisted of more than ny-thousand soldiers.


    The Holy See¡¯s army was also at wit¡¯s end. Taking down Broken de Pass was an enormous task and they expected the enemy to defend to death. Although the resistance was fierce, the enemy ultimately retreated. This could only mean that there would be more resistance to be ovee ahead. The Holy See did not pay any attention to Metatrin City and did not receive any information.


    There was news from the oracles and the supreme court, but it had been concealed.


    The supreme court activated five-thousand jailors, twelve ck high priests, and three terrifying and anonymous men. They had not involved themselves in any of the battles before, not even when the enemy was burning the logistic army¡¯s grain.


    The supreme court behaved abnormally and imed to only join in the fight at Metatrin City. This infuriated themander of this battle; Grand Bishop Nichs.


    Grand Bishop Nichs and the general of Tanggsi Empire¡¯s ninth corp could notmand the men of the supreme court so they could only keep pushing the expedition to sacrifice their lives in exchange for Broken de Pass. They strived to reach Metatrin City early so that the three bastards of the supreme court would have no excuse not to join in the fight.


    ¡°Too bad that oracle Fycro is not around, otherwise he would have been able to tten this city.¡± Grand Bishop Nichs was thinking to himself gloomily. Although he was the bodyguard of the Pope, he was still very respectful towards Fycro. Fycro was so powerful that if the Pope did not have the three godly items, he might not be able to handle Fycro either.


    The expedition temporarily camped at Broken de Pass. The holy priests needed to heal many of the injured soldiers. Many of the soldiers were heavily injured, but they could not be ignored. Even if they were to die, they wanted to die in Metatrin City.


    The disciples only knew that the holy priests could heal all wounds and very soon they would be able to fight again. Of course, the holy priests would never reveal their secret, it was how they made a living after all. If people knew that divine spells caused harm to their bodies, no one would be willing to spend money to seek help from them.


    Outside of Broken de Pass, a fire was raging. This was the only task that the men of the supreme court were carrying out; the burning of the corpses.


    Just as Grand Bishop Nichs was bing depressed, the men of the supreme court sent over a batch of food. It was dried meat strips that weremonly found in the northern part of Tanggsi Empire. Nichs was overjoyed. With these meat strips, they would be able to survive for another six to seven days and the expedition would finally have the chance to rest and reorganize.


    Nichs had no idea that back in the supreme court¡¯s camp, the three murderous-looking fellows wereughing maniacally.


    ¡°Big brother, if they realized that they are eating human meat, do you think they will vomit it out?¡±


    ¡°Vomit it out? Third brother, maybe they will ask for more, hahaha...¡±


    ¡°Big brother, these men have already eaten human flesh. They must repent. It will be much easier to force them into the supreme court in future. This idea of yours is really amazing.¡±


    ¡°Humph, if not for the fact that this was an order from the Head Inquisitor, do you think I would do something as stupid as this? Theisio raised this army so hastily and did not care about the battle against Lun. This is strange. The three of us are still alive only because of the Head Inquisitor, so we don¡¯t have to do our best for Theisio. By giving them human flesh, they will now have the energy to fight. Who can predict the future? I don¡¯t think we can take the city with them.¡±


    ¡°Big brother, what do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Stop asking questions. I heard that the Head Inquisitor does not wish for us to take down this city. Look after the jailers. If Nichs is defeated, we will head to Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°The Head Inquisitor has a secret order?¡± The other two were shocked.


    ¡°Not really a secret order. We just need to find out the situation in Phoenix. Our maps are not urate. Didn¡¯t you see the twelve high-level ck high priests? Their task is to map out the coordinates andndmarks.¡±


    After the situation at Broken de Pass has stabilized, Metatrin City seemed to have be a calmer ce too. Soldiers were patrolling the streets and many spirits of the dead roamed the center of the city. No one dared to enter for no reason. Caucasus magic wolf warriors were also patrolling that area. No one dared to risk being eaten by magic wolves by ident.


    The number of boats at the port on the east side was few and far between. Saleen had already asked Guya and the rest to think of ways to attract merchants to sell some of their animals there. The outskirts of Metatrin City were all valuablends for agriculture so there were no farms. Saleen has always provided for the meat. Nevertheless, not everyone liked the taste of fish and prawn from the sea. Many of the warriors had been used to eating mutton so in the meantime, they could only rely on merchants to import these meats.


    Soldiers must eat meat in order to have the energy to fight. Saleen even built an abattoir on an ind on the northern part of Metatrin City. Large amounts of meat would be transported into the city for the consumption of his fifty-thousand strong army.


    Qin was wealthy and goods were cheap, but a cow would still cost tens of gold coins. Not every farmer could use puppets for farming so more than half of Qin¡¯s farnds still used cows for plowing.


    The daily import of meat was a profitable business for merchants, but the moment the news broke of the Holy See expedition. This business ceased onnd and few still continued via the sea route. More often many animals would die when being transported on boats.


    Saleen¡¯s five battalions of soldiers consumed half a pound of meat on a daily basis. Other than a few fish and prawn, the rest of their meat consumption was beef and mutton. Four-thousand pounds of meat would be consumed daily. Few people in the north of Qin reared pigs so most of the pork would have to be bought from the southern region.


    A one-hundred-thousand strong army was deployed at the border of Lun and they consumedrge amounts of meat daily too. All the meat from the north of Qin had already been bought over by the Empire¡¯s army. Whatever Saleen could get his hands on was bought from noble families.


    Gradually, the price of meat from north of Qin increased by four to five times. It was not possible to purchase meat at cost price like in Holy Rock City anymore. Now that Saleen was ruling over a kingdom, he finally realized that money was easy to earn, but also easy to spend.


    The army that had retreated back to Metatrin City replenished their soldiers while Saleen¡¯s five battalions began to set up their defences nervously. As the city was enormous, each city wall was almost eight miles wide. The two main walls would need twenty-thousand men to defend them. It was still going to be tight defending with five battalions.


    Fortunately, most of the people that had settled down in Metatrin City were strong and fit. Saleen tried to recruit auxiliary soldiers at thest minute and still managed to find another twenty-thousand men. In addition to the twenty-thousand auxiliary soldiers he already had, Saleen now had ny-thousand soldiers in total. The noble families¡¯ private soldiers amounted to about twenty-thousand men as well. The forces on the inside and outside of the city were about the same. It was not a matter of whether Metatrin City would be lost, but of how many lives would be lost in the battle.


    Thepensation that Saleen was willing to pay for each soldier¡¯s death was between forty to one-hundred gold coins to their family. If ten-thousand died, thepensation for death and loss of equipment would definitely be more than one-million gold coins.


    Eleanor also felt that they would make a huge loss and said, ¡°If only we had the grain from the elvish dimension. Consume one meal and one would be full for the entire day. There would be no need for meat either.¡±


    ¡°Magic bugs won¡¯t be too bad either. One would be full for a few days after one meal.¡± Nailisi felt helpless about the situation at hand. The demon city has yet to bepleted. She would only be able to summon tens of demons, which would not help much in the battle and waste a lot of magic nuclei.


    The benefit of summoning demons was to save on deathpensations. No one had ever heard of demons caring about what happened to them after their deaths.


    ¡°Are you saying that one need not eat for a few days after consuming magic bugs?¡± Saleen managed to catch what Nailisi said.


    ¡°Yes, Master. Not only do magic bugs taste good, they are also more filling than beef. They are like the beasts from the sea, hmm... like the giant whale¡¯s oil.¡±


    Giant whale¡¯s oil was a food item given to Saleen¡¯s elite soldiers. Each soldier would bring along one pound and could consume it for up to a week. The amount of energy it provided was equivalent to consuming only meat every meal every day. Saleen¡¯s warehouse stored tens of thousands of pounds of giant whale¡¯s oil. Giant whales could only be found in the deep seas and were hard to capture though.


    ¡°There would be no danger for humans to consume them?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure about that. Even the weakest demonic spirits can digest magic bugs. It shouldn¡¯t be a problem for human soldiers, right?¡±


    ¡°Find a way to bring me a few. If this works, we will mass produce them and rece the grain for the armies with them!¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Let the Eastern Sea ves be the guinea pigs first. If they don¡¯t die or fall sick, then humans will be able to consume magic bugs.¡± Many of the bugs were vegetarians and could grow very rapidly, as fast as one week. That rapid rate of growth made feeding therge amounts of demons in the demon dimension possible.

 Chapter 642: The secret of the expeditionary army (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 642: The secret of the expeditionary army (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen already nned to let his people consume worms, he did not have a choice. The war would very soon spread to the whole maind. In at most three years every country would be sucked into the Holy See¡¯s war. By then, it would be even more difficult to purchase grain. Without stable logistical support, could they still fight a war?


    The soldiers in the city did not know that Saleen was vexed over their food. Saleen had secretly altered their meals, increasing the ratio of fish and prawns. These things were not any less nutritious than beef or mutton, it was just a problem of taste.


    Saleen had deployed a twenty-thousand man team each to both sides of the city wall. Metatrin City¡¯s city walls were more special and extremely thick, they could not be destroyed by magic or divine spells. The upper half of the city walls were assembled using Dante¡¯s Sequence, it was unlike the style of any other country on the Myers maind.


    There was a maze-like cloister that was built by piling up rectangr stone pieces, the cloister was sixty yards thick on either side. The fortress above the city walls was split into two stories that had a width of hundreds of yards. Even the side door was constructed in this manner. With this in mind, one could finally understand why Saleen took such a long time to construct the city walls despite having hundreds of thousands of spirits as hisborers.


    These spirits worked through the night helping Saleen to build the city and the city walls consumed the most time.


    People could live in the city walls. Twenty-thousand people lived in an eight-mile long city wall, it could actually amodate one-hundred-thousand people. There were horse tracks within the city, they were nted and lead towards the thirty yard tall city walls.


    Saleen wanted to build an even taller city wall, but he could not do it. If the city walls were too tall, they would be taller than the magical towers.


    One story in a magical tower was six yards tall, nine stories would equate to a height of fifty-four yards. Only the city walls of the Holy Rock City were higher than one-hundred yards, but that was only because the city itself had been carved out of a mountain, the height of its foundation was not even less than sixty yards.


    Using adder to leap over a thirty yard tall city wall would result in massive casualties. The broken-edged barrier was not guarded because Saleen did not deploy too many mages, he did not want the mages to die there.


    The thickness of Metatrin City¡¯s wall wasrger than its height, the wall was in fact an eight-mile long house. The entrance of the city was fifty yards wide while the exterior fa?ade had a ten yard wide horse track and a soldiers¡¯ fortress. If the enemy tried to leap atop the entrance, they could suffer a rampage by the cavalrymen.


    As the cavalrymen charged horizontally across the horse track, the infantrymen scaling the city walls would not even be able to organize a defense formation. There were magic stone cannon tforms within the city, while the trebuchets on top were protected by magic arrays. These two weapons would not destroy each other.


    The city did not contain any magical towers, the only structure which could function like a magical tower was Saleen¡¯s temple. The temple was slightly far, it was about five miles from the city walls. Without a central magical tower to make the link, it could not contain any offensive power for the time being.


    Fortunately, Saleen had many low grade mages at his disposal, they were all left behind by Lex. The intermediate grade mages had been taken by Lex, so these low grade mages actually became the main offensive force.


    Once the three kings returned, Diyabannersa and Banchajanna would each defend one side. Each of them would lead thousands of spirits, cooperating with the soldiers and assisting in the defense.


    The skeletal troops could fire arrows. Over long distances uracy would not matter. The strength of a skeletal troop would not be exhausted, so Saleen had preparedrge quantities of inferior bows for the skeletal troops to use. These bows had substantial might and a very long range, but their uracy was pathetic. They would only be suitable for nket-type scatter shots.


    Along the road, fifty death knights were stationed at an interval of every two-hundred yards. Of course, these death knights could not rival the doom knights, but Saleen had given them heavy armor. It would still be pretty easy for them to conduct a rampage on the enemy¡¯s infantry.


    In the midst of the intense preparation for war another tens of thousands of people had swarmed into Metatrin City, they were the citizens of the nobles living nearby. From the broken-edged barrier to Metatrin City, the distance was about one-hundred miles. There were numerous viges and fortresses along the way. Saleen had already given hisst order; to allow these nobles to seek refuge in his city. It was impossible for their fortresses to resist the Holy See¡¯s army.


    These nobles had toply because they had only settled down in Metatrin City very recently. They could not recruit sufficient soldiers and had very little citizens. Even though it was easy to defend a small fortress, manpower was scarce. In the face of an offensive by arge army, such fortresses would not evenst a day.


    The expeditionary army rested for three days at the broken-edged barrier before continuing on its journey. The vanguards had already done a sweep across Metatrin¡¯s ins, but they did not manage to plunder any grain and got attacked in western town. One of Lex¡¯s emblem groups led thousands of mercenaries and rushed out of western town, nking three-thousand of the Holy See¡¯s light cavalrymen.


    This emblem group was equipped with threeyered armor. Even though it was not made up of heavy cavalrymen, its offensive power was close to that of heavy cavalrymen already.


    On the other hand, the less than four thousand mercenaries simply followed behind. Hundreds of them positioned at both sides of the enemy forming a sp formation. It was as though Lex¡¯s emblem group was a de and the over three-thousand mercenaries were the steel pieces which sandwiched the de.


    This assault was analogous to a swordsmanship expert using a longsword to swipe at a person¡¯s neck. With a crack, the three-thousand expeditionary cavalrymen were cut off in the middle. This offensive was swift and decisive, the expeditionary army did not even have the chance to alter its formation. Not many enemies were ughtered, only about two-hundred of them. As most of the expeditionary troops were struck by cavalry crossbows, their injuries were not serious.


    Lex¡¯s emblem group turned around and charged at the enemy again. This time around, her soldiers had changed tonces. During this abrupt dash, they tore another piece of flesh from the enemy, killing around two-hundred people. Lex¡¯s emblem group then left in style. In these two instances, almost five-hundred people were lost, it was definitely a huge blow to the three-thousand vanguard cavalrymen.


    The enemy wanted to give chase, but they were not as familiar with the terrain as Lex¡¯s men. In this tapered region, the mercenaries had disposed of their shovels and sharp antlers to allow the speed of the cavalry to be reduced to its minimum. This action made the expeditionary army¡¯s cavalrymen realize that this ce was no Tanggsi Empire.


    The mages whom Saleen had hidden in the hilly region observed this whole event and the three kings sighed in regret. If they had coordinated with this offensive, then all three-thousand cavalrymen would have died there. The order Saleen had given was to attack therge force traveling behind these cavalrymen though. The Holy See¡¯s army used light cavalrymen as the spearhead force, there were another ten-thousand soldiers at the back.


    The three kings were going to attack these ten-thousand soldiers and then flee before the main forces at the back arrived.


    The vanguards had retreated, they should be meeting up with the ten-thousand strong army soon, before entering the periphery of western town. Banchajanna flew onto the battlefield and grabbed a corpse on the way. He smelled it and his face contorted in disgust.


    Seeing Banchajanna return dragging a corpse in hand, the other two spirit kings also detected a tinge of strange smell. It was like the scent of the gods, but it was not quite like it either. This smell contained an evil which exceeded the scope of the rules.


    ¡°These people...¡± The three kings looked at one another, then turned to look at the soldiers behind them. These soldiers had been recruited by the nobles. The five camps under Saleen¡¯smand did not simply recruit anyone. The offensive power of these soldiers was pretty good, but they were ignored because of their age. Since the regr army did not have a ce for them, they defected to the nobles.


    Judikaka said, ¡°Let¡¯s go back, there¡¯s no need to ambush anymore.¡±


    Themanders leading the human troops were in a tight spot, but they did not dare argue with the three spirit kings. Judikaka cast a death spell, when this spell was targeted at the corpse, it caused the corpse to explode with a p.


    Diyabannersa also shook his head, this corpse was effected with a divine spell and death magic could no longer manipte it. This situation was more severe than the one in the beginning. When the expeditionary army first entered Phoenix, the bodies of the soldiers were not disying such serious symptoms yet.


    The thousands of troops hiding in the hills retreated, leaving behind some Caucasus people and barbarians to continue observing the enemy. Judikaka flew onto the battlefield, destroying all the bodies. After transforming all of them into a pile of dposed flesh, he led the army back to Metatrin City.


    Judikaka went to visit Saleen personally, he was afraid that Diyabannersa or Banchajanna would spout the wrong things and anger Saleen. Judikaka was not disobeying the order, but this order was not very meaningful anymore.


    In the temple, Judikaka could feel an unknown pressure, ¡°Saleen is merely a grade-6 mage, even if he is making tremendous progress, he shouldn¡¯t be able to exert pressure on monarch-grade spirits, right?¡±


    Judikaka did not look too much into it, he told Saleen, ¡°There is something amiss with the soldiers in the Holy See¡¯s army. Be it the Corpse Explosion Skill or the Undead Soldier Spell, their bodies are not affected.¡±


    ¡°Oh? I don¡¯t know much about death magic and divine spells, give me a moment.¡± Speaking, Saleen told someone to get Narnia, then he continued questioning Judikaka.


    ¡°What is going on, did you not conduct an ambush?¡±


    ¡°The soldiers of the expeditionary army are infected with a vicious divine spell. I don¡¯t know the specifics, but within a year, the offensive power and constitutions of these soldiers will be forcefully boosted. No matter their injury, they will be able to recover swiftly under the effect of this divine spell.¡±


    Narnia nodded and said, ¡°There is indeed a divine spell that works like this, but it will consume the soldier¡¯s lifespan in exchange.¡±


    ¡°Yes, when I was at the borders, I could still manipte those dead soldiers for a while. Now I can¡¯t and only less than a month had passed. This means that the divine spell veiled in the soldiers¡¯ bodies is slowly increasing its speed of influence. I estimate that these soldiers will not live for more than six months even if we do not kill them. The ones with the shortest lifespans might only live for two to three months.¡±


    Saleen inhaled a breath of cold air. The life of the Tanggsi people were slightly shorter, but they could also live for eighty to ny years. On average, the age of a soldier in an expeditionary army would not be more than thirty-five years old. The Holy See had condensed the other forty or fifty years of remaining life of the soldiers in order to release massive offensive power. Even if these soldiers conquered Metatrin City, they would still die off swiftly.


    What could be crueler than this? For their religion, these soldiers had traveled about twenty-thousand miles to Metatrin. In the end? Before they set off on this expedition, their fates had already been sealed, they would die on foreign soil.


    ¡°What about the main forces?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯te into contact with them. The main forces consist of grand swordmasters and holy masters above grade-8, I don¡¯t wish to take the risk,¡± Judikaka answered honestly.

 Chapter 643: The secret of the expeditionary army (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 643: The secret of the expeditionary army (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen smiled very warmly, then said, ¡°It¡¯s been tough on you, go and tell Aini toe look for me.¡±


    Saleen might be smiling, but he was feeling very frustrated, ¡°I should have let Nailisi get ready. Damned Judikaka, disobeying my orders by giving an excuse. If I fall out with him now, I don¡¯t think the contract will produce any bacsh. This intelligence is of utmost importance though. Daniel and Aini have over twenty death mages and over one-hundred death magic disciples with them, these people will be very useful on the battlefield. The Undead Soldier Spell, especially the Berserk Undead Soldier, can destroy the enemy¡¯s battle formation. It will be tremendously beneficial during the defensive efforts. Since the Holy See¡¯s soldiers cannot be manipted, I have to inform Daniel and Aini in advance. No wonder the Holy See¡¯s army can advance so quickly, the soldiers have been infected with a fatal divine spell, it works as though they had eaten some magic medicine which caused them to be excited.¡±


    In Qin, medicines like these were strictly prohibited from existing in a regr army, even the mercenaries did not dare consume them. Only some mercenaries in Sikeqinya would consume simr medicines to raise their offensive power in the short-term, but the price was the shortening of their lifespans. The quality of their bodies would be impaired.


    Saleen never expected the Holy See to be so ruthless, the Holy See was willing to sacrifice the lives of one-hundred-thousand men in order to tten his city. ¡°If I didn¡¯t build the walls first and give up onmercial development, it will be difficult for me to avert this disaster even with two grade-9 sorcerers in my team.¡±


    A small portion of the magic nuclei and magic beast materials which Saleen hunted had gone into cirction, they were sold to businessmen. Thergest share was put into the development of the city¡¯s defenses. Many magic nuclei were exchanged for finished equipment and tools such as crossbows, feather arrows, magic stone cannons, and flying puppets.


    Daniel and Aini arrived at the temple, then Saleen and Narnia recounted in detail the intelligence Judikaka had contributed. Aini immediately suggested that Saleen conceal this piece of information. If the nobles learned of such a situation, the people would definitely be shaken.


    Saleen nodded, ¡°Aini¡¯s concerns are right. I have only one Metatrin City after all. The surroundingnd is less than one-thousand miles and the people are not totally confident yet. The important nobles will be fine, but if those smaller nobles learn of this news, they might abandon the city and flee. Even though they cannot escape onnd, they can still travel on ships.¡±


    Saleen might be a mage, and mages were one of the smartest groups of people around, but he also did not know how to manage a bunch of nobles.


    It was also good that the three kings had returned earlier, the instations atop the city walls could be made more stable. Saleen personally visited the magic trebuchets within the city and the temporary battlements to evaluate their defensive power. He led some soldiers and did an inspection of the city entrance.


    The southern walls were almost developed out of a mountain, there was a part measuring about two miles which was entirely carved out of the mountain. The next location was the sealed region. Even though simr walls were installed there, there should be no issues with the defense at all. Judikaka had been stationed there for some time and the Caucasus people lived in the south. There were almost one-hundred-thousand people living in the mountains now.


    Saleen had expanded the western walls by a few miles topletely seal the amodation area of the Caucasus people. That way, the enemy would not be able to enter this area. Even if the enemy tried to leap over the mountain they would be exterminated by the Caucasus people.


    As for the defense on sea, there was the dragon skeleton warship and dozens of skeletal warships. With Truman¡¯s magic cannon positioned on the peak of the White Rock Mountain, no warships would get close. It was even more difficult for the enemy to get onshore from this location.


    What made Saleen vexed was that most of his enemies would not survive until next year. These enemies could not care less about their lives. Facing such enemies, even a mage could not calcte what they would do next.


    The Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army was left with about ny-thousand men. After resting for three days at the broken-edged barrier, these people had regained their offensive power. Archbishop Nichs was secretly pondering the current situation.


    The vanguards had suffered a setback and they delivered a piece of depressing news. The enemy¡¯s city was constructed holistically and there was a town with a radius of two miles situated about fifty miles west of the city. The size of this town could contain one-hundred-thousand troops. The enemy had actually executed a field battle and attacked his vanguards.


    Even though the three-thousand cavalrymen were not the main offensive force, there was an almost equivalent number of enemies present. The enemies were actually unharmed as they ughtered their way through and they even left in haughtiness.


    ¡°In the past battles, the enemy would suffer quite a lot of casualties too, but this time around, the enemy didn¡¯t even leave a single corpse behind. This is not good news. Scouts who went neared the town were killed, they didn¡¯t manage to collect urate information. When these scouts were two miles away, the image they observed through the alchemical binocrs depicted that this was a military town. It was totally unlike that destroyed town which I went past. The battlements in this town are made of metal! The copper battlements built by Qin people are very difficult to destroy. Even if I get personally involved, I am not too confident either. I am afraid that there might be powerful mages in the city.¡±


    This morning, Archbishop Nichs had summoned all themanders of the army and legions to his tent. Using a crude map, he pointed to the newly marked western town and gave his orders.


    ¡°Besiege this town, take it down within three days.¡±


    ¡°Understood!¡±


    All the generals acknowledged the mission while Archbishop Nichs sat tiredly in his chair. He experienced an unexinable difort in his heart, this was a kind of premonition. Anyone who had cultivated the divine arts to his standard would possess this premonition. Even though it was not as urate as an astrologer¡¯s predictions, it was more agile.


    The Holy See¡¯s army set off slowly, if it marched urgently, it could cover this over one-hundred miles by noon. In fact, more than ten-thousand of the Holy See¡¯s vanguards had already reached a location fifteen miles west of western town. They could dismantle their camp anytime andunch an offensive.


    ¡°Our grain can stillst for four days, this town must be seized within three days. This town will surely contain arge amount of food.¡± Archbishop Nichs could not back out anymore. This time around the pope had given an order which must be executed. If he seeded, he would stand a chance of bing the archbishop of the cardinals, which was the position of the next pope. He had been waiting for dozens of years for this position.


    As the army trudged forward, five-thousand wardens from the inquisition followed behind with ck priests. These over five-thousand people took their own sweet time, but Nichs was helpless.


    The wardens were regarded as one of the main forces of the Holy See, but only the three head inquisitors had control over them. The offensive power of the wardens was akin to that of the sacred knight regiment, their lethality was stronger than the sacred knights.


    Two hours after noon the Holy See¡¯s army arrived at the vanguards¡¯ camp, then the vanguards left. At this moment, the people from the inquisition went around western town, going to its rear. The soldiers in western town did not move, they simply protected the city¡¯s perimeter. They used alchemical binocrs to observe the enemy.


    At one nce, the people from the inquisition had spotted the ten story magical tower, the one which Saleen said he would build in a month. In actual fact, it was already prepared long ago. It had been awaiting the arrival of the two grade-9 sorcerers.


    When the three mysterious killers from the inquisition saw that ten story magical tower, they eximed, ¡°There are still people in this world who disrespect God! It is truly admirable. Quick, tell Nichs that we have discovered heretical mages!¡±


    The three men giggled, but were not willing to go forward to attack.


    ¡°What a joke, a person who dares build a ten story magical tower is at least a grade-9 mage. In a magical tower, a grade-9 mage can deal with ten times more enemies of the same grade as them. If there are disciples inside, the defensive power will be even mightier. A grade-9 mage can control an area spanning ten miles while inside a magical tower. Even that town will be under the protection of the magical tower. No matter how presumptuous the three of us are, we will not lead the wardens to attack this magical tower. The pope¡¯s order was to invade the coastal city, this ce is still fifty miles from the shore.¡±


    The ck priests disyed a self-centered attitude. Since the three leaders did not express anything, their hands were tied, so they did not dare say anything. For this trip, the head inquisitors had clearly stated that these three people would be in charge of all missions. These three people were horrifying characters who had emerged alive from the ck Dungeon.


    When Archbishop Nichs learned of this news, he was also utterly enraged, even though his upbringing was great.


    ¡°The people from the inquisition actually turned a blind eye to a ten story magical tower, wanting me to attack it! How should I bring it down? This time around, the army sent by the pope only consisted of twenty-five-thousand regr soldiers. The other armies were recruited by the holy masters, none of them are higher than grade-4. There are only about twenty high grade holy masters serving me and they are all my confidantes.¡± If the mage in the tower dared make any provocations, Nichs was confident of killing the mage even if the target was a grade-9 sorcerer. Since the mage was hiding in the tower, Nichs was not quite so confident.


    The range of a spell and a divine spell at identical levels was about the same, but with the amplification provided by a magical tower, a mage¡¯s attack range would be increased by more than half. A holy master would have to resist attacks from the magical tower in order to breach a certain area before retaliating against the magical tower.


    This was identical to the function of a church, a mage would never initiate an offensive against a church. The more believers there were in a church, the higher its defensive power. It would also amplify the effect of a divine spell.


    ¡°Which scumbag gathered this intelligence? Isn¡¯t that coastal city newly developed? Why is there a ten story magical tower? If the pope knows about this, he will send at least ten cardinals to raid this ce. Since the situation is like this now, this war cannot be won. The ten story magical tower can defend three sides of the city walls and at these three sides all heavy equipment cannot be utilized. It will be destroyed by the mage in the magical tower otherwise. This means that there is only one side of western town which needs to be heavily guarded. Go around this town and travel east? Then what if this town deploys soldiers to assault my rear? The soldiers in this town are obviously different from the ones at Phoenix¡¯s borders, they clearly want to defend this ce until theirst breaths. Even though the soldiers at Phoenix¡¯s borders are very powerful, they don¡¯t have a city like this to contain them. They could only fight and retreat at the same time.¡±


    Archbishop Nichs did not bother wasting time with the three fellows from the inquisition. He instead flew to an altitude of one-thousand yards using a pair of alchemical binocrs to observe the situation on the ground. At this height, the enemy¡¯s heavy alchemical crossbows would not be able to harm him. That enabled him to escape anytime.

 Chapter 644: The Bond Weakens (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 644: The Bond Weakens (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Grand Bishop Nichs was a thousand yards high in the sky and saw that metal castles and watchtowers were everywhere in western town. If he flew within their range, he would definitely be shot down.


    That was not even considering the ten story magic tower. If there was an anti-flight region and the holy priests were not able to control their flying technique, it was entirely possible for them crash to their deaths in the city.


    The city also consisted of magic cannons which were much more urate than magic catapults. The magic tower was entirely capable of providing the coordinates of the armies on the outside so that the magic cannons in the city could fire with extremely high uracy.


    When the Pope left, he did not mention to Nichs that the soldiers that made up the expedition had already been infused with divine spells and would not live for long. Therefore, Nichs did not want too many of soldiers to die or be injured and he even thought of bringing the army back to Lun or even cutting through Phoenix to attack Guderian City.


    Saleen was really fortunate that he took a trip to Holy Rock City and managed to bring the Fellets back. He would not have managed to convince the two grade-9 sorcerers of the Red Tiger mercenary group and stabilize western town¡¯s defense otherwise.


    ¡°General, leave twenty-thousand men behind. We will lead the rest and continue towards the east!¡± Grand Bishop Nichs decided. He did not wish to spend too much time on this. Although this town had proven to be difficult to take down, he did not believe that the city by the sea did not have any loopholes. After all, western town was a city that has beenpletely militarized, but the city by the sea was said to be built for trading and businesses. It upied arger area, which meant that it would be more difficult to defend.


    Besides, Grand Bishop Nichs was usually urate in his judgement. This city¡¯s defense might be tight, but the main forces within it was not a big one. There would be ten-thousand men at most. By leaving twenty-thousand men behind, he would still be able to control the situation there. By leading more than seventy-thousand soldiers and five-hundred jailers from the supreme court, his chances of sess of taking down the city by the sea was high.


    The General could not refuse Grand Bishop Nichs¡¯ order. In any case, his entire corp had yet to suffer any injuries or deaths. He was confident that he would be able to take down the new target with his main forces. Leaving behind twenty-thousand men was nothing. If they really tried to take down this city, they would have lost more than twenty-thousand men to injuries or deaths.


    Based on the General¡¯s judgement, this city alone would be able to use up his entire life force. The enemy must have set up this bait to tempt him into wasting all his forces there in order to protect the city by the sea.


    The three mysterious characters from the supreme court suddenly spoke to Nichs at that moment, ¡°Grand Bishop, this is a ten story magic tower. It is an object of heresy. By letting them go so easily, aren¡¯t you afraid that the Pope will punish you?¡±


    ¡°Humph, dealing with heretics has always been the supreme court¡¯s responsibility. You are not doing anything about it and you are still trying to me me?¡±


    ¡°Grand Bishop, you can say whatever you want. When we return, we will report ordingly to the Head Inquisitor. As for whether Theisio will be able to protect you, you better keep your fingers crossed.¡± The three fellowsughed uproariously and left with the ck high priests.


    Grand Bishop Nichs felt sick. If the three of them really went back and reported as such the Pope might punish him. If they really attacked the magic tower, they would have to give up their n of taking down the city by the sea. The Pope miscalcted. A one-hundred-thousand strong army would not be able to handle these two aspects of the city.


    The red Bishops under Nichs did not dare to speak. If they gave any suggestion Nichs would definitely order them to attack the magic tower. There was nothing to be gained from speaking up so everyone remained silent.


    Nichsughed coldly in his heart. He suddenly realized the three fellows¡¯ intentions. Once he returned, he must report to the Pope about what had happened. He would have to be the scapegoat otherwise.


    If both parties used each other, no one would be able to predict the oue. The three of them must not be looking forward to being held responsible either.


    Once he understood this, Nichs became calmer and said, ¡°Let¡¯s set off. Ask the holy priests to slow down a little.¡±


    While the people of the Holy See were scheming against each other, Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City was united. The four Dukes¡¯ subordinates managed to gather more than a hundred merchant boats in Lianyun City to transport livestock to Metatrin City. Saleen paid a high price in order to bring inrge amounts of fresh meat for his armies.


    The farmers were the ones that made the biggest losses. They had only just nted their crops, but they would all be destroyed when the armies marched past them. Fortunately, Saleen had already given the order that all farmers and their families would not need to pay taxes for the next three years and would only resume when appropriate. This spring, Metatrin City and the noble families would work together to provide the farmers and their families some subsidies so they would be able to survive through the winter even if they did not have any grain.


    Saleen even promised topensate all the farmers their seeds. If their viges were to be destroyed, Saleen would rebuild them for free.


    The goods that Saleen was purchasing now were all from Lianyun City. Even if the storms sank the boats, Saleen would still pay ording to the agreed prices.


    By doing so, there would be people who would be willing to take the risk. In any case, the battle would not extend to the sea yet. There was no better way to make money by transporting goods.


    Handsome rewards attract brave men. The constitution for the management of mercenary soldiers was released by Saleen. The small mercenary groups that helped defend Broken de Pass were handsomely rewarded. Mercenary soldiers immediately decided to join Metatrin City in its defense.


    Of course, Saleen would never decline this trend. He would now be able to deploy his own soldiers to defend the south city wall and could also aid the west side any time. The mercenary soldiers could still hold their own in mini battles, but would not fare well inrger groups. Nevertheless, the defense of the city wall usually involved mini battles so the mercenary soldiers could still be entrusted with defending the city wall.


    Once Saleen released the news, thousands of mercenary soldiers left for Metatrin City from Lianyun City.


    These mercenary soldiers were all Qin people. When they heard that they would be battling the Holy See and that their objective was to secure defense, they became excited. The amount of money they would receive from battling would far surpass the amount earned from importing and exporting of goods.


    After a few operations carried out by the four Dukes, Metatrin City looked as good as new. It no longer felt dreadful and even the port was bing busy.


    If not for the fact that it had a long winter, Metatrin City¡¯s location was one to be envied. In terms of defense, if they had managed to fortify Broken de Pass, Saleen would definitely be able to keep the Holy See¡¯s army away. Towards the north, there were numerous rivers and big armies would find it hard to cross in the summer. The south was full of mountains and the east was the sea.


    Once it possessed a powerful naval force, this city would be able to control thends within two-hundred miles west and four-hundred to five-hundred miles north. Further up north, the mages had discoveredrge amounts of mining materials while further towards the west were plentynds for agriculture. If not for the cold weather, this ce would have been upied by Qin long ago.


    Under Saleen¡¯s management with the metal ores and middle-grade magic nuclei, Metatrin City became more and more prosperous by the day. Now that the Holy See¡¯s army was trying to destroy the city, many merchants must hate the Holy See to death. Once Saleen guaranteed the benefits they stood to gain, these people made a simple choice eventually.


    The Holy See would never understand why Qin hated the spreading of their faith so much. To the Qin people, the Tanggsi Empire was backward and poor and this was all because of the Holy See. There were too many mages and literate people in Qin. The Holy See¡¯s religion would never gain a foothold there.


    Now that the Holy See has resorted to violence to destroy Qin, of course the people of Qin would be furious.


    Although Saleen was offering high prices, the merchants were not earning much. They were only afraid of going bankrupt. Almost all the resources had been controlled by Holy Rock City and had been sent to the border of Lun. For the merchants to organize goods and resources of such arge scale, a lot of money would have to be spent.


    Saleen was relieved that morale had stabilized.


    The Holy See¡¯s army was nearing and its vanguard was only two miles away. When the officers saw the city walls of Metatrin City, the expressions on their faces darkened.


    This type of city might even be equal to the Holy City. Within the Tanggsi Empire very few cities would surpass this city that was as white as snow before their eyes.


    The holy priests in the army became demoralized. Anyone who had seen the world instantly recognized how queer this city wall was. Their mental strength already discovered from afar that there was an energy flowing near the city wall. Holy priests were not mages so they could not analyze the energypletely, but they knew that it was not very possible to fly above the city wall.


    At the head of the city were plenty of armors and the banners were raised high. By using alchemy binocrs the officer in front saw plenty of spirits of the dead, at least a few thousand. The ends of the city wall on both sides could not be seen with the naked eye. How big was this city? It was a lie to call it small.


    Grand Bishop Nichs was invited to the front. When he saw Metatrin City¡¯s wall, Nichs recognized the usage of Dante¡¯s Sequence in its formation.


    Dante¡¯s Sequence controlled the abilities of elements without limitations. A city wall of such arge scale was able to be arranged into aplete Dante¡¯s Sequence. There would be no flying above the city.


    If this city had built six magic towers, its defense would almost be equal to Holy Rock City. Long ago, the Sacred Knights had a tough time at Holy Rock City and the Holy See had always been afraid of history repeating itself. Some cities just could not be taken down. In kingdoms where magic was popr, holy priests were notmon.


    Nichs was tempted to return to the Glorious ins. How could a city like this be taken down? He now found it hrious that he had originally wanted to use this opportunity to perform well in order to be one of the candidates considered to seed the Pope.


    Even if the Pope gave permission, he had more than ny-thousand men but only two to three days¡¯ worth of grain. They were twenty-thousand miles away from home. How would they return? By eating grass?


    ¡°Bring the men from the supreme court,¡± Nichs said to the red Bishop behind him. Now his only hope was those three murderers released from the ck Dungeon.


    The range of the magic catapult was six miles even after the boost of magic. The Holy See¡¯s army¡¯s main forces stopped just beyond six miles. In the city Saleen was nervously inspecting the frontline. The elemental eye could see one-hundred miles away and could see exactly how the Holy See army was being deployed.


    Nailisi and Sika followed closely beside Saleen. Behind him were more than ten Sregl Ind mages and Sika¡¯s guards.


    ¡°There are quite a few heavy-armored warriors, Diyabannersa. I am going to let you and J guard this side. This time, you will not run away,¡± Saleen gave a stern warning.


    ¡°Yes, Master Saleen,¡± Diyabannersa replied respectfully, but did not really care deep down. That wretched bond no longer possessed such a strong constraint. Right now, if he saw Saleen injured, he would still be forced to take action. Saleen would not be at the city wall all the time. Once Saleen left, he would be able to decide how he was going to fight.


    Judikaka was right. In this world, there could not be such a powerful trap in the bond.

 Chapter 645: The Bond Weakens (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 645: The Bond Weakens (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Diyabannersa was trying to fool Saleen, but Saleen had already long decided to kill Diyabannersa. Once this king of spirit of the dead could no longer be controlled, Saleen would be in danger. It was only because of the Holy See¡¯s army that Saleen still needed to depend on these three fellows. Killing them now would do no good for the city¡¯s defense.


    Saleen led some men to patrol the city and felt fortunate that his teacher had given him a diagram of the design of this city. Without Dante¡¯s Sequence and magic towers, even a thirty yard tall city wall would not be able to hold the Holy See¡¯s army back.


    There were a number of holy priests outside the city. Some of them were even more powerful than the ck Deacons and ck Bishops that Saleen had encountered before and were only slightly below Genesis. Genesis was an oracle and a grade-9 opponent whose god punishment spell would be able to kill even those of the same grade. If not for Lex and her God¡¯s ring, Genesis might have been able to beat anyone.


    There were more than ten holy priests outside of the city who had already reached sorcerers¡¯ standards. Such a high number of holy priests flying to the top of the city could potentially be fatal.


    With Dante¡¯s Sequence, all the buildings in the city had formed a different magic array and had surpassed the magic array¡¯s Element Control Sequence. With the support of the magic array, flying would not be possible within ten miles of the city wall.


    The holy priests would not dare to be within the vicinity of the city wall. Saleen thought about it and said, ¡°Deploy more barbarian archers. Everyone shall be equipped with twelve flying axes. Enemies that would be able to climb up the city wall would be in warriors that were either heavy-armored or d in manyyers of armor.¡±


    The enemy had no intentions of deploying soldiers to attack the north side of the city wall. The west side of the city wall was already eight miles wide. If they split up their forces it would be difficult to gather life strength. The Holy See had miscalcted slightly. They had thought that they would be facing a battle line of two miles wide. Saleen predicted that the enemy would concentrate their attacks on two to three areas and not attack from both the west and the north.


    Saleen looked at the enemy below him and felt less nervous. At least his prediction was partially correct in that the enemy did not possess muchrge equipment. When the enemy lost their catapults and stepped wagons at Broken de Pass, they resorted to cutting down trees and using them to build another version of a catapult. In order to increase the range of this type of catapult and to prevent it from being destroyed by the city¡¯s own catapults easily, the expedition would build these catapults to be enormous. It would take a long time, so it was unable to exert pressure on the city.


    The expedition created approximately one-hundred catapults. These catapults required at least fifty soldiers and five horses to operate them.


    Saleen did some calctions in his mind and knew that these catapults could only fire once every half hour and would not be able to fire in a spread. The only limitation for the soldiers within the city was that they would not know where the projectiles wouldnd. Catapults like these would fire at a very slow rate. There was no way it would hit any swordmasters. It would probably strike some auxiliary soldiers or unlucky swordsmen.


    When the soldiers retreated from Broken de Pass, they did not leave behind too much equipment. Saleen saw hundreds of big crossbows and some small alchemy crossbows. The big crossbows were created in Qin, but the alchemy crossbows were imitated by the holy priests. Their range would definitely lose out to the real alchemy crossbows that Saleen possessed.


    ¡°Give every mage on the city wall twelve scrolls of the grade-3 fire cloud spell, twelve scrolls of the grade-3 wind de spell, and two scrolls of the grade-2 sour rain spell. Hmm, everyone will also collect a scroll of grade-3 icicle magic from the temple.¡±


    The grade-3 icicle magic scroll that Saleen mentioned was actually a scroll that he created on his own. Its powers were the same as a grade-3 spell, but even grade-1 mages would be able to use it. He once used restorative icicle magic to kill up to one-hundred people in one go. It was probably the most powerful low-level magic.


    The mages on the city wall were not of very high levels. If not for the fact that Metatrin City¡¯s walls were so unique and could protect these mages, Saleen would not have allowed them toe up. The mostmon problem that low-level mages faced was insufficient magic chords, hence their ability to cast spells was also limited. This was the reason why Saleen prepared so many scrolls and diluted magic liquid to sustain the low-level mages¡¯ mental strength to battle for a long time.


    There were many low-level holy priests amongst the enemy¡¯s warriors while Saleen had also deployed many low-level mages. Saleed had the upper hand as he also had Metatrin City¡¯s wall while the enemy only possessed some pathetic stepped wagons anddders.


    Fortress hammers were ineffective against Metatrin City because Saleen had sufficient magic catapults that could easily destroy the enemy¡¯srge equipment.


    The enemy began to construct their catapults three miles away. The catapults in the city began to bombard the enemy without waiting for them toplete their construction. Gigantic rocks flew towards the structure of the catapults. Saleen was well-prepared and chose to use normal catapults instead of magic catapults.


    There were more than two-hundred of the catapults which were also built at thest minute. It was built to deal with the enemy¡¯s foot soldiers when they attacked the city. When Saleen discovered that the enemy had constructed one-hundred catapults, he decided to use his catapults for this purpose instead.


    More than thirty gigantic rocks were unleashed in the first wave. The mages were able to urately provide the locations of the targets. More than a thousand barbarians were operating the catapults. They moved the beasts and adjusted the winches,unching the gigantic rocks away.


    More than thirty catapults were hit and more than twenty of them were destroyed instantly. Thest fifty catapults fired again and more than ten of the expedition¡¯s catapults were hit.


    Just like that, half of the expedition¡¯s catapults were destroyed. Grand Bishop Nichs knew that it would not be possible to use the catapults to put pressure on his enemy.


    The Tanggsis were never well-versed in such long-range attacks and most of their equipment to be used for attacking cities had already been sent to the frontline at Lun. The Pope also did not expect to face a city like this. As such, Nichs found himself in such an embarrassing situation. As the attacking side, his ranged attacks had beenpletely stopped by the enemy. He could only depend on soldiers to climb over the city walls now.


    It did not matter whomanded such an attack. There were bound to be many casualties.


    Saleen decided to return to the main door of the west side and watched the battle take ce. He was already a grade-6 mage so his effect towards defending the city would be great. Saleen¡¯s soldiers would definitely need time to adapt when the enemyunched their first wave of attack. Fortunately, the second and sixth battalions had already battled the expedition before so they would be able to continue to stay calm.


    With Saleen by their side, the soldiers¡¯ morale rose drastically.


    Holy Rock City¡¯s effect could also be felt. Saleen had already spread the news that Qin had deployed an army of one-million to repel the Holy See at Lun. Many of the residents in Metatrin City had rtives in Holy Rock City. As long as it was not destroyed, these residents would not lose hope nor surrender.


    Saleen¡¯s catapults would be able tounch the second wave of attack in ten minutes. It was clear that the enemy¡¯s catapults were much slower. In the end, only slightly more than ten of the expedition¡¯s catapults were still intact and managed tounch gigantic rocks at the city. These rocks were not smoothened out so they would not roll afternding on the ground. Its ability to destroy was limited. Even if itnded amongst a crowd, only a few would be killed.


    This was unlike the high level of preparation in Saleen¡¯s city. Every rock that wasunched was oval in shape. Once theynded, even if they did not hit their target, they would roll in a curve and kill or injure many people.


    More than ten gigantic rocks flew over three miles andnded in the city. One of them struck a metal watchtower and crushed one side of it beforending on the ground. The soldiers quickly fled from itsnding spot, but a few auxiliary soldiers were so scared that they stood rooted to the ground. Luckily, they were saved by the swordmasters beside them.


    The rest of the rocks struck the ground and rolled for about ten yards before losing momentum.


    Thousands of soldiers approached Metatrin City¡¯s wall under the coverage of vehicles. The magic catapults were immediately activated andunched many gigantic magic stone shells. These magic stone shells wereunched at an upward angle and depended fully on gravity to fall. They would split apart in mid-air and strike below.


    More than a hundred vehicles were destroyed by the magic catapults instantly. The foot soldiers were clustered together as they were approaching the city wall and many died as a result. Those that were protected by the holy priests around them remained unscathed. The holy priests quickly retreated. These low-level holy priests could defend against rocks that were the size of a fist, but were helpless against arrows.


    There was no uracy to these magic stone shells. They were created purely to disrupt enemies that were clustered together.


    The expedition¡¯s first attack was foiled by the magic catapults. Saleen discovered the Holy See¡¯s biggest weakness and was pleased. Their long-range attacks were poorer than Qin¡¯s and coincidentally, all the techniques that Saleen possessed were invented by Qin. The Tanggsis¡¯ catapults and stepped wagons were ineffective.


    No wonder the Holy See spent more than a year at the border of Lun to put out the noble families¡¯ rebellion even though they possessed so many armies. The way they attacked was basically an exchange of lives for victory.


    ¡°Ask the craftsmen to produce the stone shells quickly. Use everyone.¡± Saleen had so many arrows that he could afford to fight for half a year without replenishing them. On the other hand, he did not have enough stone shells. He only discovered now that even though stone shells were not as destructive as arrows, the former was much safer. A soldier would have to reveal half his head in order to attack with a crossbow. There was no safe ce to shoot an arrow. As for catapults, if the enemy was unprepared, one could basicallyunch attacks without risking his own safety.


    Narnia suddenly said from behind, ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Alright, we will stick to the original n. Try to replenish the stone shells as quickly as possible though. There are high-level holy priests among the main forces of our enemy. Attacks like this will be ineffective by then.¡± Saleen immediately changed what he said, but his thoughts were clear. Narnia was right. If he relied on catapults to force the enemy back, his own soldiers would never gain the experience and courage of fighting against enemies head-on.


    Indeed, the enemy changed the way they attacked. They spread their foot soldiers everywhere. They carrieddders and charged towards the city wall. A few hundred iron arrow vehicles were spread apart and shot at the city wall with stiff crossbows with the goal of suppressing the archers within Metatrin City.


    Without the protection of vehicles, these soldiers braved the rain of arrows and finally began the real battle. By this time, the catapults¡¯ effects were limited. It could onlyunch once every ten minutes or so and would only strike a small surface area. The enemy was attacking along the battle front that was two miles wide. Saleen¡¯s catapults had yet to sync with the magic tower and could not be moved around quickly enough to stop the enemy.

 Chapter 646: Flooding one with money (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 646: Flooding one with money (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were dozens of rounds of assaults, more than half had missed their targets even though Saleen had altered the coordinates beforehand. Coordinates for suchrge weapons were pretty useful against otherrge weapons, but if they were used against individual soldiers, the oue was entirely dependent on luck.


    The attack which dealt true damage to the expeditionary army was the nket-like rain of arrows from the city entrance.


    Saleen gazed at the savage-looking expeditionary soldiers as they carrieddders and sprinted towards the walls of Metatrin City. He felt as though they were ferocious ghosts.


    Legend had it that only the beings from the ghost ne would be so insane and horrifying.


    Those few hundred steel arrow chariots were thest skill the Holy See had, they could only be destroyed by arge trebuchet. The trebuchets whichunched one stone cannon at a time could only strike the soldiers controlling the arrow chariots, they could hardly damage these huge steel machines.


    The firing speed of an arrow chariot was slightly slower than a bow, but faster than a crossbow. It couldunch dozens of arrows in one go and could execute more than ten consecutiveunches.


    Theseunches would bepleted within one minute while the reloading of divinity-infused arrows would be finished within ten minutes. It could be said that the barrage of arrows from the expeditionary army was also pretty powerful. The arrow chariots, made from steel, were pushed to a location five-hundred from the city walls. They then began firing.


    From this distance, a normal bow used by a soldier would not be able to shoot that far. The soldiers behind the steel arrow chariots would thus be able to attack and reload arrows calmly.


    Arge trebuchet could not strike such a small arrow chariot urately, the shots from a magic trebuchet could not destroy it. The best method would be to use a powerful magic attack to destroy these arrow chariots swiftly.


    To enjoy a range of more than five-hundred a spell would at least have to be a grade-9 single magic attack. It was impossible for Saleen to recruit so many grade-8 mages.


    The manpower holding the first line of defense consisted of death archers and some skeletons. The death archers and skeletons stood at the pass and used their bows to injure the Tanggsi soldiers who were carryingdders. Many of those gigantic arrowsunched from the arrow chariots struck these spirits.


    A spirit did not move fast, but its perception was sharp. Many of them dodged the enemy¡¯s attacks earlier and only a few were hit in the head. Since their heads were not damaged, the Soul me was not dispersed. Despite their bodies being prated, the spirits could still continue battling.


    The city entrance was very wide. Hiding within a fortification made up of colossal rocks, the second camp and mercenaries were unharmed. They were startled when they noticed the one yard long arrows hitting the city entrance from a distance of five-hundred yards. If normal soldiers were deployed to conduct retaliation at the city entrance, the number of casualties would have exceeded one-thousand.


    ¡°Let¡¯s begin.¡± Saleen noticed that the enemy¡¯sdders could possibly get close to the city walls, ¡°This is the just the first wave of attack, if the enemy can breach the city just like that, then it is useless.¡±


    The rear portion of Metatrin City¡¯s entrance was constructed using the Dante¡¯s Sequence, it resembled a row of uniform structures. Under Saleen¡¯smand, dozens of cracks appeared. These cracks were smooth as ss and they were expanding silently. Finally, dozens of metal battlements rose up from beneath the cracks.


    As the dozens of battlements rose up, they reached a height of ten yards, forming sharp angles with the edge of the city walls. It allowed the soldiers to shoot their arrows downwards. A metal battlement had thirty-six firing holes and positioned behind each firing hole was a magic alchemical crossbow.


    The enemy¡¯s soldiers charged forward while carryingdders, there was not even a singlerge puppet paving the way for them. There were no devices like battering rams either. Due to Saleen¡¯s keen eye, Saleen managed to discover that a few teams were obviously powerful. These teams were hidden among the few thousand soldiers.


    ¡°I see that you are trying to take advantage of the chaos, heh heh.¡± Saleen snorted, ¡°Luckily I am at the city entrance. Using the few alchemical binocrs at one side of the wall, it will be very difficult to observe all the targets and profile of the enemies.¡±


    Within the three teams, there were holy masters who were at least at grade-5. Usually, a holy master of this standard would not follow the infantrymen to invade a city. These three holy masters concealed themselves very well and they did not even use divine spells to enhance their speed. Given their usual speed, they could cover a few hundred yards in the blink of an eye otherwise.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was an instinct, it did not even attract the attention of the holy masters. As Saleen observed the situation carefully, he whispered the positions of the three holy masters to the mages around him. These mages then disseminated the order into the battlements.


    At the core of the dozens of metal battlements was a magic tablet, it was just like the one Saleen had obtained from Raphael¡¯s magical tower. Atop each magic tablet was a three-dimensional image. The mages outside marked the targets, then the three magic disciples beside the magic tablet immediately produced three numbers.


    Behind each firing hole was a group of soldiers and each group of soldiers was paired with one magic disciple. There was one group who was assigned to a grade-1 mage. This mage immediately adjusted the angle of the alchemical crossbow, then he spotted the targets through the observing hole.


    This grade-1 mage swiftly altered the alchemical crossbow and locked the aim onto the holy masters. In every metal battlement there was a low grade disciple doing the same action. The uracy of an alchemical crossbow was extremely horrifying in the hands of a mage.


    The dozens of metal battlements fired arrows almost exactly at the same time. These arrows drew a red brilliance across the sky as it emitted a shrill sonic boom.


    Archbishop Nichs, who was situated at the rear, noticed this scene. His face turned ghastly. ¡°The enemy has so many mages? My surprise attack has failed.¡±


    Usually, the first wave of attack was used to sound out the enemy. Archbishop Nichs had concealed the three cardinal deacons, these people were as powerful as a grade-5 mage. By allowing the three cardinal deacons to breach the city entrance and open their divine scrolls, Nichs could then deploy the Red Bishops to mount an offensive. By tearing a hole in the city entrance, he could definitely destroy part of the city walls by ignoring the number of casualties.


    In many battles, the Holy See had employed such a method to execute surprise attacks. Nichs was baffled, he had specially instructed the three cardinal deacons to refrain from using any divine spells before reaching the city walls. How did the three of them get exposed?


    Everything was toote now. Through a pair of alchemical binocrs, Nichs noticed that there was a total of fourteen red streaks that created straight lines across the sky as they made a beeline for the three cardinal deacons.


    The speed of these alchemical arrows was too high, the arrowheads were all crafted from the thorns of grade-4 red krill. As long as one got hit an instantaneous divine spell would not be able to resist it.


    The scarier thing was that almost five-hundred alchemical arrows were fired from the other holes. They followed closely behind the fourteen red streaks after the red streaks wereunched. They were aimed at the three holy masters.


    There was a grand total of five-hundred and four alchemical arrows. Out of the blue, the three holy masters as well as the soldiers around them were uniformly engulfed in the middle.


    It was unavoidable!


    The value of these five-hundred and four arrows was surely more than ten-thousand gold coins, or even more. One barrage of arrows from Saleen only killed less than one-hundred soldiers. The three cardinal deacons instinctively released a defensive divine spell called the Shield of Holy Light. They then got thrashed into pulp.


    In this offensive, themanders knew who the main force was, but a sudden attack from the city entrance took the lives of three mighty holy masters. This was an extremely horrifying matter. The three holy masters had cast the Shield of Holy Light, but the arrows still managed to create dozens of cavities in their bodies.


    Nichs, who was observing from afar, was very heartbroken. At the same time, he was d that he did not deploy more holy masters to execute this mission. Even if there were more holy masters present, these over five-hundred alchemical arrows could not be blocked. Saleen intended to strike fear into the enemy with this attack, killing them in one hit.


    Only such magic disciples were able to control alchemical crossbows. Previously, the arrows required about three minutes of travel time. With only a distance of few hundred yards, well-trained soldiers could also reach the foot of the city walls within three minutes despite carryingdders. Usually, all the arrows would not be expended. That low grade mage in the middle rarely participated in battle because only a low grade mage could take precise aim at moving targets instantaneously and lock on to them. The remaining magic disciples had relied on the red streaks produced by his alchemical arrows. They could take aim swiftly and urately due to them.


    The alchemical arrows which gave off a red brilliance were used to help the other archers adjust their coordinates.


    The moment the three holy masters died the nearby Tanggsimanders lost their morale to attack simultaneously, but they continued leading the soldiers in the charge forward. This whole processsted for only a minute. The infantrymen finally reached the foot of the city walls with theirdders.


    The spirits atop the city entrance continued firing arrows. Since the soldiers only had wooden shields, they scaled the walls while resisting the arrows.


    The few hundred metal arrow chariots continued firing, causing a substantial loss of spirits. Diyabannersa then summoned more spirits to replenish the numbers. As a spirit king, he could summon an infinite number of low grade spirits. Saleen was surveilling the battle from the city entrance so Diyabannersa did not dare y any tricks. He guarded this portion of the city walls very thoroughly.


    The soldiers at the rear were originally taking shelter inside the stone houses, inteced cloisters, and bunkers. Seeing that the enemy had begun scaling the city walls, these soldiers began sending huge quantities of grass balls to the exterior. The nuclei of these grass balls were filled with rocks with many small openings. These openings were filled with magic burning powder.


    The grass balls were set aze and then tossed down the city walls. The moment they hit any soldier an intense fire would be ignited. The magic powder spewed outwards, staining the enemy, there was no way of extinguishing this fire.


    Nichs felt like vomiting blood, ¡°This city is way too rich.¡±


    It must be noted that magic powder was a substance which could not be employed inrge amounts even though it was not expensive. It was unlike oil. Oil could be produced by normal people, but the production of magic powder would require at least a high grade magic disciple.


    The invading soldiers were burned badly by the grass balls, but the worse thing was that thedders were all ruined. The soldiers at the rear could not even organize an assault. The spirits at the city entrance continued firing arrows and for the first time the expeditionary soldiers were forced to retreat.


    An offensive with almost three-thousand people was defeated just like that. Every soldier was wounded this time around while there were about fourteen-hundred corpses left at the foot of the city walls.


    Nichs understood that a war was a waste of money, ¡°The people in the city are way wealthier than I thought. This war cannot be perpetuated anymore, but can I retreat? If I retreat, punishment from the Holy See will await me.¡±

 Chapter 647: Flooding one with money (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 647: Flooding one with money (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen stared daggers at the Holy See¡¯s main forces who were situated more than five miles away, ¡°That old man in a red robe is the leader of this army, right? If I can send the two grade-9 sorcerers to conduct an offensive, I would have led the experts around me to deal with that fellow already. A pity though, the grade-9 sorcerers will only guard western town, I cannot let them settle down in Metatrin City. In the future, Metatrin City will be dominated by Sregl Ind.¡±


    Behind the main body of the expeditionary army was a team of five-thousand men. These five-thousand people were d in ck armor and they gave off a murderous aura. Saleen was very concerned about this five-thousand man team.


    ¡°The power of this team is simr to that of Lex¡¯s elite swordsman¡¯s camp. Other than the aspect of equipment, their offensive power might also rival that of Lex¡¯s swordsmen. There are a dozen high grade holy masters in this ck-armored army.¡±


    While observing, Saleen also noticed that there were three people in the ck-armored army who were asked to look for the old man d in a red robe. Saleen could not hear their conversation, but he noticed that the red-robed old men treated them with respect.


    At this point in time, Saleen realized that something was amiss. The powers of these three people might have even surpassed that of the red-robed old man. There was a characteristic disyed by one of them that Saleen found so familiar. Despite pondering in detail, Saleen could not recall anything. Saleen had no choice but to use the Figaro Form to deduce the way this person walked.


    After some calctions, Saleen felt goosebumps raising. The way this ck-robed man walked was ny percent simr to someone; Prince Safilos from the Holy Rock City.


    ¡°This person is no holy master, he is a Golden Grand Swordmaster!¡±


    Golden Grand Swordmasters were too rare in this world, but their offensive powers were definitely higher than that of a grade-9 mage. The restricted flying area above Metatrin City had too little restraint over a Golden Grand Swordmaster, a Golden Grand Swordmaster could easily ascend the height of the city walls before starting an onught atop the city walls.


    A Golden Grand Swordmaster was most vulnerable to a siege by grade-9 mages. Over long distances, a Golden Grand Swordmaster would not be able to outfly a grade-9 sorcerer. A grade-9 sorcerer might possess holy equipment or godly equipment. In a solo battle, a grade-9 sorcerer would be defeated by a Golden Grand Swordmaster. In the face of one, grade-9 sorcerers would surely choose to team up.


    ¡°Get Uncle Fellett!¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was peppered with urgency, Nailisi could detect the fear in Saleen¡¯s heart. ¡°All the battlements shall change into magic arrows,¡± Saleen gave a second order. ¡°Get Banchajanna over, Diyabannersa, get ready to take action,¡± Saleen immediately gave a third order. ¡°J... don¡¯t cherish your weapon. If any experts rush up to the city entrance, just let the Tears be destroyed.¡± At this point, Saleen¡¯s heart lurched, ¡°I actually wanted to invite Eleanor over, but Eleanor is nning to kill the three kings. The moment her skills get revealed, it will be impossible to kill the three kings already.¡±


    ¡°Narnia, return to the temple.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, I am not going back!¡± Narnia could detect the sense of catastrophe, she had never seen Saleen behaving so anxiously before.


    ¡°Listen to me, don¡¯t disrupt the morale of the army,¡± Saleen said sternly. ¡°Golden Grand Swordmaster! Golden Grand Swordmaster! If this ck-robed man is a Golden Grand Swordmaster, then... I have no choice but to spend money. I might not be able to defeat you, but I can flood you with money.¡±


    Back at the Holy See¡¯s army, the three ck-robed killers from the inquisition came before Archbishop Nichs, they then bowed reluctantly. They were also in a fix. Judging by the current situation, Archbishop Nichs could not conquer this city and he might also lose all his soldiers.


    ¡°Men, before us is Metatrin City. It is a pretty strong city, I...I¡¯m afraid I am powerless, should you guys take action now?¡± Nichs stammered, he was feeling unnerved.


    ¡°Archbishop, the battle has just begun and the situation over at the enemy¡¯s side isn¡¯t clear yet. If we attack recklessly, the wardens will suffer massive losses.¡± The three killers were speaking from the bottom of their hearts this time around. They also felt that it would be a challenge to invade this city. If there were one-hundred-thousand wardens present, they would naturally be confident. There were only five-thousand wardens and only twenty-five-thousand regr troops at the moment however.


    The remaining seventy-thousand people were made up of fanatic believers, that was why the battle couldst until now. If the Holy See wanted to ovee Metatrin City¡¯s defenses, it would be inadequate to only rely on faith.


    ¡°Okay, I will n another offensive. When the sun sets, the three of you should attack. What do you think?¡± Nichs made a demanding request. Unexpectedly, the three killers nodded.


    ¡°Archbishop, try to use the soldiers to tire the enemy. Once they are exhausted, the three of us will attack at the same time.¡±


    This conversation took ce before Saleen¡¯s eyes, but Saleen did not know how to interpret Tanggsinguage. It was impossible to know the contents of the discussion just by reading their lips. Saleen thought to himself, ¡°I will learn morenguages in the future, so I will know what others are talking about from afar. It will be easier to eavesdroppared to using wind magic.¡±


    Saleen gave some orders. At the moment, he was unwilling to disembark from the city walls. Judging by the looks of the enemy¡¯s general, there might be a siege.


    Among the three people, one was a Golden Grand Swordmaster while the other two might be mages or holy masters. Mages existed in the inquisition, but they rarely left purgatory. If these people left purgatory, they were likely to be ughtered by other mages.


    Fellett and his wife arrived at the city entrance soon after. Saleen dismissed the people around him, leaving only his confidantes. Then, he sat down across from Fellett and his wife and said, ¡°Uncle Fellett, Aunt Lanny, how many level-9 scrolls can you release consecutively?¡±


    ¡°Level-9 scrolls?¡± Fellett was momentarily stunned. Saleen quickly removed the White Crystal Ring from his finger, then handed it to Fellett.


    ¡°Wearing this, I can release four, then I will need at least an hour to regain all my mental strength. Your aunt can release two consecutively. If she releases three, we will lose the ability to protect ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Six level-9 spells should be sufficient. Uncle Fellett, Aunt Lanny, one of the enemies might be a Golden Grand Swordmaster. I have equipment which can only attack once and even a grade-10 expert will not be able to resist its attack directly. This equipment cannot be used to lock onto an enemy...it is simr to attacks such as the ancient magic cannon, it travels in a straight line.¡±


    When Fellett and Lanny first learned that the enemy might have a Golden Grand Swordmaster, they were startled. After discovering that Saleen had equipment which could kill a grade-10 expert, they were startled again. Saleen had delivered many surprises to them, but this time around, it was undoubtedly the most astounding.


    ¡°If he isn¡¯t killed, we will all die,¡± Saleen quietly dered.


    ¡°How much time do you need?¡±


    ¡°At most half a second, I only need him to freeze for half a second and I will be able to kill him,¡± Saleen answered with certainty. The power condensed in the n badge could be released instantly, but time was still needed to aim at the target. Half a second, Saleen needed half a second.


    As long as an attack was not level-9 magic, a Golden Grand Swordmaster could destroy it easily. Their actions would not even be slowed, let alone trapped or paralyzed. At least six level-9 spells were required to freeze a Golden Grand Swordmaster in their tracks.


    ¡°I will send Nailisi, Cuisi, and J to protect the two of you.¡± Saleen sent his strongest subordinates to the two of them. No one other than this couple could release so many level-9 scrolls.


    Saleen was willing to expend six level-9 magic scrolls, he was going to flood the enemy with money.


    Saleen still had to arrange for people to protect Fellett and his wife because casting so many level-9 scrolls in session would cause their mental strength to be emptied. A mage would not be able to cast magic without mental strength even if their magic chords were not depleted. In the event Fellett and his wife died after helping Saleen kill the Golden Grand Swordmaster, Saleen would have sustained huge losses.


    ¡°Sure.¡± Fellett knew the profiles of the people around Saleen. With Nailisi and Cuisi, coupled with a Silver Grand Swordmaster, Fellett and his wife would remain safe.


    Saleen handed six level-9 scrolls to them on the spot, then told Sika, ¡°Don¡¯t leave me, the other two people are depraved mages.¡±


    ¡°What about Diyabannersa andpany?¡±


    ¡°They aren¡¯t reliable,¡± Saleen answered briefly.


    Under such immense pressure, Saleen had steeled his mind to get rid of the three kings. When a true crisis struck, the three kings had actually turned into a burden. Saleen decided to deploy his strongest subordinates to protect Fellett and wife because he was afraid that the spirit kings might behave abnormally.


    Saleen had also prepared dozens of level-6 magic scrolls as a precaution. Most of the scrolls he had amassed over the years were nk, many of thepleted ones were actually brought out from Sregl Ind.


    The Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army continued attacking. The second wave still relied on the steel arrow chariots, using the arrow chariots to fire at the city entrance so as to suppress the arrows originating from there.


    Five-thousand soldiers changed into armor, then charged towards the walls of Metatrin City. This time around, the expeditionary soldiers did not usedders and there was no help from anyrge equipment either. This group of troops only wielded weapons and charged to the foot of the city walls.


    By the time these five-thousand men reached the foot of the city walls, one-thousand of them had already died under the barrage of arrows. Saleen did not even use the magic stone cannons. The soldiers donned lightweight metal armor in order to withstand the attacks from the bows. Saleen¡¯s spirits were usingrge bows, so the weight of the feather arrows was higher than the equipment used by a normal human. When fired, their prative ability was also very powerful.


    The soldiers who arrived at the bottom of the city walls used the steel thorns on their gloves to p the walls. They attempted to use their strength to help them scale the walls. The lower portion of the city walls were unusually smooth and there were no concave spots either. When the steel thorns contacted the walls, they simply fractured. The Tanggsi soldiers immediately changed into another pair of gloves which they took out from their leather pouches.


    The situation immediately changed. The new gloves worn by the soldiers had ayer of sticky fluid and there was animal mane within the fluid, allowing the gloves to possess strong adhesive ability. The front of the soldiers¡¯ boots were also thered with ayer of sticky fluid. All the soldiers then began scaling the slightly tilted city walls.


    Fireballs descended from the city entrance, but there were nodders this time around. Some soldiers fell off, but more soldiers continued ascending the walls. Unlike the previous time, the soldiers who got shot by the arrows did not fall off. The body of every soldier shed with a white radiance. Before they set off, they were already blessed with a divine spell, so they would not feel pain. As long as they did not die, they would climb the walls desperately.


    ¡°Whoever treats me ruthlessly, I will also treat them in the same manner.¡± Saleen had no hint of sympathy as he ordered Diyabannersa tomand the spirits to pour oil down the city walls. Thisyer of oil caused the city walls to be extremely slippery, but the unknown fluid on the soldiers¡¯ gloves could counter the oil. The soldiers remained stuck to the wall, they did not back down.


    ¡°Set it aze!¡±


    Immediately, from the structures behind them, mages released the Phoenix Spell. Phoenixes encircled, igniting the oil which was flowing down the city walls. The soldiers who were climbing the walls amidst the oil began burning at the same time.

 Chapter 648: Meaningless Deaths (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 648: Meaningless Deaths (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When one was being burned alive, the pain was unimaginable. That was the reason why all the records rted to hell in the Holy See¡¯s Ancient ssics described it as a fiery ce.


    All non-believers would have to be tortured by the mes of hell.


    The soldiers that were climbing the city wall were clearly believers of God. mes were spurting out from between the cracks in their armor. These soldiers continued climbing anyway. They were numb from pain and single-mindedly wanted to continue climbing for God.


    The city wall was thirty yards high. Even without the mes, it was not an easy task for the soldiers to climb the city wall sessfully. Once the kerosene started burning, the sticky liquid on the soldiers¡¯ gloves began to evaporate. More than one-hundred soldiers were about to reach the top of the city wall, but the sticky liquid on their gloves finally lost all effects and they fell back down again.


    The spirits of the dead on the city wall used bows and arrows as their weapons. A rain of arrows was shot by the iron arrow vehicles, shooting down all the spirits of the dead that had dared to venture out. The unlucky spirits of the dead that were shot in the skull and the mes of their souls would dissipate with an explosion and they would fall onto the ground. No one knew if they would return to the death dimension due to their serious injuries or if they would just die on Myers Maind.


    Saleen did not mobilize all his forces, at least he did not order all the catapults to destroy the iron arrow vehicles. He was not afraid of dragging out the fight. In fact, the longer he dragged, the less tricks the enemy would have up their sleeves. He would allow the enemy to hold onto some hope first, hence he did not even allow the mages to release war puppets to kill the foot soldiers beneath the city wall yet.


    The Tanggsi soldiers that were covered in mes began to reach the top of the city wall sessfully and fought with the spirits of the dead. The embrasure on the wall of Metatrin City was built very high. When the enemy shot their arrows at an angle, only the soldiers that revealed their heads would risk getting shot. Only by shooting in a lob would the people hiding behind the wall have a chance of being hit. This was when Saleen deployed heavy-armored soldiers to fight against the enemy.


    In actual fact, there were only about three-thousand spirits of the dead within a circumference of two miles. Their mainbat skills included archery and fighting with humans. Although their technique was terrible, their strength was on par with humans.


    There were few knights in Metatrin City mainly because the training for riding was difficult. The number of heavy-armored soldiers had never been low because the barbarians and Caucasus people did not require any training to battle in heavy armor. Most of the soldiers recruited by Saleen were those that already knew swordsmanship. He rarely recruited peasant soldiers.


    Saleen treasured these farmers very much. It was easy to learn how to nt seeds into the soil. In order for grain to be mass-produced, he would need farmers with at least a decade of experience, and magic fluid.


    Under Saleen, even ves could be professional soldiers.


    There were five types of heavy armors and the ones that Saleen had just deployed were soldiers fully d in metal armor. Such heavy armors were suitable for keeping the enemies at bay, but other than that, they were difficult to wear, bring around, take it apart, and construct. If they continued to stay on the city wall, these heavy-armored soldiers would be able to stop the enemy knights¡¯ charge.


    Full metal heavy armors would be able to stop normal crossbow arrows easily. Each soldier wielded a short de in the left hand and a short spear in the right. The moment Tanggsi soldiers climbed over the city wall, hundreds of heavy-armored soldiers charged forward to engage them.


    These soldiers did not need to conserve energy. With the help of the mages¡¯ potence spell, hundreds of soldiers ran at full speed. Even as they wore armors of more than fifty pounds and wielded metal short spears they crashed into the Tanggsi soldiers.


    The Tanggsi soldiers were wearing light armor. The impact alone ttened more than one-hundred of the Tanggsis soldiers that sessfully climbed over the city wall. It was as if they were a tsunami that fattened everything in its wake. With thunderous footsteps, hundreds of full metal heavy-armored soldiers charged past their enemies. They then steadied themselves and turned back to get ready to charge again.


    The Tanggsi soldiers that had managed to climb over the city wall were already burning in mes. Their vision was blurred and they were no match for the heavy-armored soldiers who had also been boosted with a Potence spell. It was no wonder. Saleen¡¯s side consisted of so many low-level mages and they were the defending side. Their city walls were thirty yards high and Saleen could suppress any of the enemy¡¯s spells or divine spells. If they could not even contain the enemy from climbing over the city wall while they were at full strength, then they would be too useless.


    Underneath the city wall, more than ten low-level holy priestsbined their efforts to cast Glorious Impact. A beam of white holy light shot violently towards the city wall. Momentarily, a passageway that was more than fifty yards wide opened and the mes that were burning on the city wall were extinguished by the holy light.


    The surrounding soldiers rushed towards these fifty yards of safety and climbed for their lives.


    The spirits of the dead that were guarding this stretch of fifty yards were having a tough time now. Although they could shoot arrows much faster than humans, they were also less urate. It was not surprising that low-level divine spells could extinguish fires. Even with the effect of Dante¡¯s Sequence on the city wall, the Tanggsis still screamed at the top of their lungs while charging under the holy light.


    Five-hundred yards away, the iron arrow vehicles were still shooting. More than ten of these vehicles had also adjusted their angle and began to shoot at a lob. By doing so, they began to pose more of a danger to the soldiers on the city wall. Saleen was aware of this, but did not activate the knights. He knew that heavy-armored soldiers would not be hit so easily, but it was much easier to hit knights due to theirrger surface area. Even if the arrows hit the warhorses instead of the knights, thetter could still suffer heavy injuries from the fall.


    More and more uninjured soldiers began to climb over the city wall, but were all stunned when they finally seeded. There was a ten yard wide passageway on the city wall. This passageway was wide enough for warhorses and chariots to travel on. Behind the passageway was a cluster ofplicated and strange buildings.


    There were watchtowers at intervals of every five yards. Underneath them was the ten yard wide passageway, but on top of them were embrasures on the sides. Every soldier that attacked the top of the city wall would have to watch out for crossbow arrows from both sides.


    Saleen saw that no arrows were shot out from the embrasures as the enemy consisted of only light-armored soldiers. More than ten low-level magesmanded war puppets to join the heavy-armored soldiers to engage the Tanggsi soldiers.


    Grand Bishop Nichs saw that his soldiers had managed to reach the top of the city wall and had upied an area that was fifty yard wide. He was pleased at first, but started frowning soon after. There was no way the enemy¡¯s defense would start crumbling so quickly. Regardless of how many soldiers managed to climb up the city wall through this fifty yard wide passageway, the area they upied did not expand.


    All the soldiers that had climbed onto the city wall were contained within these fifty yards. This was clearly a n to weaken their side.


    ¡°Kane, when will your soldiers join in the attack?¡± Grand Bishop Nichs sighed to himself and called the Tanggsi corp leader by a more intimate name even though the former¡¯s identity was far superior than thetter¡¯s.


    The corp leader put down his alchemy binocr and said to Nichs, ¡°Bishop, as you can see, the enemy¡¯s defense is tight and they are at full strength. Our arrow vehicles were ineffective and did not injure many of them. If we send out our main forces now, we will suffer heavy losses. It is better to wait until the enemy is tired out.¡±


    ¡°Kane, unless I have three-hundred-thousand men to attack from both sides and pressurize the enemy on a battle line of more than ten miles wide, the enemy will never be tired out,¡± Grand Bishop Nichs exined his concerns.


    There was no way there were lesser than fifty-thousand soldiers or ten-thousand residents in this city. All their information was wrong. If he wanted to take down this city, he would have to pin his hopes on the people from the supreme court. Unless he exhausted his own forces to a certain degree, those three fellows would only continue to watch from afar.


    ¡°Or else, we could request the Pope to send over high-level holy priests and heavy equipment.¡±


    Nichsughed bitterly and said, ¡°How far have we traveled? Twenty-thousand miles? Or was it twenty-five-thousand miles? Even if the Pope was willing to ede to our request, we do not have enough grain to survive till then.¡±


    The corp leader became speechless too. They were too far away from his own empire. If holy priests flew non-stop without eating or drinking, would they be able to travel two-thousand miles in one day? There was no way holy priests would be able to reach them in half a month even if they had been boosted by divine spells. He knew that their grain would onlyst them for four days. In the end, they could only depend on themselves.


    ¡°Won¡¯t those three fellows obey the Pope¡¯s order?¡± The corp leader could not ept it. He was still hoping that the people from the supreme court would attack first. Once the jailers start to attack, his own twenty-thousand soldiers would follow behind and they would stand a chance of breaking through the city gate.


    ¡°What can I do if they choose not to obey? I¡¯m only afraid that we will no longer be able to return to the Glorious ins. Kane, you have to be willing to sacrifice your soldiers¡¯ lives. Launch a big-scale attack tonight. I will discuss it with the three of them again.¡±


    Nichs¡¯ words were depressing and the corp leader replied furiously, ¡°My Lord, as a member of the Solomon family, we are not afraid to die in battle! Go and talk to the three of them. At ten pm tonight, I will rally my army tounch an attack. If they choose to watch from afar, I will never forgive them even if I¡¯m dead!¡±


    ¡°Hmm, go and collect the holy medicine and let your soldiers rest first. Perhaps we should dy for two more hours and attack at midnight instead.¡± Grand Bishop Nichs knew that even if they managed to enter the city, they would not have the upper hand in urban warfare. Based on the defense of the top of the city wall, there were more mages in this city than most of the other cities in Qin.


    What Nichs did not understand was that the way this city was built seemed to be a waste. The enemy could have used the same amount of resources to build ten cities of simr scale and even build up Broken de Pass to stop his attack. Instead, the enemy chose to concentrate all its resources on the white city instead.


    Of course, he would never know that Saleen built this city in order to protect the dimensional teleportation portal. After Jason arrived, he would open up the teleportation portal that would lead to the interdimensional space. The importance of this teleportation portal surpassed that of ten big cities. If the teleportation portal was not secured, mages that entered the interdimensional space would never be able to return.


    Saleen was even more confused than Nichs. On the city wall, he saw that at the rear of the enemy¡¯s armies were the main forces and the five-thousand strong ck-armored army. They had not made any moves. Those three terrifying fellows had returned amongst the ck-armored army and did notunch any attacks on the city wall.


    The attacks underneath the city wall never stopped. Were they trying to tire out his soldiers? With the number of soldiers he had, they would be able to rotate with each other to defend this two-mile wide city wall. Even if they fought for half a month, his soldiers would not be fatigued.


    Such tactics were ineffective against Saleen. The number of soldiers that could climb up to the city wall was few and far between. His mages could hide within the buildingspletely and support the soldiers and knights in front of them. If not for the fact that the enemy still possessed a very strong main force, Saleen would not even have to be there personally.

 Chapter 649: Meaningless Deaths (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 649: Meaningless Deaths (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    No matter how good Saleen was with his predictions, he could not understand these meaningless sacrifices. Why were these soldiers and that red-robed man doing this?


    To sacrifice so many lives on the battlefield, is that what religion was all about?


    To mages, every sacrifice deserved an equivalent reward. This world should exist in a bnce. These disciples only knew how to carry out orders; their so-called God¡¯s order.


    God said let there be light and so there was.


    Suddenly, Saleen understood why so many mages in the world were against the Holy See¡¯s rule. If the Holy See controlled the world, then the mages¡¯ heritages were destined to end.


    Mages were sceptical of everything, including Gods.


    ¡°Before nightes, let the mercenary soldiers take over the defense so that the second battalion can return,¡± Saleen gave the order somewhat wearily then said, ¡°Uncle Fellet, please stay here. Tonight, that fellow mayunch an attack. Our men will not be able to handle it.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± the Fellets smiled and replied. Although they felt very uneasy, Saleen had already given them six grade-9 magic scrolls, there was no harm in trying it out. If they could use it to kill a gold grand swordmaster, it would be immensely useful to their training in future.


    It was not difficult to advance as a sorcerer from grade-8 to grade-9 but a lot of time would need to be spent. The Fellets were still unaware of the Six Elements¡¯ Space, naturally they would not want to give up such a good opportunity.


    Within the expedition¡¯s range of attack, the second battalion retreated to be reced by the mercenary soldiers that were recruited most recently. As the walls of Metatrin City were simply too wide, the second battalion did note back down from the top of the city wall. They only went into the buildings on the city wall to remove their armor and start resting.


    Until the enemy deployed its main forces, Saleen was not going to allow his main forces to waste their energy guarding either.


    Night fell and the mes beneath the city wall lit up the sky. The attack was still ongoing, but even the mercenary soldiers could see that the way they were attacking was meaningless.


    The mercenary soldiers were not without their share of casualties. The enemy¡¯s iron arrow vehicles still managed to cause some damage and the mercenary soldiers¡¯ equipment was not as good as those of Saleen¡¯s second battalion. Even if the heavy-armored soldiers of the second battalion were struck by huge lobbed arrows, they would still be protected by their heavy armor most of the time. Even their helmets could shield them from alchemy crossbow arrows.


    The big arrows that struck the heavy-armored soldiers would only cause them light injuries as long as they did not prate the armor. These injured soldiers would be sent back to be healed by magic and would recover within a week.


    The mercenary soldiers¡¯ armor was only passable in shielding against normal arrows. Only the iron arrow vehicles could utilize the lobbed arrow shots five-hundred yards away, but there was minimal uracy.


    The proportion of casualties on both sides was one to ten. Enemy soldiers that sustained injuries but were in the city would not be able to receive healing from the holy priests. Saleen did not wish to capture any prisoners. Just like that, the mercenary soldiers¡¯ morale was stabilized.


    One death on his side was equivalent to at least ten deaths on the enemy¡¯s side. Mercenary soldiers could still ept battles like this. Usually, mercenary soldiers were used to outnumbering their enemies, especially if thetter was strong. A one to one death ratio was already morale-boosting.


    After a few hours of battle, less than five-hundred mercenary soldiers were killed, but more than three-thousand were injured. The injured soldiers were sent back down the city wall.


    After so many injuries and rotating more than ten small mercenary groups, the mercenary soldiers were very excited.


    The noble families in the city saw that the one-hundred-thousand strong army had been stopped by the city wall and the Lord of the city was dealing with things well. They felt more at ease. Over at the town hall, more than one-hundred noble families went to see Daniel. They wanted to send their own bodyguards to join in the battle.


    As manyws and regtions had yet to be set in Saleen¡¯s city, things were rather difficult for Daniel. These noble families resorted to writing a bond on the spot, promising that they would give up everything in order to help Metatrin City ovee this obstacle.


    Coincidentally, Saleen was also at the frontline of the battle and this gave the noble families even more confidence and trust.


    In Qin, by doing so meant that the Lord of the city was prepared to live and die with the city and definitely not flee. The noble families also had their own pride. They must have a certain amount of courage to not bow down to the Holy See or Holy Rock City. Since Saleen was not going to flee, they were more than willing to give him a helping hand.


    Saleen was waiting on top of the city wall. He knew that the enemy¡¯s main forces would start attackingte into the night.


    At ten pm, the magic clock on Saleen¡¯s bedside rang. He opened his eyes and saw Sika on alert by his side.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you sleep?¡± Saleen looked at Sika and felt assured and rxed.


    ¡°It will not be a long-drawn battle. I used alchemy binocrs to observe the enemy¡¯s camp. There were a few hundred people watching over the ce where they stored grain. They have already run out of food. The battle will end in another two to three more days,¡± Sika spoke very rationally and was totally different from her usual self.


    ¡°Oh? You know how to fight wars?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I am an Earth Priestess. In the past, an Earth Priestess could lead up to one-hundred-thousand Caucasus people. An Earth Priestess was much more powerful than all the officers below you,¡± Sika said smugly.


    ¡°Sika, even if I can kill the gold grand swordmaster, the other two fellows beside him are also extremely powerful. You will not be able to handle them alone...¡±


    ¡°Saleen, stop trying to convince me. I have brought two-hundred Caucasus people to watch over you. If those two mages dare toe near, I will fly over and kill them.¡±


    ¡°Sika, a normal mage will indeed be killed if theye near you, but mages of this grade may possess powerful equipment. Look, my n badge can kill that gold grand swordmaster. If they have a simr equipment then you will be in danger,¡± Saleen said nervously.


    Sika touched the bone ne on her neck and said, ¡°The one I am afraid of is that gold grand swordmaster. If you can kill him, I will not need to fear the two mages.¡±


    ¡°No matter what, don¡¯t take any risks and stay on the city wall. Stay near Nailisi and the rest. Even a grade-8 mage will not be able to kill all of us instantaneously.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, why don¡¯t you summon Eleanor?¡± Sika knew that it would be much easier to kill the gold grand swordmaster if they had Eleanor¡¯s archery.


    ¡°This... forget about it. Eleanor has another task at hand.¡±


    ¡°Master, you are awake!¡± Nailisi barged into the room. Behind were two other demons, but they were not Lu and Aiwa.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I ask you to protect the Fellets?!¡± Saleen scolded Nailisi. The Fellets would be the key to killing that gold grand swordmaster. Besides those two, no one else in the city would be able to cast grade-9 magic scrolls.


    ¡°Aini is here. He has set up death magic and has also summoned some creatures. The Fellets are safe. Master, I was worried about Sister Sika following you alone and that she might be in danger. Sika smiled. She knew that Nailisi did not care about the Fellets at all. She was only concerned about Saleen. Nailisi was also unwilling to go against Saleen¡¯s order directly so she used Sika as an excuse so Saleen would not be angry.


    ¡°Ha...,¡± Saleenughed a little. He knew what Nailisi was thinking.


    ¡°How is the attack under the city?¡± Sika focused on the important issue at hand. There were more things on her mind than Nailisi could imagine.


    ¡°The second battalion has taken over. The number of deaths and injuries have fallen.¡±


    ¡°How many have died so far?¡±


    ¡°Less than one-thousand, but more than ten-thousand enemies have been killed or injured. We have also taken some of them as prisoners,¡± Nailisi exined patiently.


    ¡°Why would we need prisoners?!¡± Saleen said furiously. These were disciples of the Lord of Glory and would have to be exterminated sooner orter.


    ¡°Judikaka wanted to study them and see if there is any way to remove the divine spells in their body.¡±


    ¡°Judikaka...,¡± Saleen¡¯s heart jerked. Whatever Judikaka was studying was most definitely not what he imed. Saleen guessed that there must be some simrities between how divine spells controlled these disciples and how his own bond controlled the Three Kings. Judikaka must be trying to find out how to escape from being controlled. Saleen must be more alert.


    He would not be able to do it himself or he would be going against the bond. It would be the same if he ordered the two grade-9 mages to take action. Only Nailisi would be able to do something about this.


    ¡°Master, I understand. There are not a lot of prisoners. I brought the two of them here to destroy the souls of these prisoners.¡± The two demons behind Nailisi smiled politely at Saleen.


    Saleen was pleased. Nailisi had finally matured. The way she thought was now more careful and she was no longer the imp that could be easily deceived. Even someone as cunning as Judikaka did not manage to take Nailisi by surprise.


    ¡°Let them go. Nailisi, you and me will go and observe the battle.¡± Saleen did not bother to wash his face and only cast a cleaning spell on himself. He then led Sika and Nailisi out of the room.


    The room was different from military camps. It was constructed ording to the guidelines of Dante¡¯s Sequence. There were only two levels in total. Underneath the two levels was the city wall. The top of the city wall and the foundation were fifty and sixty yards thick respectively. Such a thick city wall could no longer be considered as a normal wall. Every few hundred yards within the wall were empty warehouses.


    Even if the troops defending the top of the city wall were not rotated, they did not need to go down the city wall in order to find supplies and replenishments.


    There was only one window in the room where Saleen was observing the battle. His elemental eye allowed him to clearly see the movements in the enemy¡¯s camp, including the deployments of the holy priests. Returning back to this room again, Saleen¡¯s heart was filled with regret. If the magic towers had been built he would be able tomand everything from his temple and would not need to face the threat of the gold grand swordmaster directly.


    With thirty-six magic towers, even Joey or Fycro would not have been able to break through, much less the gold grand swordmaster.


    In the enemy¡¯s camp far away, mes were everywhere. Saleen saw that the expedition¡¯s main forces had yet to gather and knew that he did not wake up toote. The second battalion had taken over the defense again and the third battalion was also nearby. They were ready to provide reinforcements at any time.


    Approximately two-thousand barbarian archers and three-thousand Caucasus warriors equipped with flying axes and bows took up their defense positions. Everything was in ce to face the enemy¡¯s strongest attack.


    Why were the three powerful men of the ck-armored army unwilling to join in the attack? Saleen could not figure out why. He could not have imagined the seriousness of the internal conflict within the Holy See.


    After a few hours of attack, the expedition had already lost more than ten-thousand men, but the people of the supreme court chose to ignore this. If the battle continued at this slow pace, Saleen would lose at most twenty-thousand men while the entire expedition would be finished.


    ¡°It¡¯sing. Ask the third battalion to be prepared as well. All mages, begin to boost the officers with magic!¡± Just as Saleen thought, the main forces in the expedition¡¯s camp began to move. The soldiers began to put on their armor and the holy priests were boosting the warriors with divine spells. Many medium to small-sized equipment was being brought out. It looked like the enemy¡¯s main force was finally about to attack.

 Chapter 650: The kings’ mutiny (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 650: The kings¡¯ mutiny (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The three kings had arrived at the city entrance, they had assembled at the main gate of the western face. The three powerful spirits were studying the corpses of the Tanggsi people.


    More than one-hundred bodies were ced in the kings¡¯ room, dposing.


    The Soul me in Judikaka¡¯s eyes flickered violently, he proimed with much hatred, ¡°The souls of these people were already very frail to begin with, but some person has destroyed all their souls! We will never find out how the pope controls them!¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s ignore the Holy See¡¯s people and return to the death ne.¡± Banchajanna¡¯s voice was unfeeling.


    ¡°What nonsense, that contract...¡± Diyabannersa was outraged. Even though the contract had loosened, they would still face a bacsh if they returned to the death ne. The oue would be the same if Saleen was killed and Aini was kept alive. If Saleen got into trouble in front of him, he could not turn a blind eye to it.


    ¡°Judikaka, you are the smartest one, tell us, how long more do we have to put up with this?!¡± Banchajanna¡¯s current mood was even more explosive than Diyabannersa¡¯s. Even Banchajanna himself could not control the fluctuations in his mood.


    ¡°My calction abilities are restrained on this ne, I cannot decipher the future. Banchajanna, if we do not take into ount the time difference between both nes, we can regain our freedom in at most ten years.¡±


    ¡°Ten years is too long!¡± Banchajanna said with much frustration.


    ¡°It is too long, but if Saleen dies by ident before this, we will no longer receive any punishment. We will be fine as long as we do not witness his death,¡± Judikaka said in a low voice.


    ¡°That¡¯s easy, we will initiate an offensive, so it won¡¯t be regarded as avoiding the battle.¡±


    ¡°No, given Saleen¡¯s intellect, he would have deployed people to go forward if this method is effective. Don¡¯t you know anything? That woman called Cuisi is actually a supreme demon.¡±


    ¡°Supreme demon?!¡± Diyabannersa shrieked. If they were back in the death ne, they would notbe intimidated by a supreme demon. On Myers maind their powers were suppressed while a supreme demon could unleash all their might. In a solo battle, a supreme demon had the highest probability of destroying the power of a soul.


    ¡°That demon must have destroyed these souls!¡± Banchajanna bellowed.


    ¡°So, that means Saleen wants to kill us. Humph, the two of you should get ready to take action anytime. The moment the contract shows any signs of loosening, we will kill Saleen first, then kill Aini!¡± Judikaka¡¯s Soul me stabilized, his voice was abnormally serene.


    Banchajanna was having none of that, ¡°Why must Saleen be killed first and not Aini? Are you afraid of the contractual bacsh, so you want us to be the guinea pigs?!¡± he asked angrily.


    ¡°Guinea pigs? The three of us are guinea pigs. Humph, Aini and Saleen are almost the same in terms of offensive power, but Saleen¡¯s subordinates have begun congregating. If we kill Aini first Saleen will be on guard and we won¡¯t stand a chance anymore!¡±


    ¡°If only Master was here.¡± Diyabannersa said a sentence of despair. Neither Judikaka nor Banchajanna rebutted him. If Shann was present, he could obliterate Saleen andpany with just a finger. He would never have allowed the three of them to be treated so badly.


    For the past year, the three kings had been acting as coolies. Without the three kings aiding the development of the city, a huge city like this would require at least ten years to be constructed. What was more annoying was that the foundation of some buildings required huge rocks weighing tens of thousands of pounds to be piled up and the three kings could only move these rocks after reverting to their original forms.


    Being the best experts from the death ne, the three kings had no choice but to build their own houses and they were acting as the lowest-skilled coolies. They had long hated Saleen andpany to the core.


    At the same time, the three kings had begun eyeing Metatrin City. If they seized this city and summoned huge numbers of high grade spirits over, then they could totally settle down in the Myers maind. They could even open a gigantic channel to obtain an endless stream of soul power, allowing their powers to be upped by a notch and negating the suppression brought about the nar rules.


    The expeditionary army did not deploy the main forces, but the frequency of attacks had increased. The attack strategy had also changed.


    The steel arrow chariots had changed their arrows into lighter arrows. The arrow chariots fired in a scattered manner, putting pressure on the infantrymen at the city entrance. More low grade holy masters were woven into the formation of soldiers, approaching the city walls and extinguishing the fire at the lower portion of the walls. The invading soldiers had also equipped themselves with shields to protect the holy masters. At the moment they no longer concealed the positions of the holy masters.


    The retaliation from the city entrance immediately became sharper as Saleen gave his orders without hesitation. One-sixth of the trebuchets facing the frontal were employed, their mission was to destroy at least half of the steel arrow chariots. The steel arrow chariots were only five-hundred yards away, they could cause substantial damage to the city entrance.


    More than one-hundred burning magic stone cannons descended from above. The mages at the city entrance calcted thending points as the disciples who were controlling the trebuchets swiftly adjusted the firing angle and the amount of power to be drawn from the magic nuclei.


    The range of a magic trebuchet was up to five miles, but Saleen did not allow the trebuchets to attack enemies who were farther away. By tossing the magic stone cannons from such a short distance, it would be difficult for the enemy to deduce the position of the magic trebuchets. The moment this order was given, the trebuchets began unleashing their capability. Humongous rocks flew across the sky,nding on the enemy¡¯s formation of crossbows.


    No matter how tough steel was it also had a limit. After dozens of rounds of barrage, one-fourth of the steel arrow chariots had been smashed. The expeditionary army could not allow the chariots to assemble at the empty spaces though because the soldiers in the city had calibrated their angles and were guarding the main entrance tightly.


    The scatter shots by the steel arrow chariots lost their might in that instant, they could only suppress two sides. Saleen¡¯s city walls were different from others though. The ten yard wide passageway at the front was easily broken, but the structures at the back were basically impermeable to any arrows. The deployment of manpower at the city entrance could take ce within the ramp.


    Within a Tanggsi legion, one group consisted of five-thousand men and five groups formed a legion. That meant that there were twenty-five-thousand people. The main forces gathered at the rear, deploying sieging equipment. Each wave of cannon fodder was made up of five-thousand men advancing towards the city walls.


    At this point in time, Saleen could not cken. The trebuchets at the western face were split into five phases. Each phase couldunch hundreds of scattered cannons. On average, an attack took ce every five minutes.


    A magic stone cannon was not considered to be heavy, but it had a high lethality because each stone cannon had been refined by a mage. This defensive method employed by Saleen required a huge quantity of stone cannons, so its depletion was high. The reserves in the city could not defeat all the enemies.


    In the assault by five-thousand troops, the magic trebuchets only killed about one-thousand people. If these one-thousand people were rescued, they could still return to the battlefield after being treated by divine spells, unless their limbs were totally broken.


    Thousands of people scaled the city entrance, it was impossible to stop their progress just by relying on the spirit archers. The archers within the mercenaries were deployed, they nted themselves within the spirits and fired arrows downwards.


    Many Tanggsi soldiers were pierced by feather arrows, then they retaliated against the city entrance. Their crossbows could only fire one arrow, so the soldiers would toss them aside after usage. The mercenaries did not have the time or bravery to take proper aim, they simply fired blindly.


    At the western city walls, there was a small gate at every one-mile interval. The gates on both sides suddenly burst open. A team of cavalrymen, enveloped by war puppets, charged towards the infantrymen at the foot of the city. This team of cavalrymen ignored the consumption by the puppets, it weaved through the infantrymen. Wherever their horse-killing swords went, limbs would fly about haphazardly.


    Saleen¡¯s calctions were right, the enemy did not deploy any cavalrymen, there were not any light cavalrymen either. The two teams of cavalrymen passed by each other, tearing the enemy¡¯s infantrymen apart. They did not turn around, they simply rushed back to the city gates.


    The enemy immediately fortified their defenses. Heavy infantrymen nked either side. If the city gates opened again, these heavy infantrymen would charge towards the gates. Even if they could not breach the gates, they could prevent the cavalrymen from fleeing and the cavalrymen would die outside the city.


    This round of assault by Saleen exterminated more than one-thousand enemies. The moment the heavy infantrymen appeared, he immediately got the trebuchets to adjust their firing angle, executing a nket-type assault against the heavy infantrymen.


    The expeditionary army would conduct the decisive battle tonight, it would be meaningless to conserve the magic stone cannons. By attacking in this fashion, Saleen could at most hold out for two days before all the stone cannons in the city were fully depleted.


    Saleen even deployed Truman¡¯s magic cannon to fend off the assault at the western gates. This magic cannon attacked the enemy¡¯s main forces, if they were that red-robed old man might even be killed.


    Saleen did not want to reveal the presence of this magic cannon though, ¡°The next time the enemy conducts a campaign, they would surely attack from both sides. When warships appear at sea, it will then be the time for the magic cannon to unleash its power.¡±


    It was easy for this magic cannon to kill holy masters, but difficult for it to handle a Golden Grand Swordmaster. If it was revealed the losses would outweigh the gains. The real enemy was the Golden Grand Swordmaster within the ck-armored army and the two sorcerers.


    At the stroke of midnight, the Holy See¡¯s army suddenly increased its attack frequency. Soldiers swarmed forward, there was zero concern for the casualties. Saleen¡¯s trebuchets could not keep up with this frequency. An attack every five minutes was too slow since there was only a three-mile distance.


    The soldiers who had been blessed with divine spells charged forward crazily. Arriving at the foot of the walls, they climbed up in a berserk manner. Under the radiance of the fire, tens of thousands of people were smashed into pulp by the magic stone cannons. Feather arrows had prated their bodies and then they were set aze by the oil which had been poured down the city entrance.


    Behind all these cannon fodder soldiers, the main forces of the Tanggsi Empire began moving. More than one-hundred steel war chariots were pulled by gigantic puppets protecting the soldiers as they charged towards the city walls. These steel chariots were not battering rams, there were no metal horns at the front to break down doors. These chariots were five yards tall, they could protect the hundreds of soldiers traveling inside.


    Pulled by the gigantic puppets, these chariots transported the heavy infantrymen of the main body to the foot of the city walls. The magic stone cannons descending from the sky could not destroy these steel war chariots.


    Seeing this scene, Saleen felt regretful, ¡°If only Lex¡¯s Metal Titan had recovered. If the Metal Titan was released outside the city, it could tten all the war chariots and the people inside wouldn¡¯t survive.¡±


    Firing holes in the fixed battlements on the city entrance were opened immediately. Dozens ofrge alchemical arrows were fired, striking a few puppets urately. These few puppets, who were dozens of yards tall, wavered. They did not copse though, they continued trudging forward.


    ¡°Damn it. Mages, prepare your scrolls and get the barbarians and Caucasus people to prepare their axes. The enemy¡¯s heavy infantrymen are approaching!¡±


    Saleen did not think that the heavy infantrymen could not scale the city walls because these people had been blessed with divine spells. They were just like his own heavy infantrymen who could run as fast as cavalrymen and cause massive impact.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Judikaka? Get them to assist in the defense of the main gate!¡± Saleen knew that the normal troops of the second camp would not be able to resist the attack by the enemy¡¯s regr soldiers this time around. ¡°The real battle has just begun! I have forced the expeditionary army into a corner. They must aplish their objective at one go. This battle would thus decide the oue of the war.¡±

 Chapter 651: The kings’ mutiny (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 651: The kings¡¯ mutiny (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In a field battle, heavy infantrymen were always used as the main force to deal with heavy cavalrymen. When heavy infantrymen were sent to invade a city, equipment would be a problem. A few nations could organize an army, with soldiers above the standard of a swordmaster, to invade othernds.


    When a person cultivated the Sword Aura to a swordmaster¡¯s standard, their Sword Aura could be released from their body and be attached to equipment. Examples included armor, swords, or even feather arrows. Even if a swordmaster donned heavy armor, they could still leap to insane heights.


    Usually, a high grade swordmaster who was one grade lower would only possess strength which was slightly higher than that of a normal human and the duration of sustaining this strength would be longer. Unless magic armor was donned, a swordsman with heavy armor only had a sustained duration of between one to six hours, ording to their grades.


    Currently, heavy infantrymen had begun appearing in the midst of the cannon fodder who were charging towards the city walls. The heavy infantrymen radiated brilliance, they had obviously been forcefully blessed with divine spells, their speed and strength had been boosted by dozens of times.


    For the first time, Saleen saw that heavy infantrymen were running as quickly as cavalrymen. Even though the distance was only about a mile, this scene was still pretty horrifying. Saleen¡¯s heavy infantrymen, who were battling at the city entrance, could not travel at such a high speed. This skill of increasing a human¡¯s speed forcefully would deal severe damage to their life.


    So what if these soldiers were injured? This time around, the Holy See had spared no effort, it wanted to tten Metatrin City. They had no qualms sacrificing all the expeditionary troops.


    Only holy masters above grade-4 could cause such an effect. The Holy See¡¯s army had begun employing intermediate grade holy masters and they were used inrge numbers.


    At this point in time, Saleen started to regret that he did not produce high level magic armor in huge quantities. ¡°If mymanders are wearing high level magic armor, then my orders can be ryed to everybat unit immediately.¡±


    Saleen could only order all the battlements to rise up and fire the alchemical arrows at the same time as the fixed battlements. Fortunately for Saleen, he had obtained all the red krill shells during his first hunt, then made them into equipment. Saleen had made the thorns of the red krill into the arrowheads for the alchemical arrows


    Even though red krill were a rtively weaker grade-4 magic beast, their strongest attack was the thorn. The material of this part made them worthy of beingbeled as grade-4 magic beasts. Even if arrowheads made from these thorns were selling for dozens of gold coins people were still willing to purchase them.


    Such materials were more durable than metal. As long as the crafting technique was superior, the arrowhead would possess massive prative ability. Red krill relied on this thorn to survive in the ocean. When tens of thousands of red krill used their thorns to attack simultaneously even a grade-9 magic beast would have to go into hiding.


    Even Holy Rock City could not be as prodigal as Saleen, each thorn was maximized and it was crafted into three or four arrowheads. Saleen had allocated these over three-hundred-thousand alchemical arrows to the five camps. The city walls over at the western face were given over one-hundred-thousand of these arrows.


    That was what Saleen meant by using money to flood the enemy.


    When such alchemical arrows were used they could still be recycled and used repeatedly, but they were much cheaper than magic scrolls. Of the battlements at the city entrance, those who could be raised and lowered were utilizing miniature alchemical crossbows. Since the fixed battlements possessed strong defensive power, intermediate andrge alchemical crossbows were installed in them.


    Since the enemy had intensified their offensive, Saleen disyed his true techniques.


    These alchemical crossbows were urate. At the same time, over one-thousand arrows flew out from the city entrance. Saleen had held back certain techniques in this attack. If the enemy¡¯s holy masters tried to fly, Saleen would have more alchemical crossbows awaiting them.


    Before Lex left, the majority of equipment she had crafted for Saleen were alchemical crossbows. Saleen had contributed a huge quantity of magic nuclei because of this. Now was the time to receive rewards. Saleen¡¯s alchemical crossbows were almost fifty percent urate, these over one-thousand arrows killed more than five-hundred heavy infantrymen simultaneously.


    Tanggsi¡¯s heavy infantrymen donned white steel armor. Their helmets were crafted as a whole, so an ax might not be able to slice it open. Each heavy infantryman held a circr metal shield in their left hand. These heavy infantrymen were agile. Sensing that arrows were approaching, they actually reacted in time. They had used the circr shields to protect their vital organs beforehand.


    At this moment, the thorns of the red krill unleashed a massive function; pration.


    It was as though Saleen had tossed tens of thousands of gold coins down the city walls. There was a chain of alluring sounds. The circr metal shields and white steel helmets were as weak as paper in the face of the alchemical arrows.


    At this point in time the magic arrays around Saleen became fully activated, he could finally interact with the mages stationed in the battlements. These battlements were extremely crucial. With the battlements around, Saleen would not have to care about the enemy¡¯s offensive. One-thousand years ago, using one¡¯s physical body to resist magic equipment had already been proven to be a very stupid idea.


    Even though the sacred knights were very mighty, they were also disintegrated before Holy Rock City. Legend had it that the armor of the sacred knights contained the ability to fly. Long ago Holy See only utilized experts who were above the standard of swordmasters, there were no weaklings within the army. Even so, the walls of Holy Rock City formed a natural moat.


    The moment the magic clock sounded, all areas within a radius of one-hundred miles would be inside the attack range, there were no exceptions.


    Saleen did not have a magic clock, but he possessed a substantial amount of magic beast materials. He was also willing to use them.


    Red krill was a non-toxic magic beast, its thorn was the sole attack method. Its attributes were categorized based on the power of ability, they were pration, tearing, and healing prohibition. After the enemy¡¯s defenses were breached, the remaining two attributes could then cause a greater effect. The length of a red krill never exceeded one and a half yard. An average adult red krill was only one yard long. The red krill with the longest lifespan could grow to one and a half yards. Some magic beasts in the ocean were easily more than one-hundred yards in length and onlyrger warships could survive in the Frozen Sea. Without these abilities, it would be impossible for the red krill to reproduce in the Frozen Sea.


    The wounded heavy infantrymen were basically crippled. Their wounds were torn more than half a foot open, the radiant holy light could not heal these wounds. Blood gushed out profusely. Over two-hundred soldiers copsed sessively. The injured soldiers who actually continued advancing were only grazed by the alchemical arrows.


    Saleen had installed quite a number of battlements, but the loading speed of an alchemical crossbow was lower than that of a normal crossbow. After each shot, reloading such a mighty alchemical crossbow would take up about three minutes. Saleen split the barrage of arrows into waves, but he could only release a wave of arrows every half a minute. He would not be able to set aside alchemical crossbows to deal with enemies who could fly otherwise.


    Saleen was very worried that the enemy possessed flying equipment and could transport their soldiers directly to the city walls. That was why he set aside half of the alchemical crossbows to handle such enemies.


    Arrows were fired every half a minute. Due to high uracy the heavy infantrymen copsed like chopped chives. Cheers came from the city entrance, originating from the brave mercenaries who didn¡¯t retreat. The second camp was more disciplined, it remained silent. The cheers from the mercenaries caused the second camp to be very exhrated though.


    During the first half of the day, enemies who were struck by arrows could still sprint swiftly ahead and scale the walls, exhausting the second camp. This time around, the attack from the city entrance made the injured enemies unable to stand up anymore. The uracy was horrifying.


    ¡°It¡¯s great to be rich!¡± Saleen sighed. If other people were guarding the city, they would have suffered a nervous breakdown long ago, given the Holy See¡¯s attack frequency. Saleen had simply spent a few thousand gold coins and his soldiers¡¯ morale was lifted.


    Each attack cost tens of thousands of gold coins, so the entire battle would consume a few million gold coins. Saleen did not give a hoot though. As long as he achieved the final victory, most of the equipment could be retrieved and repaired for future use.


    Saleen was jubnt while Archbishop Nichs had suffered a tragedy. He wanted to create some opportunities for the main body. Unexpectedly, less than one-thousand heavy infantrymen remained by the time the five-thousand strong team arrived at the foot of the city. Saleen had used more than ten-thousand alchemical arrows to get rid of over four-thousand strong enemies.


    The cruxid in the fact that this was a defensive battle. Each alchemical crossbow had long marked hundreds of coordinates across the defensive region beyond the city. The mages simply had to calcte the enemy¡¯s running speed before designating thending zone of the arrows and the uracy would be up to about fifty percent.


    The massive lethality of the red krill arrows caused the heavily wounded soldiers to die quickly. Consequently, it dealt a tremendous shock to the enemy.


    It must be noted that the cost of production of a spirit archer¡¯s bow was only a dozen copper coins. In the aspect of the cost of production, both items had a difference of thousands of times.


    Dozens ofrge rocks flew from the rear,nding in Metatrin City. They hade from Saleen¡¯s trebuchets to deal with the steel monsters who were invading the city and the steel arrow chariots. The expeditionary army had seized a window of free period to deploy dozens of reassembled trebuchets.


    These trebuchets were very inurate, but they still possessed a certain degree of lethality. The houses in the city were extremely sturdy, but a number of horses and ves were crushed by thoserge rocks. Saleen had already instructed the ves to enter a fortress located outside the city. If the enemy breached the city gates the ves would hold the fort for a while. If the ves killed anyone they would receive rewards and if they killed three people they would regain their freedom. Those who survived after killing more than five enemies would be able to join Metatrin City.


    The Holy See had cannon fodder, but so did Saleen. Saleen had purchased ves. The lousier ones were sent to dig mines, while those who remained were people whom Saleen was considering recruiting. The only way out for these people was to fight for Saleen.


    After consecutive charges by the expeditionary army someone finally managed to breach the city entrance. It was not because Saleen had given the enemy a chance, but because there were simply too many enemies. The alchemical crossbows were firing too slowly. The bows had low lethality despite a high firing speed, unless every archer was like J or Eleanor.


    At the city entrance, Banchajanna¡¯s body expanded swiftly, upying the distance spanning two passes. The Soul me in his pupils flickered vigorously, then Judikaka eximed, ¡°Banchajanna, don¡¯t go berserk!¡±


    ¡°Mm!¡± Banchajanna responded gravely. He swung his two arms at the front, striking dozens of heavy infantrymen who had climbed up the city entrance. The short axes wielded by the heavy infantrymen left streaks of mes on Banchajanna¡¯s bones, but did not cause any real damage.


    Judikaka felt that something was amiss, Banchajanna seemed like he could not keep his emotions in check. He was going to attack Saleen¡¯s subordinates it seemed.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t the right time to attack. The Holy See¡¯s men are invading the city, even if I can be rid of Saleen¡¯s and Aini¡¯s control and the contract doesn¡¯t deliver any bacsh, the three of us will fight to our deaths with the Holy See. The Holy See will not care which side we are on. To a believer, death mages have to be burned to death, not to mention genuine spirits.¡±


    Banchajanna controlled the frustration in his heart. As his six arms swung about, they had already mistakenly injured two warriors from the second camp. Everyone stayed away from Banchajanna¡¯s attack range, only the soldiers at the foot of the city did not understand the situation. The soldiers actually concentrated their efforts andunched an offensive against Banchajanna.

 Chapter 652: Water Puppet (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 652: Water Puppet (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Banchajanna, control yourself!¡± Judikaka was anxious. Choosing to escape Saleen¡¯s control at this moment would leave him vulnerable to attacks from both sides.


    He was aware of how powerful those metal watchtowers were. Unless the three of thembined efforts, they would not be able to destroy it quickly enough. Besides, the arrows shot out from the watchtowers would criss-cross each other. No matter how powerful he was, he would not be able to destroy all the arrows in his path.


    Those alchemy arrows were troublesome. He would have no fear if they were in the death dimension. There his powers had been suppressed to grade-8 and he would not be able to handle ten-thousand arrows at one go.


    The worst thing was that Saleen still had a silver grand swordmaster by his side. That was his real foe.


    Banchajanna had already revealed his original body. The soul me in his eyes turned ck-purple in color. Even Diyabannersa, who was usually too simple-minded, sensed that something was wrong.


    Saleen was terrified. He could see too many things through his elemental eye. He could see that after Banchajanna reverted back to his original form, although he was still killing the enemy, his soul me had already transformed a few times consecutively. It was clear that he was struggling to break free from the bond¡¯s control.


    Saleen quickly looked away and found that Judikaka and Diyabannersa did not have simr transformations. Only Banchajanna¡¯s soul me showed a crack simr to how a piece of porcin breaking. Within the crack was images of the bond¡¯s magic words being broken. These images were made from elements. If Saleen did not possess the elemental eye, he would not have been able to see it so clearly.


    Saleen was even more furious than Judikaka. Judikaka was only worried about being attacked by everyone, but Saleen was worried that the gold grand swordmaster would appear at this moment. All would be lost if he did.


    Banchajanna might be so confused that he would mistake friends for foes and start attacking anyone. On the other hand, the gold grand swordmaster was very sharp. He would notunch an attack if Banchajanna staged a rebellion on the top of the city wall. He would stay out of the way so that Banchajanna had more space to create chaos.


    Saleen was confident in killing Banchajanna, but if he used the grade-9 magic scroll, who would deal with the gold grand swordmaster?


    Naturally, wealth had its benefits, but sometimes it could not solve everything. Saleen looked bitterly at what was happening before his eyes. He had thought that he would no longer have to take risks personally again, but now that he had Metatrin City, he had no choice. His teacher did note so he was alone. He had many low-level mages, but they would not be able to defeat one gold grand swordmaster.


    Saleen had no wish to understand why he did not attack immediately. He only knew that if anything unexpected happened on his side, the gold grand swordmaster would pounce on the opportunity immediately.


    ¡°Sika, Nailisi, after I kill the gold grand swordmaster and lose consciousness, please protect me,¡± Saleen reminded gently.


    ¡°Master, what about Banchajanna...,¡± Nailisi could see that something was amiss.


    ¡°I will settle it myself. Once the Three Kings lose one scepter, they will just be a couple of grade-8 spirits of the dead.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, go ahead. If I am not able to protect you, we will both...,¡± Sika summoned her magic beast skeleton even as she was speaking. This magic beast skeleton was six yards tall, but its tail alone was eight yards long. The skeletal wings on both sides had more or less recovered and even grown an additional yard. It would be able to fly even better now.


    Sika gently caressed the skull of this skeleton and said, ¡°This is my battle soul. It will protect you together with me.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so gloomy. I am only worried about those two grade-8 mages. After containing the gold grand swordmaster, Uncle Fellet and Aunt Lanny will no longer have any strength left and will need to be protected by Cuisi and J. I can only depend on both of you now,¡± Saleen lightly tapped the second cbash on his waist as he spoke.


    This Shenhe of Saleen¡¯s had already been refined into a water puppet. A stream of water shot out from the cbash, swirled one round in the air andnded, bing a transparent puppet in human shape.


    Saleen sighed and said, ¡°I had wanted to use thister. Too bad, I don¡¯t have enough time.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s left hand pressed onto this transparent water puppet. The puppet was very beautiful and was almost entirely transparent and lightly shimmering with blue light. After Saleen¡¯s left hand pressed onto it, green-colored life strength entered the water puppet and countless magic words began to move around being absorb.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand began to shrink. He quickly infused the energy from the leaf of the Tree of Life into the water puppet¡¯s body.


    Bones began to appear within the water puppet¡¯s body. These bones were different from those of Saleen¡¯s. Although they were made up of the water element, they were much stronger. The strength of these bones was dependent on magic. Once the magic power dissipated, it would return to the form of water. There was no turning back for Saleen¡¯s loss of bones.


    The body shape of this water puppet expanded slightly before shrinking back again to maintain at the same height as Saleen. Internal organs, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, and tendons were all growing rapidly at the same time. In less than a minute, the water puppet was already growing skin.


    Nailisi covered her mouth with a shocked expression on her face. The skin on the water puppet had yet to grow fully, but she could already tell that the water puppet would look exactly like Saleen with the same aura. If she had not been bonded to Saleen with their souls, she would have mistook this puppet to be Saleen.


    Sika felt faint. She could tell the difference between the water puppet and the real Saleen. The reason was that as the water puppet was not wearing any clothes, she was able to detect the difference in smell on the water puppet and the real Saleen too. There was a smell of freshness on the water puppet, like a freshly bloomed flower that had not beenplicated by other matters.


    There was a smell of masculinity on Saleen. Indeed, Saleen was no longer a child. Ever since Saleen and Sika became intimate, Sika¡¯s nose became sharper and could smell the hidden desire on Saleen¡¯s body. From the point of view of mages, these wereplicated elements secreted by the body during mating.


    Saleen took out a set of magic robes and passed it to the water puppet. It took the robe and put it on.


    ¡°Master, can it... talk?¡±


    ¡°I can talk,¡± the water puppet answered Nailisi directly.


    ¡°Amazing, I want to touch it!¡± Nailisi stretched out her fingers and pressed them onto the water puppet¡¯s face. It felt like a human¡¯s face and was warm like one as well. Nailisi¡¯s fingernail slid behind the puppet¡¯s ear and the skin was cut, dripping a few droplets of blue-colored blood.


    ¡°Nailisi, stop fooling around!¡± Saleen reprimanded. The water puppet remained calm and did not react at all.


    ¡°Master, if the puppet is supposed to be disguised as you, then its blood needs to be changed to a red color.¡± Nailisi sucked her finger and drank the blue blood. The taste was not bad and it contained elemental power.


    ¡°There is no need to waste energy,¡± the water element replied with a smile.


    ¡°Master, what if this fellow tries to seduce Sister Sika while you are not around?!¡± Nailisi asked a strange question.


    ¡°There is no need to waste energy,¡± the water element replied with a smile again.


    Saleen was relieved. He did not possess a lot of energy from the Tree of Life and he used it to make the water puppet to look like him. Nailisi¡¯s question might be odd, but Saleen actually shared the same concern as well.


    The water puppet added on, ¡°Unless requested by Saleen.¡±


    Sika growled and prodded the ground with the cudgel in her hand. The water puppet stopped talking again. It was as if he really wanted to conserve energy and would not spare any on unnecessary actions and words.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not waste time, Nailisi.¡± Saleen saw that the crack in Banchajanna¡¯s soul me was bing bigger.


    ¡°One more question. Why do you not call Saleen by ¡®Master¡¯ but by his name instead?¡± Nailisi was a demon. She seemed to have figured out something, but still wanted to find out personally.


    ¡°I am only a part of Saleen, I...,¡± the water puppet continued with a tinge of sorrow, ¡°I don¡¯t have a soul.¡±


    Nailisi was finally certain that this water puppet that was filled with life strength was ultimately just a piece of equipment and not real life.


    Saleen took off the crystal ring on his finger and gave it to the water puppet. He turned his head and said to Nailisi, ¡°He can use all my abilities and canmunicate with me telepathically. If we are too far apart from each other, he will revert back to the Shenhe.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Nailisi bowed her head. Even though this water puppet was not a real living thing, it was still very powerful and possessed the same abilities as Saleen. If Saleen advanced into a grade-9 mage, this puppet would also possess the abilities of a grade-9 mage. Its only weakness was that it could not be too far from Saleen. Saleen did not mention the distance, but it should not be further than within Saleen¡¯s sight.


    ¡°Nailisi, can you handle Judikaka on your own?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Diyabannersa as well?¡±


    ¡°If I revert back to my original form, Sika and I will definitely be able to kill the two of them. Master, you have to promise to kill Banchajanna first!¡± Nailisi was fully aware of how terrifying it could be when the Three Kings¡¯ scepters werebined together. This was also why she had wanted to wait for the winged skeleton to return first before taking action.


    Since Saleen has given the water puppet his crystal ring, there was still a high chance that Banchajanna could be killed by crystal finger. As long as the three scepters did note together, Nailisi would not need to worry about a grade-8 spirit of the dead. As Nailisi possessed more and more abilities, she became less and less restricted by Saleen¡¯s grade.


    Sika pped her hands and fifty Caucasus people entered the room. They were taken aback when they saw the water puppet. None of them made a sound in front of Sika though.


    ¡°All of you will protect Saleen with your lives. Saleen shall not be harmed at all,¡± Sika pointed at Saleen.


    ¡°Yes!¡± The Caucasus warriors replied with determination. They knew that this mage was the priestess¡¯ lover. Whether or not the priestess would be able to produce an offspring in future would depend on this man¡¯s abilities.


    ¡°Go, and bring along Sika and Nailisi,¡± Saleen said to the water puppet.


    ¡°Yes.¡± The water puppet nodded. Even the smallest actions were no different from Saleen.

 Chapter 653: Water Puppet (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 653: Water Puppet (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen hid in the room and patiently observed what was happening outside. He was not worried about the Three Kings, he was only worried that the gold grand swordmaster would suddenly rush up. Now, the gold grand swordmaster was three miles away and the five-thousand strong ck-armored army was ready to march off. If the gold grand swordmaster wanted to, he would be able to reach the city wall in half a minute. Nothing would be able to slow him down, not even alchemy arrows.


    The gold grand swordmaster was not a magic beast, but even his agility was not something that mages could hope to surpass. He could fly faster than most sorcerers and his burst of speed over short distances was something that even grade-9 sorcerers would not be able to match.


    The only thing the gold grand swordmaster feared was a grade-9 sorcerer leaving behind a magic imprint on him then chasing for the kill. If a few grade-9 sorcerers were able to determine the gold grand swordmaster¡¯s location, after a long chase, the gold grand swordmaster¡¯s flying ability would notst as long as a sorcerer.


    Saleen was not looking at the top of the city wall, but Nailisi and Sika were extremely anxious about it. Although Nailisi might be confident in defeating a death king, she could not give it her all and had to keep everything under her control. If the water puppet was not able to kill Banchajanna in one hit, then they were in trouble. The water puppet would not be able to strike first. He was a part of Saleen so if he struck first, it was equivalent to Saleen intentionally destroying the bond.


    Even if the bond has weakened, there would still be punishment. No one knew what the consequences were if one struck first.


    ¡°Ka... ka...,¡± Banchajanna strange noises. He was no longer able to control the weapon in his hands and his speed had increased. He was jumping across the top of the city wall and wherever he went, there were no survivors.


    The second battalion saw what was happening and an order was given. The low-ranked officers retreated and gave a signal and the soldiers behind them followed to retreat as well. Saleen never understood why Lex always focused on training her soldiers to understand and obeymands instead of training up theirbat abilities. In actual fact, these soldiers needed to work well together in order to fully disy their fighting abilities.


    Individually, the mercenary soldiers¡¯bat skills were not worse off than the soldiers of the second battalion, most of those that were injured or dead were mercenary soldiers. Once Banchajanna started wielding his weapon, no human could stand in his way.


    Except for Sika.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Sika shouted from behind the water puppet. Her voice was so loud that even Nailisi felt pain in her ear drums.


    Banchajanna turned around violently and looked down at Sika. The white bone giant axe in his left hand struck the ground violently. At the same time, within the soul me in his eyes, the bond has brokenpletely.


    Judikaka was a spirit of the dead and had long forgotten the feeling of being alive. Now, he felt it. It was as if an invisible heart was pumping violently in his chest and the feeling of fear returned after so many years.


    Banchajanna was going to harm himself!


    Things had reached a point of no return. Judikaka only shouted out loud once, ¡°Diyabannersa!¡±


    Although Diyabannersa was a rough character, he was extremely sharp. Judikaka only had to call his name once and he had already taken out his scepter.


    When Shann gave the three scepters to the Three Kings, it was for their own self-defense so that he would have more coolies following him. These scepters were valuable equipment and Shann did not have many others like them.


    ¡°Banchajanna!¡± Diyabannersa shouted at the same time, hoping that Banchajanna would take out his scepter too. Once the three sceptersbined together, they would be able to ovee even the effects of going against the bond so that they could at least escape back to the death dimension.


    Bang!


    Sika¡¯s battle soul skeleton twisted its body and vanished. In the next moment, Sika appeared beside Diyabannersa. Banchajanna¡¯s giant axe created a crack that was more than a yard long and half a foot deep on the top of the city wall


    The cudgel in Sika¡¯s handsnded heavily on Diyabannersa¡¯s wrist. Diyabannersa and Judikaka did not revert back to their original forms so they were only two yards in height. Sika was standing on the back of her skeleton and was of the same height as them. This hit cracked opened Diyabannersa¡¯s wrist.


    ¡°In the name of Shann!¡± Judikaka raised his scepter and wanted to activate the power within it. He never realized that Nailisi was not protecting Saleen and was charging towards him instead.


    Banchajanna swung his axe at the water puppet.


    Saleen was relieved. The Three Kings were so powerful that it made him terrified. In the death dimension they would have been able to cast magic at will, but on Myers Maindbat abilities were still more important.


    Thebat abilities of a spirit of the dead could never bepared to a demon. Besides, Banchajanna did not listen to Diyabannersa to take out his scepter and attacked the water puppet head-on instead.


    In a battle at this level, one mistake could be fatal.


    The water puppet raised a finger. Both of them were less than ten yards apart, which was the range in which crystal finger would be the most effective. Since the water puppet was made up of water elements, his crystal finger was even more powerful than Saleen¡¯s. With this finger, a white hexagonal mark was created.


    The temperature within the next ten yards dropped instantaneously. The Tanggsi heavy-armored soldiers that had just climbed onto the top of the city wall immediately froze and fell back down, breaking into pieces.


    Banchajanna only saw a beam of white light in front of his eyes and then this water element spell pierced right through his soul me.


    Raphael¡¯s magic was meant to deal with the Holy See, but it was equally effective against spirits of the dead. Crystal finger pierced through Banchajanna¡¯s skull and froze his soul me. A clear breaking sound followed and the soul me had broken into pieces.


    Banchajanna fell and the top of the city wall was nketed in white mist. The water puppet¡¯s finger exploded. The reverberation from killing the death king was too strong. The water puppet became dispirited immediately. He was different from Saleen. He was able to concentrate all his energy into one finger and while crystal finger killed Banchajanna, it also used up all of his energy.


    To kill with one hit was Saleen¡¯s order.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± Soldiers from afar saw Saleen falling and were rushing forward.


    ¡°Back down!¡± Saleen walked out from his room and dashed towards Banchajanna¡¯s corpse. At the same time, he stored the water puppet back into his cbash.


    Saleen reached into Banchajanna¡¯s eye socket and retrieved the broken pieces of soul me before keeping them in a dimension stone.


    The soldiers stopped in their tracks when they realized that their Lord was still alive. The battle was about toe to an end.


    After Sika broke Diyabannersa¡¯s wrist, the skeleton below her suddenly opened its mouth and bit onto Diyabannersa¡¯s ankle. After chewing twice, both of Diyabannersa¡¯s feet were bitten off.


    An unimpressive creature had just bitten off a ten-thousand year-old spirit of the dead¡¯s feet.


    Nailisi felt a chill in her spine. She had been right all along. One could never afford to cross paths with Sika. That skeleton must have been left behind by a powerful creature that even Nailisi was not aware of. She dashed in front of Judikaka even as her mind was racing. Judikaka was shivering. When Saleen took away Banchajanna¡¯s soul me, he could sense that the power of the soul me had been absorbed and stored in an unknown dimension.


    His power was depleting quickly!


    Judikaka threw a punch at Nailisi. At that point in time, one scepter had already been lost and its power could no longer be fully utilized. His only hope was to injure Nailisi and use the chance to escape.


    Nailisi twisted her body in mid-air and dodged Judikaka¡¯s punch effortlessly. At this point, a pair of wings grew from her back. Judikaka realized in despair that Nailisi¡¯s body was bing bigger and a dark silver-colored tail appeared from behind.


    ¡°Demon!¡±


    Judikaka feared demons because long ago Shann¡¯s subordinates consisted of demons and devils. They were the ones that always bullied the three of them. They were always on the losing end when Shann was around and when Shann was gone, so did the devil.


    Nailisi¡¯s body twisted in mid-air like a snake and wrapped around Judikaka. A row of sharp spikes appeared from her spine to the tip of her tail.


    Judikaka¡¯s mistake was in thinking of usingbat to defeat Nailisi. Hisbat skills were in no wayparable to Nailisi¡¯s. Nailisi was able to survive in the temple only because herbat skills had long been awakened. She would not have been able to follow Saleen all that while and survive otherwise.


    The bony spikes on Nailisi pierced into Judikaka¡¯s body before twisting her body. It was as if Judikaka was being put into a meat grinder. Splinters of his bones flew out, along with a piece of his soul me.


    Judikaka was so desperate that he split his soul me into two, using one to attack Nailisi and the other to escape. Nailisi opened her mouth and swallowed the soul me. There was no explosion, but there was a sh of fatigue in Nailisi¡¯s dark green eyes.


    After swallowing the soul me of a death king, she wanted to take a nap so that she could absorb its power properly. This was not the right time. She still needed to protect Saleen so she stopped herself.


    Soon after, the soldiers on the city wall witnessed a terrifying scene. Nailisi opened her mouth and there was an aura of death in her sharp teeth. Her mouth was almost a yard wide. Inside her mouth was a silver-colored tongue which was covered with sharp spikes.


    Crunch!


    Nailisi urately bit onto Judikaka¡¯s skull and tore it off. After losing half of his soul me, Judikaka¡¯s bones had weakened. After being bitten by Nailisi, the other half of his soul me was also absorbed by her.


    Diyabannersa was the only one left now. His soul me was also weakening. Like Judikaka, he could feel a dimension of emptiness absorbing his soul me.


    Saleen bent down to retrieve his crystal ring and put it back on his finger.


    It was a quick battle. When Saleen raised his head once again, he saw a beam of gold light flying towards the city wall.


    The gold grand swordmaster was finally on the move. The massive iron monsters had already hedged themselves against the bottom of the city wall. Soldiers began to appear from them and started to climb.


    Once the gold grand swordmaster reached the top of the city wall, these soldiers would be able to attack the city wall easily.

 Chapter 654: Grade – Ten Lightning Dragon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 654: Grade ¨C Ten Lightning Dragon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The expeditionary armyunched an all-out offensive, the offensive was not just confined to the two-mile wide area. The remaining tens of thousands of soldiers had spread out, tightening the assault on both nks and causing the battle area to expand to an area five miles wide.


    Saleen only stared intently at the flying route of the Golden Grand Swordmaster, there was still one mile to go. The badge in his hand was already drenched in sweat.


    Saleen, who was usuallyposed, began sweating before the start of the battle. Such a thing had never happened before. Of course he would be nervous. If Saleen did not kill the Golden Grand Swordmaster when the Golden Grand Swordmaster reached the city entrance, Saleen knew that he would lose everything. Even after his teacher arrived this ce would be a wastnd.


    Behind Saleen, Fellett and Lanny were also abnormally jittery. They had seen Prince Safilos in person, so they understood what a Golden Grand Swordmaster signified. If Saleen could not aplish what he had said, they would all be killed.


    It was meaningless to resist, the offensive power and endurance of a Golden Grand Swordmaster could not be rivaled by a mage. What about escaping? The couple¡¯s flying speed was only about one-hundred miles an hour and the speed of a Golden Grand Swordmaster flying across short distances was at least three times their speed. Even if they fled now, it would be toote.


    Diyabannersa¡¯s Soul me grew increasingly weaker, the power in his soul had been sucked away. The scar on his wrist expanded abruptly and with a crack his arm bone fell off.


    Nailisi had already extended her hand. When Sika¡¯s cudgel struck Diyabannersa¡¯s forehead, Nailisi¡¯s hand had already entered Diyabannersa¡¯s eye orbitals.


    The Soul me of a spirit king was extremely frigid, causing Nailisi¡¯s actions to be stiff. She still managed to pull out the Soul me and swallowed it.


    If the three kings were not restrained by the contractual bacsh and Banchajanna was not gone, even a Golden Grand Swordmaster might not be able to kill them instantly when the three scepters were united. Saleen had nned to let them hold the fort first, but Banchajanna suddenly went insane, so Saleen had to do it himself.


    The inquisition had sent three killers. The two ck-robed mages trailed at the rear, their flying speed was only one-third that of a Golden Grand Swordmaster. Theynded three miles away.


    Five-hundred yards, that was the distance where level-9 magic was the strongest. Any nearer and there would be insufficient time to open a scroll.


    Fellett opened a ck scroll abruptly, releasing a level-9 spell; the Dark Blue Chant spell.


    Six magic arrays appeared across the ground simultaneously as a blue beam charged into the sky, engulfing the Golden Grand Swordmaster. Fellett¡¯s control had exceeded Saleen¡¯s expectations. The first level-9 spell had struck the Golden Grand Swordmaster.


    The Dark Blue Chant spell was a single magic attack with thergest area of effect, this area spanned one-hundred and twenty yards. Lanny did not dare be slow, she did not think that one level-9 spell could ughter a Golden Grand Swordmaster. The ck scroll in her hand was also opened immediately. The earth split up instantly as a magma-like fire serpent charged out. This fire serpent was around two yards thick with clear scales across its body.


    An unpopr level-9 spell; the Wingless Serpent spell. It could reach a height of three-hundred yards. This was the only level-9 spell which did not require the guidance of a mage, it could lock onto an enemy¡¯s magic attack naturally. The power of this attack was massive, the depleted magic chords would put a strain on a grade-9 mage.


    Usually, a grade-9 sorcerer could cast twenty level-9 spells consecutively, however, after releasing the Wingless Serpent spell, the leftover magic chords would only be sufficient for them to cast level-8 spells. The Wingless Serpent spell would deplete almost all the magic chords.


    A spell which had the consumption of a level-10 spell, but possessed the power of a level-9 half spell. No matter who it was, they would be unwilling to master such a spell. The level-9 scrolls in Saleen¡¯s possession had been obtained from Raphael¡¯s magical tower, it was unknown as to why there was only one of such scroll. In writing a scroll like this, even a grade-9 sorcerer would have a low sess rate.


    If the enemy was not a Golden Grand Swordmaster, Saleen would never use this scroll. To grade-9 sorcerers such a spell was garbage, but such scrolls were much more precious than most level-9 scrolls.


    That Golden Grand Swordmaster was deeply startled, two level-9 spells had suddenly appeared, causing his flight toe to an abrupt halt. From the exterior, the Dark Blue Chant spell appeared to be a region epassed by blue radiance. Being trapped in this spell, the Golden Grand Swordmaster noticed that waves made up of countless of water elements surrounded him, crashing towards him in an overwhelming manner.


    Luckily, the Golden Sword Aura would protect one¡¯s body. If the target was a Silver Grand Swordmaster, the Sword Aura would have been fully depleted in a dozen seconds and the swordmaster would have been crushed into pulp by the water element. The worst thing was that the attack method of this level-9 spell was totally different. The water element possessed adhesion, entanglement, freezing, suction, and many other abilities. The Golden Grand Swordmaster froze in his tracks. The fire serpent appeared underneath his feet immediately encircling his body.


    Even without being trapped by magic this fire serpent could pursue the target and it could fly faster than any human being. The Golden Grand Swordmaster knew that he could not conceal his ability anymore. He simply chanted a word; lightning!


    This pronunciation was magic in thenguage and it was the most ancient form of the magguage. Following the holler of this word, a strange magic beast flew out of the Golden Grand Swordmaster¡¯s ck bangle. This magic beast resembled the Six-winged Flying Snake, but it had ws and its body surface was pitch ck with dark silver patterns.


    When this magic beast saw the fire serpent underneath its legs, a bolt of blue lightning suddenly flew out of its body surface, striking the fire serpent¡¯s head. The fire serpent was quashed silently. It copsed to the ground and transforming into a pile of red rocks as scalding heat filled the air.


    The magic beast then spit out a bundle of silver light balls. These balls cracked open mid-air and each crack contained silver lightning. The silver lightning danced in mid-air, causing the Dark Blue Chant spell to be destroyed in that instant.


    The Golden Grand Swordmaster was enraged, he was almost wounded by two grade-9 mages. In a moment of pique, he changed his mind, he decided to unleash his most treasured abilities. He only nned to kill a few powerful adversaries before cking off and taking the chance to leave. The rest of the battle would be handed over to Nichs.


    Now, the Golden Grand Swordmaster felt the urge to massacre people, he was going to ughter all living beings in the city.


    When the Golden Grand Swordmaster¡¯s magic beast was summoned, the two ck-robed mages from the inquisition came to a halt at the same time, unwilling to advance. That magic beast did not differentiate between friend and foe.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes just stopped short of popping out of his orbitals. This winged magic beast was obviously a lightning dragon, but it was of a higher grade. Not only could it survive out of water, it could also fly!


    ¡°What grade is this lightning dragon at? The one I threw at the three kings was only at grade-8. This is a lightning dragon that can fly, is it at grade-9 or grade-10?¡±


    Not allowing Saleen to let his thoughts run further, the Golden Grand Swordmaster yelled, ¡°Kill!¡±


    The lightning dragon flying beside him opened its mouth and an azure bolt of lightning sliced through the space and charged towards the city entrance. The location determined by the lightning dragon was where Saleen and the rest of the experts were stationed at. This bolt of lightning might only be one yard thick, but its lethal radius was definitely up to dozens of yards. If struck, even the city walls which were crafted from white rocks could hardly be preserved.


    Saleen only took one second to make a decision. Out of the blue, an intense fog spewed out from the surface of his body. His reaction speed was already extremely quick, but the lightning still struck his body first. More urately, Saleen had raised his left hand.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand had withered, it was grabbing onto the n badge forcefully. When the thick blue lightning neared the badge, it was immediately sucked into it. The remaining electric current was then absorbed by the mist Saleen had released.


    Saleen¡¯s unique skill, the Quickcloud spell, possessed defensive abilities. Saleen had done experiments in the past, the Quickcloud spell could iste electric currents. The mist he created was pure, hence the ability to fend off electric currents was mightier.


    The lightning before his eyes was too horrifying. Even if ny-nine percent of it was absorbed by the badge, the remaining electric current still prated Saleen¡¯s cloud.


    Saleen used his hand holding onto the badge as a nucleus as the remaining electric current behaved bestially. Dust fell off Saleen¡¯s withered palm continuously, his palm had been burned to ashes. Saleen¡¯s hand bone remained unharmed, the green hand bone had been newly crafted from the leaves of the Tree of Life. Electric current crackled atop Saleen¡¯s hand bone, but Saleen¡¯s hand bone could not be destroyed.


    The Golden Grand Swordmaster noticed that a huge cloud had suddenly appeared at the city entrance, the attack by his lightning dragon was totally absorbed by that cloud and he could not observe what was happening within the cloud.


    This was such a captivating skill. An even thicker bolt of lightning spurted out of the cloud and struck his body.


    Saleen copsed as the cloud dispersed, all his strength had been usurped by the badge¡¯s attack this time around.


    The lightning dragon flying in mid-air was also dumbfounded. Following it, a sh of lightning appeared in the depths of its soul. The imprint on its soul was forcefully removed and even the gods would not be able to tolerate the pain it felt.


    Before Saleen fell unconscious, he told Nailisi weakly, ¡°Go... capture that lightning dragon, even if it¡¯s dead...¡±


    Nailisi spread her wings without hesitation, charging down the city entrance. She noticed that the flying lightning dragon was falling towards the ground, it had clearly received a massive impact. ¡°Its master has been killed, in the short term, the lightning dragon¡¯s soul may be filled with wounds, so it will not possess any offensive abilities. If it is allowed to recover, a lot of people in the city will die.¡±


    Sika dragged Saleen onto the back of her magic beast skeleton. Taking out a beast tendon, she tied Saleen to her back. There was no other way but to flee. The flying style of this magic beast skeleton was unlike any other magic beasts or humans, it could cover a huge distance in an instant. Sika had relied on this skill to escape Banchajanna¡¯s attack and deal a huge blow to Diyabannersa at the same time.


    Fellett and his wife were simply dumbfounded. They saw that the Golden Grand Swordmaster had released a powerful magic beast which broke through the area controlled by the level-9 magic, following that, the magic beast even released lightning! What was more ridiculous was that Saleen also released a bolt of lightning which killed the Golden Grand Swordmaster in a sh.


    The two people nced at each other, then told Cuisi and J, ¡°Protect Saleen!¡±


    Speaking, the both of them soared into the air, following Nailisi and approaching the lightning dragon. Having more experience, they knew they had to kill the lightning dragon before it regained consciousness, otherwise... otherwise everyone would still be doomed.


    Nailisi bellowed shrilly, ¡°Help me fend off the attacks!¡± Then she pounced atop the lightning dragon. The lightning dragon could not retaliate for the time being, but Nailisi was worried that the two grade-8 mages mighte forward and prevent her from killing the lightning dragon.


    Since Fellett and his wife could not fly fast enough, they did notnd on the ground. Instead, they held onto the level-9 scrolls, facing the two oing grade-8 sorcerers.

 Chapter 655: Grade – Ten Lightning Dragon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 655: Grade ¨C Ten Lightning Dragon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The lightning dragon on the ground squirmed in excruciating pain. This lightning dragon was around thirty yards in length, its eyes spewed electric current continuously. The dark silver patterns on the surface of its body were also releasing bolts of lightning to the surroundings.


    Currently, Nailisi took on the form of an imp. After swallowing the devil¡¯s remains, her body underwent some changes, it had be stronger and her figure was smoother. At the moment, those green magic patterns on the surface of Nailisi¡¯s body were also releasing electric currents, but these currents had a pale green hue.


    The lightning dragon on the ground twitched as it saw a demon rushing over. In its remaining bit of consciousness was a hint of fear, because the demon¡¯s body also contained electricity.


    Any passerby would not have been able to harm the lightning dragon. Due to its owner being killed, the lightning dragon¡¯s soul was severely damaged. It could not move. The electric currents which were released naturally enabled the lightning dragon to protect itself, but Nailisi was not afraid of electricity. She simply jumped atop the dragon¡¯s back and trampled its colossal head. Nailisi¡¯s tail slithered into the lightning dragon¡¯s orbitals.


    The tail of a demon was akin to another arm, it was very strong and sensitive. Across all nes, only the nose of a war elephant could rival the tail of a demon. Powerful demons could even use their tail to wield various weapons, their tails were extremely flexible.


    The end of Nailisi¡¯s tail entered the lightning dragon¡¯s brain, extracting its magic nucleus.


    Finishing this task, Nailisi¡¯s body trembled, then she took out a Dimension Stone, wanting to collect the lightning dragon¡¯s body. She had consumed most of her physical strength when resisting the electric currents released by the lightning dragon, her mental strength was dwindling. She failed to store the entire lightning dragon in the Dimension Stone.


    The two grade-8 sorcerers from the inquisition rushed over. Holding the level-9 magic scrolls in hand, Fellett and his wife yelled, ¡°Leave now!¡±


    When the ck-robed sorcerers noticed the level-9 scrolls in the couple¡¯s hands, they grew hesitant. ¡°The enemy actually possessed so many level-9 scrolls, they have exceeded our expectations. Our boss is killed, so there is no need to risk our lives for the pope. The problem is, with our boss dead, the head inquisitors will be enraged...¡±


    One of the sorcerers opened his mouth to speak, ¡°Don¡¯t get the wrong idea... we, we have to fight, otherwise...¡±


    Fellett and his wife yearned to use the scrolls to kill the two fellows. The two ck-robed sorcerers clearly did not want to fight, they wanted to escape. Fellett bore much hatred for mages who defected to the Holy See and he wanted to kill them. His skills had to be conserved however. The enemy still had over seventy-thousand troops and there was still the Red Bishops and high-ranking priests around.


    With an arch of her brows, Lanny hollered, ¡°If you don¡¯t leave now, then you won¡¯t have to leave anymore!¡± Speaking, she acted like she was going to release the scrolls.


    A level-9 magic scroll might not be able to kill a grade-8 sorcerer, but after releasing a scroll, these two grade-8 sorcerers would definitely be at a disadvantage. They would not be able to withstand the couple¡¯s attacks.


    ¡°We will leave now, we will leave now!¡± The two men nced at one another, then turned and flew away. Fellett and his wife did not give chase. As the Holy See¡¯s soldiers surrounded them, Lanny took out a level-8 magic scroll and released a ring of fire.


    Using Lanny as the center point, a gigantic ring of fire expanded outwards. There were many ripples as though a huge rock had been tossed into a sereneke. This was not a low level defensive spell like the Fire Ring of Resistance. When this enormous fire ring expanded to its limit, its diameter had exceeded one-hundred yards. This was no area spell.


    The person closest to the ring of fire was Nailisi, but she was not affected by it. The mes brushed past her body, creeping towards the expeditionary army.


    Fellett hesitated for a moment, then told Nailisi, ¡°If you want to bring this thing back, lend me your bangle.¡±


    At the moment, Nailisi was in her demonic form, so Fellett felt uneasy. Fortunately, Nailisi¡¯s face was no different from a human, there was only an additional pair of dark silver horns on her head.


    ¡°Here, Uncle Fellett.¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice did not change, she removed the bangle and gave it to Fellett.


    Fellett deftly stored the thirty yard long lightning dragon in the bangle, this bangle was a gift from him to his own son. Aini had sold it to Saleen to raise funds to purchase the dead soul me. Fellett faced no difficulty in using this bangle to store items.


    After collecting the dragon, Fellett returned the bangle to Nailisi. Nailisi took a deep breath, this was the first time her mental strength was so severely depleted. When the lightning dragon was not moving, she went ahead to extract the magic nucleus, consuming almost all of her energy. Saleen¡¯s mental strength was also greatly depleted, so she could not tap into Saleen¡¯s power.


    Feeling the same level of exhaustion in her physical body, Nailisi forced her wings to p. At this point in time, there was a team of heavy cavalrymen protecting a war chariot, they were charging over from afar.


    When Saleen noticed that the red-robed old man had personally joined the battle to kill Nailisi, he grew very anxious. He immediately saw that Lanny had taken out a carpet. Lanny and Fellett carried the exhausted Nailisi onto it, then the carpet soared into the air. That carpet was not even two yards long, but it traveled very quickly, causing the three people to shake on top of it.


    ¡°Cuisi, go and get Nailisi!¡± Saleen mustered all his strength and shouted.


    ¡°Yes, Sir.¡± At this moment, Cuisi also revealed his original form, it was a supreme demon who was about eight yards tall. He was not naked, he was d in magic armor crafted by Joey. The weapon in hand was that sixteen yard long whip.


    Saleen stretched his head out from behind Sika¡¯s back, he could observe all the events taking ce at the foot of the city. Seeing that Cuisi was charging forward, he heaved a sigh of relief in his heart. ¡°Since that lightning dragon and its body have been collected, I can let the lightning dragons in the ne devour it. This time around, I have made a killing.¡±


    It was purely based on luck. If Saleen had not run into the offspring of a lightning dragon here and thus let Nailisi possess the ability of the Lightning Guardian, he would be helpless even if that lightning dragon¡¯s soul was greatly damaged. A fallen lightning dragon who could not retaliate could still release electricity naturally, Saleen would not be able to get close to it.


    Only Nailisi, whose body could withstand a certain amount of electric attacks, could extract the lightning dragon¡¯s magic nucleus so decisively. If other people were in her shoes, they would have been electrocuted to death within ten yards of the lightning dragon.


    The lightning dragon¡¯s attack was blocked by Saleen¡¯s badge and Saleen did not n for this. He thought that he was going to die. When that thick bolt of lightning came, his reaction was slower than the lightning. If Saleen did not raise his badge earlier, everyone standing behind him would have been wiped out.


    ¡®A good mage was made up of ny-nine percent effort and one percent luck.¡¯ Saleen recalled Eleanor¡¯s words and there was another sentence added at the back; ¡®without that one percent luck, one would only be an average mage¡¯.


    ¡°The site which I chose to build this city allowed me to run into the rarely seen lightning dragon and I obtained a huge number of lightning dragon eggs which eventually hatched. All these events were based on luck. No matter how powerful I am, all this would also not take ce if the lightning dragon didn¡¯ty its eggs here. This event cannot be controlled. No matter how powerful Fycro and Joey are, they cannot predict these happenings. If I died, the calctions made by Fycro and Joey would be made imusible already. This lightning dragon is definitely not a grade-9 creature, it is a grade-10 being.¡± Seeing Fellett help Nailisi collect the lightning dragon¡¯s remains, Saleen knew that his twenty-four mini lightning dragons would stand a chance of advancing already.


    Lanny¡¯s carpet flew back to the city entrance in a wobbly manner. Archbishop Nichs¡¯ chariot did not catch up. It actually stopped at a location five-hundred yards from the city walls. Nichs gazed at Metatrin City in a daze.


    The five-thousand wardens had left with the two ck-robed mages and Nichs¡¯ remaining troops would not be able to conquer this city. Looking at the experts in both camps, Nichs had twenty Red Bishops and one archbishop, while the enemy had a supreme demon and at least two grade-8 mages.


    These two grade-8 mages possessed two level-9 magic scrolls. The enemy¡¯s capabilities had not been fully unleashed, yet that Golden Grand Swordmaster had died in vain. It would not be difficult to predict the oue of the following battles.


    ¡°The enemy can kill a Golden Grand Swordmaster in a second. Even if I lead the troops personally, the oue will be simr...¡±


    Nichs did not know that Saleen only had the power to strike once. Since both of Saleen¡¯s techniques were used up, Nichs actually stood a chance if he forced his way into the city. Be that as it may, the feeling of being disheartened and despaired overwhelmed Archbishop Nichs¡¯ mind. He felt too discouraged to fight on.


    He had rode in the chariot personally in hopes of using a holy equipment and level-9 divine scrolls to kill the two sorcerers. The enemy had used a flying equipment to return to the city, dashing all hopes of raising the morale of the army.


    ¡°The city entrance is narrow. If I force my way up and run into the supreme demon, my life will be at risk. A supreme demon is a creature who swallows souls. If I die in the hands of one, my soul will not be able to enter heaven. Luckily I have used a divine spell to record all these events. Hopefully, when I return, the pope will spare my life because of the crucial intelligence which I have collected.¡±


    Archbishop Nichs traveled to Metatrin eagerly, but now, he was going to return in dejection. He stared at the city entrance in indignation, then he noticed an eight yard tall supreme demon emerging and killing the soldiers who were scaling the city entrance.


    Cuisi waved his whip about as Nailisi had been rescued. Of course, Cuisi would not remain outside like a fool, that red-robed old man in the chariot struck fear in him. The scepter in that old man¡¯s hands contained the power of a god. That was a genuine god, it was not some devil from the demonic ne.


    Cuisi might not even survive one hit from a devil, not to mention a godly blow from that scepter.


    Saleen was perched on Sika¡¯s back, looking at Archbishop Nichs. Both men were five-hundred yards apart and Saleen believed that Archbishop Nichs could surveil all the events urring on the city entrance. The offensive by the Holy See¡¯s army did not stop, it actually intensified.


    Archbishop Nichs had decided to let the expeditionary army cause as much damage to Metatrin City as it could. Situated below the city, he did not n to take any action, he and the twenty Red Bishops simply observed Saleen andpany. The moment the experts beside Saleen split up to defend the city walls, Nichs would then take action.


    If Saleen chose to spectate the battle and surveil him, then he would wait until the battle was over.


    ¡°There are so many heretics here, the pope will surely deploy more people toe forth. The next time, Metatrin City wouldn¡¯t be so lucky.¡±


    Saleen did not care, it was no longer important as to whether that red-robed elderly could be killed or not. ¡°I have killed a Golden Grand Swordmaster and that should be enough to cause the Holy See to be on maximum alert. The next time? If the Holy See wants to gather more manpower the next time around, it would also have to wait for at least one and a half years. Whether or not the Holy See canunch another offensive against Metatrin City within a year will depend on the war in Lon. If Holy Rock City¡¯s army prevails, the Holy See will not have the power tounch another attack against me. In another one and a half years, the mages from Sregl Ind will arrive and I will have nothing to fear anymore.¡±.

 Chapter 656: The Possessions of the Three Kings (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 656: The Possessions of the Three Kings (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The battlested until dawn. Grand Bishop Nichs stood very still and looked at all the strong opponents gathered on the top of the city wall.


    The people beside Saleen did not move. All of them stayed on an area five-hundred yards wide on the city wall. If they left, Grand Bishop Nichs would immediatelye charging over.


    If Grand Bishop Nichs decided to attack another part of the wall, Saleen and the rest would rush over to help there as well.


    Both parties continued to observe each other until the battle was nearing its end.


    Saleen did not expect the enemy to use this tactic. The people around him could not move because Nailisi and he could no longer join in the battle. The rest had to gather together in order to fight off the red-robed man.


    Only some mages and Eleanor could still help out elsewhere.


    Saleen did not have many middle-grade mages and the abilities of his low-grade mages would be cancelled out by the enemy¡¯s holy priests. Eleanor alone would not be able to defend an area five miles wide on the city wall.


    Saleen did not expect the battle to end up this way, but there was no way he could change the oue. His army needed to protect the merchants and citizens in the city. The noble families had already sent their own armies. More than ten members of the noble families who were well-versed in swordsmanship even defended the city wall personally.


    It was a dangerous move, even if their bodyguards were fighting alongside them. Since Saleen had been monitoring the battle personally on the city wall, these noble families felt motivated and honored.


    The first Emperor of Qin once said that only the noble families that could protect its citizens could be considered as good noble families.


    Qin was the first country to abolish very. It had huge numbers of citizens and they made up most of their armed forces. Whoever had the most citizens was the most powerful. Noble families that had once deserted their citizens would find it difficult to attract new ones.


    Saleen was not surprised that these noble families would join in the battle in the end. What shocked him was that the soldiers under these noble families were very valiant. He maintained a very strict control over battles like this. If the noble families became too obsessed with killing, Saleen would ensure that the future generations of the family would be protected to prevent the entire family from being killed off.


    The ratio of deaths was one to three, three deaths on the expedition side was equivalent to one death on Metatrin City¡¯s side.


    Grand Bishop Nichs appeared less than one mile away from the city. At this point in time, the expedition still consisted of about seventy-thousand soldiers.


    After the deaths of the Three Kings, the spirits of the dead vanished and there was no one else to summon more. After losing more than ten-thousand spirits of the dead, Metatrin City had to deploy more armies to defend the city wall.


    The fortunate thing was that there were more injured soldiers than dead ones. There were many troops under Saleen and he sent more than one-thousand magic wolf knights to the top of the city wall. These Caucasus people rode on their magic wolves. Once they saw soldiers that were heavily injured, they would order their magic wolves to bring the soldiers back to safety.


    The flying axes of the Caucasus people and barbarians were extremely effective. The iron flying axes caused great damage to the enemy soldiers even if they wore heavy armor. If they were wearing only light armor, they would be killed immediately.


    When the number of casualties in the second battalion was more than two-thirds, they came back down and were reced by the third battalion. At this point, the sixth battalion set off towards the west from the south.


    As they saw the disciples dying one after another, Grand Bishop Nichs¡¯ subordinates were terrified. Would they still have a chance to live if they went back? When the sun finally rose, tens and thousands of soldiers fought with their all.


    Saleen saw that the enemy still had about ten-thousand soldiers, but had stopped attacking. The soldiers on top of the city wall quickly rotated with each other as the fourth battalion reced the third battalion. All the mercenary soldiers had stepped back from the battle and all injured soldiers had been sent to the town hall to receive medical attention.


    Next time, Saleen decided that he must use Broken de Pass to stop his enemies.


    Saleen was calcting the number of dead and injured soldiers on his side, but he was sure that the number of deaths on the enemy¡¯s side was close to ten-thousand. This was something that Saleen did not expect. The enemy¡¯s strategy was basically to trade their own lives for those on Saleen¡¯s side. Although Saleen had the geographical advantage, there were still many casualties on his side. He could not ept it.


    ¡°Give the order to western town. Tell them... not to stop the enemy.¡± Saleen looked at the ten-thousand soldiers at the bottom of the city wall. Ten-thousand soldiers still constituted a formidable force. If western town intercepted, the number of deaths would surely reach ten-thousand.


    The sound transmission magic array at the town hall could enablemunication with western town. It was Saleen¡¯s order for western town not to interfere. Even when Grand Bishop Nichs finally deployed twenty-thousand soldiers from the rear, Saleen still did not ask for western town¡¯s army tounch an attack.


    Saleen knew that even if he did not manage to destroy the entire Holy See army, they would not survive past a year anyway. It would be a waste to throw away precious lives to defeat them.


    Not all of the Holy See¡¯s armies were like this. The Pope must have chosen this strategy because he had no choice, but it still caused Saleen to lose more than half of his men to injuries. These soldiers that had been controlled by divine spells felt little pain. Even if one of their arms had been cut off, they could still move around with no concern for their pain or injury.


    When Saleen¡¯s soldiers were undergoing training, the main emphasis was on discipline rather than killing. Facing such enemies, they made quite a few mistakes in the beginning which resulted in unnecessary casualties. Some of the soldiers had already pierced through the enemy¡¯s abdomen and were about to move on to their next target when they were attacked by the first enemy who was heavily injured.


    By right, there was no way a person whose abdomen had just been pierced through would be able to continue fighting. The soldiers of the Holy See could do it without their strength being weakened.


    Only the alchemy arrows shot from the watchtowers on both sides could kill the enemies immediately. There were not a lot of Caucasus people and the flying axes of the barbarians could not deal with too many enemies either. One barbarian could only carry approximately five flying axes.


    What surprised Saleen was that the barbarians had a positive effect on morale. None of the barbarians retreated and when faced with enemies so daunting, the barbarians became even more frenzied.


    Due to Cuisi¡¯s presence, there were fewer casualties in the other two areas in which Saleen had set up defense. He could use a long whip to kill enemies within more than thirty yards. By the end of the battle, there was blood everywhere on the top of the city wall. The mercenary soldiers did not possess very good equipment and were barely still standing. Saleen¡¯s soldiers were still able to run amidst the thick pools of blood however.


    When the attack finally stopped, no one cheered. The top of the city wall was covered in corpses, most of them belonging to the expedition. Amongst the corpses were soldiers who were heavily injured. They could no longer be healed by holy priests and would only die slowly.


    Saleen was very anxious. Only when Grand Bishop Nichs ordered his remaining soldiers to retreat did Saleen give the order to clean up the battlefield.


    A gigantic furnace was prepared in the city. The corpses of the enemy were separated from those of his own army. Quite a few ves died, but the ashes of the the army must be buried.


    Aini and Daniel left the top of the city wall. They were put in charge of this. Death mages would usually be around the furnace to collect the ck smoke produced by the burning of the corpses. Such smoke was harmful to normal humans, but was valuable to death mages¡¯.


    Saleen asked Sika to fly higher. He saw that Grand Bishop Nichs and his army had slowly passed by western town. He then ordered the mages in the city to join in the cleaning up of the battlefield.


    Saleen was relieved to see the mages stepping out. The number of casualties in this battle was a few times more than he expected, but at least none of his mages died. They were all safe in the buildings within the city.


    The defense mechanism of Dante¡¯s Sequence restricted the holy priests to be able to boost their warriors with divine spell only once and not cause any damage to the buildings on the top of the city wall. Saleen¡¯s mages could hide in the buildings and attack with their spells as a result.


    All the low-level mages came and began to use cleaning spells to clean up the fresh blood on the ground. Giant eagles were circling in the sky, waiting to feast on the dead bodies when the battle ended.


    The giant eagles in the north were all scavengers. Since Saleen¡¯s soldiers did not bother to leave the city to clean up, these eagles became bolder and began to swoop towards the ground to feast on the corpses of the expedition soldiers.


    When Grand Bishop Nichs was finally far away enough that Saleen¡¯s elemental eye could no longer see him, he told Sika, ¡°Take me back to the temple. I¡¯m so tired.¡±


    The five-thousand wardens did not join in the battle and instead, retreated very early on. They were led by two ck-robed mages. These two grade-8 sorcerers looked dispirited and none of the ck high priests dared to disturb them. Although thebined power of the twelve of them was higher than the two sorcerers, thetter had more ways to kill aspared to the ck high priests.


    If the gold grand swordmaster did not die the two of them would not have retreated in such a hurry. The two of them dared not test the power that defeated the gold grand swordmaster in such a manner.


    By showing the Head Inquisitor the images they had recorded with their equipment, they might even be rewarded. If they had lost all five-thousand wardens, there would be zero chance of them being rewarded.


    The two sorcerers consoled themselves in this way, but deep down in their hearts, they were actually petrified. The gold grand swordmaster was their spiritual pir of support. Now that he has been defeated, their confidence have also been shaken.


    A gold grand swordmaster and two grade-8 sorcerers were a terrifyingbination. Now that the former had been killed, the two grade-8 sorcerers¡¯ powers were no longer as formidable.


    The enemy could control lightning. Even the gold grand swordmaster¡¯s equipment was all turned into ashes by the lightning. Who could stand a chance against such power?


    Once Saleen returned to the temple, he immediately went to the sixth level. There was a room there that was specifically for healing purposes. Saleen sank his entire body into the restorative water while putting his left hand, which was reduced to bones, into magic liquid.


    Saleen was already used to such injuries. There were no signs of cracks on his dark green bones. The power of lightning had caused his entire left forearm and wrist to lose all flesh and blood. It would take half a year to grow them back again.


    Saleen would not be able to advance into a sorcerer in the next half a year.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi recovered much faster than Saleen. She entered the room and saw that Sika was looking after him alone. Nailisi was stunned for a while, but immediately understood that aside from herself, Sika was the only other person that Saleen trustedpletely.


    ¡°Master, I know. You want the lightning dragon¡¯s corpse.¡± With that, Nailisi removed the bracelet and put it on the ground. She knelt in front of the crystal box and looked at Saleen¡¯s injured limb.


    ¡°Nailisi, what happened to you? I thought you would have wanted to keep it for yourself,¡± Saleen teased.

 Chapter 657: The Possessions of the Three Kings (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 657: The Possessions of the Three Kings (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi blushed slightly. She knew that there was no use beating around the bush in front of Saleen. This Master of hers was greedier than she was.


    ¡°Master, the Three Kings also left behind their three scepters...¡±


    ¡°I will keep them. It would be dangerous for you to use them. You might be influenced to be like them. Their Master must be a powerful person that is at least grade-10.¡±


    ¡°Of course, Master will keep them. As for their spatial equipment...¡±


    ¡°I will check it.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi raised her voice in urgency.


    ¡°Why the impatience? If there is anything suitable for soldier, I will definitely give it to him. The rest will be given to you,¡± Saleen replied in a tired voice. Sika was already staring at Nailisi. Nailisi was aware and had no choice but to take out the three rings she found.


    They were spatial equipment of a very ancient design. At first nce, they were dark gray in color and were simr to the bones of spirits of the dead.


    Saleen reached out with his right hand and took the three bone rings. He observed them with his elemental eye and marveled, ¡°Spatial equipment of this grade is even more powerful than dimension stones. Since dimension stones are God-given items and have been refined, these bone rings still cannot bepared to dimension stones.¡±


    Although Saleen was still unable to refine spatial equipment yet, his elemental eye was already familiarizing with how to make use of space and to store items of other grades. The size of the bone rings was not fixed. When they were worn on the fingers of the Three Kings, they could contract internally and merge entirely with the wearer.


    Regardless whether the Three Kings transformed into skeletons or reverted back into their original forms, they had always kept these three rings hidden. It was only after they died that Nailisi managed to pluck them away.


    ¡°The scepters?¡±


    ¡°Here,¡± Nailisi was a bit unwilling in handing over the scepters. Saleen handed them to Sika and said, ¡°Keep them away and store them in the Ring of Gifts.¡±


    Saleen was finally at ease after Sika took the three scepters. The Seal of Divine Power was kept in the Ring of Gifts. Only the Ring of Gifts, which was personally refined by the Goddess of Myers, could iste its contents from the world. Even if the Three Kings¡¯ master were toe, he would never know the whereabouts of the scepters.


    ¡°Come, let¡¯s take a look in the warehouse.¡± Although Saleen was unable to open up the three rings immediately, he could sense that the space within these rings was immense. This room might not be able to store all of their contents.


    ¡°Master... I am a bit tired.¡± Nailisi could no longer contain her sleepiness. She had tolerated it until now so that she could get her hands on the items she wanted before going into a deep sleep.


    This was when Saleen recalled that Nailisi had swallowed the soul mes of the two of the Three Kings. She might be about to develop her fifth ability.


    ¡°Go ahead. I want to keep Judikaka¡¯s corpse. The lightning dragon¡¯s as well. As for the corpses of Diyabannersa and Banchajanna, you can have them.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Master,¡± Nailisi was pleased. She took out her bracelet and handed them to Sika before dashing off quickly.


    ¡°Sika, send more men to protect Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°I know. I have already deployed another five-hundred Caucasus warriors to patrol around the temple. All of them will only listen to my orders so there is no way anyone else will be able to enter.¡±


    Even as they spoke, the two of them used the teleportation portal on the sixth level and transported themselves to the warehouse under the temple.


    Saleen retrieved the lightning dragon¡¯s corpse first. Within the bracelet, he discovered that the lightning dragon¡¯s gigantic magic nucleus had already been divided into twenty-four portions by Nailisi. Saleen was stunned, but immediately understood that Nailisi had already absorbed the power of the lightning dragon¡¯s egg. If she devoured the lightning dragon, the abilities would be replicated, so she decided to leave behind the magic nucleus.


    The magic nucleus was perfect and unscathed and could be used for other purposes if it had remained untouched. Nailisi has already made the decision for Saleen. Splitting the lighting dragon¡¯s magic nucleus into twenty-four portions would allow Saleen to feed them to his twenty-four small lightning dragons so that they could advance.


    At least there was a limit to Nailisi¡¯s greed. She would still leave behind the things that she knew Saleen would need.


    Saleen fed the twenty-four small lightning dragons in the Goddess¡¯ Ne with the magic nuclei. He could not wait for the day when the twenty-four small lightning dragons could finally fly. By that time, no one would dare to challenge him anymore.


    Next, Saleen patted the cbash on his waist and released a stream of water. His water puppet was severely injured and would not be able to battle for the time-being, but the stream of water was not affected by the injuries. Saleen used the stream of water to cut up the lightning dragon¡¯s corpse with ease. Although the lightning dragon was a grade-10 creature, its scales were not very tough. Usually, any potential attacks would be nullified by the lightning surrounding its body, its scales were not as toughpared to other high-level creatures.


    Saleen used very little energy to control this stream of water and was even able to admire the spoils of war from the Three Kings.


    Saleen did not touch Judikaka¡¯s ring. First, he opened Diyabannersa¡¯s spatial ring and forcefully poured out all the items stored in it and it instantly filled up an entire level of storage space.


    It was all rubbish! To Saleen¡¯s frustration, he found that more than half of the items in Diyabannersa¡¯s ring were useless. Perhaps ¡®useless¡¯ was too strong a word. His elemental eye could easily see that there were paintings, porcin, and metal sculptures. It was all art pieces dating back more than ten-thousand years.


    These pieces could definitely fetch high prices if they were sold to noble families.


    Nevertheless, Saleen was not an art lover and these things did not interest him. This fellow must have spent all his time collecting these art pieces, causing his fighting abilities to be so weak!


    There were a few books on death magic, tens of scrolls of death magic, and gray-colored magic nuclei that were likely taken from magic beasts from the death dimension.


    Fortunately, there were thousands of armor sets in Diyabannersa¡¯s ring. The armor sets were refined using spirits of the dead and possessed summoning ability. Every armor has been sealed with a middle-grade spirit of the dead that was at least the grade of a me knight. The armor was likely refined during the Three Kings¡¯ free time so that it could be used in battle on the death dimension.


    These items could be given to spirits of the dead that possessed intelligence, like winged skeleton, or even to humans. From this point alone, the Three Kings had likely been taught and guided by human mages before.


    Of course, these armors would be given to winged skeleton. The winged skeleton might not need the equipment for himself, but it would be useful for his subordinates.


    Other than the surprising armor sets of spirits of the dead, there were also some rare metals from the death dimension. Saleen concluded that he would keep these metals for himself for future research.


    There were very few items in Diyabannersa¡¯s ring that could be given to Nailisi. Those antiques were still worth quite a lot of gold coins.


    Saleen split the items in simple categories. Since there were no special items, he began to keep them again, leaving behind only the magic nuclei which he stored in his own devil¡¯s ring.


    Next was Banchajanna¡¯s ring. There were much more items in this ringpared to Diyabannersa¡¯s. The items were kept in an orderly fashion. Even Saleen was surprised to see that every item has been neatly categorized. When Banchajanna was alive he would always deal with things haphazardly, but all his items were actually properly categorized. This saved Saleen the trouble of having to categorize them.


    There were many books, diagrams, magic nuclei and metallic materials. There was also magic medicine stored in a jade bottle, skeletons of spirits of the dead that had been partially refined, and a spirit pool that measured one yard in diameter.


    When Saleen saw the spirit pool, he knew that most of Banchajanna¡¯s wealth must be kept there. Although the spirit pool was only one yard in diameter, it was made up of a very rare kind of chlorite and it was so pure that there were no impurities.


    If Saleen cut up this spirit pool and sold it, he would be able to fetch a price that was almost equivalent to his Metatrin City.


    Chlorite was too rare and could barely be found on the Myers Maind, death dimension, or demon dimension now. Long ago, when they were moremon, chlorite of such size was unheard still. Saleen had no idea how Banchajanna managed to get his hands on it. Perhaps his master gave it to him.


    Saleen was right. This spirit pool was refined by the Three Kings¡¯ master, Shann. At that time, the Three Kings were still middle-grade spirits of the dead. After leaving the death dimension for such a long time, their powers reduced drastically. Shann refined the spirit pool so that the Three Kings could absorb the aura of the dead anytime.


    After reaching the level of king, Banchajanna and the rest no longer had any use for the spirit pool so it was left aside and had not been used for the past ten-thousand years.


    The item could be used on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Saleen considered dismantling it into smallerponents and selling it, but decided that it would be too conspicuous selling chlorite so he would use it for himself instead.


    Saleen did not care for the other magic weapons. After using the dimension stone to collect all of Banchajanna¡¯s items, Saleen finally took out Judikaka¡¯s ring.


    Judikaka¡¯s death was caused by Banchajanna. If thetter had not started attacking first, the former would have made use of the power of the scepter to escape. Saleen was originally fearful of such a clever death king. No one would have expected Judikaka to die so easily and without resistance.


    Judikaka had the fewest items in his ring. There were one-hundred and ten perfectly unscathed equipments that could be used by either spirits of the dead or humans. The equipments were of very high grade and even the lowest grade item was a godly item. Saleen noticed none of these. His attention was immediately captured by a gold zombie.


    The zombie still looked the same as it did when it was alive. It had the face of a beautiful youngdy. The zombie was holding onto a long spear which was also gold in color.


    Based on the gold zombie¡¯s equipment, patterns on its armor, and the badge on its chest, Saleen felt like he had seen it before. It looked like they belonged to a holy knight of the Holy See.


    This holy knight was of a high level when it was still alive and was at least a corp leader. As for how she turned into a zombie, Saleen was not interested to know. His elemental eyes were locked on the zombie and feared that she would suddenlye alive and start attacking.


    ¡°Saleen, she ispletely dead ...¡±


    Saleen understood that this zombie was only left with a physical body and its soul me must have been extinguished long ago. If this zombie was still capable of fighting, Judikaka would have summoned it long ago to fight against Saleen.


    Saleen had never heard of gold zombies before. The zombie¡¯s abilities should remain the same, regardless of being dead or alive. All holy knights were strong and powerful and its leader was said to be a gold grand swordmaster.


    Saleen hesitated. Should he give this strange zombie to the winged skeleton or Nailisi? Or perhaps, he should just keep it for himself.

 Chapter 658: Aftermath of the battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 658: Aftermath of the battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had witnessed the zombies summoned by Aini. The offensive power of a green-bronze zombie was huge, it would not lose out to a swordmaster. ¡°Could this golden zombie be a zombie king?¡±


    Logically, these things should be given to the winged skeleton, but Saleen already nned to give Judikaka¡¯s Soul me to the winged skeleton. After swallowing the Soul me, it would be sufficient for the winged skeleton to evolve. The winged skeleton would not be restricted by Saleen, he could attain the proficiency of a grade-9 spirit.


    Since the winged skeleton had adequate space for evolution, it would not be too useful giving a golden zombie to him. What about Nailisi? Devouring this golden zombie, she might gain the sixth ability. The problem was, Nailisi¡¯s fifth ability was surely rted to spirits and if her abilities were duplicates Saleen would be utterly disappointed.


    ¡°How about using it for myself? My technique of crafting puppets is not as good as Lex though. The material of this golden zombie is extremely good, I might note across something like it again. What if it got ruined?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, give me this item.¡± Sika suddenly opened her mouth.


    ¡°Eh? You are a Caucasus priestess, what do you need it for?¡± Saleen was puzzled. The Caucasus people advocated nature, it was really odd for a priest to carry a zombie with them.


    ¡°An Earth Priestess can control more than three fighting spirits, I only have one at the moment.¡±


    ¡°You said it was already dead. Do things that are fully dead still possess a fighting spirit?¡±


    ¡°You do not understand, I will not be able to exin it clearly. This zombie is useful to me.¡± In a rare moment, a look of desire appeared in Sika¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°As long as it is not dangerous.¡±


    ¡°Of course it wouldn¡¯t be dangerous, unless this zombie is stronger than all the Caucasus priests of the past,¡± Sika proimed confidently. Sika could cultivate skeletons who had lost their souls but still had a tinge of their fighting spirit and she could do so swiftly. Sika only wanted this zombie because of its sturdy body, she wanted to spar with it.


    Sika¡¯s cudgel was too sharp, no Caucasus warrior could practice with Sika. Sika felt that the skeleton of this golden zombie was even sturdier than the one she had obtained from Raphael¡¯s magical tower.


    ¡°Should we give her new armor? If the Holy See¡¯s people see her like this, they will go crazy,¡± Saleen reminded Sika.


    ¡°No need, the armor has been fused with the zombie, I do not care about the opinions of the Holy See. If it wasn¡¯t for them, the Caucasus people would still be living in their original homnd. Look at the current situation, at least one-hunddred-thousand of them have escaped to your city.¡±


    Saleen nodded in response, he would not feel reluctant fulfilling Sika¡¯s demands. He could not find anything amongst the remaining items which were suitable for Nailisi, so he felt slightly guilty. Saleen had agreed to give her a share, but now, it seemed like most of the loots would go to the winged skeleton.


    The body of the lightning dragon had been dissected. Saleen was experienced, he skinned the lightning dragon and removed its muscles. The muscles of this lightning dragon were different, they contained three-dimensional magic patterns inside. If the muscles were made into bow chords, there was a chance they could release the power of lightning while in Nailisi¡¯s hands.


    This power did not need to be very mighty, it only needed to destroy magic. By crafting such a bow for Nailisi, she would be a mage killer in the future already.


    After dissecting the lightning dragon¡¯s body, Saleen fed the rest of its body to the tiny lightning dragons, with the exception of the skin and muscles.


    Afterpleting all these tasks, Saleen did not leave. He began training in the underground warehouse. The flesh in his left hand had disappeared, only a set of bones remained. The water puppet attacked with all its might and killed Banchajanna, but it caused Saleen¡¯s body to be on the verge of breakdown. If the water puppet was ruined, Saleen could only rebuild it. Without Joey¡¯s skills the finished water puppet would not be as strong.


    The most important thing was that Saleen¡¯s badge could not be used for battle after that attack. This badge was indeed powerful, but after each usage, it required between six months to a year to recharge its energy. After withstanding the attack from the lightning dragon, the internal space of the badge seemed to have increased. It was more difficult to fill it up now.


    The interior of the badge was barren. Saleen had lost his mightiest abilities, so he had to be under protection at all times. He decided to train in the most obscure location within the city.


    While Saleen was training, Daniel was extremely busy.


    Guya and the rest of the people wanted to meet Saleen, but Daniel could only refuse. Since Saleen was injured, he had to recuperate. Fortunately, Narnia lent a helping hand. Her magic might not be sufficiently powerful, but her ability to resolve matters was better than Daniel.


    The two people took turns managing affairs like distributing disability pensions, remunerating the mercenaries who had participated in the battle, and rewarding the sixteen nobles. There was a huge number of corpses outside the city, if they were not removed a gue would ensue.


    Without thinking, Aini could deduce the feature of the expeditionary army. Saleen had told him that those soldiers would not be able to live for more than one year. A divine spell which consumed life was harmful in extreme amounts, it would bring about intense negative effects. If the bodies were not incinerated, each one of them would be highly poisonous.


    After removing all the bodies, the battlefield still had to be tidied. The city had won the battle this time around, so the magic stone cannons outside the city had to be retrieved. By getting the mages to refine the cannons, Saleen could save a lot of money on manufacturing new ones. The tens of thousands of alchemical arrows outside the city also could save money. The arrowheads of those arrows were crafted from the thorns of red krill.


    These things were aplenty in the Frozen Sea, but Saleen could not afford using them as disposable items. Saleen would face many battles in the future, he could not be prodigal.


    After this battle all the alchemical crossbows and magic trebuchets required repair. The equipment of the warriors was greatly damaged. A significant reason as to why Saleen¡¯s soldiers could duel with the high morale expeditionary army and only sustained a casualty ratio of one to three, was because of the they equipment used.


    Saleen¡¯s six camps were fitted with finely crafted armor. Even though themanders were the only ones wearing authentic magic armor, the armor tes donned by the normal soldiers were also produced by mages.


    These armor pieces were extremely tough. Their magic defense was not high, but their physical defense was very high. The most important aspect of this armor piece was its ability to resist pration. Armor pieces which had been magically reinforced were made up of at least three intecedyers. Feather arrows could not pierce through them at all, they also defended against powerful crossbows very well.


    In a war between two armies, which weapon was the most fatal? It was not a gigantic poleaxe, it was a spear, or the triangr sword.


    These two long and thin weapons possessed powerful prative abilities. No matter how thick one¡¯s armor was, they would still face the risk of being stabbed when struck by these two weapons.


    Many warriors who participated in the battle faced the possibility of being crippled, so Daniel ordered the mages to render treatment to all injured personnel. Unlike divine spells, magic could not resurrect the dead, but it could still repair damage to the limbs. Before the war, Saleen had prepared huge amounts of magic medicine. At this moment the medicine came into y.


    Besides Saleen¡¯s six camps, the other soldiers in the city included the private soldiers serving the nobles, Caucasus people, barbarians, mercenaries, and the ves from the eastern sea. Originally, there were around ten-thousand ves, but after the war, this number dwindled to around three-thousand. The number of fatalities suffered by the ves was the worst because their equipment was inferior.


    These over three-thousand ves had fought until the very end, each of them had killed at least one enemy. Around three-hundred of them killed more than three enemies. If it was not for these ves, Saleen would have lost even more soldiers.


    The ves who killed more than three enemies would regain their freedom and they could join Metatrin City¡¯s army. Donning only normal armor, these over three-hundred people could kill more than three expeditionary troops, this meant that their fundamental ability was good. Daniel transferred these people into the army. One of the ves who killed the most enemies even became a brigademander.


    A brigademander led two-hundred men and had a monthly sry of five gold coins. Saleen was paying for all the expenses incurred by the army. Within a year, if there were no wars, a brigademander could amass sixty gold coins. This was purely remuneration and if there were battles they could still receive rewards.


    The battles at the city entrance were recorded using magic, no one could falsify the records. As the mercenaries were more valiant, they were also absorbed into the regr army.


    Settling all these matters, the fortune Saleen had painstakingly umted was almost gone. Fortunately, the city still contained huge amounts of reserve rations, while the inds at sea were stocked with substantial livestock.


    As for the shortage of gold coins, Daniel had an idea. By selling the magic nuclei which had been saved for the battle and refining all the broken armor and equipment left behind by the enemy, the city could still earn a sum of money. The Holy See had abandoned more than eighty-thousand bodies and each body carried at least three weapons. That meant that there were over two-hundred-thousand pieces of weapons.


    Hundreds of low grade mages and disciples calcted for three days before finally determining the oue of the battle. This time around, Saleen had sold all the collected loot from the war, fetching about one-million gold coins. Saleen had spent more than four-million gold coins in this war.


    An invasion whichsted less than two days had caused Saleen to lose more than four-million gold coins. The cruelty of war was not just confined to the deaths of humans, it also entailed meaningless consumption of resources.


    This four-million figure did not include the magic scrolls Saleen had contributed. If they were included into the calctions, everyone would be deeply astounded.


    Saleen had reaped the body of a grade-10 lightning dragon and the three kings¡¯ materials and equipment. To Saleen himself, he did not make a loss. One spirit pool made from chlorite alone would allow Saleen to earn a fortune. The harvest from the three kings was an ident. Saleen had a figure in his heart, in the future, wars could not be fought in this manner.


    If the offensive party could not achieve victory the losses would be greater. Saleen could not keep fighting in Metatrin City, his army had to go out and fight thousands of miles away. By then, if he did not have the best army and equipment, his losses would dwarf the current figures.


    Because of this logic, Saleen was even more determined to establish a demonic army. A demonic army did not require any pensions.


    After Saleen¡¯s body recovered a little he met with the sixteen nobles who had received rewards. He then returned to the underground space in order to undergo three months of nonstop training. In three months¡¯ time, his left hand would at least recover slightly.


    Magic training required the coordination of hand gestures. Now that Saleen was left with one hand, he could not learn any new spells. To Saleen who had just been promoted to grade-6 not long ago, this was a huge problem.


    In the practice of new spells, hand gestures and mantras could not be absent.


    Saleen was frustrated, but Archbishop Nichs was even more vexed. The army that he led, containing more than ten-thousand troops, suddenly ran into serious problems.

 Chapter 659: Aftermath of the battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 659: Aftermath of the battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Archbishop Nichs actually wanted to lead this army to Phoenix for a looting session, so that the army could receive resupply and nourishment. Even before reaching Phoenix, the soldiers began falling ill however.


    Archbishop Nichs did not pay much attention to it, it was normal for soldiers to fall sick after losing a battle. More and more soldiers fell ill, even the holy masters could not carry out treatment.


    Archbishop Nichs immediately became alert. The intermediate grade holy masters he deployed had executed forceful treatment on the ill soldiers. Most of them recovered, but some did not respond to the treatment. What made Nichs astonished was that one soldier actually was killed by the divine spell treatment.


    It could only mean one thing if a person got killed by a divine spell treatment. The vitality of this soldier had been fully depleted, there was no more vitality left for use.


    Archbishop Nichs was no idiot, this incident caused him to break out in cold sweat.


    ¡°The pope actually used that technique! No wonder the soldiers were so fearless, battling as though they were berserk, they were even scarier than the fanatic believers. When my holy masters treated these soldiers, the process was more rxed than usual, they didn¡¯t even use much divine strength. I still thought that it was because these people were sincere enough. Theisio, are you trying to ruin my future by doing this?¡± Archbishop Nichs calcted many possibilities, but he never calcted that his soldiers would not live for long. ¡°The pope has already stimted their vitality in advance, no matter victory or defeat, there will only be one oue.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, have you finally straightened your thoughts?¡± A voice rang behind Nichs, causing Nichs to turn his head around sharply. He saw that a white-robed youth was seated in his tent.


    ¡°Fycro...¡±


    ¡°Nichs, do you want to die, or live?¡± Fycro asked with a smile.


    ¡°I want to live!¡±


    ¡°You are still a smart person after all. Nichs, do you know why Theisio plotted against you?¡±


    Nichs shook his head. Even though he was not the pope¡¯s confidante, he was one of the powers who supported the pope among the inner ranks of the Holy See. He could not understand why Theisio had done that. He could understand the reason behind sacrificing the soldiers in order to raise their offensive powers, but why was he the scapegoat?


    ¡°You have the powers of grade-9 right?¡± Fycro¡¯s smile was very modest, but Nichs could detect the arrogance within. A grade-9 holy master was no expert in Fycro¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°You cannot hide from me and neither can you hide from Theisio. During the ambush of Emperor Chanake the inner ranks of the Holy See had sustained massive losses. You also know the kind of injuries Theisio had sustained, but Nichs, you don¡¯t know how he managed to recover so swiftly right?¡±


    Fycro¡¯s words set off andmine in Nichs¡¯ heart.


    Fycro continued using words to attack Nichs, he said, ¡°That¡¯s right, back then, half of the people who died were killed by Theisio. Then, within the next year, the people in the Holy See were assassinated by sorcerers from Alchemy City. In actual fact, a number of them were actually killed by Theisio himself. He absorbed the vitality and divine strength of these people, that¡¯s why he could recover so quickly. Nichs, think about it, if you return to receive punishment, how do you think Theisio will handle a grade-9 holy master like yourself?¡±


    Archbishop Nichs hesitated no more, with a thud, he knelt before Fycro.


    ¡°Sir Fycro, save me!¡±


    ¡°So... how will you thank me?¡± Fycro grinned as he looked at Nichs. ¡°This powerful bishop from the Holy See haspletely fallen under my thumb.¡±


    ¡°I will be at your beck and call!¡± Archbishop Nichs was utterly terrified. ¡°If the pope absorbs one¡¯s vitality, their soul won¡¯t be spared either. Given the pope¡¯s powers, he will surely not waste my soul. By then, I can be crafted into all sorts of things.¡±


    ¡°Great. There are five-thousand wardens at a location about one-hundred miles south of you. I have already them trapped in a magic array, they cannot leave at the moment. Bring your men and kill all of them.¡±


    Nichs shuddered, but he did not refuse.


    Fycro continued, ¡°After killing these five-thousand people, your ten-thousand troops and the twenty Red Bishops shouldn¡¯t be spared either. You shall then defect to Metatrin City¡¯s owner, Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Sir!¡± Nichs bellowed, then he immediately lowered his voice. Quivering, he said, ¡°Then I will...¡±


    ¡°You will have fallen, right? A fallen holy master is a very powerful presence. In the future, you can steal the power of the believers and you don¡¯t have to care about the feelings of the god, right?¡±


    ¡°Sir Fycro, kill me.¡± Nichs was in utter despair.


    ¡°Why are you so anxious, do you know about Genesis¡¯ death?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Nichs answered weakly.


    ¡°His Script of Redemption is in my possession. If youplete your tasks well, I will have a way to let you return to God¡¯s embrace.¡± Fycro¡¯s smile was ever vibrant, but Nichs felt a chill down his spine.


    ¡°If you aren¡¯t willing...¡±


    ¡°I am willing to do it!¡± Nichs bowed deeply.


    ¡°Take it, there are one-hundred-thousand broken souls inside, it will be sufficient to fulfill your usual intake of religious strength. Remember to collect the souls of the ughtered wardens and believers.¡± Fycro took out a ck bead, tossing it in front of Nichs.


    ¡°Yes, Sir.¡±


    ¡°Just tell Saleen that I have asked you to defect to him, he will not refuse. In the future, I will ask Picasso to contact you if I have any tasks for you.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± When Nichs raised his head again, Fycro had disappeared. Nichs startedughing bitterly, ¡°I have lived for over seventy years, but I am still so na?ve. I had thought that since the Golden Grand Swordmaster had been killed by the enemy in one hit and the five-thousand wardens had escaped, I could exin myself and be rid of me when I returned to the Holy See. To think that my life had long been part of Theisio¡¯s plot already.¡±


    Saleen originally nned to train for three months. On the sixth day, he had to emerge from the warehouse because someone was looking for him.


    When Saleen arrived at the second story of the temple, he saw that red-robed old man. Nichs simply stood there looking a little lifeless surrounded by a group of people.


    What made Saleen astonished was that a ck holy prose had appeared on the forehead of this red-robed man.


    Cuisi and the rest stared nervously at Nichs, this old man was a grade-9 expert. If he attacked Saleen abruptly, the consequences would be predictable. J had even drawn his longsword. He stood behind Nichs, preparing to spring into action anytime.


    When Saleen appeared, Nichs was taken aback. Saleen was much younger than he had imagined, Saleen might not even be twenty years old. ¡°Why was the pope in such a hurry to kill such a person?¡±


    ¡°You are the overallmander of the expeditionary army right, why are you here to look for me?¡± Saleen went straight to the main point.


    Nichs nced at the people surrounding him. Even though he was a grade-9 expert, he would not wind up well if he got attacked by these people. He was not sure whether he should let them learn about Fycro¡¯s words. Since Fycro did not mention anything, Nichs had to be more vignt.


    Pondering for a while, Nichs steeled his heart, then he took out that ck bead and handed it over.


    ¡°This is a Soul Bead. Since I have already fallen, this is the source of my powers. If you crush this bead, I will transform into a normal human being immediately.¡±


    Saleen used the Elemental Eye to observe this ck bead, as Nichs continued, ¡°This bead contains the soul fragments of the entire expeditionary army. A total of one-hundred and twenty-five-thousand people. I have also killed the escaped wardens, as well the twenty Red Bishops who served me. Sir Saleen, can I speak to you in private?¡±


    ¡°The people present here are my trusted associates, go ahead and speak.¡± Saleen observed that there were countless of soul fragments inside this ck bead, there were also some souls which were moreplete. All of them were wailing in agony.


    ¡°I havee forth to defect you.¡± Nichs pointed to his forehead, then said, ¡°I have already fallen. Even though Myers maind is huge, I can only settle down in your city.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need you.¡± Saleen rejected tly, but he was fiddling with that Soul Bead.


    At this moment, Nichs then realized why Fycro had reminded him to say Fycro sent him. ¡°Fycro sent me here.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s expression suddenly froze, ¡°Since Fycro has asked him toe here, can I possibly refuse?¡±


    ¡°Okay, everyone leave, what is your name?¡±


    ¡°Nichs.¡± Nichs did not mention his surname.


    ¡°Mm, Nichs, since he asked you toe here, I cannot refuse. You have to sign a contract with me. I am a mere grade-6 mage, your powers are much stronger than mine, I cannot rest assured having you beside me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, please write one up, I am willing to sign a contract.¡± Nichs did not care about anything anymore. He could not turn back anymore after killing twenty Red Bishops. All his hopes were pinned on Fycro¡¯s Script of Redemption. If Fycro reneged Nichs still had to rely on this young mage.


    ¡°This city is sturdier than I thought. If it is developed further, there will be no problem resisting an army with a million soldiers.¡±


    ¡°If all holy masters are like you, there wouldn¡¯t be a holy war already.¡± Saleen teased, as he wrote on a scroll. More than half the people had left the room, only Sika, Nailisi, and Cuisi stayed behind.


    By now, Saleen was extremely deft in writing a contractual scroll. This time around, the scroll was made from the skin of a lightning dragon, it was from the grade-8 lightning dragon they killed some time ago. Even so, this contractual scroll could still bind any expert below grade-10.


    Nichs did not even look, he used his blood to write his name decisively. Out of the blue, ayer of dense electric current appeared on the scroll. The blue electric currents interweaved, shing for one whole minute before turning the scroll into ashes.


    Saleen had added the power of lightning into this scroll. If Nichs tried to harm him in the future, Nichs would first be restrained by the power within the scroll. Saleen did not believe that Nichs¡¯ soul could resist lightning from a lightning dragon.


    This was double insurance. Before Nichs could act, he would lose all his powers immediately. Making this precaution was so much simpler than crushing a Soul Bead.


    ¡°Take this back. Nichs, let¡¯s talk.¡± Seeing that the contract had taken effect, Saleen was no longer fearful of this fallen grade-9 holy master. He returned the Soul Bead to Nichs.


    ¡°Sir Saleen, what do you want to know?¡± Signing the contract, Nichs felt more assured already. At least Saleen would not be suspicious of his abilities, he would remain alive for the time being.

 Chapter 660: Subduing Nicholas (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 660: Subduing Nichs (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Momentarily, Saleen did not what to ask Nichs. There were too many things he wanted to know. Everything he knew about the Holy See was picked up from books.


    Nichs was calm now. Seeing Saleen¡¯s hesitance, he decided to begin from the foundations of the Holy See and gradually moved onto the Holy City. It was the core of the Holy See on the Glorious ins.


    Nichs was born into a poor family and his parents were normal citizens who did not have much and would work for the people in the city for a living. When he was three years old, a priest brought him to a church and from six years old onwards, he began to sing hymns. When he was twelve years old, he was sent to the viges to be a young pastor.


    For the past over seventy years, he gradually climbed his way up the Holy See and became the red Grand Bishop.


    Nichs shared his journey thus far and the many significant events that took ce at almost every stage of his priesthood. Saleen did not interrupt him and let him continue.


    Finally, Nichs described how the expedition came about and exined why he decided to betray the Holy See to follow Saleen.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it cruel of Theisio to do this?¡± Although Saleen already knew how the expedition eventually ended up, it was differenting from Nichs. The majority of the soldiers that made up the expedition weremoners and disciples. They received limited training and were willing to take up arms only because of their own religion.


    ¡°Lord Saleen, indeed it is cruel, but we... no, within the Holy See, anything can be justified for the sake of our God.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, now that you are a fallen holy priest, how do your current abilitiespare to your past abilities?¡±


    Nichsughed bitterly and said, ¡°I should be even stronger now. God will no longer look out for me now however. After I die, I will fall into purgatory.¡±


    ¡°And you are not afraid?¡±


    ¡°What is there to be afraid of? That will only take ce in over one-thousand years. I am a grade-9 holy priest and should outlive most mages. Within a thousand years, if I can advance to grade ten, not only will I be able to survive in the purgatory, I might even live quite well there.¡±


    ¡°How can you be sure?¡±


    ¡°Lord Saleen, when a Professional reaches grade-9, he will start toe into contact with things on the soul level and will have a vague knowledge of grade-10. When he reaches grade-10, as long as his soul was not taken away and he had died a natural death, his soul will never vanish. Most likely, there will be other strong opponents in other worlds that will be able to preserve their memories.¡±


    There were simr descriptions in the magic notes. After listening to what Nichs said, he was more certain than ever that grade-10 was only the starting point of Professionals.


    No wonder humans were so weak. It would be extremely difficult to try and find ten Professionals on Myers Maind.


    He only knew two, which were Joey and Fycro. By simple estimation, Alchemy City should have one at least and Holy Rock City should be concealing another one other than Joey.


    Cloudflow, Tanggsi, and Sikeqinya should all have at least one grade-10 Professional each. The maind would not have maintained bnce for the past thousand years otherwise. Now that the Holy See was starting a holy war, none of the grade-10 Professionals had been activated. That must be due to a fear of revenge from the other Professionals. Alternatively, all the Professionals might have agreed not to participate in such matters.


    ¡°Nichs, I have always wanted to rify something. The holy priests¡¯ healing spelles at the price of the lives of those being healed. When you heal yourself, do you also have to pay the same price?¡±


    ¡°Most of the time, no. We absorb the energies of other living things instead, which is a littleplicated,¡± Nichs answered honestly. The bond that he had signed with Saleen was only second to a soul bond so there was no need to hide anything. In any case, before Fycro said anything, he would just focus on serving Saleen to the best of his abilities.


    ¡°For this injury of mine, how should I treat it?¡± Saleen said and removed his glove, revealing his left hand.


    When Nichs saw Saleen¡¯s green bones, he immediately understood why Theisio was so determined to exterminate Saleen.


    ¡°The Lord is revered, no wonder Theisio is so worried about you. My Lord, your injury is serious. I have a soul bead that can treat you immediately. If you are not willing to sacrifice a bit of life strength, it will still healpletely within three days.¡±


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Then do it.¡±


    Saleen knew that there was no turning back for Nichs after thetter had killed the twelve red Bishops under him. Fycro had asked him to help Saleen for the purpose of their agreement. Fycro was worried that if Saleen died too soon, thetter would not be able to help the former control the entire north.


    Nichs approached Saleen and observed Saleen¡¯s bones in detail. He then put the ck soul bead on Saleen¡¯s hand. He pressed on it with his finger and said, ¡°In the name of Nichs, heal!¡±


    Beams of gray light immediately shot out from the soul bead and covered Saleen¡¯s hand entirely. Ayer of fascia grew out rapidly on Saleen¡¯s hand. Saleen could sense that some of the life strength in his hand was slightly depleted. The energy that shot out from the soul bead was the main power that was regenerating the muscles.


    ck holy prose appeared and wrapped around Saleen¡¯s left hand. Blood vessels and tendons began to regenerate followed by muscles. Finally, skin, nails, and hair all grew out as well.


    Within ten minutes, Nichs haspletely healed Saleen¡¯s left hand.


    After keeping the soul bead, Nichs said cautiously, ¡°Lord Saleen, what I just used was a fallen divine spell and there are slight differences from a typical divine spell. In the next two to three days, please refrain from using this hand. Use restorative water to wash it and preferably keep it in magic liquid. After three days, it should make a full recovery.¡±


    Saleen was using his elemental eye to observe the entire process. Although he did not understand it, it was a fact that his left hand had began to regenerate muscles and tendons that were no different from before he lost his hand. There was a gray aura surrounding the newly grownponents. The aura was controlled by Nichs. It did not prate into the bones and only washed over the skin.


    When this gray aura seeped out from the skin, it gradually took the shape of small beads that were the size of the tip of a needle. These beads were poisonous, but due to their low quantity, they were not strong enough to kill even a pig. If the gray aura seeped into his bones, Saleen would be in big trouble. Mages knew that the bone marrow in bones was responsible for creating blood. His blood would be poisoned if the it seeped through and after some time his body would weaken.


    Nichs seemed to know what Saleen was thinking and said, ¡°Lord Saleen, these beads have their uses too. If you dilute them with restorative water, they can cure cold damage. When soldiers suffer from frostbite during very cold weather, more often than not they will need to amputate the affected limb in order to survive. If we put the affected limb in this poison, it could be preserved. The person¡¯s lifespan would be reduced a little though.¡±


    ¡°By how much?¡±


    ¡°It depends on the situation. At least one year, but not more than five years.¡±


    Saleen began to calcte in his head. If given a choice, would a twenty year old who was suffering from frostbite choose to sacrifice his leg or reduce his lifespan by five years? The choice should be obvious. No one would be willing lose the ability to walk.


    ¡°Nichs, I know now. In the future, I will allow you to use fallen divine spell to heal soldiers, but...¡±


    ¡°My Lord, if I were to heal your people, I will exin to you the pros and cons first,¡± Nichs replied respectfully.


    ¡°Nichs, do you intend to follow Fycro or me in the future? Fycro and I may not always maintain a peaceful rtionship.¡± Saleen suddenly asked a straightforward question without warning.


    Nichs had already thought this through and replied honestly, ¡°My Lord, I do not know. Fycro only instructed me to follow you without stating any other requests. If he asks me to carry out certain tasks, I will not hide it from you.¡±


    ¡°And if he asks you to kill me?¡±


    ¡°If Fycro wants to kill you, he will do it himself.¡±


    Saleen stared at Nichs and thought to himself, ¡°If I keep this person by my side, I can use him, but at the same time I need to keep my guard up. This is a really good move by Fycro.¡± Fycro would never have guessed that Saleen could infuse lightning into the bond so if Nichs tried to go against the bond, he would die immediately.


    ¡°In your opinion, what should I do in order to unify the entire north and take over Laiyin Duchy?¡± Saleen changed his train of thought very quickly and began to talk about expanding again.


    At this point in time, a low-level mage entered and whispered to Saleen in his ear. Saleen nodded and the mage left. He then focused his blue eyes back onto Nichs and waited for his answer.


    ¡°That will depend on how much money the Lord has.¡±


    ¡°Money... I still have slightly more than one-million gold coins now. I produce magic nuclei, metal ores, and many other materials which I won¡¯t have to spend money on to obtain. Basically, I only need to spend money on the soldiers¡¯ sries. I have two grade-6 death mages and tens of thousands of ves so I don¡¯t need to hire workers for construction projects.¡±


    ¡°How many magic nuclei do you sell annually?¡±


    Saleen thought for a while and said, ¡°For grade-4 magic nuclei, this year alone was more than twenty-thousand. As for the rest, not more than two-thousand. Low-grade magic nuclei are sold as long as there is enough for my own use.¡±


    Nichs was taken aback and then felt a bit tempted. He could not believe that Saleen possessed such strong financial backing. Perhaps this young mage really could unify the north, or even...


    ¡°Forget it, since Fycro did not mention other special requests, I will just follow Saleen.¡± If Saleen was to go to war, Nichs would be able to collect more souls and increase his chances of advancing into a grade-10 holy priest. The morend that Saleen conquered, the more it was to Nichs¡¯ advantage.


    Although Fycro said that he had the Script of Redemption, who knew if he would give it to Nichs. Even if Nichs received redemption, he would not be able to return to the Holy See and could only follow Fycro. Would the oracles around Fycro allow Nichs to make a name for himself?


    Based on Fycro¡¯s intelligence, surely he would understand all this.


    With that, Nichs became more cheerful as if he had thought something through. He stood before Saleen and bowed deeply. He then said, ¡°Lord Saleen, I have a request that I hope you will agree to.¡±


    Nichs unknowingly used honorifics and his tone was totally different.

 Chapter 661: Subduing Nicholas (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 661: Subduing Nichs (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Nichs, please go on.¡±


    ¡°I would like to be your follower,¡± Nichs replied through gritted teeth. He was already a grade-9 sorcerer and even though he had fallen, his abilities had not been reduced. He felt a little embarrassed to follow a grade-6 mage. Fortunately, he was already quite old and had learned to be thick-skinned so Saleen would not be able to see his embarrassment.


    Saleen moved his left hand and looked at Nichs. Nichs¡¯ expression was one of peacefulness.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°The current bond between us only restricts me from hurting you. If I be your follower, I will not be able to hurt your subordinates either. I just think that one must be decisive.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Saleen did not say more. He took out a nk scroll and began to write.


    The two of them signed the second bond in silence before Saleen finally smiled and said, ¡°Nichs, it must not have been easy for you to make this decision.¡±


    Nichs replied, ¡°By following you, I will have a chance to shine one day. I don¡¯t have any other choice.¡±


    ¡°You will not regret it. Originally, I had wanted to just keep you by my side and hope that you would not give me trouble. Now, Nichs, you may still have the chance to attain freedom one day. Give your soul bead to me.¡±


    Nichs handed over the soul bead to Saleen and Saleen looked at it. He took out a piece of tourmaline and ced it with the soul bead and began to refine it in front of Nichs.


    The water me appeared and Saleen melted the tourmaline before putting the soul bead within it. He then released a bit of life strength and infused it into the soul bead. Green holy prose began to appear on the tourmaline one by one along with magic words and magic patterns.


    Nichs was engrossed. Even he was not able to refine items like this.


    His soul bead had been refined into a bigger bead. This bead was green in color and there were twenty-four holes in it. Nichs would still be able to absorb energy through these twenty-four holes, but because of the bond. No one else would be able to control the soul bead. The bead had beenbined with the tourmaline entirely. Destroying the tourmaline was equivalent to destroying the soul bead as well.


    Other than Saleen, no one else, including Fycro, would be able to control this soul bead.


    By making use of a simple principle of material, Saleen managed to block off every way to utilize this bead. The holy prose on the bead was the divine spell of the Goddess of Nature. If Fycro were to change his religion and followed the Goddess of Myers instead, it would be easy for him to regain control over the soul bead again based on his abilities.


    The problem was, would Fycro change his religion?


    Sometimes, mages might not necessarily need to use their own strength to make full use of the principles of a particr dimension. As long as one was still on the Myers Maind, its principle would override the principles of other dimensions, including those set by the Gods.


    ¡°Lord Saleen...¡±


    ¡°Hmm, from now on, your powers are no longer restricted by Fycro. He will not be able to hurt you as long as you don¡¯t go looking for trouble from him. I will not allow you to face an oracle head-on either,¡± Saleen did not hold back his words in his own temple. Although his temple seemed to be built in a typical and boring manner, it was equipped with what a magic tower should possess.


    When a mage was in a magic tower, his own safety would be guaranteed. Fycro would not be able to do anything at least within the small region of principle of the magic tower.


    Before, when Fycro secretly approached Saleen, it was at the port. If it was at the temple, Fycro would not have been able to control Saleen without being detected.


    ¡°Nichs, I would not have wished to control you either. The source of your poweres from the soul bead. I do not wish for you to suddenly turn into a normal person while you are carrying out a task for me,¡± Saleen was careful and clear with his words.


    Nichs held the soul bead in his hand. An electric current ran through the inside of the tourmaline. The current was a weak one and flowed within the magic patterns before fading off. The soul bead was hidden within these electric currents.


    Nichs knew that even divine spells would be destroyed by the electric currents. There was once a mage who used arrows made from tourmaline to shoot at an armor that had been boosted with divine spell and it was quite effective. Tourmaline was rare and it was difficult to mine it. Not many people knew about this effect it had. There were many ways a mage could destroy divine spells and this particr way was just not well-known.


    This did not mean that tourmaline was not valuable. The price of a tourmaline was worth more than most gemstones. The mostmon use for a tourmaline was in healing spells. A human¡¯s heart would stop beating after suffering from serious injuries. By activating the electric current within the tourmaline and infusing it into the body, the heart would be started again.


    This method would allow middle-grade mages to revive people who had died very recently, just like holy priests.


    ¡°Lord Saleen, I¡¯m afraid Fycro¡¯s powers have surpassed that of a grade-9 Professional,¡± Nichs reminded Saleen.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid. At most he will destroy this object, but he will not be able to use it to control you. If worsees to worst, as long as I don¡¯t leave this temple, there is nothing he can do to me. If he dares to look for trouble in my temple, you have seen how I managed to kill the gold grand swordmaster,¡± Saleen replied steadily.


    Although Nichs was still worried, he was also somewhat more reassured. Even Fycro would have a little trouble killing that gold grand swordmaster, but Saleen managed to do so in a split second using only one method. This method was extremely powerful, but Nichs knew that there must be some limitations to it.


    What Saleen said was not boasting. If Fycro entered the temple, his movements would be heavily restricted and Saleen would have an easier time taking aim at the target.


    Someone like Fycro would never risk his life.


    What Saleen did not tell Nichs was that if the Sregl Ind mages arrived and managed to build a magic tower, Fycro would not be able to move around freely in Metatrin City at all.


    It was not as if Saleen was trying to kill Fycro. Dealing with Fycro was Joey¡¯s task. Joey took the Seal of Divine Power purely to deal with Fycro. Saleen was only trying to ensure his own safety.


    After so many close shaves, Saleen no longer feared death, but this only made him increase the rigor of his preparations.


    ¡°Lord Saleen... thank you.¡± Nichs knew that it would still take some time before he gained Saleen¡¯s trust. Nevertheless, Saleen has given him a chance. As long as Saleen continued to lead Nichs, the trust between them would surely develop over time.


    Saleen had no intentions of going into this topic. In any case, Nichs has chosen to follow him and now, Saleen had a grade-9 Professional by his side. The effects of this was significant. Nichs would be more useful than the two grade-9 mages. Thetter could only help Saleen to look after western town, but Nichs could be deployed to any location.


    ¡°Nichs, since the bond has been signed, you shall stay here. I will give you some men as your subordinates. For now, you will not be given any tasks. Just follow me everyday and we will continue to converse. There is still more to the Holy See that I wish to know. What kind of subordinates do you wish to have? The spirits of the dead and demons that I have are more useful than humans.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, do you have normal demons?¡±


    ¡°Yes, why?¡±


    ¡°Give me twelve of them. I will let them devour the souls of the red Bishop so that they will be abominable demons. They will be the enemies of the Holy See for eternity and I will be morefortable to use them.¡±


    Nichs looked at Saleen expectantly. Demons possessed the ability to devour souls. If he seeded, he would be able to use fallen divine spells on the demons. They would serve as another level of insurance against Fycro or even Theisio. It would be impossible for them to try and kill him instantaneously. These twelve demons would serve as his scapegoats first.


    Nichs might have signed a bond with Saleen that put him in severe disadvantage but the one he feared the most was still Pope Theisio. Saleen needed Nichs¡¯ abilities, but Theisio only wanted his powerful soul.


    ¡°For this, you will have to ask her,¡± Saleen pointed at Nailisi. Nailisi had woken up not long ago. It had been less than ten days and she had yet to fully develop the fifth ability. She was still feeling fatigued. Once she heard Saleen¡¯smand, Nailisi smiled and said, ¡°Nichs, rest assured. I will definitely help you.¡±


    ¡°Master is so generous to give me another chance to take advantage of this man.¡± Nailisi thought


    ¡°Nice to meet you,¡± Nichs¡¯ beard shook. Nailisi made him feel a difort that came about from facing terrifying creatures.


    ¡°Nice to meet you as well. I am Nailisi. From now on, we are on the same side,¡± Nailisi blinked and was already thinking about what she stood to gain from this old man.


    ¡°Alright, Aini and the rest need to see me. Nichs, you cane along.¡± Saleen put on his glove and led Sika out of the room. There was a meeting room on the second level of the temple that was big enough for Saleen to meet the noble families.


    The number of attendees in the meeting room had increased. After the battle, Saleen dered many others to be Barons. These men had performed meritorious deeds during the battle that helped to reduce Saleen¡¯s losses drastically. Saleen was extremely grateful.


    Once Saleen arrived, everyone stood up and bowed. Aini was no exception. Saleen smiled and sat down before looking around the entire room and said, ¡°Let me introduce someone; this is Nichs. He was originally the red Grand Bishop of the Holy See, but he is on our side now.¡±


    The noble families were in uproar.


    The Qin and Tanggsi Empires had fought for thousands of years and many holy priests had changed sides. Never had someone of the level of a red Grand Bishop changed sides. Saleen was ruthless!


    This was equivalent to giving the Lord of Glory a p to the face. The entire Holy See would be put to shame.


    These noble families had no love for the Holy See and would even be willing to go to the battlefield themselves to kill a few Tanggsis. What Saleen had done was outrageous and would focus the Holy See¡¯s attention on them. Would the newly built Metatrin City be able to handle such a tough test?


    ¡°Looks like everyone has little faith in me,¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was calm, but with a tinge sarcasm and gloom.


    ¡°I will follow you to death,¡± Aini mmed the table emotionally.


    After hearing what Aini said, Guya, Renee, and Irene also pped their hands and said, ¡°You are the King and we are your Dukes. We will obey your orders. Even if we were to fight against Qin Empire, we will follow you.¡±

 Chapter 662: The allure of a quota (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 662: The allure of a quota (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked at the women on his left side in astonishment, they had actually said something like that. It was one thing to be enemies with the Holy See and another to be enemies with the Qin Empire.


    In the room, most of the people originated from Qin and this rtionship could not be simply severed.


    Guya suddenly said, ¡°My king, there is one thing which you have promised. I would like to ask, when will you fulfill it?¡±


    Saleen was bewildered and said, ¡°What is it?¡± He did not remember promising Guya anything.


    Guya said with a cackle, ¡°My king, you promised to let my sister lead an army.¡±


    Saleen then recalled that he had promised to make Sharman a general. ¡°Sharman doesn¡¯t have a title, so she cannot participate in the meeting right now. In recent times, I have had to recuperate and I haven¡¯t seen this child yet.¡±


    ¡°Sharman is still young, just get her toe over. I will arrange for some people to assist her in understanding the mechanics of leading an army to battle.¡± Saleen agreed decisively, ¡°Sharman is the youngest genius I have evere across.¡±


    When the rest of the nobles heard Guya¡¯s words, they came to their senses at the same time. Since they had followed Saleen, they should of course work for him smartly. These four youths could obtain Saleen¡¯s trust and a duke title not only because Saleen was recruiting people, but because they were sufficiently ruthless and ferocious.


    ¡°Guya had brought whatever power and riches from her family and ced them in Metatrin City. She even allowed her sister to join Saleen¡¯s army. We should emte her!¡±


    These nobles were not stupid. In hindsight, they realized that all twelve earls came from wealthy families and there was a number of youths following them.


    ¡°Handing my children to Saleen so that they can battle for him will be much better than keeping them by my side to expand my influence. Saleen needs support. The earlier I render this support, the more substantial the rewards will be. Look at that Aini, he even brought his parents along, he shares the most intimate rtionship with Saleen.¡±


    There were simply too many talents in Qin. Even though these nobles possessed genuine capabilities, they could hardly progress anymore. It was different if they followed Saleen. As long as they carved out a remarkable career, they could receive powerful titles and vastnds.


    Guya¡¯s words roused the other nobles. One by one, the nobles signaled their intention to allow their descendants to follow Saleen and establish a powerful army. Their children, be it the direct or indirect descendants, had received quality education. Many of them had led smaller armies in the past, so it would be easier to cultivate them.


    The issue which Saleen had been vexing over was actually resolved with one sentence from Guya.


    Saleen had kind of overdone the recruiting of nobles and giving them rewards because he wanted to enrich his influence swiftly. No matter how strong a mage was, they could not rece an army. Alchemy City would have dominated the world already otherwise. The offspring of these nobles had received superior education. Be it managing a city or leading troops, they could easily take on such roles.


    That was the good thing about Qin nobles. They spared no effort towards the education of their descendants. Even a baron emphasized this aspect. From the perspective of the Qin people, only intelligent and courageous people would have the opportunity to obtain power and wealth. Lazy and fatuous people deserved to be trampled on.


    ¡°Ker... we better discuss the events that will happen in the next six months.¡± Saleen coughed, causing everyone else to shut their mouths. It was already June, due to the war thends which needed to be sowed were still barren. The broken-edged barrier also needed to be built. The small towns which were destroyed had to be restored.


    The meeting hall fell silent. The nobles waited for Saleen to delegate the tasks as these tasks came with benefits.


    These people were in such a hurry to meet Saleen for this reason. Themercial routes which were destroyed by the Holy See needed to be rebuilt and the small towns which acted as resupply stations had to be restored. Even if they did not receive any money, they could obtain a few shops in these ces. That would create a long-term revenue stream for them.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the problem of the shops east of the city. Everyone seated here has at least three shops. My point is, I will only keep three shops selling magic nuclei in the future. Eighty percent of the annual goods will be distributed to all of you.¡±


    In that instant, Saleen¡¯s words ruffled the nobles. The previous year, Saleen had controlled all the magic nuclei. Now that he said he was going to give away an eighty percent share, it meant that everyone would have pricing power.


    What was Saleen paying? Saleen would receive quite a lot of profits, these nobles had to contribute some funds if they wanted to receive magic nuclei. This also meant that once Saleen¡¯s magic nuclei were taken back, eighty percent of the money could be reimed.


    What were the most valuable items in Metatrin? Magic nuclei and metals. These two items would allow everyone to make a fortune. The mines in Qin were controlled by the imperial family, while the sale of magic nuclei was mostly controlled by Alchemy City.


    These nobles would not make a loss even if they were to invest huge sums of money to obtain magic nuclei. In turn, Saleen could receive more cash, he would not have to borrow money to ensure stable cashflow.


    ¡°On top of the iron mines, copper mines, silver mines, and gold mines. I will also be responsible for ore refining in the future, I will only set aside twenty percent for distribution. For the remaining portion, I still have to rely on you guys.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s promises had bound these nobles totally. Why? Because as long as Saleen did not copse, their profits would be guaranteed.


    ¡°My king!¡± Renee suddenly said, ¡°For the distribution of these items, what ratio will you use to ensure coordination between all of us?¡±


    The moment she asked this question, everyone perked their ears to listen to Saleen¡¯s reply. Even though Saleen had freed up a huge portion of the profits, there was stillpetition between the nobles.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the magic nuclei first. For transactions involving magic nuclei, the price has always been controlled by Alchemy City. Every year, Alchemy City facilitates transactions involving around one-million magic nuclei, but they are confined within the city. Only about two-hundred-thousand magic nuclei are sold outside. Arge portion of that one-million magic nuclei is made up of low level magic nuclei. I don¡¯t want Metatrin City to affect the market in Alchemy City, you guys cannot make the profit margin too thin.¡±


    The nobles did not understand what Saleen meant, but Saleen said, ¡°Sooner orter, Alchemy City will begin eyeing us, that¡¯s why all of you should engage in small deals with Alchemy City. Make Alchemy City think that they can control our market, it will be much simpler that way. I will use a t rate method. Every one-hundred magic nuclei will make up one share and I will distribute fifty percent of the magic nuclei to everybody. For the remaining thirty percent, you guys will have topete for it.¡±


    ¡°Alchemy City will eye this thirty percent of shares, so they will offer a higher price than everyone else. My twenty percent share will be distributed to you guys ording to your titles. Once Alchemy City stabilizes the price, my twenty percent shares will be circted at half their price. That way, even if Alchemy City can dominate the thirty percent, you guys will get the other seventy percent, your prices will surely be lower than them.¡±


    The moment Saleen said that, the nobles felt more assured already. Saleen had kept that twenty percent so that he could adjust the prices. The nobles definitely could not vie with Alchemy City, but Saleen¡¯s twenty percent of the shares could help make up for their losses. If Alchemy City wanted to control the market, they would have to pay an astronomical price.


    Taking the thirty percent, it would be impossible for Alchemy City to buy high and sell low.


    ¡°As for the four types of mines, I will distribute them to the four dukes. Then, ording to your titles, you have to distribute eighty percent to the lower ranks.¡±


    The nobles nced at one another, Saleen was trying to distribute these things equally.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think that your profits will be little, keeping that twenty percent will ensure ample cashflow. The sale of raw materials doesn¡¯t bring much profit. I will distribute it to you guys so that you can control the source. The real profit stems from finished equipment. How much can twenty kilograms of steel fetch? How much can a puppet chariot used for farming fetch? How much can crafted armor fetch?¡±


    The nobles were speechless, they did not have so many mages with them.


    ¡°I will build arge number of alchemyboratories south of the city. In at most two years, Metatrin City will have thousands of mages and tens of thousands of magic disciples. If you want to refine materials you only need to spend half the amountpared to the outside world.¡±


    Saleen cated everyone¡¯s emotions once again. By controlling the material sources and using half the market price to process materials, their profits would thus be protected.


    Saleen smirked secretly, ¡°When the mages from Sregl Ind arrive and they want to continue practicing, they will have to emte Lex¡¯s mages. Where will the materialse from? These nobles will provide them for free and they still have to pay. Lex must have her own methods for being able to groom so many mages. I won¡¯t be able to satisfy all the mages if I depend on myself to earn money. In the outside world, mages will charge high fees for processing materials because the quantity to be processed is too small. Their training will be hindered. If the quantity is good, mages can use the materials to learn and practice systematically, their study of magic will not be affected at all. Bitter Water Prefecture has alchemy factories, wherebyrge numbers of disciples are inside crafting armor and weapons. That is the ce where Lex makes money. In actual fact, Lex is grooming those mages, who do not carry out such work, in vain.¡±


    When Nichs heard Saleen allocating the profits to these nobles, he grew to admire Saleen. Saleen was not greedy, everyone could make a profit, so all of them would cooperate with one another. The one who made the most money was still Saleen. Nichs never expected Saleen to possess so many resources, he still asked Saleen how much money he had. Now, it seemed that Saleen¡¯s wealth could enable him to develop swiftly.


    Saleen¡¯s strategy was not shrewd, but as long as he was not greedy, he would be able to cage the nobles who had defected to him. He was giving them tangible benefits and he was the only one who could provide these benefits. That was already enough.


    If the nobles serving him could prosper, Saleen would also gain more power tounch campaigns overseas.


    What about the nobles¡¯ loyalty? Unless Saleen had let them down, those nobles who betrayed him would find it hard tomand respect in the future.


    Saleen had recruited people from Lon and Phoenix. He would not be betraying Qin because Qin had invaded Phoenix and failed to protect Lon. Guya was originally a baron. Since a title could hardly be passed down, she was not considered to have betrayed Qin.


    Aini and the rest had detached from their families. Since they were not the heirs, Holy Rock City could not say anything. In the fourth dynasty it was not rare to see people striking out on their own.

 Chapter 663: The allure of a quota (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 663: The allure of a quota (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen gazed at the smiling faces in front of him. Other than Aini and Guya, the rest of the nobles were extremely satisfied with Saleen¡¯s terms. The entrapping n was a sess. What did a noble desire? A status which was in line with their ability.


    Since Aini and Guya were mages, they knew what Saleen was trying to do. Their ideals were unlike the other nobles, they were not repulsed by Saleen¡¯s n. Aini and Saleen were close friends and Saleen enjoyed a cordial rtionship with Aini¡¯s parents. On the other hand, Guya¡¯s sister was a valuable asset Saleen wanted to groom. In the future her aplishments might not be inferior to Guya¡¯s. Saleen valued these two people the most.


    They all understood that Saleen was actually in control of everything by having the mages under his control.


    Without Saleen¡¯s mages, these nobles were nothing. Given sufficient materials, a mage would not even need to spend a single gold coin. A high grade mage could create food and water, they did not even need to spend money on their meals.


    In level-10 magic, there was a verymon spell which was learned by almost every grade-9 mage, it was called the Essence of the Elements. It created a paste-like substance. Other than treatment, thergest function of this substance was to allow a mage to maintain their physical strength even if they did not consume any food for months. One serving of the Essence of the Elements could be split into four standard sizes. Creating one set would allow a mage to survive for more than a year. In this period a mage only needed to train, they would not need to do anything else.


    That was why a mage would almost surpass the human category once they attained grade-10. The toughness of their body would begin to change. By consuming the Essence of the Element in the long run, a mage¡¯s body could be as tough as some high grade magic beasts.


    At this stage, a mage no longer required the supplies normal people needed.


    Humans could not do without mages. Without mages, humans would not be able to establish colossal cities, carry outrge scale agriculture, or stop the spread of epidemics. Without mages, human cities would be destroyed by powerful magic beasts. If creatures from foreign nes descended on this ne, many creatures here would be exterminated.


    Saleen had distributed the wealth, but these people would not get any mages.


    Regarding the hunting trips in the Frozen Sea, Saleen conservatively estimated that an annual investment of one-million gold coins would be sufficient. As for the rewards, he nned to hunt two-hundred-thousand red krill. This number of red krill could only sustain the lives of several gigantic grade-9 magic beasts, it would not affect the bnce of the Frozen Sea by arge magnitude.


    If Saleen took risks, he could increase the hunting numbers by several times.


    If Saleen sold the magic nuclei acquired from the two-hundred-thousand red krill at a price of one-hundred gold coins per piece he could gain twenty-million gold coins annually. Even though it was not as much as what Holy Rock City got, Saleen did not have as muchnd, he could only rely on hunting.


    Twenty-million gold coins would be sufficient for Saleen to groom an army with one-million soldiers.


    Originally, Saleen had trouble selling these magic nuclei. Now that the nobles were sharing his burden by selling eighty percent of the magic nuclei, Saleen only needed to sit back and receive profits only.


    Saleen had prepared a detailed set of distribution rules long ago. Since the nobles did not have any objections, he could thus discuss the details with Daniel.


    Daniel was also very jubnt. Originally, the Holy See was going after death mages, but Daniel was no longer the top priority of the Holy See anymore. At least before Nichs got killed, the Holy See would not have the mood to kill any death mages.


    Saleen did not leave, he began chatting with the people around him softly. Such interaction was necessary, especially with the twelve earls. Saleen could visit the four dukes anytime, but the rest of the nobles could onlymunicate with Daniel first.


    Using the shortest amount of time Saleen had understood the scarcity faced by the nobles. The nobles had recouped their investments from selling the magic nucleist year, they were not short of gold coins. Saleen¡¯s ration supply was also very stable, but the noblescked a source of goods. Of course, they were more in need ofnd. At the moment, they still had to take care of their own farmers.


    After interacting with the nobles Saleen felt that it was toote to grow grain, but the city could still grow vegetables. After the vegetable seeds got processed by the magic disciples, they could be harvested within a month. Saleen agreed to purchase all the vegetables and provide processing for the seeds because of that. That way, the nobles would not be taking care of the farmers in vain already.


    Since Saleen had given out so many benefits the nobles also had to reciprocate. Saleen did not open many shops in Metatrin City, but he had to open some in the small towns along themercial route and the cities outside Metatrin. The nobles provided manpower to help Saleen cultivate businessmen, while Saleen provided magic disciples to help the nobles.


    After one round of meeting, everyone was very pleased. At this moment, some soldiers entered to report that some skeletal warships were returning.


    Saleen then left the meeting hall and went to the harbor. The skeletal warships had sailed at themand of the winged skeleton, but these skeletal warships weremanded by the jade skeletons. They were short of human professionals. they did not dare sail to the Frozen Sea. The skeletal warships¡¯ mission was to hunt in the nearby seas and conduct patrols.


    Two skeletal warships returned, they had hunted a huge quantity of low grade magic beasts.


    It was difficult to estimate the number of magic beasts in the ocean, especially the low grade magic beasts. Even the smallest group contained millions of them. The lower their grade, the greater their numbers. These low grade magic beasts provided abundant food for the powerful magic beasts at sea, they were also the best hunting targets for Saleen.


    This time around, the two skeletal warships had run into pikes, a type of low grade magic beast. Pikes had differing grades, the lowest at grade-1 while the highest was at grade-3. Adult pikes were all at grade-2.


    The two skeletal warships did not carry any spatial equipment, but each of them still captured about forty-thousand to fifty-thousand pikes. A pike was not huge, so the storeroom could contain them. The jade skeletons onboard were intelligent spirits between grade-5 and grade-6. Under the winged skeleton¡¯s upbringing, they could advance continuously. If a spirit¡¯s promotion relied solely on natural progress the speed of promotion would be extremely slow though.


    Pikes were creatures with magic nuclei, their skin was very tough and they swam at high speeds. They had fallen into a trap set by the two skeletal warships. The skin of almost one-hundred-thousand pikes, excluding their magic nuclei, could be used to manufacture many pairs of boots.


    Saleen¡¯s army was located in the north, their boots needed to shield against the cold and be waterproof. Since the pikes lived in frigid waters, their skin was the best material for instion. Even though it was a little wasteful, Saleen had not nned to use these materials for other uses.


    Saleen kept the low level magic nuclei for himself, he did not n to market them. The market for low level magic nuclei wasrger, but the profits were small. The profits of the nobles would also reach a teau, it was not very meaningful to transport these magic nuclei to other ces.


    Gazing at the busy silhouettes working in the port, Saleen sighed in his heart. ¡°Now I have another route of obtaining magic nuclei. Sooner orter the price of magic nuclei in the Qin Empire will be lowered slightly. Since the quantity of magic nuclei will be kept steady, many mages will increase their training tempo. Alchemy City will release twenty percent of the magic nuclei every year because they are afraid that the number of mages on the maind will reduce drastically.¡±


    Saleen had not thought about increasing the hunting numbers. Firstly, he was not clear about the threshold for overhunting. If he killed too many intermediate grade magic beasts, the poption of the sea magic beasts could not be recovered easily. He had to figure this problem out gradually. A huge number ofnd magic beasts had gone extinct because of overhunting by humans, Saleen did not want this to happen to the ocean too. If that happened, mages would find it challenging to survive in the future.


    The port had warehouses, but these magic nuclei could not be stored inside them. Daniel was discussing matters with the nobles, while Nailisi was overseeing the activities on behalf of Saleen.


    Nailisi ordered two demons to lead some spirits and Caucasus troops to transport the unprocessed pikes to the underground cold storage first. At that ce, the hunted creatures would be further processed. Their magic nuclei would get extracted while their skins would be carefully removed. The teeth and bones of many magic beasts were useful, it was the same case for these pikes as well.


    In the future, the arrowheads of Saleen¡¯s main forces would be reliant on these magic beasts. Of course, it was more durable to use metals, but it was very tedious for mages to process metals. Inparison, the cost of production would be lower if bones were used. The effect of refining a magic beast¡¯s bones was much easier than using magic to refine steel.


    Most of the holy masters and heavy infantrymen from the expeditionary army were killed by the alchemical arrowheads.


    Jade skeletons from both vessels came to visit Saleen, he had chosen to meet them in a fortress. When the jade skeletons bowed at Saleen, Saleen realized that the two spirits possessed a high level of intelligence. These summoned creatures would not just listen and obey orders, they were like the winged skeleton, they could act on their own initiative.


    ¡°My Lord, Sir Soldier has gone to the Frozen Sea alone, he asked us to transport these goods back. There are some hunted creatures here as well, please inspect them.¡± The two jade skeletons handed over their spatial equipment.


    ¡°You can use this thing too?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but the space inside isn¡¯t very big, only important items are stored inside,¡± the jade skeletons replied.


    ¡°What else did Soldier say?¡±


    ¡°Sir asked us to look out for pirates. After returning, we are to travel south to protect our ships. Sir wishes to tell the Lord that he will not venture too deep into the Frozen Sea, he will return in about two and a half months¡¯ time.¡±


    Saleen looked at the skeletons¡¯ bodies, they were only d in normal bone armor. Saleen then asked, ¡°Why is your equipment so lousy?¡±


    ¡°Sir Soldier doesn¡¯t have the time to craft new armor. Speaking of this matter, we still have to ask the Lord to help us.¡±


    Saleen pondered, ¡°Indeed, the winged skeleton¡¯s death alchemy skills are pretty good, but they consume too much time. I can use my Water me Alchemy to help him resolve this issue quickly.¡±


    ¡°How many of you are present at the moment?¡± Saleen was enquiring about the number of jade skeletons.


    ¡°There almost one-hundred of us already. Sir Soldier will not create too many, he said one-hundred is the limit.¡±


    ¡°Mm, you two can go do your work first. Later on, I will craft one-hundred sets of armor which will be suitable for you. If you have any special needs, tell me now.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, as spirits, we are most afraid of drawing power from the death ne. It will be good if the armor contains Green Spirit rocks. If it is not avable, obsidian rocks will be eptable too.¡±


    ¡°What about your weapons?¡±


    ¡°My Lord, we are skeletons, we can wield whatever the humans wield. It would be best not to use any metal materials, as we can use magic too.¡±


    Saleen cackled, ¡°The tone of this skeleton is no different from that of a human. When making requests, it feels perturbed as well.¡±


    Be that as it may, the jade skeletons had delivered a piece of good news, they could use magic, which meant that the winged skeleton could create one-hundred intermediate grade mages for Saleen and these mages would also possess good melee abilities.

 Chapter 664: Riches of the Ocean (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 664: Riches of the Ocean (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was clear that the winged skeleton used a lot of the resources obtained from the ocean to create jade skeletons. There were many skeletons in the ocean that could be utilized as long as they had yet to turn into fine powder after more than ten-thousand years.


    It was not a waste for the winged skeleton to turn these resources into jade skeletons. The jade skeletons would be intelligent, loyal, capable ofbat skills, and capable of magic. They would also need a higher level of equipment that was equivalent to four mages though. As long as these skeletons were fully charged with energy, they had no need for sleeping.


    Saleen went down to the underground freezer with Sika, Nailisi, and Nichs.


    Other than therger vessels used for hunting, Saleen also possessed a few smaller vessels that could hunt within a few hundred miles from the coastline and could only deal with low-level magic beasts. It was necessary for the port to contain a freezer to preserve what they had hunted.


    Most of the fish that they hunted would serve as food, it was important to keep them in low temperature to ensure freshness. Fortunately, Saleen had many mages that could help to create ice blocks.


    ¡°Nichs, what do you think of my city?¡± Saleen led Nichs down to the underground freezer. What caught Nichs¡¯ eye was not the sea creatures piled up as high as a mountain in the freezer, but the freezer itself.


    ¡°Your Highness...,¡± Nichs had already signed the follower¡¯s bond so he had changed the way he addressed Saleen. ¡°Is the entire city built on this type of rocks?¡±


    When he attacked Metatrin City, he had noticed that the city wall¡¯s material was extremely unique and was more difficult to break down than iron or steel.


    ¡°Yes, when I arrived, this ce was covered with this type of rocks. For the first six months, it was as if I was battling against these rocks,¡± Saleen answered honestly. He had his own way to deal with these rocks. He had the Three Kings and arge number of spirits of the dead at that time, but Saleen also had his water current which was a very effective in dealing with this type of rocks.


    ¡°With six magic towers in the city and Dante¡¯s Sequence in the city walls, unless the Holy See sends forth a one-million strong army and Pope Theisio personally leads the attack... this city cannot be taken down without using a godly item.¡±


    ¡°You are very sharp. We can form a circle of defense with the six magic towers so that the enemy will not be able to fly around the city wall,¡± Saleen walked towards the alchemy workshop behind the warehouse as he spoke. There were quite a number of low-level mages and magic apprentices there.


    The magic beasts from the ocean would be differentiated and categorized by the middle-level mages from Sregl Ind. These tasks were overseen by Kredian and Francis. These Sregl Ind mages were progressing much faster than Saleen expected, but Saleen should have expected that. Ever since they followed Saleen, they could utilize all the magic nuclei they wanted and could now train much more.


    Saleen¡¯s temple was built ording to the design of a grade-9 magic tower, that was another important factor that helped with their training. Pasatilo and Kanuka had even advanced two grades consecutively and were now grade-6 mages.


    Nichs followed Saleen and saw that within each alchemy workshop, mages were categorizing magic beasts or dissecting magic nuclei or even carrying out some simple processing. Meat that could be consumed was transported away and stored in the freezer. Bones, tendons, and skin were all materials that could be used for alchemy. Once they had been processed, spirits of the dead would be responsible for transporting them away.


    Nichs noticed that even the organs of the magic beasts were inspected thoroughly before being categorized and stored.


    Without turning back, Saleen said to Nichs, ¡°Don¡¯t look down on these organs. Many of these items can be very useful to us. Some fish maws are big enough to be used for building small boats while others can be used to create glue that can, in turn, be used for wagons and arrows and even houses. Most of the ink from squids can be used to rece dragon¡¯s blood ink for writing on scrolls. Some fish intestines can be used as bowstrings as they can even be more resilient than spiderwebs. The ocean is just like a treasure chest.¡±


    Nichs was not a mage, but even he was enthralled by Saleen¡¯s description. The Holy See¡¯s navy was weak and did not have many fishermen. In order to defend themselves against the surprise attacks from Cloudflow¡¯s vessels, the Holy See restricted the number of fisheries that the fishermen could work at for ease of control.


    ¡°Nichs, do you have any other suggestions?¡± Saleen stopped himself from boasting further. He could not help but feel a sense of superiority that mages held over holy priests. This sense of superiority came from the fact that holy priests depended on prayers for everything they possessed while mages had to work hard with their own bare hands in order to obtain anything.


    ¡°Your Highness, the Holy See will not send an army over immediately. I have killed everyone and anyone that managed to escape would have been dealt with by Fycro as well. Your Highness will have at least half a year to recover. Even if Theisio managed to obtain a convincing victory at Lun, he will still need time for preparations again in order tounch a second attack on Metatrin City. We are safe until next summer. We should make use of this time to repair the west gate. The city wall there is thirty yards tall as well, but provided poor defense.¡±


    Nichs might not be able to say much about other things, but Broken de Pass left him with a deep impression.


    ¡°That¡¯s not a bad idea. Nichs, you know about therge-scale equipment that the Holy See possesses. Can you help me design some defensive measures against them?¡±


    All the mages and magic apprentices around Saleen gave theirpliments and their mages¡¯ salutes. Saleen led Nichs and Nailisi to thest warehouse and took out the two spatial bracelets that the jade skeletons handed to him.


    ¡°I wonder what the winged skeleton has asked the two jade skeletons to bring me,¡± Saleen smiled and said.


    The spatial bracelet was not considered big if it waspared to Saleen¡¯s dimension stone. Even Nailisi¡¯s bracelet was not as powerful as these two spatial equipments from the death dimension.


    The warehouse was a pretty big one, but it was filled up instantaneously. Saleen realized that his mental strength had increased after he had made a full recovery. The warehouse was filled almost entirely with the corpses of creatures that gave off golden light.


    Saleen saw that this ocean creature was filled with spikes and was the size of a watermelon. He hesitated before picking one up.


    This creature was a little deted now that it had died, but it must have been a circr shape when it was still alive. There were more than one-hundred sharp spikes on this creature that measured about a foot in diameter. These spikes were purple-gold in color and were abnormally sharp. Saleen took out a magic nucleus and pierced it with the purple-gold spike. Although it took some effort, he still managed to do it.


    ¡°Purple-gold sea urchins? I thought this creature couldn¡¯t exist on the Myers Maind?¡± Saleen was suspicious. This creature was not from the Myers Maind. It shoulde from a dimension that had nond and was filled with seawater. Humans took an interest in it long ago because of its unique properties, but they were not able to live for long on the Myers Maind or reproduce.


    ¡°What are purple-gold sea urchins?¡± Nailisi asked out of curiosity. She thought that the sharp spikes on these sea urchins looked terrifying, especially when they could even pierce through magic nuclei. A magic nucleus was one of the hardest materials in the world. In the natural world, there were not many unrefined materials that were harder than magic nuclei.


    ¡°This thing only looks like a sea urchin on the surface, but it is actually a magic beast that does not have a grade. Do you see the sharp spikes? In the ocean, the sea urchin will shoot out these spikes when the enemy approaches. Even a whale can die from the poison on these spikes. This poison is very valuable so the purple-gold sea urchins used them only when necessary. This creature has a really good appetite. After a meal, it can hide under the sea bed for a few months without eating.¡±


    ¡°Stop eating for a few months after a meal?¡± Even Sika was curious.


    ¡°This thing has a very big stomach. It may only be a foot long, but its natural ability is spatial. Its stomach can contain a few square yards of food. After a meal, it will hide itself and slowly digest the food. By moving around less, it will not have to fight so often which will allow it to preserve its poison and live longer. It does not have a magic nucleus so the purple-gold sharp spikes have evolved to be very terrifying. These spikes are the only thing helping it to stay alive.¡±


    ¡°Spatial ability?!¡± Even Nichs seemed to recall something. The most valuable thing about this purple-gold sea urchin was not the spikes but possessing an ability simr to spatial equipment that could be achieved after simple refining. Putting an item through the mouth and retrieving it through the anal opening, even normal humans would be able to use it.


    Back when humans were powerful, they had no need for such abilities. During the second dynasty, purple-gold sea urchins were used as rubber balls to entertain the noble families.


    By the time the fourth dynasty came about, a few sea urchins were already being used as spatial equipment. At this time, humans were no longer able to wage wars against other dimensions so these sea urchins gradually disappeared.


    Purple-gold sea urchins were extremely easy to capture. Their spikes¡¯ only ability was pration and was unlike red krill, where their spikes possessed other abilities such as separation and stopping recovery. One only had to cast a spell to shock the purple-gold sea urchins hiding underneath the sea bed before spreading a huge metal to capture them all. Human tools were the most effective in capturing such magic beasts that did not have magic nuclei. The sea urchins did not have any teeth so there was nothing they could do against the metal.


    ¡°Nichs, since you have nothing on hand now, stay here and settle this with me,¡± Saleenughed bitterly. He would have to process these sea urchins himself since the others¡¯ level of alchemy might spoil their skins. After processing these sea urchins with his water me alchemy, they would more or less be finished products.


    These purple-gold spikes must not be known to anyone else. They were an extremely useful material for dealing with mages, holy priests, and even grand swordmasters. Not even Professionals would dare to approach alchemy crossbow arrows made from these spikes.


    There were more than fifteen-thousand purple-gold sea urchins in the warehouse and there were more than one-hundred spikes on each of them. In total, there were more than one-million and five-hundred-thousand spikes. If others took them and used them against Saleen, even his water shield might not be able to protect him. When faced with arrows in every direction, even sorcerers could be shot dead.


    The most important thing was that the watchtowers in the city usedrge crossbows against sorcerers, but these purple-gold spikes could be used on small crossbows too.


    There was no way an army would be able to bring along its watchtowers for battles andrge crossbows could be destroyed by the enemy quickly. In a real battle, there was little use in counting onrge crossbows to deal with sorcerers.


    The winged skeleton had really brought back a load of useful items. The only thing was that these items could not be sold and could only be kept for Saleen¡¯s personal use.

 Chapter 665: Riches of the Ocean (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 665: Riches of the Ocean (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika was asked to take her leave. There was nothing much she could help with so only Nailisi and Nichs stayed behind.


    Nailisi was in charge of removing the spikes while Nichs would take out the poison nds within the sea urchins before gathering them together. The poison nds were very small and only a grade-9 Professional like Nichs would be able to remove them without damaging them.


    Saleen was in charge of refining the sea urchins¡¯ skins.


    Although only three of them were processing the sea urchins, they were not slow at all. Within ten seconds, the trio would finish processing one sea urchin. Nailisi removed the spikes with her bare hands and did not need to rest at all since she was at full strength. On the other hand, Nichs used fallen divine spells to retrieve the poison nds easily.


    Saleen cast a water me that was more than two yards in diameter before tossing the sea urchins¡¯ skins in it for simple processing.


    Very soon, Saleen realized that he had to find a better way. At the rate that they were going, he would need a week toplete processing all these purple-gold sea urchins.


    ¡°Nailisi, ask Cuisi and the rest toe over. Bring a few more middle-grade spirits of the dead. It will take a long time for you to process the sea urchins on your own.¡±


    Nailisi nodded and left. She was not slow, but she could not keep up with Nichs and Saleen. Saleen could process tens of sea urchins at one go while Nichs could process almost a hundred.


    Nailisi left for the time-being, but Nichs did not stop. He did not wish to be the one removing the spikes. Soon, Nailisi returned with four demons, twelve jade skeletons and tens of spirits of the dead. These spirits of the dead would be responsible for transportation since they were immune to poison.


    The speed increased by more than ten times. Saleen was full of mental strength. He was looking at the rest of the items in the bracelet even as he processed the purple-gold sea urchins.


    There was a dark green coral that was simr to a magic crystal ore. Only the Eastern Sea people knew how to process magic crystal ores. Saleen had yet to begin to mine these ores and only knew that a lot of capital would be required to process them. These dark green coral could be used directly.


    Saleen already had sufficient magic nuclei for his own use so he was not too interested in a resource like that. Besides, all mages knew that coral took a long time to grow. It was not worthwhile to mine a little, but if they mined too much, the coral would be extinct. Nevertheless, the coral could still be used to enchant special weapons that would only be used by officers, the quantity need not be high.


    There was a pile of ore that was size of a fist at the corner. Saleen took a look at them with his elemental eye and realized that they were metal ores with fire element.


    The winged skeleton had discovered an underwater volcano. The amount of ore hidden underwater was a hundred times greater than those found onnd. When volcanoes erupted, they would usually release metal from the world¡¯s core. These metals possessed very strong fire elements and could be made into offensive weapons. If the volcanoes were still active, it was better not to approach them. If the volcanoes were extinct, one would be able to find many valuable items just by mining its surrounding areas. The winged skeleton did not bring back too many items, but he must have already taken note of the coordinates so that Saleen would be able to send sorcerers andbat vessels there in future.


    There was a type of t fish that was being squashed under many ores. The bodies of these fish were five yards wide and were only four yards long excluding their tails. This magic beast was well-known for being extremely difficult to capture. Some mages conducted research and had drawn out some diagrams to describe how dangerous these fish were.


    Saleen looked at the magic patterns on these big ck fish and immediately thought of a use for them. These fish could be used to create flying puppets. They would be able to carry at least one rider on them and would not fall apart after flying for a long time like the other flying puppets. It would be a miniature version and could only be used for short-ranged surveince.


    On the right side of the ore was a corpse that was more than ten yards long. Saleen¡¯s interest was piqued, this was a fully-grown sea monster.


    Sea monsters liked to skim surface of the ocean. They were born with a magic arrays on their backs that couldunch spiritual attacks. Magic beasts that were of lower levels than the sea monsters would mistake their back for food. This was how the sea monster would lure and capture the sea birds flying in the sky. Sometimes, human vessels might mistake them for other humans that had capsized. They would send out little boats to help them, but would end up being sunk instead.


    This sea monster must have been killed by the winged skeleton using the poisonous spikes from the sea urchins. That exined why it did not attempt to escape. Normally, even sorcerers would find it difficult to capture such creatures.


    In total, there were about seventy to eighty creatures piled up in the warehouse, each of them had their own unique uses. Saleen could only recognize one-quarter of them, but his elemental eye still allowed him to see through the essence of every creature.


    Saleen spent eight full hours processing all the purple-gold sea urchins and gathering all the dangerous spikes. If these spikes fell into the hands of the enemy, they would pose a great threat to his mages. Many of his mages would not be able to withstand being surrounded by a group of enemy soldiers and shot with these spikes.


    These purple-gold spikes could be incorporated into Metatrin City¡¯s defenses. Saleen took out a sticky sphere that was the size of a fist from the sea urchin¡¯s skin. This was a unique substance secreted by the purple-gold sea urchins in order to grow new spikes. Combining this substance with metal would produce a weapon as effective as the spikes. The only downside was that such a weapon could only be used once or twice.


    This was a good thing to Saleen. Arrows refined with such a substance would possess the offensive abilities of the spikes, but they would be expendables and could not be used repeatedly. He would not have to worry about these arrowsnding in the enemy¡¯s hands since they could not be re-used.


    Saleen kept the skins of more than fifteen-thousand purple-gold sea urchins and each of them possessed about four to five square yards of space that could be utilized without using any magic. To Saleen, it was as if he had gained fifteen thousand spatial equipments and would no longer need to configure so many grade-5 mages.


    Saleen was extremely satisfied with the items that the winged skeleton had brought back. Saleen has yet to take a look at the other bracelet but was already more than happy with this one.


    Saleen was not aware that the winged skeleton had just gotten lucky. He was heading towards the oceanic ice block with two skeletal warships when he encountered an underwater volcano erupting near an ind. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was heading towards the volcano to collect the metals that would be released but to their surprise, they discovered that the purple-gold sea urchins had been shocked by the eruption and were trying to flee from the sea bed. In the end, the two skeletal warships cast a gigantic metal and captured all the surrounding sea urchins.


    If the volcano eruption was even stronger, the winged skull would not have dared to approach. On the other hand, he would not have managed to capture so many sea urchins without the eruption. At the end of the day, it was all luck.


    Mages never believed in luck most of the time. They believed that sess came with hard work. Nevertheless, luck definitely existed. Saleen had always been unlucky until he defeated the expedition, then his luck seemed to have improved.


    The first batch of goods brought back by the winged skull had already boosted his abilities by another notch. With fifteen-thousand purple-gold sea urchins, Saleen had the best materials to threaten Professionals with. The purple-gold spikes would enable Saleen to ensure his city¡¯s safety even before the Sregl Ind mages arrived.


    All the corpses of the ocean magic beasts contained either natural magic arrays or magic patterns. In other words, Saleen could make use of these corpses to invent new spells.


    In the magic notes recorded by Joey and Raphael, it was mentioned that it was best if mages could utilize their knowledge of elements to invent new spells as they advanced into a sorcerer. If one could invent a new spell thoroughly andpletely, the amount of effort required to break through the grade-9 barrier would be much less difficult.


    The water shield could not be considered as Saleen¡¯s unique invention, it was only an improvement. Now that Saleen had obtained so many new and strange magic beasts, his heart was filled with joy. Surely he would be able to invent a new spell from studying the magic patterns and magic array of more than eighty magic beasts. This was how humans in the past came up with new spells too.


    The second bracelet had been cleared out and its contents filled up an entire warehouse again. The contents in this bracelet were a mess. The entire warehouse was piled up with seaweed that was more than ten yards long. Within the seaweed were a number of magic beast corpses and most of them were a type of poisonous sea serpent. These sea serpents would hide amongst the seaweed to prey on unknowing creatures for survival.


    Saleen began tough heartily. The seaweed was extremely valuable and it only grew in the cold seas of the north of Sikeqinya. This type of seaweed grew very slowly, but it had a very unique use.


    On the Myers Maind, all warhorses were basically magic beasts. Every empire had tried to cross breed warhorses with other simr magic beasts, but after two or three generations, the magic beast bloodline would disappearpletely. A really good warhorse was extremely expensive for that reason.


    A warhorse with a magic beast bloodline would not panic on the battlefield. Even if a spell had just exploded next to it, it would still be able to continue cooperating with its rider. Not only that, but the warhorse would also be able to carry heavy loads and travel at high speeds.


    Only warhorses with a magic beast bloodline would be able to carry heavy-armored knights for long periods of time. A normal warhorse was thought to possess excellent bloodline if it could battle for even half an hour.


    In order to ensure the warhorse¡¯s bloodline and allow it to maximize its abilities on the battlefield, its diet was extremely important. Sikeqinyans used to mix the seaweed with grain to feed the warhorses.


    The way to mix the seaweed with grain was not a secret, but the seaweed was produced only in Sikeqinya. All the Maind countries had to buy it from Sikeqinya. Sikeqinya had always been able to earn plenty of gold coins from the three Empires.


    Warhorses had huge appetites. The seaweed contained much more nutrients than grain. With such a diet and some grass, a warhorse would be able to maintain its bloodline and fighting abilities.


    The winged skeleton was trying to tell Saleen that he had found a ce that grew such seaweed. In future, Saleen would not have to worry about feeding the warhorses of his knights.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. We will return to Broken de Pass to see how we can rebuild it,¡± Saleen could not stop smiling as he led Nichs back to the temple.


    Saleen usually depended on skeletal warhorses as he did not have many warhorses. Skeletal warhorses had as many weaknesses as they had strengths. The most troublesome part was that they needed to be taken care of by death mages and that they feared the Holy See¡¯s bright divine spell.


    The Holy See was Saleen¡¯s main enemy. He could never use skeletal warhorses in ce of normal warhorses in his battles against the Holy See. With the seaweed, he would be able to breed his own warhorses without fear that their bloodlines would degrade.

 Chapter 666: Reward (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 666: Reward (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was an underground passageway at the port¡¯s warehouse which could lead straight to the temple. Saleen still could not trust Nichs though. He was afraid that Fycro had nted some skill into Nichs¡¯ body, but he could not detect it yet given his grade. He brought Nichs to the surface level and passed through themercial district.


    Even though the expeditionary army had only been decimated for less than half a month, the atmosphere of business within the city was already starkly different. The people¡¯s faces were filled with smiles as they were upied. Other than the workers in the shops, there were small mercenary groups around too.


    Most of the mercenaries had gone to the borders between Qin and Lon, causing the mercenaries in Metatrin City to appear more valuable. The big families hadrge numbers of private soldiers and guards to protect their merchant convoys, so they rarely used mercenaries. The small business families usually traveled on other people¡¯s ships, so they needed the protection of mercenaries.


    The mercenaries in Metatrin City had to re-register at town hall. After one battle there wererge amounts of deposits in Saleen¡¯s possession that acted as security deposits for the mercenaries. Now that the mercenaries¡¯ credit was high more people were hiring them.


    The four dukes in the city did not have many shops, but they possessed substantial merchandise. Goods could be ordered, so their business flourished. A number of businessmen had ordered weapons and armor there before reselling it to northern Qin. The nobles in Qin were amassing materials in preparation for a death match with an invasion by the Tanggsi people. If Holy Rock City¡¯s army invaded Lon they could still tag along at the back and prate the nks to prevent Laiyin Duchy from joining the battle abruptly.


    Other than purchasing some grain from Phoenix it was the only other way was for Saleen to travel to Cloudflow. Halfway through, he still had to pass by Lianyun City and Alchemy City, it was a must to pay taxes.


    Cloudflow people loved extravagance. In Metatrin City the businessmen who wore silk and satin hade from Cloudflow. These people thought that they had lost their investments, unexpectedly, Metatrin City gained victory. That caused their grain to be acquired at three times the original price. They could bring backrge quantities of ores and the price of magic nuclei was forty percent cheaper aspared to other ces.


    Nichs followed beside Saleen, he could not help but ask, ¡°Sir, I realize that there are too many professionals in this city, wouldn¡¯t it be quite risky for you to walk around without any guards?¡±


    Saleen was ecstatic and said, ¡°You are a grade-9 professional, with you around, what else is there to be afraid of?¡±


    Noticing an awkward expression on Nichs¡¯ face, Saleen pped his shoulder and said, ¡°Before you arrived, I always brought along at least forty people.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen had a look of seriousness, Nichsughed and said, ¡°Sir, I have followed you because I have no other way out, but I will try my best. Speaking of which, even though I am a fallen holy master, my treatment abilities cannot be rivalled by your mages.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, using divine spell treatments will do more harm than good! Unless the battle is at a dead end, I would rather use magic to heal people slowly.¡±


    ¡°Ha ha, Sir, a holy master isn¡¯t confined to the same methods the pope used. Once I craft special equipment, I will not have to stimte the wounded¡¯s vitality for treatment anymore. It will have a higher consumption of magic nuclei though.¡±


    ¡°How much higher?¡±


    ¡°The consumption will surely be two to three times that of a mage.¡±


    ¡°What about the speed?¡±


    ¡°It is roughly the same as normal divine spells.¡±


    ¡°I heard that the holy masters in Holy See charge a fee when they treat the believers.¡±


    ¡°Most cases are like that, but I have never charged a single cent. I know what it is like to be poor. The almighty nobles will never understand the feeling of despair when a man is at his wits¡¯ end.¡±


    Saleen hummed in response, he did not rebut, ¡°No matter how terrific a noble is, they will also never let a civilian enjoy the same privileges as them. Aren¡¯t mages like this too? This world will never be fair. Nichs¡¯ way is actually abnormal, no wonder... no wonder Pope Theisio wanted to sacrifice him.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, do you have dreams?¡± Saleen suddenly asked a strange question.


    ¡°I had dreams in the past, but now I don¡¯t.¡± A sh of pain appeared in Nichs¡¯ eyes. When he came to the northern wilderness and allowed the soldiers to act as cannon fodder, he truly believed that the souls of the soldiers would enter heaven at that moment. After discovering the truth, he still epted Fycro¡¯s gift of one Soul Bead. The souls inside it would never attain relief.


    There was no more room for dreams, he had really fallen.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to obtain redemption.¡± Saleen¡¯s words caused Nichs¡¯ eyelids to jump, ¡°Can such words be spoken here?¡±


    ¡°Sir, let¡¯s talk when we go back.¡± Nichs guessed that Saleen would utter some astounding words.


    ¡°There is nothing to conceal. If Fycro didn¡¯t know about my ability, he wouldn¡¯t have worked with me.¡± Saleen extended his left hand, waving it before Nichs, then said, ¡°I am also under the protection of a god, but this god is not the Lord of Glory. Tell me, if you side with a new god, will your previous deeds still be considered as sins?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great. Nichs, I am no believer either. I am just telling you, if a day everes when you have nowhere else to go and you have to make a choice, you can still follow me. I will apply my god¡¯s protection on you and your sins will vanish.¡±


    Nichs¡¯ face appeared increasingly intrigued, then he said, ¡°Sir, aren¡¯t you afraid that Fycro might hear what you have said?¡±


    ¡°There is nothing to be worried about. He better know this, otherwise, he will suspect that I might harm him.¡± Saleen revealed a very simple reasoning. If he concealed his thoughts, Fycro would surely be suspicious of him because Fycro could not monitor him all the time. In fact, fully subduing Nichs was an honest thing to do.


    ¡°Sir, you are really confident...¡± Nichs was kind of speechless.


    Saleenughed, ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that I can ensure the peacefulness of this ce if I build six magical towers? In at most two years¡¯ time, I will have thirty-six sorcerers and thirty-six magical towers, so I am very confident.¡±


    ¡°This is the truth?¡±


    ¡°Of course, why would I lie to you? Fycro will also be able to guess who my backers are, otherwise why would he have peace of mind cooperating with me?¡± As Saleen spoke, he raised his head and stared into the sky. He was not sure whether Fycro had left a divine spell in the city to surveil him, but he really was not fearful.


    ¡°Fycro might be very powerful, but Joey is about to go look for him. My teacher Jason is rushing over with the mages from Sregl Ind. I will open the nar passageway and travel to the hell of god¡¯s punishment, where I will enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space. Once thirty-six grade-9 sorcerers appear, who will have the ability to destroy this city?Of course, Fycro isn¡¯t worried whether I will be powerful or not, he is worried about me being too weak. If I am too weak, then Fycro will look for another person to take my ce, to vie for the world with the Holy See and Qin.¡±


    On the road ahead, two businessmen from Cloudflow walked over. They were d in snow-white silk clothing. They wore hats which were mosaicked with jade, while their shoes were sewn from glittering silk. The two youthful businessmen were engaged in a conversation as they walked towards Saleen.


    From behind Saleen, a hand pped the cbash hanging around his waist, causing a green water flow to spurt out. It then encircled the two Cloudflow businessmen.


    ¡°Nichs, your reaction is too slow.¡± Nailisi controlled the water flow, subduing the two Cloudflow people effortlessly.


    The men¡¯s long robes were cut into shreds by the water flow, revealing soft armor beneath.


    ¡°What are you trying to do?!¡± One of the young businessmen shrieked in rm.


    Nailisi walked past Saleen towards the businessmen. Extending her fair and tender fingers, she ruffled the hair around one¡¯s forehead. Then, she stabbed her fingers into the man¡¯s brain.


    The crisp sound of a bone being fractured could be heard. When Nailisi retracted her fingers, her fingers were drenched in blood and brain matter. Nailisi wriggled her fingers, then approached the other young merchant, and said, ¡°I wanted to ask him for the identity of the person who has sent him to kill my master. I was too agitated at that point in time, so I killed him directly, can you let me calm down first?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s fingers reached out for the other young Cloudflow man.


    ¡°I am not an assassin!¡±


    Paa...


    Nailisi simply dug out his person¡¯s heart, tossing it on the ground.


    ¡°Guards!¡± Nailisi called out, then dozens of troops charged out from both sides of the road.


    ¡°Sir!¡± The guards stared at Nailisi ingratiatingly.


    ¡°Bury these two people, their belongings will go to you. Remember to distribute the items equally, if anyone dares to take more...¡±


    ¡°Sir, you must be joking, every member of our team will be entitled to a share. Please tell us what else you require of us.¡± This group of soldiers was observant. The two Cloudflow men who were disguised as merchants wore belts and hats which were mosaicked with jade. If these items were removed, they could fetch a sum of money when sold to an equipment shop.


    ¡°That¡¯s all, you can go now,¡± Nailisi berated.


    ¡°Thank you Sir.¡± As the soldiers dragged the bodies away, there were people afar who were pointing fingers at the scene. The moment Nailisi¡¯s gaze fell on them, they immediately fell silent.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you feel puzzled, Nichs?¡± Saleen noticed that Nichs remained silent the whole time, he did not even bat an eyelid.


    ¡°No, the assassins from Cloudflow are renowned. There is so much space on this twenty yard wide road, but they chose to walk towards you. They are basically seeking death.¡±


    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t you take any action?¡± Saleen probed, as he retracted the water flow at the same time.


    ¡°Because there was still time, I can release the Shield of Holy Light anytime. Unless these assassins are at the grade of a Golden Grand Swordmaster, they cannot break my shield in one hit.¡±


    ¡°What if they were wielding purple-gold thorns?¡± Nailisi said in displeasure. These two men were surely assassins, but she was not sure whether their target was Saleen or not. She did not want to take any risks, so she decided to kill them right away.


    Nichs smiled, he did not want to argue with a little girl.


    Nailisi also smiled, then she told Nichs, ¡°You better not provoke me because your Shield of Holy Light has no effect against me.¡±


    Nichs replied in shock, ¡°We are all serving our lord, why must you behave like this?!¡±


    ¡°Saleen is your lord, while he is my master, it is different. I will forever be more loyal than you.¡± Nailisi sneered, as she took out a handkerchief and wiped the bloodstains from her hand. Her Lightning Guardian not only increased her defensive power, at close range, her body would totally ignore the enemy¡¯s defensive spells or divine spells.

 Chapter 667: Reward (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 667: Reward (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs remained smiling, then said, ¡°If you choose to be angry, I can do nothing either.¡±


    Nailisi had killed people on the street in the open, naturally some merchants would be unhappy. They recognized Saleen, they thought that the two Cloudflow merchants had bumped into the owner of the city and been killed for it. Nobody made any movements. Just as the crowd was about to disperse a fellow dressed like a Sikeqinyan emerged suddenly and yelled, ¡°City owner Saleen, you are such a violent person, we can no longer remain in this city!¡±


    This time around, Nichs sprang into action immediately. A bolt of ck radiance shed between his fingers,nding on the forehead of this merchant from Sikeqinya. A ck symbol appeared at the top of this merchant¡¯s head, levitating in mid-air.


    Nichs took two steps forward and waved at this Sikeqinyan.


    The Sikeqinyan¡¯s face was white as sheet, then Nichs said, ¡°You are infected with an evil marking and your vitality will be burned as a result. This symbol will remain above your head, it cannot be concealed... unless you die. If you want to live, then tell me the reason for doing that just now.¡±


    This skill was more ruthless than Nailisi¡¯s. If this man turned to leave his life would ebb away slowly.


    That Sikeqinyan was terrified, he wanted to leave, but he felt that his vitality was decreasing rapidly. If this went on, he would die of old age in at most six months¡¯ time!


    ¡°Get this off me right now!¡± This merchant did not know what an evil marking was, he still tried to delude other people. Just as he was about to verbalize some threats, Nichs opened his mouth again.


    ¡°You are from the Holy See, am I right, I can detect that familiar scent. Everyone, please be careful, spies from the Holy See have infiltrated this city. These people want to assassinate the city owner, otherwise this merchant wouldn¡¯t have taken the risk to offend the city owner. Is this person here to earn money, or to achieve some lofty ambitions?¡±


    Nichs was knowledgeable, this sentence from him was actually an altered version of a proverb from Sikeqinya.


    To a Sikeqinyan, earning money would forever be more important than ideals. It could be said that most Sikeqinyans regarded money as their ideals.


    The surrounding onlookers dispersed with somemotion, Nichs¡¯ words were more potent than a weapon. Everyone had their doubts now, ¡°Since this person is a Sikeqinyan, what right did he have to stand up for a Cloudflow person? He had admonished the city owner to his face, doesn¡¯t he want to make money?¡±


    Saleen felt a little awkward, ¡°The reputation of Sikeqinyans isn¡¯t too good.¡±


    ¡°You!¡± The Sikeqinyan pointed at Nichs, then he realized that a tinge of white holy light had appeared on his finger.


    ¡°Trying to cleanse me?¡± Nichs sneered. A ck worm flew out from his hands, exploding on the Sikeqinyan¡¯s finger. The finger which was pointed at him was amputated.


    The Sikeqinyan could not clear his name, the holy light was created by Nichs.


    Seeing this scene, Saleen could not help but be awed, ¡°This quack from the Holy See is powerful, he caused that Sikeqinyan to fall into a trap with a few words. Of course, that Sikeqinyan isn¡¯t innocent either, he must know some information. He is probably also an assassin. It is impossible to prevent assassins from infiltrating the city. Nevertheless, I have remained within the perimeter of the temple for most of the year. The patrollers there are either Caucasus people or spirits, outsiders will not be able to gain entry.¡±


    Saleen was afraid that these people would assassinate merchants in the city and wreak havoc.


    At this moment, another group of soldiers came by. When they saw Saleen, they bowed. Nailisi pointed at the Sikeqinyan and said, ¡°This is a spy from the Holy See, capture him.¡±


    This team of troops was very fearful of Nailisi, because there were rumors circting in the army saying that a maidservant beside the city owner was a demon.


    While being full of respect for the city owner, they also became extremely scared of Nailisi.


    ¡°Luckily the city owner is a powerful mage, he must have tamed this demon.¡± Their fear of demons in turn increased their adoration for Saleen. These people did not know magic or understood the workings of a contract, an evil thought inevitably appeared in their minds; ¡°That demon must be fond of the city owner, that¡¯s why it submitted itself.¡±


    Now that Nailisi had spoken, these soldiers acted furiously as they captured the Sikeqinyan. The Sikeqinyan wanted to resist, but whenever his actions became exaggerated or he exerted himself, he realized that he could not gather his strength. It was as though a small hole had been created in his head. The moment any strength was used, it would leak out from this tiny cavity.


    He was a grade-4 assassin who got impacted by a level-7 depraved divine spell cast by Nichs. It was basically a joke that he wanted to resist capture.


    ¡°Bring him to the academy to be interrogated by the mages.¡± Saleen gave a brief instruction, then began walking in the direction of the temple. The rest of the merchants had dispersed, none of them wanted to create trouble. They were smart to realize that something was amiss and they were afraid of attracting trouble to themselves.


    After entering the area of the temple, Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Nichs, that evil marking of yours is very interesting.¡±


    ¡°My lord, that divine spell... is indeed evil. As long as one is hit, they will lose their resistance ability. In the Holy See, this is the mostmon method to deal with heretics.¡±


    ¡°Heretics?¡±


    ¡°Mm, as long as one is hit by this divine spell, they be a heretic even if they weren¡¯t one originally,¡± Nichs borated.


    In astonishment, Saleen asked, ¡°Isn¡¯t that using people falsely?¡±


    ¡°For the god, whatever those in power do is righteous.¡± Nichs¡¯ voice became increasingly anguished. The moment he was no longer the Holy See¡¯s associate, he discovered that his actions in the past were extremely nefarious.


    This group of people returned to the temple. Saleen handed the drawing of the broken-edged barrier to Nichs, asking him to help re-design it. Saleen and Nailisi then returned to their rooms to rest. Saleen¡¯s left hand had not fully recovered yet, causing his actions to be slow, it was extremely challenging to learn new spells.


    In less than an hour people had reported that the Sikeqinyan had confessed.


    Saleen did not bother visiting the prisoner personally. On a broader scale, the problem was very simple. The Holy See had released a bounty, whoever killed Saleen would receive a reward of one-hundred-thousand gold coins.


    One-hundred-thousand gold coins was sufficient to make people put their lives at stake. Any noble below the rank of an earl would consider taking this risk to obtain such a reward.


    At the same time, Saleen also learned that Theisio was not just targeting him, many prominent Qin nobles were also on the bounty list.


    This idea was very effective in handling Sikeqinyans, but it would be much worse when used against Qin people. The aides serving the Qin nobles were very reliable people. All along, the Holy See¡¯s credibility had been doubted in Qin. Naturally, very few people were tempted, but Cloudflow and Sikeqinya were different.


    There was an assortment of assassins amongst the Cloudflow people, while there were many desperate mercenaries among the Sikeqinyans. The moment this news was released many people would go forth to have a shot at this task.


    This bounty list disseminated by the Holy See had been around for quite some time, but Saleen was newly added onto it. Before the expeditionary army arrived, these assassins had already entered Metatrin City. The city¡¯s internal controls were strict and Saleen rarely came out in the open, so they never had the opportunity.


    ¡°Bounty? I can do something like that too!¡± Saleen burst out inughter, he did not give a hoot about the Holy See¡¯s bounty. He only needed to remain in the temple obediently. With so many experts present, even Bain would not be able to kill him.


    ¡°Master, you don¡¯t have to spend this money. Holy Rock City also has bounties to kill the people in Holy See.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I know about this?¡±


    ¡°You are a city owner, a king, are you going to carry out an assassination personally?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, let me ask you, did you devour the heads of those bodies on the battlefield?!¡±


    ¡°Master, they cannot fetch much money and they were all low grade holy masters.¡± Nailisi answered shyly, she knew that her master would not haggle with her over such small prices.


    Of course Saleen would not mind. Nailisi¡¯s greed for money was also different from humans, her greed stemmed from the instincts of a demon to dominate resources. There was an interesting aspect about Nailisi, she loved going after the feelings of a human. This was the reason why she had rewarded the first team of soldiers today.


    ¡°Mm, I am not in danger, but I am afraid the civilians in the city wille to harm. Go... go and tell Sika to deploy more manpower and carry out searches.¡±


    ¡°Master, the assassins won¡¯t be able to create much uproar, when you do n to open your arena?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps in July, Daniel¡¯s manpower is still insufficient. I want to wait for the nobles to provide manpower.¡±


    ¡°Will we run it ourselves?¡±


    ¡°Yes, because they have been avoiding this matter from the start. Don¡¯t underestimate the ie from an arena, even though it is lower than from magic nuclei and ores, it is a tangible ce. Every day it will generate ie and can support the lives of many people at the same time.¡±


    Seeing that Nailisi did not understand, Saleen continued, ¡°In the city, there will always be idle people. If these people are not kept upied, they will turn into underlying trouble, or be impoverished and be bandits. They might be bribed by the enemy and carrying out deeds to destroy the city. An arena can absorb these people, they will turn into our forces. The operation of the arena, coupled with the funds invested, will thus help these people make a livelihood. The town hall doesn¡¯t have to contribute any money already.¡±


    Nailisi said, ¡°I still don¡¯t get it. I am a demon, I don¡¯t have to understand it. Master, since you are working hard to advance to a sorcerer, what will I do during this time?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, the demonic city will be fully constructed in at most half a year. Interact with Sika more frequently and impart knowledge about the demonic ne to her. Didn¡¯t you mention that the demonic city will be managed by her?¡±


    ¡°That was a casual remark, the real management will have to depend on the demons.¡±


    ¡°Were you deceiving Sika?¡± Saleen asked in displeasure.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t considered cheating. Master, don¡¯t let Sister Sika face a bunch of demons every day. She will be the city owner on paper and she can stillmand the supreme demons. You better look for someone else to manage the daily operations of the demonic city though.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Master, demons with high intelligence will behave properly, but the ones with low intelligence are bloody. Sister Sika is a priestess, her mood would be affected if she faced such creatures every day.¡±


    ¡°Then tell me, who should manage the demonic city? I can¡¯t possibly be the one doing.¡±


    Nailisi was in a dilemma, Saleen had many loyal people around him, but not many powerful people. Every person had their own tasks toplete, they could not take on a second role.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t you let the magic beast swordsmen under J take on this job,¡± Nailisi suggested.

 Chapter 668: A Group of Envoys (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 668: A Group of Envoys (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were four magic beast swordsmen that had decided to follow J. All of them already possessed the abilities of high-level swordmasters and had done a good job training up Saleen¡¯s soldiers.


    ¡°Master, you may not be aware, but the four of them have been training very hard and have all be zun grand swordmasters. If the four of them were to support Sister Sika after she bes Lady of the City, she will not have to face the annoying demons every day.¡±


    Nailisi was unwilling to see Sika staying in the demon city all the time partly because she hoped that Sika would tie Saleen down to prevent him from being attracted to other women. This was Nailisi¡¯s selfish intention, but it was beneficial to Sika too.


    As a priestess, Sika had many Caucasus followers. Now that the number of Earth Priestess¡¯ were fewer than grade-10 Professionals, the Caucasus people were more than willing toe to Metatrin City. The southern part of Metatrin City had regions with simr climate and mountainous terrains to what the Caucasus people were used to. There were also more than enough magic beasts in the region for them to hunt. All these things had kept the Caucasus people happy.


    If Sika continued to progress down this path, it would not be difficult for her to be a Nature Priestess. There was no need for her to hang around demon city.


    ¡°Alright, you will discuss it with the four of them and tell them how to go about settling the daily duties. As for Sika...¡±


    ¡°I will personally exin things to Sister Sika,¡± Nailisi promised with a smile. She realized that as long as she formed an alliance with Sika, no one would be able to interfere between them, except for Soldier...


    After sending Nailisi away, Saleen took out the over eighty magic beasts that the winged skeleton had captured for him and began to study their magic patterns.


    Saleen had already decided that he must make full use of this opportunity to study these magic patterns and natural magic arrays to advance into a grade-7 sorcerer.


    While Saleen was focused on training, Daniel was taking charge of the town hall even as the fighting arena was in the middle of construction. Metatrin City had settled down into a peaceful rhythm for the time being, but this was not the case for Holy Rock City or the Holy City.


    In Holy Rock City, in the Prince¡¯s mansion, Safilos had gathered six Dukes from the House of Commons and another six from the House of Lords. They had been locked in a stalemate with Lun. Safilos was no longer trying to avoid suspicions and decided to lead the attack personally.


    This time around, Safilos was not discussing the battle situation. Instead, it was about the new kingdom that had appeared north of Phoenix.


    ¡°Dear Lords, Theisio sent forth an expedition that was one-hundred and twenty-five thousand strong to Metatrin City. The entire expedition was defeated. What do all of you think?¡± Safilos¡¯ expression was awful. After so many battles at the borders of Lun, although Qin¡¯s losses were much lower than Tanggsi Empire¡¯s, the former had yet to conquer any big cities.


    Whenever the Qin army managed to break into Lun, they would often be pushed back within one-hundred miles. His niece, Viscountess Lex¡¯s army, had already appeared in the southeast part of Lun. It entered Lun through a narrow road from the rear of Bitterwater Prefecture and had managed to take over somends and were already building a city there.


    Lex had many high-level mages under her so this was understandable. What about Metatrin City? Had the city not been built for only two years? To think that it could defeat an expedition that was one-hundred and twenty-five-thousand strong. This was an insult to the Qin armies.


    ¡°Your Highness, the Holy See mobilized so many people and traveled for more than twenty-thousand miles. They must have been very weak and tired. Metatrin City had the upper hand since they only had to wait for the expedition¡¯s arrival,¡± a Duke began to argue. All the twelve Dukes present had sent their armies to battle at Lun so they could not stand theparison.


    ¡°Is that so?¡± Safilosughed coldly. ¡°The entire one-hundred and twenty-five-thousand strong expedition force was destroyed and that included five-thousand wardens from the supreme court. These wardens were equivalent to the most elite troops in our royal swordsmen battalion. Do you know what pletely destroyed¡¯ means? Let me tell you; news havee from Guderian City that the red Grand Bishop Nichs, who led the Holy See expedition, has betrayed the Holy See to be a fallen holy priest and has now pledged his allegiance to Metatrin City.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡±


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    The Dukes began to discuss it amongst themselves frantically. How could a red Grand Bishop betray the Holy See? Someone who had attained such a position must have wanted to fight for the chance to be Pope.


    ¡°It is what it is. The news is not wrong.¡± Safilos¡¯ words had taken the Dukes by surprise. It was the first time something like this had happened since the Holy See was founded one-thousand years ago.


    ¡°Your Highness, we must take precautions against Metatrin City. I heard that this Saleen has already named himself King and has set up a kingdom. Why don¡¯t we send forth a punitive expedition?¡±


    ¡°Rubbish,¡± Safilos said angrily. ¡°If this event has yet to take ce, of course we can send forth a punitive expedition. He has just defeated the Holy See¡¯s expedition. If we send forth a punitive expedition, we will be pping ourselves in the face.¡±


    The Dukes calmed down. Safilos was right. Everyone was on the same side now. What reason would Holy Rock City have to send forth a punitive expedition?


    ¡°Metatrin is a surname that was illustrious during the fourth dynasty. This man must be of the Metatrin n. His identity is not important though. What matters now is how we can make use of this opportunity.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, the Holy See must be furious that the red Grand Bishop has betrayed them. They will surely send armies to attack Metatrin City. We only need to wait for the right opportunity to present itself.¡±


    ¡°Wait? Have you not waited enough? Look at what is happening in Lun. What a mess!¡± Safilos was really furious. It was excusable if he could not control the noble families from the south, but even these fellows from Holy Rock City were not giving their best efforts. All the elite soldiers fighting at the borders of Lun came from Holy Rock City. The noble families seemed to be reserving their forces for some reason.


    ¡°If no-one willing to give their best troops, I will have no choice but to follow my brother and personally fight at Lun. Perhaps I will just die on the battlefield!¡±


    The Dukes were horrified after hearing what Safilos said.


    ¡°I have decided that we must take down the east of Lun before winter. May I know how many soldiers all my Lords will send?¡± Safilos had lost all patience. He could not believe that these noble families were na?ve enough to think that it was alright for them to be locked in a stalemate at the borders of Lun. If they did not push on to attack, the Tanggsi Empire would quicklyunch an attack on the north of Qin once they sensed that the Qin soldiers were fatigued.


    Seeing how the King of Qin was putting pressure on them, the Dukes all promised ten-thousand soldiers each and they would all obey Safilos¡¯mands.


    This was equivalent to Safilos gaining another twelve-thousand elite soldiers, he would be able to split up his forces now. Holy Rock City¡¯s ten-thousand elite soldiers were focused on attacking in one direction, but if the Holy See deployed armies to attack Metatrin City, the entire battle situation would be blown wide open.


    ¡°His Majesty has also decided to send envoys to Metatrin City to exchange letters of credence to acknowledge the existence of the Metatrin Kingdom,¡± Safilos said with a solemn expression.


    ¡°Your Majesty, you must never do that!¡±


    The atmosphere quickly tensed up again. These men were fiercely loyal to Holy Rock City and could not understand the Emperor¡¯s intention behind his actions.


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, Metatrin City is a force to be reckoned with and it is also close to Phoenix. Phoenix¡¯s hatred towards us has yet to be resolved. If Phoenix decides to form an alliance with Metatrin after thetter has been recognized, what should we do?¡±


    Safilos sighed again. These nobles might be self-centered, but at least they understood the situation. He was worried about the same thing, but the Emperor had already made his decision, what else could he say?


    ¡°The Grand Duke of Phoenix is still in our hands so we don¡¯t have to worry about that for the time-being. My Lords, his Majesty has asked me to choose one person to negotiate with Metatrin. Who amongst you wishes to go?¡±


    Seeing that no one was going to volunteer, Safilos said, ¡°If that is the case, I will have to choose one of you.¡±


    The Dukes felt helpless. No one was willing to take up this task because there might be danger involved. ording to Qinws, this person would be able to ask for royal mages forpany.


    ¡°Barde, hand over your responsibilities to your assistant for the time-being and take a trip to Metatrin City,¡± Safilos pointed at the youngest Duke.


    Barde nodded and said, ¡°Your Highness, I dare not disobey your order, however... how many mages will His Majesty send forth to ensure my safety?¡±


    ¡°I will speak to His Majesty to appoint a sorcerer and four grand mages to you. I will let Vincent choose two-hundred elite soldiers from the army to protect you. You can bring along another two-hundred men as well, on top of one-thousand soldiers from the guard of honor. This should suffice.¡±


    Barde calcted. One-thousand and four-hundred elite soldiers along with four grand mages and one sorcerer. Indeed, this was a rather powerful group of envoys. For some reason, it still felt unsafe. He would need to pass through Phoenix. It was possible for them to encounter some lunatics from Phoenix who would want to harm them. If only the Grand Duke of Phoenix had not died for no good reason in Holy Rock City.


    ¡°Guderian City will also deploy two regiments for your protection. This should be enough.¡± Safilos said impatiently. At the back of his mind, he knew that he was different from these Dukes. As a grade-9 Professional and a gold grand swordmaster, he rarely had to worry about his own safety. Even if these nobles picked up swordsmanship, they were only at the level of swordmasters at most. It was only natural for them to worry about their own safety.


    ¡°Your Highness...¡±


    ¡°Barde, stop trying to stall. Guderian City cannot deploy too many soldiers and horses. I will write a letter to Metatrin City beforehand so that they can prepare soldiers to bring you in. If you are worried about Phoenix...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I will go, I will go!¡± Barde hurriedly made his stand. Although this was a dangerous task, it also served as a kind of political capital. It was not as if there were no benefits to be gained. Besides, the Prince had already fought hard for his protection. The soldiers deployed from Guderian City were the best proof of this.


    ¡°On this trip to Metatrin City, you will need to find out what is really happening there. The news brought back by merchants may not always be reliable. Go to the pce now. His Majesty has other tasks for you. Do your best,¡± Safilos¡¯ expression softened. He recalled that Barde¡¯s son was still young. If anything happened, his family would be in trouble, so Safilos stopped chiding the young Duke.


    Over at the pce, Ojarvis was receiving the Heads of the four major families, which were also the four pce Earls.


    The four major families; the Tiffany family, the Rnde family, the Williams family, and the Clyde family, all possessed enormous wealth, butcked political powers. Everything was held within the tight grasp of the royal family.


    Ojarvis looked at the four elders and said slowly, ¡°I know that some members have split from your families to pledge their allegiances to Saleen. What I am trying to say is, don¡¯t try to stop or hinder them.¡±

 Chapter 669: A Group of Envoys (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 669: A Group of Envoys (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Your Majesty, the number of valuables that Renee took away is too numerous. Those were meant for you, Your Majesty!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Majesty. Guya was the Baroness of this Empire and her title was even given by the previous Emperor. Now that she has pledged her allegiances to an outsider, Your Majesty should send troops to attack them!¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, Aini and his parents were all groomed by the Clyde family. They have now taken away all the valuables, this is equivalent to betraying the Empire!¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, Irene was supposed to be betrothed to Your Majesty and be your Empress. How dare Saleen keep her by his side instead. Your Majesty must send soldiers to attack him!¡±


    All four Earls spoke furiously. They still held a slight contempt towards a young Emperor like Ojarvis. With one swoop, Saleen took away millions of gold coins from these four families. It was a miracle that the four of them had not gone insane yet. The four of them unanimously demanded for the Emperor to revoke his original decision. If this was Emperor Chanake, none of them would have dared to speak to him like this.


    ¡°How loyal all of you are!¡± Ojarvis said sarcastically before refuting them one by one. ¡°If Renee had not gone to Metatrin City, the amount of wealth under her control was about five-hundred-thousand gold coins annually and it was mainly given to Tiffany family¡¯s Pollock Province. Although Guya¡¯s title was given by my father, she was a Baroness, would she have been able to pass down her title in the Rnde family? Aini, haha, back then when he was in conflict with the Holy See, it was his parents that protected him. His parents were already grand mages at that time, but they were put under house arrest in Holy Rock City and Aini was sent to the borders of Phoenix. Irene was to be my Empress? Rawls, do you even believe yourself?¡±


    The expressions of the four Earls changed. They did not expect Ojarvis¡¯ tone to be so harsh. Safilos was the one with the most power in Holy Rock City and the four of them should be the Emperor¡¯s bodyguards and most powerful supporters. Why would Ojarvis do this?!


    ¡°All of you wish to attack Metatrin City. Very well. Go ahead, I will not stop you. All of you have your own private armies anyway and they have far exceeded the numbers allowed for Earls. Do you think I am unaware of this?¡±


    The four Earls were taken aback and all stood up before kneeling before the young Emperor.


    ¡°Get up. If I had wanted to kill all of you, I would not have summoned all of you into the pce. Although father has died, I still have the power to kill anyone in Holy Rock City instantaneously with an order. Do you think all these magic towers are just for show?¡±


    The four Earls looked at each other and finally stood up. None of them dared to sit down again. All of them bowed their heads and waited for instructions from Ojarvis.


    ¡°Father has given all of you too much leeway...,¡± Ojarvis sighed. After a long while he said, ¡°One must know the right time to advance and retreat. What is the point of trying to convince me? Even uncle is against sending troops over to attack. Based on the forces all of you have, it will be suicidal. You may not know, but the Pope personally formed an army of one-hundred-thousand to attack Metatrin City, but it was thoroughly destroyed. Before saying such things in future, please think first.¡±


    The four Earls were horrified. This piece of news had not reached them yet. Prior to this oue, Metatrin City had been retreating and suffering heavy losses! After defeating Viscountess Lex¡¯s armies at the borders, the Holy See expedition had met with little resistance. Metatrin City even had to resort to burning their own towns and grain in order to slow down the expedition.


    Only now did they find out that the entire expedition waspletely wiped out.


    ¡°Metatrin City has dered itself a kingdom and Saleen has be their first King. He has asked my sister to send over ten magic chariots as gifts and I have already epted them. I have asked uncle to prepare a group of envoys to head to Metatrin City. Do all of you understand?¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty...¡±


    ¡°We understand.¡±


    The four Earls became gloomy. Ojarvis had no intentions to continue making things difficult for them, so he changed his tone and said, ¡°I have already decided to establish trade with Metatrin City. Metatrin and the royal family will soon have a deal in ce for magic nuclei so all of you need not care too much about that. The Empire has nevercked of metal ore so all of you can go ahead and set up a business on that if you want.¡±


    The four Earls brightened up immediately. All the mines in Qin were controlled by the royal family. What Ojarvis meant was that the four major families would now be able to enter into this business outside of Qin. They would be able to make a lot more profits.


    Ojarvis spoke so bluntly that the four elders were no longer able to consider this issue with their original attitude.


    ¡°Your Majesty, since the royal family has already made its decision, we will obey. Regarding the mining business, if we decide to do it, will it...¡±


    That was a sign of weakness. They have long been involved in the mining business outside of Qin, but had yet to dare to do so within Qin. That was because the other noble families were keeping their eyes on them. These four families did not hold very high positions of nobility, but they were favored. To overturn them, one would have to find problems with them through legal means.


    The four families had been careful to stay within thew and had never allowed their mining business to enter Qin. They would rather spend more money to legalize their goods toe through Alchemy City.


    ¡°You will not have such problems if you cooperate with the noble families of Metatrin.¡±


    The four elders were troubled. At the end of the day, their goal was to set up business outside of Qin, but they would now have to work with the younger generations that had split from their families. For money, they would just have to put up with it.


    ¡°Your Majesty, Duke Barde begs for an audience,¡± a pce guard passed on the message. Ojarvis waved his hand and dismissed the four Earls before inviting Duke Barde in.


    Duke Barde was not even forty years old yet. His father died early, which was why he entered the House of Commons at such a tender age. Duke Barde had been trained in the army since a young so he presented himself to be capable and confident. This was why Safilos favored him so much.


    The military spirit was important to Qin so all noble families were trained in swordsmanship. Duke Barde¡¯s father had been strict with his training and discipline. As a Duke who had inherited his position, Barde was skilful and possessed the abilities of a high-level swordmaster.


    ¡°Duke, please have a seat,¡± Ojarvis sat up straight in his chair and was not ascent as when he spoke to the four Earls.


    After the pce guard served tea, Duke Barde bowed first before smiling and said, ¡°Your Majesty, I was summoned by Prince Safilos early this morning and didn¡¯t have the chance to have any food yet.¡±


    Ojarvis immediately summoned someone to prepare some snacks for Barde. It was not possible to set up a banquet since they would be engaged in a serious discussion.


    ¡°What did uncle summon you for?¡± Ojarvis helped himself to some snacks and began to eat slowly. The two of them seemed more like a pair of monarchs that got along well with each other.


    ¡°The Prince was extremely unhappy with what is going on at Lun so he summoned all the first-grade Dukes from the House of Lords and House of Commons and requested for us to send our troops as well.¡±


    ¡°That is only right. If we used any more soldiers from Holy Rock City, the city would not have enough military forces,¡± Ojarvis said calmly.


    ¡°Your Majesty is right. All twelve Dukes agreed to send ten-thousand soldiers each. The Prince expects to activate another fifty-thousand men on top of those that were recruited at thest minute. In total, there will be an army of more than two-hundred-thousand.¡±


    ¡°Uncle rmended you to be the envoy?¡± Ojarvis changed the topic.


    ¡°Yes, Your Majesty,¡± Duke Barde smiled bitterly.


    ¡°This is a good thing. Duke, the war with the Holy See will not end in the next eight to ten years. Uncle must be nning to advance into the east of the Caucasus people¡¯s mountains by winter. To fight a war, we will need mages. Coincidentally, Metatrin City produces magic nuclei. Barde, when you reach Metatrin City, you have to negotiate with Saleen. Holy Rock City hopes that he can sell one-hundred-thousand middle-grade magic nuclei to us every year at half the market price.¡±


    Duke Barde was shocked and asked, ¡°Your Majesty, how is that possible?¡±


    Barde might not be a mage, but even he knew that buying at half the market price was going to be a challenge. This meant that Metatrin City would be making a loss of millions of gold coins every year.


    ¡°Why not? I will be paying with cash up front. He will still stand to profit a lot from such a huge deal. If he were to sell them himself, he would have to take into ount the cost of manpower and logistics.¡±


    After hearing what Ojarvis said, Barde suddenly became furious and said, ¡°Your Majesty, that means Alchemy City has been earning so many gold coins from us every year! This is simply...¡±


    Ojarvis waved his hand and said, ¡°Alchemy City is not something you can afford to find trouble with. This must be carried out in secret. I want to purchase all the magic nuclei for this year. It is okay if the prices are marked up. Once we make a breakthrough in Lun, we will have to organize our attack again. By then, the local noble families will have no choice but to contribute their forces as well. I will let Uncle lead the army and sweep across the four major Duchies before advancing into Tanggsi. As such, the number of magic nuclei used will be extremely high.¡±


    After hearing what the Emperor said, Barde came to a realization. Even if Alchemy City really fixed their prices, there was nothing much Holy Rock City could do. One could not possibly force the other party to sell their magic nuclei at a lower price. No wonder the Emperor wanted to send a Duke to Metatrin City. It was worth traveling there for such a big and important business deal.


    ¡°On this trip, you must carefully observe and find out just how powerful Metatrin City has be now. Since I have acknowledged it as a kingdom, you must be humble.¡±


    ¡°I... understand.¡± Although Barde came from the House of Commons, he stood on the side of the Emperor when it came to matters concerning the rise and fall of the Empire. A business involving one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei that could potentially save half the cost would be extremely beneficial to the Empire. It was not that Holy Rock City could not afford to pay, but if the war persisted, they could not afford to rest on theirurels. There woulde a day where even a thousand years¡¯ worth of reserves could be used up. They had to prepare for a rainy day.


    ¡°Grand Sorcerer Tiffany has returned to Holy Rock City. She will be apanying you along with four other grade-6 mages. Don¡¯t worry about your safety. I will also order Guderian City to ensure that you are escorted past Phoenix.¡±


    Safilos had already mentioned all that, but Barde was d to know that there would be a grade-8 sorcerer traveling with him.


    ¡°You can stay in the pce tonight. The gift list has yet to be prepared, but you should be able to set off by tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, is it that urgent?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is. The journey will be more than ten-thousand miles and will take two to three months¡¯ time. Sister has told me that we need to send someone over before October, the magic nuclei deal will have to wait until next year otherwise.¡±

 Chapter 670: The Emperors (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 670: The Emperors (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ojarvis was in a hurry to establish rtions with Metatrin City, he had epted ten magic chariots from Saleen. Even though these chariots were replicas their materials were genuine and their sizes were not any smaller than the real ones. Once the sorcerers in Holy Rock City refined the chariots further the magic chariots would be able to unleash their strongest abilities.


    Ojarvis also wanted to prepare a valuable present. It had to be at least equal to the ten magic chariots, for Saleen. ¡°Judging by the news Sister delivered, she values this person greatly and their rtionship is very intimate.¡±


    Ojarvis wanted to make Lex¡¯s strength great, he really did not want to be the emperor. If his sister could ascend the throne he was willing to be an idle prince. From a tender age Ojarvis had been fraught with illnesses, he only survived due to the long-term treatment provided by the pce¡¯s sorcerers. If Emperor Chanake did not die in battle Ojarvis might have died before him.


    Other emperors might grow attached to authority, but Ojarvis craved life and health.


    It was tough being an emperor, one would understand that just by looking at Safilos. Safilos was helping Ojarvis resolve almost eighty percent of affairs. Even so, Ojarvis still felt exhausted and it was not because he did not have enough intelligence, but because his body was frail.


    He finally understood why he rarely saw his father. He already felt utterly exhausted managing twenty percent of the empire¡¯s affairs. Everything would be fine if the country was in peace, but the Holy See¡¯s holy war had erupted right after he ascended the throne. He faced more difficulties being the emperor than his father had.


    Ojarvis felt that he was a pathetic character who was forced to stand in the middle of the stage while dying gradually.


    ¡°If I was given time to practice magic, I could surely be a sorcerer given the substantial resources of the imperial family. At the very least, I would have a healthy body like a normal human.¡±


    Ojarvis dismissed Barde, then he suddenly coughed violently. In this colossal hall where Ojarvis was alone, the sounds of his coughs echoed endlessly. Sunlight descended from above, uratelynding at the corresponding spots in the hall, causing the surrounding humongous statues to appear like they hade to life. These sacred monarchs throughout the history of Qin surveilled Ojarvis. He coughed until blood was flowing out his nose as he used his yellowed fingers to cover his mouth.


    To Ojarvis, coughing was a terrible affair. With a shudder, he rummaged for a bottle of magic medicine. Swallowing a portion of it slowly, he leaned against the chair and looked a little dazed.


    After consuming the medicine, he took out a handkerchief and wiped the blood underneath his nose. This blood had a dim purple hue with a tinge of strange fragrance, some of it stained his fingers.


    A tall and slender silhouette appeared beside Ojarvis. This ck-robed mage lowered his head and looked at the emperor, then whispered, ¡°Ojarvis, are you taking medicine again? Try not to take too much.¡±


    The mage¡¯s voice was insipid, void of feeling. On his long ck robe, there were three magic symbols.


    ¡°Whether I take it or not, I will still die. As the emperor, I have to help myself live morefortably.¡± Ojarvis¡¯ voice was even more serene, as though he was narrating someone else¡¯s story.


    The ck-robed mage looked at the emperor, he and hisrades had joined forces to save this young emperor. Magic could not go against thews of nature though. By nature, Ojarvis¡¯ body already had a great defect. It was almost impossible for him to live as long as a normal person.


    Ojarvis tossed the handkerchief to the ground as his eyes regained some liveliness. Raising his head, he told the ck-robed mage, ¡°I heard that the Holy See has an immortality holy medicine. When every pope ascends the position they consume a serving of it. No matter the person, they can extend their life by one-hundred and twenty years as long as they consume it, is this true?¡±


    ¡°You are the Qin emperor, you cannot believe in the gods.¡± The mage¡¯s answer seemed to have acknowledged this legend.


    ¡°Yes, indeed. If I believe in a god, the rage of my people will burn me to death first. Mofeesto, I heard that Saleen has gained one fallen Red Archbishop. Do you think he will have a way to treat my illness?¡± There were a few hints of anticipation in Ojarvis¡¯ voice.


    ¡°Whatever a grade-9 holy master can achieve, we can as well. Ojarvis, I don¡¯t wish to deceive you,¡± the ck-robed mage answered.


    Ojarvisughed, then said, ¡°Oh my, mages are always so boring. It would be great if I could learn magic, then we will be able tomunicate normally.¡±


    The ck-robed mage called Mofeesto looked at the emperor with some sympathy, ¡°The body of this emperor is so frail that it cannot contain magic chords or the Sword Aura.¡±


    ¡°Mofeesto, I am very envious of Sister, she has so much more freedom than me,¡± Ojarvis said with a pant.


    ¡°The viscount doesn¡¯t have freedom either.¡± The mage finally responded with emotion. These few grade-9 sorcerers were very familiar with Lex. Regarding the conflict between Lex and the prince, the mages could not interfere, but it did not mean that they could not have their own opinions.


    ¡°Currently, she is a county queen, she can lead a nation and isn¡¯t tied up by parliament, how does she not have freedom?¡±


    The ck-robed mage did not respond. He simply stood in the darkness, looking at this emperor whose life was salvaged. He was a child who originally could only live to six years old.


    ¡°Mofeesto, you may be dismissed, I am fine now.¡± Ojarvis could not obtain an answer. Waving his hand with much effort, he then leaned against the chair once more.


    The imperial capital of Qin was engulfed in rain. Tens of thousands of miles away in the Tanggsi Empire, Siyuan City was also experiencing a frigid downpour. The emperor of the Tanggsi Empire was in the pce, anxiously reviewing the documents his subordinates had delivered to him.


    Twenty-five-thousand regr troops had been killed in the wilderness of northern Qin and the emperor could not ept such an oue. Nevertheless, people from the Holy See would have reviewed this information, it could not be false. In the eyes of the Tanggsi¡¯s emperor, all the other soldiers, with the exception of his twenty-five-thousand regr troops, were not human.


    Standing beside the emperor was a holy master in a red robe. This holy master was very young, he was at least twenty years younger than the emperor.


    ¡°Vinny, can our army conquer Qin?¡± The emperor appeared to be about forty years old. He had a head of smooth golden hair and was healthy, but his voice sounded decadent.


    ¡°Of course, with the guidance of the god, we will be indomitable,¡± the red-robed holy master answered indifferently.


    ¡°Nichs has fallen. I heard that he was a staunch believer.¡±


    ¡°Before the god, everything will be humbled. Nichs didn¡¯t manage to stave off the temptation from the monsters, Nichs¡¯ betrayal will only cause the god to direct his rage on the Myers maind, burning everything.¡±


    ¡°Vinny, stop lying to me, Theisio killed all of Nichs¡¯ confidantes because of this matter. Tell me... has Theisio lost hisposure in this manner before?¡±


    ¡°What does Your Majesty n to do?¡± The red-robed holy master nced out the window. The patrolling soldiers outside were all death warriors from the Tanggsi imperial family, no one could get close to them.


    ¡°What can I do? If... if I can visit Sharjah, I might be able to think of something.¡± A tinge of hesitation appeared on the emperor¡¯s face.


    ¡°Your Majesty, even though this matter has dealt a blow to Theisio, Sharjah wouldn¡¯t take this chance to create trouble. The pope¡¯s power is immeasurable, we shouldn¡¯t trifle with him.¡±


    ¡°Vinny, you are useless!¡± The emperor flew into a rage abruptly, smacking the table with much force.


    ¡°Your Majesty, I am your son, I only speak the truth,¡± the red-robed holy master answered calmly.


    ¡°I cannot take it anymore, Theisio has disseminated a holy decree, asking me to establish a navy to help him invade Metatrin City! How did he manage to find out that I already own a fleet!¡± The emperor¡¯s rage was not unfounded. He had built a fleet with great difficulty, yet Theisio had found out and was asking him to use that fleet to invade a faraway city.


    To an ambitious Tanggsi emperor, the Holy See was an enormous shackle that caused him to experience breathing difficulties. The fleet was a chance to destroy this shackle, but it was going to be deployed to the frontline now. Be that as it may, the emperor was not dumb. Metatrin City¡¯s navy was definitely mightier than its army, otherwise Lianyun City and Alchemy City would not have allowed this port city to exist.


    ¡°The pope is doing this to destroy my hopes!¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, Sharjah isn¡¯t reliable. If you want to salvage the navy, I can rmend a person to you.¡±


    ¡°Who is it?¡±


    ¡°Fycro!¡±


    ¡°I am not meeting him!¡± The Tanggsi emperor threw whatever he could find onto the ground in a moment of rage. ¡°That scumbag, if I see him, I will not be able to stop myself from killing him!¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, Fycro is the most modest man in this world, why are you angry with him?¡± the red-robed mage asked in bewilderment.


    ¡°Modest? I have never seen a person more arrogant than him!¡± The emperor¡¯s hand was still trembling, even Theisio did not insult him directly to his face. Fycro had done such a thing more than once. Only the emperor knew about this, but he did not dare disclose it to others. ¡°The star of the Glorious ins, the man who is closest to God, the first oracle... He can kill me without getting permission from the pope.¡±


    ¡°But Your Majesty, if this fleet is sent to Metatrin City, the oue will not be good. Even if Metatrin City doesn¡¯t have a navy, we cannot resist Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°So what do you suggest?¡± The emperor was not inflexible. Since he was in a fix he had to look for a breakthrough to loosen this shackle. That way he could achieve his own goals.


    ¡°Your Majesty, let¡¯sunch a second campaign in the name of the imperial family. That way, the pope will not have a reason tomand you. He will instead have to cooperate with you.¡±


    ¡°If we organize a second expeditionary army, it will be winter by the time the army gets there!¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that better? Since it will be winter, there will be a reason to guard the moat. Let the army build a city there. ording to thew, whenever the empire builds a city, the Holy See will have to establish a church of corresponding size. If Your Majesty deploys a few hundred thousand ves, Theisio will have to send a sufficient number of pastors too.¡±


    ¡°I get it now!¡± The emperor pped his hands as heughed boisterously, ¡°My son is indeed cunning.¡±

 Chapter 671: The emperors (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 671: The emperors (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the Holy See¡¯s code ofws there had to be churches within all the cities of the Tanggsi Empire. When the poption of a city had reached a certain size, the size of the church had to be expanded correspondingly as well.


    ¡°During this campaign a sufficient number of ves have to be deployed so that the Holy See would have to establish a church with Red Bishops in northern Qin. If this church gets destroyed the Holy See must rebuild it. This means that when I send a few hundred-thousand ves over the pope must provide a corresponding level of support. This support is bottomless, otherwise, it will be akin to the Holy See refuting their own code ofws.¡±


    This would be a bottomless pit, it would be extremely challenging to defend a church that was established in northern Qin. By then, the pressure on Siyuan City would be drastically reduced as the pope would have to concentrate his efforts on northern Qin. Even the offensive at Lon¡¯s borders would be forced to take on a defensive stance.


    ¡°Leave this to the dukes. Vinny, go and get Gerald,¡± the emperor said in exhration.


    ¡°As you wish, Your Majesty.¡± The holy master left the pce to contact the prominent nobles in the city. As long as these nobles joined forces to demand the emperor to invade Metatrin, the Holy See would be helpless. The nobles would have a strong justification for their demand because an entire army, as well as the son of a duke, had died in that farawaynd in the north.


    A sense of foreboding swept throughout Siyuan City. Bad news seemed to have grown wings, soaring across Myers maind and towards Sikeqinya as well.


    Sikeqinya was built upon mercenaries. Long ago the bloodline of the imperial family had originated from a Sikeqinya Mercenary Group. When the Sikeqinya Mercenary Group was in its heyday it imed to have three-hundred-thousand knights.


    Three-hundred-thousand magic cavalrymen were sufficient to develop a powerful empire. To date, the number of mages had dwindled significantly and many were converged in Qin Empire. As a result, the number of knights in Sikeqinya could only be maintained around fifty-thousand.


    These fifty-thousand knights werebeled as the imperial family¡¯s fortress, they were the main elites of the Sikeqinya imperial family.


    On the empire¡¯s square the Sikeqinya emperor was reviewing a parade. The square of the Sikeqinya Empire had an evenrger surface area than the Glorious Square found in the Holy City. More than one-hundred mercenary groups participated in this parade. Among those people reviewing this parade, there were ambassadors from the other three empires, other than the nobles of the Sikeqinya Empire.


    This day marked a thousand years since the establishing the Sikeqinya Empire. Very early on the emperor had already sent envoys to the other three empires. Even Qin and Tanggsi, who were in the midst of war, did not reject this invitation.


    Both parties were vying for Sikeqinya¡¯s support, even though they knew that Sikeqinyans only looked up to money. No matter how good rtions were, money still had to be forked over eventually for the Sikeqinya nobles to deploy their troops.


    Among the four big empires, the poption of Sikeqinyans was the smallest. There were less than two-hundred-million of them. Among the Sikeqinyans, the number of farmers was on the lower end. The craftsmen, mercenaries, merchants, and shepherds made up the bulk of this empire.


    This was a mercenary state, but bandits were prolific too. This caused the other three empires to be bewildered.


    The emperor of the Sikeqinya Empire, Danny, was seated on a tform while being nked by envoys from the other three empires. The mercenaries who walked past the reviewing tform were equipped with premium equipment. Their air of ferocity engulfed the entire square.


    The envoys from the three empires were conjuring their own ideas as they stared at the Sikeqinyans flexing their muscles.


    The first team to walk past the tform was the imperial swordsman¡¯s group, this was an army with a heavy dutyposition. There were war chariots, heavy cavalrymen, heavy infantrymen, armored swordsmen, long range infantrymen, and even a rarely seen mage¡¯s toon.


    Of course, the Sikeqinya emperor would never showcase his most secret forces. Nevertheless, this heavy duty army in front of the tform already made the three envoys understand the power possessed by the Sikeqinyans.


    The next team to march was the Dragons and Roses Regiment, this mercenary group had been stationed along the borders and it was also the first mercenary group in Sikeqinya. The group leader was a Golden Grand Swordmaster, while his wife was a grade-9 sorcerer. Such a collocation was the most ideal structure for a mercenary group.


    Due to the tense situation in Lon, the leader of the Dragons and Roses Regiment did not attend this parade personally. Instead, he had sent a mage¡¯s squad and a magic beast camp to take part in the parade.


    Sikeqinya also had magic beast swordsmen, however, only the Dragons and Roses Regiment contained a fullposition of them. In the mage¡¯s squad deployed by the regiment, there were two grade-8 sorcerers. That surprised the Qin envoy a little. ¡°It is simply unbelievable that a mercenary group has so many sorcerers, it seems like it was the right decision for His Majesty to send me here.¡±


    The Sikeqinyans were not as weak as imagined, otherwise the Tanggsi Empire would not have attacked Qin first. Instead, it would have attacked Sikeqinya, which was nearer.


    When the second grade-9 mercenary group walked past the square the envoy from Tanggsi Empire had also be extremely jittery. This mercenary group had deployed a four-thousand man team and themander of every emblem group was a Silver Grand Swordmaster.


    Even though Sikeqinya only had two grade-9 mercenary groups, the proficiency of these mercenaries was not any less than the imperial cavalrymen of the Tanggsi Empire.


    ¡°Luckily we didn¡¯t attack Sikeqinya first and captured the eroded Lon.¡± The Tanggsi envoy was feeling d, but before this day, everyone had underestimated the Sikeqinyans.


    At the moment, it seemed like Sikeqinya was the decisive force which could affect the war between Qin and Tanggsi.


    The Cloudflow envoy was the most arrogant, but he did not make any derogatory remarks because the emperor of the Sikeqinya Empire was a Golden Grand Swordmaster. The envoy was not afraid of any emperor, but was fearful of a Golden Grand Swordmaster¡¯s anger. If one went to provoke an expert of this grade, it meant that they were tired of living.


    An emperor might treat an envoy with some respect, or tolerance, in view of the rtions between two nations. A Golden Grand Swordmaster would not entertain such thoughts.


    ¡°Look at Emperor Danny, sitting there surveying the armies below the tform while emitting an invisible majesty, causing everyone to be speechless. If I knew that this emperor was a grade-9 expert, I wouldn¡¯t have taken up this assignment.¡±


    Emperor Danny observed the envoys from the three empires, feeling smug. ¡°Other than disying my powers this time around, I also intend to disy the premium equipment in my possession. The location of the war between Tanggsi and Qin is actually very near to Laiyin Duchy. I can provide huge quantities of disposable weapons to both parties. This time around, I will make a killing.¡±


    Before Sikeqinya, there were four dynasties and countless of kingdoms. There was never a king or emperor who was like the imperial family of Sikeqinya, only caring about how to make a fortune.


    This conceited emperor never thought about if Qin or Tanggsi triumphed, either empire would pose a huge threat to him. Sikeqinyans were inborn mercenaries, as long as they received money, they would put their lives at stake for their employers. Sikeqinyans were also the best merchants. As long as the customer could afford the price, a Sikeqinyan would sell anything to them.


    An unreasonable family had spread their beliefs and ideals to the entire empire. Even the Holy See could not rival such an achievement. The Holy See still had to rely on the temptation provided by a god to control the believers and control an empire. The imperial family of Sikeqinya had simply used gold coins to corrupt all Sikeqinyans.


    Just from this point alone, the very first emperor who created the Sikeqinya Empire was nobler than the Lord of Glory. His religion had spread throughout the empire in less than a hundred years.


    Sikeqinya also had churches, but they were a ce of sorrow for the Holy See. Almost every Sikeqinyan was a fake believer, an inborn rebel. Their faith in the gods was very pretentious, they could turn into traitors anytime.


    The three envoys were very clear why the Sikeqinya emperor had invited them to review this parade, but they could not refuse this ¡®kindness¡¯.


    The Cloudflow people had lost half of Titan Duchy. In actual fact, they were already at war with the Tanggsi Empire. Most of the equipment originally procured by Cloudflow had gone to Qin because Cloudflow did not really trust Sikeqinya. At this point in time the Sikeqinya emperor had signaled an intention to sell materials. That was in line with what the Cloudflow people desperately needed.


    Cloudflow possessed naval fleets. Even though they could not breach the coastal defenses of Tanggsi, they could go around Tanggsi Empire and head straight to Sikeqinya. Under the protection of warships, the amount of cargo the Cloudflow merchant ships could transport would be quite astonishing.


    Cloudflow did notck in mineral deposits, but they sorely needed the ability to mass produce consumables.


    Purchasing bows and arrows was the first task. On Titan Duchy¡¯s battlefield, the Cloudflow people were still short of over one-hundred-million arrows. Since they did not have arge cavalry regiment, the Cloudflow people would have to outfit more archers if they wanted to engage Tanggsi in a field battle.


    The Tanggsi peoplecked in sieging equipment because the Qin cities were too sturdy. Each city had been formed from gigantic rocks and even the walls of the smaller fortresses were not shorter than fifteen yards. The metal battlements used by the Qin people could hardly be destroyed by divine spells. If the Tanggsi people tried to invade these cities, they would have to pay an astronomical price.


    The Qin people also faced a scarcity of armor. Logically speaking, the magic armor of Qin people was the best in the world, but it was too expensive. Only the imperial family and main forces could afford it. On the other hand, the armor of the local nobles was very much inferior.


    These three empires had their own needs and the Sikeqinyans wanted to sell this equipment to help these three nations battle each other. As long as the war perpetuated, the Sikeqinyans would have an endless stream of ie.


    After six grade-8 mercenary groups passed by, there were another over thirty grade-7 mercenary groups who would go on to march past.


    At this point in time, the Qin envoy had already conjured a n in his mind. ¡°The Sikeqinyans want to make money right? Then I shall help them make money. I will rify this point with the emperor when I return. We will purchase weapons from Sikeqinya in bulk, so that the Tanggsi people will have nothing to procure. Even if they try to buy, they will have to raise their offers. If the Tanggsi people want to obtain weapons, they will have to pay a much higher price.¡±


    The Sikeqinyan emperor was reviewing a parade and plotting against the three envoys. In the Cloudflow pce, it was a scene of merrymaking and celebrations to extol the good times as though the war in Titan Duchy was unrted to them at all.


    Within a three story pce song and dance was aplenty as dozens of princes, princesses and the crown prince apanied the Cloudflow emperor in a banquet. In the midst of these celebrations gons carved from jade were served continuously in waves. All the tableware was crafted from jade with the exception of some made from gold or silver. asionally, there was chinaware too and all these appliances were made using magic.


    The Cloudflow people boasted of being the authentic descendants of the fourth dynasty, the facades of their houses were at least double in sizepared to the other empires. Of course, they had to be best in style as well. At the moment, the emperor clearly wanted to discuss the war in Titan Duchy, but he still had to organize a banquet.

 Chapter 672: Opening Match of the Fighting Arena (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 672: Opening Match of the Fighting Arena (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Emperor of Cloudflow was very young with a pretty yet strange face. This young Emperor was leaning on a soft cushion and was being served wine by the pce maids.


    Behind the pirs on both sides of the hall there were soldiers hiding in the darkness. Wherever the light shone was a world of lustre and dazzle.


    The ceiling beams were filled with magic patterns while a gigantic chandelier hung in the middle. Wind blew from top to bottom and passed through the banquet hall and corridors before reaching the huge garden outside.


    ¡°What are all of you crying for? Didn¡¯t we only lose half of Titan Duchy? That old fellow refused to listen to me anyway. It¡¯s no big deal,¡± the Emperor of Cloudflow spoke nonchntly.


    The Prince and his brothers were not crying. They were just more worried about the state of the country than the Emperor was. Everyone was still enjoying themselves watching the beautiful swordmasters¡¯ dance.


    ¡°Royal brother, the defense at the Chishui River can only hold for another two or three months. By then, the weather in the north will turn cold and the Tanggsi Empire will focus all their forces on Titan. We can¡¯t just wait and do nothing.¡±


    One of the brothers spoke assertively to the Emperor. He was the older brother of the Emperor, but ording to Cloudflow¡¯s rules, once the younger brother became Emperor, the elder brother had to address the former as ¡®royal brother¡¯.


    ¡°I have already sent envoys to Sikeqinya. Hmm, the Emperor of Sikeqinya will sell usrge numbers of equipment. When the timees, we can set up spitfire catapults on the banks of the Red River[1]. Tanggsi¡¯s iron knights will not be able to cross the Red River.¡±


    ¡°Father, that Sikeqinyan does not seem reliable,¡± a Prince spoke even as he stared lustily at one of the dancers. He was the son of one of the Princes, but now he had to address the Emperor as ¡®father¡¯. The Emperor was still young and his only son was two years old. Even in a ce as extravagant and indecent as Cloudflow, the son was still too young to be of drinking age. The real Prince was still nursing and was not in the hall.


    ¡°Of course. Danny, this old fellow is not a good man. If not for the fact that the distance is far and there was nothing of interest in Sikeqinya, I would have gone along with the group of envoys and given him a good beating.¡± The Emperor¡¯s words left all the members of the royal family grinning with grimace.


    The Emperor was not boasting. A rule passed down from the fourth dynasty stated that no Cloudflow Emperors could be weak. The current Emperor was a powerful assassin. When the previous Emperor was still around and the current Emperor was only about ten years old, thetter had already carried out a number of assassinations for the former.


    Now that the Emperor was close to thirty years old, no one knew just how powerful he was now.


    The Emperor being so powerful put the others on edge. An Emperor that was an assassin was scandalouspared to one that was a grand swordmaster or mage.


    ¡°I heard that old fellow, Danny, has already advanced into a gold grand swordmaster. I don¡¯t have a lot of confidence that I can kill him. Even I did, I may not make it back. The few of you should stop waiting for me to die.¡±


    The Emperorughed uproariously while the others could onlyugh bitterly.


    Fortunately, Cloudflow still preserved the senate system. Everyone would be dragged down by such a ridiculous Emperor otherwise.


    Just as the Emperor was having fun with them, a female pce officer came in and reported that the pce swordsmen battalion had captured a grade-7 cloud fox. Mages had refined it into a tunic and would like present it to the Emperor as a gift.


    The Emperor was pleased. He rewarded all the pce swordsmen involved before putting on the tunic and asked his brothers, ¡°How do I look?¡±


    It was a garment made from a grade-7 magic beast and refined by grade-9 sorcerers. Even if it was underpants it would still be considered high-grade equipment. Everyone could only sing its praises.


    ¡°It is a bit hot for the season. Well, why doesn¡¯t everyone follow me to the back to admire the snow? We can¡¯t disappoint the mages who put in so much effort.¡± With that, the Emperor sent away the dancers and led the brothers and nephews of the royal family away to admire the snow.


    There was no snow in June. Fortunately, there were a few powerful mages in the Cloudflow pce and could create snow instantaneously to go along with the Emperor¡¯s mood.


    The battle situation at Titan was pushed aside just like that and would have to be dealt with by the senate. The Emperor was only in the mood to admire snow and nothing else. The senate did not have the authority to deploy the Emperor¡¯s soldiers so they could only spend a huge some of money to utilize the local noble families¡¯ forces. The local noble families might not even agree. Cloudflow¡¯s rule stated that the local noble families would only go to war alongside the royal family. Since the Emperor had no intentions of increasing his forces, there was no reason for the local noble families to give their best effort.


    In order to persuade the noble families, the senate would have to use another sum of money.


    Back in Saleen¡¯s temple in Metatrin City, Nailisi was in a deep sleep once again. Saleen was studying the strange magic beasts continuously.


    The twenty-four little lightning dragons in Saleen¡¯s ne had indeed advanced after devouring the corpses of the grade-10 lightning dragon. They were all now grade-9 lightning dragons.


    Grade-9 lightning dragons possessed four ws and were able to live out of the water. Although these lightning dragons had advanced, they were still only slightly more than ten yards long. Saleen would have to continue to feed them with a lot of ocean magic beasts every day. The reason Saleen kept sending vessels out to hunt was not for low-level magic nuclei, but to collect food to feed his lightning dragons.


    Lightning dragons were actually the kind of creature that did not have to eat for one month after a meal. In fact, they could even go without food for a few months. When lightning dragons¡¯ bodies were in the midst of growing, Saleen had to feed them withrge quantities of food every day as time passed at a different rate in the ne. Only by doing so would the little lightning dragons not cast mental assault out of anger.


    When the little lightning dragons were hungry, they wouldmunicate with Saleen using mental strength. Although there was a buffer in the ne, their souls were connected so Saleen was still frustrated by their constant demands. He would only be rid of this problem when the lightning dragons would finally be able to hunt for their own food.


    What reassured Saleen was that he was close to making a breakthrough.


    The new spell that Saleen had invented was a flying ability. There were a number of magic beasts in the ocean that had flying abilities, but could not fly for prolonged periods. Saleen¡¯s invention would enable one to fly in the air for a long period of time.


    His Quickcloud spell could only be considered as a partially invented spell as it still used a Wind Travel spell for reference. This time around, the spell that he had invented waspletely different. The theory Saleen used for this spell waspletely different from those of any other flying spells.


    Saleen named this grade-7 spell the Comet sh spell.


    Although this spell required some time for preparation, it could be cast very quickly following another spell, producing an illusion instantly. After castinget sh, the surface of Saleen¡¯s body would gradually form a gigantic ice shuttle. The tip of this ice shuttle was extremely sharp and there were six corners throughout its entire body. At the rear of the ice shuttle, the water elements that had formed the ice shuttle would evaporate instantaneously and st out water vapor.


    By utilizing the st of the water vapor, the ice shuttle would be able to fly in the air and even allow one to control its direction.


    Even Saleen feared the speed of this flying spell. Apart from considering whether his body would be able to handle the exertions brought about by this spell, Saleen even wondered whether the ice shuttle¡¯s speed might be faster than the speed of sound.


    The ice shuttle waspletely sealed so Saleen would have to use magic to be able to breathe. The hardiness of the ice shuttle was far beyond that of ice te armor. This was a grade-7 spell and the hardiness of high-level spells could not bepared with any other equipment.


    When Saleen was flying with it, it was as if he has beenpletely protected by a high-level magic shield. While he was in the ice shuttle, he would still be able to cast any instant magic.


    Saleen would be shing around like aet when he used this spell. Although the burst of speed would be short, its normal speed could still be maintained at three-hundred miles an hour. Saleen never stopped trying to perfect this spell. He believed that this spell could potentially surpass the speed of a gold grand swordmaster. Even at this stage, it could already enable Saleen to escape from danger instantaneously.


    The effects of this spell, when used underwater, was even better. Not only would it protect Saleen from the water pressure, he would also be able to move freely in the ocean. He used to envy Nailisi for being able to withstand the water pressure.


    In the process of studying this spell, Saleen also gained a few other new spells. These spells were the results of understanding the structures of the magic beasts and were mostly water element spells.


    At that point, Saleen was finally on the brink of bing a sorcerer. Before that, no matter how powerful his mental strength and magic chords were, Saleen always had a very narrow understanding of the elements. This time around, by inventing a new spell on his own, Saleen finally gained new insight.


    The obstacle towards advancing into a grade-7 sorcerer no longer existed. Now, Saleen only needed more time.


    The new spell had emboldened Saleen. With thiset sh, Saleen no longer needed to fear being surrounded by enemies. He would also be able to fly even on rainy days now. The ice shuttle was purely made up of water elements so there was no risk of electrocution. In the past, mages avoided flying on rainy days for fear of being struck by lightning. With his badge and ayer of water element on the ice shuttle, Saleen now had means of insting himself. As long as he did not enter the clouds, he would be safe flying on rainy days.


    Thanks to Nichs¡¯ fallen divine spell that helped Saleen¡¯s left hand recover so quickly, thetter would not have wait so long for his hand to recover before training his new spell.


    Saleen hadpleted most of the new spell and it was onlycking the final touches. Saleen reopened the temple once again and began to look into Metatrin City¡¯s matters personally. There was not a lot that he needed to look into. Most of the more problematic issues had already been undertaken by Daniel.


    Daniel spent a lot of effort to evolve the intelligence of a gigantic spirit of the dead like the pikoosi so that thetter could be the former¡¯s assistant. At the town hall, thousands of skeletons and some death mages handled the administrative duties every day.


    The first thing that Saleen had to look into was the opening match of the fighting arena. The fighting arena was located at the northwest end of the city and could hold up to fifty-thousand people. Less than one-hundred people had signed up for the opening match and this was below Saleen¡¯s expectations. The number of Professionals in Metatrin City was ten times more than other cities.


    [1] ¡®Red River¡¯ is used interchangeably with ¡®Chishui River¡¯ in Cloudflow

 Chapter 673: Opening Match of the Fighting Arena (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 673: Opening Match of the Fighting Arena (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Currency was thest thing to be circted within Saleen¡¯s city. Although banks had already been set up, most transactions still utilized the Qin currency instead.


    Saleen had ensured that the opening of the fighting arena had been given a lot of publicity and the price for each ticket was set at twenty-five bronze coins.


    Although the price was a bit high, it was still within the residents¡¯ price range. The poorest of them all only needed one bronze coin to buy themself half a loaf of ck bread and a bowl of corn paste to make up one meal. The price of goods in Qin were already very low. Such ck bread was made from ingredients that could also be used to feed livestock.


    The meal of an average resident would typically cost around ten bronze coins.


    Twenty-five bronze coins could pay for an adult¡¯s food for an entire day. To the poor, it was unrealistic to spend a day¡¯s worth of food money to watch a match. Saleen¡¯s fighting arena issued tickets though. There were magic numbers on the tickets that one could use for betting. One paid twenty-five bronze coins not just for entry, but also for a chance to bet.


    For one ticket, one could watch fifteen matches. If one could guess all the matches correctly, he would earn one-hundred gold coins. Simrly, guessing fourteen matches correctly would win you ten gold coins. Guessing thirteen matches correctly would win you one gold coin.


    One gold coin was equivalent to one-thousand bronze coins. When seen in this light, the price of the ticket would seem insignificant if one managed to guess correctly once. Even if one only managed to guess correctly thirteen matches, he would still earn forty matches worth of tickets.


    It was extremely difficult to even guess thirteen matches correctly, but only the mages knew this. An average person would only think about the huge difference between one-hundred gold coins and twenty-five bronze coins.


    This huge difference was four-thousand times in fact. Having the opportunity to earn a profit of four-thousand times could easily confuse an average person.


    The ticket for the opening match of the fighting arena only cost one bronze coin. As long as one managed to guess the top three winners correctly, he would be able to win one silver coin. The Lord had said that this was so that everyone would understand the rules and the way to bet. Once the fighting arena was fully operational, the Lord would provide all the necessary information on the sixteenpetitors in the final round so that everyone would be able to make an informed choice.


    These sixteenpetitors would be made up of the victors of the weekly matches held at the small fighting arena. The small fighting arena epted bets as well, but the prizes were halved.


    The opening match would be a preliminary round and would be held at the big fighting arena instead of the small one. The match would be hosted by the Lord himself.


    All the tickets had been sold out, but the returns were even smaller than the amount of money poured into publicity. Fifty-thousand bronze coins were equivalent to fifty gold coins. Saleen was basically using money to exchange for the audience¡¯s apuse and enthusiasm.


    By now, the noble families also felt that the fighting arena would be profitable. Saleen had recently split the profits from mining and magic nuclei between them so the they did not try to gain any benefits from this.


    It was soon July and Saleen¡¯s fighting arena wouldmence its first match on the first of July.


    The fighting arena that could seat up to fifty-thousand people was named ¡®The Metatrin Central Arena¡¯. There were twenty-four passageways in the fighting arena that led to the center which was an empty space that measured six-hundred yards by six-hundred yards. In the center of the empty space was a rock surface. Surrounding it was uneven ground, sandy ground, and a few pits that filled with water.


    The surrounding stands were designed by Eleanor in a stepped fashion and it looked very grand. The exterior of the oval-shaped fighting arena was thirty yards high and the arena looked like a small city that had been sealed off. Hundreds of metal pirs were bent in a strange fashion. They formedplicated shapes that extended towards the middle of the arena.


    Above the stands was colored ss ced on top of metal structures, forming a semi-closed ceiling. The audience would still be able to continue enjoying the match even if there was a storm.


    There was an elevated tform on the north of the arena. The tform was designed ording to Cloudflow¡¯s style so it looked quaint and elegant. On both sides of the tform were seats that were semi-closed. These seats belonged to the noble families. That way, they would be separated from the residents and were nearer to the match.


    The residents would never face the problem of not being able to watch the match clearly due to distance. Projection magic arrays had been designed on the semi-closed ceiling so that the match would be magnified and projected in the air. Eleanor also designed magic arrays that could amplify sound so that every member of the audience could clearly hear the exciting sounds arising from the fight.


    After Saleen saw Eleanor¡¯s design, he immediately felt that the price he set for each ticket was too low. One could admire the outstanding work of mages for only twenty-five bronze coins. Aside from the issue of profit, this also concerned the value of mages.


    Only the opening match was symbolically priced at one bronze coin per ticket. Eleanor also suggested that the tickets should be priced differently ording to the location of the seats. The tickets for noble families were priced at twenty-five gold coins while the seats with the best location to view the magic projection were priced at one silver coin. The price of twenty-five bronze coins was purely targeted atmoners.


    The noble families would make bets amongst themselves. The twenty-five gold coins were peanuts to them.


    No one knew where Eleanor¡¯s innovative ideas came from. With Narnia, a very knowledgeable mage assisting her, the construction of the fighting arena was very smooth. By the time Saleen came to take a look, the fighting arena was already a bustling area in the north of the city.


    The north of the city contained many noble families, their bodyguards, and a few Professionals that were trying to gain the favor of the noble families. The mercenaries mainly settled down in the east of the city as there were more shops and the mercenaries were in higher demand by the merchants there.


    The north of the city also had many craftsmen. There were a number of shops that sold equipment. They were unlike the east of the city that mostly exported its items.


    Overall, no one in the north of the city could be considered poor. The craftsmen earned at least one-hundred gold coins every year.


    Even if Saleen charged each ticket at one gold coin a peice, the people in the north of the city would not hesitate to buy them. Saleen aimed to make this a long-term business, so he had to find a way to target the masses.


    Saleen was invited up onto the elevated tform. There were eighteen seats on the tform and each seat could hold two people. These seats were filled by twelve Earls, four Dukes, Saleen, and Daniel.


    Saleen and Daniel were present that day, but might not have too much time to watch the fights in the future.


    Polo was a popr sport in Qin and there were huge arenas for that too. Those arenas were not as grand and could only seat around one-thousand to two-thousand people. An arena with fifty-thousand people was going to be deafening. If not for the fact that the noble families¡¯ seats had been specially designed by the mages, no-one would be able to socialize with each other.


    There were a few magic arrays on Saleen¡¯s table and the one in the center was a sound transmission magic array. The greater the range in which the magic arrays would be used, the more magic nuclei would be used up. None of these magic arrays were offensive in nature. They were all low-level magic that was of support nature, their effective range was within the entire arena.


    The number of magic nuclei that would be used up by these magic arrays was negligible to Saleen. Since these spells were all low-level, Saleen would not need to change the magic nuclei for two or three months if he used middle-grade ones.


    Sika was not present today so Eleanor sat beside Saleen. Much of the arena was designed by her, so it was most appropriate for her to advise Saleen how to utilize it.


    Daniel, who had been overseeing Metatrin City¡¯s daily matters, was seated beside Nichs. Daniel and Saleen sat in the center of the noble families¡¯ seats. There was another row of seats that was curved in shape behind them and Saleen¡¯s bodyguards sat there. Instead of sitting, Nailisi stood behind Saleen. Beside her were three demons who would be at the service of Saleen and Eleanor.


    The four Dukes were seated close together, but the Earls on both sides were slightly further apart. Nevertheless, the entire tform was designed so that it was still convenient for them to talk to one another.


    Saleen began to converse with those around him since it was not time yet.


    Eleanor was very thorough in exining the arena to Saleen, including the small shops in the arena that were selling food and drinks. The arena also had two-hundred toilets and more than one-thousand lookout posts.


    Saleen¡¯s position on the elevated tform was in the center of the control magic. Below the tform was the magic alchemy room that controled the entire arena. Tens of magic apprentices were hard at work there.


    Saleen listened intently. He realized that there no discrepancies in all that Eleanor had exined. In the process of designing the arena, she even nned for the evacuation of fifty-thousand people in the event of a fire.


    At two pm in the afternoon, a call of enthusiasm and vigor rang throughout the entire arena.


    ¡°Residents of Metatrin City, listen up, listen up. The very first match of the Metatrin fightingpetition is about to begin. Let us now hear from the Lord of Metatrin City, Your Highness, Saleen!¡±


    The entire arena became silent. Commoners were often silent when facing noble families out of abination of fear and respect. In this case, it was especially so since the person speaking was the Lord of Metatrin City.


    Saleen was already well-prepared. He turned on the sound transmission magic array and began the first speech he would give in a public setting in his life.


    ¡°My citizens...,¡± Saleen¡¯s opening was crafted by Eleanor. He paused for a while before continuing, ¡°Greetings to all of you. I, Saleen Metatrin, the King of this city and country, have started this fightingpetition for only one reason. I need more talented people.¡±


    The arena was eerily quiet. The entire seating area has been divided up into twenty-four sections. Once the grand magic array that controled the area below the tform opened up, no one would be able to hear each other.


    ¡°The Holy See has beenunching attack after attack. Until now, there were still hundreds of warriors receiving treatment in the hospital. They may live, but they may also die from the damage caused by the Holy See¡¯s expedition. Metatrin City will never give in. We will find more warriors and mages to fight against their God¡¯s arrogance, bias, cruelty, and absurdity. This is why I need all of you! Right now, I am telling all of you that all of Lun is close to falling, but Metatrin City will always stand tall. We will never give in we will take the fight all the way to the Glorious ins.¡±


    Saleen had yet to finish his speech before a group of people began to cheer from an unknown section.


    ¡°Long live Metatrin!¡±


    ¡°Never give in!¡±


    The cheers and shouts were so loud that they drowned out Saleen¡¯s sound transmission magic array.

 Chapter 674: The beginning of success (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 674: The beginning of sess (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was slightly outraged, but he quickly cooled down.


    There were traces of divine spells inside his Sound Transmission Magic Array, any words which passed through this magic array would have the ability to delude other people. This was simr to the Holy See¡¯s preaching, it was able to control one¡¯s heart invisibly.


    There were suggestive spells and mental spells in magic too. They could not be considered despicable, they were just a form of skill.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask these people to worship me.¡±


    Saleen consoled himself in this manner, but he did not realize that if he verbalized such words daily, he would undergo subtle changes to his character. Eventually, he would have his first batch of believers.


    After all that cheering, Saleen would surely attract a huge reaction from the audience no matter what he said next.


    Saleen himself did not even know what he had said. He wanted motivate everyone to destroy the evil Holy See. Within this arena people might join in the flurry of shouts in a moment of impulse. In actual fact, after most of the civilians had left, they would not go create trouble for the Holy See like what fanatic believers would do.


    The next time the Holy See came to invade Metatrin City, Saleen would not have to worry about the issue of manpower anymore. A seed had been nted in the hearts of every person who was deluded.


    The arena match officially began. Saleen switched off the Sound Transmission Magic Array, then said with a sigh, ¡°Eleanor, it isn¡¯t very good to be doing such a thing.¡±


    ¡°That was my request.¡± From the sidelines, Nichs interjected, ¡°Sir, this is the best opportunity. In the future, if each of your cities has an arena like this, there will be a huge number of spectatorsing weekly to watch thepetition. Such a speech will thus be a great opportunity for you!¡±


    Saleen did not rebut, he knew that he had to carry out such events frequently in order to fulfill the goddess¡¯ wishes.


    As this was the first arenapetition, the league had not entered the final phase of sixteen people yet. Instead, over one-hundred people had signed up for thispetition. Of these over one-hundred participants, no one¡¯s grade was lower than a swordmaster. During the registration process, candidates whose powers were too weak had been eliminated.


    In order to enter the finals and be one of the sixteen lucky people, thepetitors did not have to kill one another. Under Eleanor¡¯s directions, each person had to face a creature above or at grade-4.


    The audience had no clue as to who the firstpetitor was, but his opponent was a gigantic skeletal crocodile. This skeletal crocodile was dozens of yards in length, it was a grade-4 death creature. Its opponent was only d in cloth and wielded a Qin cuss.


    ¡°The first match shall begin! The courageous warrior who has participated in thispetition is from Phoenix Duchy, Londee from Prima Province! He will be facing a death creature which is twelve yards long, let¡¯s cheer him on!¡±


    In the arena, the man holding a cuss was feeling extremely nervous. During registration, he had already been notified that he would fight a death creature. He had killed a number of magic beasts, but he had never dueled with a death creature.


    The spectators in the arena began cheering once more. They were answering to the emcee¡¯s request, helping to encourage this brave warrior.


    Londee became very enthusiastic, he still did not know that his appearance had been captured by the magic array. Londee¡¯s face had been magnified dozens of times in a screen above him. The fifty over thousand people in the arena could observe the expression on his face clearly.


    ¡°I have to kill a powerful death creature before tens of thousands of people, so many people are watching and encouraging me.¡± A look of insanity shed in Londee¡¯s eyes.


    Thepetitors had been informed that they did not need to put their lives at stake. If they felt that they could not triumph, they could well back out of thepetition. Londee never thought of retreating. Even though he had the powers of a swordmaster, he was too poor, he could not even afford a longsword. When the expeditionary army attacked, Saleen had once recruited mercenaries to partake in the defensive efforts. Even some people who did not belong to any organizations could register and join the servant army.


    The problem was Londee was rejected from the army because he did not even own simple leather armor.


    Later on, he borrowed some money from the only friend he knew in the city and purchased the cheapest cuss so that he could sign up for the arenapetition.


    Londee had the option of going to the town hall to apply for a position in the army, but he felt indignant that a swordmaster had to start off as a trooper. Since the city owner was looking for talents, this was his chance.


    The spectators¡¯ voices softened. There was magic at work here, as well as the effect from the audience¡¯s mental state. Everyone held their breaths, looking at the magic image. That skeletal crocodile climbed out of a hole, shaking its head about while searching for prey.


    Unbeknownst to the spectators and Londee, this skeletal crocodile had been produced by Daniel. It would attack all targets, but could not kill them. This meant that no matter how severely injured Londee was his soul would not be devoured by this death creature.


    The atmosphere was unusually tense. Very soon, the skeletal crocodile had discovered its prey. There was only one human wielding a cuss standing in this barren arena, the skeletal crocodile stared at Londee in a hostile manner.


    The spectators were one-hundred times more anxious than Londee. After discovering his target, Londee bent down and grabbed a handful of dust, molding it into a pellet the size of a fingertip.


    A pellet in the left hand and a cuss in the right. Just like that, Londee lowered his stature as he crept towards the skeletal crocodile.


    The skeletal crocodile opened its mouth as its razor sharp teeth glowed with a frosty radiance. The magic array in the arena faithfully disyed this scene to the audience. Among the spectators, perhaps only a few would run into a powerful adversary or magic beast at some point during their lives. At the moment, a live death creature had appeared before their eyes, such a thrill was intense.


    In Cloudflow, some nobles would capture magic beasts and ce them in enclosures, allowing the normal people to view them. The magic nuclei of these magic beasts had been destroyed, so they could not release magic. They were abnormally obedient and gentle as a result.


    At this point in time, the spectators were looking at a wild and perhaps bloodthirsty spirit. This spirit would either devour thatd wielding a cuss, or it would be ughtered by this fellow.


    What could be more exhrating than this?


    A normal person would not meet with much danger throughout their lives. If there were no wars, a farmer might simply conduct agriculture on theirnd for their whole lives.


    It was not possible for them to run into magic beasts because the nobles would help the farmers eliminate all threats near them.


    The ce where human agriculture took ce would be where magic beasts would be exterminated. Of course, this did not include the smaller magic beasts who would steal some crops. Those creatures were even afraid of cats and dogs.


    When Londee was fifty yards from the skeletal crocodile, he suddenly leaped into the air. His body stretched outpletely while in mid-air, like a magic beast who was lunging at its target.


    A stream of chilly airflow was sprayed out of the skeletal crocodile¡¯s mouth, epassing the human swordsman who was fifty yards away.


    Saleen had already calcted the battle oue. He was a mage, but when calcting of the oue of a duel, he also used his understanding of swordsmen. Saleen could deduce the next move of any attack which unfolded before his eyes. Londee¡¯s ability was that of an intermediate grade swordmaster, his offensive power was akin to that of a grade-4 mage. It was not too difficult for Londee to suppress a grade-4 death creature.


    Even though it was a little risky for Londee to jump up, it was a bait which he could use to swiftly kill an opponent.


    Through the calctions, Saleen suddenly realized that warriors of this grade no longer posed a threat to him at all anymore. A mage was most afraid of a warrior with the Sword Aura getting near them, however, Saleen had a plethora of methods to kill this Londee at close range.


    Even if Londee was three yards away from Saleen, Saleen was confident of killing a swordmaster within two frames and knew he would not even get hurt.


    Saleen was very clear that this only meant one thing, it was that his calction ability had attained the standard of a sorcerer already. Arge gap had appeared between Saleen and the warriors of this grade.


    This discovery lifted Saleen¡¯s spirits. At the same time, he also discovered a characteristic of the Elemental Eye. While using the Elemental Eye to observe the deductions the actions of Saleen¡¯s target seemed to slow down. That allowed him to have more time to carry out calctions. In actual fact, this was an illusion. The real reason was that the Elemental Eye would increase a mage¡¯s calction speed.


    A swordsman could calcte the direction of battle too, but it was unlike that of a mage. A swordsman would relyrgely on experience, while some powerful swordsmen relied on instinct.


    On the other hand, a mage¡¯s calctions was purely rational and mathematical.


    Londee swiftly leapt off the ground and in a sh he had gotten close to the skeletal crocodile. The frigid airflow used by the skeletal crocodile had enveloped an area where Londee wouldnd in.


    The offensive instincts of this death creature was extremely mighty. If that Premature Soulish Death had engulfed Londee, he would have been frozen into a popsicle.


    On the third leap, the pellet in Londee¡¯s hand wasunched. The Sword Aura of a swordmaster could hardly be used in a range attack, but it could be attached onto a weapon. This required the weapon to be extremely sturdy, it would be best if this weapon had undergone magical quenching. After several times of uses a steel weapon would break down autonomously and be ruined otherwise.


    A pellet which had been molded from soil at thest minute could not contain the Sword Aura at all. When this pellet was fired by Londee, itsnding spot was coincidentally in the area where the skeletal crocodile¡¯s frigid airflow had surrounded. The pellet hadnded on the ground earlier than the airflow.


    With a sonorous thud, the pellet was broken as the Sword Aura surged. At this moment the skeletal crocodile¡¯s death spell then descended on the ground.


    There was a two yard space at the region where the pellet broke. This space was surrounded by the dispersed Sword Aura and formed a safe region. Londee¡¯s bodynded urately in this region, then he released his strength ferociously, leaping twenty yards high. Londee¡¯s cuss descended from above, stabbing at the spot in between the eyes of the skeletal crocodile.


    A thunderous sound of metal cracking filled the arena. The quality of the metal cuss was too poor, it could not withstand Londee¡¯s Sword Aura, so it was shattered. This attack was executed very urately and beautifully though. The Soul me of the skeletal crocodile shed with the Sword Aura, it was dispersed in that instant.


    The tail attack which the skeletal crocodile had prepared came to a halt and its colossal tail fell back to the ground heavily. All the spectators heard the trembling noise when the tail of the skeletal crocodile mmed against the ground.


    ¡°Twenty-five seconds! Twenty-five seconds! Londee from Phoenix only took twenty-five seconds to achieve victory!¡± The spectators listened to the description of the match narrated by the man who was concealed below the stage.

 Chapter 675: The beginning of success (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 675: The beginning of sess (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Deafening cheers filled the air as many spectators stood up and waved at the victor.


    Qin people were skilled in martial arts, this was something understood by many. Such a duel brought about much exhration. If this fellow had dragged this battle out for an hour, everyone would feel that their tickets were worth less than one copper coin.


    Londee was beyond excited, he had achieved victory in only twenty-five seconds. If no more than sixteen people broke his record in the following matches, it would mean that he could enter the finals directly.


    By entering the finals, it meant that the city owner would gift him a set of presentable equipment, even if he took thest ce. Warriors who entered the finals would enjoy priority when entering Metatrin city¡¯s main army, or they could opt to receive only the reward.


    Londee never expected himself to be a candidate for this year¡¯s finals. As long as he seeded he would choose to join the army.


    There were many people like Londee in Qin. They could not look for a person to pledge their allegiance to, so they lived in poverty despite possessing mighty skills. Such people would surely not work as coolies or farmers. As a result, their lives became increasingly worse until the point where they could not even afford a proper weapon.


    By joining the army, no matter how much they could earn, the nobles would pay for the damage of weapons. Londee would be extremely satisfied with such a result.


    ¡°This is so boring!¡± Nailisi yawned, a duel of this scale could not rouse her. She only needed five seconds to kill the skeletal crocodile, of which she had to use four seconds to get close to it. ¡°No, I might finish this duel within three seconds. This fellow used twenty-five seconds and destroyed his own weapon, yet he still acted so smugly.¡±


    Nailisi might have zero interest in this battle, but the spectators¡¯ intrigue was increasing exponentially. The second match started immediately. The first to appear in the arena was a human-like puppet.


    Since Saleen wanted to sustain interest in thepetition, he could not keep using spirits as the opponents.


    He also did not have much interest in thispetition because viewing such apetition was no longer very beneficial to him. The man guy who fought possessed pretty good explosive power, he could be recruited into the army. After training, he could take on the role of at least a squad leader. Being the ruler of a city, Saleen could not ce emphasis on the fate of a squad leader.


    On the raised tform, Saleen began chatting with the people around him again. Eleanor seized this chance to indoctrinate Saleen with the method of operating an arena.


    Thepetition was progressing very quickly. In order to get into the finals, everyone used their mightiest abilities to shorten the time taken to secure victory. Londee was arranged to sit at the spectators¡¯ stand nearest to the raised tform, feeling perturbed as he watched the fights.


    Eachpetitor was very powerful. Due to Londee¡¯s extraordinary performance, his name was still among the top three positions. Onepetitor was too focused on winning that he injured his thigh and was rescued off the arena. If it was not for the many soldiers and mages watching the battle, that fellow might have been devoured by the magic beast.


    In the future, there would be many people like that. Sooner orter, somepetitors could not be saved in time. It was only a matter of time before deaths urred.


    As the sky was getting dark, hundreds of magicmps got lit in the area above the arena. The back of these magicmps were smothered with mercury, causing the colossal arena to be very bright, as though it was still daytime.


    The magic nuclei marketed by Saleen were already segmented beforehand. Saleen possessed a huge quantity of magic nucleus shards, they were the scraps produced from the segmenting process and their sizes were insufficient to conform to the standard unit size.


    It was extremely perilous to use such magic nucleus shards during battle, but it was very economical to use these items for illumination.


    Under the lighting of the magicmps, thestpetitor entered the arena. The already tired spectators grew exhrated once again because a female mage had emerged this time around.


    In the sky above the arena, the magic array had clearly depicted the appearance of the female mage to the spectators. This female mage was very beautiful and she looked very young as well. She was d in a gray magic robe, which meant that she was a grand mage.


    It was unbelievable that a grand mage had participated in such apetition.


    As long as these frencing mages went to look for Daniel, they could immediately be part of Metatrin City after passing a lie detector test. She did not need to take such risks. To the Qin people, a mage was noble, way nobler than the nobles.


    Even Saleen¡¯s curiosity was piqued, ¡°What is a mage doing in such apetition?


    Beside the raised tform, the first participant Londee was very jittery. He was already ranked sixteenth on the list. If this female mage beat his timing, then Londee would not enter the finals.


    This female mage walked to the center of the arena, taking out a gray magic scroll, then released it straightaway.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye clearly noticed that it was a level-6 magic scroll.


    This female mage was definitely a lunatic. Even if she won thepetition, the prize was a mere one-hundred gold coins, yet she was going to consume a level-6 magic scroll which was valued at a few thousand gold coins!


    ¡°Who is that woman?!¡± Saleen asked the people around him.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Master, I think that this woman has ulterior motives, she wants to infiltrate our mage¡¯s toon!¡± Nailisi replied.


    Other than a mary reward, the champion of the firstpetition could directly be a member of Metatrin Kingdom¡¯s pce guards. A career like a pce guard was in fact the core offensive power of a nation.


    Take for example the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp in Qin, its offensive power was undoubtedly the strongest in Qin. There were countless of swordmasters in it. Full magic equipment allowed the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp to carry out difficult battles for protracted durations. Each swordsman inside could be amander when ced in a normal army.


    Saleen did not build a pce, he had built a temple, so that he could conceal the underground nar teleportation portal.


    ¡°Impossible, every mage knows that they have to pass a magic test if they want to gain ess to any vital secret in Qin. It is not possible for spies to infiltrate the pce.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I think this mage isn¡¯t a Qin person.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Saleen noticed that Eleanor was staring at that female with great interest.


    ¡°You will find out very soon.¡±


    When the female mage entered the arena, she already discovered the target and had released a level-6 magic scroll, she did not even wait for the emcee to make introductions.


    The scroll contained a very mighty earth spell; the Fire Enchantment spell.


    In the destruction caused by the Fire Enchantment spell the unfortunate magic beast, a gigantic boa which hade from the demonic ne, was killed by that female mage instantly.


    This female mage had actually cast an intermediate instantaneous peeping spell at the moment she entered the arena, thus locating the position of the gigantic boa. The person under the stage only reacted after she cast the scroll.


    ¡°Ah... this! Thest person to enter the arena is... a grade-5 mage from the Tanggsi Empire, Isabe!¡±


    The whole arena fell silent.


    A person from the Tanggsi Empire had actually appeared in Metatrin City!


    ¡°Isabe, this name is a little familiar!¡± Recently, Saleen had been training earnestly. Hearing this name abruptly, he could not recall anyone in particr.


    ¡°Sir, this is a bandit mage.¡± Nichs did not know whether tough or cry, as he introduced the mage to Saleen.


    This Isabe was indeed from the Tanggsi Empire, but she had been on the wanted list for a long time now. The bandit gang formed by her only had over one-hundred people. It had robbed houses across Tanggsi Empire, wreaking havoc for more than three years.


    She was a person from Tanggsi and she was still in a bandit gang. Saleen began experiencing a headache.


    ¡°Master, no matter her background, I will make sure she bespliant when she falls into my hands,¡± Nailisimented while standing behind Saleen.


    Londee was greatly dejected, ¡°This female mage is simply crazy, fancy using an expensive scroll the moment she appeared. She is so rich, why did she have to vie for a spot with a poor bloke like myself.¡±


    The more Londee dwelled in his thoughts, the more indignant he felt, he was on the brink of tears already. Unexpectedly, Saleen had turned his head aside while in contemtion, and his gaze fell on Londee¡¯s expression. With a simple inference, Saleen understood why this swordmaster had a lifeless expression.


    ¡°This Londee is pretty smart. Even though he is poor, he didn¡¯t turn into a bandit. He is capable and isn¡¯t too old either.¡± Feelingpassionate, Saleen said, ¡°Tolesi, go and tell the first participant that I have recruited him, ask him to report to the sixth camp. Mm, give him a suitable set of equipment too, it has to be at the level for a squad leader.¡±


    Hosting thepetition was a team of twenty-four people. Half of it was made up of magic disciples while the other half was swordmasters. The two leaders were a grand mage and a Zun Grand Swordmaster. These people hade from Sregl Ind. Very soon, the two emcees had reacted. The grand mage continued using the Sound Transmission Magic Array, announcing to the audience, ¡°Isabe from the Tanggsi Empire has won with a time of one second, she is in the finals!¡±


    Londee had already stood up, he was yearning to hear the emcee chase this Tanggsi person out. Contrary to his wishes, this Tanggsi person had entered the finals.


    On the raised tform, Saleen had already predicted that this female mage would achieve the pole position. None of the participants were grand swordmasters.


    ¡°A grade-5 mage possessed an absolute ability to suppress in the face of a grand swordmaster. Especially because this mage isn¡¯t short of money, she can use scrolls recklessly just like me.¡±


    Londee slumped back into his chair, crestfallen, leaning against it weakly. At this point in time, Tolesi walked towards him.


    Tolesi still had the appearance of a woman, he was helpless. Even Cuisi, who had advanced to a supreme demon, did not dare oppose Nailisi.


    Pointing, Tolesi said, ¡°Londee, follow me.¡±


    Londee was stunned, he did not recognize Tolesi, and Tolesi did not have the scent of an expert either. Thisdy was dressed luxuriously and her demeanor was imposing though. Subconsciously, Londee stood up and nced to his left and right. The sixteen people to enter the finals had been selected, there was no point in him remaining there.


    Confused, Londee followed Tolesi into a sealed room, then Tolesi said, ¡°Londee, my master wishes to tell you that you can join the sixth camp. Go sign up with Daniel, this is the equipment for you... and here are ten gold coins.¡±


    Tolesi took out ten gold coins on his own initiative, cing them on the table in the room.

 Chapter 676: Isabella (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 676: Isabe (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Tolesi¡¯s specialtyy in mental assault and he possessed the strongest illusion techniques amongst the demons. He was also sharp enough to realize that Saleen¡¯spassion had been aroused. Giving an additional ten gold coins was purely Tolesi¡¯s idea. This human swordmaster was already extremely poor. Giving him the ten gold coins now would be more effective than rewarding him with ten-thousand gold coins in the future.


    As expected, when Londee saw the gold coins that Tolesi ced on the table, tears filled his eyes.


    Londee did not take the equipment and gold coins immediately. Instead, he first asked, ¡°May I know who your master is?¡±


    ¡°Of course, it the Lord of the city and the King of Metatrin, Your Majesty, Saleen.¡±


    Londee knelt down on one knee, which was the most solemn gesture a swordmaster could perform. He said, ¡°Please let his Majesty know that Londee will not let him down. For the rest of my life, I will follow him to my death.¡±


    Tolesi smiled. He turned and suddenly vanished.


    Londee was shocked. The private room faced the fighting arena. There was a gigantic ss on one side and the door on the other side was unopened. How did that woman get out?!


    What a shock!


    After some time, Londee finally calmed down. The equipment and gold coins were still on the table and there was also a ck metal badge. It was the symbol of Saleen¡¯s sixth battalion. Londee caressed the magic light armor and thought to himself, ¡°The female servant serving the Lord of the city was already so powerful. He clearly does not intend to use these items to win support. I am not worth that kind of effort. That woman could have killed me anytime she wanted.¡±


    Tolesi was not as powerful as he thought. If he was a zun grand swordmaster, Tolesi might not even be his match. Since Tolesi specialized in illusion techniques, which was one of the major weaknesses of swordmasters.


    What was even more brilliant about Tolesi was that he made use of the way he vanished in front of Londee to bury the seed of fear in his heart. Should they meet up again in future, Londee would not be able to utilize more than half of his abilities. He would only be able to remove this fear if he advanced to a silver grand swordmaster.


    Besides, Tolesi also ensured that Londee would be extremely grateful to Saleen. Tolesi was directly hinting to Londee that there were many talented people around Saleen and he was not considered one of them yet.


    If this ploy was used on Saleen, it would have been seen through immediately. Londee fell for it because he never expected demons to be that maniptive.


    Tolesi had killed two birds with one stone by ensuring Londee¡¯s gratitude towards Saleen and that Londee would never be a threat to him. A demon¡¯s ability toe up with such ploys could never be underestimated.


    This kind of method was known as ¡®inception¡¯ in the demon dimension and only demons with Tolesi¡¯s bloodline were able to use it. Simr to Saleen¡¯sputing power, these were proper techniques and not pure luck. This was the most outstanding aspect about Tolesi.


    If Tolesi was allowed to lead an army, all his men would die for him willingly. Unfortunately, Tolesi¡¯s grade was still not high enough to control those that were too powerful.


    After settling Londee, Tolesi returned to Saleen and discretely reported to him.


    This was very smart of Tolesi. If he had not told Saleen and was found out by Nailisi, he could be killed. Only by informing Saleen would save him from Nailisi.


    There was no disadvantage in informing Saleen either. It was not like Saleen would tell Londee what Tolesi did.


    The break was underway and the small noble families that were seated outside of the elevated tform came to pay their respects to Saleen. Those noble families on the elevated tform also gathered around Saleen to chat.


    The rest of thepetition would match thepetitors against each other. Saleen conducted the ballot and the sixteen Professionals were split up into eight pairs.


    One could see the importance of equipment from these sixteenpetitors. None of them were poor like Londee and all of them possessed at least two pieces of magic equipment.


    After a one-hour break, the finalmenced.


    Isabe¡¯s strategy left all the otherpetitors helpless. The moment she entered the arena, she boosted herself with two protective spells followed by showing herpetitors a grade-6 magic scroll in her hands. This was so that herpetitors would surrender.


    The fights without Isabe were exciting. There would be injuries and spilled blood, this greatly entertained the crowd. The moment Isabe appeared in the arena, the entire ce would be silent. Herpetitors had no option but to surrender.


    Ice te armor and a Stone Skin spell were not abination that swordmasters could prate through easily. Her grade-6 magic scroll could also be fatal.


    None of them were afraid of death, but it was not worthwhile to die in the arena.


    Isabested all the way to the final round and her opponent for thiat round wielded a magic heavy sword. This heavy sword was enchanted with three spells and was the reason why her opponent had managed to fight all the way to the final round.


    The audience had high expectations of the magic swordmaster. Isabe¡¯s matches were simply too boring so far. The moment she appeared, she would try to convince her opponents to surrender and they had all sumbed so far. The audience had be fed up with her.


    ¡°Finish her off!¡± A random member of the audience shouted and the people around him echoed it. Soon after, even those from other sections joined in the shouting. Such incidents happened frequently during polo matches as well. This was an arena filled with fifty-thousand people,when everyone shouted together like this, the oue was iparable.


    The magic swordmaster was a young man just over twenty years old. Before entering the arena, he had reced the magic nucleus on his sword. He was willing to expend all the middle-grade magic nuclei that he possessed in order to defeat Isabe. Damn this Tanggsi woman for not knowing her ce! She must be defeated!


    Defeating a mage was something to be proud of. Since his opponent was a Tanggsi person, he would not have to worry about angering a Qin mage either.


    Isabe did not allow the anger of fifty-thousand people to bother her. She smiled as she made her way to the arena. After boosting herself with three spells, she took out a ck magic scroll.


    The magic swordmaster¡¯s face went pale. The opponent was willing to use a high-level magic scroll. Even the cheapest of such scrolls would cost tens of thousands of gold coins. Was the woman crazy enough to sacrifice that just for a prize of one-hundred gold coins?


    Isabe smiled and said, ¡°You are not a grand swordmaster. If I unleashed this grade-7 spell, you will die horribly. Why don¡¯t you just surrender?¡±


    Isabe¡¯s voice was magnified by the magic arrays and her annoying tactic of persuading her opponents to surrender was heard by the audience once again.


    ¡°Finish her off! Neo, we support you!¡±


    There were all sorts of chaotic noises ringing throughout the arena, but Isabe remained unaffected. She continued to speak to the unlucky magic swordmaster, ¡°I might not be able to control this spell fully, but the possibility of you surviving it will not be more than zero point one percent. The most you can do to me is to pierce a hole in me, but you would never be able to kill me. What is the point?¡±


    Neo wanted to cry, but no tears came. He was certain that Isabe was a grade-5 mage, but some valuable scrolls could be cast by mages with a difference of two grades. The ck scroll in Isabe¡¯s hand was real. He had no wish to gamble with his life.


    The truth was that after Isabe cast this grade-7 spell, she would have used up all her mental strength and would no longer have any attacking abilities left. There was no way he would be able to defend or hide from this grade-7 spell. Before Isabe lost her abilities to fight, he would be killed. If this was a real fight on the battlefield and he had even just a beginner-level swordsman with him, Isabe would not have dared to employ this tactic.


    ¡°I...I admit defeat...¡± Neo left the arena with his head bowed. The arena was immediately thrown into chaos.


    ¡°The magic swordmaster is such a weakling!¡±


    ¡°Is he from Qin? Surely not. He must be concealing his identity!¡±


    ¡°Tanggsis people have no right participating in thispetition!¡±


    Saleen turned on the sound transmission magic array and said, ¡°This is your King. Quiet down.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were extremely effective. The entire arena quieted down and everyone looked expectantly in Saleen¡¯s direction and awaited his decision.


    ¡°If I disqualify Isabe just because she is from Tanggsi, not only would that be unfair to her, it would also be unfair to all of you. I am sure everyone knows that betting is involved in these matches. If I go against the rules and erase the results of apetitor, then who will pay for the losses incurred by those who had guessed correctly? I announce that the winner of the firstpetition ever held at the Metatrin Fighting Arena is Isabe.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s exnation was simple and concise. There was nothing the audience could do even if he left things unexined. Men would always prioritize profits and gains though. The audience finally came to that conclusion as well after what Saleen said. If the oue of matches could be changed so easily, what if they had managed to guess correctly? What if someone started to try and fix the matches? This was verymon in polopetitions.


    After Saleen announced the result of thepetition, Daniel took over the rest. Saleen left the elevated tform and entered the hidden room behind it. He brought along the people around him and said to Nailisi, ¡°Bring Isabe over. I want to find out what exactly she wants.¡±


    By right, thest match of the final should have been an exciting one. Unfortunately, Isabe¡¯s appearance foiled Eleanor¡¯s ns. Isabe did not indicate her abilities to be of grade-5 mage during registration.


    This was something the organizers overlooked. The rules had been made known long ago and Isabe merely made use of a loophole in the rules. The problem was that she would have made a huge loss if she had encountered an unpredictable opponent that was determined to fight her to the death, especially in thest match. She might have had to use the valuable grade-7 scroll that even grade-5 mages could utilize.


    Saleen used to possess an empty scroll of an even higher grade, but it was used up unfortunately. Now, Saleen no longer possessed any items of this sort, so why was Isabe so willing to sacrifice such a valuable scroll? Although Isabe¡¯s scroll was only grade-7, it could easily fetch a price of more than one-hundred-thousand gold coins if it was sold to Alchemy City.


    This scroll was so valuable because one would be able to discover more magic knowledge and achieve a breakthrough in studying the structure of a scroll.


    Every scroll like this was actually borne out of ident. No mage would dare to take credit for creating such a scroll. The value of such a scroll would greatly increase if it was being studied. If one was able to gather hundreds of such scrolls, there was a possibility that mages would be able to change the nature of this equipmentpletely. They would be able to ensure that all scrolls could be used even if there was a difference of two grades. This would be a revolutionary change for mages.

 Chapter 677: Isabella (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 677: Isabe (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Mages could only cast spells that were at most one grade higher than their own. After casting the spell, their mental strength and magic chords would all be wiped out. As a result, mages¡¯ learning speeds were greatly reduced and many that were not guided by any teachers would often lose their way.


    If a mage cast a spell that was two grades above their own, the knowledge they gained would more than make up for the loss in time. Most wealthy mages would be able to train better even without any teachers.


    The prices of such scrolls would always remain high. Most mages that possessed such scrolls would usually choose to study them and could not bear to use them. Only someone like Saleen would have no qualms using them since his intention was only to sign a contract spell.


    The problem was that Saleen used the scroll because he had no other choice. On the other hand, Isabe was ready to use it for an unimportant victory.


    Even if she was from Tanggsi Empire, she had no need to participate in such apetition if her intention was to pledge her allegiance to Saleen. He would never reject a grade-5 mage even if he already had the Sregl Ind sorcerers by his side.


    This was why Saleen wanted to meet Isabe immediately after he had announced the result. Rather than specte, he would rather find out from her face-to-face.


    Since this female mage wanted to see Saleen, he would fulfil her wish. If her intentions were found to be bad, Saleen was more than willing to kill her on the spot.


    When Isabe walked into the room, she did not sense any pressure. She was surprised that the room only contained about ten people with Saleen seated in the center.


    She studied the Lord of Metatrin City carefully from head to toe. This young mage was not wearing proper mage robes and was wearing a strange-looking long robe instead. It looked like a war robe worn by powerful warriors with patches of leaves sewn on it. When Isabe nced at Saleen¡¯s fingers, she noticed three magic equipments; two bands and one ring.


    Saleen looked at her with his blue eyes and did not let out any form of aura or mental strength. The people behind him did the same and concealed their powers.


    Isabe suddenly realized that this young man was the Lord of Metatrin City. The people around him were all much more powerful than her, yet they were all willing to submit to Saleen¡¯s influence.


    Based on Isabe¡¯s observation, Saleen¡¯s attitude was the reason why the people behind him were willing to fall in line and follow his orders.


    Saleen was observing this female mage. She was wearing a typical gray magic robe, but this one was brand new. There were six rings on her hand which was the maximum number of rings a mage could wear, any more would have been useless.


    Isabe was a pure Tanggsi name. She had brown eyes, pale skin, and a ne around her neck that was also magic equipment.


    Saleen looked carefully with his elemental eyes and concluded that Isabe was not carrying any lethal equipment.


    ¡°Isabe, you have used such a method just to see me. Tell me, what do you want?¡± Saleen asked directly. Normally, mages did not engage much in courtesies, but Saleen had eliminated them entirely.


    Isabe raised her head to look at Saleen and said, ¡°My Lord, I wish to be your follower.¡±


    Saleen was no longer the same mage that was running for his life. He was not surprised by what she said. He shook his head and said, ¡°You are not telling the truth. Besides, all the followers that I have are more powerful than you.¡±


    Isabe did not feel upset or embarrassed by the rejection. Instead, she was pleased. Saleen would only be someone worth following if he could tell that something was not right. A person that would immediately disy the desire to recruit this grade-5 mage would have no future.


    ¡°I still have one-hundred bandits that have stayed behind in Laiyin Duchy. They can serve you as well,¡± Isabe added.


    If Saleen did not have Nailisi, Isabe¡¯s offer would have been an attractive one. Isabe¡¯spany of bandits were rather reputable in Tanggsi Empire and they possessed decent fighting abilities. Nailisi was already close topleting the demon city, Saleen would have millions of demons that he could deploy. Saleen, would rather have a low-level leader that could lead soldiers than one-hundred bandits.


    Saleen did notck men. Hecked talented subjects that could lead men.


    ¡°Isabe, to be my follower, you have to earn my trust,¡± Saleen was even more direct with the female mage.


    Isabe thought about it and began slowly, ¡°My Lord, it¡¯s not that I am unwilling to say, but things are a bitplicated. I think I am someone worth recruiting by you, my Lord.¡±


    ¡°There is a way to exin even the mostplicated matters. Give her a chair,¡± Saleen asked Nailisi for a chair.


    Nailisi brought over a chair to Isabe and studied this female mage with a smile and thought, ¡°Why do only old men and pretty girls want to follow Master?¡±


    After Isabe sat herself down, Saleen suddenly realized that the female mage¡¯s hair color had changed slightly. She did not seem to be able to control this change and it might be the result of an injury.


    ¡°I am from Tanggsi. Hmm, I have not been doing well for the past few years. I was about to advance into a sorcerer, but my hideout was discovered by the Holy See and I was almost killed,¡± Isabe was unwilling to recall this unpleasant memory, but she knew that Saleen would not want her if she did not tell the truth. ¡°I led my men to flee to Laiyin Duchy and sessfully escaped from the Holy See. After I heard about Metatrin City, I wanted toe and see if there were any opportunities. That¡¯s when I saw him...¡±


    Isabe raised her hand and pointed at Nichs.


    ¡°I was hit by a strange divine spell that will slowly devour my magic chords. I was a grade-6 mage at my peak, but have since degraded into a grade-5 mage. If this continues, I will be a grade-4 mage very soon. Since you have recruited this red Grand Bishop, I think he will surely have a way to heal me.¡±


    Saleen understood because Aini was in the same predicament once. A talented element mage was left with no other choice, but to pursue death magic instead.


    No wonder Isabe was able to cast a grade-7 scroll. Only her magic chords would degenerate while her mental strength remained unchanged.


    ¡°What else?¡± Saleen pursued.


    Isabe did not expect Saleen to continue asking. She had already said plenty.


    ¡°Almost all the people around me each possess a special ability. You are not that powerful yet...¡± Saleen¡¯s attitude angered Isabe. She was a prideful person and was not the kind of bandit that people typically thought of.


    Saleen continued, ¡°Nichs is a grade-9 holy priest. Why should he save you? Just because you look pretty?¡±


    ¡°My Lord, my ability...¡± Isabe paused for a while. Suddenly, she drew a dagger from underneath her robes and pointed it at Saleen. This dagger was infused with an irregr sword aura.


    Of course, Isabe had no intentions of killing Saleen. Her actions were not swift and she said, ¡°What about this?!¡±


    Isabe was a Professional that was trained in both magic and sword aura. Saleen looked at this female mage as if he had seen a monster.


    Eleanor, who was standing behind Saleen, suddenly drew her short bow and deflected Isabe¡¯s dagger with the tip of her bow.


    As the dagger left Isabe¡¯s hand, she was hit by a Fossilization spell cast by Eleanor.


    Eleanor looked at Isabe coldly and said, ¡°Trained in both magic andbat? I am as well, but I am better at it.¡±


    Saleen was secretly pleased. Eleanor had acknowledged her identity and now knew when to step up for him. Saleen had always felt that it was a bit of a waste that she had always keen to leave. Now, Eleanor no longer disyed that sort of mindset. This time around, she even took the initiative and greatly demoralized Isabe.


    Isabe was stunned. She had thought that she was the only one in this dimension with that ability. She never expected that Saleen would have someone who was stronger than her in both magic and swordsmanship.


    Eleanor continued to stare at Isabe, but was actually thinking to herself, ¡°The Marquis was unwilling to pass down such skills even to me. Could Isabe be his lover?¡±


    Before the Marquis disappeared, he always had a soft spot for female mages. All mages had a way of making themselves appear younger than they really were. Some female mages still looked around twenty years old just before they died.


    At this point, Eleanor could not help but unleash a bit of killing aura.


    Isabe could sense the intention to kill and felt uneasy. She retreated slightly and bowed her head and said, ¡°My Lord, have I done anything to upset you?¡± Saleen was also feeling uneasy when she asked him this question. At first, Saleen did not feel very strongly about her attitude, even when he was questioning her intentions. Now, this beautiful female mage suddenly had intentions to kill him, could it be...


    ¡°Eleanor, stand down,¡± Saleen said calmly. Isabe suddenly realized that from the very beginning, Saleen had not moved even a finger. Saleen did not seem to care even when she drew her dagger earlier.


    ¡°Isabe, do you wish to remain by my side or will you leave after your injury has been healed?¡±


    Isabe hesitated. At first, she had intended to leave after healing herself. Of course, she would have a way to terminate the bond. Eleanor¡¯s appearance helped her understand that her abilities might not be as enticing to Saleen after all.


    ¡°I...,¡± Isabe found it hard to continue. She wanted to stay, even though that was not her original n. She had never thought about following anyone. If she did, she would have be a private mage in a big noble family long ago instead of bing the leader of bandits. Leading a free life was what she had always yearned for.


    ¡°You have already been targeted by the Holy See, what is there to think about? Sign a contract. I know now that you did not intend to kill me,¡± Saleen said and took out an empty scroll and began to scribble out a contract.

 Chapter 678: Isabella (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 678: Isabe (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Mages could only cast spells that were at most one grade higher than their own. After casting the spell, their mental strength and magic chords would all be wiped out. As a result, mages¡¯ learning speeds were greatly reduced and many that were not guided by any teachers would often lose their way.


    If a mage cast a spell that was two grades above their own, the knowledge they gained would more than make up for the loss in time. Most wealthy mages would be able to train better even without any teachers.


    The prices of such scrolls would always remain high. Most mages that possessed such scrolls would usually choose to study them and could not bear to use them. Only someone like Saleen would have no qualms using them since his intention was only to sign a contract spell.


    The problem was that Saleen used the scroll because he had no other choice. On the other hand, Isabe was ready to use it for an unimportant victory.


    Even if she was from Tanggsi Empire, she had no need to participate in such apetition if her intention was to pledge her allegiance to Saleen. He would never reject a grade-5 mage even if he already had the Sregl Ind sorcerers by his side.


    This was why Saleen wanted to meet Isabe immediately after he had announced the result. Rather than specte, he would rather find out from her face-to-face.


    Since this female mage wanted to see Saleen, he would fulfil her wish. If her intentions were found to be bad, Saleen was more than willing to kill her on the spot.


    When Isabe walked into the room, she did not sense any pressure. She was surprised that the room only contained about ten people with Saleen seated in the center.


    She studied the Lord of Metatrin City carefully from head to toe. This young mage was not wearing proper mage robes and was wearing a strange-looking long robe instead. It looked like a war robe worn by powerful warriors with patches of leaves sewn on it. When Isabe nced at Saleen¡¯s fingers, she noticed three magic equipments; two bands and one ring.


    Saleen looked at her with his blue eyes and did not let out any form of aura or mental strength. The people behind him did the same and concealed their powers.


    Isabe suddenly realized that this young man was the Lord of Metatrin City. The people around him were all much more powerful than her, yet they were all willing to submit to Saleen¡¯s influence.


    Based on Isabe¡¯s observation, Saleen¡¯s attitude was the reason why the people behind him were willing to fall in line and follow his orders.


    Saleen was observing this female mage. She was wearing a typical gray magic robe, but this one was brand new. There were six rings on her hand which was the maximum number of rings a mage could wear, any more would have been useless.


    Isabe was a pure Tanggsi name. She had brown eyes, pale skin, and a ne around her neck that was also magic equipment.


    Saleen looked carefully with his elemental eyes and concluded that Isabe was not carrying any lethal equipment.


    ¡°Isabe, you have used such a method just to see me. Tell me, what do you want?¡± Saleen asked directly. Normally, mages did not engage much in courtesies, but Saleen had eliminated them entirely.


    Isabe raised her head to look at Saleen and said, ¡°My Lord, I wish to be your follower.¡±


    Saleen was no longer the same mage that was running for his life. He was not surprised by what she said. He shook his head and said, ¡°You are not telling the truth. Besides, all the followers that I have are more powerful than you.¡±


    Isabe did not feel upset or embarrassed by the rejection. Instead, she was pleased. Saleen would only be someone worth following if he could tell that something was not right. A person that would immediately disy the desire to recruit this grade-5 mage would have no future.


    ¡°I still have one-hundred bandits that have stayed behind in Laiyin Duchy. They can serve you as well,¡± Isabe added.


    If Saleen did not have Nailisi, Isabe¡¯s offer would have been an attractive one. Isabe¡¯spany of bandits were rather reputable in Tanggsi Empire and they possessed decent fighting abilities. Nailisi was already close topleting the demon city, Saleen would have millions of demons that he could deploy. Saleen, would rather have a low-level leader that could lead soldiers than one-hundred bandits.


    Saleen did notck men. Hecked talented subjects that could lead men.


    ¡°Isabe, to be my follower, you have to earn my trust,¡± Saleen was even more direct with the female mage.


    Isabe thought about it and began slowly, ¡°My Lord, it¡¯s not that I am unwilling to say, but things are a bitplicated. I think I am someone worth recruiting by you, my Lord.¡±


    ¡°There is a way to exin even the mostplicated matters. Give her a chair,¡± Saleen asked Nailisi for a chair.


    Nailisi brought over a chair to Isabe and studied this female mage with a smile and thought, ¡°Why do only old men and pretty girls want to follow Master?¡±


    After Isabe sat herself down, Saleen suddenly realized that the female mage¡¯s hair color had changed slightly. She did not seem to be able to control this change and it might be the result of an injury.


    ¡°I am from Tanggsi. Hmm, I have not been doing well for the past few years. I was about to advance into a sorcerer, but my hideout was discovered by the Holy See and I was almost killed,¡± Isabe was unwilling to recall this unpleasant memory, but she knew that Saleen would not want her if she did not tell the truth. ¡°I led my men to flee to Laiyin Duchy and sessfully escaped from the Holy See. After I heard about Metatrin City, I wanted toe and see if there were any opportunities. That¡¯s when I saw him...¡±


    Isabe raised her hand and pointed at Nichs.


    ¡°I was hit by a strange divine spell that will slowly devour my magic chords. I was a grade-6 mage at my peak, but have since degraded into a grade-5 mage. If this continues, I will be a grade-4 mage very soon. Since you have recruited this red Grand Bishop, I think he will surely have a way to heal me.¡±


    Saleen understood because Aini was in the same predicament once. A talented element mage was left with no other choice, but to pursue death magic instead.


    No wonder Isabe was able to cast a grade-7 scroll. Only her magic chords would degenerate while her mental strength remained unchanged.


    ¡°What else?¡± Saleen pursued.


    Isabe did not expect Saleen to continue asking. She had already said plenty.


    ¡°Almost all the people around me each possess a special ability. You are not that powerful yet...¡± Saleen¡¯s attitude angered Isabe. She was a prideful person and was not the kind of bandit that people typically thought of.


    Saleen continued, ¡°Nichs is a grade-9 holy priest. Why should he save you? Just because you look pretty?¡±


    ¡°My Lord, my ability...¡± Isabe paused for a while. Suddenly, she drew a dagger from underneath her robes and pointed it at Saleen. This dagger was infused with an irregr sword aura.


    Of course, Isabe had no intentions of killing Saleen. Her actions were not swift and she said, ¡°What about this?!¡±


    Isabe was a Professional that was trained in both magic and sword aura. Saleen looked at this female mage as if he had seen a monster.


    Eleanor, who was standing behind Saleen, suddenly drew her short bow and deflected Isabe¡¯s dagger with the tip of her bow.


    As the dagger left Isabe¡¯s hand, she was hit by a Fossilization spell cast by Eleanor.


    Eleanor looked at Isabe coldly and said, ¡°Trained in both magic andbat? I am as well, but I am better at it.¡±


    Saleen was secretly pleased. Eleanor had acknowledged her identity and now knew when to step up for him. Saleen had always felt that it was a bit of a waste that she had always keen to leave. Now, Eleanor no longer disyed that sort of mindset. This time around, she even took the initiative and greatly demoralized Isabe.


    Isabe was stunned. She had thought that she was the only one in this dimension with that ability. She never expected that Saleen would have someone who was stronger than her in both magic and swordsmanship.


    Eleanor continued to stare at Isabe, but was actually thinking to herself, ¡°The Marquis was unwilling to pass down such skills even to me. Could Isabe be his lover?¡±


    Before the Marquis disappeared, he always had a soft spot for female mages. All mages had a way of making themselves appear younger than they really were. Some female mages still looked around twenty years old just before they died.


    At this point, Eleanor could not help but unleash a bit of killing aura.


    Isabe could sense the intention to kill and felt uneasy. She retreated slightly and bowed her head and said, ¡°My Lord, have I done anything to upset you?¡± Saleen was also feeling uneasy when she asked him this question. At first, Saleen did not feel very strongly about her attitude, even when he was questioning her intentions. Now, this beautiful female mage suddenly had intentions to kill him, could it be...


    ¡°Eleanor, stand down,¡± Saleen said calmly. Isabe suddenly realized that from the very beginning, Saleen had not moved even a finger. Saleen did not seem to care even when she drew her dagger earlier.


    ¡°Isabe, do you wish to remain by my side or will you leave after your injury has been healed?¡±


    Isabe hesitated. At first, she had intended to leave after healing herself. Of course, she would have a way to terminate the bond. Eleanor¡¯s appearance helped her understand that her abilities might not be as enticing to Saleen after all.


    ¡°I...,¡± Isabe found it hard to continue. She wanted to stay, even though that was not her original n. She had never thought about following anyone. If she did, she would have be a private mage in a big noble family long ago instead of bing the leader of bandits. Leading a free life was what she had always yearned for.


    ¡°You have already been targeted by the Holy See, what is there to think about? Sign a contract. I know now that you did not intend to kill me,¡± Saleen said and took out an empty scroll and began to scribble out a contract.

 Chapter 679: Curse (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 679: Curse (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen wrote a contractual scroll deftly, he felt it was amusing. He did not even know when he began showing an interest in the process of drafting a contract.


    Isabe was a little confused, she did not even think of refuting Saleen¡¯s words. The people standing behind Saleen did not conceal their scents, causing Isabe to feel like she had fallen into their of an ancient dragon.


    Since Saleen wanted to subdue Isabe, his intentions would be detected by his own followers. Nichs, as well as the demons, had released their mightiest pressures. They targeted only one person; Isabe.


    After filling in the scroll, Saleen gestured at Isabe and Isabe came before Saleen. Across the table, she looked at the young mage. He was a city owner, a king...


    ¡°Sign it, aye. I don¡¯t wish for you to lose your magical powers, that is a very cruel thing to do.¡± Even though Saleen¡¯s words could not be considered hypocritical, Saleen was very clear that Isabe¡¯s abilities would be of great help to himself.


    Removing the curse of the divine spell, Isabe would be a grade-6 grand mage and a high grade swordmaster at the same time.


    Muddled, Isabe had signed the follower¡¯s contract drafted by Saleen, she could not find a reason to refuse. The terms in the contract were written clearly, there were no traps.


    Thepetition outside had ended. Isabe was led up the stage by Saleen. Together with the remaining fifteen participants, they received the rewards distributed by Saleen.


    These sixteen finalists had obtained the right to enter the army. With the exception of Isabe, the rest of them had chosen to join the army. A soldier in Metatrin City received more welfarepared to one in Qin. The main agenda of these participants was to join the army directly, there was no need forplicated verifications and training.


    Once these people joined the army they would start off as juniormanders and manage dozens of people. This was much better than registering with the army recruitment center.


    Even though the final match was ruined by Isabe, the people of Metatrin City now had great interest in the arenapetitions. Tickets to the arena were separated into six sses. The cheapest cost only twenty-five copper coins, everyone could afford it.


    After the final battle, the audience had dispersed, but Saleen asked the nobles to stay behind. He immediately conducted a meeting on the arena stage.


    The meeting only had one objective. A piece of news had been delivered from the county king¡¯s residence in Holy Rock City, the Qin emperor was sending a mission to Metatrin City.


    Saleen had revealed this information in advance to the nobles so that he could cate their feelings. Other than the sixteen nobles he recruited, there was still arge group of nobles in Metatrin City yet to be rewarded. Saleen did not have manynds in his possession, so it was not very meaningful for him to only giftnds them to the people with titles.


    Hearing this news, the nobles were clearly in high spirits. There was only one possibility as to why the mission wasing for Metatrin City, it meant that Holy Rock City had acknowledged Saleen¡¯s status. That way, their titles would also be recognized.


    Even if Saleen could not dominate the world in the future, they would still be genuine nobles. At least in the Qin Empire, they would enjoy privileges over the civilians.


    At the same time, it meant that the Qin Empire and Metatrin Kingdom would not go to war for the time being. This meant that if Saleen started a campaign, his target would at most be Lon or Laiyin Duchy. These nobles understood that Saleen¡¯s powers still could not rival arge empire like Qin, so it was best that there was peace for now.


    Even though the nobles had brought along a huge amount of riches, the loss of people was severe. A few years, or perhaps dozens of years, were needed to regain the capabilities. Before that, even if they wanted to follow Saleen to war, they did not have the ability to do so.


    By establishing concrete rtions with Qin, the flow ofmerce between both parties would also be affirmed. This meant that everyone¡¯s merchandise could enter the Qin Empire unhindered in the future, it would not get confiscated. The Qin people could alsoe and conduct trade in Metatrin freely. Once the exchange got legalized arge number of manpower and materials would naturally flow into Metatrin and everyone would have the opportunity to enjoy further development.


    The nobles were most worried that Saleen would arrange for everyone to go to war in a moment of impulse because Saleen was still young. Even though everyone else was looking forward to war it was imperative to recruit sufficient soldiers first.


    Isabe stood beside Saleen. Saleen resolved matters swiftly and decisively, it was way more impressive than how she handled the hundred over bandits. She finally had an eye-opener and the indignation in her heart hadpletely disappeared.


    In the arena, thousands of spirits were cleaning the ce. As the magicmps were extinguished one by one, the mini shops in the arena were also shuttered.


    After the nobles left, Saleen felt a little exhausted.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Next time, I won¡¯t being.¡± Saleen had wasted half a day there. If it was not for the many topics he had discussed with the nobles, this half a day would have been totally wasted for him. Saleen would rather look at J imparting swordsmanship to the guards than the swordmasters¡¯ battles.


    At least J was an authentic Silver Grand Swordmaster, whatever words he spouted would be very beneficial to a grand mage like Saleen. When the learning of magic had reached Saleen¡¯s grade, onlybat experience of a higher level would be constructive for Saleen.


    Isabe followed Saleen¡¯s entourage back to the temple, this was the first time she had gotten this close to the temple. Even though she had arrived in Metatrin City a long time ago, a one-mile area from the temple was out of bounds to normal people. This was the world of spirits, Caucasus people, and people from Sregl Ind.


    The presences of these three groups was rtively independent and sealed, it was not usually possible for outsiders to gain ess.


    One could neither disguise as a spirit nor a Caucasus person and it was more impossible for one to be rted to the people from Sregl Ind. For the past year after Saleen had constructed the temple, people had tried approaching it. People who tried to sneak in were captured by Sika¡¯s and Daniel¡¯s patrollers. No matter their motives, none of them could leave.


    Seeing this magnificent temple, Isabe was simply amazed. Being a grade-6 grand mage in the past, she could faintly observe that the internal structure of the temple was slightly simr to a magical tower. The body of the temple was an enormous offensive-type structure. Even if the city walls got breached, the army could still retreat to this ce and stop the enemy¡¯s assault.


    Defending this temple was way easier than defending the city walls.


    Saleen only asked Nailisi and Nichs to stay behind, but Isabe did not leave either. Seeing that Saleen did not instruct anyone to lead her away, she continued following Saleen.


    Saleen brought the three people to the fourth story. The fourth story contained a huge number ofboratories and rooms for practicing swordsmanship, while the mages from Sregl Ind lived on the fifth story. Selecting a more spacious room, Saleen told Nichs, ¡°Can you remove the curse on Isabe?¡±


    ¡°Of course I can, Sir. A grade-7 holy master can already remove such a curse slowly. If I do it, Isabe can regain her powers quickly.¡±


    ¡°What about Aini?¡±


    Nichs remained silent for a while, then replied, ¡°It¡¯s not entirely impossible, but... it isn¡¯t worth it.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Aini has been injured for too long a duration and he is now a grade-6 mage. It will be meaningless for him to regain the magic chords. Rather than practicing elemental magic from scratch, he can simply continue on his current path.¡±


    ¡°I understand, then forget it.¡± Saleen also knew that he would have to consume a huge quantity of items if he wanted to help Aini regain his magic chords. This was not a problem, the problem was that Aini was already a grade-6 death mage, his achievements would not be any lesser than Saleen¡¯s. Just like what Nichs had said, it was not worthwhile re-cultivating elemental magic.


    ¡°Then give treatment to Isabe. Do it at a slower pace, you must ensure safety,¡± Saleen instructed. He and Nailisi waited at one side.


    Saleen possessed the Elemental Eye, so he could observe any microscopic changes in energy. He wanted to observe this process closely to know more about the curse of a divine spell. If he could understand the guiding principles, he would not have to worry about such an attack anymore.


    ¡°Sir, I need a magic array that has elemental stability.¡± Nichs understood Saleen¡¯s intentions. Even if he wanted to exin to Saleen about workings of the curse, he was helpless. Such a skill could not be described using words, one had to experience it themselves.


    With a smile, Saleen took out six magic nuclei and handed them to Nailisi, asking Nailisi to draw a magic array.


    Isabe quickly stopped him, then said, ¡°I will do it myself.¡±


    She could tell that Nailisi held a high position among Saleen¡¯s subordinates, ¡°It will not be beneficial to me if this woman bes aborer for me.¡± Isabe took out her own magic nuclei, drawing a magic array with elemental stability atop a tform which was used by mages for meditation. This was a level-1 magic array used by a mage who did not own a magical tower for training.


    In fact, this temple did not require such a magic array because the elements were very stable already. Saleen wanted to observe Nichs¡¯ treatment, so it was best to use a magic array to mark out a space. That way, he could observe in more detail.


    As Nichs gazed at Isabe drawing a magic array, he pondered about the treatment program.


    Nichs only needed to transfer the curse on Isabe into the Soul Bead and Isabe would make a full recovery. If that was the case, this process would hold no meaning for Saleen. Saleen hoped to observe the principles of the curse, so Nichs needed to try his best to slow down the treatment process.


    Once Isabepleted the drawing, Nichs said, ¡°Isabe, remove all the magic equipment on your body.¡±


    Isabe was dumbfounded, but without any hesitation, she removed the magic robe, six rings on her fingers, and the ne. Saleen noticed that Isabe had specially removed her shoes, exposing a pair snow-white feet.


    This pair of inconspicuous shoes were also a piece of magic equipment and it had evaded Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye.


    Saleen immediately did some self-reflection, ¡°My Elemental Eye cannot see through all things.¡±


    Nichs pointed at the magic array, then said, ¡°Stimte it and sit inside. Kneeling or sitting is fine, just use whatever you are used to. Just enter into a state of meditation.¡±


    Saleen smiled, ¡°Nichs is indeed an experienced senior, he knows why I am observing from the sidelines. He verbalized those instructions so that I can observe more thoroughly.¡±

 Chapter 680: Curse (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 680: Curse (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Isabe was only d in her personal clothes as she sat cross-legged in the magic array, feeling a little shy.


    Logically speaking, since everyone present were professionals, Isabe should not be experiencing such awkward emotions. Her clothes were tighter than the others who were wearing severalyers of beast skins. Nailisi¡¯s whispers into Saleen¡¯s ear made her face turn scarlet.


    ¡°Master, Isabe has removed her long robe and her breasts are huge!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mouth parted slightly, but he did not say anything. He roughly understood the thoughts of a demon, ¡°Nailisi simply wanted to identify Isabe¡¯s weaknesses. If I continue the conversation, I will appear frivolous.¡±


    Luckily, treatment began immediately. Nichs first cast a level-1 treatment spell on Isabe. This treatment only enveloped the surface of Isabe¡¯s body, but it did not seep into her skin. Saleen observed closely and realized that this treatment spell did not reallye into contact with Isabe. He had noticed some profound mysteries within Isabe¡¯s body though.


    There seemed to be another space inside Isabe¡¯s body, coincidentally, it was in the shape of a human. ¡°Could this be the principle behind the existence of a soul? A parallel space within the body? No, it isn¡¯t a parallel space, but it is a space which is totally unlike the elemental world. Originally, this space was one with the elements, but Isabe was affected by the curse. The contours of this space have be very pronounced.¡±


    Magic above level-7 did not just consist of the understanding of the elements, it also touched on the study of the soul.


    As a grade-9 holy master, Nichs was still very adept at treating this curse. Slowly, he injected low level divine spells into Isabe¡¯s body. Saleen clearly saw that Nichs was giving Isabe the Power of Life and the Power of the Soul. The Power of the Soul had been drawn from Nichs¡¯ Soul Bead.


    When the Power of Life and the Power of the Soul came together, it was like an inborn three-dimensional magic pattern, as they brought out a little bit of contractual power from Isabe¡¯s body.


    ¡°It is actually contractual power!¡± Saleen was really astounded.


    The power of this contract was really weak, even Saleen could get rid of it if he had grasped this technique. The fundamental of this contract was made up of rules.


    The essence of a curse would use a tinge of rules.


    This had exceeded the concept of normal magic or divine spells. One could onlye across such content when they had reached grade-10. Saleen observed patiently. Nichs could remove all the power of the curse in one go, but he had split the treatment process into a few hundred phases so that Saleen could observe it a few hundred times.


    He was a grade-9 holy master. With a very mighty mental strength, he could endure the whole process.


    Isabe could not feel anything, the treatment process was painless. There was even afortable feeling about it. Nichs was a genuine holy master, he had never practiced any dark-type skills. If a person from the inquisition was treating Isabe in this manner, Isabe might be on the verge of going insane already. The suffering of the soul was way more intense than the amputation of limbs.


    ¡°Rules can actually be forcefully changed using one¡¯s powers!¡±


    At the same time, Saleen was enlightened, ¡°A contract is the mostmon form of a rule power and the contract between myself and the three kings gradually loosened, eventually causing Banchajanna to rebel. The kings¡¯ grade was way higher than mine, so it was almost impossible for the contractual rules to be maintained permanently, especially for such apulsive rule. A follower¡¯s contract is more stable, because the power of this contract is supported by the parties who had signed the contract. It will be exponentially more difficult to destroy such a contract.¡±


    Nichs took six hours to remove everyst strand of the curse¡¯s power from Isabe¡¯s body, using the Soul Bead to absorb it. The soul shards within the Soul Bead could digest the curse¡¯s power naturally.


    Saleen observed for six consecutive hours. Even though he still could not learn such a skill, his knowledge about the soul had strengthened by arge magnitude. It was very beneficial for his advancement to a grade-7 sorcerer.


    ¡°Nichs, it¡¯s been tough on you,¡± Saleen said with a smile.


    ¡°Mm, I don¡¯t think she has any more underlying problems, it is better that way too.¡± Nichs appeared somewhat tired, he was clearly short of breath when talking.


    ¡°Then go and rest first, I have something to say to Isabe.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Nichs got on his feet and walked out of this empty room.


    Isabe opened her eyes and bowed towards Saleen, then said, ¡°Thank you my Lord, I never expected that a treatment divine spell to greatly strengthen my knowledge about the elements. I think I can surely advance to a grade-7 sorcerer in at most ten years!¡±


    She was overjoyed, this oue was simply unexpected. Originally, she thought that she would have to spend ten years regaining her grade-6 abilities after removing the damage from the divine spell. It was amazing that Nichs¡¯ treatment speed was so high and his treatment was so thorough. The magic chords in her body had actually begun growing and recovering gradually.


    In at most several months she could regain the pinnacle state of her grade-6 powers. It would not be onerous for her to be a sorcerer in ten years.


    Her age was not considered old. If she became a grade-7 sorcerer before forty years old, then she could possibly go one step further and charge towards grade-9. Of course, Isabe did not know that Saleen had the Six Elements¡¯ Space for use. Had she known about it, she would not have tried to sound out Saleen, she would have dedicated herself faithfully.


    If one advanced to a grade-7 sorcerer before reaching forty years old, then they had a fifty percent chance of breaking through the limits of grade-9. A normal mage was already considered a prodigy if they could attain grade-9 before reaching two-hundred years old. Most people who attained grade-9 before one-hundred years old had spentrge amounts of money and received guidance from a wise teacher. They also had to have help from a magical tower.


    ¡°Ten years?¡± Saleen wasughing now because the speed of magic training in his temple was much faster than the outside world. ¡°Isabe has more talent than me, but shecks the guidance of a good teacher.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I wasn¡¯t...¡±


    ¡°I know you aren¡¯t boasting. I mean to say that I can guarantee your advancement to a grade-9 sorcerer within ten years,¡± Saleen said in a mysterious manner.


    Isabe¡¯s astonishment made her forget to put on her outer coat, she simply looked at Saleen doubtfully. ¡°Saleen is at least a grade-5 mage, but he seems like he is at grade-6 already. A mage of this standard will not spout nonsense. Since Saleen is my superior, it is less likely for him to deceive his subordinates. Deceiving a follower will incur a bacsh from the contract.¡±


    ¡°Isabe, are you tired?¡±


    ¡°I am fine,¡± Isabe answered subconsciously.


    ¡°Put on your outer coat and let¡¯s talk.¡± Saleen was not tired at all, he wanted to know whether Isabe was willing to impart her technique of cultivating magic and martial arts at the same time. This skill was extremely valuable, if it could be mastered, it could greatly increase the survivability of mages.


    Mages, especially low grade mages, were very afraid of an assassin getting close to them. Even if a sorcerer had run into an assassin who was at Bain¡¯s grade, they would be very troubled too.


    Fortunately, the advancement of an assassin was more challenging, so a mage would ultimately stand on the peak of power. Before reaching the peak a mage would be harassed by assassins and they could fall easily.


    This situation was like the cub of a grade-9 magic beast who might very likely be devoured by a low grade magic beast.


    Saleen brought Isabe to the cafeteria on the second story. It was alreadyte into the night, luckily, half of the waiters were spirits. As long as these spirits received energy replenishment, they would not need to sleep.


    Isabe was not tired, but she was ravenous. After getting treated by a holy master as skilled as Nichs, a normal person would not need to sleep for the following three to five days, not to mention a mage with such a strong mental strength.


    Saleen was also hungry. He and Isabe consumed some food, while Nailisi served them. Isabe could not help but steal a nce at Nailisi, using a memory spell tomit Nailisi¡¯s appearance to heart.


    ¡°Why are you looking at me? I am Nailisi, Master¡¯s contract creature. I am from the demonic ne.¡± Nailisi¡¯s identity was no longer a secret. Back at the city entrance, she had revealed her original form in order to kill the spirit kings.


    Isabe stopped short of choking, then Nailisi continued, ¡°You are Master¡¯s follower, so I will not create trouble for you, unless...¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t scare her,¡± Saleen interrupted.


    Nailisi lowered her head telepathically, then said, ¡°Yes, Master.¡±


    ¡°Introduce Isabe to the followers around me, help her get familiarized with this environment,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Nailisi appeared obedient, but Isabe did not dare underestimate this elegant and mesmerizing maidservant anymore.


    ¡°Mm, Master doesn¡¯t have many followers. The lousiest one is Daniel, the guy who hosted yesterday¡¯spetition. Even though his powers are average, he is very loyal and he helps Master manage the daily affairs of Metatrin City. You have to maintain a certain degree of respect for him.¡±


    Isabe nodded her head, showing understanding.


    ¡°As for the rest, you cannot afford to trifle with them. If you have any conflicts with them, you better rify with Master. I know that battles aren¡¯t allowed to take ce between followers, but you are a mage, so I guess should have a trick or two to circumvent the contract.¡±


    Isabe kept mum, she also knew that being a mage¡¯s follower had its benefits. At the very least Saleen would provide full support for her future training. Isabe was just very worried that Saleen would treat her differently from the other followers he had subdued previously. If there was no fairness, then she would feel indignant even if she was receiving the best welfare.


    ¡°Master has a follower who isn¡¯t in Metatrin City, he has followed County Queen Lex to battle in the Bitter Water County. That man is called Su, a Silver Grand Swordmaster. Besides that, I have four under me, they are all demons, you better be careful. Of course, if you are wronged, you cane look for me. On ount of Master, I will help you lecture those few fellows.¡±


    Isabe could no longer stomach her food anymore. Listening to Nailisi¡¯s narration, she realized that Saleen did not cheat her. Saleen¡¯s followers were really powerful. The weakest of them all were of course the mages from Sregl Ind, but those mages were very united. If one of them got offended, it meant that all of them were offended too. Of the mages from Sregl Ind, five of them had advanced to grade-6 already. Even though the remaining mages were rtively weaker, these five grade-6 mages could sufficiently control any situation.


    Seeing that Nailisi had more or less affected Isabe, Saleen then said, ¡°Isabe, can you impart your skill to other people?¡±


    This was not some hint, Saleen was tantly telling Isabe that if she could impart her skills, she would receive a proportional reward. If she could not do it, then she would have to rely on her own capabilities to cement her position beside Saleen.

 Chapter 681: Delegating Armies and Powers (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 681: Delegating Armies and Powers (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen knew that he had to do something in order to convince Isabe. Both of the abilities he possessed that could achieve this objective were lethal. Saleen did not have full control over crystal finger and the n badge, but once he used either of these two abilities his opponent was as good as dead.


    Isabe replied cautiously, ¡°My Lord, you are already such a powerful mage. Needless to say, one can reach the end of life without even a nce of the top. It is the same for swordsmanship. Training with the sword aura will ce both swordsmen and mages on the same path of progressing without an end in sight. Sorcerers and grand swordmasters are the ultimate entities in this world. One will not be able to reach the top on those two paths at the same time even if there were limitations of the rules. The only possibility is if this person is a genius.¡±


    ¡°Are you saying that only very few people will be able to pick up this ability?¡±


    ¡°Fewer than those who can be Caucasus priestess¡¯.¡± Isabe knew that she had to be urate in whatever she said. The chances of a person bing the most powerful in both magic and swordsmanship was less than one in one-million.


    Saleen pondered for a while before saying to Isabe, ¡°It may not be realistic for all swordsmen to be mages, but it may be possible for all mages to possess a bit of swordsmen¡¯s abilities. When a mage possesses a bit of sword aura, his physique will improve drastically. The problem for most mages now is that they cannot even ride fast on their horses. I will not expect mages to be grand swordmasters, but they should at least improve their physiques. Will you be able to do that?¡±


    ¡°It is worth a try. There is nothing to lose anyway. The mages that do not wish to waste their time can choose not to learn. In my opinion, many of them will not even be able to advance to grand mages and will never amount to much in magic. For this group of people, if they can pick up sword aura, their fighting abilities will definitely improve.¡±


    ¡°That is easy for you to say. Many of those that are working for me all belong to Lex. I don¡¯t have the right to decide their future,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Then I have no other ideas. I cannot make any judgments on such things. One will know the results if they have learned from me for a period of time.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have something like magic books?¡±


    Isabe was shocked at first, but regained herposure quickly. Saleen had asked her if there were any techniques that had been recorded down so that it was easier for people to follow and learn. Indeed, there were such methods that were simr to magic books. Their importance to swordsmen far surpassed that of magic books to mages.


    Since she was a mage, personally passing on this technique to others would do nothing to help her own training. Saleen was direct in asking for it because he was thinking like a mage.


    Saleen had promised earlier that he would help her be a grade-9 sorcerer within ten years. Although Isabe did not believe him entirely, she should still be dedicating all her time and effort to training magic by following Saleen every day instead of training up magic swordsmen.


    Her life would be prolonged if she advanced into a sorcerer. If she advanced to grade-9 within the next ten years, she would still have another one-thousand or more years to live. That was more valuable than any books.


    There was a proverb amongst mages; one must be willing to pay an equal price for what one desires.


    Compared to the attractiveness of bing a grade-9 sorcerer, the passing down of the magic swordsmen technique no longer seemed important. If this was a deal, she would have gotten the better end of it.


    After seeing Saleen¡¯s temple, Isabe knew that Saleen did not intend to gain anything from her. Such a huge building that was simr to a magic tower was not something she would be able to afford even if she robbed for an entire lifetime. She took out a book from her spatial ring. The materials of this book were rather strange. Saleen could tell from his elemental eyes that this ancient book was made from paper and not from animal skin or other materials of better qualities.


    These papers harnessed different types of energies, many of them still unknown to Saleen. These energies co-existed harmoniously and protected the book well. Its cover was still new even though it looked like it should be older than ten-thousand years.


    Saleen was not interested in learning swordsmanship. He was pleasantly surprised by the rules harnessed by the cover of this book. Without his elemental eyes, he would not have discovered something so minute and would have lost this great opportunity.


    With the book in his hands, Saleen tried his best to calm himself down and said to Isabe, ¡°Ask Nailisi to find you a room. Have a good rest and we will talk more tomorrow.¡±


    Isabe thought that Saleen wanted to read through the book on his own first and maybe pick up some swordsmanship techniques. She never expected that the covers of the book concealed such an important secret.


    Saleen did not even bother opening up the book. Once Isabe left, Saleen immediately studied the rules on the covers.


    Rules were an area that a grade-6 mage would not be able to touch on. Saleen had experienced the loosening of bonds before. The rules in this book were presented in a way that bnced energies, but there were also traces to be observed in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    The power harnessed by these rules was not great, but couldst for a long time and protect the book from decaying.


    Saleen did not dream of grasping this rule, but he could observe the way it functioned and hopefully gain a deeper understanding of the world through it.


    Mages existed in order to understand the truth of the world.


    This was a motto acknowledged by all mages. Saleen had seen the magic notes of Rafael and Joey before and knew that when a mage was about to advance to grade-10, he would begin to understand some simple rules.


    Saleen had never seen so many energies co-exist so harmoniously together before. The cover of this book was dark blue in color and its material resembled that of magic papers that could remain unspoiled for a few hundred years. There was no word on the cover of the book. It was very clean, but by the looks of how it was made, it should be twenty-thousand years old at least.


    Saleen held the book in his hands and was engrossed in it. His elemental eyes began to be able to see the traces of movement of each individual energy. Within the cover of this book that measured a foot long, there were more than ten-thousand paths of energies that were flowing, intersecting, spinning, and connecting. There were no signs of any annihtion.


    Just like that, Saleen stared at the book cover until dawn broke. Suddenly, he developed an illusion. The arrangement of these energies was formed unintentionally and their movements were triggered by three cores. These three cores formed three square-shaped letter symbols.


    No, actually, it was because of these three square-shaped letter symbols that the energies in the book cover could be bnced in this way.


    Could this technique have been recorded by the Gods? It was said that only Gods could express rules through letters.


    Saleen finally understood a bit, but this only made him realize how little he understood about such rules. The three letter symbols expressed a type of rule. To a mage, this was an incredibly difficult problem to figure out.


    Anguage might only consist of thirty or so letters. Once ancient letters and magic words were involved, there would be at least a few thousand characters and more than ten-thousand differentbinations.


    Saleen did not recognize any of the three letter symbols and they were very different from all the words he knew. Thisnguage system must be very developed since there were at least ten-thousand basic characters. Based on the magic words, simr words would be able topletely and urately express the entire contents of the world.


    A door seemed to have opened to Saleen, but what he could see was only the tip of the iceberg. Unless he could sessfully learn such words, he would never truly understand how these rules, that that have been formed by words, functioned.


    Even so, the rewards from one entire night of observation were huge. No one would be able to detect the minute changes of rules at grade-6. It did not matter that he could not understand the theory at this stage. When he reached grade-10, he would naturally develop new understandings.


    Saleen kept the book. He held little hope of understanding the three letter symbols hidden in it. It was by chance that he saw them and Saleen already felt content. He went to the window and saw that the sun had already risen. A few stars were so bright that they could still be seen in the sky.


    When the sun set, the stars that have been outshone by the sunlight would gradually appear. They had actually always been there.


    There was a sense of realization in Saleen¡¯s heart. Once his abilities had reached a higher level, he was sure that he would be able to see even more.


    ¡°Master, Sister Sika is here,¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice rang from outside the door.


    ¡°Got it.¡± Saleen has spent the entire night in the room and did not return to his own bedroom. Usually, when Sika was trying to find Saleen, she would go to either the alchemyb or his bedroom. She would nevere to this ce.


    When Saleen saw Sika lying on his bed and reading a book, he felt that this was the perfect beginning to a day. Sika was not wearing her armor. It was instead hidden under her belt. Her xen-colored gown was opened and revealed her snow-white legs. Her legs were slightly bent and it was a sight to behold.


    ¡°Come over here, I have something to discuss with you,¡± Sika waved to Saleen.


    Saleen kicked off his shoes and jumped onto the bed. At this moment, he was not at all a stable and mature mage.


    Seeing how passionate Saleen was, Sika put off what she had wanted to say and hugged Saleen tightly. Saleen¡¯s bones almost broke and he was in pain everywhere.


    ¡°Sika!¡±


    ¡°Ah, did I be stronger again?¡± Sika quickly let go. After bing an Earth Priestess, her strength has been increasing. Even if she did not utilize the strength of the Earth, a normal person would not be able to endure even a light touch from her.


    ¡°Forget it. Sika, what is that you want to talk about? Why do you return to South Court all the time recently?¡± Saleen¡¯s desirepletely died. He cast himself with Chunlin spell to ease his pain.


    ¡°The thing is, there is now more than one-hundred-thousand Caucasus people who have pledged their allegiances to me. I want to know what kind of status you intend to give to my army.¡± Sika said seriously.


    It was a legitimate question. The patrolling around the temple had been conducted by Caucasus warriors, South Court had opened another avenue to specially provide for the elders in the Caucasus viges and Saleen had given the Caucasus people another piece ofnd in the south of the city. What status and power do the Caucasus people possess in the Metatrin Kingdom?


    As a priestess, this was a question she had to consider.

 Chapter 682: Delegating Armies and Powers (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 682: Delegating Armies and Powers (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleeny t on his back. Sika¡¯s hug was as impactful as a violent hit by a swordmaster.


    ¡°Saleen, your army is messy. It¡¯s time to tidy it up.¡± Sika rubbed Saleen¡¯s arm. This time, she controlled her strength well and Saleen felt veryfortable.


    ¡°What do you mean? My army was trained by Lex and those that havepleted training were split into five battalions. This is how Qin usually trained their armies,¡± Saleen defended himself. He did not think that Lex would bex in training up his armies. Right now, one battalion of soldiers were still fighting for Lex, but once they returned, he would have a proper group of elite soldiers.


    ¡°Sharman has already been sent over. Have you thought about what responsibilities you want her to take up?¡± Sika asked.


    ¡°She will start as a low-level officer and then I will groom her along the way once she has familiarized herself with the army.¡±


    ¡°By what right? Is she from a noble family? Has she performed any meritorious service for the military?¡± Sika asked.


    ¡°Urgh...¡± Saleen was speechless. Managing the military was not his forte. ¡°What do you have in mind then?¡± Saleen asked. Although Sika was managing arge number of people now, there were many elders assisting her along the way. She did not have much experience managing troops and armies either.


    To Saleen¡¯s surprise, Sika suggested to Saleen, ¡°Your armies arepletely different from others. Think about it, in the future, you will have a lot of death mages wanting to follow you once they hear about the oue of your battle with the Holy See. Besides, Nailisi is helping you to build demon city so demons will also form part of the core of your military forces.¡±


    ¡°Oh? You are right!¡± Saleen recalled that even his naval forces were mainlyprised of spirits of the dead.


    ¡°Since that is the case, the structure of your military must be different from others. Why do you have to follow them? All the armies of the various Empires are also no longer the same as those from a thousand years ago. Besides, the roles you assign to different troops in your armies will involve different benefits correspondingly. Since your teacher is not here yet, you have put everyone¡¯s mind at ease for the time-being.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Saleen was confused again.


    ¡°Right now, you are splitting things up equally without any criteria. Everyone is thinking that once Jason arrives, Sregl Ind will control the armiespletely. You are a mage so you do not think about this. Ordinary people want to build careers and be grantednds. What they want ispletely different from you.¡±


    This was a simple logic, but Saleen never thought about it that way due to his status. Realization dawned on him after what Sika said. It might not be that important if Saleen had not signed the bond with the Goddess of Myers, but since the bond had been signed, he had to think of ways to convert the people. There would be more battles toe in the future.


    Without a powerful army, Saleen would not be able to take over too manynds even if he has gathered all the Sregl Ind mages. The amount of resources that Saleen possessed were sufficient for him to train until at least grade-9, but if he could not spread the Goddess of Nature¡¯s faith, he would not be able to escape from the punishment of the bond.


    ¡°Sika, get up. Nailisi, gather everyone. We will have a meeting next door,¡± Saleen dragged Sika up.


    ¡°At least wait for me to get dressed!¡± Sika pulled away from Saleen¡¯s grasp and began to put on her armor. Her armor and weapons had been newly refined by Saleen. The equipment was refined with pure magic and it was extremelyfortable and easy for Sika to wield.


    Aside from Daniel, most of Saleen¡¯s trusted aides stayed in the temple. Everyone gathered very quickly. There was no need to beat around the bush amongst those he trusted so Saleen went straight to the point about the problem that the military was facing. Everyone was speechless momentarily.


    In the beginning, Saleen prioritizedbat abilities when recruiting followers so their abilities in management were socking that adding all their abilities up was still notparable to Lex alone.


    One person was the exception, and that was Eleanor. Not only did Eleanor follow the mysterious Marquis for many years, she was also a member of the royal family in the elf dimension before she came to the Myers Maind. Saleen had high expectations of her.


    Eleanor did not speak because she felt that she was an outsider. On this dimension, only Su was in a simr situation to her. Although Nailisi was a demon, the connection between the demon dimension and the Myers Maind dimension was still quite close. The elf dimension was so far away thatmunication was not possible even with a simple magic array.


    Even if she had the urate coordinates of the elf dimension, she would still not be able to return home.


    The rest did not speak because they were aware of their own abilities. For matters like this, the best they could do was to follow orders and execute them. They did not have the ability to n and manage.


    Eleanor sighed once and said, ¡°Then I shall speak my mind.¡±


    Saleen thought, ¡°I have been waiting for you to speak up all this while. You have followed the Marquis for such a long time and have led tens of thousands of soldiers before. Didn¡¯t the Pink Army do very well in Tanggsi Empire and Titan when they were led by you?¡±


    ¡°We have advantages that others do not have. Everyone here has either chosen to follow or has signed bonds with the Lord. It is also not a secret that the number of magic nuclei that we have is about half of Alchemy City¡¯s. In the north and on the seas, we also haverge numbers of mining, inds, and metals that allow us to be self-sufficient. As long as we have mages under our control, the position of our Lord will be secured.¡±


    Eleanor felt a lot better when she realized that everyone was listening to her intently. Saleen did not have many trusted aides so there was little internal conflict and scheming amongst them. This gave her a sense of belonging.


    ¡°Our Lord has allowed for two-hundred-thousand magic nuclei to be sold in order to get the noble families on our side. In actual fact, we can afford to give them more benefits. Once they realize that any mages or magic nuclei that they need will have to be obtained from us, we will have full control over the noble families. Therefore, decentralization is priority. The four Dukes have proven their loyalty and are the best examples for the rest.¡±


    So far, everything that Eleanor has said had been very general, but all of a sudden, she tweaked her words and said, ¡°For all battles in future, our main forces should spearhead the attacks while the noble families¡¯ soldiers will support and take over thends that we have conquered. The size of our armies need not be big. Demon city will bepleted by the end of this year. Within three years, we will be able to gather our forces and form a demon army.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t trust demons too easily.¡± Only Nailisi could say this. No one else would dare to.


    ¡°Our army now possess the purple-gold sea urchins so the logistical demands have reduced. We only need elite soldiers and not support soldiers. Let the noble families take care of the backend aspect while we focus on attacking and defending the city. I suggest that we allow the noble families to build their own armies ording to their ranks of nobility. The King will take themand for battles.¡±


    Eleanor saw that no one seemed to have understood what she said so she continued helplessly, ¡°Arge amount of magic materials are needed in order to sustain such elite soldiers and that is something the noble families will not be able to achieve. They will be able to build troops for the main force, but for the magic abilities of the armies, they will have to depend on the Lord. Without the Lord, the noble families will not be able to defend even their ownnds. Not only do we have to build armies, we also have to build a mages¡¯ guild.¡±


    ¡°Mages¡¯ guild?¡± Saleen was interested.


    ¡°Simr to mercenaries¡¯ guilds, by controlling the guild, we will be able to control all the mages within the kingdom. Without mages, the noble families will never be able to rebel, so they will always be tied to us.¡±


    Eleanor¡¯s suggestion was to leave the noble families with no other options and it received everyone¡¯s approval. There was still a window period of a year and a half that Saleen must not becent.


    ¡°Things will be simpler after that. We must categorize our equipment based on their unique qualities and organize them into troops of different functions. Some will specialize in defense while others will focus on attacks. Take our navy for example, we will need at least four fleets. The first fleet will guard over the oceanic ice block. That is the source of our magic nuclei. Although there are a number of magic beasts in the nearby oceans, it is difficult to hunt them. Besides, if we over hunt, the numbers for the subsequent years will drop drastically. The second fleet willprise of dragon remainsbat vessel as the main force and will guard the south, which includes Cloudflow, Lianyun City, and Alchemy City. The third fleet will be used for defense purposes and will patrol between the demon city and Metatrin City. The fourth fleet will be used for expedition purposes and its target will be Sikeqinya and Tanggsi Empire.¡±


    At this point, Eleanor left no doubt in what she said, ¡°No matter what happens, the strategic ports along the coastline must always be in our control. The noble families must never own the navy!¡±


    ¡°Next is the army. Metatrin can contain one-million people. We only have a poption of five-hundred-thousand at the moment so there is still a lot of space avable for development. In order to properly defend Metatrin City, excluding western town and north town, we will need at least one-hundred-thousand men. After the Lord¡¯s teacher arrives, this figure can be reduced. Six battalions will be sufficient. These battalions will not be involved in expeditions and will only focus on defending the city. We will build ten battalions first. The additional four battalions will control thends two-hundred miles in the west and one-thousand miles in the north.¡±


    ¡°Quite a few of thesends have already been given to noble families,¡± J said. He was familiar with how the pce functioned and felt that the noble families would not be willing to give up theirnds so easily.


    ¡°Although thends in the north are fertile, the time period that was suitable for farming was too short. Without magic mechanics, those noble families will not be able to ensure the farmers¡¯ livelihood. Our Lord can grant them thends from the south after we sessfully take over. Metatrin City must have its own army. We must never allow the noble families to gain too much power!¡±


    Saleen nodded in agreement. Eleanor already possessed such judgment even without knowing about the hell of God¡¯s punishment. Eleanor had already seen through the fact that there must be a secret that exined the massive amount of effort put into building Metatrin.


    ¡°My suggestion is that our Lord can set up the following armies. Number one; ten main battalions. Number two; a demon army. Number three; a Caucasus battalion. Number four; an army of spirits of the dead. Number five; a mage army. Number six a temple defense army. Number seven; a pce swordsmen battalion. Number eight; the Metatrin mercenarypany.¡±

 Chapter 683: Eleanor’s talent (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 683: Eleanor¡¯s talent (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°That was a great speech!¡± Nichs eximed. He was afraid to appear suspicious, so he did not dare give any suggestions to Saleen. Upon hearing Eleanor¡¯s n Nichs could not contain his excitement any longer. Such an arrangement would allow Saleen to wield all the power in his hands. Unless all the armies ganged up to rebel against Saleen these armies would only be his warring tools.


    Eleanor smiled, then continued, ¡°Ten main camps might seem extravagant. Metatrin City will have sixty-thousand troops, while the western and eastern towns will each get twenty-thousand troops. No one will be guarding the broken-edged pass or controlling the northernnds.¡±


    ¡°The main camps are used for campaigns, we cannot only rely on the demons. The demons are going to upy the enemy¡¯s city and if demons are stationed there as well, then this city will turn into hell already. This is just an expedient n. Eventually, Metatrin City will have to be defended by the pce¡¯s swordsmen camp and the temple army. Now, I will talk about the military n for the short term...¡±


    Speaking, Eleanor took out a magic map,ying it on the table.


    ¡°The west of Metatrin City can definitely control the broken-edged barrier. After the broken-edged barrier is constructed, its defense won¡¯t be lower than that of Metatrin City. In the future, if people want to attack us, they will have to do so via the northern face or the sea. If there are more than two magical towers at the broken-edged barrier, then twenty-thousand soldiers will be required. Including twenty-thousand auxiliary troops, the broken-edged barrier can surely be defended properly.¡±


    ¡°But I feel that, since the broken-edged barrier and western town are about one-hundred miles from each other, they can reinforce each other. Why don¡¯t we withdraw the main army and let the spirit army take its ce? We can make use of the fact that spirits wouldn¡¯t get fatigued, they can defend the barrier all the way. If we are in a war of attrition, who will possess more magic nuclei than us?¡± Eleanor exined calmly, then she pointed to the northern part of the map and said, ¡°There are many rivers in the north which will freeze during winter. It will not be possible for the enemy to use the water potential to build coastal castles during winter though. It will be impossible for the enemy to charge directly into Metatrin City. Be that as it may, the northern area is rtively wider. We should station our main forces one-thousand miles away and build arger city there. This city will be used to refine metals and protect the neighboring mines.¡±


    Eleanor swiftly pointed out some locations which could amodate a city. In the blink of an eye she had separated thends belonging to Saleen¡¯s nobles into many parts. Eleanor¡¯s n to allocate the military forces was very logical, it had quickly assigned all the forces which could be assembled to a few vital defensive sites. Eleanor had even drafted a n to organize the defenses within Metatrin City.


    Towards theter part of the discussion, Eleanor began talking about the issue of equipment after she finished delegating missions to the army.


    Eleanor took out a few hundred drawings, ced them on the table, then said, ¡°These are the military equipment which I cane up with. Sir has a certain quantity of purplish-gold sea urchins, these urchins are natural space equipment and they do not require a mage¡¯s control. The smallest urchin has a volume of about five cubic yards, while thergest has a volume of a few dozen cubic yards. Other than these special materials, we can also imitate the magic crates used in transportation. Our army¡¯s demand for logistical support will be the smallest ever.¡±


    Eleanor began borating on the weapons she had designed, some weapons were unique to the elvish ne.


    ¡°Eleanor, do you wish to lead some troops?¡± Saleen could not help but ask, he had fully recognized Eleanor¡¯s capabilities.


    ¡°No way,¡± Eleanor refused.


    Saleen did not wish to force her, so he said, ¡°Then you shall be my minister for military affairs. I will assign sufficient assistants to you, you won¡¯t have to do many things personally. Most of the time, you will study magic with me.¡±


    ¡°Okay then.¡± Eleanor nodded her head helplessly, she knew that Saleen would surely delegate more tasks to her after she had provided so many useful suggestions. ¡°Luckily I am an elf. Even though I am not a sorcerer, I will have a long life. Maybe it¡¯s because of this reason that elves will never be more passionate and crazier than humans towards the cultivation of magic.¡±


    Everyone joined in the discussion to consider the conceivability of Eleanor¡¯s drawings.


    A replica of a magic war chariot was a conceivable goal. In an army, if there were no magic war chariots, a mage¡¯s battle duration would be greatly shortened. A mage¡¯s effect on an army would be extraordinary only when they could cast spells from a magic war chariot. Mages could be easily assaulted by the enemy otherwise. A long range bow could easily kill a low grade mage.


    If a low grade mage was hidden in a magic war chariot, the magic war chariot could not be destroyed by trebuchets, unless it was struck by an ancient magic cannon.


    Everyone was very interested in the human-carrying fly puppet designed by Eleanor.


    At the moment, even Alchemy City did not possess very good human-carrying flying puppets. Saleen had seen those puppets before, they were huge and could be brought down easily. They could hardly fly in harsh environments.


    The flying puppet designed by Eleanor only had a length of eight yards, while its wingspan was around six yards. One puppet could carry one heavy infantryman. For the time being, only Saleen could mass produce such a puppet because its material was thundercloud wood.


    The winged skeleton had hauled up arge quantity of this material. This nt grown in the giant ne was harder than the best steel. It was tough and was unafraid of water, fire, or lightning. This nt could grow into the clouds back in the giant ne, it was a verymon species.


    Since this flying puppet could transport heavy infantrymen, it also meant that it could be used as an offensive weapon, besides being used for reconnaissance. If loaded with an alchemical crossbow, a soldier would be able to fire at the enemies scaling the city entrance.


    Due to its immunity to lightning, this flying puppet could fly in rain. If loaded with oil or simr items, it would be a good option to toss these things into the enemy¡¯s city and set their houses aze. Other than requiring a huge quantity of intermediate level magic nuclei during the flight, this puppet did not have any other ws.


    The flying puppet designed by Eleanor was beautiful, it was like a gigantic piece of art. Within the patterns on the flying puppet, Saleen noticed the traces of elvish magic. Even if this puppet was not made from thundercloud wood, its defensive power would not be too low either.


    ¡°The human-carrying flying puppet was definitely a concept from the elvish ne, Eleanor has finally regarded Metatrin City as her home.¡± Saleen knew that it was more challenging getting an elf to reveal their secretspared to making a mage renege on their promises.


    Following this, Eleanor took out another drawing, which reinforced Saleen¡¯s belief. It was a drawing of an elvish alchemical crossbow. Inparison, an elvish alchemical crossbow might not be stronger than the human version, but it firing speed was way higher. Since Saleen possessed the divinecherry wood, he could enable the elvish alchemical crossbow¡¯s firing speed, lethality, and range to be increased many times.


    Although this item required a lot more gold coins, Saleen farmed and used divinecherry wood for himself, he never sold it to outsiders. He could totally equip the elites of the main army with this elvish equipment.


    Even the elvish alchemical crossbow was disyed. The discerning people would surely have a different impression of Eleanor.


    Eleanor had straightened her thoughts, she had even imparted the Life Archery to Nailisi, so why would she still bother about the elvish alchemical crossbow?


    Saleen surveilled each and every drawing and he realized that almost every piece of equipment contained remnants of elvish magic. The magic had been improved, an elemental mage could use it to make magic arrays. long ago humans had once ruled over the elves and the magic coordination between both parties took effect during the battle with the gods. Even though that was only a brief period, priceless and astonishing skills had been left behind.


    After seeing an elvish armor which had been woven using nts, Saleen was no longer astounded. Eleanor had specially indicated on the drawing that this armor enabled a soldier to float in water even if this soldier did not know how to swim. The whole set of armor was woven from vine-type nts before magic was attached onto it. Its physical defense power had surpassed that of light metal armor.


    Such an elvish armor had slightly lower defense against fire magic, but was fully immune towards normal mes.


    Basically, a holy master did not possess the ability to burn things, so the effect of this armor would be greater when used to resist the Holy See¡¯s army. If soldiers wore this armor to invade Alchemy City, the entire army could be eradicated by a few mages who were proficient in fire magic.


    Other than the armor¡¯s ability to float on water, it was also extremely lightweight and its interior lining wasfortable. A soldier did not need to remove this armor, he could keep it on his body.


    When ites to resisting fire magic, a soldier¡¯s armor was never great. Even heavy armor could be instantly prated by intermediate level magic. Only magic armor could resist magic attacks. Even though this vine-type armor had to be crafted by a mage, no magic nuclei were required during battle. It was considered to be an equipment which was somewhere between magic armor and heavy armor.


    Up next were the sieging puppets, cannon crossbows, cavalry war g, and elvish metal arrows. These items were taken out one by one, Saleen could not even believe his eyes. ¡°Didn¡¯t the legends say that the elvish race didn¡¯t like to war? Why did all these warring artworks originate from the hands of the elves?¡±


    The drawings of this equipment were very professional, they could not be designed by Eleanor herself. Even a person who knew nothing about magic would know that.


    The area which made Saleen realize the capability of Eleanor was that her drawings were all rted to the reorganization of the army. With these appliances, the offensive power of Saleen¡¯s army would increase several folds. If the soldiers trained harder, their offensive power would not be inferior to any of Qin¡¯s main armies.


    Seeing Eleanor contribute all these resources, Nichs was not hesitant anymore. He told Saleen, ¡°I can recall a number of equipment unique to the Holy See. The expeditionary army left in such a hurry the previous time, there was no time to prepare all these appliances, otherwise...¡±


    ¡°You still wouldn¡¯t have been able to conquer Metatrin City.¡± Nailisi red at Nichs.


    ¡°That is, that is...¡± Nichs smiled obsequiously. Even though Nailisi¡¯s words were difficult to stomach, she spoke the truth. Even if Nichs had brought along a number of heavy appliances, he would not be able to destroy Metatrin City¡¯s walls and metal battlements. With these two instations, the expeditionary army would have to use their troops to waste Saleen¡¯s arrows, using consecutive attacks to open a defensive w in the city walls. Be that as it may, Saleen had prepared substantial arrows. Even if an army with one-million soldiers was present it could not fully deplete Saleen¡¯s weapon reserves.

 Chapter 684: Eleanor’s talent (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 684: Eleanor¡¯s talent (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°The wardens didn¡¯t participate in the previous battle, they had retreated. The number of casualties in Metatrin City would be very high otherwise.¡± Nichs revealed the w in Metatrin City¡¯s defense honestly. ¡°The metal battlements are indeed mighty, but the firing speed is too low. If a huge group of fearless death warriorsunch an offensive with some dark holy masters hidden within, the soldiers at the city entrance will die trying to block the hole.¡±


    ¡°The offensive power of a soldiers is too low, the only way is to use equipment topensate for it. There is no other choice.¡± Saleen smiled and replied, ¡°I still obtained the final victory.¡±


    ¡°Sir, Nichs is right.¡± Even though Isabe was a new follower, she could not help but remind Saleen.


    ¡°Heh heh, this reasoning is correct now, but if the city had magical towers, the defensive method at the city entrance would be entirely different.¡± Nichs turned around and said to Isabe. Isabe was stunned and became speechless.


    ¡°Not every city can be built like how Metatrin City was built, such as the broken-edged barrier.¡± Nichs did not prepare a drawing. Instead, he simply cast a divine spell, releasing a three-dimensional holograph atop the table.


    ¡°This is the Holy See¡¯s Mengjia Puppet Beast.¡± Nichs pointed to the holograph on the table, then said, ¡°The Mengjia Puppet Beast is twenty-five yards long and eight yards tall, it can leap twenty-yards high. Under the control of a holy master, it can possibly leap over a thirty yard tall city wall. The Mengjia Puppet Beast can spit clouds, it can conceal more than a hundred soldiers on its body.¡±


    Nichs did not conceal any information, he showcased therge and intermediate equipment used by the Holy See to invade cities. Saleen then realized that his city would indeed suffer devastating losses if it was not for the rushed deployment of the Holy See¡¯s army which resulted in them not bringing along suitable sieging equipment.


    Of course, Nichs was not doing this to insult Saleen. Of the dozen of appliances he disyed, all of them had a manufacturing method. The memory spell of a grade-9 holy master was not any weaker than that of a mage. In the past, Nichs never bothered about the Holy See¡¯s campaigns, otherwise he would have stored more information in his memory.


    ¡°If Eleanor¡¯s equipment is guaranteed to reach every upied city and a defensework is built in ordance with Metatrin City¡¯s method, then the cities¡¯ safety can be ensured.¡± After Nichs exhibited all these holographs, he concluded his presentation. He meant to say that Eleanor¡¯s equipment had too high a consumption and Saleen might not be able to afford it. Instead, the city should build some defense facilities to counter the Holy See¡¯s equipment, or redesign the drawings of some cities.


    Metatrin City was sufficiently safe, but Saleen wanted to expand his territory. Other cities could not possibly emte the way Metatrin City was developed.


    Once again, Saleen discovered that he was sufficiently lucky. During a campaign, the most troublesome thing was to run into the enemy¡¯s experts abruptly. A Golden Grand Swordmaster, or even a Silver Grand Swordmaster, could possibly make a cavity in the city walls and allow their soldiers to breach the defenses. Saleen now possessed the fluids found in purplish-gold sea urchins, he could make normal metals possess the prative ability of a purplish-gold thorn.


    This would pose a real threat to an expert. If a Golden Grand Swordmaster was surrounded by a few hundred alchemical crossbows and all the arrows were refined with purplish-gold thorns, the Golden Grand Swordmaster would be killed.


    Even though Saleen could not make every arrow possess this effect, such arrows were just around for deterrence. As long as the experts above grade-8 did not dare to rush up the city walls personally, the offensive party would have to use a colossal army toplete the battle.


    Eleanor¡¯s suggestions were epted, they were added into the contents which Saleen had been pondering about for the past few months. Nichs¡¯ suggestions were also adopted. Research and development into targeted defensive machines were initiated.


    The original six main camps in Metatrin City had now ballooned to ten. The first camp was currently following Lex to war, so Saleen was left with five camps. Saleen had lost a few thousand people in the war, so he had to recruit new soldiers in order to expand to nine camps.


    Eleanor told Saleen not to fill up the entireposition. She told Saleen to keep the sixth camp at fullposition, while half of the soldiers from the remaining four camps would be taken out and assigned to the seventh to tenth camp.


    These eight camps would be slowly filled up and all of them would have a mixedposition.


    The specifics of the functional divisions within the armies did not need to be clearly stated. Eleanor had already split theposition of the armies into the smallest team of five men and she clearly detailed the roles of each person. After Saleen reviewed it, he was no longer worried about it. He then delegated this task to Eleanor.


    Saleen felt a moment ofpassion when he captured Eleanor, that wss why he did not kill this elf. Now, he was reaping the rewards of it.


    After a week, Saleen had rectified the military equipment, then he instructed the nobles to prepare to recruit soldiers by themselves. Within three years, Metatrin City must be expanded.


    The nobles were very exhrated that Saleen had allowed them to expand their armies. Even though they did not have the ability to expand the size of the army now, Saleen had spoken, which meant that they could expand theirnds in the future.


    Thereafter, Eleanor began imparting elvish magic to Saleen. Even though Saleen was not sure what made Eleanor change her mind, he was jubnt that he could learn this skill which was already extinct from Myers maind.


    The moment he started learning, Saleen realized that Eleanor was teaching him because of his left hand. God¡¯s left hand possessed the Power of Life, allowing one to achieve twice the effect by doing half the work. If a normal person were to learn it, they would have to consume a lot of time. They would aplish less than a normal elf.


    That meant that only Saleen, out of the few hundred mages and disciples in Metatrin City, could learn elvish magic. Eleanor was not worried about teaching others because other people would actually waste their lives if they learned it.


    Other than imparting skills to Saleen and Nailisi, Eleanor also started helping Saleen rearrange the temple. The building materials of the temple were rocks so they were cold. After Eleanor¡¯s new design, the interior of the temple hadrgely changed. A huge amount of wood had been used in the renovation of the temple¡¯s interior as well as the nts which were produced by elvish magic.


    These nts contained magical abilities, they could ascertain the identities of the people who entered the temple. They possessed offensive and defensive abilities. Theirrgest function was to purify the space and beautify the scenery.


    This was more uplifting aspared to the frosty magic patterns. Besides the mages, there was also a number of Caucasus warriors and Sregl Ind swordsmen in the temple. The environment was extremely important to these people.


    Originally, the square outside the temple was barren. Even though some towering trees from the prehistoric forest were preserved. The decoration simply consisted of a few designs which were left behind in ordance with the magic lines.


    Eleanor also stimted the growth of some nts and vines, greening the surroundings of the square. The living environment immediately became different. The moods of the patrolling soldiers were no longer tensed and their fatigue level dropped significantly.


    At the four corners of the temple Eleanor had nted four types of seeds. She then requested a huge quantity of magic nucleus shards from Saleen. After using the machines in theboratory to grind these shards into powder, she concocted a huge amount of magic medicine. This magic medicine had been fused with magic liquid. Watering the four seeds with this mixture, four gigantic ancient trees sprouted rapidly.


    These four ancient trees were one-hundred yards tall, their heights had exceeded that of the temple. The temple had six stories. With each story measuring twelve yards in height it was the tallest structure in the city. At the moment, the temple was surrounded by four ancient trees, as branches covered the top of the temple. Many more branches hung from the crowns, like banyans, surrounding the temple.


    Saleen stared at the ancient trees which could grow dozens of yards a day, a little bedazzled. He turned to ask Eleanor, ¡°Are these the legendary ancient war trees?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, your city is sturdy enough and the ancient war tree is not so significant. These are ancient elvish trees, they contains souls and can raise the vitality of all greenery in the city. As a result... it can help you monitor all the happenings within the city. It is only a matter of time before many agents are attracted to Metatrin, they are prepared for these people. Look...¡±


    Through the window, Eleanor pointed to the crowns of the ancient trees, then said, ¡°You can build a few treehouses there where mages can live in them. These treehouses will not be very different from a magical tower. The nts in the city are like the eyes of a mage, no one can escape detection by the ancient elvish trees.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°This is really good. A magical tower also has this function, but agents who infiltrate the city will surely be guarded against the surveince by magical towers. They will not pay attention to the nts which proliferate the city.¡±


    ¡°Is it like this in the elvish ne too?¡±


    ¡°No, only...only a person of my status can grow the ancient elvish trees. These four ancient trees will not produce seeds, their lifespan is forty-eight-thousand years. A human city will not live for so long. Even if I¡¯m dead, the ancient trees will still be around, so don¡¯t worry.¡± Eleanor could not help but look depressed.


    ¡°Eleanor, I will not think so far into the future! After doing so many things, does it mean you are nning to leave?¡± Saleen asked with concern.


    ¡°Of course not!¡± Eleanor smiled, and for the first time, she said joyously, ¡°I n to regard this as my home. If youunch a campaign, I might not tag along, but I don¡¯t n to leave Metatrin City anymore. I have to decorate it more nicely to make it morefortable for living. My room will be organized ording to an elf¡¯s habits, you mustn¡¯t let anyone enter.¡±


    ¡°Then you shall live on the fifth story, I will develop a space for you there. Only our own people can enter this level.¡± For some reason, after hearing Eleanor¡¯s words, Saleen felt very serene and warm. ¡°My city finally makes people feel safe, they are willing to live here.¡±


    ¡°Okay, you must make good of your promise.¡± Eleanor smiled, she felt as if a heavy load had been released from her heart, her breathing also became much smoother.


    ¡°Of course.¡± Saleen agreed. Outside, Nailisi was calling, ¡°Master, Sister Sika is here.¡±


    ¡°Got it, I wille right away,¡± Saleen answered awkwardly.


    Eleanor pouted andughed, then said, ¡°Go on, Sika is a gooddy.¡±


    Saleen got up and dusted his robe, then responded. Eleanor¡¯s words seemed as if an elderly person was talking to a youth. She was indeed an elderlypared to him as an elf¡¯s life was long. She was a royalty, even if she did not undergo training, she could still live much longer than a demon.

 Chapter 685: A Mage’s Love (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 685: A Mage¡¯s Love (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Saleen returned back to his bedroom, Sika was already waiting for him.


    The purpose of Sika looking for Saleen this time was regarding South City and not about having a child. South City was vacant and was patrolled by Caucasus warriors day and night to ensure there was no trespassing.


    South City would not stay vacant forever. As Metatrin City developed, South City would eventually be filled with people and this troubled Sika. Quite a number of Caucasus people had expressed their desires to stay and she feared that they might get into trouble with others in future and prevent Metatrin City from developing smoothly.


    After hearing Sika¡¯s concern, Saleenughed and said, ¡°In future, I will build many alchemybs and factories in South City so there will not be any merchants¡¯ mercenaries. You can rest assured about that.¡±


    ¡°Factories? Won¡¯t it be dirty and messy?¡± Sika was worried.


    ¡°Those factories will be built underground of East City. Don¡¯t worry, Sika. The residents that will be living with you and your people in South City will be mages or magic apprentices. Their subordinates will not dare to create trouble. There should be another nine magic towers in South City, Eleanor...¡±


    ¡°I like Eleanor¡¯s elf magic very much,¡± Sika knew what Saleen was thinking.


    ¡°Then that¡¯s good. Although elf magic may not be as powerful as element magic in terms of offensive prowess, it is very resilient and can be used in a variety of ways. Eleanor did not stop me from teaching these spells to others because they require natural strengths. I think you should be up to it?¡±


    ¡°If you want me to learn, I will give it a shot,¡± Sika replied with a smile. She was d that Saleen was not hiding anything from her.


    ¡°Elf magic does not require magic chords and is activated by natural strengths. Some of them can manipte elemental strength. Basically, it is something in between magic and sword aura,¡± Saleen exined to Sika. He used his own words to describe the gist of elf magic.


    Saleen suddenly stopped in the midst of his exnation and said, ¡°Sika, there is something wrong with your armor. Let me have a look.¡±


    Sika did not understand, but little did she know that in the midst of his exnation, Saleen had suddenly recalled the strange rule within the book that Isabe had handed to him. Although the rule was not rted to elf magic, there were some simrities. Saleen seemed to have gained a bit of understanding about it and wanted to test it out.


    Sika took out her armor and passed it to Saleen. Saleen cast water me and the temperature within the room dropped immediately. Saleen threw the armor into the water me and as expected, the armor disintegrated immediately. As the temperature dropped, the materials that made up the armor were all broken down.


    Saleen took out all the metals and discarded them. Then, he retrieved all the materials that he has studied before frome his devil ring and threw them into the water me one by one.


    Saleen managed to obtain the horns of all sorts of ancient magic beasts that have been gathered from the seabed from Nailisi. The horns of magic beasts were the strongest and most resilient body part, even surpassing their ws and teeth.


    Saleen slowly refined the magic runes on the horns one by one and refined thetter into thin sheets of leaves. Saleen then took out four types of branches from the divine tree and peeled off their tree bark. The tree bark of the divine tree could not be refined by me, but in Saleen¡¯s water me, their shapes began to change into fine fments. Under the control of Saleen¡¯s mental strength, these fments formed aplicated set of three-dimensional magic patterns.


    These three-dimensional magic patterns resembled those on Saleen¡¯s n badge.


    Three-hundred and sixty pieces of leaves were continually absorbing new magic beast horns in the water me. They became thinner and thinner until they were almost transparent.


    The long rope that was refined from the bark of the divine tree was also bing thinner until it became a strand of fment. Saleen used this fment to create a three-dimensional magic pattern. Saleen repeated this six times as he threw in bark from the divine tree andpressed magic beast horns that weighed more than ten-thousand pounds into transparent leaves.


    Saleen used the strands of fments made from the barks of the divine tree to sew into a set of clothes that was decorated with the transparent leaves. An armor was formed.


    Due to time constraint, Saleen did not infuse any spells or create any magic arrays on this unique set of armor. This was a set of armor that was made from materials of high quality without any magic. It was made from thin strands of fments and while the six major elements did not create any new powers, they were flowing with unusual harmony and bnce.


    This bnce was very simr to the rule on the cover of Isabe¡¯s book.


    This time around, Saleen took out all his dimension stones and aside from twenty-four pieces which he kept, he threw the rest into the water me. Sixteen dimension stones merged with the armor that Saleen had created. Combined together, they were refined into a belt.


    The water me was also absorbed into the belt along with the armor.


    After refining it for more than six hours, Saleen finally stopped and took a deep breath. Unfortunately, he was only a grade-6 mage. If he was a sorcerer, he would be able to infuse magic into this armor.


    It was not that big a deal since Sika only needed a suit of armor that possessed strong defense and could repel magic attacks. Although Saleen¡¯s grade was not high, the power of his water me had even surpassed his teacher. The entire armor looked like something the guards-of-honor in the pce would wear; grand-looking, but defenseless. In actual fact, the materials that made up this suit of armor could repel any magic attack.


    Although Sika did not possess elemental eyes, she could see that this suit of armor was something special. The magic beast horns were rare and high-grade magic materials. Each horn was as long as a finger and weighed tens of pounds. After beingpressed by Saleen¡¯s water me and refined into residue, they became even stronger. Although they were so thin to the point of being transparent, their defense abilities were stronger than a heavy shield or even the magic tower shield wielded by big puppets.


    Most importantly, Saleen had refined it with magic so the fabric was very soft and felt simr to a skirt. Sika was giggling to herself when Saleen suddenly copsed.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika caught Saleen in time and prevented him from hitting his head on the ground.


    ¡°Tired...¡± Saleen had wanted to say he was ¡®tired to death¡¯, but only managed to utter the first word before falling unconscious. The armor that he had refined for Sika this time was different from those in the past. The temperature of the water me was kept to the lowest and the focus of his mental strength was terrifyingly high. Not only did he create a three-dimensional magic patterns, he also ensured that the six major elements flowed in bnce between the gaps of the threads. This was something that not even sorcerers might be able to aplish.


    Saleen did it. His mental strength was at least on the same level as a grade-8 sorcerer, otherwise winged skeleton would not have been able to advance to grade-8 either.


    What Saleen gained from the book far exceeded his expectations. Just by observing the traces of energies on the cover, Saleen¡¯s mental strength improved and he even gained some power from the rule. This reduced the amount of mental strength expended and it could regenerate even as he was using water me.


    Although the speed of regeneration was slower than the expending of the mental strength, it was this ability that allowed Saleen to persist for six hours to finish refining the armor before finally copsing.


    Not even Saleen himself was aware that this meant that his mental strength would not be used up even if he used scrolls below grade-8. Only mages that were grade-10 and above couldprehend the method that operated mental strength in this way.


    Spells that were more powerful than grade-9 had a wide range and required a lot of mental strength. Without this technique, even grade-10 mages would not be able handle such an enormous loss.


    Sika was relieved to see that Saleen was only unconscious temporarily. She carried Saleen onto the bed before picking up the belt and gently putting it around her waist.


    Sika began to chant a long string of ancient sounds and more than three-hundred ck-colored runes appeared and fused into the belt. Instantly, patterns made up of ck-colored runes appeared on the transparent and jade-like belt. Saleen did not cast any spells on the belt. Instead, Sika used a Priestess¡¯ refining method to gain control of the belt.


    The armor that Saleen refined for Sika began to appear above and below the belt and quickly covered Sika¡¯s entire body. This type of magic equipment was something that Saleen picked up from Joey. No one else knew this method of refining. Although the powerful devils on the demon dimension also knew about this method, Joey was probably the only one on Myers Maind to use it.


    If not for the helmet that extended upwards from the neck or the intricate and transparent leaves, this armor would look like a dress instead.


    This equipment was beautiful and Sika loved it. There was a hole at the back of the helmet that allowed for long hair to be let down in little bundles. These bundles of hair passed through the cor and the hole and fell naturally onto the shoulders. The holes at the back of the helmet intersected each other and ensured that there was no gap for enemies to attack from.


    Such details made Sika feel extremely fortunate. Saleen knew that Sika was beautiful, hence the entire armor was created in such a way that fit her physique. One would only be able to do that if they knew the other personpletely.


    The suit did note with gloves or shoes, but that was because Saleen had already copsed. Once the wrists and ankles were fit with equipment simr to the belt, Sika would be fully protected from head to toe.


    This suit of armor was extremely rare on the elf dimension. The Goddess of Myers¡¯ divine trees did not exist in the elf dimension. Even if someone managed to refine a simr armor, it would not have the same level of resistance against magic.


    Those transparent leaves were even able to repel arrows from crossbows.


    Sika came to the bedside and caressed Saleen¡¯s cheek. Her heart was filled with love. There were so many ancient magic beast horns that they could be used to refine more than 1ten high-level magic armors, but Saleen used them all on her. If Saleen was just a frence mage then this would not be such a big deal. The fact was that Saleen had just built a kingdom and this was the time when he should be creating many high-level equipments for his own warriors.


    This had nothing to do with money. Sika could feel her importance in Saleen¡¯s heart. Sika recalled what Saleen told her back when she was severely injured. He had said, ¡°I am not your Priest. Next time... don¡¯t give up your life for me.¡±

 Chapter 686: A Mage’s Love (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 686: A Mage¡¯s Love (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen woke up after less than one percent of his mental strength had recovered. Sika was sitting by his side, hugging her knees and looking at him.


    ¡°Sika, do you like it?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°We are going to have a child so I must ensure your safety from now on,¡± Saleen blinked his eyes and held onto Sika¡¯s hands.


    ¡°What if you still want to have children with other people?¡±


    ¡°Other people? Who?¡± Saleen was confused.


    ¡°Humph, don¡¯t you realize there are a lot of women around you?¡± Sika pretended to be upset, but did not release Saleen¡¯s hands.


    ¡°Indeed, but all of them are not to be trifled with,¡± Saleen smiled and pulled Sika down to lie beside him.


    ¡°I want to change my mind,¡± Sika gentlyy down beside Saleen.


    ¡°Change your mind?¡±


    ¡°I suddenly no longer want you to marry other women,¡± Sika said.


    ¡°Then I shall not,¡± Saleen replied nonchntly.


    ¡°But you can¡¯t not. I cannot bear to see a woman like Lex married off to someone else. Humph, if she bes your wife, won¡¯t she lose to me?¡± Sika asked.


    Saleen was speechless. What Sika said made sense. Saleen loved Sika the most and marrying Lex would not change that. What else was he thinking for? Was there any hope between Lex and Saleen? Sika was still the best to him.


    Sika turned onto her side facing Saleen and said, ¡°Saleen, let me tell you, it is not impossible for me to be the Nature Priestess at my age and I will lose that right if I get married. If I be the Nature Priestess, I will be able to live as long as you. Only then can I apany you for the rest of your life. If I marry you, I will die a hundred yearster and you will still have to look for other women. Why don¡¯t you let me live longer? In that case, I can still stop you from marrying anyone unsuitable.¡±


    Although Saleen has long heard a little about the Nature Priestess, when he heard all this directly from Sika, he was still very excited and said, ¡°Sika, are you saying that you can live up to twelve-hundred years old?¡±


    ¡°No, Natural Priestess¡¯ can live longer than that. That¡¯s why you must work hard in your training and break through the grade-9 barrier. I will be very lonely after you die otherwise.¡±


    ¡°I will!¡± Saleen was agitated. ¡°Sika, I will go and train now...¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the hurry? Lie with me.¡±


    Saleen smiled awkwardly. His emotions had not been too stabletely. It could be due to the fact that he was already at the peak of grade-6 magic and was about to achieve a breakthrough. His emotions were affected this time around because advancing into a sorcerer would implicate the soul.


    Saleen really did not do anything else on this day other than apany and chat with Sika. When night came, Sika continued to stay in Saleen¡¯s room and this time around, Nailisi knew better than to disturb them. She was feeling a little giddy herself. After absorbing the powers of the Death Kings, she had not had time to fully digest them. By waking up prematurely, she was now unable to focus.


    Nailisi had no other choice but to find time to sleep more so that she could digest the Death Kings¡¯ powers.


    Without Nailisi¡¯s interruption, Saleen and Sika finally had their own private space to do whatever they wished. There had never been any doubt about Sika¡¯s physique. As for Saleen, after he sensed the bnce of energies and the endless rule, his physique also improved tremendously without his knowing. The two of them made love to each other until dawn.


    There were many people in the temple that did not sleep and the most excited of them all was Isabe. She and the Sregl Ind mages lived on the first story. Since she had be Saleen¡¯s follower, she was allowed to use all the equipment and tools in the alchemyb.


    Isabe was Saleen¡¯s follower, but her position was not low. As the master of this city, Saleen had enough wealth to support his followers. Isabe was given two magic apprentices to serve her and four spirits of the dead to help her with dangerous experiments.


    The two magic apprentices were very respectful to her. After casually asking about her privileges, it was then that Isabe realized that not only could she collect gold coins, she could also have a middle-grade magic nuclei for free every day. A middle-grade magic nuclei could allow a mage to train for an entire day.


    Not only that, theb was opened to all of Saleen¡¯s followers. There were all sorts of magic materials in there. If there was something that Isabe needed that could not be found in the store room, she would only have to inform Saleen and he would think of a way.


    There was no limit to the amount of resources used up during magic experiments, but one must record magic notes to indicate the reason why the resources were used and why the experiment failed.


    The thickness of elements within the temple did not lose out to any magic towers. Isabe felt peaceful knowing that she was in such a good training environment.


    After preparing a magic experiment on the alchemy tform, Isabe took a book consisting of magic notes from the bookshelf and began to read it. When she reached the third page, Isabe was a little taken aback. This set of magic notes was copied from the original so there were no secret markings or tricks left behind by the original author. The content was definitely authentic!


    Isabe was a genius in magic and her foundations were solid. Her teacher was only a grade-6 mage that did not advance into a sorcerer and passed away from old age when Isabe was twelve years old. Nevertheless, Isabe managed to advance to grade-6 when she was over twenty years old and even managed to train sword aura at the same time. Her understanding of magic was equivalent to or better than the mages from Alchemy City.


    After seeing the duplicates of these magic notes, Isabe could not help but hum with admiration. These beginner-level notes were clearly written by sorcerers that were recording the details and theories of some low-level spells and many other magic experiments of all sorts.


    It was as if a sorcerer was guiding you and the content was knowledge that only the sorcerer would know and was best at. Although Isabe was once a grade-6 mage, she was still captured by the contents.


    In the eyes of sorcerers, there were many things worth studying about low-level spells. Isabe¡¯s teacher was not a powerful mage and did not even advance into a sorcerer. These magic notes were extremely valuable to Isabe.


    It was past midnight and Isabe had already read through the notes a few times before realizing that the two magic apprentices were still serving her.


    She was a little embarrassed and said, ¡°Both of you can go and rest. I may be up until dawn.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, it is okay. We are getting paid to keep youpany. There are manybs on this level. The grand mages are full of mental strength and many of them conduct magic experiments for a few days consecutively without resting. As magic apprentices, we can earn more even while we serve. At the same time, not only will we receive guidance, we can also use this equipment while you are around.¡±


    ¡°It sounds like...,¡± Isabe stopped suddenly. She found the two magic apprentices¡¯ ents strange. They did not sound like Qins nor Tanggsis. It suddenly urred to her that it might not be appropriate of her to find out the backgrounds of Saleen¡¯s subordinates.


    The other apprentice smiled and said, ¡°My Lord, you can ask us whatever you want. We treat Mr. Saleen¡¯s followers as our own people.¡±


    This apprentice was very sharp to have noticed Isabe¡¯s hesitation. He was from Sregl Ind and while he concealed his identity from outsiders, Saleen had told them before that there was no need to do so for his followers. Once followers signed their bonds, their futures would be intertwined with Saleen¡¯s, so there was no possibility of betrayal.


    This was also why wealthy mages would often find it easy to recruit many followers.


    ¡°Anything I want?¡± Isabe came from Tanggsi and mages were not treated particrly well there. All her followers were swordsmen because she could not afford to support a mage. That grade-7 scroll was left behind by her teacher. She would only use it to scare people off and could not bear to use it.


    ¡°Of course. We don¡¯t have to keep any secrets from those that Mr Saleen has given permission to live in the temple,¡± the magic apprentice answered honestly. This was what Saleen personally told them too.


    Isabe could not curb her curiosity and said, ¡°So where are you from?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, we are from Alchemy City,¡± the two apprentices looked at each other and smiled. Although their statuses were low, they believed that following Saleen would give them a future where they would not need to bow to everyone. They respected Isabe because they could tell that she was talented in magic. Such respect was a sign of acknowledgement.


    ¡°Is the Lord also from Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°For this, perhaps it is better if you ask him. It is not a secret, but it is just that we don¡¯t know much. We only know that he was born in Sikeqinya, then he met Teacher Jason before starting his mage journey.¡±


    ¡°In that case... do you need any guidance from me?¡± Isabe did not ask further. Instead, she was keen to interact with the two apprentices to familiarize herself with the things around Saleen.


    ¡°As long as it doesn¡¯t hinder your training, we are always happy to learn.¡± The two apprentices were naturally keen to hear from a grand mage, but they also knew that they were not allowed to harass mages and this was also the case in Alchemy City. Mages would only guide apprentices when they had time and were in good moods. Right now, the apprentices were still in the phase of reading up and trying to understand the basics of magic.


    Isabe smiled and thought that the people around Saleen followed the rules very closely. Nevertheless, she was in a good mood so she casually taught the two apprentices some of the most important aspects of the basics.


    After that, Isabe pointed to a smaller alchemy tform by the side and said, ¡°Both of you need not serve me anymore. Go and practice for a while. I will read up for a while more.¡±


    The two apprentices did not refuse this time. In order to use the alchemybs, they would need permission from mages. They would not have the opportunity to use thebs if Isabe had tasks for them to do.


    Isabe was extremely smart. After conversing for a short while, she knew exactly what the two apprentices wanted to learn. She would take her time to build up rtionships.


    The two apprentices wasted no time and left to get busy. Isabe took a second copy of notes from the shelf and began to read. She was so engrossed in the magic notes that she lost track of time and it was soon dawn. Right then, she was only focussed on following Saleen. Even though Saleen was only a normal human, it must be the dream of many mages to follow him too.


    There were many magic notes and such wonderful training environment and support. All these were things that a mage without a teacher would yearn for. Although Isabe did study under a teacher for a while, she would have to depend on herself from grade-7 onward.


    She still remembered Saleen¡¯s promise to help her be a grade-9 sorcerer within ten years. Based on the facilities and design of the temple, what he said might not be an empty promise after all. Maybe Saleen really possessed such an amazing ability.

 Chapter 687: Duke Barde (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 687: Duke Barde (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    That night, Eleanor did not sleep. She was not doing anything, she simplyid on the bed, gazing at the magic patterns on the ceiling in a daze. She never expected to impart elvish magic to Saleen and make so many drawings for him. These were secrets which were not allowed to circte outside the elvish ne.


    ¡°Of course I am not in love with Saleen, but Saleen¡¯s care for me has caused me not to miss home and I don¡¯t want to return to the elvish ne anymore. It¡¯s good staying with Saleen. Long ago the marquis had fallen for my beauty, while I was convinced by his novel ideas, that¡¯s why I got married to him.¡± With Saleen, Eleanor had never revealed her original looks. Saleen¡¯s concern for her was very meticulous, he never mentioned the topics which hurt her.


    As an elf who had lived for a few hundred years, she was more mature than Saleen, so Saleen¡¯s actions could not deceive her.


    On the surface, Saleen was very calctive with her and demanded that everything be conducted in a fair exchange. In reality, he just did not want Eleanor to feel pitiful.


    ¡°Even though I have made so many contributions, I still cannot return to the elvish ne. Even Father will not spare me. Not only did I marry a human, I have also spilled secrets to another human.The four ancient elvish trees have been nted. From now on, Metatrin City will be my home. If the marquis returns alive, what should I do? I have already been disappointed by that man and I have a reason not to follow him anymore. Those other women of his had killed their own children. This is sufficient already, I don¡¯t owe him anything.¡±


    At this point in time, Eleanor seemed to have heaved a sigh of relief. All this while, she was thinking of one problem, ¡°If the marquis is not dead and he appeared before me suddenly, he will surely kill Saleen. The marquis will never allow another man to lead his woman, even if there were no romantic feelings between them. If such a day reallyes, then I will be totally free. Even though the marquis is powerful, he cannot resist Saleen¡¯s badge. I will never be worried anymore and I don¡¯t have to leave...¡±


    Metatrin City¡¯s construction continued. This time around, the construction was in the details, the foundation work had beenpleted. The main structures and roads were fully developed, even the underground drainage system and sewage treatment factory were wless. What this city needed was humans forces which were alive.


    Ships from the south upied the harbor daily, they deliveredrge amounts of grain and seeds, then they would take awayrge quantities of magic nuclei, magic materials, and ores.


    There were also additional small towns north of Metatrin City. Whenever ores from the north were transported over the teams delivering them would require resupply along the way. ording to Eleanor¡¯s design, Saleen had constructed sturdy castles at the danger areas along the river. The white rocks which he extracted were also sent over continuously.


    Saleen wanted to transform the area near Metatrin into one which could not be breached. This region was two-hundred miles wide and twelve-hundred miles in length. Beyond twelve-hundred miles there were colossal mines. Agriculture could not take ce there.


    Eleanor¡¯s equipment was crafted in batches. Saleen¡¯s ten main camps did not recruit people, but they chose victors from the arena to fill in the vacancies. During this period, Saleen had allowed the mages to create countless level-1 nk scrolls for signing contracts.


    Saleen wanted the elites in his own army to sign a contract with Metatrin City. Of course, before signing a contract, a soldier¡¯s loyalty had to be tested.


    Lex had sent a letter telling Saleen that all the swordsmen in the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp would have to sign a contract. There were no exceptions even if their families had been working in the pce for generations.


    Lex had even delivered a sample contract to Saleen. In this contract, other than demanding that a soldier maintain their loyalty, there were also many other reciprocal obligations that targeted the writer of the contract.


    During wartime a soldier might have to sacrifice their lives. It was necessary to take care of their families. There were also some humanized uses inside. If it was necessary to assemble a death squad the members of the death squad would have to have descendants.


    Lex had told Saleen the experience gathered by the Grukos family while managing the imperial swordsmen. At that point in time, Saleen then realized that taking care of a powerful and loyal army really required an astronomical sum of money. If Saleen did not possess so many magic beast materials he could never afford the scrolls.


    A one-hundred-thousand man army meant that there would be one-hundred-thousand level-1 scrolls. Fortunately, the writing of this scroll would not fail and the materials required were not that superior either. There was a horrifying number of sea magic beasts and most of them did not possess a magic nucleus. The skins of these magic beasts could be used for scrolls, it was also very easy to refine them.


    With the ocean acting as his reserves Saleen did not need to worry about these low level materials.


    In the blink of an eye it was already August and the winged skeleton had returned with the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. This time around less loot was brought back. Without any experts tagging along he could only target magic beasts of a lower grade.


    Luckily, there was arge number of red krill caught, Saleen could collect another three hundred over thousand level-4 magic nuclei. He had promised to give one-hundred and sixty-thousand magic nuclei to the nobles. These magic nuclei would be distributed at a maximum price of one-hundred gold coins. Another forty-thousand magic nuclei would remain in Saleen¡¯s possession for price regtion.


    As for the extra over one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei, Saleen decided to store them in the warehouse.


    Saleen gave the spirit pool he had obtained to the winged skeleton. He asked the winged skeleton not to sail, but to refine the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat first. At this moment, Nailisi had also woken up. She could not help but sleep for around half a month before she finally absorbed the ability of the spirit kings. The fifth ability, belonging to a Luoluokaluo, was thus born; King of Spirits.


    This skill enabled Nailisi to learn any death spell below grade-9 and she could transform into a spirit and cause a suppressive pressure against all spirits below grade-9. Nailisi could also summon spirits.


    There was good news from the borders too. A second army from Holy Rock City had arrived at Lon, executing a two-pronged attack from the north and south with another main army. Both armies attacked at the same time. The army at the northern face had used war puppets to destroy dozens of cities in one go, causing the Holy See¡¯s army to retreat one-thousand miles.


    The main army at the southern face had advanced eight-hundred miles, causing the entire situation to change.


    A letter was sent saying that the strong offensive by these two armies caused the Holy See¡¯s army surrounding her to retreat, and go to reinforce the army at Lon.


    Saleen was a little surprised that the Red Tiger Mercenary Group was not willing to defect to him, but he immediately understood why. Even though the Red Tiger Mercenary Group had lost two grade-9 sorcerers, the two Silver Grand Swordmasters were too egoistic. They could not stomach that incident. It was rumored that there were still some grade-8 mages in the mercenary group. The leader of the Red Tiger Mercenary Group had suffered a huge loss in power, he thus bore hatred towards Saleen.


    Saleen was not anxious either as he still needed some time to seize Laiyin Duchy. ¡°The Holy See had been defeated in Lon. It will surely try to reverse the oue. Laiyin Duchy will be a good target for the Holy See. If this Red Tiger Mercenary Groups defects to the Holy See, then I will have a reason to deploy my troops already.¡±


    In mid-August, the envoy group from the Holy Rock City arrived. The leader of this envoy group was one of the twelve great dukes from Holy Rock City; Duke Barde. News of this circted within Metatrin City, rousing the civilians.


    Even though Saleen had established his dominance in their hearts, everyone still needed Holy Rock City¡¯s acknowledgement. No one wanted to wage war with a colossal empire right after establishing a kingdom.


    The nobles had the same sentiments too, they could only expand their territory after strengthening their abilities.


    The fact that Holy Rock City sent Barde meant that even Prince Safilos had acknowledged the presence of Metatrin City. Barde was from the House of Commons, the nobles still understood such political connotations.


    In order to host the envoy group from Holy Rock City, Saleen had built a miniature castle north of the city, using it as the ce for governance. He would not allow the people from Holy Rock City to enter the temple because there were powerful mages in the envoy group. Saleen did not want others to know anything. Not only was there a colossal warehouse beneath the temple, Saleen had also developed a space for making a nar teleportation portal. This portal was the most important thing to Saleen, no mistakes were allowed.


    Saleen sent two people out of the city to receive the envoy group, one was J while the other was Irene. These two people brought along people from the pce¡¯s swordsmen camp and lead the envoy group all the way to western town.


    Even though Barde had epted the orders from the emperor, he still looked down on Metatrin City. When they passed by the broken-edged barrier, the ruins were still being cleaned up, while the city walls were being rebuilt. Along the way the destroyed small towns had not been fully reconstructed and Barde had noticed arge amount of debris. He had also brought along a grade-8 sorcerer this time around. In his heart he felt very proud.


    The nobles in the House of Commons kept saying that those in the House of Lords were hypocritical. The nobles in the House of Lords also felt that the nobles in the House of Commons were shallow. This was not without rhyme nor reason. Had a duke from the House of Lordse he would not behave so arrogantly. He would have treated Irene with utmost respect.


    When Irene noticed Barde¡¯s expression, she finally understood why Saleen had told her not to get angry before she set off. Barde turned his nose up at Irene revealing an ungroomed strand of nose hair.


    What Barde did not expect was that sorcerer Tiffany, who was behind him, was looking at him disdainfully.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t Saleene out to receive me?!¡± Barde hollered at Irene in displeasure.


    Irene fumed secretly, then J tugged at her sleeves and whispered into her ear. Irene immediately smiled, then urged her horse to trot forward. Unexpectedly, she talked to someone behind Barde, ¡°Master, my king didn¡¯t know that an expert like yourself woulde, so he didn¡¯te out to wee you. Please ept my apology.¡±


    After finishing her sentence Irene then bowed slightly at Barde and she did not even disembark from her horse. This formality was too simple.


    Tiffany shook her head, but did not say anything. She knew that Saleen was a grand mage. Even though she did not give a hoot about Saleen, it was also uneptable for a grand mage to receive a noble. This grand mage had established a country. Barde had been living in the Holy Rock City for too long causing his brain to malfunction.

 Chapter 688: Duke Barde (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 688: Duke Barde (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A young female mage behind Tiffany coughed, then burst out inughter. This female mage was d in a white robe and was on horseback, she seemed to be Tiffany¡¯s student. Tiffany did not react to her impoliteughter or admonish her.


    ¡°Saleen didn¡¯t do anything wrong,¡± Tiffany replied frostily, causing Irene to feel smug.


    If Irene was not following Saleen she could not have possibly behaved so frivolously in front of Barde. The statuses of both people were too far apart. A duke from Holy Rock City¡¯s House of Commons was thousands of times mightier than a woman from an earl¡¯s family who had no inheritance rights. At the moment she was also a duke, although she was one who did not own anynds and had less than one-thousand soldiers.


    Hearing Tiffany¡¯s words, Barde was abruptly startled, ¡°Saleen is a grand mage, if hees out to receive me, the sorcerer behind me would be offended!¡±


    Irene¡¯s attitude made him outraged. His stomach burned with anger. This emotion caused Barde¡¯s face to turn scarlet, but he cooled down immediately.


    ¡°Please follow me,¡± Irene said gently, then took the reins and turned her horse around, leaving the people behind her. Barde had to keep up; if he turned around and returned to Holy Rock City Safilos would have a reason to punish him.


    Fortunately, he was not an imbecile. Barde suppressed his rage in an instant, then gestured and led the envoy group to follow Irene¡¯s receiving party.


    The receiving party felt awkward too. Originally, Saleen had prepared a ceremony where a band would apany the guests. Now that both parties had experienced a minor conflict the ceremony was canceled.


    Barde¡¯s team consisted of three-thousand soldiers. The escort army from Guderian City had left. Including the envoy group, Barde¡¯s team consisted of four-thousand people.


    This was a very rare instance. During peacetime, an envoy group with five-hundred people was considered huge. Since Phoenix was not stable Holy Rock City had to act cautiously. Along the way, quite a number of bandits had staged ambushes. If there were only five-hundred men the sorcerer would be extremely busy.


    The team led by Irene was an entire emblem group, there were one-thousand people. Six-hundred of them were from the ceremonial team, they were there to fill in the numbers only. These people were not very powerful, but every ceremonial soldier was muscr and imposing. The cultivation of swordsmanship was not even considered. As long as one was handsome and fierce-looking, they would be recruited.


    The remaining four-hundred people were from the pce¡¯s swordsmen camp. This team was newly created by Saleen, they were basically Caucasus people. Each of them was ferocious and valiant. Barde was paying attention to the soldiers from the pce¡¯s swordsmen camp as he was an intermediate grade swordmaster. At one look, his impression of Metatrin¡¯s soldiers had changed slightly.


    These four-hundred people were the cream of the crop, they wieldednces and rode on magic wolves. Thences used by the Caucasus people were not their main weapon, thences would be tossed at the enemy. No matter the distance, a javelin¡¯s lethality could not rival that of an alchemical crossbow. For group assaults, this weapon which was somewhere between a javelin and ance was the most ideal tool.


    A spear-type weapon would always break armor more easily than a de. A farmer soldier could even use ance to pierce a warrior¡¯s heavy armor. If a de was used it might not even create a fatal wound in leather armor.


    Saleen had specially fitted these Caucasus people with an assortment of weapons for them to receive the guests. They were not dressed ording to the specifications of an army which engaged in field battles. Each one of them was d in extravagant armor.


    Barde was not fooled. After calming down, he realized that this four-hundred man team was not so simple. Barde was puzzled, ¡°If Saleen wants to conceal his capabilities, he wouldn¡¯t need to deploy such ferocious troops. If he wants to show off, he should have given them better armor.¡±


    His thoughts ran wild, which was exactly what Saleen wanted him to do. Barde had concentrated all his thoughts on Saleen¡¯s army, he could not think of other matters.


    Saleen¡¯s best asset was actually his navy. A dragon skeleton warship already prevented Alchemy City¡¯s warships from circumventing the marine defenses along the demonic city. The skeletal warships and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat were Saleen¡¯s strongest naval forces. Saleen had invested substantial resources in the sea. The winged skeleton was managing it by himself, so the cost was not reflected in the financial expenditure of Metatrin City.


    Each time the winged skeleton sailed he would have to set aside a portion of resources. These resources would be given to the navy. Currently, Saleen had more than twenty warships. They were all controlled by the spirits and the winged skeleton was the only one supporting the operations. The daily consumption of magic nuclei was arge figure, so Saleen did not bother asking the winged skeleton about the specific amount of resources which was set aside.


    In the future, if Saleen wanted to wage war with the Qin Empire, he would have to start from Lianyun City. He could not pass through Phoenix and attack Guderian City. Even though Guderian City was inferior to Metatrin City, it was a barely surmountable barrier. Saleen could clearly remember the majestic metal city gate tower in Guderian City that caused him to dismiss the notion of attacking viand means.


    If Lex could not control Qin in the future, then Saleen and Qin would surely have a war.


    Paralyzing the enemy would have to start from this moment onwards.


    To Saleen, the best oue was for Lex to control the Qin Empire and allow the goddess¡¯ religion to be circted. Saleen then would use Qin as a foundation to invade the entire maind. If Lex could not control Qin, then Saleen would have to conduct a two-pronged assault with Lex.


    Barde¡¯s envoy group followed Irene¡¯s team, going around western town before advancing towards Metatrin City. When the envoy group passed by the southern face of western town, Barde was totally astounded and so was the sorcerer called Tiffany.


    Standing erected at the eastern face of western town was a ten-story magical tower!


    Barde¡¯s mind was in a whirlwind, ¡°A ten story magical tower is a provocation to the gods.¡± Even though most mages harbored such thoughts, the tallest magical tower in Qin would forever be nine stories because of a maind agreement which was inked one-thousand years ago. Even Alchemy City was not spared. ¡°Metatrin City has established a ten story magical tower, no wonder the Holy See had sent an expeditionary army on its own to conquer this tiny kingdom.¡±


    Irene could not be regarded as frivolous, the fact that she had the boldness to leave her family already proved her mettle, but Barde¡¯s reaction made her very smug.


    The four dukes had already been bound to Metatrin Kingdom. The greater Saleen¡¯s aplishments were, the higher the dukes¡¯ starting point would be. Irene had harbored some feelings toward Saleen. It was a pity, the women beside Saleen were very outstanding, but he had never made a move on them. Irene knew that Saleen was a person who would not be tempted by beauty.


    ¡°Luckily I got out of it early, it is pretty good being a founding duke.¡±


    Four-hundred pce¡¯s swordsmen rode on magic wolves as they split up into smaller teams and paved the way. Even though Saleen had developed this ce, both sides of the road were still covered in forests, so magic beasts appeared frequently. Therge magic beasts had retreated to the mountains, but there were many small magic beasts around. A magic beast would more or less possess some intelligence. When they noticed arge group of humans traveling, they rarely attacked. There were fools among humans and simrly there were some magic beasts who did not know what was good for them though.


    The journey still had another fifty miles to go, the convoy had to travel for at least two more hours. In these two hours, the team was attacked at least ten times. The species that attacked was the same every time, they were the grade-1 Raging Wild Boars.


    It was effortless for a Caucasus warrior to kill these grade-1 wild boars. The magic wolves would release the terror of a magic beast, paralyzing the wild boar using the difference in grades. The warrior would then stab it with thence, killing itpletely. A grade-1 magic beast could still be of value. The Caucasus warriors sliced off the wild boars¡¯ head, extracting the magic nuclei and then storing them into leather pouches. The convoy¡¯s travel speed was not even affected.


    While Barde was still in shock over the ten-story magical tower, Tiffany had turned to the female mage beside her and began whispering.


    ¡°Stephanie, Saleen is a little scary.¡±


    The white-robed female mageughed, then said, ¡°If he didn¡¯t have a trick or two, he couldn¡¯t have exterminated the Holy See¡¯s army.¡±


    ¡°Could a grade-9 mage be living inside the ten-story magical tower?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know? Metatrin City poached two grade-9 mages from Laiyin Duchy, the Red Tiger Mercenary Group can no longer wield thebel of a grade-9 mercenary group anymore.¡± The attitude in which Stephanie, the white-robed mage, treated the sorcerer called Tiffany was not respectful at all. Both of them were interacting on an equal standing.


    ¡°I know, but I didn¡¯t dare believe it, why would a grade-9 mage work for a mere grade-5 mage?¡± Tiffany¡¯s news was not updated, she did not know that Saleen was already a grade-6 mage.


    ¡°Tiffany, you never had to worry about money. You wouldn¡¯t understand the hardship of an impoverished mage. These two grade-9 mages are egoistic and they cannot rob others. Since Saleen was offering a handsome price, they will surelyply. Didn¡¯t you see? Saleen built a ten story magical tower for these two fellows. If Holy Rock City was in Saleen¡¯s shoes, do you think it will be willing to do so?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid not.¡± Tiffany shook her head and answered. Even though Holy Rock City had gone to war with the Tanggsi Empire, Holy Rock City would not dare do something to go against that agreement. It would not be able tomunicate with Cloudflow and Sikeqinya otherwise, it would be really unwise to make two more unnecessary foes.


    ¡°Even the two of us aren¡¯t satisfied with the agreement made one-thousand years ago, Saleen will surely attract a number of Qin mages to him. He is smart, it is no big deal offending the Holy See for him. The Qin Empire will back him up anyway. He is seizing this opportunity to make progress.¡± Stephanie spoke calmly as her white magic robe danced in the wind like a blooming lotus.


    Barde did not overhear the mages¡¯ conversation. Even though he was a duke, he would not try to provoke a grade-8 sorcerer. He rode on a warhorse next to Irene. In the unwavering Qin, this was very normal. If it happened in Cloudflow, all that bureaucracy would have exhausted someone who was not familiar with the rules.


    ¡°Your Highness Irene, I was too rude before.¡± Barde apologized out of the blue. Irene turned sideways, looked at Barde and smiled. Her smile was very charming, but it was unintentional.


    ¡°Your Highness...¡±


    ¡°Duke, just call me Irene. You are a first ss duke, while I am a third ss duke, the difference is too big.¡± Seeing that Barde had softened his stance, Irene did not want to bother about the past awkwardness. Saleen¡¯s order was to prevent Barde¡¯s bluster from bothering Irene.

 Chapter 689: A Gift from Holy Rock City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 689: A Gift from Holy Rock City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Duke Bard followed the cue, smiled, and said, ¡°Irene, does Your Highness, Saleen, have the intention of joining Holy Rock City in attacking the Tanggsi Empire?¡±


    ¡°Duke, you will have to discuss this with my King yourself. The only way to get to Tanggsi from Metatrin is through Lun.¡±


    Although Irene did not hold a rank of nobility in the past, she was still a member of a noble family. With regards to such probing questions, she knew that the right thing to do was to not give an outright answer. If she had given the wrong answer, Saleen would be unhappy.


    ¡°You can pass through Laiyin Duchy as well,¡± Duke Bard said with a smile. His expression was a friendly one and it was as if his dispute with Irene just now never happened.


    ¡°Provided Sikeqinya is agreeable, otherwise wouldn¡¯t we be giving Holy Rock City trouble?¡± Irene replied calmly.


    Bard did not manage to obtain any information. He thought to himself, ¡°This Saleen gave the title of ¡®Duke¡¯ to four people just as he was still building up his Kingdom. Although it sounds ridiculous, it was actually a good way to tie the noble families to his side. This Irene is already a Duke at such a young age, there is no way others will be able to tempt her away from Saleen.¡±


    Holy Rock City could not possibly give her the privileges of a Duke. Since it was not possible, there was no loophole in what Saleen did. Before he left, Prince Safilos had tasked Bard with observing how the internal affairs of Metatrin were run. At the moment, he could see no weaknesses. Of the four Dukes, thisdy from the Williams family should be the easiest to be bought over.


    Bard reached Metatrin City with a conflicted feeling. The city walls of Metatrin City were so grand that Bard felt giddy looking at them. This time around, even the sorcerers, Tiffany and Stephanie, were impressed. Holy Rock City did not send any spies and only obtained information from some merchants. Without the support of magic projection, no one knew how majestic Metatrin City looked.


    By right, sorcerers from Holy Rock City should not be thinking this way. The snow-white city walls of Metatrin City looked so wless, it was as if they were cut out using magic. Even though a battle had just taken ce not long ago, it was already thoroughly cleaned up with magic. Dante¡¯s Sequence extended through several miles. Any mage that came before the city wall would not be able to help but feel awed.


    ¡°This must be worth quite a fortune!¡± Tiffany was impressed.


    This time, Stephanie did not say much. Dante¡¯s Sequence surpassed the Figaro Magic Form so a lot of materials must have been used to build up this city wall.


    The city gates opened and magic gun salutes sounded. Even the low-ranking officers in the group of envoys had to give Metatrin some respect. They were originally chatting away by themselves, but the moment they saw Metatrin City, they naturally shut up.


    This city had the looks of the capital of a Kingdom. It was even fit to be the royal capital of an Empire.


    Saleen still did note forth to extend his wee. Instead, it was Daniel who received them in the city. As someone who was in charge of the daily political duties of the city and as a grade-6 death mage, it was still befitting of his status to receive an Empire¡¯s Duke.


    Daniel¡¯s wee was another blow to Bard. When Saleen reorganized his forces, he specially ensured that there would be an army of spirits of the dead. Even though Daniel was in charge of the daily political duties, he was also the leader of this army of spirits of the dead.


    Therefore, when Daniel came forth to extend his wee, he was riding on the gigantic pikoosi and hundreds of spirits of the dead soldiers followed behind. These soldiers were not skeletons, instead they were zombies of a higher level. These zombies wore armor and did not smell at all. They had all been cleansed with death magic and the soul mes in their eyes were purple in color.


    Daniel was all smiles as Tiffany came closer to Bard. Daniel was courteous and performed a mage¡¯s greeting to Grand Sorcerer Tiffany first before saying to Bard, ¡°Your Grace, wee to Metatrin City!¡±


    Although he sounded courteous and respectful, Daniel did not dismount from the pikoosi. He instead stood on the pikoosi¡¯s forehead and it was as if he was looking down on them.


    Bard did not dare to approach so he could only reciprocate the greeting as he was afraid that Daniel would get closer. If Daniel got too close, Bard¡¯s warhorse would not be able to take it. Their mount¡¯s difference in grades was too great. Bard¡¯s warhorse was probably only a grade-2 magic beast.


    The pikoosi¡¯s three enormous heads swung to the left and right. When they saw the two mages behind Bard, they stopped dead in their tracks.


    ¡°My Lord invites everyone to the pce straightaway,¡± Daniel noticed the grade-8 sorcerers in the party as well and was in awe. He spoke with more respect now.


    By right, the three-thousand soldiers that had escorted the group of envoys should stay in western town. Saleen did not give such amand so everyone was led to Metatrin City. Under Daniel¡¯smand, his own officers took over the escorting of Bard and the group of envoys so that the soldiers could be led to the campsites in the city.


    The streets were extremely wide and Saleen had arranged for crowds to gather on both sides. The low-ranking officials in the group took out some coins and threw them to the sides. The people that made up the crowd were mainly soldiers that were on leave so only a few kids bothered to pick up the coins.


    Irene was assured. From the beginning, Saleen¡¯s soldiers were trained in discipline instead ofbat skills. Without their officer¡¯s order, none of the soldiers picked up the coins. The coins thrown out were all bronze coins so they were not that attractive anyway.


    No one seemmed to care much, practically no one in Metatrin City was free now since everyone was busy at work. Saleen had no choice but to use the soldiers that were on leave. He left those that were busy at training alone.


    Bard felt bothered. It was clear to him that themoners on both sides of the street did note forth voluntarily. The people of Metatrin City must be a bunch that had yet to see the real world.


    If they were a bunch of people that had yet to see the real world, they should be in a rush to witness this sight instead!


    The pce was built in the north of the city and was smaller than half of the temple. The walls were not tall and the gardens were modest in size, but its front door was unusually majestic.


    Tiffany only needed a nce to know that the front door of the pce was one yard shorter than that of the pce of Holy Rock City. This was definitely not unintentional. A mage¡¯s eyes could easily detect a difference as small as a strand of hair.


    The guards in the group were led to a nearby space to set up camp. It was forbidden for soldiers that were fully armed to enter the pce. Aside from Duke Bard and the two mages, the entire group of envoys were now left with about one-hundred people.


    Daniel dismounted from the pikoosi and patted one of its heads signaling it to leave. Tiffany observed this and gained a deeper understanding of the people around Saleen.


    All of them were extraordinary. This gigantic spirit of the dead could roam around the city freely and did not need to be controlled by a mage. This must be a high-level spirit of the dead with intelligence. On top of that, the people in the city would not panic because of this spirit of the dead. That meant that they were all already used to how Saleen¡¯s subordinates and noble families went about doing things. No one would be surprised to see this huge spirit of the dead roaming around the city on its own.


    Looks like his Majesty¡¯s judgment was urate. Saleen¡¯s foundation was solid and had a lot of support behind him.


    There were actually slight errors in Tiffany¡¯s deduction. It was purely by ident that Saleen gained such a capable assistant like Daniel and thetter¡¯s spirit of the dead also came to him by ident. The people of Metatrin City had just survived a terrifying battle in which the spirits of the dead yed a major role that greatly reduced casualties. These citizens mostly came from Qin and so, they did not fear death mages. The pikoosi also possessed intelligence so it would not harass ordinary people. Within one to two months, everyone had already gotten used to this gigantic creature¡¯s existence.


    As for his Majesty, Ojarvis believed in Saleen¡¯s abilityrgely because of his sister. In Ojarvis¡¯ heart, Lex was someone who was a better judge of character and more intelligent than his uncle. A person who had been spoken highly of by Lex must possess a certain standard.


    This pce was usually the campsite of the pce swordsmen battalion. Saleen usually did not stay there and only used this location to conduct meetings with the noble families. His temple was his private space and no outsiders were allowed to enter.


    The soldiers in the pce looked imposing as they were d in grand-looking armor and armed with long swords. These armors were as useful as a sheet of paper in a real battle, but it wasfortable to wear and could conserve energy when the soldiers were patrolling or performing sentry duties.


    These ten-thousand Caucasus people that had been picked by Saleen were not meant to fight in battles. They would change into another set of clothes and equipment when it was time for their training.


    Only the Grand Hall, that was used to perform administrative duties, looked more majestic than the rest of the castle. When the group of envoys were invited into the Grand Hall, Saleen finally appeared. He was wearing the devil armor suit that Joey had refined for him, except for the mask.


    Saleen did not restrain himself this time and walked out of the pce to wee the group. He could not afford to be discourteous to the grade-8 sorcerers in the group.


    Nichs apanied Saleen. The former whispered in thetter¡¯s ear. With a smile, Saleen bowed to the two mages behind Bard and said, ¡°Grand Mage Tiffany... May I know who this Grand Mage is?¡±


    Tiffany stared at Nichs and said honestly, ¡°This is Grand Mage Stephanie.¡±


    ¡°I am honored by the presence of two Grand Mages. It must have been a long journey for you and Duke Bard.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was now gentler and he appeared very civilized.


    ¡°Your Highness, you are too kind,¡± Tiffany replied. In Qin, a King could only be addressed as ¡®Your Highness¡¯. In the past, a King in Cloudflow could be addressed as ¡®Your Majesty¡¯ as well, but that was forcefully changed by the Cloudflow Emperor. Since then, there were no more Kings in the entire Maind and the Kings of Duchies were reduced to Dukes. Now that Saleen has proimed himself to be a King and this had been acknowledged by Holy Rock City, he could not be addressed as ¡®Your Majesty¡¯ or ¡®Your Excellency¡¯.


    Behind Saleen were Aini and the rest, including the twelve Earls. They had alle to see the group of envoys from Qin.


    ¡°Let us talk inside,¡± Saleen¡¯s youthful face broke into a smile. He had thought that this day woulde only a few yearster. Now that Holy Rock City had given him face, he must not be disrespectful!


    He was the King and had already been recognized by the Qin Emperor. No one would deny him of his bloodline now. In the future, he would be able to officially award ranks of nobility and send out expeditions.

 Chapter 690: A Gift from Holy Rock City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 690: A Gift from Holy Rock City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Grand Hall of Saleen¡¯s pce was not as majestic as Cloudflow¡¯s pce. It was, instead, simr to other Qin pces in that there was a seat for everyone. By right, the group of envoys had been arranged to rest in one of the Halls first after such a long journey. Saleen had to meet with Bard first and the group of envoys could not possibly stay in the pce, hence a banquet was set up.


    On the gigantic oval-shaped table, Saleen sat at the tip and his men were seated on his left while the envoys were seated on his right. Bard did not sit directly beside Saleen, instead, those seats were upied by the two sorcerers. Stephanie did not seem to mind that Nichs had seen through her identity. She just continued to remain quiet.


    Saleen felt conflicted. What was the meaning of Holy Rock City sending two grade-8 sorcerers? If Nichs was not by his side, were these two sorcerers nning to harm him?


    He had not thought this way, but the problem was that Stephanie had been disguising herself as a white-robed mage and was not seen through by J along the way. It was after Nichs mentioned it that Saleen used his elemental eyes to look closely and discovered the issue.


    As such, Saleen was disinterested in Bard, but the noble families on his left were all very excited in contrast. They looked at Bard expectantly and were hoping that he would bring good news that would benefit the kingdom.


    Surely Holy Rock City did not send him here to y and have fun?


    Bard did not know where to begin. By right, ording to customs, he should have been settled down first and both sides should have arranged an appropriate time for a grand ceremony to be held and the letters of credence to be exchanged. Then, the envoys would socialize with Metatrin¡¯s noble families for a while before Bard would finally speak to Saleen about the task given to him by the Emperor and Prince Safilos.


    Who knew that Saleen would ignore all that and bring him to the pce directly?


    Fortunately, Saleen was well-prepared. Metatrin City was full of noble families¡¯ servants so they were able to help prepare a banquet before the envoys arrived.


    The dishes were served after a round of drinks. In consideration of the envoys¡¯fort, Saleen did not arrange for spirits of the dead to serve them like at the temple.


    Instead, the servants borrowed from the noble families were the ones to serve the dishes. Since Saleen was still unmarried, there were no female pce officers, only men.


    After the wine sses had been filled, Saleen began to give everyone a toast using typical noble families¡¯ pleasantries and this made Bard much morefortable. Although Saleen spoke as if he was back in the fourth dynasty, Bard was fond of it.


    After three rounds of drinks, Saleen arranged for a few low-level mages to concoct a new type of wine for everyone. This was the custom of Bitter Water Prefecture. Using restorative water to concoct wine would make it nder and less harmful to the body.


    The atmosphere was harmonious so Saleen finally asked, ¡°Duke, is there any special reason for his Majesty to send you here?¡±


    He did not bring up the letter of credence. The contents would most likely revolve around appointing envoys to stay in the other party¡¯s kingdom permanently to facilitate the exchange of letters after all. Such embassies would require the setting up of teleportation portals. Such portals would be able to send and receive letters and documents any time, but not humans.


    The letter of credence would surely also mention borders and the issue of armies passing through these boundaries. These were not what Saleen was concerned with. What he wanted to know was the Qin Emperor¡¯s personal opinion of Metatrin City. He knew what the rtionship between Safilos and Lex was like and was certain that Holy Rock City would be cautious of Metatrin City.


    His own army would not be able to enter Phoenix. At most, he could follow the path that had been opened up by the Holy See expedition that followed the borders of Phoenix and into Lun.


    ¡°His Majesty...,¡± Bard cleared up his train of thought and said, ¡°His Majesty hopes to establish a trading route between Holy Rock City and Metatrin City. Specifically, His Majesty hopes that Metatrin will be able to supply Holy Rock City with magic nuclei in times of war.¡±


    Bard did not mention Prince Safilos¡¯ request. Tiffany belonged to the Emperor¡¯s side so some things were better left said without her knowing. It was entirely possible that the Emperor had sent one more sorcerer along in order to deal with him. If the two sorcerers found out that Bard was serving the Prince¡¯s agenda more than the Emperor¡¯s, they could very well kill him and everyone around him.


    Among the soldiers, only fourteen-hundred of them took orders from him. The remaining sixteen-hundred soldiers would take orders from Tiffany.


    Stephanie¡¯s reputation struck fear in him. This woman was said to be Emperor Chanake¡¯s personal mage and did not belong to the circle of royal mages. Whatever actions a private mage like hermitted, the pce would not have to admit nor take up any responsibilities. By that time, she would only have to flee to Alchemy City and he would have died for nothing.


    ¡°How many does his Majesty want?¡±


    ¡°One-hundred-thousand grade-4 magic nuclei.¡±


    ¡°At what price?¡±


    ¡°One-hundred gold coins.¡±


    ¡°This...,¡± Saleen pretended to gasp. There was a price range for different grades of magic nuclei and the one for grade-1 magic nuclei fluctuated the most. They could be sold between one gold coin to five gold coins. Grade-2 magic nuclei could be sold at ten gold coins while the exceptionally pure ones could be sold at twenty gold coins. Grade-3 magic nuclei could be sold at one-hundred gold coins.


    The most expensive grade-4 magic nuclei could be sold at one-thousand gold coins, but usually they were priced at about four-hundred gold coins before they had been cut. After being cut up, they were usually priced at two-hundred gold coins. A mage with good techniques would be able to cut a grade-4 magic nucleus into three standard units.


    Magic nuclei had to be cut up in order to be fused into magic arrays.


    Magic nuclei that had not been cut would be priced ording to their sizes. After cutting, their sizes would be the same. Excluding the craftsmanship involved in the cutting process, each magic nucleus would be priced at two-hundred gold coins.


    One-hundred gold coins must be the price after cutting. The size of a grade-4 magic nucleus was such that at least three standard units could be cut out from it. Surely the Qin Emperor would not try to force this deal no matter how arrogant he was.


    The noble families began to panic. This was the price at which Saleen was selling to them. If Saleen agreed, the noble families would not be able to earn any profits. The level of difficulty in cutting grade-4 magic nuclei was tens of times higher than low-level magic nuclei and the craftsmanship would be costly too. If Saleen did not help them, they would be earning very little. They were in no position to dissuade Saleen, but if Saleen refused to help them with the cutting in future, their profits would drop by another thirty percent.


    ¡°I cannot agree to this price. This year¡¯s supply of magic nuclei has already been sold to the Dukes and Earls seated here today. I only have about forty-thousand magic nuclei left.¡±


    Everyone became nervous. Saleen had yet to hand over the magic nuclei to them, everything had only been verbal agreements so far. It was understandable if Saleen chose to sacrifice the noble families¡¯ benefits in order to establish a better rtionship with Holy Rock City. The noble families would have much to gain from Saleen establishing a trading route with Holy Rock City too. The noble families could not help but feel conflicted.


    Bard looked like he was about to say something, but Saleen carried on, ¡°The market price is two-hundred gold coins. These are not low-level magic nuclei. They need to be cut up by mages. Not even apprentices can do it. I request for an increment of fifteen percent to one-hundred and fifteen gold coins. If you are agreeable to that price, I willpensate my noble families with my own money so that they will sell to you at that price.¡±


    Bard was caught in the middle. Before he left, Ojarvis had emphasized that he must obtain the magic nuclei. In terms of prices, he was allowed to ept an increment of up to twenty percent. In other words, the Emperor was willing to purchase the magic nuclei at a price of one-hundred and twenty gold coins. As long as the price was higher than one-hundred and twenty gold coins, he would not gain any profits from it.


    Saleen had made himself very clear. He had already sold away the magic nuclei. If Bard was not agreeable to this price, he would have to discuss with the noble families on his own separately.


    He would be offending all the noble families of Metatrin and there would be no hope of aplishing what the Prince had tasked him to do.


    The noble families felt more assured now. Although the price of one-hundred and fifteen gold coins was still low, they need not fork over any capital or do anything else except to collect the money. They would still earn fifteen gold coins from each magic nucleus!


    Eventually, Saleen¡¯s arrangement was to give the four Dukes twenty-thousand magic nuclei each while the twelve Earls would receive five-thousand each. The remaining twenty-thousand magic nuclei would be divided up amongst the rest of the noble families. Each of them would be able to receive a few hundred magic nuclei.


    ¡°The four of you will give up ten-thousand magic nuclei each while the rest of you will give up five-thousand each. Alright?¡± Saleen did not bother to wait for Bard¡¯s reply, he was already discussing the terms and conditions with his noble families.


    Guya and the rest came from the four major families, so wealth was never an issue for them. This was not the case for the other noble families. The four of them would not hesitate to use up capital, but the twelve Earls were more receptive to this arrangement. By selling all five-thousand magic nuclei that they were given, they would be earning fifty-thousand gold coins without doing much. Although Saleen said he wouldpensate them, they would not dare to ept.


    For Aini and the rest, they would not dare to refuse even if they were unwilling. They would still have another ten-thousand magic nuclei that they could sell. On average, they would still make a significant profit.


    ¡°Your Highness, his Majesty has also asked me to present you with some gifts.¡± Bard did not dwell on the issue of the magic nuclei any further. He already noticed that Saleen did not bow down to the two sorcerers and knew that he was not someone that would not give in easily.


    ¡°Oh, his Majesty is too kind. I wonder what gift is it?¡± Saleen seemed curious. Now that the issue of the magic nuclei has been settled, he would be able to sell them to the Emperor privately at this price as well. The Emperor would not buy on credit so this was a good business deal.


    Bard was also thinking to himself that the Emperor had wanted to purchase as many magic nuclei as possible. Seeing how Saleen agreed so readily to one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei, this must mean that he still had reserves. If Bard bought more from Saleen at this price, it could be a source of profit when he returned. He had brought along more than twenty-thousand gold coins with him. If he bought the remaining magic nuclei and sold them after he returned, he would be able to earn about ten-thousand gold coins.


    ¡°It is not something I can carry around on my own. Grand Mage Tiffany, please...,¡± Bard spoke to Tiffany courteously.


    Tiffany smiled and stood up to walk towards an empty space in the hall before releasing a gigantic object from her spatial equipment. This was an alchemy mechanine that was more than ten yards long. It was golden yellow in color and looked like the shuttle of an enormous piece of embroidery. The curvature of the surface of this mechanine was abnormally perfect and dark silver colored magic rune rules were arranged on every individual structure.


    ¡°This is a divingbat vessel. It was newly invented by Holy Rock City, even Lianyun City is not equipped with it yet. His Majesty knows that your city is close to the ocean and it is important to build up naval defences, so he would like to give this to you,¡± Bard exined very proudly, but Saleen did not know whether tough or to cry.


    Divingbat vessel? Clearly it was a hundred times more powerful than what Lex had refined initially, but now that Saleen already had pan turtle alchemy ship, what would he need a divingbat vessel for?

 Chapter 691: A secret agreement (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 691: A secret agreement (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt a little disappointed, but he did not show it on his face. He immediately thought of a problem. ¡°The Pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat is powerful, but I only have one and I am not hopeful of capturing another creature like the pan turtle. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat is Metatrin City¡¯s secret weapon, the enemy mustn¡¯t know about it. If I have a warship that can dive the existence of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat will be concealed. Holy Rock City uses this item to equip its navy which means that it can be repeatedly produced unlike my pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. If I create a manufacturing method, I will possess a huge number of it, which will be very practical. I don¡¯t have to use metals to craft it because I possess thundercloud wood. The thundercloud wood is much tougher than metals and isn¡¯t heavy. A lot of magic nuclei can be conserved if it is used in underwater navigation.¡±


    ¡°I, will have to thank His Majesty for this.¡± Saleen was grinning from ear to ear, ¡°This diving warship has arrived at an opportune time. ¡°If I want to expand the navy, I will surely have to use humans. If the entire army is made up of spirits and the winged skeleton meets with a mishap, I will not be able tomand so many spirits.¡±


    Seeing Saleen feel so jubnt, Barde finally had peace of mind. At this point in time, without a formal ceremony, a letter of credence could not be handed over. They could only discuss trade. After settling one-hundred-thousand magic nuclei in one go, Barde began thinking about the possibility of establishing personal rtions with Saleen.


    ¡°Nailisi, go and collect the diving warship.¡± Saleen gave Nailisi one Dimension Stone. In name, this alchemical equipment was called a warship, but it was in fact a small vessel. Since Saleen possessed some experience from crafting simr equipment with Lex in the past it would not be too difficult for him to study this equipment.


    Nailisi was all smiles when she received the Dimension Stone, then she went to collect the entire diving warship. Her ability was akin to that of a sorcerer already, even a normal grand mage might not be able to store this huge object which measured over ten yards.


    Tiffany observed this event, but she pretended not to notice. She did not realize that Nailisi was an imp, nor did she detect the scent of a grand mage from Nailisi¡¯s body.


    At that moment Barde and his confidante imed that they were a little exhausted. They left without waiting for the performance to be put up by the singers who were borrowed from the nobles. Daniel went to arrange their lodging. Only the soldiers from the pce¡¯s swordsmen camp lived in the pce, so there was nothing Barde could find out. Saleen¡¯s main secrets were all concentrated in the temple.


    Saleen invited Tiffany and Stephanie to stay behind. Seeing that Tiffany did not stand up, he knew that she had something to tell him. The nobles had also left, only Aini remained. In the temple, only Saleen¡¯s followers stayed behind.


    ¡°Great Mage, does His Majesty have something to tell me?¡± Saleen only opened his mouth after seeing that Barde and the rest had left. There were few formalities between mages, mages would not beat about the bush.


    ¡°His Majesty doesn¡¯t have much to say. He asked me to find out whether Metatrin City can deploy troops to assist Holy Rock City or not. If your capabilities are too weak, then forget it, but if there is such a possibility... His Majesty would like to make a trade.¡±


    ¡°Trade?¡±


    ¡°Since you aren¡¯t a noble conferred by His Majesty, His Majesty will make it up to you if you deploy your troops.¡± Tiffany made her words even clearer. ¡°Thispensation wouldn¡¯t be without conditions. If your soldiers are too inferior, His Majesty can do nothing either. You have to win a few battles, that way it will be easier to draw funds from the national treasury.¡±


    ¡°Deploy troops? I... heard that the war in Lon is very advantageous to Qin.¡± Saleen did not agree in a hurry, although he really wanted to send troops into Lon in a justifiable manner. He was most afraid of not being able to participate in such matters.


    ¡°There is news from Sikeqinya City. Emperor Danny, who added a ¡®sacred¡¯ word in front of his name, seems to be interested in joining the war.¡± Tiffany¡¯s words appeared more arrogant now, but she was not directing her scorn at Saleen. The emperor of Sikeqinya, Emperor Danny, was a conceited fellow who was more abominable than the Cloudflow emperor and had added a ¡®sacred¡¯ word in front of his name.


    In the eyes of a sorcerer, he was a clown. Even though he was a Golden Grand Swordmaster, he was still a clown.


    What about Emperor Chanake? His powers had exceeded that of a Golden Grand Swordmaster, but he wasn¡¯t so presumptuous. Emperor Chanake was not indomitable, he was ambushed by the Holy See in the end.


    ¡°Understood...¡± After all, Saleen had experienced quite a number of tribtions in his life. With Lex¡¯s actions and Narnia¡¯s teachings, Saleen had no choice but to have a clear picture of the maind¡¯s situation.


    Sikeqinya might appear to be scattered sand, but in actual fact, it was powerful enough to disrupt the bnce between the other three empires. If Sikeqinya wanted to help the Tanggsi Empire, it would deploy troops from Laiyin Duchy. It would actually attack thend in northern Qin as a result.


    At that position, Qin did not possess any sturdy barrier. Originally, it had relied on Lon for shielding. Now that Lon was in shreds, soldiers from Laiyin Duchy only needed to pass through a hill measuring about three-hundred miles to enter Qin.


    The Qin Empire had only stationed Lex¡¯s army there. Due to the terrain, armies which entered from this direction would have to pass through Phoenix once more and wind north before they could enter Qin again. By then, only the ins would be in the way of the invaders.


    Be it the Tanggsi Empire or Sikeqinya, either one of them had more cavalrymen than Qin.


    In a field battle urring on the ins, the power of the cavalrymen would always surpass that of the infantrymen unless the infantrymen were from a magic army. Two main forces from Qin had attacked Lon, the vanguards had already reached the midline of Lon. More than half of Lon¡¯snd had been seized, it would be impossible to send troops to stage a rescue.


    The moment Laiyin Duchy attacked from this point, Qin could only depend on the northern nobles to defend the invasion.


    In the past people from Phoenix would naturally take the lead. At this moment, the Phoenix people hated Qin to the core, it would be too difficult to ask the Phoenix nobles to deploy their troops.


    Of course, the Qin emperor could send the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp to fill this cavity, but it was more thrifty asking Saleen to take on this task. Due to Emperor Chanake¡¯s campaign, the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp had lost more than ten-thousand people. In the next few years Holy Rock City would not dare to deploy the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp for another campaign.


    The gap was too huge between Qin and Tanggsi, Qin¡¯s civilians were rtively richer and had some status. On the other hand, the Tanggsi people were treated like beasts and the emperor couldmand them at will. When necessary, one-third of the three-hundred-million Tanggsi people would be sent into battle. That was the most feared situation.


    ¡°What do you think about my army, Great Mage?¡± Saleen rebutted.


    ¡°It is passable.¡± Tiffanyughed, it was interesting for Saleen to ask this question because he did not even disy his strongest forces.


    ¡°Even if there is a letter of credence, it doesn¡¯t constitute a military alliance. If my army enters Lon by ident, it will prove to be a big trouble.¡± Saleen dered his worries directly. He wanted a more concrete answer from the Holy Rock City. It would be noughing matter if the Holy Rock City turned against him in the future otherwise.


    ¡°But the alliance issue is a little tricky. Decisions in the Holy Rock City aren¡¯t made by His Majesty alone. You can form a mercenary group though.¡± Tiffany was desperate, so she revealed Ojarvis¡¯ n. ¡°This Saleen is indeed very cunning, but unwilling to take initiative.¡± Judging from this reaction, Tiffany was in admiration of Ojarvis¡¯ deduction.


    If Tiffany was in Saleen¡¯s shoes, she might not be able to resist the temptation and would have deployed troops to join in the war.


    Even if one-hundred men were deployed and they all died in Lon, there would still be a reason to invade Lon. ¡°This Saleen remains unmoved and he isn¡¯t putting on a pretense.¡±


    ¡°Mercenaries? How will the price of the mercenaries be calcted? If they are going to acquire magic nuclei like what His Majesty did, I will not be able to afford them.¡± At this moment, Saleen¡¯s behavior greatly resembled that of a Sikeqinyan. There was no other way. Saleen could sell magic nuclei to Ojarvis at half price because the cost was very low. If mercenaries were deployed money would be consumed daily. If too little mercenaries were sent, they would not affect much change. If too many were deployed, theirmission would be a big issue.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like you aren¡¯t getting any benefits, you don¡¯t have to keep refusing.¡± Stephanie could not tolerate it any longer. She was not an imperial mage, she was just a sorcerer whom Emperor Chanake had groomed, so she did not treat Saleen as politely. She was viewing this problem from her own perspective.


    ¡°Benefits? What will I receive?¡± Saleen sneered, ¡°Even if the mercenaries I deploy emerged victorious, they will only get amission. Can my soldiers upy thend? Will my nobles receive rewards as a result? Can my mages choose to build a magical tower in a city of their choice because of this?¡±


    ¡°Your brain is filled with all theseplicated thoughts, are you still even a mage?¡± Stephanie rebutted.


    ¡°I can choose not to care about such stuff, but my subordinates will be mindful of it. If I cannot give them a satisfactory answer, why should they follow me?¡± Saleen retorted.


    ¡°So, Your Highness Saleen, what do you have in mind?¡± Stephanie smiled slyly.


    Saleen shrugged his shoulders like a noble, then said, ¡°The size of my mercenary group shall not be limited and it can travel within Qin. They will not pay taxes and will not bemanded by anyone else.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Tiffany was puzzled, ¡°By making such outrageous demands, Saleen is hindering the opportunity for cooperation.¡±


    ¡°Why not? My soldiers might not necessarily enter Qin. From Phoenix, they can enter Laiyin Duchy directly. This is a form of precaution.¡±


    Stephanie furrowed her brows, then said, ¡°Don¡¯t beat about the bush anymore, you know that Holy Rock City will not ede to these terms.¡±


    ¡°Then give me Laiyin Duchy.¡± Saleen went straight to the point. His agenda was to seize Laiyin Duchy. With Lex around, he would not need to fight with Qin.


    ¡°Hah, can you devour Laiyin Duchy?¡± Stephanie said in a sarcastic tone.


    ¡°I was born in Sikeqinya. A Sikeqinyan merchant will order goods in advance even if they aren¡¯t produced yet,¡± Saleen answered inly.


    ¡°Seems like what you really want is a secret agreement!¡± Tiffany sighed, ¡°His Majesty Ojarvis has guessed everything correctly, there wasn¡¯t one request by Saleen which wasn¡¯t anticipated by Ojarvis. If Ojarvis didn¡¯t have such a weak body, he could be Qin¡¯s noblest emperor without any problem.¡±


    A secret agreement was an allusion. Simply put, it was a private deal between two emperors to target a third party. This deal would never surface to light, but it was binding. Such an agreement could bypass the forces which restrained the emperor, it could be executed directly.

 Chapter 692: A secret agreement (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 692: A secret agreement (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Yes, I am looking for a secret agreement,¡± Saleen replied honestly.


    ¡°You are really a sordid mage!¡± Stephanie was overjoyed. She very much admired Ojarvis, ¡°He is such a good emperor, a pity that he has a short life.¡± Ojarvis, who was fraught with illnesses, definitely did not have poorer foresight than Prince Safilos, he might even be better than his father. Emperor Chanake¡¯s individual power was too mighty that sometimes his foresight was not so forward-looking.


    When a person was standing on the pinnacle of power, they would usually use violence to solve problems. Who could guarantee that this power was invincible?


    Saleen threw his hands in the air and said, ¡°What can I do? I have to take care of a few hundred thousand people.¡±


    ¡°So, how many mercenaries can you deploy?¡± Seeing that Saleen had stated all his requests, Tiffany decided to probe about the deployable manpower.


    Saleen did some calctions swiftly, then said, ¡°If His Majesty waits until the end of the year, I can deploy fifty-thousand troops. Including the ten-thousand which Lex had stationed at the borders, there will be a total of sixty-thousand soldiers. If I recruit some auxiliary troops, I can gather one-hundred-thousand people.¡±


    ¡°The price of these one-hundred-thousand troops will not be fixed.¡± Stephanie wanted to help Ojarvis save money, she was worried that Saleen would fill in the numbers carelessly. More and more people were defecting to Metatrin City, while arge batch of refugees had appeared at Lon. Since northern Qin could not amodate so many people, quite a number of people had entered Phoenix. Phoenix was not a very safe ce either. It was only a matter of time before a bunch of these people came to Saleen. Within half a year, the poption of Metatrin might more than double.


    ¡°How is that possible? I will assemble an elite swordsmen camp, while the remaining fifty-thousand people will be built ording to the format of Qin¡¯s main army. His Majesty will have to pay the full amount for this elite swordsmen camp. For the remaining forty-thousand, His Majesty only have to take care of the logistics and pensions. As for the auxiliary troops, not much money will be needed, I will help His Majesty foot the bill.¡±


    Ojarvis hit the bullseye once again, Saleen did not have the intention to take advantage of Qin. It was already the greatest victory if Saleen could enter Laiyin Duchy. If there was no secret agreement with Ojarvis, Saleen would have to withdraw from Laiyin Duchy eventually.


    ¡°It will be fine to wait until the year end, but I hope that you can send people to link up with Lex¡¯s army first. If Laiyin Duchy takes action in advance, you will have to resist them first.¡± There was no room for negotiation for these terms proposed by Tiffany, this was some crisis costs which Saleen had to bear.


    ¡°That goes without saying. Since His Majesty asked you to discuss these things with me, you must have brought along the secret agreement and deposit right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Speaking, Tiffany took out the contract Ojarvis had given her. This contract was not in the form of a scroll, it was a piece of doubleyered magic paper made from magic beast skin. After signing, both parties would keep one copy for themselves.


    This contract was written in great detail, both parties listed in the contract were Ojarvis De Grukos and Saleen Metatrin. Ojarvis had acknowledged Saleen¡¯s status in Laiyin Duchy. If Saleen could conquer Laiyin Duchy, the Qin Empire would definitely not interfere with the affairs over there. Once Sikeqinya attacked Laiyin Holy Rock City would also deploy troops to help Metatrin carry out defensive efforts. The prerequisite before all these was that Laiyin Duchy had to interfere with the battle in Lon.


    The secret agreement was written wlessly, Saleen was pleased. The agreement did not mention the problem of Lon, but Saleen implicitly knew that Lon belonged to Prince Safilos. If Holy Rock City triumphed in this war, the fruits would be taken by Prince Safilos. Thends in Lon would be distributed to Prince Safilos¡¯ associates.


    ¡°Lex and I will only receive a tiny portion, taking a pinch of rewards from the north and south only. Since Ojarvis had broached the topic of Laiyin with me, he would have surely settled the problem of Titan Duchy with Lex already. If Lex and I want to make further development, we have to start from these two duchies. As for the problem of manpower, the maind is never short of free citizens.¡±


    Who were free citizens? They were the civilians who roamed freely amongst the many noblends. These civilians had no obligations towards the nobles, all their fortune was privately owned. This freedom was not always convenient.


    There was a joke which went like this; ¡®a free citizen in Qin was worse off than a farmer, while a free citizen in Cloudflow was slightly happier than a farmer. A free citizen in Sikeqinya was as cheap as a farmer. While a free citizen in Tanggsi had no freedom at all¡¯.


    A colossal number of free citizens had made up the poption of merchants in various empires, craftsmen, workers, smiths, and such people. The moment war broke out these free citizens had the highest chance of being implicated. When a noble fled, they would bring along their farmers as long as time permitted. The free citizens best chance would be to join the army. When they surrendered they still had a chance of being absorbed by the enemy instead of getting killed.


    ¡°I have a request.¡± Saleen told Tiffany after signing the secret agreement.


    ¡°Ask then.¡±


    ¡°There is only one route from my city to Laiyin Duchy, which is the attacking route used by the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army. I wish to build a city at the spot between Qin, Phoenix, Lon, and Laiyin. Between this city and Metatrin I want to build a resupply town at an interval of every one-hundred miles. Besides this, I want the Deep Forest Town at Phoenix¡¯s borders to be thend of my nobles.¡±


    ¡°This...¡±


    ¡°The noble in that small town have already defected to me.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Holy Rock City will acknowledge your authority.¡± Tiffany did not need to consult Ojarvis regarding such trivial matters, she agreed straightaway. Even Prince Safilos had only one thought towards Phoenix; to let Phoenix be segregated.


    The Phoenix family had already declined, it was no longer loyal towards the Grukos family. The nobles in Phoenix bore much hatred towards Holy Rock City. It was best to let such a ce fission. Thends in Phoenix were sufficient to be distributed to a few hundred nobles already.


    In the eyes of a mage, it was okay for all the nobles to die, only the civilians needed to be kept alive. Stephanie and Tiffany were not repulsive towards Saleen¡¯s demands. Saleen himself was a mage, so he would surely understand their thoughts. He thusly made his requests in a straightforward manner.


    Just like that, Phoenix was betrayed once again.


    Saleen did not allow the two sorcerers to live in the pce, he asked two people to lead them to Aini¡¯s duke¡¯s residence. Even though Aini¡¯s duke¡¯s residence did not build a magical tower, its size was identical to that of Saleen¡¯s temple. The important structures in the center were built ording to the format of a magical tower, a five-story tower was built.


    A mage still preferred to be in a ce with a high concentration of the elements. They could practice magic anytime that way. Saleen¡¯s temple would never allow people like Tiffany inside unless the two powerful sorcerers had decided to follow him.


    Saleen did not dare harbor any expectations, ¡°These two people are different from Nichs, Nichs is unable to return to his homnd. The world is so big, if I didn¡¯t let Nichs stay, he would end up in a terrible state.¡±


    Saleen made one move to obtain a passage to Laiyin Duchy and he had been permitted to build a city at the intersection of the four cities, so he was in high spirits. If Ojarvis had not signed a secret agreement with him, Saleen would only dare to deploy troops if he possessed more than five-hundred-thousand soldiers.


    ¡°Most importantly, I have obtained the Deep Forest Town, it has be my territory. It ce will be developed into a huge city, then I will open a path through the magic beast forest to enter the Chaotic Swamp. Going through the secret passageway, I can attack Sikeqinya directly. In the future, once I go to war with Sikeqinya, I will have three attack routes. One from Laiyin, a second from the Chaotic Swamp, and a third from the sea.¡±


    Saleen nned to station one of Lex¡¯s armies at the border and this army would be used to deal with Phoenix in the future. ¡°I cannot be allies with Holy Rock City, but I can be allies with the Bitter Water County. Both of us will split Phoenix among ourselves by then.¡±


    That night, Saleen slept very well. The second day, Saleen summoned the nobles very early in the morning to talk about trade rtions with Holy Rock City.


    At the moment, Saleen had signed a secret agreement while Duke Barde had brought along a letter of credence. For the time being, there would be no war with Holy Rock City. Trade between the two cities could be greatly amplified. The status of Metatrin Kingdom had been recognized, Saleen¡¯s merchant ships could enter Lianyun City¡¯s harbor now. He would not need to wait for the southern merchants toe over.


    Saleen could finally build ships openly and he was going to do it frantically.


    During winter in Metatrin City the shore would have a frozen region spanning two-hundred miles. Saleen¡¯s main agenda was to manufacture warships and armored merchant ships. To open the sea route and look for an ind which was suitable to function as a military port.


    The four dukes had the financial power to purchase merchant ships, but they did not have the ability to build one on their own. The earls and the smaller barons and viscounts could not afford to buy ships, they could only rent from Saleen.


    The nobles still made a profit by renting ships, so they were willing to rent from Saleen¡¯s city. It was way cheaper than renting from the south. Saleen also owned escort fleets, the merchants would not be afraid of running into pirates.


    Saleen never nned to organize a merchant team, he did not even want to open a shop in Qin. He only wanted fleets. As long as the fleets belonged to him, everything else would also be his as well.


    In three days Saleen had prepared a ceremony, which was not considered grand, to receive the letter of credence from Duke Barde. Saleen also wrote a letter of credence based on strict rules, he then prepared an envoy group which would return to the Holy Rock City with Duke Barde.


    Since Metatrin City had to build an embassy, Holy Rock City had to construct an identical structure too. Both parties would station their envoys in the embassies. In the future Saleen would not need to send people over personally if he wanted to contact Holy Rock City.


    Saleen realized that Duke Barde was actually very easy to get along with after his arrogance had been ttened. When Duke Barde held private discussions with Saleen to buy some magic nuclei, Saleen happily gave him one-hundred magic nuclei.


    These one-hundred magic nuclei had a market value of two-hundred-thousand gold coins and Duke Barde epted them gleefully. Saleen did not ask him to do anything. In Qin, this method of maintaining cordial rtions wasmonce.


    If Saleen had any requests in the future, Duke Barde would not return Saleen more than forty-thousand gold coins worth of items, this was the rule. It was highly likely that Saleen would never demand anything of him. Saleen would let Duke Barde owe him a favor. Using this favor, both parties would engage in activities which were mutually beneficial.


    Saleen knew that twenty-thousand gold coins would not be sufficient to bribe a duke.

 Chapter 693: Metatrin Mercenary Group (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 693: Metatrin Mercenary Group (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Empire¡¯s group of envoys would not be leaving immediately. Saleen still needed to form his group of envoys carefully and interact more with Grand Mage Tiffany. His Majesty must definitely have more than one secret deal to discuss with Saleen. Other than allowing Saleen to send out troops, there would be other minor issues that both parties would like to discuss in private.


    Saleen still needed to deploy an envoy to stay in Holy Rock City permanently. This would be a tough choice.


    The pirates that had followed Saleen for the longest time were all very loyal, but not suited for such a role. On the other hand, the noble families that had pledged their allegiance to Saleen were not suitable either because the reliable ones had already been given ranks of nobility by him while the rest were not that dependable yet.


    Eventually, Saleen decided to choose Baron Piac. Thends of his Deep Forest Town had already been taken over by Saleen long ago and his rank of nobility had already been implemented. Although this Baron was not the most capable, he did not know Saleen¡¯s secrets, even if he was bribed, he would not be able to reveal much.


    Saleen would arrange for a few trusted aides to apany Baron Piac first before allowing thetter to take up this new appointment. Piac¡¯s child was already in the midst of being groomed as a magic apprentice so naturally, this Baron would have some concerns.


    After Piac had been informed, there was nothing much he could say to refuse. Saleen promoted him to a second-grade Viscount and by the time he returned from Holy Rock City at the end of his appointment, he would be a first-grade Viscount. If his son could sessfully be a proper mage and could gain Saleen¡¯s trust, Saleen would have no qualms in promoting him into a hereditary Earl.


    The two grade-8 sorcerers, Tiffany and Stephanie, had secretly traded with Saleen quite a few things during this period of time. Tiffany was considered old as her actual age was already over one-hundred years even if she only looked around thirty years old. On the other hand, Stephanie was only around twenty years old in actual age. Disguising herself as a white-robed mage was just her preference and not something the Emperor had ordered her to do against Duke Bard.


    Tiffany was a royal sorcerer so she kept to her boundaries, but Stephanie did not seem to share a simr concern since she was the Emperor¡¯s private mage. Saleen managed to gain quite a lot of information on Holy Rock City through her. Stephanie did not hide her fondness for Saleen and even promised to find a way to get Saleen what he wanted after her return.


    What did Saleen want? The warehouse in the pce. Saleen knew that the warehouse in Holy Rock City was not as big as the Grukos family¡¯s, but its contents were just as rich. What Saleen wanted was copies of all the blueprints in there.


    The Grukos royal family possessed many blueprints of magic equipment and most of them had been left in the corner to gather dust.


    Saleen made a deal with Stephanie in private to increase the number of magic nuclei he was selling to Ojarvis to two-hundred-thousand. In exchange for the additional one-hundred-thousand grade-4 magic nuclei, Saleen would receive grain.


    Saleen needed a lot of grain because Eleanor had given him an elvish recipe that could turn the grain into an elvish pill. Consuming one such pill was equivalent to three days¡¯ worth of meals. The cost of manufacturing one such pill was also equivalent to sustaining a soldier for five days. Although a loss was incurred in this case, at least there would be much fewer logistics to be concerned about if soldiers brought along such pills.


    Such pills could also be found on the Myers Maind, but due to their high cost, armies did not usually use them widely. In Qin, the wealthydies would consume such pills to lose weight.


    Magic nuclei would need to be used up to store grain in a magic warehouse and its nutrients would also slowly deplete. These issues would be solved by turning the grains into pills. On the elvish dimension, the elves only ate few fruit and vegetables every day and mainly depended on such pills for sustenance.


    Only the low-level elves would consume three meals a day like humans.


    In the past, humans were extremely powerful and would never have to consider any logistical issues when they fought in other dimensions. A powerful human could create a space and within this space, he could tear it open and retrieve the resources he needed. Such elvish pills were useless to humans back then.


    By the time humans required such pills, dimensions had already lost connections with each other. Subsequently, the mages tried to recreate the pills based on their memories, but they were of poor quality. In the end, they turned out to be used as diet pills and were never utilized by the military.


    The soldiers of the royal swordsmen battalion would bring a bag with them at all times since there was no harm in doing so. It would be a waste to use them as rations.


    The advantages to the logistics outweighed the costs so overall it was still beneficial.


    Of course, Saleen also had items that could bribe the two sorcerers. They were the materials for making magic staffs that he obtained from Joey; God¡¯s mulberry and ghost oak trees. In order to grow these two nts to a stage where they could be made into magic staffs, more than thousands of years of effort would have to be invested.


    Both of them knew that Joey possessed these materials, but they also knew that Joey would never bother with them.


    If Saleen wanted all the alchemy blueprints within Holy Rock City¡¯s royal warehouse, he knew that he would need to have something to exchange, which turned out to be five-million alchemy arrows. The core of such arrows were made up of malleable bronze and their exterior was infused with alchemy and shells of magic beasts. An arrow like this could be used repeatedly more than ten times.


    Its effect on magic was average, but was much more effective on warriors¡¯ armors.


    Saleen had wanted to equip his own armies with such weapons and had already created around four-million of them. If he rushed a little, he would be able toplete all the arrows for Tiffany before she left.


    What Saleen possessed in abundance was the hard and solid shells of magic beasts. All the red krill that he hunted, aside from their spikes, the rest of their bodies were as hard as metal. While the red krill¡¯s spikes were hard to refine, their external shells could be melted easily before putting them onto metal.


    If a mage could infuse magic into these arrows, they would be able to pierce through spells, but could no longer be used repeatedly. Without magic, these arrows were still sharper than iron arrows and would be able to pierce through heavy armor.


    After experimenting on it, Stephanie was very pleased with such an equipment. Holy Rock City could definitely manufacture such arrows or they could also be bought from Alchemy City, but the cost would be high and they would never be sold in the millions. Saleen was willing to fork out five-million of them. This would be significant in the battle at Lun and even Prince Safilos would not be able to refuse them.


    Saleen was also satisfied. Red krill were incredibly useful creatures. They had magic nuclei, spikes, and shells that could be manufactured into equipment and its flesh could be used to feed his lightning dragons.


    No wonder Alchemy City had been so dominant that even Holy Rock City could not afford to offend them. The amount of resources that the ocean offered was simply too rich. Whoever controlled the ocean controlled the Maind.


    Holy Rock City was well aware of the fact that Metatrin City had been hunting in the oceans. Holy Rock City was not about to interfere or they would be left with no choice but to purchase items from Alchemy City at high prices. The business agreement between Metatrin City and the Emperor had helped thetter to save more than half of his funds.


    In the middle of July, the group of envoys were about to depart and Saleen arranged a farewell ceremony in a grand fashion. This time around, he deployed a battalion of soldiers to escort the envoys back. This battalion would be able to pass through Phoenix and the mages in the battalion had been tasked to use magic projection to record the terrain and create a map subsequently.


    Saleen only dared to do so because there was a deal in ce between him and Prince Safilos. Prince Safilos had acknowledged his presence and wanted Saleen topletely seal off Alchemy City¡¯s naval route towards the north. In the future, the resources in the north would be taken over by Holy Rock City. One could never force deals with Alchemy City. In the name of the Empire, Prince Safilos would now investrge amount of funds. Although magic nuclei were out of the question, he would still be able to purchase equipment materials, minerals, wood, and magic potions from Metatrin City at a low price.


    Prince Safilos even nned to set up a naval force in Lianyun City to secretly control Alchemy City in case they interfered with his business dealings. All the business dealings that Prince Safilos conducted were to develop his own forces, but done in the name of the Empire. The noble families in the north were more loyal to the Emperor and the Prince had no wish to change that, but the noble families in the south did not quite obey the Emperor¡¯smands. Prince Safilos decided that he should buy over one group and strike the other.


    Saleen was d to reach peace with the Prince for the time-being. If they continued to be at odds with each other, he had no wish to encounter a gold grand swordmaster anytime soon. Unless he would never ever leave Metatrin City, otherwise making such an enemy was worse than being at odds with a grade-9 sorcerer.


    The noble families of Metatrin City might have incurred some losses,, but Saleen also helped them to improve their cash liquidity so that they now had more money to conduct other businesses.


    As for Saleen himself, he was busy building up a mercenary group.


    In Eleanor¡¯s n, Saleen needed to build a mercenary group to avoid some potential issues. These issues included entering Phoenix and Lun. If it was Saleen¡¯s official armies, questions would be raised. A mercenary group was different. They could travel anywhere as long as they had been hired.


    The mercenary group would simply be called the ¡®Metatrin Mercenary Group¡¯ and would be registered with Saleen. The group would be made up of auxiliary soldiers on top of twenty-thousand soldiers. With a total of fifty-thousand vacancies in total, Saleen needed to continue recruiting many soldiers.


    Saleen was extremely strict with the recruitment of soldiers into his official armies, but was much more rxed for the mercenary group. A battalion of elite soldiers were chosen from amongst his official armies, but their privileges remained the same despite a more impressive title. Only the remaining auxiliary soldiers were newly recruited.


    Even so, the equipment possessed by Saleen¡¯s auxiliary soldiers would not lose out to any private soldiers of noble families.


    Saleen managed to recruit thirty-thousand men very quickly and would be able to fill up the remaining twenty-thousand vacancies within the next few months. The situation at Lun was chaotic and their original poption of tens of millions of people had been reduced to a few million as many had fled to Qin and Phoenix. All the strong and fit ones could be recruited into the armies.


    Saleen nned to rotate his soldiers from the ten battalions into the mercenary group asionally. Only then could these soldiers experience real battles and be stronger as a result. Soldiers that never experienced battles would never form a powerful army.

 Chapter 694: Metatrin Mercenary Group (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 694: Metatrin Mercenary Group (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen entrusted the task of organizing and training the mercenary group to Gurney. Saleen could not help himself from feeling gloomy that Gurney was the only one that turned out to be dependable amongst the pirates that he recruited in the beginning. He was too na?ve back then to think that those pirates only needed training to form a powerful army.


    Saleen was not worried about training as Daniel¡¯s subordinate would assist Gurney while Eleanor would be in charge of organizing and nning the training.


    What Saleen needed to do was to build a city where the four kingdoms intersected. This city could potentially face threats from all four sides so it was necessary to build aplicated castle. Saleen only intended to use this ce as a means to reduce losses incurred by his and Lex¡¯s armies and not tounch attacks.


    Saleen could not possibly replicate Metatrin City again as the resources required were too huge.


    Metatrin City was built with not only white rocks, but alsorge amounts of magic nuclei. If not for the reserves of magic nuclei and Sregl Ind¡¯s support, Saleen would never have been able to incorporate Dante¡¯s Sequence when building the city walls.


    Two Sregl Ind grand mages had already been sent to the region to assess thend quality and choose an appropriate location to build the city. At the moment, Saleen was trying to mine as much white rocks as possible while also ordering the alchemy workshops to produce as many alchemy arrows as possible.


    The Metatrin Mercenary Group would not consist of sorcerers so other than the magic tower, they would also need a lot of alchemy crossbows and magic cannons. Whatever defense they had would be pointless if the enemy could easily fly over the city walls.


    Fortunately, the red krill brought back by the winged skeleton would solve this issue. Creating the armor was a long process, which was why Saleen only expected the army to be ready by the end of the year. If Laiyin Duchy was tounch an attack earlier than expected, then he would have to utilize his main forces.


    The mercenary soldierscked armor so the Emperor secretly ordered men to bring over five-thousand suits, but this was still insufficient. Saleen started everything from scratch, but he would never allow the mercenary soldiers to wear their own armor to battle. Not only were they of poor quality, they looked messy too.


    Eventually, Saleen could wait no longer. He nned to send many mages over to build the new city. Since this city was to be fully militarized and there was no need to consider how to amodate the citizens, four months should be more than enough. Other than the main forces of the mercenaries, the remaining forty-thousand soldiers mustplete their training in four months and their equipment must arrive even earlier.


    Saleen distributed the equipment of his ten main forces to the mercenaries. The officers of the main forces were not agreeable with this move at first and all sought to speak to Saleen about it. As a result, Saleen had to summon all the first-grade regimental officers to the pce and exined the n to everyone.


    After seeing Saleen¡¯s magic model, the officers were pleased. Saleen asked the mages to redesign the equipment for the ten main forces so that they should be better than those that were given out. This was clearly more troublesome.


    The Metatrin Mercenary Group was happier than the main forces, especially the newly recruited soldiers, since they had never worn armors of such high quality before. The equipment that Saleen had given to his main forces were tough but light and could easily match the standard equipment issued to the Qin main forces.


    Every soldier was given seven weapons and one big wagon would carry the equipment of one-hundred men in addition to a magic apprentice. These apprentices joined the military as they had no hopes of bing mages. Magic apprentices did not possess magic chords, but could train themselves to develop sword aura. They also possessed greater knowledge of magic medicine so they also yed the role of medics in the military.


    Most people died in battles due to infections to their wounds. Some magic apprentices would carry around plenty of medicine to keep such losses to the minimum. On some asions where the soldiers¡¯ limbs were cut off, the magic apprentices were even able to use magic to reattach the limbs after the end of the battle.


    Although these men would no longer be able to continue as soldiers, at least they could still carry on with their daily lives.


    This was how Saleen gained the confidence of his troops. Deploying just one magic apprentices in every one-hundred soldiers, thetter¡¯s morale would be greatly boosted. In actual fact, low-level apprentices could only cast grade-0 spells and were negligible in battles.


    The only problem was warhorses. Saleen did not manage to purchase many warhorses and Daniel was upied with work. He only had limited skeletal warhorses and could only give some of them to the officers. Saleen had wanted Aini to settle this issue, but Aini was in the midst of advancing into a sorcerer and would not be able to participate in expeditions.


    Fortunately, Saleen did not n to attack Laiyin Duchy immediately. Even five-hundred-thousand soldiers might not be sufficient, not to mention fifty-thousand. The powerful Sikeqinya was supporting Laiyin Duchy so it would be useless to take over thend only to lose it very quickly after that.


    Saleen¡¯s n was to build a huge city, so that everyone that passed by would feel intimidated. Foot soldiers were more useful than knights in guarding cities.


    The mercenaries were sent to north town for their training while the factories in Metatrin City were hard at work to produce the defense equipment for the new city and also the new equipment for Saleen¡¯s ten main forces.


    Pasatilo and Kanuka quickly returned back to Metatrin City. They had both advanced to grade-6 mages so they used flying techniques. If they had chosen to walk, they would have to travel seven-thousand to eight-thousand miles from Metatrin to the border of Laiyin. Even if they took shortcuts, they would only travel one-thousand miles less. They only needed to travel five-thousand miles by flight.


    In total, the two mages spent six months on their travels and re of thends.


    There were six regions on the magic map that they brought back. Three of the regions were to be used in the future and only the other three were suitable for building a city in the intersection of the four kingdoms.


    The first region was very close to a huge in with a cluster of mountains behind it. The second region was a concave area below a gigantic mountain. The area of concavity was less than a mile, so it was not big enough to fit the entire city in it. The third region was ake with an enormous ind in its center.


    These magic projections came with notes of exnation. The two Sregl Ind mages were knowledgeable about building cities and had even investigated the underwater elements to ensure that there would be no possibilities of earthquakes. Thend was suitable for building a city and there would be no issues in terms of magic physics in constructing any type of building.


    Saleen thought about it carefully and chose the second region. The first and third regions did not suit Saleen¡¯s strategies. A city with a cluster of mountains behind it could still serve as a good business city, while a city in the middle of ake could only defend.


    These two regions were not intimidating enough. On the other hand, a city built under a mountain would allow for attacks to beunched in all directions.


    Once the location had been chosen, all the data was listed out. Saleen summoned Eleanor to work on the design of the city. The mountain was enormous and looked out of ce amongst the surrounding hills and ins. One side of the concave area was made up of red rocks. After analyzing the samples of these rocks, they found they were not created from volcanoes.


    These red rocks were clearly not of the same quality as Metatrin City¡¯s white rocks, but were simr to granite and fulfilled the criteria for building cities. The most important thing about a standalone and militarized city like this was its warehouse. It must contain sufficient grain and water supplies.


    Tens of mages gathered together and began to draw out designs while Saleen analyzed them.


    This location was close to Laiyin Duchy and Lun, which were one-hundred and twenty miles northwest and one-hundred miles southwest respectively. One-hundred and eighty miles behind the mountain was Phoenix and two-hundred miles south was Qin.


    Although the location might seem close to the four kingdoms, the terrain was mostly t with plenty of mountains surrounding it. There was limited essibility. Regardless if one was heading north or east, there were better paths to take. Thends were not suitable for cultivation and were deserted. It was said that in the past, the location was the site of a huge battle that involved the ck magician and hundreds of thousands of people died there. This was another reason why no one was willing to stay there for long.


    This was a good thing to Saleen. The route towards the northwest was not too rough. If he deployed soldiers to fix the route, it would lead straight towards Laiyin. On the other hand, the route towards the south was narrow while the one towards southwest was broad. Qin would not be able to attack directly and would have to go through Lun. It would be much easier to go through Phoenix.


    The mages studied for three days and designed a strange-looking city based on the terrain of the mountain. Saleen was attracted by the design immediately. This was exactly what he wanted.


    On the west side of the thousand yard high mountain, the concave area would be used as the city¡¯s warehouse. Two miles west from the mountain, a gigantic castle would be built and one castle would be built on each side of the mountain. The three castles would be connected together by city walls.


    The castle in the center would be able to contain twenty-thousand men while the other two castles at the side would contain ten-thousand men each. Including the space enclosed by the city walls, the entire city would be able to contain a one-hundred-thousand strong army with up to ten-thousand auxiliary soldiers.


    The area that Lex¡¯s army roamed in was towards the southwest, which was actually close to the border of Lun. They were only two miles away from where Saleen intended to build this city. If they ever required reinforcements, it would only take a day of travel.


    After making the decision, Saleen began to prepare all the necessary materials. This time around, Nailisi had to be there personally. Without the help of spirits of the dead, constructing a city with only humans would take a very long time, unless all the mages were activated to help out with the cutting of the mountain and digging of resources. Even so, they would still require the help of thousands of puppets and Saleen simply did not have that many.


    Just as Saleen was upied with all that, the group of envoys that were being escorted by the sixth battalion ran into trouble.


    The noble families in Phoenix Duchy had started a rebellion.


    The cause of the rebellion was said to be due to Lex¡¯s invasion of Huoxing City and Cexing City. In actual fact, it was because of the envoys from Holy Rock City. These envoys passed through Phoenix in a high-profile manner and Guderian City even deployed a powerful troop of soldiers to escort them.


    A rumor was started in Sr City.The rumor mentioned that Holy Rock City acknowledged Metatrin Kingdom in the north so that both cities would be able to attack Phoenix from both sides. Responding to the call of Sr City, the people of Phoenix organized an army of fifty-thousand men to surround Huoxing City and another army of twenty-thousand men to take over Cexing City.


    The group of envoys were just about to pass through Huoxing City and Lex¡¯s five-thousand soldiers were on site as well. It was inevitable that a battle would erupt. The twenty-thousandstrong army in Cexing City attacked the group of envoys from the side.

 Chapter 695: The sixth camp (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 695: The sixth camp (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The envoy group had three-thousand guards escorting it, but to ensure that Barde had peace of mind, Saleen also deployed the sixth camp. Since there was finally a reason for his army to enter Qin, Saleen would not give up such an opportunity.


    Saleen never expected that his sixth camp woulde in handy.


    The deployment of arge army could not escape a mage¡¯s eyes. The army which came out from Cexing City was split into two sections, with the first section had more than ten-thousand people. This ten-thousand man army nked the envoy group, spreading wide across the ins. There were sorcerers in the envoy group. When the enemy was ten miles away, the envoy group¡¯s army was already alerted.


    The magic equipment donned by Phoenix¡¯s cavalry was not good. After the chaos created by the ck magicians some powerful mages were disappointed at the Phoenix nobles. They decided to leave Phoenix and go to Qin. Thereafter, during the invasion by Qin, another group of mages fled. Phoenix¡¯s army was currently relying on its reserves.


    A magic cavalryman would be blessed with magic during the charging phase, their equipment did not actually contain any skills. Since there were no grand mages avable, the cavalrymen were only blessed with the low level Windspeed Skill. Even though this low level spell had a protracted duration, it was very demanding on the stamina of the warhorses and soldiers. The cavalrymen only got boosted when they were one mile from the envoy group.


    The advancing speed of the envoy group was not very high either, there were many chariots. Phoenix¡¯s roads were not repaired in time while some roads were tapered, so the envoy group was elongated.


    Even though the envoy group was prepared, it could not form an effective formation to retaliate.


    The sixth camp had brought along more than one-hundredrge chariots. In just two minutes, theserge chariots had been lined up to form two lines of defense. The infantrymen disembarked from the horses and wielded heavy crossbows, then they hid behind therge chariots and made a weak defensive formation.


    In the three-thousand man army of the envoy group, sixteen-hundred of them were from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp and they only took orders from the two sorcerers. These sixteen-hundred people were genuine cavalrymen, the armor on their bodies was worth thousands of gold coins. Once Tiffany raised the rm, these sixteen-hundred soldiers quickly left the main road, then assumed a triangr formation.


    Of the fourteen-hundred troops protecting Barde, only four-hundred were infantrymen. These four-hundred infantrymen leaped off the warhorses and hid behind therge chariots, then they wielded heavy shields. The shields were ced at both sides to prevent the enemy¡¯s cavalrymen from going around the formation and using their bows.


    The sixth camp possessed two emblem groups worth of cavalrymen. It was not easy for Saleen to obtain a few thousand warhorses, these two-thousand cavalrymen were Saleen¡¯s mightiest mobile units. Their response was to wear a metal mask before bending down and securing a miniature cavalry crossbow in front of the stirrup.


    The range of a cavalry crossbow was far, while its uracy was terrible. Usually, a cavalryman could only strike the enemy within ten yards based on their experience. This weapon would fire bursts of three arrows and did not need to be operated by hand. After the cavalrymen installed the cavalry crossbows, they then took out three steel pipes and joined them together, forming a cross spear.


    The cavalrymen from the sixth camp retreated two-hundred yards. As their equipment was superior, they could elerate to maximum velocity within two-hundred yards.


    The over ten-thousand people swiftly altered their formation. They did not have the intention to only defend. The cavalrymen were ready to act anytime, they were eager to act even. The only person who was slightly unnerved was the envoy who was going to reside in Holy Rock City permanently; Viscount Piac.


    Of course, the viscount did not feel that going to Holy Rock City was an easy task, but he never expected his life to be in danger before even entering Qin.


    ¡°What should we do? What should we do?!¡± Viscount Piac mumbled to himself, but a high grade swordmaster beside him pulled the reins, positioning him behind the second row ofrge chariots.


    Piac had an upright posture atop the warhorse. If it was not for his inattentive gaze, his bearing would be pretty good.


    ¡°Viscount, if we cannot make it, you shall flee,¡± the high grade swordmaster beside him said sarcastically. This high grade swordmaster had just defected to Saleen, he only entered the sixth camp after passing the verification conducted by the mages. He was full of contempt looking at Piac¡¯s appearance.


    ¡°Nonsense!¡± Viscount Piac suddenly exploded, he wielded a longsword and waved it about forcefully, then yelled, ¡°What do you take me for? If I escape, the whole world willugh at me!¡±


    ¡°Eh? Viscount, you are pretty brave. In that case, please go to the rear, and allow the soldiers to help you put on a set of fitting armor.¡±


    This high grade swordmaster no longer mocked Piac, he gestured to ask the soldiers to drag the viscount away. He then returned to his position tomand an emblem group of infantrymen.


    Piac was not courageous at all, his son was in Saleen¡¯s hands and so was his future. If Piac fled, his position would decline drastically even if Saleen did not kill him. His assets would be confiscated even if he remained a noble. Piac would rather die than have that happen.


    Piac was very agitated, he only calmed down after the soldiers dragged him away.


    ¡°Staying alive is the most important thing. Saleen has deployed ten-thousand people to protect the envoy group and Huoxing City isn¡¯t up ahead, I should be safe. I am not a powerless person, I still have good equestrianism. Once I wear armor and wield a weapon, I will not be less useful than a normal soldier. I can still do archery, my uracy is still passable within fifty yards.¡±


    At a distance of five-hundred yards, the cavalrymen from Phoenix began increasing their speed gradually, their equestrianism was superb. Upon noticing their targets getting into formation, themander of the cavalrymen immediately ordered the cavalrymen to split into two arrowhead-shaped formation and attack from both nks.


    Saleen¡¯s army would never let the enemy seed so easily. When the enemy was five-hundred yards away, the chariots that were fitted with alchemical crossbows started firing.


    It was not difficult for the strongest alchemical crossbow to have a range of more than one mile and still be urate. The alchemical crossbows on the chariots were much smaller and they were also not controlled by mages, they were simply ruthless.


    The one yard long arrows, which had an arrowhead with a cross-shaped metal thorn, pierced through the air. Even though the cavalrymen were several yards from one another as they charged forward, the range of this alchemical crossbow had exceeded five-hundred yards. They could strike the enemies very easily.


    Hundreds of arrows prated the warhorses and cavalrymen.


    The prative ability of these arrows was astonishing, every target that got hit lost a huge amount of flesh due to the cross-shaped metal thorn and their bones were shattered. This round of assault had caused the two-thousand cavalrymen to suffer massive losses.


    These over three-hundred alchemical crossbows had caused up to four-hundred casualties, both man and horse were crippled. The first wave of cavalrymen only had two-thousand people and twenty percent of them were lost. That caused the morale of Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen to waver. There was still an army with more than ten-thousand men behind, the vanguard¡¯s cavalrymen could not retreat at this point in time.


    The cavalrymen who charged at the front dodged the edge of the alchemical crossbows as they went towards the sides. If there were no mages an alchemical crossbow could only be fired once. Once the enemy went farther forward, they would enter the effective range of the heavy crossbows though. The lethality of a heavy crossbow was not as high as an alchemical crossbow, but it could still prate a cavalryman¡¯s heavy armor.


    A heavy cavalryman could resist a longbow, but they could not withstand an ejected arrow that wasunched from a heavy crossbow with a two-hundred yard range. The vanguard¡¯s cavalrymen split into two streams, but they noticed shields measuring two yards in height at the sides of the chariot formation. The pedal-operated crossbows prepared by the cavalrymen had to be fired. A shrill whoosh filled the air, as more than one-thousand arrows rushed towards the infantrymen from the sixth camp.


    The shields operated by the infantrymen were coated with an exterioryer of metal, with an interioryer of thousand year old wood, while the side facing the enemy was covered in beast skin. The arrows fired from the pedal-operated crossbows struck the shields, these metal arrows pierced through the metalyer, but were blocked by the wood inside.


    The two different materials of the shield formed a strange physical structure and obstructed the arrows¡¯ powerful prative ability.


    Even though this shield was not a magic shield, it had been designed by a mage. Originally, the infantrymen from the sixth camp were a little fearful, but their moods were very much stabilized now.


    The cavalrymen from Phoenix were a bit afraid at the moment, their pedal-operated crossbows actually failed to prate the enemy¡¯s shields from a distance of less than one-hundred yards!


    A standard issue pedal-operated crossbow from Qin must be able to pierce armor from a distance of one-hundred yards. There was only one chance to shoot on the battlefield. These pedal-operated crossbows were also the best equipment in Phoenix¡¯s cavalry regiment.


    The infantrymen stationed at the sides were not using very good equipment, the soldiers in the back rows wielded small shields as they opened up handheld hard crossbows. These hard crossbows would only have a chance of piercing the heavy armor worn by Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen within a distance of fifty yards. The soldiers could not even lift the alchemical crossbows installed on therge chariots, not to mention taking aim and firing them.


    Therge chariots which Saleen issued to the sixth camp were solely used forbat. Once the enemy¡¯s charge had been fended off, the cavalrymen at the back finallyunched their offensive.


    Two-thousand cavalrymen suddenly elerated from a standstill. The twenty cavalrymen in the first row were d in doubleyered heavy armor and rode on skeletal warhorses, while wielding disposable cavalrynces. Saleen had designed thesences by imitating Cloudflow¡¯s magic beast swordsmen, these cavalrynces had to be thrown away after a one time use. The mighty charging power of a skeletal warhorse could not be supported by the soldiers. The ends of the weapons were attached to the body of the skeletal warhorses using metal chains.


    Cavalrymen from both parties crashed into each other violently, producing a booming sound which could only be replicated by a trebuchet.


    The twenty cavalrynces wielded by the first row of cavalrymen from Metatrin were utterly shattered, but they had thrashed an opening into Phoenix¡¯s formation. The strength of a skeletal warhorse was several times higher than that of a normal horse.


    Once thences were crushed, the Metatrin cavalrymen calmly took out heavy duty machetes and shed them horizontally. Enemies who brushed past were cut in two by the machetes.


    The second wave of cavalrymen from Phoenix arrived in that moment. The alchemical crossbows on therge chariots were removed and got reced byrge heavy crossbows. The soldiers from the sixth camp had experienced Metatrin¡¯s defensive war and had fought with the Holy See¡¯s soldiers. Their nervousness in the beginning was a result of being unfamiliar with Phoenix¡¯s soldiers.


    In the end, after the first round of retaliation, it was proven that the soldiers from Phoenix were less ferocious than the Holy See¡¯s soldiers. The injured ones also would not get up to continue the assault. This huge disparity became arge confidence booster for the soldiers from the sixth camp.


    It was not that they were not elite enough, but when they were first recruited, their first enemy was the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army. The fighting style of those fanatic believers was poles apart from that of normal people. Even though Metatrin eventually triumphed, the soldiers were traumatized by the Holy See¡¯s believers.


    The Phoenix people were obviously much weaker.

 Chapter 696: The sixth camp (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 696: The sixth camp (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The second wave of cavalrymen only had about one-thousand people. Phoenix could not organize too many cavalrymen and Cexing City was not an important town. Most of these soldiers had only undergone basic cavalry training.


    The equipment used by the sixth camp was clearly superior to that of the enemy. Once therge heavy crossbows were installed, the soldiers observed the approaching enemy calmly. Once the enemy was five-hundred yards away, the soldiers charged towards the nks.


    The soldiers guarding the chariot formation became increasinglyposed. The quality of the enemy¡¯s cavalrymen was fair. Since they could not do a frontal assault, they could only use bows to attack from the sides. It was the best idea to deploy light cavalrymen who traveled slightly faster. The cavalrymen, who were d in heavy armor and shot from the sides, were moving at a much lower speed.


    A warhorse could only charge at full speed for an hour at most. If the horse was of an inferior bloodline, it could not even sustain its power for ten minutes. If the charge by the cavalrymen could not destroy the enemy¡¯s formation, then the assault would be a total failure.


    The formation of the sixth camp was very holistic. The chariots formed the fa?ade, while the shields blocked the sides, and Holy Rock City¡¯s envoy group stood at the rear.


    The envoy group from Holy Rock City retreated to the rear. They wanted to evaluate the quality of the soldiers from Metatrin City. If the soldiers could not make it, the envoy group could still utilize their powerful charging power to salvage the situation. Unexpectedly, the enemy¡¯s offensive did not even waver the sixth camp¡¯s formation. The defense put up by the sixth camp was imprable. The soldiers in the middle formed up neatly. They sat atop racks which were hastily constructed as they stood ready to act and rush out of the defensive formation anytime.


    ¡°This is Saleen¡¯s best forces, right?¡± Barde mumbled to himself, as he surveilled the battle calmly. Two sorcerers were beside him, but Barde would not bother them with a question. If they ignored him, he would be very embarrassed.


    Clearly, Tiffany was not so cold, she said, ¡°They are pretty good, simr to Qin¡¯s main army. In terms of equipment, they are slightly better.¡±


    Tiffany was obviously referring to the three-hundred alchemical crossbows which had a range of more than five-hundred yards. In Qin, these items were banned.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t the same. Great Mage, let¡¯s not talk about the campmander first, even Saleen¡¯s emblem groupmander has no respect for Viscount Piac.¡± Duke Barde observed carefully. He had cultivated swordsmanship before, so his vision was great.


    ¡°It is a habit from the fourth dynasty. The armies belonging to royalty or the direct descendant of royalty, are ced above a noble,¡± Tiffany remarked. The ¡°Metatrin¡± surname really existed in the fourth dynasty. She did not dwell much on it, so she naturally regarded Saleen as the offspring of royalty from the fourth dynasty.


    ¡°That is the scariest thing. Saleen only needs to develop his main army, while the remaining armies will be taken care of by the nobles. The nobles don¡¯t dare to rebel, so Saleen will be able to enhance the army¡¯s equipment indefinitely. Using these elites to control the nobles and fight for him, Metatrin City can easily rear one-hundred-thousand troops,¡± Barde reminded.


    ¡°His Majesty has his own ns. Barde, you are overstepping your boundaries,¡± Tiffany replied frostily.


    The cavalrymen from the sixth camp advanced unhindered, ruthlessly crashing into the front of the cavalrymen from Phoenix. The difference in weapons used by both parties was immediately observed. Across short distances, the cavalry crossbows used by the sixth camp would be fired the moment the path forward became clear, they were invincible within a range of ten yards.


    The twenty soldiers who rode on skeletal warhorses wielded gigantic machetes, while the remaining cavalrymen used cross spears.


    When a cavalryman was charging, ance was clearly more advantageous. Once ance stabbed into the enemy¡¯s heavy armor, it could not be pulled out easily. The moment such a thing happened to the cavalrymen from the sixth camp, the soldiers immediately abandoned the cross spears. They then would wield the longswords which were stored behind the saddle. On the other hand, the Phoenix cavalry would wield heavy swords once they threw away theirnces.


    In the sh between the des, both parties were d in heavy armor. Coupled with the impact brought about by the warhorses, weapons were sent flying. Only powerful swordmasters managed to hold onto their weapons.


    Most of Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen were shot off their horses. On average, two or more Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen were needed to match with one cavalryman from the sixth camp. Their numbers were already smaller than the sixth camp from the start. After the vigorous sh, only about two-hundred people from the sixth camp fell off their warhorses. There were some unlucky ones who died, but most only sustained minor injuries.


    The Phoenix cavalry lost about five-hundred men. After this event, less than one-thousand troops remained. They were all heavy cavalrymen, but so were the soldiers from the sixth camp.


    The leadmander from Phoenix blew a shrill metal whistle and lead the cavalrymen south as he tried to shake off the cavalrymen from the sixth camp. The speeds of both parties had been lowered. Even though their warhorses were inferior to that of the sixth camp, they could still shake off the sixth camp.


    The sixth camp¡¯s cavalry did not give chase because one-thousand cavalrymen had appeared at their rear. These people turned out to be from the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp. Tiffany gave an order, then she immediately cast two group-enhancing spells with Stephanie. Under the radiance of magic, these one-thousand cavalrymen emitted enormous runes as they charged forward at twice the speed of a normal cavalryman.


    Such a group spell would notst long, but the distance between both parties was less than two miles. Traveling at double the original speed, the imperial cavalrymen drew closer to the enemy swiftly. They then raised the quivers in their hands.


    This type of crossbow which was operated by springs had inadequate power. Be that as it may, the arrows used by the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp were all alchemical in nature, the sharpness of these arrows couldpensate for all the inadequacies.


    From behind the shield formation, around five-hundred infantrymen from the sixth camp took the chance to charge out and rescue the wounded cavalrymen. Another five-hundred soldiers emerged from the shield formation, approaching the injured Phoenix soldiers. Wielding triangr swords, they stabbed at the weak areas of the enemy¡¯s armor.


    Qin armor protected the whole body, while the armor of a heavy cavalryman had no crevices. To ensure the flexibility of a cavalryman during battle, it was necessary for some areas to be weaker though. These weak spots were made by mping magic beast skin between two metal pieces. The triangr swords were made to break armor, so they could easily kill the wounded enemies who had no resistance.


    Originally, among Phoenix¡¯s cavalryman, only one-hundred had died on the spot. The remaining four hundred over were injured after falling off their horses. If they were rescued, they would not die since they would receive treatment by the mages¡¯ medicine.


    Themander of the sixth camp nted himself in the main body, observing the events in an indifferent manner. The enemy¡¯s infantrymen were only one mile away, they had disembarked from the horses and were organizing their equipment and preparing to attack soon. At this point in time, the sixth camp could not possibly capture any prisoners.


    In the previous invasion by Qin, the Phoenix army did not run into such a situation, most of their casualties were salvaged. This time around, Saleen¡¯s army had killed all the wounded people on the spot.


    While doing this, the soldiers from the sixth camp actually did not experience any psychological pressure. The first enemy they ran into could not be fully killed, their first enemy would continue battling. In the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army, as long as the soldier¡¯s finger could still move, there was a chance that the soldier could trigger a crossbow. Even on the brink of death, the soldiers still wanted to kill one more enemy.


    Barde was not surprised that the counter charge had defeated Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen. In his eyes, soldiers from the sixth camp were of pretty good quality and their weapons were superior. If they could not defeat the Phoenix people, then they should not even exist.


    This uniform massacre sent chills down his spine.


    ¡°If all of Saleen¡¯s armies behaved this way, the future wars would be extremely gruesome!¡±


    Within Holy Rock City¡¯s envoy group, two thousand out of the three thousand troops joined in the battle. The remaining one thousand soldiers protected Barde. The sorcerers did not take any action though. The enemy was not present in high numbers, so there was no need for them to appear. A mage of such grade would basically cast auxiliary spells on the battlefield. Unless the enemy went to target a sorcerer directly, a sorcerer would never ughter the normal soldiers.


    This was due to a safety reason. Due to the poprity of alchemical equipment, a sorcerer in the midst of an army could possibly be killed in the face of fearsome weapons. In the main body, a sorcerer would be protected by soldiers, they would be very safe.


    The chariot formation at the front frustrated the Phoenix people. There was no other way. The infantrymen who advanced forward spread out towards the two sides, thus the manpower was distributed. All the chariots from the sixth camp could totally form a circle to protect all the soldiers. That would only take ce in the presence of a tough enemy though.


    Currently, the enemy forces were not special. The chariot formation separated the enemy forces in anticipation of a fight with the enemy¡¯s infantrymen.


    The strategy employed by Phoenix was a tad na?ve. They wanted to use the heavy cavalrymen to disrupt the sixth camp¡¯s formation before using the infantrymen for a direct assault. Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen had been defeated. In order for their infantrymen to triumph, the infantrymen could only go head-on with the sixth camp, there would be no more war tactics in y.


    Themander of the sixth camp did not wish to use any war tactics as the terrain there was t. He could not really manipte the terrain to his advantage. The enemy was well-prepared, no plot would be better than a direct confrontation.


    When Lex trained these soldiers, she did not demand them to receive in-depth swordsmanship training, she had focused on discipline. At that point in time, themanders were confused, but they were now very d.


    The sixth camp¡¯smand did not have any ws because the soldiers had gone through ruthless discipline training. They were simply using their instincts to react to the events unfolding before them.


    The highest rankingmander of an emblem group only needed to give a simple order and the entire army would work in tandem. No matter how anxious the soldiers were, their execution of movements was perfect. On such a battlefield, the power of an individual was minified, but the power of a group was magnified.


    ¡°Advance!¡¯


    A thunderous bellow sounded, followed by the urgent striking of drums. An emblem group of infantrymen leaped over the shield formation and charged towards the second wave of cavalrymen who wereing from the sides. These one-thousand cavalrymen did not split up, but they tried to annoy the imperial swordsman¡¯s camp which was chasing the fleeing cavalrymen. No one expected an emblem group of infantrymen tounch an offensive against the cavalrymen from a distance of two-hundred yards.


    The legs of the one-thousand heavy infantrymen gave off a magical brilliance, this emblem group of infantrymen charged out at high speed. A two-hundred yard distance was very long for infantrymen, but under the effect of magic equipment, these heavy infantrymen released a horrifying charging power in that instant.


    They could only sprint for a mere five-hundred yards, but that was sufficient. One emblem group, one-thousand people, was split into five brigades. Each brigade contained two-hundred troops. The front row of soldiers were strongmen who wielded poleaxes.


    These heavy and sharp poleaxes had destroyed the hopes of Phoenix¡¯s cavalrymen. Before the cavalrynces could be tossed the cavalrymen were hacked off their horses by the heavy infantrymen.


    Everyone knew that a cavalryman would have to be cautious near a heavy infantryman, it would be best to use their speed advantage for attack. Nevertheless, no one expected the infantrymen from the sixth camp to use the stance of cavalrymen to attack the enemy. The cavalrymen¡¯s retaliation was a little useless. After getting attacked from the side, the cavalrymen wielded longswords and shed at the armor of the heavy infantrymen. Without the advantage brought about by speed, the longswords could not break the armor at all.


    A second infantry emblem group rushed out, these infantrymen did not wear heavy armor, so their speed was not as fast. They specialized in killing the wounded enemies, using their shortnces to poke the fallen enemies.


    It was a very cruel battle as the enemies were extirpated.

 Chapter 697: Take no Prisoners (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 697: Take no Prisoners (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The expression on Duke Bard¡¯s face was awful. If the first time they injured a knight was to boost morale, then the second time when they butchered the injured enemies just meant that this was what Saleen¡¯s soldiers have been trained to do.


    A typical army would not do this because it would incite the enemy to fight to the death.


    Saleen¡¯s army clearly did not care about this. They even had soldiers that specifically carried out such a role. Their actions were very much in-sync, which meant that they have been trained for this. Without the appropriate weapons, it would not be easy to pierce through the armors of the heavy-armored knights and kill them.


    ¡°Should we stop them!¡± Duke Bard asked Tiffany.


    ¡°Why should we?¡± Tiffany was confused and replied with another question.


    Duke Bard was speechless. Tiffany was a grade-8 sorcerer so she had zero pity for these soldiers. It was foolish to ask a mage whether or not a prisoner should be killed.


    One would not end up well by offending mages.


    ¡°Bard, we will have even fiercer battles in future. What more are you thinking about at this point!¡± Stephanie reprimanded Bard.


    Realization suddenly dawned on Bard. This attack was not a coincidence. Something has happened in Phoenix. Gathering more than ten-thousand soldiers and three-thousand knights was not something one or two noble families could aplish on their own.


    Bard was part of the war division in the House of Commons and was never fond of the people of Phoenix. He knew the situation there very well. What Stephanie said helped him to link to the cause of this incident.


    The knights that have fled in all directions were now being chased by the knights of the royal swordsmen battalion. Thetter were shooting long arrows that have been lit up with mes. This was a real magic equipment that was possessed only by the royal swordsmen battalion. The cone-shaped tip of the arrow would pierce through the armor while the mes would burn the soldier from within.


    Those that have been trained in swordsmanship would have high tolerance towards pain but the burning of magic mes would prate directly into the bones, which was different from normal mes.


    The Phoenix knights began to fall from their horses while screaming in pain. They would not survive without any mages to heal them.


    There were casualties from the battle between the sixth battalion and the Phoenix knights. The knights of the royal swordsmen battalion were pursuing their enemies purely for massacre. The knights that were being chased quickly drew their short bows and shot behind them. However, they were heavy-armored knights and their archery skills were many times poorer than light-armored knights. They rarely used these short bows so when the arrows were shot, they all failed to pierce through the armors of the royal swordsmen battalion soldiers.


    Bard felt a rush of emotions when he witnessed this scene. He had never seen the royal swordsmen battalion in action until today and it made him think about his own private soldiers.


    Dukes were allowed to own more than one-thousand private soldiers. These soldiers were the bodyguards of noble families and were all fit and sturdy. Compared to the soldiers of the royal swordsmen battalion, there was still a huge gap.


    After a quick battle, all the knights other than the Phoenix knights in the north were exterminated by the sixth battalion and the royal swordsmen battalion. The knights in the north were unaware of what had happened to the others. They only realized the inferiority of their weapons after losing two-hundred men and quickly decided to retreat.


    The knights in the south lost more than half of their men when the sixth battalion¡¯s heavy-armored infantry charged out. By the time they decided to flee, the knights of the sixth battalion had also came charging at them. Knights that have lost the advantage of speed no longer possessed the upper hand when facing the range weapons of foot soldiers. They could only depend on their courage to continue fighting.


    It was at this point in time that the foot soldiers of the sixth battalion took advantage of the enemy¡¯s loss of speed and pressed on.


    The remaining four-hundred over knights were surrounded. The archers and crossbow men began to shoot at the knights with their alchemy arrows.


    The number of crossbows that the sixth battalion possessed was far more than what an army should have. There were practically one-hundredrge wagons and two-hundred small wagons filled with crossbows and their equipment. Provisions were minimal and the sixth battalion had originally nned to stock up provisions when they entered Phoenix. The Phoenicians that attacked the group of envoys had received inurate information. They had thought that their target only consisted of five-thousand soldiers and horses in total, hence the entire twenty-thousand men in Cexing City were activated to exterminate these envoys.


    If the Phoenix armies were able to pressurize the envoys into heading towards Huoxing City, the fifty-thousand strong army there would be able to sandwich the envoys in between two armies. By then, the group of envoys consisting of ten-thousand men would surely suffer major losses.


    In actual fact, the armies in the north of Phoenix were not considered elite. Out of seventy-thousand men, only ten-thousand were part of the main force. Most were gathered at Huoxing City in a bid to remove Lex from Phoenix.


    Due to this failure in strategy, the Phoenix rebellion suffered heavy losses, less than five-hundred knights out of more than three-thousand survived. The foot soldiers that charged next were naturally not very effective. The sixth battalion¡¯s foot soldiers quickly retreated back to their shields and prepared their crossbows.


    A normal crossbow required a lot of energy from soldiers. Only an elite soldier would be able to shoot twenty-four arrows consecutively. Saleen did not ce such high expectations on his soldiers. A long time was needed in order to train up a crossbow man. However, Saleen had his mages design a type of glove that would increase the number of arrows each soldier could shoot.


    Three-hundred alchemy crossbows were dismantled and packed into boxes and the sixth battalion¡¯s main weapon now were heavy crossbows. Heavy crossbows could shoot at a range of two-hundred yards and when set up on a wagon, a good crossbow man would be able to shoot an entire round in one minute. Phoenix¡¯s army of rebels were faced with the sixth battalion¡¯s heavy crossbows.


    The heavy crossbows were smaller than alchemy crossbows but the arrows could still inflict damage over two-hundred yards. Nevertheless, even below-average mercenaries would be able to run a distance of two-hundred yards in less than a minute.


    More than four-hundred men died when the Phoenix soldiers charged for the first time because they were not led by heavy-armored infantry in front. The heavy crossbows could prate cleanly through the enemy and cause multiple deaths or injuries in one shot.


    The sixth battalion did not possess crossbows activated by the foot. All of them had to be activated by both arms. Such crossbows possessed a one-hundred yard attacking range, which was further than single-armed crossbows. The only thing was that without wagons to ce the crossbows, the crossbow men needed to be even more highly skilled.


    With a distance of one-hundred yards, the three-hundred wagons shot out thousands of arrows. The Phoenix soldiers charged forward while holding up their little square-shaped shields. They would all be shot to death if they did not get nearer to the enemy.


    The soldiers of the sixth battalion were only average in their archery skills and could not possibly aim for the enemy¡¯s crucial areas at a distance of one-hundred yardsso the thousands of arrows were basically shot randomly and in all directions.


    Very quickly, the Phoenix foot soldiers that wielded long swords have already covered fifty yards of distance and the losses they incurred were about the same as the first round of heavy crossbows.


    Within this distance of two-hundred yards, there were almost a thousand casualties. The Phoenix officers were shocked.


    The soldiers of the sixth battalion were no longer nervous because they could see that their enemies were much weaker than the Holy See¡¯s expedition. Those that have been injured by the arrows basically deserted their weapons and no longer charged forward.


    ¡°Get ready, shoot at an angle!¡±


    Orders were given out in every regiment and the soldiers quickly put down their crossbows before picking up their bows and lined themselves up. They would shoot at an angle from the rear of the wagons.


    This was when the sixth battalion believed that they had gained the upper hand. This was because the enemy¡¯s attacks in retaliation did not even manage to reach the soldiers behind the wagons. The enemy¡¯s crossbows were blocked by the wagons so they had to shoot at an angle. A high level of skills was required to shoot crossbow arrows at an angle and the damage they could inflict were also lowered.


    The armor that they wore could definitely protect them from such attacks.


    The knights of the royal swordsmen battalion returned and the knights of the sixth battalion on both nks did not try to charge into the enemy¡¯s foot soldiers. Instead, they retreated. The knights kept their weapons and reloaded the arrows in the crossbows on their horses.


    Although these crossbows only had an attacking range of ten yards, it was further than any long weapons possessed by foot soldiers, including the eight yard long big spears. Facing these big spears actually posed many problems for knights and they would have to rely on their individual techniques to ovee them. Therefore, it was wiser to utilize the crossbows first before charging at the enemy as this would reduce losses.


    ¡°Looks like it has been settled,¡± Bard breathed a sigh of relief. He was not a military general but he has read so many books that he was not unfamiliar with military warfare. If he was given a chance to undergo training, he could very well be a military officer.


    The Phoenicians misused their knights. The knights were killed off very early on and the foot soldiers were toote to provide reinforcements, hence they lost all possibilities of victory. The sixth battalion had too many crossbows but this was also the reason why they have managed to keep their losses to the minimum.


    Until now, the sixth battalion has yet to incur more than five-hundred casualties.


    Dong... dong...


    The war drums sounded and the Phoenix soldiers changed directions and began to attack from both nks again. It was difficult to ovee the formation of wagons head-on. Everyone knew that the defense mechanism of wagon formation employed by Qin was a formidable one. If not for the fact that the group of envoys had so many bows and arrows, the Phoenix army of rebels might have attempted to attack from three sides. However, it was clear that the envoys simply had too many crossbow men.


    The wagons could inflict a lot of damage while the soldiers behind them could shoot arrows at will, therefore the Phoenicians had no choice but to attack from the sides like what the knights did previously.


    As the war drums changed continuously, the soldiers hiding behind the wagons quietly changed their weapons. one-thousand archers would remain while the others kept their crossbows and took out their weapons that were suitable for closebat.


    Bard observed the change in the situation and could not help but ask, ¡°Grand Mage Tiffany, if the enemy possessedrge-scale equipment or could unleash powerful magic beasts, how would the Metatrin army react?¡±


    Bard had some doubts. Indeed, the sixth battalion had the upper hand now and should eventually clinch victory. The advantage they held now was due to theck of preparation on the enemy¡¯s part. If the enemy hadrge-scale puppets or magic ballistas, such an advantage would no longer exist.


    The general of the sixth battalion saw that the enemy has already gotten into their formations and was about tounch their attack. This was when he gave hismand.


    ¡°Everyone, prepare... attack!¡± To everyone¡¯s surprise, he gave his order for retaliation even before the enemy hasunched their attack.

 Chapter 698: Take no Prisoners (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 698: Take no Prisoners (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The sound of the war drums picked up some urgency as the officers of each regiment nervously gave their orders. The foot soldiers behind the formation of wagons suddenly dispersed outwards while the soldiers on both sides of the shield formation advanced with their huge shields. Behind them were the foot soldiers armed with cross spears. The heavy-armored infantry has already rested enough and their magic armors could be used again.


    They were as quick as lightning and could attack at the same speed as knights within a distance of five-hundred yards. Their halberts and short spears could destroy all kinds of heavy armors. These one-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers were the elites of the sixth battalion.


    Saleen has equipped these one-thousand soldiers with magic armors and weapons that could destroy heavy armors. These soldiers did not need to care about logistics. For every five soldiers, one of them would be issued with the skin of a purple-gold sea urchin to contain all their necessities and grain.


    Saleen intended to use this one-thousandstrong regiment as a test to see if his ns for his armies were on the right track. Although knights were powerful military units, no army has ever relied on knights to build a country.


    Usually the keys to victory lied in a powerful army of foot soldiers and mages. The knights would not be in the same category unless Saleen could sessfully manufacture enough flying puppets to contain an individual¡¯s flying equipment.


    Only then would one be considered a real knight, a flying knight!


    Flying knights were a unit created in the elf dimension. Back then, almost all humans could fly so there was no need to research into any flying equipment or magic beasts that could save humans from walking. Now, humans could create flying equipment but a lot was required and many materials could no longer be found on other dimensions. For example, thundercloud wood grew only on the trees in giant dimension. It was the most suitable material for flying equipment because it would not be affected by lightning even if the flyer flew amongst the clouds.


    The ancient humans merely used such wood to make boats.


    After retrieving many sunken ships, Saleen had wanted to use the thundercloud wood to create shields but subsequently discovered metallic steel rocks. Although thetter was heavier, it could be refined more easily. As long as there were enough supplies, he would be able to equip his armies on arge scale.


    Thereafter, Saleen decided to use thundercloud wood to buildbat vessels. After all, he could not possibly depend only on winged skull for his naval forces. However, Eleanor had then passed Saleen a pile of diagrams and one of them mentioned about flying puppets that could carry humans.


    Saleen was only left with thundercloud wood to create the body of the flying puppet.


    With thundercloud wood, Saleen focused more on the infantry. These magic heavy-armored infantry would be used for experimentation.


    The heavy-armored infantry of the sixth battalion had regained their strengths. The shield formation on both sides opened up and knocked back the Phoenix rebel army that had been charging towards them.


    The shield formation was meant to defend against the knights¡¯ charging. In all Qin armies, the knights¡¯ warhorses were all d with armors with a long metal ram on their chest area. When it made contact with foot soldiers, thetter would be crushed.


    The giant shields that were two meters tall pushed forward in a line. The Phoenix foot soldiers had nowhere to attack. Both parties were squeezed together. The knights of the sixth battalion and the group of envoys remained still. The best way to utilize knights was to defeat the enemy at one go rather than to be tangled up with thousands of foot soldiers.


    The foot soldiers of the sixth battalion that were armed with shields bravely advanced forward while those armed with six yard long spears followed closely behind. Such a long weapon could only be wielded by soldiers with a certain level of proficiency. The Phoenix soldiers were being forced close together and the gaps between each soldier became narrower. This was when the soldiers holding shields dispersed to reveal the long spears behind them.


    The Phoenix soldiers that had been wielding war axes and heavy hammers at their opponents were instantly pierced into a stick of bloody cbash.


    The Phoenix soldiers had long spears of their own but they were only four meters long. After the spear soldiers had been pushed aside by the shield soldiers, the foot soldiers armed with heavy weapons charged to the front, hoping to smash through the shield formation. Unfortunately, they did not expect the change in the sixth battalion¡¯s formation and suffered heavy losses.


    The shield soldiers would not be able to hang on to the giant shield for long if they did not change their formation.


    The Phoenicians were also made up of a mixture of military units. When they saw how much damage the long spears inflicted, the foot soldiers armed with heavy swords quickly rushed forward to cut them off. A normal long spear was made of wood and only the tip was made of metal. However, the first two meters of the sixth battalion¡¯s long spears were wrapped with ayer of metal wirings so they could not be chopped off so easily.


    Such long spears were dispensable to the sixth battalion since the materials used were not valuable. After killing hundreds of Phoenix soldiers, the enemy began to chop off these long spears, rendering them useless.


    At this point, one-thousand archers rushed to the front and shot at the enemy¡¯s formation.


    The shield formation did not vanishpletely. Instead, every six shields would form a circle and crossbow arrows were shot out from within. The sixth battalion¡¯s handheld crossbows could attack only at a range of two to three meters, which were shorter than bows, but they could shoot consecutively.


    These handheld crossbows were unable to inflict a lot of damage but they managed to break down the Phoenicians¡¯ attacks sessfully. Both sides were tangled up with each other and not before long, the shield soldiers have broken up the Phoenix foot soldiers into small clusters.


    This was when the knights of the sixth battalion finallyunched their attack.


    These knights have long deserted theirnces and were wielding scimitars with reversed des. If the scimitars were curved even more, they would be sickles. The des of the scimitars were sharp and had jagged edges on the opposite side.


    The knights remained aggressive even without theirnces. The warhorses were d with heavy armors at thest minute and they weighed more than one-thousand pounds in total. The knights did not ride straight into the foot soldiers. That would be suicidal. Without speed, knights would not have any advantages over foot soldiers. The warhorses would be burdens instead.


    Heavy galloping sounds sounded around the foot soldiers. The knights of the sixth battalion wielded their scimitars and cut down the outermostyer of Phoenician foot soldiers like they were peeling onions. With the help of the warhorses¡¯ momentum, the reversed de of their scimitars could cut through the metallic armors.


    ¡°They are formidable!¡± Bard could not help himself but to observe the battle from afar by using alchemy binocrs. The three-thousand knights of the group of envoys remained still and waited patiently. They would act as reinforcements if the enemy had backup.


    Bard noticed that the sixth battalion¡¯s formation hadpletely changed without his knowing. In the centre were a regiment of heavy-armored foot soldiers and regiments that contained battalion generals. These two-thousand men remained where they were while the other six regiments of foot soldiers formed the shape of a gigantic gear with six pointed edges pointing outwards. They advanced towards the Phoenician foot soldiers in a spinning motion, killing many of them.


    Without taking into ount the knights, the sixth battalion only held a slight advantage in terms of army strength. However, anyone could see that it was a one-sided affair. The knights were cutting down the enemy foot soldiers from the outside. They were able to leverage their speed to chop off the heads of the enemy with their scimitars.


    It was extremely difficult for the Phoenician foot soldiers to cut through the knights¡¯ heavy armors with their heavy swords. They could try to pierce through the armors instead, but the foot soldiers would also be repelled back by the impact.


    The sixth battalion were having an increasingly easy time. The enemy lost the will to fight very quickly, unlike the Holy See soldiers. The equipment given to them by Saleen was better than the enemy¡¯s by multiple times. Even if both sides hacked at each other without any skills, the soldiers of the sixth battalion still had the upper hand. Besides, the sixth battalion kept itself in a formation of a giant gear. The Phoenicians were being dispersed into small pockets and being attacked from both sides as the knights were also inflicting damage from the outeryers.


    Phoenix¡¯s second ten-thousand strong army had yet to arrive at the battlefield but the battle was almost finished.


    Due to some unknown trigger, the Phoenicians began to retreat. If there was one fleeing soldier, there would be a second one. The officers tried to stop the soldiers from fleeing by using bodyguards to maintain military order. A regiment of soldiers tried to reorganize the formation, hoping to hang in there until reinforcements arrived.


    Originally, the Phoenix rebel armies were all dressed the same way so the sixth battalion had no idea where the central army was located. Now that the Phoenix rebel army battalionmander has been exposed, the sixth battalionmander immediately gave themand.


    The gigantic gear formation began to advance towards the south with increasing speed. As the war drums sounded, the regiment of heavy-armored foot soldiers that had yet to participate in the battle began to charge towards the enemy¡¯s central army. When they were two-hundred yards away from the enemy¡¯s central army, there was an explosion of magic light from each soldier¡¯s thigh.


    Once the heavy-armored soldiers gained speed, the amount of damage they could inflict was terrifying.


    Duke Bard only saw a wave of ck armors drown the Phoenicians¡¯ central army.


    The Phoenicianspletely copsed under this blow. They still had about five-thousand soldiers remaining but none had the will to retaliate. Most of them fled towards the south while a few escaped towards the east.


    The rhythm of the war drums changed once again as the heavy-armored foot soldiers pursued for a mile before returning. Every step they took would use up the magic nuclei on their magic armors.


    The knights of the sixth battalion kept their scimitars and took over the bows and arrows from the foot soldiers and gave chase. They never thought of exterminating all their enemies because that might incur unnecessary losses. The soldiers followed the beat of the war drums to determine the mode of their battle. They were already well-trained in this.


    The knights approached the fleeing soldiers and shot them down with arrows from behind. They were wearing heavy armors so it was not easy handling the bows. They had no choice but to use the bows because Saleen had yet to distribute to them more suitable equipment.


    After everyone has finished shooting twenty-four arrows, the knights returned as well.


    Without any instructions, the shield soldiers formed another new formation. The knights dismounted and took off their armors with the help of the foot soldiers. The duration of the battle was short so the warhorses were still very excited. The knights had to remove the horses¡¯ armors in order to calm them down.


    The sixth battalion¡¯s main forces returned back to the rear of the wagons. After that, Bard noticed that a regiment of light-armored foot soldiers took out their demnces and began to clean up the battlefield.


    Injured soldiers were groaning in pain everywhere. These light-armored soldiers used their demnces to kill all their enemies one by one. Their actions were steady and familiar. When they fought against the Holy See, they did the exact same thing even as the enemy was shooting arrows at them. If they had not done so, the wounded soldiers could be revived by divine spells any time and hurt you instead.


    ¡®Take no prisoners¡¯, this was the lesson that the sixth battalion learned from the battle with the Holy See army.

 Chapter 699: Indulging in production (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 699: Indulging in production (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At this point in time, themander of the sixth camp then instructed his trusted soldiers to leave Viscount Piac. Even though the battle had ended, Viscount Piac¡¯s face was still white as sheet. He could never have imagined going through a battle of such proportions. During Metatrin¡¯s defensive war, he only contributed some money and hired a few people to help in defending the city walls, while he himself hid in his residence.


    The cavalrymen removed their armor and took out the items from the pouches hanging around the warhorses. These items were metal bottles filled with Restorative Water. Saleen had specially given it to the cavalrymen for restoring physical strength. The infantrymen also got some.


    The infantrymen did not remove their armor as they did not deplete much physical strength. They did not have warhorses, so they had to stand ready to react to any new situation.


    Two emblem groups of infantrymen began cleaning up the battlefield. This so called cleanup was to ensure that the enemies were fully dead and to remove any valuable items from the enemies¡¯ bodies.


    The soldiers from the sixth camp were like a bunch of ants. They acted in regted movements and they did not create any unnecessary noise.


    The envoy group from Holy Rock City also got off their horses and rested. The two sorcerers remained silent, deep in thought. Duke Barde was nning something as he readily agreed when the sixth camp requested to take a one hour break.


    A usual cleanup of the battlefield would require more than an hour, but the sixth camp did not need any prisoners. They only wanted equipment. The alchemical arrows and metal arrows which were expended had to be retrieved. The soldiers had to inspect their armor for any damage, those who needed a new set of equipment had to inform theirmanders quickly.


    Very soon, the casualty rate of the sixth camp had been calcted; one-hundred and seventy-five soldiers were dead and nine-hundred and fifty soldiers were wounded.


    Of the dead people, there were over one-hundred light infantrymen. There were dozens of cavalrymen whose injuries were too serious that even a mage would not be able to save them. None of the heavy infantrymen died, only a few of them sustained light injuries.


    There were about one-thousand injured personnel, less than one-hundred sustained serious injuries. The formation of the sixth camp kept fluctuating, allowing it to always outnumber the enemy. The moment one got injured, they would immediately fall back.


    ¡°Let the lightly injured people carry the heavily injured people back to Metatrin and send five-hundred people to protect them,¡± the campmander swiftly ordered. Saleen ced a lot of emphasis on the sixth camp. Thismander had just defected to Saleen, so he paid a lot of attention to the loss of soldiers. This battle could have been fought better.


    The injured soldiers were gathered. The heavily injured personnel were ced on chariots, while the lightly injured people were bandaged. Riding on the infantry¡¯s horses, the injured soldiers began the return trip along the original route while being protected by five-hundred troops.


    When this group of soldiers returned to Metatrin City, Saleen was still upied with issues from the mercenary group. Upon learning that the sixth camp was ambushed within Phoenix¡¯s borders and sustained around one-thousand casualties, Saleen had mixed feelings.


    Saleen was worried because he did not have sufficient generals. Since the country was just established, there were not many reserves. Going to war so quickly would be detrimental to development. Saleen was overjoyed because the chaos in Phoenix had given him a reason to join in the war though.


    It was no small matter that an envoy group was attacked.


    Saleen immediately traveled to the pce from the alchemy factories in the southern city and summoned all the nobles which were conferred by him.


    ¡°Congrattions, my king.¡± Duke Renee was the first to speak. She was a person from the Tiffany family. The grand mage Tiffany who came to Metatrin City was also from the same family. Many talents had left this family, but it never declined.


    In a mage¡¯s words, it could be said that the bloodline of this family was naturally powerful.


    Renee was a very intelligent person. When she first decided to defect to Metatrin, she kept the lowest profile, yet she had brought along the most money.


    Now that Saleen had established a country, she begun devoting all her efforts to nning.


    ¡°There is nothing worth congratting.¡± Saleen scanned the other nobles, and noticed that the nobles were mostly jubnt.


    ¡°The Phoenix people have rebelled, it definitely wasn¡¯t an idental assault. There is nothing to rob from an envoy group, their actions were ordered by Sr City. I think that County Queen Lex¡¯s Huoxing City is also in danger. My king, you have to contact County Queen Lex quickly, both countries have to sign an agreement to quash the rebel soldiers in Phoenix together!¡± Renee was simply specting and she could know what had happened in Phoenix. Her political instincts were very strong.


    ¡°My king, Renee is right.¡± Irene added, ¡°By cooperating with County Queen Lex, we can enter Phoenix rightfully. The rations in the north are only sufficient for ourselves. The moment you expand, we have to rely on Phoenix¡¯s granaries to rear the armies. It is the same case for Bitter Water County too. My king, please make a decision soon, don¡¯t wait for Holy Rock City to define their stance!¡±


    ¡°What do you guys think?¡± Saleen looked at the other nobles.


    Aini said, ¡°I am willing to build a new city for you, you can delegate the matters over there to me.¡±


    At that moment, Saleen was more assured. ¡°With Aini developing the new city, the new city can be constructed much faster. Aini can summon a huge number of spirits, conserving my own troops. These troops can immediately participate in the war in Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°I can deploy five-thousand troops,¡± Guya dered forthrightly.


    ¡°I can provide one-thousand!¡±


    ¡°I shall give seven-hundred!¡±


    ¡°Five-hundred...¡±


    ¡°Two-thousand!¡±


    The nobles generously donated their troops. In the blink of an eye, Saleen already had an army with more than twenty-thousand soldiers. He did not need to provide equipment for this army, he only needed to provide some logistical support and reward the nobles withnds.


    Saleen never expected the nobles to be so enthusiastic. The noble who donated five-hundred soldiers was a third ss baron whom Saleen had newly conferred, this title was the most inferior among all the nobles. Saleen had only conferred a small number of nobles, this baron still had a chance of entering the pce to join in the meeting. A third ss baron donating five-hundred troops was akin to going bankrupt.


    This baron possessed adequate foresight. In this campaign, his soldiers could follow the king¡¯s army, which meant that he could be promoted to a viscount very soon. Such a chance would note by very often. Only the nobles who followed a king from the start would be able to obtain substantial rewards.


    Saleen¡¯s kingdom was cohesive because he had sufficient mages and received external assistance from Lex, he was also never stingy on benefits. As long as Saleen could make a profit, he would surely give a share to the nobles close to him.


    Take Guya for example. The forces she brought could actually help her stand independently. She still could not rival Saleen as Saleen had dozens of times more mages than her.


    Saleen did some quick calctions in his mind, ¡°The troops provided by the nobles can amount to more than twenty-five-thousand people. If I deploy ten-thousand soldiers, coupled with some mercenaries and auxiliary troops, then this army will have more than five-thousand troops. If I am not greedy, I can defend Huoxing City without any problems. There are only two cities near Huoxing City. If the three cities are united, a barrier can be formed. Huoxing City also has a five-thousand man army provided by Lex, these five-thousand men are elites. That means they can defend the city easily. This time around, my actions are actually justifiable, it will be impossible to chase me away in the future.¡±


    Saleen immediately asked Daniel to calcte the number of troops being deployed and the amount of corresponding logistical support required. Saleen also contacted Bitter Water County immediately to try to ask Lex to deploy the ten-thousand man army from Lon¡¯s borders.


    ¡°It will be sufficient to have my new city at Lon¡¯s borders.¡± Saleen guessed that Lex would not attack from this direction, otherwise she would not have invaded Lon using the small road behind Bitter Water County. At that moment, Saleen realized the importance of having nobles. ¡°After all, my forces are insufficient. With many nobles following me, I can organize an army for a campaign anytime. I will provide the resources and mages, while the nobles will fight for me. This is also the structure of authority in the other empires. The imperial family will wield the strongest authority, but it will not devour all the profits.¡±


    Saleen was currently in a tight situation. Due to the development of a new city, he could not set aside more resources. The army that was going to invade Phoenix would not be organized recklessly. At the very least, Saleen had to be responsible for a portion of the nobles¡¯ equipment. Saleen had made the decision to deploy troops, so he could not use the mercenary group¡¯s resources.


    Saleen had even distributed the equipment left behind by Lex. Many of the nobles¡¯ soldiers were newly recruited. Without premium equipment, the number of casualties would be disturbing.


    The alchemy factories worked at full speed in preparation for the war with Phoenix. Saleen would not go deep into Phoenix and would not attack Sr City. Sr City was a majestic city, it was the core of Phoenix. Such affairs should be left to the people from Guderian City. As a result, Saleen¡¯s equipment was still defensive in nature, there were not many offensive weapons.


    ¡°Five-thousand of Lex¡¯s men are stationed in Huoxing City, so that city won¡¯t copse so soon. Once my sixth camp arrives, coupled with the soldiers from the envoy group, these over ten-thousand people will be able to put up a mighty defense. Huoxing City will be defended for the time being and once my army arrive Lex¡¯s army will be safe.¡±


    Saleen still possessed more than one-hundred-thousand level-4 magic nuclei, these magic nuclei were in the process of being segmented. The shards from the segmentation were all given to Eleanor. Eleanor was currently in the southern gardens trying her best to cultivate magic nts.


    Saleen did not know how she managed to store the magic seeds. When Saleen imprisoned Eleanor thest time, he did not discover anything on her. Now that Eleanor had taken out the magic seeds, the southern gardens were filled with horrifying nts.


    The nts were horrifying because their consumption was even higher than magic beasts. They were watered with nutrients configured from the Restorative Water, as well as fertilized with magic nucleus powder.


    Eleanor concentrated most on cultivating star vines, this magic nt grew the fastest and was a material used for weaving elvish armor. Every day Saleen would give intestines of magic beasts to Eleanor, they were a kind of nourishment for the star vines. At night, he would send troops to harvest the star vines.


    Of course, the elvish armor woven for the soldiers would not be simr to Sika¡¯s. It was very convenient to wear and remove. The exterior of the lightweight elvish armor could still be fitted with an extrayer of metal armor, which was akin to the equipment of a heavy infantryman.


    Chariots used for transporting rations and equipment were also produced inrge numbers. Qin¡¯s logistic chariots could be used to form a chariot formation in a field battle to deal with cavalrymen. The cost of production of such chariots was not cheap at all. The structure of the chariot had to be tough enough to withstand the anti-seismic force produced by the shots from a heavy crossbow.


    Saleen had distributed all his armor and equipment, then he filled up the vacancies in the second camp, fitting the soldiers with elvish armor. Fortunately, Eleanor had been engaged in this activity very early on. Saleen could not possibly deploy his troops within a week otherwise.


    What made Saleen torn between crying andughing was that many of the nobles whom he did not reward had deployed varying numbers of soldiers in their own name, requesting Saleen to add their troops into the campaign army. Saleen decided not to bring along the mercenaries, the army would be formed by the nobles and the second camp. There was a grand total of fifty-two-thousand soldiers.


    Under themand of the second camp¡¯smander, these fifty-two-thousand soldiers left Metatrin City powerfully, traveling towards Phoenix. Their objective was Huoxing City. As for the towns along the way, they would be obliterated if the people did not surrender.

 Chapter 700: Indulging in production (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 700: Indulging in production (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen began allocating mages to this campaign army. As the sixth camp was apanied by two grade-8 sorcerers, Saleen did not assign any grand mages. This time around, Saleen had specially deployed Kredian. Saleen also asked Kredian to lead some low grade mages who were left behind by Lex. The Phoenix people had attacked Lex¡¯s city, so these mages had no reason to not join the campaign.


    At the same time, the army was allocated with death mages. With death mages present, the army would possess more skeletal warhorses.


    Apanying the army was a squad of scouts formed by the Caucasus people. Other than that, Saleen deployed one-thousand barbarians. These barbarians were fitted with genuine heavy armor. When necessary these barbarians could function as magic heavy infantrymen too.


    After sending off the campaign army, Saleen was still extremely busy. Civilians kept streaming into Metatrin City. People who could travel all the way there would not be old or sick. Saleen¡¯s city was bustling with energy, but he had to keep crafting equipment for his armies, he did not have much spare time.


    Aini was also going to set off, he had promised Saleen he would handle the affairs of the new city. The development and defense of the city was going to be handled by Aini. Saleen did not thank him, Saleen only gave him a set of materials used for building a magical tower.


    By leaving Metatrin City to handle those matters, Aini¡¯s magic training would be affected. To a grade-6 mage, the best option would be to build a magical tower. Before reaching grade-7, a grade-6 mage would nevere out.


    Eleanor, however, was not in a hurry to practice magic. An elf¡¯s life was protracted, they did not need to be anxious like the humans. Eleanor patiently helped Saleen design equipment, building and improving the equipment.


    The materials amassed by Saleen for the past year or so were depleted at the speed of running water.


    The armor given to the Metatrin Mercenary Group was slowly being refreshed, while Saleen¡¯s ten main camps were given newly designed equipment.


    At the moment, Saleen possessed superior feed for the warhorses, but he could not acquire any pedigree warhorses. He tried to improve the equipment used by the infantrymen.


    Eleanor was giving Saleen more and more surprises.The first was the flying puppet, this equipment was called the elf dragon back on the elvish ne. Once created, it looked totally unlike the image on the drawing, it resembled a live creature. On the back of the flying puppet were four grooves which allowed people to sit on it. Located at the rear of these grooves was an object which resembled a storage box.


    The flying puppet resembled a shrunken dragon, but it had a slender build. To travel on such a flying puppet required special armor.


    Saleen named this equipment the Wings of an Elf. The production speed of the Wings of an Elf was pretty slow, but Saleen was surprised that this equipment, which was used by flying cavalrymen, was so strong.


    The original shape of an alchemical elvish crossbow was simr to that of the human pedal-operated crossbow, its arm was gentler and its firing speed was very high though. If a magic array was included its power could rival that of a human heavy crossbow. A human heavy crossbow could only be fired once every minute and arrows could only be loaded by turning the gears slowly.


    The sample produced by Eleanor had totally subverted the knowledge Saleen had of crossbows.


    It had a rectangr case, its width was around one foot while its length was slightly longer than a yard. Other than the magic patterns on it there was one groove directly above the case.


    Eleanor took out a wooden cylinder whose diameter was the same as a gold coin, its lower portion had a T-shaped structure. This T-shaped structure could fit nicely into the groove above the elvish alchemical crossbow.


    The cylinder was put in, then it slid back. After being fixed in position, a soft noise was given off from the lower portion of the rectangr case.


    Ka ka...


    Two handles popped up, one at the front and one at the back. The handle at the rear was tilted at a certain angle, it was veryfortable gripping it. Eleanor¡¯s finger pressed on the front handle once, causing the crossbow arms on both sides of the case to open, revealing a chord.


    At this point in time, aplete alchemical crossbow appeared before Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen knew that this alchemical crossbow was not so simple, otherwise Eleanor would not only have produced one sample after working on it for so many days. Eleanor raised the alchemical crossbow, clutching the front handle and pulling it back. The chord of the alchemical crossbow opened up, and stuck onto the trigger behind.


    At that moment, the magic array at the center of the crossbow arm lit up as the handle slid back to its original position.


    A soft sound came from the quiver, as an arrow fell into the groove. If Saleen was not using magic to listen, he would not have heard any sounds being produced from it.


    The process was not over yet. The power of magic was used to wind the crossbow and load it with arrows. The cylinder atop the case emitted a ray of ramrod red light. This red light was only as thick as a normal bow chord. Observing it with the Elemental Eye, Saleen realized that this red light did not contain any offensive power.


    Eleanorughed, then she turned around and raised the case to eye level, firing it at a piece of rock in the distance.


    Saleen clearly noticed that Eleanor was not aiming at all, but that red light hadnded on the rock. The rock was at least one-hundred yards away, then the arrow wasunched from the crossbow silently, urately striking the rock.


    The stainless steel arrowhead prated the rock. Even though it did not prate it deeply, it was sufficient to attest to the strength of the elvish alchemical crossbow.


    Saleen had deduced the principle quickly. This elvish alchemical crossbow did not require the user to take aim, the red light only needed tond on a target. Once the user triggered the crossbow, the arrow wouldnd at the target position.


    There was zero deviation!


    ¡°The elves had actually created such a potent weapon, if every human was equipped with one, then everyone would be a powerful archer. The shooting speed is way too high!¡±


    Saleen saw that Eleanor had pulled the front handle once again, as the chord reopened and hung on the trigger. An arrow from the quiver then fell into the groove. In a window of less than two seconds, a second arrow was fired. It still struck the spot where the red light hadnded.


    A shooting frequency of two seconds was already the firing speed of a master archer!


    Eleanor seemed as though she could guess Saleen¡¯s thoughts, she smiled gently and said, ¡°This was designed by the marquis. I gave the drawing of the elvish alchemical crossbow to him, and he improved it. In the end, he said that the cost of production was too high and it was not suitable for mass production. As a result, in this world, only I know the production method of this weapon.¡±


    ¡°The marquis... Eleanor¡¯s previous lover is so mighty, even an alchemy genius might not be able to conjure such a weapon. This weapon¡¯s cost of usage is indeed too high, that miniature magic array at the front of the alchemical crossbow has to use at least a level-4 magic nucleus. The miniaturization of a magic array is all along very challenging. If Eleanor didn¡¯t use the divinecherry wood, this portion would have consumed quite a substantial amount of mithril.¡±


    The price of mithril needed no introduction. During miniaturization, rhenium gold, Ice Ind Rock, and other materials needed to be added in. These materials were not only costly, they were also rare. Even if the marquis could afford to consume so many magic nuclei, he would not be able to gather so many precious materials unless he was like Saleen who had a demon hauling up sunken ships for him to collect divinecherry wood.


    ¡°The marquis said that the bestbination is to let the Wings of an Elf pair up with the elvish alchemical crossbow, which will allow a soldier to shoot from the sky. Since you have arge quantity of divinecherry wood and can afford to consume intermediate level magic nuclei, I figured that you might like such an equipment.¡± Eleanor looked at Saleen, her gaze filled with serenity. That moment was totally unlike the previous times when she mentioned the marquis.


    Saleen yearned to ask Eleanor if she missed the marquis. Such a question was stupid, so Saleen held back his urge to.


    ¡°What is that?¡± Saleen changed the topic, pointing to an object ced beside the wall. He thought that it was the magic cannon he had hauled up from the seabed.


    ¡°The magic stone cannon. The firing method is different from the original and the depletion by the magic inside is slightly lower, but the range and uracy are pretty good. The cannons have to be specially made.¡±


    ¡°How do I take aim with it?¡±


    ¡°Aiming will require a lot of practice. The magic stone cannon is like a bow. Duringunch, luck ys a huge role. This weapon will do fine though, the area of effect is urate down to about ten yards.¡±


    ¡°Ker...¡± Saleen could not help but cough, a ten yard area was already highly precise. Usually, when a magic trebuchet fired magic stone cannons in bulk, the nket-type attack also would not be so urate. In an area spanning ten yards, the user could swiftly adjust their aim after the first cannon and allow the second cannon to strike a gigantic target such as the enemy¡¯s trebuchets.


    ¡°Without a doubt, this item was designed by the marquis too,¡± Saleen experienced an unexinable feeling. ¡°This marquis is like a shadow, constantly reminding me the difference between a genius and amoner.¡±


    ¡°Sir, do you still want to preview the equipment?¡± Eleanor¡¯s smile became increasingly vibrant, she thought that Saleen¡¯s look was pretty amusing. This smile was not sarcastic. In Eleanor¡¯s heart, Saleen was not her superior, Saleen was a human whom she could get close to. Humans, were hard to get close to.


    ¡°Of course, these things will be produced in bulk. Only by doing so can we...¡± Saleen did not continue, he was reciting a quote of Raphael¡¯s. Only by moving forward constantly could one survive in this era, all the way to destruction.


    The original quote was in the ancient Myersnguage, which made the quote more exquisite and mncholic. Mages rarely spouted such words. Raphael had only said such a paradoxical phrase after running into setbacks frequently. Despite knowing that destruction woulde, one still had to trudge forward.


    Eleanor did not know about the goddess¡¯ contract, she only sensed that Saleen was experiencing a very intense sense of urgency. She did not probe, helping him silently was sufficient already.


    War chariots, armor, bows,rge crossbows, magic stone cannons, flying puppets, sound transmission magic devices,rge arrow chariots which were powered by wind magic, tracked battering rams, retractabledders, puppets beasts who pulled chariots, me-spitting metal war chariots...


    The marquis had invented a number of things. If he had the chance to craft all these items, Saleen felt that the marquis could have even toppled the Tanggsi Empire.


    ¡°Even the gods would be jealous of such a person, no wonder he got struck by lightning. It is too unkind of me to harbor such thoughts. The marquis¡¯ lover is now my follower, and she had disclosed so many secrets...¡±


    Saleen allowed his thoughts to run wild, as though his brain was split into two. One part of it was thinking about the marquis, while the other was managing the equipment data, so that Saleen could prepare the necessary materials and instruct the alchemy factories to speed up production.


    ¡°Eleanor doesn¡¯t understand why I am in such a hurry. A thousand years might seem long, but the Holy See has spent an even longer time and it still couldn¡¯t spread the Lord of Glory¡¯s religion throughout the maind. I have to give it my all!¡±

 Chapter 701: Saleen’s Legacy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 701: Saleen¡¯s Legacy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The equipment possessed by Saleen¡¯s Metatrin mercenary group was all handed down by his main battalions. The mercenaries, led by Aini, marched towards the border of Laiyin Duchy. The equipment possessed by the soldiers in the city was mostly more ineffective than it looked. Fortunately, the Holy See would not be able to organize another expedition within the next few months. They would be able to reach the north by the time winter came otherwise.


    It would be a nightmare for armies to travel through the areas controlled by the Metatrin Kingdom in winter.


    Saleen did not move the ten-thousand Bitter Water Prefecture soldiers in western town. He had already established contact with Lex and both had agreed to cooperate and split thend north of Phoenix. It was for this reason that she left behind those soldiers. If Saleen marched into Phoenix on his own, it might stir up some unhappiness within the Qin noble families. There would be no such problems if he cooperated with Lex.


    Saleen had more than enough soldiers in the north already so Lex only needed to provide legitimacy to his actions.


    Once the battle started in Phoenix, these ten-thousand soldiers would be deployed as reinforcements.


    Saleen finally understood the difficulty of refiningrge scale equipment after giving it a try. The items that Saleen wanted to refine were too difficult even for Lex¡¯s mages. He had no choice but to gather all the grand mages to refine the high-level items while the low-level mages and apprentices would refine the low-level items.


    Fortunately, the equipment designed by Eleanor was all very structured and would be much more efficient if theponents were manufactured separately. Saleen was running out of resources.


    He could not afford to use all his thundercloud wood and divinecherry wood on elvish alchemy crossbows and the wings of an elf. Other equipment required these two types of wood as well. Saleen had no choice but to send the winged skeleton and Nailisi to the ocean to bring back more sunken ships.


    Saleen could not afford to investigate the calction of the collection point of sunken ships¡¯ routes that was brought up previously. He did not dare to leave Metatrin for the time-being so he could only bear with it.


    It was extremely difficult. Saleen¡¯s only thought was that this was all extremely difficult.


    In the past, if he were on the brink of death, it was only his own personal issue. Now, there were more than one-hundred trusted aides around him and another one-hundred more noble families that had pledged their allegiance to him. That included the subordinates and followers under these people. Saleen had thousands under him. All of their futures depended on him.


    Being needed was a good feeling, but it could also be a burden at times. Nevertheless, Saleen had to push on. There was no way back. In the past he could flee if he felt that he had no chances of winning. Now, he would not be able to desert Metatrin city, the city was named after him.


    Sika had also been very busy and had rarely been to the temple. She stayed at South Court most of the time to train the Caucasus soldiers. Mages from Sregl Ind and Bitter Water Prefecture were all busy making equipment at the alchemy factories.


    In contrast, there was peace and normality amongst the residents of the city. The fightingpetitions carried on as usual at the fighting arena every day. The people of Metatrin City had be used to watching the matches and there would be one or two lucky winners every few days. Although no one had yet to win the top prize of one-hundred gold coins, the residents were still very interested and invested in the fighting matches.


    On that day, Saleen left the alchemy factory and was taking a break at the pier with Eleanor. When they reached the pier, they saw that it was prospering as there were hundreds of ships of all sizes and wagons were traveling back and forth on the metal tracks. Gigantic puppets were being guided by apprentices to transport boxes that weighed a few thousand pounds. They made sounds that sounded like gold coins being rubbed against each other.


    Saleen raised his head and saw the lone white rock mountain on the left. He said to Eleanor, ¡°Let¡¯s go there and take a look.¡±


    Saleen had no need for teleportation portals. Instead, he used the Quickcloud spell and brought Eleanor and himself to the top of the mountain. The soldiers recognized this skill of Saleen¡¯s as he was the only one on Maind that could use this type of flying spell.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± Truman, the mage that was guarding the mountaintop, saw Saleen flying over and quickly prepared himself to wee him.


    Saleen flew into the rock cave in the white rock mountain and dispersed the fog. He stood and observed his surroundings. This rock cave was not small and was cut into a hexagon with a diameter of more than twenty yards.


    There were six forts, each pointing towards an opening. Only the fort that was facing the pier was equipped with a mini magic cannon.


    ¡°Eh?¡± Saleen¡¯s gaze fell onto Truman again and asked, ¡°You have advanced into a grand mage?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Lord,¡± Truman replied in a neutral tone. He was older than Saleen and was only a grade-3 mage when he first arrived from Sregl Ind.


    It was rather easy for the grade-4 and grade-5 mages under Saleen to advance. They had already umted a lot of experiences on Sregl Ind so once they managed to train under Saleen and in an environment that was rich with elements like in the temple. All these umtions were brought out and almost all the grand mages advanced.


    Truman, this grade-3 mage, guarded this fort every day and never had the chance to enter the temple. Saleen deployed him here because Truman was only a grade-3 mage and would have a long way to go before bing a grand mage.


    Saleen was not looking down on Truman. Not a single one of the low-level mages that followed Saleen in the temple had advanced into a grand mage after all.


    As for Truman, Saleen only made sure that a low-level magic nucleus was delivered to him every day. With such minimal support, he actually managed to advance into a grand mage!


    ¡°Truman, who is your teacher?¡± Saleen thought that Truman¡¯s inheritance must havee from some sorcerer on Sregl Ind.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have a teacher,¡± Truman answered with some difficulty. There was a tinge of sorrow in his eyes. There were too many mages on Sregl Ind and one must sometimes have luck in order to gain the favour of sorcerers. Truman was not particrly lucky so many opportunities had passed him by.


    ¡°Truman, although I am only a grade-6 mage... are you willing to be my student?¡± What Saleen said was unexpected. Although Truman was two grades away from Saleen, they were both still considered grand mages and were of simr status. Based on capabilities alone, there would be no issues for Truman to be Saleen¡¯s follower. There had been no precedent of someone like Truman bing Saleen¡¯s student though. A grand mage taking in another grand mage as his student might be considered by others as an act of arrogance.


    Truman stood there with an expression that was difficult to read. He was born on Sregl Ind to a swordmaster. This swordmaster was the follower of a grand mage and so Truman naturally became an apprentice of the grand mage. After that, he never received proper training and only followed the grand mage to help out in some magic experiments. He had read many books, but never received any personal guidance.


    ¡°I am willing,¡± Truman raised his head and there was enthusiasm in his eyes.


    ¡°In that case, let Eleanor, the grand mage, be our witness. Truman, do you know that my teacher is Jason Statham? From now on, you will be one of the disciples. Eleanor...Eleanor?¡± Saleen called out twice before noticing that Eleanor was staring at the magic cannon so intently that she did not hear his calls. To an elf like her, this was something very rare.


    Saleen had no choice but to cast a Cleaning spell. As the elements vibrated, Eleanor regained consciousness immediately. She adjusted herself and almost cast a defense spell instantaneously. She finally woke up and realized that Saleen was calling her.


    ¡°This is a magic cannon?¡± Eleanor pointed at the mini cannon on the fort.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s from the second dynasty.¡±


    ¡°I want to touch it...¡±


    ¡°Go ahead,¡± Saleen was helpless. He recalled that he felt the same way when he first saw the magic cannon.


    Eleanor¡¯s finger caressed the magic cannon gently. Saleen could see that there was life aura flowing from Eleanor¡¯s hand and onto the magic cannon. There were ancient patterns on the surface of the cannon that concealed mysterious rules. Eleanor was observing and learning.


    After half an hour, Eleanor finally stopped and was panting heavily.


    ¡°Master, congrattions,¡± Eleanor said to Saleen after she had finished panting. She had heard Saleen¡¯s conversation with Truman earlier on, but she could not be interrupted then as she was in the midst of observing the magic cannon.


    Saleen was pleased that Truman had managed to advance into a grand mage and possessed a solid foundation of knowledge; all without the guidance of any teachers. His teacher¡¯s legacy could now be passed on to one more person.


    Except for a chair on which Truman sat most of the time, there was nothing else in this cave. He would normally spend his time on this chair, training and waiting.


    The ceremony for mages to take in students was not asplicated as swordsmen¡¯s, but there were certain aspects that could not be neglected. Truman was already a grand mage, but he still followed traditions and knelt and bowed in front of Saleen.


    Saleen recalled what Jason said to him in the past and repeated those words slowly, ¡°Truman, there is only one person taking over this legacy. Teacher Jason has no other students. I hope that, one day, you will be the strongest mage and surpass me.¡±


    With that, Saleen took out his own crystal white ring, passed it to Truman and said, ¡°This was given to me by teacher. Back then, I thought it was just a normal crystal white ring. In fact, it is an object that has been passed down for thousands of years. It is a white crystal that has been refined by mages of grade-10 and above. It can help you to recover your mental strength quickly.¡±


    Truman took the crystal white ring and put it on his finger. Saleen continued, ¡°In the beginning, I had offended an Earl from Sikeqinya. That Earl was a grand swordmaster. I had no choice but to flee. Before I left, teacher gave this ring to me. At that time, I was still a grade-1 mage.¡±


    ¡°Teacher?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, it¡¯s nothing much. I¡¯m justmenting. Truman, from today onwards, train with me in the temple.¡± Saleen looked at the cave where the fort was. This ce was lonely. The winds blew from all four sides into this empty cave. By standing guard here alone, one¡¯s will and determination would be tested to the limits.


    Such loneliness was unbearable. This might be a form of training to a mage, but since Truman was already his student, Saleen wanted to provide him a better training environment.


    Truman raised his head. He had regained itsposure and said, ¡°Teacher, I prefer to stay here.¡±

 Chapter 702: Saleen’s Legacy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 702: Saleen¡¯s Legacy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was not surprised by Truman¡¯s decision and he had no intentions of forcing him against his will. He only looked around and said, ¡°This is not safe enough. I will send some people over to touch things up. Hmm, which element of spells are you proficient in?¡±


    ¡°Water element,¡± Truman replied. Saleen was pleased. Jason was proficient in both fire and water elements, but Saleen was most proficient in water elements. He would be suitable to guide Truman in his foundation.


    Saleen took out two magic books from the devil ring and passed it to Truman before saying, ¡°I found this in the midst of some historical remains and as for this gold magic book, neither of us have use for it yet.¡±


    There were tears in Truman¡¯s eyes. He had had to depend only on himself all the while without a teacher. Although the hard times had trained him to be tougher, it did not mean that he had stopped hoping to have a teacher one day. Things such as the bronze magic book and silver magic book were rare even on Sregl Ind. Saleen was such a young teacher yet he already possessed the gold magic book!


    Magic books of any grade could store eighteen spells each, which was equivalent to eighteen magic staffs. Compared to scrolls, magic books were practically priceless. One was also indirectly training in the process of using a magic book repeatedly. Besides, magic books were not like scrolls. The chances of failure in storing spells was low and in the event of a failure, not only would there be no losses, there might even be benefits to be gained.


    ¡°These are some of the magic notes that I have obtained. I have written some notes on them. You can take a look. Since you will be staying here, we will use sound a transmission magic array tomunicate in future. If there is anything you don¡¯t understand, just feel free to ask me,¡± Saleen took out a few notes that he obtained from Rafael¡¯s magic tower even as he spoke.


    Rafael and his student left behind plenty of notes and Saleen only managed toplete a few. Amongst these few notes that he has read, he has reorganized them and included his own notes. Magic notes consisted of a mage¡¯s thoughts or conclusions, such notes were greatly beneficial to a mage¡¯s training.


    Truman epted these magic notes silently. He was grateful, but his mind was more focused on working hard to learn whatever he could so that he could pass down Saleen¡¯s legacy in the future.


    ¡°In the future, you will collect one-hundred middle-grade magic nuclei every month and keep them for your own use. This is for you,¡± Saleen thought about it and took out a piece of dragonshard before passing it to Truman. A mage must absorb the power of magic nuclei in order to quickly recover their magic chords. Dragonshards could be used repeatedly so Truman would be able to use his magic nuclei more sparingly.


    Truman noticed that the things that Saleen had given to him were not from Sregl Ind. He did not dare ask about this in front of Eleanor though.


    ¡°Eleanor, shouldn¡¯t you say or do something?¡± Saleen was in such a good mood that he tried to crack a joke.


    Eleanor took out a gray-colored magic robe and said, ¡°Truman, this is for you.¡±


    Truman looked at Saleen who said, ¡°Eleanor is giving this to you, take it.¡±


    Truman took the gray robe. There were three rows of magic symbols on the robe. It was not something that grade-4 mages would wear. Saleen nced at the robe with his elemental eyes and discovered that there were three spells infused into it.


    Such magic robes were extremely valuable. By infusing it with spells, a mage would be able to cast the spell instantly even if they might not be familiar with it. This was a valuable gift and it was clear that it was made with elvish methods. The defense abilities of elvish robes were well-known. Mages with grades lower than a sorcerer that possessed such a robe could never be killed by an assassin.


    It was not hard for Eleanor to give up the robe. She had made it for herself initially. Since Saleen asked her to present a gift, she had no qualms about giving it away.


    Nevertheless, Saleen felt a little embarrassed. He had put Eleanor in charge of many things, but she did not own many personal items. Other than the two bows and theplementary arrow equipment that Saleen gave to her, Eleanor was his poorest follower.


    ¡°Truman, you can stay here and read the book...¡± Saleen felt a little downhearted. Eleanor had been upied with so many things everyday yet he did not even realize that this elf owned close to nothing. Saleen also realized that she had never collected the magic nuclei that he had set aside for her.


    ¡°Teacher?¡±


    ¡°The alchemy factory is very busy,¡± Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I will send someone over shortly to touch up this ce. You must continue to work hard...¡±


    ¡°Yes, teacher.¡± Truman sent Saleen and Eleanor to the entrance of the cave and Saleen cast a Quickcloud spell again to bring Eleanor back to the temple.


    Although Metatrin City forbade flying in certain regions, this did not apply to Saleen since he owned this city.


    Once they reached the temple, Eleanor said, ¡°My Lord, I need to go to the South Court.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t go first. Come with me.¡±


    Saleen brought Eleanor to the sixth level, which was an alchemyb that had been sealed up. Saleen lived on the fifth level. The sixth level contained dangerous items and some of the more vtile experiments were also conducted there.


    No-one on the outside would be able to know what was going on inside this alchemyb that had been sealed up.


    Eleanor had no idea what Saleen meant to do, so she stood there silently and waited for him to talk. Saleen said, ¡°Let¡¯s take a seat.¡±


    He pointed to the seats for meditation and sat across Eleanor. Lex and Saleen used to assume such positions. At that time, he was still learning low-level spells. Both of them would cast spells and attack each other for practice.


    Those were the days...


    ¡°Eleanor, do you wish to return to the elf dimension?¡± The first question out of Saleen¡¯s mouth shocked Eleanor.


    ¡°Sometimes,¡± Eleanor did not think much and answered with her heart.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you lonely on the Myers Maind?¡±


    ¡°If I feel lonely, then anywhere is the same. My Lord, all elves must learn to get used to such emotions,¡± Eleanor lowered her head and rested her gaze on Saleen¡¯s hands.


    Saleen pondered for a moment, not knowing what to say next.


    ¡°My Lord, are you worried that I will leave?¡± Eleanor raised her head and looked Saleen in the eye. This human had eyes that were as blue as sea water. They were clear and pure.


    ¡°I¡¯m just thinking that in the past, I neglected Truman. When I was with Truman just now, I realized that I have also been neglecting you.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, I am more than happy that you have allowed me to nt ancient elvish trees in the city,¡± Eleanor smiled faintly. She felt rxed, as if she was in an elvish forest. Saleen was too young, how would he know how to take care of others? It was more than enough that he would even think about it. Even on the elf dimension, there might not be anyone that would show you concern.


    Saleen scratched his head. Eleanor was amused by this action of his. Saleen was normally very tensed and formal, especially in front of the noble families. He had to behave like the descendant of a royal family of the fourth dynasty.


    ¡°Alright then. Eleanor, let me ask you; what do you usually like to do?¡±


    Eleanor thought about it and said, ¡°Tidy up my room, brew tea, listen to the harp, and cook something for myself.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡±


    ¡°It is actually quite interesting to manufacture equipment too, but it also reminded me of the Marquis,¡± Eleanor replied, not hiding anything from Saleen.


    ¡°I have not revealed your identity to anyone. Nevertheless, someone will definitely be suspicious that I have managed to gain so many elf techniques. I¡¯m worried...¡±


    ¡°My Lord, I will not leave, don¡¯t worry,¡± Eleanor raised her head and looked at Saleen.


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I mean. I think, since yourbat skills are better, I shall create a set of equipment that is suitable for you. Isabe also has the ability of possessing both magic andbat skills, it would not be strange to make another set for you.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I have been feeling that I am very poor. My Lord, you remembering this will allow me to make a fortune,¡± Eleanor mocked. In the beginning when she first followed Saleen, all her items were taken away except for the magic seeds. That was something that Saleen would not be able to take away.


    Seeing Saleen quietly pondering Eleanor smiled gently and said, ¡°My Lord, let me tell you a little about the elf dimension.¡±


    ¡°Hmm.¡±


    ¡°There are humans on the elf dimension too. Their lifespan is even shorter than those here. A normal person is already considered to have lived a long life if he lives to sixty or seventy years old. The more powerful ones merely live to one-hundred or two-hundred years old. Inparison, a normal elf can live for at least two-thousand to three-thousand years. Over there, there are cases where elves will fall in love with humans. Every elf understands that humans will die quickly however.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart jerked. After what Eleanor described, the feeling in his heart made him be sentimental towards life. What a cruel thing it would be to see the person you loved be older and older and eventually leave this world.


    ¡°Very soon, I will stop missing the Marquis. I am a member of the royal family amidst the elves so I can easily live up to ten-thousand years. I don¡¯t remember how old I am exactly, but I should be one-thousand years old soon. You don¡¯t have to worry about me. It is a fact between elves and humans.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, Sika told me that if she bes a Nature Priest, she will outlive me. If I die, I don¡¯t know what she will do. Will she really start to forget me?¡±


    ¡°Not forget, more of ept reality. My Lord, humans used to have longer lifespans than elves in the past. If you can advance to such a stage, I may not even outlive you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m trying to say. Eleanor, what I am intending to do is very dangerous so I want to give you the option to back out. If I am not able to achieve my objective, there is no need for you to die along with me. If you truly mean well, you can help me take care of Sika and Truman.¡±


    Saleen sounded terribly serious. Eleanor did not say anything and only waited.


    ¡°Eleanor, I am nning to form an army of mages. You shall be their captain.¡± Saleen looked at the elf and waited for her answer.


    ¡°Army of mages? My Lord, will the Sregl Ind mages listen to my orders?¡± Eleanor looked at Saleen, trying to suppress herughter.


    ¡°Work harder and they will. As long as you can advance to a grade-7 mage, I will help you be a grade-9 sorcerer as soon as possible.¡± Saleen thought for a while and said, ¡°Lex and I have the six elements¡¯ space. We can¡¯t open it without the Sregl Ind mages. You will train in the six elements¡¯ space. Even a fool can be a grade-9 sorcerer very quickly. I think a grade-9 sorcerer should be more than qualified tomand an army of mages.¡±

 Chapter 703: Seven days, seven nights (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 703: Seven days, seven nights (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Sir, I am not dumb.¡± Eleanor pouted andughed, that was the first time Saleen had seen herughing like a normal woman.


    ¡°So does it mean you agree to it?¡±


    ¡°I will try my best, but what about the equipment?¡±


    ¡°It will be fine without you. In the future, just practice in the temple. I will only look for you regarding the drawings, you don¡¯t have to worry about anything else. I hope that you can advance to a grade-7 sorcerer within one and a half years, can you do it?¡±


    ¡°Of course. If I didn¡¯t follow the marquis, I would have be a sorcerer long ago.¡± Eleanor sighed, her powers were drastically reduced because she had borne a child for the marquis. Currently, if she still could not attain grade-7 in such a conducive environment provided by Saleen, then she would have lived the past few hundred years in vain.


    ¡°I cannot help you in the aspect of magic. Regarding your archery skills, tell me, what are they?¡± Saleen set aside his worries, as he began nning to craft some equipment for Eleanor. All this while, he had not thought of the candidates for the mage¡¯s toon. Now that Saleen had decided to let Eleanor do this, he felt a sense of assurance in his intuition.


    ¡°The archery of the elves is split into three categories. The first is simr to humans, whereby emphasis is ced on internal training. On the elvish ne, there is a simr skill to the Sword Aura, it is called Combat Aura. The Sword Aura is more potent and urate, but harder to be cultivated. At the moment, in the aspect of fusing archery with Sword Aura, the best performer is J. His skills are very outstanding, even I am less powerful than him. The second type is an inborn skill, some elves do not require any training and they can already wield powerful archery skills. Being royalty, I actually don¡¯t have this ability. My special ability has to rely on equipment, or I have to attain grade-9 before being able to unleash my mightiest power.¡±


    Saleen listened intently. If Eleanor was not around to exin, Saleen would not be able to gain any information about the elvish ne. ¡°From Eleanor¡¯s depiction, the power of that ne still isn¡¯t as strong as that of the Myers maind. ording to the ancient legends, the elves were very mighty beings. Seems like the elve¡¯s power declined as well as the humans.¡±


    ¡°Currently I can only use three kinds of archery skills; Space Arrow, Life Arrow, and Emperor Arrow.¡±


    As Eleanor described her abilities, she acted proudly and finally revealed the demeanor of an expert. A person was only an expert once they were above grade-7, but Eleanor was simr to Saleen, she could long release skills which posed a threat to experts. The confidence and majesty, which were cultivated invisibly, came about intrinsically.


    ¡°These three archer skills are the secrets passed down within the elvish imperial family, once they are cultivated to their pinnacle state they can kill gods. The Space Arrow can traverse the nes, the Life Arrow can solidify time, and the Emperor Arrow can squelch a ne. At the end of the day, the skills can alter any rules.¡±


    ¡°At the end of the day, the skills can alter any rules!¡± Saleen felt as if a window had opened in his heart. He had found a small loophole in the universal rules recently, but Eleanor¡¯s words had made this loophole evenrger.


    ¡°The elf bow which you gave me can unleash these three skills, but the feather arrows are a little...¡±


    Saleen gave Eleanor a total of two bows, the first bow was crafted from divinecherry wood and it could fire the Space Arrow. The second bow was crafted from the branches of the Tree of Taboo. Using a divine tree as the building material, this bow could surely support the ultimate archery skills of the elves. Saleen had injected the Power of Life into it. When this bow released the Life Arrow, it would not have to deplete Eleanor¡¯s lifespan.


    Indeed, Saleen did not give Eleanor any premium arrows, he was really too busy. He did not know the secrets of these three archery skills, so he could not produce any targeted equipment. Eleanor had been using the normal feather arrows to practice her archery.


    ¡°Okay, I will be here crafting new equipment for you. Eleanor, prepare your elvish magic to help me replenish my strength.¡± Speaking, Saleen cast his water mes.


    The Water me Alchemy was one of Jason¡¯s secret skill. When other people crafted equipment, they had to rely on mes, while Saleen relied on the low temperature water mes. Be it in high temperatures or low temperatures, the basic structure of a substance would be altered.


    This time around, Saleen did not hold back. The temperature of the sealed room was lowered instantly, frost even appeared on Eleanor¡¯s face. She quickly released a spell, causing a green radiance to be illuminated that slightly raised her surrounding temperature. Saleen¡¯s water mes flickered before her. The Snowkill Skill, which was stimted at the same time as the water mes, was fully controlled by Saleen. It was not released.


    The branches from the four divine trees, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Wisdom, the Tree of Element, and the Tree of Taboo were taken out by Saleen and then added into the water mes. These items were added at the same time with the elvish shortbow which was originally crafted for Eleanor.


    Even though the four divine trees had withered, they were not carrying any other impurities. Saleen only made them undergo continuouspression and refinement, using his powerful mental strength to produce a bow whose shape was conceived in his mind.


    This was the godly crafting skill circting among the sorcerers, it was very stressful on one¡¯s mental strength.


    Eleanor did not dare act slowly, she blessed Saleen with many elvish spells. She replenished the consumed mental strength, so Saleen¡¯s mental strength was almost always at full capacity.


    Saleen had given it his all this time around. Clearly, Eleanor¡¯s archery skills would not be able to achieve a breakthrough in the foreseeable future, so Saleen could only improve her equipment. Her archery could paralyze the enemy. Even though the enemy could not be killed or injured that way, it would give Saleen a chance to use his badge. Saleen¡¯s badge was his strongest attack and even though half a year was needed to attain a full recharge, the offensive power was amazing enough to make people look forward to it.


    A grade-9 Golden Grand Swordmaster was disintegrated instantly by the badge¡¯s attack. Without this badge, Saleen would have died long ago.


    The branches of the divine trees were refined into thin strands as they were assembled into a longbow using the structure of three-dimensional magic patterns. The chord of this longbow was made from strands extracted from the bark. A normal bow chord had about the same thickness as a gold coin, but Saleen had made six-hundred and forty strands and wove them together.


    This dark green bow was one and a half yards long. There were neither magic patterns nor the dragonshard on it. This was an elvish longbow made solely from the branches of the divine trees and the Power of Life swirled within. This was a rule Saleen had understood, it could bnce out energy and there was almost zero loss.


    Saleen himself did not even know how much time had psed, he only knew that Eleanor kept consuming magic liquid and casting elvish spells on him, even Eleanor¡¯s face had be slightly pale.


    The longbow was bent into a circle within the water mes, then it sprung back vigorously. The bow chords at the tips then opened up. With a whoosh, the dark green longbow suddenly flew upwards.


    Pu!


    Saleen spit out a mouthful of blood, spitting at the tips of the longbow. This longbow was like a creature, trying to find an exit in the sealed room. The blood sprayed at one end of the bow, then Saleen immediately yelled, ¡°Eleanor!¡±


    Eleanor behaved telepathically, she bit her tongue and also spit out a mouthful of blood. When the longbow was stained by Saleen¡¯s blood, its actions slowed down. When it was hit by Eleanor¡¯s spit, it crashed towards the ground.


    Saleen copsed, but his face was stered with a smile.


    ¡°I am a grade-6 mage, yet I managed to create a pseudo godly weapon.¡± Even though the materials used were superior, Saleen never anticipated such an oue.


    ¡°Sir!¡± Eleanor did not look at the longbow, she went to catch Saleen in her embrace. She only rxed when she saw the smile on Saleen¡¯s face.


    Unknowingly, she had consumed all the magic liquid. Her mental strength was totally exhausted, she could hardly cast any intermediate level spells. This sealed alchemyboratory was originally prepared for dangerous experiments. It was magically reinforced with white rocks and steel rocks, so it could not possibly be destroyed by violence. If Eleanor possessed so much strength, she would not need to worry about getting trapped in it.


    Saleen panted, then said, ¡°Let¡¯s meditate.¡±


    After they advanced to grand mages, they rarely meditated. Saleen had the n badge which could rece meditation skill. Eleanor¡¯s mental strength had never been so exhausted before though.


    cing Saleen into the meditation seat, Eleanor sat across him. Even though the water mes had dispersed, the room was still very chilly, frost had appeared on their bodies.


    Two hours had passed and Saleen had repeated the meditation skill several times. When he felt that his mental state did not receive any damage, he opened his eyes. Eleanor had woke up earlier, she had zoned out while holding onto the dark green longbow.


    Noticing that Saleen had woken up, Eleanor raised her head and looked at him with aplicated gaze. She felt that this longbow was hundreds of times mightier than the original elvish bow, but she could not identify its material. ¡°Is this Saleen¡¯s secret? Even the gods would be jealous of Saleen¡¯s possessions! No wonder Saleen told me that the thing he was going to execute was so dangerous that he was not confident in doing it, he even wanted to prepare a backup for Sika and me.¡±


    ¡°That will be all for today, I will craft your feather arrows slowly. Too much time has passed, the people waiting outside must be anxious.¡± Saleen looked at Eleanor, as Eleanor nodded her head.


    Saleen had spent seven days and seven nights crafting this longbow.


    ¡°This bow shall be called Seven Nights.¡± Speaking, Saleen stood up and led Eleanor to the teleportation portal, then they left this sealed room.


    Many people in the temple had inquiries for Saleen, most of them were about equipment. The most important thing was that Lex had sent a letter over.


    Lex¡¯s main point in her letter was that her equipment was starting to be insufficient. She also talked about the strategy Metatrin City would employ in Phoenix.


    In the southeastern corner of Lon, at the intersection with Titan Duchy, the Bitter Water County had upied a one-thousand-milend. Lex herself had brought along less than fifty-thousand people, but more than two-hundred-thousand Lon people had defected to her. That was only referring to the army.


    The equipment brought along by Lex was only enough for equipping one-hundred-thousand people. Now that the number of soldiers had increased to two-hundred and fifty-thousand, Lex could not progress any further. She could get a few thousand sets of armor from the Bitter Water County, but she was still short of almost one-hundred-thousand pieces of armor. The des were still adequate, but Lex was short of magic nuclei and bows.


    Currently, Bitter Water County was slightly barren. If it could not receive a resupply soon and some army decided to invade the headquarters of the Bitter Water County, the mages would have to defend the frontlines.


    Saleen¡¯s side was also precarious, his resources were moving from his left pocket to the right. It was impossible for Saleen to gather equipment for one-hundred-thousand people immediately. Aini had already set off with some equipment to construct a new city. The situation there was even more perilous, Saleen could not possibly take back any equipment from Aini.


    The noble army had entered Phoenix, a war was on the verge of breaking out. Saleen already had some problems supporting the offensive over there, he could not set aside equipment for Lex. Saleen originally thought that his astronomical wealth could sustain him. When he got into a war, he had realized that war would deplete more money than anything.

 Chapter 704: Seven days, seven nights (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 704: Seven days, seven nights (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Among the armies in Metatrin City, only Sika¡¯s trusted soldiers were fitted with better equipment. The rest of the soldiers could not even wear uniformed outfits. The soldiers from the pce¡¯s swordsmen camp were wearing shy goods, their equipment had been transferred to the second camp.


    The worst thing was that Lex had already begun moving. She wasing to Metatrin City personally. She would arrive in at most seven days. Saleen would have to prepare sufficient equipment within these seven days.


    The expansion of the army this time around was very significant for Lex. Her army could be expanded to three-hundred-thousand soldiers very soon. By then, she would be able to cooperate with Holy Rock City and attack the western region.


    ¡°What should I do now?¡± Saleen was out of ideas in that moment. Lex¡¯s equipment was for regr troops. Even if alchemical arrows were unavable, the arrowheads had to be made of stainless steel. The armor was even tougher, it was more difficult producing armorpared to any other equipment.


    The tricky question of preparing equipment for one-hundred-thousand men was ced before Saleen. Saleen regretted selling a huge quantity of equipment in exchange for gold coins. In the past year he had already produced arge quantity of armor and weapons and they had been transported to Lon. In the armies controlled by the northern nobles one in every ten soldiers would be using a weapon made in Metatrin City.


    Saleen had no choice but to summon his closest associates to resolve this problem.


    To everyone¡¯s surprise, Nichs took out forty-thousand sets of equipment. They had been issued when the expeditionary army set off from the Holy See and the excess equipment was ced in his possession. Since the expeditionary army was wiped out, these items remained in Nichs¡¯ possession. Only a grade-9 holy master like him could use such a huge spatial equipment.


    These forty-thousand sets of equipment could not be handed to Lex just yet, the Holy See¡¯s emblem had to be erased first and the Bitter Water County¡¯s badge had to be affixed on them. Sixty-thousand more sets of armor were still needed, this number was still very horrifying.


    Eleanor was once again sent to the alchemy factories to help produce feather arrows. Saleen¡¯s followers were also helpless in the issue of armor.


    In the end, J came up with an idea. The Holy See¡¯s soldiers who died outside Metatrin City had left behind tens of thousands of sets of armor. Even though they were all damaged, it was much easier to restore them than to craft new ones.


    Saleen had actually tossed the damaged armor into the warehouse, he was going to smelt them and recycle the metals.


    At the moment, Metatrin City did not have many finished stainless steel pieces. Every day the merchant ships would take the ore. Only a small number was left behind for Saleen to refine and craft armor.


    ¡°Master, western town¡¯s defense isn¡¯t really in need right now. Why don¡¯t we shift their armor here for the time being?¡± Isabe came up with another not so brilliant idea, but Saleen could only continue this method of robbing Peter to pay Paul for the time being.


    Western town currently had up to fifty-thousand troops, ten-thousand of which belonged to Lex¡¯s army. The equipment of these ten-thousand soldiers could be directly utilized, while the remaining forty-thousand troops could give up twenty-thousand sets of armor. The armor used by the auxiliary troops could be collected during a defensive operation, but it would fail if used for a field battle.


    Just like that, there was an extra thirty-thousand sets of armor. Another thirty-thousand sets were needed, this number much easier to handle.


    About twenty-thousand sets of armor could be salvaged from the loot left behind by those seventy-eighty-thousand Holy See¡¯s expeditionary soldiers. Gathering the armor from different sources, Saleen realized that he could really gather over ny-thousand sets of armor.


    He had to help Lex in this matter, otherwise Lex would have to request assistance from the Holy Rock City. Even though Holy Rock City seemed to have the intention to make peace, Saleen did not want Lex to owe them any favors.


    At this point in time, Saleen got a little emotional, ¡°If the old emperor was still alive, these one-hundred-thousand sets of armor would be a piece of cake for Holy Rock City toe up with.¡±


    The tattered armor, which was regarded as waste, was taken out of the warehouse. Daniel then became personally involved as hemanded the spirits to carry out refinement. Every piece of armor was ruined, they had to be disassembled before being put back together. This was a huge project.


    With only seven days, the task of disassembling the armor could be left to the skeletons. The reassembling would depend on the experienced smiths and elite soldiers. A normal soldier would not be able to build armor, the process required at least a year of specialized training.


    Other than the heavy cavalrymen and heavy infantrymen, the Qin soldiers would wield bows or crossbows. Saleen had to produce crossbow arrows for around twenty-thousand people and feather arrows for more than forty-thousand people.


    Saleen needed more than ten days of preparation to produce feather arrows for forty-thousand men. Each battle day would require at least two quivers. ording to Lex¡¯s standards, a quiver of feather arrows would have twenty-four arrows, so two bags would make forty-eight arrows. Consequently, Saleen would have to prepare four-hundred and eighty arrows for each soldier, which meant that he had to produce almost twenty-million arrows. Saleen was greatly aghast at the prospect.


    The consumption of crossbow arrows was slightly lower. In a battle, a soldier might not even use more than three crossbow arrows. Due to the twenty times calction, Saleen still had to produce more than one-million crossbow arrows so that Lex would have sufficient arrows for use.


    The only thing Saleen was not worried about was the equipment for riding horses. The equipment included horse armor, saddles, horseshoes, leg guards, and pouches for the cavalrymen. Saleen owned less than five-thousand cavalrymen due to a shortage of warhorses. He could only prepare these essories first and use normal inferior horses for training.


    In the battle with the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army, he had looted quite a number of horse essories. Lex would receive a sufficient quantity of horse equipment as a result.


    The feather arrow reserves in Metatrin City amounted to ten-million arrows, while there were around three-million arrows for military practice. The battle with the Holy See enabled Saleen to loot so many appliances.


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°If someone took this opportunity to invade Metatrin City, I would be in hot soup.¡±


    By gathering feather arrows from northern and western town, each soldier would be left with one quiver. They had to give up the rest of their arrows. Saleen had collected fifteen-million arrows and these arrows formed a mountainous pile.


    The arrow materials Saleen stored in the alchemy factories were also retrieved. Metatrin City was never scarce on lumber, the whole northern region was abound with hills and forests which covered filled with towering ancient wood.


    A span of seven days passed by in a sh. Lex had returned to Metatrin City by noon on the seventh day.


    Lex immediately returned to the county queen¡¯s residence Saleen had built for her. Since Metatrin City was Saleen¡¯s capital, Lex could not build a pce there. Her county queen¡¯s residence was very small.


    Lex only brought along a grade-7 sorcerer, both of them had used the Wind Travel spell to fly back to Metatrin City. Back at the residence, Lex was beyond fatigued. Saleen immediately paid her a visit anyway.


    Saleen brought along his two new followers, Nichs and Isabe. These two Tanggsi people were now Saleen¡¯s important associates.


    Isabe needed no exnation, she had all along been at odds with the Holy See. On the other hand, Nichs was fully depraved. He had turned into a fallen holy master and the Holy See wanted to exterminate him.


    Saleen introduced his new followers to Lex. Through letter, Lex already knew about their existence. At the moment, she was only meeting them in person to avoid any conflicts in the future.


    Seeing Lex¡¯s appearance, Saleen swallowed his grievances. He simply said, ¡°Why the hurry? I have deployed troops on two fronts, the number of people deployed have already reached one-hundred-thousand.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± Lex yearned to speak to Saleen while lying down, the undisrupted flying had caused her to be exhausted beyond imagination. Lex had never worked so hard before. Over twenty-thousand miles, she traveled for at least half a day every day, her mealtime and rest time had been pathetic.


    She had to return personally because only her God¡¯s Ring could contain all the equipment. If Saleen was the one transporting it, the equipment for these one-hundred-thousand soldiers would not reach her hands for at least the next few months. If any mistakes or troubles urred during transit, it might have taken at least half a year before Lex could receive Saleen¡¯s aid.


    ¡°Saleen, I have tounch the offensive before October. After October, Lon would be very frigid. I need to conquer at least three cities and you have surely met with the Holy See¡¯s army. If I attack during winter, my losses will be massive.¡±


    ¡°You should install a teleportation portal between Bitter Water Prefecture and Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°We will talk about it in the future.¡± Lex thought to herself, ¡°Before the mages from Sregl Ind arrive, it would be better not to establish a teleportation portal. It would be a weak spot in Metatrin City. As long as the city has sufficiently powerful mages, other people will then be unable to exploit this teleportation portal.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s the preparation of the equipmenting along?¡± Lex leaned against the chair tiredly, she really wanted to fall asleep there and then.


    ¡°You only gave me seven days, everyone is now working on this job. I will not be able to gather equipment for one-hundred-thousand people, but it should be sufficient for ny-thousand people.¡±


    ¡°Mm...¡± Listening to Saleen¡¯s response, Lex finally shut her eyes and stopped talking. Saleen had produced equipment for ny-thousand people, which had surpassed Lex¡¯s expectations. The moment the burden in her heart was lifted, she could no longer stave off exhaustion. She fell asleep in front of Saleen.


    Saleen sighed, he could not leave yet, the county queen¡¯s residence had no guards. This ce was only for Lex to take a break. The people in Metatrin City were upied, and Lex might not trust Nichs and Isabe. If they were made to protect Lex, Lex might not be able to sleep well.


    ¡°Nailisi hasn¡¯t returned and those demons will not be up to the task. If they eat Lex, I would be utterly depressed.¡±


    What about Sika? Saleen would never allow Sika to act as Lex¡¯s sentry, even if Sika did not mind. Saleen would also not be able to make such a decision.


    The only person free was J, but the thing was, Saleen knew that this fellow was lustful. J definitely had the guts to take advantage of Lex.


    He was a Silver Grand Swordmaster. In a head-on battle, Lex would not be his match.


    In the end, Saleen chose to remain there alone to wait for Lex to wake up. Saleen cast a Chunlin spell, causing Lex to sleep even more deeply. Observing from the sidelines, Isabe was envious.


    The image of Lex lying on the chair was mesmerizing. Her colored magic robe could not conceal the curves of her figure. Her hair was spread out, swaying with the wind. There was a light fragrance in the room, it was unknown what kind of magic medicine Lex was using.


    ¡°She has so much trust in Sir!¡±


    Isabe tilted her head sideways, and noticed that Saleen was looking at Lex in a daze. ¡°Sir already has Sika, so what rtionship does he share with County Queen Lex?¡±

 Chapter 705: Treaty between Prefecture and Kingdom (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 705: Treaty between Prefecture and Kingdom (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Isabe could notprehend the rtionship between Saleen and Lex. In her eyes, Sika was someone who must not be offended.


    Although she had never fought against Sika before, she noticed that everyone around Saleen was always polite and respectful towards her. Such respect was definitely not due to the private rtionship between her and Saleen.


    Sika was powerful and Isabe¡¯s instinct told her that she should never be in the wrong side of this Caucasus priestess. She knew very little about priests. She only knew that if Sika was her enemy, she would never go within fifty yards of her.


    The afternoon sunlight shone in Metatrin city, it was a warm ce in the middle of July.


    Lex fell asleep in front of Saleen even as he took out an item and cast water me to refine equipment that he had been upied with for more than half a year.


    It was a weapon that was curved in the shape of a leaf. It was dark green in color and was less than a foot long. This weapon was narrower than the boomerang that Sika destroyed. The des on the interior and exterior had very small teeth that could barely be detected.


    The material that Saleen used to refine this weapon was the dried leaves of the divine tree.


    Prior to receiving the book from Isabe, Saleen was close topletion in refining this weapon. He managed to gain some understanding of rules, hence he decided to modify this weapon further.


    A total of one-hundred-twenty-four-thousand and eight-hundred leaves of the divine tree were refined together to form a perfect cycle. This cycle included the basic transformation of the Figaro Magic Form and the six great elements achieved perfect bnce within it.


    If a mage possessed this leaf-shaped weapon, they could definitely use it as if it was a magic staff and the power given by this weapon would surpass any high-level equipment. This weapon would be the perfect container for Sika as it could contain any kind of power.


    Other than the techniques of worship, the boomerang was the ranged attack that Sika was most familiar with. The boomerangs wielded by Caucasus people were one-hundred times more difficult to use than flying axes and their abilities were iparable.


    As long as the boomerang was not taken down by enemies, it could still fly back on its own after striking down the enemy. The more powerful Caucasus warriors would even be able to control how many targets their boomerangs would strike.


    With this new weapon, Sika would no longer have to engage in closebat. Saleen refined the weapon patiently even as he waited for Lex to wake up.


    Isabe saw Saleen wearing a gentle smile on his face and thought it was because of Lex. Little did she know that Saleen was thinking about the time he spent with Sika when they were lost in the mountains. At that time, Sika was lost and he did not know the way either. As a mage, he could only follow the stars to try and find his way.


    As lost as they were, he still managed to lead Sika out of the mountains without getting eaten by magic beasts.


    Why did it feel like those days were ten-thousand years ago?


    Lex let out a sound and opened her eyes. A simple nap like this already allowed her to recover her energy. Lex smiled when she saw Saleen and two followers standing at the side.


    ¡°Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Saleen began to keep his water me slowly. The weapon meant for Sika was onlycking in thest rule. Saleen was not confident in rules so he could only refine repeatedly and would stop when the equipment and rule coincidentally fit each other. That was when he would produce a weapon that even he would be pleased with. It was not all within his control.


    After seeing Saleen keep his water me, Lex said, ¡°I have made you wait...¡±


    Without a word, Saleen shot an icicle towards Lex. Isabe and Nichs were taken aback by what Saleen did. Subconsciously, Isabe prepared a grade-4 spell in her hands while a book with a ck cover appeared in Nichs¡¯ hands as well.


    Did Saleen want to kill Lex? He would not be able to do it alone.


    Before Isabe and Nichs could react, a phoenix flew out of Lex¡¯s hands and both spells were annihted when they shed together.


    Nichs¡¯ face turned red as he put away his ck book quickly. A grade-9 mage had misjudged the situation. Saleen and Lex had clearly done this many times. It was only a joke.


    Isabe¡¯s face was red too. By canceling a grade-4 spell, her mental strength was quickly depleted and her magic chords were used up at the rate of casting two grade-5 spells. She did not possess such excellent teachings like Saleen and Lex. Canceling spells was an extremely difficult technique. A normal mage would not have managed to learn it. Isabe managed to teach herself by studying the description of a simr technique recorded in her teacher¡¯s magic notes.


    Isabe could be considered as a genius in magic. Without a good teacher, she still managed to train herself to reach such a standard. She even managed to discover some special techniques on her own.


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°Didn¡¯t I say you can take your time? This time around, I have given you a very short lead time to give me the resources that I want. You have still managed to gather so many for me. I don¡¯t know what to say.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s intention for using the icicle was clear. Both of them had been on the brink of death together. There was no need to be so courteous to each other anymore. Lex immediately recalled the days they spent together in the hell of god¡¯s punishment, where both of them underwent intense magic training. By casting such spells at such a close distance, any minor mistake could lead to severe injuries.


    ¡°What do you intend to offer me in exchange for these one-hundred-thousand sets of equipment?¡± Saleen did not stand on ceremony and was keen to start discussing the terms and conditions. Lex did notck gold coins so she could easily have purchased tens of thousands of sets of equipment from Qin. Since she decided to ask Saleen, that must mean that there was something in it for Saleen.


    ¡°You sent a letter saying that Ojarvis has allowed you to enter Laiyin Duchy?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, but I have decided to build a city on the outside for now. As for when I willunch an attack, it will depend on Holy Rock City. If they start a war with Sikeqinya, I don¡¯t mind joining in by attacking Laiyin.¡±


    ¡°I havee back to sign a treaty with you. It wouldn¡¯t do to just enter Laiyin. You have to be able to enter Lun in order to be part of the battle. You will not be able to gain a foothold in Laiyin in the future otherwise.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Saleen was curious.


    ¡°My brother...he can control the royal swordsmen battalion and pce mages. All that he can promise you is that Holy Rock City will not interfere with the armies that you send to attack Laiyin. If Phoenix Empire attacks and you are not able to defeat them, you will not be able to retreat back to Lun. We sign the treaty and your soldiers will fight at Lun now. If my uncle¡¯s armies don¡¯t allow you to enter Lun, I will support you from behind.¡±


    ¡°How will you support me? Although Lun is only a duchy, its eastern side is more than five-thousand miles. If something happened to me in Laiyin, how would you be able to send reinforcements from five-thousand miles away?¡± Saleen asked directly.


    ¡°Laiyin Duchy is very stable now. You might as well attack from the southeast of Lun with me. Do you remember what we did in Titan Duchy? There is nothing in that ce now.¡±


    Saleen immediately understood what Lex was nning. Laiyin Duchy was still in perfect shape and its powers were still preserved. On the other hand, Titan Duchy had already been devastated.


    The small Duke was defeated by him while the old Duke had gone into hiding. Now, Titan Duchy had been split in half between north and south. Thends south of the Chishui river belonged to Cloudflow Empire while thends north of the river had beenpletely destroyed and had be the exclusive domain of the Holy See.


    The location that Lex had chosen was north of the Chishui river, which was close to Titan. No one knew why the Emperor of Cloudflow had yet to cross the river in retaliation. It was still a good opportunity for Saleen and Lex to ransack all the temples in Titan Duchy.


    Not considering the purgatory desert, there were twenty-four temples left behind by the Goddess on the entire Maind. The amount of wealth in these twenty-four temples was astounding. Saleen was worried about theck of resources, but if he could somehow get his hands on the temples, he would not need to worry anymore.


    Most importantly, these twenty-four temples would be the center from which Saleen and Lex would spread the Goddess¡¯ faith.


    After the Pink Bandits managed to take over a secret temple, they were even able to survive the powerful attacks from the Duchy. In the future, Saleen would be able to use these temples as his base for expansion.


    ¡°I will give you another battalion of soldiers. Lead my two battalions into battle and train them on the battlefield. Once you feel they are ready, I will rotate another two battalions. After I have settled my things here, I will go and look for you.¡± Saleen considered for a while and gave his own suggestion.


    Other than the one-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers and two-thousand heavy-armored knights from his sixth battalion, he did not have any more elite soldiers that could bepared to those in Lex¡¯s armies. Sending them to the frontline was the best way to train them up.


    ¡°Hmm, I willunch an attack before September and finish the battle by the end of December. Remember toe over by then. Let¡¯s go and take a look at the equipment.¡±


    Coincidentally, a Caucasus guard reported that Nailisi had arrived.


    ¡°Ask her to wait for me at the temple. We will dine with the vice Princess tonight,¡± Saleen gave his orders to the soldier before bringing Lex to the warehouse in the north of the city.


    Most of Qin¡¯s warehouses were built underground and Metatrin was no exception. It was a warehouse that had been strengthened with spells and magic arrays. The items it contained would hardly decay and it would be rare for a fire to break out.


    Barbarians and Caucasus people were in charge of guarding the warehouse. These two types of people were extremely stubborn and one might as well forget about trying to sneak in by using some ploy. The tens of Caucasus people guarding the door even wanted to examine Saleen¡¯s badge, as if they did not recognize him.


    After inspecting the badge, the guards bowed and said, ¡°Your Majesty, you may enter.¡±


    Saleen did not know whether tough or cry, but Lex was envious. She said to Saleen, ¡°Can you give me some men that are like them? I will let them guard over the logistical supplies.¡±


    Lex did not bother to look at all the items in the warehouse. She went straight to the armor and weapons and stored them in the God¡¯s ring. Saleen said that he had prepared more than ny-thousand sets of equipment, but he had exaggerated. Some of the equipment still needed to be repaired slightly to be in passable condition. Fortunately, Lex had arge group of craftsmen, it would be much faster for her to repair the equipmentpared to Saleen.


    Saleen decided to give Lex some of the small equipmentponents that he had no use for. Theseponents would still be useful on the battlefield. Take a uniquely shaped leaf for example; making one alone was expensive, but would be much cheaper if they were made inrge quantities. Saleen gave Lex many of suchponents because he would have no use for them very soon.


    Saleen¡¯s army would have their own unique equipment that was different from the other Empires in the dimension.

 Chapter 706: Treaty between Prefecture and Kingdom (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 706: Treaty between Prefecture and Kingdom (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex had rushed back to Metatrin City, but she came prepared with the letters of credence of both kingdoms and temte of the treaty. After packing up the equipment, Lex and Saleen returned to the temple and left her sorcerer in the mansion.


    Nailisi was feeling a little frustrated while waiting for Saleen, but immediately put on a smile when she saw Saleen and Lex returning.


    ¡°Greetings, Viscountess,¡± Nailisi bowed politely.


    ¡°Nailisi, you have be stronger,¡± Lex smiled in return. She did not wish to offend the demons around Saleen. When it came to such creatures, sometimes even their masters might find it hard to control them. There was nothing she would gain from offending them.


    Nailisi ignored her and said to Saleen, ¡°Master, Sister Sika is asking if you will be going over tonight?¡±


    Saleen coughed and gave Nailisi a stare. She was clearly trying to drive a wedge between them. He has never spent a single night at the South Court. Even if he were to meet with Sika, she would spend the night at the temple.


    Lex pretended not to hear. Whether Saleen and Sika developed feelings for each other or not was beyond her control. Although their lives had been intertwined and something strange might have happened between them in the hell of god¡¯s punishment, she was still the bloodline of the Grukos. There was just too many things that she needed to take responsibility for.


    The two of them had to go their separate ways and were ten-thousand miles apart. On the other hand, Sika and Saleen spent time with each other daily. Just this point alone, Lex knew there was no way she stood a chance.


    As Saleen had already shifted the kingdom¡¯s administrative duties into the pce, the second level of the temple was now empty. Saleen brought Lex to the second level and both of them discussed the treaty between both countries.


    Saleen had no expectations with regards to building a country in the first ce. He was doing this for the sole purpose of spreading the faith of the Goddess of Nature. The treaty with Lex would save him a lot of trouble.


    Deep down, Lex shared the same sentiments. If she was not a member of the royal family, she would rather just be a mage. The main purpose of this treaty was to determine how to deal with a third party should somethinge up and not to scrutinize if the treaty was more beneficial to one party or the other.


    Since the beginning of the Myers Maind, no two countries had ever signed a treaty like this where both parties shared amon objective instead of trying to take advantage of each other.


    First use of the treaty; From this day onwards, Metatrin Kingdom and Bitter Water Prefecture will be allies forever.


    The duration of this treaty was up to one-hundred-thousand years. No bonds wouldst for eternity, but a period of one-hundred-thousand years was longer than even the history of Myers Maind. This was more than sufficient to prove that this treaty was meant to stand the test of time.


    No treatiessted forever. The treaties that countries signed with each other usually ended within one-hundred years. Saleen and Lex opted to sign a treaty that would end only after one-hundred-thousand years.


    Second use of the treaty; Metatrin Kingdom and Bitter Water Prefecture would share weal and woe. If one were to be involved in any battles, the other party would automatically join in to support.


    This use did not serve much purpose as this was almost expected when countries signed treaties with each other. Nevertheless, this use ensured that even if Saleen or Lex were absent, their noble families would still have to carry on and support the other party in battle.


    Third use of the treaty; Metatrin Kingdom and Bitter Water Prefecture would acknowledge the status of both parties¡¯ noble families.


    This use was to give both parties¡¯ noble families assurance. After all, the rulers of both sides could not represent the noble families and their benefits. The noble families would nevery down their lives for their rulers unless their benefits were assured.


    Fourth use of the treaty; If a third party was to join in the alliance, the noble families of both countries would vote on a resolution.


    This use was meant to restrict the noble families. With this use, the noble families would have less to worry about and would be assured that whatever benefits gained would be shared only between the two countries. Even if a third country wanted to form an alliance, its treaty would not be suitable for Metatrin and Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Fifth use of the treaty; The citizens of both countries must obey thews of whichever country they are in.


    This use was meant to prevent a conflict of interests. If the citizens of Bitter Water Prefecture were to visit Metatrin, they would have to obey thews there and if theymitted a crime, both rulers would not have the power to bring the criminal back to their own country.


    This use was extremely important. Many treaties had failed because such a use was not included.


    After the most important fifth use, they discussed about the minor details such asnds, paying of taxes, and the passing through of their armies. In total, there were eighty uses. They made sure that there were no loopholes so that no third party would be able to intrude.


    After studying the treaty for more than two hours, it had finally been settled. This was when Saleen asked Nailisi why she returned so early.


    Nailisi did not bother to hide it from Lex since she already knew the existence of the oceanic ice block.


    ¡°Master, the winged skeleton really did a great job this time around. We retrieved more than one-hundred ships and while the items we obtained weren¡¯t all high-level, they were the items you urgently needed. We met with a school of fish that were terrifying. If not for the fact that we had many spirits of the dead that cast a region of death, the alchemy ship might have been eaten up by the fish.¡±


    Saleen was shocked to hear that. Some of the magic beasts in the ocean must not be underestimated. The pan¡¯s turtle might be a grade-8 creature, but its defense definitely surpassed that of a grade-9 magic beast. Some small fish might be of a lower level than red krill, but their attacking abilities were unexpectedly powerful.


    One such fish that Saleen knew of was the bone-chewing fish. The teeth of this fish were so sharp that they could bite a hole in the pan¡¯s turtle shell. If tens of thousands of such fish attacked the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, it would bepletely chewed up within an hour.


    Clearly, Nailisi did not encounter the bone-chewing fish or she would not have made it back.


    ¡°Master, it is this,¡± Nailisi took out a fish from her bracelet and ced it in front of Saleen even as she spoke. Lex frowned, for the fish was extremely smelly. Nailisi was a demon so she could ignore the smell, but Lex could not be oblivious to it.


    With an invisible shield, Lex protected herself with her own spell.


    The fish that Nailisi had taken out was beautiful. It was slightly more than one yard long and its scales were silver in color. The shape of its body was streamlined in a way like how the tip of some special alchemy arrows had been magnified. Such body types faced minimal resistance in water and were the result of natural evolution.


    The fish¡¯s head was not big. Nailisi opened up the fish¡¯s mouth with both her hands. Both Saleen and Lex broke out in cold sweat after that.


    When the fish¡¯s mouth was openedpletly, it could swallow a human¡¯s entire head without any difficulty. On top of that, the fish¡¯s teeth were clustered together tightly like rasps instead of hooks and reflected light.


    The shape of its teeth implied that the fish consumed its food by chewing and not swallowing.


    Saleen took out a piece of dragonshard and slid it across the fish¡¯s teeth. A clear line immediately appeared on the dragonshard.


    This fish¡¯s mouth could open at an obtuse angle and with such sharp teeth, no one could bear to think of the oue of tens of thousands of them attacking them all at once.


    ¡°What is this thing?!¡± Saleen had never seen this type of fish in the as of creatures.


    ¡°This is Stotts, something that can only be found in the deep seas of Tanggsi Empire.¡± Lex said.


    ¡°Stotts?¡± Saleen thought this name sounded familiar.


    ¡°It is an evil creature in the Code of the Holy See. It originally referred to a creature that dwelled in the water on the purgatory dimension and can devour the souls of believers. The scary thing about this magic beast on the Myers Maind is its insanity. It is said that these fish were rarely seen after the second dynasty.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°These fish can be used to feed magic beasts so that thetter can evolve. Long ago, the humans kept too many magic beasts and these fish were the best type of food.¡±


    ¡°So, what is so unique about it?¡± Saleen knew that this Stotts must possess some magic or it could never survive in the ocean with its mouth as its only weapon.


    ¡°Resistance towards magic. This fish¡¯s resistance towards magic is ridiculously high. Any spell below grade-6 will have zero effects on it. I am referring to element magic, of course. The death region mentioned by Nailisi targeted a creature¡¯s soul and life strength instead so a grade-3 magic beast like this would definitely choose to flee.¡±


    After hearing this, Saleen released an ice de and cut open the Stotts¡¯ brain to reveal the magic nucleus inside.


    The magic nucleus was huge and practically upied the entire brain space. A magic nucleus that was the size of a fist like this could easily be cut up into four standard samples.


    This magic beast had a huge magic nucleus, but a small brain so it must possess low intelligence and could only follow its instincts. They would have known that the death region cast by the middle-grade spirits of the dead was not fatal otherwise. If they had chosen to attack forcefully, Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat might have been lost.


    ¡°How many did you capture?¡±


    Nailisiughed bitterly and said, ¡°We dare not hunt for it. We only managed to kill over five-hundred out of tens of thousands of them. The real reward was that we managed to pick up quite a few skeletons and magic nuclei from areas that they passed by. Fortunately, the fish did not consume these two items.¡±


    ¡°Five-hundred is quite a significant amount still. After removing their skin, they can be used to refine defense equipment for mages,¡± Lex said.


    What Nailisi did not tell Saleen was that the winged skeleton had actually managed to capture quite a number of items. Wherever the Stotts passed by, there would be thousands of magic beast casualties. By following the fishs¡¯ path, the winged skull managed to pick up countless magic nuclei. Although they were mostly low-grade magic nuclei, it was easier and safer than hunting for them on his own.


    During this unexpected encounter, Nailisi even witnessed two gigantic grade-8 magic beasts being eaten alive by the fish. She would never dare to underestimate the dangers of the ocean now.


    It did not matter that they were only grade-3 magic beasts. As long as they had the numbers, they could still kill a high-level magic beast. It was the same as a grand swordmaster having to flee for his life if he was facing too many swordmasters.


    After giving Lex a batch of magic nuclei, Saleen was left with close to nothing. These magic nuclei brought back by the winged skeleton came just in time for Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories to continue their operations.


    Saleen had also be alert to the fact that his pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was not invincible. There were still many unknown creatures in the ocean that could pose a threat to his alchemical boat. The alchemical boat was still too weak if its attacking abilities only constituted of bone spirits and bloodstones. Now that they were back, Saleen decided that he would ask the winged skeleton to refine the alchemical boat to increase its number of weapons.


    There was still hope for the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. On the other hand, the divingbat vessel that was given to Saleen by Ojarvis had poorer defense inparison. This equipment created by the Grukos royal family was developed in the deepwaterkes of inner Maind, where the creatures were not as ferocious as the magic beasts of the ocean.


    If not for the fact that the winged skeleton had this dangerous encounter, Saleen might have overlooked that. Fortunately, Lex was around. He would have to ask her if there was any way to improve on this type of divingbat vessels developed by the Grukos royal family.


    Saleen refused to believe that this divingbat vessel was Holy Rock City¡¯s best equipment. Ojarvis must still have other more powerful equipment. Such weapons must have been kept as a secret in order to deal with Cloudflow¡¯s fleets in the future. It would be disastrous if the secret was leaked.

 Chapter 706.1: Elf medicine (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 706.1: Elf medicine (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The southern gardens of Metatrin City upied an enormousnd, this was the ce where the Caucasus elders lived and it was also Sika¡¯s privatend. At the moment, Eleanor was staying there for the long term to cultivate some weird nt species from the elvish ne.


    Sika and Eleanor were now cultivating a nt that was around two yards tall, this nt was odd. Its entire body was made up of one leaf and one stem. Magic patterns grew out of the leaf naturally, while a green radiance circted within the stem, releasing faint hints of the scent of life.


    Sika meticulously poured the medicine she had concocted on the stem area, while Eleanor repeatedly cast elvish spells on this towering stalk.


    Within the leaf, a fment geted slowly as it bloomed slowly. Eleanor gestured with her hand, and a mechanical bee flew over. The body of the mechanical bee was made from mithril, it was tiny and lightweight. The mechanical bee pounced on the leaf, pollinating the small blooming flower.


    A tinge of jubnce appeared on Eleanor¡¯s face, ¡°It was a sess!¡±


    She did not carry so many of such nts, she was just left with three seeds. If the seeds could not be nurtured, then she could only return to the elvish ne and retrieve more seeds. ¡°The medicine made by the Caucasus priest is pretty good, even though the form is unlike the elf medicine, it is suitable for this ne.¡±


    Sika did not stop working, this nt was absorbing the medicine too quickly, luckily she was sufficiently prepared. This situation would turn out to be like the previous one where Sika could only watch the nt wither before her eyes.


    Eleanor kept casting elvish spells, eventually, the fment of this nt transformed into a petal which was even smaller than a sesame seed. Finally, it fell off, producing something like a wheat ear.


    Eleanor stopped casting magic, as she inhaled deeply and wiped away sweat. Sika also stopped working and asked curiously, ¡°Eleanor, what are you cultivating?¡±


    ¡°Nine-leaf Grass, I only brought along twelve seeds, now I am left with three. If no new seeds are nurtured, it won¡¯t be sufficient for use.¡±


    ¡°Nine-leaf Grass? There is only one leaf here...¡± Sika pulled a long face, as she was dissatisfied with Eleanor¡¯s answer.


    Eleanor smiled warmly, and said, ¡°If I could cultivate nine leaves, I would be an elvish god. The medicinal properties in one leaf is already sufficient for me to advance to a sorcerer. Mm, the Six Elements¡¯ Space is also equally useful for me.¡±


    ¡°A medicine which can help someone advance to a sorcerer?¡± Sika could not believe what she just heard. She knew how many tribtions Saleen had went through, these close shaves helped Saleen experience many adventures, yet, Saleen was only a grade-6 mage at the moment.


    ¡°Even though the advancement to a sorcerer isn¡¯t as tough as the advancement to a Nature Priestess, it also cannot be stimted using medicine.¡±


    ¡°Sika, this is my secret, you cannot tell anyone else.¡± Eleanor tugged at Sika¡¯s arm.


    ¡°Mm, I will not tell, but...¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to tell Saleen, he will not ask about this.¡± Eleanor carefully plucked a seed, then asked, ¡°Sika, I heard that County Queen Lex is here, and she is in the temple, aren¡¯t you going over to take a look?¡±


    ¡°Lex is currently discussing matters with Saleen, she is busy.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you worried that Saleen will be snatched away by Lex?¡± Eleanor asked with much curiosity. If Eleanor was in Sika¡¯s shoes, she would have rushed over the moment Lex returned.


    ¡°Eleanor, I was just vexing over how to help Saleen marry Lex.¡± Sika replied as she shook her head helplessly.


    ¡°Sika, are you crazy?¡±


    ¡°Nope, Saleen has to have a wife, right?¡±


    ¡°But...¡±


    ¡°No buts, Lex is so wealthy and powerful, Saleen will not be at a loss by marrying her.¡± Sika pointed at the Nine-leaf Grass and asked, ¡°Do you still have use for this?¡±


    ¡°I only want the leaf...¡± Eleanor did not know what to say, she plucked off the leaf carefully, leaving behind a two yard long stem on the ground.


    ¡°It¡¯s a pity, this item can be used to make medicine. It is better than a mage¡¯s medicine.¡± Sika noticed that the stem¡¯s color had changed quickly after the leaf was removed, the stem began yellowing and its medicinal properties had disappeared.


    ¡°Sika, Saleen asked me to advance to a sorcerer as soon as possible. I have enough seeds now, so I can grow some Nine-leaf Grass for you, but these things...¡±


    ¡°Other people cannot know about this, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, you have followed Saleen for a while, have you ever seen anyone trying to find out information from me?¡±


    Eleanor was taken aback, then said, ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°You might not know the reason. In the beginning, some people tried to get close to me, but it wasn¡¯t for Saleen¡¯s secrets. They took me for a fool, in the end, I buried them in the ground to be fertilizers. Ever since then, no one has tried to do such stupid things again.¡±


    Eleanor was speechless. Sika looked like a normal human female, other than her captivating beauty, she did not have any other striking characteristics. No one around Saleen could rival such a decisive killing force though.


    ¡°Everyone thinks that the Caucasus people are honest and gullible, humph...¡± Sika snorted, but she did not continue talking. The Caucasus people were very sensitive towards the evil intentions of other people, they were just unwilling to disy it.


    ¡°Sika, let me ask you, why are you okay with allowing Saleen to marry other women?¡±


    ¡°People who I don¡¯t fancy will not be able to marry Saleen. As for Lex, I find her barely pleasing.¡± Sika¡¯s expression was nonchnt and confident.


    Eleanor shook her head, and said, ¡°How did you set these standards? Men are very fickle.¡±


    ¡°Saleen will not have a change of heart.¡± Sika smiled vibrantly at Eleanor, as if she was pointing out an obvious fact.


    Eleanor sighed, then said, ¡°I cannot advise you on such matters.¡± Even though Eleanor said that, she was actually recalling the things Saleen had told her during those seven nights of work. ¡°Saleen said that if he ran into unforeseen circumstances, he will let me take care of Sika and his students, he didn¡¯t even mention anyone else. To a mage, their students are their legacy, the students are of utmost importance. Sika¡¯s and Saleen¡¯s legacies are juxtaposed, I think Sika¡¯s position in his heart will not change.¡±


    Eleanor was dwelling so much on this topic because she really liked Sika. The aura of a Caucasus priestess was very close to that of an elf. If it was anyone else, Eleanor could not even be bothered. Especially Nailisi, who emitted the scent of evil, Eleanor felt really ufortable looking at Nailisi.


    ¡°Great Priestess, His Majesty invites you over.¡± A young Caucasus warrior entered Sika¡¯s and Eleanor¡¯s mini garden and greeted Sika. Admiration brimmed in his eyes.


    Sika was the gem of the Caucasus people, she was also the idealpanion for these young warriors. These warriors were fanatical over Sika, ever since Sika advanced to an earth priestess, many of the powers exclusive to the Caucasus people were developed. The medicines created by a priest also helped to remove the regret the Caucasus people felt for not having mages.


    If Sika did not choose Saleen, these youths would have wooed her already.


    As a priestess, Sika could only choose, she could not reject. That was why she was in such a hurry to make love to Saleen.


    ¡°I know, please lead the way.¡± Sika ignored the warrior¡¯s gaze, with Saleen around, these people could only stave off their love for Sika.


    The young Caucasus warrior was overjoyed, it was still good to be close to a priestess for a short moment. Sika could travel on her own, but she had let the warrior lead the way which meant that she wanted the warrior to be closer to her.


    Sika and Eleanor followed behind the Caucasus warrior. Exiting the southern gardens, two-hundred Caucasus warriors automatically tagged along to protect the priest as they made a beeline for the temple.


    The elders had said that there were too many dubious characters in the city, only the temple and southern gardens were safe. As a result, each time Sika stepped out, many Caucasus warriors would follow her, unless she had entered the temple. There was quite a number of Caucasus warriors in the temple. Due to the presence of Sika, many Caucasus people were still willing to be loyal to Saleen.


    Eleanor suddenly whispered into Sika¡¯s ear, ¡°Sika, how long have you been with Saleen?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s been a few years already right?¡±


    ¡°I am referring to the times when you two are engaged in intimacy.¡±


    ¡°Regarding this matter, we have done it about one-hundred times already.¡± Sika answered unabashedly. Thereafter, she continued, ¡°Probably over two-hundred times, Saleen has very good stamina...¡±


    Eleanor quickly interrupted her, ¡°Sika, I am trying to tell you that people like us who cultivate several skills have different bodiespared to normal people. You might not get pregnant just because you wish for children. If Saleen advances to a sorcerer, it will be even more difficult.¡±


    ¡°Ah?¡± Even though Sika was psychologically prepared, she was still a bit disappointed after listening to Eleanor.


    ¡°I have an idea, you should give it a shot.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    Eleanor pondered, ¡°I have already imparted elvish magic to Saleen, one more skill will not matter,¡± then she said, ¡°Of course it is a medicine that can help a person get pregnant. Too many creatures find it hard to leave behind offspring, my... my family has a special medicine to treat this problem.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, do you have it now?¡± Sika grabbed Eleanor¡¯s hand and said, ¡°I will try it out today, to see whether it works or not.¡±


    Eleanor was astounded by Sika, she shied away from Sika¡¯s grip and turned around awkwardly. She realized that the Caucasus warriors were not very near them, each warrior looked imposing and stern, as though they did not hear Sika¡¯s words.


    ¡°Why are you looking at them, they are also in much anticipation.¡± Sika disagreed with Eleanor. Even though Sika had a high chance of advancing to a Nature Priestess, the more stable method would be to bear a child. Once this child was born, he or she would possess the abilities of an Earth Priestess. Through further grooming, this child would surely advance to a Nature Priestess.


    By leaving descendants behind and protecting them properly, these descendants would mature into adults and the Caucasus people would not be short of priests anymore.


    ¡°Forget it, just stay at my ce. Later on I will reveal more details.¡± Eleanor did not wish to discuss this topic with Sika anymore, this medicine was not just consumed orally. If Sika probed excessively, Eleanor would be utterly embarrassed.


    The Caucasus people behind perked their ears, but they could not hear anything, causing all of them to look regretful. The issue of a priestess producing offspring could not be rushed.


    As the temple came into view, Sika felt a slightly agitated, ¡°Eleanor would not lie about having a solution. I have to speed things up as Saleen will marry other women. Even though I do not object to it, I have to leave behind offspring first. Humph, Saleen is only a grade-6 mage, yet making children is already so difficult. If he advances in the future, other women won¡¯t even be able to have any children with Saleen.¡±

 Chapter 707: Elf medicine (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 707: Elf medicine (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Once Sika and Eleanor entered the temple, the trailing Caucasus warriors returned to the southern gardens. The young warrior who was leading the way wanted to go back already. Sika said, ¡°Stay behind, act as a guard for Saleen first. If you do this job well, you will be transferred to the temple¡¯s swordsmen camp.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Thank you Great Priestess!¡± The young warrior immediately knelt on one knee, executing an official salute.


    The temple¡¯s swordsmen camp had a separateposition, the soldiers in it were Saleen¡¯s most trusted soldiers. The actual leader of the temple¡¯s swordsmen camp was Sika. Saleen held a tight rein over the troops beside him, he demanded high standards. This young Caucasus warrior was sufficiently loyal to Sika and Sika noticed that his powers were equivalent to that of an intermediate grade swordmaster. If his abilities took one step further, he could be an intermediatemander in the camp. This warrior was of pretty good caliber.


    This selection was progressive. The Caucasus warriors who could enter the southern gardens had already passed through more than four rounds of selection.


    Entering the temple, Sika and Eleanor went to the second story right away. Some Caucasus warriors spotted Sika, then they led Sika and Eleanor to the small cafeteria. This was originally the ce where Saleen hosted his guests. Ever since the pce was built, outsiders could note here to have their meals.


    This time round, Saleen had invited the four dukes.


    Since two countries were going to form an alliance, these dukes had to be the first to know about it. Sika was thest to arrive. The four dukes had already reviewed the uses of the alliance treaty, they admired Saleen¡¯s meticulousness as there were no loopholes.


    This alliance was targeted at a third party. Since Metatrin Kingdom wanted to develop further, it had to have a suitable excuse. Qin could oppose Saleen¡¯s expansion directly otherwise.


    The nobles beside Saleen were not worried about Saleen¡¯s capability, they were worried that Saleen would be ostracized by Qin and that Saleen would not be able to locate an entry point. That secret agreement with Ojarvis could not be used as evidence.


    These nobles were displeased that Lex had taken away arge quantity of materials. After looking at the uses in the treaty, their moods were very much stabilized.


    ¡°Sika, we have been waiting for you.¡± Lex waved her hand and Sika walked over to her grinning from ear to ear, before taking a seat. Eleanor scanned the surroundings, Saleen¡¯s followers were also seated. Saleen pointed to an empty seat next to himself, and said, ¡°Sit here.¡±


    That spot was actually reserved for Sika, but Sika had sat down next to Lex, so Saleen could not say anything.


    ¡°County Queen, what is really going on in Lon? The information we received has a lot of contradiction.¡± Sika raised a crystal wine ss, toasting Lex. Saleen was astonished, it was unknown when Sika had learned to handle such events with so much ease.


    Smiling bitterly in her heart, Lex said, ¡°The broad picture isn¡¯t too optimistic, the Holy See¡¯s army seized most of Lon. We are nearing the middle line, but we didn¡¯t breach the most important town. We willunch onest offensive this winter.¡±


    ¡°What about the war puppets?¡± At this moment, Saleen had to ask this question, as he was very puzzled, ¡°The war puppets cannot even chase away the Tanggsi people?¡±


    ¡°They are used to invade cities. Usually, they are stored in hundreds of chariots, where they will be assembled in the vicinity of a city. The Holy See has deployed grade-9 holy masters, trying to destroy the war puppets. If a war puppet isn¡¯t assembled, it is very frail on its own. Unless there are a few hundred sorcerers protecting the chariots, the chariots can be easily destroyed by the enemy¡¯s grade-9 experts if they are separated from one another.¡±


    ¡°Then aren¡¯t they useless?¡± Sika looked very intrigued.


    ¡°Why would they be useless? The enemy¡¯s grade-9 experts are kept on their toes, they keep surveilling our war puppets, they don¡¯t dare do anything else. The moment the war puppets are transported to the foot of the city and assembled, no cities in Lon will be able to resist them.¡±


    ¡°That means the war puppets will be used to defend cities?¡± Saleen probed.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, the war puppets are not dismantled, they are at the middle line of Lon, in Siwei Prefecture. This is the offensive frontier of Holy Rock City¡¯s right nk. If the enemy¡¯s grade-9 holy masters don¡¯t defend this ce, we will dismantle the war puppets and transport them over.¡±


    ¡°This is because of Alchemy City, right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes, the sorcerers promised by Alchemy City haven¡¯t arrived, so we can only wait.¡±


    ¡°You are attacking during winter, will Alchemy City¡¯s sorcerers appear?¡±


    ¡°They have promised to deploy twenty-four sorcerers and one-hundred grand mages to aid in the offensive,¡± Lex replied.


    When Nichs learned of this news, his eyelids jumped. Being borne in the Holy See, he was very sensitive towards the actions of Alchemy City. Based on his experience, Alchemy City was nning to push the battle line to western Lon by deploying twenty-four sorcerers. With so many sorcerers holding the fort, the war puppets could be safely sent to any city.


    The more important aspect was the one-hundred grand mages, the presence of so many grand mages would pose a threat to a grade-9 holy master. The Holy See was warring on two fronts now, it still had to defend against the Cloudflow people at the south of the Chishui River.


    Lex had only taken a short nap in the afternoon, so she still felt fatigued. After giving a briefing about Lon¡¯s battle, she was sent back to the residence to rest. Only the four dukes and Saleen¡¯s followers remained as they continued discussing the development of Metatrin.


    When Lex returned to the county queen¡¯s residence, she did not go to sleep right away, she went to chat with the sorcerer she had brought along.


    This grade-7 sorcerer looked about forty to fifty years old, he should have advanced around this age, so his appearance did not change much. He had the features of a pedigree Qin person. His ck hair carried a tinge of blue hue, while his eyes were dark brown, almost ck.


    ¡°County Queen, how was the discussion?¡± This sorcerer did not address Lex using a royalty salutation, this meant that their rtionship was very intimate.


    ¡°Nothing much, Saleen and I will not have a sh of interests. I have obtained ny-thousand sets of equipment. Before winter, I can equip the entire army.¡±


    ¡°Just a little more!¡±


    ¡°I will leave in two days, Saleen will be able to make the number. We are too exhausted, if we get ambushed along the way, we can only escape once using my God¡¯s Ring. Once we recover, Saleen will send people to deliver the goods to us.¡±


    ¡°What about Huoxing City, can Saleen¡¯s army hold the fort?¡±


    ¡°Hah hah, Bill, have you seen Metatrin City¡¯s walls? Saleen might not be able to invade a city, but his defense wouldn¡¯t be any worse than ours. My five-thousand man army will be fine.¡±


    ¡°Then I can rest assured. When the County Queen can expand thend to ten-thousand miles, I will let the imperial mages support the County Queen. This ten-thousand milend also includes thends in Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°Forget it, my brother is still around, I cannot possibly snatch the throne from him, right?¡±


    ¡°That was the intention of the previous emperor, County Queen, you mustn¡¯t let all of us down.¡± The sorcerer looked at Lex, and Lex sighed before nodding. ¡°Before Father died, he had a secret decree, at least half of the imperial mages will support my ascension to the throne. I will need to expand the territory myself, thend area will need to reach a certain size before the secret decree will take effect. ording to my own calctions, if I can really expand mynd to ten-thousand miles, I can easily establish a new empire. I will not know the reaction from Holy Rock City though. Ojarvis¡¯ body is in bad shape, I don¡¯t want to agitate him.¡±


    The dukes were dismissed, as it was alreadyte into the night. Metatrin City did not have a curfew and bright lights could be seen in the distance. The alleyways were as bright as day. Saleen rested his elbows on the windowsill, feeling serene.


    ¡°The situation is finally having a breakthrough, even though it will be a little tough, hope is aplenty everywhere. I will have the power to interfere in Phoenix, Laiyin¡¯s borders, and Lon. Sika is staying behind today, why didn¡¯t shee over?¡±


    ¡°Master...¡± Nailisi crawled in through the door seam. Standing beside Saleen, she said, ¡°Sika asked me to tell you that she will be at Eleanor¡¯s today, she will note over.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s noting over?¡±


    ¡°Mm, that¡¯s what she said. Master, why don¡¯t I go over and eavesdrop?¡± Nailisi said in a mysterious manner. She and Saleen shared a soulish telepathy, so she could not spy on Saleen¡¯s actions, she could only do so openly. Nailisi had countless methods to sneak up to someone stealthily though. Before maturity, this was basically an instinct for an imp. No matter the grade of one¡¯s profession, they would be greatly injured if they got bitten by Nailisi¡¯s teeth. An imp¡¯s battle style was highly simr to that of an assassin.


    ¡°Forget it, Nailisi don¡¯t go over.. You shall stay behind and we can practice elvish magic.¡± Saleen stopped Nailisi¡¯s n, but he was also very curious, ¡°Why is Sika with Eleanor? What are they trying to do?¡±


    At this point in time, Sika was in Eleanor¡¯s room. Despite not being interested in the arts, Sika was still awe-inspired by the beauty of Eleanor¡¯s room.


    There were many nts in the room, it was like a forest within a forest.


    Elvish alchemy had created insects which danced among the greenery. The magicmp on the ceiling, which simted sunlight, had been extinguished. In its ce was a crystalmp which resembled a radiant moon. Eleanor cultivated many nts, these nts gave off a faint brilliance under the crystal moonlight. The light was not a mere reflection, it was the strength produced from within the nts.


    In the elvish ne, these nts were in bnce with the nar rules, but they also did not appear too mystical. They appeared to be very special and powerful on the Myers maind ne though.


    Sika and Eleanorid beside each other atop a huge bed, gazing at the magic patterns which simted the constetions on the ceiling. Sika could not help but ask, ¡°Eleanor, about the medicine you were talking about, is it really effective?¡±


    ¡°Of course, the rtionship between an elf and a human will cause reproduction to be very challenging, so the elves created this type of medicine.¡±


    ¡°Are there any harmful side effects?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t heard of any incidents yet. Sika, you are a priestess, you can detect the harmful contents in the medicine. Just be mindful while using it.¡±


    ¡°What did you mean when you said that this thing couldn¡¯t be eaten?¡± Sika asked in confusion.


    Eleanor¡¯s face went scarlet, then said, ¡°Sika, this medicine isn¡¯t for oral consumption, it is used externally.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, just tell me.¡± Sika turned over, tugging at Eleanor¡¯s arm.

 Chapter 708: Chapter 355 – Elf medicine (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 708: Chapter 355 ¨C Elf medicine (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Once Sika and Eleanor entered the temple, the trailing Caucasus warriors returned to the southern gardens. The young warrior who was leading the way wanted to go back already. Sika said, ¡°Stay behind, act as a guard for Saleen first. If you do this job well, you will be transferred to the temple¡¯s swordsmen camp.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Thank you Great Priestess!¡± The young warrior immediately knelt on one knee, executing an official salute.


    The temple¡¯s swordsmen camp had a separateposition, the soldiers in it were Saleen¡¯s most trusted soldiers. The actual leader of the temple¡¯s swordsmen camp was Sika. Saleen held a tight rein over the troops beside him, he demanded high standards. This young Caucasus warrior was sufficiently loyal to Sika and Sika noticed that his powers were equivalent to that of an intermediate grade swordmaster. If his abilities took one step further, he could be an intermediatemander in the camp. This warrior was of pretty good caliber.


    This selection was progressive. The Caucasus warriors who could enter the southern gardens had already passed through more than four rounds of selection.


    Entering the temple, Sika and Eleanor went to the second story right away. Some Caucasus warriors spotted Sika, then they led Sika and Eleanor to the small cafeteria. This was originally the ce where Saleen hosted his guests. Ever since the pce was built, outsiders could note here to have their meals.


    This time round, Saleen had invited the four dukes.


    Since two countries were going to form an alliance, these dukes had to be the first to know about it. Sika was thest to arrive. The four dukes had already reviewed the uses of the alliance treaty, they admired Saleen¡¯s meticulousness as there were no loopholes.


    This alliance was targeted at a third party. Since Metatrin Kingdom wanted to develop further, it had to have a suitable excuse. Qin could oppose Saleen¡¯s expansion directly otherwise.


    The nobles beside Saleen were not worried about Saleen¡¯s capability, they were worried that Saleen would be ostracized by Qin and that Saleen would not be able to locate an entry point. That secret agreement with Ojarvis could not be used as evidence.


    These nobles were displeased that Lex had taken away arge quantity of materials. After looking at the uses in the treaty, their moods were very much stabilized.


    ¡°Sika, we have been waiting for you.¡± Lex waved her hand and Sika walked over to her grinning from ear to ear, before taking a seat. Eleanor scanned the surroundings, Saleen¡¯s followers were also seated. Saleen pointed to an empty seat next to himself, and said, ¡°Sit here.¡±


    That spot was actually reserved for Sika, but Sika had sat down next to Lex, so Saleen could not say anything.


    ¡°County Queen, what is really going on in Lon? The information we received has a lot of contradiction.¡± Sika raised a crystal wine ss, toasting Lex. Saleen was astonished, it was unknown when Sika had learned to handle such events with so much ease.


    Smiling bitterly in her heart, Lex said, ¡°The broad picture isn¡¯t too optimistic, the Holy See¡¯s army seized most of Lon. We are nearing the middle line, but we didn¡¯t breach the most important town. We willunch onest offensive this winter.¡±


    ¡°What about the war puppets?¡± At this moment, Saleen had to ask this question, as he was very puzzled, ¡°The war puppets cannot even chase away the Tanggsi people?¡±


    ¡°They are used to invade cities. Usually, they are stored in hundreds of chariots, where they will be assembled in the vicinity of a city. The Holy See has deployed grade-9 holy masters, trying to destroy the war puppets. If a war puppet isn¡¯t assembled, it is very frail on its own. Unless there are a few hundred sorcerers protecting the chariots, the chariots can be easily destroyed by the enemy¡¯s grade-9 experts if they are separated from one another.¡±


    ¡°Then aren¡¯t they useless?¡± Sika looked very intrigued.


    ¡°Why would they be useless? The enemy¡¯s grade-9 experts are kept on their toes, they keep surveilling our war puppets, they don¡¯t dare do anything else. The moment the war puppets are transported to the foot of the city and assembled, no cities in Lon will be able to resist them.¡±


    ¡°That means the war puppets will be used to defend cities?¡± Saleen probed.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, the war puppets are not dismantled, they are at the middle line of Lon, in Siwei Prefecture. This is the offensive frontier of Holy Rock City¡¯s right nk. If the enemy¡¯s grade-9 holy masters don¡¯t defend this ce, we will dismantle the war puppets and transport them over.¡±


    ¡°This is because of Alchemy City, right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes, the sorcerers promised by Alchemy City haven¡¯t arrived, so we can only wait.¡±


    ¡°You are attacking during winter, will Alchemy City¡¯s sorcerers appear?¡±


    ¡°They have promised to deploy twenty-four sorcerers and one-hundred grand mages to aid in the offensive,¡± Lex replied.


    When Nichs learned of this news, his eyelids jumped. Being borne in the Holy See, he was very sensitive towards the actions of Alchemy City. Based on his experience, Alchemy City was nning to push the battle line to western Lon by deploying twenty-four sorcerers. With so many sorcerers holding the fort, the war puppets could be safely sent to any city.


    The more important aspect was the one-hundred grand mages, the presence of so many grand mages would pose a threat to a grade-9 holy master. The Holy See was warring on two fronts now, it still had to defend against the Cloudflow people at the south of the Chishui River.


    Lex had only taken a short nap in the afternoon, so she still felt fatigued. After giving a briefing about Lon¡¯s battle, she was sent back to the residence to rest. Only the four dukes and Saleen¡¯s followers remained as they continued discussing the development of Metatrin.


    When Lex returned to the county queen¡¯s residence, she did not go to sleep right away, she went to chat with the sorcerer she had brought along.


    This grade-7 sorcerer looked about forty to fifty years old, he should have advanced around this age, so his appearance did not change much. He had the features of a pedigree Qin person. His ck hair carried a tinge of blue hue, while his eyes were dark brown, almost ck.


    ¡°County Queen, how was the discussion?¡± This sorcerer did not address Lex using a royalty salutation, this meant that their rtionship was very intimate.


    ¡°Nothing much, Saleen and I will not have a sh of interests. I have obtained ny-thousand sets of equipment. Before winter, I can equip the entire army.¡±


    ¡°Just a little more!¡±


    ¡°I will leave in two days, Saleen will be able to make the number. We are too exhausted, if we get ambushed along the way, we can only escape once using my God¡¯s Ring. Once we recover, Saleen will send people to deliver the goods to us.¡±


    ¡°What about Huoxing City, can Saleen¡¯s army hold the fort?¡±


    ¡°Hah hah, Bill, have you seen Metatrin City¡¯s walls? Saleen might not be able to invade a city, but his defense wouldn¡¯t be any worse than ours. My five-thousand man army will be fine.¡±


    ¡°Then I can rest assured. When the County Queen can expand thend to ten-thousand miles, I will let the imperial mages support the County Queen. This ten-thousand milend also includes thends in Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°Forget it, my brother is still around, I cannot possibly snatch the throne from him, right?¡±


    ¡°That was the intention of the previous emperor, County Queen, you mustn¡¯t let all of us down.¡± The sorcerer looked at Lex, and Lex sighed before nodding. ¡°Before Father died, he had a secret decree, at least half of the imperial mages will support my ascension to the throne. I will need to expand the territory myself, thend area will need to reach a certain size before the secret decree will take effect. ording to my own calctions, if I can really expand mynd to ten-thousand miles, I can easily establish a new empire. I will not know the reaction from Holy Rock City though. Ojarvis¡¯ body is in bad shape, I don¡¯t want to agitate him.¡±


    The dukes were dismissed, as it was alreadyte into the night. Metatrin City did not have a curfew and bright lights could be seen in the distance. The alleyways were as bright as day. Saleen rested his elbows on the windowsill, feeling serene.


    ¡°The situation is finally having a breakthrough, even though it will be a little tough, hope is aplenty everywhere. I will have the power to interfere in Phoenix, Laiyin¡¯s borders, and Lon. Sika is staying behind today, why didn¡¯t shee over?¡±


    ¡°Master...¡± Nailisi crawled in through the door seam. Standing beside Saleen, she said, ¡°Sika asked me to tell you that she will be at Eleanor¡¯s today, she will note over.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s noting over?¡±


    ¡°Mm, that¡¯s what she said. Master, why don¡¯t I go over and eavesdrop?¡± Nailisi said in a mysterious manner. She and Saleen shared a soulish telepathy, so she could not spy on Saleen¡¯s actions, she could only do so openly. Nailisi had countless methods to sneak up to someone stealthily though. Before maturity, this was basically an instinct for an imp. No matter the grade of one¡¯s profession, they would be greatly injured if they got bitten by Nailisi¡¯s teeth. An imp¡¯s battle style was highly simr to that of an assassin.


    ¡°Forget it, Nailisi don¡¯t go over.. You shall stay behind and we can practice elvish magic.¡± Saleen stopped Nailisi¡¯s n, but he was also very curious, ¡°Why is Sika with Eleanor? What are they trying to do?¡±


    At this point in time, Sika was in Eleanor¡¯s room. Despite not being interested in the arts, Sika was still awe-inspired by the beauty of Eleanor¡¯s room.


    There were many nts in the room, it was like a forest within a forest.


    Elvish alchemy had created insects which danced among the greenery. The magicmp on the ceiling, which simted sunlight, had been extinguished. In its ce was a crystalmp which resembled a radiant moon. Eleanor cultivated many nts, these nts gave off a faint brilliance under the crystal moonlight. The light was not a mere reflection, it was the strength produced from within the nts.


    In the elvish ne, these nts were in bnce with the nar rules, but they also did not appear too mystical. They appeared to be very special and powerful on the Myers maind ne though.


    Sika and Eleanorid beside each other atop a huge bed, gazing at the magic patterns which simted the constetions on the ceiling. Sika could not help but ask, ¡°Eleanor, about the medicine you were talking about, is it really effective?¡±


    ¡°Of course, the rtionship between an elf and a human will cause reproduction to be very challenging, so the elves created this type of medicine.¡±


    ¡°Are there any harmful side effects?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t heard of any incidents yet. Sika, you are a priestess, you can detect the harmful contents in the medicine. Just be mindful while using it.¡±


    ¡°What did you mean when you said that this thing couldn¡¯t be eaten?¡± Sika asked in confusion.


    Eleanor¡¯s face went scarlet, then said, ¡°Sika, this medicine isn¡¯t for oral consumption, it is used externally.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, just tell me.¡± Sika turned over, tugging at Eleanor¡¯s arm.

 Chapter 709: Vertical Alliance, Trend (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 709: Vertical Alliance, Trend (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Sika, stop!¡± Eleanor could not help herself and shouted. Sika quickly released her hands. Eleanor frowned and was rubbing her elbows while saying, ¡°You are so strong. I wonder how Saleen survives all this.¡±


    Sika grinned and said, ¡°Saleen is already used to it.¡±


    After messing around with each other for a while, Eleanor¡¯s facial expression was back to normal and she no longer felt so awkward. Her face turned red earlier because when she thought about how the medicine should be used, she could not stop her mind from wandering to Saleen. She was not as cheerful and carefree as Sika.


    It was only a matter of time before these things must be said so Eleanor began to exin to Sika patiently.


    The materials used to create this elvish potion were not expensive on the elf dimension, but, since the number of seeds that Eleanor had brought along was limited, she had to grow some more seeds on Myers Maind in order to gather sufficient quantity.


    The expenses involved were high. Eleanor calcted for Sika that in order to produce enough potion so that an offspring was guaranteed, approximately six-hundred-thousand gold coins would need to be spent.


    ¡°Giving birth is so expensive!¡± Sika could not help but grumble when she heard the figures.


    ¡°What other choices do we have? Sika, these materials must be used. If I could return to the elf dimension, I could have been able to buy all the necessary resources for about ten-thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°I know¡­ who knows what Saleen is thinking. He is having a difficult time now and Lex has just taken away many items. I¡¯m afraid¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re afraid that Saleen is not willing to spend that much?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m afraid of disrupting Saleen¡¯s n.¡±


    ¡°Silly girl. This is the biggest n of all. If you wait for him to advance to sorcerer, even six-hundred-thousand gold coins may not be enough to solve this problem.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Eleanor, let¡¯s get started then!¡±


    ¡°Start on what?¡±


    ¡°nt the herbs. Who knows when will Saleen advance into a sorcerer? If we don¡¯t hurry up, we will have to pay a fortune!¡± Sika was still extremely sensitive to gold coins. Some things just could not be forgotten. In her youth she and Saleen went to great lengths just to earn enough money for the vige to survive through winter.


    Eleanor did not respond. Sikaid on the bed and stared at the ceiling, engrossed in the past that she and Saleen shared together.


    Outside of the temple, it waste and four teams of Caucasus warriors were patrolling. The snow white magic wolves hung their heads as they tried to sniff out any danger. These Caucasus warriors were wearing the elf armor that Eleanor had created for the temple army.


    At the door on the side of the temple, a few spirits of the dead were leaning against the pir aimlessly. The soul mes in their eyes flickered. Nightbirds were circling in the night sky as they peered below at the port. No one was allowed to hunt these low-level magic beasts within Metatrin for they were the eyes of the Caucasus people.


    There were cargo ships loading and unloading at the pier. Saleen had never stopped his ore business. There were more than five-thousand miles ofnd north of Metatrin City and two-thousand miles away from there were quite a few mining sites. All of them had been monopolized by Saleen as all the ores that had been dug out were transported to Metatrin City before being sold to the south from this port.


    On the city walls of Metatrin City there were soldiers that patrolled tirelessly and there was a spirit of the dead every few hundred yards that was staring out into the wilderness.


    The north and south of the city were inplete darkness. There were very few shops in these two areas. The south of the city belonged to the Caucaus people and was also the ce where Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories were located. The north of the city was popted by many noble families.


    Most of the residents in the west of the city were made up ofmoners and merchants. Although it was alreadyte in the night, the match at the fighting arena had just ended and quite a number of people would have supper outside first before heading home. The lights were still on in many shops.


    Slowly but surely, Metatrin City was disying strong signs of life. The people there had already treated this city as their home. If their offspring were to be born there, then this dimension would wee its first batch of true Metatrins.


    The night passed very quickly. When dawn broke, Sika woke up and took the list of ingredients that Eleanor had prescribed for her. In order to produce the elvish potion, she would need to nt herbs and also purchase a lot of resources that could be obtained on the Myers Maind.


    The resources on the list were worth six-hundred-thousand gold coins. Sika was at a loss. She did not approach Saleen directly. Instead, she returned back to South Court and tried to think of a solution on her own.


    Saleen had woken up early too. He cast aside his curiosity and left for the pce immediately. He sent someone to bring Aini and the other Dukes, as well as Lex.


    Today, they would discuss the military cooperation between the two armies. Lex possessed many military gadgets that were owned only by the royal swordsmen battalion. Since Ojarvis was willing to give Saleen the diagrams, there was nothing else that Lex would have to hide.


    In order for the military equipment to be made in such a way that both parties would be able to utilize it, the majority of the logistics would have to be integrated so that there would be fewer problems in future when both parties went into battle together.


    As such, not only would the four Dukes not be able to utilize the Grukos royal family¡¯s information for their main forces¡¯ equipment, they would also have to share logistics. Qin¡¯s best logistical equipment was the spatial box.


    The spatial box could only contain objects of simr sizes. For example, a spatial box of two cubic yards would contain a space of also two square yards. The amazing thing about the spatial box was that the size of an object of irregr shape would be calcted by the area that its mass upied. For example, a normal box could only contain two sets of crossbows that have already been opened. On the other hand, the spatial box would be able to contain a number of crossbows such that the total area their mass upied reached the maximum space limited of the box.


    All of Saleen¡¯s spatial boxes were bought as it was too difficult to create them himself. Now that Lex was willing to share this technique, Saleen¡¯s logistics would have an easier time in future.


    There were too few purple-gold sea urchin skins as Saleen only managed to gather a total of eighteen-thousand and six-hundred. It was not possible to equip his entire army with these skins so Saleen only gave them to his mages and elite troops.


    Lex also possessed excellent equipment used for offense. Even if Qin did not have war puppets, their equipment still surpassed Tanggsi Empire¡¯s. Mages would neverck the ability to create. Inparison, holy priestscked this ability because their powers were borrowed. Without any indication from the Gods, holy priests would never study an object on their own for that would be sphemous.


    Mages on both sides shared the new diagrams that they had been studying with eachother. Except for the elvish equipment, Saleen had shared everything else he knew. Everyone spent the entire day discussing the issue of integrating their equipment.


    At the end of the day, in order to integrate equipment, both sides had to share simr military regimes.


    Lex did not possess a navy so Saleen would continue to study and create naval equipment on his own. Saleencked knights and warhorses, both of which Lex would provide.


    Both sides decided to set up the six major military groupsprising of main battalion, auxiliary battalion, magic regiment, assault regiment, field operations battalion and logistics battalion. Of these six types of military groups, the integration of both parties¡¯ equipment must be at least ny percent.


    Lex was envious after seeing the purple-gold sea urchins. Unfortunately, Saleen did not have a lot of them. It would be difficult to find himself in the same exact situation again like when when an earthquake urred underwater at the habitat of the purple-gold sea urchins. Lex only requested for five-hundred sea urchin skins to equip her mages that were below grade-5.


    Grade-5 mages could just about use spatial equipment, but the space that they could open was smaller than what the purple-gold sea urchin skin could contain. Grade-4 mages were unable to use spatial equipment at all and for the low-level mages, they would basically be like swordsmen carrying a huge bag on their horse.


    Saleen was pleased with what Lex brought him. There were more than five-thousand spatial boxes. These were not created by Lex, but were given to her by Emperor Chanake. Lex had more than enough for her own army so she gave Saleen a batch first and once Saleen had the diagram, he would be able to create it on his own too.


    After seeing Saleen¡¯s magic cannon sample, Lex immediately decided to scrap the idea of using mini catapults. Instead, she would rece them with magic cannons to be the standard equipment in the army.


    This item was just too convenient. It was a metal cylinder that was half a yard in diameter and more than three yards long. Magic cannons only weighed around one-thousand pounds each, but were negligible when stored in a spatial box. This was also one of the biggest advantages of using spatial boxes.


    The value of items like the magic cannon rose tremendously once their shapes and weights could be ignored.


    Another reason was that the magic cannons had been redesigned using elvish spells. The magic cannons on the Myers Maind basically weighed close to ten-thousand pounds and were difficult to transport around. This was the reason why most still chose to use catapults even though their uracy was much lower.


    The number of techniques that Lex had provided Saleen with was quite significant, such as armor-break arrows. These arrows were made from pure metal and could break open heavy armor. These arrows could be made by high-level craftsmen without the need for mages.


    Although armor-breaking arrows were more expensive than alchemy arrows, they did not require mages. Craftsmen alone would be able to manufacture these arrows on arge scale, so they would still be useful for major expeditions in future.


    When Saleen mentioned the demon army to Lex, the she did not immediately agree to include it. She was cautious because the target of the Holy See¡¯s main forces was Qin. If the demon army appeared, it would strike fear in the other two Empires.


    The demon army would join in the battle only when all parties were already in the midst of it.


    Saleen did not press the matter either. Demon city would only bepleted at the end of the year. After that, the number of demons that could be summoned was also limited. These demons would need to be trained and also be deployed to guard over the mines. They would not be able to form an army on such short notice.


    At the end of a busy day, both parties finally confirmed all the equipment. The logistics of the six military groups had also been integrated. Finally, Lex gave Saleen the map of a city and wanted his help to rebuild Huoxing City.


    Lex would provide the finances while Saleen would be in charge of the city¡¯s defense and security while it was being rebuilt. After the new Huoxing City had been built, both sides would deploy armies there to guard over the midline of Phoenix and govern over thends in the north.

 Chapter 710: Vertical Alliance, Trend (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 710: Vertical Alliance, Trend (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even if this suggestion did not tempt Saleen, it would have tempted the noble families around him. Gathering their armies at Huoxing City was only an opportunity. Whether anything woulde out of it would still have to depend on Holy Rock City. Since Lex had decided to rebuild the city, there was no need to worry about Holy Rock City anymore.


    In the end, Saleen still managed to convince Lex to invest in a fleet.


    The reason was simple. There was a giganticke separating Qin, Cloudflow, and Titan. Thiske was close to one-thousand miles wide and was practically an ocean.


    If a fleet patrolled thiske actively, all the cities around theke could be potential targets.


    Lex upied somends near Lun where theke was only a few hundred miles behind. It would be a good location tounch attacks on Cloudflow or the south of Qin in future.


    Lex knew what Saleen wanted; the real diagram of the Grukos family¡¯s divingbat vessel and more mages.


    ¡°Alright, alright,¡± Lex said to Saleen helplessly, ¡°I will give you the diagram and you will help me build a fleet. I will provide the money and the mages. I will send over five-hundred low-level mages and one-thousand high-level apprentices to Metatrin to help out in your alchemy factories. You have to deliver the fleet by next spring.¡±


    ¡°So many!¡± Saleen was shocked.


    ¡°Father left them for me, why do you think I have the determination to enter Lun? This will not affect the development of Bitter Water Prefecture. After they follow you...¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I will not treat them badly. I know how you usually treat your mages.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. Gather the materials you need quickly. As big as theke may be, it will never be as dangerous as the ocean. There is still a fleet from Cloudflow on theke so my vessels must be the best.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will send a skeletal warship over as well. Warships are easily longer than one-hundred yards. I will not be able to send them over in one piece.¡±


    ¡°I will be advancing into a sorcerer very soon. I will then be able to make full use of God¡¯s ring. A hundred yard long warship is nothing. As long as I have sufficient mental strength, I will be able to store it.¡±


    Saleen then realized that Lex¡¯s abilities were way above his expectations. He had no idea what else Emperor Chanake left behind for her before his death.


    Being born into a good family would really make things so much easierpared to being poor.


    The only thing that Emperor Chanake would never expect was that Lex would build up a country and expand her armies by ten times so quickly. She did notck money, materials, or mages. She onlycked armor, weapons, and arrows; all of which could be obtained easily.


    Based on Lex¡¯s status, these items could be purchased legally. Lex urgently needed to obtain these items within a month and could not seek help from Holy Rock City, so she came to Saleen for help.


    What Saleen could not figure out was why Lex wouldck magic nuclei.


    After the military issues had been discussed, agricultural issues were next. Lex did not hide the fact that she wanted to take over Phoenix for itsnd. Thend in Metatrin was fertile, but the window for farming was short. A change in weather could easily cause countless seeds to go to waste. This was why Saleen only dared to grow vegetables.


    Green vegetables could be harvested within one to two months, but grain was a different case. He would not be able to hasten the process.


    The weather in Bitter Water Prefecture was not any better. It was close to mountains and the soil was barren. Even the underground water was mostly bitter. If not for the snow umted on the high mountains that provided freshwater, Bitter Water Prefecture would not have been able to sustain its poption of one-million.


    Conquering half of Phoenix would solve the problem ofck of grain for both Saleen and Lex.


    Lex¡¯s purpose for fighting in Lun was to quickly develop an elite army. Her main priority was still Phoenix. If she could choose to ignore Holy Rock City¡¯s reaction, she would have deployed troops at the border and built a pass opposite of Guderian City topletely seal off the route towards Qin.


    Saleen had struggled for close to two years, but still had yet to develop such an ability to see the bigger picture. Being aware of the global trends had long been an ability that the royal family felt confident in. It was due to pure luck that Saleen managed to control the resources in oceanic ice block for the time-being. If not for the enormous number of magic nuclei provided by the oceanic ice block, Saleen would not have been able to support so many armies.


    Lex eventually left. Within these short two days, she and Saleen exchanged thousands of opinions and made many decisions together. It was fortunate that both of them were also mages and could use magic to boost their memories.


    Both of them even shared the same thought that Nichs would escort Lex on her journey back.


    The strongest person that Saleen could deploy was Nichs. Nichs had no choice but to ept Saleen¡¯s order. He really did not wish to get any closer to the Holy See¡¯s army for fear that he would be found out and by then, who knew what kind of people the Holy See would send to deal with him?


    After a thorough discussion with Lex, Saleen had finally understood the direction he should be taking. Huoxing City was more important than he thought. Lex left behind a lot of gold coins for Saleen to hire manpower for the building of the city.


    Saleen had a n. Since Huoxing City, Cexing City, and Tuxing City were originally cities that had been militarized, they would form an important gate on Phoenix¡¯s north-south tunnel after they had been rebuilt.


    Huoxing City would have to undergo expansion in order to fit two-hundred-thousand men and one-hundred-thousand soldiers. The cities on both sides would also have to be expanded in order to fit more than forty-thousand men. These three cities would split Phoenix up so that the northernnds could be reimed for agriculture. Once the crops had been harvested, they would be kept for their own use instead of being sold.


    After ten years, he would have the means to feed armies made of millions.


    Lex left behind quite a number of resources that were sufficient for Saleen to start work and arm his armies. This time around, the first group of soldiers that he would set up would be the temple corp.


    The temple corp, which would be Saleen¡¯s bodyguards, would be made up of three battalions. These thirty-thousand men would beplemented with one-hundred and twenty-thousand demons so there would be four-thousand demons in every regiment. In the future, the temple corp would be Saleen¡¯s core force to suppress any noble families that dared to rebel. These thirty-thousand men and one-hundred and twenty-thousand demons would be the equivalent to Holy Rock City¡¯s royal swordsmen battalion.


    The proportion of the temple corp would be the benchmark for demon armies. There would be eight-thousand demons for every two-thousand humans.


    As Saleen¡¯s influence expanded, more and more noble families began to pledge their allegiances to him. It was essential that Saleen possessed the means to deter these noble families, otherwise it was not impossible for a rebellion to take ce.


    Since the demons had yet to be summoned, the equipment that Saleen prepared for the temple corp was a little strange.


    Magic wolf warriors would take on the role of scouts since they could not be included within the three battalions. There were two-thousand of them in total. Saleen did not wish to depend on these Caucasus people riding on magic wolves as his assault team. He would have plenty of demons in the future. They would be the ones making up his main force.


    In reality, after the temple corp had been set up, it would be made up of fifteen battalions and every battalion would be made up of two human regiments.


    Demons would take on the roles of heavy-armored knights, heavy-armored infantry, and light-armored knights while the two human regiments would be in charge ofmand. The captain of each regiment wouldmand four regiments of demons, then there would be a single battalionmander who would be given two-hundred bodyguards and wouldmand a battalion on his own. Saleen gave all his best equipment, such as the wings of an elf and elf alchemy crossbow, to the temple corp first.


    The pce swordsmen battalion would support the temple corp. If the temple corp suffered any losses, the vacancies would be filled from the pce swordsmen battalion.


    The alchemy factories were doing all they could to produce the equipment that Saleen needed. If he did not arm the temple corp, Saleen felt insecure. How could he think of gaining the support of all the noble families if he did not even have his own core force in ce?


    Metatrin City seemed to regain peacefulness once again. Aini had left to build a city while the second battalion had led the noble families¡¯ armies to Huoxing City. Other than training every day, Saleen would also head down to the alchemy factories to check on the progress of the production of equipment.


    On that day, Saleen was on his way back to the temple when he was stopped by someone.


    ¡°Brother Saleen!¡± A youngdy in long dress stopped him. Nailisi was not by his side, but he was apanied by Isabe and a few hundred soldiers. The soldiers were ready to spring into action when they saw someone blocking their path.


    Saleen waved his hand and said, ¡°Sharman, you are looking for me?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Brother Saleen. What happened to what you promised me?¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just look for me at the temple? Why did you have to stop me on the road?¡±


    There was sorrow on Sharman¡¯s face as she spoke, ¡°There was no way I could get near your temple. No matter what I said, those Caucasus people never let me pass.¡±


    At that point, Saleen recalled the order that he had given. No one was supposed to get near the temple other than the temple corp or anyone from Sregl Ind.


    ¡°Come with me then,¡± Saleen waved his hand and allowed Sharman toe to his side. Saleen preferred to walk instead of ride on a horse when he traveled within the city. Sharman tugged at Saleen¡¯s sleeve with a grin on her face and said, ¡°Brother Saleen, did you miss me?¡±


    There was nothing seductive about her smile, only naivety. Saleen¡¯s mood improved greatly. He patted Sharman¡¯s hand and said, ¡°Don¡¯t beat around the bush. You want to be a general right?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    ¡°What does your sister think?¡± Saleen asked about Guya¡¯s opinion. Guya was in the first group of people to whom Saleen had given the title of ¡®Duke¡¯. She was also a grand mage herself so she was considered to be a member of a noble family that was most simr to him.


    ¡°Sister said that it is better to be your follower first if I really want to be a general.¡±


    ¡°Haha!¡± Saleenughed. Guya was really smart. If her sister did not be a follower, she would only be a battalionmander at most and lead ten-thousand elite soldiers. On the other hand, if she became a follower, there would be more paths for her to take in the future.


    ¡°Sharman, are you willing to be my follower?¡± Saleen smiled and asked.


    Sharman felt awkward and said, ¡°Brother Saleen, why should I be your follower?¡±


    ¡°So, you are unwilling?¡± Saleen purposely teased Sharman. This girl was already powerful but still had a very pure heart.


    ¡°No, I just want to know what is in it for me.¡±


    ¡°I want to set up an elite corp and I will need a general. A general and not a battalionmander. It will be tied to a rank of nobility. The person taking up this position needs to gain the trust of the people around me first.¡±


    ¡°So, I will have to be like them and call you ¡®My Lord¡¯ in the future?¡± Sharman pouted and seemed unwilling.


    ¡°If you prefer, you can still call me ¡®Brother Saleen¡¯, but we need to sign a bond first, alright?¡± Saleen felt a little ufortable bringing up bonds. It was as if he only believed in the power of bonds more than anything else now.

 Chapter 711: Romantic times (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 711: Romantic times (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Okay fine, in order to make the people around Saleen have peace of mind, I will sign a contract.¡± Sharman still insisted on pulling Saleen¡¯s sleeves, following behind him all the way to the temple.


    Saleen was very familiar with a follower¡¯s contract. In the presence of Isabe, both people signed the contract.


    Sharman then asked, ¡°Brother Saleen, you made me a general, but where are the soldiers?¡±


    Saleen could not help but cackle, then said, ¡°It¡¯s still too early, you have to at least be a true grand swordmaster and you need to be eighteen years old. You have to be a grade-1 mage who possesses a certain number of spells. Only then will I give you an army.¡±


    Sharman was on the verge of crying, in a wronged tone, she said, ¡°Brother Saleen, were you having me on? I feel like I have been cheated!¡±


    Saleen rubbed Sharman¡¯s golden hair and said, ¡°There is nothing hard about this, Isabe can teach you magic and it will not affect your swordsmanship training. If you want to lead an army, you can¡¯t be the only one who is powerful. After learning the memory spell and possessing sufficient magic chords, I will let you read a lot of war-type books and I will ask people to teach you the basics of war. How old are you now?¡±


    ¡°Fifteen.¡±


    ¡°You are a prodigy, can¡¯t you aplish all of this in three years?¡±


    ¡°Is this for real? Will there be new requirements when that timees?¡± Sharman¡¯s eyes shed, she was trying to act coy with Saleen.


    ¡°Master, if she is not willing to do it, I will. I have a lot of energy.¡± Nailisi appeared silently, causing Sharman to be frightened and shut her mouth. Sharman stopped fooling around.


    She had no confidence dealing with Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi, why are you here, weren¡¯t you at the port?¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika has something to tell you, she asked me to ry her message.¡± Nailisi stared at Sharman. Nailisi naturally harbored evil thoughts against this girl who dared act coy with her master.


    ¡°Master is mine, I will not share with other people. Mm, other than Sika...¡± Nailisimented in her heart, but she had excluded the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton and Master have a soul contract, it is toote to raise any objections. When I advance to grade-8 and all my abilities have been mastered, I will teach that fellow a lesson. A lesson every day.¡±


    Other than Sika, anyone else who met Nailisi would be helpless. Saleen trusted and treated Nailisi very well. After this imp got cheated by Saleen, her future did not seem so bright anymore. If Saleen could not fulfill the one-thousand year promise, Nailisi¡¯s life would also be ruined.


    The current Saleen was pretty lenient towards Nailisi and the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Okay then, I will listen to you, Brother Saleen.¡± Sharman became obedient in that instant. Nailisi then retracted her ruthless re. Nailisi could empathize with Saleen¡¯s emotions, so she now had less misgivingspared to the past.


    ¡°Nailisi, tell me, what did Sika say?¡±


    ¡°Master, ask them to leave.¡± Nailisi pointed at Sharman and Isabe.


    Sharman was still okay as she did not understand some rules, but Isabe was a little annoyed. Even though Nailisi was powerful, she was still Saleen¡¯s contract creature, while Isabe was Saleen¡¯s follower. In terms of status, Isabe¡¯s status was higher than Nailisi¡¯s, this fact was recognized by all mages.


    Saleen also furrowed his brows, thinking if he had been too lenient with Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi, they are my followers, there is nothing to hide from them.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s up to you, Sister Sika wants eight-hundred-thousand gold coins,¡± Nailisi said. Sika was at her wits¡¯ end already. After she began manufacturing the medicine, she discovered that six-hundred-thousand gold coins was insufficient. She required at least eight-hundred-thousand to one-million gold coins. She asked Nailisi to broach this topic with Saleen. Nailisi had listened in a couple of times when Saleen and Sika had intercourse.


    Sika could push Saleen onto a bed forcefully, but she could not bear to demand money from Saleen.


    ¡°Eight-hundred-thousand gold coins?!¡± Saleen was astounded by this figure too. Lex had given him a huge sum of money, but it was for developing Huoxing City. The refurbishment of the three cities would cost a ton. Even though Saleen had his own ways of saving money, he still had to take care of the armies¡¯ equipment and ration distribution, he needed an astronomical sum of money. The monthly expenditure had helped Saleen save quite a bit of money, but most of his cash flow came from the operation of the arena.


    ¡°Why does she need all that gold?¡± Saleen did not want to probe, but the figure was too horrifying, so he had to know the reason.


    Nailisi looked at Sharman and Isabe, then said, ¡°Sister Sika is trying to manufacture medicine.¡±


    ¡°What kind of medicine is it that it¡¯s worth spending so much money?!¡± Saleen got even more bewildered.


    ¡°Hmm, Sister Sika said that this medicine will help the both of you have children. She also said that...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s enough! You two better leave the room.¡± Saleen was beyond upset, but Isabe was desperately holding back herughter as she turned to leave the room. Sharman pondered for a moment, but she had no reason to stay either.


    After the two people left, Saleen cast the Mute Enchantment. The spell which he used also produced mist, it did not just block out noise. Even if the Eye of a Mage was observing him, the user would not receive any images.


    ¡°Master, I already told you to ask them to leave, but you...¡±


    Saleen moaned, then said, ¡°Okay, I was wrong. Nailisi, why did Sika ask you to tell me this?¡±


    ¡°Master, Sister Sika was worried that you couldn¡¯t raise the money, so she asked me to raise this question.¡±


    ¡°Worried that I couldn¡¯t raise the money?¡± When Saleen heard this sentence, he felt his nose sniffle as tears swarmed up unknowingly. ¡°I have be the king of a county, yet Sika is worried about my finances. If this is the oue after all the tough struggles, then what is the meaning of my training and abilities?¡±


    ¡°I have this sum of money.¡± Saleen wiped his tears, then said, ¡°Nailisi, tell Sika to look for me, I want to see her. No, I will go look for her myself.¡±


    Saleen spoke incoherently, as he left to take care of this matter.


    Nailisi did not dare act slowly, she trailed him from afar. After leaving the temple, Saleen walked towards the southern gardens.


    As Saleen walked on the path, his emotions became more stable. He suddenly felt immense guilt towards Sika. ¡°When I asked people to send a few thousand gold coins to her vige previously, did it mean that that gesture could rece everything? Sika doesn¡¯t want much, but it doesn¡¯t mean that I shouldn¡¯t put in any effort. I don¡¯t seem to be very anxious about having children with Sika. Sika, Sika...¡±


    Nailisi followed behind Saleen, she noticed that Saleen was walking more and more steadily, the ws in his walking were also gradually disappearing. Nailisi then had peace of mind, ¡°Judging by the way Saleen looked, he wouldn¡¯t even be able to react in time if someone ambushed him. Metatrin could resist a huge army, but since it is open to trade, it wouldn¡¯t be able to stop assassins from infiltrating. Perhaps there are assassinsying low in the city that want to harm Saleen.¡±


    Saleen had calmed down, but he many more things on his mind now. ¡°Sika kept persuading me to marry Lex and I am fond of Lex too. Lex has simr feelings for me and Lex can help me conquer the world, providing me with countless of opportunities. This seems to be the perfect choice, but where should I ce Sika? Even though Lex can help me dominate the entire maind, she can never rece Sika¡¯s smile. Sika is frustrated over money, she even had to ask Nailisi to ask if I have eight-hundred-thousand gold coins. If I carry on like this, putting all the resources into my country, what will the oue be? Back in Ceylon City, I only wanted one piece of bread every day. How did my desires turn into this?!¡±


    Sika had her own house in the southern gardens and the best Caucasus warriors were stationed around her house. Seeing Saleen appear, the Caucasus warriors bowed respectfully, their gazes filled with an unexinable envy.


    They were not envious of Saleen¡¯s status, it was no big deal being a king, they were actually envious that Saleen had obtained the adoration of the priestess.


    The Caucasus warriors steered clear, trying to distance themselves from Sika¡¯s house. They wanted to leave some privacy for the priestess and Saleen to enjoy. Nailisi stopped afar, she noticed that Sika¡¯s wooden abode was furnished nicely, it had been carved out from a colossal ancient tree after the tree withered. All the routes which could be used by the enemy for an invasion had been blocked off by various structures.


    The Caucasus warriors lived in these structures.


    Nailisi found arge tree and leaped into it. Sheid on a branch, having a bird¡¯s eye view of the surroundings, allowing her to surveil it.


    Saleen walked before Sika¡¯s wooden house, then stretched out his hand and knocked on the door.


    ¡°Ah, Saleen, give me a moment!¡± Sika¡¯s voice boomed throughout the house. This wooden house was separated into several stories, the surface area of each story was not very huge. In the house, Sika walked down the stairs and opened the door, her face seemed slightly flushed.


    ¡°Eh? How did you know it was me?¡± Saleen did not see any surveince appliances around the house. He was curious as to how Sika knew it was him just from listening to the rapping of the door.


    ¡°Come in,e in.¡± Sika tugged at Saleen¡¯s magic robe, pulling Saleen into the wooden house.


    Saleen had not visited Sika¡¯s house before. Whenever he came to the southern gardens, he would either go straight to the alchemy factories or he would be with Eleanor grooming the magic nts.


    Sika dragged Saleen up the stairs, leading him to the fourth story. On the fourth story, there was a soft bed. Beside the window across the room was a table which had been carved out. To his surprise, Saleen realized that everything in the room had been blessed with elvish magic, including the table.


    Atop the table was a wooden bowl which emitted a fresh medicinal fragrance.


    ¡°Sika...¡± Saleen held onto Sika¡¯s hand and for the first time, he felt that Sika¡¯s hand was very tender. The word ¡®tender¡¯ should never have been associated with Sika.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Sika removed Saleen¡¯s cap, as she caressed his face. Saleen¡¯s was clean and proper looking.


    ¡°Nailisi told me that you are short of an assistant to help you make medicine, so I n to stay behind and help. The foundation of my magic pharmaceutical studies is very strong.¡±


    ¡°Help me to make medicine?¡± Sika immediately realized what he meant, as her face turned scarlet, then she hugged Saleen tightly. Sika inhaled deeply, smelling Saleen¡¯s body which had been cleaned by magic.


    ¡°Yes, I will help you to make this medicine. This medicine must be sessfully created.¡± Saleen vowed, ¡°After we seed, I want to make many babies with you.¡±

 Chapter 712: Chapter 357 – Romantic times (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 712: Chapter 357 ¨C Romantic times (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were no noisesing from the wooden house, Nailisi couldn not hear anything while atop the tree. Saleen and Sika were whispering to each other, their voices were too soft though. Coupled with the protection by elvish magic, Nailisi could not hear anything at all.


    Saleen and Sika were not doing anything, their conversation was actually regarding the Caucasus people.


    The Caucasus region was triangr in shape, almost all of the nativends belonging to the Caucasus people were in the mountains. The Caucasus mountains had cut in between Lon and God Grace Duchy. They cut almost halfway in and spanned a distance of about three-thousand miles. The stretch of the Caucasus mountains passed through Laiyin Duchy from the north and entered Sikeqinya.


    There was a disconnected part in the middle of the Caucasus mountains, around one-thousand miles of the mountains there were isted. When the Tanggsi army came the Caucasus people living in this area sunk into imminent danger.


    Most of the Caucasus people who had defected to Sika had originated in this area.


    The Caucasus people lived in the mountains, they knew how to tame magic beasts, had intrepid bodies, and they could travel swiftly between cliffs. A Caucasus person who had never cultivated the Sword Aura could still be a mighty warrior. The Caucasus¡¯ martial arts were very unique, while the abilities of a priestess were even stronger. Unfortunately, there were already very little Caucasus people around, this race was dwindling.


    Even though the northern wilderness was harsh and frigid, it was suitable as a home for the Caucasus people. Before this, only the barbarians lived there and wanderedthe area as nomads, fishing sporadically. There were no human cities in north Phoenix, so the Caucasus people could not purchase the salt and equipment which they required.


    Now that Saleen had established a kingdom, this ce could be the home for these Caucasus people.


    Saleen talked about Sika¡¯s hometown, from the time she was young until the day the both of them met.


    ¡°Sika, let me ask you, when you met me at theke, why did you yell the word ¡®wild boar¡¯?¡± After so many years, Saleen finally asked this question.


    Sikaughed boisterously. She turned around and looked into Saleen¡¯s eyes and said, ¡°At that moment, your eyes were looking at my chest lecherously, I was simply yelling casually.¡±


    ¡°What does a ¡®wild boar¡¯ mean?¡±


    ¡°The wild boars in the Caucasus region are very lustful. They do not only want to have intercourse with the female boars, when it is mating season in spring, they will also want to have intercourse with all sorts of magic beasts. In the Caucasusnguage, the word ¡®wild boar¡¯ has the same meaning as the word ¡®pervert¡¯ in themonnguage.¡±


    Saleen looked glum, then Sika pinched his nose and said, ¡°You were looking at me like that and I did not even know you, otherwise why would I knock you unconscious?¡±


    ¡°You are stillining about that, while I was in so much pain!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like I didn¡¯t make it up to you, you can look at me all you want now.¡± Sika¡¯sughter got even louder.


    ¡°Nailisi is spying on us again.¡± Saleen pointed at the window.


    ¡°We can view the outside surroundings, but people outside will not be able to peek in. Eleanor had made this for me, and I have confirmed it, it is a low level spell.¡±


    ¡°I know, why did Eleanor make this for you?¡± Saleen was a little puzzled, ¡°When did Sika and Eleanor be so close?¡± It must be noted that it was an extremely rare thing for an elf to help a human install a magic array, even if it was tens of thousands of years ago.


    ¡°She likes me, what other reason can an elf have?¡± Sika said nonchntly. To her, such a thing seemed very normal.


    ¡°Likes you? That¡¯s true, a Caucasus priestess shares somemon talents with an elf.¡±


    ¡°Mm, but Saleen, are you angry over the medicine?¡±


    ¡°Why would I be angry?¡±


    ¡°You are in need of money now.¡±


    ¡°Who cares, our love is most important now.¡± Speaking, Saleen could not help but turn around to hug Sika.


    ¡°What are you doing, the medicine hasn¡¯t been produced yet!¡±


    ¡°Ignore the medicine, if we seed this time, we can still save money.¡± Saleen was suddenly aroused and Sika was grinning as she allowed Saleen to remove her clothes.


    As moonlight spilled into the room the wooden house was glowing with a sacred radiance. This radiance was emitted by Sika¡¯s body as if water was flowing just beneath her skin, moist and hazy.


    This was the first time Sika did not take the initiative, she allowed Saleen to caress her skin gently. These two people did not mentioned the elvish medicine agai. Outside the wooden house, the Caucasus warriors had assembled at the various sentry positions, as a person began blowing a wooden leaf. This leaf was a kind of simple instrument used by the Caucasus people.


    The sound from the leaf was melodious as it traveled a great distance beyond the southern gardens.


    At this exact moment, the army deployed by Saleen had already breached the encirclement made by the Phoenix¡¯s rebels, entering Huoxing City. The military strength of both parties had been reversed. Saleen¡¯s sixth camp had already entered the city and it did not sustain heavy losses. The second camp and Metatrin City¡¯s noble army already contained more than fifty-thousand men. Including the fifty-thousand man army in the city, there were close to seventy-thousand soldiers in Huoxing City.


    When the Phoenix¡¯s rebels were battling with the sixth camp, they had lost thousands of soldiers. When the sixth camp breached their encirclement and entered Huoxing City, the rebels lost another two-thousand people, they already had less than sixty-thousand soldiers then.


    A siege was no longer sufficient to threaten Huoxing City. At the moment, there were not many people guarding Cexing City either. This caused the Phoenix¡¯s rebels to get flustered.


    They could not send reinforcements, at least not in the short term, the rebels could only take care of themselves. Over at Guderian City an army with more than one-hundred-thousand troops had already entered Phoenix and charged towards Sr City. This number was not even including the auxiliary soldiers. It was rumored that Holy Rock City was very outraged, both the House of Lords and the House of Commons unanimously agreed to extirpate the rebels in Sr City.


    Such an outrage was understandable, because Holy Rock City had just made some progress in Lon after much difficulty, yet Phoenix chose to rebel at this moment. Such a timing was very inconvenient.


    The person most furious was Prince Safilos, he was already arranging for a deal to be made with the southern nobles, trying to get them to participate in the war. He had deployed troops to Lon, kicking the Holy See¡¯s army back to Tanggsi. At that moment Phoenix rebelled, that proved that he could not even control the north and this would cause other people to doubt Prince Safilos¡¯ capability. As a result, the southern nobles reverted to their wait-and-see stance.


    Even if Safilos managed to cate Phoenix, the southern nobles would think badly of his actions. Safilos knew that Lex had deployed troops to attack Huoxing City which did not help. If Safilos sent his own troops, he could surely conquer Huoxing City. The problem was, could Safilos attack Lex¡¯s army?


    Lex¡¯s army had managed to suppress at least three-hundred-thousand elites from the Holy See in the southeastern area of Lon. If Safilos went to attack Huoxing City, he should be d if Lex did not send troops to attack him right away. Such a thing was intolerable.


    If Lex was allowed to seize northern Phoenix, it would mean that Safilos had admitted to the dissection of Phoenix and a duchy would thus cease to exist. Even if the Qin Empire kept the position of the Grand Duke of Phoenix, the nobles would be fearful.


    What about persuading Lex to give up northern Phoenix? This possibility would be too unlikely. Phoenix was a grainary, its physical environment and climate were most suitable for growing wheat, its harvest was abundant. Since Lex had acquired northern Phoenix, she would not give it up so easily.


    The Bitter Water County faced a shortage of grain just like theMetatrin Kingdom. Prince Safilos was very clear about this information. If they were not allowed to upy northern Phoenix, these two countries would turn elsewhere, perhaps Lon, or Laiyin Duchy.


    The worst thing was that armies from both countries had entered Lon simultaneously, it was pretty imposing.


    With Prince Safilos¡¯ silent permission, the army which came out of Guderian City did not have the intention to advance north. All the forces were concentrated on attacking Sr City.


    The Phoenix nobles had gathered their armies at Sr City, preparing to duel with Guderian City¡¯s campaign forces.


    Previously, only a small number of Phoenix people took part in the battle to resist Holy Rock City. This time, every single noble had been implicated.


    The House of Lords in Holy Rock City was utterly disappointed, it was disappointed with Prince Safilos. When the old emperor was still alive such a thing would never ur. Even if the old emperor had assigned countless of people to Phoenix, the nobles would not have had any grievances.


    The current Phoenix was being assaulted on two sides, Sr City would not be abandoned, while Huoxing City had be a lone city. A sixty-thousand man army could not possibly take down this city with an army of seventy-thousand troops.


    In Huoxing City, Lex had left behind a general to act as an interimmander. His five-thousand men belonged to an elite army which had been following Lex for years. Even without any reinforcements, he could still defend this city.


    With the appearance of sixty-thousand men, Lex¡¯s army could no longer be the dominant force. The problem was that both parties had different opinions. Lex¡¯s army wished to subdue the sixty-thousand strong Phoenix¡¯s army, while Saleen¡¯s people wanted to exterminate them.


    Both parties argued, Lex¡¯s men were determined not to agree with the method used by Saleen¡¯s army, while Saleen¡¯s army was bent on killing the enemy. This was not advantageous to Phoenix¡¯s development.


    Lex¡¯s men were helpless as Saleen¡¯s troops had greatly outnumbered them. Finally, themander of the second camp said, ¡°If you aren¡¯t willing to do it, we will. By then, won¡¯t you be part of it too? The Phoenix people will never believe that you weren¡¯t involved.¡±


    This was an outright act of framing Lex¡¯s army. When Lex¡¯s general heard this, he could do anything.


    Saleen¡¯s two campmanders were the masterminds behind the army. The sixth camp was originally escorting the envoy group, but it was now at Huoxing City. On the other hand, the second camp had been specially sent by Saleen to resolve the problem in Huoxing City. Between these two campmanders, the one from the second camp acted as the overall leader.


    After the opinions were unified, themander of the second camp softened his tone towards Lex¡¯s people. He agreed to persuade Phoenix¡¯s rebels to surrender. As long as the rebels were willing toy down their weapons and join Metatrin Kingdom all past wrongs would be nullified. If the rebels were insistent on resisting, then none of them would be spared.


    It was undoubtedly Saleen¡¯s personal intention that his men had this n. Saleen only wished to spare the farmers in Pheonix. If the army was willing to reorganize him, he could also spare them. If they were not willing to do so, he would not respect the wishes of the northern nobles, he would exterminate every single soldier.


    The nobles enjoyed immunity, while their soldiers could be redeemed. Saleen would never allow such a thing to happen in northern Phoenix. Metatrin City was in dire need of granaries, so Saleen did not have the time to calm the mutiny.


    This was the reason why the sixth camp was not willing to capture any prisoners during battle, Saleen¡¯s order had long been ryed down in secret.

 Chapter 713: Elegy of Phoenix (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 713: Elegy of Phoenix (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Outside of Huoxing City and in the camp of the Phoenix rebel army, the chiefmander¡¯s tentage was full of light. The bodyguards were standing guard outside nervously. The enemy was so strong that it was no longer a question of whether they would be able to take down Huoxing City, but when they wouldunch the attack that would do so.


    The rebel army was passive. There were no big cities in the north that could lend them support. If they joined Sr City in battle in the south, it would mean that they had deserted the entire north.


    The tentage was chaotic. This rebel army was formed by hundreds of noble families and its purpose was to take down Huoxing City in order to stabilize the north and provide reinforcement to Sr City if necessary.


    In the tentage, the ten or so most powerful noble families were worried. There were three slips of paper on the table. They were found on the pigeons that were shot down by the middle-grade archers in the army.


    The content written on them was all the same and they were the reason why the noble families were gloomy.


    The pigeons were flying towards Huoxing City and the paper was supposed to inform themander-in-chief of Huoxing City that Metatrin Kingdom and Bitter Water Prefecture had already formed an alliance and that both their armies would fight as one. Metatrin Kingdom would be leading the attack in the north of Phoenix.


    Before the rebel army attacked Huoxing City, Saleen and Lex had yet to be allies, hence this piece of news took everyone by surprise. An actual alliance was very different from just a good rtionship. With this treaty, Bitter Water Prefecture would never have to worry about this city no matter how far away they were because Metatrin Kingdom was just too near.


    An Earl was in charge while the others in the tentage were Viscounts. The Grand Duke of Phoenix had the power to assign ranks of nobility, but the highest rank he could assign was that of a Viscount. The Earl had inherited his position as his ancestor had served in the Holy Rock City army before bing a member of the Phoenix noble family and his rank of nobility had been passed down since then. The other Viscounts had received their ranks of nobility from Sr City.


    The Viscounts looked toward the Earl, who was stunned. He was not a fool and he understood the meaning of this treaty. The men of Metatrin would now be able to enter Phoenix legitimately because of Lex¡¯s five-thousand strong army. Since both parties were now allies, attacking the armies of Bitter Water Prefecture was equivalent to waging war against Metatrin as well.


    At this point, the soldiers outside the tentage reported that Huoxing City had sent a messenger.


    The messenger was a native of Huoxing City. He was asked to wait outside the tentage while the package was brought in. The Earl¡¯s hands quivered after taking a look at the contents of the package.


    The Earl¡¯s hands quivered out of rage and not fear.


    The other party was asking him to surrender and the tone of the message was rigid. If they chose not to surrender, the armies of Huoxing City would keep no prisoners.


    ¡°What is written on the letter?¡± The members of the noble families that surrounded the Earl saw the ugly expression on the Earl¡¯s face and could not help but ask. The Earl thought about it and decided to pass the letter around for them to read.


    Everyone reacted differently after reading the letter, but one thing wasmon and that was that everyone¡¯s expression had changed.


    The armies of Huoxing City were extremely powerful. The Phoenix rebel army had fought against them a few times, but had never emerged victorious. Now that they had even outnumbered the Phoenix rebel army, this letter could not be considered as an insult.


    It was simply a threat and a warning.


    The Earl understood the intention of the letter. He sighed and said, ¡°What do all of you think?¡±


    ¡°Of course, we must fight to the death!¡± A Marquis said furiously.


    ¡°Hehe, we will die if we choose to fight. Let¡¯s not be stubborn. Everyone has heard of how cruel the people of Metatrin can be. No one knows how the one-hundred-thousand Holy See expedition were all killed by the Metatrins with no survivors,¡± the Earl¡¯s voice was deep and he continued, ¡°I have five-thousand soldiers under mymand and I have decided to back out from this battle. If anyone opposes my decision, you can deal with me right now.¡±


    The noble families were stunned but the Earl continued on, ¡°The alliance between Metatrin and Bitter Water Prefecture has made them unstoppable. Holy Rock City must have acknowledged their statuses. We are better off surrendering to Metatrin than to Holy Rock City. The peace between them is only temporal. One day, we will be able to get ournd back.¡±


    ¡°But won¡¯t we lose everything if we surrender? The Metatrins want ournd!¡±


    The Earl looked at the person who spoke and said, ¡°If we go into battle, will we get everything back? We can still start fresh if we surrender. I heard that the King of Metatrin Kingdom has taken in quite a number of Phoenix and Lun noble families. Although they have yet to be givennds, they have received protection for all their private properties and soldiers.¡±


    Seeing how everyone was still hesitant, the Earl continued, ¡°Didn¡¯t you see that the army that entered Huoxing Cityprised of quite a number of soldiers that came from noble families previously of Phoenix? The reason why they are attacking us is because they will be givennd if they win.¡±


    The members of the noble families bowed their heads and the Earl continued, ¡°It is not that we are disloyal, but the old Duke is dead and so is the small Duke. How old is the new Grand Duke that Holy Rock City has given us? We can¡¯t even be sure if he is of Phoenician bloodline. Who are we really staying loyal to? The members of the Phoenix family are mostly dead. Holy Rock City is cruel enough to keep the remaining living members of the Phoenician bloodline as their ves. Do you think they will care about our loyalty?¡± The Earl continued to persuade, ¡°If we join Metatrin Kingdom, we will be part of the noble families that founded the country. We still possess our armies so the Metatrin King will not reject us. If they give us the appropriate statuses, all the noble families in the entire north will be tempted. What will we gain if we choose to fight to the death?¡±


    ¡°Is there really no hope for Phoenix?¡± A Viscount asked. He began to sob after asking this question. The people around him were affected and could not help but tear up.


    They had gathered all their wealth and soldiers to answer Sr City¡¯s call because they refused to ept that Phoenix and its one-thousand years of history and glory wasing to an end.


    Although Phoenix was a vassal state of Qin, it was still a country that possessed its own unique qualities. The very first Grand Duke of Phoenix was an outstanding person of his own right.


    Qin Empire created two huge Duchies because back then, the Grand Duke of Phoenix was too well-known. If not for the fact that the founding Emperor was the first of his kind, the Grand Duke of Phoenix might even have built a dynasty.


    After Phoenix Duchy had been founded, the Qin army never stepped foot on Phoenixnds again. Other than hereditary noble families, the other noble families in Phoenix were all locals and were assigned their ranks by the Grand Duke of Phoenix.


    This rebellion came about because the noble families could not take this lying down.


    ¡°Honor and glory will alwayse to an end one day,¡± the Earl said bitterly, ¡°Phoenix is finished and the bloodline of the Grand Duke will never be recovered. Holy Rock City wants to take back all ournd and sacrifice our citizens in battle. Even so, we still have a chance to fight back and that is to join Metatrin Kingdom!¡± The Earl¡¯s voice rose and he said to everyone, ¡°We will surrender and our only request is that the Metatrins must never submit themselves to Qin Empire! If the King of Metatrin chooses to do so, we will leave the Kingdom and find our own home once again.¡±


    ¡°Will the army in the city agree to our request?¡±


    ¡°We are only surrendering and stopping the attack. The King of Metatrin will see us personally and let us be his noble families. He will agree to this request, otherwise there is no need for him to form an alliance with Bitter Water Prefecture.¡±


    ¡°We will listen to you,¡± the Viscounts in the tentage all stated their stands.


    ¡°Wake all the Barons and ask the bodyguards to get ready. If they do not agree to the surrender, tie them up.¡± The Earl did not dare to becent. Many Barons had also joined in the rebellion with at least one-hundred soldiers each. Although Barons did not possess too much power, it would still be a problem if they all decided to rebel together.


    The night was dark and the armies had already gathered in Huoxing City. If the army outside of the city still did not give a reply by dawn, they wouldunch an attack.


    Although the sixth battalion was Saleen¡¯s most elite battalion, they did not expect a rebellion to take ce in Phoenix when they departed. Their equipment was not suited for such a situation. On the other hand, the second battalion specialized in fighting on open fields and had brought along all the necessary equipment. If the rebel army refused to surrender, the second battalion would lead the noble families¡¯ armies tounch an attack.


    All of Saleen¡¯s magic equipment was already very simr to those found in Holy Rock City¡¯s armies. The Phoenix armies¡¯ equipment was stillcking, which was why their heavy-armored knights suffered such a heavy defeat at the hands of the sixth battalion¡¯s heavy-armored foot soldiers.


    If both sides possessed the same equipment, it would be much more difficult for heavy-armored foot soldiers to defeat the heavy-armored knights, at least not on an open field.


    The camp outside the city lit up and after slightly more than an hour, two-hundred or so soldiers escorted more than ten people and approached the south gate of Huoxing City. These soldiers were carrying three pieces of square-shaped gs. These gs were white in color, which signalled their intention to surrender.


    The soldiers on top of the city wall immediately passed on the news to the mansion of the Lord of the city. The officers that were already in position tounch the attack were all relieved to hear this piece of news. Although no one had any doubts about the oue if they were to go into battle, both sides were evenly matched in numbers and it would be inevitable that there would be casualties. The enemy¡¯s surrender was a relief.


    Before the battalionmander of the second battalion departed, Saleen had secretly told him that if he could convince one noble family to surrender, he would have helped the second battalion to achieve one count of meritorious service. If they killed a noble family, the achievement would be halved. If the Phoenicians escaped, he would be demoted to a regiment captain.


    The top of Huoxing City¡¯s wall also began to light up. The city gates opened slowly and the armies in the city had already cleansed themselves. They were not afraid that the enemy would attack suddenly. Even if all these two-hundred soldiers were swordmasters, there was still no way they could take down Huoxing City.


    Lex¡¯s officers breathed a sigh of relief. Saleen¡¯s army had given the enemy a lot of pressure and this surrender came as a surprise to him. What he did not know was that Saleen had purposely released pigeons nearby and made them fly in the wrong direction. The goal was for these pigeons to be caught by the Phoenix rebel army and subsequently deal the Phoenix noble families a heavy blow.


    Saleen¡¯s intentions were clear. His main goal was to upy thend and not just to fight.


    Credit must go to Guya and the rest. These youths of noble families had analyzed the Phoenicianspletely and urately. This rebellion was merely the Phoenicians¡¯st stand. If they were given a glimmer of hope, Saleen would definitely be able to stabilize his position in the north. This glimmer of hope existed in the form of Metatrin Kingdom and not as a vassal of Qin.


    Sometimes, even a surrender required a proper and honorable reason.

 Chapter 714: Elegy of Phoenix (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 714: Elegy of Phoenix (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Of the two-hundred or so Phoenician men that had surrendered, there were fifty or so noble families. There were also more than ten Barons that had been tied up and left behind in the camp.


    The Phoenicians walked to the city gate. The soldiers dismounted, removed their armor and set them on the ground while the noble families removed the badges on their chests. All of them opened their mouths simultaneously and began to sing a song that was low in tone and full of sorrow.


    Phoenix, the undying phoenix,


    Our honor,


    Lights up even the darkest nights,


    The mountains and valleys meander,


    And the rivers linger,


    The g of Phoenix,


    Will always fly high and proud,


    Phoenix, my homnd,


    Where blood has cast,


    A city of immortality,


    Phoenix...


    Phoenix...


    The surrendering noble families and soldiers sang even as they walked through the city gates. Many of the soldiers had already broken down in tears.


    The ritual for epting the surrender was a simple one. The noble families would hand over their badges, fill out the necessary documents, allow their soldiers to be separated from those of the other noble families, disarm, and ept reorganization.


    Some mages managed to capture the images of the Phoenicians¡¯ surrender and sent them back to Metatrin City overnight. The entire north was in shock when the news broke.


    An army of sixty-thousand men had surrendered! Even if Phoenicians were not considered to be as resilient as the Qin people, this was still hard to ept. Huoxing City was not in the middle of Phoenix, but rather more towards the north. Thends north of Huoxing City were not even one-third of the entire Phoenix. The city in the north was not even one-fourth of the entirety of Phoenix.


    It was Saleen¡¯s intention for the news to spread across the north. Then, Saleen copied these magic images and distributed them to the second battalion so that they might use them to persuade the other cities and towns in the north to surrender.


    Just like that, the song of the rebel army had also spread across the entire north of Phoenix.


    This was the elegy of Phoenix and its effect was huge. Except for some noble families that chose tomit suicide, most noble families chose to surrender. Everyone understood the meaning of that elegy. The bloodline of Phoenix hade to an end and all that they had been defending all their lives had beenpletely destroyed.


    It was an undeniable fact that Holy Rock City had already upied the south of Phoenix. Surrendering to the Metatrin Kingdom was thest thing the noble families could do.


    Phoenix was doomed and at the same time, Metatrin Kingdom of the north has risen.


    In the middle of September, before winter arrived in Metatrin, Saleen met with the Phoenician noble families that had surrendered. These noble families not only consisted of those from the north of Huoxing City, but also those from the south.


    The army of Guderian City took two months to take down Sr City. Both sides suffered heavy losses. The Phoenicians in Sr Cityid down their lives, but were still unable to escape defeat.


    Many noble families had already predicted this oue and had already escaped to the north in advance and pledged their allegiances to Metatrin Kingdom. As expected, the Guderian City army did not cross over Huoxing City. They insteasd built a huge city two-hundred miles away from Huoxing City.


    This implied that Holy Rock City had acknowledged that Huoxing City had been conquered by Metatrin, along with the rest of the north.


    Holy Rock City did not have any other choice. Lex hadunched a powerful attack in the southeast of Lun, chasing away a few of the Holy See¡¯s main armies, thereby upying three major cities. The Lunnd upied by Lex was already one-fourth of that upied by Holy Rock City.


    With such immense power, Holy Rock City had no choice but to bear with all that in Phoenix.


    Cloudflow had never given any reliable replies. Even though half of Titan Duchy had already been upied, the Emperor of Cloudflow had still not chosen to form an alliance with Qin. Holy Rock City had to be prepared to face attacks from any and every country so they must not have any internal conflicts.


    Metatrin had already built a huge city in the southeast of Laiyin. Using Laiyin Duchy as the base to attack either Phoenix or northwest of Qin remained as only a possibility. If Phoenix fought with the Metatrin army, the army in the city would no longer continue to defend Qin. Instead, they might even try to help in defending against the attack from Laiyin Duchy.


    It was not that Holy Rock City did not have the abilities to defend, but the noble families in the south seemed to be involved in many under the table dealings. ording to the House of Commons, there were rumors in the south that there were noble families that were attempting to coborate with people from Cloudflow. The reason was that Prince Safilos was trying to push Lex out of the picture.


    It was for this reason that Prince Safilos had no choice but to bear with it. Compared to dealing with the noble families in the south of Qin, giving up one-third of Phoenix was something he could still ept.


    Saleen¡¯s group of envoys had finally reached Holy Rock City and had already set up an embassy. What Prince Safilos managed to gain out of this was that under his request, Saleen had deployed envoys to Laiyin Duchy and an alliance could soon be formed.


    Since their group of envoys had been chased out of Laiyin Duchy, Holy Rock City finally had a reason to gather their forces in the south of Laiyin Duchy, ready tounch an attack anytime. At the same time, Saleen had built another two cities in the east of Laiyin. These two militarized cities were not huge and were built solely for war. One of the cities would be upied by Lex¡¯s armies while the other city would be upied by the Phoenix soldiers that had surrendered.


    Qin, Bitter Water Prefecture, and Metatrin had already surrounded at least half of Laiyin Duchy.


    With the help of Alchemy City, Qin¡¯s army had already pushed the battlefront to the west mountains of Caucasus in Lun and controlled more than half of Lun¡¯snd.


    Holy Rock City established contact with Metatrin once again and requested for thetter to dere war on Laiyin Duchy. Of course, Saleen had no intentions of bing cannon fodder. He would dere war, but Metatrin would never initiate the attack.


    Holy Rock City had no such intentions either. The price that Prince Safilos paid was to sell to Saleen plenty of grain at very low prices. They had nock of grain in Qin. Once the grain was kept past fifty years, even if it was kept in warehouses created by mages, it would have to be thrown away.


    Qin nevercked grain so it made no difference to sell Metatrin the grain that was about to expire.


    Saleen was not going to lose out either. He would buy the grain at a very low price and in the end, he even traveled to Qin to transport back all the grain that was about to expire. He had no qualms about paying for the transportation fee.


    Prince Safilos had no idea that Saleen possessed elf magic and could manufacture pills that could satisfy hunger. He had only heard that Metatrin was trying to purchase warhorses so he assumed that Saleen nned to feed the animals with the expiring grains.


    After Metatrin dered war on Laiyin, thetter only assumed that Saleen had gone mad and did not care too much about it. Winter wasing and Saleen had less than one-hundred-thousand soldiers at the border so they posed no threat to Laiyin Duchy.


    It was under such circumstances that Saleen met with the noble families of Phoenix who had surrendered.


    Saleen did not preserve their ranks of nobility, but neither did he strip away their power. These noble families would form a special group in the Metatrin Kingdom.


    They would possess wealth and soldiers and their status was higher than merchants, but lower than noble families. In order to be awarded ranks of nobility, they would have to follow Saleen into battle and perform meritorious services for the kingdom. Compared to others, it as much easier for them to perform such deeds.


    Saleen did not award these noble families any ranks of nobility immediately because he was afraid that they had yet to develop any sense of belonging. In order to help these noble families better understand their powers, Saleen organized a military parade in the biggest fighting arena.


    Metatrin Kingdom was expanding, and absorbing the Phoenician citizens was the most important thing to Saleen.


    What made Saleen happiest was that Sika was pregnant. Sika and Saleen did not use the elvish potion, but since it was close topletion, Saleen would use it in the future.


    South Court was a joyous ce and the Caucasus people were even more excited than Saleen. With the elders¡¯ permission, they partied and celebrated. The Priestess¡¯ offspring would inherit part of the Priestess¡¯ abilities and would grow at a rate that was much faster than any other Caucasus people. Sika having a child was equivalent to the Caucasus people gaining another Earth Priestess.


    Saleen discovered something unique about Sika. He noticed that all the Caucasus warriors that worked closely with Sika demonstrated a faster rate of improvement in their abilities. Saleen¡¯s temple corp often worked closely with Sika and all the Caucasus warriors in the corp were at least at the level of swordmasters.


    This was an ability that was more powerful than divine spells because the warriors did not need to pray every day.


    Just as everything in Metatrin was developing quickly and smoothly, Cloudflow¡¯s fleet appeared in the southeast of Lun in a ce the Qin people called the Floating Lake.


    This enormouske was located ind and its eastern side was connected to the south of Qin with a mountainous region in between. Its western side was Titan Duchy and a small portion of its northern side was connected to the region in Lun that was controlled by Lex. This region was two-hundred miles wide and was the only route that was not mountainous and could lead to Lun. By appearing at this location, it was clear that the Cloudflow fleet¡¯s main objective was to meet with Lex.


    Cloudflow¡¯s envoy came ashore and arrived at Daliang City which was built by Lex.


    Daliang City was built on the foundation of an old city and was equivalent to the provisional capital of Bitter Water Prefecture. Lex ensured that one-hundred-thousand soldiers would upy this city in order to guard against any attacks from Cloudflow. The fleet that Saleen had promised her had yet to bepleted. For now, she only possessed a small group of boats that could not be considered a fleet yet.


    The Cloudflow envoy and his fleet could not care less about Lex¡¯s group of boats and docked directly beside the shore. Someone in the small town by the shore had already sent a pigeon to inform Daliang City.


    The imperial pce in Daliang City was a seven-story magic tower. Lex received the news while in the magic tower and felt uneasy. The people of Cloudflow were sozy that they could not even be bothered to establish contact with Holy Rock City. Why would they send an envoy over there?


    ¡°Bring Nichs here.¡± Lex recalled that Nichs had yet to depart and immediately gave an order to a magic apprentice.


    It did not take long for Nichs to arrive at the sixth level of the magic tower. The seventh level was where Lex¡¯s sorcerers stayed so Lex could only train on the sixth level.


    ¡°Your Highness, you are looking for me? I was about to leave.¡± After escorting Lex there, he was asked to stay for a while longer by the former and participated in a few important battles as a result. He gained quite a lot. It was already September and he was about to inform Lex that he would be heading back to Metatrin though.


    ¡°Nichs... Cloudflow has sent an envoy.¡± Lex pointed at the slip of paper that the pigeon brought over.


    ¡°Your Highness, are you worried? If you want me to stay, you will need to ask my Lord first. I still need to return to Broken de Pass to oversee the final stages of its construction.¡± Nichs was courteous to Lex, but at the end of the day, he was still Saleen¡¯s subordinate. He could not possibly keep working for Lex. Besides. This ce was too near to the Holy See army for hisfort.


    ¡°No. I heard that holy priests possess a very powerful ability called ¡®prophecy magic¡¯. What are the Cloudflow people here for?¡±

 Chapter 715: A forced marriage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 715: A forced marriage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    What were the Cloudflow people doing here? This was what Lex wanted to find out. ¡°The Holy See already upied half of Titan Duchy and the Cloudflow people didn¡¯t retaliate. They had deployed warships to the rear of my Daliang City instead.¡±


    Based on her instincts, Lex felt that this was not a good thing.


    Nichs¡¯ white beard quivered, as his eyelids jumped. He told Lex, ¡°Your Highness, this prophecy spell cannot be used recklessly. If used incorrectly, it will be harmful for you.¡± Lex listened quietly, so Nichs continued, ¡°The prophecy spell isn¡¯t the same ability as what an astrologer would use. An astrologer would rely on the constetions to predict the progression of future events. A prophecy spell uses the power of the gods to roughly calcte the events which might happen in the future. This prophecy will sometimes undergo changes.¡±


    ¡°Which means that it has the same effect as a contract?¡±


    ¡°No, but... let¡¯s just assume you use a magic attack to attack a person and you are only fifty percent sure of striking them. Under the effect of a prophecy spell, this chance will be increased to eighty percent, or even one-hundred percent. If a person falls sick, they will have a chance of dying and if the prophecy says that they will die, then this possibility will be infinitely close to reality. This thing cannot be regarded as a genuine prophecy, it is dangerous.¡±


    ¡°No wonder, I heard that arge prophecy spell can kill someone directly, is that what you mean?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s about there. Your Highness, without using the prophecy spell, you will know whether it is a good thing that the Cloudflow people are here. Cloudflow would have sent an envoy group to Holy Rock City already otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, you are right. You know what, don¡¯t leave first, you shall disguise yourself as a mage. Return to Metatrin City after the Cloudflow¡¯s envoy group has left,¡± Lex requested.


    ¡°Yes Your Highness, but please send a letter to Sir to inform him of my itinerary.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I will.¡± Lex furrowed her brows, then she ordered people to send a letter to Metatrin City. Instinctively, she felt that the Cloudflow people were up to no good, but she could not turn a blind eye to it. At sea, her fleet would not be able to resist an assault by Cloudflow¡¯s fleet.


    Covering a distance of two-hundred miles, the Cloudflow¡¯s envoy group took three days to reach Daliang City. At this speed, they were as slow as a tortoise. There was a total of more than six-hundred people in the envoy group traveling in more than three-hundredrge chariots, apanied by over five-hundred horses, as they dawdled. This actually gave Lex a lot of time to make preparations.


    There were two seven-story magical towers within Daliang City, while there was one six-story magical tower outside the city. Lex had sufficient mages with her and she was also apanied by Nichs and Su. Relying on the God¡¯s Ring, Lex was not afraid of the Cloudflow people trying anything funny.


    Daliang City was aplementary capital to the Bitter Water County, all the administrative facilities there wereplete. Lex¡¯s Bitter Water Prefecture was a city which groomed mages for her, she rarely went back.


    The envoy group stayed in the hotel in an orderly fashion and they sent people to deliver a letter to the city owner¡¯s residence. Daliang City had a city owner and the city owner would hand the letter to Lex, who was staying in the pce.


    When Lex received the letter, she flew into a rage after reading the contents, then she immediately went into deep thought.


    ¡°There is no point being angry. Judging by the contents of the letter, the Cloudflow Emperor wants to do something that is definitely beneficial for Cloudflow and that is not weird. That emperor wants to marry me and thus devour the entire Bitter Water County? The Cloudflow people have underestimated me, even though Father has passed on, I am not a mindless pawn!¡±


    The letter personally penned by the Cloudflow Emperor was very straightforward. In the letter, Emperor Agares had personally asked Lex to get ready to wait for the arrival of the marriage envoy from the Cloudflow Empire.


    And... that was it.


    The Cloudflow emperor wanted to marry Lex, and Lex would be made empress.


    This was an outright forced marriage, Lex was enraged for less than a minute before suppressing her anger. She instructed people to ce this letter in a box and deliver it to Metatrin City. Thereafter, she ordered her subordinates to seal the pce and im that she had fallen ill. She did not want to meet the Cloudflow¡¯s envoy.


    Cloudflow¡¯s envoy made many consecutive requests to meet Lex, but was rejected. The envoy did not get angry, he only asked people to tell Lex that Emperor Agares would deploy a colossal entourage in November to marry her.


    Then, this six-hundredman envoy group stayed put in Daliang City, totally ignoring Lex¡¯s reactions.


    Three dayster, Lex received Saleen¡¯s reply. There were only two rows of words in the letter.


    The first row; ¡®kill the entire envoy group¡¯.


    The second row; ¡®I will arrive in October, ask Nichs to stay put¡¯.


    Reading the letter, Lex burst out inughter, then she immediately ordered a camp of soldiers to seal the hotel. No one could leave the hotel anymore. She then led two grade-7 sorcerers, Su, and Nichs, to the hotel.


    The deployment of troops from Daliang City startled the Cloudflow¡¯s envoy group. This envoy group had five-hundred cavalrymen, while the remaining over one-hundred people were servants who served the envoy. Protecting the envoy was a grade-7 sorcerer and a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster. This envoy was an earl in the pce, after arriving in Daliang City, he acted as if he was the boss around there.


    Being surrounded abruptly, the envoy was not afraid at all. He instead walked out of the hotel in an imposing manner, wanting to lecture the soldiers who had besieged the hotel.


    The moment his head popped out, dozens of feather arrows flew over. The sorcerer behind immediately blessed the envoy with a Magic Shield, causing the feather arrows to fall to the ground.


    ¡°Atrocious! Get yourmander toe out, are you all tired of living?¡±


    Answering him were more than one-hundred fireballs. Even though the sorcerer could ensure his safety, the hundreds of soldiers behind were killed. Thereafter, the piercing sound released by an alchemical crossbow filled the air, causing the sorcerer and ck Metal Grand Swordmaster to be petrified. They were no fools, they immediately realized that the soldiers outside were not putting up an act, the soldiers were trying to exterminate them.


    ¡°Lex, you bitch! His Majesty will burn your county to ash, just you wait...¡±


    The ck Metal Grand Swordmaster knocked the envoy unconscious. Exchanging nces with the sorcerer, they retreated into the depths of the hotel. It was meaningless to disseminate threats at the moment, it was more important to escape from the back street.


    ¡°Trying to leave?¡± Lex¡¯s voice descended from the sky, Lex was apanied by two grade-7 sorcerers. Su had somehow entered the hotel as he tried to sh the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster.


    When the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster saw Su, his pupils contracted urgently, as the sorcerer next to him released the Earth Shards. Hundreds of stone shards rushed out of the ground, thrashing towards Su¡¯s body.


    A silver Sword Aura suddenly exploded, but a bolt of ck brilliance descended from the sky and struck the sorcerer¡¯s Magic Shield. Getting hit by the ck brilliance, the level-7 shield immediately dissipated. Immediately after, two gigantic fireballs appeared. These fireballs were blue in color and had two blurred human faces on them.


    There was a proverb in the world of mages; ¡®a mage who only knew how to cast fireballs was not a good mage¡¯. These two fireballs had obviously surpassed the limits the proverb was referring to though. After Faerun had advanced to a grade-7 sorcerer, the fireballs cast by him were highly simr to these two fireballs.


    Due to the legacy left behind by Lex¡¯s teacher, mages belonging to this school had already mastered the Fireball spell thoroughly.


    The Magic Shield of the Cloudflow¡¯s sorcerer was broken, but he had already charged into the sky and a second Magic Shield had appeared on his body instantly. That was a spell stored in his magic robe, it could be cast instantaneously.


    When the fireballs struck the shield, they began burning vigorously, then the two grade-7 sorcerers gave chase.


    Lex simply snorted at the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster below her as a golden ray of light prated the Sword Aura protecting him. For the first time the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster realized that his Sword Aura had beenpletely quashed without any warning whatsoever. Su¡¯s longsword had already destroyed the sorcerer¡¯s earth spell. Trailed by a vibrant brilliance, Su¡¯s longsword prated the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster¡¯s mouth.


    Within Su¡¯s sword¡¯s radiance, the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster¡¯s brain turned into a pile of bloody mush. Su¡¯s technique was ruthless, the enemy never had a chance.


    He had experienced such abat technique many times. Lex¡¯s family¡¯s secret arts could cause the enemy¡¯s Sword Aura to be destroyed, then Su used his Sword Aura to crush the enemy¡¯s brain instantly. No matter how powerful the enemy¡¯s swordsmanship was, they would not be able to resist Su¡¯s attack after losing their Sword Aura suddenly.


    If this technique was unleashed by thete Emperor Chanake, Su would not even need to take any action. Anyone below the grade of a Golden Grand Swordmaster would not be able to block a blow from Emperor Chanake. Lex¡¯s secret art was undeveloped yet, it was not as ferocious as her father¡¯s.


    The Cloudflow sorcerer, who was burning from head to toe, was flying faster than what Lex had expected. Trailed by cyan mes, he was almost out of the hotel. The two sorcerers at the back could not catch up. Nevertheless, they were not very anxious because the Magic Shield would not be able to withstand two fireballs. The mes had already breached the shield, the Cloudflow sorcerer was simply struggling on hisst breath.


    Nichs was afraid of any mishaps. From afar, he pointed at the flying Cloudflow sorcerer, then hollered, ¡°Stop!¡±


    Seven colossal ck holy prose shed once above the sorcerer¡¯s head before disappearing. It rendered his flying spell ineffective, then the sorcerer crashed towards the ground. The two pursuing sorcerers cast two Fire Serpent spells without any hesitation.


    Hundreds of fire serpents charged out of the ground, enveloping the Cloudflow sorcerer.


    Other than mes, the fire serpents also had physical attack abilities. The sound of bones fracturing filled the air, as the Cloudflow sorcerer screamed in excruciation while being epassed in mes.


    In a short span of a few dozen seconds, Lex and the people she brought along had destroyed the main power of the envoy group effortlessly. The Cloudflow emperor would never expect his sorcerer and ck Metal Grand Swordmaster to be so weak in Daliang City.


    By now, the envoy had already woken up, he was captured by the soldiers rushing into the hotel and was brought before Lex. He noticed that the hotel was surrounded by mes while the ck Metal Grand Swordmaster was lying on the ground without a brain and all that shouting outside had ceased. Without any warhorses, those five-hundred Cloudflow warriors could not even hold out for a minute when they were assaulted by Lex¡¯s elite troops. Eventually their bodies were covered in arrows shot from all the bows and crossbows.


    The earlughed icily as he looked at Lex without any fear, then said, ¡°The boldness of you. Kill me and His Majesty will obliterate your county.¡±


    ¡°I am very afraid.¡± Lex cackled sarcastically, then gestured for a squad of soldiers to enter. Lex ordered, ¡°Go and conduct a search, check if anyone has escaped. Capture anyone from Cloudflow, if they resist, just kill them on the spot!¡±

 Chapter 716: A Forced Marriage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 716: A Forced Marriage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I am a first-ss earl who was personally conferred by His Majesty, Lex, you...¡±


    Nichs could not be bothered to listen to all the noiseing from this earl. Pointing one finger at the earl, the earl immediately lost his voice, he could no longer say another word. The Holy See used the Speech Prohibition spell most frequently. When a person was on trial, they would not be able to rebut once this spell was used, the used could only wait for the Holy See¡¯s verdict.


    Su put his sword into its sheath and went beside Lex, then said, ¡°Your Highness, you should kill this person straightaway, the mere sight of him is disgusting.¡±


    ¡°Kill him? Humph, Agares has insulted me, I will not simply kill him. Execute all the servants which he brought along and bring this fellow to the alchemyboratory.¡±


    Hearing Lex¡¯s words, the earl finally grew fearful. Once a person entered a mage¡¯s alchemyboratory, their fate would be unknown. Clearly, Lex was unaffected by his threats. ¡°This is impossible, the military strength of the Bitter Water County is less than four-hundred-thousand and the newly addednds are only around two-thousand miles in area. Once His Majesty¡¯s army arrives, all this will be turned to ashes. Is Lex crazy? Killing an envoy is akin to dering war!¡±


    Just as he wanted to plead for mercy, the Speech Prohibition spell caused him to feel as if his throat had been fossilized. He could not produce any noise, he could only pant deeply.


    Lex¡¯s trusted soldiers carried the earl to the alchemyboratory, tossing him onto the alchemy tform. Some magic disciples then went forward to remove the earl¡¯s clothes, leaving only his underwear on.


    The earl looked at Lex imploringly, but Lex¡¯s blue eyes made him feel abnormally cold.


    ¡°I am toozy to ask for your name. Now, I want to ask you some questions and you will answer me, you cannot lie nor say that you don¡¯t know the answer. If you answer in this manner, do you see this?¡± Lex pointed to the low-grade mages afar who were working beside the alchemy tform, then said, ¡°There are so many mages who need to practice and gain experience. I will allow you to be an experimental subject until everyone here gets a try. The experiment we are conducting today is fossilizing a skeleton. I will first use the earth-type Shock spell to shatter your bones, then let the mages heal you temporarily.¡±


    Lex stopped and turned to look into the earl¡¯s eyes. His eyes were filled with terror. Lex then continued, ¡°The human body has over two-hundred bones, as long as your answer disappoints me, this experiment will carry on more than two-hundred times before stopping. I guarantee that you will remain sober while the process is going on. If you understand, nod your head.¡±


    The earl nodded desperately, then Lex turned around to look at Nichs. Nichs gently tapped the air, and the earl could finally speak again.


    ¡°First question, how many troops will Agares send to attack my Daliang City?¡±


    The earl¡¯s heart twitched, as though electricity had just passed through it.


    ¡°One-million and two-hundred-thousand, Your Highness.¡±


    Lex nodded in satisfaction, then said, ¡°Second question, when will Agares¡¯ troops arrive?¡±


    ¡°In mid-November, Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Is it true that Agares will deploy his troops whether I agree to the marriage or not?¡±


    The earl¡¯s eyes became anxious in that instant, he really did not know the answer to this question. There was something wrong with the emperor¡¯s brain, all the Cloudflow nobles knew that. Even god would not be able to tell if the situation would unfold like what Lex had described.


    ¡°His Majesty will not ry his secret decree to the receiving fleet, nobles at my rank don¡¯t ever know the truth.¡± The earl tried his best to answer in a way which would avoid angering Lex.


    Lex remained silent for a long while, then said, ¡°Fourth question, tell me theposition of Cloudflow¡¯s fleet and its equipment status.¡±


    The earl did not hesitate this time around, he revealed the data on Cloudflow¡¯s army, such as the ratio ofmanders, offensive power, and allocation of equipment. A lot of this information was not secret. He did not dare fabricate anything, he only revealed what he knew.


    Lex did not bother memorizing, she asked the low-grade mages to record this information using magic and organize all the intelligence provided by the earl. The earl went on for more than two hours. Even though the earl had a pathetic offensive power, he had ess to quite a lot of information. From a certain angle, this fellow was not entirely useless.


    There were very few useless nobles because the nobles were the foundation of a country. An emperor would never confer titles upon just anyone, even in a ce like Cloudflow where nobles were in abundance.


    Back in Metatrin City Saleen had summoned all his trusted nobles over, conducting a meeting in the pce. Since Aini was not around, the other three nobles sat on Saleen¡¯s right side, while Saleen¡¯s followers sat on the left. The only difference this time around was that Sika was sitting beside Saleen.


    ¡°I am making a trip to the Bitter Water County and bringing along the newest warships and weapons. After I leave, Sika will be the owner of Metatrin City. She is the mother to my child. Right now, I shall confer Sika the title of Caucasus Queen. When I am not around, Sika will be the regent, while Daniel will continue to manage the administration of the city.¡±


    No one could raise objections, Sika was pregnant with Saleen¡¯s child and she still had over one-hundred-thousand Caucasus warriors who were her fanatical worshippers. It was only right for her to be the regent.


    ¡°Nailisi, you will stay behind to assist Sika. Eleanor, Isabe, you will follow me. As for the military, Guya will be in charge for the time being. Formerce, Irene, you have to take care of it. Renee, you have to monitor the Phoenix nobles closely, don¡¯t let them create any trouble.¡±


    Saleen delegated the tasks one by one, the twelve earls had their respective roles.


    After settling all those matters, the nobles then left. At that moment, Nailisi said worriedly, ¡°Master, why don¡¯t you let me follow you? This time around, you will fight with the Cloudflow Empire, I feel that there will be grade-9 experts present.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, Sika is more important, she is pregnant. I will not rest assured if she participates in battle again, you must ensure her safety. I will bring the winged skeleton and the alchemical boat to sea, while the alchemy factories have sessfully replicated the diving warship. Including those mini bone warships which were made by the winged skeleton, I won¡¯t be afraid of Cloudflow¡¯s fleet.¡±


    ¡°But Master!¡± Nailisi was distressed, she still could not have peace of mind despite what Saleen said.


    ¡°My water puppet has recovered, it can cast the Crystal Finger. Even a grade-9 expert can be killed by this attack.¡± Saleen knew that his badge¡¯s ability had not been regained and the lightning dragons in the ne had gone into deep slumber after consuming the magic nucleus of a grade-10 lightning dragon. They could not replenish the badge¡¯s strength, so Nailisi was anxious.


    ¡°Let Cuisi and the others go with you!¡± Nailisi said.


    ¡°Okay, Cuisi¡¯s ability is pretty good now.¡± Saleen did not reject Nailisi¡¯s request.


    ¡°Let J go too, he is not very useful here either.¡±


    ¡°No, J has to stay behind to hold the fort. Metatrin City has sufficient mages, but he is the only Silver Grand Swordmaster left. I can only rest assured with him around. Nailisi, the Golden Magic Book which Uncle Fellett gave me contains eighteen level-7 spells and I have also prepared more than one-hundred magic staffs which were gifted by Joey. Each staff can contain three level-7 spells. This time around I can use high-level spells at will to attack the enemy, what else are you worried about?¡±


    Nailisi only sighed bitterly, but Sika remained veryposed.


    ¡°Saleen, even if you do not marry Lex on this trip, no one can woo her anymore. I will support you. If you run into undefeatable enemies...¡±


    ¡°I will escape.¡± Saleen nodded his head slightly as he finished Sika¡¯s sentence, then said, ¡°I still have to take care of our child, I will not put my life at stake.¡±


    Sika smiled and told Nailisi, ¡°See, your master is still very afraid of dying. Don¡¯t worry, just stay here with me.¡±


    Eleanor stood at one side and remained silent, she knew that Saleen was willing to make this trip because their coordination had reached a pinnacle state, mages below grade-6 could no longer pose a threat to Saleen. ¡°My Space Arrow can suppress a grade-7 mage. Coupled with Saleen¡¯s level-7 spell, we can team up against one mage. Saleen and I can make a grade-7 sorcerer die indignantly.¡±


    Isabe¡¯s powers had been regained, other than being a grade-6 mage, she was also a high-grade swordmaster who was about to progress to a grand swordmaster. She could only advance sessfully after bing a sorcerer though.


    Only a mage like that would be unusually ruthless. The weapon Saleen had crafted for Isabe was a longsword which possessed the abilities of a magic staff. People who were clueless about Isabe¡¯s profile would surely before her.


    ¡°Master, you must take care...¡± Nailisi¡¯s eyes were brimming with tears, as she helplessly watched Saleen leave with Eleanor and Isabe.


    Saleen¡¯s team only contained two-hundred people. The leaders were Saleen, the winged skeleton, Eleanor, Isabe, and the four demons.


    The soldiers who tagged along were all trained by Isabe, they were warriors who were swordmasters and low-grade magic disciples at the same time. The winged skeleton had mysteriously put away the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Saleen¡¯s twenty-four Dimension Stones were carrying the twelve diving warships and six dismantled bone warships.


    The other warship materials formed a mountainous pile. Saleen was going to make use of the mages in Daliang City to form a fleet on the spot to attack Cloudflow¡¯s army from the sea.


    Cloudflow¡¯s fleet was indomitable, it was time to destroy the myth of it.


    Unfortunately, the dragon skeleton warship could not be disassembled, it could not be stored in any equipment. If this machine was steered to the open waters, Saleen would be more confident of destroying Cloudflow¡¯s offensive otherwise.


    Other than the warship materials, Saleen also brought along a number of magic stone cannons. It was convenient to bring them around, but its usage fees were high. This was no big deal though; if Cloudflow¡¯s fleet could be defeated, any amount of spending would be worth it.


    As long the Cloudflow people could not attack via sea, they would have to breach the siege by Tanggsi first in order to attack Lex¡¯s territory. They would have to conquer thend north of Chishui River and make a detour of a few thousand miles before being able toe into contact with Lex¡¯s army.


    Aftering to Metatrin City, the winged skeleton was the first to go onshore. He had summoned more than two-hundred skeletal warhorses, taking the lead to charge ahead. These skeletal warhorses were different from the ones summoned by the three kings, they came fitted with riding equipment and their speed was horrifying. Without the winged skeleton¡¯s control, Saleen¡¯s soldiers would not have dared ride on them.


    Metatrin City was over twenty-thousand miles from Daliang City. If they did not move quickly, Saleen could not possibly arrive by October.


    He could not be not anxious. If Daliang City, which had no navy, could not seal off the sea, it would be invaded by Cloudflow¡¯s army which had more than one-million troops.

 Chapter 717: Sending Aid from Miles Away (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 717: Sending Aid from Miles Away (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had heard before that pure-bred grade-three warhorses could travel more than sixty miles per hour, but only for two to three hours. After that, it would have to restpletely and not move for the next eighteen days. At afortable pace, the pure-bred horse could travel at forty miles per hour. That was equivalent to the speed at which normal knights would charge.


    The winged skeleton put in great effort to create the skeletal warhorse and clearly knew more about horses than Saleen. This type of warhorse could catch up with flying mages and could travel at a consistent pace for an entire day.


    There was no way the knights would be able to control the warhorses traveling at a speed of eighty miles an hour. If not for the winged skeleton, practically every knight would have been thrown off and crushed.


    The winged skeleton demonstrated the immense power of his advanced abilities. Saleen¡¯s bond did not restrict his development and the grade-8 death mage was already on the same level as a grand mage. Of course, this was rted to how powerful Saleen¡¯s mental strength was. Both he and Nailisi were bonded to Saleen with their souls. As long as Saleen¡¯s mental strength could advance to the standard of a grade-9 sorcerer, the winged skeleton would be able to advance to grade-9 as well.


    Even so, the winged skeleton would have put in effort as well. As his master, Saleen would not be able to extend any other kind of aid to him.


    Saleen was in good health and the two mages were more powerful than him. Both Isabe and Eleanor were proficient in both magic andbat so they were able to travel for ten hours straight before finally stopping for a rest.


    Any other mage would already have been paralyzed. Even if they boosted themselves with spells continuously, they would never have been able to travel on their horses for ten hours straight.


    The two-hundred warriors that had followed Saleen were the most tired of all. During the break in the day, the mages boosted everyone with spells. By the time night came, everyone was already asleep except for the winged skeleton and the demons.


    The winged skeleton was wearing the armor that Saleen had refined for him. The front of the helmet was a crystal mask. Soul mes danced slowly behind the mask and disyed a strange and magical silver color in the night.


    Cuisi took a look at the winged skeleton and recalled Nailisi¡¯s warning so he made sure to stay out of the way of the spirit of the dead. He ordered the other three demons to stand guard outside Saleen¡¯s tentage. The spirits of the dead under the winged skeleton would be responsible for the security of the entire campsite.


    The winged skeleton stood at the entrance of the campsite, armed with a weapon that was more than four yards long.


    The tip of this weapon was a circr-shaped axe de that was more than a yard long in diameter. The gigantic axe opened up on both sides and was blood-red in color. There was a magic array on both sides of the axe and there were colorful magic nuclei like six strange looking eyes mounted on it.


    The winged skeleton found this weapon from the ocean and by his estimation, the weapon should at least be twenty-thousand years old. While a weapon with a long history might not necessarily mean that it was a good weapon, the fact remained that it withstood pressure and dposition under water for twenty-thousand years without any signs of damage. This was definitely an equipment of high quality.


    The handle of the giant axe was oval in shape and was filled with magic patterns. These magic patterns were not refined only on its surface, it was refinedpletely into the interior of the axe. They would not disappear no matter how much one polished it.


    The aura of the spirit of the dead emanated through the winged skeleton¡¯s gloves and entered the giant axe. The colorful magic nuclei lit up and the blood-red magic patterns flowed on the ck giant axe.


    There were six jade skeletons that stood behind the winged skeleton and each of them were also armed with a simr giant axe. Those were weapons that Saleen refined by trying to copy the winged skeleton¡¯s original weapon.


    The winged skeleton and his men were extremely powerful and no one dared to handle such a giant axe. Even silver grand swordmasters would have to think twice about it.


    Seven skeletons stood at the entrance of the campsite and the nocturnal magic beasts all stayed far away. Six streams of gray-colored aura flowed from winged skeleton¡¯s giant axe and were absorbed by the axes of the jade skeletons behind him.


    These seven skeletons functioned as one. Saleen dared to bring only two-hundred men to Daliang City partly because he was confident in his own abilities, but also because the winged skeleton was already a grade-8 spirit of the dead and was already more powerful than the Three Kings. Judikaka¡¯s soul me was given to the winged skull and once Saleen advanced, the winged skeleton would immediately advance to grade-9 as well.


    The winged skeleton looked up at the moon. The silver-colored moonlight passed through the crystal mask and entered his eyes before being absorbed by his soul mes. The soul mes grew stronger after absorbing the moonlight.


    The night passed peacefully and the campsite was not disturbed. Saleen led the troops to continue on their way. It was already the middle of September. He had to reach Daliang City by the end of October and would have to take into ount the route conditions and whether they would encounter any attacks by the enemy.


    They did not encounter any trouble from Metatrin to the new city that Aini was overseeing. Saleen turned towards the south when they reached the border of Laiyin and headed towards Daliang City by traveling along the border of Lun.


    These two-hundred men who were d in full armor were conspicuous. They were only less noticeable because they did not travel on routesmonly used by wagons. They would not stop along the way for supplies and would travel around towns and sprinted across ins.


    No one would have been able to catch up with the skeletal warhorses even if they wanted to. These two-hundred skeletal warhorses covered seven-hundred miles every day even as they carried Saleen and his two-hundred soldiers and mages.


    Regardless of the local noble families that harbored evil intentions, Holy Rock City armies, or even some banditpanies; everyone had miscalcted and were all left behind by Saleen¡¯s strange way of moving his troops.


    By the middle of October, Saleen led his two-hundred men into Lun and onto thends controlled by Lex¡¯s Bitter Water Prefecture.


    There was a militarized town on the border with five-thousand soldiers in it. Saleen showed his badge. The most senior officer in this town was an elderly member of a noble family of Bitter Water Prefecture. When he saw Saleen¡¯s badge, he quickly extended hospitality to Saleen.


    ¡°Your Highness, I did not expect you to reach us so quickly!¡± The elder received Saleen¡¯s troops outside of the town. He did not reveal any signs of disappointment even after noticing that Saleen only brought two-hundred men.


    Saleen was silently approving of this. This was an elder that possessed intelligence, or perhaps, craftiness. This town that he oversaw was connected to the regions controlled by Holy Rock City. Only with such wisdom would both parties be able to co-exist peacefully.


    This elder was previously a grade-1 Viscount and was a member of a noble family assigned to Lex by Emperor Chanake. After building up her kingdom, Lex promoted him to a grade-2 Earl, which was a double promotion. He nowmanded five-thousand soldiers and guarded over this ce.


    ¡°Earl...¡± Saleen was led to the Earl¡¯s mansion where thetter has arranged a banquet. The moment Saleen spoke, the Earl smiled and said, ¡°Your Highness, please call me Besta. I witnessed the growth of the Princess, I¡¯m not an outsider.¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Besta, are we able to establish contact with Daliang City here?¡±


    ¡°Strictly speaking, yes, but...¡± Besta felt a little embarrassed. The number of magic nuclei he possessed was limited. He would not use them unless necessary. Just delivering a document would expend one magic nucleus. Even a low-level teleportation portal would require six grade-4 magic nuclei to be used up.


    Saleen understood Besta¡¯s difficulties immediately and said, ¡°Although Lex will replenish the magic nuclei that you have expended, they will only be delivered at the end of the year. Alright, I will help you this time around. You must guard this town properly and not be taken advantage of by those in the north.¡± Even as he spoke, Saleen took out a box that was specifically designed to store magic nuclei. In the box were sixty grade-4 magic nuclei that had already been cut and passed it to Besta.


    The old uncle became extra cautious. It was not easy guarding the border in this ce that did not have much of a future. These sixty magic nuclei were nothing to Saleen.


    Besta was a little embarrassed. Indeed, Lex had not sent over any magic nuclei for a long time. In the previous attack, they managed to take down three important cities sessfully, but a lot of magic nuclei were also used up. While he still had quite a number of low-level magic nuclei, the number of middle-level magic nuclei were rather limited.


    ¡°Your Highness, how can I ept this?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Lex will repay me,¡± Saleen joked. Besta began to feel embarrassed. Saleen was already willing to send aid from many miles away, why would he care about these sixty middle-grade magic nuclei, even if they could have been sold for ten-thousand gold coins?


    Saleen did not write to Lex immediately. Instead, he began to discuss the military equipment that their town possessed with Besta.


    It was through this discussion that Saleen found out that aside from the five-hundred or so bodyguards that belonged to Earl Besta, the rest of the five-thousand soldiers were all new recruits that had only been trained for two to three years. The training they had undergone were not like those that Lex had put Saleen¡¯s soldiers through. Their training was instead the simplest type that followed Qinws.


    The soldiers would be able to operate most of themon weapons. As for theirbat skills, five soldiers should be able to kill a grade-1 swordsman.


    Lex did not deploy any elite soldiers at the border of thend controlled by Holy Rock City. Saleen could read between the lines and now understood a bit more about the situation that Lex was in. The number of soldiers under Lex was definitely more than five-hundred-thousand, but half of them did not possess much fighting abilities.


    While it would be sufficient if they were only defending the city, attacking other cities or being engaged in open battles would be suicidal. If this was the case, there would be no need for Saleen to leave any equipment behind for Earl Besta. His equipment was meant for his main forces.


    Saleen then wrote a letter and asked Besta to deliver it to Daliang City. In the letter was information on the equipment and resources that Saleen has brought along and his strategy for the battle.


    Saleen had many resources, but they had yet to be pieced together into equipment. He would need the help of Lex¡¯s mages to prepare the necessary equipment for refining. This was why Saleen wrote to Lex when he was still more than one-thousand miles away. He could not afford to start preparing only after he had reached Daliang City.


    Saleen and the rest still needed to continue on their way, but they were already exhausted. They would rest in this small town for a day to fully recover their strength before carrying on again.


    Saleen and the rest slept while Earl Besta was settling some military issues in his mansion. Suddenly, a bodyguard came in a hurry and reported that a troop of about two-thousand knights were approaching the small town. Earl Besta was taken aback. two-thousand knights formed the standard size of a battalion. It was very likely that they would be followed by two-thousand heavy-armored knights and six-thousand foot soldiers.


    The old Earl did not wake Saleen. Instead, he told the bodyguard, ¡°Gather some men. I will go to the top of the city wall and have a look.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, can Ie with you?¡± Besta had only just finished speaking and the winged skeleton had already appeared in front of him with that formidable axe. The soul mes were dancing slowly underneath his crystal mask.


    The winged skeleton had always stayed by Saleen¡¯ side. When Besta first saw him, he had thought that he was just an ordinary spirit of the dead. He never expected this spirit of the dead to possess intelligence and the ability to speak hisnguage.

 Chapter 718: Sending Aid from Miles Away (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 718: Sending Aid from Miles Away (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Earl Besta suppressed his shock. Generally, people of Qin did not fear of spirits of the dead too much.


    ¡°Your Excellency, how may I address you?¡± Although Earl Besta was already very old, he was also a high-level swordmaster. He could see that this spirit of the dead was powerful and did not dare to use his status as a member of the noble family asparison.


    Seeing the giant axe that the winged skeleton was wielding and the six identical skeletons behind him, Earl Besta suddenly realized that his five-hundred bodyguards were nothingpared to them.


    ¡°My name is Bing. Bring me to the top of the city wall. I want to see where these two-thousand cavalries are from.¡±


    ¡°Regarding His Highness, Saleen¡¯s safety...


    ¡°He has those four women. Don¡¯t worry.¡± the winged skeleton smiled, which looked queer. No human would feel a sense of security after seeing a skeleton smiling.


    The winged skeleton thought to himself, ¡°Women? Humph, Nailisi has really done well. Everyone who saw Cuisi and the rest will mistake them to be Saleen¡¯s maids.¡± It was normal for mages to disguise themselves so no one would guess that those four demons that looked weak and helpless were actually as powerful as high-level Professionals.


    The city wall of this anonymous town was exactly a mile wide. It was not tall and was very thick. There were arrow towers on top of the city wall and hidden behind the wall were catapults. The town possessed all the necessary equipment even though it was small.


    Although the scout had reported the sighting of the cavalries as quickly as he could, it was clear that thetter were in a rush. By the time the winged skeleton reached the city wall, hundreds of knights were already within two-hundred yards.


    These knights were decisive in their actions. They patrolled outside the city with their eyes locked onto the top of the city wall.


    Earl Besta took over the alchemy binocr and saw that the cavalries were all light-armored knights. There were more than two-thousand of them along with thirteen-hundred foot soldiers. Thetter rode on horses of a poorer grade and were about to dismount to change their armors.


    Qin¡¯s foot soldiers traveled on horses as well, hence they could travel very quickly. These foot soldiers usually did not wear their armor. Instead they would keep them in a bag on their horses and would only wear them when they arrived at their destination. This would help to conserve their energy. The only exception was if the foot soldiers were on their own.


    ¡°Earl, are the people of Holy Rock City aware of the military equipment that this town possesses?¡± The winged skeleton did not need any binocrs to clearly see what the soldiers were doing outside the city. These people obviously came prepared and there was a chance that they would attack the town.


    ¡°I think so. This town strictly prohibits normal citizens from entering so there shouldn¡¯t be any spies around. Nevertheless, there is no way to hide the monthly supplies transported here. Anyone would be able to estimate our military forces just by observing these supplies when they are on the way here.¡± The Earl was afraid that the winged skeleton might not understand and said, ¡°Soldiers of different grades will also receive different supplies. A professional need only a nce to know what are the items being transported on the wagons and thereby estimating the level of the army and its number of soldiers.¡±


    ¡°Humph, in other words, these people mean to attack the city. You only have five-hundred bodyguards while their assault team already consists of two-thousand light-armored knights. Let us keep the city gate shut. Hmm, they also have thirteen-hundred foot soldiers, but they don¡¯t seem to be the main force. By the looks of it, this is an overstaffed battalion with close to twenty-thousand people.


    At this moment, a knight rode to the bottom of the city and shouted to the top, ¡°You in the city, open the door.¡±


    ¡°Earl, thisnd belongs to Bitter Water Prefecture, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but...¡±


    ¡°I know who they are. Our countries have an alliance. If they attack your city, it is the same as dering war against Metatrin,¡± the winged skeleton said and hooked the Earl¡¯s finger as a sign of promise.


    Earl Besta was taken back by this humanized gesture. One of the jade skeletons behind the winged skeleton took a bow from one of the Earl¡¯s bodyguard. It took one arrow and shot it downwards.


    In the hands of the jade skeleton, an ordinary bow like this was able to create an explosive sound that could only be made by alchemy bows. The arrow directly pierced through the skull of the knight¡¯s warhorse and between the knight¡¯s legs.


    The knight was uninjured, but his warhorse died instantly. No matter how agile the knight was, he could not avoid falling to the ground clumsily.


    The knights outside the city were furious and protested loudly. The knight who lost his horse picked himself up and looked at the top of the city wall coldly for a long time before saying, ¡°Who is in charge of this city? Send someone who can talk to us.¡±


    This was when the winged skeleton spoke to Earl Besta, ¡°Their target is your Highness. Many tried to stop us on our way here, but we managed to avoid them. This time around, I have revealed myself. This small town will be thest ce that we can resist them. Earl, do you dare to stand up against these people outside the city?¡±


    ¡°If their target is her Highness, of course I dare!¡±


    ¡°Besta, their target is your Highness and not mine. No one knows that Saleen is here personally. Those that saw us on our way here can only deduce that mages and spatial equipment have been sent here to aid Your Highness, Lex. If they manage to intercept the equipment sent over by Metatrin, then Your Highness, Lex, will have a difficult time repelling the attack from the sea. What we have brought is abat vessel that has been dismantled into itsponents. If Lex is unable to defeat Cloudflow¡¯s fleet, she will be forced to marry the Emperor of Cloudflow, do you understand?¡±


    ¡°How dare Holy Rock City do that!¡± Earl Besta was raging.


    ¡°The armies deployed to the battlefront in the south of Holy Rock City are all the noble families¡¯ armies and are controlled by Prince Safilos. If we fail to provide aid, Lex will be forced to be married off to Cloudflow and our alliance will copse. It sounds ridiculous, but this is how it is. Holy Rock City is hoping that something will happen to Lex so that they will have the chance to control the north of Phoenix and suppress thends upied by Metatrin Kingdom.¡±


    ¡°Damn it!¡± Earl Besta was so furious that his moustache curled up. He drew out his Qin eight-sided sword from his waist and was about to give the order to attack.


    ¡°Earl, let me do it.¡± The winged skeleton pressed down Earl Besta¡¯s hands. He was more than two yards tall and Earl Besta could not overpower him. The sword was put back in its sheath.


    ¡°Are you confident?¡± Earl Besta began to worry after his fury passed. The enemy was at least twenty-thousand strong while his small town only consisted of new recruits. His five-hundred bodyguards were rather capable and had followed him for many years. Nevertheless, five-hundred men would never be able to ovee twenty-thousand, especially if they were soldiers from the Qin army.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± The side of the winged skeleton¡¯s mouth cracked open again. His unique way of smiling was his response to Earl Besta. ¡°Earl, do you have any bodyguard that is extremely courageous? Lend me one.¡±


    ¡°Courageous? Mu En,e out,¡± Earl Besta shouted. A soldier that was two yards tall stepped out. This soldier was wearing restorative armor, where the exterioryer was a metallic light armor and the interioryer was a leather armor made from the hide of magic beasts. This bodyguard was about twenty years old. He wore a short bow on his back and looked like he was excellent at shooting.


    The winged skeleton looked at Mu En and said, ¡°Are you afraid of spirits of the dead?¡±


    Mu En stood with his chest puffed out and said, ¡°What is there to be afraid of? When Qin was founded, countless spirits of the dead fought in those battles. Without the spirits of the dead, there would have been no Qin to speak of.¡±


    ¡°Very well. Remove your armor, change into this ande out of the city with me.¡± A ck magic robe appeared in the winged skeleton¡¯s hands even as he spoke.


    Mu En looked at Earl Besta, who said, ¡°Just follow what Bing says.¡±


    Mu En had no choice but to remove his twoyers of armor. The cloth gown that he wore inside failed to conceal his admirable physique. After taking off his helmet and boots, Mu En donned the mage robes and looked extremely ufortable. Such an item was not supposed to be worn by anyone for no good reason. If an ordinary person wore it, mages would be furious.


    Fortunately, there was a symbol of a skull on the ck robe. That was the mark for death mages, so element mages would not bother him. There were very few death mages now, so hopefully no one would pick on his transgression.


    After putting on his cloth boots and belt, winged skeleton made sure that the belt was mounted with magic nuclei and he passed Mu En a magic staff. Finally, Mu En put on a hood and his transformation into a mage wasplete. Fortunately, his face was pale, otherwise it would be strange for a death mage to look so muscr.


    The knight that was outside the city was getting impatient and was walking back to his troop. Even if they knew that the military forces in the city was weak, these two-thousand cavalries were still unable to attack the small town as the rest of the army had yet to arrive.


    Cavalries were not suitable for attacking city walls. Even if they dismounted and became foot soldiers, they might not be as powerful as pure foot soldiers. They also did not have any equipment to attack the city.


    After the winged skeleton has finished disguising Mu En, he suddenly extended his hand and drew a magic symbol on Mu En¡¯s forehead. Mu En felt faint for a moment before regaining consciousness again. He now heard the winged skeleton¡¯s voice in his head.


    ¡°Just say whatever I ask you to say. Just follow my tone.¡±


    Mu En was confused, but nodded. All of a sudden, he feared that he might lose his soul now that he was being controlled by a spirit of the dead.


    By the time the skeletons carried Mu En to the bottom of the city wall, he was no longer fearful. The winged skeleton left behind a few undead soldiers on top of the city wall to protect the Earl. Although these undead soldiers were only grade-2 spirits of the dead, they were still useful for blocking arrows.


    The winged skeleton took out four green-spirit gemstones. These gemstones were not small and were found in the ocean. In an empty space behind the city wall, a huge ck-colored magic array shone and close to a thousand death knights appeared.


    The winged skeleton had summoned these death knights previously just to keep them in the green spirits. The green spirits were of such excellent quality that they could easily contain more than two-hundred grade-3 spirits of the dead.


    Unlike doom knights, death knights would no longer be able to advance. Nevertheless, the abilities of these one-thousand spirits of the dead must not be overlooked. The winged skeleton smiled and helped Mu En onto a huge and handsome-looking skeletal warhorse. This skeletal warhorse was at least grade-3 and looked more formidable than those that Saleen and the rest rode on.


    ¡°Mu En, in a while, I will finish off all those people that wish to harm Princess Lex. You must not be soft-hearted okay?¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice sounded in Mu En¡¯s head. Mu En straightened his back suddenly.


    ¡°Your Excellency, I understand. I will follow your instructions!¡±


    ¡°Very well. Open the city gates.¡± The winged skeleton led the six jade skeletons that had also mounted onto their skeletal warhorses, each of them wielding a giant axe in their hands.

 Chapter 719: The wrath of spirits (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 719: The wrath of spirits (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The gates to the small town opened slowly, but the cavalrymen afar did not have the intention to charge forward. Above the city gates was a colossal battlement with a dozen heavy crossbows taking aim. If the cavalrymen charged forward, massive losses would be sustained, trebuchets or heavy crossbows were at least needed to suppress the shotsing from the battlement for the city gates could be breached.


    Mu En rode on a skeletal warhorse, he took the lead and charged out of the city gates. Behind him, the winged skeleton was leading six jade skeletons and one-thousand death knights. Behind these death knights were another few hundred undead soldiers.


    The cavalrymen afar were startled when they saw so many spirits before them, then they swiftly got into formation.


    The winged skeleton gave an order to Mu En¡¯s mind directly. Following the winged skeleton¡¯s instructions, Mu En said, ¡°Who is yourmander? Tell him toe out and speak to me.¡±


    His voice was cold, coupled with the disguise, the cavalrymen thought that he was a death sorcerer. Nobody expected another death sorcerer to appear in this town. Since the main forces had not arrived, themander of the emblem group of cavalrymen was at a loss of what to do.


    A death mage was the hardest thing to deal with. Even though death magic seemed to be deteriorating, there were still dozens of death sorcerers above grade-7 in Qin. None of these people could be trifled with.


    It was rumored that a death sorcerer¡¯s attack range was more than one-thousand yards, more horrifying than an elemental mage. The cavalrymen backed away in difort, they did not even realize that their formation had be a little dispersed.


    Their enemy was a group of spirits, which meant that their enemy knew no pain nor fear.


    ¡°A bunch of useless people.¡± Mu En spat out these words, scanning the closest two-hundred cavalrymen with contempt. These cavalrymen grew very afraid, then they suddenly turned around and fled to the rear.


    There were only around two-hundred cavalrymen at the front, and they were in the face of more than a thousand spirits. The psychological pressure had caused these regr soldiers to crumble.


    Above Mu En¡¯s head, a ck colored magic image with a diameter of more than three yards rose up slowly. There was a three-dimensional crimson eye in the middle of this image.


    It was Spirit Gaze, a death spell which enabled one to observe dozens of miles into the distance.


    The Spirit Gaze kept rising higher and higher. In the winged skeleton¡¯s vision there were more than twenty-thousand troops dozens of miles away who were swarming towards the town. Including the cavalrymen at the front, the Qin army had deployed over twenty-six-thousand soldiers this time around.


    Even though the Qin¡¯s military system was different from that of Tanggsi, both parties still shared some simrities.


    One army from the Tanggsi Empire contained twenty-five-thousand soldiers, while one Qin camp had ten-thousand men. If one Qin camp was allocated with more than fifteen-thousand auxiliary troops its strength would coincide with that of one Tanggsi army.


    An army of such scale was allocated with a number of sieging appliances, so it could engage in group battles.


    The cavalrymen at the front, who were a few hundred yards away, had fear stered across their faces. They obviously did not dare battle with the winged skeleton¡¯s spirit army. The winged skeleton sneered, ¡°The other party is clearly preparing to invade the city, otherwise it wouldn¡¯t have brought along more than ten-thousand auxiliary troops.¡±


    Usually, the maximum range of a trebuchet was five miles. Even if the town did not possess any superior trebuchets, the army afar would alsoe to a halt five miles away. Their infantrymen then would change equipment and prepare to invade the city.


    The information grasped by the Qin people was considered ample, they knew that this town contained five-thousand soldiers on paper, but there were only five-hundred elites in reality. The rest were new soldiers who had never been to war. On the other hand, the over two-hundred Metatrin people who entered the town were all elites.


    There were less than eight-hundred elites in the town. It was more than sufficient to use twenty-six-thousand soldiers to conquer this town.


    The Qin people never thought of one thing, Saleen did not send a simple transportation team over. Saleen instead had personally led his subordinates to the Bitter Water County. No one knew that Saleen had a grade-8 spirit beside him. When Saleen was defending Metatrin City, the winged skeleton was still at sea.


    This time around, the winged skeleton had followed Saleen to the Bitter Water County, bringing along the spirits who had been sealed within the Green Spirit rocks. There were over fifty-thousand soldiers and the winged skeleton was going to use these soldiers to organize a fleet. To ensure Saleen¡¯s safety, he did not leave any soldier behind, he had brought along all of them.


    The winged skeleton had no problems summoning one-thousand death knights in one go. It would also be very taxing on him tomand too many spirits, in each battle, the limit was two-thousand and five-hundred spirits. ¡°I really wish Master could advance. Once I be a grade-9 spirit, I will be able tomand more than ten-thousand powerful spirits in battle.¡± If the winged skeleton had fully absorbed the Soul mes of the spirit kings, he would even be confident ofmanding more than one-hundred-thousand spirits.


    The Soul mes of the kings already contained the rough structure of rules.


    The Spirit Gaze allowed the winged skeleton to discover an army in the distance. He knew that a battle was inevitable, which was different from his n. The Qin people had never thought of using any other techniques.


    ¡°The Qin people will use force to destroy this town before capturing Metatrin¡¯s envoy, this means that the army afar will surely have professionals at the standard of a sorcerer. A sorcerer isn¡¯t easy to deal with.¡± As the winged skeleton pondered, he had already given secondmand to Mu En.


    Atop the skeletal warhorse, Mu En used the magic staff to point towards his front. Two groups of death knights beside him then urged their warhorses and charged forward.


    The weapons used by a death knight were different from humans. They wielded huge des which were mottled with rust, there were many corroded cavities on the de¡¯s surface. Each cavity contained an intense scent of death which would only be released when the de was used. Once a human inhaled this scent, its toxicity would quickly be unleashed.


    If an army without mages ran into the death knights, this army would experience the most painful battle. The winged skeleton noticed that the two-thousand cavalrymen did not have any mages amongst them. Among the one-thousand three-hundred infantrymen, there were less than ten white-robed mages. They were just vanguards who were used to harass the enemy after all.


    The moment the death knights charged forward, the quality of Qin¡¯s army was immediately exemplified. Of the over one-thousand infantrymen, eight-hundred split into twoyers as they held up gigantic wooden shields. They did not have any chariots and the metal shields were used by the main body at the rear.


    The infantrymen staged a defensive formation, eight-hundred infantrymen at the front with another five-hundred at the back. The infantrymen behind wieldedpound bows and they fired arrows into the sky.


    The reaction by the infantrymen was too mechanical. Both sides were too close, the death knights¡¯ charge could not elerate slowly. The skeletal warhorses simply increased their speed to the maximum magnitude.


    The arrows made by Qin were razor sharp. Logically speaking, each of the five-hundred infantrymen would be able to fire three consecutive arrows before the knights arrived in front of the defensive formation. The death knights were traveling at too high a speed though. The death knights in front had already crashed into the wooden shields by the time the second wave of arrows wasunched.


    Behind the wooden shields, the sturdy wooden bracket, as thick as a wrist, was fractured. Relying solely on their bodies, the infantrymen could not resist the impact by the death knights. It was as though a gigantic rock had been thrown into a pond,the infantrymen at the front row got dispersed. The infantrymen in the back row swarmed forward with pikes, but they were shoved aside by the death knights.


    To kill a death knight, one would have at least have to use an alchemical arrow which was infused with magic, or one could simply disperse the death knight¡¯s Soul me.


    The death knights shed about wildly, causing the infantrymen to be utterly quashed, as human heads flew about. The infantrymen did not have fully sealed armor, they were only d in light armor. All of them copsed after being poisoned in the area where there was a concentration of the scent of death.


    The white-robed mages at the back wanted to disperse the scent of death, but they were helpless. Some cavalrymen entered the formation and pulled the mages up onto their horses, they then fled into the distance.


    The infantrymen could put their lives on the line, but these mages had to be kept alive. A grade-1 mage was a very rare asset, this logic was unquestionable in the hearts of the Qin people.


    The winged skeleton could not let these mages flee. Waving a gigantic axe, he created a pathway measuring ten yards wide in the formation of the infantrymen. Mu En was utterly dizzy. Under the protection of the jade skeletons, he kept moving forward, and moving forward...


    In the eyes of the enemy, Mu En was a maniacal death mage. This death mage was going after the white-robed mages after crashing and prating the formation of infantrymen.


    Those white-robed mages were greatly petrified, ¡°The death mage didn¡¯t use any spells, he is actually chasing us with a few horrifying death creatures! Does he want to capture us alive?¡±


    The white-robed mages had guessed correctly, the winged skeleton nned to capture them alive. By killing a mage directly, he was worried that they might have a legacy. That would infuriate the mage¡¯s seniors. These mages could fetch a good price if they were captured alive though.


    The cavalrymen thought otherwise, they thought that the death mage wanted to kill those white-robed mages. Even though the white-robed mages never cast an offensive spell to target the death mage. It was already an offense to disperse a death mage¡¯s scent of death.


    Originally, the cavalrymen, who had separated into a dozen brigades, wanted to conduct a retaliation by nking the death knights. Now they had no choice but to split up and rescue the white-robed mages.


    The winged skeleton was overjoyed. His spection was right, the cavalrymen greatly valued these mages.


    Everything was much easier now. The winged skeleton waved his gigantic axe. Brandishing a four yard long long axe, anything which came into contact with it would be sliced into two pieces. Under the protection of seven skeletons, Mu En¡¯s courage gradually grew. Relying on the winged skeleton¡¯s guidance, his magic staff pointed in various directions. Following the lead of his magic staff, one brigade of death knights would surely rush forward to assault the mages¡¯ cavalrymen.


    The Qin cavalrymen did not possess any targeted equipment, they only wielded cross spears. Weapons which could break armor or executebined attacks were pretty good, but they did little damage to a death knight. Using a heavy sword was more reliable when dealing with a death knight.


    The winged skeleton slowed down intentionally, allowing the Qin cavalrymen to cut in front of him and obstruct his path forward. Swiftly, he waved his gigantic axe about, shing the cavalrymen and their horses into two pieces. The unluckiest people were several high grade swordmasters. If they had held their weapons in hand, they would not have been sliced into two.


    No one had evere across such a ferocious spirit. In the face of the winged skeleton¡¯s massive strength, the Qin cavalrymen never stood a chance.


    The white-robed mages were the bait. That led to the Qin cavalrymen rushing towards the death knights without any fear as though they were moths who were swarming towards light. The death knights¡¯ huge des danced in the air. Both parties possessed simr strength, but the death knights¡¯ warhorses carried more charging impact. This caused the Qin cavalrymen to be on the losing end as the death knights went through without any hindrance. Wherever the death knights went past, fresh blood would spew through the air. It immediately took on a purple hue and a ck scent of death.


    On average, five Qin cavalrymen were needed to make a death knight fall off its horse. The fallen death knights would wave their huge des and regroup with the team of undead soldiers at the back though.


    Using the white-robed mages as the center point, a death vortex ensued, as the surrounding cavalrymen kept charging inwards to obstruct the winged skeleton¡¯s path. Mu En appeared heroic. Every swing from his magic staff seemed like a guidance from the god of death, taking dozens of lives.

 Chapter 720: The wrath of spirits (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 720: The wrath of spirits (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A spirit was originally a type of conversion form, it was the most stable. The emotions experienced by a human could hardly affect a spirit. The winged skeleton was not a spirit which could be provoked easily. During the journey, he discovered many people who tried to intercept Saleen.


    Using the spirits released which could conduct reconnaissance silently from a great distance away, the winged skeleton managed to avoid all dangers. Saleen was not in his own city, he might not be able to flee if he got besieged by an army in the wilderness. The moment a grade-9 expert appeared, Saleen¡¯s current Crystal Finger could only be used once.


    At the moment, Saleen had already entered the Bitter Water County and the enemy had grasped urate information about him. The Qin people immediately deployed an army to stop Saleen.


    Indeed, the Qin people did not know that the leader of this team was Saleen. They would not have deployed regr troops so easily otherwise. They thought that the two-hundred man squad had brought along a number of spatial equipments to help Lex transport resources, so they thought of intercepting this squad.


    Killing Saleen would result in more losses than gains.


    Even though it was a misjudgment, the winged skeleton was still outraged, he decided to teach the Qin people a lesson. ¡°People who try to harm Master will have to pay with their lives.¡±


    A dozen cavalrymen were dragging the white-robed mages along, as they traveled north. From either side, cavalrymen from Qin kept charging out, trying to obstruct the winged skeleton¡¯s path. This towering spirit had given them a huge shock. After brandishing a gigantic axe, a one yard long blinding de was unleashed, no one could withstand these weapons.


    The winged skeleton controlled his rhythm carefully, ¡°If I capture the white-robed mages, the cavalrymen will lose all hope and they will stop swarming me.¡± The winged skeleton was only controlling the spirits from a dozen miles away. If this distance was exceeded, the death knights would battle using their instincts and they might not triumph over the Qin cavalrymen.


    A death knight was merely a grade-3 creature, while the Qin cavalrymen were not short of swordmasters. Without the winged skeleton¡¯s directions, these death knights could not have put up such a strong fight despite being outnumbered.


    The white-robed mages were led into the direction of Qin¡¯s main forces, while the cavalrymen blocking the winged skeleton had noticed a problem, but they could not leave the mages alone. If they fled now, they would be tried using militaryws. If they focused on retreating, their speed might not be faster than the spirits.


    At the rear, where the infantrymen¡¯s formation had been ravaged, the undead soldiers and fallen death knights were behaving bestially. They used undead poison to create even more undead soldiers. Without a death mage controlling them, these new undead soldiers were weaker than grade-1. Their speed and offensive power were very low, the only horrifying thing about them was that they could explode and spew undead fluid all over the ce. Anyone below the standard of a swordmaster would quickly turn into a corpse after being contaminated by this fluid.


    An undead explosion had a diameter of around four to five yards. Arrows had to be used to shatter the skulls of the undead soldiers.


    After the death knights went past the one-thousand and three-hundred Qin cavalrymen, a path in the middle had been shed into shreds by the winged skeleton and the jade skeletons, while the cavalrymen at the nks were wounded. Hundreds of undead soldiers then charged forward, and turned the wounded Qin infantrymen into grade-1 undead soldiers.


    A grade-2 undead soldier did not possess much intelligence, but its movements were agile. They led the newly transformed grade-1 undead soldiers and followed behind the brigade of death knights advancing north. Above the city entrance, Earl Besta was dumbfounded as he witnessed the scene before him.


    Over one thousand spirits had effortlessly quashed a formation put up by two-thousand Qin cavalrymen and one-thousand and three-hundred infantrymen. As they massacred their way through, their speed was not even reduced much.


    At the side, one trusted soldier whispered to the earl, ¡°Sir, should we inform His Highness?¡±


    This trusted soldier was pretty smart, he could guess that Qin¡¯s main forces were not very far away. If the spirits failed, then it would be better to send Saleen away since the enemy was still a great distance away. Even though the town was filled with new soldiers, they could still buy some time for Saleen if they fought to theirst breaths.


    ¡°Go inform His Highness.¡± Earl Besta was also worried that Saleen might get into trouble. If Saleen got trapped in this small town, the nearest elites from the Bitter Water County were five-hundred miles away. The nearby towns did not contain many troops. Lex did not deploy troops at this section of the border because she did not want Holy Rock City to do the same too.


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary.¡± A very mellow voice sounded behind the earl, causing the soldiers to be startled. It was unknown when Tolesi appeared at the city entrance.


    ¡°His Highness already knows about this, Earl, please let Lord Soldier do it.¡± Speaking, Tolesimanded the forty soldiers he brought along to begin assembling an alchemical crossbow.


    This alchemical crossbow was obviously a prohibited item, but since Saleen had already made his kingdom independent, he had the right to create any kind of alchemical crossbows. Below the four yard wide alchemical crossbow was a silver triangr rack. There was a pair of simplified binocrs installed atop the crossbow.


    This sort of sniper crossbow could pose a huge threat to the nobles, from a mile away this alchemical crossbow could still prate a doubleyered defense consisting of one low level magic shield and heavy armor. If a special arrowhead was used, its lethality would be even more horrifying.


    Unless a grand mage was present to use magic and alter the shooting angle of the arrow, this alchemical crossbow could kill many people that did not take precautions, from a mile away.


    Naturally, the shooting speed of such an alchemical crossbow was a problem, it could only fire one arrow per minute. Unless hundreds of them were fired at the same time, one alchemical crossbow could only be used to snipe the enemy¡¯smander. Alchemical crossbows with a higher firing speed were actually installed in therge appliances inside the battlements where there were mages operating them.


    Tolesi only brought one alchemical crossbow, he was trying to see if he could locate the highest ranking noble in the enemy¡¯s army. He could help Saleen¡¯s army save a lot of effort by killing that noble with one arrow.


    What about asking Tolesi to go out of the city to kill the enemy? He would not do that. Tolesi was not a demon with a mighty offensive power, his forte was in mental magic. In the defense of a city, one Mental Storm could cause all enemy soldiers within an area one-hundred yards wide to be dull-witted. If an illusion was created, the enemy would not even be able to locate their targets. That would allow his soldiers to massacre the enemy.


    Only the winged skeleton would do something like charging into the middle of the enemy.


    Saleen had woken up. Despite meditating, his body was still exhausted, so he decided to create a pail filled with Restorative Water and soak himself in it to allow his body to recover faster. Saleen was already used to such extravagant activities, he had thousands of mages and disciples working for him. The daily production volume of Restorative Water was huge.


    Eleanor and Isabe were enjoying this benifit at the same time. They were next door, also soaking themselves in a wooden tub. As the Restorative Water moisturized their bodies, they felt an unexinablefort. Isabe thought that it was a little overboard that the two of them were in a room doing this. Looking at Eleanor¡¯s nonchnt expression, Isabe could not bring herself to broach this topic though.


    Eleanor noticed Isabe¡¯s expression and knew what she was thinking about. Eleanor said, ¡°Sir is never stingy on magic equipment, medicines or items. Do you feel that we are being prodigal by soaking in the Restorative Water?¡±


    ¡°When I was in the Tanggsi Empire, I always used the Restorative Water with much prudence. Even though it is created using a level-1 spell, its volume is less than the volume of magic liquid created. If it is going to expire soon, I will drink it. No matter what I would never use it in this manner.¡±


    ¡°Are you worried that Sir is being too wasteful?¡± Eleanor probed.


    ¡°Yes, since I have decided to follow Sir, I hope that he can aplish great things, so that I will have a bright future. Unlike you, my teacher is only a grade-6 grand mage. Without anyone to guide me I can only be a grade-7 sorcerer at most. It will be very onerous for me to progress anymore. I have to work much harder, I don¡¯t wish to gamble anymore.¡±


    ¡°You have followed Sir for too short a period, you don¡¯t understand his character.¡± Eleanor smiled and said, ¡°He only has a dozen or so followers, and he is only willing to spend money on these people. He is extremely calctive towards others.¡±


    ¡°What about the maidservants?¡±


    ¡°They are demons, but Nailisi transformed them into the appearance of maids. They are all male demons, don¡¯t let them take advantage of you.¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Isabe stared at the door with anxiety.


    Eleanor cackled, ¡°Isabe might appear valiant and courageous, but in actual fact, she is the one of the more na?ve characters beside Saleen. Even that youth called Su is wiser than her.¡±


    ¡°Rx, with me around, the demons will not get close to you.¡± Eleanor consoled Isabe.


    Cuisi andpany had no intention to be voyeurs, the three of them remained in Saleen¡¯s room earnestly protecting Saleen. The four demons were d in magic armor, they could revert to their original forms anytime and engage in intense battles.


    Nailisi had made it very clear, if Saleen came to harm, she would not kill the four demons. She would turn them into genuine females before throwing them to the monsters in the demonic city.


    Cuisi was the most annoyed. After advancing to a supreme demon, he still could not alter his fate. Nailisi oppressed them greatly, they could not see any hope at all.


    Leading the spirits, Mu En had already traveled for over ten miles. The main forces from Qin were in the far distance ahead. At the front were dozens of war chariots withrge crossbows installed atop, while an emblem group of heavy cavalrymen formed up behind the war chariots.


    When Mu En saw the alchemical war chariots, his heart shuddered, ¡°They can fire dozens ofrge arrows simultaneously. There are twelve war chariots ahead, that means that over one-hundred arrows will beunched. I will not be able to withstand any of those arrows. Luckily the cavalrymen who are carrying the white-robed mages are in front of me. The crossbows on the chariots cannot immediately fire yet.¡±


    Under the winged skeleton¡¯s orders, Mu En burst out in boisterousughter, as he pointed with the magic staff. At about five-hundred yards away, several gray rays volleyed downwards. They struck the war chariots at the front. At the same time, a gigantic gray hand condensed out of thin air. With a scoop, it had captured the few white-robed mages.


    The armor of the crossbowmen on the war chariots emitted a magical radiance, but there were simply too many gray rays. The magic armor of the crossbowmen could withstand the attack, but the war chariots corroded at a speed visible to the naked eye.


    As the horses galloped, the war chariots produced rumbles. They were going to be disintegrated very soon. A few of the horses pulling the chariots were unfortunately struck by the rays. Their hair began falling off and their muscles shrunk as they fell to the ground with cramped bodies.


    The warriors steering the chariots quickly pulled on the reins, but it was toote. The war chariots had already disintegrated before the speed could be reduced by half. The alchemical crossbows atop were flung out. The crossbowmen jumped out of the chariots and rolled across the ground.


    ¡°Kill!¡± Mu En¡¯s throat produced hoarse bellows. The spirits behind him swarmed forward. They were like a ck cloud furling forward across the ground. Standing in the way of the spirits was the emblem group of heavy cavalrymen from Qin. These soldiers were the true elites of the army.

 Chapter 721: Grand Sorcerer Mu En (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 721: Grand Sorcerer Mu En (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Mu En was from Qin so he was fully aware of the abilities of Qin iron knights. Since he was sandwiched amongst the six jade skeletons, he had no choice but to charge towards the Qin iron knights.


    Qin heavy-armored knights weighed close to two-thousand pounds including both human, horse, their armors, and their weapons. All the warhorses were equivalent to grade-1 or grade-2 magic beasts that feared neither water nor mes. They would continue to charge fearlessly ahead even if it was a sea of mes ahead of them.


    Qin heavy-armored knights were at least high-level swordsmen. They had no problems wielding weapons of thirty to fifty pounds even if they were in full armor.


    The armor worn by the horses protected even their limbs. There was a metal ram on their chest that could break down big shields.


    The long spears carried by the heavy-armored knights were alchemy equipment that could negate spells and pierce through normal heavy armor easily.


    Even if they did not wield any weapons, the way the heavy-armored knights charged could easily break the bones of those they made contact with.


    If these heavy-armored knights were given magic heavy swords, their ability to kill would be overwhelming. The winged skeleton was one of the rare spirits of the dead that was willing to read up so he was familiar with the way Qin armies fought. It was strange that he would match his death knights up against the heavy-armored knights.


    Death knights could easily handle light-armored knights, but only powerful spells could deal with heavy-armored knights.


    Mu En followed the winged skull¡¯s instructions and held up the magic staff in his hands. Gray-colored waves dispersed violently. The moment these waves swept across the death troops, it was as if they had consumed some drug that increased the speed of their movements as they charged at the heavy-armored knights.


    As they were charging at their highest speed, Mu En pointed his magic staff ahead. As he pointed, the winged skeleton triggered the spell that had been stored in the staff.


    Sorcerers usually would not be willing to get so close to heavy-armored knights unless they were flying in the air without the threat of alchemy crossbows. Under the control of the winged skeleton, Mu En, the fake mage, did some things that caught the heavy-armored knights by surprise; hemanded the skeletal warhorses to charge towards the Qin iron knights.


    A sorcerer¡¯sbat abilities would never surpass a swordmaster. Even if his spells could kill one-hundred to two-hundred men, the remaining knights would still be after his life.


    A spell was cast instantly from the magic staff in the form of ck fog that condensed into an evil dragon. The dragon dove straight into the midst of the heavy-armored knights.


    This ck evil dragon was three-headed and wherever it passed, the armor and muscles of the heavy-armored knights turned to ash, leaving behind entire sets of skeletons. Even the warhorses underneath them were not spared.


    The ck evil dragon was attacking the heavy-armored knights at will. Even silver grand swordmasters could only try to hide from grade-8 death spells. Although this was not a spell that attacked multiple targets at once, it was able to stay in effect for a long time under the control of the death mage.


    Hundreds of heavy-armored knights were turned into skeletons by the ck evil dragon. Soul mes suddenly burned in the eyes of these skeletons as they turned into skeleton knights directly. A long bone spear appeared in their hands and they began to kill their formerpanions around them.


    Spirit form was a rare death spell. The winged skeleton was not a death mage, but a spirit of the dead himself, which made it easier for him to cast or store. The ck evil dragon was immune to physical attacks so the heavy-armored knights were helpless against it.


    In no time, more than three-hundred heavy-armored knights had been turned into skeletons by the ck evil dragon.


    The winged skeleton threw six white-robed mages to the jade skeletons to be put behind the warhorses. These six mages had already lost consciousness. Although spirit shock was not a high-level spell, it was still effective against these low-level mages.


    The three-hundred or so skeletal knights hadpletely messed up the heavy-armored knights¡¯ formation. It would have been better if they only turned into ashes. By turning frompanion to spirit of the dead suddenly, the impact on the remaining heavy-armored knights was incredible.


    Nevertheless, these heavy-armored knights were considered elite as they began to chop away at the skeletal knights around them. Now that their attention had been diverted, the death knights were able to charge all the way unhindered. The ck evil dragon began to dissipate as another one-hundred knights turned into skeletons.


    A grade-8 spell alone managed to eliminate more than four-hundred heavy-armored knights. This waspletely idental. The heavy-armored knights were clustered together behind the chariots with huge alchemy crossbows opening up the way. They never expected any mage to dare toe within such a short distance, much less a death mage.


    If an element sorcerer were to cast a spell and sessfully killed more than one-hundred men, he was already considered lucky. If not for the pursuit of speed, the heavy-armored knights would not have gathered on the road and resulted in so many casualties by caused by spirit form.


    The remaining heavy-armored knights were going mad. They were all experienced warriors and were aware that the heavy losses that they had suffered were due to their formation. The captain behind pointed at Mu En and shouted, ¡°Charge ahead and kill him. Don¡¯t let him fly!¡±


    Some heavy-armored knights immediately slowed down and took out their javelins. The moment Mu En showed any intention to fly and leave the safety boundaries provided by the skeletons around him, they would shoot these javelins at him.


    Mu En did not know how to fly at all though. Indeed, he was courageous, but he would never think of charging at Qin¡¯s main forces. Right now, he could only pray the winged skeleton would not do anything insane. If he was going to die, it had better be for something worthwhile.


    A small team of forty iron knights gathered in a single direction and charged at Mu En. The winged skeleton was pleased. He wielded his giant axe and attacked as well. In no time, Mu En had be a ma attracting all the enemies. As a swordmaster, there was no way he could escape. He could only wield his magic staff around, as if he wasmanding his spirits of the dead.


    The winged skeleton charged to the front. The de of the giant axe was more than a yard long and would split any heavy armor into two. The sound of the axe hacking into the iron knights was music to the the winged skeleton¡¯s ears. If not for the enemy targeting Mu En, how could he have such a good time killing them?


    All these people who dared to pose a threat to his master, they would all be eliminated one by one.


    From behind the heavy-armored knights, more than ten beams of light shone from spells. The remaining five-hundred heavy-armored knights had finally been boosted by spells and now fought fiercely against the death knights.


    This was thest thing that the winged skeleton wanted to see. The first time both sides shed head-on against each other, more than a hundred death knights were hacked off their horses while less than fifty heavy-armored knights were injured. Most of the death knights that had fallen had yet to die so they turned around and shed at the legs of the enemy¡¯s horses with their swords, causing tens of knights to fall off as well. The fallen knights would then quickly pick themselves up and retaliate with their heavy swords.


    This was what Qin knights were all about. After being boosted with magic, the death knights¡¯ death aura was ineffective against the soldiers d in heavy armor. Both sides were equal in strength, but in terms of technique, the winged skeleton was unable to coordinate so many spirits of the dead to attack altogether at once.


    These heavy-armored knights must be killed. If they could finish off an entire regiment of heavy-armored knights, the enemy would be heartbroken.


    The winged skeleton raised the giant axe in his hands and split the knight closest to him into two. With blood smeared on the giant axe, the colorful magic nuclei in its center began to release blinding beams of light.


    Ow...


    There was a howl of despair as a hundred yard wide death ripple shot out from the front of the winged skeleton. The souls of the hundreds of soldiers that he had killed were all sucked into the giant axe and they all howled together at once.


    A death ripple swept across the heavy-armored knights. Their protection spells were only grade-3 at most and were easily destroyed like paper when attacked by this grade-8 spell.


    All the Qin iron knights suddenly became paralyzed and there was a look of emptiness in their eyes. The impact on their hearts and souls were so great, it was as if they were on the brink of death. The armor that they wore was like ice from hell, freezing their bone marrow.


    The death knights were unaffected and with their big swords, they cut down all their enemies that had been paralyzed.


    The mages behind immediately stopped advancing once they saw that a grade-8 spell had appeared. The winged skeleton did not go overboard. He knew that the enemy¡¯s armies wereprised of quite a number of mages. If they continued to charge further, his death knights would suffer huge losses.


    Mu En waved his magic staff once and the six jade skeletons escorted him to escape towards the direction of the small town.


    If they were to be surrounded by more than twenty-thousand soldiers, the result of fighting to their deaths was that the winged skeleton would have to summon even more spirits of the dead. These spirits of the dead were meant to be deployed onbat vessels. He did not have a lot of spirits of the dead that were suitable for fighting onnd.


    The winged skeleton also knew that Qin organized their military forces so that each main corp would be apanied by two regiments of heavy-armored knights. Now that the enemy¡¯s mages were pressing ahead, it would be impossible to try and destroy half of the enemy¡¯s heavy-armored knights quickly.


    After a few rounds of attack, six-hundred out of one-thousand death knights remained. Those that had lost their horses began to retreat as well, though they were much slower. The winged skeleton could not afford to care too much about these spirits of the dead. Their task was to kill as many enemies as possible. After these spirits of the dead had been killed, they would return back to death dimension. No one knew how long it would take for them to recover fully, or when the next time they would be summoned again was.


    It was unlikely that the Qin mages would persist in killing all the spirits of the deadpletely, otherwise they would have to use up too many magic chords.


    In total, the winged skeleton managed to kill two-thousand light-armored knights, one-thousand heavy-armored knights, and thirteen-hundred foot soldiers. It was an impressive tally and he felt good about himself even as he retreated.


    The Qin armies could not catch up with the death knights and could only vent their anger on the spirits of the dead that had been left behind. Hundreds of light-armored knights surrounded the remaining spirits of the dead and shot them down before the foot soldiers hacked off their skulls. Their soul mes dissipated and would be bleak and dim even if they were revived on the death dimension. They could only hide in the corners of the earth and await their chance for revival.


    The Qin army lost their assault team and the heavy-armored knights that had paved the way. The battalionmander was furious, but they were unable to catch up with the death mage and were blocked by thousands of undead soldiers. These undead soldiers spread themselves out and would self-destruct once any enemy approached.


    The ground was covered with gore and the air was toxic. The Qin army had no choice but to deploy some mages to dispel the poison.


    By the time the Qin army got around the undead soldiers, the winged skeleton had already led his six-hundred death knights back to the small town and closed the city gate.


    The battalionmander lost one-thousand iron knights to death spells in such a short time. Not only was he furious, he was also horrified. The reports did not mention such a cruel death mage!


    This small town did not even have a name and was only built temporarily for soldiers to stay in. Why would there be such a ruthless death mage there?


    Although he had element sorcerers as well, he could not afford to incur any more losses! He thought the enemy only consisted of five-hundred elite soldiers and more than four-thousand new recruits, but suddenly he had to face a death sorcerer instead. He was no longer confident of victory anymore.

 Chapter 722: Grand Sorcerer Mu En (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 722: Grand Sorcerer Mu En (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was expected for a battalionmander to be hesitant when facing up against a death sorcerer. There was no excuse for a twenty-thousand strong army to retreat after they had managed to advance within ten miles of the city though. Themander had also lost three-thousand of his knights. There was no way he would be able to justify it to his superiors.


    The Qin army from the south was mainlyprised of the armies of noble families from the House of Commons and House of Lords. There were no royal swordsmen battalion nor the station troops from the four towns in Holy Rock City. As such, the army that the battalionmander was leading was gathered together rather hastily.


    The noble families would have noints if they had lost all their armies in battles with the Tanggsis. The problem was that this was a secret order so they would have to bear responsibility for the oue.


    After returning to the city, the winged skeleton retrieved his death knights and skeletal warhorses. He smiled and patted Mu En¡¯s shoulder. He asked, ¡°Mu En, did you have a good time killing just now?¡±


    Mu En smiled bitterly and said, ¡°Your Excellency, I imitated a death sorcerer. That could have been a fatal mistake...¡±


    The silver-colored soul me in the winged skeleton¡¯s eyes flickered as he giggled and asked, ¡°Are you scared?¡±


    ¡°Of course. No matter how brave I am, I would never dare to upset mages,¡± Mu En said truthfully. He was a high-level swordmaster, but even if he reached the standard of a zun grand swordmaster, he would have no chance of survival against a death sorcerer.


    ¡°As long as you continue to follow me, no one will be able to expose you.¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s mouth cracked open. It was a frightening sight behind his crystal mask.


    ¡°How can I leave Earl Besta? He doesn¡¯t have enough people around him already,¡± Mu En protested gloomily.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. After what happened, Princess Lex will deploy Earl Besta elsewhere and send a young general here instead. The old Earl... he will return to Bitter Water Prefecture. Your Highness will not let him continue risking his life here. You will follow me and continue to imitate.¡±


    ¡°Your Excellency, why...¡±


    ¡°Hey, you don¡¯t even have to ask. The Earl will surely agree to it.¡± The winged skeleton interrupted Mu En. He was a spirit of the dead that possessed intelligence, which was very rare and barely any death mages would be able to summon such spirits of the dead.


    He had his reasons for disguising himself as a creature summoned by Mu En. By concealing his true abilities, he would be able to take his enemies by surprise in the future.


    Outsiders would think that he was the most powerful creature that Mu En could summon, so they would target Mu En. If the winged skeleton did not possess intelligence, then such a strategy would not work. Unfortunately, the winged skeleton was more intelligent than most humans. Such a strategy would be fatal for the enemies.


    ¡°In the future, you will be called Grand Sorcerer Mu En.¡± After speaking, the winged skeleton led the six jade skeletons to the top of the city wall. The battle had only just begun and he had already defeated the enemy¡¯s heavy-armored knights. The enemy was left with no choice but to continue battling on.


    Mu En felt fearful yet pleased to be following behind the winged skeleton.


    What he feared was that he would not end up well if he were to be exposed by a death sorcerers. On the other hand, he was pleased because he knew that his future would be an exciting one by following the winged skeleton.


    Mu En knew that the winged skeleton was a powerful and intelligent spirit of the dead that was Saleen¡¯s bodyguard. His future would be bright by following the winged skeleton.


    People that trained in swordsmanship were very different from those that trained in magic, but they shared amon aspiration of being sessful in what they did. Mages could spend their entire lives training until they died in a magic tower while those that trained in swordsmanship would likely die on the battlefield depending on how powerful they became.


    It was every ordinary person¡¯s dream to achieve a rank of nobility andnds. Mages were the only exception.


    When the winged skeleton returned to the top of the city wall, he saw that Earl Besta was still there. He was using alchemy binocrs to observe the enemy and saw that a few scouts were spread out across a mile observing his town too.


    When he saw the winged skeleton, Earl Besta said, ¡°Soldier...¡±


    ¡°Earl, the enemy still has about twenty-thousand men, but we will definitely be able to defend this town. What I don¡¯t know is what the Princess intends to do with this town after we defeat the enemy.¡± The winged skeleton was not concerned about whether or not they would be able to defend the town sessfully. The town would be lost if he was not around, but since he was, not even thirty-thousand or fifty-thousand men would be able to seed in taking out the town.


    ¡°Her Highness will not give up on this town. If the army from the south wants to go into battle with Her Highness, she will retaliate by sending soldiers to attack the Qin army from behind,¡± Earl Besta answered with certainty.


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I will carry on with what I intend to do then.¡±


    The winged skeleton waved at the six jade skeletons even as he spoke. The jade skeletons nodded and went down the city wall. They began to retrieve resources andponents from their spatial equipment and began to build catapults.


    There were only slightly more than ten catapults in the town, which would be insufficient to deal with such a huge army. The winged skeleton had so many catapults that they could arm a few fleets.


    After Eleanor created a more advanced type of magic cannon, the catapults that had been built onbat vessels were all dismantled and kept by the winged skeleton.


    There were some swordsmen in the town that were previously magic apprentices. They were all summoned over to help the jade skeletons in constructing the catapults. The catapults that were built on thebat vessels were small, but possessed a long attacking range. Naval warfare usually ranged between five to ten miles. One mile was the attacking range of alchemy crossbows.


    The winged skeleton began to set up a summoning magic array on top of the city wall. The town¡¯s city wall was only ten yards tall, but was thicker than those of typical medium-sized cities. The top of the city wall was as thick as eight yards. The summoning magic array¡¯s diameter was six yards and after the winged skeleton mounted magic nuclei on it, he began to summon skeleton soldiers.


    The winged skeleton had no hidden agendas. The skeleton soldiers he summoned were unlike those summoned by the Three Kings to make up the numbers. There were no cracks on any of these skeleton soldiers. They specialized in different things and were of different grades.


    Grade-2 and three skeleton soldiers were amon sight as troop after troop of them appeared out of the array. The top of the city wall was surrounded by ck fog as the huge spirit gaze rose tens of yards high and observed the areas far away.


    The winged skeleton could summon up to one-thousand low-level spirits of the dead and control them directly. If he summoned too many, he would only be able to give general orders.


    ¡°Earl, you can bring your bodyguards to be with my Master. Leave the defense of the top of the city wall to me.¡± The Earl frowned at the winged skeleton¡¯s words. Nevertheless, he knew that the few hundred bodyguards under him would not be able to defend even one side of the city wall. Right now, the defense of the top of the city wall counted on two-thousand new recruits. Theycked military forces and powerful equipment to defend the city.


    This small town was never a military base. It was only a symbol of peace for both sides.


    ¡°In that case, I will leave it to Your Excellency.¡± The Earl was in a hurry to see Saleen so he quickly left the top of the city head with his bodyguards.


    The top of the city wall was now left with spirits of the dead, Mu En, Aiwa, and forty of Saleen¡¯s bodyguards.


    ¡°Aiwa, you can leave too.¡± The winged skeleton began to send people away. Aiwa smiled with a look of respect as he bowed to the winged skeleton before leaving with Saleen¡¯s bodyguards. The winged skeleton released ten grade-4 death archers from green spirit and deployed them to the alchemy crossbows, ready to shoot down the officers near the city wall.


    Aiwai led Saleen¡¯s bodyguards down the city wall. As he looked back at the spirits of the dead on top of the city wall, he almost wanted to spit at them, but did not dare to do so. He thought to himself, ¡°I better not do so. I must keep this to myself. If I offend this fellow, Saleen will never support me.¡±


    Nailisi could afford to go against the winged skeleton, but Aiwa did not have the guts. No matter what, Nailisi would have Saleen¡¯s support, but Aiwa was merely a creature bonded to Nailisi. Saleen would be able to deal with him as he wished. After demon city has been built, Nailisi would be able to summon even more demons. Aiwa was afraid that he might lose his position.


    On this expedition, all four demons were determined to perform well and impress Saleen.


    The Earl brought his bodyguards back to his own mansion. Saleen and the rest had made use of the power of restorative water and hadpletely recovered from their fatigue. When the two met, the Earl was concerned and said, ¡°Your Highness, a twenty-thousand strong Qin army is approaching. Maybe you should leave first.¡±


    ¡°Besta, you don¡¯t have to worry, I am heading to Daliang City to help Lex. If we are not able to stop Cloudflow¡¯s fleet, I will put up a final resistance in Daliang City. Cloudflow has an army of one-million, but I am not worried at all. Let Soldier get used to this type of battle first.¡± Saleen seemed unconcerned.


    ¡°A one-million-strong army!¡± Besta was not aware of the magnitude of the problem that Daliang City faced. He was horrified after hearing what Saleen said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Daliang City will not fall as long as Lex is prepared. The only thing to worry about is that Cloudflow may form an alliance with Tanggsi Empire because of this. If so, Bitter Water Prefecture will be under pressure from Holy Rock City. My purpose foring over is to eliminate the Cloudflow fleets.¡±


    Besta finally understood. The people of Cloudflow had always been proud of their fleets. If Saleen was able to defeat the Cloudflow fleets, Holy Rock City would have to reconsider Metatrin¡¯s naval abilities. It would be easy to defeat Cloudflow onnd, but it was a totally different matter battling them on the seas.


    More than two-hundred skeletons had gathered on top of the city wall before the winged skeleton stopped summoning spirits. The magic array stopped functioning and the six high-level magic nuclei mounted on it became dim.


    Of the two-thousand skeletons, only five-hundred remained in the center while the rest split into both sides of the city walls. These skeletons were mixed with the other soldiers. The soldiers of Bitter Water Prefecture were nervous yet curious.


    It had been many years since death mages and humans fought side by side in battle. The soldiers did not fear these spirits of the dead. Their death aura was not too powerful and were simr to that of a human swordmaster of beginner level, which was the level that some of the soldiers were at.


    ¡°Mu En, I willmand the rest of the battle through you. Take this.¡± the winged skeleton took out another magic staff in exchange for the one in Mu En¡¯s hands.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s magic staffs were given to him by Saleen. All of them stored three death spells each.


    The Qin army advanced within five miles from the town before stopping. The Qin general was cautious. Based on the information that he had received, the town should only contain twelve catapults. His army could easily attack the city while incurring minimal losses. Now that there was a death sorcerer in the city, anything was possible.


    The Qin battalionmander summoned all his mages and began to discuss strategies.

 Chapter 723: One-million gold coins (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 723: One-million gold coins (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The anonymous town was situated on a in where there were no tenable defense positions, it could be invaded from all directions. Usually, the offensive party would seal three of the city gates. They would then feign an attack at two doors and conducting a strong attack on one door.


    If the defending party fled, it would be pursued by cavalrymen and sustain massive losses.


    This was the standard strategy used to deal with an isted city, but there were sorcerers in the city, so this method wouldn¡¯t be so usible anymore. At the moment, the Qin people were only left with around twenty-thousand troops. If the three-thousand cavalrymen were set aside to chase the fleeing enemies, then only eighteen-thousand troops would be left. Split among the three directions, only six-thousand men would be stationed at each gate.


    Even if two-thousand troops were transferred from each side to make up ten-thousand soldiers at the frontal, the campmander would not be confident of conquering this city.


    A death sorcerer was like a huge rock weighing on the heart of the Qin¡¯s campmander.


    On the battlefield, a death sorcerer was more useful than an elemental sorcerer. With sufficient high level magic nuclei a death sorcerer could summon an endless stream of spirits to partake in battle. Even though the summoned spirits would be low grade creatures, spirits at grade-2 or grade-3 were still a nightmare for human soldiers.


    The mostmon attacks disyed by a spirit were poison, fear, ageing, corrosion, and illusion.


    If there were no mages around to disperse these effects continuously, the soldiers¡¯ offensive power would deteriorate much more severely. The mages were asked to meet with the campmander, then themander professed his worries.


    This army contained a grade-7 sorcerer, five grade-4 grand mages, and eighteen white-robed mages. As the six white-robed mages in the vanguard group were captured by the winged skeleton, the mages were very vexed.


    ¡°We don¡¯t know what the enemy will do with the six white-robed mages. It will be okay if they are used as hostages, but if they are used for death magic experiments, then those six white-robed mages will be doomed.¡±


    This was a standoff between two armies, it was not some personal vendetta. Even if the white-robed mages had a backer they would not be able to regain their pride.


    ¡°Send someone to talk to the sorcerer.¡± Qin¡¯s grade-7 sorcerer said worriedly. He originally thought that this mission would be a walk in the park, so he had agreed to organize a campaign. Had he known that the enemy was a death sorcerer, he would never have participated. One would need to rely on a grade-8 elemental mage to suppress a death sorcerer even if the death sorcerer was at grade-7.


    The campmanderughed bitterly, ¡°How should I discuss this with them? My losses are huge, should I go apologize to the sorcerer before withdrawing the army?¡±


    The mages knew about the worries the campmander had. A grade-4 mage spoke up, ¡°In that case, we will help you to plead mercy when we return. The enemy is a death sorcerer and we had no idea about that. When the war began, we already lost three-thousand cavalrymen and over two-thousand infantrymen. If the offensive against the city is perpetuated, we will not obtain any benefits at all.¡±


    The campmander nodded, then said, ¡°Then we should attack it too to gauge the casualty rate. Great Mages, we will feign an attack at the main gates, please use your magic to coordinate with me and minimize the number of casualties. Record the battle and send it back so I can exin my case better.¡±


    The mages did not have any good ideas. It was impossible for them to join the vanguards, their main mission was to bless the soldiers with magic. Since the campmander had made this request, they could only agree.


    A squad emerged from the Qin army, it was a low ranking officer who was leading forty cavalrymen. This squad came before the city and began hollering.


    ¡°To the people in the city, two-hundred Tanggsi people have disguised themselves as Metatrin¡¯s soldiers and infiltrated your town, my general...¡±


    The low ranking officer was cooking up stories and it was impossible for the winged skeleton to listen to his nonsense. A spirit archer fired an arrow and it simply prated themander¡¯s skull. With a thud, his entire skull was shattered, causing white brain matter to spew in all directions.


    At this point in time, Mu En spoke up. A gigantic shadow engulfed his back, forming a horrifying human face. As the man¡¯s mouth twitched, Mu En¡¯s voice was amplified dozens of times.


    ¡°Get your sorcerer toe over and talk, you are not worth it.¡±


    The forty cavalrymen acted a little slowly. Bone arrows from the city gates were fired downwards. In the blink of an eye more than half of the soldiers were exterminated. The remaining dozens of cavalrymen turned around and escaped.


    In the earl¡¯s residence, Saleen released the shackles around the six white-robed mages. He gave each of them a small stool and allowed them to sit across from him.¡±Do you recognize me? Saleen asked with a wide grin.


    The six white-robed mages shook their heads, Saleen¡¯s name was not that renowned yet. Saleen was d in a magic robe which resembled a piece of light armor, these mages did not even think that Saleen was a grand mage.


    Mustering courage, one of the white-robed mages said, ¡°We are Qin mages, no matter who you are, just let us go...¡±


    Piak


    Cuisi, who was at the side, wielded a whip and smacked the mage¡¯s face. The thorn on his whip did not pop out, but the whip swiped past the white-robed mage¡¯s face, tearing through the flesh and revealing the face bone.


    Saleen simply cast a Chunlin spell to stop the bleeding.


    ¡°You cannot torture us, Alchemy City...¡± Another white-robed mage screamed, as Cuisi¡¯s whip was unleashed once again. The whip immediately split the mage¡¯s mouth, creating a bloody wound on his cheek.


    Saleen cast another Chunlin spell, stopping the bleeding. Noticing that the mages were afraid to continue arguing, Saleen then continued, ¡°Allow me to introduce myself, I am Saleen, Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    Even if Cuisi¡¯s whip was not present to pose a threat, the mages would keep their mouths shut due to terror.


    There were many rumors circting among the mages about Saleen. It was said that this gifted mage was not even twenty years old and he was already a grade-6 grand mage. Saleen had also subdued a number of experts using his own abilities and had established a kingdom.


    There were more than one-thousand mages in this kingdom who took orders from Saleen. This kingdom even extirpated the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary army which contained more than twenty-thousand soldiers and subdued a grade-9 holy master.


    If Saleen was a sorcerer, he would surely have beenbeled as a legend.


    By now, Metatrin City was implicitly Qin¡¯s third sacrednd of magic. The first was Alchemy City, the second was Bitter Water Prefecture, and the third was Metatrin City.


    ¡°The guts of you people. I have crossed the borders of the Bitter Water County, yet you still dared send an army to pursue me. Regarding this matter, I will pen a letter to inform His Majesty Ojarvis. As for you all, you only have two choices.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he gazed at the six white-robed mages insipidly.


    The six mages could only nod in agreement, they were dealing with a legendary grand mage, that meant that all threats would be useless. In the eyes of the other party, the white-robed mages were insignificant.


    ¡°The first choice; you all can follow me and never return to Qin again. I will ask some questions and you shall answer. In the future, when His Majesty Ojarvis asks about this, you have to give him the same reply.¡±


    Seeing that the six white-robed mages were hesitant, Saleen remained calm, then said, ¡°The second choice; I will hand you over to the death sorcerer so that you will be transformed into death wizards, gifting you more than ten-thousand years of longevity. This is your reward for assaulting me.¡±


    The six mages appeared very panicked, they did not feel that Saleen was threatening them, Saleen was only narrating a fact.


    If they fell into the hands of the death sorcerer and turned into death wizards, then they would only take orders and fight blindly in the future. They would no longer have a sense of taste, fatigue, or pain.


    This oue was scarier than death, the white-robed mages would rather die. The problem was that Saleen would not allow them to die, there were two choices and they could only opt for one.


    ¡°We will select the first route.¡± The white-robed mages nced at one another, as they answered feebly.


    ¡°All right, who sent this army?¡± Saleen did not bother with details, the arrival of this army was definitely somewhat influenced by the nobles in the House of Commons. Saleen could not possibly go after the House of Commons, but the person who executed this had to be punished.


    Since the white-robed mages had decided to follow Saleen, they naturally had no more concerns. These people did not have a deep background, they would not have been sent to act as vanguards otherwise.


    ¡°Sir, Marquis Antos was the one who deployed this army.¡±


    Seeing Saleen moan, one of the mages added, ¡°Marquis Antos is friends with Duke Andrefus, these two families have been connected by marriage for generations. Duke Andrefus is one of the six powerful dukes in the House of Commons, he wields considerable power.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± Saleenughed, he had memorized the backgrounds of all the powerful nobles in Holy Rock City when Lex asked him to pose as a noble from the fourth dynasty.


    ¡°I would like to ask, if I offer a reward for Antos¡¯ head, how much will I need to spend?¡± Saleen asked a question which made it very difficult for the mages to give an answer.


    The six people mumbled among themselves for a while, then one mage told Saleen, ¡°Sir, Marquis Antos owns one-thousand miles ofnd and he has thousands of private soldiers. He can assemble an army with tens of thousands of soldier, and he still has a grade-8 mage under him. If you want to ce a bounty, it might have to be more than one-million gold coins.¡±


    Saleen pondered, then said, ¡°The nobles serving Antos might be able to gather an army with over one-hundred-thousand troops, a bounty of one-million gold coins isn¡¯t too expensive. I will make sure that the lives of people who dare attack me will never be peaceful.¡±


    The white-robed mages looked at one another, ¡°One-million gold coins isn¡¯t expensive? We can purchase so many low level magic nucleiwith a million gold coins!¡±


    ¡°I just don¡¯t know how much the Holy See¡¯s bounty on me is worth at the moment,¡± Saleen mumbled to himself.


    ¡°Sir, it has increased to five-million gold coins already,¡± Cuisi answered.


    ¡°Mm, then disseminate the bounty via the professionals¡¯ union, Cuisi, you shall... forget it, we will talk about this when we reach Daliang City.¡± Saleen did some mental calctions, ¡°If this bounty of one-million gold coins is sessful, I still have to pay a ten percentmission to the professionals¡¯ union. If it doesn¡¯t seed, I only have to pay some interest. It is not possible to invade Marquis Antos¡¯nd. That would be akin to dering war on Holy Rock City. Marquis Antos will be helpless against such a bounty, he was the one who provoked me first. In the future, if I kill this fellow myself, I can even save money on the reward. At the moment, I am merely using the professional¡¯s union to release this news. A bounty of one-million gold coins, this is amission which will make most risk-takers go green with envy!¡±

 Chapter 724: One-million Gold Coins (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 724: One-million Gold Coins (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Earl Besta stood to the side and listened. He knew what Saleen¡¯s intentions were, so he did not raise any objection. He was very afraid that Saleen might create trouble for Antos in the heat of the moment.


    Saleen¡¯s bounty was a warning to Antos to stop opposing Metatrin. At the moment, the world was in more and more turmoil, there were many people who were willing to assassinate Antos.


    Once the bounty was disseminated, Antos could either continue offending Saleen, or he could ask someone to mediate and ask Saleen to retract the bounty.


    By getting Saleen to withdraw the bounty, it would mean that Antos had softened his stance. Whateverpensation Saleen had to pay would be borne by Antos, that included interest and fees for canceling the bounty. Antos would have to pay at least one-hundred-thousand gold coins.


    Saleen¡¯s retaliation might not appear powerful nor weak, but Saleen was loitering here deliberately. He allowed the winged skeleton to have thoughts of killing the enemy. ¡°A twenty-thousand man army wants to besiege me, does that mean that the winged skeleton¡¯s past year of summoning will go down the drain?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s consumption of magic nuclei was very high and that wasrgely because of the winged skeleton. The jade skeletons created by the winged skeleton possessed intelligence, they could summon other spirits. Other than steering warships and training the navy, these skeletons would help Saleen amass a spirit army during their remaining free time.


    Saleen did not have so many Green Spirit rocks. In order to help the spirits maintain their offensive power, he had to install a colossal magic array to absorb strength from the death ne regrly to rear the spirits.


    Most of the Green Spirit rocks were with the winged skeleton. Around fifty-thousand spirits were stored, while the remaining spirits had to be sustained using magic nuclei.


    ¡°This time around, a number of spirits were brought along to be given to Lex as soldiers for her warship. Since I havee under attack, I shall let these spirits battle with Qin¡¯s army for a while. It will be good to let the winged skeleton have some practice targets.¡±


    Saleen did not continue interrogating the six white-robed mages, he only spoke to the two injured mages, ¡°The person who wounded you is called Cuisi, do you hate him?¡±


    The two mages raised their heads, Cuisi¡¯s whip had disappeared, Cuisi was simply standing behind Saleen with an unfeeling gaze. The two magesughed bitterly and said, ¡°Cuisi is Sir¡¯s subordinate, we would not dare...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great, I was still worried that you two might die without rhyme nor reason. A mage is precious, don¡¯t put your own lives at stake. What grade are you all at?¡±


    ¡°Sir, we are all grade-2 mages, the Qin army never has grade-3 mages. The grade-3 mages are thinking of how to advance to a grand mage.¡±


    ¡°A grade-2 mage is still useful.¡± Saleen¡¯s words made the white-robed mages demoralized, they still thought that Saleen wanted to recruit followers. They never expected Saleen to overlook their capabilities. At that moment, Isabe and Eleanor entered the room.


    ¡°Sir!¡±


    Seeing the gray magic robes worn by the twodies, the fantasy harbored by the six mages was destroyed. The two female mages were d in robes with three magic symbols, it was the trademark of a grade-6 grand mage.


    ¡°Seems like Saleen¡¯s followers have to be at least at that grade.¡±


    Of course Saleen would not sign a follower¡¯s contract recklessly, the number of follower¡¯s contracts a mage could sign was limited, it was dependent on the magnitude of a mage¡¯s mental strength. If too many contracts were signed, contractual loopholes would appear easily.


    Saleen had signed contracts with Nailisi, the winged skeleton, Nichs, J, and Su. They were all experts above grade-6. A contract with any of them took up more than two contractual slots. Nichs alone already upied six contractual slots, this was to ensure that the contract would be stable.


    Regarding the signing of contracts, a low grade follower would upy one contractual slot at the minimum. Saleen would never waste one on a grade-2 mage.


    Having a grade-2 mage as a follower was pretty good for other grade-6 mages. Saleen could not be satisfied, he demanded the best talents.


    At that moment, Tolesi entered and whispered the arrangement at the city entrance to Saleen. Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Besta, the enemy only has about twenty-thousand men, the battle will be over very soon. I need to get to Daliang City as soon as possible. After the battle, I will ask Soldier to create some undead soldiers and zombies to aid you in defense.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Your Highness...¡± Besta knew that Saleen was worried that the Qin people might continue wreaking havoc after his departure.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to thank me. This time, I want to give a warning to Holy Rock City that they have gone overboard.¡± Finishing his sentence, Saleen told the six white-robed mages, ¡°Follow me to Daliang City, but before we leave, we have to sign a contract. Mm...¡± Saleen pondered, then asked Isabe and Eleanor, ¡°Do you need manpower?¡±


    Eleanor shook her head, she did not need any male mages to follow her. If shecked manpower, she could request a few female Caucasus warriors from Sika, whereby it was even possible for her to cultivate one or two mages.


    Isabe also shook her head, by following Saleen, she would not need any disciples as everything had been taken care of by Saleen. ¡°If I ept these mages, I still have to spend money to take care of them.¡±


    The six white-robed mages got slightly anxious, they never expected that a day woulde when they would be an unnecessary burden.


    ¡°Sir, give them to me then,¡± Tolesi said, his forteid in mental magic, he was not very fond of melee fights. With a few mages to impart his skills to, he could help these six people grow their mental strength explosively and they could advance to grade-3 quickly, they would be great helpers.


    Saleen turned to the other demons. Cuisi and the rest shook their heads.


    Cuisi did not require any helpers, if he had a choice, he would rather lead tens of thousands of demons to battle. Lu fought like a human swordsman, his techniques were simr to that of an expert at the standard of a grand swordmaster. Aiwa was a demon who relied on brute strength, he did not have any intention of recruiting mages.


    ¡°Okay, they will go to you, but I don¡¯t wish to see them die mysteriously after a few years,¡± Saleen warned Tolesi. Saleen had to constantly oppress the demons aggression, they might wreak havoc otherwise. If the mages subdued by Saleen ended up dead, no one would dare defect to him in the future.


    ¡°Of course not, Sir. If I did that, Master Nailisi would kill me,¡± Tolesi answered while grinning widely. He was already fantasizing, ¡°Once I make these six human mages advance to grade-4, I will have six grand mages to bless myself with shields. I will then be much safer during battle.¡±


    As to whether the six mages could progress any further, this was not a question Tolesi needed to consider. In the past, it was always humans subduing demons, now it was finally his turn to subdue humans.


    The six white-robed mages signed a contract with Tolesi helplessly. When they saw the symbol on the contract, they sunk into despair. They had noticed symbols of the demonguage!


    Tolesi smiled brightly as he looked at the six human mages, then said, ¡°Not bad, not bad. You are very knowledgeable, you actually recognize demonic writing. I am a demon, Sir Nailisi¡¯s demon. If you are disobedient in the future...¡±


    ¡°Tolesi?¡± Saleen narrowed his eyes and red at Tolesi.


    Tolesi quickly altered his words, ¡°If you are disobedient, then you won¡¯t get the chance to advance. I will help you guys be grand mages and master demonic magic!¡±


    One of the white-robed mages was crestfallen and said, ¡°How did ite to this...¡±


    Saleen stood at one side and observed. Tolesi did not possess many threatening tactics, causing him to feel depressed, ¡°Why is it so difficult to subdue a few weak humans? These humans who have signed a servant¡¯s contract still have disdain for me in their hearts!¡±


    Saleen noticed Tolesi¡¯s expression, then said through furrowed brows, ¡°Tolesi, just reveal whatever benefits you can give them, stop wasting time. The four of you shall assist the army and chase the enemy away.¡±


    Seeing that Cuisi was ring at him, Tolesi quickly told the mages, ¡°Within a month, I will help you all advance to grade-3, within a year you all will attain the pinnacle state of a grade-3 mage. You will have to depend on yourself to be grand mages.¡±


    Despite Tolesiying everything out, the six mages were still in disbelief.


    ¡°If I didn¡¯t have to battle now, I would make you guys train immediately. Follow me.¡± Tolesi huffed.


    ¡°Wait.¡± Saleen stopped Tolesi, as he took out six low level magic staffs and twenty-four low level scrolls. Handing these items to the six white-robed mages, he said, ¡°Use these. If you have other needs, just tell Tolesi, he will be d to help you guys.¡±


    Even though Saleen wanted to stifle the newly subdued mages, he was not willing to see humans being toyed with by a demon. Six mages were presented to Tolesi, but Tolesi had to take care of them in the future. Saleen could not possibly pay for everything, otherwise what would the demons do?


    The six mages hung their heads low as they followed behind Tolesi. Once they left, Saleen discussed the itinerary with Eleanor and the rest. This location was still a great distance from Daliang City. Given Saleen¡¯s speed he could reach within three days. Saleen was not sure whether Marquis Antos would be enraged from all that embarrassment after leaving.


    ¡°If such a thing happened, Antos will surely send more troops to attack this ce. Once I leave, Earl Besta will be in great trouble.¡± Saleen knew that Earl Besta would not abandon the town unless Lex gave him the order to do so. ¡°I can contact Lex, but if the earl flees, it will be another setback for Bitter Water County. The Bitter Water County is still vying with Qin for Lon¡¯snd. If it softens, the Lon people might simply defect to Qin¡¯s army.¡± Saleen thought of the assassin beside Lex, ¡°That old man called Bain, if he can go and kill Antos, I will be able to save on a lot of trouble.¡±


    While Saleen was contemting the n after his imminent departure, the battle at the northern gates of the town had surprisingly be pretty intense. The winged skeleton killed the dispersed cavalrymen. That angered the Qin¡¯s campmander and the Qin army immediately advanced. Therge sieging appliances were also pushed to a position four miles from the city, flinging rocks into the town.


    ording to the intelligence, the trebuchets in the town had a range of less than three miles.


    The city immediately staged a retaliation, more than a hundred trebuchets flung rocks into the Qin formation. Without any corrections and field survey, plus ack of guidance from low grade mages, these trebuchets used the standard calibration to attack the enemy blindly. The troops at the city entrance had already calcted the distance to the enemy¡¯s location.


    Both the interior and exterior of the city had sustained massive losses!

 Chapter 725: Execution (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 725: Execution (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Qin army only possessed 24 catapults but their uracy surpassed that of the 100 catapults set up by winged skull. The catapults in the city were clustered so after two rounds of both sides heaving rocks at each other, Qin has already lost half of their catapults while 52 of those in the city were destroyed.


    Fortunately, the catapults in the city were made of bones and not of metalponents so when they were crushed, there were no wooden shards flying around.


    The bone catapults that had been crushed became a dismantled pile ofponents. Only those soldiers that were hit by the rocks directly were unfortunately killed.


    At this point in time, the side that had more catapults gained the upper hand. The city was only left with 50 or so catapults while the Qin army was left with 12. As both sides continued tounch rocks at each other, it was clear that the Qin catapults would never be able to match the speed of those in the city, no matter how quickly they threw.


    In the end, there were 13 bone catapults left within the city while only two remained outside. These two catapults no longer posed a threat to the soldiers in the city while the 13 bone catapults were also ineffective in stopping the enemy soldiers from advancing.


    Very soon, Qin¡¯s attacking equipment reached the bottom of the city wall. The 13 catapults were unable to destroy the iron rams. After killing a number of soldiers, the gigantic iron ram crashed into the city gate. The city gate was crushed by the sharp ram that was two meters long.


    A small door opened at the bottom of the ram and Qin light-armored foot soldiers charged through the city gate. More than a hundred soldiers were hidden in the gigantic ram. Another door opened at the back of the ram. The Qin soldiers would be able to make use of this iron ram, that was more than 10 meters long, to charge directly into the city.


    All the equipment that Antos has prepared for this attack specifically targeted this small town. The town¡¯s city wall was very thick and would not be destroyed even by magic catapults but its city gate was made of wood and an externalyer of red bronze.


    Red bronze were usually difficult to tear apart due to their high resilience but the Qin ram was a formidable equipment. The Qin soldiers continuously ced hardwood underneath the ram in ce of metal tracks. Even the hardwood that were a foot thick were crushed. Under the effect of the magic array, the huge metal chain pulled at the gear, allowing the ram to crash at the city gate at a speed of more than 30 miles an hour.


    The catapults and arrows could only kill the soldiers cing the hardwood, but they were unable to stop the metal ram.


    Cuisi led three demons to the city gates and shed into the Qin foot soldiers entering the city. There were 50 light-armored and heavy-armored foot soldiers each and they guarded the entrance of the city gate, paving the way for those behind.


    L pulled out his horse-killing sword and was about to attack when Cuisi held onto him and said, ¡°Don¡¯t bother. That skeleton let the enemy in on purpose.¡±


    L took a closer look. Indeed, there were quite a number of soldiers around the city gate but only slightly more than a hundred skeletons rushed forward to engage the enemy. The Qin foot soldiers guarding the city gate used metal heavy shields to block off the skeletons without any intentions of retaliating.


    What the Qins nned to do was to allow the soldiers from behind to enter the city through the ram. They would quickly take over the advantageous terrains before attacking all the way up to the top of the city wall. By attacking from both inside and outside, they would be able to take down this small town.


    ¡°What should we do?¡± L saw that winged skull had his own ideas and asked Cuisi.


    ¡°I will go and see Bing. The three of you will continue to keep watch nearby. Aiwa, if the enemy sends heavy-armored foot soldiers and may be too overwhelming, go and stop them for a while. Don¡¯t lose this ce for real.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Aiwa took out his new weapon, a huge meteor hammer. This meteor hammer had a four-meter long chain and the diameter of the hammer was about half a meter. On top of it was a triangr metal spikes that were a foot long. This meteor hammer of Aiwa¡¯s would be able to crush most metal shields.


    Tolesi retreated carefully with his six mages. Under such circumstances, he had no wish to charge at the front because the Qins might bring along big crossbows that could kill mages.


    The six white-robed mages were nervous as well. They would never be able to cast spells on their ownpanions. Fortunately, the demons did not force them to do so, only to watch from afar. 100 foot soldiers blocked the city gates while batches after batches of foot soldiers rushed towards the metal ram.


    At the end of the metal ram was a door that was three meters wide. Its interior would allow for soldiers in full armors to pass through. More than 10 smaller metal rams soon appeared to form a wall to allow soldiers to enter the passageway without being attacked by the arrows.


    Cuisi walked up to the top of the city wall and saw winged skull looking down the city wall with his subordinates. The skeleton soldiers were shooting downwards very slowly and disinterestedly.


    ¡°Bing...¡±


    ¡°Cuisi, I am going to assassinate the battalionmander in that army. He will have a sorcerer by his side so it will be a little troublesome. Will you go with me?¡± Winged skull spoke to Cuisi with his back turned against him.


    ¡°Okay, do you want L and the rest toe up too?¡±


    ¡°No need. The two of us will be enough.¡± Winged skull grabbed his giant axe with one hand and pointed at a distance with the other and said, ¡°That battalionmander is still four miles away. Once he is within a mile, we will go.¡±


    ¡°1,000 meters... I can¡¯t travel so quickly.¡± Cuisi hesitated. His flying abilities were not as good as winged skull¡¯s.


    ¡°Surely you can reach in 30 seconds? The enemy only has a grade seven mage. He will not be able to prepare any spells of arge scale in such a short time. But he will have the chance to release a scroll so my n is...¡±


    ¡°I understand. In order to release a grade eight scroll in 30 seconds, it must be an attack on a single target. As for which one of us will be attacked, it will have to depend on luck,¡± Cuisi said coldly.


    ¡°Hmm, after casting a grade eight scroll, this sorcerer will use up all his mental strength. Whoever is not injured by the attack will kill the sorcerer while the one attacked by the grade eight spell will kill the battalionmander.¡±


    Seeing Cuisi¡¯s hesitation, winged skull asked, ¡°You don¡¯t dare?¡±


    ¡°Why not!¡± Cuisi¡¯s ego was pricked. The enemy was only a grade seven sorcerer. He would not fear going against him one-to-one. The only thing was that the enemy also had a few other grand mages. If they were also able to cast grade seven scrolls, then he might be in danger.


    Nevertheless, this probability was small. After all, not everyone was as rich as Saleen to be able to use so many high-level scrolls to attack. Since the enemy was an elite army, it was entirely possible that the grade seven sorcerer would possess a grade eight scroll.


    ¡°Then we will just have to gamble on our luck.¡± Winged skull could see from a distance that the Qin army kept advancing. There were also two catapults that were seeking the coordinates of the catapults in the city. The battalionmander was also advancing with the rest of the army under the protection of the sorcerer.


    This battalionmander was cautious. The entire army moved as one under hismand. He was a talent. Unfortunately, he opposed Master so it would be better if he was dead.


    Just as winged skull had guessed, the battalionmander was originally harboring thoughts of retreat. If their metal ram had failed to sessfully crash the city gate, he would have ordered his army to retreat. However, it seemed as if the death sorcerer that Mu En was disguising as had used up all his mental strength since he no longer casted any more high-level spells. Instead, he only used low-level death spells to attack the soldiers closest to the city wall.


    Now that the city gate has been damaged, more and more foot soldiers entered the city. They began to use heavy axes to hack away while a low-level mage managed to sneak in and cast a fireball, hoping to increase the size of the hole in the city gate.


    Even so, the death sorcerer that Mu En was disguising as still did not interfere.


    The Qin battalionmander thought an opportunity had presented itself so hemanded the entire army to advance towards the city gate on the north side. The Qin army possessed sufficient equipment and the foot soldiers were not clustered together. Each one of them held a shield to protect themselves against arrows. All sorts of chariots spread out to provide coverage for the soldiers that were advancing. The big crossbow arrows shot out from the chariots became very effective when they were within two meters of the city wall.


    These two-meter long crossbow arrows could prate half of the city wall. As they lodged themselves within the city wall, the Qin foot soldiers began to make use of them to climb up the city wall.


    If the town was to depend on the new recruits without winged skull, there was no way they could repel the Qins¡¯ attack.


    Everything was done in order. More than 20 chariots even shot out big arrows lit with me towards the arrow tower within the small town. This arrow tower was made of wooden blocks instead of metal. Although all wooden materials have been processed to ensure that they were not mmable, the gigantic fire arrows were too powerful. They created a crater in the arrow tower and the entire tower began to burn.


    The fire arrows carried fuel so even if a building was built from rocks, it would still burn. Kerosene began to stter in all directions and the soldiers in the arrow tower all scrambled out like mad. Just like that, the town lost its arrow tower in the north.


    Winged skull did not seem to care. The big crossbow in the arrow tower would not pose a threat to the enemy. He ordered the jade skeletons to monitor the death archers closely so that they would protect the alchemy crossbow and not allow it to be destroyed by catapults. He turned back to look at Cuisi and said, ¡°Another 200 meters. Let¡¯s get ready.¡±


    Cuisi nodded. His beautiful looks began to transform as his body expanded continuously. A gigantic metal armor sprang out from his belt on his waist and covered up his chest and back. Cuisi began to grow up to more than eight meters tall.


    Winged skull was in awe of the power hidden in Cuisi¡¯s body. A demon¡¯s body was really resilient. Surely a huge figure like this would attract the attention of the sorcerer?


    He had already thought it through. If he flew over with Cuisi at the same time, the enemy sorcerer would surely target Cuisi because his figure was too intimidating. There was more than 90 percent chance that that grade eight spell would strike Cuisi.


    The Qin battalionmander was almost 1,100 meters away. At the back of the armor worn by winged skull, a pair of bony wings grew and extended out from both sides. ck death runes began to move on the bony wings. Winged skull picked up his big axe and said, ¡°Another 100 meters. Hurry up!¡±


    A pair of gigantic wings sprang out from Cuisi¡¯s back as well. The spirits of the dead around him were all nudged away. The pair of shoes on Cuisi¡¯s feet had vanished and in their ce were a pair of feet with sharp toes that hooked onto the city wall.


    ¡°Cut the crap!¡±


    ¡°Go!¡±


    The rage in Mu En¡¯s shout was so clear that almost all the Qin soldier underneath the city wall heard it.


    ¡°Kill them all!¡± Mu En was close to losing his voice from all the shouting. Winged skull and Cuisi flew up as he shouted. They flew towards the center of the Qin army and their target was that grade seven mage and the battalionmander.


    The enemy¡¯s attack would stop immediately once they defeated these two people and no matter how many soldiers entered the city, it would be useless.

 Chapter 726: Execution (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 726: Execution (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It wasmon knowledge that powerful death sorcerers were able to attack from a mile away. If the spell was arge scale one, the attacking range could be even further. Large scale spells required a long time to prepare, at least half an hour. Some spells that were grade-9 and above might even require more than six hours.


    The Qin battalionmander conducted his attacks a mile away from the city wall and under the protection of the sorcerer.


    He possessed the abilities of a zun grand swordmaster. With a sorcerer by his side, he did not fear the death sorcerer Mu En.


    When the sorcerer beside the battalionmander saw two shadows flying towards them from the top of the city wall, he smiled.


    ¡°General, the enemy ising for you.¡± With that, he took out a ck-colored scroll. If he could eliminate the most powerful creature under the death sorcerer, it would be worth it even if he used up a grade-8 scroll. His Lord would provide him with another one anyway.


    It was clear that the death sorcerer must have totally used up all his mental strength, he could only send forth the creatures bonded to him to fight on his behalf. Too bad, this would go against thebat rules of mages. By allowing his bonded creatures to be so far away from him, he would not be able to control them well.


    Even if it was a grade-8 creature, there would be loopholes that could be exploited.


    The sorcerer did not believe that both creatures flying towards them were equally powerful. He instructed the grand mages around him, ¡°Take out all your scrolls. No need to scrimp and save on them.¡±


    Cuisi¡¯s eyes turned bloodshot as the whip in his hands became a pike and pointed at the battalionmander. The soldiers on the exterior began to raise their crossbows and shot at will.


    Cuisi and the winged skeleton were more than ten yards apart, one on the left and one on the right. Most of the crossbow arrows were aimed at Cuisi. The devil armor that he wore shone with ck light. Only one arrow managed to shoot through the armor while the rest were deflected away.


    The single arrow that managed to shoot through the armor was dposed immediately. Before the tip of the arrow could even touch Cuisi¡¯s skin, the shaft of the arrow had already broken. When the sorcerer saw this, he quickly unveiled the ck scroll in his hands. A beam of magic light shone and hundreds of magic runes appeared from thin air. Amidst the runes, a twenty yard long light spear shot out towards Cuisi.


    The winged skeleton was right. The sorcerer had focused his attention on Cuisi¡¯s eight yard tall figure. After seeing how the crossbow arrows had no effects on Cuisi, the sorcerer had immediately used his grade-8 spell on Cuisi.


    The winged skeleton suddenly sped up and there was an explosive boom sound.


    Triangr-shaped ck magic patterns scattered from the winged skeleton¡¯s giant axe. At the same time, the five grade-4 mages used their gray scrolls to trigger magic chain and a huge grade-5 spell appeared. Six-hundred to seven-hundred fire serpents appeared out of nowhere and coiled themselves around the winged skeleton. The ck magic patterns that he had released earlier on began to cut up these fire serpents. With the giant axe in the winged skeleton¡¯s hands, the ck cutting edge of the de now carried orange mes after cutting up all the fire serpents. The winged skeleton charged towards the grade-4 grand mages.


    The five grade-4 grand mages had yet to prepare their second spell. With the appearance of such a fierce and murderous death creature, two of the mages immediately cast ice te armor for the people around them.


    Three of the grade-4 mages cast more than twenty ice des to block the winged skeleton from advancing further.


    The grade-7 sorcerer was horrified to see that after using his grade-8 magic scroll, the gigantic creature has paralyzed in mid-air, but another spirit of the dead armed with a giant axe was heading straight towards him. By then, he had already used up all his mental strength after casting the grade-8 spell. If only he had five seconds to consume magic liquid so that he could recover enough mental strength to activate the defense spell in his magic robe.


    There was no time. The silver soul me raged from behind the the winged skeleton¡¯s crystal mask. His giant axe suddenly cast death ripple. Howls of despair were released from the axe. It caused the soldiers that were originally shooting at the skeletons to cover their ears in pain and to squat down.


    The huge light spear shot towards Cuisi. He spit out a ball and enclosed himself entirely in it. When the light spear made contact with the ball, thetter managed to block the former¡¯s attack. Nevertheless, the light spear did not disperse immediately. Instead, it attacked the ball fervently. Cuisi was furious. He finally realized that he had fallen into the winged skeleton¡¯s trap.


    Resisting grade-8 spells would not be easy and it would be difficult to escape unscathed. Cuisi threw out his whip which became a flying dragon and pounced onto the battalionmander. Both parties were less than thirty yards apart and the whip was already sixteen yards long. It appeared in front of the battalionmander the moment it was released.


    The Qin battalionmander was no weakling either. Within a short time, his Qin eight-sided sword was already releasing sword aura aggressively and he swiped at the whip.


    The winged skeletonughed maniacally. He had ovee the grade-5 spell and cut up hundreds of fire serpents. He was now above the sorcerer and was about to swing his axe down.


    There were no tricks this time, just the the winged skeleton¡¯s speed and the giant axe¡¯s weight. There was an air of certainty as the axe swung from that height. All the surrounding soldiers were unable to interfere after being assaulted by his death magic.


    The Qin sorcerer was terrified. He bit off the tip of his tongue and forcefully increased his mental strength. Instantaneously, he cast a grade-7 defense spell; the crystal guardian.


    Crystal guardian was said to be the most powerful physical defense spell amongst high-level spells. Water elements around the sorcerer condensed instantaneously and released beams of bright light. This element defense was more than a foot thick. Evenrge-scale alchemy crossbows would not be able to pierce through it.


    When the giant axe de made contact with the crystal guardian, the winged skeleton felt as if his bones would almost break from the impact. As a result of the attack, countless cracks appeared on the crystal guardian too.


    The sorcerer was pleased. He was afraid that the crystal guardian would lose its effect. It could repair itself. Since the winged skeleton was not able to break through with his first attack, the crystal guardian would definitely be able to repair itself in time for the second attack. He took out a bottle of magic liquid and was about to consume it.


    The winged skeleton did not retrieve his giant axe. From the crescent-shaped silhouette, a ck sphere prated the defense of the crystal guardian and cut onto the sorcerer¡¯s head. This ck sphere was like a mini version of an axe and it was filled with a thick death aura.


    The sorcerer felt as if a line had opened from the top of his head. There was afortable and cooling feeling that began from his head and traveled all the way down to his groin. The sorcerer could almost hear a clear and distinct sound of ¡®crack¡¯ from the deepest region of his soul.


    The ice des around the winged skeleton were still spinning maniacally, attempting to pierce through his armor. the winged skeleton¡¯s armor was filled with crescent-shaped white markings. The three grand mages¡¯ ice des were unable to break through his defense since it was a low-level magic that was cast haphazardly. The winged skeleton did not pay any attention to it.


    The Qin army was shocked to see these two murderous creatures attacking their chiefmander directly and no one was able to help. Even the alchemy crossbows on the exterior were still in the midst of adjusting their aim.


    Soul axe de was a grade-8 death spell that the winged skeleton had invented. It cut the sorcerer¡¯s soul into half. Interestingly, there was no sign of injury on the element sorcerer¡¯s physical body.


    After being attacked physically and with spells, the element sorcerer was enraged. If he was a grade-8 sorcerer and could cast crystal reflection, he would not have been killed by such a sneaky attack.


    The remnants of mental strengths on the light spear dispersed and the light spear began to transform. A grade-8 spell would not vanish just because the mage had died.


    The huge light spear split into hundreds of tiny light arrows and shot at Cuisi in all directions. The ball that had enveloped Cuisi could not hold up against these arrows and finally broke. These light arrows were able to seek out the weaknesses of the ball automatically. Since Cuisi was not an expert in magic, there was no way he could defend against it.


    Hundreds of tiny holes were pierced into his gigantic wings by the light arrows. They quickly began to bleed.


    Cuisi howled in rage as his injuries began to curl up and shrink. Although his howl was loud, he was less furious now because he suddenly understood that if the light spear had attacked the winged skeleton instead, thetter would be severely injured.


    Although this light spear was not a divine spell of the Holy See, it was still very effective against spirits of the dead. Since he was a demon, he was not afraid of any cleansing by the light element.


    Even with unbearable pain in his wings, Cuisi swooped down towards the five grade-4 mages. With his limbs each grasping the neck of a mage, he swept his long tail and wrapped thest grand mage tightly.


    Ice te armor was indeed a powerful defense spell. Although it was no crystal guardian, Cuisi was still unable to crush them easily. At that point, Cuisi finally revealed the crazed and violent side of a demon. He smashed the grand mages in his limbs and tail violently onto the ground.


    These grand mages fainted. Although ice te armor could stop the demon¡¯s ws, it could not prevent such a strong impact. In the grasp of the demon¡¯s ws, their magic could not soften the impact. If not for Cuisi¡¯s fear of breaking his teeth, he would have bit them immediately. No one would be able to save them.


    The Qin battalionmander hacked at Cuisi¡¯s whip with his Qin eight-sided sword, but its powerful sword aura was broken instantaneously. The whip could not be stopped. The Qin battalionmander could not dodgepletely and could only turn sideways. Sharp spikes suddenly appeared on the whip which tore open his armor and shaved off the flesh on half of the battalionmander¡¯s body, leaving only bones behind.


    Without the sorcerer to heal him, this battalionmander would die very soon.


    The spell stored in the winged skeleton¡¯s giant axe was limited. Nevertheless, he refused to bring Cuisi back yet. Cuisi¡¯s wings were badly injured and he was still attacking the grand mages. On the other hand, the winged skeleton had already fallen onto the ground. He raised his giant axe once again and hacked at the crystal guardian with force.


    Without the sorcerer¡¯s control, the crystal guardian which was already damaged finally crackedpletely. Shards of water element flew in all directions and pierced through many of the Qin soldiers that were rushing forward to help.


    The winged skeleton grabbed the sorcerer¡¯s skull and ced his giant axe on his throat. Looking at the man, the winged skeleton said coldly, ¡°Going against my Master was your mistake. Now you shall die!¡±

 Chapter 727: Antos’ fury (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 727: Antos¡¯ fury (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Holy See possessed a divine spell which resurrected bones. The winged skeleton wanted this elemental sorcerer to bepletely dead. The winged skeleton grabbed the sorcerer¡¯s head using his axe to cut it off. Holding the sorcerer¡¯s head, the winged skeleton turned around, and noticed that Cuisi was still walloping the grade-4 mages using his limbs and tail.


    A stupid yet effective attack!


    Under the insane assault by Cuisi, the five mages were so shaken that their organs had ruptured. The Ice te Armor formed by the water element was still present, but the people inside had stopped breathing already.


    The Qin soldiers were petrified as they saw an eight yard tall demon waving a mage about. He created hundreds of cavities in the ground, causing a mess wherever he went past.


    The body of the sorcerer behind the winged skeleton produced a plume of green smoke as it began corroding neck down and turned into a puddle of blood. Even if Pope Theisio was there he would not be able to save this mage.


    A person was onlypletely dead when their body had been ated and their soul destroyed.


    ¡°Cuisi, let¡¯s go!¡± The winged skeleton bellowed as he hung the sorcerer¡¯s head from his belt. He rushed towards Cuisi and grabbed Cuisi¡¯s tail. He shook off the grand mage harassing Cuisi, then used the ax to sh the mage.


    The Ice te Armor, which was already mottled with cracks, was severed by the gigantic ax. The mage inside was sliced into two pieces.


    Cuisi¡¯s eyes were bloodshot and his tail was about to ensnare the winged skeleton¡¯s body, but the winged skeleton gave an abrupt yell. This time around Cuisi¡¯s body trembled and regained some consciousness. Scanning the surroundings, he noticed that therge war chariots afar had turned around and wereing over.


    He could not fly, if he got besieged by these war chariots he would be severely wounded by the barrage of arrows. He might even die there. The alchemical crossbows from Qin possessed massive lethality, Cuisi immediately tossed the dead mages aside, as his body gradually shrunk.


    Cuisi still had not forgotten about hitting the campmander. Picking up the whip, he stomped on the campmander¡¯s head. This campmander died a wrongful death. If he dodged and did not use his longsword to counter Cuisi¡¯s whip, he would not have sustained such a severe injury in a short while.


    Seeing that Cuisi¡¯s body was shrinking, the winged skeleton extended his bone wings and grabbed onto the belt of Cuisi¡¯s devil armor. They then soared into the sky. Qin soldiers swarmed forward again, but the alchemical crossbows could not adjust their shooting angle in time. The crossbows could only fire upwards blindly, none of the mages could lock onto the winged skeleton¡¯s and Cuisi¡¯s silhouettes.


    An enormous alchemical arrow grazed past the winged skeleton¡¯s body and created a fissure in his armor. The winged skeleton secretly heaved a sigh of relief, ¡°If a grand mage was controlling this alchemical crossbow, I might return with a few holes in my body. I might not die, but Saleen¡¯s operation will surely be affected.¡±


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was still with him, almost all the battles at sea would have to depend on the spirits working for him. Lex did not have many sailors at her disposal because Bitter Water county wasndlocked.


    The winged skeleton rose into the air with Cuisi in tow and his speed did not seem to be lowered at all. The few people hidden in the midst of the Qin army were helpless. With more than twenty-thousand soldiers there had to be some experts concealed within a main army.


    No more than two people could fly, the remaining personnel would not be able to catch up to the winged skeleton.


    A siege by arge army would not be able to trap a flying expert unless there were many mini alchemical crossbows nearby to suppress this expert. The alchemical crossbows onboard the war chariots had the strength to destroy normal city walls, but they would not be able to lock onto a tiny dot flying in the air.


    The winged skeleton flew at an extremely high altitude, almost reaching one-thousand yards. He drew an arc across the skies, making a beeline for the city tower.


    This time around, the operation of executing the sorcerer progressed abnormally quickly. The winged skeleton carried the sorcerer¡¯s head and returned to the city entrance. Mu En snapped out of his thoughts, under the winged skeleton¡¯s control, he began yelling.


    ¡°All of you are crazy people! Yourmander has been executed, you should be retreating now!¡± Speaking, Mu En tossed the head which the winged skeleton had given to him into the air. The sorcerer¡¯s head floated across the sky, producing arge shadow and screaming in excruciating pain.


    ¡°Master Mu En, please show mercy! I will not do it again...¡±


    ¡°Master please spare my life, please spare my life!¡±


    Six to seven different voices came out of the same mouth. The soldiers, who were thinking of how to breach the city below the city entrance, heard the voice of theirmander. They heard the painful moans of the mage who was usually aloof.


    Right at that moment, the main forces of Qin afar sounded the horn to retreat.


    It was already impossible to continue the war after losing so many mages. If the army still did not retreat, the remaining soldiers there would be killed.


    With a boom, the ground trembled. A humongous sand pit appeared at a position directly next to the city walls. Even the metal battering chariot had sunk into the ground. The soldiers outside the city had lost their assertion, the battering chariot was ruined while the soldiers heard the horn to retreat. They quickly turned around and fled. The battle at the city entrance was very intense, very few soldiers managed to scale the city walls. Those who seeded were stabbed and captured by the spirits and troops from Bitter Water County.


    This time around, Saleen did not give the order to massacre. The target of this battle was the Qin people, so Saleen had to think of their feelings. ¡°It is sufficient to kill themander. If the enemy doesn¡¯t want to redeem the normal troops, these normal troops can be used as auxiliary soldiers. They can still be a regr soldier if they attain merits on the battlefield.¡±


    Such a practice had been taking ce on the maind for the past one thousand years, Saleen did not want to change anything.


    The area around the city entrance had been fully sealed by the Earth Sinking spell. At this moment, the thousand soldiers who entered the city were surrounded. The surrounding spirits suddenly surged in number.


    The people in the city could hear the horn to retreat, but these soldiers were helpless since the city entrance had been sealed by gigantic rocks falling to the ground. They tossed their weapons aside and knelt on the ground. If the enemy was Tanggsi, these soldiers would have fought until their deaths, but the enemy was County Queen Lex¡¯s ally. After a full blown war, the eagerness in the soldiers¡¯ hearts had been blunted, so they surrendered.


    Since the soldiers were on County Queen Lex¡¯s territory, they were counting on the fact that their enemy would not massacre them.


    The skeletal soldiers went towards the Qin soldiers, collecting their weapons. Earl Besta¡¯s trusted soldiers appeared at this moment and instructed the one-thousand three-hundred soldiers to remove their armor. On the other side, the new soldiers in the town had retrieved autumn clothing from the warehouse, distributing it to the surrendered soldiers.


    The surrendered soldiers then had peace of mind. After removing their armor, their clothes inside seemed to be a little thin. If no one had given them clothes, it would mean that they would wind up freezing.


    Seeing that the battle was over, the winged skeleton stretched his hand to retract the human head levitating in the air. He still had some use for this human head. The head of a sorcerer was natural equipment for refining equipment. It was tremendously useful for a death mage. A sorcerer possessed massive mental strength. Their skull had already undergone changes that enabled it to store some mental-type spells, or spells which could exert control over spirits.


    The winged skeleton had collected arge quantity of magic beast bones from the sea, but this human head was very rare. At the moment, the winged skeleton still did not possess the ability to refine a few skulls which belonged to some powerful people. Since this sorcerer¡¯s head was fresh, it was just right for the winged skeleton to use it to practice death alchemy. After creating a magic staff, the magic staff would be able to store more than six death spells. It would be mightier than any other magic staff crafted from other materials.


    Cuisi¡¯s mental state was a little weakened when he returned to Saleen. Even though he was not a death creature or dark creature the few hundred fine light arrows had caused substantial damage to his body.


    The spells of a human were unpredictable, there surely had to be a price to pay for killing a grade-7 sorcerer. Until now, Cuisi could not think of an idea, ¡°Seems like I have to deal with him using my own strength.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, how do I manage these one-thousand and three-hundred surrendered troops?¡± Earl Besta was greatly frustrated now. He would have inadequate manpower and resources to guard the captives.


    Saleen took a trip to the mini square. Briefly looking at his surroundings, Saleen said, ¡°The soldiers are pretty good. Mm, I will go to Daliang City. Lex¡¯s people will have a way of dealing with them, write a letter to Daliang City to inform them that I will arrive in five days.¡±


    Saleen was not in a hurry to rush his journey, ¡°There is still a dozen days before the end of the month. Even if I arrive in five days, I can make it in time.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Your Highness.¡± Earl Besta was more assured after Saleen helped him to manage the problem of the surrendered soldiers.


    Saleen returned to his room and summoned Cuisi. ¡°Cuisi, I heard that you got injured?¡±


    ¡°It is because of Soldier...¡± It would be impossible for Cuisi to not have any grievances, the bet between the winged skeleton and him was simply a trap. By allowing hisrge body to absorb the enemy¡¯s strongest attacks, the winged skeleton could simply reap the rewards just by standing aside.


    Saleen smiled, but he did not have the intention to persuade Cuisi, ¡°The winged skeleton is the most loyal subordinate, it is a job well done this time. The enemy¡¯s sorcerer has been killed and everyone made it back safely. No one was captured by the experts in the enemy¡¯s army and nobody was struck by the alchemical crossbows.¡± A battle whichsted for several minutes had dissolved the enemy¡¯s one-time offensive, this ability symbolized the winged skeleton¡¯s intelligence. As for making Cuisi the scapegoat, this decision was the right one. At the veryst stage, the winged skeleton did not abandon Cuisi, he had brought him back instead after all.


    ¡°Cuisi, this is for you to heal yourself.¡±


    Cuisi prostrated on the ground helplessly, reverting to his original form. Luckily Saleen¡¯s room was big enough. Cuisi was not constrained on the ground. He extended his wings, revealing thousands of holes. Saleen took out magic liquid and dripped it onto them.


    A mage¡¯s treatment was not any lousier than that of a holy master. Under Saleen¡¯s control, the magic liquid diffused into the wounds. Cuisi absorbed it quickly. While using the magic liquid for treatment, Saleen also cast the Chunlin spell to catalyze the process. Cuisi¡¯s wounds began healing.


    ¡°A pity that Teacher isn¡¯t around, I am a mere grade-6 mage. You could recover immediately with his treatment. Don¡¯t fly for the time being.¡± Saleen said while tending to the injuries. ¡°Cuisi, Soldier wasn¡¯t wrong to have done that, it¡¯s not like you are not getting any benefits. You should realize the difference of a human sorcerer right?¡± As Saleen finished treating Cuisi¡¯s injuries, he began justifying the actions taken by the winged skeleton.


    Cuisi was not furious, he instead pondered seriously for a moment. He then said, ¡°I understand now. If I was facing a grade-7 sorcerer alone, I am confident in killing him, but I may very well die or sustain serious injuries. If I fight with two or more grade-7 sorcerers, I will surely be be killed.¡±


    ¡°If you didn¡¯t get injured this time around, you would definitely becent when facing a human sorcerer the next time. The sorcerer had only used one level-8 scroll to injure you. If the enemy was my teacher, he could have killed you effortlessly. A human¡¯s equipment is their strongest aspect. You don¡¯t understand that demons aren¡¯t the only powerful race. The battles between humans have never stopped, these battles are more ruthless than the ones urring on the demonic ne.¡±

 Chapter 728: Antos’ fury (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 728: Antos¡¯ fury (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Cuisi fully agreed with Saleen. After advancing to a supreme demon, he thought that he already had absolute advantage over a human sorcerer. He thought he at least would not need to bother about sorcerers below grade-9. If the winged skeleton did not tease Cuisi, Cuisi would not have understood the prowess of a human sorcerer.


    This time around, he and the winged skeleton had teamed up to fight one sorcerer. If Cuisi fought with two sorcerers alone in the future there was no way he could survive.


    Saleen simply enlightened Cuisi, then he began organizing the equipment. With an additional one-thousand and three-hundred prisoners he could not possibly give all of them a skeletal warhorse. Saleen took out some equipmentponents and ordered his subordinates to assemble a war chariot to transport these prisoners. Such an assault would not take ce after entering the depths of the Bitter Water County.


    One of the elite camps from Qin had ended up in shambles after invading a town located at the borders of the Bitter Water County. One-thousand heavy cavalrymen and two-thousand light cavalrymen were killed and more than four-thousand infantrymen were lost. The worst thing was that the campmander, the sorcerer apanying the army, and five grand mages were all killed in action. No one had expected such an oue.


    Selecting an interim campmander out of the emblem groupmanders, everyone retreated north in despair. The war chariots were still the ones paving the way at the front. This time around, the alchemical crossbows were already installed. They kept watch over different angles, so that they could defend against any flying targets.


    Only one grade-4 mage remained in the army. Originally, this mage was in charge of the logistical support at the back, but was now deployed to the main body. In the autumn winds, this ten-thousand man army trudged across the wilderness slowly. They portrayed a very lifeless scene.


    Entering the region controlled by Qin, towering hills had appeared at the front of them. The army altered its formation and traversed the short hills on both sides. At this moment, in the forest afar, an earth-shattering explosion urred. Huge logs flew into the air and leaves were torn into shreds in the fierce wind.


    A thick stench diffused for dozens of miles, causing the soldiers who were in the chariots at the front to feel extremely nervous. The crossbowmen immediately ced their fingers on the triggers. The magic disciples stimted the magic arrays on the alchemical crossbows without any hesitation.


    ¡°Load the arrows, load the arrows!¡± Themanders hollered. The team came to a halt, then the heavy cavalrymen quickly put on an exterioryer of armor and the soldiers who carried the crossbow equipment began loading the arrows.


    These Qin people reacted very quickly, this was a professional army. In less than three minutes, the entire army had transformed and was bristling like a porcupine. Their reaction had been brought about by the winged skeleton. They were afraid of running into another horrifying creature like the winged skeleton.


    The hills ahead were gentle and overgrown withrge trees. A colossal creature charged towards the Qin army from the forest. This creature had two heads and filthy blood spurted from the back of its neck. It was at least ten yards tall and was covered with metal scales from head to toe.


    The two heads had human faces with a long horn on each head. The whole face was mottled with ck patterns and between these patterns streams of blood were flowing out. It was as though the faces were being torn off. This creature rose from the forest, charging towards the Qin army. It had already covered a few hundred yards in the blink of an eye.


    ¡°Get ready!¡± The Qinmander¡¯s voice was trembling, it was unknown where this strange creature hade from. Their first instinct was to be fearful, but every soldier understood that an army would only be mighty if all its forces were converged. If the soldiers fled in all directions, then their survival would be dependent on luck.


    The twelve war chariots had twelve alchemical crossbows and huge alchemical arrows measuring up to two yards wereunched. Controlled by the low grade mages and disciples, these twelverge arrows were targeted at this monster.


    These arrows had a high cost of production, they were potent weapons used to deal with experts above grade-7. The monster simply waved an arm and had caught the twelverge arrows in its hand. It crushed the arrows into smithereens.


    Arrows flew about wildly. The terror within the soldiers did not cause their actions to change. In a sh, this monster was only one-hundred yards from the soldiers. The soldiers wielding crossbows quicklyunched their arrows.


    Om!


    The monster opened its mouths, spitting a plume of ck smoke. In an instant, this ck smoke had engulfed the light cavalrymen in the vanguard squad and was continuing to expand in size.


    Behind the thick smoke, the monster made a leap into the midst of the Qin soldiers. It then opened his huge hand and grabbed at the soldiers. Soldiers who were caught were immediately tossed into the monster¡¯s mouths.


    Kill!


    The heavy cavalrymen on both nks were deeply horrified, but they still raised their cavalrynces and organized a charge. The light cavalrymen at the front had already copsed to the ground, the thick smoke was clearly poison.


    The Qin knights crashed into the monster¡¯s body, tragically turning into a pile of bloody flesh. The monster did not seem powerful and was still bleeding from its neck, but the heavy cavalrymen seemed like they might as well have rammed into a mountain.


    Ow...


    Everyone felt chills go down their spine as their hair stood on end. This monster was leaping within the formation of soldiers. Each time it extended its hand, it would capture two soldiers, then it would toss them into its mouths. The monster¡¯s gigantic mouths were like bottomless pits.


    Observing this scene unfold, the interim campmander yelled in terror, ¡°Quick! Third emblem group, flee with the mages, escape now!¡±


    He did not even use the word ¡®retreat¡¯. ording to militaryws, using the word ¡®escape¡¯ could justify an execution. This interim campmander did not think that he would survive, so he could not be bothered.


    The wound on the back of the monster¡¯s neck had stopped bleeding and a third head grew out slowly. It seemed that it originally had three heads, but one had been forcefully cut off.


    That sole grade-4 mage¡¯s face was pale as a sheet, he did not have the intention to escape at all. He looked at the monster and his heart filled with dread.


    ¡°This is...¡±


    That monster turned around, crushing a war chariot with its feet before leaping towards this grand mage. When it waved its gigantic palm, the mage subconsciously released the Ice te Armor, but this spell was simply broken by this monster. As the gray-robed mage was tossed into the monster¡¯s mouth, he finally yelled something before dying; ¡°This is the Dark Sky Devil...!¡±


    The formation of the Qin soldiers was in utter chaos, not many people heard the mage¡¯s words. Even if they did, normal people would not know what the Dark Sky Devil was.


    This god created by the ck magicians possessed endless life. As long as one person still believed in ck magic, the Dark Sky Devil would never disappear. Even ten camps would not be able to exterminate this monster. All the best equipment and mages would have to be used to even chase this monster away.


    Even if the Dark Sky Devil was smashed into smithereens by many grade-9 sorcerers, the Dark Sky Devil could still be resurrected atop the altar of ck magicians. Unless all the believers of ck magic were killed at the same time and the soul of the Dark Sky Devil was refined into the elements he could not be killed. Be that as it may, if someone in the future who harbored evil thoughts thought of the Dark Sky Devil and made a wish, the Dark Sky Devil would develop in this person¡¯s heart before eventually devouring them.


    The horror of ck magicid in the fact that no one would remain kind forever. Even the Lord of Glory would not be able to extirpate the darkness in people¡¯s hearts.


    The third head of the Dark Sky Devil grew increasinglyrger. Each time he devoured one person his injury would recover a little. Clearly, a presence with unparalleled power had wounded the Dark Sky Devil, it was impossible for this army to fully heal his wound.


    The third emblem group was the onlyposition of light cavalrymen which remainedplete. The moment they heard the orders from the interim campmander, these light cavalrymen took the remaining white-robed mages and escaped northeast.


    The Dark Sky Devil picked up rocks on the ground and created hundreds of shards and then tossed them. These hundreds of rock shards struck the soldiers from behind.


    The speed of the Dark Sky Devil continues to increase. He charged towards the fleeing cavalrymen and initiated a crazed onught at the rear.


    After being severely injured he had been hiding underground not daring to expose himself. He only emerged when these soldiers went past, he was going to use the flesh of the Qin soldiers to recover his third head.


    Cavalrynces, heavy swords, javelins, heavy crossbows...all these weapons assaulted the scales on the body of the Dark Sky Devil, but they all bounced off. The Dark Sky Devil was previously severely injured, otherwise, he could have killed these soldiers without even lifting a finger when these weapons bounced off.


    Devouring thousands of soldiers, the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s third head was finally as big as the other two heads. Waving an enormous palm, the heads of soldiers who he could not swallow in time rolled aside, then these bodies rose to their feet.


    The speed at which the Dark Sky Devil could create headless riders was thousands of times faster than the ck magicians.


    The souls of these soldiers were sealed in their heads. While moaning in excruciation, their bodies grabbed onto their heads. They then made their way to the warhorses nearest to them. The orbitals of the warhorses were already pitch ck, there were no other colors present.


    Massacring all the soldiers, there were now two-thousand headless riders standing beside the Dark Sky Devil. The three heads swung about swiftly, scanning the surroundings meticulously. After ensuring that the scents of the two people had not appeared within a range of one-hundred miles, he ordered the two-thousand headless riders to advance south, while he himself dashed in the northwestern direction.


    ¡°The scents of two-thousand headless riders should be able to attract the attention of those two humans.¡±


    The Dark Sky Devil quickly disappeared into the forest and the two-thousand headless riders advanced south mindlessly. In the south there was an anonymous town which they had left previously at border of Lex¡¯s county.


    Five dayster, in Fge City, which was situated in central Lon, Marquis Antos learned that his entire army had been exterminated.


    In his temporary marquis¡¯ residence, Antos was raging and smashing whatever item he could grab hold of.


    ¡°Lex! You really are ruthless! I am going to kill you!¡±


    Beside Antos stood a dwarf d in brown clothes. Looking at Marquis Antos through his purple pupils, he said, ¡°Sir, that town only has five-hundred elites, they wouldn¡¯t be able to kill everyone from the eighty-sixth camp.¡±


    ¡°This was a trap!¡± Antos bellowed, then told this dwarf, ¡°ording to the images transmitted back by the mages, there was a two-hundred man team which came from Metatrin City and there was a death sorcerer amongst them. At the foot of the city the death sorcerer killed Angee and the five grand mages. They must have set up an ambush along the eighty-sixth camp¡¯s route of retreat and they proceeded to kill the remaining people.¡±


    ¡°Sir, the people from Metatrin can¡¯t possibly deploy so many soldiers there right?¡±


    ¡°Lex must have stationed some people there beforehand and used those two-hundred people as bait!¡± Antos was on the brink of going berserk, he had to work hard to recruit a sorcerer and that sorcerer was killed in battle while apanying his ten-thousand man army.


    ¡°So, Sir, who do you want dead? Lex, or that death sorcerer?¡± The dwarf shut his eyes, posing a strange question. It was as though the dwarf could help Antos kill any target of his wish.

 Chapter 729: Metatrin’s Oath of Alliance (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 729: Metatrin¡¯s Oath of Alliance (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Antos calmed down after hearing what Dwarf said. He plucked out two strands of his beard and spoke in a low tone, ¡°Tyrant, my rage is growing. Could it be that something has gone wrong in my training?¡±


    The dwarf closed his eyes and said, ¡°Master, this is normal. Once you pass the stage of silver grand swordmaster, your rage will ease. Out of the twenty-four types of secrets in this world, Master¡¯s secret is the most unique. If not for the fact that I cannot unlearn what I have been trained in, I wish I could learn from Master too.¡±


    A strand of red aura shed across Antos¡¯ eyes like a flickering me. He took in a deep breath and said, ¡°I cannot me Lex for what happened. I sent out troops to attack her city, but ended up in a crushing defeat. That is not a big deal. She is from the Grukos family. If I really killed her, Ojarvis wille after me.¡±


    ¡°Does Master want that sorcerer dead?¡±


    ¡°No, I suspect the person that has arrived at Daliang City is the King of Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Saleen? His abilities are not strong, but he is not easy to kill. If we kill him, Lex will be upset,¡± the dwarf said slowly.


    ¡°Lex killed an entire battalion of my soldiers. I am upset too. If she gets upset, then we are even. Tyrant, take a trip to Daliang City. If the King of Metatrin is there, kill him and bring me his head.¡±


    Antos spoke cruelly. By the time he raised his head again, the dwarf was already gone.


    The nameless small town that was under the care of Earl Besta was now in its fifth day of being surrounded by the headless knights. The dark sky devil¡¯s intention was to escape. He did not order the headless knights to attack the city and instead, be a distraction. If these headless knights followed their instincts, they would have entered the small town to hunt for souls.


    There were more than ten catapults left behind by Saleen in the small town, more than one-thousand armors and equipment or elite soldiers, and a number of crossbows. Most importantly, there were more than three-thousand undead soldiers left behind by the winged skeleton.


    It was unintentional on the winged skeleton¡¯s part. There was a limit to his green spirit and it was already stored with all the spirits of the dead that he had summoned for his fleets. They could not be reced. The newly created undead soldiers were left behind in Earl Besta¡¯s small town. Without death mages to provide these undead soldiers with death energy, these soldiers would onlyst for a month at most before vanishing from the Myers Maind. If they were lucky, their soul mes would burn again in the death dimension.


    The undead soldiers did not smell good and the people in the small town felt disgusted by them at first. They soon became the most important fighting force after the headless knights came.


    These headless knights were created by the dark sky devil and they all possessed the standard of swordmasters. Fortunately, they had already lost the abilities they had possessed when they were still alive. Now, they only knew to gather outside the city gate and hack at it with their weapons. The catapults in the cityunched rocks at them for a few rounds, but stopped doing so after they realized that the headless knights would not be killed that way.


    Some headless knights began to desert their horses and attempted to climb up the city wall. This was when they needed the undead soldiers¡¯ help. These undead soldiers would attack the skulls that were hung on the headless knights¡¯ waists.


    Two to three of Earl Besta¡¯s soldiers would use pikes to block the headless knight. Two undead soldiers would then charge forward and activate the corpse explosion skill to blow up the headless knights¡¯ brains. Finally, the headless knights would tumble down the city wall.


    The casualties were increasing by the hour. The new recruits could not bepared to Earl Besta¡¯s bodyguards. The headless knights did not have any weaknesses and the people trapped in the city were helpless. If not for the city wall, everyone in the city would already have been killed by the headless knights.


    It was toote to flee from the city. All they could do now was to defend the city and wait for reinforcements.


    After holding on for two days, the people in the city were tired beyond words. The headless knights had only lost less than one-thousand of their own yet more than half of the undead soldiers were dead. Slightly more than one-thousand were left. The remaining headless knights were stronger than those that had perished. Even if three to five undead soldiers attacked a headless knight at once, they might not seed in killing it.


    Just as the morale within the city was at its lowest, two figures appeared on the ins far away like shooting stars and arrived behind the headless knights. These two figures paid no attention to the headless knights. They instead flew up and over the top of the city wall. The soldiers on the city wall wanted to shoot arrows at them, but found that they could no longer control their limbs.


    Even the headless knights that were climbing the city wall found themselves unable to move. The two figures stopped. It was a man and a woman. The man waved his hand and suddenly, there was a very slight sound in the bodies of all the headless knights.


    Ka...


    Almost in one instant, all the headless knights turned into ck powder and scattered onto the ground as if they never existed.


    The woman opened her mouth and a green light shone from her fingers to form an illusion on the city wall.


    The illusion was a monster that was more than twenty yards tall. It had three heads, four arms and an entire body of ck scales with a horn on each head.


    ¡°Has anyone seen this before?¡± The woman¡¯s voice rang throughout the entire city.


    The soldiers shook their heads. The man nced over and said to the woman, ¡°Jessica, the dark sky devil has never been here. We have been tricked.¡±


    ¡°What do we do now, Gauf?¡±


    The man opened his mouth and said, ¡°When did these headless knights start to attack this ce?¡±


    ¡°Two, two days ago...,¡± a slightly more courageous soldier replied. Even the new recruits had be braver after having managed to survive until then. Battling the headless knights everyday was a nightmare.


    ¡°Jessica, it has been two days. That thing did not dare to fly so it is probably within two-thousand miles from here.¡±


    ¡°Damn it. He has devoured more than ten-thousand people so he has managed to stop his injury for the time-being. I can¡¯t detect his aura!¡±


    These two were the Goddess¡¯ envoys that had left the purgatory desert. They did not have any important tasks at hand so they decided to track down the dark sky devil. During the first encounter, the dark sky devil was badly injured by them and had fled for its life.


    These two oracles definitely possessed the power to kill him. The dark sky devil had been concealing his movements all along, but was still caught by them. Jessica used divine spells to hack off one of his heads and just like that, more than ten-thousand years of powers that he had umted had gone to waste. He knew that he was no match for the two envoys so he deserted the head and fled. It was easy to detect his aura through his blood so he took the risk of killing ten-thousand Qin soldiers to stop the bleeding for the time-being.


    The dark sky devil¡¯s third head was still unable to possess any abilities. In order to recover, he would need arge number of disciples to pray to him.


    The dark sky devil took the risk of killing ten-thousand Qin soldiers and this took the envoys by surprise. He created more than two-thousand headless knights before hiding himself. He would wait for the oracles to track down these knights first before escaping in the opposite direction.


    Ever since he developed intelligence, the dark sky devil had never been so aggrieved before. If only he had his full powers, he would not have to fear these two envoys.


    Aside from the two envoys losing track of dark sky devil, Saleen had already led his one-thousand prisoners to Daliang City. All the prisoners were Qin and were not subjected to any mistreatment. Lex arranged for them to join the battalion of new recruits instead of bing auxiliary soldiers immediately.


    The King¡¯s mansion in Daliang City was also called the Imperial Pce. Saleen did not stay in the magic tower mainly because it would be difficult for his demons to settle down there. Saleen stayed in a small building in the backyard of the King¡¯s mansion that was near the magic tower. One level of this building was already used by Lex for military matters. The hall was broad and beside the gigantic oval-shaped table were the generals of Bitter Water Prefecture and the people that Saleen had brought over.


    On Lex¡¯s side, one grade-7 mage was stationed at the magic tower outside of the city so only one other grade-7 mage sat beside her. On the other side sat Wild Bear. This warrior was originally a cook, but was already a zun grand swordmaster now. Even Su was jealous of his talent.


    Not only was Wild Bear fast in training up his sword aura, his god-given strength was also something others wished they had. Even if he did not utilize the sword aura, one hit by his hammer would still cause enough grief to most swordmasters.


    It was not because of his outstanding fighting skills that he merited a seat beside Lex. Behind her stood four ck metal grand swordmasters, two of them middle-aged and the other two were youths. Wild Bear was now the battalionmander of Lex¡¯s pce swordsmen. He lead tens of thousands of soldiers who specialized in battles on foot. After a few years of grooming, his talent for military was on full disy. No one would ever guess that he used to be a cook.


    Lex still had another ten main battalions and theirmanders were all seated at the table.


    On Saleen¡¯s side, Eleanor and Isabe sat beside him since grade-6 grand mages could not possibly stand behind. The four demons stood obediently, as well as the winged skeleton. Mu En was also seated beside Saleen with an expressionless face.


    It pained him to disguise himself as a grand sorcerer, especially when surrounded by so many important people. He almost wanted to knock himself dead. Unfortunately, the winged skeleton had no intentions of letting him go. He continued to make him wear the ck magic robe and sit beside Saleen.


    Beside Saleen were Nichs and Su. Su was now fully capable of leading Saleen¡¯s first battalion into battle and they were stationed in Daliang City as well. As they had been in battles together, Lex¡¯s generals were grateful and appreciative of the Metatrins.


    The people of Bitter Water Prefecture witnessed for themselves how this battalion of new recruits went through the initiation of fighting on the battlefield to be seasoned soldiers. Until now, more than one-thousand soldiers from the first battalion had died and up to three-thousand had to leave due to injuries. The battalion had seen a turnover of more than half of its soldiers. Nevertheless, the first battalion had gradually matured and could now live up to its name of being elite soldiers.


    Saleen used his senses, but was unable to detect the old assassin that used to stay by Lex¡¯s side. That old fellow must have be stronger again.


    Lex presented the images from the magic map. Separation Sea was tiny and covered by fog. As the images were gradually magnified, one could clearly see the twists and turns of the shore and its shape.


    ¡°After I killed the Cloudflow envoy, everyone else rushed ashore and my ships were thoroughly destroyed.¡± Lex used a magic staff to point at a coordinate on the three-dimensional map and said, ¡°Although the group of envoys¡¯ fleet was of a small scale and would not be able tounch any attacks onnd, subsequently, Cloudflow will most likely gather all their fleets on the Separation Sea over here. There is only a small town with at most ten-thousand men stationed by the shore. It will not do.¡±


    Everyone in the hall hung their heads gloomily after hearing what Lex said. If this was a battle onnd, they would not have to be afraid. None of them were proficient in naval warfare. Everyone looked at Saleen and waited for his response.


    These generals knew that the King of Metatrin came specifically to provide reinforcements, but they had no idea what brilliant suggestions he might possibly have. Looking at how simply he carried himself, the generals had little expectation of Saleen.

 Chapter 730: Metatrin’s Oath of Alliance (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 730: Metatrin¡¯s Oath of Alliance (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked at the generals seated at the table and pondered for a moment before saying, ¡°In July, Lex came to Metatrin City and we signed a treaty. This treaty concerns both countries, Bitter Water Prefecture and Metatrin Kingdom.¡± Saleen spoke very seriously and the generals all paid careful attention. Saleen continued, ¡°Nevertheless, even without that treaty, I would still be here today. This is because a few years ago, when I was still a small grade-2 mage, Lex helped me. I am from Sikeqinya so many people may think that Sikeqinyans only care about money.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s tone became rxed and the generals could not help butugh. This King and grand mage did not put on any airs.


    ¡°Indeed, I am someone who is especially fond of gold coins, but I can never forget what Lex has given me. Today, I am here not because of the treaty between our two countries. It is because my men and I will defend every inch ofnd in Bitter Water Prefecture along with your Lord. Regardless if the enemy is from the Holy See or from the huge Cloudflow Empire, I, Saleen Metatrin, will never back down. This is not the oath of a King but the promise of a mage.¡±


    At this point, everyone became very stern. A mage¡¯s promise could never be broken.


    ¡°I have brought along a fleet. In order to give everyone sufficient assurance to continue doing what needs to be der on, Mu En, give an introduction of this fleet.¡± Saleen gestured to Mu En as he spoke.


    There was a strange smile on Lex¡¯s face. She knew that Saleen would never give up on her Prefecture and that Saleen valued their rtionship very much. What she was smiling about was that Saleen was using a person from Bitter Water Prefecture disguised as a death sorcerer.


    Mu En was an inconspicuous person. Although he was a high-level swordmaster, he had never appeared in anyone¡¯s sight before. Mu En was Earl Besta¡¯s bodyguard, but was also newly selected to be sent to the small town at the border. His family had always followed Earl Besta and everyone in Bitter Water Prefecture knew that.


    Mu En swallowed; is entire body was burning. The winged skeleton¡¯s voice rang in his head. He had no choice but to follow the winged skeleton¡¯s instructions so he said, ¡°This time around, His Highness has brought along a spirit fleet.¡±


    Mu En waved his hand as he spoke and the winged skeleton immediately came to the front to set up a magic image array on the table.


    ¡°There are six skeletal warships. Each of them is twenty yards long and can carry two-hundred human soldiers and eight-hundred spirits of the dead. Each warship is equipped with high-level magicpass, a spirit gaze magic array, and its main weapon is big magic stone artillery with a range of more than ten miles. Its secondary weapon includes twelve medium magic stone artilleries with a range of five miles. The warships are driven by death magic and do not require sails. There are twenty-four catapults for targets within five miles. Closebat equipment include sixty alchemy crossbows and twelve sets of fire-breathing dragons.¡±


    The winged skeleton did not allow Mu En to talk about the full nature of the skeletal warships except for their main weapons. Upon hearing about it, the generals of Bitter Water Prefecture became more optimistic.


    Mu En continued to introduce the other small-scale warships and Saleen was relieved. He could see that all the generals had regained their confidence and every single one of them was paying full attention to what Mu En was saying.


    Saleen was confident in destroying the enemy¡¯s main warships, but could not guarantee that he could stop the Cloudflow forces from reaching the shore. The Cloudflow¡¯s troop carriers were powerful magic warships in their own right. If they were unable to sink these warships, the Cloudflow soldiers woulde ashore and attack Daliang City.


    What Saleen needed to do was simple. He needed to bring up the morale of everyone and clinch a decisive victory onnd. Cloudflow had been dominating the seas for thousands of years. He had to be prepared. No matter how good his own warships were, it would be a hard-fought battle.


    The best result he could hope for was for both sides to suffer heavy losses. The only difference was that Cloudflow would be losing their navy soldiers while Saleen was merely losing spirits of the dead. The horrifying thing about death troops was that if there was enough time and magic nuclei, Saleen could summon them without stopping, constantly replenishing his troops.


    Mu En spoke for more than an hour beforepleting the introductions of Saleen¡¯s warships. This was when Saleen continued to speak to the generals, ¡°Cloudflow fleets may be invincible on the seas, but I am confident that my death troops will be able to destroy their catapults, magic stone artilleries, andrge-scale alchemy crossbows. I just need everyone to hold this ce.¡±


    Saleen stood up even as he spoke. He stretched out his hand and pointed at the magic map. The location he was pointing at was the east side of the shore, which was the rocky terrain near Qin.


    ¡°I will build a spirit castle here in ten days¡¯ to force the Cloudflow armies that havee ashore to go by the nks. The small town cannot be expanded at the moment and a ten-thousand strong army will not be able to hold the town.¡±


    ¡°The Cloudflows wille ashore?¡± A general asked.


    ¡°If there are one-million of them, I can guarantee that less than six-hundred-thousand wille ashore,¡± Saleen replied with a smile.


    The reason behind Saleen¡¯s confidence was that he had yet to introduce the divingbat vessel and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The divingbat vessel was not arge equipment, but the threat it posed to troop carriers surpassed any main warships. It had undergone tests and was found to be able to dive to a depth of one-hundred yards. It would never be discovered unless any grand sorcerers paid special attention to it.


    Once such divingbat vessels got close enough to troop carriers, thetter would be dead meat.


    The Cloudflow army dered that they would send a one-million strong army to shore, but it was not possible. Could one troop carrier carry ten-thousand men each? Probably five-thousand was the maximum.


    One-hundred troop carriers could only carry five-hundred-thousand men and that was excluding the soldiers¡¯ equipment and logistics. There were less than two-hundred Cloudflow ships that were medium-sized orrger on the Separation Sea.


    Mu En finally rxed after sessfullypleting his act in front of everyone. Lex knew who he was, but he was an unknown to everyone else.


    After settling Lex¡¯s subordinates and once the generals had departed, Saleen told Lex the exact numbers of all the equipment that he had brought along. After assembling all theponents, there would be a total of sixrge warships, thirty medium warships and one-hundred and twenty small warships. In actual fact, these already surpassed the numbers in a proper fleet.


    Therge and medium warships were equipped with magic stone artilleries that were newly built. The small warships did not have the chance to change their equipment so they were still stuck with bone catapults.


    Every warship would have spirit pools so they would still be able to use bone spirits to carry bloodstones and use them as a form of ranged attack.


    The six jade skeletons would lead a skeletal warship each and each of them would be apanied by five medium warships and twenty small warships. Each section of the fleet would be given two divingbat vessels. These two divingbat vessels would not join in the battle. Their only objective was to seek out the troop carriers.


    As for the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, it would be controlled by the winged skeleton personally.


    The Cloudflow army would not wait for too long. Once they had sufficient warships, they wouldunch an attack immediately. ording to reports the Cloudflow fleets would reach the north shore of Separation Sea and would be ready to attack Daliang City by mid November.


    Lex had stationed a three-hundred-thousand strong army on the west side to stand against the armies of the Tanggsi Empire. There were less than two-hundred-thousand men in Daliang City and one-hundred-thousand of them were Lex¡¯s main battalion. Another ten-thousand were Saleen¡¯s first battalion. Although Saleen¡¯s sixth battalion had improved their fighting abilities tremendously, they were still not as formidable as the first battalion.


    Once Saleen reached Daliang City, the first battalion was returned back to him. By the time Saleen left, he would bring the first battalion along. He would then send another two battalions there to help Lex in her fight. After a few rounds of such arrangements, Saleen¡¯s main battalions would all greatly improve their fighting abilities.


    Although Daliang City was a newly expanded city, it was not small in scale. Lex had built this city with the intention of it being able to house more than one-million people. The original infrastructure was insufficient so she turned it into an inner city. Threeyers of city walls were then built ording to the geographical terrains to form an unorthodox-looking city.


    When Lex first came arrived, she only concentrated on building up the city. This Daliang City had once stopped the attack of a three-hundred-thousand strong army from Tanggsi. Saleen walked one round with Lex on the top of the city wall and did not find any areas that needed his help. Lex¡¯s equipment for defending the city was sufficient and wasparable to his own. Saleen managed to learn many techniques of defending the city from Lex.


    ¡°Lex, I can rest assured about Daliang City. I will now go to Separation Sea to build the bone castle. I will station fifty-thousand soldiers there. When we fight them on Separation Sea, I will try to destroy their troop carriers so that not many of them will make it to the shore. If we can eliminate the one-million strong army, no one else on the Myers Maind will dare to attack us anymore.¡± Saleen felt confident as he looked into the distance while standing on top of the city wall.


    If Cloudflow had sent forth a one-million strong army to attack onnd, Saleen would be helpless. On the west side of Separation Sea was the mountainous regions of Titan Duchy. Not only would it be difficult to pass through that region, they would also have to cut throughnds controlled by Tanggsi. Cloudflow thought that their fleets were invincible and wanted to enter Bitter Water Prefecture through the Separation Sea by attacking Daliang City. It would be a good opportunity for Saleen and Lex to make a name for themselves.


    An army of twenty-thousand against one-million soldiers. This battle would go down in the historical records.


    Lex looked into the distance as well and said to Saleen, ¡°If not for the treaty between our two countries, would you really havee?¡±


    ¡°Of course. The Emperor of Cloudflow has insulted you and that is equivalent to insulting me too. Besides, we are going to destroy his empire sooner orter...¡±


    ¡°Humph, I killed the Cloudflow envoy because I listened to you. You are obliged to help me.¡± There was rage in Lex¡¯s words. She seemed dissatisfied with Saleen¡¯s answer.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s not talk anymore. I will go and rest. The days when you were not around, I was so tired.¡± Lex interrupted Saleen and led his ck metal grand swordmasters down the city wall.


    Saleen was confused. He turned around and asked Isabe and Eleanor, ¡°Did I say something wrong?¡±


    ¡°My Lord, precisely because you didn¡¯t say anything wrong, that¡¯s why the Princess was upset.¡± Eleanor smiled and Isabe shook her head too. It was obvious that Lex had hoped to hear another reply from Saleen.


    As a Lord and the main heiress to the Grukos royal family, Lex could not possibly be too proactive in expressing her feelings to Saleen. This time around, Saleen traveled so many miles to give aid to her. Lex was already very touched. If only Saleen would be more proactive. It was just that Saleen¡¯s mind was mostly upied with how to deal with the Cloudflow fleets and a small part of him was still thinking about Metatrin City and Sika. There was no way he could possibly remember anything about proposing a marriage to Lex.


    Two countries united through marriage would be a single resilient entitypared to a mere alliance.

 Chapter 731: A strong army from Cloudflow (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 731: A strong army from Cloudflow (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Against a powerful adversary, splitting the army was a huge taboo. Daliang City contained One-hundred and ten-thousand elites, Saleen was going to take away fifty-thousand of them and twenty-thousand auxiliary troops. That meant that Daliang City would be left with sixty-thousand main soldiers.


    Saleen was not worried, his fifty-thousand men, which were stationed in the Bone Castle, could effectively contain the Cloudflow people. If the Cloudflow¡¯s fleet could be extirpated in one move, then it would not even be necessary to use these fifty-thousand troops.


    Lex¡¯s main forces possessed high offensive power and had many cavalrymen. In this wilderness, the offensive power of Saleen¡¯s army would be inferior to Lex¡¯s. Saleen had brought along a camp¡¯s worth of new equipment. Even if his first camp paled inparison to Lex¡¯s people this inadequacy could bepensated using equipment.


    The development of the Bone Castle did not just require the magic materials used by a death mage. After Lex prepared all the required items for Saleen, Saleen then left with his first camp. He only stayed for a mere two days in Daliang City. Nichs remained in Daliang City, but Su followed Saleen to the coast.


    There was a shore there which spanned for over two-hundred miles and Lex had a small town at the center of it. Currently, most of the stationed troops had been withdrawn, only one emblem group remained to watch over the movements on theke.


    Even though the waters in thiske were sufficiently deep, there was not a good port. The warships escorting the envoy group were not withdrawn. They were instead digging into the sides of the shore and trying to develop a harbor which could amodaterge warships.


    The Cloudflow people did notunch an offensive right away because the northern shore did not have any good spots for berthing ships. If the fleet arrived, its movements would be restrained. As long as the port was repaired warships from Cloudflow would then be able to obliterate the town from theke with trebuchets.


    Lex did not send anyone to attack the army repairing the port, there were dozens of warships on theke which were aiming at the shore. The moment a battle erupted, the Cloudflow people would have an absolute advantage since they could tap into the power of their warships.


    The Cloudflow people onshore were merely auxiliary troops, some were even genuine workers who had specially came to fix the port. Lex would not want to put her soldiers¡¯ lives at stake by sending them into the enemy¡¯s attack zone.


    Saleen did not station any troops in this town, he sent his army east towards the rocky zone farthest east in secret. The terrain there wasplex and fraught with reefs, a navy would not be able to get close to the area.


    Saleen was going to assemble a warship there and he could not have done so without using a spirit warship. The Cloudflow people would not expect a powerful fleet to appear at a location one-hundred miles from them.


    The Bone Castle was the main fortress in the death ne. As a grade-8 spirit, it was impossible for the winged skeleton to build it on his own. Luckily, he had already constructed numerous modules. Other than having to use brute strength to cement the foundation, the winged skeleton had already developed the main structure of the castle. That was why Saleen could guarantee that he could build this structure within ten days.


    In ten days¡¯ time, a gigantic castle which could amodate one-hundred-thousand people could be constructed. Unlike a human castle, this castle was designed for spirits. There was a humongous Spirit Pool inside which could continuously dispense the power of death required by the spirits. In order to station troops inside, a warehouse for humans had been specially designed inside the castle. A garbage room and a magic instation for purifying theke water were also built.


    The jade skeletons went to deep waters to assemble the skeletal warships so they would not be discovered. The development of the Bone Castle had rmed the Cloudflow people who were repairing the port.


    At first, the Cloudflow people sent a two-hundred man cavalry squad for reconnaissance. Saleen decided to deploy an emblem group of mixed cavalrymen in the end. The two-hundred man cavalry squad was wiped out, none of them escaped.


    Other than the powerful magic beast swordsmen, the cavalrymen from Cloudflow were worse than those from Qin. Not knowing the gravity of things, the Cloudflow army deployed another mixed emblem group. In the end, it was destroyed by Saleen¡¯s knights. Less than two-hundred people managed to get away.


    This time around, the Cloudflow people became more serious, they fixed the port hurriedly, preparing to receive the fleet at the rear. The winged skeleton could not possibly let these Cloudflow people live in peace. He ughtered one-thousand Cloudflow soldiers before turning them into undead soldiers. These undead soldiers then went to assault the port.


    Under themand of the winged skeleton, the undead soldiers went berserk and destroyed the port. The casualty rate was not very high, but many of the port facilities were corroded by their undead fluid, which meant that they had to be reced.


    At this moment, the Cloudflow people received news that Metatrin Kingdom had deployed a mighty death sorcerer. This offensive was obviously orchestrated by that death sorcerer. The defensive facilities around the port were then constructed and security was tight. The Cloudflow people acted as though they were facing a powerful enemy. None of their soldiers were elites and there was a scarcity of mages. If the death sorcerer decided to take risks he might even destroy the port.


    Lex¡¯s four emblem groups arrived right after and entered the colossal Bone Castle. They caused the atmosphere around the shore to be very tense.


    On thest day of October the winds near the shore were very frigid. Saleen sent the winged skeleton to the shore tomand the spirit fleet. At that moment all the warships were submerged, the magic arrays needed to be activated so that water could be expelled and the warships could float up. Only the spirit fleet could use such a method to go underwater.


    Twelve diving warships were going underwater at the same time,. These warships were less than twenty yards long and their hulls had been crafted from expensive metals. If they sunk none of the soldiers inside would survive. Saleen had not trained any sailors to operate the diving warships, so the warships¡¯ operations were run by the spirits.


    Spirits with intelligence were extremely difficult to be summoned or created, so these twelve diving warships could only unleash their power if the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat wasmanding them. The winged skeleton only brought six jade skeletons along and they were in charge ofmanding the skeletal warships. The diving warships were operated by grade-3 skeletal soldiers.


    The winged skeleton nodded at Saleen, then leaped into the water. Mu En followed behind Saleen as he sobbed, then asked, ¡°Your Highness, with him gone, what am I supposed to do?¡±


    Saleen replied with a smile, ¡°You only need to remain in the castle, you don¡¯t have to go out for any more battles.¡±


    The winged skeleton had left and there were no high grade spirits in the Bone Castle. Saleen could actually control some of the spirits summoned from therge magic array, but most of them would follow the winged skeleton¡¯s orders and remain in fixed spots around the castle to defend against the enemy.


    This was the power possessed by the Bone Castle itself. All spirits which entered their corresponding positions would attack any enemy who came too close.


    After entering the sea, the winged skeleton wandered around the rocky area first. Sensing that even small ships would be in peril within an area of a few dozen miles from the shore, he swam into the depths of theke.


    Traveling one-hundred miles out, the winged skeleton contacted the six jade skeletons in the spirit fleet.


    Out of prudence, the winged skeleton ordered the spirit fleet to float to the surface one-hundred and twenty miles away. In a naval fleet, the enemy would surely have a magicpass. Even though the capabilities of a magicpass were not uniform, the winged skeleton still used the safest distance. He stationed the fleet one-hundred and twenty miles away.


    A magicpass would not be able to detect anything from a distance of one-hundred and twenty miles away. Even if it could pick up a moving target, it could not ascertain whether the target was a magic beast or warship.


    As the surface area of the sea was toorge, the winged skeleton did not allow the warships to venture too deep in case there were any mighty magic beasts around. Steering the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, he led the twelve diving warships towards the periphery of the harbor before splitting up. He observed the enemy¡¯s activities every day.


    A huge quantity of bone spirits were released by the winged skeleton. Some of them had even surpassed the lifespan of a bone spirit, evolving into grade-4 spirits. This grade did not signify any offensive power, only their lifespans were extended.


    The lifespan of a normal bone spirit ranged from a few hours to a few days. At most, it would be one month.


    These grade-4 bone spirits led the bone spirits of lower grades. They swam a few hundred miles in the water and surveiled the happenings on the surface of theke. No targets would be missed by executing such a scatter-type search.


    The Cloudflow people were obviously gettingcent. On thest day of the first week of November, the bone spirits delivered news that they had discovered Cloudflow¡¯s warships. The Cloudflow people did not discover the bone spirits.


    The winged skeleton immediately gave amand, deploying three teams to attack Cloudflow¡¯s warships from the nks. Another three teams would conduct a frontal assault.


    From a distance of one-hundred miles, Cloudflow¡¯s fleet had already discovered the targets, but no one cared. To them, the entire sea was their backyard, they coulde and go as they pleased. They had nevere under attack before.


    When the targets were fifty miles away, the Cloudflow people then realized that something was amiss. There were too many targets and the targets¡¯ speed was too high. A magic rm sounded onboard the Cloudflow¡¯s gship.


    The Cloudflow¡¯s fleet was ginormous, there were at least two-hundred ships. The gship was a metal-armored warship measuring two-hundred and twenty yards in length which could amodate tens of thousands of personnel. The moment the magic rm sounded, the airborne cavalrymen among the Cloudflow people immediately took off from the deck. They searched for any approaching targets in the nearby waters.


    The Cloudflow people knew how to rear magic beasts and this type of airborne cavalryman was exclusive to them. During rainy days, they could not be deployed, but the skies were clear now. The Cloudflow people could not stomach the thought of the Bitter Water County daring to assault them.


    Upon detailed observation, the winged skeleton discovered that Cloudflow¡¯s fleet did not specially protect the ships carrying the soldiers. The main warships were situated at the front and the troop-carrying vessels were left about one-hundred miles trailing behind. Traveling at the rear were a dozen warships measuring less than one-hundred yards in length.


    The winged skeleton was overjoyed, those over eighty troop-carrying ships were akin to a te of delicious food. The troop-carrying vessels contained steel armor, trebuchets, alchemical crossbows, and mages. Their detection capabilities were much poorer than that of the main warships.


    A high level magicpass was extremely expensive, only the powerful empires could equip their warships with them. It was impossible for these troop-carrying vessels to be fitted with high level magicpasses.


    The winged skeleton knew that most of the enemy¡¯s soldiers were ced on these troop-carrying vessels. As long as these ships were sunk, at least half of the troops, who could go onshore, would vanish. The skeletal warships were still fifty miles away, but the winged skeleton could not wait anymore, he gave the order to attack.


    Twelve diving warships slowly breached the one-mile area around the troop-carrying vessels, floating up stealthily. The actions of the diving warships were very cautious as they were afraid of getting discovered by the enemy¡¯s mages. The skeletal warships would have to sink the ships in front of them and wait for the retaliation by the mages.


    Inside the diving warships the spirit machinery was operating the Spirit Pool which had been assembled at thest minute, releasing many bone spirits. Carrying a gigantic bloodstones, the bone spirits swam swiftly towards the troop-carrying vessels.

 Chapter 732: A Strong Army from Cloudflow (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 732: A Strong Army from Cloudflow (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Each diving warship released six bone spirits simultaneously, but there was only one target. That meant that there were twelve troop-carrying vessels under attack at that moment.


    Within the diving warships, the bone spirits were stored in obsidian rocks. Even though the winged skeleton had brought up many sunken ships, he could not possibly equip every warship with the Green Spirit. The Green Spirit was so precious because it was very rare on all nes, it was not only going extinct on Myers maind.


    Each diving warship could only transport twelve bone spirits. After release, it would require at least one day in order to summon or use the Spirit Pool to create a second batch of bone spirits.


    Releasing six bone spirits a time, it meant that the diving warships had consumed half of their weapons. Such a weapon was different from an alchemical crossbow. If an alchemical crossbow had run out of magic nuclei, or there were no more suitable alchemical arrows, it could still fire normal arrows. Its lethality would be lowered by dozens of times by using normal arrows though. It could still function as a normal crossbow at the very least.


    Once the bone spirits were depleted, the diving warships could only engage in melee battles. This was a technique invented by the Qin imperial family, but it was very dangerous because the diving warships could be easily destroyed by mages.


    The winged skeleton gave such an order because he did not know how solid the enemy¡¯s warships were, or the power of their retaliation. The first wave of the offensive had to sink the twelve troop-carrying vessels, it was worth it even if it meant having to waste offensive forces.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s prudence had paid off, as each troop-carrying vessel was attacked six times, the effect of the offensive was pronounced.


    The twelve diving warshipsunched their attacks from both nks, striking all their targets. As the gigantic bloodstones exploded, huge holes were blown in the sides of the troop-carrying vessels. Water from theke gushed in quickly, no matter howrge the troop-carrying vessels were, they would tilt and sink since they were assaulted from the side. These vessels tilted towards their damaged sides slowly.


    The winged skeleton was astounded. Even though his calction speed was lower than that of Saleen¡¯s, it had surpassed most other mages. The impact created by the explosion of six bloodstones could even injure a sorcerer.


    ¡°The Cloudflow¡¯s troop-carrying vessels had only lost their exterior metal armor. They are but troop-carrying ships, do they have to install an exterior metal shell while underwater?¡±


    Clearly, the troop-carrying vessels contained separate capsules. If it were not for the extreme damage, the soldiers could even use the magic arrays to expel the water and preserve the vessels.


    What was more horrifying was that the winged skeleton had discovered that if these vessels were carrying fewer materials and soldiers and he did not conduct the attack on the side, these vessels would not have sunk.


    ¡°The bloodstones from the diving warships do not make the cut, it seems like the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat has to participate in this battle.¡±


    Seeing that the twelve troop-carrying vessels could not be salvaged, the winged skeleton immediately gave the order to conduct a second wave of assault. This time around, he instructed the diving warships to release two bone spirits each time. One bone spirit would strike the rudder while the other would strike the side of the vessel. On the waterline, the bloodstones would explode at the location of the propeller.


    This method could not sink the troop-carrying vessels, but it would obstruct their advance and cause them to anchor.


    Of the eighty-four gigantic troop-carrying vessels, only seventy-two remained. Two of the leftover bone spirits would attack one ship, which meant that half of the remaining vessels woulde under attack.


    The winged skeleton knew that the going would get tough soon, ¡°Unlike my expectations, the Cloudflow¡¯s warships are extremely sturdy. Their retaliation will be very ferocious, the interception this time around won¡¯t have a very good effect.¡±


    Each of the twelve capsized troop-carrying vessels were transporting huge amounts of materials and six-thousand soldiers. Usually, such a troop-carrying vessel could only amodate five-thousand people as per standard, but the Cloudflow people were too arrogant. They did not feel that they would meet with trouble at sea, so each ship was overloaded with an additional one-thousand people.


    The extra one-thousand people elerated the speed at which the vessels sank. Despite deploying lifeboats, less than one-thousand people were rescued. Most of the Cloudflow people knew how to swim, as long as they got rescued, they could still go onshore and form an offensive force for attacking Daliang City.


    The Cloudflow people reacted very quickly. Thest fourteen warships at the rear immediately elerated and rushed forward. Of these fourteen warships, only one was longer than one-hundred yards and it had a powerful magicpass. The mages onboard this warship quickly scanned the surroundings and discovered the twelve targets underwater.


    If the diving warships wanted to attack the enemy, they would have to float up beforeunching their attacks several yards underwater. If the diving warships released the bone spirits in deep water they would start leaking and might even be crushed by the water pressure.


    After the few rounds of assault by the diving warships, seventy-two bone spirits had tackled thirty-six troop-carrying vessels. Water was flowing into one side of the troop-carrying vessels while their rudders had been ruined. They began making rounds around theke.


    Themander of the Cloudflow¡¯s warship at the back could not observe the situation clearly despite using alchemical binocrs. He only saw that more than half of the troop-carrying vessels had stopped moving and he was astonished, ¡°I have long heard that the Qin people were creating underwater warships, to think that it is really true.¡± The cost of producing these underwater warships was high and once they were discovered by mages, they would almost be powerless. The Cloudflow people could not be bothered to research them. A Weapon that was regarded as useless by the Cloudflow people had actually caused severe damage to Cloudflow¡¯s fleet.


    Seeing that all the bone spirits had been released, the winged skeletons no longer needed to guide them with precision. He immediately steered the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat to stealthily approach the fourteen warships at the rear. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was sufficiently sturdy, without a grade-9 sorcerer present, no one would be able to threaten his safety.


    A grade-9 sorcerer? One could be on the main warship one-hundred miles away, but even if one rushed over they would take a half an hour to get there. The winged skeleton could already destroy the remaining troop-carrying vessels during this time.


    At the moment, the winged skeleton no longer hoped to sink the enemy¡¯s main warship. He wanted to destroy the enemy¡¯s troop-carrying vessels and cause significant damage to the enemy¡¯s army. As long as the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat sank to the seabed, even a grade-9 sorcerer would not dare create trouble for him. He was a spirit while the enemy was human. In an underwater battle, humans would not have the upper hand.


    Twelve diving warships, without the bone spirits, pounced at the remaining troop-carrying vessels. The offensive method used by these metal diving warships was pretty ferocious. The triangr bow of the warship spun furiously as it crashed at the rudder of the troop-carrying vessels. Had the diving warships struck the sides, they might have been the one who sunk.


    At that moment, the diving warships did not conceal their positions anymore and they attacked the troop-carrying vessels frantically. The magic arrays within the diving warships operated at full speed, increasing the speed of the warship to maximum velocity. Such a method of travel would basically cause the magic instations to be crippled.


    Due to an overload of passengers, the troop-carrying vessels were not agile enough and their rudders were destroyed. Paddles extended out from both sides of the troop-carrying vessels and the sailors and gigantic magic beasts in the vessels began rowing the paddles, trying to escape.


    The twelve diving warships decided to float up to the surface to ram the paddles. As the huge wooden paddles were fractured, all of the troop-carrying vessels slowly came to a halt. The diving warships were still using their spinning bows to attack the weak areas of the troop-carrying vessels, trying to breach the sides.


    The oue was glorious, but the winged skeleton was not very surprised. The warships one-hundred miles ahead had begun turning around, while the fourteen warships at the rear were fast approaching.


    ¡°If the Cloudflow people arranged warships to protect these troop-carrying vessels, I would not have been so sessful.¡±


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat resembled an alligator, concealing itself in the water as it waited for the warships from the rear to arrive. The winged skeleton¡¯s target was that warship which measured over one-hundred yards in length. Only this warship could pose a direct threat to the diving warships.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s warring tactic was very effective, he had destroyed the rudders of the troop-carrying vessels, which would lead to the warshipsing forth to reinforce theirrades. The three squadsing from the side were already less than thirty miles away. Both parties were going to engage in a head-on battle, there would be no room for backing out. The Cloudflow people could only activate their fastest warship, they could not assemble a proper formation.


    The winged skeleton did not care about the depletion, ¡°As long as these troop-carrying vessels can be sunken, it is worth it even if I lose these skeletal warships.¡±


    On the surface of theke, there were many Cloudflow soldiers who had fallen into the water. The soldiers did not wear armor, they were d in cotton clothes. The winged skeleton was waiting for the skeletal warships toe close before shooting these Cloudflow people at a short distance.


    Through clenched teeth, the winged skeleton thought to himself, ¡°Once I return, I have to transform Metatrin¡¯s fleet quickly, the Cloudflow¡¯s fleet on the ocean is definitely stronger than the one used on thiske. If Cloudflow attacks Metatrin City, my fleets might not be able to withstand it.¡±


    Other than the winged skeleton, there were no other intelligent spirits onboard the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The winged skeletonmanded the skeletal soldiers to activate the death magic array, releasing all the bone spirits onboard the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The Spirit Pool on the ship had been reced, it could create twenty-four bone spirits every day. These spirits were already at grade-3 the moment they were borne, their lives were very short. All of them were stored in the Green Spirit rocks.


    This was the winged skeleton¡¯s personal ship and the bloodstones had been further refined by the winged skeleton. Their power was now equivalent to that of level-6 magic. If it was not for the vtility of this item, the winged skeleton would want to make more to use them innd battles. ¡°A pity though, if I do it my city might be destroyed.¡±


    Carrying the purple bloodstone, two bone spirits charged towards the approaching Cloudflow warships. The mage onboard the Cloudflow warship immediately discovered this underwater attack. He then ordered his subordinate mages to alter the direction of travel in an attempt to dodge the attack. Under the winged skeleton¡¯smand, the bone spirits traveled faster than the warships, however.


    Two bone spirits made a turn in water and ruthlessly rammed into the bow of the warship.


    There were two raucous explosions as a cavity was forcefully created in the bow of this one-hundred-yard long warship. The bloodstones, which were personally refined by the winged skeleton, did not let him down. The colossal warship quivered a few times at the surface, before tilting forward. Just two attacks were needed to take out a powerful warship.


    The winged skeleton was very d that there were no grade-9 mages onboard this warship.


    When the thirteen warships at the rear witnessed this scene they turned around to flee. The winged skeleton did not bother giving chase, he ignored the mage who had flown up from the warship he destroyed.


    The winged skeleton swerved around, making a beeline for the troop-carrying vessels which were floating on the surface. The remaining twenty-four bone spirits were released by him at the same time. They swam swiftly towards the most undamaged troop-carrying vessels.


    A string of explosions urred and the twenty-two troop-carrying vessels began sinking into the water.


    The winged skeleton then realized that only three of diving warships were still attacking the troop-carrying vessels, the other nine had been destroyed by the warriors and mages onboard the troop-carrying vessels. The winged skeleton daringly used the magicpass and realized that his three squads were less than twenty miles away, while the Cloudflow warships at the front were still sixty miles away.


    The winged skeleton then smiled, ¡°Those troop-carrying vessels are doomed. When the Cloudflow people get here, they can only salvage the soldiers who fell overboard. How many can they save?¡± Cloudflow soldiers were aplenty on the surface of theke, as the winged skeleton floated up stealthily. Once he got close to the soldiers, he began using death magic to attack them.


    Cloudflow¡¯s sailors were of high quality, so the winged skeleton wanted to injure them as much as possible to render Cloudflow¡¯s rescue mission meaningless.

 Chapter 733: A strong army from Cloudflow (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 733: A strong army from Cloudflow (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Seeing that more than half of the troop-carrying vessels had sunk, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat then revealed a small piece of tortoiseshell on the water surface. It sent death magic in all directions and turned the Cloudflow soldiers who were floating on the water into spirits.


    It was easy transforming one into a spirit, but these soldiers were very jumpy and active. As a grade-8 spirit, the winged skeleton could only target a dozen people in one go. The winged skeleton did not want to over consume his mental strength. These spirits were all undead soldiers who acted on their instincts. They were grade-1 spirits and it would be taxing for the winged skeleton to control all of them. He simply allowed these soldiers to continue floating, before retracting his control over the undead soldiers.


    Even though Cloudflow¡¯s army was slightly inferior, their sailors were first ss soldiers. Since Metatrin City was located beside a coast, the winged skeleton was vignt. He felt the urge to massacre his enemy.


    Other than humans, there were many other intelligent creatures, but only humans possessed character and emotions. Many creatures only possessed intelligence, but theycked other facets. Among the spirits, the winged skeleton was a rare presence, he already possessed emotions when he was at grade-6.


    That was why the winged skeleton handled matters like a human and not like a spirit. In this aspect, the three kings were inferior to him. ( Boxno vel. co m )


    The moment the winged skeleton felt the urge to kill, the remaining three diving warships stopped attacking the troop-carrying vessels and dived into the water. Prostrating atop the diving warships, the Cloudflow soldiers, who were using heavy weapons to attack the warships, became flustered. Even though they could dive, the heavy weapons in their hands weighed at least fifty or sixty pounds. Holding onto the weapons weighed the soldiers down.


    Tossing their weapons aside, the Cloudflow soldiers floated up to the surface. The winged skeleton noticed that every troop-carrying vessel had deployed lifeboats. Each lifeboat contained a group of warriors who were protecting one or two mages.


    Onboard the lifeboats, these mages did not forget to attack the diving warships. The nine diving warships were basically destroyed by these mages.


    The winged skeleton spared these mages, ¡°They are all white-robed mages, it is not worthwhile to capture them. Even if these mages went to the Bone Castle, they won¡¯t be able to effect much change.¡± Thergest function of such low grade mages was to assist soldiers. Without any soldiers, these mages would not be sent to the frontline.


    Without the bone spirits, the winged skeleton was helpless against the troop-carrying vessels which had not been sunk. He could use level-8 magic to destroy them, but it was unnecessary to expose himself as the skeletal warships were already ten miles away.


    The jade skeletons¡¯ warships drew closer slowly. The thirteen mini warships which were frightened by the winged skeleton had returned. They realized that the horrifying underwater attack had ended. In order to salvage the troop-carrying vessels, they had to take risks.


    Three skeletal warships led the three squads, theyunched an offensive from a distance of five miles. The magic stone cannons swiftly depleted magic nuclei, as the spirits onboard the warships gazed at the targets depicted on the magicpass coldly.


    Even though the jade skeletons possessed intelligence and could think independently, they did not possess emotions like the winged skeleton. As for the other spirits, their gazes were even more unfeeling. These spirits only knew one thing, to follow orders.


    As the skeletal warships came increasingly closer, the mini warships from Cloudflow were astounded. They had never heard of such a warship in the sea, ¡°When did these ships appear?¡±


    When warships attacked one another, they would use trebuchets or magic stone cannons, with the exception of the Cloudflow people who used flying magic beasts to drop bags of ming oil. There were even alchemical instations which could spurt mes, they could attack all targets within a range of five-hundred yards.


    These me-spitting alchemical appliances were more dangerous, only warships over one-hundred and eighty yards in length could wield them.


    At the moment, the water was not yet too rough. Magic stone cannons flew across the sky. Most of them fell into the water as though they were rain droplets. The Cloudflow people swimming in the water were doomed, they would be killed immediately if they were hit. Some of the lifeboats were unlucky, they were sunk when the magic stone cannons struck them.


    The mages onboard the lifeboats were enveloped by the soldiers, so none of them died.


    The skeletal warships did not contain any human warehouses and did not need to carry any water or food. They could amodate many more magic stone cannons. Newly created magic stone cannons were many times more urate than trebuchets. The remaining troop-carrying vessels were gradually sunken under the dense attack conducted by the skeletal warships. There were more and more Cloudflow soldiers who fell overboard as the trebuchets mindlessly flung the stone cannons at the water surface.


    A region of water spanning a dozen miles was dyed red by blood. Thirteen mini warships from Cloudflow approached the small skeletal warships head-on. The equipment used by the Cloudflow people was inferior to that of the skeletal warships, but their quality of soldiers was sufficiently high. After a few rounds of crossfire, the uracy of the trebuchets almost matched up to the magic cannons.


    More than twenty small skeletal warships were entangled with the mini warships from Cloudflow. The remaining skeletal warships kept firing magic stone cannons at the troop-carrying vessels.


    The inertia, coupled with the elemental lethality of the magic stone cannons, caused the metal-armored troop-carrying vessels to be mottled with cavities. The Cloudflow people were dumbfounded, they had nevere across an enemy which could fire such a dense arrangement of stone during a naval battle. Fancy the amount of magic nuclei consumed!


    The winged skeleton had no time to consider the mary loss now, ¡°Cloudflow¡¯srge warships are already within a twenty mile range, the troop-carrying vessels have to be extirpated within the next few minutes. Once Cloudflow¡¯srge warships arrive, I will not be able to do much otherwise.¡±


    The magic stone cannons wereunched at full strength, their shooting frequency was horrifying. Their consumption was incredible too, at least half of the magic stone cannons were ruined as the magic arrays on top of them had crumbled. Another dozen magic stone cannons had exploded. The mini skeletal warships were covered in damage and a few hundred spirits were sent flying due to the explosions.


    The emotionless spirits retrieved new magic stone cannons from the cabins. cing them on the cannon rack, they continued firing.


    It was okay to use these stone cannons because the winged skeleton had already deduced that these new magic stone cannons had no lethality towards therge warships from Cloudflow. After such a protracted barrage, there were still three troop-carrying vessels floating on the water. One could imagine the oue if the target was the real warship.


    The winged skeleton had once fought with the fleet from the eastern sea. Compared to the Cloudflow warships, the warships from the eastern sea allied army were like paper.


    While designing these magic stone cannons, even if Saleen did not scrap them, they did not have much use anymore. In a battle against the Cloudflow people, these magic stone cannons would only tickle the enemy¡¯s main warships.


    Since therge warships from Cloudflow had not arrived, the winged skeleton took the chance to dive to the seabed to search for the sunken diving warships. The metals used to craft these warships were very expensive, they could be recycled.


    It was too arrogant of Saleen to think of defeating Cloudflow¡¯s fleet at sea, the battle with the eastern sea allied army had caused Saleen to underestimate the might of Cloudflow¡¯s navy. If the Cloudflow people were notcent, which resulted in the troop-carrying vessels to be detached from the warships, the winged skeleton might return fruitless this time around.


    The mini skeletal warships were entangled with the mini Cloudflow warships. Despite being double in number, half of the mini skeletal warships were sunk. Only two of the mini Cloudflow warships were destroyed, but were not sunken.


    The barrage of magic stone cannons from the skeletal warships was too dense, there were numerous Cloudflow sailors who were either killed or wounded on the deck.


    A dozen Cloudflow warships exasperatedly lunged at the skeletal warships attacking from the side. The winged skeletonmanded the warships to receive the enemy. There was a four yard long magic stone cannon on everyrge skeletal warship, this weapon possessed the most might. Three skeletal warships, measuring over one-hundred yards in length, acted as the main force. They led over forty mini warships to swarm the Cloudflow warships with magic stone cannons.


    The Cloudflow people were greatly startled by this dense assault, dozens of soldiers were directly killed by the magic stone cannons. After one round of assault, the Cloudflow fleet also began their retaliation.


    Dull stone cannons were fired at one another, the Cloudflow people had regained the absolute advantage. Other than three slightlyrger magic stone cannons, the rocksunched from the mini magic stone cannons could only create shallow scratches on the metal armor covering the Cloudflow warships. The armor on the Cloudflow warships was crafted by mages. Low level elemental attacks did not have much of an effect on the armor unless one could ensure that the few hundred stone cannons could strike the same spot. Thending zone of the magic stone cannons was spread over more than ten yards. Other than an alchemical crossbow, no other attack could be so precise.


    The trebuchets, which the winged skeleton thought was outdated, had actually produced a greater effect than the magic stone cannons. On the Cloudflow warships, three trebuchets were set up in an offensive formation where they were controlled by mages. With over one-hundred soldiers loading weapons onto the trebuchets, the stone cannons weighed a few hundred pounds.


    At the center of the stone cannons used by the Cloudflow people, there was a thick thorn and fire oil was stored in it. The moment a stone cannon struck a skeletal warship, the immense impact would create rifts in the skeletal warship and that thick thorn would help to stop the rolling motion of the stone cannon. The fire oil inside would then begin burning and create a sea of fire on the decks of the skeletal warships.


    If the spirits were not the one controlling the skeletal warships, there would be no one avable to retaliate.


    At closer distance, the Cloudflow warships fired gigantic metal cannons. There was a magic array at the core of these metal cannons. The metal cannons exploded above the skeletal warships, causing metal pieces to produce raucous booms, as they permeated the deck.


    The winged skeleton did not participate in the battle, he only observed from a corner and recorded the happenings. The power of such an attack from the Cloudflow people was massive, but it could only be used within a range of one mile. The price of the metal cannons was surely very expensive, their weight was much higher than that of a magic stone cannon. One warship would not be able to store too many of them unless there was a sorcerer present who could use spatial equipment to transport these things.


    Theke was calm. Cloudflow¡¯s attack frequency was very high. In the blink of an eye, the threerge skeletal warships were damaged. The winged skeleton secretly ordered the jade skeletons to escape with the skeletal warships, while the mini warships would hold the fort and prevent the enemy from giving chase.


    ¡°There is no point fighting, we are not their match.¡±


    If the winged skeleton was not controlling his personal armored vessel, he would not even be able to defeat the troop-carrying vessels from Cloudflow.


    A dozen Cloudflow warships had quashed the offensive by the skeletal warships.


    The winged skeleton suddenly felt that someone was observing him, without any hesitation, he dived with the alchemy ship. Only the center of theke was very deep. The depth there was less than two-hundred yards, the winged skeleton was afraid that the alchemy ship would get damaged if an expert took aim at it.

 Chapter 734: No use for Morale (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 734: No use for Morale (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Cloudflow warships on the Separation Sea were not standard naval ships. They had t bases which stabilized them while attacking, but their speed could not catch up to the three skeletal warships that were escaping.


    The winged skeleton felt someone searching. It was a very powerful person using mental strength. The ship had to dive past one-hundred yards down before the feeling disappeared.


    The Cloudflows navy¡¯s rage was beyond the winged skeleton¡¯s imagination. Another ten or so warships arrived and began to surround the medium and small skeletal warships in a circle, intending to destroy them. A ck shadow flew from a warship that was almost two-hundred yards long. It seemed to be searching for something in the air.


    If the winged skeleton had not dived deep underwater, he would have been able to see this human with the use of death magic.


    This was a mage wearing a ck robe. On the robe were two rows of magic symbols. It was a grade-8 mage!


    Another two gigantic flying magic beasts then flew from the deck. On the back of these two flying magic beasts were two warriors who were clearly upset. These two men caught up with the mage and flew in circles.


    ¡°Grandmaster, have you found it?¡± The two warriors were armed with short pikes. The des of these short pikes were half a yard long and golden in color.


    The grade-8 mage pointed and said, ¡°Over there, there are three of them!¡±


    The two Cloudflow warriors leapt into the sea and dived underwater. Their bodies were protected by their ck sword aura, so even their clothes remained dry. What the grade-8 sorcerer discovered was divingbat vessels. Three divingbat vessels were diving at a depth of about fifty yards. The winged skeleton had wanted to let these three vessels find an opportunity tomit kamikaze.


    The magic array on the alchemy ship detected ripples caused by powerful energies. The winged skeleton was filled with regret then. He did not wait for the two Cloudflow warriors to approach the divingbat vessels before ordering the spirits of the dead that were on board the warship to continue diving.


    The divingbat vessels shut down the magic arrays and dived straight down to the bottom of theke. The winged skeleton rushed out of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and quickly hid the three warships. He expended a lot of his mental strength and he could feel his soul mes dim drastically. He dared not stay nor try to fight those two Cloudflow warriors. The sorcerer on top was still looking for him. If he engaged the two warriors, he might not be able to handle the sorcerer¡¯s attack at the same time.


    The winged skeleton had to take the risk and protect his divingbat vessels because he was afraid that they might be taken by Cloudflow.


    The sorcerer in the air immediately realized what the winged skeleton did. Without hesitation, the sorcerer dived into the water. Everywhere around him turned into a swirl of air current that was shaped like an arrow. This swirl of air current increased the sorcerer¡¯s speed underwater drastically as he chased after the winged skeleton.


    The winged skeleton passed through a teleportation portal and entered the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. He did not mind engaging the sorcerer, but he was also worried that the alchemical boat might be exposed and he would no longer be able to use it to spring a surprise attack on Cloudflow in the future.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat immediately dived beyond two-hundred yards and escaped towards the east. The mage did not dare to dive too deep because the two warriors would not be able to follow. The sorcerer could sense that the thick death aura his target carried was disappearing with rming speed.


    The sorcerer came up from the water raging. The two warriors floated up as well.


    ¡°Grandmaster...¡±


    ¡°Say no more. Go back and help the soldiers.¡± The sorcerer was upset and flew towards a skeletal warship. All of a sudden, the skeletal warship shot out more than ten alchemy arrows. The grade-8 sorcerer¡¯s face turned stern and a wind dragon suddenly appeared and blew the arrows away.


    The sorcerer was now directly above the skeletal warship. He took out his magic staff and a gigantic fireball was sent crashing downwards.


    This was the ground-element Guidestar spell and not a Fireball spell. The core of the fireball was heavy and solid. It was more than one yard in diameter and was heavier than fifty-thousand pounds. After an ear-splitting crash, the fireball created a crater that was more than three yards in diameter in the middle of the medium skeletal warship.


    The winged skeleton did not know where to run to. This sorcerer¡¯s fury knew no bounds and he was venting his anger on these warships that were stillunching magic stone artillerie. He had already used up the grade-8 spell in his magic staff, yet he was still not appeased. He began to fly to another skeletal warship.


    Threerge skeletal warships had already escaped. The remaining warships were made of ordinary materials and would never be able to withstand the fury of the grade-8 sorcerer. The sorcerer cast six grade-8 spells in a row and destroyed six skeletal warships. Finally, he flew back to his own warship.


    Once the winged skeleton left, the remaining skeletal warships were no longermanded by spirits of the dead that possessed intelligence. The way they battled became mechanical and predictable and they were vanquished by the Cloudflow fleet in no time. Even though these spirits of the dead found themselves in theke after being attacked, they continued to swim towards the Cloudflow warships to attack them.


    The Cloudflow navy rarely encountered such situations. The crossbows on the ships began to shoot at the surface of theke in all directions, but many spirits of the dead still managed to get close enough to the warships to climb onboard. The mages had no choice but to get involved and began the second round of battle.


    At that point in time, there was only one troop carrier left. Countless Cloudflow soldiers sank with their troop carriers while more than fifty-thousand were still afloat. Among these fifty-thousand soldiers were more than two-thousand undead soldiers. Once the Cloudflow lifeboats approached, the undead soldiers would go berserk and start killing people. Large patches of red covered the surface of theke.


    When the winged skeleton returned to the gigantic crystal on the alchemy ship, he took half an hour¡¯s time to recover his mental strength. Although his spirit space was sufficientlyrge, the amount of mental strength he used up when retrieving or storing items was many times more than a mage.


    The winged skeleton did a quick calction and realized that he was only left with three skeletal warships. It was unlikely that any of the spirits of the dead that would be meeting the Cloudflow fleets head-on would be able to survive.


    Both sides suffered heavy losses. He managed to sink a Cloudflow warship while his own fleet was practically destroyed. The remaining three warships would not pose any threat to Cloudflow.


    The winged skeleton could only hope that the three jade skeletons would be able to find a way to escape. Creating warships only required sufficient materials and money. On the other hand, it was pure luck that he managed to create jade skeletons with intelligence like them.


    After being taken by surprise, the Cloudflow fleets ensured that there were no more loopholes. the winged skeleton had no intentions of springing another surprise attack. There was no way the entire fleet only had one grade-8 sorcerer. There would be a grade-9 sorcerer too. The winged skeleton was anxious to return to his bone castle. The caste would be able to utilize its most powerful defense if the winged skeleton was around.


    After traveling for five-hundred miles, the winged skeleton tried to summon his jade skeletons. To his pleasant surprise, all six jade skeletons were still alive. They were all hiding in the sea not far away from him.


    Just as he guessed, the fleets led by the other three jade skeletons had been destroyed, but they managed to sink four of the enemy¡¯s warships before that. In response to the winged skeleton¡¯s summoning, the six jade skeletons swam to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    After they got onto the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, the winged skeleton saw that three out of the six jade skeletons were covered with cracks. Their bones, which should be stronger than iron, were almost crushed by an unknown weapon. The winged skeleton did not bother asking any questions. Fortunately, the three of them were smart enough to ensure that their soul mes were still well-protected despite the state of their bones.


    The winged skeleton threw the three jade skeletons into the spirit pool for nourishment before taking the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat back to the bone castle at full speed.


    Back in the bone castle, Saleen¡¯s scouts kept delivering news from the port. Many Cloudflow armies had started to appear at the Separation Sea¡¯s port. Saleen had no idea how the winged skeleton was fairing, but more and more warships were approaching the port.


    The remaining one-thousand men in the small town beside the shore had finally retreated to the bone castle. When the Cloudflow fleets approached the shore, they did not attack the small town immediately. Instead, they waited for the people in the town to retreat totally before stationing their own troops there.


    The Cloudflow navy was ferocious on their warships, but were extremely cautious once they reachednd.


    Saleen could not figure out what was happening. He had no idea that the winged skeleton had created many undead soldiers in the Separation Sea that had severely injured the soldiers that were deployed for reinforcements. Cloudflow would notunch any attacks until their grand mages and sorcerers arrived.


    No one was more anxious than Mu En. He was staying in a magic tower that was temporarily built and was eight stories high. All those serving him were spirits of the dead and this was driving Mu En mad.


    Finally, on the dawn of the second day, Mu En was invited down from the magic tower by spirits of the dead. The winged skeleton had returned.


    Saleen gathered all the people around him, including the four generals from Bitter Water Prefecture. The meeting room in the bone castle was huge and dim. It had windows that were narrow and long. There was a huge magic array on the ceiling and the surface of the ground was smooth like mirror. The magic array on the ceiling reflected onto the ground and the only spot where it did not reflected was a round table.


    The winged skeleton did not speak a word. He instead took out the image stone which he had used to record and ced it on the magic array in the center of the round table.


    Mu En was still the winged skeleton¡¯s spokesperson, except there was no need for him to talk too much this time. The magic images disyed all the scenes of violent battle on the Separation Sea. When they saw the Cloudflow troop carriers being sunk, the Bitter Water Prefecture generals were so engrossed that the veins in their necks looked like they were about to pop out and their eyes beamed with excitement.


    Very soon after, the Cloudflow warships arrived to provide reinforcement and that was when the images were cut off. Mu En began to describe the rest of the battle on behalf of the winged skeleton.


    For this battle on the sea, the winged skeleton activated one-hundred and fifty-six warships and only three survived. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat did not appear in the images so naturally, the winged skeleton had no reason to bring it up.


    On the other hand, only five Cloudflow warships were sunk. The disparity in losses made it difficult for the men of Bitter Water Prefecture to smile.


    Although it was outstanding for them to sink eighty-three troops carriers, their defences were vastly different from those of the Cloudflow warships. Almost the entire Metatrin fleet had been destroyed. If Cloudflow was to deploy even more soldiers there, would Bitter Water Prefecture be able to stop them?


    Saleen knew all this, but he also knew that morale must not be shaken, so he said, ¡°Each Cloudflow troop carrier can carry five-thousand men. Eighty-three troop carriers have been sunk and less than half were be able to escape. Subsequently, another half of them were killed by my fleet on the surface of the sea. In total, less than one-hundred-thousand Cloudflow soldiers will be sent to shore through the troop carriers. The Bitter Water Prefecture generals immediately looked more assured. Saleen continued, ¡°The troop carriers carried not only soldiers, but also a lot of weapons and equipment. The weapons on the warships cannot be used off the ship. In other words, although the Cloudflow fleets have yet to be defeated, their n has been stopped for now.¡± Saleen feared that he was not persuasive enough so he continued, ¡°The news that Lex received previously was that there would be two-hundred to three-hundred Cloudflow ships on the Separation Sea. Now that we have destroyed more than eighty ships, the Cloudflow navy will not have any troop carriers for the time-being. It will not be possible for them to deploy any armies immediately.¡±

 Chapter 735: No use for Morale (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 735: No use for Morale (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    One of the battalionmanders suddenly spoke, ¡°Your Highness, the Princess sent us here to obey your orders. We will not retreat and will fight to the death. Our morale will not matter since the enemy outnumber us by so much. This is what military books say so, please give us your orders.¡±


    Saleen was stunned. He immediately realized that these four battalions that Lex had handed over to him were all made up of experienced soldiers. There was no need for him to try and boost their morale because the battalionmanders would have done so themselves. The most important thing now was to exin his strategy and allow the battalionmanders to make their own preparations.


    No amount of morale would help when one was outnumbered by the enemy. The phrase they spoke was striking; ¡®we will fight to the death¡¯.


    Sikeqinyans would never be able to understand that feeling. The generals who were born in Qin did not fear dying on the battlefield.


    If they won, they would have fame and glory; if they lost, they would have honor in death.


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, I want to make use of the fact that the enemy has yet to settle downpletely and spring a surprise attack onnd. The purpose of this attack is to let the enemy know that the soldiers in the bone castle are elite and cannot be underestimated.¡±


    The generals nodded with approval. Although this was a risky move, Saleen was right. By striking the enemy first, the enemy would be nervous. That was the real purpose of building the bone castle here.


    ¡°For this attack, I will deploy two-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers from my first battalion after thirty hours. The four of you will select a regiment of heavy-armored knights from each of your battalions and switch them all onto skeletal warhorses. I will prepare one-hundred chariots containing kerosene and another one-hundred ballistas.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, only two-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers?¡± One of the battalionmanders thought he had heard wrong. It would be difficult for two-thousand foot soldiers to ovee the enemy¡¯s defense. The knights might not be able to charge through the defense, then everything would be pointless.


    ¡°Grand Sorcerer Mu En will be there as well. There will be ten giant bone devils that will destroy the enemy¡¯s defense on the exterior.¡±


    Mu En quickly nodded to show his confidence.


    ¡°My two-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers will be wearing magic armor and will be armed with magic weapons. They can fight non-stop for more than six hours.¡± Saleen gave a thorough exnation to the generals. Not only would the magic armor provide defense, it would also give the soldiers more momentum in their fighting. With power provided by the magic array, a gentle swipe of the sword was equivalent to a violent hack of a heavy axe.


    The generals of Bitter Water Prefecture were envious. Their soldiers would only be wearing half magic armor. It would provide outstanding defense as it was totally sealed up. Not even low-level spells like poison fog would be able to seep through.


    Saleen raised another ten or so requests and selected all sorts of foot soldiers from the four battalions to form a ten-thousand strong mixed battalion.


    These battalionmanders immediately left to make preparations and the necessary selections.


    The day passed quickly. When night came, ten-thousand soldiers gathered in front of the bone castle. Just ahead of them was an army of spirits of the dead.


    Leading the army were ten giant bone devils, followed by death knights, skeleton soldiers, zombies, fangs, and giant skeletal apes.


    The winged skeleton had summoned most of the spirits of the dead that could fight onnd to form a five-thousand strong army of spirits of the dead.


    Even so, the soldiers of Bitter Water Prefecture were prepared to embrace death. No one had any hopes of winning when attacking an enemy battalion of more than one-hundred-thousand with only five-thousand spirits of the dead.


    Saleen no longer tried to boost morale. He waved his hand and Mu En smiled bitterly before leading the winged skeleton and three jade skeletons into the group of spirits of the dead.


    The troops set off. As the roads were not fixed, the chariots that Saleen had put together on short notice were traveling very slowly. The winged skeleton knew that there were grade-8 sorcerers amongst the enemy so he did not use any flying spirits of the dead to scout for information on the enemy. The troops advanced towards the harbor very slowly. They kept to the pace of the foot soldiers, which was twenty miles an hour.


    This was so that the knights and foot soldiers would not be separated. Skeletal warhorses would have been able to cover a distance of one-hundred miles in two hours otherwise.


    Every soldier consumed restorative water before they departed. When the army approached the harbor, it was about two a.m.. The lights were scattered and sparse in the big battalion in front of the harbor. Only the exterior was lit up by magic lights. There were enemy soldiers on sentry duty, perched on top of the high arrow tower.


    Saleen was not worried about this attack. He was in the center and was protected by Su and the four demons. Eleanor was also by his side, carrying the long bow that was almost like a Godly item. In her quiver were twenty-four arrows that Saleen had refined personally.


    They were elf space arrows and elf creature arrows.


    Saleen¡¯s badge had yet to regain its attacking powers, but his water puppets had fully recovered and he could now use crystal finger.


    The rest was up to the heavy-armored foot soldiers. The heavy-armored knights were the most suitable candidates for crushing the enemy¡¯s resistance. Skeletal warhorses could pick up their speed in an instant. Even in narrow areas, these knights still possessed very powerful abilities to charge at the enemy.


    As for the enemy mages, Saleen had already prepared traps for them.


    Unlike the Qin people, who would set up sentry posts sporadically a mile away from the big campsite, the Cloudflow army all shrank back into the safety of the campsite. The campsite had threeyers and a wall had been set up.


    When the spirit scouts came back with their reports, Saleen could not stop sighing. Cloudflow¡¯s navy and army were two different creatures altogether. Their navy was ridiculously strong yet their army was such a mess. This campsite was simply asking to be attacked.


    Saleen did not know if his expectations were too high. He had always been working with the elite soldiers of Qin or Bitter Water Prefecture, which were notmonly found on the Maind. The Cloudflow campsite was rickety like a metal bucket. There were men using alchemy binocrs on top of the arrow tower to observe the perimeter. Near the campsite wall, a troop of soldiers would pass by every ten minutes for the entire night without rest.


    Saleen¡¯s sneak attack was almost like attacking in the open. By the time his army was a mile away from the campsite, they had already been exposed. Saleen pointed at the soldier on the arrow tower that was about to sound the rm. Eleanor drew her long bow before shooting an arrow.


    Almost instantaneously, the arrow pierced through the Cloudflow soldier¡¯s throat and neck.


    As the soldier¡¯s windpipe was pierced through, he was unable to sound the rm. His neck broke and he waspletely paralyzed. He lost control of his body and knocked over the crossbow by his side before falling out of the arrow tower.


    The soldiers on patrol rushed over and discovered the corpse of the soldier on sentry duty. Finally, the rm within the Cloudflow camp was sounded.


    The arrow bought Saleen¡¯s army an additional minute¡¯s worth of time at least. The army of spirits of the dead ahead of them had already began to advance at full speed. How far could these spirits of the dead advance using that minute?


    The giant bone devils leading the way managed to cover a mile while the death knights followed closely behind them even though they could have picked up their speed. By the time the rm sounded, the giant bone devils had already used their bone des to destroy the firstyer of wall.


    The giant bone devils were incredibly strong. They did not possess too much intelligence, but using their deformed front limbs, the three yard wide bone des hacked violently into the wall, creating a hole that was tens of yards wide. The ten giant bone devils kept hacking at the wall, erging the hole. The spirits of the dead entered through the hole and charged at the Cloudflow tentages.


    The giant bone devils moved very slowly. Aside from their incredible strength, they did not possess any other useful attributes and could be killed easily. Nevertheless, the winged skeleton leveraged the giant bone devil¡¯s strength to quickly break down the camp wall and buy more time for his army of spirits of the dead.


    Cloudflow had arranged many soldiers to guard the center entrance for the night. When they heard the rm, before they could even receive any orders from the magic apprentice, they heard a loud explosion from the east side of the camp. The sound was made by the giant bone devils hacking at the wall. Hundreds of soldiers picked up their weapons and rushed towards the hole in the wall.


    What these hundreds of soldiers encountered was an army of five-thousand spirits of the dead. Like a whirl of ck cloud, these five-thousand spirits of the dead charged deep into the camp. Two-hundred of the soldiers that were on duty were hacked to pieces as the ck cloud passed them by.


    The Cloudflow fleets had already reached them, but as the numbers were sorge, most of the soldiers on the warships had yet to disembark and were still waiting for vacancies on the harbor. Within the camp were one-hundred-thousand soldiers and the camp near the harbor was still vacant.


    When the army of spirits of the dead attacked, most of the people from Cloudflow were still asleep. Only one-tenth of the army was still wearing their armor, as ording to thews of Cloudflow. These ten-thousand men heard the rm and armed themselves within half a minute.


    Saleen¡¯s army of ten-thousand men charged into the Cloudflow camp through a bigger hole. Leading the way were heavy-armored foot soldiers that had dismounted from their horses. These heavy-armored foot soldiers were more powerful on foot than on horseback.


    All the heavy-armored foot soldiers were armed with halberts that were as heavy as seventy-two pounds each. Without the aid of magic armor, most of the heavy-armored soldiers would notst longer than three minutes.


    Saleen invested a lot in order to create these heavy-armored foot soldiers. All of them carried tens of magic nuclei each, including four low-grade and one middle-grade ones and some receableponents of magic nuclei. The purpose of the magic nuclei was to mount them onto the magic array of the armor to boost the soldiers¡¯ fighting abilities.


    Many noble families¡¯ mages could not even afford such privileges. As such, the fighting abilities of these heavy-armored foot soldiers were heavily boosted.


    Two-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers destroyed the tentages and cleared a path that was more than ten yards wide for the knights. Saleen and his two-hundred bodyguards followed closely behind the heavy-armored foot soldiers. After a while, he realized that no mages within the camp wereing to stop them.


    That meant that the enemy¡¯s powerful mages were still on the ships. Saleen immediately gave the order for his men to set the camp on fire.


    It was easy. The foot soldiers built temporary catapults outside of the camp. The attacking range of these catapults was less than two-hundred miles and there were only four of them in total. These four catapults wouldunch leather bags filled with kerosene. Saleen added magic powder to the kerosene. Once it start to burn, not even water could put the fire out.


    The catapultsunched the bags of kerosene towards the sides and archers quickly shot at them with fire arrows, lighting the bags on fire. Both sides of Saleen¡¯s path began to burn ferociously. There were cries of despairing from within the camp.


    Woo woo...


    The deep sound of a horn came from a distance away. Cloudflow was already organizing a troop of ten-thousand men near the harbor, ready to charge over. In the sky, a ck-robed sorcerer flew steadily towards the fire. Below him was a troop of soldiers on horses that were rushing towards the chaos in the camp. All of them were wearing magic armor and were armed with golden short pikes.


    The Cloudflow warriors that were responsible for protecting mages were always armed with that weapon. In order to be the protector of mages, one had to at least be a beginner-level swordmaster. Even wearing a magic armor, even a beginner-level swordmaster would possess the fighting abilities of a high-level swordmaster.

 Chapter 736: Su (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 736: Su (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This sorcerer¡¯s ck magic robe only had one symbol, that meant that he was a grade-7 sorcerer. Being newly promoted, he was not very vignt. He was still used to being protected by warriors.


    From afar, Saleen noticed this grade-7 sorcerer, as his eyebrows furrowed. He was looking forward to seeing the grade-8 sorcerer, ¡°ording to the winged skeleton, that grade-8 sorcerer is very powerful, he should be close to grade-9 already. If such a character is executed, the enemy will surely be shaken.¡± Saleen might not even be afraid if he fought with this grade-7 sorcerer. He possessed the water puppet which could release the Crystal Finger, as long as Saleen got close to this sorcerer he could definitely be killed.


    Such a target was not worthy of Saleen¡¯s attack, but Saleen would still expose his skills if he attacked.


    ¡°Cuisi, the four of you shall go kill the cavalrymen who are protecting the mage.¡± Saleen pointed into the distance. Cuisi andpany nodded, they then wielded their weapons and crept over stealthily within the midst of the spirits. Saleen¡¯s heavy infantrymen had already done a roundabout, they were turning around now. The heavy infantrymen had to ride on horses and retreat earlier. An area in the campplex had been cleared, as four-thousand heavy cavalrymen from the Bitter Water County charged in while riding on skeletal warhorses.


    If skeletal warhorses were not avable, these heavy cavalrymen would face quite a bit of danger when they entered the camp. In such a confined environment, the cavalrymen would lose their charging impact. They could be easily thrown off their horses by an infantryman¡¯s spear.


    Outside the camp, the trebuchets had already tossed all of the ming bags of oil, then they were destroyed and abandoned. The light infantrymen who were conducting an onught in the camp had gradually left. Boarding the horses and empty chariots, they retreated swiftly.


    ( Boxno vel. co m ) Within the camp, less than one-thousand light cavalrymen and four-thousand heavy cavalrymen remained. The other people left were Saleen¡¯s trusted soldiers and spirits.


    This time around, Saleen had finally witnessed the charging impact of the Qin cavalrymen. These cavalrymen would form a column of eight while wielding cross spears, they then would utilize the strength of the skeletal warhorses to ram into Cloudflow¡¯s forcefully assembled formation. A cross spear was not a heavy weapon, but in the hands of these Qin heavy cavalrymen, it unleashed a power akin to that of a giantnce.


    The cross spears easily stabbed the chests of the infantrymen, with a twist, blood would spew in all directions. Five columns of cavalrymen made up a squad. Going to and fro once, they could totally disperse the enemy¡¯s two-hundred infantrymen. They then would charge in a new direction. In this tapered camp, these people from the Bitter Water County acted as if they were on a vast in, darting about swiftly.


    Saleen¡¯s team did a surprise assault. There was another wall on the second level of the camp and the cavalrymen did not attempt to ovee it, they simply started a massacre on the first level.


    Atop Cloudflow¡¯s battlements, any soldier who tried to use alchemical crossbows to retaliate would be urately sniped by Eleanor. The handheld crossbows and continuous-fire crossbows used by the infantrymen were helpless in the face of the heavy cavalrymen. From time to time, there would be infantrymen who managed to open their pedal-operated crossbows, but they would quickly be the targets of the cavalrymen.


    The lethality of a pedal-operated crossbow was pretty high, they could usually prate heavy armor. The moment any cavalryman from the Bitter Water County got shot, they would fall back right away. The skeletal warhorses were not afraid of arrows though. As long as the wounded cavalryman remained atop the warhorse, the enemy would not be able to capture them.


    The reason there was such an oue was because Saleen¡¯s heavy infantrymen had already cleared the obstacles inside the camp using their poleaxes. The sturdy barracks, wooden stilts, and barriers were destroyed by the heavy infantrymen. To most of the Cloudflow people, who just woke up and had not put on any armor, these cavalrymen were a nightmare.


    The horns and drumming from the port were getting increasingly urgent. Saleen smiled then gave the order to retreat. This order was only directed at the heavy cavalrymen. During this onught, less than twenty heavy cavalrymen had died, but more than two-hundred people had been shot by arrows. If the battle perpetuated, the casualty rate would exceed twenty percent.


    Since the enemy¡¯s main forces had not arrived, Saleen seized the opportunity to retreat first, allowing the spirits to hold the fort.


    The Cloudflow sorcerer flew over, but he was not fast enough. The two-hundred cavalrymen below him rushed out from the wooden doors in the middle of the camppound and charged in Saleen¡¯s direction. As they rushed into the midst of the spirits, their short goldennces would attack swiftly. Each attack would cause one spirit to copse.


    The winged skeleton, who was leading three jade skeletons to execute the Cloudflow soldiers, turned around abruptly and stared at the sorcerer in the air.


    Even if the winged skeleton did not release any death magic, his killing speed was still faster than everyone else. Whenever his four yard long axe danced about, even the jade skeletons would steer clear of him. In the air, the sorcerer could clearly see that the two yard tall skeleton would create a pile of mashed bodies wherever he passed by.


    This sorcerer noticed that there were three skeletons d in armor behind this towering skeleton, protecting a ck-robed mage. The sorcerer was petrified, then he turned to flee.


    When the winged skeleton raised his head, he felt disgusted. ¡°There are times when the Cloudflow sorcerers are so timid. This sorcerer is fleeing shamelessly, he turned around without any warning whatsoever, he didn¡¯t even bother informing the soldiers on the ground who are protecting him.¡±


    That two-hundred cavalrymen were still charging forward, they did not realize that the sorcerer in the air had fled.


    ¡°Does that mage have any dignity?¡±


    Cavalrymen from Bitter Water County had already permeated the first level of the camp. The winged skeleton was massacring the soldiers to attract that mage¡¯s attention, but he did not know that bringing Mu En along was a mistake. Mu En¡¯s magic robe had two symbols, that had scared the enemy away.


    ¡°This location is less than three miles from the harbor, the grade-8 sorcerer who is still on the warship will surely not flee like that shameless fellow,¡± when the winged skeleton thought of this, he did not try to pursue that grade-7 sorcerer. ¡°It would be a little dangerous. If that grade-7 sorcerer releases a level-8 scroll, I will still be in danger.¡±


    The first level of the camp contained twenty-thousand troops. As both wings of the camp were set aze, the mages did not rush forward to extinguish the fire. They instead hid behind the Cloudflow soldiers in cowardice, not even attacking the invading soldiers. The number of mages in Cloudflow was fewpared to Qin. Comparing both armies, the number of mages in Cloudflow was only around a third of those in Qin.


    These white-robed mages kept making preparations to disperse the spirits¡¯ corrosiveness or toxins, but the spirits did not release any magic. The mages did not dare waste their magic chords recklessly, so the mages were doing nothing.


    The winged skeleton did not create any death wizards or lower grade witch souls, the area-corroding skill was not disyed. If such a skill was employed and the enemy did not use their mages to disperse it, the armor and weapons of the soldiers would be slowly destroyed. During battle their equipment would be very brittle and could be easily fractured and shattered.


    ¡°Out of the blue, Saleen had the notion to retreat, ¡°The Cloudflow¡¯s main camp is segregated into several plots and each plot is cordoned with walls. It will be impossible to enter the depths and kill the soldiers. The mages from Cloudflow¡¯s fleet should be arriving anytime soon as well.¡±


    On this note, Saleen signaled to Isabe. Isabe then released a light-type spell. An enormous column of light shot straight up into the air, this was the light-type rm spell. When used in the evenings, it could be seen even from dozens of miles away.


    When the cavalrymen from Bitter Water County saw this column of light shooting into the skies, they immediately assembled in an orderly fashion and retreated, even the spirits retreated slowly under the control of the winged skeleton.


    At this point in time, the two-hundred cavalrymen realized that the mage above them had escaped, but they could not stop the warhorses¡¯ sprint. These two-hundred men were now deeply entangled in the midst of the spirits. They crashed straight into the Giant Skeletal Apes which were led by the winged skeleton.


    The four yard tall Giant Skeletal Apes were not powerful spirits, but they possessed immense strength like the Giant Bone Devil. The Giant Skeletal Apes could only brandish their razor sharp ws. There was no strategy involved, it was simply bulky and agile.


    Other than the magic beast swordsmen, the two-hundred people were considered the best cavalrymen in the Cloudflow¡¯s army. After crashing into the Giant Skeletal Apes they were not injured. All skeletons and fang-type death creatures were killed by theirnces.


    A row of Giant Skeletal Apes stopped these two-hundred cavalrymen. With a boom, dozens of cavalrymen were flung off their warhorses, as the apes used their ws to crush the warhorses. At the same time, the cavalrymen¡¯s goldennces were pierced into the torsos of the Giant Skeletal Apes. Due to the difference in height thences did not pierce the orbitals of the apes. The Giant Skeletal Apes plucked away the goldennces and tossed them aside. They then lunged at the cavalrymen who had halted at the rear.


    The Cloudflow people did not react very quickly. When Saleen¡¯s heavy cavalrymen were slowly being withdrawn, the retaliation from the first level had not even been organized yet. A retaliation could not be organized anymore, the over twenty-thousand people were utterly defeated. Only about three-thousand troops were still protecting the mages.


    The mages had finally taken some action. Out of three-thousand soldiers, those who stood on the outer perimeter were blessed with magic. They managed to stop the offensive mounted by the skeletal soldiers.


    Saleen sighed, ¡°I didn¡¯t attract any worthy targets, if this drags on and the enemy¡¯s experts appear my subordinates will suffer massive losses. Had I known this would happen, I would have captured that grade-7 sorcerer. That would show some concrete results.¡±


    The Giant Skeletal Apes blocked the path of the cavalrymen. At that moment the four demons suddenly leaped over the apes and immersed themselves in the midst of the cavalrymen¡¯s formation. Aiwa brandished his meteor hammer, sending dozens of cavalrymen flying as they were unprepared. The cavalrymen suffered broken bones and two of them were struck in the head. Their skulls were shattered, killing them instantly.


    The six white-robed mages blessed Tolesi with a dozen defensive spells, greatly emboldening him. Unleashing a Mental Storm first, the dozens of cavalrymen before him immediately went stiff. They suddenly suffered a splitting headache. At the same time, Lu waved his horse-killing sword. The serrated edges on one side of the horse-killing sword shed the magic armor of these cavalrymen, causing blood to gush out. These people were simply sitting atop their warhorses and not moving, allowing Lu to test his weapon.


    Cuisi grabbed a short goldennce. He flitted about, darting in and out of the group of warhorses. With every move he made, he would poke a hole in the face of one cavalryman. The metal face masks could not resist the attack from a supreme demon.


    Just as the spirit army wanted to retreat from the camppound, two sorcerers flew over from the port.


    Saleen¡¯s heart lurched, as he increased the pace of retreat. He could not deal with a grade-7 sorcerer and a grade-8 sorcerer. ¡°If the enemy has level-9 scrolls with them...¡±


    Saleen immediately instructed his trusted soldiers around him to wield the elvish alchemical crossbows. These two-hundred men untied the quivers around their back simultaneously and activated the magic array. That caused the ends of the crossbow to open up and the handle to pop out.


    ¡°I will attack first to gain the upper hand,¡± Saleen wanted to exterminate the grade-8 sorcerer before the sorcerer used his strongest attack. ¡°Once the enemy gets desperate, my team will be torn to shreds if I don¡¯t....¡±

 Chapter 737: Su (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 737: Su (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Noticing that the two sorcerers were giving chase, the winged skeleton had no choice but to inform Cuisi to retreat. There might be grand swordmasters following behind the two sorcerers too. A sorcerer was the most useful in ambushing a camp.


    Cuisi was injured by a grade-7 sorcerer and was treated by Nichs in Daliang City. He did not dare be that careless again. Hearing the winged skeleton¡¯s calls, he tossed the short goldennce in his hand. Thence prated three cavalrymen in session, then, he turned and fled.


    When the other three demons saw Cuisi running away so quickly, they did not dare stay there any longer. They immediately followed Cuisi into the crowd of spirits.


    Cuisi made a beeline for the winged skeleton. Arriving beside the winged skeleton, he said, ¡°What do we do? We cannot deal with these people!¡±


    ¡°Master is with us.¡± The winged skeletonughed as he made Cuisi¡¯s heart beat wildly. Last time heughed, a few hundred holes appeared in Cuisi¡¯s body.


    By the time the two sorcerers arrived at the first level of the camppound, they noticed that the enemy had fled. Levitating in mid-air, the grade-7 sorcerer said, ¡°We... better get back.¡±


    ( Boxno vel. co m ) The grade-8 sorcerer arched his brows, then berated, ¡°If you allow others toe wreak havoc and leave arrogantly, shouldn¡¯t you feel embarrassed receiving so much support from His Majesty?¡±


    Seeing that the grade-8 sorcerer was livid, the grade-7 sorcerer could only tag along, as both men flew towards the main camp.


    Observing that two sorcerers were hot on their heels, Su, who had all along remained beside Saleen, suddenly said, ¡°Sir, let those two sorcerersnd on the ground, then go and restrain that grade-8 sorcerer with all your might. I will handle that grade-7 sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Su?¡± Sitting atop a skeletal warhorse, Saleen already saw that Su had drawn his sword. He felt a little astonished as the sword¡¯s de was dim and the Sword Aura was introverted. Su¡¯s proficiency had been steadily maintained at the standard of a Silver Grand Swordmaster. ¡°He is making really fast progress working beside Lex!¡±


    ¡°Sir, I can deal with that grade-7 sorcerer, don¡¯t worry.¡± Su¡¯s gaze was determines, so Saleen set his mind at ease. He remembered the time when Lex¡¯s camp was assaulted by a Silver Grand Swordmaster, that invader could only be restrained with abination of power. Thisbination included the power of an elderly assassin, a grade-7 sorcerer, and some ck Metal Grand Swordmasters.


    It was rtively easy for a Silver Grand Swordmaster to kill a grade-7 sorcerer independently. The most vulnerable aspect was if the Silver Grand Swordmaster was outnumbered, and a sorcerer also knew how to fly.


    ¡°Prepare to attack.¡± Saleen dered.


    He was ordering the trusted soldiers around him. Red streams of light were released from the elvish alchemical crossbows, pointing at the sky. The two sorcerers appeared very swiftly, in the blink of an eye, they were already two-hundred yards away. Saleen andpany suddenly came to a halt, then the trusted soldiers turned around and took aim. Two-hundred red rays appeared in the sky, engulfing the two sorcerers within.


    Any kind of magic skill would not act faster than light magic, the effective duration of light magic was simr to that of the other elements. When the red rays were fired, the two sorcerers blessed themselves with a defensive spell in that instant. They then immediately realized that the red light did not possess any offensive power.


    When the two sorcerers saw the trusted soldiers protecting Saleen, they reacted differently.


    The grade-8 sorcerer lunged forward aggressively, he nned to attack from a distance of fifty yards. The grade-7 sorcerer shrieked, ¡°Elvish crossbows!¡± Then he turned around to leave.


    His grade might be lower than that of his partner, but he possessed more knowledge. There were unique patterns on the elvish alchemical crossbow. When the grade-7 sorcerer spotted them, the only thought in his mind was to get out of the elvish alchemical crossbow¡¯s range.


    Saleen would never allow him to flee. Two-hundred elvish alchemical crossbows fired simultaneously, but the grade-8 sorcerer simply sneered. A wind dragon appeared before him and was about to blow away the dense formation of crossbow arrows.


    This grade-8 sorcerer never expected Saleen to be immensely wealthy, these elvish alchemical crossbows were stored with genuine magic arrows. Tthe material used was divinecherry wood which possessed space attributes. The trusted soldiers were already proficient in various weapons, especially the ones who wielded the crossbows. With the red rays guiding their aim, all of the alchemical arrows sealed whatever escape routes the sorcerers could think of.


    The crossbow arrows, made from divinecherry wood, flickered within the wind dragon before passing through it,ing before the grade-8 sorcerer.


    Ka...


    On the ne hanging around the sorcerer¡¯s neck, a segment of gems suddenly shattered. Dozens of alchemical arrows passed through the sorcerer¡¯s shadow and continued towards the sky.


    This grade-8 sorcerer was astonished and outraged as he experienced excruciating pain throughout his body. This equipment of his could save his life three times, it contained an autonomous non-elemental spell; Nihility.


    In the face of fatal attacks, the three magic gems on the ne would automatically turn his body into a shadow, but the sensation of pain would still exist. If it was not for this ne, he would have been dead by now.


    The two-hundred trusted soldiers appeared unfeeling, as they slid the front handle of their elvish alchemical crossbows and loaded another arrow.


    The grade-7 sorcerer was farther away. Before bing a sorcerer, his forteid in escaping. When he realized that the enemy was employing elvish alchemical crossbows, he flew a few yards into the distance. He was then rudely awakened as he charged towards the ground.


    The grade-8 sorcerer also reacted swiftly, but he remained an easy target in the air. By charging towards the ground, the grade-7 sorcerer actually increased his speed.


    Saleen was sneering, he purposely created a formation for retreat to keep himself under protection, so that the sorcerers would have an attack target. ¡°Indeed, the sorcerers ignored Mu En and they charged towards me. Since they areing, they will have to leave something behind before escaping.¡±


    Saleen really wanted to kill this grade-8 sorcerer, but the enemy would surely have other mages of higher grades. If his water puppet used the Crystal Finger, it would very likely crumble and it would require a few months of recovery.


    ¡°I shall endure, it is almost as good to kill a grade-7 sorcerer.¡±


    Seeing that the grade-7 sorcerer had alreadynded on the ground, Su soared into the air. A silver ray of Sword Aura erupted in the night sky, as though it was going to split the earth.


    While the four demons swarmed forward, the winged skeleton was making a beeline for the grade-8 sorcerer while holding his gigantic ax. In an instant, Saleen¡¯s subordinates had encircled the grade-7 sorcerer.


    This grade-7 sorcerer cast the Crystal Guardian spell instantly. At the same time, another colossal stone spear emerged from the ground, charging towards Su who had drawn his sword. The sorcerer¡¯s actions were quick, he knew that he was on the verge of death. It was no longer possible to hold back. The sorcerer took out a ck scroll and released it immediately.


    He did not possess the ability to cast spells continuously like Saleen, he could only rely on scrolls to fill the free time between spellcasting.


    When the ck magic scroll was unleashed, a vibrant radiance lit up and caused those four demons who were going after the grade-7 sorcerer to be dizzied. The demons did not transform into their demonic forms and did not wear a mask, so the attack by this light-type spell caused the four of them to enter a state of temporary blindness.


    Cuisi and the other three were demons. Back on the demonic ne, most battles urred in pure darkness. When the grade-7 sorcerer saw them rushing out from the crowd of spirits, he thought that they were the followers of the skeletal mage. After a burst of the Cleansing Light spell, the spirits behind the demons were washed into a pile of bones, while the four demons were only blinded.


    Without any treatment from divine spells, they would not be able to see anything for the next three to five days.


    The four demons remainedposed, such things happened way too often on the demonic ne. Raising his hand, Cuisished his whip at the sorcerer, his weapon measured sixteen yards long. Before he could touch the sorcerer, his weapon could.


    The sorcerer had cast magic erroneously, he had no choice but to open a second scroll. At this point in time, there was an earth-shattering rumble behind him. Wielding a longsword, Su appeared behind the sorcerer, and stabbed him.


    A hair-raising sound filled the air as Su¡¯s longswords pierced into the sorcerer¡¯s Crystal Guardian. The sorcerer spit out a mouthful of blood, he was quickly losing blood.


    The Sword Aura of a Silver Grand Swordmaster had entered the sorcerer¡¯s body, forming a massive pressure, as though a few thousand pounds of water were forcefully injected into the sorcerer¡¯s blood vessels. Even blood was simmering on the surface of his skin.


    Su had ughtered this grade-7 sorcerer in one hit. When the Crystal Guardian was shattered Su spit out a mouthful of blood. He stopped the bleeding right away. At the same time, he tossed the longsword aside.


    Cuisi and the demons were horrified by Su¡¯s attack, they never imagined that a human with such a frail body could unleash such a ferocious attack.


    Around the sorcerer¡¯s waist, an inconspicuous badge suddenly exploded with a red magical radiance. The four demons, the spirits, and Su backed away quickly at the same time.


    A humongous fireball exploded. Using the sorcerer¡¯s body as the center, it instantly expanded into a ring of fire more than fifty yards in diameter across the ground. All organisms within the ring of fire were destroyed, the heatwaves traveled for a few hundred yards before dissipating slightly.


    This was an equipment which unleashed an autonomous defensive retaliation, but Su¡¯s attacking speed was simply too fast. The magic equipment could not even react in time, it only disyed the fearsome attack after the sorcerer was killed.


    A tiny shield appeared in Su¡¯s left hand. As the ring of fire was expanding, this shield was ejecting the Sword Aura, but it was melted by the mes in an instant, and became deformed. Even Su¡¯s body was sent flying, he mmed against the ground.


    Su spat out another mouthful of blood, the attack just now was at least a level-9 single magic attack. If he did not retreat fast enough, he would have been killed. Sorcerers could not be trifled with unless one was a Golden Grand Swordmaster who could withstand such a spell.


    The grade-8 sorcerer fled. When the second wave of assault from the elvish alchemical crossbows shot towards him, he cast the Crystal Reflection in an instant. When the arrows made from divinecherry wood struck the spell, only one arrow prated it and wounded the sorcerer¡¯s arm.


    This attack was not fatal and the sorcerer¡¯s ne did not release the Nihility skill. The sorcerer¡¯s fear was heightened, ¡°The enemy¡¯s alchemical crossbows actually contain spatial attributes, even the Crystal Reflection cannot fully withstand all their attacks!¡±


    At this moment, Su had already gotten back on his feet. Wielding a cuss, he turned around and lunged at the grade-8 sorcerer. It was the winged skeleton who reached the sorcerer first. A sh of gray brilliance appeared, forming an enormous illusion. The winged skeleton transformed the gigantic ax into an axe wheel with a six yard diameter. He then shed at the sorcerer forcefully.


    The sorcerer raised his finger. At the front of his fingertips, hundreds of ice shards were formed in that instant. They formed the shape of a stone tower, blocking the winged skeleton¡¯s ax.


    Whenever a sorcerer got into a melee battle with a grade-8 spirit, they would fight as if they had rehearsed it. When the axe wheel came shing down, the stone tower broke into smithereens. Each time the axe wheel was pressed down a little, the strength required to wield it would increase by tenfold though.


    Saleen was bedazzled, ¡°This grade-8 sorcerer is extremely proficient with his skills.¡± If Saleen did not need to leave urgently, he would have wanted to battle for a while longer, so that he could learn more things from his enemy.


    Opening his mouth, the sorcerer spat out a fireball. This fireball had a green hue and it was making a beeline for the winged skeleton¡¯s face.

 Chapter 738: Su (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 738: Su (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was standing behind, so he did not have to witness this scene, otherwise he would have learned another tactic. This grade-8 sorcerer had actually engraved the magic patterns belonging to a fire spell in his mouth and he knew how to draw a mini magic array. He could spit out a fireball instantly, without needing to do any magic preparations.


    Mages who were inclined to battle would draw many magic arrays across their bodies, but it was simply too painful to draw a magic array in the mouth. Almost no one was willing to endure this sort of suffering.


    The winged skeleton knew the perils of this fireball, but he was reluctant to retreat because it was very onerous for him to get close to this sorcerer. He decided to abandon the giant ax, while the bone wings on his back extended without any warning whatsoever. The winged skeleton went forward, then he used the razor sharp bone thorns at the ends of his wings to stab at the sorcerer¡¯s ribs.


    In the face of an oing green fireball, the winged skeleton only swung his head backwards.


    Mysteriously, the green fireball made a bend and struck the winged skeleton¡¯s face. The fireball was then immediately extinguished, as a crimson fissure appeared on the winged skeleton¡¯s crystal mask.


    The crystal mask worn by the winged skeleton was the sturdiest essory on his body. A spirit would receive massive damage if their Soul me was directly wounded, Saleen gave this crystal mask to the winged skeleton. It imitated the devil set. Even if it was hit by an alchemical crossbow, it would not be prated.


    This was a product Saleen was most proud of, yet it was fissured by a tiny green fireball. The that instant when the fireball struck the crystal mask, a sudden shock urred. It underwent extreme contraction and expansion. An intermediate level spell should not be able to release this kind of energy.


    A magic array tattooed on the body would never be a high level magic array, the human body could not take it.


    Horrifyingly, the winged skeleton¡¯s bone wings grew to over eight yards long. The sorcerer tried to back away, but the elvish alchemical crossbows had taken aim at his back. The third barrage was being prepared. The sorcerer took out a scroll helplessly.


    This scroll was small and exquisite, it was only one-fifth the size of a normal scroll. It was obsidian in color and was bound using gold strands. Before the sorcerer could open his scroll, the winged skeleton felt a sharp pain in his bone wings. A cuss had flown across the sky and prated the weakest portion of his bone wings, stabbing the sorcerer¡¯s wrist.


    The Crystal Reflection did not have much of an effect, the cuss had fractured the elemental protection as the Sword Aura within possessed unparalleled might. Blood gushed out of the sorcerer¡¯s wrist as the scroll fell to the ground.


    The sorcerer was startled, at this point in time, he recalled something his teacher had told him when he was still a low grade mage.


    ¡°Even if you advance to a sorcerer in the future, try not to let a grand swordmaster attack you at close range.¡±


    The cultivation of the Sword Aura was moreplicated than that of magic, it was fraught with many secret skills too. The abilities of some Sword Auras could greatly counter magic. If it was not for their short attack range, the status of a swordsman would not be so lowly.


    This shback only appeared for a brief moment in his mind as another hundred arrows were fired at the sorcerer¡¯s back. The Crystal Reflection was dotted with holes like a beehive, then another two alchemical arrows pierced the sorcerer¡¯s body.


    The sorcerer¡¯s ribs were prated by the winged skeleton¡¯s bone wings too and he bled profusely.


    After getting wounded several times, the sorcerer could still maintain a calm demeanor while casting spells. One of the rings on his hand suddenly exploded and his body became d in ayer of stone armor. The bone wings which prated his body had also fossilized. Two cracks sounded, as the thorn on the winged skeleton¡¯s bone wings fractured. The sorcerer had broken free from the winged skeleton¡¯s restraint.


    He had finally straightened his thoughts, it was impossible for him to deal with the prowess of the enemy. Before leaving, he wanted to injure one of the vital fighters in the enemy¡¯s army.


    Taking out a magic staff from his ring, the sorcerer tapped it gently. A puppet formed from silver mist appeared before the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton¡¯s giant ax then fell to the ground.


    A shadow flitted under the winged skeleton¡¯s ribs, it bent down and picked up the giant ax. This shadow swiped at the silver puppet. This person turned out to be Su, he was much shorter than Saleen, but he could wield the winged skeleton¡¯s four yard long giant ax effortlessly.


    In one swipe the silver puppet reverted to mist, then it began converging in the air once again.


    The sorcerer wanted to bend down and pick up the ck scroll, but he noticed that the young grand swordmaster was pouting and ring at him ferociously. His heart shuddered, then a second ring in his hand exploded.


    The giant ax shimmered with brilliance as the sorcerer¡¯s silhouette disappeared. Su¡¯s attack with the giant ax had created a cavity dozens of yards deep in the ground.


    Some attacks could not be prevented by the Nihility skill. Su¡¯s attack with the giant ax was one such, the Sword Aura contained in the ax already possessed the power of rules. Under the nar rules, it was impossible to be immune to any kind of skill.


    Saleen¡¯s palms were kind of sweaty, ¡°This grade-8 sorcerer is too powerful, he only suffered minor injuries despite being besieged.¡± Eleanor stood right beside Saleen. Since Saleen did not give the order, she would not use her Space Arrow, since her skill would deplete quite a substantial amount of energy. As the mightier sorcerers from the enemy¡¯s camp had not appeared, Eleanor had to maintain her offensive power.


    Her elvish archery coupled with Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger would be theirst attack method. If they had used this skill to kill the grade-8 sorcerer, Saleen would not be able to release such a fearsome attack again any time soon.


    The sorcerer had shattered two rings. The second ring contained a rare space spell which caused his body to be teleported away in an instant. He then appeared two-hundred yards away at the right nk of Saleen¡¯s team.


    The sorcerer broke out in cold sweat, ¡°That young grand swordmaster is too terrifying. If I wasn¡¯t alert enough, that ax would have smashed me into pulp and not into two pieces.¡± The crater, which measured over thirty yards long and ten yards in depth, was a result of that ax¡¯s attack.


    It was easy to create a hole with a depth of half a yard in hard ground, but a cavity with a depth of ten yards had already exceeded the offensive limits of Sword Aura.


    The sorcerer still tried to take out a group attack level-8 scroll in hopes of killing a few people before fleeing, but then he noticed a young grand swordmaster rushing over with a gigantic ax in hand. This caused the sorcerer to cower, would he still possess any strength after receiving such an attack?


    A wind dragon was released instantly. The sorcerer leaped onto the wind dragon¡¯s back, then fled north. He had finally lost the courage to deal with Su, he did not even think of using magic to obstruct Su¡¯s pursuit. He would have toe to a halt if he wanted to release a high level spell in mid-air.


    The wind dragon could not ascend to too high an altitude, otherwise the elvish alchemical crossbows could take aim at him easily. The sorcerer was clueless about the range of elvish alchemical crossbows, but legend had it that these crossbows had a range of one-thousand yards.


    The winged skeleton extended his wings and soared into the air, trailing Su. He did not want to ughter the sorcerer. He was afraid that the sorcerer might have some tricks to injure Su the moment Su was alone.


    Su¡¯s offensive power was higher than what the winged skeleton could imagine. If Su got into any trouble, then it was not worth the loss.


    On horseback, Isabe charged towards the deep cavity. Leaping off the horse nimbly, she picked up the ck scroll left behind by the sorcerer, She jumped out of the hole and up onto the skeletal warhorse. She then went back to Saleen.


    Receiving the ck scroll, Saleen used the Elemental Eye to study it. He noticed that all the elemental power contained in this scroll had been restrained by the gold strands, none of it was leaking out. He did not know what kind of magic scroll it was, but it was surely not lower than level-9.


    ¡°Perhaps Lex or Narnia might recognize this scroll.¡± Saleen put the scroll away into the devil ring.


    Saleen¡¯s guess was right, this was a level-10 scroll and it was one which could be released despite the user being at a lower grade than the scroll. The Cloudflow mage knew that Saleen was of utmost importance, as everyone was secretly protecting him. That was why the sorcerer took out his prized possession to massacre the pesky enemies. Unexpectedly, his actions had been predicted by Su and Su¡¯s flying sword caused him to lose the scroll.


    A level-10 scroll was very valuable, but it was definitely worth it if it could wipe out a person who was defended by two-hundred elvish alchemical crossbows. Those two-hundred elvish alchemical crossbows cost a ton, even a grade-8 sorcerer would be wounded by them. If a mage below grade-7 fell into the attack zone of these soldiers, death would be certain.


    Saleen was veryposed, he released a magic rm, causing a shrill sound to fill the air. Su had toe to a halt. Wielding the gigantic ax, he bellowed, ¡°Cloudflow coward, if I ever see you again, you will not be so lucky again!¡±


    The grade-8 sorcerer was greatly enraged by the word ¡®coward¡¯, but he suppressed his anger. Urging the wind dragon, he flew on desperately. ¡°Just go ahead and scold me, I am not some useless mage from Qin. I will dodge your attack this time and I shall brandish better equipment the next time. I have to ughter that grand swordmaster who insulted me!¡±


    The winged skeleton caught up to Su and took the ax. Helping Su onto his back, the both of them then flew towards Saleen. Saleen did not stop working, hemanded the soldiers to start retreating. ¡°This location is still one-hundred miles from the Bone Castle. If I don¡¯t get back, I might not be able to hold the fort if another two or three powerful enemies appear. It won¡¯t be good if an ambush turns into a head-on fight.¡±


    At the rear, the spirits were trailing from afar. Saleen turned around and saw that Cuisi, who was in the midst of the spirit army, had stored the grade-7 sorcerer¡¯s body in his earring. Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Do all demons have the hobby of collecting corpses?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s army had retreated in time. By the time the main camp organized its cavalrymen, Saleen had already traveled for more than twenty miles. That grade-8 sorcerer made a huge detour back to the port because he was deeply frightened. When the sorcerer onboard the warship learned of the battle oue, it was already toote to pursue Saleen.


    The Cloudflow people were aghast, the ce where their main forces were stationed at had been ambushed. The first level was destroyed, and more than ten-thousand soldiers were killed. Even though this loss was nothing for a sixty-thousand man army, around forty-thousand soldiers had died in theke. Aftering onshore, they immediately received a second assault. The Cloudflow people no longer dared underestimate the Bitter Water County.


    Saleen tallied his losses and profits. Despite losing around two-hundred soldiers and having about one-thousand of them wounded, the consumption of the battle wasrger than expected. The more Saleen calcted, the more dissatisfied he was with this battle. ¡°That grade-8 sorcerer didn¡¯t get killed, yet I have used six-hundred alchemical arrows, The winged skeleton and demons also got injured. Seems like the battle with the Cloudflow people is going to be a long and difficult one.¡±

 Chapter 739: Tyrant (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 739: Tyrant (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen quickly rushed back to the bone castle. The first thing he would do was to bring Su to the spirit magic tower to heal him.


    Su was more badly injured than the winged skeleton and the other demons. First, he had killed the grade-7 sorcerer forcefully and was hurt by the shock from breaking through the crystal guardian. Then, the grade-7 sorcerer¡¯s equipmentunched an attack that badly burned his left arm. Finally, he forcefully used the sword aura in order to attack the grade-8 sorcerer with a giant axe. Now Su was in danger. His eyes were bloodshot and his muscles were trembling uncontrobly. His sword aura was also bing weaker.


    Saleen let Su absorb an entire bottle of magic liquid. Finally, his injuries seemed to be under control.


    Saleen then prepared a huge bucket of restorative water for Su to lie in. Such a healing method might be extravagant, but it was also the most effective. Although restorative water was made from a grade-1 spell, it was more effective than any magic fluid. Its only disadvantage was that it could not be stored for too long, so one could not create too much at once.


    Saleen used the teleportation portal to send a letter to Lex. The letter described the details of the two battles and requested for Nichs to make a trip to the bone castle.


    In order for Su to recover quickly without any side effects, it was best to seek help from the grade-9 holy priest.


    Saleen did not expect Nichs to go into battle with the Holy See as thetter would likely be under a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, Nichs¡¯ healing abilities were unparalleled amongst those around Saleen. Not only could fallen divine spells save people, they might even be more effective than other healing methods.


    Immediately, Saleen asked the mages to count their losses and gathered Lex¡¯s four battalionmanders to exin the details of the battle.


    Saleen¡¯s entire fleet had been sunk. He only had three skeletal warships left on the Separation Sea, so there was no way he couldunch any attacks from the sea. When the four seasoned generals heard about the oue of the sneak attack, they were both pleased and worried. ( B oxnovel.c om )


    They were pleased that Saleen had killed one of the enemy¡¯s sorcerers, which was definitely a huge victory. They were also worried as the enemy¡¯s numbers remainedrge and their fighting abilities had not been diminished as a result of the sneak attack.


    Based on Saleen¡¯s battle records, the four generals began to help him analyze how Cloudflow organized their troops, their fighting abilities and possible strategies.


    One of the battalionmanders opened up the battle notes organized by the mages and flipped to the middle before pointing at a row of words and saying, ¡°Your Highness, please take a look at this. The surface of the ground on which the enemy has built their camp is of grade-3 toughness. It fits the standard for building cities!¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Cloudflow was slow to arrive because they want to build a city beside theke. Your Highness, if Cloudflow manages to build a city here with its back facing the Separation Sea, it will be able to replenish its manpower continuously. What can we do then?¡±


    The four generals looked at Saleen. The way they analyzed even the minor details of battles was something mages could never understand. They were able to quickly see where the key to the battle was. Cloudflow did not intend to attack Daliang City immediately. Instead, it wanted to build a militarized city beside theke. If this was indeed the case, Daliang City was in grave danger.


    Daliang City was less than two-hundred miles away from theke. If Cloudflow managed to build such a city sessfully, Daliang City would have to station heavy-armored soldiers there permanently and could no longer expand outwards. Not only would Lex have to give upnd that she had fought so hard for, she would also have to keep her soldiers within the city in order to guarantee Daliang City¡¯s safety.


    Cloudflow would be able to transport resources continuously via the Separation Sea. They would finally attack Daliang City once they had made the necessary preparations.


    Saleen was frustrated with this oue after he had just killed more than four-hundred-thousand enemy soldiers. Although Cloudflow soldiers might not be the bravest, the tactics they employed were hard to deal with. ( B oxnovel.c om )


    If he and Lex had gathered more than one-hundred-thousand soldiers to attack the camp beside theke directly, the results would not have been as great as what they achieved that day. If they had not attacked, Cloudflow would have put a nail in ce behind Daliang City, slowly, but steadily.


    Saleen recalled the roguish tactic employed by Ceylon City. After being beaten by others, they did not seek revenge. Instead, they peered at your home every day just to irritate you. It would be extremely dangerous if an entire group of people employed this tactic.


    Saleen regretted not bringing J along. If J was around, he would definitely be able to perform an even better analysis. J was once a swordsmanship teacher in the Cloudflow pce, so he had a better understanding of Cloudflow tactics.


    Saleen had no solutions to this roguish tactic used by Cloudflow. The battle on the Separation Sea was a good example. Based on Saleen¡¯s current forces, there was no way he would be able to destroy the Cloudflow fleets.


    ¡°My Lord, we should seek the Princess¡¯ opinion regarding this.¡± Eleanor spoke at the side, ¡°Building a city may seem like part of a tactic in this battle, but in actual fact, it must also be a strategy. What Cloudflow is doing will affect the entire Maind. What is their rtionship with the Qin Empire and the Tanggsi Empire like?¡±


    Saleen nodded. Indeed, the people around him did not specialize in politics. They could only analyze Cloudflow¡¯s tactics from a military perspective. Lex would definitely have something to say regarding that. It seemed there was a deeper meaning to Lex keeping Narnia by her side! It was a mistake on Saleen¡¯s part for not bringing Narnia along.


    The generals saw that Saleen did not have anyments so they continued to discuss Cloudflow¡¯s principles in their tactics.


    This time around, Saleen deployed more than eleven-thousand soldiers to spring a surprise attack on Cloudflow¡¯s campsite. He lost sixteen heavy-armored knights and two-hundred and thirty-four light-armored foot soldiers and auxiliary soldiers. In total, one-thousand, six-hundred, and six soldiers were injured. One-hundred and seventy of which were badly injured.


    Based on just the number of injuries, it would seem that Saleen had clinched a huge victory. In actual fact, it was because he did not include spirits of the dead amongst his casualties.


    Less than five-thousand of the spirits of the dead returned to the bone castle. Every spirit of the dead had its price. Unless they were the low-level skeletal soldiers of bone castle or low-level zombies, every powerful spirit of the dead summoned by the winged skeleton required the use of magic nuclei.


    The bone castle was huge. The seventy-thousand soldiers under Saleen would not be able to guard it. They would be rotated for rest, battles, and act as backups. It was already very dangerous for every rotation to consist only of twenty-thousand soldiers. The winged skeleton decided to build the bone castle and used low-level spirits of the dead as cannon fodder.


    Low-level skeletal soldiers might be slow, but they were stronger than humans. Compared to normal human swordsmen, it would be more effective deploying them to guard the top of the city walls. They would not feel fear nor pain when fighting to the death in battles.


    Saleen had killed a grade-7 sorcerer and used up six-hundred alchemy arrows. Excluding the divinecherry wood used in the making these alchemy arrows, one such arrow alone would use up a grade-4 magic nucleus. The cost for making an arrow was two-hundred gold coins. Even if they could reuse the arrow shaft, Saleen would still need to use up more than one-hundred-thousand gold coins in total.


    The truth was that the alchemy arrows that managed to hit the sorcerer were all destroyed and could no longer be reused. Crystal reflection was a spell that could reflect attacks back to the attacker. Every alchemy arrow that hit the crystal guardian all turned into ashes.


    Saleen would never sell arrow shafts that possessed the nature of space. The number of sunken ships in the ocean was limited so there was no way Saleen could keep creating such alchemy arrows.


    After going through some calctions in his head, Saleen said, ¡°No, I have to make a trip back to Daliang City. After I leave, this ce will temporarily be overseen by Mu En. No one is to leave the castle to attack. Defend it to the death!¡±


    Saleen was a little pessimistic. He did not know how long he could defend it if the powerful Cloudflow army gave everything to battle Bitter Water Prefecture. This was when he finally understood what the four generals meant.


    Morale was useless!


    At the end of the day, only honor and loyalty would serve as motivation for soldiers to continue fighting.


    Inparison, boosting morale was the best way to increase the fighting abilities of soldiers in Sikeqinya. This solution would be ineffective in the bone castle because his enemy was a powerful empire with a poption that far outnumbered the Qin Empire and controlled tens of thousands of miles of the sea. Although the army of such a powerful empire might seem a bit pathetic, they still outnumbered their opponents. Cloudflow could afford to use thousands, or even millions of soldiers, to overwhelm Daliang City.


    Lex might have a solution and it was to seek help from Holy Rock City. There was a two-million strong Qin army in Lun after all. The problem was, would Holy Rock City help Lex? Alternatively, if Lex sought help, would Bitter Water Prefecture be taken over by Qin like Phoenix?


    Lex possessed an eye for strategy. Thend that Daliang upied was a strategically sound location and also fertile. If not for the Separation Sea behind it, Daliang was actually suitable for expansion. The problem was that the Cloudflow Emperor did not seem to be thinking logically. Instead of fighting against the Tanggsi Empire, who had already upied half of Titan Duchy, he chose to attack Bitter Water Prefecture instead.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± Saleen cursed in his heart before leading Eleanor and Cuisi towards Daliang City. He did not dare to fly. He instead brought along his two-hundred bodyguards and set off towards Daliang City from the bone castle on skeletal warhorses.


    An army would usually take a day¡¯s time to cover a distance of two-hundred miles, but Saleen only used slightly more than three hours. Daliang City was heavily guarded. Before Saleen could even approach it, soldiers on patrol had alreadye up to them. Saleen realized that there were mini castles on both sides of the road.


    ¡°It¡¯s His Highness, Saleen!¡± The soldiers on patrol recognized Saleen and quickly sent someone to bring him into the city. Lex has already disseminated the battle report sent by Saleen, but did not mention the losses he had incurred. The people of Daliang City only knew that Saleen had scored a huge victory by sinking more than eighty of the enemy¡¯s fleets and sessfully springing a surprise attack on their campsite. To top it off, they also managed to kill a Cloudflow sorcerer.


    The news of Saleen¡¯s arrival quickly spread amongst the armies. The soldiers in the vicinity all gathered by the roadside, hoping to catch a nce of this amazing King.


    Saleen did not dare to show his worries. Instead, he greeted the people on the roadsides with optimism. This was how members of the noble families of the fourth dynasty were expected to behave. To the Bitter Water Prefecture soldiers, Saleen¡¯s behaviour presented him to be a noble king that was also respectable.


    Faced with such an unexpected wee, Saleen could only slow down his skeletal warhorse¡¯s pace and proceed slowly. All of a sudden, there was a throb in his heart. It was as if a powerful magic beast had set its sights on him.

 Chapter 740: Tyrant (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 740: Tyrant (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s mental strength kept increasing as if without a limit. At that moment, his level of mental strength was close to a grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s. The only things stopping him from advancing was his understanding towards elements, souls, and rules.


    Powerful mental strength allowed Saleen to possess a range of sensing that was simr to a sorcerer. He used his n badge to train his mental strength too, so his control over his senses was formidable. Even under pain or duress, Saleen would still be able to maintainposure andplete the necessary preparation for spells.


    Amongst the crowd ahead of him, a smiling child walked towards Saleen.


    ¡°Cuisi, stop him.¡± Saleen instantaneously activated a magic symbol and wanted to use it to mark the child. Saleen felt an incredibly horrifying death aura from the child. Saleen had only ever sensed such an aura from one other person and that was the old assassin that worked for Lex.


    The child was holding a colorful windmill in his hands.


    November was the most beautiful season in the south of Lun. The autumn wind had began to blow and the leaves were all golden in color and swayed gently under the sunlight. That windmill spun quickly and disarmed Saleen¡¯s magic symbol without any trace.


    Cuisi raised the ropes on his skeletal warhorse and it rushed in front of Saleen, blocking the child. The smile on the child¡¯s face disappeared. He had no idea how Saleen discovered him.


    The ability to transform his appearance into an innocent one allowed this assassin to be ten times more effective in carrying out his assassinations.


    Nevertheless, Saleen managed to see through his disguise from such a long distance away and even ordered his servant to block him. The servant looked adorable and delicate. Even the assassin could not bear to utilize the methods that he had thought of to create chaos. Most people would instinctively protect women and children after all.


    No one would ever imagine that an adorable woman like her would do anything harmful to a child like him.


    If it were other assassins, they would have retreated after being discovered at more than one-hundred yards away. An assassin¡¯s attacking range was shorter than that of a ck metal grand swordmaster. They had to be very close to the mage in order for their attack to be sessful. Powerful explosiveness and precise assassination techniques often made up for an assassin¡¯s weakness ofck of endurance.


    All assassins were trained in unorthodox fighting techniques and could very often kill those that were beyond their grades. They possessed all sorts of strange abilities. In order to assassinate someone, they could lie in ambush for a few months in exchange for that single moment of attack when their target would pass by.


    The child refused to leave for he was Tyrant, a powerful assassin.


    ¡°Mother!¡± Tyrant that was disguising itself as a child raised his windmill and ran towards Cuisi.


    His voice became coagted. Green and ck demon runes shot out from Cuisi¡¯s eyes. A gigantic illusion suddenly appeared. On top of Cuisi¡¯s skeletal warhorse, a witcher spider puppet pounced from the sky.


    All of a sudden, the ground cracked open before the eyes of the crowd. A gigantic monster dug out from the crack in the ground and dirt flew everywhere. This monster pounced at the King of Metatrin. All of a sudden, the King¡¯s servant was armed with a long pike and tried to pierce the monster with it.


    If Cuisi had tried to fight the child, the crowd would surely be enraged. Saleen used a very small illusion to solve this problem.


    The people that had gathered to wee Saleen were mainly soldiers who were taking their breaks, specifically auxiliary soldiers. There were very few Daliang Citymoners. When a monster suddenly appeared to assassinate the King of Metatrin, these soldiers were unarmed so they all retreated. Those that had brought along their weapons immediately gathered together in a circle to ensure the monster would not be able to retreat.


    Lex had invested a lot of effort into making sure that the internal defense of Daliang City was the best on the Maind mainly because of the qualities of these soldiers.


    The highest-ranking officer shouted, ¡°Bring the Grand Master here!¡±


    Only mages that were grade-7 and above were fit to be called ¡®Grand Masters¡¯. These soldiers would not allow the King of Metatrin to die before their eyes. They came to help their Princess in her battles after all. The officer immediately requested for help from sorcerers, disregarding the fact that he might not have the right to do so.


    What Cuisi was holding was not a long pike but a sixteen yard long whip that Saleen had refined for him. As the whip attacked Tyrant, he dashed towards the skeletal warhorse while keeping his body close to the whip. Thereafter, Tyrant transformed into a ball of shadow and merged with the shadow of the skeletal warhorse.


    Shadow Dance was a unique skill known only to assassins. One would be able to vanish from the enemy¡¯s sight as long as there were shadows. Cuisi¡¯s whip was like a dragonce as it whipped ferociously against the shadow on the ground. He could sense that the assassin had yet to leave his hiding spot. If Cuisi became distracted, the assassin would surely make full use of that moment to escape from attacking range.


    It was a tremendously short moment. Cuisi attacked by whipping instead of stabbing.


    Cuisi¡¯s eyes had yet to recover fully. He had yet to regain his sight even though he had been washing his eyes with magic fluid every hour. He was relying on his demon senses entirely in this battle.


    The main source of a demon¡¯s senses were its horns. Since Cuisi was now in human form, his entire skull possessed all the abilities of a demon¡¯s horns. He could still pinpoint the assassin¡¯s location without his eyes. It was a waste to use Shadow Dance on him.


    With a loud cracking sound, Cuisi¡¯s whip kicked up some dirt and dust. Cuisi thought that his whip had struck its target, yet thetter still managed to escape unscathed from beneath the skeletal warhorse. This was when Cuisi realized that this enemy would be more difficult to deal with than the sorcerer that he had encountered.


    Once an assassin was in the shadows, that was the best time for him to start killing.


    The witcher spider did not have any targets, so itid on the ground and continued to project images. Cuisi no longer hesitated. His body swelled up instantaneously and the horns on his head grew longer than a foot. The wings on his back were still drawn in, but his hands had already transformed into a pair of weapons that were incredibly sharp.


    Cuisi threw his whip towards the middle of his earring. Demons possessed the advantage of being able to use their items much faster than mages, mental strength was practically inexhaustible was never in danger of being counter-attacked.


    With a much bigger body, Cuisi took a big step out. Due to the senses of both his horns, the shadow of the child appeared once again and was already within fifteen yards of Saleen. The sharp ws on Cuisi¡¯s toes dug into the ground as he bent his body andid unmoving on the ground. The speed at which he could leap was even faster than a mage flying at their highest speed. Cuisi knew that Saleen could protect his own life with the techniques he possessed. Even if the assassin was not killed, he would at least be badly injured.


    Cuisi, on the other hand, was not confident of killing the assassin in one shot so he would rather wait for an opportunity.


    Although Saleen could not see the assassin¡¯s shadow, ayer of ice te armor suddenly appeared on his body. On the outeryer of his ice te armor was a gigantic bubble. The moment the bubble appeared, a thick fog enveloped Saleen¡¯s bodypletely.


    He used ice te armor, water shield, and the Quickcloud spell. Saleen cast all three spells at the same time as they had already been prepared while Cuisi was engaging the assassin.


    Tyrant became frustrated. He did not expect the King of Metatrin to be such a powerful mage! He could cast three spells in one go and conceal himself within a fog. The iing attack left Tyrant feeling terrified. Without hesitation, he closed his eyes. The magic pattern on his eyelids twitched and became transparent. A pair of dark purple eyes released a mysterious light from behind all the magic patterns that were crowded together.


    The buffer provided by the fog was prated by the eyes. With the windmill in his hands, Tyrant¡¯s boots were almostpletely t on the ground before leaping towards his target. Although his actions were not impromptu, his posture seemed obstructed the moment he leapt out.


    The target within the fog suddenly turned into two different people! Both of them held a ball of white me. Tyrant could feel goosebumps on his skin as the temperature fell drastically. From within the fog, a small tornado of three yard height and a sharp hexagonal snowke appeared.


    These spells werepleted almost instantaneously. In the midst of Tyrant¡¯s frustration, the enemy had already cast six middle-level spells almost instantaneously. The interval between each spell was exactly two frames! At the same time, this Kingpleted a mirroring spell of an unknown grade!


    This was something even many sorcerers would not be able to aplish! Tyrant had mistaken Saleen¡¯s water puppet for a Mirroring spell, but what he did not understand was that his opponent was not a sorcerer. Even so, the mirror image that he created did not replicate the movements of the original person. He could not tell which was the real target.


    The veins on Tyrant¡¯s forehead were now visible and the windmill in his hand spun even more vigorously as it produced a sharp metallic sound. The tornado and snowke in the fog were blown away by the windmill without causing any harm to Tyrant¡¯s body. Tyrant bit his own finger before drawing a line with blood across his forehead. Suddenly, Tyrant¡¯s body split into two from the center.


    Tyrant could now see Saleen just as Saleen could see Tyrant. He could see that the assassin with a child¡¯s appearance had now be two people. He was also rmed that his snowkes and tornado were blown away by the strange windmill without striking their targets.


    Saleen instantaneously cast multiple bubbles that floated around his body. The water puppet also cast water shield and ensured that its entire body was protected. The only difference between Saleen and the water puppet was that thetter held an additional crystal ring in its hand.


    As long as Saleen had yet to advance into a sorcerer, he would never dare to use Rafael¡¯s magic ring. If he used it, he would be injured even if he did manage to kill the enemy. Saleen allowed the water puppet to use his crystal ring instead.


    The two Tyrants were duplicates of each other except that one held a windmill while the other held a short dagger.


    Assassins loved daggers. If a magic dagger was thrown from a short distance, the amount of damage it could inflict was at least equivalent to a spell of the same grade. If it was a godly item, it would inflict the same amount of damage as a grade-8 spell.


    ¡°Go and die!¡± The two Tyrants shouted at the same time and leapt towards Saleen and the water puppet. They were now within ten yards of Saleen.


    A long bow suddenly appeared in Eleanor¡¯s hands and an arrow was shot. The water puppet raised its finger and pointed at the assassin holding the windmill.

 Chapter 741: Tyrant (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 741: Tyrant (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor knew the attacking range of Saleen¡¯s crystal finger. She shot her arrow the moment Tyrant was within ten yards.


    Both the space arrow and life arrow were shot together.


    Eleanor¡¯s grade did not allow her to fully utilize the power of the elf emperor arrow. If she could have shot these three arrows consecutively, the assassin would surely be dead.


    The assassin used his dagger to swipe at the arrows flying towards him. His actions were as swift as lightning, but he had miscalcted. Eleanor¡¯s space arrow was made from the branches of a divine tree. The long bow, Seven Nights, was also like a godly item. The moment the dagger made contact with the junction between the tip and shaft of the arrow, the assassin knew he was in trouble.


    The dagger wriggled helplessly in the air as the arrow passed through it.


    One needed to be even faster to dodge past the space arrow. It would not be stopped unless one possessed a space rule that was even more powerful.


    The life arrow followed closely behind. The assassin, who had been paralyzed by the space arrow, was not able to dodge the life arrow and was hit in the chest.


    On the other side, Saleen¡¯s water puppet had also managed to hit the assassin that was holding a windmill. There was a beam of white light within the fog and even the soldiers outside of the fog were blinded.


    Tyrantughed coldly as the windmill pierced through the white light formed by spells. This windmill was a Spell-destroying Weapon, the most well-known holy equipment amongst assassins. He had used this holy equipment to kill tens of mages and all of them died with an expression of shock on their faces.


    The only thing that frustrated Tyrant was that the mages did not seem to feel any fear just before they died. Were the brains of those damned mages made of stones?


    The windmill was broken into pieces without a sound. This holy equipment was destroyed by the water puppet¡¯s crystal finger. Its after-effects even created a fist-sized crater in Tyrant¡¯s chest. This time around, Saleen did not attack with his full force as the water puppet was too important. If it broke apart, Saleen could not afford to wait for a few months before it recovered again.


    The water puppet only utilized half the power of crystal finger yet its index finger had already broken off as a result. At least the rest of the body behind the crystal ring remained uninjured.


    Once Tyrant¡¯s holy equipment was destroyed, his clone on that side suddenly stopped moving. It only stood rooted on the spot, making a thin cawing sound. Tyrant could no longer sense the presence of his clone nor connect with its blood and energy, much less control it.


    Once the windmill was destroyed, Tyrant¡¯s body immediately became entangled by the tornado and snowkes around him. The snowkes were even sharper than the arrows, they tore Tyrant¡¯s clothes into pieces dripping with blood.


    Tyrant let out a sharp howl and a metal hammer suddenly appeared in his hands. This powerful assassin was still able to utilize his spatial equipment!


    The metal hammer measured half a yard in diameter and Tyrant leapt towards Saleen with the hammer in hand. Saleen¡¯s body in the fog was even more agile than a fish. His weakness against fighters hadpletely vanished. He merely slid his legs slightly and he had already retreated more than ten yards. The water puppet was in ce to face the assassin and it pressed the water me in its hands against the assassin¡¯s metal hammer.


    It was yet another silent attack. The Tyrant¡¯s hammer, which was refined withet, was covered with water me before being broken suddenly into metal dust. The temperature of the metal dust was terribly low. Signs of crystallization appeared on the handle of the hammer immediately and Tyrant¡¯s palm was frozen and stuck onto the hammer.


    He did not dare to attack Saleen again. This mage¡¯s fighting style was too strange. It was the first time he encountered such a terrifying grand mage in his forty years of being an assasin. He caught a glimpse of Saleen¡¯s blue eyes staring at him. He knew that this grand mage had yet to use up all of his skills. If he did not leave now, it would be toote.


    Tyrantpletely ignored the big hole in his chest as it was not bleeding. A small shield appeared in his hand which he used to block the water puppet while he retreated tens of yards away. His retreat was even faster than his attack. Tyrant had a good gauge of distance and was able to withdraw from the range of the Quickcloud spell in one step.


    There was no way Saleen would let him go so easily. Cuisi, who had been waiting outside all the while, pounced onto Tyrant the moment he withdrew from the fog. He cut off one of Tyrant¡¯s arms with his sharp nails.


    Tyrant snorted in pain. He was already flying into the air and trying to escape from the city while the arm that had been cut off turned into dust. Eleanor prepared to shoot another arrow. This time around, she had a clear sight of Tyrant flying the air. It would be unnecessary to calcte.


    Tyrant squirmed his body in the air and Eleanor¡¯s arrow flew through the fist-sized hole in his body. Tyrant was still congratting himself on his escape when he suddenly felt the energy in his body burning fiercely the moment the arrow passed through the wound. At the same time, it was as if the arrow had taken something away with it as it flew into the rivers of time.


    Cuisi stared with hatred at the assassin that had escaped. He only managed to cut off one of the assassin¡¯s arms and was feeling gloomy that he had not managed to cut off his head instead. The illusion of the witcher spider was wearing off, so Cuisi changed back to human form once again.


    Saleen dissipated the fog and felt a little stunned. He looked at Eleanor¡¯s back and did not know where he was momentarily. Eleanor¡¯s long skirt swayed slowly as the wind blew. All these details were captured by Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    When did he be so powerful? That assassin could very well be more powerful than Bain! The assassin also possessed equipment that was beyond imagination. Without the obstruction of the assassin¡¯s holy equipment, the water puppet¡¯s crystal finger could have ended the assassin¡¯s life.


    After Eleanor¡¯s arrow had injured the assassin, the magic patterns on it began to dim. She approached the arrow and released a tiny wind serpent to retrieve the arrow back to the quiver. The third arrow had flown too far away. Some soldiers managed to pick it up and returned it back to Eleanor.


    The sorcerer in the city finally arrived then, but the battle had already ended and the assassin had already escaped.


    The sorcerer from Bitter Water Prefecturended and approached Saleen before asking, ¡°Are you injured?¡±


    Saleen was already putting away his water puppet. He shook his head and said, ¡°That assassin has lost an arm. He will not run far.¡±


    The eyes of the Bitter Water Prefecture sorcerer spun quickly and stared at Saleen for a few seconds before deciding that Saleen was really not injured. His magic tower was too far away so he took some time to arrive there. He was still able to sense that there were abnormal energy fluctuations in the city thatsted for a moment.


    No matter how well holy equipment was disguised, it would not be able to escape the detection of a mage in a magic tower.


    The soldiers who had gathered to wee Saleen and his party now felt ashamed of themselves. There were so many of them, yet there was nothing they could do. The army that was on duty had already locked the city gates while the idle soldiers returned to their camps with their officers. The atmosphere in the city was tense. A powerful assassin had managed to make his way into the city. No one knew when he would suddenly appear again.


    ¡°Come to the magic tower with me. I¡¯m afraid that there are other assassins still lurking around.¡± The magician did not say more. What had happened was not the fault of hispanions or himself. Assassins were good at concealing themselves. It would be extremely difficult for mages to detect them until the assassins revealed themselves when they attacked.


    Saleen nodded. Under the protection of Lex¡¯s elite guards, he followed the mage back to the pce, where the magic tower was built. The appearance of the assassin was only a distraction and he had more important things to discuss with Lex.


    After Tyrant escaped from the crowd, hended on the ground and disappeared into the shadows. Saleen possessed the elemental eye so he could see the assassin. Other than Saleen, even grade-6 grand mages would find it difficult to detect the assassin¡¯s Shadow Dance, let alone ordinary soldiers.


    Tyrant was not happy even though he managed to escape alive. He plunged straight into a small alley. Daliang City had been militarized so there were few civilians and barely any empty houses. Deep in the alley, Tyrant opened an iron cover on the ground and went in. All Qin-style cities had excellent drainage systems that could allow even adults to travel through.


    There were metal barriers at intervals of the tunnel. These metal barriers had been infused with low-level spells. They would sound off an rm once they were forcefully destroyed.


    Tyrant was only trying to find a ce to rest. He stopped at a stone tform in the tunnel and rested his body on it. The wound on his chest was slowly healing, but Tyrant was confused.


    He had already consumed the world¡¯s most amazing medicine. Based on past experiences when he suffered severe injuries, he should have more or less recovered by now, or at least the surface of the wound should have already healedpletely.


    The wound on his chest was still opened and the arm that he lost had not shown any signs of growing back. He was an assassin from another dimension, not a creature from the Myers Maind. The growing back of his body parts was supposed to be a talent that he was born with. As long as he had sufficient nutrients, he should not have to worry about this kind of injury.


    This time around, not only did he end up not killing his target, he has also lost an arm that was not showing any signs of growing back.


    Tyrant raised his hand slowly as he wanted to touch the wound on his right arm. He almost screamed again.


    His palm, which was originally as smooth as the skin of a baby, was now key and wrinkled like the skin of an old man that was more than a hundred years old. The nails were curved, the skin was dry, the back of the hand was full of spots, and there were wrinkles everywhere.


    Tyrant was stunned beyond words. He took out a mirror from a small pocket on his waist. The back of this mirror was covered with magic runes while the front was made of bronze and was smooth and t.


    The face in the mirror staring back at him was a foreign one. It was covered in wrinkles, the eyebrows had grown longer and more sparse and the hair was as white as snow.


    Tyrant could feel the temperature in his body dropping drastically and he could no longer control his heart from beating so quickly.


    ¡°The life arrow!¡± Tyrant managed to squeeze these words out of his mouth. His voice was low-pitched and traveled hundreds of yards in the tunnel. One could barely make out what he said amidst the noise from the underground water.


    Tyrant threw the mirror away in anger. It was a piece of high-grade equipment, but he no longer cared. There was a crazed look in his eyes.


    ¡°Damn it, that was an elf!¡±


    Tyrant roared,pletely forgetting about his injuries. The enemy must still be hunting for him, but he could not calm himself down at all. The elf¡¯s life arrow was the most powerful weapon that could restrain people of his race. If not for the fact that only a few members of the royal family could use the life arrow, his entire race would already have been erased during the wars amongst dimensions tens of thousands of years ago.


    When the life arrow passed through the wound on his body, it also took away his life. In other words, time had been elerated, causing his body to age rapidly. His race was particrly sensitive to time and space. After being hit by a life arrow, even if he did not die from it, his life expectancy would still decrease by several hundred times.


    In such a state, escaping from this city alive was already a problem, much less making any sort of recovery.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to die!¡± Tyrant suddenly squatted, crying and hitting the ground. All the tyranny he hadmitted in the past meant nothing in that moment. He suddenly understood the feelings of those who died from his windmill.

 Chapter 742: Married? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 742: Married? (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I don¡¯t wish to die...¡± Tyrant¡¯s voice echoed inside the tunnel. A few metal rats were so startled by the soundthat they crept back into theirirs, not daring to create any more noise.


    After shedding tears, Tyrant felt pain in his eyes, his body was aging very swiftly.


    ¡°I can only take a risk now,¡± Tyrant took out two corpses from his pouch andid them before him. These two bodies were naked, they belonged to a male and female and both of them were very young.


    Both corpses had average looks, but their body structure was perfect. Even in the eyes of a sorcerer, the proportions of their skeletons were not wed at all.


    Caressing the two corpses, Tyrant felt hesitant. It was perilous for ghosts to upy the bodies of other beings. Usually, ghosts would not do something like that more than three times. If this limit was exceeded, the ghosts themselves would lose their memory and turn into idiots.


    This was the first time he upied this a body, that meant that the sess rate for the second try would only be sixty percent. If it failed, then the body he chose would be deastoyed. Consequently, the sess rate for the third try would be forty percent and he would not have the freedom of choice.


    The risk of engaging in such affairs was extremely high, it was akin to throwing a dice. A ghost would never do this unless their life was in imminent danger. Tyrant¡¯s body had been prated by the Life Arrow. Even if he reced his outer shell, he would not enjoy longevity.


    ¡°But it will be good to live for one more day,¡± Tyrant¡¯s eyes were brimming with hatred. He did not intend to flee, instead, he was going to remain in the city and wait for another opportunity to conduct another assassination. He had roughly grasped the abilities of the king, ¡°I will definitely seed the next time.¡±


    Tyrant was hesitant, but he still chose the male¡¯s body because there were very few women in Daliang City. If he chose the female, it would be inconvenient for him to move about in the city.


    A pale green translucent shadow slowly detached from the dwarf¡¯s shell, this was the original form of a ghost. Tyrant prostrated atop the man¡¯s corpse, slowly seeping in.


    If other beings wanted to steal someone else¡¯s body, it would be very tedious as a lot of preparation was required. A ghost did not need anything, their bodies were already in a half-soul form and they had the gift of control.


    After around two hours, Tyrant had entered the bodypletely. Lying on the ground, he slowly became ustomed to this brand new body.


    This body was a human expert whom Tyrant had poisoned in the past. This human had been a Silver Grand Swordmaster. If it was not for the sturdiness of this body, Tyrant would not have taken two hours to upy it. Tyrant could seize the souls of normal humans the moment he pounced on them. Nevertheless, this soulless body still tried to reject his presence.


    ¡°In at most three days, I can regain half of my strength.¡± Tyrant calcted in his head, then he sat up. Untying the pouch from the dwarf¡¯s body, he took out some clothes from it and wore them.


    ¡°If my eyes didn¡¯t get injured while I was traversing the nes, I would not be in such a terrible state now, fancy attaching myself to this garbage body!¡±


    Tyrant seemed to be void of joy. Ghosts were almost immune to physical attacks, they enjoyed extended lives and possessed powerful mental strength. At the moment, his soul required protection by a physical body in order to be active in the Myers maind. A simple strong wind could disperse his soul, he would never converge again otherwise.


    Tyrant belonged to a species among the ghost race which enjoyed slightly longer lives. Attaching to a physical body would further shorten his lifespan.


    Putting away the woman¡¯s body, Tyrant exhaled deeply, then he looked for a clean spot to sit down. He had to wait, he could only return to the surface after recovering his strength.


    ¡°To kill the king, that elf has to be terminated first. No matter how powerful the king¡¯s abilities are, he cannot kill me in one hit. If that elf fires another arrow at me, I am definitely doomed. The city is still recruiting soldiers to attack the Cloudflow people, I can infiltrate Saleen¡¯s army and wait for an opportune time. If only this wasn¡¯t the main ne. Back on the subcontinental ne, I could kill the demonic race at will, devouring their souls to recover from my wounds. On the subcontinental ne, the mighty Holy See is absent and horrifying ces like Alchemy City are absent too.¡± On this ne, he could only act as an assassin, seeking shelter from nobles as he sought out his targets.


    The professionals¡¯ union would give rewards for the people he killed, no one would notice that these people were dead.


    When Saleen was led to the pce, the first thing he did was to describe the appearance of the assassin to Lex. Hearing this information, Lex locked her brows in a furrow.


    ¡°Do you recognize this assassin?¡± Saleen had a great understanding of Lex, he could guess her thoughts just by looking at her face.


    ¡°Of course, you cannot pursue this matter anymore. I will put the city on lockdown. Since the assassin is severely wounded, he won¡¯t be able to flee. Just kill him, then forget about this matter,¡± Lex answered in an upset tone. Of course she could guess who sent this assassin, but she could not fly into a rage. ¡°The Cloudflow people are right behind us, can I still create trouble for Antos? I am afraid Antos may have more than one-hundred-thousand troops with him.¡±


    Saleen immediately understood the situation, ¡°Other than the Holy See, the only other person who can send an assassin to kill me will be Marquis Antos who lost a few thousand soldiers to me.¡± He did not understand why Lex was suppressing her anger, she did not even mention negotiating with Holy Rock City.


    ¡°Saleen...¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Aye, I shall tell you something. When you left the borders, Earl Besta reported that he was attacked by headless riders.¡±


    ¡°Headless riders?¡± Saleen¡¯s eyebrows immediately shot upwards. At the moment, headless riders were insignificant in his eyes, even if there were other enemies present to team up against him, he could kill a few hundred of them. The existence of headless riders meant that ck magicians were still active in this region. An astronomical number of ck puppets posed arge threat to human armies. If the ck magicians cooperated with the Cloudflow army to attack Daliang City, Saleen would be in a bad spot.


    ¡°The soldiers withdrawn by Antos were found dead in the middle of the wilderness, none of them returned. He thought that you had ughtered all of them because you had done something like this back in Metatrin. None of the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary soldiers made it back.¡±


    ¡°I have kept more than a thousand prisoners!¡±


    ¡°I know, those people were killed by the Dark Sky Devil.¡±


    A boom sounded in Saleen¡¯s mind. Being a mage, he would of course understand what the Dark Sky Devil symbolized.


    ¡°But don¡¯t worry, there are two experts pursuing the Dark Sky Devil. That monster might have sustained serious injury when it was revived, otherwise...¡±


    ¡°Have you informed Holy Rock City about this?¡±


    ¡°Of course, otherwise Antos wouldn¡¯t have kept quiet. He is worried that the Dark Sky Devil will intrude hisnds.¡±


    ¡°Chased by two human experts... are those two people mages?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, those two people used an instantaneous skill outside the town to kill those two-thousand headless riders. They might be holy masters...¡±


    ¡°Does it look like it? Did they use glorious divine spells?¡± Saleen was also extremely nervous.


    ¡°No, but it isn¡¯t a good thing either.¡± Lex kept sighing, the incidence of this event had exceeded the area she could control. ¡°The Dark Sky Devil has resurrected, if it wasn¡¯t for the two humans pursuing it, Lon would have been bathed in blood already. Those two people chasing the Dark Sky Devil are obviously not mages. If they belong to the Holy See, this battle will be hopeless. People who possess the ability to pursue the Dark Sky Devil have to be experts above grade-10. Holy Rock City only has one person like this, which is Joey. The Holy See can deploy two experts in one go and I don¡¯t even know their identities. The Tanggsi Empire actually has three people who are at grade-10. How should the war go on? We can only pose a threat to these experts if mages from the Alchemy City swarm out. Alchemy City will most likely shut their doors and take care of themselves right?¡±


    It was no wonder then that Lex and Saleen would allow their thoughts to run wild. The Goddess of Myers had fallen such a long time ago, no one would expect two of her envoys to remain alive.


    ¡°Before the Dark Sky Devil is killed, I will take it this matter has never happened before.¡± Clenching his teeth, Saleen dismissed the notion of killing Antos. ¡°I will vie for the maind in the future, I will deal with this Antos sooner orter.¡±


    Lex smiled forcefully, ¡°Saleen is indeed different now, he can make such a decision is just a few breaths.¡± Be that as it may, both of them had to face Cloudflow now. Despite giving up on Antos, the situation had not really brightened up.


    ¡°Lex, I can defend the Bone Castle. Cloudflow is going to build a city, what should we do?¡± Saleen quickly set aside the problem of Antos as he sought advice from Lex.


    ¡°It will be very tedious. Saleen, how long will you need to deploy one more fleet of skeletal warships?¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly, ¡°I have spent almost all of my money already, I even brought along the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Currently, Metatrin City is left with the dragon skeleton warship to hold the fort. The dragon skeleton warship cannot be dismantled, otherwise...¡±


    ¡°How many skeletal warships can the winged skeleton produce?¡±


    ¡°Lex, even if you give me Holy Rock City¡¯s treasury, I cannot produce the warships. The winged skeleton took around one year to produce the warships. Can you afford to wait? My warships are inferior to that of Cloudflow¡¯s. They can use the main warships to slowly transport the troops. Since the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat ambushed them once, it will be difficult to do it again. It is only a matter of time before they transport their army over.¡±


    Lex and Saleen looked at each other as though they had returned to the days in the hell of the God¡¯s Punishment. A sense of helplessness diffused throughout the room. At this moment Saleen realized that the seemingly omnipotent Lex also had her frustrations.


    ¡°What did Holy Rock City say?¡± Saleen was helpless, he was still trying to solve the problem from a political angle. ¡°What is the real reason why the Cloudflow people are here in the Bitter Water County? Is it really to marry Lex?¡±


    ¡°The prince said that since I have established a county, he has no influence over my marriage,¡± Lex answered tly.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes lit up. Tugging at Lex¡¯s sleeves, he asked, ¡°Lex, are those Safilos¡¯ words?¡±


    Lex¡¯s face turned scarlet. She did not shake Saleen¡¯s hand away, and replied ¡°He said that, word for word.¡±


    ¡°Lex, let¡¯s get married!¡± Saleen¡¯s words stunned Lex.

 Chapter 743: Married? (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 743: Married? (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen what did you say?¡± Lex responded after a long while.


    ¡°I am saying, we should get married.¡± Saleen professed. He roughly understood Holy Rock City¡¯s intention and he only made this decision after seeing Lex in person.


    ¡°What¡¯s the reason?¡± Lex asked seriously, as she looked at Saleen.


    ¡°Do you still need a reason? After the marriage, I will have two identities, I will be able to enter and exit Qin freely. Your uncle is making apromise!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Lex¡¯s gaze became increasingly serene as she probed.


    Saleen sighed, he knew what Lex wanted to hear. Saleen could propose to Lex, but if he were to say other things, he would feel like he was cheating on Sika, even though all this was Sika¡¯s intention and Sika had given Saleen the permission to do so.


    ¡°A mage cannot force themselves to love something. Lex, I can only say so much regarding this matter.¡±


    Looking at Saleen¡¯s awkward appearance, Lexughed, then said, ¡°Holy Rock City is asking us to deal with Cloudflow ourselves, which means that the chance of an alliance between Qin and Cloudflow is very small. Holy Rock City will not allow me to fail so quickly. Safilos hopes that I can stop advancing west. Perhaps, he might even ask me to hand over three cities to his men to defend. Next spring, he willunch a third offensive at the north of the Purgatory Desert, so as to push the Tanggsi people back to God Grace Duchy.¡±


    Even though Lex did not make herself very clear, Saleen could still understand. At the moment, Holy Rock City would not fall out with Cloudflow. This war would only be between Cloudflow and Bitter Water County.


    Saleen shared the same sentiments too, ¡°I can marry Lex and be the first batch of throne sessors. Holy Rock City will not interfere with Lex¡¯s marriage and they will have to give her substantial gifts. They might even deployrge amounts of resources from the national treasury to reinforce Daliang City. The Cloudflow people will not be able to find fault with these affairs and they cannot use this as an excuse to dere war on Qin.¡±


    Saleen spoke slowly, ¡°I suddenly realized that the thoughts harbored by nobles are very detestable. I have been thinking from their perspective. Lex, just marry me. I just cannot tolerate the contempt the Cloudflow emperor has towards you, I am going to kill that scumbag.¡±


    At this moment, Lex burst out in boisterousughter, then said, ¡°Saleen, how do you know if I will be willing or not?¡±


    ¡°The both of us have always been very calctive towards each other, there are no deals between us. We... are mages.¡±


    If one desired something, they would have to pay an equal price for it, this was the principle guiding all mages. Lex¡¯s gaze became gentle. Indeed, all her experiences with Saleen were calcted down to thest detail. There were no investment-rted deals between them with the exception of the first time Saleen took the Green Dragon Magic Nucleus to her. At that time, Saleen was still a confused grade-2 mage.


    ¡°What about Sika?¡± Lex posed this question and Saleen actually heaved a sigh of relief, he was still worried that Lex would not mention this topic.


    ¡°Sika is currently the Caucasus Queen, Metatrin¡¯s regent, and the first in line to the title of Metatrin King. She already has my child. I feel that the kingdom will be hers sooner orter. I will be the prince of Qin, as long as you be the Qin emperess.¡±


    ¡°In that case, does it mean that you are not letting Sika be embroiled in our affairs?¡±


    ¡°Not only Sika, none of the Caucasus people will participate in this matter,¡± Saleen replied with much determination.


    Lex did not continue probing, as Saleen¡¯s attitude was unwavering. Lex had her doubts regarding the goddess¡¯ contract. Emotionally, she could ept the resurrection of the goddess. She was not sure if there were certain terms which were detrimental to humans, and she could not discuss this with Saleen. She did not know if the goddess¡¯ contract contained restraints against herself and Saleen.


    The moment the contract was resisted, there would be too little of them left to even bury. They could not even verbalize the terms of the contract.


    Lex already felt sufficiently satisfied after hearing Saleen¡¯s answer about Sika. Sika would never be a queen, but she could be a king. If Sika became the king of Metatrin and was not involved in the resurrection of the goddess, then Metatrin Kingdom would be a piece of cleannd which was unrted to any gods.


    Even though this was not the oue Lex hoped for, she did not continue probing further. She realized that Saleen¡¯s face remained very tender despite almost being twenty years old.


    Since the words had been spoken, this matter had to be looked into right away. The Cloudflow people were preparing to develop a city. Given their transportation abilities, this city could be constructed within one and a half years. Saleen and Lex had to get married before this city waspleted, they also had to draft a battle n.


    Since the Qin emperor wanted to withdraw Lex¡¯s county, Saleen¡¯s and Lex¡¯s strategic direction would also have to be altered.


    Experiencing so many battles together, Lex and Saleen could understand each other without needing to speak. From now on, Cloudflow would be their main offensive direction. If they could upy the entire ocean. Not only could they invade Cloudflow from the sea, they could also interact with Qin¡¯s southern nobles.


    All along, the southern nobles werepliant towards Emperor Chanake, but they resisted Prince Safilos. Lex would not face any harassment by the nobles in the ocean. Naturally, her influence could be cemented.


    It had to be noted that even though Qin¡¯s southern nobles did not own any warships, they had established countless cannon tforms along the coast southeast of the ocean, tightly sealing the sea. If Lex and Saleen could dominate the ocean, they would be able to grasp all authority. Lex could even obtain materialistic support from the southern nobles and use the ocean as a base tounch an offensive into the Cloudflow Empire.


    Prince Safilos said that he had wash his hands of Lex, but in actual fact, he could see right through her ns. Lex had to make further development, if she conquered Lon, then the Lon people would surely acknowledge the daughter of Emperor Chanake. She would never give up her territory.


    Since the Cloudflow people hade forth, Qin thus used them to restrain Lex¡¯s development in Lon. By rendering little support, the Cloudflow people would not be able to seed, but Lex would not be able resolve the problem in Lon.


    Even though Lex was a county queen, she had a few hundred nobles serving her. On the other hand, Saleen only had a few nobles, but he needed to inform an equally huge number of people. Those people whom he did not confer a title to were still influential and wealthy in Metatrin.


    The main powers in both countries had to be notified, which was akin to deploying an entire country. Unlike an alliance, the marriage between the both of them would determine the fates of the nobles in both countries. The rtions between both countries would be more intimate.


    Daliang City, Metatrin City, and the Bitter Water Prefecture had teleportation portals. The news of Lex¡¯s and Saleen¡¯s engagement had circted throughout both countries, as though it had grown wings. Holy Rock City also learned of this news.


    ¡°My sister is getting married!¡± In Holy Rock City¡¯s pce, Emperor Ojarvis was tearing up as he read a letter in hand.


    Within the shadows, the mage who served him spoke in an ethereal voice.


    ¡°Your Majesty, what do you intend to give the viscountess?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, I n to go to the mage¡¯s tower to enquire about this.¡± Ojarvis clutched the letter in his hand as he stood up. In the great hall, only he and the mage were present. The nobles had congregated in the prince¡¯s official residence, discussing Lex¡¯s marriage and the war with Cloudflow. Ojarvis was simply an isted emperor.


    Prince Safilos¡¯ residence upied a vast area, but it was very simplepared to the pce. The Qin emperor did not harbor any extravagant desires and the prince was the same. In Qin¡¯s thousand year tradition therger nobles lived a simpler life while the smaller nobles were more extravagant. It seemed like the nobles¡¯ vanity could only be satisfied by being rudimentary. This was a very rare thing in the other three empires.


    The twelve grand dukes from the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as the other important figures in Holy Rock City, were present. Prince Safilos¡¯ study could not amodate so many people, so he ced them in the dining hall.


    Whenever the prince organized a banquet, a few hundred close affiliates woulde, so this dining hall could sufficiently amodate these important people.


    Safilos used the guise of a banquet to invite these people to his residence. At the moment, this residence had implicitly reced the pce. It had transformed into the center where the Qin Empire disseminated its orders.


    ¡°Just like that, the Cloudflow people insulted the Grukos imperial family, however our current enemy is the Holy See. That moronic emperor has attacked the Bitter Water County and we don¡¯t have the power to defend. I hope that all of you can send reinforcements one way or another.¡± Prince Safilos¡¯ voice was peppered with rage.


    Indeed, Safilos did not adore Lex, but she was still a Grukos after all. Safilos was agreeable to the marriage, but he was not willing to be forced to agree to it. The Cloudflow people had really deployed one-million man army to Daliang City and this was akin to giving Safilos a tight p across the face.


    The Cloudflow people tried to snatch Lex away and this could not happen. This event had deviated from Safilos¡¯ original wishes, so he could only gather the nobles to help think of ideas to help Lex hold the fort. Of course, it was best if Lex could use all her forces to invade Cloudflow. That way, the southern nobles would immediately stop cooperating with the Cloudflow people. At the very least, half of the southern nobles wouldply.


    ¡°My elder brother has died, but his prestige still lives on strongly in the hearts of the southern nobles.¡± Most people adored Lex, if Lex could rece Ojarvis as emperor, Safilos would not even need to worry about the situation in the south, as the war in Lon would have been resolved long ago.


    ¡°Your Highness, to what extent should we render assistance?¡± The person speaking was the minister in charge of military affairs who also doubled as a grand duke in the House of Commons.


    ¡°Other than troops, we have to give whatever support we can! Mm, forget about magic nuclei, we still have tounch a third offensive against Lon next spring. Since Metatrin produces magic nuclei, let them handle this themselves,¡± Safilos said sternly.


    ¡°Then I shall contribute one-million pounds of rations, including flour, rice, and oats.¡± Someone immediately responded.


    ¡°I will donate two-thousand sets of armor!¡± The person speaking was a marquis. He had trafficked armor and weapons, but the House of Commons turned a blind eye to it, so he knew that this was the time to contribute back to the empire.


    ¡°I will give two-hundred stallions!¡± A noble who specialized in the trading of warhorses also opened his mouth. Such horses were very precious military assets. By contributing two-hundred horses, Lex would be able to breed thousands of warhorses in a span of few years, this supply would be endless.

 Chapter 744: Married? (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 744: Married? (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    These three nobles had contributed an astronomical number of presents. The two-hundred horses could not be underestimated, it would be akin to Lex receiving more than ten-thousand pedigree horses.


    Safilos was very pleased, he wanted such an oue. The nobles would keep giving resources to Lex, but they would not deploy any soldiers. ¡°It will be fine for Lex to conquer Cloudflow, Cloudflow is a country made up of scum.¡±


    Other people might be in the dark about the situation in the Cloudflow Empire, but Safilos had specially sent people to infiltrate it. Safilos had informants in the pce. He was very clear about the atrociousness of the Cloudflow emperor and the extravagance and obscenity of the Cloudflow nobles. Even Safilos, a Cloudflow person, felt that Cloudflow was an insult to humanity.


    ¡°I had nned to sacrifice Lex, but it seems like it will be better to use another method to do so.¡±


    There was a reason why the nobles were so keen to assist the Bitter Water County. Everyone¡¯s interests were based in Lon and Lex would surely not advance west again. The nobles decided to let her attack the Cloudflow people, they could provide all the financial support as long as Lex gave Lon up.


    Lex¡¯s identity was very sensitive, the nobles could not attack Lex¡¯s territory openly. Antos had suffered massive losses and also gotten berated by the emperor. No one from the House of Commons spoke up for him. Ever since then, everyone understood that despite being out of favor, Lex still bore the same surname as Safilos.


    It was okay to do some tricks behind the empire¡¯s back, but it would be disrespectful to the imperial family to attack Lex openly.


    The hundreds of nobles present were all the wealthy and influential people in Qin. Even if each person contributed one-hundred-thousand gold coins, Lex would receive more than ten-million gold coins. The nobles did not provide any gold coins, they were giving military resources.


    In Qin, it was already very challenging to buy such resources in bulk. This time around, Safilos had really given solid help. If it was anyone else, they would only donate huge sums of money to Lex.


    While Holy Rock City was busy preparing gifts for Lex, Cloudflow was busy increasing their military strength. The Sikeqinya Empire was discussing ways to deal with this political marriage.


    The Sikeqinya emperor had even summoned his closest ministers over.


    Emperor Danny of Sikeqinya already made a killing selling appliances to the three empires. This time around, the matter revolved around the Bitter Water County and Metatrin Kingdom. He was deciding whether to signal friendliness, or to maintain neutrality.


    The ministers close to Emperor Danny were once valiant generals. Summoning the ministers over, he immediately confessed his doubts.


    ¡°What stance should we have regarding the marriage between Bitter Water County and Metatrin Kingdom?¡± Emperor Danny toyed with his beard using his fingers, observe his ministers with his tiny eyes.


    ¡°Your Majesty, just ignore them, wee from a mercenary background, of course we should maintain neutrality. The Tanggsi people tried to pull us into the war, but didn¡¯t we reject their offer too?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Your Majesty, don¡¯t bother about whatever conflicts they might have. We should just carry on with our own affairs, no one will dare lord over us. They are getting married, we should just follow the international protocol and give them a suitable present.¡±


    ¡°But, it won¡¯t be good to be too stingy either!¡± Danny replied with a smile.


    The ministers looked at one another. Suddenly, one of them had an eureka moment as he understood Danny¡¯s intentions. Laughing, he said, ¡°Your Majesty, the Bitter Water County is short of soldiers at the moment, we can gift them a ten-thousand man mercenary group to celebrate their wedding. Lex will surely go along with the tide and hire this mercenary group. That way, we can make Lex ept our help without needing to spend much money.¡±


    ¡°Ha ha ha!¡± Emperor Danny, who had already advanced to a Golden Grand Swordmaster,ughed boorishly. He was very pleased with this minister that thought of such a brilliant idea.


    ording to thews of the empire, he could deploy a regrrge mercenary group with just a small sum of money. This mercenary group would not grumble. They could go to the Bitter Water County to attract more business, everyone understood that. Most importantly, this mercenary group was going to battle with Cloudflow and not the Tanggsi people. The Tanggsi Empire, who was just a stone¡¯s throw away, would not be angered.


    ¡°Killing three birds with one stone. No matter how light my present is, Lex will not mutter a word of sarcasm because I will be sending arge mercenary group over.¡±


    ¡°Very good, but which mercenary group shall I send?¡±


    ¡°The Red Tiger Mercenary Group. Their sorcerers were abducted by Metatrin already,¡± one of the ministers gloated.


    ¡°No, if we do that, Lex will not ept our gift,¡± Danny tantly rejected.


    ¡°Even though the Red Tiger Mercenary Group is registered in Phoenix, it is actually a local army in Laiyin Duchy. I still have to inform the Grand Duke of Laiyin about this, which means that I will owe him a favor.¡± Given Danny¡¯s stinginess, he would never owe others a favor like this.


    ¡°Your Majesty, didn¡¯t the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group just recruit two grade-8 mages? It has advanced to a grade-8 mercenary group already, let them go. They are unruly. If they remain in the empire, we still have station them in a city, which will be very troublesome.¡±


    ¡°Mm, good thinking.¡± Emperor Danny pped. ording to Sikeqinya¡¯sws, a mercenary group would possess the right to manage arge city the moment it advanced to grade-7. It could transform that city into its base, and thus charge all kinds of taxes.


    The Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group was originally a grade-6 mercenary group. It was difficult governing it as the leader was very stubborn and was not on good terms with the local nobles. Since it had advanced to grade-8 now, Danny would surely be reluctant to give a city to that leader. By tossing this mercenary group to Lex, they might even get killed in Lex¡¯s war.


    ¡°Your Majesty, if the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group leaves, their base...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t touch it, after all, they still have two grade-8 sorcerers with them. If the sorcerers are angered, none of you will live in peace.¡± At least Danny was semi-conscious, he did not think of denuding the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group¡¯s base.


    The miserly Emperor Danny continued discussing the details with the ministers, such as how to deliver the gift and how to chase the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group away. The Sikeqinyan Empire was serene and unruffled. Of course, the one in the mostmotion was Metatrin Kingdom.


    The moment Saleen¡¯s news was received, Sika immediately disseminated the first national order as the regent. This order affected everyone in the kingdom. The civilians would be tax-exempt for one year, while the farmers would be tax-exempt for three years. All the nobles grinned from ear to ear, they would receive so much more.


    The benefits received by Saleen¡¯s trusted nobles needed no boration. The Phoenix nobles, whom Saleen had subdued, had obtained the right to govern their own cities. Even though they did not receive anynd, they would enjoy unlimited management power. These nobles would act as municipal officials for the time being and they could retain twenty percent of their taxes.


    The Phoenix nobles were not rejoicing over this. They were jubnt because the marriage between Saleen and Lex would transform their statuses. Lex bore the Grukos surname, she was the daughter of the former emperor. The Phoenix people approved of Lex. The alliance between Saleen and Lex was the main reason they defected.


    All of a sudden, Saleen was going to marry Lex. As a result, the Phoenix nobles finally regarded Metatrin Kingdom as their country. Saleen would surely distribute thends gradually, this was an indisputable fact.


    When this news was circted within Metatrin Kingdom, southern Phoenix also got affected. In the regions which were not under Qin¡¯s control, millions of people swarmed into Metatrin Kingdom. Some nobles who were hesitant at first also joined Metatrin.


    In one go, the poption of Metatrin Kingdom had exceeded ten-million. It finally resembled a country.


    With a poption ten-million, it would be much easier recruiting soldiers. Saleen¡¯s kingdom could finally develop steadily.


    An atmosphere of jubnce spread throughout Metatrin Kingdom. Back in the temple, Sikaid in Saleen¡¯s room, looking at the ceiling in a daze. Nailisi stood beside her cautiously, not muttering a word.


    ¡°Nailisi, do you think Saleen will have a change of heart?¡± Sika asked the imp.


    ¡°Sister Sika, Master will definitely not have a change of heart, I understand how you feel.¡±


    ¡°What does a demon know?!¡±


    Nailisi thought to herself, ¡°Then why are you asking me?¡± But Nailisi did not verbalize her thoughts. Instead, she said, ¡°Lex is also fond of Master, but she will not put Master in a difficult spot. She is a mage, her goals are different from yours.¡±


    ¡°Right, she is a mage, that¡¯s why I wished that Saleen could marry her.¡± Sika¡¯s eye lit up for a moment, then dimmed a little again.


    ¡°Sister Sika, it doesn¡¯t matter whether you are a mage or not. Master likes you because you are his precious lover.¡± Nailisi recited the depiction of love written in a human book she had read in the past to Sika.


    ¡°Precious?¡±


    ¡°Of course, you are the most precious one. When Master ran into me, you were already with him. I also adore you, so if Lex dares to bully you, I will eat her.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh.¡± Sika giggled. Even though Nailisi might not be spouting the truth, she would really dare to do something like that.


    ¡°Sister Sika, you are only feeling ufortable. Before Master made this decision, you still kept persuading him. Do you know why Master made you the regent before he left?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Master¡¯s teacher requires this country, because a teleportation portal has been built under the temple. In the future, you will be family with Master¡¯s teacher.¡±


    Sika was bbergasted, she knew that a demon¡¯s description was not always urate, but that was definitely Saleen¡¯s n. ¡°Saleen will surely engage in very perilous activities. By leaving the kingdom to me, he isn¡¯t asking me to take care of thisnd, he is actually asking his teacher to take care of me!¡±


    Straightening her thoughts, Sika wiped her nose. Then, asked said, ¡°Saleen still has a conscience. Nailisi, what else did he say before leaving?¡±


    ¡°He asked me to protect you. If I don¡¯t do a good job, he will not want me anymore,¡± Nailisi said pitifully.


    ¡°Protect me? Ha ha, even if a Caucasus priestess is pregnant, their offensive powers are still the same...¡± Sika suddenly shut her mouth, as her face turned scarlet. Sika remembered that this imp was always trying to take a peek whenever she and Saleen were getting intimate.


    ¡°Sister Sika, Master¡¯s child is of utmost importance, please don¡¯t get physical. Are you afraid of the dark?¡± Nailisi posed a very strange question.


    ¡°No.¡± Boldly, Sika proimed, ¡°I can see more than one-thousand yards ahead in the dark. A priestess¡¯ eyes are better than that of many magic beasts. Why are you asking me this question?¡±

 Chapter 745: Gifts and Provocation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 745: Gifts and Provocation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Sister Sika, I think Master will ask me to protect you and your child most of the time. I have some abilities that I have to let you know about first. If you are not afraid of the dark, please allow me to bring you to a ce...¡±


    ¡°So secretive. Where is it?¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika, you will know if youe with me.¡± Nailisi stretched out her hand and Sika took it. All of a sudden, a ck-colored page from a book appeared in her hand. The page was torn and tattered. Less than half of the book cover remained. The other pages were the same, it was as if aplete book had been torn up until only one page was left.


    The space in the room shook slightly. The ck-colored book page disappeared along with Sika and Nailisi.


    It was the twelve Notes of Purgatory; the Purgatory of Darkness!


    Sika fell into darkness andnded on a surface that was hard and cold. Her left hand was still being held by Nailisi. There was almost no warmth to be felt in Nailisi¡¯s hand either.


    ¡°Sister Sika, I havepleted the repair of the Purgatory of Darkness. For a period of time every year, I will be able to repair one of the Purgatories. Once I have repaired all twelve Purgatories, this will be a godly item instead of holy equipment.¡±


    ¡°That will take too much out of you!¡± Sika had gradually adapted to the darkness. She realized that she could not even see a hundred yards away, much less a mile. Nailisi was standing beside her and she could see very clearly. She had already changed into a suit of devil¡¯s armor.


    ¡°Sister Sika, please summon your mount. I know that you don¡¯t like demons, but I have a skill that suits this ce very well. This will be the ce where I will fight in the future and also protect your child.¡±


    ¡°The Eye of a Demon? I will not learn it!¡± Sika shouted.


    ¡°How can it be the Eye of a Demon? Sister Sika, this is just a way to refine an equipment. By killing hundreds of demons, you will be able to refine this equipment that will allow you to move freely in the dark like me.¡±


    ¡°I need to kill demons? You...¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika, I am a Luoluokaluo. All demons are my food!¡± Nailisi said excitedly. An extra eye had already grown out and was suspended on top of her head. This eye was exquisite and clear. It was six-sided and was shaped like a standard magic nucleus that had been elongated. It was upright and was emitting a faint glow.


    Sika did not sense any evil aura in the eye. Nailisi said to Sika, ¡°Sister Sika, this is the Eye of Purgatory that I have refined here. Once I have repaired the twelve Notes of Purgatory, the Eye of Purgatory will also be fully grown. I will be able to see every ce in the twelfth Purgatory in one nce. If I fight here, the enemy will have nowhere to hide. I hope that you will also refine one.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t try to manipte me.¡± Sika pped Nailisi¡¯s hand away and said, ¡°I will be able to break open a broken space like this in a few years¡¯ time. Why would you want me to refine something like this?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s face was sad as she spoke, ¡°Sister Sika, don¡¯t you still need to wait a few more years? Every time a purgatory of the twelve Notes of Purgatory has been repaired, its powers will double. You will not be able to break it open by then. If you refine the Eye of Purgatory, you will be able toe and go at any time. I would never dare to lie to you or Master would kill me!¡±


    ¡°Something like this can¡¯t be refined just by killing demons, right?¡± Sika started to feel that she might have misunderstood Nailisi after all. Nevertheless, she said, ¡°I don¡¯t have money.¡±


    Nailisi answered with pain in her voice, ¡°I do. I will pay for everything.¡±


    Sika was satisfied with Nailisi¡¯s answer. Refining equipment like that would definitely require other special materials. In order to please Sika, Nailisi must do her best.


    Sika had no clue what Nailisi was actually nning. The Eye of Purgatory was not an ordinary equipment. It was an ability that would be a part of you once it had beenpletely refined. If Sika refined it now, her child would also possess this ability once it was born. It would save Nailisi a lot of trouble and worry when it came to protecting the child. She did not bring this up because she was afraid that Sika would resist the idea. Sika¡¯s child would definitely be a Caucasus priest of the next generation and could even very well be a Nature Priest.


    The Eye of Purgatory was not evil by nature, but it was still created from killing many demons. The Caucasus people would not like it, so Nailisi had no choice but to hide it from Sika.


    Nailisi was left with little choice but to do that. Saleen¡¯s enemies were getting stronger, so strong that she felt powerless even with the Demon Army. Saleen¡¯s child must be well-protected. She could not possibly bring up the child there the moment it was born. She might as well ensure that the child possessed the power of the Eye of Purgatory when it was still in Sika¡¯s womb.


    By the time the twelve Notes of Purgatory had been repaired, it would be so tough and solid that it would be no different from a godly item. In times of danger, Saleen¡¯s child would be sent there. She would flee if she realized that she could not defeat her enemy. She did not care for Kingdoms and Empires. She would flee to the demon dimension and not care about the Myers Maind if need be.


    Nailisi¡¯s attitude was due to Saleen¡¯s influence. She was just a demon, why would she care about humans¡¯ honor?


    Nailisi took out the materials that she had prepared beforehand and handed them to Sika, before teaching her how to refine an Eye of Purgatory. Fortunately, Sika was someone that was a little trusting. A different person might already have be suspicious.


    Sitting on the cold ground, Nailisi looked at Sika experimenting with her materials clumsily and thought to herself, ¡°Master, although I secretly used up your divine crystal to repair this equipment, I have also given Sister Sika so many things. Surely you will not be angry, right?¡±


    By right, the twelve Notes of Purgatory was already close to destruction until Nailisi discovered the real method of refining it. She had initially used Ismail¡¯s divine crystal for repair, but realized that it was insufficient so she added the divine crystal and divine statue of the Goddess of Myers as well.


    She had not sought Saleen¡¯s opinion on the usage of the divine statue. She wanted to take the opportunity to drag Sika into the picture as well to share the me.


    There was one more thing that Nailisi had yet to tell Sika. The twelve Notes of Purgatory were repaired ording to her method. Each Purgatory space would produce a soul that possessed intelligence. Nailisi must eliminate this soul that was produced by the equipment in order topletely control all the Purgatory spaces using the Eye of Purgatory.


    The Purgatory of Darkness was almostpletely repaired and Nailisi could vaguely sense that a spirit was about to be born from the equipment. She put on devil¡¯s armor the moment she entered the Purgatory of Darkness.


    Back at Daliang City, Saleen was beginning to prepare for his marriage with Lex.


    ording to the rules of every Empire, marriage was a troublesome thing. Every ritual was soplicated that it was headache-inducing even for mages. Fortunately, both Saleen and Lex had established their own countries individually so they could enact their ownws and make their own rules.


    Most importantly, both of them were mages so they could afford not to care about the customs of noble families.


    The wedding was scheduled for April of the following year so there was still half a year¡¯s time. April of the following year was also the time Qin wouldunch an attack on Tanggsi Empire. Qin was all geared up for the battle. The sorcerers of Alchemy City had already set off and the war puppets would be able to push forward quickly. It would be extremely difficult for the Tanggsis to defend their cities.


    What surprised Saleen and Lex the most was that the first person to send them congrattory gifts was the Emperor of the Tanggsi Empire.


    There was bad blood between Lex and Tanggsi because of how thetter caused the death of the former¡¯s father. Although it was technically the Holy See that did it, it was the same in Lex¡¯s eyes. To think that the Emperor of the Tanggsi Empire still dared to send gifts over, it was simply an insult.


    Lex suppressed her hatred and did not kill the envoy immediately. Instead, she rewarded him with hundreds of gold coins and asked the envoy to stay for their wedding.


    She could understand this particr tradition of royal families, where they would maintain courtesy on the surface level, even if the other party was an enemy. The Tanggsi Emperor was doing this as a form of self-respect rather than wanting to establish good rtions with Bitter Water Prefecture.


    The Tanggsi¡¯s gifts were still rather valuable. They were the fats of magic beasts contained in crystal boxes. There were one-hundred boxes in total. If they were used only as food, it would be able to feed the one-hundred-thousand troops in Daliang City for a month. They could also be used to maintain magic armor too. What Lex did not understand was why the Emperor of Tanggsi would use military supplies as gifts, even if he only wanted to maintain courtesy on the surface level.


    What followed next were the gifts from Cloudflow and they were even stranger than the ones from Tanggsi.


    Agares had wanted to marry Lex, that was why he attacked Daliang City in the first ce. Now that Lex was about to marry the King of Metatrin, not only did Agares notunch another attack, he even sent gifts.


    Lex no longer thought of them as gifts the moment she saw them though.


    The gifts from Cloudflow were magic cannons refined from bones. By right, these magic stone artilleries should have sunk along with the skeletal warships in Separation Sea. Now, two-hundred of them had been sent to Daliang City. What Cloudflow sent over was only a small team out of two-hundred people. Subsequently, some folks would deliver magic stone artilleries that had been kept in space boxes and driven over onrge wagons and magic beasts.


    This was a demonstration of power! What Cloudflow was trying to imply was clear. You have sunk more than eighty of my troop carriers, but we were still able to salvage the materials on board. The water depth of the location of the battle was more than two-hundred yards, but this was not a problem for Cloudflow. If they could salvage the weapons on board the skeletal warships, simrly, they would also be able to bring back the equipment they had intended to use to attack Daliang City.


    Cloudflow wouldunch an attack during the wedding ceremony in April!


    The gifts from the Emperor of Qin came next. Emperor Ojarvis sent over more than two-thousand men to escort a troop of wagons that entered Daliang City proudly.


    The scouts and spies of Bitter Water Prefecture and officials of Holy Rock City had informed Lex that the noble families of Qin Empire would send over their gifts to Daliang City separately and thetest of them would probably reach by March next year.


    The Emperor¡¯s envoy was Grand Sorcerer Stephanie, whom Saleen had met before.


    The moment Stephanie arrived, she upied the magic tower in Lex¡¯s pce. Although Lex was a Princess, she still held respect for this grade-8 sorcerer. She was also aware of Stephanie¡¯s identity as her father¡¯s private mage.


    ¡°Princess, I will not be returning to Holy Rock City now that I am here. This magic tower is too short. Build me another one.¡± Stephanie was demanding, but Lex was pleased.


    Stephanie was going to be stationed in Daliang City. With her around and with an eight-story magic tower in the midst of being built, Daliang City would be much safer. Two seven-story magic towers would not have been able to guarantee the safety of Daliang City.

 Chapter 746: Gifts and Provocation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 746: Gifts and Provocation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Princess.¡± Stephanie was serious when she spoke to Lex, ¡°I was not with Emperor Chanake when he was dying and I am sorry about that. I did not know if the Emperor¡¯s abilities would be present in you. Therefore, I will be your personal mage if you are able to repel Cloudflow. Before that happens, I will guard this city.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Grand Master.¡± Lex did not say more. She knew that Stephanie was willing to defend the city only because of her father. She could very well have be the best amongst all the mages serving the royal family based on her age and abilities. In Holy Rock City, the mages of the royal family would be entitled to more resources than if they followed her.


    ¡°Hmm, you can go ahead and ept the gifts. The person who came over is the son of Earl Kant. He requested toe over.¡± Stephanie was not the messenger so she sent Lex away and began to meditate in the magic tower.


    After leaving the magic tower, Lex saw Saleen. Saleen said to Lex, ¡°Lex, the skeleton magic stone artilleries that Cloudflow sent over are all spoilt. There is no way to repair them.¡±


    ¡°I knew it. Cloudflow people are not stupid after all. The gifts were meant to provoke us, of course they will make sure that they are spoilt first. It would be quite useful to use these two-hundred skeletal magic stone artilleries on top of the city wall otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Anyway, I kept the spatial boxes that they sent over. There are two-hundred of them. Not too bad as gifts.¡± Saleenughed.


    ¡°What about the magic beasts? Surely you didn¡¯t ughter them for their meat?¡± After Lex and Saleen decided to get married, they no longer maintained a polite distance with each other as they did before. Now, they could even joke with each other. Lex was well aware of the fact that Saleen was someone who liked to take advantage of situations.


    ¡°Of course not. They are all low-level magic beasts, so there are no decent magic nuclei to be had even if I were to ughter them.¡± At this point, Saleen changed topics very abruptly and said, ¡°Lex, I want the two-hundred soldiers to be killed. I am afraid that a strong opponent might be hidden amongst them. Although I have personally checked it, we cannot afford to be careless. On the day of our wedding, Cloudflow willunch an attack. If one or two people with strange abilities have managed to sneak in prior to the attack and create chaos in the city, not only will we be flustered, we will also lose face in front of all the envoys.¡±


    ¡°All of them have been rounded up?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I have asked Cuisi to watch over them.¡±


    ¡°We cannot kill them since they are envoys. Do you have any other ideas?¡± Lex was also wary about this matter. It would not be right to kill these people or chase them out since they were merely delivering gifts. She was a member of a conventional royal family and born a mage, so she had no idea how to deal with this issue that was presented to her so unexpectedly.


    ¡°Send themoners away. Leave only those two-hundred people behind. I will find a way.¡± Saleen did not wish to be troubled over this matter either. He had already observed them with his elemental eyes and did not find any problems with the two-hundred men.


    ¡°What way?¡±


    ¡°Since this is our country, we can set our own rules. Their attire is uneptable so I have sent someone to bone castle to ask the winged skeleton to make new clothes for them. I will also be keeping all their belongings for the time-being.¡±


    ¡°We can do that too.¡± Lex shook her head helplessly and said, ¡°Come with me to see my brother¡¯s gift.¡±


    Qin Emperor Ojarvis¡¯ gifts were sent directly to the pce along with the group of envoys and two battalions of royal swordsmen. These elite soldiers would not be leaving Daliang City. Ojarvis was aware of what Lex wascking, but since he could not mobilize the soldiers and horses of the four towns, he could only deploy the men from the royal swordsmen battalion and send them to Lex. The soldiers of the royal swordsmen battalion were all loyal to the old Emperor so Ojarvis felt assured they would respect Lex.


    The person leading the group of envoys was a young member of a noble family. He was previously an officer in western town. It was from him that Lex managed to obtain Wild Bear.


    ¡°Scott Frio, how is your father doing?¡± Lex greeted the young man with a smile.


    ¡°Your Highness, father is doing well and is now serving in the House of Lords.¡± Scott did not expect Lex to remember his name. Even if mages were capable of Recollection spells, that meant that Lex had paid attention to him back then when they first met. He felt pleased with the decision that he had made.


    ¡°Now that you are here, I suppose you will not be going back?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness. I have even brought over two-hundred of my bodyguards. My father gave them to me.¡±


    ¡°Earl Kant must still miss me. Scott, have you been officially conferred with any ranks?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I am now a grade-3 Baron of the Empire. It is the lowest grade,¡± Scott replied with slight embarrassment.


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°No problem. Stay with me and be a grade-1 Baron. A war ising soon. Keep your bodyguards with you. In a while, I will arrange a position for you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Your Highness. Father hopes that I can join the battle too.¡±


    ¡°I know. The Frio family was conferred with its rank of nobility because of meritorious deeds you performed in battles. Your father is verypetitive. He hopes that you will make a name for yourself on the battlefield of course. Scott,e and meet His Highness, Saleen.¡±


    Scott performed a formal ritual of noble families and said, ¡°Your Highness. I, Scott Frio, pledge to protect you and the Princess forever and until the end of my days.¡±


    All the things that Narnia had taught Saleen suddenly flew across his mind. He pressed his hand on Scott¡¯s shoulder and said, ¡°The Metatrin family epts your allegiance.¡±


    Scott was tactful by expressing his loyalty to Saleen and Lex could only smile at that. The rtionship between the Frio family and her father went back a long way. She would value someone like Scott even if he did not pledge his allegiance. This was because the people that Scott had brought along with him were not bodyguards, but military instructors of the Empire. She even knew two of them. This was her brother¡¯s tactic. Now that Saleen and herself had governed a poption of more than twenty-million, they were alreadycking in instructors who could train soldiers. In the battle with Lun, Lex even had to resort to using actual battles to rece training.


    Saleen followed Scott to the courtyard where the gifts were ced and saw that all three huge courtyards that were connected to each other werepletely filled up. Other than the magic tower, Lex¡¯s pce did not contain any other tall buildings. The courtyards were not small at all. The fact that all three were filled up just proved how much Ojarvis had spent on these gifts.


    Piled together, the two yard standard space boxes were as high as ten stories. There were only narrow passages between the boxes. Even Lex felt dizzy seeing courtyards full of spatial boxes. It seemed that Ojarvis had opened at least onerge warehouse and brought everything over.


    ¡°Scott, I think it is better if you give us the inventory list.¡± Lex knew that they could not possibly open up all the spatial boxes one by one since there were so many of them. She even had doubts whether the warehouse in the pce could possibly store everything.


    ¡°Your Highness, the inventory list is here.¡± Scott brought over a thick pile of inventory lists and said, ¡°It will be better if Your Highness starts to build a few magic warehouses. I heard that Holy Rock City has sent over an unbelievable amount of grain. The Prince has ordered that half of them are to be sent to Bitter Water Prefecture. Even though it is only half...¡±


    ¡°I understand now.¡± Lex did not wish to bring up her uncle. He was willing to supply her with resources now that she was in the position to deal with Cloudflow. Previously, when she needed help, she was forced to seek help from Saleen by flying all the way to Metatrin City with another mage at the risk of being assassinated along the way.


    At that time, where was her uncle?


    After taking the inventory list, Lex called someone over to arrange for Scott and his bodyguards¡¯ stay in the pce. She also arranged for her mages to supervise the construction of the magic warehouses. Qin usually built them underground. The geological conditions in Daliang City were excellent so it was easy to build the warehouses without the need for anyrge-scale spells.


    Lex and Saleen returned to the sixth storey of the magic tower and saw a grade-7 sorcerer who was in the midst of his experiments, but seemed a bit helpless. Lex was apologetic and said, ¡°Gtini, I¡¯m afraid you have to put up with this arrangement for the time-being since Grand Master Stephanie is here.¡±


    The grade-7 mageughed bitterly and said, ¡°I have noints. Grand Master even gave me some advice before chasing me away. She has already shown me enough respect.¡±


    ¡°I will build a magic tower for Grand Master as soon as I can.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I stay at the magic tower that is outside of the city for the time-being? Since the Grand Master is here, you should be safe.¡± The sorcerer sought for Lex¡¯s opinion.


    ¡°No need, you will continue to stay on the sixth storey. The Grand Master may continue to give you more advice. I will not be staying in the magic tower for the time-being.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, what about your safety?¡±


    ¡°Do you see that small building?¡± Lex pointed into the distance away at a small building that was six-storeys tall. That building was originally an observatory and was also a building of historical significance in Daliang City.


    Gtini nodded. Lex said, ¡°The person who shot the assassin is staying in that building. With her around, the entire pce is within her attacking range.¡±


    ¡°I am relieved then,¡± Gtini said with a nod. He was thest to arrive when Saleen encountered the assassination, but he still managed to witness thest arrow shot by Eleanor. Although he did not know that that was an elf life arrow, he could sense the terrifying aura. He even knew with certainty that he would have died if he had been shot by that arrow.


    The people around Saleen were all quite formidable. He and Lex were both excellent grade-6 mages as well. Gtini no longer worried about Lex¡¯s safety. He closed his eyes and began to recall the advice that Stephanie had given to him regarding his spells.


    Lex pulled Saleen along and they left quietly. After leaving the magic tower, she said to Saleen, ¡°See, all mages are like this. They will begin their training the moment they feel like it.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t we the same? Lex, that assassin is still alive, you must be careful. You can stay with Eleanor for the time-being.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, let¡¯s go over and see what my brother has given me.¡± Just as the two of them were talking, an apprentice came over and reported that some of the Qin noble families had sent over their gifts too. The wagons have already arrived at the north gate.


    From noon until the sky turned dark, Lex epted gifts from tens of noble families before returning to the small building where Eleanor stayed. The garden was full of trees blooming with flowers. It was already autumn and severalrge trees were full of fruit. There was a pleasant fragrance in the air.


    Saleen¡¯s two-hundred bodyguards were also staying in the small building. The highest storey was upied by Eleanor.


    Lex did not go up the building. After dismissing the guards and mages that had been following them, she pulled Saleen to a fragrant tree and sat down. Using the moonlight, she opened the inventory list of gifts from Emperor Ojarvis.


    ¡°Saleen, what do you think my brother has given us?¡± Lex tilted her head to lean against Saleen.

 Chapter 747: Emotional entanglement (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 747: Emotional entanglement (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex leaned against Saleen¡¯s body as she opened the list. Using the illumination from the moonlight, the two people flipped the pages of the list. There was a faint fragrance, it was not known whether it was given off by the greenery or Lex¡¯s body, causing Saleen to be a little enthralled.


    The list itself was made from magic paper and the names and quantity of the presents were written in gold ink.


    The first items on the list were gemstones. Ojarvis had really spent a fortune on the presents, the first line caused Saleen to snap out of his thoughts.


    ¡°Ice Ind Rock ¨C twelve standard units, two-hundred pieces.¡±


    Saleen owned Ice Ind Rocks, but his rocks were only about the size of four standard units and he had less than ten pieces. This gem, the purest on Myers maind, would provide the best effect when used no matter the profession, grade, or equipment.


    Even if it was a few thousand years ago, the Ice Ind Rock was already a special produce from Myers maind. One could not find it on other nes. The Grukos imperial family gifted two-hundred pieces of Ice Ind Rock in one go, such a quantity would be sufficient for a grade-9 sorcerer tost for their whole life.


    Up next was chlorite. Saleen greatly needed such a rock which could contain divinity, as he would spread the goddess¡¯ religion in the future. He had to use this rock to act as tools for the goddess¡¯ envoys. Almost all of the chlorite veins had been fully extracted by now. At the moment, the chlorite rocks which appeared asionally were created by grade-9 sorcerers using biotite. The price of this gemstone was even higher than that of the Ice Ind Rock, as the Holy See was mping down on it. The moment the Holy See discovered the existence of this rock, it would either snatch or purchase it. The Holy See wanted to store all of it in the Holy City of the Glorious ins.


    Down the list were some pure spars, heavy spars, sapphires, rubies, Youlian Rock, seabed jade, cordierite, blue cone stone, fluorite, nepheline, rutile, hornblende, tremolite, diopside, obsidian, amethyst, ck crystal, and smoky quartz...


    Saleen was bedazzled, all the crystals he knew of were included in this list.


    Lex sighed gently, Saleen did not know why she was in a bad mood despite reviewing so many resources. Hesitating for a moment, he asked, ¡°Lex, why did you sigh?¡±


    ¡°Ojarvis has requested help from the family. As emperor, he has three chances to ask for help. Only three chances in a lifetime.¡± Lex did not feel happy. Borne with an inferior body, Ojarvis could ask the elders in the family to help extend his lifespan. Ojarvis had exhausted one chance to gift Lex arge amount of resources.


    ¡°This brother of mine doesn¡¯t even know how long can he live for.¡±


    Saleen immediately gained understanding, ¡°Even though Ojarvis is the emperor, it is impossible for him to retrieve so many high level equipment and materials.¡± Saleen asked, ¡°I thought your brother didn¡¯t interact with you in the past?¡±


    ¡°After Father died, Uncle took over control of the military and taxes, so I became his avenue of sce.¡± Lex leaned back tiredly, she was helpless in regard to this matter. She could not interfere with Holy Rock City. People in the family would only stand up to support her if her brother died. Would Lex really wish for her brother to die?


    Saleen was rendered speechless. He once envied Lex very much, but at the moment, the both of them were in the same boat. Their parents had died and they had to support their own countries.


    ¡°Saleen, if I didn¡¯t have such a status, will you treat me like how you treat Sika?¡± Lex asked softly.


    Saleen was alerted, as though a lightning shed in his brain, all his past experiences with Lex came flooding back. Subconsciously, Saleen replied, ¡°You, are a very good person...¡±


    ¡°Very good?¡± Lex could not stifle herughter, that was not even a proper answer.


    Fortunately, Saleen immediately came to his senses. Putting the list away in the devil ring, he tugged at Lex¡¯s hand, then said, ¡°You are a viscountess. When I met you, you were already holding this status, it will not change. To us small mages, you are high in the sky. No matter how intimate you are with others, everyone is very clear that some things will never change.¡±


    ¡°Hasn¡¯t it changed already?¡± Lex raised her head slightly, staring into Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°Lex, you don¡¯t realize how outstanding you are, when most people look at you, they feel ashamed of themselves. I have been working so hard and chasing so desperately, and finally, I am not looking at your back anymore. When I was young I only wanted to fill my stomach, whereas you were already thinking of establishing a kingdom of mages. I don¡¯t want to admire you like what others are doing. It shouldn¡¯t be admiration, it should be love.¡±


    ¡°Are those your heartfelt words?¡±


    ¡°In the name of a mage.¡±


    ¡°In the name of a mage...¡± Lex¡¯s smile became warmer and she leaned in even closer to Saleen. Saleen already owned a kingdom and this was the first time Lex felt she could depend on someone after her father¡¯s death.


    ¡°Lex, give Narnia to me.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Lex was startled, as she immediately understood the meaning of the word.


    ¡°I have many powerful mages under me, but very few people are like Narnia. In the future, I will keep mounting campaigns, so I will not return to Metatrin City very frequently. No one else is more suitable to handle the government affairs. I want to be with you in peace, so I have to get rid of the Cloudflow Empire first!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, it is not so simple!¡± Lex could not help but interrupt Saleen¡¯s speech. Cloudflow might have more than a hundred experts, while their troops numbered in the millions, not to mention the auxiliary soldiers. A country with a poption of over three-hundred-million was too difficult to conquer.


    ¡°We have Sregl Ind. Once you marry me, Teacher will support you too.¡± Saleen clutched Lex¡¯s hand tightly, then said, ¡°I will expand Daliang City, in the future, it will contain at least twelve grade-9 magical towers. This ce will be like Holy Rock City, an indestructible city.¡±


    ¡°We have to endure the wedding in April first.¡± Lex¡¯s voice became softer, it got a little sweet.


    ¡°We still have five months, it will be enough to renovate Daliang City. You need to have confidence. By then, no matter how many Cloudflow people are there, I will make sure they regreting here.¡±


    Lex turned her head over, edging very close to Saleen. Saleen was still the same Saleen, even his tone remained the same. His azure eyes were now brimming with much more unwavering determination.


    ¡°Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡±


    ¡°I am reluctant to give up the three cities, for those three cities, I have specially flown over to you to ask for so much resources. You should understand where I aming from.¡±


    ¡°Then I shall announce that I will station troops over there. If your uncle wants it, I will seize all of Phoenix.¡±


    Lex smiled even more charmingly and said, ¡°Saleen, you finally know what you should do and what you should fight for. I will have peace of mind marrying you.¡±


    ¡°Lex, from the moment Iid my eyes on you, I already harbored such a fantasy. Can you tell me when you started being fond of me?¡±


    ¡°No one can know the answer, even a mage can¡¯t deduce the timing. From the beginning, you were never really lovable.¡±


    ¡°Are you angry at me for being so calctive with you?¡±


    ¡°Why should I be? Mages are like that. There are plenty of people who will give me benefits without any terms and conditions, but I am very clear about their motives. I don¡¯t owe you anything, that¡¯s why I am fond of you.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have to be like this anymore, we will be a family in the future,¡± Saleen said in a rxed manner.


    ¡°Why not, you have many more nobles than me. We don¡¯t have to think about the broader aspects. Later on, we still have to think about how we are going to unify the taxes and the treatment of nobles. Saleen, I will give you Narnia, please treat her well. I know that you have talent as a mage, but you are faring very poorly as a king.¡±


    ¡°Sika cannot do it, I don¡¯t want her to be involved in this issue. She still needs to manage Metatrin for the time being. Once my teacher arrives, we can rest assured.¡±


    When Saleen mentioned Sika, Lex¡¯s body twitched and Saleen¡¯s sharp senses felt it. Nevertheless, he had to say it. At the moment, Sika was regent of Metatrin, she was mother to Saleen¡¯s child and was leading all the Caucasus people.


    ¡°You are worried that Narnia will not cooperate with her. Saleen, I will pen a letter to Narnia to rify matters. Don¡¯t worry, I like... Sika as well.¡±


    ¡°You like her too?¡±


    ¡°Her character is genuine and she doesn¡¯t have much ambition. The things she desires are what she deserves.¡± Lex¡¯s words were not totally truthful, but her depiction was not wed.


    Saleen felt helpless. Lex had apetitive character, of course she was indignant that Saleen had another women. Sika made the first move and was pregnant with Saleen¡¯s child. Lex had no choice. Lex did not even think of marrying someone else. In a mage¡¯s lifetime, the time used for cultivating a rtionship was extremely precious. Even if time was rewound, Lex still would not have any other suitors.


    Such was the life of a royal, everything was an exchange of interests. Even if Emperor Chanake sent Lex out of Holy Rock City and gave her a county, very few things would change.


    At this point in time, from a small building not far away, Eleanor was heard singing.


    Saleen and Lex stopped talking, as they listened to Eleanor¡¯s singing, it was an elvish song. Neither of them understood what Eleanor sang, but they could detect a deep sadness in Eleanor¡¯s voice.


    Following Eleanor¡¯s voice, the flowers on the trees in the courtyard began falling. The flowers from the treetops fell, nketing the ground.


    Saleen¡¯s mind was cleared, ¡°I have nothing to worry about, I just have to treat Lex and Sika nicely. Eleanor cannot even return home. I am her superior, but I cannot bring happiness to her. The more possessions people own, the greater their desires will be, this is absolutely the truth.¡±


    Lex¡¯s emotions stabilized. Eleanor¡¯s voice possessed an unexinable power which reverberated in her heart. ¡°Why am I feeling depressed?¡± Lex had been burying her feelings very deeply, but it did not mean that she was confused. ¡°I was the one dilly dallying, so Sika could make the first move. Sika doesn¡¯t want any status, she only harbors pure love for Saleen. If someone has to be med, then it should be me because I didn¡¯t grasp the chance. I didn¡¯t know that my love for Saleen was so intense.¡±


    Lex raised her head to look at the sixth story of the small building. She noticed Eleanor¡¯s silhouette under the moonlight, there was only one shadow whose clothes fluttered in the wind.

 Chapter 748: Emotional entanglement (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 748: Emotional entanglement (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor stood on the top floor, gazing at Saleen and Lex who sat under the fragrant tree. The singing had stopped, but the aftermath lingered on. Not only Saleen and Lex heard it, the soldiers downstairs, the swordsmen in the pce, and the mages also heard Eleanor¡¯s song. The area sunk into a faint mncholic atmosphere.


    Eleanor was homesick, very homesick. She thought that an elf could forget the past events and was adaptive, just like the elders had said.


    It did not turn out like that. When Eleanor gazed at Saleen¡¯s and Lex¡¯s silhouettes, she was not thinking of the marquis, she was actually pining for her first lover in the elvish ne. The marquis¡¯ fatal attraction had be a faint shadow, it was almost gone already. Her oldest memory had be increasingly clearer.


    ¡°Eleanor is thinking about home.¡± Saleen broke the silence, but was still holding onto Lex¡¯s hand.


    ¡°You cannot go and console her on your own!¡± Lex wrinkled her nose, using a small girl¡¯s voice to warn Saleen.


    Saleen simplyughed it off, as he thought to himself, ¡°There is nothing to worry about, I don¡¯t have such feelings towards her. Even if I did, Eleanor would never agree to be with me. She is homesick and I cannot help her to ease such feelings.¡±


    ¡°You areughing so smugly, what are you thinking of?¡±


    ¡°I am thinking of something very troublesome,¡± Saleen replied solemnly.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I heard that once a mage advances to a sorcerer, it will be more challenging to have offspring. Can you pause your advancement for the time being?¡±


    A fireball appeared in Lex¡¯s hand immediately, but was immediately snuffed out. She rebutted, ¡°Don¡¯t you and Sika already have a child? We are mages...¡±


    ¡°You will be empress in the future!¡± Saleen interrupted Lex and said, ¡°An empress must have a sessor.¡±


    Lex¡¯s face became redder than the fireball. She was at a loss for words, eventually she gave up and only red ferociously at Saleen. If Lex discussed this topic with others, she would not blush because she was a grade-6 mage, she would only regard it as a technical problem.


    Now all she could think of was that she had to engage in intercourse with Saleen after marrying him.


    ¡°Since Saleen is broaching this topic now, it seems like he wants to do it right away.¡± Lex tried to break away from Saleen, but Saleen gripped her hand tightly. Saleen was stronger than Lex, she could not break free. Lex wanted to berate Saleen, but was worried that Saleen would get angry, ¡°I cannot do this, he has finally expressed his feelings after much difficulty. If I behave coldly, he will be hurt.¡±


    ¡°Lex, I am trying to say that Sika can create a medicine which can solve this problem, what are you doing?¡±


    This time around, a fireball appeared in Lex¡¯s hand, almost on the verge of hitting Saleen. Saleen giggled, as a tiny icicle appeared atop his fingertip, destroying that fireball.


    ¡°Aye, forget it.¡± Lex decided to lean half her body against Saleen. Tilting her head slightly to look at Eleanor¡¯s silhouette under the moonlight, she muttered, ¡°You are right, I have to think about the future.¡±


    ¡°This medicine isn¡¯t expensive, Sika has concocted some and it costs eight-hundred-thousand gold coins.¡± Saleen mentally prepared Lex first, in case she got caught off guard.


    ¡°Ah! That¡¯s fine...¡± Lex almost spouted something which embarrassed herself. She quickly changed the topic, ¡°Saleen, is Eleanor...¡±


    ¡°There is no use, it cannot be resolved easily. I think we would need godlike powers to truly fix her problems.¡± Saleen had no idea how to help resolve Eleanor¡¯s trouble. To let her return home, the nar passageway between the elvish ne and Myers maind had to be opened, this was neither the demonic ne nor the death ne. The spaces between these two nes and the Myers maind were not stable, but there were precise coordinates avable.


    On the other hand, the elvish ne was very far away. The elves betrayed the humans in the past, so the human experts who were mightier than the gods had sealed all the avable passageways.


    Given Lex¡¯s intelligence, she could easily guess Eleanor¡¯s identity, but she was helpless to do anything. She and Saleen would have to advance past the limits of grade-9 to help, or perhaps even grade-10 would not suffice. They might have to at least be above grade-18 in order to possess the ability to alter nar rules and reopen the channel to the elvish ne.


    On the entire Myers maind the number of grade-10 professionals could be counted on one hand. Grade-18 experts only existed in myths, neither Saleen nor Lex had ever thought of progressing to this grade. Advancing to grade-10 was a practical goal. It would be daydreaming to want to advance to grade-18.


    In one of the sewers in Daliang City, Tyrant sat up. It was already the end of December. He still could not control this body thoroughly. Using a ghost¡¯s perception to judge, his current powers were only two-thirds of the power he had when he used the dwarf¡¯s body. This current body was more perfect than the dwarf¡¯s, but most of a ghost¡¯s abilities did not rely on a physical body, there was no obscurity like that of a dwarf.


    Tyrant woke up from his deep slumber having heard Eleanor¡¯s singing in the depths of his mind.


    The voice of an elf could stimte a ghost deeply. Eleanor¡¯s depression caused Tyrant to be unable to sleep. Tyrant paced about his hideout with his bloodshot eyes, unable topose himself.


    ¡°That damned elf, that damned elf! I have to kill her, otherwise I cannot do anything in Daliang City. My powers have deteriorated a lot, it is too difficult to kill an elf who can counter my powers.¡±


    Tyrant kept pacing about as his hands rummaged through the leather pouch, inspecting his equipment.


    ¡°That elf will be apanying the mage who knows how to cast the Mirroring spell. If I try to assassinate her, I will surely die! That mage¡¯s strange finger can even shatter my divine weapon. I cannot use the Soul-cutting spell now. If my original body gets hit one more time, I will lose my third andst chance of attaching to a human body. That damned elf, she took away more than six-hundred years of my life with her two arrows. Even if I die, I will drag her to hell with me!¡±


    Unbeknownst to Tyrant, Eleanor did not release the Life Arrow with all her might because she took him as a human. Tyrant would have been killed in one hit otherwise. Pacing in the sewer for around an hour, Tyrant finally took out an equipment, it was a gray bead.


    ¡°The Soul Bead. I can only kill normal civilians to absorb power now, but I cannot do it in Daliang City. The mages in the magical tower will know if I do. Mm, I heard that the Cloudflow people have set up camp near the shore. I shall kill their scouts to lure out an army without any high grade mages, then I should be able to regain most of my abilities.¡±


    Making this decision, Tyrant left for the south in a sh. All the mages in Daliang City originated from Qin. No matter their grades, they would not be deceived easily. Since Tyrant¡¯s powers had been reduced, he did not dare create trouble in Daliang City, so he turned his attention to the Cloudflow people.


    Usually, people would never return once they left Daliang City. A ghost¡¯s hatred was too intense though. Tyrant¡¯s hatred for Eleanor had even exceeded his interest to assassinate Saleen.


    In the blink of an eye, it was January. During the winter, Daliang City did not experience snow, so the temperature was maintained above freezing point. Listening to Saleen¡¯s suggestion, Lex reinforced Daliang City¡¯s defensive facilities.


    The core of Daliang City was a small square-shaped city with a long history. At the moment, the threeyers of walls surrounding Daliang City had been built by Lex.


    Lex had many low grade mages serving her, so she decided to use magic to reinforce and raise the small city. Only four city gates were left behind to function as Lex¡¯s pce. Two of Lex¡¯s pce swordsmen camps were stationed in the pce. The threeyered walls at the periphery did not need to be raised, but they needed morerge and intermediate-sized appliances.


    Daliang City had a total of six city gates and each gate was fitted with metal battlements. The city gates were reced with magic facilities coated with thick red copper. A passageway was dug out to connect the fortresses outside the city to the city tower, the fortresses no longer had any openings. Only archer holes were present, to allow soldiers to fire arrows out.


    The winged skeleton had delivered all the remaining skeletal magic stone cannons over and installed them atop the city walls. These magic stone cannons had no effect against Cloudflow¡¯s warships, but it was lethal when dealing with infantrymen. Other than its high level of consumption, it was wless.


    Saleen did not worry about the consumption of magic nuclei, he was willing to spend any amount to extirpate the Cloudflow people.


    Six regions were developed within Daliang City in preparation for building magical towers. The sewers in the city were reinforced again and many more magic barriers were installed. There was a river outside Daliang City, but the river did not cut through the city, so water was a problem. Fortunately, with mages around, a secret river was constructed deep underground and lead to the city¡¯s reservoir.


    That way, if the city was besieged, the soldiers would not crumble and be rendered powerless due to a scarcity of water.


    Lex could not replicate so many copies of equipment for Saleen¡¯s heavy infantrymen. She possessed sufficient manpower however. If work was sped up, she would be able to produce around six-thousand sets of equipment by April.


    Saleen gave half of his trusted soldiers to Lex. These one-hundred soldiers were Saleen¡¯s mightiest troops who wielded the best equipment. The elvish alchemical crossbows could not be replicated because divinecherry wood was required. The swordsmen which Saleen gave to Lex were given purplish-gold liquid.


    When this liquid, produced from purplish-gold sea urchins, was smeared onto a normal alchemical arrowhead, the arrowhead would be able to destroy magic easily. It was a pity that this item was disposable and purplish-gold sea urchins could not be bred. Once used, it would be gone.


    Lex asked Saleen for all the metal ores from Metatrin City for the past few months. Her Metal Titan had not fully recovered yet from the grave injuries it had recieved. In order to let the Metal Titan act as Lex¡¯s main offensive force, it would have to keep devouring metals and magic nuclei.


    If the Metal Titan could recover by April, Lex would be confident of quashing the Cloudflow people. At the very least, she would not need to worry about Cloudflow¡¯srge equipment. By releasing the Metal Titan, the Metal Titan could destroy therge appliances before the enemy¡¯s sorcerers got to it.


    ¡°The Cloudflow people will use the worst method to invade the city. Let their soldiers scale the walls usingdders.¡± Lex did not believe that her elites would not be able to defend Daliang City.

 Chapter 749: Support from Everywhere (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 749: Support from Everywhere (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The situation was improving day by day because the Qin noble families were sending more and more gifts over. If not for the fact that the pce had been expanded and more warehouses had been repaired, Lex would not even have sufficient space to store the new resources.


    They no longer needed to worry about the logistics of Daliang City. Lex estimated that just the grain alone was sufficient to feed the tens of thousands of people in Daliang City and the bone castle for the next thirty to fifty years.


    As the regent of Metatrin City, Sika used her powers to station Qin in the city. Since the envoy gave her a diplomatic note, she deployed a battalion of soldiers from Huoxing City to support Lex¡¯s three interconnected cities in Lun.


    Lex had stationed five-hundred-thousand soldiers and horses in these three cities, so Sika¡¯s battalion of soldiers were rather insignificant. The intention was still clear. Huoxing City was at the border of the Metatrin Kingdom. They would not be continuing south anymore, so no one was to plot against Lex¡¯s territories.


    Holy Rock City was silent towards this. Although this was different from what they had thought, Lex would not be pushing towards the west anymore. In that case, most of the Lunnds would be kept in the possession of Prince Safilos for the time-being.


    Lex sent a portion of resources to the three cities, then brought back twenty-thousand men from the frontline to replenish theck of manpower in Daliang City. As such, the main forces in Daliang City were close to one-hundred-thousand men again.


    It was February when new envoys arrived, but they were from Sikeqinya. The group of envoys were escorted by a mercenary group of more than twenty-thousand men. Since there were so many mercenaries and they looked like elite armies at one nce, Daliang City¡¯s guards did not dare to allow this group of envoys into the city.


    The equipment on thispany of mercenaries were unlike those that conventional armies usuallyughed at. Could the Emperor of Sikeqinya have sent a grade-9 mercenarypany?


    Finally, the captain of the mercenarypany was invited into Daliang City and met with Lex and Saleen.


    The captain, who came into the city alone, was a middle-aged man of about thirty years old. He looked very respectable and did not seem to be fond of talking orughing. In the pce, after he paid his respects to the two monarchs, the captain gave a formal self-introduction and presented his badge.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am the captain of the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group, Gusion. They usually call me Gerssein. I managed to advance into a silver grand swordmasterst year. Although I am a bit old, I hope that you are still willing to take me in.¡±


    ¡°Take you in?¡± Lex was a little surprised as she looked at the captain. Although he was a silver grand swordmaster, Lex and Saleen did not fear him at all. There were many powerful people like Nichs, Cuisi, and Su standing behind them.


    ¡°Gusion, I don¡¯t understand.¡± Saleen looked at Gusion suspiciously as well. In the past, he had failed to convince the Red Tiger Mercenary Group to join him, but now this mercenary group that was stationed outside Daliang City was definitely on par with the Red Tiger Mercenary Group.


    ¡°Perhaps I don¡¯t have very good social skills.¡± Gusion¡¯s expression was solemn as he continued, ¡°I just wish to be part of Your Highness¡¯ army instead of continuing to be a mercenary. The brothers that have been following me will no longer have to put up with the noble families and will be able to focus on working hard for themselves and their families. I do not get along well with the noble families in Sikeqinya. Even though I managed to recruit two grade-8 sorcerers, I was still chased out of Sikeqinya without being given proper recognition.¡±


    Gusion¡¯s description was messy, but Saleen and Lex understood. What tempted them the most was that there were two grade-8 sorcerers in the mercenary group.


    Gusion saw Saleen and Lex in deep thought and misunderstood it to mean that both of them did not wish to take in his mercenary group. He had no choice but to swallow his pride and said, ¡°Your Highness, Danny must have sent me here because he had wanted Your Highness to hire me to fight for you. If...¡±


    ¡°No, Gusion,¡± Lex interrupted the captain and said, ¡°I am only worried about those two grade-8 sorcerers. What do they think?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, most Sikeqinyan mages hate to engage with Alchemy City. If you can offer them conditions that are only slightly worse off than those in Alchemy City, they will surely be willing to stay.¡±


    Saleen was amused. Gusion was not good at talking because the terms and conditions that he has set were too low. He had left himself cornered in a negotiation like this.


    ¡°Gusion, you mentioned families. If the families of your mercenary group are still in Sikeqinya, yet you are all fighting here, how will all of you feel assured?¡± Saleen posed a question that was most important to him. If the families of these mercenaries were still in Sikeqinya, they would never give their all for Lex.


    ¡°Your Highness, not many of us have families, only about seven-thousand. I have already sent them to the Metatrin Kingdom.¡±


    Lex and Saleen looked at each other. Although Gusion was not very smart, he did possess some wit. The families of the mercenaries that had been sent to Metatrin were like hostages. If they chose to rebel there, they would surely lose their families.


    The conditions for this surrender was very good and straightforward.


    Now, their only worry was the two sorcerers. They had no families, so if they decided to create chaos, Daliang City would be in trouble. Nevertheless, this could probably be settled with bonds. Saleen did not have a lot of bonds left, but Lex had only very few followers.


    Saleen continued to chat with Gusion while Lex ordered someone to invite the two sorcerers into the city.


    After taking a look at the two sorcerers¡¯ attire and age, Lex vaguely understood why the two of them would end up with the mercenary group in the first ce.


    The magic robes that they were wearing were clearly made from white cloth that had been dyed. Basically, they could not even be considered magic robes. The two of them looked to be about seventy or eighty years old and were even older than Nichs. The magic staffs that they held looked like they were still the same ones they had when they were still low-level mages. There were still de markings on them.


    They were really pure mages. Even though they possessed great power, they did not rob nor depend on the detestable noble families. Why would they choose to lend their support to her now?


    ¡°Two grand masters...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness!¡± The two sorcerers replied in a hurry.


    ¡°I want to know why you havee to Daliang City.¡±


    ¡°Because... of Your Highness¡¯ reputation.¡±


    ¡°Reputation?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± One of the sorcerers tried his best to conceal his awkwardness and said, ¡°The two of us are introverts. We have been training together since youth. After our teacher passed away, we did not wander around too much to seek support from noble families. We still heard about Your Highness¡¯ reputation. You would treat even a grade-1 mage with respect...¡±


    ¡°But I am only a grade-6 mage. If you follow me...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, you are from the Grukos family! We hope to be either your followers or your mages in the pce.¡± The two sorcerers had never begged anyone like this before. They had no choice but to be more thick-skinned now. They were really poor. All the wealth that their teacher had left behind for them had been spent in the process of them advancing into sorcerers. If they were unable to find any support, they would have no choice but to resort to robbery.


    The problem was that if they really resorted to robbery, they might be shamed for life. If the people of Alchemy City knew about it, they might send a crusade against them.


    Over on Saleen¡¯s side, he was having a good talk with Gusion. He had worked his way up from a low-level mercenary and had managed to gather a group of brothers who shared the same values as he did.


    Gusion started from scratch with his twelve brothers as a grade-1 mercenary group. After a decade, they became a grade-6 mercenary group. As theycked sorcerers of the same grade, he was stuck at this grade for more than two years. It was only untilst year that he managed to recruit these two downtrodden sorcerers.


    It was his good fortune that these two sorcerers were not the sociable types either. Noble families had tried to recruit them, but none could put up with their behavior. By the time Gusion was recruiting them, the two sorcerers had already resorted to selling their equipment. Gusion bought over their equipment only to return it back to them as gifts. That was when the two sorcerers decided to join the mercenary group.


    Gusion could not afford the resources that the two grade-8 sorcerers needed either. It was only because they could get along that the two sorcerers put up with it.


    ¡°How did a grade-6 mercenary group gather more than twenty-thousand men?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, there were only about four-thousand men in the beginning. Just before we left, Emperor Danny gave me another ten-thousand men. They were all mercenary groups of very small scale so they were forced into my group.¡±


    ¡°So for these ten-thousand men, how will I be able to control them?¡± Saleen asked directly.


    ¡°Your Highness, these ten-thousand men have been trained by me on the way here. They would never flee even from tough battles. The families of my own men have been sent to Metatrin. As for these ten-thousand men, they should not cause too much of a problem as long as you pay more attention to them,¡± Gusion said casually.


    ¡°Gusion, I will ept your men. For the ten-thousand men, I will n something different for them.¡±


    Gusion frowned, but did not say anything.


    Saleen said, ¡°You need to sign a bond with me to be my follower. As for your brothers, I will ord them the privileges of a conventional army. Give me all the names of your families. I will inform the officials in Metatrin to give themnds as part of your first sry. Is this satisfactory?¡±


    ¡°Of course, Your Highness!¡± Gusion could barely hold back his excitement. ¡°It¡¯s just that, those that traveled with us...¡±


    ¡°They are not your men, so they will be treated differently. Gusion, my main armies are treated extremely well. I will still need to observe those ten-thousand men for a while more. I cannot give them the same treatment right from the beginning.¡±


    Saleen saw that Gusion seemed to have something to say, so he continued, ¡°You must have given those mercenaries your promise. Don¡¯t worry. Joining a conventional army is better than being a mercenary, even if one is not in the main force. I just don¡¯t trust their loyalty at the moment.¡±


    ¡°What about the grand masters?¡± It was clear that Gusion was someone that was nice to everyone around him since he still remembered the situation that the two sorcerers were in.


    Lex needed followers too. If they chose to follow her, those two grand masters would no longer be in such a dire state.


    ¡°That¡¯s good...¡± Gusion¡¯s expression became more optimistic. He respected those two sorcerers very much, butcked the power to support them. He had always felt bad about it. This time around, when the two sorcerers requested toe along, he was still worried that Bitter Water Prefecture might not be able to support them.


    ¡°In that case, Gusion, since the decision has been made, let¡¯s sign the bond now.¡± Saleen tried keep his tone neutral to conceal his excitement. He could not believe that Gusion was a silver grand swordmaster. Although he had only advanced recently and would not be a match for Su or J, it was not easy to recruit silver grand swordmasters. Once he stabilized his grade, Saleen would have gained another helper.


    Even though Gusion did not know how to seek favors with noble families, that would not diminish his capabilities in fighting. He would not have been able to lead a grade-1 mercenary group to grade-6 in a decade otherwise.


    Saleen took out a ck magic scroll even as he spoke. Since the Three Kings died, Saleen was now able to recruit powerful followers once again. The scrolls had been prepared way beforehand.

 Chapter 750: Support from Everywhere (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 750: Support from Everywhere (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Gusion took a look at the contents of the bond and heaved a sigh of relief. It was the first time he was looking at a mage¡¯s bond and he had feared that his soul might have to be controlled or there might be demands of him bing a servant.


    The terms and conditions that Saleen was setting for him were instead excellent. Saleen would be responsible for his high-level armor in future. He would not need to be involved in ordinary battles. They would be tasked to those of lower grades. His responsibilities would be to protect Saleen or lead armies into battles. He only needed to focus on training and would not need to worry about socializing.


    Gusion¡¯s strength was best demonstrated in battles. Taking on the role of captain had upied most of his time as he needed to entertain the noble families and find ways for his men to make a living though. As he dripped his blood onto the bond, he felt a lot more relieved.


    Over with Lex, she had also signed bonds with the two sorcerers. They finally arranged for the twenty-thousand mercenaries to enter the city.


    Gusion¡¯s men were given to Saleen while the remaining mercenaries would join Lex¡¯s armies. The mercenaries were not suspicious at all, as those who had joined Dragon-ughtering mercenary group at ater stage knew that the families of the mercenaries had already gone to Metatrin City.


    The Emperor of Sikeqinya, Danny, did not send any fanciful gifts, but the twenty-thousand men were exactly what Lex needed. The mercenaries were not held in high regards in Sikeqinya. When they left, they had to use their own savings to buy equipment from Danny.


    These mercenaries, who were allocated into Lex¡¯s armies, were not favored in Sikeqinya. Even though they were now split up into battalions for new recruits, they had noints. They were aware that it was much easier to make money there thanpared to Sikeqinya. At least food there was much better.


    Saleen and Lex had their disagreements regarding this matter. Two grade-8 sorcerers and one silver grand swordmaster were considered a group of very powerful people. Lex was afraid that it might be a trap.


    In the past, Saleen had wanted to deal with Earl Sufonso, so he had studied the aristocratic structure of Sikeqinya as well as the rtionships between the noble families and mercenaries. He was not worried about this issue due to that. He knew Gusion too well. Money was the only thing that mattered in Sikeqinya, even amongst noble families.


    For someone like Gusion, who was not good at socializing and gaining favors with noble families, was bound to face difficulties in establishing himself. He would not be given good missions, the ce he stationed his men was always changing, and the moment there was a hint of trouble in his mercenary group, other mercenary groups would take over.


    Gusion advanced into a silver grand swordmaster only in thest two years. Before that, he was only a ck metal grand swordmaster. It was always going to be tough leading a mercenary group all on his own.


    In Sikeqinya, only those with power and wealth had a say. For someone like Gusion, it was already a miracle that he had managed to survive. Qin noble families ced great emphasis on their behavior,passion, and pride. This was not the case in Sikeqinya though. Even Tanggsis people looked down on the Sikeqinyans¡¯ck of values.


    As for the two sorcerers, they were bound by the bonds so there was no need to worry about them.


    Generally, most mages did not possess good social skills and the two sorcerers were not exceptions. The teacher of the two sorcerers must have umted a significant amount of wealth before his death since the two of them were able to reach grade-8 before finally using up all the money.


    What worried them the most was the mercenaries. There was no one that was too powerful amongst them, only a grade-4 mage and a few zun grand swordmasters. Such abilities were equivalent to that of a regiment in Lex¡¯s army and considered to be above average for a mercenary group that was grade-7 and above.


    If there were any Sikeqinyan spies, they would most likely be amongst those mercenaries that had been split up. They came from different mercenary groups and the small group only consisted of seven men, so they would not know each other very well. It would be easy to nt a few spies.


    Lex needed those men. She needed experienced soldiers urgently. If she rejected these mercenaries, a negative precedent would be set. Those that might have wanted to pledge their allegiances to her would be more hesitant to do so. She and Saleen already had a poption of more than twenty-million so recruiting soldiers would not be an issue. The only problem was that Cloudflow would beunching an attack during their wedding in April.


    Cloudflow had already built a small city beside the Separation Sea and were prepared to station their troops there for the long-term. There was no point attacking them now. They could only wait for Saleen to find a way to defeat the fleets and block off Cloudflow¡¯s route for retreat.


    At the moment, Cloudflow¡¯s logistics were constantly transporting resources over. Even if they were to attack this new city, they would have to pay a high price. Lex did not have as many soldiers as Cloudflow, so they could only afford to defend.


    In the end, Saleen proposed an idea. As he was born a Sikeqinyan, he knew that power and wealth were the most important things to Sikeqinyans. He suggested that Lex construct a brand new corp, beginning from number one-hundred.


    The more powerful the mercenary group, the higher their number. This one-hundredth corp might feel a little inferior if they were part of a conventional army, but would be very content if they were mercenaries.


    After Princess Lex announced she was setting up arge scale corp, the mercenaries¡¯ hearts were won over. They would train alongside the new recruits. Those that performed well would be allocated to the one-hundredth corp.


    The basic unit of Qin was a battalion which was made up of ten-thousand main soldiers and between five-thousand to ten-thousand with five-hundred auxiliary soldiers. During battles on open ins, auxiliary soldiers would not be deployed. Only battles that involved the defending or attacking of cities would use the auxiliary soldiers. A newly formedrge-scale corp would consist of thirty-thousand men without differentiating between main and auxiliary soldiers.


    This decision encouraged even more soldiers toe forth and pledge their allegiances. Lex already possessed enough money, equipment, and most importantly, sufficient grain to support armies. These soldiers that hade forth to pledge their allegiances were mainly from Lun.


    The situation in Lun wasplicated. There were many small troops of soldiers that every country was trying to recruit.


    Saleen and Lex never imagined that taking in the Dragon-ughtering mercenary group would have such a great effect. Daliang City already had ny-thousand elite soldiers, seventy-thousand auxiliary soldiers, and new recruits. After taking in the Dragon-ughtering mercenary group, they had close to two-hundred-thousand men. Subsequently, close to a total of one-hundred-thousand soldiers came forth to pledge their allegiances. That was even after selections. Now, the poption in the city, including craftsmen and soldiers and citizens, were close to four-hundred-thousand. At the rate that they were recruiting soldiers, it would not be a problem reaching five-hundred-thousand.


    What assured the both of them the most was that the number of low-level mages in the city had increased drastically. Most of the low-level mages were groomed by Lex. After leaving Bitter Water Prefecture and splitting up to different ces in Qin, they had ended up back in Bitter Water Prefecture along with some middle-level mages that were in Alchemy City previously.


    Aside from Lex, Saleen had magesing forth to pledge allegiance to him. News had arrived from Metatrin City that more than two-hundred death mages had fled from Tanggsi Empire, Cloudflow Empire, and Sikeqinya Empire and arrived at the city to lend their services.


    These death mages knew that there were many spirits of the dead in Metatrin City, so they could roam around the city with their own spirits of the dead.


    Now that the Tanggsi Empire was openly hunting down death mages and the people of the Holy See were infiltrating different empires to assassinate them, these mages had all fled to Metatrin. They heard that the King was fighting in Bitter Water Prefecture, so many of them quickly rushed over.


    This was because Sika had set very favorable conditions. If the death mages were to perform meritorious deeds in the battle at Daliang City, their death mes would be given another chance to be cleansed.


    Most death mages did not possess death mes of high quality, so it would be difficult to advance. If they were given another chance to cleanse their death mes, the death mages would have an easier time advancing. As for how to cleanse the death mes, that was a problem for the winged skeleton to solve. In any case, he had already absorbed the soul mes of the death kings so this should not be too difficult for him.


    These death mages were very trusting because thetest that they had heard a death sorcerer had appeared beside the King of Metatrin. As a result, theypletely believed Sika¡¯s words.


    Mu En had no idea that he had been used in that way. Every day, he would be in the bone castle being guided by Isabe and the winged skeleton in learning death magic and swordsmanship.


    Learning these two skills was more difficult than learning elemental magic and swordsmanship at the same time. Fortunately, the winged skeleton had a death me that was very suitable for Mu En, so he became a grade-1 death mage very quickly.


    What Isabe was teaching Mu En was how to merge the two skills together without theming into conflict. Since Mu En was already a high-level swordmaster, he would need to slow down the progress of his swordsmanship to allow his death magic abilities to catch up.


    There were too many resources from Qin and at least half of them would have to be retained by Bitter Water Prefecture. The gifts from the noble families shocked the officials in Daliang City. These noble families were not so enthusiastic even when the Prince left on an expedition with his army.


    There was sorrow in Lex¡¯s heart. Her father did not only resort to brute force to establish good rtionships with noble families. After his death, there were still many people that thought fondly of him.


    The noble families that were closest to Grand Emperor Chanake were those that sent the most gifts. On the gift list were cipher texts that only Lex could understand. Some key resources could not be written directly on the list.


    Lex also understood that these people were betting on her. Once she expanded hernds into an empire their future generations would have another path to advance on after all. Nevertheless, the risk was high, so they must have chosen to do sorgely because of her father. These noble families were taking a gamble. Even if they lost, at least they had not let the dead Emperor down.


    Once she had the numbers, Lex immediately built a small town that was to the east of Daliang City. The small town was only fifteen miles away from Daliang City and was near the mountains. There were two small paths leading to Bitter Water Prefecture through the mountains that connected the Prefecture to Daliang City.


    It was because of these paths that Lex was able to take over the fertilends of Lun so quickly and build up Daliang City. The expansion of Daliang City utilized resources transported from Bitter Water Prefecture. The straight-line distance was only over four-hundred miles. If one took the road through the mountains, it was only just over six-hundred miles.


    The only troublesome thing now was that too many people hade forth to pledge their services, so they were beginning to face some problems managing them. The new recruits were not of good quality so fighting incidents weremon. Fortunately, Lex had many mages, so things were still under control.


    A magic apprentice was repairing the sewer when he discovered that a tunnel had been created underneath the city wall. Lex was immediately on high alert.

 Chapter 751: Agares (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 751: Agares (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daliang City had threeyered city walls. Ane was constructed in the middle of the city walls and had a width of over one-hundred yards. The terrain south of the city was lowered, so there was a factory processing sewage southeast of the city, processing poisons for the army. The cleaned sewage would also be expelled by following the flow of the underground river.


    In order to maintain fertility of thend and abundant harvests, the Qin people would usually put in a lot of effort purifying the sewage. It was not without return. The toxins in the sewage were extracted and turned into weapons for wartime.


    Lex¡¯s Bitter Water County was no exception, the weapons were allced with poison. Once the enemy got wounded, they would have to spend a lot more money or resources to get well again. It was a tremendous test for the enemy¡¯s logistical support.


    As the expansion of Daliang City took ce in a hurry, the drainage system was not defended by many magic arrays. This passageway led directly from the inside of the city to the outside, it was only sufficient for one adult to pass through at any one time.


    Receiving the report, Lex did not dare act slowly, she immediately led a huge group of people to this passageway and conducted an investigation.


    Even the county king and Saleen had went down, so the other people also apanied them. Luckily there were many mages present, the stench from the sewers could only be removed after many rounds of using the Cleaning spell.


    The sewer leading to the exterior of the city was about two yards wide, and twelve steel fences were installed from start to end. The fences were installed with magic rms and magic disciples would check on them every week. At the moment, a cavity had appeared in the fences, but the magic rm was not activated. Even the magic array which monitored tremors was not stimted.


    When Lex arrived, she raised her hand and used the God¡¯s Ring to survey her surroundings, while Saleen used the Elemental Eye to observe. When the Elemental Eye was fully unleashed, Saleen noticed a path of faint footprints.


    ¡°It was a middle-aged man, almost two yards tall. He is at least at the standard of a high grade swordmaster, or perhaps a Zun Grand Swordmaster.¡± Saleen slowly revealed the data he had calcted, then said, ¡°Cuisi, go out of the city to search for clues.¡±


    A demon was more proficient than a human in searching for clues. A mage could not possibly travel in a sewer, the mage had to be at intermediate grade so that they would possess sufficient magic chords for use, being able to use magic anytime for investigation.


    As Cuisi left, then Saleen and the rest of the people returned to the surface.


    ¡°Such a facility is already sufficiently solid, but it was not a mage who destroyed the twelve steel fences. The underground structure of Daliang City has to be rebuilt. If such people infiltrate the city, there will be huge trouble.¡± Saleen worried.


    ¡°Saleen, could the person who left the city be the man who tried to assassinate you?¡± Lex asked with great concern.


    ¡°Probably not, that person was a dwarf who was only around one yard tall. The guy who left is almost two yards tall, the footprints cannot be faked. When a human walks...¡±


    ¡°I get it.¡± Lex felt that Saleen was too naggy. Being a grade-6 mage as well, she had dissected a human body before and she had great insight into the skeleton. She did not possess the Elemental Eye, so she could not use this intuitive method to investigate the tracks.


    ¡°Heh heh.¡± Saleenughed dryly, but did not continue talking, he only chatted with the people around Lex. Unbeknownst to Saleen, the person who escaped through this channel was indeed the one who tried to assassinate him. Saleen would never imagine a child-sized man to turn into a tall bulky man.


    Even though Nailisi could use the Ultimate Shapeshifting ability, Saleen realized that her footprints were different from humans after carrying out a long-term observation. That was an innate habit, there was still a difference even if one tried their best to alter it. Through his Elemental Eye, this detail was extremely pronounced.


    Had Eleanor been sent to investigate, she would have detected the scent of a ghost. Tyrant had only changed his body recently, so his scent would be very obvious to an elf. Being an elf, Eleanor was deathly afraid of the sewer. Even though she had spells to mask the smell, she would not wish to go to a sewer.


    ¡°This channel only serves to prevent outsiders from gaining entry, the people inside would find it much easier to get out. Just a simple redesign will do. Saleen, let¡¯s go back.¡± Speaking, Lex ordered her mages to carry outpensatory work, while she and Saleen returned to the pce.


    ¡°Lex, what did you find out?¡± Saleen only spoke when he saw that no one else was present.


    ¡°Mm, the person who left the city isn¡¯t a creature from the Myers maind. These defensive magic arrays only target humans, it was my mistake. I will spend more money and redesign them and change the channel. If it wasn¡¯t for this person who left the city secretly, we might have actually ran into serious trouble. We have to thank this person.¡±


    Saleen was rmed when he heard that the person was not a being from this ne. Since he could own demons and spirits, why could not other people do the same? Recounting his experiences in detail, Saleen found that his Metatrin City did not seem to have this w. Metatrin¡¯s city walls were one structure top to bottom, they were even sturdier than steel.


    More importantly, Metatrin¡¯s city walls had been constructed ording to Dante¡¯s Sequence, they formed one huge magic array. They could even be described as a presence more powerful than a magic array. The moment the number of magical towers in the city reached six, a magic prohibition region could be formed. Mages who did not belong to Saleen would experience a drastic deterioration in their magic.


    Metatrin City¡¯s drainage system led to the ocean and there were numerous defensive magic arrays in the waters beneath the port. Spirits also frequented the port, so no one could infiltrate it.


    After some calctions, Saleen gradually set his mind at ease. Metatrin was his foundation and the city drawing was provided by his teacher. In the future, Saleen would use the drawing to develop a spatial passageway to upy the hell of God¡¯s punishment and Raphael¡¯s magical tower. These two buildings would be his greatest assets.


    ¡°Lex, very soon, more than one-hundred death mages will arrive. I will deploy a batch of spirits underground and no one will be able to enter or leave in stealth anymore.¡± Saleen said some things to console Lex. The surface structure of Daliang City was already close to perfect, the only thingcking was its underground design.


    In the pce of the Cloudflow Empire, Emperor Agaresid atop a soft cushion, gazing at a performance. The people who served him were all beautiful women. Agares¡¯ eyesnded on the songstress as he ate the fruits fed to him by the courtdies.


    The te with fruit was made of skeletal porcin, ssic and simple. Discerning people would realize that this skeletal porcin had been fired from the ashes of a high grade magic beast, and not y. Even an alchemical arrow shot from close range would not be able to destroy this te.


    The Cloudflow emperor had all along lived extravagantly. Naturally, from top down, there were no prudent nobles in the empire.


    At the side of his recliner, the curtains hung low. Behind the curtains were the pce swordsmen, and behind themid another door. Emperor Agares handled the government affairs in this room, eating fruits and watching a performance as his ministers reported to him.


    At the moment, there was the stench of blood which emitted from behind the curtains. When a low ranking noble was giving the report, Agares fell into a bad mood, so he had the noble¡¯s finger cut off. Mages were using the Cleaning spell to get rid of the stench. The courtdies were burning incense, so the next noble to enter could report in peace.


    ¡°Your Majesty.¡± A middle-aged man in white clothes entered, kneeling beside the recliner as he awaited Agares¡¯ response.


    This middle-aged man in white clothes was not wearing any uniform or noble clothing, just some simple civilian clothes. When Emperor Agares saw this middle-aged man entering, he immediately sat up, feeling much better already.


    ¡°Aloyen, why are you here?!¡±


    This white-robed middle-aged man was the sole prince of Cloudflow who wielded real authority, he was Agares¡¯ brother. Both men were close since youth, after their father died, Agares inherited the throne because Aloyen was ostracized. No one expected that the young Agares was intelligent on top of being cruel and shrewd. In a few years¡¯ time, Agares had ughtered all the ministers who tried to control the imperial court. Thereafter, Aloyen was brought back to the imperial capital and made prince, the first in line to the throne.


    ¡°Your Majesty...¡±


    ¡°Aloyen!¡± Agares bellowed.


    ¡°Aye, my brother, it¡¯s just a formality, you don¡¯t have to bother about it.¡±


    ¡°You are unlike the rest.¡± Agares helped Prince Aloyen stand up, pulling at his sleeves so that the prince would sit together with him. Then Agares said, ¡°Duke Barat is useless. four-hundred-thousand troops out of that one-million strong army were killed at sea and I still have to increase the headcount for him. Lex is really interesting, she dares to rebut me and I heard that her future husband is some king.¡±


    Mentioning the deaths of four-hundred-thousand soldiers, this emperor did not feel any sadness at all. None of them were his descendants. He had long wanted to find an opportunity to remove those disobedient nobles.


    ¡°Your Majesty, I am not here for this matter. The Tanggsi Empire has sent a secret envoy over, they are still trying to ink an alliance with us. Since Your Majesty wants to invade the Bitter Water County, we can let the Tanggsi people attack from the western road, therebyunching a two-pronged attack. We can also ride on the tide and enter Lon.¡±


    ¡°What are the benefits for me? I am only trying to marry a woman and I am not doing it for the Tanggsi Empire. That emperor has great ambitions, a pity he got lorded over by the Holy See. If we form an alliance with him, our empire will be devoured by the Holy See sooner orter.¡±


    Aloyen smiled bitterly, ¡°My brother is very smart, but he is quite a scumbag at times, no one can guess his thoughts.¡± Sometimes, Agares would act willfully just to see the look of disappointment on other people¡¯s faces. ¡°But Your Majesty, Lex is already going to marry someone else. Even if you go over personally, it will still be toote.¡±


    ¡°Marry? Kill her man and I will take his ce, I don¡¯t mind whether she is a widow or not,¡± Agares replied in disagreement.


    ¡°Your Majesty, a widow can never be the queen.¡±


    ¡°Then change the empire¡¯sws. If thews cannot be altered, I will stop being the emperor, you can take over.¡±


    If other nobles heard Agares¡¯ words, they would have been horrified. Aloyen simply continued smiling bitterly, ¡°I don¡¯t want to be the emperor, the politics in Cloudflow are way moreplicated than those in the Qin Empire. Only a person like my brother can suppress the ambitious officials.¡± Aloyen tried to exin again, ¡°But, Lex announced that she will marry that king because she is reluctant to marry you. Your Majesty, if we form an alliance with the Tanggsi Empire, we will be able to enter Lon openly. You can announce that you want to establish a duchy over there and you will be in charge of thews in that duchy too.¡±


    Agares was very tempted, then he immediately furrowed his brows and said, ¡°What is the point of an ind duchy, look at those big ones along the coast, they don¡¯t even care about the empire¡¯s orders. My informants have gathered some intelligence, telling me that those scumbags have started rearing dragons already. Listen carefully, they are rearing dragons! Damn all of them, I have reared some low grade magic beasts with much difficulty, yet they actually have dragons!¡±


    ¡°Let them raise whatever they wish to. Once you have amassed enough power, they will also be rearing creatures for your pleasure.¡± Aloyen said gently.

 Chapter 752: Agares (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 752: Agares (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    With a sigh, Agares said, ¡°Aloyen, if you didn¡¯t stop me, I would already have killed those old fellows long ago.¡±


    Calmly, Aloyen replied, ¡°If you can progress to the next grade, I will let you go.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not so simple.¡± Agares was a little demoralized. It was true that he was a prodigy, however, a sorcerer could rely on their experience for advancement, but here were no known assassins above grade-9 yet.


    ¡°Your Majesty, the Bitter Water County is situated near the sea. Even though our fleet had extirpated the enemy¡¯s warships, all of our troop-carrying vessels were destroyed. This means that the Bitter Water County has the capability to establish a mighty navy. It would be better to exterminate it as early as possible. Information from Holy Rock City stated that the Qin nobles are strongly supporting Lex, there are substantial resources in Daliang City. If we do not conduct a two-pronged attack from the other direction, then we will only deplete our resources by staying by the coast in vain.¡±


    ¡°Aloyen, do you know why I am trying to marry Lex?¡±


    Aloyen shook his head. If anyone could guess his brother¡¯s thoughts, then this person had to be a pinnacle holy master. They would have to have power from the gods.


    ¡°Qin people are loyal and they are intelligent. If I produce a child with a person like Lex, this child will surely be a wless prodigy, unlike the both of us who are wed. If I name a queen, this queen must be from Qin. Forming an alliance with the Tanggsi Empire will bring humiliation to me.¡±


    ¡°Since you put it that way, I can rest assured,¡± Aloyen replied nonchntly. All this while, this brother of his had never followed the rules. Perhaps he really wanted to marry into Qin royalty. Nevertheless, since Agares said that an alliance with the Tanggsi Empire was a humiliation, then it was very likely that it might take ce out of the blue.


    The Cloudflow nobles agreed to an alliance because they had already lost half of Titan Duchy. If it was not for the line of defense at the Red River, the Tanggsi people would have invaded Cloudflow¡¯snd already.


    ¡°Mm, help me to make this decision, but I am not willing to meet their envoy.¡± Waving his hand, Agares signaled for the performance to stop and dismissed all of the performers. The courtdies also left obediently. Aloyen called out to one courtdy and passed the finger on the table to her.


    Being ustomed to bloody scenes, the courtdy received the finger. Aloyen had pleaded on behalf of that noble. With treatment from a mage, this finger could still be reattached. If it remained in Agares¡¯ possession, that noble would be crippled.


    Only the pce guards remained in the hall, these people were Agares¡¯ confidantes. Aloyen then said, ¡°The southern nobles are indifferent to the alliance, Tanggsi will not pose a threat to them. The nobles at the border are worried that they will lose half of Titan permanently if the alliance goes through. Some of the nobles in the capital support the southern nobles, but there are also a number of them who support the northern nobles.¡±


    The interior of the hall became gloomy. Agares¡¯ face sank as he held the fruit knife in hand. The small silver knife flipped between his fingers, producing powerful trembles as it sliced the air.


    ¡°Will the Tanggsi people return half of Titan to me?¡±


    ¡°No, but they will help you to seize Bitter Water County.¡±


    ¡°Aloyen, if I deploy the family¡¯s elites, won¡¯t I be able to conquer Bitter Water County?¡±


    ¡°The Tanggsi people will conduct a suicidal offensive along the Red River. By then, the nobles will change their stance and allow us to form an alliance with Tanggsi.¡±


    ¡°Precisely, all these people should be ughtered!¡± Agares ruthlessly stabbed the small knife into the skeletal porcin te. The te, which could withstand an alchemical arrow, was pierced by a soft silver knife, but it did not crack.


    ¡°Your Majesty, it was the same case for the Qin Empire. After the emperor died, his subordinates fell into turmoil. The north and south are not united and the new emperor cannot control the situation. We have to endure, once the imperial fleet recovers, those southern nobles will still have to do our bidding obediently.¡±


    ¡°I guess that¡¯s the only way now. The nobles have to continue contributing to the offensive against Daliang City though. No matter what kind of soldiers they deploy, the headcount cannot be less than one-million and two-hundred-thousand. Even if they are walking to their doom, they have to recruit soldiers to fill this cavity. I will make a trip to the ck Serpent Ind. Without the Purgatory Boa, my attacks will not pose a threat to a Golden Grand Swordmaster. There are many eyes staring at me inside and outside the pce, I don¡¯t feel at ease being the emperor.¡±


    ¡°Aye, go ahead, let the big prince supervise the country, while I will manage to government affairs.¡±


    ¡°Okay then, he is Uncle¡¯s only son. If he dares try anything funny, kill him, so his bloodline will go extinct.¡±


    ¡°Aloyen nodded in agreement. Raising a cup, he pour clear wine into his brother¡¯s cup, then said, ¡°Your Majesty, for this trip to ck Serpent Ind, bring along my trusted guards too. Their equipment has been reced. The Qin people have created diving warships and I am afraid that the southern nobles have purchased the drawing. Bring along the Sacred Emperor Warship. With a portable magical tower, those diving warships will be harmless.¡±


    After the discussion was concluded, Agares returned to the rear pce. Two courtdies walked up and helped him change his clothes.


    ¡°Your Majesty, has the Prince allowed you to leave?¡± A courtdy with abnormally fair skin removed Agares¡¯ clothes as she enquired.


    ¡°Yes, retrieve my equipment, I am going to bring it along this time around.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Majesty.¡± Another courtdy giggled, then she paced to the secret storeroom.


    In the blink of an eye, Agares was fully stripped. The remaining courtdy ced Agares on a bench, gently caressing Agares¡¯ chest muscles, then she sat atop Agares slowly.


    ¡°What are you doing?!¡± Agares¡¯ eyebrows shot up, as he berated her.


    The courtdyughed. Her arm had already slithered to Agares¡¯ back, as her nails scratched him gently. Whispering into Agares ear, she said, ¡°I am going to have my way with you Your Majesty.¡±


    ¡°Atrocious!¡± Agares continued lecturing, but his eyes were flooding with desire. These two courtdies had followed him since his youth. Other than their immense loyalty, they were also taught to pander to his tastes. The time he spent with these two courtdies was ten times better than with his concubines.


    ¡°No matter how gutsy I am, I am not braver than you Your Majesty.¡± The courtdy¡¯s body sank downwards, her head fell back, as she gave out a sonorous sound. Her fingernails scratched Agares¡¯ back forcefully, creating dozens of marks down Agares¡¯ back.


    ¡°Ah...¡± Agares moaned. The pain only made it more intense and pleasurable for him. Strangely, the marks that appeared on his back healed swiftly. The royalties of the four big empires possessed their own exclusive secret arts. The secret arts were neither magic nor the Sword Aura, but they had amazing functions.


    ¡°Your Majesty, I am going to take all of you.¡± Atop Agares¡¯ body, the courtdy panted as she blurted those words.


    ¡°How are you going to do it?¡± Agares¡¯ purple pupils slowly took on a blood red hue.


    ¡°Like this, I will take in all of you.¡± The courtdy suddenly applied force, but she screamed all of the sudden as her body jerked backwards. Agares grabbed her arm, then he looked up and saw the other courtdy who had retrieved his equipment. However, he did not stop, he actually used more force to respond.


    When the slender courtdy witnessed this scene, she simply giggled. Laying the equipment aside, she undid her skirt, then approached the entangled couple.


    Another moan filled the pce. The pce guards standing outside appeared unruffled, as they gazed at the shadows of the trees in the courtyard indifferently. The shadows were very short as it was midday. The majestic sun burned brightly, as wind blew through the guards¡¯ robes. The guards were slightly sweaty.


    The imperial capital of Cloudflow had dozens of names. Each time the emperor was changed, the new emperor would change the name of the city. The Cloudflow people were nonchnt. Privately, they called the imperial capital Misty City.


    More than ten-million people were gathered in Misty City, it was a great miracle on the maind. Holy Rock City did not have so many people. Only Cloudflow, with its rich resources and developed water systems, could support the lives of so many people.


    North of the city, at a location where soldiers were being recruited, two young mercenaries stopped in their tracks when they came across a signboard asking to recruit soldiers.


    The male mercenary did not wear a helmet, he had a head of pale golden hair and devilishly handsome looks. The female mercenary beside him appeared mellow and feminine. Both people were attractive and their equipment was of a high level too, but they appeared fatigued.


    ¡°Do the two of you want to sign up?¡± When the recruitment officer saw these two mercenaries loitering around, he pointed at them and spoke in a hostile manner. For every soldier he recruited, he could stand to receive ten copper coins. Over time, such a profession could make one rich. Now, the emperor had given the order to recruit soldiers to invade the Bitter Water County and there were no special conditions. The recruitment officer could recruit around a few hundred people each day, which meant that he would receive thousands of copper coins!


    The male mercenary said, ¡°Sir, this recruitment drive doesn¡¯t seem to be the same as the ones in the past. Will the army be disbanded after a few months?¡±


    ¡°What do you know? His Majesty is going to invade the Bitter Water County, he wants to snatch the county queen and make her his queen. Such a war will surelyst for a few years, unless the Qin people are too weak. You, are you brave enough?¡±


    The female mercenary sighed and said, ¡°Canghong, let¡¯s sign up.¡±


    ¡°Sarah, the Cloudflow army is going to...¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to bother about it, we will earn our keep as soldiers, which will be better than being mercenaries.¡± The female mercenary called Sarah nudged at the mercenary called Canghong. These two people were the two survivors from the Falcon Mercenary Group who fled to Cloudflow after separating from Saleen. Canghong and Sarah were not earning much money because Cloudflow did not require any mercenaries. The both of them could not take on huge tasks alone.


    Luckily, these two people had amassed some savings after separating from Saleen. They were not willing to take on lowly jobs, so they had been feeding off their savings. The things Saleen had given them were stashed away in some obscure location, they did not dare sell them.


    ¡°Ok, let¡¯s sign up.¡± Canghong walked up helplessly, taking a metal tablet.

 Chapter 753: Heartless (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 753: Heartless (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Although the Separation Sea had already been controlled by Cloudflow, information was still being sent back and forth between Daliang City and Misty City. Lex spent a lot of money constructing a secret teleportation portal in Misty City so that news could be sent to Daliang City any time.


    An inconspicuous letter could very well decide the oue of the battle.


    Thetest news was that Cloudflow was recruiting again, confirming the previous reports that amongst the previous million-strong army, there were less than one-hundred-thousand elite troops. This time around, Cloudflow was resorting tost-minute recruitment to form an army of more than four-hundred-thousand.


    Lex calcted that amongst these four-hundred-thousand men, about twenty-thousand to forty-thousand would form the main forces while the rest would serve as cannon fodder.


    Saleen and Lex no longer cared about how many men there were in Cloudflow¡¯s armies. The two of them would meet at the pce every day to study diagrams in order toe up with new equipment for their own armies.


    Lex had a ny-thousand strong main force while Saleen¡¯s was ten-thousand. The remaining soldiers¡¯ fighting abilities were equivalent to that of auxiliary soldiers. Fortunately, Daliang City would be holding a defensive position. The attacking portion would be taken care of by the bone castle¡¯s death army.


    Although the pressure on Daliang City would be higher, the longer Cloudflow dragged the more time the winged skeleton would have to summon more spirits of the dead. Cloudflow¡¯s new recruits would be fighting against the skeletons of the death army. Saleen could ept that both parties would probably cancel each other out.


    Daliang City was also in the midst of recruiting soldiers. It was said that Lex wanted to form a corp of heavy-armored soldiers. The requirements were high as one would have to be at least two yards tall and possess the standard of at least a swordmaster.


    For now, they only aimed to form a regiment before expanding in the future. In order to attract those that fit the requirements toe forth, they even disyed the weapons and equipment that they would be armed with.


    This regiment would take orders directly from Lex. If they managed to perform meritorious deeds in battle, they could have a chance to be part of the pce swordsmen battalion.


    On that day, Saleen and Lex were studying the calibration magic array of the alchemy crossbow when a pce swordsman came to the alchemy factory and whispered something to Lex.


    Lex calmly dismissed the swordsman before pulling Saleen to the six-storey small tower.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Saleen saw that Lex was behaving secretively.


    ¡°Call Eleanor. Someone suspicious has been discovered.¡±


    ¡°Someone suspicious?¡±


    ¡°Remember the sewer with a tunnel in it? I used the God¡¯s ring and managed to detect the presence of that person. I can confirm the physique of this person, but not his looks or aura. The requirements that I set for the recruitment of the heavy-armored corp was ording to this person¡¯s physique. The people in charge of the recruitment would measure each soldier¡¯s physical attributes very strictly. Now, there are two men who fit exactly what God¡¯s ring detected. We must go and apprehend them.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we ask the two grade-8 mages instead?¡± Saleen was not keen to risk Eleanor. Lex¡¯s two new followers would be more powerful than an experienced grade-8 sorcerer with their powersbined and would definitely be more powerful than Eleanor.


    ¡°The person would definitely run away immediately if a grade-8 sorcerer appeared. I suspect that this person is in cahoots with the one that tried to assassinate you. My God¡¯s ring is able to detect something minute like this, like... prophecy magic.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor¡¯s skills are basically long-ranged attacks,¡± Saleen reminded Lex. In actual fact, Eleanor¡¯s closebat skills were not poor either, but when Saleen recalled the dwarf-like assassin, his instincts told him that Eleanor would have been in grave danger if both of them had fought.


    ¡°Let Cuisi apany her while Nichs waits a distance away.¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment.¡± Saleen thought about it before going up to the tower on his own. Eleanor was in the midst of meditation. She advanced much slower than humans and if not for Saleen¡¯s pushing, she would have taken her own time like an ordinary elf. Now, she no longer cared about the preparation of equipment and was training in magic on her own in the small tower every day.


    ¡°Saleen, looking for me?¡± Eleanor could sense Saleen¡¯s presence and stopped her meditation. Her rules of meditation were clearly exceptional and she could stop at any time.


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Saleen repeated what Lex had just told her before, ¡°You can choose not to go. Cuisi and I can handle that guy.¡±


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be nice. My Lord, if this person is of the same race as that assassin, then he might not be a creature from this dimension. I did not manage to tell you. I shot that assassin twice and he would have died if he was a sorcerer below grade-7. Those two arrows of mine would have taken away more than six-hundred years of that assassin¡¯s life.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, if that person is also an assassin, all the more reason you should not go. Why don¡¯t I rece you with my water puppet? The water puppet can take on any appearance.¡±


    Since Saleen put it that way, Eleanor agreed. She stood up and approached the window, looking into the distance. Saleen activated his elemental eyes and carefully observed Eleanor¡¯s body structure.


    Eleanor could feel a hot gaze on her body. It could just be an illusion, but she felt small ripples in her heart.


    Saleen summoned the water puppet, which began to transform itself into Eleanor. The reason why Saleen was doing that was because his instincts warned him that Eleanor would be in danger if she went. That assassin was terrifying. He managed to escape despite being attacked by Saleen, Eleanor, and Cuisi. Besides, Saleen was unfamiliar with that assassin¡¯s strange equipment.


    Since Lex said that this person could be in the same gang as that assassin, Saleen would have to be extra cautious.


    The water puppet took half an hour¡¯s time the first time it changed into Eleanor. She just stood still in front of the window until Saleen was finished. When Saleenpleted the transformation of the water puppet, Eleanor already felt stiffness in her waist and thighs.


    Saleen took a nce at Eleanor¡¯s back. He was able to use his elemental eyes to detect Eleanor¡¯s face even from the back. He did not have to use any techniques for this nce. Eleanor¡¯s back looked lonely and was simr to when she first met Saleen.


    ¡°Eleanor, if you are unhappy here, you can go back to Metatrin City. The temple will always be your home.¡± After saying that, Saleen left.


    Eleanor¡¯s back was still facing Saleen as she looked into the distance. Winter wasing to an end in Daliang City and the wind had be much gentler. Her stance began to soften as well.


    My Lord, you are not heartless after all.


    Lex was waiting patiently but was taken aback when she saw Saleening down with the water puppet. The water puppet smiled at Lex and said, ¡°Greetings, Princess.¡±


    ¡°I need her archery skills...¡± Lex looked at Saleen. She knew about the existence of the water puppet and she could tell the difference between the water puppet and the elf immediately. Eleanor¡¯s eyes were so deep she could never detect their depths. The water puppet¡¯s eyes were clear and pure.


    ¡°Lex, let¡¯s not risk her. I feel uneasy.¡± Saleen took off Rafael¡¯s crystal ring and passed it to the water puppet for it to wear.


    ¡°Uneasy...¡± Lex looked at the water puppet, took a deep breath, and said, ¡°I feel uneasy too. Let¡¯s summon Gusion.¡±


    Lex was not as sensitive as Saleen when it came to premonitions. She did have her God¡¯s ring so when Saleen mentioned his uneasiness, she was immediately on alert instead of bing jealous of Eleanor.


    ¡°Alright, Lex. We will go to Gusion now.¡±


    Saleen did not hesitate as he led Cuisi and Lex to Gusion¡¯s camp. Nichs was following them from a distance. His white beard and long gray robe made him look ordinary. He was not around when Saleen met with the assassin previously. Tyrant could not possibly have escaped otherwise. Holy priests were the bane of ghosts, a fallen holy priest that possessed the power of darkness even more so. Techniques like Shadow Dance would be useless against him.


    It made sense not letting the two grade-8 sorcerers tag along as assassins were generally very sensitive towards mages. The two sorcerers had only recently advanced and were not very good at suppressing their auras yet. If it was someone seasoned like Nichs, Lex would have no qualms allowing the two grade-8 sorcerers to go along.


    Lex also brought along one-hundred bodyguards that Saleen had given to her instead of low-level mages. These mages would not stand a chance against assassins. The previous assassin was already equivalent to a grade-8 opponent, so this fellow should not be any worse off.


    Lex did notment much about how Saleen took special care of Eleanor on this asion. Eleanor was an important follower of Saleen¡¯s, so it would not be right to say that Saleen did what he did because he was attracted to her.


    The group of them arrived at Gusion¡¯s camp. Saleen asked someone to call Gusion out. He then cast a magic image and briefly described the physique of the person they were looking for.


    ¡°Gusion, you have only advanced recently. You have to be careful of this person.¡±


    Gusion nodded. He had decided to hang his sword on his waist instead of keeping it in a scabbard. Gusion¡¯s long sword was ck and did not seem too outstanding. Nevertheless, Gusion had a wealth of experiences in battle and was better able to conceal his true powerspared to the two sorcerers that Lex had just taken in.


    After what Saleen said, Gusion immediately transformed himself into an officer of middle-level swordmaster standard. Socializing might not be his forte, but fighting certainly was. Saleen was pleased with his fortune. Someone like Gusion would have done well in Qin, but not in Sikeqinya.


    The two kings arrived at the training grounds of the heavy-armored corp. The new recruits were very excited. They were keen to perform well to win the favor of the two kings and enjoy better prospects in the future.


    Everyone had their ambitions. These soldiers were not wrong to want to achieve their ambitions through their own hard work.


    Under the escort of the bodyguards, Saleen and Lex walked past the heavy-armored soldiers that were standing at attention. Lex requested for everyone to be inspected in order to avoid arousing their target¡¯s suspicion. There were two targets so it was troublesome.


    After the inspection, Lex and Saleen arrived at the training grounds to observe the standards of the soldiers.


    In the formation, Tyrant¡¯s eyes were cold like that of a seasoned soldier. His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the water puppet that had transformed itself into Eleanor.


    How lucky that this elf had appeared. He was not confident of infiltrating the pce since three grade-8 mages had suddenly appeared. This time around, the elf was doomed!

 Chapter 754: Heartless (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 754: Heartless (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When soldiers sparred with each other, they mainly used wooden spears. Most Qin people were trained in swordsmanship, so even children would have toys like wooden spears and wooden swords, using them to train up some techniques from a young age. Long military weapons were difficult to find so it was difficult to train oneself in these weapons before one was fully grown.


    All sorts of spears, halberds, and axes were tools for killing on the battlefield. Ordinary swords and knives were no match for heavy-armored soldiers.


    On the sparring grounds, soldiers used wooden spears against each other one on one, five versus five, or forty against forty.


    Sparring was only an excuse. Saleen and Lex just wanted to observe the matches and very soon, they were able to lock onto Tyrant as a target. Another soldier with simr physique was immediately eliminated by Lex. The God¡¯s ring was sensing something!


    Soldiers rehearsed killing with all their might on the sparring ground. Even though they were only armed with wooden spears against heavy armor, quite a number of soldiers were still seriously injured. Fortunately, there were mages allocated to the regiment of soldiers for healing purposes. All of them gave everything they had.


    It was Tyrant¡¯s turn soon. He held his wooden spear and walked into the arena that was designated for solo sparring.


    Saleen regretted the set up slightly. He spoke to Lex softly while he was thinking. If they had known that they would be able to find their target so easily, they should have brought Eleanor along. The assassin would not be able to use his full powers over such a long distance, but Eleanor¡¯s long bow would definitely have the upper hand over the assassin.


    Once again, Saleen sensed an aura simr to Bain¡¯s on Tyrant. If Bain was around, this fellow would have been exposed long ago.


    Tyrant faced his opponent with a wooden spear in his hands. He approached slowly and was not in a hurry. His opponent was a beginner-level swordmaster who was an officer in the battalion of new recruits. In order to join this new corp, he was willing to be demoted to a normal soldier and start from scratch.


    His wooden spear struck at Tyrant without hesitation.


    Saleen and Lex nodded silently in approval. His strike was clean. If three to five of such strikes urred at the same time, an ordinary opponent would have been struck at least once. In terms of technique, this soldier was very proficient.


    Tyrant¡¯s wooden spear was suddenly raised and his strike was parallel to his opponent¡¯s wooden spear. The lengths of the wooden spears were the same, but the position that he was holding was slightly further behind. This meant that he would need to exert more force in order to stabilize the spear.


    Both of them aimed at each other¡¯s chest. If everything remained as they were, Tyrant would surely emerge victorious due to the advantage of his weapon.


    The soldier heard the sound of a wooden spear breaking and knew that he could get injured even if he was wearing a metal armor. His hand trembled and the wooden spear smashed against Tyrant¡¯s weapon. He was holding the wooden spear at a more reasonable position so once the weapons smashed against each other, it would be easier to knock away the opponent¡¯s weapon.


    With a m, the soldier¡¯s wooden spear was disarmed and Tyrant¡¯s wooden spear stabbed into the soldier¡¯s chest. The soldier snorted, bleeding from the nose and mouth. He took a few steps backwards. Tyrant sent the soldier flying out of the arena with a sweep of his wooden spear.


    The soldiers outside of the arena quickly rushed to the injured soldier to remove his helmet. They were relieved to find the soldier still conscious. Two people carried the injured soldier away from the arena to seek treatment.


    Saleen tilted his head and whispered a few things to the water puppet. Then, the water puppet walked to the front, pointed at Tyrant and said, ¡°You,e over here. His Highness has something to say.¡±


    Tyrant threw down his wooden spear and walked over calmly. The closer he was to the water puppet, the more overjoyed he was.


    When the water puppet was still ten yards away, Tyrant shook both his arms and the metal armor on his body burst into pieces. The water puppet was shocked as Tyrant dashed towards him without a sound.


    There was a short sword underneath the broken armor of Tyrant¡¯s right arm. The sword looked strange as it did not have a handle. The de of the sword was fixed onto the upper arm and extended out from the palm.


    There was a dramatic change in events. Of all the soldiers that were sparring in the arena, about one-tenth of them were stunned. Their level of swordsmanship was outstanding, but they were not experienced. The majority of the soldiers were immediately aware that an assassin had appeared. They were all still wielding wooden spears, but they did not charge forward in case Lex and Saleen misunderstood them to be rebelling.


    The officer amongst these soldiers gave amand and the tform that Lex and Saleen were on was immediately surrounded. The soldiers on the exterior rushed to the military warehouse to retrieve weapons. The remaining one-hundred or so soldiers took out their short bows and were prepared to shoot at the assassin.


    Saleen was extremely satisfied with how the soldiers reacted as only one-hundred or so soldiers out of a total of one-thousand were too stunned to react. This meant that the soldiers that they had recruited were all of high quality and were of an appropriate age. After they had taken care of the assassin, these soldiers were eligible to be put through the Lie Detection spell.


    All soldiers that passed this test, as long as they were not the enemy¡¯s spies, would be able to be a member of Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s army. Lex would definitely fulfil whatever promises she made.


    Tyrantughed coldly to himself when he saw the soldiers¡¯ reactions. If he really wanted to leave, no one would be able to stop him once he used his Shadow Dance. He struck at the water puppet with his short sword. His boots burst open to reveal another pair of boots that were dark gold in color.


    This was his favorite piece of equipment. It could increase his speed and allow him to sprint in any environment without making a sound. The magic equipment was made of soft gold and could repel magic and weapons. To an assassin, his legs were extremely important, they would determine whether he could flee or hide himself sessfully.


    ¡°How dare you!¡±


    Gusion was enraged. The assassin dared to attack in front of a silver grand swordmaster like him. His long sword was already unsheathed. It formed a silver beam of light as Gusion dashed towards Tyrant.


    Tyrant opened up his left hand and a huge ck shield appeared in front of Gusion. He nned to stop the swordmaster for the time-being so that he could deal with the elf first. He would think of a way to deal with Saleen after that.


    Puff...


    The short sword sank into the water puppet¡¯s heart and the puppet trembled violently. If water puppet was a living person, it would have died immediately and its heart would have turned into powder. Although the water puppet possessed a full set of organs, its life was given to iit by Saleen. After its heart had been pierced, the shocked expression on the water puppet¡¯s face disappeared. It pointed a finger at the location of Tyrant¡¯s heart instead.


    In order to enhance his speed to the maximum, Tyrant had already dismantled his metal armor. Even if he was still wearing his metal armor, it would not have stopped the crystal finger. The crystal finger was a skill that Rafael had wanted to use against the Gods. As Saleen¡¯s grade was still too low, the water puppet¡¯s powers was limited. The skill was not something that Professionals of grade-9 and below could survive.


    After the water puppet pierced his finger through Tyrant¡¯s heart, it exploded. The power was so strong that even the water puppet¡¯s finger was shattered. His body, which was mended after so much effort, was broken once again. It would take about a week¡¯s time for the finger to be mended again.


    Gusion¡¯s long sword struck the ck shield forcefully. The long sword broke and the ck shield was split into two. Gusion¡¯s equipment was not good enough to amodate his silver sword aura. His silver sword aura was so sharp that even Tyrant¡¯s magic shield was split into two.


    With a kick, the shield disappeared. Gusion then used his left hand to take out a metal g from his back.


    This metal g exuded silver sword aura, which formed a gigantic white cloud around the water puppet and swept across Tyrant¡¯s legs.


    Tyrant was still alive even with his heart pierced, but his actions have slowed down. After the metal g swept across his legs, his bones cracked and Tyrant flew.


    Lex¡¯s one-hundred bodyguards had already prepared their elvish alchemy crossbows and ensured that Saleen and Lex were well-protected in the middle.


    Tyrant was shocked. He had clearly destroyed the elf¡¯s heart, why did the elf...He had been fooled!


    Tyrant¡¯s body flew up and became a ball of ck smoke. Both his legs had been broken. Tyrant gritted his teeth and crashed down into water puppet¡¯s body, tightly holding onto it. His original form was a ck-colored ghost. It dissipated out of his body quickly and crept into water puppet¡¯s body.


    If he consumed the soul of the elf, he would be able to heal half of his injuries. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter what magic spells you all have used, as long as I have recovered, I will surely be able to escape.¡±


    Tyrant hated Eleanor to the core. There was only a twenty percent chance of sess by making such a forceful entry. If he failed, his death would be certain.


    The ghost entered the water puppet¡¯s body quickly without any obstruction. The water puppet did not possess a powerful soul. It was only a body made of water elements so only its mental strength was normal.


    The ghost followed his instincts and attacked the water puppet¡¯s brain. He met with a cluster of green light.


    The power of life of the Goddess of Myers was not something that a ghost like him, who was already badly injured, could endure.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± The water puppet immediately connected himself mentally to Saleen and thetter heard a fearful scream in his mind. The scream was made by the ghost and it was full of horror. Tyrant thought he had been mistaken when a cluster of light of the Goddess¡¯ element appeared in the elf¡¯s brain.


    The water puppet had given the control of the Godly power to Saleen. The cluster of green light expanded violently, enveloping the ghost¡¯s body, slowly cleansing it.


    ¡°Spare me! I surrender... Ah...¡± Tyrant pleaded for his life, but he was already thinking of how he would immediately report to the Holy See of where this God was hidden the moment he was able to escape.


    Saleeb¡¯s voice boomed in the water puppet¡¯s mind, as if a God was looking down at its people.


    ¡°I can spare you, but only if you open up your soul. I want to check it thoroughly!¡±


    ¡°No, I will die!¡± Tyrant shouted back fearfully.


    ¡°Then die.¡± Saleen replied cruelly. He did not need someone dangerous like him as a follower.


    ¡°I know treasures. I have the locations of more than ten incredible treasures!¡± Tyrant was still struggling. The green light was now devouring his soul as part of the cleansing, like the sun melting snow. He could never stand a chance against the divine glow even if he was more powerful.


    Saleen became silent as he focused on controlling the divine glow to destroy the soul of the ghost.

 Chapter 755: Prepared for Battle, Prepared for Marriage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 755: Prepared for Battle, Prepared for Marriage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    While Saleen devoted all his attention to the process of absorbing the soul, the entire arena was silent. Most of the soldiers were already armed appropriately, but they had all stopped moving when they saw the assassin hanging onto the elf in a strange manner.


    No one knew what happened, so no one dared to move recklessly.


    If they moved forward, they might be misunderstood to be staging a rebellion; if they moved back, they might be seen as fleeing. When Lex trained her soldiers, the first thing she trained was discipline. The way these soldiers fought might still not be up to the standard of conventional armies, but their level of discipline was already sufficiently instilled.


    A member of the conventional army would not have to spend a single coin as the army would take care of everything. One could save up all the gold coins given on a monthly basis. That was ten times better than being a mercenary as a mercenary was responsible for their own armor and weapon. What the mercenary group could provide was not free and needed to be bought with money.


    At that point, Nichs swooped down from the sky. Lex waved her hand to allow him to descend. Nichs felt goosebumps all over his body when he saw so many elvish alchemy crossbows surrounding Lex. Of course, he would not be shot to death by these crossbows, but it was intimidating. At the end of the day, he knew that all his skills would not save him from being hit by these crossbow arrows, except his fallen divine spells, which could cause the soldiers¡¯ aiming devices to disappear.


    When Nichs descended and saw the water puppet and Tyrant tangled together, he could vaguely guess what happened. He was a holy priest so he knew more about souls than sorcerers did. In order to avoid suspicion, he moved away from the two people standing in the open space and walked over to Lex and Saleen.


    ¡°Your Highness, it is okay. My Lord has everything under control,¡± Nichs assured Lex then stood beside Saleen to ensure his safety.


    Recently, Nichs¡¯ days had been well-spent as he no longer needed to take care of any important matters and only needed to focus on refining the soul bead. Saleen would call him only when he was needed. They were far away from the frontline, so he did not have to worry abouting into contact with anyone from the Holy See.


    As such, he did not have to worry about bumping into anyone from the Supreme Court.


    When Grand Emperor Chanake was killed, two out of three of the Head Inquisitors were also killed. The remaining Head Inquisitor was still someone that Nichs would never dare to cross. Even though the Supreme Court had been weakened as a result, the two new Head Inquisitors were still slightly stronger than Nichs.


    Tyrant saw that his pleading was pointless, so his soul began to chant a curse in the water puppet¡¯s brain. The curse was long and was chanted in the ghost¡¯snguage. Countless gray characters flew up and attempted to enter the divine glow.


    The ghost¡¯s Curse spell was something he was born with and it could only be used when he was in the form of a ghost. Tyrant knew that there was no way he could escape, so he wanted to use the curse spell to pollute this divine glow. If he seeded, the owner of this divine glow would also go through the pain he was in now.


    The price of the Curse spell was his own life. A ghost of Tyrant¡¯s bloodline had a long life, which made his curse even more powerful. The divine glow of the Goddess of Nature was not something that was produced by Saleen. It was something left behind by the Goddess herself. Besides, even if the Goddess of Nature was still around, the Curse spell cast by a small ghost would never hurt her.


    Saleen was using his senses to find out the secret of the soul. This was one of thepulsoryponents to be fulfilled before advancing to a sorcerer. He did not expect Tyrant to use up his soul¡¯s energy in order to cast a Curse spell. Saleen responded by increasing the speed and absorbing the curse symbols. Tyrant¡¯s soul screamed in pain. The curse was stopped and the entire soul shrunk in half.


    It turned out that bnce was an important part of using the power of the soul. The soul spell would be broken off if the speed of absorption was increased or slowed down. Saleen understood this principle, so he returned to the original speed of absorption and slowly devoured Tyrant¡¯s soul.


    A ghost¡¯s soul was easier to observepared to a human¡¯s. The exterioryer was a thinyer like that of a grape and was made up of energy. There were countless cracks in his soul that could not be pieced together. Clearly, the soul of this assassin had been badly injured before and never had the chance to recover.


    Saleen tried to inject the water element into the ghost¡¯s soul to try and force the soul out. He would absorb the soul directly without absorbing the energy on the exterioryer. The soul was immediately assimted into the green divine glow and was not cleansed how Saleen had imagined.


    What a pity. Saleen had thought that he would be able to obtain a pure soul. He sighed, this divine glow did not belong to him after all. He was not proficient in the energy of a soul so he had no choice but to watch such a strange soul go to waste.


    Cuisi whispered to Lex after seeing Nichs¡¯ arrival, then took her badge to order the soldiers to retreat. The soldiers felt more at ease after being dismissed. That meant that Her Highness did not me them for what happened. An assassin appearing in the army was a problem that urred during the phase of recruiting soldiers, so the officers in the army must not be held responsible.


    Nevertheless, the matter was not finished yet. Using the appearance of the assassin, Lex ordered many low-level mages to enter the camps to put the soldiers through a magic lie detection and find out if the assassin had any aplices.


    Naturally, the soldiers had noints. If Lex ordered something like that the moment the soldiers joined the regiment, they might have had something to say about it. In that case, a soldier from their ranks tried to assassinate Her Highness in front of everyone. It was only natural for Her Highness to react this way.


    After checking all the soldiers, there were indeed two spies from Holy Rock City that were hiding amongst the soldiers. Lex did not kill them. She took down their records and branded them with an eternal magic symbol before chasing them out of Daliang City and back to the Qin Empire instead. If they were to try and enter Bitter Water Prefecture once again, they would be killed immediately.


    It was an unspoken norm for countries to nt spies in other countries. If these spies were discovered, as long as nothing violent had urred, they would be chased out and never allowed to enter again.


    What surprised Saleen the most was that Tyrant had tried to enter the water puppet¡¯s body, indirectly forcing himself to a dead end. The arena was sealed up and Saleen spent more than forty hours with the water puppet beforepleting the absorption of Tyrant¡¯s soul. Saleen did not manage to gain anything from Tyrant¡¯s memory. He was not a grade-9 sorcerer, nor a death mage. In order to absorb the energy of a soul, he would still need to depend on the power of life left behind by the Goddess.


    Saleen did manage to gain anything out of it. He managed to gain a deeper understanding of souls. During the process of absorbing the soul, Saleen refused toplete it as soon as possible. He kept trying to sense his control over bnce instead. As his magic chords were of a single nature, he could only use water element spells to cast spells of the other five elements. It was necessary for him to redesign the structure of spells before casting them using the water element.


    Even if Saleen managed to refine it to its maximum potential, it would not affect his bnce of elements. The problemid in the fact that in order to advance into a sorcerer, Saleen mustpletely grasp all of it while he was still at grade-6.


    At longst, Saleen had found a path for himself and that was the rule of bnce. Under the rule of bnce, he was able to transform his water elements into the states of the other five elements without any conflicts. This had allowed him to have an easier and safer time modifying the spells of other elements.


    There was another surprising discovery. Saleen managed to obtain the skin of a soul, which was a body of energy that Tyrant used to cover up the soul. The soul could not be touched, but this body of energy could. Tyrant had left behind two of such skins. One of them was a spatial equipment that he brought around at all times and the other was the soul skin that Saleen managed to refine.


    Within the spatial equipment there were more than ten equipments that Saleen could notprehend. There were also gemstones, valuable items simr to magic nuclei, and the corpse of a woman that had been well-preserved.


    Upon inspecting the corpse thoroughly, Nichs was able to confirm that it was an empty shell whose soul had been taken away. Saleen would have no use for it, but after being refined by the ghost, this female corpse was so well-preserved that it could be sent to the bone castle directly for the winged skeleton to refine a powerful zombie from it.


    There were more than ten strange equipments that Saleen could not make any sense of even after using his elemental eyes, but Lex was sure that they were assassin¡¯s equipment. Saleen thought about it and decided to give these items to Lex. There was an old assassin by her side that would have use for them.


    Saleen had no idea what to do with an item like the soul skin either. Nichs was keen to have it, but had no idea how to ask for it. He took no part in the battle. It was settled entirely by Saleen and Gusion.


    Back at the pce in Eleanor¡¯s room, Saleen showed the soul skin to her. She recognized it immediately.


    ¡°My Lord, this item was refined by a ghost. Its sess rate is very low.¡±


    ¡°You recognize it?¡± Saleen was surprised.


    ¡°Of course. If you give this to me to refine into quivers, I will be able to store Life Arrows of a higher level.¡±


    ¡°You can have it then.¡± Saleenughed and said, ¡°I noticed that Nichs wanted this item too. Will he be disappointed?¡±


    Eleanor smiled and said, ¡°My Lord, you can¡¯t do this. You either give it to him or give it to me. I¡¯m not going to make the decision for you.¡±


    ¡°Forget it. I will give it you. The life Arrow... is shot by expending the power of life. This must be the reason why you have been hesitant to increase its attacking power. With this soul skin, you will be able to store a significant amount of power of life. The amount of damage you will be taking will be reduced at least.¡±


    Saleen pointed out Eleanor¡¯s weakness directly. The elvish life arrow might be powerful, but Eleanor still needed to sacrifice a bit of her own life in order to unleash a powerful Life Arrow, even with the help of a longbow like Seven Nights.


    The reason why Eleanor did not manage to kill Tyrant in one shot was because she had held back on the amount of power in the arrow. If she had killed the enemy, her lifespan would have been reduced.


    If a member of the elvish royal family sacrificed her life in one arrow, even the Gods would tremble with fear. Most members of the elvish royal family used the powers absorbed from the Fountain of Life to unleash a technique like the Life Arrow. Eleanor was far away from home and could not find a substitute for the Fountain of Life. With the soul skin to be refined into a quiver, she would be able to use the power of souls to substitute her lifespan from being used up.


    With this quiver, Seven Nights was now aplete piece of equipment that Eleanor would be able to use with ease.


    After sorting through the spoils of the battle, Saleen summoned Gusion and asked, ¡°Gusion, why didn¡¯t you tell me that your equipment was not in good condition?¡±


    Gusion blushed and said, ¡°My Lord, I have yet to aplish anything.¡±


    Saleen sighed and said, ¡°You are my follower, your equipment is my responsibility. Tell me, what are the weapons you usually wield and of what nature are they?¡±

 Chapter 756: Prepared for Battle, Prepared for Marriage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 756: Prepared for Battle, Prepared for Marriage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Although Gusion was aware of the terms and conditions in the bond, he was someone that was ufortable with requesting items from Saleen. He always felt that if he began to request for items from Saleen without having made any contributions, he would be looked down by others. After what Saleen said, he felt even more embarrassed.


    ¡°My Lord, let¡¯s talk about this next time.¡±


    Saleen patted his forehead and said, ¡°I finally understand why you have not been able to provide for your own mercenary group. Gusion, you are no longer a mercenary. You are now a follower, so when I am in danger, you must be the first toe forward to protect me. I will be responsible for all your equipment and I promise that I will do my best for you. This is my duty, just like how you are responsible for my safety. It is the same principle.¡±


    Gusion was blushing and did not know how to argue. He had no choice but to list the measurements and types of equipment he needed.


    Gusion was a silver grand swordmaster, so his requirements for weapons were very high. The long sword that he always brought along with him had already been destroyed after he tried to split Tyrant¡¯s ck shield. Ordinary weapons would never be able to handle the silver sword aura.


    While Saleen was thinking about how to refine Gusion¡¯s equipment, part of him was already thinking about Lex.


    He would be marrying Lex soon. He could not possibly be wearing a mage robe on their wedding day. He was already wearing devil armor, so it did not matter if he changed what he was wearing outside. As for Lex¡¯s mage robe, he had no idea...


    Saleen was a little distracted and worried. The assassin they killed today was a creature from the ghost dimension. If an even more powerful assassin appeared on their wedding day, would Lex be in danger if she was not wearing a mage robe?


    Any minor mistakes could be fatal when facing a powerful assassin. If Eleanor was the one fighting the assassin today, she would have been killed in a single hit.


    Gusion thought Saleen was distracted because he was thinking about his equipment, so he dismissed himself to give Saleen some space and time. Saleen did not ask him to stay since he already remembered what Gusion required. Resources were not a problem since the Qin noble families had sent over quite a lot of them. It was probably better to speak to Lex first. With that, Saleen asked Cuisi to bring Lex to him.


    Lex was not Sika. She needed to be mindful about her status, so she dared not stay with Saleen before they were wedded to avoid gossip. Lex had always stayed on the fifth floor of the small tower, just below Eleanor. Another magic tower had been built in the pce, but it had been given to her grade-7 mage, so she could not move in either.


    There were another two eight-story magic towers still being built outside of the pce. The two new followers had built the magic towers near the south gate so that they would be able to respond quickly to any attacks from Cloudflow. With these two magic towers, Cloudflow would have to deploy arge number of armies in order to break through the gate sessfully.


    Lex had no clue why Saleen had asked for her. Usually, he would go to her small tower if he needed to look for her. Sensing something was amiss, Lex decided not to bring along any mages and came alone instead.


    After preparing tea for both of them, Cuisi left the room. Saleen and Lex were then alone. Saleen raised his cup and recalled how they met for the first time. Lex raised her cup as well, with her back facing him. Back then, Lex was unattainable. She was a grade-5 mage and the Princess of an Empire who had thousands of apprentices across thousands of miles.


    After staying silent for some time, Lex could not help but ask, ¡°Saleen, why have you called for me? I still have quite a few things to settle on my side.¡±


    ¡°Oh, Lex, what are you wearing other than that rainbow robe?¡± Saleen asked directly, but felt awkward immediately.


    Lex noticed Saleen¡¯s face turning red and she coughed once before saying, ¡°Saleen, there are so many people around here. What¡¯s the hurry? If there¡¯s nothing else, I¡¯m going back!¡±


    ¡°No! Lex, wait.¡± Saleen quickly exined himself, seeing how Lex was about to leave. ¡°We are mages, but I was thinking that we will be wearing normal robes most of the time in future. Your mage robe was refined by Joey, so I¡¯m not worried about that, but what if you change into normal robes?¡±


    ¡°I see. Saleen, you are really... hmm, my God¡¯s ring is able to stabilize elements to a certain extent.¡±


    ¡°There are other uses for the God¡¯s ring, I¡¯m sure. Lex, look at this.¡±


    With that, Saleen did not even take off his robe. Instead, he took off his outerwear to reveal his devil armor.


    Lex did not possess elemental eyes, so she only realized the equipment that Saleen had been wearing inside after he took off his outerwear. It was a piece of equipment that was of high level and could stabilize elements. Wearing it would allow Saleen to cast spells that were beyond his grade without causing any conflicts between elements. That was extremely important to a mage.


    A mage without a magic tower would never take off their magic robe even when they were sleeping.


    The reason why Saleen and Lex were able to cast middle-grade spells at will or use high-level scrolls without any hesitation was because they possessed equipment that surpassed mages of the same grade. They might even surpass most sorcerers too. In the process of casting spells, the two of them would never risk messing up the elements of the dimension, so they were also able learn spells much faster than others.


    When learning new spells, the two of them did not have to conduct any experiments first. They only needed to memorize the mantra, adjust the magic chords, and determine the essence of the spell. After that, they would just need to familiarize themselves with the spell so that the speed with which they would cast the spells could increase over time.


    Without good equipment, even the most talented mage would never be able to surpass someone of ordinary talent like Saleen, much less someone like Lex.


    Lex stretched out her finger with the mysterious God¡¯s ring on it. She ced her finger on Saleen¡¯s chest and slid it across gently. Her eyes were fixed on the surface of the God¡¯s ring.


    ¡°Did you refine this yourself?¡± Lex was shocked.


    ¡°It was Joey.¡±


    ¡°A tight-fitting magic robe. What an incredible design. Surely the quality of the resources used were a bit too precious?¡± Lex shook her head. She could never wear it. If she took it, what would Saleen wear? Saleen would surely have a harder time advancing than her. This piece of equipment was clearly meant toplement the strange long robe that Saleen was wearing on the outside. If she took it for herself, his equipment would be iplete.


    ¡°I have tried to refine something simr before.¡± Saleen did not dare to mention that the armor that he had tried to refine was for Sika. In the process of refining the armor, Sika had stripped naked in front of Saleen. Lex was still very innocent. He was afraid that she would leave if he brought that up.


    ¡°How did it turn out?¡± Lex asked. To a mage, a tight-fitting equipment like that was much more powerful than ordinary magic robes. She was definitely tempted.


    ¡°Have you forgotten? I obtained the four trees and I cut down the branches and refined the tree bark into very thin strands so that they could be made into clothes of any shape and form.¡±


    ¡°Then why do you ask? You cannot bear to do it?¡± Lex hit Saleen¡¯s chest gently.


    ¡°... No. I¡¯m just afraid that what I refined might not fit the shape of your body,¡± Saleen said carefully.


    Lex¡¯s eyelids twitched. She looked at the door and noticed that it was tightly shut. She never realized that a mute enchantment was already in ce.


    Could Saleen be trying to take advantage of her...?


    Lex immediately rxed. She would be wedded to Saleen soon. He would not resort to something like that.


    ¡°Saleen, do you wish to see the shape of my body?¡± Lex asked openly.


    ¡°Indeed.¡± Saleen¡¯s heart rate increased and he could feel himself having some difficulty breathing.


    Lex removed her rainbow robe gently before taking off her outerwear, revealing herstyer of clothing. Saleen was staring intently all the while. Lex was frustrated and said, ¡°You have elemental eyes. You can see for yourself. Don¡¯t tell me you still want me to undress further...¡±


    After Lex removed her rainbow robe, Saleen could already use his elemental eyes to observe. Without the buffer of the rainbow robe, Saleen could easily see the shape of Lex¡¯s body. The strands made from the bark of the divine tree were not entirely flexible. He needed exact measurements in order to refine an equipment that was fitting, naturally Saleen would not pass this task to anyone else.


    If anyone wanted to peek at Lex¡¯s body, he would dig out the fellow¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°No, Lex. Your body smells so good!¡± Saleen could not help but remark. There was a strange and faint smell on Lex¡¯s body. Saleen¡¯s senses were very keen so even a smell as faint as that was obvious to him.


    ¡°You have already hugged me before, why are you behaving like this!¡± Lex was no longer angry. She exined to Saleen, ¡°The secret technique that I have been training causes it. Before my father advanced beyond grade-9, his body also had this distinct smell. If I did not possess the God¡¯s ring, the entire courtyard would already be filled with this smell.¡±


    When Lex and Saleen were in the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment and were entering the world that Rafael created, they had held onto each other tightly as well. Lex felt warmth in her heart when she recalled this memory.


    ¡°We did hug before, but you vomited all over me.¡± At the end of the day, Saleen was someone with experience in such matters. When he heard what Lex said, he decided to be thick-skinned and joked with Lex to reduce the awkwardness.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Saleen stood up as well and walked to Lex¡¯s side. He stretched out his arms around Lex and said, ¡°I want to hug you again.¡±


    He was already hugging her by the time he spoke. Lex did not push him away. She rested her head on his shoulder and put her hands into Saleen¡¯s long robe to hug him as well. Instead of feeling any burning sensation from Lex¡¯s body, Saleen only detected fragrance.


    If it was Sika, she would have already pushed him onto the ground?


    At that thought, Saleen¡¯sher regions hardened. Lex was sensitive enough to sense it, but did not push Saleen away. Instead, she only hugged him even tighter. This junior mage had already grown up and would be her pir of support in the future. Once this thought appeared in her mind, Lex¡¯s heart finally melted.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Lex replied, with her head still buried in Saleen¡¯s chest. Saleen raised his right hand and caressed Lex¡¯s long hair. All of a sudden, he tipped Lex¡¯s head up from his shoulder and kissed her with force.


    Saleen could feel all the fragrance being sucked into the kiss. Lex struggled for a moment before shifting her hands behind Saleen¡¯s head and kissing him back.


    Both of them were overwhelmed by love for a moment.

 Chapter 757: A Letter from Sika (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 757: A Letter from Sika (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Mages usually did not care for the customs of the world, but Saleen and Lex were exceptions since they each governed a country. After the two of them had spent enough time with each other, Saleen dutifully returned to his task of helping Lex refine her equipment.


    After the shared intimate experience, Saleen could now look at her body openly.


    To most mages, equipment was easy to refine, but obtaining the resources was more difficult. Many alchemy techniques had been passed down over the years on the Myers Maind. Although the water me alchemy technique was unique on its own, there were thirty-thousand to fifty-thousand types of methods. They differed in speed, quality, and resources used. While Saleen was busy refining a fitting magic robe for Lex, she kept herself upied by helping Saleen refine a magic staff too.


    Lex¡¯s skill in refining equipment was not as good as Saleen. Currently, she was using a ready-made alchemy tform and thousands of smallponents to construct a three-dimensional alchemy workshop. This workshop was more than three yards tall and a yard in diameter. If the equipment that she needed to refine was bigger than this workshop, she would have to think of other solutions.


    Even so, what Lex was doing was quite simple. She was only refining low-level and middle-level death magic staffs.


    Refining equipment demanded a lot of one¡¯s mental strength. Lex¡¯s mental strength wasparable to Saleen¡¯s. There were tens of magic arrays in the alchemy workshop. More than a hundred magic nuclei would be used up every time she used the workshop. She was using the damaged magic stone artilleries given to them by Cloudflow to refine the magic staffs.


    The magic stone artilleries were made from the bones of high-level magic beasts. Although all the magic arrays on the inside had been thoroughly destroyed, the materials could still be put to good use by mages.


    Over in Metatrin City, close to two-hundred death mages were about to arrive. The death mages had all been forced over by the Tanggsi Empire. The death magic staffs that Lex was refining were for these death mages.


    Of all the different types of mages, death mages were the ones that were most useful to armies. They possessed simr offensive prowess to elemental mages, yet they could also summon spirits of the dead that could take damage in ce of soldiers. The toxins of spirits of the dead, in particr, were contagious. Just before an undead soldier was about to lose hisbat abilities, he needed only to unleash corpse explosion skill to affect enemies within a diameter of ten yards.


    The corpse explosion caused those nearest to be seriously injured while those that were further away risked being infected by the fluids released.


    As Saleen had refined a simr armor for Sika before, the way he handled the strands made from the tree bark of the divine tree was deft and familiar. Within three days, Lex¡¯s robe waspleted. This time around, Saleen did not overwork himself. He still felt extremely tired. After a good rest, he and Lex began to refine equipment for death mages together.


    As Saleen had a mage like Daniel amongst his followers, he was very familiar with the equipment of death mages. The purpose of magic robes for element mages was to stabilize the six elements. For death mages, it was to stabilize mental strength instead.


    They possessed powerful mental strength. Death mages had to be able to control themselves in order to cast death spells safely.


    Lex dependedrgely onrge-scale alchemy gadgets to refine the equipment for death mages. On the other hand, Saleen used the powerful water mes. Both methods were extremely fast, but Saleen¡¯s water me alchemy technique possessed a huge advantage; he did not require the use of any magic nuclei.


    Lex¡¯s method require the use of magic nuclei and also needed alchemy tools of good quality. The good thing was that as long as she had the necessary resources, she would be able to increase the required equipment quickly.


    This was the concept behind alchemy factories. While these factories could produce equipment on arge scale, they were also more expensivepared than those a mage might produce. This was because the factory would use up a lot of materials wastefully.


    As long as one had the money, the alchemy factory would be able to produce what one needed quickly. Alchemy City was the one that came up with this concept and it was picked up by the low-level mages in Bitter Water Prefecture. After that, Saleen¡¯s apprentices eventually decided to join in as well.


    The thing that amused Saleen the most was that Ojarvis had given more than half of the magic nuclei that he had bought from Saleen to give to Lex as wedding gifts. It seemed that Ojarvis did not utilize the national treasury this time around. Instead, the gift was gathered through the abilities of Ojarvis and his n. The resources in the national treasury must be conserved to deal with the Tanggsi Empire in the future.


    To the west of Daliang City, a distance of more than twenty-two-hundred miles was covered by three cities of simr capacities that were less than one-hundred miles apart from each other. This served as an important defense mechanism. In total, there were about six-hundred-thousand men in these three cities, including auxiliary soldiers. At the same time, there were close to one-thousand of Lex¡¯s mages and apprentices.


    Over in Daliang City, Saleen and Lex were busy modifying the armor of their soldiers afterpleting the magic staffs for the death mages. They had no time to rest. It would be April soon, yet Saleen and Lex did not feel like their wedding was approaching. Instead, they barely slept and had to rely on meditation to maintain their energy.


    They had no choice. The number of new recruits in Daliang City was approaching two-hundred and fifty-thousand. By the time April came, the number would surely be more than three-hundred-thousand. Saleen already had ten-thousand elite soldiers by his side while Lex had another one-hundred-thousand. They would form ten battalions in total.


    They were no longer outnumbered by Cloudflow.


    The only problem was the new recruits¡¯ equipment. Almost none of them were suitable for battle. Out of two-hundred-thousand soldiers, only a few thousand of them brought along equipment that passed Lex¡¯s criteria. If the Qin noble families had not given them so much equipment, she and Saleen would surely have to work themselves to death.


    Even at that point, they still had to take charge of the duties of the alchemy factories to modify the armor sent over by the Qin noble families. If there was no way to modify the structure of the armor, then they would change the color and add on Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s badge. No matter what, they all had to look standardized.


    One-hundred-thousand elite soldiers, three-hundred-thousand soldiers of mixed specialties, and more than one-hundred-thousand craftsmen and farmers and family members. These made up the poption within Daliang City. Although the enemy was Cloudflow, Lex did not feel nervous or worried.


    With one-hundred-thousand elite soldiers to defend the city and another three-hundred-thousand auxiliary soldiers, what could the enemy do to overpower them?


    By the end of March, the death mages had finally arrived from Metatrin City. Saleen was excited to see the outside of the city crowded with spirits of the dead. Saleen¡¯s third and fourth battalions were the ones that had escorted the death mages over. No wonder these two-hundred death mages took such a long time. They were dyed by the armies that were escorting them.


    Another two of Saleen¡¯s battalions were now by his side. Although they were much weaker than Lex¡¯s armies, they were stronger than the rest of the army. At least in the open field, Saleen was confident that these two battalions would be able to defeat an army made up of one-hundred-thousand soldiers of mixed specialties.


    Lex also came to wee the over one-hundred death mages personally. The proportion ofmoners in Daliang City was low, so no one really feared the death mages¡¯ arrival.


    The north gate was opened to wee the spirits of the dead into the city. Bringing up the rear were Saleen¡¯s two battalions. The two battalionmanders immediately bowed when they saw Saleen. Saleen began to ask about Sika.


    ¡°Your Highness, the Regent is doing well. She has asked us to bring you a letter.¡±


    There were teleportation portals connecting Daliang City and Metatrin City and could teleport items lighter than five pounds, but at a high cost. Sika decided to deliver a letter that way, but not because she wanted to save costs. She knew that Saleen preferred this method instead. Sika might behave very casually most of the time, but she was still a woman after all. After being with Saleen for so long, of course she knew his preferences.


    Saleen tucked Sika¡¯s letter carefully into devil¡¯s ring before letting Cuisi lead his armies into the city.


    There were a total of one-hundred and eighty-eight death mages, of which there was one grade-5 death mage and neen grade-4 death mages. The remaining were low-level mages.


    Death mages advanced very quickly. Although these mages might not be of a high level now, that was because their soul mes were of poor quality. If their death mes could be cleansed again, these mages would advance very quickly all the way to grade-6. They would then be stuck at that grade and would need to take ten times longer than elemental mages to advance into sorcerers.


    Even so, if these mages were able to survive the battle, their speed of advancement would not be too slow. Besides, their ability to survive was much higher than elemental mages.


    Over at Lex¡¯s pce, Saleen summoned these mages. Close to two-hundred death mages gathered and Saleen had to order people to bring them chairs. He had quite a lot to say so he could not possibly keep the mages standing throughout.


    When these mages left Metatrin City, they had been receiving guidance from Daniel for a short while and were already full of respect for him. This exined why they immediately treated Saleen as their leader.


    Not only was Saleen a King, he was also a grade-6 grand mage.


    Saleen patiently asked for the names of these one-hundred and eighty-eight death mages and used spells to memorize them. Next, Saleen asked them about their equipment and their needs. The mages were very open about it. When they fled from the Tanggsi Empire, they were forced to abandon many of their items. The highest level amongst them was only grade-5, which meant that none of them were able to use spatial equipment yet.


    If not for the fact that each mage was able to summon skeletal warhorses to aid them in their escape, they would have arrived at Metatrin Citypletely empty-handed.


    Although death mages were generally powerful, their opponent was also an important consideration. When the Holy See hunted for them, any lone death mage would not have the courage to put up a resistance.


    There were too many mages to integrate them into the armies quickly. Saleen and Lex talked briefly and decided that they would form a regiment of death mages to be involved in any battles at the south gate.


    After that, Saleen distributed the death magic staffs that he and Lex had refined. Each death magic staff could only store one death spell and it was most useful for stabilizing mental strength and increasing affinity with souls. To the death mages, the magic staffs that Saleen and Lex had created could definitely be considered high-level equipment.


    ording to the benchmark, an equipment was considered high-level if it could fulfil more than ny percent of a mage¡¯s needs. If some parts of it achieved perfection, then the equipment was categorized as a zun holy equipment, or moremonly known as a prop.


    If every single aspect achieved perfection, then it was considered a holy equipment.


    The equipment that Saleen had refined for Eleanor and Sika was beyond perfection. The resources used were rare and his bond with the two of them was so incredible that the equipment could be considered as semi-Godly items.


    The death magic staffs were made of poorer resources so they could only be categorized as props.


    The generosity of Saleen and Lex left the mages feeling contented. They would be staying in the pce for the time-being and were not allowed to wander around, lest their spirits of the dead scare the family members of the soldiers. Most of the people here were not from Qin so their immunity against spirits of the dead was not as strong.


    After settling down the mages, Saleen returned to his room and took out Sika¡¯s letter from his devil¡¯s ring. With the letter in his hand, he almost could not bear to open it.

 Chapter 758: A Letter from Sika (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 758: A Letter from Sika (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika¡¯s letter was wrapped in the skin of a magic beast and tied up with a rope. Usually when Saleenmunicated with Sika, they used the teleportation portal to send letters written on magic papers which could record some simple pictures and sounds. The conventional type of letter he was holding now carried limited information, but this was also why it was more precious to Saleen.


    They used the military teleportation portals most of the time, so both of them rarely talked much. Most of what they talked about revolved around Metatrin City and Daliang City. As for conventional letters like this, they contained the feelings Sika had for Saleen instead.


    After untying the rope, Saleen opened up the beast skin on the table. The skin was thin after it had been refined and was almost two yards long when it was fully opened up. Saleen finally smiled.


    This was Sika¡¯s style. Letters written by others would often try to fit into certain lengths, but Sika only cared about putting her true feelings into words.


    ¡°Saleen, I miss you so much.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Sika, I miss you too.¡±


    ¡°It has been half a year since you left. Only after bing the Regent did I realize that this is not an easy job. They woulde to me whenever any decisions needed to be made. If I did not give my word, more than half of the important issues would never be able to proceed. Right now, all the finances of Metatrin City are under my care. When I see the number of gold coins increasing every day, I feel happy. Nailisi is still quite obedient. She is still unable to defeat me, so don¡¯t worry. Aini¡¯s city has been built and he has continued to stay there. The remaining three Duchesses are all clever, but I can¡¯t be bothered with them. Nailisi is around so they won¡¯t be able toe up with anything.¡±


    Saleenughed. Something like that could only be said in a private letter. Official documents would have to be duplicated.


    ¡°It is impressive being a Regent. Every time I walk on the streets, close to one-thousand people follow me. I can¡¯t help it. Half of them are from the temple corp and the other half are my own Caucasus people. J has been really helpful. Ever since I became pregnant, he no longer wanders around. He is always around to protect me.¡±


    Saleen was a little distracted at that point. He imagined Sika walking around in the city with arge group of warriors following closely behind. The Caucasus people were obliged to protect their Priestess and no mistakes would be tolerated. On the other hand, the temple corp also carried a heavy responsibility. As the most elite troop, it would be embarrassing if they failed to take good care of the Regent.


    Sika was really amazing. Even when Saleen moved around the city, only less than one-hundred people would follow him.


    ¡°Saleen, I really feel like crying! It is really hard for me to stay in such a big house without you in the temple. Eleanor is not around and only Nailisi is left to apany me.¡±


    When Saleen read this, his heart broke a little.


    ¡°I still remember what you said to me in the beginning. ¡®Sika, don¡¯t do so much for me in the future. I am not your Priest.¡¯ Even though I¡¯m a Priestess now, my feelings for you are still the same. Saleen, you are like my Priest, my pir of support. Why did I let you marry Lex?¡±


    Saleen felt some regret that he could not marry Sika.


    ¡°Saleen, I have sent over close to two-hundred death mages. Daliang City will be fine. This child of mine will be born in fourteen months¡¯ time. You muste back to see me before that happens.¡±


    At this point, Saleen could no longer control himself. His tears flowed freely onto the beast skin.


    ¡°Saleen, I am now the Regent and I finally understand a little of a King¡¯s way of thinking. Lex will not be upset with you foring back.¡±


    ¡°Sika, I will definitelye back to you.¡± Saleen counted in his heart. Sika¡¯s child would be born two monthster than an ordinary human. Humans on the Myers Maind typically gave birth after twelve months, which was two months longer than people of the subcontinental ne. In ancient times, humans were usually pregnant for more than two years.


    In that case, he must return to Metatrin City before the eleventh month.


    Cloudflow would definitely attack during their wedding day. Once they attacked, both sides would either remain at stalemate or Daliang City would retaliate. There was no way the city would be taken down.


    He would still be able to rush back if he did not waste any more time.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m guessing you must want to cry at this moment. You are now a King and a Grand Mage, so don¡¯t do that. I miss you. If youe back for awhile, it will fill me with joy for an entire year. Let me share with you something interesting. There are two grade-9 sorcerers in western town who have heard of my pregnancy. They sent over a magic cradle as a gift. The two of them started out poor or they probably wouldn¡¯t have chosen to follow you. This gift of theirs must have left thempletely broke. The magic cradle was the best piece of equipment I have ever seen. Oh Saleen, Narnia has put me through a magic test. There are two children in my stomach. The cradle is made for a pair. I made a decision on my own by giving those two fellows some materials to make up for their loss. After that, the noble families sent over so many gifts that they practically filled up the entire temple.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°These two sorcerers have done well. If everyone discovered that there were two babies only after they were born, they would have to send over another round of gifts. Haha, this is interesting.¡±


    It was not surprising for the noble families to send gifts for his child in order to please Saleen. These two sorcerers had sent over their gift in advance and the other noble families had followed suit, not knowing that Sika would be giving birth to two babies. When they were finally born, the noble families would have to spend a fortune sending another round of gifts.


    ¡°Saleen, since I will be having two children, one of them should be a Priestess while the other bes a mage. As for the position of the King, unless I can give birth to another one you and Lex will have to think of a solution. I won¡¯t wish for my child to be King.¡±


    Saleen knew that Sika was not trying to console him. He did not wish to be King in the first ce either. If not for the bond between the Goddess and him that required him to spread her faith and conquer morends, Saleen would never have wanted to expand his territories. Metatrin City was more than enough for him.


    The letter was long. As Saleen read the letter row by row, he was eitherughing or crying. At the end, Saleen stood up and unleashed water me to refine the letter into an equipment, which turned out to be a white mage robe.


    The inside of this robe was filled with the characters of Sika¡¯s letter. Saleen wanted to keep this letter forever so that he could give it to his children in the future.


    After reading what Sika said, Saleen was no longer sad. Both Sika and he would lead very long lives. This period of time apart from each other would just be an instant in the grand scheme of things. If he could achieve a breakthrough and reach grade-9, they would have a long road ahead of them. This was all just the beginning.


    Saleen caressed the white magic robe refined from the high-level magic beast skin and kept it in his devil¡¯s ring. He did not look for Lex immediately. Instead, he wrote a long letter and sent it back to Metatrin City through the teleportation portal.


    In the blink of an eye, April was almost around the corner. Lex was feeling rxed. Many officers and managers had been sent over from Bitter Water Prefecture to support Daliang City for the time-being. There were fewerplicated matters to deal with now. Envoys from most countries had already arrived and were only waiting for their wedding ceremony.


    Over at the bone castle, more and more skeletons were wandering on the top of the city wall. Those that were of higher levels would station themselves permanently at their designated spot. In the huge magic tower, the winged skeleton and Su were discussing whether they could possibly attack Cloudflow¡¯s fleets.


    Cloudflow hadmenced a raid on the Separation Sea. Three skeletal warships had been sunk by Cloudflow during such a raid. Without any jade skeletons on board to givemands, the spirits of the dead had no chance of escaping.


    The winged skeleton was very upset, but there was nothing he could do. The only thing he could count on now was the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The alchemy ship could attack twenty-four targets in one go and its attacking range was more than five-thousand miles.


    Su waspletely against the winged skeleton¡¯s idea. He felt that if the winged skeleton sprung a surprise attack on the Cloudflow fleets and encountered grade-9 sorcerers, they were as good as dead.


    Even if he joined in the attack with the winged skeleton, they would not be a grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s match. Unless Saleen¡¯s badge haspletely recovered, or all the powerful people of Daliang City could be gathered, then they would stand a chance of killing a grade-9 sorcerer. This was provided the sorcerer did not try to escape.


    If a grade-9 sorcerer wished to escape, there was no one on Saleen¡¯s side that would be able to catch up.


    The winged skeleton was also aware of the problem. Even if dragon skeletonbat vessels were there, they would be surrounded and attacked by Cloudflow¡¯s fleets. Nevertheless, the winged skeleton felt that if the enemy was able to clear up the Separation Seapletely so that only Cloudflow fleets were left, it would be a huge boost to the enemy¡¯s morale. They must try to do something about it.


    Su felt helpless too. Before he left, Saleen had given the winged skeleton the power tomand attacks. Su would only assist the winged skeleton. He would takemand of the armies of the bone castle only if the winged skeleton died.


    The winged skeleton came to the Separation Sea alone and jumped into the water without bringing anyone along. The water temperature was still far from freezing. The winged skeleton was not afraid of the cold anyway. He swam deeper into the Separation Sea at full speed. When he was two-hundred miles away from the shore, he finally took out the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and dove in.


    The equipment of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had beenpletely changed into those that were only suitable for spirits of the dead to operate. The magic array at the front had been changed into spirit gaze. Although it could only look in one direction, this was the most important thing to abat vessel.


    The winged skeleton was unfamiliar with the underwater terrains around the dock, so he did not dare to use the magicpass. Instead, he had to depend on death spells that would not attract the enemy¡¯s attention.


    Eye of the dead was only able to detect a distance of more than ten miles underwater, which was much poorer than the magicpass. It was only able to show three-dimensional magic images.


    Although the magicpass could not be used, it was still able to provide basic directions. The winged skeleton drove the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat towards the harbor on his own.


    He was extremely cautious when he circled to the rear of the harbor from the south side. There were quite a number ofbat vessels that were on patrol. Cloudflow was aware that Daliang City possessed divingbat vessels, but as they had yet to capture one, they did not have the knowledge of the nature of suchbat vessels. As a result, they were willing to leave their magicpasses turned on at all times as they formed a huge circle of defense to protect the harbor.


    A typical magicpass would be able to detect a depth of up to one-hundred yards. The winged skeleton did not dare to take any risks, so he dove under two-hundred yards and slowly made his way to the middle of the circle of defense. He then turned on the spirit gaze to observe thebat vessels within the harbor.

 Chapter 759: The Sigh of the Earth (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 759: The Sigh of the Earth (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The target that the winged skeleton was searching for was the enemy¡¯s new troop carriers. Other than transporting troops, the main purpose of these carriers was to transportrge equipment as well. Combat vessels could be used to transport troops, but notrge equipment as most of them could not be dismantled into smallerponents, hence they could only be transported withrge troop carriers.


    Constructing such troop carriers was as difficult as constructingbat vessels. Besides, Cloudflow only had one shipyard on the Separation Sea. Even if they worked as quickly as they could, building one troop carrier would still take a month¡¯s time.


    In actual fact, thest time the winged skeleton sprung a surprise attack on Cloudflow it had caused the enemy to suffer heavy losses. If it was on the open sea, Cloudflow would have been able to replenish their supply of troop carriers so quickly that even eight-hundred would not have been a problem. All their noble families along the sea each possessed shipyards that were far bigger than the one on the Separation Sea.


    If the winged skeleton was able to seed in sinking twenty troop carriers at one go, it would be a serious blow to Cloudflow¡¯s logistics.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat dove down and stuck closely to the bottom of theke. The pier was nine miles away. The winged skeleton activated spirit gaze and slowly observed thebat vessels in the harbor.


    This harbor had already been expanded to a point where it could contain more than forty huge ships and just as the winged skeleton thought, those troop carriers were being filled up with resources while smallbat vessels were patrolling around the harbor.


    You¡¯re reading on B o x n o v e l  Thanks!


    This harbor was not as well-built as Metatrin City, but its security was equally tight. There wererge catapults, stone artilleries, and tens of arrow towers on the shore. The winged skeleton could not see the surface clearly, but more or less could guess that those arrow towers must be filled withrge alchemy crossbows.


    The arrows ofrge alchemy crossbows all possessed magic attacks and could even be filled with magic powder so that there would be an explosion once the arrow hit its target. It was the same rationale as the winged skeleton¡¯s bloodstone.


    Explosive magic powder was harder to stabilize than bloodstone so there were very few of them.


    The winged skeleton was only able to see the outline of the target as he did not dare to use death magic to observe it in depth. Fortunately, his target was simple. His n was to unleash bone spirits to destroy more than twenty troop carriers.


    Twenty-four bone spirits swam out from the spirit pool. Their lifespan was shorter than a month and that was after the winged skeleton had obtained Three Kings¡¯ spirit pool. Ordinary bone spirits would not live past a week, or they would be equivalent to a one-thousand year-old freak in the human world.


    The lives of these twenty-four bone spirits wereing to an end. They would not be able to evolve even if they were kept longer. The winged skeleton gave the bone spirits beginner-level intelligence first before giving them orders and forcefully sealing the images of the twenty-four targets into their souls.


    The winged skeleton was alone on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, so it seemed very empty. He used aplicated spirit mantra on the twenty-four bone spirits and opened up the teleportation portal at the front of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    The twenty-four bone spirits were sent out altogether at the same time with huge bloodstones. They swam towards the harbor.


    The bone spirits would take about five minutes to cover a distance of close to ten miles. This speed was faster than mostbat vessels, except a dragon skeleton vessel at full speed or thebat vessel from Alchemy City that could fly.


    After the bone spirits had been unleashed, the winged skeleton turned back. Now that the bone spirits had locked onto their targets, any grade-8 mage at the harbor would be able to discover them within three minutes. If the mage was able to react quickly enough, the bone spirits might be intercepted even before they could reach their targets.


    Intercepting the bone spirits would not require any powerful spells. The bloodstones themselves were not stable, a low-level spell was all it would need to explode.


    The winged skeleton was taking a gamble. He was betting that the enemy would not detect something as weak as bone spirits within three minutes. Bone spirits were creatures below grade-3. Magic beasts of this grade in the Separation Sea posed no threat tobat vessels. This was not the open ocean so the magic beasts were generally milder.


    The speed at which the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was traveling underwater was much slower than the bone spirits. The winged skeleton could not turn on the magic engine yet for fear of attracting the enemy¡¯s attention. He could only use magic arrays to shoot out water currents to propel the alchemy ship forward.


    The alchemy ship turned back and traveled towards the depth of the Separation Sea at a speed of forty miles an hour.


    Cloudflow¡¯s mainbat vessels could travel at a speed of more than seventy miles. At the speed that the winged skeleton was traveling in, would have to risk operating the alchemical boat at full speed in order to escape if he was detected by the enemy. By doing so, even grand mages would be able to hear the noise generated.


    As time passed, the magical hourss on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat counted off the passing of every second.


    Four minutes! The winged skeleton suddenly sensed danger. This ability was given to him by Saleen. The benefit of the soul bond was on full disy there. Without any form of training, the winged skeleton could still obtain abilities aside from his original skillset.


    At that point, he did not dare to turn back. The enemy had discovered the bone spirits. They would be able to reach their targets in less than a minute. The enemy would have to decide between chasing him or intercepting the bone spirits.


    With less than a minute left, the enemy might have yet to discover the danger posed by the bone spirits. They must have detected the weak magic waves that were produced when he unleashed the bone spirits.


    A white magic light shot into the sky from the Cloudflow camp behind the harbor. A ck figure flew into the sky from the camp and his ck magic robe ruffled in the air like a giant g.


    There were three conspicuous magic symbols on the ck magic robe. The grade-9 sorcerer was on the move and was heading straight towards the harbor.


    A grade-8 sorcerer followed closely behind the grade-9 sorcerer, but could never match thetter¡¯s speed.


    Cloudflow was growing impatient while waiting for the winged skeleton¡¯s attack. In order to bait the divingbat vessels of Daliang City, Cloudflow did not even set up any spells at the bottom of theke. They only set up some security around three miles away from the harbor. Although thebat vessels on the surface of theke were not there just for show, they did not receive any special instructions to watch out for any underwater activities.


    In an instant, the winged skeleton pushed the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat to its highest speed. Ayer of magic bubble appeared on the outside of the alchemy ship as the ship sped towards the south at a speed of one-hundred miles an hour.


    If a grade-8 spirit of the dead had arge group of death troops behind him, he might have a chance of escaping a grade-9 mage¡¯s pursuit. Now, the winged skeleton was on his own and in the enemy¡¯s territory.


    One-hundred miles an hour was a speed that not evenbat vessels on the surface could catch up to. The problem was that the enemy must have activated their sorcerers. The winged skeleton did not turn back. He only focused on getting to the south, where theke was as deep as a thousand yards and the sorcerer would never be able to find him.


    The winged skeleton clearly underestimated the grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s speed. He had barely reached thebat vessel that was furthest from the harbor when he felt a powerful mental strength sweeping downwards from the surface of theke.


    The winged skeleton had never faced someone so powerful. Even the Three Kings never possessed soul strength that could produce such violent waves. The grade-9 sorcerer was able to amplify his senses over the two-hundred yards of water depth and quickly locked onto the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    At the harbor, there was a huge explosion. From above theke, the grade-8 sorcerer unleashed an elemental attack that was more than eighty yards wide!


    The powerful light elements formed a curtain wall that stopped more than ten bone spirits. These spirits that were carrying bloodstones were shaken by the grade-8 spell and immediately exploded, producing water columns that were more than ten yards in height.


    The grade-8 mage was not without his limitations. By the time he caught up, the bone spirits had already reached the harbor and had already split up in search of their targets. Fourteen bone spirits carrying bloodstones had already crashed into the troop carriers, creating an opening that was two yards wide with their explosions.


    There was no way to salvage such damages. The entire stern had been blown open, the armor was peeling off and the gigantic troop carrier was sinking very quickly. There was rage in the grade-8 sorcerer¡¯s eyes. He knew there was no way he could save thebat vessel. After taking one more nce of what they had just lost, the grade-8 sorcerer immediately chased towards the south.


    ¡°I was onlyte by half a minute. We have really underestimated the divingbat vessels of Daliang City! With Grand Master Jill giving chase, that divingbat vessel will not stand a chance of escaping!¡±


    At this point, hundreds of possible strategies crossed the winged skeleton¡¯s mind, but none were good enough. He did not expect the mental strength of a grade-9 sorcerer to be so terrifying. This enemy must have utilized the rare magic amplifier.


    This object was rarer than a Godly item. The Myers Maind used to be filled with powerful people. asionally, some mages or grand swordmasters would be lucky enough to find Godly items or pseudo Godly items. On the other hand, there were only two magic amplifiers on the entire Maind.


    One was in Holy Rock City, which was the magic clock. The other was in Alchemy City. No one knew what exactly it was.


    A magic amplifier that could be used by an individual was only heard of in myths. Now that the winged skeleton had encountered it, one could only say that his luck was just terrible.


    ¡°Thinking of escaping?¡± The grade-9 sorcerer swooped down from the sky. In an instant, he was standing on the surface of theke. The water currents of the Separation Sea formed ripples under the sorcerer¡¯s shoes. Instead of wetting his shoes, they seemed to be separated by an elemental shield.


    A ck magic scroll opened in the grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s hands. The winged skeleton only felt the bottom of theke shake, then the surrounding water currents suddenly stopped moving. The magic bubble that surrounded the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was equivalent to a grade-4 spell, but it burst in an instant. Countless rocks shot out from the bottom of theke and covered the alchemy ship instantly.


    The sigh of the Earth!


    Grade-9 area of effect spells could never be cast in an instant without the help of a scroll.


    This grade-9 sorcerer was terrifying. In the blink of an eye, the scroll managed to hit the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat that was moving at high speed at two-hundred yards underwater.


    The real attack that had been shot out from the bottom of theke was the countless ground elements instead of the rocks. The ground elements were shot upwards and everything they came into contact with, including theke, became petrified.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had been sealed within a gigantic rock with nowhere to escape.


    This was the true power of a grade-9 sorcerer. The winged skeleton did not expect such a huge difference between their powers. The difference was so big that he could not even retaliate.


    The enemy possessed a magic amplifier which made his mental strength incredibly powerful. Even the mental attacks of death magic were useless inparison. The winged skeleton felt a tinge of regret. If only he had listened to Su!


    There was no time for regrets in that moment. The winged skeleton changed into his armor and brought out his giant axe, ready to fight for his life.

 Chapter 760: The Sigh of the Earth (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 760: The Sigh of the Earth (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This grade-9 spell persisted. With the magic amplifier, the power of the ground-element spell multiplied. The petrification of theke was in the upward direction instead of all directions. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was pushed upwards for tens of yards before finallying to a stop.


    If a grade-9 sorcerer cast such an area of effect spell on his own, he would use up all his magic chords in an instant. As such, the importance of scrolls could not be more obvious. A grade-9 scroll like this was the most powerful trump card that a sorcerer could possess.


    The winged skeleton changed into his armor then opened up his spirit space to put away the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat slowly. The alchemy ship had been refined by the winged skeleton for more than a year and had already be part of his special equipment, which exined why it could be put in his spirit space.


    If not, theke would be petrified along with the outer cover of the alchemy ship and the winged skeleton would have no way of adjusting it anymore.


    The shape of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was not built for high-speed movement. If not for the giant magic bubbles, the highest speed limit for the ship was probably sixty miles an hour. Now that it had been stored in the spirit space, there was now an empty space of thirty yards tall and twenty yards wide within the petrified region of one-hundred and fifty yards in diameter.


    There was no light nor air in the empty space. If not for the fact that the winged skeleton was a spirit of the dead, he would already have been suffocated.


    On the surface of theke where the grade-9 sorcerer stood, the surroundings were calm even as the waves were roaring just one-hundred yards away. After the grade-8 sorcerer caught up, hended carefully beside the grade-9 sorcerer and said, ¡°Master, is the target dead?¡±


    ¡°No. If he is a death mage, he will be able survive for at least half a day.¡±


    ¡°Let me deploy thebat vessels here and surround this area.¡±


    ¡°No need. I will go down and kill them all.¡± The grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s tone was calm. Theke beneath his feet split open as the solidified wind elements on the surface of theke opened up a passageway for the sorcerer to step in.


    The sorcerer was full of hatred for the enemy that destroyed so many of Cloudflow¡¯s troop carriers. If not for this divingbat vessel, Cloudflow would already haveunched their attack.


    No doubt, the impact would be greater if they attacked on Lex¡¯s wedding day. If they attacked earlier, the enemy might be caught by surprise though.


    Within the rock cave, the winged skeleton carefully took out a box made of jade. This box was filled withyers uponyers of spirit words. The winged skeleton unleashed a death soul me from his fingertips and smoothed over these spirit words. He then opened up the jade box and released the object that had been locked inside.


    This was a square piece of metal that looked like a material that mages used for refining. This piece of metal fell onto the ground and split open to release mechanical limbs. They disintegrated quickly beforebining again to form a strange object that was more than a yard tall.


    After this piece of metalpleted its transformation, a ball of faint golden me was burning at the top and was gradually seeping into the mechanical body. When this golden me finally vanished, the winged skeleton spoke, ¡°I have given you freedom so you shall obey my orders in return. After one-hundred years, I will send you back to the death dimension.¡±


    The mechanical body suddenly released a thick death aura and shot out gray fumes that filled up the entire cave in an instant.


    Its voice was filled with echoes of metal as it spoke, ¡°Why should I obey your orders?¡±


    ¡°Sign the hundred-year bond or I will kill you immediately!¡± the winged skeleton replied coldly.


    ¡°Kill me?¡± The machine¡¯sughter was awful. ¡°If you have the ability to kill me, then why have you locked me up all these years and not negotiated with me?¡±


    ¡°Because I am about to die. If you refuse to help me, I might as well destroy you before I die. Look, do you know what this is?¡± the winged skeleton took out a piece of divine crystal. This divine crystal was cut out from the statue of the Goddess of Myers. Saleen kept a portion for himself and gave the winged skeleton another. The remaining divine crystals, including the statue, had been used up by Nailisi for her twelve Notes of the Purgatory.


    A red-colored beam shone from the machine. When it saw the divine crystal, it let out a shout of surprise before quietening down.


    ¡°It is true that mechanical souls are hard to kill. If I unleash the power of soul mes and burn the divine crystal along with it, you will die as well. I only have time amounting to one-hundred units of grain, I will do what I have to do if you are not agreeable.¡±


    The winged skeleton could sense the powerful presence of the grade-9 sorcerer approaching. Although there were still rocks that were tens of yards thick on the outside, the winged skeleton had no doubt that the grade-9 sorcerer would be able to get through the rocks to attack the winged skeleton.


    ¡°I will not agree to it. Do you think I will be killed by that? It is just another amusing myth of spirits of the dead,¡± the mechanical soul replied mysteriously.


    ¡°There is a powerful human outside. With the divine crystal burning and enveloping you within, do you think you have any chance of survival if he discovers you?¡± the winged skeleton added even more coldly. There was a handful of magic sand grain in his palm and it dropped one by one through the gaps between his fingers.


    ¡°Humans, damn the humans!¡± The mechanical soul cursed. He turned his body aggressively and spit out a piece of metal that was thinner than the wings of a dragonfly. This piece of metal was almost transparent, but it was actually a soul bond.


    ¡°I¡¯m d you are aware of the situation!¡± the winged skeleton put away the divine crystal and slid across the bond with the death soul me on his fingertips. The bond broke into countless pieces, which were then swallowed up by the mechanical soul.


    Only spirits could settle something like a bond in such a decisive and efficient manner. After the mechanical soul signed the bond, he felt that something was wrong. He could sense that the person whom he had signed the bond with was not an ordinary spirit of the dead. There was an even more powerful force that was controlling his soul.


    ¡°You are someone else¡¯s ve!¡± the mechanical soul roared. This was bad news because the winged skeleton¡¯s master could deal with him in any way he wished.


    ¡°Don¡¯t put it that way. He is just my Master,¡± the winged skeleton said and began to summon spirits of the dead from within the cave. At the same time, he also released all the spirits of the dead that he had been keeping within his green spirit.


    When the mechanical soul saw them, he had to put aside the issue of the bond and pounced onto them.


    As the mechanical soul absorbed the soul mes and devoured the bodies of the spirits, he grewrger andrger until he was even bigger than the winged skeleton. The mechanical soul has now transformed into a humanoid shape of metallic color. The only difference was that he resembled a giant scorpion as he had six legs.


    This was a mechanical soul made from theponents of mechanical souls that Saleen had obtained previously. Ever since the winged skeleton hadpleted putting it together, he did not dare to let it devour spirits so he only kept the mechanical soul locked up in the box. If this fellow returned to the death dimension, there would be chaos. At least ten Kings would probably have to sacrifice their lives in order to kill him.


    Besides, the mechanical soul gained his power from devouring other spirits. If he devoured enough spirits, he would transform into a creature bigger than a mountain and leave behind a trail of destruction wherever he went. He would copse only when his soul me could no longer cope with his power.


    At the end of the day, the death dimension was still home to the winged skeleton and so he would never want to see his home being destroyed.


    Right then, the winged skeleton could not afford to care too much. If he died, who else would help his Master? The one-hundred year bond was a trap in itself as the winged skeleton estimated that Saleen would be able to destroy this thing in less than a hundred years.


    Humans were much more powerful than spirits of the dead.


    The mechanical soul grew bigger and bigger until he was almost eight yards tall. the winged skeleton leapt onto the mechanical soul¡¯s back and patted it. A small slit opened and the winged skeleton crept into it.


    The winged skeleton was gambling with his life on mechanical soul¡¯s inability to be killed. If the grade-9 sorcerer managed to kill mechanical soul, then the winged skeleton would have no regrets.


    The grade-9 sorcerer came to the bottom of theke. There was a gigantic rock underneath him that was one-hundred and fifty yards in diameter and was extremely smooth. The water of theke was still unable to get close to the sorcerer. He casually pointed his finger and a sphere made of water elements appeared and smashed against the rock. Then, the sphere ttened out and smashed at the rock to create a circr ne that was more than three yards in diameter.


    After that, the sorcerer released a puppet that was more than a yard tall and began to create a magic array on the ne. He had no intentions of fighting the enemy within the rock. He had ways to attack even with the rock between them.


    The magic array was close topletion. The grade-9 sorcerer tossed out six high-level magic nuclei and mounted them urately onto the grooves of the magic array. He could sense that the person trapped within the rock was still alive. At the very least, the spirit of the dead trapped by the death sorcerer was still very active and showed no signs of wilting.


    Using six high-level magic nuclei to kill a death sorcerer was definitely worth it!


    When the six magic nuclei were in position, the sorcerer finally took his position in the center of the magic array. The ring on his finger unleashed powerful ripples of energy. This magic amplifier would allow him to take on more than three grade-9 sorcerers in one go. As long as his enemy was not in a magic tower, any Professional below grade-9 could not match him.


    The magic array began to spin after being triggered. Within the rock that was dozens of yards thick, the mechanical soul was using a drill that has grown out from his chest to drill at the rock. This drill was a few yards long and covered in spirit patterns that released gray aura. The rock that was formed by the sigh of the earth began to soften under the effect of this powerful dposing gas, so that his drill could pierce through easily.


    Just as the mechanical soul was engrossed in his work and was also imagining how it would be when he returned to death dimension without any restrictions and constraints after one-hundred years. He forgot that these one-hundred years would be full of hard work and service to the winged skeleton. At that point, a twenty-four sided ck bodybined together from the darkness. This ck twenty-four sided object was purely an element of darkness.


    An eye suddenly opened behind the mechanical soul¡¯s head and looked at the crystallization of dark elements. He did not expect this crystallization to shrink aggressively and transform its element very suddenly into a ball of pure and white light.


    ¡°Ah!¡± the mechanical soul quickly shut his eye as the surface of his body began to burn very quickly. The ball of light expanded rapidly and filled up the entire cave.


    Light explosion of darkness!


    A singr restorative spell of grade-9 could only be cast by a mage that was familiar with both light and dark elements. It possessed the four characteristics of disintegration, dposition, cleansing, and burning. This spell was not meant to deal with spirits of the dead specifically, but when such a powerful spell was initiated in such a small space, even the mechanical soul had no way to escape.

 Chapter 761: A Skeleton’s Loyalty (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 761: A Skeleton¡¯s Loyalty (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This grade-9 sorcerer of Cloudflow was stronger than expected. A grade-9 singr attackbined with a restorative spell could probably deal the mostplicated damage among spells below grade-9. Light explosion of darkness was especially lethal towards death mages.


    Most sorcerers were able to interchange between elements even if they did not possess simr skill sets to Saleen. To be able to change dark elements into light elements required incredible skill, powerful mental strength, and an impressive control of elements.


    Death mages were very sensitive towards elements, even without magic chords. Dark elements, in particr, were what death creatures were most fond of. When the dark elements congregated together, they had already developed an affinity of elements with the death creatures. This was also why the subsequent light explosion was especially deadly.


    It was like a piece of metal that had hardened after being put through a very low temperature, it would explode from within if it was suddenly exposed to a very high temperature.


    The areas of the mechanical soul¡¯s body that had been hit by the light explosion of darkness were all falling to pieces. A thickness of at least an inch of metal and bones were rotten and the mechanical soul screamed in pain. He was cursing at the winged skeleton while shouting, ¡°Damned human! Even so, now they have already...¡±


    Suddenly, there was a sound made by elements in the cave. Two crystallizations of dark elements formed and copsed from within.


    ¡°Soldier! Give me more spirits!¡± the mechanical soul changed his tone immediately. The human was attacking non-stop. There was a limit to his immortality. If light explosion of darkness persisted, he would be killed sooner orter. Without the ability to resist, the human would be able to seal him up and torture him or turn him into some sort of equipment.


    The winged skeleton hid himself within the mechanical soul¡¯s body. The first wave of light explosion of darkness did not hit him but as a grade-8 spirit of the dead, he could sense the power of the attack. At that point in time, he would agree to any of the mechanical soul¡¯s requests. It was not possible to summon spirits then, so he could only feed the mechanical soul with those that he had carried along with him.


    It was a painful decision to make as the spirits that he had brought along with him were quite powerful. Fortunately, all the spirits that possessed intelligence were at bone castle. If he was forced to feed the mechanical soul with those spirits, the winged skeleton would vomit blood even if he was just a pile of bones.


    The four dark elements werepletely congregated together and they copsed from within. The third wave of attack had begun. There was nowhere for mechanical soul to escape to in the space. Defense spells were not his strength as he usually did not have to care too much about normal attacks. Light explosion of darkness had dposed away the ancient metal mechanic parts on his body, leaving holes everywhere.


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    While hiding in the mechanical soul¡¯s body, the winged skeleton kept trying to use death spells to fill up the holes while feeding the mechanical soul with his spirits at the same time.


    The mechanical soul was repairing himself and trying to open up a hole in the rocks to escape simultaneously. Now, he was afraid even without the winged skeleton threatening him. The human¡¯s attacks would only grow stronger each time.


    As a creature with intelligence, the mechanical soul was aware of the things that were fearful about humans and that was the desire for knowledge. If he was caught, the human sorcerer would definitely dismantle him into the most basic elemental unit due to the desire for knowledge. Not even his soul would be left alone.


    Thousands of soul mes had been devoured by the golden mes of the mechanical soul along with the blood and flesh of the spirits of the dead. If not for the consecutive waves of light explosion of darkness, the mechanical soul could already have turned into a massive creature of at least twenty yards in height and one-hundred yards in width.


    Pain!


    The mechanical soul no longer had the strength to scold the winged skeleton. The dark elements silently shrunk, then expanded, then transformed into light elements. Even his golden-colored soul me felt pain.


    The mechanical soul never knew pain since he was born, but at that moment, he was in so much pain that he wanted to roll on the ground. His six mechanical legs sunk deeply into the rock. The metal drill was still desperately trying to open up a hole. The only problem was that he was having to use up too much energy for it. Ever since the light explosion appeared, at least half of the drill had been dposed.


    ¡°Soldier, you must kill that fellow and turn him into a spirit of the dead for me to consume!¡± Another ten gigantic drills appeared out of mechanical soul¡¯s chest and drilled at the stone wall. The spirit strength that the winged skeleton had given him was being used up rapidly.


    ¡°Shut up!¡± the winged skeleton raged. If he was able to kill the grade-9 mage, he would never have to unleash the mechanical soul in the first ce. Once this thing grew, it would be difficult to control. If he was unable to restrict the mechanical soul himself, not even the tens of thousands of people in the bone castle would be able to do it.


    The mechanical soul pushed its six legs deep into the ground as half of his head was already in the midst of the rock. Even so, the posterior half of his brain was still dposed by the light explosion. Sixteen crystallizations of dark elements shrunk and expanded and released the power of light elements simultaneously. Half of the mechanical soul had already vanished as a result.


    The winged skeleton quickly unleashed a giant metal shield. By human definitions, this metal shield could not be defined as a weapon. After being thrown out, it stood erect on the ground and was more than a yard in thickness and more than five yards tall. This was a metal steel rock that he had been studying. After turning it into a shield, he had wanted to use it to summon a grade-8 spirit of the dead as a form of weaponry.


    Now, the fifth wave of light explosion of darkness immediately turned this shield into dust.


    Outside of the rock that was dozens of yards thick, the control that the grade-9 sorcerer reigned over his powers remained the same. Almost all the attacks were aimed at the mechanical soul and only a few missed. As a result, the attacks expanded the space in the rock cave by more than two times.


    As the winged skeleton was throwing the shield, his left hand was hit by the light explosion and it disappeared just like that. His bones were harder than ordinary grade-9 spirits of the dead and should be difficult to destroy. Being able to amplify the magnitude of the attacks by five times had allowed the grade-9 spell to nullify the difference in grades.


    Thirty-two crystallizations of dark elements appeared in the cave and began to copse inwards.


    The winged skeleton screamed and took out the precious soul me that he had obtained from Judikaka¡¯s brain. He swallowed it without hesitation. The spirit king¡¯s soul me went straight to his brain, enveloping the winged skeleton¡¯s silver soul me and was about to devour it.


    Thirty-two light explosions of darkness urred at the same time. The mechanical soul was also screaming as he shrunk the golden soul me into a small dot. Spirit runes that were more than a yard long appeared on the outside and were spinning violently.


    Although it was a bit rushed, the final wave of light explosion of darkness still turned everything in the space into dust. Only two things remained; the mechanical soul¡¯s head and a cluster of soul me that was silvery red in color.


    The winged skeleton could feel the light elements infiltrating his soul me. Judikaka¡¯s soul me was being cleansed by a powerful force before integrating with the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me. In that instant, countless memories were taken away and erased by the light explosion of darkness. A square-shaped symbol flew up from within Judikaka¡¯s soul me and shone in the air.


    This symbol let out a low sigh, as if it had just realized that Judikaka had beenpletely destroyed.


    Outside of the rock, the six grade-9 magic nuclei broke into pieces in the magic array underneath the grade-9 sorcerer. They were then carried away by the water current before turning into dust.


    The sorcerer was stunned for a moment, but regained hisposure quickly. The final wave of attack consisted of sixty-four crystallizations of light explosion of dark elements. The benefit of the final attack was not meant to be high. It would be difficult toplete by using only six grade-9 magic nuclei.


    Even so, the grade-9 sorcerer did not think that the death mage trapped in the rock would be able to survive.


    The attack was like a perfect magic experiment. Hopefully, Agares wouldpensate him the six grade-9 magic nuclei that he has used up. At that thought, the sorcerer moved his fingers up and brought down hundreds of streams of water. They cut off everything in the magic array and instantly destroyed the grade-9 magic array.


    This was a skill unique only to him and he intended to keep it that way.


    After that, the sorcerer split open theke and flew straight up to the surface. Water pressure of a depth of close to two-hundred yards was nothing to him.


    The grade-8 sorcerer was waiting on the surface. When he saw the sorcerer appear, he asked, ¡°Grand Master, how is it?¡±


    ¡°They should be dead. Bring people down and open up the rock to see what is left. Bring back anything that has yet to be destroyed.¡± With that, the grade-9 sorcerer flew back to the harbor.


    He did not believe that anything would be able to survive his attack in such a small space. Leaving behind the grade-8 sorcerer should be more than enough.


    Inside the rock cave, the sixty-four crystallizations of dark elements did not copse within. Instead, they dove straight into the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me. Judikaka¡¯s soul me was prated by the crystallizations of dark elements. The square-shaped symbol pounced forward, wanting to merge with the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me.


    The winged skeleton knew that things were not looking good. He was using whatever remaining strength he had to move those sixty-four crystallizations of dark elements. They were held in position by the symbol before exploding suddenly. The symbol was an object without intelligence, a rule pattern left behind by Shann.


    As the sixty-four crystallizations copsed violently, the symbol changed direction and enclosed thempletely.


    The winged skeleton could sense a terrifying force within the symbol. It was now in a spherical shape and was expanding and contracting again and again. It was as if Judikaka¡¯s memories, which should have beenpletely erased, had now reappeared in the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me.


    Such powerful inheriting ability! The winged skeleton had no idea where this symbol came from, nor who exactly Shann was. He only knew that this name belonged to the person that left this symbol behind. If this symbol entered the soul me, he would lose his freedom forever and could even implicate Saleen.


    He would not let that happen!


    Instantly, the winged skeleton understood a little about the ability to interchange between the expansion and contraction of elements. He used his mental strength to control the remnants of elements within the space, including his own soul me, and injected them into his own core. That was the source of his spirit strength.


    ¡°No!¡± the mechanical soul was pretending to be dead all that while. When he saw the winged skeleton doing everything he could to burn up everything, he knew that he would definitely be implicated. He had no idea why the winged skeleton was doing what he did. Perhaps the winged skeleton had gone crazy and just wanted to finish him off once and for all. The mechanical soul was truly afraid now. Why? Why was that skeleton giving up the chance of living on eternally? Could he be trying to protect the safety of the death dimension? What had that got to do with a skeleton?!

 Chapter 762: A Skeleton’s Loyalty (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 762: A Skeleton¡¯s Loyalty (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The winged skeleton could not care less about the mechanical soul¡¯s fear. He would not allow himself to be someone else¡¯s ve. He finally understood the Three Kings¡¯ fear of losing their freedom forever!


    The symbol was a type of rule in the first ce. If the winged skeleton was controlled by it, Saleen would be implicated. Saleen¡¯s soul bond would be forcefully restrained by that type of rule. Saleen could not leave this dimension ever again, or else he would immediately turn into the symbol¡¯s ve.


    The winged skeleton did not possess Nailisi¡¯s god-gifted talent to cleanse the symbol. He was envious of Nailisi¡¯s ability to devour everything, it was the ultimate rule of Luoluokaluo.


    ¡°Master, I am about to die.¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me turned from silvery red to transparent. The power that he absorbed from Judikaka allowed him to break through the limits of a grade-8 spirit and the restrictions of the bond with Saleen.


    The symbol seemed to sense what the winged skeleton was thinking. It spread out momentarily and released the sixty-four crystallizations of dark elements.


    Four arthropods that looked like spiders appeared on themechanical soul¡¯s head. The four of them were struggling to push the mechanical soul¡¯s head out of the rock.


    ¡°Soldier! Stop resisting!¡± the mechanical soul was flustered. The symbol possessed power that he would not be able to stop.


    The sixty-four crystallizations melted instantly and enclosed the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me. The winged skeleton felt as if time had stopped as a voice rang out from the depth of his soul.


    ¡°Submit to me.¡±


    ¡°Never!¡± the winged skeleton replied decisively. He had no idea where the symbol came from, but he was certain that no one would be able to stop him if he was intent on dying. Time could be stopped, but not reversed. By the time the symbol had fully used up its energy, the winged skeleton would then be able to burn up the soul me and destroy it.


    ¡°If you do not submit, then you shall be destroyed!¡± The voice spoke with authority. It shook in the depth of the winged skeleton¡¯s soul, as if it was trying to waver his determination.


    ¡°This is exactly what I want. If you release me, we will die together.¡±


    ¡°What a fool. It doesn¡¯t matter whose ve you be, it is all the same!¡± The authority in the voice was now reced by ridicule.


    The mechanical soul could not hear the conversation between the winged skeleton and the voice. Heid on the ground. After his body had been dposed by the light elements, he was only left with half a skull and a section of neck. He did not dare to get near the symbol. He crawled around on the ground, trying to find anything he could devour.


    ¡°Foolish? This is loyalty.¡± the winged skeleton could sense that time was passing very slowly. Time was passing so slowly that he might still not seed inpletely burning the soul.


    ¡°Does a spirit of the dead need to be loyal? ves will always be ves, always looking for excuses for themselves.¡± The voice continued to ridicule the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton could sense that his soul was vibrating continuously and would lose control any time. The voice was incredibly tempting.


    ¡°Loyalty means that even if the beginning was a mistake, the ending must be perfect. I can sense if Master is worried about me....¡± As the winged skeleton slowly spoke, he felt as if Saleen was really looking at him from a location far away. ¡®A mistake in the beginning¡¯ was how the winged skeleton felt about soul bonds.


    Saleen only wanted his power at first so he tricked Daniel into obtaining the winged skeleton. Since then, Saleen had never done anything harmful to him.


    Saleen had since given him a name as a sign of hope. Since then, the winged skeleton lost his freedom, but was given a reason to continue living.


    As his soul was on the brink of destruction, the winged skeleton was abnormally calm. The soul that was shaking continuously was gradually stabilizing itself. Most people would think that his loyalty was hrious. As long as Saleen did not give up on him, that was all he needed. From the dark death dimension to the colorful Myers Maind, countless spirits of the dead had been summoned over to fight for humans.


    Most spirits would be defeated and sent back to death dimension to be revived. It was a long and painful process and no spirit understood why.


    ¡°You... are a strange spirit of the dead, stranger than Judikaka.¡± The voice seemed to recognize that it was unable to convince the winged skeleton so it changed its tone and continued, ¡°Why don¡¯t we sign a bond?¡±


    ¡°Never!¡± the winged skeleton replied without hesitation.


    ¡°A soul that refuses to give in. That¡¯s worthy of respect. Alright, I have decided to let you go.¡± That voice said helplessly.


    ¡°So can we die together now?¡± the winged skeleton asked.


    The voice seemed to stop breathing for an instant before asking, ¡°Do you have a problem? I already said that I will let you go and allow you to regain your body and strength.¡±


    ¡°I can sense that you are going to hurt my Master.¡± the winged skeleton answered calmly. He regretted his actions a little. If he had taken out the divine crystal directly and burned it into soul me, this strange symbol would not have been able to control his desire to die.


    The soul me that was enclosed by the dark elements was being restrained by the symbol¡¯s rule. Time was passing tens of thousands of times slower there. These conversations were taking ce at less than one ten-thousandth of a second.


    The winged skeleton heard a long sigh, ¡°Unfortunately there is no time left. Such an interesting spirit but I can only...¡±


    The voice was cut offpletely. The winged skeleton could sense that the fluid of the dark elements that had enclosed him were seeping into his soul me. That symbol that had been controlling him from outside had turned into a shard of jade and had fallen to the ground.


    The burning of the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me was stopped. Not only was his soul not damaged, it has alsopletely merged with Judikaka¡¯s soul me.


    When the mechanical soul saw the symbol fall helpless onto the ground and turn into a piece of jade, he immediately pounced and wanted to devour it. To his surprise, when he bit onto the jade, half of his head cracked open and fell into pieces on the ground.


    The winged skeleton was puzzled, but then understood what happened. That symbol had been hiding in the depths of Judikaka¡¯s soul for a long time and had already developed its own soul. This soul was too small and weak. It was only able to regain control of itself by borrowing the symbol¡¯s power, but it would not give the soul any power directly.


    The question was who the person that created such a symbol that possessed such a unique rule was!


    The winged skeleton could not afford to think further. There were sounds of metal cutting through the rock on the outside. The people on the outside must be worried that he had yet to die and they were there to finish the job!


    The pure soul me floated in the air. The winged skeleton chanted in the spiritnguage gently and opened up his death space to summon a jade skeleton.


    This jade skeleton¡¯s soul me was weak and was a faint pink color. This was something that the winged skeleton created. It would take a long time to develop before the jade skeleton would truly be strong. As for whether the jade skeleton would possess intelligence, that would depend on luck.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul me entered the bones of the jade skeleton and devoured that pink soul me instantly. He needed to borrow a body in order to escape. No matter how powerful a soul was, it would definitely be damaged against spells. The winged skeleton had yet to adapt, so all the skills that he could use were still the same.


    After taking control of the jade skeleton¡¯s body, he took half a step forward. With a crack, his leg bone broke and crumbled into powder on the ground.


    A body as weak as this could not contain such a powerful soul!


    The winged skeleton was gloomy. His soul me had be stronger, but did not have a suitable body to inhabit. Jade skeletons were his best spirits and they even had a chance of developing intelligence. Even the jade skeleton¡¯s body would not allow him to move an inch.


    Could it be that he had no choice but to enter the bodies of those disgusting spirits of the dead? In the winged skeleton¡¯s death space, he still had a few powerful spirits that were stronger than grade-7, but those spirits were summoned and not created by the winged skeleton.


    As he searched in his space, the winged skeleton sensed the body of a zombie. This zombie was golden in color from top to bottom and was shining even in the absence of light. This was something he obtained from the Three Kings¡¯ spatial equipment. the winged skeleton had wanted to refine a powerful zombie as his assistant in case he was unable tomand the spirit army in the future.


    It looked like that soulless body was his only option.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul me floated out of the skull of the jade skeleton, which left thetter crumbling into powder. The mechanical soul, who was wriggling on the ground, tried to consume some of the jade skeleton¡¯s powder.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul me entered the zombie¡¯s brain, but could not quite adapt to it. When his soul me expanded, it seeped into the skull of the zombie, burning. The body of the zombie was hundreds of times stronger than the jade skeleton. When the soul me merged with it, the zombie¡¯s bones were not damaged.


    Boom, boom...


    The winged skeleton was surprised to find that after his soul me entered the body of the zombie, not only could he control this foreign body immediately, the heart of the zombie began to beat slowly.


    The winged skeleton decided to inspect the zombie¡¯s heart and was shocked to find that within the heart was an extremely viscous cluster of soul strength. Even the bloodstream, which should have been dried, became vibrant all of a sudden. The soul strength within the heart was transported around the body and in the blink of an eye, the zombie seemed toe alive.


    ¡°I¡¯m alive?¡±


    A funny question appeared in the winged skeleton¡¯s mind. By right, spirits of the dead were not really dead, but once they possessed a body of flesh and blood, they would resemble humans even more closely. It was as if a dead person had been revived.


    The winged skeleton was stunned for a moment. Soon, he discovered within the depths of his soul that the bond between Saleen and him had began to loosen. His own soul me was slowly unleashing an incredible power. The restraints of the bond were loosening. If this continued, the soul bond would bepletely terminated!


    The winged skeleton could clearly see the power of the bond being used by his soul.


    The winged skeleton breathed a sigh of relief. The soul me suddenly stopped jumping and within the me, dark elementsbined together to form a symbol that enclosed the bond between Saleen and his soul. The loosening of the bond stopped. The winged skeleton chanted carefully and slowly. A new rule of the bond was slowly interacting with the original bond and appearing in the the winged skeleton¡¯s soul. This rule of the bond was something that the winged skeleton had picked up from that symbol.


    When he saw that the soul bond was still safe and intact, the winged skeleton was relieved and thought to himself, ¡°Master, I finally understand what loyalty is¡±.

 Chapter 763: The Tough-fated Cloudflow (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 763: The Tough-fated Cloudflow (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The golden zombie left behind by the Three Kings actually possessed such incredible power as well as secrets that even the winged skeleton had yet to fully discover. It was only until his soul me took over its body that he discovered the zombie to be full of soul strength.


    The winged skeleton already possessed intelligence on top of absorbing the soul of a human mage previously. When he absorbed Judikaka¡¯s soul me, he received all sorts of additional spirit knowledge. In the instant just before Judikaka¡¯s memory waspletely lost, the winged skeleton had already gained many benefits.


    The only thing was that the body was nowhere near what he looked like originally and he felt very uneasy. The sound of the opening of the rock was getting closer. the winged skeleton decided to stop overthinking and took the soul strength by force to change his body.


    The energy in the zombie was being used by the winged skeleton to change his form. His original body was something he was familiar with and also an important connection between him and Saleen. Would he still be the winged skeleton if his external form changed?


    The winged skeleton did not hesitate. There was nothing wrong with the body, it was just not something he liked. If he kept it, he could very well gradually turn into a human form. The winged skeleton felt a chill. He was content as a skeleton, why bother bing human?


    A pair of beautiful skeletal wings grew out from the zombie¡¯s back. The pair of wings were different from what the winged skeleton used to have because other than the skeletal structure, there were golden feathers. The new pair of wings did not feel very hard and solid. There seemed to be blood vessels flowing somewhere deep in the bones. The golden feathers were soft and every single one of them was flowing with soul strength.


    The unnecessaryponents of the zombie were used up by the winged skeleton to change his form, allowing it to be a skeleton once again. The only thing was that the skeleton was slightly golden in color and the soul mes in the eyes were a transparent silvery red color. The skeletal wings on his back looked like what the creatures of the Holy Kingdom portrayed in the Holy See paintings would have. The appearance did not exude any death aura, instead, there seemed to be a holy glory.


    Were the Three Kings trying to create a demi-god? The winged skeleton could sense that the grade of the soul strength that he was absorbing was too high, so his soul me was undergoing yet another transformation. The soul me, which was originally silvery red in color, was now pure ck after it was enclosed by the dark elements. Any beams of light that shone on them seemed to bepletely absorbed.


    The winged skeleton was overjoyed. These dark elements could be replenished in any dimension. With thisyer of protection, he would no longer have to fear most of the Holy See¡¯s divine spells! To put it more urately, divine spells of the same level would no longer be able to control him.


    The winged skeleton stretched out both his hands. The two dark golden hands hit against each other, making a metal sound that no longer sounded like what it used to be. This sound was lower, but also very exquisite. This was truly a spirit material of a very high grade. Unfortunately, he did not know much about Judikaka¡¯s memories. He would know the true purpose of this zombie otherwise.


    There was little time left. The people outside would barge in before the winged skeleton could perfectly transform the body. He did not fear the grade-8 sorcerer, but he was afraid that the grade-9 sorcerer might return if he was tangled up with the former for too long.


    The newly-obtained body was ridiculously strong. Although the soul me had also evolved, it was nothingpared to a grade-9 sorcerer. Sorcerers attacked with powerful spells instead of engaging in physicalbat.


    The death space expanded once again and the winged skeleton knew that he had advanced into a grade-9 spirit of the dead. If his soul me could merge wlessly with this body, then he would be able to wield a power equivalent to a spirit king. The winged skeleton pondered for a moment before taking out a green spirit and summoning the spirits inside.


    The mechanical soul was a little flustered when he saw the winged skeleton¡¯s transformation. He did not dare to speak. The winged skeleton lowered his head and kicked at the broken pieces of the mechanical soul to find the broken piece of jade and put it back into his death space.


    ¡°The humans on the outside are about to break in. You can either choose to sign a bond with me or I will lock you up for eternity. Make your choice.¡±


    ¡°Alright, alright. I will sign the hundred-year bond with you!¡± The mechanical soul could sense that their previous bond had already been terminated. The winged skeleton¡¯s soul me was so powerful now that mechanical soul did not dare to go against him. The winged skeleton would only need to use a bit of soul me and the energy required to burn the divine crystal in order to lock him up forever otherwise.


    ¡°Who said anything about a hundred-year bond? What I need now is a ve!¡± the winged skeletonughed coldly. He held up a broken metal piece of soul me and said, ¡°You better agree to it. I have just learned a new skill and I need a guinea pig now.¡±


    ¡°No, I will never be a ve!¡± Mechanical soul protested.


    ¡°The more cruel the person, the softer the bones. Something like you should never havee into existence in the death dimension. I would love to destroy youpletely. What I would love even more is to torture you so that you will never have a moment of peace. It will be easier for me to extract crystal of fear that way.¡±


    ¡°Crystal of fear! How can you possibly...¡±


    ¡°I just know it. So, hurry up and sign the bond. The people outside will break through in another ten minutes at most.¡± the winged skeleton gathered the mechanical soul¡¯s broken pieces and summoned a grade-4 zombie from them. He pointed his finger and the zombie melted into fluid for the mechanical soul to absorb.


    The winged skeleton was right. The more cruel the person, the softer the bones. The mechanical soul would never have signed a second bond within a short span of minutes otherwise. The second bond was a ve bond.


    After the bond had been signed, the winged skeleton released even more spirits for the mechanical soul to devour. The mechanical soul¡¯s rate of recovery was incredible. Within five minutes, he was already taller than fifteen yards and wider than forty yards. This time around, the winged skeleton provided spirits of even better quality. After the mechanical soul absorbedrge amounts of soul mes, countless small gears appeared on his body, spinning at high speed.


    Six gigantic arthropods appeared in the mechanical states on the joint areas that were also full of magic patterns.


    The winged skeleton was satisfied. The way he threatened people was something he picked up from Saleen. It was direct and effective.


    The grade-8 mage on the surface of theke was feeling bored. He greatly admired the grade-9 mage¡¯s power and this admiration would not change even if he also advanced to grade-9. The difference between the two of them was more than just magic chords. The grade-9 sorcerer was more powerful than any sorcerer he knew.


    Maybe one could only find someone so powerful in Alchemy City?


    A group of swordmasters and puppets were cutting open the rock. The swordmasters were wearing armor that allowed them to breathe underwater. The armor were the key equipment that allowed Cloudflow Empire to retrieve vessels in shallow waters.


    Most magic armor waspletely sealed up. Cloudflow¡¯s armor was specially made to withstand enormous water pressure so they could conduct research underwater.


    The puppets were operating huge machines to try and cut through the rock. A few low-level mages used spells to blow away the broken pieces of rocks. Now that more than half of the rock had been cut open, they would only need to cut through another three yards of thickness before they could see what was going on inside.


    The gigantic machines were spraying dposing fluid continuously to soften the rock. This was something that was used only for the extraction of wrought gold or mithril as both of them were resistant to dposition.


    Hundreds of swordmasters paid full attention to the bottom of the rock. As the rock was cut open inch by inch, there was a loud sound at the bottom of the cutting machine suddenly. The gear that had been covered by crystal broke and a ck hole appeared. Powerful currents of theke rushed into the hole with force.


    The rock had been cut open.


    Soon after, there was a deafening sound from the rock as the surroundingke water vibrated. The top of the rock was cut open and the opening was more than three yards in diameter.


    There was a sound that was louder and sharper than a metal magic whistle. At the bottom of this cave, a gigantic drill that was a yard wide appeared. There was blood in the eyes of the low-level mages and swordmasters. That sharp metal sound carried fear in it.


    It was the Wail of the Spirit. It was an unknown spell and very few death mages were able to cast it.


    As the mechanical soul had devoured too many soul mes of all sorts, it became easier for him to use a power that utilized fear. The soul of the mechanical soul was too unique and he was never the product of the death dimension. He was not afraid of the soul biting back. He wailed as he pleased and the hundreds of swordmasters and low-level mages were seriously injured as a result.


    The grade-8 mage on the surface of theke used mute enchantment over theke, then used wind elements to cut through theke and dove downwards.


    The mechanical soul¡¯s wail rushed through the gap created by the grade-8 mage, but was negated by the mute enchantment. What the grade-8 mage saw infuriated him.


    His followers and white-robed mages were tangled up with a gigantic metallic monster. That monster had appeared out of the rock and there was a trail of chaos wherever it went.


    There were a number of spinning gears on the mechanical soul¡¯s body. When the gears passed through the mages, they were all torn into pieces.


    The swordmasters stood around, stunned. The wail of the spirit had caused them to lose any will to fight. If not for the fact that they were wearing Cloudflow¡¯s best armor, they would already have been suffocated by the water.


    The grade-8 sorcerer was heartbroken. Amongst those white-robed mages, one of them was his student! He raised his magic staff and unleashed a spell stored in it. A water sphere that was half a yard in diameter flew towards the mechanical soul. The speed that the water sphere was traveling underwater was no different from when in the air. When it approached the mechanical soul, the water sphere suddenly started to burn.


    The interchanging of elements was not a skill that was unique to Saleen. The spell that the grade-8 mage had stored in his magic staff was a grade-8 fireball skill that was more powerful than other spells of the same grade.


    With a loud explosion, the fireball crashed into the mechanical soul¡¯s chest, creating a huge crater that was more than a yard in diameter and more than a yard deep. The metal of the spirit of the dead was melted by the fireball and flew in all directions. Due to the water of theke, they solidified again into sharp arrows that pierced through the bodies of the surrounding swordmasters.

 Chapter 764: The Tough-fated Cloudflow (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 764: The Tough-fated Cloudflow (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The armor that the Cloudflow soldiers were wearing underwater were light and properly sealed up. When the mechanical soul was blown up by the grade-8 spell into hundreds of pieces, the pieces melted into metallic fluid that solidified in the cold water to be sharp and lethal shards that pierced through the swordmasters¡¯ armor.


    The ones whose limbs were injured were still able to use their sword aura to stop the bleeding temporarily before swimming towards the surface. Some of the metal shards shot through the swordmasters¡¯ lungs and heart. Blood oozed out of the noses and mouths of the swordmasters as they fell paralyzed to the bottom of theke. The water seeped through the holes in their armor and they died very quickly.


    The mechanical soul¡¯s body was not new and its defense was weak. It would have been blown to pieces if not for his unique attributes and high grade.


    ¡°Go!¡± The winged skeleton urged the mechanical soul from within his body. Now that the mechanical soul was his ve, it did not dare to disobey. He did not dare to underestimate the grade-8 sorcerer either. Humans always possessed strange equipment. He was heavily surrounded so it was wiser to flee. There would be opportunities for revenge in the future.


    The sorcerer was also taken aback by his powerful spell not managing to kill the mechanical soul. It was toote to use a scroll either. Instead, he cast an ice attack directly and six huge blocks of ice shot at the mechanical soul.


    The mechanical soul¡¯s body expanded so that it became twice its original size. Six arthropods pushed hard against the rock and sprang tens of yards out. The ice attack only managed to freeze the mechanical soul¡¯s tail. The mechanical soul swept his tail and a segment of it broke off automatically. A grayish white fluid flowed out the segment where the tail had broken off.


    The grade-8 sorcerer was shocked and upset. This grayish-white fluid was an extremely poisonous toxin. Momentarily, he was unable to tell what it was. He could only cast cleaning spells consecutively on top of elemental dispersion to try and cleanse the toxin released by the mechanical soul.


    Although spirit-type toxins could be broken down, they could linger for a long time if not processed properly. The Separation Sea was the Cloudflow armies¡¯ main water source. Tens of thousands of troops, warhorses, and magic beasts depended on the Separation Sea for water. If it became polluted, the entire camp would be in terrible condition within two or three days.


    The newly-built city could only contain about four-hundred-thousand people. The reservoir was insufficient, so the main camp took water from the Separation Sea every day.


    Since the mechanical soul had devoured so many spirits of the dead, the amount of toxin released was enough to pollute the water for a one-hundred miles range. The grade-8 sorcerer tried to disperse and cleanse continuously to no avail.


    At this point in time, the sorcerer was no longer in the mood to capture the spirit of the dead. He took out a ck scroll and cast a grade-8 holy light. This was a spell that was almost like a divine spell. It did not possess much offensive abilities, but it was a type of necessary equipment in an army.


    After the grade-8 cleansing light had been used in a diameter of more than two-hundred yards, the grayish-white fluid was broken down by the light elements. They melted and merged with the water to be a harmless resource.


    Even so, quite a number of toxins were still spreading. Typically, a low-grade spirit of the dead could only pollute a surface area of about three to five yards. Since the mechanical soul had devoured more than five-thousand spirits which were all of quite high levels, the amount of toxins in its body was so lethal that basically anything that touched it would die.


    That was how the mechanical soul fought. It would do anything to win, even if the toxin might be so strong that it would destroy the entire ecosystem. In order to grow, he would have no qualms sacrificing all the spirits of the dead within tens of thousands of miles. The life and death of humans on Myers Maind was none of his concern.


    The winged skeleton was almost killed by the grade-9 sorcerer, so there was still a lot of angst in his heart. Seeing how cruel the mechanical soul could be, the winged skeleton praised him and said, ¡°Well done!¡±


    The mechanical soul shook his metal tail with glee. He opened up six holes, each measuring half a yard in diameter, and shot out death aura through these holes. He used the death aura to propel his gigantic body around the water at a high speed.


    ¡°Idiot, control the water current. The grade-9 sorcerer is going toe after us and then we are all dead!¡± the winged skeleton scolded the mechanical soul, so thetter finally stopped. He began to use the spitting out ofke water from his mouth as a way to maneuver himself around instead.


    The grade-8 sorcerer was busily trying to cast cleansing spells consecutively to control the pollution of the toxins. When he had finally cleaned up the toxins, he was already surrounded by more than two-hundred Cloudflow swordmasters who had now turned into spirits of the dead.


    The grade-8 sorcerer was enraged. He could not afford not to care about the spirits of the dead. If he did not kill them, they would attack the organisms around them until they tracked down the people that created them. The water elements gathered on the surface of theke and a grade-6 spell, with a range of more than two-hundred yards, waspleted within half a minute. Everywhere that the Snow Flurry passed, the armor and bodies of the spirits of the dead were broken in half.


    Snowkill, which was a water-element area of effect spell of grade-6! Except that what the sorcerer did was tobine ten snowkills before casting them together. The attacking range was two-hundred yards and the amount of damage it could deal was no different from any other high-level spell.


    After he has finished killing the spirits, he had to cleanse theke. These spirits were all created by the mechanical soul, hence their toxins were extremely potent too. The mechanical soul did not hesitate to use up all the toxins that he had extracted, which effectively stopped the sorcerer¡¯s pursuit.


    By the time the sorcerer was finished with the cleansing, the mechanical soul had already vanished with the winged skeleton.


    As the grade-8 sorcerer looked at all the corpses floating on the surface of theke, he wanted to cry. He had screwed up such an important task that Master Jill had entrusted to him. If only he had been monitoring the entire situation underwater! The spirit of the dead that had escaped was simply too dangerous. The spell that he had stored in his magic staff had the ability to seriously injured grade-9 magic beasts. Even dragons were not immune to such attacks. The spirit was not seriously injured and could still turn the tables on him by killing so many of his swordmasters.


    The spirit of the dead was really lethal!


    The enemy had sessfully destroyed fourteen troop carriers when they attacked the harbor. The cargo on the troop carriers had almost beenpletely loaded, but the problem was that the fleet at the Separation Sea was originally only left with thirty troop carriers. Now that almost half of them had been destroyed, it would be much more difficult to transport cargo in the future.


    The Cloudflow fleets had to protect the remaining sixteen troop carriers with their lives, otherwise the Cloudflow Empire would never forgive them.


    The mechanical soul gleefully led the winged skeleton away for more than two-hundred miles into the southwest, then towards the west. Under the winged skeleton¡¯s guidance, he eventually brought the winged skeleton through the reefs and back to the bone castle.


    The mechanical soul¡¯s appearance almost led to a barrage of stone artillery attacks by the bone castle. It was only when the winged skeleton appeared from the mechanical soul¡¯s body that the attack was stopped. The mechanical soul did not care if these people were his enemies or not. The moment he was attacked, the mechanical soul would not hesitate to kill thousands of the low-level spirits of the dead.


    It would be toote for the winged skeleton to stop him!


    The winged skeleton looked drastically different, but he was wearing armor that was originally prepared for jade skeletons. The other spirits could still detect a hint of his aura, so there was no conflict.


    When the winged skeleton entered the castle, the mechanical soul was immediately put back into the death space. He returned to the magic tower and summoned the people in the city. He only said that he was injured and needed some time to rest. Through Mu En, he announced that he would be passingmand to Su.


    Although Su was young, he had followed Lex into quite a number of important battles. They battles involved tens of thousands of people, so he was extremely familiar with themand of armies.


    After the winged skeleton had given his instructions, he began to try and familiarize himself with his new body in the magic tower. The body of the golden zombie possessed great power. The winged skeleton would need at least half a year before he couldpletely control it. Fortunately, that would not reduce hisbat abilities. By the time he was fully in control of this body, he would be equivalent to a death king.


    When Daliang City received news that the winged skeleton had initiated an attack that had sunk fourteen of the enemy¡¯s troop carriers, Lex quickly spread the news. They did not mention the fact that the winged skeleton was almost killed as a result, so the atmosphere in the city was joyous.


    Saleen and Lex were not very pleased. It was almost time for their wedding. Now that Cloudflow¡¯s logistic vessels were destroyed, there could only be two oues. One, Cloudflow would give up attacking and would retreat. Two, Cloudflow would gather all their forces andunch one more concentrated attack on Daliang City.


    To make it worse, it seemed that the second oue was probably the only possible oue.


    In the big picture, destroying the Cloudflow troop carriers was the right move. That also meant that Cloudflow would have no qualms giving everything they had when they attacked on their wedding day.


    Since their logistics had been damaged, the only way out for Cloudflow was to take down Daliang City.


    What worried Saleen and Lex the most was that the winged skeleton had sent them a letter about an incredibly powerful Cloudflow sorcerer. Saleen knew that the winged skeleton would never lie and what he said was usually objective. ording to him, the sorcerer might even possess a magic amplifier.


    There were three grade-8 sorcerers and a grade-9 fallen holy priest in the city. Even so, Saleen had no confidence facing a grade-9 sorcerer that possessed a magic amplifier.


    ¡°Lex, you should advance.¡± Saleen told Lex helplessly, ¡°We already have five magic towers. With another seven-storey magic tower, the circle of defense will beplete.


    Lex looked at Saleen and said, ¡°I want to wait for you.¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly and said, ¡°It will be difficult for me to advance. I will help you build a seven-storey magic tower. Before our wedding, you must advance. I will let Eleanor move into the tower first. She is weaker, but also possesses special abilities that will allow her to hold off the enemy¡¯s attack. Without theplete circle of defense from the magic towers, the sorcerer would be able to swoop in and kill at will.¡±


    What Saleen described would not usually happen. Since this grade-9 sorcerer had a magic amplifier, he would dare to attack the magic towers from a close distance. Daliang City did not have any better options other than building up all six magic towers to form a real anti-flying area.


    If that sorcerer put aside his status and entered the city to kill ordinary people, it would be toote to wait for the enforcement team from Alchemy City.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Seeing how worried Saleen looked, Lex nodded and agreed to Saleen¡¯s request. She had not wanted to be above Saleen in grade, but now that Cloudflow was pressing in with the appearance of such a terrifying grade-9 sorcerer, she could not afford to care about Saleen¡¯s feelings for the sake of Bitter Water Prefecture.

 Chapter 765: Dragon-slaughtering War Banner (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 765: Dragon-ughtering War Banner (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen quickly arranged a time for Lex to advance. Ever since he became intimate with Lex, he now dared to look at her with his elemental eyes. It was only through such an observation that he realized that Lex was already able to advance, but had been suppressing her powers.


    Saleen had no intentions of advancing. His singr magic chord would require a lot more time than others in order to advance.


    What frustrated Saleen the most was that he would require even more energy now in order to satisfy his badge. Ever since his twenty-four little lightning dragons devoured the magic nuclei and corpse of the grade-10 lightning dragon, they had been in a state of advancement. Their bloodline had advanced to grade-9, but now they had to continuously sleep and eat and shed their skin.


    For the past half a year, Saleen had gathered more than a hundredplete pieces of lightning dragon skin. His badge was still empty though. Without the help of the lightning dragons, he would never be able to satisfy the amount of energy required by the badge in two to three years if he only relied on his own power.


    Of course, Saleen could also allow other mages to take his ce, but the problem was that as the abilities of the badge improved, the negative side effects had also increased. If not for the fact that Saleen has been used to replenishing the energy required by the badge, he would have to suffer in pain.


    If an ordinary low-level mage used this badge, they would begin to hallucinate or even have his magic chords copse. Saleen could not afford to take such a risk.


    The only constion was that the lightning dragons had already grown to twenty yards long. The skin that they shed could be used to make fantastic equipment. This was what every mage could only dream of; a magic robe that could resist electricity.


    Mages dared not fly on rainy days for fear of being struck by lightning. If one wore a magic robe refined by the skin of lightning dragons, his safety was more or less guaranteed.


    Mages utilized the powers of elements to fly. If they were to be struck by lightning, even very weak lightning, the elements would be chaotic and could be lethal.


    Although Saleen possessed the ability of eye of lightning, he still dared not im that he could fly without any worries. When he refined the fitting equipment for Lex, he also refined his own devil armor.


    The benefit of the water me alchemy technique was that it would not change the original attributes of the equipment, unlike using fire elements. The water me alchemy technique allowed for all the attributes of the devil armor to be kept even as an entire piece of lightning dragon skin was refined into it.


    Saleen did not dare to cross Eleanor¡¯s path, so he only refined a special piece of magic tunic for her. This time around when Saleen came to Daliang City, he only brought along one set of wings of an elf. This was something that was difficult to refine and would also take a long time. There were less than ten of such wings in Metatrin City.


    Eleanor adored the magic tunic that Saleen had refined for her. In order to experiment on the wings of an elf, Saleen even refined a crystal mask specially for Eleanor. Eleanor was a grade-6 mage, so she was able to fly. Her flying speed was much slower than wings of an elf.


    Beside Eleanor¡¯s small tower in the pce, another magic tower was being built. Eleanor sat on the wings of an elf and circled in the air. Her longbow, Seven Night, was on her back. Eye of an elf was her god-gifted talent. When her abilities reached the level of a grade-7 sorcerer, she could already see as far as a few miles away. The attacking range of Seven Night was all within her sight.


    Eleanor smiled because it felt a little like home. The sky was cloudy and rain was almost there, but sitting on the wings of an elf that had been refined by thundercloud wood, Eleanor did not feel a tinge of fear. It felt so good to be looking down at the ground from above. Eleanor spread the gigantic wings of an elf and even as the wind blew past her crystal mask, her eyes were not affected at all.


    Eleanor could see from above that a strong and muscr man was entering Saleen¡¯s room. It was Gusion.


    At the thought of Gusion, Eleanor felt intrigued. This follower of Saleen¡¯s was too honest. Every time he saw her, he would blush to no end. For someone like him to survive in Sikeqinya for so long, he must have relied on no one but himself and worked hundreds of times harder than anyone else.


    Gusion was gloomy as he entered Saleen¡¯s room. When he saw any beautifuldy he would feel very ufortable. It was as if he was standing near a gigantic stove.


    Unfortunately, there were many of suchdies around Saleen, such as Cuisi.


    Of course, Gusion did not know that Cuisi was actually a male demon. When he entered Saleen¡¯s room, he stood very formally at a spot that was near the door and was more than ten yards away from Saleen.


    Cuisi was helping the Saleen to sort files into different categories. Ever since Lex entered the magic tower to try and advance to a grade-7 sorcerer, many of the administrative duties in Daliang City had been left to Saleen to handle. That was already the result of many officialsing over from Bitter Water Prefecture to help out. Saleen would not even have the time to refine magic robes otherwise.


    Saleen raised his head. He saw Gusion and said, ¡°Gusion,e over here.¡±


    Gusion shuffled his feet with difficulty which amused Cuisi. If Nailisi was around, who knew how she would torment Gusion.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± Gusion¡¯s voice was loud, which apanied with his looks, left Saleen feeling pleased. This was a valiant general that did not have any bad habits. Although he was not as strong as Su and J, he was gifted in leading armies into battle. That was something that Saleen could feel assured about.


    ¡°I have studied your sword aura.¡± Saleen¡¯s words took Gusion by surprise. It was a given that mages were more powerful than swordmasters, but these were two very different fields. For Saleen to say that he had studied Gusion¡¯s sword aura, could it be that Saleen was actually able to harness sword aura as well?


    ¡°It is too violent and the damage it can deal is more than sufficient. The weapon is not able to handle the aura though. In the future, don¡¯t use the longsword anymore. Take this.¡± As Saleen spoke, he took out a dagger that was two-feet long. It was a Sikeqinyan dagger. Its design looked a little ancient and the tip of the de was not sharp. The des on both sides were shaped like water ripples as they extended upwards and ended in a gentle curve at the tip.


    The metal was dark silver in color and was covered with magic patterns. There was a magic array on the sword handle and there was a ce to mount magic nuclei at the very end.


    A water magic sword like that was nothing if not wielded by a grand swordmaster. There were no threads or cloths on the handle of the sword.


    ¡°It is refined with gori metal, secret silver, ice ind rock, and rhenium gold. Try it,¡± Saleen said to Gusion. Gusion felt so fortunate that he could barely stand properly.


    Even though he had handled thousands and millions of coins in the past, they belonged to the mercenary group and had to be split up with everyone. What was left for himself was very little. He would never dare to imagine possessing a weapon like this.


    In the past, Gusion would walk around equipment stores opened by Qin people when he was free. When looking at all the high-level equipment in the shops, he could only yearn for them, but never buy any. Now, the dagger that Saleen was giving him was more valuable than any equipment he had ever seen. Just based on the material and structure of the equipment, no mage had ever made something specially for him like that.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± Gusion, who had always been used to poverty, was emotional.


    ¡°Quick, try it.¡± Saleen nudged the water dagger forward. Gusion held it in his hands and could immediately feel the sword aura coursing through his body. It was like an extension of his arm and it did not feel out of ce. As he swung his hand back, there was an explosive sound as the silver sword aura shot out from the de of the dagger. With a crash, Saleen¡¯s door was broken into pieces by Gusion.


    Gusion blushed even more. He had wanted to stop the sword aura just before it reached the door then disperse it. He did not expect the sword aura¡¯s range to expand so much!


    Cuisiughed and Saleen noticed that this made Gusion feel even more awkward. He took out the scabbard for the water dagger and said, ¡°This is magic equipment that can produce separation and shattering effects. You need to be familiar with it first before wielding this weapon in battle. You will hurt your own soldiers otherwise. This is a scabbard that you can wear around your waist. It will be easier for you to take out the dagger when you need it.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, My Lord.¡± Gusion took two steps forward and carefully put the dagger in the scabbard. The dagger became much lighter after being put in the scabbard and did not hinder Gusion¡¯s movements at all.


    ¡°There is another weapon.¡± Saleen stood up as he spoke and walked around the table until he reached an empty space. Then, he took out a war banner from the devil¡¯s ring. The war banner was more than four yards tall and was dark red in color. Saleen did not seem veryfortable handling the banner, which he then dropped to the ground.


    The pole pierced through the rocky ground without any signs of cracks surrounding it.


    ¡°This is the main weapon you should be using to fight on the battlefield.¡± Saleen released his grip on the banner as he spoke. Gusion grabbed the pole and with silver sword aura coursing through the war banner, he plucked it up with a single hand.


    The war banner was blood-red in color and there were magic patterns on both sides. Gusion had no idea what material it was made from, but he recognized the picture on it. A huge green dragon was sewn onto the war banner.


    ¡°This is something I refined using the resources from Tiago, the gigantic dragon. In the future, you shall be the captain of my dragon-ughtering corp,¡± Saleen exined calmly.


    ¡°Tiago, the gigantic dragon...¡± Gusion did not know what else to say as he was gently swaying the four yard long pole. He could control the silver sword aura in the war banner easily. It was as if the mage that refined the war banner was someone who could also harness the sword aura.


    ¡°Gusion, on the day of my wedding with Lex, Cloudflow will definitely attack the city. Everyone in the city will be deployed to fight this war, except you.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, why?¡± Gusion frowned. The muscles in his body tensed up, causing his armor to creak.


    ¡°Gusion, there are enemy spies in the city and there may even be thousands of them. We had to recruit new soldiers, but we cannot guarantee that none of them are enemy spies either. The armies will be fighting at the edges of the city. I will leave the safety of myself and Lex to you,¡± Saleen said with a smile.


    ¡°I... will not let my Lord down!¡± Gusion spoke the words after much difficulty. He finally understood the meaning of bing a ¡®follower¡¯. He was the person closest to Saleen and so, his responsibility was also the heaviest.


    ¡°The dragon-ughtering corp will consist of twenty-five-thousand men. Right now, you have less than six-thousand, but we can keep it that way first. There is no hurry. All the main forces of each corp are now distributing new equipment. The old equipment will be passed on to the battalion of new recruits. The five-thousand men that you have will follow me. On the day of our wedding, when Lex and I are in our bedrooms, you will protect us,¡± Saleen said slowly as Gusion nodded enthusiastically throughout.


    ¡°The dragon-ughtering war banner is immune to magic attacks that are middle-level and below. I will send a few mages to train with you. You must bepetent in this weapon before the tenth of April!¡±

 Chapter 766: Dragon-slaughtering War Banner (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 766: Dragon-ughtering War Banner (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The tenth of April was Saleen¡¯s wedding day. On that day, it was certain that Cloudflow wouldunch an attack. Saleen had no idea how many spies there were in the city since he and Lex had recruited so many soldiers. Although they did use the lie detection spell, they only used it on suspicious people and not every single soldier.


    Saleen could not possibly be fighting in the city on the night of his wedding. Excluding the armies involved in the city¡¯s defense, he was only left with Gusion¡¯s mercenaries.


    Saleen did not know how loyal this group of mercenaries were, but one thing that was for certain was that there were no spies from other countries. The families of these mercenaries had all gone to Metatrin City. Gusion was their leader and also Saleen¡¯s follower. Saleen had entrusted Gusion the heavy responsibility of guarding his own pce.


    ¡°Gusion, Cloudflow wants to embarrass me. They want the city to be in chaos on my wedding night. If Lex and I have to step in, Cloudflow will seede in making us look bad.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, I understand.¡± Gusion held tight onto the dragon-ughtering war banner and no longer felt a tinge of awkwardness. He was only feeling a little over-excited. Gusion had been toiling for so many years before eventually being kicked out of the Empire by Danny. He did not expect to be trusted with such heavy responsibilities here. He and hisrades would no longer have to worry about their futures!


    Cuisi led Gusion to meet with the mages that would be training with him. Gusion had no words to describe how blessed he felt. Mages rarely trained with warriors and even if they did, the warriors were usually toplement them. That time around, Saleen had requested for four grand mages to train with him and his dragon-ughtering war banner. It was simply unimaginable.


    Saleen¡¯s wedding day was in half a month¡¯s time. Gusion still had sufficient time. He was so engrossed in the training that he almost forgot about the presence of Cuisi.


    After Saleen had settled the issue with Gusion, he took a nce at the remaining documents on the table before asking Lex¡¯s mages to bring them back.


    For some reason, Saleen felt extremely nervous. The nervousness was not because of the trouble that Cloudflow would be causing, but because of Lex.


    Saleen was getting married and the person he was marrying was a Princess and a grand mage who had territories across thousands of miles and was of a royal bloodline. As for him. Was he still the orphan that could not forget the feeling of being hungry and thirsty for days?


    Saleen left the courtyard and walked towards the magic tower that Lex was training in. Three magic towers were left behind in the pce while another two would be shifted out of the city to form two triangles. Only then would they be able to establish an anti-flying zone.


    When the magic arrays of three eight-storey magic towers and three seven-storey magic towers were all activated together, mages of grade-8 and below would not be able to fly over the city walls and even grade-9 mages would have a lot of difficulty doing so.


    Once mages lost their speed, they would be easy targets for alchemy crossbows. By establishing an anti-flying zone, no mage would dare to take the risk even if they would be able to find a way to break through.


    The only thing that they would have to take precautions against was soldiers rioting in the city. There were more than three-hundred-thousand new recruits. Most of them had had some experiences in the military so training them was easy, but the difficult part was knowing where their hearts and loyalties lied. There would likely be Cloudflow spies hiding amongst the soldiers.


    In the magic tower, every inch of space was filled with thick elemental energy as Lex meditated. She had already umted enough energy and all she needed now was an understanding of souls, magic chords, and some beginner-level rules.


    She already possessed all the other necessary conditions so all she wascking in in this environment was the evolution of magic chords. The God¡¯s ring stayed silent on Lex¡¯s finger. If she relied on the help of godly item to advance, she would lose a lot instead.


    This was Lex¡¯s magic tower and she was the only person on the seventh storey. The six windows were tightly shut. The magic arrays on the ceiling and the ground were connected with each other and formed a space that was abnormally stable and thick for elements.


    Naturally, the magic tower was made up of the best steel rock. Under the protection of six magic arrays, Lex would be safe from attacks, even those from the grade-9 sorcerer, until reinforcements arrived. Without the magic tower, it would be dangerous for a mage to advance. At that stage, Lex must not be disturbed and she would also not be able to resist any attacks.


    Of course, Saleen would not allow Lex toe under any attacks at that stage. On the lower levels of the magic tower there were more than ten of Lex¡¯s most trusted grand mages. They had been following her since she was young. In addition, there were one-hundred bodyguards and two-hundred swordmasters in the courtyard. Those one-hundred bodyguards were armed with elvish alchemy crossbows and were ready to engage anyone who would try to attack the magic tower, even if that was a scenario that was unlikely to take ce.


    When Saleen reached the bottom of the magic tower, the two-hundred swordmasters and one-hundred bodyguards recognized him, so they performed a simple bow as a form of greeting. Saleen looked up and saw that the color of the magic tower was dim under the gloomy clouds.


    He could not help but think about what he and Lex had gone through in Rafael¡¯s magic tower. Back then, he was still a low-level mage while Lex was already a grade-5 grand mage. Even after he advanced in the hell of God¡¯s punishment, he still felt that Lex was beyond reach.


    Those were tough times. Their lives were in danger every single moment and they could never afford to think about the future.


    Eleanor¡¯s wings of an elf flew past in the sky. The anti-flying zone would not stop her nor Cuisi in his original form from flying. Suddenly, it urred to Saleen that Cloudflow had flying magic beasts as well and that could potentially pose as a problem.


    Most magic beasts¡¯ flying abilities were due to their god-given talents on top of wings. The anti-flying zone would have little effect on them. Although Saleen already possessed the devil armor, he had yet to train up his demon corp so the devil armor could not be used even if they allowed for flying abilities. Even if they were to be given to humans, only high-level swordmasters would be able to wear them.


    Eleanor¡¯s shadow gradually vanished in the sky. She was familiarizing herself with the city as her longbow, Seven Night, hung behind her while and short bow was in her hand. The short bow was refined with divinecherry wood and had a very long range. Eleanor did not n to waste her strength to attack with Seven Night unless necessary.


    After all, she was only grade-6 and would not be able to utilize the full powers of Seven Night.


    In the magic tower, Lex was in the midst of her meditation when she suddenly felt that the magic chords in her body were growing gradually. After this continued for ten straight hours, she could finally feel her magic chords bing vibrant and beginning to evolve.


    Ayer of faint golden color wrapped around her six-colored magic chords. This was her n¡¯s secret technique, it allowed her not to be disrupted whether she was training inbat or magic.


    This golden aura tangled together with the magic chords, restricting them from growing further. Lex had already umted to a very high level, so the golden aura began to seep into the magic chords under her control.


    All of a sudden, Lex began to hallucinate and saw the six elements around her enter her body. She almost lost her consciousness momentarily.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Lex shouted. The golden aura vibrated intensively. The illusions vanished and Lex regained control over her senses.


    The six-colored magic chords were extending out of her body from within and it looked like they were about to break through her skin.


    With the addition of this golden aura, there were now seven colors to Lex¡¯s magic chords. This was a secret technique known only to the Grukos n. If Lex had chosen to train in swordsmanship, the sword aura that she could forge would have been unconquerable.


    It was also because of this secret technique that Grand Emperor Chanake was able to defeat more than ten strong foes from the Holy See.


    After the seven-colored magic chords grew out, that was when they began to absorb the elemental powers of the magic tower. The thirty-six small magic arrays ced at the six corners of the magic tower were finally activated and began to provide Lex with elemental power.


    The six major elements that were in harmony were being absorbed by the magic chords. As a result, the magic chords grew tough andrge. Lex was like a gigantic octopus in the ocean with her seven limbs.


    If not for the fact that there were so many magic arrays in the magic tower with six high-level magic nuclei mounted in each array, Lex¡¯s magic chords would not have been able to absorb sufficient elemental power.


    Any mage that desired to advance to sorcerer needed an environment like the magic tower.


    Lex felt incrediblyfortable. Inparison, she had a tough and painful time when she advanced to a grand mage back then. This time around, the growth of her magic chords transformed her body at the same time.


    The six major elements were interchanging within her body continuously, forming a perfect harmony. Such a transformation to her body ensured that Lex would not have to worry about the retaliation of spells when she cast spells of grade-7 and below in the future. Technically, a sorcerer¡¯s body was no longer the same as a normal human. It would be extremely difficult for them if they wished to bear offspring.


    If Lex had not known that Saleen possessed magic chord medicine that would allow her to conceive, she would have suffered a blow which might have rendered all her efforts useless. With Saleen¡¯s promise, she was able to put aside this concern, even if it meant having to spend up to eight-hundred-thousand gold coins.


    Inparison to a child, eight-hundred-thousand gold coins were nothing.


    The stability in her heart and how much she had umted thus far allowed Lex to have a much easier time advancing than Saleen. The seven-colored magic chords were absorbing the elemental powers hungrily. Magic chords that were fluid-like at first began to withdraw back into her body, ready to merge with it.


    Lex forced the magic chords to stay outside her body for a while more. She needed stronger magic chords in order to raise her fighting abilities.


    An ordinary mage¡¯s magic chords would allow them to cast spells of the same grade twelve times. Lex knew that the size of Saleen¡¯s magic chords were at least twice of hers. Every mage wished that their magic chords would be stronger so that they would be able to save time and money in their training.


    Take Saleen for example, who was able to train twice as long as others. By the time he used up all his magic chords, the number of times he would have trained in spells of the same grade was twenty-four while other mages would only manage to train twelve times.


    The seven-colored magic chords danced around Lex¡¯s body as they grew bigger and more powerful. The thirty-six small magic arrays around the corners of the magic tower began to produce even thicker elemental powers. The colors of the high-level magic nuclei dimmed. Lex¡¯s preparations were already sufficient, except that she had an extra magic chord and was trying to expand her mass. The amount of energy required was too much even for so many high-level magic nuclei.


    Pah...


    Finally, one of the high-level magic nuclei in one of the magic arrays could no longer withstand the absorption of the magic chords and had broken into pieces.

 Chapter 767: Lex’s Transformation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 767: Lex¡¯s Transformation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Lex heard the breaking of the magic nuclei, she grudgingly opened her eyes. The high-level magic nuclei in the magic arrays in the six corners all began to crack one by one. The white powder was spread all over the floor, like snow that had fallen from trees.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re still the one that understands me the most.¡± Lex sighed and took out a piece of dragonshard and mounted it in a special magic array just in front of her.


    This piece of dragonshard was given to Lex by Saleen when she was preparing to advance. The number of dragonshards that Saleen possessed were few and far between. Even after cutting them out from the giant dragon, Tiago, he only possessed less than twelve standard dragonshards.


    It was as if the figure was destined to be the limit because no matter how big the magic beast, they could never produce more dragonshards than that.


    The dragonshard was not stored in the spatial equipment. Even God¡¯s ring could not be used when Lex was in the midst of advancing. It would destabilize the elements in the space. Lex kept the dragonshard by her side without really expecting to use it.


    After Lex had mounted the dragonshard into the small magic array, she felt the magic tower shake for a moment. Even more elements began to appear from the magic array and were quickly absorbed by Lex¡¯s seven-colored magic chords.


    Lex kept holding onto a piece of divine crystal. It was because of the divine crystal that her mental strength was not used up in the short term. Theoretically, after a mage used up all his mental strength, divine crystals would be able to replenish more than half of the mental strength in the shortest possible time. The amount of mental strength that could be replenished each time would keep depleting though. Nevertheless, the divine crystal would still be able to replenish ten percent of the mental strength even after it had been used more than ten times.


    A mage possessedrge amounts of mental strength. By possessing a long-term solution for replenishing mental strength, a mage would not have to worry. As long as he had magic chords and sufficient mental strength, he would be able to continue using spells for training and battles.


    The rainbow-colored robe that Lex had draped over herself now flew off her body and was floating in the air. The elements washed over the rainbow-colored robe continuously. Lex finally understood that Joey must have known about her n¡¯s secret technique all along, which exined why he refined the magic robe for her. Since then, she was the only who could wear the magic robe. Other mages would never dare to wear it for fear of messing up their elements when they cast spells. She was the only one who had seven strands of magic chords instead of six.


    The wisdom of grade-10 mages was really incredible! The ancestors of the Grukos family actually managed to invent a seventh element that couldplement well with sword aura. If Lex had chosen to train in swordsmanship instead of magic, she would still have be a very powerful person and might even be on par with her father, Grand Emperor Chanake.


    Such a skill set must have something to do with the bloodline of her n. The purer the bloodline, the easier it was to develop this skill set. The only question was, what was this bloodline? This question passed through Lex¡¯s mind, but she never really gave it careful thought. She was only focussed on making the best of the opportunity to ensure that her advancement was perfect.


    The seven-colored magic chords had grown twice as strong. Lex could no longer hold on anymore and even the dragonshard in front of her had dimmed. She knew that if she continued, the piece of dragonshard would be destroyed and her own body might also suffer.


    At that thought, Lex allowed the magic chords to withdraw back into her body. The piece of fitting magic attire that she was wearing was also colored with the seven colors. They began to dim and eventually turned into a faint green color.


    The magic chords in her body seemed to be disappearing. At that moment, Lex finally felt pain. It was as if she could see a transparent version of herself struggling amidst the seven-colored magic chords.


    Was that a soul? Or just an illusion?


    Time passed very slowly as the pain grew stronger. She tried to bear with it instead of resisting. She had forcefully grown her magic chords by twice their size so it was expected that she must go through this painful process.


    One must pay a price equivalent to what one desired. This was a truth that all mages acknowledged.


    It seemed that possessing too many magic chords would cause the process of advancing to be a very painful one. Would Saleen go through the same thing as her?


    Lex¡¯s heart softened when she recalled the first time Saleen saw her. Saleen was a junior mage who was carefully trying to hide the fear in his heart.


    When such an emotion rose in her heart, the transparent figure became clearer. It merged with the seven-colored magic chords so it became colored as well.


    Indeed, that was her!


    There was a slight pain in Lex¡¯s heart. Soon, her entire body was burning with the power of the fire element!


    The type of spells that Lex was most proficient in were fire-rted ones. At this moment after she hadpleted her advancement, she could sense the vibrancy of the fire elements around her. In the past, she needed to adjust her magic chords in order to sense the elements, but now there was no need to chant any mantras.


    All the spells from grade-1 to grade-6 were gradually bing clearer. All the knowledge that Lex had learned flowed through her brain at the speed of lightning.


    The six major elements within ten yards of her body all gradually became clear! At the same time, there was a type of golden element that floated amongst the six major elements.


    So, this was what it was like to be a sorcerer!


    No book in this world couldpare to how she felt in that moment. Lex knew that from that moment on, there were few secrets left in spells that were middle-level and below. There was a new power within her mental strength that could not be described and could adjust the surrounding elements quickly. She could barely sense the existence of the magic chords now. Now, Lex only knew how many magic chords she had utilized when casting spells, but could no longer ¡®see¡¯ it.


    She never knew that instant magic could be so simple!


    A faint blue-colored fireball that was the size of a cherry appeared in Lex¡¯s hands. The fireball vibrated slightly and there was a human face on its surface. This face closely resembled Lex and it even wore the same expression of joy.


    Lex flicked her finger lightly and the fireball, that was the equivalent of a grade-7 spell, vanished into thin air. Even the temperature in the magic tower remained unchanged.


    The magic robe that was floating in the air draped itself onto Lex once again. At that moment, all the pain disappeared. Lex stood up. The magic arrays on the six windows of the seven-storey magic tower all disappeared practically at the same time and the windows opened.


    ¡°Saleen...¡± Lex¡¯s voice rang out from the magic tower.


    ¡°Lex!¡± It was the sixth night that Saleen was staying there. It was already the beginning of April, yet there was no news of Lex in the magic tower so he was worried. When he suddenly heard Lex¡¯s voice, the surface of his body immediately produced thick fog. He utilized the power of water elements to fly directly to the seventh-storey of the magic tower and was looking in from the window.


    The rainbow-colored robe was draped around Lex as she stood at the window. Her hair and eyes had turned into a blue color of an even darker shade, almost as dark as ck.


    ¡°Sorry to have made you wait.¡± When she saw the moustache on Saleen¡¯s face, she knew that Saleen must have been waiting downstairs all that while.


    Saleen stepped into the magic tower and removed the fog. Although Lex was already a grade-7 mage, it would still be difficult for her to see him through the fog.


    ¡°Lex, why did it take so long? It was really...¡±


    Lex smiled and held onto Saleen¡¯s hand before stuffing the dragonshard into it. She already had God¡¯s ring. If not for the fact that advancement required a lot of elemental power yet godly items could not be utilized, she would have no need for the dragonshard.


    ¡°You seem to have grown taller!¡± Saleen pulled Lex over and realized that Lex¡¯s forehead was now higher than his own nose. Even her chest seemed to have grownrger and fuller.


    Saleen was a little distracted when his nce swept lower. Lex¡¯s figure could never bepared to Sika¡¯s for thetter¡¯s figure was proportionately perfect and as a Priestess of Caucasus warriors, every inch of her skin was filled with power and sticity. Lex was a mage, so her level of activity was not as high as Sika. It was not something that Lex had ever thought ofpeting with Sika in any way.


    After advancing that time around, Saleen felt the transformation in Lex¡¯s body. He could not help but say, ¡°It seems like we need to refine again.¡±


    ¡°We will be getting married in a few days¡¯ time. How can we find the time?¡± Lex gently rubbed Saleen¡¯s face with her hand. She no longer felt so constrained after advancing. Now, she did whatever she felt like doing.


    Saleen was at a loss for words, yet Lex did not seem upset. Instead, she became even gentler so he became more at ease.


    Lex was the exact opposite of Sika. Usually, Sika would follow Saleen¡¯s lead in any matter. It was only when they were intimate that Sika would take the lead. It could even be said that Sika was able to trigger all of Saleen¡¯s desires, which made her irresistible to him.


    On the other hand, Lex had an incredibly strong personality. Even though she gave Saleen the necessary respect, she was still an independent person that was not easily influenced. Saleen felt pressure even as he loved her at the same time.


    When Lex was alone with Saleen in a more intimate atmosphere, it was like she was a changed person. Saleen could sense that Lex¡¯s heart was gentler than water elements and needed to rely on him.


    There was a long sound of a bamboo flute from beyond the magic tower. Saleen and Lex looked over at the same time. They saw Eleanor flying over from afar. Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes could clearly see bloodstains on the corner of Eleanor¡¯s mouth. The bamboo flute was a magic equipment and the sound was produced by the wings of an elf beneath her.


    Saleen was taken aback at first, but then he noticed a smile on Eleanor¡¯s face so he was certain that she was not seriously injured.


    Eleanor arrived at the window on her wings of an elf. She was holding onto a golden-eyed fire crow which she then threw into the magic tower. Both of the crow¡¯s eyes had been pierced through by an arrow. Such an archery feat could only be achieved by Eleanor.


    ¡°My Lord, Cloudflow is about tounch their attack in nine days¡¯ time. There are many such creatures nearby. They have been reared by Cloudflow. I even bumped into a sorcerer, but luckily this was fast enough.¡± Eleanor patted the wings of an elf below her.


    ¡°You ventured out of the city? Eleanor, don¡¯t take the risk again. Come in and make sure your injuries are healed.¡± Saleen waved to Eleanor. He could feel that Eleanor was feeling bettertely.


    Eleanor smiled before pointing at the wings of an elf beneath her and descending down. The wings of an elf would never be able to squeeze through the window.


    ¡°Lex, looks like we don¡¯t have much time. Cloudflow is already preparing to attack. This time around, it¡¯s going to be a tough fight. We...¡±


    ¡°We will win and our victory will be a crushing one.¡± Lex took the golden-eyed fire crow from Saleen and looked at it before saying, ¡°The archers are going to be busy for a while. It is annoying to have these things spying on us. With hundreds of them flying in the sky, we will not be able to hide our military movements from the enemy.¡±

 Chapter 768: Lex’s Transformation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 768: Lex¡¯s Transformation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    With Eleanor¡¯s interruption, Saleen had no way of doing what he wanted to do initially. Nevertheless, Eleanor was right on time. Cloudflow liked to rear all sorts of low-level magic beasts. The golden-eyed fire crows were very intelligent. They could even be trained to carry out simple interactions with mages.


    If the fire crows were allowed to fly around in the city, few secrets would be safe from them.


    The armies on the outside would be able to deploy their troops ording to the information obtained by these fire crows and focus their attack on the weakest parts of Daliang City.


    It was said that golden-eyed crows could fly as high as five-thousand yards and above, but they were most often seen around one-thousand yards. Ordinary heavy crossbows would not be able to shoot that high.


    ¡°Lex, let¡¯s go and take a look.¡± Saleen knew that ordinary archers would only be able to deal with the fire crows that were resting on lower ground. Those that were flying could only be dealt with by catapults and sniper crossbows. Even those weapons would require some luck and fortune in order to hit the crows. Only spells would guarantee that the golden-eyed fire crows would be killed.


    Magic beasts that were grade-2 and grade-3 were not that easy to kill. When a fire crow encountered an ordinary arrow, it would be able to blow it away with a gust of wind.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get Nichs.¡± Lex had just advanced, so she would not be able to fully utilize the powers of a grade-7 sorcerer. Eleanor had encountered the enemy¡¯s sorcerer outside of the city and Lex did not take any risks.


    ¡°I know. Let¡¯s get Cuisi too.¡±


    After some discussions, both of them descended to the sixth storey of the magic tower. They instructed the mages to guard the magic tower and to pay careful attention to its connection with the other magic towers.


    The anti-flying zone would not be activated unless an rm was triggered by the magic towers outside of the city.


    Before long, both Cuisi and Nichs arrived. Lex passed the corpse of the golden-eyed fire crow to them. Both Cuisi and Nichsughed and said, ¡°My Lord, this is only a grade-2 magic beast. Leave this to us. Neither of you need go up.¡±


    Nichs was a fallen holy priest while Cuisi was a supreme demon. Both of them possessed the ability to use soul attacks and area of effect attacks. The fire crows were really swift in the sky, so the best way to hunt them down was for a demon to use skills such as deterrence and intimidation while Nichs¡¯ fallen glory had an attacking range of one-thousand yards.


    Such attacks would be extremely effective against magic beasts of such low levels.


    Saleen said, ¡°Lex and I have had very little experience in aerialbat. Both of you will take charge of the outer area and leave the area above the pce to us. We will not leave the city, no matter what.¡±


    Nichs thought for a while and said, ¡°I think the enemy has released many golden-eyed fire crows intentionally. My Lord, Your Highness, you must be aware of how high and how far you fly. I will instruct the arrow towers on the top of the city wall to prepare their alchemy crossbows. If you encounter any attacks, just fly straight back to the pce.¡±


    Nichs had already made up his mind to follow Saleen, so he was genuinely worried for Saleen¡¯s safety. Naturally, Cuisi was even more concerned, but that was because he was afraid of what Nailisi might do to him if anything happened to Saleen. Such precaution was absolutely necessary. Saleen only smiled and nodded in agreement. His elemental eyes would allow him to see beyond one-hundred miles. Unless the enemy possessed the ability to travel through dimensions he would not be in any danger as long as he stayed in the city.


    An ordinary mage could only see at most as far as ten miles if they used a spell. Even then, the duration of the spell would be short. Saleen¡¯s elemental eye was a permanent skill that only used up mental strength and not magic chords. A technique like that was an instinct, like breathing. It was a technique that Saleen could control, so he barely had to use up any mental strength for it on a daily basis.


    Mages that possessed such techniques were few and far between. By right, Saleen¡¯s elemental eye was a technique that sorcerers could utilize, but they would only be able to use it for less than three minutes and they would only be able to see less than ten miles away.


    Seeing how determined Saleen was to hunt down the magic beasts personally, Nichs and Cuisi were left with no choice and flew off. Nichs¡¯ flying ability was different from mages¡¯. There were no elemental vibrations around him. There was only ayer of faint gray light and he was already more than one-hundred yards in the air instantaneously.


    Cuisi summoned his devil armor and his body transformed into that of a demon that was more than eight yards tall. He opened his gigantic wings and flew straight up into the sky. He would not be affected even by the anti-flying zone when he was in such a state.


    Both of them bore permanent magic symbols on their bodies, so they would not be shot down by the alchemy crossbows in the arrow towers. The magic rm was not triggered either. Only the magic array that was monitoring the situation disyed a yellow light. Nichs and Cuisi flew one round around the pce. All the arrow towers were on alert now as Nichs instructed all the magic towers to look out for flying magic beasts.


    Golden-eyed fire crows were magic beasts that were only responsible for reconnaissance. There were even flying magic beasts on Cloudflow¡¯sbat vessels that could be used to dump burning kerosene on the city. A huge fire could easily be created that way. Coincidentally, spring was the season that was easiest for fires to ur. The buildings in Daliang City were unlike those in Metatrin City. There were still a number of wooden houses in the former so they must be very careful with those.


    Saleen looked at Lex. He slowly cast the Quickcloud spell and the fog covered up the both of them and the entire courtyard. Under the power of the water elements, Saleen and Lex flew up together at the same time.


    Lex only boosted herself with a floating spell and allowed Saleen to bring her higher and higher into the sky.


    Peering out from within the Quickcloud spell, the fog was transparent like a mirror except that light beams were slightly dimmer. Lex was surprised to be able to sense the thick water elements within one-hundred yards.


    ¡°Saleen...¡± She opened her mouth only to realize that, although they were already as high as one-thousand yards, the strong wind did not affect the fog at all.


    ¡°My spell isn¡¯t too bad right?¡± Saleen asked proudly. Even though Lex had advanced, she would never be able to learn the Quickcloud spell because it required theplete understanding of the power of water elements in order to use it.


    The spell was also created by Saleen himself. Others might be able to learn it, but they would only be able to grasp the theory. There would still be a big difference in the execution of the spell.


    At first, Lex was worried that Saleen might feel down that she had advanced first, but upon hearing how pleased he was with himself, she could not help but feel amused. She had worried too much. Saleen¡¯s heart and mindset had been molded through many tough experiences. Saleen¡¯s spells were vastly different from other mages¡¯. He was basically striking out a new path for himself.


    With a single magic chord, Saleen had to put in six times more effort than ordinary mages, but he also received a lot more in return as a result.


    Not only was the Quickcloud spell able to attack and defend, its flying speed was also very high. Lex could tell that if Saleen flew at full speed, even a sorcerer like her would not be able to catch up. A stream of water that was more than six yards long was dancing within the fog. That was Saleen¡¯s current cutter. This was no longer a spell. It was a piece of equipment, just like Saleen¡¯s water puppet.


    The water currents were hidden within the fog. Anyone who was not a sorcerer that was grade-7 and above were basically dead if they tried to enter the fog and got tangled up. Even sorcerers would have to copse the water currents in order to be safe. If they only focused on defending themselves, the continuous cutting of the currents would be able to cut anything into two eventually.


    Saleen used his elemental eyes to observe what was going on beneath him and did not discover any of the enemy¡¯s magic beasts. The enemy¡¯s magic beasts probably would not be found this deep into the city for fear of being attacked by the magic tower. Although mages rarely had to deal with such low-level magic beasts, the magic tower was still more than ready to deal with them as long as Lex gave the word.


    By right, the enemy¡¯s mage should not dare to enter the city. Even the sorcerer that Eleanor encountered was outside the city as well. The sorcerer must at least be grade-8 since he was able to injure Eleanor, otherwise the former should have been the one injured by her arrow.


    After ensuring the safety of the city, Saleen used his elemental eyes to look further and discovered at least three-thousand types of birds flying in the skies outside of Daliang City. There were more than three-thousand if the magic beasts were excluded.


    It was not easy to tell the difference because birds had settled down in human cities for tens and thousands of years. Humans simply did not kill such birds. Magic beasts with grades, in particr, would even help to prey on pests. In reciprocation, farmers would leave some food behind for these magic beasts during winter when food was rare.


    Six-hundred years ago, the Emperor of the Tanggsi Empire once gave the order to hunt down a type of grade-2 swift to be made into a beautiful overcoat for himself. This overcoat required only a cluster of feathers found between the tails. Tens of thousands of swifts were killed and for the next three consecutive years, the south of Tanggsi Empire suffered from magic locust swarms as a result.


    Billions of magic locusts swarmed all over the south of the empire. Even the countless holy priests sent by the Holy See failed to control the situationpletely. Within those three years, millions of people in the Tanggsi Empire starved to death.


    Cloudflow guarded their borders fiercely. They brought over many of their magic beasts and ensured that the magic locust swarms did not cross the border. Cloudflow sacrificed tens of millions of gold coins and prevented the locust swarms from infiltrating theirnds.


    Since then, no one on the Myers Maind was willing to hunt magic beasts of such bird-types. It was extremely effective of Cloudflow to use golden-eyed fire crows as weapons of reconnaissance. There were many of such creatures in the south, so it would be difficult to tell if they were wild or reared by humans. These fire crows preyed on field mice, which could be helpful animals, and could asionally destroy some trees. At the end of the day, humans were willing to put up with it all.


    When Saleen was sure that there were no such magic beasts in the city, he spoke to Lex again.


    ¡°Lex, shouldn¡¯t your flying technique have evolved?¡±


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Lex replied. Once she knew that Saleen was trying to familiarize with her techniques, she took out her magic staff. The magic staff was refined for her by Joey and contained three grade-8 spells. Since she had just advanced, it would be difficult for her to control the casting of spells while flying in the air. Using scrolls and magic staff was a mage¡¯s best choices.


    The surface of Lex¡¯s body produced an orange-red glow. Ayer of fire elements spread over her seven-colored magic robe and a gigantic pair of wings of me appeared on her back.


    Such fire-type flying techniques were rarely seen. A flying technique like this was much faster than the Quickcloud spell and would be on par with the grade-8 Wind Dragon spell.


    The person that was taken aback was Lex and not Saleen. When she spread her wings of me, she immediately sensed the Quickcloud spell transforming. The water elements that had covered her entire body and was controlled by Saleen automatically changed into fire elements. Although this process was not instant, it was still very quick.


    If Saleen¡¯s ability to interchange elements was so powerful, would that make him the same as a sorcerer?

 Chapter 769: Crashing the Wedding? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 769: Crashing the Wedding? (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After Lex had advanced, she became much more sensitive to the changing of elements, minor details of mental strength, and the way to control magic chords. What Saleen was doing in that aspects were no different from a sorcerer. The only difference was that his magic chords were still very weak.


    In the past, Lex was not able to sense all that, but now that she could, she realized just how unique Saleen¡¯s spells were.


    Saleen would be even more powerful after he advanced into a sorcerer.


    Lex observed Saleen sensing Lex¡¯s transformation. Those wings were not just simply made from fire elements, there were wind elements at the same time. With both wind and fireplemented each other and Lex¡¯s speed was on par with that of a grade-8 sorcerer.


    Saleen focused his thoughts and the water elements around him began to evaporate violently. Their temperatures rose and eventually transformed into fire elements, forcefully turning into a pair of wings of me on his back.


    Lex was staring in shock. She could not understand how Saleen was able to reproduce the Fire Wings spell without any training.


    Within less than three seconds, Saleen¡¯s wings of me extinguished on their own. He sighed to himself. He had not trained for the spell, so he did not know the mantra and rules of arrangement of elements. Even if he could reproduce it through imitation, he was not able to control the spell. If he was a normal mage, he might even be susceptible to the retaliation of elements.


    Fortunately, he was morefortable in controlling his water elements and his flying abilities wereparable to Lex¡¯s. Should they be involved in any battles together in the future, they would be able to help each other instead of bing burdens.


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s race each other towards the north!¡± Lex noticed this strange ability of Saleen¡¯s and wanted to test just how strong he could be. Before Saleen could even say no, she had already pped her wings of me and broken through the fog.


    When Saleen saw her leaving, he smiled. A small tornado began to spin in the fog, increasing its momentum by hundreds of times. Then, the fog carried Saleen and he headed towards the north.


    In the blink of an eye, the two of them were out of the city. The Cloudflow armies were in the south while the north was all Lex¡¯s territory. There was another seven-storey magic tower outside of the city, so Saleen and Lex were not concerned about their safety.


    Lex¡¯s speed was close to reaching one-hundred and eighty miles per hour while Saleen followed behind her easily without overtaking her. She was already flying at a speed that was three times as fast as an ordinary grade-6 mage. Without a doubt, Saleen was a grade-6 grand mage, but Lex was still unable to shake him off.


    Lex gritted her teeth and the size of her wings of me doubled to be more than twenty yards wide. Instantaneously, her speed shot up to two-hundred miles an hour and was still increasing.


    In response, the tornado in Saleen¡¯s fog also doubled. He bore down hard on Lex and overtook her very quickly.


    Lex was a verypetitive person, but she could never bear topete with Saleen. She was only concerned with how she would use up all her magic chords if they continued flying like that. She had no choice but to slow down and her wings of me shrunk to a width of ten yards. Saleenughed before slowing down in front of Lex. He expanded his fog to envelop Lex again.


    Lex stopped her wings of mepletely and used her Floating spell once again to follow Saleen in the air.


    ¡°Lex¡±, Saleen called out.


    ¡°Yes?¡± Although Lex lost, she was not upset at all. It was a good thing that Saleen could fly faster than her. The enemies that they would face in the future would all be very powerful ones. More often than not, they would fail to defeat them and would have to flee for their lives. She felt more at ease after their race.


    Saleen opened his left hand and where there was a cluster of water me. On his left wrist was a new bracelet, which was made from divine crystal.


    ¡°The speed of my fog is dependent on the tornado. This tornado is produced by water me so, I am only using up mental strength. No one will be able to fly faster than me unless they are a grade-9 mage.¡± Saleen shared his secret openly. The flying technique was something he hade up with on his own.


    The Water me Alchemy spell was an attacking spell by nature. Once the water me had been formed, the tornado would serve as a form of protection for the mage that was refining equipment. The tornado might not be able to deal much damage, but it also possessed some defensive abilities. Enclosed by so many tornadoes, the mage would be able to avoid even alchemy crossbows.


    The real attack was the Snowkill spell hidden within the tornadoes. The cutting abilities of the snowkes formed by water elements surpassed even that of icicles, and even had room to evolve. Now that Saleen¡¯s control of the Water me Alchemy spell was almost as good as his teacher¡¯s, the tornado was the secret to his flying ability.


    Adding the tornados into the Quickcloud spell would greatly increase the momentum of the spell. As long as the Quickcloud spell did not dissipate, the tornados would remain hidden within, unknown to others.


    Ordinary mages did not possess the ability to interchange elements, so they would never dare to execute this in the air. They would crash down if the elements were imbnced, so only sorcerers would be able to attack and defend while in flight. When grand mages had just learned how to fly, they usually depended on equipment in order to cast spells while flying. The equipment included magic books, scrolls, or even the spells stored in magic staffs. One would only be able to rely on magic chords after one had advanced to at least grade-7 and had learned some of the secrets of the interchanging of elements.


    Saleen picked up the ability to interchange elements long ago when Joey taught him. That exined why he dared to create such aplicated spell.


    Lex was pleased with how unique Saleen was. As the descendant of the Emperor with a well-known reputation, she rightfully had high expectations of her partner. If she was not in a rtionship with Saleen, she would rather be alone and be purely a mage, dedicating her life to understanding the secrets of magic.


    She did not care if Saleen was wealthy or whether he was a king. When she saw how outstanding Saleen¡¯s spells were, Lex¡¯s heart softened and she wanted to praise him.


    She noticed a small section of scouts with a light-armored knight beneath them that were traveling towards Daliang City at high speed.Even at a height of one-thousand yards, everything was clear to Saleen. He exchanged a nce with Lex and the two of them descended quickly,nding just ahead of the section of scouts. When the scouts saw the mages, they raised their hand-held crossbows and stopped.


    ¡°I am Lex. Which battalion are you from?¡± Lex took a look at the scouts¡¯ attire and knew that they were from her army.


    One of the scouts recognized Lex. The captain dismounted from his horse and bowed to Lex, pointing at the young knight and said, ¡°Someone from Sanlian City is here and he ims that they have been attacked by the Tanggsi Empire.¡±


    ¡°Come over here!¡± Lex pointed at the light-armored knight. There were bloodstains all over the knight and one of his arms was in a cast. He was quite badly injured.


    Lex used a Chunlin spell to stop the soldier from bleeding and asked, ¡°What happened to Sanlian City?¡±


    The knight held tight onto his g and remained on his horse while saying, ¡°Your Highness, the blood knights of Tanggsi appeared and made us suffer!¡±


    His voice was trembling. It was normal for Sanlian City to be attacked, but when blood knights appeared, many of the soldiers that engaged them were badly injured. The armies of the Tanggsi Empire passed through the mountains andunched attacks on Sanlian City. For some reason, the Tanggsi soldiers were equipped with huge weapons designated for attacking cities. These weapons kept hurling burning stone artilleries and destroyed many houses as a result.


    Sanlian City had no choice but to seek help from Daliang City. There were more than ten waves of troops that left to seek help, but he was the only one that survived. The others were killed along the way by the Holy See.


    ¡°All of you head straight to the pce once you reach Daliang City.¡± Lex was frowning. It was clear that Tanggsi¡¯s attack was coordinated with Cloudflow. Could the two countries have formed an alliance? Why did none of her scouts in Misty City inform her of it?


    Up north were the armies of Marquis Antos. Surely she could not possible seek help from Antos? He was still upset over the corp of soldiers he had just lost.


    The problem was if Sanlian City was lost, she would have to adjust her line of defense by another five-hundred miles. She had to send aid!


    It seemed that many people were intent on making trouble for their wedding, but the more trouble, the more determined Lex was to hold a grand wedding ceremony. At the same time, she had to also be able to repel the enemy¡¯s attacks. She would be disappointing those that had chosen to follow her and risk their loyalty otherwise.


    The scouts were originally going about their routine patrols when they encountered the knight, whom they then escorted back to Daliang City. Once Lex gave hermand, they left two people behind to continue patrolling while the rest headed back to Daliang City with the knight.


    Saleen heard what the knight said as well and was aware of what had happened. There was hatred in his voice when he said to Lex, ¡°These people of the Holy See must be in cahoots with the Cloudflows. Lex, what do you intend to do?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s head back before we discuss it further.¡± Lex was in no mood to linger outside with Saleen anymore so she dragged him along as she flew off.


    When they returned to the pce in Daliang City, the knight had yet to arrive. Lex gathered her generals to discuss strategies.


    Lex had six main battalions, one pce swordsmen battalion, two field battalions that had been deployed from Sanlian City, as well as Saleen¡¯s two battalions. In total, they had one-hundred and ten-thousand elite soldiers under theirmand. There were also more than three-hundred-thousand new recruits in the city. Half of them possessed decentbat abilities.


    In order to face Cloudflow, they could not afford to reduce the number of soldiers. Lex would only be able to defend and not counter-attack otherwise. It was not realistic to send aid to Sanlian City. If they sent the elite soldiers over, Daliang City would be in danger; if they only sent the new recruits over, there was nothing they could do.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, would Metatrin Kingdom be able to send sorcerers over?¡± The battalionmander of the pce swordsmen battalion asked. He was a ck metal grand swordmaster and was also Lex¡¯s bodyguard. Typically, the general in an army might not necessarily be the one with the most outstanding swordsmanship. What was more important was the ability tomand, so it was actually rare to see a ck metal grand swordmaster as a general.


    Saleenughed bitterly. He did have two grade-9 sorcerers, but when both of them signed their bonds, they were only tasked with helping Saleen ensure the safety of the exterior of Metatrin City and western town. Would the two of them agree to travel twenty-thousand miles to provide aid?


    ¡°Let me try. Lex, we cannot touch Daliang City¡¯s armies, but what about Bitter Water Prefecture?¡± Saleen turned around and asked Lex.


    ¡°There aren¡¯t many elite soldiers in Bitter Water Prefecture, only about forty-thousand of them. They need to ensure the safety of the Prefecture against Qin so they would only be able to send twenty-thousand soldiers over at most.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, allow me to lead a corp to aid Sanlian City while the soldiers from Bitter Water Prefecturee over and help Daliang City. I will bring along enough resources to hold the city for half a month.¡± A newly-promoted general bravely volunteered.

 Chapter 770: Crashing the Wedding? (Part 2).

    <h4>Chapter 770: Crashing the Wedding? (Part 2).</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Lex, you can take another two battalions. Daliang City now has two-hundred death mages and can summon more than twenty-thousand spirits of the dead. It would be much easier defending the city with them. Each battalion can bring along ten-thousand auxiliary soldiers to support the one-hundred-thousand soldiers to be sent to Sanlian City. It should not be a problem holding the city for a month. I... I will discuss some things with Sika to see if there is any other solution.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Lex sent one-hundred-thousand soldiers away decisively. Doing so would definitely apply more pressure on the defense of Daliang City, but if she was to lose Sanlian City, all the hard work that she had put in over the past year would have been for nought.


    Two corps were made up of fifty-thousand men while two battalions were made up of fifteen-thousand men each. By including another twenty-thousand auxiliary soldiers, there would be exactly one-hundred-thousand men in total. If one-hundred-thousand men were unable to hold Sanlian City for even a month, Lex would not be fit to lead her Prefecture.


    The generals had a long discussion. Other than deciding on who to send for reinforcement, they also discussed the issue of replenishing soldiers. To defend Daliang City, each battalion only had five-thousand auxiliary soldiers. After taking into ount those that would be sent to Sanlian City, they would need to top up another twenty-five-thousand men in order to be equal with a corp.


    Such a mixedbination was a challenge to an army. The problem was that in battles between big armies, an army that only consisted of fifteen-thousand men possessed poorbat abilities. A corp of twenty-five-thousand men was ideal.


    Saleen arrived at the magic tower with a teleportation portal and instructed the mages to open the portal to send Sika a letter.


    In Metatrin City, there was nothing for Sika to do in the temple except to listen to Nailisi¡¯s stories about the demon dimension. When the mages brought over the letter from Daliang City, Nailisi took it and said to Sika, ¡°They must have sent this to seek help from us again.¡±


    Sikaughed and said, ¡°Let¡¯s go over to the teleportation portal. You¡¯re probably right.¡±


    Nailisi twitched her lips and handed the letter to Sika. Both of them headed to the third story of the temple, where a new teleportation portal had already been set up to establishmunication with Daliang City.


    Metatrin City would not have any issues teleporting inanimate objects of a small mass, so sending a letter would use up less than one percent of how much it would take to send a person. The further the distance, the more magic nuclei would need to be used up. In order to teleport a person, not only would the teleportation portal need to be very big, the number of magic nuclei that would be used up was ridiculous. Teleportation over a short distance might still be feasible, but sending one or two people to Daliang City, which was more than twenty-thousand miles away, would be a huge challenge.


    Sika finally opened Saleen¡¯s letter when they reached the third story. There was a simple map in the letter that included the coordinates and military forces of Daliang City, the Separation Sea, and Sanlian City. Then, Saleen briefly described what he needed and requested for Sika to discuss whether the two sorcerers would be willing to rush over to Daliang City.


    Nailisi was reading by Sika¡¯s side and she was grumbling, ¡°Sister Sika, just ignore this. Lex is too incapable if she needs your help over such a small matter.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± Sika frowned and berated Nailisi.


    ¡°It¡¯s true. We are so far away. How much will it cost to teleport two sorcerers? You could hardly bear to spend the eight-hundred-thousand gold coins for your children, but this will require eight-million.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s in it for you if Lex¡¯s country falls?¡± Sika stared at Nailisi.


    ¡°Nothing, of course. Sister Sika, why don¡¯t you let me go?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°You? What can you do if you go alone?¡± Sika did not understand. It was true that she could not bear to spend so much to teleport the two grade-9 sorcerers over. She might have been able to ask Lex for the money in the past, but now that Lex was about to be wedded to Saleen, surely she could no longer do the same.


    Nailisi looked left and right and noticed that the mages had sensibly blocked up their ears. Nailisi leaned towards Sika¡¯s ear and spoke quietly, ¡°Sister Sika, if you were to teleport the sorcerer¡¯s over, what will happen to you if there is danger here? If I go, I will use the twelve Notes of the Purgatory and bring along the demons that I have summoned to help Sanlian City. We have already reared quite a number of magic bugs in the demon city. If I send them to the Tanggsi camps...¡±


    Sika was tempted by what she heard. Daliang City had yet to have a teleportation portal, but permanent coordinates had already been set between Bitter Water Prefecture and Metatrin City that would allow humans to teleported anytime. Teleporting Nailisi alone would allow her to bring along quite a number of demons. Although magic bugs might be of a low level, they could inflict a lot of damage to ordinary soldiers.


    ¡°Nailisi, tell me honestly, what do you have up your sleeve?¡± Sika asked Nailisi with a straight face. She knew that Nailisi would never be so eager for no reason. In fact, she would be thest person to care about Lex¡¯s battles.


    ¡°Sister Sika, there is an item I want that Master has given to you.¡±


    ¡°What item is that? Tell me first.¡±


    ¡°You have to give it to me once I say it.¡±


    ¡°Sure!¡± Sika promised. Saleen had given her so many items anyway, there was nothing that she could not give Nailisi. Nailisi was bonded to Saleen with her soul, whatever belonged to Nailisi would eventually belong to Saleen too.


    ¡°Sister Sika, I want that golden zombie that Master gave to you.¡±


    Sika began to cough and Nailisi hurriedly stroked her back.


    ¡°Nailisi, I cannot give you that.¡±


    ¡°Sister Sika.¡± Nailisi¡¯s expression was one of pleading.


    ¡°I have already given it to the winged skeleton.¡± Sika had no choice but to tell the truth.


    ¡°What?!¡± Nailisi was furious. The item that she had set her sights on had already been given to that fellow. Nevertheless, she instantly realized that her attitude was inappropriate. She adjusted herself immediately as tears were almost on the brink of falling. ¡°How could you... give it to him?¡± There were tears in Naiilisi¡¯s eyes, but she dared not disy her anger towards Sika.


    ¡°He said that he needed that zombie and he exchanged it with something that I needed even more. I thought that since he was fighting a battle for Saleen, I might as well give it to him.¡± Sika saw that Nailisi was really devastated, so she tried to console her by saying, ¡°Why don¡¯t I give you something else? Come back with me and pick what you like.¡±


    Nailisi broke downpletely. After crying for some time, she was sobbing while she spoke, ¡°Master refused to give it to me and now you can¡¯t either. Both of you favor that skeletan over me. I, I...¡±


    Sika felt helpless and said, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just ask for it directly before? Nailisi, Saleen still cares a lot about you.¡±


    Nailisi only continued to cry while hammering the ground with her hand, not saying a word. The mages around them began to close their eyes and used Mute spells to block their ears, yet none of them dared to leave. The longer one stayed in the temple, the more one would know that Nailisi was someone not to be trifled with. She might be bawling on the ground now like a child, but her mood could change very rapidly.


    None of the mages dared to look at Nailisi because most of them were already aware of the fact that she was a demon. If they crossed her path, they could easily be killed.


    Sika sighed. Nailisi was really a poor thing. She had given the golden zombie to the winged skeleton because the he was able to give her the bone of an ancient magic beast in exchange. Once she advanced, she would be able to merge the bone with her weapon.


    She even consulted the two grade-9 sorcerers over the matter. Both of them shook their heads and told Sika that the bone was left behind by a magic beast that was at least grade-12 or above.


    Magic beasts of grade-12 and above no longer existed on the Maind. They used to exist long ago, but were hunted to extinction by humans. The bone was a hollow cartge from a magic beast¡¯s brain. Sika was agreeable to the exchange because she sensed some magic beast soul still hidden in the bone.


    After Nailisi has finished crying, she said, ¡°Sister Sika, what you said just now, is it still valid?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You said you would let me choose whatever I want...¡±


    ¡°I meant one item.¡± Sika quickly corrected Nailisi.


    ¡°Two items.¡± Nailisi wiped her tears and looked at Sika.


    ¡°Alright...¡± Sika promised. She felt like even though she had yet to give birth, she was already dealing with a child when with Nailisi. It felt as if Nailisi would never mature because she had signed her soul bond too early. Even if her physical attributes matured, deep down in her soul, she was still behaving like the imp that Saleen had first met.


    First and foremost, Sika sent a letter to the two grade-9 sorcerers. Frankie and Anthony replied very promptly that they were unable to leave western town for the time-being.


    Their replies put Sika more at ease as Saleen would not be able to argue against her sending Nailisi. Now that she could easilye and go from the twelve Notes of Purgatory, she no longer needed Nailisi¡¯s help. As long as Nailisi left the twelve Notes of Purgatory behind, Sika would be safe.


    Frankie and Anthony did not refuse without good reason. Saleen was supporting them, however, they did not wish to leave their magic tower as they had reached a crucial phase in their training. If they were to leave, they might never have the chance to experience the same realization ever again.


    After sending a letter to Saleen, he replied very quickly to Sika with another letter, agreeing to the arrangement of Nailisi being sent. He specially instructed J to protect Sika in the temple at all times once Nailisi left. At the same time, Saleen also wanted Sika to invite the Felletts to the temple. Since the both of them were sorcerers, they would be able to wield great power in the temple.


    On the letter, Saleen did not mention anything about Nailisi¡¯s demon army. He only instructed repeatedly that all the wings of an elf made by the alchemy factories should be given to the temple corp. Finally, Saleen requested for Truman to bring along his magic cannon and move in to the temple.


    When Sika read that, she smiled happily. Saleen was willing to ignore the harbor for Sika¡¯s safety. She was aware of what the magic cannon could do. It was fully able to destroy a dragon-skeletonbat vessel and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat with a st.


    That was Saleen¡¯s most powerful weapon. While his badge was still recharging the magic cannon only required high-level magic nuclei or dragonshards to be used. Even though the speed at which it would shoot was slow, it was still a terrifying weapon.


    Sika immediately replied with another letter with two simple rows of words, ¡°Saleen, Lex is one of us now. Whoever dares to make trouble at your wedding will also be going against the Metatrin Kingdom.¡±


    The letter was signed by Sika, the King of Caucasus and Regent of Metatrin.

 Chapter 771: Demon Expedition (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 771: Demon Expedition (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After ensuring that Sika had sent her exnation of the arrangement to Saleen, Nailisi then said, ¡°Sister Sika, I will have to bring along the twelve Notes of Purgatory. What about your safety?¡±


    That was when Sika pped her forehead. What was she thinking? Nailisi would not be able to bring demons into the teleportation portal without that equipment.


    The space within the twelve Notes of Purgatory was not big, so only demons could be brought along. Human soldiers would not be able to resist the darkness of the purgatory. If they were to be sent in, they would turn into idiots aftering out.


    Only those with simr grades and abilities as herself would be able to stay in there for long periods of time and even then, one would not feel toofortable.


    When Nailisi saw how the realization finally dawned on Sika, she did not know whether tough or cry and said, ¡°Sister Sika, you have to heed what Master said and ask Truman to bring the magic cannon here. If a grade-9 opponent attacks you, hide yourself in a narrow passageway. Let J engage the enemy so that you have enough time to st them all to death.¡±


    ¡°What about J?¡±


    ¡°In any case, that is one way to save yourself. You must remember it.¡± With that, Nailisi¡¯s tears had already dried up. She happily left the third story of the temple by flying out of the window and towards demon city.


    Sika lowered her head and caressed her slightly bulging stomach. She thought to herself, ¡°For the sake of my children, can I really do that?¡±


    The construction of demon city wasplete, but summoning demons still proved to be a difficult task. Currently, there were only four magic beast swordsmen leading more than twenty-thousand demons and ten-thousand demonic spirits in the gigantic city.


    This was far from what Nailisi had nned, but she did not have enough time to care about demon city at that time and she dared not summon demons that were too strong. It was already not easy for the four magic beast swordsmen to be controlling so many demons.


    Demon city lookedpletely different from how it once was. The foundation of the city was white while the city walls were ck. It was a strange look, as if the sky had been flipped upside down.


    Nailisi transformed into her devil form. She was more than twenty yards tall, with four arms and a huge pair of wings that were pping while descending down into the center of demon city.


    When the demons on patrol saw Nailisi¡¯s arrival, all of them quickly bowed on the ground as a disy of submission. Nailisi possessed the actual aura of a devil, even supreme demons would be terrified. These demons were not as powerful as Nailisi, so they had no way of telling whether she was a real devil or not.


    The four magic beast swordsmen were leading their demon armies in training when they heard about Nailisi¡¯s arrival. Vinz and Singiles quickly rushed over to wee her. Nailisi looked terrifying as a devil. There was no doubt that a body that was more than twenty yards tall like hers could easily crush ordinary humans into mincemeat with one gigantic step. The horns on her head were more than a yard long and were shining with ck light.


    Nailisi was pleased when she saw the magic beast swordsmen at her feet. This form would be very useful on the battlefield.


    It was too bad that the fifth ability was still unstable. She had used up too much time trying to separate those two strange things in the soul me. If Nailisi had known that the winged skeleton had also received a broken piece of jade from the spirit king¡¯s soul me, she would be overjoyed. The power harnessed in the objects were so incredible that even Nailisi would hesitate to devour them.


    If all the broken pieces were gathered together, they would be worth much more than the golden zombie.


    ¡°Vinz and Singiles, Master hasmanded me to battle. Give me ten-thousand demons. Also, give me all the magic bugs that you have reared.¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice could be heard around the entire za. All the demons were shaken.


    The magic beast swordsmen were not too fearful of Nailisi¡¯s devil form because they had interacted with her before and knew what she usually looked like. Nailisi had to transform into a devil whenever she was in demon city because she wanted to establish her authority amongst the demon armies.


    ¡°My Lord, we shall carry out your orders now.¡± Vinz and Singiles did not mind the ten-thousand demons being taken away from them. Saleen had put the four of them in charge of demon city and they were only just getting used to it. It was not easy managing so many demons and theirnguage was also difficult to pick up. They only managed to get by after their memories had been boosted with spells from mages.


    Nailisi decided that she might as well take a seat on the parade tform in the za while waiting for the magic beast swordsmen to gather the demon soldiers.


    It wasmon for expeditions tost for months or years in the demon dimension, so this was nothing to demons. Demons rarely led a long life so they were already used to killing and being killed.


    Surrounding Nailisi were demons that were kneeling to her as a sign of respect and she was pleased. It was an incredible feeling. Although it felt good to follow Master, it was still less than ideal if she did not have any subordinates to order around.


    As a demon, one must strive to be the most powerful so that the other demons would submit, follow, and respect.


    When these thoughts crossed Nailisi¡¯s mind, she smiled. When the demons saw her smiling, they began to praise the greatness of their Excellency, the devil.


    Nailisi did not feel ufortable at all. She was indeed a great Luoluokaluo. Devils counted for nothing. By the time she gathered all her abilities, even tens of devils would be nothing to her.


    Demon city was empty and vacant, so the voices of the demons¡¯ praises traveled far and wide. Even the demonic spirits that were far away all began to kneel down in honor of Nailisi, the great devil.


    Nailisi looked far away and thought to herself, ¡°If only this entire city was filled with demonic spirits, demons and supreme demons to praise me. What a sight that will be!¡±


    If the demons were to invade the Myers Maind and she were to be the King of demons, that would be perfect!


    If Master...


    No, Master would never be her subject. In that case, Master would be a King of demons as well. They would kill off all humans so that there would no longer be any more conflict. Let the Myers Maind be the paradise of demons!


    By then, only Master, Sika, Lex and herself would be left behind to live happily ever after. If that skeleton was willing to submit, she would give that spirit of the dead the position of a general. Nailisi was in such a good mood imagining all that that she even forgot about wanting to kill the winged skeleton.


    Very soon, Vinz and the rest had already gathered ten-thousand demons and brought them to Nailisi. These demons were d in armor that was much better those that they wore back in the demon dimension.


    Nailisi lowered her head slightly and looked down at the demon army before saying, ¡°I, the great King of Demons, Nailisi, will now bring all of you to kill a disciple of God. Do you dare to do it?¡±


    All the demons heard Nailisi¡¯s voice loud and clear. This demon army was close topleting their training and had been organized into a battalion ording to the standard of human armies. The stronger demons amongst them had been mademanders. This was slightly different from humans. Demons were not well-versed in the arts of war, so they were simply arranged so that the stronger demons would lead the weaker ones into battle.


    ¡°We will kill them all!¡± The demonmanders in the front row shouted back in response to what Nailisi said.


    ¡°We will kill them all!¡± The tens and thousands of demons repeated.


    ¡°Kill the Gods!¡± Themander of the army, a demon who possessed abilities close to that of a supreme demon, did not mince his words. Of course, devils were the greatest and the other Gods were trash in his heart. All the demons remembered how the Gods used to be defeated by humans.


    Those humans became weak and fragile the moment they started to believe in Gods. This was evidence of how despicable Gods could be.


    ¡°Eat the Gods!¡± The demons at the back did not clearly hear what the demon general said and gave an even louder response.


    Nailisi was satisfied. These demons were all four to five yards tall and they wielded weapons such as giant axes and long swords that were more than four yards long. They had the upper hand if they were to battle against ordinary humans. The demons were not too intelligent though. Killing Gods? That was something that had never crossed Nailisi¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Remember what you have said today. I will give you all a great honor!¡± Nailisi took out the twelve Notes of Purgatory and a huge ck door appeared in front of her.


    There was no light within the door. Nailisi ordered them in coldly, ¡°Go, I will bring all of you on an expedition!¡±


    The demons in demon city had all been cleansed by the demonic magic array, so there was a ceiling to the level of their intelligence. The demon city was constructed in the same way as how devils would construct them in the demon dimension. The demons in demon cities mostly existed to be cannon fodder, yet all of them maintained their excitement and enthusiasm about living.


    The demon general led the way and walked through the door while the other leaders followed suit with their own armies.


    Although the twelve Notes of Purgatory was capable of carrying lives, it was not a spatial equipment that was designed to store items. The demons would need to enter one by one and since there were ten-thousand demons in total, the amount of time they needed was significant.


    Singiles was riding on his magic beast that was more than four yards tall and approached Nailisi while holding a box in his hands. This box was the size of half a yard and was covered with red magic patterns. Singiles was careful with the box as there were thousands of magic bug eggs inside. They would reproduce rapidly the moment there was blood.


    Red me magic bugs were not simply just demon food. They were also grade-3 creatures.


    Nailisi took the box and opened it with her fingernails to take a look. Thousands of magic bug eggs were piled inside and each egg was covered with red magic patterns, simr to those on the box except that the ones on the eggs were slightly dimmer.


    These eggs would not hatch, unless they were ordered to because, they were being suppressed by the devil aura. Nailisi saw no problem with the eggs, so she closed the box and put it in her bracelet.


    Nailisi pondered for a moment before lowering her head and asking Singiles, ¡°You still have yet to discover any demons that are suitable for learning magic?¡±


    Singiles shook his head. He did not understand magic, but he could tell that the demons summoned through the demon city were all not too intelligent. It would be a miracle if demons of such levels of intelligence were capable of learning magic.


    Nailisi was aware of where the problem lied. It seemed that only the future generations of these demons that had been summoned would be loyal and would possess a decent level of intelligence. The power of the demon city had destroyed whatever intelligence the demons had.


    At that thought, Nailisi suddenly felt that the praises those demons sang of her just now were meaningless.


    When would she ever be able to lead a demon army that was powerful and smart?

 Chapter 772: Demon Expedition (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 772: Demon Expedition (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After putting away the red me magic bugs, Nailisi was bored while waiting for the ten-thousand demons to enter the twelve Notes of Purgatory. When they had finally all entered, that was when she put away the equipment, bade farewell to the four magic beast swordsmen, and flew back to Metatrin City.


    The coordinates between Metatrin City and Bitter Water Prefecture were urate, so it only took two or three days to build a teleportation portal. There were many mages on both sides, and there were also plenty of resources. Once the decision to build arge teleportation portal had been made, both cities began to get busy simultaneously.


    At the same time, Nailisi kept herself in the temple and entered the twelve Notes of the Purgatory to train the demons there. The demons¡¯ck of intelligence might not be such a bad thing after all. A normal creature¡¯s mental state would have been subjected to a lot of pressure upon entering the Purgatory of Darkness. The demons barely knew what was going on except in battle, so they were not badly affected.


    Nailisi only repaired the Purgatory of Darkness, which was not too small for containing the ten-thousand demons. Night vision was a skill that all demons possessed, otherwise they would not be able to survive in the demon dimension. Nevertheless, the Purgatory of Darkness was slightly unique and different. The demons¡¯ vision was still severely weakened.


    Sika had also prepared her treasures for Nailisi to choose from. Nailisi was about to set off on an expedition, so the items she chose must be suitable for battling against the Holy See.


    Nailisi looked through the items but did not find anything suitable. Sika¡¯s treasures were all given to her by Saleen, and they mostly consisted of valuable gemstones, ores, magic nuclei, materials that Nailisi did not recognize, and some weapons that ordinary people would not be able to wield. Although Sika possessed powerful mental strength, she was unable to use scrolls, so there were none of those amongst her treasures.


    Nailisi had nned to choose two rare scrolls, but after looking through Sika¡¯s items, she did not know whether tough or cry. The items were very valuable, but Nailisi did notck gold coins.


    There was ance that was almost thirty yards long, bronze in color, and did not have any designs on it. After testing how strong it was, she felt that it would not break even if she used it to kill a giant dragon, so she took the bronzence. She would be able to use the weapon when she was in her devil form.


    Then, Nailisi chose a set of magic stone artillery that was refined from metallic steel rocks. This magic stone artillery was less than five yards long but was heavier than ten-thousand pounds. Nailisi would only be able to carry it when she was in her devil form.


    The magic stone artillery was quite interesting as it was a failed product of alchemy.


    Its range was eight miles, and the damage it could cause was four to five times that of an ordinary magic stone artillery. The cooldown of the magic array was only half a minute. If a few hundred sets of the magic stone artillery were to be ced on top of the city wall, the majority of the enemy armies would be sted to death. That included the enemy¡¯s war puppets, magic warriors, and somerge magic beasts.


    The problem was that that type of weapon used high-level magic nuclei and it cost more than two-hundred-thousand gold coins to build one. The cost of maintenance was more than ten-thousand gold coins per session. Just based on its attacking abilities on a single target, this type of magic stone artillery was not as good as scrolls or heavy alchemy crossbows.


    Heavy alchemy crossbows were fatal even for grade-8 mages if one was fortunate enough tond a hit on them. As for this type of magic stone artillery, it posed little threat to sorcerers. Even if its uracy was high, it would not be part of an army¡¯s equipment.


    Yet Nailisi was still very fond of the stone artillery. She had broken pieces of dragonshards, so she was not concerned about the usage of high-level magic nuclei. Instead of shooting once every half a minute, she could also change it to shooting once every six seconds, at the expense of causing lower damage and at a lower range of about a mile. She had no intentions of using the stone artillery for shooting long ranges. If she used it for close-range attacks, by shooting with even the weakest type of magic array, it would be able to kill most mages and perhaps even sorcerers.


    Magic stone artilleries usually used up a lot of energy, but it was still a very powerful weapon when shot within tens of yards.


    ¡°I will take this!¡± Nailisi pointed at the magic stone artillery and said to Sika, ¡°Sister Sika, please ask all the alchemy factories to focus on creating magic stone shells after I leave.¡±


    ¡°This... is quite useless, right?¡± Sika was confused.


    Nailisi smiled and replied, ¡°Sister Sika, just listen to me. This time around, the enemy is the Holy See. You know how scary they are. I have thought of a solution that will be able to deal with those disciples that do not fear death.¡±


    Sika thought to herself, ¡°Since you like it so much, what more can I say?¡± Saleen did not intend for her to let the items go to waste when he put them under her care. Nailisi wanting this item was better than taking away a bunch of magic nuclei.


    The teleportation portal waspleted within three days, and Nailisi led the demons to Bitter Water Prefecture. Six grade-8 magic nuclei were used up and were now useless except for being used as ornaments.


    Bitter Water Prefecture also used up six grade-8 magic nuclei in order to teleport Nailisi over. Not even thebination of Metatrin City and Alchemy City would have been able to handle the number of magic nuclei if they had wanted to teleport thousands of soldiers and horses.


    When the people in Bitter Water Prefecture saw only Nailisi appear, they were a little disappointed. They had used up six grade-8 magic nuclei just to teleport a small and frail woman over. The mages around Lex that were familiar with Nailisi had all gone to Daliang City, so those that were looking after the teleportation portal did not recognize her and their expressions were less than pleased.


    The teleportation portal was built within the magic tower in the Princess¡¯ mansion, and the eighth story was where Lex¡¯s teachers stayed. When Nailisi saw the expressions on the mages¡¯ faces, she was irked, but she still gave her thanks before jumping out of the magic tower.


    This was the seventh story of a magic tower. Typically, each story of a magic tower was six yards tall, and the entire tower was about forty yards tall. If one did not know how to fly, even high-level swordmasters would fall to their deaths. Nailisi managed tond gently on the ground, leaving the mages by the window staring in awe and shock. This was because Nailisi had begun to transform after shended. In the blink of an eye, she had transformed into a devil that was more than twenty-yards tall and began to spread her wings to fly.


    There were no magic arrays between Bitter Water Prefecture and Daliang City to teleport people as they would not be used unless during situations of great urgency.


    Nailisi flew off while the mages continued to look on in shock. The demon armies were about to reveal themselves to humans, so she did not care that Lex¡¯s people knew about her identity now.


    The twelve Notes of Purgatory was not a suitable ce for creatures to live in even if Nailisi did notunch any attacks. Nailisi did not wish to waste any time and flew straight to Daliang City.


    It was already the fourth of April. Saleen and Lex¡¯s wedding was in six days¡¯ time. Nailisi had to reach Sanlian City by the eighth.


    When Nailisi reached Daliang City, she descended a distance away as she did not wish to be shot by the arrow towers in Daliang City. Although devils were not afraid of ordinary weapons, the arrow towers of a city like Daliang City would definitely have heavy alchemy crossbows.


    Although Daliang City was heavily guarded, the east city gate remained open. Someone was already there, waiting to wee Nailisi. When the soldiers on sentry duties saw that even the pce mages had arrived, they could not help but salute Nailisi.


    It was spring. The long green dress that Nailisi wore was flowing in the breeze as she floated past the soldiers without a sound.


    When Nailisi was no longer within sight, the soldiers chattered, ¡°Which important person was that?!¡±


    ¡°Even the mages came to wee her!¡±


    ¡°And two-hundred pce swordmasters!¡±


    ¡°Stop gossiping. Make sure you carry out your sentry duties properly. It¡¯s not easy to be part of the main army. If we have any disciplinary issues, we will no longer have the chance to serve.¡± The low-level officer in charge of guarding the city gate reprimanded the soldiers before they finally stopped.


    Nailisi was brought to Lex¡¯s magic tower in the pce of Daliang City. Now, Lex and Eleanor were staying in the magic tower while the small building was given to Saleen. Saleen was very fond of the small building. Although it did not possess the thick elemental power of the magic tower, there was an energy that he could not quite ce.


    The energy was weak, but continuous. It was only present around the small building and could not be felt in the magic tower that was tens of yards away. As Saleen had learned some abilities of rules, he was very sensitive towards any types of energies, and this allowed him to discover that secret.


    Daliang City was an ancient city that belonged to a royal family during the beginning of the fourth dynasty. The small building was probably originally used for stargazing. Perhaps, the energy was something that only astrologers could control.


    Saleen¡¯s soul was able to detect Nailisi¡¯s arrival, so he knew of her presence even before she entered the city.


    When Saleen came to the magic tower and saw the disappointed expression on Lex¡¯s face, he could not help butugh and said, ¡°Lex, Nailisi will not disappoint you. This time, she has brought along an army of demons. Although there are only ten-thousand of them, it is enough to hurt the Tanggsis severely.¡±


    ¡°Ten-thousand demons?!¡± Lex was unaware of the n. Even though she had already advanced into a sorcerer, she was still shocked to hear of so many demons.


    It had always been very difficult to gauge thebat abilities of demons. An ordinary demon¡¯s attacking abilities might only beparable that of a human swordmaster of middle-level, but its endurance and explosiveness might surpass that of the same swordmaster. Demons possessed powerful life strength that was on par with spirits of the dead.


    Demons could survive no matter how harsh the conditions were. This was because the environment in the demon dimension was already extremely harsh and the ces that were most habitable had already been upied by devils and supreme demons. Even those ces were considered barren whenpared to the Myers Maind.


    ¡°Princess, in order to maintain the element of surprise, I will bring the demons to Sanlian City directly. I would like to ask you to give these ten-thousand demons badges, otherwise, the people of Sanlian City will be shocked to death.¡±


    Nailisi thought to herself, ¡°Marriage doesn¡¯t mean anything. Humans¡¯ marriages are not as firm as those of demons¡¯.¡± By asking Lex to issue badges to Nailisi¡¯s demon army, Lex would not be able to steer herself clear of the growing of demons in the future. If someone were to attack Saleen based on this point, Lex would have to involve herself as well.


    Even if Lex knew that the humans of the Maind were not fond of demons, she had no choice but to use Nailisi¡¯s army. Sanlian City was simply too important. She did not think the same way as Nailisi. If someone were to attack Saleen over this, she would have stood by him without any hesitation anyway.


    They were just demons after all. If they could emerge victorious across the entire Maind, what issue was there even if they used creatures of darkness?


    ¡°Alright, Nailisi, you can rest here first while I ask someone to prepare the badges and mages. Can your army... be inspected?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness.¡± Nailisi gave a slight bow and was secretly pleased. From then on, her demon army would always be linked to the Grukos royal family. By the time humans could gradually ept this army, more and more of Nailisi¡¯s demons would appear on the Maind.

 Chapter 773: All Enemies are Food (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 773: All Enemies are Food (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex had no idea what Nailisi was nning. She did not let the demon army out as opening the twelve Notes of Purgatory would take up a lot of energy and the entering of ten-thousand demons had already left Nailisi feeling exhausted.


    After asking for badges, Nailisi requested for another two death mages and quite arge amount of magic liquid. Instead of flying, Nailisi rushed to Sanlian City riding on a skeletal warhorse.


    Although Nailisi missed Saleen very much, she did not disy it at all. It was only when she was about to depart that she gave a letter to Saleen.


    ¡°This is from Sister Sika. Read it at night when you are alone.¡±


    There was aplicated mixture of feelings in Saleen when he sent Nailisi off. Nevertheless, he knew that at that point in time, he could only move forward and not look back. Too many people depended on him and Nailisi was just one of the moreplicated ones.


    Saleen and Lex continued to prepare for their wedding, which had already reached the stage of rehearsals. There were many rules of the pce to be followed for a King¡¯s wedding ceremony. Fortunately, Saleen¡¯s Metatrin Kingdom was a new country, so the pce rules were not as strict as the Qin Empire¡¯s.


    After leaving Daliang City, Nailisi led two death mages and more than four-hundred death knights towards Sanlian City.


    Thends upied by Lex were the best parts of Lun. It was a huge t in that could cultivate hundreds of different types of nts. Mountains appeared only after more than six-hundred miles west from Daliang City.


    Over there, there was a pass where Lex had stationed only ten-thousand elite soldiers while the remaining twenty-thousand were auxiliary soldiers. Nailisi did not stop there at all. She continued on towards the west, heading straight towards Sanlian City.


    She had the badge, seal, and ring given to her by Lex. She was now part of the official armies sent to reinforce Sanlian City. Since the documents were in ce, she would have no issues going through the city gates.


    After the pass, there were five-hundred miles of open ins that were unguarded. If Sanlian City was lost, this piece ofnd would belong to Tanggsi. Back when Lex chased the Tanggsis out of Sanlian City, it took more than one-hundred-thousand men. Of the warriors that were injured, more than half of them were no longer able to serve in the military and had to be farmers.


    Nailisi was full of energy and the death mages did not seem to require too much rest either. They were surrounded by death knights and the entire group traveled for a thousand miles until they were finally one-hundred miles away from Sanlian City. Sanlian City was not a pass and small groups of Tanggsi soldiers might appear from the east, so Nailisi stopped.


    She said to the two grade-4 death mages, ¡°The two of you will help me keep a lookout. I am going to release the demon army. If we encounter anyone from the Tanggsi Empire, just use your scrolls. No need to hesitate.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lord Nailisi.¡± The two grand mages replied to Nailisi respectfully.


    Nailisi smiled. The scales on her face began to grow and her body expanded very quickly. The spirits retreated. Compared to humans, spirits were much more sensitive to the aura of devils.


    In the blink of an eye, Nailisi¡¯s body had already expanded to more than twenty yards tall. Although transforming into a devil would not boost Nailisi¡¯s special abilities, at least her strength would surpass almost all humans.


    The twelve Notes of Purgatory were opened and Nailisi summoned the demons out through the ck door using the demonguage. The two death mages could only stare in shock.


    The demons were disciplined. They walked out in rows behind their officers as they formed a rectangr formation. The death knights spread apart, but still remained on their guard. When the demon general finally walked out, it knelt in front of Nailisi to await her order.


    Nailisi distributed the badges, war banners, and crossbows that Lex has prepared for them. Without the magic symbols, even if the armies of Sanlian City were notified by Lex of their arrival, they would probably still not dare to let them in.


    Death mages were typically very brave, so they quickly got used to seeing so many demons. The demons that Nailisi had chosen were four to five yards tall. Aside from horns, scales, and tails, the rest of their features were very simr to humans. The demons all wore the same armor with the badges on their chest.


    The badges were magic equipment and their sole purpose was to prove the wearer¡¯s identity as they could not be replicated.


    The demons were all a little dispirited after being kept in the twelve Notes of Purgatory so long. After they had all been gathered together, Nailisi ordered them to rest and have their meals.


    The demons all sat down and began to consume the magic bugs in the huge leather skins that they carried with them. Usually, if demons were not injured, they would eat only once every half a month in order to maintain their strength and energy. Each time they ate, they would eat much more than humans though. If they consumed human grain, the demon army¡¯s logistics would face a problem as it would use up more than three times a normal human army¡¯s rations.


    Nevertheless, after taking into considerations the strong survivability of demons, such usage was still eptable.


    Due to the issue of materials, the six types of devil armors were simplified by Saleen to create a low-level version of devil flying armor. This type of armor allowed for simple flying and would only require grade-4 magic nuclei. One would only be able to fly up to sixty-yards over a very short distance, so its main usage was to help the wearer ovee obstacles like city walls.


    The ten-thousand demons were given a total of sixty-thousand grade-4 nuclei. In order to ensure the soldiers had sufficientbat abilities, it was necessary to invest in equipment.


    After the demons had eaten, they rested for a while and in less than two hours, they had fully regained their energy. If it were humans that were kept in the twelve Notes of Purgatory instead, they would need more than half a day in order to make a full recovery.


    After regaining their energy, the demon army set off for Sanlian City. A distance of more than one-hundred miles was not considered long, even by human standards. If they were without burdens, the humans on the Myers Maind would be able to travel for half a day at a speed of ten miles per hour without rest.


    On the other hand, the humans on the subcontinental ne had much weaker physiques.


    Simr to magic beasts, the demons traveled on foot for twenty miles and finally reached Sanlian City after more than five hours. Sanlian City was made of three parts less than twenty miles away from each other and it was built ording to the terrain. It managed to save on a lot of manpower and resources during the construction process. The three cities were built on a mountain range.


    As the cities were less than twenty miles away from each other, they could send aid to each other anytime. Nailisi headed straight for the city in the middle as the army was led by the two death mages and two-hundred death knights.


    The main army of Tanggsi was on the west side while there was a small troop of enemies on the east. The scouts in the city never stopped patrolling the area. As the demon army looked too frightening and intimidating, the small troop of Tanggsis made no attempt to intervene. When the scouts of Sanlian City saw the demon army, they still trembled in fear even though they were already expecting them.


    These scouts were elite soldiers too, but naturally they were still scared to see so many demons for the first time. The main reason was the devil form that Nailisi had transformed into. A twenty yard tall devil was simply too terrifying to the soldiers.


    Fortunately, all the documents were in ce and the scouts had already received a heads-up, so they did not make a fool of themselves. They managed to suppress the fear in their hearts and led the spirit army into Sanlian City.


    The main general of Sanlian City belonged to a noble family. He was only a grade-3 Marquis, but he was already going beyond his grade by leading one-hundred-thousand men and horses. Lex did not have too many capable people. The Marquis was loyal and rather capable, so putting him in charge of defending Sanlian City was definitely the right choice.


    If this Marquis was in charge of attacking, then that might be a different story.


    The arrival of Nailisi¡¯s demon army caused amotion in Sanlian City. When Daliang City sent one-hundred-thousand men over in response to the Marquis¡¯ request for reinforcements, thetter still felt that it would be difficult to hold the city. The distances between the three cities were very close, so knights could be deployed between them for reinforcements. The Holy See had deployed many blood knights and if a battle was to be fought on an open field, only the heavy-armored knights and soldiers of Bitter Water Prefecture would stand a chance against them.


    After a few rounds of battles, Sanlian City suffered many losses and the one-hundred-thousand soldiers sent there for reinforcements would only help to hold the city for another half a month or so.


    Nailisi¡¯s arrival gave the Marquis hope. When he first heard of a demon army, he was terrified, but that soon gave way to excitement. After all, demons were nothingpared to their enemy, the Holy See.


    If the Holy See were to seed in taking over Bitter Water Prefecture, many would be converted into disciples in no time. Those that chose not to convert would be burned to death. Their children, who were unaware of what had happened, would join the Holy See. Two generationster, many churches would appear on this piece ofnd.


    This was the Holy War and the people of Holy See would use the most cruel ways and means to convert their enemies, rather than influencing them.


    The Marquis did not wish to see his children and grandchildren be disciples so he was willing to fight to the death.


    Most Qin noble families thought the same way. The Tanggsi Empire was a good example, where there was no longer any honor or glory attached to the noble families there.


    Despite mentally preparing himself, the Marquis still felt weak when he saw Nailisi. He was already considered a talent amongst noble families and was a zun grand swordmaster.


    Nailisi exuded an incredibly powerful aura. Behind her was the demon army.


    Nailisi lowered her head and said to the Marquis, ¡°Marquis, what is your name?¡±


    ¡°Ferdinand.¡± The Marquis swallowed his saliva. Nailisi had already tried to tone down her voice, but it was still extremely loud. The gigantic devil could speak in the humannguage? That would make things much easier.


    ¡°I need a space to station the army. They don¡¯t need barracks or beds, only t ground. This is the diagram...¡± With that, Nailisi threw a magic diagram for Marquis Ferdinand before continuing, ¡°Build some toilets for me. The demons loved to eat meat. Without the toilets, I¡¯m afraid your men will not be able to stand the smell of demons.¡±


    Marquis Ferdinand felt more at ease after what Nailisi said. The demons were still considerate of their human counterparts. He only needed to build some demon toilets and not some special camps. This was easier than he thought.


    ¡°Ferdinand, my army will not hurt your soldiers. They may eat some of the enemies as it may be difficult to get supplies, so you need to be prepared.¡±


    The expression on Ferdinand¡¯s face changedpletely. Eat enemies? They would be notorious immediately if word got out!

 Chapter 774: All Enemies are Food (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 774: All Enemies are Food (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Most people would not feel too ufortable when death mages asionally created undead soldiers, but when it came to eating enemies, that was different a matter altogether.


    When Nailisi saw the disgusted expression on Ferdinand¡¯s face, she snickered coldly.


    This snicker caused a reaction within the demon army. The demons began to howl loudly while smashing their weapons on the ground.


    ¡°Marquis, all enemies are food. This is the rule of the demon dimension. It was with Her Highness¡¯ permission that I have brought my army here to fight for her. Look at their badges!¡± Nailisi pointed at the demon behind her with her huge finger and said, ¡°What does this badge represent?¡±


    ¡°Loyalty, unity, honor, and conviction!¡± Marquis Ferdinand replied with difficulty. Letting the demons devour humans seemed to be ipatible to these four values.


    ¡°We are willing to die for Her Highness, that¡¯s loyalty. We will not attack our allies, that¡¯s unity. We will not bow down even to Gods, that¡¯s honor. We are willing to fight until the end of the world, that¡¯s conviction! Marquis, what do you say?¡±


    ¡°You, are right...¡±


    Marquis Ferdinand tried to console himself. The demons were supposed to fight the enemies and it would be difficult for his own men to support the demon army on the battlefield. Let them go ahead and eat then. The more enemies they ate, the less they would have to worry about logistics.


    ¡°Marquis, let me know if you are not agreeable. I will give you a list of food items. You will surely regret it when you see it.¡± Nailisi no longer bothered to be nice to the Marquis.


    ¡°As you wish. I will convince my men.¡± After hearing what Nailisi said, the Marquis suddenly understood that the ten-thousand demons would have required a lot of food. During battles, the amount of food consumed by a human soldier would increase by multiple times and this was likely the same for demons as well. These demons were four to five yards tall so the amount of meat that they would need to consume must be frightening.


    After the Marquis had finally given in, Nailisi was pleased and brought the demon army to the open space in the middle of the city. There were a few small buildings in the open space and they were torn down in order to amodate the demons there.


    The Myers Maind was fertile and the weather in Lun was the best. Compared to the demon dimension, it was what the Gods would describe as ¡®heaven¡¯. The demons did not need any houses. They would lie down and sleep straight away, without even removing their armor.


    Nailisi left the open space and headed to the Marquis¡¯ mansion after assigning some of the smarter battalionmanders to manage the demons. She purposely remained in her devil form to discuss the battle with the Marquis in his garden.


    Ferdinand felt helpless facing a gigantic devil. Fortunately, Nailisi did not scare him intentionally. She only maintained a posture of arrogance and was constantly looking down on the Marquis.


    Nailisi was seated on the ground while the Marquis was on the top story of a high building. Both of them were discussing the battle that was toe.


    The Marquis patiently exined the formations on the map.


    Originally, there was an army of four-hundred-thousand in Sanlian City. After taking into ount the one-hundred-thousand that Daliang City had sent over and the men that they had lost in battles, there was still about four-hundred-thousand left. There were tens of thousands of injured soldiers in the cities and although they had been healed, they would no longer be able to pick up weapons and fight.


    Sanlian City was located on t ground that was more than sixty miles wide. In the west was a small and narrow t in. There was another narrow river more than fifty miles away that flowed from south to north. The Holy See¡¯s army had already built a bridge for the armies behind them to pass over the river quickly.


    Recently, the Holy See¡¯s main aim was to attack the city to the south of Sanlian City, harass the one in the north, andy a siege on the main city in the center. When the city in the south requested reinforcements, the main city would deploy knights to attack the enemy troops. Nevertheless, the Holy See¡¯s army was about five-hundred-thousand strong, which was fewer than the army on the west side of the river.


    ¡°In other words, the Tanggsi army has more men!¡±


    ¡°Indeed, at least this is the case on the east side of the river. In terms of manpower, we do not have the upper hand.¡±


    Nailisi had experienced battling expeditions before and that battle against the one-hundred-thousand strong expedition was memorable. The soldiers in the Holy See¡¯s army were not afraid to die. In fact, they almost seemed to embrace death, as if it was a blessing.


    ¡°The main city has a two-hundred-thousand strong army while the two cities in the south and north each have one-hundred-thousand strong armies each. The enemy is now attacking the city in the south and this ce is in the middle of the route that the main city will take to send reinforcements to the south. Brief me on thebat abilities of the army here and how many strong opponents there are.¡±


    Ferdinand was well-versed in military matters and Nailisi¡¯s questions left him troubled.


    ¡°Your Honor... the enemy has two main corps here with about twenty-thousand blood knights and two red Bishops. They should be grade-8 Professionals. Usually, the two red Bishops will not appear unless we have grand swordmasters.¡±


    ¡°Do we have any sorcerers?¡±


    ¡°There is a grade-7 sorcerer in every city, but they are unable to attack as they must guard the magic towers.¡±


    ¡°In other words, the enemy can only attack using conventional methods, otherwise they will have to resort to destroying the magic tower by force?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Destroying a seven-story magic tower would require at least two grade-9 Professionals. Since the magic towers are situated within the city walls, the grade-9 Professionals must take into consideration the threat posed by the arrow towers so they may not attack the magic towers by force after all.¡±


    ¡°This means that there is a seventy-thousand to eighty-thousand strong army here with two red Bishops. What about here?¡± Nailisi pointed to a spot nearby that was suitable for stationing troops.


    ¡°Approximately the same numbers as well, but there are only ordinary soldiers here. No blood knights at all.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, it is meant to fool you into thinking this way. The troops stationed here are probably the real elite soldiers. If the city in the south is pushed to the point that it may lose its magic tower, the main city will definitely send out even more troops to provide aid. When the troops we send out reached a certain number, that is when the elite soldiers here will attack and sandwich us between them and the enemy soldiers in the south city. At most, we can only deploy fifty-thousand men while the enemy can easily deploy more than one-hundred and fifty-thousand soldiers on top of the two-hundred-thousand that were already attacking the south city. What do you think about this trap?¡±


    What Nailisi said left Ferdinand sweating. The few times that he had sent aid to the south city, the enemy soldiers stationed in the location that Nailisi had pointed out remained unmoved so he mistook them to be logistics soldiers. What the scouts discovered was also the same. If this was the enemy¡¯s main force, the one-hundred and fifty-thousand soldiers would be able to engage the fifty-thousand elite soldiers until the main forces arrived to surround them.


    In the past, the enemy remained unmoved because the reinforcements he had sent out were too few in number.


    Ferdinand was perspiring because Nailisi was sharp enough to be able to see the trap immediately. If all demons were like that, it would be too frightening!


    ¡°The terrain here is too narrow, which limits the size of armies that can be stationed here. The Holy See would already have taken down Sanlian City long ago otherwise. Marquis, don¡¯t worry. We willunch an attack on the ninth of April and eat this army up.¡± Nailisi pointed at the campsite of seventy-thousand men with her sharp fingernails. The thought of the demons eating people made Ferdinand shiver.


    ¡°Your Honor, why don¡¯t we attack on the eighth instead?¡± Ferdinand was puzzled. It would take a full day of all-out attack on south city in order to force them into seeking reinforcements. If the main city was to send aid after a full day had passed, they would fall into the enemy¡¯s trap. On the tenth, the entire defense of Sanlian City would more or less have copsedpletely.


    ¡°Bring forward the attack? The Tanggsi to the west of the river are able to increase one-million soldiers in a day. If the enemy gave it their all, then the tenth would be the most dangerous day for us. If we dy by a day, this ce will not be able to contain a one-million strong army anyway, so the enemy¡¯s main forces will have no choice but to wait to the west of the river. Once we reach the eleventh and the wedding is over, an all-out attack would be meaningless.¡±


    Ferdinand was sweating even more now. Not only was this demon capable with tactics, she was also brilliant at strategizing.


    Even if the demon¡¯s n failed eventually, it would still manage to disrupt the enemy¡¯s n of taking down the city on the tenth.


    It was extremely important to Bitter Water Prefecture that they survive past the tenth. If the borders were to fall on the day of the wedding, it would be a huge blow to Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Nailisi¡¯s purple eyes revealed cruelty even as sheughed and said, ¡°Sooner orter, Cloudflow will regret coborating with the Holy See!¡±


    Nailisi knew that to Qin, the Holy See was the real demons. She needed a good excuse for her own demon army to go about killing in the Cloudflow Empire. Since Cloudflow was working so closely together with the Holy See, then that just included another huge meal on her demon army¡¯s menu.


    Cloudflow had made the wrong decision without her even trying anything. Nailisi had evene up with the slogan of her demon army ¨C¡¯devour all disciples of the evil God!¡¯


    Qin would definitely ept the slogan. Not a single church had appeared in the empire and the people there believed in magic and even astrologers in the past. When the Grand Duke of Lun fell, his bloodline was not preserved and not many Qin noble families extended their help because the Grand Duke had allowed the Holy See onto hisnds.


    ¡°Marquis, I need some sponsorship for personal reasons. Help me think of a way.¡± When Nailisi requested some resources for her own use, Marquis Ferdinand agreed immediately.


    What Nailisi wanted was high-level magic nuclei. She already had tens of high-level magic nuclei in her bracelet, but she could not bear to mount them on the magic stone artilleries as they were all grade-9 magic nuclei. Magic stone artilleries only required grade-7 magic nuclei.


    By right, grade-4 magic nuclei would be sufficient, but Nailisi did not wish to have to change magic nuclei in the midst of the battle, hence bringing up such a request.


    After obtaining six grade-7 magic nuclei, Nailisi took out her magic stone artilleries. She mounted new magic nuclei and filled them with magic stone shells before finally smiling with satisfaction.


    ¡°Marquis, I will remember your generosity.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s estimation was right. The Holy See gathered a three-hundred-thousand strong army on the eighth of April and began tounch a fierce attack on the south city of Sanlian City. The armies of south city immediately sounded the rm. After what Nailisi had pointed out previously, Marquis Ferdinand did not send out reinforcements immediately. He began to prepare for the battle on the second day instead.


    Nailisi was extremely excited. The terrain of Sanlian City was perfect for the demon army. If only she had one-hundred-thousand demons, she would have been confident of defeating the Holy See army. The terrain there was narrow and the Holy See would only be able to gather five-hundred-thousand soldiers at most. An army of five-hundred-thousand would not be a match for one-hundred-thousand demons. It was not as if the humans now were the same as the humans in the past!

 Chapter 775: Berserk Nailisi (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 775: Berserk Nailisi (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Holy See¡¯s attack on the south citysted for an entire day. By the time evening came, both sides had already suffered heavy losses. Usually, the defending side would have the advantage, even if they had poorer soldiers because a twenty yard tall city wall was an obstacle that would be difficult for any army to ovee.


    The soldiers of the Holy See were always able to continue fighting unless their limbs had been cut off or a huge hole had been blown open in their stomachs.


    The rm had already been sounded since morning and the reply they received was to hold the city and wait for reinforcements.


    South city would already have fallen if not for the fact that they were facing the Holy See army. As long as the attacking side had enough soldiers, they would always be able to take the city sooner orter. Fortunately, the enmity between Qin and the Holy See had existed for the past ten-thousand years and the people of Bitter Water Prefecture born in Qin were no exception either.


    As night fell, the attacks slowed down gradually and the armies in the main city began to gather.


    Nailisi¡¯s demon army would lead the way while the two death mages were arranged in the middle of the five regiments of knights. There was a total of six-thousand men, including the death knights, that followed behind the demon army.


    Behind the knights were the charioteers. Charioteers were practically non-existent ever since magic chariots became obsolete, so they were now just a type of foot soldier.


    The charioteers¡¯ jobs was to protect the mages. Elemental mages were susceptible to attacks on the battlefield, mainly because of the white-robed mages¡¯ speed of reaction and defense abilities. Typically, grand mages would no longer be making any fatal mistakes. These charioteers would travel with the white-robed mages as forty huge chariots protected forty white-robed mages.


    The role that these mages yed was not insignificant as they had to continuously cast grade-0 and grade-1 spells, healing and boosting all the soldiers. Low-level mages were able to recover very quickly, their magic chords were short and small. The magic nuclei they used were also low-level ones, so they were much more valuable on the battlefieldpared to heavy-armored knights and foot soldiers.


    There were too little apanying white-robed mages this time around, so their main tasks were to detoxify and dispel divine spells.


    Spells could affect divine spells just as thetter could interfere the former. The forty white-robed mages¡¯ main responsibility was to dispel any divine spells that had been cast on the officers.


    Behind the charioteers and chariots were the riding infantry. Most of these infantrymen had horses, but the speed and endurance of the horses could not bepared to those of the knights¡¯. The riding infantry of Sanlian City usually had to seize the opportunity to ride. Typically, they rode on chariots as the paths in Qin were wide and convenient.


    There were only fifteen-thousand riding infantry in total. Aside from the demon army and heavy-armored knights, the main city did not send any elite soldiers as there were still one-hundred-thousand enemies in the north and west that they needed to guard against.


    The main forces of Tanggsi were only more than fifty miles away from Sanlian City. If they were all determined to cross the river, they would be able to gather below the city walls within a day.


    Nailisi did not care about the intentions of the human armies behind them. All she needed was a group of people that were able to help her collect the spoils of war, such as the enemies¡¯ armor, weapons, crossbows, and warhorses. Demons were not used to transporting items, they were only good at killing.


    No matter what army the secretive campsite was hiding, one thing was for sure, there were a lot of logistical supplies hidden there. Nailisi had decided to snatch the supplies, simple as that.


    On the city tower, a white-robed mage turned the hands of the magic clock to indicate an hour past midnight. A faint white light shone from the top of the city wall and the city gate opened slowly. Nailisi leapt from the city wall andnded on the ground.


    The demons rushed out from the city gates that had been opened wide. When the soldiers of Bitter Water Prefecture saw the demon army, they felt a mixture of emotions. At that point, only mages would be able to speak without going against any military discipline. Fortunately, a grand mage spoke to the white-robed mage beside him, ¡°It has been tens of thousands of years since demons fought for humans to win over God¡¯s disciples. This is a good thing...¡±


    ¡°Your Excellency, you are right. When humans were at their strongest, even the giants fought for us. If only humans are able to go back to those times.¡±


    The conversation between the two mages was especially enlightening amidst the silence on top of the city wall. The soldiers could listen even if they could not interrupt. It resonated to varying degrees for almost all of the soldiers.


    The poets used to sing about demons and other even stranger creatures fighting for humans. Most ordinary humans had no idea that all of it was true. Now that the mages had spoken, the people of Bitter Water Prefecture had chosen to believe.


    The mages would not lie. Those legends from the past were really true!


    Of course, the gray-robed mage would never think of that out of the blue. He said what he said because the Marquis had asked him to. What he said would gradually spread within the armies and before long, the narrative would be prevalent throughout the entire Bitter Water Prefecture and even the Qin Empire.


    Once such a narrative spread, it would be difficult to turn it around. The Marquis was extremely smart. After interacting with Nailisi, he began to think of how to execute this step by step.


    When the knights emerged from the city gates behind the demons, the soldiers on top of the city walls felt a sense of pride. These iron knights were much more powerful than the Tanggsi soldiers. If not for the blood knights, the battle would have been a walk in the park.


    It was normal for the soldiers to think that way. When they first took down Sanlian City, they had a much easier time than the Tanggsi soldiers even though they alsounched their attack from a more advantageous point.


    There were no horses in the demon army, but they sprinted at lightning speed behind Nailisi. The armor that was customized for the demons was not heavy at all and was much lighter than the crudely-made armor they wore in the demon dimension. One could only hear the sounds of the demons¡¯ footsteps and the clinks of their metal armor.


    The two cities were only twenty miles apart so theoretically, there should be no gaps in their defense. If not for the fact that the cities were built from the gigantic rocks from the ground, probably no humans would build their cities that way.


    The catapults¡¯ attacking range was five miles and there was only a passageway that was ten miles wide between the two cities. The Tanggsi soldiers had stationed themselves across the passageway. A distance of five miles was too close for the demons as nothing could be hidden between both sides.


    When the demon army appeared, the Tanggsi scouts retreated beyond the attack ranges of catapults and magic stone artilleries. On the other hand, the Tanggsi blood knights rushed forward to meet them head-on.


    Blood knights had no need for rest nor logistical support. They only needed the attention of the holy priests of the Supreme Court once in a while. At least half of the twenty-thousand blood knights hade forward to engage.


    Deploying more than ten-thousand knights would usually take a long time. For example, the six-thousand knights of Bitter Water Prefecture had taken a few hours to prepare their armor, get into formation, put on the armor for their warhorses, and test their magic equipment. On the other hand, the blood knights did not require such preparations. Within a short time, the ten-thousand blood knights sprinted straight towards the demon army.


    Neither side used crossbows. The blood knights did not know how to and at most could only hurl javelins while the demons were not proficient in crossbows at all. In any case, the people of Bitter Water Prefecture knew that ordinary crossbows were useless against blood knights anyway. In order to take a blood knight out of the battle, one¡¯s arrow must prate through their brain. Only an archer of the level of a high-level swordmaster would be able to achieve such uracy. Archers of a lower level would never be able to draw the rigid strings on the crossbows properly.


    A grin appeared on Nailisi¡¯s face. She only gave a simple order ¨C¡¯kill!¡¯


    Then, Nailisi took out her magic stone artillery and aimed at the iing blood knights with her huge arms.


    The advantage that magic stone artilleries had over catapults was that they were smaller so their recoil was negligible. Even in her devil form, Nailisi would not have been able to move about freely with a catapult.


    The blood knights were so fast that they only took less than a minute to be within fifty yards from the moment they were first sighted by the demons. The red armor, rotting flesh, and empty look on their facespleted the appearance of the blood knights. To the demons, the impact of the blood knights¡¯ appearances was insignificant.


    Nailisi squatted down and activated the magic stone artillery. Close to a hundred shells shot out from the thick barrel and straight at the blood knights.


    In the defense of cities, magic stone artilleries would never be shot in a straight line. They were usually shot at projectile like catapults to disperse the enemy¡¯s foot soldiers orrge equipment with their magic shells. The way Nailisi was using it was a unique technique.


    The magic stone shells swept across the blood knights and wherever they passed, the blood knights fell with iling limbs.


    The magic stone shells that hit the blood knights directly would prate their bodiespletely while those that brushed past their bodies would take away huge chunks of flesh. If they were to hit the blood knights¡¯ limbs, they would be blown offpletely.


    More than two-hundred blood knights, along with their warhorses, werepletely taken out of the fight after the first st. Nailisiughed gleefully. How exciting it was to use it on the battlefield. If her enemies were not blood knights, the damage that the magic stone artillery could cause would be even greater.


    Nailisi took out aplete magic stone shell and put it into the cannon. Her huge devil form provided her with unimaginable strength. Nailisi had the ability to trigger the magic array and focus the magic stone artillery¡¯s damage. Within ten seconds, she shot out the next st.


    There were no longer any more blood knights in the front row, but those behind kept charging forward. They knew no pain, nor fear. The magic stone shells shot down the enemies that were within hundreds of yards from Nailisi. By the time those behind rushed to the forefront, they were already injured and still, they had to face the next wave of attack from Nailisi.


    This was a meaningless massacre! Nailisi shot at the blood knights from close range with her huge magic stone artillery. There was no way they could survive the attack even if they were as powerful as swordmasters.


    The clumsy and bulky magic stone artillery looked light and nimble like a child¡¯s bow in the hands of a devil.


    After six waves of attacks, Nailisi could detect that the magic array in the magic stone artillery was bing unstable. Using the magic stone artillery to attack within short intervals was not something that was taken into consideration when designing the weapon. Nailisi had no choice but to put away the magic stone artillery and take out her thirty yard longnce instead.

 Chapter 776: Berserk Nailisi (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 776: Berserk Nailisi (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Magic stone cannon artilleries made of metallic steel rock were a concept that Eleanor told Saleen about. In the end, the prototypical magic stone artillery cost a total of more than one-million gold coins, from design to producing it.


    They went through the entire process a few times. Initially, mages crawled into the cannon to put the magic arrays in ce. In the end, they created a tool to put the magic arrays directly in the cannons. After a few rounds of trial and error, the magic stone artilleries were finally ready to be mass-produced. Nevertheless, the cost of producing them remained high.


    If the intention was to guard key areas, then alchemy crossbows wielded by skilled archers would have been more appropriate. If the magic stone artilleries were used to attack within short intervals, their magic arrays would be unstable very easily.


    Fortunately, Nailisi was not counting on them to win the battle. The demon army and the blood knights shed. With one sweep of her longnce, all the enemies within thirty yards were decimated.


    When Nailisi swept her longnce across the enemies, the broken limbs of the blood knights flew everywhere. Only the knights on the nks were still battling the demons. The blood knights were unable to gain the upper hand. The demons were two yards taller than the blood knights on their horses. No armor could resist the impact of the demon¡¯s giant axes.


    The air was filled with blood. Nailisi was attacking with her arms and legs, staring at the holy priests standing faraway all the while.


    A ck high priest from the Supreme Court was the onemanding the blood knights. What the priests saw from a distance shocked them. There were actually demons!


    Demons!


    The high priests panicked. Even the bravest in the Supreme Court still feared the demons a little, and this was despite demons being humans¡¯ most loyalpanions in the past.


    The humans had regressed and could no longer enve such creatures after all.


    It was finally happening. The gigantic demon that was more than twenty yards tall charged at the rear of the blood knights with a longnce, the ce where the ck high priest was hidden amongst the central army.


    The ck high priest was surrounded by about two-hundred wardens, who were all wearing blessed armor. He screamed because he knew that the wardens would not be able to protect him. The problem was, he could not retreat because another ten-thousand blood knights would being from behind very soon. If he tried to escape, the red Bishop would never forgive him.


    The other high priests around him began to panic as well. They did not hold high positions in the Supreme Court and were only equivalent to grade-3 mages. The red Bishop was free to deal with them as he pleased and the punishment for trying to escape from battle would be death.


    The people of the Supreme Court did not believe there was such a thing as ¡®heaven¡¯. They might bemanding the blood knights around, but they would never court death like the blood knights were.


    Nailisi was wearing gigantic metal boots. One kick with those boots would send a number of blood knights flying. In the midst of the gory battle, her legs were already covered with flesh, bone marrow, remnants of armor, and even the enemies¡¯ innards.


    Nailisi was beginning to enjoy the killing a little too much. Two arms gradually grew out from her back to grab hold of blood knights and hurled them to the front. The blood knights that were unfortunately caught in her grasp werepletely destroyed the moment she tightened her grip. Their blood and flesh oozed out from the gaps of their armor.


    The corpses of these blood knights were thrown away, crashing into the blood knights that were charging from behind. Just like that, Nailisi came unobstructed to the front of the ck high priests. There had been ten-thousand blood knights beingmanded by more than twenty ck high priests, who were protected by more than two-hundred wardens.


    Under normal circumstances, even silver grand swordmasters would not have been able to sh their way through the blood knights to reach the central army. Besides, this was not the central army; the realmander had yet to arrive. Two grade-8 red Bishops were directing ten-thousand blood knights and two corps into battle formation.


    These ck high priests were merely vanguards in name as they did not possess any powerfulbat abilities. Usually, the ten-thousand blood knights would have been sufficient.


    Nailisiughed wildly. Those blood knights that dared to approach her were either kicked, stomped on, or crushed. The armor that she wore was made by Saleen who used heavy gold. It did not have any special abilities, only a strong defense. This was the first time Nailisi was fighting in her devil form. Although she was not a real devil, she was still able to inflict more damage than a supreme demon.


    Nailisi was having too much fun killing. She could not be bothered with the weak blood knights anymore. She leapt twice consecutively and reached the central army where the ck high priests were. She bent and with one sweep of her longnce, the wardens in the front were all sent flying to the sky. The wardens¡¯ armor was clearly better than the blood knights¡¯ as none of the former were cut into pieces. When their ck armor was hit by the de of thence, fresh blood spurted out in all directions.


    Battling using the form of a devil was unexpectedly effective.


    More than twenty ck high priests began to chant prayers simultaneously, but only the holy priest in the front was smart enough to take out a divine spell scroll. It was toote to be chanting prayers now. The giant demon¡¯s longnce was raised and ready to swing down on them.


    The divine spell scroll that the ck high priest took out was a very special one, the Wishing spell scroll.


    This was a divine spell that operated on probability. Since its level was too low, probability of sess was not high. Now that the demon was about to strike, this high priest had no choice but to pray that fortune would favor him.


    Hispanions were already chanting prayers. He only hoped to be able to stop the demon for a moment. After that, surely the divine spells of hispanions would be able to kill off this thing?


    ¡°Stop!¡± The ck high priest opened the scroll and was relieved to see that it was shining with white light. The divine spell had seeded!


    Nailisi felt pain in her hand because her longnce has been stopped in motion even as her body continued to carry her forward. The longnce was not a weapon that Nailisi used often. It was only an equipment that she decided to use in her devil form at the veryst minute. This longnce was of exceptional quality, surpassing even her devil armor. Nailisi was not familiar with it, unlike her armor, so she was unable to use it as if it was a part of her body.


    As such, the Wishing spell seeded in freezing Nailisi¡¯s longnce.


    ¡°Ha... Oww!¡±


    Nailisi smiled in a strange manner. She rxed her grip and took out another weapon from her bracelet ¨C a gigantic shield. This shield was designed for devils and Nailisi being in devil form was as good as being a target board for alchemy crossbows. The shield was eighteen yards tall and was made entirely from metallic steel rock. The shield would enable Nailisi to protect herself from the alchemy crossbows¡¯ attacks.


    After using her two additional hands to p away the remaining wardens, Nailisiughed wildly as she smashed the gigantic shield into the ground.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form was of a very high level so there was no way it would be stopped by a low-level Wishing spell. When she smashed her shield down, the ck high priests were all within attacking range.


    Just like that, the ck high priests, who were not wearing any armor, were crushed into minced meat along with their holy shields.


    These insignificant grade-3 characters were unable to put up any resistance against the devil. Right now, Nailisi possessed incredibly strong defense and terrifying physical attacks.


    Nailisi attacked with her shield, smashing all her targets into minced meat. The human knights that were charging from behind were shocked by what they were seeing. They only saw the huge figure of Nailisi rampaging amongst the blood knights, no longer without any opponents in sight. A number of weapons that the blood knights had used to attack Nailisi were sticking out from her back. The weapons only seeded in piercing into her armor and not injuring her devil form.


    Blood knights were never meant to fight against creatures of this level. Their main targets had always been human armies.


    The Bitter Water Prefecture heavy-armored knights rode amongst the demons. Charging at enemies was not what these knights depended on to win on the battlefield. They instead relied on a much slower speed so that they could target their enemies¡¯ weak spots with the reverse-de scimitars that they wielded.


    Pure-blooded warhorses were at least equivalent to a grade-2 magic beast. They had high endurance and the weight that they could bear was ten times more than other magic beasts of the same size.


    The blood knights retreated slightly. Nailisi raised her head and saw that more blood knights were appearing from far away. Behind these blood knights were tens of thousands of Holy See armies.


    Nailisi panted and felt that she could only continue to fight this way for another two hours at most. She hadpletely used up the strength of her devil form and would need a few days¡¯ time to fully regain it. She put away her shield and longnce and retreated slightly.


    There were two grade-8 holy priests amongst her enemies. She would have a tough time handling the both of them on her own.


    At that time, another army of the Holy See appeared from behind Nailisi¡¯s army, trying to intercept their path of retreat. The south gates of Sanlian City quickly opened and an army rushed out. The foot soldiers in Nailisi¡¯s army quickly turned around and got into their battle formations.


    This army was never meant to aid south city, their main purpose was to protect the rear of Nailisi and her army.


    The battle was getting chaotic, but Nailisi was not flustered. The demon army had practically been left unharmed. Nailisi was able to kill more than two-thousand blood knights with six sts of magic stone artillery. She was confident of killing at least three-thousand the next time around.


    Nailisi continued to retreat before squatting down and grabbing a demon that was six yards tall. In no time, this demon grew to a height of about twenty yards.


    Of course, this was only a shapeshifting spell that would not increase this demon¡¯sbat abilities. Nailisi was only trying to find a substitute that looked like her. The armor on this demon, that had just been transformed to look like a devil, provided even less defense since it had cracked a little due to the expansion in size.


    Nailisi gave her longnce to this demon while she gradually transformed into a human. She summoned her own armor and the weapon she wielded was now a scimitar.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form was a huge body that would have served as a target board for the high-level holy priests. Although she was having a crazy good time fighting, she had yet to turn into a fool as a result.


    Hidden amongst the human heavy-armored knights were a few men armed with elvish alchemy crossbows. In the first ce, Saleen did not possess too many of such items and had even less of them after giving some of them to Sanlian City. He gave out eight sets this time around because he knew there would be holy priests.


    The battle was proceeding just how Nailisi had expected. The Holy See armies were attacking them from both sides as they hoped to exterminate this powerful army. Although the demon army took the Holy See by surprise, the result was still the same. The Holy See was still fully intent on destroying them, regardless if they were human armies or demon armies.


    Back in Daliang City, Saleen and Lex were already resting for the night when a lifestyle mage woke them up and informed that someone wished to see them.


    ¡°Who is that? It¡¯s already sote, can¡¯t it wait ¡¯till tomorrow?!¡± Lex was a little upset because the wedding was in one more day and she needed the rest. She could not imagine who would be so inconsiderate to disturb at this time.

 Chapter 777: An Order from Alchemy City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 777: An Order from Alchemy City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Princess, they are from Alchemy City.¡± The lifestyle mage exined to Lex patiently. She could understand Lex¡¯s feelings. Her wedding wasing, so it was only natural for a woman to have difficulty falling asleep due to anxiety. Anyone would be upset to be woken up at that time.


    ¡°Alchemy City? Where is Saleen?!¡± Lex immediately put on some clothes and climbed down from her bed.


    ¡°Someone else has gone to get His Highness. Princess, where shall we host these people from Alchemy City?¡±


    Lex pondered for a moment. They could not possibly be there to assassinate her due to the rtionship between Alchemy City and the royal family.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go to Saleen¡¯s ce. I will discuss this with Saleen for three minutes first then bring them in.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Princess. I will go and arrange.¡± The lifestyle mage left. Lex frowned. Alchemy City had already sent their congrattory gifts previously, why would they send someone else over again? Why did they have to see her now in the middle of the night and not tomorrow? Could there be trouble?


    It was with confusion that Lex entered Saleen¡¯s small tower. When she saw Saleen wearing his devil armor, Lexughed and said, ¡°Saleen, Alchemy City will not assassinate us, even if your presence may have disrupted their ns.¡±


    ¡°The only thing mages can trust is knowledge.¡± Saleen smiled as he answered. He thought to himself, ¡°Although my magic nuclei business has yet to disrupt the market, as long as I have the ability to exploit the oceanic ice block, this is inevitable.¡±


    Alchemy City controlled about ny percent of the magic nuclei market and about fifty percent of the magic equipment market. If Saleen died, then Alchemy City would be able to maintain status quo.


    Lex thought about it and felt that what Saleen said made sense. She and Saleen had yet to be officially wed, so even if Saleen was to be assassinated, Alchemy City would not be killing a member of the Grukos family.


    ¡°So, do you want to see them?¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course. Nichs will be hiding here, Eleanor will be on the upper story while Cuisi will be on the rooftop. Besides, who can hurt me with you in the room?¡± Despite what Saleen said, he still took out his mask and put it on his face.


    This mask part of a set, along with the devil suit. Only then could the wearer use all six grade-7 spells that had been stored in the devil suit.


    Saleen did not even use it when he encountered the assassin. This was a secret between him and Joey, no one else knew about the spells that had been stored in the devil suit. Saleen did not n to use it unless it was a matter of life and death.


    This time around, the timing of the people of Alchemy City was too coincidental as it was the day before their wedding. Saleen was no longer cautious, he was nervous.


    By the time the two of them had just finished discussing how they would handle anything unexpected, the sound of footsteps could be heard. Saleen could hear a woman giggling outside door and saying, ¡°Saleen, seeing you is such a chore. To think I still have to wait outside for you.¡±


    Saleen did not recognize this voice, which meant that it belonged to someone that he has not seen for a long time. Lex red at him. It was ridiculous that a youngdy was looking for Saleen in the middle of the night.


    The door was finally opened from the outside. Under the gentle lighting of the magic light, a youngdy in a long red dress walked in. Her hair was ck and was pinned up behind her with fresh flowers like the Cloudflow style usually did.


    Thedy was approximately eighteen years old. Her eyes were ck, her movements were nimble, and her face was glowing. Saleen suddenly remembered her and said, ¡°Hogina?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Hogina Alexaka, I have met both Your Excellencies before.¡± Hogina gave a quick curtsy.


    Saleen and Lex had met thisdy in Alchemy City when they bought the ce that they lived in. Her teacher was a powerful grade-9 sorcerer. Saleen remembered that man well. His lower body was made up of six legs and a mechanical tail.


    Grand Master Imposa was an alchemy genius.


    Saleen breathed a sigh of relief. Back then, Hogina was only a grade-2 mage, so she should not pose any danger. Wait! She looked like she was already a grand mage!


    Saleen became nervous again. Hogina¡¯s teacher was a grade-9 sorcerer that specialized in alchemy and he took her in as his only student. She must have been a talent to be specially chosen. It was only normal for her to advance into a grand mage, given that she had such a good teacher to learn from. He was probably the one that was abnormal instead.


    ¡°Hogina, why have youe? Have a seat.¡± Lex did not put on any airs. Instead, she quickly asked for a chair for Hogina.


    Hogina grinned and sat down, saying, ¡°I had to travel for a month in order to rush here. I¡¯m so thirsty. Can I have some water?¡±


    Saleen smiled. Hogina¡¯s personality was still as adorable as ever. He took a porcin cup from the table and poured her a cup of restorative water.


    Hogina drank the water noisily before setting the cup down, finally satisfied. She handed the cup back to Saleen and said, ¡°It¡¯s all because of those old fellows in Alchemy City. They want to reach you, but don¡¯t wish to cause any misunderstandings, so they looked for someone that you were familiar with. I was the one who hosted you when you were there, so they sent me over.¡±


    ¡°You?¡± Saleen was puzzled. Why would they send a young mage if it was regarding something important? Even if Hogina was already a grand mage, it was still unlike Alchemy City to do so.


    ¡°I know I am only an insignificant mage, though I have a powerful teacher. Those who havee with me aren¡¯t able to enter the pce, so I have arranged for them to stay outside in a hostel instead.¡± Hogina was not upset that Saleen had indirectly looked down on her. Although she had grown much taller, her personality remained unchanged.


    ¡°How many people have you brought along?¡± Lex asked patiently. Hogina often went off topic so she had to pull her back.


    ¡°Just two. The followers that teacher has found for me are all fools.¡± Hogina replied recklessly.


    ¡°Alchemy City entrusted this to you alone?¡±


    ¡°My teacher as well. Teacher needs to settle some things first so he will need more time while I discuss this with you first. It is tiring to talk like this. You...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure you are hungry. Prepare some food.¡± Lex had no choice but to arrange something for Hogina to eat.


    Although they now knew that Hogina was not here to assassinate them, Saleen and Lex still did not rx. It was clear that it was all part of Hogina¡¯s n to arrive at Daliang City just before their wedding. In other words, if their discussion did not go well, Alchemy City could still interfere with the wedding.


    By sending Hogina, Alchemy City was able to make their intentions known without triggering any aggressive reactions from the both of them. Mages were humans too. By sending someone familiar, some words could be spoken more truthfully and directly, especially someone with Hogina¡¯s personality, Saleen and Lex would not feel awkward.


    Fortunately, Hogina was not picky with her food. She was satisfied just to be served with some snacks then oatmeal with some goose meat and vegetables by the side.


    Saleen and Lex also ate a little to apany her. When tea was served after the meal, Lex could not help but ask, ¡°Hogina, are you an envoy for Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°How can that be?!¡± Hogina was shocked and looked at Lex as if she was looking at some ancient magic beast.


    ¡°I am only here to pass a message. They probably just think that you would not kill me even if the message made you upset.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense.¡± Even Saleen felt that his response was a bit awkward.


    ¡°Actually, this is a pretty straightforward matter. I will get straight to the point.¡± Hogina probably thought this was a bothersome matter too, so she decided to go straight to Alchemy City¡¯s most basic and important request. This was something that the people of Alchemy City did not expect, that Hogina would give everything away the moment she reached Daliang City.


    Of course, the conditions that Alchemy City had given Hogina were not final. Everything could be discussed. What Hogina did was fatal in a negotiation.


    ¡°Your Highness, this is awkward. Saleen, I shall call you by your name. As you all know, there are quite a number of sorcerers in Alchemy City, but the real power is in the hands of nine grade-9sorcerers. These nine sorcerers control everything in Alchemy City, including the cirction of magic nuclei and equipment on the Myers Maind. Without their permission, no one will dare to conduct businesses dealing with these items.¡±


    In one breath, Hogina described the background of Alchemy City. Lex could not help but ask, ¡°What about Grand Master Imposa?¡±


    ¡°Oh, my teacher is a freedom mage. Alchemy City needs his skills so they don¡¯t dare to manage him too strictly. In fact, other grade-9 mages in the city may not even enjoy the same privileges and status as my teacher.¡±


    So he was a neutral mage! If what Hogina said was true, then this meant that Alchemy City hade with sincere intentions. If they had sent over a mage who was an important figure in Alchemy City, Saleen and Lex would be doubtful about their intentions instead.


    At this point, Lex realized that Hogina had gone off topic again. Apart from magic alchemy, this girl seemed to be oblivious and unaware about everything else.


    ¡°Hogina...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I know. I will get straight to the point. Alchemy City hopes that Metatrin City will sell its magic nuclei to them in the future instead of making a private deal with Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible.¡± Saleen rejected outright. Even if for nothing else, he had to reject for Ojarvis, who had sent over so many resources and had always lent his unconditional support for Lex. All these resources were more than enough for someone to build a kingdom from scratch.


    ¡°Saleen, Alchemy City is willing to offer an even higher price.¡± Hogina could not understand why Saleen would interrupt her when she had yet to finish.


    ¡°It¡¯s not about the money. If I agree, Alchemy City will want to monitor the number of magic nuclei I obtain every year in order to ensure that I don¡¯t conduct any businesses in private. In that case, Alchemy City will want to station some mages in Metatrin City who will want to tag along with my hunting teams. Hogina, you are still young, so you do not see the problem with this request.¡± Saleen did not hide his thoughts and pointed out Alchemy City¡¯s real motive.


    ¡°Is that so?! Those old fellows lied to me...¡± Hogina looked like she was about to cry. Saleen was amused even though he knew that she was just pretending.


    ¡°They weren¡¯t exactly lying to you,¡± Lex said carefully, ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for me, Alchemy City would have gotten their way by force instead of sending you here. Hogina, what will happen if you don¡¯t aplish your task?¡± Seeing how open and direct Hogina was, Lex decided to find out how Alchemy City would react.

 Chapter 778: An Order from Alchemy City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 778: An Order from Alchemy City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What else can happen? The people of Alchemy City have all agreed that the magic nuclei business must not be snatched away by anybody else. Oh yes, Saleen, sell me some magic nuclei at a cheaper price. I¡¯m afraid I won¡¯t be able to buy them in the future when Metatrin City is gone.¡±


    Hogina was someone without any conscience, so she was able to say what she said. What she meant was that if Saleen did not agree to the request, Metatrin City was finished. As for her, she wanted to buy as many things as she could from Metatrin City before that.


    Saleen and Lex looked at each other andughed. Lex said, ¡°So this is an order and not a negotiation. Hogina, when is Alchemy City expecting a reply?¡±


    ¡°Ah? I forgot!¡± Hogina said and quickly adjusted her magic chords to search for the directions that had been imprinted into her brain through magic.


    ¡°Aiya, they want the reply now!¡± Even Hogina was shocked by this piece of memory that she had retrieved. In her opinion, something major like this would often require a few rounds of discussion before there was a chance of sess. She could sense that demanding a response immediately was not appropriate either and so, her expression was no longer rxed.


    ¡°We are mages, so we can¡¯t possibly pretend to agree first then go back on our wordster. Besides, Alchemy City will surely want a bond to be signed for something major like this. If we go against the bond, Alchemy City will surely not hesitate to attack us with full force.¡± Lex spoke with certainty.


    Saleen continued, ¡°We will just have to reject it. We will be the ves of Alchemy City very soon otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you will not stand a chance against them. Alchemy City is too powerful and you are just...¡±


    ¡°I am just a grade-6 mage, a small King. In the eyes of the grade-9 sorcerers, I¡¯m not even worth as much as a magic beast. Hogina, have you seen any mages just give in like this?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Hogina nodded. Saleen could not continue after her response.


    ¡°But we are not that type of mages. Hogina, what do you n to do?¡± Lex asked.


    ¡°Nothing. I will stay for a while and see what items I can buy. When teacheres, he will go to Cloudflow and I will follow him. With regards to Alchemy City¡¯s request, this is all I need to do.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, I¡¯m not here to pick a fight and I¡¯m not a match for both of you anyway. Saleen, where will I stay?¡±


    Hogina¡¯s naivety still left Lex feeling guarded and she said, ¡°Hogina, don¡¯t you need to report back to Alchemy City?¡±


    Hogina shook her head and said, ¡°I only need to report back before the tenth of April. I had miscalcted the dates.¡±


    There was nothing much that Lex and Saleen could say. She still got something that had been imprinted into her brain with magic wrong. Hogina must have invested all her intelligence onto the knowledge of magic. There were other mages like this and there were quite a number of them too.


    ¡°I¡¯m not that stupid. If I report back now, I will not be able to buy any items here. It is as if I am going against Alchemy City otherwise. Teacher will not allow that. After I have bought what I need to buy, then I will report back to Alchemy City. No one will care about any transactions I make before that.¡± What Hogina said left Saleen and Lexpletely dumbfounded.


    ¡°You can stay at...¡±


    ¡°You can stay here.¡± Lex interrupted Saleen in mid-sentence and said, ¡°Your men will stay at the hostel. You can think about what you want to buy tomorrow.¡±


    Saleen had no idea what Lex was nning, but she was already ordering someone to serve this young female mage. She pulled Saleen out of the small tower and back to the magic tower before saying, ¡°Hogina¡¯s stand reflects her teacher¡¯s stand. How fond can she be of us? If not for her teacher¡¯s instructions, she would have reported back to Alchemy City immediately.¡±


    ¡°Imposa, that guy... looks very unique.¡± Saleen could only use such a simple and crude way to describe him. For a mage to transform his lower body into alchemy equipment, someone like that was perverted and strange.


    ¡°What Imposa is trying to tell us is that the situation in Alchemy City is not as stable as it seems. There must be a number of mages that are unhappy with their current situations, but are unable to resist the power of Alchemy City. What Alchemy City is doing to us is giving us an opportunity.¡±


    ¡°What opportunity?¡±


    ¡°Your teacher is heading to Metatrin City. Alchemy City is actually fragmented. Once all the Sregl Ind mages make their way to Metatrin City, many unhappy mages from Alchemy City will also follow suit. With the rules that we have in ce in Metatrin City, these mages will find that they are much more respected therepared to Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°But that¡¯s in the future. What happens now?¡±


    ¡°Right now, it is true that Metatrin City will not be a match for Alchemy City. Saleen, Alchemy City intends to control the magic nuclei market and the exact sea route to oceanic ice block is known only to you, me, and the winged skeleton. Oh, and Irene. Alchemy City will not go after ordinary citizens or even armies. They will onlye after the few of us.¡±


    ¡°Irene...¡± For some unknown reason, the intention to murder her suddenly crossed his mind. He quickly suppressed the emotion. If he killed Irene just because of this, was he any different from the people of Alchemy City?


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry too much about this. Alchemy City is not aware that Irene knows part of the sea route. Irene will not divulge on her own. If she was to switch her allegiances to Alchemy City, her status would be insignificant and she would never have the chance to progress there. Will Alchemy City care about a woman that is only of the level of a swordmaster? It may be possible if she was a golden grand swordmaster.¡±


    ¡°In other words, we still have time?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, right now we should send a letter to Sika, asking her to take control of Irene¡¯s people immediately. Everyone that has been on board the ships before should vanish for the time-being. After half a year when your teacher is back, everything will be solved.¡±


    ¡°Lex, when will we finally be able to settle down in peace?!¡± Saleen could not help but exim. He had been confident of repelling Cloudflow¡¯s attack and just when the future seemed bright, Alchemy City had to deal him with such a blow. Saleen was gloomy.


    ¡°When we have fulfilled the Goddess¡¯ wish, I suppose.¡± Lex sighed as well.


    The night of the ninth of April was spent with letters being sent back and forth between Daliang City and Metatrin City. Saleen and Sika exchanged their opinions and the former also repeatedly reminded thetter to be careful not to allow any new mages near the temple, in case they were sent from Alchemy City.


    Lex was upset and it was directed at Alchemy City. If not for Alchemy City, Saleen would not be thinking about rushing back to be by Sika¡¯s side on the eve of their wedding.


    She had no choice. Sika was carrying Saleen¡¯s child, so it was only normal for him to ce her safety at top priority.


    On the battlefield of Sanlian City, the demon army had almost destroyed the entire ten-thousand blood knights. The demons that had been injured retreated back to be with the foot soldiers instead of requiring reinforcements. The foot soldiers at the rear were up against the enemies at the back after they had received reinforcements from the main city. Tanggsi never thought about attacking immediately as the main force in the south had yet to make their move. What they needed to do was to cut off the demon army¡¯s route back to the city so that they would perish in the open battle.


    Nailisi returned back to her original form and wore a death mage¡¯s magic robe on the outside before heading straight towards the iron knights of Bitter Water Prefecture to look for the two death mages.


    The two death mages felt morefortable seeing Nailisi in human form. They only thought that it was weird to see her wearing a death mage¡¯s magic robe.


    Nailisi wanted the two mages to summon a skeletal warhorse for her. As she mounted the horse, a magic staff appeared in her hand and a few magic scrolls were put in a leather skin to be usedter on. By keeping them in a leather skin, no one would notice even if she took a long while to use them.


    In a battle, the use of spatial equipment could cause someone to be the target of powerful mages or holy priests.


    ¡°This, Your Excellency...¡± The two death mages had no idea how to address Nailisi. How should one address a powerful devil?


    ¡°There are grade-8 holy priests amongst the enemy. Neither of you will be their match. Let me handle them,¡± Nailisi said confidently before continuing, ¡°The real battle has yet toe. The enemy¡¯s main forces will being soon from the southwest direction.¡±


    ¡°What should we do?¡± The two death mages could only ce their trust in Nailisi. They had no idea why Nailisi was so confident in defeating their enemies. Two grade-8 holy priests were equivalent to grade-8 mages!


    ¡°Pretend to be my students. When I look like I am in danger, just shout out loud and call me ¡®teacher¡¯. That will be enough.¡±


    The two death mages opened their mouths awkwardly, but did not object. They never had proper teachers anyway and advancing to grade-4 was probably their ceiling. If they were to perform well this time, they should be able to fulfil the requirements that would allow them to cleanse their death soul mes. Although they might not be able to be sorcerers, bing grade-6 mages before they died was still very possible.


    After Nailisi had given her instructions, she rode forward along with the iron knights of Bitter Water Prefecture, beside the two mages and death knights.


    Nailisi was confident of dealing with the two grade-8 holy priests because the Purgatory of Darkness of the twelve Notes of Purgatory had almost been fully repaired. If she could send those two holy priests into the Purgatory of Darkness, they would be her prey.


    If there was a grade-9 opponent amongst the enemy¡¯s main forces, she would still be able to deal with them with the twelve Notes of Purgatory. If there were two of them, she would have to abandon the demon army and run for her life. It was unlikely that there would be two of them. A grade-8 opponent would likely takemand of the attack as grade-9 holy priests were few and far between and would rarely be involved in such battles.


    Nailisi considered many different scenarios and ideas in her head before finally deciding to disguise herself as a death mage to spring a surprise attack on the grade-8 holy priests, which were the two red Bishops. After using the twelve Notes of Purgatory, the ripples of energy created would be too obvious. Nailisi could almost not bear to abandon the ten-thousand demons.


    In the future, Nailisi was determined to develop demons that would be able to survive in the twelve Notes of Purgatory, so that she could receive more help while she was in the midst ofbat.


    Far away, the remaining survivors of the blood knights¡¯ vanguard had met up with the rest of the army. The two red-robed holy priests were pale in the face as they looked at the demon army. They were shocked that the enemy had resorted to coborating with demons. Could it be that what the Pope said was true? The end of days hade and the Myers Maind must be cleansed!

 Chapter 779: Nailisi’s Cunningness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 779: Nailisi¡¯s Cunningness (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Whatever the Godmunicated with the Pope was considered God¡¯s order. The Holy War that the Pope had started was in the name of the God. The Oracles, the Pope, and the Supreme Court were all on equal standing and the Oracles doubted the authenticity of the orders from God as imed by the Pope.


    As a result, the Oracles did not lend their strength ording to the Pope¡¯s ns in the Holy War. It was the Supreme Court that sent out many armies instead. That included blood knights and wardens. The Supreme Court did not deploy too many ck Deacons and Adjudicators. The ck high priests that were part of the vanguard did not hold important positions in the Supreme Court.


    The red Bishops were not surprised by the deaths of the ck high priests, but were by the appearance of the demon army. It would not have been strange if it was just a few hundred demons because it was still possible that they might have been summoned by some daring mages.


    The problem was that this was a demon army with a system, officers giving orders, knowing how to get intoplicated formations, cooperating with each other in battle. This was a serious problem.


    Within the demon army was a powerful demon that massacred the blood knights with its gigantic longnce. The two red Bishops looked at each other and nodded. The sacred knights that were protecting them gradually approached the giant demon.


    This demon was created from Nailisi¡¯s ultimate shapeshifting skill. Its power was not even equivalent to that of a supreme demon. The red Bishops could not tell that, so they decided that they must kill this leader of the demons. It had caused so much misery for the blood knights. Now, the blood knights had to go around the nks of the demon in order to battle with the demon army behind.


    Blood knights did not seem to possess any advantage over demons. In terms of strength and defense, demons were much better than blood knights. The armor that Saleen had prepared for this ten-thousand strong demon army was of the same grade as devil armor, except for an eighty percent reduced flying ability. He did not require a flying army at the time. The demon foot soldiers were already fast enough on foot.


    The demon that had been transformed into a devil led the way while another one-hundred or so powerful demons followed behind him as if they were his bodyguards, repelling the attacks from both nks. This allowed the gigantic demon to charge forward unobstructed, causing the blood knights¡¯ formation to be inplete disarray. Without their speed, the blood knights stood no chance against the demons, even if it was three or five of them against one.


    The red Bishops approached slowly. The range of divine spells was approximately the same as that of spells, but the rate of attenuation of them was much faster than for spells. Typically, a mage¡¯s attacking range might be the same as that of a holy priest, but the damage was greater. The difference between the rates of attenuation was less obvious if the attacking range was within one-hundred yards. This only applied to middle-grade divine spells. Grade-8 holy priests could already use high-level divine spells and their attacking range was more than two-hundred yards. Only alchemy crossbows could threaten their safety; ordinary crossbows would be rendered useless.


    The demon at the forefront was sensitive to danger. The demons might not be very intelligent, as their brains have been damaged by the summoning magic array, but their basic instincts had be much stronger. The movements of the two red Bishops did not escape the demons.


    More than four-hundred death knights moved amongst the demons towards the two red Bishops. Nailisi held tight onto the magic staff in her hand. The effect that Saleen was having on her was decreasing. She could activate grade-8 death magic now. This was her advantage over other demons ¨C she could use mental strength to cast the spells that had been stored. This was something that other demons would not be able to aplish no matter how powerful their mental strength was.


    One of the red Bishops opened a divine spell scroll. A blinding light appeared, pushing away the clouds in the sky. A gigantic holy prose spun in the sky and lit up the ground. There was fresh blood, corpses, broken weapons, and grasses that had been trampled on everywhere.


    The distance of two-hundred yards had just been reached and the red Bishop hadpleted what he needed to set up ¨C a holy zone that would greatly increase the powers of the God¡¯s disciples and double the effects of divine spells.


    The huge demon suddenly howled and turned to run towards the side. The demons around him followed suit. They would avoid entering the holy zone at all costs. The demon army behind them did the same thing. They divided themselves into two, bypassed the holy zone, and attacked the south.


    The red Bishops were stunned. The holy zone was only a tool for preparation and not to cause damage. Demons were not considered evil creatures, so their powers would not be affected in the holy zone. Nevertheless, these demons still bypassed the holy zone that upied more than four-hundred yards. This was simply¡­


    At that point in time, something happened that stunned the red Bishops even more. Hundreds of death knights were charging in their direction.


    These spirits should be affected by the holy zone! Usually, when spirits of the dead entered this zone, their attributes would decrease by at least half for ordinary spirits and more than twenty percent for powerful ones.


    This madness was iprehensible. Death knights usually possessed mild intelligence, which should be sufficient for them to avoidnding themselves in such a disadvantageous situation.


    The red Bishop¡¯s sightnded on a death mage amongst the death knights.


    The red Bishops could barely breathe for this female death mage was an absolute beauty. She held a green magic staff and was approaching them amongst the death knights.


    What a beautiful woman! If she could be influenced, cleansed, and subdued to be a disciple, that would be¡­


    The two grade-8 red Bishops were seduced by Nailisi momentarily. That moment was all Nailisi needed to raise her magic staff and aim at one of the red Bishops.


    Nailisi chanted in the spiritnguage that even she did not understand. Her mental strength did not require thepatibility of mantra, so she was merely putting on an act.


    Gray magic light lit up and within the holy zone on the ground, thousands of tentacles shot out from the ground. Hundreds of wardens were tangled up and even more purple tentacles wrapped themselves around the two red Bishops.


    The ck armor on the wardens that had been tangled up nked together. The death knights charged at them and used their gray bone spears to pierce through the gaps of the wardens¡¯ armor.


    Seduction was not a rare ability, in fact, some demons could even use spells that possessed attributes of seduction. The people that Nailisi managed to seduce were two grade-8 red Bishops, so it was something to be proud of, even if it was only momentarily.


    Such a short pause allowed the grade-8 death magic spell, chaotic dance of death, to be sessfully cast. The purple tentacles possessed a strong numbing ability and were also able to absorb the target¡¯s life. Although the wardens¡¯ armor was not broken, the death knights charged with so much force and forward momentum that their bone spears pierced through the wardens¡¯ eye sockets without any obstruction.


    ¡°Damn it!¡±


    The red Bishops were ashamed of themselves for falling for the seduction of a death mage, thereby allowing their enemies to attack their subordinates easily.


    ¡°Holy word!¡± A red Bishop read out a prayer for a short while before releasing a wave of holy light from his hands. Powerful Godly power was aimed at the death knights while a holy priest silently cast a bout of mental paralysis.


    The target of mental paralysis was Nailisi. Nailisi had thrown out a piece of obsidian prior to the attack, which exploded in mid-air to release a gigantic spirit substitute. This spirit substitute did not possess any attacking abilities and its only purpose was to take the hit for Nailisi.


    This spirit substitute would not be able to withstand physical attacks, but mental attacks would not be able to pass through it. The mental paralysis was used up entirely on the substitute. It became mad immediately and Nailisi lost the ability to control it. The spirit substitute screamed and sprinted ahead, attacking the wardens that had been tangled up by the tentacles.


    Its attacking abilities were too pathetic. When the spirit substitute pped the wardens with its palms, they broke into small pieces and the substitute screamed even louder. It was so loud that it affected the prayer that the holy priests were chanting.


    Mental paralysis was a high-level divine spell. It was highly effective on mages, even more so than the Speech Prohibition spell. After all, mages did not need to chant mantras when they used scrolls and spells kept in magic staffs or other items. The main purpose of the Speech Prohibition spell was to disrupt mages from casting powerful spells as many high-level spells could not be cast immediately nor silently, even if the mage was very proficient in those spells.


    Mental paralysis could cause a mage to lose control of their mental strength temporarily, so that he would have no way of casting any high-level spells. The problem was that prior to the attack, Nailisi had tossed out a spirit substitute instead of a spirit guardian.


    Mental paralysis could prate through most magic shields, including something as tough as ice te armor. Unfortunately, this divine spell was a single-hit attack and could not be cast continuously. After the spirit substitute absorbed the attack, Nailisi was safe and continued to charge ahead.


    Using low-level magic to repel a high-level divine spell was a fighting technique that greatly resembled Saleen. This was not a gamble as Nailisi¡¯s self-defense was so high that the enemy¡¯s divine spell could not possibly kill her in an instant.


    Nailisi¡¯s magic staff could store two spells. This was the advantage of high-level equipment as ordinary magic staffs would only be able to store one spell and would not be able to store another for a short period of time after the original one had been used. Nailisi raised the magic staff, but did not cast any death magic spells. Instead, she used her other hand to take out a scroll from the leather skin bag and smashed it on the skeletal warhorse¡¯s head.


    The scroll broke into pieces and the skeletal warhorse was engulfed in green mes. Soul me burned ferociously out of its eyes. ck mes appeared under the skeletal warhorse¡¯s hooves and its speed increased by several times. The bones in its body could no longer bear such great power and cracks began to appear.


    A low-level spirit instantaneously possessed the power of a middle-level spirit. The skeletal warhorse would not survive for more than ten minutes. The corner of Nailisi¡¯s mouth raised into a grin that was just like Saleen¡¯s. Her entire n was to misdirect the enemy into thinking that she was a death mage and not just a pure imp, a Luoluokaluo.


    Holy priests¡¯ physiques were much poorer than mages so the oue was obvious the moment a demon managed to get close to them. Nailisi was pleased. The skeletal warhorse reared itself up and brought down its gigantic hoof, that carried ck mes, onto the red Bishop on the left.

 Chapter 780: Nailisi’s Cunningness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 780: Nailisi¡¯s Cunningness (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The distance between both parties shrunk from one-hundred yards to less than a yard. ck mes engulfed the horse¡¯s hooves as they trampled on the red Bishop¡¯s chest. If they made contact with the red Bishop, half his body would be crushed.


    ¡°Holy shield!¡±


    There was no time for the red Bishop to cast any attacking divine spells, he did not dare to sacrifice his life in exchange anyway. In his eyes, Nailisi was a death mage, so even if she was killed, she would still be able to transform her soul instantaneously to be a high-level soul witch.


    Training over a period of time would still allow a soul witch to preserve her body and be a lich. As for him, if his body was crushed, he could only pray that the Gods would still remember him and allow him to be revived in heaven.


    Nailisi crashed onto the blinding holy shield along with her horse. Behind her, the image of a three yard tall angel from heaven appeared. There was a pair of gigantic white wings on the back of this angel, who hacked at the back of Nailisi with the giant sword of glory in his hands.


    The expression on the other red Bishop was a little dejected. The purple tentacles surrounded him and were within a yard of the Bishop, but were unable to get closer. This was the center of the holy zone, which was also a grade-8 technique. Touch of Death was a spell that caused area effect damage and was unable to prate his defense.


    ¡°Teacher!¡± The two death mages recalled Nailisi¡¯s instructions and quickly called out to her when she was in danger.


    The skeletal warhorse, which had been activated into a middle-level creature, crashed onto the transparent holy shield. The ck mes on the hooves extinguished instantaneously and the horse¡¯s limbs turned into ashes.


    There was a vicious look in Nailisi¡¯s eyes. Ayer of electric current appeared on the surface of her body, following which, she dove into the holy shield like a fish and passed through the grade-7 defensive divine spell. On the other hand, there was nothing left of her skeletal warhorse as it had been cleansed by the holy shield.


    There was a look of panic in the red Bishop¡¯s eyes. Nailisi¡¯s death magic spell was pure. He could never imagine that a beautiful mage like her was not human. No, she was not a mage at all. The smooth hands of hers were already growing sharp nails that were half a foot long and they pierced into the chest of the red Bishop.


    Nailisi used lightning cloak to pass through the holy shield forcefully. She felt dizzy, as if countless disciples were chanting prayers around her, trying to convert her into a disciple of the Lord of Glory. Beneath her magic robe, all the obsidians that hung at her waist all broke into pieces and dispersed into the wind. The spirit powers stored in the obsidian was destroyed by the power of faith in the holy shield.


    Nailisi¡¯s disguise hadpletely failed. The two red Bishops finally realized that this woman was not a mage!


    Nailisi knew that her nails had pierced through an illusion instead of a real target. She knew that grade-8 holy priests were not that easy to kill. She bit the tip of her tongue in order to recover a sliver of rity and spit out a thin and transparent needle from her mouth. This needle pierced through the illusion and through the throat of the red Bishop, creating a hole in his corbone and severing a nerve.


    This needle was made from small pieces of dragonshards. It was purely a physical attack, without any elemental powers involved. Nailisi had to beg the two grade-9 sorcerers to help her refine such a needle.


    Pure dragonshards and a pure physical attack were the best ways to ovee defensive divine spells. The two of them were barely a yard apart, so the dragonshard that Nailisi had spit out ended the grade-8 holy priest¡¯s life.


    This was how demons killed ¨C by being cunning and unpredictable.


    The red Bishop died instantly and the holy shield vanished. The illusion of the angel from heaven continued to wield its giant sword in pursuit of Nailisi. She did not bother to turn back and instead, turned her attention towards the other red Bishop.


    At such close distances, holy priests and mages were no match for demons.


    After witnessing hispanion¡¯s death, the red Bishop no longer dared to use a holy shield to defend himself. The ring on his finger flickered and rows of huge light spears appeared on both sides. They were clustered together like gears in a machine while rolling towards Nailisi. At the same time, he shouted, ¡°Repent!¡±


    Nailisi felt her body be heavy suddenly before crashing towards the ground. The sounds of prayers were roaring in her brain. She could not control her body and she could barely make out a pair of gigantic eyes staring at her and demanding her to kneel down in worship.


    After being dealt a blow by the holy shield earlier, Nailisi was unable to resist the repentance technique of the holy priest. It looked like she was about to give in. She clearly remembered that she was crashing towards the ground, yet it felt like she was flying towards the top of a mountain.


    No, that was not the top of a mountain. It was a lifeform that was as grand and majestic as the top of a mountain; it was a God.


    The God was thousands of yards tall and was looking down at her, a small and pathetic life. Around the God were countless creatures that knelt at its feet and were singing its praises.


    ¡°ce your faith in me and you shall have freedom!¡±


    The God¡¯s voice rang in Nailisi¡¯s brain. She could hear nothing else except this voice.


    Nailisi was intrigued. ¡°Freedom?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, eat me and you will be free.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice appeared out of nowhere. His smile seemed to appear in front of Nailisi.


    ¡°No! What will happen to Master if I were to be free?!¡± Nailisi raised her head and her body began to grow. This time, she used the ultimate shapeshifting skill with the intention of bing as tall as the God, so that she could fight it. She would rather eat up the God. She did not want freedom!


    The illusion was destroyed when she had barely grown to twenty yards. Nailisi saw the grade-8 holy priest opening up a divine spell scroll. As for herself, she did not transform at all and had crashed onto the ground. Everything was an illusion that took ce only in her heart.


    The huge sword behind Nailisi shed down and the tail that she had hidden behind her whipped out violently, smashing the sword into pieces. The angel of heaven was merely a puppet that had been summoned. Nailisi ignored the pain in her body. A pair of wings extended out from beneath her ribs and she stomped once against the ground to pounce towards the red Bishop with the magic staff in her hands. Theyer of electric current appeared on the surface of her body once again.


    ¡°Despicable God, how dare you try to separate me from my Master!¡± Nailisi gritted her teeth. Her limbs and tails pushed off against the ground at the same time, giving her speed that was so fast it was hard to see her.


    The red Bishop opened the scroll and a huge door of light appeared. Nailisi¡¯s body passed through the door andnded a heavy punch on the red Bishop¡¯s face. The electric current on her body vanished. She was now feeling the effects of the divine spell of space and although she managed to make it through, she could feel that almost all her strength had been used up.


    This punch only resulted in some cracks in the red Bishop¡¯s skull.


    Nailisi was filled with hatred because the armor that she was wearing, which was the most fitting amongst all her armor, had been destroyed by that huge door. She waspletely naked now and the red Bishop could see all the scales on her body.


    Saleen had spent a lot of effort to refine the armor for her. The skins of purple-gold sea urchins lined the interior of the armor so that Nailisi would be able to store many items. Now, aside from her bracelet, all the other items had been devoured by that space door.


    Nailisi¡¯s power had been severely depleted. It would take time to transform back into her original imp form from human form. She had made this transformation almost instantaneously to leverage theplementing lightning guardian in order to ovee the divine spell of space, otherwise she could very well have been locked up in a ce simr to the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    After one punch, Nailisi¡¯s tail curled up and the sharp spike at the tip of her tail pierced into the red Bishop¡¯s abdomen.


    Nailisi broke out in a cold sweat when she noticed the aura of life disappearing from the red Bishop¡¯s eyes. She was fortunate that this was a holy priest and not a mage, or her mistake would have been fatal.


    The holy priest¡¯s attack was too simple, which posed little threat to an imp like her withplicated attributes. Losing the ability of lightning guardian temporarily to destroy a grade-8 divine spell was worth it.


    Nailisi no longer had any more strength as she copsed on the ground with the holy priest. She looked at the sky and all she could hear were the dull battling sounds between the demons and the blood knights. Both sides were fearless warriors, but the demons held the upper hand.


    The angel of heaven, whose weapon had been crushed, lowered its head and stomped its foot down hard. Nailisi whipped her tail, crushing its leg into a cluster of white holy light that vanished into the air.


    How helpless! Nailisi took out a bottle of magic fluid from her bracelet and consumed all of it. The holy zone had yet to vanish and was the reason why this angel of heaven was still around. It had lost a leg so it copsed onto the ground, but it was still determined to crawl towards Nailisi.


    Nailisi was fatigued, but there was still a lot of fight left in her. At least her tail still retained enormous power.


    All demons cherished their tails because they represented a second life. When they were at their most fatigued state, their tails were the most reliable weapons.


    Nailisi did not transform into her devil form. She could sense that an even more powerful opponent was approaching in the sky. She only took out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory from her bracelet and waited quietly.


    This person came alone, so he must be very confident that he could not be defeated. Nailisi would not be able to defeat this person on this battlefield even if she transformed into her devil form. ¡°Come into the Purgatory then.¡± Nailisi¡¯s tail whipped at the angel of heaven again.


    Over on the battlefield, the demons had gained the upper hand, but the fellow that was pretending to be a devil had already copsed on the ground in fatigue and was panting heavily. This demon did not possess the powers of a devil, so it was too overwhelming to try and wield that longnce. Within a few minutes, the demon could not take it anymore and became a target board for the blood knights.


    A red figure appeared in the sky directly above Nailisi. This was an elderly holy priest. He was wearing a tall hat and his long robe danced in the wind. His hands held a huge book.


    He was shocked to see the two dead red Bishops, then he shifted his gaze onto Nailisi. There was a look of crazed fascination in his eyes when he saw Nailisi¡¯s original form.


    ¡°What a unique demon! You are mine now!¡±

 Chapter 781: Nailisi’s Cunningness (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 781: Nailisi¡¯s Cunningness (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The holy zone could be sustained for about two hours. What the elderly holy priest saw from the sky was a fatigued demon using its tail to repel an angel from heaven.


    Parts of the angel¡¯s body would be damaged, but would then recover again under the effect of the holy zone. The demon was bing weaker and would be killed by the angel sooner orter.


    This was a trapmonly seen in the demon dimension. The supreme demons often pretended to be badly injured in order to lure a powerful demons to attack it. These powerful demons usually dwelled in the cities unless the devilmanded them to go to the wilderness. If they were to discover supreme demons, they would usually run for their lives.


    The temptation to devour supreme demons was something that the demons could not resist. The trap was usually quite effective.


    It was the same for holy priests. The temptation to cleanse a demon in order to return it to their God¡¯s embrace was too great. The worship that the Gods demanded need note from only humans. Any creature could be a disciple. Most importantly, this demon would belong exclusively to the holy priest until his death.


    ¡°What a beautiful demon...¡± The elderly holy priest barely squeezed out those words while he slowly descended. He was cautious. The light around his body was grade-9 divine protection.


    By a demon¡¯s standard, Nailisi was indeed very beautiful.


    Beneath her shiny skin were magic patterns that were dull green and golden yellow in color. The only part of her body where her scales were obvious were on her breasts. The horns on her head were a dim silvery color and were only slightly curved.


    What the elderly holy priest was most fond of was the look of desperation in this female demon¡¯s eyes.


    A demon with intelligence!


    The elderly holy priestnded on the ground and he flipped open the book in his hands. The angel was immediately sucked into it. The holy priest did not wish to waste such a pure body of energy. Its master was already dead anyway.


    The elderly holy priest closed the book and stood eight yards away from Nailisi, smiling while asking, ¡°Creature full of sins, are you trying to lure me closer to you?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s heart sank. It would not be easy to fool the holy priest.


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, do you still dare toe closer?¡± Nailisi replied in themonnguage. She sat herself up and hugged herself. Her long nails were almost peeling off the skin on her back. The look of desperation vanished from her green eyes and was reced with indifference.


    ¡°I am already very close. The true attacking range of a Cleansing spell is ten yards. Even if you are a supreme demon, this distance is more than enough. I have already given you enough respect. I am able to cleanse an ordinary demon from one-hundred yards away.¡± The holy priest smiled and replied to Nailisi while still carrying his thick and heavy book.


    ¡°Then why haven¡¯t you cleansed me yet?¡± Nailisi asked in a provocative tone. Her arms were long and her hands were already clutching the Twelve Notes of Purgatory that had been squashed.


    ¡°Cleansing is a troublesome process, especially for you. I will need to use up quite a bit of energy. I am waiting for my people to arrive so that they canpletely subdue you before I begin the process. I am in no hurry at all.¡± The holy priest¡¯s smile was sinister. Teasing a demon was much more fun than teasing a human.


    Nailisi¡¯s eyelids twitched. The grade-9 holy priest did not dare to take her on by himself. Instead, he had chosen to stay where he was while waiting for his subordinates. She would have no chance by the time they arrived.


    When she passed through that divine spell of space attribute, she had already lost lightning guardian and the power of giant dragon and would not be able to use them for another one to two months. The only ability she had left was to transform into devil, human, or spirit king.


    The spirit king would be a lot weaker than the devil, especially since the powers of spirits of the dead were be ineffective against divine spells. The grade of this elderly holy priest was too high. Even if Nailisi was to transform into a spirit king, she would still be suppressed and the powers of the spirit would be meaningless.


    Should she turn into her human form? She had yet to pick up many techniques in her human form. The main one she had learned was the elf archery technique from Eleanor. It was too difficult to train for the elf archery technique. Even if she had Seven Night, she would still be unable to unleash its full potential.


    As for her devil form, she had already used up a lot of its power. She was probably left with about two hours or less of fighting time. Once she transformed, she would only have one chance to seed in her fight.


    The divine protection that the elderly holy priest was using was even harder to break through than a holy shield. It was even more powerful than spells because its energy was borrowed from the Gods. Even if the divine protection was to be broken, the holy priest would still remain unhurt and would still possess full fighting abilities.


    ¡°Should I initiate the attack or not?¡± Nailisi hesitated. The elderly holy priest was indeed very close, but Nailisi was not confident of breaking through the divine protection in one hit. She had already used up her dragonshard and had yet to get it back.


    Nailisi stopped pretending and stood up slowly. Her tail was wrapped around her body as she said, ¡°Let me go and I will tell you a secret.¡±


    ¡°A secret? Tell me what the secret is about first.¡± The holy priest remained unmoved. The two grade-8 holy priests were killed by the demon, perhaps she did have some secrets. It was not that he did not dare to get closer, but he just did not want to fail in such an easy task. His own people would be there soon. With another two red Bishops, surely they would be able to subdue this demon easily?


    ¡°It¡¯s regarding the Goddess of Myers. If you are not interested, then I¡¯m going to leave...¡± Nailisi slowly retreated as she spoke, as if she was about to leave the holy zone. She regretted looking down on divine spells. As a result, her scroll and some of her equipment were all destroyed the moment she passed through the holy shield and the spatial divine spell. Only her body was unhurt because it was protected by the lightning guardian.


    Come to think of it, the bracelet from Aini was quite mysterious too, since it was not damaged at all.


    The elderly holy priest was stunned for a while when he heard ¡®Goddess of Myers¡¯.


    Although the Goddess of Myers had fallen, it was still a thorn in the flesh of the Holy See. All the ancient temples in the Tanggsi Empire had already been destroyed, but this was not the case in the other Empires. The people in the other Empires had not intentionally removed the traces of the Goddess.


    It had been said that Gods could be revived. If the Goddess of Myers was to be revived, she would definitely attract countless disciples. It would be so much easier for that Goddess to spread her faith on the Myers Maindpared to the Lord of Glory.


    Although he was stunned for a while, there were no loopholes to be exploited. Divine protection was a divine spell that took some time to be activated, but upon activation, its defense and usage time was much more powerful than spells. The elderly holy priest made sure that he always maintained a distance of eight yards from Nailisi.


    ¡°I know where the Goddess¡¯ temple is hidden,¡± said Nailisi. A piece of divine crystal was already in her hands as she spoke. It was dug out from the Goddess¡¯ statue. She had almost used up all of them, except for that piece.


    The elderly holy priest was no longer able to maintain hisposure when he sensed the aura of the Goddess. The piece of news affected him even more than if the Lord of Glory was to descend onto the Maind personally. He was a grade-9 holy priest, but he had no status, which exined why he was sent to the frontline to carry out dangerous tasks. If he was able to find the Goddess of Myers¡¯ temples, he would immediately be rewarded with the biggest parish. He might even have a chance of bing a Cardinal directly, and subsequently, be given the opportunity to be part of the core of the Holy See, even possibly be the next Pope!


    He did not doubt what Nailisi said because the faint Godly aura from the divine crystal really came from the Goddess of Nature. This aura was very fresh and must not have been more than a few years old. The Goddess of Myers was really showing signs of revival, otherwise such a pure divine crystal would never be created.


    ¡°I swear in God¡¯s name that if you tell me the location of the Myers¡¯ temple, I will spare you.¡± The elderly holy priest said hurriedly. He did not care about this request and he was confident of being able to go back on his word anyway.


    The elderly holy priest did not care about the battle going on around them. By now, his attention had beenpletely captured by Nailisi.


    Nailisiughed coldly to herself. Humans would never stop desiring things. What if he was a grade-9 holy priest? The Twelve Notes of Purgatory in her hands extended gradually. Her tail whipped out from her body in round after round, like a powerful spiral. Nailisi spun and hurled this energy towards the holy priest.


    ¡°Time, rewind!¡± The holy priest tapped his book gently and Nailisi¡¯s actions slowed down immediately. The skin on her entire body was twisting under the effect of the major pause.


    Nailisi did not expect grade-9 divine spells to be so terrifying. It was as if time had stopped entirely and was almost about to rewind. She lost her speed in an instant. The elderly holy priest took two steps back slowly and maintained the distance of eight yards.


    ¡°What a pathetic little creature. It is impossible to try and attack me by surprise.¡± The holy priest stared at the Twelve Notes of Purgatory in Nailisi¡¯s hands. He had discovered the demon¡¯s secret.


    ¡°Attacking me with a broken piece of equipment? How na?ve.¡± Although this was what he said, in truth, he was actually fascinated by the equipment. It seemed to carry the power of God and was extremely chaotic. There was no way to tell where the attributes of God were hidden.


    ¡°Looks like I have been caught.¡± Nailisi smiled helplessly. Her body slowly grew as her scales expanded. It looked like she had been left with no choice but to transform into her devil form. There was nothing else she could threaten the holy priest with by remaining in her Luoluokaluo form.


    Without hesitation, the elderly holy priest flipped open the book in his hands. More than twenty angels from heaven appeared around him to protect him. Then, a scepter appeared in his hands. He pointed it at Nailisi and shouted, ¡°Solidify!¡±


    What Nailisi had done was to utilize an innate ability of hers instead of using transformation magic. Solidification was only effective against transformation magic. As for Nailisi, the devil form was already part of her so solidification failed. Nailisi quickly grew to more than twenty yards and began to trample the elderly holy priest.


    All the angels from turned into spots of light after being trampled by Nailisi¡¯s feet. In return, her foot was pierced through by the holy priest¡¯s divine protection. Nailisi howled in pain, but she tolerated it and unleashed the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. A huge space door opened and she and the elderly holy priest vanished from the holy zone without a trace.

 Chapter 782: Only Bandits would be Happy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 782: Only Bandits would be Happy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi transformed into her devil-form and crushed more than twenty angels with her Devil¡¯s Trample. Almost the entire holy zone was within her attacking range.


    Nailisi had already expected to get her foot pierced. The holy priest¡¯s divine protection was too powerful, like a nail that was stuck in the ground. Nailisi stomped vigorously, only damaging her foot in the process. Nailisi did not care. This elderly holy priest was not an opponent she could easily deal with. She had to find a way to get him into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. By the time both of them were connected through flesh and blood, the holy priest would have no chance of escaping.


    The hole in her foot held the holy priest in ce while the Twelve Notes of Purgatory opened and pulled both him and Nailisi inside.


    There was no light whatsoever in the Purgatory of Darkness. Nailisi raised her foot and was about to reach for the elderly holy priest.


    ¡°Separate!¡± Although the holy priest had found himself in the Purgatory of Darkness, he remained calm. He cast a divine spell and escaped from Nailisi¡¯s foot tond on the ground. The light of divine protection was still present, but he discovered that beyond the one yard of light, there was only darkness that knew no bounds.


    ¡°Old fellow, I know that you can determine my location, but what¡¯s the point? You are just like a magicmp now, standing there without any ce to hide.¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice rumbled like thunder in the darkness. The ground in the Purgatory shook violently as well.


    ¡°You...¡± The elderly holy priest¡¯s words got stuck in his throat. He realized how strange the dimension was. The darkness was boundless and could not be prated even by holy light. The worst thing was that this ce no longer seemed to be on the Myers Maind. Of course, this was only a hallucination. The Twelve Notes of Purgatory was not something that could open up into other dimensions, otherwise there was no way two people could be pulled in so easily. What the Twelve Notes of Purgatory could do was to negate the power of the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible, right?¡± The injury in Nailisi¡¯s foot was slowly healing. She took out her weapon, a shield of more than eighteen yards, and ced it in front of her. The holy priest would be able to lock onto her location if she was not careful. If so, he would still be able to attack any parts of her body with uracy.


    The elderly holy priest became silent. He had thought that he had already given the demon enough respect, but it looked like he was in big trouble. The dimension should be a weapon from God that was replicated by humans. Nevertheless, just because it was a replica did not mean that it was not powerful. At the very least, he could not detect any power of worship.


    A grade-9 holy priest would be able to make use of the power of worship in other disciples in order to recharge himself. It would be just like grade-9 mages using minimal energy to cast low-level spells. This was because grade-9 mages were able to directly absorb the elements in the dimension to replenish their magic chords. The effect might not be significant, but it would still be able to prolong their fighting abilities.


    Grade-9 holy priests treasured the power of worship greatly. It was a gift given by the Gods. The elderly holy priest would have been able to use divine protection for multiple hours without any care because there were millions of disciples on the Myers Maind. Within these few hours, divine protection could be maintained at an optimal level.


    It was different now. After entering this dimension of darkness, the divine protection could only be maintained by absorbing energy from himself. It would no longer be able to leverage energy from the millions of disciples.


    ¡°Old fellow, you can beg me to spare you. If you are willing to submit to me, I will spare your soul. You should know that demons have plenty of ways to torture souls.¡± Nailisi exerted mental pressure slowly, but surely. Her foot was still in pain, so she was in no rush to fight. If she returned to her original form, her foot would no longer be injured, but she would also have no fighting abilities left.


    ¡°Submit to you? What a pathetic little thing. What do you take the Gods for?!¡± The elderly priest did not attack immediately. He was analyzing the dimension, trying to find out what rule it was made of instead. If he could not find a way to leave, he would be stuck there forever even if he was able to kill the demon. Losing the support from the power of worship guaranteed that he would starve to death there eventually.


    ¡°God? What are Gods? The mages said it best. Gods are like vampires. They suck everything from living creatures then return them a little in a fake act of generosity, just like the banks of empires. Everyone saves their gold coins there for tens of years just to earn interest that is so low it is pathetic. On the other hand, these banks will use the gold coins for loans and busines. That is what Gods are like!¡±


    ¡°Foolish creature. Gods represent eternity!¡±


    ¡°Eternity? Hehe, in that case, the Goddess of Myers is eternal as well, right?¡±


    The elderly priest did not know how to counter Nailisi¡¯s question, so he could only say, ¡°The Lord of Glory is the only true God.¡±


    ¡°The only true God? That¡¯s interesting. In that case, why do you want to know about the Goddess of Myers¡¯ temple? You wanted to loot it, didn¡¯t you? She left behind quite a bit of treasure, which exins why I was able to advance into a devil!¡±


    The elderly holy priest flipped through his book uneasily. This dimension was extremely solid. If he wanted to break it down, it was possible that he would have to do it with his life. This was a matter of courage. If he was unable to leave the dimension even if he sacrificed his life, his soul would be trapped there and he would not be able to go to heaven.


    Nailisi was feeling uneasy as well. Ever since she entered the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, she could sense how powerful the book in the holy priest¡¯s hands was. Without that book, the elderly holy priest would not have been able to continue using divine protection since it would use up the power of worship. Without the replenishments from the church altars and the disciples¡¯ worship, divine protection would definitely be able to squeeze a holy priest¡¯s energy dry.


    After entering the Purgatory of Darkness, neither of them had attacked yet. Instead, they were just staring at each other in the dark. The holy priest would not be able to rely on his eyes while Nailisi would be able to sense every slight movement of her opponent without even using her eyes. In the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, Nailisi¡¯s senses had expanded to every corner. In this dimension, nothing could be hidden from her.


    When the holy priest and Nailisi suddenly vanished from the battlefield, there was little reaction from the demon army. The demons had been in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory before, so they knew exactly where Nailisi went. On the other hand, the iron knights of Bitter Water Prefecture were only focused on charging ahead into the enemy¡¯s territory, so they did not have time to think about Nailisi.


    Six regiments of heavy-armored knights charged towards the south amidst the demon army.


    The two death mages knew about the twelve Notes of Purgatory as well, so they remained calm. They led more than four-hundred death knights to bring up the rear so that they could seek out the enemy¡¯s soldiers to kill them and absorb their souls.


    The demon army charged forward in waves. The opposing army waspletely outnumbered on the battlefield.


    The two grade-8 holy priests led more than one-thousand wardens in watching the battle from afar. They had a bad feeling about it. They could no longer sense the aura of the elderly holy priest. It was as if he hadpletely vanished from Myers Maind.


    After battling for so long, the demon army looked like they barely incurred any losses. On the other hand, the blood knights were easily ughtered and trampled upon by the demon army and heavy-armored knights as if they were grass. This was because blood knights were not spirits of the dead and no one was around tomand them anymore.


    The army attacking Sanlian City consisted of only twenty-thousand men, but they still had the upper hand against an enemy of more than one-hundred-thousand men because of the situation they were in. The two grade-8 holy priests did not dare to activate their core power against the demon army after the elderly holy priest had disappeared. They were already thinking of retreating. After all, even if they were to be defeated, the responsibility would not fall on them.


    The elderly holy priest was more powerful than the two of thembined. If the oue of the battle could not be turned around even by the elderly holy priest, then it was close to impossible that they could do anything.


    The width of the battlefield was less than ten miles and tens of thousands of people were tangled up in the madness of killing each other. The air stank of blood and gore. The two death mages were the happiest. The energy that they had absorbed was a few hundred times more than on a normal day. The battlefield would always be like heaven to death mages.


    The only pity was that the corpses could not be used to create undead soldiers. The enemy soldiers had all been boosted by divine spells, so if they were to be turned into undead soldiers, they would disintegrate automatically, explode, or turn into ashes.


    Even so, the death mages would still make use of the soul strength of those who had died to create a number of grade-1 vengeful souls. The blood knights would never be able to go to heaven even if they died fighting for the Holy See. Even though their souls had already been corrupted long ago, the death mages were still able to make full use of them.


    Grade-1 vengeful souls were only able to deal damage to warriors below the level of swordmasters. The main purpose of their existence was to ensure that the death mages¡¯ mental strength would always be full.


    Nailisi stared at the elderly holy priest in the dark. The injury on her foot was slowly recovering and the huge bloody hole was already shrinking, leaving behind a hole in the metal war boots.


    The elderly holy priest was unable to detect any loopholes in the Purgatory of Darkness with his senses. He had no choice but to take a risk. He flipped open the thick book in his hands and began to chant a prayer. Nailisi would never allow him to use any powerful divine spells. With her heavy shield in hand, she leapt over and smashed it into the ground with force.


    ¡°Death!¡± The elderly holy priest could sense Nailisi approaching and stopped chanting his prayers. Instead, he pointed at Nailisi with a finger. He knew that he would not be able toplete casting any powerful divine spells in time, so his main aim was to lure the demon closer to him. Only when the demon was near enough that the divine spell that was cast instantly would be at its most powerful. This was the same as magic spells.


    He forgot, however, that Nailisi was now in her devil form. She had two heads and four arms. When she smashed the huge shield down, the divine protection stood steady and a hole appeared in the metal shield. The holy priest was unhurt. A beam of gray-white light shot out of his finger and hit one of the heads of the devil.


    This head turned into ashes instantaneously. The gamble had paid off as one of the devil¡¯s head had fallen. Nailisi could feel a tremble deep in her soul. Fortunately, she was able to sense which direction the old fellow was going to attack from, so the head that he had managed to shoot down was actually just a decoy.


    The elderly holy priest looked like he had aged another decade. He could sense that the divine spell had worked. Suddenly, three huge devil palms had blocked off his paths of escape and each of them held a shining divine crystal.

 Chapter 783: Only Bandits would be Happy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 783: Only Bandits would be Happy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The expression on the elderly holy priest¡¯s face was awful. The three divine crystals that surrounded him were absorbing energy frantically. The book in his hands was torn into shreds by the power of the three divine crystals. The power of worship that he had umted for more than two hundred years was taken away by the divine crystals just like that. Nailisi¡¯s fourth hand released the shield and took out a broken bust. This bust was one of the remains of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ statue.


    The core pages of the thick book that the elderly holy priest had been relying on flew out of his hands as well as they were absorbed by the bust.


    If they were on the Myers Maind instead of this ce, the Goddess¡¯ bust would not have possessed such great power. The reason was that in there, the holy priest was unable to receive help from the Gods, nor the support from other disciples. As a result, the total amount of power he had was less than even a sorcerer.


    This was the weakness of holy priests; their powers did note from themselves entirely.


    ¡°No!¡± The holy priest howled in fury. He had lost all control by then.


    ¡°I really like to see you struggling. You are much weaker than Nichs. At the very least, he has his own powers while you are just a small little bug.¡± Nailisi looked at the wrinkled skin of the holy priest and spoke in a disgusted tone.


    The torn pages of the holy priest¡¯s book flew into the darkness and were absorbed into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. All of a sudden, the Goddess¡¯ bust broke into pieces and flew into the darkness as well.


    An astounding change was taking ce in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. The dimension of darkness continued to expand until even the veryst cracks werepletely repaired. It was as if a shapeless door had opened and a small portion of the Purgatory of Ice, which was just beside the Purgatory of Darkness, was repaired. More than two hundred years of power of worship that the elderly holy priest had umted was all absorbed by the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    The divine protection on the surface of his body dimmed instantly. The three divine crystals on Nailisi¡¯s gigantic hands also broke into pieces as they were destroyed and absorbed by the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, along with the three palms of her devil-form.


    Nailisi wasughing uproariously. The pain of losing her palms was nothing. Right now, the old fellow was like a tortoise without its shell and no longer had the ability to resist her.


    ¡°Spare me...¡±


    Puff!


    Nailisi used her remaining hand to poke at the elderly holy priest. There was no way she would spare him. The way he had looked at her in the beginning was so creepy that Nailisi felt disgusted. Other than Master, no one else must see her body. Although demons normally did not care about that, Nailisi already felt like half a human.


    The finger of the devil-form was more than a yard long and was more than two yards long if the nails were included. This finger passed through the hole in the shield and was ground a few times, causing flesh and blood to spill out from the hole. Nailisi bent down and sucked. A transparent soul that could be seen even by the naked eye flew into her mouth.


    Other demons might not be able to do that, but a Luoluokaluo was able to absorb souls.


    Nailisi was not able to process the holy priest¡¯s soul immediately after absorbing it, so she could only make use of a portion of the soul strength to heal the injury on her hands. ck blood was gushing at the ces where her three palms had vanished. The elderly holy priest¡¯s soul would be used to heal these injuries.


    Nailisi would not be able to use her devil-form for the time being, so she had no choice but to turn into a spirit. She looked like a zombie on the surface, and her entire body had shrunk to be two yards tall.


    As her human form was too weak and small, so Nailisi was only left with her spirit-form, which currently possessed the most fighting abilities.


    All that was worth it. The elderly holy priest was of the same grade as Nichs, but their fighting abilities were worlds apart. Nailisi had no confidence in finishing off Nichs because even though he had lost the blessing of God and had fallen, he was still a very powerful grade-9 Professional. As for this holy priest, the moment he was pulled into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, his fighting abilities had dropped drastically, and his experience inbat was pathetic as he has found himself falling for the same traps consecutively.


    Nailisi never knew that holy priests¡¯ weaknesses were so obvious. She did not leave the Purgatory of Darkness immediately. Instead, she was sensing the entire process of the holy priest¡¯s energy being absorbed.


    The elderly holy priest¡¯s main equipment was that thick book of his. The enormous amount of power of worship was being unleashed through the divine crystals to repair the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. If the elderly holy priest could make full use of this energy, he could have defeated Nailisi, even in her devil-form.


    What a pathetic fellow! Nailisi walked to him and picked up the ring that he left behind. This ring was spatial equipment. Nailisi destroyed the spiritual imprint that the holy priest had left behind before retrieving all his items and throwing them onto the ground.


    What a poor fellow! Nailisi was disappointed when she saw the items on the ground, but it was also understandable. The elderly holy priest¡¯s book stored so much power of worship, but the book itself was extremely fragile. It was only equivalent to high-grade equipment and was two levels away from being considered holy equipment.


    There were poor ones even amongst mages, so it was expected that there would be more of such people in the Holy See, where there were so many internal conflicts and struggles. Nailisi did not bother looking at the low-level equipment on the ground. She put the dimensional ring on her finger before turning around to walk into the Purgatory of Ice.


    How cold! Nailisi shivered. She could barely handle the temperature of the Purgatory of Ice even when she was in spirit-form.


    The ground was transparent, and its surface was filled with beautiful patterns of snowkes and hexagons like a sea of flowers blooming. The Purgatory of Ice, which was still in the early stages of being repaired, was not big and was only about ten miles in area. The temperature was around eighty below freezing, and Nailisi felt like there were small pieces of ice in her bones.


    Nailisi curled up, but was pleased. Only monsters would be happy after killing the holy priest and using his power of worship to expand the dimension of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. The holy priest did not possess any other forms of wealth, but this was sufficient already. The water elements in the Purgatory of Ice were extremely thick, if a Master was to battle there, his fighting abilities would increase by multiple times.


    It was too difficult to kill grade-9 holy priests. Her devil form was already equivalent to a grade-9 supreme demon, but she still needed to enter the Purgatory of Darkness in order to kill this old fellow. She even lost all the fighting abilities of her devil form at the same time.


    She would have to be more careful in the future. She had to make sure that she struck only when the enemy was alone. If the elderly holy priest had a few grade-8 holy priests or even grade-7 ones around him, she would not have gotten her way so easily.


    Nailisi silently cautioned herself to walk slowly in the Purgatory of Ice. She came to the center of the Purgatory and looked up. There was white fog in the sky and within the fog were ice crystals hanging down, as if they were ready to rain down anytime.


    The feet of Nailisi¡¯s spirit form were wrinkled and dry. Every step she took left a footprint on the cold, hard ground. It felt like the bottom of her feet would be frozen to the ground, and much effort was required to pull them off.


    Sheughed coldly to herself before flying into the sky and amidst the fog and ice crystals. A creature in gaseous form was observing Nailisi until she suddenly flew up, leaving the creature to flee in horror. Nailisi stretched out her hand into the fog and grabbed hold of a weapon spirit that was the size of a cherry.


    This weapon spirit was borne from the Purgatory of Ice. It had just developed a little intelligence, and its fighting abilities were basic. It was only able to use the permanent abilities of the Purgatory of Ice to attack enemies. It was extremely weak and fragile.


    Nailisi grabbed hold of the transparent weapon spirit and thought to herself, ¡°Amongst the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, the Purgatory of Darkness no longer has any weapon spirits, so the Purgatory of Ice should not have one either. After I advance to grade-10 in the future, I will be able to control all the dimensions gradually. I will still be able to make use of the incredible powers of the Purgatories even without weapon spirits.¡±


    She would have to subdue the weapon spirits one by one. Although they might provide great help during battles, they could also be snatched away by the enemies easily, which would give the enemies control over the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    At that thought, Nailisi opened her mouth and swallowed the weapon spirit.


    Without the weapon spirit, the rate of repair of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory became slower, but it was better than the possibility of losing control of the Purgatories at any time. Demons would never trust weapon spirits and would never bet their future on them. By the time the weapon spirits were fully grown, they would definitely feel unhappy to controlled.


    At most, these objects would never be Godly items, which was nothingpared to the loss of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Nailisi pondered for a moment before killing the weapon spirit and absorbing it. In the Purgatory of Ice, the ice crystals within the fog suddenly dimmed. Nailisi had no wish to stay longer, so she went back to the Purgatory of Darkness.


    Over there, all the equipment of the elderly holy priest had been disintegrated and absorbed into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory to continue to replenish the parts of the dimension that had been damaged. This process of repair would take a long time as only one out of Twelve dimensions had beenpletely repaired. Even the Purgatory of Ice was only ten percent repaired.


    When Nailisi made sure that nothing was amiss, she changed into spirit armor and left the Purgatory of Darkness to return to the battlefield.


    On the battlefield, there was holy light everywhere as the holy priests were boosting their armies with divine spells to continue fighting against the demons. The vengeful souls created by the death mages had been scattered in batches, so they could only retreat. It was as good as courting death for grade-4 death mages when they were matched up against grade-8 holy priests. In such situations where their differences were so huge, how one attribute was more effective against another became obvious.


    Nailisi summoned more than one-hundred death knights to protect herself. Then, she observed the battle and discovered that more than one-thousand demons had died and the Bitter Water Prefecture heavy-armored knights had also had many casualties as about one-third of them were hurt or dead. Those that were injured were dragged back to the position of the foot soldiers while the enemy was still in huge numbers.


    Nailisi would not have the upper hand against grade-8 holy priests in her spirit form. After observing the battle for a while, she gave the order to retreat. When the demon battalionmander heard Nailisi¡¯s summoning, it led the demons into a slow retreat while the heavy-armored knights took their ce. As for Nailisi, she gathered with the death mages.


    The two death mages were taken aback when they saw Nailisi. They had thought that a fierce battle like this one had produced a powerful spirit of the dead.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go back to the main city!¡± Nailisi spoke in her original voice. That was when the two death mages realized who the spirit really was. Nailisi did not care about the heavy-armored knights and headed back towards the position of the foot soldiers. Without hesitation, she led the demons to attack the Tanggsi soldiers at the rear.


    It was meaningless to try and destroy the enemy and save south city. She had brought too few demons, even looting resources was proving to be difficult.


    Retreat! Retreat!


    The leader of the heavy-armored knights also gave the order to retreat. They would not be able to defeat the enemy ahead of them without help. They could only follow the demons back.

 Chapter 784: Wedding Night (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 784: Wedding Night (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Marquis Ferdinand was using his alchemy binocr to watch the battle on top of the city wall. His army was within five miles, but beyond that were the Tanggsi soldiers deployed by the Holy See to cut off the demon army¡¯s retreat.


    There were pros and cons to the alchemy binocr. The one that Marquis Ferdinand was using allowed him to see seven to eight miles away and was definitely a high-grade equipment. To be more urate, this was purely a piece of mage equipment. Without the help of a grade-3 mage by his side, all Marquis Ferdinand could see was just blurry images.


    ¡°Why are they...ing back?!¡± Marquis Ferdinand saw the demon army on the retreat and was shocked. The demon army was like a sharp knife that cut through the Tanggsi army that was trying to stop them.


    Nailisi was leading the way. She was ordering the death knights to attack the nks in order to mess up the enemy¡¯s formation, so that the demons could take over and butcher them. This type of battle was meaningless to her since there was nothing to be gained. She was looking for the enemy¡¯s holy priests. If they were grade-7 or below, she would engage them in a battle for a while, but if they were above grade-7, it would be wiser to avoid them.


    The demon army did not incur too many losses and a battle of such a short duration meant that there was minimal usage of their energy. The demons charged through the enemies and corpses and finally returned back to the city walls of the main part of Sanlian City.


    That was when Nailisi finally ordered the demons to stop and guard the city gates, so that heavy-armored knights behind them could enter the city. It was not amon tactic for heavy-armored knights to bring up the rear. In fact, Marquis Ferdinand was already very upset that Nailisi did not seem to care about the fates of the heavy-armored knights. He had to suppress his anger when he saw the demons feasting.


    Thousands of demons were devouring the disciples of the Holy See and the armies of the Holy War just outside of the city.


    This scene was horrifying. The sounds of killing on the battlefield were drowned out by the chewing sounds of the demons. Each demon had dragged along at least two corpses. Their four yard tall physique allowed them to move with vigor, but that also meant that they used up a lot of energy at the same time. Consuming the enemy was a good option.


    What the demons did was to remove the enemy¡¯s head first by twisting it off before sucking the blood with their mouth. Then, they would peel off the enemy¡¯s armor and clothes before chewing them up. The Tanggsi soldiers that were pursuing the heavy-armored knights stopped. When they saw the thousands of demons beneath the city wall, there was only fear on their faces.


    The people of Bitter Water Prefecture were scared out of their minds as well, but they felt more assured when they saw the demons dragging back a number of corpses of heavy-armored knights and piling them up by the side for the city to manage.


    As the army slowly entered the city, the demons¡¯ presence was able to stop the Tanggsi soldiers from wanting to charge through the city gate. They had been scared stiff by the demons. All of them were afraid of bing the demons¡¯ next meal.


    Back in Daliang City, Saleen was still unaware of the horrifying things that Nailisi had done as he was busy preparing for his wedding.


    At noon on the ninth, the armies of Metatrin City entered Daliang City through the north gate once again. Saleen was seated on a golden chariot that was specially made for the wedding. Eight horses were pulling the chariot and behind them was a regiment in charge of rituals. Behind them was the dragon-ughtering corp that belonged solely to Saleen.


    When the golden chariot pulled into the city, the Bitter Water Prefecture soldiers of Daliang City stood by the sides to wee them. Saleen was standing on the chariot as an old chariot like this one did note with a carriage. Behind him were Su and Nichs. The Bitter Water Prefecture soldiers were cheering and throwing fresh flowers in his direction.


    Saleen stood tall in his devil suit with the mask over his face.


    The people of Bitter Water Prefecture were genuine and sincere in weing Saleen. This marriage represented the union of two wealthy countries. In such times of chaos, themoners would feel a sense of security only if their countries were powerful enough to protect them from trouble.


    After all, the Kingdom of Metatrin was a country that had defeated an expedition of the Holy See.


    Lun had been at war for the past two years and the farmers found it tough to survive. Under Lex¡¯s rule, the farmers in Bitter Water Prefecture were able to harvest vegetables and even if war should break out, there would be soldiers to escort them to castles for safety.


    Food supplies were never an issue since they had the support of Qin. To themoners, this was already a huge blessing.


    When Saleen¡¯s golden chariot passed through the city, naturally there were people of Bitter Water Prefecture amidst the crowd that were on the watch. This was to prevent Saleen from encountering another assassination attempt. The troops toured one round of the city before proceeding to the pce, where the honor guards of Bitter Water Prefecture were waiting to wee them. The parents of both parties were not present, so the person representing Lex¡¯s side was Grand Sorcerer Stephanie.


    Saleen had no way of rejecting the ceremony entirely. This version was already a much simplified one. If they followed the Qin traditions, the entire ceremony would havested between three to six days. Since Lex was the first in line in her family, it would surely have been six days.


    Fortunately, the ceremonies of the fourth dynasty were not tooplicated, to the relief of Saleen and Lex.


    The troop in charge of rituals on Saleen¡¯s side had prepared a total of twenty-four wagons of items for rituals. As the wagons entered the pce, Saleen could only enter the pce that had newly built just for him as he could not meet with Lex yet. On the other hand, the dragon-ughtering corp could now officially station themselves in the pce to ensure Saleen¡¯s safety.


    Lex also left her magic tower to prepare for the second day of the wedding ceremony. The ceremony had been simplified as much as possible. She would ept the twenty-four wagons of gifts from the Metatrin Kingdom and reward the officials responsible for delivering them.


    It was almost dark. Fifty miles south of Daliang City, the armies of Cloudflow were already setting up camp. Lex flipped through the thick pile of scouting information before allowing the lifestyle mages to delegate the various tasks to the generals.


    Nichs and Su would be heading to the south for battle and would no longer be able to protect Saleen anymore.


    The pce was now left with Cuisi, Eleanor, and Gusion to set up defense.


    The two pces were about six-hundred yards apart, one in the south and another in the north. This was the only day where the two of them would not be able to meet. Saleen was sitting in the pce with a hand propping up his head, dazed.


    He had spent half a day seeing so many officials, noble families, and going throughplicated rituals. It was as if the entire thing had nothing to do with him and he was just a pawn in the grand scheme of things.


    Lex was so near, yet they could not meet. Even if Saleen used elemental eyes, he would not be able to see through the courtyard.


    So this was what it was like for the marriages of members of noble and royal families. It was really too boring for a mage. Saleen really wanted to just fly up and go to Lex¡¯s pce. Armies were gathered outside of the city and the Cloudflow people were prepared tounch an attack the next day, yet he could only hide in his own pce. It was a terrible feeling.


    At tat thought, Saleen patted the cbash on his waist and summoned the water puppet. The transparent water puppet quickly transformed to Saleen¡¯s appearance. The only difference was that the water puppet was wearing a gray mage robe and was holding a magic staff. Saleen was wearing his devil suit and on his waist was the wooden sword that Joey had made for him.


    Saleen took out Rafael¡¯s crystal ring. He handed it to the water puppet and said, ¡°Go and find Eleanor. Protect her so that she can use her archery skills at full power.¡±


    The water puppet put on the crystal ring and left after bowing. Saleen began to inspect his own devil suit. He had not used the spells that had been infused into the devil suit before, even when he encountered the powerful assassin.


    When he sensed the elemental transformation during Lex¡¯s advancement, he began to feel more confident about advancing. That was when he began to value this devil suit even more.


    The ground-element stone statue army could produce a stone statue that was six yards tall every minute for three hours. Each stone statue was able to deal damage equivalent to a Professional that was grade-5 or above. That was not amon spell as very little mages were keen to learn it. This was because the stone statue army moved too slowly and their speed was only equivalent to that of a high-level human swordsman.


    Frost and Snow Magic Pattern was the spell that most suited Saleen and could increase the damage of his water-element spells by three times. If it advanced into a grade-8 or grade-9 spell, it would be able to increase the damage by six or twelve times respectively. By then, the grade-9 spell would be like a forbidden curse.


    The wind-element Vacuum Imprisonment spell was not as effective as elf space arrow, but it also used up less energy. If Saleen was to encounter an assassin again, he would not forget about this spell.


    Roar of a Fire Spirit, which would summon a fire-element creature for an hour, was also a powerful spell. Unfortunately, Saleen was not as proficient with fire elements as he was with water elements.


    Phantom Flurry was the best defense spell as it could produce three to six illusions. All of them possessed the ability to deal damage, so the enemy would not be able to distinguish them from the real mage.


    Endless Night was the most powerful spell of all of them. It would trap the enemy within a zone of dark elements and was much more effective than Ice Attack. Even the Vacuum Imprisonment spell was not as effective. The only advantage that the Vacuum Imprisonment spell had over Endless Night was that the former could be cast in an instant at the location where the mage would point at.


    These six grade-7 spells could only be cast once every six hours. Even if the devil suit was made of the highest quality, it would not be able to handle so many umon spells being cast.


    After using the Figaro Magic Form to calcte the attributes of these spells, it was already dawn and there were the sounds of insects outside the pce.


    Cloudflow, Alchemy City, and Tanggsi were alling down hard on him at the same time. At this thought, Saleen smiled faintly. Perhaps he was too high-profile in conducting businesses with others so early on. It was no wonder that the other countries would be guarded against him.


    Even so, surely Alchemy City had their principles? They would never send sorcerers over to kill a middle-grade sorcerer like him. He was only trying to guess if it would be Cloudflow or Tanggsi that would send assassins on the night of his wedding.


    Lex was unable to fall asleep as well. She stroked her God¡¯s Ring and there was a surge of emotions. She was a sorcerer now, so God¡¯s Ring had be more powerful. Even the most powerful equipment would not be enough for her to rule over the entire Maind though. There would still be countless enemies that she and Saleen would have to face. These enemies included the Holy See, the four Empires, and Alchemy City.


    Perhaps Grand Master Merlin was right. She would cause the downfall of Qin and bring about disaster for the Maind, but so what? Would the Holy See not have waged the Holy War if she was out of the picture?


    It was better not to be bound by too many moral issues as a mage, otherwise, only endless darkness would await.

 Chapter 785: Wedding Night (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 785: Wedding Night (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was noon of the tenth of April and the wedding ceremony had begun. The noble families and envoys of various countries were gathered in the pce of Daliang City to witness the union of Saleen and Lex.


    Grand Sorcerer Stephanie would be officiating the ceremony. Within the pce, tens of grand mages had cast a collective spell under the order of the white-robed mage.


    Magic me appeared and flew up into the sky. With the help of a magic array, Stephanie¡¯s voice could be heard throughout the entire city.


    ¡°I pronounce Lex De Grukos and Saleen Metatrin husband and wife. Saleen, what have you brought for our Highness?¡±


    Stephanie asked with a smile. In the towering hall, Saleen calmly took out a crown and held it in his hands. When the crown appeared, everyone in the hall let out a gasp of shock.


    It was just too beautiful. The body of the crown was refined from a purple crystal and its top was a restorative magic array made up of twenty-four Ice Ind rocks. On these rocks was a misty seven-colored illusion that floated with trails of colorful lights. In the middle of the Ice Ind rocks and in the gaps of the magic array there was mounted a piece of hexagonal chlorite.


    The envoy of the Tanggsi Empire snickered coldly, but did nothing more. There were no holy priests among the envoys, otherwise they would have reacted.


    Both chlorite and purple crystals were taboo items.


    Chlorite could contain Godly attributes, so it was equivalent to going against God. Purple crystals could repel a powerful divine spell ¨C the Grand Prophecy spell.


    By refining a crown from such a huge piece of purple crystal, Grand Prophecy spells would fail even if they were cast by the Pope himself.


    This crown that Saleen had given to Lex was a provocative statement to the Holy See.


    Lex was stunned when she saw the crown. The seven-colored illusion trailing the crown was clearly a reflection of her own seven-colored magic chords. By wearing the crown, the speed and frequency of her preparation of spells would increase by multiple times. Many spells that she might not usemonly could also be cast quickly.


    ¡°Lex, from now on, there will be another family name added to your name.¡± Saleen gently ced the crown onto Lex¡¯s head and said, ¡°From now on, you are Lex De Metatrin Grukos.¡±


    Lex desperately wanted to hug Saleen, but with so many people watching, she could only nod gracefully.


    Even Stephanie was a little shocked. Although Emperor Ojarvis had given some purple crystals as part of his congrattory gifts, they were all very small pieces. Those that were big enough to be made into a crown should no longer exist on the Myers Maind anymore. A thousand years ago, the Holy See had fervently destroyed every trace of the gemstone. Even in recent years, they had been using all ways and means to get their hands on them.


    Saleen was really rich! Nevertheless, she continued with the rest of the ceremony. She needed to make sure that Lex managed to pass her gift to Saleen as well in order to conclude the most important part of the wedding ceremony.


    ¡°Lex, what have you brought for Saleen, His Excellency?¡±


    Lex took out a big purple-gold seal from her God¡¯s Ring and handed to Saleen, saying with a smile, ¡°From now on, Saleen, His Excellency, will possess the honor of the Grukos royal family.¡±


    The hall was silent. This seal had not been seen for hundreds of years. Everyone had thought that the Grukos royal family had taken it back. Instead, it turned out that Grand Emperor Chanake had passed it down to his daughter.


    The expression on the Qin envoy was more awful than that of the Tanggsi envoy. They never expected this from Lex.


    Everyone could ept Lex being the first in line since she possessed God¡¯s Ring and more importantly, her father was Grand Emperor Chanake. This purple-gold seal was a token that possessed the power to deploy the Grukos family¡¯s spirit snake swordsmen battalion.


    Lex had really kept the seal well. She chose not to take out the item even in her most dire straits, instead giving it to her husband during their union.


    The six-winged Flying Snake seal was made by the ancestors of the Grukos family using the horn shedded off by the most powerful grade-18 six-winged Flying Snake. It was the pride of the Grukos family.


    A grade-18 creature was no different from the Emperor of the first dynasty. It was a creature that was on par with the gods. The six-winged Flying Snake seal could deploy the most powerful army within the Grukos family, and not just the powers of Holy Rock City.


    With God¡¯s Ring and the six-winged Flying Snake seal, Lex and Saleen could have deployed the central force of the Grukos family to attack Holy Rock City. She could also choose to break up the Qin Empire and be Empress herself.


    Even Stephanie was stunned by what she did.


    No wonder the Empire¡¯sst astrologer, Merlin, said that Lex would break up the Empire and cause the downfall of Qin. She could certainly do it if she wanted to.


    One word from her and the noble families in the south that had been up to no good would immediately respond by abandoning themand of Holy Rock City and lend their support to Bitter Water Prefecture. It would be Bitter Water Empire!


    Lex gazed coldly at the envoy of Holy Rock City. He was sent by Prince Safilos and not her brother. She has been waiting for this chance for a very long time. She would not have done this if Safilos and Alchemy City and Cloudflow had not forced her.


    None of the people wished for her union with Saleen. Since that was the case, let chaos befall the Maindpletely then.


    She only pitied her brother that he would be like a hostage in Holy Rock City from then on.


    The rest of the ceremony was meaningless. Everyone looked distracted, except for the bodyguards sent over by Ojarvis. No one could ept what Lex had done, but there was nothing they could do to stop her. The entire hall was surrounded by the armies of Lex and Saleen. Lex had taken precautionary measures against anyone possibly reacting against what she had done.


    Lex was more than happy to cut off someone¡¯s head if they were to object.


    No! Cutting off one¡¯s head was being too kind to that person. Saleen had many powerful death mages around him. Lex should let them suck out the person¡¯s soul so that thetter would be a brainless spirit of the dead.


    Lex did not have any female officials in the pce. She and Saleen were led by lifestyle mages to the pce that was specially built just for Saleen. In order to sessfully appear as a member of the royal family of the fourth dynasty, Saleen had to read up on many things, including the secrets of the Grukos family. Of course, he knew what the six-winged Flying Snake seal represented.


    Saleen returned to the pce in a daze and asked Lex, ¡°Lex, have we angered everyone by what we have done?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Are you afraid?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not afraid. Suddenly, I feel so good that the hypocrisy of all those people has been exposed.¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡± Lex stretched out her hand and caressed Saleen¡¯s face. ¡°If not for you, I probably would have never revealed that seal.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because, Saleen, you are my pir of support!¡± Lex said gently. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his forehead.


    Saleen¡¯s heart felt full. Lex was finally no longer alone. No matter how powerful she became, she still needed someone to lean on. That someone was him.


    The mages dismissed themselves discretely, leaving only Cuisi in the hall. Saleen put his arms around Lex¡¯s waist and turned. He made eye contact with Cuisi, who then left the hall. As he walked, he took off his clothes and transformed back into his original form of a supreme demon. He was eight yards tall and had a huge pair of wings and a pair of purple-colored eyes.


    The exterior of the pce was being guarded by the dragon-ughtering corp. Gusion, who was holding onto his dragon-ughtering banner, saw a huge demon leaving the hall and almost attacked it.


    Cuisi ignored him and sat down on the steps before saying, ¡°Gusion, I will guard the front. You will go to the back.¡±


    ¡°Who are...¡±


    ¡°Cuisi. Go.¡± Cuisi answered simply. Gusion trembled for a moment before he regained hisposure. There were many strange things and people around his Master. He must adapt quickly.


    ¡°How many people should I leave behind for you?¡±


    ¡°None.¡± Cuisi replied coldly. Saleen¡¯s wedding reminded him of his own wife, who was just an ordinary demon. The two them had lived together for four years before his wife was killed by a supreme demon. Ever since then, Cuisi has been alone and never sought for another partner again.


    Gusion nodded and deployed some men to guard outside the courtyard.


    The night was still young and only Saleen and Lex were left in the pce. Saleen did not know what to do. The mood did not seem to be appropriate for him to carry Lex into the bedroom.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡± Lex was removing the crown and putting it into God¡¯s Ring.


    ¡°Come here. It¡¯s still early, let¡¯s go and see how the battle is going outside of the city.¡± Saleen pulled Lex¡¯s hand and led her to the study room. He did not build a magic tower, so naturally, there were alchemy facilities in the study room.


    Lex was amused, but the decision that she had made just then took up quite a bit of energy. It felt like she had just battled all the people of the Maind and she was feeling spent.


    She followed Saleen into the study room and watched him take out magic nuclei to mount onto the magic array on the table, which activated the magic images.


    The images were sent from the top of the city. The army of Cloudflow had yet to reach the bottom of the city wall, so it seemed that they would be attacking the city at night. Nevertheless, the Cloudflow army was so massive that they could not afford to attack quickly and steadily at the same time, otherwise the army would be disconnected and they would be easy targets for the armies of the bone castle.


    It was quiet outside the city and Saleen felt a little awkward. The battle had yet to begin. He and Lex stared nkly, as if that was not normal.


    Lex stretched herself a little and said, ¡°Saleen, aren¡¯t you hungry?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I haven¡¯t eaten since this morning.¡±


    ¡°Then let¡¯s whip something up. We haven¡¯t cooked for ourselves since the time we spent in the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment.¡± Lex said, and took out an exquisite stove and arranged a row of small pots on the table.


    Lex seemed to be very familiar with what she was doing. At the same time, she took off her outerwear. The long robe that she wore for the wedding was heavy and clumsy. If not for the support of wind-element spells, she would have tripped every few steps.


    Saleen took off his outerwear as well for his suit was even more cumbersome.


    Lex looked at Saleen, smiled and said, ¡°You have be more muscr than in the past. Saleen,e, help me look after this first. I will make fish porridge for you. Cloudflow ces much more emphasis on their foodpared to the Qin people.¡±

 Chapter 786: Wedding Night (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 786: Wedding Night (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen took out the burning agent and poured the ck magic powder into the exquisite stove. After Lex had left the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment, she developed the same habit as Saleen by ensuring that there would always be food avable in her God¡¯s Ring.


    After cleaning both their hands with a Cleaning spell, Lex took out something that made Saleenugh ¨C a yard long fish tank with a rogue crystal fish swimming in it.


    That type of fish originated from the Separation Sea and nowhere else. It tasted so good that even Qin noble families would send people to the Separation Sea to hunt for the fish. They could not be bought from any markets. In Cloudflow, only the noble families were allowed to consume this type of fish.


    The fish scales were thinner than the magic paper used for filtration and its flesh was a faint red in color. Saleen cut open its belly with a silver knife and disposed of the internal organs. Mist covered his hands and protected them from the fishy smell.


    Lex rolled up her sleeves and poured rice into a silver pot for rinsing before putting them into a small and delicate y pot. As for Saleen, he was slicing the fish into slices with the knife, but instead of putting them into the pot, he put them onto a te instead. Then, he took out salt and used magic paper to wrap the fish slices within before pouring in chilli oil and letting the voring slowly seep in.


    Lex took out the ingredients one by one for Saleen to process while saying, ¡°Saleen, we are fighting Cloudflow, but not because of hatred.¡±


    ¡°I know. We will eat what we want to eat, and drink what we want to drink. We will not allow ourselves to be unhappy just because we are eating Cloudflow cuisine.¡±


    Lexughed. She had wanted to whip up this dish to lighten up the mood. Saleen was bing smarter and also possessed the qualities of a true member of a noble family.


    ¡°But Saleen, Nailisi...¡±


    ¡°The demon army? Didn¡¯t the demons fight for humans tens of thousand years ago? We are a race that is capable of going on a crusade against the Gods. We must not victimize ourselves just because we have gotten weaker. Demons are just demons. They will be fine as long as they are under control.¡±


    ¡°What you said is theoretically right. I¡¯m worried about the numbers of the demon army. If they expand too quickly, you may not be able to control them.¡± Lex ignited the magic powder and put the pot onto the stove and heated it up slowly.


    Saleen reced the magic paper with a new one and ced the fish slices on top. Wrapping the fish slices in magic paper had prevented its moisturefrom seeping out due to the presence of salt. Instead, they became fuller and tangier.


    He spoke to Lex at the same time, ¡°In any case, you have already given the six-winged Flying Snake seal to me. Without the demon army, surely the surrounding powers will be looking to cause us harm?¡±


    ¡°How is that possible? Right now, Holy Rock City only wishes for my brother to live to a thousand years of age.¡± Anotheryer of me appeared in Lex¡¯s hands to instantaneously evaporate the water. She took out some wheat flour and spread it onto the fish slices. It would not be possible to do this with ordinary wheat flour since it was usually used for bread.


    ¡°Lex...¡± Saleen called out. He realized that it was true that he did not worry about the six-winged Flying Snake seal, at least not at that moment. Holy Rock City could not possibly send armies to attack them since that would immediately lead to a divide. The best solution was for Ojarvis to keep his position and allow the House of Lords to regain greater power.


    If Safilos changed his mind to lend his support for Lex, then the incident of the six-winged Flying Snake might not be a bad thing for Qin after all.


    ¡°The Cloudflows are still the most troublesome part. Now, they have gathered an army of one-million soldiers, but in actual fact, their main force should consist of less than two-hundred-thousand or even one-hundred-thousand men. The rest will consist of auxiliary soldiers or new recruits. Now that I have given the six-winged Flying Snake seal to you, it is about time we establish contact with the southern noble families in Qin.¡±


    ¡°The south of Qin shares borders with Cloudflow, wouldn¡¯t Cloudflow...¡±


    ¡°If they are attacked from both sides, Cloudflow will treat us seriously and not send over some motley crew.¡±


    ¡°What about the Holy See?¡±


    ¡°Of course, the Holy See is everyone¡¯s enemy. I don¡¯t hope to see the demon army on the battlefield against Cloudflow.¡± Lex wiped her hands and took out a bottle of wine.


    ¡°Fortunately, we don¡¯t have any pce maids serving us.¡± Lex smiled and poured a cup for Saleen before putting the well-marinated sliced fish into the pot. Then she added some whale oil, onion, and bay leaves.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen agreed half-heartedly as he suddenly understood what Lex meant. Female officials in the pce usually served the room of the Emperor. If there were a few of such female officials around, both he and Lex would feel very ufortable, likely because they were mages.


    At this thought, Saleen¡¯s gazended on Lex¡¯s hands. They were a pair of beautiful hands that were dainty, soft, pale, and carried a tinge of fragrance. Lex¡¯s sleeves were rolled up to her elbow, revealing her forearms. Saleen felt an urge to want to protect her.


    He wanted to see more of her, but Lex smiled and said, ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s eat first.¡±


    Saleen swallowed. He was indeed hungry. The fragrance of the food had pushed aside his carnal desire. What he had experienced in his youth was the reason why food would always be important to Saleen. Nothing else mattered more to him when he was hungry.


    The minced meat was ready very quickly, but the soup took a longer time. The bread was ready-made and the vegetables were being diced up by wind-element spells to be made into sauce along with condiments. The porridge was almost ready. It only needed to be mixed with the fish slices before extinguishing the fire immediately.


    There were more than forty types of whale oil avable and most of them tasted better than ordinary oil. The sounds of sttering in the pot made Saleen even hungrier. Lex¡¯s cooking skills might be ordinary, and she only knew how to cook a few dishes, but the meal seemed delicious to Saleen.


    Now that they were married, Lex was now having to prepare her own food instead of asking the chef to do it...


    Chef? Lex suddenly realized that she had not seen Wild Bear for some time. Where did that fellow go?


    Lex scooped a bowl of porridge for Saleen and another small bowl for herself. There were two dishes of vegetables, two sds, two portions of sauce, and two pieces of bread.


    The porridge was cooked in the style of Cloudflow while the rest was Qin food that Saleen was familiar with.


    ¡°Hey, the battle has started!¡± Lex pointed at the magic images. Saleen turned his head. Indeed, the Cloudflow army outside of the city had sent an assault team for reconnaissance.


    About one-thousand soldiers in leather armor charged towards the city walls withdders and reinforcing them from behind were twenty catapults. Cloudflow catapults were still serviceable, but much clumsier than Qin catapults. Although they were clumsy, they were also highly urate. They would serve as formidable weapons if they were set up on ships. Because they had been used to attack cities instead, they could be destroyed by the enemy easily.


    The twenty catapults were pushed to a spot that was four miles away from the city wall before they started to hurl gigantic rocks. These rocks were not infused with spells. Instead, they were merely well-molded by stonemasons, which was why they were extremely heavy.


    ¡°The infantry of Cloudflow...¡± Lex shook her head while eating her porridge.


    This sort of reconnaissance served no purpose. What could twenty catapults and one-thousand foot soldiers find out? Behind the threeyers of city walls were hundreds of catapults and close to one-thousand magic stone artilleries on the city wall. These were all sent over by the winged skeleton at the veryst minute.


    The catapults that were positioned four miles away were moving too slowly and could be easily destroyed by Lex¡¯s catapults. If the enemy had wanted to find out the locations of the catapults in the city, they would need to utilize hundreds of catapults.


    ¡°Their logistics have been dealt a blow, so they have not been able to transport major equipment. Even these catapults were built at the veryst minute. Saleen sat himself beside Lex and both of them observed the battle from afar. Saleen never thought that he would spend the night of the wedding like this. He was really very hungry and besides, the night was still long so he was in no hurry.


    ¡°We have the winged skeleton to thank for this. After all, he managed to eliminate so many Cloudflow transport vessels.¡± Lex was eating very quickly. She went through the motion of wiping her mouth with a napkin before raising her wine ss for a quick sip. The Cloudflow wine was fragrant, but not too strong.


    ¡°He lost a lot too.¡± Saleen felt content as he ate the fresh meat. The Cloudflow made really good food it seemed. Regardless of Qin or Sikeqinyan, both were like barbarians whenpared to Cloudflow cuisine.


    Saleen raised his ss to meet Lex¡¯s ss with a clear nking sound. After some wine, Saleen felt a little tipsy and there was a red flush on Lex¡¯s face. If a mage wished, he would not be drunk even if he drank a lot of alcohol. He would just have to use water-element spells to break the alcohol down into tasteless water.


    Saleen did not do so and neither did Lex. They allowed the wine to be absorbed by their blood, so their bodies were warm and their moods lightened up gradually. The anxiety they felt during the wedding ceremony waspletely washed away.


    ¡°Lex.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Lex raised her wine ss and looked towards the magicmp. The beams of light emitting from themp passed through the thinyered porcin cup and turned into faint light.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not look at this anymore.¡± In the magic images, the Cloudflow army¡¯sdders had already reached the city wall and the huge stone shells released by the catapults were also flying through the air. They were all destroyed by the ice arrows shot out by the mages in the arrow towers. As for the enemy¡¯s one-thousand foot soldiers in leather armor, the top of the city wall only ordered the archers to engage them. No other defensive measures were necessary.


    The Cloudflow infantry was not as powerful as that of the Holy See, even if they consisted only of elite soldiers.


    ¡°So be it.¡± Although this was what Lex said, she still took out some equipment to set up a magic rm on the table. If there was danger on the top of the city wall, the rm would sound and the entire pce would be able to hear it.


    After setting up the magic rm, Saleen took the sk of wine in one hand and Lex¡¯s hand in the other and walked towards the bedroom. The pce of Daliang City was built using so many magic materials that there was little possibility of a fire breaking out. The two of them left their ceremony clothes in the study room and walked through the courtyard wearing only ayer of under clothes in the breezy night.


    Lex was feeling nervous as Saleen held onto her hand. Her understanding of intimacy between married couples came from books. Nevertheless, she was unsure if Saleen would be satisfied with her. He was used to Sika...


    Lex was feeling a little jealous. What she was worried about the most right was that Saleen would feel that Sika was better than her. Such matter must not be left to fate. She must think of a way for Saleen to forget about Sika temporarily.

 Chapter 787: The Most Exciting Night (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 787: The Most Exciting Night (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The moon in the sky was shrouded by clouds, casting a shadow on the ground. The Wings of An Elf floated among the clouds. Eleanor and the Water Puppet were on it.


    ¡°Master sure is feeling nervous,¡± Eleanor said to the Water Puppet as she looked to the ground. Although the Water Puppet was able to move on its own ord, evenpletingplex tasks, it was still a puppet without a soul. With that said, the puppet simply remained silent behind Eleanor.


    Eleanor sighed, the marquis she served was nothing like this when she knew him. He was a man exuding an air of maturity. Thinking about it at that time, she thought that a man like Saleen was probably better. He was a man without any signs of worldly corruption in him; a man still filled with the innocence of a young boy. While he was meticulous, even petty with a lot of things, he was little more than a lonely child, wandering to find his purpose in the world in the end.


    Without any pressure from the outside world, Saleen would probably have been little more than a very, very,mon mage; one who probably would not have even been able to break through the limits of grade-4.


    ¡°Do you think there will be a lot of trouble tonight?¡±, Eleanor asked the Water Puppet behind her.


    ¡°Yes,¡± finally, there was some answer from the Water Puppet.


    ¡°Indeed, it seems like there will be a lot work ahead of us,¡± Eleanor said while having the Wings of An Elf slowly glide around the pce. Her wounds had healedpletely, but the fact that Saleen never visited her throughout her recuperation period, saddened her nheless. Then again, Saleen¡¯s delivery of the Water Puppet made her insides feel fuzzy.


    Cuisi sat gloomily on the steps in front of Saleen¡¯s pce. His huge body blocked the way to the door entirely. His head hung low and his horns extended forward, casting a long shadow on the ground.


    ¡°Saleen,¡± Lex was dragged to the bedchamber by Saleen. She looked around and found the ce to be humongous. The magical tower where she lived previously paled inparison, and that made her feel rather empty inside.


    ¡°Lex, I know,¡± Saleen activated the magic array that infused the four corners of the room. Sounds from the bedchamber had then beenpletely cut off from the outside world.


    ¡°Not yet,¡± Lex took out her magic staff and chanted the words lightly. A huge void loomed across the bedchamber, wrapping her and Saleen inside.


    ¡°Why did you do that?¡±, Saleen never expected Lex to cast such a spell. His world turned pitch ck within moments.


    Saleen had his countermeasures ready. His Elemental Eye opened slowly. His vision extended by more than three yards, enabling him to see that Lex¡¯s hands were behind her back, sliding inside her clothes to unfasten the belt behind her. Belts of mages all had their sps ced in the rear. Lex was embarrassed, so she cast a harmless void. She however, never expected that Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye enabled him to see still, even with such a high level spell cast on him.


    Saleen¡¯s chest tightened all the sudden. Lex had no idea that he could still see. The feeling of peeking at someone in the dark stoked his desires, amplifying them to very dangerous levels. He suppressed his urges forcefully and merely looked on, afraid that she would be rmed.


    Lex, a sorcerer and a Princess of the royal family, was embarrassed.


    Lex took off her clothes, revealing a skin-tight robe he made for her. She whispered, ¡°Saleen¡±.


    ¡°Yes,¡±


    ¡°Come here,¡± Lex turned to face Saleen. The spell was of a level greater than her own. If any outsider were to barge into the pce, they would not have been able to detect their location, unless said intruders were grade-9 sorcerers. Lex felt rather proud of herself. Although Saleen was rendered blind for the moment and she herself was not able to see anything, she felt great. The space between and around them turned smaller and more personal, just the two of them, all alone.


    Saleen took two steps forward, touching Lex¡¯s shoulders. There was a magic array at her cor. This was an equipment he personally crafted. With a single light touch, Lex¡¯s skin-tight robe fell off her body instantly.


    Lex felt a chill all over her body. She began to tremble, but she took half a step forward and fell into Saleen¡¯s arms. It was only then, that she found that Saleen was wearing nothing himself.


    Saleen looked at Lex¡¯s face and smiled in the void, asking deliberately, ¡°Lex, so where is the bed?¡±


    ¡°You are so dumb!¡±, Lex said while holding Saleen tight, ¡°Hey mage, where is your Water Shield?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s chest lightenedpletely as Lex finished asking. He cast a huge Water Shield, a bubble with a diameter of more than three yards, enveloping him and Lex within. Both of them floated in the middle of the bubble, under the effects of the spell.


    ¡°Saleen. I think, I really, really, love you,¡± Lex said as her hair began to spread out within the Water Shield bubble. It looked like a blooming flower.


    Saleen lead Lex toy down slowly, floating in front of her. He lowered his head and kissed Lex. A line of tears formed in the corner of her eyes. Saleen¡¯s kisses trailed down her neck eventuallying to the tips of her breasts. Lex had never felt such ecstasy before. Her body arched, like a fish leaving the water.


    Lex¡¯s fair silhouette contrasted sharply against the endless, pitch ck void, shining ever so clearly and brightly.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±, Lex was not able to resist her urges anymore. Recollecting those magical images from books, she flexed her hip and adjusted her angle, coiling her slender legs around Saleen¡¯s waist.


    Saleen¡¯s experience seemed nd and empty under such a move. He held her against himself forcefully. Lex cried out in pain and fulfillment, her face contorted in sweet agony, as he began to move inside her.


    Mages were immune to feeling very strong sensations of pain. Lex, wanting to know how such moments felt to normal people, refrained from using any magical treatments and assistance.


    Looking at Lex¡¯s expressions, Saleen began to feel a tinge of pity for her. He almost wanted to stop, when Lex moaned, ¡°Saleen...¡±


    Lex¡¯s voice sounded like trembling strings, and his heart trembled along with the resulting vibrations.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    Muddled, unintelligible words struggled out of Saleen¡¯s throat. As he bent and held Lex in his arms, he came to realize that this was exactly what she wanted ¡ª happiness with ents of pain in it.


    At that moment, Lex was no viscountess, nor was she the heiress of the Grukos. She was his wife.


    ¡°Saleen, my liege. You, are my everything!¡± She thought to herself.


    As his urges softened, Saleen picked Lex¡¯s upper body up and held her tight. He reached out to feel every bit of Lex¡¯s softness and gentleness, a yearning for him exuding from her very being.


    Lex¡¯s sense of embarrassment dissipated into thin air within that one whole hour. She coiled around Saleen like a snake. She came to know every inch of Saleen¡¯s body, and every detail of his movements, before realizing she had. In that pitch ck darkness, this man was such a warm gentleman.


    ¡°Hngg...¡±, Saleen moaned eventually reaching his climax. There was no worry of any presence of danger within the Water Shield. Lex felt a gush warmth rushing into her, before realizing what had taken ce.


    ¡°Ahh!¡±, she moaned lightly. Her body flexed, as she pulled at Saleen¡¯s arms and turned over, holding onto him like she was going to choke him, and nting her face onto his chest.


    She was not able to see anything, and did not know that Saleen was able to see. The familiarity of their two bodies had her rxedpletely.


    Her body did not hurt much, apart from the initial stimulus. Lex hade to instead yearn for that feeling. Her hand slid beneath and took Saleen in her handt, feeling him wet, yet sturdy and hard still.


    ¡°Shall we, continue?¡±, Lex murmured in Saleen¡¯s ear.


    ¡°No care for what is happening outside then?¡±


    ¡°No care at all. We are married. The day is ours,¡±


    ¡°But, it¡¯s best to treat it,¡± Saleen said as he pressed his hand to Lex¡¯s lower abdomen. Restorative Water seeped through her skin. As the sensation of warmth flowed throughout her body, her urges somehow intensified.


    The moon outside the pce shone bright. Cuisi sat on the steps, with one whole regiment of soldiers on guard outside the door. Cuisi felt the presence of a shadow from the corner of the wall all of a sudden, and a wisp of life sign made itself known.


    ¡°So, an assassin who managed to made it pass the army then? Too bad you ran into me.¡± Cuisi pretended that he detected nothing, stood up and walked to the other side of the garden. His hand took hold of his extremely long weapon, a sixteen yard long whip, as he turned.


    An assassin intending to slip past a supreme demon had to be a professional of rank no lower than grade-9, and it had to be someone who specialized in assassinations. Cuisi¡¯s level was getting stable, and the demon¡¯s detection of life signs was beyond razor-sharp. This talent was exactly how low-level demons managed to evade attacks with intentions to kill from high-level demons. Without such a talent, no living being on the demon ne would have ever been able to escape subjugations from devils.


    Cuisi¡¯s level wasparable to a grade-8 human professional, and somewhat stronger than that if his strength was to actually be measured. Damages that proved fatal to humans were nothing more than insect bites to demons. With the exception of a gouged-out heart and a blown-off head, injuries on a supreme demon, however severe, would have recovered bit by bit.


    Without magic or divine healing, no human would have ever been able to be so physically fearsome.


    Dark clouds moved again in the sky. Cuisi thought for a bit, before taking a few steps east. The assassin would be within reach at such a distance. The dark clouds above were the work of the Water Puppet. Eleanor and the Water Pupet were watching high above in the sky. The eyes of elves were able to clearly see the flora on the ground even at such a height, which was more than a thousand yards above ground.


    Eleanor was about to break out her Seven Nights longbow, when the Water Puppet reported behind her, ¡°That demon detected the assassin.¡±


    ¡°How do you know?¡±, Eleanor lowered her hands. Her attacks may have been eerie, but she was no match for Cuisi at closebat. The bodies of elves, after all, were not even superior to humans¡¯.


    ¡°I possess most of Saleen¡¯s skills, including his eyes.¡±


    ¡°I can kill that assassin with just a single arrow. Why are you stopping me?¡±


    ¡°Saleen told me to keep you safe. ording to my analysis, Cuisi will not let the assassin into the pce. There is no need for you to act. Should there be a need for action, one Elf Space Arrow from you and one Crystal Finger from me will be enough to stop a grade-9 professional,¡±


    Eleanor smiled, ¡°A grade-9 professional huh? Grade-9 professionals would never attempt to sneak into the pce. If the assassination attempt fails, the individual in question will be surrounded by three magical towers, and even a grade-9 professional would fall under such an onught. Those who wouldmit such an assassination are those that never thought of making it out alive.

 Chapter 788: The Most Exciting Night (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 788: The Most Exciting Night (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As life was viewed cheaply, the world had one too many martyrs. Those who would have dly and practically sold themselves to the rich and powerful for little more than a single meal were abundant. They dly did so in the name of courage, fairness, or some such other thing.


    An assassin need not be a martyr, but martyrs could definitely be assassins. They did not operate under bright daylight, their notion of fairness had nothing to do at all with the principle of Equivalent Exchange held by all mages.


    Martyrs who went about fulfilling their missions in the battlefield, did so for victory and glory.


    Cuisi looked up and the word ¡®martyr¡¯ crossed his mind. There were no martyrs among demons. What demons wanted more than anything was to live for as long as they could manage. They yearned to live, even if it meant living a life filled with humiliation and suffering.


    On the demon ne, demonic spirits and imps stayed alive for millions of years living such lives. Always hunted by the likes of high level and supreme demons, always risking their necks just to live another day.


    ¡°Nothing is more precious than one¡¯s life. One should never give up their life easily, no matter the odds ahead. Of course, Nailisi¡¯s pressure is an exception!¡± Cuisi added hastily, out of reflex resulting from fear of being sensed thinking so by Nailisi, who was at the moment, thousands of miles away.


    A light footprint appeared on the steps, which under the shadow cast by the clouds, was nearly undetectable. Cuisi knew that that was the assassin¡¯s most careful way of testing the waters. If nobody was able to detect this one step they took, the infiltration into the pce would have definitely been a sess. There were pirs up front, which cast more shadows, allowing the assassin to slip past the eyes of those around.


    Cuisi side-stepped, revealing the whip in his hand. A following half-turn saw enormous power erupting from his hips, sending the whip flying sharply forward.


    With a sharp crack, the tip of the whip lodged itself into the assassin¡¯s back. The invisibility effect vanished instantly, revealing an assassin wearing leather armor. Cuisi¡¯s whip burst right through the assassin¡¯s heart like a sh of lightning.


    The ease of ending one such assassin had Cuisi dumbfounded for a bit. In that split second, the sh of a sword gleamed under Cuisi¡¯s shadow.


    Swooshh!


    The sound of the attack was unceremonious. A short sword a little longer than a yard and a half, flew urately at the demon and lodged itself into his chest.


    Cuisi felt a sense of numbness running all over him. A steel wire from an assassin lurking in the shadowstched onto Cuisi leg soon after. A firm knot wrapped around both of his legs, tying them down securely, with a single pull. The steel was not only durable, but also barbed. Its hollow insides were filled with venom capable of inducing a paralysis effect.


    The assassin went around Cuisi carefully to reach his back, and stabbed two metal needles at the spot where his knees bent. Cuisi slumped. The assassin then went to his front, to pull out the sword lodged in his chest.


    The assassin saw fear in the demon¡¯s eyes, and decided instead to slowly plunged the sword further in. ¡°Better kill this demon before anything else,¡± they thought, as there was no guarantee that their venom was capable of controlling one such powerful demon.


    Inside the bedchamber, Saleen¡¯s Water Shield was filled with Restorative Water. Both Saleen and Lex had had no concern of being submerged within, as Lex was capable of breathing underwater, and Saleen was even capable of directly absorbing the air diffused from within water, as well as breathing with his skin.


    These feats were no big deal. What made Saleen¡¯s case different however, was that he could have stayed underwater indefinitely.


    Both of them swam within the water bubble, and they were able to sense the smallest detail of each other¡¯s movements, using only sensory elements. Saleen condensed the Restorative Water, while at the same time, he helped lift away the fatigue in Lex¡¯s body. Said fatigue was umted over the past half year without she herself realizing it. Minute wear and tear started to show on a body sustained using only using magic.


    More than twenty droplets of Restorative Water quickly formed under Saleen¡¯s instruction, all of which had density greater metals¡¯. He threw all of them into his Devil Ring, and held Lex again.


    ¡°Lex, tell me. Who do you think woulde for us, now?¡±, Even though he had recovered, he had simply wanted to talk to Lex.


    ¡°The Holy See, I think,¡± Lex continued caressing Saleen in the dark, hinting that she wanted him to continue.


    ¡°I thought it might be someone from the Cloudflow Empire instead. There was hardly anyone worth mentioning among the emissaries of the Tanggsi Empire. They had grade-6 professionals at most. I alone would be more than enough to take on all of them.¡±


    ¡°We have no quarrel with Cloudflow, but we sure do with the Holy See. After all, you took Nichs out. You think the Holy See wants to see you dead?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the Holy See can¡¯t stomach betrayals after all.¡±


    ¡°Rx. Both Cuisi and Gusion have reached grade-8, and the dragon yers are out there surrounding the pce,¡± Lex poked at Saleen¡¯s chest and said, ¡°So, you don¡¯t want me around anymore?¡±


    ¡°I just don¡¯t want you getting yourself too tired.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not tired. I just rested.¡±


    Outside the walls of the pce, one-thousand soldiers of the Dragonyer Army stood, motionless and without any hint of spirit in their eyes. The air was still filled with the scent of grass, but the air was warmer than most would have beenfortable with, sending waves of paralyzing gases into the bodies of the soldiers.


    Within the twopounds where the one-thousand soldiers were stationed, stood one individual armed with a Codex from the Holy See respectively, right in the midst of the soldiers. There was no light in their divine spells, and their eyes seemed devoid of life. Every inch of their being, they had offered to the gods, for nothing more than for one opportunity at assassination to seed.


    Paralysis medicines were harder to defend against than poisons. This was hardly considered a debuffing attack, as the gas itself was originally used by Holy Masters to heal. The release of such gases would have never triggered any magic array.


    The assassin from outside the pce lifted his sword to stab at Cuisi¡¯s eyes, and yet saw the fear from the demon¡¯s eyes disappear. An arrow from above flew right at them.


    The arrow flew too quickly to evade. What made matters worse, was that the profession of assassin had little to no defense skills. Without any equipment worn for defense, one such attack from amon iron arrow would have rendered an assassin dead.


    The dark red arrow flew right through the assassin¡¯s body, entering through the head and exiting through the leg, and lodged itself into Cuisi¡¯s thigh. The assassin dissipated into a wisp of green smoke, and appeared at the pce gates. The shadow shot disintegrated into nothing.


    It had been body double equipment. It probably would have been rendered useless, if it was not for the fact that Eleanor had reservations about killing Cuisi.


    Instant reaction equipment would have never been as quick as true space arrows.


    The assassin evaded the first arrow, and was attempting to break into the pce to evade attacks from above, when the second arrow came. This time however, Eleanor used the true Seven Nights. The head of the assassin exploded from the enormous impact of the powerful shot. What made the two assassins so frightening, was that they were capable of transferring one¡¯s signs of life entirely into another. When the one taking the lead was attacked, that was where the true killing blow was unleashed.


    Unfortunately however, such tricks were no match for the archery prowess of elves.


    The two arrows that Eleanor fired from above saved Cuisi. All of a sudden, a tear formed on the moon above Eleanor due to the work of some unseen mysterious power. A great shadow emerged from it. Eleanor and the Water Puppet hid well within the clouds, but they were found out nheless. That two shots created energy fluctuations that were too great to conceal.


    At the very least, Eleanor was unable to conceal the fluctuations, given the fact that she was still a grade-6 elf.


    An angel of more than four yards tall emerged from above the duo, spreading its wings, conjuring huge wind elements, and flying straight for Eleanor. The giant, was armed with a sword of light that was more than three yards long.


    This heavenly angel seemed to have been literallying out of a hole torn in the moon, as even Eleanor¡¯s superiorly sharp senses failed to detect anything prior. Judging from the distance of attack, both sides were less than fifty yards away from each other.


    The Water Puppet activated a skill, which brought tens of tornados into the clouds. Eleanor drew her Seven Nights full, and was startled to find that she was unable to lock onto her target.


    The angel burst right through the tornados, as if it was a shadow; wind elements had had no effect on it whatsoever. The angel¡¯s face was devoid of expressions like a statue. The sword of light it held went straight for Eleanor¡¯s torso.


    The Water Puppet shot a beam of white light from its finger, prating the angel¡¯s body. Its wings seemed to have been affected by the magic attack, exploding and scattering white feathers all over the ce.


    The heavenly angel remained unfazed. The Wings of An Elf dived for the ground, but was stabbed by the angel¡¯s sword. The Crystal Finger attack failed. At the very least, it failed to kill the creature summoned by the Holy See.


    Cracks were heard from the Wings of An Elf, and cracks formed on the left wing of the device. Thundercloud wood was stronger than metal, but was not strong enough to withstand an attack from the sword of light. There was no need to use the Wings of An Elf for flight with the Water Puppet around. Wings of An Elf¡¯s eleration, was far quicker than the Water Puppet¡¯s magic though.


    The Wings of An Elf was damaged and its speed dropped drastically. The Water Puppet took hold of Eleanor, conjuringyer afteryer of Water Shield from its body. The heavenly angel¡¯s sword came for them again, cutting right through more than tenyers of Water Shield andnding on the Water Puppet¡¯s back, forming ripples.


    In the inn at the north of the city, there was a group of emissaries from the Tanggsi Empire residing within thepound. The group consisted of more than ten officials, over a hundred soldiers, and more than three-hundred servants; all of them dead on the ground, with empty eyes. A divine rune charm array with a diameter of seven yards, shone with pale light in the middle of thepound.


    A red-robed Holy Master sprawled out in the middle of the charm array. The Holy Master disguised himself as an official and followed the emissaries into Daliang, for no other intention than to kill Saleen, instead of being there to present gifts as imed.


    ¡°Saleen must die. This is an order from the pope.¡±


    A Soul Bead was found broken in the hand of the red-robed Holy Master. The bead was unleashed using more than four-hundred hundred souls of the living. The summoning of the grade-9 angel was aplished by offering all the souls within the bead to their God.


    The red-robed Holy Master sacrificed his own life too, but a smile of happiness was seen on his face. The sight of such a smile with empty eyes was an eerie one.


    Common followers were only able to enter heaven after death. The pope said that killing Saleen enabled one to enter heaven immediately however.


    A grade-9 angel wasparable to a grade-10 human professional, as physical attacks were ineffective against it. More than one-hundred and sixty thousand from the entire region of the faith gave their lives, just to summon that one angel.


    This was Daliang, not Holy Rock City. A beingparable to a grade-10 human professional, was powerful to raze everything on the ground.


    Cloudflow¡¯s assault on the southern city wall was intense. Mages were seen risking their lives to get close to wall, just so to cast buffing magic on the troops. Nichs stood on top of the wall, searching meticulously for anyone suspicious. Divine fluctuations appeared at the royal residence, distorting his expression. He turned his head sharply and saw a tear on the moon. Even though he was more than three miles away, there was no mistaking it; he had just witness the advent of a heavenly angel.

 Chapter 789: Sword of Burst (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 789: Sword of Burst (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs¡¯ body was rooted to the ground. He wanted to go to the pce to help, but he did not dare to. As a fallen holy priest, he was as good as dead if he encountered a heavenly angel. As a follower, he was willing to fight hard for Saleen, but if he returned, he would be giving up his life.


    A battle that would guarantee his death left Nichs hesitant.


    ¡°Su, go back! Something has happened at the pce! Wear your armor. If you don¡¯t wear it this time, you will surely die,¡± Nichs said to Su.


    ¡°Something happened?¡± Su looked at Nichs in confusion.


    ¡°I can¡¯t go back or else I will die. Leave this ce to me. If that powerful grade-9 mage appears, I can still try to battle him and stand a chance. If I go back, there is no chance of me surviving at all. An angel is there.¡±


    Su¡¯s face sank. He knew what it meant for Nichs to refuse to go back and provide reinforcements even though he was a follower. Saleen was in extreme danger and there was nothing that Nichs could do.


    Su silently took the armor that Joey had refined out from his leather bag. In order to solidify his foundations, he has refused to wear it because only golden grand swordmasters would be able to fully maximize the power of the armor. As a silver grand swordmaster, wearing the armor would only increase his powers, but would also be detrimental to Su¡¯s growth.


    Now, Su had no choice but to wear the powerful armor. He had to hurry back and only the armor would provide him with the ability to fly over long distances.


    ¡°Su, almost all physical attacks are ineffective to angels. You must...¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Su tightened his belt and put on the long sword that Saleen had refined for him. Then, he jumped down the city wall and a pair of metallic wings spread open on the back of his armor. The wings exuded faint golden sword aura and Su flew towards the pce like a huge golden eagle.


    Outside of Saleen¡¯s bedroom, Cuisi stretched out his hand with difficulty. He moved his fingernails and a silvery white light cut off the wire that had trapped his legs. Then, he removed the two iron needles stuck in his thigh and finally, the arrow that Eleanor had shot at him.


    The tip of this arrow had already been removed and in its ce was a sharp wooden pole. Eleanor¡¯s archery skills were too amazing as the arrow that she had shot at Cuisi¡¯s thigh only left behind a hole without damaging any vital parts.


    Removing the wire and iron needles also eliminated the paralyzing effects of the poison. Cuisi was now able to regain his mobility. He raised his head and saw Eleanor fleeing for her life. Behind her was something that was only half his height and looked extremely strange for it had a pair of wings that looked pale and diseased.


    Despite how annoying it looked, it was a fact that the fellow pursuing Eleanor was much stronger than Cuisi. He looked troubled even as he pped his wings. The poison had yet to dispersepletely, so he was still unable to fly.


    The angel pursued fearlessly. Summoning him was the Holy See¡¯sst resort. Losing those disciples was not a big deal, but this time around, the Holy See managed to nt a summoner amongst the group of envoys. By doing so, the Holy See would never have genuine allies from then on.


    In the future, the envoys of the Tanggsi Empire would never be received with hospitality. Under the influence of religion, the honor of Tanggsi noble families had beenpletely stripped.


    Heavenly angels were not living creatures. They were tools used by heaven for battles. They had no feelings, much less anypassion. The order that he had received was to destroy the pce of Daliang City and to kill Saleen.


    By right, he should have gone straight to the pce. As a weapon, the grade-9 heaven angel sensed the danger posed by Eleanor, so he decided that he would kill her first before heading the pce to kill every living creature there.


    The water puppet was carrying Eleanor as water shield was constantly being activated on the surface of his body. As a puppet, he was not as proficient in casting this grade-4 defense spellpared to Saleen. Not only could Saleen¡¯s water shield provide a level of defense that was the peak of middle-level spells, it could alsobine with darkness shield. It would appear when the water shield broke.


    That was a grade-7 advanced spell and the water puppet was unable to handle such aplicated manoeuvre.


    Even so, the resilience of the water shield was beyond what the heavenly angel expected. When he swung his Sword of Light onto the water puppet¡¯s defense spell,yers of water shield would break and still, the Sword of Light would never reach the puppet.


    The water puppet could sense that he was badly losing the elements within his body. He decided to take off the crystal ring and put it on Eleanor before giving Eleanor and the wings of elf a hard push downwards. Then, he turned around and pounced at the angel.


    Eleanor turned back and saw that the water puppet¡¯s body had be transparent, leaving only its face, which still looked like Saleen. The heavenly angel¡¯s Sword of Light suddenly unleashed a bright light and the cut water puppet¡¯s body up hundreds of times. Each time, it would reintegrate into thinner pieces.


    Eleanor knew it was just a puppet, but she still shed tears for it, as if it were Saleen. She took out an arrow from her quiver and notched it onto Seven Nights. She prepared a few months¡¯ worth of life strength and soul strength and infused them into the arrow.


    The water puppet¡¯s body disintegrated into pieces instantaneously. Even its head waspletely crushed. The thick water elements turned into hundreds of water streams that wrapped up the heavenly angel. Eleanor shot her arrow, which pierced through the heavenly angel¡¯s body. This time, it howled with rage.


    The life arrow could take away an enemy¡¯s life. Eleanor gave everything she had into the arrow and used up one-sixth of the power stored in the quiver. This was the most powerful arrow she could have shot at her grade and it could take away more than a thousand years of the enemy¡¯s life.


    Heavenly angels did not have a long lifespan, only three-thousand years. The water puppet¡¯s crystal finger was not a physical attack and was a technique that Rafael used against Gods. The water puppet¡¯s attack had already injured the angel badly. It was just that as long as a weapon like the heavenly angel was still alive, it would always be able to deal out damage at a grade-9 standard.


    Eleanor took out another arrow and shot it with all her might. The arrow would be able to take away five-hundred years of the heavenly angel¡¯s lifespan.


    She could not control her tears though she knew that the person that saved her was just a puppet and not Saleen. One of the wings of elf was already broken and it was crashing towards the ground. Eleanor twisted her body and managed to see the water streams, that the water puppet had turned into, being cut off by the Sword of Light.


    The Angel, who was half-transparent now, rushed towards her like a meteor. The Sword of Light was still blinding in its hands.


    Eleanor turned her head back and saw that she was less than three-hundred yards away from the ground. Within such a short time, the powerful water puppet had been hacked into pieces and she had fallen only slightly more than seven-hundred yards.


    ¡°There is no one else I can depend on, so I will just have to depend on myself.¡± Eleanor fingered the edges of her quiver and in a moment, the Elf Emperor Arrow appeared in her hands.


    The heavenly angel froze momentarily and Eleanor¡¯s expression changed from one of fragility to dignified. It was as if she was the one pursuing the enemy, and not the one crashing towards the ground. The string of Seven Nights vibrated, producing a loud noise.


    Buzz... Boom!


    The elements in the surrounding area all vibrated along with the string of the bow. Elf Emperor Arrow was a technique thatmand elements and was one of the purest elemental attack.


    The three magic towers unleashed powerful elemental currents from far away at the same time, inducing the defense spell within Daliang City. The expression on the heavenly angel was heavy. He swung his sword multiple times towards the front, like a swordsman who was learning swordsmanship for the first time.


    A simple action like that created ripple effects in the air. The spell that was supposed to stop him from flying had failed. The heavenly angel pped his wings and his body became thinner as his lower body became almostpletely transparent. His Sword of Light managed to hack the tail of wings of an elf into pieces.


    The defense of the magic towers still managed to dy his actions by a few frames of time.


    Eleanor was falling much faster as the wings of an elf had almost beenpletely destroyed. She quickly cast a wind travel spell, but it was futile in reducing her downward momentum.


    The power of the angel¡¯s sword could not be converted. A grade-6 Wind Travel spell was no match for the attack of a grade-9 opponent.


    Cuisi saw that Eleanor was in danger, so he had no time to care about theck of strength in his body. He took out a small te and unleashed the stone statue army that Saleen had given to him. Unless the leading stone statue of the stone statue army had been crushed, they would continue to absorb energy from the ground to continuously revive themselves. Saleen had spent quite a lot of effort to repair the leading stone statue. The thing was a nightmare for warriors.


    After slotting the rectangr te into the chest of the leading stone statue, it began to unleash its subordinate stone statues. Cuisi pped his wings and flew towards Eleanor. His long whip curled towards her waist. The spikes on the whip had been retracted, leaving it smooth and soft.


    When the heavenly angel saw that Eleanor was about to escape, the Sword of Light was no longer being wielded simply. Instead, it was raised while he chanted a prayer urgently. A huge illusion appeared from the Sword of Light as it swung towards the ground. The huge illusion harnessed the power of light. All the elements were split apart by this swing of the sword and the illusion sprinted straight towards Eleanor¡¯s back.


    Back in the grand hall, Saleen and Lex were still in midst of the darkness dimension. The grade-8 spell was going on for too long.


    Saleen was whispering to Lex when he noticed amongst the clothes that had been thrown outside of the water shield that there was a crack on the cbash. He was stunned. The water puppet had been defeated! It was seriously injured and who knew how much time and energy it would take to repair it.


    ¡°Lex, something has happened to the water puppet!¡± Saleen said and sprinted towards his clothes after removing the water shield. The crack on the cbash was not big, but he could see only steam within it. There was only onest remaining strand of pure element that was used to create the water puppet and it was curled up amongst the steam.


    Without any hesitation, Saleen took out more than twenty water droplets that had been kept in his devil ring and put them into the cbash. Only then did the crack show signs of recovery.


    He had sent the water puppet to be with Eleanor because she was weak in closebat. Now that the water puppet had fallen, what about Eleanor? Saleen began to be nervous.

 Chapter 790: Sword of Burst (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 790: Sword of Burst (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was of a higher grade than Saleen. The moment Saleen mentioned it, she immediately sensed a powerful presence rushing towards their room from the sky.


    The two of them were in such a hurry to put on their clothes that Lex put on the crown that Saleen had given to her. Saleen put on his devil suit along with the mask.


    Lex realized now that Saleen was able to move without any difficulty in the darkness because he possessed the ability of elemental eyes. It was just that at that moment, she no longer felt embarrassed to face Saleen. Besides, danger was near, so she had to move more quickly and decisively than Saleen.


    The two of them had barely just put on their clothes when the ground trembled and there was a sound on the rooftop that was like thunder. Soon after, both sides of the hall split open and cold air rushed in. A beam of light from a sword lit up the darkness and came straight at Saleen.


    All of a sudden, Saleen split himself into six images instantaneously, only for one of them to be hacked into pieces by the sword. It repaired itself immediately. Saleen and the other five images surrounded Lex. Each image possessed one-sixth of Saleen¡¯s power.


    This power was not important. What was important was that the heavenly angel, who was floating in the middle of the roof of the hall that he had just split open, could not tell the difference between the real Saleen and his images. Each image possessed life aura that was no different from Saleen¡¯s.


    Saleen would never allow himself to be just a sitting duck. He cast frost and snow magic patterns to increase the damage of his spell by more than three times temporarily. He then cast the Current Cutter spell next. He did all that in different images. The angel¡¯s sword might have split open the darkness dimension, but thetter mended itself very quickly.


    It was a grade-8 environmental spell that was neither a defense nor attack spell. This type of spell was the most stable and could hardly be destroyed by external forces. Only a grade-9 Dispersing spell would be able to stop it.


    The angel knew nothing about Dispersing spells. He realized that he was unable to distinguish his target from the images. By then, the lower half of his body had alreadypletely turned into light and he had already lost more than half of his lifespan. He could very well die there if he was dealt with any more damage.


    The heavenly angel did not possess a soul, but he did have desires. He raised his sword in rage and began to chant a long prayer. The surrounding magic towers were too far away. Any attack from those towers would not pose a threat to his body. There was only one human being nearby who was also a warrior. The heaven angel decided that he would use his divine spells to demolish this pcepletely.


    Saleen¡¯s bedroom was constructed with solid materials so even when the heaven angel split open the pce¡¯s roof, it did not manage to copse the entire pce.


    ¡°God said that those who do not ce their faith in religion must possess souls that are cursed. Thends that they live on have already dried up and they can no longer ept faith. My light will only cause all of them to burst...¡±


    It was the first time the angel¡¯s prayer could be heard so clearly and at such a stable and forceful rhythm.


    The Vacuum Imprisonment spell suddenly appeared and the elements around the heavenly angel¡¯s body was sucked out in an instant. This was an indication of a grade-7 spell. If this was a middle-level spell, only air would be sucked out while the elements would still remain.


    This was even more powerful than the Speech Prohibition spell. The angel¡¯s mouth was moving. but he was unable to continue chanting the prayer. Nevertheless, a technique like that would still be unable to stop the heaven angel¡¯s prayer because he could use his thoughts in ce of his speech. As long as one took in the power of life, he would receive God¡¯s blessing.


    Although the lower half of the angel¡¯s body had be transparent, his attacking power was unaffected. He continued to chant the prayer in silence and the Sword of Light became so big that it was longer than ten yards.


    Lex sighed. She and Saleen would not be in danger of dying because after she had advanced, her God¡¯s Ring would enable her to utilize its defense for more than three times. Even eight to ten grade-9 heavenly angels would not be able to break through the defense dimension created by the God¡¯s Ring, much less just one.


    God¡¯s Punishment was much more violent than the angel¡¯s attack as those were powers borrowed directly from the Gods. As the enemies that they encountered would only get stronger, it was best to save up on the God¡¯s Ring defense as much as possible though. It would be a waste to use it on this fellow that did not even have a brain of its own.


    As a member of the royal family, Lex had extensive knowledge of the Holy See. When this angel appeared, she knew immediately who she was dealing with.


    The technique that the angel had used was purely a violent attack ¨C sword of burst.


    Every object within the attacking range would be reduced into the smallest elemental state. Since the heavenly angel could not determine which was the real Saleen, he decided that he might as well treat the entire area as his target. Once the Sword of Burst had been struck, nothing within an area of hundreds of yards would survive.


    A figure flew up from behind the pce. This figure was holding on to a blood-red war banner that more than four yards long.


    ¡°Gusion,e back. Physical attacks are ineffective against him.¡± Lex finally spoke. If Gusion attacked, the only oue was that the heavenly angel would be able to render him useless and handicapped with one p. Unless Gusion was a golden grand swordmaster, he would have no chance of damaging the angel at all.


    After hearing what Lex said, Gusion would not court death no matter how loyal he was. He abruptly rolled up the banner andnded in another direction. In the meantime, the heavenly angel continued to focus on chanting his prayer. He could care less about an insignificant lifeform like Gusion. To him, Gusion was not even as dangerous as a grade-7 sorcerer.


    Just outside of the pce, the dragon-ughtering corp had been ordered to back down. If the Sword of Burst struck, the warriors nearby would all die. Fortunately, Lex and Saleen were still in the darkness dimension. If they chose to leave, the angel would be able to kill everyone one by one, based on his speed.


    Lex pulled Saleen to her as both of them waited for the attack tond. The power of the God¡¯s Ring has increased. Saleen was more worried about the safety of Eleanor and Cuisi than his own. If the heavenly angel chose to give up on attacking him and go on a killing spree in the city instead, the defense of Daliang City would copse. By the time the Cloudflowsunched their attack, everything would be over.


    Everything would depend on how many times Sword of Burst could attack. God¡¯s Ring would be able to repel it at least three times. The grade-7 spells of Saleen and Lex would have no effects on the heavenly angel. Lex decided to prepare for a powerful spell and leave the defense to the God¡¯s Ring.


    As a king, Saleen had to fulfil his duty. He would not retreat, or escape even though he could. What would happen to Daliang City? Would Lex escape with him too? They must find a way to kill the angel.


    At that thought, Saleen took out his n badge from the devil ring.


    Lex was still chanting. She could cast grade-8 spells twice without causing any harm to her body. Her chant was long and she could not afford to stop halfway, so even though she noticed Saleen taking out his badge, she could do nothing except panic.


    What was Saleen trying to do?


    Saleen¡¯s n was a simple one, but required a bit of risk. The heavenly angel looked like a creature of energy, so it could definitely be absorbed by the n badge. If he could do that, his badge would be able to shoot out lightning once again.


    To be able to survive to this day, Saleen had almost always used his n badge to help him through the most dangerous moments. This badge was almost indestructible. The power it harnessed was incredible. Even a grade-9 golden grand swordmaster would instantly turn into dust if he was struck by the badge¡¯s lightning.


    Saleen had be reliant on this mysterious badge. If he was to lose this badge, he would have lost his most powerful skill. Besides, the badge could also train up his mental strength. Even to that moment, Saleen¡¯s mental strength had never stopped increasing.


    Repetitions were required if one was to depend on meditation to increase mental strength. On the other hand, using the badge to train up mental strength would not be asfortable as using meditation. Based on the effectiveness of both methods, Saleen would rather suffer.


    It was not a big deal to suffer and endure. Saleen could sense that his mental strength was almost at the same level as a grade-9 sorcerer.


    Lex¡¯s body was trembling slightly. Saleen spoke softly, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will not go beyond the safety boundaries of the God¡¯s Ring. If an opportunity arises, I will kill him.¡±


    Outside of the pce, Gusion listened to what he was told and did not fight the heavenly angel. He ced his banner upright and a bunch of debris, including Cuisi and Eleanor, flew towards him.


    There was blood all over Eleanor¡¯s body, but she was still conscious. On the other hand, Cuisi had already fainted. Both his horns had been broken in half and his arms were now soft and fleshy as all the bones had been crushed.


    His demon horns were extremely hard and could harness magic. In order to save Eleanor, Cuisi had sacrificed his horns and he was now back to the level of a demon. Although Eleanor was conscious, her injuries were more severe than Cuisi. Her blood was circting two times slower than normal and her bones were burning like fire. Almost all her tendons had been cut. Such injuries were already considered severe for a demon, much less an elf.


    Gusion fled with the two of them, without bothering to pick up the pieces of stones in the courtyard. The stone statue army had been deserted just like that.


    The Sword of Light was now longer than one-hundred yards in the angel¡¯s hands. Just when he was about to swing the sword, a golden figure flew and crashed into him from the side.


    Su¡¯s armor and his sword were entirely golden in color. The sword aura had been boosted by the armor to be of the same level as that of a golden grand swordmaster.


    The attacking abilities of the sword aura of golden grand swordmasters were more targeted than spells and moreplicated. This attack came so fast that a huge hole appeared in the heavenly angel¡¯s chest before he could react.


    Su¡¯s attack had injured the heavenly angel, but also destroyed the Vacuum Imprisonment spell at the same time. The heaven angelpleted his prayer in an instant.


    ¡°God says, the world is bing ruined!¡± The one-hundred yard long Sword of Light swung down. It was as if the tip of a shiny mountain was crashing onto the pce.


    At this critical moment, the God¡¯s Ring unleashed a colorful light protection, which was simr to a water shield, enclosing her and Saleen within.


    There was a strange resonating sound in the surrounding pce before being grounded into dust under the Sword of Light. Su had fled immediately after one hit, but even though his speed was already incredibly fast, he did not manage to leave the area of attack.


    Suddenly, Su felt his back bing cold, as if thousands of arrows had pierced through him. The armor that Joey had refined for him was still destroyed despite the protection from the golden sword aura. Beams of light that were as thin as needles pierced through his body and blood sttered everywhere.

 Chapter 791: Rescue the Elf (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 791: Rescue the Elf (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without protection provided by the Golden Sword Aura and armor, Su would have been dead in an instant. A chasm with a diameter of five-hundred yards formed with the angel at the center. All buildings were destroyed, crushed, and flung around by the resulting air current. The temple where Lex and Saleen resided was protected in a ball of colors. Saleen and Lex looked up at the sky.


    The heavenly angel looked at both of them on the ground without a hint of expression on its face. Its most powerful attack was not able to do any harm to them.


    Before then, the being had never thought of these cunning things as enemies. The grade difference between both sides were simply too great to even consider such a notion. They were indeed difficult to kill, but no one would have expected that its most powerful attack did nothing to the two humans...


    Could divine power be repelled?


    While the angel had no soul, it was nheless capable of thought. It did not fathom why the power bestowed upon it by the gods was rendered useless against those two. That one shing attack was not something even a grade-9 professional would have been able to withstand. Only a grade-10 master would have been able to survive it. Somehow two puny human beings did, but how?!


    The giant sword in his hand had not vanished; it was still more than one-hundred yards long. Due to the questions it had for its god, the angel had began to have doubts about its faith. That was the very reason why it did notunch a second attack.


    It had six opportunities to attack. If that kept up, Lex and Saleen would have had no choice but to use the power of the God¡¯s Ring to get out of the range of the attacks. Whether they would have actually been able to escape, was a question of luck.


    The Holy See¡¯s n initially had little loopholes. The number of powerful beings in Daliang was too small. With the sorcerers leaving their magic towers, no one would have been able to stand against the heavenly angel. Employing martyrs on the ground to try to infiltrate the pce enabled them to pinpoint the advent location for the heavenly angel. The angel would have then been able to kill Saleen in a single blow. Its strength easily dwarfed any other in Daliang.


    The angel, however, was rendered dumbfounded at a critical moment instead.


    At the very moment Lex¡¯s magic chant ended, a ck fire dragon manifested in front of her, and began to grow in size as it took flight. The dragon¡¯s movements had a lively grace about them. Clear, well-defined, scales formed of ck fires danced as it soared. Lex strained to control the dragon. It went straight for the heavenly angel, spouting dragon breath as it opened its mouth.


    It was unexpected to see Lex using summoning magic. Even though the being summoned was simply energy given form, the duration of the summoning was nheless very, very long. If one were to usually summon one such ck fire dragon, it would have been enough to at least keep one sorcerer upied.


    Tens of fireballs the size of fingernails were hidden in the dragon¡¯s breath. These balls of fire were little more than specks of dustpared to the breath containing them. On the surface of the fireballs, were the faces of people. All of the faces looked nearly identical to Lex¡¯s.


    The angel swung its giant sword in retaliation and seemingly destroying the ck fire by rendering it into little more than a firestorm. Within the firestorm, however, were fireballs of even greater numbers. All of them flew at the angel.


    In the midst of coiling green smoke, the heavenly angel was seen to have more than a number tiny holes about it. All these hole were upied by tiny fireballs without exception. The wings on its back began to burn. Its expression turned cold as it lifted its sword, and sent it crashing down on Lex.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±, Lex yelled. In the past, Saleen would not have understood anything from that one single word. After marrying her, he understood every meaning Lex weaved into one single word without any need for boration. Not only was this the result of bringing their rtionship to very intimate levels, but also due to both of them having practiced more than a hundred low level spells together.


    The sword pierced the dome of light, going straight for the humans within. The badge on Saleen¡¯s hand struck urately, conjuring a magical targeting spell.


    The moment where the spell was unleashed even had Saleen hallucinating. It seemed as if the badge itself moved and pounced on the tip of the sword, like an animal which had been starving for days.


    His mind was filled with yearning. He yearned power. He yearned for the badge to be filled with energy, enabling it to unleash lethal amounts of lightning and thunder at the snap of a finger. This yearning, in turn, filled him with fear. It was not a thought pattern that should havee to the mind of a mage.


    As the badge stuck to the body of the giant sword, Saleen¡¯s hand felt as if it was absorbed into the sword as well. The lightning-shaped streaks on the badge crackled wildly, as if it was an ancient beast opening its mouth to devour something. The energy within the sword gushed into the badge like a torrent. Using a badge to absorb energy, Saleen would never again be rendered immobile. The cost of using magic chords was also reduced to two-thirds of what it had been before.


    Saleen had long been ustomed to pain. Other than the various debuffs affecting him in the moment, he was still able to feel the excitement exuding from the badge.


    ¡°So, this badge loves divine power!¡± Saleen thought to himself


    The heavenly angel had intended to activate a devastating attack by piercing its sword into the multi-colored dome, turning the beings within to dust. Before it knew what had taken ce it noticed that the amount of energy within the de decreased drastically. The speed of decrease was far quicker than the long prayers needed to umte and focus energy. To make matters worse, the amount of energy within its own body decreased alongside the de.


    The heavenly angel wanted to let go of the sword, only to find out that its hand had already been fused with the sword, rendering it incapable of releasing the de.


    Its body remained stuck on the other end of the sword, making escape impossible.


    ¡°God decreed, that you will die now,¡± the angel said as it pointed at Lex. It resorted to using an Instant Death Divine spell instead. People would have associated such a skill with death mages instead of angels. What race would have been more proficient at taking lives, than the gods though?


    This spell was a branch of divination; the Instant Death Curse.


    The amethyst on Lex¡¯s tiara exuded a mild, gentle aura. White-grayish light passed her by and she was unharmed. The heavenly angel however, had its wings crumbling right there and then.


    Saleen saw that the upper body of the heavenly angel began to turn transparent. The badge¡¯s energy absorption power was terrifying. The sword that was previously more than a hundred yards long, was then rendered less than thirty thirty long.


    ¡°You...will...be doomed!¡±, the angel shouted. There was no fear shown on its face, only a terrifyingly cold expression.


    The tiara on Lex¡¯s head protected her. Saleen had his body fused with the badge and kept absorbing energy. The signature divine spell rendered ineffective.


    ¡°You...will...,¡± the angel started to shrivel. Fires began to sprout all over it. The fireballs about its entire being burned harder and brighter, to the point they almost engulfed all of the angel.


    Saleen trembled. While the divination spell of the angel had no apparent effect on him, he felt a deep sense of emptiness in his soul. It was due to the mark of the power capable of bending fate. If it had not been for the protection of the badge, he would have been truly marked by God.


    That would have meant that the ne of gods would have always been able to detect his presence, which would then enabled the gods to always dispatch someone to get rid of him.


    Lex cast a Chunlin Spell on Saleen. She watched the giant sword get absorbed into his badge, alongside the translucent body of the angel. It was a very eerie sight to behold.


    Saleen knew, however, that if it was not for the few arrows Eleanor fired at the heavenly angel, the absorption would not have gone so well. The angel clearly was not at its top form, even before it realized it was being set up.


    The pressure in the air subsided somewhat. Saleen realized that he was able to keep the angel in check due to help from the three magic towers suppressing the attack, as well as the three grade-8 sorcerers within each respective tower. The angel¡¯s power had been suppressed all along, until it used the Sword of Burst.


    The sweat on Saleen¡¯s face evaporated immediately and a thought crossed his mind. Had it not been for the mages using therge scale magic array of the towers, his hand would have been melted the moment he stuck the badge on the sword.


    Saleen knew well of the bnce of energies, and that time, his hand dived right into the de of light and emerged unscathed.


    The three sorcerers had been using a bncing spell. Divine spells were powers of imbnce, while magic was a power of bnce. ¡°The three sorcerers are far more experienced than I am. I¡¯m just very lucky, and this is all just too risky.¡± Saleen sweated as he hurriedly made his way to the ruins outside.


    He recalled that Su and Cuisi were hurt. Eleanor¡¯s injuries had her life hanging by a thread.


    Lex was in deep thought. What she thought about was different from Saleen. If fate really did exist, what happened to them earlier hardly made sense. It was, after all, an angel casting the Instant Death Divine spell on her.


    Her tiara was coincidentally something that was capable of repelling such divine spells. The tiara was something Saleen put on her personally that day.


    ¡°How did such a coincidence exist? I¡¯m a grade-7 sorcerer, two levels below the heavenly angel. That means the Instant Death Divine spell had more than ny percent chance of seeding.¡± The thousand-year pledge of the Goddess of Myers crossed her mind. ¡°Did my luck change for the better after signing the contract? Is that to say that the Goddess of Myers is still watching over the maind?¡±


    Lex looked around cautiously as she followed Saleen. Soldiers from afar came close. As they noticed Saleen and her getting near, the soldiers cheered loudly. While this clearly called for a disciplinary action, no military officers stopped them.


    They were worried that Lex or Saleen might have died. Their futures were in the hands of those two individuals after all.


    The Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group was unable to make themselves useful in the battle. It was Gusion, who saved three people.


    ¡°Get to the magic tower!¡±, Saleen ordered concisely. All three injured personnel required medical attention at the tower. While the crisis still lurked in the city, the mercenaries would have been more than capable to handle it. Any resulting riots or rebellions would have been taken care of by the army stationed at the pce.


    Saleen made his way to Stephanie¡¯s magic tower and found her still in shock. She saw, with her own eyes, the equipment that Saleen literally sucked the angel into. Even with three grade-8 sorcerers suppressing the sword of light¡¯s fluctuations, it was still a very, very horrifying sight to behold!


    Saleen busted into the eighth story as she was still deep in thought over what took ce, and said in a rather rude manner, ¡°Master, we need your help.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m on it,¡± Stephanie answered.

 Chapter 792: Rescue the Elf (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 792: Rescue the Elf (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor was carried to the seventh floor of the magic tower. Her wounds were grave. She was damaged down to the bone marrow. The attack from the heavenly angel was too powerful and there was little that she could have done to defend it. She survived only because she had Seven Nights with her.


    Saleen used branches from four divine trees to craft the longbow named Seven Nights for her, enabling her to use her abilities to the fullest. Material-wise, the longbow could already be considered a godly item. It was only due to the immaturity of Saleen¡¯s craftsmanship that the power of the weapon failed to reach that of a godly item¡¯s. Eleanor had only managed to make use of a very small portion of all the four special features present in godly trees.


    Seven Nights was also Eleanor¡¯s closebat weapon. The Power of Life and Power of Taboo infused within the longbow had been protecting a vital spot of hers; it was a power that blocked the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine attack.


    The Sword of Light was too powerful and the Seven Nights was a long range weapon in nature, thus it was only able to keep Eleanor alive.


    Eleanor was put onto the alchemy table and Saleen dismissed everyone else in the room, except Lex and Stephanie.


    ¡°Master, she suffered the worst injury here. Let¡¯s see to her first.¡±


    In reality, Su did not fare much better, but Su was way more powerful than Eleanor and he had the protection of armor, which enhanced the powers of the Golden Grand Swordmaster temporarily. He was in the residual wave from the Sword of Burst, but his head and heart remainedpletely intact. The injuries he suffered were little more than burns on his internal organs, dealt by the beam that went through him from his back.


    The defense of Golden Sword Aura was greater than grade-9 magic. He was only swept by a residual wave, meaning that his life would not have been in danger.


    The injuries suffered by Eleanor, however, were bone-shattering ones. They spread out all over her entire body. No bones in her remained in one piece. Having to stay conscious in such a state was torturous. Even if she had mages cast spells to enable her to be immune from pain, the resulting fear of being in such a state was not one that could be eased.


    Eleanor lost all control of her fear, as she knew how bad her injuries were. What she suffered was not something that could bepletely mended and recovered from.


    Saleen had left her to protect the northside magic tower, yet he himself was willing to hand over the protection of said tower to a grade-6 mage, due to worrying about the safety of the pce itself. Was this something worth worrying over?


    Now that she was rendered a useless cripple, would her master, a man who had just married, just cast her aside?


    She had imparted most of the elf¡¯s skills to Saleen and Nailisi. How much worth did she have left?


    ¡°Eleanor, I will heal you,¡± Saleen stood by her side and looked at her. He was able to read all the thoughts in her mind through her eyes.


    Stephanie turned, ¡°Lex, go to the eighth floor. Watch over the pce for me. Don¡¯t let anyone in right now.¡±


    Lex nodded and headed straight for the eighth floor of the tower, leaving Saleen with the injured elf. Saleen said, ¡°Master, what would you need to heal her?¡±


    ¡°You seem to care a lot for her...¡±, Stephanie stated as she cast a grade-7 restorative spell. It did not heal herpletely, but the spell had at least mended all her broken and shattered bones.


    ¡°Eleanor...she had no one.¡±


    ¡°I had no one myself. That isn¡¯t good enough a reason,¡± Stephanie replied impatiently. Eleanor was a pretty being, Stephanie was worried that Saleen fell in love with the elf.


    Saleen turned to look at Eleanor. She shied away, not wanting to look into his eyes. She did not know what awaited. The battle with the angel could be said to be an act of impulse. Coming to think of it now in fear, she had began to regret her decision somewhat.


    Such was the temperament of elves who, unlike humans, were meticulous with their calctions of things. The betrayal of the entire elf ne back long ago was just as ridiculous.


    ¡°She is my follower. As such, I must have her returned in full health, whatever the price,¡± Saleen sounded rather awkward when those words were spoken. He did not think much of Eleanor himself, but looking at her eyes, he knew well that he needed to protect her.


    ¡°Whatever the price, you said?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. She did a lot for me. Eleanor... she is an elf,¡± Saleen blurted out the truth without second thoughts. He could not have been the only one who knew things like that. it was impossible to keep such secrets under wraps forever.


    ¡°An elf?¡±, Stephanie¡¯s eyes sparkled with interest, so much so that she had forgotten to follow up the price question.


    She bent, looked at her injuries up close and nodded, ¡°So it is so indeed. Some work has been done with her muscture. I¡¯m very interested to find out what she looked like before.¡±


    Healing was a process that had little difference with dissection most of the time. It enabled one to clearly analyze a living thing¡¯s physical structure. Stephanie, as a grade-8 sorcerer, could not have been able to resist looking into Eleanor. She was the only elf to exist on the entire maind.


    Eleanor¡¯s fear deepened. Her cover was blown and the one who had just found out was a powerful mage. Would she be dissected? Saleen was no match for Stephanie in this case. Even if he had the badge with him, there was still a need for him to be able to brandish it.


    ¡°Elves, the race who had once betrayed humans. I wonder, if their hearts would actually be ck?¡±, Stephanie said as she traced her finger over Eleanor¡¯s chest, looking for a wound, as if she wanted to tear out the elf¡¯s heart and see it for herself.


    ¡°Stephanie!¡±, Saleen sounded severe.


    Stephanieughed and said, ¡°Rx. I will treat this elf for you, but I have no control over the expenses required to do so. I will not be Lex¡¯s personal mage before Lex bes a mage as powerful as I am. If you want to see her treated, there will still be a price.¡±


    Saleen nodded furiously. The other two grade-8 mages were clearly not of Stephanie¡¯s caliber in a lot of ways. Both of them were dirt poor, and their skillscked versatility and diversity, even theirbat prowess paled inparison to Stephanie¡¯s.


    Nichs was not as powerful either. His fallen divine arts were useless to treat injuries caused by angels. The reason why Nichs had yet to return from the southern side was probably due to that fact.


    Eleanorid there and listened to every single word exchanged between Saleen and Stephanie; her heart ached. Saleen was not a man devoid ofpassion, and he looked determined to save her. Would she ever be able to truly recover?


    ¡°Saleen...,¡± Eleanor moaned weakly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk,¡± Saleen said tofort her gently.


    ¡°Will I be able to...shoot arrows after this?¡±, Eleanor had no control over her body, except her head. All she was able to feel was a sense of numbness. If the spell was to wear off, she would have been assailed by indescribable pain.


    ¡°Of course. I still need your skills, to lock onto my enemies,¡± Saleen answered solemnly as he looked into her with his deep blue eyes.


    The more such words were uttered, the sadder she felt though.


    ¡°What worth is there to consider? I¡¯m his follower and it is only right and proper that I put my life on the line for him. I should be feeling grateful that Saleen even considered saving me. To cast away a care like that of a loved one¡¯s would just be awful! Saleen is a human after all!¡± She thought to herself.


    ¡°Alright, say no more. Help me get the ingredients ready. There is one thing I need to craft before I can save her. Bar all entry onto the seventh floor of the tower and let no one in, including Lex and those other mages. Kill anyone disobeying the order,¡± Stephanie said as she took out her magic pen and paper, listing all the items she required.


    Stephanie¡¯s writing was pretty. Most mages were capable of very good writing, but they were of course more skilled in drawing magic scrolls. No mistakes were permitted in the making of scrolls.


    Stephanie handed the piece of magic paper to Saleen as soon as she was done writing and said, ¡°This is the first batch, of ingredients needed topletely heal her bones and muscles. The expenses after this will be hefty, more than enough for you to hire a grade-8 sorcerer, I would say.¡±


    Saleen took the list and said to Eleanor, ¡°Just rx,¡±, before heading for the seventh floor.


    Su and Cuisi were being treated on the sixth floor. Su was gravely injured, but he did not require any special medicines. He was able to treat himself using the Silver Sword Aura. He was sleeping in a container and submerged in magical medicines. Su was not able to recover immediately due to having lost too much blood. He barely had enough strength to even stand.


    Cuisi was of a height taller than eight yards, while the height of each floor of the magic tower was six yards. The demon had to beid on the ground while several mages attended to his wounds.


    These mages did so voluntarily, as the chance to closely observe a demon was hard toe by for a mage, and therefore very tempting.


    Eleanor began to feel fear rushing over her as Saleen left for seventh floor. Stephanie looked at her green eyes and smiled, ¡°Are you are afraid of me?¡±


    Stephanie looked young, somewhere in her twenties, but Eleanor was able to sense that this was only due to the fact that Stephanie became a sorcerer in her twenties. Her looks were then preserved. The woman standing in front of her, was no naive girl fresh out of the countryside.


    ¡°Eleanor, why do you fight so hard for Saleen, I wonder?¡±, Stephanie¡¯s eyes were like Saleen¡¯s, blue, but they instilled a deep fear into her instead. That blue, it was a cold one, like the Dark Blue Chant. It was pretty, yet very deadly.


    Eleanor spoke with a tinge of bitterness, ¡°Impulse, I guess. Or simply because I had nowhere to run to.¡±


    Eleanor¡¯s answer startled Stephanie somewhat. Nowhere to run to...what a pitiful answer indeed. As an elf stranded on the Myers Maind, what choice did she have but to follow Saleen?


    ¡°Eleanor, there is no guarantee that I will be able to heal youpletely. Grade-9 sorcerers would say the same. The techniques we would use to heal you would be the same, but I will be able to oversee to your treatment with better equipment. Even so...if¨C just supposedly¨C if your wounds were to never heal, would you have any regrets?¡±


    Eleanor shook her head. She was not able to feel anything below her neck.


    ¡°No regrets? And I thought elves were all weak beings, but I don¡¯t know if being reckless is better,¡± Stephanie¡¯s words felt like a knife, thrust right into her chest and twisted to make matters worse.


    ¡°What ...is there to regret?¡±, Eleanor mustered her strength to reply between breaths. She recalled the words Saleen said to her before he left, ¡®just rx¡¯.


    She was now in such a pitiful state and therefore there was no need to lie to her. If Saleen told her to rx, then she would. The worst thing that could have happened at that point was being made into a specimen and kept as part of a collection in Stephanie¡¯s tower.


    She looked just like a specimen right now, what could have been worse than this?

 Chapter 793: Lex’s Revenge (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 793: Lex¡¯s Revenge (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Stephanie was puzzled to see that Eleanor was no longer afraid. As Stephanie was a little fearful of Saleen, she did not continue to agitate Eleanor. She instead began to use magic to treat Eleanor¡¯s injury by sealing up the wound and stopping the bleeding so that the tendons would not be brokenpletely.


    By the time Saleen returned, there were no longer any visible injuries on Eleanor¡¯s body.


    Stephanie took out an equipment from her spatial equipment and began to assemble it by the side. Saleen came over and looked at Eleanor.


    ¡°My Lord,¡± Eleanor smiled weakly. Saleen stretched out his hand and cast a Chunlin spell to mend her body a little.


    ¡°I¡¯m back. I will help you gather whatever you need. Eleanor, anything that can be solved with money is not a real problem.¡±


    Anything that could be solved with money would not be a real problem. What Saleen said was philosophical, but at that point, Eleanor had been ced onto a moving wagon by Stephanie¡¯s Floating spell. On the other side of the magic tower was arge-scale equipment that Stephanie had taken out from her spatial equipment.


    Based on the size of this equipment, perhaps it would not be urate to ssify it as arge-scale equipment. It was only slightly more than three yards long and two yards tall. There were only a few tens of supplementary mechanical parts.


    When Saleen saw thisrge-scale equipment, he knew that Eleanor stood a chance of making a full recovery.


    The main body of the equipment was a crystal that was about two yards long and could fit an entire person in it. Stephanie did not pay any attention to Saleen. She took off Eleanor¡¯s clothes and dumped them into the crystal box.


    After Eleanor had been ced in the crystal box, Stephanie closed the machine up and continuously mounted metallic boards onto it. Eventually, the alchemy machine turned into a metallic box and in the middle of it floated Eleanor¡¯s crystal box.


    The mage¡¯s crystal coffin!


    The equipment that Stephanie had taken out was something unheard of even in Alchemy City.


    The mage¡¯s crystal coffin was arge-scale equipment that was specifically used for healing purposes. This type of equipment could only heal one person at a time and time needed for the healing process would be extremely long.


    This type of equipment was created back when mages were studying divine spells. The oue was that the mages realized that healing using divine spells would always be faster than using magic spells. If one could only be healed by magic spells, either the oue would not be the best or the price to pay would be extremely high.


    Within the mage¡¯s crystal coffin, Eleanor floated in the middle of the box and looked at Saleen, who was standing on the outside.


    She did not feel embarrassed, nor afraid. She was unsure of what Stephanie had taken out, but the equipment was definitely increasing all sorts of elemental power in her body.


    Elemental powers were usually used for killing people and less often used for saving lives. Fortunately, all the elements in the crystal coffin had begun the healing process for Eleanor.


    The mage¡¯s crystal coffin was connected to twenty-four containers, which Stephanie had filled with magic medicine.


    Saleen was puzzled and looked at Stephanie. It was clear to him that Stephanie seemed to have prepared the equipment long ago. He was surprised that an item like this, which he had only heard of before, not only existed on drawings, but was also made by someone.


    ¡°This was something that I had prepared for Grand Emperor Chanake. No one expected him to die in the Tanggsi Empire,¡± Stephanie said to Saleen.


    Stephanie¡¯s voice was calm, but there was a tinge of sorrow in her heart that could not be expressed. Such sadness could not be staunched.


    She was a mage that had been groomed by Grand Emperor Chanake all her life. Before his death, she had been to Alchemy City before and found Imposa to help her refine this piece of equipment. Refining the mage¡¯s crystal coffin served a simple purpose.


    She was Grand Emperor Chanake¡¯s personal mage, so the purpose of the equipment was that it might be used to save his life in the future.


    She had received news of Grand Emperor Chanake being killed by the Holy See by the time she returned to Holy Rock City. To an ordinary person, Stephanie had less than half of her lifespan left. Everything that she did served only one purpose and that was to help Grand Emperor Chanake.


    For a royal mage to have taken the entire Grukos family into consideration, it was clear that Grand Emperor Chanake had always been everything to her.


    That stubborn man had thought that he could resist the world based on his strength and power alone.


    After Saleen had seen thisrge-scale equipment, he knew that at the very least, Eleanor would not be handicapped. She might no longer be able to shoot arrows, but she could definitely continue to be a mage.


    Saleen put away Seven Nights and in his hands was a piece of drawing paper.


    On this drawing paper was an elvish half-ted armor. Eleanor had given this to Saleen. On this piece of paper was a magic armor that only the elf royal family would wear. A huge elvish word was carved onto the chest of the armor. The elvish word wasplicated and surrounded by circles of magic symbols.


    When Eleanor passed Saleen this piece of drawing paper, she had mentioned that only true elves would be able to wear the armor. She would no longer be able to use it after bing human. Her intention was to let Saleen pick up some techniques of elvish magic and not necessarily for him to refine it.


    Now, Saleen took out the drawing paper and put it in front of the crystal coffin so that Eleanor could see it.


    Eleanor smiled when she saw what Saleen did. Saleen¡¯s meaning was clear and it made her feel warm and secure. Saleen had decided to refine this piece of elvish half-ted armor for her.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. If you still want to continue admiring Eleanor¡¯s naked body, you can wait until her injuries have been healed. I believe this elf is willing to give you whatever you want. Right now, I need to perform an in-depth treatment. Please give us some space.¡± Stephanie said to Saleen coldly.


    ¡°I know. I will gather all the resources that you have expended to rece them.¡± Saleen put away the drawing paper and bowed to Stephanie before leaving the seventh story of the magic tower.


    In the south of Daliang City, the attack from Cloudflow was getting intense. They had unleashed their gigantic magic beasts. They were of low levels and they were dragging huge magic stone artilleries while charging towards the city wall. They were shooting magic stone shells while they were charging.


    The magic stone shells flew into the city and their angles and coordinates were adjusted very quickly.


    Tens of magic stone artilleries focused their attack on the arrow tower on the south gate. If this arrow tower was destroyed, there would be no alchemy crossbows in the next few hundred yards to suppress enemy attacks. By then, the Cloudflows would not need to worry about alchemy crossbows and could attack the gate with ease.


    Nichs stood on top of the city wall and had yet to discover the traces of any strong opponents amongst the Cloudflows. Battles were as such; if the enemies were powerful enough to determine the oue of the battle, then there would have been no need for equipment to be created.


    Qin arrow towers were like horrifying porcupines that could shoot out fatal magic arrows any time. The oues of many famous battles throughout history were centered around how the powerful arrow towers were destroyed.


    Although this tactic might seem silly, it was actually the most effective method to break through a city. The armies of the Tanggsi Empire hated the Qin arrow towers because countless holy priests had died because of them.


    Nichs felt ashamed for not going to rescue Saleen, so he was keen to prove himself in other ways. He was determined to track down the enemy¡¯s strong opponent, who would be targeting the arrow tower, and kill him. He did not know how to face Saleen when he returned otherwise.


    Nichs could sense that the terrifying force in the city had disappeared and there had been no news about Saleen and Lex. On top of that, there had been no changes to his bond, which meant that Saleen was still alive and that terrifying thing was dead.


    Indeed, Saleen and Lex were powerful enough to kill something like that.


    Gusion was leading the dragon-ughtering corp in clearing up the debris outside of Saleen¡¯s bedroom. Nothing was preserved as everything was turned into dust by the angel¡¯s attack.


    Gusion and the officers and soldiers of dragon-ughtering corp saw the powerful attack and knew very clearly how the debris was created. His Master, Saleen Metatrin, was someone who, not only survived that attack, but also managed to kill the enemy.


    Every single member of the dragon-ughtering corp was astounded. As they were clearing up the debris, they saw many materials such as broken pieces of metal. His Highness, Saleen, managed to remain unscathed despite such an attack!


    Subconsciously, these soldiers began to develop admiration and respect for Saleen. Such feelings would never be removed once they had been developed. Just like how the Tanggsi people worshiped their God, these people had also be disciples of Saleen.


    Themoners of Qin had a saying ¨C¡¯there was nothing that mages could not do¡¯.


    This was a clear indication of the status of mages amongst Qin people. On the other hand, Sikeqinyans did not share the same sentiments towards mages. Their attitude towards mages was one of respect.


    These people only developed such feelings because Gusion had instructed them to clear up the debris.


    The sky was dull and the water puppet had dissipated. The moon hung high in the sky, as if the heavenly angel was never there.


    The hostel of the Tanggsi Empire had already been surrounded. The tragedy that urred there had already been reported. Very few mages understood what exactly happened. The retaliation against the Tanggsi Empire was about to begin.


    The Tanggsi people had ordered their envoy to kickstart the assassination attempt on Saleen and Lex. This time, Lex would no longer tolerate this and she had every intention of retaliating devastatingly.


    This retaliation would no longer be a controlled one. Lex wanted the Tanggsi people to remember the consequence of going against the rule of a battle.


    The mages recorded the magic images in silence before duplicating the scene of the Tanggsi people¡¯s deaths. These magic images would be sent to many ces, including Holy Rock City, Alchemy City, Sikeqinya and even Cloudflow.

 Chapter 794: Lex’s Revenge (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 794: Lex¡¯s Revenge (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    On the eighth story of the magic tower, a person was now beside Lex.


    This person was Bain, who had not appeared for a long time. Bain looked much older now. His hair was trimmed short and waspletely white.


    ¡°Princess, I have returned.¡±


    ¡°How is your daughter?¡± Lex asked with concern.


    ¡°Everything has been arranged. Your teacher is willing to teach her magic.¡± Bain was a little emotional. Although Lex¡¯s teacher was not a grade-99 sorcerer, his abilities were almost on par with one and he was also the most powerful mage in Bitter Water Prefecture. Bain was more than content for his daughter to be his student.


    ¡°Bain, I need your help now.¡± Lex remained seated and her tone was solemn.


    Bain smiled and said, ¡°Princess, I do not have too long to live even without this task. Being an assassin is a helpless thing, but I am fortunate enough to be able to follow you, so I have lived a peaceful life thus far. I will go and gather the people you need toplete the task you have in mind. Princess, please give the order.¡±


    Bain¡¯s expression became serious after what he said.


    ¡°Bain, the Tanggsi Empire made use of their envoy to initiate this assassination attempt. I¡¯m sure you saw it when you entered the city?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Princess. I came toote.¡±


    ¡°Not at all. The assassination attempt was horrifying and I count myself lucky to still be sitting here. Bain, although you are an assassin, you should know that assassinations should not be carried out like that. The Tanggsi Empire has gone too far. I have decided to reciprocate in kind.¡±


    ¡°Princess, what do you hope to achieve?¡± Bain went straight to the objective of the task.


    ¡°I want the heads of at least twelve high priests of red Bishop level. You can kill them in any way you want. Also, I want at least a hundred members of Tanggsi noble families to apany them in their deaths.¡±


    ¡°A Bloody Impact? Princess...¡±


    ¡°I understand that assassinating arge number of noble families is not allowed,¡± Lex said coldly, ¡°But the people of the Tanggsi Empire must pay a heavy price for what they have done. You can do whatever you wish. I will not set any moral boundaries.¡±


    ¡°What about the city?¡±


    ¡°You need not worry about the things in the city. Bloody Impact muste to fruition as soon as possible. Do you need any reinforcement?¡±


    ¡°I need some poison that can only be refined by His Highness, Saleen, and his water me technique,¡± Bain replied calmly. He might not be able to return again after leaving Lex this time. It would not be an easy task assassinating high priests of the level of red Bishop.


    In Tanggsi, high priests of that level always traveled in groups, which was why assassins had a low chance of sess in such scenarios.


    Nevertheless, Lex had allowed him to doplete the task in any way he wished, so that made things simpler. He would kill the noble families first, then the high priests, and most likely many innocent people would also be embroiled into it.


    Lex did not even give him a list of names. She only gave him numbers, so that showed that she was upset beyond her usual tolerance level.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you need any other help?¡±


    ¡°Princess, no. I have one-hundred and six assassins under me, so there is enough help toplete this task.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know if they will be able toe back alive, but you, on the other hand, must.¡± Lex was very serious. She took out a gray dagger and handed it to Bain.


    Bain took the dagger, then Lex took out a leather armor and said to him, ¡°This was given to me by Saleen. I think it will suit you.¡±


    This was a seamless leather armor and it was covered with magic patterns. There was an aura of sorrow emitting from the thick and solid leather armor. Bain took the armor and realized how light it was. It was as if he was just holding onto a piece of paper.


    ¡°This was previously worn by a grade-10 assassin. Saleen and I had conducted experiments on it. Middle-level spells and divine spells will have no effects on this armor,¡± Lex exined to Bain.


    ¡°Princess!¡±


    ¡°Only by wearing this will you have a chance ofing back alive. I don¡¯t want Ad to be disappointed. You...¡± Lex did not continue. She knew that this was the most dangerous task that Bain had ever undertaken. Only by wearing the armor would he have a chance ofing back alive.


    That was only a chance.


    This was almost a suicide mission and Bain would definitelyplete it thoroughly.


    A Bloody Impact wasmonly seen about a thousand years ago. It involved a noble family taking their revenge on another noble family by any means necessary and one of its trademark was that a hundred of the noble family¡¯s rtives would also be killed.


    Lex never imagined that she would one day resort to it. The Holy See¡¯s assassination attempt made her realize that she would be their target no matter where she was. She would not be safe even if she was in her own city.


    She could not tolerate this, so she decided to use an extreme tactic. She would make the Tanggsi Empire bleed until they were cowering in fear.


    Even if Bain seeded, she still nned tounch her next wave of attack against the Holy See. She had no intentions of sticking to conventional tactics. When the Sregl Ind mages arrived, thirty-six sorcerers would open up the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment and she would quickly be a grade-9 sorcerer. By then, she would be able to use up to ten percent of the God¡¯s Ring and would no longer have to worry about such things.


    The night was clear and without any clouds. Giant magic beasts appeared in the sky. They were more than ten yards long and were carrying Cloudflow soldiers on their backs. They flew beyond the attack range of the arrow tower and over the city wall. Then, the soldiers tossed down burning leather skins from the backs of the magic beasts.


    Saleen walked out of the magic tower and touched his n badge. He could use it to attack again after it had absorbed the power of the heavenly angel.


    Although the Holy See did not seed in their assassination, they did seed in spoiling their wedding night. Saleen could not do the same as Lex as he did not have so many assassins under hismand. His goal was to kill one of the strongest Cloudflow opponents.


    Someone must pay the price for destroying his house.


    Saleen hid his true intentions. Fog began to rise around him and within two frames of time, he flew up into the sky. Now, he could ignore any difference in grades. He was confident of killing even grade-9 sorcerers.


    The thick fog expanded to an area of one-hundred and fifty yards. Saleen¡¯s control over water elements had be better. More than a hundred hurricanes spun around Saleen and within the range of the Quickcloud spell, pushed him forward. Within the blink of an eye, he was already up in the sky and searching for the magic beasts that were tossing down fire oil.


    The tactic of using magic beasts to set fire in Daliang City was an annoying one. A bag of fire oil was worth little, yet could damage a number of buildings in the city.


    On a night without any clouds, the magic beasts and sorcerers dared to fly above a thousand yards in the sky. Ever since Stephanie left the eighth story of the magic tower, the anti-flying zone in the city had shrunk and a height of more than a thousand yards beyond the zone.


    By right, it was dangerous for Saleen to fly up on his own, but with his n badge, he could easily take on two powerful opponents and still manage to escape. His flying speed was incredibly fast. If not for the fact that the angel was purely a body of energy and its speed could never be matched by humans, Saleen would not have needed the protection of Lex.


    The Quickcloud spell was a spell that Saleen invented and its speed had already surpassed that of a grade-8 sorcerer. Lex would not have been able to match its speed.


    Saleen found his first target very quickly. He controlled the fog and flew closer to the magic beast.


    This was a huge beast with a twelve yard long pair of wings. It was still extremely valuable even though it was only grade-3. Due to the huge loss of resources, Cloudflow had no choice but to utilize the flying magic beasts on theirbat vessels to attack Daliang City. Such a big magic beast was able to carry more than two soldiers along with arge amount of fire oil.


    The magic beast was sharp enough to sense Saleen¡¯s arrival, even though all it saw was a cluster of fog.


    The magic beast made a strange noise which even the two Cloudflow soldiers on its back found strange. They looked around, but found no enemies.


    They sensed danger from the fog that was approaching them so they took control of the magic beast to try and steer themselves away. Saleen¡¯s fog managed to make a sharp turn and enclosed the entire flying magic beastpletely.


    The hurricanes in the fog began to produce snowkes. These snowkes were sharper than knives and by spinning so quickly with the hurricanes, the flying magic beast was instantaneously shed into hundreds of pieces.


    Blood poured down like rain.


    At that moment, Saleen could appreciate the adrenaline rush of holding so much power. A grade-3 magic beast and two warriors of the level of swordmaster were helpless against his magic. Those two swordmasters had even brought along mini alchemy crossbows, but they were unable to aim at Saleen urately. Only sorcerers of grade-8 and above would be able to determine his position within the fog.


    Saleen opened his elemental eyes and was able to see everything within one-hundred miles. There were more than thirty gigantic flying magic beasts on top of Daliang City and they were tossing fire oil continuously. Without any hesitation, Saleen pounced at the nearest target. This time, he unleashed more than twenty wind des two-hundred yards beyond the fog.


    The transformation of elements evaporated water elements to form wind des. The number of wind des produced was ten times more than what ordinary mages could produce.


    At three-hundred yards away, the second flying magic beast was shredded into pieces and the soldiers on its back screamed as they fell towards the ground.


    The Cloudflows did not dare to fly at a lower height. This must mean that someone was looking out for the safety of the flying magic beasts. Saleen did not manage to detect any targets with his elemental eyes, which meant that his person was of a much higher grade than him.


    More than ten fire crows were unleashed at the next target. The fire crows were even hotter than the Fireball spell. They burned into the flying magic beast¡¯s body, leaving behind huge charred holes.


    Saleen did not kill the soldiers on the flying magic beasts. He decided to let them fall to their deaths so that he could conserve his magic chords.


    The fourth! Saleen controlled his fog and approached the fourth flying magic beast. This time, he unleashed a cluster of ice bombs. In fact, these ice bombs already carried the power of ground elements, so they were harder than ordinary water element ice spells.


    The flying magic beast was punctured with hundreds of small holes in the air and blood filled the sky.


    ¡°Still not willing toe out?¡± Saleen smiled coldly and flew towards his fifth target. He refused to believe that this massacre would not lure out the enemy¡¯s attack.

 Chapter 795: Power of the Devil’s Armor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 795: Power of the Devil¡¯s Armor (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo [emailprotected]</a>


    It wasmon for Cloudflow people to use such flying magic beasts to attack cities, but even if was the Qin Empire, only such tactics thought out by Saleen could be employed. The no-fly zones that could have been controlled by the magic towers were no more than two-thousand yards.


    Only by deploying sorcerers to kill all of the magic beasts, would they be able to defend against fire attacks from the enemy.


    Saleen quickly killed more than a dozen flying magic beasts at the center of the city. All of a sudden, he felt himself being targeted. Since six hours had yet to pass, he was not able to activate the Phantom Flurry spell affixed to his devil¡¯s armor.


    Saleen turned sharply in the cloud, detecting a hidden a sorcerer above with his Elemental Eye.


    Saleen knew well that the sorcerer dare not dive downward. Once they got within range of attack of the magic tower, they would have definitely been killed, with the chance of escape being zero. That meant that Saleen was able to return to the tower for protection. As such, he did not bother with the sorcerer hidden above, and headed for another magic beast instead.


    Up in the sky at the height of more than fifteen-hundred yards, a ck-robed mage watched the ughter taking ce beneath with cold eyes.


    As a grade-8 sorcerer, this mage was very interested in the Flying spell of the grand mage beneath. ¡°A really powerful equipment, perhaps?¡± The sorcerer counted carefully every time Saleenunched an attack, calcting how much the total drain of magic chords was thus far.


    Their body was levitatingpletely in the air, with a ne of light beneath their feet. From the perspective of the sorcerer, that ne of light melded seamlessly with the moon, meaning that they could not have been detected at all.


    The sorcerer smirked. ¡°That grand mage below is indeed powerful, probably the strongest of all grade-6 mages. This mage, is really wasting his talent.


    In the eyes of the sorcerer, mages who knew little else other than throwing fireballs all over the ce were not good mages. While Saleen unleashed a great deal of magical powers, there had yet been any repeats seen; a testament that he had little experience.


    ¡°There is no need for deploying such powerful magic to kill grade-3 magic beasts. He really knows how to waste his magic chords. Whatever that mage has been employing, as soon as he has exhausted all his magic chords, one strike will be all it takes to kill him. It is best to leave him alive though. Such good flying, it is really making me jealous!¡±


    The hidden sorcerer had absolute confidence in his stealth capabilities, as no one had yet been able to track him down. That was the pride of a sorcerer, knowing how stunningly well they were able to wield Light Magic, so much so that they deemed themselves more capable than notable assassins. He was someone who was capable enough to hide in the air, where there was nowhere to hide. ¡°Such should be the way to use magic, unlike the buffoon down there making himself out like a moving magic cannon. Is it about time to make a move then?¡±


    The sorcerer up in the sky calcted Saleen¡¯s magic chord drain, deeming that the grand mage below had had only enough magic chords to conjure one grade-6 spell. ¡°Alright, I shall steal this buffoon away for myself, and have him tell me secrets regarding his flying abilities, by any means necessary.¡± The sorcerer thought as the ne of light expanded almost instantly, by more than one-thousand yards. They made their way to be right above the clouds Saleen was fighting in.


    They finally give up waiting, eh?


    Saleen smirked coldly. The spells he conjured were of grade-4, but unless one experienced taking on the spells themselves, these spells would have been easily mistaken as grade-6 ones. His movements in the cloud were a blur to his enemies. Saleen had only been using a staff most of the time, unleashing all the stored magic within.


    Speaking of magic staffs, Joey was very generous indeed. Not only did he gave Saleen a lot of them, but also every single one of them had magic that could have only been conjured by grand mages stored in them. To Joey, that was nothing. Eating and drinking would have easily proven more tedious.


    Saleen had been calcting all along that the hidden enemy had also been calcting to see how much was his magic chords drain.


    ¡°Cloudflow people are indeed a disgusting bunch. A grade-8 sorcerer, sneaking up on a grade-6 grand mage. What was worse, the grade-8 one is waiting for the grade-6 one to drain all his magic chords. If all Cloudflow people had been such people, it was no wonder why the fourth dynasty fell into ruin.¡±


    Grade-8 sorcerers had had an overwhelming edge over grade-6 grand mages, especially in aerialbat. Sorcerers were more powerful than grand mages by several orders of magnitude.


    Of course, Saleen was an exception. His way of flying could have been said to be one of a kind, so unique that it piqued the sorcerer¡¯s interests, urging them toe take his equipment by force, or interrogate him to find out the secrets regarding such magic.


    Saleen broke out his seventh magic staff, unleashing the magic stored within and cutting the wings of the flying magic beastsing for him to ribbons. At that instant, the sorcerer hidden in the air was finally done waiting. Saleen had been unleashing waves after waves of grade-6 magic, and every single one of them could have been said to be perfect, for every single one killed the magic beasts from Cloudflow in an instant.


    ¡°If I was not here to take you alive, I wouldn¡¯t have allowed you to kill so many.¡± The sorcerer¡¯s grin widened. They broke the ne of light about five-hundred above Saleen and dived for him. ¡°I will take you alive and take my sweet time interrogating you. No secrets can be kept in the face of a magical interrogation.¡±


    The sorcerer gave up hiding themself altogether, locking onto Saleen using mental power and conjured a Light Cage spell.


    Tens of thousands of beams of light dispersed the cloud Saleen was in, revealing his entire being and began to weave themselves into shape around him, forming a.


    Water Shield was activated around Saleen¡¯s body. The sorcererughed as he saw the beams of lights crush the enemy¡¯s protection magic without effort. ¡°Kid, you are mine once I break your arms and legs!¡±


    The cage was a light spell, even though it was only a grade-7 one. Targets trapped within the cage lost all sense of direction, as whatever the target was able to see was all illusions conjured by light. Sight would have lost all purpose within the cage, and sensory powers were rendered severely affected by the light element. Anyone trapped within would have no choice but to keep defending, even if that someone was a grade-8 sorcerer.


    Light Magic attacks were lightning-fast. Being trapped in the Cage was incredibly draining for a mage. If a grade-7 mage was able to develop good mastery over this skill, it was not impossible to even break the shields of a grade-8 mage.


    Water Shield was only a grade-4 spell. While the defensive effects might have been amplified using various tricks to reach the defensive capabilities of a grade-6 spell, it was still no match for the cage.


    Saleen calmly paid attention to the sorcerer attacking him, inside the cage and his broken bubble. ¡°A powerful sorcerer indeed. Too bad, they¡¯re not the one I¡¯m looking for. May this one is just too sure of themself, flying alone into the airspace of Daliang and all that.


    It was no secret that Daliang had no grade-9 sorcerers. In the eyes of the Cloudflow people, the grade-8 sorcerers of Daliang were only powerful enough to hide within magic towers, and would have never dared engaging in airborne battle.


    ¡°Well, that is because there is indeed a very powerful grade-9 sorcerer on my side. You dare look down on me?¡± Saleen found an expression suggesting that his enemy was a sorcerer who took pleasure in toying with lower level living beings. ¡°You Cloudflow scum, you are not fit to be a mage!¡±


    Darkness began engulfing Saleen¡¯s surroundings as the bubble brokepletely, taking the shape of a three-dimensional shield. This was one grade-7 spell that had taken him considerable time and effort. Saleen had even neglected practicing crafting of magic liquids, due to having all the time he could have spared to perfect this one spell.


    As two grade-7 magic spells collided with each other, the sorcerer realized there was no reason they should beughing.


    The forceful collision was not of their choice, as the cage was aplex spell. Once the cage had been erected, even the conjurer themself could not just simply deactivate it.


    The sorcerer felt a chill building within them as the light was engulfed by the darkness. That was due to having seen the trapped grand mage conjuring the spell personally, instead of relying on magical equipment.


    How could he possibly have so many magic chords left!?


    The Darkness Shield was a spell that was even more difficult to master than the Light Cage spell. To make matters worse, the spell was not instantly-deployable. As such, not many mages would have been willing to spend their time, learning a defensive magic that proved incapable of saving them in an instant.


    With Joey¡¯s help however, this spell was fused with the Water Shield. The Darkness Shield waspleted as the Water Shield waspletely broken.


    The grade-8 sorcerer felt as if they were being robbed of their sight, and had fallen into an endless chasm of darkness. That was nomon void, as they felt their own magic robe began to dissolve, turning into nothing within the endless void.


    Endless Night!


    Grade-7 Dark Magic was even more unpopr than the Darkness Shield spell. This was a spell that was affixed to his devil¡¯s armor, as well as Saleen¡¯s most powerful attack beside his crystal ring and family badge.


    The sorcerer screamed in terror. They were so terrified that they had even forgotten that they were capable of the Wind Travel spell.


    Their flight capabilities were based on light magic, as such spells were quick to conjure and good for stealth purposes. Within the Endless Night, any light elements were quickly disintegrated, leaving only endless, pitch ck darkness.


    The sorcerer quickly fell downwards with their arms and legs iling about, like a grade-5 mage who was having their first lesson with flying.


    The Endless Night spell was said to be insanely effective against light magic. The sorcerer lost their flight capabilities in an instant. They only managed to conjure the Wind Travel spell after falling for several hundred yards. The principle of the Wind Travel spell was one that utilized the wind element to enable the sorcerer to levitate and fly.


    The Endless Night continued dissolving and consuming the wind element, converting it into the dark element. Even when going all out, the Wind Travel spell had already lost its original level of power. The sorcerer continued falling, only at a lower speed.


    Saleen¡¯s left hand held onto his family badge. Without knowing where the grade-8 sorcerer actually was, the badge could not be used under any condition.


    Saleen unleashed the Roar of a Fire Spirit spell from his devil¡¯s armor without a second thought. He conjured the Quickcloud spell again, but this time, a pair of gigantic Wings of me were conjured in the clouds instead of tornados.


    The Wings of me and the summoned Fire Spirit almost fused into one single being. The Fire Spirit summoned randomly was a grade-7 smander. The living being manifested from the fire element took Saleen up and went straight for the sorcerer trapped within the Endless Night. A six yard long azure-colored water current wrapped around his body, and a wooden sword Joey crafted for him was in his right hand.


    Saleen had decided not to use the powers of the badge. He had instead, decided to cut the grade-8 sorcerer down personally.

 Chapter 796: Power of the Devil’s Armor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 796: Power of the Devil¡¯s Armor (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    While it was possible for a grade-6 grand mage to win against a grade-7 sorcerer in a fight, killing one might still have proven difficult. The flight capabilities of grade-7 sorcerers were, after all, orders of magnitude above grade-6 grand mages.


    No mage would have even considered the thought of Saleen attempting to kill a grade-8 sorcerer.


    What enabled the possibility for Saleen to do so, was the devil¡¯s armor that Joey crafted for him. The armament was affixed with grade-7 magic, with the two grade-12 magic nuclei etched into the mask providing the energy required for holding the grade-7 magic spells within the armor.


    The devil¡¯s armor required only six hours to enable repeated conjuring of the magic spells. All other grade-7 spells were used up other than Stone Statue Army. What remained other than that, was the three high level magic spells stored within the wooden sword in his hand.


    No mage, even one from Alchemy City, was as extravagant as Saleen when it came to spending gold for magic. All he relied on to conjure such an amount of grade-7 magic spells, was his powerful equipment.


    The grade-8 sorcerer trapped in the Endless Night had just about done calming themself down, and was attempting to break the Endless Night using magic. It was then that they sensed someone breaking into the magical void that enveloped them.


    Whatever pride that the grade-8 sorcerer have left, Saleen¡¯s break-in had finally broken it. That grand mage hade for him instead of running away. What for indeed.


    They were not able to see Saleen¡¯s expression within the Endless Night, but they were able to acknowledge what was going through his mind. The puny mage wasing for his head!


    While the sorcerer was in rage, they nheless still feared the Endless Night. They extended their left arm, which had a veryrge ring on it, etched with a ck gem.


    Every sorcerer had tricks to keep themselves alive in dire situations like that, and this one was no exception. Cloudflow mages feared death more than anything else. As such, their life saving equipment had always been the most powerful among everything they carried. As they lifted their left hand and struggled to control the elemental bnce around their arm, an azure-colored water current coiled around their wrist.


    The sorcerer¡¯s arm was no tougher than a piece of rock. They were baffled as to how the water current had managed to coil around their wrist. They were able to sense that the mage had not been using any skill. They would have never thought about the possibility that the water current was not all that different from Water Puppets in nature. They had the ability to seek out targets and attack on their own.


    Crack...crack!


    Defensive magic activated immediately around the sorcerer¡¯s wrist. As the water current kept turning, coiling and cutting at great speeds, the sorcerer was rendered incapable of activating the stored magic in their ring. The elements around their left arm were not only being dissolved by the Endless Night, but alsopletely disrupted by the Current Cutter.


    While the grade-4 Current Cutter definitely had more power than its level suggested, it was still incapable of cutting the sorcerer¡¯s defenses open. Then again, what it did was more than enough. Taking hold of the opening, Saleen rushed to face the sorcerer.


    One sh was needed, nothing more.


    Ayer of greenish sheen appeared on the edge of Saleen¡¯s wooden sword. He had never thought that he would have gotten so close fighting a grade-8 sorcerer, and furthermore, he was able tond a hit. Golden lightning shot forth from Saleen¡¯s eyes, forming a huge mark on the sorcerer¡¯s body.


    The Eye of Lightning had an effective range of about six yards. Even when fired at full power, the distance could have only been extended to eight yards.


    Ayer of light formed around the sorcerer¡¯s body. The grade-8 shimmer was their defensive magic, which had some transmutation effect in it. It also appeared to be more powerful than a Crystal Guardian of about grade-7. Magic spells¡¯ defense did not rise ording with their levels. The grade-8 Shimmer was able to diffuse all elemental attacks due to its transmutation effects, and worked exceptionally well against divine spell defenses.


    The lightning attack rendered this grade-8 defensive magic useless, breaking it in an instant. Saleen¡¯s wooden sword thennded on the sorcerer¡¯s neck.


    With a swift gushing sound, the sorcerer¡¯s head was sent flying off elsewhere. The elements within the remaining body began to crumble, affecting the workings of the Endless Night. The spell even began to attack Saleen.


    A grade-7 Vacuum Cutting spell was infused onto the edge of the wooden sword, an offensive spell that had the shortest range among all Wind Magic.


    This spell, however, was more powerful than the Ice Ring spell and far more useful. The Vacuum Cutting spell was upgradable. If it could have been trained to reach grade-10, its sheer power would have nearly rivaled a Compound Magic like Space Cutting. Such magic was deployed by sorcerers against warriors who came close. It was a spell that was both stealthy and deadly. It was a spell capable of cutting the high level devil¡¯s armor in half, let alone a mere neck.


    The water current cut off the sorcerer¡¯s arm as Saleennded the fatal hit. It brought the sorcerer¡¯s severed arm with it as Saleen summoned it back.


    Six of Saleen¡¯s Water Shields had already been broken by the Endless Night¡¯s chaotic attacks. He dived and went out of the Endless Night¡¯s reach, before he truly became the spell¡¯s next target.


    As Saleen just left the range of attack of the Endless Night, he saw a shadow of some sorting for him. He immediately gathered the clouds around him, with the tornados within numbering to over a hundred, and dived sharply downward.


    Killing the grade-8 sorcerer made him used up his most powerful magic ¡ª Endless Night. He had also just used Eye of Lightning, Saleen had just about exhausted all his mental powers. If a grade-9 sorcerer was toe for him at that moment, he had no confidence that he would have been able to take them on. The other option would have been the badge, but it required targeting, and that in turn, required mental powers.


    Saleen dived straight for the protection of the magic tower at full speed, going straight for Stephanie¡¯s tower. The sorcerer who was closing in airborne, had just witnessed his own subordinate¡¯s head falling off. At that moment, the great area of congealed dark element let out a deafening roar of explosion.


    Saleen did not bother to turn back, as he was able to sense the terrifying power of this particr sorcerer. His would-be assant was so terrifyingly powerful that the fear it instilled in Saleen dwarfed that when he was facing the Golden Grand Swordmaster. The grade-8 sorcerer he had just killed, felt like an ant inparison.


    ¡°So a mage this powerful was among the Cloudflow people then!¡±


    Saleen thought that the mages of the Qin Empire were the most powerful. Mages of other countries werecking in foundations and lineages. Not to mention, their conditions for practicing magic were far from conducive. This sorcerer who just showed up however, had Saleen on his guard.


    ¡°This must be the guy the winged skeleton talked about! If this guy were to take on Safilos one-on-one, there would be no doubt that Safilos would ended up dead.¡± Those were the thoughts stemming from Saleen¡¯s intuition, and Saleen was not one to rely on intuition. Saleen¡¯s intuition had never, even once, betrayed him however.


    Saleennded on the magic tower at three times his usual speed. He only dared to look back at the sky then. He eyes found a ck-robed mage, who had just finished dispersing the Endless Night, He looked at the Daliang City below with rage written all over his face.


    Saleen¡¯s heart pounded wildly, and worried if the ck-robed mage would have simply rushed at him. His new assant did not seem to fear the no-fly zone. Saleen found himself clutching his family badge in his hands, tighter and tighter.


    After using up the Eye of Lightning and the Darkness Shield, Saleen had practically exhausted all his magic chord and mental power reserves.


    ¡°Saleen, get in,¡± Lex¡¯s voice was heard from inside the eight-floored magic tower.


    Saleen did a flip and leaped into the tower below through the window. Lex was the one in control within the eight-floored tower. The magic images showing on the alchemy tform disyed the actions of the ck-robed mage in the sky, at a height of more than a thousand yards up.


    The ck-robed mage raised his staff tall, and seemed to be preparing for a powerful spell. The spell seemed to require quite a bit of time for preparation, as the ck-robed mage¡¯s mouth seemed to have never stopped moving, chanting the words.


    Grade-9 sorcerers were capable of conjuring any spells below grade-8, with the exception of spells that were inherently incapable of being conjured instantly. Grade-9 sorcerers¡¯ attacks had always had the reputation of being furious and violent.


    ¡°That is not someone we can mess with. Unless the mage darese down for us, we will simply use three towers to target him, and you attack with the badge,¡± Lex spoke as she looked at the sorcerer shown in the image. Her head ached.


    It was obvious that the sorcerer was furious, and wanted revenge for the dead grade-8 sorcerer.


    ¡°I...,¡± Saleen opened his mouth and found that his vocal chords were hardly working. He had just had a very tense battle. While it did notst long, a great amount of his strength was exhausted. He was also suffering from tremendous mental pressure. He had after all, just killed a grade sorcerer. It was an unparalleled challenge for him.


    ¡°Some guts you had there. Fighting a grade-8 sorcerer and all that,¡± Lex red at Saleen, angry over his impulsive actions that had just taken ce. If the grade-8 sorcerer had had any equipment with them allowing them to evade Saleen¡¯s lightning attack, it would have been Saleen who would have ended up dead.


    Saleen turned a deaf ear to Lex¡¯sints. He had to find someone to blow off all that steam pent up inside him on. Their pce was wrecked on the very night of their wedding. Then a humongous crater with a diameter of hundreds of yards showed up out of nowhere, turning all buildings within in ruins.


    ¡°If something like that ever happens again...¡±, Lex looked at Saleen, and sighed, ¡°...remember to take me with you!¡±


    Saleen drank some magic liquid to soothe his throat, as well as to recover some mental power and magic chords. It was only then that he went to sit by Lex¡¯s side, ¡°We will do it together next time.¡±


    The grade-9 sorcerer in the air did note for them. He had simply kept levitating mid-air and chanted words. Fire elements began to build up in the cloudless night sky, the density was such that it surpassed amon magic tower¡¯s.


    ¡°This is bad!¡±, Lex stood up furiously and went over to the center of the tower, fixing six high level magic nuclei on the magic array set in the ground.


    Saleen¡¯s actions had riled up the other sorcerers in the other towers. Every one of them were now watching the sky. Even the magic towers at the edge of the city began activating their respective magic arrays immediately.


    As the gathering of fire elements finished, thousands of fireballs rained down on the ground below.


    That was a grade-9 Fire Rain spell. Common Fire Rains conjured about six-hundred fireballs, while the Fire Rain conjured by this sorcerer, brought more than four-thousand fireballs.


    The sheer strength disyed by the mage had every sorcerer and grand mage in every tower feeling listless. He was a person, who was capable of taking on every single magic tower!


    The fireballs flew into the six magic towers. The Cloudflow sorcerer had chosen not to attack any military camps, which meant that their capacity for reasoning was still intact. The massive fireballs banged hard on the protective shields of the towers. The resulting impacts made all the towers shake violently.


    A burning smell spread all over Daliang City, as if the ce was purgatory. The defense of the towers drastically reduced. They even began failing to maintain their respective no-fly zones.

 Chapter 797: The Profound Meaning of Lightning (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 797: The Profound Meaning of Lightning (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was not difficult to advance the Fire Rain spell to grade-9, but to enhance its damage was not that simple. Fire elements were usually extremely difficult to control. The area of effect of the Fire Rain spell was huge and no mage would be willing to waste time on it.


    Each fireball in the sky measured about a yard in diameter and they did not seem too powerful individually. They had been extremely urate in hitting the magic towers however.


    The defense of magic towers were undoubtedly powerful, such that even grade-9 spells were ineffective against them. These magic towers also needed to maintain the defense of the city. Under such overwhelming attacks, they would not be able to defend themselves and the city at the same time.


    When the grade-9 sorcerer in the sky noticed that the anti-flying zone was no longer in effect, he did not descend. He instead began to chant a mantra once again.


    ¡°Saleen, perhaps our pce is going to be destroyed,¡± Lex spoke helplessly.


    ¡°He wants to destroy the pce?¡±


    ¡°That must be the case. If he began to ughter innocent people, Alchemy City might order for him to be captured and he would only be able to hide in hisir. Even his own magic tower might not be able to keep him safe. If he only destroys the pce, we can still evacuate the soldiers and officials.¡±


    ¡°Lex, how many more times can your God¡¯s Ring still repel attacks?¡± Saleen asked caressing his n badge.


    ¡°If it is an attack from the fellow in the sky, only one more time. Saleen, what are you nning to do?!¡± Lex asked nervously. If they continued to hide in the magic tower, that grade-9 sorcerer would only be able to destroy some of the things in the city and not be able to approach them. In order to kill this grade-9 sorcerer, Saleen would have to get close enough to him so that he could lock on to the sorcerer in order to seed.


    Due to the difference in their grades, the distance between them would have to be very short.


    ¡°I want to advance, otherwise Eye of Lightning cannot even be used for the second time. The power of the devil suit cannot be used properly either. Lex, if my devil suit can beplemented with magic advancement, I am confident of locking on to the sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Endless Night?¡±


    ¡°Yes, grade-8 Endless Night will be able to trap the grade-9 sorcerer for more than half a second, no matter how powerful he may be. By then, not even grade-10 powerful opponents would be able to repel my badge.¡±


    Lex¡¯s expression became calmer as Saleen did not lose his rationality to rage. She could only say, ¡°Let me go and ask Stephanie if she can lend you this space to advance.¡±


    Saleen only smiled. Lex did not ask him if he was confident of advancing. This was a sign of absolute trust.


    As Lex walked down the eighth story of the magic tower, Saleen began to meditate. Before long, Lex returned. The huge fire balls outside the magic tower were still raining down continuously. The broken pieces of the fire balls were flying everywhere and the surroundings of the pce were all raging with fire.


    ¡°She has promised. Saleen, what do you need me to do?¡±


    Lex spoke very concisely. Saleen walked over and sat down in the position where Stephanie usually meditated. He said, ¡°I may need more than a day¡¯s time to advance. Help me keep a lookout.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± Lex replied with a simple word. She then retreated to a corner of the magic tower and sat down to wait quietly.


    The magic arrays required for a sorcerer to advance had already been set up long ago, but Saleen would need Lex to initiate the process. He took out some pieces of dragonshards and aplete piece of divine crystal.


    Saleen¡¯s advancement would be as difficult as Lex¡¯s and he would never be able to push through without the replenishment from these two items.


    The density of elements on the eighth story of the magic tower was already many times higher than that of the seventh story. Once the magic arrays had been initiated, Saleen felt like he could cast hundreds of middle-level spells all at once. His mental strength began to expand and he felt as if the six major elements in the magic tower could almostbine together and form a solid body.


    This was not what Saleen needed though. The devil suit that he was wearing suddenly expanded. The tes of the armor began to grow bigger. The devil suit has now expanded into something like a tentage that enclosed Saleen within. The six major elements came to Saleen¡¯s side after being filtered by the devil suit.


    All the elements had been transformed into water elements by the devil suit.


    These water elements were not pure, but their densities had increased by tens of times. Saleen¡¯s skin tightened, as if it were undergoing a lot of pressure from the water elements.


    The magic chords in Saleen¡¯s body began to grow sessfully, without even requiring any prompting. Ever since Saleen possessed the devil suit, he could better understand and appreciate the profoundness of grade-7 spells. Hisprehension of the elements was no different from that of a grade-7 sorcerer.


    His magic chords could only trigger water elements into spells. In order to trigger spells of the other five elements, there would need to be a conversion of elements. This would differentiate Saleen¡¯s fighting style from other mages.


    Saleen was always trying to reduce the time needed to cast spells. He wanted to achieve perfection for every spell and do away with unnecessary steps. This had allowed Saleen to achieve an understanding of water elements that other mages never could.


    Saleen sat there with the mask still on his face. On the forehead of the mask there was mounted a grade-12 magic nucleus, which was equivalent to the dragonshard of a grade-9 giant dragon.


    The branches of thirty-six magic chords extended out of Saleen¡¯s body. His magic chords were clear and transparent, with a faint tinge of blue. Saleen¡¯s body was already surrounded by water elements. When the magic chords extended out, they absorbed the surrounding water elements hungrily.


    Most of these water elements were converted from other elements and were somewhat heterogeneous. They were only purified after being filtered through Saleen¡¯s body.


    As a result, Saleen¡¯s body regained the attributes of the other five elements. There were some instabilities at first, but it became easier over time.


    This process was necessary. Water elements alone would never allow Saleen to advance into a sorcerer.


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords grew very quickly. He had the advantage over Lex in advancing because his understanding of sorcerers was not limited only to knowledge picked up from books. It also came from personal experiences in learning high-level spells.


    All that Saleencked was the confidence to advance.


    Now, he was full of confidence because less than five minutes before, he managed to kill a grade-8 sorcerer. This gave him tremendous self-confidence and he no longer felt that bing a sorcerer was unattainable. He had not used Crystal Finger, nor his n badge. Instead, he had relied only on his own equipment, abilities, and strong decision-making.


    This was why Saleen decided to advance into a sorcerer. From then on, he would need to deal with people from Alchemy City as they would definitelye looking for him once he returned to Metatrin City.


    Although this grade-9 sorcerer before him was powerful, Saleen could still deal with him using his n badge. Against Alchemy City, he would only be able to rely on his own abilities.


    After advancing into a sorcerer, Saleen would be able to enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space and advance into a grade-9 sorcerer in the shortest possible time.


    Without even looking at the information that Lex had gathered from all over the Maind, Saleen could already tell that the abilities of humans on this dimension were on the rise again. In the past, he would need arge pool of candidates in order to recruit high-level swordsmen, but now, he could easily form a regiment of warriors of the level of swordmasters.


    If not for the fact that the power within the army might be imbnced, Saleen could even construct a battalion of swordmasters.


    In other words, Saleen could almost recruit about ten-thousand swordmasters under hismand even before Metatrin couldpletely take over one-third of Phoenix territories.


    The improvement in the different grades of mages was even more obvious. Lex had left behind close to a thousand low-level mages for Saleen, but back then when they first met, she did not have so many mages under hermand.


    Now, Lex had more than a hundred grand mages. Even though most of them were at grade-4, it also meant one thing ¨C humans¡¯ abilities were advancing collectively.


    This advancement was so obvious that Saleen felt even more pressured because of it. He was unsure if the holy priests of the Holy See would also be more powerful as a result, but he had to be ready for that. Perhaps in the near future, he would need to battle against a group of powerful holy priests unlike then, when the number of holy priests in the army was few and far between and could never match up against mages.


    Low-level mages only had six strands of magic chords and each strand could cast one type of spell. The number of times they could be cast was equivalent to their grade. After casting the six spells, the magic chords would have beenpletely expended. Only after they had been recharged would the mage be able to readjust the power of elements again.


    As for grand mages, each magic chord would split into six new branches. The original six chords would gradually shrink and the total number of magic chords would be thirty-six. It was only at that point that a mage was considered to have advanced into a grand mage. This would not ur for a few mages though. Perhaps their six magic chords would be abnormally strong and tough and would only split when they advanced into sorcerer. To a mage, the number of elements that could be adjusted by the magic chords was the same.


    Right then, Saleen had thirty-six magic chords and they were continuously absorbing the power of water elements,pleting the advancement.


    Saleen also knew that the advancement of his magic chords would not be dangerous because of his body of element. Since he already had sufficient experience and theory, his grasp of the bnce of energy was much better than most grade-7 sorcerers.


    Saleen was beginning to understand more and more of the power of rules in the book that Isabe had given to him.


    What Saleen wanted to advance was the power of the Eye of Lightning. In the Goddess¡¯ ne, the twenty-four grade-9 lightning dragons were advancing in a unique way. They would hibernate most of the time and only wake up for short periods of time to consumerge amounts of food and also to shed their skin. The skin that they shed was valuable because they were covered with lightning magic patterns, which Saleen had already studied thoroughly.


    Only by grasping the power of lightning would he be able to face Alchemy City.


    Saleen opened his eyes slightly and a golden beam of light shed across. A total of three-hundred and sixty golden runes floated in front of Saleen and between them were blue streaks of electricity.

 Chapter 798: The Profound Meaning of Lightning (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 798: The Profound Meaning of Lightning (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As Saleen¡¯s magic chords continued to grow, the amount of lightning magic patterns that he could recall in his brain increased and also became clearer. It was as if his eyeballs had been split apart. In his blue eyes were plenty of lightning magic patterns clustered together and as they appeared, more golden runes flew out of Saleen¡¯s eyes and floated in front of him.


    There were too many of these golden runes. The dragonshard that Saleen was holding onto quickly provided him with the energy he needed, while the divine crystal in his other hand also replenished the mental strength that he had lost.


    Outside of the magic tower, the bombardment of fire balls finally stopped. The number of magic nuclei that had been expended in the magic tower was not high, but the grade-9 sorcerer in the sky wasunching another attack, the second wave of grade-9 fire rain spell.


    This time, the target was the huge building of the pce. Some halls had even been destroyed directly.


    There was nothing that the mages in the magic tower could do. The grade-9 sorcerer was not afraid to cast his spell from a very high position. To cast a grade-9 spell downwards, even a distance of eighteen-hundred yards would not be a problem.


    The army in the pce retreated. The target of the Fire Rain spell was singr and urate, which gave the army sufficient time to escape. The equipment would have to be left behind. The pce itself was valuable as well. If not for the fact that it was a grade-9 attack, the pce would have served as powerful defensive structures.


    The main hall was made of iron and bronze and could stand up against catapult attacks.


    Only the magic tower was safe under such attacks. Lex sat in the corner and ignored the sorcerer¡¯s attack. The pce was no longer safe and it was clear that Cloudflows¡¯ revenge was insane.


    If possible, she would personally go to Misty City and set it on fire so that Agares would feel the same helplessness. This was entirely possible because after advancing to a grade-9 sorcerer, not only would God¡¯s Ring provide defense, it could also enable fast flying ability and even teleportation over a short distance.


    He would never be able to catch up if she was to fly over and burn Agares¡¯ pce.


    There were casualties in the pce. When the grade-9 fire balls exploded, they also carried melted tiles, stones and metallic fluid. The power of these broken shards was as powerful as the magic stone shells thrown out by catapults.


    The dragon-ughtering corp was still safe as they were all wearing armor that waspletely sealed up. On the other hand, some servants and officials in the pce were not so lucky. Once they were hit by the after effects of the spell, they were at least severely injured or even killed. Fortunately, the sorcerer¡¯s attack was very focused, so those that managed to escape quickly would be able to survive.


    Lex could sense that Saleen, who waspletely enclosed within his devil suit, was very peaceful and was advancing very steadily. She was surprised by this. Advancing into a sorcerer was a rather dangerous thing. Until then Saleen had still been very quiet. What Lex did not know was that Saleen was actually making a lot of noises, but it was just that she could not hear him.


    Thirty-six-thousand golden runes flew out of Saleen¡¯s eyes and at the same time, there were thunderous sounds in his brain.


    Saleen felt as if he had fallen into thick clouds and was surrounded by streaks of lightning. The thunder was so loud that he was almost about to faint. If not for the fact that he had used his n badge so often, Saleen would not have been able to hold on.


    He was already used to debuffs. Any debuff spells or divine spells would not be able to affect him from adjusting his mental strength.


    The magic chords continued to grow freely and Saleen¡¯s body continued to filter the impure elements. Thirty-six-thousand golden magic runes began to spin around Saleen¡¯s head.


    The sound of thunder in Saleen¡¯s head was persistent. Only Saleen could hear it. Despite almost fainting, he bore with it and tried to push away the pain in his brain, focusing only on distinguishing the rhythm of the thunder.


    Saleen already knew about the rule of energy bnce and although it was only a small side, he also understood that the loss during conversion of energy could be minimized. As long as this rule permitted, even a magic array could continue to function for tens of thousands of years.


    The thunder contained rules as well and went hand in hand with those thirty-six-thousand golden magic runes.


    Thunder and lightning were the same thing presented in two different forms. Lightning seemed more powerful and almost indestructible, but the energy harnessed within thunder was destructive in nature. Saleen could sense that the sound of thunder in his brain was triggered by the appearance of the rule. If it was really due to thunder in the sky, his brain would have exploded long ago.


    When thunder could be unleashedpletely, it could destroy everything. On the other hand, the speed of lightning could achieve the ultimate damage of a spell.


    No matter how fast light-element spells looked, there would be a dy before it actually urred. For an energy like lightning, it was so fast there would be no time to escape.


    Thunder represented the ultimate power.


    Lightning represented the ultimate speed.


    At least at that stage, the light-element power that Saleen could grasp had yet to surpass the speed of lightning.


    As Saleen gained a better understanding of the power of thunder and lightning, the sound of thunder in his brain became more orderly. Saleen tried to gradually control this rule. This was a technique that only he possessed. Even if the humans in the past used to possess it, the legacy of lightning had already been lost.


    Now, it was as if this technique was created by Saleen alone, which could bring about real benefits for his advancement.


    If one was unable to create some magic techniques when advancing into a sorcerer and could only enhance one¡¯s magic chords, then it would be difficult to break through the barriers when advancing into a grade-10 mage.


    There were quite a number of grade-9 mages on the Myers Maind. Alchemy City alone already had more than ten. As humans¡¯ powers gradually grew, the number of grade-9 mages would also increase. The number of grade-10 mages were few and far between. Each country probably had less than three of them.


    Saleen sensed that his mental strength was bing focused and was surrounding his entire body. The sound in his brain had gradually subsided. Under the effect of the mental strength, Saleen tried to trigger a sound of thunder.


    Roar...


    Amongst the thirty-six-thousand golden magic runes appeared arge amount of electricity immediately that was tightly interwoven together. Saleen was pleased. ording to the rule of energy conversion, he would be able to trigger thunder if he could also trigger lightning. Lightning and thunder belonged to the same type of energy and they could be triggered at the same time as well.


    Lightning attacks possessed a longer range while the power of thunder was greater.


    Saleen had no idea that no mage had ever attempted this way of advancement. Most people would be so preupied with controlling the magic chords that they would never think ofing up with high-level techniques during this time.


    Saleen opened his eyes suddenly. Thirty-six-thousand golden magic runes flooded into his eyes. Now, there was a faint golden color in his azure blue eyes. These golden runes were about vanishpletely, but Saleen could sense that they were appearing in his brain.


    Oh?


    Saleen tried to bring out these runes once again, but instead, thin golden images flew out of his eyes one by one instead. Those runes in his brain formed a gigantic magic array that kept spinning.


    Saleen¡¯s heart skipped a beat. Amidst the images of golden runes, the six major elements werepressed together. Electricity suddenly shed across his brain and a destructive power was unleashed between the rune images.


    Saleen was so scared that he quickly stopped this spell and his mental strength was drained all of a sudden. If not for the fact that he had been holding onto the divine crystal all that while, he would have been severely injured.


    Saleen had actually managed to activate the power of lightning. If he had not stopped it in time, the elements in the entire eighth story of the magic tower would have been thrown into chaos. He would be lucky to escape the wrath of Stephanie, much less advancing.


    Stephanie¡¯s wrath was still manageable as she would not go overboard for Lex¡¯s sake. If the elements in the magic tower were to be thrown into chaos, the defense of the magic tower would be in jeopardy and the aerial attacks would hit the tower directly.


    The magic tower, which was made from steel rocks, would not be able to withstand more than a few waves of grade-9 fire ball attacks.


    Lightning-element spells did not use up magic chords, but required a lot of mental strength instead. Not only had Saleen identally unleashed the power of lightning, he had also stopped it forcefully and this drained his mental strengthpletely for the first time.


    This could be the most dangerous thing Saleen had done in the past few years, much more dangerous than killing the grade-8 sorcerer.


    Forcefully stopping a spell that required the adjustment of magic chords would induce elemental chaos and copse of dimension amongst other serious consequences. Although it was not powerful enough to destroy the things nearby, it could definitely cause damage to the mage that could be fatal. As for forcefully stopping a spell that required the adjustment of mental strength, the mage could have be mentally unsound.


    Saleen had no choice. If the magic tower was destroyed, Lex would be in danger. Below them was Stephanie, who was trying to heal Eleanor. On the sixth story Su and Cuisi were receiving treatment. Many of Lex¡¯s mages upied the lower storys. There were too many people in the magic tower for Saleen to give up on.


    All of a sudden, the divine crystal in Saleen¡¯s hand broke. Just then, the divine crystal had been replenishing his mental strength when thetter was being drained. By stopping the spell forcefully, the divine crystal was broken.


    Saleen regained hisposure and quickly took out another divine crystal. He no longer dared to try and use the power of lightning any longer. The power that he wielded could possibly destroy the bnce of elements within the magic tower.


    More than half of his mental strength was quickly replenished by the divine crystal. That was when Saleen tried to trigger the sound of thunder using his mental strength once again. That time, blue streaks of lightning reappeared amidst the golden runes.


    Saleen was overjoyed. The rule of bnce of energy was not created by him. There was too little that he could grasp, but this lightning rule waspleted by him alone. The full effects of this technique could only be seen after he advanced beyond grade-9. Now, although the attacking distance was still short, which was probably less than ten yards, it was much more powerful. It could even destroy the internal defense of the magic tower.


    Saleen genuinely felt that the rule of lightning could be achieved at an ultimate level.

 Chapter 799: Advancement of An Entire Plane (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 799: Advancement of An Entire ne (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The limit of every kind of magic was different from one another. A lot of spells were not upgradable. Only magic that could have been upgraded to perfection could be called true power.


    The attacks from above had stopped. Six whole hours passed. The grade-9 sorcerer kept on bombarding with wave after wave of grade-9 spells, and had rendered all but the magic towers within the pce to smoldering ruins.


    The result was not due to ack of people trying to stop the sorcerer. All heavy alchemy arrows fired from the metal battlements on the pce walls were effortlessly repelled by the sorcerer. He then began to bombard the walls himself, until there were hardly any walls left standing of the pce of Daliang.


    Nichs attempted to get close to the sorcerer, but all his efforts with divine curses were easily dispelled by the sorcerer, scaring him enough to turn around and run instead.


    Holy masters were different from mages. If the attacks of a holy master proved ineffective against the enemy, then the difference in power between both sides would have been confirmed to be absolute. Given how the sorcerer was able to easily dispel all his divine curses, Nichs¡¯ fate would have turned for the very worst if he got within the sorcerer¡¯s effective range of attack.


    Nichs had nothing to gain from tangling with the sorcerer there. The assault on the city was intense, and morale both within and outside the city walls was diminishing. The ones at the first line of defense consisted of new recruits. They were nothing like Lex¡¯s elite troops, who were able to hold the line whatever the situation was. Morale was diminishing, yet the assault by the Cloudflow people grew more intense by the minute. Cloudflow troops showed up in droves at the first city wall. While the Cloudflow troops assaulting the wall were quickly repelled by reserves, the defending side suffered heavy casualties doing so.


    Nichs knew full well that he was no match for the grade-9 sorcerer, and so chose to return to the walls instead, albeit in a glum manner. He stationed himself near the magic tower and began buffing the soldiers around Daliang with his fallen divine arts.


    That was actually rather ironic, as the toll suffered by the ones buffed by fallen divine spells were actually less severe. This was due to the fact that, while the buffing took a portion of the buffed one¡¯s life, there was no need for extra offerings to the gods.


    The grade-9 sorcerer destroyed Lex¡¯s royal residence and looked at the ruins with a satisfied expression, choosing not to continue attacking other targets within the city. Their drain was a huge one. There was a philosophy whereby one was required to conserved at least one-third of one¡¯s magic chord reserves before one could be considered safe. It was amon problem shared by all Cloudflow mages.


    The ruins were still burning. The fires started by the grade-9 magicsted at least an hour before they were extinguished on their own. Adjacent buildings around the pce began burning as the heat proved irresistible. The reserved army did not dare to attempt putting out the fires. They instead had the low grade mages destroy connected buildings, to prevent the fires from spreading.


    The grade-9 sorcerer did not leave. He instead used Sound Transmission Magic at the sky and said, ¡°Attention to the people of Bitterwater prefecture. I will head for the prefecture as soon as I have time to spare. What you see today is just the beginning. The one who killed my follower had bettere surrender and ept your death at the hands of my army. If you don¡¯t, I shalle for your cities once every month. Hahahaha...¡±


    Lex¡¯s eyes turned cold as she listened to every word of arrogance uttered from the mouth of the sorcerer. While what the sorcerer had pulled was well within the tolerable limits of Alchemy City, it was well outside of what she was willing to tolerate. ¡°You think you can do as you wish just because you spare civilians?¡± If her own cities were to be harassed that way no one would have ever dared joining her side any longer.


    After all, no one had any assurance that the sorcerer would never go crazy and begin targeting civilians.


    The sorcerer was a vengeful one. That meant he had to be killed. Saleen was right. Letting the sorcerer do as he pleased was not an option. Doing so would have brought the end of the kingdom they worked so hard to build.


    There was only one eight-floored magic tower within Bitterwater prefecture. Her own teacher was too, no match for this sorcerer. Lex thought that as she stood and walked to the window, looking at the ruins outside and biting her lip.


    mes were still encroaching on the defensiveyers of the magic tower. A pce that she spent more than a year designing was utterly destroyed. If such pces were to be assaulted by conventional armies, she would have needed a garrison of no more than thirty-thousand strong, regardless of the number of assaulting troops. The pce was a huge fortress in itself, which was destroyed by a single sorcerer from Cloudflow.


    It was a masterpiece crafted with more than a year¡¯s worth of blood and sweat. The effort invested in rebuilding the ancient city was indescribable. She took on Kroraina on the battlefield, in her earliest days, with the little ancient city serving as her base.


    She was seething intensely at the sight of her ruined masterpiece. Whatever atrocities wrought there by the sorcerer was little more than his personal acts of terror though. Civilians were spared in his attacks. There was therefore, no way that she was able to use Bloody Impact against the Cloudflow people as revenge.


    The only course of action to be taken was to give up retaliating against Cloudflow for the time being, and return to Metatrin City. Only when both her and Saleen had be grade-9 sorcerers themselves, would they have enough strength to retaliate.


    What bothered her most was not knowing if the sorcerer would have really kept his word and made for Bitterwater prefecture. The prefecture was a fief given to her by her father. Did the sorcerer really have no qualms about the Grukos retaliating then?


    It seemed that times had changed yet again. The power of one had once again became powerful enough to disregard most rules andws. She and Saleen had had no other choice but to keep striving to be the best, bing some of the most powerful people the world had ever seen.


    It was fortunate that she and Saleen had the Six Element¡¯s Space, or keeping up with powerful beings would have been near impossible.


    Saleen was enveloped by the devil¡¯s armor, and the tes of the armament isted him from the outside world. His spirit had alsopletely submerged within the evolution process. He was able to sense the illusionary shadow within his body, while getting familiar with the power of lightning.


    The shadow reminded Saleen of the word ¡®soul¡¯, as this illusionary shadow seemed to be a piece of his self stacked onto the consciousness within his body, fusing with the physical vessel.


    The changes of his physical body was apparent. Saleen¡¯s magic chords expanded to two-hundred and sixteen, and the expansion continued struggling against the limits without signs of returning to the body. The Thundering Sound spell h learned had reached more than three-hundred frequencies. Saleen was able to unleash lightning attacks urately when he reached more than twenty-four frequencies. As the frequencies of the Thundering Sound increased, the power of lightning grew.


    There was no forcing it. The only way Saleen was able to increase the lightning¡¯s power, was to keep practicing.


    The Body of Water Element grew increasingly stable, to the point where it was hardly possible to discern the difference between it and the normal human body. The conversion of the six elements had reached perfect bnce in Saleen¡¯s body.


    This phenomenon wasmon among sorcerers, with the only difference being the measure of bnce. Elemental Conversion was the first rule that every single sorcerer had to learn.


    Lex calmed herself down and changed the magic nucleus in the magic array for Saleen. It was to Lex¡¯s delight that Saleen was able to consume so much elemental power. It meant that Saleen had been able to achieve more than she did. At the very least, that was what his magic chords indicated.


    Saleen¡¯s performance calmed Lex even further. Her own magic chords had undergone a mutation. With Saleen growing stronger, it would soon be possible for them to take on the mage who came wrecking their pce that day. They would be ready when they both had advanced to be grade-9 sorcerers. No outside help would be needed by then.


    ¡°Yes, there is also Sika, the Caucasus priestess. Her advancement is of a frightening speed too. The restoration of a human¡¯s power seems to be more apparent among groups practicing such ancient professions. Nailisi with her demon army too. When Saleen and I have evolved, I will no longer need to restrain the demon. I will just let her take her army of demons into Cloudflow. This world has gone to the dogs. Will there be anything else that can¡¯t be permitted? When everyonees to understand such changes, all the rules that have been established for thousands of years will be abolished and rewritten once again. Master Merlin¡¯s prophecy was really an urate one indeed. Not only will I be the one to divide the Qin Empire, I¡¯m also the one to spread chaos further over the entire maind. Can I be med for doing so? The Holy See, Cloudflow, and my uncle; all of them made me what I am today. Nichs once said, that prophecies were not guaranteed to be urate. Once the words were spoken, things might just have turned for the absolute worst though. So were Master Merlin¡¯s words proved correct, because he spoke of the worst thing that could have happened? ¡®A mage should always be at ease.¡¯ These words are clearly no longer applicable to this era.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s magic chord advancement turned out fine, with the only trouble being the ones advancing during the testing of the Eye of Lightning, and even that was quickly dealt with. That was the only time things went so well during advancement for him. All the other times with advancement proved arduous. The discrepancy in difficulty made him feel rather like a fish out of water.


    All two-hundred and sixteen magic chords returned to and fused within his body. The tes of the devil¡¯s armor began topress and returned to Saleen¡¯s body. There were lights shimmering with his blue eyes, and the golden magic runes had finally been hidden, taking root in his mind and bing the final pattern.


    ¡°You¡¯re done already?¡±, Lex asked as she looked at Saleen with a shocked expression.


    How much time did it take her to advance to the rank of sorcerer? Saleen took only eight hours!


    ¡°Lex, how much time has passed?¡±, Saleen was not quite sure of the flow of time in the outside world. As he devoted himself to advancement, the passing of time, be it one minute or ten days, was little more than a feeling to him.


    ¡°Eight hours and ten minutes.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± Saleen stood without any signs of backaches or numb legs. His body felt like how it was when Joey had just finished remodeling it. Saleen came to Lex¡¯s side as soon as he stood. Through the magic tower¡¯s defensiveyer, he saw the fires outside had extinguished, as he was about to say something.


    Specks of mes still burned. Saleen saw the destroyed walls when he looked afar, towards the border of the pce.


    Saleen took a deep breath and refrained from getting upset. He simply took Lex¡¯s hand and asked, ¡°That fellow did this?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. We can rebuild the ruined pce. There is no need to rush. If the chance presents itself, we will capture that man. I will continue training. If you run into anything you can¡¯t handle, call me up.¡±


    ¡°Continue training?¡±, Saleen¡¯s choice caught her by surprise.


    ¡°I have advanced. The magic on the devil¡¯s armor will also grow more powerful. I will have to master the grade-8 Endless Night as soon as possible.¡±


    Lex was rendered speechless. She would never have thought that the equipment Joey crafted for Saleen was of such a nature. Just what had Saleen done to move Joey so much that he crafted a Sealing Suit for Saleen?


    A Sealing Suit was usually the only thing that a mage passed on to their only student, and was more precious than magic books.


    The sealing of the fixed magic on the armament could have been undone as a mage advanced. This would have required the mage themselves to do so, which was what Saleen was about to do. He was undoing the seals of the six grade-7 magic on the devil¡¯s armor, upgrading them to grade-8.

 Chapter 800: Advancement of An Entire Plane (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 800: Advancement of An Entire ne (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s advancement and magic chord changes were hardly any different from Lex¡¯s, with the only notable difference being the absence of the rainbow colored transmutations. Even among mage peers of the same grade, his casting abilities had already reached twice the usual of a grade-7 sorcerer.


    Saleen was not satisfied with such results. He had came into contact with the power of lightning during this advancement process, and was steeped in it.


    He initially had no control over such powers. The use of the Eye of Lightning drained most of his stamina, even when he had only done so once. Such weakness with the Eye of Lightning disappeared altogether when he had advanced to the rank of sorcerer.


    The effective range of the move was about ten yards. The strength of attack waspletely adjustable by Saleen himself. When the attack was to be used at full power, Saleen was able to keep with it at least four times.


    The greatest use of the Eye of Lightningid not within utter annihtion of the enemy, unless said enemy was a weakling close to the grade of a bug. The greatest use of the ability was the ability to tear down enemy defenses. Professionals of this world were armed with a wide range of defensive abilities of very different natures from one another. None would have been of any use against the Eye of Lightning, for lightning was capable of disintegrating elements, or rearranging their structures.


    If the structure of elements employed was to be changed, that particr move would have no longer been able to provide defense for the mage casting it.


    Armed with such an ability, Saleen no longer feared powerful enemies, especially warriors, whom he no longer needed to be concerned about them getting close. Everyone attacked by the Eye of Lightning would be stunned for a short while, which would be more than enough time for Saleen to unleash several spells on them.


    The true problem then, was with the range of attack. The Eye of Lightning¡¯s effective range was less than ten yards. If the enemy was to be a powerful mage, they would not allow opponents to get within one-hundred yards of them.


    To lock onto targets outside of one-hundred yards and attack would require the stability provided by grade-8 magic. The devil¡¯s armor was a Sealing Suit, allowing Saleen to slowly undo the seals, and reveal the suit¡¯s true powers.


    Casting two grade-8 spells would have allowed Saleen to maintain half of thebat capacity equivalent to a grade-7 sorcerer. As such, advancement did him a lot of good. He stillcked the ability to learn Endless Night entirely through self-study though.


    The cost incurred by magic spells were not the same. Even with spells of the same grade, the difference of the cost incurred might have been as great as ten times of one another. Magic spells with hefty cost yet producing less than impressive effects would phase out eventually. That was where the awkwardness of Endless Nightid. The cost of the spell was twice the other spells¡¯ of the same grade.


    If it was not for the fact that Endless Night was a powerful spell and certain mages specialized with casting Dark Element magic passing them down, the spell would have vanished from the face of the Myers Maind for good. Even in their day and age, mages capable of using the spell were probably few and far between.


    Lex borrowed the eighth floor of the magic tower for three days to help Saleen with his advancement, yet Saleen had only used a little more than eight hours to do so. His next task was to research ways to undo the sealing of the devil¡¯s armor. Lex thought it would be best for her to just leave the eighth floor and let Saleen go at it alone.


    She had a lot to attend to herself. With the pce destroyed, the city would be rendered to a state of panic if she did not show up personally.


    Lex went down the magic tower and the mes burning at the ruins were almost extinguished entirely. She came to the edge of the ruins using the Wind Travel spell, and saw the soldiers of the Dragonyer Army waiting outside anxiously. They were decent fighters, but they were not cut out for rescues.


    The soldiers grew excited seeing her out there with them, but the destruction of the pce remained a sad event no matter how one were to word it. While they had not been spending a lot of time staying there, they nheless knew full well that the ce had been fundamentally a fortress. Their ordeal with the grade-9 sorcerer had been a depressing one. Unless said sorcerer was grounded, surrounded in very close distances by a great number of fighters, and strafed by Alchemy Crossbows from all sides, there was no way they would be able to even make the grade-9 sorcerer bleed. Even then they¡¯d need militarymanders kept on with the assault in conjunction with several grand mages who were willing to suffer heavy elite troop casualties.


    The difference in grades were simply too great. No conventional army would have been able to take the grade-9 sorcerer down.


    ¡°All of you did well saving a great many. Saleen is currently training in the magic tower, which will require about two days. Take my personal order and go help hold the line at the south of the city. Your mission is to serve as reserves. When the first two lines of defenses are taken down, you all will go plug the holes,¡± Lex spoke as she took out the personal order, and handed abat serial badge to Gusion. Gusion¡¯s army was only able to acquire supplies at the front lines with the badge.


    The southern city wall was in a dire state. Daliang City was unlike most cities of the Qin Empire, which were built close to the mountains. Daliang was built instead, with wide tracts of nd on all sides, making it impossible to assign the garrison of any side to reinforce other sides.


    Lex thought she might as well go takemand of the battle at the south within the magic tower there. The tower was equipped with a sound amplification magic array, enabling Lex to give orders to the entire army of the city at the same time, should there have been a need to do so.


    The Cloudflow invaders were not as cowardly as most thought they were, while the soldiers of Bitterwater prefecture consisted mostly of new recruits. They were able to hold the line due only to the edge they had with the walls on their side and being armed with better equipment.


    The garrison in the south was excited to see Lex arriving. One-hundred death mages were even gathered at the barbican, summoning dead spirits by the thousands and having them run amok outside the city. That way they fortified the line of defense in a clean manner. The breather provided by the deployment of dead spirits allowed for the damaged catapults in the city to be reced and repositioned.


    The grade-9 sorcerer did not head back to the army after venting his rage. He had instead returned to the new city near the sea. Destroying Lex¡¯s pce was only an act fueled by passion at that moment. When he was done, the sorcerer¡¯s temperament as a Cloudflow citizen returned. He even felt a bit of regret on what they he.


    ¡°Will this result in the retaliation of the Grukos family? The sorcerer knew well that no matter how strong he was, he was no match against the entire n of Grukos. The size of the Grukos¡¯nd and the extent of their power was probably second only to Alchemy City¡¯s.


    The thought had the sorcerer seriously considering returning straight to Misty City. The war was not his. Having followers end up dead was still a better option than having ended up dead himself.


    If Lex had known what was going in his mind, she would have been steeped in rage and frustration. No one would have expected someone so cowardly being able to pull off something so drastic in the heat of passion. Cloudflow people were indeed a unfathomable bunch.


    Without continued attacks from the sorcerer, Daliang was able to fortify its defense and began retaliating. The wedding waspleted and the Cloudflow invaders had had no chance of taking the city. That meant the war would notst long.


    Metatrin City in April remained cold, as the snow on the peaks of the mountains had yet to melt. Ancient trees preserved within the city were all in vibrant green though. Some nts nted by Eleanor were full of life. The city had a prosperous look to it.


    The city¡¯s operations remained steady even after Saleen¡¯s departure. While the Oceanic Ice Block was rendered off-limits, the territorial waters of Metatrin were still teeming with low grade magic beasts to be hunted. While official records from the municipal council stated that the poption of the city still remained below the one-million mark, Metatrin City¡¯s poption had grown to more than one-hundred and twenty-million.


    The one-million mark was an important cornerstone signifying a city¡¯s development. Daily operations of a city with a massive poption would have been difficult without the help of mages, even grinding to a halt without them.


    Metatrin City however, never had such concerns. The city was originally designed and built by mages. Methods of supplying water and heat were taken after cities before the fourth dynasty.


    There was one underground water reserve for every square mile in the city. They supplied every single household using metal pipes. The sewage system went even deeper into the ground, and was designed in a manner different from contemporary cities. Disintegration took ce at early stages. As such, the sewage flowing underground had little to no toxic elements in it.


    There were garrisons stationed in the northern and western towns, with the bulk of them focused around the temples. The remaining troops were stationed at camps near the walls. The military and the civilians were segregated; everything was in order.


    Merchant ships from Qin were seen to number by the hundreds at the docks. Many had no choice but to wait at sea. Most merchants were not there for magic nuclei, as evenmon goods were just as attractive.


    The southern city consisted mostly of Caucasus people, but a lot of temple guards and their families moved there as well. The northern city consisted mostly of nobles while the western city consisted mostly ofmoners. The temple region remained the most quiet.


    When the temple guards were formed, their equipment was reced in phases, enabling them to truly be a fighting force. Lithushanga barbarians and Caucasus people trained by fighting each other every day. The intensity of their sparing rivaled diatorial matches. As the alchemy factory was established in the southern city, low grade mages and apprentices were abundant. Injured troops were able to get swift medical attention.


    The temple in the middle of the city was where Sika resided. She gave up on returning to the south. The elites chosen among the Caucasus were made into part of the temple guards, tasked with nothing other than her protection. No one wanted her moving about and doing much as she was pregnant. Martial arts practice was even forbidden altogether.


    Sika, who was distressed, had no other way of venting her frustration but to drill her troops to the bone. She felt like she was only about to get any measure offort when her troops were thoroughly exhausted.


    The person attending to the day-to-day affairs of the temple guards was J for the time being. His assistant was the younger sister of Duke Guya, Sharman. She was gradually bing ustomed to leading a proper army throughout the months. She became capable of giving orders with the mind of a general. J might not have been a good general, but he was knowledgeable in how to train a capable general or swordmaster.


    Sharman was not known for her intelligence, but she was able to learn quickly given her age.


    Her height remained diminutive despite being another year older. The armor of a general looked rather funny on her as a result. The tall helmet, with a feather of an intermediate flying magic beast on it, became a source of grievance to her.


    Having just trained the magic shield infantry, she was still in the field. Sharman struck the ground repeatedly with her short sword, releasing wave after wave of sword aura. ¡°Saleen, you good-for-nothing. Getting married yourself and dumping me on someone like J.¡±


    J tapped her shoulder as she was still steeped in her thoughts, which frightened her. J had always been able to get close without her noticing, as if he was an assassin.


    ¡°What do you want!?¡±, Sharman had always had a loud voice, the volume of which she only turned down when she was buttering someone up. The problem was that she was a lieutenant of the temple guards, which meant there was no one she was able to butter up. Sika was definitely off-limits, while J gave her a headache.


    J smiled at the maiden, ¡°Dear Sharman. It is a hot day out here, you can take off the helmet if you want too.¡±


    ¡°Hot? Tell that to my arse! Stupid Metatrin City!¡±, Sharman evaded J. She distanced herself and asked, ¡°What brought you here?¡±

 Chapter 801: Sika is Upset (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 801: Sika is Upset (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    J suddenly became stern and said to Sharman, ¡°You must apologize for what you said!¡±


    Sharman also realized her mistake. Instead of throwing a temper tantrum like a child, she stood up straight, bowed her head, and said, ¡°I am sorry, Master J. I should cherish my honor. As a member of Metatrin City, I should not have said what I said.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m d you realize that. I¡¯m not here just to teach you swordsmanship; I am also here to help you establish your status and authority in the army. If you don¡¯t see the importance in guarding the city, how do you expect the soldiers give their lives for it?¡± J continued to reprimand Sharman.


    ¡°From now on, I will not make the same mistake.¡± Sharman swallowed her pride and replied. She had no choice. Saleen had given the order that if J was displeased with her, she would never be able to lead the temple corp.


    ¡°When the fourth dynasty copsed, Qin was the first to build up its kingdom. It had the mostnd and the least people. Even if it shed with the other three Empires, Qin always came out on top. Qin territories were the richest on the entire Maind. Do you know why?¡±


    ¡°Qin has the best mages!¡±


    ¡°Wrong. It¡¯s because Qin was the first to release its ves and give its citizens more space to live. The soldiers that came from amoner¡¯s background began to develop a sense of pride and honor.¡±


    ¡°Commoners?¡± Sharman, who came from a rich noble family, did not quite understand. Although she had always maintained a respectful attitude towardsmoners on the surface, that was only because of how she was taught to behave. She did not genuinely think that themoners and her were equals. Noble families would always be the ones to lead the country.


    ¡°Sharman, one can learn magic or swordsmanship as early as six years old. If wepare two children with equal talent, by the time the child that learns swordsmanship reaches the level of a high-level swordmaster, the child that learns magic will most likely only be at grade-2 or grade-3. It is easy to develop soldiers and talent will not y a part in their development. How many people can a mage kill? Once a mage dies, it is hard to rece them. Therefore, the most crucial factor in determining Qin¡¯s fate is its military system that was ahead of its time.¡±


    ¡°Master J, are you telling me all this because I said something wrong?¡± Sharman was very sharp. She could sense that there was something that J needed to talk to her about.


    ¡°Hmm, I do have something to tell you. I want to help you increase your power as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Increase my power? Master J, I¡¯m still young.¡± Sharman pouted.


    J pointed his finger at a wooden stake beside him. The wooden stakes surrounded the field in order to speed up the process of building up defences.


    Sharman¡¯s eyes were wide open. She was shocked to see some golden sword aura being emitted from J¡¯s finger. The top half of the wooden stake immediately turned into dust that was finer than the fine flour of Cloudflow.


    ¡°You have advanced!¡± Sharman¡¯s voice trembled slightly. It was the first time she had seen someone advancing to golden grand swordmaster from silver grand swordmaster. As a warrior herself, she was terribly excited.


    ¡°This is not counted as advancing. I only managed to grasp a bit of the power of golden sword aura, thereby paving the way for advancement. From now on, silver grand swordmasters will not be a match for me.¡± J replied proudly.


    Sharman was stunned by J¡¯s abilities. Although silver grand swordmasters were more powerful than her, they were still within reach. On the other hand, the number of golden grand swordmasters on the Maind was even fewer than grade-9 sorcerers.


    ¡°Sharman, my advancement is not normal. I¡¯m sure you know that learning swordsmanship has nothing to do with talent, but no matter what, even an ordinary person would be able to train up the sword aura within their body in a short time and be a swordsman. As long as one is willing to work hard, bing a high-level swordmaster is not a problem. I¡¯m slightly more talented so I became a silver grand swordmaster very early on and my understanding of sword aura was deeper than most people. I know that by right, I still need another ten years¡¯ of hard work before I can advance into a golden grand swordmaster.¡±


    Sharman listened intently. J imed that he was less than thirty years old and he had no reason to lie. In another ten years, he would still be less than forty years old. One must be extremely talented to be a golden grand swordmaster by forty years old.


    ¡°Recently, I began to detect signs of a breakthrough for no reason. You should know that I have been spending most of my time training and I have very little time for myself to deepen my understanding of swordsmanship.¡±


    ¡°That is impossible!¡± Sharman thought this was strange too. If one did not need to work hard in order to be a golden grand swordmaster, then the entire world would be full of strong opponents everywhere.


    ¡°The fact is as such. I think as long as I have the opportunity, I will be able to advance immediately once I gain a new realization.¡±


    ¡°Opportunity?¡±


    ¡°Yes, opportunity. Learning swordsmanship is the same as learning magic, where much knowledge must be gained from daily life. By teaching you swordsmanship and militarymand, I have been detached from an ordinary lifestyle for too long!¡± J was frustrated.


    That was when Sharman realized that the armor that J wore was carved with exquisite and beautiful patterns. People of the pce swordsmen battalion wore it only during parades.


    ¡°Master J, you are nning to give up high-level equipment in order to train on your own based on your own strength?¡± There was a hint of respect in Sharman¡¯s tone. J was a hooligan who had recently been beaten up by others for teasing female Caucasus warriors. She could not believe that within such a short time, he had readjusted his mindset to direct his focus onto swordsmanship.


    ¡°No. Like I said, realization muste from life. After I had my first woman, I advanced into a silver grand swordmaster very soon. I think in order to advance into a golden grand swordmaster sessfully, I need the love of even more women.¡±


    ¡°Master J, why don¡¯t you just go and die?¡± All the admiration in Sharman¡¯s eyes vanished. If not for the fact she might hurt her own foot, she would have kicked J.


    ¡°What do you know? You are just a little kid. I am going to bring you back to the temple. We will not be overseeing the soldiers¡¯ daily training for a month.¡±


    ¡°What do you think you are doing?!¡± Sharman hugged herself and looked at J with fear.


    ¡°What do you think you are doing?!¡± J mocked. His hands were on his head as he looked helplessly at Sharman.


    ¡°Master J, what you need is women, but I am still young and the person I like is Brother Saleen!¡± Sharman shouted so loud that even the soldiers from far away looked over. J stretched out his finger that had crushed the wooden stake and waved it in front of Sharman dangerously.


    ¡°If you dare to spout such nonsense again, what you just said may very well happen. After all, I was not afraid of snatching away the princess of the Cloudflow Empire. So, don¡¯t think you can manipte me like how you manipte others!¡±


    Sharman¡¯s face turned pale. She had heard of what J had done in the past. Back then, she merely thought that this man had nothing better to do; now, she realized how daring J could be.


    Even though J was very handsome, Sharman had no wish to fall for him. Her first time must be given to a man that she loved. This man must not be J because he was too much of a flirt. He was also too powerful for her to control.


    ¡°Master J, I will listen to you.¡± Sharman was resigned to her fate as she stood still on the spot.


    ¡°That¡¯s the way. Go back to the temple with me. I want to see if you can be a silver grand swordmaster in a month¡¯s time.¡±


    ¡°A month?!¡± Sharman¡¯s eyes became wide again. It was J that they were talking about, but the focus had been shifted onto her. She was on a whole new level of shock.


    ¡°Hmm, one month. You have no idea how any people in the temple corp have advanced in the past six months. Almost all of them are now swordmasters. I don¡¯t understand the reason behind this trend, but one thing is for sure, their advancement has nothing to do with talent.¡±


    While J was considering using Sharman as part of his experiment to test his hypothesis, Sika was eating her meal quietly in the temple, under the supervision of more than ten Caucasus warriors.


    By right, Sika should be feeling down because she was not allowed to spar with warriors and work out her body, but she was in a good mood at that moment.


    That was because she had advanced. Although she was not a Nature Priestess, she had definitely advanced in terms of herbat techniques. The magic beast bone that the winged skeleton had given to her was integrated into her weapon. The magic beast soul had been instantly awakened, giving Sika the power that she had always desired. What made her happiest was that the magic beast soul was of the purest sort that did not possess any berserk powers.


    What kind of a bone was it that the moment the war soul within it was awakened, Sika¡¯s power increased by tens of times. That was pure power. If Sika was to fight against the giant dragon again, she would not be badly beaten up. Instead, she would be able to go toe to toe with the giant dragon.


    It was extremely difficult for an Earth Shaman to advance into a Nature Priestess because Sika started off as a Combat Shaman, so it was more difficult to advance whenpared to a Beast Soul Priestess. Once the magic beast in the bone was awakened, there were no longer any obstructions to Sika¡¯s path towards advancement though.


    The war soul in the corpse of the magic beast obtained from Rafael¡¯s magic tower was alsopletely under control. Since then, Sika had been able to unleash all of herbat abilities, unlike in the past when she was limited by her equipment.


    Two magic beast souls could no longer satisfy Sika. She could control a third magic beast soul by then. The third magic beast soul was in the midst of being awakened and was currently kept in Sika¡¯s bone ne.


    After the three war souls had been subdued, the children in her womb would be able to control three powerful magic beast souls at birth. They would be able to pick up any techniques of a Priest very quickly.


    It was because of that that Sika sat quietly every day in order to develop the magic beast soul.


    The Caucasus warriors were concerned for Sika and her children so more than ten warriors of the level of zun grand swordmaster were deployed every day to keep herpany. It was because of Sika¡¯s advancement that J was allowed to leave the temple.


    The threat from Alchemy City was insignificant inparison. If anyone was to be attacked by her close-ranged attack, no magic shields would be able to withstand it. Perhaps a golden grand swordmaster might be able to resist for a while, but a grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s physique could not bepared.


    Once when the third magic beast woke up, only then would Sika own the ability of ranged attacks. Within the bone ne was the legacy of an ancient Shaman. The Shaman was only considered to be a middle-level professional long ago, but in their time, the shaman would be almost invincible.

 Chapter 802: Sika is Upset (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 802: Sika is Upset (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Caucasus people had glorious times in the past. One of them was even made king in the first dynasty. The Priests of Caucasus had also participated in the crusade against the Gods. It was said that the first King of Caucasus was of the same grade as the Emperor of the first dynasty, which was grade-18.


    Of course, these were the legends passed down by the Caucasus people. Other dynasties had never mentioned them before.


    Sika caressed her stomach with a grin on her face as she felt the life moving in it. The Caucasus warriors were extremely patient and amongst them were two female warriors, who were specially tasked to serve Sika.


    A powerful Priestess had finally appeared amongst the Caucasus people and she was even carrying two children. Saleen would surely agree for one of the children to be Caucasus and be a pure Priest.


    ¡°Priestess, please try this porridge that we have made using tapioca.¡± A female Caucasus warrior brought over a bowl. The bowl was extremely light and thin. Its entire body was perfect and was simr to jade in color. It was a piece of luxurious porcin from Cloudflow.


    Caucasus people detested such items. They would rather use a big bowl made from the skull of magic beasts.


    Sika¡¯s power has increased though. She needed to learn how to control her power or she would have a problem taking care of her children in the future.


    Sika stretched out a hand to take the bowl and frowned, ¡°It¡¯s a bit hot.¡±


    ¡°Priestess, you cannot consume cold items. It is not good for the children.¡±


    ¡°The offsprings of Caucasus people are not supposed to be so pampered. When we used to live in the viges, we would even consume food on the ground covered in snow during the cold winter. By the time a child was slightly more than ten years old, they could already hunt magic beasts.¡±


    ¡°But there are two little Priests in there.¡± The female Caucasus warrior smiled and replied.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Although Sika preferred to consume cold porridge, she still followed what the female warrior said. Pregnant women should not consume raw food. This piece of knowledge was concluded from the studies conducted by mages.


    ¡°Priestess.¡± ten male Caucasus warriors stepped up and ced the items that they had prepared on the table. They had resorted to cooking in the temple and not the kitchen. Sika was the Regent; no one could say ¡®no¡¯ to her.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡± Usually, the warriors were only slightly nervous. That day, they were particrly attentive, so Sika knew that they must have something to say.


    ¡°His Highness, Saleen, has gotten married. Would you like to return to South Court, I mean... to await the return of His Highness?¡±


    Sika threw the bowl in her hand onto the floor, which promptly broke into pieces. She shouted, ¡°Whose idea is it? Yours, or the elders?¡±


    The Caucasus warriors were so scared that all of them stood up. The two female Caucasus warriors spoke, ¡°Priestess, please don¡¯t be angry. It is not good for the children.¡±


    ¡°Children, humph, answer my question! I am upset now, what can any of you do to make me feel better?¡± Sika had a good temper, but after she became pregnant, there were some changes and she was still constantly nervous. Now that she had suddenly heard that there were important people amongst the Caucasus people that wanted her to leave Saleen, she could not control her rage.


    ¡°Priest, we are on your side. Although His Excellency, Saleen, has married Princess Lex, he has also given the entire kingdom to you to manage. It is just some foreign elders that were wondering about this matter. We, as warriors, do not think about such things.¡± The Caucasus warriors quickly rified.


    Sika knew that the warriors admired her, but this was not a matter that urred after one or two days. The fact that she only knew about it now meant that those elders had been scheming very secretively.


    It was inevitable. The number of Caucasus people was growing. Apart from two separate groups that left for Phoenix and Sikeqinya separately, the remaining had all escaped to Metatrin Kingdom. Very few of them surrendered to the Holy See. Those that did not manage to escape were either captured by the Holy See, or killed.


    At that moment there were only about forty-thousand Caucasus people in Metatrin City. Most of them were in the military and some that came from Sika¡¯s vige had be her most trustedpanions. Outside of the city, there were already more than three-hundred-thousand Caucasus people. That number only included adults.


    It was almost as if there was a small kingdom of Caucasus made up of more than three-hundred-thousand Caucasus warriors just beside Metatrin City. With power, there would be conflicts to strive for more. The southern Caucasus area that Sika was in was still alright, but the northern Caucasus area was no longer popted by viges. Instead, huge Caucasus colonies had started to appear.


    The Caucasus people were no longer the same as in the ancient times. They had begun to emte the four Empires and were trying to set up their own kingdom.


    The more she heard, the angrier Sika became. She asked the Caucasus warriors, ¡°Are all of you willing to pledge your eternal loyalty to me?¡±


    In the past, Sika would never speak like that. She never wanted to bea leader. All she wanted was to fulfil her responsibilities and duties to the people in the vige.


    ¡°Priestess, of course we will only be loyal to you,¡± the warriors replied and sounded confused at the same time. Their duty was to protect Sika. No matter how powerful the enemy, they would sacrifice their bodies to shield Sika from any attacks.


    ¡°What I¡¯m saying is that all of you will only listen to me, even if all the Caucasus elders go against me.¡± Sika leaned against the chair and put her legs on the table while caressing her stomach.


    The warriors hesitated for a while before speaking, ¡°Priestess, are you thinking of not being a Caucasus person anymore?¡±


    ¡°If so, are all of you going to abandon me?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Priestess, if you are willing, you can build your own kingdom too.¡± The warriors were not foreign Caucasus people. The feelings they had towards Sika were different. It was Sika who gave them hope.


    ¡°Build my own kingdom?¡± Something struck in Sika¡¯s mind. She rarely had such rity.


    Before Saleen left, not only did he make her the Regent, he also made her the Caucasus King. Saleen must have foreseen that some amongst the Caucasus would try to stir up trouble.


    The Caucasus areas had never tried to build kingdoms. She was already the first Caucasus King though. Hahaha, the elders were too greedy. Perhaps they had learned from the shamelessness of the Sikeqinyans.


    ¡°You all need not stay in the temple tonight. Go and find out how many people in the army support the foreign elders.¡± Although she believed that the Caucasus people in the city should be quite dependable, she has also learned from Saleen not to leave any stones unturned.


    ¡°Priestess, the elders...


    ¡°I will not allow the foreign elders to enter the city. I am now the Regent. Until Saleen returns, I will oversee Metatrin City.¡± Sika thought about it and said, ¡°I will give you a warrant. The sixth battalion will guard the southern gate. If anyone tries to stir up trouble, activate the magic heavy-armored foot soldiers.¡±


    ¡°Priestess, what about the elders of South Court?¡± A female warrior heard how determined Sika sounded and was worried.


    ¡°I will convince them personally. If they are the same as the elders on the outside... I will not kill them either.¡± Sika¡¯s tone was nonmittal.


    She had thought the souls of Caucasus people were the purest. She never imagined that amongst the Caucasus there were those that harbored ill-intentions.


    The elders¡¯ n to separate her and Saleen was because they wanted both children and not just one. If both of Saleen¡¯s children were in their hands, they would be in a better position to make demands.


    Greed alone could not have resulted in such a situation. Most likely it was also because there were Priests and powerful people amongst these Caucasus people. It was always easier to fall when in possession of power.


    If Saleen had not taken them in, the Caucasus people staying near Metatrin City would not have been able to live with so much freedom. Even if they became extremely poor, they could always count on supplies from Metatrin City. No one would ever starve to death. War had be a faint memory to them. Those that did join the military were the ones that Sika had spent a lot of effort trying to recruit.


    No wonder Saleen did not want the trusted Caucasus people to go into battle. There were too few of them.


    At that thought, Saleen felt so helpless that sheughed. Saleen was really smart to foresee that there would be trouble amongst the Caucasus people. She only understood that herself that day. Saleen must have kept quiet because he did not wish to upset her.


    Oh well, she should just be a Caucasus King. She would set up legitions and reduce the powers of the elders. If anyone else tried to use Caucasus rules to constrain her in future, she would use her ownws to retaliate and destroy those people.


    The Caucasus warriors knelt down. ording to Caucasus etiquette, kneeling in front of someone signified proximity while standing with one¡¯s head bowed signified submission.


    ¡°Priestess, we swear with our souls that we will pledge our loyalties only to you from here on.¡±


    ¡°We swear with our souls!¡±


    Sika could sense a ripple in the depth of her soul. Somewhere deep down, she had formed a mysterious connection with those warriors.


    Such professions of loyalty had been passed down tens of thousands of years amongst Caucasus people and no one had ever tried to go back on their words.


    Although it was not as perfect as a mage¡¯s bond, it was being strictly enforced all the time. This was the Caucasus¡¯ Shackles of Oath, a method of ensuring loyalty to the Priest.


    Sika took out a pen and paper and silently wrote down a warrant for the warriors to deploy the sixth battalion to guard the southern gate. Even if the Caucasus people in the city did not betray her, they might be unwilling to battle against those outside of the city either. By deploying the sixth battalion, Sika could send in even more armies at ater stage topletely eliminate the elders if they still persisted in their ways.


    People trying to split her and Saleen up? At that thought, Sika¡¯s heart was in tremendous pain.


    The Caucasus warriors left Sika¡¯s room and descended to the first story of the temple. There, they summoned another twelve Caucasus warriors to go up and continue serving Sika.


    After leaving the temple, the twelve Caucasus warriors were full of joy as they congratted each other in celebration.


    ¡°As expected, the Priestess was unwilling. Those old fellows are all ungrateful, but that is good as well. There is hope for the southern Caucasus people.¡±


    ¡°Precisely. They are trying to control all of us just because they outnumber us. What idiots. How could the Priestess possibly be willing to give in?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go quickly. The two of you will go to the sixth battalion and deploy the army using the Priestess¡¯ warrant in order to boost the southern gate¡¯s defense. We will quickly gather our own people to dig out the spies in the temple corp. Caucasus people from other ces must have found a way to sneak in.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    The one who gave the orders led the rest to hurry over to the southern part of the city.

 Chapter 803: King of Caucasus (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 803: King of Caucasus (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The poption of Caucasus people within Metatrin City was notrge. Their poption was less than forty-thousand among the total poption of little more than one-million. All of them residing in the southern city. The Caucasus people were also the earliest settlers hailing from Southern Caucasus.


    The region of Caucasus was actually divided into three parts: the Ancient Caucasus area near the Purgatory Desert, Southern Caucasus in Central Kroraina, and Northern Caucasus that was deep within Sikeqinya.


    The poption of Ancient Caucasus dwindled almost to nothing, while Southern and Northern Caucasus were separated by the broken mountain range of Caucasus. That caused people of both sides to gradually take separate cultural paths.


    The Caucasus people found within the city were basically from the south, with most northern counterparts opting to reside outside the city. Some of the earliest Caucasus settlers joining Metatrin City chose to live in the mountains instead.


    The warriors at Sika¡¯s side had ess to secrets of the Caucasus elders residing outside the city, simply due to the fact that they were Caucasus warriors loyal to Sika.


    The walls of Metatrin City were designed in an orderly manner, with three sides being straight lines having three city gates respectively, tworge and one small. The southern gate was guarded almost exclusively by the Southern Caucasus people, as Caucasus warriors loyal to Sika were assigned to the sixth camp. They were moved to the southern gate, recing the original garrison.


    Four out of Saleen¡¯s ten main camps were stationed outside, three were mobilized to Daliang and one to Huoxing. Huoxing¡¯s camp often saw turnarounds of troops, effectively making it a camp for training. The sixth camp served as the main force of the main camps, which had seen their equipment renewed and an auxiliary force of fifteen-thousand strong added to it.


    Caucasus people might be experts in guerri warfare, but unless the city was assaulted using siege weapons, the main camp proved sufficient in defending the gate.


    Sika began talking about Northern Caucasus people with the twelve Caucasus warriors around her after a meal in the temple. All twelve of them chose to follow Sika with little hesitation.


    There was a total of thirty-six Caucasus warriors protecting Sika. While the rest of the Caucasus warriors were of swordmaster levels, the thirty-six were a level on par with grandmaster swordsman, and all of them were Southern Caucasus people. While the elders of the south might have liked Sika to leave Saleen¡¯s side, they were not inclined to use any threats to do so. The warriors protecting Sika were the most trustworthy.


    As such, Sika gained the support of thirty-six strong warriors rather effortlessly.


    The reason all thirty-six of them followed Sika was due to the belief that they would be able advance quickly. The capabilities of the Nature Priestess was indisputable, and betrayal was not to be tolerated. Warriors who knew of such news even delivered the news using their methods to Sika, to enable her to make decisions in a decisive manner.


    The sun began to set and Sika thought it would have been a bad time to go talk to the elders. She instead chose to tell her subordinates, ¡°Go get the mages. I need to speak with them.¡±


    All grand mages within Metatrin City were told to stay by Sika when Saleen departed for Daliang. The surroundings of the temple were near identical to magic tower¡¯s, and the grand mages chose to stay back within the temple since Saleen left. They never returned to the alchemy factory.


    The mages were also considered dependable people by Sika. There were also some swordmasters residing within the temple, all of whom hailed from Sregl Ind.


    Pasatilo, Kanuka, Kredian, Francis, and Basta were now grade-6 grand mages nearing advancement. All five of them made for the fifth floor of the temple with their subordinates as soon as they had gotten word that Sika was asking to see them. Sika asked the Caucasus warriors to serve tea to the mages, as everyone sat at the table and Sika began telling them what happened outside the city.


    ¡°My liege, you are a Caucasus person yourself. I believe when the lord bestowed you with the power to make decisions before he departed, he had hoped that you would make decisions carefully. The lord is not one who likes senseless killing. A lot of the Caucasus people outside the city would have offered you their support. As such, I believe this matter can be discussed at ater date.¡±


    Kredian was the one who knew best how to socialize and manage day-to-day affairs among the grand mages present. He had advised Sika againstunching assaults against the Caucasus people residing in the south of the city.


    ¡°What do the few of you have in mind them?¡±, Sika asked the mages sitting in front of her earnestly. She was permitted to have the final say due to the fact that it was impossible for her to leave Saleen. Strategies to be used against the elders in the Caucasus region, remained a matter to be discussed with the mages.


    ¡°There is no properrge-scale equipment outside the city. No matter how high the quality of the leather armor the Caucasus warriors are so fond of, they still pale inparison to the equipped the main camp¡¯s forces have. Whenpared with the ones equipped by temple guards, they are even worse. There is also only one small path allowing for travel from the south of the city to the other sides, making it easy to keep them at bay. We simply need to stop providing food for the people outside the city. What they have in mind will notst over the winter,¡± Kredian borated.


    ¡°Kredian...,¡± Sika looked in his eyes and said, ¡°that is not going to work. The Northern Caucasus people outside the city probably have their own priest now. They won¡¯t need to worry about food.¡±


    ¡°A priest...,¡± The mages looked at Sika with doubtful eyes.


    Sika exined, ¡°I myself chose the path of abat shaman, while most Caucasus people would have chosen the path of beast shamans. Other than being able to keep magic beasts, beast shamans are also capable in controllingrge numbers of low level living beings. That help in growing high-yield crops like potatoes. Having just such a priest around would be enough to keep a vige from starving.¡±


    Kredian pondered for a moment and asked again, ¡°What about a earth shaman then?¡±


    Sika chuckled and said, ¡°If I were to grow crops outside the city, I would have been able to keep almost half of Metatrin City fed. That is, if no wars were to break out. Wars disrupt nature, making living beings within thend run for their lives. There won¡¯t be any earth shamans outside the city; that is the advanced profession ofbat shamans.¡±


    ¡°Understood, my liege. How many of these shamans are present among the ones outside the walls?¡±


    ¡°That I cannot be sure of. The only way to tell would be to first have the elders choose some among the Caucasus people within the city, nurture the chosen, and see how many will turn out to be shamans. Then, the number of the shamans outside the city will be deduced from the ratio of shamans that turned up within the city,¡± Sika¡¯s mind was indeed clear.


    ¡°My liege, this is what I would suggest; we will simply have Daniel deal with them. He has a good number of tax collectors working under him. You won¡¯t have to worry about anything. When the tax collectors make their move, the Northern Caucasus people wille knocking at your door.¡±


    ¡°Will that really work?¡±, Sika was in doubt.


    ¡°Of course. That mountain is a part of Metatrin. The king¡¯s teacher will probably be here soon. As soon as a magic tower is erected within the city, they will have no cards left in their hands.¡±


    ¡°But how long will it take before Jason gets here? I hate waiting,¡± Sika said in frustration. She was still concerned about the threat posed by Alchemy City, and her current level of power served enough only to protect herself. Sika would not have been able to do anything to protect the city Saleen left her with.


    The winged skeleton took almost all of the navy personnel, leaving only skeletal warships and dragon skeletonbat vessels. If it was not for the fact that the Jade Skeleton possessed some measure of intelligence allowing it to direct low level dead spirits, Sika would have been left with nothing to protect the docks with.


    Having magic cannons alone was far from enough to keep a powerful navy at bay.


    ¡°It is only April now and they will arrive around September. There arerge warships at Sregl Ind. They are fast ships, capable of traveling two-thousand miles per day.¡±


    ¡°Wait until September!¡±, Sika was very frustrated, but there was hardly anything she could have done about it. Without a powerful mage around, Metatrin City could have hardly been called a safe ce. As soon as Caucasus riots started, that had served as a signal for the outside, telling how problematic the ruling of the Metatrin Kingdom was.


    Mages patiently offered their options to Sika. They held no enmity to the Caucasus people for doing so. To mages, it was imperative to deal with all matters with a mind at peace.


    There were only two kinds of matters: ones that could be resolved, and ones that could not be resolved. Violence was reserved only for matters that were unable to be resolved peacefully.


    Sika¡¯s mind had only calmed when the mages listed out the items and goods traded between the city and the Caucasus people. The list served as a proof that Caucasus people outside the city really had no ability to take Metatrin City; they had not so much as thought of purchasing supplies to be used for waging wars.


    The night ended inconclusively. The next morning, rather than Sika going out to talk to the elders, the southern elders came asking to see Sika at the temple instead.


    There were little more than ten elders in the south, and nine came looking for her. The leader of the group was the oldest elder from the vige Sika grew up in. The elders were taken to the second floor of the temple, and found the guards within to be rather unfriendly, even the Caucasus warriors behaved as such.


    The elders looked at each other and smiled bitterly. It looked as if the matters with the Northern Caucasus people were finally stirring up trouble at their own doors.


    Would they have just stayed put if they didn¡¯t know what Saleen was capable of?


    Sika received the Caucasus elders at the old meeting room. She sat at the end of a long table with twelve Caucasus warriors standing behind her, and two grand mages sitting by her sides respectively.


    While the elders were not known for their martial prowess, weaklings had had no ce among Caucasus society. Anyone capable of surviving long enough long to be an elder, would have been a force to be reckoned with.


    ¡°Sika...¡±, the elder was cut off as soon as they so much even uttered the name.


    Sika spoke calmly, ¡°Please address me as master priestess, or, king.¡±


    The nine elders had not expected Sika¡¯s reaction to be such a strong one. Knowing what happened the previous night and the mobilization of the sixth camp, they knew well that convincing Sika was no longer an option. The leader among the elders wanted to try nheless, and asked, ¡°Master priestess, ording to the customs of the Caucasus...¡±


    ¡°Caucasus people have never built any dynasties, and I, will be the first Caucasus King. My orders will be the traditions for all Caucasus people in the future. Elders, this will be my choice, and no objections will be entertained.¡±


    Sika had little knowledge of negotiations and had even less intentions of using Saleen as a bargaining chip.


    The elders were just about to retort that the title of Caucasus King was given by Saleen and as such, had no authority of any kind. Then, the children within Sika were Saleen¡¯s. He did so with hard power and he did so for his child. Unless they were able to kill Saleen, Lex, and all of Saleen¡¯s followers, they stood no chance to have Saleen letting go of the two.


    Would the Caucasus be able to do so? Kill Lex? That would probably bring forth the ruin of the Caucasus people.

 Chapter 804: King of Caucasus (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 804: King of Caucasus (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master priestess, have you discussed the matter with Abu?¡±, the leader of the elders asked.


    Sika¡¯s brow had been locked in a serious, straight line. Hearing the elder¡¯s inquiry, her brow rxed and she answered with a smile, ¡°The vige chief has one good trait about him; he knows gratitude. Without Saleen around, do you have any idea how many would have starved to death? Do you think you would have had a chance to argue here?¡±


    The person named Abu was the chief of Sika¡¯s vige. When a new chief was appointed, he would be an elder himself.


    Sika continued, seeing how awkward her answer made the elders feel, ¡°I¡¯m no longer a warrior with no-name that I once was. Being trusted with the governance of Metatrin City enabled me to learn a lot. I knew clearly who was kind to me. The chief never made me do anything. It was thanks to him that I walked on the path of abat shaman. Elders, if the Northern Caucasus people were to pose a threat to me, what would any of you get out of it?¡±


    The leader of the elders shook his head and said, ¡°We will get nothing out of it. Still, I won¡¯t like seeing Caucasus people killing each other.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t want to see that myself, but they have no right to strip me of my right to happiness just because of this. I¡¯m a simple person. If they wrong me, I will make sure that they suffer for it.¡±


    Another elder spoke with a worried expression, ¡°Master priest, your emotions don¡¯t seem to be in the right ce, but please...¡±


    These elders were still Southern Caucasus people after all. They would not have liked to see Sika being taken out of the city be the kind of most ancient priestess who would devote their life to all Caucasus people.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. I just feel that once you get your hands on some measure of power, it is only fitting to do something that feels right to yourself. I saved nearly four-hundred-thousand Caucasus people, and yet, they wanted me to give more still. Saleen is the kind of person who would see to his vengeance to the very end, and that means killing every single one of his enemies. If they don¡¯t want a genocide to happen, then they best behave themselves. I¡¯m now doing my best to keep saving them,¡± Sika felt a rush of excitement as she finished speaking her mind.


    There was little need for subtlety inmunications between Caucasus people.


    The elders all felt a chill in their spines upon hearing what Sika said. Sika was with Saleen. There was no doubt that he was courteous to the Caucasus people in general, but if the northern ones overstepped the border, Saleen¡¯s methods would have proven much more terrifying that what Sika had described.


    The Caucasus people outside the city had little idea that Saleen¡¯s underlings were teeming with demons. Regardless of how good Caucasus warriors were in guerri warfare, they still hardly had any edge over demons. If they were to wrong Saleen and he sent out his demons to settle the score, there was no doubt that hardly any Caucasus warriors who fought would have survived.


    ¡°Master priestess, we understand,¡± the elders answered bitterly. They were frustrated and their minds were boiling with anguish. Had it not been for the northerners messing things up, Sika would have perhaps considered having one of her children be a priest. From the current looks of things however, it seemed that Sika would keep both of her children with her, and would have definitely go against the idea of having their education entrusted to the viges.


    ¡°It seems that you lot have yet to understand me. I have already sent people to clean up the Caucasus people within the city. There will be a great number of mages doing lie detection tests on them. Anyone who fails the tests would be executed. Once their souls return to the Earth, I will hold a service for them personally.¡±


    ¡°Priestess!¡±


    ¡°Rx. This is no excuse, and the mages¡¯ way of questioning will be simple. Anyone who has any intention of doing me harm will be weeded out. I will interrogate and judge them in front of everyone, personally.¡±


    Sika had the mages see their guests out as she finished. All nine of them returned to the southern residences glumly, yet Sika was heardughing her head off in the temple.


    Sika had just gotten another troublesome matter out of her way. She might have lost her powers as a priestess when she got married. That was not to say that there was not anything else that she could do. Taking the title of Caucasus King was still a way to protect Caucasus people. The way of the priests had always been using the power of all Caucasus people to empower oneself.


    Her number of loyal subordinates would keep increasing as the kingdom was established. There would no longer be any need to worry about her children. Both of them would continue to be king at ater age, instead of priests.


    Saleen was someone who had some veryplex ideas going about in his head.


    As the cleansing in the south of the city took ce, Caucasus people were taken out and interrogated one by one. The mages were the ones carrying out the questioning, and they had only one question to ask: do you have any intentions of posing a threat to Lord Sika?


    Thenguage employed by the mages was the Caucasusnguage. The word ¡®threat¡¯ had multiple meanings within thenguage. The warriors who sided with the northern elders¡¯ way of thought were singled out, with the total of number of such people being over one-thousand.


    The trial was set to take ce in the Metatrin Arena on Monday. The arena wasrge enough to seat tens of thousands and the ce would be locked down. Nobles within the city were invited to witness the trial.


    Arge magic array was set at the front of the raised stage. Grand mages participated in the drawing and crafting of magic paths personally. Temple guards and elite troops of every main camp participated in the trial as well.


    Of course, the bulk of the audience, still consisted of a muchrger number of Caucasus warriors.


    The Caucasus warriors who participated in the trial had not showed any fear. All of them answered the mages¡¯ questions right in front of the mages. A lot of them were arrested right there and then. They were notified of the trial taking ce that day on a short notice. That resulted in having to mobilize forces the size of a camp, to make up for theck of personnel guarding the south of the city.


    The Caucasus warriors did not have their gear confiscated. Their gear stayed with them. The only difference between them and the other warriors on that day, was that they were made to sit at the most front row of seats.


    Under the protection of her trusted Caucasian warriors and mages, Sika came to the grandstand which Saleen used to sit at. In the arena in front of her eyes, there was the arrested Caucasus people to be tried, numbering over one-thousand, in chains.


    A white-robed mage went to check the sound amplification magic array and the imaging magic array. The nobles entered their respective boxes or grandstands with a better view. Most of them brought their own guards.


    They knew well of Saleen¡¯s temperament: Saleen had a liking for nobles with a preference for martial affairs. Nobles bringing servants along were seen in a far less favorable light than those bringing their own guards.


    The magic array right in the middle was a lie-detecting magic array. The magic itself was not a high level one, and as such, there had yet to be anyone who would have used such magic with an array. Sika was probably the first to pull off such a feat.


    Seeing all those Caucasus warriors being tied up afar, Sika felt her own gaze to be a cold one. She was not such a cold person herself, but why would any of them want to do something so cruel to her?


    She thanked her own swiftness to act. With so many warriors within the walls approving the thoughts of the Northern Caucasus people, the gate might just have ended up being breached otherwise. While it was still far from possible for the Caucasus people to take the entire city simply because they had breached one gate, the problemid with the damage Saleen¡¯s reputation would have suffered if Metatrin City was to be sessfully breached by the enemy.


    Power had the ability of driving people astray. There would sure have been a lot of priests mushrooming among the Caucasus outside the city, making those elders think they were capable of steering things to their favor.


    While Sika had little actual experience with the awakening of the power of humanity, she nheless felt it. She had given little thought to the news of priests appearing outside the city. After cross-referencing that piece of news with other intelligence, her instinct stirred as she picked up the scent of danger lurking.


    Once Caucasus warriors had priests on their sides, it would prove a much greater threat than swordsman having mages at their sides.


    Kredian activated the sound amplification magic array once everything was in ce. Sika¡¯s voice reverberated throughout the area. Everyone within was able to hear her clearly.


    ¡°What is taking ce today is something unexpected to me. Someone told me that Caucasus people outside the city, wanted to do me, a nature priestess, harm,¡± Sika¡¯s words proved to be frightening. All the nobles present found it to be unbelievable. The Caucasus people, numbering over one-thousand, who had been arested arrested and disyed within the arena, all looked too dejected to make a show of power.


    ¡°I had always thought that Caucasus had preserved the sense of honor passed down from ancient times. Come to think of it now, I was naive,¡± Sika¡¯s words were scripted by the mages. If they were to leave her to it, her speech would have sounded too straightforward to make clear the importance of the trial.


    ¡°I had people locking down the gates and mobilized forces equivalent to an army. I did not choose to start a war, as I wished that all this was not true...but I was wrong!¡±


    Sika looked down on the Caucasus who attempted to have her submit to their will from afar, and continued, ¡°I¡¯m a priestess. It is my duty to be of service. Such service does not include giving up my children. The Caucasus people outside the city wanted to take everything away from me, without giving any thought if what they intended to take, belonged to them.¡±


    The Caucasus people in chains were ced within the silencing magic array. No one was able to speak up and interrupt her speech.


    Sika continued speaking with a loud voice, ¡°What was most despicable about them was that they wanted my children. That was only because the father of the children, was none other than the king of Metatrin, Saleen,¡±. Sika turned her gaze to the nobles nearby and said, ¡°Your lord gave generous aid to the Caucasus people because of me, yet such aid was returned with betrayal.¡±


    Sika took a break as she looked tired, before continuing, ¡°I will not tolerate this, as I have my pride to defend. As a Caucasus person myself, I felt deeply ashamed. As such, I will not proceed with the trial as a priest, as I¡¯m unable to do so. I dere, from this day forward, I shall be the true Caucasus King. The bloodline of the Caucasus Kingdom, will from now, until the end of days, be of the house of Metatrin.¡±


    The faces of over one-thousand silenced Caucasus warriors despaired as Sika finished. They had not expected that the elders¡¯ n had led to Sika making such a decision.


    ¡°Now, I shall proceed with your trial as King of Caucasus. Mages, begin!¡±, Sika leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as she finished.


    All the Caucasus warriors present among the audience were in shock. They had thought the questioning was little more than a loyalty test. It was rumored that any who wished to join the temple guards were to participate in such tests. All Caucasus questioned simply thought that they were chosen to join the ranks of the most powerful army of Metatrin City.


    No one made any noise. Sika slumped in her seat, looking tired, weak, and wronged. Caucasus people who were loyal to her felt pity for her.


    Sika gave a lot, even letting a man she loved marry a princess instead of staying by her side. With all that having taken ce, she was at a loss of words. It was time for the mages to work.


    The Caucasus warriors chose to be silent and cast their gaze at the front of the stage: thatrge magic array.

 Chapter 805: Bloody Battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 805: Bloody Battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The fully-armed soldiers of the temple corp selected one-hundred Caucasus people and nudged and shoved them into the magic array. One of the Caucasus people tried to resist, but what he got in return was the tendons of his limbs being cut by four half-swords.


    The Caucasus warriors had no choice but to enter the magic array obediently, including the one whose tendons had just been cut.


    A white-robed mage came to Sika¡¯s side and whispered, ¡°All the magic arrays have been opened. You can question them now.¡±


    Finally, Sika opened her eyes and asked slowly, ¡°Let me ask all of you, who amongst you are unaware that the Caucasus people outside of the city have tried to threaten me?¡±


    There was silence in the magic array. The Caucasus people were well-aware of the power of the Lie-detecting magic array. They would be found out immediately if they lied.


    ¡°Very well, all of them have been found guilty.¡± Sika waved her hand for the one-hundred people to be brought away to a room below the tform.


    Another one-hundred Caucasus people were sent into the magic array for the test and Sika asked the same question again.


    What disappointed the Caucasus people on the tform the most was that all of them had admitted their guilt. Such disappointment could easily trante into rage. The Caucasus warriors knocked against their own armor and shouted, ¡°Kill them!¡±


    At first, only ten or so people were shouting, but as Sika determined more and more of them guilty, more than one-thousand began to call for their execution. Soon, it escted to tens of thousands of them.


    Within a short span of less than an hour, Sika had found one-thousand, four-hundred, and fourteen people guilty. All of them were aware of the news outside of the city and were supportive of the n.


    Amongst these one-thousand, four-hundred, and fourteen Caucasus people, not all of them would have supported the southern Caucasus people¡¯s n with concrete actions, but it was no longer safe for them to stay.


    Sika almost felt like stopping, but the emotions of the Caucasus people had been stirred. She had no choice but to continue with the n and said, ¡°Soldiers, are you willing to pledge your loyalty to me as your only Caucasus King?!¡±


    Sika¡¯s voice became louder. The effect of a sound amplification magic array had allowed her voice to be deafening in the gigantic arena.


    ¡°I am willing!¡±


    ¡°I am willing!¡±


    ¡°I am willing!¡±


    There was almost a rhythm in the way the Caucasus warriors were responding to Sika.


    ¡°Are you willing, from here on, to never go back on your pledge, never give up on your honor, and never give up on your faith?!¡±


    ¡°I am willing!¡±


    ¡°Are you willing to fight for me and expand the Caucasus territories?!¡±


    ¡°I am willing!¡±


    The mages looked on disinterestedly, even though they had a part to y in making it happen. They were not surprised by the Caucasus people¡¯s reactions, in fact, they did not even feel any sense of achievement. They were the mages, and everything was under their control.


    The noble families, on the other hand, were quite emotional. Saleen¡¯s women were a princess and a Caucasus King. The soldiers under themand of the Caucasus King were the cream of the crop.


    Metatrin Kingdom was bing more and more powerful. The next step would be to join in the power struggle for the Maind. Without striving for more power, most of the noble families there would never be able to progress into top-tier noble families.


    The education that they had received since youth had allowed the noble families to realize that the world was changing. The Holy War started by the Holy See had opened up opportunities for everyone. Now, other than hope, there was another clear path that had appeared ahead of them and that was to follow Saleen.


    Sika stood up and took out her weapon. She raised it in her hands and spoke to all the Caucasus warriors, ¡°Let us not forget this day, for that will be equivalent to treason. From now on, the tenth of April shall be Judgment Day.¡±


    This final sentence was something that Sika had included on her own. She detested such things.


    Sika stepped down from the tform and left the Metatrin area while being surrounded by the crowd. Guya, who was standing beside the tform, saw Sika departing and said to Renee beside her, ¡°This Regent is finally bing something.¡±


    ¡°If you were up there, you would do much better than her,¡± Renee replied casually.


    ¡°Me? His Highness, Saleen, would never want me.¡± Guya looked towards Irene, who was on her other side.


    Irene shrugged her shoulders and said, ¡°Our Excellency is now Princess Lex¡¯s husband. With Sika also watching from the side, please leave me out of this.¡±


    The three Duchesses discussed Saleen, but all of them were actually fond of him. They were the founders of new ns, so they were not constrained by any rules. It would be eptable for Saleen to make them his mistresses. Unfortunately, their rivals in love were so powerful that they did not even want to try.


    Sika returned to the temple in a wagon and before long, those captives were also brought back to her. On the za, Sika said to the one-thousand, four-hundred, and fourteen captives, ¡°I will give all of you onest chance.¡±


    Without the sound transmission magic array, a few Caucasus captives stubbornly said, ¡°What you are doing is going against the Caucasus people...¡±


    With her cudgel in her hands, Sika knocked it against the ground a few times and the few Caucasus people that were about to speak up found their legs soften. It traveled up their calves and almost instantaneously, they turned into a pile of dust.


    ¡°Cut the crap. You are facing a Priestess. Be respectful.¡± Sika looked at the rest coldly.


    Amongst the remaining captives, those that were more knowledgeable were able to realize what technique Sika had used. They quickly began to plead for their lives.


    ¡°Priestess, we surrender!¡±


    ¡°Surrender?¡± Sikaughed and said, ¡°You cannot surrender nor leave this ce. You can only choose either for your souls to be dissipated or to be my Souls of Nature.¡±


    The Caucasus people¡¯s expressions were awful when they heard Sika¡¯s question. It was uneptable for Caucasus people to have their souls dissipated but bing Souls of Nature was not much better either.


    ¡®Souls of Nature¡¯ was just a more indirect way of describing what it really meant, which was enved souls. In other words, they would be the source of the Priestess¡¯ soul power.


    ¡°I get tired very easily now and I don¡¯t have a lot of patience. I will give all of you ten seconds,¡± Sika said and raised her weapon. When she turned the few Caucasus warriors into dust with her cudgel, it was clear that the rest would end up the same way if they chose not to be her Souls of Nature.


    After ten seconds, Sika was satisfied and returned back to the temple. She was going to prepare to convert the souls of the warriors. With that, the third magic beast soul could be awakened, and she would not have to continue to remain in her current state, where the power that she could borrow was minimal.


    The trouble in the city had been settled. Over at Daliang City, the battle had reached its climax.


    The Cloudflow soldiers outnumbered the men of Bitter Water Prefecture, but thetter had the city wall and more equipment on their side. After the sorcerer had attacked, he did not appear again. Nevertheless, the magic towers in the city dared not becent. All of them were fully prepared for a new wave of attack, so they were unable to divert their attention to provide reinforcements for the battle on top of the city wall.


    Lex was inmand of the battle on one side of the top of the city wall, but she was not involved in the actual fighting. She was afraid that her movements would attract unnecessary attention. The magic tower nearest to the city wall only had seven stories, so it might not be able to repel that sorcerer¡¯s bombardments.


    The magic heavy-armored foot soldiers invented by Saleen were the most effective in battle. A few times when the enemy managed to make it all the way to the top of the city wall, they were repelled by the heavy-armored soldiers. The low-level mages took turns to rest and boost the heavy-armored foot soldiers with spells so that they could continue to fight for a longer duration.


    Behind the Cloudflow soldiers, a mound of dirt began to rise up from the ground until the head of a machine was revealed. The head of the machine was like a human¡¯s, except that its eyes were blood-red in color. Its soul me danced, giving the face a very strange look whenplemented with patches of metallic skin.


    After it tunneled its way out, the winged skeleton crawled out from the hole behind it.


    The bone castle was not involved in the battle. The winged skeleton could not take it and decided to bring along the mechanical soul to spring a surprise attack on the rear of the Cloudflow army¡¯s site outside of Daliang City.


    The mechanical soul was able to tunnel its way through without making too much sound. The winged skeleton followed mechanical soul by crawling for more than twenty miles before finally arriving at the surface.


    The winged skeleton was pleased to find that the Cloudflow foot soldiers were not scattered nor wandering around. He began to summon spirits of the dead and unleashed the middle-level spirits of the dead stored within Green Spirit.


    It was clearly a site for the reserves as there were about five-thousand foot soldiers with half-ted armor that were waiting to move off. Half-ted armor was worn when attacking the city. Although it sacrificed the defense of the lower body, it could lessen the weight of the armor and also increase the defense of the upper body.


    That type of army was most afraid of melee attacks. Once they get tangled up with the enemy, the weakness in their equipment could be easily exploited. Of course, the winged skeleton knew that. He specifically summoned the more agile skeleton archers and the undead soldiers from the death dimension.


    There were too few death knights, but they would suffice. The winged skeleton summoned more than one-thousand spirits of the dead in total before organizing them into their formations. Then, they charged at the rear of the site of the Cloudflow foot soldiers.


    The distance was about eight-hundred yards to a mile. After the winged skeleton boosted his spirits of the dead with spells, the spirits were able to sprint at full speed towards the campsite.


    At a distance of fifty yards away, a few skeleton archersunched their attacks. Then, the undead soldiers became berserk and tore a huge hole at the rear of the campsite.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s war axe had already been destroyed, so he was now wielding a giant war axe that belonged to his jade skeleton. This war axe did not store any death magic spells; it was simply made of materials of high quality and was stable and sharp.


    There was only one mage in the entire campsite. It looked as if Cloudflow really had far fewer magespared to Qin. A foot soldiers¡¯ campsite of five-thousand would have included at least five mages and there might even be a grand mage.


    The mage was the first to detect the presence of the spirits of the dead. He quickly chanted mantras while the soldiers around him nervously surrounded him. The winged skeleton smiled slyly. He leapt into the sky with his giant axe in hand. The wings behind his back spread open, drawing a curved outline in the sky.


    Boom!


    The winged skeleton swung the giant axe downwards heavily. The axe¡¯s target was the mage, who had yet toplete his spell. He could only look up at the winged skeleton in despair. When his hands moved out of position, the spell failed, and a counter-reaction urred instantaneously.

 Chapter 806: Judgment Day: Bloody Battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 806: Judgment Day: Bloody Battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were many terrible consequences of magic counter-reacting. The copse of magic chords was the best that one could hope for, while elemental chaos, elemental disintegration, and burning of mental strength would all be fatal.


    That mage was no exception. His mental strength began to burn and two balls of me danced in his eye sockets while the elements around him formed an insignificant elemental storm.


    Despite its insignificance, there were signs of the mage¡¯s skin cracking under his white magic robe.


    When the winged skeleton saw this, he twisted his body in mid-air and swung the giant axe behind him, cutting more than ten soldiers behind him into two. As for the mage, he had already been scared to death by the winged skeleton¡¯s attack.


    As a spirit of the dead that possessed intelligence, he looked down on mages like that. He could not help but recall how Saleen would cast his spells. No matter who the enemy was, how dangerous the circumstances might be, or even if the enemy¡¯s weapon had pierced through his body, Saleen would still continue to prepare for the next spell quietly.


    Both of them were mages, but the differences between them went beyond just grades.


    The mage had been the biggest threat to the spirits, but because he was dead, the campsite was torn into pieces by the spirits of the dead. The spirits were not of high grades. Aside from the death knights, the rest of the spirits, including the berserk undead soldiers, were merely grade-3 and below.


    When the winged skeleton noticed the copy of the mechanical soul standing still and not doing anything, he used his giant axe to knock its skull and said, ¡°Go and create undead soldiers. You can consume half of them.¡±


    Creak...


    The copy acknowledged him with a high-pitched sound and immediately charged forward to infect the Cloudflow foot soldiers. There was arge amount of undead fluid stored in its body, so it was able to create undead soldiers tens of times faster than the winged skeleton.


    Blood was flowing everywhere. When the knights on both nks finally realized that the foot soldiers¡¯ campsite was under attack, they quickly drew closer to the middle, but what awaited them was the first batch of undead soldiers that had been created, along with the bone arrows of the skeleton archers.


    The winged skeleton had left all the high-level spirits of the dead back in the bone castle in case it was attacked by the enemy. As such, he did not have too many powerful spirits by his side at the time. The only one that he could depend on was the copy of the mechanical soul.


    Fortunately, the winged skeleton had advanced, so he could summon more than tens of thousands of low-level spirits. Although low-level spirits might have poorbat abilities, they were not afraid of swords or knives on the battlefield and were also much stronger than human soldiers. On top of that, the mechanical soul had begun to create undead soldiers. Once they had joined in the battle, the foot soldiers¡¯ campsite looked like it had just been attacked by a swarm of locusts.


    The battle there had attracted the attention of the Cloudflow army. Just ahead was an even bigger campsite with a Cloudflow battalionmander. Once he knew about the appearance of arge number of spirits of the dead, he immediately gave the order for mages and foot soldiers with shields to defend the ground before sending messengers to seek reinforcements from the main force.


    How could there be reinforcements? Over at the arrow towers on top of the city wall, the moment the Bitter Water Prefecture mages realized that there was chaos at the enemy¡¯s rear, they immediately reported it to Lex. She quickly gave the order for the heavy-armored knights and heavy-armored magic foot soldiers to charge out from the city to join in the attack. At the same time, she began to support the ongoing battle outside the city with her spells.


    On top of the seven-story magic tower, the light of magic never stopped shining. A gigantic phoenix glided across the sky and swooped at the Cloudflow forces outside the city. Casting spells from the magic tower allowed Lex to use fewer magic chords, recover them more quickly, and make use of the magic arrays in the magic tower to amplify the power of her spells.


    There were many spirits of the dead in the city that had already participated in the battles outside the city a few times. The mages were summoning about for-thousand spirits of the dead to join Lex¡¯s main force in charging out of the city.


    When the heavy-armored knights left the city, the arrow towers on top of the city wall began to suppress the Cloudflow forces by unleashing a rain of arrows at the same time. The rain of arrowsnded urately on the knights on both nks, while the path ahead of them was a clear target for the catapults. The catapults in the city were no longer worried about exposing their location since the enemy had already lost so many of their own catapults. They could no longer attempt to destroy the heavy-armored weapons in the city.


    The Cloudflow army¡¯s attack was not going well. Although they managed to im the city wall a few times, they never managed to ovee the secondyer of the city wall. Cloudflow was not well-prepared or more, in their rush, they did not replenish the equipment that the winged skeleton had managed to destroy.


    When the army of Daliang City retaliated aggressively, the tempo of the battle changed quickly and exposed the Cloudflow army¡¯s weaknesses. The soldiers who were attacking the city wall began to turn back and pursue the Daliang City army that charged past them, thereby exposing their backs to the archers. Once both nks had been suppressed by the alchemy crossbow arrows shot from the arrow towers, Cloudflow failed to deploy a ballista there to counter the attack. Instead, they retreated even further away.


    It wasmon knowledge that even though arrow towers could cause a lot of damage, they did notst long. Cloudflow had nned to attack from the nks again once the arrow towers stopped.


    To the Qin generals,manding one¡¯s army in that way was quite stupid.


    Heavy-armored magic foot soldiers followed behind the heavy-armored knights charging out of the city. They quickly filled up both nks before another huge group of heavy-armored knights left the city with a mixture of death knights in the center.


    The city gate closed quickly. Cloudflow did not even manage to grasp the opportunity to spring a counter-attack when the city gate was opened.


    After the knights left the city, they did not charge at the main forces of Cloudflow because a mile away there were low metal fences that were covered in spikes. No matter how foolish Cloudflow might be, they would never allow their knights to charge through their formation so easily.


    The winged skeleton put away his giant axe. There were regrets in his heart as he wished that his weapon had not been destroyed by the sorcerer. Both sides of the giant axe were able to store a high-level death magic spell each, so he could have saved on so much trouble.


    He took out a magic staff. The soul mes in his eyes danced aggressively as a low voice spoke in spiritnguage that rang around every corner of his head. Gigantic bone walls rose around the winged skeleton. He raised his magic staff into the air and the surrounding spirit energy quickly rose. The spirits of the dead nearby all drew closer to him while the corpses on the ground also began to crawl towards the white bone wall.


    ¡°Since ancient times, spirits of the dead have always co-existed with the living. Death also means eternity...¡± The winged skeleton began to chant things that resembled the prayers of divine spells.


    ¡°There are no inferior souls, only fallen flesh and bodies. When death calls, everything is equal!¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice became louder. The knights that were charging on both nks heard what he said. Although they did not understand the meaning of the spiritnguage that he spoke in, all of them felt as if death was about to take them.


    ¡°The fury of the dead arises from the sins of the living. Powerful beings of the death dimension, obey my summoning and give me the power for revenge. I shall offer all the living creatures here as sacrifices to you!¡±


    When the winged skeleton¡¯s voice stopped, there appeared a gigantic ck swirl in the sky where his staff was pointed. Within the ck swirl came a deafening howl that could be heard tens of miles away. The Cloudflow knights nearby even fell off their warhorses. Their warhorses also copsed in convulsion and fainted.


    The moon in the sky shed and while the deafening howl in the ck swirl did not stop, a stream of blood shot up into the sky from the eight yard wide swirl.


    The stream of blood shot up to hundreds of yards in the sky without stopping, until it was close to a thousand yards. That was when it began to spin and coagte together. Looking up from the ground, it was as if a blood-red moon had appeared in the sky, giving it a sinister appearance.


    The fresh blood of the blood river continued to gather in the sky. It seemed that the winged skeleton had no intentions of stopping the death magic spell until half a minuteter when he could persist no further. The magic staff in his hands suddenly broke into pieces.


    The ck swirl shrunk quickly until it vanished, but the howl persisted. Within half a minute, the blood in the sky had spread to an area of more than a thousand yards.


    ¡°Night of the Dead Spirits ¨C Rain of Blood!¡± The winged skeleton shouted.


    After the winged skeleton concluded the spell, a light tremor appeared between every foot of the blood clouds in the sky. Blood expanded with every tremor, covering up an evenrger area of the sky.


    Forbidden spells existed on the death dimension as well, but they were not the same as the humans¡¯ forbidden curses. Forbidden spells were extremely powerful, but in exchange, some souls would vanish forever. The Priests of the Caucasus people could destroy souls or even shred them into pieces, but they did not have the ability to turn soul strength into nothingness. Some death magic spells could only be cast if the energy of the souls had beenpletely used up.


    The souls of the Myers Maind dimension would not suffice. Only the souls of the death dimension would allow for the full power of the forbidden spells to be unleashed.


    Night of the Dead Spirits ¨C Rain of Blood was one such spell. The winged skeleton had no choice but to utilize the real summoning technique of his dimension at the same time by borrowing the powers of the Kings of the death dimension to bring out the blood river and set up this spell properly.


    The surface area of this spell was so huge that people that were eight miles away in Daliang City could see it very clearly.


    Lex could not help but walk to the window of the magic tower. As she looked at the blood clouds underneath the moon, she could not help but think to herself, ¡°It has been a thousand years... Ever since the rise of Qin, no one has ever seen such powerful death magic spells. I suppose the winged skeleton has advanced?¡±


    Afterpleting the spell, the winged skeleton was greatly weakened. He had no choice but to take out a few dead soul mes for consumption in order to regain his energy.


    Casting this type of spell on his own was really risky. Fortunately, his body was resilient enough. The thing within the swirl did not dare to try and snatch it. If it had been his original body, not only would it fail to exude the level of power of a spirit king, there might even have been a counter-reaction.


    The Cloudflow soldiers were so terrified that even the generals failed to calm them down. The funniest thing was that the mages were the first to flee. Those that were not able to fly quickly snatched the warhorses and escape towards the south.


    As the rain of blood fell from the clouds, it felt as if there were gigantic mouths hidden within the blood clouds that were vomiting the rain of blood. The rain of blood fell onto the heads and bodies of the Cloudflow soldiers. It prated through their armor and entered their bodies.


    Screams of madness quickly spread throughout the Cloudflow soldiers. Once the rain of blood entered their bodies, the howling within the ck swirl could be heard in their brains. It was deafening, leaving them with no choice but to scream along as well. Their eyes quickly dimmed and almost immediately, their eyeballs began to rot.


    Soul mes lit up in the empty eye sockets as these soldiers quickly transformed into spirits of the dead.

 Chapter 807: Weakness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 807: Weakness (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Cloudflow Empire suffered a devastating blow under the forbidden magic of the winged skeleton. Night of the Dead Spirits and Rain of Blood encased the entire battlefront of more than three-thousand yards. Under the Rain of Blood, there were only mages holding on by casting all-around magic shields, while soldiers donning all-sealing armor stood at the edge of the Rain of Blood.


    The spell was known to be terrifying, not only for its powerful prative ability and vast area of effect, but also for the shrieks of countless spirits that were heard at the forming of a huge ck vortex in the beginning of the spell. It severely distressed all living beings within.


    Any warriors who were of a rank lower than swordmasters were rendered stiff from terror for a short period of time. They were ughtered by the Rain of Blood right where they stood.


    It was near-impossible to defend against such a spell. Sorcerers were capable of covering for those within two to three-hundred yards, while grand mages were only capable of doing so for tens of yards. As for white-robed, low level mages, their hands were full just covering themselves.


    All other soldiers were turned into spirits one by one. The Rain of Blood persisted for more than half an hour, with the Cloud of Blood moving slowly in the air. Hundreds of thousands were ughtered by the Rain of Blood within the central territory of the Cloudflow people, except for the vanguards nearing the city walls.


    The only weakness of the first half of the spell was that it was almostpletely ineffective against mages.


    Low levelmon soldiers werepletely destroyed by the Rain of Blood, without so much even a chance to turn into dead spirits. Somewhat stronger soldiers were able to burn soul mes within the rain.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s surrounding bone walls were crushed as he finished casting the spell. The huge drops of blood carried more prative power than any alchemy crossbow, it was Death Magic instead of physical attack.


    The blood-like colors remained even as the Cloud of Blood thinned. A transparent red membrane seemed to have covered the clear night sky. The light of the moon shone on the ground through the red membrane. Within the vicinity of the spell, the reek of blood was everywhere.


    The people of Bitterwater prefecture at the walls were in shock witnessing what had just taken ce. There were no fewer than six-hundred-thousand invaders from Cloudflow attacking the city from outside. While the bulk of the force was positioned at the rear and the nks, those who came head on still numbered more than two-hundred-thousand. Daliang was able to kill fewer than fifty-thousand throughout the skirmishes between both sides, and total casualties on both sides numbered fewer than one-hundred-thousand.


    Daliang suffered heavy casualties. While the number of troops killed was of a smaller number, the total count of casualties suffered was more than one-third of Cloudflow¡¯s.


    Heavy cavalry and heavy magic infantry that went to fight outside the walls were also caught within the area of effect of Night of the Dead Spirits. The winged skeleton was unable to control the vicinity of such a high level magic. It was fortunate thatrge numbers of spirits also went outside with the living forces, allowing them to show their advantage in the case. They hauled the nearby troops and ferried them back into the city.


    The ones in the city were dumbfounded for a moment before swiftly sendingrger forces outside to rescue their own who were caught under the influence of Night of the Dead Spirits. It was also fortunate that the spell was conjured near the walls, and as such, the shrieks of the spirits were unable to affect anyone.


    Onerge scale magic spell practically killed more than ten-thousand of the invaders from Cloudflow in a single blow. More than seventy-thousand turned into spirits among said number killed. Surviving mages and swordmasters were among the spirits.


    All seventy-thousand spirits shrieked at the same time as the Rain of Blood stopped. They had had no vocal chords and no need for breathing. Their shrieks were tremors that resounded from their crushed bones.


    Seeing that their spell waspleted, all newly formed spirits of the dead gained a will to fight and were able to identify friend from foe. The winged skeleton spread his golden wings without hesitation and made for the bone castle.


    ¡°Wait for me!¡±, the Mechanical Soul¡¯s double shouted and began transforming, bing a metal triangr sheet it took flight after the winged skeleton.


    There was a reason why the winged skeleton fled. They knew that staying there would not have helped much with killing more of the enemy. If that grade-9 sorcerer were to show up among their ranks, the winged skeleton had practically just gave up their chance to flee.


    The winged skeleton had been defeated once, and all his gear equipped was destroyed. His current powers disyed were entirely his own, and that would not have been near enough to even consider taking on the grade-9 sorcerer.


    Seeing how Soldier fled, the Mechanical Soul¡¯s double had decided not to stay behind on the battlefield. It knew well of what the winged skeleton feared. The winged skeleton would not have been able to take on the grade-9 sorcerer without a spirit magic tower. The winged skeleton dared not even consider taking on the sorcerer, the double felt even less like considering such a feat. Unless it had grown to surpass the level of kings, it did not even have as much ability to flee as the winged skeleton on the maind.


    Soldier threw the spirits of the dead they brought without hesitation. They were unsure of how long it would have taken for the grade-9 sorcerer to show up. If the winged skeleton had a clear idea of that, he would have stayed on the battlefield and fought to the end.


    That grade-9 sorcerer was regretting destroying Lex¡¯s pce, and had shown intentions of hiding back in Cloudflow.


    The invading force outside the city neared four-hundred-thousand strong. Truebatants made up for less than half of the force. Some were in charge of managingrge scale equipment and some tending to magic beasts. They were to go up against seventy-thousand spirits.


    The reddish tint in the sky grew thin, and the voices of the spirits were heard throughout the battlefront. Dwellers of Daliang were preparing for another round outside the city, and two camps guarding the wall at the west were quickly mobilized to the battlefield. They no longer had to worry about Cloudflow invaders dividing their forces and attacking different fronts; they had had lost their best chance at doing so.


    It was a tragedy for the Cloudflow invaders that they had not thought of assigning magic chariots in the middle of their territory. They would have been able to pose great difficulty to Soldier unleashing such forbidden magic, even with just three to five chariots and little more than ten grand mages assigned. The winged skeleton probably would not have been able to finish chanting.


    No expression was shown in the winged skeleton¡¯s dark eyes. Their Soul me had be pitch ck in that moment. The Mechanical Soul trailed behind and kept whining. Keeping up with the Winged Skull proved difficult even after several transformations.


    The grade-9 sorcerer was at the main camp near the sea, while the invaders from Cloudflow outside Daliang had lost all will to fight. Their surrounding army did not so much as know what happened.


    The line of Cloudflow invaders practically crumbled as the first deserter ran in the other direction.


    When the mobilized troops in Daliang rushed outside the city to meet their invaders, all they saw were shadows of said invaders fleeing afar. The dead bodies left on the field were mostly the work of the seventy-thousand spirits of the dead, and a good number from stampedes caused by the fleeing invaders.


    The Cloudflow invaders only had one-hundred-thousand elites, with most of them focused on the front, which was very near to where the winged skeleton cast his spell. The Rain of Blood massacred the best of the Cloudflow¡¯s elite forces.


    Seeing the atrocities wrought by Soldier, Lex¡¯s thirst for revenge thinned considerably.


    What was going on in Lex¡¯s mind was that if they had any way of taking on the grade-9 sorcerer from Cloudflow, then the main camp set up at the shores near the sea would have also been able to be broken.


    Ironies had their ways of finding the unfortunate. As the invaders fled without any order to speak of, some ended up lost and managed to find their way to the west wall of Daliang City. It was ridiculous to even think about fleeing troops running in the direction of their enemies. The two camps stationed outside the city took these blundering deserters in as prisoners of war.


    The invaders who were fleeing from the spirits of the dead ran straight for the sea. The people of Cloudflow felt the safest when they were near water. It waspounded by the fact that the sorcerer was at the main camp near the sea.


    After chasing after the deserters for tens of miles, Daliang¡¯s troops decided to retreat, as Lex forbade them from getting too far from the city. What the winged skeleton pulledpletely broke the Cloudflow invaders¡¯ assault, but it also set a very dire precedent: killing civilians during wartime using magic spells withrge areas of effect.


    There were hardly anyws for persecuting mages who killed people. Ifrge numbers of civilians were to be killed by magic, Alchemy City would send someone to deal with the mage who did so. The reasoning for it was that such a mage would have not only made civilians fear mages, but also loathe and hate them as well. The status of mages within Qin was not something attainable through sheer power alone.


    Of course, such reasoning was only a front. The true reason why Alchemy City would have done so was only to maintain their authority. All mages had to submit to their rules and governance, even those outside Alchemy City. Anyone who dared challenge their authority in such ways, would be dealt with by Alchemy City sending huge numbers of sorcerers, which would have proved more than enough to deal with such threats.


    It was fortunate that Saleen was on bad terms with Alchemy City. Did Hogina return the news then?


    The spirits pursued the deserters to the new city near the sea, and the fleeing troops roused the sorcerer who was about to rest. The sorcerer had no idea what happened. They took to the sky and found their forces in shambles, which almost had the sorcerer wondering if their eyes were ying tricks on them.


    Morale within Daliang should have practically been nonexistent due to what they had pulled in the city. How was it possible that it was their army that was at the losing side instead?


    ¡°Was there yet another powerful mage hiding within the city? Or a new mage joining their ranks? No, that¡¯s not right. Lex gave the six-winged flying snake to Saleen, and that thing was almost capable ofmanding the hidden powers of the Grukos. Are there other mages from Qin then?¡± The grade-9 sorcerer shivered at the thought of the extent of the Grukos¡¯ powers, so much so that he did not even bother going out to support the broken army. Instead he flew back to camp, told the remaining grade-8 mages of what happened, and made for the sea.


    Cloudflow was on the other side.


    The sorcerer dared not stay a moment longer, fearing that it was another trap set by the Grukos specifically for them. ¡°Did someone find out about the secret of me having a magic amplifier? If Alchemy City were to know of such things, they probably would havee for it at all cost!¡±


    Lex had not the slightest thought that one such terrifying sorcerer, who dared destroy her pce, would ended up fleeing! If she knew what happened, she would have made a move to raze all military camps nearby, encouraged by the newfound victory. She might have even thought of destroying all their warships at sea.


    The winged skeleton was shaking all over as well. He would not have made a move if he was not concerned for Saleen. He headed straight for the magic tower as he flew back to the bone castle, and locked himself in. The sorcerer was probably burning in rage knowing so many of his own had been killed.


    The invasion nned by the Cloudflow people for more than half a year ended unceremoniously. Dead spirits within the bone castle came to report at first light that the invaders were crafting small boats and were ferrying troops away.


    There were hardly any other options left. With the grade-9 sorcerer fleeing the battlefield, the remaining grade-8 ones no longer felt capable of continuing with the assault. There were still capable generals within the army, but without the grade-9 powerful one to oversee things, the invaders felt rather insecure.


    Lex was steeped in regret reading the reports. She saw personally how the Cloudflow invaders fought and thought them to be brave soldiers. She even thought that the rumors about Cloudflow people being cowards were just made-up stuff meant for casual mockery. With the whole truthid before her eyes, Lex had finally believed it: Cloudflow indeed had the worst army on the whole continent.


    ¡°If I had only known them to be such, I would have struck without any hesitation!¡±

 Chapter 808: Weakness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 808: Weakness (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Each of the four empires of the Myers Maind had an analogy to them. The Cloudflow people were known unanimously as porcin.


    Porcin was hard, sometimes even harder than metals, but porcin was at the same time, fragile. If a child were to throw a porcin ware on the ground, it would have been reduced to pieces, despite the promise of never getting scratches for more than a millennium.


    Such was the fortitude of the Cloudflow people. It was wise to not be misled by the illusions shown on the outside. So long as one were to have strength equivalent to a child¡¯s, one would have been able to easily defeat them.


    It was not known how much time it would take to kill all the remaining six-hundred-thousand troops, but none of them had any intention of staying. Lex even sent scouts into the new city by the shore to get information on them.


    The bulk of the Cloudflow army consisted of new recruits, so things were renderedpletely chaotic.


    Lex, being careful as always, had only heard about the sorcerer¡¯s departure on the third day. At the time, there were still about three-hundred-thousand soldiers from Cloudflow around. The big ships had all left, what remained was high speed warships that were not able to carry many. The warships had narrow designs, capable of great speed. They were fitted with all manners of heavy weapons. As such, there was not much space left for carrying personnel.


    Some Cloudflow people resorted to chopping down trees to make raft-like boats.


    Lex was afraid that all of it was only a trap set by the invaders, or that the grade-9 sorcerer never left in the first ce, only hiding somewhere instead. As such, Lex put off any thought of assaulting the remaining forces.


    The winged skeleton shared the same thought, but had instead chose to keep sending low level spirits to harass them. Opportunities like that were hard toe by. The Mechanical Soul was among those who went to harass them.


    The Mechanical Soul was almost done with self repair and had stopped using body doubles. Ever since it followed the Soldier, serious restrictions were put on its consumption. It was forbidden from consuming spirits without expressed permission from the winged skeleton. Even the remains of said spirits were rendered off-limits. During every deployment, so long as there were enemies that were turned into spirits of the dead, it was allowed by the winged skeleton to consume half of them.


    Saleen trained for another three days in the magic tower before leaving.


    Eleanor¡¯s body remained within the mage¡¯s crystal coffin on the seventh floor. Said floor was made a restricted area, with no one else allowed inside but Stephanie.


    Stephanie had not had any sleep for three days and nights straight, and gave no thought to Saleen upying the topmost floor of her tower. The topmost floor of a magic tower served as the living space of a mage and held great significance. To Stephanie in that moment, what was most important was to research the differences between elves and humans.


    A mage¡¯s crystal coffin required little maintenance. Periodic change of magic nuclei and magic pharmaceuticals would suffice.


    Stephanie devoted most of her time to study Eleanor. Across from the crystal coffin, was a three-dimensional alchemy table she had just reconstructed. All manner of biological samples taken from Eleanor were stored within the hundreds of crystal bottles.


    Eleanor suffered too many injuries, and thus a small puppet was required to enter the crystal coffin to perform surgery on her. All that was performed with her submerged in restorative water. The crystal coffin was filled with liquids: grade-7 magic liquid mixed with restorative water. It was done to maintain Eleanor¡¯s life force.


    The smallest of small puppets was only asrge as half of a person¡¯s palm. Their limbs consisted of sharp scalpels, for cutting necrotic flesh or any ces needed mending. They were useful for carving out lines as well, to enable regeneration of muscles.


    There was a type of mage called a magic pharmacist, who derived joy in curing people¡¯s ailments.


    Stephanie was no magic pharmacist, but her small puppet was itself a piece of equipment above the rank of holy equipment. All of it was initially prepared for the sake of Emperor Chanake. Stephanie had once dreamed of a day where the most powerful of man in Qin would have one day lie within the crystal coffin, with her attending to his treatment.


    That man was dead. No matter how powerful one was, there was no way one could have withstood so many attacks from so many powerful ones. The one lying in the coffin was instead, an elf.


    Conducting research in the name of healing was amon urrence among mages, which Saleen turned a blind eye to. No less than three to five months was required to heal the extent of injuries Eleanor suffered. Mages were no gods. Even holy masters would probably have been able to do little with such grave injuries.


    Su was the one healing the quickest. The heavenly angel¡¯s attack had only nced him, and he was protected by armor. That extent of injury was not something a silver swordmaster was unable to handle.


    Cuisi suffered injuries that were more severe. His horns were broken, and his powers reduced from a supreme demon to that of a demon, a level which was even lower than when he first met Saleen.


    Cuisi lied there glumly, as Stephanie did not allow him to leave. Demons were after all, great research materials as well.


    If he was a summoned being belonging to Saleen, the oue would have been different. Cuisi was not allowed to take a human form. As such, his massive body was forced to curl pitifully instead.


    Saleen came to the sixth floor of the tower and Su had already left. He felt pity for Cuisi looking like that. Reduction of power was a huge shock to a supreme demon.


    ¡°Cuisi, do you mind telling me your true name?¡±, Saleen went to the demon and sat by his side.


    Vibrancy came to Cuisi¡¯s original gloomy expression. He felt some form of hope from Saleen¡¯s question.


    His real name was only known to Nailisi. A demon¡¯s true name was not something to be shared with others. Nailisi knew so, because she was his master.


    Cuisi¡¯s head drooped again. He knew that Saleen would not let him follow him, for he was Nailisi¡¯s ve.


    ¡°You have helped Eleanor, and for that, you have my thanks. Cuisi, tell me your true name. While I¡¯m unable to have Nailisi sever her contract with you, I can still offer you some degree of freedom. You can address me as your liege from here on out.¡±


    ¡°But...I¡¯m no longer a supreme demon.¡±


    ¡°A lot who followed me in the temple started out as white-robes ormon swordsman when they first met me. Cuisi, restoration of power on the Myers Maind is faster than it is in the demon ne. If you want to be a supreme demon again, I will give you that chance.¡±


    Cuisi turned around andid prostrate on the ground, his head reaching Saleen¡¯s waist.


    ¡°My true name is...¡±, Cuisi said as his eyes searched around for the magic array. If his true name was to be heard by other mages, things would turn for the worst. While demons had great mental powers, their souls were inferior to humans¡¯. If their names were to be known by others, they could be cursed easily with great results. If any powerful ones were to even speak his name, he would have no choice but to submit.


    Saleen knew that within the sixth floor, there was indeed magic arrays set up for the purpose of eavesdropping. Not wanting to cast any istion magic, he had moved his ear near Cuisi¡¯s mouth. The demon whispered it into Saleen¡¯s ear.


    Saleen kept with the pose for half a minute, before Cuisi¡¯s name waspletely told to him.


    ¡°Alright then, Cuisi,¡± Saleen said as he took out a scroll andid it in front of the demon. That was not a follower¡¯s contract, but a simple submission contract. The binding power of this contract was small. Cuisi would be able to defy Saleen¡¯s order as soon as he moved out of sight, without suffering any reprisals from the contract.


    ¡°My liege. Can you I address you as such?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you may, Cuisi. I will request Stephanie to patch you up as soon as possible,¡± Saleen got out of the tower as soon as he finished and went looking for Lex.


    Lex did not continue staying within the magic tower despite her pce being destroyed. That was because she had political matters to address. If reporting officials and nobles were to enter the ruins all the time, their moods would have been greatly affected.


    Lex¡¯s temporary residence was chosen to be among a group of buildings near the northern magic tower of the city. This was originally a small castle outside of the ancient city of Daliang. Lex converted the ce into her temporary pce.


    The Dragonyer army garrisoned outside the pce. Two-hundred of Saleen¡¯s personal guards resided within the pce. These two-hundred were very fortunate; no one suffered any injuries or ended up dead.


    Saleen did not bring many with him, only mages numbering to about a dozen, and their guards. Saleen came to Lex¡¯s temporary residence and walked right in. The guards consisted of familiar faces, and the ones guarding Lex¡¯s residence were swordmasters armed with elvish alchemy crossbows.


    ¡°Lex, I¡¯ming in.¡±


    ¡°Oh, Saleen, it¡¯s you...¡±, all signs of exhaustion were wiped off her face as soon as she saw him.


    ¡°I did great!¡±, Saleen pointed at his own devil¡¯s armor as he told Lex the news; he had been able to undo all the seals on it. The seals ced on it by Joey were difficult ones, but as soon as Saleen had reached the upper tier of grade-7, he was able to gradually undo them. If he was to be a grade-8 mage, he would have been able to undo the firstyer of the suit within hours.


    ¡°It was a pity that, ording to intel, that darned fellow fled. You don¡¯t know that yet, do you?¡±


    ¡°So I have heard,¡± Saleen gave a bitter smile. He had been rushing to undo the seals just so that he would have been prepared to fight the grade-9 sorcerer. A grade-8 Endless Night would have been able to keep the sorcerer caged for a brief moment, a period of which he could have killed him with the power of his badge.


    ¡°So, it¡¯s a ceasefire for now then?¡±


    ¡°The war between us and Cloudflow ceased for the moment. Our war with the Holy See has just begun. Saleen, the Holy See tried to kill you and me both; I have given the order to use Bloody Impact against them.¡±


    Saleen was not a true noble, and as such, he was dumbfounded for a brief moment before he grasped the meaning of the term.


    ¡°Lex, If you have decided to do so, then you have my support,¡± Saleen answered firmly despite having reservations on the decision.


    ¡°There is no need for that this time. We are no match for the Holy See if we were to sh head-on. The ones I sent were all assassins. Since they sent someone to assassinate me, then they shall suffer their fates with the same means.¡±


    ¡°So...¡±


    ¡°Saleen, just go back to Metatrin City for now.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±, Saleen looked at her, puzzled by what she meant by that.


    ¡°Leave Eleanor to me, or Master Stephanie will just keep ripping you off. Have Nichs and Soldier go back with you. It¡¯s mid-April now. If you don¡¯t make it to the Oceanic Ice Block, we will have to starve for the whole year,¡± Lex smiled as she spoke to Saleen. She knew well that the most important thing to Saleen on this return, was Sika.


    Lex felt weak as she thought so, and was about to cry.

 Chapter 809: This is my Territory (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 809: This is my Territory (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The person that Saleen had in mind was not Sika, after all, she had already told him when he should make his return. As for the Oceanic Ice Block, Saleen had decided to take a risk. At the very least, he nned to arrange some spirits of the dead to head to the ind that he had given up on developing.


    The war was just about to begin for the Metatrin Kingdom. The battle with Cloudflow had caused the winged skeleton to lose manybat vessels. If he did not rush back soon, Alchemy City would reallyunch an attack and Metatrin City would be doomed.


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then I will head back as soon as I can, but Lex...¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Lex was disappointed to hear Saleen give his promise so quickly. She did not expect Saleen to stop speaking and cast a gigantic water shield to enclose them alone.


    ¡°What are you doing?!¡± Lex¡¯s face was red. Of course, she knew what Saleen was doing.


    ¡°To mages, repeated practice is always more reliable than memory spells. Lex, I am leaving soon. I hope that you will miss me.¡±


    ¡°Ooh...¡± Lex¡¯s mouth was blocked by Saleen, who was hugging her with both his hands criss-crossed behind her back, pushing her close to his chest.


    ¡°I will... miss you...¡±


    ¡°Lex, it¡¯s only been a few days and you already feel distant!¡± Saleenughed. Outside of the water shield was fog that blocked off anyone that might try to peer in.


    The Cloudflow forces retreated very quickly because their logistics could no longer support them in the battle. In addition, the remaining people were constantly being harassed by the spirits of the dead. Rain of Blood had created more than 70,000 spirits, but less than 10,000 of them remained. The remaining spirits possessed some intelligence. They no longer gave their utmost in every attack. Instead, they would pick the spots that gave them higher chances of sess and if they were about to lose, they would quickly flee.


    Agares had left Misty City, leaving his brother behind as the Regent. The Prince did not send reinforcements because the Holy See had also been defeated at Sanlian City.


    The demon army, which had appeared unexpectedly, was the reason for the Holy See¡¯s defeat. Losing a grade-9 holy priest forced the Holy See to adjust the tempo of their attack.


    Without the coordinated attack of the Holy See, Cloudflow¡¯s attack on Daliang City from the Separation Sea was barely a threatening one.


    It was under such circumstances that Saleen had decided to bring the winged skeleton back to Metatrin City along with him. He nned to head out to the ocean for hunting in order to gather the resources he would need for the next battle. He must not forget about Alchemy City. He wondered how Hogina was doing.


    Saleen did not ask around about her. When Grand Master Imposa came through Daliang City, he did not see Saleen nor Lex. It seemed that the incident regarding the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake had also raised some concern in Alchemy City.


    Eleanor and Cuisi would continue to stay in Daliang City along with Su, whose injuries had yet to healpletely. They would stay and assist Lex along with Nichs. Isabe and the three demons would stay behind in the bone castle along with someone slightly special: Mu En.


    ording to the winged skeleton, Mu En was someone who was not suitable for practicing in death magic but one day, something seemed to strike him and, he began improving tremendously. The winged skeleton did not understand the reason behind that improvement. After all, how could one¡¯s talent change?


    Mu En was already used to interacting with spirits of the dead. At least after he had be a low-level death mage, he no longer needed to be concerned with the issue of riding.


    Mu En wore a ck magic robe with three rows of magic symbols, had a magic staff in his hands, and rode a ck beast within the army. Surrounding him were more than 100 death mages. The battle at Daliang City had ended and Lex no longer needed so many mages urgently, so the death mages would return to Metatrin with Saleen.


    Much credit must go to these mages. Without the spirits of the dead, Daliang City would have suffered a lot more losses. Many soldiers would have died in battle instead of only sustaining some injuries like they had.


    Lex was also fortunate to have her God¡¯s Ring. All the valuable resources and gifts for the wedding were all kept in God¡¯s Ring. When the grade-9 sorcerer was crazy enough to bombard the pce, only the expendable items in the warehouse were destroyed, not the valuable items.


    Lex insisted on having half of Saleen¡¯s 200 bodyguards return to Metatrin City with him. On that return trip, Saleen would be bringing along a battalion of soldiers and horses. An entire army would not have been able to travel as quickly as a small force like that. They would have to travel on main roads in order expend less energy and also to ensure a more consistent pace of travel.


    As they did not bring along auxiliary soldiers, a battalion of 10,000 men managed to travel quickly through Lex¡¯s territories in Lun and reached the border of Qin.


    The Qin noble families knew that it was Saleen who has returned and none of them dared to harass him at the border. When Saleen advanced in Daliang City, pigeons flew all over Qin to deliver the news that the king of Metatrin and the husband of the ruler of Bitterwater Prefecture possessed the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake.


    By right when as many as 10,000 soldiers crossed the border, it wasmon to extort some money and sell them some overpriced logistical supplies. Since it was Saleen, the noble families decided that hiding from him was a better option.


    Whoever got too close to Saleen would be mistaken to be disloyal to Holy Rock City. At that point in time, it was probably best not to take sides. If one must choose a side, it was probably better to obey Holy Rock City first. After all, Holy Rock City was where the Qin Empire¡¯s powers were concentrated at. No matter how prestigious Lex¡¯s status had be, she would still need to respect tradition.


    Tradition was the foundation of the country¡¯s stability.


    The battalion had been traveling at about 30 miles an hour without encountering any trouble. In order to travel at the knights¡¯ pace of 40 miles an hour, they had no choice but to leave behind the foot soldiers.


    Fortunately, the elite soldiers were full of energy and only needed very little rest. Every day, they traveled at a fast pace over 300 miles.


    As they had chosen to travel on main roads, Saleen took about 90 days to return to Metatrin City.


    Many things happened within those three months and the most important thing was that one-third of the southern Qin noble families had dered their support for Lex. They had also strongly condemned Cloudflow¡¯s attack on Bitterwater Prefecture. If it was only condemnation, Cloudflow would have no reason to worry since it would not really affect them.


    The noble families of southern Qin had begun to build ships. The southern tip of Qin was surrounded by sea and it had a short coastline. Nevertheless, the conditions made for a suitable natural harbor.


    Judging from the wealth of the Qins and the number of mages there, the noble families in the south had the ability to construct a fleet of vessels of considerable strength, which would amount to more than 60bat vessels in total, regardless of their size.


    Cloudflow would not be concerned with such a small fleet ofbat vessels. The problem was that Qin was connected to the Separation Sea and thereuponid Cloudflow¡¯s weakness.


    The second thing was that after the Holy See¡¯s attack had been repelled, the armies of the Qin noble families had advanced all the way to the border of God Grace Duchy.


    That was within Saleen¡¯s expectations. In order to attack Lex¡¯s Bitterwater Prefecture, the Holy See had deployed many soldiers there, but they ended up being ughtered by the demon army. Naturally, their forces at the frontline in the north were weakened as a result.


    The third thing was odd. Two Alchemy Citybat vessels were attacked while on their way to Lianyun City and there were no survivors.


    Saleen could not be sure if thebat vessels were targeting Metatrin City but he could guess that only two people could have been responsible for what happened. They were Joey and Fycro.


    Saleen did not hide the fact that Alchemy City had threatened him and had even publicized it. When the news reached Alchemy City, the twobat vessels left shortly after. Saleen would never believe that their disappearance was due to them having fun in Lianyun City.


    Fycro and Joey must have heard about the news. If Joey was responsible for it, then he must have done it in order to help Lex. If it was Fycro, then he did it only to help himself.


    Saleen guessed that it must have been to send Alchemy City a warning.


    Metatrin City has be the most prosperous city in the north of the Maind, there was nowhere simr to it in Phoenix. When Saleen finally returned back to his kingdom, he did not rush. Instead, he kept to the normal pace and traveled towards the east.


    News of Saleen¡¯s return had reached Metatrin City long ago and Sika simply could not wait. That was because the Caucasus people outside the city were bing more and more difficult.


    If Saleen had not returned, she might have had to resort to extreme measures.


    The Caucasus people in the north refused to pay taxes, iming that no Caucasus person had ever done so. They also imed that since they lived in the mountains, they never demanded any resources. They said they should be given more respect and granted with freedom instead of bing the training grounds for Metatrin soldiers.


    It was already the middle of July. The Caucasus people outside the city had wanted to buy some medical supplies and weapons, but when Daniel sent his tax officer, he was rejected and sent back.


    The south of Metatrin City was not as poor as what the east Caucasus people imed. There were towering old trees everywhere and the number of magic beasts wasparable to that in the ocean. Mushrooms, potatoes, and beans were growing very well on thosends. There were enough caves in the mountains so that the Caucasus people did not even need to build any houses.


    Sika had wanted tounch an attack on them, but she did not have enough soldiers in the city. The Caucasus people outside the city were all powerful and strong warriors in the mountains. Even Saleen¡¯s elite soldiers might not be a match for the Caucasus warriors if they were to battle in the mountains.


    Sika was overjoyed with Saleen¡¯s return. Under the protection of J and 36 Caucasus warriors, she left the temple in order to wee Saleen back.


    When Saleen saw Sika from afar, he could not help butugh. The armor that he had refined for her was so excellent that its shape could be transformed. Sika¡¯s stomach was huge because there were two babies. Although it was still a long way from the expected date of her giving birth, her stomach was already very obvious.


    ¡°Sika!¡± Saleen shouted. He had not increased his speed during the entire journey as he had followed the pace of the entire group. He had actually been using his elemental eyes to observe their surroundings along the way. In actual fact, he could no longer bear with it and began to increase his speed. Lex would have been upset to hear about that.


    This was when Saleen finally understood how difficult it would be to have more than one woman in his life.

 Chapter 810: This is my Territory (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 810: This is my Territory (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was noon. There were no shadows on the west side of the temple, so Sika¡¯s smile seemed even brighter under the sunlight.


    ¡°Hey, Saleen, you are so impressive now!¡± Sika waited until Saleen was close enough before she patted him on his shoulder. It was the first time Saleen felt Sika could be that gentle.


    It was extremely difficult to control one¡¯s power. What Sika was doing was already much better than most grand swordmasters.


    ¡°What do you mean?!¡±


    ¡°Lex has given you the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake. I finally understood what that was after asking a few mages.¡± Saleen¡¯s face turned red the moment Sika came closer.


    ¡°That... Is your body alright?¡±


    ¡°Of course, but they won¡¯t allow me to exercise much. I¡¯m so bored. You must apany me now that you are back.¡±


    Saleen calcted silently in his heart. They were in the middle of July. He would have to set off immediately in order to reach the Oceanic Ice Block in time, otherwise he would have to try his luck and go there on his alchemy ship alone. There was still another four months before Sika would give birth, so there should still be enough time.


    What if he brought Sika along? Surely the Caucasus people would go mad!


    Daniel was still managing the daily administrative duties in the city, so he did note forth to wee Saleen back. The three Duchesses were not present either because all of them understood that Saleen would want to spend time with Sika, so they would rather not be a wet nket. When Saleen and Sika returned to the temple, they dismissed the people around them. Once the room was left with only the two of them, Sika kicked Saleen¡¯s calf.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know how worried I was when I was here all alone?¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Saleen was taken by surprise. He realized that Sika¡¯s kick was ridiculously light. It was as if she was a weakdy who was throwing a temper.


    ¡°Sika, I am back and will not be leaving for the time-being. Next time, I will bring you wherever I go.¡± By then, Saleen knew very well what women would be thinking and it was not as terrifying as what was written in the books. He just needed to be truthful.


    ¡°You have even brought the winged skeleton back with you. I suppose you intend to go out to the sea? I want to go too!¡±


    ¡°The Caucasus people will never agree!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s about time that you have returned. I was about to tell you that the Caucasus people outside the city have rebelled!¡±


    ¡°Rebelled? They probably want you to leave.¡± Saleenughed at how that was really happening, just as he thought. When the north Caucasus people began to arrange their settlements in bigger clusters instead of small viges, it was expected that there would be more room for someone to gain power. When he settled the Caucasus people there in such arge area and allowed them to develop freely, he was not surprised by how things had developed.


    ¡°If you already knew, why didn¡¯t you warn me earlier?¡± Sika asked, rubbing Saleen¡¯s face.


    ¡°So, what did you do?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I locked up the city gate and uncovered the aplices in the city to be resources for my equipment. Caucasus people don¡¯t need to be making ns in secret. I am their Priestess. What they did was a sin against tradition.¡± When Sika finished speaking, she suddenly felt that what she said sounded like what mages had taught her. ¡°Humph, anyway I have cleaned out the people in the city. Now, there are no problems with the southern Caucasus tribes. The northern Caucasus people outside the city need grain and tools now. I was about to ask you if we should treat what they did as rebellion?¡±


    ¡°Of course. This is Metatrin Kingdom. Every inch of theirnd belongs to me,¡± Saleen answered naturally.


    ¡°So how did I do?¡± Sika asked carefully. Although Saleen had made her the Regent, she was still not confident in dealing with mattes as big as that.


    ¡°Not too bad, at least you waited for me toe back to discuss this. Actually, I did not warn you because I wanted you to realize that not all Caucasus people think the same way. I am fonder of the head of your vigepared to those elders, who are always secretly making ns. If this group of people are already considered eptable, then I can¡¯t imagine the northern Caucasus people that you have mentioned. It was intentional. It¡¯s much easier to discuss it with you after all these things have taken ce.¡±


    Saleen spoke his mind and Sika was epting. She only nodded her head and said, ¡°In any case, the thing I wanted to protect in the very beginning was only my vige.¡±


    ¡°I will not start a battle in your name. Thends are mine. If they refuse to pay taxes, then they will just have to get out of my country.¡±


    ¡°When do you intend to strike?¡±


    ¡°After you have given birth. We must not allow the northern Caucasus tribes to get their hands on any goods. We must ensure that the passageway between the southern mountainous regions and the western ins ispletely blocked off. I will build a few more magic buildings there, or I might as well just build some six story magic towers for the grade-6 grand mages to live in.¡±


    ¡°Saleen...¡±


    ¡°Why? Do you think it is cruel?¡±


    ¡°No, it is none of my concern whether they live or die. It is unforgivable that they are trying to snatch you and our children away. What I want to ask is whether you can bring me along to the Oceanic Ice Block?¡±


    It was still the same question. Saleen was pained and said, ¡°Your subordinates will not agree to it.¡±


    ¡°Then let¡¯s just bring them along. I have many powerful people around me now!¡± Sika sounded pleased. All 36 of her bodyguards were Caucasus warriors that were on the same level as zun grand swordmasters.


    ¡°That¡¯s provided you manage to convince them.¡± Of course, Saleen would love to have Sika by his side. It seemed that the threat posed by Alchemy City would note to fruition for the time-being. Alchemy City must have figured out the reason behind the sinking of their twobat vessels.


    ¡°I am now the Caucasus King. Convince them? I can order them, I was only afraid that you would not agree to it.¡±


    ¡°It will be much safer on the shippared to staying in the city. Soldier, he...¡± Saleen thought for a while but did not know how to put his thoughts into words. Not only had the winged skeleton gotten stronger, he seemed to have be more intelligent, gained a desire for more autonomy, and came to possess the ability to create. Was he still considered a spirit of the dead?


    Nevertheless, it was good thing that winged skeleton had be stronger, otherwise the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would not have been repaired so quickly. With the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, Saleen was confident that Sika would not meet with any harm.


    The winged skeleton had described to him how he had battled the sorcerer from Cloudflow. While it was a fact that the grade-9 sorcerer was powerful, the main reason for the winged skeleton being trapped was that the waters of the Separation Sea were too shallow. If the battle had taken ce in the ocean, there was no way the sorcerer would have been able to trap an alchemy ship that could dive thousands of yards under the ocean.


    ¡°Saleen, I forgot that you have juste back. Do you want to rest for a while or eat something first?¡±


    Sika wanted to help Saleen to a seat, but he quickly said, ¡°You don¡¯t have to serve me like this. You seem to have be more... hardworking!¡±


    ¡°No one is letting me do anything, of course I have be keener to work,¡± Sika said unhappily.


    ¡°Let me get someone.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to. There are already people outside.¡± Sika pped her hands and indeed, 12 Caucasus warriors immediately entered Sika¡¯s room. With one nce, Saleen could tell how powerful the warriors were.


    ¡°Your Highness, Your Highness.¡± The Caucasus warriors bowed.


    Sika said, ¡°Prepare some food. Saleen is hungry.¡±


    The warriors replied in unison before leaving enthusiastically. Saleen was a bit taken aback but Sika only said with some frustration, ¡°Now, they are the ones who decide what I can eat. Not only that, the food has to be inspected by sorcerers, death mages, and all sorts of magic array tests before they will serve it to me.¡±


    ¡°Then what are they so enthusiastic about?¡±


    ¡°Maybe they gain pleasure from seeing how helpless I am?¡±


    Sika¡¯sints were useless. Even if the Caucasus people in the city were all loyal to her, she still did not have a say in what she could and could not eat.


    In fact, as an Earth Priestess, she should be the one in the best position to decide if there were any problems with the food. The Caucasus people did not seem to think that way. Their rationale was that the most important thing for Sika was her health, so they must leave no stones unturned in this aspect.


    The Priestess of the Caucasus people was originally a huge andplicated upational system but in the past 1,000 years, it was only left with two branches of Priests ¨C Soul Beast Priestess and Combat Shaman.


    The rarity of Combat Shamans and the final status that they could attain contributed to Sika bing a truly unique Caucasus person. ording to the legends, the strongest Caucasus Priestess was a Nature Priestess.


    Sika could understand how everyone felt. Even if she was not pregnant, her existence was invaluable to the southern Caucasus. Even though her abilities were multiple times stronger than any of her subordinates, thetter would still be the first ones to dash to the forefront to protect her. It seemed that it was time Sika tried to expand some of her skills, such as healing, defense, protection, blessing...


    As for the issue with the northern Caucasus people, Saleen continued to dy. He could see that although the northern Caucasus people had a singlemon goal of their own, they did not have the ability to be independent because the northern Caucasus tribes did not own anynds, huge equipment, nor money.


    Strength alone would not be enough. The amount of money required to build up a kingdom was unimaginable.


    Over time, the northern Caucasus tribes would eventually have to give up. They would either have to fall back in line or take the risk and attack Daliang City. The oue would still be the same, no matter what they chose.


    Saleen was not worried at all that Sika might make the wrong decision. Having more than 300,000 Caucasus warriors outside the city was quite a formidable force. Sika would not unleash them unnecessarily since they barely had enough soldiers in the city. The mountainous regions were dominated by the Caucasus tribes.


    He was not worried about any usations. Thends belonged to Saleen, so he could give them to whoever he wanted.


    The winged skeleton was extremely busy. The moment he returned, he went straight to the harbor and dove in to make sure that the reparation of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would be smooth. When the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was hit by the grade-9 spell, its exterior had be fossilized and its defense dropped quite significantly. The winged skeleton had no choice but to include more stable materials in ce of the areas that have be solidified.


    The weapons were the most important. The winged skeleton had discovered the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat¡¯s weakness, which was that the ship would not be able to ovee huge fleets with only the bone spirit in the spirit pool. Besides, the bone spirit must be under control when nearing the target or else it could easily be hit by the enemy.


    It would not be difficult for any sorcerer to urately hit the bone spirit, thus exploding the bloodstone.


    What the winged skeleton needed to improve was how the bloodstone was being used. Amidst the soul mes of the spirit kings, the winged skeleton managed to obtain plenty of knowledge on dead spirit alchemy technique.


    The bloodstone could be modified so that it was more stable and could be stored more easily but the only problem was the high cost. Since there was only one pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, the issue of high cost could be ignored.

 Chapter 811: An Expensive Honeymoon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 811: An Expensive Honeymoon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked into some of the political matters that he had put off for the next several days and met with the dukes. Saleen had even arranged for Daniel and the winged skeleton to meet and have an exchange.


    Daniel was once the winged skeleton¡¯s master but cast him aside and handed him to Saleen. Daniel had felt no regret seeing how powerful the winged skeleton grew to be, only shame.


    The winged skeleton seemed to have forgotten about the grievances of the past and helped Daniel brush up the Dead Soul me. He helped him improve on its quality and even gave him a coordinate on the dead spirit ne.


    Good dead spirits could only be summoned with a good coordinate. On a piece ofnd that was so barren that only skeletons could be summoned, there was no way a grade-9 dragon bone could be summoned.


    Saleen even inspected the army both inside and outside of the city, and watched a match held in the arena.


    The arena was still earning good money, and revenue even kept increasing. Most of those who walked out of the arena were epted into the army, while a few were hired by nobles to be personal guards.


    That was a fast track to advancement, and many professionals cast their gaze on the arena, resulting in the unusually booming business of the ce. The residents of Metatrin also grew more and more interested in such a sporting event, where ticket fares were low yet there was great spectatorship. One or two people were even able to make big money in the arena every day.


    Sika brought thirty-six Caucasus warriors. There were more than a dozen grand death mages on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The death mages felt as if they were inside a spirit magic tower while being in the ship. The alchemy ship was remodeled in such a way that it could have been used asrge scale equipment by the winged skeleton, as that rid them of the concern of whether Saleen could have been protected adequately.


    If they were to meet powerful foes again, the ship¡¯s speed and diving depth would have enabled the winged skeleton to quickly leave the battlefield.


    The ship¡¯s hold was also remodeled. Saleen¡¯s quarters were moved to the middle of the ship and would have no longer been cramped. The walls of the hold were made of crystals, which enabled improvised magic arrays to be drawn or magic arrays to be set into the walls.


    Sikaid quietly on therge bed in the room,ining to Saleen, ¡°There seems to be nothing to do here. Being on a ship is so boring.¡±


    Just as she finished saying those words, magical lines sparkled on the walls surrounding the room and turning into windows, allowing a better view of the ocean to be transmitted through magic.


    They did not set sail with the hunter floti that time. The Dragon Skeleton Combat Ship driven by the Jade Skeleton led the bone warships, while the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat set sail for the Oceanic Ice Block alone.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was already moving at one-hundred and twenty miles per hour in shallow waters. It was still elerating. Huge bubbles wrapped around the alchemical boat, enabling the ship¡¯s exterior to suffer little friction.


    Sika quieted down as she leaned on a pillow. Saleenid by her side as they admired the view of the ocean.


    The distance between Metatrin City and the Oceanic Ice Block had always been difficult to measure. As soon as they reached the outskirts of the region, the magicpass¡¯ distance measurement function started to go haywire. Common warships would have probably gotten lost as soon as they entered.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was moving so fast that, if it was not for the effects of the magic array, the view outside would have been rendered a blur and hardly anything could have been seen clearly.


    As they were still within nearby waters, the magic beasts seen were hardly powerful ones. The time was July and the fish had not moved southward. The great number of magic beasts in the sea however, was enough to have Sika giggling.


    ¡°Hey, Saleen, look. These fishies are so cute!¡±


    ¡°Those are daggers. They can chew the bones of magic sharks clean,¡± Saleen answered exasperatedly. Sika had little to no idea of oceanic magic beasts. Magic beasts such as daggers traveled in schools, picking specifically onrge magic beasts. Once they found their target, they would rush at it and pick it clean with their teeth, which were one-hundred times sharper than actual daggers.


    ¡°There are so many reeds, and they are shining!¡±


    ¡°There are only reeds near the shore. These are...sea serpents. Very venomous.¡±


    ¡°That cuttlefish, look. Its eyes look so pretty!¡±, Sika said as she pointed at cuttlefish following the ship. The alchemy ship was moving at very high speeds, it ended up having magic beasts of one kind or another following it. The beasts were able to save a lot of energy on traveling simply by following them.


    ¡°It does look like a cuttlefish...but that thing you spoke of, that wasn¡¯t its eyes. That was the cuttlefish¡¯s exposed magic nucleus.¡±


    ¡°Magic nucleus! Quick, have the winged skeleton capture it!¡±


    ¡°Sika, that is a low-level beast. If we were to stop for it, do you know how much magic nuclei that would cost us instead?¡±


    Sika blushed and mumbled, ¡°Well that magic nucleus was all sparkly and colorful. At least it looks pretty.¡±


    Saleen smiled. Sika used to consider even showering to be troublesome. Now she knew how to dress herself up and became fond of pretty, shiny things. She reminded him of a Silver-beaked Raven.


    ¡°But, if you think it¡¯s pretty,¡± Saleen pointed at the cuttlefish following the ship with his finger. A bubble emerged from the exterior and went past the bubbles protecting the ship. It wrapped around the cuttlefish.


    The trapped cuttlefish was a grade-3 magic beast, yet Saleen¡¯s Water Shield was a grade-4 transmuting magic, making it impossible for the creature to struggle free of. Saleen took control of the bubble and had it moved along the body of the ship to the teleportation portal above, sending it inside the alchemy ship.


    It did not take long for the cuttlefish to be bottled and sent to Sika¡¯s room.


    Saleen held the bottle in his hand and Sika smiled while looking at the cuttlefish in it. The eyes of the creature were very small, and above where the eyes were, was the colorful exposed magic nucleus. Its tentacles, numbering around a dozen, whacked hard on the bottle, wanting to break its cage.


    Sika had only found when looking up close that the two exposed magic nuclei were able to shine on each other, and cast effects rendering the creature¡¯s target dazed and confused. It was only due to her and Saleen¡¯s levels being way above the cuttlefish¡¯s, that they were unaffected.


    ¡°I remember now. This thing is something the ck mages like using. They grind it down to powder and it can even be ingested,¡± Saleen looked at the magic beast and thought of its origins suddenly.


    ¡°Eating a magic nucleus? Isn¡¯t that just like what Nailisi does?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s grinding it down to powder and making ck magic pharmaceuticals capable of enhancing one¡¯sbat capacity. It also enables mental powers to be more focused during prayers.¡±


    The bottle shook gently. The cuttlefish spit ink all over the bottle, rendering the entire content pitch ck. The beast had little intelligence, and it was merely trying to struggle with thest ounce of its strength, driven by instinct.


    ¡°Can we actually keep this thing?¡±, Saleen was not able to resist asking. While Sika did not recognize the beast, she was able to understand a particr beast¡¯s temperament and nature, just by having in contact with it for some time.


    ¡°Probably. It doesn¡¯t seem to be intelligent, but doesn¡¯t seem to be stupid either,¡± Sika tapped on the bottle, and there was no reaction from the creature. It was ying dead inside.


    ¡°Don¡¯t kill it then. It looks rather cute, really,¡± Saleen said to Sika.


    ¡°Alright, no killing it then. What does this thing eat?¡±


    ¡°No idea. Mages usually dissect magic beasts to understand them.¡±


    ¡°Then we will just catch more and see what it eats.¡±


    ¡°The ink can¡¯t be wasted then. It should serve just fine for writing scrolls,¡± Saleen mumbled to himself.


    Sika punched Saleen lightly, ¡°So that is why you want to keep it. You want its ink. You mages are some people indeed...¡±


    ¡°Well anything wanting to keep living should contribute something. Even we humans are the same, let alone a cuttlefish.¡±


    The two of them left the ss bottle on the bed and talked around it. Sika finally felt her boredom lifted. The alchemy ship kept speeding on, and Sika kept asking Saleen to catch cute beings she had her eyes on along the way.


    Most of these low-level beasts managed to survive. Some who kept struggling were dealt with by Sika and had their magic nuclei dug out. The hold was filled with bottles. These bottles were unusually strong and were harder than steel. There was no chance of escape for any low level magic beasts held within.


    The Caucasus warriors rxed knowing that their priestess was having fun inside the hold. They had been reluctant to let Sika out of the temple, but they were unable to refuse as it was Saleen who requested.


    ¡°Saleen, thanks foring out and ying with me. I feel so happy, and I thought I would have done fine just being by my own...¡±, Sika looked sad all of the sudden, but she shed no tears.


    ¡°What are you talking about, Sika? We aren¡¯t going to hunt this time. We¡¯re just touring around the ice, and I¡¯m making a map of what we found. There are no other things to be concerned about. I simply hope that I can stay by your side throughout this time.¡±


    ¡°No hunting!?¡±, Sika would not have had it. While it was true that the alchemy ship was speeding, they were consuming magic nuclei. Just a two-way trip was going to cost them a fortune. They would suffer great losses if they did not hunt anything.


    ¡°I¡¯m just saying that I won¡¯t be the one doing anything, and that the ship won¡¯t be venturing into any dangerous ces. It will be like a...like a vacation.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you are worried for me, right?¡±, Sika asked as she put her hand on her belly.


    ¡°Yes. Putting you in danger for just a little profit, wouldn¡¯t that be stupid?¡±


    Sika gave a long sigh. She was not sure if it was out of grief for losing ie, or out of regret for affecting Saleen¡¯s ns.


    ¡°Sika, it is alright. When someone wants something, they will need to pay a price equivalent to that something. For you and our children, I¡¯m willing to give up anything.¡±


    While Saleen¡¯s words brought her joy, it brought her to tears. Saleen was not just ying with her; the word of a mage was binding.


    ¡°But this would be a very, very expensive vacation!¡±, Sika was exasperated. She hardly had enough money to buy a bottle of high level holy water when she started out, and yet, Saleen was now willing to bring her out to deep sea tens of thousands of miles away, paying the price of a good number of magic nuclei, just so that she could be happy.


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m still king. I will just cover the cost with some money from the treasury,¡± Saleen said in a sly manner.


    ¡°Heh, what difference does it make? You are the only member of the Metatrin family, and the treasury is overseen by no one. It¡¯s still just your stuff at the end of the day,¡± as a regent, Sika knew that fact all too well.

 Chapter 812: An Expensive Honeymoon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 812: An Expensive Honeymoon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The funds that Saleen was actually able to take for himself without fear of criticism from the nobles, were the royal allowance allocated to him as the king. As Sika put it, without any other actual royalty in the Metatrin Kingdom, and only nobles around, these was no one who actually cared about the treasury.


    ¡°I¡¯m the only one? Says who?¡±, Saleen said as he caressed Sika¡¯s belly gently. There were two children moving about within, who, within a few months, woulde to the world.


    Sika leaned into Saleen, ¡°It¡¯s all thanks to them that you can¡¯t actually y with me even if I wanted to. That is fine. I can feel them both inside, and that makes me happy...¡±


    Sikaid down again and snuggled up to Saleen, refusing to let him catch any more beasts. She merely wanted to stay by his side and quietly listen to his heartbeat.


    Daniel sat behind his desk alone in the city council building of Metatrin City, after Saleen¡¯s fleet had left, he was in no mood to read all those documents lying about. He was initially very keen in his role as a municipal official and found the work to be rather fun. He had no intentions of leaving the ce, however, doing so had him cking in his practice of magic.


    Despite only having half as much time as he used to have to practice, he nheless felt that he was nearing his time for advancement. This was something near-impossible, as the advancement of death mages to the rank of sorcerers was far more difficult than that of elemental mages. He had cked in his practice, yet he neared the next stage quickly.


    Saleen had the winged skeleton wash Daniel¡¯s Dead Soul me right before he left. Daniel had, at the time, felt that if he were to just put his work aside and train for a week, he would have been able to almost fulfill the requisites for advancing into the rank of sorcerer. That would have been a process of umtion and he was not allowed to simply break off.


    His desire for advancement had returned despite having almost given up on the idea.


    Despite being born a lesser noble, and liking being an official himself, his greater identity was that of a mage. He was a mage who was different from other Tanggsian mages. The possibility of advancing into the ranks of sorcerer proved very, very tempting to him.


    Then again, he was a follower of Saleen, and putting off the task given by his master would have been doing Saleen a disservice. Metatrin City was in a very busy stage at that moment, and he had great teamwork with the other officials in the city council as they were very familiar with each other. If anyone were to rece him as the one in charge, there would be problems waiting to happen. The situation waspounded by the fact that the city council had always been short in hands, with all menialbor delegated to the spirits. If he were to leave, there would be a need for recruiting new personnel. That would be bad for keeping secrets.


    Bang bang bang...


    Sounds of hurried knockings on the door pulled him from his deep thoughts. ¡°Come in,¡± said Daniel in azy tone, and stamped the document in front of him without looking at it much. ¡°The nobles are sure as greedy bunch. Asking for a tax reduction, and then wanting to buynd. They¡¯re even thinking of increasing the number of farmers working on theirnd.


    These matters were originally handled by Saleen, but with both Saleen and Sika gone, Nichs was in charge of things. Daniel denied that applicationid in front of him without giving so much as a second thought.


    Denied documents would not be returned to the applicants immediately. Instead, such documents were returned alongside other applications. Such documents were then put under lock-down in the city council, which would have the applicants waiting.


    The one entering the office was a soldier sweating all over. After giving Daniel a rushed salute, he spoke, ¡°My liege, there are problems at the west side.¡±


    ¡°Huh? What happened?¡±


    ¡°A lot of people were poisoned. Some said that it was due to Metatrin City having too many spirits of the dead running about.¡±


    Daniel tensed in reflex, and snickered, ¡°Noted. Go get Master Nichs. Don¡¯t do anything drastic just yet. Get more people scouting for more news.¡±


    The reason Daniel snickered was a simple one: he knew what happened. Daniel had not been one entertain malpractices of any kind in his work and did things by the book. That resulted in some people being dissatisfied with him and wanting him out of the picture.


    While spirits of the dead indeed carried venom on them, the spirits had to release it intentionally. Spirits of the dead under control would not have poisoned anyone, even if they were literally stuck to someone.


    What was most foolish about the people was that they had intended to kick him out with rumors. He was a follower of Saleen; it was a given that Saleen would not have even considered stripping him of his job because of some stupid rumors like that.


    While Daniel himself had, by then, had little intention to continue bing an official, he would not allow others lying about him.


    Rumors were ridiculous child¡¯s y to mages. It required little more than a sorcerer¡¯s deration to break them. Everyone would know such rumors were baseless at a mages word.


    Daniel had not wanted to pursue that route. Someone died, and that meant it had be a criminal case. There was not even a need to guess if the poisons originated from a spirit. ¡°These people were willing to go that far, just to set me up!¡±


    Daniel had not detected anything when Saleen was around, but someone would have made a move as soon as Saleen left the city. ¡°Sika really had her way of getting things done. Just rounding up anyone who dared try anything funny and having them dealt with. Things would be easier if I did the same.¡±


    Nichs was brought to the city council and listened to Daniel¡¯s descriptions. Nichsughed, ¡°That is a good thing!¡±


    ¡°A good thing, why and how?¡±


    ¡°The establishment of the Kingdom of Metatrin happened too quickly, andws werecking. With this, Saleen will be able to amend thews and further strengthen his power as king. Have you not noticed? The power of humans on this ne is growing at a frightening speed. It is only a matter of time before everyone eventually finds out about that. Some farmers might find themselves having more strength than a bull while plowing their fields. A cksmith might just identally have broken the gear he was working on thanks to that newfound strength.¡±


    ¡°Things are that serious?¡±


    ¡°I would say so. The armies of the fourth dynasty were powerful. Evenmon foot soldiers were all swordmasters. Low ranked officers were at least of the rank of grand swordmasters or bronze grand swordmasters. Any personal guard was something like that. The knight caste was still around at that time. Many of them would have had the strength of taking on an entire regiment from our generation.¡±


    Daniel believed every word Nichs said. If Nichs was right, then the power of most people would increase very quickly, that would then present a ring problem. Thews of all states currently were established in rtions to the level of personal strength as a whole. If the powers of humanity as a whole were to return, there would be a need to reset a lot ofws established thus far.


    The fall of the fourth dynasty had been attributed, for the most part, to the weakening of humanity¡¯s power. The rulers were no longer able to maintain their authority. Armies formed bymon people were no longer cannon fodder. Many had decisive roles in a lot of ways. The number of true knights dwindled, and it was not long before the caste was wiped out entirely. The abolishment of this caste brought about the fracturing of the fourth dynasty¡¯s rule.


    Thews of Metatrin City were no longer appropriate for the new rules spanning the entire ne. If humanity was to return to the power level of the fourth dynasty, a caste simr to the knights would reappear. The people would have make rulers like nobles.


    ¡°It would seem that there is a need for my original ns to change. Master Nichs, what do you have in mind?¡±


    ¡°Round up the ones creating and spreading the rumors. No trials and no convictions for the moment. Look up whatever you can on thews of the fourth dynasty. If they are to be tried, they are to be judged in ordance to the norms of the fourth dynasty. All this will then be made part of our newws.¡±


    ¡°Understood. Our lord has always imed himself to be the descendant of the fourth dynasty¡¯s rulers. Nothing wrong with doing as you said,¡± Daniel was impressed at the extent of Nichs¡¯ sheer cunning, and how sensitive he was in matters rted to power struggles, so much so that he was able to turn such happenings to his favor and create a more conducive state to rule.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be much of a match if I were to go against Master Nichs, even if that meant going against him without resorting to violence.¡±


    Daniel grew more respectful to Nichs after the exchange of thoughts. Nichs had not paid any attention to Daniel¡¯s current status. Thetter was very sensitive to the awakening of humanity¡¯s powers. He had hoped deep within that he would have been able to benefit from it. That meant breaking through the limits of grade-9 and bing a grade-10 fallen holy master.


    With new powers of life, holy masters would be rendered more potent in battle.


    ¡°So, master, did you mean that we will do this within the confines of Metatrin City, or that we will spread the change throughout the entire Kingdom of Metatrin?¡±, Daniel was merely a high-ranking official from the city council. His jurisdiction did not extend beyond the Metatrin ins.


    ¡°Daniel, have you lost your mind with all that magic practice of yours? Why bother with anything outside the city? If the powers of humanity are to rise, then just having Metatrin City will suffice for our lord. The city was an impregnable fortress even back in the fourth dynasty. Just do your job and don¡¯t cause him any trouble.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    ¡°Daniel, are you going to advance soon?¡±, Nichs asked in a nonchnt manner.


    ¡°I will indeed.¡±


    ¡°You will need time to practice then.¡± Nichs let out a long sigh, which in itself served adequately as an answer. ¡°How about I take care of things for you for the moment. You go focus on your advancement ande back when you are done. How does that sound?¡±


    ¡°But Master Nichs, how...how will I ever to repay your generosity!?¡±, Daniel asked, feeling ttered and blessed. Nichs was once a high-ranking officer within the Holy See. He was more than able to oversee such management work without a glitch. Having a grade-9 fallen priest take care of such mundane work for him, had Daniel frightened nheless. Was Nichs plotting something like treason, or was he trying to bribe Daniel?


    ¡°Repay me? I was just simply thinking that you were the loneliest among our lord¡¯s followers, so maybe you would like to work with me. Only by doing so, will your ce get any higher than this,¡± Nichs borated temptingly.


    ¡°Nichs, you are plotting against our lord?!¡±, Daniel¡¯s face went pale. Nichs had no fear of anything, as he himself was grade-9. The possible traitor might have ways to go against the contract, but not him. Saleen was good to Daniel, and anyone would have probably needed to resort to torturing his soul to have him turn against Saleen. Daniel would not have even entertained such thoughts even if doing so would have cost him his life.


    Nichsughed boomingly and pointed at Daniel, ¡°Why do I need to betray our lord? Gosh, your thought patterns are just disappointing. I was only thinking that our lord would be able to achieve much grander feats, feats so grand that it would exceeded my imagination and yours. If we are to keep following him, don¡¯t you think we will need to think about our ce beside him?¡±


    ¡°Our ce beside him?¡±


    ¡°Who do you think our lord favors? You, or the others?¡±, Nichs put on a deadpan expression as he asked that in a solemn voice.

 Chapter 813: Powerful Reinforcement (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 813: Powerful Reinforcement (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel thought carefully about what Nichs said. What he said was right. Although Daniel was given a heavy responsibility in managing such an important city, the other followers around Saleen were closer to him.


    It was the noble families that had tried to speak ill of him, so it did not matter as much. What would his Lord do if it were the other followers who did the same thing instead?


    ¡°Think about it, Daniel. You are a sorcerer, so our Lord should definitely regard you highly. Death sorcerers possess extremely powerful abilities.¡±


    ¡°I understand now, Nichs. I will train hard and not forget your good intentions.¡± Daniel bowed deeply.


    ¡°No need to stand on courtesy, Daniel. Now, let¡¯s discuss how we should stop those people that have been spreading rumors and killing themoners.¡± Nichs said with a smile. He was confident of dealing with such matters because the people in the Holy See controlled areas were not pure nor innocent either. Even disciples were not immune tomitting crimes and many of the upations in the Holy See were created in rtion to these crimes. The most extreme of them was the Supreme Court.


    Daniel began to cast a wide to arrest the people that had been spreading rumors and hurting themoners. As for how they would be dealt with after being caught, he could use Sika as a reference, the was she conducted a public hearing and used mages¡¯ lie detection abilities to judge the innocence of the people.


    Nichs was cunning to suggest to Daniel not to rush into making a judgment quickly. Instead, he should first search for the archives of thews of the fourth dynasty, gather people in secret to find thews that would suit Saleen¡¯s rule, then add them into thews of Metatrin Kingdom.


    Metatrin City was considered peaceful and orderlypared to the real chaos that was Alchemy City.


    From the beginning of that year, Alchemy City had seen a surge of talents into the city. Right then, the number of sorcerers in the city was four times that of the past, while the number of grand mages was ten times what it had been.


    As such, the Devil¡¯s Horn and Hand of Mages each began to pull the new mages to their sides. It was the first time there was a hint of disharmony within Alchemy City.


    The Hand of Mages was controlled by nine grade-9 sorcerers and was also the organization with the most power in Alchemy City. Inparison, Devil¡¯s Horn and Sregl Ind were slightly weaker. Devil¡¯s Horn was the first to discover the surge in iing talent and was able to pull many sorcerers over to their side though. It was possible that they might even have surpassed Hand of Mages.


    The sealing off of Sregl Ind was supposed to be for three years, but it was suddenly brought forward by a few months. The people of Sregl Ind had appeared and were not afraid of making their presence known in Alchemy City.


    Sregl Ind was recruiting mages as well, but their requirements were different. They were looking for mages that were young, talented, but did not have an official teacher yet. Once they joined Sregl Ind, they had to take the mage¡¯s oath to pledge eternal loyalty to Sregl Ind.


    The requirements of recruitment were attractive to mages that desired to receive inheritance. Since Sregl Ind specifically mentioned that they would not ept anyone with an official teacher, that meant that they were considering passing down real inheritance to those that had joined.


    By doing that in such a high-profile manner, it was as if Sregl Ind was openly challenging the Hand of Mage¡¯s grip on power. At first, both the Hand of Mages and Devil¡¯s Horn wanted to take over Sregl Ind but then, it was Rance who was personally recruiting people over to his side. He had already advanced into grade-9 and had be a powerful sorcerer.


    No one had the reason or confidence to take over Sregl Ind. Thetter could then activate Sregl Ind¡¯s enclosed array anytime they wanted. That meant that Sregl Ind¡¯s power had been greatly boosted.


    In truth, not only had Sregl Ind¡¯s power been raised, they had also managed to capture the Fire Element Elves and used them to refine powerful Godly Items, instead of a few pieces of Semi-Godly Items.


    There were more than thirty-six sorcerers on Sregl Ind, but they continued to recruit mages because they had agreed for Jason to bring thirty-six sorcerers to Metatrin City for further development. The remaining sorcerers would be led by Rance.


    For the thirty-six sorcerers that had left, they would only listen to Jason¡¯smands even though they still enjoyed some of the privileges orded to anyone from Sregl Ind. This was what Jason received in return for giving up Godly Items.


    It was not that Jason did not want those Godly Items, but he was fully aware that his student, Saleen, had be extremely wealthy. With the fortune that Jason¡¯s own teacher had left behind for him, he and Saleen would not need any Godly Items. They were more than capable of refining powerful equipment on their own.


    It was a sign of outstanding talent that Saleen was able to pick up water me alchemy so quickly. If the both of them managed to advance to grade-9, their water me alchemy techniques would be able toplement each other. They would not need any help from a third party. As long as they had high-grade resources, both of them would be able to refine Godly Items on their own.


    The thirty-six sorcerers that had been allowed to leave for Metatrin City were extremely important. The level of loyalty they possessed was rarely seen in the outside world as it could only be developed in an enclosed environment like Srgl Ind.


    Jason still remembered what Saleen said about that mysterious interdimensional space; the Six Elements¡¯ Space left behind by Rafael. If he was able to possess it, he would be able to produce batches of grade-9 sorcerers easily.


    There was an entirely independent space in the interdimensional space. Within that space, he would be able to develop many mages and build a country filled with only mages.


    Since Jason was bringing away more than half of the sorcerers, Rance had no choice but to recruit more people in Alchemy City. The new recruits were in luck because once they pledged to join Sregl Ind, they would really be able to receive magic inheritance.


    Jason also needed to bring along many resources from Sregl Ind¡¯s warehouse. No one opposed that because the resources belonged to the sorcerers that was leaving with Jason anyway.


    Jason has packed his luggage and was only awaiting Rance¡¯s arrival, who was bringing along men to drive thebat vessels that would send them to Metatrin City. Jason¡¯s student should have been doing well by then.


    At this thought, Jason could not help but smile.


    It was usually a coincidence that mages took in students. Jason was looking for his lodging when he bumped into Saleen, a child that was not suitable to learn magic.


    Deep down, it was not that Jason sympathized with Saleen. Mages had no use for an emotion like sympathy. He only felt that his meeting with Saleen was such a coincidence, he wanted to test whether the apprentice rule would be broken by him. If Saleen turned out to be useless in the end, it meant that the mage that hade up with the rule was wrong.


    After taking Saleen in as his apprentice, Jason could not help but sympathize with him. Such a hardworking child like him was unable to produce any magic chords! Since then, Jason treated Saleen like his own student and taught him patiently.


    When he met Saleen again, thetter had be more impressive and had even managed to get himself into thepany of an Empire¡¯s Princess. It was then that Jason managed to obtain the Heart of the Sky. Under his research, he discovered that not only was the Heart of the Sky the thing that powered Sky City, it was also man-made and not some kind of mineral.


    Jason could sense the power of the rule embedded within the Heart of the Sky. If not for the power of the rule, how could a small core like that allow a gigantic city to stay in the sky?


    It was a pity that the present humans were no longer able to create a city like Sky City ,but fortunately, Jason was able to sense the rule within the Heart of the Sky more and more clearly. With that, he would be able to break through grade-9 and be a grade-10 mage one day.


    Was it Saleen who brought him such luck? Jason¡¯s smile grew so wide that even his followers that were familiar with him began to feel creeped out. Had Lord Jason thought of some terrible magic experiment?


    The conflict in Alchemy City had begun to worsen. The Hand of Mages was aggressively against what Devil¡¯s Horn and Sregl Ind were doing, resulting in thetter two joining forces to push back against the way the Hand of Mages was controlling Alchemy City. Rance was also questioning the Hand of Mages why the culprit of the two sunkenbat vessels that had been on their way to Lianyun City had yet to be found.


    It was difficult for the Hand of Mages to answer to that because the twobat vessels were supposed to attack Metatrin City. There were tens of sorcerers on thebat vessels, yet none survived. Because of this incident, Alchemy City even sent out divingbat vessels to investigate. They discovered that the twobat vessels were sunk by single-target spells. There was only one gigantic site of damage on eachbat vessel.


    The mages that managed to observe thebat vessels up close all concluded that the attack was carried out by someone more powerful than grade-9. Such an attack was unheard of as such hugebat vessels were almostpletely cut in half and finally broke off as they sank into the sea.


    The grade-9 sorcerers of the Hand of Mages were fearful because it was something that was carried out by a grade-10 professionals. It was not that there were no grade-10 professionals in Alchemy City, but none of them belonged to the Hand of Mages, so they would definitely not assist the Hand of Mages in finding the murderer. Grade-10 mages would only be focused on their spells and their training everyday. They would never take even half a step out of Alchemy City.


    Without the help of grade-10 sorcerers, the murderer would never be caught even with thebined efforts of the nine of them. That was because the murderer would be able to evade them easily.


    Although a grade-10 opponent would be no match for nine grade-9 sorcerers, there could still be asions where they might find themselves alone and that would be dangerous. The pursuit of the murderer had be an impossible task. The Hand of Mages decided to stop pursuing and give up any ns for revenge.


    There had been many conflicts in the past that were never close to seeing blood being shed. Sregl Ind and the Devil¡¯s Horn managed to recruit many new recruits. The new recruits had been living in Alchemy City for a few years, but were never favored by the Hand of Mages, so naturally they were discontented with thetter. Since two powerful forces were recruiting them, they could care less about their pride and were all eager to join either of them.


    Rance managed to recruit enough mages to fill up the voids left behind by Jason. It was already the middle of July when Jason heard that Saleen was not doing too well, so he quickly rushed to Metatrin City.


    Just like that, Jason left in a hurry with thirty-six sorcerers and more than one-hundred grand mages. They traveled in more than tenbat vessels towards Metatrin City.

 Chapter 814: Powerful Reinforcement (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 814: Powerful Reinforcement (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Thebat vessels of Alchemy City had to be of formidable strength in order to stop Cloudflow fleets from heading north. If not for encountering someone of grade-10, Sregl Indbat vessels were more than capable of traveling the seas north of Alchemy City.


    Jason was seated in the mainbat vessel of Sregl Ind. Since Rance had the Godly Items refined from the Fire Element Elf, Sregl Ind should have been safe from any trouble even if they had given their most powerfulbat vessel to Jason.


    The body of thebat vessel was made from the bones of magic beasts, but it was different from the Dragon skeletonbat vessel in that the bones were the same as ordinarybat vessels made from iron and steel. Once the bones had been refined, they were mixed together. On the other hand, the Dragon skeletonbat vessel mainly used the bones of ancient giant dragons to be made into the body of the vessels. They were sturdier and possessed attacking abilities. It was like a magic tower floating on the sea.


    The mainbat vessel of Sregl Ind looked like a sharp metal triangle, exuding ck light. There was nothing protruding on top of thebat vessel. In the front there was a row of nted crystal windows, where the captain of the vessel would usually be.


    The rear of thebat vessel was where the weapons of magicbat vessels usually were. There were rectangr magic stone artilleries that were joined together with metallic stands to form an even bigger square.


    In other words, the four magic stone artilleries that had been joined together would be able to shoot at the same target simultaneously.


    Jason¡¯s boat was too sturdy and was even more powerful than skeletal warships. Not only did skeletal warships utilize a lot of resources, their structures were entirely logical, hence they were easily defeated by Cloudflow. On the other hand, thebat vessel from Sregl Ind was able to take more damage. There was also space on the vessel that was specially for mages to battle. Just like magic towers, the space could enhance mages¡¯ uracy, attacking distance, and reduce the usage of magic chords.


    What made the Sreeger Indbat vessels even more powerful was that there were sound transmission magic arrays on each vessel. As long as they stayed within a certain distance from each other, they would not need coordinates in order to join forces in battle.


    When the winged skeletonmanded battles, he had to rely on his control over the spirits of the dead. Such a method of rying information was unique only to him. No one else would be able tomand his Spirit Fleet. This was why he managed to sink quite a few Cloudflow transport carriers when he personally fought in battle, but when he operated a singlebat vessel on his own, he was defeated easily.


    Besides, all Alchemy Citybat vessels could travel at a speed of more than one-hundred miles an hour.


    There were a total of fourteen ships, fourrge and ten medium-sized. The route that Jason had chosen was a straight one and they would travel twenty-five-hundred miles each day.


    Jason was already rushing as quickly as he could, but by the time he reached Metatrin City, Saleen had already left.


    When thebat vessels approached, it was as if Metatrin City was facing a formidable enemy. There were a number of divingbat vessels underwater near the port of Metatrin City. The soldiers on thebat vessels have been warned not to attack unless the enemy had entered the port. The winged skeleton had no choice but to set that order because he knew that the weapons on the divingbat vessels were not powerful enough to handle powerfulbat vessels on the water surface yet.


    Truman, who was training on White Rock Mountain, had already aimed the magic cannon at the port. He was sweating nervously, but soon after, he saw a small lifeboat approaching the port.


    It was a swordmaster from Sregl Ind on the lifeboat.


    There were plenty of merchant ships in the port. These ships were still unaware of the arrival of thebat vessels and were still busy being filled up with goods. The security forces of port quickly deployed someone to receive the person on the lifeboat. They did not dare to attack hastily because most of the vessels withbat abilities had already been taken away by Saleen.


    That time around, Saleen was only targeting low-level and middle-level magic beasts in his hunt at Oceanic Ice Block.


    When Nichs heard about what was happening, he immediately rushed to the port. After Saleen had left, he became the most powerful person in the city. He was responsible if anything happened at the port. By then, he had already fallen in love with the city and the way of life.


    This was much more interesting than trying to climb up the hierarchy of the Holy See.


    In Metatrin Kingdom, one¡¯s reward corrted to their hard work, but for the Holy See, every honor belonged to God.


    By the time Nichs reached the port, he saw that thebat vessels had already entered and were docked beside the pier that was set aside for military use. There were two types of piers in Metatrin, even the merchant pier could be used to dockbat vessels though. There were empty slots throughout the year to facilitate easy entry forbat vessels.


    Nichs stood at the rear of the pier along with the soldiers of the seventh battalion and a few mages. He saw that the mages of the temple had already rushed to the pier excitedly and had cast spells at thebat vessels.


    The spells they cast were those used for transmitting messages, such as Magic me.


    Nichs¡¯ heart was shaken a little. Saleen had not mentioned anything to him about Sregl Ind, but he vaguely knew that Saleen was expecting the arrival of arge group of mages and had already preparedrge areas ofnd to build magic towers for those mages.


    Nichs did not rush to the front, choosing to observe from afar instead. He saw the mages cheering like a group of farmers, weing a person disembarking from the strange-lookingbat vessel.


    He was a mage dressed in a long ck robe, with a gentle expression on his face. He looked younger than forty years old. He had probably advanced into a sorcerer before thirty years old, so his looks would never change from then on.


    This ck-robed mage nced around before saying, ¡°Why isn¡¯t Saleen here?¡±


    Nichs felt a prick in his ear. He was secretly listening in from afar, but did not expect to be found out by the ck-robed mage. When thetter spoke, he even cast a small spell at Nichs.


    Nichs was furious, but he quickly contained his anger. The man was calling for Saleen directly and hade all the way to Metatrin City. It was clear that he knew who Saleen was.


    Even if the background of how Saleen became a king was unclear, he was now also the husband of Lex, which was a known fact. Despite that the mage seemed disrespectful in the way he called for Saleen...


    ¡°He must be Saleen¡¯s elder! Yes, this must be Saleen¡¯s teacher.¡± Nichs thought.


    Another person might not have been able to infer so much, but Nichs had survived in the Holy See for so many years, so he was very familiar with unspoken etiquettes and rules of the world. If that man was Saleen¡¯s teacher, then there was nothing for him to be upset about. Even though he only had two rows of magic symbols on his magic robe, which meant that he was only a grade-8 sorcerer.


    Nichs quickly rushed over once he came to that conclusion.


    ¡°My respects to Lord Mage.¡± Nichs greeted politely.


    Jason took one look at Nichs and was surprised. The news that had traveled to Alchemy City did not include Saleen defeating the armies of the Holy See, so Jason was unaware that Saleen had taken in a grade-9 holy master.


    ¡°You are?¡±


    ¡°Lord Mage, I am a follower of His Highness, Saleen. My name is Nichs, a fallen holy master,¡± Nichs answered honestly.


    ¡°It is impressive of Saleen to be able to get someone of grade-9 to join him.¡± Jason nodded.


    ¡°Lord Mage, I was defeated by His Highness, Saleen. I chose to follow him willingly.¡±


    Jason smiled gently and was not bothered by what Nichs said. Most Sregl Ind mages had been living in an enclosed environment, so they would not understand the cunning ways of the world. Jason was extremely smart and could urately judge a person¡¯s intention. That was a talent as much as it was an ability demonstrated only by a certain level of training in magic.


    ¡°I am Saleen¡¯s teacher. Since you are his follower, bring us to Saleen¡¯s pce. He is a king after all.¡±


    Nichs nodded and turned around to dismiss the soldiers of the seventh battalion. When he turned back, he saw many sorcerers of different levels disembarking from thebat vessels. That was when his heart was truly shaken.


    Jason had brought along thirty-six sorcerers in total. Although most of them were grade-7 sorcerers there were so many of them even grade-9 sorcerers would have to think twice before attacking.


    There were also swordmasters, grand swordmasters, and even archers that were beyond grade-7.


    No wonder Saleen had been waiting and dying. Nichs did not expect Saleen to have such powerful reinforcements!


    Nichs led Jason andpany back to the temple. No one dared to crowd around along the way. When so many mages appeared together in one ce, everyone would be in a hurry to hide. In fact, there were a total of thirty-seven sorcerers including Jason, and one-hundred and twenty-eight grand mages. Such a concentration of powers could easily turn the entire city into a graveyard.


    No one was concerned about the white-robed mages behind the grand mages. The news of so many mages suddenly appearing in Metatrin City would quickly spread around the entire Maind without the need for spies.


    Jason smiled when he saw the temple. Saleen was quite extravagant, but it was good because the exterior of the temple looked impressive and tall and looked simr to a magic tower. If a magic tower had been built in that way, the cost of resources required would have been terribly high. He wondered if the resources that he had given Saleen might have been used on the temple.


    With a nce, Jason could tell that the defense of the temple far surpassed most magic towers. He was afraid that it was out of fear of death that Saleen had wasted so many resources in order to build something so massive.


    The mages that hade from Sregl Ind earlier had been staying in the temple all that while and had alsoe forward to wee Jason. There were so many of them that time around. If Saleen had not built something like that, they would not have been able to stay there together.


    When Nichs led Jason through the temple, the soldiers on duty in the temple came forward to conduct a security check. They were only dismissed after Nichs whispered a few words to them.


    When Jason saw that Nichs did not berate the soldiers that had onlye forward to carry out their duty, he was pleased. This follower of Saleen¡¯s was pretty good.


    ¡°I want to use a magic array to talk to Lex.¡± Jason walked up to the third story. Beyond that was upied by Saleen¡¯s bodyguards. Sound transmission magic arrays and teleportation portals were all there.


    Once they were connected to Daliang City, Jason spoke to the sound transmission magic array, ¡°Is this Lex?¡±


    There was silence over at Daliang City as someone quickly broughtLex to the sound transmission magic array. She did not know what was going on, except that someone had called for her. Lex spoke to the sound transmission magic array patiently, ¡°I am Lex. May I know who this is?¡±

 Chapter 815: Coming Home Empty-handed (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 815: Coming Home Empty-handed (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex¡¯s attitude rendered everyone around her dumbfounded. Jason spoke softly on the other side of the sound transmission magic array, ¡°Lex, this is Jason. I¡¯m here now at Metatrin City.¡±


    Lex was so taken aback that she appeared stunned for a brief moment. It was not until a mage beside her let out a slight cough, that Lex rposed herself and said to the array, ¡°Acknowledged, teacher...¡±


    ¡°If there is nothing else over there, get here as soon as possible,¡± Jason shut off the array as he finished and turned to Nichs, ¡°You lot go get some rest. I have people attending to me here. You are grade-9, go do something else instead.¡±


    Jason was soposed that he sounded rather condescending, but still, Nichs was unable to harbor any resentment in the matter.


    Nichs had been busy dealing with the case of someone out there setting Daniel up, so he had been spending most of his time outside. Jason did not require hispany. He needed to return soon, as there were even more people to deal with that time. Among all those who worked against Daniel, there was an earl who had just had his title conferred by Saleen.


    Nichs was unable to simply move against him unless there was indisputable evidence. The circle of nobles that Saleen hadbored to create that far would be fractured.


    In general, the Holy See would take a myriad of measures, depending on the nature of the case when something like that happened. The tribunal would apprehend the ones responsible and tortured them. The pivotal council would collect evidence discreetly, which would include framing their targets should they find them to be actual culprits asst resorts, just so that they could apprehend those people. The oracles¡¯ modus operandi was even simpler. They would simply kill their targets. When they were done with killing, they would have gone to pray at the church.


    Of the options of methodsid before him, only the methods of the pivotal council seemed agreeable. Nichs still needed to confirm the identity of the culprit before he was able to make a move. nting incriminating evidence haphazardly would have simply alerted Saleen.


    Nichs and Daniel continued dealing with all the dirty work, finding ways to clear all the filth thrown at Daniel. Jason, on the other hand, arranged for the mages¡¯ respite and assigning rooms to them, as well as servants who were to attend to the mages.


    Jason did not rest in this room. He instead explored the temple with two white-robed mages. They inspected every single room, including Saleen¡¯s chambers, as well as the alchemy rooms. Jason eventually found the teleportation portal and the coordinates where Saleen entered the underground warehouse.


    Jason smiled. The hints to the coordinates were only known to him and Saleen. No one else who was not of their lineage would have known. Jason only found out that Saleen had been building a huge warehouse that was more than a thousand yards deep in the ground when he went there.


    The magic that Saleen used was apparent to Jason. Jason collected the magic tower materials that Saleen left behind one by one. ¡°Well, Saleen is one careful kid indeed. He didn¡¯t build these towers before I showed up just to make sure that it wouldn¡¯t alert the outsiders.¡±


    Jason was satisfied as Saleen did not waste any materials given to him. The amount of the materials was enough to build thirty-six magic towers. Jason had only taken out the map of the city handed to him and researched it for a bit in the warehouse. He found that Saleen had been doing a perfect job. In regard to the city walls, there was nothing Jason was able to single out for criticism.


    If he were to build thirty-six magic towers in the city, it would make Metatrin City something like Holy Rock City. With such numbers of magic towers in ce and city walls built in ordance to Dante¡¯s Sequence, there would hardly be anyone who would be able to simply fly into the city. Anyone intending to invade the city would have had to resort to good old wall-climbing.


    It would have been even better if there was a set of magic amplifiers in ce. Alchemy City had it and Holy Rock City had it. Both those cities were rendered impossible to take simply because there was such a device in ce.


    The time was August. Jason¡¯s arrival made the citizens of Metatrin City very, very happy. There would no longer be worries about othersing to wreck their businesses with so many sorcerers staying inside.


    Jason gave the order to have mages build magic towers on plots ofnd that Saleen left behind. The construction of all thirty-six towers began at the same time, as Jason had prepared ample materials for doing so. All materials, no matter how particr the requirements were, had been crafted ording to said requirements.


    There was not even the problem ofying foundations to consider, as Saleen hadid them. Only the towers needed to be built.


    All the towers that Jason was building were nine-floored towers. He had little idea of the actual size of the Six Elements¡¯ Space, but he knew that the space could have at least fit six people, being the smallest size there was. Even so, that little space could enable the mages of Sregl Ind to enhance all of their powers.


    Thirty-six towers were erected inside the city within the span of half a month. That piece of news seemed to have wings of its own, spreading to all corners of the Myers Maind. It spread to the Glorious ins, Holy City, everywhere...


    Theisio read the intelligence gathered by his followers in his hand with a cold expression. An inextinguishable rage was burning inside him. He had been set up. He put too much focus on Daliang City. Although he had made an offensive and defensive alliance with Cloudflow, he had neglected the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    ¡°I never thought that infidel had such powers behind him. That was what my intuition had been telling me all along.¡±


    Sending in an expeditionary force of one-hundred-thousand men, even sending in every single soldier the Tanggsian army had at the borders of Kroraina, would no longer be enough to take down Metatrin City.


    ¡°Leaving such a great scourge behind toe biting back at me; I have really been careless!¡±


    ¡°Tell the emperor to agree to the conditions of the Sikenqinyans and have them deploy their forces. We won¡¯t be able to do anything otherwise,¡± Theisio said to his red-robed holy master follower in a tired voice. His white beard was a mess.


    The high priest bowed and left. Theisio activated the rune array on his table and gave an order in a whisper.


    There was a sealed room underneath the church, devoid of doors or windows. There was only a small square hole enabling meals to be sent within. That cage¡¯s design spoke of immeasurable cruelty, and it was located right beneath Theisio¡¯s church. On paper, only the tribunal would have had such a ce built.


    There was a person dressed in short gray robes inside the prison, facing the wall and carving into it incessantly with their fingers. The wall of green stone had streak after streak on it from his nails. There was dust left on the floor resulting from such activities.


    The prisoner was barefoot and had hair strewn about his face, but his face and hands were clean. The toilet in the corner of the room did not give off any unpleasant odor. The prisoner also had pure eyes which looked rather simr to Fycro¡¯s: humble yet adamant.


    Theisio¡¯s voice was heard as he wrote on the wall, ¡°Don, get to Daliang and bring Lex back.¡±


    The prisoner gave an answer to the wall with a smile, ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°I can absolve you of your sins,¡± while the voice of the pope was still quiet, it was noticeably higher in tone than before.


    ¡°My sins are not something that can be forgiven,¡± Don said in a serious manner.


    Theisio kept quiet for a moment and continued, ¡°I¡¯m willing to make a request to the head inquisitor of the tribunal... to have your daughter released.¡±


    Don¡¯s finger snapped with a crack. The divine spell hadsted for only a minute, and as such, his finger was no longer able to work against the green stone wall. The prisoner had been putting too much strength in his finger, and his finger had bent in an awkward angle. Don stared nkly at his broken finger, while Theisio continued, ¡°I can give your daughter a recement body, enabling her to start over.¡±


    Don took hold of his broken finger and bent it straight, enabling it to return to its previous form and functionality. He continued drawing runes that no one could have understood on the wall.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you thought of returning to where you once were?¡±, Theisio began to sound impatient.


    ¡°Not at all. I fought for you once, and I wasn¡¯t able to keep my daughter safe. Theisio, you have plenty who are loyal to you. Why me?¡±


    ¡°That is because I had someone summon an angel, and yet I failed,¡± Theisio spoke.


    ¡°The heavenly angel...was but a shell. Theisio, if you want me out there, you need to agree to three conditions of mine.¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡±


    ¡°First of all, I want my daughter¡¯s memory erased, and her to be fitted into a new body like you said.¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡±


    ¡°Second, anyone whoid their hands on my daughter, I want their families, every single one of them, dead.¡±


    ¡°...Done.¡±


    ¡°Third, I want control of the pivotal council.¡±


    ¡°Don, have you lost your mind?¡±


    ¡°If you are unwilling to agree to those terms, then don¡¯t bother asking anymore,¡± Don swiped at the wall with his hand. The dust on the ground flew up and went to fill in the streaks on the wall. The end result looked as if he had never done anything to it. If the prisoner had wanted to leave the ce, there was no one who could have stopped him.


    ¡°You, taking control of the pivotal council? Impossible!¡±, Theisio¡¯s voice trembled.


    ¡°Why not? Didn¡¯t you say yourself, that you can absolve me of my sins? If I were to be rendered sinless, with my status and identity, taking control of the pivotal council would be child¡¯s y. Hell, if I wanted to be pope, do you think you would have been able to stop me?¡±


    Theisio waspletely silenced. He had not expected such an answer from the prisoner.


    Theisio spoke after a brief moment, ¡°I don¡¯t understand. If you have the ambition, why not fight for what you want yourself?¡±


    ¡°That is because I don¡¯t care for any of that. Seeing you people fighting for something like that felt like watching a bunch of dogs fighting over shit. The longer you fight among yourselves, the colder that pile of waste gets.¡±


    The pope was a well-mannered man, yet he felt like he was about to explode. He suppressed his urge tosh out nheless. He had no surety of being able to kill the prisoner, who had willingly been locked up.


    Don continued, ¡°Now, I feel like I¡¯m covering myself in shit, or putting some on top of my head. Many would have envied my position, and I will get to see all those ugly faces. When Judgment Dayes, I will send all those despicable vermin to hell with my own hands.¡±


    ¡°The gods would not have tolerated your arrogance,¡± Theisio said as he mped down on his rage.


    ¡°I¡¯m still cleaner than those from the pivotal council. If they can enter heaven, why would I need to worry? So Theisio, I take it that you have agreed to my terms?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have indeed!¡±


    ¡°Well then. Tell me about the target. Do you want them dead or alive?¡±


    ¡°Alive,¡± Theisio said. A projected image of the target showed up in the prison. The image looked alive. The image looked like Lex.

 Chapter 816: Coming Home Empty-handed (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 816: Coming Home Empty-handed (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Very well, I will bring her back to you. Before that, I will need my old equipment.¡±


    ¡°This is not within the terms!¡±


    ¡°Theisio, do you need to be such a cheapskate? I know you have got a lot in your collection. The dead brothers I used to work with, their gear is in your hands, no?¡±


    Theisio spoke with anguish, ¡°Go collect it yourself at the Seventh Church.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, your holiness,¡± Don said as he turned into a streak of white light and slithered out through the opening that was hardlyrger than a book.


    ¡°Get back here at once!¡± Theisio yelled at the top of his lungs, yet Don was nowhere to be found.


    Don vanished before Theisio was aware of anything in his room, and yelled when he knew what happened, ¡°Someone! Get someone here at once!¡±


    Several high priests showed up at the door, and Theisio was then all flustered. He waved his subordinates away and chose to jump over the window, flying to the Seventh Church personally instead.


    The Seventh Church was an ancient ruin with a history spanning over one-thousand years. When the Lord of Glory came to spread the faith, it was written in the Codex that there were seven days in a week, as the gods created the world in seven days.


    Everyone on the Myers Maind was in agreeance that there were six days in a week, corresponding to the transitional rules taking ce between the six elements, though. The Seventh Church symbolized the adamant will of the gods within the Holy City. The Holy See persisted with the daily life and prayer routine of having seven days in a week, even though that cost them a lot of followers.


    The pope knew what Don was up to. There was only a handful who were capable of stopping the escaped prisoner within the city. His silhouette drew a streak through the sky, and a beam of white light was seen right above the Seventh Church, shooting down and copsing the ce¡¯s roof. The earth shook. Within mere seconds, the core of the Seventh Church, the chapel for holding prayers, a building of sixty yards tall, was seen cracking apart.


    The sight had the pope flying into a rage, and he almost raised his staff but decided at thest minute to put it down. ¡°I take down Don, then what? Kill the fellow, or continue locking the fellow up?¡±


    The pope lowered his staff and took out a book. The cover of the book in his hand glittered with golden light, seemingly having an uncountable amount of holy prose shimmering in and out between the streaks.


    Theisio opened the book and shouted, ¡°Restore!¡±


    Holy lights flew from all over Holy City and fell onto the Seventh Church simultaneously. The cracks on the building itself were quickly repaired. Then, a boom was heard from within the church, followed by tens of holy masters fleeing for their lives from the front gate. The building with a history spanning one-thousand years, crumbled shortly after.


    A streak of bright light shot up from the resulting pile of dust and smoke. It spoke to Theisio in a nonchnt manner, ¡°Theisio, I will now go get the job done. You get busy with fixing the ce.¡±


    Don¡¯s silhouette was lost within the light heading far away. Theisio¡¯s eyes were cold. He put the book away slowly, and a grin appeared on his face.


    If he could have retrieved the ring on Lex¡¯s finger, it would have been worth seeing everyone in the Seventh Church dead. He would never be a true pope with one out of the three Godly Items lost. That ring seemed to be a fitting recement for the Seal of Divine Power.


    Don retrieved his old gear from the ruined church. He changed into a white robe and went soaring higher.


    Was the prisoner doing this to save his daughter? That did not seem so. Even if his daughter was returned, she would have been rendered a lost cause. He was clear of the pivotal council¡¯s methods. No normal human being was able to ever return as who they were before after what they went through there.


    So was it done in revenge to Theisio? While he had indeedmitted sins, that had nothing to do with Theisio.


    Was the prisoner doing it because of contempt for everyone as he imed, then?


    Daliang enjoyed breezy weather in the month of September. The pce had undergone basic repairs, and there were six other magic towers erected, all of which had six floors. With that, the ce would never again be rendered totally defenseless when powerful enemies showed up at the door again.


    With the Cloudflow invaders retreating and the Holy See¡¯s army heading north, the trouble with the sh of the three cities was resolved. There was hardly any tension left within Daliang. The gates were no longer shut. While there were hardly any faraway merchants stopping by, some mercenaries showed up and signed up to see if they could be as lucky as the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group.


    Don infiltrated the city without any trouble. He joined one of the mercenary groups as a mage. Dressed in a white robe and capable of ying up a few tricks, the mercenaries were more than happy to have Don among their ranks.


    Don was, of course, no mage, but some magic did not require magic chords to conjure. He cooked up a lot of trouble in the past for having researched magic. That made him lose a good bunch of his brothers-in-arms. Don, without a doubt, had a great resentment towards magic. That did not stop him from researching and using magic though.


    Don¡¯s mind seemed to be filled with evil fires every time he used magic, suppressing his urge to ughter everyone around him.


    Not that time. That time, he was there to take someone away, and that required quite a bit of discretion.


    Don had a keen enough sense to join a mercenary group with little more than one-hundred members, but members of which were of high quality. The group was taken in by the city as expected without trouble.


    As a mage from a mercenary group, Don was not summoned to the pce immediately, and he felt no need to rush things. If he was to go on his way by force, there was no guarantee that he would have been able to destroy all the magic towers in the way. As soon as Lex retreated into one of those towers, there was little else he could do.


    There was little need to get too close to Lex. Three-hundred yards would have been enough, as she would have been out of the towers¡¯ range for protection. As long as things happened to be so, Don had enough confidence to take his target away. As for escape, there was no option but to fight his way out of the city.


    Don waited a week to be selected by Lex¡¯s people to join the ranks of the pce mages. As a level two white-robed mage, there was no way for him to be able to join the ranks of her personal mages. There were other tests to be had, such as loyalty.


    Don was at the time, in charge of the records, taking note of the books that low-level mages borrowed. The magic tower of the pce could have been seen from the window of his quarters. Then again, there was a need for his sharp eyes to make out the sight in a crisp-clear manner.


    There was nothing to set up to hide anything within the tower. Don was able to somewhat see into the seventh floor of the tower with his power. There was a silhouette of a woman. The young female mage was a grade-6 grand mage, as per Theisio¡¯s description.


    A grade-6 grand mage was still within his means to deal with. If she were to advance into the ranks of sorcerers, however, things would have been rather messy.


    Taking someone alive was a far more difficult job than simply killing someone.


    Seeing that silhouette from afar brought him a sense of tranquility. He did not intend to return quickly from the mission. All his brothers from back then were dead. As a holy master of the Heaven Knights, he knew full well that there was a ruin from the second dynasty in the ce that his brothers were looking for him in.


    The magesmitting sacrilegious acts on the dynastymitted equally sphemous acts of various sorts against the gods. Don did not mind it. He liked magic, and he did not regret giving up his future for the art. He was unfortunate to be born as a child of God. As a believer, it was not fitting for him to learn such things.


    ¡°So, that is to say, I will be cast to hell for it then?¡± Don thought as he looked at the female mage within the tower, how wonderful and blessed it was to be able to practice magic to one¡¯s heart¡¯s content. ¡°I will just let her be happy for a few more days then.¡±


    The mage¡¯s crystal coffin was no longer inside the tower¡¯s seventh floor. Stephanie had moved Eleanor to the eighth floor to continue her treatment. There was actually no need for the treatment to take such a long time. The dy was due to Stephanie¡¯s research on the body of the elf as the treatment took ce. While that did not benefit Eleanor in the slightest, it was at least reassuring to know that the treatment was a meticulous one, and would not have left her with unwanted side effects.


    The female who was dressed in Lex¡¯s clothes and had her hair done like Lex¡¯s on the seventh floor was Isabe. While Daliang had been free from any crisis at that time, it was somewhat unnerving for Lex to leave for such a long time. As such, Lex did not announce her departure and instead had Lex practice within the tower in her stead.


    Lex was not even within the city. She snuck out and headed for Bitterwater Prefecture, and returned to Metatrin City through the teleportation portal. Jason needed her back as soon as possible, so she went the quickest way she was able to think of.


    It was a matter of fact that the Holy See had spies within Daliang, but their numbers were too small and their levels too low. It was done so that they would not have attracted any attention to them, but the information they were able to gather was limited. Any news they dared send out wasparatively important intelligence. Lex had not even informed the army of her departure, and as such, the low-level spies knew nothing about it at all.


    Even if the pope was to send a force to sack the city, they would not have found Lex anywhere. That was because Lex had entered the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment. Thirty-six sorcerers created the inter-dimensional teleportation portal, arriving urately outside Raphael¡¯s magic tower using Lex¡¯s God¡¯s ring.


    Lex brought massive relevant materials with her, creating arge-scale teleportation portal outside Raphael¡¯s tower.


    Inter-dimensional travel was not a difficult feat so long one was willing to pay the price, or else summoning magic would be something impossible. In theory, inter-dimensional teleportation hardly cost any more than teleportation on the same ne. This was because teleportation on the same ne had one teleport through space more than twice. Inter-dimensional teleportation only had one teleport through said space once.


    Of course, if the inter-dimensional teleportation concerned had nes being very far from each other and coordinates being unclear, the massive cost to it would not have been something seen in teleportation within the same ne.


    Lex teleported herself back to the magic array beneath the temple after creating a detailed coordinate. She intended to take six mages with her. Without the god¡¯s ring, the danger posed to the mages traveling between dimensions would have surpassed the danger of flying in thunderstorms.


    The reason why Jason was willing to work with her before she married Saleen was because she possessed the God ring. It enabled her to teleport between dimensions safely.


    Lex had no choice but to seek Jason¡¯s help. There was no way she was able to gather so many sorcerers. While the Grukos might have been able to provide her with such, and she would have been able to do so with the Seal of the Six-Winged Flying Snake, doing so would have resulted in her falling on bad terms with Saleen. She ended up getting nothing out of it.


    ording to the traditions of her house, Lex would have been able to get twenty percent out of said earnings at most.


    ¡°Teacher, will you not apany me there?¡±, Lex rubbed at the God¡¯s ring. Even with such a Godly Item equipped, one was only able to provide protection for six at most. With the number of times doing so being limited, transport of all thirty-six sorcerers would have taken two or three years. Something good came out of it nheless. Metatrin City could not be left defenseless after all.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going,¡± Jason smiled, ¡°I¡¯m hoping to advance using my own powers.¡±

 Chapter 817: Strong Medicine for a Solid Foundation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 817: Strong Medicine for a Solid Foundation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jason¡¯s words were calm and peaceful, but there was also a force that was never present before. Many people were stuck at grade-8 and could never advance to grade-9 for their entire lives, yet Jason dared to say that he would be able to advance quickly just by using his own power.


    Lex could only admire him. She knew that she would definitely need the Six Elements¡¯ Space because advancing to grade-9 had be an urgent matter. The people around her were not strong enough. Bain had been sent out and her teacher needed to stay and guard Bitter Water Prefecture. Other than the ck metal grand swordmaster, the rest were mostly grand mages of grade-4 and grade-5.


    In the past, the group of people would have been considered as formidable, but then the humans of the entire Maind were bing more and more powerful. Whoever could advance faster would have the advantage.


    ¡°It seems that Saleen is about to return. I will wait for him here. Lex, just go ahead. Based on your abilities, advancing to grade-9 shouldn¡¯t be too difficult. This Six Elements¡¯ Space is best utilized by the strong. The more talented you are, the faster you can advance. You should not waste any more time.¡±


    ¡°Yes, teacher.¡± Lex was extremely respectful to Jason, not because he was Saleen¡¯s teacher, but because of what he had just said, that he hoped to depend only on his own abilities to advance to grade-9.


    Lex knew that Jason was not someone who was stupid or impulsive. He must have had a certain level of confidence in order to say what he said.


    The difference between grade-9 and grade-8 was huge. Since Jason was able to resist the temptation of advancing quickly, that could only mean that he was almost on the cusp of advancing and that there was nothing else standing in his way.


    Lex brought five sorcerers with her and left for Rafael¡¯s magic tower via the teleportation portal. There was an enclosed magic array outside of Rafael¡¯s magic tower, but it was not an obstacle for the six iing sorcerers.


    The sorcerers walked up the levels and came straight to the Six Elements¡¯ Space.


    After bing a sorcerer, Lex¡¯s understanding of the Six Elements¡¯ Space had deepened greatly. The Space was not a rarity in the ancient times. After all, there would always be people who were less talented in every dynasty. The Six Elements¡¯ Space was invented just for that group of people.


    In that Space, the six elements were abnormally stable and in harmony. Embedded within it were the rule to advance to grade-9.


    In the ancient times, the human body was strong and resilient, so there was no restriction on the grades that could enter the Space. In their time, in order to enter the Space without damaging one¡¯s body, one must at least be a sorcerer first.


    Six colors were floating around in the mysterious Six Elements¡¯ Space, but Lex still entered without hesitation. Since she possessed the God¡¯s Ring, she had no reason to be afraid to enter at grade-6. It was just that she had to wait for the arrival of the people of Sregl Ind, otherwise all the wealth in the interdimensional space could not have been preserved.


    Meeting Jason again had allowed Lex topletely let go of her worries. Since Jason called her by name and not by her title, that meant that he had recognized the rtionship between her and Saleen. It would have been a blow to her if Jason had not recognized their rtionship.


    Jason might look gentle and restrained, but he actually possessed the confidence and pride of the ancient powerful people. The man could not be controlled, not by Alchemy City, nor by her.


    The moment Lex entered the Six Elements¡¯ Space, she was immediately unable to sense the locations of the other five sorcerers. Nevertheless, she was not worried because she knew that it would be difficult to leave the Space unless one had advanced to grade-9. All the sorcerers had prepared enough food tost them for a few years.


    In actual fact, to advance to grade-9 from grade-7 would only take a short while in the Space. These sorcerers could vanish for a few months when they were at usually training in the magic tower.


    Lex decided to sit down on her spot and took out some restorative water from the God¡¯s Ring. Then, she began to recall the slight hint of rule that she had felt back when she was advancing to a sorcerer.


    The rule that Lex could sense came from a secret technique of her n, the seventh magic chord, and not from the six elements. Now that she had entered the Six Elements¡¯ Space, the thing that Rafael had left behind was big enough for six sorcerers to advance at the same time. There were a number of rules embedded in the Space, but they were permanent. Other than the rules in the Six Elements¡¯ Space, the sorcerers training in there would not be able to obtain anything else.


    That was also the reason why Jason refused to train in the Space. His aspiration was to be the strongest person in his generation. If his understanding of the rules was too little or narrow when he was at grade-9, it would definitely affect his path in the future.


    Other sorcerers did not think that way because very few people would even think about advancing to grade-18 when they were still only at grade-9. It was just too far-fetched.


    On that dimension, grade-10 was probably the ceiling.


    Fortunately, Lex already had her own path to take. Her seventh magic chord would not be affected by the limitation of the Six Elements¡¯ Space. In fact, new rules would be developed when it transformed under the influence of the Space.


    There were different levels of rules, but that did not mean that low-level rules were useless. A mage would only go far if they understood more. If a mage only understood high-level rules, then they would just end up as a fool that only knew how to fight.


    Lex had little understanding of grades beyond grade-9 even though she knew Joey very early on. The tradition of mages was such that they never strived to be the best inbat, that was usually what swordsmen strived for. There must be a reason behind that. Lex remembered very well, that when she was still very young and was still learning how to read and write, she also gave her all in her learning. Her father never allowed her to give up on anything and that was how she grew up.


    She dared not im to be the most hardworking mage, but as a member of the royal family, she was definitely the one that was willing to sacrifice the most.


    When Lex advanced into a sorcerer, she already understood many of the essential questions behind the transformation of the six elements, deepening her appreciation of how the world was formed. Amidst the strange and faint colors in the Space that was filled with the six elements, the elements were still continuously transforming.


    That time around, Lex used her eyes to observe what was happening. It was as if her eyes were now able to differentiate between the elements.


    That was not an illusion, rather it was given to her by the Six Elements¡¯ Space. At the same time, her seventh magic chord grew out of her body and began to absorb the elemental power within the Space.


    Lex had never gone through training at such high speed before, so much so that she was afraid of it. The umtion of magic chords was aplicated process and within the Space, the speed of the process has increased by at least thirty times. Lex estimated that the ten years¡¯ worth of time she would have needed to advance to a grade-8 sorcerer could be shrunk to about three months at that rate.


    The Sregl Ind mages should be able to advance faster than her since she possessed an additional magic chord, which would affect the speed of her advancement.


    Since Lex no longer needed to worry about the increase in magic chords, she could use the rest of the time to fully focus on sensing the rules and mastering the technique of controlling the elements.


    As Lex gradually sank into a shallow state of meditation, she began to dispose of the knowledge of all the spells that she had learned since her youth.


    The rainbow magic chords spun gently outside of her body and gradually became more cohesive. This cohesiveness was a unique rule that did not belong to the Space and only Lex could sense.


    Her God¡¯s Ring was slowly absorbing the elemental power as well, but at a lower rate than Lex. It was as if it was afraid of affecting Lex¡¯s training. Ancient runes on the interior of the God¡¯s Ring became clearer. The ancient writings were made up of long sybles as each word was rich with meaning. It was also the reason why the ancient writings were lost over time.


    Eight ancient words appeared on the God¡¯s Ring. They were left behind by humans at the beginning of civilization, even earlier than the first dynasty.


    The eight words gave out a soft sound continuously. Only Lex could hear the sounds and she could not help, but allow them to upy her mind. The sybles of the eight words were long and repetitive. Even if Lex forced herself to memorize them all, they could be rearranged in any order and that made it difficult for her to fullyprehend their meaning. To a mage, it was incredible.


    Lex was not in a hurry. She had more than enough time in the Six Elements¡¯ Space. If she needed three months to advance to grade-8, then she would probably need at least six months to advance to grade-9. She had no other choice since she had one more additional magic chord than others.


    While the training in the Six Elements¡¯ Space was boring, Metatrin City was full of excitement. That was because Saleen had finally returned. In the middle of September, Saleen has returned to Metatrin City with Sika on his pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    He was in such a hurry to return purely because he was worried about the defense of Metatrin City. All the Dragon skeletonbat vessels had gone to the Oceanic Ice Block. Aside from a magic cannon, Metatrin¡¯s port was practically defenceless. If Cloudflow fleets appeared, they would be able to reach shore after probably sacrificing about only ten mainbat vessels.


    Based on the speed of the magic cannon, that was the best that they could have hoped for.


    Once Saleen returned, he knew of Jason¡¯s arrival immediately. He was not as emotional as the previous time. He only brought Sika along with him to Jason¡¯s room to greet him.


    Any ritual would have been meaningless because Jason was like a father to Saleen.


    When Jason saw Saleen, he was ovee with emotions. His student had finally grown up. The woman by his side was pregnant and was smiling at him without any fear. She was a very powerful warrior! No, not a warrior, or a swordsman, or an assassin, or any archer.


    This Caucasus woman had be a powerful Priestess!


    ¡°Teacher, you have finallye.¡± So many feelings and words were condensed into a simple sentence. Saleen had endured a lot while waiting for Jason toe over. In the past, he would put up with everything because he was afraid that his kingdom would be wiped out. Jason was there and Metatrin City was at least secured. Even if Fyrco came, surely there was nothing he could do against thirty-six magic towers.

 Chapter 818: Strong Medicine for a Solid Foundation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 818: Strong Medicine for a Solid Foundation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°You should let Sika rest. She is about to give birth and you are still bringing her around with you!¡± Although Jason was happy, he was not going to let that stop him from reprimanding Saleen. It was not easy for mages to have offspring because of their physique and because most mages did not have the time to marry and settle down. They often found training in magic to be more enjoyable than having rtionships.


    Sika was still d in armor, but her armor was light and could change its form and was not clumsy at all. She shook her head and said, ¡°Teacher Jason, I want to apany Saleen.¡±


    Jason was taken aback, but he was even happier to hear that. Sika¡¯s personality was different from Lex. She said whatever came to her mind and it would not make anyone feel awkward.


    Jason did not say more and only nodded at Saleen. Saleen cast a water shield. As the huge bubble gradually sank down, he let Sika lean against it as if it was a cushion used by noble families.


    No one else was in the room except Jason, Sika, and Saleen. Jason said to Saleen, ¡°Tell me, what kind of trouble have you encountered?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart was warm. He thought carefully and said, ¡°Teacher, some of my problems cannot be said.¡±


    The bond that he had signed with the Goddess and the thing that he promised Fyrco were all rted to bonds, so he would have to handle them on his own. If he spoke about them to anyone and the bond counteracted, it would be a matter of life and death.


    ¡°Then say those that can be said.¡± Jason did not mind. Mages were often restricted by rules. Saleen¡¯s status was different by then, it was normal for him to have more secrets.


    Saleen stretched out both his hands, where a green glow emanated from them. Saleen said, ¡°I possess some life strength from the Nature Goddess. To the Holy See, this is something that must be eliminated. As a result, the Holy See and I will always be in dispute, without any possibility of resolution.¡±


    ¡°No need for resolution. If the Holy See wants to take you down, then you will just have to defeat them first,¡± Jason replied directly and decisively.


    Saleen was stunned for a moment, but immediately smiled. When his own teacher was still at grade-5, he had challenged a grade-6 mage, who had his own magic tower, because thetter had destroyed the graves of the former¡¯s n. Not everyone possessed such audacity. In fact, very few people would have done the same.


    Sikaid there and said, ¡°There are no good souls in the Holy See. Teacher is right. We might as well overthrow the Holy See. When you built a temple instead of a magic tower as your living quarters, you must have already thought of that as well!¡±


    Although Sika had been trained by a group of mages on her style of speech, it was still difficult to adjust. When she spoke, it did not sound cohesive, but the meaning was clear.


    Saleen thought about it and said, ¡°Lex has given the mark of the six-winged flying snake to me. Although I cannot really use it to summon the Grukos n¡¯s forces to fight for me, it would be a cause for concern for anyone that wanted to deal with me. I¡¯m worried that this might trigger Prince Safilos into wanting to make an attempt for my life. He is a golden grand swordmaster. Once he gets close to me, no one can protect me.¡±


    ¡°Safilos... we cannot touch him for now. If he dies, Qin will be in chaos immediately. At most, you will stay in Metatrin City and not go to Holy Rock City. By staying here, no one will be able to touch you, not even the old freak in Holy Rock City,¡± Jason replied.


    ¡°Teacher, you know Joey?¡±


    ¡°Humph, the most powerful person in Holy Rock City. It has been a few hundred years. That fellow once killed many people in Alchemy City. He had to flee all the way to Holy Rock City in order to survive.¡±


    ¡°Back then, he was not even grade-10 yet right?¡± Saleen probed.


    ¡°Hmm, back then, he was only at grade-8,¡± Jason replied monotonously.


    Daring to challenge Alchemy City at grade-8, Joey had left Saleen speechless. It seemed like Joey had not continued this enmity. Based on his current abilities at grade-10, even if he would not be able to attack all the way into Alchemy City, just blocking the entrance of the city would have posed a headache to Alchemy City. If no one was able to enter or leave the city, its reputation would have taken a severe hit.


    ¡°Teacher, Nailisi is a demon. She can summon her demon army to fight for me.¡± Now that his teacher was there, there was nothing else that Saleen would hold back on. If Jason refused to support him, then there was no one else he could depend on anymore.


    ¡°A Demon army!¡± It was the first time Jason looked so shocked. He did not respond that way even when Saleen mentioned how he was at odds with the Holy See.


    ¡°Teacher, is it really inappropriate?¡± Saleen was worried.


    ¡°Not inappropriate. It¡¯s just that our abilities are... still too weak.¡± Jason became quiet.


    Saleen was confused by what his teacher said. From what he could see, there were more than thirty sorcerers in Metatrin City then. ¡®Weak¡¯ was not something he would associate with the city anymore.


    ¡°The Demon dimension is the closest dimension to the Myers Maind, closer than even the death dimension. Saleen, humans are bing stronger, but demons are no exception either. If we do not control the situation well, those demons can very well pose a dangerous threat to Metatrin City.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, a demon city was built ording to the devil¡¯s drawing.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi will not be content with summoning only demons. This method of summoning will reduce the intellect and fighting abilities of these demons. She will develop demons that will be born on the Myers Maind instead. Demons grow very quickly, within a few decades, two to three generations of demons would have been born. Demons that are born on the Myers Maind will not be controlled so easily.¡±


    ¡°So the humans in the past...¡±


    ¡°Someone of my grade would have just been an apprentice to the humans in the past.¡± Jason stared at his student.


    When Jason saw that Saleen was no longer refuting, he continued, ¡°I have briefly analyzed the situation on the Maind. Alchemy City will no longer adopt such a passive approach and will fight against the other countries in striving for control of the Maind. There are more and more powerful mages in Alchemy City, even the areas controlled by Alchemy City no longer satisfy these mages. Having a demon army is only a short-term solution. The key is that in the next thirty years, one of us must reach grade-10 in order to be able to control demon city. If a devil is summoned, we will all be doomed otherwise.¡±


    ¡°This...¡±


    ¡°How is this possible? Hey, Saleen, you may not know, but although devils may not be Gods, they are definitely creatures higher than grade-10. Even the lousiest devil is more powerful than a grade-9 sorcerer. Demons on the Myers Maind are not suppressed in any way. If the devils discover that their demons keep disappearing, they will disguise themselves as demons too. In that case, the summoning array can very well bring the devils over to this dimension. Think about it. A grade-10 creature of demon bloodline will be able to control all the demons on this dimension. Won¡¯t that be a problem?¡±


    ¡°What if Nailisi reaches grade-10?¡±


    ¡°Unless you are able to advance to grade-9 soon the bond between you two will suppress her growth. If you don¡¯t advance, her fighting abilities will not be able to increase thoroughly.¡±


    ¡°Once Sika gives birth, I will go into the Six Elements¡¯ Space.¡± Saleen lowered his head.


    Regarding the demon army, Nailisi had not beenpletely truthful with him. Based on her bloodline, she was not obliged to be fond of humans. As long as she was able to ensure her own safety, losing control of the demon army might not be an uneptable thing to Nailisi.


    ¡°Hmm, although you are my only student, it seems that you do not wish to inherit everything from me. I heard that you have taken in a student?¡± Jason¡¯s words put Saleen to shame. It was out of impulse that he took in Truman as his student. Back then, he was still a grade-6 mage and Truman was at least at grade-4. It did not seem too logical for him to be Truman¡¯s teacher.


    ¡°I will not have time to guide him either. You must be responsible for the student that you have taken in yourself.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen did not refute what Jason said, even though thetter did not guide the former too much either.


    ¡°If you are going against the Holy See, then what you are doing is far from sufficient. Saleen, if you are going to expand your military, go all out. Expand your temple corp, while your ten main corps will be stationed out of the city and take turns to rotate with each other. Let your noble families handle the rest. If you give up half of the benefits, you will receive even more in return.¡±


    ¡°Half?¡± Saleen was sensitive to that figure. He had always controlled the noble families¡¯ powers very tightly for fear of rebellion.


    ¡°Humph, are you familiar with the word ¡®generation¡¯?¡±


    Saleen shook his head. It was not that he did not understand the meaning of the word, but rather why his teacher would bring it up all of a sudden.


    ¡°I have a feeling that the new generation is about toe. This may be thest time these noble families will enjoy glory. Let them have it. All this will quicklye to an end under the rule of devils.¡±


    After spouting a chain of dramatic lines, Saleen could not help but smile bitterly at what Jason said.


    ¡°Teacher, will humans¡¯ abilities really increase so quickly?¡± Saleen was not confident about that. He was merely pushing himself forward for the sake of not being left behind by the others.


    ¡°It is quicker than you think. I will be advancing into a grade-9 sorcerer very soon. Within the next three years, I will have a chance to advance to grade-10. This is not something I would have dared to think about in the past. Although talent ys a part, if not for the rules of this dimension changing, I would have needed at least one-hundred years to advance to grade-10.¡±


    Saleen listened to what Jason said and gained a new understanding of his teacher. To think that Jason was confident of advancing to grade-10 within one-hundred years initially! Now, he would be able to do it within a decade or so.


    ¡°Saleen, you may not be the most talented, but you are very hardworking. I have never seen any mage that was willing to work as hard as you. I have a good idea of your training methods, but you have a fatal weakness.¡±


    Saleen stood still and listened intently. Jason¡¯s words were still important to him. Since his inheritance came from Jason, thetter understood his training method inside and out. Saleen was entirely clear before advancing into a sorcerer, but then, he had a better idea that every inheritance led to different paths.


    ¡°Youck the drive to push forward at all costs. That is why you have yet to advance into a sorcerer even though you are already proficient in the control of water elements. If not for external factors, you would have waited even longer.¡± A couple sentences from Jasonpletely pointed out Saleen¡¯s weakness.

 Chapter 819: Bringing Your Lover Along To Training (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 819: Bringing Your Lover Along To Training (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was dumbfounded hearing his teacher¡¯s words and began to sweat. He did not know how to answer his teacher¡¯s question that came out of the blue.


    ¡°Saleen, I knew what kind of situation you were in when I first met you. This particr impasse is something you have to deal with on your own sooner orter. If I were you, I would never enter the Six Element Space. I would choose instead to stay in Raphael¡¯s ten-floored magic tower, and devote myself to training there. For the period of one year, you would do nothing else but open the path to the rank of a grade-8 sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°During this period, you would need to have nothing else in your mind, no concern for anything but your own practice. If you are unable to do so, I¡¯m afraid my lineage would die alongside you,¡± Jason borated.


    Saleen looked at Sika. She frowned and said, ¡°Master, I want to enter the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment too.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Why would you want to do so?¡±, Jason was hardly surprised, and merely smiled at Sika.


    ¡°Master, What the Northern Caucasus people from the south of the city want is but a farce. It isn¡¯t something Caucasus people should want. I just want to be with Saleen. If I¡¯m not going with him, Saleen will be concerned for my safety. The reason why you can want such a thing of him is because you have no children of your own,¡± Sika said while touching her belly, and then smiled, ¡°The two children in me will prove to be Saleen¡¯s greatest courage. If he were to fail, they will possibly not have a future.¡±


    Jason was stunned. This was the first time he realized how strong Sika actually was. Her words were brief, yet they rendered him speechless. He had no children, and so would have never understood Saleen¡¯s feelings. Sika was right.


    ¡°I may be pregnant, but if anyone wants to get to him, they will have to go through me,¡± Sika said while brandishing her weapon and thumped it heavily on the floor. Saleen shuddered for a moment, as he felt pity for the steel rock flooring beneath her. That thump made quite a dent in it.


    Jason¡¯s brow twitched. While Saleen might have had the Elemental Eye, his ability to appraise equipment was still somewhat below his teacher¡¯s. Sika¡¯s weapon had actually struck a bit of fear in Jason.


    The higher the expectations Jason had for Saleen, the more he feared his student dying at a low level or getting killed. Even worse; never being able progress further.


    ¡°Letting his lover and unborn children go keep himpany while he trains?¡± Jason gave the thought some serious pondering, to see if that was something feasible. To mages, children were akin to spawn of hell, capable to disrupting your thought by simply crying. Worse still, the crying of children carried some sort of mental pration power with it. It was so potent that evenmon mute enchantments proved incapable of shutting it outpletely.


    That was one of the gifts of humanity, which unfortunately, was also one that mages hated the most. That was the reason why mages shunned crowds, to keep themselves out of earshot of children crying.


    Mages were, of course, free from the concerns for such cries during battle, as that was when they were on guard all the time. When a mage proceed with their practice and conducted magical experiments they did not confined their senses into tight spaces that could be detrimental. Instead, they were required to expand their senses to their limits, so as to acquire more experience and details of their practice. They would not have required magic towers if it was not so.


    ¡°Fine. When Lex gets here, we will have six grade-9 mages. You will leave the matters of the city to Lex for the moment. Your Metatrin City will also need refurbishing, or else it will be like I wasted my efforts all these years,¡± Jason eventually granted Sika¡¯s request.


    Jason was a mage, but he was not a magic beast devoid of emotions. He felt a need to test Sika¡¯s words. If Sika¡¯s children proved to be so important to Saleen, separating them would have proven detrimental to Saleen¡¯s advancement. Pressing forward with an indomitable did not make one immune to thoughts of family. Jason himself had chosen to relent when he ran into trouble at that time.


    Mages never endeavored in anything that was absolutely impossible to aplish. If they were to fight for anything, a one percent chance of sess would be the lowest requirement.


    The way Jason looked at it, if Sika were to be by Saleen¡¯s side when he trained, the possibility of him seeding would at least be more than one percent. If Saleen seeded, passing on his lineage would not prove so difficult.


    Jason knew of the pain his practice entailed. There was little else but magic in his life, ever since he was born on Sregl Ind. His teacher had taken more than a dozen students, but he was the one who made it. His seniors were just as hardworking as he was, and have given as much as he had, but all of them gradually lost sight of their initial dreams. It was due to the overwhelming loneliness that such practice brought about.


    Mages of his lineage were not permitted to give up their beliefs at any cost. Any backsliding would end their way forward right there and then.


    That was the very reason why Jason never had any faith on the matter of taking students of his own. He had never thought of taking in another after taking in Saleen.


    ¡°Thank you, master,¡± Sika said seriously, but was still half-lying down, with her staff in her hands.


    On November eleventh, Sika gave birth. It was midnight, and both children came to the world one after another. That was the first time all the Caucasus people stayed awake during the night, as they lit thousands of bonfires and organized their own celebrations of the event.


    The temple guards turned a blind eye to the Caucasus people¡¯s unusual behavior and let them have their fun. There were Caucasus people among the temple guards too, but those Caucasus people stood guard ording to military regtions, instead of joining in the celebrations.


    Saleen¡¯s training proved fruitful. Some Caucasus people had assimted as part of the Kingdom of Metatrin, and gradually forgot their past.


    A boy and a girl were born, and Saleen was barely able to contain his joy, smiling like an idiot. He and Sika took one child in their arms. Sika¡¯s body was far from being rendered frail from the ordeal, as she was capable of self-healing. She was, after all, a priestess. No one in the city was better at the healing arts than she was except Nichs.


    Nobles in the city sent gifts, as dictated bymon custom. Saleen took all of them with a smile. He had spent quite some time training during that period. While he felt the growth of his magic chords slowed, his perceptions and understanding of the elements had deepened instead.


    The Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater prefectureat were no longer the central focus of people¡¯s attentions. That was due to the Holy See havingunched an assault at the Qin Empire: a joint war effort between the Tanggsi Empire, Cloudflow, and Sikenqinyas.


    The Cloudflow warships closed in on Alchemy City, and had even attempted to take a detour around the city to attack Porter City.


    No ce north of Alchemy City, with the exception of Metatrin City, stood a chance of withstanding the onught of the Cloudflow navy. That included Porter City and some other small ports. Alchemy City had no choice but to send their ships to even further reaches. They sent them near the edge of the Storm Ocean to defend against any Cloudflow assault at the north side of the Qin Empire.


    While it was not the Alchemy City¡¯s duty to protect the north side of the Qin Empire, Alchemy City¡¯s current status would have been no more if the Cloudflow invaders were to have it their way.


    Sikenqinyas even went the despicable route of sending hundreds of thousand of mercenaries to invade the Kroraina territory, attacking the Qin people with the army of the Holy See.


    The move was described to be despicable due to the fact that the emperor of Sikenqinya had dered, loud and proud, that the nation would never embroil themselves in the war that the Holy See had started.


    An emperor¡¯s words were thought to be worth their weight in gold, which in this case and in the eyes of Emperor Danny himself, his words would have weighed nothing.


    Lex¡¯s Bitterwater prefecture was no longer the main battlefield due to being a target of lowered priority. Saleen¡¯s Kingdom of Metatrin at the time had arge castle built by Aini and more than one-hundred-thousand troops garrisoned near the borders of Kroraina and Laiyin Duchy. The most convenient route to send their armies, waspletely blocked off.


    There were three ways the Holy See was able to attack Saleen¡¯s territories. The first one being venturing into the Chaotic Swamp, passing through the secret passage, and then entering the old Phoenix territory. The second would have been the route taken by the Cloudflow people. It was to take a detour around Alchemy City. The third was to send in navies, via the oceans north of the maind, and assault Metatrin City.


    The secret passage of Chaotic Swamp was known only to oracles. Fycro had his own ideas, and as such withheld such information from the pivotal council. While Alchemy City was at a disadvantage at the battle in the southern oceans, but they were nheless able to stop the Cloudflow navy from advancing due to having a superior numbers of mages. They were able to hold the line at Alchemy City, and as such, the north remained safe for the time being.


    The third way was rendered unfeasible as the time was November, and the seas have frozen over. If the Holy See had wanted to take the even further route, they would have needed to wait until April.


    Despite having ensured the safety of his city, Saleen was still unable to leave. If he were to teleport through the interdimensional space, he would have required Lex¡¯s God¡¯s ring. While he had his own devil¡¯s armor and Sika had her own armor crafted from divine trees, their children were still defenseless. They would have required protection from Lex to make it through the interdimensional space.


    Eleanor had recovered from her injuries and would soon returned to Metatrin City. Nailisi had yet to return. There were ten-thousand demons going out from Demon City, under the leadership of Singiles, to take Nailisi¡¯s ce in Sanlian City.


    Nailisi had things her way in Sanlian City. She had first attracted the attention of the enemy with the demon army, then nted magic bugs behind enemy lines without anyone noticing. The bugs numbered initially around seven-hundred, and as such had not aroused suspicion from anyone. Then the bugs quickly multiplied to tens of millions, and that forced the Holy See¡¯s army to pull out from Sanlian City.


    Magic bugs in small numbers were something thatmon human farmers were easily able to deal with using only their hoes. When their numbers came to tens of millions, they would be a force capable of taking out armies.


    While the line at Sanlian City was safe and steady, Nailisi missed Saleen, so she had Singiles take her ce. The reinforcements that time were ten-thousand soldiers, but they did note as quickly as they hadst time. Singiles acquired the power tomand demons and had advanced into the rank of a Silver Grand Swordmaster. Singiles still felt his advancement to be something that should have happened in dreams.


    Singiles¡¯ had his original magic beast stead reced with that of a mountain magic beast with low intelligence. While such beasts were a branch of supreme demons, theirbat capacity was equal only to that of a demon. Their bodies were the size of walking dragons; that made them very capable of feats of brute strength.


    Saleen was, at that moment, only waiting for Lex to show up. He knew well that if he did not advance, he would not be capable of keeping up with the times. That was something that most people on their ne had yet to understand. The nobles of the Kingdom of Metatrin still had their attentions in developing their own armies, hoping to achieve great endeavors on the maind.


    Those people had little idea that in the days toe, families without a powerful one as a cornerstone would not be able to make it as a true noble.

 Chapter 820: Bringing Your Lover Along To Training (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 820: Bringing Your Lover Along To Training (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The remodeling of Metatrin City was still ongoing. As the walls required no reinforcements or repairs of any kind, Jason focused on theyout of the city grounds. When the construction of all thirty-six magic towers had finished, the airspace three-thousand yards above Metatrin City would be rendered a no-fly zone.


    Such measures would make the city¡¯s defense on par with Holy Rock City¡¯s. That meant that there would no longer be any grade-9 sorcerers capable of bombing the city from above, as the range of magic attacks rarely exceed three-thousand yards. Some physical attack-based magic spells were able to exceed such a range, unlike elemental attacks. Such attacks would still be renderedpletely ineffective when they reach their targets.


    Metatrin City became an orderly ce after undergoing remodeling from Jason and other sorcerers. The vicinity of the temple was defended entirely by the temple guards. The south of the city was made into a residential area for Caucasus people and the families of the temple guards.


    Functions of other ces remained unchanged, but the roads were rebuilt. Magical facilities of sorts were also installed into every household.


    The hunting fleet returned, suffering losses in the form of several bone warships, but the dragon skeletonbat vessels were able to take prizes in the form of high level magic beasts, whichpletely made up for the losses.


    Two bone warships were even able to take out a severely injured single-horned white whale.


    The single-horned white whale was a grade-9 creature, but had thebat capacity of more than a dozen grade-9 creatures. It was so fearsome that krakens would have hesitated to fight it. The creature had been near the end of its life, and swam with all its might to the oceanic ice block¨Cits final resting ce. It was attacked by tens of vampsharks on its journey. Killing these vampsharks took a heavy toll on the whale¡¯s stamina, and thus the bone warships were able to take the prize.


    The whale was the most powerful creature below grade-10, and the magic nucleus in its brain was incredibly huge, so much so that a spatial crate proved inadequate for storage. A magic nucleus of such a size was enough to be cut into one-thousand standard-sized pieces.


    What did that mean? That meant that even if Saleen was to fight wars every day for the next several years, he would not need to fear running out of high level magic nuclei.


    Spirits of the dead recorded the fight with the whale faithfully, and that made Saleen shudder. Grade-8 magic beasts were so much more powerful than expected. The whale would have been capable of feats way above grade-9 mages¡¯. The creature still had enough left in it to destroy several warships and killed so many level grade-8 sharks, even being severely injured and nearing the end of its life. Worse still, the leader of said sharks was a grade-9 creature itself.


    As he watched the battle with the dying creature and read information recorded on the magicpass, an unbelievable thought came across Saleen¡¯s mind.


    There was a cemetery of single-horned white whales in the oceanic ice block, where every whale nearing their end of their lives would go to wait for their end. If they were able to locate the cemetery, that would mean that they would have found a treasure trove containing innumerable giant magic nuclei. Each and every one of the nuclei would be items grade-9 or above. Each and every single-horned white whale of old were, after all, definitely very high level creatures.


    Saleen was also clear of the fact that, without the powers of grade-9, there would have been noing back once one ventured deep within the oceanic ice block.


    Levels of magic beasts in the waters were different from humans. Magic beasts of grade-8 or grade-9 would prove to be tough opponents to even for grade-9 sorcerers. The creatures had the advantage of terrain. If humans were to dive deep into the ocean, the drop inbat capacity would have been proportionate with the depth.


    Other than that, mining operations at the mineral veins north of the Demon City hadmenced. Mages of Sregl Ind had also provided the form to create magic crystals. That meant that Saleen had earned himself another stockpile of supplies for war. While these resources were not renewable ones, they were nheless safer options than hunting expeditions in faraway seas.


    A supply of ves and demons would prove adequate to keep the ores flowing from the mines to the alchemic factories in Metatrin City.


    The situation with the war on the maind changed every day, yet there were no signs of bloodshed to be found in Metatrin. Lex finally brought five grade-9 sorcerers from the Hell of God¡¯s Punishments when Nailisi returned.


    Lex felt slightly jealous when she saw Sika¡¯s children, the feeling of jealousy grew even stronger knowing that Saleen wanted to take them to train.


    Lex kept all that to herself, as she kept telling herself that there would be a day when she would have children with Saleen too. She told herself that Saleen would love her most by then.


    It did not take as long as she expected to advance into the rank of a grade-9 sorcerer. The winter was over and the time was May. Greenery was seen everywhere in the Kingdom of Metatrin. Lexposed herself and teleported Saleen, Sika, and Nailisi into the interdimensional space.


    The two children smiled all the way under the protection of the God¡¯s ring, ignorant of the pain they would have had to endure otherwise.


    Only Jason was able to understand Saleen¡¯s actions. From the perspective of everyone else, what Saleen did was no less than surreal. While it was not a weird thing to bring one¡¯s maid along for repairs, it definitely was unbelievable to bring one¡¯s lover and children along into such an ordeal. If one such mage was without doubt, he might be the most powerful mage the world had ever seen.


    They were able to enter the magic tower effortlessly when he arrived at the Hell of God¡¯s Punishments, as Saleen was equipped with the crystal ring. All three of them had been here before, and thus had no problem navigating their way to the tenth floor of the tower.


    All floors of the tower had had their valuables picked clean. Saleen¡¯s identity and wealth were different being there that time. He handed a good number of grade-9 magic nuclei to Nailisi to have the tower in full operation, while he went about setting down everyday items.


    It took Nailisi a great deal of effort toe see Saleen. She would have missed the chance toe there if she were to arrive dayster. Lex was not, after all, a driver who had all the time in the world to transport people here and there. Transporting just one more person took quite a bit of her ring¡¯s powers.


    As the journey had not been an easy one, Nailisi vowed to herself that she would dedicate her being to looking after Sika, just so that Sika would not get fed up with her and kick her out of the ce. Nailisi knew that she was a sore thumb, more so then than she had ever been before.


    When Sika was feeding one child, Nailisi had to keep the other in her arms, soothing the child while walking about. It was an eerie thing for a demon to do, as demon parents would simply throw their children out in the open fields for survival training. Human children were different; they were entirely helpless as newborns, and parents needed to look after them.


    After Sika settled down, Saleen headed to the tenth floor to begin practicing. The elements there were very thin, but Saleen was surprised to find that as the magic tower began operating in full capacity. After the required grade-9 magic nuclei were set into ce, the tower was connected to the peak of the mountain. Fire and earth elements were extracted from deep within the earth and sent into the tower one wave after another. The defense mechanism of the entire peak was activated in an instant.


    It would not have been possible for anyone else toe up to the mountain at that point.


    The tower was only equipped with the elements wind, water, light, and dark. They were all forced away from the tower. As the magic tower itself was equipped with elemental conversion capabilities, Saleen was entirely incapable of feeling that he was in the barren Hell of God¡¯s Punishments. He felt no different there than he did back on the Myers Maind.


    Sika was rather happy to have Nailisi to keep herpany, as she was not there for a honeymoon with Saleen. She was only there so that Saleen would always be able to see his children right in front of his eyes, enabling him to train without having concerns for them.


    Nailisi brought Sika to the twelve Notes of Purgatory when Sika was pregnant, and so the children seemed to feel she was familiar. That must be why they did not cry at the demon¡¯s presence.


    While the babies might have been born just a short time before, their innate human instincts nheless told them that Nailisi would never harm them, so they learned to cuddle up to the demon. Saleen simply kept meditating where he sat.


    The rules of meditation served to do more than recover one¡¯s own mental powers. Saleen only felt the full weight of his lineage, both in terms of importance and preciousness, at that time.


    The density of elements within the ten floors of the tower were such that normal humans would die as soon as they stepped foot within. The richness of elements in the tower did not cause Sika¡¯s children any difort though. If anything, they seemed to be more vigorous there than they did back on the Myers Maind.


    Still, Nailisi refrained from taking out the twelve Notes of Purgatory. While the children should not have feared the dark purgatory environment in theory, such things were not something one should experiment with. It was saved forter.


    Other than meditating, Saleen also read the book Isabe gave him with his Elemental Eye, studying the hidden power of the rules within. While the rules did not seem to be powerful ones, it was nheless very important to him.


    Saleen knew full well of the huge price he had to pay if he were to gulp down the magic chord medicine, rendering him with only one type of magic chord. Advancement would prove very, very difficult if one¡¯s elemental bnce was out. Coming to look at things at that moment, while he had been more hardworking than other mages, had ess to far more resources for practice, and seen a lot of action, he would have still been a grade-6 mage if he did not have all that stimtion to push him forward. He would have never been a sorcerer in the first ce.


    The mages who followed him from Sregl Ind were basically grade-6, and white-robed mages were d in gray robes. His advancement would never have been something to boast about.


    The reason why he was able to be a sorcerer was due to the fact that the powers permeating the entire Myers Maind grew. Saleen never thought himself to be a genius, and he never would have done so.


    The rules to such energy bnce were intricate; that boosted Saleen¡¯s faith that he could make it beyond grade-9. While Joey had been his target, he knew then that his own teacher was a powerful one as well. At the very least, Jason was an indomitable person in terms of willpower and mental capacity.


    Saleen had been unable to figure out those rules. As Raphael¡¯s magic tower began operating, he realized something very important right then. Raphael was able to achieve elemental bnce with the extraction of only two elements. Him having one did not seem to pose such a great problem to such achievement after all.


    As long as his body was able to meld with his surroundings and perform elemental exchanges any time he wished, he would became a part of the world. That meant that there was no need to remodel his body of water element.


    There was no such thing as eternal bnce. That book he held, would one day be reduced to ashes too.


    Saleen held the book in his hands as his Elemental Eye kept scanning the energy orbits within. Saleen felt that he was able to make sense of the flow of energy within the book without realizing it. He began to feel the influence of the magic tower, and both earth and fire element rushed into the cover of the book.


    Saleen was shocked. The energy of the book was scarce, while the elemental powers within the tower were akin to the sea inparison. His book would have been destroyed by such influx of power!


    The boy child smiled at Saleen suddenly, which Saleen was able to see as he lifted his head.


    Children had no skills and knew nothing of magic. They did not even know how to talk, yet they were still capable of staying inside the ten floors without any difort!


    ¡°Ahaahaha!¡±, the child shouted. Saleen stood up and put aside all the ponderings going about in his mind. He went over and picked his child up from Nailisi, cuddling the boy in his arms.

 Chapter 821: Bringing Your Lover Along To Training (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 821: Bringing Your Lover Along To Training (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The boy in Saleen¡¯s arms wiggled a bit, and went on to p his father¡¯s face.


    Saleenughed out loud. He wondered what he had been thinking. It was precisely in this environment that Raphael¡¯s understanding of the elements reached a level that he was never even able to conceive.


    The elemental bnce within the boy showed that the child was able to withstand the elemental exchange and absorption. It seemed that the child was able to absorb the elements faster than his father.


    If both children were to continue growing up in such an environment, they would have easily went beyond grade-10 by his age. Grade-10 was probably an understatement. Their growth would probably be off any charts ever plotted.


    It was without question that he would have never been able to sustain the cost of remaining in such an environment. The environment within the tower was created by depleting grade-9 magic nuclei. The energies left behind by Raphael had all been provided for the six element space. He could only remain there as long as his own suppliessted.


    The range of defense of Raphael¡¯s tower exceeded ten miles. If it was not for the fact that elemental powers were circting within the tower, they would not have been able to stay there for long even using dragonshards.


    ¡°Some bnce of power indeed.¡± Saleen felt exasperated as he yed with the boy in his arms.


    Saleen¡¯s understanding of the rules gradually became clearer, and that eased him somewhat. He came to understand that knowing and mastering the rules was not something that could be rushed. It definitely was not something that could have been able to be calcted simply by observing the elemental orbits with his Elemental Eye.


    Saleen finally came to understand that every single element was unique, and that he would never be able to control every single element. Figaro¡¯s Magic Form was renderedpletely useless in that case.


    Mages called the phenomenon the principle of indeterminacy of microcosm, while astrologists called it the sources of waves.


    There was no need for Saleen to know the properties of each and every element; he was only required to know themonalities between them. The reason why mages were able to acquire powers rivaling the gods was due to their understanding and maniption of suchmonalities.


    ¡°Nailisi, go hunt us something,¡± Saleen rarely gave the demon any orders. It was rarer still that the task was so mundane.


    ¡°But, master...,¡± Nailisi pointed at the window.


    ¡°Rx. The tower is under my control. Just go,¡± Saleen had little to spare when he was therest time. He was very reluctant to use grade-9 nuclei for the tower, resulting in a lot of magic arrays being dormant. Those that were activated were unable to recognize friend from foe.


    Nailisi jumped out of the window without bothering to argue, spread her wings, and made for the area beyond the peak. There werebyrinths right outside the magic tower, which were something that could be avoided by flying. Under Saleen¡¯s control however, Nailisi was able toe and go as she pleased.


    ¡°Good ce we have here. We don¡¯t even have to fear the Holy See even if they do show up at our door,¡± That was the first time Saleen had had control over a tower of such a high level, and it felt great.


    ¡°Why are you sending Nailisi away?¡±, Sika looked at Saleen suspiciously.


    ¡°Well, hehehe...,¡± Saleen approached Sika slowly, and whispered in her ear, ¡°I saw the kids having their fill, and I kind of wonder, what their meal tastes like.¡±


    ¡°You best just go hunt with Nailisi. There isn¡¯t enough for just the kids let alone you. Just go somewhere else!!¡±, Sika kicked him away, yet his son wasughing in his arms.


    Nailisi made for the forest beneath the peak. She was no longer who she once was, and she had the twelve Notes of Purgatory, meaning she no longer needed to fear for her safety. She still chose to go into the forest in her spirit form nheless.


    The Hell of God¡¯s Punishments was rich in earth element yetcking in water element. Flora of the interdimensional space mostly grew near Raphael¡¯s tower, as the tower was able to convert some of the earth element into water ones. He stored them in underground reservoirs, creating underground streams flowing from the peak.


    Such designs were often seen in magic towers built in desserts.


    There was no soul me within her eyes, but she exuded a powerful spirit aura nheless, rendering her unapproachable to magic beasts nearby. These beasts were creations of Raphael. They were able to breed and possessed some measure of intelligence, making them guardians of the forest. Hunting was something boring to Nailisi, especially hunting mid-level magic beasts. They were unlike the ones in the sea, where one was easily capable of catching a good bunch in one go.


    Nailisi had her eyes on a four yard long magic beast. She chose to close in on her prey instead of using dead spirit magic. The beast looked like a tiger, but bigger, with a shiny ck coat and gray stripes all over it.


    It was a low level beast: grade-3. Nailisi snuck up onto the beast¡¯s rear, and it let out a roar as it detected Nailisi¡¯s presence. Itshed its tail at Nailisi¡¯s hips like an iron whip.


    The movement carried a sharpened aura with it, making the tail like a steel de. Nailisi reached out and grabbed the swiping tail, and wrung it.


    A massive surge of force traveled through the tail and practically dislocated all the bones in the beast, rendering it utterly incapable of retaliating. Nailisi became even more bored and simply dragged the beast away on the ground. Sounds like shing armor and weapons were heard as the beast¡¯s coat rubbed against the ground.


    When Saleen was first there with his troupe, everyone had felt like they were mice entering a cat¡¯s territory. Nailisi now simply felt like she had entered somewhere devoid of any living things instead.


    Growl...


    The growl of a magic beast was heard behind her; she turned and saw a grade-5 beast. It had its eyes on her from afar. The beast was one of lower intelligence, and it seemed to be one with very poor sense for attributes. It was unable to even assess Nailisi¡¯s level.


    It was, however, unsurprising. The beasts were kept by Raphael to defend the magic tower. Anyone who wanted to cross the forest would have had to pay a price. If the beasts were so intelligent that they would not dare go against someone of higher levels, there would not have been a need for them to be around.


    Nailisi simply dropped her prize into the purgatory of ice to be frozen and rushed at the stupid beast. She was not quick enough. The beast readied itself for her and breathed a gust of wind de at her.


    Nailisi took out a weapon at random, which happened to be a spear. The wind de was easily dispelled as she thrust the spear forward. The weapon was something that Nailisi made for her demon army. It was made of decent material, but was no magic equipment. It was due to her own power entirely that she was able to dispel the beast¡¯s wind de.


    The magic beast had the face of a giant lizard, yet its body was almostpletely devoid of scales. It had a ck coat instead. Nailisi went straight up and thrust her spear over and over without paying any attention. The beast was in pain from the attacks. It breathed a round of wind des, none of which was able to get near her.


    Nailisi did not kill the beast outright. She thought of the time when she wasst there, and being chased all over the ce. Such thoughts had her fuming, so sheshed out at the poor creature in the form of her stabbing. She had a mean spirit as she thrust at the creature, ¡°How dare you chase me around! How dare you!¡±


    The beast had never done such a thing, and she knew it. She waited until the beast was being beaten within an inch of its life, before going after another target.


    Nailisi thought of a time long past, the time when she was being pursued and marked for death back on the demon ne. The thoughts had her boiling. She decided to conceal her aura and decided to vent out all her anger on the low and mid level magic beasts, by ughtering any that she was able to find.


    With her aura concealed, more beasts came to prey on the demon, and there were bugs among the beasts.


    The area where she unleashed her fury practically became a warzone. Saleen was able to do see what she was doing out there. He shook his head in disapproval.


    ¡°Saleen, just let her y. I¡¯m not hungry,¡± Sika stopped him as she saw him about to summon the demon home. She was there to keep himpany and at ease, after all.


    Saleen nodded. He looked at ease indeed, seemingly having put all of the Kingdom of Metatrin¡¯s affairs aside. All he did on the tenth floor was meditate and talk to Sika, discussing his thoughts on power with her.


    Sika was no mage, but priestesses were nheless capable of many feats. priestesses were also capable of manipting the elements. Otherwise, powerful priestesses would not have been able to create spatial equipment.


    While Saleen was having his time training in peace, the Kingdom of Metatrin was embroiled in the maind¡¯s war. The first war of four states of the Myers Maind. It took ce at the central region of Kroraina.


    The Sikenqinyas deployed about three-hundred-thousand elites and gathered another three-hundred mercenaries, marching from Laiyin Duchy into the area of Kroraina.


    The Holy See fielded more than two-million of the state¡¯s regr units, and about one-hundred-thousand blood knights into Kroraina. The Qin Empire was being sandwiched by two enemy forces, and deployment of its forces spiraled out of control. More than one-million of the empire¡¯s troops were trapped in the region west of Kroraina, at the fault of the Caucasus mountain.


    Previous battles were siegesid to one city at a time. This time however, the Qin army was being chased into one lone city by two enemy forces. Things looked dire for the empire.


    The city had never been one in the spotlight prior, yet it had be a top priority for Holy Rock City.


    ckfeather County was an ancient city with two magic towers. It had been invaded before and both towers wereid to waste. The towers were restored when the empire took back the county, and another tower was added to the city.


    Three magic towers were hardly worth mentioning in the face of invading forces numbering in the millions. The number of enemy forces surrounding the city was near three-million.


    Such a siege was not literally having all enemy troops waiting right outside the city. Instead, three-million troops garrisoned at various roads leading into ckfeather County.


    The Qin people were at least able to unite for the moment under such dire circumstances, and deployed reinforcements to save the trapped army.


    Lex¡¯s heart softened nheless when Holy Rock City sent out a request to her, and she decided to deploy her forces. That was not to say that the participation was unconditional. Lexid out her terms right before Safilos, and one of them was that Holy Rock City was to acknowledge that Laiyin Duchy belonged to the Kingdom of Metatrin, so long as Metatrin denizens were able to take the ce.


    Recruitment had never been such a big deal in the Kingdom of Metatrin. At Jason¡¯s suggestion, Saleen and Lex decided to give more spoils of war to the nobles. The nobles answered by being more enthusiastic with the war effort. Anynd they were able to take, they would have been able to keep half of it, perhaps even more.


    Metatrin City did not even deploy the city¡¯s main forces. The expedition was instead, one led by Aini, and arge force was organized in the Lonestar City that he built, specifically for taking Laiyin Duchy. The forces of the nobles of Metatrin served as auxiliary forces. In the span of three months, an expedition force of two-hundred-thousand was deployed, making its way for the borders of the duchy.


    The forces that Lex deployed, consisted of twenty-thousand demons.

 Chapter 822: Hijack (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 822: Hijack (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Laiyin Duchy did not expect Metatrin Kingdom to be able to mobilize so many armies and had to seek help from Sikeqinya Empire. In fact, Laiyin Duchy had a poption close to thirty-million with vastnds and sufficient soldiers. The news of Metatrin Kingdom and its demon army has spread, and they had death troops too!


    What was more important was Metatrin Kingdom¡¯s attitude. After what happened at Daliang City, Laiyin Duchy felt that Metatrin Kingdom would never render help to Qin.


    They made a mistake. It was true that Metatrin Kingdom did not wish to help Qin, but Laiyin Duchy itself was a tempting proposition. Such a good opportunity must not be wasted.


    Of course, an army of two-hundred-thousand on top of twenty-thousand demons would not be sufficient to take over Laiyin Duchy. there were more than ten million people in Metatrin Kingdom, and because of the marriage with Bitter Water Prefecture, thetter must be ounted for as well. Thebined efforts of both the countries would definitely surpass that of Laiyin Duchy.


    Sikeqinya Empire was amusing. Emperor Danny promised to send reinforcements but kept dying them, using the battle against ckfeather County as an excuse. Danny was of the view that Metatrin would never be able to defeat Laiyin Duchy. Thetter was seeking help only to conserve their own military forces.


    There were more than one-hundred-thousand troops stationed in Lonestar City that could enter Laiyin anytime. Laiyin Duchy sent out an envoy to Metatrin City to discuss the possibility of a resolution.


    Lex almost wanted tough out loud. The battle had already begun, and Sikeqinya Empire had already formed an alliance with the Tanggsi Empire. How could Laiyin Duchy possibly expect to stay out of all of it? If that was their intention, why would they allow a six-hundred-thousand strong Sikeqinyan army to pass through their borders?


    Such paradoxical actions were on par with those of Cloudflow.


    Nevertheless, the incident made Lex even more determined and confident of attacking Laiyin Duchy. Laiyin had a main army of about four-hundred-thousand and was not considered a huge army for a country with more than twenty-million people. Laiyin was always a ce that produced mercenaries though. Most of their men were well-versed inbat.


    Lex was not worried about being outnumbered because Qin would always have an advantage over other Empires in terms of grain.


    Other than Phoenix, the south, central, and north of Qin all hadrge fields. Besides, all the major cities of Qin had magic warehouses that could store all the grain.


    Outsiders could notprehend Qin¡¯s attitude towards grain. They harvested every year and, with the help of magic equipment, the amount of grain they produced was at least three times more than other countries. The entire Qin Empire was obsessed with storing grain.


    They never used the grain to make alcohol, nor to create magic ingredients. Every noble family had no idea how much grain they had stored in their granaries, but they knew that, even if everyone stopped farming from, they would still be able to feed their people for a few more decades. Previously, the grain that Saleen had wanted was those that had been stored in the magic warehouse and were about to expire. If they had not been used to create elvish pills, they would have been used to feed warhorses.


    Lex was not nning arge-scale invasion of Laiyin. She would allow the noble families to encroach on Laiyin Duchy¡¯s main passageway, blocking them off from entering and leaving. The people of Sikeqinya and Laiyin were not fond of farming. The amount of grain stored by those countries was probably less than that of a Qin Duke.


    Qin would never sell any grain to them, so Laiyin had no choice but to seek help from Sikeqinya. Lex had already left behind a death corp at Chaotic Swamp. This death corp would pass through Chaotic Swamp and enter Sikeqinya from the rear through a secret passageway. They would then disrupt the transport route for grain at the southern area of the mountainous region.


    Within Laiyin Duchy, it was the mercenarypanies that kept the most grain. Whenever the noble familiescked grain, they would look for the mercenarypanies first.


    Lex did not have enough time to settle all the administrative duties, nor return back to Daliang City. She had to travel between two dimensions to receive the mages. Her God¡¯s Ring was used for that purpose.


    Back in Daliang City, the pce had been renovated. It was slightly smaller, and no longer had tall city walls. The original city walls had been destroyed, and in order to save on expenses, Lex decided not to build them back. The original city walls were remains of the ancient city, so it only required a little touching up. Now that they had beenpletely destroyed, Lex decided to build three magic towers outside of the pce instead.


    Some of Lex¡¯s subordinates had already advanced into sorcerers, but before all of the Sregl Ind mages have advanced to grade-9, this interdimensional space had to remain a secret. Even Lex¡¯s followers could not know about it.


    It was not that Lex could not be trusted, but the mages under her came fromplicated backgrounds. On the other hand, all the Sregl Ind mages had lived together since youth without the intrusion of any outsiders.


    The Lifestyle mages in the pce were still living their own lives and doing things that were iprehensible to Don, just like how it was when Lex was still around.


    Don seemed to have forgotten his own mission. A year had passed, and he was still guarding the magic tower on the outside as he looked on at the figure. Isabe had finally reached grade-7. Don had closely monitored her advancement but did not take the chance to attack.


    Pope Theisio had no way of contacting him as he spent all his time with the mages meditating, training, and studying the secrets of magic. Don felt happy and contented leading a life like that.


    He was willing to spend his entire life like that if it was possible, but he knew that once the mage in the magic tower appeared, he would have to strike immediately.


    Isabe had no idea that she was being monitored by a powerful opponent. She had advanced sessfully and did not wish to leave the magic tower. Staying there for such a long time had left her feeling fatigued though. Isabelle recalled the days she spent in the Tanggsi Empire and began to miss her subordinates there.


    Those people had already been incorporated by Saleen, which was considered a pretty good oue. It was rare for a band of bandits to survive for more than a decade. Usually, they would be destroyed within three to five years.


    Some bands of bandits might seem to havested for more than a century, but it was not necessarily the case. More often than not, the initial group of bandits had already been destroyed, but their names were reused by bandits of ater generation.


    Isabe stood up and flexed her body. Just like when she was still in the Tanggsi Empire, she tied up her long hair with silk string and button. It was something that bandits often did. A simple button was the most effective way to tie up one¡¯s hair.


    Coincidentally, Don saw this action from outside the magic tower. There was a sh in his eyes before it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.


    ¡°Haha, to think that I have been deceived all this while. Lex was never in Daliang City all along.¡±


    Don stood up and left his station. He was prepared to leave. If Lex was not in Daliang City, then she was most likely in Metatrin City.


    Don heard that more than thirty sorcerers and more than one-hundred grand mages had arrived in Metatrin City. He would most likely die if he went.


    Don was not afraid to make trouble in Holy City, but he was also realistic. There was no way he could defeat more than thirty sorcerers.


    At that point, Don sat down and began to think hard. When he left, the Holy City had destroyed the seventh church, which was something that could never be kept under wraps. If any of hisrades had survived back then, they would have tracked him down and followed him all the way there. It had been so long, and no one hade. That meant that all the Heavenly Knights had died.


    If he had died as well, then all the Heavenly Knights would have beenpletely wiped out.


    The Pope formed the Heavenly Knights and tookplete control of the Pivotal Council. The Red Bishops of the Pivotal Council had no guts to form their own Heavenly Knights. The reason why Don wanted that position was also to build up the Heavenly Knights once again.


    Theisio must have known his intentions, but he still agreed nheless. The mission was quite questionable.


    He decided to wait for a while more. Observing the female mage was quite interesting after all. Don leaned against the chair and pointed at the begonia outside the window. Aside from winter, the mages in Daliang City were able to ensure that there would be fresh flowers blooming in all other seasons.


    The begonia was what Don had tried to nt. After watering it with restorative water, it had begun to grow quickly and was blooming.


    A flower flew into the house andnded in Don¡¯s palms before he ced it in the vase on the table. Doing this helped him to calm down.


    In the past, Don had wiped out quite a number of powerful bands of bandits. He was very familiar with the behaviors and tendencies of bandits, which was how he managed to see through Isabe¡¯s disguise. As the Princess of the royal family, Lex would never have taken on the behaviors and tendencies of a bandit.


    A bandit who was also a mage? Isabe had piqued Don¡¯s interest, and he was curious to find out what she looked like.


    If it was anyone else, they would have been so worried about their own daughter¡¯s life that they would have left immediately to seek out where Lex really was. Don knew the Supreme Court too well. By then, his daughter¡¯s soul had probably beenpletely transformed into just a military tool.


    Even if she was eventually saved, she would be nowhere close to what she was in terms of her looks and her soul.


    Theisio never would have expected Don to be so heartless.


    Don cast a spell on the begonia ¨C Poison Interference. The begonia, which was already slightly poisonous on its own, changed into several colors under the effect of magic before wilting very quickly.


    In an instant, the petals shrunk before falling off, as if it had just gone through a long autumn season.


    It was interesting how magic spells worked. If Holy Masters wanted to recreate the same effect, they would have to depend on the curse, Instant Ageing.


    Don continued with his magic experiment while observing the figure in the magic tower. He suddenly realized that perhaps his reluctance to leave was because he had fallen for the female mage.


    No wonder the Gods said that all mages were sinners. Of course, such a saying was only verbally passed down within the core of the Holy See and not written into the Code of the Holy See.


    The more spells one learned, the more easily attracted one became. Even one¡¯s thoughts would be different.


    Thinking like a mage would only bring him further from his religion.


    Would he be betraying God if he eventually managed to possess magic chords?


    ¡°Kim, it¡¯s already Saturday, why haven¡¯t you collected the new books?!¡± Someone outside the window shouted at Don. ¡°Kim¡±was the name that he was using for his disguise as a grade-3 mage.


    ¡°Sorry. I will go now,¡± Don replied. He raised his head and saw that the female mage was still on the seventh story. A smile appeared on his face as he suddenly knew what he should do.

 Chapter 823: Hijack (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 823: Hijack (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Don collected the new magic books and notes from the middle-grade mage like he always had and brought them back to his office. He was in charge of the items that only the low-level mages would look at. A quarter of the low-level mages in the pce had to go through him in order to borrow these books.


    Even though Lex was not around, Don had decided to kidnap the female mage in the magic tower.


    In any case, everyone in Daliang City unanimously imed that female mage was Lex. He would not be able to use any divine spells to spy on her while outside of the magic tower, or else he would be caught by the grade-8 mage immediately. He would not be able to attack a grade-8 magic tower on his own either. It would be understandable for him to have recognized the wrong person. As long as his actions were logical, whatever he did would not be counted as going against the deal he made with Theisio.


    Once the female mage had been kidnapped, Lex would definitely be alerted and would make sure to avoid all dangerous areas. Don would not be able to strike easily then, and Theisio would not be able to do anything about it either.


    Don secretly smiled upon that thought.


    Just like that, wintersted for another month before an opportunity presented itself.


    Since Lex had already advanced into a grade-9 sorcerer, the danger that she had sensed previously had been eliminated. She dared to show her face in public in Metatrin City, rather than using sound transmission magic array to disseminate information in Daliang City.


    The role that Isabe yed was no longer essential, but since she had advanced, she could go to Bone Castle.


    The Bone Castle had always been stationed with spirits of the dead as the human armies had long ago been deployed to stations at the city built by Cloudflow along the Separation Sea. Eventually, the Cloudflow peoplepletely evacuated from the city.


    The entire country with its nation and qualities waspletely iprehensible.


    Bitter Water Prefecture managed to im half of the city without doing anything. When they first attacked this city, the Cloudflow soldiers still tried to put up some simple resistance. Half of the facilities in the city were destroyed during the battle. When it ended, the entire city was rebuilt again. Since it was located so near to the Separation Sea, it became an important defense location for Bitter Water Prefecture.


    Isabe¡¯s mission was to build a magic tower.


    A sorcerer was required to build a magic tower that was taller than six stories. An inexperienced person would not be able to build such a magic tower even with a drawing, unless this person was someone like Saleen. He was able to quickly utilize Figaro Magic Form.


    In Daliang City, Isabe was the only newly-advanced sorcerer. The others already had their own magic towers; hence the mission fell squarely on Isabe alone.


    When Isabe was bidding Tiffany farewell, she walked out of the magic tower, where all the low-level mages and swordmasters that would be leaving with her waited. The apprentices and craftsmen waited outside of the city. Isabe could not help but stretch herself again. Although the magic tower was not cramped, she did stay there for a very long time. Now that she could finally step out of the tower, she felt much morefortable and peaceful.


    Isabe would not be traveling on a horse. Daliang City had prepared magic chariots for her, but they were not real and were only imitations. Even in Bitter Water Prefecture, they still did not have the means to create such high-level equipment.


    The wagons left the city very quickly. The roads of Daliang City had been repaired long ago, and the craters created by the catapults back then could no longer be seen. After filling it up with rock materials and covering it with ayer of marl and enhancing it with the mages¡¯ Fossilization spells, there was no sign of any unevenness on the surface.


    Back in Don¡¯s room in the pce, two white-robed mages were stunned to see that the room was empty. They were confused and asked, ¡°Where did Kim go?¡±


    The two low-level mages had wanted to return the magic notes that they had borrowed and had no idea why that mage, that was always around, had suddenly vanished.


    Isabe¡¯s chariot left Daliang City and headed south. After traveling for around fifty miles, a gigantic rock appeared in the middle of the road and obstructed their way.


    Isabe immediately sensed danger. What kind of person would be able to ce a five yard tall rock in the middle of the road? Even a magic puppet would not have been able to move such a heavy rock.


    The security forces of the group were a regiment made up of different groups of soldiers. Amongst the one-thousand or so soldiers, most of them were light-armored knights, who were armored with bow and arrows. After the Cloudflow soldiers hadpletely retreated, Daliang City was now the rear. As a result, Isabe did not travel with a powerful group of security forces.


    ¡°Who is it?¡± Isabe spoke from within the chariot and her voice traveled far and wide on the ins.


    ¡°It¡¯s me.¡± A figure suddenly appeared on the rock. This person was dressed in a full body of golden armor and there were two meshed eyes in front of his helmet so that the wearer could clearly see what was outside. The mesh was mounted with gemstones, like thepound eyes of insects.


    The knights raised their bows when they saw this person appear, but Isabe quickly shouted, ¡°Stop!¡±


    It was Don who was standing on the rock. He was ready for a massacre but stopped when he heard Isabe and said, ¡°Luckily you are smart. If they don¡¯t attack, I will not kill them, but you have to follow me.¡±


    ¡°Follow you? Why?¡± Isabe was only trying to dy him. She was trying to unleash a grade-8 scroll from within the magic chariot.


    ¡°Because...¡± Don suddenly drew his sword and flew down from the rock. His speed was terrifyingly fast, surpassing even the speed of an arrow. A distance of more than a hundred yards was covered instantaneously before he swiped at the top of the magic chariot with his sword. With a white glow, the magic chariot was split into two.


    ¡°That is the Pope¡¯s wish.¡± Once Don finished his sentence, his left hand snatched away Isabe¡¯s scroll and threw onto the floor before grabbing hold of her hand and flying away. As he flew, he said to Isabe, ¡°If you dare to cast any spells on me, I will stab you with my sword.¡±


    Isabe went pale. She was so scared that she did not even dare to draw the half-sword in her bracelet, much less cast any spells. She was certain that even without all the equipment, he was still more powerful than Tiffany.


    The fellow dressed in golden armor was able to pull someone along with him while he flew, and speak calmly throughout. Isabe could not feel any wind gushing past her while they flew and she could confidently calcte that the both of them were flying at a speed of more than one-hundred and eighty miles per hour.


    After flying for half an hour, Don suddenly asked, ¡°What is your name?¡±


    Isabe did not reply so Don tightened his grip. She did not know whether tough or cry while she said, ¡°You said that taking me was the Pope¡¯s wish. Don¡¯t tell me he told you that you could take anyone you wanted?¡±


    ¡°He wanted me to capture Lex. It seems that you are not her.¡±


    Instantaneously, Isabe felt that she was the unluckiest person in the world. The man was so powerful, yet he was tricked... No, he had not been tricked!


    ¡°Lex is in Metatrin City. Let me go and you can go find her yourself. I¡¯m just a small mage. It¡¯s useless for you to take me.¡±


    ¡°Small mage? You are a grade-7 sorcerer.¡± Don refused to loosen his grip. The two of them were more than one-thousand yards high in the sky. To a mage like Isabe, who had yet to fully grasp the technique of flying, it was very dangerous. She did not dare to struggle. She was not sure if she was able to utilize her flying spell in mid-air if the fellow really loosened his grip.


    ¡°You are going to bring me back to Tanggsi even though I¡¯m the wrong person?¡± When Isabe saw that Don was not berating her viciously, and not about to harm her, she began to try and find out more about Don.


    ¡°Of course not. I¡¯m just thinking that now that you are a prisoner, I must gain something first before I can release you in exchange.¡±


    ¡°You... are a knight!¡± Isabe spoke after gathering all her courage. She could see that he was dressed like a knight from the Holy See. His grade was too high, and she could not tell which order he came from though.


    Knights should not speak the way he did.


    ¡°Thanks for thepliment. Let¡¯s rest for a while.¡± Don descended sharply. As the speed of descent was so fast, Isabe felt as if her heart was about to jump out of her chest. She could be the first sorcerer to ever want to vomit because she had been flying too fast.


    Don brought Isabe down onto the top of a small mountain. It was less than a few yards wide, and because the mountain was so short, it was covered with bird droppings. It seemed that birds often rested there.


    ¡°Have a seat.¡± Don pointed at the ground that was covered with bird droppings.


    Isabe had no choice but to use a cleaning spell before sitting down and looking at Don.


    Don slowly pushed his faceguard up to reveal his face. When he saw Isabe staring at his face, heughed and said, ¡°You can¡¯t possibly recognize me. Those who know me are probably all dead, other than the Pope.¡±


    ¡°Are you a Heavenly Knight?¡± Isabe knew that there was no way she could escape, so she decided to question him further in order to obtain more information.


    ¡°You must be from Tanggsi, yet you are somehow mixing around with people from Daliang City.¡± Although Don was shocked that the sorcerer managed to guess his original identity based on his armor. He had no intention of giving her an answer.


    Isabe did not answer either. She was entirely sure why she was mixing around with people from Daliang City. She should have been back in Metatrin City. If she was, the kidnapping would not have happened.


    ¡°Please do not refuse to answer me. I would be angry,¡± Don said to Isabe with a smile.


    ¡°My apologies, even though I¡¯m now your prisoner, a mage can only answer questions where the answers are certain.¡± Isabe still had her bond with Saleen to fall back on, so she decided to pluck up her courage and reply Don in a tone that he might not like.


    ¡°If it was in the past, I would be more than happy to destroy your pride. Although I have no interest in that anymore, that doesn¡¯t mean I will not do it. Tell me your name!¡±


    ¡°Isabe.¡±


    ¡°Very well, Isabe, tell my why Lex has yet to return to Daliang City?¡± Don was extremely interested in the answer to that question. Although Lex and Saleen were married, it was the provisional capital of Bitter Water Prefecture. The military ns for Bitter Water Prefecture, expeditions, and gathering and collection of resources all took ce there. By right, Lex should not be leaving such an important ce for such a long time.


    Isabe had no idea, but nevertheless, she analyzed, ¡°Many sorcerers have appeared in Metatrin City. Lex is a mage herself, so she must have gone there to seek advice on matters regarding magic.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense, although it is a lie. The reason why so many sorcerers have appeared in Metatrin City is probably to guard over something. Hehe, although I may not have the ability to go there now, once I have advanced, we will go and find Lex together.¡±


    ¡°You intend to bring me wherever you go?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I am extremely interested in magic as well. Let¡¯s exchange pointers during this period of time,¡± Don smiled and pointed his finger at Isabe¡¯s forehead.

 Chapter 824: A Showy Assassination (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 824: A Showy Assassination (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Isabe felt a gush of heat in her head as some form of power was injected into her. She slumped forward shortly after.


    ¡°Keep your mental powers under control, then you can think about controlling your sword aura. Hehe, I see that you are able to practice both magic and sword aura at the same time. No small feat indeed, kid,¡± Don¡¯s gentle smile turned into a smirk, angering Isabe further. If she had known that he saw through her so easily, she would have simply went full force instead of holding herself back.


    ¡°You can rest easy now, Isabe. See, I didn¡¯t bother torturing you. Hell, I didn¡¯t even bother stripping you of your gear. I just wanted to talk. You won¡¯t get another chance at this.¡±


    Isabe¡¯s eyes went to the back of her head, and she spoke in anguish, ¡°I will just be honest with you. I¡¯m a follower of Lord Saleen. I have signed a contract with him. If you want me to do anything to betray him...you best not even try.¡±


    ¡°A follower? Well, that will prove troublesome, but no matter, Saleen...is Lex¡¯s man. So if I ask for your help to take Lex, I would assume that you would say no?¡±


    ¡°That is a given. Kill me if you want. You are not making me do something like that,¡± Isabe was indeed a stubborn one. Despite knowing full well that people from the Holy See had all sorts of ways to take her down, she refused outright to yield to the heavenly knight.


    Isabe was, after all, a mage. Mages did not negotiate with the Holy See.


    ¡°Well then, if I were to ask for your help to save Lex, what would you say?¡±


    ¡°Save her?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Lex is in danger. Someone is plotting to take her head, and she knows nothing of it. The assassin in question might be capable of much, but the assassination methods involved, are definitely not something that woulde to her mind. Only I, the person who was once themander of the heavenly knights, will be able to save her. Isabe, do you believe what I¡¯m telling you here?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Well...,¡± Don rubbed his hands for a moment. The scraping sounds from the rubbing of metal gloves was hard on the ears. His golden armor glittered under the scorching sun, and Isabe felt like she was sitting right beside the sun. She felt the scorch intensely, which got her sweating. The sweat was in turn, evaporated by the scorching heat.


    ¡°Well, you wouldn¡¯t have been much help actually, Isabe. Do you want to get away from this?¡± Don changed his tone, which sounded sincere instead.


    ¡°I think so.¡±


    ¡°I had trouble with acquiring magic chords from my practice. Magic chords and divine spells are ipatible after all. I see you are able to acquire both magic chords and sword aura. You must have something about you that is special since you are able to do so. Tell me how you did it, and I will just let you go.¡±


    ¡°Swear on it,¡± Isabe replied without second thoughts.


    While the ability to practice both magic and sword aura was no small feat, it did not allow her to be among the top practitioners of the world. Any art would have required the practitioner in question to devote all of their being into it if they were to aim for heights beyondprehension. In the end, she would have still needed to cast one of her arts aside. She would eventually need to devote herself to the practice of sword aura, or bing a full time mage.


    The advantage of practicing both arts was that it enabled Isabe¡¯s experiences,bat capacity, and understanding of the world to surpass mostmon mages¡¯. Sword aura was also another form of energy, just like elements.


    ¡°Alright, I, Don Scripture Iss, hereby swear in the name god, that I will release Isabe, if she will teach me the way to practice both magic and sword aura at the same time. I will noty a finger on her, for the next one-hundred years toe.¡±


    Officials in charge of matters in Daliang City sent word to Metatrin City as soon as they heard about Isabe¡¯s kidnapping. To have a grade-7 sorcerer, and furthermore, a follower of Lord Saleen, captured, was very dire news!


    Lex felt troubled as soon as the news reached Metatrin City. Saleen¡¯s follower was captured and the news was delivered by the ones who were there to witness the entire process. That one who took Isabe obviously thought she was Lex herself.


    ¡°No one other than mages of Sregl Ind knows that I became a grade-9 sorcerer. Capturing me indeed, eh?¡± Lex touched the God¡¯s ring at her finger and smirked.


    There were now twelve grade-9 sorcerers in Metatrin City. Another six would arrived with another month, and that was not counting both her and Jason who had advanced.


    Being surrounded by such figures of great power, no one would have been able to take her away from the temple, so long as said figures of great power were not dispersed, and she herself was not leaving Metatrin City on her own.


    The illustration of the culprit was recorded by mages and made into magic images. Lex knew right away what the golden armor he wore meant. Every single te had divine runes carved into it. Such armor would have been worn by none other than members of the heavenly knights.


    ¡°The Holy See wanted to take me alive now? Well, I wonder why Bain never acted any sooner. It has been more than a year, and Bain¡¯s underlings should have infiltrated the Tanggsi Empire by now. They should even have escape routes plotted.¡±


    ¡°My liege!¡±, a white-robed mage busted into Lex¡¯s quarters in a hurry. It was the office where Lex handled matters in Saleen¡¯s ce. Having one such mage barging in meant that there would have been warriors getting in their way.


    ¡°Urgent news!¡±, the white-robed mage held up a magic paper. The warrior drew their sword, plunging it into the mage¡¯s chest a split secondter. The white-robed mage was shocked, dropping the magic paper onto the floor, which revealed a short, thin de concealed within. They were dumbfounded as to why Lex¡¯s guard would have acted against them without any hesitation, and entirely without mercy.


    Lex¡¯s pupils contracted quite a bit. The warrior was assigned by Saleen. Everything in the temple was arranged by him, yet the white-robed mage who had been killed, had just joined their ranks.


    The awkward assassination attempt ended before it began.


    The warrior who had just killed the mage waved their hand. Someone came up immediately to take the mage¡¯s dead body away.


    ¡°My liege, it is not proper to handle your affairs here, as there will always be people who are up to no good. Even if such urgent news was sent by the Lord of Glory, no one should have just barged in like that. I would like to ask for your understanding, for killing a mage without trial,¡± the warrior said with a tone that was neither aggressive nor conciliatory, before returning to their post. The warrior stood by the wall without any expression.


    The temple naturally had its own rules in dealing with matters; Lex never bothered much with it. It was only unexpected by her that Saleen¡¯s men went about their duties with such strictness. They would have rather killed the wrong person than to hesitate and let an assassin by.


    The warrior hailed from Sregl Ind. In their eyes, there were nothing else other than orders from mages, and Saleen¡¯s words were meant to be executed to the letter. Due to such an unforgiving system being in ce, more than one-hundred wrong doers who tried to sneak into the temple ended up dead in rather depressing manners. The ones guarding the temple would act against any who dared enter the ce without permission, and gave no warning before taking lethal measures.


    ¡°My liege. I have urgent news,¡± a voice said from outside the door.


    ¡°Come in,¡± Lex looked at the door as it was being opened. Another white-robed mage came in, with yet another magic paper in their hand.


    ¡°Read away.¡±


    ¡°My liege. Magic Information,¡± the mage holding the paper obeyed the rules and handed the paper to the warrior standing at the side, who in turn handed the paper to Lex.


    Lex stuck the paper onto the reading magic array, and a magic image appeared. Lex waved for the white-robed mage to leave. The mage left the quarters keeping their head low, with cold sweat all over their body.


    ¡°So what happened to the other fellow? That guy shouldn¡¯t have just vanished simply because he failed. There was nothing off with the quarters as far as I can see.¡± The mage thought as they felt a chill from a behind; a sword was plunged right into their heart.


    A tall warrior took out the slender sword and dragged the mage¡¯s body around for a bit, before dumping it into a room nearby.


    That was the second floor of the temple, and the ones guarding the ce all hailed from Sregl Ind. The outer perimeter of the temple was as such as well. The spies meticulously arranged by the Cloudflow people, Tanggsians, and Sikenqinyas were all picked off one by one. Most of them died without knowing why they were killed.


    Lex was also unaware that Jason set up check points for clearing out suspicious figures. Jason needed no evidence for doing so, as he only did so to ensure the absolute safety of the temple grounds. The six element space of the Hell of God¡¯s Punishments was not especially important. When the constitutions of humanity were restored and evolved to the levels of the fourth dynasty, even a low level mage would be able to enter the six element space. That would enable them to advance into the ranks of sorcerers within merely ten years.


    While the six element space was only able to fit six people at a time, that was nheless already an absolute advantage.


    Lex read the magic information detailed within the paper in her quarters. It was sent by Bain. The image was a simple one. It was something that looked like a magic map, which was riddled with more than one-hundred red dots. Lex picked out a dot at random and expanded the area where the dot resided. She saw a name, a surname to be specific, and then other details which included peerage status and such.


    Bain made his move! It was a move against all at the same time.


    There were one-hundred and twenty-five Tanggsian nobles killed, and the one with the lowest status was a level three earl. The number of nobles in the Tanggsi Empire was immense, which was unlike the Qin Empire. If the Qin Empire had lost so many nobles of ranks higher than earl, the state would be at the brink of copse.


    Bain¡¯s letter was simple, and the content was as follows:


    ¡®My liege, I havepleted my duty without fail. One-hundred and twenty-five heads of nobles are now hanging on the walls of their own cities. The ten red bishops will require more time. Thirty-six men of ours were unable to make it out and killed themselves. Please do make time tofort their families,


    Bain Thorn¡¯


    A list containing thirty-six names was written below the message, with a mark at the end of every name. The details of the assassins could be checked with the marks. The list was something that wasprehensible only to Lex.


    It wasmon practice for nobles to keep assassins. Lex simply kept more than most.


    Lex sighed as she put the paper aside. The ordeal with the heavenly angel had made a mess of her, and had her acting on impulse. ¡°What is the use of killing all ten red bishops? The Holy See will have nothing much to lose over it.¡± She had wanted to summon Bain back home, but Bain would not be able to receive any message from her.


    Once Bloody Impactmenced, there was no turning back before the mission was aplished. ¡°Bain is searching for targets. Which city will he go against next?


    There were two major cities on the Glorious ins: Holy City and Glorious City. Holy City was the city where the pope resided and was guarded by the sacred knights, while Glorious City was the hub of the pivotal council ¡ª the gathering ce of red bishops.


    Bain was at the central za of the Glorious City, dressed in ascetic garb. He had tens of assassins dressed as devotees kneeling behind him.


    A high priest was preaching at the center of the za. The entire ce was surrounded by Light of Glory, emanating a serene, tranquil feeling.

 Chapter 825: A Showy Assassination (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 825: A Showy Assassination (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°0 AG, first year of Anno Gloria, God descended upon thend. Seeing how thend was filled with thements of people struggled to survive, God said, ¡®should there be anyone who would cast aside everything they have to save the people in pain and suffering, I shall bestow upon him eternal life.¡±


    The red bishop yapped away at the altar. While Bain¡¯s eyes were filled with respect, he was also calm ¡ª a demeanor befitting an ascetic. The assassins behind him all kneeled on the ground and looked dazed from the speech. Each and every one of them excelled at mimicking behaviors and thoughts of other people.


    What was even more peculiar was that each and every one of the assassinations was born in the Tanggsian Empire, and the Holy See put a lot of emphasis on one¡¯s ce of birth. Some of these assassins were even qualified holy masters.


    All these assassins were desecrators, for having evidently unclean thoughts yet were capable of using divine powers.


    The voice of the red bishop at the altar permeated the entire za. The group of assassins led by Bain were hiding among all the other adherents, who numbered in tens of thousands, thus making them but a speck of dust hardly worth noticing inparison.


    The preachingsted for more than six hours, and was held in thest week of every month. Events like that weremon in the Glorious City. Bain waited patiently. His body hardly moved an inch and the gauntlet on his hands were kept hidden within the sleeves of his robe.


    It was umon for ascetics to possess such fine weapons, but gauntlets were inherently weapons of high quality. Bain¡¯s pair was crafted personally by Nichs for him. The pair was made entirely out of metal, lined with soft gold within. It was worth nearly the same as wrought gold. The outeryer was fitted with tes like the scales of animals and divine runes were carved on every te that was jutting out.


    The weapon covered about half of the length of his arm, covering Bain¡¯s elbow. The tes covering his forearm all had the likes of gems, dragonshards, and divine crystals etched into them. The pair was probably the most luxurious piece that Nichs had ever crafted.


    As soon as Bain put his mental powers to work, a beam of light at the length of a foot and a half would spring along the length of the gauntlet, making it able to function as a dagger. Bain also carried a book in his right hand, which when inspected by anyone else, would have appeared as little more than a codex of the Holy See.


    The book, however, actually concealed a row of bow tubes within. While the effective range was only twenty-yards, the bolts were lined within purple gold liquids extracted from purple-gold sea urchins, enabling the bolts to prate most energy shields.


    Bain also carried an old, broken stone tablet on his back. Divine runes were carved into the tablet. Such tablets were relics left over by ascetics during the times of the fourth dynasty. The regime back then banned all preaching of the teachings of the Holy See. As such, ascetics had no other choice but to leave behind writings on pieces of stone in hardly reachable ces like mountain tops, concealed river valleys, or wilderness that few wandered into.


    The copse of the fourth dynasty marked the rise of the Holy See. Ascetics ceased running about just to stay alive like they once did. The tablets left behind during the fourth dynasty then became precious relics, something that ascetics often carried on their person.


    Bain¡¯s get-up was impable, so much so that most would not have found anything out of ce about him. He was merely an old ascetic who had brought his most precious collection to the Glorious City, to lend his ears to the preaching of the red bishop.


    The assassins did not look out of ce. Other than the ones behind Bain, there were more than thirty others lying in wait in other corners of the za, awaiting Bain¡¯s orders in silence.


    It was the third time Bain had attended such a preaching event, resulting in him being impably familiar with the procession of the entire event. The information gathered from actually being there and from packets of intelligence was very different. As an assassin, Bain did not allow himself to put his trust into any piece of intelligence easily.


    The sun was setting. The preaching began in the morning, and had to be continued until the sun was at the western horizon. The beginning time of each preaching was different, but the event was not allowed to end until the very moment before nightfall.


    Such was God¡¯s Decree, to have the light continue in times of darkness. There was a tall stone pir at the altar, which emanated unparallel brightness as the sun disappeared from the sky, working in ce of the celestial entity. The event was to end at such a climax.


    There was an event of bestowing holy water before that. When God appeared in the world, he chose three-hundred to preach in his ce. As such, the bestowal of holy water would have been only for three-hundred selected followers. Bain¡¯s position at that day meant that he would definitely be chosen.


    Time passed one second after another. Bain tempered his breath, purging all unnecessary thoughts and concerns from his mind.


    He had undergone intense pondering before selecting the za to be the ce where he would make his move. The Glorious City was different from Holy City. While it was the hub of the pivotal council in name, the pope was the de facto leader having all the power to call the shots. The pivotal council was but a puppet institution. All orders came from Holy City, and Glorious City only yed a role as a symbol of sorts.


    The danger present at the ce was not even to the extent of that of in the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s Imperial City. Red bishops were mostly grade-6 practitioners. Assassinating grade-6 red bishops would prove to have little significance. Red bishops residing in Glorious City however, had some of higher levels among them. The one preaching at the altar at that moment, was a grade-8 bishop.


    Holy masters and mages shared amonality: they were rendered as good as half dead once an assassin managed to get within striking range. Even powerful holy masters were not able to guarantee that they would emerge unscathed from such an attempt.


    What Bain wanted to attempt, was to assassinate the red bishop in front of everyone in the Glorious City.


    He had no surety of being able to kill a grade-9 holy master in one go. grade-8 ones should have been viable, as failing to kill a grade-8 would have rendered him a warrior instead of an assassin.


    ¡°The Princess should be regretting her decision right now, I think. I¡¯m not even sure if I¡¯ll be able to escape alive and in one piece after this attempt. Even if I escape the Glorious City, holy masters do have a habit to leave a mark of hatred on those who kill them, right before theirst breath.¡±


    Wiping a mark left by divine arts would require years at least, and Bain knew there was no way he would be able to hide in the Tanggsi Empire for years.


    It all came down to luck then. Bain admired the altar with a pious look about him, as the red bishop rambled away mboyantly, as if the bishop had the ability to rewrite the stars.


    Bain was simply calcting the sun¡¯s trajectory in the sky. As an assassin, he had no need for magic timepieces, be it in the form of clocks or hoursses. None of those devices would be as urate as the celestial entities.


    The high priests presiding over the event began calling names as the time passed. Holy water collected for a month was to be distributed to three-hundred lucky followers at the altar. Three-hundred among the ten-thousand at the za were summoned, and made their way to the altar.


    Bain was the eleventh one to be called. There were two other assassins behind him who were led by the high priests to the altar, waiting for their turn to receive holy water.


    Bain¡¯s mind calmed as time passed, but his eyes were filled with joy. Any believer would have been so for being the lucky enough to receive holy water.


    The receivers were organized in batches of ten, and the first batch went on to receive their holy water. Under the blessing of divine arts, they walked down on the other side of the altar. The altar was about one-hundred yards wide and twenty yards tall. There were steps on both sides, making it seem grand and solemn.


    The high priest leading Bain¡¯s batch of believers peered at the tablet he carried, but he did not let Bain put it down. The tablet was a symbol of glory, and the act of an asceticying down the tablet they carried was tantamount to sphemy.


    Bain walked on to the steps, one step at a time. The tablet he carried made him feel like his steps had never been so heavy. He was not allowed to show his true power as a grade-8 practitioner, so his steps were made in such a manner that it would rouse a sense of respect in everyone around him.


    This was one true ascetic indeed! Being at such an age, yet insist on keeping with his practice.


    The altar was covered with divine rune charm arrays. One of them was carved into the hole of the stone. The hole did not seem to be one that was created artificially. It looked like the product resulting from something washing off of the rock. The deep hole was filled with a great amount of holy water. Bain took out his bowl and made his way up front.


    ¡°May the blessings of our lord be upon you, the light shine on you for eternity, your soul always be shepherded, your...¡±, the red bishop had just begun reciting the words that he spoke to the first batch of believers, when Bain smiled at him and dropped the bowl on his hand. The tablet on Bain¡¯s back flew up all of a sudden and dropped on the floor with a loud thump.


    The tablet grew exponentially in a sh, and became a rectangr object of more than ten yards tall. The metals on its facade shone brilliantly, and the divine runes at the front warped into spirit words. Golden brilliance flowed in between the words, beginning and ending between two dots.


    Thousands of tiny holes appeared on the sides as the tablet turned from stone into metal, spraying ck smoke all over the ce. The ck smoke congealed instead of dispersing. A spirit word appeared in the air.


    Believers who were touched by the ck smoke shrieked in panic. Their flesh was corroded in an instant, revealing the bone within.


    The red bishop was shocked. He had not thought of the possibility of seeing spirits of the dead there. The power of belief in the Lord of Glory, after all, proved very potent against dead spirits.


    Even a golden grand swordmaster would have had to be careful around Bain.


    Bain punched the red bishop in the face. The de of invisible light conjured from his metal gauntlet reduced the bishop¡¯s brain to mush in an instant.


    The altar was covered by a cloud of spirits. There were hardly any warriors from the Holy See on the altar. The ones present were almost all holy masters.


    ¡°Disperse!¡±


    ¡°Cleanse!¡±


    ¡°Holy Impact...¡±


    Divine spells of all sorts were cast without aim. The holy masters in the Glorious City had not seen battle in ages.


    Bain picked up the body of the red bishop whose brain he had just destroyed by the neck, and threw it at the metal tablet. A giant mouth appeared in the tablet as the body hit it, which was lined with sharp fangs. The mouth chomped down on the body and swallowed it.


    The za was a mess. Divine sirens were heard everywhere in the city. The knights who had not been fighting anything for the past several hundred years had little idea of what was going on.


    The heavenly knights serving under the pivotal council were relics of a bygone era. The knights of their age were even weaker than the glory knights from the holy knights.


    Bain moved like a specter within the cloud of dead spirits. His silhouette slithered between one spirit word to another, and no one was able to locate him clearly. There were several grade-7 holy masters on the altar. None of them were weak. They were likemps in the dark, attracting Bain¡¯s attention.


    Bain would appear as soon as a disperse spell was cast, and break the neck of the holy master casting it. He would then throw the bodies at the metal tablet. The metal tablet suffered severe damage under the powers of divine spells. Every attack caused a crack to appear on it, which Bain saw as a time to throw a body at it for it to consume.

 Chapter 826: A Tragic Ending (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 826: A Tragic Ending (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When the metallic stone tablet consumed a Holy Master, a huge wound would be repaired. It did not possess too much intelligence since it was just a part that was forcefully cut out from the Mechanical Soul¡¯s body and infused with a little soul me.


    It was not aware that it would not survive for too long. The reason why Bain wanted something like that was just to suppress the power of glory in the altar.


    Although glory divine spell was especially effective against spirits of the dead, this applied both ways. The unique undead attribute of the Mechanical Soul meant that the glory divine spell had to expend even more in order to achieve the usual effects.


    A towering metallic stone tablet was able to suppress the core of the entire altar. In order to utilize divine rune charm array, the tablet had to be destroyed first. In order to do so, one would have to attack it continuously to weaken the soul me within it.


    On the za beneath the altar, at least half of the assassins had begun to make their move. Their targets were the high priests that were trying to keep everything organized. They would not be responsible for assassinating someone like a Red Bishop. Their goal was to create chaos and disorder so that Glorious City would not be able to form a resistance of any scale quickly.


    The west side of the Glorious City was the Church of Paul. More than ten Red Bishops of the Pivotal Council were drinking and making merry. They were a bunch of pathetic people who had lost any form of authority and only dreamt of gaining the Pope¡¯s favor so that they could be sent to Holy City.


    When the siren sounded, the Red Bishops were not able to react in time. It wasn¡¯t until there was a loud explosion at the za that they finally rushed to the top of the church to observe what was going on.


    No one knew what was going on. Although the disciples in the Glorious City were still holy, they were not part of the core of power. The ce was so peaceful for so long that even the people of the Supreme Court could not be bothered to find trouble there.


    It was a realistic world, but Heaven was illusory. When the Heavenly Knights were eliminated, the Pivotal Council no longer had any means to resist the Pope.


    Theocracy was supposed to function in a way where the Pope would lead the Oracles, the Pivotal Council would control the Pope and the Supreme Court would monitor the Pivotal Council. The Oracles had be independent and the Pivotal Council had lost all their powers, theocracy still worked three-way, but Red Bishops werepletely out of the picture.


    After a short period of chaos, the Red Bishops summoned their subordinates to gather the Glory Knights. In the entire Holy See, there were only three groups of Glory Knights that were at full strength. One of them was in the Glorious City, where there were twelve-thousand of them in total.


    Those twelve-thousand Glory Knights were spread around the entire Glorious City and it would take some time before all of them could be gathered. After about half an hour, only about two-thousand knights charged into the za along with their squires.


    At the altar in the middle of the za, Bain and his two assassins had already ughtered all the Holy Masters there.


    There was a total of one grade-8 Holy Master, two grade-7 Holy Masters, over thirty grade-4 Holy Masters, and more than one-hundred ordinary grade-2 High Priests.


    The metallic stone tablet howled in pain as a giant crack appeared on the altar and slowly extended to both sides. The metallic stone tablet was only infused with a little power from the Mechanical Soul. It could not move and could only consume things on the spot. Bain could no longer replenish it with energy, so it had no choice but to try and absorb energy from the altar.


    There was no way it could do that though. Although the altar looked broken, and was on the brink of copse, the source of its power was from the death dimension. The copse of the altar has broken off what little connection it had with the death dimension.


    The soul me in the metallic stone tablet was frantically trying to burst out but it was tightly sealed by the holy power.


    With a shout, Bain jumped down from the altar while the other two assassins followed behind him, silently blending into the crowd.


    On the altar, the metallic stone tablet screeched in such a high-pitched tone that it pierced through the clouds for more than ten miles. More than ten Holy Masters were flying towards the altar and they screamed in horror when they saw the tablet. They quickly cast divine spells to destroy the strange spirit of the dead.


    Bain did not try to escape out of the city, as it would be too obvious. He brought more than ten assassins, who had yet to strike, along with him to follow behind a Red Bishop trying to organize the disciples. At that moment, Bain¡¯s moustache was gone and the garment that he wore had changed to a white robe. Right then, he looked just like a white High Priest that was working for an Oracle.


    Growl...


    Bang!


    After a sharp explosion, the altar finally copsed. The copse was not caused by the metallic stone tablet, but more of the altar not being able to withstand the unleashing of the power of divine spells.


    The metallic stone tablet also broke in half after losing its foundation. The soul me in the tablet became stronger instantaneously. It was screaming even louder, as if it finally understood what was going on.


    ¡°Bain, damn you, I will kill you!¡± The soul me that was split out from the Mechanical Soul finally possessed some intelligence when it was on the brink of destruction. Bain had used it as a cover for him to escape the Glorious City and the tablet understood that immediately. Since it was not the real Mechanical Soul, and its soul me was too weak, it could not transform its form and could only watch as Bain fled further and further away.


    After leaving the altar, Bain counted silently and realized that he had only managed to kill three High Priests of the level of Red Bishops. That was too fewpared to what he had nned. Although the Red Bishops in Glorious City were weak, he could not stay any longer, or he would find himself surrounded by his enemies. He was not a grand swordmaster and would not be able to get himself out easily.


    The metallic stone tablet¡¯s fury could not be contained. In the sky, the Red Bishops were certain that it was the source of all the chaos, so they took out their equipment and cast their divine spells at it freely.


    Every glory divine spell that struck the stone tablet caused some damage. It was difficult for the undead attribute of the Mechanical Soul to be demonstrated on the stone tablet. In their rush and desperation, the Holy Masters were casting middle-level divine spells. Not a single high-level divine spell was used.


    More than three-thousand Glory Knights surrounded the copsed altar while the High Priests outside were still ensuring that the disciples left the battlefield in an orderly fashion. The tens of assassins that started the chaos had already been revealed. They charged towards the altar with crazed abandonment and sacrificed their lives in exchange for those of the Glory Knights.


    None of the Knights would be a match for the assassins if thetter had attempted the assassinate the former. The assassins were far outnumbered though, the Glory Knights were able to wield their weapons calmly under the protection of their squires and stab at the assassins.


    When more than ten assassins were killed that way, the remaining ones began to turn around and flee, but the direction they took was the same as Bain¡¯s. These assassins had already epted that their deaths were imminent, so they did not head in the same direction as Bain, so they didn¡¯t drag him down with them. Instead, they were giving him a chance further fortify his identity.


    Bain knew what those men were thinking, and he was torn. Would he have to do it himself? Sometimes, loyalty was such a curse!


    Bain took a il and smashed it in the face of an assassin. As this assassin¡¯s brain juice seeped out, Bain only remembered the smile on his face before his death.


    This man had been following him for twenty yards. The Princess was born not long before that, back then.


    The il swept across and struck the waist of another assassin, breaking his body in half. Ahead of Bain was the half-sword of another assassin that wasing at him. Bain knew that even if he did not duck, the half-sword would only strike the side of his heart and would not be fatal.


    Crack...


    The half-sword was smashed into pieces amidst a white glow. A hole also appeared in the chest of that assassin.


    Bain felt unbearable grief. All the assassins were dying in the hands of the Holy Masters and all he could do was to help thetter carry out this massacre. This was because there were even more assassins still hidden in the za. When the opportunity presented itself, the assassins would target the Red Bishops.


    The assassins might not be of very high levels, but they were very skilled and could unleash powerful abilities in an instant.


    ¡°Go to hell!¡± An assassin¡¯s face suddenly turned red. The half-sword in his hand turned into the same shade of red as his speed suddenly increased by ten times and he pounced at a Red Bishop.


    The Red Bishop, who had been leading hundreds of people, did not expect the assassin to manage to pass through Bain and reach him. Although the defense of the red robed man could be activated instantaneously, it could not block the assassin¡¯s strike.


    Bang...


    Bain turned around and smashed the il onto the assassin¡¯s back. The assassin slid onto the ground while the blood-red half-sword exploded in the Red Bishop¡¯s chest.


    Everyone witnessed that Bain had tried to save the Red Bishop, but only managed to kill the assassin.


    Bain knew that even if he did not kill this assassin, thetter would not survive for more than a day anyway. The assassination had already used up all of the assassin¡¯s life. Nevertheless, Bain could not deny that the assassin was still murdered with his own hands.


    That was absolute loyalty!


    Bing an assassin was depressing because they all ended up the same, which was to die in a mission. Only mages died of old age, never assassins.


    ¡°Bain, I am going to entrust Lex to you. Will you pledge your loyalty?¡± As Bain wielded the il, his eyes blurred, and he recalled what Grand Emperor Chanake once said to him.


    ¡°Yes, I am willing to use my life to protect the Princess...¡±


    ¡°In that case, give up swordsmanship and train to be an assassin. Lex is a mage and will be susceptible to assassinations when her grade is still low. Only a powerful assassin can protect her. Only then can I feel assured,¡± Grand Emperor Chanake said.


    ¡°Yes, your Majesty. I will give up swordsmanship.¡±


    ¡°Good. Bain, this is the deposit of the Empire¡¯s bank. Take this money to find more men to be your subordinates. I need a group of assassins. Lex will need all of you sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°Yes, your Majesty...¡±


    The past had never been as clear as it was then. He felt as if Grand Emperor Chanake¡¯s voice was just beside his ear. Bain¡¯s heart was in such great pain.


    That was his mission! He must never give up!


    Bain¡¯s il struck the legs of another assassin. Behind him, the Glory Knights had finally caught up and he would no longer have to kill the remaining assassins with his own hands. They had nowhere to run any longer.

 Chapter 827: A Tragic Ending (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 827: A Tragic Ending (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Glorious City finally managed to form something that looked like an attack. The remaining assassins were surrounded by the Glory Knights. Other than Bain, the other assassins had already retreated along with the other disciples.


    Bain counted in his head and realized that five assassins were still alive. One of them was badly injured while the other four had wanted to end their lives with their own half-swords but were stopped by the Holy Masters. White-colored glory covered the assassins. They were no longer able to move, and it was as if their souls were sucked away.


    The altar has copsed and the High Priest that was overseeing the ritual had been assassinated. Something like that had never happened ever since the Glorious City was built.


    The Cardinal responsible to the Glorious City was having a severe headache. After he personally witnessed the fallen altar, he immediately gave the order, ¡°Seal the za. No one is allowed to enter or to leave. Glory Knights, arm yourselves and bring back the other two groups of knights outside as well!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Cardinal, but...¡± The Red Bishops agreed but did not understand the reason for sealing up the entire za. This za was more than one-thousand years old and was still capable of attracting plenty of disciples there as part of their pilgrimages. Sealing it up would be disadvantageous to the Glorious City.


    ¡°Just do it!¡± The Cardinal shouted.


    The copsed altar was soon surrounded. After ordering the Glory Knights topletely seal off the altar, the Cardinal walked to the side and gazed at the center of the altar.


    It was a bottomless pit of darkness. Even a grade-9 Holy Master could not sense the end of the pit.


    The history of the Glorious City could be traced back to two-thousand years ago and was one of the rare religious cities that appeared during the fourth dynasty. It was where the Holy See began. If the Red Bishops had not followed the Cardinal to the edge of the altar, they would never have seen the huge crater amongst the debris.


    The same thought appeared in all of the Red Bishops¡¯ minds. ¡°We¡¯re in luck!¡±


    They had lived their whole lives in the city, but never knew about the existence of that ce. That was how ancient the city was. The Holy Masters of the fourth dynasty were far more powerful than the present ones.


    It was a miracle!


    Many thoughts crossed the Cardinal¡¯s mind, but he finally said, ¡°Arrange for someone to go down. Don¡¯t use ves in case...¡±


    The Cardinal did not continue. He hoped that they would find traces of God down there and did not wish to spheme them by sending ves down to check. If they really managed to find traces of God, then the Pivotal Council would finally have a chance to rise to power again.


    ¡°Cardinal, what about these assassins?¡±


    ¡°Put them on trial. Activate the protocol for redemption. I want them to regret ever stepping foot here.¡± The Cardinal was not grateful to the assassins even after discovering the mysterious cave. The Red Bishops that had been assassinated were all his students. Nevertheless, the Cardinal managed to hide his anger well. It had been decades since he had lost his temper at anyone.


    For someone who had lost all his power, it would be pathetic to lose one¡¯s temper.


    The redemption protocol was one of the strictest types of trial, but the five assassins remain unfazed. The moment they entered the Glorious City, they knew that they only had one percent chance of escaping with their lives.


    There were too many Professionals amongst the disciples, there was no way they could evacuate everyone. They had sacrificed less than one-third of them and the rest have now hidden themselves amongst the disciples, including Bain.


    As night fell, the trial was held in the Grand Church of Antis in the south of the Glorious City, where five stone pirs were set up.


    The five assassins were stripped naked and their limbs were chained together to the pir. There was a za in front of the church and more than two-thousand disciples of the Glorious City had gathered there. The disciples wanted to personally witness how the five of them would be judged.


    The Cardinal was a little distracted. The trial had yet to begin, but he stood in front of the pirs, looking at the five assassins who were bloody all over. Metal chains had been pierced through their limbs before the Holy Masters used powerful divine healing again so that the chains grew within their flesh. They would have to go through torturous pain if they wanted to escape.


    Such pain might not mean anything to an assassin, but such escape without any purpose still filled one¡¯s heart with hopelessness.


    The Cardinal was tempted to ask the five men why they had done it. They knew that they would die, but they still chose to carry out this assassination in the Glorious City. They must have had a purpose, but they looked insane, just like theirrades.


    Would men without faith be willing to sacrifice their lives like that too?


    Bain was amongst the crowd that were waiting for the trial to start. All the other assassins that had managed to escape capture were there too. Although the Holy See had many methods to seek out the remaining assassins, the Cardinal has been distracted by the hole that had appeared beneath the altar. Besides, nothing like that had ever happened in Glorious City in the past two-thousand years, so they did not have the same means as Holy City to cope.


    The Red Bishops had focused all their efforts onto the bottomless hole. As a result, the assassins easily deceived all the low-level Holy Masters.


    Bain was pained to see the five men on the stone pirs. That was only the beginning. What was about to happen next would be the most tragic.


    ¡°Not all of you will die, and I will not expect you to admit to any of your sins.¡± The Cardinal could not control himself and still spoke. He spoke very slowly, ¡°The redemption protocol, to put it simply, is to cleanse all of you, so that you can all be the disciples of God. From today onwards, you will live each day repenting for the things that you have done in the past. Of course, this will be painful because your souls will not be willing to acknowledge this.¡±


    The five assassinsughed coldly at what the Cardinal said. They had never thought of leaving the city alive.


    ¡°I have seen many stubborn people before. The lucky ones will go to the Supreme Court while the unlucky ones will be the red bodyguards of the Pope. They have no choice but to use their bodies to protect the Pope as part of their redemption, despite the hatred in their hearts. A human soul can be split into many parts and these parts can be in conflict with each other. Have all of you considered that kind of pain and torture?¡±


    One of the assassins finally spoke, ¡°I have warning for you.¡±


    ¡°Please go ahead.¡±


    ¡°The shape of your head looks like an overly ripe vegetable and looks terrible. Back in our viges, we usually feed pigs with vegetables like that. When I look at you, I think of smelly pig feed. That kind of stench is just like the perfume that you are wearing. So please, go and change the shape of your head and your perfume, then your words will be more convincing.¡±


    The Cardinal smiled and said, ¡°Your words are not vicious enough for an assassin. I am disappointed.¡±


    That assassin purposely put on his most hideous grin and said, ¡°I will not let you down.¡±


    ¡°Ignorance. Under the glory of God, nothing can¡¯t be changed. When the trial is over and all of you are obediently scouting paths, you will know what I mean.¡± The Cardinal felt better after saying what he said. He no longer cared about the rubbish that the assassins were saying and returned to his seat.


    Bain¡¯s expression changed. He could clearly hear the conversation between the Cardinal and his men. He had only wanted to send them off to their deaths, but it looked like he had no choice but to let them suffer.


    The n must still go on.


    More than one-hundred pirs of light shot out to the sky from the divine rune charm array on the ground of the za and formed a dome. The entire za was covered by the glory of the divine spell.


    Only the five stone pirs remained dark, as if they were consuming the light. The assassins on the pirs silently prayed. They had their own faiths too. The assassin¡¯s faith was toplete his mission.


    They would have amounted to nothing if they had not be assassins. Their children would not have been brought up by the royal family, and they would never have had the chance to mix with noble families and the upper ss.


    Everything changed because of what Grand Emperor Chanake said. Their missions had allowed their children to have brighter futures. Even though Grand Emperor Chanake had died, the missions must still be carried out. Their children would never know about their fathers, who have given their lives to the Grukos family.


    It was a cruel, yet fair trade and the assassins have never regretted their decision.


    The Cardinal was nked by two Red Bishops, but the person overseeing the trial was a grade-1 High Priest. The High Priest walked to the pirs and just as he was about to speak, he suddenly realized that the faces of the five assassins had be contorted and purple-red blood vessels were protruding out of their heads, necks, chests, stomachs, and thighs.


    Their ears began to expand, or to be more urate, stretch until they were extremely thin. Their eyeballs were spinning crazily, and their bones were making sounds as if some magic potion were burning and exploding in them.


    Before the fourth dynasty fell, the system of professions on the Myers Maind wasplicated. At its peak, there were more than twenty-thousand types of professions. As humans became weaker, Professionals became those that were stronger than ordinary people. One could bebelled a beginner-level swordsman as long as he knew swordsmanship, even though he only possessed a little sword aura.


    Most of the professions had already vanished. Due to the weakening of humans, very few techniques were still being passed down in the ancient books for mages to study.


    The five assassins were using an ancient technique ¨C the Summoning Possession spell.


    The spell constituted of summoning a powerful creature from another dimension and merging it with the body. The key to activating this spellid with Bain. In the depths of those assassins¡¯ souls, they were mysteriously connected to Bain. They could only use the technique with Bain¡¯s permission.


    The techniques provided by the Grukos royal family were short, powerful, gory, and terrifying.


    The assassins¡¯ eyes were spinning wildly. When the white-robed High Priest finally sensed danger, the assassins¡¯ eyes broke apart. Their bodies slowly split apart in the middle as some creature from an unknown dimension was forcefully trying to merge with them.


    The metal chain that was holding onto the first assassin broke. His body had turned into dark green. His skin had cracked and fallen onto the ground. His muscles were growing at a terrifying speed. He turned around and hugged the stone pir before shaking it. The stone pir, which measured a yard in diameter, was eventually uprooted from the ground.


    Bain sighed deeply in his heart. Those five men had finally aplished their purpose. Their final assassination would also be their tragic ending.

 Chapter 828: The Most Powerful Equipment in History (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 828: The Most Powerful Equipment in History (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The judgment seat was taken down in an instant with one swipe from the huge stone pir. The seat was only about two yards high, and the red bishops seated there all intended to simply fly away. With assassinsing at them, they had no choice but to fall back instead.


    The remaining four assassins melded themselves with creatures of unknown nes, which had all of them bloated several times their usual size. Chains prating their bodies were used as their weapons, which blocked off a vicinity of tens of yards.


    Despite being only grade-4 or grade-5 professionals, theirbat capacity was enhanced by several orders of magnitude due to said melding. The price to such power was, however, that they would not live to see the next sunrise.


    Bain had infiltrated the Glorious City for some time, and knew that the red bishops would have never gathered in one ce like they did now. The previous assassination attempt was but an act to kick things off. What the assassins had been waiting for was that day.


    Such methods were called chained attempts by professionals. The second assault was done in a very discreet manner, urring in a ce and time that was unexpected by their targets.


    The sky above the Glorious City was stained blood-red. It was a phenomenon urring in cities under the protection of God, when said cities were under serious assault.


    Regardless of the oue of the assassination attempt, the losses that the Glorious City suffered were irrecoverable. While the Glorious City no longer had any actual ruling power over the poption of the faith, it was nheless a holy ground to believers. It was a ce serving as a spiritual symbol. The assassination attempt thoroughly rattled the Holy See. The loss of reputation could never be recovered in any way.


    In the Hell of God¡¯s Punishments, Saleen was still having the time of his life with Sika inside Raphael¡¯s magic tower. His daily routine was none other than brief periods of meditation, conducting some seemingly fun magic experiments, and cuddling with Sika.


    Nailisi ran about the ce taking care of the family, bing a true maid indeed. Living creatures there lived brief lives, as theycked care of any sort. They had deteriorated seriously over the past one-thousand years. These artificial magic beasts had dropped significantly in terms ofbat capacity. The fusion beasts that Raphael created during his day were all something of no lower than grade-9.


    Nailisi had no need to hunt at all. If Saleen wanted, the magic beasts would have followed his orders, and simply walked to their deaths in front of the tower.


    Saleen had broken through the limits of grade-7 without realizing it. Other than the fact that he had not experienced any increase in number of magic chords, he began to be able to have fine control over grade-8 magic. That would have been a phenomenon previously thought iprehensible, but Saleen had simply regarded it to be part of the rules in the interdimensional space. In the ne of the Myers Maind, one would not have been able to use magic beyond one¡¯s grade, even when one had better understanding of said magic, so long as one had not acquired the required amount of magic chords.


    The phenomenon enabled him to have a deeper understanding of the rules governing the ce. Rules of energy bnce in every ne were more or less the same, but rules corresponding to magic chords and grades might have worked differently there than they did on the Myers Maind. Regardless of what actually transpired, he now understood the reason why Jason did not want him to enter the six element space.


    umtion of magic chords did not require much time. Understanding of grades was, inparison, the most difficult thing to do for mages. Things would have proven too easy in the six element space, and that would have proven detrimental to such umtion effort.


    His teacher had simply expected too much of him, and that was why he was put onto the tenth floor of the tower to practice.


    Grade-9 magic nuclei were once againpletely expended on that day. Saleen looked at the magic clock and began thinking. He had been spending quite some time within the hell, and his understanding of the rules had reached a bottleneck. If he wanted to improve further, he would require more umtion. Meditation and magic experiments were only able to do him so much good at that point.


    Lex had only been there once since. She entrusted him with a new sorcerers, while sending five others off. Lex would only be there again in about another three months. A thought came to Saleen¡¯s mind. He decided to craft a piece of equipment he would need within theing three months.


    Saleen knew water me alchemy, and was very familiar with Figaro¡¯s Magic Form. He had also crafted more than one-hundred equipments personally. That time, the equipment he was about to craft was one that had surpassed all his previous creations. One that even Eleanor¡¯s Seven Nights longbow would have paled inparison to.


    That time, what he intended to craft required the trunk of four divine trees.


    The tree of life, the tree of element, the tree of wisdom and the tree of taboo. These four trees still harbored immense power and special attributes despite being dead. If they were to be used for creating equipment, they would at least produce items at the level of holy equipment, even if one¡¯s methods weremon ones. There was no such thing as holy equipment in ancient times. Levels of items back then were something indistinguishable.


    In their day and age however, holy equipment was something very rare instead.


    The space within Raphael¡¯s magic tower and the Myers Maind were different. While the tower looked small, it was actually far more spacious than expected when one were to enter. The spacepression technique hardly affected techniques employed by human activity conducted within. It was something rare that urred on the Myers Maind, as doing so would expend a good load of high level magic nuclei. Mages in general, would be reluctant to do something like that.


    The four dead divine trees were something that the Goddess of Myers left for her contractor. In essence, that was part of the trade. Lex did not require such things, and Saleen had only used such materials to craft equipment for close followers, refraining from revealing that he had such things at his disposal to anyone else. Other than crafting some special equipment for Sika, Eleanor, Lex, some close ones, and a magic robe for himself, Saleen had never used the four trees for anything else.


    He was at the moment, working like a carpenter. He took the trees out one by one, and began cutting the materials he would require.


    Bark of the divine trees was tough, so much so that saw des would not so much as leave a it on them. Saleen had resorted to using water currents and wearing it off slowly instead. That proved way more difficult to do than cutting white rocks. Despite having coated the currents with fire, progress was still very, very slow. He then split one current into hundreds and had all of them disassembling the materials at the same time.


    Saleen had racked his brain for ways to disassemble the divine trees. The simple act of cutting the roots cost him a lot of time. Then there were the tree crowns, and thousands of branches, an endeavor that was enough to drive any mage crazy. Saleen had usedrge scale alchemic machinery and had mechanical spirits doing the hardbor day and night to get the job done. All that was left was the trunk of the four trees. They were six yards in diameter and several hundred yards in height.


    The divine trees were like ordinary nts in that they grew rings and veins, as well as very fine vessels. The space within the ten-floored tower was hundreds of yards tall, yet had very limited horizontal space. Being the hub controlling the peak, Raphael was unable to do much to change the size of the space.


    The trunks of the four trees were cut into square cross sections and put around Saleen. Saleen was suspended at a height of eighty-four yards. He took out the mechanical core of the sky city, and opened it up slowly.


    The mechanical core of the sky citycked the Heart of the Sky, which was being kept by Jason. Saleen did not require that part, as there was no way he would be able to create the sky city. What he wanted to build at that moment was a magic tower, one which was able to nt itself anywhere, yet was able to take flight at a moment¡¯s notice.


    He had the idea fleshed out for quite some time, and he had been preparing the required materials to build it. With most of the branches of the divine trees being used up for crafting his previous creations, what he needed at that moment was simply for the four trees tobine and create a space within. Then Saleen would be able to create the magic tower of his dreams.


    A twenty-four floored magic tower was the highest limit achievable by any human being. It was a magical feat that even the gods would have envied.


    The emperor of the first dynasty was a powerful person of grade-18, and had led humans to conquer a multitude of nes. Before the first dynasty, there had been mages reaching grade-24. Their powers were on par with that of the gods. If such humans were to appear on the Myers Maind, the Lord of Glory would not have so much ass dared to even step foot on the ne, let alone actually preach his religion there.


    Saleen understood the fact that he did not need to reach such heights of power within Raphael¡¯s tower. He would make sense of details at such levels, and that would have enabled him to craft a magic tower that would be thought of as inconceivable for tens of thousands of years.


    The quality of the materials derived from the four divine trees ensured that the tower would stay in one piece, capable of withstanding any kind of attack anyone was able to throw at it. The Goddess of Myers should have been a god at grade-18, and her divine trees would have been able to withstand attacks of such levels.


    Thousands of mechanical arms sprouted from the mechanical core of the sky city like petals, attempting to fuse into the trunks of the four divine trees.


    Saleen needed to do nothing else to help with the process. What he needed to do at the moment, was to stand above the mechanical core and craft magic arrays ording to the veins on the trunks of the trees.


    The crystallized metals of the mechanical core were unusually soft and were able to fuse with the trees by moving along the veins. The magic runes that Saleen crafted on the trunks had also begun to shimmer one by one, aiding the processes carried out by the core.


    A flying equipment asrge as the flying city would require a terrifying amount of power to move. Saleen had only wanted the magic tower to be able fly, and as such, the magic nuclei expenditure should have been within an eptable range.


    Saleen knew how powerful his enemies were, but he had never lost faith. He knew full well he would get more and more powerful himself.


    Golden lights had seeped into the treespletely, prating deep within for more than hundreds of yards and permeating all corners. They moved along the veins and vessels. Saleen had alsoid out the magic arrays where magic nuclei were to be set. He only needed to wait for the core topletely fuse with the trunks of the divine trees.


    Saleen did not ask for Sika to be elsewhere when he was at it. The children smiled with joy watching the divine trees. Saleen only noticed how seldom his children actually cried, and how much they enjoyed watching him conducting all of his magic experiments.


    ¡°If these two rascals are to learn the ways of the priests, they would be able to reach Sika¡¯s current level when they reached adulthood. Add a bit of simple training to it, and they would go even further.¡±


    Nailisi looked rather troubled. The construction of that thing that Saleen was creating could only be done at Raphael¡¯s tower. If he were to do so on the Myers Maind, he would not be able to keep it concealed from any powerful people. That thing would have be a ma attracting attentions of powerful people. Some would even vite treaties to get their hands on it.


    The tower was the best equipment that Saleen had created in this lifetime. After this endeavor, he was unable to find suitable materials to craft anything that would be of use to mages of all levels.


    Saleen was immensely fortunate to have acquired the divine trees, yet such fortune had a price on its own. That price was that he was obligated to unify the maind and spread the faith. If Saleen were to ever be as lucky again, he would never have to pay such a price again.

 Chapter 829: The Most Powerful Equipment in History (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 829: The Most Powerful Equipment in History (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mechanical core of the sky city fused with the four divine trees tirelessly, and Saleen began crafting lightning magic patterns outside the prototype of the tower. Lightning was thought to be the most powerful out of all magic patterns and rules known to Saleen, followed by rules of water, and then energy bnce. He was also equipped with a kind of magic not known to other mages on the Myers Maind: elf magic. He did not view such magic to be of any importance prior, and had only seen it as something to boost his knowledge, a footnote in his magic collection. Things were, however, different now.


    Creating magic towers using divine trees required aid from elf magic, as elf magic was considered as an offshoot deriving from the fusion of all six major elemental magics. The trees might have been dead, but their attributes remained unchanged. When the construction of the tower waspleted, it would be able to grow whisker-like roots at the bottommost floor, enabling the construct to stabilize itself on the ground, by literally rooting itself using earth magic. When it was in the air, wind element magic would be used to enable it to fly and levitate.


    The same went with environments like volcanoes and oceans. So long as it was a world constructed with elements, the tower would be able to make a home anywhere.


    That was where elf magic came in. The flying tower was not a flight-capable equipment, but something that was capable of functions like any other magic tower. It was also different from magic chariots, as the chariot¡¯s capacity of any kind paled inparison to the tower in any way conceivable. While the chariot was a movable construct, no mages had ever been said to use a vehicle to rece the roles yed by a magic tower.


    Nine dimension stones were fused with the magic tower, serving as the space of nine different floors. It was a pity that Saleen did not possess the ability to open spaces. He was not able to expand the space provided by the stones despite using their properties to the fullest. All he was able to do was simply cut the space into nine different spaces of smaller volumes, which were simply twice asrge as a usual magic tower¡¯s.


    If Saleen was a grade-10 professional, he would have been able topletely fuse the stones within the tower, allowing the space of every floor to be tens of timesrger than his own temple.


    Such was the modus operandi adopted by ancient humans when they went about invading other nes and plundering each ne¡¯s resources. It had enabled them to transport massive numbers of troops of alien races to fight for humanity. If Saleen¡¯s magic tower was to be capable of such feats, he probably would have to wait until he had unified the maind under one rule, dissolve his contract with the goddess, and advanced to grade-14, before having the ability to expand the space of the dimension stones.


    The properties of the magic tower derived entirely from the sheer strength of its materials, and had little to do with how Saleen constructed it. Saleen¡¯s only true original addition to the construct was the lightning magic pattern on the exterior of the tower.


    As the lightning patterns grew in numbers andplexity, his understanding of the magic patterns gradually grew clearer as well. It was a pity that the twenty-four lightning dragons within the goddess¡¯ ne did nothing else but sleep day after day. They woke up only to molt, before going back to sleep again, making them unable to be of use to Saleen in any way.


    If all twenty-four of the grade-9 dragons helped Saleen with crafting the lightning patterns, it would have saved him a lot of time. If they were indeed to help with the task, Saleen¡¯s understanding of the patterns would not have be too immense. It would have been a waste of an opportunity to deepen hisprehension of magic.


    Most materials would be destroyed when one¡¯s crafting went wrong. The innate quality of the divine trees meant that failures were no big deal and one could easily start over with the same materials, unless the person crafting items out of them was a powerful person at grade-18. That was the very reason why Saleen, someone with only a grade-8 understanding of things, dared to craft something so powerful.


    Saleen hardly ate throughout the time he spent crafting his tower. His only nourishment came from magic liquids, enabling him to replenish the nutrients required to keep himself alive. He stayed in the air for over a month working without rest. The trunks of all four trees emanated a pale golden sheen on the thirty-sixth day, and contracted within. The mechanical core hadpletely fused with the trees. With a thundering boom, the trunks rammed into each other to signify thepletion of the fusion process.


    Saleen had only realized then what a waste it was to have used the dimension stones to craft armor for Sika. Those stones could never be restored to their original forms ever again.


    He did not regret his decision of doing so. The magical defense of Sika¡¯s armor surpassed Saleen¡¯s own devil¡¯s armor. He was but a grade-6 mage back then, and he had been able to craft an equipment with defense capabilities beyond what a grade-10 mage would have been able to craft. He had nothing to regret, especially when the deed was done for Sika¡¯s sake.


    The somewhat crooked shape of a magic tower was formed when the trunks of the four divine trees rammed onto each other. The height of the tower was extended to one-hundred and forty yards. The cubic tower body only had a side-length of twelve yards. There were no windows on any side of the tower. The exterior was covered inyers of lightning magic patterns.


    The patterns were connected with one another in intricate patterns, making the resulting image looking like clouds. Such massive equipment could only be stored with a dimension stone. There was no way he could have stored it in his devil ring regardless of howrge the space within was. He did not have the mental powers toplete storage in one go.


    Dimension stones were handy pieces of items indeed. When Jason had actually given Saleen fifty of them, he had then thought those powerful things were practically everywhere.


    When Saleen had finally became rich and powerful, he had little idea of how to repay Jason¡¯s kindness. He had initially wanted to gift his teacher with the precious notes of Raphael, but Jason refused. He had gifted him with even more materials for crafting equipment instead. Saleen had only realized that day how pure his teacher¡¯s intentions were when dealing with him.


    All Jason had wanted from Saleen was for his student to be able inherit his magical lineage, preserving his knowledge from the corrosive properties of the thing known as time. Mages were indeed selfish, yet could be so altruistic at the same time.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning patterns came, not only from the hides of the lightning dragons, but also from his family¡¯s badge. The intricacies inherent within his badge¡¯s lightning pattern was way more profound than the lightning dragon¡¯s. The lightning dragon¡¯s patterns had the advantage of having high capacity despite having slightly weaker offensive powers though. In Saleen¡¯s perspective, the magic patterns of the lightning dragons were easy to master, yet he had only been able to replicate a portion of the three-dimensional patterns of his family badge. He was utterly incapable of even replicating them, let alone actually understanding the entirety of the art.


    The exterior of the tower shimmered with crackling blue electricity running all over the construct. The four trunks fusedpletely as one. The phenomenonsted for more than half an hour before the lightning jumps subsided.


    Saleen did a rough calction. He had been casting the equivalent of a level eight magic spell when he fused the lightning patterns, and that had cost him half of his magic chords. With the electrical effectsting for more than half an hour, he deemed the initial stages of the tower¡¯s construction to bepleted.


    ¡°Master!¡±, Nailisi flew up to Saleen to greet him anxiously as the structure of the tower waspleted.


    ¡°Nailisi, what do you think of this thing here?¡±


    ¡°Very nice, but master, if you were to bring this thing back to the Myers Maind and use it...¡±


    ¡°When I do put this thing into use, I guess I will have to kill every single one of my enemies then,¡± Saleen patted Nailisi¡¯s head and smiled.


    Saleen, of course, knew of the importance of the magic tower. Even when not used for crafting equipment and simply used asmon firewood, a standard-sized piece of a divine tree wood wouldst for two centuries when used as such. The energies inherent within the divine tree were terrifying. That was the reason why they could attract the attentions of powerful people in the first ce.


    ¡°Master, how about you fuse my Twelve Notes of Purgatory in it as well. That would be feasible with your water me alchemy. If anyone dares to sneak inside, we will have a greater chance of killing them!¡±, Nailisi steeled her mind, readying herself to give up her most precious piece of equipment.


    Saleenughed and pulled Nailisi to the ground. He quickly replenished Raphael¡¯s tower with grade-9 magic nuclei, as his masterpiece of blood and sweat would have been wasted if the space within copsed.


    Only within such a magic tower that elements were in abundance in, and only with such conditions fulfilled, was Saleen able to craft equipment of such capacity.


    Sika¡¯s children were able to stand on their own. While Caucasus children were bornte, they matured quickly. His children rushed at him when they saw him. Saleen picked them both up one in each arm, and said to Nailisi, ¡°I will give you some materials to repair your Twelve Notes of Purgatory. My tower will one day be something surpassing godly items. There is no need to waste your stuff.¡±


    ¡°Master, this would not be a waste!¡±


    ¡°Heh, Nailisi. Saleen isn¡¯t the type who would be modest when asking for stuff from you,¡± Sika said, ¡°We will need to go home soon. If your Twelve Notes of Purgatory were to be fused with this thing here, we would have lost one powerful equipment indeed.¡±


    ¡°But master, this thing you crafted¨C!¡±, Nailisi was at a loss for words.


    ¡°My teacher told me that my lineage of magic practice has no room for retreat. The creation of this tower served as a symbol of severing any means of retreat to me. I will not back down from anything from here on out. I will head to the oceanic ice block and look for the single-horned white whale cemetery. Then I will make this tower fly, and then, hehe...¡±


    ¡°And then, you will be the biggest piece of meat that everyone will fight for!¡±, Nailisi said glumly.


    ¡°Well, I can¡¯t think of anyone who would dare fly in thunderstorms. I will go look for theirir of anyone who dared cross me while flying in thunderstorms. With this tower, I will be able to take on grade-9 mages, even killing them. Tell me, Nailisi, have you ever seen mages carrying their towers with them?¡±


    ¡°No, I haven¡¯t,¡± Nailisi finally submitted.


    ¡°I will truly break through and advance into grade-8 when I leave this ce. Nailisi, the powers of everyone on the Myers Maind are growing. No matter how good we are, there is no way we can be better than everyone else. Please work hard, as I will still need you to protect me.¡±


    ¡°I...I know,¡± Nailisi recalled that she had not been doing much in bettering herself as ofte. She felt a tinge of frustration for it.


    ¡°Right, these are the materials I have crafted for you. Add them to your Twelve Notes of Purgatory. With your abilities of restoration alone, you will probably not be able get it fixed in three or five-thousand years,¡± Saleen dumped a big pile of materials in front of her as he borated. Branches, dried leaves, and bark of divine trees were among the pile of material. The main materials of the divine trees were all used up by Saleen, but the huge branches were still in great numbers. The enhancement of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory required incredibly sturdy materials to enable it to stabilize the space within.


    ¡°Pa...pa!¡±, Saleen¡¯s son spoke and he sounded like an angel.


    Saleen turned to look at his son, whom he had just handed over to Sika with a surprised look, and pointed at the boy¡¯s face, ¡°He speaks now!?! Wow...¡±


    ¡°You find this surprising?¡±, Sika asked smugly, ¡°Descendants of Caucasus priestesses are of course smarter than everyone else¡¯s kids. If I was a nature priestess, these kid here would probably be able to get knowledge directly transferred to him. Now we will probably have to wait until he is a teen before he starts developing abilities of those sorts. No worries. Our boy here will definitely be a good mage.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not nning to have him be a priest?¡±


    ¡°What priest? This kid here will be the second Caucasus king. I will let the girl be a mage too, instead of having her walk the path I have walked,¡± Sika¡¯s eyes were shimmering with hints of tears, but looked adamant nheless.

 Chapter 830: Rescuing Bain (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 830: Rescuing Bain (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What about your powers?!¡± Saleen asked worriedly.


    ¡°I will continue to be a Priestess. I don¡¯t wish to push away my responsibility as a Caucasus Priestess; not because I¡¯m afraid of losing my powers, but because those people raised me.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen carried his daughter while grabbing resources for Nailisi with one hand.


    Saleen only rested for two days before he began to refine the magic tower. The tower itself did notck any resources, so what Saleen was doing was toplete the lightning magic pattern and enter the middle of the tower so that the top of the mechanical core of Sky City would replenish magic nuclei for it.


    The flight of Sky City definitely did not depend on magic nuclei. Saleen only wanted to operate the magic tower so the number of magic nuclei required was very different. A grade-9 magic nuclei would enable the magic tower to fly over a very long distance.


    The magic nucleus of a single-horned white whale could be sliced into thousands of standard slices. Saleen¡¯s divine tree magic tower would require at least thirty-six standard pieces of magic nuclei in order to be operational. The magic array on the tower also required six magic nuclei at the same time, so about two-hundred and sixteen standard pieces of grade-9 magic nuclei would have to be used up in one go.


    Saleen did not have enough magic nuclei for the magic tower to fly around. That was why he wanted to visit the cemetery of the single-horned white whales. He understood that for the battles in future, non-magic equipment would no longer be used. Ordinary weapons would no longer be distributed to soldiers.


    When all soldiers were at least swordsmen or swordmasters, it was the power of their equipment that would determine victory or defeat.


    Although Metatrin City had alchemy factories and thousands of mages and apprentices, they would not be enough to support their battles across the Maind. With so many Sregl Ind mages, he could afford to build alchemy factories of bigger scales and create even more magic equipment.


    The amount of space that the divine tree magic tower could maneuver was automatically initiated by the mechanical core of Sky City and was even bigger than thebination of the nine dimensions initiated by Saleen. If Saleen cloned Sky City, that would be the core of it. Back then, the core space of Sky City was controlled by mages as well.


    Very quickly, Saleen managed to find the location where the mechanical core was controlled. Mounting the grade-9 nucleus opened up one of the functions of the mechanical core. This core might have belonged to the second dynasty, but its history definitely went back much further than that. Saleen saw words and magic symbols that dated back even before the first dynasty.


    To a mage like Saleen, who used magic to remember knowledge, as long as there was sufficient information, he would be able to partially understand words from any dynasty.


    Saleen felt helpless in front of those words, because other than flight control, the other functions were the result of some unique abilities of Sky City. Saleencked the materials to create Sky City; hence he chose to refine a magic tower. He would have no use for thoseplicated functions.


    Saleen even saw three-dimensional magic words describing one of the functions of Sky City ¨C an All-around Magic Cannon attack.


    Saleen already possessed a magic cannon of his own. Although it was miniature in size, it was extremely powerful, and its attacking range was more than ten miles. There was nothing that the magic cannon could not prate.


    He did not understand what an all-around attack was, but the magic words had the ability to borate. Saleen guessed that an all-around attack meant that within a restricted area, there would be manyyers of attacks from every direction, just like a meteor shower.


    There was an area of effect spell amongst grade-9 spells called Meteorite Impact. The all-around attack described by the magic words should have been simr to the effect of casting a few Meteorite Impacts consecutively.


    That would probably require more than one-hundred magic cannons in order to achieve the same oue? Saleen began to admire the power of Sky City. If he had a city like that, Alchemy City or Holy Rock City could be razed to the ground.


    The defense of Sky City was different from what Saleen imagined. His divine tree magic tower was powered by lightning in order to carry out elemental destruction. Any magic attack would be weakened or evenpletely eliminated.


    On the other hand, Sky City¡¯s defenses were like magic armor, and countless armor tes had been ced around the gigantic city. Each armor te was an independent defense system on its own and they were all interchangeable. Since it was an independent defense system, they had minimal effects on each other and there was more than oneyer.


    After reading all the words that had floated out of the mechanical core, he only found two functions that he could use.


    The first function was flight, and the second function was to descend.


    As expected, Saleen did not feel that he would gain all the abilities of Sky City just because he had obtained a mechanical core. He recognized the importance of the mechanical core because those were the two abilities that he needed the most.


    Although Wings of an Elf was a flying equipment that could fetch people, its appearance looked like that of a big bird and it could only fetch one adult at most. On the other hand, Sky City did not look like it was suitable for flying, so Saleen still could notprehend the physics behind its ability to fly.


    Saleen would not allow anyone else to enter the control room of the divine tree magic tower. Perhaps the water puppet would be a good option to control it.


    Saleen took three months to refine this magic tower. At the end of it he managed to obtain the prototype of an equipment. If he wanted the tower to possess attacking abilities, Saleen would have to continue refining it so that everyyer of the tower would be able to activate its function.


    Lex finally came. Saleen¡¯s two children had turned one year old in November. Saleen stayed for another three months and when he felt that he would advance the moment he returned to the Myers Maind. He left the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment with Lex.


    Saleen did not enter Six Elements¡¯ Space at all during his training. Now that the collective power of the Myers Maind was increasing, there were many sorcerers working for Saleen, so his own power was not that important at that moment. Gaining enlightenment in Rafael¡¯s magic tower meant that Saleen¡¯s path towards advancement would no longer be difficult.


    Only six mages could enter Six Elements¡¯ Space in one go, so Saleen wanted to give up his slot to others who needed it more.


    Not everyone that entered would achieve the same thing in the end. The Sregl Ind mages were very experienced, so when they stepped out of Six Element¡¯s Space, they were more or less at the peak of a grade-9 mage and were already preparing to advance to grade-10.


    The process was not a particrly quick one even in ancient times, so even if the collective power of the Myers Maind was increasing, there would not be any significant changes. Metatrin City still remained as a powerful entity.


    It was precisely because Saleen understood that point that he obeyed Jason¡¯s guidance to use his own abilities to advance. What he did not expect was that when he returned from interdimensional space, Jason had already advanced into a grade-9 sorcerer.


    Jason had changed the templepletely and all the parts that were not built previously due to ack of materials had then been built. The temple had been transformed into a pure magic building and could contain up to one-thousand mages for training.


    Only mages that were above grade-4 could enter the temple. The temple corp had also been expanded to consist of twenty-four-thousand men. After including the demons, the total strength would be more than two-hundred and forty-thousand.


    Everything seemed to be progressing perfectly. By then, the two grade-9 sorcerers guarding Western town had also realized that their abilities were no longer of utmost importance to Saleen anymore and were much more respectful to Metatrin City.


    Lex and Saleen were then discussing something very formal. Bain was trapped in the Tanggsi Empire and was being pursued by the Holy See. Most of his subordinates had died and less than ten still survived.


    Bain needed to be rescued by a very powerful group of reinforcement.


    The only time they managed tomunicate with each other, Bain had mentioned a code. Lex then told Saleen that the reason why the Holy See was chasing Bain so fervently was not because he managed to kill a group of Red Bishops. It was because he and his subordinates managed to snatch away an extremely important equipment from the Holy See in the Glorious City.


    If the equipment fell into the hands of the Holy See, a clone of the Lord of Glory could descend upon the Myers Maind and everything could swing in their favor as a result.


    Eleanor had advanced into grade-7, so she was sent by Lex into the interdimensional space and would only be out in three months¡¯ time. Without Eleanor¡¯s help, it would be difficult for Saleen¡¯s most powerful attack to be locked onto a powerful grade-9 opponent. Lex would not allow Saleen to participate in that mission.


    Thest time Bain was seen was in God¡¯s Grace Duchy. From there, he could enter Lun or Sikeqinya Empire. Based on Lex¡¯s judgment, although Lun was now under the control of Qin, Bain would most likely go to Sikeqinya.


    There were more than twenty grade-9 sorcerers in Metatrin City, but grade-9 sorcerers were not suitable to infiltrate enemy territories because they could easily be surrounded by the Holy See.


    The team that would be responsible for rescuing Bain would have to consist of every type of Professional and it would have to be small in numbers.


    Lex wished to be part of the team because her God¡¯s Ring could sense Bain¡¯s presence within three-hundred miles. Others would not have that advantage in finding the assassin.


    Saleen could not disagree, but he insisted that Lex must choose a team suitable for the mission.


    Sika could not go because she needed to take care of her two children. Soldier and Nailisi could not go because Saleen was about to advance into a grade-8 sorcerer. They were bonded to him and would definitely experience a breakthrough in their powers. They had been limited by Saleen all that while, so their advancement had to be prioritized.


    Daniel was given to Lex. He had be a grade-7 death sorcerer, so he would be able to supply Lex with many spirits of the dead. J had managed to sessfully train Sharman so she had advanced into a ck metal grand swordmaster in approximately a year¡¯s time. Although she only advanced by one grade, she could easily advance into a silver grand swordmaster, as long as she could umte enough experience.


    J barely managed to advance into a golden grand swordmaster. Saleen gave him to Lex not only because of his increase in power and because he was dependable. It was also because it has been rumored that J was bing very intimate with one of Duchess Guya¡¯s female mage.


    That was troublesome. J¡¯s personality was such that he would not consider the consequences and would just do whatever he wanted. He was a golden grand swordmaster, he could match up even with a grade-9 sorcerer. Saleen was worried that he might get himself into trouble, so he took that chance to send him away, so that he could find out for himself exactly what was happening between J and that female mage.

 Chapter 831: Rescuing Bain (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 831: Rescuing Bain (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex¡¯s team was about to depart for the secret passageway to Sikeqinya through the Chaotic Swamp. Saleen drew up the map and handed it to Lex. That time around, Lex would have to redraw a real magic map in order to fully grasp this secret passageway. The passageway was formed naturally but could be transformed into a man-made passageway with both entrances sealed. It could be a passageway controlled by two countries, not allowing anyone else to sneak in.


    Death mages, grade-8 archers, golden grand swordmasters, magic beast swordsmen, sorcerers, Caucasus warriors, barbarian strongmen...


    Saleen had given Lex all the best people he had. In addition, Lex would also be bringing along one-hundred of Saleen¡¯s bodyguards, who were armed with elf alchemy crossbows. Daniel had brought along a death troop of more than two-thousand, while magic beast swordsman L brought two-thousand demons. They would all follow Lex to the west and would enter Sikeqinya through the Chaotic Swamp.


    After entering Sikeqinya, Lex¡¯s team would go around Didypus and cut through the mountainous regions of Sikeqinya to reach its western part and look for Bain.


    Lex did not bring along too many human soldiers, only a regiment of heavy-armored magic foot soldiers. The regiment of soldiers could be disguised as mercenaries to lie in ambush in Sikeqinya.


    Saleen was not too worried about Lex¡¯s safety since she was a grade-9 sorcerer. Although the powers of humans on the Maind had been increasing, grade-9 sorcerers were still the most powerful beings at the time. Besides, after advancing to grade-9, her God¡¯s Ring could wield even greater power. In other words, Lex was practically unbeatable as long as she was not surrounded by too many powerful opponents.


    After sending Lex away, Nailisi and the winged skeleton fell into a temporal and deep sleep. That time, the winged skeleton and Nailisi were advancing for real. Previously, they were restricted to utilizing the abilities that they should possess, but their actual grades were still limited by Saleen.


    Once Saleen advanced into a grade-8 sorcerer without any problem, Nailisi and Soldier werepletely free to advance into grade-9.


    The rule of the Myers Maind had also brought about benefits for Nailisi and the winged skeleton. This advancement was smoother and shorted than their previous ones. Within a month, both of them woke up from their deep sleep.


    It was already December and all of Metatrin City was full of ice and snow. Only the surroundings of the temple were still full of greenery, due to the ancient elvish trees.


    The Sregl Ind mages loved the four ancient elvish trees and they were often watered with restorative water.


    Saleen was prepared to head out to sea again. The port of Metatrin had already been sealed up by ice and the dragon skeletonbat vessels and Sregl Indbat vessels were docked on an ind far away from the Metatrin port. The ind was not sealed by ice. Saleen could then afford to bring the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and dragon skeletonbat vessel out to sea at the same time because Metatrin City could be protected by the Sregl Indbat vessels.


    In terms of manpower, the winged skeleton, Nailisi, and Eleanor would all follow Saleen to the Oceanic Ice Block. Now that Jason was managing the temple for Saleen, thetter no longer had anything to worry about.


    Although Saleen was worried about Isabe¡¯s disappearance, the person that had taken her away had yet to establish any contact with Metatrin City. Daliang City had sent out many people to search an area of one-thousand miles, but there had been no traces of Isabe. If they extended their area of search even further, they would reach the restricted area of the Holy See, and there would be no hope of finding Isabe there.


    Going out to sea again, Saleen did not activate any one from Sregl Ind, including theirbat vessels. Although skeletal warships might have been defeated by Cloudflow, their attributes made them perfect for hunting. In terms of both speed and the load that they could carry, skeletal warships were the best out of all warships of simr size.


    The entire crew was made up of spirits of the dead. Sika did not request to follow Saleen. She knew that if she followed Saleen, his boat would only go around the boundaries of Oceanic Ice Block and not into its depths.


    Saleen was surrounded by his followers, including Nichs. The Fallen Holy Master no longer feared the Holy See as much after realizing the true powers of Metatrin City. He knew that as long as he stayed at the back, there was nothing that the Pope could do to him, even if he came personally.


    Eleanor had be a grade-7 sorcerer. Saleen did not arrange for her to enter the Six Elements¡¯ Space and allowed her to follow him out to sea instead. Saleen already had a n for Eleanor. As long as she was on the Myers Maind, she would not have any problems advancing to a grade-9 sorcerer, even if she might be a bit slower than the others.


    Eleanor had a long lifespan, so the Six Elements¡¯ Space was not as important to her as it was to others.


    After preparing for half a month, the fleet finally managed to go around the inds controlled by Metatrin City and headed north.


    The naval route that Saleen used in the past was provided by Irene. That route was full of uncertainty and the magicpass often went haywire. They managed to reach the Oceanic Ice Block only because they had experienced sailors that made use of the stars to guide them. After the winged skeleton had explored it for the past three years, he was finally able to develop a real naval route that led to Oceanic Ice Block.


    The route would head north-east for about eight-thousand miles before heading north. That was the shortest naval route to lead to the Oceanic Ice Block. Not only were the other routes more dangerous, they were subjected to the constraints of weather and geographical elements. Only three months out of every year were suitable for vessels to pass through.


    Even though they possessed the naval route, they still needed to figure out the details. It would take about a decade before Metatrin City would find the most stable naval route. It was possible only because the ones doing it were spirits of the dead created by the winged skeleton to possess intelligence.


    The entire naval route was about twenty-eight-thousand miles long. The route was not entirely straight as it required ships to go around a few inds and change directions in order to avoid the dangerous regions. Although it might seem like the traveling distance had increased, Saleen had no need for stopping nor battling any powerful magic beasts from the ocean. The fleet would be able to go full speed ahead.


    Traveling at one-hundred and twenty miles an hour, the dragon skeletonbat vessel led twenty-four skeletal warships. They formed a straight line with less than a mile in between them.


    The winged skeleton had twenty-four jade skeletons for him tomand. That time around, he did not utilize the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat at all. Instead, he joined Saleen in the dragon skeletonbat vessel to head towards Oceanic Ice Block.


    The winged skeleton did not give up even though he had been through failures. He refined the dragon skeletonbat vessel once again and the vessel was one-hundred and eighty yards long. The dragon-head at the front was ck and ominous-looking. The vessel hadpletely given up on a sail as the auxiliary motor was changed to using a paddle wheel. Paddle wheels could be interchanged more easily and the motor it provided made use of magic nuclei. At that stage, Saleen no longer needed to save on such little energy.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel could travel much faster than skeletal warships and it was operating by using the most energy-efficient magic nuclei method, so it could travel side by side with skeletal warships. A pair of skeletal wings were tucked into both sides of the warship. The winged skeleton even refined magic stone artilleries on the skeletal wings. The magic stone artilleries were very light and fragile as they were refined with thundercloud wood.


    The entire warship looked like a live ancient giant dragon, which was horrifying.


    The vessel was not turbulent at all as the giant dragon¡¯s ability to control water elements was even stronger than Saleen. There would be no idental tilting or falling of any objects, even if one was ying skeletal card games. That also guaranteed that every alchemy crossbow on the dragon-remainsbat vessel would be able to take aim with uracy and the mages would be able to save a lot of time in their calctions.


    What interested Saleen the most was that even if thebat vessel was not suppressing its powerful aura, there would still be flying fish and all sorts of birds that apanied the vessel by using its high speed to reduce air resistance for themselves.


    Nailisi had brought along about one-hundred demons. As the demons were summoned from the demon dimension, their brains were warped by the magic array and they were not very intelligent. Nevertheless, their instincts could never be erasedpletely, so with some guidance from Nailisi, the demons very quickly learned how to hunt for fish.


    Their method was simple. They would be armed with javelins, standing at the sides of the vessel. Once they discovered their targets, they would be able to urately hit their targets with the javelins. The javelin was connected to a thin and long metal chain that was strong enough to withstand the impact of the vessel¡¯s speed.


    Nevertheless, they were deep into winter by then, and as they headed towards the north, the creatures on the surface of the ocean became fewer. What the demons managed to hunt were just enough to feed themselves. Nailisi did not allow them to consume any magic nuclei. If they managed to kill any creatures above grade-3, the magic nuclei must be given to her.


    Once she obtained the magic nuclei, she would use her teeth to cut them out and keep them in her bracelet. Nailisi was not familiar with the new naval route. The areas that she was familiar with had many sunken ships, but along the new route, it seemed as if there were no traces of humans.


    That was normal because the humans of the past would purposely choose the naval routes that were more dangerous. They believed that the more dangerous it was, the more rewards there would be. The ancient naval routes were basically what the humans in the past used for hunting.


    Saleen spent each day refining equipment and meditating. He felt extremely at peace. If he urgently needed to advance to grade-9, he could use the Six Elements¡¯ Space and would be able to advance sessfully in three months¡¯ time. Having such a back-up n allowed Saleen to feel calm and unhurried.


    On that day, Saleen was chatting with his followers in the cabin. When he asked what each person needed for their equipment, Nichs spoke up unexpectedly.


    ¡°My Lord, there is too few equipment that is suitable for me. After I have used my soul bead, it needs a period of recovery. I am also only left with one Fallen Code.¡±


    ¡°I have limited understanding of fallen divine spells. Nichs, do you wish to discuss something about fallen divine spells with me?¡± Saleen had nothing much to do, so he began to engage with Nichs.


    That was exactly what Nichs wanted. Although he had already gotten Daniel onto his side, there was still a distance between him and the other followers. Everyone had little understanding of him and fallen divine spells, so all of them were unaware of many things.


    Nichs knew in his heart that if he wished to maintain a veil of secrecy about himself, he would have to put up with loneliness and discrimination. It was useless even if Saleen saw the importance in him as everyone around Saleen was brilliant. He needed to use equipment as an excuse to talk about fallen divine spells with Saleen, so that the people around them would be able to ept the abilities that came with such a profession.

 Chapter 832: Secret of the Gods (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 832: Secret of the Gods (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°My liege. The power of divine spells came from God. Those who were cast away by God will never be able to use divine spells ever again. This is justmon knowledge,¡± Nichs¡¯ words attracted the attention of other followers that Saleen brought with him. Every single one of them had a thirst for knowledge. Nichs¡¯ words had pretty much contradicted himself, and that piqued everyone¡¯s interests.


    Nichs was without doubt, someone cast away by God, yet he was still capable of divine arts.


    ¡°But the power of holy masters, does not all originate from God¡¯s blessings. A god like the Lord of Glory is unable to appear on the Myers Maind personally. Even his double wouldn¡¯t be able to enter this ne, so he looks for agents to spread his faith. The edge that such agents get from this, is that they are able to take a part of the adherent¡¯s power of faith and make it theirs.¡±


    Nichsid out the concept in simple terms, so that even swordsman would be able to grasp the idea.


    ¡°Such taking of power of faith is allowed by God. What fallen holy masters do is to take such powers originally belonging to God by force and make them into fuel for our skills.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh!¡±, the mages were astonished. Their understanding of divine arts came exclusively from battles with holy masters. Few holy masters had ever betrayed God and mingled with mages. As such, the mages¡¯ understanding of divine arts were limited to methods to destroy and defend against such spells.


    That was the first time they heard Nichs borate on the subject. everyone was astonished that holy masters were able to take powers from God by force.


    Humanity had fought against gods in ancient times and won glorious victories, but the immense power gods held was indisputable. Believers were sheep of God, and the holy masters were his ves. Mages were able to understand at least that much.


    ¡°The taking of God¡¯s powers will result in divine punishments. If the Lord of Glory was to be present right now, there would be no doubt that I would end up dead. My soul would be taken away and thrown into purgatories created by God, to suffer for eternity. As such, fallen holy masters will do their best to wipe the faith from the ne where they are at, just so that they suffer less bitter ends.¡±


    ¡°So Nichs, are you saying that you have no way out?¡±, Nailisi asked with a smile. She knew what Nichs was plotting, but she nheless had a lot to gain from the old man, so she spoke in his favor.


    ¡°The Lord of Glory isn¡¯t known for being forgiving. He is quite the opposite actually. I have betrayed him, and there is no way out of this,¡± Nichs answered solemnly.


    ¡°You are saying he is wicked then. How so?¡±, Nailisi yed along and continued asking. Her mind was filled with questions regarding the enhancement of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Since the Lord of Glory liked punishing his enemies in environments simting purgatories, it meant that holy masters had in-depth knowledge regarding the subject.


    ¡°If the Lord of Glory was a generous one, then holy masters on the ne of the Myers Maind would have their lifespan lengthened by several times, and powers several orders of magnitude higher than others. They would not be so easily overwhelmed by mages.¡±


    The mages serving Saleen snorted in a disapproving manner. Nichs continued hastily, ¡°What I¡¯m saying is, with the power of humanity diminished, holy masters should have had the opportunity to gain overwhelming power.¡±


    The winged skeleton asked, ¡°Did the Lord of Glory not wish to have his faith spread far and wide on the Myers Maind? If his holy masters were powerful enough, the spread of the faith would be far quicker, which in turn would have benefited him.¡±


    ¡°Gods live very, very long lives, they¡¯re almost immortal. The Lord of Glory was reluctant to share too much of his power with his believers, as that would slow his own advancement.¡±


    The mages were dumbfounded at the boration. God¡¯s actions were iprehensible from the mages¡¯ perspective. If the matter was to be left to the mages, they would have made the other choice. They would have granted believers greater power, and thus spreading the faith quicker.


    God¡¯s choice, in that case, was less about being stingy and more about being long lived instead.


    ¡°The power of faith that can be granted on a ne is limited. If such limits were to be broken, the ne in question would grow weaker. Most interdimensional spaces were created in such ways. The gods rendered these ces wastnds and then cast them aside. Living things can hardly exist in such ces, let alone civilizations,¡± Nichs¡¯ words rendered the mages astonished once again.


    The spread of a god¡¯s faith was actually capable of dooming a ne!


    Saleen had been to the Hell of God¡¯s Punishments before, and knew well of what interdimensional spaces look like. Said hell was not a creation of the gods, but one which was growing. If a ne was to deteriorate to such levels, it was indeed very uneptable.


    ¡°The Lord of Glory seems to do what he did to be able to avoid having the Myers Maind suffer the same fate then,¡± a mage said.


    ¡°That would have made no difference. When the faith is spread throughout the entire ne, when most people are praying and offering their souls, the fate of said ne would be set,¡± Nichs answered calmly.


    ¡°So the holy wars that the pope waged were the Lord of Glory¡¯s decree then?¡±, Saleen asked and his followers all felt a sense of heaviness in their minds.


    ¡°Indeed. That is God for you. Devouring one ne after another. It was precisely because of this that humans waged wars against the gods long ago. The Myers Maind is a major ne. If it were to crumble, the possibility of restoration would be close to nil.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, how did youe to know so much?¡±, Saleen began to have doubts about Nichs¡¯ background. While he had been a grade-9 holy master, what he told everyone was the core secret of a religion. If such secrets were to be spread out...¡±No, even if such secrets were to spread, no believers would buy them. The believers¡¯ faith in their gods is blind. Nichs was a holy master, but not a believer.¡±


    Nichs held the fallen codex in his hand high, and spoke, ¡°After I had fallen, such contents began appearing in the codex. The Lord of Glory has his enemies. Not just humans, but gods too. These gods attempted to lure his believers away and rob him of his faith. On this ne, the faith of the Lord of Glory proved more powerful, and other gods had no way to intervening. They simply bided their time and waited for their chance.¡± Nichs gave a cold smirk and continued, ¡°The Lord of Glory said that there were no other gods but him. That was but a lie. Ever since I have fallen, divine runes of other gods began appearing on the codex, attempting to have me in their fold.¡±


    ¡°So did you join them?¡±, Nailisi asked out of curiosity.


    The air of heaviness that Nichs hadbored to create was reduced to nothing by Nailisi¡¯s question. Nailisi allowed him to mingle with people around Saleen and be considered as one of them, but she would never allow him to be a core figure around her master. ¡°Master is mine alone.¡± That was Nailisi¡¯s truest thought.


    Nichs was irked, but he was unable to do anything against Nailisi. To put it in a more urate manner, he needed Nailisi¡¯s help, in order for others to consider one such fallen holy master to be one of their own.


    Mages and holy masters were opposite sides of a spectrum. One side was unable to tolerate the other side¡¯s presence. Nichs¡¯ efforts could easily be reduced to nothing by Nailisi.


    ¡°I never dared destroy this fallen codex and I was unable to use it in battle. Doing so would put a clearer mark on myself, allowing other gods to seep into this major ne. Dealing with just the Lord of Glory has already proved to be a tough endeavor. Having more gods joining the fray would simply make a mess out of the Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°Well then, Nichs. What kind of equipment would you need? I will get it sorted out for you,¡± Saleen did not want to continue talking about the gods. What Nichs knew was a rough sketch of things. The secrets of God were not things one could simply spread on a whim. He was thinking then, ¡°If the Goddess of Myers is to be revived, would it bring forth the doom of the Myers Maind?¡± He had promised the Goddess to spread her faith after all.


    It was unknown if Nichs¡¯ words would prove true, that the source of a ne would be drained by the advent of gods.


    ¡°What would be of Myers Maind if the Goddess of Myers were to be revived?¡± Saleen had only realized then, that his knowledge of theology had only skimmed the surface of things.


    ¡°I¡¯m a fallen holy master, and my arsenal of offensive spells have increased, my spells for healing have decreased. Everyone knows that healing of divine nature is quicker than magic, but at the price is draining a part of the patient¡¯s life. Such divine healing is still necessary under certain circumstances. For that, I would need a healing type equipment.¡±


    ¡°Healing type equipment eh...¡±


    ¡°A Scepter of the Fallen, one that is capable of providing life energies. Patients would only need to pay a very small price for being healed.¡±


    Saleen understood that he had God¡¯s Left Hand, which harbored immense life energies. The armor he crafted for Sika, the Seven Nights longbow, and the quiver crafted for Eleanor, all contained materials derived from the tree of life.


    Nichs was very sensitive to divinity. He had no idea what kind of materials Saleen was using and was not permitted to speak of them in the open. The very reason why he chose a scepter was because it was a piece of equipment very simr to a mage¡¯s staff.


    ¡°You¡¯re one sly old man indeed!¡± Saleen felt exasperated in his mind. The materials for crafting one scepter was well within his means to provide for Nichs. The old man¡¯s divine healing spells, as the old man himself put it, worked astonishingly quick in battle. It was a speed that could never be achieved with magic.


    ¡°A soul bead can be iid on the scepter. I would be able to control it easier during battle,¡± Nichs decided toy out his requests nkly. He knew that Saleen had always been generous to his followers.


    ¡°No worries, Nichs. I know what you¡¯d need,¡± Saleen remembered all the sudden that he still had god¡¯s mulberry and ghost oak tree that he had gotten from Joey. Coupling those two materials with the tree of life, he would be able to make a scepter that was more fitting for someone like Nichs.


    It was no secret that Saleen had entered the core temple, but his contract with the Goddess was something only the few who had entered with him knew. Saleen felt troubled. If what Nichs said proved to be true, his aid to the Goddess of Myers would be tantamount to bringing about the doom of the ne he dwelled on.


    If he was to neverplete the contract, his soul would be sealed in that sacred tablet, where he would be locked up for eternity.


    That was one difficult decision to make. Saleen knew full well that he was not a noble person, but having to destroy a ne and condemning the Myers Maind into a ce like the Hell of God¡¯s Punishments, was something he would never find eptable.


    ¡°Where can I go to find proof of Nichs¡¯ words?¡±

 Chapter 833: Secrets of the Gods (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 833: Secrets of the Gods (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs¡¯ words had Saleen feeling troubled. He went to the deck and stood at the bow. The dragon head part used to be quarters for mages, but the ce was renovated into a magic array. The controls had been relocated to the rear. Having mages stationed at such a location was risky after all.


    Saleen stood on the array and looked in the direction of the dragon¡¯s mouth. There was nothing out in the sky, or the ocean before him, only chilling windsing in his back. The water vapor from the surface of the sea almost turned to frost. The sun hanging in the sky looked freezing cold.


    There was such a saying by the bards, that if you were to possess a heart of sorrow, the world would turn just as sorrowful.


    Saleen was reminded of the times where the mages teased the bards, which Saleen found to be ridiculous all of a sudden. The bards were not entirely wrong, after all. He was a grade-8 sorcerer, and such an environment could have been hardly described as harsh to him. As he was also of a body of water element, cold could hardly bother him.


    The only reason why he felt that way was because of his own feelings.


    Saleen had always been fond of the Goddess of Myers. Why he was could have all been traced back to the time when he acquired the Ring of Gifts. It was gifted by the Goddess herself. He had realized then that the ring was probably little more than the Goddess of Myers¡¯ means of revival, and that sent a chill down his spine.


    There was more than one Ring of Gifts left behind by the Goddess of Myers, but he was the first to reach the core temple, and acquired the seeds of the divine trees. It could be said that the Goddess of Myers simply had spread bait all over the ce, and that he was the earliest to be baited and caught.


    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t me, it would just have been someone else, right?¡± Saleen took out his family badge and rubbed it in his hands. The badge was the only thing he was able to rely on. The looks andughter of his father in his memory got murkier by the day. He was not able to restore that part of his memory no matter how hard he tried. The house of Metatrin grew stronger and bigger every day, and became one of the major houses and lineages on the Myers Maind. ¡°But father, mother, where are you? If it is true that souls are eternal, are both of you watching over me now?¡±


    ¡°My liege, there is a storm up front. We need to take a detour. It would be best that you return to the hold,¡± the voice of the winged skeleton was heard in his mind. Saleen answered briefly and walked away from the dragon¡¯s head.


    The storms at sea were horrifying. Even a grade-8 sorcerer like Saleen had reservations about testing himself against such forces of nature. The magicpass on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was the most high-end equipment that Saleen was able to craft. It was able to detect storms more than one-hundred miles away.


    The speed with which storms traveled was terrifying as well. The fleet moved eastward, yet still had scrapes with the edge of the storm. The huge vessel rocked violently on waves of heights of tens of yards tall, but the vibrations were hardly felt within the ship.


    Ifmon warships were to be rocked in such a manner, the ones in the ship would have been rendered so sick that vomit would have ended up all over the ce, even if said ships were able to hold themselves in one piece. The bone wings on the sides of the vessel spread out, which mitigated the violent wind elements around the ship somewhat. The entire vessel feltparatively calm and steady instead.


    Grooowwll...


    An unknown sea monster flew out from the giant waves, covered in blood-red scales. It was obviously the work of the storm, battering without mercy at the poor creature. The monster fell onto the deck heavily, prompting the vessel to shoot two massively powerful water jets beneath the waterline. The vessel sped up abruptly, throwing the creature overboard into the sea.


    The metal battlements at the stern turned acutely, flexing the alchemy crossbows open. If that sea monster still attempted to avoid the storm bying onboard, the battlements would have made a porcupine out of the creature, even if it was a grade-9 one.


    That was why the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was so powerful. It was able to speed up at a moment¡¯s notice without needing preparations, or having to raise the speed a little prior. As such, it was near-impossible for stray projectiles to hit the vessel in naval battles. The only way to actually hit the ship was by volley fire, hitting the nearby area where the ship was, cutting off its escape by making sure that it got hit no matter where it went.


    ¡°Slow down! Slow down!¡±, the mages serving Saleen in the captain¡¯s cabin shouted, pointing at the magic image.


    ¡°What happened?¡±, the singed skeleton looked at the mages with their deep eyes.


    ¡°That is a water garuda, we need to take it down!¡±


    ¡°I get it,¡± the winged skeleton said calmly, ¡°That thing would be worth some tens of thousands in gold at most if sold, even if the alchemy crossbows were to all fire at once, we wouldn¡¯t have much to lose.¡±


    ¡°Then you...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to go fight a stupid creature like that. Just spray some cuttlefish ink and shoo it away,¡± the winged skeleton cut the mage off.


    The mage was furious, as despite the winged skeleton being a contracted creature of Saleen, he was not one that could have been ordered around by the mages. That thing would have been worth some tens of thousands in gold at most if sold eh...


    ¡°What do you mean be worth some tens of thousands in gold at most?¡± While Saleen was immensely rich, he was not so rich that he would have been able to simply shrug a price like that off. Saleen¡¯s wealth consisted mostly of materials and equipment, but he did not actually have much currency to spare.


    The winged skeleton was unwilling to go kill the water garuda, and taking it down with alchemy crossbows would have been counterproductive.


    Saleen calmed his mages and said, ¡°There is no need to rush with hunting. The nearer we get to the oceanic ice block, the more worthy targets we will have in our sights. When we have actually entered the oceanic ice block, you fellows will have probably lost any interest in that water garuda.¡±


    These mages all hailed from Sregl Ind, and it was unusual for them to get so riled up over such a sea monster. Saleen thought, ¡°Looks like the resources controlled by Alchemy City are nothing near that of my oceanic ice block.¡±


    Saleen started reminiscing about how many sunken ships Nailisi and the winged skeleton had fished up from the northern seas, and a great picture began to unfold in his mind. Humanity¡¯s invincible armada would have gone north of the ne every year in ancient times, to hunt and to acquire the limitless wealth at the end of the oceans.


    The oceanic ice block had been known, even in ancient times, to harbor great wealth of sorts. Out of all four dynasties of the past, only the fourthcked the power required to hunt there regrly.


    In ancient times, every warship in a fleet was made of thundercloud wood. The ships carried either grand swordmasters or sorcerers. Those people were merely the equivalent of sailors of the current age. People died at sea still, despite having so much collective powers, and no ship was guaranteed to be able make such journeys safely.


    Saleen¡¯s goal was to find the single-horned white whale¡¯s cemetery. The wealth there would drive anyone on the ne crazy. It could inspire many to take such wealth for themselves regardless of the price.


    ¡°Soldier, see anyone from Alchemy City?¡±, Saleen was not able to help but asked.


    ¡°No, my liege, we have yet to find anyone. When in stealth, ourpass would have performed just as well as theirs. It is only a matter of time before we find the cemetery before they do,¡± the winged skeleton answered confidently.


    He relied on more than just the magicpass; he had also unleashed bone spirits. There was one bone spirit following the fleet every five miles, heading towards the oceanic ice block. The bone spirits spread out to form a line about two-hundred miles long behind the fleet. Magicpasses of Alchemy City would never bother picking up such low level creatures, but these bone spirits were able to sense warships of Alchemy City.


    ¡°Acknowledged,¡± Saleen knew that while his navy consisted of warships of Sregl Ind design, the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was an exception. The performance of the ship was one that Alchemy City would have never been able to make, even just one ship.


    It was also impossible for Alchemy City to scheme alongside the Cloudflow people. Even if Alchemy City was practically ruled by a bunch of selfish mages, they still had a hundred times more pride than Cloudflow people. The Cloudflow people were truly people that would have rendered others speechless. The descendants of the fourth dynasty had practically degenerated into a bunch of baffling creatures.


    Taking the grade-9 mage who had dered with pride that he would have gone about harassing Bitterwater prefecture, for example, he had simply went home and hid in Cloudflow. He was never to be seen again, instead of ¡®keeping his word¡¯.


    The losses they suffered at Daliang City might have been massive, but the overall military might still exceeded that of the city they invaded. The Cloudflow invaders have simply retreated though. They left in a very clean and swift manner at that, even exceeding the speed at which they went with their initial assault.


    While the Cloudflow people schemed with the Tanggsi Empire, they did not mention anything about wanting to retrieve Titan Duchy. They had instead acknowledged in silence that the Red River served as the border between two nations.


    If Alchemy City were to scheme with the Cloudflow people, Saleen would not have had to worry much about the force consisting of mages.


    Despite Alchemy City having blocked off the Cloudflow people¡¯s assault at sea, Saleen believed that Alchemy City had still been pulling punches. Alchemy City had probably also almost forgotten about thest warning. Be it Fycro or Joey, they not act again. Those two grade-10 professionals would not keep watching the sea all the time to help him ward off attacks from Alchemy City.


    There had definitely been spies from Alchemy City squatting at the ports of Metatrin City. There were definitely eyes and ears of Alchemy City at sea too. If he was going out to sea to hunt personally, it would be inconceivable to not have ships from Alchemy City tailing them.


    There was also a possibility of Alchemy City fielding great numbers of sorcerers to abduct him, and thus acquiring total monopoly over the sea route leading to the oceanic ice block.


    Saleen was simply waiting for Alchemy City to make the first move. He wanted to defeat Alchemy City at sea for once, showing how one should not mess with Metatrin City, by using the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vesel.


    There were six grade-7 sorcerers, more than thirty grand mages, high level spirits summoned by the winged skeleton, and the powerful demons summoned by Nailisi aboard his ship. Other than that, there was also a grade-9 fallen holy master, two grade-9 summoned creature, and powerful alchemy crossbows, ready to break any elemental magic defenses.


    More importantly, Saleen also had the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat at his disposal. If his enemies proved too powerful, he still would still be able to escape at a moment¡¯s notice.


    They were in the true sea, with depths exceeding five-thousand yards. Even grade-10 professionals would not have been able to catch up to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Without any concerns for anything, Saleen had every reason to use himself as bait, to teach Alchemy City a lesson.


    ¡°Alchemy City has been too arrogant. They have forgotten, they are not the ones to call the shots on the maind.¡±


    The fleet was five-thousand miles away from Metatrin City, yet there were no signs of anyone from Alchemy City. Saleen felt that those people might have been a little too patient. Or rather...


    ¡°My liege, enemies up front.¡± The voice of the winged skeleton rang in his mind all of a sudden, prompting him to check the magic image. Spirit gaze sent the image back, which, while in ck and white, proved clearer and was able to see further.


    There was a huge area shrouded by a cloud shown in the image. Within the cloud,id the silhouette of a ship. If the ship was to be analyzed by its parts seen in the cloud alone, the ships would have been more than one-thousand yards long.


    That was no longer a warship. It was an ind moving in the sea.


    ¡°That is not a ship from Alchemy City!¡±, a mage from Sregl Ind shouted.

 Chapter 834: The Wild Dance of Dragon Skeletons (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 834: The Wild Dance of Dragon Skeletons (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Thebat vessel was gigantic with ck holes for cannons. It was probably able to unleash magic stone shells of more than a yard in diameter. The most terrifying thing was that it was as if thebat vessel had suddenly appeared ten miles away, yet the magicpass failed to detect the huge vessel.


    ¡°My Lord!¡±


    ¡°Your Highness!¡±


    The men were screaming at the same time, clearly trying to persuade Saleen to avoid thebat vessel. Such a huge vessel was clearly made with technology that far surpassed that of Metatrin Kingdom. Even a group of grade-9 sorcerers would probably be unable to create something that was longer than a mile. It was a ship that could float on the seas and resist the winds.


    In theory, the perfect length for abat vessel should the same as the dragon skeletonbat vessel, which was one-hundred and eighty yards.


    In order to ensure resilience against the winds and tides, the longestbat vessel created by mages measured at three-hundred and ten yards long. It was not that biggerbat vessels could not be created, but it wouldpromise the speed at which it could be maneuvered and the resilience of the vessel.


    ¡°Full speed ahead!¡± Saleen gave the order without any hesitation.


    ¡°Yes, Master!¡± the winged skeleton was excited. This was the first time he was up against such a huge target. Any otherbat vessel might not be able to do much, but the unique ability of the dragon skeletonbat vessel would definitely surprise the enemy.


    ¡°Sit tight. The battle will be turbulent,¡± Saleen said to the people around him.


    The mages heard Saleen¡¯s order and prepared for battle. The Sregl Ind mages had nock of scrolls. When Jason moved house, he brought over almost all of the scrolls that he had umted on Sregl Ind. Those items were not important to Sregl Ind anyway. The mages on the ind would continue to create many more scrolls.


    When Saleen saw the mages inspecting their scrolls, heughed and said, ¡°You will not have to join in the battle yourselves. Just keep yourself safe and boost the soldiers with spells at the appropriate times. Back to your positions.¡±


    The mages got too excited because of thebat vessel. After what Saleen said, they quickly returned to their positions.


    The cabins for mages and warriors were side by side, so the mages would not have to leave their rooms in order to boost the warriors with spells. The interior of the dragon skeletonbat vessel was designed very logically because there was no need for a huge space to amodate an alchemy motor; hence allowing the structure of thebat vessel to be most suitable for battle.


    The skeletal warships that were behind the dragon skeletonbat vessel began to slow down and spread apart while the dragon skeletonbat vessel spread its gigantic skeletal wings and increased its speed to more than two-hundred miles per hour.


    The entirebat vessel had almost lifted off the surface of the ocean. It rode the wild wings and sped towards the giganticbat vessel that was ten miles away at lightning speed.


    The sight was like a rabbit bravely facing a wolf.


    That hugebat vessel did not expect the speed of the dragon skeletonbat vessel to increase so dramatically and so suddenly. When it appeared, it was ten miles away and was traveling at a speed of about sixty miles an hour. When the dragon-remainsbat vessel suddenly ramped up its speed to more than two-hundred miles an hour, a distance of ten miles could be covered in less than three minutes. It was not long before the twobat vessels would meet each other head-on.


    No matter how sturdy the dragon skeletonbat vessel might be, it was not built to sh head-on with such a giganticbat vessel. The front of thebat vessel had half a yard thick metal armor that was being supported entirely by magic, which was why it did not sink into the sea. If bothbat vessels were to sh, the giganticbat vessel would not be at a disadvantage. Even if the dragon skeletonbat vessel was not destroyed, its internal structure would surely be shaken.


    The people on the giganticbat vessel had considered countless possibilities but had not considered that the target would increase its speed and charge at them head-on.


    The dragon bones of the giganticbat vessel were made of magic metal in a restorative structure. Even if half a supporting structure broke off, it would not lead to a disintegration of thebat vessel, otherwise the vessel could not have survived any storms. In the magic cabin of the giganticbat vessel, the captain was shocked by what he was witnessing. It took him half a minute before he called, ¡°Full speed ahead!¡±


    He had been angered. To think that the target was trying to demonstrate their courage in such a hrious manner. He would help the enemy realize that courage should be built on powerful foundations, or it would just be mindless stupidity.


    Five miles, four miles, three miles...


    Bothbat vessels approached each other at high speed without any intentions of turning away. Both sides were not even attacking each other with any weapons.


    One mile...


    Nine-hundred yards!


    By then, neither side needed any magic to be able clearly see what each other¡¯sbat vessel looked like.


    This was when the winged skeleton calmly took control of thebat vessel and began to transform it. Dragon ws emerged from the belly of thebat vessel while the dragon tail shook violently. The entirebat vessel was making a deafening noise. There were spells in thebat vessel that could buffer out such noises, but that was not the case for the enemybat vessel, where the soldiers that were controlling the weapons were clearly affected.


    They saw the enemy¡¯sbat vessel suddenlye alive to transform into a gigantic dragon. Gigantic skeletal wings were pping on both sides as it pounced on theirbat vessel.


    ¡°Attack, attack quickly!¡±


    ¡°Open fire!¡±


    ¡°Where are the alchemy crossbows?!¡±


    ¡°Mages! Where have the mages gone to?!¡±


    Nine-hundred yards of distance disappeared in the blink of an eye. Before the chaos on the giganticbat vessel could settle, the dragon skeletonbat vessel had already pounced onto the deck of the giganticbat vessel.


    Boom!


    The one-hundred and eighty yard long dragon-remainsbat vesselnded heavily on the giganticbat vessel. Its skeletal wings on both sides swept away countless soldiers and equipment that had protruded out of the deck.


    The ws of dragon-remainsbat vessel dug deep into the metal deck as it shifted its body and swept its tail towards the bridge. The dragon skeletonbat vessel was refined from the remains of an ancient gigantic dragon. When it was still alive, every creature that was below grade-9 would be turned into minced meat by a sweep of its tail, without question.


    The deck was covered with blood as the warriors were still calling for mages in futility. The winged skeletonughed deviously in the control cabin and said, ¡°Humph, did you really think this is just a simple vessel? Come, giant dragon, roar!¡±


    When grade-9 magic nuclei were ced in the magic array, the magic array at the front of the dragon lit up. Energy was transported into the magic array and the mouth of the dragon suddenly unleashed a powerful sound shockwave.


    It was a grade-9 magic array ¨C sonic dimension.


    The wind elements in the dragon¡¯s mouth began to congregate until they were visible. Countless miniature magic runes were just taking shape when they were shredded into pieces, releasing a deafening noise.


    Such a violent yet strange attack left the men on the giganticbat vessel helpless. They had quite a lot of equipment to prevent enemies from boarding the deck, including alchemy crossbows, fire-spitting hives, and huge puppets. The equipment would be effective against magic beasts that were more than ten yards long, but in that situation, they were under attack by a one-hundred and eighty yard long dragon skeleton.


    The skeletal wings of the dragon skeletonbat vessel continued to p on the deck, smashing all the flying equipment on the deck into pieces. Some of the huge puppets had also been smashed into theirponents, much less the arrow tower. As for the towering bridge, although it did not copse after being swept by the dragon tail, its magicmunication equipment was destroyed. They could no longer use it to disseminate orders around thebat vessel.


    The moment the giganticbat vessel lost the ability tomunicate, the warriors were in a mess.


    Sonic dimension was a spell that left everyone on the deck bleeding from every crevice. Even those that were stronger lost their senses. With the dragon head as point of focus, a huge crater appeared on the deck as the grade-9 attack failed to fully prate it.


    The winged skeleton was not surprised. After all, the grade-9 spell was meant to attack living bodies. Its damage on metal was limited. No matter what, sonic dimension managed to kill many enemies and only a little magic nuclei were used up in exchange.


    The ws of the dragon skeletonbat vessel tore out the metal in the deck as huge craters appeared one after another. Countless spirits of the dead began to appear on the dragon skeletonbat vessel. They jumped onto the deck of the giganticbat vessel and dove into the cabins beneath the deck.


    Only at that point of time did the humans on the dragon skeletonbat vessel begin to leave their positions and remove the spells that had held them in ce. What the winged skeleton did no longer maintained the bnce in thebat vessel and everyone was thrown around.


    Only the demons seemed unaffected. They followed Nailisi in dashing out of the dragon skeletonbat vessel. She also called over Nichs and more than one-hundred human soldiers to hermand.


    Nailisi followed the spirits of the dead in entering the first level beneath the deck. Thebat vessel was so huge that perhaps even the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would not be able to sink it. Nailisi decided to take out the eggs of magic bug and spread them over the enemy¡¯s corpses. The moment the eggs met with flesh and blood, they began to incubate very quickly.


    Nichs cast a fallen divine spell and the magic bugs incubated even faster. They broke out of their shells quickly and devoured the corpses.


    Saleen had no intentions of taking over thebat vessel. His initial goal was to destroy the vessel so much so that it could no longer be operated. Saleen did not need abat vessel in perfect condition. He only wanted victory.


    Of course, after killing the enemies, he would continue to stay on thebat vessel for a period of time to see what kind of reinforcements mighte. Right then, Saleen was a grade-8 sorcerer and the six spells on his devil suit had broken their seals to reach grade-9. His golden magic book and demon magic book could still contain many grade-9 spells. The equipment was not scrolls and could be used repeatedly.


    That was why Saleen had never felt more confident than then. As long as his enemy was not as powerful as Joey, he was confident that he would emerge victorious. After all, Eleanor was now a grade-7 sorcerer and her longbow, Seven Nights, was already of formidable power and would allow Saleen¡¯s n badge even more time to lock onto the enemy.


    The water puppet had also been fully repaired. The water puppet could cast crystal finger on behalf of Saleen, and this finger could easily kill grade-9 opponents.


    Saleen gave Nailisi and the winged skeleton the order to kill all the enemies.

 Chapter 835: The Wild Dance of Dragon Skeletons (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 835: The Wild Dance of Dragon Skeletons (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯smand was cruel. His fleet had been obstructed by the giganticbat vessel. If they had attacked each other with long-range weapons, the dragon skeletonbat vessel might not have been its match.


    The enemy had no intentions of letting him live, so Saleen did not intend to let them either.


    The warriors and mages on the deck of the giganticbat vessel had already been ughtered by the dragon skeletonbat vessel. The deck had been torn apart and the coiled-up metal was glowing faintly.


    After the demons and spirits of the dead had disembarked, the dragon skeletonbat vessel did not stop destroying the giganticbat vessel as its dragon ws continued to swipe around. It crawled forward and soon made its way to the control cabin of the giganticbat vessel. The window was made of crystal and the captain and mages behind it were still in shock.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel waspletely controlled by the winged skeleton and his spirits. There were no human sailors at all. Saleen¡¯s gaze became hard as he looked at the cabin through the crystal window.


    The sharp dragon horn on the dragon skeletonbat vessel struck fiercely and the cabin was pierced through. The dragon horn unleashed the power that it had been harnessing and the entire cabin exploded in flesh and blood.


    There was no one of significant power there!


    Saleen was shocked. The giganticbat vessel definitely possessed formidable power. If the weapons on its deck had been used for long range attacks, as far as Saleen was aware of, nobat vessels could survive. That was because thebat vessel was so huge and as a result it could carry so many weapons.


    Such abat vessel would not even have to consider the size of its weapons, only how powerful they were.


    It was because the dragon skeletonbat vessel suddenly traveled at such a high speed and pounced onto the giganticbat vessel in such a suicidal manner that it managed to sessfullynd on its deck. No one on the vessel could ever imagine that a gigantic object that was close to two-hundred yards long would suddenly leap up into the sky.


    Impossible. Definitely impossible. There should be a grade-9 opponent in charge of such a hugebat vessel. Saleen opened his elemental eyes and searched for his target.


    Although he was only a grade-8 sorcerer, he did not fear any grade-9 opponents. Since he had the winged skeleton, Eleanor, and a few Sregl Ind mages, not even a grade-9 opponent would have the upper hand over them. Besides, after Saleen advanced into a grade-8 sorcerer, his water puppet has also be stronger.


    The water puppet was just like another Saleen, even if it did not use crystal finger.


    Saleen did not need to worry about getting injured either. He had already refined Nichs¡¯ equipment. A Scepter of the Fallen could quickly heal any form of injury.


    Fallen divine spells of attacking nature were hard to defend against. If not for the fact that he had absolute control over Nichs, Saleen might even fear him. Curses could not be traced. Aini lost his magic chords because he was secretly attacked by a Holy Master a while ago.


    The appearance of the giganticbat vessel did not look normal. It was one-thousand yards long and more than three-hundred yards wide. It looked swollen, its deck looked too broad and eighty percent of its cabins on top were gathered at the rear. There was huge flying equipment on the deck and it looked like it was four to five times bigger than Wings of an Elf.


    Saleen was confused, but it was because he was not thinking from the enemy¡¯s point of view. There was plenty of equipment on the deck of the giganticbat vessel to prevent enemies from boarding, the cabins on the deck were all made from metal and they could shoot plenty of crossbow arrows. It was just that all the things were ineffective against dragon skeletonbat vessel.


    When thisbat vessel was designed, it never crossed their mind that their enemy¡¯sbat vessel would fly onto their deck.


    There were some powerful opponents on the deck initially, but the few ck metal grand swordmasters did not manage to react in time and were all crushed to death by the dragon skeletonbat vessel. The equipment on the deck had all been swept away by the dragon tail, so when Nailisi led her people down, they no longer met with the same level of resistance.


    Naturally, high-level mages could not go up to the deck. Only a few grand mages were on the deck with white-robed mages. After the attack from the grade-9 magic array, they were all either dead or injured and could no longer put up any resistance.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s mental strength was so powerful that everyone on the deck that was injured, or unconscious were all turned into spirits of the dead by him. There was no one left to control the remaining equipment on the deck.


    Saleen released the water puppet and said, ¡°Bring enough spirits of the dead with you. I don¡¯t believe that the strong opponent on this vessel can continue to keep hiding.¡±


    Saleen wanted to use the water puppet as a bait to lure out the strong opponent. He took out his crystal ring and put it on water puppet¡¯s finger and said, ¡°Don¡¯t use crystal finger unless absolutely necessary.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness.¡± After the water puppet had recovered, it was no longer as sharp as before. A longer time would be required for the intellect to be the same again. When Saleen saw that the water puppet was answering very obediently, Saleen sighed in his heart. He was on the brink of witnessing a life being birthed from nothingness, but because of the serious damage caused by the Shenhe previously, the water puppet¡¯s intelligence was almostpletely wiped out.


    It would be terribly difficult for the water puppet to be like how it originally was. Even if its intellect was back to normal, it seemed that something within the water puppet had changed forever.


    The water puppet led all the spirits on the dragon skeletonbat vessel out of the cabin and onto the deck. The unique attribute of the water puppet was that it allowed Saleen to be able to see what it saw.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel was already in the middle of the giganticbat vessel. Nailisi led the demons down to the cabins and finally met some strong opponents.


    In the cabins one level below the deck, there were no soldiers except for a few low-level mages that were controlling metal puppets that were less than two yards tall. The miniature size of the puppets meant that they were designed specifically to fight within the narrow and enclosed space of the cabins.


    When Nailisi saw that they were up against a group of puppets, she did not hesitate to ask the human soldiers to retreat and send forth a group of white-feathered zombies instead. On the death dimension, zombies were a strange group. Even low-level zombies were extremely strong and possessed very resilient soul mes, making them very difficult to kill.


    The zombies charged forward and began to tussle with the metal puppets. The puppets were clearly not as high-level as those possessed by Saleen and Lex. They moved much slower, and if not for the fact that they were extremely strong and there were so many of them, they might not even be as powerful as a normal soldier.


    Metal broke and bones cracked. The cabin was full of the foul stench of zombies and metal lubricant. There were two-hundred to three-hundred zombies up against over one-thousand metal puppets in four to five huge cabins.


    ¡°Nichs!¡± Nailisi was peeved that Nichs was not doing anything to help.


    ¡°I¡¯m here.¡± Nichs observed for a while before discovering the metal puppets¡¯ weakness. When they were not under the control of mages, they would utilize magic eyes to observe their surroundings. The cost of making such puppets was low, but they did not have the same senses as humans, so they could only rely on their sight to fight.


    Nichs pointed his Scepter of the Fallen forward and ck aura began to fill up the entire cabin.


    The human soldiers that had followed Nailisi were all d in magic equipment. Their eyes were shielded by a sheet of crystal, allowing them to see at least one-hundred yards ahead of them amongst the fog. The mages that were hiding in the cabin were no longer able to see where Nailisi and the rest were. This divine spell that Nichs had cast was not very powerful, but just rarely used. It was called rust.


    The fog was caused by the metal puppets rusting instantaneously then using water vapor to induce the metal powder within the rust. It would be difficult to dissipate the fog even by using magic.


    The mages could use their senses to detect the location of their enemies, but they could no longer control the metal puppets. Theponents within the puppets were dposing very quickly and were making strange sounds as they disintegrated.


    The mages tried to activate the secret door within the cabin so that they could escape. They did not expect the switch of the door to be affected by the rust, causing it to stop working.


    Rust was effective only on metal and was not harmful to humans. The mages all possessed elemental shields, so they would not be harmed even for an instant.


    ¡°Nichs, let¡¯s go further down and not stay here too long,¡± Nailisi said calmly. Regardless how many rooms they had searched on that level just beneath the deck, all they found were soldiers and puppets and not a single powerful opponent.


    Nailisi wanted to kill at least one grade-9 opponent while she was in peak condition.


    Nichs was helpless. When he hit his Scepter of the Fallen forcefully on the ground, a ck ring of light lit up and a hole that was three yards long in diameter appeared under his feet.


    ¡°Down!¡±


    Nailisimanded the demons down to the second level. She took onest look at the first level and saw that the mages were hanging onto their magic shields for their lives, and not only were they unable to leave, they did not dare to break through the line of zombies either.


    When matched up against death mages, elemental mages usually tried to lengthen the distance between them in case they were snuck up on by the spirits of the dead summoned by the death mages. Many spirits fought simrly to grand swordmasters, so in abat over a short distance, elemental mages were no match for death mages.


    Nailisi thought for a moment before turning herself into a spirit of the dead, then followed the demons down to the cabins on the second level.


    After she advanced, her powers as a spirit of the dead were no different from that of the Three Kings. The only difference was that the appearance of Nailisi¡¯s spirit was that of a three-faced bone demon.


    Three-faced demons looked like skeletons, but were much more powerful, and had often advanced into the level of Kings on the death dimension. When Nailisi transformed into a three-faced bone demon, there were three faces on her head that allowed her to see in all directions. Her hands turned into gigantic skeletal ws and a sharp and short skeletal tail appeared at her back.


    When Nailisi descended into the cabin on the second level, the corpses of two demons flew towards her. She was taken by surprise. She did not want the demons to be sacrificing their lives for no reason. More than one-hundred demons were retreating quickly as a Rotting Lizard that was more than six yards long dashed forward.


    It was a middle-aged man dressed in a long white shirt that was killing the demons. There was an air of arrogance about the man. He pointed his long sword forward and the grade-6 Rotting Lizard turned into dust from his silver sword aura.


    A silver grand swordmaster? In such a narrow and enclosed cabin, it would not be easy to deal with a silver grand swordmaster. Nailisiughed coldly and said, ¡°Nichs, give me three seconds.¡±

 Chapter 836: Ancient Warship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 836: Ancient Warship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs smiled bitterly. Nailisi had simply used him as some tool to clean up small fries. It nheless worked in the old man¡¯s favor, as the demon had at least not sent him to take the lead in charging at the enemy. He had been instead relegated to a support position, where he would be able to work at full capacity as a holy master.


    ¡°Time Reversal,¡± Nichs raised his scepter of the fallen and pointed it at the enemy at the other end of the hold.


    The gate were at the end of the hold. Other than a silver grand swordmaster, there were also several ck-robed mages who had yet to make their move.


    The sorcerers were no big deal as they were only at grade-7. Nichs alone proved adequate to deal with. There was another tall figure d in magic armor behind these mages though.


    That person simply stood there like a mountain. They held a spear in their hand without saying a word. Their armor glittered with a sheen of deep purple all over. That sheen of deep purple was something formed only by human blood clots. The entire armor seemed to have no metal parts on it; it was as if the armor was made entirely out of blood.


    Tainted blood armor!


    Time stopped flowing in the ship¡¯s hold as Nichs¡¯ fallen divine spell was cast. In actuality, it was little more than an illusion. Even a grade-9 professional like Nichs was not able to control time. He had only used the powers of the hundreds of thousand souls inside the soul bead to warp the perceptions of people around him.


    Time had only slowed somewhat, but to the silver grand swordmaster and the sorcerers, time seemed to have truly stopped, it was even reversing. In such a situation, they were not aware of what Nailisi did.


    All three of Nailisi¡¯s bone faces chanted. King level death magic was far more potent than usual grade-9 death magic. While it had yet to reach the lethality of grade-10, the spell¡¯s potency still far surpassed that of usual grade-9 spells.


    It was for that particr reason that she took the form of a three-faced bone demon. If she were to take the form of a devil, her closebat prowess would have been off the charts, but at the cost of being magically inferior.


    The power of Luoluokaluo gradually manifested itself. Nailisi now possessed the power of a giant dragon. If she was able to devour yet another giant dragon, she would be able to take the form of a dragon herself. The devil form and the human form carried special significance, especially the human form. As the restoration of power continued taking ce on the Myers Maind, her powers would also experience exponential enhancement, possibly even exceeding that of her other forms some day.


    It went without saying how the power of the Lightning Guardian helped her against a good number of powerful foes. Some defensive abilities could be even renderedpletely useless against the effects of the Lightning Gaurdian, allowing her to engage in closebat effortlessly.


    While she did not have any particr reason to ce any importance on her spirit form, it nheless proved to be the most usefulbat method at that moment.


    The three faces of the three-faced bone demon were independent of each other. They were even capable of chanting extremelyplex chants. Elf tongue, spirit tongue, and even the dragon tongue, none proved difficult for these three faces.


    What Nailisi had been chanting at that moment was, however, a death magic spell created by humans: Bone Needle Territory.


    It was a grade-9 spell. As the chants to conjure the technique proved tooplex and fluctuations of mental powers moved too quickly, the spell was deemed too difficult formon grade-9 sorcerers. The casting speed for the it was rather slow, which was three seconds. That span of time was enough for a mage to cast nearly a hundred instant magic spells.


    Under the effects of the holy spell, Nailisi was able toplete casting her spell, which rendered the entire hold horrifyingly freezing. Countless bone needles thinner than ones used for sewing flew at breakneck speeds at the silver grand swordsman and the group of sorcerers.


    The air seemed to have been sucked dry and the bone needles numbering in millions vanished at the blink of an eye. The bone needles had prated the silver grand swordmaster¡¯s Protection Sword Aura, armor, skin, flesh, and bones by the time they came to realized what happened.


    The body of the silver grand swordmaster slumped on the floor like a rag doll, with their blood being sucked dry by the bone needles in an instant. None of the grade-7 sorcerers were spared either. All of them were rendered human-sized sieves as the bone needles prated their Elemental Shields.


    It was rather unexpected for Nailisi to wipe out so many with just one single grade-9 spell.


    Not all enemies in front of her ended up dead. The one who sent a ring alert in her mind, remained standing behind the fallen group. The tainted blood armor had cracks all over from the needles, and yet it held true. The figure still had the spear in their hand, standing there and emanating sword aura all over their body. Their sword aura however, was a color that Nailisi had never seen before: blood-red.


    ¡°Ancient warriors have a myriad of peculiar ways to train in their arts. Having a blood-red sword aura is hardly surprising,¡± Nichs held his scepter of the fallen tight in his hand, and exined it to Nailisi.


    An ancient warrior then? Nailisi felt a tinge of fear in her mind. She had experienced personally how powerful humans were twenty-thousand years ago. Warriors back then were capable of tearing space and traversing dimensions like mages. The likes of Grand Swordmaster sh was nothingpared to what these warriors were capable of.


    ¡°Something is off. I can¡¯t feel any signs of life from that fellow there!¡±, the soul me in her eyes danced violently. Her current form possessed six eye sockets, and all six soul mes possessed powers well above dead spirits of simr level. She had formed a soul bond with Saleen, and that enabled her to be very familiar with the power of life.


    She had thought that the warrior was so powerful that they were able to conceal their own signs of life, yet she had only realized then that the few needles that actually made it into the warrior¡¯s body failed to absorb any life force.


    ¡°A puppet perhaps?¡± Just as Nailisi guessed at the warrior¡¯s nature, eerie scraping sounds were heard from the warrior¡¯s tainted blood armor, before they ejected every single bone needle shot into them prior. The warrior had also raised their spear and pointed it at Nailisi. They blurted a string of words which sounded very peculiar.


    Tens of symbols of peculiar shapes shot out from the spear and danced in the air. Nailisi tensed up. If she were to simply let that thing use a skill of some sort, she would have ended up at a serious disadvantage.


    ¡°Nichs, stand back. I¡¯ll take care of this fellow myself,¡± Nailisi said as she took out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Nichs acted without hesitation, thumping his scepter on the metal floor, creating a hole with a diameter of three yards. Nailisi¡¯s underlings and spirits all went inside the hole.


    Nailisi rushed at the warrior d in tainted blood armor, with a bone spear in her hand.


    Crack...


    A clean crisp sound was heard. It originated from the pair of eyes opening beneath the warrior¡¯s mask, as their eyelids began to move.


    ¡°So this warrior has had their eyes closed all this time. Not a living thing then, so what!¡± A fire burned inside Nailisi¡¯s mind. If she was not able to take down that thing, she need not ever speak about aiding her master in anything.


    Shhnngg!


    The bone spear trembled violently, creating a mirage as thick as a bucket, going straight for the warrior¡¯s helmet.


    It was not known in the temperaments of such minor demons to show such bravery. Luoluokaluo, before acquiring their eight abilities, were no exception. As the abilities acquired by Nailisi all proved powerful enough, her mettle gradually developed into a fearsome one.


    Nailisi had long ceased thinking only about escaping in one piece with Saleen whenever they were facing powerful foes. She instead thought of ways to kill their foes, and put such worries to rest for good.


    Boom...booooomm!


    The bone spear hit the warrior¡¯s helmet, yet the strike failed to even move it by an inch. The warrior¡¯s neck twisted about with a crack, and turned to face Nailisi. The sound obviously came from the cracking of the bones in their neck.


    Without a second of hesitation, she activated the Twelve Notes of Purgatory and threw the warrior inside.


    Her opponent had no signs of life, and Nailisi did not enter the purgatory of darkness. She had instead brought the figure to the purgatory of ice. The ice crystals hanging in the sky were hundreds of yards long. They looked as if they would fall at any moment.


    Nailisi was about to make a move after throwing the warrior into the purgatory of ice, when the warrior simply shut their eyes with a crack.


    Nailisi quickly backed down, but what she saw was that the tainted blood armor of the warrior had simply frozen over, turning into a huge block of ice. The warrior seemed to have simply fallen asleep, not resisting in anyway.


    ¡°Just what kind of monster is this thing!?¡±


    While Nailisi was able to hold the thing under control for the moment, she had no surety of any kind. The purgatory of ice was still under repair, and there were weapon¡¯s spirits within. As such, offensive powers werecking. Coldness of eighty ice points were something that even grade-7 sorcerers would be able to withstand. The warrior was definitely a grade-9 powerful one, maybe even stronger. There was just no way they would have been trapped within the purgatory of ice.


    Nailisi did not have time to figure that out. Her only option was to simply steel herself and leave the purgatory, heading back to the hold.


    ¡°Nailisi, we are going up!¡±, Nichs was the first person Nailisi saw when she returned, bringing his demons and going up to the first floor. He did not even bother asking how Nailisi dealt with that dubious warrior.


    Nailisi grabbed Nichs¡¯ beard and said, ¡°What do you mean, old man? Our orders were to kill every single one onboard this ship!¡±


    ¡°There was no one down there. If there were to be anyone, they were just like that kind of thing you saw earlier!¡±, Nichs shook his head for a moment, wringing his beard free from Nailisi¡¯s hands. Nailisi was stunned, before realizing that she was in her spirit form. Her handsprised only of bone segments, which were poor for holding anything tight.


    ¡°What strange things¨C!¡±


    A shiver was sent down Nailisi¡¯s spine. She might have collected a warrior, but she knew that the warrior was simply hibernating in the purgatory of ice, instead of being truly suppressed. She had no choice to but give up fighting, as she simply had little time to spare to deal with the warrior.


    If there were to be more of those things further down in the hold, she could not just chuck them all into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. If the numbers of those things proved too great, they might have simply destroyed the purgatory.


    ¡°Oh my god, my liege!¡±


    Nailisi felt worried as she thought of all those things. If a great number of such warriors were to attack the Dragons Skeleton Combat Vessel, there would have been no way for her master to fend them off. While the winged skeleton excelled in closebat, he would not have been able to take on so many grade-9 powerful beings on his own.


    ¡°Nichs, get back to the vessel!¡± Nailisi said as she made for the first floor of the hold. There were too many partitions in therge warship. Nailisi was near the head of the ship. She took out a bunch of magic bug eggs without thinking and threw them on the dead bodies, leaving them to hatch on their own. She then jumped onto the deck and made for their vessel.


    The ancient warrior¡¯s defensive capabilities were simply too powerful. That thing¡¯s body strength was more fearsome than any living creature that she had ever encountered. That one strike from her bone spear was not something even golden grand swordmasters could have simply taken the full brunt of. The ancient warrior took the full brunt of it and it only made a cracking sound at their neck, not even actually snapping it.


    ¡°If that ancient warrior was to actually attack me, would I have been able to kill that silver grand swordmaster and those sorcerers so easily?¡±

 Chapter 837: Ancient Warship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 837: Ancient Warship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs smiled bitterly. Nailisi had simply used him as some tool to clean up small fries. It nheless worked in the old man¡¯s favor, as the demon had at least not sent him to take the lead in charging at the enemy. He had been instead relegated to a support position, where he would be able to work at full capacity as a holy master.


    ¡°Time Reversal,¡± Nichs raised his scepter of the fallen and pointed it at the enemy at the other end of the hold.


    The gate were at the end of the hold. Other than a silver grand swordmaster, there were also several ck-robed mages who had yet to make their move.


    The sorcerers were no big deal as they were only at grade-7. Nichs alone proved adequate to deal with. There was another tall figure d in magic armor behind these mages though.


    That person simply stood there like a mountain. They held a spear in their hand without saying a word. Their armor glittered with a sheen of deep purple all over. That sheen of deep purple was something formed only by human blood clots. The entire armor seemed to have no metal parts on it; it was as if the armor was made entirely out of blood.


    Tainted blood armor!


    Time stopped flowing in the ship¡¯s hold as Nichs¡¯ fallen divine spell was cast. In actuality, it was little more than an illusion. Even a grade-9 professional like Nichs was not able to control time. He had only used the powers of the hundreds of thousand souls inside the soul bead to warp the perceptions of people around him.


    Time had only slowed somewhat, but to the silver grand swordmaster and the sorcerers, time seemed to have truly stopped, it was even reversing. In such a situation, they were not aware of what Nailisi did.


    All three of Nailisi¡¯s bone faces chanted. King level death magic was far more potent than usual grade-9 death magic. While it had yet to reach the lethality of grade-10, the spell¡¯s potency still far surpassed that of usual grade-9 spells.


    It was for that particr reason that she took the form of a three-faced bone demon. If she were to take the form of a devil, her closebat prowess would have been off the charts, but at the cost of being magically inferior.


    The power of Luoluokaluo gradually manifested itself. Nailisi now possessed the power of a giant dragon. If she was able to devour yet another giant dragon, she would be able to take the form of a dragon herself. The devil form and the human form carried special significance, especially the human form. As the restoration of power continued taking ce on the Myers Maind, her powers would also experience exponential enhancement, possibly even exceeding that of her other forms some day.


    It went without saying how the power of the Lightning Guardian helped her against a good number of powerful foes. Some defensive abilities could be even renderedpletely useless against the effects of the Lightning Gaurdian, allowing her to engage in closebat effortlessly.


    While she did not have any particr reason to ce any importance on her spirit form, it nheless proved to be the most usefulbat method at that moment.


    The three faces of the three-faced bone demon were independent of each other. They were even capable of chanting extremelyplex chants. Elf tongue, spirit tongue, and even the dragon tongue, none proved difficult for these three faces.


    What Nailisi had been chanting at that moment was, however, a death magic spell created by humans: Bone Needle Territory.


    It was a grade-9 spell. As the chants to conjure the technique proved tooplex and fluctuations of mental powers moved too quickly, the spell was deemed too difficult formon grade-9 sorcerers. The casting speed for the it was rather slow, which was three seconds. That span of time was enough for a mage to cast nearly a hundred instant magic spells.


    Under the effects of the holy spell, Nailisi was able toplete casting her spell, which rendered the entire hold horrifyingly freezing. Countless bone needles thinner than ones used for sewing flew at breakneck speeds at the silver grand swordsman and the group of sorcerers.


    The air seemed to have been sucked dry and the bone needles numbering in millions vanished at the blink of an eye. The bone needles had prated the silver grand swordmaster¡¯s Protection Sword Aura, armor, skin, flesh, and bones by the time they came to realized what happened.


    The body of the silver grand swordmaster slumped on the floor like a rag doll, with their blood being sucked dry by the bone needles in an instant. None of the grade-7 sorcerers were spared either. All of them were rendered human-sized sieves as the bone needles prated their Elemental Shields.


    It was rather unexpected for Nailisi to wipe out so many with just one single grade-9 spell.


    Not all enemies in front of her ended up dead. The one who sent a ring alert in her mind, remained standing behind the fallen group. The tainted blood armor had cracks all over from the needles, and yet it held true. The figure still had the spear in their hand, standing there and emanating sword aura all over their body. Their sword aura however, was a color that Nailisi had never seen before: blood-red.


    ¡°Ancient warriors have a myriad of peculiar ways to train in their arts. Having a blood-red sword aura is hardly surprising,¡± Nichs held his scepter of the fallen tight in his hand, and exined it to Nailisi.


    An ancient warrior then? Nailisi felt a tinge of fear in her mind. She had experienced personally how powerful humans were twenty-thousand years ago. Warriors back then were capable of tearing space and traversing dimensions like mages. The likes of Grand Swordmaster sh was nothingpared to what these warriors were capable of.


    ¡°Something is off. I can¡¯t feel any signs of life from that fellow there!¡±, the soul me in her eyes danced violently. Her current form possessed six eye sockets, and all six soul mes possessed powers well above dead spirits of simr level. She had formed a soul bond with Saleen, and that enabled her to be very familiar with the power of life.


    She had thought that the warrior was so powerful that they were able to conceal their own signs of life, yet she had only realized then that the few needles that actually made it into the warrior¡¯s body failed to absorb any life force.


    ¡°A puppet perhaps?¡± Just as Nailisi guessed at the warrior¡¯s nature, eerie scraping sounds were heard from the warrior¡¯s tainted blood armor, before they ejected every single bone needle shot into them prior. The warrior had also raised their spear and pointed it at Nailisi. They blurted a string of words which sounded very peculiar.


    Tens of symbols of peculiar shapes shot out from the spear and danced in the air. Nailisi tensed up. If she were to simply let that thing use a skill of some sort, she would have ended up at a serious disadvantage.


    ¡°Nichs, stand back. I¡¯ll take care of this fellow myself,¡± Nailisi said as she took out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Nichs acted without hesitation, thumping his scepter on the metal floor, creating a hole with a diameter of three yards. Nailisi¡¯s underlings and spirits all went inside the hole.


    Nailisi rushed at the warrior d in tainted blood armor, with a bone spear in her hand.


    Crack...


    A clean crisp sound was heard. It originated from the pair of eyes opening beneath the warrior¡¯s mask, as their eyelids began to move.


    ¡°So this warrior has had their eyes closed all this time. Not a living thing then, so what!¡± A fire burned inside Nailisi¡¯s mind. If she was not able to take down that thing, she need not ever speak about aiding her master in anything.


    Shhnngg!


    The bone spear trembled violently, creating a mirage as thick as a bucket, going straight for the warrior¡¯s helmet.


    It was not known in the temperaments of such minor demons to show such bravery. Luoluokaluo, before acquiring their eight abilities, were no exception. As the abilities acquired by Nailisi all proved powerful enough, her mettle gradually developed into a fearsome one.


    Nailisi had long ceased thinking only about escaping in one piece with Saleen whenever they were facing powerful foes. She instead thought of ways to kill their foes, and put such worries to rest for good.


    Boom...booooomm!


    The bone spear hit the warrior¡¯s helmet, yet the strike failed to even move it by an inch. The warrior¡¯s neck twisted about with a crack, and turned to face Nailisi. The sound obviously came from the cracking of the bones in their neck.


    Without a second of hesitation, she activated the Twelve Notes of Purgatory and threw the warrior inside.


    Her opponent had no signs of life, and Nailisi did not enter the purgatory of darkness. She had instead brought the figure to the purgatory of ice. The ice crystals hanging in the sky were hundreds of yards long. They looked as if they would fall at any moment.


    Nailisi was about to make a move after throwing the warrior into the purgatory of ice, when the warrior simply shut their eyes with a crack.


    Nailisi quickly backed down, but what she saw was that the tainted blood armor of the warrior had simply frozen over, turning into a huge block of ice. The warrior seemed to have simply fallen asleep, not resisting in anyway.


    ¡°Just what kind of monster is this thing!?¡±


    While Nailisi was able to hold the thing under control for the moment, she had no surety of any kind. The purgatory of ice was still under repair, and there were weapon¡¯s spirits within. As such, offensive powers werecking. Coldness of eighty ice points were something that even grade-7 sorcerers would be able to withstand. The warrior was definitely a grade-9 powerful one, maybe even stronger. There was just no way they would have been trapped within the purgatory of ice.


    Nailisi did not have time to figure that out. Her only option was to simply steel herself and leave the purgatory, heading back to the hold.


    ¡°Nailisi, we are going up!¡±, Nichs was the first person Nailisi saw when she returned, bringing his demons and going up to the first floor. He did not even bother asking how Nailisi dealt with that dubious warrior.


    Nailisi grabbed Nichs¡¯ beard and said, ¡°What do you mean, old man? Our orders were to kill every single one onboard this ship!¡±


    ¡°There was no one down there. If there were to be anyone, they were just like that kind of thing you saw earlier!¡±, Nichs shook his head for a moment, wringing his beard free from Nailisi¡¯s hands. Nailisi was stunned, before realizing that she was in her spirit form. Her handsprised only of bone segments, which were poor for holding anything tight.


    ¡°What strange things¨C!¡±


    A shiver was sent down Nailisi¡¯s spine. She might have collected a warrior, but she knew that the warrior was simply hibernating in the purgatory of ice, instead of being truly suppressed. She had no choice to but give up fighting, as she simply had little time to spare to deal with the warrior.


    If there were to be more of those things further down in the hold, she could not just chuck them all into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. If the numbers of those things proved too great, they might have simply destroyed the purgatory.


    ¡°Oh my god, my liege!¡±


    Nailisi felt worried as she thought of all those things. If a great number of such warriors were to attack the Dragons Skeleton Combat Vessel, there would have been no way for her master to fend them off. While the winged skeleton excelled in closebat, he would not have been able to take on so many grade-9 powerful beings on his own.


    ¡°Nichs, get back to the vessel!¡± Nailisi said as she made for the first floor of the hold. There were too many partitions in therge warship. Nailisi was near the head of the ship. She took out a bunch of magic bug eggs without thinking and threw them on the dead bodies, leaving them to hatch on their own. She then jumped onto the deck and made for their vessel.


    The ancient warrior¡¯s defensive capabilities were simply too powerful. That thing¡¯s body strength was more fearsome than any living creature that she had ever encountered. That one strike from her bone spear was not something even golden grand swordmasters could have simply taken the full brunt of. The ancient warrior took the full brunt of it and it only made a cracking sound at their neck, not even actually snapping it.


    ¡°If that ancient warrior was to actually attack me, would I have been able to kill that silver grand swordmaster and those sorcerers so easily?¡±

 Chapter 838: Eternal Control (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 838: Eternal Control (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Water puppet looked at the young sorcerer and analyzed them carefully. The opponent was only twenty yards away. If they were ten yards closer, it would be able to kill him with one finger.


    It had no idea how agile the sorcerer was. If possible, it was still better to use a magic staff.


    The sorcerer saw what looked like Saleen looking at him without any fear. He raised the magic staff in his hands and pointed ahead, unleashing the grade-9 spell stored in it, which was the Vacuum Imprisonment spell.


    A huge bubble appeared from the surface of the water puppet¡¯s body, keeping Vacuum Imprisonment away. After Saleen had advanced into a grade-8 sorcerer, his water shield evolved as well. His water shield had be a grade-7 spell even though its appearance was still the same.


    Grade-7 water shield could only keep Vacuum Imprisonment out for up to three seconds at most before it would be erased by the grade-9 spell.


    Three seconds was too long for a mage. To a water puppet, it was just enough for him to take out a new magic staff and cast a grade-9 spell.


    With a p, the bubble broke and the water puppet cast a grade-9 spell, Ice Storm.


    Above the sea, there was unlimited water elements. Ice Storm triggered the water elements, and then the space around the water puppet was filled with water elements that were still growing.


    There were huge ice crystals amidst the wind and the damage that each of them could cause far surpassed ordinary alchemy crossbows. Vacuum Imprisonment was a powerful restraining spell that couldst for a significant period of time, butpared to Ice Storm, which was of the same grade, the former was full of loopholes.


    The water puppet calmly ducked through the loopholes of Vacuum Imprisonment and appeared right in front of the sorcerer. The magic staff in his hands shone and the same grade-9 Vacuum Imprisonment spell captured the sorcerer. Ayer of blue on the sorcerer¡¯s ck magic robe shimmered and his face revealed a smile of ridicule.


    Wind-element spells were his specialty, it wasughable that his opponent was trying to use Vacuum Imprisonment against him. His finger was not affected by the spell at all and pointed forward. A beam of white wind elements changed into the form of a thin needle and pierced through Vacuum Imprisonment, aiming towards the water puppet¡¯s abdomen.


    Water puppet smiled deviously as well. They were eight yards apart. He pointed his finger forward as well. A white beam of magic light lit up and the sorcerer¡¯s smile froze on his face.


    A gust of unstoppable power shot out from water puppet¡¯s finger. Water elements seemed to have beenpressed thousands of times before vibrating and shooting into the sorcerer¡¯s brain.


    Blood shot into the sky as the sorcerer¡¯s brain was crushed by crystal finger. In the end, the grade-9 sorcerer still could not figure out how his opponent, a grade-8 sorcerer, was able to cast a spell that could prate through his defense. After all, his equipment had provided him with a grade-9 defense, which was Crystal Maze.


    The water puppet¡¯s abdomen was pierced through by the needle formed by wind elements, creating a hole that was bigger than a te. The air current formed by wind elements spun violently. The attack, that was in the form of a needle, caused more damage than a magic alchemy crossbow.


    The water puppet held onto some pieces of dragonshard, and after a few breaths, the wound in his abdomen had already recovered. His finger has already broken off and the crystal ring was barely dangling on what was left.


    Water puppet switched the ring onto his right hand and dashed forward to snatch the sorcerer¡¯s corpse before throwing it into the leather bag on his waist.


    Saleen witnessed the entire battle and felt a tinge of regret. The water puppet was still not well-repaired, and its intellect was stillcking. Its estimation was far from his own. The enemy was only a grade-9 mage, so there was no need to use crystal finger at such a high-level.


    The counter reaction force of crystal finger was not something that could be repaired with dragonshards. For at least a week, the water puppet would be without its finger.


    Another issue was that, while the incredible power of crystal finger was undoubtable, its attacking range was too short. A range of more than ten yards would severely reduce crystal finger into an ordinary spell. The spell was meaningless if the enemy was not close enough. It was best if no one knew of the existence of crystal finger, but the moment it was known, it would be close to impossible to surprise enemies with it in the future.


    Grade-9 opponents could generally move fast, so if their intention was to increase the distance between themselves and Saleen and water puppet, it would have been difficult for thetter to do anything about it. In the midst of the chase, the enemy could easily counter their attack.


    In a narrow and enclosed environment, crystal finger was still a good option.


    Saleen thought about it and gave water puppet amand to converge with Nailisi.


    The top three levels on the ancientbat vessel should already have been upied by people who were also controlling the core motor. Nailisi rushed towards the core motor. Once she killed the people controlling it, this vessel would more or less be under her control.


    The water puppet turned around and led the spirits of the dead to the front of thebat vessel.


    Nailisi and the water puppet were two powerful beings that left a trail of destruction behind them. The water puppet cast grade-8 and grade-9 spells without any hesitation while Nailisi, after transforming into three-faced bone demon, could inflict powerful damages and could create even more spirits to be her cannon fodder.


    The enemy corpses were turned into undead soldiers, and those that were of better quality had their flesh and blood peeled off to turn into blood warriors.


    Blood warriors were grade-5 spirits and theirbat abilities were much strongerpared to ordinary soldiers. Under the urging of the spirits, Nailisi turned the first level of cabins beneath the deck into a bloodbath.


    There was an incredible number of enemies on the ancientbat vessel and quite a significant number of sorcerers and grand swordmasters as well. As the cabins were spread too far apart, they were unable tomunicate with each other and the water puppet was able to use powerful spells to eliminate them all one by one. Other than suffering severe injuries inflicted by the grade-9 sorcerer, the water puppet did not encounter any worthy opponents.


    The human soldiers had already returned to the dragon skeletonbat vessel. They were no longer needed in the battle. There were over one-hundred demons on the deck of thebat vessel that were on alert but did not follow Nailisi into battle.


    ¡°Master, take a look at this.¡± The winged skull saw that only Eleanor was left in the cabin and took the chance to show Saleen the broken jade of Judikaka¡¯s soul me.


    Saleen was able to immediately detect the rule power harnessed within. He was shocked and asked, ¡°What is this?¡±


    ¡°This is what was controlling the Three Kings. A terrifying living creature is hidden within it but... it has vanished. Master, you can use this to control the Mechanical Soul.¡± With that, the winged skeleton quickly transmitted everything that he had researched on the rule and the usage of the broken jade into Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°The Mechanical Soul? You can just continue to control it.¡± Saleen had no idea why the winged skeleton was trying to give him that. The Mechanical Soul had been very useful and could wield great power, especially in battles against armies.


    The winged skeleton thought to himself, ¡°I tried so hard not to allow the bond to vanish. If I continue to use this broken jade and control the powerful Mechanical Soul, I¡¯m afraid I will evolve again. By then, I will probably have to leave Master forever.¡±


    ¡°Master, this broken jade harnessed the rule to control. You will need to control a lot more people in future. Grasping this rule is much easierpared to getting people to be bonded to you one by one. Look, although Three King¡¯s Master has disappeared for so many years, they were still unable to go against him.¡± Seeing Saleen¡¯s hesitation, Soldier spoke again, ¡°Master, I wanted you to control the Mechanical Soul because it is the only one that can truly control thisbat vessel.¡±


    ¡°Alright!¡± Saleen no longer hesitated after hearing that.


    The winged skeleton was pleased once Saleen gave his consent, and he said, ¡°Master, familiarize yourself with this broken jade first. Nailisi should still have two more pieces with her. Each broken jade can control a powerful living creature. The rule within the broken jade is even more powerful than soul bonds. Once you are familiar with it, you can refine it yourself too.¡±


    Saleen no longer hesitated and poured his mental strength into the broken jade.


    The mental strength space within the broken jade was huge. Saleen saw countless ancient runes lined up in the broken jade in an orderly manner.


    The runes were the same as those refined from Judikaka¡¯s staff. Saleen had studied the Three Kings¡¯ staffs and managed to understand what they had gone through all those years.


    Their souls werepletely controlled with no possibilities of escaping, unless the Three King¡¯s improved so much that they could overturn it.


    The broken jades were hidden in the soul mes and could not be taken out; hence Three Kings¡¯ actions had always been affected. They might have possessed the power of the staffs, but they had to pay the price of having their personalities changed.


    For so many years, Three Kings had never been themselves.


    The powers of Truth, Deception, and Absurdity were what created Three Kings¡¯ entric and extreme personalities.


    The power of deception was what gave Judikaka his power and intelligence. Once one saw through all deception, that was when the world would be real once more.


    The most mysterious thing was that Saleen saw the rule of conservation within the broken jade. The rule was even more powerful than those he read in the books. If not for the fact that Saleen already fully understood the rule of bnce of energy, he would never have been able to understand the rule of conservation so quickly.


    With the broken jade, not only would Saleen be able to control the Mechanical Soulpletely, it would continue to be that way even after Saleen died from old age.


    ¡°Master, how is it?¡± Although the winged skeleton could understand how Saleen was feeling, he still decided to ask anyway. He did not wish to influence Saleen¡¯s feelings as it was inappropriate for him to peek into his master¡¯s train of thought. Even so, the winged skeleton had no desire for such an ability to be taken away from him.


    ¡°It is really good. Although I can¡¯t understand it all immediately, it can be perfected with time. Anyway, the staff is in my hands.¡± Saleen smiled. He had not been able to break down and analyze the materials of Three Kings¡¯ staffs, so he had been keeping them all that while. It would have been such a waste if they had been destroyed.


    Three staffs would allow him to control three powerful living creatures.

 Chapter 839: Eternal Control (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 839: Eternal Control (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Mechanical Soul was summoned by the winged skeleton, who thenid on the ground. The winged skeleton pointed its finger at the Mechanical Soul¡¯s forehead, who then raised its head and asked, ¡°What do you need me to do now?¡±


    The winged skeleton¡¯s mouth cracked open and he showed the Mechanical Soul a devious smile before saying, ¡°Master said that your intelligence is too low, and it will be too difficult for you to control thisbat vessel. Therefore, we want you understand the power of some rules.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? That¡¯s great, however, the dragon skeletonbat vessel belongs to you. I wouldn¡¯t dare to...¡±


    ¡°Not the dragon skeletonbat vessel. Take a look.¡± The winged skull expanded the magic image. The bloody scenes on the deck of the ancientbat vessel was clear for all to see. The soul me in the Mechanical Soul began to dance wildly.


    ¡°This ancientbat vessel is from the first dynasty. In order topletely control it, you have to absorb it.¡± Saleen took out the broken jade, which had been cleansed once by his mental strength and nothing was found to be amiss.


    ¡°Alright, alright. Once I control thisbat vessel, I will help you to finish off your enemies!¡± The Mechanical Soul lied easily. He could sense the rule power embedded in the broken jade. If he could control the broken jade and grasp the rule, he would be able to break through grade-9 if he could absorb as much energy as possible. By the time he reached grade-10, no bond would be able to contain him. The first person he would kill would be the winged skeleton!


    ¡°These are just empty promises. Swear on it.¡± Saleen withdrew his hand and refused to hand the broken jade to the Mechanical Soul.


    The Mechanical Soul hurriedly replied, ¡°I swear upon the rule of the entire death dimension that I pledge my loyalty to Lord Soldier and Lord Saleen and whoever else you wish, and that I will kill all your enemies for you!¡±


    His swear was a mess. After that, the Mechanical Soul suddenly reached out with a mechanical arm and snatched the broken jade away from Saleen before putting it into its body.


    The golden soul me of the Mechanical Soul¡¯s body quickly wrapped around the broken jade and dug into it.


    What aplex rule!


    The Mechanical Soul could not help, but sigh. The two idiots possessed such a valuable object, but instead of trying to use it for themselves, they actually tried to gain his favor with it. Once he grasped the rule, he would devour those two fellows...


    The Mechanical Soul began to feel confused. The rule was bing more and moreplicated. His entire golden soul me had already been absorbed into the broken jade, but it could not even find the edges of the rules.


    Saleenughed. The creature might be strong and resilient, but it was not too intelligent. The broken jade could only be assessed and explored with mental strength, using soul me would cause it to be absorbed and controlled eternally.


    The Mechanical Soul had yet to realize that his soul me was entirely lost. He tried to control the broken jade, not knowing that he had already fallen into Saleen¡¯s trap. He was the only one that would fall for such a trick. Other grade-9 creatures would never have believed Saleen and the winged skeleton.


    After about half an hour, the Mechanical Soul finally sensed that something was amiss because he realized that none of the rules in the broken jade were normal. They were all made up.


    ¡°Damn it! How dare you trick me!¡± Mechanical Soul howled. He tried to retrieve his soul me based on his memory and was relieved when he managed to do it. While he was still considering if he should disy his anger, he realized that the broken jade was floating amidst his soul me and would not leave. ¡°Saleen, how dare you!¡± Mechanical Soul shouted somewhat stupidly. Suddenly, a blue electric current appeared from the broken jade within the soul me. He quickly shrank into the size of about two yards onto the ground. His entire body was trembling so badly that even the naked eye would not be able to follow.


    ¡°Why not? In the future, if you even think about cursing me, I will punish you using this method,¡± said Saleen. Lightning runes shed across his eyes as he stared at the Mechanical Soul and said, ¡°This is a rule unique only to me. No one else in the entire dimension will be able to understand it. You will just have to obey me from now on.¡±


    The Mechanical Soul was shocked and angry. He did not understand why his soul me could not leave the broken jade, but he did understand what Saleen meant by unleashing the electric current. That represented total control. His soul would always be controlled by the broken jade.


    ¡°I normally have a good temper, but once I¡¯m angry, it will take a long time before I am appeased. Therefore, it is best if you don¡¯t make me upset.¡± Saleen patted the Mechanical Soul¡¯s head and said, ¡°You don¡¯t have a proper name yet. I shall call you Genga from now on.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want such a stupid name! Ahh...¡± the Mechanical Soul¡¯s body bounced once again before mming back down and convulsing.


    ¡°Saleen, you bas ¡ª oww!¡± the Mechanical hammered his own head and howled. After that he sobbed and said, ¡°I submit! Saleen, please forgive me! Your Highness, My Lord! Master...¡±


    ¡°You submit?¡± Saleen asked with a smile.


    ¡°Yes, I submit!¡± the Mechanical Soul replied hurriedly.


    ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Genga, I¡¯m called Genga!¡±


    ¡°Who am I?¡±


    ¡°You are Master, Lord Saleen!¡±


    ¡°What do you n to do from now on?¡±


    ¡°Obey Master¡¯s orders and kill all his enemies!¡±


    ¡°And what else?¡±


    ¡°Protect the people around Master. I will be the first to volunteer for the most difficult tasks!¡± By then, the Mechanical Soul¡¯s tone had be one of ttery.


    ¡°So, what are you going to do now?¡±


    ¡°I will control thebat vessel. I will go now!¡± Tens of metal limbs grew out of Mechanical Soul¡¯s abdomen and he was just about to leave.


    ¡°Wait a moment.¡± Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Unless you have my order, you will never leave this ancientbat vessel!¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Master.¡± the Mechanical Soul¡¯s voice was full of excitement. He did not even dare to curse in his heart because he had just been taught a painful lesson by Saleen. That sort of punishment affected the soul directly and there was no way to escape.


    The Mechanical Soul charged up onto the deck of the ancientbat vessel from the dragon skeletonbat vessel. Once he was there, he began to devour any object that would help him to evolve. There were broken pieces of equipment on top of the enemy corpses.


    ¡°Heh...,¡± Saleenughed dryly. He thought to himself, ¡°What kind of creatures were the Three Kings to be able toe up with such an evil rule. Once the broken jade enters the soul me, one will never be able to get rid of it. Besides, I only needed to leave behind a sliver of lightning rule to obtain the Mechanical Soul¡¯s absolute obedience and loyalty.¡±


    ¡°Master, are you able to create more of such broken jades?¡± the winged skeleton asked from beside him.


    ¡°Not yet. My grade is too low at the moment. Even if I seed, I will only be able to control living creatures below grade-8. I am not in total control of this object yet,¡± Saleen said regretfully. The space within the broken jade was incredibly huge. Of course, that referred to the space for containing souls or mental strength. He could not replicate one even if he wanted to, much less create a duplicate with its own rule.


    The winged skeleton thought to himself, ¡°Looks like Master¡¯s understanding of rules has yet to be as deep as mine. Nevertheless, the things that I can create now have their own weaknesses too. I will just have to put up with it for the time-being. By the time I advance to grade-10, then I will have the ability to control more spirits of the dead.¡±


    On the ancientbat vessel, Nailisi and Nichs were leading the spirits to ughter their enemies. The water puppet has also met up with the two of them. After the three of them swept through the first level of cabins, they immediately came to the front one-third of thebat vessel and continued to search below.


    There was a straight passageway here, just like a gigantic tunnel that had been dug out of this metal.


    Just as the three of them were deciding who should go down first, the Mechanical Soul had already caught up with them and dove into it without a word. He had devoured so many things that his body had expanded uncontrobly into a gigantic metal snake.


    Nichs was scared stiff, but Nailisi recognized what it was. She exined to Nichs about the Mechanical Soul, which only made thetter even more worried. He knew a little about the unique attributes of Mechanical Souls. He knew that it would not be controlled easily. It was something that could almost destroy the entire death dimension.


    ¡°No matter what, let¡¯s go down. Since the Mechanical Soul is leading the way, we should not encounter too many enemies.¡± With that, Nailisi leapt down into the metal tunnel. The water puppet followed close behind before Nichs finally jumped in unwillingly. Below his feet was a ball of ck light that slowed down the speed of his descent. Spirits of the dead jumped down around him continuously. Their weapons made of bones scraped against the metal tunnel, making screeching noises.


    The ancientbat vessel was extremely deep, and it was said that there were eighteen levels of cabins in total. This metal tunnel would lead to the core motor cabin at the lowest level. The top was originally sealed off with a metal door, but it was destroyed by the people that took over the vessel. The new door that they put in ce was then torn apart by the dragon skeletonbat vessel so then, the lowest level was extremely vulnerable.


    Just like that, the Mechanical Soul dropped all the way down andnded on the metal floor at the deepest level.


    The loud noise and impact left everyone in the main motor cabin muddled. The only people that were unaffected were the four ancient warriors that were in the corners of the cabin. The four of them turned their heads and looked at the metallic spirit of the dead. The four of them were very different from the previous ancient warriors in that their reactions were not so slow.


    When they saw someone infiltrating through the magic array in the metal tunnel, the mages in the cabin quickly retreated and cast magic symbols while yelling at the same time. Nailisi and the water puppet, who arrived slightlyter, were both hit by at least two magic symbols.


    Magic symbols could not cause any damage, but ere amon method to provide instructions for puppets.


    Two of the ancient warriors were d in tainted blood armor and were armed with long spears that appeared to have spots of rust. They came to the Mechanical Soul in one step and both spears pierced into its neck on the left and right. Both spears made contact with each other in the Mechanical Soul¡¯s body, causing an explosion of power.


    The neck was not the Mechanical Soul¡¯s fatal spot. What they did only managed to almost cut off the metal snake¡¯s head. The snake tail swept from side to side, flinging away a few spirits and smashing a few gray robed mages in the cabin.


    Smashing sounds continued one after another. The gray robed mages¡¯ magic shields were crushed into pieces by the Mechanical Soul¡¯s tail and their bodies were smashed into minced meat directly.

 Chapter 840: Dragon Island (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 840: Dragon Ind (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The three-faced bone demon ordered the soldier husks under hermand to charge at the remaining warriors and low level mages. The power room was huge, with a length of over one-hundred yards. A tall metal furnace was installed at the central part of the room. Elemental fires were burning in the hexagonal furnace.


    The Mechanical Soul had the two spears stabbed into its neck broken. Then it seemingly had hundreds of teeth chewing on the broken spear, rendering the parts into tiny pieces to be absorbed into its body.


    Nailisi took out her Twelve Notes of Purgatory as she did not want to drag the fight out further, throwing two ancient warriors into the purgatory of ice. Nailisi went into said purgatory to see for herself, and saw the two warriors bing gradually slow and lumbering as soon as they went into the purgatory. The warriors soon began to be encased in ice, freezing them solid within.


    To grade-9 creatures, the yet-to-be restored purgatory of ice¡¯s offensive capabilities were not even worth mentioning. Yet the two warriors thrown in did not bother resisting. Rather, they looked rather pleased with the temperature within, and stopped resisting altogether to rest within their blocks of ice.


    The holes on the Mechanical Soul¡¯s neck warped and began to gradually close. The other two ancient warriors were dumbfounded to find theirpanions gone, before charging at Nailisi in the hold again.


    Nailisi had no way to escape. While she might have stood a chance at winning if she were to fight the two ancient warriors, it was not known how many other enemies were on the warship. She deemed it unwise to give it her all at that moment.


    The Mechanical Soul stood before Nailisi faithfully, shooting hundreds of arrows from its mouth. The two ancient warriors shook their spears and charged at them in the midst of the volley of arrows. One of them stabbed their spear into the Mechanical Soul¡¯s mouth. Metal grinding sounds were soon heard from its mouth, as the Mechanical Soul began biting down on the spear.


    Another warrior aimed their spear at Nailisi¡¯s torso. The chest area where her heartid was covered with a te of thick bone armor. While the actual weakness of a spirits was their brain, Nailisi did not dare to simply take one such hit. A hit from a grade-9 warrior was enough to tear her body apart.


    Nailisi backed down in a hurry. She lifted her bone hammer and smashed it hard downwards. The hit connected with the ancient warrior¡¯s spear. Her spirit form was of king level nheless. The hit from her hammer lodged the warrior¡¯s spear into the ground with a heavy boom.


    Nichs¡¯ Scepter of the Fallen cast Soul Interrogation, which was considered to be the brilliance of divine arts, in a split second. The skill mixed with Nailisi¡¯s Death Ripple and spread outwards, permeating the entire room.


    Casualties of beings below grade-7 were heavy, yet the two ancient warriors remained unscathed.


    A ck-robed mage watched everything unfolding before them, hiding behind the metal furnace in terror. They had no idea why assants were able toe in from the deck. There were loads of alchemy weapons installed on the Ancient warship. Even grade-9 professionals should have been unable to make it aboard easily.


    ¡°Who is this enemy? A horrifying spirit, and a holy master! Someone from the Holy See then? But, isn¡¯t the target this time the fleet of Metatrin City? Why is such a powerful holy master here?¡±


    The metal furnace was the core power source of the entire warship, which was noted on magic notes often to be the magic power furnace: an item that mages dreamed of getting their hands on. The power generated by the magic power furnace exceeded any known magic arrays by several orders of magnitude. The proof of whichid in the fact that such a huge warship was powered solely by one twenty-four yard tall magic power furnace that was six yards in diameter.


    If the magic power furnace could have been able to be taken apart and installed in a city, it would have been able to provide absolute magical defense for said city. The furnace might have even been able to conjure a gigantic magic shield powerful enough to withstand multiple grade-9 target spells.


    The furnace itself was also as durable as it was able to be, or else it would have blown up under previous attacks, rendering the entire ship to ashes. As the grade-9 death magic spell and grade-9 fallen divine spell were casted, the two ancient warriors got violent all of a sudden. The warrior attacking the Mechanical Soul had their tainted blood armor purged and their muscles grew exponentially. The being simply whacked the Mechanical Soul with their broken spear, and the brain of their victim was no more.


    The Mechanical Soul¡¯s grievance was not one that could have been easily described in words. Itsbat capacity dropped sharply after giving Bain a powerful double, and the winged skeleton did not give it any chance to replenish its energies. Being under Saleen¡¯s control, it was only able to eat to half-full beforeing there, and ended up being pummeled by grade-9 warriors.


    If it was amon spirit, it would have simply dissipated. It was fortunate that its soul meid deep within its body, without staying in one spot for long. Its brain was not a vital area. The attack had only made it lose its sight for the time being.


    A pair of eyes grew from its back as soon as its head hit the floor, staring at the ancient warrior. Its tail went for the ancient warrior, coiling their body up.


    The water puppet made its move, having detected the ancient warrior¡¯s weak spot.


    A magic staff appeared in the water puppet¡¯s hand. It chanted the words silent and cast a very slow magic: Absolute Zero.


    The Mechanical Soul¡¯s body was turned into a piece of ice crystal in a sh. The warrior attacking it gradually had their blood frozen in their muscles, which then burst through their vessels and sprayed the ce with tiny pieces of frozen blood under the effect of the Absolute Zero spell.


    The remaining two ancient warriors were hardly nimble. While they had the strength of a grade-9 professional, they were not able to perform as grade-9 beings. The other ancient warrior had their weapon destroyed by Nailisi¡¯s hammering. They charged at Nailisi with their bare hands, which were then thrown into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory¡¯s purgatory of ice shortly after.


    Nailisi came to realize that the ancient warriors would stop attacking in a cold environment, just like how some magic beasts would hibernate because of the temperature around them.


    The ancient warriors had no souls. They would have shown some sort of reaction to Nailisi¡¯s Death Ripple and Nichs¡¯ Soul Interrogation otherwise. The ancient warriors were no puppets, yet they had nothing to do with living beings either.


    ¡°You,e here,¡± Nailisi pointed at the ck-robed mage hiding behind the furnace. The ck-robed mage had one streak of magic marking on their robe, making them a grade-7 sorcerer.


    The sorcerer hesitated for a moment, thinking that if the people were able to make short of four ancient warriors so easily, then they, as a grade-7 sorcerer, stood no chance against them. There had been more than a dozen sorcerers on the ship, and yet no magic alert was heard at all, which meant...


    The thought had the sorcerer raised both their hands up. They threw their staff aside and walked out from behind the furnace.


    Nailisi was not able to resistughing. The sorcerer simply threw away their staff when surrendering like a warrior throwing their weapon away. ¡°A mage from Cloudflow then?¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s three faces all had their jawbones chattering, which frightened the sorcerer for a moment. The water puppet spoke, ¡°You all continue to sweep the second and third floor. I will stay here with the Mechanical Soul.¡±


    The water puppet added, noting Nailisi¡¯s intention to retort, ¡°This is his highness¡¯ will.¡±


    Nailisi went quiet. While she did not recognize the furnace installed in the middle of the room, she nheless knew that it was a valuable piece. Knowing that her master had his ideas, she noted that there was no need for her to think on it. What the water puppet saw, Saleen would have seen as well.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Our business here is done,¡± Nailisi said to Nichs. The old man said nothing. He had been spending quite a lot of the soul bead¡¯s power, so he did not want to stay down there for too long. The enemies above had been mostly cleared by the water puppet, which meant that anyone left would be easy pickings.


    Nailisi cast one ice carvings of death after another. She then conjured onerge skull of ice after another on the wall of the metal corridor. The bone beings all breathed cold air, and would attack anything that were not spirits. The spirits who made it where they stood were not many. Since the water puppet said it needed no help, the spirits all left with Nailisi and Nichs, returning to the deck of the Ancient.


    The water puppet waved at the sorcerer under Saleen¡¯s instruction, signaling for them toe forward.


    ¡°What is your name?¡±, the water puppet asked while allowing the Mechanical Soul to devour the dead bodies in the room. Other than truly dead people, there were also those who had simply passed out; none were spared by the Mechanical Soul. It was very happy, as it was finally allowed to enjoy something decent. It had forgotten about being deceived by Saleen, and it ate anything it was able to eat with half of the head it just grew.


    ¡°My name is Tam¡¯enm, sir,¡± the sorcerer answered respectfully. There were only the two of them left in the room, three if the metallic monster were to be considered among them. The sorcerer knew well that they were no match for the sorcerer controlling these beings. The smile on their face was a forced one, which quickly turned sincere ten secondster.


    ¡°Bad name you have there,¡± the water puppet said.


    ¡°Yes, yes, even I myself find my name to be a bad one. If you are in the mood, sir, you are weed to give me a new name,¡± Tam¡¯enm¡¯s answer almost had Saleen, who was watching the conversation, spewing whatever was in his mouth.


    The water puppet frowned, ¡°I don¡¯t have that kind of time. Answer me this. How much do you know about the Ancient warship?¡±


    ¡°Sir, I¡¯m only in charge of the power room. I know very well about propulsion of the ship, but the matters on the deck, really not so much,¡± Tam¡¯enm answered in a frightened manner.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to know about propulsion,¡± the water puppet¡¯s words made the sorcerer¡¯s face pale. If they were not able to be of any use to the sorcerer before their eyes, would they end up being killed and fed to that metallic monster as well?


    ¡°Ho-hold on. I know! I know who the warship belongs to! We came from Dragon Ind, from Cloudflow!¡±


    ¡°Dragon Ind? What kind of ce is that?¡± those words just uttered came directly from Saleen, who took direct control of the puppet.


    Tam¡¯enm¡¯s speed at speech went into overdrive, exceeding the limits of when they practiced the words to activate spells, speaking at a breakneck speed, ¡°There are three grand dukes in Cloudflow whose positions are likened to the prince¡¯s. Grand Duke Iron Blood controls nearly one-hundred inds in the south, which are like his private kingdom, and we serve under Grand Duke Iron Blood!¡±

 Chapter 841: Dragon Island (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 841: Dragon Ind (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Give me the schematics!¡±, the water puppet threw out a demand all of a sudden. Tam¡¯enm dug out the power room¡¯s schematics from their bangle without giving it a thought and handed it to the water puppet.


    The water puppet smirked and threw the schematics to the Mechanical Soul. It had finished repairing the damages it suffered, and opened its mouth to swallow the schematics. The schematics were unraveled once they were inside Mechanical Soul¡¯s stomach. Its soul me went on to cover the schematics, copied the item and stored it deep within its soul me.


    ¡°So the warship¡¯s greatest assembly of mechanical systems are ced right beneath the flooring here then, with the powering from the core, the magic power furnace.¡± The Mechanical Soul finished analyzing the schematics in a second and was ted. It would have been able to fuse with the great mechanical assembly right beneath them, giving it control of the entire ship.


    Since Saleen did say that it was not to leave the ship without his orders, it would be best for it to simply make the warship its home then. Such a huge assembly of mechanical systems would be able to enhance it to terrifying levels, which would mean...


    Darn it! It hardly mattered how powerful it would have gotten! The exterior of that broken jade deep within its soul me had a sh of electricity jumping, reminding the Mechanical Soul that it belonged to Saleen forever as his ve.


    ¡°Alright, speak. How can a grand duke have more than a dozen sorcerers under his control?¡±, the water puppet continued pursuing its original question after asking for the schematics.


    ¡°Sir...,¡± Tam¡¯enm gave a bitter smile and spoke, ¡°Cloudflow is different from Qin. Thends under control of the royal family are not all that vast. The nobles along the seaside control a great number of inds at the southern seas. Some inds are even the size of ten-thousand square miles. The power of the three grand dukesbined is enough to rival that of the royal family.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense. Why haven¡¯t these grand dukes rebelled then?¡±


    ¡°Why would they need to do so? They control everything going on at sea. The royal family hardly has twenty percent of the naval trade profits. If they were to rebel and became emperor, their bases would have to be moved to Misty City, which would diminish their control of the seas. Worse still, their inds might end up being taken by other nobles.¡±


    Saleen was at a loss for words at the moment. While he did have some understanding of Cloudflow¡¯s internal affairs, he never would have thought that the royal family had so little control over the nobles. If things were really such, then the n to invade Cloudflow was to be dyed. The strength of regional nobles had gotten toorge, resulting in Cloudflow¡¯s invasion of other states being diminished, as very few nobles would sincerely backed the royal family. If external threats were to knock at their doors, the invaders would be required to deal with adamant resistance from the regional nobles.


    ¡°Inds with an area of over ten thousand miles wide, eh? Such ces are even bigger than Lex¡¯s Bitterwater prefecture. No wonder they have so many sorcerers to spare. The ones killed by the water puppet were all grade-7 newbies. These people have probably advanced after power across the entire ne was raised, making them a bunch of weaklings at battle. These sorcerers were probably grade-6, or even grade-5, grand mages just three years prior.


    ¡°Tell me then, how powerful is Grand Duke Iron Blood?¡±, seeing how Saleen did not press on with questioning, the water puppet continued without giving Tam¡¯enm pause or time to think, asking the most direct questions.


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood has control over one-hundred inds, and about two-thousand square miles of estate near the sea. More than half of these inds have had no royal documents from the Cloudflow Empire left on them, meaning that these are all the grand duke¡¯s personal inds. Even if Cloudflow Empire was to fall, it would have had little effect on him.¡±


    ¡°What I meant was, how many mages does Grand Duke Iron Blood have serving him? What is the size of the poption of hisnds?¡±


    ¡°The grand duke has about one-thousand mages serving him. It felt weird as ofte though. A good bunch of grand mages advanced into the ranks of sorcerers. I¡¯m not quite sure what the grades of the mages serving him are. The people living on hisnds are of a poption of about twenty-eight-million, ording to official records. If you were to count the ones living on the inds, there would probably be even more. From what I heard, the revenue gained from taxes on the inds is more than six times than that collected onnd.¡±


    ¡°More than one-thousand mages!¡±


    Saleen was shocked at hearing such numbers, as Cloudflow was not known for having a lot of them. The number of mages serving under the grand duke almost rivaled that of Bitterwater prefecture. About seventy percent of the over one-thousand mages would have been white-robed ones, twenty percent gray-robed ones, and about ten percent being sorcerers.


    ¡°That is to say that there are about one-hundred sorcerers serving under Grand Duke Iron Blood!¡±


    That amount of power had greatly exceeded Saleen¡¯s imagination.


    It seemed that humans across the entire ne were advancing. With that said, the poption of the grand duke¡¯s territory would definitely have neared one-hundred-million. There would not have been so many mages around otherwise!


    ¡°What did you say about Dragon Ind again?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood found ruins of ancient dynasties and discovered methods of keeping giant dragons. Dragon Ind is an ind specifically made for keeping dragons. This Ancient warship was also found in the ruins. The ancient warriors within have all lost consciousness. There were only eight of the ancient warriors in the entire ship that we were able to control.¡±


    ¡°Eight!¡± Saleen figured in his mind that that meant there were still three other active warriors lurking in the warship, under someone¡¯s control. They would surly attack his people anytime. That would prove troublesome.


    Saleen also recalled the time when he first went to Alchemy City, encountering an injured Tiago dragon along the way. The dragon was obviously injured by a powerful one. It was also very possible that the Tiago dragon escaped from Dragon Ind.


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood is capable of keeping dragons then. Such powers are indeed terrifying!¡±


    More than a dozen drills scurried out of the Mechanical Soul¡¯s stomach, intending to drill into the flooring beneath, but its strong spirit metal drills were all rendered half a foot shorter from the drilling, and yet no holes appeared.


    The Mechanical Soul then crawled near the magic power furnace, weighing the possibility of eating the gigantic device. The elemental fires burned fiercely still in the furnace, and it triggered the Mechanical Soul¡¯s sense of danger. If it was to devour that thing, it would have ended up being assimted instead.


    ¡°Where is this Dragon Ind? How big is it?¡±


    ¡°Twelve-thousand miles away from the Peninsr of Blue Mountain. Ten-thousand and six-hundred miles long, four-thousand miles wide. The ind is filled with mountain ranges, which are habitable for humans, about one-third of it by the way,¡± Tam¡¯enm answered in a precise manner.


    ¡°Is that where the ruins of the first dynastyy?¡±


    ¡°Yes, the grand duke had been managing Dragon Ind for four generations, and nurturing personal mages on the ind. His true capabilities are well beyond what the royal family is able to control.¡±


    ¡°Tell me, Tam¡¯enm. Who is in control of this Ancient warship?¡±, the water puppet jumped about with its questions. Tam¡¯enm was unable to lie even if they wanted to.


    ¡°That would be Master Symoraikar, a grade-9 sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°How many grade-9 sorcerers are there on this warship?¡±


    ¡°Just him.¡±


    ¡°Fine then,¡± the water puppet smiled. The grade-9 sorcerer that it wiped out was themander of the ship, and the only grade-9 sorcerer on the ship.


    That was hardly surprising, as there were eight grade-9 ancient warriors under control on the warship. That meant there were nine grade-9 professionals holding the ce down. If they had not encountered Nailisi, the damage potential of the ancient warriors would have surpassed that of a grade-9 sorcerer. Their defense capabilities were also terrifying. Even with grade-9 spells sting about, only a few pieces of the tes on the tainted blood armor were damaged.


    ¡°Tam¡¯enm, do you intend to surrender to us, or prove your loyalty to Grand Duke Iron Blood?¡±


    ¡°Sir, I have just advanced into the rank of sorcerers. I have not signed contracts with the grand duke. I can surrender!¡±, Tam¡¯enm pounded their chest saying so, as if they were doing something righteous and noble.


    ¡°Cloudflow people...¡± Saleen was exasperated, thinking what use he could have had for Tam¡¯enm if he took the fellow in. If he had not sign a contract with them, they would be able to betray him anytime. If he was to sign a contract with them, he would have wasted one contract slot by keeping a useless weakling. What would have his other followers thought of him then? ¡°No matter. I will just have him under my thumb doing so, until I am done researching an absolute way to control such rules.¡±


    ¡°If you are able to surrender,e with me then,¡± the water puppet said, and made its way for the metal corridor. It was being shrouded by a cloud of mist, before flying upwards for the deck.


    Tam¡¯enm hesitated for a bit before picking up their staff and following. The Mechanical Soul locked its gaze on the grade-7 sorcerer from behind, waiting for the sorcerer to sneak up on the water puppet. Tam¡¯enm was simply too cowardly to be capable of such feat. They had chosen to truly submit, not pulling any tricks at the water puppet when its back was turned.


    ¡°Soldier, Cloudflow armies are weak, but their navy forces are too powerful. This Ancient warship obviously has yet to be underplete control. If the Cloudflow people actually control this ship, we have no choice but to run,¡± Saleen said to the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Master, there is no way for the Cloudflow people to control an equipment of such level, given their limited capabilities. Even Alchemy City would not be able to do so.¡±


    ¡°We have underestimated the Cloudflow people. Alchemy City has not blocked off the sea route and the Cloudflow armada made it here. Soldier, looks like you will have to stay at the sea to protect the route for a long time.¡±


    Saleen was simply telling the truth. Grand Duke Iron Blood would not just sit by having just lost the Ancient warship. If he actually had equipment from the first dynasty at his disposal, and something like the Ancient warship deployed, the trade routes established by his Metatrin City would see thest of their days soon. A warship of such a ss was something even the weapons on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would be able to do little about it.


    ¡°Genga would make good use of this ship, master,¡± the winged skeleton opened his mouth and smiled. As his powers rose, he had lost all interests in naval operations. Being able to fight alongside Saleen became its top priority.


    Eleanor listened to their conversation in silence, and then spoke all of a sudden, ¡°Weren¡¯t the top floors of the warship modified? The strength of the metal was so pathetic that even the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was even to break through it without problems. The Cloudflow people had yet to master the techniques of the first dynasty then. So my liege, there is no need to worry. If the Cloudflow people had actually mastered such techniques, they would have been able to crush Alchemy City with this warship alone.¡±


    ¡°I know. The original deck of the Ancient was probably something that would have been able to withstand attacks from grade-10 magic. I feel rather heartbroken that they just took it apart. I wonder what they are going to do with it.¡±


    Eleanor was rendered speechless. Saleen was actually feeling unsatisfied with a war trophy like that.


    ¡°Eleanor, I¡¯m just kidding. What I¡¯m wondering now is if we can actually haveplete control over this warship. Failing to do so will mean that it will be taken from us just like how we took it from the Cloudflow people. If that is the case, it would be best to just take the whole warship apart.¡±


    ¡°Alright, my liege. Your thoughts are just too wise for someone like me toprehend...¡±, Eleanor told a joke from Cloudflow, but making Saleen the butt of the joke instead. It was clear nheless that the elf understood what Saleen meant with his words.


    What the Ancient warship would have brought the denizens of Metatrin was more than only wealth; it would bring them a crisis as well. Saleen felt a weight on his shoulders with the prize, so he joked around to rx, just so that he would not be affected by such emotions, enabling him to make ns with all his might to deal with any revenge from Cloudflow.

 Chapter 842: Strong! Strong! Strong! (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 842: Strong! Strong! Strong! (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The resistance on the ancientbat vessel weakened, but Saleen did not dare to becent. The two ancient warriors walked out from the cabin and looked around them with hesitation before discovering the dragon skeletonbat vessel in the middle of the deck.


    The winged skeleton discovered the two of them and allowed them to approach the rear end of the dragon skeletonbat vessel before suddenly activating the dragon tail to start sweeping side by side, sending the two of them into the sea.


    The water puppet took the opportunity to bring Tam¡¯enm onto the dragon skeletonbat vessel. He had used up too much mental strength and had cast more than twenty grade-9 spells since the battle began. Even divine crystals were not able to replenish his mental strength quickly enough.


    It was precisely because the water puppet kept casting high-level spells non-stop that the people on the deck and the level below it were cleaned up so thoroughly.


    One could not stay on the deck of the dragon skeletonbat vessel for too long. The water puppet opened up a door, but a blood-red figure brushed past him from behind.


    All of a sudden, a six yard long ironnce appeared in the figure¡¯s hands and there was a red glow around his body, obscuring his face.


    A huge crater appeared in the cabin and reached all the way to the cabin ofmand, where the winged skeleton was.


    The water puppet and Tam¡¯enm both felt their bodies be paralyzed. Their footsteps were faltering, and they had to hold onto the walls in order to keep themselves stable. The water puppet quickly regained consciousness while Tam¡¯enm was still a little dazed as their eyes revealed a dark red glow.


    ¡°Ha!¡± the water puppet unleashed Spiritual Deterrence and Tam¡¯enm was stunned for a moment. The powerful mental impact hit them urately, causing a sound of explosion in their brain.


    All of a sudden, the grade-7 sorcerer plopped onto the ground. The red glow of light in their eyes had disappeared, reced by a look of confusion.


    The water puppet patted Tam¡¯enm with Frosty Touch and ayer of ice appeared on thetter¡¯s body.


    ¡°Wait here!¡± With that, the water puppet left to begin his pursuit.


    That red figure was thest of the eight ancient warriors and was also the only whosebat abilities had not been reduced. The ancient warrior was originally controlled by the grade-9 sorcerer. When the sorcerer was killed, the warrior was still in its coffin.


    The ancient warrior was able to pierce through more than tenyers of walls with hisnce. Although the internal structure of the dragon skeletonbat vessel was not infused with any defensive magic arrays, it was still made with excellent metal. The power of thence had already surpassed that of golden grand swordmasters.


    The winged skeleton took a big step to the front, with a giant axe in his hands. This giant axe was seven yards long with two curved des in the shape of a crescent moon. Both sides of the tip of the axe were each mounted with a gemstone of the size and shape of an eye. The gemstones were brown in color with a ck sphere in the middle.


    The ancient warrior¡¯snce aimed at the winged skeleton¡¯s chest. This attack was fast and straightforward. In his previous attack, he had to unleash red sword aura in order to pierce through the wall of the cabin ofmand. That time around, all the power was concentrated at the tip of thence. The moment it met any target, the power would instantly explode.


    ¡°Die!¡± The winged skeleton¡¯s voice was so cold that the walls of the cabin immediately grew ayer of ice. That was not an illusion but was Spirit Instant-death spell. The winged skeleton¡¯s axe struck the shaft of thence as he shouted.


    He was a spirit of the dead, so he could not possibly produce any sword aura, and had to dependpletely on his power and the material of the giant axe to go up against the ancient warrior¡¯s longnce. There was a sound of metal breaking.


    It was as if there were two crescent moons in the sky that were taking turns to strike. In an instant, the winged skeleton had already struck the longnce more than thirty times with his axe.


    The ancient warrior¡¯snce lowered. It did not manage topletely repel the winged skeleton¡¯s attack and the tip of thence pierced into the metal floor uncontrobly. Although thence had been destroyed, the ancient warrior did not release his grip. Instead, he followed through and used the forward momentum to pivot and flip himself over the winged skeleton¡¯s head.


    The metalnce was forcefully bent into the shape of a circle and when he released his grip, thence repelled back and stopped a grade-8 spell that was cast by the water puppet, who was pursuing from behind.


    A three yard tall ice totem was smashed into pieces by the shaft of thence. The broken shards of ice froze the path ahead of the water puppet.


    The winged skeleton swiped his axe at the ancient warrior, who was in the air. A green arrow shot out of nowhere and prated the ancient warrior¡¯s head.


    Eleanor, who was beside Saleen, had struck. Although she was only a grade-7 mage, her improvement in elf archery skills had been immense. The Elf Space arrow struck its target in only one try. Saleen had instructed Eleanor not to use the Life arrow because the ancient warrior was no longer a living creature and had no lifespan.


    Eleanor notched her second arrow, the Elf Emperor arrow, onto the bow of Seven Nights.


    The grade-9 spell, Endless Night, on Saleen¡¯s devil suit was activated instantaneously. Due to the shockwave of the Elf Emperor arrow, the ancient warrior had already frozen instantaneously even before Eleanor had shot out the arrow. The arrow that had pierced through its head was not fatal, only causing his actions to be slower.


    The grade-9 Endless Night was already the most powerful single-target spell amongst dark-element spells. Saleen, who understood part of the rules, was able to lengthen the duration of the spell.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s axe managed to strike the ancient warrior¡¯s waist. Its tainted blood armor did not break, but because of the tremendous force of the axe, there was a cracking sound from the ancient warrior¡¯s spine. Due to the effect of Endless Night, its entire body was now bending and contorting in a strange manner and even its tainted blood armor was also changing shape.


    A golden magic book appeared in Saleen¡¯s hands. He flipped it open and cast a grade-9 spell from within, which was Absolute Zero.


    The golden magic book could store six grade-7 spells, six grade-8 spells, and six grade-9 spells. All those spells could be used instantaneously, regardless of the element or attributes of the spell.


    That was also one of the reasons why magic books were more powerful than magic staffs. The golden magic book in Saleen¡¯s hands was from the Goddess¡¯ temple. Other mages would not have any chance of obtaining such a powerful equipment. There were only two magic books on Sregl Ind, and none of them were as good as Saleen¡¯s.


    Saleen¡¯s hands were not stopping. When he flipped the book to another page, the second grade-9 spell was also unleashed. At that point in time, the ancient warrior dashed out of Endless Night, but was coincidentally hit by Saleen¡¯s Absolute Zero.


    There was a look offort andziness on the warrior¡¯s face. There was another short-sword in its hands, but it has turned into ice. The tip of the sword lowered, and its entire body was shaking.


    Saleen was not going to stop attacking just because the warrior stopped. The second grade-9 spell was Vacuum Cutting.


    The ancient warrior¡¯s waist, which was already contorted to the right, was suddenly shed as the grade-9 wind-element spell urately struck the exact same location as the winged skeleton¡¯s axe.


    Crack...


    The ancient warrior was unable to block the grade-9 spell. Its tainted blood armor was cut into two by the Vacuum Cutting spell and so was its waist. Its upper bodynded on the ground as its hands suddenly started to wave around violently. Its legs, however, had been frozen to the ground by Absolute Zero.


    Saleen was calm. He had been learning magic for close to a decade, and he was finally able to challenge and defeat a grade-9 opponent. Although he did it by using the powers of his equipment, he would still have lost if his understanding of magic was insufficient.


    Is that how it felt to be powerful? Everything was within control and even the strongest grade-9 ancient warrior was killed by him and the winged skeleton.


    The winged skeleton took one more step forward and swung his axe downwards to cut the ancient warrior¡¯s lower body through the middle. The internal organs in the ancient warrior¡¯s body had already shriveled up like a zombie. Not a drop of fresh blood flowed out of its wound at the waist.


    The winged skeleton put the two lower limbs into death dimension. He no longer needed such things anymore, after all, the golden zombie had allowed his body to evolve into something more powerful than the ancient warrior. Nevertheless, the materials would still help him to create some powerful spirits of the dead.


    The upper half of the ancient warrior¡¯s body has also frozen onto the ground and its arms had stopped moving. A short sword shot out, but with no aim nor uracy, it onlynded on the exterior of the dragon skeletonbat vessel. The ancient warrior¡¯s final attack was devoid of explosiveness.


    The winged skeleton took yet another step forward and stepped on the upper body of the warrior. He swung his axe and cut off the warrior¡¯s head.


    After the head had rolled off, Eleanor finally stepped forward to retrieve her Space arrow. The arrow was refined from the branches of a divine tree and she only had eight of them in total.


    The two ancient warriors that had been sent flying into the ocean earlier on were immediately attacked by thousands of huge fish with sharp teeth. Their tainted blood armor, which was effective even against spells, waspletely chewed up into pieces by the fish. In the blink of an eye, the two ancient warriors had beenpletely devoured by the school of fish.


    These fish were only grade-6 magic beasts, but due to theirrge number and their sharp teeth, the two grade-9 ancient warriors were only able to put up a fight for a few minutes before being devoured.


    The hundreds of fish that had eaten up the two ancient warriors suffered the same fate as the other fish ate them up as well. The location was still far away from the Oceanic Ice Block, but the sea was already full of ferocious creatures. Even those as powerful as grade-9 people were unable to survive the in sea. If those two ancient warriors were still conscious enough, they would have flown into the sky to escape. They reacted too slowly, and it never crossed their minds to escape, thus they ended up as fish food.


    ¡°Tam¡¯enm,e over here.¡± After ensuring that thest three ancient warriors had been settled, Saleen called for the water puppet and the sorcerer that he had brought over.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± Tam¡¯enm walked over and bowed respectfully to Saleen. Their gaze fell on Eleanor for a moment, where they seemed pleasantly surprised, but did not dare to linger.


    Saleen pushed up his mask and revealed his face to be exactly the same as the water puppet¡¯s. Tam¡¯enm was stunned momentarily. He thought for a moment that water puppet was Saleen¡¯s clone, but... that was impossible! How could the clone of a grade-8 sorcerer be so powerful?


    Clone techniques should be restricted by distance. The clone should not be too far away from the original body and it should only possess one-sixth of the original¡¯s power.

 Chapter 843: Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 843: Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°My name is Saleen Metatrin. Tam¡¯enm, I have some questions to ask you.¡± Saleen casually pointed at one of the chairs in the cabin.


    ¡°I can stand, I can stand.¡± Tam¡¯enm nodded, revealing an expression of ttery on their face. Saleen was disgusted. Surely a mage should still maintain their pride even as a prisoner?


    All Cloudflow people were like this. They would be extremely arrogant when they held the upper hand but, when they have lost everything, they would have no qualms kneeling down at your feet and doing whatever it took to gain your favor.


    ¡°Then so be it.¡± Saleen waved his hand and Eleanor walked away. The winged skeleton continued to stand beside Saleen with his giant axe propped against the ground. He was staring at Tam¡¯enm with his dark eyes.


    The water puppet had already been put back in the cbash on Saleen¡¯s waist after it has used up so much energy.


    Tam¡¯enm was stunned. They still had no idea what creature the water puppet was. Saleen¡¯s presence was too overwhelming. They had just witnessed the most powerful ancient warrior on the ancientbat vessel being chopped into pieces by Saleen and his men.


    As a result, Tam¡¯enm was full of admiration and a tinge of expectation.


    ording to the analysis of Qin mages, Cloudflow people disyed sadistic tendencies. The more Saleen interacted with Cloudflow people, the more he realized that those ims were not jokes. They were true.


    Saleen had already made up his mind and took out the Master-Servant bond. It was the type of bond that Saleen disliked the most. There was no fairness in that type of bond, and it was a humiliation to mages.


    ¡°Write down your name and follow me from now on.¡± Saleen threw the bond on the ground. Tam¡¯enm bent down and picked it up. There was no sign of any unhappiness on their face.


    ¡°Oh! Your Highness Saleen, I am willing to be your servant.¡± After looking through the bond, Tam¡¯enm used wind de to cut their finger and wrote down their name on the bond with fresh blood.


    The bond turned into smoke and vanished. A faint magic symbol that was very simr to their skin color appeared on their forehead. No one would notice it without paying extra attention.


    ¡°Tam¡¯enm, I don¡¯t need useless people. Tell me about Dragon Ind.¡± Saleen felt that his tone was terrible, but Tam¡¯enm did not seem to mind. They realized that they would not be abandoned nor killed. Although this Master did not seem to have a good temper, at least he rewarded talent.


    ¡°Dragon Ind, I know about Dragon Ind. I was brought there when I was young and lived there for almost forty years.¡± Tam¡¯enm was prone to saying irrelevant things, but Saleen did not mind. In any case, Nailisi and Nichs were still in the midst of wiping out all the enemies and there was no way Saleen could leave the dragon skeletonbat vessel yet.


    ¡°Go ahead.¡±


    ¡°The poption on Dragon Ind is small, only has a poption of about a few million. However, there is a city called Dragon City on the ind that is simr to Alchemy City. It is the ce where giant dragons are reared, and most mages are gathered there.¡±


    ¡°Can Grand Duke Iron Blood really rear a giant dragon?¡± Saleen had his suspicions because even a Tiago giant dragon, that was on the brink of death, still managed to cost him his life. A fully mature giant dragon possessed the ability to cause more damage than ordinary grade-9 magic beasts, even if the former was only at grade-8. Would a Cloudflow mage really be able to control a giant dragon?


    ¡°Uh... Dragon City was something that was left behind from the first dynasty. There is a lot of huge equipment there that is designed to deal specifically with giant dragons. On the ind the dragons are not able to use even one-hundredth of their usual powers.¡±


    ¡°How many historical remains are there on Dragon Ind? Do you know about the map?¡±


    ¡°Master, I cannot possibly know about the map. I was originally a grade-5 mage. I managed to advance two grades this year and have only recently be a sorcerer. If I was a sorcerer long ago, I could not possibly sign the bond with Master.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°All the sorcerers on Dragon Ind sign bonds with Grand Duke Iron Blood and are all his followers.¡±


    ¡°Is Grand Duke Iron Blood... a mage or a grand swordmaster?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke has a secret technique that is passed down in his family and is equivalent to the grade of a golden grand swordmaster. He is the most powerful person on all of Dragon Ind.¡± At that point, Tam¡¯enm had be a bit withdrawn. Would the Grand Dukee forth personally to kill them if he knew of their betrayal?


    No, no, the Grand Duke would never do that for such a trivial character like them. Tam¡¯enm consoled themself before continuing, ¡°Grand Duke rarely had to do anything himself. I only saw it once, when I was about twenty years old. The Grand Duke used a Horse-killing sword to cut off a half-giant¡¯s head.¡±


    ¡°A half-giant?¡± Saleen¡¯s interest in Dragon Ind grew. Nevertheless, he felt that he should still prioritize the refining of the divine tree magic tower. The relic Dragon City from the first dynasty was definitely a ce of danger.


    ¡°They are known to Qin mages as Green Giants. The living creatures in the giant dragon dimension and the giant dragons on Dragon Ind were all summoned through ancient magic arrays in the very beginning before they began to breed on their own over the years. In the process of summoning giant dragons, other creatures from the giant dragon dimension were also identally summoned over. Green Giants are mentally slow and can be persuaded to sign bonds, but the creatures cannot touch a drop of alcohol or they will go berserk.¡±


    ¡°Green Giant?¡± Saleen made a mental note of this piece of knowledge. Indeed, there was such a thing as Green Giants. It was a living creature on the giant dragon dimension and possessed much lower intelligencepared to real giants. They were only slightly more than ten yards in height while real giants were at least one-hundred yards tall.


    Their skin was green, they were unhygienic, and they had no qualms killing their own kind, so they were even called Green Demons for a period of time. The demons that followed humans saw this as an insult; hence their names were changed to Green Giants instead.


    The giants could not be bothered to dispute, so the name stuck. Green Giants possessed powerfulbat abilities that allowed them to survive on the giant dragon dimension. They were also very powerful as fully-mature Green Giants were usually about grade-7 or grade-8 and there were even asionally grade-9 Green Giants.


    Of course, that was the trend of recent times. In the past, Green Giants possessed higher intelligence that allowed them to follow humans into battles. Eventually, they degenerated to the extent that they could only perform manualbor such as pulling wagons.


    Even so, Green Giants of grades-7 or grade-8 were born with greater power than other magic beasts of the same grades. They were even more powerful than silver grand swordmasters. Grand Duke Iron Blood managed to cut off a Green Giant¡¯s head with one swing of his sword and that had taken ce a long time ago. Now that the collective power of the entire Maind was rising, it was entirely possible that Grand Duke Iron Blood could have surpassed grade-9 to be a grade-10 professional!


    Saleen had to be stronger in order to be able to fulfil the bond with the Goddess in theing days.


    Saleen had already decided that regardless of if the Goddess¡¯ existence was harmful to the Myers Maind or not, he would fulfil the bond, otherwise he, Sika, and Lex would all have to die.


    If the Goddess was so keen to be revived, then so be it. Should there be any hidden conspiracies, then he would just have to be powerful enough to be able to battle with the Gods, just like the ancient humans.


    It was for that reason that Saleen¡¯s desire to be more powerful grew. Fulfilling the bond was not the end point, for he had loftier goals in mind. He would have a lifespan of twelve-hundred years if he became a grade-9 sorcerer, so what if he advanced to grade-10? How long would his lifespan be by then?


    Seeing how Saleen stopped asking questions, Tam¡¯enm continued, ¡°Dragon City is nine miles in length and width. In the center of the city is a one-mile wide summoning portal called the Dragon Pond. Master, there were hundreds of Dragon Entrapment cables that surrounded the Dragon Pond. Giant Dragons that are summoned would definitely put up a resistance. Dragon Entrapment cables are able to constrain the giant dragons before sending them to their cages.¡±


    Saleen felt more assured after hearing that. He had thought that the Tiago giant dragon¡¯s injuries were caused by the Cloudflow people. It turned out that they were due to the ancient equipment in Dragon City that was used to control giant dragons.


    Nailisi and Nichs continued to wipe out the Cloudflow soldiers on the second level of cabins. The powerful enemies were already gathered on the first level, while the second level mainly consisted of logistical equipment and some soldiers.


    Nailisi was in the form of a three-faced bone demon. She would create some spirits of the dead once in a while and hack up some of the original souls for Nichs¡¯ soul beads to absorb. Throughout the entire killing, Nichs¡¯ powers were recovering instead of reducing. Naturally, no one was going to oppose or tell Saleen about what Nailisi was doing.


    Nichs¡¯ soul beads had be fuller. He was full of gratitude, so he pretended to be unaware of what Nailisi was doing.


    Nailisi also kept a portion of soul strength for herself to create soul beads. Soul beads were actually the equipment of spirits of the dead and not fallen holy masters. Nailisi, who was in the form a spirit of the dead, could unleash powerful death spells. Once she possessed soul beads, she could even cast some dangerous spells and the soul beads would be able to absorb the counter-reacting force for her.


    Both of them were leading spirits of the dead. Nailisi understood that the spirits were controlled by the winged skeleton, but there was nothing for thetter to gain even if he told on her.


    Nailisi had finally begun to ept the winged skeleton. After all, Soldier had been supportive of her in some matters.


    What Nailisi did not know was that the winged skeleton had told Saleen that she possessed two pieces of broken jades. The two broken jades could control two powerful opponents of unlimited grades.


    The happiest was the Mechanical Soul, Genga. His entire body was now wrapped around the magic power furnace. He realized that on the exterior of the magic power furnace, the elements were extremely stable. The fuel for the six furnaces were magic nuclei. The Mechanical Soul could manipte his body into any shape and form. After wrapping himself around the magic power furnace, more metal limbs grew out of his body. ording to the diagram, he could burrow through the gaps in the cabins and seek out the tunnel leading to the lowest level.


    The Mechanical Soul paid extra attention to how he devoured the ship. Each time he devoured aponent, it would still maintain its original state after conversion, except that the spirit metal had also be a part of his body and could be manipted by him anytime.


    The ancientbat vessel was too huge. In the mechanical cabin on the lowest level was a huge magic machine, where most of itsponents had already stopped functioning. The Mechanical Soul devoured the entire thing before proceeding to control it and allowing the machines to be part of him.


    ¡°I will be even more powerful after swallowing the entirebat vessel!¡±


    That was the first time the Mechanical Soul ignored any danger and allowed his body to be so huge. Even his soul me was beginning to thin.

 Chapter 844: Windfall Gain (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 844: Windfall Gain (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Mechanical Soul was lucky, as only the Ancient¡¯s core magic power furnace was still running. All the other defense mechanisms were no longer working. If every measure forbat on the ship was activated, even gods from the spirit realm would not have been able to have it under control, let alone a mechanical being.


    The machine room was not the bottommost room. The bottommost floor was filled with a great number of hermetically sealed rooms, with their insides hollowed out. A great number of hibernating soldiers were stored in those rooms.


    The Mechanical Soul¡¯s metallic tentacles extended further and further, devouring all machine parts it was able to find and assimting them.


    ¡°Hahahaha! Saleen, just you wait...Arrghhh, oww, oww!!!¡±, the Mechanical Soul forgot its ce and blue electrical sparks jumped from the broken jade deep within its soul me, electrocuting it and teaching it a lesson.


    ¡°Master, your highness, forgive meee...¡±, the Mechanical Soul¡¯s body was so massive that the shock experienced ended up rocking the entire warship.


    It was, of course, a given that Saleen had not been watching it all the time. It finally calmed down after spending a good amount of time getting frightened, vowing to itself that it would never speak ill of Saleen behind his back ever again.


    The area devoured by the Mechanical Soul gotrger andrger, its inherent properties growing stronger and stronger. The quality of ancient alchemic machinery was such that it could hardly be damaged by magic, yet it was nheless being assimted by the Mechanical Soul quickly and without a glitch, turning the materials into spirit metals. The Mechanical Soul then went for all of the hold¡¯s metallic parts after it finished devouring all the mechanical parts.


    Walls, floors, defensive inteyer, pirs...


    There was a total of eighteen floors underneath the vessel armor of the Ancient, and the Mechanical Soul worked its way from the bottommostyer. Storage bays, auxiliary power rooms, and the sealed rooms containing the ancient warriors, began appearing above the power room.


    Those things seemed to have been locked up in the Ancient by force during the first dynasty. The ancient warriors hadid there in wait since, waiting for orders from theirmanding officers, to fight for the first dynasty.


    The Mechanical Soul dared not even touch the ancient warriors. It simply devoured the outeryers of the rooms they were stored in, wrapping them up and preventing even the slightest bit of air getting in. It continued working its way upward, devouring the entire warship. The Ancient, which was a massive warship of a mile long and three-hundred yards wide, ended up devoured by the Mechanical Soul.


    The Mechanical Soul was something capable of growing to the size of mountains on the spirit ne. Devouring one such warship was nowhere near its limit. Thergest Mechanical Souls in existence were capable of reaching several thousand yards tall and stretched for thousands of miles. Any spirit passing by would have ended as food for one such mechanical being.


    Mechanical Souls were also able to create doubles, creating another copy of themselves using just a wisp of soul me.


    Other spirits did not dare split their soul mes, as doing so would severely damaged their souls. The split me would not be their other selves; these split mes would, instead, end up as newly reborn independent spirits, which would have attacked their originals, in attempts to meld into oneplete me.


    If a spirit was to be devoured by a spirit spawned from their pieces of split mes, said spirit would end up truly dead, disappearing from the spirit ne for good.


    The Mechanical Soul¡¯s special feature at creating doubles allowed it to ughter spirits at frightening speeds. It felt its power being restored, as its previous act of creating doubles reduced its level. It now had returned to grade-7.


    The golden soul me with the Mechanical Soul jumped for a bit before expanding by ten times. The Mechanical Soul split ten pieces of mes without a second thought, which turned into ten human shaped puppets. The puppets were all three yards tall each and looked rotund. They began making for each and every corner of the ship after being split from the main body. The three topmost floors were opened up by Cloudflow people and were under their control.


    The Mechanical Soul¡¯s doubles charged upwards, and two of the doubles tried cursing at Saleen; those two blew up soon after. Their soul mes got sted into pieces by streaks of blue electrical sparks in them, killing them instantly.


    The experiment proved to be a failure, so it left the Mechanical Soul no choice but to take direct control of the puppets. It had them devour the metal puppets of the Cloudflow people. They also devoured each and every piece of magic equipment they were able to find.


    As the Mechanical Soul¡¯s level rose, so did the number of rooms put under its control. All parts of the ship below the three topmost levels ended up being a part of the Mechanical Soul.


    The three topmost floors were almost taken apart entirely by the Cloudflow people, and were installed with rooms of their design. Those ces were hardly of any value to the Mechanical Soul. The Mechanical Soul¡¯s level eventually stagnated at grade-9. Due to it being a ve of Saleen, it was not able to advance to grade-10. The Mechanical Soul could not help but cursed after discovering the fact, but it did not dare directing those curses at Saleen; they were instead directed at the Cloudflow people. It cursed viciously and repeatedly at the Cloudflow people in the spirit tongue. It had even created hundreds of doubles just for that.


    Nailisi and Nichs had cleaned up the rooms above. The thousands of spirits from the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel fought to the very end. There were less than two-hundred of them left when the fight was over.


    The Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel stayed lodged into the deck instead of returning to sea. Several hundreds of the Mechanical Soul¡¯s doubles boarded the vessel and bowed before Saleen.


    ¡°All of you, follow Soldier from here on out,¡± Saleen gave themand to the doubles to the winged skeleton, as he did not want the trouble of taking charge of them things. The Mechanical Soul¡¯s temperament was akin to a human thug¡¯s, which proved incessantly annoying to Saleen.


    ¡°We will only listen to the master¡¯s orders!¡±, the doubles said unanimously.


    A Mechanical Soul double¡¯s chest blew up with a bang by streaks of blue electrical sparks. The golden soul me housed within its bodypletely extinguished, as it slumped on the floor.


    ¡°My order for you lot is to follow Soldier¡¯s orders. Any one of you not liking that, can go straight to hell,¡± Saleen told them coldly.


    Tam¡¯enm told them too many secrets of Dragon Ind. Knowing that there were so many professionals serving Grand Duke Iron Blood had him feeling envious, but at the same time, also feeling worried.


    There was yet another Ancient warship on Dragon Ind, but that ship had yet to undergo any modifications and repairs. That particr mage Saleen captured was able to deceive the sorcerers in Alchemy City and made it far into the northern seas, due to its stealth capabilities.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood got wind of Metatrin City producing magic nuclei, which was hardly something Saleen himself considered a secret. The grand duke simply postted that people of Metatrin City must have found a good hunting ground at sea, which enabled them to easily capture magic beasts capable of producing magic nuclei, in groups.


    There were up to one-hundred and twenty-eight inds under Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s control, but hunting grounds among them were few and far between. A good number of the equipment found in the ruins of the first dynasty, required high level magic nuclei to serve as a power source. They were a resource that the grand dukecked, preventing him from developing valuables found in the first dynasty ruins. He might have had more than one-thousand mages serving under him, but he was hardly able to use the Ancient as little more than a massive moving collection of turrets.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was adamant in taking Metatrin¡¯s hunting ground at sea for himself, and so deployed the Ancient to intercept Saleen¡¯s fleet. There were more than a dozen sorcerers, eight ancient warriors, and a good number of the ship¡¯s inherentrge scale equipment, prepped and ready to work on the Ancient. The arsenal the Ancient carried was sufficient to destroy more than three Cloudflow fleets. Equipped with such impressive power, the grand duke thought himself to be unbeatable.


    He had not expected the ancient warriors to be incredibly weak against incredibly low temperatures though, so much so that they returned went into sleep mode as soon as their environment got really cold. The control measures he developed were renderedpletely useless. The grade-9 sorcerer in control of the Ancient was deceived by the water puppet. He was made short work of using the Crystal Finger.


    Saleen was not in the mood for taming the Mechanical Soul. What he needed most at that moment was to haveplete control of the Ancient, as only by havingplete control of one such warship, would the routes leading to the oceanic ice block be truly secured.


    The hundreds of mechanical doubles were overwhelmed and silenced. Saleen did not bother negotiating terms with them. ves remained ves, and ves had no rights, no matter how capable they were.


    ¡°Genga, make more doubles of yourself. Have the Ancient under control, and move northward,¡± Saleen gave the order, which the Mechanical Soul followed begrudgingly.


    ¡°Master, the warshipcks power. There was only one magic power furnace, and its fastest speed is sixty miles per hour, which is about half of our fleet¡¯s,¡± a double exined as soon as the order was given.


    Saleen narrowed his eyes to a slit and looked at the double, thinking for a bit before asking, ¡°Can you make it go a little faster?¡±


    ¡°The limit will be eighty miles per hour if we have high level magic nuclei. Any faster would require auxiliary power to run at their fullest. With that, the warship will be able to make it to one-hundred and twenty miles per hour.¡±


    ¡°Alright, just stick with eighty. You won¡¯t be able to control it well going too fast,¡± Saleen said as he took out thirty-six standard-sized grade-9 magic nuclei and handed them to the double, and continued, ¡°Keep up with the fleet. I will need you to haveplete control of the ship before reaching the oceanic ice block. Repair the defenses and weapons of the ship in ordance to the schematics!¡±


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± the Mechanical Soul dared not negotiate terms with Saleen anylonger.


    ¡°Soldier, have the bone warships follow,¡± Saleen said to the winged skeleton, as he noticed Nailisi and Nichs made their way back to him.


    ¡°Let¡¯s move,¡± Saleen did not ask how the fight went. Nailisi¡¯s temperament would have prevented her from leaving any loose ends behind. They were not onnd. The soldiers simply had nowhere to run in the middle of the ocean. There were more than five-thousand crew and soldiers of simr number on the ship. While it might have seemed to be massive, there would have easily been near one-thousand that ended up dead or injured when the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel rammed and boarded the Ancient¡¯s deck.


    Nailisi became a role model for the spirits. Casting a death magic spell in the hold was enough to ensure that there would have been no survivors left in said hold. Battles fought at sea were several hundred times more cruel that those fought onnd.


    The Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel stood up wobbly under the winged skeleton¡¯s control, making its way along the deck and toppling a few masts that the Mechanical Soulbored to erect, before jumping into the sea.


    The vessel¡¯s jump created a hole several yard deep on the rear deck, angering the Mechanical Soul so much that it cursed over and over, but it did not dare say anything bad about Saleen.


    ¡°Master, why are you in such a hurry?¡±, Nailisi was baffled. Her understanding of Saleen¡¯s personality had her thinking that she should have checked his prize thoroughly before going anywhere.


    ¡°We best not stay here for long. If people from Alchemy City were here, they would have taken the Ancient and we would have suffered a great loss. Soldier, I will take over the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. You get down there and keep an eye on the fleet behind!¡±

 Chapter 845: Windfall Gain (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 845: Windfall Gain (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen left the area in a hurry, with the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel taking the lead, and the bone warships following behind. Nailisi had taken over the controls of the vessel, and the Ancient was ced in the middle of the fleet. Under the Mechanical Soul¡¯s control, the Ancient was replenished with grade-9 magic nuclei, and its speed raised to eighty miles per hour.


    The Ancient was capable of creating a massive area of mist, which prevented sensors from within from extending too far outwards. The magicpass failed as such. It also enabled the Ancient to be hidden effectively, even grade-9 sorcerers would have had a lot of trouble detecting them within the area of mist, which was hundreds of miles wide.


    It wasmon for mist to form on the seas, and the Ancient did more than creating mist while traveling; it also made no sound at all. To put it in a more urate manner, any sounds made by the alchemic machinery within werepletely absorbed by the warship. Whatever sound the warship made that could have been heard from outside, were just the sounds of waves, enabling the ship to effectively blend with its surroundings.


    The sounds made by the twelve bone warships and the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel were also muffled by the Ancient. As the weapons on the deck of the Ancient were all taken out by the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel, the Ancient had effectively lost all offensive capacity after being captured, as Saleen did not prepare to rearm the Ancient.


    Control of the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was given to Nailisi eventually. She took her spirit form and had the vessel taking the lead of the fleet. The vessel stopped emanating any overbearing aura, allowing more magic beasts at sea and fish to follow the fleet north, making their way to the oceanic ice block.


    It was a given that there were ferocious high level beings among the fishes and magic beasts traveling with the fleet. Each and every one of them was traveling by the currents generated by the fleet, enabling them to conserve energy. As such, they refrained from attacking each other. They coexisted in peace for the moment, unless bloodshed happened.


    The birds above failed to notice the fleet altogether. They were busy avoiding the mist instead.


    The fleet was about eight-thousand miles away from Metatrin City, and the crew took a break near an ind. The ind itself had more vertical surfaces than t ones, making it looked like a broken mountain.


    While the Ancient was more than one-thousand yards long, it did not have a lot of its body submerged underwater. Any ship with a submerged depth of about sixty yards would not have had any problems parking by Metatrin City¡¯s port. With most of the warship being empty, even less of its body was submerged underwater. As the ind was more than five miles long, the Ancient simply parked right beside it, and it looked secured doing so.


    The ind¡¯s rocky surfaces, even its dirt, were filled with metals. The magicpass failed altogether reaching the area. What made things even more eerie was that the sky itself was filled with mystical energies. All rays from the sky were refracted several times before reaching sea level, making it impossible to determine one¡¯s direction using star charts.


    The fleet simply depended on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat¡¯s ability to find its way tracing underwater mountain ranges. It sent the directions to the fleet on the surface, in order for them to reach the ind.


    The fleet was to make for the region north of the ind. There was a steady current there every week. It was only by traveling along such near-undetectable current, that the fleet was able to make it safely through a dangerous region, and keep going north.


    The reason Saleen¡¯s fleet parked there was to wait for the current to appear, to avoid some small creatures with terrifying corrosive abilities. The amount of sunken metal in the region was enough to form mountains, all of which were excrements of said unknown small creatures.


    The creatures were red in color. The sea, about one-hundred miles north of the nameless ind, was almost rendered red. Any ship intending to pass through that region would have been attacked, until said ship waspletely disintegrated.


    The red sea was an area covering more than three-thousand square miles. The north side was safe once one made it past that region.


    The magic beasts, that had been following the fleet, had dispersed. They made their way eastward and entered deeper regions of the sea. The fleet began making repairs. The bone warships suffered quite a lot of attacks along the way, and required fixing. Human mages and warriors on board the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel all needed a break for several days.


    It was only then that Saleen boarded the Ancient, and saw for himself what had he gained in their previous battle.


    The Mechanical Soul¡¯s doubles had all gotten stronger. There were a lot of Cloudflow metal puppets and even more reserved equipment onboard the Ancient, which the doubles helped themselves to. The Mechanical Soul had advanced to grade-9 and gained control of the entire ship. It even had some energy to spare for creating more doubles to serve as the ship¡¯s guards.


    These mechanical doubles were all of golden color, had four arms, and were a height of three and a half yards. Their weaponseapons were all hidden inside their bodies, which could have been taken out anytime for battle. The Mechanical Soul was still grieving over the fact that being under Saleen¡¯s control prevented it from advancing further. It had little choice but to split its bloated soul me to create more doubles.


    The three topmost floors were modified by the Cloudflow people. Even the weapons installed were of Cloudflow design. The original weapons of the ship were taken apart and left on Dragon Ind.


    There were still fifteen floors underneath the topmost three that had yet been opened. It was not that Grand Duke Iron Blood did not want to open those parts; the Ancient was simply too strong. The rooms beneath were all hermetically sealed. Opening them by force would have proved costly. There was also the risk of dangers lurking beneath. For instance, the ancient warriors within some of the rooms would have revived once their rooms were destroyed, going on a rampage to kill all who attempted to enter the ship.


    The grand duke had spent a lot just to clear the three topmost floors and clear the way leading to the core power room. As such, he had opted to go with things gradually instead of daring to rush exploring the floors beneath.


    The way the Mechanical Soul intruded on anything was a skill possessed by no other living being. It was capable of devouring all types of metal and assimting them into itself. The Mechanical Soul also possessed the ability to devour souls, flesh, and even some magic nucleus powers alike.


    As such a being was capable of devouring with reservations yet had no need for excretion, theirck of restraint would have eventually killed themselves. As the soul mes of mechanical souls were powerful and special, by the time they reached self-destruction stages, they would probably be able to take a medium ne with them.


    Saleen had no need to worry about such things. The Mechanical Soul had an avaricious nature, but being under his eternal control meant that the being needed his permission to advance. Devouring the entire warship would have enabled it to advanced to grade-10. The metals of the Ancient were all more expensive, rare, and possessed stronger properties that any he had known for shipbuilding.


    The number of doubles created was currently fourteen-hundred and sixty. three-hundred and sixty of them worked under the Winged Skull to help with the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel¡¯s defense. eleven-hundred were stationed aboard the Ancient. Such was the way the Mechanical Soul limited its own progress at advancement. The soul me of any dead double would disperse, never again being able to be reabsorbed into its body.


    The doubles, after all, all possessed weak soul mes individually, preventing their fires from being truly undying ones.


    The deck of the Ancient was repaired using information acquired from the ship¡¯s schematics. While the schematics were little more than copies of the originals left behind in the ancient ruins, they served their purpose adequately nheless. The Mechanical Soul repaired the three topmost floors and made copies of weapons originaly installed on the deck, ording to the structures provided by the schematics.


    The worst of the ancient weapons required at least grade-9 magic nuclei to activate. When fully equipped, the Ancient would possess thebat capacity equivalent to a dozen fleets¡¯ from Cloudflow.


    The schematics alone were enough to make Saleen very rich.


    Saleen also took a look at the flying equipment copied by the Mechanical Soul. It was a metallic construct of more than thirty yards long, with a pair of gigantic wings. It was equipped with four seats and some room for carrying equipment, and finally, a magic stone cannon.


    The magic stone cannon copied by the Mechanical Soul had less firepower than the miniaturized magic stone cannons that Saleen acquired. The magic stone cannon required a grade-9 magic nuclei to work, yet had damage potential which was only somewhat better than a catapult. It had range of about ten miles.


    The magic stone cannon¡¯s power allowed for adjustablity, but as the Mechanical Soul was only able to recreate the magic patterns on the copied schematics roughly, it was unable to make the equipment more powerful.


    Saleen was aware that he was being rather greedy. While the Mechanical Soul was not able to recreate the equipment in its truest form, it had nhelessmitted the schematics to memory. That allowed Saleen to take his time doing research on them, and even crafting them himself. The mages in Metatrin City numbered to about one-thousand, and that was counting only those above grade-3. With so many mages being assigned to such research, it was only a matter of time before they would develop equipmentparable to those from the first dynasty.


    Mages hailing from Qin were like weaklings like Tam¡¯enm. The most notable strength of the Qin mages was that they were incredibly knowledgeable. Few Qin mages studied magic only to fight.


    Cloudflow mages on the other hand, were infamous for seeking near-instant gratification, hoping to gain incrediblebat capacity while often neglecting to research the foundations of magic. Cloudflow mages would rather spend time practicing powerful offensive spells than conducting magic experiments to verify magical theories of any kind.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood might have had more than one-thousand mages at his disposal, but they were nheless unable to research and make sense of the original weapons installed on the Ancient. They resorted only to taking them apart and installing their own magic equipment on the ship.


    What Saleen truly found surprising was that the magic stone cannons of the first dynasty fired entire magic stone shells, which only exploded violent when said shells hit their targets, instead of exploding near the enemy ording to the calcted firing distance. The range of that magic stone cannon from the first dynasty had a range of more than ten miles. True first dynasty equipment would have had a greater range still.


    The cannons had a very long range, high firing rate, and huge damage potential. The cannons were paired with elemental calction constructors, which allowed the shooter to directly aim at targets quickly. They did not even require mages to work the cannons themselves.


    The magic stone cannons which Saleen possessed then had one ring weakness: they required control from mages or they had no uracy to speak of. The elemental calction constructors could be said to allow Saleen¡¯s ranged weapons to evolve into sharpshooting equipment.


    Other things found onboard could wait. The elemental calction constructor was one that Saleen deemed necessary to be copied as quickly as possible, which would then be equipped on his elite troops.


    ¡°Genga, give me a copy of all the schematics. I want the most precise of these papers before we leave the ind,¡± Saleen told a mechanical double as he walked to the stern on the deck for further inspections. The weapons on the deck all emitted cold lights. A row of iron arrows that were seven yards long were aimed at the sky, seemingly prepped and ready to shoot any airborne enemy down.


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± the Mechanical Soul answered lethargically.

 Chapter 846: Magic Net (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 846: Magic Net (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Genga, if you are unhappy, you have to tell me.¡± Saleen walked towards the end of the vessel slowly and spoke to the clone of the Mechanical Soul, who was by his side. Each clone was controlled by the Mechanical Soul, and unless he gave up the power, the clones would not have any will of their own.


    ¡°Master, why would I be unhappy? You are great, honorable, and righteous! I will remember everything you say and carry it out, without running away...¡±


    ¡°Alright, I am a human, not a spirit of the dead. If you say anymore, I am going to puke.¡± Saleen stepped in front of a metal puppet and looked up, only to see the medium-sized metal puppet of eighteen yards long standing in a daze amidst the sea breeze. There were no shes of light in its eyes and its full body of metal armor was full of smooth grooves.


    Such a big-sized puppet might not guarantee highbat abilities, but on such a massivebat vessel, there were many weapons and equipment that humans would find hard to transport. After all, not every human possessed the same strength as Sika.


    At the front of the deck, the opening leading to the main motor engine cabin had been sealed. There was a metal tower on top of the opening.


    The tower was six-levels tall and was considered shortpared to the gigantic body of thebat vessel. There were plenty of such medium-sized metal puppets around the tower as tens of them were propped up on the metal fortress and were welded to the alchemy crossbow stands that were aimed at the sky. The huge stands were used in Qin forrge alchemy crossbows.


    What the Mechanical Soul managed to duplicate were catapults. Alchemy cannons that could fire consecutively were very costly weapons. Each giant crossbow arrow was worth hundreds of gold coins, and if it required special arrows to be refined, then the cost could easily rise up to thousands of gold coins.


    Alchemy cannons could shoot twelve giant alchemy crossbow arrows in one go. In other words, tens of thousands of gold coins would be wiped out in a few seconds. An attack like that could very possibly kill a silver grand swordmaster or a grade-8 sorcerer, so in such cases, those tens of thousands of gold coins would have been worth it. It would only have been foolish they were used on low-level enemies.


    Other than the alchemy cannons, Saleen noticed a long and rectangr-shaped shooting mechanism. There were twelve openings on it and it could shoot one-hundred and forty-four crossbow arrows in one go. Saleen deduced that the object must be used to deal with magic beasts. It would not be as effective as alchemy cannons in dealing with powerful human opponents.


    That was actually a wrong judgment on Saleen¡¯s part. The rectangr-shaped alchemy crossbow barrel and crossbow notch was more than eight yards in length. There were plenty of wind-element magic patterns that would increase the speed of the crossbow arrows. The speed of arrows shot out from the alchemy crossbow barrel far surpassed any other weapons. As long as the material was of eptable quality so that there would be no leakage of magic, that type of alchemy crossbow barrel could easily cover the entire sky and ensure that all the humans and magic beasts that bypassed would turn into porcupines.


    The enemies of the first dynasty were extremely powerful. The disciples of Gods in some dimensions all possessed flying abilities and some of them were even born with wings. All weapons used to conquer other dimensions were of high quality.


    Saleen walked around the tower and continued forward, where he saw another type of weapon on the deck that was aimed towards the sky.


    There were hundreds of such items that looked like stone catapults, and they were all connected together. The sling in the middle was fixed onto the deck and long strands of rubber bands were infused with stic metal threads. Once they were pulled tight, they would be able tounch hundreds of metal shells.


    As he walked further ahead, there was a massive building near the rear of the deck. There were two levels in total and the first level was ten yards tall. On the second level were more than one-hundred small metal towers, which could contain less than twenty people even if all of their space was used up.


    ¡°What is this?¡± Saleen could not figure it out. He used his elemental eyes and only managed to see that the metal towers were interconnected with magic patterns to for one body. Saleen could not understand what the function behind so many metal towers being connected together with magic patterns was.


    ¡°This object is connected to twenty-four auxiliary magic power furnaces.¡±


    ¡°Magic power furnaces!¡± Although Saleen knew about the magic power furnaces on the vessel, he had no idea that there were so many of them! Twenty-four magic power furnaces would provide magic power for these one-hundred and forty-four magic towers. Were all the people in these magic towers mages? How could they improve their magic powers if they were just metal towers? It did not make sense!


    It was a pity that magic power furnaces required powerful mages of at least grade-12 in order to be refined. Saleen had never thought about replicating something like that, but he never imagined that there could be so many magic power furnaces on the ancientbat vessel. Perhaps taking apart the vessel was the best option. Then, the magic power furnaces could be transported to Metatrin City. By then, Metatrin City would no longer require sorcerers for its defense. Grand mages alone would be able to ensure the security of the entire city.


    In order to attack the Tanggsi Empire in the future, he would still need to rely on this ancientbat vessel. Once this ancientbat vessel could fully regain its powers and could set sail towards the Tanggsi Empire, all the Tanggsi soldiers within more than ten miles of it would have to retreat. By then, Saleen¡¯s armies would have no problemsnding in Tanggsi.


    Saleen looked at the one-hundred and forty-four metal towers on the second level. He was still doubtful.


    ¡°Genga, are there any records on these metal towers?¡±


    One of the clones of the Mechanical Soul took out a book. The book was very thin, and each page was made of golden metal slices. It was information that the Mechanical Soul had replicated. Saleen took it in his hands and felt relieved that the words in the book were in ancient Myersnguage.


    Saleen used the Recollection spell to store all the information in the book into his brain before returning it back to the clone. The metal book re-integrated back into the clone¡¯s body without leaving any traces.


    When Saleen looked through all the information that he had just stored in his brain, his legs stopped moving. He looked up at the one-hundred and forty-four metal towers with a heavy heart. The ancient humans had developed such unique concepts!


    The twenty-four magic power furnaces formed a magic that covered the entire magic tower. The was formless and allowed the humans in the magic towers to absorb magic power and cast spells. As long as one possessed sufficient mental strength, one would be able to make use of the magic to cast grade-9 spells, even without magic chords.


    What a creation it was to allow a person without magic chords to be able to cast grade-9 spells!


    The magic power in the magic flowed continuously and the magic power furnaces did not use up too much energy. Within the area covered by the magic, as long as one remembered the mantra and the frequency of the spell, one could very quickly be a sorcerer with training.


    The magic was equivalent to a magic book or magic staff that had stored countless spells. The only difference was that activating the spells was moreplicated. Nevertheless, training magic chords was a long and arduous process and the wealth in the world was limited. If everyone trained in magic, the amount of magic materials being used up would be unimaginable. In the end, no one would have any magic materials left to use.


    It was precisely for that reason that Alchemy City was trying to control the transaction of magic nuclei, which then allowed them to control most mages. Without the need for magic chords, magic nuclei would be less essential. That meant that controlling magic nuclei might not necessarily mean controlling all mages.


    Saleen had thought that he was approaching the peak of the world, but as he gazed upon these one-hundred and forty-four metal towers, he realized that he was still far from it. He was so far away that he had no idea how to get there.


    What kind of a person was the grade-18 Emperor of the first dynasty?! Joey was only at grade-10 and every time he advanced, his powers would transform drastically. Saleen gradually set his mind straight and took a deep breath in. He walked around the metal towers and towards the back of the deck.


    Each of the one-hundred and forty-four metal towers could contain more than ten people. The people could focus on only training their mental strength and once they were familiar with magic curses, it would be equivalent to having more than one-thousand sorcerers...


    The safety of the ancientbat vessel would definitely be assured in that case.


    Fortunately, Grand Duke Iron Blood did not manage to obtain the diagram that would have exined how the metal towers should be used, otherwise Saleen¡¯s dragon skeletonbat vessel would have been bombed into pieces instantaneously.


    That defensive equipment on the deck were nothingpared to the design of the magic. More than one-thousand sorcerers was an unimaginable concept and that figure was probably equivalent to the number of sorcerers in the entire Myers Maind.


    The future would be unpredictable though. The grand mages under Grand Duke Iron Blood were all advancing while Saleen would also expect his Metatrin City to produce more sorcerers as well. Even so, the design of the magic was still an unexpected but pleasant surprise.


    If there were sufficient magic power furnaces in one city, then everyone in that city could possibly be a mage and would not need to umte magic chords. If an entire country was covered by the magic, then it would be a country of magic. If the entire Maind was covered by magic, then Lex¡¯s dream would no longer be impossible after all.


    The design of the magic left Saleen feeling fearful because there was a price to pay for the people in the to try and use magic. Living creatures that cast spells would have to return a part of their own mental strength to the magic in exchange. Such a process required the mental strength of the living creature to be cut out and given to the magic entirely. Therefore, the magic would obtain arge amount of mental strength if plenty of spells were cast.


    Without proper Rules of Meditation, it would be difficult to grow one¡¯s mental strength. If they were taken away for good, one would have to give up life power in order to recover it.


    The training of Rules of Meditation was something that only proper mages would undergo. No matter how powerful an ordinary human¡¯s mental strength was, it would be difficult to grow consistently. Besides, meditation was linked to magic chords. If one did not possess magic chords, he would find it extremely difficult to meditate.


    In other words, if the humans or living creatures in the magic wanted to use magic, then they would have to sacrifice parts of their lives in exchange. The more one used spells, the weaker they would be.


    A grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s lifespan would reach more than twelve-hundred years because their body would be transformed due to magic chords. As for those who used the magic, their lifespans would be reduced if they managed to reach the level where they could cast grade-9 spells.


    The magic was a double-edged sword. If everyone stopped training their magic chords because of the shortcut provided by the magic, in the long run, mages would no longer be mages. They would just be pathetic creatures with poor physiques that would be unable to battle the moment they were out of the magic.

 Chapter 847: Magic Net (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 847: Magic Net (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    By right, when a mage continued to be able to cast spells even though he was in a ce without any elements, that meant that he was doing so by using up the magic chords in his body and the power of his spells would be reduced drastically. That also meant that mages that could only cast spells using the magic would be useless without it.


    Saleen walked around the metal towers and arrived at the back of the deck. There were more than one-hundred pieces of flying equipment on the deck. They were different from theponents of flying equipment at the front of the deck. On both sides of the narrow and long metal machine were triangr-shaped wings that were wide and heavy and could not be pped.


    From the looks of it, the object seemed to be the Mechanical Soul in flying motion. Its flying speed would definitely be high, but the style of its flying would be much poorer than a mage¡¯s.


    Nevertheless, the object was huge and could carry along much more equipment than the flying equipment at the front of the deck. Clearly, they were equipment used for aerial battles while those at the front of the deck were used for spying.


    Saleen then walked over to the side of the vessel to inspect. The side of this ancientbat vessel was like a city wall as it was about forty yards away from the surface of the water. If they encountered an ordinarybat vessel, there was no way thetter would be able to board their ship. Only flying mages would be able to do so.


    It was precisely because of that strange design that the Cloudflow forces never expected the dragon skeletonbat vessel to fly up forty-yards high andnd on their deck. To the Cloudflow soldiers, that was a miracle.


    The design of the two-hundred yard tall dragon skeletonbat vessel was strange, and the side of the vessel was only about ten yards away from the surface of the water. One leap from the vessel scared all the Cloudflow soldiers out of their wits.


    The side of the ancientbat vessel was made of metal armor that was half a yard thick. The metal armor was made of more than one-hundredyers of thin metal slicespressed together with magic material in between. It weighed less than one-tenth of metal, otherwise the ancientbat vessel would never have been able to stay afloat.


    Pieces of the metal armor were mounted onto the body of the vessel,yer overyer. Even if they were destroyed, new armor could still be put in ce. A forty yard tall body would definitely encounter countless forms of attacks. Without theyer of armor, even the most resilientbat vessel would be severely damaged.


    The Cloudflow forces did not use that armor. Nor did they have better ways to rece the defensive equipment.


    After observing the interior of the side of the vessel, there was a tform that was about three yards wide. Other than magic cannons, there were also a number of metal crossbow stands. Saleen did not manage to see what was so special about the designs. Somebat styles just never changed, even over tens of thousands of years.


    After about every sixty yards there was an opening that was rtively wide. Saleen saw the openings as miniature city gates, where springboards could be extended and used to embark on enemybat vessels.


    Saleen felt ufortable while walking on the ancientbat vessel. That was because the design of the magic was very different from his beliefs about magic. If the humans of the first dynasty were so powerful, why was there a need to design something like that?


    What Saleen did not know, was that while the humans on the main dimension were powerful, there were many living creatures in other dimensions that were not so. Grade nine was the highest level they could ever attain. When humans made use of living creatures from other dimensions to fight for them, it was only natural that they had to design equipment that would boost the powers of those living creatures.


    Even some of the magic equipment in present times were initially designed by humans for other living creatures.


    The designs were passed down over the years and they were the reasons why humans were still able to remain in charge of the Myers Maind despite the weakening of their powers. They helped the humans topletely exterminate the living creatures that existed in the dimension before the humans.


    It was also because of that reason that the third dynasty fell. The fourth dynasty was basically humans¡¯st period of glory.


    By right, the metal towers were designed for dwarves to make their preparations. Dwarves were only one-third in heightpared to humans and, although they could not develop magic chords, they were born with powerful mental strength. Each metal tower was able to contain twenty-four dwarves, which was equivalent to twenty-four sorcerers.


    The magic on the ancientbat vessel would allow thirty-four-hundred and fifty-six dwarves to be grade-9 soldiers, casting countless grade-9 spells.


    Even strong opponents like Fycro and Joey would be bombed into pieces.


    When conquering other dimensions, the ancientbat vessel was only used for security and protection purposes. The main attackingbat vessel was as long as ten miles with a massive magic system. Dwarves, elves, spirits, and demons that boarded thebat vessel would quickly develop into sorcerers. Back then, sorcerers were considered soldiers.


    After walking one round, Saleen did not discover any loopholes in the ancientbat vessel¡¯s defense. The only thing was that with the Mechanical Soul controlling thebat vessel, only about one-hundredth of the vessel¡¯s abilities could be exploited.


    The weapons duplicated by the Mechanical Soul possessed low damage, short attacking range, and used up a lot of magic nuclei that had to be at least grade-9. Saleen still had more than one-thousand standard units of grade-9 magic nuclei, but they would notst if they were being used up so quickly. They had to find the cemetery of the single-horned white whales in order to solve the problem of the ancientbat vessel¡¯s source of energy once and for all.


    Fortunately, magic power furnaces did not require high-level magic nuclei. Any magic nuclei, magic crystals, or even some low-level shards of magic nuclei could be used to extract fire elements to allow the magic power furnaces to operate smoothly.


    Saleen felt torn. If he activated all the magic power furnaces, not only would the ancientbat vessel not have to use up so much resources, many disciples would be able to be something equivalent to sorcerers.


    By activating the magic, the ancientbat vessel would be invincible. Who should he let into the magic? His own citizens? Saleen would never allow that to happen. Living creatures from other dimensions? Only demons were eligible, but he was not sure if they would obey him.


    ¡°Genga, how many magic power furnaces are there on thisbat vessel?¡±


    ¡°Two-hundred and twenty-one, of which twenty-four are used to provide energy for the magic. The magic power furnace in the core motor operated on its own, while the remaining two-hundred and twenty magic power furnaces are spread around the eighteen levels of thebat vessel. Many of the defensive and offensive equipment depends on the magic power furnaces,¡± the Mechanical Soul replied seriously. It was clear to him by then that Saleen was not someone that would put up with his temper. It was better for him to be respectful.


    ¡°Alright. Help me duplicate a diagram of the magic power furnace. Let me know if you are unable to do it.¡±


    ¡°Master, there is no way I can do it. The diagram of the magic power furnace is tooplicated, and it uses three-dimensional magic patterns. The most detailed part is made up of standard units of singr elements. Unless I have advanced to grade-14, I cannot...¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen was not disappointed. After all, if the magic power furnace could be re-created, the Cloudflow people would have been able to take over the entire dimension.


    Once the magic power furnaces were taken away from the ancientbat vessel, they would go to waste. How Saleen wished that the magic power furnaces could be the same as the core of Sky City!


    Sky City was the finest aplishment of human magic. After all the Sky Cities fell to their destruction, no mage could design an alchemy machine that was so powerful yet exquisite. As for magic power furnaces, they were still being mass-produced at the end of the second dynasty and it was only in the beginning of the fourth dynasty that they vanished entirely from Myers Maind.


    Back in the dragon skeletonbat vessel, Saleen did not say a word. Some of the clones of the Mechanical Soul continued to follow him, waiting for any questions. What Saleen was thinking was whether it was better to take apart thebat vessel or to leave it as it was.


    After thinking for a long time, Saleen decided that thebat vessel should remain as it was for a time. The Mechanical Soul had already devoured the vessel, so Saleen would only obtain a bunch of materials after taking it apart and would not be able to gain much from studying them.


    More importantly, that was not the only ancientbat vessel since there was another one on Dragon Ind. Now that he had taken over the vessel, Grand Duke Iron Blood would definitely have to activate the other one. Next time, Saleen would not have the chance to fly the dragon skeletonbat vessel up onto the deck of the ancientbat vessel.


    If the ancientbat vessel had been taken apart, the armor could have been made into shields for all of Saleen¡¯s main armies. Besides, each piece of the special metal used for building thebat vessel was more valuable than all the magic metal in his knowledge.


    ¡°Magic, oh magic, once I find the single-horned white whale cemetery, I will have enough magic nuclei to operate the Ancientpletely. As for the magic... I shall let the demons enter it. Demons possess powerful mental strength. A demon, who is the equivalent of a sorcerer, will be more powerful than one that was the equivalent of a high-level swordmaster.¡±


    Three days passed before the reclusive ocean current suddenly appeared from south to north. The winged skeleton immediatelymanded the fleets to head towards the north from the small ind.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel followed the ocean current carefully. There were unknown materials in the ocean current and wherever the current passed through, the miniature living creatures that devoured everything would avoid it, forming a trail to a safe region that was more than ten miles wide.


    It might seem that ten miles were considered very wide for abat vessel, but since the vessel was traveling at eighty miles an hour, any slight deviation would cause thebat vessel to be amidst the red ocean and be disintegrated by the miniature living creatures.


    The ancientbat vessel was particrly at risk as it was more than a mile in length. Any slight deviation would result in this precious vessel being destroyed.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat brought up the rear of the fleet and released bone spirits to ensure that all was safe behind them. Leading the way was the dragon skeletonbat vessel. They followed the ocean current carefully as they dared not risk any deviation.


    After more than one-thousand miles without being followed by anyone, the winged skeleton quickly caught up with the vessels as he was worried about the safety of the dragon skeletonbat vessel. The ocean current wouldst for about a week. The vessels were traveling at eighty miles an hour and would be able to travel two-thousand miles in a day. They would be able to enter the safe region of the ocean by following the ocean current. The region that they were currently in was the one where the magicpass would not work, so the winged skeleton did not dare to becent.


    After traveling so carefully for two days, the red ocean was finally behind them and Saleen breathed a sigh of relief. They would reach the circumference of the Oceanic Ice Block if they traveled another ten-thousand miles towards the north. There would be very few dangerous magic beasts there.


    All thebat vessels inspected their equipment and the winged skeleton summoned new spirits of the dead to replenish those within eachbat vessel. Reaching the circumference of the Oceanic Ice Block was only the beginning. That time, Saleen¡¯s target was no longer red krill. The battle that was about to take ce would be a difficult one.


    Saleen was looking forward to seeing the ancientbat vessel in action. If they were able to utilize thebat vessel properly, so the hunt should not be too difficult.

 Chapter 848: Hunting Grade-9 Magic Beast (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 848: Hunting Grade-9 Magic Beast (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were a few small warships struggling to find their way around when Saleen¡¯s fleet made it past the red sea near the nameless ind. The ships bore no gs and no markings; only warships from Alchemy City were known to do so.


    The warships had been sailing in circles for three days, before finally making it past the nameless ind and heading north. The sorcerers used magic to reconstruct the physical images taking ce at the location for the past few days. They had finally managed to locate Saleen¡¯s fleet.


    The mysterious current disappeared as they finally located Saleen. The Alchemy City warships thus charged right into the red sea and were reduced to nothing within hours. Twelve sorcerers took flight from the sinking warships and saved themselves. As they were unable to tell directions correctly under such conditions, they sailed around in circles for several days, before sumbing to exhaustion and dropping into the water.


    It was fortunate that the sorcerers did not drop into the red sea, and there were hardly any magic beasts around the nameless ind, with only some small fish and other harmless sea creatures around. The sorcerers possessed strong bodies. They were, after all, from Alchemy City. That also meant that they had some understanding of how the currents of the oceans worked, and that allowed them to make it to the nameless ind.


    The soil of the nameless ind contained terrifying amounts of metal, so there were hardly any nts growing on the ind. The twelve who made it to the uninhabitable ce were forced to rely on the food stored within the space equipment to survive.


    The sorcerers had hardly experienced anything so difficult and frustrating. Not even one of the grand mages on their ships managed to escape. There were also ck metal and silver grand swordmasters swallowed by the red sea. The Metatrin City fleet, however, made it past the red sea unscathed. The Metatrin people had easily found a way to do so.


    Magicpasses failed to work in the area thousands of miles around the ind, and the stars failed to show them their true location. None of the sorcerers navigation magic worked either, leaving them effectively stranded on the ind.


    They followed Metatrin City¡¯s fleet to make it that far, but at the moment, their chances of being saved by passing ships were extremely slim. Even if Alchemy City sent warships out to look for them, the chances of the ships finding their way to the ind were near nil. Even if they were able to make it to the ind, there was no guarantee that they would have been able to leave still.


    Saleen¡¯s fleet made it to the outskirts of the oceanic ice block early in January. Icebergs began appearing on the waters. The icebergs were of irregr sizes, withrge ones beingrger than the Ancient. Small ones were only the size of tens of square yards.


    Saleen¡¯s fleet consisted of only magic warships, which enabled them to evade icebergs. Even on the off chance they hit an iceberg, they would suffer little more than scratches. The fleet traveled at twenty miles per hour in the area, as collisions with the icebergs at very fast speeds would easily sink the ship in question.


    The number of powerful magic beasts grew at the outskirts of the oceanic ice block. The bone warships stopped to hunt small magic beasts like red krill, while the Ancient, the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel, and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat began making their way into the oceanic ice block.


    Saleen began supplying more grade-9 magic nuclei to the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel, enabling the defensive magic power furnace to be put into use. If Saleen failed to locate the single-horned white whale cemetery, or simply failed to even find more grade-9 magic nuclei, his loss would be of astronomical proportions.


    Saleen had yet to walk on the Ancient, leaving the enormous warship entirely to the Mechanical Soul. He had it follow the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel from the rear. The Ancient had only the main magic power furnace running, as there were no orders from Saleen to do otherwise.


    Saleen stood at the vessel¡¯smand room and looked at the vista stretching for more than one-hundred miles out through its crystal window. Icebergsid beyond such distance still, and the legendary oceanic ice block had yet to be found.


    The surface of the oceanic ice block was covered with thick ice. There was no telling how many eons the ice had been around. The deeper the ice went, the harder the ice got, it was near-impossible to prate such thick, hard ice.


    A single-horned white whale would have only headed for the oceanic ice block when they were near their deaths. Regardless of how powerful a particr whale had gotten, there was no way it would have been able to prate the ice sheets and breathe.


    Tens of magic beasts were seen ying about on arge floating piece of ice about forty miles ahead. The beasts were around ten yards. All of them have had long white coats. Such appearances had them looking like great earth bears, the only difference being that they were white.


    Great earth bears hardly grew to such a size unless they went into berserk mode. One of the white beasts near the edge of the ice pped on the water all of a sudden.


    Blue lights sparkled, which under Saleen¡¯s inspection, was akin to grade-8 magic cast by the beast as an attack. It killed a magic beast under the water in an instant. Arge vortex appeared on the water surface shortly after, sucking the dead creature up and bringing it onto the ice.


    The white beast walked to it, tore out the beast¡¯s stomach, and began eating its insides. The white beasts around stopped ying and began closing in. Said white beast roared, then decided to stop threatening itspanions and allowed them to share the prize. It went on to break the dead creature¡¯s skull and ate the magic nucleus within before anyone else.


    A group of grade-9 magic beasts, intelligent ones to boot! Attacks from grade-9 magic beasts without intelligence would still be grade-9 though. Those ones, however, were able to determine the grade of the prey and cast a grade-8 spell instead.


    Saleen released the water puppet, which had fully recovered from the prior few days. Saleen took off his crystal ring and put it on the puppet.


    The water puppet spoke out of the blue, ¡°Your Highness, I wish to give myself a name.¡±


    ¡°That is good to hear!¡±, Saleen was surprised. The water puppet had not been recovering its earliest level of intelligence since suffering grave injuries. The act of wanting to name oneself all of a sudden meant that the water puppet had begun to develop an ego once again. It might have even developed a soul in the future.


    ¡°I wish to be called Rossen. Rossen Metatrin. Am I...am I allowed to use this as my surname?¡±


    ¡°Tell me why you¡¯d like that name.¡±


    ¡°I do not wish to be a puppet, yet even more I do not wish to leave your side. Please allow me to use your surname as my own. I will always be loyal to it, until...until I lose my conscious again,¡± the water puppet answered in a solemn manner.


    Nailisi was by the duo¡¯s side, and surprisingly, had not uttered any words of teasing. She merely stood by and watched the water puppet, looking interested.


    ¡°So the puppet has developed an ego. Interesting indeed. The other shenhe Saleen crafted a magic current for was able to cut just about anything, give enough time. That current was also infused with the power of life from the Goddess of Myers. Will that current also develop an ego then?¡±


    Saleen felt torn inside. ¡°The water puppet knows then if it is to suffer damage exceeding its ability to withstand in a fierce battle, it will lose its consciousness, which would be equivalent to death to a human,¡± he thought. ¡°Alright, Rossen. You are allowed to use the surname of Metatrin, but...your appearance, it needs a makeover.¡±


    ¡°Of course, your highness. Do you have any wishes in that regard?¡± Rossen, the water puppet asked.


    ¡°Just do as you see fit.¡±


    The water puppet smiled, and its face began to change, eventually taking the form of a charming, young mage. It looked noticeably different from Saleen, yet shared uncanny simrities with its master. Those who knew nothing of them would definitely have taken them to be brothers.


    ¡°Your Highness. I know as a mage that the number of follower contracts you can sign is limited. Even so, I still wish to be your follower, or rather, please allow me to address you as my liege.¡±


    Saleen took a look at the water puppet¡¯s crystal ring and nodded. After signing a contract, it would enable the water puppet to retain some of its original memories, so long as it was notpletely destroyed. In a way, that would have been what the water puppet wanted: to prevent the destruction of its past memories after experiencing one copse after another and bing a different puppet each time that happened.


    ¡°Thank you, my liege,¡± the puppet said as it wrote magic runes between its brows with its finger, and came before Saleen. Saleen extended his left hand and squeezed a bit of blood from his fingertip. The drop of blood contained the power of life of the Goddess of Myers, turning it green. Saleen infused it into the space between the water puppet¡¯s brows.


    Saleen felt the immediate drop in the mental connection between him and the water puppet. The water puppet stopped taking his mental energies and had instead begun contributing to Saleen¡¯s reserve.


    Before the contract was signed, the existence of the water puppet was sustained by the magic patterns of the Shenhe and Saleen¡¯s mental powers. The water puppet then, however, became an independent puppet. it did not wish to keep being one though.


    ¡°Rossen...¡± Saleen undid the gourd strapped to his waist, wanting to hand it over to the water puppet.


    ¡°No, my liege. I have what I wanted. Should I forget everything that transpired now in the future, please remind me of my name, Rossen Metatrin.¡±


    The water puppet waved as he finished, bringing about a dozen demons and a dozen spirits with it, and left themand room.


    The water puppet looked somewhat sad as it left the hold. It was little more than a puppet. Its memories became vague after experiencing a heavy mental drain. It seemed to have forgotten even more from before that, and those memories would stay forgotten. Such feelings left it with a bad taste in its mouth, as it meant that its past self disappeared bit by bit. Even if such memories were recorded using magic images, it would never be able to again regain the connection to such memories.


    ¡°Master, is the water puppet trying to rebel?¡± Nailisi waited for the water puppet tond on the ice after leaving the vessel, before asking Saleen.


    ¡°Would you betray me then?¡± Saleen red at Nailisi, as her bad habit showed yet again; the bad habit of harboring suspicions at everyone around her master.


    ¡°Of course not. You are my master.¡±


    ¡°Rossen is my creation, which makes me its father.¡±


    ¡°If you were to die, he would have been able to take your ce as king. The father-son rtionship of royal families are illustrated very clearly in the ys of humans,¡± Nailisi said with a singing tone.


    ¡°If I were dead, then you¡¯d be free. Isn¡¯t that more tempting than being king?¡±


    The rebuttal left Nailisi speechless. Noticing Tam¡¯enm standing nearby looking awkward, she yelled out of the blue, ¡°What are you standing here for? Go help Rossen hunt. You¡¯re a grade-7 sorcerer. Are you telling me you can¡¯t deal with some grade-9 beasts?¡±


    If it was not for that fellow sticking around, she would have been able to y the coquette around Saleen. ¡°Stupid Cloudflow mage. Know your ce. This isn¡¯t some y you can just sit around and watch!¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, you go help out down there. Rossen alone can¡¯t take on so many high-grade beasts on its own.¡± Saleen did not give Nailisi any chances at ying the coquette, shooing her off the vessel instead.


    Hunting more than ten grade-9 magic beasts at once proved dangerous. The water puppet was effectively immune to physical attacks, but the magic beasts were all capable of powerful magic. What was worse, they were intelligent beasts. Just the water puppet alone would not have proved adequate for dealing with them. Even if it was able to kill one or two of them, it would have been impossible for it to take the magic nuclei off their dead bodies in time.

 Chapter 849: Hunting Level Nine Magic Beast (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 849: Hunting Level Nine Magic Beast (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The hunting that time felt rather ironic. The high-level magic beasts to be hunted were difficult to hunt, but it was nowhere near as difficult as the Ancient was tomandeer. So long as the supply of grade-9 magic nucleus was sufficient, the weapons onboard would prove more than adequate to kill the beasts effortlessly.


    They were still at the outskirts of the oceanic ice block. The block itself had the surface of the sea covered in thick sheets of ice, making it impossible for the Ancient to venture inside. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat became the only ship that was of use in the uing journey. That meant that when the troupe actually found the cemetery, the Ancient would not be any help to them.


    Rossen, the water puppet, brought around twenty goons with it, making their way for their prey. Nailisi managed to catch up to them when the group was about five miles away from the beasts.


    The water puppet did not bother greeting Nailisi. It simply jumped right into the water to get close to that piece of floating ice the beasts were on. It was fortunate that the wind was blowing in their direction, or the grade-9 magic beasts would have been able to smell the demons and the spirits out.


    Nailisi smirked seeing the water puppet being so unfriendly. ¡°I don¡¯t give a damn about you so long as you know your ce and follow orders. If you dare go against me, I swear I will get a chance to have your consciousness wiped, and have you start all over again. I sure as hell don¡¯t think you will be so individualistic every time.


    The huge white bears had finished eating their prize, and not even bones were left. The dead sea magic beast¡¯s bones would have been useful for making weapons, as their durability was as tough as metals. Such durable bones were rendered powder being chewed by these white bears¡¯ fangs.


    The demons that the water puppet brought with it all wore elf armor, and the spirits were working on their home turf as they themselves hailed from the water. They made their way stealthily under the floating ice. While the white bears were able to sense theming, they were nheless of grades below grade-7. The bears hardly saw them as threats and continued ying on the ice instead.


    They, however, were not able to detect the water puppet¡¯s presence. Once entering the sea, the water puppet¡¯s body turned transparent, seemingly having melded with the sea around it. As for Nailisi, she took her spirit form and hid her presence with the three-faced bone demon¡¯s ability, making her look like little else than some peculiar pile of bones.


    Nailisi stopped anyone who wanted to follow her earlier, including Nichs. The grade-9 magic beasts were of heights exceeding ten yards. As such, their magic nuclei were of sizes that could have been cut into thirty to forty standard-sized nuclei. If she was lucky, said magic nuclei might have even been capable of yielding more than one-hundred standard-sized ones each.


    The only problem was that the offensive powers of beasts grew proportionately with the size of their magic nuclei. If one such beast¡¯s magic nucleus had been able to yield more than one-hundred standard-sized nuclei, it would have meant that it would have been capable of casting grade-9 spells hundreds of times. That would have made them significantly more powerful than sorcerers.


    While it was indeed a given that magic beastscked the mental capacity to actually do so, they were nheless capable of running, not to mention that their mental powers regenerated quickly. If one was not able to take one out with just one strike, killing the beasts would be very difficult.


    Saleen forbade more from joining the fray. He instead had the Ancient release its signature mist, allowing them to close on the target slowly. The bears were rather indifferent about the mist approaching, and as such were hardly alerted.


    There were simply too many floating ice pieces around. Keeping the speed of the Ancient at twenty miles per hour made it difficult for the ship to keep up the water puppet¡¯s pace.


    The water puppet wore a full set of Mystic Ice Armor, a mutated form of the Ice te Armor. The Ice te Armor worked by protecting the entire body as a full suit of personal armor. It came with self-repair properties, making it a powerful defensive spell. The Mystic Ice Armor, however, worked like armor pieces attached directly to the water puppet itself. Each piece of the armor possessed powerful defensive capabilities, but itcked self-repair properties.


    The water puppet was practically immune to physical attacks and had chosen to use the Mystic Ice Armor, as both types shared identical elemental defense capabilities. The invention of the Mystic Ice Armor was intended to be used between mages and assassins working in cohesion. The Mystic Ice Armor possessed no elemental vibrations, and did not exude cold air like the Ice te Armor. Those properties enabled it tost longer, making it a perfect buff for assassins lurking in the dark.


    Nailisi¡¯s three-faced bone demon form was weaker in the water. She did not bother unting her bravado. She simply chose to trail behind the water puppet¡¯s group, waiting for her chance.


    A spirit struck the ice from under with a giant spear in its hand. The act finally alerted the grade-9 beasts, as the floating ice was where they rested. It wasmon for grade-9 beasts to conserve their energy at the oceanic ice block, just so to prevent themselves from being overwhelmed by low-level magic beasts in massive numbers.


    Three bears huddled together and looked under the ice. The thickness of the ice was about eight yards where they were. The spirit was only able to chisel at the ice slowly to make a hole, as it was impossible for it to simply prate the ice. The three white bears grew furious at the thought of their turf being invaded and roared in anger. Their huge paws pped onto the surface of the ice, spraying ice pieces everywhere.


    The ice around the area was prated by the grade-9 beasts in a blink of an eye. One of them opened its mouth and sucked hard, causing the seawater around to spin furiously, which sucked a spirit up.


    That particr spirit was of the lowest level among the group: only grade-4. As soon as it got sucked upwards by the vortex, it was shattered into pieces by a p from a huge paw. The three white bears were hardly satisfied with the revenge and took to stepping on the remains of the spirit for a while and roaring furiously. The sound was heard for more than a dozen yards away.


    The Vortex was upgradable high-level magic. The particr one used by the bear earlier was of grade-7, whichpletely rendered the grade-4 spirit helpless. The Vortex dispersed above the ice, alerting none of the other bears. The evidence of the attackid with the pieces of mystic ice spreading about the foot of a white bear.


    Temperatures of mystic ice were significantly higher than normal ice, only somewhere near the freezing point. There was a transparent crystal ring lying among the pieces of mystic ice, perfect still on the floating ice.


    Seeing how the three white bears were able to wipe out the invader, the other white bears began ying about again. They were all young beasts, probably a splinter group split out from arger group, forming their own somewhere else. The three served as the group¡¯s temporary leaders.


    The leaders did not order the group to be on high alert, and the other bears did not bother looking clearly at what happened under the ice. A matured group would have had more than one-hundred white bears, and the older ones would have been nearing grade-10. Such groups would not have made such mistakes.


    The three leading white bears walked around the hole they made for a bit before leaving. A shadow emerged from underneath as they were just about to leave and the shadow turned out to be a demon instead of a spirit.


    Demons were creatures of flesh and blood, unlike spirits. As such, they were very attractive to magic beasts.


    The demon was struck with fear. There were creatures equivalent in terms of power to supreme demons on the ice. Said demon was required to attract the attention of such fearsome creatures beneath the ice.


    The three white bears made their way back to the whole and roared, casting Vortex. The Vortex was a skill used by them to catch creatures in the water. The skill hardly ever failed them. The demon in the water struggled to get free but proved powerless against the ensnarement the grade-9 magic cast. Nailisi looked from afar with eyes devoid ofpassion. If she had bothered doing something, the demon would not have ended up being captured.


    Tens of ice des were thrown into the vortex all of a sudden. The white bears were grade-9 magic beasts. They were the apex predators on the floating ice in the outskirts of the oceanic ice block. Their mastery of water magic was almost equivalent to that of human sorcerers. Adding ice des to the vortex was amon trick used for hunting.


    Sharp cutting sounds were heard, and the poor demon ended up being cut into tens of pieces and sucked onto the ice from the hole, sttering all over the ce. The demon¡¯s armor proved useless against the ice des¡¯ attack.


    The defensive properties of elf armorid in its flexibility, but being cut by tens of ice des cast by grade-9 magic beasts was equal to being attacked repeatedly by grade-7 magic spells. The demon¡¯s armor was as good as cardboard being subjected to such conditions.


    About a dozen white bears came near the sttered pieces on the ice. They turned somewhat violent at the smell of the demon¡¯s flesh and blood. Some even began fighting for the pieces, ignoring the leaders¡¯ roars altogether.


    The water puppet began to take form gradually. The pieces of mystic ice on top of the beasts¡¯ icy home were all attached to its body. A hand was formed, and it reached for the crystal ring, putting it on and then moved about inplicated ways, drawing magic signs.


    It was Grade-8 magic: Endless Night.


    Saleen had developed a deeper understanding of the dark magic. While the water puppet still needed to do signs to conjure the spell, the power of the spell conjured was nheless, identical to Saleen¡¯s.


    The water puppet hade to the point where it did not require any auxiliary equipment to cast a grade-8 Endless Night. With Saleen being unable to provide it with support in mental powers, the water puppet had begun to gauge its own abilities to fight with magic.


    It did not possess magic chords, but as a body consisted only of water elements, its elemental maniption abilities eclipsed Saleen¡¯s in terms of speed.


    Darkness consumed everything above the ice. The Endless Night was also equipped with spiritual attack, rendering targets incapable of determining any information rted to battles. When the water puppet finished with the conjuring of the skill, its body had also almost regained its original humanoid form. It then pointed at a white bear nearest to it.


    Whoop...


    A tiny hole was seen on the white bear¡¯s chest. Its powerful defense was rendered entirely useless under the workings of the crystal finger. The water puppet had turned the attack¡¯s power to its lowest, and its finger turned pale all of a sudden. Most of the resulting magical recoil was absorbed by Raphael¡¯s crystal ring. As such, its finger remained intact that time.


    ¡°No way...I can¡¯t fight like I used to then,¡± the water puppet thought silently and then pointed at another white bear.


    The power of the crystal finger was not one that could not have been controlled. It was just that the water puppet was used to casting the skill at full power, copsing fingers, even entire arms with the castings. It was able to have good control of the power and tempo of the skill that time. The white bears fell one by one with their hearts punctured, being attacked at such close distance with three consecutive strikes.


    It was able to see the bears clearly within the Endless Night, but the bears were unable to even see it.


    If the bears had wanted to struggle free of the Endless Night¡¯s shackle with the difference in levels, the bears would have had to pay a dire price. They were not very smart creatures, and would not have any intentions of fighting to the bitter end unless their hands were forced.


    Such was the difference between humans and magic beasts. Grade-9 human sorcerers would have thought of ways to break the spell on the fly, even if they were unfamiliar with darkness magic. Magic beasts were not able to do anything against unfamiliar dark spells. All they were able to do was to keep expanding their magic nuclei to cast powerful elemental vibrations, in attempts to break the spell¡¯s hold.


    Whoop...


    A sixth bear slumped on the floor as the water puppet pointed again, and a tiny bloody hole was seen through the bear¡¯s body. The hole was hardlyrger than a human¡¯s index finger. If the water puppet had resorted to its old ways of attacking, the white bear would have ended up being split apart at the waist by its crystal finger.


    ¡°It is really a piece of cake taking down magic beasts.¡± As the water puppet thought, a giant paw swiped at it, throwing it off its feet.

 Chapter 850: The Powerful Must Attack (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 850: The Powerful Must Attack (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After the water puppet had been swatted away, the terrible sound of the Dark Blue Howl was heard.


    The Dark Blue Howl cast by human mages was a grade-9 water-element spell while the same spell unleashed by magic beasts was a spell thatbined both wind and water elements and used up a lot of energy. Amongst the remaining ten white bears, they suddenly unleashed a spell that only a group of grade-9 magic beasts could unleash together, which was Soul Chain. Under the effect of Endless Night, thebined subconsciousness of the white bears helped them realize the danger they were in.


    Without any hesitation, the white bears¡¯ berserk attributes were unleashed. All ten of them used Dark Blue Howl at the same time and the powerful wind and water elements destroyed Endless Night.


    The difference in grades was clear. When ten grade-9 magic beasts unleashed a spell together at the same time, the grade-8 Endless Night became ineffective immediately.


    If the water puppet had been a human, one swipe from the white bear king would have cost him his life. The white bear king¡¯s sharp ws could easily shred apart the skin and shells of most creatures below grade-8, unless they were special creatures like pan¡¯s turtles.


    The water puppet¡¯s body was torn into two. He contorted in a strange manner in the air and within two seconds, he merged back together again. He did not forget to attack white bear king with his finger at the same time.


    The group of sixteen white bears had yet to even produce offspring before seven of them were killed and one of them was the white bear king. Endless Night was destroyed, and the dark elements were scattered before vanishing instantaneously. The nine remaining white bears got ready to pounce towards the water puppet, who was about tond on the surface of the ice.


    It was at that moment that Nailisi exploded out of the ice crater. Sharp sound waves spread across the surface of the ice and swept across the nine white bears. The white bears shook a little before continuing to pounce at the water puppet.


    Nailisi gritted her teeth as she knew she had miscalcted. Her Soul Sound wave might be powerful, but it was ineffective against berserk magic beasts.


    Two of the white bears turned around and charged at Nailisi. Their bodies might be swollen, but they were extremely agile. With one leap, they had alreadynded in front of Nailisi.


    Magic beasts were not necessarily unintelligent. When they realized that Dark Blue Howl was ineffective against their enemies, they immediately decided to change their attacking style to physicalbat. Their enemies were much smaller than them, so the difference in strength should be significant.


    Nailisi¡¯s three-faced bone demon state allowed her to cast powerful death magic spells, but grade-9 creatures possessed an incredible ability to defend against spells. Nailisi leapt high into the sky. She did not wish to engage in physicalbat with the two grade-9 magic beasts in her current state.


    Nailisi¡¯s leap was tens of yards high. Her body twisted and turned violently in mid-air and within two seconds, she has transformed into a devil andnded heavily.


    Boom!


    Her devil form was more than twenty yards tall and had two heads and four arms. On one of the arms was a huge metal shield, which she used to swat the two magic beasts down onto the surface of the ice.


    Nailisi felt pain in her arm. The two magic beasts did not die. They only squirted out some blue blood and were howling wildly. They had unleashed gigantic ice crystals around their bodies for protection.


    Nailisi switched the shield onto another arm and attacked again. That time around, the ice crystal shields of the two white bears were smashed into pieces. The strength possessed by the devil far surpassed the defense of grade-9 magic beasts.


    ¡°Want to see who is bigger? Hahaha!¡± Nailisiughed wildly. If her Power of Giant Dragon wasplete, she would be able to transform into a giant dragon. Even Sika could notpete with her in terms of strength in that form. Her devil-form would suffice for that battle. A longnce appeared in another of Nailisi¡¯s arm.


    Her original longnce was already destroyed in the battle at Sanlian City. It was repaired and refined, and it was as long as thirty-two yards. She could only wield the weapon when she was in devil-form.


    More demons climbed up from the ice crater. Both of Nailisi¡¯s heads screamed and the demons became agitated. Temporarily, they forgot about their fears as they charged at the two white bears with their battle axes.


    At that point in time, the difference in grades no longer yed a part. The weapons that the demons wielded were all personally refined by Saleen and were extremely sharp. Crystallized metal covered the entire de of the axe, forming gears that could barely be seen with naked eye. When the demons attacked. The axe des, which were half a meter long, lodged themselves in the white fur and cut away at the flesh.


    The two white bears were still in a daze and were unable to retaliate. Demons of grade-5 and grade-6 were still very powerful and could very well kill grade-9 magic beasts that were unable to retaliate.


    Nailisi covered more than one-hundred yards with one step and pierced through the backside of a white bear with her longnce. Thence was pushed in three yards deep. Before the white bear could even register the pain, she tilted her longnce upwards to bring the white bear more than ten yards in the air before smashing it down on the surface of the ice.


    The grade-9 magic beast was only in time to unleash Vacuum Cutting from its ws before Nailisi¡¯s longnce twisted its internal organs. The Vacuum Cutting attack flew aimlessly, four of which flew towards the sky while two of them hit the surface of the ice.


    Although the ice there was thicker than ten yards, it was still sliced through by the Vacuum Cutting.


    Only six white bears remained and one of them was a white bear king. As the gigantic devil came nearer, the white bear king turned around and spit out a gigantic fire dragon.


    Nailisi was taken by surprise. There were still magic beasts in the Oceanic Ice Block that could use fire-element spells?


    Nailisi thought about the fire-element spells that Saleen could cast. She did not wish to go head-on against it, so she pped her wings and rose to a height of more than one-hundred yards in the sky.


    The fire dragon expanded violently and twisted in the air before flying up into the sky. This spell cast by the white bear king could lock on to the devil. There was no difference between their grades as they were both between grade-9 and grade-10.


    The fire dragon could not fly as fast as Nailisi. One of the limitations of spells cast by magic beasts was that they would not be as fast as those cast by humans.


    Nailisi flew as high as she could. Herbat abilities in her devil-form were extremely formidable, but her magic abilities were not as powerfulpared to when she was in three-faced bone demon form. Nailisi could sense the fire dragon approaching. She threw the giant metal shield in her arms and hit the fire dragon.


    The half yard thick metal shield melted a crater in the grade-9 fire dragon, which then disintegrated in mid-air.


    The fire dragon stopped for a moment. Its body shrunk, but it still continued to pursue after Nailisi.


    Nailisi threw away the shield, and once her body became lighter, her flying speed doubled and reached a height of one-thousand yards in the sky very quickly. Theoretically, grade-9 spells were most powerful within an attacking range of one-thousand yards. Beyond one-thousand yards, the elements would start to dissipate. Although the rate of dissipation was still very slow, a weakened grade-9 spell was something that Nailisi would be able to deal with.


    Nailisi flew higher and higher as the fire dragon grew weaker and weaker. When they reached a height of two-thousand yards, the fire dragon¡¯s abilities had been reduced to that of grade-7 magic. Nailisi pierced her longnce backwards and urately stabbed into the elemental point in the fire dragon.


    She had picked up that ability from Saleen. She only managed to figure out the fire dragon¡¯s weakness after thetter had chased her for two-thousand yards.


    There was a sound of explosion as Nailisi unleashed a devil ability, Demon Psychokinesis, through her longnce. It struck the fire dragon and caused it to disintegrate into giant balls of fire.


    The fireballs flew in all directions and only about ten of them flew towards Nailisi. Blue electric currents shed across Nailisi¡¯s body surface and easily repelled the fireballs.


    In devil-form, Nailisi did not dare to use Lightning Guardian against the fire dragon, as it would have taken up too much of her energy. She was afraid that she would have been too tired to fight against it.


    On the surface of the ice, the water puppet activated fog from the surface of its body to enclose the entire ice surface once again. The white bears immediately lost their ability to see and it was only because of their powerful senses that they could still vaguely pinpoint the water puppet¡¯s location.


    The water puppet¡¯s location was where the water elements were the thickest. There was no way this could be hidden from grade-9 creatures.


    If the white bears were humans, they would have figured out that water puppet¡¯s abilities were only dangerous within close distance to grade-9 opponents. The moment the distance was pulled apart, the water puppet could easily be killed by long-range attacks.


    Thest white bear king turned around and locked onto the water puppet¡¯s location. It raised its head suddenly. It felt a gigantic object falling onto him.


    Nailisiughed as she pierced her longnce into the white bear king. She tucked in her wings to form an acute angle in order to increase the speed at which she was diving down from two-thousand yards.


    Even a golden grand swordmaster would be severely injured if they fell from a height of two-thousand yards. Not only was Nailisi doing that, she also increased her speed, which was simply suicidal. The white bear king was provoked into howling by Nailisi¡¯s ferocity. Broken Soundwave was a rare spell that could shock the surrounding solid ice into pieces.


    It raised its head and spit out another giant tornado, blowing a hole in the fog that the water puppet had created. Within the tornado, countless ice arrows shot out from the middle and blocked off Nailisi¡¯s route of attack.


    Grade-6 ice arrows? Nailisi continued tough. The blue electric currents on the surface of her body shed and protected her from the hundreds of ice arrows, allowing her to dive straight into the middle of the tornado.


    There was a strange sound of collision as Nailisi¡¯s longnce struck the white bear king¡¯s forehead. The white bear king¡¯s skull managed to block the longnce, causing Nailisi¡¯s arm to break into more than ten ces.


    The white bear king¡¯s skull was harder than anyone could have imagined, but it could not prevent the shockwave caused by Nailisi¡¯s attack. Its brain was shocked into pieces as blood rushed out from its mouth and nose.


    Nailisi only had to sacrifice an arm in order to kill the white bear king and that made her look down on the magic beasts even more. She was of the same grade as the white bear king, but thetter actually tried to block her attack with its skull. Although its skull was indeed hard, its brain was as soft as beancurd.


    ¡°Rossen!¡± Nailisi shouted and pounced at another white bear amidst the fog.


    The water puppet was shaken. Nailisi was simply too strong. Herbat techniques were direct and effective, and also slightly unpredictable. His fog could not even get close to her.

 Chapter 851: The Powerful Must Attack (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 851: The Powerful Must Attack (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°You have to take the initiative to attack if you are powerful!¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice sounded across the ice surface. She was holding her longnce in another arm. She had four arms in total so one broken arm would not affect her too much.


    Credit had to go to Saleen¡¯s guidance. When Saleen used his n badge to train his mental strength, he would always drag Nailisi along to share the pain with him. Nailisi was already used to such pain, so even though her arm was broken into pieces, it was nothingpared to the negative effects after using the n badge.


    Nailisi had never been so confident in herself before. Killing the white bear king with one hit has fully induced the berserk attributes in her demon bloodline.


    The water puppet was also greatly shaken. He genuinely wanted an identity of his own that time, which was why he requested for Saleen to give him a name, so that he would not just simply disappear. Nailisi¡¯s action has struck fear in his heart in a way that he could not exin.


    If Nailisi was to die, she could not be revived like him, but the way she fought would definitely ce her on the brink of death on many asions.


    Those who are powerful must take the initiative to attack. The water puppet had managed to sessfully spring surprise attacks on a few grade-9 magic beasts, but when surrounded by five white bears, he had transformed into a puddle of water on the ground with no intentions to attack. If he continued to attack, his body would be damaged by the counter-reaction of crystal finger.


    ¡°Rossen, in order to be a human, you must first force Master to acknowledge that you are no longer a puppet. You have to be like me. Face danger without backing down!¡± Nailisi shouted as she charged down the remaining five white bears.


    Some of the green fluid on the ground began to tremble as the water elements on the water puppet¡¯s body congregated together as they wanted to support Nailisi in taking down the remaining five white bears.


    The water puppet was convinced by what Nailisi said. He did not wish to lose his senses and his past. If Saleen did not acknowledge him, then what meaning was there?


    At that point in time, something unexpected happened. The five white bears suddenly struck the ice surface with their huge paws, producing huge craters before jumping in.


    Fleeing without putting up a fight was not something that grade-9 creatures would do.


    This was something that rarely urred on the Maind. Even if grade-9 magic beasts were severely injured, they would still battle to the death against their enemies. Although the white bears were powerful, they were also creatures that lived in amunity. Once the three white bear kings died, they lost any will to fight and decided that they might as well flee.


    Nailisi felt a tinge of regret. There were more than ten spirits of the dead waiting below for the white bears, but even if the former sprung a surprise attack, the least that they could leave behind was one white bear. There was no way they would be able to kill all the prey.


    Nevertheless, her regret was that she had managed to provoke the water puppet into fighting once again, but in the end, the five white bears chose to escape instead. As a result, her n for the water puppet to be severely injured had failed.


    It was true that the strong must take the initiative to attack as that would breed more courage and strength. The more powerful one¡¯s heart was, the better it was for future development. If the water puppet did not possess crystal finger, he really only possessed the abilities of a grade-8 mage. Facing a group of grade-9 magic beasts, it was not shameful no matter what a grade-9 mage chose to do.


    Even someone as powerful as Joey would choose to escape if he knew that he could not defeat the enemy.


    If all mages were determined to fight to the death no matter who their enemies were, then mages would probably be on the brink of extinction. Mages had limited magic chords within a fixed amount of time; hence they would never be able to fight as long as grand swordmasters due to the limited number of spells they could cast.


    It was unfortunate that Nailisi had to sacrifice one of her arms! Nailisi cursed in her heart. After she returned to her form as an imp, she ignored the water puppet and continued to lead the demons in retrieving the magic nuclei from the eleven white bears.


    The water puppet was overwhelmed by Nailisi¡¯s stature. Even after he reverted to human form, he did not fight with Nailisi over the spoils.


    The skulls of the white bears were incredibly hard. The demons were unable to open them despite trying all ways and means. The equipment that they carried was all magic weapons, but it was all useless against the white bear skulls.


    White bears often used their teeth to attack their targets, which were usually powerful creatures in the ocean. Attacking from such a close range meant that their brains were susceptible to attacks. If their skulls were not hard enough, it would be difficult for the white bears to even hunt for food. At the edge of Oceanic Ice Block, the magic beasts were made of simr structures and builds that were harder than most of the special equipment refined by the alchemists on the Myers Maind.


    Nailisi was frustrated by the demons¡¯ck of intelligence and had no choice but to do it herself. After gathering the corpses of all the white bears, she used her fingernails to cut open their skins to peel apart and reveal the skull within.


    Then, she pulled apart the skull easily and dug her hands deep into the brain to retrieve the magic nuclei.


    As Nailisi put her hands into the skulls of the white bears, the water puppet was watching from the side and was full of admiration. Each white bear was longer than ten yards and the diameter of its brain was close to two yards. Nailisi pulled it apart easily without any cracking of the bones.


    The method of pulling apart the bones and cutting off the fascia was highly rted to Nailisi¡¯s powerful ability of observation. She had never encountered a white bear before, but whatever she had just done, it was as if she had practiced it thousands of times. White bears¡¯ fascia was abnormally resilient. Nailisi used her fingernails to slice them apart gently and the white bear¡¯s skull split open without a sound.


    An ordinary middle-grade magic beast would have been easily shredded into pieces by Nailisi¡¯s fingernails.


    Nailisi was happy to see that, although the brain upied a very small space in the skull, the magic nucleus was huge. That seemed to be a trait that was shared by all the living creatures that were found near the Oceanic Ice Block. Their magic nuclei were many times bigger than living creatures in other regions of the sea.


    What made Nailisi even happier was that there were four magic nuclei in each white bear¡¯s skull!


    As Nailisi retrieved the magic nuclei one by one, she realized that the magic nuclei of the three white bear kings were all of the same size while at least one of the magic nuclei of the other white bears were slightly smaller than the others.


    The four magic nuclei were all of different attributes but were very clean and pure. They were probably the best grade-9 magic nuclei that Nailisi had ever seen. In terms of size, each of them was about half a yard in diameter. The magic nuclei practically upied the entire skull. If not for the fact that the white bear¡¯s skull was so unique in that the space at the bottom of the skull was so huge, it would have been difficult to take out all the magic nuclei.


    Magic nuclei from magic beasts rarely possessed only a single attribute. The four magic nuclei from the white bear possessed very different attributes. To a mage, magic nuclei of single attributes were not suitable for training but were suitable for battles instead.


    ¡°These are good stuff,¡± Nailisi thought to herself as her back faced the water puppet. ¡°Damn the water puppet. If he wasn¡¯t around, I may even have kept the magic nuclei for myself. Forget it, I will have more opportunities once we manage to find the single-horned white whale cemetery. Master is too generous. He is willing to share everything he has. I must secretly store some for myself in case Master fails on the Myers Maind, so we can still start over again on the demon dimension. There are so many enemies if we continue to mix around with Lex. I must help Master to make backup ns.¡±


    The water puppet had never thought about all that. Other than admiring Nailisi, he was also thinking about her saying that the stronger party should strike first.


    The five white bears underwater were surrounded by more than ten spirits of the dead. The soul mes of four of them had suddenly dissipated, leaving their bodies to disintegrate in the sea. An area of two miles had be extremely poisonous due to the spirits of the dead dissolving themselves.


    Grade-9 white bears were creatures that lived on the ice. They did not breathe underwater, so their reactions to the poison released by the spirits was dyed. The powerful poison seeped into their fur and skin. By the time they sensed its presence, the poison had already entered their bloodstream.


    At that point in time, the ancientbat vessel got closer while the dragon skeletonbat vessel came to theyer of ice. After retrieving the magic nuclei, Nailisi stored the corpses in her bracelet. The earlier the magic nuclei were retrieved, the purer they were. Unless they belonged to a creature above grade-12, otherwise they would have been polluted in the magic beast¡¯s brain.


    The five white bears might have been poisoned, but that did not affect their speed as they ran towards the north for their lives.


    ¡°Rossen,e back.¡± Saleen quickly shouted from the dragon skeletonbat vessel when he saw that the water puppet was about to chase after the white bears. He had also heard what Nailisi had said. He had been within three miles and Nailisi¡¯s voice was extremely loud.


    When Nailisi was in her devil-form, her overwhelming presence forced all creatures below grade-9 to flee. That meant there were no magic beasts within ten miles.


    Most of the time, magic beasts in the sea would suppress their aura to help them in their hunting. Once they released powerful aura, it served as a warning to others not to approach their territory.


    Saleen knew Nailisi too well. Only he understood Nailisi¡¯s intention when she purposely tried to provoke the water puppet. Nailisi seemed to be unhappy with the water puppet, and if Saleen did not do anything about it, Nailisi would cause the water puppet¡¯s death sooner orter. To Nailisi, it did not matter if water puppet died one more time. He could be repaired again with the Shenhe.


    Saleen was keen to find out if the water puppet would eventually be a human that possessed a soul. To a mage, that was more important than a water puppet¡¯s loyalty.


    That was because once mages advanced past grade-10, they would begin to study the mystery behind souls. It was rare for knowledge on souls to be passed down and everyone¡¯s understanding of souls was different. Saleen believed that if he could witness how a soul was produced, he would have no difficulty advancing to grade-10 and beyond.


    The powerful side must strike first? What a stupid theory. It was just a lie. The powerful side must survive until the end to be the truly powerful one.


    Nevertheless, he could not expose Nailisi. There was never an option to back down in terms of the passing down of his magic. The water puppet¡¯s spells came from Saleen. If Saleen was not firm enough, the water puppet might not be able to advance even if Saleen advanced. Once he had given the water puppet a name, he became responsible for thetter¡¯s training.


    As a puppet without magic chords or a mage without magic chords, Rossen¡¯s path in the future was going to be extremely difficult.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi rushed onto the dragon skeletonbat vessel with a smile. She took out a huge magic nucleus and said, ¡°See? We are going to be rich this time!¡±


    ¡°You...¡± Saleen sighed and said, ¡°Keep it for yourself. Help me slice it when you are free.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Nailisi smiled to herself and kept the huge magic nucleus. She was pleased. As expected, Master did not me her. Rossen would not be so lucky the next time.

 Chapter 852: Tainted Blood Armor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 852: Tainted Blood Armor (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Ancient made for the area where the floating ice was more closely packed together slowly. Magic shields of several yards thick were conjured on the more than three-hundred yard wide body of the ship. The pure water element shield swirled around the ships surface, which would only be drained when running into one of the pieces of floating ice.


    When the ice and the shield of the Ancient collided, small pieces of ice simply drifted elsewhere, whilerger ones were crushed.


    The Mechanical Soul took the risk and turned on twelve magic power furnaces, activating the ship¡¯s defense mechanisms. The most rudimentary defenses had no weaknesses about them.


    Nailisi shut herself in the hold and appreciated her prize from her hunt, the magic nuclei, one by one. The magic nuclei of the white bears were totally different from the beasts¡¯ on the maind. They were sizesrger than anyone would have expected. That was due to the fact that living in ces such as the oceanic ice block meant that one would have had to be able to fight drawn-out fights to survive. Being a grade-9 magic beast hardly guaranteed one¡¯s safety, as the mid-level beasts in the sea could have easily numbered in the tens of thousands. The beasts were ferocious when attacking in packs, and some came equipped with skills or properties capable of dismantling magic defenses.


    The teeth of imps like Luoluokaluo were more frightening than those of dragons, and that was Luoluokaluo¡¯s only reliable weapon before maturing. If a dragon was said to be able to chew on metal without difficulties, then Luoluokaluo¡¯s could be able to grind crystallized metals to dust.


    Nailisi usually hid her true imp form using ultimate shapeshifting, but the skill did not affect her demon form¡¯s powers at all. Her mouth was still capable of opening to horrifying levels, and the sharp teeth within were capable of snapping the throat of anyrge creature.


    Cutting magic nuclei with her teeth was something Nailisi became very, very familiar with. The magic nuclei fished out from the sunken ships were never truly cut. Ancient humans only process magic nuclei when they needed to use them, as the standards of ancient magic arrays and equipment were so numerous andplicated that mages had headaches over them. As such, ancient mages only kept their magic nuclei in their primitive forms.


    Mages helped the winged skeleton with managing the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel¡¯s defenses carefully in their respectively rooms. The very reason why Saleen brought the mages to sea that time was to enable thespersonal mages to get familiar with using warships in battles.


    Saleen, on the other hand, was having a talk with the water puppet in the control room.


    ¡°Rossen, you did well this time. If you are to continue using the crystal finger skill however, your body will suffer irreversible damage again. You might end up losing yet another part of your consciousness in time.¡±


    ¡°But my liege, Nailisi, she...¡±


    ¡°You have inherited my skills, and that made you a mage. The only thing a mage can trust, is their own magic. You should be like me, calctive. Don¡¯t try to be a hero when you are facing someone that you can¡¯t beat. Rossen, you aren¡¯t like me. While you can resurrect yourself indefinitely, every resurrection will take something important away about you from you. This is just like death to us humans, and it¡¯s irreversible.¡±


    ¡°Lose something important about me?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you in the past were just like me, yet the you right now, cowers. That is because you are weak, you are stubborn, you are not confident of yourself.¡±


    ¡°I have lost...true courage!¡±


    ¡°Yes, when death bes the price you pay for victory every time you fight someone bigger and stronger than you, you will gradually lose courage. You wille to believe in fate. That is something astrologist believe, Rossen. You are a mage. You need to believe in yourself.¡±


    ¡°My liege, let me think about this,¡± the water puppet was still unable to forget what Nailisi said. When Saleen fought, there was an indomitable aura about him, which caused the water puppet immense envy. It wanted to also became such a person.


    ¡°Then think hard about this. This is a space ring I got from my teacher. Not something of high levels, but it should do you just fine. Take this mage robe, and the magic staff too,¡± Saleen took out one equipment after another, and put them in Rossen¡¯s hands, before continuing, ¡°From here on out, I will try not to summon you back to the Shenhe. If...if you like, consider yourself a human then. Humans, are afraid of death.¡±


    The water puppet mumbled to itself after sending Saleen off, ¡°Humans...are afraid of death? Nichs, so you are afraid of death then?¡±


    Nichs was looking at the winged skeleton controlling the vessel and avoiding the floating ice as best as they were able to, when the water puppet asked. Nichs then answered, ¡°Of course I¡¯m afraid of death, except when protecting our lord.¡±


    ¡°So you would not fear death when protecting our lord?¡±


    ¡°No. I¡¯m afraid still. It is just that my future is tied to that of our lord. If he dies, my future will cease to exist. If that is the case, I might just end up dead,¡± Nichs answered in a calm manner.


    The Winged Skull looked far away from the crystal window, thinking that he could finally hand the control of the ship to the mages. He had been listening to the conversation between the water puppet and Nichs the whole time, and his head turned to give an eerie smirk.


    ¡°I don¡¯t quite care if Nichs is telling the truth. The old guy is still better than Nailisi. At the very least, he is helping master to shape the water puppet¡¯s character.¡± The water puppet existed as Saleen¡¯s weapon, and it should not have been a person. From the perspective of the winged skeleton, a mage¡¯s research interest and advancement needs, were nowhere as meaningful as having a reliable puppet.


    The water puppet was able to cast Crystal Finger in Saleen¡¯s ce, which was his greatest attack other than the badge. If the water puppet was to fear sacrificing itself in the future, and had Saleen cast the Crystal Finger personally, the number of times such an eerie spell could be cast was probably less than half of the water puppet could. The power would also drop drastically.


    Saleen was, after all, a creature of flesh and blood. The recovery rate of God¡¯s Left Hand was far slower than that of the water puppet.


    Nichs was actually using another method to get the water puppet to be loyal to Saleen. While it was true that the possibility of the water puppet betraying Saleen was near nil, Saleen¡¯s Shenhe was nheless able to take it back anytime. Regardless, if the water puppet refused to fight, that alone would be a great loss on Saleen¡¯s part.


    The winged skeleton was unable to figure out the reason Saleen had the water puppet learn fear.


    ¡°My liege?¡±, the winged skeleton was unable to help but asked, and called for Saleen in his mind.


    ¡°What is wrong, Soldier?¡±, Saleen was surprised. It had been quite a while since the winged skeleton called out to him since he advanced.


    ¡°Rossen should have proved most useful to you when it didn¡¯t fear death.¡±


    ¡°Soldier, one will only cherish something once they learn to fear losing it. Life is more than just offering oneself. I¡¯m no god. I don¡¯t need believers,¡± Saleen seemed to jump around the ce with his words, but the winged skeleton understood nheless, and remained silent afterwards.


    He thought some deep private thoughts to himself; ¡°My liege, I do not fear death at all, yet I cherish things nheless.¡±


    Saleen walked to Nailisi¡¯s room, with several doubles of the Mechanical Soul behind him. Saleen was able to have the doubles do anything he wished, just like the Mechanical Soul. His will and whim alone were more than enough to determine the life or death of the doubles.


    ¡°Don¡¯te along. Go help the winged skeleton out instead,¡± Saleen did not bother turning his head to address them, refusing the mechanical doubles¡¯ protection. He was under the winged skeleton¡¯s protection no matter where he was on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. The entire ship was akin to the winged skeleton¡¯s extension. If any idents were to happen to him on the ship, the perpetrator could have been said to possessbat capacity exceeding both his and the winged skeleton¡¯sbined.


    The Mechanical Soul cursed on the Ancient following just three miles away from their ship. It was directing its anger at the Lord of Glory. It discovered that the act of directing its anger at Saleen when it cursed, even when it did so without cursing out loud, would make it suffer retribution nheless. It did not stop it from cursing at others instead.


    That piece of broken jade seemed to be monitoring its actions deep within its soul me without rest. The Mechanical Soul had circumvented such scrutiny by equating Saleen with the Lord of Glory. it stopped itself entirely from thinking about Saleen when cursing at the Lord of Glory, and doing so kept it from being punished. Or rather, Saleen was more willing to hear it curse at the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°Lord of Glory, you piece of good-for-nothing, why won¡¯t you just let me go peek at Nailisi? That woman, that demon! If I ever get the chance to do so, I will tear each and every one of you Holy Masters myself, and then rape her! Curse you, gods, demons, damned ones, pig scraps, rusted parts...¡±


    The doubles were unable to enter Nailisi¡¯s room and so went somewhere else. They were spying on Saleen¡¯s people on the Mechanical Soul¡¯s orders, especially Nailisi and the winged skeleton. Everything on the ship was under the winged skeleton¡¯s control, and the mechanical doubles were unable to get any chance of snooping on anything.


    The Mechanical Soul was unsatisfied at how Saleen treated it like a ve, butws like Eternal Control exceeded its level by way too much. There was no chance for it to truly break itself free from Saleen¡¯s control, even if it was to advance to grade-10, grade-11 or even grade-12. As such, the Mechanical Soul began to concern itself with everything happening around Saleen, looking for ways for it to undo such control over it. What it was attempting was somewhat like what the Three Kings attempted. Despite knowing that the odds were insurmountable, they were willing tomit themselves to such attempts throughout their lives.


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Saleen walked into Nailisi¡¯s room and cast a Mute Enchantment, isting the sound within the room from the outside world. Even if he did not to do so, the winged skeleton would have done it.


    ¡°Master?¡±, Nailisi put down therge magic nucleus in her hand and stopped chewing. She put the magic nucleus shards aside, stood up, and came to stand before Saleen.


    ¡°I will let Rossen¡¯s case slide for now. Don¡¯t do it again. I need to see what it is like for a soul to be born. The secrets of the soul will prove important to my advancement. I need to be a grade-10 mage, just so that I can stay alive, andplete...,¡± he had not spoke of the contract with the Goddess of Myers with Nailisi. He was not even allowed to breathe a word of it to her. Nailisi was nheless able to guess that Saleen was troubled by something huge, something that she was not allowed to ask about.


    ¡°Alright, master,¡± Nailisi smiled like a child at him. She knew that Saleen never intended to punish her. While other demons might have taken advantage of this to try to control Saleen¡¯s emotions, Nailisi would not even considered such a thing.


    ¡°I want to take a look at the ancient warriors. The sealed rooms on the Ancient have a good bunch of them. If something were to happen, I wouldn¡¯t be able to protect the Mechanical Soul. I need to look into it.¡±

 Chapter 853: Tainted Blood Armor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 853: Tainted Blood Armor (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There had been eight ancient warriors under Cloudflow control on the Ancient. There was only one of them that proved more powerful, and it ended up torn apart. Two ended up pped by the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel into the sea and eaten by magic beasts. The remaining five were eventually thrown into Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of ice.


    ¡°Master, I have yet to gain control of these ancient warriors. It seems like they entered sleep mode on their own,¡± Nailisi did not take out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, and chose to warn Saleen instead.


    Saleen hesitated, then said, ¡°Take me there.¡±


    He did not dare to let the ancient warriors out. If they were to run amok, it would again proved to be a case of why grade-9 powerful humans were ten times more difficult to deal with than grade-9 magic beasts.


    Nailisi nodded and brought Saleen into the purgatory of ice.


    The collection of purgatories had more and more items in them. Among them were branches of divine trees, broken souls of sorts, bones of powerful magic beasts, and other rare items. If the Twelve Notes of Purgatory were able to be fixed, Nailisi would have dly gave all of them up.


    There was a piece ofrge crystal hanging in the sky in the purgatory of ice. A very pointy hexagonal awn pointed downwards. It seemed as if it would touch the ground at any moment.


    The ground was covered with transparent ice. As the purgatory of ice was still undergoing repairs, there was hardly anyplex terrain. All there was to see was nds so smooth that they shone like a mirror.


    Five huge pieces of ice stood on the smooth ground, within the ancient warriors standing in silence within, their eyes closed.


    Saleen came before one of the huge ice blocks and opened his Elemental Eye to observe the ancient warrior within in detail. He finally figured out something about them when up close and personal.


    The tainted blood armor equipped on the bodies on the ancient warriors were also some kind of magic equipment. Every single te looked like blood clots and had six elemental points on them.


    Elemental points were something that reced magic arrays on magic equipment, as there was no need for effects derived from magic arrays on the equipment. The effects would hardly be of use most of the time. As such, every single basicponent of the magic equipment would have six elemental points on them, allowing for the bncing of magic power when passing through the parts.


    Elemental points were weaknesses; all of them were designed only on internalponents. The elemental points on that particr tainted blood armor were no exception. If Saleen did not have the elemental eye, he would not have understood those points. Under normal inspections, the tainted blood armor would have been thought of as only normal equipment, having jaw-dropping defense only due to being made of materials of exceptional quality.


    The tainted blood armor was designed so that elemental resonance was used to connect the elemental points, without use of any connecting magic patterns. That was what made the tainted blood armor a truly intricate piece of equipment. The impact withstood by every te was actually dispersed between every single te on the armor.


    The tainted blood armor seemed to share simrities with Qin equipment. Large tes were used on the chest and back area, while the tes everywhere else were small. The strength of the small pieces were no different than therge ones. Having more tes simply meant having higher overall defense rating.


    A designbining the use of elemental points and elemental resonance ced immense requirements on the materials used. Saleen knew that there were still other secrets to it than just those designs. The tainted blood armor would not be able to withstand high level magic attacks otherwise, and more so would not let the ancient warriors possess an edge in the interdimensional wars.


    The ancient warrior within the ice seemed to sense Saleen¡¯s scrutiny, and their eyes popped open in response. The ice crystal before them cracked, forming a long crack which extended to the surface of the ice block.


    Saleen cursed under his breath. ¡°Is this the power of their bodies?¡± The durable ice of the purgatory of ice was as strong as steel. The ancient warrior was able crack it by simply opening their eyes! ¡°If one such being is to punch me on the body, even a grade-7 water shield would prove dangerously inadequate.¡± Saleen became unsure about his chances at withstanding such powerful melee shes.


    Nailisi stepped forward, standing in Saleen¡¯s way.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°It¡¯s alright. I have this with me,¡± he showed Nailisi the Crystal Ring on his finger. He would not have handed the ring to the water puppet, as he would be able to try using the ring personally without suffering any damage to his body, when he had reached Raphael¡¯s level one day.


    Even at that moment, Saleen would be able to give up the flesh of his left hand to unleash the full power of Crystal Finger. Even the tainted blood armor of the ancient warrior would not have proved enough to withstand the Crystal Finger¡¯s attack at such a close distance.


    Raphael could have been said to be the most talented mage seen for the past one-thousand years or so. The magic he created had offensive powers so fearsome that it would not have been able to differentiate using levels. The ferocious attack of the water element was able to crush just about anything. There was no limit to how much damage the Crystal Finger could have done, so long as the user was able to withstand the resulting recoil.


    ¡°Alright, master. Just be careful. This thing...,¡± Nailisi did not continue. She instead took out a Dragon Crystal Needle. The needle served as her way to attack at close range. Tiny needles crafted from dragon crystals were able to break through grade-9 defense when shot. She had no surety of being able to kill grade-9 mages with it, but prating grade-9 a magic array defense would prove very easy.


    Magic arrays were dead things while people were living things. The ancient warrior had no intelligence to speak of. Nailisi¡¯s Dragon Crystal Needed would be able to break the tainted blood armor¡¯s defense and break any one of the ancient warrior¡¯s bones.


    Saleen kept observing with his elemental eye. There was yet another ancient warrior corpse with him. That one was chopped into six pieces, and the tainted blood armor of that warrior was destroyed. Without the connection to the user left intact, it had little value for research.


    Most ancient magic equipment of low levels was as such.


    The ancient warriors were hardly more than foot soldiers back in their day. If they were to die in battle, the equipment worn and used by them would not have been permitted to be taken back by the enemy for research. They would self-destruct one way or another, preventing them from being used for research.


    Saleen¡¯s elemental eye and the ancient warriors¡¯ eyes met. He had developed some understanding of the soul. The warriorscked more than just life signs; theycked any sign of souls within them as well.


    How was it possible for an empty shell without a soul retain thebat capacity from when it had been alive? If the soldiers were puppets, then why were there no magic arrays within their eyes?


    Sight was indispensable if a puppet was to be able to fight like a human. As such, even metallic puppets were installed with a pair of magic eyes. The magic arrays within allowed them to work like the pupils of human eyes, as well as capture images of battle quickly and analyze them. The hooked puppet that Saleen and Lex acquired hadyers of three-dimensional magic arrays in its eyes, enabling it to capture the images of a width exceeding that of most magic beasts.


    It was hardly known how the ancient warrior before his eyes was able to fight, and worse still, fight like a human!


    Crack...boom!


    Tens of cracks appeared on the durable ice covering the ancient warrior. The tes of the tainted blood armor all vibrated, increasing the number of cracks on the ice crystal that were several yards thick sharply. Cracking sounds were heard continuously, as the ancient warrior held on to the spear in their hand, bent their knee and began walking out.


    Loud booms were heard as Nailisi flew at the now-flying broken pieces of ice. She had a spear in her hand as well, which she thrust ferociously at the ancient warrior who had just broken out of the ice.


    Nailisi learned the way of the spear from J. While she was no where near J¡¯s caliber with a spear, she was definitely better at it than the ancient warrior. The warrior¡¯s movementscked fluidity and finesse. They could not have been called a grade-9 professional if it was not for its immense strength. Nailisi¡¯s spear attacks worked like a snake, snaking about and not being able to be detected, while the spearhead seemed to vibrate on its own. Despite such eerie movements, it nheless was able to keep the warrior¡¯s head in ce, no matter how the warrior moved about. The strike would have eventuallynded between the warrior¡¯s brows.


    Bothbatants were less than ten yards away from each other. The length of a spear was about three and a half yards, it was a military weapon. A grade-9 professional would have only needed to slide their feet, instead of lifting them, to close such distances.


    The ancient warrior¡¯s spear thrust upwards, hitting the tip of Nailisi¡¯s spear. That was where a spear was at its weakest, yet also a point of force application. Under usual circumstances, Nailisi would not have been able to hold her spear tight even if she had far greater strength than the warrior.


    The spear in the ancient warrior¡¯s hand lost all magical powers long ago. Being constructed of magic metals alone would not have allowed it to withstand corrosion umted for tens of thousands of years. The warrior¡¯s spear snapped as their weapons shed, with their spearhead flying straight upwards. It lodged the spear into the ice crystal hanging above.


    Nailisi gained the edge of having a working weapon. She thrust her spear forward and managed to stab into the warrior¡¯s brow. There was no tainted blood armor to get in the way in such a spot.


    Saleen had not even moved for half a step the whole time. His element eye saw even more during such a short period of time. The tainted blood armor seemed to have resonated with the warrior¡¯s body as Nailisiunched her attack. Such powerful resonances allowed for the warrior to boost their armor, giving it an even higher defense rating.


    Grade-9 soldiers were more than cannon fodder even in ancient times; they were elite troops. When the armor on their bodies managed to meld with their own physical powers, the resulting defense achieved would be far greater than contemporary armor of even holy equipment levels.


    The holy equipment crafted by mages of their current day hardly qualified as elite equipment during ancient times.


    If the connection between magic and sword aura was able to be made clear, the crafting of such equipment would have been possible, allowing sword aura practitioners to enhance power of magic equipment to the fullest like mages did.


    The very reason why Saleen was unable to seed with the crafting of his Devil Flying Armor was because it was a piece of equipment relying entirely on the power of the suit alone. It was a given that the drain would have been immense, and the warrior wearing it would have been unable to work with the suit effectively. Someone wearing the Devil Flying Armor would have been unable to fight effectively airborne, just like mid-level mages.


    Saleen had learned the secrets of the tainted blood armor.


    Nailisi¡¯s spear pierced into the warrior¡¯s head, which then blew up the head of the warrior when she twisted it. The helmet remained intact and totally unscathed. Nailisi let go of her spear and backed down. She then took out a horse-killing sword and went straight for the warrior¡¯s waist.


    The warrior¡¯s body convulsed. With a loud tang, a few tes fell off the tainted blood armor from the sh, but the weapon was unable tond on the waist of the warrior properly. Nailisi let go of her weapon again.


    The ancient warrior did still possess the ability to retaliate. They took one step forward, with the spear still lodged in their head, and threw a punch at Nailisi¡¯s torso. The sword was still lodged in the armor of the warrior¡¯s waist area.

 Chapter 854: The Fate of Ancient Warriors (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 854: The Fate of Ancient Warriors (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen still did not back down. He pointed his magic staff and instantaneously, an ice wall that was four yards tall appeared from the ground. In the Purgatory of Ice, Saleen¡¯s water-element spells became stronger. The grade-8 spell blocked the ancient warrior¡¯s path. Thetter was going for a punch at Nailisi, but he crashed into the ice wall instead. He made a small crater in the wall and his arm was stuck in it.


    Ice attack!


    Six huge blocks of solid ice appeared and smashed into the ancient warrior from all directions. His head was smashed so badly that the longnce that was stuck in the helmet began to vibrate, grinding his skull into pieces within it.


    The ancient warrior was sealed by solid ice and the tainted blood armor tes on his body trembled violently. The huge ice bombs in Saleen¡¯s hands have already solidified and were evaporating quickly. When the ice bombs flew out, their surfaces have already evaporated and were burning with orange-red mes.


    The ancient warrior turned its head out of habit and looked in Saleen¡¯ direction. Nailisi¡¯s longnce was still stuck in his helmet. As the longnce had been frozen by the ice attack, the ancient warrior was still able to move its neck, but the longnce could not move.


    The twist of the neck broke its bones with a crack.


    After biding its time for tens of thousands of years before finally awakening, the ancient warrior¡¯s body had degenerated far too much. Their bodies were no longer as resilient as golden grand swordmasters or even silver grand swordmasters. The crack in the ancient warrior¡¯s neck eventually caused a downward chain reaction as cracks appeared throughout its entire spine.


    That was when Saleen suddenly retreated. He had already discovered the ancient warrior¡¯s secret, which was a sliver of life aura in the skeleton.


    It was the bone alchemy technique, which was a type of elemental alchemy. It was also the mostmon technique used in life alchemy.


    Life alchemy was a forbidden spell. Saleen had only seen it used by Imposa. He had never met any other elemental mages that dared to experiment with it.


    Cloudflow mages used the life alchemy technique to gain control of the ancient warriors¡¯ bodies. Such a technique would result in the warriors¡¯ souls being dissipated forever, so it would not be possible to refine them into spirits of the dead anymore.


    Once the warriors reached grade-9, theirbat memories were no longer stored only in their brains, but in their bodies too. Most of the time, grade-9 warriors did not even need to consciously think before they battled against their enemies.


    Mages understood that very well, which was why they would never stop attacking even though their grade-9 opponents might already be severely injured. They would also never use ordinary methods against grade-9 warriors.


    Since Saleen had already figured out that the grade-9 ancient warriors were being controlled by the bone alchemy technique, there was no need to experiment further. What he needed to do next was to focus on studying the tainted blood armor.


    The souls of the ancient warriors trapped on the ancientbat vessel must have yet to dissipate, or else the bone alchemy technique would not have been able to preserve the warriors¡¯ originalbat abilities. Their souls had already seeped into the skeletons of the warriors and would no longer be able to congregate again. They could no longer be refined into soul mes, much less turn into spirits of the dead.


    The ancient warrior had diedpletely. If it was in the past, Saleen would have admired the strange concept of the Cloudflow mages, but he was in the early stages of grasping the rule of eternal control and he was full of rage towards Cloudflow mages for tainting such precious objects.


    If they had not used alchemy techniques to destroy the souls of the ancient warriors, the warriors would have been able to preserve their originalbat abilities. They would have been much more powerful and not be limited to only grade-9.


    Due to theirck intelligence, these ancient warriors¡¯bat abilities wereparable to grade nine magic beasts.


    There were many soldiers in the cabins of the ancientbat vessel that were still unconscious. Once Saleen had the time, he would use eternal control to refine their souls one by one. If he was able to preserve a bit of rule of control and rule of lightning in the depths of the ancient warriors¡¯ souls, the warriors would then be able to reach the true powers of grade-9 warriors.


    The skeletons of the warriors would have degenerated due to time, resulting in their bodies to be slightly weaker, but their powers would still be able to be replicated close to perfection.


    They were a force that could conquer the entire Myers Maind. Alchemy City and Holy Rock City would not stand a chance against a force of grade-9 warriors.


    Nevertheless, Saleen was still very calm. Eternal control was a rule that was linked to his grade. He was only at grade-8, so there would be limitations if he wanted to control grade-9 warriors.


    Nailisi only had two more broken jades. If Saleen wanted to control even more powerful warriors, he would have to rely on himself to refine such equipment that would merge with souls.


    He would not be able to duplicate perfect broken jades, but he could replicate one-hundredth of its power. In that case, the number of grade-9 warriors that he could control would be extremely limited.


    What kind of person was controlling the Three Kings that he could refine an equipment that even Saleen could not replicate? That person might even be more powerful than Joey.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi saw how Saleen easily made a grade-9 ancient warrior lose all its power and break all its bones. She was full of admiration for Saleen.


    ¡°Master¡¯s intelligence has far surpassed that of the magic beasts.¡±


    An inappropriateparison appeared in Nailisi¡¯s head, but her assessment made sense. A human¡¯s intelligence could narrow the gap caused by the difference in grades. Saleen was a grade-8 mage that was controlling a warrior that possessed grade-9 power. The battle was won through Saleen¡¯s incredible observation and strategizing skills.


    ¡°Alright, finish it off,¡± Saleen sighed. The souls of the five ancient warriors had been dissipated by bone alchemy technique, so there was no way they could be revived. If he had controlled the ancient warriors, they would at least have the chance of turning into spirits of the dead.


    The solid ice broke into pieces. The ancient warrior broke through the grade-6 ice attack and turned thetter into broken shards of ice. The neck and spine of the ancient warrior hadpletely broken, and the warrior was no longer able to fight.


    Nailisi stepped forward and retrieved the longnce from the warrior¡¯s brain. She threw the longnce onto the ground before pulling the tainted blood armor off. The suit of armor had already been damaged, but Nailisi did not want to waste the corpse. She shredded the corpse into pieces and allowed the Purgatory of Ice to absorb them.


    As for the tainted blood armor, Nailisi threw it into the Purgatory of Bloodshed, which was in the midst of restoration.


    Five of Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory were in the midst of being restored. The Purgatory of Darkness was about to bepletely restored while the Purgatory of Ice was about one-thirdpleted. As for the Purgatories of me, Bloodshed, and Storm, they were all about one percent restored.


    After Nailisi has disposed of the ancient warrior¡¯s corpse, she led Saleen out of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Saleen suddenly said, ¡°Nailisi, there was a piece of broken jade in each of the soul mes of Banchajanna and Diyabannersa. Give them to me.¡±


    ¡°Ah! Master...¡±


    ¡°There aren¡¯t any? Then forget it.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes!¡± Nailisi had no choice but to take out the two pieces of broken jade and pass them to Saleen. She had not managed to study them properly, and only knew that they must be very powerful. Since Saleen asked for them, she could not possibly lie due to the soul bond between them. Saleen would know if she tried to lie.


    Nailisi did not wish to lose Saleen¡¯s trust.


    Saleenughed and said, ¡°Nailisi, there is no point for you to keep these small items. Let me study them. They might be used to control the ancient warriors on the ancientbat vessel.¡±


    ¡°Is that true? Master!¡±


    ¡°Of course, would I lie to you?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    ¡°Then, not this time.¡± There was nothing else Saleen could say when Nailisi was so straightforward. In the very beginning, signing the soul bond with Nailisi was already a deception. Back then, Saleen¡¯s grade was pathetically low. Nailisi would have been able to turn him into her food with minimal effort, but Saleen managed to trick Nailisi into signing the soul bond with him.


    ¡°Master, it is okay even if you lie to me. In any case, I am yours.¡± Nailisi batted her eyes and looked at Saleen with a flirtatious expression.


    ¡°I think you are... Go and find the winged skeleton and finish off all the remaining ancient warriors!¡± Saleen could neither reprimand nor ept Nailisi¡¯s efforts at flirting. Most of Nailisi¡¯s forms were terrifying, besides, it would be a joke for a mage to develop feelings for creatures bonded to him.


    ¡°Alright, I will go and look for that old fellow now. Master, please go ahead and get busy.¡± Nailisiughed and left her cabin.


    Saleen was in no mood to chat with Nailisi. He decided to take out a huge piece of ck crystal from Nailisi¡¯s room and used current cutter to slice it up into square pieces that were the size of the broken jades before refining equipment for eternal control.


    Outside of the cabin, five clones of the Mechanical Soul followed Nailisi. She suddenly stopped and turned back and said, ¡°If all of you keep following me, I will...¡±


    ¡°What can you do? We are all creatures bonded to Master with our souls. Don¡¯t think that...¡± The Mechanical Soul spoke through its clones, but before he could finish, Nailisi punched through the clone¡¯s chest and pulled out its soul me from its body.


    The faint golden-colored soul me was extremely thin and Nailisi swallowed it. The other clones were enraged, and all pounced onto Nailisi.


    ¡°What is the meaning of this!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice rang out from the cabin. Blue electric current shed across the depths of the soul mes in the clones. They all fell onto the floor and their soul mes had all dissipated.


    ¡°Genga, if you dare to have funny ideas about Nailisi, I will make sure your soul me vanishes forever. I will leave the ancientbat vessel here and summon one-hundred-thousand demons toe back and control it. Don¡¯t think I can¡¯t do without you!¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Master.¡± Nailisi stretched out her hands and threw the five clones into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory so that the metalponents of the spirits could be used to restore equipment.


    The Mechanical Soul was so furious that his soul me danced wildly, but he dared not say anything disrespectful. He did not expect Saleen to be protective of Nailisi to the extent of killing all four of his clones without even finding out who was in the wrong.


    If only one day...


    The Mechanical Soul managed to stop himself in time from thinking any bad thoughts. That was because he had noticed the blue electric current appearing between the soul mes and the broken jade was spinning violently.


    ¡°Damn you, Lord of Glory!¡± Mechanical Soul cursed before summoning all his clones on the dragon Skeletonbat vessel to return to the winged skeleton and await orders.


    Saleen has made it very clear. If the Mechanical Soul tried to do anything funny, Saleen was definitely vicious enough to kill himpletely.

 Chapter 855: The Fate of Ancient Warriors (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 855: The Fate of Ancient Warriors (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s fleet traveled very slowly as the ancientbat vessel led the way while the skeletal warship stayed at the rear to clean up the magic beasts in the sea that had been killed by the ancientbat vessel. The dragon skeletonbat vessel became Nailisi¡¯s ship. The winged skeleton decided to go to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat to continue looking for the route towards the Oceanic Ice Block at the bottom of the sea.


    The magicpass became dysfunctional asionally when they were near the Oceanic Ice Block. The mountains at the bottom of the sea did not change drastically, so they could be used to draw out a map of the underwater. It would be easier to enter the Oceanic Ice Block in future.


    They would cover two to three-hundred miles a day, and as the number of floating blocks of ice increased, the ancientbat vessel had to be more careful not to crash into them.


    If they were to crash into a floating block of ice head-on, the vessel¡¯s hardiness and the sharp horn at the front would be able to break the ice apart, but it would also use up the more expensive grade-9 magic nuclei. Saleen did not wish for such wastage to happen so the Mechanical Soul had no choice but to reduce its speed. He had no interest in seeking out the single-horned white whale cemetery because there was nothing in it for him.


    Saleen made use of that period of time to create twenty-four shards of eternal control. Saleen, Nailisi, Nichs, Eleanor, and the water puppet were on the Ancient.


    ¡°Genga, give me one-hundred clones and open up the smallest cabin. I need an ancient warrior.¡±


    ¡°Master, I cannot guarantee...¡±


    ¡°Just do it,¡± Saleen said impatiently. The Mechanical Soul was really disobedient. It was true that the Mechanical Soul did not have control over every single corner of thebat vessel, but there should be no danger in opening up a single cabin. There were more than one-thousand clones on the vessel and they were all extremely powerful and hard to kill.


    Controlling an ancient warrior on the vessel should not be a problem, yet the Mechanical Soul kept putting up a resistance. Saleen was irritated.


    ¡°Alright, Master, please follow me.¡± One of the clones bowed and opened one of the doors on the deck, inviting Saleen down the spiral staircase.


    The three levels above had been cleaned up thoroughly by the Cloudflow soldiers. The Mechanical Soul duplicated itself ording to the diagram, but there were only slightly more than one-thousand clones spread across the vessel that was more than a mile long and three-hundred yards wide. It seemed a bit too spacious.


    At the rear of the vessel, Saleen came to the fourth level. There was a hive structure in the cabin at the rear. The cabin was meant for tens of soldiers to sleep in and it was locked up by a red metal door. The shape of the door was circr with magic words carved into it. In the middle was aplicated magic lock.


    ¡°Open the door.¡± Nailisi stood on Saleen¡¯s left while Nichs stood on his right and Eleanor stood behind him. As the ce was narrow, there were only slightly more than ten clones around him.


    The Mechanical Soul had no choice but to devour the metal door. As the red metal door slowly became silver in color, the magic lock was decoded instantaneously by the Mechanical Soul. After tens of thousands of years, the magic lock was no longer supported by spells, so even middle-grade mages would be able to break it by using their magic chords.


    The Mechanical Soul knew that the warriors in the cabin were all asleep and they were all extremely powerful. Even at his current grade, he had no wish to face them. He had no choice since Saleen had given the order. He decided that he might as well devour all the metalponents of the cabin so that it was within his body.


    The door opened without a sound. Saleen did not dare to becent. He had manyyers of water shield underneath his ice te armor. He was familiar with how the ancient warriors fought by and was certain that such defensive measures would be able to block off one or two blows.


    After advancing to grade-7, his water shields would be able to reduce half of the warrior¡¯s attack.


    Inside the door was a simple rectangr-shaped cabin. The space was limited and there were forty beds ced on both sides. On each bedid an ancient warrior that was fully dressed for battle.


    The ancient warriors wore tainted blood armor. When the door opened, their eyes popped open immediately as they turned their necks and woke up from their sleep.


    Saleen did not expect the warriors to wake up immediately. ording to his estimation, the souls of the grade-9 warriors should be extremely weak and should take at least an hour to wake up. The amount of time required for souls to regain their powers was twelve times that of the reduction in elements.


    Fortunately, there were only forty of ancient warriors, which was much less than what Saleen estimated. His crystal ring had already been returned to the water puppet, so before the warriors could rush out, the water puppet was able to seal off the door long enough for the Mechanical Soul to close the door once again.


    At the end of the cabin was a rack of weapons. On the rack were forty longnces and half-swords that humans in the past loved to wield.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen saw ten warriors leap up from their beds and were about to charge out of the room. The remaining thirty warriors dashed to the weapon rack to pick up their longnces.


    Nailisi had no choice but to activate the Twelve Notes of Purgatory and the ten warriors fell straight into the Purgatory of Darkness. Nailisi dove in after them and turned into her devil-form once she was there. Out of her four arms, one of them had yet to recover. A powerful impact had broken one of her arm into several pieces when she was hunting a white bear king.


    Three arms were more than enough!


    Nailisi took out a longnce and a new giant shield. She smashed her shield down and all ten ancient warriors were within her attacking range.


    By then, the Purgatory of Darkness had more or less beenpletely restored. There was only silence when the giant shield smashed down. The warriors had only just regained consciousness and their souls had been close to dissipating. Even ancient spells like the one on them would not allow them to live past tens of thousands of years. The condition that the warriors were in could be considered as half dead.


    The mages that designed the Ancient in the past would never have imagined what was happening so far in the future.


    The ten warriors pierced their longnces upwards and into the shield. The shield was one yard thick and was extremely heavy. If Nailisi had not transformed into her devil-form and utilized the Power of the Giant Dragon, there was no way she could have raised the shield.


    In the boundless darkness, the senses of the warriors were at their lowest. After theirnces pierced into the shield, all of them were crushed by its weight.


    They had not been refined by the bone alchemy technique, so their heads were crucial yet unprotected. Tainted blood armor might possess powerful defense abilities, but they were no match for such a heavy metal shield. The ten warriors were in a daze after being crushed by Nailisi¡¯s shield. They tried to draw out their longnces, but they were crushed onto the ground by the shield once more.


    Boom!


    By the time they were crushed for the third time, there was a red light glowing on the surface of the warriors¡¯ bodies. Their heads passed through the shield while their bodies infused with it.


    Nailisi released her grip and the shield fell, with the upper bodies of the warriors on it.


    Blood-red aura and sword aura were different from each other, but their effects were the same. Nailisi¡¯s shield did not kill the ten warriors. Nailisi knew that this was because her weapon was not of good quality. If she had used the skull of the giant dragon on the dragon skeletonbat vessel, the grade-9 warriors were as good as dead.


    Nailisi had expected that oue. Back then, when her devil-form was considered to be very resilient, she had tried to step on a grade-9 Holy Master who was protected by Divine Protection. In the end, the Holy Master¡¯s body prated her foot and it took a long time for the injury to healpletely.


    Nailisi swept her longnce across and viciously struck the brains of the warriors stuck in the shield.


    That time around, Nailisi made use of the weight and length of the longnce, along with its speed and angle of attack to the maximum. Even the grade-9 warriors were no match for such an attack. The red aura was dissipated by Nailisi¡¯s longnce and the warriors were knocked into unconsciousness.


    Nailisi¡¯s longnce was like a giant dragon¡¯s tail in the darkness. She used it to whip the warriors into a daze before stabbing them to death with the sharp tip.


    In devil-form, she possessed power beyond grade-9. Nailisi was familiar with the fighting style and abilities of the warriors, so she was able to employ the strategy of subduing them with the shield, which was something that usually required the use of magic spells.


    After killing the ten warriors, she quickly left the Purgatory of Darkness and returned to the cabin.


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t worry.¡± Saleen stood there calmly. The thick metal door was already closed, but the magic lock could no longer be activated. The warriors inside were attacking the door with their weapons. Tips ofnces with bright red aura kept piercing through the door and it looked like they would eventually cut out a big hole.


    ¡°I will kill them all!¡± Nailisi said simply.


    ¡°Alright, just kill another six at most.¡± Saleen¡¯s reply left the Mechanical Soul feeling faint. No wonder Saleen did not want him crossing Nailisi¡¯s path. She was one vicious character.


    What the Mechanical Soul did not know was that the warriors had just regained consciousness. Since the Purgatory of Darkness could control the warriors¡¯ senses, the fight was always going to be one-sided.


    Boom!


    There was a sudden crash into the circr metal door and a hole appeared. A warrior that was exuding blood-red aura rushed out with a longnce aimed at Saleen¡¯s chest.


    The golden magic book in Saleen¡¯s hands flipped open and Endless Night was cast!


    The grade-9 warrior had rushed into darkness that knew no bounds. Darkness elements fed on his weapon and armor. If not for the protection by his red aura, he would have been melted into a part of the darkness by the grade-9 Endless Night.


    Saleen opened his elemental eyes and quickly found the central location of the warrior¡¯s Power of Life.


    ¡°Stone Statue Army!¡± Another grade-9 spell was unleashed from Saleen¡¯s devil armor. Six towering stone statues dashed out and blocked off the hole in the door. The stone statues had elemental bodies and six of them would be produced every minute for up to three hours. That technique might not be very useful to mages, but in such a small and narrow space, the six stone statues would be able to protect mages for a very long time.


    Eleanor nervously notched an arrow on Seven Nights. If Saleen made a mistake, she would have no choice but to shoot down the grade-9 warrior. If Eleanor failed, Nichs was already prepared to cast a Fallen Prophecy spell to stop time and save Saleen.

 Chapter 856: The Fate of Ancient Warriors (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 856: The Fate of Ancient Warriors (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The elemental stone statues blocked the exit of the cabin. Stone statues created by grade-9 spells could not be copsed easily. When the ancient warriors charged forward and pierced theirnces through the abdomen of the stone statue soldiers, the shafts turned into stone instantaneously. The red light flickered, and the longnces broke. The stone statue soldiers swung their fists at the warriors, who quickly retreated back into the cabin.


    Saleen had already taken out his magic staff and two rows of magic light shone. A grade-8 spell and a grade-9 spell appeared outside of the metal cabin door at the same time. When the ancient warriors at the rear dashed out, the two spells locked onto their targets.


    The spells were Frosty Thorns and Soul Fossilization.


    The red aura on the legs of the second ancient warrior that charged out was struck by the spells. It dimmed, and in an instant, both legs were tangled up in frosty thorns and became frozen.


    His body was struck by Soul Fossilization and the tainted blood armor turned green in color. Saleen stepped forward and under the protection of the six towering stone statue soldiers, approached the warrior who had been fossilized. He inserted a shard of Eternal Control into the forehead of the warrior.


    Nailisi rushed to Saleen¡¯s side and threw the warrior into the Purgatory of Ice. It would take three to five days to see the effects of utilizing Eternal Control that way.


    The stone statue soldiers did not wield any weapons and continued to block the cabin entrance and the ancient warriors. The six of them were up against yet another grade-9 warrior that had just regained consciousness and they managed to fossilize him as well. Again, Saleen inserted a shard of Eternal Control into the forehead of the warrior.


    In the instant when the shard of Eternal Control was inserted into the body, the soul that was on the brink of being dissipated quickly dove into the shard, as if it was quietly catching its breath there.


    Once again, the second grade-9 warrior was also thrown into the Purgatory of Ice to wait for Eternal Control to take effect.


    What they were doing was actually very risky. Saleen was a mage yet had to get so close to the body of the grade-9 warrior in order to insert the shard. If the stone statues made any mistakes, Saleen would be in grave danger.


    Two of the six elemental stone statue soldiers stood behind Saleen, one on the left and one on the right. When the third warrior charged out, the two stone statue soldiers attacked from both sides, but the warrior suddenly increased his speed and the stone fists missed their target totally. The warrior¡¯s longnce wasing towards Saleen¡¯s abdomen and managed to pierce through multipleyers of water shield before finallying to a stop at the Ice te Armor.


    Saleen tried to back off, but Nailisi managed to use her tail to wrap around his waist and pull him behind her.


    The ancient warrior¡¯s longnce lost its target. The red aura on the tip became intense and shot towards Nailisi¡¯s eyes like a serpent. Nailisi took two steps back before the stone statue soldiers smashed at the longnce with their fists.


    Saleen remained calm and took out another magic staff. He only had sixty magic staffs at the moment and had wanted to give them to his followers. Regardless of if they had advanced into sorcerers or not, he would give each of them a strong magic staff as a form of congrattion. The magic staffs already stored magic spells and were meant to be used in the Oceanic Ice Block. In order to control the ancient warriors on thebat vessel, Saleen had no choice but to use them.


    Nichs and Eleanor were more nervous than Saleen. When the ancient warrior¡¯s longnce pierced into Saleen¡¯s Ice te Armor, Eleanor almost shot her arrow and Nichs almost cast his divine spell. On the other hand, after Saleen was saved by Nailisi¡¯s tail. He calmly took out a new magic staff and cast another grade-9 spell, which was Absolute Zero.


    The water puppet had mixed feelings as he watched Saleen battling. Saleen wanted him to learn how to treasure his own life more, yet Saleen himself was fighting against a grade-9 opponent. Saleen was a mage and not a swordsman.


    The water puppet carefully observed Saleen and every move he made. Ever since he signed the bond, he was no longer able to obtain Saleen¡¯s thoughts and could only send information to Saleen. In his eyes, Saleen became an even bigger and more impressive figure...


    Suddenly, the water puppet crossed both his hands and performed aplicated magic gesture. A Frosty Thorn tangled the legs of another warrior that had managed to dodge the stone statues¡¯ fists.


    Saleen smiled. He did not need to speak much to the water puppet. The water puppet would gradually learn about what kind of person Saleen was. All of the water puppet¡¯s magic abilities came from him, so what other choice did he have?


    Fortunately, Saleen received guidance from Jason at the crucial moment when he was about to advance to grade-9. That was when he understood the weakness of his magic and began to change his attitude towards battles.


    Two grade-8 mages and six grade-9 elemental creatures were blocking off ancient warriors in a narrow opening. Grade-8 and grade-9 spells appeared one after another. Saleen and the water puppet worked well with each other and never considered the possibility of retreating. They were determined to make sure that the ancient warriors would be blocked in the cabin and would not be able to attack all at once.


    All twenty-four shards of Eternal Control had been inserted into the ancient warriors. The warriors were thrown into the Purgatory of Ice while the remaining four ancient warriors were killed, and their corpses were also thrown into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Saleen used up half an hour¡¯s time to settle the forty warriors. Twelve of the elemental stone statue warriors had been destroyed, and when Saleen finally terminated the spell, there were still another twelve elemental stone statue soldiers waiting outside of the cabin for Saleen¡¯smands.


    Saleen was full of mental strength and could control even more warriors, except that he did not have enough time. After the fleet had traveled the circumference of the Oceanic Ice Block for a few days, they could finally see the gigantic cial sheet from a distance.


    They had finally reached the Oceanic Ice Block.


    ¡°We will stop here for three days and no attacks will beunched.¡± Saleen gave the order to the Mechanical Soul and led the rest onto the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Although the exterior of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boats was made from materials of a grade-8 magic beast, its defense far surpassed that of most grade-9 magic beasts.


    On the ancientbat vessel, it was the first time the Mechanical Soul began to think for itself.


    From what he has observed, Saleen¡¯s abilities were not entirely fearsome since he was only a grade-8 mage. Although some of his subordinates were at grade-9, they should be no match for a spirit of the dead like him. For some reason, the battles that he had observed had struck fear in him.


    Saleen only needed half an hour¡¯s time to deal with forty grade-9 warriors, while the water puppet did not even dare to open a single cabin, much less defeat forty warriors.


    The Mechanical Soul still retained some memories of humans¡¯ powers. Long ago, the Mechanical Soul was already at grade-16 in the death dimension, but his soul me was refined by a human and he was then absorbed into an equipment to be a weapon¡¯s spirit. A sliver of soul me managed to escape and was finally restored after tens of thousands of years.


    Was there a need to continue going against Saleen? He did not have much energy left to keep opposing.


    The Mechanical Soul had been temporarily put in charge of the fleet, other than the dragon skeletonbat vessel that was controlled by the mages. Saleen and the rest entered the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. In the three days that he would be there, he would have to subdue all twenty-four ancient warriors and turn them into his most powerful forces.


    Saleen and Nailisi entered the Purgatory of Ice. The fossilization spell and water-element control spell on the twenty-four ancient warriors were no longer effective. The moment Saleen entered, the warriors looked at him with enmity. In the depths of their souls dwelled the shards of Eternal Control that Saleen had refined and inserted into them. There were two rules in the shards, which were Eternal Control and Power of Lightning.


    ¡°Do you all... still know how to talk?¡± Saleen spoke in the ancient Myersnguage.


    The eyelids of the twenty-four warriors flickered quickly. It was clear that they understood what Saleen said but they were not able to say anything despite some movement of their lips. The bones of the warriors had greatly degenerated, and their vocal chords were worse.


    Saleen pointed at the warrior at the front and said, ¡°Try to attack me.¡±


    The red light on the warrior¡¯s body shed and he charged at Saleen, aiming for his neck with his longnce. The longnce had barely traveled a yard¡¯s distance before a streak of blue electric current shed in the depths of the warrior¡¯s soul. Just like that, the ancient warrior fell onto the ground.


    ¡°Looks like it¡¯s very effective.¡± Saleen was relieved to see that the moment he sensed danger, the warrior immediately received punishment.


    ¡°Master, what ability is this? Will you teach me it?¡± Nailisi asked in envy.


    ¡°You already have your demon army, you don¡¯t need this. Besides... this is a rule that I discovered on my own. There¡¯s no way I can pass it down to you, unless you learn and explore it yourself.¡±


    ¡°Then forget it.¡± Nailisi was a Luoluokaluo and she had her own path to take. An ability like that that allowed her to control others was not that important to her. After all, all the demons in her demon army would submit to her without needing any techniques to control them.


    ¡°All of you shall be my bodyguards. You will not need any names individually. All of you shall be called the Ancient Warriors.¡± Saleen looked at the twenty-four warriors and gave up the notion of letting them be generals. The souls of the Ancient Warriors were already very weak, there was no point in allowing them to rest for three days. Their souls would still be equally fragile even if they rested for three years.


    They had no choice but to be soldiers who had no chances of advancing. Even though they had met him, their fates would not change.


    Saleen knew that unless he used the broken jades from the soul mes of the Three Kings to subdue the Ancient Warriors, there was no way their souls would return to optimal conditions.


    Unfortunately, he only had three broken jades and he had already used one of them on the Mechanical Soul. He could not possibly use the remaining two broken jades to rescue the tens of thousands of soldiers on the ancientbat vessel.


    The twenty-four Ancient Warriors stood in two neat rows in the Purgatory of Ice. Saleen stood in the middle and began to observe their tainted blood armor.


    If the twenty-four grade-9 warriors had decided to attack in a group, Saleen and Nailisi would have been no match for them. In one-to-onebat, even if the warriors were able to unleash all theirbat technique, they would still be defeated by Saleen and Nailisi.


    The materials used to make tainted blood armor was the blood, bones, and even some fascia of magic beasts. The ancient humanspressed and purified those materials to form pieces of regr armor tes before joining them together with the power of magic. Even Saleen was unable to grasp such alchemy abilities. If he advanced to grade-10, he could try to refine magic armor of a lower quality like them.


    The Ancient Warriors could not speak but that was not an issue for Saleen. In any case, the tainted blood armor did not have masks. He only needed to refine a magic mask for each of them and he would be able to use the power of magic to allow the warriors tomunicate with him.

 Chapter 857: The World beneath the Ice Sheets (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 857: The World beneath the Ice Sheets (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen hardly felt sorry over what happened. If the ancient warriors were to be restored to a level of power and intelligence from ancient times, it would have proved very difficult for him to have them under control. He was able to subdue the warriors due only to the fact that they possessed weak souls. If the warriors were to have strong souls instead, not only would Saleen be unable to subdue them, he might also have been severely damaged by the resulting recoil.


    Keeping grade-9 professionals as ves had Saleen feeling rather ufortable. It was fortunate that he was a mage. It meant that he knew well where his bottom line was. If it had not been for him, the ancient warriors would have lost their souls sooner orter. The Ancient was just an escort warship, and the grade-9 soldiers were just elite troops. The rooms designed for them were simply impossible to provide eternal protection.


    If it had not been for him, the souls of the ancient warriors would have beenpletely lost in another three to five-thousand years, and they would have never woke from their slumber again.


    Saleen was greatly relieved seeing how the twenty-four ancient warriors had no intentions of fighting him. His journey into the oceanic ice block would have been far safer with the twenty-for grade-9 warriors around.


    It was a pity however, that Saleen had no choice but to kill the remaining sixteen, as he did not have enough Eternal Control shards with him. Their bodies and the tainted blood armor they wore were sent into the purgatory of bloodshed, to be used for repairing the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory.


    If Saleen had the remaining sixteen under control, his journey into the oceanic ice block would have been even safer still. Ancient warriors wearing tainted blood armor would be able to truly give all their grade-9 powers in fights, when under someone¡¯s instructions.


    Nailisi sent Saleen and the ancient warriors into the purgatory of darkness. Saleen simply began using the dark elements within the purgatory of darkness to craft masks. His own Devil Mask was a powerful equipment in itself. While Saleen was unable to craft such a high level equipment on his own, he was also capable of crafting copies of lower levels. Water me alchemy was also one of the best skills to be had. Saleen was a grade-8 mage himself, making holy equipment was not something difficult for him.


    Saleen¡¯s mental capacity was more than ten times greater than that when he was a grand mage. The use of water me alchemy became more and more of a breeze. He was even able to chat with Nailisi as he was crafting masks for his twenty-four ancient warriors.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t you wait a bit longer and make more of those things. You would be able to control more ancient warriors then, and when we venture into the oceanic ice block, your safety will be absolutely guaranteed.¡±


    ¡°What month is it now?¡±


    ¡°February.¡±


    ¡°Lex took off to rescue Bain and Isabe was taken away. Things are in a mess back home and I need to go home as soon as possible. The more ancient warriors I put under my control, the more time I would need to do so. If I was to attempt controlling the twenty-four of them again, the time needed would be six times more than it was. In the same manner, unless some of the warriors under me actually end up dead, I wouldn¡¯t be able to subdue them with my current speed.¡±


    ¡°Master, Lex sent people to look into Isabe¡¯s matter. The one taking her was probably smeone higher than a grade-9. With your current powers, you have nothing to fear. The ones hunting for Bain now are all holy masters from the Holy See. Holy masters are in worse states than mages when facing assassins. You know well how good Bain is himself. The way I see it, his attacks are as good as any golden grand swordmasters¡¯, maybe even stronger.¡±


    ¡°Lex wanted to see Bain alive, not avenge him. Assassins have always been powerful offensively, but in terms of stamina and defense, they are nowhere that of mages. The Holy See have too many professionals at their disposal. If Bain was to be cornered, he would have nowhere to run.¡±


    ¡°Master, you are not missing big sis Sika, are you?¡±


    ¡°If you like to think so, suit yourself,¡± Saleen said. If Lex was to sneak into Sikenqinya through the Chaotic Swamp, she may have had to deal with Fycro¡¯s forces. Fycro might have been looking for him. Saleen did not need to worry about anyone else looking for him. If Fycro managed to track him there however, he might have to worry about keeping the Ancient.


    There was simply nothing Nailisi was able to do. Saleen was not known to be one to change his mind. That was one personality trait he shared with Jason.


    Saleen crafted masks with six elemental points for the ancient warriors patiently. Twenty-four masks were crafted from the white water me within the span of two days, flying off to meet their new owner.


    Saleen found something rather interesting within that two days. The ancient warriors had not been aware of the fact that they were as good as dead, and had actually attempted to eat. In truth however, the ancient warriors sustained themselvespletely through absorbing ambient energy from their environment. Any food taken would have simply ended up rotting inside their bodies, as the food was not able to be absorbed.


    Saleen decided to infuse a portion of the power of life from the Goddess of Myers in his left hand into the twenty-four warriors. The strands of power went straight to the Eternal Control shards crafted by Saleen instead of being absorbed, boosting the strength of their souls by one-hundred fold.


    Even so, the strength of the warriors¡¯ souls were nowhere near that of their levels.


    Dark red masks stuck onto the faces of the warriors. There were six elemental points on the masks, which just barely worked with their helmets, giving the masks a certain level of defensive properties. The magic arrays within the masks however, were directly connected to the souls of the warriors, enabling them to activate the arrays using their own mental powers to make sound. That effectively gave them the ability of speech.


    There was also a slot for setting magic nuclei between their brows. The digestive systems of the warriors had atrophied, which meant that they would never again been able to sustain themselves through eating. Their source of sustenance was then akin to puppets, derived from the energies of magic nuclei.


    That proved to be something rather convenient instead, as the likes of golden grand swordmasters hardly ate as well. The abilities of the bodies of such humans to absorb energy had reduced their dependence of food.


    There was one more day left, and Saleen decided to craft twenty-four spears ording to the weight and other specifications of the weapons wielded by the ancient warriors. The spears looked just like the ones wielded by the warriors themselves. The shafts were crafted specifically from the branches of the Tree of Taboo. The spearheads crafted from an alloy produced from gori metal mixed with wrought gold. Weapons of such materials enabled the red sword aura of the ancient warriors be used to their fullest, without any worries about the weapons breaking under such stresses.


    The bodies of the ancient warriors had been restored to about sixty percent of what they originally were in the span of three days. The restoration would reach eighty percent in another month. Only by then, under smooth instructions, would the prowess of grade-9 warriors be truly apparent.


    ¡°We can leave now,¡± Saleen did not say much. Other than crafting weapons and equipment, he had been trying to work in tandem with the warriors within those three days, by running simtions over and over.


    Nailisi took the forms of devils and spirits, and yed the role of an enemy several times. Nailisi lost every time. The time when she had overwhelmed ten ancient warriors with her powers alone was never seen again. Under Saleen¡¯s instructions, all twenty-four warriors managed to work as one tight unit, with offensive and defensive maneuvers ying out so effectively that it rendered Nailisi unusually frustrated.


    She had only realized her own shorings then, and learned that having overwhelming power was far from enough. The critical difference between her and Saleen in terms ofbat capacity,id within the ability to calcte.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat made it to the surface and Saleen went back to the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel to talk to the Mechanical Soul, having it lead the fleet to hunt cautiously on the outskirts. He set the hunting area to be within five-hundred yard radius, as going out from the area would have resulted in massive numbers of powerful magic beasts ganging up on them. While the Ancient had no need to worry about such an urrence, the bone warships were not quite as durable.


    The bone warships proved very useful to Metatrin City. While they were hardly of any use against Cloudflow, such ships still proved to have an edge over Porter City¡¯s navy. The Ancient was not allowed to make its way back for that moment. Saleen wanted to have more of the ships under his control, before allowing them to be seen in front of his enemies.


    The tens of thousands of warriors aboard the Ancients were also, for the moment, something dangerous to deal with.


    ¡°Genga, if the fleet runs into any problem...¡±


    ¡°I will just kill myself!¡±, the Mechanical Soul answered without a hint of hesitation. While it still harbored intentions to rebel despite being fully under Saleen¡¯s control, it began to consider getting along with Saleen after seeing what he was capable of, and refrained from any actions that would bring it more bad luck.


    ¡°d to see you know your ce. Nichs, Eleanor, Nailisi, Rossen, Soldier, you all follow me into the oceanic ice block. Soldier will be inmand of everyone for the time being. Soldier¡¯s word is my word.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±, Nailisi did not like what she had heard.


    ¡°You can choose to stay behind, Nailisi,¡± Saleen looked at Nailisi. She had no choice but to keep her head down, and stop fighting with the winged skeleton. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat became the winged skeleton¡¯s private equipment. Making the winged skeleton themander was the best choice if they wanted to go in and out of the oceanic ice block as they pleased.


    ¡°Leave the demons and mages on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. If we did not make it back in the next half year, bring the ship back to Metatrin City.¡±


    The mages were shocked to hear such words.


    ¡°Your highness!¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°My liege...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just saying. Humans probably haven¡¯t entered the oceanic ice block for the past ten-thousand years. Even if I had equipment enabling me to go into the deep seas, there is no telling if I will definitely be able to make it back safe and sound. Metatrin City is our root. If I¡¯m not able to make it back... well, haha...well, Sika will be the King of the Kingdom of Metatrin. Since I have a son, he will be the next king, your future king.¡±


    ¡°Just hang on back for the time being and keep getting used to controlling the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. I can¡¯t just keep having Soldier put everything of his onto the ship. I need people whom I can trust to handle this ship. After all, the reason I brought you people along was because I trust you people. Yeah, right. If I¡¯m not able to make it out, don¡¯t go home the way we came. Go west for ten-thousand miles, then go south. There is a map recorded on the magicpass of the vessel on that coordinate. Go slow, and you will be able to fight your way back to Metatrin City. The vessel have more than enough to fight off the beasts along the way and take you all home safely.¡±


    The mages were unable to go against Saleen¡¯s orders. Saleen then continued with a smile, ¡°I¡¯m the kind of person who is really scared of dying. If it was really that dangerous, I wouldn¡¯t havee this far. I have the protection of the Ancient. Even if beasts are toe in packs, there is hardly anything they can do to me.¡±


    Saleen finished and had the ancient warriors take one step forward, unleashing their red aura about them.


    All mages seemed to have fires burning in their minds, which was a result of powerful mental oppression. The grand mages all had their hair standing up, their hearts beating in their rib cages, blood rushing to their heads, and had headaches, from the mental powers the warriors exuded.

 Chapter 858: The World beneath the Ice Sheets (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 858: The World beneath the Ice Sheets (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mages did not participate in the subjugation of the ancient warriors, as the difference in levels between both sides was simply too great. If the mages were to actually participate in said battle, any one skill the warriors were capable of casting would have proved more than enough to kill all of them.


    All twenty-four ancient warriors wore Tainted Blood Armors and stood in formation at Saleen¡¯s nks to protect their master, which ended up looking like a pair of wings engulfing Saleen in the middle. A warrior standing at the front pointed their spear forward. The resulting sharp aura unleashed almost cracked the magic shield that the mages put up in haste.


    The mages were finally relieved. Thebat prowess of the twenty-four warriors were shown to be far more than enough to break any defenses they could erect. Saleen was near absolutely safe under the protection of the warriors. Saleen¡¯s earlier words were spoken just in case something untoward did happen. Having recalled how cautious Saleen used to be in his earlier days, the mages finally quieted down, and agreed to not apany him into the oceanic ice block.


    Still, the mages¡¯ understanding of the danger of the oceanic ice block posed was limited. The ce was covered with giant ice sheets of more than one mile thick in average. Once having entered the region, the only way out was to dig at the ice tens of times stronger than steel.


    If there was to be ample time and they were in a safe environment, digging out of such ces would have been nothing difficult for Saleen, who possessed mystical water current techniques. The oceanic ice block was a ce teeming with dangerous magic beasts. There was no time to slowly dig their way out of the ice when danger was right in front of their eyes.


    After saying his goodbyes, Saleen had the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat descend into the water, making its way into the oceanic ice block.


    They were at a ce about four to five hundred miles away from the edge of the ice sheets. The depth between sea level and the ocean floor exceeded five-thousand yards. Where they were at was far deeper than the outskirts of the ice block. The outskirts of the ice block seemed to have continuous mountain ranges underneath, which surrounded the ice block. The depth increased sharply once crossing the undersea mountain ranges.


    The winged skeleton took the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat moving along the mountain and tracing along the north-south direction undersea. They dared not move for deeper trenches. It was said that packs of the most fearsome creatures found on the Myers Maind lived in those trenches, which were ces devoid of any light element. Defenses of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat were hardly worth mentioning in the underwater trenches with depths of up to ten-thousand yards. The ship would have hardlysted over a month down there, and such inference was made mostly due to the fact that the magic beasts that dwelled in such depths were known to eat about once a month.


    The ridges of the mountains themselves were hardly safe either. Many migratory underwater magic beasts were known to pass through those ces in set seasons, and the course charted by the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was one that would have definitely teemed with such beasts.


    The winged skeleton had the ship go searching in those ridges. Single-horned white whales were huge animals. If they were to make their way into the oceanic ice block when they were near their deaths, they would definitely leave tracks around the ce. The whales would also be unable to breathe in such depths, leaving them no choice but to use magic to extend their time underwater. As such, the elemental traces left behind would be near-impossible to wipe out.


    The winged skeleton learned the whales¡¯ smell and special magical traits. So long as the path was something left throughout the ages, the winged skeleton would be able to quickly detect it, even from more than ten miles away from the actual site.


    Sunlight was unable to pass through the ice sheets and get into such depths, which meant the temperature there was far lower than at the outskirt. The world seemed pitch ck there. Many types of fish glittered as a countermeasure. Their bodies were able to umte fire elements, enabling them to shine light onto their surroundings.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would also lifted its altitude at times, moving just below the ice sheets.


    The winged skeleton informed Saleen that some magic beasts there were so powerful that even if they did not have any intentions of attacking anything, they could tear their ship apart just by ying.


    The most special among the creatures was the squid king. Those creatures were able to grow to lengths of more than one-hundred yards, and dared to kill any magic beasts they found, except creatures like the single-horned white whales, which were known to grow to lengths of more than two-hundred yards.


    Saleen thought of the kraken he happened to encounter some time ago, knowing all too well that the tentacled creatures somehow possessed inexplicably terrifying powers. Being caught meant one would have had to fight a fierce battle to get out. There was no doubt Saleen would have been able to win against the ancient warriors by his side, but killing the squid kings would have filled the area with blood. That in itself was more terrifying than having to fight such creatures.


    The only peace of mind Saleen had in that ce was that the oceanic ice block was filled with the power of death. Souls of untold numbers of magic beasts who had died there in ancient times could have still been found, as the dispersal of souls there was extremely slow. The power of death became concentrated instead. In many ces deep within oceans where there was no light element to be found, it was near-identical to the environments of the spirit ne. The winged skeleton would be able to create spirits easily in such ces.


    There were two ways the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat went about sensing its environment. The first of which would have been to release bone spirits, while the other was to use Spirit Gaze to observe the environment.


    Not only was the use of Spirit Gaze there absolutely inconspicuous, the range of detection was also greatly enhanced, enabling one to see what was going on more than twenty miles away.


    Even if there was to be a human grade-9 sorcerer nearby, they would not have found the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat which was using active sensors in the dark. The same went with magic beasts in the sea. They simply thought the ship to be a dead pan¡¯s turtle, leaving nothing but its shell behind. While they were unable to grasp the reason why such a dead thing was able to move, the magic beasts nheless showed no interest in a turtle shell devoid of any signs of life.


    While the oceanic ice block was definitely a dangerous ce to be and the magic beasts there were not the kind to kill for sport. They hunted only they were really hungry. Of course, magic beasts in heat would have proved to be a threat nheless, but the signs of being in heat were obvious. The aura of danger exuded from such a creature was one that one would be able to sense from more than one-hundred miles away. The winged skeleton had no reason to go pick fights with such beasts.


    Life was so numerous and diverse underneath the ice sheets that Saleen almost doubted his eyes. There were times when their ship made it into the midst of a school of fish, and it took the ships hours to make it out of such schools. The number of such fish there was so massive that if he was to hunt there, Saleen would have easily acquired thousands, or maybe millions ofmid-level magic nuclei.


    Of course the fish were not something that were easy to deal with. Saleen swallowed down his urge of wanting to hunt them, and had the winged skeleton keep looking for the cemetery they came for.


    Light was seen afar, emanating from innumerable shining nts growing on the ridges. The nts took root on the rocks, and their leaves that were tens of yards long, danced in the water, making the ce looked like a shining underwater jungle.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat went up. From the images gathered using Spirit Gaze, Saleen and hispanions saw a group of grade-7 iron sharks chasing after tens of slim, elongated magic beasts into the shining jungle. The dancing leaves shone more intensely all of a sudden. The sharks¡¯ eyes, which were able to see clearly for miles in the dark, were blinded by the strong light. The sharks were in pain.


    ¡°The iron sharks are doomed,¡± the winged skeleton sighed. While the iron sharks were only grade-7 beings, they nheless dared to form groups and attack grade-8 creatures, and the sess rate was extremely high as well, making them very dangerous creatures. These twenty yard long iron sharks ended up being entangled by the shining leaves, and then injected with powerful venom from the tiny pricks on the leaves. The iron sharks struggled fiercely as a result.


    One of the sharks had more than one-thousand leaves entangled with it. The shark was strong nheless, enabling them to easily shrug off and break more than one-thousand of the shining leaves. More leaves around simply waited to entangle the sharks again. The sharks¡¯ hard, armor-like scales were torn during such struggles, enabling injection of the venom from the leaves increasingly easy.


    The group of iron sharks twisted and turned in the jungle. Every time they struggled free of the leaves, anotheryer of flesh and blood was taken from them. The shining leaves sucked up the torn flesh and blood maniacally, and the iron sharks were rendered utterly helpless as soon as they got entangled. They were eventually wrapped up entirely by the leaves, without so much as an opening to see what was inside.


    The sharks of more than twenty yards long each were rendered from fearsome predators to food in speed observable by the naked eye. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat moved cautiously above the jungle. Saleen was able to see the number of bones collected beneath the shinning jungle with his Spirit Gaze, spreading out as far as one could see.


    ¡°Horrible nts indeed!¡±


    ¡°Master, if we were to nt such nts at the bottom of our ports, no one would be able to infiltrate the city from below,¡± the winged skeleton looked at the shining nts below, with eyes glittering with fondness.


    ¡°Forget it...these things..,¡± Saleen dreaded to think about such horrible nts existing. If the nts proved to be ones with immense capacity to breed, the seas around the port would have ended up in permanent lockdown quickly.


    ¡°Master, look,¡± the winged skeleton pointed at the image, or more specifically, at the tens of slim, elongated magic beasts which slithered their way into the jungle.


    Saleen took a closer look. He found that these magic beasts were at least ten yards long, slithering about the shining leaves like they were in a yground. They all had small mouths, which had no teeth within. Many pieces of the meat torn off the iron sharks earlier ended up in the mouths of the long creatures.


    So the beasts served as bait to lure them into the shining jungle then. Once the nts are done killing the sharks, the long beasts would be there to pick up whatever scraps were left.


    ¡°We need to be careful and not simply chase after anything we find here,¡± Saleen¡¯s his voice had a tinge of terror in it.


    These beasts might not have been very intelligent, but their methods might not have been ones that human would have been able to deal with nheless. If he had found the beasts and given chase, he would have ended up in the jungle, and only the gods could know what would have happened next.


    The world beneath the ice sheets was a cunning and brutal one. Killings happened all the time. Magic beasts capable of surviving under such environments all possessed unique abilities. In that particr region of the ocean, human intelligence would barely have any edge or advantage to speak of.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat continued making its way north, the way past the undersea jungle was pitch ck. Spirit Gaze was used to its fullest, allowing the winged skeleton to keep everything within a twenty miles radius under surveince.


    ¡°Master...,¡± Nailisi pointed at an image and said, ¡°This is not something we can afford letting go, right?¡±


    Saleen turned and looked at the image. A fish about one-hundred yards long was speeding through the water heading forward. The sound created rang inside the ship without even needing detection from magic arrays.


    The fish had a long body and a spike of about eight yards long in front of its mouth.


    ¡°A spearfish?¡±, Saleen¡¯s mood dissipated after finding the fish to be a mere grade-8 spearfish. A grade-8 magic beast hardly piqued his interest. His goal was the single-horned white whale after all.


    ¡°A Silverline Golden Spearfish. Definitely a grade-9 magic beast. Master, that spiky mouth is the world¡¯s sharpest weapon!¡±


    Nailisi borated after seeing Saleen was still unable to get her point, ¡°Master. The silverline golden spearfish is the only magic beast who dares to hunt a single-horned white whale. Its mouth can easily pierce through the whale¡¯s body. If we had one such weapon with us, we would no longer need to run even if the target whale is still alive!¡±

 Chapter 859: Silver Line and Golden Spear (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 859: Silver Line and Golden Spear (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The size of a single-horned white whale ranged between one-hundred to three-hundred yards and had nothing to do with their age or gender. No matter how big the whale was, theirbat abilities were astounding. The gigantic magic nuclei in their brains provided them with powerful abilities. Their defense was even better than pan¡¯s turtles; hence they had little to no enemies in the Oceanic Ice Block.


    The silver line golden spearfish was one of the few creatures that could kill a single-horned white whale, but there were very few of them. The spears on ordinary spearfish were sharp, but they were no match for single-horned white whales. Only thebination of speed, explosiveness, and its spear allowed the silver line golden spearfish to pierce through its prey easily.


    Even Saleen was careful not to let the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat get pierced by the spearfish or else there would surely be holes in the ship.


    Saleen was tempted. The spear of the silver line golden spearfish was a powerful magic weapon on its own, even without the need for refining. If he refined it a little with water me, killing the single-horned white whale would be much more straightforward. At least if they were to encounter a live white whale at the cemetery, they would not be in too much danger. They must hunt down the silver line golden spearfish sessfully!


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was only about thirty yards long while the silver line golden spearfish was close to one-hundred yards long. The waters there were more than three-thousand yards deep and the water pressure was immense. Saleen was not really affected since his body was mostly of water elements, but Nichs was not doing so well. Although she was at grade-9, hisbat abilities were greatly reduced in such deep waters. Nailisi was no match for the winged skeleton in that state.


    ¡°Nailisi, both of us will go. Nichs, prepare your healing divine spell. I might get injured. Eleanor, give me one of your healing medicines.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡± The winged skeleton panicked. Saleen waved his hand and said, ¡°Only my special technique will be able to subdue it. You won¡¯t be able to do it.¡±


    With that, Saleen took a healing medicine from Eleanor. It was a green-colored pill which he popped into his mouth. After inspecting his devil suit, he put on his crystal ring and summoned Nailisi to leave the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    After leaving the ship, Saleen told the winged skeleton, ¡°Soldier, I will not be able to catch up to that creature. Use your bone spirit to attack it and lure it over.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s face was hidden beneath the devil mask as he stared at the silver line golden spearfish from far away. That big creature was with a group of graters. Graters were a type of fish magic beasts that were not very intelligent and would attack anything within their sights. The teeth that they had were even sharper than those of iron sharks.


    Graters were quite big and were as long as two or three yards. Each school of them consisted of a few thousand. Graters were nothing to the silver line golden spearfish, but thetter did not expect the former to try and attack it.


    Graters were not as fast as silver line golden spearfish, it was just that thetter had tried to take a shortcut by cutting through a row of underwater mountains before encountering the school of graters. Hundreds of graters pounced on it instantaneously and they bit at the silver line golden spearfish without hesitation.


    The body of the silver line golden spearfish looked smooth like a lightning dragon with sticky silver fluid on it. Its streamline body shape allowed it to move faster than any other creature in the sea. Of course, it also had a unique way of swimming that was impossible for other fish to emte.


    The spearfish¡¯s silver line grew inside its flesh and around its entire body, just like the blood vessels of humans. Countless silver lines would eventually gather together in its spine to enter the brain in order to be connected to its magic nucleus. The graters pounced and wanted to bite silver line golden spearfish¡¯s body. The spearfish¡¯s magic nucleus unleashed a powerful elemental ripple, causing its silver lines to spasm along with its muscles.


    The mouth of each grater was pierced with a long and narrow ice thorn. The ice thorn was more than three yards long and it pierced through the entire grater¡¯s body. Hundreds of graters were pierced to death before being frozen into ice blocks.


    The other graters in front were unafraid of death and continued to pounce at the silver line golden spearfish. This big creature was within one-hundred yards and was the ideal target for the graters.


    The muscles of the spearfish continued to spasm. Each grater¡¯s mouth was pierced with an ice thorn before they could evennd a bite on the spearfish. The shape of the ice thorns were exactly the same as the spear on the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s head.


    Saleen witnessed all that and he was terrified. There was no weakness to the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s attack and its mental strength was incredibly powerful! None of his defense spells would be able to block off the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s attack. Besides, his crystal finger and eye of lightning were spells that could only be used at close distances.


    The ice thorns produced by the silver line golden spearfish had to be a grade-9 elemental spell. The incredible thing was that the spearfish was able to unleash thousands of ice thorns continuously. The magic beast was unbeatable!


    In order to be able to cast grade-9 spells for more than one-thousand times, Saleen could not image how powerful the spearfish¡¯s mental strength had to be. It was impossible. There was no way it was due to such powerful mental strength. Even grade-10 mages would not be able to cast grade-9 spells for more than one-thousand times!


    The silver line golden spearfish must have its own unique way of casting magic attacks, otherwise there was no way it could have cast so many spells just by depending on mental strength alone to activate the elemental powers within the magic nucleus.


    Within three seconds, Saleen managed to calm himself down. The silver line golden spearfish was indeed terrifying. Its entire body was capable of casting grade-9 magic attacks. That was equivalent to a magic porcupine. If one was to touch a magic porcupine, one was as good as dead. Nevertheless, Saleen¡¯s eye of lightning could attack at a distance of eight yards.


    It was a pity that Saleen¡¯s lightning dragons were still asleep, otherwise twenty-four grade-9 lightning dragons would definitely be capable of electrocuting the spearfish to death.


    The lightning dragons¡¯ advancement was more difficult than Saleen imagined. That was not surprising because when the lightning dragons advanced from grade-8 to grade-9, not only did they be more powerful, they had also transformed into something else that no longer relied on water and could fight onnd. If they advanced to grade-10, they would gain powerful flying abilities.


    Saleen had never been worried about the future developments of the Oceanic Ice Block because he knew that it was only a matter of time before the lightning dragonspleted their advancement. It was extremely difficult for such creatures to advance, but once they did, they would be unbeatable against enemies of the same grade since they were grade-9 magic beasts that were able to unleash electricity.


    As for grade-10 lightning dragon, if not for the fact Saleen¡¯s n badge could absorb the power of lightning, he would have been electrocuted into dust long ago.


    The winged skeleton had also seen how the silver line golden spearfish fought. That was when he understood what Saleen meant. There was nothing he could do even if he had gone. His resilient body might help him block off a few of the ice thorns, but there was no way he could withstand more than one-thousand of them.


    Twelve bone spirits swam out quickly from the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat with Bloodstone. They swam straight for the silver line golden spearfish. On the other hand, Saleen and Nailisi remained behind and below the spearfish and did not get closer immediately.


    The bone spirits were extremely fast, especially in the Oceanic Ice Block. The death aura there was very thick, so it was as if they had returned to the death dimension. Bone spirits were traveling at a speed of two-hundred and forty miles an hour, a speed that had never been seen before.


    If the silver line golden spearfish was determined to escape, there was no way the bone spirits would be able to chase it down. The spearfish was busy ughtering the graters and did not pay any attention to the twelve bone spirits. Although the spearfish was not a grade-10 magic beast, no other creature in the region of the sea was a match for it. Grade-10 magic beasts were not as fast as the spearfish, so they dared not fight with it. The spearfish¡¯s spear could pierce through even grade-10 magic beasts, killing them in an instant.


    The bone spirits produced by the winged skeleton were only grade-4 at most. Spirits of the dead of such grades were just like the sands and pebbles on the bottom of the sea to the silver line golden spearfish. There was no need to pay any attention to them.


    The bone spirits swam ahead and crashed hard into the ice thorn that was cast by the silver line golden spearfish.


    Although the spearfish did not see the bone spirits as threats, there was no reason for it to allow the bone spirits to crash into its body. It cast twelve ice thorns that were as long as a yard each.


    When the ice thorns pierced into the bodies of the bone spirits, their soul mes were extinguished immediately and the Bloodstone that they had been carrying also exploded.


    The silver lines in the body of the spearfish immediately sensed danger. Hundreds of small scales began to appear and expand on the smooth surface of its skin to form a silver hexagonal shield.


    It was as if the scales had fallen off the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s body and were floating around, but in actual fact it was just an elemental illusion.


    The powerful ripple forced all the surrounding graters backwards. The ten or so graters that were closer to the Bloodstone were killed by the explosion.


    The silver line golden spearfish had been toying around with the graters, but it had be infuriated. It turned around in the water, as its gigantic body did not even produce any water currents.


    That action tempted Saleen greatly. It was best if they could capture the silver line golden spearfish alive, so that he could study it and find out how it managed to achieve that.


    The winged skeleton did not dare to hesitate as he cast another powerful Death Ripple. As the spherical ripples spread out, the silver line golden spearfish bent its body before springing into a straight line and shot at the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat like a bolt of lightning.


    The Death Ripple was prated by its ice thorns and failed to harm the spearfish at all! The silver sticky fluid on its entire body acted as a buffer against the death magic spell. Its speed was astounding, and it was so fast that it left behind a trail of emptiness in the sea before the water copsed inwards and created an explosive sound.


    What Saleen saw was that it was as if the silver line golden spearfish was dragging a long white line towards the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had no chance against the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s attack. A gigantic ball of water me suddenly appeared in Saleen¡¯s hand and tornados appeared around him. There was snow amidst the underwater tornado as it cut towards the spearfish¡¯s body.


    Nailisi was already in her original imp form. Her entire body was flowing with blue electric current as she followed behind Saleen and swooped forward, intending to stop the silver line golden spearfish.


    There was no way the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat could evade the attack. The ship only needed to be pierced once by the silver line golden spearfish and it would sink.

 Chapter 860: Silver Line and Golden Spear (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 860: Silver Line and Golden Spear (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen made a mistake in his judgment as he did not expect the silver line golden spearfish to be able to move so quickly. He tried to think from the perspective of a grade-9 magic beast and decided not to hide too far away from it. In any case, the spearfish would not see him and Nailisi as threats. Therefore, he swam upwards so that he could block off the spearfish from reaching the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    Thebination of the tornado with Snowkill was a very useful technique, but Saleen did not expect it to hurt the silver line golden spearfish at all. His water me technique was only at grade-8, so the tornado and Snowkill that he had cast together at the same time were also only grade-8. The defense of the spearfish was so high that even grade-9 spells would have trouble oveing it.


    The silver line golden spearfish¡¯s body was tangled up in the tornado and all of its scales suddenly opened up and expanded, making its body look twice asrge. It was not that spearfishes did not have scales, they were only hidden underneath the silver fluid.


    When the scales expanded, thousands of miniature water currents shot out. Current Cutter was a grade-4 spell and when it was unleashed from the spearfish¡¯s body, it was a high-level spell.


    Tornado and Snowkill were disrupted by Current Cutter. The silver line golden spearfish lowered its head and aimed its long spear at Saleen¡¯s chest. Saleen was no match for the silver line golden spearfish in terms of speed and agility in the water. He never expected his grade-8pound magic to have zero effects on the spearfish.


    Nailisi took that opportunity to overtake Saleen. Her entire body was running with blue electric currents and she charged towards the spearfish. She was not as fast as Saleen, but she was more agile. After all, she had a long tail and was almost as agile as a fish underwater.


    Nailisi faced the eight yard long spear and was prepared to grip it with both hands. Her hands were also running with electric current, so the moment she got a hold on the spear, the spearfish would be numb for a while, regardless of its grade. By then, Saleen could use either crystal finger or of Eye of Lightning to control or kill the silver line golden spearfish.


    Saleen was unable to speak underwater, but he saw with his elemental eyes made him panic. There was an even longer and invisible force in front of the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s spear, which allowed the spear¡¯s attacking range to increase by three times.


    The force was simr to that of a grand swordmaster¡¯s sword aura, but the difference was that the silver line golden spearfish was manipting an elemental power. A sharp elemental pration was something that only magic beasts could utilize.


    That was because humans¡¯ magic chords could not bepared to those of magic beasts. The magic nucleus of the silver line golden spearfish must be a few yards in diameter. Such a huge magic nucleus would contain powers beyond its grade, which would allow a grade-9 magic beast¡¯s endurance ability to reach an incredible extent.


    Elemental pration utilized elements to form a weapon that possessed all the unique attributes of magic weapons. The elemental pration of the spearfish emted its spear and its prability was something that Nailisi would not be able to defend against.


    Saleen tried to make up for that mistake by boosting Nailisi with twelveyers of water shields. The water shieldspletely wrapped up Nailisi¡¯s entire body.


    Nailisi was taken by surprise. Saleen had boosted her with too many spells, a total of twelveyers of grade-7 defense spells! After Saleen¡¯s water shield had advanced, its ability to self-repair had increased by tens of times. Unless the energy of the entire water shield was removed instantaneously, the water shield would always remain in aplete state.


    Lightning Protection was a technique that could not be utilized in spirit-form. Nailisi knew that things were not looking good, so she quickly took out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    The invisible spear still managed to pierce into Nailisi¡¯s body. The twelveyers of water shield popped and were all broken.


    Grade-7 water shields had been pierced through by the silver line golden spearfish. She was terrified. Her Twelve Notes of Purgatory would not help in time.


    Nailisi whipped her tail and tried to avoid her crucial organs from being hurt. She was a demon after all, as long as her heart was safe, she would be able to recover from any injuries, no matter how severe they might be. She did not expect six eyes to suddenly open on the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s head. There was an evil glow in those eyes. Nailisi¡¯s entire body was paralyzed on the spot.


    Silver line golden spearfish were able to hunt down single-horned white whales, so how could it possibly allow this prey to escape so easily? The moment it opened its six eyes, even Saleen, who was behind Nailisi, stopped dead in his tracks. The spearfish has used the technique to kill countless enemies. In Oceanic Ice Block, no prey had managed to escape from that attack yet.


    There was more to the spearfish¡¯s attacks. When it swam forward, the sound waves created by the water currents formed a line and shot out ahead of its body. The sound waves were of an extremely high frequency and could affect humans mentally. That forced mages to be unable to focus their mental strength in order to cast spells. Most of the time, the silver line golden spearfish could not even be bothered to use other techniques since the sound wave attack alone would be able to kill magic beasts that were below grade-7.


    ¡°Time! Reverse!¡± Nichs¡¯ voice rang out from the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat in the deep seas. It was as if lightning had struck underwater. The heads of all the magic beasts within several miles were severely impacted and they all fainted. His target, the silver line golden spearfish, had also stopped its attack.


    Nichs¡¯ fallen prophecy spell was cast by burning souls. It was more powerful than a grade-9 divine spell and even possessed the power of some rules.


    Saleen and Nailisi were not within the attacking range. Nailisi twisted her body. The invisible spear had pierced through her body. Fresh blood squirted out and a hole the size of a fist appeared on her abdomen.


    The electric current on Nailisi¡¯s body had dissipated as the spearfish¡¯s attack had destroyed her Lightning Protection. This was the first time an elemental spell sessfully destroyed her Lightning Protection. Although Nailisi was afraid, she still used her tail to wrap around the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s spear.


    Behind the crystal lenses of Saleen¡¯s devil mask, three-hundred and sixty lightning runes flew out of his eyes. Golden lightning runes merged into a long and thick electric current instantaneously and struck the spearfish.


    Saleen gave everything he had into that single strike. The strike was so powerful that after the magic beast was struck by the electric current, the silver lines in its entire body convulsed violently to no avail. The electric current entered the spearfish¡¯s body and the powerful attack produced a burnt smell in the water.


    That was when Nailisi opened the Twelve Notes of Purgatory despite her pain. The silver line golden spearfish, Saleen, andrge volumes of sea water were sucked into the Purgatory of Darkness.


    Within the Purgatory of Darkness, the seawater was quickly evaporated by the dark elements. The spearfishnded heavily on the ground and Nailisi transformed into her three-faced bone demon form and dragged the weakened Saleen away.


    The silver line golden spearfish iled its body around wildly. It was so powerful and strong that Nailisi did not dare to turn back at all.


    Rows of grade-8 bone walls were erected behind Nailisi. At that point in time, the silver line golden spearfish opened its six eyes again and aimed its spear at Nailisi before shooting out an invisible force.


    The bone walls were broken instantaneously. The silver line golden spearfish only stopped attacking after Nailisi had carried Saleen three miles away from it.


    As it could no longer sense any water-element power, it could only depend on its magic nucleus, which would not allow it to attack any targets beyond three miles.


    There were no water elements in the Purgatory of Darkness, or more specifically, all the water elements had been manipted by Nailisi for the time-being to be far away from the spearfish. It might possess powerful attacks, but there was no way it could unleash them. It was a magic beast that was supposed to live underwater. Without water, it would suffocate sooner orter. Even the most powerful magic nuclei would bepletely exhausted one day.


    When Nailisi felt that they had escaped far enough, she created another opening and brought Saleen back into the sea.


    Incredibly, that was how the silver line golden spearfish was captured by Nailisi. It would be much more troublesome if it was a grade-9 sorcerer because the Twelve Notes of Purgatory was not aplete equipment and its dimensionalw was not high enough. A grade-9 sorcerer would have been able to determine the location of the exit. Even if the Twelve Notes of Purgatory were in Nailisi¡¯s possession, it was still possible for someone to escape from it.


    Nailisi dragged Saleen back to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    Saleen consumed Eleanor¡¯s medicine. He had forcefully used his most powerful Eye of Lightning attack just then and he was in an extremely weakened state. In that state, he had no more mental strength, nor magic chords, and his life energy was reduced to a frightening state. Other than onest breath, Saleen was practically just like a spirit of the dead.


    If he had not forcefully increased the power of Eye of Lightning by tens of times and increased the attacking range beyond twenty yards, the silver line golden spearfish would not have been controlled for the moment and Nailisi would not have been able to bring them all into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Saleen panted and saw Nichs with a full head of long snowy white hair instead of his usual grayish white hair. He was shocked.


    ¡°You did not use the power of the soul beads!¡±


    Nichs smiled bitterly and said, ¡°My Lord, there was no time. If I had not used the Prophecy spell, you and Nailisi would have been pierced to death.¡±


    Saleen was silent for a moment before saying, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I can prolong your life. The life that you have lost can be gained back slowly.¡±


    Nichs smiled and said, ¡°My Lord, I know. You are referring to the Power of Life of the Goddess of Myers, but I am a fallen Holy Master. I will not be able to receive the blessings of any Gods.¡±


    ¡°What are you afraid of? I am not a disciple of the Goddess of Myers either. Just absorb Power of Life from me.¡± Saleen began to meditate the moment he finished.


    Usually when he used the Eye of Lightning, there was no need for him to adjust his magic chords. He did so that time around in order to protect his own body. He had a water-elemental body. As long as water elements had been sufficiently replenished, his body would be as resilient, if not more,pared to magic beasts.


    It was because of this that he was not seriously injured from the over-usage of Eye of Lightning. The counter-reacting force of Eye of Lightning was more terrifying than that of crystal finger. If one was not careful, one¡¯s soul might even be dissipated.


    ¡°Master, we have captured it!¡± Nailisi said excitedly. Her three faces revealed a strange smile and looked even more creepy than the winged skeleton.

 Chapter 861: Being Powerful is a Sin (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 861: Being Powerful is a Sin (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Yes, the thing is caught. How are your wounds, Nailisi?¡±, Saleen remembered the time when the lightning dragon almost ended up killing Nailisi with just one attack. The blood spilt from that one attack probably amounted to several jin.


    ¡°Master, it hurts...,¡± Nailisi uttered some words before finding herself to be in her spirit form. A three yard tall three-faced bone demon really had no ce ying the coquette.


    The winged skeleton gave a few dryughs looking at the scene, and Nailisi continued glumly, ¡°That thing has weird attacks. It looks like it will take me no less than half a month to return to normal.¡±


    ¡°Half a month!¡±, Saleen felt worried, yet happy at the same time. He was worried that she would have permanent, irreparable damage. If Nailisi was pierced by normal weapons, her wounds would have closedpletely the next day. She then would have recovered in just three days with magical assistance.


    ¡°She will actually need half a month to recover from the stab wound caused by the silverline golden spearfish. So it seems that recovering her imp form¡¯s fullbat capacity will require about three to four months then.¡±


    Saleen was happy that he had caught the silverline golden spearfish. No matter how powerful one such beast was, it would not have been able to survive being out of the water for one whole day. The water element within the purgatory of darkness was sucked dry, and the beast did not seem to be one capable of creating water to enable itself to breathe.


    Of course, the one who did the most crucial work in capturing the fish was no other than Nichs. The old man was only able to sessfully cast his prophecy magic for a split second without a glitch after burning souls and giving life energy, forcefully putting the fish in suspended animation and preventing it from attacking.


    Without the momentary pause, Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning would not have been able to work at its fullest, and there would not have been any guarantee of it hitting the fish. The silverline golden spearfish might have been able to fend off lightning powers with its attack.


    The picture of the eight yard long spikeing right for him shed through his mind and it sent shivers down his spine. He was no demon. If his body was targeted and pierced by the spike, he might have ended up being torn in two.


    As such, Saleen made the decision to share some of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ power of life to Nichs. The bones of his hand hadpletely deified, and the lost power of life was being gradually replenished instead of disappearingpletely. His left hand was also the key to his use of the Crystal Finger. Grade-8 mages had yet to be able to use such powerful skills of Raphael¡¯s without concern. Once cast, his arm would disintegrated, and the rest of his body might follow suit as well.


    Only after surpassing grade-9 would Saleen been able to use the skill without worries. His God¡¯s Left Hand was something capable of withstanding the Crystal Finger¡¯s recoil, and even repairing itself.


    That was something he could do only after leaving the oceanic ice block. What Saleen needed to do at that moment was to keep himself at top fighting shape. His Crystal Finger and family badge became trump cards to that particr hunt.


    The water puppet remained silent. Nailisi showed everyone around her what true courage was with her actions. ¡°If it was up to me, would I have simply abandoned Saleen and run away when facing such strong foes? Maybe not, but I might not have had the courage to stand right front of him to protect him.¡± The thoughts had the water puppet feeling very sad. It seemed to it that some part of who it was before diedpletely. It knew that in the past, it might have even followed through in a manner more thorough than Nailisi. ¡°No, if I keep being like this, it means that I have just died yet another time. Even if I do be a person, that is not me, but someone else altogether! What can I do, for me to be truly me!?¡±


    The water puppet felt confused and frustrated. It felt the power of life given to it by Saleen and started trembling. Its vision started getting blurry. If it kept on going like that, its consciousness would probably suffer yet another hit. The water puppet knew things were not right with it, and so it simply reduced its form to a collection of water element, making its way to the gourd at Saleen¡¯s waist, and then slept.


    Saleen felt baffled, but he did not mind. Ever since the water puppet developed its own ego and signed a contract with him, he had no longer been able to directly sense the puppet¡¯s thoughts.


    ¡°Nailisi, my injuries will probably take another day to heal at most. I will go kill the silverline golden spearfish tomorrow. Soldier, wait here for a day and then we will continue moving on!¡±, Saleen returned to his quarters after he finished giving orders, and began training patiently.


    The drain of his mental powers was immense, so much so that he was not able toplete one meditation session.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat did not park on the ridge, and had instead floated and stuck itself to the bottom of the ice sheet. Snow-white shells collected on the ice¡¯s surface inyers. The shells were all low level creatures, but there were times where some special breeds would appear, carrying pearls with them.


    Pearls of shell-type magic beasts all possessed unique attributes, which proved to be of great use to mages. The winged skeleton sent spirits to collect the shells. They were able to see which shell contained pearls clearly, under the scrutiny of their Spirit Gaze.


    Saleen rested for a day and meditated for a few times. His mental powers had finally been recovered. He checked around for after effects, and called for Eleanor after confirming that there was none to be found. He then entered the purgatory of darkness with her.


    Eleanor felt restless within the purgatory, feeling as if she was stripped of her senses. Her own powers allowed her to see no more than a yard in front of her.


    ¡°My liege, I was able to see nothing,¡± Eleanor felt the dark element fill the entire space.


    ¡°No need to fret,¡± Saleen said and cast a grade-7 spell: Sensory Sharing. His Elemental Eye allowed him to see more than one-hundred miles away, which enabled Eleanor to do the same after Sensory Sharing was cast.


    The silverline golden spearfishid silently on the ground three miles away. Its head was wrapped with a thickyer of water vapor. The fish breathed with utmost difficulty, not daring to even move by half an inch. It was a dy of the inevitable. The water it was able to create was simply too limited. As soon as the energies in its magic nucleus were depleted, it would die in mere moments.


    Saleen was not able to afford waiting for so long. He spoke to Eleanor, ¡°Shoot it dead. Aim for the heart.¡±


    Eleanor nodded as she took out the Seven Nights, nocking a space arrow on the bowstring.


    ¡°Can¡¯t do it. Too far away.¡±


    Saleen did not say much. He simply walked forward a bit with her. Eleanor stopped at the distance of about two-thousand yards away, ¡°My liege, this will do.¡±


    ¡°Do it.¡±


    Eleanor nocked her arrow again on the bowstring, and simply shot forward without bothering to aim.


    The arrow disappeared as soon as it was let loose, and appeared on the fish¡¯s body at the same time. The silverline golden spearfish detected danger, yet the arrow was lodged into its body before its scales even flicked, piercing its heart without mercy.


    From Eleanor¡¯s perspective, if she was not able to shoot her target¨Ca fish, which was rendered utterly incapable of movement¨Cdown, she would have failed as an elf, and might have as well have called herself a low level creature, like an ogres.


    While the silverline golden spearfish possessed powerful defense, space arrow attack worked by tearing through space. The arrow had actually flickered a few times in the air, traversing an unknown number of parallel space, before hitting the fish¡¯s heart.


    The silverline golden spearfish convulsed after its heart was pierced, thrashing about on the floor, and eventually failed entirely to keep the mist of water around its head. It was not to say that the elf¡¯s space arrow was somethingpletely unavoidable. The best method to actually evade such an attack was to avoid being targeted in the first ce. When the shooter failed to lock on to the target, the space arrow would simply disappear in some unknown parallel space, not even being able to hit its target at all.


    When one was being targeted with the elf¡¯s space arrow, one would still be able to beat the arrow down when it returned to its original space. Although such a feat would have been extremely difficult, it was indeed possible for warriors of levels of golden grand swordmasters and above. Grade-9 sorcerers would also be able to achieve simr effects with certain equipment.


    Be it golden grand swordmasters or grade-9 sorcerers, none would have been able match the silverline golden spearfish¡¯s abilities blow for blow. At that moment, all of the fish¡¯s powers and focus were used to enabled itself to breathe, and swift movements were also out of the question, rendering it incapable of casting any powerful magic. Eleanor¡¯s shot was simply one that was hitting a fixed target. There was simply no way that she could have missed.


    The Seven Nights was a longbow with powerful attributes. The reason why a grade-7 elf like Eleanor was able to simply kill a grade-9 magic beast, was due almost entirely to her powerful equipment.


    They stood where they were for half an hour, before the fish finally kicked the bucket. An arrow pierced right through its heart was a critical, fatal damage.


    Saleen only walked forward after confirming the fish to be dead. Even with the carcass nowid t on the ground, it still measured up to about six yards tall. Saleen made directly for its eight yard long spike, pping at the gourd on his waist and releasing a six yard long water current, before going about cutting the carcass apart.


    Saleen was being meticulous about it, not wanting to damage the structures of the silverfish golden spearfish¡¯s materials. The root of the spike was connected directly to the fish¡¯s skull. He tore off the skin and recorded the bone parts with magic patterns, before actually cutting away at the spike. The spike was hollowed out, filled with silver liquid and a thin silver line, linking it to the magic nucleus inside the fish¡¯s head.


    After the spike was cut away, Saleen went digging out the magic nucleus. The size of the magic nucleus made him very happy. He stored it directly in his Devil Ring. He then took out the six eyes of the fish even more carefully, crafting them with water me for a bit before storing them.


    The eyes all came with natural magic patterns, enabling it to lock onto its targets. When all six eyes were locked onto Saleen, his body was rendered entirely immobile. If it had not been for Nichs¡¯ prophecy magic, he and Nailisi would not have been able to escape at all.


    Saleen stored the six eyes for further study, which would enable him to create powerful weapons. For example, crafting six tiger eye stones and attaching them on arrows. If the patterns were also etched into the stones, that particr arrow would be able to literally lock its target in ce, when the shooter looked down at their target.


    After Saleen had all top priority parts stored, he began to cut off the fish¡¯s scales. The scales could be considered special, as they were invisible most of the time. The silver liquid on the surface of the fish¡¯s body allowed it to move in the water without much resistance. The scales could flick into action when danger was sensed, with defensive propertiesparable to grade-9 magic.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, the silverline golden spearfish was a rare grade-9 magic beast. Such body structure and such magic-casting abilities would have rendered it almost invincible among the grade-9 magic beasts. The eight yard long spike in particr, was capable of energy attacks, by wrapping an invisible energy spear in front of it, effectively making the spike more than twenty yards long instead. All thatbined with the speed at which it moved underwater, it was no surprise that the silverline golden spearfish was able to kill single-horned white whales.

 Chapter 862: Being Powerful is a Sin (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 862: Being Powerful is a Sin (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Poor creature,¡± Eleanor said looking at the silverline golden spearfish being dismantled by Saleen, feeling rather exasperated. Such a powerful creature of the seas being set up and falling into the trap that was the purgatory of darkness. It eventually ended up helpless and was killed easily by herself.


    ¡°What is there to pity about the creature. It didn¡¯t grow this big without killing a good number of magic beasts itself. Eleanor, being powerful, for some people or some magic beasts, is a sin. Every part of this thing is a treasure, and it bumped into me. How could I just let it go? We have Metatrin City and massive wealth, and get targeted by some others all the same. Everything we have will be taken away from us as soon as we lose power.¡±


    ¡°I am an elf,¡± Eleanor answered with some bitterness.


    ¡°It works all the same for elves too. It was said that the elves betrayed the humans back in those days and sided with the gods. Even if that was not the actual truth, the truth wouldn¡¯t have been far off. The reason why the elves did that was for no reason other than for their own profit. What the gods promised the elves didn¡¯te true, did it?¡±


    Eleanor answered calmly without any reservations, ¡°That was hardly a betrayal. Humans and elves were different races right from the start. The war with the gods was something happening between humans and the gods. Didn¡¯t the humans promise the gods a lot too? What humans and the gods did was actually the same thing. At least from the elves¡¯ perspective, the nature of what happened was.¡±


    Saleen was left speechless. Eleanor was not wrong, speaking from the perspective of the elves. To submit to the gods was something no mage would have agreed to though.


    ¡°My liege, I know that the gods aren¡¯t good or wholesome. I was just thinking, there had to be reason why humanity failed after fighting wars with so many nes. A lot of nes were destroyed by humans, and that led to the dissolution of the alliance. Humans, giants, and demons were such an alliance that had a decisive edge against the gods. Why did the army of humans simply vanished? Wasn¡¯t it because humanity had simply gone too far and suffered retaliation from the rules of each of these nes?¡±


    ¡°Retaliation from the rules of nes?¡±


    ¡°The elves think so. You see, the Lord of Glory didn¡¯t even dare to step foot onto the Myers Maind, simply stopping at spreading his faith and having humans fight each other. Doing so would ensure that the rules of the Myers Maind would not have punished the Lord of Glory, no matter the oue. What the humans did back then was different. They just went about tearing spaces and waging wars everywhere they went. Didn¡¯t that kind of vite the rules of the nes?¡±


    ¡°Who knows,¡± Saleen sighed and continued cutting the fish¡¯s flesh, and memorizing where the silver lines went, as well as the natural magic patterns within the fish¡¯s muscture. ¡°More rules exist above known rules. The rules governing each ne aren¡¯t the ultimate ones. What humans did, was probably for finding even higher rules.¡±


    ¡°Higher rules, huh? What happens if these rules were found? Would humanity have shared these with the elves?¡±


    ¡°If it was up to me, yes.¡±


    ¡°No, you wouldn¡¯t, my liege. You would only share them with me, not the elves as a whole.¡±


    Saleen went silent for a moment before continuing, ¡°Eleanor, if all elves out there were as straightforward as you are, I think I would like the elves as a whole.¡±


    ¡°No. It was precisely because I was being so straightforward, that I got sidelined by everyone despite being of royal birth. I wouldn¡¯t havee to the Myers Maind otherwise.¡±


    The scales and bones of the fish were all good quality materials, especially the bones. The reason why the silverline golden spearfish possessed frightening speed had a lot do with its bone structure. The strength of its bones were stronger than any material known to Saleen. The bones were flexible beyond his expectations. Such a huge fish would not have been able to be so springy, nimble, or capable of exploding with so much power at a moment¡¯s notice otherwise.


    The bones were deemed to be top quality materials for making bows. If it was not for the fact that divine trees possessed powerful attributes, they would have been less suitable than the silverline golden spearfish¡¯s bones when it came to crafting bows.


    Being powerful was a sin. If the silverline golden spearfish had not been so powerful, Saleen would not have thought of hunting it down.


    While Saleen busied himself with the dismantling of the silverline golden spearfish in the purgatory of darkness, the winged skeleton had taken the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat northeast. One ridge after another passed under the ship. The ship was moving at incredibly low speeds, as the spirits onboard were busy packing up the massive number of pearls collected. Nailisi went choosing one by one with greatest interest, hoping to find something that suited her best.


    She was trying to design a weapon for herself. The few previous battles made her understand the fact that if she were to keep using her fangs and ws in battle, she would not have been of much help to Saleen as a sidekick.


    The hunt for the silverline golden spearfish had them killing thousands of daggers on the side. While Death Ripple was utterly incapable of affecting the big fish, the spell was incredibly effective against the daggers, dealing lethal damage.


    Daggers made good prizes themselves, as their fangs could serve well as materials for crafting arrowheads and knives. They also came with mid level magic nuclei of decent quality.


    Nailisi went picking away at the pearls, finding all of them to be of the same element: water. The water element pearls were most suited for casting ice type offensive spells ¡ª very monotonous. She had not been able to find anything capable of piquing her interest and was very disappointed. Her strongest weapon at the moment remained to be the Dragon Crystal Needles. No matter how powerful the needles were, they were irrecoverable after being shot, unless one did not mind sweeping the battlefield for them after the battle had taken ce.


    ¡°Nailisi, Nichs, I have found it!¡±, the winged skeleton suddenly stopped and had the ship floating near the bottom of the ice sheets. They had been evading a good number of grade-9 magic beasts along the way, and finally found tracks left behind by single-horned white whales twelve miles in front of where they were.


    ¡°Master!¡±, Nailisi went to call her master as soon as she heard that the winged skeleton found tracks left behind by the whales, before recalling that Saleen was inside one of the purgatories.


    ¡°Hold on for a second!¡±, Nailisi went into one of the purgatories as she spoke. There was little else but a pile of bones of more than ny yards long on the floor. Saleen had finished dismantling the fish, and all that was left to be seen were the bones.


    ¡°Master, master!¡±


    ¡°You found the target?¡±, Saleen stopped what he was doing and put two giant pieces of gills away, ceasing the crafting process with the water me.


    ¡°Just tracks.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and said, ¡°Tell Soldier to look for it slowly, and be careful. I¡¯m going to craft a true weapon for you, Nailisi. If you happen to see the whales, don¡¯t do anything.¡±


    ¡°Master, you are not in a hurry anymore?¡±, Nailisi peeked at Eleanor who was standing nearby, wondering if her master was up to something involving the elf.


    ¡°No use rushing things. I¡¯m concerned about running into a whaleing to the cemetery. It wouldn¡¯t be a problem if there was just one, but more than two and I would have to use the badge¡¯s power. Using it once will have me unable to use it for half a year. The cost is just too great. You just wait for me to make you a spear, one that can definitely kill a single-horned white whale.¡±


    Nailisi left the purgatory of darkness while casting suspicious nces at Eleanor.


    Eleanor was sharing senses with Saleen at that moment. As Saleen had been in a calm mood, Eleanor herself failed to notice the weird nces from Nailisi. She simply spoke, ¡°My liege. You don¡¯t need me here anymore, so...¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, how far can you see in this purgatory of darkness?¡±


    ¡°Without your Sensory Sharing, not even a yard away,¡± Eleanor told the truth as it was.


    ¡°Train here then. Without being a grade-9, yourbat capacity won¡¯t even be one percent of what it should be, in such an environment.¡±


    ¡°My liege, we are running out of time, I...¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t let you into the six element space. Didn¡¯t you feel that was rather...unfair?¡±, Saleen asked out of the blue.


    ¡°Why would I? I have a long life. There will be plenty of time in the future for advancement. Entering the six element space would have allowed me to reach grade-9 quickly, but it wouldn¡¯t have done me any good if I wanted to advance further than that. Or rather, it would have proved counterproductive.¡±


    ¡°d that you know of that. Your abilities were being limited worse in this purgatory of darkness. Advance here, and you will be able to ovee simr environments.¡±


    Eleanor smiled and nodded, ¡°Alright, my liege. I shall train here. If you needed my bow, just call me out anytime.¡±


    Having shared senses with Saleen had Eleanor confirmed that he did not care for her just because she was a pretty being. That had Eleanor feeling rxed, yet a bit down.


    Back when she was fighting the heavenly angel with the water puppet on the Wings of an Elf in Daliang City, the water puppet protected her with its own body. She was in a rather confused state at the moment, feeling that the water puppet was Saleen himself, holding her in his arms and protecting an elf who had been wandering in foreignnds.


    That moment had Eleanor feeling quite a bit of heartache, but happy at the same time. She even felt that she would not have had any regrets dying in battle fighting for him.


    Right then however, Saleen¡¯s mood was still like the water element, one without ripples at all.


    ¡°This is the most Saleen will ever do for me then...¡±


    Havingpletely cast off her longing for the marquis, she had made herself a home in Metatrin City. While she felt relieved, and knew well that Saleen would not have bothered her with feelings of love, she nheless felt rather distraught.


    Her heart seemed empty.


    Through the Sensory Sharing, Saleen knew well how Eleanor felt. He took a piece of dimension stone and stored the bones of the silverline golden spearfish within, and said to Eleanor, ¡°Eleanor, I¡¯m your lord, I...¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you are good man,¡± having shared Saleen¡¯s vision, she was able to see Saleen¡¯s face in the dark, and spoke gently, ¡°This will be thest time, I¡¯m calling you Saleen. From here on out, I will only address you as my liege.¡±


    ¡°Well then, my follower. Please don¡¯t ever leave Metatrin, even if...the passage to the elf ne is opened. You would stay even then, would you not?¡±


    ¡°Yes, indeed, Saleen, I mean my liege...,¡± Eleanor said as she cut off the Sensory Sharing between her and Saleen. Two tears ran down her face from the corner of her eyes, dropping onto the ground below.


    Powerful dark element within evaporated her tears mid-air. Eleanor was but an outsider within the purgatory of darkness, just like she was on the Myers Maind. She was just a lonely elf.


    Saleen was still able to see the tears on Eleanor¡¯s face despite her having cut off the connection. He sighed in his mind. He took out a ring and stuffed it into Eleanor¡¯s hand.


    ¡°This is a spatial ring, containing all the equipment I have for you. Go train. Anything you will need, you can find it inside the ring. If...if there are no untoward incidents happening, I wille pick you up when you have advanced into grade-9.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my liege,¡± Eleanor answered, clutching the ring tight in her hand and walking far away.

 Chapter 863: Humans are the real Overlords (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 863: Humans are the real Overlords (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen watched Eleanor walk further and further away. In the Purgatory of Darkness, she could not even see beyond a yard. Perhaps after using some elf techniques, her senses would broaden, but it was still ultimately meaningless. Eleanor had to increase her grade in order to be able to use the power of dark elements and for her senses not to be constrained in the Purgatory of Darkness.


    The Purgatory of Darkness consisted of the six major elements along with dark elements, which exined why no light could enter the space. Even if Saleen used grade-8 water me, the result would still be the same.


    Saleen possessed the elemental eye, so wherever there were elements, he would be able to see a distance of one-hundred miles. It was as if Eleanor knew that Saleen was watching her. She continued walking and finally walked out of Saleen¡¯s sight. The ground in the Purgatory of Darkness was not curved, so Saleen¡¯s sight could stretch up to a true one-hundred miles.


    Saleen did not dwell in the Purgatory of Darkness and decided to go to the Purgatory of Ice instead. Saleen had the ability to travel around the Twelve Notes of Purgatory as long as Nailisi allowed him to do so.


    The Purgatory of Ice was full of water elements. Saleen¡¯s water me alchemy technique was unrted to fire elements, so that was the perfect ce for him to refine weapons.


    The spear of the silver line golden spearfish was eight yards long. If it was made into a weapon for a human, it would be too thick.


    Saleen tried to recall Nailisi in her imp form and estimate the length of her fingers before inserting the spear into the water me. This weapon that Saleen was refining was for Nailisi. She was the only person that Saleen could trust. No matter what she might be up to, the moment Saleen was in real danger, she was still the first to sacrifice herself for him.


    Saleen knew that mages should not haveplex feelings, but over the years, as he slowly progressed to be a grade-8 sorcerer, he realized that mages did have feelings, but they would not reveal them to others easily.


    His teacher was a good example. No one could tell if there was anything special about him, except that he was a very gentle sorcerer. In the beginning, even Saleen was not sure what kind of a person Jason was. Jason¡¯s feelings were often buried under his spells. He was just a proper mage and outsiders would never be able to guess what he was feeling.


    Any creature under grade-9 would be killed instantly if they even knocked slightly against the spear of the silver line golden spearfish. Saleen took out the skeleton of the spearfish and observed it with his elemental eye.


    Indeed, the silver line golden spearfish could unleash even more incredible power when it encountered a formidable enemy. Its bones, muscles, and magic nucleus would all provide more power to the spear. The silver line golden spearfish did not even utilize such a technique when it was attacking Saleen.


    That was when Saleen really felt fear. If the spearfish had really done that, perhaps even Nichs¡¯ Prophecy skill would have had no effects at all because what the spearfish would do was not a grade-9 technique.


    When the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s bones and spear were connected together, it was practically a simplified three-dimensional magic array. If it wasplemented with the silver lines in the body, then it would be aplicated three-dimensional magic array. The magic nucleus would function as the motor for these magic arrays so that the spearfish could unleash continuous waves of attacks.


    It was because the spearfish had such a deep understanding of its target¡¯s power that it did not utilize such a technique against Saleen. The attack that it had unleashed should have been able to kill Saleen and Nailisi however, that attack was grade-9, so once it was broken off by the Prophecy technique, Saleen took the chance to use his Eye of Lightning; thus, changing the tide of the battle.


    No wonder the mages often had the saying that ¡°a giant dragon must do its best even if it is only killing a pig.¡±


    Very often, that was how the oues of battles could change so suddenly. One would never be able to understand one¡¯s opponent totally. If one let down his guard, things could change very quickly.


    Saleen learned another important thing after looking at the bones of the silver line golden spearfish.


    While the refining of the longnce was ongoing, Saleen realized that Nailisi¡¯s build was approximately the same as him. An eight-yard longnce was too long for her, but the spear was too resilient, so it was too difficult for Saleen to try and refine it. Besides, if hepressed the material of the spear too much, it would lose the resilience attribute.


    Saleen took out a dragonshard from his devil ring and threw it into the water me. The longnce would require a massive amount of power from magic nuclei. Clearly, the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s magic nuclei, which measured three yards in diameter, could not be refined into any weapons. On the other hand, the dragonshard of a giant dragon might seem small, but the power that it possessed far surpass the grade-9 magic nucleus of the silver line golden spearfish.


    Saleen began to use water me to refine the magic array in the spear. The magic array would emte the entire skeleton of the spearfish and would provide a lot of power and speed. Nailisi already possessed the Power of the Giant Dragon, so with the help of the dragonshard, she would have enough power to wield the longnce. In terms of speed, Nailisi was definitely faster than the silver line golden spearfish when onnd.


    Saleen only used up one percent of his mental strength to refine the longnce. After he had advanced into a sorcerer, there was no change to his mental strength.


    Saleen took out the skulls of the three white bear kings and refined them into three shields for Nailisi.


    To a demon like Nailisi, who specialized in closebat, an excellent shield was of utmost importance. The skulls of the white bear kings were incredibly strong, and although they would not be able to defend against an attack by the silver line golden spearfish, they would definitely be able to block any grade-9 magic attacks.


    What a pity. In his rush to refine a longnce that could match up against the single-horned white whale, Saleen did not study the body structure and internal organs of the silver line golden spearfish carefully enough. Its spear was simply too unique. Its material must have been the result of consuming some special minerals or magic beasts over the years, hence growing such a formidable spear.


    The attacks of ordinary spearfish were already so powerful that even grade-9 creatures would avoid them. The silver line golden spearfish¡¯s attacks were more than one-hundred times more powerful than an ordinary spearfish. It must possess some internal organs that could produce a particr type of material that could extract the special ingredient from its food and turn them into its unique spear.


    Unfortunately, there was no time to study any further as Alchemy City and Cloudflow had targeted the Oceanic Ice Block. Saleen had to gain control of the Oceanic Ice Block or he would not have the power and wealth to fulfill the bond with the Goddess. The wealth of Sregl Ind alone would not be sufficient.


    Saleen single-mindedly wanted to refine a powerful weapon for Nailisi to make up for theck ofbat abilities she faced when fighting in her demon-form. On the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, the winged skeleton suddenly discovered a single-horned white whale within the range of Spirit Gaze. The Spirit Gaze would not trigger any reactions from creatures other than spirits of the dead. The three-hundred yard long single-horned white whale was too sensitive and immediately sensed the presence of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat though, which was more than ten miles away.


    The single-horned white whale had excellent vision and was able to see the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat even in the darkness. It was the overlord of the ocean and was still the most powerful creature around, even if its powers might have fallen to grade-9. Based on the outline of the object, it was able to determine that it was a pan¡¯s turtle that was staring at it.


    The gigantic single-horned white whale returned to the Oceanic Ice Block in order to hibernate in the cemetery. It would not allow any creature to chase or spy on it. Therefore, it charged towards the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat without any hesitation.


    Nailisi immediately entered the Twelve Notes of Purgatory and realized that Eleanor and Saleen were separated. Saleen was refining weapons alone in the Purgatory of Ice.


    ¡°Master! A single-horned white whale is about to attack the alchemy ship!¡± Nailisi appeared beside Saleen in the Purgatory of Ice.


    ¡°Let Soldier escape. Nailisi, you should leave.¡± Saleen was unmoved. Even if he went out, all he could do was depend on his n badge to kill the single-horned white whale.


    ¡°Escape... but master, if the water puppet...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t let him go. I will not give him the crystal ring.¡± Saleen replied curtly to Nailisi. The water puppet might seed in sneaking up to the single-horned white whale and killing it, but based on the white whale¡¯s defense, the water puppet would most likely have to sacrifice itself in order to do so.


    Nailisi left without a word. She knew that Saleen would not allow the water puppet to sacrifice himself.


    ¡°Just escape it. Master is busy,¡± Nailisi said to the winged skeleton. She did not dare to amend Saleen¡¯s order. That was entirely different from scheming against some of Saleen¡¯s other subordinates. When facing a grade-9 magic beast, even Nailisi must be careful. If the ship was to sink, this entire search for the single-horned white whale¡¯s grave would be aplete failure.


    The winged skeleton did not say much either. He activated four bone spirits to carry Bloodstones to stand in the way of the white whale and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. He had no hopes of the bloodstones being able to kill the white whale. Based on thetter¡¯s defense abilities, the most that the bloodstones would do was to blow off some skin and fat. Not even the bones would be seen.


    The size of the single-horned white whale might be huge, but it could swim up to one-hundred miles an hour underwater. If the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was to escape with everything it had, it might just be able to escape beyond the white whale¡¯s attacking range. The terrifying part was that in the midst of its escape, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat might encounter other powerful enemies.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat surfaced quickly. The entire ship was enclosed in a huge bubble and rose to the top instantaneously. All of a sudden, an antenna of several hundred yards in length sprung down from a rock and coiled up around the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    The winged skull immediately exited the alchemy ship and headed towards the weapons of the ship. The winged skeleton hacked viciously at the antenna with a giant axe. The de shed with a golden glow. The antenna, which was more than two yards thick, was hacked off by the golden glow on the de of the axe and fresh blue blood spurted out.


    Soldier¡¯s heart was full of hatred. He took a skeletal thorn and pierced it into the wound of the antenna. The Spirit Toxin in the skeletal thorn would slowly turn the magic beast into a spirit of the dead.


    The short interference by the antenna was enough for the single-horned white whale to dash past the defense of the four bone spirits ande within a mile of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The explosion of the four bloodstones failed to injure the single-horned white whale at all. Purple light shed across its eyes as it stared at the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. On its gigantic horn, water elements were being gathered very quickly with a blue glow.

 Chapter 864: Humans are the real Overlords (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 864: Humans are the real Overlords (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Oh no!¡± The winged skeleton turned around, but it was toote for him to return to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. He had no choice but to charge at the white whale.


    Both he and the single-horned white whale were grade-9 creatures, but thetter was simply too massive in size. The power harnessed by its magic nuclei was much more powerful than that of the winged skeleton. Besides, fighting underwater was not the winged skeleton¡¯s forte, so a spell like Death Ripple posed no threat to the grade-9 magic beast.


    The magic nucleus of the single-horned white whale was frighteningly massive, and so was the power it harnessed. Even if though the winged skeleton had absorbed the formidable golden zombie, he was still no match for the white whale.


    The single-horned white whale had always been the overlord of the ocean, it was not just a grade-9 magic beast. It was only downgraded into a grade-9 creature as a result of the collective drop in the power of the Myers Maind. White whales that were lucky enough would still stand a chance of advancing to grade-10.


    The winged skeleton was armed with equipment made by humans. His double-faced giant axe was designed and made by Saleen, who used up plenty of magic materials, so that the winged skeleton would be able to cast death magic spells with it.


    On the forehead of the single-horned white whale was its three yard long horn. When the blue light was unleashed, the annr ripples crashed towards the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The annr ripples were not something that human mages couldprehend. It was a God-given talent that only the single-horned white whale possessed.


    The blue annr ripples were a magic attack produced by the congregation of water elements. The water-elemental annr ripples formed a hollow tunnel that stretched across more than one-thousand yards underwater, heading straight towards the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The attack wouldpletely lock onto its target. The white whale¡¯s powerful mental strength allowed it to lock onto opponents of the same grade easily.


    How could it be the overlord in the ocean, where there were so many other grade-9 magic beasts otherwise? Even grade-10 magic beasts would not dare to trifle with single-horned white whales, especially if there were two or three of them around. Perhaps even mages like Joey would not care to face wave after wave of grade-9 magic attacks.


    The winged skeleton raised his giant axe and the gigantic eyes on both sides of the axe de opened at the same time. ck death aura was unleashed, forming an even bigger axe de that was ten yards long and was swung with.


    After swinging the axe de, the winged skeleton pped its wings underwater so that he could maneuver his body around quickly and dashed into the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. No second creature would have been able to do that, and even Saleen would have to utilize a teleportation portal. It was different for the winged skeleton because the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was his personal equipment, simr to what the Twelve Notes of Purgatory was to Nailisi.


    The two spells shed, and Soldier¡¯s ck axe de overcame the single-horned white whale¡¯s water-element annr ripples. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat ramped up its speed again. The water-element annr ripples were hacked across six-hundred yards by the axe de before they finally dissipated. This attack by the winged skeleton would have been able to destroy the magic shield of a grade-9 sorcerer.


    The single-horned white whale continued to unleash hundreds of waves of water-element annr ripples. The ripples crashed onto the bubble that surrounded the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    The rear of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat possessed the highest defensive ability. Twelve bone spirits suddenly appeared with Bloodstones and when thetter exploded, the holes formed by the water-element ripples were broken off so that the attacks could not be connected to one another.


    The bubble around the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat did not burst but the water-element ripples managed to pass through the bubble and strike the ship itself.


    After winged skull refined the grade-8 turtle shell once again, it was no longer just a simple shell of a magic beast. When the water-element ripples struck the ship, the magic streaks on the shell lit up and the magic nuclei mounted in the ship were used up very quickly. In the blink of an eye, thirty-six grade-7 magic nuclei were turned into dust.


    Soldier could no longer care about saving money as he inserted thirty-six grade-9 magic nuclei into the magic array. The magic patterns on the shell of the entire pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat shed, diverging the force of the attack so that it would be absorbed by the entire turtle shell.


    Within the turtle shell and the cabins, everyone was in a daze. The water-element annr ripple might not be able to break open the turtle shell, but the subsequent tremors were able to create deafening noises within the cabins.


    Even the Silence divine spell that Nichs cast failed to silence the noises. Instead, the grade-8 divine spell copsed after only a few seconds and aside from the spirits of the dead and Nailisi, everyone else was rolling on the ground in agony.


    If the single-horned white whale¡¯s attack was aimed at a real pan¡¯s turtle, the grade-8 magic beast that specialized in defense abilities, it would have been shocked to death.


    Nichs¡¯ Silence divine spell was an even more powerful divine spellpared to the Quiet spell and Speech Prohibition spell, but it was still no match for the single-horned white whale¡¯s attack, which was hundreds of waves continuous attacks, with each of them equivalent to a grade-9 magic attack. That was the most terrifying thing about magic beasts of massive sizes ¨C the number of spells that they could cast was not something that humans could match.


    Nichs felt extremely frustrated. It was not that there was nothing about this massive grade-9 magic beast, but he only had less than one-hundred-thousand souls in his soul beads. They would bepletely wiped out if he was to cast Instant-death divine spell a few more times. He did not wish to borrow the powers of the Gods too frequently, or the Holy See would be able to locate his whereabouts very quickly and kill him.


    Saleen was not strong enough to defeat the Holy See at that time. If not for the Qin Empire blocking the Holy See, Metatrin kingdom would have had to hide itself in Metatrin City.


    A grade-9 Holy Master could borrow too much power from the Gods. It would be as obvious as a non-disciple unleashing the divine spell of an evil God in the Holy City. This was why Nichs was always borrowing powers slowly and storing them in his soul beads.


    Nichs knocked his Fallen staff hard against the ground and unleashed the grade-9 Quarantine divine spell. Powerful Fallen Godly Power was unleashed from the soul beads, cutting off the sounds within the cabins for the time-being.


    ¡°Run, quick! This is the overlord of the ocean!¡± Nailisi shouted. The winged skeleton did not react much, but the expression on Nichs¡¯ face was awful.


    Overlord? A grade-9 magic beast dared to call itself the overlord!


    Humans were the real overlords of the Myers Maind, regardless if it was onnd or in the ocean, as they were all areas that humans had conquered in the past. After leaving the Holy See, Nichs was very reluctant to use the method of borrowing powers from the Gods because he realized that at the end of the trainings, mages would still surpass Holy Masters.


    Unless he could personally borrow power from the Gods the clones of the Gods would descend and possess the body of a Holy Master. If not for that power the Holy Master would always lose to the mages. That was regardless if it was a one-on-one fight or a group fight, as long as the numbers and grades were the same.


    Fallen divine spells were different. In terms of quality, there was already a difference between fallen divine spells and divine spells. The powers of a fallen Holy Master were borrowed, but he could allocate them freely. The cunning Nichs was extremely aware of his own powers, so there was nothing he could say if he lost to a human mage, but in that case, his divine spell waspletely dismantled by a magic beast and that left him feeling ashamed.


    Nailisi¡¯s words embedded a technique used by demons to provoke their enemies. While everyone was still reeling from the shock of the shockwaves, she took the chance to use that technique and even Nichs fell for it.


    Not only was Nichs bewitched by a demon, he had yet to realize the effect Nailisi had on him. He told the winged skeleton furiously, ¡°Soldier, let me go out and kill that fellow!¡±


    Of course, Soldier was never going to let Nichs take that risk. Nichs most definitely could kill a single-horned white whale, but the price might be too high. If Nichs was to lose a part of his abilities, or even his life, Saleen would be furious.


    ¡°Our goal is to find the cemetery of the single-horned white whales. It has less than three months left to live. What¡¯s the point of being upset with a magic beast that is about to die?¡± As the winged skeleton spoke, he turned the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical back to their original route quickly. That was the only safe route that he trusted.


    Nichs finally calmed down. He might not seed even if he used more than ten Instant-death divine spells on the white whale. Although the creature was on the brink of death, its resistance towards divine spells was still extremely high.


    If things did not turn out well, Nichs might not be able to kill the single-horned white whale even if he sacrificed his own life!


    Nichs took a look at Nailisi and finally sensed that something was amiss. Nailisi stared back viciously, with murderous intent in her eyes. Nichs immediately smiled and said, ¡°Run, run, you are right!¡±


    Both Holy Masters and mages feared demons because the bloodlines of thetter were usuallyplicated and could usually result in some mysterious techniques. Some of the demon techniques could only be used once in their entire lifetimes, but the damage it could cause would be tremendous. If Nailisi really wanted him dead, he would die without even knowing how.


    It seemed that Saleen would not seek revenge for Nichs if Nailisi were to kill him, unless she did it for no good reason, but would the demon do so? She would probably keep provoking him until he could not take it anymore, then kill him in the name of self-defense.


    ¡°Hmm, demons...¡±


    The winged skeleton was fully aware of what was happening and was a little disappointed that Nichs did not dare to confront Nailisi. This demon was always causing trouble for Master. What would it take to teach her a good lesson?


    Nailisi, the winged skeleton, and Nichs were all at grade-9, but when faced with one grade-9 magic beast, they had no choice but to flee. That was embarrassing, but it was an undeniable fact that the single-horned white whale was much more powerful than them under the sea. If they were onnd, the winged skeleton was confident of handling a few grade-9 magic beasts at one go.


    Under the cial sheet, none of spirits of the dead, demons, or humans would be a match for the single-horned white whale. From her previous experience, Nailisi knew that she would probably be killed if she was to try and fight the white whale herself.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemy ship controlled by the winged skeleton was much faster than the single-horned white whale, and soon they managed to escape from the white whale¡¯s attacking range. He made sure that they were always within a certain distance so that the white whale would continue to pursue them though.


    Soldier kept talking to Nichs has he controlled the ship. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if this creature keeps chasing us, it will die slowly from all the chasing. When it is about to die, that¡¯s when you will strike. The intelligence of magic beasts is low hehe....¡±


    Nichs finally calmed down. The winged skeleton¡¯s n was a devious one. If the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was too far away, the single-horned white whale would give up the chase. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat remained within the white whale¡¯s sight. The alchemy ship even shed with the single-horned white whale so there was no way thetter was going to just let its enemy go.

 Chapter 865: Humans are the real Overlords (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 865: Humans are the real Overlords (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs realized that there was a side to the winged skeleton that he had never seen before. He realized although the spirit of the dead did not talk much, he was actually very wise and was in no way like a spirit that possessed low intelligence.


    In fact, his intellect was at least on the same level as humans.


    Perhaps it might have been a mistake for Nichs to forge an alliance with Daniel! The winged skeleton looked like he was quite protective of Nichs as well, perhaps...


    What Nichs did not know was that when the winged skeleton was in the death dimension, he had once devoured the soul of a death wizard. Death wizards were transformed from human death mages and possessed much more formidable powers. Most importantly, death wizards were the rare spirits that possessed intelligence. Recollections of their previous lives also enabled death wizards to possess a high status in the death dimension.


    That unlucky death wizard¡¯s soul was devoured by the winged skeleton, who had disguised himself as an ordinary skeleton. The winged skeleton managed to inherit the death wizard¡¯s memories and intelligence. What the winged skeleton had been able to achieve thus far had to be attributed to that death wizard. Indeed, the winged skeleton behaved very much like a human and rarely behaved like a spirit of the dead.


    Nichs did not understand the winged skeleton¡¯s feelings towards Saleen, much less the fact that the winged skeleton had wanted to make use of Nichs against Nailisi. His mindset would never be the same as that of bonded creatures.


    Two full days and nights of pursuit passed as the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat led the single-horned white whale in circles. Thetter was growing impatient. It had less than a month to live and in the final stage of its life, new internal organs were developed that allowed it to breathe underwater. That was an ability that single-horned white whales only developed in the past ten-thousand years.


    When those organs were developed, the single-horned white whale understood that its life was on the brink of ending. It followed the memories that had been passed down and came to the Oceanic Ice Block in search of its ancestors¡¯ grave. In ancient times, single-horned white whales were of very high grades and possessed intelligence on the level of humans.


    The single-horned white whale could not bear how the winged skeleton kept provoking it. After two days of pursuit, the whale realized that no matter how hard it tried and how many times it cast certain techniques, it would nevere close to the range of the first time they shed. It turned back and left. There was not much time left and there was a long way to go before it would reach the cemetery.


    The winged skeleton turned the alchemy ship around as well and followed behind the single-horned white whale. There was no way he was going to allow the white whale to escape out of his sights. In any case, this single-horned white whale was going to die soon and would not be able to travel as fast as it could when it was still in its prime. Therefore, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was fully capable of hanging behind the single-horned white whale and following it back to its grave.


    Now they were only left with following the single-horned white whale. Along the way, they would not have to worry about enemies in ambush as the white whale would eliminate them first.


    The senses of the single-horned white whale in the Oceanic Ice Block could reach further than what Spirit Gaze could achieve. The aura of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was locked into the single-horned white whale¡¯s memory, so the alchemy ship hanging behind the white whale was also a form of provocation. The single-horned white whale could not bear with it and turned around in pursuit once again. Again, the winged skeleton did not try to fight it and instead, turned around and fled.


    After this repeated a few times, the single-horned white whale no longer tried to pursue the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat as it headed straight for the depths of the Oceanic Ice Block. Just like that, eight days passed and Saleen finally emerged from the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, having finished refining all the weapons.


    He handed a seven yard longnce and a three-sided skeletal shield to Nailisi. She put down her circr shield and picked up the longnce, wanting to give it a try. Saleen quickly stopped her.


    The cabin was only about ten yards wide, the seven yard longnce would pierce into the walls if it even moved slightly. That longnce was like thences that knights used in the past, where the tip of the de was joined to the shaft of thence. That type ofnce depended solely on the force of forward momentum to kill an enemy. When a powerful knight rode on a high-level warhorse, he could travel at a speed of more than one-hundred miles an hour, which would be able to pierce through any sort of shield.


    The longnce was made from the spear of the silver line golden spearfish. All of its magic patterns were natural and the magic array that Saleen had refined afterwards was in the hollow part of the shaft. There was a dragonshard and a dimension stone in the shaft as well. If Nailisi was to use her power of a Giant Dragon to pierce thence forward gently, an invisible force in the form of a spear would appear and the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would not be able to take any form of damage. Even one hole in the ship would cause powerful water currents to gush in and destroy the internal structure of the ship.


    Nailisi could feel the power within the longnce as well. She was overjoyed. The weapon was much more powerful than her Dragon Crystal Needle. ¡°Master, let me go ahead and kill that single-horned white whale!¡±


    ¡°No, keep following it until we reach the cemetery. Keep the longnce and familiarize yourself with the shield first.¡± Saleen smiled.


    ¡°Alright, Master, I will listen to you.¡± Nailisi acted gentle for Nichs to see. Of course, Nichs did not believe Nailisi for a second, but he felt torn when he saw how much Saleen trusted and adored her. Nichs had no idea what he had done to cross Nailisi because she seemed very unhappy with him.


    Nichs did not offend Nailisi, the only thing he did wrong was trying to form a small group with some of Saleen¡¯s followers. To Nailisi, this was something that only she had the right to do. Anyone else who tried to do it deserved to die.


    Whatever belonged to Saleen also belonged to her!


    Nailisi put away the longnce and ced the three-sided shield in front. The three sides consisted of a circr shield, a de shield and a rectangr giant shield. The circr shield was only a yard in diameter while the de shield consisted of a bone de on one side and a gap on top that could slot the longnce in to form a stand.


    That type of de shield was often used by warriors that led the charge into a battle. One strike by the de on the side would cause even more damage than a longsword.


    The final giant rectangr shield could cover Nailisi¡¯s entire body. From the side, the giant shield was slightly curved. Its interior was covered with magic patterns that formed a small magic array.


    The giant shield could activate a water element spell, which was water shield. The ability of the water shield to defend over a prolonged period of time allowed the magic nucleus in the shield to be maintained, as long as it had not beenpletely used up. It would be able to repair itself instantaneously, even if it was destroyed. A shield like that could defend against showers of arrows.


    Although it was not difficult to refine such a defense spell onto equipment, ordinary materials used for equipment were not as hard as the skull of a white bear king. After a few attacks, the magic array would not be able to sustain it.


    The circr shield was the hardest that Nailisi could hold in her hands, while the de shield could be used to attack, and the giant shield suited a group fight. Nailisi gradually familiarized herself with the magic arrays and was finally satisfied. She knew how hard the skull of the white bear king was, after all, she did not manage to prate the skull when she fought it in her devil-form.


    Nailisi studied her weapon while Saleen and the winged skeleton tried to understand more about thebat abilities of the single-horned white whale. The winged skeleton was happy with the decision he had made to flee. The first strike by the white whale only used ordinary power as it had not treated the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat as a real opponent yet.


    Saleen was well-aware of the power harnessed in the winged skeleton¡¯s axe. The eyes on both sides of the giant axe de stored a powerful grade-9 death magic spell. Saleen had given the winged skeleton that spell so that thetter could use it to defeat any grade-9 sorcerers with a single hit.


    Even a spell as powerful as that could not match an ordinary attack by the single-horned white whale. Inparison, the white whale was at least twice as powerful as a human professional at grade-9. If the single-horned white whale had used all of its power, it would definitely have been able to be like a human mage, where its damage could reach grade-10. That would be truly terrifying!


    Human mages were able to cast spells that were one grade above their own grade and that was rarely seen in magic beasts. Those that were able to do so often were also able to advance.


    Even so, Saleen was still determined to find the single-horned white whale cemetery, so that he could turn all the corpses in the grave into his own wealth.


    No matter how powerful single-horned white whales were, they never managed to rule the Myers Maind. Saleen would never see them as true opponents that deserved to be respected, much less give up looting their graves. Humans were the true conquerors of the Myers Maind while magic beasts were... just magic beasts.


    That time around, the single-horned white whale did not turn around to attack the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat again. The white whale encountered hundreds of attacks along the way. Although the magic beasts of the Oceanic Ice Block were well-aware of how powerful the single-horned white whale was, the notion of devouring its magic nucleus was irresistible to them, forcing them to forget about the threat of death.


    Each time the single-horned white whale was attacked, the horn on its forehead would only unleash a water-element annr ripple and nothing more powerful than that. A mere attack like that would be able to kill tens of grade-9 magic beasts and hundreds of grade-8 and grade-7 magic beasts. Even middle-level magic beasts that attacked in a group would be killed by thousands of water-element annr ripples.


    The single-horned white whale¡¯s attack was simple and effective, and its attacking range was as far as a mile. It also possessed a few attacks that could manipte the attacking ranges from a mile to three miles. The first time the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was attacked by the single-horned white whale, thetter had used one such technique that allowed it to manipte the distance so that the alchemy ship was suddenly within its attacking range.


    Such techniques surprised everyone on the alchemy ship. If human assassins possessed such techniques, it would undoubtedly be fatal to mages. In fact, if grand swordmasters possessed such abilities, mages would no longer have the upper hand over them.


    Nailisi was tempted. If she possessed such techniques, she would be able to kill almost all of her targets with her longnce! The single-horned white whale only used such techniques three times and one of them was used on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat though. Clearly, such techniques used up too much energy, so even the single-horned white whale was unwilling to use them anyhow.


    The human body was millions of times weaker than that of the single-horned white whale and would most likely be unable to handle such high-speed movements.


    After traveling for more than eight-thousand miles, the single-horned white whale did not seem to have any intentions of stopping. Saleen had no idea how big the Oceanic Ice Block was. The deeper they traveled, the more powerful the magic beasts they encountered. Even the middle-level magic beasts were able to unleash attacks that were on par with sorcerers.


    After traveling for nine-thousand miles, Saleen was shocked to see a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea!


    That was the first time he saw a sunken ship underwater. The surface of the Oceanic Ice Block was always covered a sheet of solid ice that was thicker than a mile. How did this ship get into the Oceanic Ice Block?!

 Chapter 866: Abyss (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 866: Abyss (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ship was broken beyond repair, and it was apparently not a product of the second dynasty as it was not made of thundercloud wood. It was something of an older age instead.


    The single-horned white whale¡¯s speed was kept at more than one-hundred miles per hour, not bothering to rest as it went on to kill everything in its path, which was simply done by tearing them apart and eating them on the spot. It did not stop moving for even a second.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat followed suit without rest as well. The distance between both parties was kept at eight miles, as such a distance allowed the ship be at a safe distance, regardless if the whale chose to run away or attack up close.


    Saleen was able to afford the luxury to stop and study one such sunken ship in the oceanic ice block. The winged skeleton was only able to send out a spirit to wait for them to return in the sunken ship. With the spirit serving as a marking inside, the winged skeleton was able to find the ship even if undersea terrain was to shift for whatever reason.


    The one left behind by the winged skeleton was a jade skeleton. The jade skeleton had yet to advance with him, remaining a grade-6 being, but it had nheless developed an intellect. The jade skeleton made for the sunken ship cautiously after swimming out from the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    There was only silence around the sunken ship. The jade skeleton went on all fours about one mile away from the ship, and crawled forward. Its crawling speed was extremely slow as it went with the current. It moved bit by bit, looking as if it was the current that moved the skeleton.


    Seeing how their servant seemed to be one smart enough to take care of itself, the winged skeleton severed the connection between him and the jade skeleton, and focused on the path onward. Deeming it to be a chance for it shrug its pursuers free, the single-horned white whale sped up all of a sudden, moving more than three miles further away in the span of mere seconds. Such a burst of speed was not something sustainable, but it had nheless almost allowed the whale to escape the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat¡¯s surveince.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes had always been following the whale. Seeing how the whale sped up all the sudden, he decided to simply teleport out from the ship and rest himself on the shell of the turtle, letting his Elemental Eye work at full power. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat raised its speed, allowing his sight to reach as far as it was able to.


    ¡°You want to run?¡± Saleen snickered. ¡°That is just how far the magic beasts¡¯ intelligence will be able to go.¡±


    The white whale was good with calctions. The appearance of the ancient sunken ship made the pursuing pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat to briefly pause to let a spirit out as a guard. The split second was more than enough to have the whale open up the distance between them by more than fifteen miles. If it was to use a simr skill, it might have been able to open said distance by more than twenty miles, effectively enabling it to leave the surveince range of the Spirit Gaze.


    It was meaningless to run like that, as the Elemental Eye was not affected by water. Water and dark elements were in abundance around the area, and Saleen was able to easily track the huge body of the whale fifteen miles away.


    The whale swam faster and faster, almost reaching one-hundred and twenty miles per hour, which was the top speed of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat underwater. Any faster would have required auxiliary magic arrays as back up, making it very easy to attract the attentions of other magic beasts.


    The winged skeleton chose not to speed up, as Saleen was able to breathe underwater and the pressure hardly bothered him. He was stronger than Nailisi in that regard. A body of water element became his greatest, most reliable tool in the oceanic ice block. Without the body of water element, a mage of his level would have been able to dive to the depth of three-thousand yards at most, and he would have required to go above water to breathe like some amphibian magic beasts. There was no water surface to be had in the oceanic ice block. Whatid above the water, was very, very thick sheets of ice.


    Nailisi also snuck out of the ship and stuck herself to the shell of the turtle, keeping herself on all fours beside Saleen. As her imp form was still severely injured, Nailisi chose to keep herself in her three-faced bone demon form instead. One face was looking to the front, one looking at Saleen, and one looking behind.


    Spirits did not need to breathe, and grade-9 spirits were able to entirely ignore the effects of water pressure. A depth of tens of thousands of yards would have been required to disable a spirit¡¯s movements underwater.


    ¡°Master...,¡± Nailisi vibrated the water around her using death magic, allowing her to speak with Saleen.


    Saleen turned around to re at her. ¡°Don¡¯t go about attracting any powerful beasts at a time like this. The ship hardly dared to stick close to the ocean floor. Lethal killers are everywhere in the deepest reaches of this ce.¡±


    ¡°Master, look!¡±, Nailisi¡¯s form was a grade-9 spirit. Using Eye of the Dead enabled her to see as far as the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The single-horned white whale began to descend at a speed of about one-hundred and fifty miles per hour.


    ¡°Soldier!¡±, Saleen knew that they were near what they came for.


    ¡°Acknowledged, master,¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s voice rang in Saleen¡¯s mind. Auxiliary magic arrays were all activated on the ship. A bright light appeared out of the blue in front of them. The beam of light looked impossibly bright and blinding in the pitch ck deep sea environment.


    The beam of light disappeared as fast as it came. Saleen opened his eyes wide to have a good look at what happened, finding that the whale dived right into an underwater cave. The cave had a diameter of tens of yards, and the whale disappeared in the blink of an eye.


    ¡°Man! It¡¯s just near impossible to keep chasing after that thing like this. I will probably need Nailisi¡¯s spear to take down that huge creature.¡±


    ¡°Bing, go after it,¡± Saleen said to the winged skeleton telepathically.


    Nichs was very nervous onboard the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. He held tight on his Scepter of the Fallen, afraid that any mishap could have just ended up having Saleen killed by the whale. His holy spells were more effective on the magic beasts, and prophecy magic would be able to save everyone on the ship at critical times. If he were to subject himself to the cost of doing so again, his life would have been rendered even shorter though. To him, life was very precious.


    He had only hoped that Saleen would give him more power of life, to mitigate the curses that such holy spells had on him.


    Nichs was afraid of death, but he also knew that if he was able to advance into grade-10, all the previous curse damage suffered before as a fallen holy master would disappear naturally. The loss in lifespan would also bepensated. It was all a gamble, and Nichs was betting that Saleen would not just cast him aside.


    Even though it was Fycro who had him follow Saleen, Nichs himself obviously trusted mages more. That was a rather ironic thing. A fallen holy master would never again trust another holy master. Their previous enemy, the mages, became the only thing that Nichs was able to ce his trust in.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat made it to the entrance of the giant cave quickly, and dived right into it without any concern for the danger possibly lurking within.


    The single-horned white whale disappeared within the spacious giant cave. The magic arrays were also unable to do much in detecting its presence in such an environment. While the cave was spacious, it also had many twists and turns. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was rendered useless altogether.


    The size and shape of the ship was far smaller and narrower than the whale¡¯s, and therefore had no risk of colliding with any rock structures within. The disappearance of the whale had Saleen feeling anxious nheless.


    Crack...


    Saleen heard a cracking sound from the rocks somewhere, prompting the ship to speed up once again without waiting for his orders. The ship made its way to a turn as a giant piece of rock fell onto where they had been.


    Saleen was relieved to find that the rock dropped was smaller than expected, meaning that it was not a trap set by the whale. Saleen saw another ship after taking the turn, an ancient sunken ship. The sunken ship was more than thirty yards long, and was about the size of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. Saleen, however, was not able to tell that the ship was a submersible warship, as there was obviously another two-floored building above the deck.


    Regardless, Saleen was not in the mood for doing such research, and he did not even bother telling the winged skeleton to leave a spirit behind to guard it.


    The cave was tens of miles long. It got wider as they went deeper, making the entrance seem very narrow inparison. Once they made it to the sixty mile mark, their way forward became an opened space all of a sudden, with an opening of up to one-thousand seen.


    It was a tall gate, and definitely one made by humans.


    The size of the gate seemed to be one meant for ancient giants. What surprised Saleen more was the fact that there were still more than a dozen giant statues standing in front of the gate. The statues were two-hundred yards tall, standing guard at the gate at equivalent distances.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was moving so fast that they made it to the entrance in the blink of an eye. The statues were spaced about one-hundred yards in between, and the ship coincidentally made it past one of the statues.


    A thundering boom was heard from the statue and the entire cave shook. Saleen saw the giant feet of the statue kick right in their direction, prompting him to drag Nailisi back into the ship.


    Boom!


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was right in front of the statue¡¯s feet, making it impossible to run. Saleen and Nailisi were able to escape, but the kick had broken theyer of bubbles enveloping the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The ship flew and lodged itself on a rock, with a loud resounding boom.


    Nichs had somehow braced for it within the ship, casting a Silence spell to keep everyone from being rendered unconscious from the booming vibrations. Such levels of concussive force were something even spirits were unable to withstand.


    Nailisi took out her deshield and took Saleen¡¯s wrist, sticking close to statue¡¯s waist and making for the entrance. The statue behind turned and threw a punch, missing them. Huge bubbles were conjured on both Saleen¡¯s and Nailisi¡¯s bodies, they made a sharp turn and made their way straight down.


    Saleen felt a powerful suction force, as if a magic beast of tens of thousands of miles long had just opened its mouth behind him, devouring every living thing in front of it.


    A huge undersea basin of unknown depth was right outside the cave.


    The huge basin seemed to be deeper than any undersea trenches that Saleen had ever seen personally. Saleen and Nailisi held their hands tight. The powerful suction rendered all skills of theirs useless, and they were sucked along with the flow, falling into the abyss deep under the sea.


    Saleen checked his Devil Ring quickly and put on his Devil Mask. He broke out a magic staff on his hand. He felt regretful that he did not advance to grade-9 before venturing tat far.


    Regardless of how strong his mental powers were, there was still a limit to the number of grade-9 magic he was able to use. The cards in his hand also seemed painfully inadequate. If only he had advanced to grade-9, he would have been able to use grade-10 magic.


    Never in his wildest dreams had the idea of the single-horned white whale¡¯s cemetery being something built by humans urred to him. The huge statue at the entrance seemed to have been working for more than one-hundred-thousand years, and it was still working. A simple kick had been more than enough to send the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat flying at rocks underneath the sea.

 Chapter 867: Abyss (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 867: Abyss (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The bodies of Saleen and Nailisi were being squeezed hard by the bubbles sticking onto both of them. They were falling at speeds so fast, that Saleen felt like his heart was going to jump right out of his mouth.


    Mages would all performed one experiment when advancing to grade-7, which was to fall from great heights without any magical assistance, attempting to stop only about one-hundred yards away from the ground. Some mages were daring enough to only do so when they were less than fifty yards away from hitting the ground.


    Such training allowed humans to get used to flying and never again have fear of it. Needless to say, Saleen went through such a training himself. Yet he, at that moment, felt that the speed that they were falling at surpassed the time when he performed such an experiment.


    Saleen however, did not have any fear of his current predicament. His mind raced to calcte the speed he was falling at. He was sure that he would be able to cast spells to stop his fall when he finally was able to sense the distance to the ocean floor urately. His sensory perception was extended to only about a mile away. His Elemental Eye was scrambled, making it useless for that moment. He was still able to see three to five-hundred yards in front of him clearly, which was a distance that was more than enough for him to prepare amply.


    Saleen was wondering what his teacher would have done under such a situation. ¡°Jason would probably be able to handle this a hell of a lot better.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s three-faced bone demon form was actually the one to have a perception range greater than Saleen. Her form was, after all, a grade-9 one, while Saleen was a grade-8 mage. Nailisi was able topletely sense every single detail even two miles away. Spirits depended on energy vibrations to find their way in the first ce.


    That huge undersea basin seemed to have no bottom, or to put it more urately, Saleen and Nailisi were being sucked to the middle of the basin: a huge abyss. They were not falling straight downward, but were moving forward diagonally instead.


    There were no living creatures within that region of the sea. Not even the most prevalent undersea microbes existed there.


    The abyss¡¯ suction had only began going downwards after moving up to about one-thousand miles. Saleen did not intend to fight it. While the abyss¡¯ suction power was without a doubt massive, the level of his and Nailisi¡¯s powers would be able to get them back to the entrance without problems. As the cemetery was something designed by humans, there would be an exit somewhere else even if they were never able to find the way they came in.


    What astonished Saleen was actually how the people designing the cemetery were willing to spend such astronomical amounts of money to build such a ce. The length of one such huge undersea abyss, if calcted vertically on the ground, was astronomical. They would have been able to find underground fires, which were hot enough to melt rocks, making them follow like water. The undersea abyss however, seemed to be one without end.


    Ten miles, twenty miles, no, thirty miles!


    Saleen calcted silently. He was able to feel the bottom of the abyss all of a sudden. The giant bubble wrapping him and Nailisi began expanding forcefully. If it was not for the suction of the abyss, both of them would have simply floated upwards.


    Eighty miles deep!


    While the undersea abyss was no way near that of the abyss ne, a depth of eighty-thousand yards was nheless startling to Saleen. What startled him more however, was the moment his Elemental Eye recovered when they reached the bottom of the abyss. Saleen saw countless number of bones beneath, and there were bones from more creatures than just the single-horned white whales. Saleen was even unable to determine which creatures the bones belonged to.


    The single-horned white whale, was but a medium-sized magic beasts inparison to some of the remains of other dead creatures there.


    That was their goal: the cemetery. Saleen and Nailisi cast tens of mid level spells simultaneously, creating a cushion beneath their feet. Water currents shot upwards furiously at them, slowing their fall.


    The currents there all flowed to the bottom of the sea, yet the bottom of the sea itself hardly had holes. Such powerful suction was determined toe from the earth. Earth element was so abundant on the ground at the bottom of the sea that Saleen was feeling somewhat hard-pressed about breathing underwater. His body of water element finally had an adverse effect on him there.


    His body of water element also found the water pressure at the depth of eighty-thousand yards was something hard to get used to.


    Nailisi was doing fine still, as she was in the form of a three-faced bone demon. While she was unable to manipte water element, such powerful water pressure did not bother her much.


    If the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat ended up there, it would have been crushed.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes did not allow him to find the whale they were looking for there, and where they were at seemed to be the outskirts of the cemetery. The bones Saleen saw there were basically all from grade-9 magic beasts, and a great majority of them came from single-horned white whales.


    Saleen put up a hand sign at Nailisi, the Mental Sense between both of them actually worked better there. Nailisi was able topletely tell what Saleen was thinking.


    Nailisi also put up a hand sign herself, and made it in front of Saleen with the spear in her hand.


    The bones numbering in tens of thousands all belonged to creatures of more than one-hundred yards long. The silhouette of both of them swimming in such a background made them look tiny. Nailisi took the lead and made way to a magic beast bone remains that were two-hundred yards long. She came to the head of the skeleton and poked lightly with her finger.


    The bones fell apart without making any sound. The bones eventually turned into powder thanks to the immense water pressure. There were no signs of a magic nucleus within the head.


    Nailisi turned and saw Saleen telling her to continue.


    Nailisi swam quickly for another whale¡¯s skeleton and poked with her finger again. The bones of that whale fell apart without making a sound as well, turning into powder again, and sank slowly down in the seawater. What was different that time was that the two yard long horn of the whale did not fall apart. Nailisi took it in her hand and stored it in her bracelet.


    Saleen paid no heed to what Nailisi was doing. He only felt that his body had been glued to the undersea floor by the force of the suction. Moving like Nailisi did would have put an immense toll on him.


    A water shield would have been quicklypressed to the surfaces of his body, giving him no buoyancy at all. The spell was required to be advanced to grade-9 before it could have been easily used there.


    ¡°Could we train here? Nonsense. We don¡¯t even know if Soldier and the others are okay...¡±


    Nailisi had no idea what had been going in Saleen¡¯s mind. She simply kept searching the remains one by one, and she had only found someparatively precious materials once in about one-hundred skeletons searched. Given how the materials were able to be preserved at such depths without signs of decay nor degeneration, the materials could prove to have more value than any that she had been able to find in the past.


    The horn of a single-horned white whale was nowhere near the quality of the spike of that silverline golden spearfish, yet its sturdiness enabled it to hold for tens of thousands of years without decay. Even metals would have easily turned to dust under such an environment.


    Saleen unleashed the Stone Statue Army after thinking about it. The spell was grade-9. He cast the spell and unleashed six nine yard long stone statues. If he was topress the size of the statues, thebat capacity of them would have dropped somewhat.


    Saleen was surprised to find that the six statues unleashed in such an environment reached a height of nine yards. Saleen had the statues stacked on top of one another, and he climbed on top of them, looking down on the internal space of the abyss.


    The view eighty miles away astonished him. There was a huge wall there. Despite having crumbled and being damaged, he was nheless able to imagine how majestic the wall had been once upon a time.


    The crumbled wall still stood at about one-hundred yards tall. Its original height would probably have been around five to six-hundred yards. Such walls would have proved useful as defenses against giants.


    With the crumbled walls, it went without saying that the gate towers were no longer standing either. Just before the gate, Saleen saw stone statues of about one-hundred yards tall. Those ones were far smaller than the ones that had been standing guard at the abyss¡¯ entrance, but those ones were holding weapons. The statues did not seem to be damaged in anyway, and actually looked newer than Saleen¡¯s own statue army units.


    ¡°Hardly surprising,¡± Saleen thought. ¡°Just so long as magic arrays capable of energy conservation are in ce, these statues will have been replenished continuously from the earth element around, enabling them to repair themselves. They would easily look just as new even after standing one-million years more, let alone a mere ten-thousand. No, the statues are probably like the ones I got before myself, making them some kind of elemental creature, instead ofbat puppets created by magic. If these were stone statue soldiers, then the level of the statues would be higher than grade-9! These statues are able to use rules to absorb the powers of the ground on their own.¡±


    Saleen counted patiently. There were up to one-hundred stone statue soldiers. If about one-hundred elemental creature of grade-10 were getting in his way, there would have been no hope for him to make it into the true cemetery.


    Where they were was simply the outskirts of the cemetery. If they wanted to get their hands on the remains of ancient creatures, they would have to make it into the abyssal city.


    Nailisi was getting bored after searching around for some time. Other than horns of single-horned white whales, the magic nuclei of the magic beasts there were basically all damaged, or simply so broken that they turned to dust. The asional one or twoplete pieces found were degraded badly in terms of quality.


    Nailisi decided to just store all the horns that she had been able to find, and returned to Saleen. He put up a hand sign, and both of them entered the purgatory of darkness.


    ¡°Master, there was nothing worth searching for. This junk is just too broken, but...¡±


    ¡°Those ashes would make good death magic materials. If you knew dead spirit alchemy, you wouldn¡¯t have said that,¡± Saleen tore right through Nailisi¡¯s lies.


    While it was true that the bone remains of the magic beasts were damaged, and the damaged bone remains had indeed turned to ashes, they had instead be the best alchemic material for use in death magic. To death mages, bone dust was worth more than the grade-9 magic nuclei used by elemental mages.


    ¡°Nailisi, I saw a city. There were guards, probably stone statue soldiers of grade-9 or grade-10.¡±


    Nailisi reacted with joy, which quickly turned somewhat gloomy soon after. Stone statue soldiers were no easy elemental creatures to deal with. They could simply continue resurrecting until their leader was killed. Earth element was obnoxiously abundant in the environment of the abyss. Quickly killing all of the statues in one go and looking for the leader, was not an option.


    She only had the capacity of a grade-9 professional. There was just no way she could kill all one-hundred statues at once.


    ¡°Master, what do you suggest then?¡±


    ¡°Go collect all the materials you are able to collect. The bone dust will be useful in repairing your purgatory of death.¡±


    ¡°Understood, master, but it will take quite a lot of time.¡±


    ¡°I will go circle around the city and see if there are any loopholes I can exploit. We will regroup hereter,¡± Saleen said calmly.


    ¡°Master, no!¡±


    ¡°What do you mean no? I was but a grade-1 mage before I met you, and I survived just fine. Nailisi, meet me here in three days!¡±, Saleen did not allow Nailisi to refuse, and left the purgatory of darkness as soon as he finished.


    Nailisi was baffled. She had only found out then, that Saleen had mastered the way of entering and exiting the Twelve Notes of Purgatory as he pleased.

 Chapter 868: Giant City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 868: Giant City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen has never felt so determined before. Back then, when he was still a grade-1 mage, he already dared to enter the Chaotic Swamp. After he became a grade-8 sorcerer and the number of equipment he possessed was much envied by all other mages, was there reason why he could not explore the ancient cemetery on his own?


    Although danger was not new to him, like his teacher, he has never chosen to go into danger of his own will before. All the dangers that he had experienced thus far were due to his circumstances, where he did not have a choice.


    That time around, he would put himself through something all mages must do, face the dangerous world on his own in the abyss. There would be no subordinates, no followers, and no help. He could only depend on himself and his spells.


    Saleen suddenly understood why his teacher was so powerful. His power came from his mindset of never backing off from anything, and instead doing what needed to be done one thing at a time. This was what a mage should be like, the pride of humans.


    Saleen felt much morefortable leaving Nailisi behind. He lifted his water shield slowly to form a magic shield that was fusiform-shaped. Saleen began to go through the magic knowledge that he had learned all that while. The transformation of the six major elements, the bnce of energies, the control of souls, the lightning rule...


    The energy of the water shield was gradually bnced due to the rich amount of elements in the abyss. Blue electric currents finally appeared on the surface of the water shield. That was something that Saleen had always dreamed of.


    The electric current only appeared for a moment before vanishing. Saleen did not mind, since that was a new technique that he had just learned. Besides, it would be even better if the electric currents appeared only when he was defending himself in a fight against an enemy. If they appeared all the time, Saleen would not be able to handle the drain of mental strength.


    Ground elements softened on the exterior of the water shield. They showed no signs of solidifying into rocks and it was as if the ground elements had mixed and reacted with the water elements so that the shield, which was made of water elements, had be more resilient. Saleen even sensed that the defense abilities of the water shield had surpassed grade-9, yet the amount of energy required was only equivalent to a grade-6 spell.


    That was not an illusion. It was because the amount of ground elements there were so rich that Saleen did not have to use up much magic chords. Once he had activated the water shield, he only had to maintain it with his mental strength.


    Once the fusiform-shaped water shield was formed, Saleen felt more relieved. The gravitational force of the abyss was no longer so terrifying. Instead, Saleen had even made use of the power of thend to life up his water shield.


    Saleen¡¯s speed increased instantaneously and he was moving as quickly as a single-horned white whale.


    His powers remained the same as he was still a grade-8 sorcerer, but he had managed to fully utilize the forces around him and turned his obstacles into advantages. Saleen¡¯s understanding of the Figaro Magic Form and Dante¡¯s Sequence had also deepened. The power of elements might not necessarily be manipted only with mental strength nor initiated only with magic chords.


    His own water-elemental body already had the ability to resonate with the surrounding water elements! No wonder he was using up less magic chords!


    The magic beast skeletons on the exterior were only about thirty miles wide. The magic beasts died there without even having the chance to enter the cemetery. The deeper he went, the bigger the skeletons.


    At thirty miles away, Saleen began to circle and observe the city wall that had copsed. The city wall was still one-hundred yards tall despite its copse. Saleen floated upwards until he reached a height of about five-hundred yards. That was when he could see the interior of the city wall with his elemental eyes.


    Saleen could use his elemental eyes for more than six hours, which meant that he could almost use it any time he wanted. Other grade-9 sorcerers would only able to use that grade-9 technique for only about half an hour.


    Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes could not see the end of the city. He only saw that huge building that had copsed, and plenty of zas that were covered with magic arrays.


    The city was more than seven miles in diameter. Saleen could not see the end of the city wall on both sides. In that case, the city might be as wide as three-hundred to five-hundred miles.


    How much manpower was used in order to construct such a massive city under water? Saleen taken more than a year¡¯s time to construct Metatrin City, which was only eight miles long and six miles wide. In the end, he had to resort to relying on the Three Kings to summon many spirits of the dead to help himplete the construction of the city.


    There were quite a number of stone statue soldiers in the city, which eliminated Saleen¡¯s n of trying to sneak in. The stone statue soldiers were less than eight-hundred yards from the city wall and the range in which they could detect intruders was at least be a mile.


    Saleen circled the city wall patiently and observed from a distance. He approached very gradually, and when he was finally about one-thousand yards above the city wall, he tried to get within ten miles.


    Ten miles, eight miles, six miles!


    When Saleen had reached six miles, a flood of ground elements came straight at him from within the copsed city wall. Even though the city wall had been so badly damaged, it still possessed powerful defense and attack abilities!


    An attacking range of six miles was not considered too formidablepared to Metatrin City, whose magic catapults possessed an attacking range of more than ten miles. That was a pure magic attack though, which was a flood made up of thousands of giant rocks of ground elements.


    The attack was so powerful that even an ancient giant would turn into minced meat, much less Saleen.


    If this was just a pure elemental attack, Saleen would not hesitate to absorb it with his n badge. However, the attack was made up of thousands of giant stones. His n badge would only work after he had beenpletely buried by the stones.


    Elemental spells that were apanied with physical attacks were the hardest to defend against. Tens of bubbles began to expand on the exterior of Saleen¡¯s water shield while two grade-9 spells were unleashed from his magic robe at the same time.


    They were Phantom Flurry and Roar of a Fire Spirit.


    Phantom Flurry had advanced to grade-9, so it was able to produce thirty-six images. Once the images appeared, the flood of giant stones began to branch out in order to attack every single image.


    Roar of a Fire Spirit created a grade-9 creature of fire element and what creature that was would purely be left to chance. By right, it should be impossible to create fire-element creatures in the deep sea, but Saleen¡¯s magic was able to transform water elements into fire elements.


    A fire-element giant ape that was more than thirty yards tall appeared behind Saleen. The core of the giant ape was a cluster of white energy of water elements. The water elements evaporated before burning fiercely and forming a giant fire ape.


    The fire ape leapt towards the flood of elements. It swung its fists and smashed the giant rocks into pieces. Just like that, it stopped the rush of ground elements. After the thirty-six images forced the attack from the city to diverge, the fire ape stood in front of Saleen and was able to block all the giant rocks from flying past its body, until it used up all of its energy and finally dissipated amongst the water.


    Saleen did not retreat. Instead, he quickly charged forward from the position that was being attacked by the elemental flood. Saleen was able to cover the distance of six miles within three minutes. The number of stone statue soldiers outside of the city wall was few and far between. Saleen hid in a corner of the copsed city wall as he tried to recall what he had seen in the city.


    Two-hundred yards to the left was a stone statue soldier and there was another one six-hundred yards to the right. If he was to jump over the city wall, the stone statue soldier on the left would reach him so quickly that he would only have less than half a minute to escape. He guessed that more than half of the magic arrays in the city were no longer working. As for those that were still functioning, their attacking abilities were no longer the same as what they were initially and were probably only at about one percent of their full power.


    Even so, Saleen would not be able to repel a second wave of attack. He might only be a grade-8 sorcerer, but the seals on his devil suit had already reached grade-9. After using those spells just, it would take six hours before they were fully recharged again.


    Saleen could still use the Vacuum Imprisonment spell, Frost and Snow magic pattern, and Endless Night one more time each. The Vacuum Imprisonment spell was a single-target magic spell, Frost and Snow magic pattern was a boosting spell, and Endless Night was a spell that targeted creatures.


    There were another three grade-9 spells in the wooden sword and Saleen could still unleash darkness shield, but those would not be able to defend against the attacks from the magic arrays in the city.


    What to do, what to do!


    Saleen¡¯s guess was correct. Indeed, there were problems with the defense magic arrays in the city and they could no longer function like they had tens of thousands of years ago. Therefore, after the elemental flood, the location where the spell was unleashed was actually the safest. Broken magic arrays usually had intervals between each attack and those intervals were usually very long.


    The problem was that Saleen was directly below the city wall with no stone statue soldiers on his left or right, but there was still no way to enter the city.


    Saleen recalled all the magic spells that he possessed and realized that none of them could be used against grade-9 elemental creatures. To put it more urately, he could not handle tens or even hundreds of elemental creatures.


    The only way was to figure out how to defeat the leader of the stone statue soldiers so that he could enter the city safely. The leader of the grade-9 stone statue soldiers could very well be a grade-10 creature.


    Saleen felt a little helpless, but nevertheless, he took out the Witcher Spider. The Witcher Spider was a little useless to him by then. Saleen¡¯s enemies were getting more and more powerful while the Witcher Spider was most useful for sneaking up on Professionals that were grade-7 and below.


    Saleen changed the Witcher Spider¡¯s magic nucleus into a grade-9 one and allowed it to begin to dig a hole in the city wall. As for Saleen, he unleashed the water currents in the Shenhe and began to dig a hole in the ground.


    The ground there was made of solid hard rocks. The rocks were much harder than the white rocks in Metatrin City. The rocks were so hard because of the unique environment of the abyss. If they were ced anywhere else, they would be of simr characteristics and hardiness as steel rocks.


    Saleen began to dig a hole in the ground. Back in the ancient times, there would be plenty of magic arrays below the ground and he would not able to dig through them. In current times the magic arrays were no longer functioning, Saleen¡¯s water currents effortlessly dug out a hole in the ground that was more than a yard in diameter.


    The hole that the Witcher Spider had dug out was not small either. Saleen patted the Shenhe and the water puppet appeared.


    ¡°You will go on top while I will go below. We will enter the city.¡± Saleen pointed at the hole in the city wall andmunicated with the water puppet through a mental exchange.

 Chapter 869: Giant City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 869: Giant City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, what should I do?¡± The water puppet knew that Saleen needed his help. He would have to put aside the things that he had yet to resolve in his mind.


    ¡°You will control the Witcher Spider. The thickness of the city wall should be about one-hundred and twenty yards. After six hours, lure the two grade-9 stone statue soldiers over, but don¡¯t fight them. They cannot be killed. The moment they try to attack you, turn yourself into water. If they try to return back to their fixed location, change back into your original form to lure them over again and again.¡±


    ¡°Understand. Six hourster.¡± The water puppet answered simply and walked towards the city wall.


    Saleen did not say much. He manipted the water current into digging a deep hole in the ground. The water current had been newly refined by Saleen, so it was able to dig much fasterpared to when Metatrin City was being constructed. Saleen did not care to preserve any rock materials, so he dug with abandon, so he could enter the city as soon as possible.


    Saleen had also been using his devil ring to store the stone materials that have been dug out. When the hole was ten yards deep, Saleen turned around and filled up the entrance with the stone materials and sealed it off with magic. Finally, he stored all the seawater in the hole into his devil ring as well. Just like that, there would be no seawater in the hole that would interfere with the air that Saleen had created.


    Saleen removed the water shield so that he would not waste his magic chords. As the water currents were cutting ahead, he was keeping stone materials behind. That would allow him to move the quickest. When the hole was sixty yards deep Saleen finally began to dig towards the city.


    Very soon, Saleen reached the foundation of the city wall. He pondered for a while before making a turn and continuing to dig downwards. The materials that made up the city wall was even harder than the rocks on the surface of the ground. It would be extremely difficult to dig a hole if he had not used magic to grind them slowly.


    When the hole was two-hundred yards deep, Saleen had finally reached the bottom of the city wall¡¯s foundation.


    Saleen changed his direction again and began to dig towards the city. When Saleen estimated that about six hours had passed, that was when he started to dig upwards. The thickness of the city wall was only one-hundred and twenty yards while Saleen had dug in the direction of the city for at least six-hundred yards.


    When Saleen was sure that he would not end up below any magic arrays, he decided to dig upwards. After digging a distance of one-hundred yards, Saleen was ten yards away from the surface of the ground. Saleen sealed off the hole behind him and sucked out all the air in it. Finally, he continued to make his way up.


    Saleen and the water puppet had agreed to meet at that time. On the surface of the ground, there were huge vibrations that seemed to be produced by the stone statue soldiers running. Saleen¡¯s water current finally cut through the surface and cut out a small hole of less than a yard in diameter, then he quickly dug his way outpletely.


    The two huge stone statue soldiers had already sprinted to the edges of the city wall and they were smashing at the water puppet with their giant war hammers. Saleen knew that the water puppet was not afraid of physical attacks. He only took one nce before turning around and swimming as hard as he could into the depths of the city. He did not dare to activate his water shield, so he let the bubbles stick to his body so that friction would be at its lowest. He utilized both his hands and feet and swam into a gigantic house.


    He entered from a small hole beneath a gigantic door. It was about one-hundred yards tall. It was as if the small hole was the result from some gigantic mouse¡¯s chewing.


    The moment he entered the room, Saleen felt that his senses had been cut off. He could no longer sense and judge the battle outside and had no idea how the water puppet was doing. In the room, there were enormous tables and chairs. The feet of the tables were already tens of yards tall.


    Saleen was determined. He swam past the underside of the table and upwards past the broken windows before entering a gigantic courtyard. There was another room after the courtyard and after passing through three courtyards consecutively, Saleen finally came before a huge door. It was designed simrly to the courtyards of Cloudflow and there were two gigantic stone statues.


    The stone statues were not humans but were two blue-eyed golden lions.


    The blue-eyed golden lions were more than fifty yards tall and were crouched at the entrance of the door. Saleen hesitated for a moment before walking up the steps to the door. Both statues turned their heads towards Saleen at the same time. Saleen continued to walk with confidence without looking back them. As expected, the two statues turned back and ignored Saleen.


    The principle of magic was that there must be consistency. If the two blue-eyed golden lions were supposed to differentiate between friend and foe based on aura, then they could not possibly be ced at the entrance, otherwise all visitors would have been killed by them. Even if they were built with magicponents that were supposed to differentiate between friend and foe, they were probably already broken after so many years. Onlybatponents couldst the that long.


    Saleen gambled on the fact that the two items must be used as deterrents and after so many years, the magicponents that allowed them to differentiate between friend and foe were already broken. Without such an ability, these stone statues would no longer initiate attacks on anyone, unless they were attacked first.


    Saleen looked to his left and right. The entire street was close to the city wall and looked like it was built for horse carriages. The houses on both sides of the street were abnormally huge and looked like they were built for giants instead of humans.


    Saleen did not dare to swim upwards. This city most likely had anti-flying measures in ce. He was previously attacked because he had gone over a certain height limit in order to peek inside the city, hence triggering the magic array into attacking him.


    The humans in the past possessed powerfulbat abilities and the defense in the city would not rely only on magic arrays. Grade-9 elemental creatures were merely ordinary soldiers. Back then, there were countless professionals in the giant city. Most of the magic arraysplemented lifestyle products while those that were built forbat could most likely be found concentrated near the city wall.


    Saleen walked more than ten miles in and did not see any creatures. He could not swim up, so he had no idea what was ahead of him. In the empty giant city, Saleen cut a lonesome figure.


    Saleen finally saw a huge and tall tower after walking for twenty miles. Half of the tower had already copsed and the ancient Myers words on the lintel had faded. Saleen observed carefully with his elemental eyes and just about managed to figure out what the Myers words said.


    ¡°Military depot...¡±


    There were no other simr towers nearby. Although the tower might be huge, it was hard to estimate how many soldiers it could station, especially those elemental stone statue soldiers near the city wall, which were over one-hundred yards tall.


    ¡°Looks like this is the ce!¡± Saleen deduced that the leader of the elemental stone statue soldiers should be in the military depot.


    Saleen did not enter the military depot immediately. Instead, he walked one round around it, at a circumference of one-thousand yards. He could not see anybels of defense on the surrounding buildings. The ce was twenty miles away from the city wall. If the leader of the stone statue soldiers was able to control them from there, then it must be a grade-10 creature.


    Saleen turned around and headed back to the military depot. More than six hours had passed. He could use the spells on this devil armor again. Saleen took out his magic staff and a small magic scroll.


    The magic scroll was obtained from the battle at Separation Sea. Back then, the grade-8 mage had wanted to unleash a grade-10 spell but was interrupted halfway. The scroll fell and Saleen managed to pick it up.


    For a grade eight mage to be able to cast a grade-10 spell, the scroll had to be more valuable than a gigantic grade-9 magic nucleus. Saleen was willing to use it now because, as long as the leader of the stone statue soldiers was under his control, all the stone statue soldiers near the city wall would be his subordinates.


    Saleen did not believe the armies of the Holy See would be able to repel hundreds of grade-9 stone statue soldiers that were one-hundred yards tall each. Using up a grade-10 scroll was nothing. The scroll was a one-off item anyway, but the elemental stone statue soldiers could be used over and over again.


    Once he was well-prepared, Saleen returned to the military depot. He activated his water shield and swam to the second level of the military depot with a magic staff in hand. Although the military depot consisted only of two and a half levels, it was still more than two-hundred yards tall. Saleen felt helpless when faced with such gigantic buildings. He entered through a gap in the window and saw that the items on the second level of the tower had already decayed.


    Only high-level magic materials would be able to fight against decay after tens of thousands of years under the sea. Saleen did not bother flipping through the items. He went over to the staircase and removed his water shield before activating his ice te armor.


    Grade-10 elemental creatures would be difficult for grade-9 mages to handle. Although human mages were stronger than elemental creatures, the difference in grade was not something to be overlooked.


    Beneath the devil mask, Saleen could feel the skin on his face spasming. That was the first time he would be facing such a powerful being on his own. If he lost, then death would await him.


    ¡°Teacher, I will not back down!¡± Saleen thought encouragement to himself and walked down the stairs. Each step on the flight of stairs was more than two yards in height and Saleen almost had to leap over them. When he was halfway down, there was a rumbling sounding from one of the rooms below. Saleen saw a gigantic weapon crashing towards him and behind the weapon was a pair of eyes that shone red.


    A stone statue soldier that was only twenty yards tall was wielding a giant war hammer and pounced at Saleen. Its movements were so fast that it wasparable to a magic attack. If all warriors could move that fast, then mages would no longer hold any advantage over them.


    Saleen cast Ice Attack and another grade-9 spell called Dismantle Element was also activated from the magic staff.


    It was a very rare spell and ever since the Sregl Ind mages had advanced to grade-9, only one of them had been able to cast that spell. The magic staff that the mage had given to Saleen stored four spells of Dismantle Element. Saleen could not bear to use them until that time, which just showed how precious the spells were.


    Once a mage used the spell once, they would not be able to use it again for an entire month. The damage that the mage would sustain from the spell was almost as high as that of crystal finger.


    Dismantle Element could dismantle an enemy¡¯s magicpletely. When used against elemental creatures, there was a significant chance that the target would be dismantled or knocked out. If it was dismantled, the elemental creature could never be revived; if it was knocked out, the elemental creature would not be able to restore itsbat abilities for a short period of time.


    For a stone statue soldier of that grade, the grade-9 Dismantle Element would never be able to dismantle it, so Saleen decided to use it without too many concerns.


    Six huge blocks of solid ice froze the stone statue soldier¡¯s war hammer. Saleen leapt down from the side of the staircase. The war hammer missed its target and smashed the staircase, which was already in bad shape, into pieces.


    When a spell as mysterious as Dismantle Element struck the stone statue soldier, a green light shone on the surface of its body. The stone statue soldier stopped moving. As the light slowly dissipated, that was when the stone statue soldier descended and smashed its hammer at Saleen again.


    The grade-9 spell was ineffective. The grade of the stone statue soldier had made it immune to the grade-9 spell.

 Chapter 870: Elemental Stone Statue Soldier (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 870: Elemental Stone Statue Soldier (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The leader of the stone statue soldier¡¯s second attack came quickly right in front Saleen¡¯s eyes as the Dismantle Element spell failed. The speed of grade-10 elemental creatures was not something melee soldiers were able to achieve.


    The leader¡¯s warhammer was shaped like a war drum, with tower-shaped magic arrays within. The drum¡¯s surface had a diameter of one and a half yards. A wind dragon was conjured by Saleen as the hammer came crashing down, which entangled the weapon. His wind dragon was conjured by converted water element, and it was several times more powerful than usual wind dragons.


    Saleen hesitated for a moment and decided not to use the Crystal Finger, and not to use grade-10 scrolls either. As the wind dragon was sessfully conjured, he unleashed Vacuum Imprisonment from his robe. He followed that up with three consecutive castings of Dismantle Element.


    The three consecutive castings of Dismantle Element formed an elemental point. The beat of three grade-9 magic worked as if it was a war drum: one hit followed by another hit without pause.


    Light of six major elements shed wildly on the body of the leader. Saleen did not dare to wait for the magic determination to finish. He took out his third staff and cast Death Impact. The spell was an instant death spell which also worked on elemental creatures. Effects of instant death magic stored within magic staffs were not half as powerful though.


    Saleen followed up with yet another grade-9 spell after casting Death Impact, it was the Invasion of Darkness spell.


    The spell was a debuffing spell, which only produced death effect when overwhelming the enemy with one¡¯s level. That meant that a grade-9 Invasion of Darkness spell would have proved lethal to grade-6 professionals, but to grade-7 professionals, the spell was only able to weaken its target. As the leader of the stone statue soldiers was a grade-10 being, such grade-9 spells could not have any overwhelming effect. It simply worked as a simple weakening spell, to weaken all of the soldier¡¯s attributes.


    The third Dismantle Element spell announced it sess with a loud crack. A huge crack formed across the leader¡¯s twenty yard tall body, which snapped the being in two soon after.


    As Dismantle Element worked, the following spells were allpleted. The stone statue soldier leader cracked all over as Death Impact came into effect, which sounded like dynamite going off. Under the seeding Invasion of Darkness¡¯ effect, all attempts by the leader to repair itself failedpletely. Saleen bore witness to the twenty yard tall body of the leader crumbling into pieces.


    The warhammer had only managed to reach the ground after that, which created a crater of more than a yard deep on the stone floor right in front of Saleen. He was sent jumping up for more than half a yard as a result. The warhammer fell onto the ground like it was made of soft metal. The edge of the crater on the stone floor was clear-cut, without the tiniest of crack one could see.


    Saleen pointed a finger. A small stone statue of about two yards tall broke from the shell of the leader¡¯s body. Taking one step forward, it stabbed a stone spear at Saleen¡¯s brow.


    Saleen fired his Crystal Finger without hesitation. He felt a sharp pain on his finger, which then ended up beingpletely dried and shriveled. Despite having suppressed the power of the Crystal Finger to its absolute lowest, it still rendered one of Saleen¡¯s fingerspletely dead, which looked so dried up that it looked like the flesh of spirits.


    Such was the result of Saleen advancing into the rank of a grade-8 sorcerer and his body strengthening, thus enabling him to withstand the resulting recoil. The original consequence of using such an attack would have cost Saleen his entire arm.


    The Crystal Finger¡¯s attack bore a hole in the brow of the smaller statue which burst out of therger leader. Saleen put away his grade-10 scroll, as he did not have enough time to use it. He had never thought the leader¡¯s body contained such a fail-safe within.


    A broken jade piece was thrown from Saleen¡¯s right hand, shooting right for the hole in the brow of the smaller statue.


    Shrieks of pain were heard from within the two yard tall statue¡¯s head. The broken jade left by Shann went about sucking its soul maniacally. Grade-9 stone statue soldiers did not have souls, but that one was a grade-10 stone statue soldier capable of advancement, which looked like it was about to molt and be a grade-11 leader.


    The structure of a soul had begun to form in its body. When the soul was born, it would have allowed the being to not be limited by its form, and be a high level elemental creature. The Eternal Control rule within the broken jade struck intense fear into that newborn soul within.


    The elemental creature felt fear for the first time.


    Elemental creatures with souls were painfully few and far between. Stone statue soldiers were in the handful of elemental creatures capable of developing a soul. The soul knew well that if it was not able to break free, it would lose its freedom forever.


    Saleen did not show any mercy at all. The hammer attack from the leader would not have been something he was able to slow down if he did not possess insane spells like Dismantle Element. The magic of the warhammer hadpletely turned into a physical attack, which exceeded the Darkness Shield¡¯s capacity to defend against.


    What an insane elemental creature! Saleen did not dare use Eye of Lightning against it. The Eye of Lightning might not have been able to paralyze something like the stone statue soldier leader. Casting the spell would have left Saleen with some dire after effects, such as a temporary drop in mental powers. Such a drop required multiple meditation sessions to recover, and even the use of divine crystals would not have been of much help.


    The purple glow in the stone statue soldier leader¡¯s faded, as the rule within Shann¡¯s broken jadepletely overwhelmed the newborn soul.


    ¡°What you are struggling for? You were but humanity¡¯s weapon even in ancient times!¡±, Saleen shouted, and the leader¡¯s soul immediately suffered an electrical shock. Saleen had no intention of killing the leader¡¯s soul, as it was very difficult for elemental creatures to develop souls. Saleen simply hoped his new servant would have been smarter.


    If it had been an adamant one like Ismail, who absolutely refused to submit, Saleen would not have minded killing it off. He would have still been able to get a grade-11 stone statue soldier leader after all.


    ¡°Master...,¡± the leader kneeled before Saleen. It was no Ismail, Saleen was right. It was little more than humanity¡¯s soldier in ancient times, and a soldier needed to know how to follow orders.


    ¡°What is this ce?¡±, Saleen asked his new servant.


    ¡°I...do not know,¡± the purple glow in its eyes shone again, yet it said nothing about what it remembered. Too much time had passed and there had been no human stepping foot in the city for tens of thousands of years. The memory of elemental creatures was limited, and its soul had just been born recently.


    Saleen was dumbfounded for a moment, before realizing he would not have been able to get anything by asking the leader. The leader¡¯s vocabry even sounded dry and limited. The ancient Ismailnguage was pleasant to the ear and its intonations sounded like music. The words of thatnguage spoken by the leader not only sounded dry, but it also seemed like the words were simply forced into a sentence without any concern for eloquence.


    Inherited knowledge was still required to be gradually absorbed to enable the elemental creature to make such knowledge its own.


    Saleen was hardly disappointed. If the leader knew too much, it would have probably proved difficult to control. The tricks and methods ancient humans had at their disposal were tooplex. There may have been something within enabling it to break free of the Eternal Control.


    ¡°I know, you can...be...,¡±


    ¡°Master, I will summon my, subordinates!¡±, the stone statue soldier leader said as the magic patterns on its body glittered. At the edge of the city¡¯s wall more than twenty miles away, one-hundred and forty-four grade-9 stone statue soldiers seemed to have heard their leader¡¯s summon. All opened their eyes one by one, turned around, and made their way to the military depot. The soldiers were huge, and every one of them stood at a height of one-hundred yards. All had warhammers in their hands.


    The power of the warhammers was enough to put most mages to shame. The hammers were but magic equipment, yet one strike was enough to yield concussive force and shock so powerful that magic armor would prove useless. In the perspective of equipment, going on offense had always been easier than going on defense. Most contemporary magic armor possessed such defensive qualities that rendered most weapons useless against them.


    That was the very reason, despite magic armor being expensive to craft and even more expensive to repair, many would still b willing to equip their personal troops with such equipment.


    Saleenpared the elemental stone statue soldiers with the stone statue soldiers he summoned using magic, and found the elemental counterparts to be easier to control. Their impressivebat capacity was also something that no elemental creature summoned by magic could have achieved.


    One-hundred and forty-four huge elemental stone statue soldiers ran in the same direction. One step enabled them to move more than twenty yards. The distance of twenty miles took the soldiers less than five minutes to cover.


    Saleen took the leader to the street and looked at the grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers in lines before him, feeling very pleased with himself. Even if he ultimately failed to locate the single horned white whale¡¯s cemetery, what he bagged thus far would have been enough to satisfy him.


    ¡°No! I can¡¯t be satisfied so easily! I must find the whale¡¯s cemetery, or I won¡¯t be able to truly keep the Ancient I just captured running. Large number of magic nuclei are needed to make that ancient weapon fight in its fullest. With the Ancient, I would be able to conquer Alchemy City and Cloudflow heading south. I would also be able to attack the Tribunal¡¯s Purgatory heading west. Life is just like practicing magic, there is no backing down and the only way to go is to go forward. If I get satisfied and leave right now, the Ancient will be little more than a massive decoration. I will only be able to use the few upper floors like the Cloudflow people, calcte the number of rooms to open down there, and be exasperated for being able to do anything with them.¡±


    ¡°I will first give you a name,¡± Saleen looked at the leader who was significantly taller than he was and thought for a bit, ¡°You will be called...Vinny.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    ¡°Vinny, how many leaders like you are there?¡±, Saleen asked something simple. He wanted to collect more leaders like it, as doing so would grow the number of stone statue soldiers under hismand to terrifying levels.


    ¡°The Imperial City of the Abyss is twelve-thousand miles long and eight-thousand miles wide. My...elemental creatures, in great numbers, always able to replenish. Master...¡±


    ¡°If you were to die, would these soldiers die with you?¡±


    ¡°They would not. I¡¯m simply their leader. If I¡¯m not to be. The soldiers will choose a new leader.¡±


    Saleen understood right away. Ancient humans would not have allowed one to subdue great numbers of stone statue soldiers and rob them of the borders of their cities. He would not have been able to subdue the leaders one by one, unless he had an unlimited number of broken jade. The leaders would not revived when killed either.


    That could prove troublesome. If Vinny died, Saleen would not have any use for the soldiers. The initial excitement he felt seeing one-hundred and forty-four elemental stone statue soldiers gradually dissipated. He instead began figuring out how to put the creatures to good use, and go deeper into the city.

 Chapter 871: Elemental Stone Statue Soldier (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 871: Elemental Stone Statue Soldier (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°How did you once fight?¡±, Saleen asked Vinny directly.


    Vinny did not answer Saleen¡¯s question. The magic patterns across its entire body had instead begun to glitter and shrunk into a stone badge. All the other one-hundred and forty-four soldiers¡¯ bodies began to shrink as well, and jumped into the stone badge one by one.


    Saleen bent over and picked up the stone badge. The connection between himself and the broken jade was crystal clear in the badge. Saleen gave an order in his mind, which lit up the badge magically. A one-hundred yard tall statue soldier burst onto the space in front of Saleen and stood before him.


    Saleen¡¯s mind calmed. Such a way to control them was identical to the ones he acquired before. With Vinny¡¯s control over the statues being greater, themunication between it and Saleen also became easier. He was also capable of assuming directmand over the grade-9 statue soldier before him, making the statue do what he needed it to do.


    ¡°This is just way stronger than the grade-7 stone statue soldiers! This is the elemental badge talked about in the legends? It is the equipment ancient humans used to control elemental creatures!¡±


    Elemental badges tantly disregarded the size of elemental creatures they controlled. The magic arrays within were arranged ording to the number of elemental creatures. Each creature only took the space of an elemental point. The badge was a form Vinny was capable of assuming, and there were one-hundred and forty-four elemental points on it, without room for even one more.


    The one-hundred and forty-four stone statue soldiers were more far more powerful than the ones Saleen created himself. They were definitely unaffected by inconvenient factors such as time limits.


    Saleen contacted Vinny, which triggered the elemental badge to emanate overwhelming magic brilliance. The lights did not trigger any reaction from the magic arrays nearby. Elemental stone statue soldiers were, after all, guardians of the city itself.


    The grade-9 soldier standing at one-hundred yards tall began shrinking its body, with the color of the green rock armor bing increasingly dark and concentrated. When the soldier shrunk to the height of a mere ten yards, its elemental armor¡¯s color turned entirely ck. Saleen knew that the size of the soldier could not have been able to bepressed further, but that proved adequate nheless. The difference in height between it and the ones created by Saleen was less than one yard, making it entirely capable of being mixed with his own magic.


    The ck stone statue soldier¡¯sbat capacity far surpassed that of the puppets created from the magic stored in his robe. The soldiers possessed their own consciousness, while puppets required him to pull the strings. If the puppets were to fight on their own, they would not have so much been a match for grade-8 adversaries.


    Saleen recalled the soldier and set the elemental badge into the belt of the devil¡¯s armor, instead of storing it inside his own Devil Ring. There were slots on the devil¡¯s armor for equipping gear. The belt was something Joey crafted personally, which enabled a mage to have an extra of six equipment slots on their person.


    Saleen came to realize something. Joey had definitely knew something about the skills of ancient mages. Saleen would not have been able to just set the elemental badge on it like that.


    The six major elements all had corresponding elemental badges, and that had Saleen hoping to find the others.


    When humans first learned to use elemental creatures as defensive measures for cities and troop units, humanity could not have possibly used only earth element creatures to do so. Be it water, fire, wind, light, or dark elements, every one of them would have been very powerful as well. While the humans back then would not have thought much about that, in the perspective of the dwellers of the current Myers Maind, such badges were revolutionary equipment.


    Saleen went straight back to the military depot. He swam to the second floor and looked at the half-broken ceiling, finding the broken pieces. The copsed ceiling pieces ended up on a small bed. The bed was only three yards long: a length ancient humans loved. The three yard long bed was obviously not something meant for elemental creatures.


    There was no body to be found on the bed, making it apparent that humans left before the city was destroyed. Even so, Saleen managed to find equipment belonging to humans.


    A magic ring he found was pure ck in color and made of unknown gems. The carving of the creature was something Saleen felt familiar with, which turned out to be a six-winged flying snake.


    The six-winged flying snake was regarded as a powerful creature in ancient times.


    Saleen checked the ring with his own mental powers, and found that he was unable to open the space of the ring. He was a grade-8 sorcerer, whose mental powers had surpassed most grade-9 sorcerers. If the ring was one he was unable to open, then it was more than simply a spatial equipment; it was a sealing ring instead.


    There obviously was not a six-winged flying snake in the ring, and Saleen did not dare to imagine having such a luxury. Six-winged flying snakes were powerful creatures. They were also capable of developing intelligence. Even if a six-winged flying snake was indeed in there, Saleen would not be able to control it anyway. He would have ended up being eaten instead.


    Saleen put the ring away. ¡°The ring is obviously a sealing ring. If I run into a six-winged flying snaketer, the badge might be able to subdue it. The Grukos family kept low level six-winged flying snakes after all, right?¡± The ring was obviously capable of sealing snakes of higher levels. The snake was a guardian being to the Grukos, but not to Saleen. Saleen would definitely think of a way to seal one such snake into the ring.


    Vinny said that the city was twelve-thousand miles long, and eight-thousand miles wide. The ce easily qualified as arge country. As Saleen¡¯s chances of finding something diminished, there was little else he was able to do but enter the Imperial City of the Abyss and trying their luck.


    ¡°The Imperial City! Vinny said this ce was an imperial city. Did that make it some fief bestowed by a king of somewhere!? The entire fief was onerge city, but how did such arge city end up in an abyss? Were the early humans even capable of conquering the oceans? It is a possibility. The oceanic ice block is abundant with resources, which means that the region was extremely attractive to ancient humans.¡±


    Human footsteps were found even beyond Stormy Seas, and there might have been even the descendants of ancient humans in the various countries in the eastern seas, instead of foreign races like was the case with subcontinent ne.


    Humans of the subcontinent ne and the ones on the Myers Maind were actually already two different races. The lifespan of humans over there was one-third shorter than those of the Myers Maind. The ones on the maind were able to live to the age of one-hundred and twenty despite having trained in no arts, yet the ones considered to have lived a long life on the subcontinent, lived only to about eighty.


    Saleen had only wanted two things from the Imperial City of the Abyss: the elemental badge and bone remains of single-horned white whale. When humans conquered the seas in the past, they built a cemetery for those creatures, meaning that the whales were important to humans back then.


    He had not dared to subdue anymore stone statue soldiers. The devil¡¯s armor that Joey crafted for him only had six equipment slots at the belt. That was also the limit of Saleen¡¯s mental powers. Even if more slots were to be added, he would not have been able to use them all at once. While he indeed possessed massive mental powers, it was still within Joey¡¯s means of calction. Joey was even able to calcte what kind of capacity Saleen would reach even advancing to grade-9.


    Saleen returned to the area nearby the wall and summoned the water puppet. Rossen appeared quickly and asked suspiciously, ¡°Master, the stone statue soldiers around have disappeared!¡±


    ¡°I have subdued them, Rossen. Take this,¡± Saleen said and took out his crystal ring, handing it to the water puppet.


    ¡°My liege, what do you mean?¡±, the water puppet put on the ring without actually understanding Saleen¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°I¡¯m collecting elemental badges, but¡­there is something I need to craft forter use.¡±


    ¡°I see, my liege. What about Nailisi then?¡±


    ¡°She is outside,¡± Saleen did not say much. In Saleen¡¯s mind, the water puppet had always been his equipment. Even though the water puppet actually possessed higher intelligence than most magic beasts, Saleen still had never truly treated the water puppet as a person. It was normal for mages to bring their equipment on adventures.


    Saleen knew that if he wanted to enter the heart of the imperial city and search for the single-horned whale¡¯s cemetery, he would need help from the elemental badge. The defense at the outskirts was actually mediocre. Many magical facilities simply broke down from the immense number of years passed.


    In the core of the imperial city however, operations of sorts were still running in a highly precise manner.


    Saleen would be able to have great confidence dealing with mostplicated situations when he was able to collect all six elemental badges. His intention was to simply enter the cemetery of the single-horned white whale, take away a great number of magic nuclei, leave, ande back for more another day. By then, he would be bringing a good number of followers with him, and would sweep the ce clean.


    As to how to bring his men in, that was where Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory came into y. The number of demons he would be able to bring with him would have went up to tens of thousands doing so. There was no worries about the carrying capacity of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    Saleen took the water puppet back to the military depot with him. The stairs there were wrecked by the stone statue soldiers, but other ces seemed intact. Saleen searched for materials in his own Devil Ring, being very particr with it as he intended to craft Eternal Control shards.


    The water puppet stood guard outside the gate. A witcher spider was right above its head. Despite being crafted anew, the witcher spider remained a mid level puppet, possessing only fairbat capacity. It served as a good tool for sneak attacks and digging though.


    Saleen took out hisst broken jade and began researching it in detail in arge room. He had to gain more understanding on the rules of Eternal Control, before grade-9 or even grade-10 creatures could bepletely put under his thumb.


    Controlling the stone statue soldiers proved extremely easy, as the broken jade used contained the soul mes of the three kings. Eternal Control shards crafted by Saleen himself might not have been able to control grade-10 beings.


    The materials inside Saleen¡¯s Devil Ring were rich andprehensive, since he acquired a good number of horns of the single-horned white whales. The horns made good materials, but they alone could not be enough to craft Eternal Control shards. Saleen searched within his stores of gemstones, and picked out all the ck crystals.


    ck crystals were able to contain souls and Saleen had a lot with him. Most of the crystals were given to the death mages who swore their loyalty to him. The ck crystals left with him then all came from the Temple of the Goddess of Myers. The crystals were of very high quality and were meant to be used by grade-9 death sorcerers. Saleen had intended to give them away when there were any death mages of his advancing to such levels, but at that moment it seemed that such moments would nevere, as his current needs came first.


    The horns of the whales were of lengths measuring between one to three yards. Saleen took out five three yard long horns and threw them into the water me, which he followed with five huge pieces of ck crystals.


    The ck crystals liquefied instantly and seeped into the horns. The horns of the whales were impably sturdy, as the single-horned white whales were able to use them to both cast magic and plough right through hard ice to breathe at the surface. Ice sheets of thirty to fifty yards thick would not be able to withstand an impact from the whales. As such, the single-horned white whales were hardly limited by geographical factors of any sort. Even ice sheets hardly inconvenienced their movements.


    The horns were white. As the ck crystals liquefied and seeped into the horns, clean cut ck magic patterns appeared.

 Chapter 872: Elemental Badge (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 872: Elemental Badge (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen calmly used the two types of ipatible materials to create the shards of Eternal Control. Before he became a grade-10 mage, Saleen¡¯s body was fragile. An equipment like the elemental badge carried great significance to mages below grade-9.


    In order to refine the three yard long horn of the whale into a shard of Eternal Control that was only one-sixth the size of a card, the materials had to bepressed to an extreme extent. Within the white water me, the whale horn was first shrunk into about a yard long, then the speed ofpression was slowed down immediately.


    Saleen was in no hurry. The broken jade that was created by Shann was floating right in front of him. Saleen used his mental strength to sense the rule changes within the broken jade while using the ck crystal to put in ce magic patterns and magic arrays in the white whale horn.


    The ck crystal was a little brittle. Saleen wanted to ensure that its quality remained unchanged so that it could fuse together with the soul. Such refining was extremely difficult. The horn of the single-horned white whale was hundreds of times harder than the ck crystal, so it was already very hard topress it. Now, in order to avoid destroying the structure of the ck crystal, the amount of time needed for refining would have to be prolonged by more than thirty times.


    Saleen was patient. He and Nailisi had agreed on three days and only a day had passed so far. There was still half a yard of whale horn left and it was still in the midst of beingpressed.


    Compressing materials was something that magesmonly did as they could createplicated and huge magic arrays from a very small piece of equipment. Saleen was probably the first to refine an equipment using two materials of very different levels of hardiness.


    After the shard of Eternal Control was created, it wouldst longer than a century. To Saleen, that was enough. Within a century, he could even advance ten grades. Even as a grade-9 sorcerer, the quality of his water me would change, and his understanding of Eternal Control would also deepen. By the time he had to refine the shards again, he would be able to use them to control any creatures with full confidence.


    The only problem was that not all elemental creatures could produce souls. Saleen had no idea how long it would take him to piece together his elemental badge if he was to search the military depots one by one.


    After two days, Saleen finally managed to refine the whale horn into one-sixth the size of a card. The prototype of the shard of Eternal Control had beenpleted and Saleen no longer needed to focus all his mental strength into it and there would be no security issues for the time-being. That was when he thought of asking water puppet to inform Nailisi so that she could rest assured. All of a sudden, there was a violent explosion of Elemental Vibrations at the city wall. Saleen swam over from the high tower and only heard the deafening sounds of explosions.


    Saleen panicked.


    Over at the city wall, Nailisi was holding her longnce and she was in her three-faced bone demon form. She created a huge crater in the city wall with hernce. An invisible energy from the tip of the spear pierced through the one-hundred yard thick city wall and Nailisi went through the city wall, only to see two stone statue soldiers charging towards her.


    With one sweep of her longnce, the legs of the stone statue soldiers were cut offpletely. Then, Nailisi pierced her longnce through the foreheads of the two stone statue soldiers. Even grade-9 creatures were no match for the power of the longnce. Their heads exploded and Nailisi quickly sprinted towards the military depot that Saleen was at.


    By right, there were no stone statue soldiers around the city wall, but Nailisi had waited for three days and within that time, the stone statue soldiers nearby hade over to fill up the gaps. She had no idea what Saleen was up to, so she decided to enter the city by force.


    If she tried to enter from the top, she would be attacked by magic arrays, but if she went through the city wall directly, she would only have to face stone statue soldiers. The city wall, which was one-hundred and twenty yards thick, was made up of rocks that were even harder than metal but was pierced through by the tip of Nailisi¡¯snce. That strike had already surpassed what silver line golden spearfish could do at their maximum power.


    The two grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers were defeated by Nailisi but in the blink of an eye, the ground elements seeped into their bodies and two huge heads grew out again. Nailisi did not turn back. She used her senses from the soul bond and sprinted towards Saleen¡¯s location.


    ¡°Is Master in danger?¡± Nailisi knew that Saleen was still alive, but the three days that they had agreed on was up. Nailisi could not take it anymore and decided to enter the gigantic city. Nailisi no longer cared about what dwelled within the city. ¡°Master has not appeared after three days. What if he is in danger?¡±


    The stone statue soldiers pursued behind her. At first there were only two of them, but soon there were more than ten of them. There was arge number of stone statue soldiers in the Imperial City of the Abyss and most of them were in deep sleep. The moment some stone statue soldiers were destroyed or lost, new stone statue soldiers would immediately wake up to take their ces.


    For Nailisi to only trigger slightly more than ten stone statue soldiers in pursuit after entering the city forcefully, she was already considered lucky. No matter how powerful she was, as long as she did not manage to kill the leader of the stone statue soldiers, they would continue to pursue her until she was dead. This was why the ancient humans used elemental creatures to protect their cities.


    In the ancient times, magic beasts were very powerful. If not for the elemental creatures that could not be killed, the magic beasts would have been able to climb over the city walls and killed the people living in the cities. As for grade-9 soldiers, one would need arge number of them in order to guard such a huge city.


    It was by some measure of luck that Nailisi managed to defeat the two stone statue soldiers. Her weapon would have been useless if she had been struck by their gigantic war hammers. Elemental creatures could not be killed, especially in an environment like that, where the stone statue soldiers could replenish their elemental power continuously.


    As a demon in the form of a spirit of the dead, by right, she should not attract the attention of the stone statue soldiers since thetter were no longer controlled by humans and should not initiate attacks. The stone statue soldiers basically ignored spirits of the dead. What Nailisi did not know was that when she pierced through the city wall with her longnce, it activated the power of dragonshards. Even though the dragonshards had been removed from the bodies of giant dragons, it was still difficult to conceal the enormous life strength embedded in them.


    All magic nuclei that had the ability to restore themselves must possess life strength.


    With the help of the soul bond, Saleen¡¯s location was like a fire-element creature opening its eyes in the darkness. They were about twenty miles apart. Nailisi was much faster than the stone statue soldiers, and within a few minutes, she had already reached Saleen.


    When Saleen saw Nailisi sprinting towards him, he felt pained.


    The three-faced bone demon looked terrifying and the soul mes in Nailisi¡¯s six eyes were dancing wildly. Saleen sensed that they were dancing at the same rhythm as Nailisi¡¯s heartbeat.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi saw that Saleen was not in any danger. When she saw the water puppetughing to itself by the side, she pointed her longnce at it. She was not jealous, she only felt wronged.


    ¡°Why did Master choose to bring this water puppet and not me? Is it because I never tried to train up my human form? Did Master trust this water puppet so much because he wanted to be a human so badly? But I genuinely like Master!¡±


    ¡°Nailisi,e here.¡± Saleen forcefully cast a spell and a ball of ck fog appeared in the water and formed a row of enormous words.


    Nailisi put away her longnce. Even though water puppet¡¯s expression remained unchanged, its heart was already beating wildly.


    He was also an elemental lifeform, but if he was pierced by Nailisi¡¯s longnce, he would lose all the memories that he had painfully umted. Once he lost those memories, it would be even more difficult to grow his soul. Although he possessed the power of a grade-8 mage, he has still yet to figure out the rtionship between body and soul.


    He did not possess all of Saleen¡¯s knowledge. For things that must be realized, he would have to rely on himself in order to understand them slowly.


    The three yard tall bone demon stood in front of Saleen. Nailisi was not sure how best to express herself. They were underwater, so even if she could speak, Saleen was not able to.


    ¡°Master, please don¡¯t chase me away again!¡± Nailisi lowered her head and looked at Saleen. His face was concealed by the devil mask and both his eyes were covered by crystals, so his expression was indecipherable.


    Saleen nodded his head and patted Nailisi¡¯s skeletal thigh. The thigh of the three-faced bone demon was unlike that of the winged skeleton. It was extremely thick and was covered with ayer of red muscles.


    Nailisi put away her longnce and squatted down. She used her palm, which only consisted of four fingers, to hug Saleen¡¯s shoulders.


    Saleen pointed at the twelve grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers behind Nailisi who were charging towards them. The deafening trembling sounds caused the hundreds of sculptures that were squatting on both sides of the street to turn around and look in their direction. The sculptures were supposed to guard over their own courtyards. If Saleen did not antagonize them, they would continue to watch over the doors, as if they were real sculptures.


    Saleen could not bear to me Nailisi, since she had risked her life toe there. Not every soul-bonded creature would be willing to break through the city wall¡¯s defense and fight against grade-9 elemental creatures, especially if the soul-bonded creatures were demons.


    If Saleen had not obtained the elemental badge, Saleen would have chosen to run away from the twelve elemental stone statues because they could not be killed. Dismantle Element was only a temporal dismantling. In an environment like that, where elements were rich and dense, the dismantled stone statue soldiers would be able to restore themselves in about ten minutes.


    Saleen stretched out his hands to stop Nailisi. His mental strength trembled slightly, and he gave Vinny amand. Twenty-four grade-9 stone statue soldiers leapt out from within the elemental badge and stood in front of Saleen and Nailisi.


    All three of Nailisi¡¯s mouths were wide open. She stared at the badge on Saleen¡¯s waist and momentarily felt that her wait had been worth it. ¡°Master has begun to control elemental creatures!¡±


    Saleen did not really have any solutions when facing elemental creatures, but he did possess the elemental badge, so things became much simpler. He had twenty-four stone statue soldiers, they outnumbered the enemies by a ratio of two to one, so they should be able to pin those twelve stone statue soldiers down.


    Saleen made a gesture and Nailisi acknowledged it and immediately sent the twelve stone statue soldiers, who had been pinned down, into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    When the twelve stone statue soldiers were sent to the Purgatory of Ice, they lost all connections to their leader and they began to attack violently and aimlessly. Nailisi allowed them to do so. In any case, there were no ground elements in the Purgatory of Ice, so they would lose their powers gradually. Although the entire process might be slow, Nailisi would not even have to move a finger.


    Saleen felt a tinge of regret. The actions of the stone statue soldiers were controlled by him, but the twenty-four stone statue soldiers were about to reach their limits. If that was the case, then his goal of leading tens of thousands of elemental creatures into battle would nevere true!

 Chapter 873: Elemental Badge (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 873: Elemental Badge (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s limit was controlling thirty-six grade-9 elemental creatures. In order for all of them to fight for him, he would only have to control the leader of the elemental badge.


    Unfortunately, he did not bring along the ancient warriors, as they were much more powerful. The advantage of elemental creatures was that they could not be killed, and that made them one of the most powerful weapons to be refined by the ancient humans.


    Saleen could not think of any human that could be able to repel an attack like the war hammer that was also embedded with magic power.


    Fortunately, the size of elemental creatures could be manipted. The stone statue soldiers could be as tall as one-hundred yards or as short as ten yards. At ten yards in height, they would be able to fight in confined spaces. If Saleen could find water-elemental creatures, his power of transformation would probably be even more powerful.


    Fire-elemental creatures must possess countless berserk attacks. Wind-elemental creatures would possess speed that no human could catch up with. Light-elemental creatures were immune to physical attacks. The advantage of dark-elemental creatures was still unknown, ording to Saleen¡¯s magic notes.


    Darkness elements were the elemental power that mages knew the least of. If they could congregate and be lifeforms, their attributes would make them even more mysterious and difficult to defend against.


    Saleen entered the military depot once again. He raised a gigantic water shield and enclosed Nailisi and water puppet within it. He said to Nailisi, ¡°I still have some equipment left to be refined. You must wait patiently. Rossen will stay outside while you will stay here.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s back was facing water puppet, but there was a strange smile on her three faces. The water puppet noticed it and could only sigh. Saleen had asked him to stay outside because his entire body was full of the aura of water elements. He would be able to remain inconspicuous underwater as elemental creatures would only treat him as water.


    After the water puppet left, Saleen said to Nailisi, ¡°You were too reckless. I was about to send the water puppet to find you.¡±


    ¡°Master, I am unable to fully maximize the power of this longnce when I¡¯m in spirit form.¡± Nailisi ignored Saleen and began toin.


    Saleen heard what Nailisi said and only replied, ¡°If Nichs was around, you would have been able to restore your power very quickly.¡±


    Nailisi lowered her head. She knew that Saleen was reminding her that she must be united with the other followers as all of them possessed unique attributes and talents. Saleen was right. If Nichs was around, her injuries would have healed within three days at the most and the price to pay would only have been a few decades of life.


    A few decades of life were nothing to a Luoluokaluo.


    ¡°Alright. You can take all the magic fluid here. That should heal your injuries a bit faster,¡± Saleen said and took out a big bottle of magic fluid that was created for him by the Sregl Ind mages.


    Magic fluids were created using grade-7 spells. Only sorcerers would be able to create so much power at one go. Saleen made sure that he brought enough magic fluid for the hunt.


    Nailisi took the green jade bottle that was even bigger than a wine sk and returned to her imp form. There was a huge wound beside her heart and between her chest and abdomen. The wound was already healing, but it still looked very terrifying.


    Saleen pretended not to notice Nailisi¡¯s healing her naked body in front of him. Nailisi did not try to do anything funny either when she was in her imp form with a long tail behind her. Beneath her transparent skin were golden and green magic patterns inteced with each other while a row of skeletal thorns stretched from her back all the way down to her tail. On both sides of the skeletal thorns were scales that had yet to disappear.


    Nailisi did not really need the protection from her scales anymore. The Lightning Guardian unleashed from the magic patterns underneath her skin was a more powerful defensepared to her devil scales.


    Nailisi¡¯s wound contracted. Demon bodies were strong and resilient. Almost all demons with bloodlines possessed powerful self-healing abilities, with Luoluokaluo being one of the most powerful ones.


    Nailisi did not look at Saleen refining equipment either as her back faced him while she was taking in the magic fluid. After taking in arge amount of magic fluid, they finally allowed the natural qualities of Nailisi¡¯s body to take effect. A beam of green energy shot out from her wound and into Nailisi¡¯s grasp.


    Her hands were able to control this energy.


    Nailisi took out her longnce and infused the green energy into it. There was a dim light in the longnce originally, but after absorbing the green energy, the magic patterns in thence begin to shine and magic light could be clearly seen even from its surface.


    This light vanished after shing once. Nailisi put away the longnce and patiently healed her body. There was already minimal remaining energy in her wound, and with the help of the magic fluid, her injury was finally healing at a normal rate.


    Under normal circumstances, such arge amount of magic fluid would have been able to heal an entire battalion of soldiers. It still could not heal Nailisi¡¯s woundpletely, which showed just how terrifying the silver line golden spearfish¡¯s attack was.


    Saleen ignored Nailisi and refined the five pieces of Eternal Control shards repeatedly with water me. The magic patterns, magic arrays, and power of rules embedded in the shards gradually integrated together.


    Compared to the horn of the single-horned white whale, the ck crystal was still too fragile. Saleen did not dare to make any mistakes.


    It would not be easy to control the elemental badge. The five shards of Eternal Control that Saleen refined would be able tost for a century. Compared to Shann¡¯s broken jades, the difference was as much as a thousand times.


    It was hard to detect the passing of time in the darkness. Saleen was engrossed in theplete rule while Nailisi was patiently allowing her wound to heal. In order to fully maximize the abilities of her longnce, it was better if she was in her imp-form. It was not that she could not do so in devil-form, but it was just that the devil-form was more than twenty yards tall. Holding the seven yard longnce was like holding onto a short dagger.


    The human-form was too weak. Although Nailisi was already learning archery from Eleanor, its advancement was still more difficult than learning magic andbat. Her talent did not lie in archery because she was not an elf. Training for a long time was boring and dry to Nailisi. Her character was not one that could keep still.


    The water puppet guarded the door. Other than elemental creatures, there were no other lifeforms in the broken city. The fish and magic beastsmonly seen in the sea were unable to go there. Only the single-horned white whales that had been subdued by the ancient humans would still return to the Imperial City of the Abyss to wait for their death.


    Ten days passed just like that. Nailisi¡¯s wound healed fully on the eighth day while Saleen was only able to take out more ck crystals on the tenth day to throw them into the water me. The ck crystals werepressed, refined and infused into the shards of Eternal Control, turning the shards that were originally a mixture of ck and white into solid ckpletely.


    The exterior of the Eternal Control shard waspletely made up of ck crystal and the interior of the crystal was full of magic patterns. Only by using the power of ck crystals would souls be automatically absorbed into the shards and be controlled.


    The water shield had broken long ago. Saleen stood up and opened up his magic shield once again. He said to Nailisi, ¡°Alright. How much time has passed?¡±


    Nailisi took out the magic clock and took a nce at it before saying with a frown, ¡°We will have one week¡¯s time before we reach three months.¡±


    ¡°We have been here for four months. If we don¡¯t return soon, we will be in big trouble. There is no way Grand Duke Iron Blood will not react to the ancientbat vessel. His Dragon Ind is unable to fly over Qin Empire directly at least. Hey, let¡¯s leave soon and gather the elemental badges.¡±


    ¡°Master, you don¡¯t intend to search the single-horned white whale cemetery?¡±


    ¡°Depends on our luck. The Imperial City of the Abyss is twelve-thousand miles long and eight-thousand miles wide. It is basically an empire. We don¡¯t have time to search every inch of it. Soldier is not around, and we cannot fly over the Imperial City of the Abyss. Once we fly over a certain height, we will trigger magic attacks. I don¡¯t wish to face such attacks again.¡±


    Nailisi rolled her eyes but did not have any other suggestions. She did not wish to deal with the water puppet at the moment. There was danger everywhere in that ce and they would still need to rely on the water puppet the scout the road ahead of them.


    Nailisi transformed into her three-faced bone demon form again. She already knew the special attribute of elemental creatures. If she was in a spirit form, not only would the elemental creatures not attack her, they could not even be bothered to look at her.


    Saleen summoned Rossen. His left index finger has yet to recover. He had spent the past ten days on refining equipment and did not pay extra attention to this finger that had dried up. It was better to ce the crystal ring on the water puppet¡¯s finger for a time.


    Saleen was human so he would be the one that would attract most of the elemental creature¡¯s attention. Nailisi decided to boost Saleen with Spirit Blessing, so that his entire body would be surrounded by ck death aura.


    The three of them arranged themselves so that water puppet was in front while Nailisi brought up the rear in order to protect Saleen. They walked along the edges of the city and headed to the north. This route should belong to the military depot of the elemental creatures. The humans that controlled elemental creatures all lived in the tall towers.


    That time around, the water puppet did not turn into his human-form. Instead, he transformed into a water current while Saleen also cast his own Current Cutter to merge with him. Both of them were like two sea serpents that swam quickly underwater.


    The ground elements here were terrifyingly rich. Nailisi¡¯s ability to sprint could be put to good use there. Those elemental stone statue soldiers were able to run so quickly underwater because of environmental reasons.


    After traveling for close to one-hundred miles, the water puppet stopped. There was another copsed tower ahead. The should be the ce where the leader of the stone statue soldiers stayed. The water puppet carefully ced himself close to the wall and entered through the broken window on the second level. His appearance did not attract the attention of the leader of the stone statue soldiers.


    The water puppet turned around and retreated using the same route. Then, he tangled himself around Saleen and used vibration to transmit sound frequency into Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°My Lord, this one does not have a soul...¡±

 Chapter 874: Blue Ice Maiden (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 874: Blue Ice Maiden (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The water puppet¡¯s words were concise. If Saleen simply wanted to take elemental badges, he would be able to do so by defeating leaders of the stone statue soldiers. Doing so would have cost a lot of time and effort though. Saleen had no interest in stone statue soldiers who possessed no soul. The Imperial City of the Abyss was not going to go anywhere. If he still wanted to capture elemental creatures, all he had to do was toe back on ater date.


    Elemental creatures with souls however, were something he definitely wanted to get his hands on. An elemental creature would not have been having any problems advancing once they possessed a soul.


    Saleen wasted no time, and had the water puppet keep going east with a wave of his hands. The areas about fifty miles away from the walls of the city were probably its line of defense, filled with all manners ofrge magic arrays, elemental creatures, and most probably troops of various races back in its heyday as well.


    Said troops were long gone and the elemental creatures were all that were left. If the imperial city had not been hidden so well, the ce would have been plundered clean by the current regimes.


    If Saleen had not possessed a body of water element, he would not have been able to survive long in such a ce. Despite that, the immense pressure put on him by the abundance of earth elements had him relying solely on magic staffs and scrolls forbat most of the time. He had not dared to use his own skills, as the magic chords for doing so were required for keeping him alive.


    Having walked east for about one-thousand miles, Saleen felt more than half of his magic chords were drained, and he had no choice but to pause for a breather. There were still nine other military depots along the way they came, and he had not found any other elemental creatures with a soul. ¡°Am I being lucky or unlucky here?¡±


    There was a tower made of crystals at the eleventh depot. While the murky crystal themselves were not worth much, they were a height of up to three-hundred yards so that meant that the building would have still been able to fetch an astonishing price. Saleen had no intentions of rushing to gather any materials from the imperial city that he was able to find. His goal was still the single-horned white whale¡¯s cemetery. The number of dimension stones he had with him was limited. If he went about picking up any junk that he was able to find, he would quickly run out of space in his Devil Ring or dimension stones for storage. The city was, after all, asrge as an empire.


    The city had mountains, rivers, great swaths of farming areas, and even small castles. It was clear to him that it was absurd for him to simply take whatever he saw. It was impossible for him to just bag one whole city away.


    Saleen turned around and gestured. Nailisi acknowledged and broke out her de-shield and spear, as well as readying her imp form. There was hardly any use for death magic there. Physical attacks would work far better than death magic when fighting elemental creatures.


    The water puppet also returned to its human form, taking a magic staff that Saleen handed to it.


    There were three floors to the crystal tower and given how they looked perfectly intact, he deduced that the elemental creatures within would prove to been more capable atbat than the stone statue soldier leader.


    Saleen felt somewhat nervous. His Elemental Eye was unable to see into the crystal tower at all, but he was sure that the elemental creatures within were definitely something other than stone statue soldiers. The concentration of water element was higher there. If he was lucky, he would have been facing a water elemental creature, maybe a Blue Ice Maiden.


    ¡°Who goes there?!¡±, a deafening voice boomed from within the tower. Saleen felt joy rushing over him. It was a water elemental creature indeed then!


    Saleen unleashed the grade-9 magic infused in his robe: Stone Statue Army. Six stone statue soldiers of nine yards tall appeared and he followed by summoning six elemental stone statue soldiers. He had the summoned ones¡¯ height controlled at ten yards, and stood in the way of tower¡¯s gate.


    Boom!


    The gate was quickly wrecked by a water elemental creature of more than thirty yards tall made of gushing water. The being charged at him with a longsword in its hand. This water elemental creature had a rather indistinguishable face and a blue translucent body, looking soft and supple.


    Saleen knew well that the cores of blue ice maidens were made of ice tougher than the bodies of the stone statue soldiers. The water element contained within the elemental ice was enough to enable the being to take a gigantic form of more than one-hundred yards tall. The blue ice maiden, was a name given to these creatures by humans, as they were a rare elemental creature capable of ¡®procreating¡¯.


    When the energies of the blue ice maidens overflowed, they would sometimes split out a smaller, weaker, water elemental creature. Said creature would grow into a new blue ice maiden when nurtured in specific environments.


    The sword in the blue ice maiden¡¯s hand was made of water element, and the core was simrly made of ice congealed from the water element.


    The Twelve soldiers rushed forward to meet their match, all of which were quickly cut in two as the watery being swung its sword. The water puppet levitated itself to a height of thirty yards andunched an attack with its finger.


    Saleen had wanted to stop it, but he was not able to do so in time. He had no choice but to fly up to the water puppet and put up a grade-8 Darkness Shield in front of him.


    Being able to cut up six grade-9 stone statues with just one sh meant that the watery being itself was a grade-10 creature. Saleen was not sure of being able to defend against its attack, and he was only been able to put his hopes on Nailisi in that case.


    The six ten yard tall elemental stone statue soldier swung their hammers hard at the blue ice maiden. The difference in levels however, meant that the attacks hardly made a dent in it. The blue ice maiden¡¯s body simply gushed, and the powerful impacts werepletely neutralized.


    Saleen reserved half of his mental powers on the earth elemental badge. Doing so enabled him to instantly summon the grade-10 stone statue soldier leader if he was in critical danger, having the leader take the attack from the blue ice maiden for him instead.


    Nailisi thrust her spear at the heart of the blue ice maiden. While elemental creatures did not have hearts, they did have elemental cores. When the core was struck, the elemental creature would have been rendered dormant. If the injury proved grievous enough, said elemental creature would cease to exist. That worked exactly like Dismantle Element, making it a very effective method for killing elemental creatures.


    Two powerful attacks, Crystal Finger and Energized Thrust, went for the vital part of the blue ice maiden. The creature¡¯s ability to speak human tongue was a testament to it possessing a soul.


    The blue ice maiden¡¯s body burst into a glitter of rainbow lights, making a bright rainbow in the pitch ck depths of the ocean. As Saleen¡¯s eyes were blinded, the blue ice maiden disappeared.


    A sharp energy attack went straight for him from behind at almost the very same time.


    Saleen¡¯s Darkness Shield was smashed hard by a sh from a sword, which shattered it into pieces...


    The magic spell cast by the blue ice maiden was a grade-9 one: Rainbow. It was an eerie movement magic. The speed of the spell surpassed all other magic spells other than teleportation magic.


    Saleen felt a chill down his spine. He had been too careless. ¡°I have the Crystal Finger, but so what? That thing is two whole grades above me!¡±


    Its murky face began to clear up as it stood behind Saleen, giving the impression of a human woman. Elemental creatures used as city defenses by the ancient humans were all humanoid beings. They were capable ofplexbat maneuvers, allowing them to adapt to various situations.


    Breaking a Darkness Shield with one sh was a feat only feasible when the attacking creature was of an overwhelming level. The grade-8 Darkness Shield was capable to defending against almost all types of grade-9 spells. The very reason why Saleen had chose to learn that spell from Joey was because the Darkness Shield was something only grade-10 mages were capable of teaching.


    Saleen, at that moment, was unable to teach the skill to any of his followers unless he advanced to grade-10. That would then allow him to pass down the skill through special means.


    Generally-speaking, a mage only learned Darkness Shield when they had advanced to grade-10. The skill was rare even back in the time when the fourth dynasty was in full swing. The conjuring of the spell cost Saleen the equivalent of casting six grade-8 spells.


    Saleen cast Darkness Shield again without any regard for its magic chord cost. Water Shield and Ice te Armor were utterly useless against water elemental creatures. The water element sword would cut right through water element defenses as if they were not there.


    The second strike went ferociously for the Darkness Shield. As the skill was capable of nullifying any residual attacks, including recoil, the second strike did not make Saleen budge, despite the shield beingpletely shattered.


    Nailisi onlyshed out with her spear the second time then. Seeing how her master just took two strikes of such intensity, fires burned within her and her eyes lit up with a gold-greenish sheen.


    Nailisi¡¯s thrust was definitely capable of doing harm to the blue ice maiden. The creature had, after all, only developed a soul not long ago, and had spent a lot of energy in evolving itself. Saleen would not have been able to withstand such attacks from a grade-10 being otherwise.


    The body of the watery being glittered with rainbow colors again. The speed of the Rainbow spell was such that no attacks would have been able to keep up.


    Nailisi did not allow herself to fall for the same trick twice. Six tiny eyes behind the tip of her spear opened all the sudden and stared hard at the blue ice maiden. The rainbow colors were snuffed in an instant.


    The eyes of the silverline golden spearfish were crafted and inserted right behind the tip of the spear. Once a target was locked down, there was no chance of escape.


    The blue ice maiden had never encountered such a predicament before. Rainbow was used right before the enemy attacked, every single time. Such decisions were achieved through overwhelming difference in levels. When the enemy¡¯s attacks were about to reach it, Rainbow would transport her to the blind spots of the attacking enemy.


    Nailisi jumped. She did not put any hopes on the spear¡¯s energy being able to pierce the blue ice maiden¡¯s elemental core. The water puppet had only realized what happened then, and quickly turned into a crystal-clear ice mirror, putting itself right behind Saleen.


    Saleen turned around, with a small grade-10scroll in his hand.


    If Nailisi¡¯s attack proved ineffective, he would have no choice but to use the scroll. He did not want to use his family badge on it, as doing so would have probably resulted in him obliterating the creature.


    Six devilish eyes locked down the blue ice maiden¡¯s movements, and Nailisi¡¯s jump sent her more than ten yards up. The spear was thrust right into the creature¡¯s face, and Saleen threw out the Eternal Control shard hidden in his hand without hesitation.


    The shard flew urately at the hole in its face as Nailisi pulled out her spear. Saleen¡¯s mastery at the feat had made the move into a martial art technique in itself.


    The ck Eternal Control shard flew right into the creature¡¯s brain, and the newly developed soul was sucked right into the shard.


    ¡°Let me go!¡±, the blue ice maiden roared. It had just acquired sapience, and had no idea what it had been subjected to. It was only able to sense that its entire body was being securely tied up by something.


    Saleenposed himself and worked the shard telepathically, prompting the shard to send blue sparks of electricity into the being. The electrical discharge might not have worked so well against the creature¡¯s body, but it proved a bit too much for its soul.


    Saleen smirked as the blue ice maiden fell to the ground, with its water element body quickly dispersing and revealing a two yard tall elemental core.

 Chapter 875: Blue Ice Maiden (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 875: Blue Ice Maiden (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    That meant that the two yard tall body of the stone statue soldier leader was also its core.


    A hole slowly closed up at the center of the brow of the elemental core. Nailisi¡¯s thrust had all six devilish eyes lock the blue ice maiden down. The resulting attacknded right onto the elemental core itself.


    Saleen had only begun to appreciate the true value of the six eyes, regretting the fact that he had all six eyes crafted without studying them further. Even if he was to study them it would have been impossible to analyze the very principle allowing them to lock down their target, thus making it near-impossible to replicate the phenomenon or use the eyes to create a new magic spell.


    The elemental core was the blue ice maiden¡¯s true body. The water element congealed into hard ice, emanating cold air about it, yet the core did not freeze the seawater at its surface. The cold was instead dispersed far and wide, having the seawater around it take in the coldness. As a result, the area within more than a dozen miles from the blue ice maiden¡¯s core was rendered below freezing point.


    ¡°What...are you...?!¡±, the blue ice maiden was lying almost t on the ground, struggling to keep its head up. It dared not lift a hand against Saleen, after enduring excruciating pain in its soul from the electrical shock.


    ¡°I am your master, Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°I...yes, master,¡± the blue ice maiden¡¯s soul had just formed, and the being had been waiting for its master¡¯s summon for tens of thousands of years. Humans in the imperial city had ceased to exist, so its waiting had been destined to be fruitless.


    Elemental creatures were not known for their resistance. Upon hearing that the blue ice maiden acknowledged him to be its master, Saleen wasted no time and had her summon her underlings. Grade-9 blue ice maidens filled the areas nearby the walls around those parts. One-hundred and forty-four grade-9 blue ice maidens returned to the military depot after hearing their leader summoned for them, and stood in two lines in front of Saleen.


    The one-hundred and forty-four blue ice maidens standing before him had him feeling rather regretful, as the number of the creatures he would have been able to control was still no more than thirty-six. There would be no improvement in that particr area even if he was to advance to grade-9. Such difference in levels would have only been improved after advancing to grade-19. He might even remain stuck with being able to control only thirty-six elemental creatures at most.


    ¡°You need a name. You will henceforth be known as Julia,¡± Saleen named his new servant without giving much thought on the name, yet the creature replied in a surprising manner, ¡°Master, I already have a name.¡±


    ¡°You do?¡±


    ¡°It was a name I gave myself, Gloria.¡±


    ¡°Well then Gloria, I won¡¯t need you toe out to do battle much in the future. Just focus on advancing then,¡± Saleen said to the blue ice maiden.


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± Gloria had not wanted to keep a human form, and Saleen¡¯sck of need for her to fight for him personally was exactly what she had wished for. Gloria transformed into an elemental badge in an instant and dropped onto the floor. All one-hundred and forty-four of the blue ice maidens went inside the badge, and Saleen set thepleted badge into his belt.


    There were four elemental badges left to be collected. Saleen¡¯s eyes looked east. Large fallen buildings were seen everywhere in front, seemingly without end.


    Only with all six badges collected would Saleen¡¯sbat methods be rich and diverse. To mages, who were all known for their acumen in calctions, one¡¯sbat tactics would be far more versatile with all six major elemental creatures under theirmand. Saleen did not feel secure with only Nailisi following him into the heart of the imperial city.


    The water puppet¡¯s finger attack missed entirely. The resulting recoil was very small, as most of it was taken by the crystal ring though. It did not suffer any damage, but transforming into an ice mirror was nheless an act of putting its life on the line.


    A grade-9 Icy Reflection would have still been shattered by the water element sh. The water hesitated when Saleen was in danger, but it nheless went on defending its master.


    Nailisi squatted on the floor and panted as Saleen put away his water elemental badge.


    Saleen put up a water shield and enveloped Nailisi within, asking with a concerned tone, ¡°Nailisi, what happened?¡±


    ¡°Master, the mental power drain was immense. My mental powers looked like it was being sucked dry by those six eyes!¡±, Nailisi answered with a tinge of fear in her eyes.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have divine crystals with you?¡±, Saleen was taken aback as well, as he thought the mental powers consumed by using the spear¡¯s technique would have been replenished using divine crystals.


    ¡°Master I had them, but I have used them all up,¡± Nailisi knew she would not have been able to weasel herself out, and thus chose to speak the truth.


    Saleen¡¯s expressions darkened and he spoke calmly, ¡°Take this then, but be prudent with it.¡±


    Saleen took out one of his divine crystals and shoved it towards Nailisi. He had a rather clear idea of what Nailisi used these crystals on. Repairs to the Twelve Notes of Purgatory required lots of materials, and divine crystals were one of such vital materials. Only by repairing the purgatories with divine crystals, would her control of them be able to reach its greatest.


    The recent use of the Twelve Note of Purgatory all used veryrge portals. Such effects would not have been possible without the use of divine crystals. There was little else he could have done to stop Nailisi from wasting the divine crystals. Nailisi was an extremely greedy person. Having her be too wasteful with resources would have been even more impossible than having the Mechanical Soul be obedient, or the winged skeleton rebelling against him.


    Nailisi¡¯s expressions rxed as she took the divine crystal in her hand. Divine crystals replenished mental powers faster than anything else. While it was not able topletely replenish her reserves, it was still able to make symptoms such as headaches and nausea go away. Having one¡¯s mental powerspletely drained was life-threatening, as such a predicament would probably end with one being unable to replenish them again, and thus turning them utterly useless as a living being.


    Saleen also needed to replenish his own drained magic chords, and so simply lock himself in the crystal tower, letting the water puppet stand guard right outside. There was no seawater in the tower, yet there was fresh air. It was a fact which astonished Saleen. He knew how immense the water pressure was in such depths. As a grade-8 mage himself, he was able to do little, but erect a small magic shield to cut through the water. The gravity of the ce they were in was also tens of times greater than usual, resulting in him needing to use earth magic to nullify its effects.


    The crystal tower warded off the seawater around it simply by using invisible magic patterns, and some small magic arrays within the building¡¯s structure.


    These things were undetectable even with the use of his Elemental Eye. While ancient magic did have its crude and primitive parts, it nheless also had intricate parts about it as well, which were something contemporary mages werepletely unable to understand or analyze.


    The crystal tower was aplete three-floored building, with every floor being one-hundred yards tall. The buildings at the city center did not reach such heights. The edge of the city were after all, the dwellings of very tall creatures.


    The first floor was the ce to gather elemental troops, while the second floor was a residential areas for humans. Inside the spacious tower, Saleen saw beds, cupboards, as well as tables and chairs meant for humans. He did not rush into meditation, and instead chose to open a cupboard, which contained great amount of ash in it. Ancient humans stillcked the ability to craft things so durable that theysted for tens of thousands of years. The clothes and equipment stored within had all perished.


    A whiff of smoke flew out, which Saleen dispelled without a thought with a cleaning spell.


    ¡°Master,¡± Nailisi trailed behind him and looked concerned. She was afraid that there was yet another elemental creature lurking somewhere. If Saleen were to bump into the creature, it would be beyond her to save him.


    ¡°A military depot would only have one elemental creature leader, never another one. Nailisi, take a look at this...¡±


    Saleen bent over and parted the ashes under the cupboard with his hands, picking up a half a yard long box as wide as his palm.


    The box¡¯s metal handle broke as soon as Saleen pulled at it, yet the box itself looked intact. Saleen looked at theplex magic patterns on the box and thought, ¡°There should be something nice in it. right?¡±


    A blue magic light shed on Saleen¡¯s hand and an elemental dagger appeared. Mages were hardly seen training in such magic, as no matter how sharp an elemental dagger was, they were a bad fit for mages. That was due to the fact that the best range ofbat for mages was between fifty to one-hundred yards.


    The elemental dagger gleamed transparently, and was stuck into the box¡¯s side on the cover. He then cut open the lock with it. Nailisi¡¯s tail went around Saleen¡¯s back and lifted the cover of the box lightly. There was a pair of shoes in it.


    The pair of shoes did not seem to have any magic patterns on them and were devoid of elemental vibrations. They were just a very, verymon pair of shoes, which had Saleen feeling exasperated.


    Nailisiughed and said, ¡°Master, those shoes are for girls. Just give them to big sis Sika then. See, it just sat there in the box for tens of thousands of years, and there is hardly damage on it. At the very least, they look well-made.¡±


    Saleenughed along. The pair of shoes did look rather fine. The room had a lot of rotten things. The bed was something Saleen was able to copse by simply poking at it, yet the pair of shoes looked sturdy still. There were no signs of wear at the bottom, meaning that the shoes were entirely new ones. They looked simplistic and sported a dark red color, perfect for Sika.


    Saleen¡¯s feeling of disappointment disappeared. The Imperial City of the Abyss still had lots of daily necessities in it, and it was impossible for each and every article to be magic equipment. Even ancient humans would not have thought of filling every aspect of their everyday life with magic. The pair of shoes were a testament to that. Their sturdiness far surpassed any magical equipment than Saleen knew of, yet the shoes themselves were devoid of any magical properties.


    ¡°Nailisi, take them,¡± Saleen picked them up and gave them to Nailisi.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Despite having followed me for so long, I have hardly given you anything. Nailisi, this pair look like good ones. Try them on.¡±


    Nailisi took them without saying a word more, and put them on her feet. She had intended to y a prank on her master, sticking her nails out as soon as she was done putting them on. however, the shoes extended as far as her nails extended, disying extreme flexibility like that of magic beast sinew.


    Nailisi¡¯s nails were clear and sharp, and the shoes conformed with them without any problems. Nailisi scratched at the floor, which yielded five deep scratches. The shoes however, did not show any signs of damage!


    Saleen saw all that and summoned Gloria, pointing at Nailisi¡¯s feet and asked, ¡°Gloria, what is with this equipment?¡±


    Gloria took a look at Nailisi¡¯s feet and answered, ¡°Master, that is a pair of shoes.¡±


    ¡°I know they are shoes...,¡± Saleen was exasperated at the answer. It seemed to him that intelligence was something requiring a long time to develop in such creatures.


    ¡°Master, shoes are definitely the most sturdy of all clothing on one¡¯s body. The officers here...I cannot remember so well,¡± Gloria rubbed at her forehead and struggled to remember things taking ce tens of thousands of years ago. The creature seemed to be a subordinate of a female human. Too many years had passed, and coupled with having developed a soul, caused her to lose much of her memories. Recollecting what had taken ce all those years ago seemed utterly impossible.

 Chapter 876: Pest (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 876: Pest (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Gloria returned to the elemental badge and Saleen took a look at Nailisi¡¯s shoes. She smiled and said, ¡°Master no. You should give these to Sister Sika.¡±


    ¡°Humph, no need. I¡¯m thinking that if all ancient humans wore such clothing, then there is no need for us to search for any equipment for the time-being.¡±


    ¡°Master, do you think we can enter the core of the city?¡±


    ¡°A little difficult.¡± Saleen was frank in his assessment and said, ¡°The exterior is filled with ordinary soldiers that are grade-9 creatures and a grade-10 leader. There will be even more danger as we go deeper into the Imperial City of the Abyss.¡±


    ¡°Then let¡¯s forget about finding those items. Master, you are only a grade-8 sorcerer. You are still considered weak.¡± Nailisi was blunt with her words. Saleen patted her face, then sat down and began to meditate.


    Saleen¡¯s rules of meditation were passed down from Jason and his magic chords were able to restore very quickly. After an hour, Saleen managed to use the elemental badge to train his mental strength before replenishing it with divine crystal.


    Nailisi searched through all three levels of the tower but did not find anything. She was not disappointed, after all she did not expect many things to be left behind in such a dpidated city. The box that contained shoes was thrown into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory by Nailisi so that it could be used to repair equipment.


    Not only was the Twelve Notes of Purgatory taking in all sorts of materials, it was also producingrge amounts of rubbish every day. Not all materials could be used to restore the Twelve Notes of Purgatory so those that were not needed would be thrown out again. After the box was thrown into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, it was quickly dismantled and absorbed. Other than some decayed metal on its surface, nothing else was thrown out.


    Outside of the crystal tower, the water puppet opened the door and dashed in while shouting, ¡°My Lord, something ising!¡±


    The huge door behind him closed automatically and not even a single droplet of seawater entered the tower. Only an extremely intelligent magic design would be able to prevent seawater from entering a space in a water-element dimension.


    Saleen turned around and went up to the third level. This crystal tower waspletely unscathed. Saleen stood at the window and looked into the distance. His location was two-hundred yards high and he was higher than all the surrounding buildings. When Saleen looked out the window, he saw tens of thousands of ck shadows heading towards their direction on the streets of the city.


    Saleen opened his elemental eyes and finally saw what the ck shadows were. They were a group of things that seemed to have fused with dirt and dust and their appearance was like magic beasts that had curved skeletal thorns all over their bodies.


    ¡°What is this?¡± Saleen observed carefully and realized that the monsters came from several directions but were all gathering at the crystal tower. His memories contained plenty of information on strange and mysterious creatures, but he knew nothing about those monsters.


    ¡°Gloria...¡± Saleen weakly summoned the Blue Ice Maiden leader and used magic to create an image before asking, ¡°What is that?¡±


    ¡°Master, that is... a pest.¡±


    ¡°Pest?¡±


    ¡°Yes, countless battles have been fought in the Imperial City of the Abyss and too many lives have been lost here. It was impossible for the mages to clean up all the soul shards, so these items can fuse together and turn into magic beasts of all shapes and forms. I think I participated in pest-control activities long ago.¡±


    ¡°What was it like?¡±


    ¡°I was only an auxiliary soldier back then. My job was to use Sword of Water Element to break down the pests¡¯ soul shards even further.¡±


    ¡°Are they dangerous?¡±


    ¡°Not really. They only feed on flesh and blood and will not attack elemental creatures.¡± Gloria was obviously speaking from her own perspective.


    ¡°Will the pests pose any danger to me?¡±


    ¡°Only some of them. Master¡¯s soul-bonded creature can use its longnce to pierce them to death one by one. It may be troublesome, but it won¡¯t be difficult,¡± Gloria replied nonchntly.


    ¡°What about your subordinates?¡± Saleen had no choice but to press on.


    ¡°The Blue Ice Maidens? Vermillion Knights will be most suitable since fire elements can kill these pests very quickly. The Angel of Brightness would be a good option too since light elements are also very effective in destroying souls. Of course, the best is still the Midnight Fang. Dark-element creatures can turn these pests into tonic.¡± Gloria kept going on, but Saleen finally understood that the water-element badge and the ground-element badge would not be as effective as Nailisi¡¯s longnce when it came to dealing with the pests.


    Vermillion Knights, Angels of Brightness, and Midnight Fangs were three creatures that were even more powerful than stone statue soldiers. Saleen finally understood what Gloria was trying to say. Gloria did not mention wind-element creatures, which meant they would not be effective against the pests either.


    It was best to use spells of the elements of fire, light, or darkness to kill the pests.


    Saleen did not know much about light-element spells while dark-element spells were mostly of a maniptive nature or situational. He was most proficient in water-element spells, and considering the conversion of elements, he used fire-element spells quite often too.


    The pests were made up of dirt and dust and were able to move very quickly at the bottom of the sea, where ground elements were rich. While Saleen and Gloria were conversing, hundreds of pests had already reached the crystal tower. Saleen could not tell how powerful the pests were. The core of the pests were soul shards. If Nichs was there the pests were natural ingredients to be made into soul beads. To a fallen Holy Master, it was rtively easy to deal with soul shards.


    Nailisi stood beside Saleen and started jealousy at Gloria, who was floating by her side. Nailisi would not be able to fly if she did not use her wings. At that thought, Nailisi transformed into spirit form. Gloria was confused by the appearance of the three-faced bone demon.


    ¡°Master?¡± Gloria pointed at Nailisi, not understanding how a creature of flesh and blood could suddenly transform into a spirit of the dead.


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother.¡± Saleen retrieved Gloria and left the window to release Vinny.


    ¡°Vinny, the pests areing. Ask your subordinates to protect me.¡± Saleen did not say too much before releasing thirty-six elemental stone statue soldiers and cing twelve of them on each level. The stone statue soldiers were twenty yards tall and that was the size at which they would be most agile. On the other hand, one-hundred yard tall stone statue soldiers would be suitable for charging into battle. Although the crystal tower was broad and open, it would not allow for one-hundred yard tall creatures to gather together and fight.


    There was no use being afraid. There were tens of thousands of pests outside. Even the ancient humans had to form up soldiers to eliminate the pests, so they had to be hard to deal with. Saleen searched for the magic staffs in his hands and chose twenty-two of them. The spells within these twenty-two magic staffs were of light, dark, and fire elements.


    As a grade-8 sorcerer, Saleen could cast around twenty-four grade-8 spells consecutively. After that, he would not have too many magic chords left. He must still save some magic chords in order to unleash the spells that had been stored in his magic staffs or scrolls.


    Saleen would be able to cast twelve more grade-7 spellspared to grade-8 spells. That would still only amount to about two-hundred and eighty-eight grade-7 spells. That would not be enough to deal with the tens of thousands of pests. On the other hand, how much damage would grade-6 spells deal on those pests? Saleen was not confident at all.


    Right then, he would still have to depend heavily on the water-element and ground element elemental badges. Each of the twenty-two magic staffs contained two grade-9 spells and they would only be used for Saleen¡¯s self-protection.


    Both Nailisi and Rossen were very capably helpers. At least Nailisi¡¯s spirit form would be effective in killing the pests. On the other hand, the water puppet¡¯s spells were created by the resonance of elements in his body rather than magic chords. That method would allow the water puppet to cast more spells than Saleen.


    Although the water puppet possessed intelligence, he did not possess Saleen¡¯s ability to n and estimate. Saleen¡¯s familiarity with the Figaro Magic Form surpassed most grade-9 sorcerers, but the water puppet¡¯s ability to n and estimate was not even one percent of Saleen¡¯s ability.


    The most important difference between mages of the same grade was intelligence and not the number of magic chords.


    Bang bang bang...


    The knocking sounds kepting and almost immediately, the pests dismantled their bodies to burrow through the gaps in the door to enter the crystal tower. The magic arrays in the tower only prevented sea water from entering, but not pests. Saleen was rendered speechless by such a design. If that was his own military depot, he would definitely have magic arrays in ce that would initiate attacks.


    Saleen was quickly amused by his own thoughts. If that had been the case, there was no way he would have been able to enter the crystal tower.


    There were twelve elemental stone statue soldiers in one level. Tens of pests entered the tower in the blink of an eye. The pests were smaller than the elemental stone statue soldiers. The stone statue soldiers swung their war hammers and smashed the pests into pieces.


    The floors of the crystal tower were smashed into pieces by the elemental stone statue soldiers. The pests were also smashed into dirt and dust, but after about ten seconds, they merged together again. Two of the pests pounced onto the elemental stone statue soldier and bit onto it. Due to the difference in grades, their attack was not very effective or obvious.


    The scratches on the bodies of the elemental stone statue soldiers healed very quickly, but the number of pests entering the first level of the tower was increasing. There were no soul mes in the ces where the head and eyes of the pests should have been. There were just ck bottomless pits.


    If the location of the pests¡¯ soul shards remained unknown, the stone statue soldiers¡¯ war hammers would only cause physical damage and not destroy the soul shards. At that rate, they would need about thirty to fifty attempts before they could kill a pest sessfully.


    Even though the elemental stone statue soldiers were many grades higher than the pests, they were still unable to destroy them quickly. It was a matter of attributes. The elemental stone statue soldiers focused too much on physical attacks, but they were not effective against the pests.


    More than ten pests reached the second level of the tower. Nailisi, who was guarding the second level, saw the pests and immediately all three of her mouths and let out a sharp scream.


    It was Wail of the Spirit! That was a grade-6 death magic spell. Nailisi was smarter than the water puppet. She chose to cast a powerful grade-6 death magic spell first to see if middle-level spells were effective against the pests. If so, there would be no need for her to use high-level spells. Even though she had absorbed the soul mes of two of the Three Kings, she could not possibly keep casting death magic spells without any limits.

 Chapter 877: Pest (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 877: Pest (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The pests rolled around on the ground as the ck dust that made up their bodies began to wriggle like water. The soul mes in Nailisi¡¯s six eye sockets began to conceal themselves behind eyes that looked like a human¡¯s.


    Spirit Vision was a grade-7 spell. Once all six eyes appeared, Nailisi could immediately see the locations of the soul shards within the pests. The monsters were only grade-7 creatures!


    The pests lost their abilities to attack for the time-being as they wriggled around on the ground due to the effects of the Wail of the Spirit spell. Nailisi stepped forward calmly and inserted her skeletal hands into the bodies of the pests and pulled out their soul shards. Then, she casually threw the soul shards into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    No matter what form Nailisi was in, her demon attributes would not vanishpletely. Luoluokaluo were like the elves of all demons as they possessed mysterious powers. Of all the various types of demon bloodlines, Luoluokaluo would rank amongst the top three if not the first. The only reason they might not be ranked as the most powerful was because they were very fragile after birth and it was difficult for them to grow.


    Many of the bloodlines of demons were as such, whereby they would not be able to fully utilize their powers until they were mature. That might sound cruel, but it was precisely because of that unique attribute that the powers of the demon dimension had maintained a consistent level. Many unique demons had managed to survive and were only waiting for the powers of the dimension to increase once again.


    Luoluokaluos were born with the gift of controlling souls. Although Nailisi was in the form of a three-faced bone demon, even spirits of the dead were able to see the location of the pests¡¯ soul shards. Once the soul shards had been pulled out of their bodies, the pests turned into a pile of dust and could no longer merge together again.


    Nailisi was killing the pests at a much faster rate than the elemental stone statue soldiers, but without thetter who wielded magic war hammers, the former would have had to use up a significant amount of energy in order to kill the pests one by one. Eventually, she decided to forego death magic spells entirely and allowed the elemental stone statue soldiers to hammer the pests.


    No matter how fast the pests could merge together, they could not beat the speed at which Nailisi was snatching the soul shards out of them. In that environment, there was no limit to the powers of the elemental stone statue soldiers as the ground elements were extremely rich. The faces of the soldiers were clearly defined, and their noses were constantly absorbing the ground elements as much as they could in order to heal the wounds on their bodies sustained from the pests¡¯ bites.


    Saleen was on the third level and was protected by twelve elemental stone statue soldiers. He could clearly hear Nailisi¡¯s Wail of the Spirit. He felt more relieved knowing that grade-6 death magic spells were capable of killing the pests. Even if they were only controlled by death magic spells, Saleen¡¯s grade-7 element spells would definitely be able to kill them.


    Finally, he could save up on his magic chords. In the tower, the pests would not be able to surround him and could only enter in limited numbers. Each level was upied by twelve elemental stone statue soldiers who upied a significant amount of space. There was no way the pests would be able to force their way through.


    Saleen gazed out of the tower once again. The number of pests were still increasing. With one sweep of Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes, he estimated that there were about eighty-six-thousand of them in total.


    It would be extremely tiring trying to kill so many pests. Even the water puppet was feeling a little nervous. He was most proficient in water-element spells and while he possessed a certain level of ability to convert elements, he was still not at the same level as Saleen. Dealing with the monsters would not y to his strengths.


    The windows on the third level were closed tightly without any gaps. Saleen saw hundreds of pests flying up, pping their wings in the water and circling the windows of the tower.


    If Saleen could find a way to give Nichs all eighty-six-thousand pests, her soul beads would definitely be stronger. After all, the pests were at grade-7.


    Bang!


    One of the pests smashed its horns violently against the window of the crystal tower. The window trembled for a while. The six yard long body of the pest that struck the window dissipated. Saleen could clearly see tens of blue-colored bodies of energy floating in the sea. Were those the soul shards?


    The blue body of energy gathered together quickly, and the dirt and dust merged together again. That time around, the six yard long body has shrunken to four yards. Striking the window proved to be ineffective. Subsequently, seven pests tried to smash the window as well. All of their bodies dissipated instantly, only to merge together again a few secondster, with bodies that had shrunken by one-third.


    The water puppetughed. He looked calmer now. Saleen said to him, ¡°Go down and help Nailisi. I will be fine here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Lord.¡± The water puppet was assured that the pests would not be able to break through the windows. He turned around and jumped to the second level.


    On the second level, Nailisi followed the twelve elemental stone statue soldiers calmly. Both of her skeletal hands kept snatching the soul shards of the pests and throwing them into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    The water puppet frowned. That action of his was very simr to Saleen, but he had no idea. Nailisi was clean and efficient with every action. She did not use any techniques, and only followed the elemental stone statue soldiers. At the rate at which the elemental stone statue soldiers were smashing the pests with their war hammers, at least one pest would be struck. Even if the pests possessed the ability to merge together again, they would still be paralyzed for a few seconds and would not be able to attack during that time.


    Nailisi would make use of the few seconds to dig out their soul shards. The water puppet felt extremely useless when he saw all that.


    ¡°Rossen, get ready to use grade-6 Vortex to block off any gaps. If this thing goes up, Master will still be able to handle if there are only eight to ten of them,¡± Nailisi spoke to the water puppet without turning back.


    ¡°Alright.¡± The water puppet stepped back and got ready to cast magic attacks. At the moment, the twelve elemental stone statue soldiers were standing very closely together, so no pests have been able to reach the staircase yet.


    The pests looked extremely ferocious and their attacking motions were also very strange. They would make use of their ws, fangs, the curved thorns on their bodies, tails, and some of them could even spit out rocks that had been formed by the merging of ground elements.


    All the attacks would only leave faint marks on the bodies of the elemental stone statue soldiers. The stone statue soldiers were more than twenty yards tall and their elemental core was probably less than two yards. Not only were their exterior elemental armors extremely thick, they could also be repaired anytime.


    The pests managed to sniff out Saleen¡¯s aura, hence they had all gathered there. They were not interested in the elemental stone statue soldiers at all. When humans cleansed the pests, they also made use of elemental creatures. The pests only targeted creatures of flesh and blood.


    The pests that were trying to break through the windows on the third level had finally backed off. Saleen turned around to retrieve magic materials and began to set up a magic array on the floor. He was not sure how many pests had managed to enter the tower nor how long Nailisi would be able to hold them off. In the worst-case scenario, he would seek refuge in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    With a back-up n in ce, Saleen no longer felt so pressured, but that also made him feel less excited. His understanding of magic was hundreds and thousands of times faster when he was under pressure. Conversely, once he was no longer under any pressure, the only advantage he had over ordinary mages was just a stronger foundation.


    Without his lineage, he was just like any other ordinary mage!


    No wonder teacher did not allow him to train in the Six Elements¡¯ Space. Even if he had be a grade-9 sorcerer, his knowledge andbat abilities would not surpass his current state. That was because as a grade-9 sorcerer, he would not be able to cast grade-10 spells recklessly anymore.


    There would be no improvement without any pressure. This lineage of his was a tough and difficult path that he would have to walk.


    At that thought, Saleen led the twelve elemental stone statue soldiers down the staircase to the second level.


    ¡°Master?¡± One of Nailisi¡¯s faced saw Saleen and was confused.


    ¡°Let memand the stone statue soldiers. You just need to focus on killing the pests. Rossen, watch and learn.¡± With that, Saleen cast an Ice Bomb spell, then allowed the surface of the ice bomb to evaporate before it began to burn.


    That was element conversion, where water elements were used to create a fire ball of extremely high temperature. In order to speed up the water puppet¡¯s learning, Saleen only created one fireball. In addition, this fire ball¡¯s surface was yellow in color, which meant that the temperature was not too high.


    The ice bomb that Saleen created was more than ten times bigger than ordinary ice bombs and was close to half a yard in diameter. The fireball, which was more than a yard in diameter, had the ice bomb as its core. The color on the surface of the fire ball slowly changed into orange-red color, which was a sign that temperature was increasing. Water puppet followed Saleen in creating an ice bomb and sessfully made its surface evaporate. He was just unable to make the ice bomb burn.


    On Saleen¡¯s giant fireball, the image of a lightning dragon gradually formed.


    When Saleen was learning the fireball technique in the beginning, he was extremely envious of Faerun. After he became a grade-8 sorcerer himself, the fireball that he was able to create also possessed their own unique attributes.


    Eventually, on the surface of the fireball was a lightning dragon circling while some strange magic patterns shone on its orange-red body. Although Saleen was able to create the image of a lightning dragon, he was unable to create a fire ball that carried lightning. Nevertheless, that was definitely achievable, just not at his current level of ability.


    Fire element was berserk by nature but could be considered docile whenpared to lightning. Saleen fully understood the terrifying powers of lightning. If a mage was struck by a sh of lightning in the sky, it would be equivalent to being attacked by tens of Forbidden Curses.


    The lightning dragon¡¯s body had the rule of energy conservation that Saleen had gained enlightenment on its body. If the fireball failed to strike any enemy, it would continue to burn until the ice bomb in its core meltedpletely. Once that half yard long ice bombpletely evaporated, it would be able to keep the fire ball burning for a few hours.


    That grade-7 fireball technique was originally a single-target spell. Under special circumstances, a fireball that had continuously burned for a few hours could be turned into a multiple-target spell.


    ¡°My Lord, I can¡¯t...¡± The water puppet was a little depressed as he looked at Saleen throw out his fireball slowly, causing a cluster of pests to start burning. The lightning dragon pattern on the surface of the fireball was abnormal. It could even leave the fire ball a little just so that it could automatically coil itself around its target to continue burning. Such control of the spell would put most sorcerers to shame.


    Back then, when Faerun created the fireball technique, he could use his mental strength to exertplete control over the spell. Therefore, Faerun was the real genius while Saleen was merely following in his footsteps.

 Chapter 878: Life over Money (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 878: Life over Money (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had an incredible learning ability, which was one of his most notable strengths. When knowledge was umted to a certain extent, Saleen was also capable of creating his own spells. For instance, the hardly noteworthy Water Shield, as well as the ferocious Eye of Lightning.


    It was precisely due to having developed his own understanding of certain measure of the rules to lightning, instead of learning the rules others created, that Saleen was able to quickly advanced into the rank of a grade-8 sorcerer. Advancing into grade-9 was too but a matter of time. His breakthrough not be too slow.


    His fireball flew around in the air, killing seven or eight pests in a sh. He was overjoyed. It was but a grade-7 spell, yet itsted for quite some time. Other than having slightly higher mental power consumption, the spell had little in the way of shorings to speak of. It was indeed an ideal spell for dealing with monsters with little intelligence.


    He created two more fireballs without giving much thought to it. The water puppet still had not been able to grasp the workings of Saleen¡¯s element conversion. Having cut off their mental connection, the water puppet¡¯sbat capacity was not quite of the level it used to be.


    ¡°No need to rush,¡± Saleenmanded his elemental stone statue soldier and three fireballs in aposed manner. Nailisi only needed to pick up the soul shards after the fireballs burned out. Such tactics were for the time being, of low risk. The elemental stone statue soldiers fended off many ways of assault, allowing Saleenposure to use his magic.


    The twenty-four elemental stone statue soldier formed an impregnable barrier between the pests and Saleen. While there were some grade-9 monsters appearing among them time and again, they were hard a match to the soldiers which had the advantage in numbers.


    Elemental badges proved to be powerful equipment, which mages could bring with them and use easily. Thanks to the protection provided by these elemental creatures, mages were able to attack their enemies without any concern about grand swordmasters or assassins getting within range.


    Seeing how the twenty-four elemental stone statue soldiers were able to have the first floor of the tower under control, Saleen went straight to summoning another twelve to the first floor to keep them at bay. That allowed the speed that it took the monsters made it to the second floor be cut down, making it convenient for Nailisi to pick up the soul shards one by one.


    The water puppet learned slowly from the side. It tried ying with element conversion before. It was able to convert the six major elements without problems when it was under Saleen¡¯s control. With only its own memories and mental powers to rely on, he had yet to regain the ability to do so.


    There was nothing difficult with turning ice bombs into gas, but the gaseous ice bombs were still water element spells. Having the vaporized ice bombs burn however, required deeper and trickier skills, something that most sorcerers had never even attempted to learn. Out of those who did try to learn the trick, most never seeded. There were only a handful of sorcerers capable of using element conversion skills. Those who were as capable as Saleen at the art, were very few and very far between.


    Saleen was however, actually forced to do so. His body of water of element allowed him to pick up water magic spells very quickly, and use them with incredible effects and damage potentials. The other five elemental types would never be possible for him to learn, unless he was capable of element conversion. Without being able to familiarize himself with the other five, advancement would prove to be a great problem for him.


    It was precisely under such stress that Saleen became capable of element conversion skills before bing a sorcerer.


    The water puppet had little idea of Saleen¡¯s past. As such, it was very frustrated over the problem of being unable to master element conversion quickly. It had, after all, experienced the energy vibration frequencies during element conversion personally, instead of knowing absolutely nothing of the art.


    A huge ice bomb was conjured by the water puppet, with ayer of mist about it. The original freezing attributes of ice bombs were severely weakened by saidyer of mist.


    The water puppet controlled the ice bomb and itnded a hit on one pest. Recalling a water magic spell all of the sudden, the water puppet¡¯s mental powers fluctuated wildly. The ice bomb cracked and the mist dispersed, freezing the pest it hit.


    Nailisi picked up the pest¡¯s soul shard and red at the water puppet. The pests¡¯ bodies were essentially a collection of dust. Being frozen however, Nailisi needed quite an effort to insert her bone hand into the pest¡¯s body.


    More than one-hundred pests were wiped out by Nailisi in the span of just little more than ten minutes. There were at least six soul shards in the bodies of each pest. Nailisi dumped almost one-thousand shards into her purgatories.


    Nailisi rejoiced silently. The shards were capable of being used for repairing two of the purgatories in her collection. If she was able to collect tens of thousands of the pests¡¯ soul shards, she would be able to get one of her purgatoriespletely fixed.


    ¡°Nailisi, I will let more pests up,¡± Saleen said as he conjured another twelve elemental stone statue soldiers and had them go downstairs and fill the first floor.


    Nailisi nodded in acknowledgment. She quickened the pace of her soul shard collecting. ¡°If only Nichs was here!¡± Nailisi began to miss some of the good things about Nichs at such moments. Fallen holy masters used soul beads to collect such shards, and the speed of doing so was thousands of times faster than what Nailisi was doing.


    Hundreds of pests rushed for second floor. Saleen nonchntly conjured more fireballs. The grade-7 fireballs all had life-like images of thunder dragon on their surfaces. The fireballs were able to burn for hours. Even having spentrge amounts of fire element in each attack, the fireballs were at least able tost for more than an hour.


    Such was the power of element conversion. Normal fireballs would have hardly been able tost for more than half a minute.


    The water puppet created a unique magic ice bomb. The ice bombs were quickly converted into another water magic, Frozen Swamp, when their surfaces began to mist.


    Frozen Swamp was an area-of-effect offensive magic, which the water puppetpressed onto the surface of an ice bomb with a diameter of little more than one yard. The spell caused slowness and numbness once it stuck on a pest. Therge sticky ice bomb was not something that could be shaken off. The slowed pest would then became easy pickings for Nailisi.


    The blue ice maiden was right that water magic was hardly capable to damaging the pests, but such rules were hardly absolute to mages. With a demon like Nailisi, who was capable of picking soul shards around, a slowed pest was as good as dead.


    The second floor also hadrge windows, and the space between the twenty-four elemental stone statue soldiers was very wide too. Saleenmanded the situation, having the fireballs dance about within the crevices, being pleased for finding out again what it was like to be a mage.


    Control!


    A mage¡¯sbat tacticsid within absolute control.


    A diamond cut diamond situation was something not even swordsmen would have dly put themselves in. The wisdom, skills, and experience of a mage became the determining factors deciding the oue of a battle. Saleen was a grade-8 mage. If he had encountered grade-7 monsters in the number of tens of thousands, he would have done nothing else but run.


    That time however, Saleen used the surroundings of the crystal tower to his own advantage, allowing him to leisurely kill the pests one by one. Saleen was able to run anytime if he wanted to. The reason why he stayed was because he knew of the immense importance the soul shards had for repairing Nailisi¡¯s twelve Notes of Purgatory. If it was on the Myers Maind, he would not have dared allow Nailisi do something like that, as that would have been simr to what ck magicians did.


    Fycro dared kill one-hundred-thousand people just to create soul beads. If Saleen dared attempt something like that, his conscience would have eaten him inside out. These pests, however, were little else but materials walking up to Nailisi.


    The adventure into the abyss gradually changed Saleen¡¯s way of thinking. In the past, he liked running away, unless it was absolutely necessary to fight or victory was promised. That time however, Saleen felt the rush of having everything under his control.


    Such abilities came from wisdom, instead of some powerful magic chords.


    Time flew and Nailisi had been killing thousands of pests. The number of monsters trying to enter the tower did not seem to be reduced though. Nailisi had an epiphany all of the sudden, it was a result of her demonic lineage. ¡°Some unusually dangerous monster are getting near us!¡±


    The danger that monsters posed surpassed the power of all the pestsbined. The pests would have tore Saleen and his followers to pieces if they were in an open field. It was precisely because they were in such an enclosed environment that the pests were not able to harm even one hair on him.


    ¡°Master!¡±, Nailisi shouted and took her demon form, the spear Saleen crafted for her in her hand. Saleen felt the approaching danger as well, which was an ability resulting from the soul contract between him and Nailisi, as well as the one between him and the Goddess of Myers.


    The two contracts allowed Saleen¡¯s sense of danger to be on par with that of Nailisi.


    ¡°What is that?!¡± Saleen quickly retreated to the third story and looked outside. He was only able to see a huge humanoid shadow making its way to the tower from streets faraway.


    The humanoid being was eight yards tall. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye opened at full force, and found that the long, ck hair the being was dragging behind him was the same thing that made up the pests: dust.


    The only difference there was that the dust did not flow and fluctuate, and behaved like true hair. Every single hair was clear, and swayed about in the water.


    The being¡¯s face was vague, but he did have a human face. He carried a long double-edged de in his hand. The de¡¯s seven yard long body drew a broad path in the seawater. There was nothing standing in his way.


    What was most eerie about him was that the being was naked from the waist up, with an even bigger face located at the spot where his chest met the stomach. The face opened its mouth wide, and it evil-looking eyes wandered about left and right.


    The pests it had its eyes on were all monsters above grade-7. Once the face picked out a pest, the eight yard tall figure would just walk up to it and cut it to pieces with one sh, and then it swallowed the soul shards with its big mouth on his torso.


    The mouth was filled with sharp teeth, which were all gray. Terrifying shrieks were heard with every soul shard bitten.


    No pests were about to run. The figure was not quick with his movements. It was just that whenever he went, the pests were only able to kneel on the ground, waiting their turn to be ughtered in a terrified manner.


    Saleen immediately summoned Gloria. Regardless of how dumb she was, she would at least have some impression of the creature.


    ¡°Gloria, look. What the hell is that?¡±, Saleen pointed at the creature killing the pests, and shared his own senses with her at the same time.


    ¡°Master, you are going to be rich. That is an Angel of Fear,¡± Gloria answered, which unsettled Saleen.


    ¡°What is an Angel of Fear?¡±


    ¡°A grade-12 pest. Catch him, and your mental powers will grow immensely!¡±

 Chapter 879: Life over Money (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 879: Life over Money (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Grade-12...


    Saleen took out his family badge without any second thoughts. Gloria had obviously taken him for an ancient human. A grade-12 creature would be able to reduce him to dust with just any of their skills.


    His only choice at that moment was to be the first to act.


    Even the Crystal Finger did not seem all that reliable to him anymore. The skill was able to be evaded easily by a grade-10 blue ice maiden. Saleen did not believe for one second that the Crystal Finger would be enough to kill the grade-12 angel of fear.


    The Crystal Finger¡¯s effective range was too short. The angel of fear would be able to reach any target within ten yards with that double-edge de of his.


    Saleen believed that the angel of fear would be powerful even in ancient times, as humans back then would have also have wracked their brains to subdue one such creature, instead of destroying them outright. Money or life, Saleen came to his own conclusion with it.


    Having money yet without life was the greatest tragedy there was.


    Nailisi continued killing pests on the second floor. She had little idea of what was going on. There was only the crisis alert going about in her mind, which she was not able to dispel.


    The water puppet stopped helping Nailisi and made for the third floor with Saleen instead. It saw Saleen levitating in mid-air, with a badge the size of his palm in his hand.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye allowed him to see more than one-hundred miles away. There were no tall buildings nearby but the military depot. Saleen had already readied himself tounch an assault when the angel of fear was still twenty miles away.


    He was not sure of the absolute limit of his family¡¯s badge¡¯s range of attack. Since the magic cannon from the second dynasty that he acquired could wipe out anything it shot at within ten miles, twenty miles should not have been the limit for his family badge.


    ¡°Oh, Angel of Fear, whatever riches you have with you, I want no part of it!¡±


    Saleen continued using Figaro¡¯s magic form to calcte the angel of fear¡¯s route, getting ready tounch one lethal attack. The angel of fear turned his head all of a sudden twenty miles away, looking at the crystal tower. Saleen was shocked, but quickly rposed himself. The crystal tower only allowed for the ones inside to look out, not the other way around.


    ¡°That thing definitely reacted to my family badge. The badge definitely poses a threat to him.¡±


    Saleen unleashed the power within the badge without second thoughts. A streak of thick blue electrical discharge burst out from the badge. There seemed to be hundreds of thousands of magic beasts howling within the badge, which then turned to a continuous, thundering boom.


    The lightning hit the angel of fear within the blink of an eye. The speed that it all took ce startled even Saleen himself. The blue electrical discharge¡¯s diameter expanded to fifteen yards to twenty miles away, yet the power remained all the same. The eight yard tall angel of fear was literally swallowed by the attack. The thundering boom with the blue streak reduced his soul to dust.


    The powerful grade-12 body turned to dust in the electrical attack.


    Saleenughed his lungs out. He saw the angel of fear being reduced to dust the size of elemental particles. It was more dead than dead. The stress within Saleen¡¯s mind cleared, and he turned around ready to kill the pests again.


    There was a sharp pain on his back just as he turned. It was the kind of pain that came from the depths of one¡¯s soul.


    He turned around furiously, and saw another angel of fear appearing somewhere about thirty miles away. The other one was also eight yards tall and held a seven yard double-edge de in his hand. A buzz was heard from within Saleen¡¯s mind, and his hair stood on end.


    ¡°There is a second angel of fear!¡± He could not use his badge again after using it once. Even if he was to give it his all, and had all the help he was able to get from sorcerers around him, he would have still needed about three months to charge the badge full. ¡°I just used up all the power of the badge, and now a second angel of fear shows up. What the hell am I supposed to do?!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to see clearly that the second angel of fear was making for the crystal tower slowly. That one was also naked, yet a female one. Large breasts were on the naked torso, and beneath it, the familiar ferocious and horrifying face.


    The female angel of fear stared at the crystal tower. There was then a hole the size of a basin in the window of the third floor. The angel of fear¡¯s eyes saw right through the hole andnded on the Saleen¡¯s face. Saleen felt like the skin of face was being pricked. If it had not been for the Devil Mask acting as a barrier, Saleen felt his face would have been all bloodied.


    ¡°Master, subdue that thing!¡±, Gloria shouted.


    Saleen simply called Gloria back to the water elemental badge. She was of no help going against a grade-12 creature. Having all of the blue ice maidens unleashed and acting as a barrier might have bought him three to five seconds.


    ¡°Is there any way to get out of this? Saleen began recollecting in his mind the equipment he had with him. ¡°Maybe a grade-10 magic scroll? This is a grade-12 angel of fear! This Imperial City of the Abyss is indeed something scary. Grade-12 monsters already appeared, and that was just the outskirts! Should I run? Use Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory? That thing is only good for trapping creatures below grade-10, and Nailisi herself is not even grade-10. If I throw this thing in there, the purgatories might end up being torn apart. There would truly be no way out then.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mind raced to think of a way out, as he unleashed all grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers to the first floor, keeping the way into the second floorpletely blocked.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±, Saleen shouted.


    Nailisi put away thest two pests¡¯ soul shards away and flew up to the third floor. Saleen simply shared his senses with Nailisi, allowing her to see the angel of fear for herself. The scales behind her back all stood up in response.


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s just run. Just leave everything behind!¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t, it¡¯s a grade-12 creature. We aren¡¯t fast enough to lose that thing!¡±


    ¡°How about Eleanor? Aren¡¯t her arrows capable of cutting down the lifespan of enemies?¡±, Nailisi¡¯s voice was croaking. That was the first time she experienced true fear. It was the fear of death, the fear of losing her master forever.


    Eleanor was training her magic and archery in the purgatory of darkness. Saleen said that he would not visit her until she reached grade-9.


    Saleen himself had considered having Eleanor use life arrows on the angel. To have a life arrow hit its target, it was best to first use elf space arrows to freeze the enemy momentarily. The difference in levels would have however, rendered the space arrowspletely useless. Life arrows on the other hand, did not possess such powerful targeting abilities. Theycked the eerie attack speed of the space arrows as well.


    ¡°Nailisi, that won¡¯t do any good,¡± Saleen said bitterly. He did not allow himself to just give up. If he was to die right there, he would take that angel of fear with him.


    Saleen was unwilling to just roll over and die. He still had Sika and Lex, as well as his two children who were not even two years old yet.


    The angel of fear did not bother moving any faster. In her eyes, Saleen was as good as dead. Even if he was to run, he would not have been fast enough to do so.


    Seeing her mate killed had the female angel of fear boiling with rage. She wanted to capture the human alive, trapping his soul forever, and robbing him of peace for all eternity. Making it slowly to her enemy made the fear in his mind umte, causing pain and torture. That was what the angel of fear truly intended.


    Saleen¡¯s sharp senses were able to pick up what the angel of fear was thinking. Such mysterious sensory abilities were something he picked up after bing familiar with the rules. Such abilities had always been vague, yet on that very day where there was no chance he could make it out alive, such abilities came to the very forefront.


    He was able to make out what was going through the angel of fear¡¯s mind with zero error. If the angel of fear had simply charged at him, he might have been truly at wits¡¯ end. With such pressure looming over him at that moment however, he had cooled down instead. Jason¡¯s lineage dictated for one to be stronger when facing a strong opponent, preventing one from losing oneself due to immense pressure.


    ¡°Let¡¯s head out,¡± Saleen red at the angel of fear before taking Nailisi¡¯s hand, and jumping out of the hole in the window. It was something many fighters were unable to pull off. Saleen¡¯s constitution was strengthened once again after bing a grade-8 sorcerer. While he did not learn Isabe¡¯s techniques and he certainly did not practice sword aura, his body was nheless stronger than all warriors of swordmaster levels.


    The water puppet was terrified as well, but it followed Saleen without hesitation, jumping out of the hole in the window with the duo. There were tens of thousands of pests out there, surrounding the tower.


    Saleen went outside with water me in his hand. He was surrounded by powerful tornadoes, which contained sharpened and cold snowkes in them. The rampaging snowkes danced in the tornadoes, cutting up the pests, reducing them to bits and pieces.


    Powerful freezing attributes rendered the pests, which were made of dust, unable to lower the damage taken by turning into dust. Combining Tornado with Snowkill was a unique magic spell that Jason created. The spell consumed only mental powers and not magic chords.


    The one spell consuming magic chords was the water me in his hand. Tornado and Snowkill were derivative spells.


    A nk space was quickly created on the ground. They were at the edge of the city, where streets were more than one-hundred yards wide. Saleen took out a dimension stone from his Devil Ring. Within the stone,id his divine tree magic tower.


    Saleen did not believe for one second that such monsters born out of soul shards would be powerful enough to destroy the divine trees of the Goddess of Myers. If he was in a secure enough ce, he would still be able to endure for half a year and let the badge recharge its energies. He would then be ready to unleash the lightning attack on the angel of fear, and have her end up with the same fate as her mate.


    ¡°You want to torture me? In your dreams!¡±


    The divine tree magic tower was still little else other than a prototype despite being crafted again and again by Saleen. The twenty-four floored magic tower would eventually be the most powerful equipment in all of the Myers Maind. There would also be no limit on the level of sorcerers it could carry within its twenty-four floors.


    Any mage of any level would be able to showcase their truest power within the magic tower.


    Boom!


    The divine tree magic towernded on the ground, and the pests around began to scurry off. The majestic aura of the divine trees struck fear in the monsters. It was, after all, something capable of easily wiping them out.


    The counteracting properties of the tower had the pests running for their lives for the first time.


    The angel of fear suddenly felt unsure from more than twenty miles away. A powerful aura was unleashed from afar, something that the human had just unleashed.


    Was it to say that the human had some terrifying equipment up his sleeves? Would there be a second lightning bolt getting at her, like the one that just killed her mate?

 Chapter 880: The Power of Fear (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 880: The Power of Fear (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Angel of Fear rejected that thinking immediately. If that human had possessed simr attacking abilities, it knew that it would have died long ago. The attack was so powerful that it was able to kill its partner from twenty miles away. It must have been unleashed from some sort of equipment. Humans possessed many kinds of such equipment but no matter how powerful they might be, their equipment would never possess the ability to attack continuously.


    Surely a human, who was below grade-10 and had already lost the power of his equipment, was nothing to be fearful of?


    At that thought, the Angel of Fear killed the pests calmly and threw their soul shards into the huge mouth on her stomach.


    Beside the crystal tower, Saleen unleashed his divine tree magic tower. It was twenty-four floors high and each level was only six yards tall, so the entire magic tower was one-hundred and forty-four yards tall. The difference between the divine tree magic tower and other ordinary magic towers was that there were only four sides to the former instead of six for thetter. There were no windows on the floors and not even a door on the first level.


    Once the divine tree magic tower was firmly on the ground, the magic arrays and magic patterns on the tower lit up. Saleen teleported himself, along with Nailisi and the water puppet, directly into the divine tree magic tower.


    At that moment, there was no space from the eighteenth floor and above in the divine tree magic tower. The mechanical core of Sky City had been trying to find its ce within the magic tower and eventually settled on the sixteenth floor. Saleen brought Nailisi and the water puppet to the seventeenth floor. The sixteenth floor was still out of bounds to Nailisi and water puppet at the moment, so Saleen would control the entire magic tower from the seventeenth floor at the moment.


    Actually, it did not matter which floor Saleen controlled the tower from, but he did not wish to fight the Angel of Fear on low grounds. After all, it was always more advantageous for mages to fight from a higher ground.


    The lowest floor of the divine tree magic tower was filled with elf magic arrays. Once Saleen entered the magic tower, he began to control the magic arrays on the floor first. Hundreds of roots branched out from beneath the magic tower and burrowed into the ground. The roots were formed by elf magic. They would borrow the power of the divine tree and simultaneously absorb the abundant ground elements so that the roots would grow longer and stronger, ultimately burrowing as deep as six-hundred yards into the ground.


    The roots of the divine tree extended out to two miles from the magic tower. The roots would serve to transport energy to and from the magic tower, allowing the magic tower and the ground to function as one entity.


    Saleen felt slightly more assured. Although the magic tower was only a prototype, its defense abilities were already astounding.


    There was nothing else he could do if even the divine tree magic tower was unable to resist the Angel of Fear¡¯s attack. Although his devil suit was powerful, at the end of the day, it was just something refined by a grade-10 sorcerer. The only thing he could depend on was the material of the divine tree. He prayed that the things that the Goddess of Myers had left behind for him would be able to counter the Angel of Fear.


    Once the roots of the divine tree magic tower had extended fully, Saleen decided to take back all his elemental stone statue soldiers. They turned into streams of ground element as they were absorbed back into Saleen¡¯s ground-element elemental badge.


    The elemental stone statue soldiers might be powerful in their attacks, but they were also ineffective against the pests. After taking back the stone statue soldiers, Saleen unleashed the Blue Ice Maidens.


    One-hundred and forty-four blue ice maidens split themselves up into each level of the magic tower and only Gloria stayed by the side of Saleen.


    When Gloria saw the interior of the magic tower, she was shocked and asked, ¡°Master, you are a human, why would you possess anything from the Gods?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Saleen had no idea why Gloria would ask such a question, but he was sure that there must be a reason for it.


    ¡°Humans have no need for anything from the Gods. Master, you should rely on your own abilities to kill the enemy. That is the true pride of humans!¡±


    ¡°Hmm, you make sense, but Gloria, I am only a grade-8 sorcerer. You are a grade-10 elemental leader, Nailisi is a grade-9 demon, and Rossen is a grade-8 elemental... mage. Tell me, how can I fight against a grade-12 Angel of Fear?¡±


    ¡°The difference in grades doesn¡¯t represent everything. Master, haven¡¯t you already killed one Angel of Fear? It is such a pity. There is apletely perfect soul within the Angel of Fear¡¯s body. The soul is made up of the best soul shards and possess great power. If Master is able to get his hands on the soul and absorb it, Master will immediately be a grade-12 mage.¡±


    ¡°No, Gloria, you don¡¯t understand...¡± Saleen did not know how to exin it to Gloria. The humans of the Myers Maind had be so weak that they could not bepared to those in the past. He might be one of the strongest mages on the Myers Maind, but he was still helpless against a grade-12 Angel of Fear.


    Indeed, Gloria did not understand what Saleen was saying. In her opinion, there were countless ways for a human to defeat the grade-12 Angel of Fear. Even if Saleen was slightly weaker, he should still have at least one-hundred ways to deal with the Angel of Fear.


    ¡°You will control the blue ice maidens to use their spells to attack any creatures that try toe close to the magic tower but keep yourself out of it. I will need your most powerful technique at the most crucial moment.¡±


    ¡°Most powerful technique?¡±


    ¡°You are a grade-10 water-element creature, so you should be able to cast a grade-11 spell. Maybe only once, but that will be enough,¡± Saleen said patiently.


    ¡°My grade-11 spell is the Rainbow spell...¡± Gloria replied.


    The Rainbow spell was purely a movement spell. In order to develop a soul, Gloria did not learn any attack spells when she was still at grade-10. Instead, she advanced her grade-10 Rainbow spell. At the most crucial moment, a grade-11 Rainbow spell would help her to move more than one-hundred miles away.


    Learning movement spells was due to the fact that all lifeforms would naturally want to protect themselves, especially those that possessed souls. If Gloria used her grade-11 Rainbow spell, even the grade-12 Angel of Fear would not be able to do anything about it.


    Saleen was frustrated. To think that Gloria was just an elemental creature that was afraid of death! If she could cast a grade-11 water-element magic attack, he could boost her with a Frost and Snow magic pattern. With the power of the magic tower, the attack could definitely cause serious damage to grade-12 creatures.


    Saleen still possessed one more broken jade. He would be able to control the Angel of Fear as long as he could insert the broken jade into its body.


    Saleen knew that that was his only chance. If he was able to subdue the Angel of Fear, then he would have a chance to venture deeper into the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Deep down, Saleen had never given up. After bringing out the divine tree magic tower, he was already nning how to control the Angel of Fear.


    The Angel of Fear slowly walked over, armed with a long knife. She was less than five miles away from the divine tree magic tower. At that point in time, she finally saw the magic tower.


    ¡°How can this be?!¡± The Angel of Fear could not help but mutter to herself when she saw the divine tree magic tower.


    It was obviously a human mage so how could he possibly possess God¡¯s equipment? Besides, the human was definitely not a disciple. Human mages were the natural enemies of disciples!


    The Angel of Fear¡¯s memories were made up of countless broken pieces, which formed aplete soul once they were all pieced together. Everything she knew was left behind by the humans of tens of thousands of years ago.


    The humans of tens of thousands of years ago were the ones that constantly initiated conquests of various dimensions of other lifeforms and Gods. Back then, humans were so proud and arrogant that they would never tolerate any faith or religion and would never possess any Godly items. Even if they killed the Gods, humans would also refine their items into human objects in order to erase every trace of the Gods.


    The magic tower clearly still possessed the Power of Faith left behind by the Gods!


    ¡°Could it be... that the humans have fallen?¡± The Angel of Fear had hidden herself in the Imperial City for so many years. Exactly how long had she slept? The Angel of Fear¡¯s mind was in a mess. The face on her stomach began to howl impatiently.


    ¡°Keep quiet!¡± The Angel of Fear shouted. Her voice vibrated across the waters and all the pests nearby began to copse and turn into piles of dust. They were no longer able to merge together again.


    None of the pests dared to escape. Theyid down cautiously and waited for the Angel of Fear¡¯s ughter.


    The Angel of Fear no longer bothered with the pests. She stomped her feet on the ground and a huge crater of one-hundred yards in diameter appeared. Her body tunneled through the waters and almost instantaneously, she crossed over five miles to appear in front of the magic tower and was about to swing her knife down.


    Items of the Gods were not foreign to the Angel of Fear. There were Gods of very low grades as well and the lowest of them would be the same grade as her, which was grade-12. The equipment of Gods was notparable to those of humans¡¯. Grade-12 Godly equipment would definitely be hacked in half by her knife.


    There was no way Saleen would allow the Angel of Fear to attack so brazenly. From within the tower, the one-hundred and forty-four blue ice maidens unleashed Dark Blue Howl all at the same time.


    All the water elements from within the range of a few miles began to move and form an elemental creature of more than one-thousand yards tall. The shape of the elemental creature was vague and was like a human face on a giant blob of water. The mouth on this face opened wide and all the water elements harnessed within the blob of water shot out, bringing with them a howl that was deafening to all souls.


    Both sides were so close to each other that Saleen could see directly what was happening outside the magic tower. There was de on the opposite side of the Angel of Fear¡¯s seven yard long knife. The knife was narrow and ck metal in color. Rich ck-metal aura wriggled on the sword, as if it was the faces of humans.


    Deep Blue Howl was a grade-9 spell. When it was used by more than one-hundred water-element creatures at the same time and boosted with the power of the magic tower, the spell advanced to grade-10 directly and became a brand new water-element spell. That grade-10 spell was more powerful than all other grade-10 spells. That was the power of the magic tower. It was able to increase the power of a grade-10 spell into that of grade-11.


    The face on the Angel of Fear¡¯s stomach howled furiously. It was a disy of hatred towards both Gods and life. The aura of the Goddess of Myers enraged it. The faces on Angel of Fear¡¯s long knife began to howl as well. She swung her knife and it hacked into the blob of water formed by Deep Water Howl.


    Everything became silent all of a sudden. All the crazy howling, the explosion from the Angel of Fear crossing five miles, and the impact of her long knife hacking at the one-thousand yard tall elemental creature...


    Every sound seemed to have been sucked into the Angel of Fear¡¯s long knife. Then, they seemed to be unleashed instantaneously to form a beam of light that was a one-thousand yard long, copsing the grade-10 spell that was cast by the one-hundred and forty-four blue ice maidens.


    The coteral damage of the knife included destroying all the broken walls within a thousand yards. A canal of one-hundred yards depth formed where the de of the knife pointed.

 Chapter 881: The Power of Fear (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 881: The Power of Fear (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The face on the Angel of Fear¡¯s abdomen howled and the faces on the long knife followed. That time around, the tens of thousands of pests nearby followed their lead and began to screech as well.


    Then, the Angel of Fear flipped her long knife and swung back at the divine tree magic tower once again. Most double-edged knives had jagged edges on one side, but the Angel of Fear¡¯s knife did not. When she swung her sword, the beam of light from the knife carried terrifying aura and struck Saleen¡¯s magic tower.


    Saleen¡¯s resistance merely dyed the Angel of Fear by a few seconds.


    To Saleen, a few seconds were a long time, but in a battle, they passed by in the blink of an eye. The beam of light from the knife unleashed an explosion that almost resulted in cracks in the nearby waters.


    Every inch of seawater within ten miles was no longer transparent. Instead, it had been turned into a three-dimensional magic array through a method that Saleen had never seen before. There were tens of thousands of soul shards contained within the tens of thousands of pests. The soul shards contained the memories of their previous lives. When the face on Angel of Fear¡¯s abdomen howled, all the soul shards became excited and produced a sense of fear that could not be suppressed.


    The Angel of Fear absorbed the power of fear and integrated them into her attack.


    Oohh oohh...


    There was a gentle cooing from within the divine tree magic tower. A green light shed gently for an instant and everything quietened down once again. The beam of light from the Angel of Fear¡¯s long knife vanished as it was easily eliminated by the divine tree magic tower.


    Saleen had just witnessed a gigantic magic attack being vanquished by the divine tree magic tower. He felt strange. If he possessed simr power that allowed him to leave behind items that could still unleash such power thousands of years after he had fallen, would he be more willing to die?


    It was said that Gods could live forever, but all humans must die, no matter how powerful they might be.


    Within the magic tower, Saleen did not even sense the mental attack harnessed within the Angel of Fear¡¯s attack. If he had not been in the magic tower, even before the beam of light from the light knife had befallen on him, his soul already would have been shredded into pieces and absorbed by the Angel of Fear.


    The Angel of Fear stopped her actions unexpectedly. She rested her long knife on her shoulders and began to circle the divine tree magic tower.


    It was something left behind by a high-level God. Her fear attack waspletely ineffective so that meant that the materials used to build the equipment must at least be grade-16 or above. The equipment of Gods was different from those of humans. If the materials of this equipment were grade-16 or above, then the God... the God must at least be grade-18!


    ¡°Damn it. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m unable to break through an equipment made from such high-level materials. There are still too many loopholes in this equipment after all, but it will be risky.¡±


    The face on the Angel of Fear¡¯s abdomen was also staring at the divine tree magic tower. It wanted to unleash an attack but did not dare to do so. It was vaguely aware of the danger posed by the magic tower when the Angel of Fear¡¯s de of Fear waspletely ineffective against it.


    In the divine tree magic tower, Nailisi said to Saleen, ¡°Master, I want the Angel of Fear¡¯s long knife!¡±


    ¡°For what?¡± Saleen asked casually.


    ¡°In my devil-form, the length of the knife can serve as a dagger. My devil-form does not possess any good weapons and my equipment is often damaged. If not for theck of good equipment, I would not have been injured at Sanlian City.¡±


    ¡°As long as we finish off this Angel of Fear, you can have anything you want.¡± Saleen replied coolly as his eyes stayed glued on the Angel of Fear.


    ¡°Master, you don¡¯t intend to subdue her?¡± Nailisi could sense what Saleen was thinking and asked in disbelief.


    ¡°Tough. Even if I do subdue her, the price to pay will be too high. I think, if I can¡¯t subdue her, then I may as well dismantle her and split her up for Nichs and the winged skeleton. Of course, you can have her weapon.¡±


    Nailisi jammed her longnce onto the ground in fury. Master only intended to give her a knife! With the Angel of Fear, Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory would be even closer to restoration. Was she not the one that Master favored the most? ¡°Why must it be about the winged skeleton all the time? Even Nichs is in the picture now!¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, are you unhappy?¡± There was a strange expression on Saleen¡¯s face.


    ¡°Hmm, extremely.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°No particr reason...but the Angel of Fear is mine! Mine!¡±


    ¡°Do you dislike Soldier that much?¡±


    ¡°No, but I need to restore my Twelve Notes of Purgatory as soon as possible!¡±


    ¡°The Twelve Notes of Purgatory is only a semi-Godly item even after it has beenpletely restored. I have thought about it. These items were hardly considered as ¡®semi-Godly items¡¯ by the humans in the past. To put it bluntly, after it has beenpletely restored, the Twelve Notes of Purgatory will just be a grade-10 equipment. Do you think it isparable to my divine tree magic tower?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Nailisi pouted. There were tears in her eyes.


    ¡°There are two broken souls in the body of the Angel of Fear. I can see them. One of them will be given to Soldier, so that he can advance. The other will be given to Nichs, so that he can possess aplete soul bead and eliminate the issue with his original soul bead. This is the only way Nichs will choose to follow me wholeheartedly, otherwise something will crop up sooner orter.¡±


    Saleen did not mention anything about Fycro. The soul bead was refined by Fycro and Saleen did not believe that Fycro would not tinker with it. If they managed to find Nichs on their way back from the Imperial City of the Abyss, Saleen decided that he wouldpletely destroy the original soul bead, so whatever Fycro might have done to Nichs would be ineffective.


    In any case, all that was not included in his agreement with Fycro.


    Fycro demanded an interdimensional space and for the Holy See to be split apart while Saleen himself needed to eliminate the Holy See¡¯s presence on that dimension. It would save Saleen a lot of trouble if Fycro really left with all his disciples, but if Fycro refused to leave and wanted to continue to spread his faith, Saleen would have to think of a way to deal with the grade-10 Holy Master.


    Fycro was even more terrifying than a grade-12 Angel of Fear. He had already turned his back on the Lord of Glory, yet he had not fallen and still continued to enjoy the blessings of his God.


    Such ability only proved that Fycro possessed a soul that was powerful enough to go against the millions of disciples of the Lord of Glory on the Myers Maind, including Pope Theisio.


    Nailisi thought about it carefully and decided to stop crying. She said, ¡°Master, I was wrong.¡±


    ¡°Then think of a way to kill this creature. I feel uneasy looking at her. The divine tree magic tower was not refinedpletely and perfectly. The grade-12 monster will definitely be able to find its loopholes eventually.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s heart turned cold. The divine tree magic tower might look powerful and imposing, but even Nailisi herself could already spot a few problems. The materials of the four divine trees were not integrated together. Instead, they were only connected together by the core of Sky City. While the core should be strong enough that the Angel of Fear would not be able to destroy it, the problem was that there was no need to. She only needed to seek out the gaps within the four divine trees.


    It was difficult to build and easy to destroy. Refining a divine tree magic tower required a significant amount of wealth, resources, and time to constantly repair it. Destroying it would only take an instant.


    ¡°Rossen, what do you think?¡± Saleen asked the water puppet.


    ¡°Crystal finger will not be able to take her down. There is nothing I can do.¡± Rossen stared at the Angel of Fear outside the magic tower and answered helplessly.


    ¡°You mean you don¡¯t have a chance to do anything. Crystal finger needs to be unleashed at a very close distance, but the attacking range of the Angel of Fear was as far as a mile. It is not necessarily true that you don¡¯t have a chance. Nailisi¡¯s longnce can lock on to the target and buy you a few frames of time.¡±


    ¡°My Lord...¡±


    ¡°One hit will do, just so that she is aware of the threat. We will still need to count on Nailisi eventually,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Alright, my Lord. When do we strike?¡±


    ¡°Strike at the moment when the magic tower is broken apart.¡± Saleen continued, ¡°I will boost you with a Frost and Snow magic pattern, a Chunlin spell, and Crystal Guardian. You have less than half a second to attack. Although the Angel of Fear does not attack at a high frequency, the after-effects of each attack are too powerful. Once she uses a technique, we will not have the chance to strike.¡±


    ¡°I understand. My Lord, I will get ready now.¡± With that, the water puppet wore Rafael¡¯s crystal ring on his left hand and sat down to get himself into the correct state. As an elemental creature, he did not require any meditation techniques.


    ¡°Fallen human, do you think you can escape my knife just by borrowing the power of the Gods?¡± The Angel of Fear finally spoke. She was speaking in the ancient Myersnguage and the ent was heavy.


    From within the magic tower, Saleen heard the sounds that had been processed by the magic tower. He adjusted his magic robe before standing up and replying to the Angel of Fear, ¡°You are just a monster. A pest. No matter how high your grade may be, you will be exterminated sooner orter. Compared to the Gods, you don¡¯t even have the right to be the enemy of humans.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the right?¡± Angel of Fear stopped in her tracks. She faced the divine tree magic tower, with an expression of ridicule on her face.


    ¡°That is just something pieced together at thest minute. It almost gave me a scare. Now, I will help you understand the power of fear!¡± With that, the Angel of Fear raised her long knife and moved quite a distance. The face on her abdomen opened its mouth and produced a chain ofplicated and strange melodies.


    The souls of hundreds of races had been devoured by the Angel of Fear and the huge mouth was producing thousands ofnguages. Saleen only understood less than one percent of them.


    There was no need for Saleen to understand them because all of them expressed a singlemon emotion, which was fear.


    Saleen¡¯s head was so painful that he immediately cut off the link between the magic tower and outside. He could not resist the mysterious attack even with his mental strength, which had been put through so much training by his n badge.


    In that instant when the face produced the attack of fear, Saleen suddenly recalled his past when he could die from hunger any moment and even had to fight for scraps with wild dogs. It was Saleen¡¯s childhood that gave him the most pain.

 Chapter 882: Getting Lost (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 882: Getting Lost (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was, on that very day, a king and a grade-8 sorcerer. He was one who hadmand over both grade-9 professionals, as well as grade-9 elemental creatures. He was but an orphaned beggar when he was a child. In a ce like Sikenqinya, there was no hope for having nobles even help to raise him to adulthood.


    Viscount Gug was one of the most friendly and kind aristocrats among the nobles to be found within Sikenqinya, yet in Ceylon City, Saleen had still almost starved to death.


    Saleen¡¯s fear of starvation was never truly gone. Ever since he got his hands on spatial equipment, he filled the equipment with food that wouldst him a lifetime. Even after he became a grade-8 sorcerer and his body evolved, thus making him have less need for food, his childhood trauma remained something unresolved.


    Mages within magic towers all used specialized magic arrays to pick up external sounds in order to have a firm grasp of what was going on outside. Sounds filtered by such magic arrays did not possess offensive abilities, so such equipment was standard equipment in every magic tower. The sounds emanating from the face at the angel of fear¡¯s torso however, gave even someone like Saleen a headache despite him being used to debuffs.


    Saleen cut off the connection between the tower and the outside world without hesitation, yet the frustrating noise refused to leave his head. He tried using Mental Shock techniques to dispel the noise, but the attempt proved useless.


    Saleen then tried meditating, but soon found that he failed to enter a meditative state no matter how hard he tried. That was bad news. A mage who was not able to meditate was no mage at all. Saleen frowned as he took out his family badge, and cast a grade-0 spell.


    The family badge worked as it always did, absorbing his magic chords and mental powers. All debuffs came piling onto him, yet a smile spread over his face. The noise disappeared right away after he used the badge.


    ¡°Darn angel of fear!¡± The noise was erased from his mind, but the unsavory past that he was forced to remember was not something he was able to just shut out. Saleen felt hate for the first time at a monster. ¡°This thing must die! I don¡¯t care if my broken jade can control this angel of fear, I¡¯m not keeping this thing.¡±


    ¡°Do you really think you can really shut me out, by just isting the sound?¡± the angel of fear circled around the divine tree magic tower. The long de on her shoulder shimmered with ck aura like it was breathing, making the de seem like it was contracting.


    Saleen saw the lips of the angel of fear moving, but he was unable to hear what she was saying. There was no doubt that her voice made it inside the tower. Saleen continued his conversation with the angel of fear, ¡°I understand where your powerse from. A simple source, really. Powers refined using the fear in every living being. Such powers are but a derivation of mental magic. Any professional above your level would be able to take you down easily. You are but a monster filled with high-level materials. Stick around if you dare. By the time I¡¯m done crafting your body, I will make your soul suffer until the end of time!¡±


    The angel of fear did not take Saleen¡¯s threats to heart. The equipment left behind by the gods had a lot of weaknesses to exploit. She she would be able to break through it within just two or three days.


    Saleen and the angel of fear were in a deadlock with each other. His divine tree magic tower absorbed the power of earth element, rendering it nigh-indestructible. Even if there were loopholes the angel of fear would not be able to break through it any time soon. That was due to the level difference in terms of materials used.


    The massive statues guarding the entrance stood silently before the abyss. They were no true elemental creatures; they were simply constructed puppets created by modeling them after the stone statue soldiers. The constructed puppets did not attack any further after kicking the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat away.


    There were hardly any creatures nearby. Any who would havee would have been swiftly killed by either magic arrays, the single-horned white whales, or the puppets. Normal pan¡¯s turtles would have been torn apart after taking that one kick.


    Within the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, that was then lodged within the rock wall, the winged skeleton and Nichs were depressed after finding themselves stuck. Escape was almost impossible. The constructed puppet then came up and delivered a flurry of punches and kicks to the ship, lodging the ship tight into the wall. The cave, that had copsed from the collision between the ship and the rocks, was also shut tight by some powerful force.


    It was simply impossible for those trapped inside the ship to get out by using teleportation arrays.


    The ship was the winged skeleton¡¯s equipment. While it was possible for him to simply put it away, doing so would force them out into the water. Nichs was unable to bear the pressure of the seawater for long. His Scepter of the Fallen was unable to sustain him for long in such an environment.


    There were still many spirits on the ship, but they could be stored with the Green Spirit Gem. The twenty-four ancient warriors had little to worry about when it came to surviving underwater.


    Soldierid out the current situation with Nichs, and Nichs replied, ¡°Even if you were to head out right now, do you think you¡¯d have any chance against those statues guarding the cave?¡±


    ¡°I could do something if it were just one of them. I havemand over the twenty-four ancient warriors. The statues should be grade-10 creatures of some sort. Killing one should definitely be no problem if all twenty-four warriors were toy siege on it,¡± the winged skeleton did not hide anything from Nichs. A massive statue standing at more than two-hundred yards was something that would take them a while to take down if they were to simply keep cutting at it. Worse still, the statues packed quite a powerful punch.


    ¡°It didn¡¯t seem to do anything after our lord burst through,¡± Nichs said.


    ¡°You want to follow?¡±


    ¡°Do you really think it would better to just sit here and wait?¡±, Nichs asked the winged skeleton, surprised.


    ¡°We should at least leave a permanent magic coordinate, or master will not be able to find his way back here,¡± Soldier said, and put the entire ship away. He had been trapped by a grade-9 sorcerer using Sigh of the Earth before. That time however, there was no damage on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat when they just put it away. The exterior of the ship did not actually stick into the walls.


    Nichs was experiencing such an eerie happening for the first time in his life. His body left the hold of the ship andnded on the ground, making even a grade-9 professional like him look rather confused and awkward.


    The twenty-four ancient warriorsnded on the ground without problem, and surrounded them both. The massive constructed puppet¡¯s kick was fast and ferocious. It was also buffed as a magical attack. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was rendered stuck into the cliffs more than ten yards deep.


    As the exit waspletely blocked, and the cave made by the ship crashing into cliff was about as big as the ship itself, there was little seawater to be found beneath their feet. Outside the cliff, the constructed puppets were only about one-hundred yards away.


    Within such a distance, even dormant constructed puppets would be able to detect movements around the cave. Soldier summoned some ghouls and had them spew sticky fluids, corroding the rocks blocking their way slowly.


    The ghouls were only grade-4 creatures. That hardly made them worth notice by the constructed puppets. They would definitely not trigger the magic array within the puppets. Such creatures would not even be able to make it that far into the cave in the first ce. The path leading to the abyss had many twists and turns. The passages would have barred any entrance for creatures below grade-9, as they would simply end up being killed by the magic arrays within.


    The soul mes of the ghouls were only able to remain intact thanks to the help of the winged skeleton.


    The winged skeleton was able to sense the incredible powers reverberating within the cave after leaving the ship. It was a power infused within the ground of the ocean floor, which was extracted by the magic arrays humansid, that would never run dry.


    It was fortunate for them that the rocks were not some strong magic material. The sticky fluids spewed by the grade-4 ghouls quickly ate away at the rocks inch by inch. Such minute movements had indeed gone unnoticed by the constructed puppets.


    They were only able to make a hole big enough to fit two people at a time on the ten yard thick rock, after the winged skeleton directed the ghouls for about four hours. The winged skeleton had even needed to cast a magic barrier when their way was almost carved out, to keep seawater from gushing in.


    The pressure from the seawater there was immense. If the seawater had indeed gushed into the sealed hole, not only would Nichs have been unable to withstand the impact, the resulting boom would definitely have attracted the attention of the constructed puppets outside.


    After setting the barrier in ce the winged skeleton had the ancient warriors chip away on the walls slowly with their knives. It was to make their final exist. There were many kinds of magic barriers. Barriers conjured using death magic allowed for one side to be passed. That kept the seawater out while enabling them to still pass through the barrier. Two ancient warriors took their spears and made their way out.


    Soldier came outst. Seeing theck of reaction from the massive constructed puppets one-hundred yards away, the winged skeleton was rather pleased with himself. Nichs cast a buffing divine spell on himself: Light of Salvation.


    As he was a fallen holy master, the spell did not bring about the dazzling brilliance which the spell was known for when cast by adherents of the Lord of Glory. His version rendered him covered by pitch ck darkness instead.


    The twenty-four ancient warriors were not things that could be put away. They were something ssified to be between living beings and spirits. Even Soldier did not know why there were no soul mes within the ancient warriors. Common sense said that the ancient warriors should have been dead a very long time ago.


    Nichs felt secure in having so many grade-9 warriors around him. He took the Scepter of the Fallen and passed through the magic barrier, making his way out of the cave.


    Being enveloped by the Light of Salvation, the immense pressure from the seawater hardly impeded his movements. He did a rough calction and determined that one such divine spell would havested for only an hour under such depths.


    The Light of Salvation was a grade-9 divine spell, and a powerful defensive divine spell at that. Divine Protection could no longer be used in his case, as that spell was the only power that fallen holy masters were unable to steal. Nichs was d that he continued training with the Light of Salvation. It was seemingly a sign that he was destined to betray the gods.


    Nichs reminded himself that it was not the time for reminiscing. The winged skeleton behind him spread his bone wings and charged out. He carried a battle axe with him. The magic arrays resembling human eyes on its sides conjured ck Light of Spirits. That time, the winged skeleton had intended to use purely physical attack spells.


    It was Death Break!


    Soldier moved incredibly fast. His bone wings seemed like fish fins in the water, propelling his movements. Twenty-four ancient warriors tailed right behind him. Their twenty-four spears were pointed unanimously at the massive constructed puppet about one-hundred yards away.


    With the Winged Skull above, and the ancient warriors below acting without warning, Nichs was briefly at a loss of what to do. He had only been quick enough to buff the winged skeleton with a lesser prophecy spell in time: the Immunity from Death spell.

 Chapter 883: Getting Lost (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 883: Getting Lost (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The lesser prophecy spell was actually a divine spell that was rather disrespectful to the gods. A high-level holy master would have been able to derive it by understanding the workings of a greater prophecy spell. In other words, it was not a divine spell bestowed by the gods, but one that holy masters created themselves.


    There were various types of lesser prophecy spells, but Immunity from Death was not amon one. The spell only had a twenty percent chance of allowing the one blessed by the spell to evade attacks of all types.


    Such immunity surpassed three levels.


    That meant that a grade-7 sorcerer buffed sessfully by Immunity from Death could keep themselves from harm even going against a grade-10 professional.


    The twenty percent chance indeed proved too mediocre for someone who was fighting a battle with their life on the line, but the ability of being able to cover for such level differences was too great of an effect. The divine spell was essentially a gamble in itself. Due to the enemy being too powerful, Nichs just buffed the winged skeleton with a spell that had such a low chance of sess out of reflex.


    Soldier felt a chill wash over him. It was something peculiar for spirits; the feeling was something rarely experienced by those beings. Even when the winged skeleton entered the purgatory of cold, he had never experienced such a feeling before.


    The fallen divine spell brought a chill that seeped into the bones of the winged skeleton. His Death Break was a pure physical attack magic. It was rarely seen in elemental magic. The winged skeleton brought his axe down onto the puppet¡¯s head with the chilling cold hanging about him.


    The constructed puppet¡¯s head, which was about more than ten yards long itself, was cracked with a loud ng from the axe. The resulting recoil threw Soldier off. He then redirected himself with a twist of his wings. With propulsion derived from the seawater around, he threw himself into the abyss.


    Nichs was all rage by then. ¡°How dare that skeleton thing just run away after dealing a huge blow! What about me?!¡±


    The twenty-four ancient warriors¡¯ spears alsonded hits on the massive puppet. The inherent massive power behind their strikes caused huge cracks to form on both of its legs. The movements of the warriors were also very fluid. They went straight into the abyss after stabbing down the puppet.


    Nichs resorted to taking out a divine spell scroll and activating it. Gray lights sparkled and Nichs disappeared from where he stood, teleporting himself into the abyss.


    Such random teleportation scrolls might have been expensive, but the range they worked in was limited. The resulting teleporting coordinates were undetermined as well, but such scrolls worked well when wanting to escape from danger.


    There were hardly any teleportation portals that were able to work instantly. Random teleportation scrolls were the only ones that were known to work like instant magic.


    ¡°Nichs,¡± Soldier shouted. He was sucked into the abyss right after escaping from the constructed puppet¡¯s attack, falling down quickly. It was only then it urred to him that Nichs was not a mage and did not know how work in tandem in battle with him. His attack earlier had the statue stunned for one second.


    One second was more than enough for mages to cast a powerful control spell. Even cast on grade-10 beings, the spell would have bought them about three seconds. That would have been enough for one to evade the statue¡¯s attacks.


    Holy masters, however, had very, very little control spells. Most would have never considered training for one-on-onebat. Only a handful of holy masters would be obsessed with offensive divine spells. While Nichs was an adeptbat holy master, his days spent being a fallen one were short. That prevented him from being able to work in tandem with the winged skeleton without prior notice like he used to.


    It was not that the winged skeleton had forgotten about him. It was just that any grand mage serving under Saleen would have been able to work perfectly with the winged skeleton on the battlefield. Tobat mages, such things needed no deliberation, as they were drilled into their instincts and muscle memories.


    Nichs was sucked by the same powerful force into the abyss after teleporting himself in. He was furious, thinking that the winged skeleton had simply cast him aside. Upon hearing Soldiercalling out to him, Nichs¡¯ rage subsided in a blink of an eye.


    The winged skeleton was no Nailisi. He would never have done something that would have jeopardized Saleen. It was him who did not take note of cooperating with the winged skeleton. The attacks dealt by the winged skeleton and the twenty-four ancient warriors were able to hold the statue back for one second.


    ¡°Yes, I am no longer a holy master, but I should still be able to keep the statue controlled for just that one second. Then I should have been able to keep up with the rest of them without problems. Darn it, just why the hell was I so slow?¡±


    The winged skeleton¡¯s shout came from further and further away. With the speed of propagation of sound in water being faster than in the air, Nichs knew that the direction of his fall was no less than ten miles away from the winged skeleton¡¯s. The distance between the two of them got wider and wider. The suction force of the abyss did not brought them downward; it brought them forward.


    The winged skeleton was immensely frustrated for having lost Nichs. He was entirely helpless against such a powerful force. He had no other choice but to simply let the current keep pulling him into the abyss. It was fortunate that the twenty-four ancient warriors behind them were able to keep up. They managed to have a certain degree of control with directions using the tes at the backs of their tainted blood armor. That prevented them from losing the Winged Skull.


    The ancient warriors were elite troops back in ancient times. Their days spent in the army drilled the instinct to stick together into them. As such, they would never separate from each other during missions.That caused all twenty-four of them to instinctively stick close as a unit to the winged skeleton. They acted together with him. With Saleen¡¯s absence, Soldier had became theirmanding officer.


    ¡°Nichs, I¡¯m so sorry.¡± the Winged Skull thought to himself, yet still kept his eyes forward. His Spirit Gaze was being limited and was hardly able to see beyond the range of a mile. There was no telling how deep the abyss was, and with his wings submitted to such incredible pressure, he dared not try to stop. He feared that his bone wings would bepletely wrecked by the peculiar environment.


    If he had not absorbed the body of the Golden Zombie, the winged skeleton felt that he would have been torn to pieces by then. He was wondering if Nailisi was also submitted to such pressures alongside their master.


    The winged skeleton was concerned for Nailisi, fearing that Nailisi would be inadequate in protecting Saleen, causing him harm.


    The depth of the abyss was only eighty miles. He was moving forward instead of falling downward. That meant they had been travelling for one-thousand miles. There was one degree of difference in movement trajectory in the distance between the winged skeleton and Nichs. In time that widened to a headache-inducing difference.


    Nichs was a holy master instead of a mage. Soldier was only able to hope that Nichs had some equipment with him to keep himself alive. He had to search for his master. That meant there was no time to go look for him; the possibility of missing out on meeting up with his master was too much. Without the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, returning to the oceanic ice block would prove very, very difficult.


    While Nichs understood what was going on in the winged skeleton¡¯s head, he knew well that he was in a tough spot himself. The ability of holy masters to survive in such environments paled inparison to mages¡¯. Being a grade-9 professional hardly made any difference in that case. In the abyss, no skills below grade-7 would havested long. He needed skills of grade-7 and above, so that he could keep himself alive.


    ¡°Darn it! Darn it!¡± Nichs cursed in his mind as he took out a divine spell scroll from his ring and activated it.


    A ball of light enveloped Nichs and he did not attempt to control the directions of its movements. He tried to cut down the loss of power, and had the current bring him to fall in the direction of the abyss.


    He flew past the thousand-mile distance. The ball of light enveloping him got thinner and thinner. He had no choice but to use another scroll when he neared the edge of the abyss.


    It was fortunate that he took the time to create a good number of divine spell scrolls in order to follow Saleen into the oceanic ice block. It was even more fortunate that his lord was a generous one. Despite having wasted more than half of his materials, Saleen hardly said anything. He had simply brought him more materials to make scrolls with.


    Nichs opened up his second scroll and another ball of light kept him protected once again until he reached the bottom of the abyss. He arrived at the outskirts of the Imperial City of the Abyss. While he was unable to see the broken walls of the city faraway, he was nheless able to see the great amount magic beast remains nearby.


    Nichs cast a detection divine spell and was overjoyed. The ce was filled with soul aura. While soul aura¡¯s energies were unable topare with the soul shards¡¯, they were very pure. That served well to repair his soul bead.


    The source of fallen divine spells¡¯ powers came from the soul beads. The soul aura around was able to repair the broken souls within. That could provide more power for Nichs.


    Nichs was suddenly filled with faith for the abyss. Soul shards existed in a ratio of at least one in one-thousand among such massive piles of magic beast remains. Collecting the soul shards would have proved difficult, but it nheless was a lifesaving straw in Nichs¡¯ current predicament. He had to struggle just to even keep himself alive. No difficulty would have proved too great for him at that moment.


    Nichs did not botherbing the ce over. He simply searched for remains with soul shards in them as fast as he could. He used his soul bead to absorb soul aura at the same time. A bitter smile hung on his face as he did, thinking how uncannily simr he was to a death mage at that moment.


    The winged skeletonnded and folded his wings. He turned around to check, finding none of the twenty-four ancient warriors being left behind. All of them were ounted for behind him.


    ¡°Master, please be alive...¡±


    The Winged Skull swiped with his left hand and took up his massive battle axe, making his way into the Imperial City of the Abyss. He had no idea that a tall broken wallid just about eighty miles away. He did note that the heads of the magic beasts remains all pointed in one direction. That served well as an indicator telling Saleen¡¯s whereabouts.


    The environment along the way, which was devoid of any living creatures, had the winged skeleton feeling very at home. He sucked as much as he managed at the soul aura lying about, making it as if there was a massive tornado nearby sucking up all the soul aura with the radius of several miles. It all flowed into Soldier¡¯s body. He paid no mind to the soul shards. The ones he needed were the ones left behind by intelligent beings, such as humans. Souls of magic beasts were nowhere near that of humans in terms of sophistication. As such, they proved near meaningless to him.


    On the pitch ck ocean floor, among the bone remains of magic beasts piling up like mountains, a lone skeletal being was seen shining with a dark golden sheen. He brought twenty-four warriors shining with blood-red sheen about them. Such a scene was very eerie indeed.


    Pitch ck soul aura formed a great river behind the dark golden silhouette of the skeletal being. Where the being treaded, the bone remains broke and left only ashes behind.


    The winged skeleton felt that his fusion with the body of the Golden Zombie was getting more and more perfect. Every breath of soul aura he took made the golden sheen take a paler color. The energies of the Golden Zombie did not getpletely erased; they were simplypressed. It made the bones of the winged skeleton take on a jade-like color. A gold-colored heart slowly formed within the body of the winged skeleton.

 Chapter 884: Golden Heart (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 884: Golden Heart (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    That time around, there was no resistance on the winged skeleton¡¯s part. The refining of the golden zombie had finally beenpleted. The golden heart harnessed great power and was sending them to every corner of his body. He could finally control his own powers freely. With that heart, he would be able to control any technique like human warriors, instead of relying on brute force in battles.


    His spirit battle axe could finally be fully utilized!


    The winged skull hesitated for a moment before summoning a jade skeleton to seek out Saleen¡¯s aura while he led the ancient warriors towards the right. Absorbing even more soul aura would allow his own heart to grow even more. What a strange evolution that the heart would not turn him into a human!


    When the winged skeleton did not discover the traces of the enemy, he became emboldened and would turn the skeletons of magic beasts within a few miles of his path into ashes. The bones of the body that he had put together began to grow darker in color. It was originally the color of jade, but then, it looked like jade that had been discarded by mages for tens of thousands of years.


    Amidst the dark colors, new spirit magic patterns were beginning to form. The patterns were extremely simr to those on the golden heart, except that they were finer in detail and formed three-dimensional structures that were interconnected in the bones.


    Ancient warriors followed closely behind the winged skeleton while sorting out the materials that had been left behind by the skeletons of the magic beasts. Although these ancient warriors were grade-9 soldiers, they did not even have a single spatial equipment. When they obtained the gigantic whale horn or the scales of some magic beasts, they could only pass them on to the winged skeleton, who would casually open the death dimension to store the items.


    The ashes of the skeletons of the magic beasts were sucked into the death dimension by the Underwater Storm that the winged skeleton created. The ashes were high quality materials for death magic.


    The winged skeleton was a closebat spirit of the dead and also a death mage. After absorbing the soul of a death mage and devouring the soul me of a spirit king, by then, the winged skeleton was extremely familiar with spirit alchemy.


    They spent an entire day walking slowly like that when an emptiness suddenly appeared in front of them. All the skeletons of the magic beasts had already been turned into ashes. The winged skeleton stopped and let the jade skeleton go ahead and scout.


    Very soon, the jade skeleton returned and reported while bowing. ¡°Master, it is Nailisi¡¯s aura.¡±


    The winged skeleton did not give any orders immediately, so the twenty-four ancient warriors stood upright behind him like puppets and did not make a sound. Soldier assessed his body. Only his feet were still dark gold in color. The rest of the bones in his body had already turned dark green in color. The magic patterns in the bones were no longer shiny and had turned ck instead.


    That was what a normal skeleton looked like! The winged skeleton grinned and checked the golden heart in his body. When the golden heart was formed again, it did not try to produce flesh and muscles on the body. It instead transformed itself into a state that suited the winged skeleton. Thirty-six golden tubes that looked like blood vessels grew out from the golden heart andtched onto the bones in his chest.


    The entire chest cavity was upied by the golden heart. Between the bones, spirit energy had already merged into a significantly heavy fluid that was slowly flowing within.


    The winged skeleton stood there and took out a soul bead from death dimension. It was made from the human soul shards that he had been gathering for a long time. He did not mention it to Saleen. What he did was considered normal in the death dimension but was frowned upon on the Myers Maind.


    The winged skeleton removed the crystal mask and swallowed the soul bead. Once it entered the golden heart, it was quickly broken down into pure energy. The energy within the winged skeleton¡¯s body finally achieved a breakthrough from a state of saturation. The dark gold color on his feet faded quickly and was absorbed into the golden heart.


    A grand and majestic sound came from the golden heart. It was as if millions of war drums were being yed together at the same time. The sound was being contained within the chest cavity of the winged skeleton. He could feel his soul me burning ferociously. In his eyes, a second color appeared amidst the ck mes.


    A white me appeared within the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me. The mes of both colors tangled together as they each tried to devour and repel the other. Finally, the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me became twice as robust and turned into a me that was between ck and white.


    Finally... the winged skeleton had be a spirit king!


    The winged skeleton could not hide his joy. After bing a spirit king, his death dimension would expand, and he would also be able to carry more powerful spirits with him. Back then, the Three Kings were able to lead tens of thousands of spirits into battle. The winged skeleton predicted that he would be able to match up against two spirit kings in one go. Besides, he was a creature that was soul-bonded to Saleen so on the Myers Maind, he would not be restricted by the rule of power.


    The rule of soul bonds would override the rule of power.


    Spirit Kings might not be grade-10 creatures, but theirbat abilities definitely surpassed that of grade-9 spirits of the dead. Even Nailisi¡¯s three-faced bone demon form would not be a match for a Spirit King, even though she had already devoured the soul mes of two of the Spirit Kings.


    If Nailisi was able to gather all eight types of abilities and fully develop them, then there would be a chance that the powers of the two Spirit Kings could be increased and be her own abilities. Nailisi would never advance and would be stuck at grade-9 otherwise.


    The winged skeleton looked towards the Imperial City of the Abyss. He vaguely felt fear, as if there were countless powerful spirits that were even more terrifying than a Spirit King. He could not understand why he felt that way even though he had just evolved.


    The winged skeleton shook his head like a human and tried to suppress the fear in his heart.


    He took out his double-sided giant axe. He was only two yards tall but was wielding such a huge axe. He looked like he might be having a hard time. Only the winged skeleton knew that after he obtained the body of the golden zombie, his strength had increased by one-hundred times. Without the body of the golden zombie, the winged skeleton would always be restricted by his race and would never be able to be a truly powerful spirit of the dead.


    The golden zombie was a material that Judikaka had intended to use to change his fate and be a real human. In order to capture and develop the golden zombie, Judikaka paid a heavy price. Hisnds were more barren than the Purgatory Desert and his men were helpless against the invasion of the abyssal ne.


    The golden zombie needed to feed on spirits of the dead, just like the Mechanical Soul. The only difference was that the golden zombie¡¯s soul me did not burn as it was controlled by Judikaka all that while. In the end, the winged skeleton was the one that reaped all the benefits.


    The materials of the double-sided giant axe were of high quality, but they were in the abyss, any material from the whale horn that could be found on the ground was already more valuable than any material used to make Soldier¡¯s battle axe.


    The winged skeleton thought about it. Instead of destroying the original double-sided battle axe, he took out tens of whale horns and began to refine a new weapon. The whale horn of the single-horned white whale was its most powerful weapon, but it would eventually degenerate as time passed.


    Only single-horned white whales of at least grade-12 would possess whale horns that couldst for tens of thousands of years.


    Saleen could only refine grade-9 whale horns and while the winged skeleton was not as proficient as Saleen in alchemy, he was able to handle materials of higher grades because they were inherently spirit materials.


    It was not as if the winged skeleton was intending to refine some ultimate weapon. He only felt that he was stillcking in his attacking abilities. If he was to face a gigantic fully-constructed puppet and he gave his best shot, thetter would only suffer a crack on its body. A crack like that could bepletely repaired in an hour.


    That was when the winged skeleton managed to absorb part of Judikaka¡¯s memory. He allowed the ancient warriors to group around him as he began to refine his weapon.


    Thick strands of whale horns were being split into thin and soft materials. They only existed in such a state for an instant as the winged skeleton spouted a mysteriousnguage that was known as the Sound of Dead Sea.


    In the instant when the materials were soft and gentle, the soul mes of the winged skeleton shot out and made the shape of the materials permanent. As he began to piece the materials together, he used less than a minute to refine a hammer that was two yards in diameter.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul mes returned back to his eye sockets while he weakly sat on the ground. The entire process that took less than a minute was more tiring than Saleen refining equipment for a few days and nights consecutively.


    The hammer was hexagonal in shape like a simple beehive. In the middle of the white hammer was a button that could betched on with a metal chain to turn the weapon into a Meteor Hammer.


    There was only one magic array in the interior of the Meteor Hammer, which was the same one that the winged skeleton used to create Bloodstone. Since the materials of the single-horned white whale were of such high quality, the magic array would also be able to create Bloodstones that were even purer.


    The winged skeleton rested for a while before taking out a broken dragonshard and swallowing it, fusing it into the golden heart. He regained his energy very quickly and the soul mes in his eyes gradually stabilized.


    The winged skeleton took out another few whale horns. Some of them were left behind by newer grade-9 single-horned white whales that probably only died a few thousand years ago. He used a quicker method to create a nine yard long chain and a three yard long handle for the hammer.


    The ancient warriors observed all of it in silence and only the jade skeleton was watching with excitement. The remnants of intelligence of the ancient warriors were even lower than those of the spirits created by the winged skeleton.


    It was unfortunate that the winged skeleton could not afford to waste soul mes after he advanced. He would have been able to create even more spirits of the dead with intelligence. The winged skeleton sighed in his heart before putting the jade skeleton away. He had no intentions of allowing the jade skeleton to battle anymore. He decided that he should find ways to help the jade skeleton advance and only use it after it had advanced into a grade-9 spirit.


    The winged skeleton rested for a while. The dragonshard in the golden heart haspletely digested and he had regained his energy. It seemed a bit of a waste to use the broken dragonshard that way. If he had chosen to absorb the energy of the broken dragonshard little by little, it could have been used repeatedly. Although it was notparable to aplete and perfect dragonshard, it was still more powerful than a grade-9 magic nucleus.


    Hmm?


    The winged skeleton seemed to hear a piercing scream from far away in the same direction as all the skulls of the magic beasts were pointed. The feeling of fear in his heart became even more intense the golden heart merely pounded a few times violently before bing normal again. The winged skeleton immediately calmed himself down and strode in the direction where the sound came from.

 Chapter 885: Golden Heart (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 885: Golden Heart (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The winged skeleton began to sprint under the water while dragging the huge Meteor Hammer. Since he could utilize the rich death powers, he was able to run much faster there than onnd.


    The Meteor Hammer that was refined from the whale horn of the single-horned white whale was being dragged behind by the winged skeleton, creating a straight line. The 24 ancient warriors split into two rows and ran behind the winged skeleton.


    The specifications of the ancient warriors¡¯ weapons remained unchanged, except that they were newly refined by Saleen. They would no longer be destroyed easily by warriors of a lower grade.


    The winged skeleton ran with his body slightly bent forward. A pair of skeletal wings spread open behind him, splitting the waters like the des of knives, forming two hollow passageways. Within less than half an hour, the winged skeleton covered a distance of 80 miles and arrived at the city wall of the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The fallen city walls were still more than 100 yards tall and were even more majestic than those of Metatrin City. Without any hesitation, the winged skeleton nted his feet on the city walls and ran all the way up vertically. The 24 ancient warriors did not hesitate either as they followed the winged skeleton like two rows of feathers behind him.


    In the blink of an eye, the winged skeleton reached the top of the city wall. Most of the materials that had broken off from the top of the city wall had already disappeared and very few gigantic rocks had yet to be destroyed by the water currents. Their current location was still part of the foundation of the original wall but the rest of the wall that was supposed to be above them had be decayed from time and from the powers of the abyss.


    There was no defense on the top of the city wall, but the winged skeleton was sensitive enough to detect the elemental stone statue soldiers within on the interior. The 100 yard tall elemental stone statue soldiers hid behind the city wall and coincidentally, one of them faced the winged skeleton directly.


    All of a sudden, the grade-9 elemental stone statue soldier raised its magic war hammer and smashed it towards the winged skeleton.


    Although the elemental stone statue soldiers did not possess souls, their decision-making in battles was stillpetent enough to fit the title of grade-9 creatures. It had taken into ount the speed and path that the winged skeleton would escape in and had aimed the war hammer towards the winged skeleton¡¯s head.


    But there was no way winged skull would be struck by such a sudden attack so easily. After all, he had survived countless battles in the death dimension. His wings transformed slightly and by borrowing the power of the water, he drifted more than eight yards towards the left and went around the elemental stone statue soldier¡¯s body.


    Then, the winged skeleton used his Meteor Hammer and smashed it viciously against the elemental stone statue soldier¡¯s head.


    At the core of the Meteor Hammer, a gigantic Bloodstone exploded due to the huge impact. The power of the explosion was unleashed from the gaps of the magic patterns in the Meteor Hammer and it applied directly on the site of impact on the elemental stone statue soldier. An explosion within an enclosed space shot out from a passageway that was thinner than a strand of hair meant that the explosiveness of the Bloodstone was multiplied by tens of thousands of times.


    Only the horn of the single-horned white whale could handle such a powerful explosion. The winged skeleton was never able to create an equipment like that even if he did think about it before.


    The body of the elemental stone statue soldier was harder than ordinary grade-9 creatures. The ground elements here were rich so any wounds sustained by the elemental stone statue soldiers could be repaired quickly. The strike from the winged skeleton was so explosive that it far surpassed the maximum limit of the explosiveness of the Bloodstone.


    When the energy shot out from the Meteor Hammer, the head of the elemental stone statue soldier, which was more than 10 yards tall, broke into pieces instantly. There was no way it would be able to heal such a wound in a short time.


    The winged skeleton was stunned for a moment. He did not expect that the weapon that he had conceptualized could be so powerful. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to stop and analyze as two more elemental stone statue soldiers were attacking him from both sides. The winged skeleton knew that there would be plenty of such elemental creatures near the city wall.


    The winged skeleton was aware that, unless he killed the leader of the stone statue soldiers, the ordinary stone statue soldiers would keep reviving. What he did not know was the range of the leader¡¯s control over the stone statue soldiers, but he estimated that it should be more than 10 miles.


    At that point in time, the winged skeleton suddenly heard a powerful howl. He was confused. It felt like the sound that he was hearing was produced 10 days ago or 10 dayster and definitely not in the present moment.


    Could spirits of the dead hallucinate? No, not unless they were on the brink of death. Soldier knew that he was still very young and could easily live for another tens of thousands of years. The howl caused the winged skeleton¡¯s golden heart to pound fiercely again, but the feeling of fear has reduced drastically.


    Winged skull realized that his soul me was very calm. The ck and white soul mes burned slowly in his eyes, absorbing the surrounding soul aura.


    It was as if his golden heart was absorbing the powerful impact on behalf of his soul mes. How was it possible that he could still be affected by the attack from the sound that was probably a thousand miles away?


    The winged skeleton suppressed his confusion. He realized that his golden heart was pounding at a consistent rhythm. When the attack came, the pounding of the golden heart directly adjusted the spirit energy in his body to form a strange frequency of vibration. It was because of this frequency of vibration that the fear-inducing sound attack was vanquished within two seconds.


    The winged skeleton swung the hammer again and the two yard long hammer head smashed one of the legs of the elemental stone statue soldier into pieces. Then, the winged skeleton turned around and led the 24 ancient warriors towards the direction where the sound wasing from.


    The winged skeleton knew that no sound attacks could travel across a thousand miles. What he was hearing was the reverberations from the water. It was because he was over-sensitive. Ordinary creatures would not be able to extract an attack of that frequency from the waters.


    Reverberations alone were already capable of inducing such deep fear in him. Without the golden heart, he would have had to use up most of his energy just to resist such an attack. Even his newly evolved soul mes might have turned back into ordinary soul mes of a single color.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s learning ability came from Saleen. There was no way he was going to let go of that opportunity. The reverberation of that sound was extremely long and all that while, Soldier¡¯s golden heart was still pounding rhythmically and resisting the sound attack.


    The winged skeleton tried to control the golden heart to maintain the current frequency. He realized that at that frequency, he would constantly be in a defensive state but at the expense of using up one-fifth more energy. Even if he sprung a surprise attack, the golden heart would still be able to absorb at least half of the damage received. If he was able to react in it time, the golden heart would even be able to absorb all the impact.


    No! It was not just the golden heart. In actual fact, his golden heart was adjusting the spirit energy within his body to carry out defense. If the grade of the attack was too high and spirit energy alone would not be able to resist it, that was when the golden heart would share the load.


    The winged skull was already a Spirit King, so he could very well build his own spirit kingdom if he was to leave Saleen and return to death dimension. In the death dimension, his spirit energy would be vast like the great oceans and thick like sticky fluid. As long as his soul mes continued to burn brightly, his powers would never wilt.


    That was the secret behind how Spirit Kings could surpass grade-9 spirits. A Spirit King¡¯s death dimension could gather spirit energy continuously for the Spirit King to use.


    The winged skeleton never stopped moving even as he was slowly adapting to the fact that there was a heart pounding in his chest cavity. As he became more familiar with controlling the golden heart, the amount of energy he used up would slowly be normal again. Soldier was overjoyed. It turned out that he only had to use up more energy in the beginning of the training. As he became more and more familiar with this technique, the amount of energy that he would use up would be less and less.


    The golden heart was too valuable...


    The winged skeleton suddenly wondered how much this golden heart was worth in terms of gold coins. Such a weird jump in logic must have been due to the influence of Saleen.


    Another elemental stone statue soldier appeared after a few hundred yards. The winged skeleton swung his Meteor Hammer at it. That time, before the magic array in the Meteor Hammer could create the Bloodstone, the frequency of vibration of the winged skeleton¡¯s golden heart had already reached the weapon. A dark golden color appeared on the hammer¡¯s head, and without a sound, the Meteor Hammer smashed against the elemental stone statue soldier¡¯s magic warhammer.


    The magic warhammer was smashed into pieces instantaneously. On the other hand, the Meteor Hammer was unharmed and continued to smash onto the elemental stone statue soldier¡¯s foot. Just like that, the foot disappeared.


    The elemental stone statue soldier¡¯s foot was much bigger than the Meteor Hammer but when thetter smashed on the former, there was a strange ripple of energy that covered an area of 10 yards in diameter. The power of the golden heart was unleashed through the Meteor Hammer, turning the elemental stone statue soldier into something as fragile as beancurd.


    The winged skeleton sensed that around half of his spirit energy had already been used up. Spirit energy was equivalent to the strength and stamina of the spirit. Without spirit energy, the winged skeleton would probably still be able to continue fighting but he would also start to feel hungry and weak.


    Half of his body¡¯s energy was used up just from two hits of the Meteor Hammer and those two hits were used conservatively only on his targets.


    The effect of such an attack was much more powerful than the explosion of Bloodstones. The price to pay for Bloodstones was small while an attack like that would use up plenty of the winged skeleton¡¯s spirit energy. The winged skeleton decided to absorb thick energy from the death dimension to replenish his own body.


    His death dimension was huge so there was plenty of spirit energy stored there. It was not easy to store such energy though. Gathering a day¡¯s worth of energy would only sustain two smashes with the Meteor Hammer.


    The elemental stone statue soldier, who had lost its foot, crashed down. The magic array in Soldier¡¯s Meteor Hammer instantly created a Bloodstone before the hammer smashed onto the face of the elemental stone statue soldier. Its face was smashed open and at least half of its brain was destroyed.


    The magic array could only be activated every six seconds. In an intense battle, the power supplied by the golden heart was still very crucial.


    The winged skeleton decided to ignore this elemental stone statue soldier, who was trying to repair itself, and continued forward. His soul could sense that Saleen was in danger. He had no choice but to familiarize himself with how the golden heart worked, even as he continued to sprint.


    ¡°Don¡¯t stop. If I stop, I may never get to see Saleen again.¡±

 Chapter 886: King of Caucasus (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 886: King of Caucasus (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The poption of Caucasus people within Metatrin City was notrge. Their poption was less than forty-thousand among the total poption of little more than one-million¡ªall of them residing in the southern city. The Caucasus people were also the earliest settlers hailing from Southern Caucasus.


    The region of Caucasus was actually divided into three parts: the Ancient Caucasus area near the Purgatory Desert, Southern Caucasus in Central Kroraina, and Northern Caucasus that was deep within Sikeqinya.


    The poption of Ancient Caucasus dwindled almost to nothing, while Southern and Northern Caucasus were separated by the broken mountain range of Caucasus. That caused people of both sides to gradually take separate cultural paths.


    The Caucasus people found within the city were basically from the south, with most northern counterparts opting to reside outside the city. Some of the earliest Caucasus settlers joining Metatrin City chose to live in the mountains instead.


    The warriors at Sika¡¯s side had ess to secrets of the Caucasus elders residing outside the city, simply due to the fact that they were Caucasus warriors loyal to Sika.


    The walls of Metatrin City were designed in an orderly manner, with three sides being straight lines having three city gates respectively, tworge and one small. The southern gate was guarded almost exclusively by the Southern Caucasus people, as Caucasus warriors loyal to Sika were assigned to the sixth camp. They were moved to the southern gate, recing the original garrison.


    Four out of Saleen¡¯s ten main camps were stationed outside; three were mobilized to Daliang and one to Huoxing. Huoxing¡¯s camp often saw turnarounds of troops, effectively making it a camp for training. The sixth camp served as the main force of the main camps, which had seen their equipment renewed and an auxiliary force of fifteen-thousand strong added to it.


    Caucasus people might be experts in guerri warfare, but unless the city was assaulted using siege weapons, the main camp proved sufficient in defending the gate.


    Sika began talking about Northern Caucasus people with the twelve Caucasus warriors around her after a meal in the temple. All twelve of them chose to follow Sika with little hesitation.


    There was a total of thirty-six Caucasus warriors protecting Sika. While the rest of the Caucasus warriors were of swordmaster levels, the thirty-six were a level on par with grandmaster swordsman, and all of them were Southern Caucasus people. While the elders of the south might have liked Sika to leave Saleen¡¯s side, they were not inclined to use any threats to do so. The warriors protecting Sika were the most trustworthy.


    As such, Sika gained the support of thirty-six strong warriors rather effortlessly.


    The reason all thirty-six of them followed Sika was due to the belief that they would be able to advance quickly. The capabilities of the Nature Priestess were indisputable, and betrayal was not to be tolerated. Warriors who knew of such news even delivered the news using their methods to Sika, to enable her to make decisions in a decisive manner.


    The sun began to set, and Sika thought it would have been a bad time to go talk to the elders. She instead chose to tell her subordinates, ¡°Go get the mages. I need to speak with them.¡±


    All grand mages within Metatrin City were told to stay by Sika when Saleen departed for Daliang. The surroundings of the temple were near identical to magic tower¡¯s, and the grand mages chose to stay back within the temple since Saleen left. They never returned to the alchemy factory.


    The mages were also considered dependable people by Sika. There were also some swordmasters residing within the temple, all of whom hailed from Sregl Ind.


    Pasatilo, Kanuka, Kredian, Francis, and Basta were now grade-6 grand mages nearing advancement. All five of them made for the fifth floor of the temple with their subordinates as soon as they had gotten word that Sika was asking to see them. Sika asked the Caucasus warriors to serve tea to the mages, as everyone sat at the table and Sika began telling them what happened outside the city.


    ¡°My liege, you are a Caucasus person yourself. I believe when the lord bestowed you with the power to make decisions before he departed, he had hoped that you would make decisions carefully. The lord is not one who likes senseless killing. A lot of the Caucasus people outside the city would have offered you their support. As such, I believe this matter can be discussed at ater date.¡±


    Kredian was the one who knew best how to socialize and manage day-to-day affairs among the grand mages present. He had advised Sika againstunching assaults against the Caucasus people residing in the south of the city.


    ¡°What do the few of you have in mind them?¡± Sika asked the mages sitting in front of her earnestly. She was permitted to have the final say due to the fact that it was impossible for her to leave Saleen. Strategies to be used against the elders in the Caucasus region remained a matter to be discussed with the mages.


    ¡°There is no properrge-scale equipment outside the city. No matter how high the quality of the leather armor the Caucasus warriors are so fond of, they still pale inparison to the equipment the main camp¡¯s forces have. Whenpared with the ones equipped by temple guards, they are even worse. There is also only one small path allowing for travel from the south of the city to the other sides, making it easy to keep them at bay. We simply need to stop providing food for the people outside the city. What they have in mind will notst over the winter,¡± Kredian borated.


    ¡°Kredian...¡± Sika looked in his eyes and said, ¡°that is not going to work. The Northern Caucasus people outside the city probably have their own priest now. They won¡¯t need to worry about food.¡±


    ¡°A priest...¡± The mages looked at Sika with doubtful eyes.


    Sika exined, ¡°I myself chose the path of abat shaman, while most Caucasus people would have chosen the path of beast shamans. Other than being able to keep magic beasts, beast shamans are also capable of controllingrge numbers of low-level living beings. That help in growing high-yield crops like potatoes. Having just such a priest around would be enough to keep a vige from starving.¡±


    Kredian pondered for a moment and asked again, ¡°What about an earth shaman, then?¡±


    Sika chuckled and said, ¡°If I were to grow crops outside the city, I would have been able to keep almost half of Metatrin City fed. That is, if no wars were to break out. Wars disrupt nature, making living beings within thend run for their lives. There won¡¯t be any earth shamans outside the city; that is the advanced profession ofbat shamans.¡±


    ¡°Understood, my liege. How many of these shamans are present among the ones outside the walls?¡±


    ¡°That I cannot be sure of. The only way to tell would be to first have the elders choose some among the Caucasus people within the city, nurture the chosen, and see how many will turn out to be shamans. Then, the number of the shamans outside the city will be deduced from the ratio of shamans that turned up within the city,¡± Sika¡¯s mind was indeed clear.


    ¡°My liege, this is what I would suggest; we will simply have Daniel deal with them. He has a good number of tax collectors working under him. You won¡¯t have to worry about anything. When the tax collectors make their move, the Northern Caucasus people wille knocking at your door.¡±


    ¡°Will that really work?¡± Sika was in doubt.


    ¡°Of course. That mountain is a part of Metatrin. The king¡¯s teacher will probably be here soon. As soon as a magic tower is erected within the city, they will have no cards left in their hands.¡±


    ¡°But how long will it take before Jason gets here? I hate waiting,¡± Sika said in frustration. She was still concerned about the threat posed by Alchemy City, and her current level of power served enough only to protect herself. Sika would not have been able to do anything to protect the city Saleen left her with.


    The winged skeleton took almost all of the navy personnel, leaving only skeletal warships and dragon skeletonbat vessels. If it was not for the fact that the Jade Skeleton possessed some measure of intelligence allowing it to direct low level dead spirits, Sika would have been left with nothing to protect the docks with.


    Having magic cannons alone was far from enough to keep a powerful navy at bay.


    ¡°It is only April now, and they will arrive around September. There arerge warships at Sregl Ind. They are fast ships, capable of traveling two-thousand miles per day.¡±


    ¡°Wait until September!¡±, Sika was very frustrated, but there was hardly anything she could have done about it. Without a powerful mage around, Metatrin City could have hardly been called a safe ce. As soon as Caucasus riots started, that had served as a signal for the outside, telling how problematic the ruling of the Metatrin Kingdom was.


    Mages patiently offered their options to Sika. They held no enmity to the Caucasus people for doing so. To mages, it was imperative to deal with all matters with a mind at peace.


    There were only two kinds of matters: ones that could be resolved, and ones that could not be resolved. Violence was reserved only for matters that were unable to be resolved peacefully.


    Sika¡¯s mind had only calmed when the mages listed out the items and goods traded between the city and the Caucasus people. The list served as a proof that Caucasus people outside the city really had no ability to take Metatrin City; they had not so much as thought of purchasing supplies to be used for waging wars.


    The night ended inconclusively. The next morning, rather than Sika going out to talk to the elders, the southern elders came asking to see Sika at the temple instead.


    There were little more than ten elders in the south, and nine came looking for her. The leader of the group was the oldest elder from the vige Sika grew up in. The elders were taken to the second floor of the temple and found the guards within to be rather unfriendly; even the Caucasus warriors behaved as such.


    The elders looked at each other and smiled bitterly. It looked as if the matters with the Northern Caucasus people were finally stirring up trouble at their own doors.


    Would they have just stayed put if they didn¡¯t know what Saleen was capable of?


    Sika received the Caucasus elders at the old meeting room. She sat at the end of a long table with twelve Caucasus warriors standing behind her, and two grand mages sitting by her sides respectively.


    While the elders were not known for their martial prowess, weaklings had had no ce among Caucasus society. Anyone capable of surviving long enough to be an elder would have been a force to be reckoned with.


    ¡°Sika...¡± the elder was cut off as soon as they so much even uttered the name.


    Sika spoke calmly, ¡°Please address me as master priestess, or king.¡±


    The nine elders had not expected Sika¡¯s reaction to be such a strong one. Knowing what happened the previous night and the mobilization of the sixth camp, they knew well that convincing Sika was no longer an option. The leader among the elders wanted to try nheless, and asked, ¡°Master priestess, ording to the customs of the Caucasus...¡±


    ¡°Caucasus people have never built any dynasties, and I will be the first Caucasus King. My orders will be the traditions for all Caucasus people in the future. Elders, this will be my choice, and no objections will be entertained.¡±


    Sika had little knowledge of negotiations and had even fewer intentions of using Saleen as a bargaining chip.


    The elders were just about to retort that the title of Caucasus King was given by Saleen and as such, had no authority of any kind. Then, the children within Sika were Saleen¡¯s. He did so with hard power, and he did so for his child. Unless they were able to kill Saleen, Lex, and all Saleen¡¯s followers, they stood no chance to have Saleen letting go of the two.


    Would the Caucasus be able to do so? Kill Lex? That would probably bring forth the ruin of the Caucasus people.

 Chapter 887: King of Caucasus (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 887: King of Caucasus (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master priestess, have you discussed the matter with Abu?¡±, the leader of the elders asked.


    Sika¡¯s brow had been locked in a serious, straight line. Hearing the elder¡¯s inquiry, her brow rxed, and she answered with a smile, ¡°The vige chief has one good trait about him; he knows gratitude. Without Saleen around, do you have any idea how many would have starved to death? Do you think you would have had a chance to argue here?¡±


    The person named Abu was the chief of Sika¡¯s vige. When a new chief was appointed, he would be an elder himself.


    Sika continued, seeing how awkward her answer made the elders feel, ¡°I¡¯m no longer a warrior with no-name that I once was. Being trusted with the governance of Metatrin City enabled me to learn a lot. I knew clearly who was kind to me. The chief never made me do anything. It was thanks to him that I walked on the path of abat shaman. Elders, if the Northern Caucasus people were to pose a threat to me, what would any of you get out of it?¡±


    The leader of the elders shook his head and said, ¡°We will get nothing out of it. Still, I won¡¯t like seeing Caucasus people killing each other.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t want to see that myself, but they have no right to strip me of my right to happiness just because of this. I¡¯m a simple person. If they wrong me, I will make sure that they suffer for it.¡±


    Another elder spoke with a worried expression, ¡°Master priest, your emotions don¡¯t seem to be in the right ce, but please...¡±


    These elders were still Southern Caucasus people after all. They would not have liked to see Sika being taken out of the city be the kind of most ancient priestess who would devote their life to all Caucasus people.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. I just feel that once you get your hands on some measure of power, it is only fitting to do something that feels right to yourself. I saved nearly four-hundred-thousand Caucasus people, and yet, they wanted me to give more still. Saleen is the kind of person who would see to his vengeance to the very end, and that means killing every single one of his enemies. If they don¡¯t want a genocide to happen, then they best behave themselves. I¡¯m now doing my best to keep saving them,¡± Sika felt a rush of excitement as she finished speaking her mind.


    There was little need for subtlety inmunications between Caucasus people.


    The elders all felt a chill in their spines upon hearing what Sika said. Sika was with Saleen. There was no doubt that he was courteous to the Caucasus people in general, but if the northern ones overstepped the border, Saleen¡¯s methods would have proven much more terrifying that what Sika had described.


    The Caucasus people outside the city had little idea that Saleen¡¯s underlings were teeming with demons. Regardless of how good Caucasus warriors were in guerri warfare, they still hardly had any edge over demons. If they were to wrong Saleen and he sent out his demons to settle the score, there was no doubt that hardly any Caucasus warriors who fought would have survived.


    ¡°Master priestess, we understand,¡± the elders answered bitterly. They were frustrated, and their minds were boiling with anguish. Had it not been for the northerners messing things up, Sika would have perhaps considered having one of her children be a priest. From the current looks of things however, it seemed that Sika would keep both of her children with her and would definitely go against the idea of having their education entrusted to the viges.


    ¡°It seems that you lot have yet to understand me. I have already sent people to clean up the Caucasus people within the city. There will be a great number of mages doing lie detection tests on them. Anyone who fails the tests would be executed. Once their souls return to the Earth, I will hold a service for them personally.¡±


    ¡°Priestess!¡±


    ¡°Rx. This is no excuse, and the mages¡¯ way of questioning will be simple. Anyone who has any intention of doing me harm will be weeded out. I will interrogate and judge them in front of everyone, personally.¡±


    Sika had the mages see their guests out as she finished. All nine of them returned to the southern residences glumly, yet Sika was heardughing her head off in the temple.


    Sika had just gotten another troublesome matter out of her way. She might have lost her powers as a priestess when she got married. That was not to say that there was not anything else that she could do. Taking the title of Caucasus King was still a way to protect Caucasus people. The way of the priests had always been using the power of all Caucasus people to empower oneself.


    Her number of loyal subordinates would keep increasing as the kingdom was established. There would no longer be any need to worry about her children. Both of them would continue to be king at ater age, instead of priests.


    Saleen was someone who had some veryplex ideas going about in his head.


    As the cleansing in the south of the city took ce, Caucasus people were taken out and interrogated one by one. The mages were the ones carrying out the questioning, and they had only one question to ask: do you have any intentions of posing a threat to Lord Sika?


    Thenguage employed by the mages was the Caucasusnguage. The word ¡®threat¡¯ had multiple meanings within thenguage. The warriors who sided with the northern elders¡¯ way of thought were singled out, with the total of number of such people being over one-thousand.


    The trial was set to take ce in the Metatrin Arena on Monday. The arena wasrge enough to seat tens of thousands and the ce would be locked down. Nobles within the city were invited to witness the trial.


    Arge magic array was set at the front of the raised stage. Grand mages participated in the drawing and crafting of magic paths personally. Temple guards and elite troops of every main camp participated in the trial as well.


    Of course, the bulk of the audience, still consisted of a muchrger number of Caucasus warriors.


    The Caucasus warriors who participated in the trial had not showed any fear. All of them answered the mages¡¯ questions right in front of the mages. A lot of them were arrested right there and then. They were notified of the trial taking ce that day on a short notice. That resulted in having to mobilize forces the size of a camp, to make up for theck of personnel guarding the south of the city.


    The Caucasus warriors did not have their gear confiscated. Their gear stayed with them. The only difference between them and the other warriors on that day, was that they were made to sit at the most front row of seats.


    Under the protection of her trusted Caucasian warriors and mages, Sika came to the grandstand which Saleen used to sit at. In the arena in front of her eyes, there was the arrested Caucasus people to be tried, numbering over one-thousand, in chains.


    A white-robed mage went to check the sound amplification magic array and the imaging magic array. The nobles entered their respective boxes or grandstands with a better view. Most of them brought their own guards.


    They knew well of Saleen¡¯s temperament: Saleen had a liking for nobles with a preference for martial affairs. Nobles bringing servants along were seen in a far less favorable light than those bringing their own guards.


    The magic array right in the middle was a lie-detecting magic array. The magic itself was not a high level one, and as such, there had yet to be anyone who would have used such magic with an array. Sika was probably the first to pull off such a feat.


    Seeing all those Caucasus warriors being tied up afar, Sika felt her own gaze to be a cold one. She was not such a cold person herself, but why would any of them want to do something so cruel to her?


    She thanked her own swiftness to act. With so many warriors within the walls approving the thoughts of the Northern Caucasus people, the gate might just have ended up being breached otherwise. While it was still far from possible for the Caucasus people to take the entire city simply because they had breached one gate, the problemid with the damage Saleen¡¯s reputation would have suffered if Metatrin City was to be sessfully breached by the enemy.


    Power had the ability of driving people astray. There would sure have been a lot of priests mushrooming among the Caucasus outside the city, making those elders think they were capable of steering things to their favor.


    While Sika had little actual experience with the awakening of the power of humanity, she nheless felt it. She had given little thought to the news of priests appearing outside the city. After cross-referencing that piece of news with other intelligence, her instinct stirred as she picked up the scent of danger lurking.


    Once Caucasus warriors had priests on their sides, it would prove a much greater threat than swordsman having mages at their sides.


    Kredian activated the sound amplification magic array once everything was in ce. Sika¡¯s voice reverberated throughout the area. Everyone within was able to hear her clearly.


    ¡°What is taking ce today is something unexpected to me. Someone told me that Caucasus people outside the city, wanted to do me, a nature priestess, harm,¡± Sika¡¯s words proved to be frightening. All the nobles present found it to be unbelievable. The Caucasus people, numbering over one-thousand, who had been arrested and disyed within the arena, all looked too dejected to make a show of power.


    ¡°I had always thought that Caucasus had preserved the sense of honor passed down from ancient times. Come to think of it now, I was naive,¡± Sika¡¯s words were scripted by the mages. If they were to leave her to it, her speech would have sounded too straightforward to make clear the importance of the trial.


    ¡°I had people locking down the gates and mobilized forces equivalent to an army. I did not choose to start a war, as I wished that all this was not true...but I was wrong!¡±


    Sika looked down on the Caucasus who attempted to have her submit to their will from afar, and continued, ¡°I¡¯m a priestess. It is my duty to be of service. Such service does not include giving up my children. The Caucasus people outside the city wanted to take everything away from me, without giving any thought if what they intended to take, belonged to them.¡±


    The Caucasus people in chains were ced within the silencing magic array. No one was able to speak up and interrupt her speech.


    Sika continued speaking with a loud voice, ¡°What was most despicable about them was that they wanted my children. That was only because the father of the children, was none other than the king of Metatrin, Saleen,¡±. Sika turned her gaze to the nobles nearby and said, ¡°Your lord gave generous aid to the Caucasus people because of me, yet such aid was returned with betrayal.¡±


    Sika took a break as she looked tired, before continuing, ¡°I will not tolerate this, as I have my pride to defend. As a Caucasus person myself, I felt deeply ashamed. As such, I will not proceed with the trial as a priest, as I¡¯m unable to do so. I dere, from this day forward, I shall be the true Caucasus King. The bloodline of the Caucasus Kingdom, will from now, until the end of days, be of the house of Metatrin.¡±


    The faces of over one-thousand silenced Caucasus warriors despaired as Sika finished. They had not expected that the elders¡¯ n had led to Sika making such a decision.


    ¡°Now, I shall proceed with your trial as King of Caucasus. Mages, begin!¡±, Sika leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as she finished.


    All the Caucasus warriors present among the audience were in shock. They had thought the questioning was little more than a loyalty test. It was rumored that any who wished to join the temple guards were to participate in such tests. All Caucasus questioned simply thought that they were chosen to join the ranks of the most powerful army of Metatrin City.


    No one made any noise. Sika slumped in her seat, looking tired, weak, and wronged. Caucasus people who were loyal to her felt pity for her.


    Sika gave a lot, even letting a man she loved marry a princess instead of staying by her side. With all that having taken ce, she was at a loss of words. It was time for the mages to work.


    The Caucasus warriors chose to be silent and cast their gaze at the front of the stage: thatrge magic array.

 Chapter 888: Life On the Line (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 888: Life On the Line (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The powerful winged skeleton, the winged skeleton who was exceptionally skilled inbat and magic, was like a toddler in front of the angel of fear. She was free to toy around with him. The face at the angel of fear¡¯s torsoshed out its tongue and coiled it around him. The winged skeleton¡¯s body exploded all of the sudden. The soul mes in his eyes contracted and went straight into his golden heart.


    Nailisi happened to witness the scene where the winged skeleton self-destructed as she made her way out of the magic tower.


    She felt something tug at her mind. She sped up by having her nightmare go faster, charging right for the angel of fear. She did not know why she did so, but she knew that what she was doing was not for Saleen. The winged skeleton¡¯s self destruction caused the tongueshed that out to be blown to bits.


    The self destruction of a king level spirit was not something even a grade-12 creature was able to take up close and personal. The golden heart even had the force of the explosion focused entirely on the tongue.


    The angel of fear¡¯s body went stiff and her face twisted. ¡°How many years has it been? The very first time in all these years! The first time I¡¯ve gotten hurt! The first time I¡¯ve felt pain!¡± The de in her hand swooped down at the golden heart left behind by the winged skeleton like a streak of lightning.


    Nailisi thrust her spear. The angel of fear reacted to it with an evil smirk. ¡°I was waiting for this!¡±


    The seven yard long de flipped in the angel of fear¡¯s hand. The tip of the sword shed with the tip of Nailisi¡¯s spear. Nailisi burst the energy within her spear while the angel of fear vibrated her de. The ck faces on it shrieked as if in pain.


    The silverline golden spearfish¡¯s unique attackpressed the energy at one single point, bursting a sharp metallic tang as the weapons shed. The ck faces on the angel of fear¡¯s de blew off one after another, disappearing without a trace and revealing the green de underneath the eerie coating.


    The angel of fear simply twisted her wrist in response, and more ck faces emerged from the de. The resulting shrieks caused Nailisi an unbearable headache. The color of the de was concealed entirely once again. The angel of fear followed by flipping her wrist, bringing down the back of the de onto Nailisi.


    Saleen was right behind her, making her unable to simply dodge the iing attack. She thrust again with her spear and the two weapons shed once again.


    Twang!


    The material of Nailisi¡¯s spear was sturdy enough to withstand hard blows with the angel of fear¡¯s de, yet her power paled inparison to the eight yard tall monster. It was not something that resulted from the difference in body sizes. Even if Nailisi were to take her devil form, her power still would have been nowhere near the angel of fear¡¯s. Worse still, the angel of fear¡¯s expertise in the use of power was more intricate than Nailisi¡¯s by thousands of times. Even if they possessed equal amounts of power in their blows, the angel of fear would still have been able to deal damage tens of times higher than Nailisi.


    The spear trembled violently. It was only due to the sturdiness of its material that it was not shattered by the angel of fear¡¯s sh. The force traveled along Nailisi¡¯s arm and seeped right into her bones, trembling them so violently that the pain made Nailisi think they were broken.


    The electrical discharge on Nailisi¡¯s body managed to somehow mitigate the force of the angel of fear from reaching her fully.


    The angel of fear was somewhat baffled. The human was nowhere even near as powerful as that spirit she had just fought. How did she manage to take two blows from her? She had also thought the spear to be an interesting piece, but it was far from able to do her harm.


    The angel of fear swung her de in a circle. Arge face emerged from the heart of the circle. Saleen managed to close in on the angel of fear from behind. He thrust his wooden sword forward, casting Endless Night. The spell swallowed the ck face in the circle. Twenty-four ancient warriors made it in time and snatched away the winged skeleton¡¯s golden heart.


    The angel of fear frowned. She wondered if she should go for that peculiar golden heart or stay to fight Nailisi who had a weird weapon. The witcher spider jumped from Saleen¡¯s arms right onto the face on the angel of fear¡¯s torso.


    The angel of fear¡¯s face at her torso did not mind at all, thinking the beast to simply be a grade-9 creature. She thought it convenient to have one such meal go right for her mouth, enabling her to devour its soul and strengthen herself. The face was rather irritated at having its tongue blown off earlier. The witcher spider¡¯s size was not even big enough fit between its teeth.


    Gulp!


    The ferocious face swallowed the witcher spider whole after biting it to pieces. Saleen¡¯s family badge and the broken jade left behind by Shann were swallowed alongside the spider.


    ¡°Run!¡±, Saleen yelled in the demon tongue. A tornado swept up the golden heart in the ancient warrior¡¯s hand, and the group retreated in the direction opposite the tower.


    Nailisi saw how Saleen crafted the witcher spider earlier. She ran in the opposite direction as soon as Saleen gave the order. One went to the left and one went to right, leaving the twenty-four ancient warriors behind.


    It was surprising to the angel of fear that a grade-9 spell from Saleen was able to dispel the skill used on her de. What baffled her more was how the two who came charging ferociously at her suddenly decided to simply run away. She hesitated on which one to chase after for a moment. The angel of fear¡¯s intellectual capacity all came from broken souls. Dy in calctions happened time to time, just like how there was no such thing as perfect connections between magic spells.


    In her brief moment of hesitation, all twenty-four ancient warriors pounced on her. The warriors were more adept atbat than elemental puppets. They all stood just beyond the range of the angel of fear¡¯s weapon. The de¡¯s shimmer was nothingpared to the physical attacks from the de itself.


    Two of the winged skeleton¡¯s weapons and both his wings were easily broken with just three strokes. She hardly used any skill at all. It was just all chops and flourishes done without paying any mind to it.


    The wind dragon that Saleenmanded looked like a vortex, wrapping the golden heart in the middle and taking it faraway. The angel of fear flipped her de at them, and a huge de Shimmer cut off the way Saleen and Nailisi were trying to return to the tower. The two of them did not intend to return to the tower in the first ce though. They had instead made it to the further reaches of the imperial city.


    A strong burst of pain exploded within her body as her de missed its intended targets. The soul of the face on her torso was being absorbed by the broken jade, and half of its soul was gone. The angel of fear¡¯s soul was linked with the face¡¯s; they were entangled with each other. If the soul of the face was absorbed, her own would not be able to escape either.


    The angel of fear jumped and a hole appeared in the seawater. She appeared right behind Saleen in a sh. With a swipe of her hand, she snatched the man off of the nightmare¡¯s back.


    ¡°Take that thing back, or I will kill you right now!¡±, the angel of fear lifted Saleen before her face and roared.


    Saleen smirked and his body broke into pieces of shadows, which disappeared into the dark. The angel of fear extended her arm to grab the true Saleen in the broken shadows.


    Saleen cast Water Shield and the angel of fear did not bother breaking his spell. She simply stuffed Saleen¡¯s head into her mouth. She put her teeth right on his neck.


    The threat was painfully obvious. Saleen knew exactly what she meant without her having to say a word.


    The very reason why Saleen cast Water Shield was so that he was able to speak. He smirked, ¡°You have no idea who I am?¡±


    The angel of fear felt the soul she was linked was being absorbed by something terrifying. Even a grade-12 being¡¯s soul was unable to resist such a force. She was able to hold out for a few minutes at most, then it would be her turn!


    ¡°Who are you?¡±, the angel of fear suppressed the frustration in her mind and asked.


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin,¡± Saleen told the truth. He was merely biding his time with conversation. He did not expect the angel of fear to actually ask for his name.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know who you are. If you are not taking out your weapon, I will snap your head off right now!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m riding a nightmare, so I¡¯m without a doubt a death mage. Chomping down on my head will only make me a death wizard. What are you going to do then?¡±, Saleen incited sarcastically.


    The angel of fear¡¯s teeth broken his Water Shield in an instant. Saleen simply gave a cold smirk instead of resisting.


    The angel of fear spit his head out and grabbed him by the waist. She lifted him in front of her face. The sense of crisis eating away within her became increasingly dire by the second. The eerie thing had already absorbed most of her linked soul into it. Her soul and her linked soul were both grade-12 souls. ¡°Just what is that thing trying to suck us in?!¡± There were no signs of divinity in the broken jade, making it a pure human equipment. She had thought the people before her to be believers of gods. ¡°Just how...¡±


    Saleen cast another Water Shield calmly. The shield was only wrapping his head. He then said, ¡°You can cut your soul out. Having two souls entangled with each other doesn¡¯t feel nice I¡¯m guessing.¡±


    The de in the angel of fear¡¯s hand twitched. She had no idea how Saleen was able to tell that there were two souls residing within her body.


    The principle behind it was actually very simple. The broken jade had been crafted again by Saleen. As such, Saleen knew everything the broken jade was doing. There were two powerful souls inside the monster¡¯s body. Saleen had been worried about his n falling apart, but by the current looks of things, the angel of fear¡¯s limited intelligence would not allow her to think her way out of her predicament.


    He only hoped that the angel of fear could be dumber, just so that he could buy more time. As soon as the soul of the angel of fear herself started being absorbed by the Eternal Control shard, she would lose all ability to act against him!


    ¡°Humans were such vile creatures...¡± the angel of fear said all of a sudden. A whiff of ck smoke burst out of her nostrils and dispelled Saleen¡¯s Water Shield, intending to drill into his nose.


    Saleen held up his left hand and pointed at the angel of fear. The Crystal Finger¡¯s terrifying power leaked out. Sensing the looming threat right in front of her, she let out a terrifying shriek.


    It was fear magic!


    That was the angel of fear¡¯s inherent skill, which was capable of destroying her enemy¡¯s will in an instant. She only needed to break Saleen¡¯s will. The level difference should have allowed Saleen to finish only half of her intended skill, rendering him unable to cast his spell.


    While the angel of fear¡¯s intelligence was not impressive, she still possessed incrediblebat capacity. Her skill was cast just right. If it had been used at anyone else, it would have enabled the tables to be turned in her favor. Saleen had been waiting for her to cast her spell however. As she cast her spell, the badge which she swallowed began to maniacally absorb the angel of fear¡¯s power.


    All the energies within the body of the grade-12 being rushed into the Saleen¡¯s family badge.


    Saleen¡¯s smile brightened. He felt a loss of power in the hand she held him captive with. He saved his own life by putting his life on the line. If he had not done so, his magic tower would have been broken sooner orter. He would simply have dyed the inevitable.


    One could have only be able to get out tough spots by putting one¡¯s life on the line!

 Chapter 889: Squeezed Dry (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 889: Squeezed Dry (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jason knew his student¡¯s weakness very well. If a mage did not have the courage to face obstacles alone, then it would be difficult to be a sorcerer, much less reach grade-9.


    Beyond grade-9 was the mage trainer. Jason had never spoken to Saleen about that before, but the number of mage trainers on the Myers Maind would never be more than 10. Such knowledge regarding grades had never been made known.


    Every mage trainer must be strong mentally so that they could face any challenge. They had to have no fear, even if death was imminent.


    Joey might have said that he would flee, but that was a decision made out of his own assessment of the situation, and not because he was trying to avoid the same enemy. When Saleen encountered the Angel of Fear, his first thought was to escape as well. The difference in their grades was the main reason.


    When Saleen was unable to escape, he did not give up and did not hide in the divine tree magic tower without thinking of solutions. Even when the winged skeleton was in danger, Saleen managed to make his decision instantaneously.


    He decided to fight. When faced with a powerful opponent, he would use all ways and means to keep fighting.


    Nailisi was in her devil-form and was peeling off the skin of the Angel of Fear. There was only a small cut within the hair on the entire body. The wound was still trying to heal itself, so Saleen decided to throw the Angel of Fear¡¯s skin into his water me and refine it on the spot.


    Within the broken jade, the Angel of Fear¡¯s soul howled along with her linked soul but did not attack Saleen in any way. Saleen even continued to provoke them verbally.


    ¡°What is fear? It is something you feel when you are facing danger, but there is nothing you can do about it, and not when you are about to die. There is nothing scary about death. It will pass very quickly. I will punish the two of you slowly. This is only the first step. By the time your physical body has no more value, that¡¯s when I will start to deal with your souls. My advice is that you should slowly get used to it. The day wille very soon.¡±


    Saleen touched the leather bag on his waist, which contained the winged skeleton¡¯s golden heart. The winged skeleton¡¯s soul me had not been extinguished yet but Saleen could sense that he was extremely weak. Most of the power of a spirit was gathered in its soul mes, but once the physical body has been destroyed, the spirit would be in a very fragile state as well. Saleen had no idea how to remodel a body.


    He was not a death mage, so he had no idea if winged skull¡¯s body could heal. If the heart was all that was left, Saleen had no idea how to ept that fact.


    Saleen had gotten Soldier from Daniel as an attempt to take advantage of thetter. After getting the winged skeleton, Saleen began to develop feelings for him until he saw the winged skeleton as a friend. Saleen knew that the winged skeleton¡¯s loyalty was not because of him as a person, but because of the many days they had spent together.


    He had never treated the winged skeleton as cannon fodder, nor ever deserted him. He had always believed in the principle of a mage and treated the winged skeleton as his partner. That time around, the winged skeleton rushed all the way here because he believed Saleen was in danger. Such loyalty could hardly be found between creatures that possessed intelligence.


    As a mage, Saleen knew too well what loyalty was about. Loyalty was an exchange of things with equal values. Ultimately, the target of your loyalty could only be rules.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s feelings towards Saleen had already gone beyond the rule of equivalent exchange.


    ¡°The two of you can slowly enjoy it...¡± With that, Saleen threw the broken jade into another leather bag. His bag, which was made from a purple-gold sea urchin, was meant to be distributed to his subordinates for their own use. Since the broken jade had been put in, the souls would still be able to sense Saleen¡¯s actions. That was because the purple-gold sea urchin bag was not an independent space from an interdimensional space and there were no protective features.


    After Nailisi has peeled off the Angel of Fear¡¯s skin, what was left was a bloody mess on the ground. Nailisi dug out the Angel of Fear¡¯s eyes and fed them to her longnce. All six eyes on thence opened at the same time. Both of the Angel of Fear¡¯s eyes instantly melted into fluid and were absorbed directly by the six eyes.


    Nailisi sensed an invisible power gathering within her longnce, but something seemed to becking. She patted the body of the longnce, which made a whimpering sound.


    ¡°Alright, next time when I find something suitable, I will definitely feed it to you,¡± Nailisi consoled her weapon. The weapon was about to develop a Weapon¡¯s Spirit!


    It was not surprising for the Twelve Notes of Purgatory to develop a Weapon¡¯s Spirit. After all, she had thrown in many high-quality materials and it was a very mature weapon in the first ce. Nailisi merely repaired it a little after advancing.


    By right, Saleen¡¯s divine tree magic tower should have been able to develop a Weapon¡¯s Spirit most easily, but its grade was too high, and it had not beenpletely refined. There were still some ways to go before the spirit could be developed.


    Nailisi¡¯s longnce was about to develop Weapon¡¯s Spirit; that meant that the longnce could advance. It was already terrifying enough as a grade-10 equipment. If it was to advance, then Nailisi¡¯s weapon could very well be on the same level as a Godly item.


    Many Godly items did not even have Weapon¡¯s Spirits actually. Even if they did, they were either clones of Gods or souls of disciples. On the other hand, the Weapon¡¯s Spirit produced from human-made equipment was an independent lifeform. It could advance like humans and be powerful beings.


    For Gods and Mythical Beasts, from the moment they were born, their grades had already been decided. It would be extremely difficult for them to advance. To do so, they would have to spend millions of years, take in countless disciples, and absorb the powers of many dimensions. As for humans, although they were weak at birth, they could continue to advance and the speed at which they could advance was something that left all other creatures feeling envious. They would be able to advance all the way to grade-24, and no dimensions would be able to contain such power.


    Only humans could reach grade-24, not Gods. This was a saying that had been passed down from the past. Of course, no human had ever reached grade-24. The saying spoke about the future and about hope.


    Nailisi might not be a human but her bloodline was also of a very high status. Luoluokaluos were like humans. They gained incredible power and status through their invasions into many dimensions. The demon dimension only became weaker when the power of the Myers Maind dropped drastically.


    Demon weapons were also capable of developing very powerful Weapon¡¯s Spirits. The weapon was refined by humans in the first ce, though, and Nailisi was pleased. She pierced the tip of thence into the Angel of Fear¡¯s blood vessel so that the six eyes could absorb the blood.


    ¡°Saleen! I will never forgive you...¡± the Angel of Fear never stopped scolding from in the broken jade in the leather bag.


    Saleen knew what to do in such a situation because of his past experience with the Mechanical Soul. He activated a sliver of electric current and the Angel of Fear immediately kept quiet. The two linked souls screamed in pain until they did not even have the energy to scream anymore.


    Although her soul was very powerful, once it left the physical body and was attacked by electric current, it did not matter what grade it was. A soul that was being electrocuted had no choice but to tolerate it. If the Angel of Fear¡¯s soul had not left her physical body, the electric current from Saleen would not have been able to affect her at all.


    After Nailisi pierced the longnce into the Angel of Fear¡¯s blood vessel, she spat out a Dragon Crystal Needle to split open her muscles so that Nailisi could search for her tendons.


    The tendons of grade-12 creatures should be very resilient, otherwise they would not be able to produce such incredible power. It might have looked easy for the Angel of Fear to wield her long knife, but the power harnessed within was not something that even Nailisi could handle. To put that in context, Nailisi possessed the Power of a Giant Dragon. Even if she did not transform into a giant dragon, she should be as strong as a golden grand swordmaster.


    Although the Angel of Fear had taken on a humanoid form, the muscles and tendons in her body were still slightly different from humans. Ultimately, the insides of the body of a grade-12 creature were still imperfect.


    Nailisi quickly found a huge tendon and observed it with her Eye of Demon. After locating the arteries and veins of the tendon to be around the spine and near the tailbone, she slowly cut it in half with her Dragon Crystal Needle before taking it out. By right, the Angel of Fear¡¯s physical body could still retaliate, but after Saleen¡¯s n badge had absorbed all of its power, this empty shell without a soul could do nothing against Nailisi.


    Peeling the skin and taking out the tendon was only the first step. The most valuable resource was the bones. The Angel of Fear¡¯s bones were incredibly strong, and since the winged skeleton¡¯s body had been destroyed, thetter would need materials for restoration. The bones were just the right type of materials to be used for refining Soldier.


    The Angel of Fear¡¯s bone marrow possessed a mysterious life strength. Nailisi could transform into a three-faced bone demon to extract the bone marrow out to be refined into soul beads.


    After seeing the various abilities of soul beads, Nailisi had always been very envious. Unfortunately, she never managed to possess suitable materials to refine soul beads and she was never going to beg the winged skeleton for some. Since Saleen had given her permission to scourge the Angel of Fear¡¯s body, but ultimately only needed her skin, naturally she was going secretly create a few soul beads. She would definitely be able to put them to good use in the future, when her spirit form was about to advance.


    There must be something special in the bones of the Angel of Fear that allowed her to devour souls. The substances were more important than the internal organs that stored souls. Without the substances, she would have lost the ability to store souls as well.


    Demons could devour souls too, so they were particrly sensitive to substances rted to souls. After extracting 12 of the most resilient tendons, Nailisi released two magic bugs to consume the Angel of Fear¡¯s muscle.


    Saleen was refining the Angel of Fear¡¯s skin by her side, oblivious to what Nailisi was doing.


    Two red magic bugs crawled out from the gaps of Nailisi¡¯s fingers and pounced onto the Angel of Fear. They began chewing madly, but they were soon full, and their mouth organs broke down rapidly. Each magic bug could only consume about two mouthfuls.


    Two and half mouthfuls were enough to feed Nailisi¡¯s magic bugs. The two bugs immediately began to mate in the bloody mess of the Angel of Fear¡¯s body. In about three minutes, eggs were produced, and the two red magic bugs died.

 Chapter 890: Blood Soul Tower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 890: Blood Soul Tower (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The eggs of magic bugs were of bright red color. The eggs burrowed with all they had got into the flesh of the angel of fear. The liquid secreted by the eggs softened the flesh of the angel of fear. As soon as the eggs made it inside, they began to absorb the flesh within and grew rapidly.


    Magic bugs were the lowest form of existence on the demon ne. Even demons treated the bugs as little more thanmon foodstuff. That food could be dangerous in itself, nheless. The magic bugs survived by sheer numbers. Some had also left behindparatively horrifying bloodlines.


    The ones kept as Nailisi¡¯s prized possessions were of two bloodlines. The bugs bred rapidly andrvae were known to kill each other. Only the strongest were able to survive. After tens of generations individuals capable of killing demons were born. More than one-hundred generationster, individuals capable of taking down supreme demons would also appear among the bloodlines.


    Nailisi did not put any hopes in her bloodlines being able to produce strong individuals. She only wanted the dead bodies of them as materials for crafting soul beads. Dead bloodshine breed bugs would turn into red crystals. The higher the level of the dead bug, the higher the level of the crystal yielded.


    Nailisi had not intended to take her three-faced bone demon form. As the bloodshines bugs were able to devour the angel of fear¡¯s flesh, things had gotten easier for her. Her own demon lineage was the most powerful. Her spirit form had yet to advance to king level. That meant it would not have done her any good to absorb more soul mes than the winged skeleton. Such advancement required her to develop deeper understanding of the rules of the spirits before it became possible.


    Eggs of bloodshines bugs hatched quickly, yielding hundreds of them at once. Almost all of them were crushed under the pressure of the seawater around. Even so, the fratricide took ce as usual. The newborn bloodshines breed had yet to develop tough shells, meaning that the ughter was done quickly. In the blink of an eye, the hundreds of bugs born were reduced to only two.


    The dead ones had their bodies cannibalized. The remaining two were bugs of simr prowess. They began eating away at the angel of death instead of killing each other.


    Saleen watched the eggs and the weird breeding phenomenon for a few seconds, then he went on to craft his equipment without bothering to address Nailisi. The magic bugs were indeed strange, but it was impossible for them to advance beyond grade-10. There was little else for them to eat there; that meant they would not grown to disastrous numbers.


    The water me under his control spread out to an area several yards. The skin of the angel of fear was being crafted bit by bit. Saleen then took out thirty-six single-horned white whales¡¯ horns. They seemed to be the only material capable of matching the skin of the angel of fear.


    Thirty-six whale horns were crafted into a round frame. It was then covered by the skin of the angel of fear, creating a war drum with a diameter of three yards.


    The drum¡¯s underside was smooth, but it had a ferocious-looking face on the upside. The face was made t by Saleen. Despite the face having lost its soul, it red angrily at him nheless.


    That was the memory of the body. Seeing the face actually had Saleen feel more pleased with himself. It was that thing that had caused Soldier to self destruct, reducing him to a heart and a me that seemed close to being snuffed out.


    Saleen thought for a bit, before taking out the broken jade from the bag and putting it in front of the drum, saying, ¡°You see this now? This is what you ended up bing. My War Drum of Fear, a tool to help me conquer the world!¡±


    Saleen provoked the linked soul of the angel of fear while opening a slit on the broken jade unnoticeably. He used a portion of the rules of Eternal Control that he was familiar with. Even if Saleen was to use all of his powers at it, he would not have been able to keep the slit opened for more than a split second.


    The time was simply too short to even cast instant magic.


    ¡°Don¡¯t fall for it!¡±, the angel of fear yelled. She had developed a fear of Saleen. Her intuition told her that it was but a trap.


    The linked soul of the angel of fear however, did not possess enough intelligence to discern something like that. It simply took the split second chance to try to escape. As soon as a thread was seen, Saleen¡¯s left hand went grabbing it tight. His left hand seemed shriveled due to the use of Crystal Finger, looking like a branch of a tree. The casting of Crystal Finger that time however, was iplete and the recoil suffered was nowhere near as strong as before. As a result, his left hand was still capable of standard tasks expected of a hand.


    The slit in the broken jade was shut as soon as the linked soul had one thread left outside. Shrieks of pain were heard, yet it was no longer capable of casting any signs of fear at Saleen.


    Saleen smirked as he took out an Eternal Control shard. He had intended to use it to subdue elemental creatures, but it would prove adequate to deal with something like that. A thread of a soul was too weak to be worth mentioning after all.


    The thread of soul was sucked right into the Eternal Control shard, which Saleen then threw into the water me. The shard was quickly fused with the war drum, making it to the center and levitating there.


    ¡°Nailisi, leave the skull and the spine behind!¡±


    ¡°Master, what about that pile of bones then?¡±, Nailisi could not help but ask.


    Saleen was relieved to find her beginning to show concern for the winged skeleton. He had no idea however, that Nailisi was simply moved by the winged skeleton¡¯s actions for the time being. When Soldier finally came alive again, she would definitely be jealous again for all the concern and trust the winged skeleton would get from Saleen.


    Saleen did not take out the golden heart and begin channeling energy to the winged skeleton. His attention, for that time being, was on the war drum. He was torturing the angel of fear¡¯s soul while he was at it.


    The Eternal Control shard levitated on the war drum. While the shards that Saleen crafted himself were not of high quality and did not possess powerful rules, the thread of soul within was too weak to fight it. The trapped soul had surprisingly slowly lost itself; it no longer had any connection with the main body.


    The bloodshine bugs on Nailisi¡¯s side had bred for tens of generations. Nailisi had finally gotten her hands on two dark red crystals. The two crystals contained incredible powers, as well as some rules, within.


    One side of the angel of fear¡¯s flesh was devoured, revealing the skull and the spine. Nailisi spit out the dragon crystal needles and stuck them into the crevices between the angel of fear¡¯s bones.


    Crevices would definitely have been there no matter strong the bone structure of a creature was. They would not be capable ofplex movements otherwise. The angel of fear started off as a pest herself. She was only able to evolve after their kind devoured each other. Nailisi specialized in dismantling bones. The act of dismantling the angel of fear¡¯s bones, which were of humanoid form, proved easier than pulling out sinews.


    The spots where the dragon crystal needles were inserted had several energy connection points cut off. There were also some thinner, narrower, sinews attached. Nailisi then took the base of the angel of fear¡¯s backbone. There was a tail that had yet topletely disappear. It was hardlyrger than a palm. Nailisi shook it andpletely dislodged the entire spine and the skull.


    Nailisi was, at that moment, in her devil form. She took the several yard long spine and took it to Saleen. He gestured at her, and she threw the bones into the water me, feeling some regret. The marrow of bones had yet to be extracted, after all.


    Nailisi turned around and began extracting the marrow in the remaining bones. The way she did so was simply sticking the two red crystals onto the bone, then she had them suck out and store the marrow.


    Blood Soul Towers were something demons were capable of crafting. They were something simr to soul beads. The two hardly differed in terms of use. Nailisi¡¯s art of crafting was very crude, but such equipment¡¯s quality depended only on the material used. A bloodshine¡¯s finally stages of evolution had them functioning essentially as living, walking soul beads. One would be able to take the form of a devil. All soul, blood, and flesh devoured by the bloodshine bugs would be converted to the powers of the creature itself.


    The flesh of the angel of fear contained rules. Grade-9 bloodshines were born after being bred for tens of times. Any further evolution would have exceeded Nailisi¡¯s ability to control them. The pieces of blood red crystals were hardly any different from soul beads. Complete soul space began appearing within the two piece of blood red crystals after extracting massive amounts of bone marrow. The color of the angel of fear¡¯s bone marrow was ck. The bone marrow stored within the crystals began to take the forms of towers.


    The towers had eighteen floors. Every floor contained a space capable of storing souls. Blood soul towers were not really durable equipment; In fact, they were so weak that Nailisi would have been able to easily crush them with her hand. They were more versatile than soul beads by certain extents though. The souls sucked into the blood soul towers would be able to retain their consciousness if Nailisi allowed it.


    There would have hardly been any problem if Nailisi wanted to rear spirits inside the towers. Every floor of the tower had enough space to keep more than ten-thousand spirits within. The higher the floor number, the fewer souls the floor was able to keep, but the souls kept would be of higher quality.


    Material within the angel of fear¡¯s bone marrow had indeed contained things capable of storing souls and retaining soul powers. The angel of fear would not have been able to convert the souls devoured to be part of her ownbat capacity otherwise. Digesting souls was nowhere near as convenient as storing them intact, as the retained souls could be stimted at any moment. They could yield the power of pain and terror from the depths of their being.


    Of course, there was no need to mention that the souls residing within the blood soul tower ere able to worship Nailisi, bestowing her with the power of faith. The tower was simr to the soul bead in that regard.


    Nailisi was very happy about obtaining two blood soul towers. Having the two towers allowed her to steal souls of those who died on battlefields unnoticed. Be it souls of humans, or demons: keeping the souls would grow her number of believers. Demons had nothing against the power of faith. Mages found them distasteful as the power of faith was often linked to gods.


    It was wrong to assume that only gods were able to use the power of faith. If that was the case, the gods would not have been able to recruit believers.


    Nailisi turned gloomy after crafting two blood soul towers. She had been too greedy. There was just too much marrow in the bones of the angel of fear. She had only been able to use less than ten percent of what was avable.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi called. She knew she was going to regret it, but she continued nheless, ¡°The bone marrow of this thing can be used to put Soldier back together!¡±


    ¡°What!?¡± Saleen was hardly able to believe his own ears. Since when did Nailisi became so generous?


    ¡°Master, the bone marrow of this thing can be used to craft soul beads. Look,¡± Nailisi said as she handed a blood soul tower to Saleen. She was still in her devil form, meaning she was literally looking downwards at Saleen. The angle allowed her to see the movement of his throat from his excitement, but it did not allow her to see his expressions.

 Chapter 891: Blood Soul Tower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 891: Blood Soul Tower (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Taking bones apart and extracting marrows was something mages did all the time. Generally speaking, bone marrow was something used for making blood, but the bone marrow of many magic beasts was stuff used to repair their magic nuclei. Their bone marrow also contained various special materials. It could serve as excellent magic material when extracted and refined.


    The one vital shoring of sea magic beasts whenpared to those onnd was that they did not have as much marrow. The same went with blood, as well. Fortunately, sea magic beasts weremonly ofrge sizes. A low-level sea magic beast could have a length exceeding ten yards easily.


    At Saleen¡¯s level, he had developed the ability to see notable traits of souls. He had also developed workable experimental schematics regarding the crafting of soul-rted equipment. Sorcerers at that stage began studying matters rted to the soul. When they had finally reached the stage of a grade-9 sorcerer, that was when they truly were able to work on the matter of souls.


    Even so, Saleen was nheless able to sense that the blood soul tower was superior to Nichs¡¯ soul bead. While Nichs¡¯ soul bead was crafted by Fycro, he did not consider anything about Nichs¡¯ future. The old man was little else but a pawn Fycro left at Saleen¡¯s side.


    In Fycro¡¯s perspective, Nichs was simply a grade-9 fallen holy master that he would be able to dispose of any time he fancied.


    With that said, there was no way Fycro would have crafted truly powerful equipment for a disposable pawn such as Nichs. The soul bead Fycro gave Nichs was simply one that was able to prevent Nichs from losing his grade-9 powers. It was not something that would have helped him advance further. Nichs himself did not give advancing any thought at all, but Saleen was different. He had little idea what grade-10 fallen holy masters were like, and he wondered if such powers could trigger the gods directly.


    As such, it was imperative for Saleen to try to have Nichs advance into grade-10.


    Holy masters faced far more difficulties, in regards to advancing into grade-10, than mages. The Lord of Glory was a stingy god; he was one to be very reluctant in sharing power with believers.


    More importantly, as these bone marrow was something that could be used to craft soul beads, it was also without doubt something that was able to restore souls. The soul of the winged skeleton was very frail. If he did not receive any treatment to address his current situation, not only would his powers be severely weakened, the painstakingly grown intelligence could even recede to nothing.


    ¡°Nooo!¡±, the angel of fear was electrocuted viciously. Her fear spiked immeasurably when she heard that Saleen intended to use her bone marrow to craft equipment. The loss of her bone marrow meant that her soul would never again been able to return to her body.


    ¡°I surrender! Have mercy on me, please, I will do whatever you say!¡±, the angel of fear could not muster even an ounce of courage to fight Saleen anymore.


    ¡°Toote,¡± Saleen replied concisely, and then said to Nailisi, ¡°Soldier¡¯s body can¡¯t be restored for the time being. Craft a soul bead for him. I want the quality to be at least one level higher than what you have now. I¡¯m still crafting the War Drum of Fear. We will return to the magic tower as soon as I¡¯m done with the drum. We will help Soldier get his body back.¡±


    ¡°Master...¡±, the winged skeleton¡¯s voice was heard from the golden heart inside the bag near Saleen.


    ¡°What?!¡±, Saleen was overjoyed at hearing the winged skeleton¡¯s voice. ¡°Soldier kept his consciousness! It should beparatively easy to restore him, then.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± Nailisi put aside her feelings of frustration and noted to herself, ¡°It seems that I have done Soldier quite a favor now. He Should probably not be at odds with me all the time anymore then, no?¡± Nailisi was still needed tomand her demon army; staying back at sea for prolonged periods was not an option. With the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat in the winged skeleton¡¯s possession, the task of salvaging sunken ships was delegated almost entirely to him alone. She would need their help in the future still, for getting her hands on various materials.


    Nailisi took out herst batch of bug eggs and put them inside the angel of fear¡¯s flesh, catalyzing them and having them mature quickly. It was so she was able to craft a blood soul tower again.


    Saleen stayed nearby instead of returning to the divine tree magic tower; he kept working on his War Drum of Fear.


    Tens of thousands of pests remained still near their vicinity, trembling in fear. None dared to attack, and none dared to even run.


    Saleen¡¯s water me had the angel of fear¡¯s skull and spine refined to the length of little more than a yard. They were fashioned in the shape of a bone mace. The head of the artifact was made from none other than the angel of fear¡¯s skull.


    The bone mace was already a powerful weapon on its own. Saleen rushed to finish the bone mace, and struck hard on the War Drum of Fear. The pests shrieked in terror when the sound of the drum reached their ears.


    Doom, doom, doom...


    Saleen beat at the drum with a very slow tempo, yet the pain suffered by the pests hardly lightened.


    ¡°Get in there right now!¡±, Saleen shouted. The linked soul of the angel of fear inside the Eternal Control shard that was levitating inside the drum roared with a low voice. That prompted hundreds of pests to jump into the air and head for the War Drum of Fear. The pests¡¯ bodies were at least more than four yards tall. The humanoid face on the drum opened its mouth wide and sucked them right into the drum.


    The face sucked slowly when it first started absorbing the pests, but when more than one-hundred of the pests were absorbed, the rate of absorption jumped by several hundred times. More and more pests charged at the drum, running straight for the mouth of the face on the drum.


    The crafting of the War Drum of Fear was something that Saleen had been nning for quite some time. War drums were an invention hailing back to the time when ancient humans went conquering other nes. The sound of drums could have been heard from up to one-hundred miles away. They were able to carryplex messages. The warriorsmanded by the humans consisted of a myriad of races, even gods who had betrayed their kind. Commanding them in unison was no small feat.


    Mobilization of the warriors became more convenient with the advent of war drums. More importantly, magic power infused within the drums could be used to buff all warriors. Simrly, the war drum also possessed offensive capabilities. It was a tool capable of area-of-effect attacks by reducing opposing group¡¯s morale. Some war drums were able to killrge number of enemies outright.


    The human skin war drums of ck Magicians worked precisely as such. When the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s army began its march, powerful ck magicians had beaten on the war drums, making the troops of human armies sumb to the debuffing effects of ck magic.


    Saleen found the schematics, but they were from a sunken ship dating back to the second dynasty. Such drums were capable of coordinating the troops of various races on the battlefield, enabling the troops to rush on their enemies. The power of one war drum was evenparable to the powers of hundreds of mages. Such drums required exceptionally difficult materials to craft though, materials acquired from creatures of at least grade-12.


    When Saleen acquired the angel of fear¡¯s body, he thought immediately of creating such a powerful war drum. While it was possible that the drum was somethingmon back in the time of the second dynasty, it was simply near-impossible to find grade-12 creatures in their time.


    Tens of thousands of pests ended up being devoured by the War Drum of Fear after a while. When Saleen beat on the drum with the bone mace by then, the pests within no longer felt pain; they were instead forced to keep supplying the drum with power.


    ¡°Master, done!¡±, Nailisi stopped a pair of bloodshines¡¯ advancement by force, digging them out from the angel of fear¡¯s flesh. The bloodshine bugs wanted to attack Nailisi, but immediate had their brains pierced by one dragon crystal needle each. They were nailed dead on the ground.


    These two bloodshines had reached grade-10, but their advancement was iplete. While their bodies were of grade-10 material, their power and souls were less than grade-9 still. Nailisi dared not have the two bugs advance any further, as she would have been unable to control them anymore if they did. Nailisi used the resulting blood spar to suck out the angel of fear¡¯s bone marrow. It was done significantly faster that time. A ck tower-like structure quickly formed within the crystal.


    ¡°Get back to the tower.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± Nailisi returned to her imp form and threw whatever remained of the angel of fear into her bracelet. She only asked when they got back to the tower, ¡°Master, why did you not craft the drum in the magic tower instead?¡±


    Saleen knocked on the walls of the magic tower with his finger. A sound characteristic of wood reverberated throughout the ce. A low, deep rumble.


    ¡°The drum is something I will be using in the battlefield from here on out, and I don¡¯t want any divinity or whatsoever in it. Nailisi, hand me that stuff,¡± Saleen extended his hand. Nailisi, somewhat reluctantly, ced the two blood soul towers she had just crafted on his hand.


    The two blood soul towers¡¯ quality was quite a bit superior to the ones Nailisi was using herself, a product from sixty further generations of breeding. If Nailisi had not kept the evolution of the bloodshines under control, the two would have probably reached grade-12. The quality of the angel of fear¡¯s flesh was just too high. Bloodshine bugs were known to be dangerous. It was precisely for their frighteningly high speed of evolution.


    The twenty-four ancient warriors went inside the divine tree magic tower as well; they felt rather ufortable with the ce. They had been elite warriors fighting against gods back in their time, so divine equipment left a bad taste in their mouths. While the divine tree magic tower was crafted by Saleen personally, its material came from the Goddess of Myers nheless.


    Saleen paid no heed to the ancient warriors¡¯ reactions. He took out the winged skeleton¡¯s golden heart carefully and asked, ¡°Soldier, can you hear me?¡±


    ¡°Yes...¡±


    ¡°There are two blood soul towers here. Take them, I will get you the bone marrow of the angel of fearter,¡± Saleen said as he ced the two blood soul towers on the golden heart. The heart extended gold-colored veins instinctively and stuck them inside the blood soul towers.


    The blood soul towers were immediately absorbed into the heart. Two whiffs of soul mes were on the brink of copse inside the golden heart. The body of the blood spars broke immediately after the towers were absorbed into the heart. The broken pieces were disintegrated and absorbed soon after. The golden heart¡¯s level far surpassed that of the bloodshines. A pair of precious blood spar ended up being easily disintegrated.


    Two miniature towers appeared to be levitating inside the golden heart, which the winged skeleton¡¯s soul me rushed to consume. The soul mes, which should have been absorbed, split into a white me and a ck me, before burning the towers.


    Soldier would, of course, not have allowed his soul to enter the towers. While going inside would have allowed them to restore themselves quickly, doing so would have posed a serious problem to advancement inter days. The winged skeleton had far-reaching goals, and grade-12 was not allowed to be his limit.


    The winged skeleton had surprisingly opted to re-craft the soul towers with their own soul mes. The pair of soul towers contained special materials which replenished the winged skeleton¡¯s used mes. Saleen observed the golden heart on his hand. The heart began to beat, yet not even Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to make clear of the operational patterns of energy taking ce within.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul mes burned increasingly fiercely. The nutritious material inside the burned towers were forcibly robbed and put inside his own soul me. The split ck and white mes merged again, entangling with each other and forming an eerie yet beautiful dual-colored me.


    The ck soul towers levitated silently within the pair of soul mes. The pair of soul towers served as little more than storage for keeping souls. Whether the souls kept within would continue growing was a matter entirely dependent on whether the winged skeleton was willing to infuse them with more power.


    ¡°Master. I need bones, lots of them. I need my weapon as well...¡± the winged skeleton¡¯s voice reverberated within the magic tower.

 Chapter 892: Time Difference in the Abyss (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 892: Time Difference in the Abyss (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The winged skeleton was insistent on remaining a skeleton. Although his soul mes had already evolved into the level of a Spirit King and were capable of remodeling his own body into any type of powerful spirit, he was still very resistant to such an idea.


    He did not wish to forget the years he spent as a skeleton, which were tough and full of life-threatening dangers every day. Back then, he was only a low-level skeleton. Even though he had a pair of wings, it was not much of a factor. Many spirits of the dead also possessed the ability to fly, so his wings did not give him much advantage.


    It was only when he met Saleen that he understood that he could be useful in his own way.


    Saleen could not understand what the winged skeleton was thinking. Neither was he aware that the winged skeleton was actually capable of transforming into any spirit of the dead, including the rare Fleshy Death Creature. He asked Nailisi to bring over the skeletal structure of Angel of Fear and ced it on the ground. Then he ced the broken Meteor Hammer and double-sided war hammer on the ground as well, before finally putting the golden heart alongside those items.


    Everything would have to depend on the winged skeleton. No magic arrays would be able to help.


    The winged skeleton was not worried at all. Although his bones had been badly damaged, his soul mes had be stronger. A physical body could be trained over time, but once the soul mes had dissipated, there would be nothing left.


    Self-explosions might be powerful, but the price was losing the power of soul mes. Without the special bone marrow of the Angel of Fear, the winged skeleton would have to remain in deep sleep for another 30 to 50 years before the golden heart would have sufficient power to revive him.


    The winged skeleton knew that Saleen would encounter more and more challenges, how could he possibly continue to remain in deep sleep?


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul mes regained their powers and their control over the golden heart. The golden heart began to absorb the Angel of Fear¡¯s body, but it was also rejecting plenty of bone marrow. Saleen collected the leftover bone marrow in a jade bottle so that he could give it to Nichs in the future.


    He would be able to use it as well if he advanced to grade-10. Although elemental mages were unable to create death puppets, the bone marrow would still be useful in increasing the stability of Eternal Control shards.


    ¡°Master, we have trouble!¡± Nailisi pointed to a distance away. From the magic tower, one could see a red fire-element creature heading towards them on the street more than 10 miles away.


    The fire-element creature was riding on an even bigger fire-element creature. The height of the two creaturesbined together was more than 20 yards. The rider was holding a shield that was burning with me while his right hand was holding an extravagant-looking halberd.


    Halberds were extremely difficult to master, so many warriors had stopped using them. Their full potential could only be seen when the warrior wielding it was powerful enough to control the weapon. The long halberd was also burning with me and there were two fire serpents coiled around it.


    The elemental creature was wearing vermillion ming armor and its face was constantly contorting, as if its expression was changing every second.


    A Vermillion knight!


    No, it was the leader of the vermillion knights. Behind it was more than a hundred vermillion knights of lower grades. All of them were riding ming warhorses and wielding huge knives with long shafts. mes were dancing on the huge knives and one could almost see the jagged edges on the knife des. The jagged edges were arranged neatly in rows and could cause some serious damage if they were pulled away after hacking on an enemy.


    Saleen deemed these elemental creatures to be more powerful than the elemental stone statue soldiers because the ground and dark and water elements there were very rich, while there were very few fire elements, yet, the vermillion knight leader seemed to be as powerful as the leader of the blue ice maidens. In such an environment, his weapon was still able to sustain fire serpents. The fire serpents were also two powerful elemental creatures in their own rights. Under the control of the vermillion knight, they could be used to attack enemies suddenly.


    ¡°Ignore them, Nailisi. Take out all the horns of the single-horned white whales and give them to the winged skeleton.¡± Although Saleen admired the powers of the vermillion knights, he also knew that his chances of victory were slim if he was to face them alone.


    The internal organs of the Angel of Fear were being absorbed by the golden heart, eventually revealing Saleen¡¯s n badge. Saleen quickly retrieved it back. If the golden heart identally devoured the n badge, the winged skeleton would be finished. The badge would not be able to recognize whose soul mes they belonged to. Saleen was still unable to control such a powerful equipment and had yet to fully explore even one percent of the badge¡¯s power. The more Saleen advanced, the more realized how powerful the badge actually was.


    Even a grade 12 Angel of Fear could be shot down cleanly with a single hit.


    The winged skeleton gave up a portion of bone marrow in order to absorb more of the Angel of Fear¡¯s blood and bones. When Nailisi threw in the horns of the single-horned white whale, the winged skeleton dly took them all. The skeleton that he had put together hastily was made of materials of good quality, but it was still no match for the winged skeleton¡¯s original body. After all, those bones were refined by the golden heart.


    The winged skeleton decided not to use the golden heart to refine the bones anymore. The bones would only be used temporarily. Once he obtained even better materials, he would refine them with the golden heart again. On a side note, the bones could be used to create a skeleton with intelligence.


    The winged skeleton created his own body patiently. It was not difficult creating the structure of a skeleton, but the winged skeleton¡¯s soul mes were so powerful that even an ordinary jade skeleton would not be able to endure it. Now that he wanted to regain his body, he could only refine it with his own soul mes instead of summoning spirits of the dead from the death dimension as a substitute.


    Two soul towers were floating within the winged skeleton¡¯s ck and white soul mes. An empty soul tower could contain more than a million souls. The quality of a soul tower like that way surpassed Nichs¡¯ soul beads.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s soul mes no longer relied on the soul towers, but he had absorbed the essence of the soul towers, so once they were apart from his soul mes, the towers would break apart.


    In death magic, there were many ways to deal with souls. Since the winged skeleton had risen to the grade of a Spirit King, he was finally able to make sense of many mysteries. The two soul towers would be imprisoning many souls in the future.


    In the death dimension, the strong preyed on the weak. There were no restrictions of all sorts of rules like those found on main dimensions, but this was also the reason why the death dimension was never able to be a powerful dimension. Even when the Myers Maind weakened, the human death mages were still able to summon spirits of the dead to carry out their bidding.


    In that era, mages no longer dared to summon demons anymore. This further proved how seriously weakened the death dimension had be.


    The secrets that the winged skeleton was gradually getting in touch with were all ancient lineages passed down from spirits of the dead that were of the level of Spirit Kings. He began to n carefully for his future.


    The Angel of Fear¡¯s entire body was full of treasures, but the winged skeleton was only interested in the bone marrow. Other than the things that were rejected by the golden heart, which he would leave behind for Saleen, he used most of the bone marrow to strengthen his soul mes. With the addition of the bone marrow, the winged skeleton¡¯s soul mes could exist outside of his body. That meant that his soul mes would be unharmed the next time he decided to self-explode.


    That was the advantage that only spirits had. For humans, they must reach at least grade-14 in order for their souls to be unharmed despite their physical bodies being damaged.


    Saleen calmly watched the vermillion knight lead his men over from afar. Even the grade-12 Angel of Fear was unable to break through the divine tree magic tower immediately, so the grade-10 vermillion knights should fare even worse. Besides, Saleen still had his blue ice maidens. In that environment, blue ice maidens were definitely more powerful than vermillion knights.


    Saleen realized that his close brushes with danger had made him more confident and fearless when facing grade-10 creatures. He was able to make quick judgements that would secure him victory.


    The human mind was truly terrifying. Once it became powerful, even Gods had to find ways to suppress them.


    As Saleen observed the vermillion knights, he suddenly noticed something amiss. He realized that the vermillion knights were not moving at a constant speed. In battles, powerful warriors tended to change their speeds very often, sometimes even multiple times in one second. The vermillion knights were only heading towards the magic tree divine tower. There was no need to change their speeds in that case.


    The vermillion knights were clearly not as fast as blue ice maidens and elemental stone statue soldiers. Saleen had never noticed that issue before. He only noticed it because his attention was focused on the vermillion knights making their way over.


    Saleen suddenly realized that he was in the Imperial City of the Abyss, where the gravitational force varied over different ces. That was not obvious to him, as he was a mage. The gravitational force there was massive, yet it did not cause any physical damage. Although Saleen was a mage with a water-elemental body, it should still not be so effortless!


    What would be affected by such a powerful gravitational force?


    Time! It was time! Time passed at a different rate in the Imperial City of the Abysspared to the outside world. As long as the gravitational forces were different, time would pass at a different speed between two ces, even if they were very close together in terms of distance.


    Saleen took out the magic clock and saw the hands of the clock spinning wildly. The magic nucleus had already been used up long ago.


    Saleen had no idea if time passed more slowly or quicklypared to the outside world. If it was slower, then by the time he left the ce, the Metatrin City might be gone. He might have already lost his kingdom, his wife, and his children...


    At that thought, Saleen began to sweat all over.


    He could give up anything except for Sika, Lex, and his two children. Besides, he had a thousand-year bond with the Goddess of Myers. If the time there passed so slowly that a thousand years had already passed in the outside world, he would be punished the moment he left.


    By then, even if his wife and children were fine, he would still be doomed.


    The Imperial City of the Abyss was horrid!


    Saleen decided that he would head out to meet the vermillion knights head-on. He would have to postpone his ns for the Imperial City of the Abyss. If the time there passed more quickly rtive to the outside world, then he could still afford to stay for a while more. If it was the other way around, then he must return home immediately.

 Chapter 893: Time Difference in the Abyss (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 893: Time Difference in the Abyss (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The passing of time was something that all living creatures had to face. Eleanor¡¯s life arrow, which was able to reduce one¡¯s lifespan, was basically time technique as well.


    There was nothing Saleen could do about the fact that time passed at a different rate in the Imperial City the of Abysspared to the outside world.


    The vermillion knights reached the divine tree magic tower very quickly. All of them stopped and waited for orders from their leader.


    The leader raised his head and looked at the magic tower. By nature, vermillion knights detested anything rted to Gods. He was a soldier that had pledged his loyalty to humans and he had joined the army at a time when humans were trying to conquer Gods. Gods would always be the enemy.


    Saleen saw that the vermillion knight¡¯s eyes were purple. They were formed by fire elementsing together. Purple mes were rarely seen and were of rather high temperature. They were very stable and disyed no signs of aggressionmonly associated with the fire element.


    The leader was also an elemental creature that possessed a soul.


    ¡°Human in the magic tower, are you the one who has subdued the soldiers that were nearby?¡± What the vermillion knight asked took Saleen by surprise. The knight¡¯s soul had already matured, so it would be more difficult dealing with himpared to the elemental stone statue soldiers and the blue ice maidens.


    ¡°Yes. Vinny and Gloria are now my soldiers.¡± Saleen used the sound transmission magic array in the magic tower. There was no way the vermillion knight would possess the same technique as the Angel of Fear anyway.


    ¡°I came over to take a look because I sensed the presence of the pests. Although there are no longer any humans here, the pests should not be allowed to roam around. I... want to know, did you kill all the pests yourself?¡± The vermillion knight puffed out his chest and his long halberd was lowered. Even his towering physique seemed miniature when standing in front of the magic tower.


    ¡°Yes. I have killed two Angels of Fear as well.¡± Saleen caressed the n badge in his hand. When the badge was extracted from the Angel of Fear¡¯s body, some of her strange internal organs were shriveled. Who knew what the badge actually absorbed? In any case, Saleen could sense that the power within the badge was ready to be unleashed again.


    Saleen felt very calm with the badge in his hands. No one had heard of any equipment on the Myers Maind that was capable of killing a grade-12 creature instantaneously.


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe you, unless youe out and defeat me.¡± The vermillion knight pointed his long halberd at the top level of the magic tower, that Saleen was in.


    ¡°I am a mage. Of course, I must choose to fight in the magic tower. You are an elemental creature. It is no use plotting against me. If you don¡¯t believe me, you can take a look at the crystal tower. There is a hole on the third level which was caused by my equipment. Or else, you can head out to 20 miles away. I killed an Angel of Fear there, but of course, there is nothing much left of him for you to see.¡±


    The vermillion knight was speechless. Of course, he did not proceed to check on the ces that Saleen mentioned. Instead, he continued, ¡°I can be a soldier for a human, but the human must be stronger than me.¡±


    ¡°So, equipment cannot be included?¡±


    ¡°No. You are only powerful if you don¡¯t rely on equipment.¡±


    ¡°Then, do you think the Angel of Fear is powerful?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I am no match for the Angel of Fear.¡±


    ¡°I have killed both of them. I am using one of their skins to refine an equipment. If your idea of being ¡®powerful¡¯ is to eventually end up as an equipment for others, then I don¡¯t need you at all. Based on your speed, there is no way you can escape a single hit from my most powerful equipment. You either submit to me, or I will kill you.¡±


    ¡°You have the heart of a powerful person, but I find it hard to believe that your equipment is still able to carry out attacks.¡± With that, the vermillion knight pointed his long halberd at the ground.


    ¡°The only way to prove it is for me to kill you, but I really need you.¡±


    ¡°It is not that I am unwilling to submit to you, but this equipment of yours is from the Gods and they are our enemies.¡± Of course, the vermillion knight was not willing to risk being attacked by the same equipment that wiped out the Angels of Fear. The human imed to have killed an Angel of Fear from 20 miles away. There was no way the vermillion knight would be able to escape such an attack, based on their speed.


    ¡°This is a problem. My name is Saleen Metatrin. I am a small king. May I know what your name is?¡± Saleen could see that the vermillion knight was more intelligent than Gloria and tried to engage in a conversation with him. Saleen could not bear using the badge to kill him because he did not want to waste a single attack of the badge.


    ¡°I am re. I don¡¯t have a surname.¡±


    ¡°Alright, re. Now, I have two elemental badges, one is ground element and the other is water element. In this environment, your powers are suppressed. Even if I don¡¯t use powerful equipment, you are still no match for me. Although this magic tower¡¯s history is connected to Gods, there are no longer any more Gods on the Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°There are no more Gods?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Only the Lord of Glory is trying to recruit disciples and spread his faith, but none of his clones have been able to descend.¡±


    ¡°Why do you want me to submit to you?¡± The vermillion knight suddenly asked a strange question.


    Saleen thought for a while and said, ¡°The powers on the Myers Maind, which may be known as the main dimension to you, have fallen quite a number of grades over the years. An elemental creature of your grade is already the most powerful on the Maind. If you are willing to help me, I will be able to destroy the Lord of Glory¡¯s religion on the Maind. This is very important to me.¡±


    ¡°You are a disciple?¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t believe in any Gods.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I will head out 20 miles to verify what you have imed. If it is true, I am willing to follow you and be your warrior.¡± re turned around and was about to leave.


    ¡°No need. You can take a look from here.¡± With that, Saleen showed a magic image as he began to hit on the War Drum of Fear in the magic tower.


    The vermillion knight could see a human mage hitting a war drum with a bone mace. There was a frightening-looking face on the war drum.


    Dong... dong dong...


    As Saleen slowly hit on the War Drum of Fear, the vermillion knight¡¯s body trembled. It shook for a while before he steadied himself. Saleen sighed. That was something that he had broken down himself. There were still tens of thousands of pests in there. The linked soul of the Angel of Fear was simply too weak, so it was already quite incredible that it could affect a grade-10 creature.


    ¡°What is that?!¡± The vermillion knight turned back and realized that none of his knights were affected. The grade-9 vermillion knights continued sitting on their ming warhorses, with cool expressions on their faces.


    ¡°This is a War Drum of Fear made from the skin that I have peeled off the Angel of Fear. It possesses powerful attacking abilities against creatures that possessed souls,¡± Saleen shared.


    ¡°So, this was what you used to subdue the pests!¡± The vermillion knight was sharper than Gloria as he was able to connect the dots immediately. He could not take it lying down that he did not manage to see Saleen¡¯s powers. He was an elemental creature with a soul and was unlike the grade-9 vermillion knights that did not possess a strong sense of self-awareness.


    ¡°Don¡¯t feel that way. I still have the Angel of Fear¡¯s soul with me. You possess a soul too. Do you understand what I am saying?¡±


    It was clear what Saleen was trying to say. He possessed two elemental badges, so trapping re would not be a problem. After capturing re, he would be able to control his soul. By then, re¡¯s status would drop significantly because he did not submit to Saleen voluntarily.


    Saleen was very keen to subdue an intelligent elemental creature like that. The vermillion knight would definitely know more than Gloria, especially about the Imperial City of the Abyss and how quickly time passed there.


    ¡°You should not threaten me like that.¡± The vermillion knight was unhappy after hearing what Saleen said.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have time.¡±


    ¡°Time?¡±


    ¡°Yes, the time here passes at a different ratepared to the outside world. I don¡¯t know which side is faster. The magic equipment I have that is supposed to help me tell time is also spoiled. I cannot take the risk and stay here for too long. There are too many things out there that I need to settle.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, the passing of time in the Imperial City of the Abyss is not fixed, butpared to the outside world, some ces here could be 10 times slower. Otherwise, there is no way elemental creatures like us could survive. Our lifespans are limited too.¡±


    ¡°How do I know if I can trust you?¡±


    ¡°This is only the exterior of the Imperial City of the Abyss. You can go outside and take a look.¡±


    ¡°There is nothing outside that I can take reference from.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s reply left the re stumped. Saleen was right. His magic equipment for telling time had spoiled. He would have no idea what day it was even if he went out.


    ¡°I really have no time. re, make your decision now.¡± Saleen was no longer interested in dragging on the conversation. He summoned Vinny and Gloria, who led their troops out of the divine tree magic tower.


    ¡°Wait!¡± The vermillion knight shouted.


    ¡°Speak!¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was cold. He would not be able to tell if the vermillion knight was speaking the truth, unless he inserted a shard of Eternal Control into his soul.


    ¡°I want to see what unique techniques you have invented on your own. If it impresses me, I will submit to you. If your technique is mediocre and ordinary, I¡¯d rather die than to follow a piece of trash. No matter how powerful your equipment may be, you will never truly be strong!¡±


    ¡°Alright!¡± Saleen threw a shard of Eternal Control out of the magic tower, which re caught. The shard of Eternal Control was still cold in his hands, seemingly unaffected by his grade-10 me.


    ¡°If my technique impresses you, then insert this shard of Eternal Control into your head on your own. If you feel that I don¡¯t deserve to be your Master, then I will kill you and respect your decision by not torturing your soul.¡±


    ¡°So be it. Let me see what impressive techniques a little mage like you can have,¡± the vermillion knight answered fearlessly. Although he would fear death once he possessed a soul, he was not willing to be scared off by a mage. Clearly, the mage was not as powerful as he was. If not for the fact that Saleen had killed the Angels of Fear, re would not have bothered to talk to him in the first ce.

 Chapter 894: Secrets of the Abyss (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 894: Secrets of the Abyss (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Seeing the Vermillion Knight taking his Eternal Control shard, Saleen knew things could have still gotten better. Unless the Vermillion Knight was killed by his family badge, he would still have ways to restore the knight. Even if it were restored, the grade-10 Vermillion Knight would be one without a soul, making advancement impossible.


    An elemental badgecking the possibility to advance was not something Saleen would consider to be of greatbat potential. Doing so in the long run would only cause the powers possessed between the six elemental badges to be unequal. When a true professional was encountered, the elemental creatures¡¯ weaknesses would be exposed. That would then cause them to be easily defeated by some special skills, such as an eerie spell like Dismantle Element.


    re, the Vermillion Knight was also nervous. They held the Eternal Control shard in their hand, and began to somewhat believe Saleen¡¯s words. The shard itself was not something with a high level, yet the rules within were veryplex. Having reached grade-10, the Vermillion Knight had some knowledge of the rules of power of the fire element. As such, re was able to sense rules to a certain degree.


    While they had no idea what rulesid within the shard, it was obvious that the mastery of alchemic arts of the mage in front of their eyes was of a level way higher than their own. Humans had always been such peculiar creatures. Even when theycked power, they were still capable of creating miracles.


    Nailisi was relieved to see that Saleen threw out an Eternal Control shard at the knight. She kept observing the restoration process of the winged skeleton¡¯s body. She was afraid that Saleen would decide to sign a contract with the new elemental creature due to them possessing intellect. They were a grade-10 creature, which meant they were more powerful than she was for the time being. If re did be a soul bonded-creature of Saleen¡¯s, her position would be threatened.


    Saleen¡¯s actions however, spoke clearly of his intention of having the Vermillion Knight serve him as an elemental badge.


    The magic image Saleen cast was crystal clear. re and all the Vermillion Knights under them watched it. While the grade-9 elemental creaturescked souls, they nheless possessed simple intelligence. They would not be able to serve as humanity¡¯s elite troops otherwise.


    Saleen cast the Stone Statue Army, a grade-9 spell infused in his robe. It created six stone statue soldiers. He had one of the soldiers stand before him. He had it cast a grade-9 Fossilization on him.


    As soon as Fossilization was cast, Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning was unleashed. re saw two golden beams shoot out from his eyes and sh in midair. They created arge golden rune.


    The grade-9 Fossilization spell dispelled immediately, like it had never happened.


    Saleen did not let the electrical sparks leak out. Doing so would have wasted a lot of energy. Doing so once would have cost him one-sixth of his mental powers. Having control over electricity was a very troublesome matter. Even with Saleen¡¯s massive mental power reserves, he was only able to use the Eye of Lightning six times, even when used in the spell¡¯s lowest power level.


    The Eye of Lightning, at the lowest power level, could do little as an offensive tactic. Its greatest use was simply to halt his enemy¡¯s use of skills.


    The Vermillion Knight was able to tell where the strength of the skill was. The world¡¯s greatest powerid with the use of magic. That skill of Saleen¡¯s was almost capable of outright disregarding differences in levels and destroying his enemy¡¯s spells. If Saleen¡¯s level was to be raised even further in the future, hardly any spell could so much as even touched him.


    The Vermillion Knight, however, was unable to tell the Eye of Lightning¡¯s weakness. The spell was not one that could be controlled without powerful mental powers. Without good control, the Eye of Lightning would not be able to dispel enemy attacks urately.


    That was precisely why he did not dare use the skill when facing the angel of fear. He would have been rendered in aa if the skill failed, and that would have been the end of it.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to waste too much power, re. Have you seen anything like this before? I¡¯m a grade-8mage, but I¡¯m capable of easily destroy a grade-9 spell.¡±


    ¡°A grade-8 mage...destroying a grade-9 spell?¡± the Vermillion Knight looked at Saleen¡¯s magic phantasm. It was a grade-10 being. re was able to see that the phantasm was not a bluff.


    ¡°Are you willing to submit?¡± Saleen was feeling rather exasperated. The one standing in front of him was a meremon elemental creature instead of something like a fire element spirit. Despite that he had to keep persuading nheless.


    The Vermillion Knight took a look at the Eternal Control shard in his hand and asked, ¡°What is this?¡±


    ¡°An equipment to control souls. It would allow us tomunicate easier, and it is useful for the growth of your soul. No other human will be able to subdue you unless I die.¡±


    re, the Vermillion Knight pressed the shard into their own forehead. Their soul was a matured one, and that meant they feared death. They had taken a peek out of the hole at the window of the crystal tower. It was the work of an equipment of at least grade-16.


    A grade-14 equipment would not have been able to keep the energies controlled so well. The use of such an equipment would probably have copsed the entire crystal tower.


    Grade-15 equipment would have left a strong aura behind, allowing one to assess the kind of attack used to make one such hole. The Vermillion Knight was unable to detect anything. They were only able to tell that there were no powdered crystal remains on the hole. That meant that the spell vaporized a crystal with an extremely high melting point, and it did it cleanly and instantly.


    Such crystals were used as construction materials for military depots to defend against high temperature spells such as Fire Meteor.


    The Eternal Control shard absorbed the Vermillion Knight¡¯s soul gently. The rate of absorption that time was incredibly slow. Saleen had mastery over the shards he created. He did not make them suck maniacally, as doing so would have done some damage to the soul being absorbed. Saleen was beginning to suspect he was the one who made Gloria dumb.


    re did not resist. As an elemental creature, advancing on their own was difficult. Saleen¡¯s act of making them into an elemental badge meant that he intended for them to use their elemental properties to control the one-hundred and forty-four Vermillion Knights. They would hardly see battle personally. That would in turn, mean that they would be spending most of their time training.


    Humanity¡¯s lifespan might have been long, but they were nowhere near that of an elemental creature. Advancements of elemental creatures brought with them frightening increases in lifespan. They be free sooner andter. By then there would be no human capable of subduing them.


    Nailisi walked up to Saleen and said, ¡°Master, I think this fellow is still dreaming. I thought you would die soon yourself and there was no harm just following you around, but from the looks of things, your lifespan will only get longer and longer.¡±


    ¡°Are youining, Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I was just happy that the dumb fellow fell for your trick.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean fell for my trick? I will at least try to keep them alive with me. What I was after was the one-hundred and forty-four Vermillion Knights serving them, after all.¡±


    ¡°I was just thinking that since that thing has no love for you, they might feel they had their freedom robbed.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±, the winged skeleton stood up from the ground, and almost tripped.


    ¡°Oh, bones, cute bones. You have healed!¡± Nailisi pped smiling. No one would have been able to sense even a single bit of dissatisfaction from her expression.


    ¡°I have indeed healed, and so I needed to ask you: Why did you run separately from master? You stood in front of master and took the angel of fear¡¯s attack in his ce!¡±


    ¡°Oh...¡± Nailisi¡¯s eyes were wide open. She intended to answer that it was because she thought the angel of fear would have gone after her as she was being slow, but doing so would not have done Saleen any good. She was almost frightened to death herself, yet the angel of fear chased after Saleen, who had ran after her.


    ¡°I was wrong. I shall never separate from master again,¡± Nailisi yielded to Soldier¡¯s words, which was a very rare sight. The winged skeleton¡¯s words almost brought her to tears. She had made the wrong call back there. She had caused their predicament to take a turn for the worse. If the angel of fear had simply crushed Saleen without paying any heed to her, she would not have been able to save her master. It would have even been possible for her to turn her master into a spirit.


    ¡°Alright, Soldier, Nailisi didn¡¯t do that on purpose. We will save this forter. Tell me, how are your powers doing now?¡±


    ¡°Power levels are average. My bones are not as sturdy as before. I need to get used to it.¡±


    ¡°Not as sturdy as before?¡±, Saleen was baffled. The angel of fear was a grade-12 creature. The strength of her bones should have definitely not been poorer than the ones the winged skeleton had before.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be vulnerable to blunt impacts, not to sharp ones,¡± the winged skeleton answered concisely. He had no fear taking on des with his current bone structure, but being hit by blunt weapons might cause dislocation. His bones were, after all, forcefully connected with each other instead of being born as one whole set naturally.


    ¡°Your weapon?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s under repairs for the time being, master. If I happen to find suitable materials, I wish to craft a weapon for myself personally.¡±


    Nailisi wanted to say something, but the thought of the de of Fear, the long de she kept for herself inside her bracelet, had her swallowed her words. The de of Fear was something on par with her spear. Her spear was one with exceptionally high offensive capabilities. With that in her hand, she would be able to have a sure kill on any opponent of her level.


    Then again, it went without saying that the six eyes on the spear were exceptionally draining on mental powers. That was the very reason why Nailisi had crafted the blood soul towers. With an ample amount of souls collected, she would have no more issues wielding the spear at full power.


    ¡°Understood. If we are to enter the depths of the Imperial City of the Abyss again, you will have priority over any materials gathered,¡± Saleen said generously. He still felt that he owed the winged skeleton somewhat. Not just materials, he would have dly given the winged skeleton his elemental badges if he had so asked. If Soldier had the gall to ask for freedom, he would even have helped with that too.


    ¡°Master, re is here,¡± Nailisi was unable to do nothing about the winged skeleton being her master¡¯s current favorite. She was only able to cut their conversation off somehow.


    The Vermillion Knight walked up to him in the magic tower. They had all one-hundred and forty-four serving them. Saleen opened the teleportation portal and re held a vermillion badge in their hand. All one-hundred and forty-four elemental creatures flew right inside the badge. They then walked up to the portal and came before Saleen.


    re handed the vermillion badge to Saleen and said, ¡°Master, this is the fire elemental badge. There is only one left around here. I have killed all the other elemental creature leaders around these parts.¡±


    ¡°You are not going in yourself?¡±


    ¡°Not quite yet. I just thought that you would have something to ask me about the imperial city. What I know would definitely be more than any of the elemental creatures you found here,¡± re answered calmly as they put their me armor back into their body. They were then at the height of around two yards. The stead of them was nowhere to be found.


    ¡°This fellow is indeed more powerful than Gloria. Good thing I didn¡¯t just kill them off!¡±

 Chapter 895: Secrets of the Abyss (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 895: Secrets of the Abyss (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I do have something to ask you. Tell me, what is the passage of time like in the abyss?¡± Saleen asked solemnly. With re¡¯s soul now absorbed by the Eternal Control shard, Saleen would be able to tell clearly if re was lying.


    When elemental creatures followed humans there was no possibility of them lying, even those who have developed souls.


    ¡°The area of the abyss is huge, and only the passage of time inside the city differs from the outside. Master, I will not lie to you. The passage of time here in the city is ten times faster than the outside world¡¯s. Some ces even reach up to one-hundred times faster. The faster the passage of time in an area, the more dangerous things get within. You saw for yourself, the city was all but a wreck. In my memory, it seemed hundreds of thousands of years had passed.¡±


    Saleen only believed that the passage of time within the city was indeed more than ten times faster than outside it at that moment.


    ¡°Master, it is possible for you to collect all six major elemental badges, but...¡±


    ¡°What? Is there any danger to it?¡±


    ¡°The wind elemental badge will still be fine. The Tempest Dragon-might¡¯s powers are like mine. They are severely weakened under such an environment. The Angel of Brightness is currently dormant, and seem impossible to wake up, but the Midnight Fang...¡±


    ¡°What about the Midnight Fang?¡±


    ¡°The Midnight Fang is just too powerful here. It is something we can¡¯t take down even with thebined might of four elemental creatures.¡±


    ¡°Four elemental leaders can¡¯t take down one Midnight Fang?¡± Saleen swept around with his Elemental Eye and looked outside the tower. He calcted the ratio of the surrounding elements quickly with the Elemental Eye.


    Of the six major elements; light, fire, and windbined ounted for less than ten percent. Water and earth elements were incredibly abundant, but it was dark element that ounted for half of the element count.


    ¡°Dark element beings indeed reign superior in such a ce.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need you all to do anything else. re, tell me about the Imperial City of the Abyss you personally know of,¡± Saleen put the matter of collecting three remaining elemental creatures aside for that moment, as the number of elemental creatures at the wall was massive. If he had not been picky with the levels of those beings, collecting normal leaders would have been a breeze.


    Most elemental creature leaders were grade-9 creatures after all. Crushing them and crafting them into a badge would have proved adequate to subdue their respective underlings. Grade-9 leaders were able to control thirty-six underlings. When the underlings were destroyed, the leaders would also tak longer to restore them. All of those were weaknesses.


    Subjugation of grade-9 leaders would have been far easierpared to grade-10 ones. The reason why Saleen searched only for grade-10 leaders with souls developed, was because he already hadrge numbers of ancient warriors on his Ancient warship. Saleen had no need for more grade-9 elite troops.


    The ancient warriors were able to perform excellently on the battlefield without requiring personalmand from Saleen. Elemental creatures¡¯bat prowess would have suffered a drop somehow when not under themand of a leader or Saleen himself. They would then not be as powerful as the ancient warriors.


    Grade-10 elemental creature leaders restore their underlings faster. Their intelligence would also grow faster with a soul, making it possible for them tomand the elemental creatures serving under them in Saleen¡¯s ce. Saleen would also need not to worry about his mental powers reserve not being high enough. Beings without intelligence, regardless of how high their levels might get, could possibly be killed by intelligent beings who were of somewhat lower levels.


    The danger Saleen faced when dealing with Ismail was no less than the danger he faced when fighting the angel of fear. Ismail¡¯s level was obviously not as high as the elemental leaders, but Ismail possessed an intellect and had ample skills. That made him tens of times more dangerous than elemental creature leaders.


    ¡°Master, the imperial city is incredibly dangerous. Leaving some areas will be impossible after entering. The magic arrays there will have stayed intact for up to one-million years.¡±


    ¡°Up to one-million years?!¡±


    ¡°The abyss was not initially filled with seawater. The earth element here had always been up to one-hundred times greater than outside. All magic arrays were basically built using the earth element as foundations. The running of magic arrays here were connected to the earth itself, making them inexhaustible. Even magic arrays of lower levels would be able to run for hundreds of thousands of years. The lowest of the lowest would have at least a lifespan of tens of thousands of years.¡±


    ¡°Lifespan?¡± Saleen felt weird hearing the word used in such context.


    ¡°Indeed, master. It is possible for magic arrays to develop intellect and spirit, just like the weapon¡¯s spirit within equipment. Words like ¡®lifespan¡¯ fit just right for such magic arrays.¡±


    ¡°I ended up here pursuing a single-horned white whale. I know that there is a cemetery of theirs here, could you...¡±


    ¡°The cemetery is a very dangerous ce, master. Your current level is too low. I do not rmend going into the cemetery as you are now.¡±


    ¡°re, are there any humans left in the imperial city?¡±


    ¡°No. Since humans have disappeared for so long, things like the angel of fear, which should have been difficult to manifest, probably showed up in the cemetery. There are too many soul shards over there. There are even souls of powerful magic beasts. Single-horned white whales, Master, those are creatures that can advance to grade-18! Mess with them and we are all going to end up dead.¡±


    ¡°You are afraid of death too?¡± Saleen asked peculiarly. Even with a soul developed, elemental creatures should not have felt as strongly about death whenpared to other creatures. Their inherent nature had it that even if their souls were to disappear, they still stood a chance of being revived in the distant future.


    ¡°What I¡¯m saying is that you should not go looking for a meaningless death. Master, it is fine that you want to gather the six major elemental badges, but the cemetery...¡±


    ¡°I came with the intention of going into the cemetery in the first ce. The expedition this time would be near meaningless unless I get enough magic nuclei. re, I have too many enemies in the outside world.¡±


    ¡°Magic nuclei? Master, if you are only after magic nuclei below grade-12, we wouldn¡¯t need to enter the deeper reaches of the city. There should be piles within the cemetery at the outskirts,¡± re informed in a test-the-water manner. Seeing how Saleen was not of a very high level, they hoped that the man would be satisfied with grade-12 nuclei. Saleen came there as part of his training, so he had a very deep-seated desire for adventure in the deeper parts of the city.


    He confirmed to himself that the passage of time in the city was different from outside. Ten days spent in the city equaled one day outside. Some other ces had an even greater difference. Saleen could afford more time searching within the city.


    Having fought something like the angel of fear first hand, Saleen had no wish to face another enemy like that. Being brave and being stupid were two different matters after all. ¡°No problem with dealing with something like the angel of fear so long as the badge is with me, but what happens if yet another shows up right after? Do I still have enough luck to get away clean like I just did?¡±


    ¡°re, I need to craft something. Tell me how to get the magic nuclei, and some secrets regarding the Imperial City of the Abyss. I don¡¯t even have any idea who built this ce, or how much history this ce has. No worries though, I have enough mental powers to allow me to talk while doing alchemy.¡±


    ¡°Master, it is best that you just leave for now. I know where the Tempest Dragon-might and the Angel of Brightness are. We will get the badges once we get there,¡± re was a very proactive elemental creature. He was one capable of even giving Saleen ideas. That made Saleen feel even more d that he did not simply choose to wipe their soul before subduing them.


    Saleen yed it smart and listened as he slowly put away the divine tree magic tower. re took the form of a twenty yard tall Vermillion Knight and did not bother summoning their underlings. They lead the way forward alone and helped Saleen find the two elemental creature leaders with souls of their own.


    He did not make a move himself when subduing the Tempest Dragon-might, and simply had Vinny and Gloria go to talk with it. The leader agreed to follow Saleen shortly. As the leader did not have a name, Saleen named them Azure. As for the Angel of Brightness, the being simply remained in the form of an elemental badge, with all one-hundred and forty-four of their underlings inside the badge, and never awakened. The light element around there was horribly thin. The Angel of Brightness had a hard time surviving therepared to other types of elemental creatures.


    The Angel of Brightness did not awaken even after being subdued. The loss of light element of the being was so horrendous that if there was no one to subdue them and take them away, the Angel of Brightness might have been lost forever.


    ¡°Master, only the Midnight Fang is left now. Three-thousand miles forward and we will see the gathering ce of dark elemental creatures. I know for sure that one of the leaders of the Midnight Fang is smarter than I am. If you have no surety of doing this, it is best that we just take a detour...¡±


    ¡°No, re. We will stop here for a few days. I need to craft more Eternal Control shards.¡±


    Saleen had already crafted five of those shards before. The battle with the angel of fear however, had him use one of them. Saleen had also wasted one broken jade when he first subdued the elemental stone statue soldiers. Unless Vinny ended up dead, the broken jade would have stay with him.


    The power provided by the broken jade was far greater than the shards that Saleen crafted himself. It would be able to protect the soul of Vinny better. Unless he happened on a grade-10 human professional, there was next to no chance of Vinny dying.


    As such, Saleen had little regrets using him. He had been on guard against the three pieces of broken jade. While the Winged Skull had checked them out and verified them to be fine, Saleen remained vignt. He attempted to find something hidden about the broken jade pieces.


    Saleen crafted another six Eternal Control shards. Crafting one and crafting six took the same amount of time. Saleen¡¯s water me coincidentally allowed him to craft six at one time. That was also the limit of his mental power capacity.


    That was the first time Saleen went about selecting the right material for crafting said shards, all six pieces of Eternal Control shards were made from different material.


    The whale horns of the single-horned white whales were used as basic material. Saleen had intended to use them for crafting weapons, but there was hardly anything as sturdy and as malleable on his person.


    For additional material, Saleen selected three pieces of chlorite and three pieces of tourmaline. Saleen had no choice but to use ck crystals that time. Chlorite was more precious and had more room for divinity and life force. Tourmaline allowed storage of electricity.


    re did not return to the badge while Saleen was crafting the shards. They instead tried to interact with Nailisi and the winged skeleton. Nailisi was uncharacteristically friendly, borating to them all of Saleen¡¯s powers, which included matters pertaining the Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater prefecture.


    re¡¯s mind was at ease. While Saleen¡¯s actual powers were nothing to shout about, he still had an impressive backing of sorts. As the insanely powerful humans had all disappeared from the face of the maind, the master they had chosen to follow seemed to have a good measure of hope of bing emperor.


    ¡°We will conquer the entire maind, enhance everyone¡¯s powers, and then take the fight to the gods! Yes, sounds like a doable goal indeed.¡±


    There were still a lot of secrets left in the imperial city regarding how to enhance the power of humans. Some of the secrets would have proved mind-bending to contemporary humans.


    re made their decision to take Saleen as deep into the city as possible, getting him all that would be required for advancement. The grade-8 sorcerer had massive room to grow. Their master would be more powerful than they were in no time!

 Chapter 896: Midnight Fang (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 896: Midnight Fang (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s six shards of Eternal Control had beenpletely refined. Saleen was gaining a deeper understanding and awareness towards such things. Not only was Eternal Control manipted by mental strength, it was also connected to the soul. The rule of Eternal Control was very powerful, but if his soul was weak, he would not be able to control many lives.


    His mental strength would determine how many creatures he couldmand in battle at one go while his soul would determine how many souls he could control in total.


    Saleen was unable to determine how strong his soul was but based on what Jason had hinted to him, his determination, mental strength, and spirit would all determined how strong his soul was.


    Saleen knew that his spirit was not strong because through his adventure, he realized that in his body, there was a part of him that was still weak and would be in considerable pain once triggered slightly.


    That part of him was his past. His childhood.


    After his sh with the Angel of Fear, Saleen discovered that loophole in his spirit. Fortunately, he was able to ovee the Angel of Fear¡¯s attack, which decreased his fear towards his childhood¡¯s memory. Such a loophole in the spirit could be trained.


    ¡°re, take us to the Midnight Fang.¡± Saleen put away his shards of Eternal Control and some weapons that he had also refined. Then, he distributed those weapons to the ancient warriors.


    The longnces wielded by the 24 ancient warriors were all refined from the whale horns of single-horned white whales. They would be hard to break even in the midst of battles. The longnces made from the whale horns could definitely handle the massive strength of even grade-9 opponents.


    Saleen could tell that the souls of the ancient warriors had already be stronger after being nurtured by the shards of Eternal Control. Even the level of intelligence of the ancient warriors had increased slightly and they were no longer like the shrunken version of elemental creatures. Not only were the shards of Eternal Control capable of controlling souls, they could also repair and protect them.


    Over the past few days, re has also sensed that his soul was being protected by that mysterious shard, and as a result, he dared to unleash certain techniques that he would have been hesitant to use in the past.


    As he led Saleen towards the corner of the Imperial City, re exined why he decided to pledge his loyalty to Saleen.


    ¡°Master, as elemental creatures, there is no way we can leave Imperial City of Abyss, unless we are led out by a Master, otherwise we will stay here forever until we die. Elemental creatures are different from humans. To us, the passing of time is... if time passed too quickly, our elemental core would be mature very quickly and if so, we would be able to live longer. Here, it is difficult for elemental creatures to evolve. Basically, our grades remain unchanged from birth to death.¡±


    ¡°I see!¡±


    ¡°This is why most elemental creatures are willing to leave this ce with their Masters. There is only an endless wait here, waiting for the return of the humans from the very beginning. Except for the Midnight Fangs!¡±


    ¡°Why are the Midnight Fangs unwilling to leave?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°This is a world of dark-element creatures. If it left, where can it find an even better environment?¡± re asked in response.


    ¡°Hehe, it¡¯s meaningless to be stuck here forever.¡±


    ¡°The Imperial City of Abyss is asrge as a kingdom and there are more than enough dark-element creatures roaming around. The Midnight Fangs rules over them. If not for the fact that they don¡¯t have many desires, they would have reced the creatures of the other five types of elements and controlled the exterior of the Imperial City.¡±


    ¡°Desires? re, do you desire anything?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes. I hope to obtain a fire-element elf so that I can advance beyond grade-12.¡±


    ¡°Haha, what grade is a fire-element elf?¡± Saleenughed. He recalled that there was once a time when the Sregl Ind mages wanted to capture a fire-element elf, they had to activate all the sorcerers they had and the grand magic arrays that they have been preparing for the previous tens of thousands of years. The fire-element elf was weakened by hundreds of times before finally being barely captured. It was close to impossible for re to devour a fire-element elf.


    ¡°At least grade-12, and that¡¯s why I want it.¡± There was a clear desire in re¡¯s purple eyes.


    ¡°Is it just up ahead?¡± Saleen pointed to a towering military depot that was a distance away. It was a tower that was built with ck crystals. The ancient humans were extremely extravagant, so no matter how low the quality of these ck crystals might be, a huge tower like this was still going to be priceless.


    ¡°It¡¯s over there. There are plenty of dark-element creatures and all the subordinates are gathered at the ground floor. In order to defeat their leader, we will have to face 144 grade-9 Midnight Fangs.¡±


    ¡°Very well.¡± Saleen summoned all the elemental stone statue soldiers and blue ice maidens. Under Saleen¡¯smand, a total of more than 200 grade-9 elemental creatures surrounded the ck crystal tower. Both water-element and ground-element creatures would receive boosts in power in the Imperial City of Abyss, so it would not be so easy for the Midnight Fangs to kill them.


    re did not understand what was happening. Saleen took out the divine tree magic tower and set it up facing the main door of the ck crystal tower before leading Nailisi and the rest into the magic tower.


    ¡°We can let Soldier recover his strength here first. I don¡¯t believe that the leader of the Midnight Fangs is willing to put up with all this and continue hiding in there.¡± Saleen had only just finished his sentence when the main gate of the ck crystal tower opened and a two yard tall elemental creature walked out.


    ¡°Master, that is the Midnight Fang,¡± re introduced.


    Saleen looked carefully and realized that Midnight Fang was also in human-form. It was wearing a soft armor made of dark elements and was covered with magic patterns that Saleen had never seen before. There was a gentle-looking mask over the leader¡¯s face. Very few elemental creatures possessed equipment like a mask.


    ¡°You are a human?¡± Both of the Midnight Fang¡¯s hands were wrapped in gloves. Simrly, the gloves and masks were made of dark elements. An elemental creature like that, who was able to create equipment made up of elements, must possess a soul.


    ¡°You are Midnight Fang?¡± Saleen¡¯s voice rang out from the divine tree magic tower, not answering the leader¡¯s question.


    ¡°Humph, why are you using equipment of the Gods?¡±


    ¡°How does that concern you?¡± Saleen replied.


    The leader of the Midnight Fangs remained calm. He looked at the 200 grade-9 elemental creatures that surrounded the ck crystal tower and said, ¡°For someone like you toe all the way here, your goal must be to subdue me. Although I am unwilling, it is not impossible either. If you are ackey of the Gods, then please scram. I may not be able to defeat you, but I can definitely escape from you. If you cannot defeat me, then be prepared to stay here forever.¡±


    ¡°The Gods? There have been no Gods on the Myers Maind for a very long time. You have been trapped here for so long that you are not aware of anything.¡±


    The leader of the Midnight Fangs nodded and said, ¡°My name is Jinn. May I have your name?¡±


    ¡°Saleen. Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, please take a look at my skills.¡± With that, Jinn waved his hands and the ck crystal tower suddenly disintegrated into more than 120 grade-9 Midnight Fangs that were more than 20 yards tall. The Midnight Fangs were wielding a half-sword made of dark elements.


    The half-swords were curved like a live serpent. When the Midnight Fangs stabbed the elemental stone statue soldiers and the blue ice maidens with the weapons, their elemental cores were all crushed.


    All of them were grade-9 creatures of the Imperial City of Abyss, yet the difference in power was so huge! The elemental creatures that had been defeated turned into elemental shards that flew back to the divine tree magic tower. With only slightly more than 100 elemental creatures remaining, the Midnight Fangs stopped attacking. Saleen¡¯s elemental eye was able to figure out why. He could see that the elements that made up the Midnight Fangs¡¯ half-swords were already extremely thin and were close to falling apart.


    He would not have been able to figure that out without his elemental eyes.


    He was also able to analyze their attacks very clearly. He realized that the Midnight Fangs used up about 30 frames of time to attack Saleen¡¯s stone statue soldiers and blue ice maidens. Such speed was still slightly slowerpared to magic attacks. Saleen could easily control the stone statue soldiers and blue ice maidens so that they could avoid the attacks. By doing so, he would be exposing the limit of his mental strength.


    If it were the ancient warriors, they would definitely be able to dodge on their own and avoid being struck by the Midnight Fangs. On the other hand, the stone statue soldiers and blue ice maidens were over-confident in their defenses and were also not used to dodging. They were used to facing their enemies head-on. Such a tactic might still be effective against humans, but against the Midnight Fangs and their serpent-shaped half-sword, the Midnight fangs were able to pierce through their elemental cores easily.


    Once the elemental cores had been shattered, the elemental creatures would have to return to the elemental badges to recuperate. As long as their leaders was still alive, they would never die.


    The Midnight Fangs¡¯ ability to move around in the darkness was what made them difficult to guard against, as if they were high-level assassins. When Midnight Fangs were in the shadows, only techniques like elemental eyes would be able to see them.


    Saleen quickly analyzed the Midnight Fangs¡¯ abilities and immediately established Sensory Sharing with Nailisi and the winged skeleton. Darkness was not an obstacle to Nailisi and the winged skeleton, but if they wished to capture the movements of dark-element creatures in the darkness, they would have to possess a technique like elemental eyes.


    ¡°Jinn, your subordinates are no longer able to carry out a second wave of attacks. Is there anything else you wish to show me?¡± Saleen did not order the remaining elemental creatures to counter-attack. He could control a maximum of 36 elemental creatures. He did not need all of the remaining 114 elemental creatures to stay behind.


    Jinn did not expect Saleen to be able to see through his subordinates¡¯ secrets. The first attack of dark-element creatures was usually powerful, but after that, they would find it hard to continue battling, unless their enemies were creatures that were grade-8 and below. In that case, the Midnight Fangs could still make use of their grades to suppress their enemies.


    The weapons wielded by the Midnight Fangs were called Fangs. When attacked with full force, 90 percent of the Midnight Fangs¡¯ powers would be used up. Elemental creatures aside, assassins were the only group of humans that were able to unleash about 80 percent of their powers in one go.


    ¡°Mr. Saleen, you are correct, my subordinates do not have much power left. As for me...¡± With that, a half-sword appeared in Jinn¡¯s hands. The half-sword was not made up of dark elements. The sword de was misty blue in color and both sides of the narrow body of the sword were carved with 24 ancient symbols.

 Chapter 897: Midnight Fang (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 897: Midnight Fang (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I got this weapon from a Duke¡¯s castle. I only found it after wandering for 150,000 years. It was because of this weapon that I managed to be the leader of the Midnight Fangs and possess my own soul. Saleen, my attacks will not be subjected to any limitations of energy and even if we are not in the Imperial City of Abyss, I will still be able to unleash power like this. Please...¡±


    With that, Jinn¡¯s body turned into ck smoke and he floated in the waters, slowly spreading out into a mass of ck fog. The half-sword he wielded had also vanished.


    Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes lost sight of the half-sword as well but they were still locked on the leader of the Midnight Fangs. By right, they were two grades apart, so Saleen should not have been able to see through Jinn¡¯s ability to conceal. It was due to Saleen¡¯s grade-9 elemental eyes that he could just barely see amidst the ck fog that Jinn had not disintegrated. Instead, Jinn hade to the 17th level of the divine tree magic tower, with the half-sword in his hands. He was constantly adjusting the angle of the half-sword.


    Saleen could see that each time Jinn adjusted the half-sword¡¯s angle, he pointed at the points of weakness of the magic tower. Nevertheless, Jinn did notunch any attacks. It was as if he knew that even if he found the weaknesses, there was nothing much he could do about it.


    Compared to the Angel of Fear, the speed at which Jinn was able to discover the magic tower¡¯s weaknesses was frighteningly fast. At that rate, Jinn would be able to find the biggest weakness of the magic tower in less than a day. Such a level of intelligence was definitely much higher than the Angel of Fear¡¯s.


    Saleen was not going to allow Jinn to carry on what he was doing. He unleashed the grade-9 Icy Light Spear spell.


    Saleen cast the spell using a magic staff. When the Icy Light Spear was cast from the magic tower, it also pierced directly into Jinn because of how close the he was.


    Jinn was scared out of his wits. He twisted his body and barely managed to dodge the ice spear. The spear stopped in mid-air and exploded into a bright light instantaneously. It was a spell that was abination of water and light elements, which was very effective against dark-element creatures.


    If this ice spear had induced a light-element attack in Jinn¡¯s body, he would be badly injured, even if he was one grade higher than the grade of the attack. Nevertheless, Jinn¡¯sbat abilities had been honed from many fights and battles against other high-level elemental creatures in the past, hence he was able to react quickly and dodge the attack. As his body was made up of elements, he was able to twist his body at an impossible angle in order to dodge the ice spear.


    The ice spear disintegrated and exploded in a powerful light-element attack. Ayer of the armor that Jinn was wearing immediately melted way. The rest of the Midnight Fangs that were standing far away quickly raised their half-swords and blocked the front. The Icy Light Spear was boosted by the divine tree magic tower and its second wave of attack turned into a group attack. As the light elements shot down, the half-swords wielded by the 144 Midnight Fangs disintegrated cleanly.


    More than 100 grade-9 creatures lost their weapons and armors from the grade-9 magic attack. All the Midnight Fangs hurriedly retreated back into the ck crystal tower.


    In order to create a dramatic effect, Jinn had made all his subordinates waste 90 percent of their powers in order to kill 144 of Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures. Even his own defense was decreased to the lowest point. It was precisely because of all those factors that Saleen decided to attack the Midnight Fangs with Icy Light Spear so that he could teach them a lesson.


    There was a warm glow of light in re¡¯s purple eyes. He began to develop admiration after seeing how Saleen counter-attacked. A single grade-9 spell was able to leave a grade-10 elemental creature hapless and injure more than 100 powerful subordinates. The Midnight Fangs were so badly injured that they had to retreat back into the ck crystal tower.


    Jinn was inbat mode, so he was not going to be distracted by healing his subordinates. The Midnight Fangs had no choice but to self-heal. The speed at which they could self-heal was the same as ordinary grade-9 elemental creatures so they would not be able to return to the battlefield anytime soon.


    Clear judgement, urate use of techniques, and strong grasp of opportunities had all allowed a grade-8 mage to make full use of the magic tower¡¯s power to defeat a grade-10 elemental creature leader. re was very satisfied. If Saleen advanced again, he would be a legitimate Master and would be qualified to lead the elemental creatures into battle.


    As a fire-element creature, re lovedbat, but as his powers were suppressed in the Imperial City of Abyss, he had no chance of winning against dark-element creatures. That was why he immediately led his subordinates to investigate the moment he discovered the presence of a human. Then, he chose to submit to Saleen once he realized that thetter was powerful enough to kill the former. This was his n all along. He did not care what kind of person Saleen was as long as re was able to leave that damned and quiet city to see the light again and feel the power of fire elements everywhere.


    In order to help Saleen be more powerful and not die so easily, re even took the initiative to help Saleen look for the other elemental badges. The number of elemental creatures that had developed souls in such an environment was few and far between, especially creatures of light and wind elements. The leaders of the elemental creatures of those two elements might be in deep sleep, but once they found a suitable environment, they would be able to restore very quickly.


    The leader of the Midnight Fans was the only troublesome one. re knew that that leader was more powerful than all the other leadersbined. Not only did Jinn possess intelligence, he also possessed a powerful weapon. His attacks were so powerful that some of the elemental creatures that had possessed souls were also killed by him. re did not think that Saleen would win, but neither did he think he would lose, since thetter possessed the divine tree magic tower.


    Instead, it turned out that Saleen only needed to use a grade nine spell to put Jinn in such a hapless state.


    Jinn waved his half-sword and all the darkness elements gathered to repair his armor. The ck fog that surrounded him ballooned into such a huge mass that it was able to cover the entire divine tree magic tower.


    The dark elements began to attack every level of the magic tower. By doing so, Jinn had sped up the rate at which he could determine the magic tower¡¯s weaknesses by 100 times.


    Jinn began to spin around the divine tree magic tower. His movements were unpredictable, and his speed was astounding. Saleen had never seen any creature that was able to fly with such incredible agility and speed.


    As a grade-8 mage with the help of the magic tower, Saleen had no problem locking on to grade-9 professionals or creatures. Against a grad-10 professional moving with such agility, Saleen was helpless. After all, the divine tree magic tower had to be refinedpletely. re looked at Saleen and wondered how his Master would solve that problem.


    Saleen was troubled as well. Although he was unable to lock on to Jinn, he was able to predict his movements so if necessary, he would still be able to shoot down this arrogant fellow with his badge. On the other hand, crystal finger would not suffice because its duration was a frame of time and it would only hit the enemy after locking on to him.


    ¡°Master, let me go.¡± Nailisi twitched the longnce in her hands. She already found Jinn very annoying. If possible, she would eat his soul and Master could find another one. In any case, there were so many dark-element creatures there. It would not be difficult finding a second one that possessed a soul.


    The most powerful spell that Saleen could cast was definitely Endless Night, but since it was a dark-element spell, it would help the Midnight Fang instead of trapping him.


    Although light-element spells might not cause serious damage to Jinn, Saleen had no choice but to unleash the spell stored in his magic staff in such an environment. Unleashing such a spell would not produce much resonance of elements, so it would be impossible to extract elements from such an environment to boost the power of the spell. A spell like that could only sustain for a short while and the damage it could cause was also the lowest of the grade.


    Saleen had less than three of such light-element spells in his magic staff. There was no way he could subdue Jinn with those three spells.


    Saleen raised his shriveled left hand and stretched it in front of him. His mind never stopped thinking.


    Both inside and outside of the magic tower, mage and elemental creatures were both trying to figure out the weakness of their opponents.


    When Nailisi saw no reaction from Saleen, she was furious and leveled her longnce and faked a jab at Jinn. Saleen could not be bothered with her. re was taken aback by what he saw. The fake jab from Nailisi actuallynded urately on one of the points of Jinn¡¯s movements.


    In other words, Nailisi had managed to lock on to Jinn.


    re only managed to confirm that Nailisi could have hit Jinn after Jinn had passed by. Based on re¡¯s own estimation, he would not have been able to predict Jinn¡¯s movements.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t you let Nailisi give it a try?¡± re asked. It was just an experiment anyway. There was no harm if Nailisi died and there was a possibility of subduing Jinn too. Jinn would never surrender if Saleen failed in his attack.


    ¡°Nailisi can only hurt him but conversely, she can be killed by him. re, don¡¯t bring up something like that next time.¡±


    Although Nailisi felt a little rebellious, she was admittedly terrified of the half-sword that Jinn wielded. Jinn was powerful in his own right, but he also possessed a magic weapon that Nailisi could notprehend. There were 24 symbols on both sides of this half-sword and each symbol looked like powerful souls surfacing on the body of the sword.


    Nailisi¡¯s longnce might be able to injure Jinn badly, or even crush his elemental core, but the moment that half-sword touched her, she was as good as dead.


    ¡°Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°Yes, master?¡±


    ¡°Do what you did just now and fake a jab at him!¡± Saleen had also discovered what Nailisi did. While he was troubled over not being able to lock on to Jinn, Nailisi was able to pinpoint him effortlessly.


    Nailisi did not fully understand what was going on but since there was nothing much she could do, she used her longnce to jab at a few points. All of themnded urately on the points in which Jinn had stopped.


    Saleenughed out loud and said, ¡°Nailisi, I have an idea!¡±

 Chapter 898: Sword of Rules (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 898: Sword of Rules (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt his thought processes and speed of calction had achieved great breakthroughs. The more difficult parts of Figaro¡¯s magic form seemed to have opened up entirely to him at that very moment.


    He did only one thing, which was to have Nailisi¡¯s sensespletely meld with his.


    Nailisi had not known that she had been under the influence of the spear. Ever since she had gotten the weapon crafted from the spike of the silverline golden spearfish that had six fish eyes on it, it had passed some of the abilities of the fish to her. Thest time she actually used the skill cemented the connection between her own body with the skill itself.


    Nailisi¡¯s ability to lock onto enemies grew by tens of times even without using the spear.


    That was Saleen¡¯s first time having his own senses forcefully meld with Nailisi¡¯s. He found right away that suchmunication allowed him to learn a lot. The way demons sensed things was veryplex, and one of them allowed them to pick up sounds that human ears were unable to pick up. Demons were capable of picking up all frequencies of sound, and they detected sounds using the horns on their heads instead of their ears.


    Saleen did not have horns, but he was able to sense everything Nailisi was able to sense nheless. The ability Nailisi had gotten from the six eyes of the silverline golden spearfish was also passed onto Saleen. He, however, fused the ability into Figaro¡¯s magic form instead of turning it into his own instinct.


    Innumerableplex calctions were simplified using this ability, and it was as if Saleen himself had forcibly added some lines into the form. He might not even understand the core of the form, but he mastered it nheless. It was thanks to the ability bestowed by the fish eyes.


    Saleen had long thought that Figaro¡¯s magic form would cease being of any use once the user surpassed grade-9. He had only realized at that moment that he had the ability to expand the form. Doing so would allow Figaro¡¯s magic form to continue working as a formidable tool even when he reached grade-18. He no longer felt Jinn¡¯s silhouette right outside the magic tower to be a mystery. The swirling shadows flowing in the dark simply became magic signs in Saleen¡¯s mind.


    Ny-nine percent of mages used Figaro¡¯s magic form for analyzing magic and researching new spells. Only one percent of people were able to put the form to use in battle.


    There were twenty-two inner cores in the form. These inner cores looked meaningless at first nce, yet they were critical supplementary parts to the form. A twenty-third inner core was added to Saleen¡¯s own Figaro¡¯s magic form, which was the fish eye. The fish eye¡¯s effect proved more important than all twenty-two inner coresbined. The advent of the fish eyespressed most calction processes, and allowed Saleen¡¯s possibility of using the form in battle to be enhanced to grade-10.


    Everything about Jinn wasid bare before Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen swore to himself that he would catch another silverline golden spearfish and learn all that was to learn about the fish¡¯s eyes. Being able to do so would allow him to have an overwhelming edge against mages of the same level when he advanced to grade-9.


    ¡°Hah!¡± a booming sound rang outside the magic tower. Jinn finally thrust their sword. Their short sword hit the surface of the magic tower very urately on the very spot where the joint between the four divine trees was. The joint was not something that could be seen with the naked eye. Even magical detection proved very difficult to locate the spot because the joint itself changed from one moment to another.


    The core of the Sky City forcefully merged the four divine trees into one single unit, and there would always be four cracks between them. The cracks were one of the weaknesses of the divine tree magic tower, and Jinn¡¯s short sword struck right at the moment when the crack changed.


    The instance was not something that could be repeated in the same day, and it would not be in the same spot or frequency. Jinn, however, was able to derive such a location from their calctions. It was a testament to Jinn¡¯s formidablebat prowess. The thrust did not even allow Jinn to control the wake created. Seawater exploded at the tip of the sword. Two streaks of golden de-light shed in the darkness outside of the tower.


    The lights were naturally unleashed by the de, dividing the seawater. The seawater was cut into twoyers by the t side of the de. The immense underwater pressure was able to do nothing to stop the cutting of the sword¡¯s sh. The phenomenon had seemingly lifted hundreds of billions of jin of seawater, and then thumped all that water down heavily. After delivering the thrust, Jinn turned into darkness and was nowhere to be found again.


    The copse of the seawater created a silent sound wave, and the shock of it wrecked everything within a ten of mile radius. The guardian statues standing on the faraway streets were rendered to dust. Even Jinn¡¯s own ck crystal tower was not spared of the effects. The frequency of that one strike melded the divine tree magic tower perfectly. The being found the tower¡¯s weakness, and the sheer amount of power put behind the attack was way beyond expectation.


    What Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to see was rules. There were twenty-four rules on Jinn¡¯s short sword. The powerful attack that took ce was caused by those twenty-four rules. These rules were not something Jinn was able to control. The attack made a crack on the tower. In that split second, where not even seawater was able to even made it inside yet, a sh of the sword went straight for the spot Saleen was standing.


    One sh of the sword, twenty-four rules, and even in prototype stages... the resulting damage potential was far beyond what a grade-8 sorcerer like Saleen was able defend against. Jinn did not have mastery over the rules, or the rules would have been divided into twenty-four streaks of light, and Saleen would have ended up dead right there and then.


    The sh was sharp and vicious, yet Saleen had only widened his eyes abruptly. Three-hundred and sixty golden runes flew in response, and thundering noises were heard throughout the seventeen floors of the magic tower. The sh crashed into a streak of lightning Saleen had just unleashed, and the attack was dispelled.


    Saleen came prepared that time. His mastery of the rules of lightning matured considerablypared to when hest used it. The powerful attack had only drained one-sixth of his mental powers.


    The short sword in the hand of Jinn, who had retreated into the darkness, let out a clear twang, as if it was fearing something. The twenty-four runes on its surface twisted and receded into the de, unwilling to show.


    ¡°That Saleen had mastered rules of an even higher level!¡±


    Jinn was thoroughly shocked. They determined their opponent¡¯s level clearly. When the sh made it into the tower, they had been sure that Saleen would end up dead. No magic shield would have been able to withstand such an attack. The sh of the sword infused with twenty-four rules was something that could have only been fended off by a mage mastering the rules.


    The key was mastery, not understanding the rules. The feat was something that could have been aplished at grade-12.


    Mages below grade-12 were only able to have understanding of part of the rules. It was utterly impossible for them to manipte rules for their own use. It was impossible for Jinn to unleash the same attack they just pulled. With their most powerful trump being dispelled, Jinn was at wit¡¯s end. They knew of no other ways to tear down the divine tree magic tower¡¯s defenses.


    Saleen had a feeling he had everything under control all of a sudden. As the enemy was unable to escape his targeting, he had no need to rely on his family badge. The Crystal Finger would suffice. He took a look at his own shriveled left hand. He determined that it had enough in it to attack one more time with the Crystal Finger and that would be enough to make a hole in Jinn¡¯s brain.


    Boom!


    The buildings wrecked by the shockwaves resulting from the sh of the sword had only copsed right then. The sea, within a ten mile radius, was rendered very murky.


    ¡°Jinn, surrender now!¡± Saleen shouted with all his might. All the power of thundering voice was put in that one line he uttered. Jinn felt a tremble surging from the depths of their soul, holding themselves back just enough from the urge to worship the magic tower.


    ¡°What else can you do to me?¡± Jinn¡¯s body hid in the dark. Saleen shot an icicle without paying any mind. The icicle shot right through Jinn¡¯s body and lodged into the ground.


    ¡°I know well that such an icicle won¡¯t be able to harm you, but I have at least two other ways of killing you. I just don¡¯t feel like wasting them. Jinn, I¡¯m done with being patient with you,¡± Saleen¡¯s voice felt cold and adamant.


    ¡°I...¡±


    Doom!


    Saleen simply began beating the War Drum of Fear. The sound of which was amplified by the magic tower, and covered the area within ten miles from the tower. Jinn felt their soul shake alongside the beat, and began to fear the man himself.


    ¡°What else can I do to you, you ask?¡±


    Doom, doom, doom!


    Saleen beat at the War Drum of Fear slowly and said, ¡°If I can kill the angel of fear, I can kill you all the same. How else do you think I was able to collect all the other five elemental badges? By talking alone?¡±


    ¡°I am an elemental creature and I do not fear death!¡± Jinn was literally terrified. They were merely putting on airs.


    ¡°I just don¡¯t want that sword in your hand destroyed, Jinn. There is no guarantee that the sword will stay intact when I kill you. I wouldn¡¯t have bothered talking so much to you otherwise. If you are not going to surrender, I will kill you. I would not dare leave the magic tower otherwise. I have no defense against your skills outside the tower.¡±


    ¡°You are saying that you will make a move against me then?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Your attacks are just too powerful. Without the tower, I would have had to exchange one life for another. You are an elemental creature, and I¡¯m a human, so don¡¯t bother daydreaming. We will never reach apromise of any kind.¡±


    Jinn was rendered silent. The icicle Saleen shot hit right where they hid. They knew already that their stealth techniques werepletely useless against him. It did not matter how fast they moved. Spells would definitely hit them.


    The speed of most magic spells were not something evadable by most creatures, especially that of light magic, which one would not be able to take head on.


    With even the Vermillion Knight subdued, there was no doubt that the human was nowhere near slow. At the very least, Rainbow was ineffective against him.


    re only knew right there and then that the skill Saleen showed earlier was an iplete one. ¡°What have I just witnessed? Did Saleen¡¯s eyes just shoot lightning bolts!? The skill might have yet to reach maturity, but what does that mean?¡±


    When Saleen advanced to a certain level, the range of the lightning bolt would be terrifying. They had yet to hear about any equipment capable of defending against lightning. The thundering voice also actually proved to have sound waves far more powerful than that of the War Drum of Fear. Provision of electricity was also one capable of disregarding levels.


    Forced paralysis, pain, and high temperatures were all traits of effects of electrical attacks. Lightning attacks also proved even more lethal against elemental creatures, as lightning was something capable of disintegrating elements and breaking them down to even smaller particle units. Elemental creatures killed by lightning would never be able to rise again, and souls developed would also be destroyed for good.


    ¡°Saleen, I will not surrender. I¡¯m going to see for myself just how are you going to kill me!¡± Jinn said as they took out the elemental badge and had all their underlings absorbed. The being then turned around and fled.

 Chapter 899: Sword of Rules (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 899: Sword of Rules (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Doom!


    Saleen beat at the drum hard again, halting Jinn in their steps.


    ¡°Get back here, or I will wipe you out for good,¡± Saleen¡¯s voice turned calm. He took out his family badge, and was no longer thinking up anymore tricks in his mind.


    The training of one¡¯s will was more than just to learn how to properly face a life-and-death ordeal. At times knowing how to let go was also one of the most critical and rare qualities to be found. Saleen would have gained nothing by killing Jinn with the badge. Doing so would have even wasted the badge¡¯s attack, and there would not likely be yet another grade-12 angel of fear lying around for him to recharge the badge.


    He would not be able to be at ease without killing Jinn though. As he put it himself, leaving the Divine Tree Magic Tower would have given Jinn a chance to deal a lethal blow to him. Despite the fact retaliation from him would be able to take Jinn¡¯s life as well, doing so would be utterly meaningless by then to Saleen.


    If he desired Jinn¡¯s powers so much that he was unwilling to kill Jinn no matter what happened, that would be very foolish of him. Seeing how Jinn was about to turn around and run, he made up his mind right there and then.


    He would kill Jinn and be rid of this menace for good.


    Jinn turned around sharply. They were able to sense Saleen¡¯s mind. The ability was an instinct inherent in grade-10 creatures, but it was also due to Saleen having no intentions of hiding his murderous intent.


    ¡°Can this human mage really justpletely wipe me out?¡± Jinn was still having doubts. Regardless of the human¡¯s understanding of powerful rules of whatever sort, he was still just a grade-8 mage. They deemed it almost impossible for the human to kill them still. Then again, Saleen¡¯s adamant will did not seem to have a single bit of deceit in it.


    ¡°If you can...¡±


    The tower wall right in front of Saleen parted all of a sudden and a thick bolt of lightning shot right through it, before Jinn was able to finish their sentence. The thundering sound from the badge was even more terrifying. It could be heard even from hundreds of miles away.


    Nailisi and the winged skeleton both had soul bonds with Saleen, while the ancient warriors were not in any of the seventeen floors. re, however, was not able to withstand a thundering sound of such magnitude. The mes of their body exploded outwards and tens of cracks were seen on their body. Saleen wasted no time calling them back into the elemental badge in his hand.


    re was left shaken to the core inside the elemental badge. It was fortunate for them that the Eternal Control shard kept their soul in one piece. The massive boom that took ce would have severely wounded their soul otherwise.


    Saleen had locked down onto Jinn. Given that both parties were near each other the bolt of electricity hit squarely onto their body, yet avoided the short sword. three-fourths of Jinn¡¯s body dissipated in an instant. A crater appeared on the ground right behind where they stood. While the crater did not look as impressive as the ones created from the impacts of aria spells, and was not as powerful as the phenomenon of Jinn¡¯s sword parting seawater, the crystallization within the crater still served as a testament of the attack¡¯s power nheless.


    All that was left of Jinn were two of their lower legs, and the forearm holding the short sword. Nailisi went right outside the magic tower without Saleen¡¯s prompting, taking her devil form and flying straight for the short sword. There were still other dark elemental creatures lurking around prior, but all were rendered unconscious by the badge¡¯s thundering sound. Nailisi made off with the short sword without any problems, and threw the arm and the legs into her collection of purgatories.


    Saleen was still sharing senses with her, and was able to see her brandishing a huge spear. The spear was the one she originally had and repaired. All unconscious dark elemental creatures were stabbed one by one by her, tied up in a bunch, and thrown into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. The broken elemental cores of the elemental creatures were quickly disintegrated and absorbed by the purgatory of darkness. Nailisi continued her ughter and the purgatory of darkness was finally fully repaired.


    ¡°Nailisi, get back in here!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice sounded harsh. The elemental creatures that Saleen had subdued all rushed at Nailisi. She felt danger ahead. There was an invisible Darkness Screen right in front of her.


    The Darkness Screen was a grade-9 spell, and it was unknown how it appeared there. Nailisi shared Saleen¡¯s senses, but she had not noticed it. The Darkness Screen had only revealed itself when she came about six yards away from the spell.


    Nailisi took her devil form and grew to more than twenty yards tall. The spear in her hand grew to almost forty yards long. She thrust her spear at the spell while halting her steps immediately. She then quickly returned to her imp form after that. The spear in her hand was cast away.


    The hundreds of elemental creatures behind her pounced at it and went right into the Darkness Screen. Nailisi turned around and ran instead.


    The short sword that Saleen wanted was in her bracelet. If it was lost, Saleen¡¯s lightning attack would have beenpletely wasted.


    The Darkness Screen burst without making a sound. Eight dark tentacles reached out from behind the screen and swiped at the elemental creatures. Tens of the creatures were swooped up, and thrown into a huge monster¡¯s mouth, which appeared out of nowhere.


    ¡°What the hell?!¡±


    Saleen saw a dark creature with up to one-hundred tentacles crawling out from the ground. The creature was huge. The hole it made in the ground had a diameter of more than eighty yards. It looked to be abination of an octopus and a crab. Two huge pincers were seen among the closely packed tentacles.


    While the level of the creature was unable to be determined, it was definitely not as powerful as the angel of fear. Nailisi ran for the tower. The huge monster swept its way clean of all the elemental creatures that Saleen sent at it. Its ferocity made him determine it to be something of at least grade-10.


    The warhammers of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and the swords of the Blue Ice Maidens, were all only capable of leaving flesh wounds on the elemental monster¡¯s tentacles. The wounds dealt to the huge dark elemental creature quickly closed, just like the case with the Midnight Fang.


    The monstershed out with its tentacle,ing straight for Nailisi¡¯s body. Without even bother turning her head, she threw a scroll at it. It was the Elemental Shock spell.


    She was no mage, but her soul bond with one allowed her to use scrolls. The scroll was intended to be a tool for breakingrge scale spells of mages. It would also fare adequately against elemental creatures.


    The dark element was a very stable element, but under the effects of the Elemental Shock, the element ran rampant nheless. The monster¡¯s tentacle blew up with a snap.


    Nailisi wagged her tail and sped up, running right into the tower.


    She took out the short sword immediately after entering the tower. She handed it to Saleen and took out her spear. ¡°That was not the time to fight.¡± Nailisi had grown more mature, and knew that she should prioritize delivering the goods over fighting.


    Crack...Doom!


    A weird noise was heard from outside the magic tower. The huge monster bloated up and one of its tentacles had a mouth open on its end. It then floated upwards, and swallowed the entire Divine Tree Magic Tower from top to bottom.


    The monster apparently did not have much intelligence. It was true that it had enough body mass, but when the mouth appendage reached the bottom of the tower, it attempted to swallow the entire construct down, and failed as expected. The mouth appendage then began biting on the tower with the teeth within. The attempt was futile as expected, as the tower was made of divine wood material.


    Saleen put off dealing with the monster for that time being. His Elemental Eye was able to see twenty-four markings on the short sword. The markings had originally been hidden inside the sword, yet they appeared as soon as Saleen took hold of its hilt.


    Saleen did not recognize any one of the markings. He was unable to even fathom where they came from. He was able to sense that all twenty-four of the markings contained different rules of power though.


    Saleen¡¯s mind twitched, and the twenty-four markings rose up from the sword in response, seemingly able to pick up his thoughts. Saleen twirled the short sword for a moment. He then saw an inscribed line on the hilt that read: ¡°Sword of Rules¡±!


    The script of the Ancient Myersnguage was elegant. The entire de was made of metal, and the grayish material used to fill the inscription was something Saleen was unable to recognize.


    ¡°A pity that this is not an equipment for mages.¡± Saleen yed with the sword a moment as he wondered who he should give it to.


    ¡°Master, what do you intend to do with that thing out there?¡± Nailisi knocked on the tower walls.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. It will leave as soon as it finds that this is not something it can stomach,¡± Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye analyzed the twenty-four markings, trying to figure out anything that could have been of use to him.


    Every attack dealt by the Sword of Rules contained the power of rules. The sword was an incredibly powerful piece of equipment. He had yet toe across any weapon with properties like it. An assassin armed with the short sword would be able to kill just about any mage they would encounter.


    ¡°Nailisi. Take this for the time being. It doesn¡¯t seem like it will be of any use to me,¡± Saleen said as he threw the sword to her.


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi took the sword and looked at Saleen.


    ¡°Mages have little use for such a weapon. It would be better to use my own rules than to spend potentially too much time trying to understanding these ones. This thing will be of great use to you though. Even if you were to take your imp form, you have the spear for longer range and a sword for very close range. The defensive capabilities of the three shields have served well defending against grade-9 magic attacks. I would be relieved.¡±


    Saleen felt a sense of relief as he borated. He suddenly came to realize a principle regarding the rules there. The twenty-four markings disappeared when his lightning bolt shot out, and that was due to the rules of lightning overwhelming the twenty-four rules on the sword. If he was to be able to gain a profound understanding of his family badge in the future, the twenty-four rules on the sword would be useless to him.


    Knowing how to weigh one¡¯s choices and make the right call was not the same as being able to do it. Saleen was then capable of such a feat. Despite having such a powerful weapon in front of him, he was hardly moved at all.


    Saleen gained an even deeper understanding of his teacher¡¯s intentions after throwing out the Sword of Rules. To rely on one¡¯s own strength to train instead of using the six element space, or to go out on a personal adventure and to know the world; those were not some old-fashioned and pointless rules or traditions. All of that was meant to foster the vital conditions to help a mage to grow.


    ¡°Master, you...¡±


    ¡°Rx, Nailisi. I still have this,¡± Saleen waved at her with the badge, which sent a chill down her spine. Every time Saleen used his family badge, she was there to suffer the consequences with him. That was something the winged skeleton had never experienced. While she understood that such experiences would allow her mental powers to grow indefinitely, the pain incurred was still a headache to her.


    There were a myriad of ways to practice one¡¯s art, and her master chose the most difficult way to do so.


    Saleen had only begun to pay attention to the dark elemental creature outside after having rxed. The huge dark elemental creature swallowed the tower without realizing that the tower had roots reaching hundreds of yards into the earth. Itsrge and sharp teeth were still doing their best to bite down on the bottom of the tower, trying to snap the magic tower and swallow it down whole.


    Saleen took up the bone mace and spoke to the winged skeleton, ¡°Do you know of any way to kill that thing out there?¡±


    ¡°I do, master,¡± the winged skeleton looked outside the tower and answered calmly.


    ¡°Very well then. I will help you out from here. You just get out there and kill that thing,¡± Saleen said as he raised the bone mace and beat hard on the War Drum of Fear. The tens of thousands of pests within the drum shrieked and the linked soul of the angel of fear howled. A face twisted and writhed on the face of the drum, letting out an eerie voice.

 Chapter 900: Graveyard of Imperial City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 900: Graveyard of Imperial City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The dark-element creature, who was trying to devour the divine tree magic tower, managed to put up with the attack from the War Drum of Fear. The dark-element creature has also developed a soul, which exined why it would try to devour the magic tower. Its soul was still in a very early prototypical stage, unlike the souls possessed by re and the rest.


    What made the divine tree magic tower powerful was the rule embedded within it and not its materials. When Saleen hit the War Drum of Fear, its attack was multiplied tenfold because of the effect of the magic tower.


    The War Drum of Fear attacked all creatures with intelligence, even those whose level of intelligence was only at a beginner level. Creatures that possessed souls would be susceptible to greater damage.


    The giant monster¡¯s body began to cramp and the teeth that were mping onto the magic tower began to fall off. At that moment, the surface of the divine tree magic tower exploded into a powerful light within the monster¡¯s mouth. The light harnessed countless symbols that had flown out of the War Drum of Fear.


    Ahhhh...


    The giant monster opened its mouth and tried to spit out the magic tower. At that moment, the winged skeleton left the magic tower with his Meteor Hammer. With a huge smash, the Meteor Hammer exploded into mes and the explosiveness tore a wound that was more than 10 yards long in the monster¡¯s mouth.


    The winged skeleton never expected his Meteor Hammer to be capable of killing that monster. me shot out between his ck and white eyes and into the monster¡¯s brain.


    The soul mes arrived before the monster¡¯s soul in an instant, splitting it into two branches before twirling upwards. Life and death were decided in an instant when the souls shed. Just as the monster was about to counter the winged skeleton¡¯s attack, thetter¡¯s soul me has already tangled up with the former¡¯s soul.


    The monster might possess a physical body that was powerful enough to withstand the winged skeleton¡¯s Meteor Hammer attack, but its soul was so fragile that it was instantly burned into bits by the ck-and-white mes.


    That was a new ability developed by Soldier¡¯s soul me after he had recovered. If it was in the past, such an attack would not have been so swift and urate. After the attack, the whiff of soul me would have also dissipated forever.


    The soul mes could return back to the winged skeleton¡¯s eyes and merge back with his soul mes. The winged skeleton did not dare to hesitate. With a p of his wings, he turned around and returned to the divine tree magic tower.


    Boom!


    The dark-element creature¡¯s body exploded. Saleen immediately cut off the sound from the magic tower with a buffer, but the entire tower continued to tremble. Some of the roots of the magic tower had also broken.


    Elemental copse!


    The death of this dark-element creature had resulted in Elemental Copse. Saleen was troubled. Elemental Copse was a sign and not a spell. His magic tower was within the range of the Elemental Copse, so no matter the quality of the tower, it would still sustain severe damage.


    Elemental Copse must be apanied by Elemental Storm. Since this dark-element creature was so massive in size, the power harnessed by the copse of the dark elements was strong enough to cause a break in dimension. Saleen decided to uproot the magic tower so that it would go with the flow of energy produced by the powerful Elemental Copse.


    The dark-element creature, that was a few hundred yards long, was the result of many miniature dark-element creatures devouring each other. This monster might look powerful, but after its soul copsed, its body was no longer able to maintain bnce. If Saleen had not stayed inside of the divine tree magic tower the damage caused by the copse of such a massive elemental creature would definitely be more powerful than curses cast by tens of mages. In such an environment, it would be impossible for Saleen to escape.


    After the magic tower was uprooted, an incredible power was produced by the elemental copse of the monster¡¯s body. The magic tower was enclosed within and was flown back towards the interior of the Imperial City of the Abyss. The Elemental Storm was absurdly powerful, and the power wrapped around Saleen¡¯s divine tree magic tower. There was no way Saleen could see what was happening outside from within the magic tower.


    After Elemental Copse, those elemental creatures that had been devoured by the monster could no longer be contained. If Saleen wanted to ensure that his elemental badge was still in good shape, he would have to capture them all over again. The biggest problem was that Saleen had no idea where he was being taken to. He did not have a choice because he knew that if he had not uprooted the magic tower, all the power of the Elemental Copse would fall on it and Saleen did not wish for his magic tower to be destroyed.


    Without this magic tower, Saleen would never be able to find a safer ce in the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    In the Elemental Storm, the divine tree magic tower was being brought to the interior of the Imperial City of the Abyss. Due to the Elemental Storm, many more magic arrays were triggered and hundreds of attacking spells were unleashed. Fortunately, that was not a simple Elemental Storm. Within it was a new elemental dimension and dimensional tear caused by the copse. As a result, the attacking spells had no effect on the divine tree magic tower.


    The attacks from the magic arrays also weakened the damage caused by the Elemental Storm on the divine tree magic tower.


    At that stage, Saleen could only sumb to his fate. Even if he kept the magic tower, he would still be trapped within the Elemental Storm. If the magic tower was tond in the ¡®danger zone¡¯, as mentioned by re previously, then Saleen could only wait until his badge has restored fully before attempting to escape.


    The Imperial City of the Abyss might have been quiet and deserted for tens of thousands of years, but wherever the Elemental Storm passed by, the defense magic arrays would unleash beautiful and colorful spells. If one was to look down from above, it was as if the magic mes in the Imperial City of the Abyss were forming a magic string that was thousands of miles long.


    On this string were plenty of spells that were above grade-10. If not for the fact that the magic arrays were somewhat damaged, perhaps even spells above grade-14 might have appeared. After all, the core of Imperial City of Abyss was upied by the most powerful humans back then, hence the spells unleashed by any magic array would never be lower than grade-14.


    It did not feel like they had been flying for a long time, or rather, they were unable to tell how much time had passed since they had no idea how many danger zones that the divine tree magic tower had flown past.


    Boom!


    The power of the Elemental Storm was finally used up and was no longer able to carry the gigantic magic tower. The magic tower descended at an angle and the surrounding dark elements quickly dissipated.


    Strictly speaking, the dimension within the magic tower was independent of its exterior, it required adjustment by the mage instead of being transformed any time. Therefore, when the magic towernded upside-down on an open space, so did Saleen.


    Fortunately, sorcerers possessed strong physiques so Saleen was able to flip himself over easily. The tower needed to be put away, then taken out from the Dimension Stone again in order to correct its orientation. A magic tower that was more than 100 yards tall would need plenty of elemental stone statue soldiers in order to be moved.


    The elemental stone statue soldiers were either broken or devoured by the Elemental Storm. It was the same with the blue ice maidens. Now, Saleen did not have any elemental creatures that were suitable for moving and flipping over the magic tower.


    The divine tree magic tower and its core were made from the mechanical core of Sky City. Unfortunately, Saleen did not have enough motor to initiate the magic tower into flight. It would have to remain in this position.


    The good thing was that the magic tower¡¯s defense was still present even in that position.


    Saleen quickly took control of the magic tower again and opened its magic arrays so that he, along with Nailisi and the winged skeleton, could see what was happening outside. It was no longer dark outside. Saleen could see a towering tombstone outside of the magic tower.


    Saleen looked far and wide and saw that countless tombstones that shimmered with dim light. Most of the tombstones were still in good condition and were carved with ancient words.


    ¡°re,e out and see. What is this ce?¡± Saleen quickly summoned re. He was worried by their location because he could sense something staring at him. It was clear to him that whatever creature it was, it was not friendly and could attack anytime.


    ¡°Master, this is... the graveyard of our royalty, of ancient heroes. This is also the resting ce of the single-horned white whales. It is what you have been looking for.¡± re¡¯s purple eyes were slightly dimmed. He knew that the ce was dangerous, even more so that encountering the Angel of Fear.


    Just as Saleen was about ask more questions, he saw an illusory gigantic foot swing out from the hundred yard tall tombstones to their side. The foot struck the divine tree magic tower and sent it flying.


    The divine tree magic tower arced beautifully in mid-air and was finally in the correct orientation. Saleen took a nce with his elemental eyes and saw a footprint that was deeply imprinted on the divine tree magic tower. The tower, which possess the ability to restore itself, showed no signs of doing so. Just like the carvings on the tombstones, the footprint seemed like it would not be removed easily.


    Saleen was on alert. When his magic tower was sent crashing onto the ground, he saw an illusory human figure stand out from amongst another cluster of towering tombstones. The figure held a gigantic war hammer and was about to strike.


    ¡°Stop, I am no damned disciple!¡± Saleen shouted in the ancient Myersnguage.


    That illusory human figure stopped the attack and ced the war hammer by its side, allowing the divine tree magic tower tond before him.


    ¡°Who are you?!¡± This illusory human figure became clearer.


    ¡°I am a human mage, Saleen Metatrin. I was blown here by the Elemental Storm!¡± Saleen shouted in return. When he saw no response from the illusory human figure, he continued, ¡°I am a king on the Myers Maind. The Gods on that dimension have fallen and this magic tower was built from the materials left behind by them. Now, I am here to seek materials to be made into equipment for my own army.¡±


    ¡°Are you here to defile the dead? If you are a human as well, why do you have to bring your search here?!¡±


    ¡°No, no, no, I was only blown here by the Elemental Storm. Besides, I am trying to look for high-level magic nuclei, and not for any human corpses. I am not a death mage!¡±


    ¡°That is none of my business. Scram!¡± The illusory human figure did not care to treat Saleen with any respect, but neither did he show any intentions of attacking him with the war hammer.


    ¡°No, the humans on the Myers Maind have be so weak that the strongest of them all are grade-10 mages and there are less than 10 of them on the entire Maind. A God from another dimension is spreading his religion there and has upied a quarter of the Maind. My goal is to destroy the empire controlled by that God!¡±


    ¡°Oh? Is that the case?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Thene out and meet me!¡± The illusory human figure shouted.

 Chapter 901: Graveyard of Imperial City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 901: Graveyard of Imperial City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Without hesitation, Saleen stepped out of the divine tree magic tower. He floated in the water in his water shield and headed towards the towering illusory human figure.


    Seeing how Saleen did not hesitate at all, the facial features of the human figure became clearer. It was an expression of shock.


    ¡°You are quite daring. Did you know I can kill you easily with one hand?¡±


    ¡°Even if I continued to stay inside, you wouldn¡¯t need to spend too much effort to kill me anyway,¡± Saleen answered honestly. He had already mentioned his identity and his intentions. If the illusory human figure was a soul shard left behind by the ancient humans, it would be full of hatred for the Gods and would be unlikely to hurt him.


    The footprint left behind on the divine tree magic tower from the attack was an indication to Saleen that the soul shards left behind in the graveyard were powerful and he could not afford to incur their wrath.


    ¡°There is no point using these fanciful words. Mage, you have not fallen, so why is your left hand an indication of being blessed by the Gods?¡± The human figure suddenly roared.


    Saleen spoke calmly, ¡°A few years ago, I was still a grade-1 junior mage. It was because of this power that I obtained that I have managed to survive until today. This power was left behind by the Gods of my dimension. I have yet to hear about the battles that took ce between the ancient humans and the Gods.¡±


    The illusory human figure suddenly attacked and burst Saleen¡¯s water shield with a finger. As the finger slid past Saleen¡¯s left hand, he felt excruciating pain. It was so painful, even for someone like him who was used to training with the badge, that he had to grunt.


    The shriveled skin on Saleen¡¯s left hand became supple as the hand was filled with flesh and blood. The bones in the hand were taken away and reced with bones made of water elements. Saleen¡¯s left hand of the Gods was taken away by the illusory figure and it would never be able to produce the Power of Life again.


    Saleen¡¯s facial expression remained unchanged, but he was very concerned about his left hand. He never knew for sure whether his entire body would slowly be consumed by the left hand, and eventually turning him into a monster created by the Gods, if he continued to train.


    ¡°Hmm? You are not angry? I have taken away an important lifeline of yours.¡± The expression on the human figure changed. There was a piece of green leaf on his finger. The leaf possessed incredible Power of Life, so much so that Saleen almost mistook it to be a creature on its own.


    ¡°In any case, the power was not the result of my training. It would only serve as an obstacle in future. I am better off without it,¡± Saleen replied calmly.


    ¡°I am asking you, why aren¡¯t you angry?¡±


    ¡°Is there any meaning to an ant being angry with a giant dragon?¡± Saleen raised his head and looked at the illusory human figure.


    ¡°Giant dragon? Haha, you are insulting me byparing me to a giant dragon!¡± The human figure began tough uproariously. Saleen was not disgusted at all. The fellow had all the power and right to be arrogant.


    ¡°On the Myers Maind giant dragons are one of the most powerful creatures around,¡± Saleen replied. He was not sure what that fellow was up to. After his water shield had been burst, only a small bubble was left behind to enclose his head.


    ¡°Would you say the same thing if you possessed the same power as me?¡± That person seemed to be teasing Saleen. He stretched out his hand and observed Saleen, who was in his palm. Saleen was tempted to attack him with his Eye of Lightning, but considering the huge difference in their grades, Saleen controlled himself.


    ording to the calctions of a reliable magic form, it was possible for the poison of billions of ants to kill a giant dragon. In other words, Saleen would have to unleash a power that was a million times greater than his own in order to kill the figure.


    In the past, Saleen did not believe in a scenario like that happening but he did then. The corrtion of power with grades was connected to rules. When the opponent was able to grasp rules that were beyond you, it was useless even if you were more powerful than the opponent by hundreds of times. Saleen¡¯s lightning rule might be of a very high grade, but he had yet to grasp itpletely, not even one percent. There was no way that kind of power could kill the soul shard of ancient humans.


    Unless his power reached a transformative stage, he would never be able to bypass the grade of rules and kill opponents of higher levels. Alternatively, he could use his n badge, which was an attacking equipment that did not need to take the user¡¯s grade into ount.


    ¡°No. If I possessed great power, you would not be treating me this way.¡± As Saleen stood on the illusory palm, he could feel himself standing on hard ground. He could almost feel rich ground elements rushing upwards to his feet.


    ¡°What a sharp and brave little mage. So, what do you intend to do next?¡±


    ¡°Why are you still listening to his rubbish? Snatch everything away from him!¡± A sound rang out from the tombstones nearby. Suddenly, Saleen felt very foolish. The difference in their grades was so huge, why would those people even care about how he felt? There was nowhere to escape to. They were probably in the center of the graveyard. When he was in the magic tower, he could not even see an end to the graveyard with his elemental eyes.


    ¡°Rubbish? Didn¡¯t you hear him say that the power on some Maind has weakened to a pathetic level? Some of the things that astrologers said can still be trusted. If we kill him, we may never have a chance of being revived. Leave us!¡± The fellow that was holding on to Saleen shouted back in return.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Myers Maind!¡± Saleen reminded the fellow in front of him.


    ¡°Myers Maind?¡±


    ¡°Myers...¡±


    ¡°Myers!¡±


    The graveyard suddenly became very noisy. That was strange to Saleen. If they had never even heard of the Goddess of Myers, could it be that they were born even before her?


    ¡°Myers that girl, she finally couldn¡¯t resist the temptation and became a God?¡±


    ¡°What a pity, she was a lovely littledy!¡±


    ¡°She was not little!


    ¡°Her bosoms were!¡±


    Themotion continued as plenty of tombstones were making noises all at the same time. Saleen was feeling giddy as a result of the vibration of the soundwaves. They clearly knew who the Goddess of Myers was but had no idea that she was a God.


    ¡°Became a God? Can humans really be Gods?¡±


    Saleen thought back to his agreement with Fycro. Perhaps that fellow really wanted to turn himself into a God to rece Lord of Glory as the religion of their dimension.


    ¡°Tell me your name, little mage.¡± The fellow in front of Saleen waved his hands. Themotion stopped. It seemed that the fellow was of a higher status and no one dared to go against him.


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Haha, with a surname like Metatrin, perhaps you are really the offspring of some king,¡± a sharp voice rang out from a tombstone nearby.


    ¡°Shut up. Metatrin is amon surname. There are beggars with that surname too. Hmm, Saleen, we want your magic tower. Will you give it to us?¡±


    ¡°If I say no, will you snatch it away from me?¡±


    ¡°No, but then you can never hope to leave this ce,¡± the gigantic figure replied Saleen to directly.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that if you killed me, you would...¡±


    ¡°Who said I wanted to kill you? Besides, if we have your magic tower, we will have hope. Didn¡¯t you say it belonged to Myers? We knew each other very well, so it would not be robbery.¡±


    ¡°Then what will I get in return?¡± Saleen asked. There was nothing he could do if they were determined to get their hands on the magic tower. They could even afford to wait until Saleen died before taking the tower. In that case, he might as well ask if there was anything he could gain from them. After all, whatever they decided to give him would definitely be something that could astound the entire Maind.


    ¡°You? If you give the magic tower to me, you can take anything you want in this graveyard, aside from our bones! Not a lot of items were buried with us.¡± What the giant figure said made Saleen hesitate.


    ¡°Saleen, the items that were buried with us are very ordinary, but our tombstones are carved with the record of the passing down of our training. Sometimes, when people came to pay their respects, they would also leave behind some interesting items. If the power outside is as weak as you imed, then you will definitely find these items useful for a while.¡±


    ¡°The only problem is that I cannot give you the core of this magic tower.¡± Saleen decided to get straight to the terms and conditions of the transaction. The core of Sky City was too important. Saleen still aspired to build a flying magic tower in the future. Without that core, he would never be able to refine it, even if he advanced.


    ¡°Looks like it¡¯s the mechanical core of Sky City, but there isn¡¯t a Heart of the Sky. What can you do with it even if I leave it behind?¡±


    ¡°I want to build a magic tower that can fly,¡± Saleen insisted.


    The gigantic figure frowned. Although he was not happy with Saleen¡¯s reply, he still said, ¡°Ask the people inside toe out first.¡±


    Saleen had no choice but to activate the magic tower for Nailisi and the winged skeleton toe out. At the same time, the 24 ancient warriors stepped out as well.


    ¡°Saleen, these soldiers are not too bad. Hmm, a demon and a spirit of the dead. Your grade may be low, but you do have the makings of a king. Where is Grandmaster? Ask him toe out and help Saleen build a magic tower. It must be able to fly!¡±


    The gigantic figure ced Saleen back on the ground. He stretched out both his hands and reached into the divine tree magic tower and dug out the mechanical core of Sky City.


    From a white tombstone a distance away, an illusory figure in magic robes stepped out and spoke unhappily, ¡°You want me, a Grandmaster, to build a magic tower for a junior mage? Are you out of your mind?¡±


    ¡°Junior mage? Right now, Saleen is considered as someone of power on the Maind, just like how we were in those days.¡±


    ¡°What a pathetic mage. Are you even grade-10?¡± The Grandmaster asked Saleen sarcastically.


    ¡°There should be mutual respect between mages,¡± Saleen said furiously. He knew that he must deal with mages differently. Mages would only acknowledge each other if they spoke in their own lingo.


    ¡°What respect is there to talk about when you are not even grade-10!¡± The Grandmasterughed. He purposely made his face clearer and he even squatted down so that he could poke at Saleen with his magic staff.


    Saleen had no intentions of dodging. He only said, ¡°I once saw in a magic notebook that no one had the right tough at others, unless one had already reached grade-24. May I know if the Grandmaster is at grade-24?¡±


    The moment Saleen finished his question, the entire graveyard was filled with deafeningughter. All the souls from the tombstones wereughing uproariously. It was clear that Saleen¡¯s words must have struck a painful chord in the Grandmaster.

 Chapter 902: Astrologer’s Contract (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 902: Astrologer¡¯s Contract (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Howe I¡¯ve never heard of this?¡± not one bit of anger was seen from the great grandmaster.


    ¡°That is because it was said by a grade-9 sorcerer. Your eyes obviously would have not seen such a low position. As such, you missed out a lot,¡± Saleen suppressed his urge to run, and borated his point firmly.


    ¡°Good point, but, what is...?¡± the great grandmaster lifted their hand and took off Saleen¡¯s mask, revealing his face. The action broke thest bit of Water Shield on his head. They smiled, seeing the pale marking on the spot between his brows.


    ¡°Seems like you have quite a lot of enemies. That is a mark of hatred, I take it. Who gave you that?¡±


    ¡°An adherent from the purgatory ne. A believer of the God of the Underworld, I guess,¡± Saleen conjured another Water Shield on himself before answering. Saleen had to spend quite a lot of effort to speak underwater.


    The great grandmaster did not pay any heed to the soulsughing in the cemetery. They titled their head and took a look at re, who was standing behind the winged skeleton. ¡°Five elemental badges? Just five, not theplete set, eh?¡±


    The great grandmaster discovered the Eternal Control shard used for controlling souls embedded in re¡¯s brain, but they did take it out.


    ¡°Saleen, you are quite capable yourself. Right, Aragorn, what do you need me to do again?¡±, the great grandmaster stared at re, yet their eyes went through the fire elemental creature¡¯s body and gazed meticulously on the Eternal Control shard. It was only then the great grandmaster had developed some fondness for Saleen. He had no understanding of the rules written within the shard, and was unable to see through it. Without Saleen¡¯s guidance, he would have been incapable of studying it.


    While the great grandmaster was unable to see through the rules within the shard, he was nheless able to sense the connection between the shard and Saleen. Given how the shard was crafted by Saleen, he deemed him somewhat worthy to be spoken to. At times, mages cared little for levels. What they cared more for was the depth and breadth of one¡¯s knowledge.


    ¡°Huh, the thing that allowed you to craft a flying magic tower is this core, I take it. With your abilities, that wouldn¡¯t have been hard at all,¡± the great shadow named Aragorn threw the core of the Sky City over. The great grandmaster took it and peered at it.


    ¡°The mechanical core of the Sky City? It¡¯s just a magic tower without Heart of the Sky, seems rather easy. Alright Saleen, I will craft you a flying magic tower. It will be more powerful than the one you have now. Such a waste of good material. Grade-18 stuff, and still something is able to leave such a big footprint on it!¡±


    ¡°That is my work. You have any problem with it?¡± a green silhouette walked from a gravestone from afar, donning a set of savage-looking armor. There were hundreds of magic beast heads carvinged all over the armor. The being¡¯s face was covered with a mask in the image of a devil.


    The great grandmaster went silent after seeing the warrior¡¯s soul. He instead drew a line with his finger in the air. It tore the space and the great grandmaster took a big pile of material from within. He then began crafting a flying tower for Saleen.


    Saleen was astonished to witness such a terrifying scene. The great grandmaster existed only in the form of a soul, yet was able to tear spaces and extract things stored within. If such powers were to be used against him, Saleen would be unable to keep himself in one piece.


    Seeing that the great grandmaster had yielded, the warrior¡¯s soul retreated into the gravestone.


    Saleen stopped paying attention to anything else, and simply stared at the great grandmaster crafting a flying magic tower. His Elemental Eye might not have been able to allow him to learn secrets, but it would at least allow him to pick up basics. Saleen was a man who greatly valued the basics of things. Being able to learn the basics of the great grandmaster¡¯s art at alchemy would be a great reward in itself.


    The great grandmaster¡¯s alchemic methods were dizzying to watch for Saleen. The hundred yard tall great grandmaster extractedrge amount of elements from his own dimension. He proceeded to press them into elementites with both his hands.


    Elementites were materials that no longer existed in any ne, and mages created them simply bypressing elements. No elementite had been seen on the Myers Maind for ages, making them effectively extinct. Despite that the great grandmaster was able to simply use its ethereal hands to press elements into such rocks. Saleen sighed, knowing that he would not be able to pick up even bits of such alchemic methods.


    The elementitespressed using the six major elements were linked together, and then stacked inyers. Eachyer made a nine yard tall floor. With the tower having twenty-four floors, the tower was two-hundred and sixteen yards tall. The nine yard tall floors of the tower differed from the Myers Maind¡¯s standard of six yards. Each face of the hexagonal shape was also nine yards long.


    That was simply the beginning. Saleen then saw the great grandmaster taking out numbers of elementite that he did not bother counting, and threw them into the crafting process of the magic tower. The crevices betweenrge pieces of elementite were patched by the great grandmaster using dimension stones. Doing so enabled the elementites to have independent spaces from each other. The crevices were no longer weaknesses, but internal spaces which could be expanded.


    That was the first time Saleen saw such a magic tower. It was one that came with inherent expandable spaces without need for magic arrays.


    The magic tower became different as elementite was used in crafting. The great grandmaster installed the mechanical core of Sky City onto the tower¡¯s sixteenth floor. The core did not take the entire floor that time, but simply took three yards of height. Mechanical whiskers of crystallized metal seeped deep into every floor of the tower. Under the control of the great grandmaster, one-hundred and forty-four magic arrays were formed.


    There were six magic arrays on every floor, representing each of the six major elements. The magic arrays of all twenty-four floors were formed by the core¡¯s metallic machinery, which the great grandmaster then added tourmaline to.


    The amount of tourmaline supplied by the great grandmaster was too great. It caused the exterior of the tower to take a blue-green color. The magic arrays with the tourmaline pieces were all formed by elementites.


    The great grandmaster then added something that Saleen had dreamed of in the sixteenth floor of the magic tower right after: a magic power furnace.


    The equipment was still one made of dimensions stones and elementites. The furnace with a diameter of six yards was set right in the middle of the tower. The furnace was hexagonal in shape. Magic arrays serving as feeding ports were set in every side. By throwing in material suitable for disintegration by the magic power furnace, the equipment would be capable of extracting and refining the energies store within. It would then be used as fuel to power the tower.


    The great grandmaster then asked Saleen, after almost finishing the structure of the tower, ¡°What kind of flying skills are you good at?¡±


    Saleen simply cast a Quickcloud spell as an answer. Thick mists formed from high concentrations of water element enveloping him. Wind Dragon, Wings of me,rge Ice Spikes, glowing balls of light, and pitch ck magic patterns swirled in and out of each other.


    The flying skills of six elements were all showcased within one spell by Saleen.


    The great grandmaster gave a satisfied expression, and then set magic arrays on both the top and bottom sides of the tower. The tworge magic arrays were intertwined with each other. They could be controlled in any of the floors.


    The dark greenish sheen on the exterior of the magic tower disappeared, reced by pale green vapor. The vapor looked weightless, yet it was able to repel seawater as it engulfed the tower. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to discern more than one-hundredyers of defensive magic arrays being installed in theyer of vapor.


    While the vapor moved about, the six elements within were in bnce instead.


    The great grandmaster thought for a bit, and then tore the space open again. He took out a variety of things from within and stuffed them into the tower. He then spoke to Saleen, ¡°I have given you quite a bit of my collection. Your tower belongs to us now. Equivalent exchange, they call it.¡±


    ¡°No, it is not. It is because I have no options but to ept your exchange, and that has nothing to do with equivalent exchange,¡± Saleen was satisfied, but he would not admit so just yet.


    ¡°Little mage, you can¡¯t ask for more. My collection isn¡¯t something that junk in your tower canpare with.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t be more familiar with the controls of this one than with my original one though. I need a bit of firepower to ensure that when I go back to my own ce I won¡¯t be killed along the way.¡±


    ¡°Great grandmaster, just help him out,¡± Aragorn spoke. The being seemed to be the leader of the group of souls.


    ¡°Alright, alright,¡± the great grandmaster said impatiently, ¡°What else do you need?¡±


    ¡°Scrolls, weapons for my contracted creatures, and ample amounts of magic nuclei. I still need to run the Ancient, and there are just too many furnaces on that ship. I will also need skills to repair the magic power furnace,¡± Saleen did not ask for much more. He knew well that his requests would be ignored if he asked for too much.


    ¡°You need too much. If you would really need all that, I¡¯m afraid...¡±


    ¡°What else do I need to pay?¡±, Saleen asked after reading the mood.


    ¡°Aragorn, tell him,¡± the great grandmaster took a step back and Aragorn spoke.


    ¡°Saleen, we will need you back here one more time. Within the next millennium, bring us more things with the power of gods.¡±


    ¡°Such as?¡±


    ¡°Divine equipment made by the gods.¡±


    ¡°That would be rather difficult. One-thousand years here is probably only about one-hundred out there where I came from. I¡¯m a grade-8 sorcerer, and there is no way I can acquire some equipment that powerful. The faith of the Lord of Glory is very strong in this ne still.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, it is only us who can provide you with what you need. One-thousand years is the limit of what we are able to tolerate. Of course, if you agree to it, then sign a contract with us. If you don¡¯te by then...¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mind raced with calctions. The possibility of him acquiring something like Seal of Divine Power was close to zero. He still had seeds of the divine trees with him ¡ª two on his person, and two with Lex. ¡°Any one of the seeds would be enough to move them, no? I¡¯m just curious, what do they need so much divine powered things for?¡±¡±


    ¡°It seems like we have an agreement,¡± Aragorn extended a finger. Tearing the space, he took out a contract.


    Saleen scanned the contract with his Elemental Eye, seeing shimmering constetion drawings between the ancient scripts written on it.


    ¡°What kind of contract is this?¡±


    ¡°A Contract of Fate. We will be signing this with you. The sooner you get here, the more rewards you will be getting. If you fail toe i one-thousand years, your fate will take a turn for the worse, and there will be no turning back.¡±


    ¡± An Astrologer¡¯s Contract!¡±


    Saleen red at the contract floating in the water, and felt very reluctant to write his name on it. It was not due to the contract itself, but that the paper the contract was written on. It contained the secrets of astrologers

 Chapter 903: Astrologer’s Contract (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 903: Astrologer¡¯s Contract (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, if you are willing toe back, I will give you a key. You can open the astrology tower of the imperial city with it, and gain the lineage of the astrologer¡¯s. To mages, being able to see your fate ahead of you means getting yourself one more life,¡± Aragorn said, trying to tempt Saleen.


    ¡°I want to ask...have you, great grandmaster, practiced astrology? I have heard that astrologers are people who are just toozy to practice magic, as they have greater power,¡± Saleen¡¯s mind was firm, and he refused to simply sign the contract because of Aragorn¡¯s words.


    ¡°Astrology is not something that can be practiced so easily. The ones doing so need luck. The very reason why we died in battle was because wecked luck, otherwise, with our powers, hehehe...¡±


    ¡°You believe in things like luck?¡±


    ¡°Luck, is one of the highest rules there are. This is different from faith. Luck is something you can control in your hands. Saleen, we are people who have lost luck. If we were to practice astrology, you would perhaps be able to help us escape from it all.¡±


    ¡°Escape what exactly?¡±


    ¡°The shackle of our gravestones!¡±


    ¡°Great one!¡± the great grandmaster shouted, but decided against talking Aragorn out of it. He saw how calm and collected he looked. Their gravestones protected their souls from decay, but without being free from the shackles of their gravestones, they would not be able to venture too far from their gravestones. That meant they would have to stay at the cemetery for all eternity.


    ¡°So you wanted the stuff of the gods to break yourselves free from the shackles of your gravestones then. What happens if you leave?¡± Saleen¡¯s mind calmed seeing how the souls still possessed desires, and that meant there were still ways to work at things.


    ¡°What else? We will of course continue doing battle, and kill all those detestable gods!¡±


    Aragorn¡¯s words almost had Saleen mistake him to be a lunatic. Having questions about the gods in his mind still, he asked, ¡°Will gods really cause the copse of a ne?¡±


    ¡°Of course, when a ne is rendered under the rule of a god, then the lifespan of that ne will be set to be one-billion and eighty-million years. The gods will rob the entire ne of its essence, turning a ne into an interdimensional space. It will then finally decay into a ce where even space will be rendered unstable. The ce will be full of elemental storms, and no life shall ever grow there again.¡±


    ¡°That is why you hate the gods?¡±


    ¡°No!¡± Aragornughed. ¡°All this should belong to us humans, yet the gods go about wrecking it all! Tell me, should we not feel angry about it?¡±


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s talk about astrologers then.¡±


    ¡°What is there to talk about? You give us what we need, I give you the key. Then you just go look for the lineage yourself,¡± Aragorn answered in a natural,x manner.


    ¡°I go there myself? The abyss is a very dangerous ce. I¡¯m afraid I will end up dead before I find that astrologer¡¯s ce.¡±


    ¡°It is only the first contract between us. I won¡¯t want you dead. Saleen, just say yes.¡±


    ¡°If I say no, I can¡¯t leave then?¡±


    ¡°Indeed,¡± Aragorn answered shamelessly, yet Saleen knew those souls had already been very polite and friendly with him. Given their levels and temperaments when they were still alive, having them make deals with someone like him was something really absurd to begin with.


    ¡°I will need to add another line to the contract then. When the contract is over, you will need to be responsible for my departure from this ce, within a month,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Done,¡± Aragorn pointed at the Contract of Fate and another line of ancient scripts appeared, cementing Saleen¡¯s request within.


    Saleen only took out his magic brush then and wrote his name on the Astrologer¡¯s Contract. The Astrologer¡¯s Contract shimmered, and the words disappeared in a whiff of green smoke, leaving a star chart behind. The star chart fell onto Saleen¡¯s hands, and Aragorn said, ¡°Keep the star chart. It can be used for writing further contracts. These are rules beyond grade-18. Even gods would not be able defy the conditions written on such contracts.¡±


    Saleen listened carefully as he put away the star chart and asked, ¡°I would like to ask then. How are the grades above grade-10 divided? What are the levels of gods?¡±


    What Saleen had asked was hardly considered a secret to the souls before him. It was just that there had been gaps in the flow of knowledge throughout the generations. Even someone like Joey had limited knowledge on subjects like that. That made those souls the only one he was able to turn to.


    ¡°Grade-10 to grade-12 mages are sorcerers. Gods reaching grade-12 be true oracles. Beyond the rank of sorcerers, grade-13 to grade-15 mages are called grandmasters. Grade-16 to grade-18 are great grandmasters. There are no titles for levels beyond that, as grade-18 would be equivalent to the king of gods to the gods.¡±


    ¡°King of gods?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Grade-18 are kings of gods, grade-17 are greater gods, grade-16 are middle gods, and grade-15 are lesser gods. These are divisions created by us humans. The gods have their own titles, but we just don¡¯t care about that. Grade-14 are demigods, grade-13 are pseudogods, grade-12 are greater oracles, grade-11 are middle oracles, and grade-10 are lesser oracles.¡±


    ¡°So you are saying that the grades after grade-10 have huge gaps in terms of powers in between them!¡± Saleen quipped nonchntly.


    ¡°Indeed, for grades after grade-10, advancement of every grade is more difficult than the previous one. Advancements of humans between grade-10 to grade-12 can still be done easily, so oracles are hardly a match for us humans. We...¡±, Aragorn did not continue from there, as he had already heard from Saleen that the power of humanity on the maind had suffer a massive drop.


    They were on the primary maind ne. The weakening of humans there would have also affected the ones on secondary maind nes. There would hardly be any powerful human left in nes nearby the maind.


    ¡°The contract is signed. I take it you will give me the things I requested?¡± Saleen asked with a smile. They would not do him harm given that they had signed a contract.


    ¡°Great grandmaster, you are up,¡± Aragorn turned around and retreated inside his gravestone, leaving Saleen to the great grandmaster.


    The great grandmaster was exasperated as he waved for Nailisi and Soldiertoe forward.


    The winged skeleton and Nailisi went to stand before the great grandmaster. Saleen took out a dimension stone and put away the tower the great grandmaster crafted for him.


    ¡°You two. Who will go first?¡±


    ¡°This one,¡± Nailisi pointed at the winged skeleton. She did not do so out of good intentions. She was simply curious about what the great grandmaster would be able to pull, allowing her to possibly to ask for the moonter.


    The winged skeleton took a step forward and said, ¡°My body is one that just got reced earlier, and is very unstable. I also have two broken weapons,¡± he said as he pulled out his battle axe and meteor hammer.


    ¡°I have some experience in death magic, but I didn¡¯t reach grade-16. Are you sure you want my help?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± the winged skeleton had no other choice. The great grandmaster said that their grade at death magic had not reach grade-16, but grade-15 would be very good still. Soldier himself had yet to reach grade-10. Grade-15 death magic was only something he was able admire.


    The great grandmaster looked into the eyes of the winged skeleton and said, ¡°You are king level already then. You have demon-crafted blood soul towers in there too. That stuff is upgradable, so I won¡¯t be able to do much there. Your body...¡± the great grandmaster shooed his soul mes away from the body, and proceeded to take the bones apart.


    ¡°Bones of the angel of fear, and whale horns from single-horned white whales? This is a mess. You call this death magic?¡±


    The winged skeleton stayed silent. The great grandmaster once again tore the space. He took out a green winged skeleton and said, ¡°These are grade-13 spirit bones. They used to belong to a subordinate of my mine, but the soul has gone. I guess you can just take them then.¡±


    The great grandmaster waved as he spoke, and stuffed the pair of soul mes inside the set of bones he just took out.


    The Winged Skull sat down immediately and used death magic to take over the body. A grade-13 winged skeleton was probably the most powerful one in history. Soldier would not have been able to take over the body if the original soul within had not dispersed.


    Seeing that the winged skeleton was doing fine with melding on his own, the great grandmaster moved on to his weapons instead of helping the spirit out.


    The great grandmaster simply took a look at the weapons before throwing them away, and took out a pitch ck bone with a length of about three-hundred yards. He then cast a ck me, which the three-hundred yard long bone was thrown into, crafting the winged skeleton¡¯s battle axe for him.


    The time spent on crafting the battle axe was surprisingly short. A seven yard long ck battle axe was handed to the winged skeleton. It flew right into his left eye socket before Saleen was able to learn anything. The great grandmaster followed with the meteor hammer, taking out a huge piece of metal, which was thrown into the ck me. Within less than twenty seconds, a meteor hammer identical in size to the broken one was finished.


    The great grandmaster threw the meteor hammer out, and it flew right into the right eye socket of the winged skeleton.


    The great grandmaster thought for a bit, before taking out a dragon bone of about two-hundred yards long. The dragon bone was as white as snow all over, and without any sign of dead spirits. There were twelve bone chains on it, with a bone chariot on the other end of the chains.


    The great grandmaster then gestured for Nailisi to step forward, after throwing the bone and chariot to Soldier.


    Nailisi walked up with a bright smile and said, ¡°Great grandmaster, I need even more weapons.¡±


    ¡°No issue with that,¡± the great grandmaster said, ¡°State your requests.¡±


    Nailisi was her in imp form and dared not take the form of the Goddess of Myers. She wagged her tail and took out her spear, the Sword of Rules, and three bone shields.


    The great grandmaster spoke in a dismissive tone, ¡°What a mess. You are the one that crafted the spear? All six Eyes of Rules, wasted. Take this instead.¡±


    The great grandmaster waved and a streak of gray light zoomed past from hundreds of miles away. It was aplete silverline golden spearfish skeleton. It had a skeleton more than four-hundred yards long, with a spike exceeding thirty yards. Six Eyes of Rules remained intact on the bones of the fish, and without there was not even a scratch on the magic nucleus inside its skull.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes went bloodshot seeing all that happened on the side. The bones of that particr beast were probably above grade-12.


    The great grandmaster seemed to be entirely ignorant of how precious those things were, and had simply cast a pale white me before throwing the entire skeleton inside. The more than four-hundred yard long skeleton shrunk by tens of times and innumerable magic patterns were etched onto the bone. The great grandmaster then threw a dragon crystal inside, which melded with the gray bone.


    ¡°Such luxurious use of alchemic arts...it is something I will probably never be able to learn...¡±

 Chapter 904: Greed (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 904: Greed (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Grandmaster¡¯s alchemy technique looked simple as Saleen was able to understand every action and every alchemy principle, but the materials he used were things that Saleen would never be able to get his hands on.


    Without those materials, one would never be able to refine equipment of the same grade. In other words, the Grandmaster was not hiding any of his techniques from Saleen, but thetter would still not be able to replicate what the former did.


    Saleen knew that the Grandmaster was doing that on purpose, but the former pretended to be unaware. The difference in their grades was too huge. For the Grandmaster to pass on his knowledge to Saleen, or to make sure that Saleen would not be able to learn a single thing, both were equally simple to Grandmaster.


    The bone of a silverline golden spearfish was refined into a seven yard longnce. The tip of the graynce was narrow, and the groove was covered with magic patterns that were formed naturally. Behind the tip were three sections and each of them contained two of the silverline golden spearfish¡¯s eyes. The six eyes formed two circles and there was a power about them that made people nervous.


    It was as if those eyes were staring and were nning an attack by the silverline golden spearfish any time.


    Grandmaster threw the longnce to Nailisi and said, ¡°I have infused the dragonshard of a crystal dragon for you. This dragonshard harnesses powerful mental strength and will allow you to wield this longnce without being hurt.¡±


    ¡°Grandmaster, please give this weapon a name.¡± Nailisi tried to gain his favor.


    The Grandmaster might have been highly intelligent, but no one had tried to bootlick him for tens of thousands of years. Nailisi made him feel good about himself.


    ¡°I shall call it Gray Memory. The power of these six Eyes of Rules is made up of the memories of all its attacks when it was still alive. You will be able to pick up many techniques.¡±


    ¡°Many thanks, Grandmaster.¡±


    The Grandmaster picked up the Sword of Rules and took a nce at it before saying, ¡°This is a weapon of the Grand Duke. Hmm, I will perform a seal for you. You will be able to utilize its power as your grade increases, and not necessarily have to wait until you are grade-16.¡±


    With that, hundreds of runes flew out of the Grandmaster¡¯s hands and fused into the Sword of Rules.


    When Grandmaster handed the Sword of Rules to Nailisi, he threw the three-sided skeletal shield to one side. Then, with a wave of his hand, a gigantic skeleton flew over from a distance. It was the skeleton of a white bear king that was more than 60 yards tall. Grandmaster took off its skull and refined it into a circr shield for Nailisi. Behind the shield was a miniature magic array. The Grandmaster said, ¡°As a warrior, the circr shield, de shield, and giant shield are all important. Since we are making magic equipment, they should all be merged into one.¡±


    When Nailisi took the circr shield, her mental strength activated the magic array and the shield turned into a giant shield before turning into a de shield next.


    Saleen did not manage to learn anything despite observing from the side. There was no point learning his techniques since he did not possess the Grandmaster¡¯s materials.


    That time around, Nailisi did not ask the Grandmaster to name the weapon. She could tell that he was only patronizing her. As an imp, there was no way Nailisi would let him go so easily. She spat out the Dragon Crystal Needle and said, ¡°Grandmaster, is there any way you can modify this weapon so that it can fly back on its own after being thrown out?¡±


    As the Grandmaster looked at the Dragon Crystal Needle, he frowned, and it was not just because of the demon¡¯s greed. Even in the past, Dragon Crystal Needles were not easily obtained. After all, dragons fought for the humans, so it was not appropriate for humans to dig up their dragonshards. All of the Grandmaster¡¯s dragonshards were obtained from the graveyard. Many of the giant dragons that died were buried there. Giant dragons did not possess souls like humans, so there was no way they could protect their own remains.


    Without any constraints, the Grandmaster managed to dig up some dragonshards.


    ¡°The one you possess will not do.¡± For his pride, Grandmaster had no choice but to take out a gigantic piece of dragonshard. With a casual wave of his hands, a golden me began to burn, and he ced the dragonshard in it so that it would be molded into a needle. The interior of the needle was carved with his own unique magic patterns.


    ¡°If your mental strength is powerful enough, you will be able to make it fly back.¡± As he handed the Dragon Crystal Needle to Nailisi and was about to say something to Saleen, Nailisi had already transformed into her human form.


    ¡°Grandmaster, don¡¯t you think my human form needs a longbow and a quiver of arrows?¡±


    ¡°Sin D¡¯hull!¡± The Grandmaster shouted angrily. A faint figure floated from the tombstones far away. The Grandmaster roared, ¡°This creature needs a longbow and arrows. Take them out!¡±


    Sin D¡¯hull was dressed like an archer. He grumbled beneath his breath, as if he was cursing the Grandmaster. That was something that was decided by Aragorn. There was no point even if he continued to keep it for himself. He had no choice but to take out a longbow and a quiver of arrows from the grave.


    The Grandmaster had barely taken over the longbow and arrows before Nailisi had already snatched them over and put them in her bracelet.


    ¡°Grandmaster, my human form is trained in both magic andbat, look...¡±


    Without a word, the Grandmaster opened a slit in the dimension and grabbed a full magic robe, magic staff, and six magic books before throwing them at Nailisi.


    The magic robe and magic staff were incredible but what truly stunned Saleen were the six magic books.


    He had seen the Bronze magic book, Silver magic book, and Golden magic books before. The other three books were a Crystal magic book, a Jade magic book, and an Element magic book. Those three books were only used by mages from grade-10 to grade-18. Grandmasters were at least grade-16 or most grade-18, therefore he did not possess any equipment beyond that grade.


    Saleen felt a little emotional. With the six magic books, he would be able to train his magic right from the beginning and all the way to grade-18. It would be as if he was being guided by his teacher.


    ¡°Grandmaster...¡± In the blink of an eye, Nailisi had already transformed into the form of the three-faced bone demon. ¡°Look, my spirit-form is simply too weak. You are trained in death magic too!¡±


    ¡°Take this!¡± Grandmaster threw a death magic book and a ck crystal at Nailisi angrily.


    ¡°How generous of you, Grandmaster...¡± With that, Nailisi had already transformed into her devil form. In her hands was a broken longnce, a shield that was torn and tattered, and armor that had yet to be repaired. She did seem to be in a rather pathetic state.


    Uproariousughter rang out from the tombstones once again. That time around, Aragorn did not step it. Nailisi was not hiding any of her demon traits. Grandmaster wished he could kill the demon on the spot and refine her soul. Nailisi and Saleen were bonded with their souls. The Grandmaster could not afford to kill her, or he would be going against the Astrologer¡¯s Contract and his fortune would take a turn for the worse, so much so that he might end up with nothing.


    That was the most powerful part of the Astrologer¡¯s Contract. In fact, it was not just a contract between Aragorn and Saleen, but with the four most powerful leaders in the graveyard. As the executioner of the contract, if the Grandmaster refused to carry out his obligations, everyone¡¯s fortune would turn bad and there was no way the other three leaders would let him off easily.


    After the Grandmaster had provided Nailisi with a giantnce, shield, and a suit of devil flying armor, he was just about to speak to Saleen about magic equipment when Nailisi transformed back into her imp form and said, ¡°Grandmaster, I am of Luoluokaluo bloodline. I already possess the Power of a Giant Dragon, but I am still unable to transform into a giant dragon. Take a look...¡±


    Theughter in the graveyard could not stop. If the Grandmaster was not in his soul form, he would have vomited blood. How could he possibly have known what bloodline this imp was from? Demons had too many bloodlines and in the past, Luoluokaluo was not any more outstanding than others.


    In order for Luoluokaluo to possess theplete Power of a giant dragon, they would need to devour a giant dragon of high grade. It was not as if Grandmaster did not possess the remains of high-grade giant dragons but of those that still contained flesh and blood, he only had one left. He could not bear to give it up, but he had no choice.


    Saleen did not dare to look at the expression on the Grandmaster¡¯s face. Nailisi was brilliant at extorting the items from Grandmaster bit by bit and had already obtained many more items than winged skeleton.


    As she wished, Nailisi managed to obtain the remains of a giant dragon. It was a giant golden dragon whose corpse would not dpose for millions of years. Devouring it would allow Nailisi to fuse it with her original abilities and transform into a giant dragon in battle. The only issue was that the giant dragon that she transformed into would still be limited by her grade.


    The bonus was that no matter how low the golden giant dragon¡¯s grade might be, its dragon¡¯s might would still be a powerful suppressive force on the battlefield. If the enemy mage was not careful and Nailisi unleashed the dragon¡¯s might at a crucial moment, the entire army could bepletely wiped out.


    ¡°Grandmaster!¡± Nailisi has only just opened her mouth and theughter in the graveyard began once again.


    ¡°Speak.¡±


    ¡°This equipment of mine needs repairing.¡± That was when Nailisi finally took out her Twelve Notes of Purgatory. If she continued to repair it bit by bit, who knew how long it would take.


    ¡°You!¡± This was the first time the Grandmaster was so infuriated with a low-level demon. The equipment that Nailisi had taken out was not of a high level but it would require a lot of materials in order to repair itpletely.


    ¡°This will be myst equipment,¡± Nailisi finally said


    ¡°Fine! Fine! Demon, you live up to your bloodline¡¯s name. What a greedy creature. One day, you will pay for your greed.¡± The Grandmaster merely cursed at her before taking out arge amount of materials and throwing them into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    The process took out up six hours of the Grandmaster¡¯s time. It was not difficult but there were two things that he needed to take note of. Firstly, he wanted to try to use only the materials that were of lowest value and secondly, he wanted the maximize the powers of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Complicated calctions and some magic techniques were involved. As Saleen observed how the Grandmaster went about repairing the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, he finally managed to learn something. The speed of the Grandmaster¡¯s calction was only about five times faster than Saleen. Saleen tried to learn and also use memory magic to record down the steps that the Grandmaster took in the process of reparation.


    Such memories might not help Saleen¡¯s learning by much. Many magic techniques could not be learned through memory magic anyway. What Saleen sought was the consistency of alchemy. He might not understand everything, but at least he could pick up one-fifth of the technique.

 Chapter 905: Greed (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 905: Greed (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was emotional when she received the fully-restored Twelve Notes of Purgatory. The weapon was only second to her Gray Memory. After it had been fully restored, the dimensions in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory would be expanded to a terrifying extent. She had never heard of any other equipment that contained such a massive space.


    The Twelve Notes of Purgatory formed aplex structure, which was bonded together by very tight links. Six of them were elemental purgatories while the other six were rule purgatories. The Grandmaster was upset with the demon¡¯s greed and took away the weapon¡¯s spirit, as a form ofpensation to himself.


    That meant that Nailisi would have to control the equipment on her own in the future, but it also meant that others would not be able to snatch it away from her. The Grandmaster had utilized a loophole in the rules and Nailisi did not mind him doing so, but she could never take it lying down that the 12 powerful weapon¡¯s spirits had been taken away.


    After taking over the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, Nailisi decided to mark it with her own Spiritual Imprint. She would have marked it with a Soul Brand if she was of appropriate grade as that would be safer.


    After putting away the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, Nailisi did not bother checking its interior. Instead, she quickly shouted, ¡°Grandmaster!¡±


    That time around, there was noughter in the graveyard because the Grandmaster¡¯s expression was clearly a terrifying one. If Nailisi dared to make another request, the Grandmaster would kill her immediately.


    ¡°I do not request for anymore equipment. I do have four subordinates who are demons that have signed soul bonds with me though. They are weak. I hope that you can find a way to boost their powers.¡±


    ¡°Only four demons?¡±


    ¡°Of course. If the Grandmaster is willing, you can supply some equipment for my demon army too. There are only about 50,000 demons.¡±


    The Grandmaster wished he could p himself. He should not have asked that unnecessary question, but since he already did, he had to do something about it.


    When the conversation ended, the souls in the graveyard began to cheer again.


    ¡°Demons! I love demons the most! They are loyal to their masters, and cruel to their enemies!¡± One of the fellows shouted.


    ¡°I love demons too! With great life power, they are the best bodyguards.¡±


    ¡°Demons can train in magic too. What an incredible species!¡±


    ¡°Yes, demons are born fighters and they are intelligent too.¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡± Grandmaster shouted furiously. The graveyard became silent immediately. He was really angry. The rest no longer dared to tease him, for fear that he would just leave on the spot. ¡°Your ves are not your weapons. A demon army of a few tens of thousands? Find a way on your own.¡±


    The Grandmaster tried to twist his words so that he would not have to help Nailisi anymore. That was not fitting of his status, but strictly speaking, he was not going against the contract.


    ¡°Oh, Grandmaster, but I realized that there were supposed to be quite a few divine crystals in this equipment of mine. Where have they gone to?¡± Nailisi did not fear the Grandmaster at all. ording to the rules of the contract, Nailisi and her Master were absolutely safe, as long as they had yet to depart.


    ¡°Divine crystals?¡±


    ¡°Grandmaster!¡±


    ¡°What have you done...¡± Even Aragorn had stepped out from his tombstone and was ring at Grandmaster.


    ¡°They are not real divine crystals.¡± A colorful divine crystal appeared in the Grandmaster¡¯s hands and he showed it for everyone to see. Most of the souls saw it and felt that it was not of impressive quality and returned it back to their tombstones. They were of much lower gradespared to the four leaders, so it was not ideal for them to leave their tombstones for a long time. Only Aragorn remained, and he continued staring at Grandmaster.


    ¡°General, this is not considered as a divine crystal, right?¡±


    ¡°It is, to me!¡± Nailisi refused to relent. To think that the Grandmaster was trying to weasel his way out from her request. It might sound like a demon army of a few tens of thousands might need a lot of equipment, but in actual fact, very few demons were over grade-7 so most of them only required equipment of very low grades. To the Grandmaster, such equipment was almost like trash.


    Nailisi was upset. She was determined to make the Grandmaster pay for that. No matter how stingy a person might be, he must be prepared to pay a heavy price when he encountered a greedy demon.


    The Grandmaster held the divine crystal awkwardly. It was true that he had promised to help Saleen repair and make equipment, but they never mentioned that Saleen must supply the necessary materials either. Being caught red-handed by Nailisi for trying to steal the divine crystals was rather embarrassing.


    By right, Nailisi should not have done so since he has already provided her with so many high-quality materials, but Nailisi was a demon, a greedy demon that was not going to give in an inch to the Grandmaster.


    ¡°There is no point for you to keep this fake divine crystal. I will exchange it with materials that can replenish mental strength for you.¡± Grandmaster spoke slowly. The way he looked at Nailisi was a thousand times scarier than the Angel of Fear.


    Nailisi was slightly terrified but she refused to give in and there was no way she could take back her words anyway. She continued, ¡°Grandmaster, it¡¯s ok if you don¡¯t wish to make the equipment for my demon army. If you leave out any equipment for the four creatures bonded to me, don¡¯t regret if the effect of the contract wears off though.¡±


    ¡°I know the rules of the contract very well!¡± The Grandmaster was infuriated by the demon. He did not bother to change his tone nor look at Aragorn.


    ¡°Fine, fine, fine!¡± Nailisi began to pack up all the materials that had been left behind when the Grandmaster was refining weapons for her, including the longnce that Saleen wasted six Eyes of Rules on. Thence might be nothing to the Grandmaster, but it was still an outstanding piece of equipment to Saleen, who could give it to a golden grand swordmaster.


    Nailisi packed up the items and even stretched out her hand to the Grandmaster, saying, ¡°Give me back the divine crystals. I don¡¯t need to exchange anything of equal value with you.¡±


    ¡°This will not do you any good.¡± Grandmaster began to threaten Nailisi.


    ¡°I will note here again then,¡± Nailisi replied even more decisively.


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe that your Master wouldn¡¯te either!¡±


    ¡°Grandmaster...¡± Aragorn called out. His tone was ominous. A green light shone on his war hammer. Saleen and the rest were paralyzed instantaneously, and they almost felt like their hearts would stop beating any moment. They had lostplete control of their bodies. Aragorn, as an ancient general, was more terrifying than a giant dragon when he was angry. At the very least, Saleen could still fight back against dragon¡¯s might.


    ¡°You are a Grandmaster, yet you are squabbling with a low-grade demon like this. I am very disappointed.¡± Aragorn raised his war hammer slowly. The expression on the Grandmaster¡¯s face changed. In the end, he dared not upset his general.


    ¡°Alright.¡± The Grandmaster returned the hundreds of colorful divine crystals to Nailisi. His expression was cold and aloof.


    ¡°That is very impressive of the Grandmaster,¡± Saleen finally began to speak to the Grandmaster, ¡°There are many areas on this devil suit of mine that can be improved. Surely you won¡¯t use some cheap and lousy materials on it?¡±


    The Grandmaster was stunned. He did not expect Saleen to speak to him with such an attitude. Saleen was a mage, so he should know his limits. Nailisi was only a creature bonded to him, why would Saleen risk offending him for Nailisi?


    In any case, the mage and demon were just like ants to him. The contract was so powerful that no one would dare to risk going against it, so he would have toe back there anyway.


    ¡°The devil suit is nothing. Let me give you another suit.¡± The rage in the Grandmaster¡¯s eyes vanished. He did not require Saleen¡¯s magic equipment. Instead, he took out aplicated-looking magic suit from thin air. It looked like a suit of armor worn by a general. It was majestic, grand, and was filled with many detailed magic patterns.


    There was also a mask that was made of transparent crystal. Crystals without any particr attributes were rare. On the forehead was a dragonshard that shone brightly. It has been cut and sliced before, so it was quite a small piece.


    ¡°A magic book, a magic staff, and magic nuclei.¡± Saleen read out the items he needed one by one. The Grandmaster gave them to him ordingly. The second set of magic books that was given to Saleen still consisted of six books, from bronze to elemental magic books.


    ¡°Grandmaster, I know that elementite can be refined and advanced further, but this is a material of only grade-16 while my magic tower is made from grade-18 materials. This is not fair.¡±


    ¡°So, what do you want?¡± The Grandmaster asked with a smile.


    ¡°I want the method to build magic power furnaces,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Sure.¡± With that, the Grandmaster took out a magic notebook. The magic notebook was about two-thirds bigger than an ordinary notebook. Its cover was ck and not a single word was written on it. Saleen thought it looked familiar. All of a sudden, he recalled that the cover of the notebook was simr to the one that belonged to Isabe. It was the one where the rule of bnce of energy was embedded.


    ¡°This notebook contains all the methods of building a magic power furnaces that I know of. As for the materials, you will have to find a way yourself. This is beyond the contractual obligations.¡± Grandmaster gave Saleen the magic notebook and stared at him coldly.


    ¡°I also need a lot of grade-12 magic papers, so that I can record the techniques on the tombstones,¡± Saleen said, while pointing at the countless tombstones in the graveyard.


    ¡°Alright. I can refine them for you now...¡± The Grandmaster continued staring at Saleen.


    ¡°Many thanks. The general took away my God¡¯s Left Hand. Now, there is a technique that I can no longer use. I need to strengthen my hands to an extent where they can repel the counter-effects of any spell.¡±


    ¡°Only your hands?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°This is for you.¡± Grandmaster handed over a pair of gloves to Saleen and said, ¡°This pair of gloves is able to handle the counter-effects of spells up to grade-16. Will you still bring up the matter of the General taking away your God¡¯s Left Hand?¡±


    ¡°Saleen took over the gloves and said, ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Very good. What else do you need?¡± The Grandmaster¡¯s attitude worried the winged skeleton. His master still needed to return to that ce. By then, he might not be able to leave again. The winged skeleton looked at Nailisi with hatred. She pretended not to notice Soldier as she looked up at the sky. Above her were dark sea waters. The senses shared between Saleen and herself only allowed them to see as far as 100 miles. Beyond that, there was only darkness that knew no bounds.


    ¡°Can you help me to gather the elemental badges?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Anything else?¡± The Grandmaster looked at Saleen and could not understand why thetter was so confident. The next time he returned to that ce, should he not be afraid that he would be locked up here forever?

 Chapter 906: Astrology Tower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 906: Astrology Tower (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen thought about it and said, ¡°I have the Ancient, which requires schematics for repairs. I will, of course, get the materials myself. I take it you will at least have the schematics, no?¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course I do,¡± the great grandmasterughed, thinking the master of the demon was indeed more greedy than the demon herself! He took out twelve schematics and handed them to Saleen. The Ancient that Saleen spoke of was only the escort warship of his, but the great grandmaster had mistook him to mean the entire fleet, so he had simply given the entire series of schematics of the Ancient to Saleen.


    Saleen did not say anything to correct him, and simply just put the schematics away. The great grandmaster re-crafted the elemental badges for him, all six of them, and Saleen had finally gotten his hands on a dark elemental creature leader. He changed into his new devil¡¯s armor and put on his gloves, as well as the crystal ring of Raphael.


    ¡°Great grandmaster.¡±


    ¡°Do you need anything else?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. The skills carved on the gravestones. Can you help me rub them out? My current level doesn¡¯t allow me to do something like that.¡±


    ¡°Not a problem. Just wait for a bit. I will get to you in a month.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, but, Soldier, get the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat,¡± Saleen said to the winged skeleton, who then took out the ship and put it in front of the great grandmaster.


    ¡°Alright, I will get it fixed,¡± the great grandmaster seemed to have developed quite a good impression of the winged skeleton. ¡°The pile of bones is prudent indeed. He didn¡¯t even think of having me fix it despite it being such a big thing. That Saleen on the other hand, is really pushing it. He¡¯s just like that darned demon.¡±


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat suffered damages several times, the worst of which was being hit by the Sigh of the Earth cast by a Cloudflow sorcerer. The entire exterior was thoroughly fossilized, rendering it impossible to be thoroughly restored. Soldier had repaired the ship with death magic, but the damage suffered on the shell was irreversible. While its defensive properties were enhanced, it suffered a drop in resilience. That made it rather brittle.


    If the ship were to suffer another attack exceeding the defensive limitations of the ship itself, it would not just be severely damaged; the entire thing would be shatteredpletely.


    The defense of a pan¡¯s turtle was noted in terms of its resilience. Generally speaking, even if the creature was to suffer lethal damage, its shell would warp instead of being shattered. It was a phenomenon made possible for buffering the impact taken.


    The damage dealt by a spell such as Sigh of the Earth was not something even the great grandmaster was able to reverse. A part of the shell was simply fossilized for good, making repairs impossible. The great grandmaster was able to see that the damaged pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had even suffered a hard kick dealt by the constructed puppet, warping some of the structures within. The winged skeleton had yet to be able to find the time to look into it.


    The great grandmaster sat on the problem for a little while, before reluctantly taking out a forty yard long turtle shell and crafting a new body of the ship for the winged skeleton. It was actually not impossible to re-craft the original pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat; it was just that metals would be needed to do so, and metals could be easily detected by magic. There was not even one gram of metal in the original ship. Even the magicpass within was something crafted using magic beast bones.


    It was only natural for the great grandmaster to keep the ship¡¯s original properties as they were. Since he had already spent so much material on Saleen, he deemed it would not make a difference to give him the pan¡¯s turtle shell too. The great grandmaster had originally intended to craft shields for warriors using the shell.


    The all-new alchemy ship had an interioryer which was newly grown, which was why the shell was so thick. He had initially wanted to wait until the shell dried out naturally back when they killed the pan turtle. The wait hadsted way beyond the death of their flesh body, and they were never able to craft shields with the shell.


    The way in and out of the hold still used a teleportation portal, but the power was supplied by something else other than magic arrays ¡ª magic power furnace. There were two of them. Magic power furnaces had more stability than magic arrays and they cost less to run, but they came with the downside of being difficult to craft. One of the magic power furnaces installed was used as a back-up. One was more than enough to give the new ship specifications exceeding the old one¡¯s.


    As for the spirit pool, the great grandmaster crafted something of a smaller size. The pool was still capable of producing twenty-four bone spirits per day, but they were grade-7 spirits, and they all would have a lifespan of about a year. The bone spirits differed from the ones the winged skeleton made himself. They were something simr to the Mechanical Soul, as the spirits possessed mechanical bone structures. They were capable of sealing bloodstones within and would not explode easily still. When the bloodstones did explode, the explosions would be like those from the winged skeleton¡¯s meteor hammer: focused and capable of being released in a very small space. That made them very effective against warships.


    Other than installing two magic power furnaces to rece the power magic arrays for the ship, the great grandmaster did not add any other weapons to the design. Everything else was exactly how the winged skeleton designed it, but enhanced in a number of ways.


    Saleen saw all that and chose to say nothing. Getting what their master wanted, the winged skeleton asked for a set of spirit armor and a death magic book.


    ¡°I have offended the great grandmaster quite a bit anyway, might just as well just go all the way and ask for more. I probably won¡¯t get another chance to after this.¡±


    Only then was Saleen somewhat satisfied. His followers had gotten almost everything they needed. ¡°The person inside the demon¡¯s equipment...about the right time to bee out, eh?¡± Was all the great grandmaster said after that.


    Saleen thought for a bit and entered the purgatory of darkness personally to look for Eleanor. He then brought her out of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    ¡°Great grandmaster, this is another of my followers, an elf.¡±


    It was Saleen¡¯s order to have her put her bow and arrows inside her ring. With his Divine Tree Magic Tower given away, all that was left was some of the divine tree¡¯s branches. There were to be no more of those material to be found anywhere else.


    ¡°I know, bows and arrows, some gear for replenishing health, and a set of magic armament. She is an elf, though. I don¡¯t have any magic books of those kind.¡±


    ¡°Naturally,¡± Saleen did not ask for anything else seeing how the great grandmaster simply deciding to give him equipment without him asking.


    Eleanor was thoroughly confused. She returned to her training in the purgatory of darkness after getting her new equipment. The great grandmaster began crafting grade-12 magic paper for Saleen then, as well as rubbing out the skills etched on the gravestones. Saleen had all twenty-four of his ancient warriors collect the papers one by one, and had them handed to him.


    The great grandmaster insisted on refusing to swap out the tainted blood armor worn by the ancient warriors. While the armor was hardly more than armament issued for elite troops and were not of really high levels, they were nheless fitting gear forbat for grade-9 professionals.


    Everyone boarded the alchemy ship once it was finished, except the twenty-four ancient warriors. Saleen himself did not stay outside either. He entered Nailisi¡¯s collection of purgatories and took out the tower the great grandmaster crafted for him. He then went inside the tower and took out everything else the great grandmaster had chucked inside for him, and stored them into his Devil Ring.


    He searched the inventory of his new Devil Ring after getting the materials. The great grandmaster had supplied him with the magic nuclei he requested, and some things that a mage would require were also put inside the Magical Element Tower. The twenty-four floored magic tower was ready for use. Its super-high defensive capabilities aside, the tower would allow Saleen to perform at his fullest. It was as if he was in a nine-floored tower.


    Magic beast bones were also supplied in abundance by the great grandmaster, and all were of high levels. There were no single-horned white whale skeletons though.


    Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and Saleen was called out from the alchemy ship by the great grandmaster. Another ring was thrown into his hand as the great grandmaster spoke, ¡°All skills above grade-10 and below grade-16 in the cemetery were all rubbed out and put in there. If you have needs for low-level skills, go rub them out yourself. If you have no intentions of doing so, I will see you off at once.¡±


    Saleen had been researching the magic power furnace in all those days and had not been minding the passage of time. It was only when the great grandmaster told him that it was time to leave that he realized that he still had a kingdom to run, and staying there to train forever was not an option.


    ¡°Hold on,¡± Saleen extended his hand and stopped the great grandmaster.


    ¡°What I gave you was more than enough to cover the worth of your magic tower. Saleen, you are no demon. Don¡¯t be too greedy, alright,¡± the great grandmaster said in a calm manner instead ofshing out at him.


    ¡°No, there is nothing else I need from you, but I can give you this,¡± Saleen said as he took out the seed of the tree of taboo, and handed it to the great grandmaster.


    The moment the seed reached the great grandmaster¡¯s hand, four beam of light flew up from four gravestones. A beam of light flew up from Saleen¡¯s head as well. The beams merged and disappeared.


    ¡°That is a grade-18 divine tree seed. Our contracts are fulfilled. Oh, and where is the key you promised?¡± Saleen asked calmly.


    There was silence in the cemetery for quite a moment, then Aragorn, the great general, walked out of his gravestone and stood before Saleen.


    They took out a second Astrologer¡¯s Contract and said, ¡°It seems that the astrologers¡¯ words were really urate, Saleen. This is a mutual non-aggression contract. Sign this, and we will never able to do you any harm ever.¡±


    ¡°Let me have a look,¡± Saleen did not sign the contract immediately. He took the contract and read every single line of its contents carefully.


    The contract was a really fair one. After signing, all undying heroic souls serving under the four major leaders of the Imperial City of the Abyss would never be able to do Saleen any harm. The protection was even extended to cover Saleen¡¯s rtives, subordinates, friends, and even Saleen¡¯s ves. The undying heroic souls were not even allowed to instruct other parties to do Saleen harm, and that included hiring assassins.


    ¡°Why?¡± Saleen waved the contract in his hand and asked Aragorn.


    ¡°If we do not sign this contract, you wouldn¡¯t show up to sign a third one with us one-thousand yearster. You have offended the great grandmaster, and I need to keep you assured.¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡± Saleen looked at the great grandmaster.


    The great grandmaster had a bitter smile on his face holding on to the tree of taboo¡¯s seed. They had not expected that Saleen had something demanded by the contract on his person. With the contract fulfilled, Saleen actually had no further need to return. If Saleen were to not return again, their ns to leave the Imperial City of the Abyss would be reduced to nothing, as there would probably not be another person stepping foot into the city again for tens of thousands of years toe.


    To put more aptly, given that Saleen had offended the great grandmaster, and he would likely not allow others to get anywhere close to the Imperial City of the Abyss. That meant that the undying heroic souls would remain trapped at the cemetery for eternity.


    ¡°This Saleen is really something. No wonder he wanted to add another line on the contract, which was to have Aragorn see them off safely.¡±


    ¡°Since you people have no way of doing me harm, why should I return?¡± Saleen smiled and looked at the great grandmaster. He had posed a very serious question. If he was not able to get a satisfying answer, Saleen would not even sign the second contract, and he would definitely not return to the cemetery ever again.

 Chapter 907: Astrology Tower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 907: Astrology Tower (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°You are a mage, Saleen!¡± the great grandmaster¡¯s words had Saleenughing.


    ¡°You are a mage yourself, yet you threatened my bonded creatures all the same. Tell me, what should I be thinking then? You have fifteen days regardless. After 15 days, you would need to see me off, as per the contract, no matter what I do.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s will was adamant. He had not the slightest intention to submit to the powerful souls. No matter what kind of attitude he took, it would not have mattered if they intended to kill him.


    ¡°Saleen, what do you want?¡± It was Aragorn the great general who spoke.


    ¡°Not a contract like this at least,¡± Saleen threw the contract back to Aragorn.


    ¡°If you want to conquer the entire maind, you need to rely on your own powers. It is impossible for us to help you,¡± Aragorn replied with an equally adamant attitude.


    ¡°I know. You all would not follow me as a king, and I have no intentions of having you at my side. It is, after all, unrealistic for a mage to think such matters.¡±


    ¡°There is always a price when trades are involved,¡± Aragorn no longer treated Saleen as some small-time mage and had instead begun taking him seriously.


    ¡°I¡¯m a mage, just as the great grandmaster put it. As such, I know of the principle of equivalent exchange. I need to get ample returns for what I pay. The Imperial City of the Abyss is tens of thousands of miles away from the maind, so I cannot just lock down the ce easily. I can ensure nobody will ever show up again in the one-thousand years I¡¯m still alive. one-thousand years out there means ten-thousand years for you.¡±


    ¡°You are correct. So, the things you provide, they are of higher value then,¡± Aragorn answered.


    ¡°No, the things you provided me with are very precious too. I wish for equivalent exchange, not being put under your control and having me do this and that for you people. I have my own life, and you all will definitely never be a priority of mine.¡±


    ¡°Interesting way of putting it.¡±


    ¡°It sounds interesting because the contract is fulfilled. You would just find itughable otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Alright, the astrology tower is considered your interest then,¡± Aragorn said and took out a key, handing it to Saleen before continuing, ¡°This is the key to the astrology tower in the imperial city. Take this key with you when you head for the tower, and your safety will be guaranteed. That is the interest of our trade this time. Are you satisfied with it?¡±


    ¡°Of course I am,¡± Saleen took the key and put it inside the Devil Ring.


    ¡°What do you need us to do for you to return?¡±


    ¡°My goal is to crush the Holy See and resurrect the Goddess of Myers. Tell me your goals. If they are in conflict with mine, it is a given that I will never return.¡±


    ¡°The Goddess of Myers? You mean her?¡± Aragorn waved and conjured an illusion. A cute-looking girl was seen running through a forest in the illusion. She was chasing a dragon who had its wings cut off.


    While the girl was somewhat different from the goddess in terms of image and disposition, Saleen was still able to tell that the girl that Aragorn had shown him, was none other than the goddess herself. In her maiden stage, the goddess had a regal air about her. She was barehanded and there were no shoes on her feet, however, sharp rocks were quickly reduced to dust as the goddess stepped on them.


    The one attempting escape from her was a ck dragon. Without its wings, it had no choice but to run on its strong legs. The dragon was in shambles and would not even dare to look behind. Its huge body cut out a wide path among the trees. One tall, majestic tree toppled after another as the dragon made its way past.


    ¡°That is her,¡± Saleen only believed what the souls had told him at that moment. ¡°She was indeed a human, but how did she be a god?¡±


    ¡°There is no turning back for people who have deified. If you want her to be resurrected, go for it by all means. We will go kill her afterward.¡±


    ¡°Why though? Weren¡¯t you familiar with each other?¡±


    ¡°This ne would definitely weaken if there was to be even one god here. You told us that humanity¡¯s powers have dropped below grade-10 now, and we dare say that it has everything to do with her. Do you really wish for humanity¡¯s powers to continue to weaken, to be taken over by gods, robbed of everything, and turned into a mere interdimensional space?¡±


    ¡°You hear that I want to resurrect her. Why are you not stopping me then?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s because there is still hope. If we can send her off to other nes instead of killing her, that would be eptable enough to us.¡±


    Saleen had doubts in his mind but chose not to voice them. These ancient humans were in dire need of things or equipment with divine powers. A living god would have been able to do them even more good.


    ¡°Regardless, since these people have no intentions of stopping me from resurrecting The Goddess, then I will just go fulfill my contract with her. That will be a good deal then. Whatever they intend to do to herter, that is not my problem. That was what happened more than one-thousand years ago at least. If I resurrect her within the next millennium, that one millennium out there in the maind will equal ten millennia here.


    There is no telling if these souls will still be here after ten-thousand years too.


    ¡°So, what exactly do you people want?¡± Saleen had to know, why did the souls need divine-powered equipment? ¡°If they hated the gods so much, why did they yearn for their powers so much?¡±


    ¡°We are people who have lost their own fate. If we were to gain a new life, we need the bodies of humans. Our souls have continued to grow in our Hero¡¯s Graves, and now we can no longer enter the bodies of normal humans. Even the bodies of your ancient warriors would bust as soon as we got into them. While gods are unable to create life, their powers would bestow new vitality to our bones. We will then only need a bit of time to revive our bones, then we will be able to cast off the shackles of the Hero¡¯s Graves and leave this ce.¡±


    ¡°What happens after that?¡±


    ¡°We would no longer need your help, as we would have ways to resurrect ourselves then. You already told us that the power of this ne has severely weakened. If we were to leave the city, we would do great damage to the ne, even causing it to copse. Then we ourselves would end up dead again. As such, we would just make for another ne, never to return again, unless this ne regains its former level of power.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t stay on this ne?¡±


    ¡°There is a limit to how much power a ne can take within it. ording to what you said, the highest level a creature can reach currently in this ne is grade-10. The most powerful among us are already a grade-18 professional. If we leave the Imperial City of the Abyss, it would be like a dragon trying to fit themselves into a wine bottle. The dragon would be constricted to death, and the bottle blown from the internal stress.¡±


    Aragorn¡¯s metaphor was a vivid one. Saleen had learned a thing or two about ne rules before. The rules, when coupled with what Aragorn mentioned, made it very clear as to why not even the double of the Lord of Glory was able to make it onto the Myers Maind, and why it had resorted to using the power of believers to spread the faith.


    ¡°Looks like we are not in conflict then,¡± Saleen pondered.


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°But didn¡¯t you say that if the Goddess of Myers is to be resurrected, you will kill her or take her away?¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, if She wants to resurrect herself, she will at least need to regain her powers to grade-13. By then, the primary ne will at least be able to tolerate grade-14 professionals. We are all souls from the primary ne, and the power at grade-14 is not limited at all. As such, she will only be able to start resurrecting at grade-13.¡±


    ¡°Understood. To you people, that is something for the future, and you have a lot of time on your hands. Well then, we can get back to business. If I bring the stuff, what do I get in return?¡±


    ¡°If you are able to get the relics of the great astrologer, what you will get will be equal to what you are willing to give. The reason I gave you the key was to ensure that you stay alive, instead of getting killed by some random idents or some other such thing. If that happens, we will be stuck here forever.¡±


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s expression being a troubled one, Aragorn continued, ¡°Of course, to fulfill your goal of destroying the state worship a god, you will need the equal amount of power to do so. We will provide you with grade-7 to grade-12 equipment for you to do so, in bulk.¡±


    ¡°What about the Ancient?¡±


    ¡°It is impossible for us to provide you with a fleet, unless...¡±


    ¡°Unless?¡±


    ¡°Unless you get your hands on true godly items for us. One that was personally crafted by the gods. Only then will the item be of use to us.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t these divine trees do?¡±


    ¡°These divine trees are dead. While their material is excellent, the amount of divine power we can derive from them is, however, limited. I wouldn¡¯t have made an exchange with you if they things were not pure enough.¡±


    ¡°Nicely said, pity about my grade-18 material though,¡± Saleen said out of genuine exasperation. Elementite was a grade-16 material. If he was to advance them, he would have needed to do it hands on. The great grandmaster was only capable of crafting elementite of such a level. If Saleen wanted the Magical Element Tower to be the most powerful equipment ever seen, there was no way he could have done so by having others do so for him.


    ¡°So, are you willing to sign the second contract?¡± Aragorn asked in glee.


    ¡°No, the contract requires amendments. You are not allowed to harm me, but I would be allowed to attack you,¡± Saleen¡¯s words shocked the souls at the cemetery, but none got angry about it. Even if Saleen was to attack them, none of them would have cared. All of them were once some of the most powerful people ever seen on their respective nes. Saleen was but a grade-8 mage. That would have made him an above-average soldier back then at most. No one among them would have been bothered by Saleen, as they were all true professionals of the ancient times.


    ¡°Saleen, if the contract is not fair enough, the effects would then be unstable. Our levels would have simply broken the contract,¡± the great grandmaster was not able to help but chip in. Saleen¡¯s responses and calctions piqued the interests of even a great grandmaster like him. ording to the rules set in the contract, they were not in a position to do Saleen harm, and thus there was no point in getting angry about it.


    Someone that old wouldn¡¯t bother sulking over something like that, it seemed. If Saleen was able to live long enough, then the contract would be voided sooner orter. If Saleen happened to die early, they would not need to get angry at a dead man. A human at such a level as Saleen would have only turned into a spirit when he died. His soul would not be able to remainpletely intact.


    ¡°Then the contract shall be restricted only to the primary ne,¡± Aragorn did fret over Saleen¡¯s insolence. His requests were nothing if they were able to resurrect. What they wanted was indeed somewhat difficult to obtain. Yet what Saleen wanted, as only a grade-8 mage, was near-impossible. Enhancing Saleen¡¯s powers had always been part of the n of the heroic spirits.


    ¡°Alright, that settles it then,¡± Saleen took the Astrologer¡¯s Contract, wiped the words on it clean, and began writing his own contract on the paper.

 Chapter 908: The Path of Stars (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 908: The Path of Stars (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Let me write the third contract too,¡± Saleen requested, after writing the second Astrologer¡¯s Contract.


    ¡°Sure.¡± The third contract was handed over to Saleen, who removed the words on it. That time around, he used the magguage to write 36,000 magic words.


    The contract was extremely important. He patiently blocked off all the loopholes. He did not expect to be able to take advantage of the souls and only hoped that he would not be sold away eventually. That was why the contract was written in a way that was advantageous to him as well. At first nce, it seemed like he was just a greedy mage who was trying to gain whatever benefits he could for himself.


    He used greed as a disguise for his caution. There was only so much Saleen could do. Amongst allnguages, the magguage was the most serious, sometimes to the extent of being slightly boring and frustrating. Mages only used the magguage when they were casting spells, while using their preferrednguages under normal circumstances.


    Aragorn also used the magguage to write his name on the contract. Saleen might be greedy but he did not go overboard with all of his requests. They were all within the limits that the heroic souls could tolerate.


    After signing the third contract, Saleen was still required to return to the Imperial City of the Abyss after 1,00 years, which was equivalent to 100 years in the outside world.


    Once the three contracts had been signed, the Grandmaster appeared again and stretched out his hands to create a rip in the dimension before throwing Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat in. The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat traveled through a dimension of 1,000 miles and re-entered the core of the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Saleen decided to let the winged skeleton keep the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat while Eleanor would return to the Purgatory of Darkness. Even the ancient warriors were sent there to keep Eleanorpany.


    In the end, the winged skeleton failed to convince Saleen and was also sent into hiding in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Saleen only left Nailisi behind. He took out the key that Aragorn had passed to him and strung it up on a magic string so that he could wear it around his neck.


    ¡°Master, don¡¯t trust a word of what those bastards say.¡± Nailisi¡¯s expression was awful. They were in the depths of the Imperial City. She stood in the center of a long street with Saleen. Both sides of the street were lined with tall buildings. There was a pair of sculptures in front of each door. The power embedded in the sculptures was no longer like those found on the edges of the city. They were powerful enough to kill him directly.


    At the end of the street, which was about three miles away, was a wooden tower that was more than 1,000 yards tall.


    There was no need for any clues or indications. The entire wooden tower was carved with constetions. It had to be an astrology tower. It seemed that they would encounter danger while walking past the doors on both sides of the street. Was there no other way but for Nailisi and Saleen to walk to the end of the three-mile long street?


    The Grandmaster must have done that on purpose, otherwise he could very well have sent the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat directly to the astrologer tower.


    It was Nailisi who was too suspicious then. When the Grandmaster was still alive, he was a grade-17 mage. After he died, his soul might have still been at grade-17 but the power that he could control was only at grade-16. Even the grade18 Aragorn would not have been able to transport them directly to the astrologer tower.


    The astrologer tower was extremely important in the Imperial City of the Abyss. Long ago, even the Emperor would alight from his carriage three miles away from the astrologer tower before walking the rest of the way. The buildings that lined both sides of the street were upied by astrologers. The astrologers were no less prestigious and important than the mages. In fact, most of the time, the astrologers upied a very powerful position in the kingdom.


    Not only could astrologers divine, they could also battle, and theirbat style was strange and hard to defend against. If not for the fact that the astrologers¡¯ powerful techniques could damage their own life power, astrologers would have long overtaken mages as the most powerful force on the Maind.


    No Professional of the same grade would be a match for a grade-18 astrologer at his best.


    The astrologer¡¯s tower of the Imperial City of the Abyss was the center of the entire city. Even the pce was built behind the astrologer¡¯s tower while magic towers were not allowed to be built anywhere near it. The Grandmaster cared too much about his pride to exin all that to Saleen.


    Since Nailisi had reminded him, Saleen said, ¡°Nailisi, I can only trust the people around me. There was nothing we could do about the signing of the contracts, so I won¡¯t hold it against anyone. Regarding that, we need to talk more about it when we are back.¡±


    Saleen was not willing to continue further because he sensed danger lurking nearby. There was no way any lifeform could still exist in the courtyards though. The street that they were walking on was made of rocks that had been ced together without any gaps in between. Despite the erosion of water for the past tens of thousands of years, the rocks were still in very good condition.


    Saleen used his elemental eyes and saw that the rocks underneath his feet were different from those around the rest of the Imperial City. The six major elements were in harmony! There were no magic patterns carved anywhere on the entire street. There were only star charts in vermillion paint. The paint might be of high quality, but by right, with the passing of time, the colors should have already faded and eroded by the waters.


    The star charts on the entire street looked as if they were only painted the prior day.


    Was that the power of astrologers? It was millions of times more powerful than the rule of energy bnce that Saleen had learned!


    Saleen cleared his throat but his mouth was dry. He opened up the water shield around his body and drank a bottle of magic fluid. Instead of using the magic staff, he took out his demon book. The magic book stored six spells that were not limited by grades.


    It was the most practical and useful magic equipment that Saleen possessed. In the past, he almost forgot about it because he did not have the chance to use it. He had no other choice. This street was three-miles long. He might not have the chance to take out a second magic staff when rushing down the street.


    There was a loudmotion in the graveyard of the heroic souls. Aragorn, the Grandmaster, an archer, and an assassin were all gathered together.


    Aragorn asked, ¡°Grandmaster, which side of the astrologer tower have you transported them to?¡±


    ¡°The north side.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know that the north side is very dangerous?¡± The archer asked furiously.


    ¡°Exactly. The north side is also the backdoor and is the ce where the astrologers stayed. There will also be...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say it out loud! Damn it, I just want to test them. If Saleen cannot even survive that street, what hope is there that he will bring us Godly Items?¡±


    ¡°You are pitting a grade-8 mage against astrologers. Grandmaster, are you out of your mind?¡± Aragorn asked furiously.


    ¡°Yes, I am, but that doesn¡¯t mean all of you aren¡¯t. Are there any restrictions or constraints ced on Saleen in the contracts that he signed with us?¡±


    ¡°No, but if he wishes to gain greater powers, he will have no choice but to return and find us. The technique that he has copied can only be trained to grade-12. Without any guidance from teacher, he will not be able to gain anything!¡± The assassin spoke with frustration. Although his powers were not the lowest amongst the four leaders, he was stillst in ranking. It was not appropriate for him to me the Grandmaster directly. ming was different from teasing and would suggest that he was trying to challenge the Grandmaster¡¯s position.


    ¡°Is it not enough for him that he has the powers of grade-12? Besides, we are not the only Imperial Cities beyond the Maind. If Saleen is smart enough, he can seek out Imperial Cities in other ces.¡±


    ¡°Other Imperial Cities? I¡¯m afraid he is only left with the graveyard of heroic souls...¡±


    ¡°You!¡± Aragorn was so upset with the Grandmaster that he was speechless. If he had known that things would turn out like that, he would have transport Saleen and the rest personally. With the key, it would have been very safe to enter the astrologer tower from the front. The street at the back was lined with the private properties of the astrologers. The items with those properties were all refined by the astrologers themselves and had nothing to do with the defense mechanism of the astrologer tower.


    ¡°What are you upset about? If Saleen does not wish to be tested, he only needs to turn and leave,¡± said the Grandmaster. In his opinion, it was not difficult to bypass the courtyard behind the astrologer tower.


    ¡°He is here to experience hardship. I¡¯m not a mage and even I can tell. His lineage is very special. If he turns and leaves, it will affect his training. Grandmaster, given the grade that you are at, surely you already know that?¡±


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯m helping him.¡± The Grandmaster replied simply before returning back to his tombstone.


    ¡°General!¡± All the high-level heroic souls around Aragorn looked at him. He shrugged and said, ¡°Saleen has already entered the range of the astrologer tower. There is nothing I can do. Let¡¯s go back. Only luck will determine his fate.¡±


    Aragorn gazed into the distance. If Saleen was to die, he would never forgive Grandmaster. He already knew all about Saleen¡¯s intentions. When one¡¯s soul reached grade-18, one would be able to sense what the other party was thinking. He knew that Saleen was not keen to return, but he also knew that thetter was tempted by other items in the Imperial City. As long as Saleen returned to the Imperial City of the Abyss, Aragorn would have a way of making Saleene back to the graveyard of heroic souls on his own.


    The difference between the both of them was too great. Aragorn had already left a mark on Saleen that was concealed by the memory of Ismail so Saleen did not manage to detect it.


    The tombstones of the heroic souls would not be able to protect the souls for eternity and Saleen could very well be their final chance. It turned out that what the astrologer said long ago came true. A weak king would be the one to rescue them.


    The water shield on Saleen¡¯s body turned into a cone shape. Nailisi charged to the front and raised her skeletal shield. The towering de shield was in front of her while her right hand gripped onto her longnce. In her imp form, she sprinted ahead as her tail set in a streamlined position with her body so that she was traveling at the highest speed possible.


    Saleen followed behind Nailisi. He clutched the demon magic book in one hand and Joey¡¯s magic staff in the other. There were no spells in the magic staff that the Grandmaster had given to him and that made Saleen think even more badly of the Grandmaster.


    If possible, he would try not to allow the terms and conditions of the contracts to be valid. He did not wish to return to the graveyard to carry out the next transaction.


    As for the Imperial City, he was open to the idea of returning. While the materials there were not extremely rare, they were all gathered together inrge quantities. All the rock materials, crystals, and elemental creatures were all items that could be put to good use for his future expeditions.


    There was a door a hundred yards ahead. The two statues in front of the door were a pair of banshees. The astrologer must have unique taste to use banshees to guard his door.


    The two banshees were originally standing erect, but when the door in the middle opened automatically, they knelt down immediately. As the towering door opened, a beautiful figure walked out.

 Chapter 909: The Path of Stars (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 909: The Path of Stars (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This figure was approximately of the same height as Saleen and only seemed slightly taller because its hair was tied at the top. By right, the figures owned by noble families or the children of rich families were very exquisite and almost looked alive, but that one looked like it was crafted very simply. It had perfect body proportions and a pair of lively eyes.


    Such figures were different from the puppets created by mages. Such figures did not possess any alchemy parts and were sewn together with cloth and stuffed with soft materials. Toys like those had been in existence for the past tens of thousands of years.


    The face of this figure was simple but pleasant-looking. Its face was pale, with ck eyebrows and a pair of eyes that were made up of ck gemstones.


    ¡°My Master would like to invite the two of you to his residence.¡± The female figure bowed and invited Saleen and Nailisi into the courtyard with an outstretched hand. The moment she stretched out her hand, Nailisi¡¯s sprint was halted immediately. Her arms became stiff and were unable to even try to attack with her longnce.


    Nailisi turned around and looked at Saleen. He had also stopped dead in his tracks suddenly and was looking at the figure.


    Saleen¡¯s judgement had improved tremendously. Although he was only a grade-8 sorcerer and was only equivalent to an elite soldier in the Imperial City of the Abyss, he had been exposed to quite a number of rules, including the lightning rule that he had created on his own. Attacking with rules was the most terrifying because the difference between grades would be very significant.


    Nailisi was forced to halt her sprint the moment the figure stretched out her hand. Although she was only grade-9 in her demon form, the weapon in her hand was at least grade-12 and could unleash the power of grade-10.


    When the figure stretched out her hand, it was as if Nailisi had crashed into something before stopping on her own. Saleen could not see any elemental power from the figure¡¯s hand, only a faint sliver of starlight.


    ¡°Can we refuse?¡± Saleen shouted. At that point in time, the winged skeleton suddenly appeared from in Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory. He took out his pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat and quickly took Saleen and Nailisi in. Then, he charged towards the astrologer¡¯s tower at full speed.


    The beautiful female figure turned around and watched the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat moving off at full speed. She made no attempt to give chase. The technique she had used just must have been beyond grade-10. The winged skeleton would be no match for her.


    Before the pan turtle alchemy ship even covered 200 yards, starlight suddenly shot out from the ground. It joined together into silver lines and cut through the exterior of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat broke into pieces, revealing Saleen and his two followers.


    ¡°My Master extends his wee to you.¡± That beautiful female figure called out from behind. Both the winged skeleton and Nailisi froze and did not dare to move. They both looked at Saleen.


    Saleen nodded. He was unharmed. The Starlight Cutting spell cut up the pan¡¯s turtle alchemy ship into pieces, but the three of them were unharmed. Nailisi and the winged skeleton were relieved to see that Saleen was fine.


    The winged skeleton felt even more relieved that he had not used the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat that the Grandmaster had given to him. He could sense that the starlight that had shot out from the ground possessed little force but contained rules of a very high grade.


    The power unleashed from a single star chart was enough to break the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat into pieces. If all the star charts had been activated, Saleen was not confident that the new elemental magic tower that he had obtained would remain unharmed. Since that figure only destroyed the alchemy ship without harming any of them, that meant that they were not in danger yet.


    Saleen could only console himself like that as he led Nailisi and the winged skeleton backwards. The street was three miles long, but before he could even cover 200 yards, he was already forced to return. He felt terrible.


    When they finally came before the figure once again, thetter performed the same gesture of inviting them in, so Saleen led Nailisi and the winged skeleton into the courtyard. Soldier did not even bother keeping the broken pieces of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The entire equipment had been destroyed and every single broken piece had been refined by the power of constetion so that the original power would be removed and turned into something that only astrologers could utilize.


    The female figure led Saleen and the rest past the courtyard and finally arrived at a small living room after a few turns. The living room was not as new as the door of the courtyard. Some of the items here were already broken. Saleen sat on a chair that was missing a leg. The figure bowed and left but returned soon after to serve tea to Saleen.


    The table was an item that had been refined by the astrologer and its surface was t. The entire living room was filled with waters of high pressure though. When the jade-colored cup was ced on the table, it was broken even without the figure exerting any force.


    The figure seemed to be unaware of this and continued to pour tea for Saleen. There was no tea in the teapot and the fluid that was poured out also dissipated amongst the waters.


    All of a sudden, Saleen realized that the figure did not possess any intelligence. It was out of habit that it invited them in. To be more urate, the figure was used by the astrologer that stayed there to wee and invite guests into the residence in the past.


    Just as Saleen expected, the figure left them once tea has been served. Saleen nodded at the winged skeleton as hemunicated with thetter in the depths of his soul and asked him to try and leave through the door.


    When the winged skeleton pushed open the broken door, it slowly fell onto the ground and broke into many pieces.


    ¡°Master will return very soon. Please wait for a moment.¡± That female figure suddenly appeared and ushered the winged skeleton back to the living room. Soldier could see star charts everywhere on the ground, so he did not dare to try to resist and returned to Saleen. The figure left once again. It seemed that the figure would not interfere with them as long as Saleen did not try to leave.


    ¡°What should we do?!¡± Nailisi was panicking. She had also realized that the figure was not an equipment used for attack. As long as Saleen did not try to attack it, they would not be in any danger, but they could not possibly stay there forever. They were still unsure how the Grandmaster would help them leave the Imperial City of the Abyss. If there was a time limit to the free teleportation, then they would be in trouble.


    If the free teleportation spell contained a time limitation, then it would activate no matter where Saleen was. If it was activated unsessfully, not only would Saleen be injured, it might also trigger some of the defenses of the astrologer tower, such as the Starlight Cutting ability.


    ¡°Try to escape through the window.¡± Saleen pointed at the broken windows. The material of the window could probably be made into high-grade equipment on the Myers Maind, but with the passing of time, even such valuable materials were also beginning to decay.


    Without another word, Nailisi leapt out of the window. Outside of the window was a cloister with a courtyard beside it. Nailisi walked around the courtyard once and was not stopped by the figure. Most likely, the courtyard was guarded by other figures in the past and was not part of the responsibility of that figure.


    Since the figure did not possess intelligence, it would not interfere even if it discovered Nailisi.


    Nailisi did not return immediately. Instead, she looked at the astrologer tower from the courtyard. The astrologer tower was 1,000 yards tall and was surrounded by starlight. If the key that Aragorn had given to her Master could not be used, they would be trapped there forever and Nailisi would never be able to leave.


    It was not a big deal if they were trapped there forever. Being able to live together with Master was actually quite appealing, but she knew that he would not be happy as his two children were living in the outside world. Nailisi thought for a moment before returning back to the living room.


    ¡°Master, the Grandmaster is not trustworthy. If the figure had attacked us, we would already be dead,¡± Nailisi spoke with trepidation.


    ¡°Nailisi, those souls in the graveyard only see us as ants. Have you ever seen humans caring about the life and death of ants? If they were trustworthy, that would be like saying Sikeqinyans do not love money. I don¡¯t care about what they think. At the end of the day, I will make sure they don¡¯t get what they want.¡±


    Saleen finally dared to speak because he also felt that the mysterious rule that had remained on his body has finally been erasedpletely. There was no way any form ofmunication could be established between the graveyard and that ce. Although Saleen¡¯sbat abilities might not be outstanding in the Imperial City of the Abyss, his sensitivity towards the power of rules was very high.


    The power of that rule could not intrude the space where astrologers dwelled. In other words, the rules used by astrologers were unique. Perhaps the heroic souls of the graveyard could still find a way to force their way through to Saleen¡¯s location, but it would definitely trigger the astrologer¡¯s tower¡¯s counter attack. It would hardly be worthwhile.


    ¡°But Master, there is no way we can leave this ce,¡± Soldier spoke worriedly.


    ¡°The key that Aragorn has given to me is not for entering the astrologer¡¯s tower. Take a look here and you should understand. Astrologers were of such high status that even Aragorn did not dare to cross their paths. How can he possibly possess a key that can control the astrologer¡¯s tower? At most, this item can only allow me to enter the astrologer tower to obtain some valuable items before leaving. It was never meant to help me obtain the lineage of astrologers. Nevertheless, with this key, we will be able to escape the Imperial City of the Abyss without being attacked.¡±


    Saleen analyzed very casually and he was not too far away from the truth. With the key in possession, as long as Saleen did not do anything reckless and dangerous, such as entering the pce, he would not be attacked by any magic arrays or elemental creatures.


    Nevertheless, the key was extremely rare because it was left behind by a powerful astrologer. If Saleen entered the astrologer tower, he would be able to reach at least the hundredth level and would be able to obtain quite a decent lineage.


    Saleen did not have the time to train his astrology to such a high level. Aragorn knew very well that mages would take a very long time to train, so even if he gave Saleen the lineage to astrology, thetter would not have to time to train anyway.


    Aragorn only hoped that Saleen would be lucky enough and not die so easily. There were still some decent materials in the astrologer tower that could be used to create equipment. There were some items that Aragorn wanted to keep for himself to conquer other dimensions, so there was no way he would be so generous as to give them to Saleen.


    Since the astrologers had correctly predicted theing of a king, then the astrologers should also be the ones to provide Saleen with the items he needed. Since all the astrologers had already died and there was no way Aragorn could enter the astrologer¡¯s tower, he decided that he might as well let Saleen search around in it.


    The Grandmaster was even more stingy. He did not want Saleen to obtain any lineages. He only wanted him to remain in the residences of the astrologers that were below grade-14.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t we think of a way to leave? What good are the astrologer¡¯s items? Thest astrologer on the Myers Maind is already dead. There is no one to guide you even if you trained in it. You may not see any effects even in the next 3,000 to 5,000 years,¡± Nailisi continued to persuade Saleen. She did not want Saleen to enter the dangerous astrologer tower. Just based on that figure, she already had a good idea what the astrologers would be like.

 Chapter 910: Capturing Figures (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 910: Capturing Figures (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nailisi, if I were to just turn away now, I would face great difficulty advancing in the future. Grade-9 will be my limit. I didn¡¯t feel much getting in my way when advancing to grade-8, and that was because I had enough experience with things. Beyond grade-9, relying on experience alone would be meaningless.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were extremely in, yet Nailisi was rendered silent.


    To practice magic was to walk an extremely arduous path. Ever since she began following Saleen, she had yet to see her master truly have any time for leisure. Saleen practiced magic with any free time he was able to get. He never went about enjoying himself, and never took long breaks. The way a mage took breaks was to meditate. A mage¡¯s constitutional toughness would be raised tens of times when advancing into the rank of sorcerers, enabling them to train for consecutive days and nights on end.


    Practitioners of swordsmanship like J would have time to do something to enjoy themselves still, such as going about seducing the royal princess or such. There was basically no such luxury for mages. Once one entered the world of magic, everything else ceased to matter. If Saleen had not been braving countless dangers anding out alive with Lex, their rtionship would not have been what it was at that moment; their rtionship would not have differed much from that between strangers.


    ¡°Master, since you have made up your mind, we will then follow your orders. What should we do then?¡± the winged skeleton simply asked, instead of trying to go against his master¡¯s wishes.


    ¡°Get rid of that figure. I have looked clearly. The figure did not absorb energy from the star chart, and that makes it apletely independent piece of equipment, just like the constructed puppet. Once the constetion powers of the figure get depleted, it will be no different from a child¡¯s toy.¡±


    ¡°Powers of grade-11, master. If we were to drain all the grade-11 power, it will take us a lot of time,¡± Nailisi said worriedly. She wished to leave the ce quickly, as Saleen had gotten the magic nuclei he came for after all.


    ¡°That thing won¡¯t kill us, and that is our advantage over it. We still have elemental badges with us,¡± Saleen smiled and summoned Vinny¡¯s underlings. His underlings had beenpletely replenished by the great grandmaster, all one-hundred and forty-four Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. All the soldiers were armed withrge magic warhammers.


    Saleen summoned six of them at one time. The soldiers stayed a height of twenty yards, instead of expanding their bodies to a height exceeding one-hundred yards. The astrologer¡¯s mansion was indeed huge, but it was nheless a house for human use still. The roof was broken as soon as the twenty yard tall soldiers made their entrance.


    The female figure was right outside and was thrown into the air as the soldiers busted through the roof. The figure was unarmed, but hundreds of starlight beams flew from the ground as it danced about with its hands, disintegrating some of the soldiers. The elemental creatures were not ones to know fear. Their pieces simply flew back into the badge, while more flew out to take their ces.


    The figure would have cut all of the six soldiers Saleen released into shreds with starlight as soon as they hit the ground. As such, the offensive capacities of the starlight were very high. Saleen analyzed the beams and deemed that even his own grade-9 Darkness Shield would not have been adequate topletely nullify the attacks. If the Darkness Shield was broken, his own devil¡¯s armor would be able to hold out for a little bit still.


    Saleen had no intentions of risking his own neck and had simply kept summoning the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. He also unleashed the stone statue army kept in his robe, having them all flood thepound outside.


    The Stone Statue Army was a grade-9 magic, and one which was able to summon six stone statue soldiers as well. The summoned soldiers were only six yards tall though. In an environment rich in earth element, they would have only been able to reach the size of nine yards at most.


    The stone statue soldiers of the Stone Statue Army spell were forcefully created elemental creatures, and would notst long. Saleen, however, did not seem to mind at all. The stone statue soldiers created by the spell rushed into thepound and were also cut to shreds immediately by that figure. Saleen was learning the tactics of the figure. Starlight Cutting seemed to be a highly technical skill after all.


    Saleen was reminded of his own Current Cutter. If the water currents were to be increased and then unleashed using the methods done with Starlight Cutting, Current Cutter would advance to grade-7 and would be equipped with a level of power exceeding grade-8.


    He did not bother learning anything else, as borrowing the power of the stars was not something a mage would be able to learn. Saleen did acquire an astrologer¡¯s lineage, and whatever he was able to learn there would also be very limited.


    The figure did not possess intelligence, and its movements became increasingly sluggish as Saleen kept conjuring elemental creatures. Eventually, some stone statue soldiers actually managed to get to its front and began beating it senseless.


    The figure seemed to be made of cloth, yet when the soldier¡¯s huge fists pounded on it, one flew after another. Stone statue soldiers had no fear of death, and Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were even less afraid. As the figure did not possess intelligence, it had only been attacking any elemental creatures getting into thepound or jumping out of the roof with starlight.


    The constetion power within its body was limited, each and every attack itunched was something borrowed from the star chart on the ground. It worked in a manner simr to a mage consuming its magic chords. Only by using magic chords to manipte the ambient elements, would the spell have been unusually powerful. If the spell conjured was dependent on magic chords alone, its effects would be no different from those dealt by normal magic weapons.


    Saleen¡¯s Stone Statue Army spell was all used up, and one-hundred and twenty stone statue soldiers were lost. Seeing how the female figure no longer used any other skills like Starlight Cutting and had simply resorted to using its arms and legs to fight the soldiers up close, Saleen finally felt secure enough to charge at the pesky figure with Nailisi and the winged skeleton.


    The ground of thepound was all but wrecked. The warhammers armed by the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were not for show, and the signs of their power were left all over the figure¡¯s ragged body. A swing with the magic hammer would be able to make craters in the ground after all.


    Saleen did not deploy his remaining twenty-four Elemental Stone Statues. Nailisi walked out of the broken door at the living room with her shield, while the winged skeleton took hold of his battle axe and followed closely behind.


    Saleen cast Sensory Sharing with his two followers. It was fortunate that those two were his bonded creatures, or Sensory Sharing would have been a highly taxing spell, with a horrifying drain rate on mental powers.


    Nailisi and the winged skeleton were both beings with strong mental powers. Their senses were sharp and were at the pinnacle of grade-9 creatures, making them formidablebatants. If they were on the Myers Maind instead of in the Imperial City of the Abyss, only someone with enormous backing or grade-10 professionals like Joey would have been able to stand against them.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was an incredibly powerful magic. It enabled its user to clearly see the flow of energies and working trajectories of elements. It went without saying that the magic was also one that allowed one to see something more than a hundred miles away without regard of one¡¯s environment. If Eleanor had an ability like that, the damage potential dealt by her arrows would be incredibly terrifying.


    The figure¡¯s power remained strong, yet the constetion power within its body had been severely drained. Had it not been for the fact that it was of a very high level, making it possible to fight the elemental creatures using the lowest level of her powers, it would have been torn into rags quite a while ago.


    Nailisi and the winged skeleton were different. The spear in Nailisi¡¯s hand and the battle axe wielded by the winged skeleton were products crafted by the great grandmaster personally. The sharp edged weapons in their hands proved more effective on the figure made of cloth.


    Seeing a demon and a spirit rushing out into battle, the figure¡¯s eyes turned furiously, attempting to adjust the charts on the ground. The constetion power left within its body was far from enough to enable it to use skills so powerful. The ground shone with starlight yet attacks like Starlight Cutting were not seen again.


    Nailisi was feeling squeamish at first, but upon seeing the figure¡¯s casting fail, she was clever enough to thrust her spear right at the figure¡¯s head.


    The energies unleashed from the spear blew an eye off with a loud pop, but Nailisi was dumbfounded still. While the sh of her spear was far from invincible, she had only encountered skills capable of stopping her attacks half way; she had not seen something actually capable of withstanding her spear¡¯s attack until that moment.


    Nailisi was surprised, yet the winged skeleton¡¯s attacks flowed like furious gales. There were miniature magic arrays etched on his battle axe on both sides of the de, which resembled two eyes popping out.


    The winged skeleton swiped their battle axe hard sideways. While Nailisi was still dumbfounded, she was nheless able to jump up in time, and thrust her spear from above. Both did not get too close to the figure, for fear of any hidden self-destructing tricks up its sleeves.


    Both of them had mutually devastating ways to deal with dire, irreversible situations against their favor. The principle was to take the enemy with you even if you were to end up dead. The figure¡¯s level was about grade-11 and given that both Nailisi and the winged skeleton had simr principles to deal with such situations, they did not bother risking their lives against an equipment.


    A death magic spell was unleashed with the sh the ck axe de of the winged skeleton conjured,nding hard on the figure¡¯s neck. There was no way that the figure¡¯s neck could have been a critical area. The winged skeleton had simply thought the spot to be the thinnest, and thus the easiest to cut off.


    Nailisi thrust her spear from above again, taking out the remaining eye of the figure.


    She was able to see what truly happened then. It was not that the thrusting attack hit the eye, but that the figure¡¯s eye absorbed the energy attack automatically. The thrust was warped in space andnded at the eye, which was nullifiedpletely as the figure¡¯s eye exploded.


    There was a miniature star chart right behind the figure¡¯s eye, which was stitched on the cotton using golden threads. The star chart was so small that it could have been seen only with a skill like the Elemental Eye.


    The swing of Soldier¡¯s axe cut the neck right off, but the figure¡¯s head did not simply fly off. It was able to keep it in ce with one hand, while the other held a needle, attempting to stitch its head back.


    The figure was not something meant forbat to begin with. It was something used by astrologers to receive guests. The grade-11bat capacity was obviously something of a sick joke yed by the astrologer, to keep guests around against their will. Anyone without a high enough level would have had no choice but to be taken in and kept as guests.


    Despite the astrologer having been dead for hundreds of thousands of years, the figure followed its orders faithfully. Any passers-by were taken in to await further orders from the astrologer. Anyone invited was not allowed to leave without the astrologer¡¯s expressed permission.


    Still, the figure was not something made specifically forbat. As such, the constetion power within its body was limited. The very reason it remained operational all those years was because there had been no one passing star road by the gate for tens of thousands of years, which meant hardly any of its remaining constetion power had been consumed. The figure did not think of being prudent with energy use when it was being harassed by more than one-hundred elemental creatures. The attacks used were its most powerful. The very reason why it was able to kill off so many elemental creatures was because it was still a meticulously crafted piece of equipment, a masterpiece created by the astrologer.

 Chapter 911: Capturing Figures (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 911: Capturing Figures (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen took a look at the needle in the figure¡¯s hand and was overjoyed. The creation of the figure waspletely different from the constructed puppet¡¯s, and it was not much of a fighter. The figure did not consume magic nuclei and used only its most powerful attack every time it attacked, thus making it a very good soldier and guard.


    Saleen had no idea if he would have ended up getting the astrologer¡¯s lineage, he was, at the moment, only paying attention to the very special needle on the puppet¡¯s hand. The rules infused on it was not something he understood. What he saw was a needle being etched with countless star charts on it.


    The needle was of a level way above the puppet¡¯s, and as such, could not have been something belonging to the figure originally. If he were to get his hands on it, he could attempt to learn how to use it. If he were to get the lineage of the astrologer, the possibility of him craftingbat figures would be very high.


    ¡°Get that thing!¡± Saleen shouted from inside the house.


    ¡°The master is not here yet, you shall wait patiently...¡± the figure continued saying, without any hint of the animosity it fought with. Its kicking attacks were unusually fearsome. Its legs, that were made of cotton, bent forward and kicked Nailisi who was nearby. Even most magic beasts would not have been capable of feats like that, let alone humans.


    Nailisi wanted to throw it into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, but the level difference between her and the figure prevented her equipment from working. The entrance to the purgatories opened again and again, yet the figure still failed to be trapped within.


    The figure¡¯s legs became its most powerful weapon. Having no joints, they were able to strike from any angle. Nailisi and the winged skeleton had no choice but to back away, attacking it with ranged attack skills.


    The figure had great speed, and it kept getting closer to Nailisi and the winged skeleton. Nailisi had no choice but to brandish her shield, while the winged skeleton swapped his battle axe for his meteor hammer, blocking the figure¡¯s attacks with their weapons.


    The figure¡¯s soreck of intellect became very apparent. The needle in its hand was a terrifying weapon on its own, yet it had only used it for mending its own wounds. It had both of them running around thepound away from its legs, yet it had not thought of following up with attacks with the needle.


    As soon as the figure finished stitching up its head, it put the needle away and went back to fighting kickboxing-style. Despite not having a weapon, it nheless trumped both Nailisi and the winged skeleton in terms ofbat prowess. Nailisi was backed into a corner, so she had to put her spear away, relegating to using the Sword of Rules instead. As soon as her shield became unable to block an attack and an opening was seen, that was when Nailisished out with her sword.


    The tactic worked in the sense that the figure was unable to go head on against the Sword of Rules, and Nailisi went through with it. She stopped being anxious, knowing well that the figure would run out of power sooner orter. She, on the other hand, would have been able to fight for several days and nights on end. It would have sufficed for her to just draw things out.


    Saleen, however, got tired of waiting. He summoned six Blue Ice Maidens and unleashed them into thepound to help Nailisi and the winged skeleton out. The Blue Ice Maidens were armed with elemental swords with freezing effects. The figure only began to slow down once it got hit.


    Without Starlight Cutting, the figure¡¯s kicks and punches failed to simply tear the Blue Ice Maidens apart when the attacks connect, and huge cracks appeared instead. It had a piece of equipment two entire levels higher than the beings it fought, yet the figure was unable to kill the grade-9 Blue Ice Maidens off, just because it was running low on power.


    Saleen did not summon Gloria. If the elemental creature leader suffered serious injuries, it would pose serious problems on the restoration of the elemental creatures under hermand. If he was not concerned for the wellbeing of the grade-10 elemental creature leaders, he would have taken down the figure by then.


    Saleen finally got to experience what an astrologer was capable of first hand. A figure that was not even meant forbat tore through over one-hundred of his elemental creatures. It would have been anyone¡¯s guess just how powerful a figure geared forbat could have actually gotten. The Starlight Cutting skill, even with its power lowered, still proved more than enough to kill elemental creatures.


    If that had been the case, Saleen would still have ended up losing even if he were to use up everything in all six elemental badges, unless he was willing to use his family badge. Doing so would have reduced anything below grade-12 to dust in a sh.


    Mages required materials for analysis before they were able to study and research anything. That was the reason why Saleen needed to capture the figure. He had a hunch telling him that even the astrology tower would not have something peculiar like that lying in wait.


    One Blue Ice Maiden got crushed after another, and the figure¡¯s speed at attacking finally got slower and slower. Nailisi and the Soldier finally regained their offensive edge and were no longer simply evading attacks.


    That was especially so in Nailisi¡¯s case, who had dealt multiple cuts on the figure¡¯s body continuously. The figure took out its needle and started mending its wounds again. Nailisi was able to see the mysterious power oozing from the wounds on the figure by sharing Saleen¡¯s senses, knowing that her own Sword of Rules worked well against the figure.


    The power loss in the figure¡¯s body quickened, and the winged skeleton was finally able tond a hit on the figure¡¯s chest with his meteor hammer. The figure flew before the hammer¡¯s explosive impact was able to work, meaning that it had actively dispersed the force of the attack. Nailisi gradually became able to work in tandem with the winged skeleton. She happened to be right behind him at that moment and chop the figure¡¯s head off with a sh.


    That time, Nailisi threw the figure¡¯s body inside the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, and the winged skeleton went into it as well. The body of the figure was thrown into the purgatory of ice. As soon as it got into the purgatory, it took out the needle with countless star charts etched on it with one hand, while the other hand kept searching for its head.


    Seeing the body of the figure gone, Saleen finally felt safe enough to walk into thepound, speaking to the figure¡¯s head on the ground with a smile. ¡°Where is your master?¡±


    ¡°Please be patient. My master will be home very soon.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense!¡±, Nailisi took out her Sword of Rules and was about to deal the killing blow. She saw the star charts in its eyes were osciting furiously and was afraid that it would harm her master.


    ¡°Rx, Nailisi. This thing is no weapon. It can¡¯t do anything more to hurt me now.¡±


    ¡°Master, take a look at this,¡± the winged skeleton emerged from the purgatory of ice before Saleen was able to finish talking, with a crystal clear needle in his hand, as well as a jade button.


    ¡°Give me back the Star Gathering Needle. That belongs to the guest, that belongs to the guest...¡± the figure¡¯s head repeated mechanically but was not able to continue. It had only acquired the needle by chance. Its master ordered it to steal the needle from someone, yet its master was no more before it was able to hand the needle to its new owner.


    ¡°This is mine now.¡± Saleen put away the Star Gathering Needle and summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. ¡°Beat this thing. Beat it until it¡¯spletely crushed.¡± Saleen pointed at the figure¡¯s head on the floor.


    All six of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers lifted the hammers and began beating the figure¡¯s head. The two star charts in its eyes spun furiously. Every time the head was hit, it repaired itself. Nailisi saw all that and brought her sword down on the head again.


    Nailisi was unable to activate the powers of the Sword of Rules, or she would have been able to kill the figure with just one single sh. It was due to her inability to use the sword¡¯stent powers, that she was able to use it as a normal weapon.


    A thin, long gash appeared on the head as the Sword of Rulesnded on its target. Without help from the Star Gathering Needle, the gash was unable to be repaired. The Sword of Rules itself possessed great power. Even though she was unable to use the rules etched within, the power spawning from all twenty-four rules within was nheless something that a figure drained of constetion power proved unable to repair.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen stopped her from continuing. The next sh would have possibly made the gash something truly irreparable at all through self-repair. If Nailisi damaged the figure too much, it would lose its value as a research material.


    If he was able to keep the figure whole, he would still be able to learn a thing or two which would prove useful for his growth in magic, even if he was unable to learn astrology. Astrologers did not truly die off until recently. Back when Lex was young, thest astrologer on the maind was not dead yet. Mages were notplete unfamiliar with astrologers. The varieties of miracles left behind by the astrologers were still very impressive nheless.


    Many mages had even developed their own unique understanding of magic through astrology and went on to be famous professionals throughout the maind.


    Nailisi stopped dumping her pent-up rage on the head and let the grade-9 Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers went back to pounding on the head. Blunt force from such weapons would prove lethal to heavily armored troops, yet it did not do much against the figure.


    The Elemental Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s magical attacks became weak. Where they were at did not have an environment like the ones at the border of the imperial city. The location of the astrologer¡¯s ce was one bnced in its six element ratio. Saleen put the six away and had another six continue with the job.


    The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers had only exhausted the constetion power within the figure¡¯s head thoroughly after going at it for seven or eight hours. The star charts in its eyes stopped spinning and Saleen threw the head into a dimension stone.


    Nailisi only let the body out from the purgatory of ice after putting the head away. The figure suffered a broken arm, and it still waved its arms and kicked its feet around trying to attack.


    Yet another six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers went pounding the body like they did the head. The headless body was pounded hard on the floor for about five hours before the constetion power within waspletely exhausted.


    Saleen had develop a thirst for grade-11 equipment, seeing how even grade-9 beings took more than half a day to finish off the utterly broken figure.


    He did not go on researching the figure¡¯s body after putting it away and had instead went touring around the manor with Nailisi and the Soldier.


    The manor was huge. Saleen had been walking in the garden for a while before finding the warehouse he had been searching for.


    The warehouse ended up being a disappointment and was far from what he had imagined. Other than three ragged figures, there were only a bunch of boxes left inside the warehouse. Once opened, Saleen only found paper inside. Beautiful star charts were drawn on all that paper.


    Starline papers were very preciousmodities back on the Myers Maind. When used to make scrolls, there would be hardly any chance of failure. The starline papers were deemed best for practicing magic. Even unfamiliar spells could have been made into scrolls. Starline papers were not known for failing, making them equivalent to magic experiments that seed in the first try.


    Other than the papers, the remaining three figures were broken goods of very low levels.


    ¡°Master, I don¡¯t think this is the warehouse. It looks more like storage for junk.¡± Nailisi¡¯s eyes were fixed at a corner. There was something inconspicuous lying there: a small wooden carving.

 Chapter 912: Magic-countering Constellation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 912: Magic-countering Constetion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Saleen saw the wood carving of that monster, he was deted. It was something created by mages to suck up all the rubbish in a room. Mages did not need equipment like that because they already had their cleaning spell. The was created for ordinary people and they were typically used in storage rooms or kitchens.


    When Saleen saw starline papers in the storage room, he knew that the astrologers must be a group of very wealthy people.


    ¡°Master, we won¡¯t be able to find anything decent in this ce. Let¡¯s go,¡± Nailisi nagged as she tried to urge Saleen into leaving. She felt uneasy staying in a ce where astrologers dwelled, even though the was the ce with the best environment in the entire Imperial City of the Abyss that far.


    ¡°No, we are safe here for now. We will leave only after the elemental stone statue soldiers have recovered. Soldier, deploy some low-level spirits of the dead to scout around this area. Nailisi, you will stay here.¡± Saleen wanted the winged skeleton to look around the residence to see if there were other things simr to the figure. Then, he took out the Star Gathering Needle and began to study it.


    Saleen had used mental strength to enter the Goddess¡¯ ne before so this was not entirely new to him. He held the Star Gathering Needle in his hands and his mental strength gradually seeped into it.


    Saleen felt as if he had fallen into the middle of a sky full of stars and was surrounded by colorful nebe and countless constetions orbiting around him. Saleen began to sense the power of the constetions directly. The power was extremelyplex and was not as simple as elements. There was no way Saleen couldpletely analyze and understand it with his mental strength.


    Saleen did not dare to expand his mental strength to explore because the dimension within the Star Gathering Needle was simple too massive. Saleen¡¯s instinct told him that if he fully utilized his mental strength, he wouldpletely suck up the sky in the Needle. In order to resist that mysterious force of attraction within the constetions, he would have to merge his mental strength together.


    Saleen¡¯s mental strength moved around slowly, searching for the core of the Star Gathering Needle. No matter how massive the dimension might be, there must be a core that was controlling all of it and that was something applicable even if an astrologer¡¯s techniques were unrted to a mage¡¯s.


    Saleen used the most foolish method to search for the core of the Needle. The powers of the constetions within the Needle were immense and could be found between each gigantic star cloud. There was a mysterious rtionship between both of those entities. Saleen decided to start from that rtionship as his mental strength gradually crept closer and closer to the core.


    It was a cluster of ck substance. When starlight entered, none could escape as they were all sucked inpletely.


    Saleen already possessed some understanding of souls, so he understood the rtionship between mental strength and souls. He allowed his mental strength to be sucked into that cluster of ck substance. As long as his mental strength was not dissipated, it would still be attracted to his soul and he could still return to his body.


    The ck substance existed in a massive space, but Saleen¡¯s mental strength was squeezed within a narrow passageway and entered the core of the ck substance at an incredible speed. Within a frame of time, his mental strength had already beenpressed to the maximum, so much so that there were almost signs of crystallization.


    At that point in time, Saleen¡¯s mental strength began to transform once again. The Star Gathering Needle had allowed his mental strength to break through the limit of grade-9. Saleen had no idea which grade his mental strength was at.


    It was a chaotic mass of star clouds. All sorts of strange substances were floating and spinning within the chaos. Some of them were breaking down just as other new substances were also being formed simultaneously. The conversion of energy took ce constantly but without any consistency. Saleen¡¯s mental strength only experienced this for a moment before entering a space that was clean and pure.


    There were 24 gigantic transparent crystals floating in that space. There were tens of thousands of words carved inside those transparent crystals. The words looked ancient and mysterious. They looked very simr to the ancient Myersnguage.


    Saleen was immediately attracted to those 24 transparent crystals. Tens of thousands of words might sound like a lot, but those 24 transparent crystals were so massive that they would have been able to contain billions of words. The words were not carved on a t surface. Instead, they were evenly spaced out and arranged in a way that resembled constetions.


    Even if Saleen recognized the words, he had no idea where to begin.


    ¡°What wonderful objects!¡± Saleen thought to himself. All of a sudden, a powerful force that resonated between the soul and mental strength exploded and his soul pulled his mental strength out of the Star Gathering Needle instantaneously.


    The force of attraction of the Needle might be powerful, but when Saleen¡¯s mental strength resonated with his soul, there was an explosive thundering sound. The sound was so massive that even the immense power within the Needle was unable to eliminate nor seal it. The rule of lightning had overpowered even the rule within the Needle.


    It was clear that the Star Gathering Needle had yet to truly unleash its power as Saleen did not discover any core controlling the Needle when he was in there. The 24 gigantic transparent crystals were just lineages left behind by the owner of the Needle.


    Even though Saleen was unable to find out how to control the Star Gathering Needle, he was not disappointed at all. Without the core that controlled the Needle, that meant that he would not have to deal with any problems left behind by the original owner. There was too much equipment that could be retrieved by its original owners because it possessed such a core.


    ¡°Master, how is it?¡± The winged skeleton was concerned. He saw Saleen¡¯s facial expression changing from joy to worry.


    ¡°No worries.¡± Saleen took out the figure¡¯s head and began to sew up the wound with the Star Gathering Needle.


    A sliver of the power of constetion flowed out from the tail end of the Needle and the wound on the figure¡¯s head healed very quickly. That amount of power was almost negligible rtive to the power contained within the Star Gathering Needle. Saleen estimated that if the power contained within the Needle waspletely unleashed, it would be able to eliminate all targets, just like his n badge.


    After Saleen had repaired the figure¡¯s head, he used the tip of the Star Gathering Needle to pierce where its eyes were supposed to be. As the power of constetion flowed out, a pair of clear and distinct ck eyeballs merged together.


    The figure¡¯s head had been replenished by mental strength, and it suddenly spoke, ¡°Master would like all of you to wait for a while. He will be here shortly. Don¡¯t...¡±


    Saleen threw the figure¡¯s head onto the floor before summoning six elemental stone statue soldiers to smash it with their gigantic magic war hammers. A figure, who could not stop nagging, was terrifying. It just could not be shut up.


    Nailisi began tough. It had been a long time since Saleen did something so childish.


    Saleen raised his hand and looked at the Devil Ring on his finger. Saleen felt extremely ufortable that his current devil suit was refined by the Grandmaster.


    When Saleen¡¯s mental strength seeped into the Devil Ring, he saw tens of thousands of paths of magic patterns. There were plenty of magic arrays on such a small ring and wasparable to some of the bigger equipment. It was not necessary at all since the magic arrays in the spatial equipment were usually not soplex.


    Fortunately, Saleen¡¯s mental strength roamed around within the Star Gathering Needle and had advanced. He would not have discovered thoseplex magic patterns if his mental strength had not been made more resilient by the thundering sound. The Grandmaster must have refined such a mysterious item so that he could use it to control Saleen in the future.


    The space within the Devil Ring was huge so it would be natural for Saleen to store all the most important items there. If the Grandmaster managed to control the Devil Ring, he would have been able to snatch away all of Saleen¡¯s wealth whenever he wanted.


    Saleen decided to cast water me to try and refine this Devil Ring once again. He threw the Star Gathering Needle into the water me as well. The Needle silently prated the Devil Ring and erased the mysterious magic patterns one by one. Once the magic patterns that had been put in ce by the Grandmaster had been removed, Saleen began to refine his own magic patterns within the Devil Ring.


    What he was refining were lightning magic patterns. The spatial equipment would either be controlled by mental strength or soul. This lightning magic pattern was capable of causing a lot of damage to mental strength and soul. After refining the Devil Ring, even though the Grandmaster was many grades higher than Saleen, the former would not be able to regain control over this Ring with only his mental strength or soul.


    The Star Gathering Needle erased the magic patterns quite thoroughly. Saleen could not help butugh. The Grandmaster was narrow-minded yet was of a higher grade than Saleen. Thetter was worried that the former might have tinkered with his equipment. Now that the Star Gathering Needle couldpletely remove the trap ced in the Devil Ring and Saleen was able to put in ce his own lightning magic pattern, the Grandmaster would not be able to trap him in the future.


    It was while removing those magic patterns that Saleen realized just how powerful and annoying the Grandmaster was. Even with the close inspection of mental strength, the magic patterns only appeared to be barely significant and visible. It was as if they were part of the natural grooves of the materials used to make the Devil Ring. The original form of the magic patterns revealed themselves to be rows and rows of three-dimensional magic patterns wherever the Star Gathering Needle passed though. Each row of magic patterns could be further split into thousands of finer magic patterns.


    If not for the fact that the Star Gathering Needle was of a sufficiently high grade, the magic patterns could not have been removed so thoroughly.


    ¡°Damn it. Just a Devil Ring alone already required so much effort. What about the other equipment?¡± Saleen recalled that his elemental magic tower was personally refined by the Grandmaster. His despise for the Grandmaster deepened.


    Perhaps only the magic books had not been tinkered with.


    Saleen¡¯s devil suit included this ring and twoyers of magic robes. The inneryer was figure-hugging and shape-shifting while the outeryer served as an armor. The devil mask, devil staff, and belt were all very simr to Saleen¡¯s original equipment. Saleen would have to remove the magic traps embedded in the equipment one by one.


    The more Saleen thought about it, the angrier he got. He decided to take off the entire devil suit and threw everything into the water me. Refining equipment all over again was something that he had done quite a few times and he had thought that it would be a breeze. Without the help of the Star Gathering Needle, the other equipment remained motionless in the water me, showing no signs of change.


    The difference in grade between Saleen and the Grandmaster was too huge. Without the help of the Needle, there was no way his water me could refine and remove the magic patterns left behind by the Grandmaster.


    Saleen could not help but imagine what it would be like if he was to face off against the Grandmaster. Even if there was only a shred of soul left in the Grandmaster, as long as he activated the power of the magic patterns in Saleen¡¯s equipment, the Grandmaster would be able to gain control of Saleen and everything that belonged to him would be taken away!


    The Star Gathering Needle was really a blessing! Saleen could not wait to get a hold of the Grandmaster so that his elemental stone statue soldiers could smash him into elemental dust with their huge hammers.

 Chapter 913: Magic-countering Constellation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 913: Magic-countering Constetion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was merely thinking. He knew that he was no match for the Grandmaster if he was to return to the graveyard. In fact, any of the souls amongst the clusters of tombstones were more powerful than him.


    In any case, the contracts stated that the earliest he would have to return was after a thousand years, which was equivalent to 100 years in the outside world. Saleen did not believe that after a hundred years, he would not possess powers that could defeat the Grandmaster. At the very least, his rule of lightning should have advanced to a very powerful level. On top of that, he would still have his n badge. By then, he would only have to lock on to the Grandmaster¡¯s tombstone. Once the lightning struck, he would turn to dust, no matter how powerful he was.


    The souls wanted to leave because they knew that their powers would gradually decrease if they continued to stay in their soul forms. Not only that, they would not be able to advance, and that would be intolerable to anyone.


    Saleen would be even more powerful after 100 years while the souls would only be weaker after 1,000 years. The longer the time, the more advantageous the situation would be for Saleen.


    Therefore, Saleen would try his best to drag out the agreement on the contract. Perhaps he might not even have to return to the graveyard at all.


    At that point in time, he desired the unique powers possessed by astrologers more than ever. With those powers, the souls would not be able to force him to return.


    While Saleen¡¯s grade did not advance, his mental strength did be more powerful. He could vaguely sense the mysterious power in his body that was left behind by the souls, but he had no idea where exactly it was. If not for the rule of lightning, which allowed him to detect energy differently from other mages, Saleen might even still be d that he had entered the graveyard.


    The ancient humans, who he had once admired, turned out to be just a bunch of greedy souls.


    The Grandmaster might be annoying, but the other souls were extremely hypocritical too. Saleen¡¯s admiration for them waspletely erased. After removing the magic patterns in the Devil Ring, he threw the Star Gathering Needle into the devil mask.


    The winged skeleton returned to the storage room after his search and Saleen also finished with his devil suit at the same time. Fortunately, other than the ring and the mask, the other equipment did not contain too many magic patterns, otherwise Saleen had no idea how long it would take. The Star Gathering Needle removed the magic patterns very efficiently so Saleen did not use up too much mental strength.


    The elemental magic tower could not be taken out because it was more than 200 yards tall. Once it was taken out, all the star charts around the astrologer¡¯s tower would be activated and would begin to attack the magic tower. Saleen did not want to take the risk. He had no idea how powerful the defenses of the astrologer tower were. The grade of the materials that made up his magic tower had dropped by two grades, so the tower could very well be destroyed by the power of constetions.


    On the other hand, Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory would not trigger the astrologer¡¯s tower so Saleen entered the Purgatory of Ice to inspect his elemental magic tower.


    He began inspecting the magic furnace and concluded nothing was wrong with it. The item was too exquisite, even the Grandmaster was unable to tinker with it.


    Saleen inspected the core of Sky City. The item was clean too. Although the Grandmaster seemed to look down on Sky City, it was clear that the core was at a grade that not even the Grandmaster could tinker with.


    Finally, Saleen began to inspect the elemental stones. The stones seemed pure but many miniature magic arrays were hidden within them. When the magic arrays were ced together, they formed a massive three-dimensional magic array. Saleen was very familiar with that and did not hesitate to throw the Star Gathering Needle in.


    Within the elemental magic tower, the magic arrays and magic patterns left behind by the Grandmaster were tens of thousands of times more than those in the Devil Ring. Besides, the magic patterns and magic arrays were also part of the magic tower¡¯s attack and defense. They would only reveal themselves if an extremely powerful enemy appeared.


    Saleen guessed that the magic patterns and magic arrays would only reveal themselves if an enemy at least of the same grade as the Angel of Fear appeared.


    When the Star Gathering Needle entered the magic tower, it went on a rampage. Saleen was not able to control it. Even Saleen was stunned by how many magic patterns and magic arrays were hidden in the elemental magic tower. It was as if the Grandmaster had refined the magic tower for himself. If Saleen was willing, the Grandmaster would take the magic tower back the moment Saleen left the territory of the astrologers.


    ¡°How can someone be so shameless?!¡± Saleen could not help but rant.


    After six hours, the Star Gathering Needle finally removed all the magic arrays in the magic tower. Saleen was left with the empty shell of a magic tower. Fortunately, the elemental stones of the magic furnace and magic tower were unharmed.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± Saleen cursed at the Grandmaster in his heart. Strictly speaking, the Grandmaster had not gone against the contract, but Saleen had to remove the hidden dangers. Without them the elemental magic tower would not be able to fly.


    There was no way Saleen could restore the magic arrays on his own. He was only a grade-8 sorcerer. How could he possibly replicate the magic arrays refined by a grade-17 Grandmaster?


    The Grandmaster could make the magic tower fly easily but Saleen could not. Even if he used the magic furnace and the power core of Sky City, the magic tower could only float and not fly. In fact, just floating alone would require constant feeding off energy into the magic furnace. Even if the magic furnace did not require a lot of energy, Saleen could not afford to sacrifice magic nuclei constantly.


    When the Star Gathering Needle left the elemental tower and entered the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, Saleen was shocked. As soon as a mysterious connection urred between Saleen and the Needle, he sensed the faint power of constetions. Within the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, the bnce that the Grandmaster had maintained with his magic was being prated and destroyed by the Star Gathering Needle.


    The Twelve Notes of Purgatory seemed to be trembling all at the same time and were on the brink of copse.


    In the Purgatory of Ice, the ground was trembling. Countless water elements were evaporated and absorbed into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Without the control of the weapon¡¯s spirit, everything was copsing very quickly. Saleen had no choice but to put the elemental magic tower in his Dimension Stone before fleeing the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    Nailisi had no idea what had just happened. The spiritual imprint that she had left behind on the equipment has been removed. If she was not of the special Luoluokaluo bloodline, her soul would have been harmed.


    One by one, the Twelve Purgatories were destroyed and turned into pure energy by the Star Gathering Needle. There were remnants of the power of constetions harnessed within the energy that fused into the equipment. The Purgatories were copsing but were barely supported by the power of constetions.


    After approximately 12 hours, the Purgatories finally stopped copsing. The color of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory kept changing until it finally turned into a huge ck book. On the cover of the book were silver star lights. The Star Gathering Needle flew out andnded in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    Saleen did not know whether tough or cry. This Needle¡¯s ability to eliminate magic traps and hidden dangers was undeniably thorough, but at the same time, it had also destroyed the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. If not for the remnants of the power of constetions that was barely supporting it, the equipment would have beenpletely destroyed.


    As a result, the Twelve Notes of Purgatory had be incredibly resilient, but each Purgatory became the size of only tens of square yards. For someone of the status of a grade-9 professional, like Nailisi, it could not even suffice as a spatial equipment, much less to be used inbat.


    ¡°Nailisi...¡±


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi had tears in her eyes. Her Twelve Notes of Purgatory had advanced and had absorbed all of the materials that the Grandmaster had thrown in, but the Purgatories were gone. She would have to start all over again.


    Who knew how much time and effort Nailisi would have to invest in it to start all over again?


    ¡°Remove all the equipment. Everything that the Grandmaster has refined is problematic,¡± Saleen said helplessly. Before he shed with the Grandmaster, he had already obtained the elemental magic tower, yet it was still full of hidden dangers. It was clear that the Grandmaster had already been plotting against him from the very beginning.


    If not for the Star Gathering Needle, Saleen would never have found the hidden dangers as a mere grade-8 mage.


    The problem was that once the hidden dangers of these equipment had been removed, the equipment also lost most of their functions. ¡°What now?¡± Saleen did not wish to risk being forced to return to the Grandmaster if he was too far away from the astrologer tower.


    The Grandmaster harbored only ill intentions towards Saleen. If he knew that he had inadvertently helped Saleen¡¯s mental strength advance by transporting him to the back of the astrologer tower, he would have been full of regret. There was no way he would be able to take back all the materials and equipment.


    Saleen did not expect the Grandmaster¡¯s pain to be an act all along, aside from that golden giant dragon, there was no way he could have tinkered with that golden giant dragon that Nailisi devoured. Even if he did, Nailisi¡¯s bloodline would have removed it.


    Saleen forced Nailisi to hand over her longnce, her shield, her flying devil armor, and her dragon crystal needle.


    All the equipment was destroyed by the Star Gathering Needle, one by one. In the end, Nailisi was only left with the Sword of Rules, Gray Memory, and the dragon crystal needle. There was not a single piece of armor left for her.


    Even the mode of attack of Gray Memory has reverted back to that of the original longnce. Many of the spells had been removed, leaving behind only the original abilities of the silverline golden spearfish. The dragonshard in the crystal dragon would still be able to help replenish Nailisi¡¯s mental strength though.


    Saleen felt relieved that he had not requested for the Grandmaster to modify his War Drum of Fear. It was an exquisite equipment that, if destroyed, Saleen would not be able to repair. It was the same with his shards of Eternal Control. If they were destroyed by the Grandmaster, he would no longer be able to study them. It seemed that the Star Gathering Needle was about the same grade as Aragorn. Saleen had yet to be able to determine the grade of the broken jade. The reason why he did not request the Grandmaster¡¯s help to process the soul of the Angel of Fear in the broken jade was because he was afraid that thetter might take it for himself.


    ¡°Soldier, your weapons.¡±


    ¡°What about the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat?¡± The winged skeleton asked Saleen as he took out his battle axe and Meteor Hammer.


    ¡°Leave that alone for now, until we leave the Imperial City of the Abyss.¡± Saleen threw the winged skeleton¡¯s weapons into the water me and used the Star Gathering Needle to destroy the magic arrays in it.


    ¡°Master, actually things might not be as bad as it seems,¡± the winged skeleton said calmly.


    ¡°Not as bad?¡± Saleen destroyed the magic array in the winged skeleton¡¯s battle axe, then refined two new magic arrays on it. The newly-refined magic arrays were tens of times weaker.


    ¡°Of course. There is a possibility that the astrologer¡¯s contracts might be changed right? The equipment that the Grandmaster has given to us already spoiled so quickly. Who is to say that there will not be changes to the contracts? That will be advantageous to us.¡± The ck-and-white soul mes in the winged skeleton¡¯s eyes were dancing at the same rhythm as the beating of the golden heart.

 Chapter 914: Who has Control over Fate (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 914: Who has Control over Fate (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°That is how things work theoretically, but what I can see now is that mybat power is reduced to what it once was.¡± Saleen had no choice but to change into his original devil¡¯s armor. Six grade-9 magic spells were still fixed there nheless. The new devil¡¯s armor had very high defensive capabilities, but the magic spells within were all erased by the Star Gathering Needle, making it utterly incapable of offense.


    Saleen had the winged skeleton summon spirits after putting all six elemental badges back into the original belt, only to find that the passage to the spirit ne waspletely cut off there. The winged skeleton was left with no choice but to unleash the ones stored within the Green Spirit.


    With his mental powers advanced, Saleen felt that his magic chords had developed a tendency to continue growing. That was a good phenomenon, as once the feeling of one¡¯s magic chords growing was developed, a mage would be able to advance within ten years at most, and one year at least, so long as the mage in question had enough mental powers.


    The winged skeleton was reluctant to use high level spirits for scouting. He only unleashed low level skeleton soldiers. Thepound Saleen was in did not seem to have new threats lying about, and he had no intentions of returning to the street filled with star charts.


    Saleen and his group entered thepound next-door by climbing over thepound walls. Saleen remembered that there were no signs of danger lying within. He had skeleton soldiers went looking about inside, and not even one of the skeleton soldiers made it back. The winged skeleton was not even able to sense what actually destroyed the skeleton soldiers.


    Saleen did not dare to linger in thatpound, and simply crossed through it into the third one. Tworge wooden carvings flew at them as soon as they entered.


    Saleen had no time to stick around and tangle with things. As such, he simply led Soldier and Nailisi across thepound at a frightening speed to lose the wooden carvings. Seeing the intruders leaving thepound, the wooden carvings did not pursue and simply returned to their original position.


    Saleen, Nailisi, and Soldier were hardly better than thieves, passing through onepound after another, closing in on the astrology tower through the astrologer¡¯s manor¡¯s backyard.


    The astrologers did not leave any weapon behind and the backyards of their manors served as recreational gardens for the astrologers. That meant that those ces hardly had any defenses installed. Saleen was able to make it to the astrology tower simply by intruding in one ce after another.


    If Saleen had been forcing his way through on the star road at the front, nothing would have happened to him as he had the key with him. The same was unable to be said for Nailisi and the winged skeleton though. If the winged skeleton and Nailisi ended up dead, Saleen would have had to keep their equipment with him. The great grandmaster had ill intentions, hoping to rob Saleen of his bonded creatures by getting them killed.


    Doing so was rather risky. Some astrologers had peculiar temperaments, and their weapons would not have bothered with the nature of their intruders. They would have attacked with lethal intent so long as someone fell within range.


    From the astrologers¡¯ perspective, that was how fate worked.


    Saleen took Nailisi and the winged skeleton climbing over walls for more than three miles. Some of thepounds they climbed over had things that kept howling and yelling even after Saleen and the duo have left their turf.


    The vicinity of several hundreds of yards from the astrology tower was devoid of buildings. After climbing over thest wall and looking at the astrology tower far away, Saleen had an impulse to pray to the tower.


    The astrology tower was one-thousand yards tall. It was one straight building from top to bottom and was made of wood. Even after being submerged in seawater and subjected to such high pressures for so long, there was almost no wear and tear to be found on the exterior of the tower.


    Starlight circled the ancient, in-looking building. It looked especially conspicuous under the pitch ck undersea environment. Saleen looked up from below, taking in every detail of the tower.


    ¡°Is this some miracle created by humans?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyes searched around and found tens of doors of different sizes at the bottom floor of the astrology tower. Every door had one thing inmon: star charts at its lintel still working.


    One must have had a key to enter. Saleen took out the key hanging about his neck, wondering which door to go in through.


    They should have had entered through the front door, but the great grandmaster sent them to the backdoor instead. Saleen was not able to help but think, ¡°If I am here being prompted by fate, I shouldn¡¯t enter through the front door then. Why should I put my fate in someone else¡¯s hands though?¡±


    If he were to enter through the front door, then it would be the astrologers taking the reins of his fate. With even the great grandmaster and everyone else back there saying that the astrologer¡¯s words came true, how should he choose then?


    ¡°Master, what is on your mind?¡± Nailisi did not have the winged skeleton¡¯s abilities. She had no choice but to ask after seeing Saleen hesitating to take a step forward.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking who should be the one deciding my fate,¡± Saleen said as he yed with the key in his hand, looking at the dozens of doors of different sizes.


    ¡°You yourself of course!¡± Nailisi looked at Saleen and stuffed a gold coin in his hand.


    Saleenughed out heartily, finding himself to be overthinking things. He tossed the coin and said to himself, ¡°Heads, front door; tails, backdoor.¡±


    The ce was filled with pale starlight. When Saleen¡¯s coin fell after being tossed up, it went through thin lines woven by countless beams of starlight, before hitting the ground with a ding.


    Saleen looked down and felt exasperated. There was no heads or tails; the coin was standing on its side.


    Something like that would not have been near-impossible above water, as the coin would have spun mid-air. In an undersea environment, the coin was no longer spinning when it finally reached the bottom. The floors where they were at had gravity caused by starlight. The coin hit the floor almost without shaking at all and stood firm on its side.


    Saleen kicked hard at the coin, which cut through the seawater around it with a whoosh. Given Saleen¡¯s physical powers were equivalent to that of a grand swordmasters, the speed at which the coin flew was akin to an arrow shot by a normal archer.


    The starlight on the ground burst vibrantly. More than a hundred beams of starlight shot at the coin he kicked. The coin melted within the burst of lights and turned into golden dust being cooled by the cold seawater around it, sprinkling all over the ce.


    Nailisi spoke all of a sudden. ¡°Master, let¡¯s go in through that door,¡± she pointed at the first door counting from the right.


    ¡°Why?¡± the winged skeleton asked. He was in favor of putting his fate in Nailisi¡¯s hands.


    ¡°I lived in the peak of a great mountain when I was young. There was a tform several yards wide, where other demons weren¡¯t able to reach. I was able to gaze at the starry night of the demon ne, just by lying down there. The stars back then looked very simr to the ones on that door.¡±


    ¡°Alright, we will go in through that door.¡± Saleen dispelled his Water Shield and headed for the astrology tower with Nailisi and the winged skeleton.


    Saleen¡¯s group did not trigger anything hostile for the next hundreds of yards. He took out the key and came to the door that Nailisi pointed at. There was a star chart right in the middle of the door. The center of the star chart housed a keyhole, which was surrounded by starlight spread over the chart.


    Saleen stuck the key in without any hesitation, and the small door opened without making any sound. He felt the pressure behind his back rise all of a sudden, yet no seawater entered the door. He hung the key back around his neck and extended his hands, taking Nailisi on his left and the winged skeleton on his right, and walked through the door.


    There was light inside, but there was no light source to be found. The door shut itself after Saleen entered. Saleen found himself in a hall, staircases right in front of him. They were peculiarly nked by two rows of crystal counters. The counters were about three yards tall and were all empty. It was anyone¡¯s guess what the counters housed once upon a time.


    Saleen scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye and did not find the ce to be riddled with eerie floating starlight like the ce outside the door. Any starlight found within the hall came from the walls and the floor, and they served as little more than internal lighting.


    The hall looked as if it had a greater surface area than the entire astrology tower itself, which was a testament of the use of high level space rules. As the tower was capable of gathering energy,ying out things like magic arrays and expanding the space within would have proved far easier than crafting spatial equipment.


    ¡°Master, shall we go upstairs?¡±


    ¡°You had to ask.¡± Saleen let go of both Nailisi and Soldier and took the lead, walking up the steps in front of him. There were more than one-hundred steps, which split into two curved staircasester. Saleen took the left and found yet another one-hundred steps or so waiting to be climbed.


    Saleen found himself in an evenrger hall when he made it to the second floor. Tens of sets of staircases going downward lined the four sides of the hall. He only found out then that whatever he did on the first floor would have had him ending up in that hall in the second floor all the same.


    Saleen came to the center of the hall and found a skylight above him.


    The skylight was very wide. Given that the top of the building was almost one-thousand yards away, the skylight seemed narrow instead. The skylight itself was surrounded by railings on each floor, and bright constetions were found at the very top of the skylight.


    That was no star chart phantasm. His Elemental Eye was able to tell that much. The constetions at the very top were an independent space in itself, one that even his Elemental Eye, which was able to see things more than a hundred miles away, was not able to see its end. It became apparent that the astrologer building the ce spent a lot on it. Saleen however, was unable to understand how it was possible for that ce to be linked with another dimension.


    There was no way he could have believed that the starlit sky was something made using space-rted crafting techniques. ording to the mages¡¯ research, the distance between stars would have easily measured to hundreds of thousands of miles. The distance between bright constetions would have measured up to billions of miles. No matter how powerful an astrologer¡¯s art at manipting space rules, it still would not have been possible to open the path to such a humongous region of stars!


    ¡°How do we get up there then? There are no magic arrays or stairs to be found going up.¡± Saleen was puzzled as to how the astrologers traveled between the floors in the tower.


    Nailisi and the winged skeleton looked all over the ce as well. The hall in the second floor did not have conventional walls. Transparent crystals lined the edges of the astrology tower, which were all shown to be shining with starlight. Looking out from the floor-to-ceiling crystal windows, thepounds they had just crossed to get there were all seen clearly. Saleen took a closer look and found the fronts of thepounds were all decorated with statues of different sizes. If he had beening there through the front of thepounds, he would have never been able to make it to the tower.


    ¡°Master, what should we do now?¡± Nailisi looked up at the stars above her and became frustrated. Shecked patience, unlike the winged skeleton.


    Saleen pointed at his feet. There was an independent star chart on the floor beneath them, which lookedpletely different from the ones on the floor surrounding the part where they stood. The one beneath their feet had the stars above illustrated.


    Saleen was no astrologer, but his skills at observation told him that there was something about the star chart on the floor.


    ¡°Hold me tight,¡± Saleen said while taking out the key around his neck again, clutching it in his fist. He had no idea how to get to the upper floors, but he knew nheless that the star chart at the center of the tower served a simr function as teleportation portals. They could have entered through different floors, and all passages differed only at the first floor. Whichever way the entered, they would have ended up there. It was the only way forward afterwards.

 Chapter 915: Who has Control over Fate (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 915: Who has Control over Fate (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi and the winged skeleton grabbed onto Saleen¡¯s devil¡¯s armor. The devil¡¯s armor had tes on it as well as thorns sticking out of it. It did not seem to have anything to do with the mage wearing it. Nailisi¡¯s and the Winged Skull¡¯s hands grabbed onto one thorn each.


    Saleen felt his legs give immediately after taking on the key before he was able to do anything. He quickly found himself among the stars. Nailisi and Soldier were both nowhere to be found. Saleen was frightened for a brief moment, then found himself in a huge room in an instant.


    The starlit sky seemed to be little more than an illusion.


    Saleen was unable to figure out how the astrologers were able to get him where he was then. His experience told him that it was not all that different from going through a teleportation portal. It seemed that no matter how great the difference between some skills was, some things did still sharemonalities between them.


    Theyout of the room suggested that the ce was a study, as it was filled with bookshelves. Large amounts of books were found on them as well. There was arge study table near the window, with a variety of ores on it instead.


    The ores contained immense concentrations of constetion power. Saleen walked up to the table and searched among the ores on top of the table, finding none that he was familiar with.


    He found a ring among the ores, which seemed to be made of translucent material. It shone with a pale hint of starlight, seemingly housing stars in the billions. Saleen focused his mental powers to look deeper but was unable to find out anything other than the ring being a spatial equipment.


    He had nock of spatial equipment himself, but still, as spatial equipment was still a precious and expensive type of gear. Saleen put it on his finger nheless.


    Saleen did not set out to look for Nailisi and the winged skeleton immediately. The powers within the astrology tower were not something he would have been able to deal with. From the looks of things, not even the likes of the great grandmaster would have been able to do as they wished here, let alone Saleen himself.


    He walked up to the shelves and took books down, attempting to read them. He, however, found that the script used for writing those books looked exactly like the ones he saw in the Star Gathering Needle. They also looked very simr to the Ancient Myersnguage, yet seemed to differ still. Regardless, Saleen determined that he was unable to make sense of what was written in the books.


    The books were all made using starline paper. Saleen had only realized that starline paper was no high-ssmodity back in ancient times. Saleen pondered for a while and determined that regardless of if he was able to read all of them, he would never again step foot in there easily. As such, he stuffed all the books on the shelves as well as the ores into a dimension stone. Saleen only realized then that the even people of the levels of the great grandmaster were unable to easily find out what was stored in dimension stones.


    Saleen was thorough with his plundering. Even shelves, tables, and chairs were all moved into dimension stones. That ce was unlike interdimensional spaces. Even if he was able toe again, he had no guarantee that he would be able to enter the same room.


    It was only after bagging everything in the study, that Saleen pushed the door of the study open. Another evenrger roomid beyond. Within it, a gray-haired man was smiling at Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s senses were entirely unable to detect the presence of someone else being in the room prior. Seeing the elder in front of him, Saleen lit up a ball of orange mes on his fingertip. The mes were conjured using elemental conversion, which flew at the elder after being flicked off.


    The elder waved, and the ball of orange mesnded on his hand. The elder then rubbed it. The mes disappeared, and several orange butterflies took its ce. The elder then spread out his hands, and the butterflies conjured from the mes flew right through the crystal window, disappearing in the seawater outside.


    The elder moved gracefully, natural and pure, just like a boy who happened to be taking a leisurely walk in a garden.


    Saleen felt rather embarrassed, as he took a step back and put his hands down.


    The elder wore a long white robe, which seemed to be made of silk, yet looking even smoother and more intricate. Saleen had not seen so many star charts in one object before.


    The elder took a look at the ring on Saleen¡¯s finger, and asked with a smile, ¡°So you like my constetion ring?¡±


    Saleen felt incredibly awkward, as he had gone about plundering the entire room because he did not know there was someone else in the next room. If the elder went over to check on the adjacent room, he would have found that everything in the room was bagged by Saleen. Being caught red-handed as a thief was not a pleasant experience, which was worsened by the fact that Saleen saw himself as a mage, not a thief.


    ¡°What is with that expression, little one? So, is it to say that you took everything away from that room? Mages do indeed have one w. Too greedy, plundering wherever they go.¡± He sighed


    ¡°Plundering wherever they go?¡± Saleen was rather dumbfounded by the elder¡¯s words. Mages held on to the principle of equivalent exchange. Even if they were to face a peasant, they would not simply rob the other party. When his teacher showed up at his door all those years ago, his teacher bought his house using gold coins and at market price.


    His teacher was a grade-5 grand mage back then, and he was merely a beggar. As such, he always had the impression that mages were professionals who valued fairness.


    ¡°Is that not the case? It is hardly just mages though. Mages are simply egged on by others. Warriors, royals, and foreign races. Who wouldn¡¯t want to conquer multiple nes? Why would such conquest happen? For profit, of course,¡± the elder borated with a sigh.


    Saleen had only realized then that the elder was talking about what took ce all those ages ago. Their words rang true. Gods were greedy, but so were humans. In humanity¡¯s war against the gods, the armies of humanity had razed and scorched many nes, and countless races went extinct as a result.


    Mages in those days were indeed vicious plunderers. The notion of fairness held by mages was limited only between humans. At the very least, mages never bothered about principles like equivalent exchange when they went killing magic beasts for their magic nuclei.


    ¡°Would a mage trade with magic beasts through talking? Say, can you give me your magic nucleus? I will also need your hide. They can sell for four-hundred gold coins after all. If you agree, I will make you a grave afterward...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be awkward, little mage. I¡¯m not all that different myself. You will only realize that these things are pointless when you are dead. Yes, I mean to say I¡¯m not a living person. Simply a figure with a soul.¡±


    The elder said with a smile. Saleen had only notice by then that while the elder was breathing and had a heartbeat, the fluid circting under their skin was not blood, but concentrated constetion power. If the elder had not bothered mentioning it, Saleen would have thought the elder to be a human who had lived hundreds of thousands of years.


    ¡°Sir...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother with my name, little mage. I was able to survive the cmity thanks to having crafted myself into a figure. I don¡¯t dare face my oldrades. My name is not something I would ever want others to know.¡±


    ¡°Where are yourrades then?¡±


    ¡°Most died. You have been to the Cemetery of Heroes, no? They all rest there. Well, some went for other nes, and are still fighting the gods. Some, went on to find higher nes, just so that they were able to live on.¡±


    ¡°What happened all those years before?¡± Saleen was unable to deduce the details of what took ce in the words of the elder and the souls, but he knew enough to tell that humanity was unable to obliterate the gods and was unable to be the ruling race of any ne. The humans on the ne of the Myers Maind had even lost the knowledge of the past.


    ¡°Back then...back then professionals among humanity went too far, and there was no way back to the primary ne. They opened world passages of even higher levels. The gods took back all those nes that humanity conquered. Humanity had only then considered building great dynasties to pool their resources and power to fight the gods.¡±


    ¡°What happened after that?¡±


    ¡°After that many races across many nes were ughtered by the gods as the human professionals departed, and they developed a deep-seated grudge. They were all faithful back then, yet when disaster came to their doorsteps, humanity failed to help them. Only a few strong races remained aligned with humanity. The rest betrayed us. They chose to be adherents of the gods.¡±


    ¡°What?! Was this something that happened back in the first dynasty?¡± Saleen was able to tell from the elder¡¯s words that all that did not tally with the history he knew.


    ¡°First dynasty?¡±


    ¡°The dynasty that unified the maind and stayed around for maybe ten-thousand or twenty-thousand years. It was said that the first dynasty went to war with the gods and conquered a lot of nes. Now humans are no longer able to remember what happened back then.¡±


    ¡°That was what happened afterward. So, they unified the maind and built a dynasty eh?¡± the elder frowned. The pores on his face were clear for all to see, making him have an uncanny resemnce to a living human.


    Saleen wondered, ¡°Just what is the level of a figure like that would be? If this thing could be my own weapon...¡±


    The elder went silent for a moment, then spoke out of the blue. ¡°Little mage, you are thinking about controlling your own destiny, am I correct?¡±


    ¡°You are an astrologer, and I¡¯m a mage.¡± Saleen did not give a straight answer.


    ¡°Mages. You all are too pompous, thinking you can have control over fate. Yet you fail to see that having power alone is far from enough. Astrologers already know what the highest rules in existence are. If you were to learn astrology, you would be more than capable of controlling your own destiny; you would be the most powerful of the professionals in this world.¡±


    ¡°Highest rules?¡± Saleen chuckled for a moment. As a mage, he did not care for anything with a title such as ¡°highest¡± in its description. In a mage¡¯s perspective, the day where all the secrets of the world were known and could be manipted would nevere. There was also no end to knowledge. Saleen disagreed wholeheartedly with the elder¡¯s opinion about mages being pompous.


    ¡°At least those that worked true to all the nes in this world. The highest rules, rules at level twenty-four.¡± The elder did not mind Saleen¡¯s expressions, as even back in his time, there was hardly anyone who believed such things.


    ¡°What would I need to do as a payment?¡± Saleen was not able to help but ask. Grade-24 rules.... that was at least something of the highest level in the system of knowledge he was familiar with.


    ¡°Give up magic and devote yourself to be a pure astrologer.¡±


    ¡°No way,¡± Saleen refused outright.


    ¡°Little mage, the power of magic is not all that different from that of astrology.¡±


    ¡°It is. When I almost starved to death, it was my teacher who helped me. Even if I were to die, I would never give up being a mage. I¡¯m sorry, but I¡¯m indeed in control of my destiny. My destiny lies within magic.¡±


    ¡°How will you be able to control your own destiny without having the highest level of power in your hands?¡±


    ¡°The way you put it, is it to say that there can be only one person who can be in control of their own destiny, while everyone else lives an existence like ants?¡±


    The elder was rendered silent. Saleen¡¯s question was a rhetorical one, and that left him with no way to rebuke. If he were to do so, it would have meant that one could have been in control of one¡¯s own destiny without needing mastery of the highest rules.


    ¡°Sir, I may like to learn the power of astrology, but I will always be a mage.¡± Saleen took off the constetion ring in his hand andid it on the floor, then stood with his hands by his side. He was making himself very clear: if the elder insisted on having him give up his identity as a mage, there was to be no deal.

 Chapter 916: Equivalent Exchange (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 916: Equivalent Exchange (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°So, what do you want?¡± The Elder felt that he would not be able to convince Saleen of his own perspective, so he had no choice but to ask Saleen directly.


    Saleen began to think about what the Elder had said. His goal was simple, which was not to have to worry about his meals or about being bullied by others. Even though he had be a mage for a long time, his goal remained the same.


    Many images appeared in Saleen¡¯s head. They were images of Sika, Lex, and his two children. As his memories surfaced more and more quickly, he thought of Canghong, Fycro, Lex¡¯s teacher, and even her senior, Faerun.


    All of them had their own dreams, including Lex¡¯s father, Grand Emperor Chanake.


    Saleen even thought about Prince Safilos. Back then, he was someone he could only look up to and was responsible for exploding at the men that guarded Grand Emperor Chanake¡¯s room.


    In the end, Saleen thought about the magic and Bitter Water Prefecture. He spoke slowly, ¡°Sir, what I want is... for everyone to be able to choose their own fates.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible.¡± The Elder looked at Saleen with a gentle gaze. What Saleen had said was simr to the ancient mages, who had since vanished. The astrologers only became the dominant force in the dimension after that.


    ¡°Impossible? Haha,¡± Saleen onlyughed but did not protest.


    ¡°Mages cannot even see the traces of fate; how can they then control it?¡±


    ¡°The astrologers could see their own fates, but more than 10 years ago, thest astrologer on the Maind died while mages are still doing fine.¡±


    Saleen saw the Elder frowning at what he said and quickly added, ¡°Even if you want to kill me, there are still tens of thousands of mages on the Maind.¡±


    ¡°I know. I don¡¯t even consider myself an astrologer and even if I am, I¡¯m the only one left. Junior mage, I will not kill you. At most, I will not allow you to leave.¡±


    ¡°Why are you all the same?¡± Saleen looked around before finding a chair and sitting down on it.


    ¡°All the same?¡± The Elder did not understand.


    ¡°All of you said that you won¡¯t allow me to leave, but in the end, all of you can¡¯t wait for me to leave,¡± Saleen said casually. There was no way the Elder would force him to stay. If he did, what hope was there?


    ¡°I¡¯m different...¡± The Elder gathered this thoughts before speaking, ¡°I have the ability to make you feel like you have spent an eternity here in just a day. I can be very patient.¡±


    ¡°All mages are very patient. Unless you no longer want me to think, otherwise I would not be bothered even if I was to sit here for 10,000 years. Sir, if there is something you want me to do for you, just say it directly. Mages don¡¯t beat around the bush.¡±


    That was when the Elder finally looked at Saleen seriously. As he began to sit down, a chair naturally appeared behind him. Saleen had made it very clear. If he was made to think, he would treat it as training, but if not, there was no point keeping him here.


    ¡°I still have to try.¡± With that, a powerful and colorful beam of star light burst out of the wall and covered Saleen entirely. Instantaneously, Saleen felt as if he had been put in another dimension but had no trouble moving. He was surrounded by silver constetion light. Within the light, he could still move around but he would not be able to move beyond the boundaries of the constetion light.


    Saleen could see the Elder¡¯s face beyond the star light. It was as if the Elder had fossilized and was not moving at all. Saleen knew that that was the power of astrology. By sitting there for one day, the Elder would feel as if an eternity had passed.


    That was astrology. There was no change in the speed of time, only one¡¯s perception. Saleen was a grade-8 sorcerer with a lifespan of at least 600 years. By keeping him there for a day, Saleen would feel as if 600 years had passed. If he was unable to distinguish between what was reality and what was just a dream, he could very well die of old age.


    The Elder wanted Saleen to be able to see his face so that he could use it as a reference. He wanted Saleen to submit and not to kill him. If he wanted to kill Saleen, he had thousands of ways to do it.


    Saleen wanted to take out the magic notebook from his Devil Ring but realized that he could not use his spatial equipment anymore. To be more urate, since the passing of time there was the same as outside, the link between his senses and his body had been broken. In order to take out an object, his movement had be millions of times slower.


    ¡°There is no way to study magic in this environment?¡± Saleen understood after thinking about it for a while. If it was possible, then the coboration between a mage and an astrologer would have been invincible. If mages could still train and study in such an environment, it would be equivalent to gaining millions of times more time than others.


    Surely something as illogical as that could not be possible.


    Saleen sighed helplessly and decided to close his eyes and meditate. It was not possible. When he tried to meditate, he realized that he was unable to do so. Even if he managed to enter a state of meditation by chance, he would snap out of it very quickly and he would find himself staring at the Elder¡¯s face.


    Saleen thought carefully and realized that he was in a disastrous situation, where he was unable to train at all. Even his mental strength was being restricted. Staying there for 600 years would make him go crazy.


    Saleen decided to think of a way out. Suddenly, he realized that he was still wearing the Goddess¡¯ ne, which was something that his mental strength could enter. The ne was very strange because ever since he used it to rear his lightning dragons, its godly power had beenpletely removed.


    In other words, it was an equipment for humans and not necessarily refined by Gods.


    There were 24 lightning dragons in the ne, so there was not a lot of space left. Saleen carefully directed his mental strength into the ne and realized that there was no problem doing so.


    From the outside, the Elder looked at Saleen and realized that thetter had closed his eyes. The Elder could not help but snicker. If it was possible to use meditation to pass time, the Elder¡¯s Starlight Imprisonment would not have been considered as a grade-8 astrology spell.


    When the Elder lost his physical body and was only left with his soul and figure, using that technique would depend on the power of the star sky on the astrologer tower. A mage of a very low grade would never be able to go against the power of the star sky, not even the Grandmaster could do it.


    Saleen¡¯s mental strength entered the ne and he could clearly sense theplicated magic array hidden within it. The spaces within the ne were extremely strange. Saleen injectedrge amounts of water into each space, including the restorative water that he had been creating every day. The lightning dragons were in deep sleep there. When Saleen¡¯s mental strength entered one of the spaces, the lightning dragon in the space only turned its body but continued to sleep.


    Saleen realized that this lightning dragon had shed its skin nine times, each time it got twice as big as before. The lightning dragon had grown up to 40 yards long, and while it was massive in size, it was actually very weak. Saleen was not feeding them with sufficient food, yet the lightning dragons had toplete their evolution, so they could only rely on sleep to reduce the wastage of energy of their bodies.


    In the ne, Saleen finally regained control of his own mental strength. Although he still could not control the rest of his equipment, Saleen was satisfied. Time passed much faster in the nepared to the Imperial City of the Abyss. A day in thetter was equivalent to 20 days in the former.


    Saleen had wanted to use that time to learn about the magic notebook that was given to him by the Grandmaster as it would teach him how to create magic furnaces. Now that that was not possible, Saleen decided to observe the lightning dragons.


    The skins shed by the lightning dragons were soaked in water and were almost transparent. Coincidentally, Saleen was able to observe the lightning magic patterns on them. Although Saleen might have created the rule of lightning, it was still in a very preliminary stage. On the other hand, the magic patterns on the lightning dragons might be of a low grade, but they were well-developed.


    Saleen decided to focus on studying the skins of the lightning dragons.


    The Elder was beginning to panic. He could see that Saleen was very young and as a grade-8 sorcerer, his lifespan was at least 600 years. He refused to believe that a young sorcerer would be able to bear with 600 years of loneliness when he could not study magic and could only recall what he had already learned.


    In the end, Saleen surprised him by closing his eyes and seemingly dozing off. Just like that, an entire day passed. When the starlight dissipated, Saleen suddenly opened his eyes and said to him with a smile, ¡°Sir, are we going to carry on?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we will.¡± Once again, the Elder unleashed the starlight from the wall, enclosing Saleen within it. He was determined to observe Saleen carefully so that he could spot any loopholes. Saleen merely closed his eyes and stopped doing anything else, except waiting patiently for the Elder¡¯s astrology spell to vanish.


    The young mage was too determined. The Elder could not believe his eyes. When the Starlight Imprisonment ended, and the second day has passed, Saleen opened his eyes and asked with a smile again, ¡°Sir, are we carrying on?¡±


    Saleen genuinely hoped that they could continue the game because that was the first time that he had realized that his mental strength would be more resilient when he was within the star light. It did not require much energy to separate from the physical body and he would be able to study it in the ne. After studying it for 40 days, his understanding of lightning magic patterns had deepened. If he could continue doing so, he would be able to ovee the weakness of his Eye of Lightning, which was the over-exertion of energy.


    Eye of Lightning required the use of mental strength and not magic chords. No matter how powerful Saleen¡¯s mental strength became, he was still unable to ovee the issue of over-exertion by his Eye of Lightning. When he used Eye of Lightning, the amount of mental strength that was being used was dependent on the total mental strength that he possessed and was not within his control. Saleen could only control the proportion of mental strength being used, and it was usually at least one-sixth.


    Lightning dragons could afford to ignore such exertions when unleashing lightning because they had better control over their mental strength, which enabled them to better convert lightning energy, and not necessarily because the lightning dragons possessed mental strength that was more powerful than Saleen.


    The Elder could not take it lying down and decided to cast Starlight Imprisonment once again. After the third day had passed and Saleen had opened his eyes once again, the Elder said, ¡°Junior mage, I have decided not to continue. We can have a proper talk now.¡±


    Based on the Elder¡¯s estimation, Saleen had already spent 1,800 years in the Starlight Imprisonment. With such determination, it would be meaningless to try and imprison him for 10,000 years. Besides, Starlight Imprisonment required a lot of energy. The constetions on the astrologer¡¯s tower had already dimmed just from the three days of usage. If they were to continue, perhaps the astrologer tower would copse before Saleen would submit.

 Chapter 917: Equivalent Exchange (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 917: Equivalent Exchange (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was filled with regret. Without Starlight Imprisonment, his mental strength would no longer be able to stay in the ne for such a long time and would not be able to study the lightning magic patterns. If only he had tried to provoke the Elder even more!


    Saleen¡¯s train of thought was simr to that of Nailisi¡¯s. Although the Elder might be powerful, he had no idea what Saleen was thinking so he only smiled at Saleen and said, ¡°You are a mage, so the rule of equivalent exchange should be important to you, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, one must be willing to sacrifice something of equal value for what they want. Sir, this is applicable if you want my help, but you have just imprisoned me for 1,800 years. Don¡¯t forget that.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were straight to the point and the Elder was unable to refute him. He could only say, ¡°Since you agree to equivalent exchange, tell me, what do you want?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want anything. If you want me to stay here, I can continue staying here to train.¡± Saleen was stubborn. He could tell that all the souls in the Imperial City of the Abyss were constantly thinking about leaving the ce. Without help from people from the outside, the souls be trapped there and could only turn themselves into soul energy to roam around the dimension.


    Perhaps the Elder had a longer lifespan, but there was not much of a difference.


    The Elder was troubled. He could easily kill a junior mage like Saleen, but astrology had advised him that his fateid with that weak little king.


    ¡°Junior mage, we both have something that the other person needs, don¡¯t you think so?¡±


    ¡°Finally, you¡¯re talking. Where are my two subordinates?¡± Saleen began to speak more courteously since the Elder was no longer putting on airs.


    ¡°Neither of them are humans. I¡¯m afraid I may injure them if they are to enter this ce.¡±


    ¡°Those who are not humans cannot...?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m talking about my room. They are now at some level below us. They can leave with you,¡± the Elder exined patiently. He only wanted to make a deal with Saleen. Since Saleen¡¯s grade was so low, it would be easy for the Elder to set a trap for him. What he was most afraid of was that Saleen was determined to stay, although that seemed quite unlikely.


    The problem was that Saleen was his only hope.


    ¡°You want me to learn astrology so that I can help you leave that shell of a figure?¡± Saleen asked very directly. Since the Elder was already so forting, there was no point beating around the bush.


    ¡°Exactly. Sometimes, mages are still more likable,¡± the Elder replied with a smile.


    ¡°What can you give me?¡±


    ¡°Whatever you want.¡±


    ¡°I want this astrologer¡¯s tower.¡±


    ¡°If you can help me leave this shell of a figure, the astrologer tower is yours.¡±


    ¡°What grade were you when you were alive?¡±


    ¡°Grade-18.¡±


    ¡°What grade do I need to be in order to rescue you?¡±


    ¡°At least grade-16.¡±


    ¡°I am only at grade-8 now. Can you afford to wait?¡±


    ¡°Compared to those fellows at the graveyard, I have a lot more time on my side. Although this figure is annoying, at least my soul will not dissipate so quickly. In the astrologer¡¯s tower, I will be able to retain my memories until the day my soul dissipates. I will never be an empty soul.¡±


    ¡°What if I die outside?¡±


    ¡°This has to do with your luck. After you learn astrology, you will be able to avoid dangers. You have the equipment refined for you by the Grandmaster and you have also obtained plenty of elemental creatures as your subordinates. By the time you return to the Maind, there are very few people that will be able to harm you. With thebined power of astrology and magic, if you meet with any mishap, I can only ept my luck.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s that simple?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s that simple.¡±


    ¡°I suppose we will need to sign a contract?¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± the Elder replied with a smile.


    ¡°But I have some conditions that are beyond this contract. It¡¯s the price for imprisoning me for 1,800 years.¡± Saleen brought up an extra request. He was afraid that the Elder would try to set some traps like the Grandmaster. He was determined to bring up the price of 1,800 years of imprisonment separately.


    ¡°Do you need another contract for this?¡±


    ¡°Yes, then I can rest assured.¡±


    ¡°Looks like the Grandmaster was not too friendly to you!¡±


    ¡°I am only a grade-8 mage. What right do I have to ask for your goodwill?¡± Saleen countered.


    ¡°Alright, tell me, what can I help you with?¡± The Elder moved on quickly. Since Saleen had already agreed to sign the contract, anything else could be discussed.


    ¡°I need a set of magic equipment that can only be controlled by me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± The Elder was surprised. An imprisonment of 1,800 years was actually very cruel to a grade-8 mage, but what Saleen was asking for was hardly of equivalent value!


    ¡°That¡¯s all. Did you think I was a greedy person?¡±


    ¡°No, of course not,¡± the Elder quickly agreed with Saleen. He was afraid that Saleen might change his mind and request something that was uneptable to him.


    Saleen thought to himself, ¡°Of course I am not a greedy person. I will settle my equipment first. Once I leave, there is nothing much that you can do to me. It will be too suspicious if I asked for too much.¡±


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s begin.¡± Saleen took out the devil suit that the Grandmaster had refined for him, and a pair of gloves that seemed perfectly fine. The pair of gloves was not refined by the Grandmaster on the spot. Saleen was afraid that they were refined by a mage of an even higher grade so that he would not be able to spot any hidden dangers.


    The Elder took a look at Saleen¡¯s suit and said, ¡°The Grandmaster is still so stingy, how did you manage to remove the magic arrays in them?¡±


    Saleen rxed. He had not left behind any traces of how he removed Grandmaster¡¯s traps with his Star Gathering Needle. Even the Elder was not able to tell that Saleen had used an astrologer¡¯s equipment, could that mean that the Needle was of a very high grade?


    ¡°The price of that secret is not something you can afford.¡± Saleen acted mysteriously. In actual fact, he was just afraid of losing the Star Gathering Needle. The Needle consisted of the lineage of an astrologer. Saleen never thought of learning astrology from the Elder. One must grasp their own fate. He could learn on his own, but he would never let the Elder be half his teacher.


    If that was the case, there would be no end to the equivalent exchange.


    The Elder was merely curious, but since Saleen was not willing to tell him, he had to let it go. He pointed at the devil suit that Joey had refined for Saleen and said, ¡°I am not a mage. Although I can replicate the equipment of a mage, it may not be as well-refined as the Grandmaster¡¯s. Take off this set of equipment and I will merge it with the ones that the Grandmaster has refined.¡±


    ¡°What about the grade?¡± Although the equipment that the Grandmaster had refined for him was problematic, they were all of very high grades, On the other hand, Joey¡¯s equipment probably could only advance to grade-11 at most.


    ¡°Haha, do you think that the equipment that Grandmaster has refined for you is of very high levels? The items that astrologers can replicate are at most grade-12.¡±


    Saleen was depressed after hearing that. The Elder continued, ¡°Although this suit of yours might be of a low grade, the magic lineage of the person who has refined it for you isparable to that of the Grandmaster. The only difference is in their grades. When you advance in the future, you can refine this set of equipment again without affecting its functions.¡±


    ¡°I guess that¡¯s the only way.¡± Saleen felt disappointed as he took off his devil suit and handed it to the Elder. The Elder threw them into the Starlight on the wall and became very silent. Saleen did not dare to disturb him and waited patiently by the side.


    After about 15 minutes, the Elder stretched out his hand and grabbed the new devil suit from the wall. He handed it to Saleen and said, ¡°The person who refined this suit for you has done it quite well. There was nothing problematic that was left behind. I have merged the two suits together and the unnecessary materials have been removed by the power of constetions. You will be able to use this suit until you are grade-16.¡±


    ¡°Many thanks. Is there any problem with the gloves?¡±


    The Elder took a look at Saleen¡¯s gloves and could not be certain about it. He had no choice but to throw them into the starlight once again. The Elder took out the gloves after only half an hour before telling Saleen, ¡°There is no problem with the gloves, but they are meant for warriors...¡±


    Of course, Saleen would never mention that he needed them to defend against the counter-reacting forces of a unique technique he possessed. There was no need to exin that much to the Elder, so he quickly took back the gloves and handed over the magic staff.


    The Elder did not mind. The magic staff was easy to inspect and did not require any repairs. He even helped Saleen store three spells in it.


    Saleen decided to remain cautious by not taking out his War Drum of Fear, his broken jade, or the two Shenhe. After thinking about it, he decided to let the Elder take a look at his magic books. The Elder did not take over the books and said, ¡°Magic books will not have any traps. Go ahead and use them.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I have a magic tower that used to be capable of flying...¡± Saleen probed.


    The Elder frowned and said, ¡°Give me a moment. How tall is your magic tower?¡±


    ¡°28 levels and each level is nine yards tall.¡±


    The Elder silently wrote some words in the air with his fingers. Saleen did not recognize the words, but the moment they were written, starlight was immediately sucked in. They began to expand and upy an independent space in the room.


    The Elder sighed and said, ¡°It feels terrible to be without a body. By right, it should not be this troublesome. Junior mage, take out your magic tower.¡±


    Saleen raised his head. The star sky was right above him.


    He quickly took out a dimensional stone from his Devil Ring and carefully released the magic tower. With the towering magic tower in front of him, the Elder took out a clear needle and threw it out.


    It took everything for Saleen to conceal his shock. Saleen recognized the needle that the Elder had just thrown out. It was a Star Gathering Needle. The only difference was that the Elder¡¯s Needle might be of a lower gradepared to his own. Saleen could not be sure since he was not able to observe it closely. What he could see was that, after the Elder threw the Needle at the magic tower, the Needle was taking a long time to clean up the tower and was not as swift and decisive as his own Needle.


    Could it be that the Star Gathering Needle that he had snatched away from the figure was even better than one possessed by a grade-18 astrologer? The whole thing felt a little ridiculous. If that was really the case, then Saleen must have been very lucky.


    Luck had always been something that astrologersmonly referred to. By right, mages should not believe in such things.

 Chapter 918: Outwitting One Another (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 918: Outwitting One Another (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen made a decision in his mind. It seemed that the Star Gathering Needle worked like magic books of mages, which was something capable of storing constetion powers and casting attacks.


    Saleen hardly used magic books himself, and it was a personal habit more than anything else. In actuality, a mage who hadplete magic books would probably have not even considered using magic staffs.


    The Star Gathering Needle of astrologers was just like magic books were to mages. It was equipment best suited to their profession.


    The elder inspected the magic tower carefully for Saleen and said slowly, ¡°There is nothing wrong with the magic tower, but itcks magic arrays. The magic power furnace alone will not do.¡±


    ¡°I know, and that is why I need your help.¡± Saleen sounded way more polite after hearing the elder¡¯s words. It was the normal attitude to take when making trades. Being trapped for eighteen-hundred years, the principle of equivalent exchange was only honored when he helped with the repairs of the magic tower.


    ¡°With the original magic arrays installed in the tower beingpletely destroyed, I cannot even begin duplicating them,¡± the elder said while feeling insecure within. It was possible for him to duplicate the original magic arrays but doing so woulde at a great price. To take constetion power from the astrology tower¡¯s core would have required far more energy than expected.


    The astrology tower was the very thing that rooted his existence. If he spent too much energy on it and was unable to regenerate the energy lost, there would have been no need to wait for Saleen to return, as he would have died sooner than those in the cemetery.


    ¡°How could I possibly ask a great astrologer for something like that. Sir, I only needed a small favor, and that would be to refine this mass of elementite, upgrading it to grade-18.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words made the elder let out a bitterugh. There was no way he could refuse. While it would still take a lot to refine the elementite, it was nheless something he could easily do. If he was a mage, he would have rejected such a proposal and agreed to craft magic arrays for Saleen instead. As he was not a mage, the crafting of magic arrays, which should have been something simple, would have cost him more than refining the elementite.


    While the drain for refining the elementite was great, it was fortunate that the process would yield some extra energy, which would be able to be absorbed by the astrology tower and make up for some losses.


    Saleen felt overjoyed. With the elementite upgraded to grade-18, he would then be able to have grade-9 sorcerers craft magic arrays within, when he brought the tower back home.


    Grade-18 elementite was something incredibly pure. Crafting magic arrays becameparatively easy, and it would have also been easy to rewrite them. As he already had the knowledge regarding the workings of the magic power furnace, he would be able to make the Magical Element Tower into a flying equipment. That would prove crucial, as enemies would not allow one to simply build magic towers. With a tower capable of flight, Saleen would have been able to drop mages on any battlefield any time.


    Having such a magic tower also ensured the safety of mages, as they could easily make their escape when battles were lost.


    After putting away the Magical Element Tower away and feeling satisfied, Saleen said, ¡°Sir, you are indeed sincere. Please tell me then, how will we be signing our contract next?¡±


    The elder moved his lips about like a living person. Saleen had not signed any contracts with him in any of the actions taken. He thought Saleen would have mentioned it, and so he did not dare undermine the mage in any way when he was working. Saleen had chosen to simply forget about the whole thing instead and opted to sign only one contract with him.


    Astrologers believe that the fate between people were interconnected. The higher the number of contracts Saleen signed with him, the tighter the entanglement of fate between him and the mage. With the signing of the contract being proposed by Saleen instead of him, it would not have had much effect on Saleen. He was wondering if Saleen actually knew the rules to such matters, or if the mage was just lucky.


    Saleen wasposed throughout. Even the astrologer, who was hundreds of thousands of years older than him, was unable to see any openings to be exploited from the mage¡¯s expressions.


    He did not know that Saleen had one instinctive reaction, which was to sign as little number of contracts with the astrologer as possible. The initial request he asked was indeed to deceive the elder somewhat, to have the elder believe that he would have asked about contracts.


    Saleen was gambling back there, making a bet that the elder would not dare to do anything underhanded to his equipment, for the sake of signing their second contract. Astrologers were different from mages, as they greatly feared the power contracts posed as they believed deeply in fate. The contracts of astrologers were something specialized in damaging fate.


    The elder¡¯s soul was housed in the figure, and the reactions of his face were all deliberately made up. While he was frustrated, he nheless talked about the contract with Saleen with a smiling face.


    ¡°Little mage, we can now exchange names. I¡¯m Gaine, the astrologer.¡±


    ¡°Saleen.¡± Saleen did not say his surname. There was no need for the exchange of surnames in a contract signed with the astrologer. He wanted as little deep connection with people of that profession as possible.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. Here is my n. You will learn the script of the astrologers here. I can only teach you the rudiments of astrology. You will need to learn the rest yourself. This won¡¯t be difficult for a mage, and you wouldn¡¯t need to be too powerful of an astrologer yourself. Grade-10 should suffice.¡±


    ¡°And the reason being?¡±


    ¡°Grade-10 astrologers aren¡¯t greatbatants, but they are able to read signs of the future. That will help a lot in avoiding untoward incidents.¡±


    ¡°What would I need to do next?¡±


    Gaine took the constetion ring that Saleen had returned to him and said, ¡°When you reach grade-10, you will be able to open this ring, which will provide you with protection. When the ring is opened, you will not suffer attacks when you are back in the Imperial City of the Abyss. The defensive magic arrays in the city will acknowledge you as an astrologer from this ce.¡±


    ¡°What happens then?¡±


    ¡°Then you shall head back to the city and release the heroic spirits from the cemetery.¡±


    Saleen was silent and Gaine continued, ¡°they no longer have the ability to survive on this ne. As soon as they leave the imperial city, they will all die. No need to worry. They can¡¯t hurt you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m worried about. If I dare toe, then I must be sure I can leave.¡±


    ¡°You are mad at the great grandmaster?¡±


    ¡°No. It is just that if I have the chance, I will let them know the consequences of sneaking up on me.¡± Saleen deliberately worded it such.


    Gaine nodded and thought, ¡°I didn¡¯t know Saleen would actually want to confuse me. He doesn¡¯t strike me as the type who would be mad at such things.¡± Then he spoke. ¡°You will still have to release them, or the Cemetery of Heroes will continue suppressing the teleportation portal of the pce. If these heroic spirits remain, you will never be able to enter the pce and find me what I need.¡±


    ¡°What do you need?¡± Saleen had a bad feeling when he was asking the question.


    ¡°This.¡± Gaine took out his own Star Gathering Needle, and said, ¡°This is the weapon of astrologers, as well as their friend. A Star Gathering Needle, I need one Star Gathering Needle from the pce!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you already have one...?¡±


    ¡°No, the one in my hand is a grade-16 needle. The one from the pce is grade-19. Only a grade-19 Star Gathering Needle will be able to take this cursed thing off and let my soul out!¡± Gaine borated and pulled his hair when he was done.


    ¡°The figure?¡±


    ¡°Yes...¡± Gaine hesitated for a moment before decided to continue, ¡°My soul is trapped in here, and that means I¡¯m incapable of feeling whatever good things the world has to offer. Hell, I can¡¯t even feel pain. You may see me as being no different from a living person, but I can¡¯t so much as even drink water. I¡¯m thirsty all the time, yet there is nothing I can do about it.¡±


    ¡°Will the grade-19 Star Gathering Needle be mine when you are done?¡± Saleen asked. He felt lucky to have hidden his in the dimension stone, or the old man would have been able to sense it. It seemed that the one on his person now was probably the grade-19 needle Gaine was seeking. Gaine would be able to sense problems within his own equipment after using it personally.


    ¡°I can¡¯t give you the needle, Saleen. I will be honest with you. The Star Gathering Needle is something important to an astrologer. I need that needle for me to have a breakthrough.¡±


    ¡°Gaine, you once wanted to have me control my own destiny. That is the time I heard anything about grade-19 equipment. Pardon me, but I have to ask, with your powers being so formidable, will I still be able to control my own destiny?¡±


    ¡°Of course. That constetion ring is something that the grade-19 astrologer left behind all those years ago. He was also the one who designed the astrology tower. I have no problem giving you all that, but I need his lineage!¡±


    ¡°That is to say, if you get his lineage, you would have no problem giving me the needle?¡±


    ¡°Of course, I can craft Star Gathering Needles myself. Once I advanced to grade-19, that thing won¡¯t be of any use to me.¡±


    ¡°But you said that I will only need to reach grade-ten. I¡¯m sorry, but I¡¯m confused. What do I get out of this? A grade-ten astrologer¡¯s lineage? You wouldn¡¯t bother with such a thing yourself, right?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you don¡¯t understand. When I advance to grade-19, I can no longer be here. Not just this ne, but all nes connected to this ne. I can no longer survive in any of these ces and must make for higher nes. I will break through the limit of the Crystal Wall, and I will never evere back again. After getting that person¡¯s lineage, you will have all the time in the world to train. You can even live here for tens of thousands of years.¡±


    ¡°That...is really tempting in a peculiar way indeed!¡± Saleen shook his head and said to Gaine, ¡°In my way of seeing it, let¡¯s make the contract this way. When I release your soul, you will forever cease to exist in this world. The needle belongs to me, the astrology tower belongs to me, the constetion ring belongs to me, and you will attain true freedom.¡±


    ¡°Saleen...¡±


    ¡°What do you say?¡±


    ¡°You have a deal!¡± both Gaine and Saleenughed out loud at the same time, yet both were skeptical of the contents of the contract.


    From Gaine¡¯s perspective, if Saleen wanted all of that to himself, the mage would have needed to fulfill the contract first. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, the moment Gaine attained true freedom was the moment the astrologer left the world he lived in for good. There was to be zero timeg in between those happenings, and there was nothing Gaine could have done to do him harm.


    Despite the contract looking so airtight, both Saleen and Gaine were still unable to shake off the feeling that something was amiss.


    ¡°Gaine, who should be the one writing the contract?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Have it your way.¡± Gaine was reluctant to answer the question in a proactive manner. He wanted his fate to be entwined with Saleen¡¯s, and as such, wanted Saleen to be the active party.


    ¡°Well then, let¡¯s put the matter of contracts aside for the moment, and let¡¯s have you start teaching me instead.¡± Saleen obviously wanted to be the passive party as well, which frustrated Gaine.


    ¡°Alright, I will be the one writing the contract.¡±


    ¡°I agree.¡± Saleen smiled and took the constetion ring, putting it on his finger.

 Chapter 919: Outwitting One Another (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 919: Outwitting One Another (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Gaine was not a good teacher. He had a hands-off approach after giving Saleen a grade-12 Star Gathering Needle. To mages, all knowledge could be forcefully memorized, but it was something else altogether to use that knowledge as one¡¯s own skills anytime anywhere.


    After Saleen¡¯s mental powers entered the needle, he was able to see narrow spaces and a limited number of nebs. At the core,id a ck hole just like the needle he had with him.


    Saleen maneuvered his way dexterously into the ck hole. The space within seemed rather thin. It was nheless still a grade-12 equipment, and his mental powers were locked tight within that space still. Fourrge transparent crystallized bodies levitated midair. They hadplex, intricate writings etched within as before.


    Saleen¡¯s mental powers were able to make it into the crystallized bodies, and he felt a super-strong connection between the needle and his soul. The writings in the first crystallized body were forcefully memorized. Saleen had yet to use memory magic.


    Memory magic were low level spells. To astrologers, something like that was not even worth learning from mages. They had their own ways of passing on their lineages. Before he was able to understand what was going on and knew only for the time being that it was part of the program to learn thenguage of the astrologers, he was interrupted by Gaine.


    ¡°Saleen, there is no need for you to learn further. If you feel like leaving. I can send you out of the imperial city right away.¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t do!¡±, Saleen said in a very dissatisfied tone, ¡°I learn astrology best in such an environment. One of my people lost his waying to the imperial city. You are an astrologer; can you help me see if he is doing alright now?¡±


    Gaine left the room exasperated to do something else. He came back soon after and said to Saleen, ¡°That man of yours is in no mortal danger, but if you leave anyter, it would have been hard to tell. I can send you to him.¡±


    ¡°How long can hest out there still?¡± Saleen was unmoved. The two blood soul towers that Nailisi crafted were way stronger than Nichs¡¯ soul bead. Even if Nichs¡¯ soul bead was to be damaged or destroyed, he was still able topensate him somehow. It was more important to Saleen that he stayed there in the astrology tower to continue learning astrology, as his level would be able to see a frightening increase.


    Most importantly however, was that his magic skills were nearing advancement. His magic chords were getting restless. In the entire imperial city, only the areas surrounding the astrology tower had a bnce of the six elements. His advancement had to be done in that ce. Leaving the Imperial City of the Abyss would mean facing off with the variety of powerful magic beasts out in the oceanic ice block, a ce ill-suited for advancement.


    The Magical Element Tower needed to be crafted back in Metatrin City, and he would not be able to advance within the tower itself. The astrology tower was therefore, the best ce for advancement.


    Gaine was not irked. In the long flow of the river of fate, such minor matters hardly bothered him. Saleen¡¯s intuition, on the other hand, made Gaine very pleased with himself, as that meant that his predictions were correct. The little king was the one meant to save him from his predicament. It was no big deal that Saleen wanted to keep learning astrology in the tower. Saleen did not even have a level in astrology. Even if he were to train until he reached grade-10, it would hardly expend much of the tower¡¯s energies.


    ¡°I need to be somewhere quiet.¡± Saleen looked at Gaine in the eye.


    Gaine stroked his beard and said, ¡°Follow me.¡±


    Gaine took Saleen out of the door, to a corridor where he could clearly see the hall on the second floor. The skylight was at his front, and starlight was shining down on him. Gaine had Saleen stand before the railing and pushed him off. Saleen was pushed off by an irresistible force, and with a whoosh, was sucked into the starlight at the top of the building!


    Gaine pped his hands and thought, ¡°Let¡¯s see you have fun in the neb. One day¡¯s time. You canst one day at most there. A grade-8 mage¡¯s mental powers can onlyst you that long after all!¡±


    Mental powers were more important to astrologers than they were to mages. When a mage¡¯s mental powers were running low, they would still be able to cast low level spells with only their experience. Such spells could still be powerful. Astrologers on the other hand, required mental powers to be stable no matter what skills they were using. Once Saleen¡¯s mental powers were depleted, he would be forcibly booted out of the core of the astrology tower into the Outer Neb.


    That part of the neb was connected to a starlit sky. Most of the scene was real, with only small pieces of the ce being constetions and arrays crafted by astrologers.


    After Saleen went into the neb, he took out the grade-12 Star Gathering Needle and began learning the writings of the astrologers. There was hardly any difference between an astrologer¡¯s lineage than that of mages¡¯. The only notable one being that the knowledge system of the mages was moreplex, yet very clear-cut. On the other hand, while the astrologers¡¯ knowledge system was huge, it was something ambiguously connected between its parts.


    Saleen saw one-hundred and twenty-eight-thousand of the astrologer¡¯s scripts, which were even greater and moreplex than the ones used by mages. Suchplex writing systemcked the uracy seen in magic scripts in terms of their ability to depict things and matters though.


    Saleen naturally went about memorizing those scripts used by astrologers and went on to understand them. Saleen had not even thought of encountering such powerful ways of passing down lineages.


    He did not have the will to stay and research them however. He simply pulled his mental powers out of the needle and began putting magic arrays around the ce. Saleen used thirty-six grade-10 magic nuclei to set a simple three-dimensional magic array in the void. He had the six major elements in the starlit sky rushed at him like gushing currents.


    Saleen did not realize that the amount of time which he used to learn the one-hundred and twenty-eight-thousand scripts, which he perceived to be an instant, was actually twelve hours in real time. In the astrologer¡¯s method of passing down their lineage, Saleen¡¯s speed at doing so was fast enough. Such speeds in such a ce meant that his talent was nothing to specialpared to other astrologers.


    Saleen¡¯s current mental powers were stronger than grade-9 mages, and learning scripts was not something that should have taken so much time.


    As soon as the three-dimensional magic array was put in ce, Saleen began breaking through grade-9 in earnest. All the rules that he was familiar with flowed one after another within his mind. All the experiments he had conducted, all the experience he had from making scrolls, and even the details in the various battlefields he went through; all of them were being recollected one by one. Saleen¡¯s magic chords seemed to burst out of his body uncontrobly.


    The magic chords absorbed the six major elements like a person who had starved for days, expelling impurities as they went about it. Saleen¡¯s magic chords had always been abnormally pure, and as such, the process took very little time toplete. Most mages who had trained to grade-8 had frightening amounts of impurities in their magic chords. As such, it would have usually been imperative for them to spend huge amount of time, during advancement to grade-9, to re-temper their magic chords.


    Saleen possessed a body of water element, which meant advancement was trickier than other mages. The purity of the magic chords housed in such a body were unparalleled. Saleen¡¯s magic array was unable to keep the powers of the starlight out, and the starlight ended up rushing into Saleen¡¯s magic chords as well, but they did little more than help Saleen clean his chords.


    Mages of ancient times would have requested astrologers¡¯ help in doing so as well. When astrologers used their skills, they were expending soul power instead though. As such, no astrologer would have helped a mage with such a thing unless they shared a very good rtionship. Generally-speaking, mages were required to pay a great price to have astrologers do them such a favor.


    Saleen was having it easy instead, as he had the most powerful power of the astrology tower to help him clean and temper his magic chords. His chords grew as if there were no limit to them. All thirty-six grade-10 magic nuclei soon went nearly depleted. He was not even absorbing powers of the magic nuclei, as the nuclei were simply there to create the magic array. All expenditure came solely from the running of the magic array itself.


    The magic array was being ran too quickly and even grade-10 magic nuclei were barely able to hold. There had never been a mage seeing such a peculiar phenomenon happening when advancing into grade-9, where even grade-10 magic nuclei strained at keeping a magic array running.


    Saleen gritted his teeth, taking out thirty-six grade-12 magic nuclei and installing them into the magic array. Only a handful of the magic nuclei given to him by the great grandmaster were high level ones. Most of them being grade-10 ones, and grade-12 ones numbered to less than one-thousand. They were also all were cut. Magic nuclei of a singlerge-sized magic beast of ancient times would have yielded hundreds when cut into standard sizes.


    Saleen still had to use high level magic nuclei to keep the Ancient running. While there were no level requirements in the magic nucleus used to power the magic power furnace, high level ones still enabled the furnace to run longer. A situation where the furnace stopped running in the middle of a battle would not have been something pretty.


    Despite Saleen having quite arge number of high level magic nuclei at his disposal, he was still reluctant to waste them. He was advancing to grade-9 at that moment, which was a very critical moment for him. He would not have hesitated to throw in even higher level magic nuclei, or even dragon crystals, if he deemed it necessary.


    The situation changed altogether as soon as the grade-12 nuclei were put in ce. Saleen was only advancing to the rank of a grade-9 sorcerer. Regardless of how peculiar his magic chords would get, the amount of energy he was able to absorb would still be limited. Absorption of the six major elements by his magic chords stabilized. The phenomenon where his chords kept bloating no longer happened; they became more resilient instead. His original magic chords felt like liquid to him, and at that moment, there were signs that the chords were congealing into solids.


    Saleen felt it had only been several minutes, yet Gaine was getting rather tired of waiting in the astrology tower. Saleen had actually spent three days in the Outer Neb. His life signs were clear in the Outer Neb, meaning that he hadn¡¯t been running into any trouble, but how was it possible for that mage to have such powerful mental powers?


    Was Saleen training directly within to be a grade-10 astrologer? While the Outer Neb¡¯s power was immense, it still had to feed the entire astrology tower, and it still provided protection for tens of miles radius from the tower. As such, the amount of power it provided for Gaine was limited.


    Saleen did not dare take out his own Star Gathering Needle. He simply let the starlight cleanse his newly formed magic chords. The new chords were still water element ones, but the purity of which reached a level he himself was unable toprehend. Using Elemental Conversion for casting magic would have been awfully easy by then, and the issue of elemental conversion having higher consumption was no more.


    What pleased Saleen even more was that his grade-12 Star Gathering Needle was absorbing constetion power as well. The limited constetion space within was then all filled up with constetion power.


    The greatest benefit derived from having his body entering the sky was that he was gradually able to feel the conditions of his own soul. The core of one¡¯s soulid within the brain, but the entirety of the soul was spread out throughout one¡¯s entire body.


    Only grade-10 mages were able to touch the more intricate secrets of the soul, yet Saleen felt as if his mental powers came from the core of his soul. Such powers seemed to gradually meld with every corner of the soul. Mental powers, soul, and body: all three fused as one. Vitality ran within his own body and the energies became internalized, instead of spreading outwards like how it was initially.


    That was to say that, while his magic chords had only advanced to grade-9, his own soul advanced to a level unknown to anyone. Saleen had only been able to feel his own lifespan growing. Or to put urately, his life force no longer leaked outside, which in turn lengthened his lifespan by a great degree.

 Chapter 920: Removing Hidden Dangers (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 920: Removing Hidden Dangers (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Such an effect was produced when astrologers performed the custodian role when mages advanced. What was left was that no astrologer had been able to possess powers simr to that of the astrologer tower.


    Saleen¡¯s senses were bing clearer. His mental strength was no longer leaving his body. A slight rumble was all that was needed for him to sense the extension of a mysterious power. It was as if Saleen¡¯s mental strength had be more powerful but Saleen knew that it was because his mental strength was resonating with the outside world.


    Just like how mages were able to manipte the power of elements to cast spells once they possessed magic chords, Saleen was able to utilize his mental strength to manipte the powers beyond his body for sensing.


    No wonder powerful mages were able to sense up to 100 miles away. It was said that in the past, grade-18 mages were able to sense the entire Maind.


    Saleen no longer doubted it. It was because he finally understood that if his soul was powerful enough, his mental strength would be a source of energy that was even more pure and resilient than magic nuclei and could be extended without any limits.


    Saleen¡¯s soul was congregating together, to the extent of forming an image. It was like a clone of Saleen. He immediately thought of many spells that that could utilize images to attack, but since his magic chords were in the middle of evolving, he did not dare to try and experiment with any spells at that moment.


    Gaine waited under the tower for 10 days before Saleen finally descended from the Outer Neb and was guided into his room.


    ¡°Saleen...¡± Gaine wanted to ask about what happened in the Outer Neb because he could sense that the powers there had weakened significantly. By right, even if Saleen could advance directly into a grade-10 astrologer, something like that should not be happening. Besides, Saleen was obviously still only a grade-1 astrologer.


    ¡°Gaine, we have fulfilled out contractual obligations. Please send us out. I¡¯m afraid my subordinate will be in danger.¡±


    Gaine was annoyed. Saleen¡¯s subordinate had only been waiting outside for less than two days. Although a grade-9 Professional might not be too powerful, he should still be able to survive for two days.


    Nichs was outside the Imperial City of the Abyss. The dark waters pressed onto his body while the surface of his body was glowing with a dim and gray light. He was halfway into a deep sleep.


    He was gripping his soul beads in his hands. Cracks had already appeared in these soul beads that were refined by Fycro.


    Nichs felt peaceful. He cast a lesser prophecy spell, which clearly indicated that he would not die. All around him were the massive skeletons of magic beasts. After the Imperial City of the Abyss had been destroyed, many magic beasts that were above grade-9 would still choose toe back there to end their lives.


    Those that died outside of the Imperial City either ended their lives early or their grades were too low to be acknowledged by the humans in the past.


    Nichsid amongst those skeletons. The soul energy there was rich, otherwise he would not have been able to sustain for so long. His soul beads were slowly absorbing the soul energy in order to sustain his Holy Shield.


    Nichs never really gave serious thought about his rtionship with Saleen. He thought about it very carefully and seriously then. After following Saleen, he would never unleash his maximum effort in every battle. How did Saleen treat him? It seemed that Saleen had always been impartial towards him.


    On the other hand, Saleen treated Nailisi and the winged skeleton so well that Nichs almost felt jealous. Why did he treat them that way? Whenever Saleen was in danger, the two of them would always rush to the front to block off any attacks with their bodies.


    Both Nailisi and Soldier were of higher grades than Saleen. Even with the soul contract, they really did not need to try so hard. It was clear to Nichs that at the rate that they were going, both of them would break through grade-10 any time.


    Once they reached grade-10, Saleen¡¯s control over the two of them would weaken. To be more urate, Saleen¡¯s death would no longer be fatal to the two of them.


    Yet, Nailisi and Soldier had never hesitated. What about himself? He was always hesitating, yet he also hoped to gain benefits from Saleen.


    Mages believed in the rule of equivalent exchange. Surely, Saleen would be able to sense what he was thinking.


    Nichs had made up his mind that he would not leave and would await Saleen¡¯s return!


    Fallen holy masters were more powerful than ordinary holy masters and their source of power came from equipment like soul beads. On the other hand, it was much slower than umting power from the Gods. When Nichs was trapped under the sea, he did think of finding a way back.


    It was after careful consideration that Nichs decided to stay. No matter what, now that Saleen was in a precarious situation, if Saleen was able to return and find Nichs, thetter would still be able to contribute whatever he could. Especially on their way back, his fallen divine spells could still be very effective against magic beasts. If, for some reason, the winged skeleton¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was damaged, then Nichs¡¯ skills would be even more important.


    Besides, Saleen might be injured when he returned. Mages were unable to heal others quickly, but Nichs¡¯ divine spell could take effect very quickly and ensure everyone¡¯s safety when leaving the abyss.


    Nichs conserved all his powers and only released a little fallen godly power so that Saleen would be able to find him. Nichs no longer bothered to track the passing of time. He justid there in the dark. It was a test for Nichs. In an environment where he could die from overwhelming water pressure without a sliver of light, he could very easily lose his mind.


    Time passed quickly sometimes, and slowly at other times. Nichs was just outside of the Imperial City of the Abyss then, so time there was different from the Oceanic Ice Block. Nichs kept chasing away the illusions that were created in his mind. The most terrifying illusion was when he thought that his soul beads had been crushed so he wanted to cast his most powerful fallen divine spell, so that his soul could escape and leave behind his physical body.


    Fortunately, his follower contract trembled slightly and helped him to escape from that illusion. That further affirmed Nichs¡¯ decision.


    Nichs had no idea how much time had passed when he suddenly saw a faint light break through the darkness and head towards him. There were three figures in the light and they were Saleen, Nailisi, and Soldier.


    Nichs closed his eyes again, thinking it was another illusion. That was not the first time he had seen an illusion of Saleen returning but that illusion felt different. Nichs began to panic. Could his lesser prophecy spell have failed? Even if he wanted to leave, there was no longer enough power in his soul beads and his soul might not be able to leave.


    ¡°Nichs!¡± He heard Saleen¡¯s voice and Nichs smiled. The illusion felt really real.


    ¡°Old fellow, Master is calling you!¡± He heard Nailisi¡¯s voice and he was awakened. He finally realized that the three of them had already reached him.


    Nichs stood up and only became more worried. Could it be that he would not be able to get through the illusion anymore?


    When Nailisi saw the guarded expression on Nichs¡¯ face, she became even more frustrated. She was trapped for more than half a month in the astrologer tower, yet she did not manage to gain any benefits. Other than her equipment being purified by starlight and the hidden dangers being removed, the past 10 days or so had been a waste of time. On the other hand, the winged skeleton gained quite a lot. His soul mes had advanced once again. The mes in his eyes were no longer dancing, instead, they looked just like a normal human¡¯s eyes.


    No matter how strong the winged skeleton¡¯s body was, it would never beat having a powerful pair of soul mes. As the soul mes advanced, they would eventually end up like a human¡¯s soul and would evolve into a very powerful level. The winged skeleton could even end up bing a spirit of the dead that possessed life power. By that time, the winged skeleton would be able to possess a physical body of flesh and blood like a normal human.


    The gray light on Nichs¡¯ body glowed as he raised the fallen staff in his hands. He did not say a word.


    Saleen pulled Nailisi back. He took a few steps forward and said, ¡°Nichs, it¡¯s me.¡±


    Nichs slowly put down the staff and said, ¡°You¡¯re an illusion...¡±


    Saleen could see that Nichs¡¯ gaze was drifting, so he quickly activated the follower¡¯s contract. He could see his own soul and the few contracts in the core of his soul very clearly. Saleen had be more adept at using contracts.


    When Nichs felt the power of the contract, there was finally a bit of rity in his sight.


    ¡°My Lord...¡±


    ¡°No need to say it, Nailisi!¡±


    Nailisi unwillingly took out a blood soul tower and gave it to Nichs. He calmed himself down before taking the tower from Nailisi.


    ¡°There must be a problem in your soul beads. Nichs, this is something that Nailisi has refined for you. It is simr to soul beads and can allow you to cast your fallen divine spells,¡± Saleen exined. He was in no hurry to leave. It would not be easy leaving that ce. Although Saleen had obtained Gaine¡¯s map, the giant puppets that guarded the abyss might not acknowledge his Star Gathering Needle.


    Nichs was overjoyed to see the blood soul tower. He had only heard of such an item, but never seen it in the Holy See. The people of the Supreme Court would never refine such equipment for the Holy Masters of the Pivotal Council. Such an item was not allowed in the Holy See and only fallen Holy Masters would find a use for it.


    ¡°My Lord, help!¡± Nichs shouted.


    Saleen did not mind and quickly used his water shield to surround Nichs. Without the overwhelming water pressure, Nichs finally took a deep breath before looking at Saleen with shock and said, ¡°My Lord, you have advanced?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have,¡± Saleen replied with a smile. He was not too excited about advancing to a grade-9 sorcerer. What he was happier about was that his soul power had be much more powerful. Before even reaching grade-10, he had already uncovered some of the secrets of the soul, which would be extremely helpful to his future advancements.


    Nichs stripped off the soul beads from his fallen staff and held them in his hands. The tens of thousands of souls in the soul beads were already extremely weak. A strange smile appeared on his face. ¡°Goodbye, Fycro! From now on, I will follow Saleen with all my heart. I will not turn back even if you are to appear in front of me again! To hell with the Script of Redemption!¡±

 Chapter 921: Removing Hidden Dangers (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 921: Removing Hidden Dangers (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs crushed the soul beads with force. The souls and soul shards in the soul beads unleashed a terrifying scream.


    Just when Nichs was about to absorb all the souls in the soul beads with the blood soul tower, a powerful holy light shot out from the broken pieces of the soul beads, lighting up the dark seabed.


    Fycro¡¯s face appeared in front of Nichs. Saleen was already prepared for that and he threw his grade-12 Star Gathering Needle straight at Fycro¡¯s image. The image was burst by the Needle before there was any time to react. Fycro was a grade-10 Holy Master, and coincidentally, the grade-12 Star Gathering Needle was filled with power that was taken from the astrologer¡¯s tower.


    When Saleen was in the Outer Neb, he had used the grade-12 Star Gathering Needle to steal awayrge amounts of power of constetions, transferring them into his own Needle. The way he did it was very subtle, but it did reduce the Outer Neb¡¯s energy.


    The grade-12 Star Gathering Needle unleashed a powerful and colorful starlight, destroying whatever Fycro had left behind. Saleen did not care what Fycro would think. He had sent Nichs there to support Saleen, not to keep a watch on him. Now that Saleen had destroyed the hidden danger left behind by Fycro, there was nothing thetter could do about it.


    If it was in the past, Saleen might still have some reservations, but since he possessed six grade-10 elemental creatures, there was no way he would be killed so easily by Fycro. After getting in touch with the different levels of souls, Saleen understood that no matter how quickly the humans on the Myers Maind were advancing, the speed would drop once they had passed grade-9.


    All the grades below grade-9 were easy to achieve, even back in ancient times. Beyond that, the speed of advancing would be very slow, even if the power on the Myers Maind had returned to the same level as the first dynasty.


    Fycro was a grade-10 Holy Master, who could only advance to grade-11 at most. There was no way he could advance two grades consecutively. Saleen was confident that he would be able to handle a grade-11 enemy.


    He would use the leaders of his elemental creatures to engage the enemy to buy him some time so that he could eliminate the enemy with his n badge. Saleen believed that there was no way Fycro would be able to break through the mass of huge elemental creatures in one go.


    After Fycro¡¯s image was destroyed, the souls and soul shards in the broken soul beads were absorbed into the blood soul tower. It was not a long process, but Nichs felt like an eternity had passed. By the time all the souls had entered the blood soul tower, Nichs decided to mark the tower with a soul brand.


    Holy Masters were different from mages. From very early on, they would already be in touch with the secrets of the soul and would possess many techniques that targeted the soul. A soul brand like that was somethingmonly used to exert control over equipment.


    The soul brand turned into a towering and bright image. All the soul shards in the blood soul tower began to restore themselves by devouring each other and eventually transforming intoplete souls. All the memory shards of the souls were erased, and the moment they were reborn, the only thing they saw was the towering and glorious image of Nichs.


    ¡°My God!¡± All the souls knelt down and began to bow to Nichs¡¯ soul brand. The power of faith began to flow out of the blood soul tower continuously.


    Nichs was overjoyed. That was exactly what a fallen Holy Master needed. All the memories of those souls had been erased and all that was left was their love and respect towards him. Although these souls were weak, their power of faith was what Nichs needed the most. With the blood soul tower, he would be able to cast any divine spells he wanted.


    All along, the thing that troubled Nichs the most was hisck of power. He was a grade-9 fallen Holy Master who only possessed the abilities equivalent to grade-8. This was because he could only utilize the power in his soul beads and the beads usually restored very slowly. He was usually unwilling to cast grade-9 divine spells because he knew that it was not sustainable.


    With the love and respect of those pious souls, the power of faith had entered his bodypletely and would never be lost. The faith of tens of thousands of souls would be able to sustain a grade-9 fallen Holy Master in battle.


    Besides, the longer the souls continued to pay their respects to him, the longer his life would be. He might even end up with a lifespan that was as long as a mage.


    ¡°Old fellow, how do you feel?¡± Nailisi asked with a sneaky smile. Nichs was shocked. The item was given to him by Nailisi, why would she be so kind?


    ¡°Nailisi, don¡¯t scare him. Nichs, this blood soul tower is perfectly fine. You will be able to use it all the way until grade-12. Have you recovered all your powers?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Lord. When will we leave?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. We will... gather all the bones around the city. I want to prepare some materials for the winged skeleton.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Lord.¡± Nichs no longer had anyints. Saleen had given him equipment that he could use up to grade-12. Even if the Myers Maind returned to its original level of power, he would still be able to use that equipment for hundreds of years or even one thousand years. In addition, his fallen staff was made of materials that was even more outstanding than the blood soul tower and it was also refined by Saleen. With this equipment, he would only need a Book of the Fallen or the Forbidden Code to be the most powerful grade-9 Holy Master.


    Saleen was also pleased. With the Star Gathering Needle, he would no longer have to worry about any hidden dangers in the equipment of his subordinates and friends. Most of the items that the winged skeleton brought back from sunken ships usually could not be used. That time around, they would be able to dismantle all the constraints.


    Saleen had entered the Imperial City of the Abyss, and while he did not obtain the ancient graveyard of the single horned white whales, he actually gained quite a lot and the most important item of them all was the mysterious Star Gathering Needle. The space within the Needle was even more massive than the Outer Neb on top of the astrologer¡¯s tower. The Outer Neb was like a dimensional passageway and the power that it could provide was limited. On the other hand, Saleen¡¯s Star Gathering Needle contained a star sky. Saleen believed that this was the power of a grade-19 astrologer.


    The astrologer must still be alive but had gone to another world that was unrted to a dimension like the Myers Maind. Saleen could not help but admire someone like that; someone who was able to leave freely after leaving behind a lineage.


    Although the Grandmaster had given Saleen a bunch of equipment that was full of traps, the traps had already been removed by the Star Gathering Needle and some of them have managed to regain their magic arrays. Saleen was more than content.


    What he gained the most was from the battle with the grade-12 Angel of Fear, where his mindset became more resilient and determined than ever. If another Angel of Fear was to appear again, Saleen believed that he would not sumb to the Angel of Fear¡¯s control anymore. Saleen felt that this confidence was the reason why the power of his soul had increased tremendously. Even with the help of the Outer Neb, Saleen could not possibly have achieved a breakthrough in the limit of his soul otherwise.


    The weakness in Saleen¡¯s heart was gradually bingpletely repaired. It would no longer be shaken, even if something simr was to happen again. This was the biggest reward a mage could hope to receive, and it was something that required luck too.


    The winged skeleton took out the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. It was more than 40 yards long and it was much more spacious inside. When the Grandmaster refined this pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat for the winged skeleton, he did not use a dimensional stone. Saleen guessed that dimensional stones must have been quite a rare item even in ancient times.


    The winged skull urged everyone onto the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. At that moment, Nailisi released Eleanor. Eleanor was almost about to suffocate in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. It was not too bad after the Grandmaster had refined it, as the space in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory kept increasing. Once Saleen destroyed the magic arrays, the Twelve Notes of Purgatory began to shrink until it was the size of about 10 square yards.


    It was as if Eleanor was trapped in a prison without any windows.


    It was with good reasons that Nailisi did not let Eleanor out. Thetter was only a grade-7 elf and was even weaker than Nichs. Nichs was almost killed by the water pressure after staying at the bottom of the sea for a long period of time. Based on Eleanor¡¯s powers, she would probably be dead in less than an hour.


    Nailisi did not let Eleanor out while she was waiting in the astrologer tower because she was afraid that Eleanor would be transported to other ces and could never be found again. If that had happened, Saleen would surely me Nailisi. She was fully aware how upset Saleen would be.


    When Eleanor had finally been let out, but she did not seem to harbor any hatred. Nailisi asked her carefully, ¡°Eleanor, are you alright?¡±


    ¡°No worries. I nted some flowers in there. Luckily, I know some magic, otherwise I would have suffocated to death.¡±


    ¡°Flowers?¡± Nailisi¡¯s expression was awful. Although the Twelve Notes of Purgatory was an equipment, its attribute was a replication of the Purgatory dimension. It was impossible for that dimension to be nted with flowers that elves were fond of. Eleanor has messed things up, so it would be even more difficult to restore the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    ¡°Nailisi, are you upset?¡± Eleanor asked with a smile.


    ¡°Not at all. I locked you up for so long after all. If it was me, I would have punched someone the moment I was let out.¡± Nailisi was courteous, even though her expression was still upset.


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I nted tawny daylilies for you. Next time, when you are repairing your equipment, you can start from Purgatory of the Soulless.¡± With that, Eleanor began to meditate, ignoring Nailisipletely.


    Nailisi felt a little better about Eleanor. It seemed that the elf was not as problematic as the elves mentioned in the legends. She heard that Eleanor had even brewed medicine for Master so that his children could be delivered safely. Nailisi decided that she should stop making things difficult for Eleanor in the future.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat moved slowly. Soldier released plenty of spirits of the dead to gather the dust of the bones. The bones of magic beasts were not in the Imperial City of the Abyss, so they were not in good shape. Even those that seemed to be in one piece would turn into dust with a simple touch.


    Tens of thousands of spirits of the deadbed the area and gathered the dust of the magic beasts¡¯ bones before bringing them back to the winged skeleton¡¯s alchemy ship. The ship would move ahead slightly faster for every hundred miles that had beenbed. It was already the month of March them. Saleen did not wish to dy further and hoped to return to Metatrin City by May.


    He had no idea what had happened to his country. He had left for almost half a year.


    Indeed, many things had happened to Metatrin Kingdom over the past few months when Saleen was not around. The most serious of them was that Lex¡¯s rescue team had been trapped in Lonestar City.

 Chapter 922: Death of the Mythical Beast (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 922: Death of the Mythical Beast (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex wracked her brain on how to infiltrate the Sikenqinyan Empire, locating Bain with her hidden arts. Bain was had serious injuries, and he had only six of his men left with him. Lex snatched the seven assassins away from the surrounding mercenaries and ran nonstop until they reached Didypus.


    The march of an all-magic army was incredibly fast, and reactions of the likes of mercenaries could have never hoped to catch up to Lex¡¯s forces.


    Unfortunately, the regr army of the Sikenqinyan Empire was deployed. The army was even split into two groups and made their way straight for the Kingdom of Metatrin. Lex was soon caught in a pincer maneuver as soon as she got out of the Chaotic Swamp. It was fortunate that Aini was building a city there, which deployed an army to take Lex back.


    As Sikenqinya had truly formed an alliance with the Holy See, the regr army deployed was over three-hundred-thousand strong, and more mercenaries joined the fray. An army of a size close to one-million surrounded Lonestar City.


    Worse still, the attack was backed with support from the Tanggsi Empire, the army of which broke through the gap between the territories of Bitterwater Prefecture and the Qin Empire. The army divided thend controlled by two states and went straight for the borders of Qin. The bnce of forces at Kroraina was once again broken.


    The army deployed by the Tanggsi Empire was of a never before seen size. The Qin Empire was not even able to calcte howrge of a force they were expected to fight. They were hardly able to do anything but receive news delivered using magic. One city after another of theirs fell. The Tanggsi Empire pushed on regardless of casualties suffered. Such manner of attack would notst in general, yet the Tanggsi forces were able to push all three fronts to ces just less than a hundred miles away from the Qin border.


    The northern nobles were terrified, as the bulk of their armies were still inside Kroraina. The Tanggsi army kept outnking their enemies, separating the expeditionary forces the northern nobles sent into Kroraina. They trapped and isted forces.


    As if things could not have gotten any worse, in the eastern seas, Alchemy City¡¯s line of defense finally fell. Cloudflow warships entered the Qin Empire¡¯s eastern waters and kept harassing the shores. Holy Rock City deployed over one-hundred-thousand hastily to defend Lianyun City. Under such a situation, Metatrin City was unable to even trade, and was unable to deploy much to help Lonestar City.


    The Holy See had finally gathered the forces of three empires tounch a general offensive against Qin.


    Sika was in charge of Metatrin City, and she was unsure if the Sikenqinyans were simply feinting it. If she were to deploy forces to reinforce Lonestar City, Metatrin City would be deemed ripe for picking, even with thirty-six sorcerers holding the fort at Metatrin City.


    There was hardly any point of deploying forces to Lonestar City if no sorcerers were deployed as well. The Sikenqinyan army hadrge numbers of mages among them. It seemed like Emperor Danny deployed every mage he was able to find in his ce.


    In the middle of April, the Ancient appeared near the waters of Metatrin City. The port encased in dread was suddenly bustling with noise and excitement. The few boats left at port that went out to receive the giant ship all had their crew rendered mute from the sheer size of the Ancient.


    There were no other sounds to be heard other than the waves and the wind. The soldiers were astounded; they had their mouths gaping wide open at the miracle of a time long past.


    The Ancient would have been able to park at the city¡¯s port, but Saleen had the warship anchored at sea nheless. It was ready for attacks from Cloudflow at a moment¡¯s notice. When Saleen and the entourage of mages and soldiers taken with him to hone their mettle walked down the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel, and saw the empty port, he did nothing but curse at Alchemy City under his breath.


    Qin merchants did not dare venture between Metatrin City and Lianyun City. Ports further down south did not even have ships going out to sea. The port at Metatrin City was left with only a handful of warships.


    The bone warships were all destroyed in the battle of the Separation Sea. Metatrin¡¯s navy currently consisted only of the dozen or so ships that Saleen took with him to the oceanic ice block. The small-sized warships were adequate to handle pirates but werepletely useless against the Cloudflow fleet.


    Saleen still had several inds at sea that did not have much development from the get go, and as such, served only as supply points for warships. If the inds were to be attacked, the forces stationed there would prove too weak to do much, and they would fall quickly.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat went into the underwater boathouse while the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel parked at shore. The soldiers at shore were relieved at their return. With the return of the main forces of their fleet, defense of the shoreline would be a lot easier. While the soldiers were no mages, they were nheless able to tell that the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was very powerful. Warships crafted from the bones of dragons had initially only been deemed the stuff of legends.


    Saleen did not make an extravagant entrance and simply made his way quietly back to the temple. He went to see his teacher, Jason, first. His teacher did not let him stay for long though, sending him off to see his children instead. Saleen had Nailisi and Soldier return to their quarters, then he went to see Sika.


    It was noon and Sika was not around. The two children were ying with a small animal under the watchful eyes of the Caucasus warriors.


    Seeing the animal his children were ying with had Saleen¡¯s expressions looking very nasty. The animal was smaller than Saleen¡¯s palm. It had tiny scales, a thin, long tail, and horns like toothpicks. It was but an extremely weak grade-0 magic beast from the first look, but Saleen was able to tell that that was the mythical beast brought out from the goddess¡¯ temple.


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t the mythical beast be sleeping? Why has it awakened?¡± It was without a doubt that letting his children y with the mythical beast was very dangerous. Even if it was one that had just hatched, it still possessed skills enough to cause lethal damage after all.


    As soon as the children saw Saleen, they turned around and ran in his direction. Saleen bent and picked up both of his children.


    ¡°Papa!¡± their childish voices filled his heart with limitless warmth. He spoke to the Caucasus warriors in anger nheless, ¡°How could you let the children y with something like that?¡±


    Saleen was busy being angry and failed to take note that his children were just eighteen months old. It was a wonder that they were still able to recognize him with him being away for so long. That would have surprised Saleen initially, but he was burning with rage at the moment seeing his children in danger. He had not been able to take in the wondrous fact of it.


    ¡°Your highness, it was the prince and princess who insisted on ying with the beast. Her highness Sika was not even able to keep them from doing so.¡± The Caucasus warriors who served Sika were all loyal to her, and those deemed trustworthy enough to be entrusted with the care of the children were among her closest. These Caucasian warriors were friendly to Saleen, and they did not take offense at Saleen¡¯s attitude.


    ¡°Papa...¡± Saleen¡¯s daughter pped at Saleen¡¯s face, which he found rather painful. It was only then he realized that his daughter was just eighteen months old, yet the strength she had was greater than most regr soldier¡¯s. He was a grade-9 sorcerer and the toughness of his body easily rivaled that of a grand swordmasters. That did not stop the child¡¯s p from actually being able to hurt him!


    ¡°Gwaahh...Uuurrghh!¡± The beast cried and ran to the corner of the room.


    ¡°Pa...pa...¡± Saleen¡¯s son was not as good with words as his daughter was and pointed at the mythical beast with his finger.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Saleen asked the Caucasian warrior.


    ¡°Her highness Sika advanced to the rank of a nature priestess; she somehow awakened the beast. The prince and princess took a liking to it and insisted on ying with it. Rest assured, Your Highness, the little one isn¡¯t all that dangerous.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t all that dangerous?¡± Saleen looked at the sharp fangs of the mythical beast. While there were only four of them, Saleen believed that the baby beast was capable of biting through the breastte of magic armor.


    Saleen¡¯s son also pped at Saleen¡¯s face lightly like his daughter, while extending his other hand and pointed at the mythical beast running to a corner.


    Saleen hesitated, but nheless walked to the corner of the room with his children in his arms. Saleen was surprised to see that the mythical beast stuck its head into the corner of the wall and wailed. ¡°Just what is happening here?¡±


    He gave up holding his then struggling son and put the boy down. His daughter struggled as well, straightening her legs. Saleen had no choice but to put her down too.


    His children walked to the corner confidently. He saw a wooden stick appear out of nowhere into his son¡¯s hand. The stick looked very familiar to Saleen, and it did not take him long to find out why; it was a branch from a divine tree. With his magic tower crafted out of the four divine trees taken away by the great grandmaster, he was then short on divine tree materials. Seeing the branch in the boy¡¯s hand made him want to just snatch it away from the boy.


    The following action of his son stopped him from doing so.


    The eighteen month old boy whacked at the mythical beast¡¯s head with a loud crack. The collision between the head and the stick was strong enough to spout out sparks.


    Saleen¡¯s daughter then took out a rope, which was surprisingly one made out bark from the divine trees. Saleen had crafted it to tie up important figures in the Holy See, yet Sika simply let her daughter y with it like a toy.


    Seeing his daughter making a noose on one end of the rope, Saleen was rendered speechless. ¡°What is with this little girl? Isn¡¯t her intellect growing a little bit too fast? Is it really true that children of nature priests inherit knowledge directly from their parents?¡±


    The mythical beast kept digging at the wall with its tiny horns. The material of the temple was built ording to specifications of magic towers, so its horns were only big enough to dig out a visible dent on the wall, before being stuck. Saleen¡¯s son whacked at it with the stick again, causing the beast to wail in pain.


    The little mythical beast had no choice but to climb out, due to the whacking being too painful to take. His daughter went right up and tied the noose at its neck. Sheughed happily after tying the noose tight, taking it to Saleen.


    ¡°Are those two really my children?¡± Saleen could not have believed his eyes. His children, bullying a mythical beast.


    ¡°Your highness, her highness Sika is a priestess. That thing won¡¯t dare harm her children. Besides, both of the children...¡± a tinge of regret was written on the Caucasus warrior¡¯s face as she paused. She knew well that Sika did not intend to have either of the children be a priest or priestess. ¡°They have great strength. That thing is unable to fight against them,¡± the Caucasian warrior continued.


    ¡°Unable to fight against them? Do you know what that thing is?¡± Saleen was a bit irked. Knowing that the Goddess of Myers was a grade-18 god, it was only natural for him to be on high alert around the mythical beast. The higher the level of a god, the higher the level of the mythical beast kept around them.


    ¡°That thing seems to be a mythical beast baby,¡± the female Caucasus warrior answered.


    Saleen was all in a knot by then. ¡°What do you mean mythical beast baby? Mythical beasts are mythical beasts. They are dangerous!¡± Despite how his children tortured the animal, he did not see any anger in the animal¡¯s eyes, only grievance. ¡°That little thing is dangerous. Haven¡¯t you see what it is capable of?¡± Saleen asked the Caucasian warrior.


    ¡°I did, but its skills were quickly disrupted by the children. It won¡¯t dare try anything like that again,¡± the Caucasian warrior answered.


    ¡°They were capable of disrupting skills?¡±


    Saleen was silent for quite a while. He was still unable to securely disrupt skills cast by people of his own level. Back when he advanced to the rank of a mid-level mage he could not disrupt skills. He had only begun to master the techniques for disrupting cast skills when he became a sorcerer. ¡°Did my children just developed the powers of a sorcerer?¡±

 Chapter 923: Death of the Mythical Beast (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 923: Death of the Mythical Beast (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked at his children with a dumbfounded expression for quite some time. The Caucasus warriors bowed to him and saw themselves out after a while. Saleen turned and saw Sika standing at the door smiling, pping her hands.


    Seeing their mother at the door, the children cast the beast aside and ran for her.


    While it was obvious that his children were capable of some speech, they simply gaga-ed their way to their mother, and nothing of sense was able to be made from the wordsing out of their mouths. Sika hoisted her children up and kissed them once each, letting them y with her for a bit before putting them down. She then told the children, ¡°Go y by yourselves. I need to talk to your father.¡±


    Saleen was even more surprised as he saw his children climbing down from Sika¡¯s arms. While the children were incapable of saying much, it was obvious that they were able to understand Sika¡¯s words. Normal children would have only been able to say a few words at such an age, yet his were able to make sense of theplex speech of adults. Saleen was at a loss. He did not know if he should be worried or happy about his children¡¯s development.


    The children ran straight for the mythical beast as soon as they left Sika¡¯s side. The little mythical beast trembled, and then looked at Saleen. He just simply pretended to not have noticed anything. ¡°Smart thing that beast is, knowing how to y helpless and all that.¡± Had Sika not been able to subdue it, the mythical beast would have probably run away a long time ago, instead of staying around being toyed with by the children.


    Saleen¡¯s son and daughter were just as active. The children hardly differed from one another. His son went and picked up the beast by the tail. The boy then walked to the table. The table was tall, and the children climbed on to the chairs and the opposing side of the table. Sika apparently was used to it all and did not have the least bit of fear of her children falling off. If her children fell off just from getting up to a chair, they would not have been the offspring of a priestess.


    The boy put the mythical beast on the table and the two children took out pieces of toys from their clothes, which looked like building blocks. They went on to build a house for the mythical beast, and then stuffed the beast inside without any regard if the beast liked the little cage built by the little humans at all.


    The clothes the children wore were hardly any different from those worn by normal children. The only possible difference was that the clothes were made of purple-gold sea urchin hides, which had storage spaces within that even normal people were capable of using. While Saleen¡¯s children did have peculiar developments about them, they were children nheless. They did not possess skills, and there was no way they were able to use spatial equipment.


    The children then took out fresh meat from their pockets and start ying feed-the-beast. Saleen let out a long sigh. While his children were indeed special, they were hardly any different from normal children of their age when it came to hobbies. They spent all day ying and did little else.


    Sika took Saleen to the other end of the room and sat by the window. Having left for several months, he missed Sika awfully. But seeing the serious look on her face, he knew that there were countless matters about the Kingdom of Metatrin waiting for him to attend to. As a regent, Sika was able to do little, but keep the ce running as it was.


    ¡°Saleen, I have two main matters to talk to you about, and I will leave it up to you to decide which one you would want to address to first. Before that, take a look at this letter.¡±


    Sika took out a letter as she spoke and handed it to Saleen. He opened up the letter and scanned it, then gave a cold smirk. ¡°You believe what the Holy See is saying? That they want to form an alliance with us to take out Qin. What a joke. Lex being a Grukos aside, even with her out of the picture, this can be little more than a bluff.¡±


    ¡°I know, so I locked up the one sending the letter. How do you want to go about it?¡±


    ¡°Leave it to Nichs. Have him look into it. Sika, tell me about the two important matters you mentioned.¡±


    ¡°The first one is that ...Lex was being trapped in Lonestar City. Sikenqinyans schemed with the Holy See and deployed their forces against us. It is just that they have yet to be able to do much just yet. This letter was sent here at the same time.¡±


    Saleen grumbled. Lex was trapped, and Sika had yet to deploy any reinforcements to her rescue. That meant that it had a lot to do with the second matter.


    ¡°The second one is that our merchant ships are being held hostage by Cloudflow. Nailisi¡¯s four demons were taken by them too.¡± Sika actually had to hold herself back fromughing when speaking about the matter.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Saleen was baffled at Sika¡¯s reaction. Four demons taken, and Sika felt likeughing?


    ¡°A Cloudflow person who called himself Grand Duke Iron Blood robbed our merchant ships and caught the demons. He said he wanted them to be his concubines.¡± Sika¡¯s expressions looked strange as she borated. Even Saleen felt likeughing then.


    Cuisi and the lot were given female forms by Nailisi using Ultimate Shapeshifting, but the demons were all males. ¡°The grand duke actually had an eye for the four male demons. Now I¡¯m wondering if they have finished doing the deed, if they have indeed gone through with it. My, pity for those four indeed.¡±


    It was unknown if Ultimate Shapeshifting was actually capable of changing every structure of one¡¯s body subjected to the skill. Saleen nheless felt a shiver down his spine the more he thought about it.


    ¡°Saleen, which one should we be looking into first?¡± Sika asked. Cloudflow fleets had appeared on the waters of Lianyun City, which was not all that far from Metatrin City. If he were to deploy troops to Lonestar City and the enemy fleet at sea came knocking, it would be quite a huge problem for them.


    ¡°What about the Caucasus people outside the city?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Killed, chased away, or subdued. Not much of a problem with them with the teacher here,¡± Sika answered in a calm manner. Saleen did not want to pursue the problem. He was only concerned if there were any trouble around his city. Sika¡¯s words meant that bloodshed still happened between Metatrin City and the Caucasus, which was not what Sika had wanted to see.


    Saleen did not ask any further and Sika did not feel like talking about it further. The matter with Caucasus people was put aside for the time being.


    ¡°How was that Grand Duke Iron Blood able to catch Cuisi and the lot?¡±


    Sika felt rather surprised that Saleen went on to ask about the four unimportant demons, instead of asking about Lex first.


    ¡°The number of demons produced in the Demon City has been quite high. The more capable ones among them were selected and made to fill the ranks of the temple guards. Those with lower intelligence were sent to be sailors, saving us quite a bit in manpower. The best choice formanding the demon sailors was mages, then demons of higher intelligence. Cuisi and the lot became a good choice in that case. Cuisi had his powers restored as a supreme demon, almost equivalent to a grade-9 professional, so I had him put in charge of escorting the merchant ships.¡±


    Saleen nodded. Having demons bing sailors was a good call, as even if battles were to take ce, there would be no fear of the demons falling into the water, as theirbat capacity was hardly diminished in the water. Even if the ships they were on were sunk by the enemy, the demons would be able to make it onboard enemy ships shortly after and began killing again.


    ¡°Initially, there would have been no problem with the demons being less intelligent with Cuisi and the other three takingmand. Our fleet was just... in any case, they encountered the Cloudflow fleet on their way to Lianyun City. The merchant ships we were escorting were all taken away. Smaller warships were all sunk by the enemy. Then, there was someone sending this.¡±


    Saleen saw Sika taking out an invitation and put it between the short desk between them. The invitation was sprinkled with golden powder and embellished with intricate patterns. The heft of it was felt when itnded on the table.


    There were fields dedicated to analyzing human psychology in magical knowledge. Saleen was almost able to see the grand duke¡¯s snobbish face on the invitation on the desk. The face would have been one that was twice asrge as usual human¡¯s, and one that felt rather pleased with himself. Little did he know that an invitation like that would make him aughing stock of nobles in Qin.


    The words on the invitation were written in the Cloudflownguage. In actuality, even the official writing system of the Tanggsi Empire was a derivation of the Myersnguage systems. Other than having a great difference in pronunciation, one would be able to make out the gist of the meaning written just by looking at the written words.


    Saleen knew the Cloudflow writing system. The content had Saleen wondering if he should beughing or crying. The grand duke invited Saleen to his wedding, obviously for marrying his concubines-to-be. Details such as what kind of gifts should be presented, and the date were also written.


    Ever since Saleen returned from the Imperial City of the Abyss, he his mind growing more astute. He was able to see the underlying problem of the invitation. At first nce, the invitation would be little more than an insult to Saleen. When the problem was to be pondered at a deeper level, things became far moreplex instead.


    Lex was trapped in Lonestar City at the west. The grand duke sent an invitation meant to provoke Saleen from the eastern seas. Two matters were intertwined, and Saleen had to make his choice.


    If it were in the past, Saleen would have chosen to find Lex before anything else. At that moment, Saleen knew that Grand Duke Iron Blood had the Dragon Ind under hismand, and one Ancient warship as well. If that Ancient was to make its way to the port of Metatrin City, things would turn dire very quickly. All sorcerers were to be inside their respective magic towers before the city could be truly secured against such threats.


    The east side of Metatrin City would be destroyed if all weapons of the Ancient were to fire at the city otherwise. The power of Grand Duke Iron Blood was probably on par with that of Cloudflow nobles. Despite being only a grand duke, he nhelessmanded more than ten square miles of territory. While the poption on the Dragon Ind was small, it was nheless a ce capable of supporting a poption in the tens of millions.


    Saleen dared not treat the grand duke as just another duke. That time however, Grand Duke Iron Blood had indeed made the wrong move. There was no way he could have been able to master all secrets of the Dragon Ind in such a short time. First or second dynasty technology was not something that could be thoroughly researched within just two or three generations.


    It was no surprise that Cloud Flow was able to break through Alchemy City¡¯s lockdown, as one Ancient had managed to do so. With a second one deployed, it simply took time for them to break through the lockdown of Alchemy City again.


    What Saleen was thinking however, was that Alchemy City had simply let Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s fleet pass for fear of suffering too great of a loss.


    No matter how powerful the Cloudflow fleet was, it was not a certainty for them to attack Lianyun City. Two great highwaysid right behind the city, enabling forces of the entire northern Qin to provide support. It would have been utterly impossible for the Cloudflow forces tond and take the ce. Having the experience of the predicament with the eastern seas coalition forces, Holy Rock had raised Lianyun City¡¯s position and increased the forces garrisoned there. Large amount of magic equipment was added to it as well.


    There had been only one chance at ambush. The eastern seas coalition forces made it, and it would be impossible for Cloudflow people to pull such a stunt again.


    Alchemy City knew that, and the act of letting the Cloudflow fleet pass was obviously to have theme at him. Saleen had all of that running about in his mind, which was why he cursed at Alchemy City the very moment he came down from the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. He did not even know that his four demon subordinates had already been captured.


    ¡°Any more important matters to inform me of?¡± Saleen had ns of how to deal with it all and went on to ask Sika again.

 Chapter 924: Who to Finish Off First? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 924: Who to Finish Off First? (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Nothing important. The main thing is that all three Duchesses have their own unique strengths, so I have tasked them with settling all the trivial issues,¡± Sika replied.


    When Saleen frowned, Sika said, ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t tell me you have gotten used to being a king? You are a mage!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not because of that. There are too many people around us that we need to take care of. Look, how many people are depending on us for their survival? Every decision we make will impact the futures of more than a million people.¡±


    Sika smiled and said, ¡°So, what do you intend to do? Take back all the power?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no point doing that. I¡¯m not saying that you did the wrong thing. It¡¯s just that Metatrin City is too important to us. Let¡¯s not split up and give away the power easily.¡± Saleen already knew that some interdimensional spaces were still developing and the one that he controlled was possibly one of them.


    If that interdimensional space developedpletely, Saleen would be an invincible entity over there and could eventually be the ruler of a real dimension. An interdimensional space that was still in the midst of developing would possess countless resources. No one would fight with him for them and no powerful opponents would be able to enter.


    ¡°I know.¡± Sika¡¯s voice took a turn and was so gentle that Saleen¡¯s heart broke.


    ¡°Ah... Sika, this is my n. We let teacher take over, but we will not send over the Sregl Ind sorcerers to defend the city. The two grade-9 sorcerers in the western town will bring aid to Lonestar City. Nailisi will follow them as well. I will bring Soldier with me to settle Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s fleet, then we will bring the spirit army to Lonestar City as well. The Sikeqinyans will notunch any attacks. Don¡¯t worry.¡±


    ¡°You will take charge of the demons first?¡± Sika could not believe that Saleen had the same n as her.


    ¡°Yes. I will lead the fleet out to see. Teacher will be behind so the Cloudflow forces will not be able to sneak up on us. After we have defeated their fleet, then we will turn back and deal with the Sikeqinyans.¡± Saleen was confident in his exnation.


    He had 24 ancient warriors and hundreds of grade-9 elemental creatures. On the battlefield, he would have no qualms unleashing the elemental creatures on the enemy.


    Besides, the attacking power of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat had be so powerful that it was no longer possible that the bone spirits would not be able to sink enemy warships. The winged skeleton hade up with a method of utilizing bone spirits that would increase their power by hundreds of times. The only weakness of the bone spirits was sorcerers, but on the battlefield, there was no way that sorcerers would be able to control the entire situation.


    Saleen estimated that based on the poption of Dragon Ind ruled over by Grand Duke Iron Blood was two or three times more than his own. Besides, after many generations, the number of mages there should not be only about a thousand, which was what the ves said. In just over 10 years, Lex already managed to develop so many mages. Inparison, Grand Duke Iron Blood was so much more powerful and wealthier. Surely, he would have more mages by then.


    On top of that, Cloudflow forces reared magic beasts so low-level magic nuclei were cheap, which meant that the overall cost was much lower than Lex¡¯s. Without the help of Grand Emperor Chanake behind the scenes, there was no way Lex could develop her forces to that extent. On the other hand, Grand Duke Iron Blood easily had 100,000 elite soldiers under hismand, and probably a million normal soldiers.


    What concerned Saleen the most was Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s second ancient warship. There were plenty of ancient warriors on that warship and all of them were grade-9 elite soldiers. Should they be awakened, they would be more powerful than the elemental creatures. Although thetter could be revived countless times, they were many times poorer than the former in terms ofbat techniques.


    If the ancient warriors on the other ancient warship were awakened, Saleen would have a tough time.


    At that moment, Grand Duke Iron Blood could control some of the ancient warriors with the bone alchemy technique. Although he was not as effective as Saleen, those ancient warriors were of grade-9, after all, and were not much weaker than those controlled by Saleen. Saleen refused to believe that Grand Duke Iron Blood had not thought of a way to control more ancient warriors despite possessing the ancient warship for so many years.


    Saleen had to snatch the ship over before Grand Duke Iron Blood gained full control over it or sink it so that the Grand Duke would no longer be able to continue studying it. Although Saleen¡¯s powers had increased tremendously, he could not take it for granted that his opponent¡¯s powers had increased too. The collective power of the entire Maind had been increasing and Saleen was determined to eliminate Grand Duke Iron Blood before he could be even more powerful.


    The Sikeqinyans were not a threat. Lex had her God¡¯s Ring, so even if she could no longer hold the city, she would never be in danger as a grade-9 mage.


    After discussing the military ns with Sika, Saleen yed with the two children for a while. The poor mythical beast was lying on the table and was being manhandled by Saleen¡¯s children.


    When Saleen saw that the sky had turned dark, he returned to his teacher¡¯s room. Jason was in the midst of conducting a magic experiment. When he saw Saleen, he smiled and asked, ¡°Have you seen Sika?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Teacher, let me tell you about everything that has happened on our trip to the Oceanic Ice Block,¡± Saleen said to Jason respectfully.


    ¡°Take a seat.¡± Jason ended his magic experiment and ushered Saleen to a seat facing him. He carefully inspected Saleen from head to toe and finally spoke with relief, ¡°Not bad. You have advanced to grade-9 and your mental strength has be stronger.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, you can see everything clearly?¡± Saleen was shocked. He knew that Jason would be able to tell that he had advanced to grade-9, but he thought that he had kept his development in mental strength well-hidden.


    Jasonughed and said, ¡°Saleen, you are my student. Can¡¯t you tell which grade your teacher is at now?¡±


    That was when Saleen used his elemental eyes to look carefully and immediately realized what was different about Jason. Jason was also a grade-9 sorcerer, but his life power was always revolving within his body and never extended outwards. That was a sign that his soul was much more powerful than Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°I cannotpare with your improvement, teacher,¡± Saleen said with embarrassment. He had thought that he was incredibly fortunate to be able to train at the Outer Neb, but it turned out that his teacher was still improving much faster than him. It seemed that Jason was forcefully suppressing his powers and had not advance to grade-10 because he had other ns after grade-10.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you guide your student a little? Saleen, Truman is a decent mage. Since you have taken him under your wing, you have to take up the responsibilitypletely. I can see that your training is drifting further and further away from my lineage. Perhaps Truman can...¡±


    Saleen was ashamed by what Jason said. He knew very clearly how Jason treated him, while he really had not given Truman any guidance. On that point alone, he had fared poorlypared to his teacher. Besides, it was just like what Jason said, due to the magic chords, Saleen¡¯s training was drifting away from Jason¡¯s lineage. In order to continue his lineage, Truman was quite a good option. From then on, Saleen decided that he must take time to guide Truman.


    ¡°Yes, teacher. From now on, I will set aside time for Truman,¡± Saleen promised before continuing, ¡°Teacher, this time around, I discovered a warship from the first dynasty. There were many beings that exist in between a live human and a spirit of the dead. They are all grade-9 warriors. The Cloudflow forces did not know what to do with them, so they used human body alchemy to try and control them. In the end, they only managed to control a few.¡±


    ¡°Grade-9 warriors?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen introduced the ancient warship to Jason in detail and even showed him the diagram that the Grandmaster had given to him. Saleen only possessed one ancient warship, but the Grandmaster had given all 12 diagrams of the fleet. Saleen found a diagram of the ancient warship and stood up before walking to the gigantic study table. He ced the diagram on top of the table.


    Jason stood up as well. The diagram was simr to a magic diagram, as both were three-dimensional and required a magic array to be activated. An image of a fearsome-looking ancient warship was produced from the diagram and filled the room. Fortunately, Saleen¡¯s room was huge enough to contain an image of such an incredible size.


    ¡°A magic furnace!¡± Jason knew his stuff. His knowledge was a hundred times richer than Saleen. He saw the motorponent of the ancient warship immediately.


    Saleen quickly took out the Grandmaster¡¯s magic notebook, which contained all sorts of methods to create magic furnaces.


    ¡°This is incredible!¡± Jason was aware of the value of the magic furnace. Although it was extremely difficult to build something like that, it was much more stable than a magic array. The diagram of the magic furnace had been lost all that while, except for some minor pieces that had been thoroughly studied by the mages. As a result, all motorponents had been powered by magic arrays.


    Although it was easier to build that way, its stability would not be as good as a magic furnace. Besides, the magic array required the use of magic nuclei of the same grade, unlike the magic furnace, which could still function regardless of any magic nuclei or any type of fuel. The magic furnace was simply too useful on the battlefield.


    Seeing how happy his teacher was, Saleen decided to take out all of the items that he had received, except the elemental magic tower. He did not possess Gaine¡¯s capability. The elemental magic tower was even bigger than the temple so the whole room might burst if he took it out.


    Jason was even more surprised when he saw the two Star Gathering Needles. He immediately threw the one that seemed to be of grade 19 back into the dimensional stone and said to Saleen, ¡°This thing is dangerous once it is taken out. If it¡¯s seal is broken, all of Metatrin City is finished.¡±


    Saleen was scared out of his wits. He suddenly recalled that if the Star Gathering Needle was really grade-19, it should only be able to exist in the Imperial City of the Abyss. The ceiling for equipment in the outside world was grade 18. Professionals were limited to be within grade-10 but perhaps there might be a few who had already broken through to grade-11.


    The images of Joey and Fycro shed across Saleen¡¯s mind. How did his teacher realize that the item was dangerous?


    Jason picked up the grade-12 Star Gathering Needle and looked at it intently before saying, ¡°Saleen, you have picked up the lineage of an astrologer?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but at the moment, I am only trying to understand the words and have yet to go deep into it. Teacher, is there any danger?¡±


    ¡°Not really. In the past, quite a number of astrologers tried to pick up magic as well, but the real astrologers would devote all their time solely onto astrology. It might seem smooth in the early stages of training in both astrology and magic, but eventually, you will realize that you don¡¯t have the time to train in the techniques of two different systems.¡±


    Saleen recalled how he felt about the words of astrology. Indeed, they were the opposite of the words of magic, where one was clear and the other was blurry and ever-changing.

 Chapter 925: Who to Finish Off First? (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 925: Who to Finish Off First? (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    His teacher was right to say that astrology was very demanding. Unless Saleen¡¯s magic had already reached its maximum grade, he was not going to waste any more energy on it.


    Magic alone was enough for Saleen.


    ¡°Teacher, go ahead and choose some of these items.¡± Saleen looked at Jason and thought to himself that he finally had a chance to repay his teacher. He no longer needed protection from his teacher. Saleen felt good about that.


    Jason smiled. His student was usually very calctive, but it turned out that he knew how to show his gratitude. Jason casually picked a few items but did not touch the magic nuclei. When Saleen pointed at the magic nuclei that were above grade-12, Jason said, ¡°Keep them for your own use. Don¡¯t sell a single one of them. Magic nuclei of that grade can keep the magic furnace going for a long time.¡±


    Saleen saw that his teacher refused to take them and decided to pick two magic nuclei of the highest grade and insisted on giving them to Jason.


    ¡°Teacher, you will definitely be able to use them in the future. Don¡¯t worry about the magic furnace. We have enough grade-4 magic nuclei to be used for this uing battle. Oh yes, teacher, I have decided to deal with the Cloudflow forces first before heading to Lonestar City.¡±


    ¡°I understand. Don¡¯t worry. Even if the Cloudflow forces manage to go around your fleet, they will never be able to take down Metatrin City. They will not know more of the secrets of those ancient warships than you do.¡±


    Saleen felt more assured after what Jason said. He was worried that once he attacked, the Cloudflow forces would circle around to his rear. What Saleen really wanted to do was to deal with the Cloudflow forces and head to Lonestar City simultaneously, but as a king, he could not afford to take care of his own people.


    ¡°Teacher, have I made the right decision?¡± Although Saleen¡¯s confidence had already been well-trained, he was still keen to know what his teacher thought.


    ¡°Lex is a grade-9 sorcerer. She has her own regiment of mages and a God¡¯s Ring. Her subordinates include sorcerers and Aini had also advanced into a grade-8 death sorcerer. Lonestar City is a very resilient city that can hardly be taken down, unless attacked by arge number of high-level Professionals at the same time. Lex is trapped because she did not want to leave her subordinates behind. Saleen, you made the right decision.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I want to bring Truman along. Without the magic cannon, the port...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about the port. Leave it to me.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He was a little worried that the Cloudflow fleet might be keeping a secret weapon that he was unaware of, hence he wanted to bring along the miniature magic cannon. Within a few tens of miles, the magic cannon would strike faster than any other weapon. Although it was not as powerful as his own n badge, it could fire consecutively. It would only use up high-level magic nuclei and Saleen had plenty of them.


    Saleen stayed with Jason all the way to the middle of the night and left behind the diagram and notebook of the magic furnace before returning back to his room.


    Nichs, Eleanor, Nailisi, and Soldier were all there. Saleen sat down and everyone gathered.


    ¡°Eleanor, when will you be able to advance to grade-8?¡± That was the first question that Saleen asked.


    Eleanor thought for a moment and said, ¡°I¡¯m not sure. Maybe three to five years. My advancement has be slower than that of ordinary mages. It could be due to what has happened over the past few months.¡±


    ¡°In that case, you will stay behind in the temple. Try to advance to grade-8 as soon as you can. If you have any problems with magic, you can consult my teacher or any of the other grade-9 sorcerers. They will guide you along.¡±


    Eleanor nodded. She needed to advance her archery, on top of her magic, hence it was troublesome. If she focused on magic alone, she was confident that she would be able to advance into a grade-8 sorcerer in that month.


    ¡°Nailisi, you will lead a battalion of temple soldiers and some demons and head to Lonestar City. I will also give you the 24 ancient warriors. If need be, just activate them.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi sensed that Saleen was sending her off on her own and could not bear to leave him.


    ¡°For Lex¡¯s army to be trapped, there must be a lot of powerful people. Although the Sikeqinyans are often made fun of, their kingdom has been established for thousands of years and cannot be looked down on. You have to be careful when you are there. I want you to help Lex defend Lonestar City. When I head over, then we will attack from inside and outside.¡±


    ¡°But...¡±


    ¡°I have to settle the Cloudflow forces first. Nailisi, you may not be aware that the Cloudflow forces have taken your four subordinates to be married off as concubines.¡±


    Nailisi was enraged. Saleen quickly assured her and said, ¡°I will definitely settle this. Cloudflow¡¯s Grand Duke Iron Blood has sent me an invitation to provoke me into fighting him head-on so that he can try to destroy my navy. He would not have set the date to be in the month of May otherwise and would have already...¡± Saleen did not know how to continue. The four demons were males after all.


    Nailisi gritted her teeth. She had spent so much effort teaching the four of them to be so obedient. To think that Grand Duke Iron Blood would want to take them as concubines!


    The reason why Nailisi was so upset was that Cuisi had once suffered heavy injuries for Saleen before, earning the trust of Nailisi. The other three demons had also given their all to train up the demon army. Nailisi would not have cared if they were just ordinary demons. She might even have found it amusing that Grand Duke Iron Blood was willing to marry male demons in disguise.


    Now that it had befallen on Cuisi, Nailisi did not find the situation amusing at all.


    ¡°Master, you must torture that Duke...¡± With that, Nailisi took out the blood soul tower, gave it to Saleen and said, ¡°Lock up his soul. I want him to suffer for thousands of years!¡±


    Nichs was stunned by what Nailisi said. He used the blood soul tower to erase the memories of souls while Nailisi was clearly going to retain the Grand Duke¡¯s memory so that she could torture it repeatedly.


    The blood soul tower was a terrifying piece of equipment. If a soul was trapped inside, you could force it to bow to you or torture it repeatedly to produce fear. In that case, the power of fear would still be able to produce terrifying powers.


    That was exactly how the Angel of Fear fought using the power of fear.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will not let him off,¡± Saleen assured Nailisi. He knew that Grand Duke Iron Blood was a threat. After picking up astrology, Saleen knew that there was such a thing as luck in the world. The Grand Duke was someone who had a lot of luck as his ancestors had passed down countless properties to him and he also managed to find the remains of the first dynasty on Dragon Ind. It was best to eliminate someone like that as soon as possible, or else he would eventually be a formidable enemy.


    ¡°Soldier, this time around, you will note along either.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± The winged skeleton was shocked. Without him, who would operate the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat?


    ¡°I will take Nichs and Rossen. I have the six major elemental badges now, are you still worried about my safety?¡±


    ¡°Master, why leave me behind?¡±


    ¡°I need to go to Lonestar City. You will stay here and summon a real army of spirits of the dead. I have the ancient warship with many clones of the Mechanical Soul. That should be sufficient to operate the warship. Give me six jade skeletons to operate the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. My mages already know how to operate the dragon skeletonbat vessel. By the time I am back, I want to see at least 50,000 spirits of the dead. Can you do that?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± The winged skeleton replied confidently. Saleen was right. With the six major elemental badges, he would be safe from most dangers. On top of that, Saleen¡¯s n badge has also fully recovered. Even if he encountered creatures of the same grade as the Angel of Fear, he would be able to kill them with a single strike.


    Saleen would not care if Grand Duke was around when he struck. If thetter was killed, Saleen could only apologize to Nailisi. The winged skeleton was aware of that and felt that there would be no problems, so he was willing to stay.


    Saleen smiled and said to the winged skeleton, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I will bring J along. He is already a golden grand swordmaster. He is more powerful than the ancient warriors.¡±


    The winged skeleton had no further questions. Saleen said to Nichs, ¡°Nichs, how do you feel about your blood soul tower?¡±


    ¡°No problem with it at all. It can still contain even more souls. It is more than enough for me.¡±


    ¡°This time when we fight against the Cloudflow navy on the sea, I will be needing you on many asions. If there is anything else you require, let me know now. We will leave in 10 days¡¯ time.¡±


    ¡°I need a Forbidden Code.¡± Nichs had more or less figured out Saleen¡¯s temperament by then. It was best to be straightforward about whatever he needed and Saleen would try his best to get it for him. If Nichs tried to be subtle about it, he would not be able to get anything.


    Saleen closed his eyes and thought for moment before opening them and saying, ¡°I will try. What materials do you need?¡±


    Nichs listed out all the materials needed. Saleen took a look at it and nodded before handing it to the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Try your best to gather the best materials.¡±


    The winged skeleton took a look at the list and threw it into spirit space. Saleen yawned and said, ¡°All of you should go and rest.¡±


    He yearned to see Sika. Everyone was aware, so even Nailisi left obediently.


    Saleen was relieved to see that even Nailisi had left. He left his room and came to Sika.


    ¡°Come in,¡± Sika¡¯s voice rang out. Saleen entered the room happily and saw Sika cuddling the two children.


    ¡°Papa...¡± Both children called out at the same time. Saleen smiled bitterly and walked over to the bedside and cradled his son. The lust in Saleen vanished the moment the soft body of his childid on him. He took a deep breath of the baby smell of his son.


    ¡°Have you been bringing them everywhere all this while?¡±


    ¡°Of course. The two of them refuse to sleep if I¡¯m not with them.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because they want my milk obviously, it¡¯s not because they want to hear stories from me.¡±


    ¡°What about me?¡±


    ¡°You? You want milk too?¡± Sika looked at Saleen with a shocked expression.


    ¡°Papa... milk...¡± Saleen¡¯s son slurred. Saleen was embarrassed, but Sika onlyughed in amusement.


    ¡°Why are youughing! Don¡¯t tell me I¡¯m not allowed!¡± Saleen stared at Sika. He noticed that Sika¡¯s bosoms looked a little differentpared to the past. For some reason, he realized that he did desire it.


    ¡°Why not? You will have to go third though.¡± Sika¡¯s gaze became seductive. Saleen realized that no matter how much he advanced, he could never resist Sika.

 Chapter 926: Setup at Lonestar City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 926: Setup at Lonestar City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Metatrin City had been focused on the rebuilding of its fleet. The winged skeleton was not there either hen Saleen was gone, but the city still had a great number of mages nheless, especially the sorcerers numbering to thirty strong who were on guard at the city all year round.


    Despite the number of ships mobilized from Sregl Ind not being of a high number, it nheless brought a great many sailors from the ind, which was the more important matter at hand. The sailors were the real deal, people who fought at sea all day every day.


    Ever since Jason came to the city, he had the sailors train the troops of the city, by using whatever ships were left in the city in turns. Metatrin City was no longercking sailors.


    Saleen¡¯s return brought the manufactured schematics of the magic power furnace, as well as detailed magic notes. Some of the magic power furnaces were coincidentally things that grade-9 sorcerers were capable of crafting. Saleen also brought the finished products with him in the form of power nts used for running the Ancient. The sorcerers boarded the ship and studied the furnaces onboard personally, enabling them to develop a certain level of mastery in the creation of low level magic power furnaces.


    Saleen had to wait for ten days, which were meant for modifying the power nts of some of the warships.


    The alchemic factory had been busy manufacturing parts of the Ancient. Some sorcerers went on to redesign ships of smaller scales based on the schematics of the Ancient Saleen brought home with him.


    The smallest ship in the new fleet of Ancient warships measured between two-hundred to three-hundred yards, which was equivalent to the main warships of the day.


    Mages from Sregl Ind redesigned various ships of the fleet and had even went on to dismantle the ones brought from the ind, to be resembled into new ships. They had nock of materials. Almost all work was done in the alchemic factory, with the assembly done in the shipyards, performed by mechanical puppets. One brand new warship after another left for the waters at a frightening speed.


    In practice, the toughest stages of building magic warshipsid within design and manufacture of parts. Assembly was the easier stage of the whole task instead. While humanscked the strength for intensive hardbor, mechanical puppets were capable of lifting up to ten-thousand pounds of material after all. Large scale magic equipment made everything flow smoothly like a meandering river.


    Saleen gave the order to depart on the tenth day, and his entire new fleet finished assembly on the ninth. The mages of Sregl Ind renovated Metatrin Citypletely. The huge alchemic factory saw the soaring increase in production quality and capacity. His production of war equipment had always been fast, and then, things were a hundred times faster than they used to be.


    Of course, one major reason contributing to such advancement came from therge number of magic nuclei he brought home with him. Even the mineral veins at the mines of Demon City started seeing the production of crystals.


    Crystals produced from the mineral veins of Demon City were equivalent to mid-level magic nuclei in terms of power. Saleen, at the moment, ended up having too many mages serving under him. It was fortunate for him that the mages of Sregl Ind did not need magic nuclei distribution from him, or the hunt in the oceanic ice block every year would have never been enough to cover the needs of his own mages.


    The gship of the expeditionary fleet remained to be the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. The Ancient was christened as Genga, which served as Saleen¡¯s main assault ship. Other than that, every other ship in Saleen¡¯s fleet was a high-speed warship of one-hundred and eighty yards long.


    The dozen bone warships served as auxiliary forces of the fleet. Saleen confirmed the list of people following him to war, and the demon sailors were also in position. Saleen no longer fought using spirits that time, and that felt very different from before to him.


    Eighteen warships powered by magic power furnaces and all had two-thousand demons serving as both crew and warriors. The bone twelve warships were filled basically by spirits, only eighteen warships had human soldiers and mages.


    The Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel served as his gship, with those serving directly under him on it.


    The Ancient was following the fleet far behind, covering a huge area with mist, hiding their positions. The Mechanical Soul turned rather obedient at that moment and ceased trying to y any tricks in front of Saleen. He knew well that Saleen was able to have him suffer the wrath of hell anytime he fancied.


    The Ancient also served as a logistical base for the fleet. The new ships had little space to hold cargo, and Saleen hardly brought any sorcerers with him. Almost all mages on the fleet were grand mages. Matters concerning supplies were then relegated to the Ancient.


    He had knowledge of more than a dozen inds capable of serving as supply points on their southward journey from Metatrin City. Most of the inds would have fallen to the hands of Grand Duke Iron Blood by then.


    The fleet departed. Six jade skeletons activated the new pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat beneath the fleet, leading the way for twenty-four divingbat vessels to follow the fleet above them. The all-metal divingbat vessels had all been fitted with low level magic power furnaces. Their speeds were increased, and they were able to divert most of the energy generated to power their defenses. The depths capable to be reached were also increased by about one-hundred yards.


    Themand of spirits could have only been undertaken by the winged skeleton alone, and Saleen would not have been able to just hand his entire fleet to just the Winged Skull and no one else. As such, the expedition that time served as military training. True battles required him, J, and Nichs to be in charge.


    Saleenbored to craft Eternal Control shards aboard the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. He delegated themand of the twenty-four ancient warriors to Nailisi, resulting in a sharp drop in hisbat capacity. Thebat capacities of his twenty-four ancient warriorsbined rivaled that of over one-hundred Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. Without humans being inmand, elemental creatures would only be able to overwhelm their adversaries through superiority in terms of level difference. Once they encountered a human of their own level, they would hardly be a match for said human.


    Saleen¡¯s soul was more powerful than it had been before, and his understanding of the Eternal Control shards grew as well. He knew that it was not all that difficult tomand the ancient soldiers. As such, he no longer went wasting his single-horned white whale horns, recing those materials with the bones of other magic beasts.


    The advancement of Saleen¡¯s mental powers increased the number of ancient warriors he was able to put under hismand. Other than the slots avable for signing contracts, the number of ancient warriors he was able to control remained limited at thirty-six.


    Saleen knew that such limitations would be broken once he saw an advance in his magic. Advancement in magic required opportunities of sorts. All his prior experience umted was spent on the advancement into level nine. If he wished to see his magic chords evolve further, he would need to re-umte his experiences. The umtion included new knowledge and developing new awareness about the elements.


    J stood at the bow feeling rather bored. He had been on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel before, but he was only there for visits back then. Going out to war on a warship personally hardly interested him at all. There were no beauties to be found on the ship, and J had no choice but to kill time fishing at the bow.


    The speed of the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was kept at more than one-hundred miles per hour. Normal fishing would not be possible. The rod in his hand was a very short one, and the hook on the line had no bait on it. He simply stood there and threw the hook overboard. He was able to end up pulling up a fish every time he threw the hook over.


    Some low level magic beasts were caught at times. Those without magic nuclei were immediately thrown back into the sea. More than a dozen personal guards stood behind him, and all looked awkwardly at theirmanding officer. A golden grand swordmaster, hunting magic beasts below grade-3. There was hardly anything else that spoke better of his boredom at that point.


    Nichs was feeling bored in the hold as well. His divine arts were unlike the mages, which required meditation and experimentation. His equivalent of those exercises was simply to keep inciting the souls in the soul bead and have them worship his soul brand. Doing so would gradually increase his level of power. With Saleen being busy crafting his equipment, he walked out of his quarters and went up on the deck, looking at J who was busy fishing.


    ¡°Old man, shouldn¡¯t you be at our lord¡¯s side instead ofing up here?¡± J asked as he put away his rod, sensing the presence of Nichs close by.


    ¡°Haha, J, just call me Nichs.¡± Nichs¡¯ beard waved about in the sea breeze, which looked rather ridiculous.


    ¡°I know your name is Nichs.¡± J threw away his rod and sat on the deck. He was dressed in a set of soft magic armor, with his sword, Tears, hanging about his hip.


    ¡°J, why haven¡¯t you gotten more gear for yourself? Did our lord...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a swordsman. I hardly need anything else other than a sword,¡± J cut Nichs off right there. The matter with the old man wanting to draw Saleen¡¯s followers over to his side and form a faction of his own was something that could have hardly been missed.


    ¡°Haha, J, I¡¯m a holy master. While I possiblyck your capacity at offense, I would be better at protecting our lord than you would. I have simplye to discuss how to work with you and get this missionpleted.¡± Nichs hardly fretted over what happened. Even if the powers of the entire ne were to advance, there was no denying the position of a golden grand swordmaster being a supreme one still.


    J was only several yards away from him. If J wanted him dead, not one of his lesser prophecy spells would be able to save him.


    ¡°Our lord¡¯s power is now way higher than mine, Nichs. He only wanted his fleet to grow strong quickly. It is impossible for him to be the one leading the fleet every time we go on an expedition. There is still a lot to be taken care of on the maind. This mission is one without any difficulty at all. If the grand duke was here, he would end up dead soon enough.¡±


    ¡°You really shouldn¡¯t be underestimating your enemies,¡± Nichs said in an earnest manner.


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood is no enemy; he is a dead man.¡± J turned around and faced forward, leaving the back of his head to face Nichs.


    ¡°J, why hasn¡¯t our lord been worried about Lonestar City?¡± Nichs saw no choice but to change the topic.


    ¡°I just returned from there. If that ce was truly dangerous, our lord would have given his all to mount a rescue. I didn¡¯t even bother staying there myself. So, do you still think that Lonestar City is dangerous?¡±


    Nichs was speechless. He had been feeling something peculiar about it. ¡°J is a golden grand swordmaster. There was simply no need to have him to mount a rescue. There were also sorcerers and the Wings of an Elf at Lonestar City. It seemed to make more sense to leave the golden grand swordmaster behind instead. Was Saleen hiding something?¡±


    Nichs felt rather uneasy inside. He truly decided to devote himself to following Saleen, yet he still found that there were things that Saleen kept from him.


    J seemed to have detected what was going on in Nichs¡¯ mind, and said with augh, ¡°Old man, are you wondering right now, why our lord hasn¡¯t exined anything about this?¡±


    ¡°He has his way with things, and there is no need for him to exin anything to us,¡± Nichs answered hastily. J¡¯s words alerted him, reminding him that he was a follower of Saleen. His lord had no need toy out everything to him, unless it had something to do with the mission at hand.


    ¡°If you are really feeling uneasy about it, just go ask the man yourself,¡± J did not continue. Nichs turned around and left the deck. He reminded himself of Saleen¡¯s temperament. It would be best for him to simply ask Saleen, should there be anything bothering him. Saleen hated people scheming behind his back. He felt the need to simply go ask Saleen directly. His mind would not calm otherwise.

 Chapter 927: Setup at Lonestar City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 927: Setup at Lonestar City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs knocked on the door to Saleen¡¯s quarters. On the ship, only the quarters of mages were sealed off. Other than the ones who followed Saleen to the oceanic ice block, there were also more than four-hundred demons added to the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel on that expedition. The Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was finally fully-staffed.


    ¡°Nichs,e in.¡± Saleen¡¯s door opened on its own. Nichs walked in and saw a huge ball of water me floating in the air in front of Saleen. Fear struck Nichs¡¯ mind somewhat every time he saw the water me. Getting touched by something like that would have dire consequences. Any warrior of lower levels would not be able to do him any harm with something like that being about.


    There were two Caucasus warriors in the room; his personal guards were not with him. The Caucasus warriors saw themselves off as they saw Nichsing in.


    ¡°My Liege...¡±


    ¡°Nichs, you are here to ask about Lonestar City, no?¡± Saleen continued crafting his Eternal Control shard. He was only crafting one at the moment, meaning that he had enough mental power to chat with Nichs.


    ¡°Indeed, my liege. Do you really not worry about Her Highness, Lex?¡± Nichs tried to ease his tone as much as he was capable as he asked.


    ¡°What is there to worry about? Aini is a level grade-8 sorcerer. Heh, as far as defense goes, Lonestar City won¡¯t fall unless the Holy See is ready deploy quite a bit of holy masters at them. Tell me, what has Holy See been busy with as ofte?¡±


    ¡°The breaking of the frontal assault of the Qin forces, of course. Qin has war puppets, and the puppets are what they need to avoid facing. They would be suffering great losses otherwise.¡±


    ¡°So, it would be hard for the Sikenqinyans to acquire support from the Holy See. They may be allied, but things will hardly be any different. The location of the war puppets is the northernmost highway in Qin. If the Holy See wanted to hit the central part of Qin, they would have needed to go south. All that talk about fighting at three fronts and all, it was pure crap indeed.¡±


    ¡°But my liege, the Sikenqinyans have a one-million strong army, and Lonestar City is no Metatrin City.¡±


    ¡°Well, Nichs, tell me how to go about it best then?¡±


    ¡°Deploy all forces to Lonestar City, of course. With the power you now have in your hands, the Sikenqinyan army would be nothing. Metatrin City needs only to hold out. With sir Jason in charge of the garrisoned sorcerers, the city won¡¯t fall even if the Cloudflow fleet was tounch a massive assault. You will then have Her Highness Lex call out to Daliang City, crushing the Tanggsi forces with a pincer attack from the north and the south,¡± Nichs borated without stopping for breath.


    ¡°Strategically-speaking, there was nothing wrong with that, but my initial nid out with Aini right from the start was to hold Lonestar City out.¡± Saleen cast a nce at Nichs with gleaming eyes.


    Nichs¡¯ mind froze. Saleen¡¯s words were akin to a bolt of lightning shing through his mind, shining brightly at every dark corner there was.


    Saleen nodded slowly. ¡°Nichs, strategically-speaking, we shouldn¡¯t be helping Qin.¡±


    Nichs had only been overpowered by Saleen¡¯s brutality at that moment. ¡°So, Saleen had decided to cast the Qin Empire aside right from the beginning. Indeed, if there was no Holy See, what excuse would he have to attack Qin then? The Qin is Lex¡¯s familialnd though!¡±


    ¡°Holy Rock City recently refused to help us out. Alchemy City also created trouble for us too. Nichs, we can¡¯t just keep giving and giving. If Holy Rock City wants something, they need to pay the price for it,¡± Saleen said calmly, yet every word seemed like a hammer knocking down hard on Nichs¡¯ mind.


    ¡°Even if Saleen got rid of Grand Duke Iron Blood, he wouldn¡¯t haveunched an assault on Kroraina like he said before. It wasn¡¯t due to Saleen not having such powers; it was now due to him having enough power to affect how things y out on the maind instead. He¡¯s using the Holy See¡¯s power to crush Qin, and then he will take Qin¡¯snd in a perfectly justifiable manner, which would be then put under Lex¡¯s name; this has all been part of Saleen¡¯s n. So long as the northern side of Qin is taken, at least half of the nobles on Qin¡¯s south end will respond to Lex¡¯s calling and became part of Bitterwater Prefecture. No, that would be no prefecture by then. An empire would be taking its ce. What Holy Rock would be able to control, is no more than a great, yet old city. It will no longer pose a threat to Saleen¡¯s kingdom. With the Six-winged Flying Snake mark in his hand, the power of the Grukos family will have to acknowledge Lex¡¯s way of doing things. All that was probably decided when Saleen acquired the Six-winged Flying Snake mark.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, Lonestar City is like a nail, and one that the Sikenqinyans won¡¯t be able to pull out. The twenty-four warriors under Nailisi¡¯smand were more than enough to keep the city safe. With Lonestar City there, it would be able to hold an army of one-million strong back. Anyone who intends to attack the Kingdom of Metatrin will have to walk through Phoenix. I will keep fortifying the line at Huoxing City, no, I will annex Phoenix, and have it be a part of the Kingdom of Metatrin!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s ambitions wereid out for all to see, and Nichs had no further questions. He simply spoke lightly. ¡°But, my liege, her highness Lex...¡±


    ¡°She is smarter than I am. She just didn¡¯t want to move against her own little brother.¡± Saleen¡¯s answer was not a direct one, yet Nichs was able to get what he meant. Saleen did not hold anything back from him. It was just that Saleen did not like talking about things like that.


    The hammer on Qin would be brought down sooner orter. Saleen had already showed immense patience for not taking the most direct route to it.


    ¡°Nichs, you don¡¯t understand. The problem is actually with Alchemy City. Don¡¯t you think that Alchemy City has been a little too passive?¡±, Saleen borated on the critical points of things, seeing how the old man did not seem to catch on.


    ¡°No, my liege. The critical point lies with Lonestar City. That ce controls the roads leading to Qin, Kroraina, Lianyun, and Sikenqinya. Alchemy City will fall sooner orter. What they are doing is like digging their own grave.¡± once Nichs became clear of what was going on inside Saleen¡¯s head, a lot of questions got answered and his mind became as clear as a sunny day.


    Saleen looked at Nichs with a smile. ¡°That old man finally decided to truly follow me now. All those attempts at trying to carve out his own faction back then, I guess I will just let all that slide then.¡±


    ¡°Nichs, I think I will need you to do something for me.¡± Saleen finally felt like opening himself to the old man, after seeing that Nichs had be truly loyal to him. ¡°I need you to make more holy masters fall and be my people. No, not my people, your people!¡±


    ¡°Make them my people?¡± Nichs was shocked to his core.


    ¡°Nichs, will fallen holy masters be gods?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course not. Gods require true faith. We are simply stealing. While we use the power of faith, the principle of the fallen holy masters¡¯ way of advancement was no different from mages.¡±


    ¡°So, no matter how great of a force you have made for yourself, I will not go after them. My enemies are the gods.¡±


    Nichs felt a great burden being lifted off his shoulders. With Saleen telling him about something like that inly, he became free to go build his own force. That was how Saleen showed him trust, and that meant he would no longer need to do things behind Saleen¡¯s back, and that felt great to him.


    ¡°Nichs, do you know why I need you to do something like that?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, my liege.¡±


    ¡°Fycro,¡± Saleen spouted the name in a nonchnt manner. Even though he had gotten six grade-10 leaders of elemental creatures literally under his belt, he still felt immense pressure around that name. He would never be able to win against such a powerful oracle without advancing into grade-10.


    Nichs¡¯ relieved mood tensed once again. Fycro, the powerful oracle, a thorn in Nichs¡¯ side. When he was forced by Fycro to fall, Fycro left means to subdue him in the soul bead, and there was nothing he could have done about it.


    If it was not for Saleen breaking the lurking peril within his soul bead, he would have never been able to shake off Fycro¡¯s control. That was also why he had been unable to follow Saleen in a dedicated manner.


    ¡°Nichs, Fycro wants to be a god, and for that, he needs to die. I may be able to fight him and win one day, but I will never be able to destroy the faith built around him. The reason I need you to make more people fall is to destroy that faith. How is the blood soul tower?¡±


    ¡°It is amazing.¡±


    ¡°What does it mean for holy masters to have something like that with a lurking peril within?¡±


    ¡°It is ego and the ambition to be a god!¡±


    ¡°If I just let you go back to Fycro¡¯s side, would you have liked to do so?¡±


    ¡°Definitely not!¡±


    ¡°Right, then make more holy masters fall. I want Fycro to be unable to find even one qualified believer!¡± Saleen said with a smirk. He initially had no choice but to keep Nichs around. Fycro had forced his hand back then. In time Saleen wanted Nichs to be Fycro¡¯s nightmare.


    Nichs recalled Saleen¡¯s resolve when entering the oceanic ice block, and the pressure in his mind was greatly reduced. Fycro had been the greatest obstacle in his life. He would not be able to advance, even with Saleen¡¯s protection, as long as Fycro was still around.


    Saleen¡¯s fleet made its way south. Nailisi led a battalion of temple guards heading west on the highway of the Kingdom of Metatrin. In the days Saleen spent within the oceanic ice block, Metatrin City sent great number of death and elemental mages to open a straight path, with the help of the mechanical puppets.


    The highway mimicked the ones in the Qin Empire, with the narrowest part being nine yards wide. The highway was a straight one and led west, stretching near five-thousand miles before turning north. At that point it was truly was all towering mountains. No number of skeletons and bloodstones would have been enough to make roads.


    When observed from above, Metatrin¡¯s highway was sickle-shaped, drawing a curve around the mountains. Caves were even needed to be made in the mountains when necessary before the road could be built further.


    Such caves had cost countless skeletons, with some even being mid and high-level spirits. When Saleen departed at sea, Nailisi¡¯s reinforcement had already made their way to the north of Lonestar City.


    It was a fortress belonging to the Kingdom of Metatrin, locking down the tunnel path leading into Metatrin City. The garrison was only five-thousand strong, yet the Sikenqinyans did not choose tounch an attack regardless. That was due to the fact that the fortress was one built on the side of the mountain. When things went dire, the mages within the castle would simply destroy the cave and block the way thoroughly.


    Without that road, entering the Kingdom of Metatrin would have required going further north to look for openings in the mountains. The detour would have taken them further away. The Sikenqinyans simply chose not to bother about the ce, as the garrison within the fortress would not have dared toe out and face them. Five-thousand against one-million would have been like throwing eggs at stone walls.


    Nailisi¡¯s arrival did not alert the Sikenqinyans. Her temple guards snuck into the fortress and delivered a letter meant for Lonestar City.

 Chapter 928: Demonic Stampede (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 928: Demonic Stampede (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The atmosphere within Lonestar City was one of singing and dancing and seemed disconnected from their current situation of being surrounded. There were only 200,000 soldiers in the city and more than 500,000 spirits of the dead. The strange design of the city had allowed the spirits to take up more responsibility for the city¡¯s defense.


    Plenty of huge equipment was lined up along the top of the three towering castles, without any defensive loopholes in sight. The city was built into the mountains with only one side with a wall. It would not be possible to take the city down by attacking from the front and rear.


    There were more than 200 death mages in the city, but in actual fact, they would not be able to control all the spirits of the dead. In the middle of the city and in front of an eight story magic tower was a 100 yard tall tree. There was a death aura about the tree, and instead of growing leaves, it grew thin gray threads that swayed in the wind.


    Amongst the gray threads, spirits of the dead that were a gory mass of flesh and blood would appear once in a while. It was a powerful creature that Aini had summoned.


    Death mages were different from elemental mages. When the former had reached the level of a sorcerer, his ownbat abilities would not improve quickly, but his ability to summon creatures would improve by leaps and bounds. Ainibined his flesh spirits and nt spirits into a gigantic spirit space that could summon spirits continuously. It was just like a gigantic summoning array that was connected to the spirit space and within this summoning array were plenty of coordinates of the death dimension.


    nt spirits were extremely rare, and on the death dimension, even the spirit kings might not be able to get their hands on them. The crown of the 100 yard tall nt spirit blocked out the entire magic tower and there was a gigantic face on its thick branches.


    On the terrifying-looking face, the nt spirit¡¯s mouth spat out items one after another. Some of them were materials from the death dimension and others were simply low-grade spirits. Simultaneously, the nt spirit was also spitting out spirit power. With the magic tower as the core, these spirit power dissipated into the sky, so that it could be absorbed by the spirits on the top of the city wall.


    The tens of thousands of spirits of the dead depended on the spirit power to keep going.


    Aini was not in the death magic tower. Instead, he was at the rear of the city, deep in the valleys of the mountains, where he was touching up a magic tower for elemental mages. The magic tower was built by Lex on short notice. It was nine stories tall and was able to monitor the surrounding areas of the mountains. As a result, it was impossible for the Sikeqinyans to try and enter the city from the sky.


    Aini was in Lex¡¯s magic tower. She handed him the letter that Nailisi had sent over.


    Aini took a nce at the letter and said, ¡°Metatrin City will not be sending an army?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, only a battalion.¡± Lex looked at Aini and said, ¡°Officially, I know that you are Saleen¡¯s subordinate, but I also know that you are his friend.¡±


    Ainiughed drily and did not reply. He knew the reason behind what Saleen had asked of him.


    Aini agreed with Saleen¡¯s decision. Going along with Holy Rock City all the time was not a long-term solution. The situation on the Maind had changed and Qin had suddenly found itself isted from the others, just like Saleen had predicted.


    The Qins were an arrogant and egoistic group of people and the Cloudflows and Sikeqinyans had been unhappy for a long time. It took them a few years to turn on the Qins because of the powerful Qin armies and the power of Alchemy City. Since Alchemy City had chosen not to interfere with the Cloudflows¡¯ attacks, that had encouraged the Sikeqinyans greatly.


    ¡°Aini, prepare to receive Nailisi into the city.¡± Lexughed deeply and Aini did not know what to make of it.


    ¡°Your Highness, you...¡±


    ¡°If Saleen sent Nailisi, then we are definitely receiving more than a battalion¡¯s worth of power. Bring her in first. Don¡¯t let the enemy sense that we are receiving a powerful group of people, do you understand?¡±


    ¡°At what cost?¡±


    ¡°At all cost,¡± Lex replied. Saleen had included some secret codes in Nailisi¡¯s letter that only Lex would understand. Lex knew that the battalion that Saleen had sent over included 24 grade-9 warriors amongst them. The warriors might not be as powerful as J, but the difference in grades was huge.


    If Lex led the 24 grade-9 warriors herself, they could easily break through the siege. They might even be able to kill many of their enemies, even the most powerful amongst them.


    Saleen was asking Lex what decision she was going to make. If Holy Rock City still meant something to her, then she should make use of the 24 warriors to defeat the Sikeqinyans. In that case, the Tanggsi Empire would be forced to withdraw its troops immediately.


    Aini shook his head helplessly and replied to Nailisi¡¯s letter. There might be quite a number of powerful enemies outside the city, but they were not powerful enough to stop a teleportation portal like that.


    Nailisi¡¯s response was simple and only contained one word, ¡®Okay¡¯.


    Aini left Lex¡¯s magic tower to prepare to receive Nailisi. Nailisi was currently in a castle that was more than 200 yards away from the north of Lonestar City.


    Nailisi looked at Aini¡¯s letter and smiled.


    It was a full-fledged battalion with 10,000 soldiers and more than 10,000 auxiliary soldiers. They had also brought with them wagons of various sizes containing items that would help the castle defend itself. There was also a grade-7 sorcerer in the group. With her own spatial equipment, they barely needed any wagons to carry their logistics.


    The 8,000 demons amongst the 10,000 soldiers were the real force to be reckoned with.


    ¡°Oh Aini, did you really think I was only here to fill up the numbers?¡± Although Saleen had forbidden her from revealing the abilities of the 24 ancient warriors, there was no way she was going to let go of such a great opportunity. 8,000 demons were more than sufficient to break through the enemy¡¯s camps.


    ¡°Prepare to set off!¡± Nailisi gave the order to the battalionmander of the temple army. The battalionmander looked at Aini¡¯s reply and was about to make preparations when Nailisi called out to him. She whispered in his ear and the battalionmander was soon nodding his head fervently in agreement.


    Nailisi was indeed the most terrifying and cruel demon around his Highness.


    When night fell, more than 10 death mages summoned 200 death knights and 1,000 skeletal soldiers outside of the castle before releasing spirit fog. Spirit fog was a very low-level spell and could be easily dissipated, even by slightly stronger wind.


    The one-million strong Sikeqinyan army was slightly fewer in numbers in actual fact, and there was less than a million of them even if the auxiliary soldiers were included. The army was split into three segments. They had set up a strong campsite to guard against the castle that was 200 miles away in the north.


    Nailisi¡¯s army of 20,000 shrunk their formation as they were led by more than 1,000 spirits of the dead at the forefront. They approached the campsite carefully while being shrouded by the fog.


    The Sikeqinyans were not considered weak by any means and were actually more powerful than the Cloudflows forces. The quality of their armies might not be as good as Qin armies, but they were still reasonably formidable. By the time this spirit fog reached 10 miles away from the campsite, some mages had already set up two defensive lines on the border.


    The Sikeqinyans had no idea how many soldiers were shrouded in the fog, so they only activated a small-scale mercenary group to scout.


    There were about 100 men in the mercenary group. When the fog was still hundreds of yards away, they had already begun to ce some vines on the ground and were setting up their crossbows.


    Nailisi saw all the preparations that they were making, but she did not care too much about them. They were being led by spirits of the dead, but such weapons, that were not infused with magic, would have no effects on the death knights.


    Nailisi casually waved her hand. When the battalionmander saw Nailisi¡¯s gesture, he immediately ordered a soldier to blow the war horn. The entire army suddenly moved at twice its original speed as they sprinted towards the enemy¡¯s campsite.


    The mercenary group was three miles away from the campsite. It was not possible to see what was within the fog and the campsite was unwilling to risk their mages, so the mercenaries were basically meant to be sacrificed. In the blink of an eye, the mercenaries were swallowed by the fog. The crossbow arrows that they shot only managed to kill some skeletons. Then, they were immediately hacked to death by the death knights and trampled into masses of flesh.


    The catapult in the campsite had not been assembled, as it was meant to be used for attacking the city. The only thing they could rely on was the towering wall of the campsite and countless crossbows.


    When Nailisi¡¯s army was three miles away, countless crossbow arrows were shot, but more than half of them were blocked off by the spirits. Behind the spirits were the demons. The demons were all d in magic armor. All of them were five yards tall and were carrying heavy shields. When the crossbow arrows ricocheted off the shields, they injured several demons by ident.


    When the army appeared out of the fog in less than 500 yards away, the mages in the campsite finally unleashed a Wild Wind spell.


    Tens of mages unleashed the spell at the same time. Powerful wind blew the fog away instantly, revealing hundreds of spirits leading the way.


    A white-robed Holy Master suddenly appeared in the campsite. He unleashed a scroll and a powerful light lit up the night sky. Before the skeletal soldiers in the front could even approach the campsite, they had already disintegrated. Their soul mes were lit up by the Light of Glory before evaporatingpletely.


    Smoke began to appear on the surface of the death knights as they began to fall off their warhorses. Themander in the campsiteughed with glee. Their alliance with the Holy See had given them a Holy Master, so they were no longer afraid of spirit armies. There were so many spirits in the city and none of them dared to attack them, yet the army only consisted of about 20,000 spirits, and they dared to charge into their camp so recklessly?


    As the Wild Wind spell persisted, the demons at the rear finally appeared. Nailisi had transformed into her devil-form and was charging ahead with her 30 yard longnce.


    The soldiers in the campsite were stunned. A 20 yard tall demon was leading a group of monsters charging towards them. The arrows shot at them were never going to pierce through their thick armor.


    They were too close. The Sikeqinyans¡¯, unwillingness to risk their mages, had allowed the demons to get too close. The defense in the campsite was useless now. With one leap, Nailisi crossed over the campsite wall and swept down the three arrow towers with her longnce.


    ¡°Sorcerer! Summon the sorcerer!¡± Themander that was in charge of the rear of the battalion began to shout. It was toote. 8,000 demons were led by Nailisi in pushing down the campsite wall, while the arrow towers at the back were crushed easily by Nailisi. The 24 ancient warriors were still hidden amongst the human soldiers as there was no need for them to make a move yet. The 8,000 demons had pierced through the enemy¡¯s core like a swift and sharp knife.

 Chapter 929: Demonic Stampede (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 929: Demonic Stampede (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi sprinted to the front. She was notpletely disconnected from her demon army. She was wearing her magic war boots and all 8,000 demons were at the same pace as her. If she ran fast, so did the demons.


    This was one of the techniques that devils used tomand their armies, Demonic Stampede.


    All the demons were connected as one. Since Nailisi¡¯s devil-form was close to perfection, she was able to utilize some devil techniques. A real devil would be able to lead countless demons as if they were one entity. When they all attacked together at once, even giant dragons had to get out of the way.


    Demons had also fallen, just like humans, but their techniques were passed down naturally through lineages and had never disappeared. As the power of the Myers Maind gradually recovered, the demons would benefit as well. They would be able to unleash even more techniques of higher levels. The techniques had always been in their bloodlines.


    The demons charged into the campsite. As it was the rear of the campsite, there were many defensive facilities. The Sikeqinyans did not expect to use them against demons. Five yard tall demons were able to cover a lot more distance than humans with every leap.


    No one was able to stop Nailisi. As she wielded her longnce, the power of a devil was not something that ordinary warriors could withstand. Nailisi was just like a golden grand swordmaster who had yet to learn how to unleash sword aura. Based on power alone, even a golden grand swordmaster might not be as powerful as Nailisi.


    Behind the 8,000 demons were 2,000 human magic heavy-armored soldiers. The soldiers did not join in the battle. Instead, they joined the auxiliary soldiers in bringing up the rear for the demons. Once they entered the campsite, it would be the demon armies that would defend the rear.


    Nailisi never really thought of this destroying the campsite, which contained an army of 200,000 soldiers. The entire camp stretched across tens of miles and she only wanted to pass through it, contrary to what Aini wanted.


    She was holding her longnce in her right hand and instead of her giant shield, she was holding her blood soul tower in her left hand. The demon army began their ughter while Nailisi was absorbing the souls hungrily. She might not be doing it as well as a Holy Master, but her blood soul tower would be able to repair broken souls, so it did not matter if she was too violent or aggressive.


    The equipment owned by Sikeqinyan soldiers and mercenaries were of decent quality. When the demon army finally slowed down their advance, the amount of arrows from both sides began to increase. That was when the demons spread out and charged towards both nks while the magic heavy-armored soldiers filled up the gaps in the middle with the auxiliary soldiers.


    Nailisi monitored the rhythm of the attack carefully. It might seem as if their attack has slowed down, but that was because they had been traveling in arcs instead of a straight line. That prevented the archers on both nks from being able to aim at their enemies urately.


    Nailisi was also closely monitoring the casualties. The enemy¡¯s sorcerer had yet to appear, but that was when Aini suddenlyunched an attack. The gate on the north side opened and countless spirit soldiers charged out and attacked the Sikeqinyan camp directly.


    As the number of spirit soldiers grew, even the Holy Masters at the rear of the campsite began to head to the front to help out. No sorcerer would be preupied with the demon army when there were so many spirits, more than 100,000, attacking from the front. If the sorcerer did not stop the attack from the front, the Sikeqinyan army would be doomed.


    Nailisi was not concerned about her own safety at all. Most of her techniques were more or less at their highest levels. With her Sword of Rules in hand, she did not care even if she encountered a grade-9 sorcerer. Her devil-form would give her gigantic wings, which would allow her to fly as fast as a sorcerer.


    Nailisi might not be able to unleash the full power of the Sword of Rules, but the sword itself was so sharp that even a grade-9 magic shield would not be its match.


    The rear of the campsite was echoing with thundering footsteps. The demonic stampede had forced the ground to start shaking so violently that the Sikeqinyan soldiers in the near vicinity were unable to remain stable.


    At that moment, the auxiliary soldiers of the temple army began to unleash their powers. They could very well be the auxiliary soldiers with the best equipment on the entire Maind. All of them wore exquisite armor that possessed magic defense abilities. They were armed with magic longnces that were capable of prating heavy armors, and no other heavy baggage. They were like the guards of the magic heavy-armored soldiers.


    Dong, dong, dong...


    Wherever the demon army passed through, the entire camp was almostpletely ttened, the barracks were destroyed, and the arrow towers were overthrown. That was when the main army realized that the attack on the rear of their camp was not just a distraction. It was meant to be fatal.


    The armies on both nks, that were meant to defend against the army from Lonestar City, had no choice but to attack. One of them sent help to the front of the camp while the other charged straight at the demon army.


    When Nailisi saw an army of 10,000 approach, she could not help butugh. A grand swordmaster had finally appeared, but she did not know if it was a ck metal or silver grand swordmaster. If it was a silver grand swordmaster, they might still exchange a few blows, but if it was a ck metal grand swordmaster, Nailisi would kill them with a single blow.


    She had been concealing her power by attacking the big equipment while letting her army battle with the enemy. After such a long wait, a grand swordmaster apanied by a sorcerer had finally appeared. Nailisi was extremely excited.


    The sorcerer was only grade-7!


    If it was a grade-8 sorcerer, Nailisi would still have been worried about getting hurt, and if it was a grade-9 sorcerer, she would have had to turn into her imp-form and used Grey Memory. If she battled a grade-9 sorcerer in devil-form, she would probably be severely injured.


    The iing army might possess excellent equipment, but without anyone powerful leading them, Nailisi was not worried about them at all.


    When they were 800 yards away, the grade-7 sorcerer cast an ice shield on the grand swordmaster before flying into the sky and stopping 200 yards away.


    The sorcerer was confident of stopping ordinary crossbow arrows from a distance of 200 yards. Since the enemy consisted only of foot soldiers, without any big equipment, the sorcerer was not too concerned about them. He only observed Nailisi carefully, who was in her devil-form with a pair of gigantic wings.


    He did not wish to fight that monster. He gripped his magic staff tightly, ready to fight if necessary. The magic staff could store a spell, so in addition to another spell that he could cast instantly, it would be a grade-8 spell followed by a grade-7 spell.


    Nailisi turned around and charged towards the grand swordmaster. She spread her wings, which created a powerful air current. The 24 ancient warriors, who had been keeping themselves hidden within the army, followed Nailisi. No one else would be able tomand them around.


    It was a ck metal grandmaster in peak condition who was leading the army. He was wielding a gigantic horse-killing sword, which was covered with magic patterns.


    Nailisi charged straight at him with her longnce aimed towards his chest. The tip of her longnce was so huge that if her attack seeded, the ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s entire chest would be caved in.


    He decided to fly up into the sky. He twisted and contorted his body in mid-air before shing at Nailisi¡¯s longnce with his horse-killing sword. When the two weapons shed, there was a loud sound and a faint mark appeared on Nailisi¡¯s longnce.


    Both of them were taken aback. The ck metal grand swordmaster had cut apart countless weapons in his lifetime, even the sword aura of a silver grand swordmaster would not be able to block his magic weapon. There was merely a faint mark on the monster¡¯s longnce though.


    Nailisi was even more shocked. Although the longnce was not infused with any magic, it was still something refined by the Grandmaster and was made with materials that were harder than crystallized metals. If it had been her original longnce, it might already have been cut in half by the grand swordmaster¡¯s sword!


    Many thoughts crossed Nailisi¡¯s mind, but she did not hesitate and attacked with her longnce. The ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s hands became numb and his entire ice shield began to shatter.


    The grade-7 sorcerer was powerful too, since the ice shield that he cast was able to transform so that the it helped to take the blow for the ck metal grand swordmaster.


    The grand swordmaster was also able to react quickly by turning sideways and attacking again.


    The longnce was 30 yards long, which was a distance the ck metal grand swordmaster could cover in a leap. Nailisi knew that if the ck metal grand swordmaster got close enough to her, her armor would not be able to block off that mysterious horse-killing sword. She put away her blood soul tower and took out her Sword of Rules to block off the grand swordmaster¡¯s strike.


    The Sword of Rules was unharmed. It was a pity that Nailisi¡¯s swordsmanship was not as good as the grand swordmaster¡¯s. Both of them exchanged a few blows as the ck metal grand swordmaster deflected Nailisi¡¯s blow and struck with his gigantic horse-killing sword. As Nailisi was also looking out for the sorcerer that was still in the sky, her hands rxed and barely managed to block off the horse-killing sword.


    Nailisi wished she had a sorcerer by her side; she would have been able to kill the grand swordmaster anytime if she did. The grade-7 sorcerer in the sky was very experienced inbat. He made no attempt to cast any spells, and instead, only continued to stare at the battle between Nailisi and the grand swordmaster.


    Nailisi thought about it and suddenly took a few steps backwards and took out her gigantic shield. The materials that the shield was made of were slightly poorer than that of the longnce, but when the ck metal grand swordmaster hacked it with his sword, it was stuck in the shield.


    Nailisi pushed the shield forward and the ck metal grand swordmaster was pressed onto the ground. The soil here was soft, so the grand swordmaster was not crushed. Nevertheless, he was stillpletely immobilized by the gigantic shield.


    Nailisi stood up and leapt towards the sorcerer in the sky.


    The sorcererughed coldly. A powerful light shone from the magic staff in his hands as he cast a grade-8 spell. Nailisi only saw darkness. It was as if the distance between her and the sorcerer had been stretched infinitely. The outline of the sorcerer became more and more blurry, until it eventually vanished.


    Poor demon!


    When the sorcerer saw the demon being controlled by his dark-element spell, he prepared to unleash several more spells. His hands gesticted wildly as powerful fire-element ripples covered a space of 200 square yards. Between him and Nailisi, a gigantic of fire was weaved, and it covered Nailisi.


    The color of the fire was also ck. The mes danced so violently that the surrounding space began to tremble. That was an extremely rare grade-7 spell, Purgatory Web. The temperature of the ck mes was so high that even a grade-9 shield would not be able to withstand it. The sorcerer had managed to kill powerful grade-9 opponents with those two techniques before.


    ¡°Oh, beautiful demon, your horns belong to me now!¡±


    The sorcerer¡¯s eyes flicked with excitement. He never imagined that he would be able to get his hands on a gigantic demon like that before he advanced to grade-8. On top of that, there was also a pair of excellent horns on the demon.


    With the horns, he would be able to refine powerful magic equipment. He would be the most powerful grade-8 sorcerer!

 Chapter 930: Broken Camp (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 930: Broken Camp (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was a rare thing for mages to see precious materials and not be moved. The horns of Nailisi¡¯s devil form emanated a peculiar brilliance. If her devil form advanced, the horns might even be able to cast powerful demon magic.


    Purgatory Web was a spell that was incredibly slow to cast yet possessed a very long duration of attack. No beings below grade-9 would be able to defend against the entanglement of the Purgatory Web spell. Grade-7 spells were not something to be underestimated, as it was not to say a spell would have been more damaging the higher the level of said spell. Many spells were deemed to be low level ones chiefly because they have had strict casting requirements, making it very difficult for such spells tond a hit on the intended target.


    Dark World was one spell among grade-8 ones known for its nature as a longsting control magic, and Nailisi was trapped within. If she were to be unable to break through the envelopment of the Dark World, she would then be cut to pieces by Purgatory Web.


    The demon army on the ground did not notice something like that happening. Hundreds of demons charged at the ck metal grand swordmaster and surrounded the grand swordmaster by locking their shields together. Twenty-four ancient warriorsid hidden among the demons.


    The closely packed ring of demons blocked everyone¡¯s sight. When the ck metal grand swordmaster flipped the shields open, more than twenty spears were immediately thrust at them. The pale red sheen on the spears broke through their ice te armor and Protection Sword Aura in an instant.


    As soon as the ck metal grand swordmaster was confirmed dead, the demons behind all rushed forward. Their body was soon buried by the stampede from hundreds of demons. An experienced veteran, a grand swordmaster armed with powerful magical equipment, died an utterly unceremonious death, and soon ended up being turned into mush.


    Ancient warriors were capable of executing orders that were moreplex, which made them more powerful than elemental creatures. Theirbat capacity was also of a higher notchpared to elemental creatures. As soon as the warriors killed the grand swordmaster, they retreated back among the demons to hide in in sight. The horse-killing sword of the grand swordmaster however, was taken by a demon to be their own new weapon.


    The demons assigned to the temple guards were of high intelligence. None of them would simply let such a good piece of equipment go to waste.


    The sorcerer went up to tangle with Nailisi while controlling Purgatory Cutting. Nailisi was trapped in midair, yet she was somehow pleased. The spell that the sorcerer was using had always been something she had dreamed of getting her hands on. Nailisi put her spear away and did not even bother taking out the Sword of Rules; she took out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory instead.


    When the rules of the purgatories in the collection were broken, they required powers with rules to be restored. While the sorcerer was a low level one, the two spells used were powerful. They contained rules which were required by Nailisi to fix her purgatories.


    A low hum was heard as soon the collection of purgatories were taken out, as if they were feeling very pleased at what Nailisi was about to do.


    Dark Space was quickly absorbed by the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, without wasting any one bit of the dark element, as well as the power of rules generated by the dark element. Nailisi threw the Twelve Notes of Purgatory into the air, and it also devoured Purgatory Cutting in a blink of an eye.


    The sorcerer was still having delusions of how to dismember the corpse of the demon they were about to kill, when they found their spell ceased working all of a sudden, frightening them tremendously. The demon moved like a bolt of lightning and charged at them. The sorcerer conjured a grade-8 Vacuum Shield in reflex, which was a spell stored within their magic robe, and something left for them by their teacher.


    If the grade-7 sorcerer had chosen to simply flee right there and then, Nailisi¡¯s huge body would have still been able to force her to consider the possibility of bing a big fat target for the alchemy crossbows on the ground, regardless of how fast she was able to fly. The sorcerer still attempted to cast another spell after erecting the Vacuum Shield, which pleased Nailisi immensely. She opened her mouth and spat. A dragon crystal needle shot right through the shield and into the head of the sorcerer, right between the eyes.


    ¡°Just what is this mage doing trying to fight a demon up close and personal?¡± Nailisi was unable to figure out just what the dead sorcerer had been thinking. She spread her wings and extended herrge hand, extracting her shot needle by crushing the head of the sorcerer, then cing it back into her mouth.


    Killing a grade-7 sorcerer was no longer a big deal to Nailisi. As a top grade-9 being, it would be odd if she was unable to kill a grade-7 sorcerer. If it was not for the fact that she wanted the Gray Memory to stay hidden, Nailisi would have simply stabbed the sorcerer to death with her spear, instead of going about it in such a roundabout manner.


    The demons shed with the ten-thousand strong regr army behind. The way demons fought had always been to move injuredbatants to the middle of their formation. The number of wounded demons was still a small one, and there was heavy magic infantry guarding the rear. The demons might have lost the leader capable of the Demonic Stampede skill, but they were still a force to be reckoned with when deployed as heavy shock troops.


    The elite troops of the Sikenqinyan army were all buffed people nearing two yards tall. They were all armed with refined metal armor. It was a pity that such expensive equipment was still no match for the devil flying armor Saleen armed his demons with. The weapons the demons were armed with were all specifically tailored to their nature:rge axes, warhammers, and evenrger halberds.


    Loud metallic ngs were heard as the gushing currents on the weapons of both sides collided. The human armies yelled and roared as they rushed at their enemies, conjuring sword auras explosively about while they were at it. In contrast, the demon armies had all been silent. The heavy thumping of their metallic boots on the ground were able to shake the earth all the same. The edge possessed by the demons was clearly disyed the very moment both sides shed. The vanguards of the Sikenqinyan army were ughtered by the demons like they were cutting grass.


    Eight-thousand demons worked seemingly as one. Once a demon at the front was injured, they would stop immediately to have someone from behind take their ce. The advantage in body sizes allowed the demons to bring down hell from above on the humans. Being able to keep their formations intact also gained them an advantage in numbers. The Sikenqinyan vanguard had the odds stacked against them, which looked particr brutal in the enclosed spaces of the camp.


    Blood flew everywhere, and the air seemed to be filled with a red mist of spilled blood. The powerful life force of demons made it a rare case for them to be killed outright on the battlefield. The demons who had the advantage changed their formation, having supreme demons taking the lead at the front, forming three pointy formations shaped like wedges that cut the Sikenqinyan army right open.


    The Sikenqinyans moved in square blocks of one-thousand strong each. With the first one-thousand all taken care of in the first sh, the change in the demons¡¯ formation cut up the next one-thousand toe, making the Sikenqinyans panic.


    The holy masters and mages hid behind, casting various buffing statuses on the Sikenqinyan army. When the third one-thousand made it to the front, they were barely able to hold their formation together.


    Nailisi, who was in the air, saw the demon army being blocked off, and the warriors on the opposing all had glittering buffs about them. Some leaders and generals even emanated white divine light. ¡°This won¡¯t do. This big camp has more than two-hundred-thousand troops in it. No problem for the twenty-thousand on our side to simply rush at them, but it would be quite a pity if our losses turn out to be great.


    Nailisi¡¯s body contorted maniacally. Her wings turned golden and her body elongated. Six major elements congealed in gushes on the surface of her body.


    The powers of Luoluokaluo was fully shown right there and then. Nailisi quickly turned into a golden dragon midair and flew forward. The golden dragon was three-hundred and sixty yards in length, enough to even cover up the light of the moon in the night sky.


    Concentrated dragon¡¯s breath burst forth as Nailisi opened her mouth, the pure, unadulterated dragon¡¯s breath of a golden dragon. While Nailisi had yet to advance to grade-10, the transformation allowed the might of the dragon as well as their unique levels to overwhelm her enemies. The breath killed hundreds of Sikenqinyans in mere moments, turning them to piles of ashes on the ground.


    Huge swaths ofnd were cleared in an instant. The demon army sped up their march. Her dragon¡¯s breath made her rather dizzy. While her golden dragon form was indeed powerful, she was only a grade-9 Luoluokaluo nheless. Spouting dragon¡¯s breath was a very taxing feat. She would not be able to stay in her golden dragon form for long.


    Nailisi decided to just fall to the ground and ready her limbs. She then charged at the Sikenqinyan army. The golden dragon stomped on the soldiers without care, her tail swiped as hard as she fancied. One swipe was enough to send about one-hundred flying.


    The low-level officers conjured their sword auras and shed all the scales of the golden dragon. Their attacks were able to do little but send sparks flying and were utterly useless in breaking her defense. Nailisi continued rampaging and took out another two-thousand before the form became too taxing for her, and she was forced back to her devil form.


    She knew better at that moment than any other previously, that she would need to advance to grade-10 before she would be able to sustain her dragon form.


    Regardless, the results of her endeavor for that moment had her feeling pleased with herself. She absorbed souls like wanting to gulp down an ocean with her blood soul towers. The long period of fighting had her army kill more than two-thousand. Those two-thousand souls wailed within the blood soul towers, as their memories were still intact.


    Those souls were steeped in fear and were seemingly experiencing the very moment before death imed them over and over again.


    Nailisi cared nothing for them. The edge possessed by the golden dragon was the ability to kill enemies swiftly in battle. Her devil form was not bad either. Her spear danced, and her strides became increasingly fast and stopped tangling altogether. She led her army over the camp to meet up with Aini¡¯s spirit army.


    The auxiliary army at the rear began to see an increase in casualties. More than one-hundred auxiliary troops died inbat, yet not one of the magic heavy infantry was lost. The difference in equipment was what caused the auxiliary troops to die.


    Nailisi suddenly recalled that she still had something else with her. She took out the huge magic stone cannon and held it in her arms. She then used it to simply shoot at the fifth thousand. Regardless of how well-equipped the one-thousand troops were, they would not have been able to withstand being shot by such an equipment at such a close range. One shot easily killed more than one-hundred, and the spraying bullets injured many more.


    The army at the nks gathered while Nailisi looked on from above, knowing that she could not afford to wait any longer. Any further dys would have led to casualties among the magic heavy infantry. People died when fighting wars, yet Nailisi did not want to see any one of the magic heavy infantry fall there for some souls.


    Many more souls were yet to be absorbed into the blood soul tower, and Nailisi no longer cared. She simply fired six more shots away, then put away the huge cannon with damaged magic arrays and absorbed another one-thousand souls.


    The Sikenqinyan army camp was in shambles. It was at the brink of copse. The tall demon was near invincible. The dragon that appeared out of nowhere wiped out two regiments, and therge cannon went on further to kill off yet another regiment.


    Some among the Sikenqinyans lost all courage to fight at the frontlines, shouting at the top of their lungs, ¡°Mages! Where are the mages?¡±

 Chapter 931: Broken Camp (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 931: Broken Camp (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mages in the rear regiments had all fled. Their knowledge was hundreds of times greater than the rest of the camp, and they knew therge being was a devil, a grade-9 creature. The grand mages who had yet to reach grade-7 simply chose to flee. They were, after all, assigned to the camp at short notices. With the sorcerers being busy at the front fighting the spirit army, they had little time to be concerned about what was going on at the rear.


    The grand mages might have been able to pester the grade-9 creature for a little while if they were to all gang up on it, but the actual fact was, having soldiers surrounding the creature would have yielded better results. Morale of the camp suffered a huge blow as the grand mages backed off from the battle.


    Without the help of mages, the soldiers all felt dejected. The tall devil was not something even their generals would have been able to resist. With one ck metal grand swordmaster killed, and a grade-7 sorcerer missing in action, the troops went out of control and spread out from the nks.


    They were, after all, elite soldiers. They retreated to the nks instead of backing off. Even if the enemy was to pursue them, the enemy would have to thin out their own to do so.


    Nailisi had not even dreamed of being able to crush such arge camp of enemies with only twenty-thousand under hermand. She did not even bother with the twenty-four ancient warriors serving under her. She simply charged from the center of the camp. There was no one getting in her way. The enemy archers at her nks were suppressed by the crossbowmen within the auxiliary forces, making the enemy incapable ofing up to the front.


    The one-million strong army set up threerge camps with grade-9 professionals assigned in each. They were also backed withrge numbers of high-level professionals. Nailisi had it easy that time. The spirit army at the front drew the attention of the more powerful figures and the best troops from the camp, allowing her temple guards to practically ughter what was left.


    Nailisi was the kind of person who would have bailed as soon as she had her fill of loot. She had initially nned on taking ten-thousand souls, but seeing how the Sikenqinyans were an orderly bunch, she knew that drawing the fight out would have cost her a lot. As such, she made the decision to first have the temple guards ughter whoever they could at the rear of therge camp, before making out of the camp and rushing for the front gates.


    Her devil form allowed her to easily overwhelm her enemies, and the image of a devil firing away with a magic stone cannon struck fear into the minds of the Sikenqinyans. She hardly met any resistance along the way. When the enemy had finally reached the nks, Nailisi had made it inside Aini¡¯s spirit army and headed straight for Lonestar City.


    Sorcerers were only deployed from the camp in front of Lonestar City by then, but Aini had already called the troops back, and the spirit army covered their retreat. Nailisi¡¯s temple guards left more than three-hundred dead bodies in their wake and made it into Lonestar City safe and sound.


    Lonestar City¡¯s gate closed without warning, leaving more than ten-thousand spirits outside. Aini was exasperated as he went out of the city to receive her personally. The spirits suffered heavy casualties due to Nailisi taking her time at the camp¡¯s rear. Aini had only taken over one-hundred death mages out of the city, yet there were more than one-hundred-thousand spirits out there. Finally, less than fifty-thousand made it back into the city. More than half of the spirit army was killed off by the enemy. Summoning the numbers to replenish the losses would take a very long time.


    Nailisi returned to her usual human form and came to Aini¡¯s side with a smile, tapping his shoulder. ¡°Aini, get my army a separate ce as lodging.¡±


    Aini asked in an immensely irritated tone. ¡°Why?¡±


    Nailisi drew him close and whispered into his ear. ¡°You see, those demons of mine, they eat people. Would you rest easy having them sleep side by side with your army?¡±


    Aini looked in the direction of the temple guards and saw thousands of demons. They halted the operation of the magic arrays on their armor, then pushed their masks up one after another. None of them looked friendly.


    Seeing the five yard tall demons looking about, Aini swallowed his frustration and said, ¡°Alright, I will get to it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the spirit. Aini, where is Lex?¡±


    Aini did not bother answering her just yet, ordering subordinates to find a spot in the valley to let the temple guards set up camp. Only when the orders were given, did Aini take Nailisi to go see Lex.


    Nailisi did not dare try to pull anything seeing Lex. She bowed in all honestly to Lex and said, ¡°Viscountess, master sent me to help you defend the city.¡±


    ¡°Where are your men then.¡± Lex was sitting squarely and upright but looked friendly enough nheless.


    ¡°Outside the tower. I didn¡¯t let them in,¡± Nailisi answered.


    ¡°Nailisi, tell me about them,¡± Lex simply asked about how the ancient warriors fared instead of having theme in.


    ¡°There are twenty-four of them. I can kill one myself without suffering any injuries. More than ten, I will need to do my best. If someone is giving them instructions, I wouldn¡¯t be able to take more than four.¡±


    ¡°What happens if you are the one giving instructions?¡±


    ¡°That is out of my reach. They only follow master¡¯s orders. All are grade-9 warriors, definitely more powerful than silver grand swordmasters.¡±


    Lex nodded. Nailisi¡¯s words insinuated that the warriors were nowhere near the prowess of golden grand swordmasters, which was normal. A gathering of twenty-four grand swordmasters would have been able to almost casually crush a one-million strong army like the ones out there.


    What was sent to her however, was nheless very powerful. It seemed that Saleen was giving her a choice. ¡°Should I go out and kill the army outside the army? Wiping out the ones out there would immediately alter the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s ns for assault, and the pressure on Holy Rock City would be way smaller.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s will was apparent, and he had made his choice. It was up to her if she wanted to support him.


    ¡°Nailisi. Bring them back to camp. I will see you if I need to,¡± Lex let out a long sigh.


    Nailisi asked cautiously, ¡°Viscountess, should I go out and have my way with them? I can guarantee...¡±


    ¡°No need for that.¡± Lex waved to have Nailisi leave. She stood and looked outside the window. What she was able to see was hardly more than a line at the cracks of the valley. That was where she was able to see the front gates of Lonestar City. The tall fortress blocked her view.


    ¡°Saleen¡¯s decision is indeed a cruel one, but what else can I do? I signed the contract with Saleen. Being unable to solve the goddess¡¯ problem means getting both of us more problems.¡± Her unclecked the abilities of her father, yet he insisted on taking control of everything in the empire. That was the root of all her troubles.


    If she were to be the one in control of the empire, there would have never been any trouble down south. Most northern nobles were on her side, yet her uncle insisted on having her brother take the throne. Her uncle was simply too bothered with what the astrologer had said. ¡°Being a golden grand swordmaster doesn¡¯t mean he would necessarily understand the meaning of astrology, right? It was perhaps his way with things, that makes me into the root of the troubles guing the empire in his mind. Oh Saleen, you may be doing the right thing, but what about my brother? If the empire crumbles, he will be the emperor who brings about the downfall of an empire. How would history look at him...¡±


    Lex left the window feeling rather depressed and went back to her meditation. She was unable to get into that state of mind no matter what she did. ¡°It was not Saleen¡¯s idea to sign the contract. He cannot be med. All this is perhaps fate¡¯s doing, and Master Merlin had seen it all, but was unable to change anything... Wait, what?¡±


    Lex saw Nailisi leaving a letter behind on the desk when the demon left, yet she was unable to sense it. Even a grade-9 demon like Nailisi should not have been able to fool her senses in the magic tower!


    ¡°Looks like I¡¯m really out of it today. This is bad. If I can¡¯t keep my emotions controlled even in my own tower, things are really going to be dangerous.¡±


    Lex took the letter and unfolded it. The paper used was starline paper, and beautiful magic writings were written on the paper using dragon¡¯s blood ink.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    The contents were opened with a rather formal way of address. ¡°Can¡¯t be helped. Such is the magic script. No nicknames allowed whatsoever.¡± While pronunciation wasplex, statements had to be made clearly. Lex smiled at the opening. ¡°Oh Saleen, you really do know how to get around me.¡±


    Mages should not have thought too much, just enough to solve problems. Such writing, while very rigid, proved the most direct way to strike a chord in Lex¡¯s heart. She was still a devoted mage at the core of her being.


    Nailisi bode Lex farewell and went to the camp that Aini got for her. Aini carved out a space capable of holding fifty-thousand people in the valley to serve as lodgings for the temple guards.


    The reason for doing so was because there were eight-thousand demons in the temple guards. Each demon easily took up the space meant for two humans.


    Nailisi saw Ainimanding the spirits to build barracks for her, with a sour look no less. She went up to Aini and asked, ¡°Aini, you are a friend of master. Just tell me straight, what do you have in mind?¡±


    Aini shook his head and refused to answer her.


    ¡°Is it because you lost too many of your spirits?¡± Nailisi¡¯s smile looked so infuriating to Aini that he wanted to p her across the face right there. They lost about seventy-thousand spirits, and thousands were of grade-4 and above, which were very difficult to summon.


    Aini bit his lip. He was the scheming, twisted type himself, yet he knew enough that Nailisi was not someone he would have dared offending. Regardless of how close hiss rtionship was with Saleen, it would not have been enough to let him simply kill off one such capable subordinate of his. Nailisi¡¯s actions were backed by Saleen himself after all.


    ¡°Aini, look. Do you know what this is?¡± Nailisi took out the blood soul tower and dangled it in front of Aini.


    Aini¡¯s attention was drawn away immediately by the blood soul tower. Nailisi¡¯s rampage killed quite a number of enemies. There were already more than seven-thousand souls residing within the blood soul tower. Aini was a grade-8 death mage, and without a doubt was able to tell that it was something for storing souls. Other than souls, that thing would have been able to store soul mes all the same!


    Aini¡¯s eyes seemed to sparkle. Nailisi then dropped the tower in their hand and said, ¡°Go have a good look at it.¡±


    Aini immediately went wrapping the blood soul tower with dead soul me and extended his senses within. Such safe methods of probing into things were a habit of death mages, which was far saferpared to how elemental mages did it.


    Aini was able to tell that there were more than seven-thousandplete souls in it. What stunned him was that the blood soul tower would have been able to store even more.


    ¡°So, what do you think, Aini? Since you have lost so many spirits, how about I go think of something to get you a blood soul tower too?¡±


    ¡°Rare of you to be so generous,¡± Aini said without thinking.


    ¡°Of course not. With that one-million strong army out there, we need to think of something...¡±


    ¡°That is not what Saleen said!¡± Aini knew, of course, that Nailisi intended to collect a million souls out there. The proposal had his blood boil with excitement, but his reasoning held him back nheless. ¡°I can¡¯t go about wrecking Saleen¡¯s ns.¡±


    Nailisi snatched her blood soul tower back and smiled, before putting it back into her bracelet. She waved the bracelet a little bit at Aini and said, ¡°Remember this? It was yours back then. You exchanged it for a bunch of high quality magic nuclei. You had a bad deal back then. You will again if you won¡¯t agree to this.¡±

 Chapter 932: Palace on the Seas (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 932: Pce on the Seas (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini said coldly, ¡°I did not make a loss back then. If not for the money that I made from reselling the magic nuclei, I would never have gotten my hands on death mes of such high quality and neither would I have aplished so much today.¡±


    Aini was aware of Nailisi¡¯s background and did not wish to fall for the temptations of the imp. Of the four Dukes of Metatrin Kingdom, he was the only given an army and the reason for that was the close rtionship he had with Saleen. Otherwise, there was no way he would have so many armies, even if he was a grade-8 sorcerer.


    ¡°Aini, do you think I will try to spoil master¡¯s ns?¡± Nailisi asked seriously.


    Aini thought about it carefully before saying, ¡°I don¡¯t think so. At least, not at this stage.¡±


    ¡°Then good. Don¡¯t worry about the things here. Let the demons finish the job. It would be troublesome if they had nothing to do anyway. Aini, let¡¯s continue our discussion over at your ce...¡±


    Aini quickly stopped Nailisi and looked around before leading her away from the mountains. The death mages around Aini looked at each other before ordering the spirits to step down. Since Nailisi did not need their help, the death mages were more than happy to save the effort. They had lost too many spirits in the battle outside of the city. Once they returned, they would have to manage the spirits that had not been trained yet. It would be another major project.


    After the death mages left, the battalionmander and bannermen of the temple army left everything behind for the demons to finish. The supreme demon began tomand the demons to build a campsite.


    Originally, Aini had already asked the temple army to prepare a campsite, but it was too small, hence Nailisi wanted a new location. The humans of the temple army had already taken off their armor and were resting while the demons were hard at work.


    Nailisi led the 24 ancient warriors to Aini¡¯s magic tower. She let the warriors stand guard outside while she entered the tower with Aini.


    The 10,000 or so spirits outside of the city were finally all hacked into pieces. It was useless for the Sikeqinyans to vent their anger on the spirits. They might have killed plenty of them, but they had also lost more than 20,000 of their own men, and more than 30,000 of them were injured. The proportion of injuries on both sides was so lop-sided because very few of the soldiers that were attacked by Nailisi and the demons could be saved. Especially those that were attacked by Nailisi¡¯s dragon¡¯s breath. They had all turned into ashes.


    The weapons wielded by the demons were terrifying too. Most of their weapons weighed about 40 pounds while the stronger demons wielded weapons that weighed as much as 100 pounds. Even the halberds of the magic heavy-armored soldiers weighed around the same as the demons¡¯ weapons.


    Close to 5,000 soldiers had died from severe injuries caused by the heavy weapons. On the other hand, those that had been injured from battling the spirit armies could still be saved. There were quite a number of Holy Masters in the Sikeqinyan army, and they specialized in healing the damage caused by spirits.


    The Sikeqinyans had attacked the city once again out of rage and lost yet another 1,000 or so bodies. They only managed to kill approximately the same number of spirits before being left with no choice but to retreat. Lonestar City was so resilient that even the huge catapults were unable to take down the city walls and the battering rams were unable to ram through the city gates. Even when the mages tried to fly to the top of the city wall, they were forced to descend by the anti-flying region.


    The Sikeqinyans had no choice but to retreat. The one-million strong army was making losses every day, and even if that was put aside, the storage of their grain was another huge problem.


    The Qin noble families loved grain, and even if the farmers grew too much, the former would never try to buy them at a lower price. There was enough grain in Lonestar City for it to remain under siege for decades without worrying that food would run out.


    The Sikeqinyans had no choice but to wait for the Holy See army to break through from the Qin borders, so that they could all attack together. They have not heard any news of increasing more Sikeqinyan armies.


    Across the seas was fog that refused to dissipate. The ancientbat vessel hid itself within the fog and followed behind Saleen¡¯s fleet. The underwaterbat vessel was 50 miles ahead of the fleet, searching for targets.


    Saleen carefully circled around the inds controlled by the Cloudflow forces and headed towards the south. The address on Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s invitation pointed to inds that were 5,000 miles east of Cloudflow. That was already a very dangerous region. Although it was still some distance away from the Stormy Sea, many high-grade magic beasts and storms frequently appeared in that region.


    Saleen refused to get close to the inds that he passed by along the way because he did not wish to rm Grand Duke Iron Blood. His n was simple. He would get close to the ind that the Grand Duke was on, then attack him with J and Nichs. During that period of time, he could still refine the 24 shards of Eternal Control so that the 24 ancient warriors would go into battle with him.


    Saleen refused to believe that with such power, he would still be unable to rescue Cuisi and the other demons. If he could not even defeat Grand Duke Iron Blood, how would he fare against the Holy See?


    For the battles in the past, Saleen would always be careful and meticulous in his nning. Now that he finally possessed power that could influence the oue of the battle easily, Saleen¡¯s mindset had changed. Saleen began to feel that he was bing more and more like his teacher.


    Jason might have a very gentle outlook, but Saleen greatly admired the way he went about doing things. Sregl Ind was a formidable collection of powerful groups, but he was able to leave the moment he wanted to, and many sorcerers were even keen to leave with him. Even the most powerful grade-9 sorcerer on the ind was unable to do anything about it, except to look for new mages to fill up the gaps. He even allowed Jason to get away withrge amounts of equipment and wealth. If it had been Saleen, he knew that he would not have been able to pull it off.


    Jason was not even a sorcerer back then. It was a mystery how he was able to control so many mages.


    That time around, Saleen did not utilize the magicpass, and instead, used the star chart to seek out the ind¡¯s coordinates. No matter how high the grade of a magicpass, it could still be detected by sorcerers easily. Saleen knew that Grand Duke Iron Blood would definitely order his sorcerers to look out for any movements on the seas. If Saleen used the magicpass to seek out the coordinates, he would be discovered even before he reached the ind.


    No matter how big the fleet might be, it was still an insignificant dot on the seas. Saleen and his 30 or so ships had traveled thousands of miles and were finally getting closer to Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    Saleen called for Truman and said to him, ¡°You will stay on the dragon skeletonbat vessel. You are not responsible for anymands, except whether or not to retreat. Don¡¯t let the fleet suffer heavy losses. I will go to the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I will not follow you?¡±


    ¡°Your grade is still too low. Truman, from now on, I will let you stay by my side for the long-term, but not this time. There will be more opportunities in the future. Besides, mages don¡¯t necessarily need to fight. Remember, if you see the enemy¡¯s ancientbat vessel, attack them with the magic cannon. If not, just pretend that you don¡¯t exist. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°Yes, teacher!¡± Truman answered spiritedly.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to be so formal, haha. Be careful. Once I leave, the fleet will split up to enter the protective circle of the ancientbat vessel.¡± With that, Saleen called for the captain of the ancientbat vessel. The grand mage from Sregl Ind was already grade-6 but was still far away from advancing to a sorcerer.


    ¡°Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Captain, you must not see yourself as a mage from now on. You willmand like how you were trained in the Oceanic Ice Block. The safety of the fleet is top priority. After I return, as long as we are able to shake off the enemy, we will not go into battle.¡±


    ¡°Understood. I will treat this like my training.¡±


    ¡°Very good. Take care!¡± With that, Saleen left the dragon skeletonbat vessel with J and Nichs and dove into the sea.


    The pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was waiting below as it was being controlled by the six jade skeletons. The jade skeletons were the winged skeleton¡¯s treasured items. It was not easy developing intelligence in jade skeletons.


    The moment Saleen got onboard, he took over the control of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemy ship. The ship was no longer purely spirit equipment because a magic furnace had been built into it while manyplicated alchemy mechanic structures had been removed. When the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat traveled at high speed, the amount of noise it made was tens of times lowerpared to the past. They would no longer have to worry about rming the enemy from a distance away.


    On board the ship were 24 ancient warriors in new uniforms. With the ancient warriors, Saleen was full of confidence. The amount of space in the ship had increased. The pan¡¯s turtle shell was even bigger and of a higher grade than the one Saleen had captured. If they were to encounter grade-9 ground-element spells, they would no longer be fossilized, even if they were trapped.


    The spirit eye on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was activated and the ship continued moving while 500 yards underwater. No one would discover them at that depth, unless a grade-9 sorcerer looked for them specifically.


    The magic furnace was silent. The six jade skeletonsmanded a few skeletons around to throw low-level magic nuclei into the furnace. The magic furnace was an extremely useful item that was able to devour any type of energy before transforming it into pure magic power to be used for operating the alchemy mechanics or for magic arrays.


    After being modified, the alchemy mechanics were no longer being used. The external shell of the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat was enclosed in a gigantic bubble as it moved forward silently.


    The only thing on the alchemy ship that was modified by Saleen was the warehouse. There were 12 spatial boxes that were made of the skins of purple-gold sea urchins in the warehouse. The spatial boxes could contain items of more than 10 square yards. They contained magic nuclei of various grades, as well as crystals produced by Demon city.


    The winged skeleton was not around, so the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat only contained 48 gigantic modified bloodstones, 24 high-level bone spirits in the spirit pool, and 24 high-level bone spirits sealed in the ck crystal. After the 48 bone spirits had been used, the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat would no longer be able to attack for the time-being.


    Saleen was full of hatred towards the Grandmaster when he thought about that.


    ¡°My Lord, I think we have arrived.¡± Nichs pointed at a three-dimensional object on the ck-and-white magic image. 10 miles ahead of them was a huge reef. They must be close to the Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s ind or there would not be any reefs. So far, the shallowest parts of the sea were still at least 3,000 yards deep.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, J, put on your equipment!¡± Saleen stared at J and forced him to put on his magic armor and his mask. After J had advanced into a golden grand swordmaster, he had been refusing to put on armor.


    Saleen knew that that was not about J wanting to challenge himself, but more of him wanting to put up a front in front of women. Although the golden sword aura provided better defense than any armor, Saleen did not want J to spend his energy during the dive.


    The trio left the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat with the ancient warriors. In the dark and cold waters, they swam towards the ind. When a gigantic shark swam over, Saleen took out his bone mace, scaring the shark away.


    The equipment refined from the spine and skull of the Angel of Fear possessed an effect of fear on all creatures of grade-9 and below. The shorter the distance, the stronger the effect.

 Chapter 933: Palace on the Seas (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 933: Pce on the Seas (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen swung the bone mace around before putting it away. They were only 500 yards deep. The power of the bone mace was such that if they had been on the surface of the sea, it would be detected by the people on the inds. Saleen fought the Angel of Fear before, so he knew that thetter¡¯s attack was so powerful that even pests from more than 10 miles away would cower in fear. If Saleen¡¯s bone mace caused all the underwater creatures to go into a frenzy, they would be discovered by the enemy immediately.


    No other creatures came forth to harass them. Saleen went towards the reef. To be more urate, it was hardly considered a reef anymore since it was a few miles wide. If it had been floating on its own on the sea, it could be considered an ind.


    The only reason why it was not considered one was because it was very close to Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s ind, and inparison, only a few yards ofnd could be seen above the surface. It could hardly be categorized as an ind.


    Saleen swam along the reefs and surfaced above the water to gaze at the huge ind that was a few miles away. Finally, he climbed up onto the reefs and the rest followed behind him.


    Saleen did not need to say anything for J to stick within 10 yards of him. Although J was a golden grand swordmaster who was able to control a range that was simr to a sorcerer, his tendency was still to be safe rather than sorry. He felt more at ease if he kept himself within 10 yards of Saleen.


    J had seen Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures before. In fact, Saleen even arranged for J to fight against his elemental creatures, and the leaders of the creatures, so that J could better understand the power of grade-10 creatures.


    J would be able to defeat grade-9 creatures easily even if they were personally led by Saleen. Even if Saleen was not leading them, J had a tough time defeating grade-10 creatures though. Golden grand swordmasters were indeed powerful, but the difference in grade was significant, especially when it was between grade-9 and grade-10.


    Grade-10 elemental creatures possessed intelligence and theirbat experience would only grow by the day. One day, J would surely lose to them. Saleen possessed elemental badges, so J knew that he would have a much easier time protecting Saleen from then on. It was out of habit that he was still sticking so closely to Saleen.


    On the other hand, Nichs kept a distance while being protected by more than 10 ancient warriors. The fallen Holy Master had already decided to entrust his future to Saleen, so he had to be more cautious from then on. He knew his role very well. He was there to heal, not to kill.


    No one knew what state the captured demons would be in by the time they were rescued. There was no way Saleen could escape while carrying the demons. That was when the healing powers of divine spells would be very useful, otherwise Saleen would not have brought Nichs along.


    After the 20 men climbed up the reefs, Saleen used his elemental eyes to observe the ind. As he had developed the elemental eyes from his own abilities, they were much more powerful than those of grade-9 sorcerers. Not only could they observe things further away, they could be used continuously for a very long time.


    A typical pair of elemental eyes could only be used for about an hour if the grade-9 sorcerer tried his very best. On the other hand, Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes could be used anytime for however long he wanted, as long as he was not in a battle.


    Saleen nced towards the sea and realized that the location was further than he thought. There were still many more reefs ahead. The gigantic ind was about five miles away. In such a situation, there was no way the gigantic ancientbat vessel would be able to get close enough to the ind.


    Saleen¡¯s fleet stopped by that cluster of gigantic inds before, but they were no longer the same because a huge pce had been built on the inds. The pce was built in typical Cloudflow-style. It was all the way up on the mountains while ancient-looking towers were built along steep cliffs.


    Unless the hugebat vessels got close enough there was no space on the shore for huge equipment to be set up to attack the pce. Saleen recalled that the pce of Daliang City was also abat fortress. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s pce was even bigger and looked even more resilient than the one in Daliang City.


    A pce of that scale could not possibly be owned by a Duke. Clearly, Grand Duke Iron Blood was disregarding the Cloudflow royal family!


    Saleen could not see the entire pce even with his elemental eyes, but he predicted that the entire ind had been covered by the pce. Besides the beach, there was no other space avable. Even the mountaintops that were very tall were not left alone as Saleen saw watchtowers carved into the three highest mountaintops. There could possibly be weapons such as magic cannons there too.


    The location was only around 5,000 miles away from Lianyun City. A Cloudflowbat vessel would only need around two days to reach it. Saleen thought about it carefully. Although the ancientbat vessel was mainly used for protection and escorting purposes, its massive structure could not possibly be docked at ordinary ports. The ancientbat vessel was extremely stable on the sea, even if there were raging storms and waves.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was using the ancientbat vessel as a fortress on the sea. The rest of hisbat vessels must be anchored around the ancientbat vessel, so that if necessary, they could be linked together with cables to withstand storms.


    When J saw Saleen observing very carefully, he whispered, ¡°My Lord, why don¡¯t we proceed?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood has an ancientbat vessel as well, and there are tens of thousands of ancient warriors onboard. The Cloudflow forces have a way of controlling the ancient warriors, and while theirbat abilities would be reduced, there will still be too many of them.¡±


    ¡°In that case...,¡± J did not continue. He had wanted to say that 30 or 50 of them would not be a problem for him, but then he thought about the formidable defense of tainted blood armor, and he was no longer so confident. No matter how weak the ancient warriors might be, they were still grade-9 warriors, and could not bepared to grade-8 silver grand swordmasters.


    When J sparred against the ancient warriors, although he did not do his very best since he did not want to kill Saleen¡¯s ancient warriors, he knew that even if he did, it would take a heavy toll on him too kill all 24 of them. After all, he had only advanced to grade-9 not long ago and was still in the beginning phase of a golden grand swordmaster.


    ¡°Besides, if we just charge ahead, what will happen to Cuisi and the rest?¡± Saleen stared at J. The other three demons might not be very important, but Cuisi had sustained severe injuries in the past while protecting Eleanor. His grade almost dropped to the extent of not being able to recover. Saleen was someone who was very sensitive to such things. That time around, he was determined to rescue Cuisi, even if it meant sacrificing a few ancient warriors.


    J was also very familiar with Saleen and knew that he was someone that kept his words. He had no choice but to bear with it as Saleen dove into the waters once again. The distance of five miles was too short for a golden grand swordmaster. The speed at which J could travel within 100 miles was so fast that not even grade-9 sorcerers would be a match for him. Even someone like Saleen, who possessed unique flying abilities, would not be as fast as J.


    J was a rash person and could still afford to do everything his own way when Saleen was not around. Saleen was personally leading them that time around, so J had no choice but to obey every order obediently.


    The speed at which Saleen and the rest covered the distance of five miles was not necessarily slowerpared to flying. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s ind could not bepared to Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City, so there were no security features ced underwater and there were very few detection magic arrays. Saleen simply led his group up to the ind.


    The ind was about 50 miles long, so with such a massive pce, it was as if a huge city had been built on it. In addition, there were mountains on the ind, so it would be extremely difficult to set things up around the ind. Saleen believed that Grand Duke Iron Blood had more than 1,000 mages working for him. There was no way so many buildings could be built in such a short time with only craftsmen.


    There was a track for wagons around the edge of the building. It was a few hundred yards wide, and where the terrain was on a higher ground, Grand Duke Iron Blood took the opportunity to pile up huge rocks so that it naturally formed a line of defense. That line of defense was not really a city wall, but merely served to prevent amphibious magic beasts from entering. He did not wish for his own men to be eaten up by magic beasts for no good reason.


    It was evening, and the setting sun cast a long and sharp shadow of a stone pirs onto the wagon track. Saleen and the rest hid themselves amongst the gigantic stone pirs and waited until it waspletely dark. Some soldiers on patrol would walk past on the wagon track. Saleen was able to easily tell that there were 100 soldiers in each group and the person leading them was at least a high-level swordmaster.


    Mages were no weaklings. Saleen¡¯s physique wasparable to that of a zun grand swordmaster. If both parties fought only with their fists, Saleen might not necessarily lose to a high-level swordmaster. However, if the patrolling team met with any mishaps, the ind would be on alert immediately. Saleen had no choice but to bide his time when entering the vicinity of the pce.


    He knew that there was a magic tower hidden in the middle of the ind, so there would definitely be an anti-flying zone. That was why he did not even attempt to try to fly over. It was harder to guard against a group of grade-9 professionals trying to sneak their way in.


    Saleen had built Metatrin City from scratch, so he knew that if there were magic arrays, it was always best to try and sneak in at night. Before the sun had fully set, there was suddenly a huge fog across the sea. Saleen was overjoyed. When the fog drifted to the ind, he cast his Quickcloud spell on himself. Since a grade-9 Quickcloud spell would be able to cover a huge area, all 24 ancient warriors followed Saleen onto the ind.


    Even if one used detection magic, no one would be able to detect anything out of ce about the fog that was created from Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell, unless it was a sorcerer of the same grade. They were concealed by the fog, so even the patrolling soldiers that were carrying hugenterns with them would not be able to detect them.


    The group quickly crossed the wagon track and flipped themselves onto the rocks that acted as a line of defense. Behind the rocks were small fortresses that were spread 1oo yards apart. The castles could only contain five soldiers and the living conditions were tough. There was no way any mages would be found there.


    Saleen led the rest past the line of defense easily. Slightly more than 100 yards behind the defense was the real fortress. It was a towering metal arrow tower and the bottom two levels werebat fortresses for hiding soldiers. It was designed so majestically that it did not look out of ce with the style of the pce.


    ¡°Humph, to think that they would spend so much energy on something as meaningless as this. Indeed, they are Cloudflows!¡±


    Under the protection of the fog, Saleen went past an arrow tower and arrived under a high wall. He patted the cbash on his waist to release a green-colored water current that cut out a hole in the wall in the shape and size of a human. The ancient warriors would lead the way while Saleen would bring up the rear. Before proceeding, he turned back and used the miniature wind dragon to pull back the wall that he had cut down and repaired it with a Fossilization spell. There was no trace of them trespassing.

 Chapter 934: Those who oppose me, Die? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 934: Those who oppose me, Die? (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    They finally reached the edge of the pce after getting over the pce walls. Saleen dared not let his guard down. He had no idea yet where the demons were locked up. Other than the four demons, there were others from the demon army imprisoned as well, and he intended to save as many of them as he could.


    He looked at Nichs, and the old holy master returned the look.


    ¡°Nichs, can you...¡±


    ¡°Lesser prophecy magic can locate the demons, so long as you don¡¯t mind getting your cover blow,¡± Nichs answered in a straightforward manner. The ind was only fifty miles wide, locating the demons using lesser prophecy magic would be a piece of cake. Grade-9 lesser prophecy magic definitely would emanate a Fallen Divine Glow, which was something any mage would have been able to see on the ind.


    ¡°There¡¯s no other way to go about it?¡± Saleen asked, looking at Nichs.


    ¡°A very slow one...¡± Nichs sighed and took out the body of a dead rat, and then drew a blood soul tower with the blood on his hand. A ray of gray light entered the body of the rat. The animated rat rolled about on the floor, before bowing to Nichs.


    The rat was a specialty of Metatrin City. It was known as an ironbone rat from the cold, barrennds of the north. Most rats lived only for a few years, but the ironbone rats were grade-1 magic beasts. They were capable of living for more than fifteen years. Saleen had formed exterminator task forces consisted of mages specifically for eliminating them, so as to open upnds for farming. That was why he was able to recognize the animal.


    It was totally unexpected that Nichs was capable of having souls possess dead bodies. To mages, such an ability was a skill acquired after advancing to grade-10, but Nichs seemed to be very familiar with it, suggesting that he had been practicing the skill for a very long time.


    Sensing Saleen¡¯s heated stare, Nichs borated, ¡°Descension spell. Something used only when there is no other way around it. The skill damages souls. If it were to be me, I could even possess a living person.¡±


    Saleen did not continue asking, as it did not seem like something Nichs would be willing to use in most cases. It probably had something to do with the Holy See. ¡°Descension spell? I know something about the gods being able to possess the bodies of adherents by crossing through nes. I should take note of this then. If grade-12 professionals appear on the Myers Maind, that would mean grade-12 greater oracles could be here as well. The powers of the Holy See would be terrifying by then.¡±


    Nichs spoke to the ironbone rat in some unknown tongue. The rat turned and left. Nichs then said, ¡°My liege, we best find somewhere to hide.¡±


    ¡°Where is that thing?¡±


    ¡°That thing can smell me. It will be able to find its way back to me so long as I stay on the ind,¡± Nichs answered.


    Saleen developed a new understanding regarding the Descension spell. The spell not only retained the descended one¡¯s own ability, but also allowed use of the possessed one¡¯s. Ironbone rats had an impressive sense of smell, yet their eyesight was terrible.


    The spell was a troublesome thing, as it was unknown what kind of skills would be able to counter it. Saleen did not feel alright inside, but he did not let that hinder his movements. His senses were the best in the team. The two dozen of them could not have been able to keep hiding within the mist at the wall. The mist would disperse sooner orter.


    The ind¡¯s terrain was uneven, and the pce meandered with the mountains, spreading the area throughout the curves. They passed through tens of alleys under the cover of the mist and stopped at a warehouse. Saleen¡¯s senses told him that there was no one around, and he immediately went about cutting the warehouse¡¯s walls with current cutter, taking the group inside.


    The warehouse was a big one, yet stored only consumable equipment, weapons, armor, and food for normal soldiers. The inventory of the Cloudflow warehouse differed from that of the Qin people, as a lot of different things were put inside one ce. While it facilitated ease of distribution, storage would be very troublesome.


    Saleen looked around before bringing the group deep inside the warehouse. Maintenance of all those things put under one ce would have been difficult. As such, it seemed that the grand duke had no ns to stay there for long, all the materials stored here were things that needed to be used soon.


    ¡°Attacking Lianyun City? Heh, I will see what Alchemy City is going to go about it!¡±


    Saleen became rather reluctant to kill Grand Duke Iron Blood after the thought came to him. While the grand duke had indeed taken the four demons as his prisoners, as well as sacking the merchant ships under the protection of Metatrin City, his target was Lianyun City. Saleen was then forced to reconsider things.


    Lianyun City was, at the moment, easy to defend and difficult to take down. With the armies of Holy Rock City garrisoning the ce, just what enabled the grand duke to have so much confidence that he can take the ce down?


    Saleen had spies nted in Lianyun City, so he knew that Lianyun City had erected six magic towers, bolstering their defenses by more than ten times. Great amounts of supplies were also stored within Lianyun City, ensuring that the city would never again fall from being surrounded.


    Shelves in the warehouse were erected all the way up to the ceiling, with puppets sitting idly on the corridors. Saleen found the ce where food was stored and stopped. He put up an illusionary magic array and hid the two dozen strong group. The space was tight, and it was fortunate that the ancient warriors had no preference for the environment they were in and did not mind squeezing with each other.


    Saleen dispelled his Quickcloud spell. Nichs had been looking rather nervous throughout. He was still linked to the ironbone rat under his control, but the link was too weak. He was only capable of knowing if the rat had found their target and confirming the coordinates.


    About two hours passed, and Saleen had only meditated once. Nichs let out a grumble all of a sudden and his body shook. Saleen opened his eyes and asked worriedly, ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°My liege. The rat was killed!¡±


    ¡°Did it manage to locate the target?¡±, Saleen did not mind a soul dispersing. In a mage¡¯s perspective, souls were something that would disperse sooner orter, returning to the elements. Doing so would be a better option than staying in blood soul towers.


    ¡°No, my liege!¡± Nichs raised his voice without realizing it, before reminding himself that they were not in a safe ce, and lowered his voice, ¡°My liege, the Descension spell waspletely destroyed. That ironbone rat was killed by an elemental mage skilled in soul techniques!¡±


    ¡°An elemental mage?¡±


    ¡°It felt familiar. This mage is powerful, even somewhat more powerful than you are, my liege, but not yet a grade-10 sorcerer.¡± Nichs did not know how to describe it. He forcibly opened the Descended Eye in hopes of getting what the enemy looked like, but the rat was killed on the ground. He was only able to feel a familiar aura from it.


    The familiarity was simply someone he had kept an eye on before. It was difficult to recall who that was.


    ¡°Nichs, have you been to Cloudflow?¡±


    ¡°Never.¡±


    ¡°Then this wouldn¡¯t have been someone from Cloudflow. You are familiar with them, but you can¡¯t recall who. It is probably someone you have seen once or twice, but someone who would have attracted your attention. Try to think for a bit. Who fits that kind of description?¡± Saleen knew that Grand Duke Iron Blood was a powerful warrior. If he were to have a powerful mage at his side, hisbat capacity would soar.


    Nichs¡¯ Descension spell was one of the Holy See¡¯s most mysterious skills. Outsiders would not be aware of such holy spells, nor any of its secrets at all. The ironbone rat under his control was killed in an instant and its soul was not even able to escape. Nichs¡¯ surprise at this was stronger than Saleen¡¯s.


    Elemental mages hardly had any soul skills before grade-9. That elemental mage was not a grade-10 one, yet they were able topletely eliminate his ironbone rat. Nichs did not want anything else at that moment than to see personally who that mage was. Saleen¡¯s reminder had Nichs thinking. Someone who had caught his attention yet was not from Cloudflow. People who fit such a description were few indeed.


    He had been in the Holy See for most of his life. ces where he spent most time at when he began to follow Saleen were Metatrin City and Daliang City. Holy masters possessed powerful mental powers, and Nichs was able to narrow down the targets to two people when he put his mind to it, and he was able to determine who it was just a split secondter.


    ¡°My liege, we are in big trouble!¡±


    ¡°What trouble?¡± Saleen was puzzled.


    ¡°I remembered who that was!¡±


    ¡°Who then?¡± Saleen was feeling frustrated at the pace Nichs was talking at. ¡°Why did he have to split a sentence up like that?¡±


    ¡°You have seen him before. A sorcerer from Alchemy City, Imposa!¡±


    Imposa...


    Saleen went silent and was shocked. It was not due to Imposa¡¯s strength. With the six elemental badges at his disposal, there would be no problem winning fights against mages of the same level as him.


    He knew that Imposa was a master alchemist who was skilled at human body alchemy. Bone alchemy was but child¡¯s y to someone like Imposa. When Imposa went through Daliang City, he said he was heading to Cloudflow. It was however, unexpected that he would end up being under the grand duke¡¯s employ.


    ¡°This is bad. Imposa¡¯s human body alchemy is something that can definitely control a huge number of ancient warriors!¡±


    How many grade-9 warriors were on the Ancient again? Around sixty-thousand perhaps? If they all ended up being put under Imposa¡¯s control, Metatrin City would not be able to put up much of a fight!


    ¡°No, that can¡¯t be! Regardless of how powerful a grade-9 sorcerer is at alchemy, controlling all ancient warriors would be impossible still. The strength of my soul is frightening, so they can¡¯t be anyone who can beat me at the same level. Even someone like me wouldn¡¯t be able to control more than one-hundred of those warriors. If controlling at the same time, maybe less than fifty. I can now control forty-eight ancient warriors, and that is already the limit. No matter how strong Imposa gets, he can never be able to have control of a number higher than mine. The only possibility is that these ancient warriors are not being put under his control, but just reawakened and made to follow simple instructions. In that case...in that case, Alchemy City would still be in danger. The longer this drags out, the more dangerous things will get. I have no idea how rich Grand Duke Iron Blood is, but someone who is able support Imposa¡¯s human body alchemy must be very, very rich.¡±


    Murderous intent boiled within Saleen¡¯s mind. ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood must die! There is no way I will let things like that continue to happen... but Imposa, should I kill him too?¡±


    Saleen was reminded of Hogina, that female mage who did not seem to have much in the department of brains.


    He had to admit, however, that that student of Imposa was a naive one who posed little threat. She treated Saleen quite well too. If Imposa ended up controlling arge number of ancient warriors, he would be a threat to him as well as to anyone else, unless he was willing to submit to Saleen himself!


    Saleen felt really bad inside. He seemed to be trapped in some strange circle. Anyone who went against him, must die!

 Chapter 935: Those who oppose me, Dies? (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 935: Those who oppose me, Dies? (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was frustrated, and both Nichs and J were not able to do anything to ease such frustration. They were by no means stupid and knew that the ancient warriors could be controlled using alchemy. It was only natural for them to be able to figure out what Saleen was worried about.


    J was a proud genius, yet he dared not im to be able to go against ancient warriors in the tens of thousands. Those warriors would have simply made a beehive out of him. He would not have even been able to stand against hundreds, let alone tens of thousands.


    Nichs¡¯ thoughts were projected even further. If Grand Duke Iron Blood gained the power to control all ancient warriors, the Holy See would not qualify as a threat anymore. The matters that gued his mind would be further and further away from him. Things were not looking bad for him in that regard.


    The problem however, was that Grand Duke Iron Blood would never ally with them. If he were to pick Metatrin City as his first target, things would take a turn for the worse for all of them. Given enough time, his lord might have been able to put more ancient warriors under his control, but the speed at which such a goal would be achieved would definitely never be as fast as using alchemy. That was a matter of time. Would Grand Duke Iron Blood march into the inner maind after attacking Lianyun City, or move north along the shoreline to attack Metatrin City?


    Cloudflow was known for their naval forces, and as such, the chances of them moving north to attack Metatrin City would be bigger still.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes sparkled, and ideas popped up in his mind in the thousands, all of which had to do with how to deal with the crisis right in front of them. Judging from the time Imposa had arrived in Cloudflow, the grand duke had probably been able to put a good number of ancient warriors under hismand. The only problem at the moment was if Cloudflow had mastery over techniques regarding the magic power furnace.


    Manufacture ofrge scale equipment and puppets would beparatively easy with the use of a magic power furnace. In the setting of a war, mastery of such technologies would be a determining factor. Control of ancient warriors would have still been something minor inparison, as the spread of the magic power furnace knowledge would have made the powers in his hands woefully inadequate.


    Saleen had, of course, never thought that he would be able to call himself king of the world, just because he had the elemental badges at his disposal. If that had been the case, Alchemy City would have dominated the entire maind a long time ago. Conquest ofnds still required the might of regr armies, and mages were just something very useful to aid such a cause. A normal sorcerer existed in the ratio of about one in ten-thousand and required decades to foster. If they ended up dead, that would mean the work spent over decades was in vain. Nurturing yet another one would take decades again.


    While sorcerers who advanced at frightening speeds like him did exist, they were nurtured by literally piling huge sums of money on them. ¡°How many magic nuclei have I spent throughout my journey?¡± That was not something even the brains of mages would be able to work out. Regardless, the cost of a normal mage advancing to grade-9 would have been about one-tenth, or less, that what Saleen spent. Such ways of nurturing mages would never be a trend. ¡°How about we go straight up to the grand duke¡¯s side andunch an ambush?¡±


    ¡°My liege, I think that is doable,¡± J said to Saleen.


    ¡°What is doable?¡±


    ¡°My liege, I see you look like you want to kill someone, and someone would be none other than the grand duke. Grand Duke Iron Blood is in his prime now, so he has definitely never considered matters about heirs yet. With him dead, his family would be rendered in a panic, and that means one thorn would be plucked out of your side.¡±


    ¡°Is that how Cloudflow would do things?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is. I know Grand Duke Iron Blood. His sons are all still young. They all have their own supporters behind them. Once he is dead, these supporters will go for each other¡¯s throats, just to keep their own interests intact.¡± J knew Cloudflow people well, and he was not making anything up.


    ¡°No certainty of pulling that just yet. We will focus on saving Cuisi for now.¡± Saleen calmed hearing J¡¯s words. ¡°What is my topmost priority now? To rescue the demons. The grand duke certainly wants to attack Lianyun City first. I best not do anything until then. There is still Holy Rock City standing between us. If Lianyun City remains intact, rtions between Holy Rock City and Alchemy City will never sour. With Alchemy City letting the Cloudflow people pass now, I will see how Safilos handles all that, when Lianyun City actually falls.¡±


    Saleen had no intentions of letting Grand Duke Iron Blood turn into a walking disaster, but he deemed it unnecessary to kill the grand duke yet. The keyid within the Ancient, which was still in the grand duke¡¯s hands, and Imposa as well.


    Having thought that out, Saleen no longer hesitated, and said to Nichs, ¡°Look for Cuisi¡¯s location again. Just keep using the Descension spell. I willpensate whatever you lose.¡±


    Nichs had little option but to nod. He took out more than two dozen bodies of dead ironbone rats, then summoned souls from his blood soul tower and sent them inside the rats¡¯ bodies. The rats reanimated and bowed before Nichs, awaiting his orders. Nichs spoke that strangenguage again to them, before they went on their way.


    ¡°My liege. It is best to kill the grand duke under such circumstances.¡± seeing that Nichs went back to looking senile again, J began advising Saleen.


    ¡°Hard to do. I heard that Cloudflow people have doubles. The one on the ind might not even be Grand Duke Iron Blood himself.¡± Saleen calmedpletely by then. ¡°How could it be possible that the grand duke is willing to put his life on the line, pass through the lockdown at Alchemy City, ande to attack Lianyun City personally? I didn¡¯t encounter anyrge fleets at sea, and the grand duke might not even have his own armies figured out yet. Alchemy City will be on guard against Cloudflow as well. If I go on to kill the grand duke now and it turns out to be a double, that would really be a loss. The grand duke would simply go attack my city first then, and that would contradict my own ns. Fighting wars isn¡¯t something that can be aplished in a year or two. The very reason the Tanggsi Empire is getting so anxious is because theyck food now.¡±


    Saleen was irked thinking how he had been stocking food, buying it at high prices over the past year. He would not have found himself in a corner like that if he had all of Phoenix. What made it all worse was that Alchemy City was threatening him and wanted control over the trade of magic nuclei. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m not selling any now. All magic nuclei go to being tools of war, and all food is produced and consumed on our own.


    Saleen was feeling furious, and yet J was still yapping away.


    ¡°My liege, we have to at least kill a few professionals before we leave, we would look bad if we don¡¯t. Taking your women was just a pretense, what the grand duke was doing was trying to provoke you. If you won¡¯t teach him a lesson, the nobles...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just women then. Take as many as you want from the ind with you then,¡± Saleen said without paying any heed. The very reason the grand duke provoked him was hoping to fight him at sea, and then have the northern waters of Lianyun City be calmed.


    ¡°I¡¯m on guard against Cloudflow, and the Cloudflow people are just as worried about their own power after all.¡±


    Saleen had yet to think of any benefit of duking it out at sea. If he had been able to think it out, he would have had no fear shing with the grand duke. His own Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was as unique as it could have gotten. It was a ship capable of going onnd and jumping onto the Ancient. It was some secret the world had yet to know.


    Saleen did some tests on the Ancient. Even with all magic furnaces at full power, the gigantic ship still would not be as fast as the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel.


    There was a pce in the middle of the ind, and there were a few people drinking there. On the long Cloudflow table, the dishes ced on the intricate chinaware had all gone cold. The four people sitting around the table were still drinking away.


    The leader was someone who was taller sitting down than most people standing up. He had a red beard and was well-built, with well-defined muscles all over his body. He was wearing the silk robes of Cloudflow and wore a tall hat on his head.


    The middle-aged man could not have been described to be handsome in any sense of the world, but he had an imposing aura. His purple eyes looked sharp, so sharp that it seemed that his gaze was something capable of piercing someone¡¯s soul. The issues with his looks were allpensated by his impressive aura. Few would have noticed that his face was severely pockmarked.


    Sitting opposite the pockmarked face was someone who looked even more peculiar. The man¡¯s face was made almost entirely out of metal, with only his chin being that of a human, with a short goatee. The man did not sit on a chair. The entire lower half of his body was fitted with alchemic machinery. Six legs, and an appendage like a scorpion¡¯s tail.


    The man was a sorcerer who hailed from Alchemy City, Imposa. He looked even more frightening than thest time Saleen saw him. There were less and less human parts on him. Other than metals, he was covered with parts made of magic beast bones. One of Imposa¡¯s eyes was also reced with a clear blue crystal. The remaining human eye looked dead, and the eyeball even stopped moving altogether.


    There were two others drinking to their sides. One was dressed in a ck magic robe and was a grade-9 sorcerer like Imposa. The grade-9 sorcerer had gray hair and looked old. It was apparent that he had only be a sorcerer in old age, and his aged looks stuck.


    The other one was dressed in snow-like white. His hair was tied up and he wore a jade awl. There was a short sword on his side.


    He was apparently the youngest of the four, and the one who appeared most normal. While he looked in, he had an air of grace about him. There were four pupils in each of his eyes. Diplocoria was rare enough a thing, and a person who had four pupils on each eyeball was practically unheard of.


    He extended his hand and put out a white china cup, which was filled by a miniature puppet standing about half a yard tall on the table. He wore a ring on his left hand. The ring was etched with a gem, which was covered withplex and intricate magic patterns.


    Judging from how the other three treated him, it seemed that he too was a grade-9 professional, and one who used a sword. That meant that he was a golden grand swordmaster.


    One table, two grade-9 sorcerers, two golden grand swordmasters. The gathering was a disy of power in itself.


    ¡°Sir grand duke.¡± the golden grand swordmaster took up his cup and gestured, ¡°Have you not decided yet?¡±


    The one he was addressing was obviously the tall man with a pockmarked face. Grand Duke Iron Blood, a fitting name for someone with such an imposing stature indeed.


    ¡°Not yet,¡± the grand duke gulped down the wine in his cup. ¡°Metatrin City is a tough one for the moment. I¡¯m not sure if the four woman I¡¯ve taken would have gotten that Saleen angry enough toe ask for a fight. If he made for Lonestar City instead, we will have to attack Lianyun City for the moment.¡±


    The aged sorcerer added, ¡°Grand duke, could we still not take Metatrin City even with Master Imposa here?¡±


    The grand duke shook his head solemnly and answered, ¡°Thirty-six magic towers, Thirty-six of them!¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood crunched the numbers. No expression was visible on the metallic face of Imposa, yet his seemingly dead eye moved. He simply threw the cup into his mouth and swallowed it, before continuing, ¡°Grand duke, if you fancy, I will just go attack Metatrin city with the Iron Blood warriors!¡±

 Chapter 936: Disgusting Smell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 936: Disgusting Smell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master is humorous,¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood spoke in a gentle tone. ¡°The most important task of these iron blood warriors is definitely to destroy Alchemy City. I will take over Qin while you can have Alchemy City. This is what we agreed on. When we have enough iron blood warriors, I will activate the forces on Dragon Ind to help master fulfil your wish. Let Metatrin City be.¡±


    ¡°Duke, you are not saying what you mean.¡± The expression on Imposa¡¯s metallic face remained unchanged. He took the new cup from the miniature puppet and threw it into his mouth, along with the wine.


    ¡°Why not? If Metatrin City sends their fleet here, I will have to let you step out and settle this problem. If it was a direct attack, there will be too many losses and your ns will be affected.


    ¡°How do you know that Metatrin City¡¯s fleet isn¡¯t here?¡± Imposa spoke directly and crudely. He did not seem to care about maintaining rtions.


    ¡°The ancientbat vessel that has gone missing must have been captured by the people of Metatrin City. Thatbat vessel contained the magic array refined by Master Belivare. If they were within 1,000 miles, my mainbat vessel would be able to detect it. Master Imposa, I¡¯m afraid the people of Metatrin City will not be making their way here.¡±


    ¡°I killed something just now. It was just below us. Duke, I¡¯m afraid the people of Metatrin City have already snuck onto the ind.¡± Imposa pointed at the ground with his finger.


    ¡°Oh? What did you kill, master?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood did not see Imposa casting any spells and was genuinely curious.


    ¡°It was something very weak. I have no idea how it managed to get here. If it was a normal and natural magic beast, it would never have dared to get so close to me,¡± Imposa said.


    ¡°A magic beast?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood waved his hands and said, ¡°Men, dig over here!¡±


    With that, bodyguards immediately entered the pce. They took a look at the ground before the bodyguards called for four mechanical puppets to start digging up the ground.


    Imposaughed coldly. The way Cloudflow people went about their business was really disgusting. The golden grand swordmaster, who was by his side, could have done the job easily, but they had to make it big. Nevertheless, Grand Duke Iron Blood had provided him with the best conditions to study alchemy, so he was just going to let him be.


    His entire face was robotic, so it was incapable of making an expression of fury. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s men managed to dig a few yards deep very quickly and found an ironbone rat.


    The rat¡¯s brain exploded. A bodyguard picked it up by its tail and brought it to the Grand Duke.


    ¡°Bring it here.¡± Imposa¡¯s voice was like vibrating metal. The bodyguard¡¯s face turned white. After bringing the corpse of the ironbone rat over, he quickly ran away from Imposa.


    Imposa stared at the bodyguard, who suddenly felt a jolt of pain his back and was suddenly lifted up before being smashed onto the ground. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s bodyguards were all high-level swordmasters, yet they could not withstand even a stare from Imposa.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood did not mind. The bodyguard¡¯s actions were too disrespectful, never mind the fact that Imposa was a grade-9 sorcerer. Even if it had been a grand mage, he would still have punished the bodyguard. In order for his n to groom mages, there must be mutual respect on top of controlling resources. The people that trained in magic were often bad-tempered and arrogant. There was no other way except to give them respect.


    The bodyguard was carried away and Imposa inspected the ironbone rat. He used one of his metallic fingers to peel open the rat¡¯s wound. It was a mess of flesh and blood inside, but he could still see shards of magic nuclei.


    The ironbone rat was a grade-1 magic beast and did not possess any powerful attacks. It only specialized in digging, so its magic nucleus was pathetically small.


    Imposa used his finger to dig out one shard of the magic nucleus and put it in his mouth for tasting. Even Grand Duke Iron Blood found his actions disgusting but managed not to show it.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood had invested so much energy and money just to hire Imposa. For every three iron blood warriors that Imposa refined, the Grand Duke would have to give him two of them, until the former had managed to gather 3,000 of them to attack Alchemy City.


    He had already paid the heavy price of 3,000 iron blood warriors, naturally he was not going to be upset over one disgusting action.


    Imposa used his tongue to try and figure out the taste before spitting it out. He then said, ¡°What a disgusting taste!¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood thought to himself, ¡°This Imposa must be terribly sick. Everyone knew it was disgusting, but he was the one who put it in his own mouth!¡±


    The grade-9 sorcerer, Belivare, was unexpectedly taken aback. In the midst of their training, mages had to experience all sorts of disgusting things. By the time they became a grade-9 sorcerer they should be used to it. That was why he did not flinch when Imposa tasted the shard of magic nuclei that was covered in brain juice. He had touched even more disgusting things when he was conducting his experiments.


    Grade-9 sorcerers only found one thing to be disgusting. That thing was Holy Masters!


    ¡°Master...¡± Although Belivare was also a grade-9 sorcerer, he was full of respect for Imposa. That was the first time he had ever met such a powerful grade-9 sorcerer. He was no match for Imposa, even if thetter did not utilize any equipment. Besides, he had also seen with his own eyes how Imposa was able to kill the silver grand swordmaster in physicalbat. That was almost impossible!


    ¡°A Holy Master... There are Holy Masters on this ind.¡± Imposa¡¯s voice was cold and carried with it the vibration of metal, which made everyone very ufortable.


    ¡°Holy Master?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood was shocked. He did not understand how Holy Masters could appear on his ind. Although the Cloudflow royal family had formed an alliance with the Holy See, his Dragon Ind had absolutely no rtions with the Holy See. Was there anyone decent in the Holy See? If it was possible, the Grand Duke might even destroy the Holy See for good. With those quacks running around and spreading their faith, who else would be willing to work for the noble families?


    ¡°It is a very powerful divine spell. I¡¯m unable to find its source. Grand Duke, the defense of your pce has be a problem.¡± Imposa¡¯s words were hurtful, but the Grand Duke raised his hands in appreciation of what Imposa said.


    ¡°Dark Blue, activate the magic army to hunt down the Holy Master,¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood ordered the golden grand swordmaster.


    ¡°Magic army? They are supposed to protect the pce!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to be afraid of? With Master Imposa here, who else would dare to trespass into the pce?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood waved his hands without any suspicions.


    ¡°Yes, Grand Duke.¡± Dark Blue put down his wine ss and looked at Imposa before leaving the pce. He was not fond of the mage from Alchemy City at all. In his pursuit of power, he had no qualms turning himself into something that was neither human nor ghost. What a pervert.


    Belivare and Dark Blue used to be the subordinates that the Grand Duke trusted the most, but ever since Imposa came, they had both been demoted. Now, he was being asked to capture a Holy Master personally? Was he just an ordinary soldier to be carrying out such mundane tasks?


    Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s pce was built on t ground in the middle of three mountaintops. There was a hill there originally, but it had been ttened with magic. The magic army was stationed there. Dark Blue came over and gathered the people he needed to begin searching for the Holy Master.


    In the warehouse, Nichs opened his eyes and said to Saleen, ¡°My Lord, I have found them. Cuisi and the rest are locked up in the prison.¡±


    ¡°Prison? Weren¡¯t they being taken as concubines?¡± J asked out of curiosity.


    ¡°All you care about is women!¡± Saleen knocked on J¡¯s head and said, ¡°The Grand Duke¡¯s nickname may be ¡®Iron Blood¡¯, but no matter how lustful he is, he would never marry my servants. What if they stabbed him in the middle of the night? Even a golden grand swordmaster would die from that.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, there is one more thing.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°We may have been discovered. A strange army has been activated.¡±


    ¡°Discovered? That¡¯s impossible!¡±


    ¡°My Lord, I may have fallen, but I am still a Holy Master. Imposa is very sensitive,¡± Nichs exined.


    It suddenly dawned on Saleen that Nichs had been with him for so long that he was no longer conscious of the former¡¯s identity. Holy Masters were disgusting to mages. It was not unexpected that Imposa would be able to detect the smell of a Holy Master.


    ¡°How far away is the prison?¡±


    ¡°Twenty miles. It is around the vicinity of the magic tower. My Lord, are we going?¡±


    ¡°Why not? If they are searching for us, they will start from the beach. Once they find our tracks they will begin to search inward. Let¡¯s use this opportunity to see if we can cause some destruction,¡± Saleen said with a smile.


    ¡°My Lord, this grain...¡± J pointed at the grain in the warehouse. He had led the temple army for a period of time before, so he understood the importance of grain. It was different from feeding just a few men. When there were tens of thousands of people to feed, the amount of grain that was moved around in warehouses would be massive.


    ¡°Take it, take the grain!¡± Saleen and Nichs quickly threw the bags of grain into their spatial equipment. Both of them possessed powerful mental strength, so they could store tens of bags of grain in one go without stopping.


    Tens of thousands of pounds of grain might not be significant, but Saleen was used to looting everything.


    Saleen did not care for the other items in the warehouse. They were meant for ordinary soldiers after all. After taking some boxes of arrows, he let Nichs take the lead to bring them to the prison.


    By the time they left the warehouse, it was already dark. Nichs and J were not creatures bonded to him, so sensory sharing would use up too much mental strength. Saleen would let Nichs report the direction before he searched for it himself.


    There was amotion a distance away. An unknown number of soldiers seemed to have blocked off an entire street and was conducting a search. By then, the fog had already dissipated. Saleen frowned and said to Nichs, ¡°Are you able to control a troop of soldiers?¡±


    Nichs nodded. There were certain divine spells that could control someone forcefully, but they required arge difference in grades.


    When Saleen saw that Nichs was not having any problems, he led the ancient warriors onto the street. A troop of soldiers was walking towards them. There were only 40 of them and they were carrying magicmps. Saleen quickly unleashed his Quickcloud spell, and instantaneously, the entire street was filled with fog. There was a fragrance in the fog and, aside from the team leader, all the other soldiers copsed onto the ground.


    J took out a rock and smashed it against the chest of the team leader, who finally copsed onto the ground as well. Saleen said, ¡°Nichs, make them continue their search normally. Don¡¯t let anyone find out.¡±

 Chapter 937: Disgusting Smell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 937: Disgusting Smell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs put away his fallen staff and took out his Forbidden Code. The Code was refined by Saleen from the materials he had gathered in Metatrin City.


    It was more difficult to refine equipment for Holy Masterspared to mages. Fortunately, Nichs already possessed the power of fallen faith as a result of his blood soul tower and was more powerful than before. After the constraints that Fycro ced on him had been removed, Nichs was finally able to unleash the full abilities of a grade-9 fallen Holy Master.


    On the purple cover of the Forbidden Code there were words written in the Tanggsinguage, which Nichs was familiar with. Every Forbidden Code was different. All the words on the Code were written by Nichs and all the souls that had been bewitched by him were the source of power for the Code.


    Amidst the soldiers that had copsed, Nichs opened his Forbidden Code. There were only 24 pages in the Code and each page was written with the faith that Nichs had created. He had only opened up to page six when tens of cursive words flew out of the Code and into the soldiers¡¯ brains.


    With a single shout, the soldiers sat up and looked around them before nervously reaching for their weapons. Nichs asked in a low tone, ¡°Why aren¡¯t you kneeling?!¡±


    He was speaking in the Tanggsinguage. When the soldiers heard it, it was as if Nichs had instantaneously turned into an almighty God who had a halo high in the sky. Although the soldiers felt uneasy about it, they still knelt and bowed down to Nichs.


    ¡°Carry on with what you all were doing. Don¡¯t mention what you have seen. Go,¡± Nichs ordered, and the soldiers obeyed.


    Saleen was confused to see how quickly Nichs managed to settle the soldiers. Nichs smiled and said, ¡°My Lord, the strongest among those soldiers was only a high-level swordmaster and most of them were swordsmen. It was easy to deal with them.¡±


    ¡°How long can you control them?¡±


    ¡°About two to three days. I don¡¯t think we will be staying here for more than a day anyway. As long as these soldiers don¡¯t encounter any mages or Holy Masters above grade-7, our secret will be safe. If they do meet any sorcerers, I can¡¯t guarantee anything.¡±


    ¡°No worries. Sorcerers rarely noticed soldiers of such grades. Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen led them through the narrow corridor and headed towards the interior of the ind. Saleen had followed Nichs¡¯ suggestion in splitting up the coordinates of the entire ind into several regions. The prison was located in the middle of the ind. While a distance of 20 miles might not be very far, they had to avoid patrols and would constantly have to stop here and there. If they reached a ce that they could not pass through, they would depend on Nichs to bewitch the soldiers with his Forbidden Code.


    Saleen was shocked by how quickly Nichs managed to control the enemy, even though Saleen and the ancient warriors were the first to knock the enemies down before Nichs did what he had to do.


    By then, Saleen had developed a more intuitive understanding of souls. He was able to guess that if the soldiers had been conscious, Nichs would have had a tougher time against them. The technique could be utilized in battles too, but by controlling enemies to fight for you, one would also reduce the amount of time they had control over them.


    Of course, the Forbidden Code could be utilized in other ways. It could also store divine spells, otherwise Nichs would not have specially requested for Saleen to gather materials to refine that equipment just before they left.


    Before they could travel five miles, tens of gigantic shadows suddenly appeared in the sky. They swooped past swiftly while letting out deafening cries. Saleen could not help but use his elemental eyes. He saw gigantic metallic monsters that were tens of yards long. Underneath the monsters were mounted magicmps that would light up the ces that they flew past.


    Saleen cursed silently. ¡°D**n these Cloudflows. They really managed to study those flying alchemy mechanics on the ancientbat vessel. These flying monsters were one out of more equipment on board the ancientbat vessel.¡±


    Nich was right. They would not be able to stay too long on the ind anyway. There would be a significant number of sorcerers on the ind. Once the soldiers that had been bewitched by Nichs were discovered, they would be able to track Saleen and the rest down very quickly.


    The sooner they couldplete the rescue, the better. Therefore, Saleen decided to take the risk and increased his speed as he headed towards the direction of the prison.


    On the exterior of the ind, and along the wagon track by the sea, a group of elite soldiers were searching carefully. 200 men made up the group of soldiers and they were led by a sorcerer and a general. The general was personally apanying the sorcerer in this search. The sorcerer was wearing a ck magic robe, which had two rows of magic symbols on it.


    The grade-8 sorcerer was close to two yards tall. His facial features were gentle and clean. He was moving slower than the other soldiers in the patrol. Although the general was following close behind him very anxiously, there was nothing much the he could do.


    ¡°Disgusting smell...¡± The grade-8 sorcerer pinched his nose and walked over to the pce wall before unleashing a detection spell. The light magic light shone on the pce wall and revealed traces of the wall being cut before.


    ¡°Here, a Holy Master has been here,¡± the sorcerer said as he pointed at the wall.


    ¡°Master, what exactly happened?¡± The general gestured to his men behind his back while asking the sorcerer. His men immediately blew a whistle, gathering even more soldiers towards them. Huge metallic monsters were still circling around in the sky. When the flying monsters descended down, the soldiers on the ground could smell a fishy smell that was mixed with metal.


    The metallic monsters let out roaring sounds, as if there were hundreds of metal puppets inside them that were constantly shing against each other. All the soldiers on the ground were relieved that they were not chosen to look after the metallic monsters. They had no idea how those that had been chosen were able to put up with such noise.


    Two towering metal puppets were pushed up with giant axes in their hands. They managed to hack down the wall very quickly, allowing the soldiers to enter. The sorcerer chose to follow behind the soldiers instead of leading the way.


    By then, Saleen had almost reached the prison. The location of the prison was a standalone stone fortress. Clearly, Grand Duke Iron Blood did not treat the fairer gender any better. Even though Cuisi and the other demons had turned themselves into beauties, they were still locked up together with the other demons. When Saleen reached the exterior of the prison, he bumped into a group of soldiers that were about to bring 10 or so demons out of the prison.


    Although a demon city had been built in Metatrin City, demons were still considered something that was very rare to mages from other countries. They were often the subjects of mages¡¯ research. The demons were chained up and they looked extremely pitiful. Their mouths were stuffed with metal balls and they could only let out sounds of anguish through their noses.


    When Saleen saw that, he made up his mind to kill the soldiers. He shouted, ¡°Go!¡±


    The 24 ancient warriors pounced. Before the soldiers could react, their foreheads had already been pierced through by the ancient warriors¡¯ longnces. The difference in grades was so huge that Saleen could not be bothered tomand the ancient warriors. After killing the enemy, the ancient warriors easily dismantled the chains on the demons.


    Nichs shouted, ¡°Loosen!¡±


    The metal balls in the demons¡¯ mouths and the metal chains on their bodies were all loosened. With one nce of his elemental eyes, Saleen knew who the strongest demon amongst them was. He threw a bottle of magic fluid to that demon before throwing over another huge leather skin, which was filled with restorative water.


    Saleen said, ¡°Distribute that, then follow us.¡±


    That demon did not recognize Saleen, but fortunately, Nailisi has taught them well. The demons silently took the restorative water and drank it. Saleen led the way in front and did not pay much attention to the demons. From his magic robe, he immediately unleashed the grade-9 spell of stone statue soldiers.


    Although Saleen¡¯s devil suit was made of better materials, the spells on it had not advanced. The magic array that Gaine replicated was not as good as the one refined by Joey. There were only six grade-9 spells and he would no longer be able to remove the seal to advance. Besides, as astrologerscked understanding of magic, the recovery time for the six grade-9 spells remained at six hours.


    The only redemption was that the magic nucleus on the mask of the devil suit was of a higher grade. In terms of the power and speed of the grade-9 spells, they had all increased.


    Saleen unleashed six stone statue soldiers. After their magic nuclei had been changed, the stone statue soldiers were finally wielding elemental war hammers. The stone statue soldiers were as tall as nine yards. They dashed to the front and smashed down the main door of the prison.


    The prison was built like a fortress, so that huge puppets coulde and go so naturally. It was easy for the nine yard tall stone statue soldiers to enter as well.


    Everything happened so fast that the soldiers in the prison did not even have time to lock the main door before it was destroyed. Then, the 24 ancient warriors dashed in and stabbed the soldiers to death.


    There was a small za after the main door. Saleenmanded the stone statue soldiers to stay here and block the entrance so that no one else would be able to enter. Then, he took out his magicpass and once he managed to locate Cuisi, he summoned six Midnight Fangs and six Vermillion Knights from his elemental badge.


    The Midnight Fangs immediately blended into the shadows andid in ambush while the Vermillion Knightsmanded their ming warhorses to charge towards the walls of the prison.


    This prison was not built to withstand attacks from grade-9 creatures. If it had been a magic tower, a grade-9 creature would only seed in destroying itself. Rows and rows of walls were knocked down by the Vermillion Knights. All the soldiers that tried to stop them were burnt into ashes.


    Saleen led the 24 ancient warriors to the dungeon, where Cuisi and the rest were locked up. Once Saleen located the dungeon, J stepped forward and hacked off the gigantic magic lock.


    To a golden grand swordmaster, only the magic locks of grade-9 sorcerers were difficult to handle. On the other hand, magic locks like that one, which was not even grade-7, was child¡¯s y.


    Saleen cast water shield on himself and jumped down. The entrance of the dungeon was vertical and there was a metaldder for climbing up or down. Saleen was toozy to use it. Ever since his return from the Imperial City of the Abyss, the way Saleen went about doing things had be more direct and efficient.


    ¡°Cuisi!¡± Saleen shouted. The smell in the dungeon was horrible. He was sure that he was at the right ce, but his elemental eyes failed to spot Cuisi. His shout was embedded with a bit of power from the Angel of Fear and the rule of lightning.


    All of a sudden, the ground began to shake, and a gigantic magic array was activated. The 24 ancient warriors pierced downwards with their longnces at the same time. The ground copsed and revealed a water dungeon underneath.


    In the water dungeon, four demons were chained up against the wall. When they saw the light of magic above them, they raised their heads.


    ¡°Your Highness, I knew you woulde!¡± There was no joy in Cuisi¡¯s tone, just an undeniable certainty.

 Chapter 938: Might of Alchemists (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 938: Might of Alchemists (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen noticed it and was relieved as well. His effort in rescuing the demons had not been for naught.


    There was a saying among mages: ¡°those who treat you best, are often the ones who give the most for your sake¡±. The saying was something that could have been easily understood, yet it was an apt one nheless. Regardless of how well you treated someone, there was just no guarantee that you would get anything in return, but those who had been there for you, were probably the ones who had been doing things for your sake without you knowing it.


    ¡°Nichs...¡± Saleen turned around and gestured for Nichs to make a move.


    Nichs took out his Scepter of the Fallen and struck it hard on the ground. Gray light emanated, and the standing water made by the water prison was repelled. It gushed into the prison nearby. The chains on the four demons broke and their injuries twisted in an eerie manner, healing at breakneck speed. Nichs took a deep breath and chanted loudly without paying any attention to the stench of the water prison.


    ¡°O¡¯ adherents, our fates are one throughout. When cmity descends upon you, please offer your power!¡± Nichs¡¯ voice congealed, and all went inside the blood soul tower.


    When the tens of thousands of souls within the blood soul tower witnessed their mighty god call for them, all could not help but release powerful soul vibrations, generating threads of power which coalesced into Nichs¡¯ personal symbol. They then flew out of the blood soul tower and seeped into the bodies of the four demons.


    Saleen said nothing, but Nichs had his own calctions. Almost half of the healing power was sent into Cuisi¡¯s body, who had the highest level. The demon¡¯s powerful healing powers exploded. He took a step forward and turned into his demon form.


    The other three had yet to break through to the level of supreme demon. While their amount of healing received was small, they were able to take their original forms nheless. Nichs¡¯ divine spells broke the control on the four demons in one go. The spells on the walls were all suppressed by grade-9 divine spells, which simply dispelled instead of causing an elemental copse.


    The water within the prison was still being repelled by the divine spell, as Cuisi took a step forward and addressed His Highness.


    Saleen said, ¡°I will release all the demons, and I will be taking as many as I can with me. Here are your weapons,¡± Saleen finished his sentence and took out weapons made for the demons from his Devil Ring, which he distributed to the demons.


    The elemental creatures did not follow them. Saleen and the rest of the group jumped onto the first floor of the dungeon, breaking through one metal door after another, releasing all the demons locked within. Saleen distributed all the restorative water he brought with him. Freed from the shackles of magic arrays within their cells, their injuries quickly healed after gulping down the restorative water.


    Having kicked such a huge ruckus, the team out there looking for Saleen had their work cut short. There were already mages sounding the rm from the high ground behind the prison. Up to one-hundred magicmps shone on the peaks around the area, making the vicinity of the prison bright as day.


    Having found Cuisi and the demons, Saleen cared nothing about being exposed. There were over one-hundred demons behind him when he emerged from the dungeon. All of them were fully equipped and all held giant halberds on their hands.


    The over one-hundred demons were all in decent fighting shape. Saleen did not expect himself to be able to save everyone. He just wanted to bring as many as possible away with him.


    ¡°My liege!¡± J pointed at the sky, where tens of metallic monsters flew in their direction, and dropped stone shells burning with oil. Tens of shadows flew right behind the metallic monsters. Saleen had better eyes than J, and he saw sixty-four figures dressed in tainted blood armor.


    ¡°My liege, let¡¯s go,¡± Nichs rushed.


    Saleen red at the faraway magic towers. Six tall towers were erected in three peaks. If there had not been sixty-four ancient warriors showing up, Saleen would have definitely loved to topple at least one.


    Magic towers were the strongest defense avable to mages, yet that was not to say that the buildings were indestructible. If Saleen gathered his forces and went to tear down one of them, he would have still had a good chance at it. The swarm of six grade-10 elemental creatures and grade-9 elemental creatures numbering close to one-thousand, was not something any magic tower could have defended against.


    With the sixty-four ancient warriorsing to his aid however, Saleen¡¯s intention to take out his frustration and anger pent up inside at the towers diminished considerably. He had no fear of doing such things, yet the mission at hand was to save Cuisi. Leaving four demons there just so that he could have gone toppling towers would have been pointless.


    Grasping the hearts of the people was crucial to a country¡¯s stability. Other than for his own interest, his rescue of Cuisi was also an act to appease the nobles. The Myers Maind was clearly a mess, and the nobles were in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Nothing could have given them peace of mind better than serving under a strong king.


    Cuisi¡¯s return held a great significance, and Saleen had his own target in all of it. He summoned creatures of all other elements, seeing the sixty-four ancient warriors flying in his direction. He only summoned thirty-six elemental creatures as he was still required to control the ancient warriors.


    Elemental Stone Statue Warriors cleaved the path ahead of them within their magic warhammers, and Vermillion Knights rampaged about. The Blue Ice Maidens did not have steads, as such, they simply grew to one-hundred yards tall and wrecked any nearby buildings they were able to find. Any enemy troops found were stomped under their feet.


    Six Tempest Dragon-mights rode wind dragons and made for the sky. The weapons in their hand kept changing shapes until they resembled magic stone cannons. The cannons however, were created entirely out of wind element, coalesced to the point where they looked as if they were made of crystals. What the cannons shot were grade-8 Tempest Spears.


    The rate of fire of the Tempest Spear spell was higher than hive crossbows. One metallic monster blew up after another as they were strafed at by the Tempest Spears, sprinkling the ground below with metal kes. The soldiers riding the metallic monsters were torn to shreds by the attacking wind element, with no identifiable bodies to be found.


    The metallic monsters intending to gather at that point from afar turned around and fled. The flying machines were not all that durable but being able to fly at great heights meant that no conventional spells would be able to hit them. The great speeds achieved when they burst was something that not evenrge scale projectile throwing magic equipment would have been able to hit urately. Magic attack abilities of grade-9 elemental creatures however, were far more potent than those of grade-9 sorcerers.


    The weakness of elemental creaturesid with theirck of versatility. The potency of their spells was not something that humans of the same level could have achieved. Tempest Dragon-mights were wind elemental creatures. Their speed and agility disyed in the air was vastly superior to the metallic monsters¡¯.


    Saleen made a move actively himself, which drew the attention of the sorcerers in the magic towers immediately. The magic images quickly reached the pce of Grand Duke Iron Blood. Both Imposa and Belivare were shocked to their bones seeing the images.


    ¡°Elemental creatures!¡± Belivare shouted,pletely losing theposure of a grade-9 sorcerer.


    Imposa shouted instead, ¡°Elemental badges!¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was no mage, but he was knowledgeable nheless. He yearned ceaselessly for great power, especially after advancing into grade-9, making it a habit to collect all types of equipment, knowledge regarding the equipment, and the skills to further his studies.


    The grand duke was hardly able to sit still as soon as he heard ¡®elemental badges¡¯. He stood up fiercely and asked, ¡°Master, are they real?¡±


    ¡°Definitely. Look, there is fierce elemental fire on the ground! What are those? Vermillion Knights, that is what!¡±


    ¡°The ones in the sky?¡±


    ¡°Tempest Dragon-mights!¡± Belivare was so excited that his voice turned squeaky.


    ¡°Grand duke, I think the king himself is here!¡± Imposa said to the grand duke.


    ¡°If we all move against him, what are the chances of us keeping him here?¡±


    ¡°If he has got all six elemental badges with him, I¡¯m afraid not. Our powers lie chiefly with the Ancient. The ship won¡¯t be able to make it back in time.¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood spit at the ground in anger. His spit contained blood from biting down too hard in his mouth.


    ¡°I can¡¯t have it. I must have him leave something behind!¡± the grand duke hesitated for less than three seconds, before uttering the words.


    ¡°Grand duke, you are not in the right mind. We have said...¡± Imposa said, irritated.


    ¡°Master, rest assured. Whatever you lose, I will make it up to you! No, I will pay twice that!¡± The grand duke¡¯s eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the images. ¡°That Saleen... what kind of luck is this guy having indeed! He¡¯s collecting elemental creatures and made badges with them! I have to kill him. Someone who is capable enough to take my Ancient can¡¯t be left alive for long. My ns for conquering the entire maind will have been for nothing if someone like that stays alive.¡±


    ¡°Twice?¡± Imposa looked at the grand duke, and the grand duke answered in an affirmative manner, ¡°Twice!¡±


    ¡°There is no point to me holding back, if you don¡¯t mind yourself,¡± Imposa said and whistled in a very high pitch. He burst right through the roof as soon as his six legs kicked the ground beneath him. The one-hundred and twenty warriors donning tainted blood armor, who were standing by silently outside the pce, went up the roof as the whistle reached their ears.


    Imposa¡¯s tail iled about, and therge metal disk flew off his chest. The metal disk had a diameter of over thirty yards and levitated in the air. It was thick at the center, thin at the edges. The outermost edge was a ring of metal gears. Imposa¡¯s legs were swift, and he made it on top of the disk while the one-hundred and twenty ancient warriors went jumping up there with him.


    The roof of the pce squeaked as the disk weighed on it, and the walls of the pce copsed soon after. Imposa flew the giant metal disk in the direction of the prison.


    ¡°Grand duke, what about me?¡± Belivare could not resist asking. While Cloudflow people were cowardly, they nheless possessed some measure of curiosity. ¡°If I can just get my hands on just one elemental creature...¡± He was eager to join the fray.


    ¡°Just stay behind. Imposa¡¯s power ballooned too quickly. I¡¯m afraid he will be advancing into grade-10 soon, and we won¡¯t be able to do anything to him by then. It will be very troublesome for us if that happens. His ambition is something not even his student is aware of. Tell me, do you think he will stay behind to serve us?¡±


    Belivare felt a shiver running down his spine seeing the grand duke¡¯s expressions.


    The grand dukeughed heartily and said, ¡°Belivare, you are different. You have been with us for four generations. That Imposa is from Alchemy City after all, and there was no way I will lower my guard around him.¡±


    ¡°Truer words have never been said, sir,¡± Belivare said in an immensely polite manner, losing all theposure he had shown at the feast earlier.

 Chapter 939: Might of Alchemists (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 939: Might of Alchemists (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Rx Belivare. I will definitely have you advance to grade-10 and be the most prestigious mage in the family. No matter how strong Imposa gets, his target remains Alchemy City; it is too small. When I conquer the entire maind and have all the first dynasty ruins excavated and studied, won¡¯t we be one-hundred times more powerful than Alchemy City?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood told Belivare with a different look after seeing Belivare had submitted to his words.


    The grand duke¡¯s eyes turned from bloodshot red to blue, and his demeanor mellowed considerably. Only then did Belivare truly rx. He was truly loyal to the grand duke, and that was not because the hulking giant of a man was of a bloodline his family served for four generations; he was loyal to the grand duke because the grand duke was a truly exceptional person.


    From Belivare¡¯s perspective, Grand Duke Iron Blood might end up being the first grand swordmaster ever to advance to grade-10. ¡°No, that isn¡¯t it. A grade-10 martial artist is no longer a grand swordmaster but has True Might¡ªtrue martial embodiment casting off the narrow shackling definition of the sword aura, and one that resembles the ancient warriors.¡±


    Advancement into the level of true might was a far more difficult feat to achieve than advancement into a grade-10 sorcerer. Once the breakthrough was made, the benefits that followed were ones that warriors could have only dreamed of¡ªextension of one¡¯s lifespan. Golden grand swordmasters could only live for two or three hundred years at most, but a true might was one with a lifespan on par with sorcerers, being capable of living for at least twelve-hundred years.


    Once the lifespan was extended and that the True-Might advanced to grade-12, their lifespan would be on par with that of a sorcerer of the same level.


    Belivare¡¯s knowledge of things was limited and niche, yet he knew very well of anything regarding the ancient warriors, and that there were little obstacles advancing from grade-10 to grade-12. At the very least, the advancement of warriors would prove to be easier than mages. Once Grand Duke Iron Blood reached such a stage, he would be able to establish an empiresting for ten-thousand years, just like the first dynasty.


    Imposa¡¯s desire to subjugate Alchemy City was little more than child¡¯s y inparison. The grand duke wanted more. He had made ns fornds beyond the Myers Maind, reverse-engineering all manner of warships from the first dynasty to conquer thends beyond and to unite the entire ne under one rule. The grand duke had even considered recreating the glory of ancient humans¡ªthe conquest of other nes.


    If a being with desires so insatiable that it surpassed the likes of gods, and were willing to continue improving themselves, it would be almost guaranteed that Belivare¡¯s position would have continued to soar.


    The six imposing magic towers began attacking. Huge fireballs, meteors filling the sky, and storms appearing out of nowhere, all struck where Saleen stood. The towers were all several miles away. As they were linked together by magic arrays, the power generated was enhanced to their pinnacle.


    Saleen spared no concern for his elemental creatures; it was a pity that half of the demons rescued painstakingly were instantly wiped up by enemy magic instead. The fireballs conjured by the towers all had diameters of over six yards. No matter how simple such attacks were, their sheer sizes made it so that no mage would take them for granted.


    Saleen did not, however, spare any mind to take control of the demons, as the sixty-four ancient warriors had all made it there. The Tempest Dragon-mights in Saleen¡¯s badge all flew out to fight the warriors.


    The fight was simple and brutal. The ancient warriors, or rather, beings known as iron blood warriors by the Cloudflow people, all had their spears gleaming with bright red light. They thrust right at the bodies of the Tempest Dragon-mights. The Tempest Dragon-mights transformed their weapons into windde swords. Every single sh generated forty to fifty wind des, making the attacks almost impossible to evade.


    The iron blood warriors however, did not bother evading at all. Their tainted blood armor exploded with even brighter shimmering red light, taking the wind des and the elemental long des of the Tempest Dragon-mights head-on, while turning their spears into tens of thousands of venomous snakes.


    Saleen frowned. He was able to see that the wind elemental creatures were not doing so well, but he refrained from summoning the Midnight Fangs; they were saved exclusively for taking on the grand duke. Saleen¡¯s intuition told him that there were even more powerful enemies awaiting.


    Still, Saleen was not able to just sit by and see the Tempest Dragon-mights being ughtered by the iron blood warriors. The leader of the wind elemental creatures was the weakest among all six leaders. If the Tempest Dragon-mights were thoroughly wiped out, recovery would take about a month, or even longer.


    ¡°Nichs, take the ancient warriors and the demons to the beach. I will be right behind you,¡± Saleen ordered.


    ¡°My liege!¡±


    ¡°J is with me,¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was cold as he summoned re. Seeing his lord insisted on staying, Nichs had no choice but to take Cuisi and the demons away.


    The group breaking off was met with little resistance. The very reason Saleen stayed behind was to keep the grand duke¡¯s attention on him after all. Saleen still had his family badge, as well as the Crystal Finger with him.


    Just as Nichs led the demons to break through the surrounding enemy troops, magic lights from the six magic towers joined and a massive magic array appeared in the air, startling J.


    Saleen, however, responded calmly. ¡°That is just a grade-10 magic array, Elemental Prison. Nothing to be afraid of. It¡¯s just being set up to keep us from leaving. J, are you scared?¡±


    ¡°Me, scared, why? I don¡¯t use any elemental magic!¡± J answered with pride holding Tears in his hands. He refused to behave like a subordinate in front of Saleen in battles, and retreating was not an option. He was, at the moment, a powerful golden grand swordmaster, the pinnacle of grade-9 professional, and nothing else.


    Seeing how J was eager to try his hand, Saleen said, ¡°Go clean those goons up, before the real, big ones show up!¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡± golden air exploded around J, engulfing him in golden sword aura. Only his sword, Tears, remained like frost.


    A golden grand swordmaster¡¯s flight speed surpassed that of a grade-9 sorcerer. J made his way high in the air. In the sh between the iron blood warriors and the Tempest Dragon-mights, a cold, longsword joined the fray.


    The Tempest Dragon-mights were no sitting ducks. They lost only a bit of wind element when the spears d in blood red aura stabbed into the wind elemental creatures, making them smaller. Killing elemental creatures with one single blow was not a feat that could have been pulled off by iron blood warriors controlled by human body alchemy. Even the likes of J would have needed considerable effort to be able to pierce the cores of the elemental creatures.


    The tables were turned instantly as soon as J joined the fray. The number of Tempest Dragon-mights were more than twice the iron blood warriors. The enemy was no longer able to gain any ground against them once a golden grand swordmaster fought alongside them.


    J had experience fighting ancient warriors. Thebat capacity of the iron blood warriors was somewhat weaker than ancient warriors who were not under someone¡¯s control. It may have been impossible to tell such things if the enemy had not been J. His swordnded on the neck of one iron blood warrior, and that served as a good enough indicator.


    The tainted blood armor of the iron blood warriors was not enhanced! Gleaming golden sword aura burst from the sword. The armor protecting the iron blood warrior¡¯s neck crumbled without the tip of the sword moving, and the bones of the neck underneath snapped cleanly.


    Iron blood warriors were no spirits. While they might not have died simply from having their necks broken, such injuries would have rendered them incapable of using their spears. Two Tempest Dragon-mights rushed at the warrior with their elemental des cutting maniacally at it. The tainted blood armor broke apart under such a relentless attack and fell to the ground.


    Saleen was being surrounded by his own Stone Statue Soldiers. His spell had yet to bepleted. The Devil Suit¡¯s fixed magic created six nine yard tall Stone Statue Soldiers every six minutes. Saleen was being surrounded by twelve at that moment, keeping him safe at the center. Seeing that yet another six were to appear soon, Saleen summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers from his badge at the same time. His surroundings could have been said to be sealed airtight.


    Attacks from the six towers stopped. With the Elemental Prison spellpleted, the six towers were no longer able to attack them. Saleen wanted a way to break through the area covered by the magic towers, and he was unable to think of any. His options were limited to the ground. Taking it to the air would have been taxing on his energy reserves, unless he was a wind elemental creature himself.


    Saleen gauged Nichs¡¯ speed, and thought the old man should have been at the beach by then. Only then had he took out his War Drum of Fear and put it in front of him.


    The pests within the drum trembled at the sight of therge bone mace in Saleen¡¯s hand. Every time Saleen hit the drum, they were tortured. Refusing to generate the required energies would have made them a target of the drum¡¯s attack.


    Doom, doom, doom...


    Saleen swung the bone mace on the drum as hard as he could, and the energy from the drum emanated around explosively. Saleen was surrounded by troops numbering in at least the thousands, yet the troops simply surrounded him from a distance, instead ofing forth. The mages in the soldiers¡¯ midst had only buffed the soldiers with defensive spells, to defend against the impacts of Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures.


    The Cloudflow soldiers all writhed painfully on the ground as Saleen beat away at the drum. Not even the mages behind the soldiers were able to hold against its effects; the mages dropped on the ground one by one, shrieking in pain. Countless phantasms appeared in the minds of the soldiers. The phantasms differed from one soldier to another; themon theme that they shared was that they represented their deepest fears.


    Saleen was unable to stop the angel of fear¡¯s attacks when he was a level-8 mage. Swordmasters hardly existed among the enemy troops. The attack of the War Drum of Fear reached the magic tower miles away, weakened only when the wave hit the edge of the Elemental Prison.


    A huge metallic disk neared him in the sky. Saleen beat at the drum while observing with his Elemental Eye. Over one-hundred iron blood warriors standing on the disk startled him. While he had more elemental creatures at his disposal, there was one six-legged man in the midst of the iron blood warriors. The man had a scorpion tail-like appendage at his rear.


    Imposa! He was there indeed.


    Imposa was definitely the very reason the grand duke was able to get his hands on so many iron blood warriors. The ancient warriors in the Ancient warship that Saleen took for himself showed little signs of being ced under control, with the exception of a few, and it was done with crude human body alchemy methods. Imposa was an expert in human body alchemy, and there was no one else like him in Alchemy City.


    Over one-hundred iron blood warriors would definitely have proven to be more powerful than the ones in front of Saleen if Imposa had taken control of them. That worked like his case with his own elemental creatures. Without him giving instructions, the elemental creatures would have beenpletely in disadvantage in the fight against the iron blood warriors.


    What astonished Saleen further was the metallic disk under Impossa¡¯s feet. The disk had a diameter of over thirty yards and emanated little elemental vibrations as it took to the air. Such methods of flight were something he had dreamed of¡ªthe flight capability of Sky City.


    Imposa¡¯s flying disk probably housed more than six miniature magic power furnaces. The master alchemist had begun deciphering the secrets of the Ancient!


    Saleen wracked his brains wanting to create a flying magic tower, and yet before it was anywhere nearpletion, the enemy had created flying equipment. One that allowed for easy, intuitive control. The level difference brought about by alchemy was apparent. Saleen frowned and took a badge in his hand.


    Blue lights danced around the lightning marks in the middle of the badge. One sh of lightning was all that it would have taken to kill Imposa once and for all. How was he able to escape the Elemental Prison if he were to kill to Imposa?


    Imposa¡¯s disk made it to about two-hundred yards away from Saleen before stopping. He looked at Saleen from above. The young man being protected by multiple elemental creatures returned the re from below with his blue eyes.

 Chapter 940: Golden Breakthrough (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 940: Golden Breakthrough (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked at Imposa. He looked very different from the first time Saleen saw him. Other than his chin, the rest of Imposa¡¯s face was metal. One of his eyes was made of crystal, while the beard on his chin gathered elemental aura.


    Saleen looked up and down at Imposa¡¯s entire body and realized that his front legs resembled those of gigantic insects as the distal joints grew thin hair.


    Imposa did not stand in the middle of the iron blood warriors. Instead, he stood at the front of the metal disc. More than 100 iron blood warriors split themselves up to protect both nks. Saleen silently put away his n badge. He did that purely based a on gut feeling.


    Elemental Prison was a massive grade-10 spell which prevented Saleen from flying out of the center of the ind. If he tried to leave on foot, he would definitely lose at least some of his elemental creatures. Fortunately, Nichs managed to escape first, otherwise it would be even more difficult for him to unleash his techniques if there were many other people by his side.


    ¡°Your Highness, Saleen.¡± Imposa looked down at Saleen from the higher ground. Both of them were 200 yards apart. Imposa¡¯s location was not suitable for attack and he was not concerned about Saleen attacking him either. All spells required a process of preparation. Other than preventing Saleen from flying away, the Elemental Prison would also slow down the speed at which spells could be cast.


    ¡°Imposa.¡± Saleen looked at this sorcerer quietly as his hands stopped hitting the War Drum of Fear. Thousands of soldiers were still rolling on the floor and screaming in pain.


    A magic array began to spin in Imposa¡¯s crystallized eye. He observed Saleen¡¯s War Drum of Fear and realized that it was an equipment of a very high grade. What was the war drum made of? It looked like human skin.


    Human skin war drums were refined by ck magicians and were not something that Saleen would replicate. The effect of the war drum was hundreds of times more powerful than a human skin war drum. Its range of attack could reach up to a few miles. While it only affected ordinary soldiers, that alone was terrifying enough. If Saleen was to use this war drum on a battlefield, it would attract at least tens of sorcerers to him, otherwise the war drum would be able topletely destroy the morale of the enemy.


    Magic armies were few and far between. After all, how many soldiers of noble families could afford to have magic arrays on their helmets?


    ¡°Your Highness, why have youe here? Why don¡¯t you follow me to pay a visit to the Grand Duke?¡± Imposa was still trying to think of how to deal with Saleen. The elemental creatures around Saleen would not be easy to deal with. The battle in the air has already ended as more than 30 iron blood warriors retreated, while Saleen had lost more than 60 Tempest Dragon-mights.


    On average, two elemental creatures had to be sacrificed in order to kill an iron blood warrior, and that was with the aid of J. The difference was that even if the elemental creatures were destroyed, they could still be revived in the elemental badge. On the other hand, once iron blood warriors were killed, they could not be revived. After Saleen¡¯s Tempest Dragon-mights forced the Wind Dragon to retreat, they, too, formed up behind Saleen.


    The Tempest Dragon-mights were the fastest, so they were the most suitable to deal with ordinary soldiers. After they had all retreated, Imposa¡¯s n had failed. He had already prepared a spell that would eliminate all the Tempest Dragon-mights in one go.


    Based on what Imposa had observed, the Tempest Dragon-mights seemed to be the only solution to get Saleen out of the Elemental Prison. If the Elemental Prison could be broken by more than 100 wind-element creatures, then there was no way the grade-10 magic array would be able to trap Saleen.


    Imposa would be able to get his hands on the war drum once he captured Saleen!


    Imposa became more excited. There were many secrets Saleen had that were waiting to be uncovered. Thest time they met, Saleen was still an ordinary mage. Now, he was wielding equipment that even Imposa could notpletelyprehend. Besides, Saleen was also advancing way too quickly!


    Imposa waspletely preupied with how he could capture Saleen so that he could uncover all the secrets that he wanted to know. Saleen was also thinking the exact same thing, as he stared at the metal disc that Imposa was standing on.


    Nevertheless, Saleen was able to suppress his greed very quickly. He already possessed a mechanical core of Sky City, he was confident that he would be able to uncover the secret behind flying equipment one day. He could see the desire in Imposa¡¯s eyes and could feel his own murderous intent rise again.


    If Saleen killed Imposa, he would be under a lot less pressure. It was clear that Grand Duke Iron Blood alone would not be able to control too many iron blood warriors. Without Imposa¡¯s help, the Grand Duke would hardly pose as a threat.


    ¡°Imposa, Grand Duke Iron Blood stole my merchant vessels and sank mybat vessels. This enmity has yet to be resolved. Tell him that sooner orter, I will go to his Dragon Ind and take over everything that belongs to him. I will make sure that his n bes nothing more than an insignificant mark in history.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was jovial, but the message was a pledge of struggle to death.


    ¡°Saleen, do you really think that you will be able escape just with your elemental badge alone?¡± Imposa began tough. Hisughter resembled something like a Metal Titan would make, or the soundwaves produced from the explosion of a bloodstone in a metal room.


    Saleen shook his head. A soundwave attack like that was meaningless. J was a golden grand swordmaster whose defense abilities were even more powerful than his own. The elemental creatures could not care less about the soundwave attack. Saleen allowed the demons to escape first precisely because he was afraid that the soundwaves produced from the battle between two powerful opponents would affect them.


    Saleen was not afraid of an all-around attack. With the War Drum of Fear, low-level warriors would not be able to get close to him.


    Saleen¡¯s bone mace struck fiercely on the War Drum of Fear. The War Drum let out the howl of the Angel of Fear. The thousands of soldiers that were already lying injured on the ground suddenly sprang up. Then, they copsed heavily on the ground. Blood was spilling out from everywhere on their faces and it looked like death was imminent.


    Imposa was slightly enraged. So, that was how Saleen would try to antagonize him. It was vicious of Saleen to kill thousands of Imposa¡¯s soldiers in front of him. Typically, sorcerers would not resort to that, especially grade-9 sorcerers. They would usually only target the strongest amongst their enemies.


    With the strike of the bone mace, not only was Saleen antagonizing Imposa, he was doing the same to Alchemy City as well.


    Imposa¡¯s two hind legs moved slightly and 120 gears flew out from the edge of the giant metal disc. The gears were two yards in diameter. The iron blood warriors leapt onto the gears and swooped downwards with longnces in their grip. The 120 gears were infused with the power of wind element.


    Saleen calmly put away his War Drum of Fear. Grand Duke Iron Blood would no longer dare to send ordinary soldiers after him and that would save Saleen a lot of trouble.


    Six types of elemental creatures sprang out from the elemental badge on Saleen¡¯s waist, while he put away the Tempest Dragon-mights, until only 36 of them were left. There were 36 creatures of each element, making up a total of 216 elemental creatures. Amongst them were 18 stone statue soldiers that Saleen summoned for his own protection.


    J had already returned to Saleen¡¯s side. He had yet to take any action since Imposa appeared.


    All of a sudden, Saleen realized that something was amiss. The 120 iron blood warriors had surrounded him and formed a gigantic magic array. The metal gears underneath them had connected to each other with elemental power to form a tripleyered ring and Saleen was in the middle of it.


    Thirty iron blood warriors charged at him from all directions. They made use of the power from the metal gears and the giant magic array had boosted the iron blood warriors with incredible speed.


    Before the 30 iron blood warriors could gather their own power, they already possessed enough power to attack. When they reached the elemental creatures, the longnces in their hands were already shing with blinding red light.


    With an explosion, 30 elemental creatures copsed.


    Imposa¡¯sughter became even more hysterical. He was watching the battle from a higher ground. Saleen had already fallen into his trap and could only await death. Of course, Imposa was not going to kill him. He merely wanted to capture him in order to study him thoroughly.


    As an alchemist, especially one that specialized in life alchemy like Imposa, he was extremely confident that he would be able to extract all the secrets from Saleen¡¯s brain. He would not even need Saleen to cooperate.


    ¡°Chi!¡± J was as swift as lightning. When the 30 iron blood warriors took a few steps back, he quickly pounced and pierced his sword through the neck of one of the warriors. A mysterious power seeped into the tainted blood armor from his long sword, Tears. This iron blood warrior¡¯s neck was slit open by Tears. His head tilted to one side and he fell off the metal gear.


    J had used his own unique power of rules on that strike. Golden grand swordmasters usually had a weak grasp of rules, unlike grade-9 sorcerers. J was different. Ever since he obtained his long sword, Tears, he had been experiencing the undeniable pain and anguish embedded in Tears.


    This heartfelt pain and anguish could only be released through the long sword. Although this rule was not of a high grade, it was unique only to J.


    Even though Saleen and J rarely fought together side by side, they recognized the opportunity that had been presented to them. Saleen personallymanded six Midnight Fangs to conceal themselves in the shadows of the metal gears before suddenly appearing underneath an iron blood warrior. The six Midnight Fangs wielded elemental weapons in the form of daggers. The daggers, which were the products of the congregation of dark elements, slid into the metal gears without a sound.


    The magic arrays in the metal gears copsed instantaneously. The Sword of Dark Element crushed the iron blood warrior¡¯s legs. Even the tainted blood armor was useless against that attack.


    Once the six Midnight Fangs sessfully took down their target, they quickly blended back into the darkness. The attack used up 20 percent of their powers. The way dark-element creatures attacked was the same as other elemental creatures, they had to use up their own energy. The only difference was that dark-element creatures were able to unleash all their energy in one go. Such a powerful attack was equivalent to an assassin¡¯sst attack before death.


    After two iron blood warriors had fallen, the Quickcloud spell on Saleen¡¯s body had finally formedpletely. The fog dissipated and 36 Tempest Dragon-mights and 36 Blue Ice Maidens gathered together to provide elemental power for Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell.


    Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell might have beenpromised in the Elemental Prison, but the energy of the elemental creatures could never be taken away.


    Saleen used that opportunity to dash towards the gap. The magic array was perfect and, if not for J, Saleen would have had to activate grade-10 elemental creatures in order to destroy it. It was a perfectbination of the power of magic and the power of the 120 iron blood warriors.


    Imposa¡¯s face turned gloomy. He did not expect the golden grand swordmaster beside Saleen to be able to grasp the power of rules. On top of that, the power of the rule was created by J himself. How could that be possible?!

 Chapter 941: Golden Breakthrough (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 941: Golden Breakthrough (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A grade-9 Professional that was able to create his own rule? It sounded as ridiculous as a grade-1 disciple bing the Pope.


    Imposa did not see the funny side in it. He did not fear Saleen, who possessed the elemental badge, but the golden grand swordmaster would be a big problem. That was because the attacking abilities of a golden grand swordmaster could easily threaten his own safety.


    A distance of 200 yards was too short to defend against a golden grand swordmaster, what more one that had already grasped a rule.


    J destroyed the array and Saleen followed up quickly. Both of them worked together seamlessly, but in actual fact, Saleen had rarely brought J along into battles and only brought him along that time around because he knew that there would be danger. A duo of mage and golden grand swordmaster was the bestbination.


    Saleen was able toplement J¡¯s actions because he had grasped some soul power. Although the bond between Saleen and J was a follower bond, their souls had already be as close as that of soul bonds during the sh. Whatever J was thinking of doing, Saleen could already foresee it even before he did it.


    Tempest Dragon-mights and Blue Ice Maidens provided wind and water elements. Saleen suddenly flew up and led his elemental creatures past the siegeid by the iron blood warriors.


    That was the fastest speed that Saleen had ever moved at. The Blue Ice Maidens had infused the Rainbow spell into Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell, but unfortunately, the speed was greatly reduced since he was bringing along so many people with him. Gloria, alone, would not need more than three frames of time to reach Imposa.


    The reason why Saleen was still so calm andposed was because he still had a secret weapon up his sleeves.


    An assassination by grade-10 elemental creatures was probably not something the grade-9 sorcerer would be prepared for.


    When Imposa saw Saleen flying out of the encirclement, heughed coldly. If that golden grand swordmaster had broken through the encirclement and continued attacking, they might have had a higher chance of victory, but instead, they had chosen to waste the elemental creatures¡¯ powers to try and escape. They were looking down on Imposa¡¯s alchemy spells!


    Imposa shifted his legs slightly and all the metal gears moved ordingly. 118 iron blood warriors broke out from the previous formation and got into a formation of a hexagram before ramming hard against the enemy from the rear.


    Most magic arrays took the shape of rings because a hexagram was difficult to sustain. It also went against the principle of setting up magic arrays, hence very few elemental mages were fond of using hexagram magic arrays. The attacking abilities of hexagram magic arrays were swift and powerful and could boost the power of weaker spells.


    Saleen¡¯s stone statue soldiers were all 100 yards tall. They were not capable of flying, but due to their height, they were also dragged into the iron blood warriors¡¯ attack.


    The sound of the elemental core exploding continued. Behind Saleen, another 20 or so elemental creatures copsed and were dismantled before returning to the elemental badge. The only creatures that remained unharmed were the 36 Angels of Brightness. The Angels were light-element creatures and would not be affected by physical attacks. If not for the fact that the iron blood warriors¡¯ longnces were glowing with red light, the Angels of Brightness would not even care less about them.


    The Angels of Brightness looked very simr to Heavenly Angels, after all, the Lord of Glory was trying to replicate the former when he created thetter. The only difference was that the Angels of Brightness wielded light-element chains instead of Swords of Glory.


    When six Angels of Brightness were gathered together, they would be able to form a powerful magic array with their light-element chains and unleash a light-element spell. Light-element spell attacks were usually fast. With the ability to manipte it, Saleen¡¯s Angels of Brightness were able to unleash even greater power.


    Against the warriors, Angels of Brightness would be more effective than the Midnight Fangs.


    When the iron blood warriors rammed towards them in their hexagram formation, Saleenmanded the Angels of Brightness to attack the iron blood warrior that was leading the way. Their light-element chains did not manage to control this warrior, and instead, they were stabbed by the warrior¡¯s longnce.


    The light-element core exploded into tiny shards and returned to Saleen¡¯s elemental badge.


    An Angel of Brightness was at least 20 yards tall and both sides were at least four to five yards apart. When the iron blood warrior¡¯s longnce attacked, the Angels of Brightness did not manage to dodge, and their elemental cores were stabbed, resulting in the explosion.


    It was extremely difficult to stab an elemental core into explosion because the core was the hardest and most resilient part of an elemental creature. Even high-level spells had to be able to find the core¡¯s weakness in order to destroy it. Thence did not manage to find any weakness, instead it was because the tip of thence suddenly became hundreds of times more powerful. All the other iron blood warriors behind him had stacked all their powers together and passed them to him. The Angel of Brightness was unable to withstand the attack.


    The hexagram magic array spun in the air as the six-pointed tips took turns to attack Saleen from behind. The elemental creatures were no match for the attack as each iron blood warrior attacked with power that was umted from every other warrior as well. Each blow of the blood-rednce was capable of piercing through the core of the elemental creatures.


    ¡°J, prepare to break the array.¡± Saleen could no longer stand what was happening. He summoned Gloria, the leader of the Blue Ice Maidens. He pointed at Imposa and said, ¡°Gloria, kill him!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Gloria took one nce at the sorcerer without too much concern. Saleen waved his hands and summoned another six Blue Ice Maidens from the elemental badge on his waist. A rainbow lit up and Gloria suddenly appeared five yards behind Imposa.


    Gloria was at least 20 yards tall and her ice-element de was more than 10 yards long. The moment she appeared on the metal disc, she struck the disc with her ice-element de at the same time. By then, the six Blue Ice Maidens had also arrived. They formed a circle with Imposa trapped in the middle.


    The six Blue Ice Maidens unleashed Absolute Zero and the temperature of the disc dropped drastically. Imposa¡¯s body waspletely sealed in ice.


    Crack...


    The frost on Imposa¡¯s body disappeared and ice began to form on his metal tail. In the blink of an eye, the metal tail turned into metal dust as the metal could not withstand the attack of Absolute Zero.


    Imposa was like an animal that had given up on his tail. He had concentrated all the attack onto his tail, including the strike from Gloria.


    That unexpected turn of events left Gloria floundering. Although she had a soul and possessed plenty of battle experience, she was nowhere near the level of humans when it came to scheming. She had never seen such a technique before, where one could direct all the attack onto one part of them. When Gloria decided to attack from behind, she had been extremely cautious about that fearsome-looking metal tail. She never expected it to be something that Imposa did not mind giving up so easily.


    Imposaunched an attack on all seven elemental creatures at the same time. The disc underneath him cracked open and six metal puppets appeared under the Blue Ice Maidens. The gigantic metal disc was too small for elemental creatures, so it was already very crowded in the first ce. Now that the six metal puppets had appeared, the Blue Ice Maidens were almost pushed over.


    Without turning his body, Imposa¡¯s two hind legs suddenly contorted and became very long, like two metal snakes. They began to coil up Gloria¡¯s ankles. Gloria raised her legs and realized that her elemental powers were no longer functioning. Imposa¡¯s back split open and a miniature magic cannon appeared that aimed at Gloria.


    Saleen watched as Gloria was blown into pieces. At the same time, the elemental badge sensed the destruction of Gloria and quickly absorbed her soul back. Gloria would probably need at least a year or two to revive, unless Saleen was able to find a ce that contained water elements that were even richer than the Imperial of the Abyss. Alternatively, Saleen could use up arge amount of grade-9 magic nuclei. No, they would have to be grade-10 magic nuclei in order for Gloria to recover quickly.


    The assassination attempt failed and the six Blue Ice Maidens on the metal disc were also destroyed. The six metal puppets also fell off the disc at the same time.


    The Blue Ice Maidens were grade-9 creatures, so the powerful puppets that Imposa controlled were severely damaged as well. Nevertheless, Imposa was not too concerned about the puppets. They could be created again as long as he had the necessary materials. The reason he summoned the puppets was to prevent the Blue Ice Maidens from stopping his magic cannon attack.


    ¡°Saleen, surrender now and I will let...¡±


    Before Imposa could finish his sentence, J had appeared at the core of the hexagram. His golden sword aura was overpowering. The magic array that was formed by more than 100 iron blood warriors began to copse. J struck six times in session, each time cutting open the neck of an iron blood warrior.


    J attacked because the power that he had umted was too overwhelming and he had no choice but to release it all at once.


    Saleen¡¯s Blue Ice Maidens¡¯ leader had been defeated while J had destroyed the hexagram.


    With one strike, J managed to destroy the 36 metal gears. The hexagram could no longer be formed temporarily. Even if it could, it would be of a smaller scale with much lower attacking power. Although the iron blood warriors could fly, their attacks were no longer as fearsomepared to when they had the gears with magic arrays.


    Imposa had to stop his sentence in mid-air because of J¡¯s attack. He was frustrated. He was distracted by the leader of the elemental creatures and allowed the golden grand swordmaster to destroy the core of his magic array.


    That elemental creature could still be revived with the elemental badge, but as for him, he had invested a lot of time effort in order to refine the hexagram magic array.


    Imposa could not afford to care about it too much. In any case, Grand Duke Iron Blood had promised that he would doublypensate him for his losses. Imposa gritted his teeth and shifted his legs. The tens of iron blood warriors in the air suddenly changed into another formation. It was the formation of a sharp awl that was aimed at Saleen.


    A stone statue soldier leapt high into the sky and was about to smash it with its magic warhammer. The leading iron blood warrior charged ahead, and the red light of his core suddenly dimmed before exploding.


    The iron blood warrior dashed forward hundreds of yards and exploded on the head of the stone statue soldier. None of the other 20 stone statue soldiers managed to escape. When the tainted blood armor exploded, the tiny pieces of armor pierced into the bodies of the stone statue soldiers, splitting their elemental cores directly.


    More than 20 stone statue soldiers copsed on the ground. The iron blood warriors picked up their speed and the awl formation resumed very quickly. The leading iron blood warrior was focused only on Saleen. He had no qualms sacrificing himself along with whoever dared to stand in their way.

 Chapter 942: Lesser Prophecy Spell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 942: Lesser Prophecy Spell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The iron blood warriors were also elite troops of ancient times and possessed great intellect. Their slumber over tens of thousands of years had severely weakened their souls, and they were an inch away from death. The human body alchemy had woken them from their slumber, but also rendered them ves of Imposa.


    Saleen¡¯s Eternal Control rules, inparison, kept the intellect of the ancient warriors intact, allowing them to have thoughts at rudimentary levels. Human body alchemy on the other hand, turned them intoplete puppets with self-awareness.


    The iron blood warriors were incredibly precious, but Imposa was willing to have them self destruct all the same. It was just so that he could get his hands on Saleen by killing off the elemental creatures covering Saleen¡¯s escape.


    Saleen would have, of course, never let the sacrifice of his elemental creatures in vain, especially after Gloria was sacrificed. Revival of any destroyed Blue Ice Maidens from there on out would require Gloria to be revived first. Saleen did not hesitate to call back all his summoned Blue Ice Maidens, leaving only six Stone Statue Soldiers and two other elemental creatures behind him.


    Boom...


    Yet another iron blood warrior self destructed but was blocked by the Stone Statue Soldiers. All six of them were conjured by Saleen¡¯s own Devil suit, and their destruction could have hardly been called a loss. There were twenty-four others by Saleen¡¯s side, an Angel of Brightness, and a Vermillion Knight were destroyed at the same time as well.


    With the exception of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, all other grade-9 elemental creatures were capable of flight. Not wanting to have more energy wasted by the Elemental Prison, Saleen had them flying at attitudes of less than two-hundred yards high¡ªa height easily reached by elemental or non-elemental Stone Statue Soldiers by jumping all the same. With Saleen taking personal control of them, they were more than capable of blocking of the iron blood warriors¡¯ self destruction attacks.


    The six Stone Statue Soldiers released earth element, which greatly diminished the impacts of the iron blood warriors¡¯ self destruction attacks. None of the tainted blood armor fragments were able to harm any elemental creatures at Saleen¡¯s side.


    The way Saleen was doing it was akin to having his Magic Stone Statue Soldiers going suicidal. The rhythm at which it was done was eerily urate. That was the product of his practice with Lex, which enabled him to use low level spells to counter high level ones. Doing so cost considerably less energy than simply blocking attacks with magic shields.


    It was a pity that Saleen did not have enough stamina to break the Elemental Prison. He was only running in circles within the area of several miles radius, with tens of iron blood warriorsing for his head behind him. Imposa¡¯s heart might as well been bleeding by then, as did Saleen¡¯s. He had never thought Imposa to be one such obstinate person, who would do anything to get him.


    Killing ten-thousand enemies while losing eight-thousand of their own was not something any mage would have liked doing, unless they were cornered.


    The problem was that Saleen was the one being cornered. Imposa¡¯s desire to catch him was nothing short of madness, and it seemed that...


    Saleen wanted so much to just whip out his family badge again, but he felt insecure doing so. He swallowed his impulse to simply reduce Imposa to dust and stuffed the badge back into his Devil Ring.


    J made it to Saleen¡¯s side. Saleen¡¯s flight speed was slower than J¡¯s, making it easy for the swordsman to follow him. Seeing Saleen¡¯s face colored with rage, he proposed, ¡°My liege, how about I just go kill that guy myself.¡±


    ¡°No. Haven¡¯t you seen how the Blue Ice Maiden leader died?¡±


    ¡°That was an elemental creature, and I¡¯m a human!¡± J lifted his brow. He had not the slightest bit of fear even fighting a grade-10 elemental creature leader, if it was a one-on-one fight. Elemental creatures relied mostly on their instincts to fight and were weak in anything other than using their inherent skills. The Blue Ice Maiden leader and the other elemental creatures had gotten themselves in fights for eons, but their tactics remained awfully crude.


    Saleen suppressed his rage and decided to y a war of attrition with Imposa. There were sixty-two iron blood warriors left in the air, and thirty-six on the ground. The ones to truly pose a threat to Saleen were the ones in the air. All sixty-two of them were capable of self destruction, but the impact from doing so was gradually weakened. Saleen reckoned that when the number of iron blood warriors went below thirty-six, the resulting impact from self destruction would have been less than enough to kill elemental creatures in one go.


    The wedge-shaped magic array was indeed powerful. When coupled with alchemy, its damage potential was unparalleled. If it had not been an insane mage who had tons of elemental creatures at his disposal like Saleen fighting them, the battle would have been over a long time ago. Other than the first elemental creature victim dying from the self destruct explosion causing Saleen great loss and grief, there had been no more than six elemental creatures sent to block off such attempts since Saleen started running.


    The pce on the ground was long razed. Imposa looked at the battle with cold eyes and was no longer fretting over anything. ¡°If that grade-10 leader back there hadn¡¯t fallen for my own special techniques, I would have been killed right there and then. Just what the hell was that? A Rainbow spell?¡±


    Human mages wanting to learn such skills would have to at least need to reach the level of golden grand swordmasters in terms of physical toughness. The blinking would have blown their bodies to bits the instant they cast the technique otherwise. As such, human mages were simply familiar with the Rainbow spell before reaching grade-9, as the teleportation of the spell would not necessarily be faster than flying.


    Saleen¡¯s elemental badges¡¯ levels were higher than he expected. One grade-10 elemental creature leader was capable ofmanding one-hundred and forty-four grade-9 elemental creatures. The total amount of elemental creaturesmanded with six badges was eight-hundred and sixty-four. Even with his iron blood warriors self destructing, he was still less than capable of capturing Saleen.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood would not have botheredpensating his losses if he failed to capture Saleen, and the over one-hundred iron blood warriors were painstakingly created masterpieces.


    ording to the deal made with the grand duke, he got to keep two out of three crafted iron blood warriors, until he seeded amassing three-thousand warriors. Any more than that, he would have no longer been able to enjoy such privilege. Three-thousand iron blood warriors were vital requirements to his conquest of Alchemy City.


    By the time he was able to craft such numbers of warriors, some of the grand duke¡¯s servants would have probably achieved decent proficiency with the art. He would have been disposed of by then.


    Imposa let out an ear-deafening shriek at the thought. His voice emanated from his throat with magic arrays crafted onto it, enabling him to be heard at the beach more than twenty miles away.


    Nichs had led the demons to fight their way to the beach. With the ancient warriors at his side and the grand duke¡¯s soldiers being unable to regroup in time, the journey was like a hot knife cutting through butter.


    He was stunned by hearing Imposa¡¯s shriek and wanted to turn around to go back to his lord, but Cuisi and the demons required his leadership. The jade skeletons on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat did not recognize the demons. He was put there to coordinate with Saleen. The warship needed to be brought close in order for Saleen to escape without a glitch.


    ¡°My job is to look for the warship!¡±


    Nichs bit down on his frustration and stayed at the beach. He took out his Scepter of the Fallen and cast a lesser prophecy spell.


    ¡°Hear my voice, o¡¯ river of fate. I am your god. Imand time, space, souls, and rules. In the name of Nichs, my name, Imand all dangers to leave my lord Saleen...¡±


    Half of Nichs¡¯ hair turned gray in an instant. Nichs¡¯ age had reversed bit by bit after having the blood soul tower in his disposal, but a considerable amount of his life force was consumed in casting the lesser prophecy spell.


    Nichs did not regret the act. There had been no fallen holy masters known to have advanced to grade-10. It was Saleen who had given him the opportunity to do so. Even with half of his remaining lifespan gone, he would still have the confidence to be able to advance to grade-10. With effort, his life force would be able to be gradually recovered. If his lord ended up dead however, that would be the end of everything.


    After casting the lesser prophecy spell, Nichs jumped into the sea with the demons and the twenty-four ancient warriors. Where he stood was not where he hadnded. His lesser prophecy spell enabled the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat to be easily located without need for coordinates.


    The army chasing after the demons halted their steps. The pce at sea had not been built for long, and there were no powerful magic arrays at the shore. With the enemy gone, the soldiers had no choice but to make it to the docks, mobilizing the ships for search and pursuit.


    Imposa gathered energy and activated the grade-10 magic array on the metallic disk. For a grade-9 sorcerer to activate a grade-10 magic array, a good amount of time was still required to gather energy, even if it was a sorcerer who was second to none in the field of alchemy. His throat went bust a long time ago. He would have had no choice but to rece his voice chanting the words with such unique shrieks.


    The words of the chants served to calibrate one¡¯s mental powers and mobilize the magic chords. Imposa¡¯s unique shriek opened up a whole new skill of his own.


    It was a grade-10 spell¡ªCmity of True mes.


    It was a resonance spell, able to be used for cing magic arrays, yet the target of attackid outside the array. Imposa locked on to Saleen. As soon as the grade-10 spell waspleted, True mes would have burned from within Saleen himself.


    There were lots of ways to break such spells, but in the perspective of a mage, the only way to do so was to break the enemy¡¯s targeting.


    Saleen¡¯s strength of soul was inferior to Imposa¡¯s and his mental powers paled to that of the alchemist¡¯s as well. He was able to sense Imposa¡¯s lock-on nheless.


    ¡°He is out to kill me instead of capturing me now!¡± Saleen felt a shiver down his spine. He took out his family badge, as his hands felt severely forced. His intuition told him that if he were to hold anything back, he would be dead for sure once the spell waspleted.


    Just as Saleen raised his family badge and aimed at Imposa, the alchemist¡¯s voice broke all of a sudden.


    One of Imposa¡¯s eyes popped out from the metal frame, and the goatee at his chin burned. He felt a wave of energy in the air break off his aim by force, and he lost track of Saleen¡¯s whereabouts. His grade-10 spell however, had to be cast. Halting it would have resulted in the mes burning him instead.


    ¡°Ahh...Ssss...¡±


    Imposa¡¯s voice trembled as hepleted the grade-10 spell. In the magic tower about a mile away, a Cloudflow sorcerer¡¯s body suddenly burst into green mes. The grade-8 sorcerer was reduced to dust within a split second. No objects on and about them were harmed however.


    If Imposa had targeted Saleen, Saleen would have been able to hold out for several seconds at least as he knew what wasing. The grade-8 Cloudflow sorcerer was made a scapegoat due to Imposa¡¯s failed targeting. The chances of such a thing happening was close to nil. The resonance magic naturally needed to find another target after losing its intended target. The dead sorcerer was not the closest to Imposa, yet they were killed off instantly by Cmity of True mes nheless. If there was anything to be med, it was the sorcerer¡¯s own very awful luck.


    Seeing Imposa¡¯s attack on him had failed, Saleen suppressed his urge to use his family badge, and summoned six Midnight Fangs instead. The six were released into the iron blood warriors¡¯ midst all of a sudden, and Tempest Dragon-mights followed. Having lost instructions from Imposa, the iron blood warriors were at a loss of what to do, and their formation crumbled soon after.


    Six dark element short swords stabbed into the necks of the iron blood warriors, and Saleen called back all six of the Midnight Fangs right after. Saleen knew full well that the iron blood warriors were utterly incapable of defending against one strike of the Midnight Fangs¡¯ at full power.

 Chapter 943: Lesser Prophecy Spell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 943: Lesser Prophecy Spell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had lost too many Stone Statue Soldiers to want to lose any more of them and sent in the Tempest Dragon-mights to keep the iron blood warriors at bay. He had never thought that the six Midnight Fangs were able to pull off their tricks, preventing the iron blood warriors from self-destructing.


    Saleen decided to meet Imposa in the air. Everything happened due to him. If Imposa had not been around, the iron blood soldiers would not have been a match for the elemental creatures.


    Seeing how Saleen charged at him like a warrior, Imposa turned the metallic disk around and ran. The remaining fifty iron blood warriors tagged along from behind. Imposa had no choice but to run. While he deemed himself to be more capable than Saleen in close quartersbat, there was a golden grand swordmaster with mastery of rules by Saleen¡¯s side at that moment.


    Pure rule power was not something he was able to redirect. If the golden grand swordmasternded a hit on him, his soul would have suffered massive damage.


    Imposa was running ahead, feeling incredibly frustrated. ¡°Why is that Dark Blue not here?¡± If he had one golden grand swordmaster by his side, he would have had no need to run from Saleen. A grade-9 sorcerer working in tandem with a golden grandmaster would be more than enough to y any foes of simr levels. It was a nightmare to any grade-9 professionals to be on the bad side of two such individuals.


    Imposa had no idea who the one unlucky enough to be the scapegoat of the faulty Cmity of True mes spell was. The spell would not have simply dispersed, and it looked like one of the grand duke¡¯s men took the fall and died. He had hope it to be some rank and file soldier instead of someone important.


    Saleen dared not go too close to his target. Gloria was literally torn to shreds, and that was something Saleen would never be able to forget. An attack from Imposa that tore right through a grade-10 being was something Saleen would never ever want to taste himself.


    Both sides were on guard against each other, yet Saleen got increasingly close to his target, while reminding himself to stay away from the spot right behind Imposa. He had no idea that what Imposa did back there was something that was possible after umting energy for a very long time. Another attack like that would take the alchemist another month to charge, and there simply was no way to speed things up.


    If it had not been Saleen¡¯s mistake, Imposa would not have needed to fear J. J gave his all back then to destroy the Hexagram array in one strike. He had yet to truly master the rules, or more urately, his mastery of rules was limited.


    J¡¯s sword¡ªTears¡ªdeveloped a spirit of its own. J¡¯s understanding of rules grew continuously as he trained, with the sword always in his hands as he did. The weak spirit within the sword unexpectedly grew as he trained. The most powerful attack was made possible only when J¡¯s rules resonated with the spirit of his sword.


    J¡¯s Astonishing sh depleted all power within the spirit of his sword, which required two or three days at least to charge, regardless of how fast the spirit was able to recover, before J was able to use the power of the rules again.


    J¡¯s offensive capacity was simply slightly more powerful than a regr golden grand swordmaster. That terrifying move was not something he would have been able to do again right there and then.


    There was no way for Imposa to be aware of such things. He was just like Saleen, who dared not put himself in harm¡¯s way. As such, he also dared not prep up any powerful spells, and simply was on guard against any sudden moves from J.


    Imposa even thought that it was J who disrupted his spell back there. From his perspective, only the power of rules would have been capable of disrupting his grade-10 spell. As a result, he dared not use any grade-10 spells at that moment, regardless of the fact that he still had several powerful magic arrays stored on his metallic disk. To him, all grade-10 spells required a very long period of preparation, and all posed different dangers if disrupted.


    The easiest to handle was Cmity of True mes. Some spells would have even retaliated against the caster when disrupted.


    Retaliation from grade-10 spells was something Imposa admittedly was unable to withstand. He was more frustrated at Saleen because of that. Saleen had simply lost some elemental creatures, and such losses were something that could have been recovered given enough time. What Imposa lost was iron blood warriors. He had no choice but to keep having iron blood warriors self-destruct behind him to keep Saleen away, holding the pursuing sorcerer off a certain distance.


    Worse still, the Elemental Prison was a double edged de, making it impossible for Imposa himself to quickly fly outside. Imposa had to circle around the vicinity of the six towers instead.


    Imposa prided himself of being unmatched by anyone grade-9 or below, but abination of a grade-9 sorcerer and a golden grand swordmaster made it impossible for him to just stand his ground and fight. He would have been in a better situation if he had all those iron blood warriors by his side, but he had lost too many of them in the air. He had yet to be able to summon the ones on the ground.


    Saleen was not able to afford having Imposa run like that. There was bound to be other professionals still about on the ind. At the very least, there was still Grand Duke Iron Blood. If more level nine professionals showed up, he would have had to summon the leaders of other elemental creatures.


    There were hardly any grade-9 professionals who did not possess unique skills of some sort. Reminding himself how Imposa was able to instantly tear Gloria to shreds back then, Saleen ceased thinking his grade-10 elemental creatures to be invincible in such a battlefield.


    ¡°I guess I will have to risk losing yet another leader,¡± Saleen thought as he summoned re. His Quickcloud turned ming red. re¡¯s flight speed enabled him to catch up to Saleen. His stead grew a pair of horns ever since he left the Imperial City of the Abyss with Saleen. Nothing else had changed different about him.


    ¡°Kill that guy. Beware of his rear though, Gloria was torn to shreds by a miniaturized magic cannon,¡± Saleen said while pointing at Imposa.


    ¡°Acknowledged, master.¡± re sped up his stead and rushed at Imposa.


    Imposa was facing Saleen on his disk. The leader of the Vermillion Knights shot out of Saleen¡¯s cloud, and Imposa was filled with nothing but envy and jealousy. ¡°Just why does this Saleen have such good luck? I myself advanced to grade-9 when I was young myself. If I had not been so into alchemy, I would have advanced to grade-10 and be the most powerful mage in existence.¡±


    Imposa traveled everywhere and failed to find any elemental creatures worthy of hismand. Despite being of such a young age, Saleen had been able to gather all six badges!


    Dark Blue had not been able to make it still. He simply flew in the sky quietly and watched Imposa¡¯s battle from afar. Seeing how Imposa fled about in a panic within the vicinity of the towers, there simply were no words to describe how pleased he was.


    ¡°That wretched sorcerer forced me and Belivare out of our seats ever since he came to Dragon Ind. The grand duke listened to every word he said and gave him all the materials and resources he could have ever wanted, yet when I asked for just a single weapon, all I got was him rolling his eyes instead. Paying the price for all you have done, I guess? You are far too cocky, mage. Now I am just going to sit here and see how you will hold out on your own.¡±


    Dark Blue was born and raised in Cloudflow, and Cloudflow people were known to hold grudges. Imposa had no idea that he had been on the bad side of the golden grand swordmaster, and even hoped that theuded swordsman would have been able to help him get rid of the pesky trouble that was Saleen.


    The Vermillion Knight leader charged at him with four other Vermillion Knights riding ming Horses tagging behind. Imposa was unable to hold anything back anymore. If he was unable to kill off the grade-10 elemental creatureing for his neck, he would have been the one to end up dead instead.


    The speed of the metallic disk beneath Imposa¡¯s feet slowed considerably and let out a grinding noise. The disk with a diameter of over thirty yards folded in surreal ways, encasing Imposa in the center. The huge disk transformed shortly after into something over twenty yards tall and looked like Imposa himself.


    Not even the Mechanical Soul would have been able to reach such speeds with transformation. Saleen had nothing but admiration for Imposa¡¯s art at alchemy, yet Saleen had no choice but to kill one such talented person. That was because he was able to see nothing but greed in Imposa¡¯s eyes, greed fulfilled at his expense. As such, Imposa¡¯s desire was something that he could never satiate, and that made it impossible to have the alchemist serve him.


    There was no way Saleen would have given himself up to Imposa for research after all, making their conflict of interests an irreconcble one.


    re rammed into therge alchemic machine Imposa turned into without second thoughts. Sparks flew, and both recoiled more than one-hundred yards away respectively from the collision. A ferocious smirk was seen on the alchemic machine, unlike Imposa¡¯s own that was incapable of showing expressions. The huge machine recovered itself and charged at Saleen.


    Saleen felt a chill. re¡¯s charging attack would have been able to burn even average grade-9 beings to death right there and then, yet Imposa¡¯s alchemic machine had not suffered so much as a dent. It went pouncing at him right after instead. Saleen¡¯s reflexes were quick enough, summoning Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, who brought two massive magic warhammers down onto Imposa¡¯s machine.


    Saleen took personalmand of the two Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, unlike how he did re. The blunt impact of the warhammers rendered Imposa, who was inside the machine, dizzy for a moment. The momentary dizziness enabled re to show up right before Imposa¡¯s face. That time, his ming Halberd pierced right through the shell of the alchemic machine.


    re was obviously hundreds of times more cunning than Gloria. After his halberd pierced the machine, he let go right there and then, leaving the weapon lodged into the machine while he himself went straight back to Saleen¡¯s elemental badge.


    The machine¡¯s massive hands lunged at him in response and missed as expected. If re had continued attacking, he would have been pped by the machine. Saleen¡¯s ears were ringing from that unimaginable noise resulting from those metallic hands pping. The arms linking to hands were armed with powerful magic arrays. The impact from the collision between both hands was far more potent than attacks from golden grand swordmasters.


    J was unable to hold himself back any longer. Despite re being a sly one, the elemental creature was nheless able to leave a big hole at the shell of the machine. With the ming Halberd dispersed, the gaping hole was like a big red target mark.


    Golden sword aura gathered to a fine thread and stabbed right through the hole. J had not hoped to be able to kill off Imposa right there. Given howplex the structure of the machine was, there was bound to be more than one defense mechanism to it. He was simply doing his best to wreck the machine in front of him with golden sword aura.


    Creaking, snapping metal noises were heard from inside the machine, as the golden sword aura tore through an unknown number of parts within. Imposa¡¯s movements were hardly slowed though. The long metal tail behind whipped at Saleen like a scorpion whipping its tail.


    Saleen summoned the Midnight Fang leader prior, who cut off therge metal tail with one swing of the dark element short sword in their hand. The broken tail did not simply fall or fly off after being cut; it wriggled for a bit before making for Saleen.


    There was a very pointy needle at the end of the metal tail. Saleen was very familiar with such needles, as they resembled Nailisi¡¯s Dragon Crystal Needles used for ambushing enemies. Other than being very pointy, all that was left was the elemental attributes inherent within the original magic nucleus used to make it.


    Nailisi¡¯s needle was crafted from Dragon Crystals, and Imposa¡¯s needle would definitely not have been something made of magic nucleus below grade-9. The point of the needle was less than one foot away from Saleen¡¯s brow, and J felt like his soul was about to burst out of his own body. He could not have imagined himself to be making such a dire mistake¡ªleaving Saleen¡¯s side.


    There was no way he could have blocked the metal tail¡¯s attack in time, and no matter how strong Saleen¡¯s body was, he was still a mage. If the needle hit its intended target, death would have been upon the target in one hit.

 Chapter 944: Pursuit (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 944: Pursuit (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs¡¯ voice rang in Saleen¡¯s mind. He opened his mouth and said, ¡°Time, reverse...¡±


    Saleen could already feel the tip of the metal tail piercing through his skin, but all of a sudden, it withdrew and the entire tail retreat at least 10 yards away from Saleen.


    Imposa was taken aback by what he had just seen. Saleen had just used a divine spell!


    A mage using a divine spell was even more uneptable than a Holy Master using elemental spells. The Holy See had attempted to bribe mages to be Holy Masters, but their magic chords degenerated, and eventually, they were not even able to cast spells higher than grade-0. Even magic apprentices were better off than them.


    Saleen was already a top-notch grade-9 sorcerer. What good would it do him to coborate with the Holy See? Within three to five years¡¯ time, he would turn into a mage without any magic chords. The higher one¡¯s grade, the faster the magic chords disappeared. That was why it was so difficult for the Holy See to recruit mages.


    Only the Supreme Court was able to hire mages once in a while, but there was no way those mages would ce their faith in any Gods or practice any divine spells. No matter how high the mage¡¯s grade was, or how powerful their mental strength was, the number of blessings they received would still be less than that of a disciple that had served their Gods since childhood.


    Giving up magic for divine spells was definitely not something a grade-9 mage would do. A grade-9 mage would rather die than to ce his faith in God.


    The Lesser Prophecy spell was unleashedpletely. It was the luckiest thing to happen to Saleen in his entire lifetime. Without thinking any further, Saleen let the six Tempest Dragon-mights bring him to Imposa and he thrust out his finger.


    Crystal Finger prated through Imposa¡¯s mechanical shell and struck his forehead directly. A hole that was the size of a fist appeared in his metal face. The gigantic alchemy machinery carrying him copsed onto the ground. Saleen saw a ck mass escape from the core of the alchemy machinery. It hid in the metal tail that was flying away.


    The metal tail fell onto the ground and tunneled through it. Soon it waspletely out of sight.


    Saleen vaguely thought that the ck mass resembled Imposa. Although Saleen managed to clinch victory with a single strike, he was still a little stunned. It was because Imposa¡¯s soul looked exactly like the body he possessed after modifications.


    No matter how one changed his appearance, his soul should remain unchanged. What Saleen knew was that even Nailisi¡¯s Ultimate Shapeshifting spell could not alter the shape of her soul. The appearance of Imposa¡¯s soul left Saleen too shocked for words.


    He had thought that his soul was the most powerful amongst all grade-9 sorcerers, and so was his mental strength. Instead, Imposa was even able to transform the shape of his own soul. No matter how he looked at it, Imposa must be more powerful than him.


    If not for the fact that Saleen¡¯s equipment was more powerful and his techniques were mysterious, based on pure abilities alone, he was no match for Imposa.


    The shape of Imposa¡¯s soul also had six legs and the tail of a scorpion.


    ¡°My Lord!¡± J¡¯s face was pale as he rushed to Saleen¡¯s side. The alchemy machinery crashed onto the ground, sending dirt and mud flying in all directions.


    Saleen was finally shaken out of his daze. Saleen understood that the divine spell that Nichs had cast through him was a result of Nichs sacrificing portions of his life in order to leave behind a protective measure just before he left.


    Saleen immediately dove towards the ground and released all his elemental creatures. He took out his interdimensional stone and put away Imposa¡¯s alchemy machinery in it. It was valuable equipment and could be easily studied, unlike equipment that Grandmaster had given him. No matter how powerful Imposa¡¯s alchemy skills might be, he was still only a grade-9 sorcerer at the end of the day.


    The equipment created by grade-9 sorcerers could be thoroughly studied in Metatrin City, where there were tens of sorcerers that would be able to analyze equipment very quickly. The only downside was the tail that had gotten away. Saleen believed that the tail was Imposa¡¯s biggest secret.


    In a pce far away, there was a huge crystal coffin in a room that had been sealed up, and a strange looking bodyid in it. The body looked exactly like Imposa, except that there was no metal on the face. The chin was made from ck Fallenstar metal. The upper half of Imposa¡¯s body was covered with a shell that was made from the bones of magic beasts, while the lower half of the body was made of metal. There were six gigantic metal limbs and a long scorpion tail.


    The crystal coffin was filled with transparent fluid, which was slightly blue in color. All of a sudden, the body opened its eyes and mouth at the same time and sucked in the blue fluid forcefully. The blue fluid disappeared very quickly, until it waspletely sucked dry by Imposa¡¯s body.


    With a loud crash, Imposa¡¯s fist smashed the crystal coffin and he sprang up with his six mechanical limbs. There were also eight iron blood warriors in this sealed room. When Imposa awoke, so did the eight iron blood warriors.


    What made them different from other iron blood warriors was that their eyes showed intelligence. One of them even asked, ¡°Master, what happened?¡±


    ¡°The body that I have been using as a trial has been destroyed. The floatingbat vessel is gone too.¡± Imposa was able to smash the crystal coffin into pieces with just one strike. The power of that strike alone surpassed the power of a silver grand swordmaster. He immediately calmed down after venting his anger. Clearly, he felt morefortable in this body. He found it hard to control his emotions in his other body.


    ¡°Who did it? Let¡¯s kill him!¡± Another iron blood warrior said. Their conversation demonstrated their thinking abilities, setting them apart from the other puppet-like iron blood warriors. The eight iron blood warriors were d in brand new tainted blood armor. They were armed with magic equipment that had been personally refined by Imposa.


    They had the modified version of cross spears with a crescent-shaped horizontal hook. There was a menacing look about them. The fact that the iron blood warriors gave up wielding weapons that they were already familiar with could only mean that they must have picked up new techniques. Otherwise, no matter how powerful the weapon was, it would be a huge problem if they were not used to it.


    Grade-9 warriors that were capable of learning new techniques were already very close to the standard of golden grand swordmasters. Besides, those warriors already possessed intelligence, which was not something that the elemental creatures couldpare favorably against.


    ¡°No need.¡± The expression on Imposa¡¯s face was one ofposure. ¡°That person¡¯s equipment is unpredictable, and I cannot ept his techniques. My trial body was destroyed by a single spell from his finger. That¡¯s something that even golden grand swordmasters are not able to achieve. We will leave him alone for now. Grand Duke Iron Blood ising. All of you...¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± The iron blood warriors immediately put on wooden expressions, even their eyeballs were moving at a speed that was three times slower than before. They looked dull and unknowing.


    ¡°Master!¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s voice was one of panic as he knocked on the door from outside.


    ¡°Grand Duke, I am fine.¡± Imposa changed his tone into one that sounded fatigued. His six legs drew a circle on the ground and the silhouette of a metal door appeared on the wall. Grand Duke Iron Blood was standing outside with Dark Blue.


    ¡°Grand Duke, I have misced your trust. I feel guilty about it.¡± Imposa ced his hand on his chest with a pained expression.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯m just d that you are alright!¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood meant what he said. If Imposa was to die, no one else would be able to help him control the iron blood warriors. Although he had many sorcerers working for him, none of them possessed the mysterious alchemy skills of Imposa.


    Imposa¡¯s abilities were more significant than thebined abilities of all his sorcerers. Until Imposa hadpletely refined all the iron blood warriors, he would be the most important and crucial person to Grand Duke Iron Blood. Thetter had allowed the former to try to kill Saleen only because Grand Duke Iron Blood had thought that it would be straightforward and simple.


    No one expected Saleen to possess such mysterious techniques; it seemed that he had yet to disy all his skills.


    ¡°Grand Duke, has Saleen escaped?¡± Imposa knew this question was pointless. Both Dark Blue and the Grand Duke were there. Belivare was not there because it was Imposa¡¯s hiding ce. As a grade-9 sorcerer, Belivare had to avoid arousing suspicions. If he dared toe there, then Imposa would dare to kill him.


    ¡°Yes. I did not deploy my men well and something happened at the magic tower.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s voice was full of regret. No one could have expected a gap to appear in the Elemental Prison or a grade-8 sorcerer, who was controlling the magic array, to die suddenly. By the time the other sorcerers arrived, Saleen had already taken the opportunity to escape through the gap and fled to beyond the ind.


    ¡°What about that golden grand swordmaster?¡± Imposa was more concerned about J. Imposa had felt endangered by the golden grand swordmaster, who had grasped the power of rules. The power of rules would stop his soul from being able to escape.


    ¡°We exchanged a blow. One of my substitute puppets was destroyed. I have no idea how badly injured he is. If he is not healed properly, he will probably die in less than two days though.¡± Dark Blue replied casually with a tinge of arrogance.


    He finally took a good look at this golden grand swordmaster. He was indeed powerful. He only lost a substitute puppet while the other golden grand swordmaster was attacked by Dark Blue¡¯s sword aura. Even if J did not die, he would lose all his skills.


    That was when Imposa noticed that Dark Blue was missing a left eye. All of a sudden, it dawned on Imposa that he had been misled by an illusion and he was filled with regret.


    That golden grand swordmaster had yet topletely grasp the rule. He must have utilized the power of his equipment instead. There was no way Dark Blue¡¯s substitute puppet could have taken the hit for him otherwise. The power of rules would be able to go past the puppet and take effect on Dark Blue¡¯s soul directly.


    He was tricked! That golden grand swordmaster was no threat to Imposa. If Imposa had focused only on Saleen, his experimental body would not have been defeated. The technique that Saleen used was clearly a close-ranged attack, otherwise he would have used that finger on the experimental body long ago. Why bother waiting until he was already on the brink of death before finally unleashing it?


    Imposa was filled with regret. He had wasted an excellent opportunity. It was close to impossible to try and capture Saleen again. Saleen was such a cunning person, he would never be in the range of the magic tower again. More than half of the iron blood warriors had been lost in vain! Imposa was extremely unhappy and his facial expression showed it.

 Chapter 945: Pursuit (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 945: Pursuit (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, it¡¯s my mistake that we didn¡¯t manage to capture the king of the Metatrin Kingdom this time around.¡± The Grand Duke Iron Blood tried to console Imposa and continued, ¡°I will stillpensate your losses, but...¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke, please feel free to say it.¡± Imposa already felt better when he heard that his losses would bepensated.


    ¡°Dark Blue lost a substitute puppet as well. Can you refine a magic weapon for him as well?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood tried to negotiate.


    ¡°I will do it.¡± Imposa replied very decisively. There was no point dragging something like that out anyway. Dark Blue¡¯s loss was significant, as his substitute puppet was a secret technique that he had been training, and not just a magic equipment. The extra pupil in his eye was the result of developing a substitute puppet. Once the puppet had been destroyed, it could never be recovered again.


    Nevertheless, Dark Blue¡¯s sacrifice would be worth it if he finished off that golden grand swordmaster. At least there would be one less threat to Imposa in their dimension.


    ¡°Grand Duke...¡±


    Before Imposa could finish his sentence, Grand Duke Iron Blood was smiling. He said, ¡°Master, everything has been prepared. Whatever you and Dark Blue need is here. This is the diagram.¡±


    Imposa did not take the diagram. Instead he said, ¡°I will design the weapon for him. Forget about the diagram.¡±


    Dark Blue might seem impressed but was actually full of hatred for the sorcerer. If not for the fact that the Grand Duke needed the sorcerer, Dark Blue would have killed him. The diagram contained what he really needed. No matter how good Imposa¡¯s design might be, it might not fulfil Dark Blue¡¯s requirements.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood ordered his men to deliver the materials to Imposa¡¯s alchemyb. Most of the materials were meant for Imposa to refine his experimental body and to make a new crystal coffin.


    Before everything waspleted, Grand Duke Iron Blood left Imposa¡¯s residence. The reason why he did notunch arge-scale attack throughout the entire ind was that there were tens of thousands of ancient warriors on the ind. The warriors had been kept underground and the Grand Duke¡¯s main forces had been guarding over them.


    Otherwise, loopholes that allowed Saleen to escape would not have appeared in the power of the six magic towers just because of the death of a grade-8 sorcerer. If Saleen had tried to break out of the Elemental Prison by force, the six magic towers would have attacked together at once. It would be equivalent to being attacked by six grade-10 sorcerers.


    Without any sorcerers, the Elemental Prison could no longer gather all of its power. Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures were powerful enough to escort Saleen out through that gap.


    Vinny was summoned by Saleen to rescue J, who had been badly injured. When Dark Blue appeared suddenly, his attack was even faster than the Rainbow spell used by the leader of the Blue Ice Maidens. His only mistake was that his technique was not locked onto the target, so no matter how fast he was, it could still be anticipated. J managed to foresee his attack and retaliated with a blow of his own by standing in front of Saleen.


    Neither Dark Blue nor J withdrew but the former¡¯s sword aura had seeped into thetter¡¯s body. On the other hand, J¡¯s sword aura entered Dark Blue¡¯s body, only to pounce onto a puppet, which absorbed 90 percent of the damage.


    Dark Blue was also injured badly, so he did not dare to linger for too long and quickly escaped. That was how Saleen had the opportunity to rescue J. Ayer of golden sword aura was covering the surface of J¡¯s body. All his injuries were suppressed for the time-being, but J had also lost the ability to move.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s main forces were concentrated slightly south of the ind. There was a towering mountain there, and within it was an underground warehouse, which kept the ancient warriors that Imposa had brought for him. The ancient warriors were still in deep sleep and had yet to be refined. Grand Duke Iron Blood was afraid that Saleen would wreak havoc around the ind, and besides, Imposa¡¯s attack had failed. He had no choice but to let Saleen escape the ind before sending a fleet after him in pursuit.


    By the time Saleen fled to the beach, he knew that, considering how many powerful opponents there were on the ind, he should count himself lucky. It was fortunate that the Grand Duke had yet to fully build up the ind, otherwise Saleen would have had an even tougher time.


    Many of Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures were badly injured, but fortunately, he also managed to defeat Imposa. Although he did not manage to kill Imposa, the iron blood warriors that were no longer controlled by thetter, immediately became much weaker. In the end, Saleen managed to gain control over 12 of the flying metal gears and used them to kill 36 iron blood warriors.


    Once Saleen left the range of area that was controlled by the magic towers. Momentarily, he felt as if he could control the elements in the dimension around him. A thick fog appeared from the surface of his body. He put away his stone statue soldiers and flew towards the beach at a very low height while carrying J.


    There were no other obstacles along the way, except for hundreds of crossbows. Saleen was a grade nine sorcerer who was surrounded by Tempest Dragon-mights, so the crossbow arrows were no threat to him. When he reached the beach, Saleen decided to dive straight into the seawater.


    As a grade-10 creature, Vinny was much more powerful than the other stone statue soldiers. He could cast spells, so he continued to carry J as he dived underwater. Saleen used his elemental eyes to see into the distance before he managed to find the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat.


    Nichs did not divert away too much. He knew that Saleen¡¯s range of sight was limited underwater. He made sure to stay within about 20 miles of the ind. The sight and environment underwater were very different. Although the water elements were very rich, Saleen wanted to be able to detect the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat clearly, which meant that the ship needed to be moving.


    Saleen carried J personally, put away his elemental creatures, and boarded the alchemy ship. When he saw Nichs, Saleen noticed that half of his hair had turned white. He said, ¡°Nichs, J is dying. Save him.¡±


    ¡°I will try.¡± Nichs took J from Saleen. J¡¯s eyes were slightly opened, but when he saw Nichs, he closed his eyes.


    Nichs brought J back to his own cabin. Saleen did not interfere. What Nichs meant when he said that he would try his best was that he would try to ensure that J¡¯sbat abilities would still be retained. As a grade nine Holy Master, saving J¡¯s life was not a problem. Since he possessed the blood soul tower, Nichs¡¯ ability to heal had be more powerful than ever.


    A fleet that was made up of 18bat vessels had formed slightly south of the ind. Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat moved so fast that it had already covered a distance of 200 miles before the fleet was finally assembled.


    The Cloudflow ships were not considered slow. Saleen had used up half a day¡¯s time when he was preparing his fleet, whereas the Cloudflow navy only took an hour to assemble their fleet for the pursuit. At the end of the day, Cloudflow still possessed the best navy.


    Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat caught sight of his own divingbat vessel and quickly sent a signal for it to head back.


    Saleen¡¯s fleet was also assembling slowly and was fleeing towards the north. More than 200 miles behind them, the Cloudflow fleets were in pursuit, and they were led by Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s ancientbat vessel.


    Saleen could not detect how far away the Cloudflow fleets were. He only ordered his own fleet to keep moving at full speed towards Metatrin City in the north. The magic furnace on the ancientbat vessel had been turned on and thebat vessel was traveling at more than a hundred miles an hour. When such a hugebat vessel was on the move, it inevitably attracted a number of magic beasts into following it.


    Many magic beasts were already used to following giganticbat vessels, including airborne magic beasts. The water currents and air currents brought about by thebat vessel would help the magic beasts to save a lot of their own energy.


    Saleen was in no mood to deal with the magic beasts. They were definitely being chased.


    If Grand Duke Iron Blood did not have a second ancientbat vessel, Saleen might have thought about ambushing them. His own pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat only possessed a single mode of attack, which might not be powerful enough to damage the armor of the ancientbat vessel. He had yet to finish studying his own ancientbat vessel. Most of its equipment was put together by the Mechanical Soul.


    No matter how powerful the Mechanical Soul might be, there was no way it would be able to restore the weapons to how they were in the past. On the other hand, Grand Duke Iron Blood had Imposa with him all that time. It was possible that some of the weapons on the ancientbat vessel had already been replicated.


    Saleen did not wish to fight the Grand Duke near the ind. In fact, there would be more than 10 inds on his way back that the Grand Duke would be able to use as supply points. If they were to engage in battle, it would be easy for the Grand Duke¡¯s fleet to lock on to their position and it would be difficult to escape by then. Saleen had brought his fleet out to practice its operations on the sea, and not to engage in naval warfare with Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    Training sailors was a long-term affair. Even the soldiers on thebat vessels would need to undergo numerous years of training in order to be capable of participating in a battle. The Cloudflow navy was undoubtedly elite in that aspect. If Saleen chose to fight them, he would definitely incur huge losses. Saleen had arranged for 12 skeletal warships to trail behind them. That was so that in the worst-case scenario, the skeletal warships would be sacrificed.


    In any case, skeletal warships were no match for the Cloudflowbat vessel. They could be used as merchant vessels in the future.


    Saleen was not concerned about losing ships. He only cared about not losing any of his men. The fleet was moving at full speed as the magic furnace on the ancientbat vessel was able to increase its speed. After one hour, it was moving at 140 miles per hour.


    After pursuing more than 2,000 miles, the Cloudflowbat vessels finally tracked down the skeletal warships. The spirits of the dead on the skeletal warships had no sense of fear. They decided to leave three ships behind, which turned around and charged towards the Cloudflow fleet.


    The Cloudflow ships shot out a cluster of stone shells from their magic stone artilleries, striking the skeletal warships from five miles away. Before the three skeletal warships could even get close, they had already been sunk. The spirits of the dead on the skeletal warships got onto small boats and tried to row themselves to the Cloudflowbat vessels. The Cloudflow mages flew into the sky and cast some spells that quickly destroyed the spirits of the dead.


    There was an equipment on the ancientbat vessel that was simr to a magic tower. As a result, the spells cast by the Cloudflow mages were fast and powerful. Even grade-6 grand mages would dare to cast spells consecutively from the sky.


    Within 20 minutes, the three skeletal warships were sunk, and they only managed to dy the Cloudflow fleet slightly. Once again, the spirits of the dead left behind another threebat vessels. The three vessels split up in different directions. Many of the spirits of the dead decided to hop onto life boats while those that were able to swim jumped into the sea directly and begin to swim towards the Cloudflowbat vessels.


    Their attempts at stopping the Cloudflow fleet werepletely ineffective. The ancientbat vessel was full of equipment and mages. They only needed five minutes to sink the three skeletal warships. Killing the rest of the spirits of the dead took less than 10 minutes. The Cloudflow forces were determined to capture Saleen, so the fleet had no qualms using up magic nuclei.


    Back in Saleen¡¯s pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat, J finally opened his eyes. He took a look at Nichs, who was lying withered on the ground, and said, ¡°Old fellow, I will remember this. Next time, I will save you in return.¡±


    Nichs smiled. He had finally been epted by J as one of the people loyal to Saleen. Indeed, no pain no gain. From then on, he became an important member of Saleen¡¯s followers and no matter what, Saleen would not abandon him.

 Chapter 946: Bloody Battle at Lonestar (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 946: Bloody Battle at Lonestar (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The bone warships were divided into four groups to stop the enemy¡¯s advancement, and the Cloudflow people went killing every single spirit onboard. Their cowardice onnd seemed like a distant thing. For more than one-thousand years, that had always been a fact that even they themselves admitted: the seas belonged to Cloudflow, while thend...they all fought all they wanted over those parts.


    While the actual situation with Cloudflow people had not always been so deplorable, the war at Titan Duchy proved the point nheless. If the Cloudflow people did not have the advantage of being familiar with the perilous nature of the waters, they would not have been able to protect their ownnds.


    Even with all bone warships sunken, they were still unable to find Saleen¡¯s fleet. The bone warships leaned towards the west, moving for the shores. Saleen¡¯s fleet however, went straight for north, without any deviation in direction.


    ording to his calctions, he would have been able to attack faster, killing the enemy before the enemy¡¯s sword aura reached him. He never expected the enemy had some skill so eerie up their sleeve¡ªa puppet double. J was too sure of himself, having forgottenpletely that the spirit within his sword had lost all its powers.


    If the sword spirit retained its powers, the puppet double would not have been able to be of any use.


    Saleen asked Nichs in private, and the old man replied that there was more than ny percent chance that J was going to recover, imploring him to rx. Such recovery however, required time, as divine arts would not have been of any use in the field of power restoration.


    J stayed alone within the hold with his sword in his arms, and the magic armor Saleen crafted for him in front of him. Without the armor¡¯s protection, he would have been a dead man. Golden grand swordmasters were not invincible. They were just as capable of dying as anyone else. There was a fine crack in the armor. If the suit of armor had been a conventional set, the impact from such a sword attack taken would have shattered it.


    The crack from the attack had intense residual sword intent left on it. J deemed the enemy golden grand swordmaster¡¯s skill with a sword to be inferior to his, yet the enemy was incredibly quick. He had no choice but to take the full brunt of the attack when they went for Saleen. That had obviously been a trap, and one that he had to jump into.


    The magic armor crafted by Saleen served its purpose exceptionally. Not only did he survive the attack, he was even able to study the enemy¡¯s art with a sword from the crack left behind.


    It had been a long time since he had been in such life-and-death battles. When he was killing his way out of Lonestar City, there had almost been no one capable of standing in his way. He had grown arrogant since then, and the move by the enemy on the previous day served as a severe lesson to him. Behind every able man, there were always other able men. If he was able to gain unique golden sword aura from his practice, so could others.


    For instance, the move that almost got him killed. The sword aura was not something that simply pierced the body; it was something that exploded when it entered the body, rupturing every single organ within. Nichs was only able to reverse the dire injury J suffered by sacrificing tens of years of his own lifespan.


    The price was one hardly worth paying. J knew that Nichs was very old, and his lifespan had gotten even shorter after bing a fallen holy master. While he was able to regain some of his lifespan after acquiring the blood soul tower, Nichs became older again for his and Saleen¡¯s sakes. If he remained incapable of advancing into grade-10, Nichs would have probably ended up being the most short-lived among all of Saleen¡¯s followers.


    J had always thought his speed to be more than enough, yet the attack from before served as a testament that the Cloudflow grand swordmaster¡¯s speed obviously surpassed his. His speed was one from the body leading the weapon, yet the Cloudflow grand swordmaster¡¯s speed was derived from having the weapon leading the body.


    The move was unleashed with all of one¡¯s might and had no hint of intricacies within it whatsoever. J had always detested such skills, where the weapon went out of control and became a loose cannon. He had realized all of a sudden right there, that he had been utterly wrong all that time. No matter how tricky or intricate moves were, there would be times where evasion was simply not an option. The move from the Cloudflow grand swordmaster seemed to have opened up something within J¡¯s mind, and the spirit within Tears resonated with him without him realizing it.


    The rules that he created began to see subtle changes. His moves had alwayscked a ir of indomitable courage to them. It was not that J was weak. It was simply that he spent too much time in Cloudflow and became ustomed to the ways of the Cloudflow people.


    Such things were not immutable after all. Wasn¡¯t the enemy yesterday from Cloudflow after all?


    The weapon spirit within Tears gently called for J. He held onto his sword without realizing that the sword was shaking ever so slightly. The very fine gash on the sword turned more and more undetectable, until it waspletely absorbed within the de itself.


    J¡¯s eyes remained on the crack. Technique was something internal, yet he had taken it to be something like a style. True style should be like someone¡¯s personal bearing, an imposing, peerless bearing capable of overpowering one¡¯s own opponent, rendering escape and evasion impossible.


    If one still relied on techniques when one¡¯s power had reached such a level, andcked such a bearing still, one¡¯s art would have been inferior. He had never encountered any powerful enemies before, and if he had encountered yet another one next time, he probably would not have another opportunity to be enlightened on such matters.


    J thrust Tears at his front swiftly, and the tip of his sword pierced into the magic armor. While the magic array in the armor had undoubtedly been broken, the underlying material remained sturdy nheless. J was, at that moment, incapable of mobilizing sword aura and had only made the move with his own understanding on bearing. The move was able to pierce the sturdy armor nheless.


    J chuckled. His move did not have much behind it, and the use of power was perfect. That chuckle hurt his injury, and he fell down in pain. He gritted his teeth and thought, ¡°Everything about this ship is perfect, except for the fact that there are no pretty girls in it. What a bummer...¡±


    The Cloudflow people were unable to locate Saleen¡¯s fleet, retreating only when they were near Demon City. The warships on both sides no longer made any contact, and the traps left behind by Saleen ended up unused. Saleen left a jade skeleton and a magic array on an uninhabited ind nheless. Once a Cloudflow fleet was detected, the jade skeleton was to trigger the magic array immediately to inform Metatrin City.


    The divingbat vessels did not return to port, staying in the outer waters to continue patrolling instead. Saleen began cing more importance on the grand duke ever since he found out that the grand duke became capable ofmanding ancient warriors.


    With the sea routes being blockaded, Metatrin City grew quiet. As all three trade routes were blocked off, themercialized city had been seeing little else other than some small trade caravans going about collecting magic nuclei. Nobody was doing any big businesses in the city.


    Citizens of Metatrin City did not grow nervous in the least. Having made an extravaganteback, saving his own servant girl and some strange looking sailors¡ªthe demons, citizens of the city never felt safer in their lives. With such a powerful king overseeing them, the city was at least a safe one.


    Had there been any other cities with thirty-six nine-floored magic towers erected in them? Not even Holy Rock City showed such boldness!


    People dwelling inside Metatrin City all had a bit of adventurous spirit in them. The ce was bitterly cold, and there was only one season avable for producing crops. Without aid from mages, eight out of ten years would have seen reduced yield due to cold waves hitting the ce. No one without courage would have thought of settling in such ces.


    The arena within the city saw packed seats every night. There was hardly anyone in the city who cared about the war out there. Winners of diatorial matches were constantly absorbed into the army. Out of Saleen¡¯s ten main camps, other than two which made for Daliang, all others took turns garrisoning Metatrin City and Huoxing City.


    With Jason overseeing the operations, there was hardly unrest of any kind seen within the city, so much so that no one would have guessed that the border city was actually being ced under lockdown.


    Saleen knew that he could no longer be able to sit by and do nothing. The matter with Lonestar City had to be resolved. That time, he no longer relied on his elemental creatures. He had instead mobilized his armies to fight head on with the Sikenqinyans.


    Saleen realized that the elemental creatures were vital means to keep himself alive. With Gloria being severely injured and the dark elemental creature leader in hibernation, he would have been forced to halt many of his ns if two more were to suffer such dire setbacks.


    Within one whole week spent for recovery within Metatrin City, Saleen had not been practicing any magic. He had truly rxed himself for the first time and stayed by Sika and his children. He was, of course, unable to get Sika involved in the rescue of Lonestar City, as he was doing it in the name of saving Lex.


    While both women seemed to get along well with each other, Saleen knew well that both women had always hoped that they would be the only one to be by his side. It had been Sika who egged him on to marry Lex, and there was obviously no turning back at that point. With Sika having bore him two children, Lex dared not suggest anything to have him leave Sika behind, as doing so would have been unbearably cruel.


    Saleen had not been thinking things through thoroughly enough back then, and he was not able to back out of either rtionship.


    Metatrin City had been busy getting ready for war within the week. An army of one-hundred-thousand strong set up camp at the west side, consisted of two groups of temple guards and three main camps. The number of auxiliary troops almost matched that of his regr ones. His army did not follow the Qin¡¯s way of doubling the number of one of those types.


    All of the one-hundred-thousand-thousand troops were equipped with thetest gear Saleen was able to craft. Saleen brought Truman with him still and Duke Guya¡¯s little sister, Sharman.


    While Saleen was busy getting things prepared, Lonestar City had seen several violent conflicts taking ce. The Sikenqinyans surrounding the city had enough to wait outside, as the food supplies consumed every day were of massive amounts. The reinforcement promised by the Holy See had yet toe, be it supplies or troops.


    The Sikenqinyans felt like they were being set up. Given that they had dered war on the Kingdom of Metatrin, there was simply no backing out at that point. Lonestar City had been eyeing the Laiyin Duchy. The duchy served as a gateway of sorts to the Sikenqinyans. If they pulled their forces out, and Lonestar City were to attack Laiyin Duchy, there was no way that the Sikenqinya Empire would simply let things take their own course.


    The several attempts at taking the city resulted in heavy losses on both sides, yet Sikenqinyans were very satisfied. Logistical pressure was considerably lightened with a good number of misceneous troops dead on their side. While the losses suffered by Lonestar City were in the form of spirits, summoning of spirits was nheless a time-consuming feat after all. Having lost great numbers of spirits in the past several battles, Lonestar lost the capacity to assault the Sikenqinyan main camp for the time being.


    In such a deadlocked situation, the Holy See mobilized an army of two-hundred-thousand strong, which was marching from the north of Kroraina and was cutting straight into Qin territory.


    Arge number of ck-robed high priest were among the two-hundred-thousand strong army. The tribunal and the pivotal council were able to reach an agreement to mobilize their main forces, which included elites in the form of fifty-thousand wardens.


    The news traveled from Daliang City and reached Metatrin City. No one was able to tell why the Holy See had suddenly changed their course of attack. If that two-hundred-thousand strong force was to be put to use in the war, they would definitely be able to find a breakthrough at the western borders of the Qin Empire.


    Never had Saleen thought that Grand Duke Iron Blood sold the images of him beating the War Drum of Fear and killing thousands of soldiers to the Holy See. Theisio almost went insane seeing those images. He dreamt of the King of Metatrin beating on arge war drum andmanding armies to murder his believers. The dream had be reality!

 Chapter 947: Bloody Battle at Lonestar (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 947: Bloody Battle at Lonestar (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The pope no longer had any mind to spare for other matters and went straight to talk with the three great head inquisitors of the tribunal. Fifty-thousand elite wardens and arge number of ck-robed high priests were mobilized, before the head inquisitors had a grip on what was going on.


    The pivotal council did notck for high priests, but a considerable number of the high priests in the war were tasked with propagating the faith in the church to stabilize the rear. That was different from how things were usually done. Famine broke out within the Tanggsi Empire. The nobles¡¯ support for the war was low and nobody was willing to offer food supplies.


    The army of the tribunal was independent from the Holy Army¡¯s chain ofmand, and it was a sign of splintering within the Holy See. The splintering was only postponed indefinitely due to the holy war taking ce. Unless the Holy See was able to unite the maind, the tribunal was reluctant to go on with such internal friction.


    Dering war against the vassal duchies of the Cloudflow Empire was a show of the tribunal wanting a piece of the cake. The n with Titan Duchy went bust however, when the pope went negotiating with the Cloudflow people, and the tribunal was without saying, reluctant to just halt the war.


    The case with Lonestar City had the pope swiftly reaching a deal with the tribunal. The pope was still inmand of the line at the Qin borders. The two-hundred elites scrambled by the tribunal moved at the rear of the front lines, making their way straight for Laiyin Duchy.


    While the tribunal had mobilized two-hundred-thousand elites in name, there were actually fifty-thousand Blood Knights and one-hundred-thousand Savior Army troops mobilized beside the dered two-hundred-thousand. The total count of the mobilized army to Lonestar City was three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong.


    The Holy See gained control of most of Kroraina. The highways within Kroraina were advanced, and the three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong army was able to march at the rate of over six-hundred miles per day almost every day. Such a speed would have been deemed to be fast in Tanggsian standards. When Saleen was back recuperating at Metatrin City, the army of the tribunal had almost reached Lonestar City.


    The Holy See was able to do little about the spies nted by Lex at the northern defense line at the north of Bitterwater prefecture. The spies who remained in Kroraina informed Daliang City of the mobilization of tribunal forces, which Daliang City delivered to Metatrin City in turn. Saleen had no choice but to start fretting over things upon hearing the news.


    It was a pity that both the Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater prefecture did not have such strength in numbers. Mobilization of a one-hundred-thousand strong army was something that neared the limit of their forces. He was required to also leave behind some of his forces to guard against any attacks from the sea as well as the area surrounding Huoxing City. The army in Daliang City was also unable to simply wade through all those obstacles to aid Lonestar City.


    Saleen knew well that the two-hundred-thousand strong mobilized by the tribunal was just the beginning. He had never expected the Holy See to move against Lonestar City. He had no choice but to think of something to crush the massive invading force.


    It was a certainty that he had attracted the attention of the Holy See. Pope Theisio would not mobilize such arge force from the tribunal otherwise. Saleen had learned a great deal from Nichs and was very clear of the rtionship between the tribunal and the pivotal council and knew well that such a course of action meant that the Holy See had begun seeing him to be more than just some king of some small kingdom.


    Saleen had no choice but mobilize two-hundred Wings of an Elf and one-hundred metal flyers from Metatrin City when his army set up camp.


    The metal flyers were also something reverse-engineered by the Sregl Ind mages. The flyers differed from the metal flying monsters of the grand duke in the sense that their means of assaultid within their alchemy crossbows, which made them resemble the Wings of an Elf in that case. The metal flyers carriedrge amount of bolts and were heavy, and their defensive capacity was inferior to the Wings of an Elf¡¯s.


    Not even sorcerers would not have approached the metal flyers without hesitation being strafed by the alchemy crossbow bolts. Having sorcerers bringing the flyers along when attacking enemies would have increased survivability exponentially.


    Subtle changes were seen in the rules of the war. Professionals began to fight amongst themon people. The rules established painstakingly by Alchemy City were utterly broken, and no one cared about the city¡¯s opinion in that.


    It was fortunate that the power of the maind was seeing exponential increase and yet the number of sorcerers remained few and far between. The rate of swordsman advancing to swordmasters grew by more than ten times, and the rate of mages advancing into the ranks of grand mages was also increased by more than three times. The threshold at advancement into sorcerer rank however, did not see many changes.


    Sorcerers serving under Saleen were basically based in Metatrin City. Newly developed sorcerers were handpicked by Jason and sent into Six Element Space of interdimensional spaces. All sorcerers qualified for such treatment shared two specific traits: first of all, they were trustworthy mages. Second, they were of average talent, and had no hope of ever advancing into grade-10.


    Mages of better talents were all told to remain behind with Jason and were sent into towers of sorcerers. Their rates of advancement were sped up by using massive amounts of magic nuclei.


    While the Six Element Space was a good ce on its own, it was nheless somewhere ancient mages used to perform alchemy. Speeding up the rate at advancing to grade-9 was but a convenient byproduct. Such methods of advancement were less than ideal, as the understanding of rules and soul power would have proven difficult when advancing to grade-10.


    The very reason why Saleen mobilized two-hundred Wings of an Elf and one-hundred metal flyers was because there were still too few sorcerers around. Such flying devices proved very useful still at killing infantry.


    Saleen had never thought of having the flying army fight head on with the main forces of the enemy. They were meant for killing scouts and patrols, as well as picking off scattered forces.


    Saleen had the demons and his War Drum of Fear for dealing with densely packed main forces.


    The War Drum of Fear was capable of telling friend from foe. Under Saleen¡¯s control, only enemies would have been affected by the power of the drum. That was where the true worth of the drumid. Human skin war drums of the ck magicians ran the risk of jeopardizing one¡¯s own forces, and it was for that reason that it never became popr.


    While Metatrin City was very close to Lonestar City in terms of distance in a straight line, getting to and from the cities required taking long detours. While the distance between Lonestar to Titan Duchy, where the tribunal mobilized their forces, was almost twice as long, travel was made easy by havingrge highways all the way between. They had a head start by more than a week¡¯s time. Saleen had no choice but to speed up, hoping to make it to Lonestar City before the army of the tribunal.


    Five-thousand troops garrisoned at the nameless fort north of Lonestar City. When Saleen¡¯s one-hundred-thousand strong army made it there, they did not bother entering the fort. Instead, they simply left behind some equipment and went straight for the Sikenqinyan camp.


    Saleen¡¯s army was one-hundred-thousand strong and half of them were elite troops. Assaulting a camp of a little more than twenty-thousand strong was a piece of cake. The northern camp was set up with the intention of defending against reinforcements from Metatrin City. Intelligence waspletely cut off from there, and the furthest news was able to reach was to the fort at the north. When Saleen departed from the nameless fort, he sent out one-hundred Wings of an Elf to kill off patrols and scouts along the way.


    Having suffered a grave injury, J needed months to recuperate. Saleen brought only Nichs and Sharman by his side that time. Sharman¡¯s speed at advancement was far more terrifying than J¡¯s. She was at the pinnacle of silver grand swordmaster status. She was still young and advancing into grade-9 proved difficult for her nheless.


    Saleen¡¯s loss of elemental creatures was considerable, yet not one of his twenty-four ancient warriors were hurt. Saleen felt safe having those twenty-four around him. He had Crystal Finger and Eye of Lightning at his disposal for close quartersbat, and his family badge at rangedbat. Unless he were to run into more than two grade-10 professionals or someone like Grand Duke Iron Blood, who was surrounded by a group of grade-9 professionals, he had simply no reason to think much of the two-hundred-thousand Sikenqinyans nearby.


    The increase of power across the entire ne changed more than just the fates of professionals who were few and far between. How war was waged would have gradually resembled how it was done in ancient times. Without professionals around, an army, no matter howrge, would have posed a threat little more than a colony of ants.


    Saleen had only informed the army in Lonestar City just a short while before. Hearing that Saleen wasing personally, Aini gathered one-hundred spirits and went right for the main camp at their doorstep.


    There was an elite force of four-hundred-thousand strong at the main camp, and one-hundred-thousand among them were main forces of the empire. The strength of the army of spiritsid within its numbers. It went without saying that a spirit army of one-million strong was able to make short work of elites numbering at only tens of thousands, yet when numbers of both sides were even, spirits would have hardly had any edge over humans.


    Despite having only one-hundred-thousand at his disposal, what Aini was doing was simply creating an opening for Saleen, preventing the Sikenqinyan main camp from reinforcing their forces at the north. It was fine for Aini to do so given that he had no idea what Saleen was capable of anymore. He was after all, only a grade-8 sorcerer. While nt spirits were powerful, summoning an army of one-million strong had yet to be possible at the moment. The amount of death energy he was able to provide was far from enough to keep so many spirits around him.


    While Nailisi was excited, she did not bother with any of those. She knew that her master had the War Drum of Fear and elemental creatures at his disposal. Those two would have proven invincible against any regr armies.


    It was impossible for Saleen¡¯s one-hundred-thousand strong army to simply line themselves up in a row. Two temple guard battalions were stationed at the front, followed by three battalions of main forces. The battalions were spaced out and went striking at Sikenqinya camps separately, in groups of ten-thousands.


    Saleen paid no heed to strategies. What he was worried about was the might of the tribunal. As such, he summoned twenty-four Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and thirty-six Vermillion Knights, when they were two miles away from enemy camp.


    The sixty elemental creatures summoned were made to be asrge as they could have been, each towering at one-hundred yards tall. The Sikenqinyan mercenaries fell first when the elemental creatures got within enemy sight.


    Thousands abandoned camp and fled, and all of them were able to see their enemies clearly. The elemental creatures moved slowly, following behind the temple guards to keep the march in line. Saleen gave his enemies ample time to flee, as assaulting a scattered camp would have made it far easier for him. There would have still been more than a dozen sorcerers in the camp and fighting all of them head on would have cost him a good number of elemental creatures.


    Sixty one-hundred yard tall elemental creatures trampled the ce in a line, and the resulting psychological trauma was huge, especially in the case of the Vermillion Knights. They were literally covered in mes, leaking out from the cracks of their armor. Their heat was felt far away, and yet another group of troops turned and fled more than one-hundred yards away.


    The elemental creatures easily kicked the walls of the camp down. Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers went smashing about with their magic warhammers, and the enemy was able to do next to nothing to stop him. A graze would have easily killed conventional troops, while high level swordmasters would have been able to hold off for a short while. Ranged weapons in the camp fired to no effect. Be it alchemy crossbows, catapults, or magic cannons, none were able to do any harm to those elemental creatures.


    The Sikenqinyan camp was thoroughly bloodied in less than a minute.

 Chapter 948: Destroying the Battalion (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 948: Destroying the Battalion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The grade nine elemental creatures tore apart the Sikeqinyans¡¯ line of defense. The temple army at the rear managed to charge all the way in without being obstructed.


    Two of the temple army¡¯s battalions gradually split up and headed for both nks, while the three main forces killed all of the remaining enemy soldiers. This was not the first time that Saleen had done something like this.


    The previous time he did something simr was in order scare the enemy, but this time, he did it purely to vent his anger. After all, his woman had been surrounded and attacked by them, so there would have been something really wrong with him if he didn¡¯t retaliate! What Saleen felt that he needed to prove was that there were still some things that the Sikeqinyans would never be able to do.


    When 100,000 spirits of the dead charged at the main camp in the beginning, they suffered many losses. In the middle of the main camp was a collection of attacking equipment that was located more than 500 meters behind the wall. Thanks to this equipment, when the spirits of the dead attacked, many of them were crushed by the catapults.


    Aini did not mind this. After all, the spirits of the dead had all been summoned, and as long as his floral spirits and flesh spirits did not die, he would be able to summon new spirits quickly.


    The death mages that weremanding the spirits had already pledged their allegiances to the Metatrin Kingdom. These mages were also collecting the power of death on the battlefield.


    The mages were pained to have lost so many spirits of the dead, but at least they were not lost without good reason. The sh had left the enemy with severe casualties.


    The death mages were particrly fond of the power that was unleashed by humans when they were on the brink of death. This was because the order that they had been given clearly specified that they could only return after more than 50,000 spirits had died.


    Few generals would ever give such orders, and the death mages were under no pressure as they attacked the exterior of the Sikeqinyan camp. Instead, they were focused on their objective of using 10 spirits of the dead in exchange for the lives of two of their enemies.


    A battle like this was tough on the Sikeqinyans. They had thought that the spirit army was going to do their best in this sh, so they had gathered all of their main forces in order to be prepared.


    But, this was exactly what the death mages had wanted. If the death mages did not manage to kill the elite soldiers of the enemy, then their sacrifices would have been in vain.


    Saleen¡¯s army charged from the camp at the north. Instead of taking the shortest possible route, he took the longest one.


    They had stayed at this particr camp because it was roomy. After all, a camp for 200,000 men needed a lot of space.


    In a Sikeqinyan camp, a tent could only contain five soldiers, and each barrack could only house up to 40 soldiers. Therefore, in order to contain 200,000 men, the entire camp would required more than 10 miles of space on which to build these tents and barracks.


    Saleen would not have dared to do this if he did not have elemental creatures to lead the charge. The sorcerers in the camp quickly retreated. Although they kept sting the elite soldiers with spells, none of them dared to step forward and actually engage inbat.


    Any sorcerer would at least know about the existence of elemental creatures. So, they were aware of the fact that it would be extremely difficult to deal with elemental creatures that were above grade seven. After all, these creatures were a few hundred meters tall, and even if they managed to kill one or two of them, they would definitely pay for it with their own lives!


    Their hesitance to engage in directbat with such creatures was not to because the Sikeqinyans were cowardly, as they were hundreds of times more courageous than Cloudflows. The problem was that the difference in grades was too huge to be ignored, and there were simply too many elemental creatures. The fact that some of the soldiers still remained clearly showed that the Sikeqinyans were not cowards.


    As for the mages, they felt even more helpless. There were only about a dozen sorcerers in the entire camp, and since they were all gathered together, it only made it easier for them to be killed in one foul swoop!


    Saleen was enjoying all of this killing and bloodshed, and Nichs was excited about it too. This was because the number of souls in this blood soul tower had already exceeded 100,000. The way that Saleen led his army into battle resulted in very few survivors among the enemy¡¯s ranks.


    Nichs only struck three times, which was when he captures three Holy Masters. Two of them were grade sixes and one was a grade seven.


    After Nichs had obtained their powers, they were thrown to the demons at the side. The demons in the temple army possessed intelligence, which made them unlike those on the ships.


    At this point in time, Saleen finally realized the incredible power of the demon army. In terms of power and strength, their tall bodies already had the upper hand.


    Humans were no longer as powerful aspared to the past, where the soldiers were all grade nine. As such, these demons were well-equipped and powerful, so they had no trouble chasing down the human soldiers.


    Besides this, the speed at which the demons changed their formations was so quick that it made Saleen feel extremely satisfied. The demons that were injured were sent to the middle of the formation immediately for their protection, while those on the exterior of the formation were the ones in excellent condition. Saleen realized that in the battles that the demons participated in, they were always the ones with the least number of casualties.


    The battle at Sanlian City was the only in which more than a thousand demons had died. In the other battles, the number of demon casualties always remained within the hundreds.


    The battle at Sanlian City had dragged on for a very long time, and there were insufficient soldiers from the Principality of Bitter Water fighting in it. There were not many armies that could support the demon army, which was the reason behind the increased number of casualties.


    The Sikeqinyan camp on the north waspletely destroyed by Saleen¡¯s army. The heavy-armored equipment was destroyed by the elemental creatures, while the huge arrow towers, catapults, and granaries were burnt down by the Vermillion Knights.


    Suddenly, Saleen understood why the ancient humans tried to conquer other dimensions. Their ambitions would inevitably grow when they realized they were powerful enough to destroy their enemies so easily.


    Back then, one of the allies of the humans were the powerful giants. With the giants leading the charge, even the gods would be trampled to death!


    After Saleen was finished with this camp, he headed toward the one in the west. After all, there was no reason for Saleen to stop if the enemy¡¯s sorcerers were too afraid to fight. Also, by the time the Holy Masters of the Supreme Court arrived, it would be toote for Saleen because the Sikeqinyans would have be much more powerful.


    The camp in the west finally realized that something was wrong. The Sikeqinyans¡¯ signaling system was not as good as the Qins¡¯, and since there were too many mercenary armies, it became more difficult to coordinate the entire army.


    At the moment, the Great General of the Sikeqinya Empire was leading the army, not the noble families. By appointing ranks such as Great General and Marshals, the Sikeqinya Empire had managed to limit the armies that were led by noble families.


    When the Great General realized that the camp in the north was falling and the attack from the spirit army was actually very weak, he quickly deployed the sorcerers to the north camp. The sorcerers in the north camp fled with tens of thousands of men, while many more soldiers copsed on the ground. Even though Saleen was not holding back when he was attacking and killing the enemy, he still only managed to kill a few thousand of them.


    Most of the soldiers that managed to escape were those from mercenary armies that were above grade seven. Those that were killed by Saleen were from insignificant mercenary armies. The Sikeqinyan army maintained a hierarchy that was strictly adhered to, so cannon fodders did not even have the right to flee for their lives.


    During this time, more than 40 huge puppets were activated by the Sikeqinyan army. When the sorcerers were gathered together, there were more than 30 of them. Of course, none of them were grade nine sorcerers.


    There were very few sorcerers in Sikeqinya. The fact that they were able to gather so many of them this time around showed the determination of Grand Emperor Danny.


    Saleen allowed 12 ancient warriors to join the formation of the elemental creatures in their charge. The elemental creatures were split up into three rows as they shed head-on with the huge puppets.


    It had been more than hour since the battle had begun, but Saleen¡¯s troops remained as orderly as ever. The main forces remained at the rear, while the temple army¡¯s advanced equipment allowed the officers to sendmands to individual soldiers.


    The corpses on the battlefield had already been trampled into minced meat by the elemental creatures and demons. As such, the scene was so gory that even the auxiliary soldiers found it too difficult to look at it. If not for the protection of the equipment from the sights and stenches, more auxiliary soldiers would have already vomited in disgust.


    Saleen was pleased to see the discipline that the demon army exhibited. Even though the battlefield was really gory, no demon had tried to devour the corpses yet.


    What Saleen did not know was that Nailisi had tasked the magic beast swordsmen to feed these demons with only the most delicious magic bugs. As such, the demons had been trained to be very picky eaters, which exined why they were not fond of such human minced meat at all.


    When the elemental creatures fought against the huge puppets, most of thetter were not humanoids. These puppets were approximately 20 meters in height and were no match for the elemental creatures.


    When the elemental stone statue soldiers attacked with their magic war hammers, the puppets were smashed into pieces. The mes and giant arrows that they were using for their attacks were all deflected by the elemental stone statue soldiers¡¯ bodies.


    ¡°Grade nine creatures!¡± the sorcerers that were flying in the sky all shouted together at once. When they realized that there were 60 grade nine creatures in total, they knew they were in big trouble.


    Suddenly, more than 10 high-level spells crashed down from the sky. These sorcerers had quick reactions and prepared arge-scale spell together and tried to kill these elemental creatures.


    Of course, Saleen would never allow such a thing to happen. It was a pity though, as if Gloria was around, he would have been able to use the Rainbow Spell to kill more than 10 of those sorcerers in a split second.


    Nevertheless, Saleen was not worried, and he sent out 12 ancient warriors, who instantly leapt into the sky. Their bodies were glowing with a blood-red light, and their speed was only slightly slower than the golden grand swordmasters¡¯.


    The sorcerers eximed in shock upon seeing this, and they desperately tried to cast their high-level spell in order to stop these ancient warriors. The tainted blood armors that the ancient warriors were wearing began to creak as their muscles expanded. There was no way any spell below a grade nine would be able to kill these warriors.


    The 12 ancient warriors attacked with their longnces once they charged into the group of sorcerers. In the blink of an eye, eight of the sorcerers that were in the midst of preparing the spell were stabbed, their corpses instantly falling from the sky. Upon seeing this, all of the other sorcerers had no choice but to split up and retreat.


    In this way, eight sorcerers were killed in a single attack. Something like this had never happened before, and Saleen was no longer afraid to show his true abilities.


    In any case, the Grand Duke Iron Blood had his iron blood warriors, who were on par with Saleen¡¯s ancient warriors. So, it was only a matter of time before someone thought of a way to defeat the ancient warriors. As he thought of this, Saleen decided that he might as well use them to do as much damage as possible while they were still capable of doing so!


    Suddenly, the demons startedughing maniacally. They couldn¡¯t believe that the sorcerers in the sky had actually threatened them, which was why they were so pleased to see the sorcerers fleeing for their lives.


    The 12 ancient warriors descended to the ground and returned to Saleen. Their flying abilities were mediocre and could only be used for quick assassination attempts, so they knew that they would never be able to pursue the sorcerers.


    Besides, the sorcerers would be able to attack them very frequently, and the tainted blood armors of the ancient warriors had been severely damaged. So, if they continued fighting, Saleen would probably lose some of them due to their wearing inadequate safety equipment.

 Chapter 949: Destroying the Battalion (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 949: Destroying the Battalion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The moment the sorcerers fled, the reinforcement troops were easily defeated. From a magic tower in Lonestar City, Aini was using his Spirit Gaze and saw that the troops from the north camp were fleeing toward the west. Although he could not see everything clearly, he guessed that Saleen must have defeated the north camp.


    Weren¡¯t there only 100,000 men? Aini wondered before immediately asking someone to call for Nailisi.


    Recently, Nailisi and Aini had been sneaking outside the city to kill some of the enemy soldiers. So far, their endeavors had been sessful, for as long as there were less than a hundred enemy soldiers, they two of them had been able to kill them all.


    If Saleen was unable to arrive in time, Nailis and Aini would have to go deep into the camps to start killing the enemies. The lure of the blood soul tower was so great that Aini was willing to take that risk.


    When Nailisi arrived at Aini¡¯s magic tower, she immediately said, ¡°We need to leave the city quickly. Bring your most elite spirits of the dead. Master has gone crazy! He wants to defeat the Sikeqinyans in a single battle. I¡¯m not having much fun anymore.¡±


    Nailisi knew that Saleen had Nichs by his side and would definitely help Nichs to boost the power of his blood soul tower. By doing so, Saleen probably hoped to make use of this battle to elevate Nichs¡¯ power until Nichs was able to break through to grade 10.


    In that case, the benefits that Nailisi could reap would be almost limitless. Of course, creating the blood soul tower had other uses.


    However, she could not possibly allow Nichs to gain everything. This was why she had to convince Aini to leave the city as soon as possible.


    Aini gritted his teeth and said, ¡°Alright. Let me inform Her Highness, Lex, first.¡±


    Aini was no longer an impulsive person, and he did not wish for his city to be attacked. Hence, he figured that it was best to handover the defense of the city to Lex before they left.


    Then, he began to summon the spirits of the dead. Plenty of middle-level and high-level spirits were gathered at the main gate, and once the city gate opened, Nailisi dashed out with Aini and the ancient warriors.


    In terms of attacking the enemy, Nailisi was not as experience or skillful as Saleen. So, she was mainly relying on the 24 ancient warriors and the massive spirit army to help her in this area.


    If Saleen had given her the order, she would not have needed any coordination between the armies inside the city and those outside. After all, she was at least capable of leading her army into the Sikeqinyan camp and chasing them away. The only reason she had been holding back was because Saleen had not allowed her to attack before.


    Now that Saleen has begun his killing spree, there was no reason for Nailisi to continue holding back. So, she decided to transform herself into her devil-form, then took out her longnce. With her longnce in one hand and a blood soul tower in the other hand, she began her own killing spree!


    With Aini personally leading the attack, the morale of the spirit army was high. While the floral spirits remained in the city, a massive fleshy spirit flew above his head.


    Once in a while, it would spit out a powerful death aura that would surround Aini within an area of a whole mile. This fleshy spirit was already at grade nine, but if Aini was unable to advance to grade 10, the fleshy spirit would not be able to advance either. Thus, it would only keep growing in size and power as it prepared to advance to grade 10.


    The spirits within a mile became extremely ferocious. Among those that had charged into the north camp, some were quite massive in size. In preparation for this battle, Aini had even assembled a skeletal dragon!


    Only the skull of this skeletal dragon belonged to a real dragon, as the rest of its body was pieced together andpiled of many various beings and existences. This was an intimidating creature, as just one of its Spirit Breaths would leave no survivors within a hundred meters!


    The speed at which Aini was collecting souls was much faster than Nailisi¡¯s. Upon seeing this, she was frustrated, so she decided to unleash all 24 ancient warriors to kill at will!


    Aini and Nailisi gradually inched closer to the interior of the camp. The spirits on the outside decreased steadily as they went. This was because the Sikeqinyan north camp was built like a fortress, so some casualties were inevitable.


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Saleen gasped as he saw armies leaving Lonestar City and attacking the north camp.


    He quickly summoned the Tempest Dragonmights, 24 of which immediately flew toward Nailisi. Saleen knew exactly what Nailisi was thinking, but he still had no idea what Nailisi wanted to use the blood soul tower for.


    If it was purely for her spirit form, Nailisi probably would not have been so enthusiastic about it. So, this made Saleen think that all of this was probably rted to her Luoluokaluo bloodline. If Nailisi was able to obtain all of the powers, she would probably be the most powerful creature after Saleen!


    Nailisi was pleased when she saw the Tempest Dragonmights flying toward her. This meant that Saleen was allowing her to collect souls. Although the blood soul tower might seem useless now, it would be an irreceable item once all eight types of powers had been gathered.


    Until then, Nailisi must make sure that the blood soul tower was filled with souls. If possible, she figured that she should head back to the demon dimension to kill some imps and demonic spirits, as in the demon dimension, even some magic bugs possessed souls.


    Without Saleen¡¯s leadership, the Tempest Dragonmights would be no match for a group of sorcerers. Fortunately, the Sikeqinyan camp had already fallen, and with two powerful forces attacking them from both sides, the Sikeqinyan soldiers had fallen into a state ofplete chaos and disorder.


    Upon seeing this, Saleen summoned more Vermillion Knights. These tall elemental creatures charged everywhere in the camp, riding on their ming warhorses. Most of their enemies died from being burnt by the ming warhorses instead of being wounded by their ming knives.


    All this time, Nichs followed Saleen closely. The number of souls in his blood soul tower was increasing very quickly. The soul brand on the blood soul tower was bing clearer, and Nichs¡¯ stature has also grown.


    At the moment, the souls in the blood soul tower were all bowing to Nichs, and he could feel that his lifespan was no longer shortening. He could also sense that the damage that had been caused by the lesser prophecy spell was being repaired by these souls.


    The damage caused by the lesser prophecy spell was not only inflicted at the moment that the divine spell was cast. In fact, Nichs¡¯ lifespan had been shortening very quickly this whole time. It was only when Saleen had allowed Nichs to collect more souls that Nichs had finally managed to reap countless benefits.


    On top of that, most of the souls that Nichs had collected were all in one piece and were more powerful than those that Fycro had collected for him previously. When Fycro had created the soul beads for him, he had taken away more than half of their power in order to limit Nichs.


    On the other hand, the blood soul tower that Nailisi had given Nichs had not been tinkered with at all. Therefore, Nichs was able to fully enjoy all of the benefits of collecting those souls. In this way, the mages¡¯ saying, ¡°One must be prepared to give up something of the same value as what one desires¡± had really proven to be true.


    It was only now that Nichs had truly began to understand this saying of the mages. He had no idea how many years of his lifespan that he had given up, but in exchange for it, he was now on the brink of advancing to grade 10!


    Although the risks might be high, without this opportunity, he just couldn¡¯t see the purpose of living a slightly longer life anyway. If he had not cast the lesser prophecy spell, Saleen would have died on Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s ind!


    If things had turned out that way, Lex might not have taken him in and the Winged Skull and Nailisi might not have forgiven him. In the end, he would probably have turned out to be a fallen Holy Master, being reprimanded by everyone!


    Then, the mages would not want him and the Holy See would never ept him. Even the Supreme Court was known to be fond of killing fallen Holy Masters!


    With the 24 Tempest Dragonmights, Nailisi began to kill the enemy forces very quickly. The Sikeqinyans were taken by surprise by this.


    They had never expected to encounter an enemy like this, where there were close to a hundred grade nine elemental creatures that were able to ovee their defenses so easily! The king of the Metatrin Kingdom had personally led this expedition, quickly crushing the Sikeqinyans¡¯ dreams!


    Now, the oue of future battles no longer hinged on the number of soldiers on both sides, as all soldiers must be d with magic armor on the battlefield or they were as good as dead. Also, all of their crossbows must be the most powerful ones. Otherwise, they would never be able to break down the enemy¡¯s defenses.


    Furthermore, all of the mages must work together. Otherwise, they would be easily killed by the enemy¡¯s grade nine creatures. Any loophole in their spells would definitely be exploited by such intimidating enemies!


    At the moment, Nailisi was in a great mood. This was because the Tempest Dragonmights had managed to create magic cannons from wind elements.


    These cannons shot out huge wind des, and against ordinary soldiers, these grade seven wind des were capable of killing dozens of them! In fact, with a single shot of the cannon, close to a hundred wind des would fly everywhere, obliterating every enemy in sight!


    Right now, Nailisi waspletely focused on collecting as many souls as possible. She was no longer involving herself in any battles. As she had the Tempest Dragonmights and the ancient warriors, she was practically invincible in the Sikeqinyan camp.


    Meanwhile, thousands of meters up in the sky, a figure was looking down at the battlefield...


    ¡°Wow. Saleen has be so strong! I shouldn¡¯t have even bothered to sign a bond with him. I should have just killed him and saved myself the trouble.¡± The figure sighed and turned around to fly toward the direction of the Chaotic Swamp.


    Behind him, approximately 15 miles away, a mage with a colorful magic robe and long green hair was secretly tailing him. The manner in which both men flew was very queer.


    The one in front was barely visible. He was flying through the sunlight, and each time that he did so, he would advance several miles.


    Even though he did not seem to be flying very quickly, the frequency in which he was flying through the sunlight was as high as that of when he was casting spells. Hence, in the blink of an eye, he had already traveled more than a hundred miles!


    As for the mage behind him, the six major elements around him were undisturbed. He was like a bird, gliding through the sky. However, a bird would never be able to fly faster than 200 miles an hour, and although there seemed to be nothing special or unique about this mage, he was somehow able to maintain a distance of 15 miles behind the man in front of him.


    After the two of them had flown hundreds of miles, Nichs suddenly said, ¡°My Lord, Fycro was here just now!¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Saleen replied calmly.


    Nichs was taken aback at his response. He was surprised to hear that Saleen could sense Fycro¡¯s presence. This was because Nichs was able to sense the presence of Holy Masters and knew how rare the ability was. Moreover, this particr Holy Master in the sky had left Nichs with only terrible memories.


    But, in fact, Saleen had not sensed Fycro. He had only heard Joey¡¯s voice.


    ¡°Saleen, Fycro is right above you, and he is watching the battle unfold. I will think of a way to kill him. Take care of your own safety,¡± Nichs advised.


    Saleen¡¯s palms became cold. By now, he already knew that the repercussions of a grade 10 breaking a bond would not be very severe, and they would certainly not endanger one¡¯s life.


    For this reason, Saleen had be too arrogant. Now, if Fycro wanted to kill him, there was no one around Saleen that would be able to protect him.


    Instinctively, Saleen grasped his n badge. If Fycro returned, he was going to give it a try, no matter what. He might not die from breaking the bond, but if Fycro was going to attack him anyway, Saleen figured that he might as well strike first!

 Chapter 950: Courage that Shakes the Heavens (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 950: Courage that Shakes the Heavens (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fycro did note back, and Saleen¡¯s battle raged on till midnight. The reason for this was not because the Sikenqinyans were too strong, but that his elemental creatures were fatigued and needed rest. After all, they were not in the Imperial City of the Abyss, so the restoration rates of the elemental creatures¡¯ powers were far inferior to when they were in the Imperial City.


    At the moment, the camp in the north was broken down by Saleen¡¯s and Aini¡¯sbined forces. As for the camp in the south, it simply decided to retreat.


    The massive Sikenqinyan army of a million strong crumbledpletely after fighting for more than 10 hours. By this time, the elemental creatures were thoroughly exhausted, and Saleen knew that he still needed to keep six of each type of elemental creature as reserves.


    The only exception to this were the Blue Ice Maidens, of which he kept 36. As there was no way that Gloria could help him in any battles within thising year, as she had no way of restoring her lost minions, Saleen knew that he had to be prudent with his use of the water elemental creatures especially.


    As for the surviving demons, they numbered less than a thousand. As such, it was impossible for him to rely solely on the elemental creatures to do all of the fighting. With the Sikenqinyan troops ganging up on them from both sides, casualties among the demons, which were now serving as the main force of the temple guards, were simply inevitable.


    The casualty ratio between the demons and the humans had always had a great gap. For instance, taking down one demon would have resulted in more than five severely injured human lives. As long as the demon remained alive, it would easily get back on its feet, even without help from doctors or holy masters.


    Saleen had only brought two battalions of temple guards with him, among which there were 4,000 magic infantry officers. There were hardly any casualties among these 4,000, but the battalions did suffer heavy losses in terms of suits of armor. Specifically, one-fifth of the suits of magic armors werepletely broken, which caused the soldiers wearing to be forced to retreat from the front lines.


    Tens of thousands of troops continued pouring out of Lonestar City and sweeping through the battlefield. Injuredbatants were ferried back to the city by spirits in an orderly manner. Amid the battle, Saleen lost only 8,000 out of the 100,000 that he had brought with him, and these losses were mainly from the auxiliary troops.


    However, losing nearly ten percent of one¡¯s fighting force was still considered a huge loss nheless. If it had not been for the enemy¡¯s suffering even heavier losses, Saleen could have even been been to have lost the battle.


    At the moment, Saleen did a rough calction in his mind, and while thebat capacities of the temple guards were indeed the most powerful in his army, having one battalion taking on five still proved to be too strenuous for his main forces. In hindsight, he figured that one battalion fighting two would have been more within reach.


    At the moment, Saleen was no mood to sweep the battlefield. Fycro¡¯s appearance had left a bad taste in his mouth, so he had holed up inside Lonestar City instead, handing overmand of the army to Nichs. He then headed straight for Lex¡¯s magic tower after greeting Aini.


    Lex did not make an appearance, despite the fighting outside having be quite intense. She simply continued performing magic experiments in her tower in a rxed manner.


    At the moment, she had more than a dozen grand mages standing by her side. As Saleen came in, it was normal that these grand mages would have to excuse themselves.


    However, before they even had a chance to move, Lex said, ¡°Just continue what you were doing.¡±


    Talking reason with her at the moment would have proven useless, as Lex knew what was happening on the maind. It was just that it was still hard for her to ept it emotionally.


    As he thought of this, Saleen went to Lex¡¯s side and greeted her, ¡°Lex...¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡± Lex replied simply.


    ¡°I¡¯m here,¡± he said, trying tofort her.


    ¡°I know,¡± Lex replied in an exasperated manner, which caused Saleen to chuckle.


    Lex finally realized that he had only been doing what he had been doing because of his contract with the goddess. After all, he could not have brought himself to lead an army to take down the rule of Holy Rock City. It would have been far too brutal for him to think up such a thing himself!


    Lex understood Saleenpletely, but she still could not help but feel bitter inside, and she wanted to vent her anger on something or someone. The problem was that Saleen was not the one she could vent her frustration upon.


    After all, they both signed the contract, so they shared the burden together. Plus, they were things that Lex had to do in the future. For instance, she still had to conquer Phoenix and make Guderian City the border between Metatrin and Qin.


    ¡°What should I do, Lex?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± one of the grand mages blurted out, while all of the grand mages turned their heads around in response.


    Saleen responded to the random question with a re, and then the grand mages had no choice but to leave them both alone. After all, they figured that the married couple had their own business to discuss, and it would have been awkward for any outsiders to stick around and eavesdrop. Saleen was their king, after all, and this time, Lex did not ask them to stay.


    ¡°I attracted the attention of the Holy See, and I have yet to kill the grand duke.¡±


    ¡°So what? Qin has only been able to build their empire after spending more than a hundred years attempting it. In fact, if the first generation of the Grukos are included, the total time spent doing so is more than 800 years! How long have you spent establishing your own kingdom?¡± she asked.


    ¡°More than 800 years? I¡¯ll be dead by then!¡± Saleen responded.


    ¡°You really need to see beyond what is right in front of you right now,¡± Lex said, while sighing in an exasperating manner.


    She had not meant to chastise him, but all that he had been doing recently was hardly considered long-term nning. That left Lex feeling somewhat frustrated. Saleen had simply been ignoring some of the ns that she had painstakinglyid.


    ¡°I need to focus on what is right in front of my eyes, Lex,¡± Saleen said as he took out his War Drum of Fear and put it in front of her. The ferocious-looking face on the drum had a menacing smirk on it, as if it wanted to eat Saleen alive.


    ¡°Is this the thing you told me about... The one you have been crafting?¡± Lex asked.


    After all, she was still a mage, so it was a given that any magic equipment would pique her interest, even making her forget that she was having an argument with her husband just moments ago.


    ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s a level 12 creature, with the skin of the angel of fear and a thread of the angel of fear¡¯s linked soul inside,¡± Saleen said as he took out the broken jade pieces, which contained the souls of the angel of fear within them.


    Lex took the jade pieces in her hand and studied them for a bit, then said, ¡°There¡¯s nothing we can do about them...¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Those two aren¡¯t dumb, and they won¡¯t fall for just anything, so there was nothing I could do to persuade them. Using them for crafting would have been a waste, and until I put one of those souls in the drum, it will just be a level nine piece of equipment,¡± Saleen agreed.


    ¡°What does this have to do with us?¡± Lex asked, suddenly feeling that her thoughts were being led astray by Saleen.


    ¡°Do you remember the first expeditionary force that was sent by the Holy See?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course. There was hardly anyone powerful left in Metatrin City back then,¡± she replied.


    ¡°Do you know why Theisio sent armies to attack Metatrin City then?¡± he asked.


    ¡°What are you getting at? Just get to the point!¡± Lex red at him.


    ¡°Nichs told me that Pope Theisio had a dream before... Of me...¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°A dream about you?¡± Lex was startled by this, as she was absolutely sure that Saleen had never met Theisio before.


    ¡°Not just me, but the dream was also about this drum right here as well. He saw me using this thing in his dream, killing many of his believers,¡± Saleen exined.


    ¡°Could it be a divine omen?¡± Lex blurted out.


    ¡°Yes. A divine omen. I tested out the war drum¡¯s power during the fight with the grand duke. While it was still just a piece of level nine equipment, its attacks were terrifying. The reason I didn¡¯t use it this time was because I stillckedplete control over it, and I was afraid that I would have hurt the spirits if I tried to use it,¡± Saleen said.


    Lex went silent for a while, pondering all of this in her head. The grand duke had definitely sent the information to the Holy See. Knowing what something like that was, the pope would definitely haveplete faith in the divine omen, and that would have severely messed up both of her and Saleen¡¯s ns.


    ¡°Lex, you don¡¯t have to be angry anymore. It seems that I have just made myself into a big fat target for the Holy See...¡± Saleen said.


    Saleen then let out a long sigh. He had only been testing out his new toy for fun. He never expected that his doing so would have brought about such severe repercussions!


    ¡°How about I go and exchange Daliang City for Phoenix? Would that help?¡± Lex suggested.


    She knew that conquering the entire Phoenix region would enable her to build a pass at the southwestern mountains of the region, which could then ensure the safety of Metatrin City. After hearing her suggestion, Saleen was immensely touched.


    However, Daliang City was something that Lex had worked very hard to build. While it was nowhere asrge as Phoenix, it was still a ce that was directly linked to the development of the Principality of Bitterwater. The very reason why Lex was willing to just give it up like that was due solely to her wanting to protect the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    ¡°Lex, I can¡¯t let you do that. Daliang City was where we held our wedding! We can¡¯t just trade it! Besides, that ce was destined to be the capital city, the center of your new empire!¡± Saleen immediately rejected the idea.


    ¡°We can still take it back,¡± Lex said.


    She had clearly stopped being angry at Saleen. At the moment, she had only one concern, the safety of the Kingdom of Metatrin!


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we just go take Phoenix then?¡± Saleen suggested.


    ¡°What?¡± Lex asked, surprised by his words.


    Saleen quickly took out the magic map, spread it open, and pointed at it as he said, ¡°What you meant to do was to build a pass here, and that would have made it very difficult to enter the region. This ce is now under the control of the Qin Empire. So, even if you exchange it for Daliang City, you would still end up getting the short end of the stick.¡±


    Saleen then pointed at the other side of the mountain pass on the map and said, ¡°This entire ce is a nd, which makes it very difficult to defend. But, if I were to build a city here, do you think that the Holy See would try to take it by force? Or... Would they want to take a detour around it to attack Phoenix?¡±


    Lex seemed to be in a daze as she was looking at the map. Seeing how she stayed quiet, even after quite a while, he tapped her on the shoulder.


    It was only then that Lex realized that she had been spacing out, and she immediately pointed at Laiyin Duchy on the map and asked, ¡°What do you mean... Build a city? Man, I think you have really gotten addicted to building cities! Take Laiyin Duchy, then Laiyin will be ours. We could then enter Didypus from the Chaotic Swamp and gobble up the entire Laiyin Duchy! Don¡¯t you think your current firepower will be sufficient to manage that?¡±


    Saleen let out a bitterugh. He had thought of this same n himself. Lex did have a good eye for strategy, as taking down Laiyin Duchy would be far easier than keeping Phoenix.


    Plus, with so many level nine people serving under him, the duchy would be unable to stop him. But, there was Fycro in the swamp to consider.


    With Joey pursuing Fycro, Saleen was unable to keep tabs on where things stood at the moment, and their attempting to pass through the swamp would be a joke unless Fycro was dead. And... If he was unable to cross the swamp and conquer Didypus, there would be no chance for Saleen to protect Laiyin!


    Saleen had signed a contract with Fycro, and Fycro was in the swamp. It was a contract that not even Joey was able to break.


    Moreover, the contract ced hundreds of times more restrictions on him than it did on Fycro. Saleen had only his helplessness to me for such a huge oversight in judgment!


    Upon hearing Saleen¡¯s bitterugh, Lex was reminded of that absurd contract, and she pointed at the Chaotic Swamp on the map and asked, ¡°We can¡¯t pass through here, can we?¡±


    Saleen shook his head sadly. Lex knew that they were able to build smuggling routes here, but if they built a pathrge enough to aodate armies, there was simply no certainty that Fycro would ensure the troops safe passage.


    After all, this particr matter was not included in the uses of the contract that had been signed by both parties back then. Thinking of this, both Saleen and Lex grew frustrated, especially Lex.


    After all, Fycro wanted to use both the power of Saleen¡¯s God¡¯s Left Hand, as well as her God Ring. Now that the power of life of the goddess in Saleen¡¯s left hand had been taken away, the contract between him and Fycro had grown problematic.


    Lex took a look at the map and controlled the magic arrays, revealing the details of the map bit by bit. Now, every single river was marked, and only the Chaotic Swamp remained slightly blurry.


    ¡°Saleen, could Jason defend Metatrin City alone?¡± Lex asked suddenly.


    ¡°Most definitely,¡± Saleen answered confidently.


    ¡°Well then, let¡¯s just attack this ce then! I don¡¯t see why not?¡± The magic map quickly shrunk, while the images were erged. Lex asked her question as she pointed at a spot that was within the Sikenqinya territory.


    Saleen looked at Lex with a startled expression, then asked, ¡°Ironwall City?¡±

 Chapter 951: Courage that Shakes the Heavens (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 951: Courage that Shakes the Heavens (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°That is Ironwall City, known to be the most impregnable city in Sikeqinya. It is even more protected than the Sikeqinya Imperial City itself,¡± Lex said as she erged the magic map¡¯s image, giving her and Saleen an excellent view of Ironwall City.


    Saleen had no idea how Lex was able to acquire such a detailed image of the city. As he gazed at the city¡¯s framework and borate image on the map, he had to admit that it was the mostvish and over-the-top thing that he had everid eyes upon!


    This was indeed an irregr city! It had twisted walls of bronze that towered all around it, which were very tall and dazzlingly majestic.


    Forts, instead of mere battlements and the like, had all beenvishly designed, and mboyant and ornate decorations covered every other section of the bronze walls. Moreover, every single fort had been constructed ording to apletely different design. The onlymon thing between them all was how extravagant they looked!


    These forts had steel bases, which were filled with magic patterns. For a literal desert of magic, like the Sikeqinya Empire, such decorations really made the ce stand out from the rest.


    As Saleen looked around, he could easily see where the city got its namesake, as arge amount of metal was apparent everywhere. The forts themselves were basically madepletely out of steel.


    There were also metal struts, which were serving as support beams beneath the walls. Otherwise, they would have been easily decimated targets for catapult attacks.


    And, as Lex was somehow able to get such a detailed map, which even depicted the internal defense images of the city, Saleen could even see that the walls were lined with something rarely seen... They wererge metal puppets, each manned by multiple personnel!


    At the moment, these puppets were having ballista installed on them. The Qin Empire had spent such a great amount on creating the puppets, but it had never really considered using them in actual battle.


    This was not to say that the puppets were no good. After all, such puppets were capable of firing ballista bolts while moving, and they also had far greater uracy than magic catapults.


    Even magic stone cannons would have paled inparison in that regard. It was even said that well-trained troops were capable of aiming at enemy generals while piloting such puppets, eliminating them easily.


    These huge metal puppets were slightly taller than the city walls, but they were capable of moving and defending their territories quickly, making it hundreds of times more difficult for them to be taken out by the enemy.


    Also to the city¡¯s credit, almost every single building within the city had been installed withrge assault weapons. As such, the entire city looked quite simr to a monster baring its fangs and ws.


    The wall that was facing the ins had four bridle paths that had beenid out at in different angles. These four paths had been carved out and installed with magic arrays. As such, any enemy forces who tried to barge their ways in by using these paths would end up paying a great price.


    Furthermore, the bridle paths clear had beenid at a steep angle of 40 degrees. Hence, scaling them would not be easy for enemy forces.


    There were also nine magic towers within the city, three of which had nine floors. The remaining six towers had seven floors.


    The distribution of these towers was highly logical. Unfortunately, Saleen had learned it the hard way that six of these nine magic towers could be linked together to cast a superrge spell. At the moment, the nine magic towers almost covered the entire Ironwall City.


    ¡°Lex, do you really want to attack a ce like this?¡± Saleen found even the idea of such a thing to be unbelievable.


    After all, it was said that Ironwall City impossible to conquer. While it was true that most of that statement was simply the Sikeqinyans bragging about their beloved city, it was still undeniable that the city was extremely fortified and quite powerful.


    Plus, it was only 500 miles away from the Sikeqinya Imperial City. With both cities working in tandem, they could gather an army of more than a million strong in not time.


    While Saleen no longer feared the attacks of regr armies, if the three level nine sorcerers within Ironwall City joined forces and aligned their powers, Saleen would have had no choice but to use all of his elemental badges, which would deplete them allpletely.


    Moreover, the Sikeqinya Imperial City was filled with powerful beings. So, if they ended up being upied with dealing with Ironwall City and were caught in a surprise attack, Saleen was uncertain if his troops would be able to make a clean escape, let alone conquer the city!


    ¡°We are not taking the city in order to possess it for ourselves. The city is too near to the Sikeqinya Imperial City, so even if we were to take control of it, we wouldn¡¯t be able to keep control of it for long. Even an attempt at aplishing such a thing would utterly exhaust our forces. My intention is to simply light the ce up, then assault their cities along the coast. This ce would be our final target...¡± Lex exined.


    She then pointed at a small city near the sea on the map and said, ¡°We can use this ce as a base, while we take the surrounding cities and set up our own turf, using the sea itself as a barrier. The Ancient warship will patrol here. Once the Sikeqinyan army make it to this spot, the ship will then serve as our backup weapon, raining down magic stone shells on the targets onshore. This will also ensure that the enemy forces suffer huge losses.¡±


    As Saleen saw where Lex was pointing her finger, he was at loss of what to say or feel about it. This was because Lex was pointing at Ceylon City, where he was born!


    As he thought of his birthce, memories of days past flooded Saleen¡¯s mind. The struggles of his childhood years, the troubles of his youth, the anxiety that gued him after meeting his teacher... All of these things swirled in Saleen mind.


    He then asked, ¡°I heard that the hometown of the four empires¡¯ sovereigns was considered by them to be equal to their own territory. Is that true?¡±


    ¡°Indeed!¡± Lex answered the question smiling.


    ¡°Well then... It seems that I finally get to return to my birthce in glory and rebuild my family¡¯s grave.¡± Saleen let out a long sigh.


    Lex thought things through much better than he did. He would have attempted to take Ceylon City, without any regard for what the Sikeqinyan emperor thought about it.


    After all, that ce was supposed to be his turf. Also, seeing how he now had the might to take the city, all hecked was little more than a simple reason to do so.


    ¡°The act of taking down Ironwall City was a show of force to the Sikeqinyan emperor, revealing to him that you now possess the power to crush any of his cities,¡± Lex said.


    ¡°Crush his cities?¡± Saleen asked with a puzzled expression.


    ¡°When you headed to the Oceanic Ice Block... Jason... He found a fire oil mine under the frozennds of the north. The mages of Sreeger Ind have now stockpiled tons of fire oil, which they then made magic fire shells out of. I would expect they would have stockpiled even more by now,¡± Lex replied.


    ¡°Wow! So much?¡± Saleen eximed.


    The very reason that fire oil was such a preciousmodity was because it was difficult to mine and difficult to store. Also, any fires that started with them would be catastrophic. As such, they were basically only used for defending cities, as ample amounts would first be required before weapons could be made with them.


    ¡°Gobbling up Laiyin Duchy was nothing. Sikeqinya was a mess internally. We will go take Ceylon City, crush Ironwall City, and start a civil war among them!¡± Lex¡¯s tone was confident and decisive, as she knew that this n would render countless people homeless and maybe even cost them their lives.


    Saleen was rendered speechless for a bit. He knew of a way to crush Ironwall City, but it was too brutal for his taste.


    After all, he had only been killingbatants out in the battlefield, only dealing with the fates of soldiers. So, the thought of ughtering a city full of civilians was something else altogether. It was simply not something that a mage should do.


    ¡°If Danny can¡¯t protect his subjects, his nobles will turn their backs on him. Saleen, we are required to split our attentions to deal with two empires here. Do you think that is possible?¡± Lex asked.


    Saleen shook his head. The Holy See alone had proven too difficult for him to handle on his own. While his prowess at war had risen exponentially, the pope alone was already a figure Saleen was unsure that he could take out on his own.


    At the moment, he had little idea of what had happened inside the Holy See. What he did know was that the strongest power that the ne was able to hold was level 12, and even that could change at any time. All of this made him wonder...


    What does level 12 mean exactly? In the realm of the gods, level 12 is equal to the greater oracles. Any level higher would move into the territory of pseudogods!


    If a greater oracle was to advent, will I be able to kill a level 12 oracle? The angel of fear was easy to deal, but even such creatures that have been easy to deal with, I have relied more on luck than anything else to take them down. If a level 12 oracle was to advent, will I even be able to think of seeding in my endeavors?


    ¡°Saleen, do you dare attempt it?¡± Lex¡¯s eyes narrowed to slits as she asked.


    ¡°I do!¡± Saleen gritted his teeth as he answered.


    The holy war this time around would probably result in the deaths of hundreds of millions. Inparison,there were only a few million people within the walls of Ironwall City.


    Even Saleen¡¯s subjects would suffer great losses. All he was capable of doing was to build morerge cities, stockpile food, and have his subjects live in safer ces. Even if there was no harvest, they would have at least be able to survive.


    ¡°Many would berate you for what you and I will do next,¡± Lex continued exining the consequences to Saleen.


    ¡°Not Emperor Danny. He will fear us instead,¡± Saleen answered with a cold smirk.


    He figured that the one who should scold them the most was Theisio, and the one that should be wiped out from the face of the was the Holy See! After all, the four empires would not have gone for each other¡¯s throats if it were not for the Holy See.


    They would have instead settled with testing each other out using the duchies. Such a stable turn of events was broken by the Holy See in the first ce.


    ¡°Well, I better let the guys working down below draw up an attack n. The attack of Ironwall City can only be done after we have taken out the army of the tribunal. I think the Sikeqinyan forces lost one-third of their might thanks to your sessful efforts at wrecking their camps,¡± Lex said.


    ¡°That should be about right, as quite a lot of the elites ran away,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Hmm... An army of 500,000 strong is left then. The camp down south didn¡¯t participate in the fight, right?¡± Lex then asked.


    Saleen nodded. Despite having wrecked two camps, which resulted in huge losses to the enemy, Sikeqinya¡¯s main force remained intact. That, coupled with the fact that they had troops from the tribunal, gave them a force that was nearly a million strong.


    If the tribunal troops made it to where they were, Saleen would have a harder time dealing with them, as the losses of elemental creatures had gradually increased.


    Thus, if Saleen were to lose the Blue Ice Maidens at this point, he would have had no means of replenishing their numbers. After all, restoration of the Midnight Fang took too long, and without the help of the elemental creatures, his Lonestar City would be a sitting duck in the face of the army of the tribunal!


    ¡°Saleen,¡± Lex took his arm and said, ¡°It is better that you not fret about this right now. You did tell me that the Magical Element Tower was capable of flight, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Saleen nodded.


    ¡°We will talk about the matter with Ironwall City when your tower can finally fly. When that timees, we will gather more sorcerers and overwhelm the magic towers within the city from above, then have the metal flyers dump the bombs on the city, burning the entire Ironwall City to the ground! By then, no Sikeqinyan noble would dare to move against us. Also, Danny¡¯s decree would have been unable to move by local nobles, so we will then take Ceylon City, making it our base to attack the Tanggsi Empire in the future,¡± Lex logically presented her analysis to Saleen.


    Saleen thought for a bit before nodding, ¡°Alright, but the overwhelming of the towers should be done slower, and the bangs and shes apanying the attacks must be made louder. We will give opportunities for people to escape the city, and those who wouldn¡¯t...¡±


    Lex smiled lightly. While this analytical and cautious side of Saleen annoyed her at times, it was the part of him that she valued the most nheless.


    As she looked at him, Lex thought... He is thinking of dragging the fight out to enable civilians to escape. But, war has never had anything to do with themon people before. It has always been a game between the powerful existences and the nobles. To let the civilians enter the realm of war is akin to having Ironwall City burnt to the ground!

 Chapter 952: The Creation of Godly Item (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 952: The Creation of Godly Item (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen and Lex discussed their next move and decided to attack Sikeqinya instead of invading Phoenix. By the time the Holy See army entered Phoenix and the Qin Empire was unable to render any aid, the Metatrin Kingdom would step in.


    In Lonestar City, the soldiers were having a good time. The army outside the city had finally been defeated. Based on their understanding, since the million-strong army had been defeated, Lonestar City would no longer be under threat for the time being.


    The happiest people in the city were Nailisi, Nichs, and Aini. The three of them looted the battlefield. Saleen did not wish to take any prisoners, so approximately one-third of the 900,000 were killed. Almost 20,000 were killed every hour.


    The number of souls in Nichs¡¯ blood soul tower has increased to 180,000. The new souls were all more powerful than the ones that he had collected, since they were heroes that had died fighting on the battlefield.


    Nichs¡¯ powers kept increasing and his lifespan was also gradually recovering. He was pleased that advancement was within sight.


    Nailisi and Aini each managed to collect close to 100,000 souls as well. Both of them had their own uses for the souls and the coboration has changed Aini¡¯s perception of Nailisi. She would selfishly keep everything for herself.


    What Aini did not know was that if Nailisi had kept everything for herself, it meant she would have to be responsible for all the possible repercussions.


    Nailisi had collected souls for future use, hence she only kept them instead of refining them or erasing their memories. When the souls entered Nailisi¡¯s blood soul tower, they felt as if they had entered a foreign world. There was only darkness, which was truly terrifying.


    Nevertheless, the souls felt no pain. After some time, they assumed that they had entered the legendary purgatory.


    As for Aini, once he collected the souls, he left his soul brand in the blood soul tower and erased their memories so that they could bow to him as a God.


    Aini was not a Holy Master and did not desire for any religious power, so he began to transmit soul energy into the blood soul tower. It was with great effort that Aini saved up the soul energies. Saleen had given him some when they met. After transmitting his soul energy into the blood soul tower, he began to modify the souls one by one.


    After the souls had their memories erased, they could be manipted by Aini in any way he wanted. A thinyer of armor appeared on each soul. It was the first step of soul-refining technique. Most death mages were not fond of the practice and even for those that utilized it would only keep a few hundred souls tomand spirit armies.


    Within a short time, Aini managed to create more than 80,000 heroic spirits. All the spirits deemed him to be a God, so he would not have to use up mental strength when leading them. Aini was overjoyed. The blood soul tower was a rare equipment in even the demon dimension. Even devils rarely possessed them.


    However, it was not possible to lead 800,000 heroic spirits at once. Aini would develop 36 of them and iste them on a single level before nurturing them with some soul energy. At the end of the day, the heroic spirits would be developed into life spirits that possessed intelligence. They would resemble spirits of the dead but were devoid of any flesh and blood and could only use equipment that Aini has refined for them.


    The number of soldiers stationed in the city was close to 500,000, and including the craftsmen and coolies, the total figure was close to 600,000. Saleen deployed metal flying machines as scouts to search for the Supreme Court¡¯s army. Separately, he also ordered craftsmen and coolies to head to a castle 200 miles away to the north to expand the area of defense.


    Aini had lost quite a number of spirits of the dead but had summoned more than he could control. By summoning spirits on a daily basis, the spirit army could be maintained at a strength of 600,000 and above.


    Saleen knew that there was no need for so many troops to be stationed in the city, hence he deployed 100,000 soldiers to the castle in the north to make preparations. For the knights of Metatrin Kingdom, they would be able to cover the 200 miles in three hours.


    Sharman was bored. She was infuriated by how Saleen had brought her out but then did not care about her. The people around Saleen were extremely weird, and she dared not offend them, hence she found a chance to look for Nailisi to rant.


    Sharman knew that Nailisi was Saleen¡¯s bodyguard. If she could gain the favor of Nailisi, perhaps Saleen might give her a chance to lead an army?


    Lately, Nailisi was often seen in Aini¡¯s magic tower. Therefore, Sharman had no choice but awkwardly walk past a few bone demons and walk up the magic tower.


    ¡°Sharman, how can I help you?¡± Aini looked at Sharman and asked with a smile.


    ¡°Brother Aini, I¡¯m looking for Nailisi.¡± Sharman looked left and right but did not see Nailisi anywhere. It was the highest level of the magic tower. Where has Nailisi gone to?


    ¡°Nailisi is not here. You can tell me what is on your mind.¡±


    Sharman frowned but remembered that although Aini was a death mage, he was also one of the Dukes of the kingdom. His rank was not lower than that of her sister. Besides, Aini had a better rtionship with Saleen. Perhaps talking to him could work.


    Nailisi was actually in the magic tower, but Sharman was unable to see her. At the moment, Nailisi was in her 12 Notes of Purgatory and was very upset. In the previous battle, Nailisi had collectedrge amounts of elemental power and had thought that she could use it to expand the 12 Notes of Purgatory. However, when she entered the 12 Notes of Purgatory, she discovered that not only had the dimension remained the same, the elemental power that she had absorbed had disappeared.


    What was left was the dimension that Eleanor had hidden in and some floating nts that had already wilted.


    Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of Purgatory had lost the ability to self-restore. Although Master had eliminated all the issues, the power of the Star Gathering Needle was immense. Perhaps Saleen had not managed to control some of the powers properly and had destroyed some of the functions of the 12 Notes of Purgatory, so that it could no longer self-restore.


    Nailisi wanted to cry. Each individual dimension was only about 10 cubic meters, pathetically small. Could it be that they could only be used as space equipment in the future? Even if it could contain live people, it would still be meaningless! If not for the fact that Eleanor had the ability to grow some nts to provide some breathing air, even Eleanor would have suffocated.


    Has the equipment be useless? Nailisi knocked on the edges of the dimension with all her might but was unable to transmit any of her power. The dimensions of the 12 Notes of Purgatory had be extremely strange. When Nailisi¡¯s fist made contact with the edge of the dimension, she felt as if she was punching emptiness.


    Nailisi gritted her teeth as she took out her blood soul tower. She had refined the tower in secret with materials that Saleen gave her. Of all the blood soul towers that she had refined, she had given two to winged skull, one to Nich,s and the final one to Aini. This tower, which she had kept for herself, was of the highest quality.


    The 80,000 or so heroic spirits in the blood soul tower have yet to have their memories erased. In a fit of anger, Nailisi squeezed the blood soul tower so hard that it exploded and tens of thousands of souls floated out. The material of the blood soul tower was absorbed by the dimension and instantaneously, tens of thousands of demonic words began to float around while the entire dimension began to expand.


    Without any hesitation, Nailisi transformed into her devil-form. She split open her chest with her sharp fingernails. When the devil¡¯s heart was pierced, purple-ck blood squirted out into the dimension. The heroic spirits began to howl while surrounding Nailisi and absorbing the blood of the devil.


    The blood of the devil squirted out of Nailisi¡¯s wound and in less than a minute, Nailisi copsed on the ground. The heroic spirits that had been tainted with her blood began to turn into demonic symbols and float into the emptiness of the dimension. The expanded portions of the dimension began to formnd and sky.


    Nailisi fell heavily to the ground. Instead of returning to her original form, she continued to rest in her devil-form. She wanted to witness the transformation of the dimension.


    Since the 12 Notes of Purgatory has been destroyed, Nailisi was determined to rebuild it herself. The equipment was originally a grade 10 item and was already severely damaged. While repairing it, Nailisi understood many principles of the 12 Notes of Purgatory. The grade of the materials required to build the item was too high. Since the original method of refining had failedpletely, Nailisi was determined to refine a purgatory that belonged solely to her.


    The first dimension would be the Purgatory of Devils.


    The heroic spirits had already been contaminated with the blood of the devil and would turn into devil-forms. Of course, they would never surpass grade 10. Nailisi did not mind. She could keep more heroic spirits in this dimension in future. The blood soul tower might have been destroyed but the Purgatory of Devils had expanded. From then on, there would be additional equipment for transporting demon armies.


    At that thought, Nailisi began tough.


    She could use that dimension to breed magic bugs and transport demons. By the time she could grasp the most powerful rule of demons, the dimension could be expanded further into a demonic interdimensional space.


    Who said it was all wishful thinking? By the time all eight of Nailisi¡¯s powers could bebined together, it would surpass even Godly Items. Even Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring would be no match for her 12 Notes of Purgatory.


    Nailisi was so excited that she screamed as she stood up. She wielded a shield in her left hand and a longnce in her right. In the empty dimension, all 80,000 heroic spirits screamed along with Nailisi. However, as the heroic spirits were still very weak, they were unable to transform into demons to fight for Nailisi.


    With the extension of Nailisi¡¯s mental strength, the ground that she stood on became firmer. The power of the shards of the blood soul tower had beenpletely unleashed, transforming the dimension into a small piece ofnd. The piece ofnd was only 10 miles in size but already consisted of everything from mountains, to rivers, to the sun and the moon to constetions.


    Nailisi could even sense a burning core that was slowly forming under the ground.


    It was the home that Nailisi¡¯s heart has always belonged to ¨C the demon dimension. The environment was harsh and there would always be killing. In this dimension, amongst the mountains on the edges, there was a tform that was the size of a few meters. It was the hiding ce that Nailisi¡¯s parents had prepared for her.

 Chapter 953: The Creation of a Godly Item (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 953: The Creation of a Godly Item (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Not only were there memories of the demon dimension, there were also memories of the time when Nailisi was imprisoned in the Goddess¡¯ temple. Amongst the demons that had been imprisoned, Nailisi was the weakest.


    Every supreme demon and devil could have killed her easily without much effort.


    These supreme demons and devils were carefully gathered by the humans and they had all formed a deep impression in Nailisi. After she survived the ordeal, all the supreme demons and devils became her source of food. That was the feeling of devouring fear. Nailisi would never forget how she trembled as she chewed on the bones of those corpses. The remnants of power in those corpses were so overwhelming that her mental strength almost copsed.


    She would have died of hunger if she did not eat them, but when she did, it felt as if she had swallowed the sun. Nailisi thought that she no longer remembered those times. The times that she has spent with Saleen had been happy, even when they were involved in battles.


    So, what if she was deceived? It was Saleen who rescued her from that ce.


    Not only did pain linger in the memories, it also manifested itself in her body. Nailisi tore at the horns on her head while bashing her forehead forcefully. Each time she bashed her forehead, the figure of a devil or supreme demon would fly out and integrate into the dimension.


    All the painful memories were extracted very slowly and were being absorbed into the Purgatory of Devils.


    The pained expression on Nailisi¡¯s face remained. Her memories were tooplicated and chaotic. Who knew how much time she would need in order to extract all of the pain?


    As the dimension absorbed Nailisi¡¯s memories, it slowly became more and more perfect. The items in Nailisi¡¯s memories were all replicated by the Luoluokaluo bloodline. Each devil that she had devoured had possessed the rule of the demon dimension. Their bodies corresponded with the rules. If not for Nailisi¡¯s unique bloodline, their bodies would never be replicated so perfectly based on memories alone. Those memories concealed too many secrets.


    The Purgatory of Devils was absorbing Nailisi¡¯s memories and perfecting the rules. The humans that had captured the demons back then had also depended on the rules of the demon dimension for guidance as to which demons to capture. Those demons had since be extinct, and as the demon dimension was implicated by Myers Maind dimension, its powers decreased dramatically. As a result, many of the powers of rules also be extinct.


    The Goddess of Myers probably never expected that the final effort of humans was to keep these rules locked up in Nailisi¡¯s painful memories.


    In the end, the rules were integrated into the Purgatory of Devils. At that moment, the Twelve Notes of Purgatory no longer had anything to do with the demon dimension. Even if Hades was toe by personally, he would not be able to take back the Twelve Notes of Purgatory anymore.


    Nailisi had yet to figure out what was happening, but back in Lonestar City, Saleen and Lex were both taken aback at the same time. That was because an incredible power of rules was emanating from Aini¡¯s magic tower. Aini was trying to control it with all his might, but to no avail.


    Saleen and Lex put down whatever they were doing and flew over to Aini¡¯s magic tower at the same time.


    Back in Aini¡¯s magic tower, Sharman was already unconscious. When Aini sensed that something was amiss, he had quickly knocked her unconscious. When Saleen and Lex entered the eighth level of the magic tower, they saw a three-dimensional image floating in the middle of the magic tower.


    Neither Saleen nor Lex recognized the image. It looked like thebination of a three-dimensional magic array and magic runes. That was the source of the incredible power of rules that they had detected.


    The power of rules might be incredible, but it seemed to be able to differentiate between friend and foe as it did not harm Saleen and the rest. Based on that alone, Saleen could conclude that there was a source to the rule.


    ¡°Is this because of Nailisi? What has she done?!¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment before asking Aini to bring Nichs over. When Nichs saw the floating symbol, he said, ¡°My Lord, it¡¯s Nailisi! Something has happened to the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.¡±


    ¡°I know. How can we contain this power?¡±


    There was pained expression on Nichs¡¯ face as he said, ¡°My Lord, I can only try my very best to use grade-10 divine spells. The power of this rule isplete and cannot be suppressed.¡±


    Nichs was right. When the power of the rule appeared, its reach was so wide that all the spirits of the dead that were in the city or within a hundred miles were all cowering on the ground in fear.


    The demons in the camp were also kneeling down with their heads touching the ground. Their bloodlines could sense that it was a rule from the demon dimension. It was not something they could resist.


    All the mages were flustered as they had no idea what had happened. They could only sense an incredible power from Aini¡¯s magic tower. All of Lonestar City would have turned to dust if the power had been unleashedpletely. Nothing within 100 miles would be able to survive.


    Could it be that Aini¡¯s magic experiment had gone wrong? That was impossible. Although Aini was capable of summoning powerful creatures, he was still just a grade-8 sorcerer at the end of the day. It was not possible for him to create such terrifying power.


    Saleen calmed down. He knew that Nailisi must be in trouble. This transformation that the Twelve Notes of Purgatory was undergoing was probably not something she had expected. How could he save her?


    ¡°Nailisi?¡± Saleen tried to call out to the imp in his heart.


    In the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, Nailisi was in pain. She was even trying to use weapons to smash her horns. She managed to retain some of her senses, which was probably the reason why she had yet to cut herself with the Sword of Rules and destroyed her bodypletely.


    Nailisi spat the Dragon Crystal Needle at the sun in the sky. The sun looked exactly like the one in the demon dimension. It was red but looked as if there was no heat to it. In the blink of an eye, the Dragon Crystal Needle fused with the sun. Distance was not an issue in that dimension. The dimension was small, and the sun was nothing more than an image.


    The Dragon Crystal Needle shot into the emptiness that divided the 12 dimensions before turning back and piercing straight into Nailisi¡¯s arm. She was in great pain, for the Dragon Crystal Needle harnessed the power of ancient giant dragons.


    The Needle was refined for Nailisi by the Grandmaster and had contained magic traps initially. It could have been summoned back by the Grandmaster anytime. Since the magic traps had been destroyed by Saleen, the item had regained its original abilities. It was an equipment that possessed the attributes of giant dragons. The only way it could attack was by making use of its sharpness to prate the enemy¡¯s body.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil-form was unable to block the Dragon Crystal Needle. Her entire arm turned into dust from the impact of the Needle. It was not as if she was a grade-18 devil. She was never going to be able to handle the power of ancient giant dragons.


    Nailisi screamed in pain as she tore her arm off.


    Boom!


    The entire arm exploded. The cuticle outside of the arm transformed into a terrifying weapon, shooting thousands of holes into Nailisi¡¯s body. She was in so much pain that she drew the Sword of Rules and was about to cut off her own head. She had already lost her sanity.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice rang in Nailisi¡¯s head. She stopped herself as her eyes opened wide and she listened intently.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Saleen continued to call out to her. He could feel the soul connection between them. In the past, he would have been afraid to take this step, but ever since he personally witnessed the transformation of souls, he finally understood more about souls.


    He used the power of souls to call out to Nailisi and she heard him.


    The Sword of Rules dropped silently and pierced into the ground. Nailisi knelt down slowly. Tears were streaming out of her eyes.


    ¡°Master...¡±


    Crack...


    Nailisi could hear the bones in her body cracking. She was no longer afraid. Deep in her heart, Saleen never stopped calling out to her.


    It was as if tens of thousands of bloodstones were exploding within Nailisi¡¯s body. Between her two foreheads, a new head was growing. This one only had a very short horn. It was so fragile that it exploded soon after. There were countless shards of memories containing the fear that came from the depths of Nailisi¡¯s soul, and they flew into the Purgatory of Devils.


    Nailisi¡¯s soul suddenly broke out of the devil-form and she turned back into an imp instantaneously. As for her devil-form, it explodedpletely and integrated into the dimension.


    ¡°Master, I am alright...¡± Nailisi wasmunicating with Saleen in her heart. She did not leave the Purgatory of Devils immediately. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath, swallowing countless gigantic symbols. Then, Nailisi twisted and turned her body, transforming into a devil again.


    Nailisi had already lost most of her energy. The devils that she had devoured back then had already been absorbed by the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. It was her own ability that she was able to transform into a devil again. The ability had be more powerful than before. In the past, Nailisi still had to resort to borrowing power, but now transforming into a devil had finally be one of the abilities of her bloodline.


    The first ability of the Luoluokaluo hadpletely taken shape.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil-form was less than two yards tall. There were no unnecessary spikes on the surface of her body, except for thick and sharp horns growing on her shoulders, elbows, and knees. The horns were not long, and their main function seemed to be to protect the vulnerable areas on her body. Nailisi had three heads that lined up perfectly and her four arms were of equal proportions.


    She seemed to be a young devil that would slowly grow as it consumed more food. It had nothing to do with training anymore.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ming back!¡± As Nailisi¡¯s voice rang out in Saleen¡¯s heart, the image that was floating in the air began to turn transparent. All of a sudden, it vanished and Nailisi stepped out from emptiness. She was giggling while hugging Saleen.


    All of a sudden, the incredible power of rules vanished and a book with a ck cover appeared in Nailisi¡¯s hands. On the cover of the book there were exquisite runes that seemed to have been sewn directly onto it.


    Saleen pushed Nailisi away and took the book. He inspected the book carefully with his elemental eyes but failed to see any power emanating from it. It was an equipment beyond grade-12!


    To mages, an equipment that was beyond grade-12 was considered a Godly Item! Nailisi had refined a Godly Item, yet no harm hade to her. Saleen looked at the new Twelve Notes of Purgatory and did not know what to say.

 Chapter 954: Attack, attack! (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 954: Attack, attack! (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sharman came to slowly and touched her head with her hand, before jumping up abruptly and pointed at Aini. ¡°You! You...¡±


    Aini had knocked her out with his staff. Sharman had the wrong idea about mages, thinking them to be inferior to warriors in terms of strength. Mages who made it to the rank of sorcerers, even the likes of Saleen, would be something normal. They could have bore down on swordsmen with a swing of the sword.


    ¡°Sharman, go check things out with the temple guards. There are dead and injured demons over there,¡± Saleen cut Sharman off.


    ¡°Big brother Saleen! I¡¯ll go...¡± Sharman was reluctant to leave Saleen¡¯s side but seeing how Lex wore a solemn and severe expression herself, she knew in her mind that something dire happened, and that was something that was beyond what was she was capable of handling. Everyone within the magic tower possessed greaterbat capacity than she did, even Aini.


    Sharman left dragging her feet, and only then Saleen returned the Twelve Notes of Purgatory back to Nailisi.


    Aini hesitated for a moment and asked, ¡°Saleen, is this thing a godly item?¡± Aini only addressed Saleen directly by name when there were no outsiders around. He stuck to addressing Saleen as his highness when there were three other dukes around. Aini had not wanted to see any of the dukes being dissatisfied with anything. He shared a close rtionship with Saleen. Saleen did a lot for him, which he had kept in mind. He would have been doing his lord as disservice if he was to displease any of the nobles serving under Saleen.


    Saleen took a look at Lex. Seeing that no outsiders were around, she lifted her left hand, showing the God¡¯s Ring on her finger.


    ¡°I had wanted to use this thing to contain the radiation of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, but there seemed to be no reaction doing so. As such, it would be safe to say that this equipment is of the same level as my God¡¯s Ring. The God¡¯s Ring...is something created from the bodies of true gods, which was handed down from the first ancestor of the Grukos. A piece of the heavens is sealed within. While it is not limitless, the size of it isparable to the Myers Maind itself. The power I¡¯m capable to wield with it far exceeds my own level. Anything that the God¡¯s Ring is unable to contain, would definitely be a godly item.¡±


    Aini was able toprehend her borations. There were two types of godly items: superpowered gear created by humans, and high-level equipment crafted by the gods. Both types of godly items shared one characteristic¡ªthey were definitely items beyond grade-12.


    ¡°Nailisi, let¡¯s go in and have a look. We¡¯ll see what this thing is like...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather not. I don¡¯t have good control,¡± Nailisi shook her head furiously. The reason behind it was simple: she still felt pain when she entered the purgatories. Controlling the purgatories felt the same as well, as it was capable of reminding her of the pain she had went through.


    Saleen understood Nailisi¡¯s feeling, and as such, he said, ¡°We¡¯ll need to get it sooner orter. I¡¯ll go in with you. That beats going in there while doing battle.¡±


    Nailisi nodded slowly. She opened up the purgatories. The solid picture did not appear that time. A gate in the void sucked all three of them in it, and she followed into the purgatory of demons.


    Saleen spread his senses and found that the space of the purgatory was not big, but it sported a partitioning that was different from before. The original Twelve Notes of Purgatory was like rooms being pieced together, with walls separating the rooms in between. Anyone powerful enough would be able to simply tear down the wall and cause havoc to the space within the purgatory.


    The collection of purgatories was separated by an intangible void that was not traversable. All manner of power: mental powers, and even souls that were just as intangible, would have been deflected the moment they touched the void, barring travel into it altogether. Despite being said, the void worked differently from mirrors when it came to deflection. It appeared as if there were innumerable folded spaces creating a deflection angle.


    Such methods of partitioning worked just like the barrier separating nes. If coordinates were not avable, even magic would not be able to link two nes together. It was not until one were to possess mastery of rules surpassing that which separated the nes, that such folded spaces could be traversed, making travel between nes at one¡¯s will possible.


    Such powers capable of tearing the separating barriers apart did not exist below grade-12, and only above grade-16 would one be able to actually travel between nes while ignoring the barriers entirely. Between grade-13 and grade-15, traversal between nes would still be troublesome, and should not be attempted lightly.


    As such, it was said that when the crafting of Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory was trulypleted, the collection of purgatories would turn into something that was able to confine gods with some effort.


    The w of the gods in such levels became very apparent. A grade-18 god would be no match for a grade-18 professional. If it had not been for the fact that the gods were in great numbers and possessed innumerable, inexhaustible amounts of believers, the war of ages past would have probably ended differently for the humans¡ªan ending that would not have had humans ended up being pitiful losers.


    When the equipment was upgraded to the highest level, not even the king of gods would be able to make it out safely. The collection of purgatories would simply sever the connection between the gods and their believers.


    Only when a piece of equipment became capable of such a feat, would humans call them godly items.


    Saleen had no idea how far the power of rules had spread. He had already sent out men to search all over the ce piloting Wings of an Elf. He stood on the ground of the purgatory of devils, observing with his Elemental Eye. He was able to make out that thendmass of the purgatory to have equal length and width, which was thirty-six yards respectively.


    Nailisi was able to feel that the space was expanding as well. She was unaware that Saleen was still looking for loopholes within the space they were in.


    The space waspletely controlled by rules instead of magic arrays. Saleen had onlye to that conclusion after researching it for quite a bit. If it was a space that was created using magic arrays, his Star Gathering Needle would have been more than enough to destroy it. It went without saying that professionals with more power would have been able to wreck the space with other kinds of equipment all the same.


    ¡°Nailisi, I¡¯m going to do one thing, and I need this space of yours for ferrying troops. Expand it as much as you are able, so much so that you can enable demons to actually stay here.¡± Saleen and Lex looked around for quite a bit, and they were still unable to find any loopholes with the space. They then made the decision in their mind, that they would attack Sikeqinya using the equipment.


    Saleen and Lex felt rather excited at the prospect. While their army of demons were powerful, it was utterly impossible to move using stealth when done conventionally. If the space was to be expanded further, it would have served well to keep countless demon armies within. Anywhere warships were able to reach, Saleen had only needed to have his magical elemental tower erected and fly up the shore. Countless demons would have been able to be summoned easily afterwards.


    That was how ancient humans went about their assaults, which enabled them to ferry great numbers of troops and transverse nes.


    The original n of theirs had required them to wait until Lex advanced into grade-19, or even grade-11, before she became capable of storing lifeforms within her God¡¯s Ring. That meant troops in that case. Nailisi¡¯s sess in crafting true equipment capable of ferrying troops happened at a very convenient time, which enabled the ancient tactics of war to be used again on the Myers Maind itself.


    Nailisi¡¯s the Twelve Notes of Purgatory had always been able to hold lifeforms, but even demons would not be able to stay long within. Only a handful of mages were capable of staying alive within it for extended periods using special skills. Conventional troops would simply be killed off by the inherent elements of the equipment, if they were to be thrown within the original Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi did not know what to say. She found out that when she entered the purgatory of devil, she did not have a single room there...it was something that happened on its own, and that required time. ¡°I can arrange for demons toe stay here, I...¡± Nailisi stuttered, reluctant to tell him that she feared that ce.


    ¡°Who would you need to assist you, tell me.¡± Saleen thought her tired look made her look rather pitiful. The imp was able to feel pain when expanding her own space within, and she was not able to tell if it was all just an illusion. Regardless, Nailisi held on to Saleen¡¯s hand and did not let go.


    ¡°Nailisi, what happened?¡±


    She lookedpletely helpless.


    ¡°Eleanor,¡± Nailisi blurted the name. She felt that she was able to rx when she was with Eleanor, as she had no need to be on guard against the elf.


    Saleen thought for a moment and said, ¡°Well then, return to Metatrin City for the time being. You won¡¯t be needed here for the fight. Go seek help from Eleanor and have some demons from the Demon City stay within this space.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Nailisi let out a sigh of relief. She had originally intended to keep collecting souls there. Having more than eighty-thousand souls at her disposal enabled her to set the foundations of the devil space right. It would not have done the space any more good collecting more souls. Seeing how Saleen needed her demon armies, she knew that he needed them tounch an assault. He indeed had no need for her to hold the ce they were in.


    Saleen had forty-eight ancient warriors at his disposal, thus making him more capable to hold his own in a fight than she did.


    Saleen waited for everyone to leave the purgatory of devils and then sent Nailisi away, before discussing it further with Lex and Aini.


    ¡°Aini, how much of the spirit army can you maintain here?¡± Saleen tried to gauge Aini¡¯sbat capacity.


    ¡°The limit of my summoning is eight-hundred-thousand spirits, but if I were to actually keep them, I would be able to keep only six-hundred-thousand, and I need more than two-hundred death mages¡¯ help to do that.¡±


    ¡°So that is to say that you can replenish the loss of one-hundred-thousand spirits within three to four days, no?¡± Saleen asked while doing the calctions in his mind.


    ¡°Four days at most. If we don¡¯t have to keep fighting, three days.¡±


    Saleen pped his hand and called for the twelve ancient warriors standing guard outside and said, ¡°I will hand overmand of these twelve grade-9 warriors to you. Will you be able to hold Lonestar City?¡±


    Aini peered at the twelve ancient warriors for a moment and said, ¡°Saleen, these warriors are powerful, but howe their souls are so weak?¡±


    ¡°Sigh...¡± Saleen sighed. Every time heid eyes on the ancient warriors, he was reminding himself that grade-9 sorcerers were no big deal. In ancient times, grade-9 professionals served as little more than elite troops. The ones most pitiful in a war were the soldiers. They would have to move forward even if that led only to their deaths!


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother with that. Make good use of these grade-9 warriors. I won¡¯t be able replenish their numbers for you for a while.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you are going to attack then?¡± Aini heard the conversation between Saleen and Nailisi, and he was able to make a good deal of deduction out of that. Aini had wanted to make use of Nailisi¡¯s equipment for ferrying troops. He would not want to do so if he did not intend to hit some faraway targets.


    ¡°Indeed. I¡¯m heading to Sikeqinya. As such, Lonestar City has to stay in one piece.¡±

 Chapter 955: Attack, Attack! (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 955: Attack, Attack! (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini smiled without saying much. He was still very confident of what he was capable of. The city was named aptly: Lonestar City. The city was indeed a lone city. To other generals or nobles, a city like that would have proved difficult to defend, and troop morale almost posed a great problem. There was only a small fort in the northern mountains, and it was situated about two-hundred miles away, meaning that it was hardly able to help support the city in a battle.


    Aini was a death mage who possessed two powerful summoned creatures. The advancement of those two creatures was limited by Aini, and stuck firm at grade-9. Even so, those two spirits were still capable of providing massive death energy to the spirit army. The connection between the two nes enabled Aini to support a spirit army of more than six-hundred-thousand strong.


    With the twelve ancient warriors left behind in the city, Aini¡¯s confidence grew even firmer. Even if Lex was to leave the ce, he would still have been able to hold the city down. Saleen had always been providing material for the city¡¯s construction, and the construction of the city had always been high on the priority list. That enabled the stockpile of defensive weapons to easilyst for years before there was any concern of depletion. Most of the gear wielded by the spirits was brought directly from the spirit ne after all. The use of the likes of bone arrows and death phosphorous fire enabled the stockpile to be easily conserved.


    ¡°Aini, I¡¯ll get one big trouble off your back before I leave,¡± Saleen said as he opened the map and disyed the image of thendscape surrounding Lonestar City, pointing at a river more than three-hundred miles to the south. ¡°The Sikeqinyans went here when they retreated. The army of the Holy See will meet the scattered army here at the southern shore of the river. I will crush them there. You will have to hurry up and get the fortress up north fixed, then have it ready to serve as mutual support between there and Lonestar City.¡±


    ¡°I...¡± Aini intended to say he wanted in on the action.


    Saleen simply smiled and said, ¡°Give me one-hundred-thousand spirits and gather them outside the city. I¡¯ll be off soon.¡±


    Saleen knew that Aini wanted to collect souls still, but if one were to do something like that, they needed to be discreet about it. There was quite a number of death mages serving under him. If all of them went imitating Aini, it would cause mass panic across the maind.


    Nichs was different. He was a fallen holy master. People held the opinion that fallen holy masters collecting souls was not something that would have instilled terror in the hearts of people.


    He had given tacit permission for Aini to collect souls due to the ones being remembered in the battle were his own elemental creatures. What the spirits did inparison would not have stayed long in people¡¯s memories.


    Saleen was careful with things, even when it came to matters like sacking an entire city, they still proved less terrifying than someone running about collecting souls. Wars never ceased on the maind, and people got used to people getting killed. The collection of souls would bring about terrifying thoughts of ck magicians in them.


    Where ck magicians tread, it would be decades before the ce got settled by humans again. Such was the fear ck magicians instilled in the minds of people.


    Saleen had Aini got one-hundred-thousand spirits ready and lined up outside the city. He himself mobilized a battalion of temple guards and five-thousand light cavalry from the nobles¡¯ backup. The riders brought only two weapons with them¡ªbow and arrows, and reverse-edged sabers.


    One-hundred-thousand spirits seemed like a huge number, but Saleen had also taken one-hundred death mages with him, with every one of them in charge of one-hundred-thousand spirits. Even low-level mages were capable ofmanding tens of spirits, and the lowest level of the death mages who went to reinforce Lonestar City was grade-4. The ones of the highest level were grade-7 sorcerers.


    The warriors riding on the Wings of an Elf returned one after another, bringing pin-point urate news to Saleen.


    At the southern shore of the nameless river, the scattered Sikeqinyans set up two camps which were only about five miles from each other. From the looks of things, they seemed to have no further intention of running. The nameless river was not a wide one, and it was a short one as well. Water levels during that season were high, and even then, the width of the river hardly reached beyond one-hundred yards. Saleen¡¯s magic infantry hardly needed bridges for crossing the river, and to spirits, there simply was no need for bridges to begin with.


    Saleen was pleased to find that his decisive action of breaking up the camps outside the city was a correct one. Morale of the scattered army remained low, and the reinforcements from the tribunal had yet toe. If he was tounch yet another attack and had them running again, their morale would be totally ruined and there would be no choice but to make theirst stand against his forces at the river.


    The notion of making ast stand would break the minds of the Sikeqinyan mages, after what happened during thest battle.


    Tens of sorcerers dared not even get near to his charging army, and their camps were literally razed by his elemental creatures. His next course of action would be no different.


    Nichs, Sharman and Lex participated in the attack as well. Five-hundred personal troops stood by Lex¡¯s side, and every one of them was armed with elvish alchemy crossbows crafted by Saleen for them. The crossbows were made specifically to fight mages and magical equipment. The tips of the bolts were lined with a purple-gold solution that was known for its excellent anti-magic effects.


    The battalion of temple guards consisted of eight-thousand demons and two-thousand heavy magic infantrymen, as well as ten-thousand auxiliary troops and five-hundred light cavalrymen. For the attack, Saleen brought only about twenty-thousand human units and one-hundred-thousand spirits. The camp he was about to raze consisted of about six-hundred-thousand Sikenqinyan troops.


    Saleen sorted out his elemental badges and found eighty-six Blue Ice Maidens, one-hundred and twenty Midnight Fangs, forty-five Vermilion Knights, sixty-one Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, seventy-seven Tempest Dragon-mights, and one-hundred and one Angels of Brightness intact.


    He still had a good number of grade-9 creatures with him, which would have proven adequate for the uing battle. Thirty-six ancient warriors were also standing by at Saleen¡¯s side. With him wielding such might, he would have been able to make a clean retreat even if he were to face up with professionals from the tribunal.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen gestured to the leaders of the temple guards. The spirit army was divided into two sections, with both sections leading the way from the right and the left respectively. The spirits were quick on their feet. The hum of metal flyers was heard in the sky above them as they climbed, reaching an altitude of more than one-thousand yards high.


    Saleen wanted to test the metal flyers¡¯ performance in dropping the magic fire shells. two-hundred Wings of an Elf followed right behind the one-hundred metal flyers. That was the entirety of flying forces Saleen brought with him to Lonestar City.


    Sikenqinyan troops were done setting up camp at the southern shores of the nameless river. Themanders and the general gathered within a tent and all remained silent, waiting for the general to speak.


    The general was in full dress uniform, yet he was utterly terrified of the Metatrinians in Lonestar City. The general pointed at the shore of the nameless river and said, ¡°Now that we are three-hundred and forty-one miles away from Lonestar City, we cannot afford to retreat anymore. If we retreat any further, our troops would all end uppletely scattered, and there would be no way to gather them again.¡±


    Themanders nodded in silence. No one would have expected the Metatrinians to be so ferocious. The tens of hundred yard tall elemental creatures who practically razed their camp were simply monsters out of the nightmares ofmon soldiers. ¡°How did His Highness sign an agreement with the Holy See? The Metatrinian army is filled with demons and spirits. Now there are elemental creatures added to the mix. There is simply no telling what will show up next. If anymore of those abyssal creatures show up, it would be best for everyone to simply surrender.¡±


    Seeing how morale of even high-ranking officers was at all-time low, the general was simply at wits¡¯ end of what to do. The general himself feared the elemental creatures as much as anyone. How would they be able tomand their subordinates to do anything? Sikeqinya was different from other countries. Bandits practically owned the ce, and in response, mercenaries were in abundance as well. With two of such peculiar groups of people sharing the same empire, Sikeqinyans were strangers to fights, and they developed ample fighting experience as a result.


    All of the high-ranking officers themselves were no rookies. Anyone would have been able to tell that if the Metatrinians were to show up at their doorsteps then, things would take a turn for the worse for them. The problem was however, that they were stuck within Qin territory, and there were no Qin cities to be found nearby. The nearest small city was about two-hundred miles away, and the garrison consisted of several thousand troops. They would have hardly posed a threat.


    If they were to run any further, they would need to enter Kroraina, and it would have been ridiculous for them kill their way into the ind areas of the Qin Empire. There was a pass just five-hundred miles away, Beiju City of Qin. The city was of no renown, as it simply acted as a military fort, and was even more militarized than Guderian City. Beiju City was devoid of civilians, and the city was situated at the border of Laiyin Duchy, controlling Kroraina from afar.


    There had been no news of the reinforcements of the tribunal. They seemed to be in some faraway ce and there was simply no telling when they would arrive. The general felt rather despaired, and said with an exasperated tone, ¡°Alright, have a good look at the defenses I drew out, and don¡¯t let the Metatrinians cross the river.¡±


    ¡°Yes, general,¡± Themanders replied lethargically. Nobody even bothered doubting the general. Would the Metatrinians actuallye for them all the way there?


    ¡°Crap! The Metatrinians are here!¡± troops in charge of patrol yelled from the shore. They did not even have the courage to send scouts across the river. They only became aware of the enemy, when the spirit army of the Metatrinians showed up in their alchemy binocrs.


    Even Saleen himself felt peculiar about the turn of events. He carefully had the metal flyers retreated to the rear and let the Wings of an Elf take point, sweeping up any scouts they were able to find. The Sikeqinyans however, practically gave up the northern shore. Not even a single magic trap was found along the way.


    ¡°Attack!¡± Saleen gave the order when they were about five miles away from the two Sikenqinyan camps. Twenty-four ancient warriors leapt into the air and flew among the metal flyers.


    The metal flyers were thirty yards long and sported four fixed metal wings, powered by magic power furnaces. The power train driving the huge metal flyers took up very little space. Saleen would not have even thought such a feat to be possible in the past. The metal flyers differed from the Wings of an Elf, as they were unable to slow down and incapable of hovering in mid air. They were supportedpletely by air currents, which was also the reason why they were capable of flight.


    The thirty yard long metal flyers were capable of carryingrge amounts of magic fire shells. They made for the eastern camp under the protection of the ancient warriors. Saleen rode a nightmare summoned by death mages and unleashed his elemental creatures and made it to the river before anyone else.


    The nameless river was only about one-hundred yards wide. The creatures unleashed were Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and Blue Ice Maidens. Thirty-six Blue Ice Maidens joined forces and summoned a huge area-of-effect spell¡ªFrozen World.


    Thick sheets of ice formed across the one-hundred yard wide river, and thirty-six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers charged to the other side. Even without the ice, the soldiers would have had no trouble traversing the river; Saleen simply wanted to test the spell out. The spirit army at the rear followed as the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers charged.


    There were some among the spirits sporting huge bodies, yet they feared water. The huge spirits had only charged at the camps seeing how the sheet of ice were still intact despite being stomped on by such heavy creatures.


    The eastern camp had begun to burn when the Stone Statue Soldiers were still crossing the river. The amount of fire oil stored within the magic fire shells dropped by the metal flyers weighed tens of pounds. Everything sshed by the oil burned.

 Chapter 956: The Sympathy of People of Significance (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 956: The Sympathy of People of Significance (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When the metal flying machine was above the camp, more than 10 sorcerers flew up and tried to shoot it down. Once they saw more than 10 ancient warriors were glowing with red light and were heading their way, they changed their mind and chose to flee.


    The sorcerers had seen their ownpanions being stabbed by those men glowing with red light. None of them were keen to end up like them.


    When the sorcerers turned and fled, none of the ancient warriors gave chase. Without Saleen¡¯s instructions, they would stick to protecting the metal flying machine. Fire was zing through the camp on the ground. Once the kerosene started to burn, it was difficult to extinguish it with water. Only magic would have a greater effect.


    The low-level mages in the camp tried to extinguish the fire, but to no avail. There were too many magic fire shells being thrown down from the metal flying machine. One area could be extinguished, then another area would start to burn very quickly. Besides, Saleen¡¯s magic fire shells had been infused with new chemical so that it would burnpletely until it was finished.


    Some of the low-level officers that were d in magic armor tried to extinguish the fire but were burned by some of the burning projectiles instead. They were howling in pain while rolling on the ground.


    The remaining soldiers no longer dared to try and extinguish the fire and quickly followed the low-level mages in escaping out of the camp.


    They could not escape!


    A hundred metal flying machines threw down a three yard wide ming belt. The ming belt was expanding while it was being thrown down. The soldiers on the metal flying machine were already numb to what was happening. On the other hand, the soldier that had been tasked to monitor what was happening could not help but sympathize with the enemy.


    It was not that the soldier was weak. Any soldier that could be deployed by Saleen to man the metal flying machine had to at least be a middle-grade swordmaster. Soldiers that were part of the troops on the ground were either low-level or middle-level officers. The soldier killed more than 20 enemies before, so it was not urate to describe him as being overlypassionate.


    The fire was just too terrifying and cruel. More than 50,000 soldiers could not manage to escape and were burned alive in the zing fire.


    The soldiers that did manage to escape were badly injured. Although some of them managed to escape without being burned, their lungs were damaged by the poisonous fumes, so much so that they were coughing up ck blood.


    Nichs was pained to be witnessing the scene. When he first joined the Holy See, his original intention was not to strive for power. He had wanted to save themoners that were suffering. It was only as time went by that he was influenced by the others in the Holy See and he eventually forgot his initial intentions. At that point in time, Nichs recalled the pledge he took when he became a low-level High Priest.


    He had sworn to bring salvation to everyone...


    Even the zing fire could not block Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes from seeing what was happening. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth and led his elemental creatures to another camp.


    The camp in the north had beenpletely destroyed.


    100,000 spirits of the dead charged ahead and began killing the enemy troops. Courage was necessary to fight spirits. A soldier who was courageous enough would be able to take on two spirits of the same level. Unfortunately, the Sikeqinyans had beenpletely defeated.


    The fire eventually burned down half the camp and the ces where the soldiers were most concentrated turned into a sea of mes.


    It was not that the Sikeqinyans did not try to put up a fight. Outside of Lonestar City, the Sikeqinyan general had led his troops into a battle that hadsted for 10 hours. In that battle, the Sikeqinyans had lost more than 200,000 soldiers. Those soldiers were all dead and none of them were taken as prisoners.


    The battlepletely demoralized the Sikeqinyans, which was why Saleen¡¯s attack became much easier.


    In the previous battle, the southern camp was not attacked, so the Sikeqinyans had managed to conserve some of their forces. This time around, the eastern camp was burned to the ground. The defenses along the shores werepletely ttened by the elemental creatures. The western camp was also defeated by the elemental creatures.


    The spirit army was busy killing the defeated soldiers in the eastern camp while Saleen let his light-armored knights chase after the Sikeqinyan soldiers that were trying to escape. He took out his War Drum of Fear and began to strike it.


    Although the War Drum of Fear was not being used to its maximum potential, all professionals below grade-4 were unable to resist its power. Most soldiers died in fear while the sound of the drum was ying in their ear. Nichs followed behind Saleen and collected the souls with a nk face.


    All of a sudden, he greatly despised the Gods. He realized that the Gods were doing exactly the same thing as him by collecting disciples for their self-fulfillment.


    Nichs also loathed what he was doing, but that did not slow down his speed while collecting the souls. Saleen did not butcher the soldiers for him. Saleen was afraid that the soldiers might have a chance to regroup with the Supreme Court armies. If arge number of Holy Masters joined the army, their equipment would be ineffective.


    Saleen could barely look at the soldiers dying in pain. He knew that if they did not die and managed to join forces with the Supreme Court army, he would not be able to leave Lonestar City.


    There was no more time to waste. They must stick to the n and attack Ironwall City. They must make use of the fact that the sea in the north had yet to freeze over, so they could go past the northern seas of Sikeqinya. Then, they would be able to invade Ceylon City directly.


    At that thought, Saleen could not help butugh, even though it was not the most appropriate thing to do in such a circumstance.


    When he married Lex, the Emperors were keen to send him congrattory gifts, thereby recognizing his status as a king. Surely, it was toote to regret things anymore? He wondered what Emperor Danny¡¯s face would look like when he invaded Ceylon City.


    The western camp was inplete chaos. Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures destroyed the defense line and all magic equipment. They were followed by the demons and magic heavy-armored soldiers. Close to 10,000 auxiliary soldiers would bring up the rear.


    As long as no one had an answer for the elemental creatures, this mode of attack was invincible. Every equipment or magic machine that could deal with the demons waspletely destroyed by the elemental creatures.


    Saleen¡¯s War Drum of Fear was the worst of them all. Its range was more than five miles and, although it was only effective against professionals that were below grade-4, it was extremely lethal against armies. Before they could even fight the Metatrin army, most enemy soldiers had already been killed. There was an empty space within a circumference of a mile around Saleen. The power of the War Drum of Fear decreased as distance increased. Even so, the enemies that could hear the drum would still be in incredible pain.


    Even if they could still continue to fight, theirbat abilities would have decreased drastically, and they could notst more than a few seconds against the demons. The demons swung their gigantic war axes and blood flowed like a river. Although the western camp was not set aze by the magic fire shells, it was still in a horrible state.


    Saleen had rarely encountered such a situation where he felt almost unbeatable. Almost every battle that he had been involved in was difficult and often put his life in danger. What was happening before his eyes was a massacre and not a battle anymore. Saleen was not used to it and could only continue to strike the War Drum of Fear so that the demons would have an easier time killing the enemy.


    Very little was required to use the War Drum of Fear. Saleen only used it to unleash ordinary attacking powers. The core of the drum contained a sliver of the linked soul of the Angel of Fear. If Saleen overused the drum, the soul might dissipatepletely.


    In the southern camp, the Sikeqinyans were already fleeing without beingmanded to do so. By doing so, they were considered deserters and could be executed. They would die anyway if they stayed, hence more and more soldiers began to flee.


    Saleen was relieved. Until equipment could suppress his War Drum of Fear, his army would be invincible. The soldiers that managed to escape were so traumatized by the sound of the drum that some of them even began to hallucinate. In extreme cases, they would even attack theirpanions around them.


    Including of spirits of the dead, there were less than 150,000 people in Saleen¡¯s army, yet they managed to defeat a 600,000-strong enemy easily. That was an incredible feat that rarely urred.


    Lex had also been observing the battle. After she had confirmed the power of the magic fire shells, she heaved a sigh of relief. She felt even more assured after seeing how Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures were ughtering the enemy. Without the elemental creatures, her prefecture and Saleen¡¯s kingdom would have been severely threatened.


    They could finally focus on dealing with Sikeqinya Empire. As long as Saleen¡¯s fleet could conquer Ceylon City, she did not believe that Danny would still dare to try to attack Saleen¡¯s country by sending troops from Laiyin Duchy.


    The person who was most devastated was Sharman. Saleen had brought her along instead of Truman because she possessed considerable potential. It was a matter of time before she would lead armies into wars. No one expected Sharman to start to vomit in disgust after seeing corpses being littered all over the battlefield.


    Saleen had also brought along a few mages and since they had nothing to do, they were all trying to heal Sharman. After she stopped vomiting, she still felt ufortable. Lexughed and asked her, ¡°Sharman, didn¡¯t you say that you want to be a great general? This won¡¯t do.¡±


    ¡°This is not a war.¡± Sharman moaned and was too weak to reply further.


    Saleen stopped smiling and also stopped striking the War Drum of Fear. He said to Sharman, ¡°Indeed, this is not a war. Wars are fought over personal interests. As for us... this is life or death.¡±


    Sharman stood up and panted before saying to Saleen, ¡°Brother Saleen, we can¡¯t kill all our enemies.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Saleen looked at Sharman calmly. Sharman might have gotten a bit older, but she still looked every bit like a child.


    ¡°There will only be more and more enemies!¡± Saleen saw tears in Sharman¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°Sharman, I know. This is why I built a kingdom. Anyone that joins my kingdom will live.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was calm and he looked into the distance. The camps had long been trampled to the ground by the elemental creatures and the light-armored knights were shooting at the injured soldiers with their bows and arrows.


    Saleen gave another order. He ordered that they leave no survivors behind.

 Chapter 957: The Sympathy of People of Significance (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 957: The Sympathy of People of Significance (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did what he did in order to strike fear in the Sikeqinyans and also to lure more Holy Masters into descending. Without the blood soul tower, what could he use to lure Holy Masters?


    A blood soul tower would need to contain at least 10,000 souls in order to be effective.


    Sharman¡¯s gaze was dim. She wanted to be a general, not because she wanted to kill, but because she thought it would be an impressive thing to do. She wanted to lead countless soldiers into battles. In her heart, battles were games that noble families yed, where both sides exchanged prisoners and money.


    When she had first arrived, she came with the armies bringing up the rear, so she did not get to see the terror outside of Lonestar City. Later she managed to witness everything, and she could not take it.


    ¡°Sharman, the Qins have a saying that those that are kind at heart are not fit to lead armies. If you feel that what I have done is wrong, then return to your sister.¡± Saleen did not intend to change nor lecture Sharman. If she was unable to carry out his order, then she was not fit to be a general for him.


    The ability to fight was one thing, but the determination to execute strategies was an entirely different thing. Many people might be able to strategize better than their generals, but they never understood the real meaning of battles.


    ¡°But Brother Saleen, they don¡¯t deserve to die like this!¡± Sharman pointed into the distance, where light-armored knights were going around and making sure that all the injured enemy soldiers were properly killed. Saleen did not need prisoners, so the soldiers were merely carrying out his order.


    ¡°They should not have appeared here either!¡± Lex said coldly. ¡°Sharman, you must know that there are two million citizens of Metatrin Kingdom behind us. If the enemy had managed to pass through Lonestar City, it would have been Metatrin Kingdom that ended up like this.¡±


    Sharman stopped arguing. She realized that all the people around her were looking at her in the same way. It was exactly the way her parents looked at her when she was young. There was no sympathy or sarcasm. They were just looking at her as if they were looking at a child.


    ¡°There is another saying in the Qin Empire, that the best way to end a war is to make sure all your enemies are killed.¡± With that, Lex and her bodyguards charged ahead.


    She could sense that Sharman was fond of Saleen, but it was not quite love. That affection would only deepen as she grew older. Lex did not wish for Saleen to have any other women. There was nothing she could do about Sika since they already had children before Lex and Saleen were married.


    Sharman aside, even if the Goddess of Myers was revived, Lex would never allow Saleen to get close to her. She really hoped that all the women that might be fond of Saleen would get away from him.


    There were tears in Saleen¡¯s eyes as Lex left. He stopped himself from chasing after her. When Lex charged past a burning tentage, a human figure suddenly attacked her with the stab of a sword.


    This human figure was lightning quick. Before the hooves of Lex¡¯s warhorsended, the sword had already appeared while being shrouded with golden sword aura.


    The golden grand swordmaster had been hiding in this burning tentage while waiting for any important people in the Metatrin army to pass by. Hundreds of bodyguards were following behind Lex and she was dressed like a mage of importance, hence the golden grand swordmaster decided to take his chance.


    In a situation like that, where a golden grand swordmaster ambushed a grade-9 mage at close range, the oue should not surprise anyone.


    Sharman shouted and was about to charge ahead with her sword drawn. Saleen stopped her just as a rainbow shield appeared in front of Lex. There was a clear and crisp sound as the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s long sword pierced through the shield. There was a cold smile on his face. How could a grade-9 magic shield possibly block golden sword aura?


    Lex grinned. She had already raised her left hand with the God¡¯s Ring. A small shield drifted in front of the tip of the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s sword.


    Ting...


    The golden grand swordmaster¡¯s attack was blocked by the small shield. He was taken aback and realized that he had fallen into a trap. This sorcerer had already discovered his presence long ago. There was no way she would be killed by his attack.


    The golden grand swordmaster tried to withdraw his sword, only to see the corners of the sorcerer¡¯s mouth curl up. All she said was, ¡°Dissipate!¡±


    With that, the golden grand swordmaster felt as if the sword aura in his body has really dissipated and his powers were disappearing.


    The bodyguards behind Lex unleashed hundreds of arrows from elf crossbows.


    The golden grand swordmaster was so weak that, when he tried to withdraw his sword, it was stuck in the rainbow shield. By the time he decided to give up on his sword, half a second had already passed.


    Amidst the rain of arrows, his golden sword aura dissipated out of his body. None of the arrows, that were dipped with purple-gold fluid, hit his body.


    Lex smiled and shouted again, ¡°Dissipate!¡±


    She was not loud, but the golden grand swordmaster could feel the sword aura in his body resonate with her voice and dissipate for real. The golden grand swordmaster suddenly remembered a myth about the Grukos n, but it was toote. The bodyguards behind Lex kept shooting their arrows. His golden sword aura hadpletely dissipated, so the crossbow arrows finally managed to pierce through his armor and into his body.


    Lex pulled back her warhorse and retreated slowly. The golden grand swordmaster¡¯s long sword as still stuck in her rainbow shield.


    With hundreds of arrows in his body, the golden grand swordmaster knew that he was not going to live. There was shock and hatred in his eyes. He pointed at Lex, as if there was something he wanted to say. Unfortunately, a new batch of crossbow arrows rained down on him, half of them piercing his head and causing it to explode.


    A golden grand swordmaster has just died in a very strange and unfortunate way.


    After making sure that the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s head haspletely turned into dust, Lex put away her magic shield and the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s long sword. Weapons wielded by golden grand swordmasters were of high quality, or they would not be able to handle the power of the golden sword aura.


    Saleen was finally relieved when he saw Lex returning. He had realized that the golden grand swordmaster was lying in ambush in that tentage and could barely stop himself when Lex had charged forward. Even though Saleen knew that Lex had her God¡¯s Ring, he was still very nervous.


    This was different from him taking the risk himself. Saleen was not in the position to deal with the golden grand swordmaster on Lex¡¯s behalf.


    When Lex returned, she threw the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s long sword to one of her bodyguards and walked towards the nameless river while making sure to avoid eye contact with Sharman. Saleen and Lex made eye contact along the way. He frowned and urged his Nightmare warhorse to catch up with Lex.


    ¡°Lex, what happened?¡±


    ¡°What Sharman did is going to affect you.¡±


    ¡°How can that be?¡±


    ¡°How will it not?¡± Lex looked back at Saleen. Her blue eyes were like a flowing river.


    Saleen followed Lex as she walked along the frozen river. He did not understand why Lex would ask that question. He did not desire Sharman in any way and he did not even treat her as a younger sister. Sharman was just the sister of Duchess Guya, not his.


    Amongst the four Dukes and Duchesses, Aini specialized in death magic and was also very proficient in lead troops into battles. That was his talent. The three Duchesses had to rely on buying troops and horses but gave most of their attention to construction.


    While Saleen had been fully focused on expanding his military power, the three Duchesses had been expanding his constructions. Quite a number of medium-scale cities could be found in Metatrin Kingdom and most of them were modeled after Phoenix. Most of the credit had to go to the three Duchesses.


    Seeing Saleen be speechless, Lex said, ¡°Saleen, I don¡¯t have the time to help you groom a general.¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly. ¡°Lex, Sharman¡¯s sister...¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s very pretty. I like Guya too,¡± Lex continued, leaving Saleen speechless.


    ¡°Let¡¯s send her to Daliang City,¡± Saleen said finally. He vaguely understood where Lex wasing from. Since Sharman could not understand the rationale behind the things they did, then she should not stay and be themander of the elite army, even if she might be strong and talented. She would be a burden to the military if she could not carry out the tasks of the king.


    Lex had wanted to reject the idea, but she thought a bit more about it. If Sharman continued to stay by Saleen¡¯s side, it was only a matter of time before she became a problem. If Sharman was sent to Daliang City, she would only have to guard the city. Within the next three to five years, Daliang City should not be involved in any battles.


    Sharman was kind-hearted, so she would definitely do her best for the people in the city.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. A king shouldn¡¯t behave like you...¡± All of a sudden, Lex regretted what she said and stopped herself immediately. Saleen was right beside her. ¡°Rulers should have sympathy and not care about one¡¯s personal feelings.¡± Momentarily, Lex did not know how to soften the atmosphere, so she brought up amon saying of the Grukos royal family.


    ¡°Saleen repeated it softly, ¡°Rulers should have sympathy and not care about one¡¯s personal feelings. Who said this?¡±


    ¡°A Grukos did.¡±


    ¡°Well said. I think ending the war of the Maind as quickly as we can is the way we can sympathize and be merciful. If we allow ourselves to be side-tracked during the war, then it must be due to personal feelings. Lex, am I right to say that?¡± Saleen asked seriously.


    ¡°Something like that.¡± Lex was relieved that Saleen did not seem to mind her tone in the beginning. She did not wish to guide Saleen in any way. He was doing well and would continue to do so even without her urging him. It was just that she felt very ufortable with the way Sharman was talking to Saleen.


    ¡°Alright, I will send Sharman to Daliang City so that she can take her time to gain more experience. I will not see her again until she changes her mindset. I¡¯m afraid this war will continue on for a long time.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone became solemn.


    ¡°Hmm, as you wish, your Highness,¡± Lex said softly. Saleen¡¯s heart was filled with joy but they were too near to the battlefield and the smell of blood still filled the air. He was in no mood to be intimate with Lex.


    ¡°Lex, I¡¯m a bit worried about what we have to do next. I really don¡¯t know how tomorrow will turn out.¡± Saleen changed the subject.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to worry about? If we don¡¯t seed, we will either die or be sacrificial items of the bond. When you have no other way out, you just have to do it.¡±


    ¡°Sacrificial items?¡± Saleen repeated softly as he recalled the tablet left behind by the Goddess. If he tried to destroy it with a grade-19 Star Gathering Needle, would the bond still take effect? The idea quickly began to take root in Saleen¡¯s head. The thousand-year bond had been a great burden to him and all his actions were forced by the bond.


    He regretted signing that damned bond just for the seeds of the divine tree. Nevertheless, the grade-19 Star Gathering Needle had given him hope.

 Chapter 958: Target, Ironwall City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 958: Target, Ironwall City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As a mage himself, Saleen obviously subscribed to the belief that what one paid must be rewarded equally. That time however, he seemed to have gotten too little for what he paid. Four divine trees and seeds for grade-18 materials. They seemed to be the highest of grades within the world, yet the limit of the world was still at grade-12. Any materials of any level higher than that would not perform as they should.


    Something only worth grade-12 was demanded to be traded with him unifying the entire maind and spreading the faith. If such a trade could have been considered fair, the Lord of Glory would have unified the entire maind, and there would have been no ce for the revival of the Goddess of Myers.


    The Seal of Divine Power which he had acquired a while back was probably a piece of equipment of grade-12 and higher, and as such, would not perform as it should have on the Myers Maind. It was only one of the three godly items in the pope¡¯s possession. It was said that when all three pieces of the godly items were gathered, one would be able to wield the power of the gods and break through the barrier separating the nes, siphoning true power of the gods on the Myers Maind.


    That piece of equipment was given to Joey. It was anyone¡¯s guess what the result of Joey¡¯s pursuit of Fycro would be like.


    Saleen had wanted nothing more than to give chase when he thought of it. He wanted to bear witness to the battle between two grade-10 professionals. He found himself to have relied too much on the power of his equipment. He would have a hard time advancing if he kept doing so.


    Saleen gradually decided what he should do and stopped feeling anxious.


    The mopping of the battlefield at the southern shores of the nameless river had already begun. Two camps were crushed. Soldiers that had perished from attacks from the magic fire shells and the War Drum of Fear were more than he could have counted. Sikeqinyans lost more there than they did in theirst battle.


    Three-hundred-thousand troops had perished at least in the assault. The resistance the Sikeqinyan troops were able to put up was evidently weaker by a great margin than how they performed in thest battle. Saleen suffered even less losses inparison. The remaining two-hundred-thousand and more who had fled would never regroup again, as they simply ran without knowing where they were running to.


    The sorcerers and the general fled west into the junction between Laiyin Duchy and Kroraina. Most troops had little idea where they ran to, so many went deep into Qin territory. Those troops were quickly apprehended by the forces from Beiju City.


    Beiju knew that Lonestar City was being surrounded. While they did nothing to directly aid the surrounded city, they nheless sent troops to set up ambushes near the nameless river. Beiju City knew immediately what took ce as the battle suddenly began. Before the troops lying in ambush were able to make their move, Saleen hadunch a second attack, crushing the Sikeqinyan forcespletely at the southern shores of the nameless river.


    The troops from Beiju City did not receive exact orders from anyone, and as such they simply let the fleeing army go west. They only apprehended those scattered ones who were going on a rampage within Qin territory, and brought tens of thousands of them as prisoners back to Beiju City.


    There were also Sikeqinyans who fled south and were taken into custody by the army guarding the borders. The area had been the edge where Qin and the Holy See shed head on, and there were tens of thousands of Qin elites distributed throughout the fortresses throughout the area, being tasked with sentinel duty at the northern side of the country. The elite troops belonged to different northern nobles, and they shared a connection between each other, unlike the ones serving the southern nobles.


    The army had long nned to ambush the Sikeqinyans from behind, but Holy Rock City remained reluctant to give the order to strike.


    The handful of Sikeqinyans who fled to Kroraina were less than ten percent of what the original army had been. They were more than nine-hundred-thousand strong when they arrived, and yet less than fifty-thousand remained when they returned. What saddened the general most was that eleven sorcerers perished in the battles. The Sikeqinya Empire had only one-tenth the number of sorcerers in Qin. Such losses were considered great in their case.


    The two battles left an army of more than nine-hundred-thousand strong utterly crushed. More than half the forces died. Such battles were not seen on the Myers Maind often. During the few years the Qin and Tanggsi Empires fought each other, both sides simply kept wearing each other out in dragged-out fights. The losses that the Qin suffered exceeded one-third of the number of losses suffered by the Tanggsians. If the losses suffered in Kroraina Duchy were counted in, Qin¡¯s losses would have actually been greater though.


    The very reason Saleen was able to wage such peculiar battles was due solely to having sheer power that far exceeded the enemy¡¯s. The few battles fought that far had seen Metatrin City losing more than two-hundred-thousand spirits.


    Saleen and Lex would of course not bother calcting such losses personally, as there was someone among their subordinates doing the math for them. In actual fact however, losses of spirits were hardly considered losses. The auxiliary troops serving in the temple guards who died required reparations made to their families, and only then was it considered within the calctions of losses suffered. The reparations made to death mages were hardly worth mentioning inparison.


    Nailisi could not wait to return to Metatrin City when they returned to Lonestar City. Aini had long received word that half of the warriors riding the Wings of an Elf returned, and the battle was ended.


    Seeing how Aini struggled to keep his excitement under wraps, Saleen smiled. ¡°Aini, I¡¯m relieved this time. The actual number of troops the tribunal deployed exceeded three-hundred-thousand. You have at least five-hundred-thousand spirits at your disposal, and I will leave all three groups of temple guards with you, as well as twelve ancient warriors. You can ask for less than ten sorcerers from Metatrin City and build several magic towers within the city.¡±


    Aini asked, ¡°Saleen, I¡¯d like to make this ce a city of spirits. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t do. There need to be at least one-hundred-thousand human troops stationed here. Aini, if this ce had nothing but spirits, the city would be lost if mages lost their control over them.¡±


    ¡°That is actually what I mean. I¡¯d like to have all death mages from Metatrin City relocated here.¡±


    ¡°You have ways to keep them under control?¡± Saleen could not help but feel suspicious.


    ¡°There is this.¡± Aini extended his hand and showed the blood soul tower to Saleen.


    Saleen frowned, ¡°The blood soul tower is demonic equipment. How would you use that to control mages?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand where the power of death mageses from. When I advance to grade-9, I will have all of Lonestar City ced under my protection using this blood soul tower, and that will prove more powerful than magic towers.¡±


    ¡°That is to say that you are stuck here for good then?¡±


    ¡°I will just stay behind. The speed at which I advance while training here is impressive, and that is not because my power is being enhanced across the entire ne. Lonestar City has been the site of ancient battles, and the ce teemed with death. My nt spirits were grown here, and my advancement...¡±


    ¡°I will need you at my side in the future when Iunch an attack on the cities of the Holy See. What should I do if you remain here?¡± Saleen asked jokingly.


    ¡°Heh, the fleshy death creature will be like my double when I advanced to grade-9, like those of the gods. That thing can act as my second to hold this ce down by then. I¡¯ll just take the nt spirits with me, and I can go just about anywhere.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyes sparkled. ¡°Aini¡¯s advancement will prove useful indeed. His nt spirits will be able to provide an inexhaustible source of power to all types of spirit creatures, just like food and gear for humans.¡± The location of Lonestar City was an odd one, as there was hardly anywhere nearby suitable for farming. Lonestar City would be secured tightly with spirits holding the fort.


    ¡°But you are duke now, and you can¡¯t just be the pce mage of a city of the dead...¡± Saleen did noty everything out. What he meant was that a duke who served as a death mage who heldmand over all death mages in a city of the dead, would cause other nobles worry and aroused their suspicions.


    ¡°Saleen, didn¡¯t you say you want to build elemental magic towers here? Just get the pce mages to keep an eye on me and the nobles will have no choice but to shut up. I like it here and so...¡±


    Saleen patted Aini¡¯s shoulder and said, ¡°Aini, you want this ce to be your estate, but you will need to wait until everyone ys their part and performs deeds of sorts. Guya and the rest contributed quite a lot after all. If I just hand the ce over to you, I¡¯d be like asking for a headache.¡±


    Aini did not fret despite having what he thought was rejection spelled out right in front of him. ¡°Simple then. The four dukes. When you conferred the titles back then, you wanted to set examples to have the nobles side with you. Now that you and Lex joined and have the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake in your hands, you are officially royalty. You can just draw something for them and that will serve well as a reward all the same. You will need to take Phoenix sooner orter, even if Qin...¡±


    Aini paused and took a look at Lex. Lex replied with a smile and said, ¡°Continue, Aini.¡±


    ¡°Even if Qin is to crumble, they will be able to go exact revenge in Lex¡¯s name, and be a part of the Kingdom of Metatrin. The Grukos will have your back, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they will indeed,¡± Lex answered.


    ¡°Then just go give the four dukes their titles and reward. That should do to stem any dissatisfaction. Choose three pieces ofnd at Phoenix¡¯s border, and I will want only Lonestar City for myself, and that will satisfy them. Once the territory of the Kingdom of Metatrin expands, Guya and the rest will have no reason to change their estate, and it will be entirely impossible for them to expand their territory into the viscountess¡¯ Qin areas.¡±


    Saleen was astounded. ¡°Aini, who was the one saying that you were just a death mage again? All these ideas of yours, they are just...¡±


    ¡°Just wicked!¡± Lex smiled. Aini¡¯s idea was sound. A duke¡¯s estate was something that could be expanded, but a duke could not have their estate scattered all over the ce. Such estates needed to be one connecting piece ofnd. If the dukes were not given their estates, then Guya and the rest might want some other ces somewhere else when the Kingdom of Metatrin expanded.


    It was a wiser choice then, to limit the three duchess¡¯ estates within Phoenix territory. Their ambitions were not all that great at the moment. If their ambitions indeed inted in the future, it would be a messy affair to deal with them.


    ¡°Saleen, if you want them to be appeased, even your son and daughter need to have their identities established. Build two cities within their estates, making it look like the four dukes are protecting their prince and princess. That will serve well to ward off any suspicion as well.¡±


    Ainipletely gave up on dealing with the three duchesses, just so that he could have Lonestar City to himself.


    From the looks of things, Guya and the other two earned quite a bit all that while, but that was because there was hardly anyone who was aware of his ns against Qin, and he had only hinted on it to Aini. Since he had explicit acknowledgment from Lex, such a n would sound fishy the way Aini worded it.


    ¡°You two will want to establish an empire of yours in the future, and the capital will be Daliang City, I presume. Metatrin City will then be the estate of the House Metatrin, indisputable and for good. Having the dukes who helped establish the country protecting Metatrin City would make for a nice story in itself.¡± Aini smiled andid everything in a seemingly dignified and respectable manner.


    There was one thing that Aini had not worded out loud, but Saleen knew nheless. If the other three duchesses found anything unsatisfying in the future, they had only Aini to me. That was all his idea after all, and all said and done just so that he could keep Lonestar City to himself.


    From a long term perspective, what Aini was doing was to sow discord between him and the three duchesses who helped established the country, yet for House Metatrin, it was a fitting end to things.


    Lex narrowed her eyes and looked at Aini. Had the death mage to not been a man, she would have suspected that there was something going on between the two of them.


    ¡°Aini, I pity you then.¡± Saleen knew well that the matter would spread sooner orter, and all nobles would develop the view that it was him who egged Saleen on to get the conferral of titles and estates dealt with as soon as possible and done just for the sake of Lonestar City.


    ¡°What do I have to fear? I will live for a long time, and I will be the oldest duke in the empire in time. Just what can their descendants do to me by then?¡± Aini pped the word ¡¯empire¡¯ on without any hesitation, a sign that he had ample confidence in what Saleen and Lex would be able to achieve in the future

 Chapter 959: Target, Ironwall City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 959: Target, Ironwall City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Aini¡¯s n had Saleen feeling at ease with what would unfold inter days. He built his nation in haste, and it was kept together with the power provided by his backings. Without Jason¡¯s help, none of the nobles would have followed him.


    The nobles would have fought in the future for more power and wealth, they even would have even toyed with the idea of independence. What Aini proposed allowed all that to be stemmed early.


    Such sacrificial way of going about it was made possible due to the immense faith Aini had for Saleen and himself. From Aini¡¯s perspective, advancing to a be grade-10 death mage was only a matter of time, and he would live a long life when the deed was done. All the other dukes and duchesses would probably die early deaths, and he would have in time, be the most powerful duke in the empire. With that, he needed not fear anyone having opinions about him.


    Saleen was hardly exhausted from the two battles fought previously. He talked to Lex for a bit and brought only the sorcerers he brought with him as well as the ancient warriors, in his return to Metatrin City.


    Saleen felt that the side with Grand Duke Iron Blood was already well-prepared, and the assault on Porter City was bound to happen. On the side of the Kingdom of Metatrin, they intended to attack Sikeqinya when Qin was being caught in a pincer attack from two other nations. If Holy Rock City sought reinforcements and needed Saleen to deploy his navy, he would be in no position to refuse. He, after all, held the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake, and a rtive of the Grukos.


    When his fleet had made for Sikeqinya, Holy Rock City would be robbed of its reason to make use of his forces.


    As for the three-hundred-thousand strong army from the tribunal, Saleen gave a strict order¡ªunless Aini¡¯s army of spirits had grown toorge and they had no idea what to do with the extra spirits, they were forbidden to venture out and engage the enemy. All they had to do was to hold the fort. The design and methods of Lonestar City¡¯s construction meant that invading armies would have to pay a heavy price to take it, if the garrison did little but to simply hold the line.


    The three-hundred-thousand strong from the tribunal would not be able to do anything to them. It was simply a chance for the troops in the city to acquire practical experience in the field.


    Sharman left with Saleen. She wanted to go to Daliang City, and that required using the teleportation portal in Bitterwater prefecture. Armies were formed in huge numbers between Lonestar City and Daliang City. Even a silver grand swordmaster would not have been able to get there easily.


    Saleen brought less than two-hundred-thousand men with him when he left. The temple guards were to all remain, and he did not even take Lex¡¯s personal troops with him. Saleen cast Quickcloud, encasing every single one of his men with it. Given that he was then a grade-9 sorcerer, taking all the mages, grand swordmasters, and the holy master by air, would be faster than having them ride of Wings of an Elf.


    A speed of three-hundred and sixty miles per hour was something hardly seen in any flying techniques and skills in the world. The Rainbow spell might have been quick, but it was simply a teleportation skill effective in short ranges. No one below grade-12 would be able to use the spell for true flight.


    The distance of five-thousand miles in a straight line took Saleen less than a day and a night¡¯s time to cover, and soon they found themselves back in Metatrin City. That was also where the strength of sorcerersid. They were able to get to anywhere there was trouble brewing at very high speeds, even if where they needed to go had no teleportation portals. For instance, with Saleen, if his cities were ever being surrounded by enemies, he would be more than capable to take on the enemy forces by himself.


    Lex stayed in the pce when she returned to Metatrin City, instead of staying in the temple. The temple was the residence of Sika, who was the stewardess and the mother of the prince and princess. Sika proved even more popr in Metatrin City than Saleen himself. That frustrated Lex somewhat, robbing of her of her mood to talk to Saleen about giving birth to their children.


    The people of the kingdom however, were especially concerned about the matter. As the prince and princess grew, there had been talks between the nobles, specting about if Saleen would have simply made one of those two children his heir.


    As both were of Qin birth, Saleen¡¯s daughter was also a possible contender to the throne. It all depended on which of his children Saleen would have learn magic. In most cases, a child who began learning magic would have no mood and time to think about running a country.


    Without bearing their king a child, Lex¡¯s poprity in the Kingdom of Metatrin paled whenpared to Sika¡¯s.


    Saleen had no choice but to y dumb to it all. He had to discuss matters with Jason in the temple. He had already decided to attack Ironwall City, but it was only appropriate that he inform Jason of such matters. Jason was his teacher after all. If Jason was to object to it, Saleen would have to figure something out.


    Jason¡¯s reaction was just how Saleen predicted: he either gave consent or dissent to Lex¡¯s ns. Jason however, offered Saleen a suggestion regarding his expedition to Sikeqinya, which was to have his fleet depart from the seas, while he himself was to bring Nailisi and Nichs to Ceylon City.


    The location of Ceylon City meant that there were no powerful nobles nearby. Saleen was to sneak into Ceylon City and subjugate the city lord, and then rendezvous with his fleet at sea,unching an attack at the northern side of Sikeqinya.


    Ironwall City was only five-hundred miles away from shore. From the looks of the gear Saleen equipped his troops with, thending party from the fleet would require little more than a day to cover the distance.


    Saleen was, of course, entirely able to just rendezvous with his fleet and had themunch their attack from the waters. The metal flyers were capable of covering very long distances and would not need a change of magic nuclei to cover a distance of three to five-thousand miles. Such was the power of equipment powered by magic power furnaces.


    Saleen pondered for a moment and concurred with his teacher. While Viscount Gugger might have had a very calctive mind, he was by no means a bad person. If he were to simply assault the city, the viscount would definitely end up dead. If he was to simply sneak into the city and talk with him, the cowardly viscount would definitely not want to go against a grade-9 sorcerer.


    It was still his ce of birth. If he simply led his troops to sack the ce and spilled massive amount of blood, it would have made for an ugly story.


    Since Saleen returned from his ordeal in the Imperial City of the Abyss, he had pretty much shaken off his past traumas. He no longer held grudges against those who had cheated him and done him harm in the past. That was, except for one: Earl Sufonso, who had wrecked his family grave.


    While Saleen¡¯s grudge towards Earl Sufonso had thinned considerably, he was nowhere near simply letting him off easy. Wrecking his family grave was akin to destroying the only ce Saleen had to remember his parents by.


    ¡°Teacher, is there anything I should be aware of?¡± Saleen asked earnestly.


    ¡°Nothing. You are now a grade-9 sorcerer, although...well, you are still my student. If you run into any trouble, all you have to do is to just run home. The Sikeqinyan emperor is not someone to be trifled with. If Lex intends to go against him and insists on taking out Ironwall City, I will do nothing to get in her way, but you have to be careful. Every empire will have their grade-10 professionals. As such, take Nailisi and Nichs with you. With those two by your side, I can rest easy.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, every empire has their own grade-10 professionals to hold the ce?¡± It was the first time Saleen heard of something like that. He realized that there were more than just Joey and Fycro that were grade-10 professionals, but if every empire had a grade-10 professional, that meant that his fleet...


    ¡°No, it¡¯s just that every empire has grade-10 professionals operating at certain areas. If you stir up trouble with them on their turf, you will be in for a massive headache.¡±


    ¡°So, you know who the grade-10 professional in Sikeqinya might be?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t. What I do know is that that person has some rtionship with the royalty of Sikeqinya, just like that one from Holy Rock City.¡±


    ¡°Understood teacher, I will not move against the Sikenqinyan Imperial city until I feel myself ready,¡± Saleen said solemnly to his teacher.


    ¡°Go then. Grand Duke Iron Blood or anyone else, no one can easily take down Metatrin City.¡± Jason pondered and continued, ¡°I n to enter the interdimensional space and advance to grade-10 there, to avoid drawing any attention.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, you are going to advance to grade-10?¡± Saleen was thoroughly shocked. Even with powers of the ne growing all across the Myers Maind, Jason¡¯s speed at advancement was still frightening.


    ¡°I have to. You have a penchant for getting into trouble with powerful enemies. If I stall advancement any further, Metatrin City will be razed sooner orter.¡±


    Saleen was reminded of Fycro and Joey and hung his head in shame. Those two were his doing, and any one of them could make it to Metatrin City. If his teacher did not advance further, he would have no choice but to lock himself up in the temple when those two showed up at the door. It would be a very frustrating affair.


    ¡°Try to spend more time with Truman. Just remember how you yearned for me to teach you back then,¡± Jason told Saleen in a serious tone.


    ¡°Teacher, I will bring Truman with me, and I won¡¯t let him leave my side,¡± Saleen swore.


    ¡°Heh, looks like you are unaware still. Truman is now already a grade-5 grand mage,¡± Jason told Saleen, feeling irritated.


    Saleen felt his face redden. He had brought Truman to Lonestar City, yet hardly let him do anything. He did not even so much as to ask about Truman¡¯s progress. While Truman still wore a grade-4 magic robe, he would still have been able to tell that Truman had advanced, had he simply paid a little more attention.


    Saleen returned to Sika¡¯s room after saying goodbye to his teacher and talked to her throughout the night. He made for the pce first thing in the morning.


    Lex was already there waiting for him. Saleen and Lex discussed his teacher¡¯s opinion and Lex approved of Jason¡¯s idea. For the mission, she was to again move separately from Saleen, and Lex actually felt somewhat jealous of Nailisi.


    The matter was decided quickly, and Nailisi removed all demons who served within the temple guards and organized a new demon army with fresh recruits from the Demon City, forming an army consisting of one-hundred-thousand demons. fifty-six-thousand of them were well-trained and well-equipped.


    The purgatory of devils was thirty-six miles in length and width, and it was still expanding, making it possible to carry one-hundred-thousand demons within. Nailisi even brought demon bugs she had been cultivating for more than a year from Demon City, to serve as food for the demon army.


    The environment of the purgatory of devils fit the demons well. If a human army was to stay there, they would probably suffer mental breakdowns from the tension within.


    J¡¯s injuries hadrgely recovered. He was practicing with his de when Saleen went to see him. Saleen even asked for J to spend more time with Eleanor. If anything happened to his injuries, he was to seek elvish healing magic from Eleanor, which would work faster and better than elemental magic.


    A week passed when everything was arranged. Nailisi was done sorting her demon army out, and the fleet at sea departed under Soldier¡¯smand. The winged skeleton had to stop training for the moment. They had to stay with Lex to keep the fleet safe.


    The spirits would not have responded tomands well without them being in charge either.


    Saleen had only departed from Metatrin City at the start of May. He only had Nailisi, Nichs, Truman, and Cuisi by his side. Cuisi suffered quite a bit when he was taken by the grand duke, yet he recovered one-hundred times faster than J. That time however, Cuisi sported the look of a warrior instead of a maid.


    Under the cover provided by Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud, they departed from Metatrin City and made for the Sikeqinya Empire.


    Their target, Ceylon City.

 Chapter 960: Target, Ironwall City (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 960: Target, Ironwall City (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The fleet of the Kingdom of Metatrin made for Sikeqinyan waters without stop. The northeastern side Myers Maind jutted upwards. Departure from Metatrin City would have required detour of tens of thousands of miles before they were able to reach Sikeqinya. However, the speed of the fleet was steady.


    The wear and tear in the alchemic machinery lessened after changing the magic power furnaces, making them capable of continued sailing at sea without need for breaks.


    Saleen and Lex moved separately, but both shared the same ultimate destination: Ironwall City.


    Saleen had little time to spare. He needed to get the deal with Ceylon City done as soon as possible and then make for the seas, to rendezvous with his fleet. It would have proven very difficult for Lex to take down Ironwall City alone. His elemental creatures and ancient warriors proved vital for overpowering the magic towers within the city.


    Just like how it was back in Daliang City, where the tower was so upied with the Cloudflow sorcerer, the building had nothing to spare for handling defense of the city.


    Getting from Metatrin City to Ceylon City would have taken them across almost the entire Myers Maind, covering a distance of more than 20 thousand miles. Some mountains were difficult fly past, and it was fortunate the everyone of them wore equipment crafted from lightning dragon hide.


    Such a piece of equipment would have at least guaranteed their safety when flying in great heights, from the risk of getting hit by lightning.


    Saleen crossed one mountain after another. During the trip, Saleen had even flown right into the clouds. Even Nailisi felt nervous when they were inside the clouds. No one was sure how well Saleen¡¯s equipment would have worked against lightning.


    The power of the electricity Saleen and Nailisi were able to conjure would not have had even one-ten thousandth of the power disyed by that of nature. As such, both feared lightning far more than conventional mages.


    Saleen avoided the Chaotic Swamp for fear of running into Fycro, and flew within the mountains further north. He was able to catch a glimpse of the barrennds north of the Chaotic Swamp, as well as the meandering forests, where countless magic beasts lived.


    These ces were even more hostile. No one below the rank of a level nine sorcerer would have been able to tread such areas.


    Saleen was in mood to hunt, but he observed and took everything to mind with his Elemental Eye regardless, wanting to find a path within the mountains. The result was utterly disappointing to Saleen, the region north of Chaotic Swamp simply had no ce where normal people could have easily tread.


    Not even the demon army would have been able to make it through the mountains, let alonemon people.


    Cuisi was very frightened as well. Saleen had brought him zipping past the mountains many times, at heights exceeding 5000 meters. The region far north was covered in snow throughout the year without any sight of trees, and the ground was ringly white. However, there were actually magic beasts fighting fierce battles in such ces. From the looks of it, all of them exceeded level seven.


    Cuisi possessed the power of a level nine supreme demon, and even he would not have liked to be caught surrounded by those magic beasts. Any beasts form such areas would have possessed skills capable of freezing and slowing targets. Once surrounded, he would not have been able to even fly.


    The one who was most calm was Truman instead. He had little idea how powerful lightning could have been, and knew the dangers of flying in the air as much as any conventional mage would have known. It was best to stay low. However, given how Saleen dared to fly such heights, he simply saw no reason to feel afraid.


    He had little idea of what was actually happening on the ground. Saleen did not share his senses. No one else in the party had signed a soul bond with him after all, and sharing senses with such people would have taxed heavily on his mental powers.


    Nichs was worried too. The notion of lightning dragon hide being capable of deflecting lightning was little more than a rumor, and Nichs spent the entire flight being frightened asw ell.


    Saleen only flew for eight hours a day, beforending for breaks. He had only extended his time flying when he had flown past the thousands of miles of mountainous region.


    Sikeqinya Empirecked mages, and Saleen had only needed to observe if there were magic towers within a hundred miles where they were flying to guarantee their safety. After about eight days, Saleen¡¯s party finally arrived at Ceylon City.


    Saleen did not know what to think when he was flying all the way there. But he grew restless once he reached his birth city. He had not approached Ceylon City from the docks,nding instead in the mountains, before changing his Devil Armament formon magic robe.


    Saleen had never felt his memory being so clear. He moved alongside the stream in the mountains and came to a ce where the water flowed slowly. That was where he first developed magic chords, and the ce hardly changed.


    Nailisi waved his hand and had everyone else stay quiet. She saw Saleen walking to the middle of the stream and lying t on it.


    The rest of the party felt Saleen¡¯s actions to be weird, but no one went disturbing him. Saleen closed his eyes and let the water flow past his skin. When he first used magic chord solutions all those years back, he almost died right there and then. He would have given his life for magic.


    Just how did I manage to endure that kind of childhood? How did I develop such adamant will at such a young age? Saleen felt rxed all the sudden, as if he was watching the lives of others. All the pain he had endured seemed to have had nothing to do with him.


    Breathe. His skin was taking in the gas within the water. The dark clouds within Saleen¡¯s mindpletely cleared without him realizing it. He gradually sat up from the water and smiled at his party, ¡°This is where I became a mage.¡±


    Here?


    Nailisi and the rest looked around and found not even a single tower nearby. Everyone knew that Jason was Saleen¡¯s teacher. Jason was a powerful mage and Saleen¡¯s only teacher.


    Come, we will go see where I used to live. Hopefully the ce is still there.


    Saleen sold his ce to Jason. As Jason became Saleen¡¯s teacher, the ce remained his home all the same. It was also a ce where Saleen missed the most.


    Saleen led his party walking to the stone house owned by his family. The stone house built near the mountains appeared before Saleen¡¯s eyes when they made it past thest valley.


    Nothing changed, or rather, everything stayed the same to how it was when Saleen was a child.


    The two-floored house was refurbished, but there was hardly anything new added to it. Doors and windows were added ording the ce¡¯s original design. The wood used to construct the doors and windows have undergone treatment, to keep the original looks of the house as much as possible.


    What astonished Saleen the most was that arge tree appeared before the door. The tree seemed to be more than a hundred years old, yet there was no tree there when he left. There was also a swing on the tree. The contraption was bound by ropes as thick as his wrists and hung on the branches, swinging lightly in the wind.


    That was the best season in Ceylon City. The flowers behind the house bloomed, giving the ce a nice scent.


    So the house was sold? Seemed unlikely, given how teacher was in a hurry back then. He would definitely not have came back just so he could sell the ce. Furthermore, teacher knew what the ce meant to me, and he was not in short of money.


    Saleen went up and pushed the door open.


    The door opened wide with a creak. Saleen¡¯s ears were able to tell that the hinges were not made of metal and it was not oiled. The door was simply reinstalled just the way it was back when he lived here as a child.


    ¡°Who is it?¡±, a voice was heard from above, one that sounded familiar to Saleen. A figure dressed in soft armor walked down the stairs. Their hair was tied up without wearing any helmet.


    ¡°Remember me, Ulysses?¡±, Saleen smiled. It was the swordmaster from the viscount¡¯s manor who let him off back then when he killed someone all those years back.


    It was morning and sunlight shone within from outside. Ulysses was still half-asleep when he saw the few people standing at the door. He rubbed his eyes for a little bit and peered. There was a young man dressed in ck magic robe, and four people stood behind him.


    ck magic robe? Ulysses was briefly stunned, before realizing that it was a sorcerer. He hastily put his sword on the table nearby, and bowed politely at Saleen.


    ¡°Sir, I¡¯m afraid my memory isn¡¯t serving me all that well,¡± He dared not lie. While Saleen¡¯s looks hardly changed, his bearing was something different altogether. In any case, Ulysses could have hardly linked the sorcerer before him to be the magic acolyte that he let go off all those years ago.


    ¡°Ulysses, remember that Saleen whom you let go back then?¡±


    Ulysses faltered backwards and realized he had lost hisposure. He widened his eyes and activated his sword aura. Only then was he able to look at Saleen¡¯s face clearly.


    ¡°You! You...,¡± He used the word ¡®you¡¯ on a level nine sorcerer in a very rude manner.


    ¡°It¡¯s me, Saleen Metatrin. Ulysses, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard of what I did?¡±, Saleen walked into the room, and the rest of the party followed.


    ¡°Sir? It can¡¯t be!¡±, Ulysses had no words to describe the shock he had just felt. There was no way he could not have heard of the name Saleen Metatrin. It was an important figure who built a country up north at the Phoenix region. He had simply thought the name to be a coincidence.


    ¡°Address me as your highness if you feel like it,¡± Saleen¡¯s smile was an ambiguous one. He eyed the house that used to be his and found everything restored, even the things that he was cheated of, were restored to their original ces. Saleen was able to tell that it was probably Viscount Gugger¡¯s doing.


    Doing so would have cost quite a lot of money, but if Jason was to return, the sorcerer might have rewarded the viscount handsomely. The viscount was still one sly fellow indeed.


    ¡°Yo-Your highness...¡±, Ulysses was at a lost. Rumors of the Kingdom of Metatrin was rather unsavory in Sikeqinya. It was just that when Saleen stood before Ulysses, he found himself unable to believe a single word of the rumor spread by Emperor Danny. How could have Saleen been such a person?


    A murderous king? One who feed his demons with humans? Likes raping girls of noble birth?


    That guy is a sorcerer! He won¡¯t bother doing stuff like that. It seemed that Emperor Danny was not in a right state of mind, maybe even controlled by the Holy See. The cooperation had been fishy right from the start. The holy masters of the Holy See have definitely taken control of the emperor¡¯s court. This is bad...


    Ulysses¡¯ mind ran into overdrive when Saleen continued, ¡°Ulysses, I have been flying for over 20 thousand miles and I¡¯m feeling rather tired. Get back to the city and tell Viscount Gugger, that I¡¯m back, and I want him toe see me.¡±


    ¡°Yes, your highness,¡± Ulysses went to address Saleen the way the sorcerer asked to be addressed with without realizing it.


    Ulysses bolted out of the house without even picking up his sword. Saleen had the rest of his party wait at the living room. He went around and found the tea sets like he still owned the ce, and went on to make tea for his followers.


    ¡°Teacher!¡±, Truman had wanted to serve Saleen, which Saleen responded with a wave, ¡°This is my ce. You guys are here for the first time, so you¡¯re all my guests. There¡¯re no outsiders here, so just make yourselves at home and don¡¯t fret with the rules.¡±


    Truman had no choice but to sit down. Nichs adjusted his mood for a bit and said to Saleen, ¡°My liege, that warrior ran rather quickly. Was he trying to get an army to take us out?¡±


    ¡°He won¡¯t. The man is loyal to Viscount Gugger, and Viscount Gugger, had never wanted to go against me in the first ce. He would have just sent me to Earl Sufonso all those years back if he wanted to do so. I like what he did to the ce. Well, I guess I¡¯ll just take it as if I got him a present or something. What a fellow indeed...¡±

 Chapter 961: Returning Home in Glory (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 961: Returning Home in Glory (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ulysses headed back to Ceylon City as quickly as he could. Just as Saleen had said, Ulysses did not think of gathering soldiers to fight against the former, but that was not because Ulysses was afraid of Saleen. Instead, it was because Viscount Gugger had specifically instructed him to head back, regardless of whether it was Saleen or Jason that returned.


    To Ulysses, Viscount Gugger was more important than the Emperor. After all, the Emperor would not groom him nor find better ways to train him.


    Viscount Gugger had not been in a good moodtely, as he has been getting into fights with his wife, Narsha, over money. Viscount Gugger had invested thousands of gold coins in Saleen, so when thetter left without a word, the former was unable to get any of his money back. As a result ofck of wealth, he had also been unable to sessfully seek employment in a good position in the capital. That had been carrying on for the past few years, and the Viscount was already close to giving up.


    Narsha¡¯s rtionship with her father had been tense because she lost all the money she had raised for him. This was partly why she had been fighting with Viscount Gugger.


    Gugger was trying to appease his wife and said, ¡°Narsha, look, why don¡¯t I sell some of the properties I have in the city, then try again in the capital?¡±


    ¡°Forget it. Ceylon City is a pathetic ce. Other than fishermen, why would any merchantse here? How much can we sell those lousy properties for? A hundred gold coins?¡± Narsha raised her voice. They had spent more than 100 gold coins on those properties, but as Ceylon City became stagnant in its development, it was unlikely that anyone would want to buy those properties. Even selling them at 100 gold coins was too expensive.


    Narsha¡¯s father was merely the leader of apany, but he did not possess all of its shares. He had already lent as many gold coins as he could to Gugger. If not for the fact that Viscount Gugger had two ships that were still working, his father-inw would have been upset with him. In Sikeqinya, even the Emperor would not be able to protect you if you were in debt.


    Ulysses rushed into the Viscount¡¯s residence and almost knocked over a servant. It was rude of Ulysses to enter just as Narsha was giving Gugger a scolding.


    Narsha immediately stopped while Gugger stared at him and said, ¡°Ulysses, what have you be?!¡±


    ¡°My Lord, that, that!¡± Ulysses was hesitant as he looked at the Viscount¡¯s wife.


    ¡°Speak!¡± Narsha was enraged and shouted, ¡°Are the two of you hiding something from me?¡±


    ¡°Say it.¡± Gugger calmed down. He suddenly realized that he has been leading an easy lifetely, as he no longer trained the soldiers. He only tasked Ulysses with guarding the stone hut outside the city to see if he might encounter Grand Mage Jason. Since Ulysses was there, could it be that Jason had returned?


    ¡°My Lord, Saleen has returned.¡±


    ¡°Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Master Jason¡¯s disciple... the king of Metatrin Kingdom.¡±


    ¡°Gugger, capture him!¡± Narsha screamed, but then she saw the cool expression on Gugger¡¯s face. She might be a rough person, but she was not stupid. She immediately understood what was going on.


    ¡°How many people does he have with him?¡±


    ¡°Four. Five, if including His Highness, Saleen.¡± Ulysses replied.


    Narsha calmed down and looked at Viscount Gugger. After some time, she finally saw a look of warmth on Gugger¡¯s face and said, ¡°Gugger, have you already made up your mind?¡±


    ¡°Yes. When I heard that the king of Metatrin Kingdom was called ¡®Saleen¡¯, I knew it was him. Narsha, what do you think?¡±


    Narsha sank into the chair, as if every ounce of energy has been sucked out of her body. She coughed suddenly, and Ulysses quickly poured a cup of water for her.


    Viscount Gugger came over to his wife and patted her back. Narsha leaned against Gugger¡¯s body and asked, ¡°My Lord, have you really decided to go over to the enemy?¡±


    ¡°Narsha...¡± Gugger tried to rearrange the thoughts in his mind and said, ¡°I don¡¯t think I will be able to repay the 200,000 gold coins that I owe your father.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to. I...¡±


    ¡°Forget it, Narsha, you know what kind of person your father is. I¡¯m not exactly going over to the enemy. His Highness, Saleen, grew up in Ceylon City after all. This is his hometown. ording to an ancient agreement, this piece ofnd belongs to him. I just need to make an appearance to prove it.¡±


    ¡°Make an appearance to prove it?¡± Narsha felt stupid just by repeating what he said. If Viscount Gugger did not make the appearance, nothing that Saleen said would matter. Saleen needed a witness and the record in the town hall. If Viscount Gugger destroyed that record, then Saleen would not be able to prove that Ceylon City was his hometown.


    What Viscount Gugger was about to do would definitely enrage Emperor Danny.


    ¡°My Lord, you are going to get us killed.¡± Narsha suddenly stood up and said to Ulysses, ¡°Quick, gather the bodyguards and bring along the heavy crossbows in the secret storeroom...¡±


    ¡°Madam, that won¡¯t do! His Highness, Saleen, is a sorcerer!¡± Ulysses panicked.


    ¡°What are you thinking? Aren¡¯t the people from the capital all staying in the hostel? They are still here. The news of our Lord meeting with Saleen will definitely leak out. What if these people escape or spread the news? We must keep things under wraps for as many days as we can...¡±


    ¡°Kill them all!¡± Gugger stopped Narsha. He was d that he did not marry the wrong person, but what was Ulysses saying? Saleen had be a sorcerer?


    ¡°Yes! My Lord, His Highness, Saleen, is still waiting for you.¡±


    ¡°Go and kill them first. I will just bring Chris along.¡± Gugger¡¯s mind was a mess. Although he had been thinking of going over to Saleen¡¯s side for a long time, since it was finally happening, he could barely believe that it was all real.


    ¡°My Lord, please be careful.¡± Narsha tugged at the Viscount¡¯s hand and could not bear to let go. It was a risky decision that Gugger was making. They might have to flee for their lives at the end of the day. For Saleen toe over personally, he must either want to give assurance to Gugger or take the Viscount and the town hall record away with him.


    ¡°Should I pack my belongings and bring along all the money that I have been keeping secretly? What about my father?¡± Narsha was confused and was not even aware of Gugger letting go of her hand and leaving the room.


    Gugger did not ask anyone to drive him over in a wagon. Instead, he headed straight to the stable and mounted his favorite warhorse. It was a grade-1 magic beast and was one of the few luxuries that Gugger owned. Ever since he heard of someone by the name of ¡®Saleen Metatrin¡¯ who had built a kingdom, he had been preparing for that day. He had spent a fortune to buy that warhorse.


    The person following the Viscount was Chris. Chris was Ulysses¡¯ student in swordsmanship and was also a loyal subordinate. The two of them left the city on their horses and reached Saleen¡¯s stone hut very quickly.


    On the swing outside the stone hut, Nailisi was half-sitting and halfying down. She had removed her skirt, which was flowing along with the breeze of the wind. She leaned against the rope with a wild fruit in her hands. The fruit was poisonous and would cause diarrhea if any ordinary human ate it. It might even cause bleeding in the organs and eventually lead to death. Nailisi took bite after bite and found the fruit to be very sweet and fragrant.


    Cuisi sat at the entrance of the door quietly. The steps might be cold, but they were a thousand times morefortable than the demon dimension. At the very least, there would not be thick smoke choking him, and no powerful demons would suddenly pounce out from the bushes. Since Nailisi was outside, Cuisi had no choice but stay outside with her so as not to anger her.


    It seemed that Saleen really wanted to rest for a while. The moment he returned to his childhood bedroom, heid down on his bed immediately.


    When Gugger rushed over on his warhorse, a purple glow shed across Cuisi¡¯s eyes as he released a bit of supreme demon aura. The warhorse was so terrified that its legs buckled, and it almost threw Gugger onto the ground.


    Nailisi could not help butugh. The Viscount was quite good-looking and possessed decent fighting skills. If he underwent some training, he might be a ck metal grand swordmaster in this lifetime. Nailisi thought about it for a moment and decided that perhaps the noble might not be totally useless after all.


    Chris was slightly enraged. Saleen¡¯s servants were behaving very rudely. His warhorse also crashed onto the ground and was even foaming at the mouth. Cuisi¡¯s technique was of such high-level that neither the Viscount nor Chris sensed his threat.


    The difference between both parties was too huge so naturally, a supreme demon could control the entire situation easily.


    ¡°Come here.¡± Nailisi pointed at Gugger.


    Gugger thought about it and walked over to her. Nailisi¡¯s hair was ck and after her advancement, the streaks of green hair had almost vanishedpletely.


    ¡°Your name is Gugger, am I right?¡± Nailisi had seen the magic image that Lex had given her, and she recognized Gugger.


    ¡°And you are?¡± Although Gugger might be upset, he could still control himself. Even amongst the Cloudflow people, he was considered to have a good temperament.


    ¡°I am Nailisi. That is my servant, Cuisi. Master is still asleep. If you wish to talk to him, you will have to wait for at least six hours.¡±


    ¡°I see!¡± Gugger took of his gloves and handed his sword to Chris before asking, ¡°Can I sit here?¡±


    ¡°Of course. You can also go to the living room if you want. There is an old fellow there, but I think you would rather talk to me.¡± Nailisi smiled with a na?ve look on her face.


    ¡°That goes without saying. Can I... address you by your name?¡± Gugger was very polite, which was something new to Nailisi. In Metatrin City, everyone feared her, including some of the Sregl Ind mages.


    ¡°You can call me by my name. What about that fellow?¡± Nailisi pointed at Chris. The young swordmaster¡¯s potential far surpassed that of Gugger.


    ¡°Chris is my bodyguard.¡± Gugger sat down on the grass patch. Chris stood behind the Viscount with a pair of swords and looked as if he was expecting an enemy to appear any minute.


    Nailisi smiled at Chris but it was actually more of a snigger. She could not believe that that fellow was trying to put on a front before her. If not for the fact that Master had forbade her from doing anything rash, she would have fed him to the demons. After all, there were 100,000 demons in her Twelve Notes of Purgatory. They had been feeding on magic bugs daily, so they would not mind having some variety once in a while.


    ¡°Gugger, I heard from my Master that he owes you quite a lot of money.¡± Nailisi began to get off from the swing. Chris was in a daze. He had never seen ady as beautiful as her.


    Guggerughed bitterly. That was an investment that he had made in the beginning. If Saleen really returned the money to him, that meant that his investment did not reap any profits.


    ¡°How can I possibly ask His Highness to repay the debt?¡± Gugger suppressed the anxiety in his heart. He had no idea how things were progressing in the city. Ulysses was definitely trustworthy, but he could not be sure if there were any enemies amongst those people from the capital.

 Chapter 962: Returning Home in Glory (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 962: Returning Home in Glory (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I was going to help my Master repay the debt. I did not expect you to be so generous!¡± Nailisi eximed.


    Gugger assumed that Nailisi was ridiculing him, so he went along by saying, ¡°How is that generous? I just don¡¯t dare to ask for money from His Highness.¡±


    Nailisi noticed that Gugger knew how to y along so sheughed and said, ¡°You are pretty interesting. Take this.¡± With that, Nailisi took out a bunch of magic nuclei from her bracelet and threw them to Gugger.


    ¡°I cannot take this!¡± Although the Viscount was not sure how much the magic nuclei were worth, he knew that they were definitely more valuable than what he had invested in Saleen. The war had been going on for some time and the price of magic nuclei had been fluctuating. From the looks of it, the magic nuclei looked like they were middle-grade magic nuclei that were either grade-5 or grade-6.


    Nailisi¡¯s hands might not be huge, but she still managed to grab more than 80 magic nuclei. Magic nuclei like those could not be bought anywhere, as they had all already been bought by the military. A grade-5 magic nucleus was easily worth more than 800 gold coins.


    How many tens of thousands of gold coins were they worth? 60,000 or 80,000?


    ¡°Take them. When you see Master, don¡¯t bring up the past,¡± Nailisi warned Gugger. She was afraid that Gugger would be cunning enough to try to ckmail Saleen emotionally. The only problem with Saleen was that he was often too soft-hearted when he was ovee with nostalgia.


    ¡°Oh yes, Gugger, where is Ulysses?¡±


    ¡°He went to take care of the people from the capital.¡±


    ¡°The capital?¡±


    ¡°Yes. The rumor out of the capital was that Metatrin Kingdom owned a fleet that was as good as Cloudflow¡¯s. Since then, people from the capital have been stationed at all the cities along the sea...¡±


    ¡°Based on Ulysses¡¯ standard, it will not turn out well.¡± Nailisi immediately pointed at Cuisi and said, ¡°Go and help Ulysses take care of those people from the capital. Don¡¯t let a single one get away.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡± Cuisi stood up and pulled down the mask to conceal his face. A pair of metal wings on the back of his armor spread open and he flew into the sky. The devil flying armor allowed him to fly faster than when he was in his original form.


    Gugger was taken aback and Chris instinctively gripped the hilt of the sword. He had sensed the power in Cuisi and could not control his body¡¯s instinctive reaction.


    Gugger secretly felt guilty. Although he had been training very often, he no longer possessed thebat abilities of Chris. At the end of the day, he was still just a useless member of a royal family.


    ¡°Gugger, I think my master¡¯s intention was for you for repair this ce, am I right?¡± Nailisi did not think that Cuisi was powerful at all, so there was no way she could understand Gugger¡¯s feelings.


    ¡°I was thinking that if His Highness returned in a good mood, I will just take it as an investment.¡± The way Gugger spoke would have been considered by the Qin people as crude. He was very straightforward and that was something that Nailisi liked.


    ¡°Gugger, I was just joking with you just now. Those magic nuclei are your rewards.¡± Nailisiughed. She was making an effort to maintain her image by notughing uproariously. As a result, Chris became even more smitten with her.


    ¡°How can I ept this?¡± Gugger asked nervously.


    ¡°Why not? Once you see Master, there will be more good stuff waiting for you. Go ahead.¡± Nailisi heard Saleen¡¯s voice in her heart and urged Gugger to go in.


    Saleen was in a good mood. He was lying on his own bed. The window has been fixed on with faint-colored ss, so that he no longer had to suffer from the cold wind like in the past. There was a huge mirror on his wardrobe and Gugger was also responsible for the whale-oilmp on the wall.


    The Viscount was very meticulous and had probably bought the design of the house back then.


    Gugger entered the stone hut alone. When he reached the second level, Saleen was lying on the bed and called outzily, ¡°Come in.¡±


    Gugger opened the door and stepped in as Saleen sat up on the bed and pointed at the chair in front of him with a smile, gesturing to the Viscount to take a seat.


    The difference in mental strength between the two of them was sorge that Gugger obeyed Saleen¡¯smand without thinking.


    ¡°Viscount, what do you think about my return?¡± Saleen looked at Gugger and asked a serious question.


    ¡°Your Highness, I have a few things to ask of you.¡± Gugger replied very seriously.


    ¡°Go ahead.¡±


    ¡°There is no way we can keep this under wraps for too long. Within two to three weeks at most, the capital will know about this. We will probably be able to make it all the way to the border. The bodyguards in my residence have been loyal to my n for more than 10 generations. I beg Your Highness to allow them to send their families off first. As for my wife, she has stayed by my side for so many years and has been working hard every day. If I were to die, I hope that Your Highness will transfer my rank to her. This is something that I have brought along. Please take a look.¡±


    Gugger was rambling on while taking out two items from his pocket.


    Saleen did not know whether tough or to cry. One of the items was a birth certificate from the town hall that included the records of Saleen¡¯s n in Ceylon City. The other item was an official document written by Gugger with his seal imprinted on it. It had a picture of the Gugger n¡¯s badge.


    Saleen waved the two items in his hands and asked, ¡°You already prepared these items way beforehand?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know this is could get you executed?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but I wanted to bet on Your Highness. I have already invested so much in you that there is no return for me anymore.¡± Gugger replied honestly.


    ¡°In that case...¡± Saleen pondered deeply for a moment before saying, ¡°Gugger, I have no intentions of leaving immediately after receiving these items, otherwise there was no need for me toe here personally. I want to expand my territories here by upying here and within a hundred miles from here. Don¡¯t worry. The capital will not send their armies here. My fleet will be reaching the northern sea region any time. In a week¡¯s time at most, we willunch our attack on Ironwall City.¡±


    Gugger thought to himself, ¡°Ironwall City? That city can never be taken down!¡±


    ¡°I will bring a 10,000-strong main army here to train your bodyguards. As for your wife, don¡¯t worry. I intend to build magic towers and teleportation portals in Ceylon City. If it really bes dangerous, I will teleport you and your wife directly to Metatrin City. I can afford that kind of thing.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness...¡± Gugger¡¯s ns had beenpletely turned upside down. His n was to extend his services to Saleen before fleeing to Metatrin City with thetter. By then, he would be able to find a way to be a member of the nobility there and he would never ever have to worry about survival again. If Saleen was generous enough, he might even give Gugger somend and a fully-built city.


    ¡°Gugger, my return should be grand and glorifying. In that case, even Danny will not dare to do anything to Ceylon City. Let me ask you, even if you manage to escape, what about your people? Can you bring along the tens of thousands of people in Ceylon City?¡±


    Gugger shook his hand. All of a sudden, he realized how immature he was. Even if he managed to escape, what about the rest of the people in the city? Gugger was not such a heartless person. The moment he thought about the fate of his people, he could not help but tremble in fear.


    ¡°Gugger, my purpose for seeing you today is to discuss expanding the port of Ceylon City. After that, I am going to move on to destroying Ironwall City. If I seed, do you think Danny will still dare to cause trouble in Ceylon City?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, Ironwall City is...¡±


    ¡°Gugger, I will bring you to the battlefield so that you can take a look for yourself.¡± Saleen¡¯s assurance terrified Gugger. Saleen even continued, ¡°Eventually, Ceylon City will be expanded until it can contain a poption of at least 300,000. We only need about 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers stationed here. In the future, after the Holy See has been destroyed, this ce will be a crucial interchange station between Tanggsi and Sikeqinya. Yournd will only be more and more valuable.¡±


    Gugger¡¯s mind was nk. He barely registered what Saleen was saying. He only heard Saleen saying that he would bring him to the battlefield as part of the battle to take down Ironwall City.


    ¡°Gugger!¡± Saleen called out to wake Gugger up.


    ¡°Your Highness!¡± Gugger could not help but stand up. Thereafter, he sensed an invisible strength pressing down on both of his shoulders and into his seat.


    ¡°When I said that I want to destroy Ironwall City, that means that I have sufficient confidence to do so. So, what you are worried about? When you have taken care of the people in the city, I will leave behind some resources for you and protect your loved ones. Prepare a ceremony to celebrate my return. I don¡¯t need it to be luxurious, but everyone in Ceylon City must know that I have returned.¡±


    ¡°Hmm.¡± Gugger¡¯s reply revealed some slight disappointment.


    Saleen opened his elemental eyes and scanned Gugger¡¯s entire body. He felt a tinge of regret. Gugger was past his best years, and it would be difficult for him to try and achieve a breakthrough in hisbat abilities. Nevertheless, Saleen had golden grand swordmasters that would be able to ensure that Gugger at least advanced to a grand swordmaster.


    The collective powers of the entire Maind had been increasing and the Viscount should be no exception.


    Gugger was slightly creeped out by how Saleen was looking at him and only heard Saleen say, ¡°At most, you can only advance to a ck metal grand swordmaster, and perhaps before you die, you may have a chance of advancing to silver grand swordmaster. Forget it, I will leave more men behind to protect you.¡±


    Saleen did not wish for Gugger to be killed. After all, he did receive a few bags of flour from Gugger when he was young. Without the flour Saleen would have starved to death. As the ruler of Ceylon City, Gugger ensured that no robbery would take ce. Therefore, all the heartless people had no choice but to wait for Saleen to die slowly.


    ¡°Gugger, after I have destroyed Ironwall City, I will give you a reward. What do you want?¡± Saleen did not mind that Gugger was a weak person. In any case, Saleen was merely returning a favor. He did not expect Gugger to be fighting alongside him anyway. His n was for Gugger to be a member of the noble family with the ability to make money for himself.


    Gugger was pleased to hear that. It seemed that Saleen was keen to return to the favor that Gugger had extended to him in the past.


    ¡°Your Highness, just allow me to continue guarding Ceylon City. After all, the tens of thousands of people have been following my n for centuries.¡± Gugger said teasingly.


    ¡°No way.¡± Saleen chided yfully and said, ¡°I cannot be so stingy. I will make you a first-ss Earl and also give you a total of five million gold coins over 10 years. You will build up the city. As for the port, I will send someone to build it, so you don¡¯t have to worry about that. The location of this residence of mine is not bad. I will build a castle in the mountains behind this ce. If your city encounters any trouble, the castle will be able to send reinforcements immediately.¡±


    Gugger thought he was dreaming. Five million gold coins? What kind of concept was that? Gugger had never seen so much money in his life. He could not even repay a debt of a few tens of thousands of gold coins. He was even on the brink of selling his properties andnds.

 Chapter 963: Meeting up with Lex (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 963: Meeting up with Lex (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Your highness, you are giving me too much, I...¡± Viscount Gugger felt afraid all of a sudden. Saleen was simply being too generous with him. ¡°What will the nobles serving me think? Will they hold a grudge against me?¡±


    ¡°What is there to be afraid of? Aren¡¯t there four great families who were doing business on behalf of the royal family in Qin? From here on out, you will be the first noble who will do business for me. All trades happening in Ceylon City will be put under your charge. No one will take even a single coin from you other than me.¡±


    Viscount Gugger¡¯s head was spinning at that point. What Saleen proposed was equal to waiving all taxes he would have to pay, by making him a royal merchant.


    ¡°Do you have any control over the nobles around you?¡± Saleen asked about the matters concerning Ceylon City. Thend under Viscount Gugger¡¯s control was small, only tens of square miles altogether. There was still plenty ofnd around, and Saleen nned on taking it.


    ¡°I have no control, but Your Highness, it is best to avoid killing if possible. Those nobles might be lesser ones, but they have been living here for more than ten generations. If you kill them, the smallfolk serving them will all run as well.¡±


    ¡°I know, and that is why I need to take them along to go see for themselves, how Ironwall City will fall. These people will cause you a lot of trouble otherwise,¡± Saleen said and summoned Nailisi. Nailisi leapt in from the window and stood before Saleen¡¯s bed.


    ¡°Gugger, tell Nailisi everything about the nobles around your estate, and have her take all them in.¡±


    Gugger hesitated, and Nailisi smirked. ¡°Master, please lend me the wind elemental badge. I will take them in one by one personally, and with Gugger by my side. I should be back around sundown.¡±


    ¡°Alright then,¡± Saleen took out his wind elemental badge and handed it to Nailisi, then turned around to address the viscount. ¡°Go invite the nobles here with Nailisi ande with me.¡±


    Nailisi grabbed Gugger by the belt and leapt through the window with Gugger in her arms, before the viscount even knew what was happening.


    Cuisi had only made it back into the house at noon, and Saleen was already giving magic lessons to Truman. The old man Nichs simply went on finding himself a ce where he could sleep, and only Chris was left sitting in the living room feeling bored yet dared not go anywhere.


    ¡°Your highness, I have killed every single of them from the Sikeqinyan Imperial city. It was fortunate that I went to have a look. A few almost escaped the city.¡±


    ¡°Good job. I have no further business for you here. Go wait for Nailisi¡¯s return, and then we will make a move.¡± Saleen dismissed Cuisi and continued talking to Truman about magic.


    It was not every day that Truman was able to get someone to guide him. He had only realized after learning the rules of meditation, that the lineage of mages was a hundred times more important than what he had thought it to be. The meditative methods that he had learned before was powerful enough, but the rules taught to him by Saleen enabled his mental powers to spike. Some of the magic experiments that he had trouble performing could be performed easily.


    Saleen also taught him a mutated version of Water Shield, and Truman seemed to be near breaking through grade-6. The grade-4 Water Shield would serve as his most powerful defensive spell before breaking through the ranks of sorcerers.


    Pop...


    The bubble burst, and Truman looked at Saleen with a rather exasperated look. His Water Shield was unable tost altogether. It held for about five minutes before dispersing. Truman was puzzled as to how Saleen was able to keep the Water Shield up for hours.


    The grade-4 Water Shield was not a spell with a continuous drain and would not continue to drain the casting mage¡¯s magic chords. Once cast, the duration which the spell wouldst was dependent entirely on how pure it was.


    While Truman possessed ample mental powers, his gathering and arrangement of water elements was still leagues behind that of his teacher.


    Saleen felt pleased regardless. He had a body of water element, and that meant he had an inherent edge with using water spells. He had mutated the spell back when he was a grade-1 mage and went on to make the spell an upgradable one. He even mixed rules of energy bnce in it.


    While the rules were not something powerful, it was the first time Saleen was able to experience the power of rules. With that power, his Water Shield would havested indefinitely when it was not being attacked. He had to disperse the spell of his himself every time he was done with it since then.


    Truman was a grade-5 grand mage, and Saleen wanted to borate rules to him, but did not know how to go about it. Such borations would have involvedplex knowledge. Only when Truman had umted enough experience, grew powerful enough, and was able to see some of the truths of the world, would he have been ableprehend some of the intricacies of the rules.


    ¡°Just keep practicing. When I first cast the spell, it didn¡¯tst long either. A magic shield wouldn¡¯t havested more than three minutes in battle. Seeing how long you have been able to keep it up, I¡¯d say it¡¯s ready to be used in fights,¡± Saleen consoled Truman.


    ¡°But teacher, I felt like I was only using one-tenth of my power,¡± Truman added frustratingly.


    Saleen realized all of a sudden, that the spell was not strictly a mutated one; it was something that he had created himself entirely. The creation of the spell was made to adapt the Water Shield to suit his body of water element better. Truman was unable to do what Saleen had been doing all that while with it, and that was because his own magic chords were only capable of casting water spells.


    If he wanted to use magic of other elements, it was necessary for him to use skills that allowed for elemental conversion. Or rather, if Truman wanted to learn his version of the spell, he would have needed to be able to use elemental conversion himself. The earliest he became able to do so was when he became a grade-6 mage. Truman¡¯s umtion was more solid than his had been. If he mastered elemental conversion, Water Shield would no longer be a problem for him.


    While Saleen had listened to Joey earnestly, he still hoped to be able to pass down skills that he developed himself. Water Shield, Eye of Lightning, Quickcloud, and other unique skills, Saleen did not want to see them die with him.


    ¡°Truman. Look at the skill. Don¡¯t bother with learning my hand signs. Pay attention to the process,¡± Saleen said and conjured an ice bomb in his hand, and had it floating above his palm. The ice bomb¡¯s surface vaporized slowly, and the vapor spun fiercely outside the bullet, like a mini wind dragon.


    The ice bomb with a vaporized outeryer began to burn. Saleen deliberately slowed the time of it by more than a dozen of times, in order to have Truman see clearly what was happening. The internal parts of the ice bomb began to burn, and the ice itself continued to vaporize, providing fuel for the mes on the outeryer.


    ¡°Elemental conversion!¡± Truman was shocked, and then looked rather troubled.


    ¡°Indeed, Truman. This is elemental conversion. I was only able to use water spells before. If I hadn¡¯t learned elemental conversion, I would have never been able to advance into the ranks of a sorcerer,¡± Saleen said in a solemn manner.


    The fear and troubled look on Truman¡¯s face disappeared in an instant. He never expected his teacher to have gone through such hardships!


    In most cases, if a mage were only capable of casting spells of a single element, they would face insurmountable difficulty even just advancing into the ranks of a grand mage, let alone sorcerers. It was no wonder that his teacher was so powerful then, as he had ovee what most people could not even imagine, before getting to where he was at that moment.


    If one wanted to achieve or acquire something, they would have had to pay a price equal to what they sought. His teacher paid the price and became a grade-9 sorcerer. Truman had only touched on some theories regarding elemental conversion and had never developed any basics in it.


    Saleen took out a book of magic notes and handed it to Truman. He dispersed the spell in his hand without giving any thought about it. His movements at it was fluid and natural.


    The collection of notes was an arranged version of his experiences after reading the notes Joey left him. It was rather in for a sorcerer, yet for a grand mage like Truman, it would serve him well.


    ¡°It seemed like I was the one who rushed things, Truman. I made the notes myself. When you are done reading, you should be able to do two types of elemental conversion. Give it about half a year, you should be capable of conversion of all six major elements, just like I did back then. That should clear your doubts and confusion.¡±


    Truman took the notes in glee and went to read them while sitting on the floor. Seeing how Truman poured over it, Saleen smiled from the bottom of his heart. ¡°Wasn¡¯t I in such a rush back then myself?¡±


    Truman had a better start than he did, and his umtion of experience was more solid than his back then. The young apprentice¡¯s achievement would eclipse his in time.


    Saleen came to understand a feeling unique to mages all of a sudden¡ªthe urge to pass down one¡¯s lineage to the next generation. He did not need Truman to pay him anything. It would have sufficed to see a student who was meant to practice magic, practice the art.


    In times like that, mages were selfless.


    Saleen pondered for a bit and took out his replica of the Devil Ring. He was a grade-9 sorcerer, and that meant he became capable of crafting crude spatial equipment ording to schematics. While he was still incapable of disintegrating the power of space, the Devil Ring replica was less limited by levels, and one could begin using it at garde-5.


    More importantly, he crafted three magic arrays on that Devil Ring, and even iid it with a white crystal.


    It was an immeasurably pure piece of white crystal, one which would enable mages to quickly recover their mental powers. The restoration was not forced replenishment like the kind provided by divine crystals, but one that sped up a mage¡¯s recovery of mental powers.


    Good white crystals were even capable of changing a mage¡¯s constitution. When used for a long enough period, the mage using the crystal would also develop a faster recovery rate. It was something that divine crystals were incapable of doing.


    Mental powers were immensely important to mages. Looking back, the crystal ring that his teacher had presented him with long ago felt infinitely precious. If crystals were ssed by levels like professionals, the white crystal that his teacher presented him with should have been grade-18.


    The one Saleen gave to Truman was somewhat inferior to the one his teacher presented him with, but it was nheless a very rare one. It was not that he was reluctant to give something even better to Truman, but it was that the white crystal ring he had, was the most cherished gift he had gotten from Jason. Saleen would keep it with him always, as a memento of sorts.


    Truman quickly flipped through the notes Saleen gave him and then pondered with his eyes closed. When the sky turned dark, Truman began chanting the words and an ice bomb appeared on his hand. The surface of the ice bomb quickly vaporized. Truman was unable to keep his control on it and shot it out of the window, making a hole in the colored ss. The hole quickly expanded, and before long, the entire window came crashing down in shards.


    Truman rubbed his hands, and Saleen smiled. While his student failed to control the ice bomb, the vaporized thing had already been seen to carry the power of wind magic. The window would not have shattered otherwise.


    ¡°Well done, no need to pay for the window by the way!¡± Saleen continuedughing.


    ¡°Thank you, teacher...¡± Truman¡¯s voice was so quiet that no one was been able to hear it but himself. In that room, Jason¡¯s lineage was finally passed down to the next generation. It was as if everything was ordained by fate. Saleen went around the world and returned where he started out.

 Chapter 964: Meeting up with Lex (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 964: Meeting up with Lex (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Congrattions, master,¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice was heard outside.


    ¡°You¡¯re home.¡± Saleen opened the door with Wild Wind and saw Nailisi walking in. A group of dead-looking people followed right behind her. Some of those people were wearing their pajamas, obviously they had not gotten out of bed when they were taken in. Some wore hunting garb, they were obviously out hunting before. There was even one person who was wearing an apron, a noble who cooked personally.


    ¡°All seventy-six of the nobles are here, regardless of if they actually have their own territory,¡± Nailisi reported with glee. She had threatened to hang them at midnight for quite some time using Tempest Dragon-mights. Some of them soiled their pants, and a handful were barely able to maintainposure.


    Saleen found the stink on them to be repulsive and cast a cleaning spell to clean up the awful smell about them.


    Viscount Gugger began to believe Saleen¡¯s words. Nailisi did indeed bring them in, though they were scattered within a one-hundred miles radius from where they were, in less than half a day¡¯s time. He finally thought that maybe Saleen was indeed capable to tearing down Ironwall City.


    ¡°Come on,¡± Saleen called for Nichs. He went outside the door, found himself a clearing, and took out a piece of dimension stone. He then summoned the Magical Element Tower right before their eyes. The massive tower appeared and Saleen ordered the Tempest Dragon-mights who hadnded to stuff all the nobles inside the tower. He then brought the whole party into the seventeenth floor of the tower.


    The magic power furnace was activated, and the huge tower took to the sky. The Magical Element Tower originally had its magic arrays broken. The mages of Sregl Ind toiled for quite some time and were only capable of enabling the tower to take flight. If Saleen wanted to cast spells in flight, the energy drain would be astronomical. Saleen did not mind at all. It would have sufficed to have the tower cast spells when it was hovering. He would not be able to overpower the towers in Ironwall City otherwise.


    The imperials within Ceylon City had all been taken care of. The magic tower flew from the city right to the ocean. Saleen found himself to not need tomand the tower like he did warships. It was very easy to control the Magical Element Tower, even easier than riding a horse.


    Saleen had it easy, as the seventy-six nobles taken in were all locked up at the bottommost floor. Saleen had easy turned on magic images, to enable the nobles to see the view outside.


    The giant tower skimmed on the surface of the sea, flying at a very low altitude. With the surface of the sea to serve as a reference, the nobles knew very well how fast the tower was actually going. They were flying at speeds several times faster than running horses. If they were to collide with anything at sea, that might just have been the end of them.


    A huge monster jumped from the sea before them, like a curse finallying true. The monster sported smooth fleshy wings, which had a wingspan of one-hundred yards wide. The monster had a t head, and it came right for them riding the wind.


    Most nobles shut their eyes to await their deaths, while a handful of them with more guts stared right ahead.


    The monster collided head on with the magic tower. The magic arrays onboard required the magic power furnace to be put idle before they could be used to cast powerful magic attacks. The monster was not one with a low level. Saleen did not bother wasting time and magic nuclei, and simply let the tower ram into the monster.


    The tower shook violently for a moment, while the monster was thrown off by the tower. The monster¡¯s head turned to mush, and it fell into the sea.


    Nailisiughed her lungs out. The Magical Element Tower was made of elementite, a grade-18 material. If the opposing force did not use magic to look for openings beforeunching an attack at the tower, there was virtually nothing that would have been able to tear the tower apart.


    The grandmaster had originally prepared the tower for his own use when he crafted it. Both elementite and dimension stones were incredibly precious materials. Sheer force alone would never be enough to bring down the tower.


    Viscount Gugger had only became aware then, that they had made it to the outer sea. No monsters of such sizes would have been found in the inner seas, and the waves would not have been half as powerful.


    After the Magical Element Tower threw off the unknown magic beast easily, there were no others nearby who dared challenge the tower. Saleen took the tower to the preset coordinates, making for his own fleet.


    The flight speed of the Magical Element Tower proved inferior to Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell. Such a huge construct drew power only from the magic power furnace, and hardly relied on magic arrays for anything. As a result, its flight speed was only equal to that of a grade-7 sorcerer, or maybe a tad faster.


    It was entirely possible to make the tower fly faster, but that would have exceeded Saleen¡¯s ability to control it. Even stopping alone would require time to prepare. Saleen had not known there would have been any grade-10 magic beasts appearing at sea, and as such, he was flying very carefully. His Elemental Eye was able to look more than a mile away. Any magic beasts intending to do the tower any harm would not be able to escape Saleen¡¯s notice.


    Ceylon Cityid at the northwestern side of Sikeqinya, which was more than five-thousand miles away in a straight line from Saleen¡¯s destination. The magic tower was only flying at about one-hundred miles per hour. During the two days in the air, it had thrown off a good number of magic beasts, before reaching the northern waters of Sikeqinya.


    The sea in the north was named very simply as well; it was called the North Sea.


    ¡°Master, I seem to have forgotten to feed those people down there!¡±, Nailisi only told Saleen that when he saw the Ancient from a distance.


    Having been busy familiarizing himself with the controls of the tower and having stopped for breaks more than a dozen times, just so that he could try casting spells with the tower, he had indeed forgotten all about the nobles down there. It had only been little more than two days since theyst ate, and they would not have died of starvation yet.


    ¡°Get them something to eat. We are about tond on the Ancient.¡±


    Nailisi took off with her orders, and that sent a chill down Viscount Gugger¡¯s spine. If he had not decided prior to side with Saleen, he would have been locked down there with the nobles to starve.


    ¡°No, Saleen would have simply gotten rid of me, and then covered it up. If I hadn¡¯t side with him, I wouldn¡¯t even have the chance to starve.¡± There had been quite a number of people who remembered Saleen, and it would have been easy to buy them off. Viscount Gugger felt even more fortunate at that point, that he had made the right choice.


    Nailisi made it down to the first floor of the tower and saw more than seventy of the nobles slumped on the floor. The floor smelled rather off-putting. She frowned in disgust and said, ¡°Here is food, one-hundred-thousand gold each.¡±


    ¡°Go rob someone else instead,¡± a few of the nobles yelled when they saw Nailisi taking out some smoked meats. Nailisi used the power of demons when she took them, but the nobles were simply left to starve instead of being killed outright, and so had gotten bold.


    ¡°I¡¯m indeed robbing you people. Here are the contracts. Those who sign it, get to eat; those who don¡¯t, I¡¯ll feed them to my demons.¡± Nailisi took out a bunch of contracts and tens of pens, then dumped them on the floor. She unleashed a few terrifying-looking demons from the purgatory of devils at the same time. One smelled the noble at its feet before licking them.


    ¡°I¡¯ll sign it! I¡¯ll sign it!¡± A noble took a pen swiftly and wrote their name on the contract. It was just a contract after all, they could just refuse to acknowledge it when it was all over.


    The contract failed to be in effect when they were done writing their name on the contract, due to that thoughting to their mind. Nailisi smirked and said, ¡°I didn¡¯t force you to sign it. It¡¯s you who wanted to lie to me. Eat that fellow up!¡±


    A demon pounced onto them and bit off their head, then proceeded to chew loudly. Another one moved even faster. It simply tore off the dead body and stuck its mouth at the hole in the neck. It then began sucking the body dry of blood.


    The remaining nobles dared not resist any further. Seeing how the demons dragged away the dead body and returned to the void, the nobles simply thought themselves to be unlucky, before proceeded to write their names on the contract. The contracts burned one after another, signaling that they hade into effect. Nailisi only then distributed the food to them.


    There were seventy-five nobles left. With every noble paying one-hundred-thousand-thousand gold, the total would amount to seven-million and fifty-thousand gold. It would have sufficed to have them pay ten or twenty-thousand gold each. The very reason Nailisi had them sign the contracts was so that Viscount Gugger would be able to expand his territory.


    Some tricks, a bucket of water, tens of loaves of bread, and tens of pounds of smoked meat were all that Nailisi needed to earn creditor¡¯s rights to a total of seven-hundred and fifty-thousand gold. She might just have been the most evil-minded merchant there was to be found on the ne.


    The Magical Element Tower got near to the Ancient, and therge-scale equipment onboard aimed at the tower. Saleen sent his voice out to the Ancient. ¡°Genga, it¡¯s me.¡±


    The weapons on the warship were then stowed, and more than one-hundred Mechanical Soul doubles went about cleaning up the deck, to make space for the tower tond.


    Only a piece of equipment like the Ancient would have had enough space for the Magical Element Tower tond. Saleen did not stop by. He simply left the tower on the giant ship and took the rest of the party flying off to the dragon skeletonbat vessel using Quickcloud. The dragon remains skeletonbat vessel remained the gship on the fleet, and both Lex and the winged skeleton were onboard.


    Viscount Gugger was dazzled by what he had seen. He was no longer able to see any reason to doubt Saleen. What he had seen throughout the journey were simply things that would only exist in stories told by the bards.


    The winged skeleton was not on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat. The Sikeqinyan navy could be ignored altogether. The warships they had on the water would have been able to crush the entire naval power Sikeqinya was able to muster. The winged skeleton was pleased to receive Saleen. His master¡¯s power had grown abnormally stable, and there were no longer fluctuations to be found. That meant that it was time that Saleen make preparations to advance to grade-10.


    Within the next one-hundred years, Saleen would have definitely be a grade-10 sorcerer.


    ¡°Where is Lex?¡±, Saleen asked. He was unable to sense Lex¡¯s presence, which was strange.


    ¡°She is in the hold.¡±


    Saleen followed the Winged Skull to hold and asked, ¡°How long have you been here?¡±


    ¡°Three days. This ce is about thirty-six-hundred miles away from shore. No way the Sikeqinyans would find us,¡± the winged skeleton answered aptly.


    ¡°Saleen, are you looking for me?¡± Lex appeared before Saleen all of a sudden, which startled him. He was unable to sense anything before Lex stood less than five yards away from where he stood.


    ¡°Just what kind of a skill is this? This is just terrifying, if she was a grand swordmaster...¡±


    It was then that he realized that he was wrong. Grand swordmasters were incapable of magic, and what he saw was a magic skill. He was only able to sense elemental fluctuations one second after Lex had appeared.


    ¡°Saleen, you really are calm now!¡± Lex smiled gently looking at him. She had intended to use the power of God¡¯s Ring to y a prank on Saleen, but his mental powers and magic chords remained abnormally still after she appeared. That was a sure sign that Saleen¡¯s own power was able to remain stable at grade-9 and would no longer be turbulent.

 Chapter 965: Destruction (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 965: Destruction (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex was no longer surprised by how quickly Saleen was improving. It was just a small and meaningless experiment, but the people around Saleen thought differently.


    Nailisi only came to a simple conclusion, which was that, since Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring could be used in many more ways, she could afford to care less about Lex¡¯s safety without making Saleen upset. In any case, the woman was ridiculously powerful. She possessed a Godly Item that was so immensely powerful, so she no longer required much protection. Even Divine Punishment failed to kill her. Now that Lex was a grade-9 sorcerer, even grade-10 opponents would have difficulty dealing with her.


    On the other hand, Nichs was fearful of Lex¡¯s ability, which could encroach on enemies without being detected. Although she was still a grade-9 sorcerer, she already possessed a powerful spell that could be cast in a short distance. Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger was not an exception. Many spells possessed an effective range of one to two yards, and the damage it could cause was almost a hundred times more powerful than spells that were casted a hundred yards away. Mages were really more powerful than Holy Masters, especially in terms of attack. Holy Masters would always cast spells slower than mages. Nichs decided that he must be extremely cautious in the future when he encountered sorcerers of high grades.


    Cuisi had never been fond of Lex, but since she was married to Saleen, that meant that they were one entity. To a demon, a spousal rtionship could not be separated. That was why Cuisi merely smiled without thinking too much about it.


    Truman was affected the most. He only saw Lex appearing in front of Saleen out of nowhere. He never managed to detect Lex at all. Was it possible for a mage to be so powerful? It was much more terrifying than assassins¡¯ abilities.


    Saleen introduced Gugger to Lex in themand cabin. Gugger hurriedly bowed to Lex since she was a member of the royal family of the Qin Empire and possessed the right to inherit the power of royalty. She was also the ruler of a powerful prefecture herself, so her status was not one that Saleen couldpare himself with.


    It was no wonder that Gugger would think the way he did. The four Empires had been founded for a thousand years, and besides, he was very familiar with Saleen¡¯s background. Gugger felt extremely honored to be able to meet Lex.


    Naturally, Lex did not care much about Gugger. She was a sorcerer and was one of the most powerful people in the world. Even if Gugger was the Emperor, she would not care much about him.


    Status and ranks were as such. When one looked up to someone, that person would rarely notice their existence.


    Themand cabin on the dragon skeletonbat vessel had been revamped. There was a gigantic table at the back and the magic map was ced on top of it. The magicpass was right in front, and there were two seats for people to sit and observe what was going on in front of thebat vessel.


    The magic map was opened, and Lex immediately focused on the regions from the northern sea to Ironwall City.


    There were floating blocks of ice in the sea north of Sikeqinya most of the time. It was usually risky for ordinary merchant ships and fishing vessels to go out into the sea. If the merchant ships and fishing vessels were to be fitted with metal armor, the manufacturing cost would increase drastically. That was why Sikeqinya never prospered in maritime trading, unlike the Cloudflow Empire, which had ports all over the shores over tens of thousands of miles.


    There were only three ports on the shores of the northern seas of Sikeqinya, and one of them faced directly against Ironwall City. This port was also used for military purposes, and the royal fleet of Sikeqinya was also docked there.


    There was a total of 120 ships in the fleet, and the majority of them were small ships. Only 18 of them were bigbat vessels, but they were also a few centuries old.


    ¡°The level of security of the royal port is still quite high.¡± Lex pointed at the location and said, ¡°These military vessels are basically being used for smuggling. Members of the Sikeqinya royal family rely on thesebat vessels to travel to the Tanggsi Empire to carry out illegal transactions. There are magic stone artilleries around the port, but I¡¯m guessing that they won¡¯t have enough apprentices to operate them, so it shouldn¡¯t be a problem.¡±


    Lex moved on from the port. She shifted her finger 300 miles away and said, ¡°There is a medium-scale city here. We can station our troops there for rest. The city is three-miles wide with a magic tower and less than 2,000 soldiers.¡±


    ¡°What a terrible defense. Why didn¡¯t the Cloudflow forces go over sooner?¡± Saleen shook his head when he saw the line of defense on the map, which was full of loopholes.


    ¡°That¡¯s because tens of thousands of mercenary soldiers have been stationed all around, so the Cloudflow forces did not dare to go onshore. If they were to be dyed there for more than half a month, they would be attacked by almost a million mercenary soldiers,¡± Lex exined.


    ¡°Are there many mages in this area?¡±


    ¡°Forget the mages. Within an area of 500 miles long and 200 miles wide, there are a total of nine cities of various scales. Other than in Luogu City, there are no other magic towers. Mages below grade-6 will not be able to handle our metal flying machines. There are another 60 or so castles amongst the viges. There will be some private armies of noble families, but each castle should not have more than 200 soldiers. Their purpose is probably to fight magic beasts to stop them from damaging theirnds rather than fighting wars.¡±


    Magic beasts damagingnds? Saleen could not understand it momentarily. It seemed too incredible.


    Lex chuckled and did not exin further, but Saleen understood shortly after that. Something like that was entirely possible. There were too many mages in Qin, all the magic beasts that roamed around the cities or viges would be captured by the mages and turned into materials for their training. That was why Qin never had the problem of magic beasts destroying viges, much less the cities.


    Every city of a certain scale would have magic towers. If magic beasts dared to get too close, it would be equivalent to giving themselves up to be made into equipment. As for Sikeqinya, the mercenary soldiers were tasked to kill magic beasts while the private soldiers of noble families were responsible for their safety. If the mercenary soldiers were able to hunt down magic beasts, they would be able to exchange them for rewards.


    That was why the mercenary soldiers were in no hurry to hunt down all the magic beasts. If the noble families were not offering any rewards, the mercenary soldiers would rather bypass the magic beasts. It was only when the magic beasts became pests that the mercenary soldiers would take up the missions to exterminate the magic beasts.


    After staying in Qin for so long, Saleen had already forgotten what things were like in Sikeqinya. Quite a number of small mercenarypanies had to rely on such means to survive, while most of those that worked as guards ofpanies of traveling merchants would be able to travel around the Empires.


    ¡°So, the only problem is Ironwall City?¡± Saleen saw Lex magnifying the picture of Ironwall City. All preparations would be made once she had checked everything through.


    ¡°Yes, Ironwall City is 506 miles away. Tomorrow evening, you will depart with the sorcerers that I have brought along. All of you will attack the magic tower of Ironwall City. Once the magic tower is under our control, I willunch an attack to upy the port. Then, the metal flying machines will head to Ironwall City from the ancientbat vessel to...¡±


    ¡°Alright!¡± Saleen interrupted Lex. There would not be any juncture that would be particrly important. When Lex attacked the port, it would attract quite a number of mercenary soldiers to provide reinforcement. As for his own battle, he would not need anyone else. 100,000 demons and 600 metal flying machines was all they would need to destroy Ironwall City.


    Deploying mercenary soldiers was slower than deploying normal armies. By the time the mercenary soldiers were able to react, Ironwall City would already be finished.


    As Saleen left themand cabin, he sighed and wished that the people of Ironwall City would have enough time to flee for their lives. For some strange reason, Nailisi had dragged Gugger away and arranged a cabin for him to stay in.


    When night came, Lex went to Saleen¡¯s cabin. The two of them had not spent much time with each other, yet there was no desire for each other at that moment.


    Lexid down beside Saleen. Both of them were looking at the ceiling and were unable to fall asleep.


    ¡°Lex, how many people are there in Ironwall City?¡± Saleen finally asked. He still could not bear to carry out his task.


    ¡°The information we received in the past was erroneous. There is a 120,000-strong army stationed there, while the number of remaining auxiliary soldiers is unknown. There are two grade-8 mercenarypanies in the city, and each of them possesses the strength of 10,000. As for themoners., there should at least be 1.6 million of them.¡±


    ¡°That many?¡±


    ¡°That is what is recorded in the town hall. Sikeqinyans moved in and out very frequently. It was the central of the northern region, where the capital stopped people from entering for no good reason. All the wealthy people within a thousand miles would gather there. A poption of 1.6 million people is already considered to be very little. I predict that there must be at least two million people who have set up their homes in the city


    ¡°Let me attack for three hours before the metal flying machinese in.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was a little forceful and Lex kept quiet.


    How many people could be rescued within three hours? Besides, once Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower appeared, the city gates would probably be locked up. Would the general of Ironwall City allow themoners to flee?


    Nevertheless, Lex agreed to Saleen¡¯s request. They would give Ironwall City three hours is to give them a chance to either evacuate themoners or to surrender. If they chose not to surrender, millions of pounds of magic fire shells would be hurled upon every corner of the city. With the magic tower under their control, it would not be able to help to put out the fire. That was exactly how her own pce in Daliang City was destroyed.


    If it had not been for that attack, Lex would not havee up with that solution either.


    The war between countries was crueler than Saleen imagined. When Qin was building up its empire, countless cities were also destroyed!


    ¡°Lex, a life like this is so boring. Why do so many people still desire to be Emperors?¡± Saleen asked a silly question.


    ¡°Humans are the greediest creatures. Look at the demons. Although they might kill each other, once their stomachs have been filled, they will not think too much on it. Even the devils merely want to build up their cities and protect their territories. I have no idea why anyone would want to be Emperor. Perhaps you should ask your Dukes and Duchesses?¡± Lex repliedzily. She did not wish to delve into that topic.


    There was nothing much to delve into. Ambition was a term that became popr only recently, but it waspletely appropriate in describing human motivation.


    ¡°Perhaps everything will change once we exterminate all the Gods,¡± Saleen said casually. He thought of the hatred that the ancient humans bore against the Gods. He finally began to understand what that hatred was all about when he recalled the Holy War that the Holy See had started.


    When the Gods had yet to appear, humans were toozy to record their deeds, even though they had already invented words. When the Gods came to humans, that was when thetter began to gather their power and fought against other dimensions. It was also at that time that power became something of utmost importance.

 Chapter 966: Destruction (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 966: Destruction (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    On the next day after a night of silence, Lex began to organize the entire fleet and pass down the assignments of those involved in the battle. Other than the banner vessel, ancientbat vessel, and 12 skeletal warships, the rest of the fleet was made up of newly-builtbat vessels that were running on magic furnaces.


    In the fleet, the Ancient consisted of five battalions of main armies. There was a total of 100,000 soldiers in these five battalions and half of them were auxiliary soldiers. Saleen was not in a good mood. He did not bother with the organizing of the fleets and returned to the elemental magic tower. Once there, he summoned the sorcerers that Lex had given to him.


    Originally, there were plenty of mages in Metatrin Kingdom and most of them were low-level mages. But ever since the increase in the collective power of the entire Maind, most of the mages have advanced to grade seven sorcerers, regardless whether they were from Sregl Ind, Bitter Water Prefecture, or those that Saleen had recruited personally.


    There were 36 sorcerers in Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower. Each level was upied by six sorcerers and a total of six levels had been set aside as areas for sorcerers to fight. The lowest level had been arranged for the noble families of Ceylon City that lived nearby.


    The difference between elemental magic towers and ordinary magic towers was quite significant. Firstly, as the magic furnace would only be able to magnify the powers of the spells when the magic tower was on the ground, the power of all spells would not be magnified while in flight. Mages needed to get used to the fact that the power of the spells they cast while flying would be the same as them casting those spells outside of the magic tower. The attacking range would also remain unchanged.


    Saleen gave his orders to all the sorcerers as the elemental magic tower began to take flight. After a few hours of training over the sea, they finally headed to Ironwall City, just as the sky was getting dark. Saleen was flying very quickly as the fleet at the back was already attacking the port. Very soon, the metal flying machines on the ancientbat vessel would take off. If he reached earlier, he would give the Ironwall City people something to think about. They would consider whether they should retreat.


    Saleen was aware of how absurd his thinking was. The leader of Ironwall City would never allow the city to fall without a fight. With that, Saleen increased his speed.


    When they were 15 miles away from Ironwall City, Saleen let Nailisi go ahead. She needed to unleash her demon army from the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. The demons in the Purgatory of Devils were able to appear hundreds of times faster than before. The piece of equipment was already disying the traits of a Godly Item.


    Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower approached Ironwall City at a height of a thousand yards. The people of Ironwall City quickly noticed the elemental magic tower. It was so gigantic that any ordinary person would be able to see it with their naked eyes.


    Saleen was quite lucky. Over at the royal harbor, the magic array was destroyed by the ancientbat vessel. The battle had already gone on for so long, yet Ironwall City still remained unaware. That would not have been possible in Qin.


    The elemental magic tower first stopped above the northern city wall. All six sorcerers on the second level joined forces and cast the Meteorite spell.


    The Meteorite spell was a progressive spell. Under the effect of the magic tower, a hundred yard wide meteorite that was zing with mes came crashing down. The attack came so swiftly that there was no way the defense on top of the city wall would be able to react in time.


    The power of the elemental magic tower was on full disy. The Meteorite spell cast by grade-7 sorcerers should only be about 10 yards in circumference, and the speed at which it was cast would be very slow. In this case. That meteorite was cast by six grade-7 sorcerers and it was close a hundred yards in circumference. Aside from that, it waspleted almost instantly as it came crashing down from a thousand yards with dead uracy.


    The meteorite was unstoppable. With a loud crash, the central city tower was smashed into pieces. The ground shook, and debris went everywhere. Before the radiation of the spell had dissipated, the physical impact of the meteorite had already copsed the surrounding hundreds of yards of city walls. By the time the fire started burning, there was barely anyone alive in that area.


    From the magic tower, it looked as if a beautiful me had been unleashed outside of the city gate.


    Saleen¡¯s sudden attack managed to destroy hundreds of yards of city wall. He decided to elevate the magic tower and fly above the middle of the city.


    There were nine magic towers in Ironwall City and six of them suddenly activated anti-flying zones at the same time. Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower was too high, as high as 3,000 yards, and was unaffected by the anti-flying zones. Saleen knew that ordinary anti-flying zones could reach as high as 2,000 yards. A height of 3,000 yards would have be too dangerous for mages to fly.


    At that point in time, the elemental magic tower hid itself amongst the clouds as it looked down at Ironwall City.


    Saleen would never have dared to fly at that height on his own. Even with the elemental magic tower, Saleen still felt uneasy. He had used his Eye of Lightning as a test before and realized that the elemental magic tower showed no signs of defense. It merely absorbed the lightning and digested it.


    This elemental magic tower was put together using dimension stones. It was said that dimension stones were made by the most powerful ancient people and they could absorb any type of power. Saleen possessed dimension stones of his own and they were of decent quality. He knew that if he was to attack the stone with his n badge, the former would not be able to handle it.


    ¡°Who is destroying my city?!¡± From a nine-story magic tower in Ironwall City, a voice boomed into the clouds. Saleen could see the magic tower in the middle of the city, but the sorcerers in the city could only vaguely make out the outline of Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower.


    At that point in time, Saleen stood up and walked to the middle of a magic array. He remained standing there while Truman mounted six high-level magic nuclei on his magic array.


    A thousand yard image appeared amongst the clouds. It was an image of Saleen himself. d in a devil suit, Saleen did not look like a mage.


    ¡°People of Ironwall City, listen up. Your Emperor tried to attack my city and kill my wife. I am here for revenge. I, Saleen Metatrin, will destroy Ironwall City. I will give you time to flee or you will die.¡± With that, Saleen unleashed 36 Vermillion Knights that pounced at the exterior of Ironwall City.


    Behind the Vermillion Knights were the elemental stone statue soldiers. The elemental magic tower descended by a thousand yards and came down to a height of 2,000 yards. The elemental stone statue soldiers had ground element all over their body and they crashed towards the ground.


    36 Tempest Dragon-mights also flew out of the magic tower and blew apart the clouds around the magic tower. Saleen¡¯s image could be seen very clearly by all the people of Ironwall City. He had no qualms using up grade-9 magic nuclei in order to shock them. Hundreds of yards of city wall had already been destroyed. It would be easy for them to flee the city through the gap.


    In the middle of the city, a gigantic tower that was hundreds of yards tall opened up its roof and 12 crossbowsunched arrows into the sky. The arrows began to descend after reaching a height of a thousand yards. Saleenughed gleefully and did not retaliate. 36 elemental stone statue soldiers crashed onto the ground like magic stone shells. If not for the fact that they were elemental creatures, they would have been smashed into pieces.


    The elemental stone statue soldiers were descending all the way. They relied on their ground-element exteriors for protection as they passed through the anti-flying zones andnded within Ironwall City. After they hadnded, they returned to their original height of a hundred yards and began to wreak havoc with their magic war hammers.


    The buildings in Ironwall City were all ancient. Most of the towering buildings had magic arrays. The Sikeqinyans mightck mages, but that piece ofnd was once upied by powerful people too. All four dynasties had built cities there before. In other words, Ironwall City had a history of more than 10,000 years.


    These buildings had been worn down by the weather, but they had also been repaired repeatedly over the years. When the elemental stone statue soldiers smashed at the buildings with their magic war hammers, they all copsed one by one. Without anyone taking control of the magic arrays, they became merely decoration. Saleen knew that if Ironwall City had been prepared for war, the magic arrays would have been a nightmare for the army that was trying to take down the city. The reason he used the elemental stone statue soldiers to attack from the sky was so that they would destroy those buildings first.


    The metal flying machines would be there in another three hours. It would be tough to rely on a single elemental magic tower to keep the nine magic towers in Ironwall City down. That was why Saleen had to destroy those dangerous buildings first, so that the metal flying machines would not suffer too many losses.


    Once the battle began, Saleen had no time to care about the people in the city. He could only focus on his own men. Each metal flying machine would carry at least three soldiers. The soldiers had no means of flying, so once these flying machines had been hit, the former would fall to their deaths.


    The sorcerers in the city were furious. The elemental creatures that had descended from the sky were all grade-9. Their magic towers might be powerful, but the elemental creatures were too far away for them to cast any powerful spells to destroy them. If only the elemental creatures were foolish enough to approach the magic towers. Unfortunately, Saleen had ordered the elemental stone statue soldiers to avoid the attack range of the nine magic towers.


    Atst, a sorcerer in one of the magic towers grew impatient and cast a powerful spell from the tower. A gigantic fire-element creature appeared out of thin air and charged towards the elemental stone statue soldiers. The fire-element creature was a giant ming dragon and was evenrger than the elemental stone statue soldiers.


    The giant ming dragon was charging around recklessly. When it reached the elemental stone statue soldiers, it opened its mouth and bit down on one of them without any hesitation. The elemental stone statue soldier used its magic war hammer to smash at the giant ming dragon¡¯s wings, only to see it melting into a pool of fluid. On the other hand, the giant ming dragon managed to bite off the head of the elemental stone statue soldier.


    The giant ming dragon mmed down its ws and the fallen elemental stone statue soldier immediately exploded. Even its elemental core exploded into pieces. Saleen would need at least a month¡¯s time for that elemental stone statue soldier to recover.


    Even though the giant ming dragon had managed to kill an elemental stone statue soldier rather easily, all the buildings around the mages in the magic tower had already been destroyed. They were devastated.


    That was the effect that Saleen wanted to achieve. He was closely monitoring the movements of the giant ming dragon and he had long been prepared to lose one elemental stone statue soldier. If the sorcerers in the magic towers nned to attack with powerful magic, then their city would be turned into a pile of debris.


    ¡°Do it!¡± Saleen gave the order. Aside from the sorcerers on the second level that were alreadypletely spent and were in the midst of meditation, the remaining 30 sorcerers began to cast spells in the direction of the nine magic towers in the city.


    Fire Meteor, Meteorite spell, and huge Ice Bomb spells...


    All nine magic towers entered their defense modes at the same time. Each tower managed to protect an area of a few hundred yards around them. There were close to three million people and army of more than 200,000 in Ironwall City. There was no way the magic towers could protect the entire city.


    In the past, it was not possible for sorcerers to form alliances to destroy cities. The way battles were being fought had changed and Ironwall City was merely the first sacrifice.

 Chapter 967: Hypocrisy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 967: Hypocrisy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was hardly happy about anything at that moment. He was feeling rather nervous. The sorcerers under hismand took turns hitting the nine magic towers within the city. The nine towers were basically clustered in the center of the city. It was an ancient design, and the Sikeqinyans did nothing to change it. If his Magical Element Tower was to hover any lower, it would have suffered a devastating attack.


    Within the first floor of the magic tower, the lesser nobles of Sikeqinya were terrified to their bones. The scene of the Magical Element Tower attacking Ironwall City from the air was utmost spectacr. There were Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers that went about pulverizing buildings in the center of Ironwall City, while Vermilion Knights went about setting fires to things.


    The sounds of buildings crumbling to the ground within the city were so loud that it would have stunned those who heard it, even so high up from the ground. Saleen let all those sounds into the magic tower without any attempt to filter them out, just so that he could scare the lesser nobles.


    Viscount Gugger was right. The lesser nobles had been around for more than a dozen, some even several dozens, of generations, and they had firm control over the smallfolk. It would have been wrong to just kill them off and having them surrender would have been for the best. After the battle, Saleen believed that there was nothing the lesser nobles could have done but to submit.


    The city had, of course, mobilized armies, but even the professionals within the army hesitated to stand in the way of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and Vermilion Knights. They were after all, figures of more than one-hundred yards tall. One punch would have proven fatal. Infantries and cavalries were little more than concepts to the elemental creatures. They would be able to easily stomp the human units out like ants.


    Saleen cast off all restraints and went on to have the elemental creatures draw the attention of the towers, keeping the towers totally upied. The nine towers were literally caught in a pincer attack both on the ground and in the sky and were totally suppressed.


    Saleen¡¯s powers still proved superior inparison. It was just that suppressing all the towers spread out throughout the two square mile area took quite a bit of effort still. It was fortunate that Saleen took thirty-six sorcerers with him, which was more than the number that was avable in the city. They took turns to attack the towers, and the towers were renderedpletely helpless. With the elemental creatures drawing the attention of the few sorcerers¡¯ attacks further, Saleen had it rather easy with the assault.


    There were two grade-8 mercenary groups in the ranks of the army. Seeing the illusions more than one-thousand yards in the sky, the mercenaries knew that the odds were against them. They began to gather their forces to evacuate the families. The city was a lost cause. The enemy did not care if civilians die, and that spells cast did not avoid residential areas. They were thrown all over the ce without any clear objective, taking out buildings piece by piece.


    The reputation of a mercenary was built based on being alive. The families of the mercenaries were all staying within Ironwall City. They had intended to simply hold the fort, but seeing how events unfolded, it was the mercenaries who first started getting shaken. Twenty-thousand mercenaries gathered around and began retreating. One of them broke the smaller gate on the south side and went on to escort their families to leave the falling city.


    Saleen was able to see everything from above, and he let the Vermilion Knights circle around the gate just so that the mercenaries were able to escape. The mages of the other group of mercenaries saw everything and went on to inform theirmander immediately. Themander dared not hesitate and went for the gate as well. They even allowed the mages to burn the gate down, just so that their troops and families were able to make it out of Ironwall City.


    Seeing the mercenaries being smart, Saleen let them escape. With the mercenaries being examples, everyone around the gate began to flee outside. The army that came to stop them were held back by the Vermilion Knights. The gate was totally ruined, and there were no rivers outside barring escape. More and more people fled outside, but the number who made it out was still too smallpared to the poption of the city itself.


    A loud metal hum was heard from the sky, and hundreds of metal flyers flew above the city, which then began to drop magic fire shells. The shells were filled with fire oil and the outeryers were wrapped in magical materials. Said material broke when they hit the ground. The solution within would have only burned when they were exposed to air.


    The shells were something that could only be ssified as grade-1 magic equipment themselves, yet they sported terrifying damage potential. When the shells blew open on the ground, they sshed sticky fire oil, which was capable to burn anything it was stuck on. The fires would burn even when they hit water. Nothing other than magic would be able to suppress such fires.


    The doom of Ironwall City was there. Mages all over the city gathered inside the towers. When the elemental creatures made their entrance, those who were still outside ran for the towers without looking back.


    When the metal flyers got there, there were no longer any mages remaining within the city. All surviving mages were gathered in the magic towers, holding their ground against the aerial assault.


    The metal flyers were capable of flying high, but for them to drop the magic fire shells, they were required to fly at about five-hundred yards from the ground. The metal flyers did not rely on wind element for flight but instead lift generated by their wings. As such, it was imperative for them to maintain their speed, and to not fall to the ground.


    It was for that very reason that Saleen worked hard to suppress the magic towers. Five-hundred yards above ground was a very dangerous altitude, as the nine-floored towers had effective attack range of one to two-thousand yards. The metal flyers¡¯ defenses were mediocre. Any attack exceeding grade-5 would simply wreck the flyers outright.


    Ironwall City was practically being swallowed by a firestorm. Saleen¡¯s orders were able to do just about nothing to help it. The warriors riding the metal flyers were told to drop their payload at fixed positions, which leftrge enough gaps for people to run in the fire. The damage potential of the shells simply exceeded Saleen¡¯s imagination. The resulting high temperatures caused any mmables nearby to burn, and there was some material that became mmables only in high temperatures.


    When the fire oil burned, its temperature easily exceeded that created by low level magic. The city center was literally turned into a sea of fire in less than half an hour. Only the nine towers remained unscathed, protecting areas that were neitherrge nor small around them.


    It was toote for anyone who had only started fleeing then. The second wave of metal flyers came, and they dropped countless shells at the edge of the city.


    Only a handful of the flyers crashed, and they were shot down by the army using magic stone cannons. The scattered magic stone shells were aimed at the metal flyers. So long as their wings were hit, the metal flyers would no longer be able to fly, and dived straight for the ground. The remaining shells on the downed flyers blew altogether at once, causing even more severe casualties.


    Saleen no longer had any time to spare for something like that. While the rate at which the flyers were lost was slow, once he rxed the suppression against the magic towers, every single flyer that crossed into the air space of the city would have been unable to escape attacks by the towers. There was simply nothing else in his mind at that moment, but to do everything he could to crush his enemies.


    Such was the nature of war. To destroy.


    The seventy-five Sikeqinyan nobles within the Magical Element Tower werepletely crestfallen. Ironwall City burned before their eyes. ck smoke rose as the fires spread. If it was not for the Tempest Dragon-might standing by and using wind spells to disperse the mists and smoke, nothing within the city could have been seen anymore.


    Is this still considered war? If all wars from there on out were to be something like that, the glory of the nobles would end up bing a thing of the past. With powerful mages participating in wars and tearing down enemy cities, who else would be able to stand against threats like that?


    The third wave of metal flyers came and continued dropping shells in the city. The city¡¯s defenses hadpletely crumbled. No one tried resisting, but the ones holed up inside the towers. Everyone who survived fled the city, even the army guarding the walls.


    Everyone but Nailisi felt heavy inside, including the thirty-six sorcerers. Everyone agreed that the assault was simply too brutal.


    Saleen¡¯s voice was heard throughout the tower. ¡°I know all of you are doing this with a heavy heart. We don¡¯t have much time. Armies of the Holy See will break through the defenses at the Qin border soon. The Cloudflows will sack Porter City. Most southern nobles want independence, and if Qin only has its northern side left, the empire will have no hope of defending against attacks from the other three empires. It was a warning, to let Sikeqinyans know that they can¡¯ty a finger on the Kingdom of Metatrin. When the remaining three empires truly align, even such attacks won¡¯t faze them. We simply don¡¯t have time anymore...¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice sounded tired. He could bring himself to continue watching one such war. It was different than how he had nned it. Other than the army within the city, civilians that survived amounted to less than one-hundred-thousand.


    While it was true that it was Lex¡¯s idea to do it, Saleen could not help but wonder if he was free from any me of any of it. He encouraged the sorcerers and consoled the mages, yet he himself shouldered tremendous pressure. Saleen had no problem killing tens to hundreds, but ughtering millions was not something a grade-9 sorcerer like him was able to bear.


    Reality often differed greatly from one¡¯s imagination. Saleen had thought himself capable to ignoring everything that happened, but at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to leave the sted ce, and never wanted to ever see something like that ever again.


    ¡°Master, people die. We demons would never think of all the messy crap like that,¡± Nailisi tried to console Saleen, as she was able to sense how terrible Saleen was feeling inside.


    ¡°Nailisi, you don¡¯t understand.¡±


    ¡°How can I not? Humans have always been crueler than demons. We wouldn¡¯t have followed humans all those years ago and went killing everywhere otherwise. Conquering nes seemed like a grand undertaking, but in actual fact, those who died on every ne were a hundred times more than what we saw today. Master, those who were killed were not monsters, they were humans too.¡± Seeing how Saleen kept quiet, Nailisi continued, ¡°Master, you remember the grandmaster, right? Just look at that fellow. Did that mage see you as one of them?¡±


    Saleen realized something all the sudden. The grandmaster had never seen him as one of his own. He would have killed everyone on the Myers Maind, if that meant they would be able to escape that damned cemetery.


    Humans, gods...they were all the same inside.


    ¡°Nailisi, that is not an excuse to go killing people.¡± Saleen felt somewhat better, but he was unable to let go still.


    ¡°Master, the way I look at it, it¡¯s entirely normal for you to feel bad. Just savor that while you can. When you have advanced to the levels surpassing the gods, you will never feel what you felt today ever again.¡±


    Nichs added, ¡°My liege, what Nailisi said is correct. It is the same with the gods, sacrificing people who devoted every fiber of their being to them and making them scapegoats. There would be a day when we reach such heights, we will be something like that ourselves. Right now, just let everyone grieve over what happened.¡±


    Nichsid it out better than Nailisi. What tore Saleen apart on the inside was the contradiction within his mind.


    If he wanted to conquer the entire maind, he needed to continue doing something terrifying like that, yet he never wanted to have anything to do with something like that again.


    ¡°My liege, you can sit back and do nothing, but when the Holy See goes on to unite the entire maind...¡± Nichs did not continue, as Saleen needed no persuasion in that regard. His liege understood. Even if Saleen was not going to do it, the Holy See would see to it thoroughly. Anyone who did not believe in their god would all end up dead, and that meant killing off more than half of the entire maind.

 Chapter 968: Hypocrisy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 968: Hypocrisy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Are we being hypocrites acting like that?¡± Saleen asked as he looked at everyone around him.


    Viscount Gugger was simply at a loss for words. Saleen had him seen the cruelest parts of wars, and an utterly defenseless Ironwall City, being torn apart by a bunch of grade-1 magic equipment. The grade-1 magic equipment might have been expensive, but there was still a limit as to how expensive it could get. It was the cost of the metal flyers that was deemed uneptable. Saleen would not have been able to craft an army of such things if he did not have the schematics andrge numbers of sorcerers working for him.


    It was not the first time metal flyers were seen, but Metatrinians were definitely the first ones to use them in such ways. In ancient times, such flying contraptions would have served little more than scouts, yet at present, they were made into potent offensive weapons instead.


    ¡°Master, there is nothing hypocritical about this. That is just how humans are, thinking about protecting one side, yet going on destroying another. That is just like us demons, thinking about betraying something, yet being loyal to something at the same time,¡± Nailisi¡¯s words had him deep in thought.


    Thest metal flyer flew past. The metal flyers did not carry many magic nuclei with them. They were supplied with only two spares in every mission. The loss of one flyer would have brought about a loss ofrge amounts of magic nuclei otherwise. The flyers were made to return to the Ancient as soon as possible after every single attack.


    A metal flyer only carried five soldiers. If they fell into enemy territory instead of returning to their designated warship, there was nothing they could do to keep their gear with them. The soldiers would not even be capable of destroying the metal flyer themselves. They would only have the option of burning down the magic power furnace with any magic fire shells they carried.


    The ground was burning with crimson fires, making it look like a sea of fire instead. Said sea was a boiling hot one, setting anything it touched on fire. The fire within the city grew increasingly fierce. Nothing that could have been burned was spared by the fires.


    Only abyssal creatures would have been able to survive in such environments. Even demons and spirits would have perished.


    The Sikeqinyan mages holing out up in the towers despaired. All they were capable of doing was to keep the meager one square mile of their respectivends safe, while everything else outside that area burned away. The fires continued burning while they hadpletely given up on maintaining their no-fly zones. Those metallic monsters cared not for such spells, and they continued to fly within the no-fly zones.


    ¡°The Metatrinians, they went nuts,¡± the most powerful grade-9 sorcerer told their students around them, while looking at the images showing the outside world, inside the towers. Their words rang hollow. They were a grade-9 sorcerer, yet they were unable to save even one city. If they were to fly outside the tower, they would have been able to take down a good number of the metallic monsters, yet they dared not do so.


    There was a magic tower capable of flight looming right over their heads. If they were to make it outside their tower, they would end up dead soon by the hands of their enemy.


    Saleen knew that if he were to attack right there and then, he might have stood a good chance of tearing down the towers, as the mages inside had all but lost their will to fight. He onlymanded the Tempest Dragon-mights to blow away the smoke, and then projected a huge magic illusion telling the ones in the towers below¡ª ¡°Tell Danny, that he attacked my Lonestar City, and I now return the favor by destroying his Ironwall City. I am Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    The Magical Element Tower flew north slowly once Saleen was done sending his message. Nailisi¡¯s demon army was already engaging nearby reinforcements on the ground. Contrary to Saleen¡¯s expectations, not much of the city¡¯s army was able to escape, and the demon army did not encounter any that would pose a threat to them.


    There were more than a dozen other cities nearby Ironwall City. The total number of troops stationed in those cities were huge, but the demon army had only encountered less than twenty-thousand reinforcement units, and they were sent to the city in four batches.


    It was not that Sikeqinyans were being slow, but that Saleen was being too fast with his assault. The Sikeqinyans were unable toprehend it at all. When the armies from nearby areas were gathered, Saleen would have already ended his attacks, and left with Nailisi¡¯s demon army in tow.


    That enabled Saleen toe up with new ideas of deployment for his demon army. Few were able to react in time if his army was deployed in such a manner. The demon army was able to fight in tight ces, avoiding the passes altogether.


    At that point, Saleen felt himself to be a hypocrite through and through. He had only grieved for the civilians who did not make it out a moment ago, and yet he was already thinking up ideas of how to put his demon army to good use next.


    Massacres among humans, were even more perilous than practicing magic!


    Saleen found himself losing all shine in his eyes, staring faraway nkly. The Magical Element Tower took flight and made for the sea. There was nothing in their way any longer. The sorcerers from Ironwall City dared not pursue them. The royal harbor was filled with his ships. There wererge forces onboard, and the ancient warriors were there as well. It was just...


    ¡°Everything just seems so tiring right now.¡± The thought of giving up welled up in his mind all of a sudden. It might have been for the best for him and Lex to just go to the central temple and break the stone tablet of the goddess using his grade-9 Star Gathering Needle, just to see if they were able to break the contract between them and the goddess.


    ¡°Master, it¡¯s best that you not think that way.¡± Nailisi stood by Saleen¡¯s rear glumly, and scratched Saleen¡¯s Devil Suit with her sharp nails, which sent sparks flying.


    ¡°What do you think is going on in my head?¡± Saleen turned around. It was nothing embarrassing for the winged skeleton to peer into his mind, but not the imp.


    Nailisi smiled baring her teeth. The sharp canines grinded on each other. ¡°Did I startle you, master?¡±


    ¡°Teacher.¡± Truman stood by his side and began consoling him. The massacre that took ce earlier did not have that much of an effect on him. There were quite a number of mages from Sregl Ind who had never left the ind, surviving in the secluded environment. They cared not for anyone from outside the ind itself.


    ¡°You need not say anything more,¡± Saleen waved his hands and looked around, ¡°There are quite a number of people who need me to stay alive. If I simply continue sulking, these people will have nowhere to turn to. Regardless of if I¡¯m able to clear my head about this, what needs to be done, needs to be done. Right, Gugger, we will head back to Ceylon City. I presume you are now able to convince the nobles?¡±


    Gugger¡¯s face turned pale as he looked at Saleen with a spark of anger in his eyes.


    ¡°There is no need to look at me like that. Even if Lonestar City wasn¡¯t under attack, things like this are bound to happen someday. Gugger, did you really think Danny sent his army to attack my city, just so that he could have a chat with me?¡±


    ¡°You were born in Sikenqinya yourself, how could you do this!?¡± Gugger was finally able blurt out what was bothering him, and that startled Saleen for moment. Viscount Gugger was even more naive than he had expected.


    ¡°Gugger, Danny sent his emissary and presented gifts when I was having my wedding. I¡¯m no longer that Saleen that you used to know. Do you understand?¡± Saleen¡¯s words felt rather eerie, and Gugger seemed to finally be able to feel the coldness in the tower.


    Saleen was in a bad mood, and what he did was no different from having a death wish.


    ¡°You are now no longer a viscount of Sikeqinya, but an earl of Metatrin. When I finally raze all of Sikeqinya, I will establish a second capital near your estate. If you don¡¯t like what I¡¯m doing, go look for Danny then. I¡¯ll simply tear down and rebuild your Ceylon City. That will be much less troublesome for me.¡±


    ¡°Your highness, please forgive my rudeness,¡± Gugger bowed and asked for forgiveness. He did not want to hand over his head to Saleen on a silver tter. Saleen would never change his ways to adapt to Gugger¡¯s wishes.


    ¡°You were not entirely wrong. I do not wish to see what happened today happen again ever in the future. This is but a lesson, both to me and to Danny,¡± Saleen let out a long sigh and stopped talking altogether. Gugger kept his mouth shut and stood cautiously by Saleen¡¯s side, until the towernded again on the Ancient.


    Nichs said to Saleen, ¡°My liege, that grand duke will be a troublesome one to deal with.¡±


    He had only spoken his mind. Saleen¡¯s fleet made it to shore andunched an assault on Ironwall City, with the Ancient serving as his base. Grand Duke Iron Blood would be able to do the same. Magic fire shells were not high-level equipment, and any rudimentary alchemic factories would have been able to mass produce such weapons. The grand duke¡¯s territory was greater than the Kingdom of Metatrin itself. Finding a fire oil mine would not be difficult.


    Metal flyers and rudimentary magic power furnaces were also well within the grand duke¡¯s means to manufacture. What set the grand duke and Saleen apart was that Saleen possessed the Magical Element Tower and elemental badges. The grand duke had Imposa, who was capable of awakening the ancient grade-9 warriors inrge numbers and put them under his control. Such a force would be adequate to overpower magic towers in any city.


    Throughout the entire Kingdom of Metatrin, only Metatrin City was equipped to deal with such an attack. A city with thirty-six nine-floored towers and thousands of mages standing by, would never be overpowered by anything.


    Saleen did not respond to Nichs¡¯ words. The only city in his kingdom capable ofunching attacks from the sea was Metatrin City. Grand Duke Iron Blood would have looked for other easier targets, like Porter City, to tear down, instead of Metatrin City.


    No one was onboard the Ancient, as all troops had gone to shore. The giant warship was left only with the Mechanical Soul being in control. The being¡¯s doubles greeted Saleen¡¯s party feverishly, and Saleen did not bother with a cowardly bully like that. He simply took his party onto the dragon skeletonbat vessel.


    The defenses of the royal harbor had been totally destroyed. The port cities were also taken by Saleen¡¯s army. The battle there was hardly fierce, as the royal fleet, which specialized in smuggling, was hardly a match for Saleen¡¯s fleet.


    Saleen was in no mood to inspect the city and port that he had just conquered. He and Lex talked for a bit and divided his army in two. The Ancient was to stay with Lex, including the sorcerers Lex brought with her. Saleen took the dragon skeletonbat vessel, bone vessels, and twelve high speed escort vessels, and made for Ceylon City.


    With the matter with Ironwall City resolved, all that was left to do was to see how Danny react to it all. Would he continue allying himself with the Holy See and attack Metatrin, or would he send someone to negotiate terms?


    The Winged Skull and the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship were made to stay at the royal harbor. The fleet that Saleen had sent out was able to carry one battalion of troops. The bulk of his army was made to stay there and hold down the harbor. Lex had not wanted to give the ce up for the moment, as there was nothing getting in the way between the royal harbor and the Sikeqinyan imperial city. Ironwall City was practically reduced to ashes. Lex was even able to, at that point, attack the imperial city if she felt it was necessary.


    Saleen bid Lex a hasty farewell and headed west for Ceylon City. He was unaware that the entire maind was shocked by what he did. The images of the fall of Ironwall City was first sent to the imperial city, and then to the Holy See. Qin and Cloudflow received their own respective copies. Danny did nothing to cover it up, and the spies within the imperial city sent the news back to their respective countries.


    Thest to know was Alchemy City. The Elemental Hand, a symbol of the highest authority within Metatrin City, called for an emergency meeting, gathering all sorcerers within the organization, and discussed on how to deal with Saleen¡¯s brutal methods.

 Chapter 969: Sunk (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 969: Sunk (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Qin Empire was the most affected by Lianyun City¡¯s loss. Grand Duke Iron Blood activated more than 100 iron blood warriors and close to 1,000 metal flying machines to attack Lianyun City along with the ancientbat vessel.


    Lianyun City¡¯s defense had improved tremendously. Countless magic stone artilleries and catapults had been ced along the shore and some heavy crossbows had also been set up on top of giant rocks that were hundreds of yards tall. Those defenses were helpless against the iron blood warriors though. The defenses that had been set up on the shore were destroyed very rapidly and the metal flying machines activated by Grand Duke Iron Blood hurled magic stone shells at the buildings in Lianyun City.


    These magic stone shells were extremely powerful. They destroyed all the buildings in the city and killed more than 200,000 civilians. While the amount of damage could not bepared to the destruction Ironwall City, Saleen and the Grand Duke had the same mindset when it came to attacks. They initiated their attacks from the sky with the cheapest equipment and they only aimed to destroy, regardless of what their targets were.


    Safilos did not think that was a coincidence. He had gone overboard by scolding Saleen in his residence. If Saleen had told him beforehand about the metal flying machines, Lianyun City would not have suffered such great losses.


    The noble families of the House of Commons dared not anger him. Not only was Safilos a king of Qin, he was also a golden grand swordmaster. It would be easy for Safilos to kill many people in a fit of anger.


    Safilos had a feeling that the Qin Empire might be destroyed in his hands. His nephew was innocent though. Although his nephew was the Emperor in name for the past few years, Safilos held all the true power. To make matters worse, the six-winged flying serpent imprint was in Saleen¡¯s hands. Safilos was not the emperor, so he would not be able to activate the power of the Grukos family.


    If he asked the emperor to do so, Safilos would lose his powers and Ojarvis would be able to call all the shots.


    Could a sickly child control the entire Qin Empire? The Empire was in a dire state! Safilos¡¯ hair had almost grown white because of all his worries. He was not satisfied with his two sons either because neither of them had ambition.


    Something like ambition was even harder to develop than skills. Skills could be developed through tough training, but one had to be born with ambition.


    Saleen¡¯s fleet departed from the royal port and headed towards Ceylon City. The elemental magic tower had been put away then. It had used up quite a lot of magic nuclei due to all the flying. Since the fleet would be able to travel as fast as 100 miles every hour, there was no need for Saleen to waste his resources.


    Magic beasts appeared very frequently in the Sikeqinyan seas. Saleen had to count on the ancient warriors, so his fleet could push forward without slowing down. Although it was summer, one could still see floating blocks of ice in the deep seas. It was said that they had floated over from a huge piece ofnd that was west of the Oceanic Ice Block.


    Thatnd had been covered withyers of ice that were as deep as 1,000 of yards. Every summer, huge icebergs would melt and break off from thend, floating towards the south.


    Saleen was feeling troubled and decided to slow down the fleet and began to hunt on the seas. His naval route was 3,000 miles away from the shore, while Sikeqinyan fishing vessels would never dare go as far as 500 miles from the shore. There were no traces of human movements there. The magic beasts in the seas were very curious about thebat vessels, so quite a number of low-level magic beasts decided to follow them and even tried to attack them. Those magic beasts were quickly captured by Saleen. Thebat vessels contained magic equipment that would specifically attack underwater targets, so they were able to kill those magic beasts rather quickly.


    All the sorcerers had been left behind with Lex, so Saleen mostly brought along grand mages. The mages used the alchemy rooms in the dragon skeletonbat vessel to refine magic equipment for soldiers; it was also a form of training.


    All the small noble families around Ceylon City had been convinced by Saleen. None of them intended to resist Saleen, even though all of them thought that he was extremely cruel. No one dared to go against Saleen because of how powerful he was. Besides, Saleen had his reasons. Emperor Danny had tried to kill Lex and even pursued her all the way into Metatrin andid siege on Lonestar City. Everyone could empathize with Saleen¡¯s fury.


    Even Gugger could not deny that he might have gone crazy if someone had done the same thing to his wife.


    Cuisi was the one who could empathize the most. When Cuisi¡¯s wife died, he had also lost his mind. Given his intelligence, he would never have been subdued by a devil otherwise. Ordinary demons, or even supreme demons, would never have been able to do anything to him.


    Nailisi was uninterested with that sort of hunting. Although there were plenty of magic beasts in the northern seas, none of them were very rare. All of them had already been catalogued in the mages¡¯ Illustrated Handbook of Magic Beasts.


    The fleet travelled for a day towards the west and covered a distance of 1,500 miles.


    Nailisi noticed that Saleen was in a bad mood but didn¡¯t know how to cheer him up. She suddenly had an idea and said, ¡°Master, do you remember the map of Lex¡¯s calctions?¡±


    ¡°What map?¡± Saleen asked.


    Nailisi red at the people in the cabin and everyone left obediently, except for Nichs. Cuisi stood guard outside so that no one would dare to enter.


    ¡°When we went to the Central Temple, Shangqian managed toe up with a rough estimate of coordinates. With those coordinates, Lex managed to calcte the coordinates of the other temples. One of them is just around here.¡±


    This was when Saleen recalled that he had wanted to search for the temples left behind by the Goddess for a very long time. Lex had also managed to calcte the approximate locations of 24 temples. One of them was in the northwestern region of the Sikeqinyan sea. He did not think that it was possible it was there before because the coordinates were deep under the sea and the map did not indicate any ind on those coordinates.


    The purpose of the Goddess¡¯ temples was to spread faith. It was meaningless to build a temple in the ocean. Even if there was an unknown ind there, how would believers ever have learned of it? The main temple, which was where the Goddess had lived, had a separate space of its own, but it was not something that the other temples possessed. Both disciples and oracles had to be self-sufficient. The Goddess of Nature disliked killing, and there was nond there to feed ant disciples.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look. Master, maybe you will...¡±


    Saleen nodded. The bond that he had signed with the Goddess left him with a feeling of resentment. He had given so much. He even had to unify the Maind just for the Goddess to be revived. There had to be secrets hidden in the 24 temples that the Goddess had built before her fall. Saleen did not manage to search them one by one because of his many responsibilities, but since they were there, there was no harm in taking a look.


    He was worried that there might be traps in the Goddess¡¯ equipment, so he had kept the Ring of Gifts, but there should be no problem opening the temples. The Ring of Gifts was in dimension stone because Saleen no longer wished to wear it on his finger.


    Since his God¡¯s Left Hand had vanished, and Saleen was no longer able to use the Godly Power within him, this Ring of Gifts had also be an important key to opening the temples.


    Saleen gave the captain of the banner vessel a coordinate and ordered him to head north.


    The captain had no idea what Saleen was up to, but he was the king, so there was nothing much the captain could do. Soon, Saleen gave another order for a high-speedbat vessel to transport a battalion of soldiers to Ceylon City while he brought the spirits of the dead on the skeletal warships to the coordinates of the Goddess¡¯ temple.


    Nailisi was pleased that Saleen had agreed to go ahead with the venture, but Nichs was solemn because he was worried about the potential dangers they might encounter. Holy Masters were the same as mages on the seas; both found it difficult to maximize their powers. Fortunately, Saleen had his elemental magic tower, so in the worst case scenario, they would just fly back.


    In Nichs¡¯ opinion, all Saleen had to do was to train his magic, increase his mental strength, find ways to control more ancient warriors, and revive the leader of the water-element creatures, then he would be able to rule over the entire Maind. There was no need to search for any temples; doing so would only cause him more trouble.


    The problem was that Saleen needed a distraction to adjust his emotions. That was something that was very important to mages.


    The fleet changed the direction of its course as a high-speed frigate headed towards the south with a high-speed transport vessel, splitting away from Saleen¡¯s dragon skeletonbat vessel. There were 12 skeletal warships behind the dragon skeletonbat vessel. Those skeletal warships were thest spiritbat vessels of the Metatrin navy. The winged skeleton had decided not to make more of suchbat vessels until he had advanced to grade-10.


    Skeletal warships were no match for the Cloudflow navy. Even if more of them were made, they would only be used to as armed merchant ships.


    Lex¡¯s mage did not manage to calcte the exact coordinates of every temple because all of them were prone to changes, regardless if they were onnd or in the ocean. The coordinates of mountains and rivers would change, and many ces no longer looked like how they did in the past over tens of thousands of years.


    Some small inds might even have broken apart and floated closer tond. Such changes in coordinates were very obvious.


    Saleen gave the captain three coordinates to search around the ind. That might be troublesome for most people, but since Saleen possessed elemental eyes, he would be able to see as far as 100 miles, making the search much easier.


    After a day¡¯s time, the fleet was more than 5,000 miles away fromnd. The dragon skeletonbat vessel slowed down and began to search in an area of 500 miles in the sea.


    Saleen decided to fly up and search with his elemental eyes. Saleen felt that he had already searched all the possible locations of the temple but did not manage to find any inds after a few hours.


    ¡°Drop the anchor.¡± Saleen decided that, instead of looking around cluelessly in thebat vessel, he might as well ask Nailisi to go look in the sea. Thebat vessel could drop its anchor in the deep sea and secure it, preventing it from floating away with the ocean currents.


    The skeletal warships in the back had skeletal chains that dropped into the sea. The front of a skeletal warship was suddenly pulled down into the sea. Something in the sea grabbed ahold of the skeletal anchor and was dragging it down.

 Chapter 970: Sunk (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 970: Sunk (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When the dragon skeletonbat vessel stopped, most of its body sunk. It relied on its sealed metal box for buoyancy. When Saleen saw the skeletal warship being pulled down into the sea, he immediately took control of the dragon skeletonbat vessel. With the grand mage¡¯s help, they activated all the magic furnaces and the dragon skeletonbat vessel spread its gigantic skeletal wings and flew into the sky.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel was newly designed, but even so, the energy it used up from flying far surpassed that of Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower.


    There were 18 magic furnaces on the dragon skeletonbat vessel, but usually one was enough to steer it around the sea. Eighteen magic furnaces had to be turned on in order for it to fly. Of course, the advantage was that thebat vessel would be able to make use of the skeletal wings to fly all the way to a height of 1,000 yards before stopping.


    Saleen looked towards the sea and saw that all 12 skeletal warships were sinking. A huge whirlpool appeared and Saleen shouted, ¡°Jade skeletons, abandon the ships!¡±


    The jade skeletons were the ones inmand of the skeletal warships. Although they were only grade-7 professionals, they couldmand many spirits of the dead and they possessed intelligence, so they were extremely valuable. Saleen would rather lose the skeletal warships than to lose those jade skeletons.


    The 12 skeletal warships were still struggling. All the death magic arrays had been activated as they tried to escape from the gigantic whirlpool. Unfortunately, the whirlpool was too huge. The jade skeletons flew away from the skeletal warships and into the dragon skeletonbat vessel. Hundreds of other spirits of the dead, that were capable of flying, also followed the jade skeletons onto the deck of the dragon skeletonbat vessel.


    ¡°Truman, take over thebat vessel. Nailisi and Nichs, follow me.¡± With that, Saleen put on his devil suit and mask and prepared to dive into the sea to find out what was going on. He could not ignore what was happening. Although the skeletal warships might not have been able to defeat the main Cloudflowbat vessels, they were still made from the bones of high-level magic beasts. If they were dismantled, the bones could still be made into plenty of armor.


    That region of sea was too mysterious. There was no warning of what was about to happen. It was only when the skeletal warships dropped their anchors that such a gigantic whirlpool appeared and dragged them into the sea. Something must be lurking down there. It did not matter if it was a giant magic beast, or a man-made magic array. Saleen had already been to the Imperial City of the Abyss, so there was no reason for him to be afraid of whatever it might be.


    ¡°Your Highness, what about me?¡± Cuisi was confused when he saw that Saleen was not bringing him along. He was more powerful than the elemental creatures and the underwater environment would not affect demons too much.


    ¡°You will stay here and protect Truman. You are not allowed to leave thebat vessel. If you leave, I will not be able to find my way back if I am somehow in danger,¡± Saleen said to Cuisi. Cuisi and Nailisi were bonded to each other by their souls. Even if the underwater environment cut off the coordinates from them, there was nothing that could stop the soul connection between Cuisi and Nailisi.


    Saleen was more cautious than before. He knew that there were plenty of dangerous ces in their dimension. Not all grade-9 sorcerers understood that.


    Saleen would have gone as far as he wished in the past. His attitude had changed ever since he entered the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    If he chose to retreat, then what was the point of learning magic? The world was full of trouble, difficulty, and danger. Was it possible to be a mage that had nothing to do with the world and built a magic tower deep in the mountains to study the notes left behind by ancient people?


    There were two things that were very important to mages. The first was to know and the second was to do. A real mage would not choose to know things, yet not do anything about it.


    There was nothing Cuisi could do except watch Saleen jump into the giant whirlpool with Nailisi and Nichs. He was not worried about Saleen because he knew how powerful Nailisi and Nichs were. Saleen also had hundreds of elemental creatures with him. There was no way Saleen would die, unless he encountered an opponent more powerful than grade-10.


    There were very few grade-10 opponents on the entire Maind. ording to the theory of proportion of advancement, there should not be anyone of grade-11.


    Saleen unleashed his Quickcloud spell surrounding Nailisi and Nichs as well. It was easy to bring Nailisi along because their soul bond allowed Saleen to be very familiar with how Nailisi¡¯s mental strength functioned. As for Nichs, his fallen staff was much more powerfulpared to the past, so he no longer feared the water pressure.


    An ordinary person that was able to reach a depth of 100 yards would be considered very powerful. When the three of them entered the whirlpool, they spun along with the water currents until they reached a depth of 5,000 yards. Even then, they were still unable to see the bottom of the sea.


    Saleen was confused. Why were so many mysterious ces found at such deep depths? That was the case for Imperial City of Abyss as well as the ce they were in. The skeletal warships were broken by the whirlpool and thousands of spirits were sucked into the depths of the sea. Some of the more powerful spirits were still swimming and struggling in the water, while the low-grade spirits had already been crushed by the whirlpool into piles of broken bones.


    None of the 12 skeletal warships survived. Saleen did not forget to put the broken pieces of skeletal warships into his devil ring. The space in his devil ring was so huge that it had already surpassed that of dimension stone. It could store massive items. The hardest part of the skeletal warships were the dragon bones, but even those had been broken into shards by the whirlpool.


    Saleen could only take the most precious magic beast bones while leaving behind those that had broken into shards by the water pressure.


    The suction of the whirlpool was not as powerful as the one in the Imperial City of the Abyss, so Saleen was still able to control his Quickcloud spell and retain his ability to use elemental magic.


    Approximately 300 spirits approached Saleen and broke through the barrier of the Quickcloud spell. The spirits were at least grade-5 and possessed some intelligence. The other spirits were unable to escape from the suction of the whirlpool and spun quickly towards the seabed.


    ¡°We are almost at the bottom. Be careful.¡± Saleen took control of the Quickcloud spell to reduce the speed of his descent. He did not bring the ancient warriors along, so he had to be extra cautious. When he sensed that they were reaching the bottom of the sea, he unleashed 12 Blue Ice Maidens.


    As the whirlpool shrunk, its suction force became more powerful. Saleen had already infused vortex into his Quickcloud spell in order to counter the direction of the spin. It was to reduce the speed of their descent. Just as the bottom of the sea was within sight, the whirlpool vanished suddenly, and hundreds of transparent creatures pounced at them.


    The Blue Ice Maidens attacked with their long swords, only to realize that the bodies of the transparent creatures were like jellyfish. The shape of their bodies was simr to humans, except for the tens of tentacles growing out from both sides of their ribs. When the Blue Ice Maidens struck with their long swords, the transparent creatures were split in half and blue blood oozed out.


    Plenty of transparent creatures pounced on the spirits of the dead and tried to bite them. They were paralyzed by the toxins released by the spirits and their movements slowed down tremendously. When Saleen saw that the transparent creatures did not seem particrly dangerous, he cast an Ice de spell. Hundreds of tiny ice des spun in the water. All of them struck the necks of the transparent creatures.


    After their heads had been cut off, the transparent creatures copsed and died. They were the weakest monsters that Saleen had encountered in all his adventures. They could not even dodge or defend themselves against the grade-3 Ice de spell.


    Nichs¡¯ fallen staff glowed with gray light and sucked in the souls of the hundreds of transparent creatures into his blood soul tower. Nailisi could only stare. The souls of the transparent creatures were powerful and pure. If her blood soul tower was still around, she would never have allowed Nichs to have all of them for himself.


    Saleen looked around as his feet touched the ground. More than 300 spirits surrounded him. There were plenty of shards nearby and only a small portion of them belonged to his skeletal warships. Most of the shards had already been there an unknown number of years and were already piling up into a hill.


    The ce his feetnded was also covered with broken pieces of ships and bones of magic beasts.


    The ce seemed to be a high ground on the bottom of the sea. It was strange that Saleen could not detect the source of the whirlpool. Perhaps the source of the whirlpool had already stopped what it was doing. In any case, it was unlikely that the core of the whirlpool was there. Saleen looked further and saw a huge temple that was 12 miles away.


    The bottom of the sea was dark and Saleen¡¯s elemental eyes were limited. He could barely make out the exterior of the temple. It was definitely a temple of the Goddess of Myers and it looked huge.


    Half of the temple was buried beneath the seabed, while the other half was exposed and looked like it was badly damaged. All the pirs in front of the temple had copsed but some unknown power was still propping up the rear half of the temple. It still stood as tall as a few hundred yards. The temple did not have a door, and from within the empty hall, countless transparent creatures swam towards Saleen.


    There was someone massive amongst them.


    Saleen shared what he saw with Nailisi. When she saw so many transparent creatures, she groaned. If her blood soul tower was around, and she managed to devour all those transparent creatures, she would not run out of souls in the future.


    Nailisi could not help but to take out her Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Each dimension in the equipment could ept different rules. Nailisi used the bone marrow of the Angel of Fear that she had been keeping all that while and infused it into one of the dimensions.


    ¡°Hopefully, that will create a Purgatory for absorbing souls!¡± Nailisi decided to draw the Sword of Rules to attack the transparent creatures. It would be a waste of energy to use Grey Memory against the transparent creatures. The souls of the creatures would be crushed after being stabbed by Grey Memory.


    Saleen used the ability of soul connection to speak to Nailisi. ¡°Put all the spirits of the dead into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Let¡¯s see if we can use them to open up a second dimension!¡±


    Nailisi was overjoyed. She was afraid that Saleen would reprimand her for trying topete with Nichs for the souls. What she did not know was that Saleen had discovered that the power of the Goddess of Myers existed in the souls of the transparent creatures. It was as if the transparent creatures were the disciples of the Goddess of Nature.

 Chapter 971: Fanatical Faith (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 971: Fanatical Faith (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The number of transparent creatures seemed to be endless. The creatures went charging at Saleen¡¯s party twelve miles away, and there were more of those creatures flooding in from outside the temple.


    The tallest among the transparent creatures was near ten yards tall, and looked very simr to humans, with a human face and limbs. The tentacles sprouting from the sides of their chests looked like appendages for breathing and were not all that powerful in terms of damage potential. Saleen had only found that he had the wrong idea about the creatures when the three-hundred spirits were being surrounded by them. The tentacles were directly stabbed into the bones of the spirits, attempting to suck out any flesh and blood found within.


    The source of spirits¡¯ powers came mostly from their soul mes, but their bones carried energies as well. When the tentacles were stabbed into the spirits¡¯ bones, they were rendered numb by the toxins the spirits produced. Every spirit was clung with at least three transparent creatures. Nailisi simply threw both the spirit and the creatures clinging to them into her collection of purgatories.


    Only the purgatory of devils was expanded among the collection. All the other spaces were only about a little more than a dozen square yards each. The space that Eleanor had spent time in was bigger than it used to be, but even with the nts within withered, it was still little more than thirty square yards. Nailisi threw the spirits in together with the transparent creatures. Having absorbed the bone marrow of the angel of fear just a while ago, the space exuded some rules, which quickly tore the spirits apart and absorbed their soul mes.


    The transparent creatures suffered worse fates. Their bodies bloated like bubbles before blowing up. The blue fluids in their bodies were absorbed by the space, with which the space expanded itself quickly.


    Saleen did not get himself into the battle. His body was surrounded by twelve Blue Ice Maidens, all of whom werepressed to the size of about twenty yard tall, and very capable of killing the transparent creatures with a single blow. Even those stronger ones among the creatures were no match for the Blue Ice Maidens.


    Nichs went killing without restraint. Every time his Staff of the Fallen was thumped onto the floor, gray lights shimmered within a one-hundred yard radius. None of the transparent creatures were spared, and all of their souls were sucked into the blood soul tower.


    Nailisi and Saleen shared senses, which enabled her to see the temple faraway. She charged at the torrent of transparent creatures and was initially able to kill several of them. As her spaces grew, more and more of those creatures were able to be absorbed.


    The speed at which the Twelve Notes of First Purgatory absorbed the transparent creatures grew, and Nailisi turned around instead. She did not dare venture too far away from Saleen. The Sensory Sharing between both of them had a limited range. The further they were apart from each other, the more mental powers Saleen had to expend to maintain it. Nailisi simply chose to stand her ground just a little more than a hundred meters away from Nichs, leaving half of the creaturesing at them for Nichs to kill. She herself kept bottling up the remaining half in her collection of purgatories.


    The space within the Twelve Notes of Purgatory grew increasinglyrge, gradually reaching the size of about one square mile. Nailisi felt pleased with herself, as the space was indeed capable of absorbing souls like her blood soul towers. What made it even more powerful than the blood soul towers was that tangible matter was still able to be kept within, like the transparent creatures.


    ¡°Who is it? Who is it that killed my believers in cold blood!?¡± A sharp, high-pitched female voice was heard from deep within the temple. The voice shrieked, and underwater sands and dusts were roused. Saleen¡¯s sight grew blurry. It was fortunate that his Elemental Eye was capable of seeing through the six major elements. The sands and dusts only blocked his vision momentarily, and Saleen quickly regained his perception of things.


    Nailisi was afraid of seeing the woman who let out the eerie shrieking out. She cut off the Sensory Sharing on her own and went up to kill more of the endless torrent of transparent creatures. She stopped leaving even scraps for Nichs. Huge amounts of those creatures were bottled up in her spatial equipment, and then had their souls removed.


    ¡°My believers?¡±


    Saleen felt strange hearing the female voice say something like that. The creatures all radiated powers bestowed by the Goddess of Myers. ¡°So, it is the goddess herself who resides within the temple? Impossible. If the Goddess of Myers had been revived, there was simply no way I wouldn¡¯t have found that out. If she hadn¡¯t fallen from grace, my contract wouldn¡¯t havee into effect.


    Thump, thump...


    The temple began to shake, and the sharp, high-pitched voice shouted in range. ¡°Die, you defilers!¡±


    Even Nichs felt weird about what he heard. He was a fallen holy master himself, and that meant he was able to tell that those souls contained weak divine powers¡ªpowers bestowed by the gods. As the faraway voice reached his ear, Nichs¡¯ hesitations slowed his reactions. The few creatures that he overlooked quickly pounced on him but were quickly sucked into his fallen codex.


    Nailisi went on a killing spree for a while, before returning to Saleen¡¯s side and restored the Sensory Sharing.


    The temple afar looked like it was about to copse, when a huge head of more than a dozen yards radius, belonging to a huge transparent creature struggled to climb out of the gate of the temple.


    Nailisi¡¯s mind ran into overdrive at the scene. That huge thing was indeed a powerful thing, a creature of grade-8 or grade-9. It would be beneficial for the growth of her purgatories to gobble up more of those things.


    Saleen cast Water Shield, and projected his voice using magic. ¡°Nailisi, Nichs. I have no idea what that thing inside the temple is, but the temple is now ours, so try not to wreck the ce too bad.¡±


    Saleen was able to tell that while that creature inside was powerful, it was unable to leave the temple. He had signed a contract with the goddess himself, and that thing was restrained by the temple. That meant that the contract between him and the goddess was of higher status than the monster with a female voice.


    If that monster was to attack him, it would be akin to breaching the goddess¡¯ contract. The temple would have restrained her for it. Saleen stopped worrying about his predicament after thinking through what was happening for a bit. There had been tens of thousands of transparent creatures killed by then, and yet the monster did note out to face him. It simply kept yelling inside the temple.


    If yelling was useful, there would not have been any need for magic.


    ¡°Having one such temple hidden here means that there would have also been another one in the barrennds north of Metatrin. Just why was the goddess building temples in such remote ces? It wouldn¡¯t have helped spreading the faith in the least. Is it to say that the goddess knew that her time was almost up, and had so set up such measures in response? It is not entirely impossible. I myself became more capable of sensing danger once I became a sorcerer. The effect was even more apparent when the power of my soul was enhanced. ording to descriptions by the grandmaster¡¯s group, when Myers became a goddess, she was at least a being of grade-16 or higher. From the looks of the divine tree seed that I acquired before, the goddess might have reached grade-18. No surprise that a grade-18 god was able to predict the future then? Didn¡¯t that Gaine predict that I would return to the Imperial City of the Abyss too?¡±


    Saleen thought of yet another problem at the same time. ¡°If the goddess was able to foresee her doom and was unable to do anything to prevent it, is it to say that the fate that astrologers spoke, was something that even gods would have been incapable of changing? If that was the case, what about my own fate?¡± Saleen remembered the two Star Gathering Needles in his possession. ¡°If I¡¯m able to reach levels higher than grade-10, won¡¯t I be able to see some hints of fate?¡±


    The creature with a high-pitched voice began to chant holy prose, and the transparent creatures that were attacking Saleen began to retreat. It seemed that the monsters themselves were able to tell thatrge numbers would not have been enough to overwhelm Saleen.


    Saleen felt strange. Those creatures were easily capable of dominating an area of the sea. How were they able to aplish such a feat while being so weak?


    Being of huge numbers meant that the creatures made excellent nourishment for the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Nichs was also in dire need of souls to enhance his abilities. Despite having killed so many in the battle of Ironwall City, Saleen dared not let Nailisi and Nichs do their thing. It was one thing to kill civilians. Having their souls absorbed would have caused mass panic among the nobles of the maind.


    The very reason the ck magicians were so overwhelmingly powerful was because they had the backing of Dark Sky Devil. They were eventually vanquished, due to having caused too much fear, and allowed people to develop a will to resist them that was inextinguishable.


    Saleen took out the dimension stone and Ring of Gifts, then put them on. He proceeded to chant the four holy prose that he was most familiar with, causing a green light to shimmer above his head, like he wore a really brightmp on his head.


    The transparent creatures all had blue blood and body fluids, which glittered in the dark in the depths of the ocean. Seeing the green divine light on Saleen, some creatures ceased listening to the summoning of the female voice from within the temple and turned around to pounce on Saleen.


    While the Ring of Gifts had little divine power in it, the power housed within was pure, which was more appealing to the creatures than the summoning from within the temple. More than one-hundred-thousand creatures flooded at Saleen again, and Nailisi went to open her purgatory spaces in haste and began her killing spree anew.


    The gate of the temple waspletely blocked by the giant head. The huge transparent creature was unable to make it out.


    ¡°How did youe to possess my ring?!¡± The voice from within the temple shouted, causing a powerful sound wave to surge, making it seem like the seawater nearby was boiling.


    ¡°Your ring?¡±


    Saleen thought the creature was probably having a mental breakdown of some sort. Even the double of the goddess would not have survived her fall. Just what was that thing? How did she dare think herself to be Goddess of Myers? From the looks of it, she was really buying her story.


    The voice howled away, and Saleen was able to truly feel the stability of his soul. His mental powers remainedrgely unfazed, and he only felt that the creature who thought itself to be the Goddess of Myers was not all that powerful, at leastpared to Joey or Fycro.


    ¡°Nailisi, Nichs, hurry up. I¡¯m going to see what that thing is for myself,¡± Saleen hurried his followers.


    ¡°My liege, I can¡¯t go any faster...¡± Nichs could not help but tell the truth.


    Saleen saw that every time the two of them attacked, more than three-hundred creatures were wiped. That was generally fast enough, but the number of those creatures was just too great. If they were to be all wiped out, it was really going to take quite a while. Thinking that, he took out his War Drum of Fear and thought, ¡°I have yet to try out the second way of attacking with this thing here. Hopefully it won¡¯t disappoint.¡±

 Chapter 972: Fanatical Faith (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 972: Fanatical Faith (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen expanded his Water Shield quickly, the diameter of which grew to more than eight yards. He then beat on the War Drum of Fear with his bone mace.


    No sound came out of the drum. More than one-thousand pests were trembling violently within it, and the face on the drum went on to throw them out. The pests were originally monsters made of soul shards. They shot out for several miles after being thrown out of the drum.


    The pests were more than familiar with underwater fights. They gushed at the transparent creatures and went to suck out souls maniacally. The creatures¡¯ tentacles were stabbed into the bodies of the pests, yet they were able to suck out nothing but dust, which clogged the suction tubes of the tentacles.


    The humanoid creatures were first attracted by the female voice inside the temple, and then attracted by Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts. After struggling for a moment over which side to turn to, they charged for his Ring of Gifts. Saleen was even able to feel the contradictions and struggles going on inside those creatures, but the divine power within the Ring of Gifts was simply too pure for the creatures to resist.


    The pests joined the fray, carving up the transparent creatures at an even quicker pace. Nichs only wanted their souls, whereas Saleen and Nailisi wanted both body and soul. More and more pests gushed out of the War Drum of Fear, yet the transparent creatures charged at them all the same, without any concept of fear.


    Nichs felt the stunning effects the most, as he was able to feel the power of faith within the souls of the creatures growing increasingly strong. They were but regr believers at the start of the fight, but then, all of them have practically turned into the likes of fanatics.


    They knew they were going to end up dead, yet they charged forward all the same, yearning for the divine power emanating from Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts.


    The second space within Nailisi¡¯s Twelve Notes of Purgatory was expanded to a size of thirty-six miles radius, which seemed to a limit of sorts. Any further breakthrough would have required the entirety of the collection of purgatories to bepleted, before the spaces could be expanded further.


    Within the space¡¯ upper side, the bone marrow of the angel of fear gradually took the shape of Nailisi¡¯s image after absorbing the great power of faith housed within. The power of faith was congealed inside the image and turned into pieces of divine crystals. While the pieces were small, they were pure, granting increasing rity to Nailisi¡¯s image. As more and more transparent creatures made it inside, the power of faith grew proportionately as well. Nailisi¡¯s mere image gradually turned from the form of a statue into a ¡®person¡¯ with flesh and blood.


    As Nailisi was able to feel the change within, she branded the image with her soul brand without hesitation. It was a weapon¡¯s spirit, one that took Nailisi¡¯s form. Such spirits were incredibly rare throughout the ages, as such spirits were practically a double of their originators.


    All those who entered the space perished one after another, being absorbed into the sky and earth. Nailisi willed to have her spirit double pluck out some dead nts from the void and scatter them into the earth. At the same time, Nailisi also threw some special seeds she had gotten from Eleanor, and others that she was able to find herself, into the space.


    Many of those seeds were found inside sunken ships, and some were brought from the demon ne. One of the seeds quickly absorbed the nutrients and grew upward, and finally reached the height of thirty-six yards, shooting for the void at the upper side of the space.


    Scattered divine crystals within Nailisi¡¯s double began to coalesce, eventually forming a perfect crystal body with one-hundred and twenty-eight facets. The double also opened its eyes and uttered a line of a very ancient demon tongue.


    The nts on the ground finished growing, and a forest covering the entire area was soon formed. The creatures which were absorbed began crawling out from within the earth in the forest, yet their bodies were nk. Nailisi¡¯s double chanted in the demon tongue, and some of the transparent creatures began manifesting soul powers within their bodies, growing and evolving.


    Nailisi¡¯s image stopped and took a breather, ceasing the blessing on those newly formed living beings. She was just born herself and was still weak. She was unable to do more than let the new living beings evolve on their own.


    The newly born beings were able to feel the presence like that of a god in the sky. All of those creatures worshipped Nailisi¡¯s image. Nailisi was irked as she did not hope to be some kind of a god, not even if the one treated as such was her double. She seized the chance provided by Saleen going on his killing spree and dived into the newly formed space itself, proceeding to shatter the head of the image with one punch, then throwing all the divine crystals gathered into her bracelet.


    The living beings below panicked. Their object of worship was gone!


    Nailisi was only capable of feeling satisfied then, and had the image continue absorbing the power of fear from the beings below. Seeing the head of her image begin to take shape again, Nailisi left the space.


    Saleen had recalled all the pests he unleashed, and the transparent creatures at the bottom of the ocean numbered to less than ten-thousand. Nichs went on to pick on the souls of the creatures one by one.


    ¡°Nailisi, are you done?¡±


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± Nailisi answered in glee. The second space was developed and was one that contained massive power of fear. It remained one unsuitable to house humans.


    ¡°Name it. The rules will grow to be clearer given time,¡± Saleen reminded Nailisi.


    Nailisi pondered for a moment. Her image was able to feel the despair of the spurned beings. All hints of faith disappeared. Their god refused to ept their praise and dependence. The beings¡¯ power of faith gradually disappeared, and was reced at the same time, by the hatred to their god.


    ¡°I¡¯ll call it a purgatory of the fallen then,¡± Nailisi answered with a smile.


    The power of pain and despair was even more pure and more straightforward. The higher the number of believers robbed of their faith, the greater the power of her image. Within the space, the believers would be robbed of everything. That paved the way to fight holy masters, and Nailisi felt very pleased with herself.


    She knew that many of her future enemies would be holy masters, even oracles and gods too. The attributes of the space were special and were created entirely by her will. Once the rules within were developed amply, it would prove fatal to holy masters.


    It worked like how a mage was thrown in a space devoid of elements. Holy masters would be rendered incapable of acquiring the power of believers, and the connection with their gods severed. They would thus, be rendered helpless sitting ducks.


    Saleen did not enter the space itself, but he was able to feel faintly the direction with which the space was created. He had no time to ask about the details. That huge creature that was struggling to climb outside the temple made its way out of the tight space and was then standing right in front of the gate.


    It was a transparent creature less than one-hundred yards tall and looked almost identical to the little ones: A human head and four limbs, with tentacles sprouting from the sides of its ribs. The only difference seen in the over seventy yards tall monster from the little ones, was that it did not seem to possess soft skin; it looked like it was covered with crystalized bone armor instead.


    Nailisi squealed in glee when the tall monster appeared and said to Saleen, ¡°Master, give that thing to me!¡±


    Her purgatory of the fallen was still iplete, and the creature looked like it was a grade-8 or grade-9 being. It would have made for a very nice nourishment for her purgatory.


    ¡°That is for Nichs,¡± Saleen said with a deadpan face.


    Nailisi pouted and wanted to say something, before Nichs cut her off, ¡°Nailisi, it¡¯s the one inside the temple that you¡¯ll need.¡±


    Nailisi shut up right that instant. She had thought his master to have favored Nichs over her, but it was the right thing to do nheless. It would work well for Nichs¡¯ Scepter of the Fallen to absorb the huge monster¡¯s soul, but the scepter was incapable of absorbing its body. The body would be a very good piece of material on its own. Once absorbed into the purgatory of the fallen, grade-9 beings might appear within.


    Nichs wanted to absorb souls of even higher levels, but his Scepter of the Fallen fell short of being capable of such a feat. Only Saleen¡¯s War Drum of Fear and Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of the fallen would be capable of doing so. The one deep inside the temple, eh...


    Nailisi smirked and saw Nichs, who was being covered in gray light, walking to the faraway temple.


    Saleen pushed Nailisi from behind and said, ¡°Go with him. If anything happens to Nichs, no souls from the temple for you!¡±


    ¡°Master, Nichs is very powerful,¡± Nichs murmured.


    After walking for several miles, the tall monster got very near. Saleen stopped right there and stopped Nichs from taking the monster on alone. He summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and had them charge at it, to have it surrounded.


    They were not there for a friendly match, and another huge monster was seen climbing out from within the temple¡¯s gate. No one would be able to tell how many of the monsters were housed inside the temple. If it turned out to be like how it was in the Imperial City of the Abyss, where they came out in endless hordes, Nichs would be unable to hold them off.


    Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers also had a specialty of their own. As they had spent so much time in the Imperial City of the Abyss, they had developed the ability to fight underwater. They moved quickly, as if the seawater around them had no effect whatsoever in impeding their movements.


    Six magic warhammers struck onto the pale blue body of the monster. The monster growled for a moment, and the transparent bone armor shattered. The warhammers in the hands of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers shattered as well. Still, they were at the bottom of the ocean. The soldiers simply absorbed the power of the earth and recreated their hammers.


    Bam, bam, bam...


    The two waves of attack rendered the huge monster utterly helpless in the face of the one-hundred yard tall Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. The sharp, high-pitched female voice within the temple chanted a string of words, restoring the bone armor on the surface of the pale blue monster¡¯s body almost instantly.


    ¡°Infidel, you have no need to repent...Arrghh, Eeeek...,¡± The voice in the temple grew furious, as Nichs was using Divine Punishment. The voice thought itself to be Goddess of Myers, and as such, was driven by instinct to destroy powers emanated by other gods.


    ¡°On my name, Nichs, I sentence you!¡±, Nichs finished his chant and cast a shimmering brilliance from his Scepter of the Fallen, shining on the seventy yards tall pale blue monster.

 Chapter 973: The Patience of Mages (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 973: The Patience of Mages (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs used a spell from Divine Punishment that was slightly weaker; the spell was Righteous Judgment.


    There were more than 100,000plete souls within Nichs¡¯ fallen staff. It would demand more of his equipment and he would need a million more souls in order to use powerful Divine Punishment spells.


    Righteous Judgment had a prerequisite of having to be used against genuine heresies. It would be able to cleanse their soulspletely and force them to lose their powers of faith. What made it different from a powerful Divine Punishment spells was that the former could only strip the opponent¡¯s power of faith and not theirbat abilities.


    Nevertheless, Nichs was not involved in a one-on-one fight. There were six other towering elemental stone statue soldiers surrounding the huge light-blue monster.


    When the elemental stone statue soldiers managed to smash the monster into pieces with their magic war hammers, Nichs was pleased. The fallen staff jerked on the ground and holy light shot out in all direction. All the powerful souls were sucked into the blood soul tower.


    Nailisi dashed forward and put the shredded corpse of the huge monster into the Purgatory of the Fallen. There were rules in the Purgatory, but the sky andnd in the dimension were still very fragile. They needed more materials to evolve and beplete.


    Boom!


    The second huge monster that had been stuck in the temple¡¯s door finally managed to break through, causing a huge crack in it.


    A third monster followed behind it and managed to crawl through very easily.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. The temple might be hiding plenty of monsters, but if they could only crawl out one by one, they were as good as sacrificial items for Nichs.


    Saleen was curious, so he leaned towards Nichs and cast an ice arrow; it was a grade-4 spell. Saleen used his mental strength to lock on to the third monster, so that it could not dodge and could only face it head-on.


    The ice arrow pierced into the monster¡¯s light-blue skeletal armor before sliding off. That was when Saleen used his elemental eyes to take a closer look and realized the monster¡¯s skeletal armor wereyers on top of each other. Eachyer was as thin as half a yard and there were thousands ofyers altogether.


    The blue monster¡¯s soul was weakpared to its skeletal armor. Although Saleen¡¯s ice arrow was a grade-4 spell, it was still capable of causing a lot of damage. The fact it slid off the skeletal armor just showed how powerful the creature¡¯s defense was.


    When Saleen had just be a mage, an icicle was already capable of piercing through a solid rock wall. A grade-4 ice arrow was many times more powerful.


    Saleen decided not to fight with Nailisi for that material after a moment of hesitation. The Twelve Notes of Purgatory was the most powerful equipment anyone around him had and it still had plenty of room to grow.


    Saleen could not even begin to imagine how powerful it would be when all 12 dimensions were fully developed. They were only developing the second dimension, so there was no point fighting with Nailisi for materials at this stage.


    Nailisi seemed to sense what Saleen was thinking and whispered to him, ¡°Master, I can provide you with those materials next time. There are not too many of them and it takes a long time to refine them, but they are much better than those ones.¡±


    Saleen only smiled and continued to watch Nichs battle against the third monster.


    Nichs continued to use Righteous Judgment. After stripping away the power granted by the divine spell, he let the six elemental stone statue soldiers smash the monster into pieces before he collected its soul.


    The fellow in the temple seemed to have no idea that such repetition was meaningless. Forty-four monsters were unleashed in total and all of their souls were collected by Nichs and put in his blood soul tower.


    Nichs¡¯ mental strength surprisingly increased significantly. Holy Masters usually had to borrow the power of the Gods in order to cast divine spells, so they rarely gained anything out of a battle except for victory. Whatever could be gained was returned to the Gods. Nichs had be a fallen Holy Master. After collecting those souls, the 44 powerful and pure souls were cleansed of their memories on the ninth level of the blood soul tower. They then began to bow towards his soul imprint. The mental strength that Nichs had used up was constantly being replenished by the souls in the blood soul tower, so he had even more mental strength than before the battle started.


    The temple quietened down as the screeching female voice stopped chanting curses. That was when Saleen urged everyone into the temple. Nailisi led the way and had already taken out her skeletal shield and Grey Memory. Nailisi did not feel afraid at all when she was armed with her longnce. The monsters in the temple were not formidable enough to hurt them.


    Unlike the Imperial City of the Abyss, which was isted from the outside world, that dimension was rather stable. That meant that it was subjected to the limitations of the dimension, so there should not be any creatures beyond grade-12.


    There were cracks everywhere on top of the temple. Seawater crashed onto the temple as the walls and pirs were already half-copsed. There were no signs of life anywhere amidst the darkness. Nailisi casually stabbed around with Grey Memory so that she could collect more materials and send them to the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.


    The temple of the Goddess was built with plenty of valuable materials. It was the same as the temple that Saleen had first entered. Saleen did not possess the capabilities to harvest the resources back then.


    The temple of the Goddess of Nature was different from what it looked like on the map, but one thing was simr. There was definitely a main temple and 24 sub-temples. Those temples were originally full of transparent creatures, but they were empty now, except for a corridor with no end in sight.


    Saleen thought about it before casting a Fluorescence spell to light an area of hundreds of yards around him. Although he could have relied on his elemental eyes, he felt morefortable fighting under normal lighting in case they encountered such a situation. It would also help Nichs save some energy.


    Nichs might be the weakest amongst the three of them, but he was extremely important to Saleen. Saleen was still counting on Nichs to help him destabilize the Holy See. If they could attract more Holy Masters to be fallen it would only be a matter of time before the Holy See copsed.


    Saleen did not manage to discover anything as they walked past the sub-temples one by one. He could not determine the location of the screeching female voice either.


    The temple was built in a very strange away. The one on top was broken beyond words and was being soaked by the seawater. The one below waspletely sealed up. They had to rely on Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts in order to pass through most of the ces. It was as if the temple was built with the expectation that it would sink to the bottom of the sea one day.


    ¡°Nichs, can you sense the presence of that thing?¡± Saleen finally asked Nichs. He could not understand. His mental strength and soul were the most powerful amongst the three of them, so if that female was of a high grade, why would she note out to fight him? On the other hand, if her grade was low, how had she been able to conceal her presence?


    Nichs shook his head. He was confused by what was happening as well.


    ¡°We have already walked past 12 sub-temples, right?¡± Saleen asked Nailisi.


    ¡°Master, if we include that broken one, there should be 13.¡±


    Saleen sensed danger creeping closer and closer to them. Without hesitation, he unleashed 24 Midnight Fangs to surround the three of them. The Midnight Fangs were small in size and were more suitable than elemental stone statue soldiers in such an enclosed space.


    A beam of light-blue light suddenly appeared in the darkness and charged straight towards Saleen¡¯s back.


    Two Midnight Fangs stabbed at the blue light viciously with their dark-element daggers. The blue light reverted back to its original form with a groan of pain. It was a light-blue creature that did not look too different from a normal human. The creature was different from the transparent ones because it did not have tentacles on both sides of its ribs and its facial features were sharp and clear.


    One of the Midnight Fang¡¯s dagger had struck the creature¡¯s right hand, causing it to drop its saber. The other dagger had stabbed into its neck. Its entire neck was almost severedpletely as its head dangled to one side.


    Saleenughed coldly. How could it possibly think of assassinating him when he was surrounded by so many elemental creatures?


    ¡°Humph!¡±


    A cold voice rang out from the corridor. Nailisi casually collected the dying humanoid creature along with its saber and put it into the Purgatory of the Fallen.


    Saleen thought about it and activated the spell on his devil suit. Six stone statue soldiers of about two yards tall appeared and they walked ahead into the corridor.


    There was the sound of fighting and it seemed that the six stone statue soldiers were under attack. Saleen had already managed to take a good look at the enemies.


    Tens of light-blue humanoid creatures surrounded the six stone statue soldiers and were attacking them. The creatures were wearing real armor and were armed with a variety of weapons.


    There were 32 of them!


    After figuring out how many enemies there were, hemanded the stone statue soldiers to retreat and block off the corridor. The 32 creatures were clearly more powerful than those huge monsters from earlier. They definitely possessed intelligence and all of them were grade-9.


    The Midnight Fangs were capable of defeating those creatures, so Saleen was not worried about that. The only thing that he had yet to figure out was the mystery behind the screeching female¡¯s voice and where she could possibly be hiding.


    The creatures were grade-9 and were being controlled by the strange voice, so Saleen no longer dared to becent. He realized the woman behind the voice had to be at least grade-10.


    A grade-10 creature with intelligence would be much more difficult to deal with than grade-10 magic beasts were.


    The 32 blue creatures approached the entrance of the corridor and Saleen¡¯s stone statue soldiers were waving their war axes while blocking these creatures from leaving the corridor. Nailisi gripped her longnce nervously and asked, ¡°Master, what do we do?¡±


    Nailisi was confident in defeating those creatures one by one on such terrain. Grey Memory would use up a lot of her mental strength though. Although the dragon crystal in Grey Memory could replenish her mental strength, there was a limit after all. Nailisi would bepletely drained after defeating all 32 of those grade-9 creatures.


    ¡°My Lord, may I try?¡± Nichs asked.


    ¡°I sense something strange about the temple ahead,¡± Saleen said, ¡°Wait a while more. All of you rest for now. We will wait until the second batch of stone statue soldiers appear.¡±


    The devil suit would create a batch of six stone statue soldiers every six minute and it would keep going for three hours. Saleen sensed danger in the temple ahead and decided that they might as well wait for a while to see if there would be any new developments. Another six stone statue soldiers would make it even more difficult for those blue creatures to break through the corridor.

 Chapter 974: The Patience of Mages (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 974: The Patience of Mages (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The devil suit had its own unique use. The stone statue soldiers were not as powerful as elemental stone statue soldiers, but they could control their own size. If the elemental stone statue soldiers were to shrink themselves to two yards in height, then they would only be left with their elemental cores. Although their offensive abilities would remain the same, their defenses would weaken tremendously. It was just like a warrior losing all their armor.


    Nichs heeded Saleen¡¯s suggestion. Nailisi put Gray Memory away as well. Although it was a powerful weapon, it was also very demanding on her mental strength. She pulled out her Sword of Rules instead.


    The disadvantage of the Sword of Rules was that any target it struck would bepletely useless. When the transparent creatures were killed by the Sword of Rules, their souls would be smashed. Even the blood soul tower would have a hard time restoring them. Any equipment that was damaged by the Sword of Rules could never be repaired again. It¡¯d be easier for someone to make new equipment rather than try and restore one destroyed by the Sword of Rules.


    Gray Memory would only destroy souls, but at least the materials that were left behind could still be used. The Sword of Rules was clearly a piece of equipment built to destroy.


    Saleen kept monitoring the other end of the corridor. He noticed that the 32 grade-9 creatures had doubled in number!


    That should¡¯ve been impossible! Saleen looked carefully with his elemental eyes again and discovered more grade-9 creatures that had just appeared, but they turned out only to be images. If his elemental eyes had not advanced, he would not have been able to tell the difference.


    That was because each image¡¯s movement was exactly the same as the original creature. Such simrity even extended to traces of elements on the surface of the images.


    Saleenughed coldly. The images might have somebat abilities, but they were no match for the images of his devil suit. The images could not even move independently. That just proved that the person that created the images might be of a very high grade, but theirbat experience was nowhere near the level of Joey.


    All of a sudden, Saleen saw something that took him by surprise. 32 souls were infused into the 32 images. The images became livelier and no longer moved the same way as the original bodies.


    When Saleen¡¯s second batch of stone statue soldiers was created, the number of grade-9 creatures on the other end of the corridor had already reached 128, and half of them were images.


    Through her connection with Saleen, Nailisi realized that something was amiss. Just as she was about to charge into the corridor, Saleen stopped her.


    ¡°Let it continue. I want to see how many grade-9 creatures it can create!¡± Saleen decided that he would not attack the corridor anymore. Hemanded his 12 stone statue soldiers to retreat and gather together at the narrowest part of the corridor.


    Saleen had learned about the rule of bnce of energy before, so he knew that there was nothing in this world that possessed unlimited energy. It did not make sense for their opponent to be able to create grade-9 creatures.


    A mage must think and study anything that was not logical. That would be how one could discover an entirely new field of study. Saleen¡¯s original intention foring there was not to look for a temple anyway. He was feeling terrible after the massacre in the city, and he just wanted to get away from everything for a while. He was still young, and he started off as amoner. Compared to Lex, he was less able to ept such events.


    On the other side of the corridor, the number of grade-9 creatures was increasing, but Saleen became calmer. He refused to believe that the grade-9 creatures could continue to multiply. If that was the case, the person multiplying them was truly invincible.


    Even the ancient humans were not capable of having all their soldiers advance to grade-9. Grade-9 soldiers were considered the cream of the crop back then. Saleen was not afraid of being outnumbered because Nailisi still had 100,000 demons in her Purgatory of Devils.


    There were now 256 grade-9 creatures at that point, but half of them were images. That was when Nailisi felt more at ease. She could not help but admire her Master¡¯s patience.


    ¡°Nailisi, do you understand now?¡±


    Nailisi shook her head so Saleen continued, ¡°I don¡¯t believe our enemy can continue a technique like this for an extended period of time. Let¡¯s rest here for a while...¡±


    He said that on purpose so that the person on the opposite side could hear it. Indeed, immediately after what Saleen said that the grade-9 creatures went berserk and more than 10 of them entered the corridor. The six stone statue soldiers charged forward. That batch of stone statue soldiers would be the first to disappear. More than 20 minutes had passed and there were already 18 stone statue soldiers in the corridor and the fourth batch was about to appear anytime.


    Saleen disyed the patience of a mage. The six stone statue soldiers were easily defeated by the monsters, while only three of the monsters died in the exchange. Even though Saleen was losing his stone statue soldiers at a ratio of two to one, he continued to wait patiently and refused to attack recklessly.


    The second batch of stone statue soldiers charged forward to stop the grade-9 creatures. Saleen did not even bother to givemands to those stone statue soldiers. Instead, he secretly summoned 36 elemental stone statue soldiers that were all 20 yards tall. The Goddess¡¯ temple was such a towering monument to be able to hold them, an ordinary house would not be able to contain the elemental creatures.


    The 36 elemental stone statue creatures split into two rows. Nailisi stood in front of the corridor with a shield in her left hand and a sword in her right as she waited for the corridor to broken through.


    Saleen¡¯s mindset has influenced Nailisi, who had regained herposure. By nature, demons were creatures with patience as they would sometimes take half a month to stalk prey.


    Four batches of stone statue soldiers had been defeated by the grade-9 creatures. A blue humanoid creature charged out of the corridor and went straight for Saleen with a slender sword. The sword was bubbling with powerful elements and was almost glowing with something simr to sword aura.


    The elemental stone statue soldiers on both sides of the corridor attacked with their magic war hammers. One of them struck air while the other urately smashed the grade-9 creature¡¯s head into pieces. Nailisi attacked with her Sword of Rules and deflected the creature¡¯s sword. Then, with a sweep of her skeletal shield, the grade-9 creature was cut into two at the waist.


    Unlike the stone statue soldiers, Nailisi had a lot ofbat experience. Although the monster no longer had its brain, its sword aura had yet to dissipate, so Nailisi knew it would continue to attack.


    Even after being cut into half, the lower half of the body leaped up and tried to pounce on Saleen. Nailisi stepped on it and sent it into the Purgatory of the Fallen.


    ¡°Master, its weakness is in its heart,¡± Nailisi reminded Saleen.


    There was a sh of blue light in the corridor. A humanoid creature suddenly increased its speed, dashing past the pair of magic warhammers guarding the entrance of the corridor and was in front of Saleen in an instant. All of a sudden, a Midnight Fang appeared in front of Saleen. The Midnight Fang¡¯s elemental dagger stabbed straight into the humanoid creature¡¯s heart.


    Nichs was taken aback. His fallen staff fell to the floor and gray light filled the entire temple. The third humanoid creature that dashed out of the corridor immediately slowed down and by doing so, it was immediately smashed into minced meat by the magic war hammers.


    Nichs¡¯ gray light had caused the humanoid creatures to slow down by more than twice their original speed. Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures¡¯ speed did not seem to be affected though. All the grade-9 creatures that managed to reach the zone that was lit up by the gray light were all smashed to death by the elemental stone statue soldiers. On the other side of the corridor, the mysterious being could not take it anymore.


    ¡°sphemers, all of you must die!¡±


    The moment Saleen heard that he burst outughing. ¡°You are the real sphemer. Do you really think you are Myers?¡±


    The ground of the temple trembled violently as if there was an earthquake. Saleen remained calm as he made the six elemental stone statue soldiers expand their bodies. They transformed into thick pirs while Saleen and the rest took cover under them.


    ¡°If you are Myers, then who do you think this is?¡± Saleen unleashed a gigantic fireball, which floated into the air and lit up Nailisi¡¯s face. Nailisi had based her appearance on the image of the Goddess of Myers. Saleen¡¯s enemy seemed to be aggravated by what Saleen did. After a loud and high-pitched scream, Saleen saw the copse of all the grade nine creatures in the temple. They turned into hundreds of beams of blue light, disappearing into the darkness.


    ¡°You sphemers...¡±


    ¡°Master, what is it saying?¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice was louder and she could tell that the creature inside was not totally sane. If it was provoked a little more, it would definitely charge out and fight Saleen.


    Huge rocks began to crumble as the corridor widened gradually. The two temples were more than a thousand yards apart and magic was the reason why they could see the other end clearly. The thousand-yard long corridor had been destroyed and a crack that was more than 20 yards wide appeared right in front of Saleen.


    If not for the six elemental stone statues turning themselves into huge stone pirs, Saleen and the rest would have been buried alive in the temple.


    Saleen calmly increased the number of Midnight Fangs he had out to 36, and they patrolled the surrounding area. The body of a Midnight Fang was different from other elemental creatures because it could conceal itself in any shadows. That was its natural ability. The falling rocks had no effects on the Midnight Fangs. The way they attacked was to unleash their full force in a single strike.


    There were only six elemental stone statue soldiers left to guard the opening of the corridor. The others were surrounded Saleen, ready to block the enemy¡¯s attack. Saleen was secretly thankful for his elemental badge. If he had brought along the ancient warriors instead, he would have had been forced to take on a more passive approach.


    The crack grew bigger, revealing a bottomless pit. The top had already copsed, and seawater was already seeping in. In the blink of an eye, a huge hole appeared on top of the crack and due to the high pressure, seawater instantly gushed in and copsed the temple.


    ¡°That¡¯s pretty powerful.¡± Saleen teased as he could already see what was happening at the temple opposite them.


    A mile away from them was a gigantic main temple.


    The altar of the main temple was surrounded by 24 pirs with a naked woman bound to the middle. Twenty-four chains pierced through her body and each of them was tied to a pir.


    The woman was wriggling frantically as if she could feel no pain. The 24 pirs were simply too sturdy, and they showed no signs of crack despite the violent trembling of the altar.


    Saleen looked closely at the woman and she looked exactly like Goddess of Myers.

 Chapter 975: Shackles of the Fallen (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 975: Shackles of the Fallen (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The chained up woman had eyes like lightning, and cold light seeped out of those eyes, shooting everywhere without a target in the void.


    Nichs took note of all that and reminded Saleen, who was standing in front of him, ¡°My liege, this woman is really something. Closebat in not an option. That thing that shot out of her eyes was an attack like Divine Punishment. It is anyone¡¯s guess however, as to why the range was so short.¡±


    ¡°I know. The chains restricted her powers. If all we do is stand here and do nothing, she won¡¯t be able to do us any harm,¡± Saleen replied calmly. He had no idea what the lights that shot out the woman¡¯s eyes meant, but he was nheless able to tell that the power unleashed by the woman was restricted within the vicinity of the altar. The altar itself, served like a thoroughly sealed cage.


    ¡°Do I have any choice but to get close? Of course not. That woman is just as fearsome as the angel of fear. Her power has reached the pinnacle of the ne. She might be a little loose in the head, but she is still probably the most powerful figure in this world. If I don¡¯t kill her off while she is still being held back by the chains, the entire maind will be doomed if she managed to get herself free.¡±


    While she thought herself to be the Goddess of Myers, there was no way Saleen could have freed her and let her go about spreading her faith. If he did, all of the believers¡¯ powers would be hijacked by her, and there would be nothing left for the goddess to get revived with.


    While Saleen wanted very much to break the contract between him and the goddess, going about it like that was not an option. His ns wereing together at the moment, if that thing actually was able to escape, breaking off the contract would no longer be a concern. That thing, would just...


    Saleen thought for a moment. If that thing would just go about killing all of the Lord of Glory¡¯s believers, it would be quite a nice thing to happen, but she took herself to be the goddess, and from the looks of things, she definitely would not be as sensible as the Goddess of Myers herself. Her bloodlust was just too strong. If such a thing came to the gates of Metatrin City, there would be no city to be had there soon enough.


    Saleen came to the conclusion that his city would not be able to defend against her, by just gauging what she was capable of doing alone.


    ¡°Well, kill her right here right there it is then!¡± Mages did not need too many reasons to deal with matters like that. Saleen¡¯s mood calmed and he realized, most of the time, what he waspelled to do seemed to be ordained by fate itself. ¡°If you aren¡¯t going to do this now, you will never get another chance at it ever again.¡±


    The woman who took herself to be Goddess of Myers was not one who was easy to deal with. Saleen did not want his elemental creatures to take the risk, as such, he took control of the Stone Statue Soldiers conjured by his Devil Suit to climb over through the corridors at the nks. Below the corridors was a giant chasm that seemed bottomless.


    A mile long distance was nowhere near Saleen¡¯s mental powers limit for control. The Stone Statue Soldiers quickly made it through the corridors and went up to the altar. The Stone Statue Soldiers did not possess intellect and were drivenpletely by instinct, or Saleen¡¯smands.


    The six Stone Statue Soldiers stood before the altar, and the woman in chains who had been shooting cold light from her eyes stopped her attack. She went on to re at the Stone Statue Soldiers. Under Saleen¡¯s control, they conjured their elemental axes and lunged at the woman.


    Six axes went down on ayer of invisible wall at the edge of the altar. The resulting metal nging sounds were loud. The six axes were soon disintegrated to base earth element.


    Saleen was able to tell from where he stood that the soldiers were unable to do anything to the woman on the altar. He wanted to recall them, as they were still summoned beings that couldst for three hours. It would be a waste to see them destroyed, however, tens of blue humanoid creatures quickly leapt from the chasm of the temple, surrounding the Stone Statue Soldiers.


    The soldiers once again conjured their elemental axes and expanded their bodies, bing nine yard tall war machines. More blue humanoid creatures however, leapt from the chasm. They held strange weapons in their hands, and left gashes on the bodies of the soldiers.


    ¡°Master, that woman was just practicing!¡± Nailisi yelled. She found that the blue humanoid creatures were too of grade-9 yet possessed mediocre offensive capacity.


    ¡°I can tell.¡± Saleen¡¯s face turned pale. He was taking personal control over the soldiers to fight, and it was a given that he was able to tell what the other side was doing. The woman on the altar was obviously mimicking what he was doing with his soldiers. She was too taking personal control over her blue humanoid creatures and was being very bad at it.


    She was, however, able to learn very quickly due to being of high-level. If the fight was dragged on, her ability to control her troops would quickly improve. Saleen let out a sigh and relinquished his control of the soldiers. They immediately gave up fighting the grade-9 creatures and went straight for the altar.


    The woman at the altar seemed to be very pleased at that turn of events. She lowered the defenses at the altar and went straight for the soldiers. She shot cold light from her eyes and tore the Stone Statue Soldiers to pieces. She then opened her mouth and sucked up all the rich earth element left behind.


    Saleen frowned. The cold light from her eyes was just too powerful. Closebat was not an option. Where he stood was about a mile away from the altar. The likes of alchemy crossbows would not be able to do her any harm. Saleen took hold of his family badge without realizing it.


    The badge was capable of taking out things even more than twenty miles away. One mile was simply child¡¯s y in that case. The problem however, was that if he unleashed the lightning attack from the badge, there would be nothing left on the altar. Such powerful soul and body materials would go to waste.


    More importantly, Saleen felt that the woman must have been rted to Goddess of Myers in some manner. She might have been able to dig out some valuable information from her soul. He had signed a contract with Goddess of Myers, with Gaine the astrologer, as well as with the heroic spirits in the imperial city cemetery.


    All three contracts were interconnected. Any one of those contracts was connected in one way or another to the revival of Goddess of Myers. The way to break all three of them became the top priority matter in Saleen¡¯s mind at the moment. The key of which,id with the Goddess of Myers herself.


    If the diminishing of power across the entire maind was actually rted to the Goddess of Myers herself, there was no way Saleen could just let her return to the living. Or, if he ended up reviving her, he would have to think of ways to kill her again.


    If Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of the fallen waspletely, it would serve well to contain the woman. The problem was, however, that the woman¡¯s current power levels exceeded the amount of power that purgatory was able to contain.


    ¡°Master, get in touch with the viscount,¡± Nailisi reminded Saleen. It was only then that he realized that he still had a weapon left with Lex to hold the fort: the miniaturized magic cannon.


    The power of the miniaturized magic cannon would definitely be enough to kill the woman right in front of them. Saleen looked up at the broken roof. Only the area within about one-hundred yards radius was being held by six giant pirs and no cracks were found. It was all sealed tight by concentrated earth element. Everywhere else within the temple was thoroughly wrecked.


    The earth was shaking and crumbling. Such an environment would have been ill-suited for setting up teleportation portals.


    The setup of a teleportation portal required a very stable environment, and that was something known by astrologers and mages alike. The earth was not fixed, and it was something that continued to move in a certain area. Every coordinate actually carried four attributes. Only with the point in the three-dimensional space and the function of passage of time properly set up, that aparatively urate teleportation coordinate could have said to been set.


    With the earth continuing to tremble, the teleportation of goods would render the goods torn apart in space.


    ¡°Heh...¡± Saleen took out a dimension stone and had the six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers that were turned into pirs return to their original forms and let the roof copse. He cast his Water Shield and deflected all the crumbling rocks crashing down on them. Saleen took out his Magical Element Tower and ced it on the ground.


    Everyone entered the tower and Saleen began setting up the portal within the tower itself. There was a fixed teleportation portal in the tower, and all Saleen needed to do was to confirm the coordinates of the royal harbor.


    He first set up and sound transmission magic array to contact the royal harbor. Lex was brought by her mages in a hurry to the temporary magic tower.


    The first thing Saleen did whenmunications were set up was to ask for the cannon. Lex replied quickly at the array, ¡°Hold on a moment, I¡¯ll get to it right away. Give me the coordinates.¡±


    Saleen felt lucky that the ce where he was not somewhere as insane as the Imperial City of the Abyss, andmunications with people above water were still possible. Lex got to it quickly, but it was still quite a hassle to set up a teleportation portal. Despite having brought ample material with her, she would have still required six sorcerers to work with her, before the portal was gradually set up.


    Saleen waited patiently in the Magical Element Tower. New developments began to take ce at the altar faraway.


    Seeing Saleen taking out his mobile tower, the woman in chains got anxious. She shook her body about, which rattled the chains, which in turn caused the entire altar to tremble. The chasm in the ground grew increasinglyrge.


    Setting up a teleportation portal took time, and it was not something that could be aplished in an instant just by having a lot of money. If Saleen did not want to wait, he would not have had any other choice but to kill the woman right there and then with his family badge. It would have resulted the same if Nailisi was to charge at her. More and more grade-9 creatures emerged from around the altar, and all of them were blue humanoid creatures.


    The ground of the temple across them began to crumble. The altar became submerged in seawater and floated, instead of sinking down. More and more blue humanoid creatures emerged, and it was no longer illusions; all of them have had solid physical bodies. Saleen was shocked to see the scene unfolding, the number of grade-9 creatures in the temple had reached the thousands!


    The woman at the altar chanted some unknown verses, causing the grade-9 creatures beneath the altar to have a dazed look in their eyes. One by one they walked up to the altar, and the woman opened her mouth to suck them inside her. Those grade-9 creatures were soon turned into globs of blue liquid under such powerful suction.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to see it all. Every time the woman began sucking up the grade-9 creatures, her powers grew somewhat. The number of grade-9 creatures beneath the altar continued to grow. Saleen had no way to tell if she would be able to break free of her chains if she had absorbed the creatures in thousands.


    ¡°My liege, now I remember. Those chains were Shackles of the Fallen. Until the woman recovers her sanity, she will never be able to break free of them!¡±


    ¡°What are Shackles of the Fallen?¡±


    ¡°Something the gods used to punish traitors. If you have lost your faith in your mind, the shackles will keep you chained up, and you will definitely never be able to break free.¡±


    ¡°Definitely never be able to break free?¡± Saleen doubted it. ¡°If that is truly so, why did the woman at the altar bother doing something like that?¡± Grade-9 creatures in the thousands would have posed a lethal threat to him regardless.


    ¡°What if the woman is able to master higher rules of power then?¡± Saleen asked Nichs.

 Chapter 976: Shackles of the Fallen (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 976: Shackles of the Fallen (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Shackles of the Fallen are one of the highest rules mastered by the gods. The level of the Goddess of Myers back then determined the level of rules of the shackles.¡± Nichs knew well of the secrets of divine arts, and he borated them to Saleen.


    Saleen was still feeling ufortable with it. The woman was chained with twenty-four chains, and the ne around Saleen¡¯s neck also possessed twenty-four spaces.


    The Goddess of Myers rearranged the calendar of the maind, doubling the twelve months of a year, making a total of twenty-for months.


    Grade-24 was also the highest level of rules in existence.


    Saleen touched his neck and was afraid that the chains around his neck would also turn into Shackles of the Fallen. He grew increasingly wary of anything that had to do with the gods. The heroic spirits in the Imperial City of the Abyss cemetery seemed to love divine equipment, as well as divine crystals though.


    ¡°Master, we can¡¯t let her powers to continue to grow like this, if...¡±


    ¡°How about you go fight her then?¡± Saleen ignored Nailisi¡¯s suggestion altogether. Nailisi retreated. The power of the woman was great enough that even if Nailisi were to go against her, the imp would have ended up dead all the same. Gray Memory would have possibly been able to do some damage to the woman, but there was no telling if it was enough to kill her. Strictly speaking, Gray Memory was a closebat weapon. The cold light that woman was able to shoot from her eyes enabled her to easily cut up grade-9 elemental life. Nailisi did not want to engage something like that up close.


    The setup of a teleportation portal required at least half a day toplete. It was a limit that Lex would not have been able to break through, regardless of how many sorcerers she had with her. If Joey was there, he would have been able to shorten the time required to about one-third of it, but even then, four hours were still needed to do so.


    If the woman got loose, not even the leader of the dark element creatures would be able to kill her off. All it would have been able to do was to hold her back for a bit. Saleen analyzed the scenarios. If the woman was actually able to break free, would he be able to subdue her? He did not believe that the Shackles of the Fallen would have been able to keep her under control for good.


    With the Goddess of Myers gone, the power of the Shackles of the Fallen would definitely be diminished. If the heroic spirits in the cemetery were thinking of ways to free themselves, there was simply no reason that the woman would not have done the same. The Goddess of Myers had been gone for more than ten millennia. It was unthinkable to Saleen, that the woman would not have thought of anything to break free.


    If the goddess had actually wanted to kill her, she would have done so. The goddess was definitely up to something by keeping her alive. Saleen grew less and less fond of ancient humans, and more and more wary of the goddess herself.


    There was a ready teleportation portal in the Magical Element Tower. Saleen needed only to watch the woman on the altar. If he found anything wrong with her, he would have still had a chance to kill her off with his family badge.


    The woman at the altar continued to absorb the grade-9 creatures, yet the number of creatures did not seem to have gotten fewer. The humanoid creatures emerging from the chasm were not of high intelligence, and they went up to the altar one by one, being seduced by the woman.


    The woman continued gobbling down the grade-9 creatures who walked up to the altar, and it was filled with eerie noises. The sound did not seem to be anguage of the gods, but ancient Myersnguage where the sybles wereplicated and varied. Something like a veil began to form around the surface of her smooth skin, coalescing into a piece of clothing.


    It was not something she had deliberately done, but simply matter materializing from her overly abundant energy that was umted too quickly.


    The woman was quick with her absorption of the grade-9 creatures. When more than six-hundred of those creatures were absorbed, her stomach was seen to bulge a bit. Of the three who watched closely at the development in the tower, Nichs frowned.


    He was the expert in divine arts, yet he was unable to tell of her motives of absorbing the grade-9 creatures.


    Saleen was calcting slowly in another way. There was a clear pattern as to how she absorbed the grade-9 creatures, and even her absorption of the energies had a certain frequency to it. The one that was absorbed at the very beginning happened almost instantly, eight more, four more, two more...


    The speed at which the grade-9 creatures were being absorbed by the woman was slowing down. Saleen would not have been able to tell if it was not for the power of his Elemental Eye. Seeing how the woman¡¯s stomach was bulging, Saleen asked Nichs, ¡°Nichs, look. Do you think she is trying to give birth?¡±


    Nichs was unable to see well beyond one mile. Saleen did not share his senses with him, as it was too taxing in terms of mental powers for him. Nichs had only peered closely at her stomach after being reminded by Saleen.


    Seeing the bulging of her stomach, Nichs jumped like he was being hit by Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning.


    ¡°My liege, bad news!¡±


    ¡°Nichs, calm down. borate.¡± Saleen kept Nichs down.


    ¡°That¡¯s Reincarnation!¡±


    ¡°borate!¡±


    ¡°Gods are usually unable to reach other nes outside the heavens under normal circumstances, but gods are able possess their believers. Doing so has its demerits, like having their powers severely restricted. In general, if a god advents, the possessed body will be like a double and little else. If said god wants to have their powers break through the rules set by the nes and reach the world of their believers, they will need to use Reincarnation. Said god would parasitize a chosen believers¡¯ fetus and be directly born into the world of their believers. When done in such a way, said god will be able to grow rapidly, reaching the pinnacle of the ne¡¯s power.


    Saleen frowned. ¡°So, the power of the rules of the ne would be roughly the same as the power of the Shackles of the Fallen then?¡±


    ¡°Somewhat stronger. That woman intends to parasitize on her own child. When her child is born, she will be able to break free of her chains and leave the altar!¡±


    ¡°How long does she need before she could leave the altar and recover her powers?¡±


    A bitter smile was seen on Nichs¡¯ face, ¡°My liege, she is now absorbing grade-8 creatures, and is doing so to build up power for rebirth. I¡¯m afraid when she breaks free of her chains, she will immediately attain the strongest power.¡±


    ¡°What happens to her original shell then?¡±


    ¡°It will be rendered incredibly weak, fall into hibernation, and no longer a threat to anyone.¡±


    ¡°Well then, the altar is mine!¡± Saleen¡¯s eyes sparkled. He cared not if the woman was able to reincarnate. He came for the altar and the twenty-four chains on it. Once the purgatory of the fallen absorbed those items, it would give birth to the highest rules.


    ¡°Master, that is dangerous...¡± Nailisi could not help but remind Saleen. If that thing really made it out, it would be anyone¡¯s guess if the Magical Element Tower would be able to withstand her powers. The angel of fear had ways to slowly wear out the Divine Tree Magic Tower after all. The reborn woman would probably be a grade-12 being, and that meant she would be capable of breaking the tower all the same.


    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t dangerous, I wouldn¡¯t be here,¡± Saleen clenched his badge, if the woman sessfully reincarnated and the miniaturized magic cannon had yet to be transported, he would opt to simply kill the reincarnated woman instead, then chucking both her former shell and the remaining altar inside the purgatory of the fallen.


    Time slowly passed, and it was eerily quiet inside the Magical Element Tower. Both Nailisi and Nichs were unable to stop Saleen, and both knew how powerful the badge in Saleen¡¯s hand was. As such, they opted to patiently wait with him instead.


    The woman at the altar looked rather pale. The clothing on her body had gotten thick and solid. Too much energy was being absorbed, and she ceased trying to break free of the chains. Like Saleen¡¯s party, she had instead opted to patiently wait for her energies to build up, forming a fetus inside her.


    A true fetus of the gods required tens of thousands of years to be born. She only wanted to be reincarnated, and as such, did not bother with all the extra hassle. The fetus inside her grew increasinglyrge, and the woman wailed in pain. She however, did not forget to keep seducing the grade-9 creatures to walk up to the altar, and continued absorbing their energies. It was just that her rate of absorption grew increasingly slow and seemed to have reached a limit.


    The belly of the woman bulged to the size of half a foot, and her wailing grew increasingly loud, surpassing the eerie chanting on the altar. Under her privates, the head of a baby made its way out. The fallen one punished by the goddess of nature began to give birth to her double.


    The air of the altar turned unspeakably evil. The entire space twisted under the chanting.


    Uncountable numbers of eyes in the void watched as the sickening scene took ce. No living being would have attempted to give birth to themselves. The voyeurs watched in hatred, yet they were unable to do anything to prevent the birth.


    ¡°Haahhhh...¡± The baby was born. The being did not cry; sheughed instead.


    She was finally free of her shackles. She had regained her freedom after enduring ten thousand years of imprisonment. There was simply nothing to cry about.


    The energies within the body of the baby burst about violently as soon as she was born. Countless energies seemed to be coursing under her skin. Her face, body, arms, lower legs and even her belly, all seemed to be bulging and contracting continuously.


    Saleen held back his feeling of disgust at the scene and watched closely. There was no sign of confusion found in the eyes of the baby. Nichs noticed the details himself, and said to Saleen, ¡°My liege, she will not be able to break through the power limit of the Myers Maind, but she will grow incredibly quick.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Saleen¡¯s answer sounded rather bitter. He did not want to use his family badge. It would have been easy to get rid of the baby, but anything that bolt of lightning touched would be turned to ashes. He would be left with nothing to salvage.


    The baby¡¯s body slowly grew. Saleen took a look at the magic clock. Ten hours had passed. To ensure stability, Lex would have built the portal in a particrly meticulous manner. The miniaturized cannon might have developed problems in the transportation process otherwise and be disintegrated between dimensions. It would have never reached Saleen¡¯s hands.


    ¡°Hehehe...¡± The babyughed as she turned around, facing Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower. The energy within her body exploded, and yet, was slowly absorbed at the same time. The woman in chains closed her eyes, funneling all her absorbed energies into the baby, energies umted by absorbing more than two-thousand grade-9 creatures.


    The overly hasty birthing process drained her original body of all its stamina. It was unable to even keep its eyes open, let alone lift a hand. It fell into hibernation soon after. Put urately, the remaining thread of her soul left inside her original body no longer possessed the strength to keep the body functioning. It would take her body tens of thousands of years to wake again.

 Chapter 977: Divine Baby (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 977: Divine Baby (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was been said that when Gods reincarnated, there would only be divine fire and no souls. That woman could hardly be considered a real God either, since she was grade-12 and she was only as powerful as an Oracle. Under the control of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ Shackles of the Fallen, she did not even possess a divine persona.


    She could only be considered as a person fallen who possessed powerful divine spells. Her reincarnation was slightly different that of a God.


    The infant began to chant her unique curse. The power in her old body was being slowly absorbed and broken down into nutrients to nourish new her body.


    Her tiny body was expanding and growing as she was screaming in pain. She was still putting on a painful smile as she looked at Saleen¡¯s elemental magic tower.


    Her memory wasplete, so she knew where she came from and what she needed to do. The first thing she needed to do was destroy the magic tower and convert everyone inside into her disciples. She would make them submit to her and fight for her.


    It was time to return to the Maind so that the glory of the Goddess of Nature might shine upon the entire dimension!


    Saleen felt uneasy as she gazed at him. It would take another two hours for Lex to be able to teleport the mini magic cannon over. He had no idea what extent this infant would grow after two hours.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t we just kill her?¡± Nailisi asked nervously.


    ¡°My Lord, she looks like a divine baby, but that¡¯s impossible unless someone on the Maind has broken through to grade-13 and the rule of power has been shaken...¡± Nichs was contradicting himself.


    ¡°What is a divine baby?¡±


    ¡°It is something that can grow into a pseudogod without having to undergo any training.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Pseudogod?¡± Saleen already knew that pseudogods were grade-13 creatures, but the power on Myers Maind should still be capped at grade-12.


    That did not bode well. Although Saleen was no match for a grade-12 creature, he had his n badge, which would be able to lock on to an enemy of the same high-order position once it reached grade-10. Once the enemy reached grade-13, he would no longer be able to lock onto his target.


    His n badge would no longer be a weapon that could decide the oue of a battle if the opponent was grade-13.


    ¡°Nichs, that woman has absorbed more than 2,000 grade-9 creatures. Those creatures cannot possibly help the divine baby advance to grade-13,¡± Saleen analyzed calmly.


    Nichs nodded his head slowly. It is not easy to advance from grade-9 to grade-10. It is even more difficult to advance from grade-12 to grade-13. Even if there were 20,000 grade-9 creatures, there is nothing they could do to help a grade-12 creature advance to grade-13.


    ¡°Hehe...¡± The infant¡¯sughter grew louder. Her voice was chilling, still sounding like the voice of an adult. ¡°sphemers, all of you shall be cleansed by me!¡±


    Her body was growing faster than before, and she was almost a yard tall. She had be a child and was able to stand. The mysterious chanting of the curse came from the altar once again. There were still thousands of grade-9 creatures below the altar. The moment they heard the chanting, they all began to walk up the altar one by one.


    The child sat down on the steps of the altar. She did not devour the humanoid creatures that were climbing up the altar. The creatures walked to her and knelt down. The child ced her hand on a humanoid creature¡¯s head and rubbed it. There was a green divine glow as the creature¡¯s blue flesh became human skin.


    ¡°I, Myers, the only God of the Maind dimension, grant you liberation.¡± The child¡¯s voice was clear and crisp.


    ¡°Almighty Myers, you are my only God!¡± The creature, who had turned into a human, kissed the toes of the child and got up to stand at attention behind her. A second humanoid creature followed closely behind.


    ¡°D**n it, she really is a divine baby!¡± Nichs cursed in disbelief. Saleen¡¯s expression was solemn.


    ¡°My Lord, that is Blessings spell. Those grade-9 creatures were originally humans but turned into monsters for some reason. If not for the divine baby, they would never have been able to revert to human form!¡± Nichs was speaking very quickly. He wished he could transfer all his knowledge on the divine baby to Saleen immediately.


    ¡°How strong is the divine baby?¡±


    ¡°Very strong!¡±


    ¡°Would grade-10 elemental creatures be able to get the situation under control?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s impossible!¡±


    ¡°How powerful are those disciples that have reverted to human form?¡±


    ¡°About the same as elemental creatures. They are only grade-9, so they are not particrly strong yet. If My Lord decides to take charge of the battle personally, six elemental creatures will be able to match up with thrice the number of grade-9 disciples.¡±


    Saleen shook his head. There were more than 1,000 grade-9 disciples, but how many elemental creatures did he have left? The divine baby was still growing. It was as if the n badge in his hands could sense how he was feeling, and it began to warm slightly. Within the deep crack of the n badge, blue light was turning into liquid, as if it was ready to unleash a lightning attack.


    ¡°What would teacher do? Kill the divine baby in her cradle or wait patiently?¡± In about an hour¡¯s time, Saleen would be able to get his hands on the mini magic cannon.


    The power of the mini magic cannon could not be underestimated, especially within an attacking range of five miles. Saleen had yet to see any magic shields that were able to block the magic cannon. After the Sregl Ind mages arrived, they conducted some experiments and found that the mini magic cannon was able to shoot through six grade-9 shields that had been ced in a magic array.


    The experiment even destroyed one of Saleen¡¯s mini magic buildings.


    The ability of the mini magic cannon to attack a fixed target was equivalent to an all-out attack of a grade-10 opponent. During the second dynasty, that type of mini magic cannon was already an important weapon of abat vessel.


    If the divine baby was not going to leave the altar, Saleen could very well clinch victory with his mini magic cannon. The worst thing that could happen was for the divine baby to leave the altar. Taking into ount the grade-9 disciples, the slow speed of the mini magic cannon¡¯s attack, and the fact that it would not be able to lock on to powerful targets, even Saleen¡¯s n badge might not be decisive by then.


    Both Nailisi and Nichs were panicking. Nailisi, in particr, recalled how she almost lost Saleen in the battle against the Angel of Fear. The Angel of Fearpletely ignored her provocation and only aimed at Saleen. Nailisi did not want something like that to happen again, no matter what.


    Nichs was afraid as well. It had not been easy for Saleen to finally ept him and provide him with the best conditions to advance to grade-10. If Saleen was to die, he would be terribly upset, not just because of the benefits he would lose, but also the protection and safety that he felt from Saleen.


    Everyone in Saleen¡¯s group had always been united in resisting external forces. Other than Nailisi, who was sometimes difficult to handle, the rest have never had any ill intentions towards him. That was different from the Holy See. The internal conflicts within the Holy See were extremely serious, otherwise the Pope would never have agreed to start the Holy War.


    Making use of an external conflict as a distraction from internal struggles was nothing new.


    Nichs loved the sense of security he had serving Saleen. He could afford to invest all his energy and focus onto simpler targets, such as advancing or helping Saleen to attract even more Holy Masters into joining them. He did not have to worry about any backstabbing, and he could enjoy the support of the entire group.


    If he were in the Holy See, only the most powerful would get to possess something like his soul blood tower. Nichs might be a grade-9 Holy Master, but he would still be pushed to the outskirts of the core of power.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. If the divine baby was so powerful she would¡¯ve attacked the tower by now. She is not confident, so she is blessing her disciples in order to restore theirbat abilities.¡± Saleen¡¯s gentle voice soothed Nailisi and Nichs.


    Before the grade-9 monsters had reverted to human form, their fighting style was simplistic. Without themand of the child, they could only count on outnumbering their enemies. The speed at which the divine baby was restoring thebat abilities of the disciples was slow. Saleen¡¯s analysis was right; the divine baby needed time to grow.


    Whichever party had more time on their side would be able to take the initiative.


    Nichs recalled the time when he had just be a Holy Master, his superior would tell him that greed was a sin that he must stay away from. It seemed that Saleen was too greedy because he was putting his life at risk.


    Saleen¡¯s analysis made sense though. The divine baby could not possible advance directly to grade-13 nor even grade-12.


    Indeed, humans were the greediest creatures of all. Nichs looked at Saleen¡¯s calm expression and sighed. Saleen was willing to take such a risk in order to get the biggest reward.


    He was not a mage, so he could not understand the way Saleen thought. There was a price to pay for every reward to Saleen. The altar was used by the Goddess of Myers to trap the fallen ones and it was a huge price to pay. The body of that woman was even more precious than the body of the Angel of Fear. It was worth taking the risk for such high-quality materials.


    There was no such thing as a free lunch. When he was given flour by Viscount Gugger, it might have been free, but that was because he was worse off than an animal then.


    He was a mage at the end of the day and his status as a king was insignificant. He must be willing to put in the effort for whatever rewards he wanted. There was only determination in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    His teacher would definitely have done the same!


    The child continued to bless the disciples. One by one the grade-9 monsters reverted to their human bodies and stood on the altar. The child¡¯s body was growing faster. She had be taller than 1.3 yards and her body had already transformed into that of an adolescent. The speed at which she was blessing the disciples was also increasing as she could help four disciples revert back to their human bodies at once.


    The power of faith in the grade-9 disciples greatly assisted in suppressing the berserk power in her body. Her gaze shifted towards Saleen¡¯s magic tower and the corner of her mouth curled into an evil grin.


    ¡°Don¡¯t these lowly humans know that there is no limit to how much my power can grow? It can grow until I am the most powerful thing in the world!¡±

 Chapter 978: Divine Baby (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 978: Divine Baby (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The girl¡¯s eyes turned from transparent to green, making her face look more and more like the Goddess of Myers¡¯ face. Saleen observed these changes and silently went to unleash all of the elemental creatures in the badges before distributing them throughout all of the floors of the magic tower.


    Level 12, eh? Putting all of the Midnight Fangs on the line and risking many deaths, including the leader¡¯s, should be sufficient cause to make her stop, at least momentarily. If things go further south, there will still be the family badge... Saleen had a cold smirk on his face as he thought of these things.


    That girl still thought that he had no way of dealing with her. If he had not been eyeing the energies that were coursing through her body, he would not have dragged things out so long with her.


    Time went by slowly, one second after another, and Saleen wished that a miniature magic cannon would emerge from the teleportation portal soon. There were nearly 500 level nine believers that were gathering beside the girl, which symbolized the presence of a veryrge-scale power. However, without help from that Divine Baby, those believers would returned to being mere monsters!


    The hands on the magic clock turned so slowly, Saleen was even able to hear the tiny metallic friction sounds created by the alchemy machinery...


    ck, ck, ck.


    At that moment, an incredibly bright magic light emerged from the teleportation portal. Lex had activated the magic array at Royal Harbor. For the sake of safety, all of the magic nuclei that Lex had used were level nines, which enabled the magic array to be extremely stable.


    As the miniature magic cannon emerged from the teleportation portal, Nailisi rushed up to it, and after the magic light grew weaker, Nailisi cradled the cannon in her arms. After the supporting struts of the cannon had been taken apart, the cannon was only a little more than three meters in length.


    Nailisi saw that there was a level nine magic nucleus that had been installed at end of the cannon. After she saw it, she made a snap decision and removed the level nine magic nucleus, recing it with a level 12 one that Saleen had acquired from the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Only then was the cannon able to unleash its full power. Saleen initially did not have ess to any magic nuclei above level nine, so all of the ones that he used for experiments were level eights.


    Nailisi knew very well that, should he have had ess to greater powered nuclei, Saleen would definitely have not been reluctant to these materials against a foe of such power! After all, he was willing to pay any price to kill that Divine Baby!


    Energy coursed through the magic patterns of the miniature magic cannon as soon as the level 12 magic nucleus was installed. A pale light shone throughout the entire cannon.


    Upon seeing the magic patterns that were flowing on the body of the cannon, Saleen was ted. He thought... So, this thing only works at its fullest power, when level 12 magic nuclei are installed! If the power source used wasprised of levels that were too low, not even shards of dragon crystals would have been able to activate it.


    ¡°Vinny!¡± Saleen called the leader of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, then let Nailisi hand the cannon over to the leader.


    All of the elemental creatures within the magic tower were currently in their elemental core forms, which meant that they all were just a little over 2 meters tall. Thus, as Vinny cradled the miniature magic cannon, it looked somewhat ridiculous.


    ¡°You see that altar?¡± Saleen transmitted a question to Vinny. As the two shared senses, they were able tomunicate wordlessly. Also, Vinny¡¯s soul was under Saleen¡¯s control, and this kind of Sensory Sharing was a much more efficient means ofmunication, as it put less strain on one¡¯s mental powers.


    ¡°I see it...¡± Vinny transmitted the thought back to Saleen.


    ¡°Shoot her with that cannon nonstop!¡± Saleen wordlesslymanded.


    ¡°Understood, master,¡± Saleen wordlessly responded.


    Vinny thought for a moment beforeing before the front of the wall. Saleen then controlled the Magical Element Tower and caused one of its windows to open. However, Saleen did not dare to let Vinny go out of the window.


    Vinny¡¯s lower body gradually turned soft, like mud, before it eventually took on the shape of a turret. However, his upper body remained like that of a humanoid. Vinny then took ahold of the miniature magic cannon at his side, activating the magic array on it.


    At that moment, seven level 12 magic nuclei provided massive amounts of power to the cannon. Saleen even felt the entire Magical Element Tower shake due to its intense power! A blinding light shot through the window soon after that, then headed straight toward the distant altar.


    Seawater filled the huge crack, and when the cannon was fired, round vacuum tunnels formed wherever the light beam passed. However, surprisingly, all of the seawater was not evaporated by the beam, but waspletely purified by it instead!


    That one shot hit the altar squarely, and the four believers who were receiving their blessings before the altar were reduced to dust in an instant. Luckily, the girl was able to react before the cannon was fired.


    However, she was still unable to save her believers. In an instant, she leapt up and retreated to the center of the altar. At the same time, a charred circle that had a diameter of five meters appeared on the steps of the altar.


    ¡°Keep at it!¡± Saleen said upon seeing that the level 12 magic nuclei on the cannon were hardly depleted.


    Such a thing was better left to a mage of level ten and above to handle. While Vinny was a level ten elemental creature leader, Vinny¡¯s magical abilities were still far below Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°Da*n!¡± The girl was startled by the magic tower¡¯s sudden attack. In fact, if she had not been so quick in her response and had been able to escape, the shot would have seriously injured her.


    As her body had yet to grow to that of a true pseudogod stage, an attack from a magic cannon could have been fatal to her! As she thought of this, she looked at the believers that were by her side and felt frustrated. If only I had more time. After all, there aren¡¯t even 600 of them here!


    She then lifted her hand and pointed forward, where a translucent green barrier had just emerged at the edge of the altar. The Goddess of Myers¡¯ Life Protection divine spell was equal to the Divine Protection of the Lord of Light. In fac, it was actually even stronger!


    ¡°O... Grrr!¡± The girl let out a shrill shout, as the humanoid creatures, which numbered nearly a thousand and had all yet to receive their blessings right outside the altar, descended into chaos. They then all turned around and looked at the other end of the crack.


    Vinny had initiated a second attack after resting for several seconds within the tower! Instantly, magic patterns flowed on the miniature magic cannon, keeping the cannon in a cold state.


    This was different from before, where the temperature of the magic cannon rose with every shot it burst forth. While it had been a hefty price to pay in order to use the level 12 magic nuclei to power the cannon, it had clearly improved the cannon¡¯s efficiency exponentially.


    The humanoid creatures, which were nearing a thousand in number, rushed at the crack, intending to pass through it and attack Saleen¡¯s magic tower. Although Saleen did not fear the level nine creatures themselves, he knew that if he needed to fire the cannon, he would have to open a window, and at that time, it would be disastrous if those level nine creatures rushed in through the window!


    The second attack of the magic cannon burst through ranks of the level nine creatures, reducing dozens of them to dust. The magic cannon hit the Life Protection urately, and the dazzling light hit the green barrier squarely before being snuffed out entirely. Then, the translucent green shield was left with only ripples upon it.


    Nichs was startled, yet Saleen was overjoyed. This was because he saw that there were nearly 600 followers at the altar, one of whose body shuddered. The follower¡¯s face turned pale before the follower then sat on the ground and never got up again.


    While Life Protection was a powerful divine spell, it had its cost nheless. Defending against an attack from a cannon like that would have robbed a believer every shred of strength.


    The Goddess of Myers¡¯ natural divine spells were most effective for healing, and as the level nine believery on the ground, even though the Divine Baby Girl shone with green divine light and attempted to heal him, the believer was still unable to stand up again. The might of the magic cannon was simply too great, leaving the believer with no life left within him whatsoever.


    Saleen waved his arm, sending more than a hundred elemental creatures to surround the outside of the magic tower in order to protect it. Meanwhile, the level nine creatures in the crack avoided the cannon¡¯s firing trajectory. This is because they cleverly approached it from below, intending to attack Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower that way.


    Saleen was careful to not unleash all of the elemental creatures at once, as his elemental creatures were rather slow to heal, and since he intended to head for Ceylon City right after leaving that ce in order to expand his territory, if he lost too many of the elemental creatures, the adventure would prove too dangerous.


    This was because the geographical location of the city was such that the Holy City could have attacked from the sea, while the Sikeqinya Empire could haveunched an attack from three directions onnd. Thus, he needed to prepare for the worst.


    Ceylon City could not have been adequately protected with just the army of demons alone, and as that was Saleen¡¯s home city, he did not want to see it burn within the mes of war.


    ¡°Keep attacking!¡± Saleen ordered Vinny to attack with the cannon for the third time.


    As soon as themand was issued, an energy beam shot out of the magic cannon. At that moment, the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s face turnedpletely pale on the altar that was located about a mile away. The third attacknded right beside the Life Protection barrier, causing yet another level nine believer to fall to the ground and never wake up again!


    Luckily, the Divine Baby Girl had been smart enough to decide on the safest ce to sit, having all of her believers surround her. At that moment, over 500 believers began praying as they knelt before the Divine Baby Girl and recited words altogether...


    ¡°O¡¯ Myers almighty, guardian of the ne and the goddess of nature, we¡¯re willing to dedicate my life to follow your will. Be it an abyss or a purgatory of evil before us, we vow to continue moving forward, without any intention of backing away!¡±


    The violent energies within the Divine Baby Girl became suppressed as the believers continued praising her and chanting. Those energies were then quickly absorbed, which simultaneously sped up the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s growth rate.


    The green transparent barrier rippled again, causing yet another believer to slump over and die at the altar, killed in mid-chant. The surrounding believers behaved as if they had seen nothing, while continuing to bow and pray to the Divine Baby Girl.


    More than 800 level nine monsters charged through that crack and came before the Magical Element Tower, fighting the elemental creatures in fierce battles. Nailisi felt anxious and wanted to help, but Saleen said coldly, ¡°I¡¯ll need you to help hereter. So, you must stay here!¡±


    While all of them were level nine creatures, the blue humanoid creatures were at a disadvantage in terms of power. All of the elemental creatures were at least 20 meters tall and didn¡¯t need to defend themselves during times of war.


    In contrast, the blue humanoid creatures were utterly incapable of defending themselves against attacks from elemental weapons. Things quickly escted into aplete bloodbath as the elemental creatures killed four blue monsters before having their elemental cores broken and returning to their respective badges.


    Midnight Fangs were the most special, as their attacks were the most powerful. After their energies were depleted from killing four monsters, they would have returned to their badges, except for the fact that their restoration speed was so quick that the enemy was incapable of destroying them.


    At that moment, costs no longer mattered to Saleen, as he wanted to get rid of the Divine Baby no matter what price he had to pay. He decided to keep only 24 of each elemental creature with him, sending all of the other remaining ones outside the tower.


    He was unable to restore the number of lost Blue Ice Maidens. Hence, if any of those elemental creatures were taken out, he would not be able to mobilize them again within three months¡¯ time.


    Then, both sides engaged in fierce fights with each other yet again. There were still blue humanoid creatures that were climbing out of that same crack out in front, and it seemed that every attack from the magic tower killed one believer at the altar.


    Hence, the number of believers at the altar quickly dwindled, and the growth rate of the Divine Baby¡¯s power began to slow drastically. The elemental creatures that were guarding the tower also dwindled gradually. Although the speed at which the monsters were emerging from the crack was slow, the monsters kepting nheless.


    Saleen felt exasperated as he took out his War Drum of Fear and ced it before him. Although none of the pests within the drum were over level eight, at least the crisis would be averted for the time being if they were unleashed...

 Chapter 979: Deicide (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 979: Deicide (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt frustrated. There should have been something like a side temple right below the chasm. Just howe so many grade-9 creatures were crawling out of there? The fact that his elemental creatures had the advantage in terms ofbat capacity was of little use, as the blue humanoid creatures were also grade-9, and they were too armed. Their advantage in numbers gradually shaved down the elemental creatures.


    Saleen beat on the War Drum of Fear again with the bone mace, and thousands of pests emerged from the drum, flying outside the magic tower.


    ¡°Master, allow me!¡± Seeing how one blue humanoid creature could only be killed by thirty to fifty pests, Nailisi was struggling to just sit still.


    The rate of fire of the magic cannon was reduced to once every ten seconds, but it was still considered fast. Seeing how quickly he was losing both the pests and the elemental creatures, he had no choice but to nod at her request. The Life Protection divine spell at the altar was nigh-imprable. Every attack cost one believer to keep the spell intact.


    The altar had five-hundred and six believers, surrounding the divine baby and praying to her. The divine baby girl was even more anxious than Saleen. She was unable to think of a way out of her predicament while her believers fell one after another. She had no way of leaving the altar without being of adequate level. Even without the Shackles of the Fallen about her, the invisible shackle was still bound to her soul.


    If it had not been so, she would have charged towards the magic tower out there and killed every single one of Saleen¡¯s followers.


    ¡°Go.¡± Saleen was at wits¡¯ end. It was not an option to sacrifice all of his elemental creatures. Nothing on the blue humanoid creatures¡¯ bodies would have been of use to him when they were killed.


    Nailisi thought for a moment and took the three-faced bone demon form, leaving the tower through the teleportation portal. She chose to use the Sword of Rules instead of her spear and began killing in the dark. The bone demon¡¯s movements were definitely nowhere near as nimble as her imp form¡¯s, but the weak light of the sword emanating from the Sword of Rules was nheless proven lethal against the blue humanoid creatures.


    The bone shield in her hand was colored ck by death magic. She hid behind the shield and went behind the pests. As soon as a pest was torn apart, sheshed out with her Sword of Rules. The bodies of the pests had been irregr, and she went to hide herself directly among the pests instead, putting her shield away.


    The number of pests crawling out of the chasm up front became fewer and fewer, but thousands were still gathering around the magic tower nheless.


    Nailisi was no mutated creature and her battle sense was as sharp as battle senses could have gotten. After killing more than a dozen of the monsters with the Sword of Rules, Nailisi began to be able to feel the divinity within the monsters. Despite being punished by the gods, the divine powers lingered within their bodies, which served as their source of life.


    After fighting up close and personal for a while, Nailisi was able to tell the key point to it all. She put away the Sword of Rules and took out her Twelve Notes of Purgatory and Gray Memory. Both of the powerful equipment shone with pale light in Nailisi¡¯s hands.


    Nailisi wiggled her body and quickly took her devil form. Her devil form had not been eating much and was only about two yards tall. What differed from how the form looked originally was that there was yet another head, as well as two extra arms. She took out her bone shield and Sword of Rules again. She looked just like a shrunken devil.


    After taking her devil form, Nailisi burst out of her hiding among the pests¡¯ bodies. She went to the rear of the tower, as that spot was flooded with too many blue monsters. Nailisi thrust with her spear, with the sh from her thrust running through at least three monsters in front. There were also two arms behind her devil form, protecting her back. She then threw the severely injured blue monsters into her purgatory of the fallen.


    As soon as the severely injured blue monsters entered the purgatory of the fallen, their connection with the divine baby was cut offpletely. The divine power within them crumbled and they died right on the spot. Within the purgatory, the skyscraping treesshed out with their roots and dragged the dead bodies into the soil, disintegrating and absorbing them.


    Nailisi grew bold right there and then. Thebat capacity of the blue monsters was way below the single-horned white whales¡¯. Their defensive capacity was especially weak whenpared in such a way. The sh from Gray Memory easily incapacitated them, and the severely injured blue monsters were in turn easily thrown into the purgatory of the fallen.


    The purgatory of the fallen seemed to be something made specifically for fighting those creatures. The blue monsters lost all capacity for self-recovery after their connections with the divine baby were severed and dropped dead right there and then. Their bodies were then turned to fertilizer for the powerful nts within the purgatory.


    The nts collected by Nailisi had been rendered extinct on many nes. Anything that was able to survive on the harsh battlefields, the seeds of which brought back by the humans, were all of formidable levels themselves. Some nts even developed the ability to attack proactively like magic beasts, being very tenacious themselves.


    The nts even developed souls. Aini would not have been able to cultivate nt spirits otherwise.


    Nailisi had no idea that the nts she grew in her purgatory of the fallen consisted of almost nothing but the most ferocious types. The few that did note with high offensive capacities were still things that had shared symbiotic rtionships with the powerful ones for hundreds of thousands of years.


    Nailisi stabbed away with her spear. The dragon crystal magic nucleus housed within Gray Memory allowed her to have no restraints with her attacks. The blue humanoid creatures were of such great numbers that Nailisi had no need to use the six eerie eyes on the weapon. Every single thrust resulted in at least three creatures incapacitated and thrown into the purgatory of the fallen.


    Within the purgatory of the fallen, other than the skyscraping giant trees at the very center, many nts began to grow at frightening rates. The powers lingering within the grade-9 creatures were so great that they sped up the nts¡¯ growth by more than one-hundred times. The entire purgatory grew to have many colors, as the nts were very vibrant ones. Some even produced bright flowers. The creatures within the purgatory also began to fight among themselves for food, picking clean the grade-9 creatures that Nailisi threw into it.


    In a space with thirty-six miles in length and width, the dead bodies of hundreds of grade-9 creatures were seen piling up. Nailisi¡¯s image up in the air began to smile, as she too felt the growth of her power. The creatures below were providing power for her every single minute, allowing her to gradually build up and perfect the purgatory¡¯s rules.


    Nailisi¡¯s emergence mitigated the crisis looming over the magic tower immediately. The grade-9 monsters that originally intended to climb up the tower were no longer a threat to the small window up in the seventeenth floor. Vinny hacked away patiently, and its grade-12 magic nuclei were eventually depleted. More than three-hundred grade-9 believers were left on the altar by then.


    Saleen took out yet another seven pieces of magic nuclei without a care. Among all the magic nuclei given to him by the grandmaster, grade-12 nuclei were the most numerous. The numbers grew fewer as their levels grew higher. Saleen had no care of his expenditure of the magic nuclei, so long as he was able to kill the divine baby.


    The divine baby girl¡¯s wrath practically shot up to the heavens as she took the scene in. Her level of power after reincarnation was that of a pseudogod at the highest. She had no means of leaving the altar and had been able to do nothing but see personally how the magic tower deployed its cannon to again, attacking the Life Protection at the altar. Every single shot brought down one believer.


    The divine baby girl stood and produced a low rumbling voice in her throat. Her believers shuddered in fear, having no idea what caused their god to be so irritable. The divine child came up to her previous body and took hold of the chains.


    ck smoke rose from the Shackles of the Fallen, but it was the smooth, silky skin of the divine baby girl that burned to ashes, revealing the bones underneath. She took her hand back in a panic and red at her original body. She was starving at that moment, and the energies within her body remained unruly, needing suppression urgently. She would be able to fully mature as soon as she ate up her original body.


    Eating her originally body would also mean eating the brandings on it. The twenty-four chains would once againsh out to hold her body in ce, preventing her from the leaving the altar ever again.


    The twenty-four chains shackled not only her body and soul, but also her fate. Under the rules of the Shackles of the Fallen, it would have been useless even if she had advanced into the ranks of pseudogod.


    ¡°Who was the one who chained me up here? It was that peerless god of the ne!¡± The divine baby girl knocked on her head furiously, wanting to have the questions solved. There was no record nor hint as to why she had been chained up right there in her memories. It seemed like she had been practically born on the altar.


    The other part of memory told her that she was someone who ruled the ne. She was adored, worshipped, and sung about by billions.


    There seemed to be a gap in her memory, and the depth of that gap seemed to be something that even her immense divinity was unable to see through.


    Her believers, numbering to over three-hundred,id prostrate right there. The divine child turned around and looked at them, with an incredibly furious and eerie expression on her face. ¡°Since all of you are going to die one way or another, how about...¡±


    Vroom!


    Another huge ripple was seen on the Life Protection, and yet another believer dropped onto the floor without a sound. The believer simply slumped where they were, looking like they had their bones pulled out of their bodies.


    ¡°O¡¯ believers, I need your powers,¡± The divine child spoke, and that time, in pure ancient Myersnguage.


    ¡°Our peerless god like no other, your will is our way,¡± The believers answered.


    The divine baby girl opened her mouth slowly. Her mouth became increasingly wide, stretching to a diameter of three yards, and produced a huge vortex of power. The believers at the altar did not resist. They were quickly swept up by the vortex and ended up devoured by the divine baby girl.


    Such manner of devouring differed from that of her original body. She was able to gobble up all three-hundred believers and more in one go. Her stomach did not inte to show the amount of beings she had just devoured, seemingly like there was another space within capable of taking in all three-hundred of them.


    Boom...


    The magic cannon shot right through Life Protection, hitting the divine child¡¯s original body. It was rendered a mess of charred blood and flesh in an instant. The divine baby girl smirked coldly, as five green vines shot from her palm and prated the invisible barrier at the edge of the altar. She then pulled with all her might, flinging her body outside.


    The divine baby girl was covered in blood, especially her torso and her arms, where the bones underneath were clearly seen. Gashes searing deep into the marrow were seen on her bones as well.


    Green-colored energies burst forth from her body, enveloping her injured parts. She moaned in pain as she made her way to Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower. Her body looked like a sh of green light, streaking across the long chasm.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen summoned her at the top of his lungs. The demon was still fighting out there, while the divine baby had freed herself!

 Chapter 980: Deicide (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 980: Deicide (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Reincarnation allowed the bloodied, grotesque body of the divine child to develop a perfect,plete body, yet it did not allow her to be a god. The body was just like any other human¡¯s, instead being of an energy construct that resembled a human¡¯s body. After forcing her way off of the altar, the divine baby girl suffered grievous injuries all over. The pain deep within her soul rendered her almostpletely insane.


    The twenty-four chains seemed to still stir within her soul. With every stirring it seemed like her soul was to be seen torn apart in twenty-four pieces.


    The Shackles of the Fallen went past all obstacles and stayed to harm her soul. Her soul healed continuously and was then torn apart right after. If she had not been reincarnated, and she was not half god and half human, she would have ended up dead.


    The injuries suffered on her body were all the same. After forcing her way off of the altar, the divine baby girl¡¯s body was all a mess of flesh and blood. The injuries burst right after they were healed by the green energies. The pain had her screaming at the top of her lungs, leaving her without any hint of dignity or pride usually seen in gods.


    A flicker of pale divine fire sparked at the depths of the divine baby girl¡¯s soul amidst the pain. The divine fire began to burn, enveloping her soul. The shade of the twenty-four chains were no longer able to tear at her soul. They remained stirring all the time, bringing her great pain.


    Such a pain was what she considered bearable.


    She crossed the one mile in the blink of an eye and arrived at the foot of the Magical Element Tower. Nailisi¡¯s reactions had never been slow ones, yet when she was about to enter the tower, the divine baby girl¡¯s finger had already found its target.


    Nailisi knew she stood no chance at defending against the attack, and she retracted her body into the dark instead.


    The shot from the finger missed. Green energy exploded from the divine baby girl¡¯s finger, enveloping the Magical Element Towerpletely, cutting off all teleportation portals off, leaving Nailisi stranded outside.


    Saleen¡¯s mind was suspended in fear all of a sudden. The divine child was suffering grievous injuries, yet herbat capacity remained far superior to even Nailisi¡¯s absolute limit. His mental powers were unable to lock onto the divine child, rendering the family badge in his handpletely useless.


    ¡°You are in way over your head!¡± The divine baby girl¡¯s bloodied palm reached into the darkness after locking down the tower, and fished Nailisi right from it. Nailisi activated her collection of purgatories yet was unable to throw the divine baby girl inside.


    The difference in levels was just too great. Despite suffering grievous injuries, she risked cutting her lifespan short and lit up her divine fire, forcing her advancement to the levels of pseudogod. While she fell short of attaining grade-13 power and was unable to use grade-13 rules, but nothing Nailisi and Saleen had on them would have worked against her.


    To a mage, being unable to lock onto one¡¯s target would mean that one¡¯sbat capacity getting reduced by more than half of what it was.


    Nailisi¡¯s two other heads slumped, as she was being held at the neck by the divine child. The divine child shook her arms a little, and all of Nailisi¡¯s weapons dropped onto the floor. That was the first time Saleen saw Nailisi to be utterly helpless. She had not been so helpless even when she was fighting against the angel of fear.


    ¡°Is Nailisi going to die?¡± The thought had Saleen feeling very cold inside. Everything about Nailisi rushed to his head in an instant. ¡°For the past several years, what has the imp got from me? Nothing.¡± It was a truth that simply could not be covered by advancement, no matter how great. Her soul remained controlled in his hands. Everything Nailisi owned was his. She had no way of fighting back.


    Saleen knew of everything Nailisi did. She was just a child who failed to grow up, and one who wanted to find warmth in her parents¡¯ embrace. She had been unreasonable at times, brutal at other times, and iprehensible at yet some other times. Most around her feared her, yet the imp had not truly grown until that very moment. She remained a lost soul.


    ¡°Now, is that imp who has yet to grow up is going to die?¡±


    Seeing how the divine child held Nailisi by the neck, the cold feeling in his chest began to recede, reced by a fire that was gradually burning up.


    ¡°Let her go!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was heard from the tower, albeit somewhat muffled by the green energy barrier.


    ¡°Alright,¡± The divine child mmed her onto the ground, crushing all the bones below her waist and her legs were turned into a bloody mess. Her remaining half was writhing on the floor.


    Saleen, after seeing the divine child let go of Nailisi, stepped outside the Magical Element Tower, which rendered Nichspletely dumbfounded. Mist began to build around Saleen¡¯s body, whipping up a powerful vortex in the seawater. He held onto the family badge in his hand, charging in the divine child¡¯s direction.


    ¡°You are a stupid one. Here I thought I had yet to find a way to get to you out of the tower...¡±


    The divine baby girl held back the pain inside her and took a step forward,ing to face Saleen. Her naked body was engulfed in green energy. Tens of vines whipped up from the sides of her torso, wrapping Saleen¡¯s body tightly.


    Nichs felt a pain surging up to his brain. He was thoroughly frightened, as he had never seen Saleen being so careless. Nichs chanted ancient words without any hesitation, bringing about a bright light in the Scepter of the Fallen in his hand.


    Prior to that moment, all light emanated from his Scepter of the Fallen had been gray. The light that shot out of the tower¡¯s window however, was pure white, charged with ample divine powers.


    ¡°Here I say, your fate is cursed. All life will betray your faith!¡± Nichs¡¯ words were short, yet it was the first time he truly put his life on the line.


    It was a curse spell, and one that was meant to curse gods. Nichs was but a grade-9 holy master still, while the divine child was of a terrifying grade-13 instead. If the attacks had been physical, such difference would not have been apparent. The divine spell that Nichs was using, brought about the sh of two types of divine power rules.


    The sh of the rules meant that Nichs had no way out whatsoever. When the curse was finished, his Scepter of the Fallen blew up right there and then. The two-hundred-thousand souls gathered painstakingly were reduced to nothing in an instant. The blood soul tower was also split into six pieces and lost its color entirely, rendering it damaged beyond repair.


    When Nichs was casting his divine spell, the divine child was able to feel the power of another god. Nichs was a fallen holy master, which meant he would never be a god, yet the power hemanded, was a power of very pure faith.


    The bloodied, messy face of the divine child smirked sarcastically. ¡°Divine powers at such levels?¡± She could have stood there and let him do whatever he wished with her, and nothing would have happened. ¡°Your poor creature, do you think you can really...¡±


    Snap...


    A clear, fine needle prated the green vines enveloping Saleen, and was shot at the divine child¡¯s face. The fine needle prated the bone and went straight for her divine fire. The vines around him broke, and his face was seen.


    A face that looked eerily calm.


    Saleen shot the grade-19 Star Gathering Needle with his mouth. It was a breath that he had held for a very long time. The sharpness of the needle meant that the vines conjured by the divine baby stood no chance against it.


    When the Star Gathering Needle was shot out, the divine baby girl had intended to twist her neck to evade. Yet at that very moment, Nichs¡¯ curse petrified her body for a split second.


    Nichs was imitating the power of faith of the Lord of Glory. He had no control over the rules, yet it did not necessarily mean that such rules would be ineffective. The difference in levels had him suffer massive recoil, but the curse worked nheless, for one-thirtieth of a second.


    Nichs¡¯ hair turnedpletely gray within the tower, and he slumped slowly to the ground. The scepter that blew up took his hand away with it, reducing even the bones to dust. He had no more power left in him to fix the damages with divine powers. The curse was a two-way spell. With the divine baby girl¡¯s level being so high, the curse was rebounded on him as well.


    All the previous injuries fixed by divine spells all erupted in that instant, as if time had reversed itself. All that pain that he had gone through and endured for nearly one-hundred years, replicated all over his body in that very second.


    Saleen felt something lost within the depths of his soul. It was his contract with Nichs. Nichs was still alive, but as a cursed man, everything that proved advantageous to him was utterly lost.


    The fights between gods were utterly devoid of fairness. Nichs had attempted to provide Saleen with an opening, by paying the price of one-hundred-thousand souls. He had not expected the recoil to be so ferocious nevertheless.


    Having the Star Gathering Needle stabbed into the divine fire was like havingmon mes being smothered by a piece of ice the size of a continent. The divine baby looked at the puny mage in utter fear, as he made his way to her. She was unable to move her body even by an inch. All powers were lost to her, as they totally went out of control.


    Her divine fire remained, but was frozen. The Star Gathering Needle did not bother itself with the weak divine fire and had not even attempted to absorb any of it. Saleen took a step forward and took out a second needle.


    Under Nichs¡¯ curse, the divine baby girl was unable to obtain any power from the souls of believers residing within her. With her divine fire suppressed and her physical body incapacitated, she was unable to do anything but witness Saleen stab the Star Gathering Needle into her eyeball.


    The divine child¡¯s eyeball was not made of liquid, but a crystalline construct like a magic nucleus. With her divine fires ring up before having wasted all of her energies, the strength of her body was not evenparable to Nailisi¡¯s. Saleen¡¯s needle went right through her eyeball, breaking it.


    Saleen pulled out the needle quickly and went to break the remaining eyeball. He then went stabbing the divine child¡¯s ears, throat, and even her nose with the needle.


    Every single jab robbed her of one of her senses. After Saleen went stabbing six times, the divine baby girl became utterly incapable of perceiving the outside world.


    Saleen then shot golden runes out of his eyes, focusing the electric current at the girl¡¯s head. Thunderous boom was heard, and those blue monsters still attempted to get close all slumped onto the floor. They were cursed as well, and the divine child was no longer able to provide them with power.


    The blue electricity wrapped tightly around the divine baby girl¡¯s head as it surged about. Saleen picked up the Sword of Rules left on the ground, and then brought it down hard on the divine child¡¯s head.

 Chapter 981: Playing with Fire (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 981: ying with Fire (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen reached out with his hand and took the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s head, throwing it into the dimension stone, where everything inside was cut off from the outside world. As such, she had no more tricks left to y.


    Furthermore, Saleen even threw the Star Gathering Needle into the girl¡¯s divine fire! And... Everyone knew that a level 19 Star Gathering Needle was more than enough to suppress a weakened divine fire!


    Saleen turned around and looked at Nailisi, who was on the ground. Nailisi gritted her teeth and clung to the ground, while her body wiggled and she returned to her imp form. While both physical forms had nothing to do with each other, they shared the same soul nheless. As such, when the Divine Baby Girl threw her down, it had severely injured both her soul and her devil form.


    Saleen was regretting this immensely, as he knew that now that her soul was injured, it would impede her growth. Furthermore, there was no telling if Nichs was dead or alive. Moreover, that adventure of his had caused two of his followers to be injured, and that weighed heavily on Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Nailisi, how are you feeling?¡± he asked, clearly concerned.


    Nailisi wore a forced smile as she said, ¡°I¡¯m fine, master.¡±


    Saleen looked at the altar on the other side of the crack and started to ask, ¡°Can you...¡±


    ¡°I can, master,¡± Nailisi said,pleted his thought as she went and picked up the weapon that she had thrown on the ground before putting it away in her bracelet. She then went up to the crack, stepped onto the seawater instead of the solid ground, and headed toward the altar.


    In that moment, Saleen felt Nailisi¡¯s pain. He even felt Nailisi using her own life force to repair her soul. As the soul bond between him and Nailisi was damaged, he knew that Nailisi could have simply shrugged herself free from his control.


    Saleen felt very bitter inside. He saw that piles of level nine creatures were sprawled all over the ce, yet he was in no mood to pick them up. Instead, he returned right away to the magic tower.


    When he got there, he saw that Nichs had already sat up and was leaning against the wall and panting heavily. It was clear that he wanted to say something, but Saleen waved his hand and stopped him.


    He then pulled the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s head out of the dimension stone and asked, ¡°Nichs, can this be of any use to you?¡±


    Saleen looked at Nichs¡¯ wrinkled face and refrained from taking out some magic liquid to heal him. After all, his was not the kind of damage that magic liquid would have been able to do anything about.


    Nichs was dumbfounded. What lied within that head was the most previous divine fire, after all, from which all powers of that Divine Baby Girl had been derived! Thus, the value of that divine fire far surpassed the entire body of an angel of fear. In Saleen¡¯s perspective, that would have served well as being something to trade with those ancient souls in that Cemetery of Heroes.


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen smiled and said. Even though Nichs had not uttered a word in reply, Saleen could read his face perfectly. ¡°I can¡¯t craft a Blood Soul Tower, so we¡¯ll have to wait for Nailisi to return. Hopefully she can help you.¡±


    As Nichs heard what Saleen said, something welled up inside him. It was not exactly a feeling of being deeply touched, but was one of aforting warmth at the very least.


    ¡°My liege...¡± Nichs began to thank him, murmuring weakly.


    ¡°I know.¡± Saleen did not let Nichs continue.


    The contract between him and Nichs was rendered null. This was due to his soul having exceeded the limit of level nine. He would not have been able to sense something changing so deep within his soul with such rity otherwise.


    It was about half an hourter when Nailisi returned. She had gone to sweep along the outside of the tower. That was so typical of her personality. She would always put her own troubles aside, regardless of how messy those troubles were. Simrly, she would never let herself be troubled when it was time to be happy!


    While her soul sustained serious damage and her lineage would not be able to evolve for a very long time, she knew that the second space of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory had been perfected. Thus, she was confident that she would not have been rendered utterly helpless if she were to encounter a half-human, half-god creature as she was making her errands outside.


    As she returned, Nailisi¡¯s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when she saw Saleen taking out the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s head. She was utterly shocked!


    ¡°Nailisi, split this thing between yourselves, then help Nichs craft a new Blood Soul Tower. I¡¯ll get him a Scepter of the Fallen,¡± Saleen said as he tossed the head to Nailisi.


    The Divine Baby Girl¡¯s physical body was not powerful, and it was actually not all that different from those of her believers. What was truly precious lied within her head. There were divine crystals and divine fire within it, which would have been enough to make up for all of Saleen¡¯s losses.


    Saleen left Nailisi alone while he silently took out the few divine branches that he had left with him and crafted a Scepter of the Fallen for Nichs. Nailisi then said, while having her back toward Saleen, ¡°Master, that thing about the Three Kings...¡±


    Saleen had not recalled that he still had three scepters that had been left by the Three Kings with him. All of those were great resources, which had such a high-quality hardness that even his Water me would have trouble destroying them. In fact, one would only need to fix a Blood Soul Tower upon one of them, and a perfect Scepter of the Fallen would beplete!


    The scepters of the Three Kings had nothing within them. However, this was not an issue, as what gave the Three Kings their power was the broken jade that was buried deep within their soul mes.


    ¡°Alright, in that case, let¡¯s go!¡± Saleen took out a scepter and handed it to Nailisi. He then took control of the Magical Element Tower and caused it to hover above the huge crack.


    Currently, they were within the very depths of the underground. When the Divine Baby Girl had struggled to break free from her chains, she had caused the entire templed to copse, making it easy for Saleen to escape.


    The Magical Element Tower rose slowly, floating in seawater as it went. Saleen did not want to stay in that pile of rubble any longer, even if they could have found many construction materials worth taking within it.


    At that moment, Nailisi pulled at Saleen¡¯s sleeve. Saleen acknowledged her and took out a bottle of bone marrow from the angel of fear, then handed it to her. Nailisi had used up all of her own without telling anyone, having merged them with the purgatory of the fallen.


    Her soul still hurt, and as golden electrical sparks shed on her finger, Saleen was startled. He had never seen Nailisi use a skill like Lightning Protection. He was relieved to discover that Nailisi was capable of controlling electricity, and he secretly congratted himself for not having gotten on Nailisi¡¯s bad side in the past.


    As ayer of green energy wrapped around the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s head, Saleen¡¯s blue electricity was wrapped around the outside of thatyer of green energy.


    Everything was crackling with energy. At that time, Saleen knew that only Nailisi would be able to handle the head, as no one else could even touch it.


    Nailisi felt very touched. The injury she had sustained in her soul was worse than Saleen knew. With the head of that Divine Baby Girl, however, she would at least be able to heal her wounds. As for the matter of whether she would be able to evolve, that would have to wait for ater date.


    Divine fire was not only useful to the gods, and Nailisi had learned what Saleen had learned back in the Cemetery of Heroes. When humans were conquering the gods, they were doing it for themselves.


    Divine fire was something that was capable of strengthening one¡¯s soul, boosting one¡¯s power, and extending one¡¯s lifespan. As for a divine persona, that was useful for crafting powerful equipment, and the body of a god possessed only the highest grade materials.


    Saleen knew that it would have been akin to wasting 99 percent of its energies for the divine fire to be used by Nailisi in such ways. However, Nailisi¡¯s injuries needed healing, and there was nothing else that he would have been able to do.


    So, Nailisi extended her hand to Saleen and said, ¡°Ring of Gifts.¡±


    Saleen then handed Nailisi the ring. She took the ring, then pressed it to the head¡¯s forehead.


    She did not fear the electricity that Saleen had left on it. This because the electricity was so weak that it would not have even been able topare with the golden electricity that was currently wrapped around her hand.


    When the Ring of Gifts was pressed on the forehead, thatyer of green energy was absorbed by the ring in an instant. Theyer of green energy that was on the surface of the Divine Baby Girl¡¯s head was a power of the nature goddess, which meant that there was no difference between the two.


    Furthermore, that energy was massive, and it had at prevented her injuries from worsening. When Nailisi was done absorbing all of the energy with the Ring of Gifts, the bloodied mess of a head within it revealed itself.


    Saleen then took the Ring of Gifts and searched it for a bit. The space within the ring was filled with the nature goddess¡¯ divine power.


    This meant that the Ring of Gifts¡¯ true purpose was probably to store divine power instead of being used as a piece of space equipment. After all, there was no way a piece of space equipment that had been crafted by a goddess would have so little space within it.


    After the divine power that had been protected the head was absorbed, the head began rotting. Nailisi¡¯s golden electricity-covered hand then reached for the eye sockets of the head, causing the cracked socket to burst.


    Nailisi¡¯s finger then started to carefully pull out the Star Gathering Needle. By this time, the divine fire that was left on the needle had almost dissipated.


    Nailisi muttered in aplex demonic tongue. Her body was no longer able to control Ultimate Shapeshifting, so she returned to her imp form. At the same time, tiny demonic runes flowed around her sharp, pointy nails. They were stacked inyers and numbered in the thousands.


    She carefully cut the divine fire with her nails, which made it even weaker until it became two mere wisps of fire, which were smaller than the tip of her nail. Nailisi¡¯s nails werepletely melted by this point, yet she felt no pain.


    It was a very difficult task to handle divine fire, and as she continued to do so, it went on to burn her fingers. However, Nailisi still felt no pain.


    In actual fact, divine fire was the core of life force for the gods. Hence, even if her entire body was burned to the ground, she would not have felt any pain at all. This was a talent that was bestowed upon the gods, the power to burn all life.


    Divine fire was also something that would have been able to spark again, as long as it was not entirely snuffed out. Moreover, that Divine Baby Girl was just a pseudogod. As this meant that she was a being that was lower than a demigod, that divine fire severelycked the support of rules, and as such, it ended up being cut open by Nailisi via demon magic.


    The price she had paid for all of this was simply a finger. A finger was something a demon could regrow easily enough, as long as its food supply was ample.


    The only troubling thing about this was that the divine fire was still a level 13 existence, while Nailisi was only level nine, which meant that there was the possibility of recoil by the divine fire during the absorption process. If Nailisi ended up being swallowed by that divine fire, then the Divine Baby would probably transform into a new shadow.


    A shadow of that Divine Baby would be at least a level ten being nheless. Then, if it was to run amok in the magic tower, there was little that Saleen would be able to do in order to deal with it.


    Nailisi used the crudest, simplest means to go about her work. She let the cut divine fire suspend in the air. She then stuck it with the Star Gathering Needle and stirred the matter vigorously.


    As she did so, she found a microscopic particle that was hidden within it, which was the core of that divine fire, the dormant will of the Divine Baby Girl. The very reason Nailisi was cutting the divine fire was to preserve that core in itsplete form.


    After all, no matter how much gratitude she felt toward Nichs, she still wanted to save the best things for her own use. She would not be a proper demon otherwise.


    She continued prodding with the needle again. As Nailisi was unable to control her senses, she was also unable to find the location of the core of that divine fire. So, even though she continued looking for the core, she had no luck finding it.


    Finally, after she had poked around for about an hour, the needle coincidentally stuck into the core of the divine fire. The core instantly imploded violently as it was trying to avoid the needle¡¯s attack.


    But, soon after the tip of the Star Gathering Needle touched the core, the implosion of the space within the divine fire was forcefully halted, as if a bubble had burst. That same moment, Nailisi heard a clear pop.


    The divine fire had bloated out all of a sudden, like a level ten magic spell was bursting. The constant temperature within the Magical Element Tower rose exponentially, and the clothes on all three of them were severely burned. Saleen clumsily threw an uncut level 12 magic nucleus into the magic power furnace, and only then did the temperature within the tower stop rising.


    Nailisi stuck out her tongue like a child, while squeezing the bloated divine fire. The core of the divine fire was broken, and the golden electricity that was around her hand was no longer in danger of being burned by the divine fire.

 Chapter 982: Playing with Fire (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 982: ying with Fire (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The two wisps of divine fire that were cut by Nailisi underwent different changes. The one with the core, which waster pierced, grew more than a hundred times its original size.


    If it had not been for Nailisi¡¯s squeezing it back, it would have grown still. The power of life within that divine fire was incredibly powerful, and it was constantly raging. The divine fire expanded and contracted in a syncopated rhythm, as if it was breathing.


    The wisp of divine fire had lost all of its might, leaving only a thin power of life force behind for Nailisi to consume. Most importantly, it was no longer possible for that wisp of divine fire to devour Nailisi¡¯s soul after its core was broken. One of the rules that was imbued within that fire did allow it to open up to Nailisi, however.


    She was ted and went to swallow the fire with one gulp. The fire raged within her soul in an instant.


    The lineage of the Luoluokaluo depended entirely on consuming the powers of others to advance. So, as the divine fire burned, Nailisi even heard an irrepressible moaninging from the depths of her soul, which was now filled with an indescribable sense of satisfaction.


    Then, the ferocious might of the divine fire disappeared without a trace amid the moaning of the Luoluokaluo¡¯s soul. Nailisi¡¯ soul seemed to almost burst out of her body as the divine fire was devoured by her soul entirely. The fires were no longer within her at that moment.


    It had not hurt her to devour the fire in this way at all. Although the divine fire¡¯s temperature was actually far above Nailisi¡¯s normal tolerance threshold, to her soul, the divine fire simply acted as an unrivaled supplement.


    After all, there was no other being that was capable of gulping down divine fire like her, and none would have dared do so either, unless said being was a level 16 true god that was at least a whole level above a pseudogod.


    Strictly speaking, the Divine Baby¡¯s divine fire was not actually at the true pseudogod level. The existence of the Divine Baby was a carbon copy of all of the rules of the nature goddess.


    At present, the Divine Baby was deep within her mind, and that divine fire was something that Saleen had forced out. If things had been going ording to n, the Divine Baby would not even have appeared at all.


    She had forcefully robbed her followers¡¯ powers, thus enabling her to give birth to the Divine Baby in the shortest time possible. As such, there was no way the Divine Baby could have been perfect.


    The Divine Baby had even devoured hundreds of believers, which had made the divine fire somewhat wed. As Nailisi was unable to pinpoint the core of the divine fire, she destroyed it within roughly an hour¡¯s time.


    Then, the divine fire¡¯s w was gone, along with its core, and all that was left of it was a type of rules of life, which Nailisi consumed bit by bit. The half of her soul, which was damaged by the Divine Baby, had regrown as well.


    Nailisi carefully used the powers of the divine fire to temper her own soul, but at the same time, she also strengthened the soul bond between her and Saleen. She would have been able to simply wipe such a contract away, but Nailisi did not want that soul bond to be nullified, as if it was no longer around, she would have a hard time sensing Saleen¡¯s emotions and thoughts.


    There was also the issue of Sensory Sharing with Saleen to consider. Nailisi would not have been able to enjoy such a privilege without that soul bond either.


    The injury that had been sustained by her soul healedpletely after it had absorbed the divine fire. However, what was troubling was how it would have taken another three to five years before she would have been able to absorb all the divine fire.


    There was still a need, after all, to digest that divine fire after it was absorbed. During such a process, there was no way she would have been able to consume anything else. This meant that Nailisi had no way to develop other types of powers for the time being.


    Nailisi could not have tolerated being forced into such a passive position. So, she took out the thunder dragon¡¯s hide that Saleen had given her and opened her eerie, big mouth. She then swallowed that piece of hide whole! She had no intentions of keeping the facade of a human in front of Saleen, especially since he had already seen everything there was to be see about her!


    Saleen had given Nailisi too many pieces of the thunder dragon¡¯s hide. In fact, she received three pieces every time the dragon molted. As such, Nailisi continued to devour the hide of that thunder dragon whole, absorbing the rules of lightning that were imbued within it. She did so in order to perfect her Lightning Protection ability.


    Saleen sighed, while Nichs waited for his new Scepter of the Fallen be crafted again, as she was unable to do anything at the moment. However, Nailisi did restart her training again.


    At that moment, Saleen had no choice but to allow the Magical Element Tower to rise to the surface slowly on its own. The whirlpool at sea had ebbed and disappeared as the temple copsed. Saleen then contacted Truman and had him bring the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel to him.


    Nailisi trained earnestly, which meant that the tower was not allowed to simply fly, and it also couldn¡¯t be allowed to be ced in the dimension stone. So, Saleen simply let the tower float on the sea, with its topmost floors sticking out of the surface as they headed for Ceylon City slowly alongside the ship.


    Nailisi was ignoring Nichs for the moment, as she was focusing on perfecting her skills. The passage of time within the ne that the thunder dragon was housed within flowed extremely fast, and the thunder dragon also molted frequently.


    The thunder dragon perfected its lightning abilities a bit more every time it molted, and Nailisi continued devouring the thunder dragon¡¯s hides, which molted at different stages. This allowed her to perfect her lightning abilities, bit by bit.


    The process was a rather slow one, but it was also happening too quickly for one to be able to attempt to perfect his or her skills. Until now, there had been no one capable of training skills in such a way. Even the ancient Luoluokaluos had no chance of growing a thunder dragon, so it left behind all of the dragon¡¯s molted hide for research.


    At the moment, Nailisi took something else from her bracelet. It was the clothing that she had stripped from the true body of the Divine Baby¡¯s true body.


    Specifically, it was a long dress, which was identical to the one that she had seen in the images that were left by the Goddess of Myers. Nailisi put the dress on and then consumed thest piece of thunder dragon hide.


    Nailisi had initially consumed the hide of the level ten thunder dragon. This had earned her the Lightning Protection ability. However, she currently knew too little about the rules of lightning, and what little she knew was too superficial to be of much use.


    The hide that she had consumed was from a level eight thunder dragon, which was advancing to level nine. Hence, this was something that had molted from a being in its mature stage, which was useful for perfecting the rules of lightning.


    The divine fire burst out of Nailisi¡¯s skin all of a sudden, recrafting the dress that she had just put on. That dress was also something that was mimicking the Goddess of Myers¡¯ own garb by using the power of her followers.


    At that moment, the power of faith was gone, as it was being tempered by the divine fire. At the same time, golden electricity jumped around Nailisi¡¯s body surface, seeping into the dress.


    That dress, which had been created using the power of faith, was then filled with countless lightning magic patterns within itsyers. As the lightning magic patterns grew increasinglyplete within the dress during the tempering process of the divine fire, the divine fire ceased being able to intrude into the dress and thus retreated back into Nailisi¡¯s body.


    Not only was that lightning equipmentpleted at that time, but Nailisi¡¯s body itself was modified as well. Her imp form had been the weakest in terms ofbat capacity, but now, with her muscles, bones, vessels, nerves, internal organs and other bodily fluids all being tempered by the divine fire and lightning, vague rumbles of thunder were heard when she breathed with her lower abdomen.


    Saleen had toiled relentlessly while he was umtingprehension and knowledge, and it took him a long time before he was able to master lightning skills. However, Nailisi had gained such abilities simply by consuming the right kind of materials. Indeed, the bloodline of the Luoluokaluo was something that was hardly matched by other living beings!


    Saleen still experienced limits upon his mental powers and stamina when he was using the Eye of Lightning, yet Nailisi had grown to be like the thunder dragon, able to meld the power of lightning almost effortlessly. With her soul restored, Nailisi took out some of the blue monsters¡¯ bodies. She then took on her devil form in front of Saleen before devouring those monsters¡¯ bodies.


    Nichs feltplicated emotions well up inside of him as he looked at the scene before him. He realized that he had worried too much in the past as he thought... Saleen is able to make even a demon like this, and here I am... Just a fallen holy master. Why the heck should I fear anything?


    As her devil form had been thrashed by the Divine Baby until it was literally crippled, and only the upper body remained. So, Nailisi opened her mouth wide and gulped down over a dozen of those monster¡¯s corpses.


    A devil¡¯s fangs were used for attacking instead of chewing food, as the stomach of a devil had a higher capacity for offensive skills than any other part of her body. As such, even a piece of pure steel would have been grinded down to steel dust when thrown into a devil¡¯s stomach!


    Nichs saw Nailisi¡¯s devil form growing its legs back after she ate more than a hundred of those monster¡¯s corpses. Furthermore, her devil form continued to grow until it was about ten meters tall before stopping.


    It was not so much that it was unable to grow any further, but the growth was halted because Nailisi felt that the original height of the devil, which measured over 20 meters tall, hardly gave it an edge in battle. In contrast, a height of about ten meters worked just fine, and the ratio between the three heads then neared perfection. Attacking targets that were at her feet with all four of her legs, while swinging weapons around, became far easier with this height as well.


    After she had finished fixing her devil form, Nailisi returned to her human form once again. While the human form was weak, It had infinite potential for growth. For example, she was able to adopt all sorts of human skills when taking such a form.


    She knew that it was impractical for her to learn magic, as a mage¡¯s life was too dry and boring. Moreover, the requirement of studying and training for at least five to six hours a day, as well as spending even more time doing magic experiments and reading, would have bored her to death if she ever decided to be a mage!


    Nailisi took the Divine Baby¡¯s head and dug out one of its broken eyes, then consumed it. Instantly, the eyes of Nailisi¡¯s human form crumbled. In the next instant, a new pair of green eyes were grown, both of which had green pupils.


    Nailisi hesitated for a bit before eventually deciding to take the Divine Baby¡¯s body out as well. She then tore out its heart and ate it. Nailisi then quickly transformed into her Three-faced Bone Demon form.


    In Nailisi¡¯s mind, that human form was of the utmost importance, as she was a human when taking such a form, making her a true person instead of some random demon. As she adopted this form, she thought... Perhaps Saleen might only truly like me when I¡¯m in this form...


    While she was in her human form, Nailisi nned on bing an archer. However, it was important to note that archers were required to have superb eyesight, stable power, resilient qualities and an immutable mind.


    Although it was easy for Nailisi to modify her body¡¯s qualities, she did not want Saleen to see her stuffing all kinds of things into her mouth without regard, like a demon, especially when she was in her human form! This was especially true when the thing that she was eating was a dead body!


    As such, when Nailisi was in her human form, she was careful to only use divine fire to purify the heart of the Divine Baby, then absorb it afterwards. This was because she was worried that Saleen would have found her disgusting if she did more than that.


    In her spirit form, Nailisi would simply shatter her form using divine fire. As the fires raged, the spirit within her was gradually tempered into a skeleton.


    As this was happening, Nailisi was thinking to herself... My master likes skeletons, after all!


    After thinking this, she decided to be one herself, if only to snub that pile of bones...

 Chapter 983: Eye of the Storm (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 983: Eye of the Storm (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi changed her spirit form into a skeleton, and even ced a thread of divine fire into the eye sockets, gradually converting it into soul me.


    She did not need any soul me for herself. Luoluokaluos were capable of taking different forms, but not taking different souls. She might have taken a spirit form, but she was still a demon. Doing so only enabled her to control attributes of spirits and fight using the methods of the spirits. The very reason Nailisi was converting soul me was to craft a new Scepter of the Fallen for Nichs.


    She had never tried something like using divine fire before and was doing itpletely through her bloodline¡¯s instincts. While her soul was capable of absorbing divine fire bereft of a core, it was not the same with the Scepter of the Fallen. Nailisi had to find a stable way to get it done, in order to prevent the old holy master from suffering the recoil brought by the divine fire.


    Divine fire without a core would have nevershed out on its own, but it nheless still possessed the instinct to devour. What Nailisi was doing was erasing all those instincts, converting it into a pure power source.


    She had no problem taking a different spirit form, and Nailisi eventually became a Skeleton King. Golden soul me danced in her eyes, before she returned to her own imp form.


    Her golden giant dragon form did not need crafting using divine fire. The dragon that Nailisi had devoured was still unable to bepletely digested even to that day. It was of a level even higher than the divine fire lit up by the divine baby. The rules of power of the dragons would never be lower than that of a pseudogod.


    Nailisi took up a bottle after returning to her imp form and took out some of the angel of fear¡¯s bone marrow to begin crafting a blood soul tower. There was nothing difficult about crafting a blood soul tower; it was adding the divine fire into it that proved difficult.


    Nailisi was a patient person. She threw the other broken eyeball of the divine baby into the blood soul tower that just began to take form. She began crafting a broken orb around the outside of the blood soul tower, allowing it to be encased within, before putting the divine fire that was about the size of a fingernail in.


    It was fortunate that the angel of fear was a grade-12 creature as well, which meant her bone marrow would have survived burning by the divine fire. The most powerful part of the divine fire was taken away by Nailisi. The remaining half of the divine me did not even have one-tenth of the power Nailisi absorbed.


    The divine fire was controlled around the tower, and Nailisi dropped all the remaining materials into it: the angel of fear¡¯s bones, muscles, and some of her keratin. The newly crafted blood soul tower was no longer something that could be easily identified. It looked little more than just a broken eyeball on the outside, it was one that was filled with cracks.


    Nailisi carefully added the eyeball-shaped blood soul tower to the scepter and felt a bit of reluctance about it. ¡°Such precious equipment, and I have to give all that to Nichs?¡±


    Seeing Nichs¡¯ current gray-haired form and a face covered with wrinkles, she had no choice but to swallow up her reluctance and went on with it, handing the newly crafted Scepter of the Fallen to him.


    ¡°Nichs, I have only put about a dozen souls into it. Everything outside was thoroughly dead, I had no way to...¡± Her face was one filled with regret. In actual fact however, she hid souls in the hundreds. The way she saw it, the eighteen within would serve adequately to keep Nichs alive for the time being.


    To Nailisi, her act of crafting a Scepter of the Fallen for him was all done because he saved Saleen. The eighteen powerful souls were bonuses of sorts¡ªbonuses that made her heart ache.


    Nichs took the scepter with a bitter smile. His body trembled as he picked up the scepter. There was no need for spells or prayers. There seemed to be countless passages on it, connecting the blood soul tower within.


    Pale red mes continued to be outside the eighteen floored blood soul tower. Within the thirteenth floor of the tower, there were eighteen powerful souls housed within, looking confused about their environment.


    Nichs did not hesitate to ce his soul brand on the blood soul tower. A tall phantasm emerged at the upper part of the blood soul tower. That gave the eighteen souls within the thirteenth floor an illusion that one such tall figure would definitely be their god, their salvation.


    The eighteen powerful souls went on to worship Nichs¡¯ soul brand immediately. Nichs felt his injuries begin healing. He let out a long sigh and was feeling strange about the origins of those eighteen souls.


    Nailisi was simply feeling a sense of glee. The eighteen souls were the human believers that the divine baby had devoured. The souls of the believers had never been truly powerful, but they advanced while being assimted by the divine baby. While the divine child was no more, the souls remained within her dead body, they were all captured soon after.


    All other souls would advance slowly when sent into the blood soul tower. Those eighteen however, advanced tens of times faster thanmon souls, being able to even reach grade-13 at the highest.


    Saleen and Nailisi noted that Nichs¡¯ change was a frighteningly quick one. He first became able to sit on his own without having to lie against the wall. His eyes regained his old luster quickly, and his hips allowed him to sit straight.


    The wrinkles on Nichs¡¯ face quickly disappeared. Within half an hour, his skin became as smooth and supple as a baby¡¯s. Other than having a full head of gray hair, Nichs¡¯ body was consideredpletely restored.


    ¡°Master, the old man earned quite a bit in this. Too bad that his hair was unable to turn ck, a reminder to you I¡¯d say!¡± Nailisi yapped away in frustration. The full head of gray hair served little more than something to remind Saleen that Nichs had once saved him.


    ¡°No, that¡¯s not it, Nailisi...¡± Saleen wanted to borate further on the subject but chose to just smile after looking at her expressions. Nailisi went on to sit beside Saleen and lean on him, watching Nichs¡¯ restoration together.


    The full head of gray hair was anything but intentional. Being hit by the recoil of a divine spell curse carried dire consequences, and it was not something that could have beenpletely wiped by absorbing divine fire. The divine arts had their way with things, which in that case, transferred all the negative effects to his hair. It would never grow to be ck again, unless he was able toprehend even higher rules, surpassing the divine baby¡¯s power.


    While Nichs reaped ample rewards out of the ordeal, it was nothing muchpared to Nailisi. His half of the divine fire had almost all its essence absorbed by Nailisi. Nailisi was indeed being generous, seen from how she gave him eighteen powerful souls and crafted the divine baby¡¯s eyeball on the external parts of the blood soul tower, allowing it to acquire many diverse abilities.


    Nailisi was not dumb. She realized Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spells were something to be reckoned with. The spells could not be blocked, as they were able phase through most obstacles and take effect on the enemy.


    Anyone who cast lesser prophecy spells like how Nichs did would have died doing it once or twice. Nichs had been lucky enough to get his soulpletely repaired every time.


    That was of course, not Nichs¡¯ own luck. He owed it to the fact of being a follower of Saleen, allowing him to be affected partially by Saleen¡¯s luck. Saleen, however, was the unlucky one, for signing one such contract with the Goddess of Myers, then with the heroic spirits in the cemetery as well as Gaine. He even earned himself a future enemy in the form of Fycro.


    Having signed so many unfair contracts with people, Saleen was practically covered in debts. It was precisely due to the contracts that his luck changed for the better. His fate had undergone life-changing changes even when his contracts had yet to be fulfilled. There were many who acquired the Ring of Gifts from the goddess, as she crafted more than one-hundred of those, but only Saleen had managed to rise from being amon man to be a wizened grade-9 sorcerer, in the shortest amount of time.


    From the perspective of astrologers, Saleen¡¯s good luck was simply indescribable. He survived two encounters with grade-12 creatures, and even made those creatures into materials for crafting. Such things would only happen in ancient times. Sorcerers who possessed powerful equipment were few and far between anymore.


    ¡°Nichs, how do you feel?¡± Saleen asked as he saw Nichs¡¯ eyes were open.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, my liege. Just next time...try not to do something so frightening again. That divine child¡¯s powers were at least of grade-10 or above. Herprehension of rules was at grade-13!¡± Nichs tried to ease himself as he spoke.


    ¡°I know, but I had to, there was nothing else I could have done. I couldn¡¯t bear to just watch Nailisi get killed.¡±


    ¡°Then Nailisi, try not to ever get into situations where he has to do so,¡± Nichs told Nailisi in a serious tone.


    Nailisi opened her mouth intending to shoot back at Nichs, but she swallowed her prideful and words, simply answering, ¡°I understand. I won¡¯t do it next time.¡±


    Saleen looked at Nailisi in a rather surprised manner. Nailisi was simply keeping her head down and looking meek. What was going on in her mind however, was, ¡°You are right, old man, but I¡¯ll keep in mind the way you lectured me!


    The Magical Element Tower did not take to the sky and had simply floated on water. Doing so saved a lot of energy, but it also slowed them to a drag. There was coincidentally a small ind up front, which seemed to be of a size of only two square miles. Saleen took the tower to the air andnded on the ind, before putting it away in his dimension stone. Moving the Magical Element Tower around proved to be a chore. Due to its size, it could not be easily summoned and put away with the snap of a finger, even if Saleen was to advance to grade-10.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel was anchored near the ind. Saleen flew up and took a look around. The surrounding waters looked serene, and there did not seem to be any ferocious magic beasts about. If it was not for the fact that it was just too far away from shore, the ce would make for a good fishing spot. Nailisi and Nichs followed closely behind. Their sights were nowhere near Saleen¡¯s and were able to see what was going on within the several miles nearby.


    Saleen suddenly caught sight of a huge cloud gathering above the southern waters, when he was just about to head back to the ship. There was no need for calctions. As someone who had been living near the sea all his life, he knew that a storm was brewing, and it was one that wouldst for quite some time.


    The dark clouds approached where they were quickly, and Saleen saw a ship was making its way north at full speed at about one-hundred miles away. It did not seem that the ship would be able to evade the storming fast behind.


    Ships would have gone to each other¡¯s aid unless one was a pirate ship. Seeing something like that happening, he called for the other two beside him and headed back to the dragon skeletonbat vessel. He then ordered the captain to drive the ship at full speed, while engaging all of the ship¡¯s defenses, as they made their way to the storm.

 Chapter 984: Eye of the Storm (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 984: Eye of the Storm (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, why the rush? Have you found something good?¡± Nailisi curiously asked Saleen. Saleen did not share his senses with her and she was unable to see what lied one-hundred miles away.


    ¡°To save people.¡±


    ¡°Save people?¡± Nailisi asked in glee, and even Truman found that to be odd.


    ¡°Killing people all the time is tiring. Getting to save people for a change sounds fun.¡± Nailisi was so eager to try it out that it rendered everyoneughing, even Saleen.


    While it was not precisely correct that he had been killing people all the time, what he had done as ofte got him nothing but headaches.


    The magic power furnaces of the dragon skeletonbat vessel went full power, enabling the warship to travel at one-hundred and twenty miles per hour in the direction of the storm. Such a speed, however, was not the fastest the vessel was able to reach. The one-hundred yard long construct was able to fly after all.


    Everyone onboard was able to see the dark clouds in less than half an hour. The waves seen in the alchemy binocrs were more than ten yards tall. The ones who controlled the magic power furnace were all mages, as there were not many sailors onboard. The soldiers who followed Saleen were all astonished by the scene of the storm.


    It was fortunate that everyone knew what the dragon skeletonbat vessel was capable of, and there were grade-9 sorcerers stationed onboard. They would have needed to only take flight if anything happened.


    The ten yard tall wave chased after the merchant ship in front of it. The ship had obviously undergone modifications, as it looked to be amon warship originally. The merchant ship that was modified from a warship even retained the two magic stone cannons on it.


    The modifications allowed the ship to travel at very high speeds, yet sport reduced defensive capacities. Any huge waves would have gotten the ship off-course, let alone the fearsome storm at their rear. The merchant ship began to tip in the waves. The near one-hundred yard long ship was severely tipped over soon. Ships in the sea were to keep at a vertical angle with huge waves. If ran with waves flipping at the ship¡¯s sides, not even the Ancient would have beenpletely safe.


    Most warships had mages stationed on them, ensuring survivability in the event of storms. The ship before them however, seemed to be one of those capable of hiring only magic apprentices.


    Crack...Boom!


    Loud cracking sounds were heard from the merchant ship. The bow of the ship made it past the wave and trembled violently. Soon after it was torn apart in the middle!


    Saleen was able to tell that the ship was given modifications to the center of it in order to increase cargo capacity, by stripping off some magic instruments. There were no mages to be found on a merchant ship after all. The ship¡¯s cargo capacity would have easily doubled at least, at the cost of severely reduced durability.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go rescue some people,¡± Saleen sighed, as the ship before them was bearing the g of the Sikeqinya Empire, but it was not a warship. Even if it happened to be a warship, if both sides were not engaged, he still feltpelled to at least save the sailors.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel adjusted its angle and extended the bone wings at its nks, deploying metal buoyancy modules as well to ensure stability to the ship. All that enabled it to maintain its bnce to a certain degree in the storm. More than forty dinghies were thrown out from the deck on both sides. They were not lifeboats, as lifeboats would have simply toppled over in such storms.


    The area covered by the storm was incredibly huge, covering an area of more than one-thousand miles. The center of the storm was however, incredibly calm and serene. Within the area of less than ten miles, furious waves were seen everywhere, stirring about the center of the storm and moving forward. An old sailboat was seen traveling at great speeds in the area. The ship was about sixty yards long, its masts held high, yet its sails were utterly tattered. A row of soldiers stood on the deck of that old ship.


    The soldiers were seen d in rusted iron armor and were not wearing helmets. Most of the flesh on their faces had rotted away, and their eye sockets were almost all bereft of eyeballs. None of them had the soul mes typical of spirits.


    The soldiers held ancient spears in their hands. The spears¡¯ des were about a yard long, serrated on both sides.


    Arge eerie eye was seen hanging above the ship, staring forward. Its pupil was thinned to a vertical slit in the middle, exuding an incredibly evil aura. The eye had a diameter of one mile. As it was hanging high above the air, it did not look as repressing as its size suggested.


    All elements surrounding the eye were subjected under its control. The waves were unable to make it to the ship, and it was not known what actually made the ship move at such speeds.


    The eye blinked slowly, with every blink stirring up huge waves faraway. The dark clouds in the sky stirred along, cracking noises were heard from the violent air currents. The storm covering the one-thousand mile radius area seemed to have originated from the eye.


    The merchant ship was totally wrecked in the storm. The sailors and merchants onboard were at a loss of what to do. The chances of surviving such a storm was next to none.


    ¡°Captain, a ship at our front!¡± Some of the soldiers pointed at the dragon skeletonbat vessel from their ship that had yet to sink. The huge vessel waited silently under the shadow of the clouds, waiting for the storm toe.


    More than forty dinghies were thrown overboard into the water, with two spirits on every boat for control. The boats had Water Shields about them, but they were different from the ones Saleen was used to using; they were probably grade-2 spells. The boats were using magic arrays to propel them, and power driven from magic nuclei. The dinghies were not fully inted, and they were all caved in somewhat. With the protection provided by ball-shaped Water Shield, the dinghies were able to easily float at sea, making their way for the dismantled ship.


    The storm engulfed the forty dinghies and more in an instant. The boats rocked feverishly in the storm, yet they stuck to the water stubbornly.


    The storm was powerful, but it was not some kind of offensive spell. There were no other impurities found within the storm other than water. The dinghies made it through the waves and came to the merchant ship. Most of the ship have sunk by then, with only the deck left about half a yard above the water. Most of the hold had already been flooded. If the ship had not been keeping half of the sealed holds intact, the ship would have gonepletely underwater by then.


    The spirits threw ropes overboard. With the sailors and the soldiers being within an inch of their lives, they cared not for who it was that came to their rescue. They were soon dragged onboard by the spirits. Every dinghy was capable of carrying about twenty people and left as soon as they were filled.


    The storm made it to the dragon skeletonbat vessel. It rocked in the huge waves whipping about, with the wings at its nks sticking close to the water, acting as bncers. Conventional bncing tes would have failed their intended purpose when subjected to waves of such magnitude. The bone wings on the vessel however, came with auto-adjustment functions, allowing them to brave the fierce waves without snapping.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel was built to be a gship all along. While the ship was indeed powerful inbat, the most crucial aspectid still with safety, speed, and its ability to adapt to situations. The dragon skeletonbat vessel sported the best teleportation portal to be had, magic arrays and nine magic power furnaces. The ship was also equipped with a hold that functioned like a space warehouse, enabling it to carry massive amount of cargo. The metal buoyancy modules were designed specifically to braverge scale storms such as the one they were facing then.


    There were more than one-hundred sailors and more than one-hundred soldiers on the merchant ship. The rest were coolies meant for hardbor. On the Myers Maind, being a sailor was a lucrative job, which differed from the coolies working on ships. More than forty dinghies meant that more than eight-hundred could have been saved; the merchant did not have such a capacity to begin with.


    The sailors and soldiers on the dinghies were rocked until they felt like vomiting. The ones in charge of steering the dinghies respectively were two spirits, and they only knew to secure the rescued people by tying them to the boats. They then steered the dinghies back to the dragon skeletonbat vessel.


    Saleen stood at the deck of his ship, overlooking his spirits fishing people out of the water. Nailisi had dived into the sea and went to the broken ship, diving into its hold.


    The cargo hold was divided into several sections and Nailisi was looking for the smallest one. She kicked the door open and found the ce to be filled with crates¡ªthe space crates used by Qin elite forces,pletely identical both in looks and dimensions. It was only how the content was stored that was different. Such crates ensured the safety of the cargo within, and there was no need for the content to be weighed prior.


    Such spatial crates ensured that no matter how heavy the content they were made to carry, the total weight of the package remained unchanged. As such, the spatial crates were valuablemodities on their own, specifically due to their properties. The crates however, were not very sturdy, and Nailisi was able to easily break any one of them. As she was there alone and there was no one around to watch her, she went stuffing all of the crates into a dimension stone instead.


    There were more than one-hundred of those creates within the small hold. After Nailisi was done bagging whatever was in the hold, she went intorge holds. That hold carried the usual cargo, and as such, was packed usingrge wooden crates, tied up using metal threads andbeled.


    Nailisi bagged the normal crates into her bracelet. She had sharp eyes and went checking out thebels themselves. Anything she deemed of low value, she would hardly bother doing anything with. The ship came from Sikeqinya, and she was sure that it was a smuggling ship. The goods needed to be valued to at least one-hundred-thousand gold, before the journey was deemed to be worth the risk.


    One-hundred-thousand gold was no small amount to even the Kingdom of Metatrin. While Saleen had his way hunting in the Oceanic Ice Block, the current situation with things meant that Saleen would never sell a single magic nucleus, no matter how expensive they got.


    The economy of the entire kingdom was undergoing a recession. Wealth was only circted domestically. Magic nuclei, metals, wood, and ores, allmodities fought over by merchants, were stored by the royal family within the kingdom¡¯s warehouses as soon as they were produced.


    Nailisi went to explore the next hold with glee, thinking that saving people was indeed interesting, and a lucrative activity to boot.


    After clearing out most of the sunken ship¡¯s goods, Nailisi made it back quietly to the dragon skeletonbat vessel. Most of the rescued people were seen onboard the ship by then, and there were more than two-hundred of them.


    Saleen went back to the hold early. He was in no mood to deal with the people. As the merchant ship was merely a smuggling ship, he handed it over to Truman to deal with them.


    Four-hundred miles away, at the center of the storm, the great eye was still flying forward. The sailboat beneath it reeked of death. The ship went skimming the waters without making a sound.


    The great eye in the sky retained control of the storm, and it soon got near to the dragon skeletonbat vessel. It was flying at about one-hundred miles per hour. If the dragon skeletonbat vessel had simply turned around and left, the ship would not have encountered the monster. As the ship was still busying itself with sorting out matters of the rescued people and Saleen paid little heed to the storm, the ship stayed where it was.


    Both parties got increasingly near to each other. Four-hundred miles, three-hundred, two-hundred...


    Saleen felt strange. He had finished meditating and three hours passed, yet the storm seemed to have no intentions of stopping. The dragon skeletonbat vessel continued to rock on the waves, yet those within were hardly able to feel it.


    ¡°Nichs, do you sense any danger nearby?¡± Saleen asked the old holy master.


    ¡°Nothing. Nailisi, you sense anything?¡±


    Nailisi shook her head. She was very sensitive to perceiving danger, and she felt no threat looming about.

 Chapter 985: Ghost Ship (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 985: Ghost Ship (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel did not have much space in its hold, but there was one particr area that was used specifically for transporting troops. When the situation called for it, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was capable of transporting over 600 troops.


    At the time, that area wasrgely unused, and as such, there were some construction materials lying around, all of which were high-grade woods that had been produced by Metatrin. As Saleen nned to go to Ceylon City, and he nned to build a pce there, he did not see a need to use his own space equipment to transport the wood.


    There were currently 289 troops in that area. The captain of that specific merchant ship was brought to the room above them and was questioned by Truman.


    Truman was hardly anyone worth mentioning in Metatrin City, as there were simply too many other powerful people there. As such, a level five grand mage was little more than just another face in the crowd.


    Saleen¡¯s influence had rubbed off on Truman enough for him to learn to go about things carefully. He had brought 12 ancient warriors and 20 personal guards, all of whom had originally served under Saleen.


    When he went to pay a visit to the captain, all of those personal guards had elvish alchemy crossbows with them, all of which were hidden in the walls currently. If they found anything amiss, those 20 crossbow bolts would have been more than enough to kill even a level seven sorcerer!


    The captain changed into something clean, then sat down at a table across from Truman. He looked rather nervous.


    Truman wore a grey magic robe. Even though the captain knew very little about mages, he knew enough to understand that the one who was sitting across him was not someone that he could take lightly. Regardless of how many sorcerers there were in the world, a grand mage was akin to a god among themon people.


    ¡°Sir mage...¡± the captain addressed him politely.


    Themon tongue that was spoken by the captain was a very standard one, with every syble pronounced clearly. ¡°I¡¯m Naberyne, a member of the Ironwall City Chamber of Commerce of the Sikeqinya Empire. I thank you for your rescue, sir.¡±


    That was the first time that Captain Naberyne had ever seen a ship that was capable of weathering a storm. He also knew that those he was talking to at the moment were not Sikeqinyans. He thought they were probably from Cloudflow. So, he had to wonder...


    Why would someone from Cloudflow be here? That area around ck Dungeon Ind was something that even Cloudflow ships would have had a hard time passing through! If they were to head west, they would have had toe here from the Deep Sea and go through the Sea of the Dead. That level of danger would have been enough to make any fleet despair!


    It never crossed Naberyne¡¯s mind that someone would have ventured through the northern seas, where icebergs were found everywhere, and reached their current location. The one who sat across from him had, in fact, been someone who had destroyed his home, Ironwall City.


    Even if he had learned about the destruction of Ironwall City, he would not have done anything about it. After all, he was just a merchant. Besides, he only saw the city as a touchpoint, as it was not his actual birth city anyway.


    ¡°Ironwall City Chamber of Commerce?¡± Truman frowned. He thought that if Saleen knew that he was someone from Ironwall City, he might not have actually saved him!


    ¡°Indeed, sir. So... You know where it is?¡± Naberyne asked.


    ¡°Of course. But... Ironwall City... It no longer exists.¡± Truman had no intention of covering up anything in front of the merchant. So, he decided to tell him the whole truth.


    Upon hearing this, Naberyne was dumbfounded. He remained speechless for quite some time after that, as he was having a hard timeprehending Truman¡¯s words.


    So, Truman went on to ask, ¡°What is your ship doing all the way out here? This is the Deep Sea!¡±


    Naberyne smiled bitterly and said, ¡°Sir mage, I¡¯m guessing that you¡¯re not a Sikeqinyan then?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not,¡± he replied.


    ¡°Your confusion is understandable then. Sikeqinyan merchants basically travel bynd. The trade routes are essible and convenient, and we¡¯re often seen everywhere on the maind. But, as for the sea... If merchants at sea were to survive, we needed to go start smuggling. In fact, 90 percent of the smuggling ships of Sikeqinya are royal warships. As such, lesser merchants like us need to avoid safer routes in the nearer waters, instead traveling through routes in the Deep Sea.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that quite risky?¡± Truman asked.


    ¡°We have no choice. The nearer waters are filled with the royal navy¡¯s smuggler-hunting ships, and if they catch us, our cargo will be forfeited and the captain will be sentenced to death,¡± Naberyne exined.


    Then, seeing that there was hardly any reaction from Truman, he added, ¡°If one of those smuggler-hunting ships got lost and was left to fend for itself, it would have been possible for armed merchant ships like ours to sink them. So, smuggling at sea is something that you have to have a lot of brains to do sessfully.¡±


    ¡°High profits, I take it?¡± Truman asked.


    ¡°Sir, I¡¯m sure you can see the answer to your question clearly as you look around. With the ship having sank, it¡¯s as if we¡¯ve done all that work for nothing. That ship was shared by more than a dozen investors, which all divide the profits among them. Now, the profit totals will yield less than ten thousand pieces of gold each.¡±


    Truman nodded. He was from Sreeger Ind, so he knew nothing about the value of gold as he was growing up. Then, all of his expenses were paid for when he came to Metatrin City, so he did not need to work. Hence, he had no idea whatsoever what such an amount really meant.


    Naberyne rxed a little bit when he saw Truman¡¯s expression. He had brought quite a lot of personal goods with him.


    Whilemon people were unable to use space equipment, that was not to say that he had no way of using such equipment. In fact, his space equipment was hanging around his neck as they spoke.


    He intended to have the mages extract the goods that were stored within it when he returned to Ironwall City. After all, if it was only the goods on that ship they were talking about, the profits would indeed be rather meager.


    ¡°Where did this route that you took begin, and where did it lead to?¡± Truman had not actually wanted to see that captain. All of these questions were what Saleen had wanted him to ask.


    Naberyne replied, ¡°We departed from an ind east of Royal Harbor, our goal being the Tanggsi Empire. The empire has ced restrictions on trade, but smuggling is still a big thing there. The cargo of the ship...¡±


    ¡°Was meant to be sold in the Tanggsi Empire, the money from which you would have then used to purchase local goods from the empire, which would have, in turn, yielded several times the profits than if they were traded onnd. Am I correct?¡± Truman knew next to nothing aboutmerce, but his calctive abilities were far abovemon folks¡¯ nheless.


    Truman then added, ¡°Get to the point. Is that route a safe one?¡±


    ¡°Of course it isn¡¯t safe. While the Tanggsian navy was far inferiorpared to the Cloudflow¡¯s men, they were still not an entity that we merchants could have easily taken on. As such, we needed to go through the Deep Sea, even bribe some nobles and military along the way, before we were able to make it to shore. If we had encountered a storm, all of our efforts would have been for nothing,¡± Naberyne said.


    ¡°Do you have a sea chart with you?¡± Truman had little interest in what Naberyne had to say.


    ¡°I do,¡± Naberyne said.


    ¡°Give it to me. Take that aspensation for your rescue,¡± Truman said.


    Huh? Naberyne was confused by this, and he thought he must have heard him wrong.


    ¡°If it had not been for my rescuing you and your people, I would have had no need to take the warship into that storm! Do you know that just stopping here for a single hour costs us six hours of moving on the outside?¡± Truman added impatiently.


    He was not a robber, after all. If he was, he would have just taken that chart by force!


    ¡°Alright,¡± Naberyne said, while looking dejected.


    That sea chart was a secret of the chamber ofmerce, which would not have developed without the chart. In fact, that chart had been vital in making them thergest trade organization in Ironwall City.


    He had ventured to the Tanggsi Empire personally to procure important cargo, but he had never expected to meet such a peculiar storm along the way. In fact, the weather within a thousand-mile radius of where they were should have been fine, with zero chance of a storm appearing.


    He was actually one of the most important shareholders in the Ironwall City Chamber of Commerce. This is why he had one of the three sea charts with him.


    Truman was super into magic and had very little skills when it came to social interactions. Thus, he waited for Naberyne to take out the chart coldly, without speaking to him any further.


    Naberyne had no way of dealing with a re from a level five grand mage, and as such, he had no choice but to take a bracelet from his wrist, then take out a piece of crystal from it carefully and say, ¡°Sir mage, the sea chart is in here. Can you...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll make a copy and return this to you,¡± Truman interrupted him and said, while he took the crystal. He then turned around and immediately left the hold.


    Now that Truman had finished his mission and had gotten the sea chart, he headed to where Saleen was. But, just when he walked out of the room, he slipped and fell.


    The two ancient warriors behind him were astute enough to catch him before he hit the floor. At that moment, the entire ship shook violently. The chains that were on the sealed boxes that were being stored below snapped, and the ship was flung into the air by the waves, hitting the surface of the ocean hard as it came back down.


    Saleen did not escape the predicament in the hold. However, since he was a level nine sorcerer, he fixed his legs on the ground and was able to open a magic array. Within that magic array, he saw that a huge eye was heading straight toward the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel!


    Da*n it! Saleen felt incredibly frustrated upon seeing that huge thing, and he wondered... What kind of a monster is that? I¡¯ve never even heard of something like that!


    He then saw a sailboat forging through the waves right beneath the eye, which was actually something that Saleen was familiar with. It was a ghost ship!


    When low-level ghosts possessed other living beings, they would not be able to maintain the internal organs of those bodies that they possessed, which meant that the organs would start to decay slowly. Humans had used ghosts for a time, creating many armies that consisted of ghosts, then sending them to fight against the gods. In fact, recent mages had tried to create simr ghost armies as well, but their efforts were halted, as they were unable to capture any ghosts.


    Currently, the core of the storm was a hurricane that spanned over ten miles. Without the stabilization that had been provided by the metal sealed boxes, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was only able to maintain its stability through magic arrays, which caused their power usage to rise exponentially.


    ¡°Move in the northeastern direction! Quickly!¡± Saleen gave the order using magic sound arrays.


    As such, his voice was heard all over the warship. There were no ordinary folk in the ship, as even the troops that had been assigned there were elites from the Kingdom of Metatrin, and the crew had been brought from Sreeger Ind. Only Saleen¡¯s trusted people were allowed to have control of that ship.


    At this point, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was only five miles away from that ghost ship. As the metal chains below had already snapped, there was no longer a need to even raise the anchor.


    The magic power furnaces cranked up and started to operate at their full capacity, while the ship¡¯s bone wings spread out. It then turned around quickly and sped away, like there was no tomorrow!


    Saleen was not worried about that eerie-looking eye. He still had his family badge, and there was no need to even aim when one was shooting at something that huge.


    However, the storm had apparently not reached its full capacity. Hence, the storm, which covered more than a thousand miles, probably had something to do with the huge eye.


    As the might of the storm increased, so did the possibility of the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel sinking. Saleen did not want to risk that. So, he nned to leave the dangerous area right away, promising himself that he would deal with that huge eye at ater date.


    ¡°Help me! Help me...¡± Suddenly, an eerie voice was heard.


    It seemed to being from the huge eye in the faraway sky, which was at the very core of the hurricane. The voice seemed to be emanating from thousands of people, all of whom were speaking at the same time. But, it was surprisinglyprehensible and wasn¡¯t at all chaotic sounding.


    Saleen grew even more anxious after hearing the voice. He had Nailisi take the level 12 magic nuclei, then hand them to the grand mages who were manning the magic power furnaces.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go! Help me...¡± Although the huge eye kept calling to him, Saleen continuedmanding the mages to have their ship take flight, using an even louder voice.


    ¡°My liege, I¡¯ve heard something about that thing before!¡± Nichs, who was near Saleen, suddenly said.

 Chapter 986: Ghost Ship (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 986: Ghost Ship (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What the heck is that thing?¡± Saleen felt a sense of dread after seeing the giant eye that was hanging in the air. Saleen asked about the eye as soon as Nichs said that he knew something about it.


    ¡°My liege... Have the ship go faster!¡± Nichs could not help but yelled as he saw that eye in the magic projection moving increasingly closer.


    ¡°Rx.¡± Saleen was very calm as he spoke.


    While the giant eye felt very strong, its attack was rather one-dimensional. Although such an attack would have proven lethal to low or mid-level professionals, it was simply a somewhat concerning threat to a level nine powerful professional.


    Nichs bit his lip and felt his throat getting dry. These reactions were caused by his nervousness, not fear. During the earlier days, when he had first be Saleen¡¯s follower, Saleen had little use for him. Hence, Nichs had avoided fighting at the frontlines as best as he was able, so as to avoid shing with those from the Holy See.


    At the moment, he had followed Saleen as far as the Sikeqinyan waters, where he ran into a monster that was created by the Holy See. This was his first time getting a glimpse of the Holy See¡¯s secret power.


    Now, he no longer feared such predicaments. At present, the nervousness that he felt was something born out of excitement instead.


    The newly crafted Scepter of the Fallen allowed Nichs to get in touch with powers of higher levels, and as such, he felt that his future had never been brighter. At the very least, it was brighter than what it would have been if he had been serving under the Lord of Glory.


    Nichs started to exin, ¡°When Pope Colin II took over the Holy See about 200 years ago, the Pivotal Council and the Tribunal were still quite friendly with each other, and both of them initiated a project that created a weapon that used prisoners who were being held in the ck Dungeon of the Tribunal. After Colin II rose up to heaven, the next pope shed with the Tribunal, and that brought the project to an end. The Tribunal, however, continued modifying the project nheless, nning to handle it on their own. The codename for the project, which was given by the Tribunal, was ¡®Eye of the Storm.¡¯¡±


    ¡°You mean that thing up there?¡± Saleen pointed at the eye in the magic image as he asked Nichs.


    ¡°Yes. That¡¯s probably it. I have spent quite some time taking care of expired documents for the Holy See, seeing to their destruction. Things like this are all done by those who aren¡¯t considered to be important...¡± Nichs could not help but wear a bitter expression on his face as he recalled this.


    He then added, ¡°Anyway... I was still young back then, and I was very curious. So, I snooped around and found something, which was the project they called ¡®Eye of the Storm.¡¯ The pope back then went so far as to announce aw due to that, forbidding the Tribunal to continue conducting the experiment. It was then that the Tribunal and the Pivotal Council went their separate ways.¡±


    Saleen never thought that he would have been able to hear so much secret history about the Holy See. He was paying close attention, practically mesmerized by what he was hearing.


    Seeing how interested he was, Nichs continued, ¡°The Tribunal might have simply ignored the pope¡¯s orders, as the Tribunal had six head inquisitors back then, all of whom were very powerful. In fact, every single one of them was more powerful than even you are, my liege.¡±


    Although Nichs immediately realized that what he had just said might have irked Saleen, Saleen did not think much about it. After all, he had encountered many strange things, yet hisbat capacity was derived mostly from his equipment. Besides, the strength that Nichs was referring to was simply that of the head inquisitors themselves, not taking into ount the use of external apparatus.


    ¡°The Eye of the Storm Project was something that was created specifically to deal with Cloudflow. The Tribunal had suffered great pressure from the Cloudflow Empire for quite a while. If it wasn¡¯t for the ck Dungeon Ind¡¯s sitting in the middle of the ocean, Cloudflow fleets would have gone on harassing the Tanggsi Empire endlessly. Regardless, the Tanggsi Empire started to build massive amounts of defenses along the shoreline in order to strengthen their defense against Cloudflow.¡± Nichs¡¯ words sounded ratherplex, which caused Saleen to have somewhat of a headache as he tried to keep up with what he was telling him.


    Soon, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel took to the air and gradually distanced itself from the giant eye. The elements around the ship were stable, and as such, the storm had little effect on the ship. After all, the ship was created out of the remains of ancient giant dragons, and since such dragons had been capable of flight in more terrifying environments, the storm that they were currently weathering wasn¡¯t really that big of a deal.


    Saleen stopped pushing Nichs to tell him more, as the crisis was no longer just around the corner. Yet, Nichs seemed to be immersed in the past.


    Nheless, his tone mellowed as he went on to exin further, ¡°The Tribunal¡¯sbat capacity had been on par with the Pivotal Council¡¯s for a long time, and they were even somewhat stronger at times. There were also countless powerful ones imprisoned within the ck Dungeon. Some of them have even been imprisoned for almost a thousand years! It was unthinkable to release those people, yet killing them wouldn¡¯t have done anyone any good. After all, the Tribunal needed their souls.¡±


    ¡°Souls?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Indeed, souls,¡± Nichs replied. ¡°There were people in the Tribunal, who had been crafting something like soul beads in secret, and there was nothing the Pivotal Council was able to do about it. The Eye of the Storm was something that was designed with Cloudflow in mind. It was something capable of creating powerful hurricanes in a very wide area, just like how it is now. My liege, this storm covers an area of more than a thousand miles. What do you think would happen to a fleet caught up in such a storm?¡±


    Saleen thought about it for a moment. Unless it was something like an Ancient or a peculiar craft like the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, any other type of ships would have simply been torn to shreds before sinking to the bottom of the ocean.


    The merchant ship that he rescued was modified from a warship, yet even it had ended up being torn apart at the edge of the storm. Furthermore, it seemed that the giant eye was running for its life instead of trying to pursue the merchant ship. It was not even trying to attack anything!


    ¡°Wow... Very powerful... Casting a skill like this at sea. If that thing is capable of elemental conversion, it will be able to use the power of the sea itself, creating a storm as well as whipping up a tsunami. That would destroy everything in its path!¡± Saleen said to Nichs.


    Nichs then said, ¡°The Eye of the Storm was only one of the methods that was used to deal with Cloudflow. There was also the ghost ship, which was created by making ghost-like beings out of the prisoners in the ck Dungeon. Only a ghost ship would not have been affected by a storm. My liege, if our fleet were to encounter a bunch of ghosts, whosebat capacities are entirely unaffected by the storm, while ours struggle to even stay alive in the storm, what do you think would happen?¡±


    Saleen had only felt how powerful the Tribunal was at that very moment, and he had to wonder... What are ghosts? Beings from another ne that are entirely impervious to physical attacks? If they are not even affected by the storm in the slightest bit, that would mean that theirbat capacities have been raised exponentially!


    The most difficult thing about such design ideas was how to execute them perfectly. It seemed that the Tribunal had already sessfully managed to do that, which meant that only the Ancient would have been unaffected out of his entire fleet!


    ¡°How was the Eye of the Storm created?¡± Saleen then asked.


    ¡°It is a product that was created by mashing up the souls of 360 powerful mages via divine spells. As for the specifics, I know next to nothing, as I never had ess to the special techniques that the Tribunal used,¡± Nichs answered.


    ¡°Wow... 360 mages!¡± Saleen was shocked when he heard that. He was rather angered as well. But, he quickly calmed down.


    The Holy See had been around for almost a thousand years. When Tanggsi established its empire, it had fought with Qin.


    The great army of the Holy See had even reached all the way to the the foot of Holy Rock City. While the Holy See army was defeated in the end, then forced to retreat with clipped wings, it still managed to kill quite arge number of mages. They also had captured a great number of mages and threw them into the ck Dungeon.


    The mages would have researched the holy masters if they were given a chance to. Likewise, the holy masters wanted to do the same with the mages. What was different, however, was that the research that the mages wanted to perform with the holy masters regarded the knowledge they possessed, while the holy masters would have seen the mages as being precious materials themselves.


    A mage¡¯s mental powers, soul, and magic chords were all of use to holy masters. While holy masters were incapable of using elemental magic, they were capable of using a mage¡¯s equipment, even making that equipment into holy equipment.


    An example of this is the soul bead. A level one mage¡¯s soul was worth hundreds ofmon folks¡¯ souls. If it had not been for the codex of the Holy See having forbade such research, the bloody conflict between both sides would have kept escting until one of them waspletely obliterated.


    While the Tribunal had been cocky before, now, such experiments were only carried out in secret, instead of waging a war across the entire maind. It was not until the sacred war broke out that Pope Theisio made apromise.


    ¡°What the Tribunal nned to do was to merge the souls of mages together, then extract wind element magic chords from their bodies. It would then craft the Eye of the Storm with thebined products. The Eye of the Storm is capable of seeing everything within its area of control with great rity. That information is then shared with the ghost ship. At the same time, the Eye of the Storm is capable of creating a storm that can cover arge area. Its power equals that of having 360 sorcerers cast arge wind spell!¡± Nichs exined.


    ¡°This sounds impossible!¡± Saleen could not help but interrupt Nichs. While the giant eye that was chasing them was powerful, it was impossible for it to be as powerful as having 360 sorcerers bundled together!


    ¡°Of course it is impossible! If the Tribunal had indeed been able to create something so terrifying, they would have razed Alchemy City. My liege, what I meant was that the Eye of the Storm had the endurance of 360 sorcerers in terms ofbat capacity. If you had to deal with 360 sorcerers taking turns to have a go at you, would you be able to survive till the very end?¡± Nichs asked, his voice growing increasingly loud as a thought came to him...


    Both he and Saleen had never felt any danger when the Eye of the Storm had approached them in the past. This meant that thing was peculiar not just in the way that it fought, but also how it disabled its enemies from being able to tell how dreadful their situation was.


    ¡°There is no way that I can fight that long without a magic tower,¡± Saleen said inly.


    He was different from the others, as he brought his magic tower with him wherever he went. A magic tower was a mage¡¯s most reliable piece of equipment.


    However, the magic towers of conventional mages needed to be rooted to the ground and to borrow the power of the earth in order to stabilize its surrounding elements, which were what enabled them to cast powerful attacks. These towers also used magic arrays and the power of magic nuclei to create a very solid fortress for defense.


    Nichs continued, without caring what Saleen thought about his question, ¡°The Eye of the Storm operated as if 360 sorcerers were taking turns to attack. Thus, it seemed like an endless deluge of attacks. Unless one is able to master higher rules, which prevent the Eye of the Storm from deriving elements from its surroundings...¡±


    ¡°Nichs, I heard the Eye of the Storm crying for help. Did you hear it too?¡± Saleen cut Nichs off with his sudden question.


    Nichs was startled, and after taking a moment, he answered, ¡°No, I didn¡¯t!¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, what about you?¡± Saleen then asked.


    ¡°I only heard some vague shouts from that monster, but I can¡¯t make out what that thing was shouting about!¡± Nailisi was able to feel it due to her soul bond with Saleen.


    ¡°Help me!¡± the giant eye in the air called. Saleen was the only one out of all of the entire fleet¡¯s upants who heard it.


    ¡°If only Eleanor was here!¡± Nailisi stared at the eye and said fiercely. He said this because Eleanor was versed in archery, and her arrows came with rules of elements that would have definitely been useful for wounding the eye.


    ¡°Nichs, tell me... What is that thing doing here? Did it run away from the ck Dungeon?¡± Saleen asked out of nowhere.


    ¡°That... Wouldn¡¯t be possible, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Nichs asked hesitantly. ¡°I¡¯ve never heard about anyone being capable of escaping that ce!¡±


    He then added, ¡°That thing is not human, but rather a piece of equipment. It¡¯s capable of talking, just like some high-level spirit. If it did run away from the ck Dungeon in such a hurry to cry for help... There is definitely someone from the Tribunal on its tail!¡±


    As he thought of this, Nichs felt his head getting itchy and he tensed up.

 Chapter 987: Assault of the Crazy Ones (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 987: Assault of the Crazy Ones (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Yeah, the Eye of the Storm... It was shouting ¡®help me¡¯ at me.¡± Saleen¡¯s expression was a sarcastic one, and he continued, ¡°So you tell me, should I believe that thing?¡±


    ¡°Master, all creatures capable of thought, are capable of lying,¡± Nailisi added. She was figuring it out from her point of view. Even her master would allow her to lie to him?


    ¡°That thing...why should I save it? That was something not even the tribunal was able to control. If I save it, their troubles will be mine,¡± Saleen murmured to himself.


    ¡°Master, you are really smart,¡± Nailisiplemented, with full intention of licking Saleen¡¯s boot.


    ¡°Yeah, right. You have an eye for that thing, don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, master. I want to open a purgatory of elements. That eye of the storm would probably make a great foundation and structure for the purgatory,¡± Nailisi answered honestly. She knew by then that whenever something was concerning the growth of her powers, Saleen rarely shot down her proposals.


    ¡°Purgatory of elements?¡± Saleen recalled that the collection of purgatories all had separate elements. It seemed that Nailisi came to understand that if she were to formplete rules, she needed to fuse all six elements together. ¡°What does she intend to do to get the other five elements, after subduing that Eye of the Storm?¡±


    ¡°Master, if we are able to get our hands at the Eye of the Storm, I¡¯ll have my ways to slowly expand the purgatory of elements,¡± Nailisi did not exin further. The most difficult part about the Twelve Notes of Purgatoryid in opening up spaces. Doing so required very special materials, before opening them up one by one. When a space was opened,pleting it would beparatively easy.


    Saleen weighed the options in his mind. ¡°The Eye of the Storm is at least something of grade-10. One such powerful thing was running away from the tribunal. It would have been rather stupid of me to save it.¡±


    At that point, Saleen walked out to the corridor outside of the rather shaky hold, making for the control room.


    The captain of the dragon skeletonbat vessel came from Sregl Ind as well, but the one in charge at the moment was Truman. Naberyne was thrown into the hold below, and no one entertained him anymore.


    All nine magic power furnaces were cranked to full power. The elements around the vessel were abnormally stable. When the vessel was flying above the water, waves hit the ship every so often, causing it to rock asionally. The dragon skeletonbat vessel was kept at low altitude. The ship was big after all and flying close to the sea surface enabled it to ride on the air currents near the sea, costing the ship ny percent of its energy use. If the ship was to be taken to high altitudes, magic nuclei would have been depleted every single minute.


    ¡°Teacher!¡± Truman was relieved to see Saleen around.


    ¡°Truman, change course. Head west.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, heading west would be...¡±


    ¡°Just do it,¡± Saleen did not exin. There was nothing but vast open ocean westward. It was said that the end of the Myers Maindid one-hundred-thousand miles away, but no one ever made the journey, as they would have arrived at the Sea of the Dead heading west for five-thousand miles. It was a ce that not even Cloudflow ships would have dared to venture. Even the edges of those waters would have been enough to make a powerful fleet disappear without a trace.


    Truman did not question his teacher any further. While the Sea of the Dead was indeed fearsome, it was six-thousand miles away from where they were at that moment. They would not have been able to reach it even if the ship was to fly at full speed for one whole day.


    When the vessel changed course, the storm behind them changed as well, chasing after Saleen¡¯s ship. Saleen grew even more certain that the Eye of the Storm was up to no good. Saleen was even able to tell that even if the Eye of the Storm had caught up to them, it would not have attacked. With the tribunal forces at its tail, would have never let him off easy though.


    If he ended up attacking the tribunal forces, the Eye of the Storm would have gotten what he wanted. If both sides ended up being losers, the Eye of the Storm would wipe out both sides, instead of remembering the deed he had done for it.


    In the case of such monsters that were forcibly created, it would not have been a big deal to burn bridges behind them. They might have even enjoyed doing so.


    Saleen was still calcting hisbat capacity in detail. He had lost a great number of his elemental creatures fighting the grade-9 monsters under the sea, with only the over one-hundred reserved ones left. The ancient warriors were unscathed, yet there was no way to replenish their numbers once they perished. The only trusty ones by his side were Nailisi and Nichs.


    Nailisi was keeping one-hundred-thousand demons in her purgatory of devils. It was a pity that they were not of high levels. While they would have had an edge in conventional battlefields, they stood no chance against the Eye of the Storm at sea.


    It seems like one¡¯s personal powers were still more important most of the time!


    Saleen sighed and walked to the window behind, looking at the huge Eye of the Storm faraway through the crystal window. The distance between the ship and it was further widened to more than ten miles away. It was obvious that it had also been increasing its speed. Saleen¡¯s dragon skeletonbat vessel, having increased its speed by eighty percent, would have shaken it off long ago otherwise.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was best used for observing the flow of energy. That, coupled with Figaro¡¯s Magic Form, enabled him to quickly determine an enemy¡¯s weaknesses.


    The Eye of the Storm was practicallyid bare before Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye, which was afort to him. He had worried about the monster¡¯s level being too high to have its capabilities gauged, but the core of the Eye of the Storm was able to hide nothing as he looked closely.


    The Eye of the Storm was of the size of a mile in diameter. For an equipment, it was indeed huge. The core of the monster however, was only about twelve yards in diameter. The Eye of the Storm of twelve yards radius was something formed using wind element magic chords. It was a shocking find to Saleen. If that thing had not been created by the tribunal, he would have even been impressed.


    Three-hundred and sixty mages...no, sorcerers! Magic chords of three-hundred and sixty sorcerers extracted and crafted together, creating the basic form of the Eye of the Storm. At the center of the magic chords gathered from three-hundred and sixty sorcerers, was a shadow that never stayed in one shape for long.


    The voice was heard calling for help from the shadow. ¡°Help me...¡±


    The shadow was consisted of none other than the souls of three-hundred and sixty sorcerers. Souls were not only difficult to cut apart, but even more difficult to fuse. The more powerful the soul in question, the truer the fact became. The angel of fear¡¯s body had a linked soul with her. The two souls hated each other, yet they were dependent on each other, but then again, they remained incapable of fusing with each other no matter what.


    It was unknown how the Holy See managed to fuse the souls of three-hundred and sixty sorcerers. The fusion was an iplete one as well. The voice heard from the soul felt like it was spoken by more than three-hundred people. While they shared the same rhythm and there were not even minute differences in it, Saleen was able to feel the noise within nheless.


    ¡°There has to be a way!¡± Saleen kept watching. Despite being able to locate the opening at the core of the Eye of the Storm, it was wrapped tight by magic chords and nothing could have been done about it. The chords needed to be cut away before he could attack the soul within.


    The best way to go about it was to use Nailisi¡¯s Sword of Rules. The problem was however, when the Sword of Rules was used, it would most probably result in the splitting of all three-hundred and sixty souls. The Eye of the Storm would not have been of any worth by then.


    After the incident with the divine baby, Saleen grew reluctant of taking such risks. He decided to keep running and have the tribunal forces chase after them. He wanted to see how they would deal with the monster.


    Saleen did not forget to gaze at the ghost ship at sea. As they were so close to each other, even the waves proved incapable of blocking Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye. Everything about the ghost ship wasid bare before Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    The ghost ship was within one-hundred yards long and was seemingly made of wood. When observed with the Elemental Eye, Saleen was able to see that the ship was crafted from bones of some unknown creatures and was crafted to a perfect whole. More importantly, the ship itself was a lifeform.


    Saleen had seen ghosts himself, and every soldier of the ship was a low-level ghost. That did not affect theirbat capacity. The soldiers had been professionals among humans, who lost their minds after being possessed by synthetic ghosts, bing an even more potent weapon stronger than blood knights by one-hundred times.


    Those things were like the iron blood warriors controlled by Grand Duke Iron Blood. ¡°No, those things are more powerful than iron blood warriors, and even more powerful than my ancient warriors.¡±


    As Saleen¡¯s mental powers grew yet again, he became capable ofmanding sixty-four ancient warriors at most. Those horde of ghost soldiers however, were all under the Eye of the Storm¡¯s control.


    The Eye of the Storm was created by fusing souls three-hundred and sixty sorcerers. While the quality of their mental powers would not have been enhanced by much, its heft was something Saleen could never hope to reach. Even if the souls of each of the three-hundred and sixty were only capable ofmanding ten souls, the total sum enabled the monster to control three-hundred and sixty sorcerers nheless.


    When such weapons were put under someone¡¯s control, theirbat capacity would grow considerably as well.


    ¡°That ship has at least hundreds of ghost soldiers, right?¡± Saleen thought for a bit. If the Eye of the Storm indeed wanted to go head on against him, he would not be able to have much of an edge over it. It was not an option to kill the ghost ship by having all of his elemental creatures dead. Saleen was being impulsive previously, letting his water elemental creature leader try to assassinate Imposa. The leader ended up dead, and resurrection would take at least a year.


    Saleen learned his lesson. Unless the situation absolutely called for it, he would never again let his elemental creature leaders fight outside. While the grade-10 creatures were powerful, their intelligence was inferior to humans, making it easy for human professionals to crush them using special techniques or equipment to do so.


    The greatest use of the leaders was to enable their grade-9 elemental creatures restored quickly, or to save Saleen¡¯s life in life and death situations.


    ¡°That monster created by the tribunal is really some weapon indeed!¡± Saleen considered using his family badge to kill all of them, as there were hardly any better ideas he coulde up with at that moment.


    That alerted Saleen that he had grown too dependent on his family badge. When the family badge became unavable, his thoughts became severely limited. He would not have been so dependent in the past.


    Jason once told him that one needed to have at least three reliable ways to fight an enemy. Relying solely on one equipment or skill would enable one to live for no more than a year.


    ¡°Perhaps...the Star Gathering Needle will be a good option. The needle¡¯s range is inferior to the Crystal Finger.¡± Saleen needed to be very near the divine baby to be able to shoot his target urately with it. The core of the Eye of the Storm still had wind element hundreds of yards thick after all.


    There was no doubt that the one that researched the monster was crazy themself.

 Chapter 988: Assault of the Crazy Ones (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 988: Assault of the Crazy Ones (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Two-hundred yards away at the rear of the storm region, a small vessel of about forty yards long chased after the storm. A young man was seen on the bow, wearing a ck cape with his arms folded at his chest, keeping his cape down. His expression hinted that he was feeling rather cold.


    The man¡¯s looks were that of a typical Tanggsian. His facial features were clear cut, his nose long. He had ck hair and his eyes were brown with hints of gold.


    Four soldiers d in ck armor stood behind the young man. The equipment the four of them carried were prominent ones. Arge emblem was printed at the breastte, a spike stood tall above their helmets, making them look like single-horned demons.


    The joints of the ck armor had quite a number of such metal spikes on them. The visors of their helmets have had tiny holes all over them. They were the professionals among the wardens, and the tiny holes were etched with precious crystals. Such a visor allowed the wearer to see at a wider angle, which also required special skills to allow the wearer to process therge number of images acquired.


    The small warship moved at immense speed. The storm region controlled by the Eye of the Storm moved aggressively forward at a speed of one-hundred and fifty miles per hour, yet the small vessel kept close behind without fretting. The young man wearing a ck cape sneezed all of a sudden and smiled. His face was impably clean, and his expressions rxed,cking the gloomy look often associated with the members of the tribunal.


    The winds at sea were strong, yet they parted before the small vessel. The young man¡¯s eyes were clear, as they looked faraway. The four wardens behind stood faithfully without saying a word, like four mountains.


    The young man spoke all of a sudden, ¡°Hunting is one of the most boring things one can do. The life just ends up lost in your hands, and that is just too brutal for me. The Lord¡¯s head warden knew I didn¡¯t like operations like these, and yet I was sent here. There is no doubt that they didn¡¯t want that thing taken back alive.¡±


    Murmurs were heard from the four armored figures, and it was clear that the warden leaders were unustomed to such insolence. The Lord¡¯s head warden was someone who was like the head inquisitor¡ªan unquestionable figure demanding respect from all. In the tribunal, the status of the head warden was on par with the head inquisitor. The ck dungeon had always been the most important power of the tribunal.


    The young man was obviously taking jabs at the Lord¡¯s head warden, but the young man was also of high status himself, and one that none of the warden leaders dared to offend. They would not even dare to report what he said to the Lord¡¯s head warden. If what he said was to be reported to the Lord¡¯s head warden, what would have followed was probably the immediate execution of all four of them, sweeping the incident under the rug.


    ¡°Are you guys mute or what? Man, you guys are boring. I take it that none of you know about that thing yet then. If it wasn¡¯t for me, they wouldn¡¯t have been able to finish their research. It¡¯s a real pity there are just too many bugs on it. Even if it was something capable of defeating the Cloudflow fleets, it wouldn¡¯t have been enough to go against the kind of warship Grand Duke Iron Blood has. The more the head inquisitor puts his hopes in that thing, the greater his anger will be when it fails. Do any of you understand? When thates, I¡¯ll be one of those who¡¯d get it. It¡¯s better to let it run loose. It¡¯s not my problem anyway.¡±


    The four warden leaders shivered at the mention of the head inquisitor. Of the six head inquisitor positions of the tribunal, only three remained for thest century. The head inquisitor was seen like a god of the tribunal. No one other than the head warden would be able to go against the head inquisitor. Two head inquisitors died a couple of years ago, and the two who reced them, were even more brutal than the ones that came before.


    One could have anything when working in the tribunal; anything but a sense of safety. If one ended up offending the head inquisitor, there would be only three ways out of it: getting tortured by the head inquisitor¡¯s men to death, being sent to the ck dungeon to serve as guinea pigs for research, or the mostmon option was if they were chosen for such a predicament¡ªsuicide before they were caught.


    Under such circumstances, many who worked in the tribunal developed twisted temperaments, and they were known for their aggressiveness and brutality. Even the holy masters from the pivotal council would rather not mess with the tribunal.


    The young man continued after taking jabs at the head inquisitor, ¡°The pope is yet another joker. Why did he insist on making peace with the tribunal? Isn¡¯t it just great that the two sides keep being at each other¡¯s throats? Doing so might even clean some useless garbage out. Now both sides are buddies and devoted all their might at Qin. Well, then what? Unless they can find a way to take Holy Rock City, a city like that that stands tall on the maind wouldn¡¯t care about being surrounded. You can surround them for one-thousand years, and they will still not starve. After all, if both Holy Rock City and Alchemy City can¡¯t be taken down, the holy war will be all but a joke.¡±


    The young man went on to not only explicitly defy the pope, but also throw insults at the holy war. The four warden leaders wanted nothing more than to jump into the ocean right there and then. It was just impossible for them to pretend to have not heard what he said.


    The young man was a candidate for the position of next head warden, and he was the only one.


    The position of head warden was unlike that of the head inquisitor; it was held only by one person. Once a candidate was named, the current head warden had to step down no matter what in twenty years, to make way for the next head warden.


    It was due precisely to that that the current head wardens spent great effort to nurture their sessors. The twenty years time was a time to enable to the named candidate to grow. The old head warden would then step down to be one of the elders of the ck dungeon, spending his days training.


    Most head inquisitors died in battle, yet most head wardens died of old age.


    That young man was a candidate for future head warden. Anyone who wanted to move against him would have required permission from the elders of the ck dungeon. A candidate needed to be a grade-9 professional and able to develop a lifespan of one-thousand years, to be head warden. How long had the ck dungeon been around? With the head warden changed every twenty years, just how many grade-9 professionals were around?


    ¡°Wait? Why is it changing course?¡± The young man was astute enough to realize the peculiarity. The core of the hurricane controlled by the Eye of the Storm was changing direction. He did not pay any heed when it moved northeastward, but the monster was heading west that time.


    The western waters were anything but peaceful. The Cloudflows would have been making themselves pirates and harassing everyone otherwise, instead of being so polite with things. The tribunal had also taken the geographical advantage, making a chain of inds three-thousand yards long using the ck Dungeon Ind and the hundreds of inds around, barricading the sea routes of Cloudflow.


    The end of the chain of inds were about one-thousand miles away from the Sea of the Dead. Even so, the Cloudflow did not want to risk venturing into the region. The waters of the Sea of the Dead were not stable. Entry into the region woulde with a huge loss.


    The western waters were the most dangerous ce on the Myers Maind, more than one-hundred times more dangerous than the Stormy Sea in the east. ¡°The Eye of the Storm was one possessing an intellect and sported impable judgment. Why does it run westward instead?¡±


    No matter how outstanding the young man was, he would not have expected a peculiar warship about seven-hundred miles away had caught the attention of the monster and had wanted to use it as a scapegoat. The waters nearby would not usually see any other ships in general.


    The Kingdom of Metatrin¡¯s assault on Ironwall City reached the tribunal quickly, but no one from the ck dungeon would have linked the incidents together. No one had seen the Ancient or the dragon skeletonbat vessel, and the North Sea was filled with icebergs, floating ice, and powerful magic beasts were all over the ce as well. It wasmon sense among Tanggsi people that no warships would make it past the North Sea; that ce was forbidden to all ship travel.


    The group of souls continued to call for help within the Eye of the Storm, and Saleen pretended to not hear anything. His dragon skeletonbat vessel traveled at increasingly high speeds, and Saleen spared no expense with grade-12 magic nuclei.


    The dragon skeletonbat vessel reached a frightening speed of two-hundred miles per hour. When done on water, the warship would have suffered intense resistance, and it would have probably been more expensive to do so than flying right above the sea surface.


    ¡°Master, we can¡¯t just keep running like this. How about we go underwater?¡± Nailisi suggested.


    ¡°Good idea, just wait until we get more distance between us and that thing.¡± Saleen had a headache. The Eye of the Storm could definitely fly faster than his ship, but it simply went on to keep at its tail for some unknown reason, maintaining a distance of fifteen miles or so.


    The ship increased its speed yet again, and Saleen summoned Vinny, telling him to take the miniaturized magic cannon in his arms. While the cannon was utterly incapable of locking onto small targets, the Eye of the Storm had a diameter of one mile. At such sizes, even hitting the edge of its elemental shell would have slowed it down somewhat.


    The earth elemental leader navigated around the familiar ces on the ship and came to the deck at the stern, transforming his lower body to that of a turret and took the cannon in his hands. The cannon had seen changes of grade-12 magic nuclei twice, and there was still some power left in the housed nucleus.


    While the Eye of the Storm did possess an intellect and was able to see what was going on the ship, it was unable to recognize the miniaturized magic cannon. The first shot that Vinny took blew up the central area of the Eye of the Storm urately. Arge hole of tens of yards deep was seen in hundreds of yards thick wind element shell, and worse still, the wind element around was unable to cover the hole in time.


    Vinny fired volleys at the monster without batting an eye. While the miniaturized cannon packed quite a punch, the wind element shell was simply too thick. The outermost part of the shell was about four-hundred yards away from the core. Pration of wind element defenses of such a thickness would requirerge scale magic cannon. The miniaturized cannon itself was already something that Saleen was unable to replicate, and that meant he had no hope of makingrger ones.


    After firing about a dozen shots, all of which hit the outer wind element shell, the Eye of the Storm suffered quite a severe blow. It needed energy to umte wind element shell, and as such, it slowed down without realizing it. Saleen took the opportunity to lower the speed of his ship.


    A dozen miles were near the very limit of the cannon. If stretched too far, the cannon would not have been able to do anything to the monster. As the shots went on from the cannon, both the monster and the ship gradually slowed down.


    The souls at the core of the Eye of the Storm howled furiously. It dared not elerate, as doing so would have presented an opportunity to get its wind element shell tornpletely, or damage spread out over a wider area robbing it of the defense of further attacks. It would have caught up with the dragon skeletonbat vessel if that had not been a concern.


    The vessel dived underwater when the speed was reduced to about forty miles per hour. The crafting on the ship wasplex. Despite multiple modifications, it remained ill-suited for underwater battles. The ship was never made primarily for battles in the first ce. It had only dived about one-hundred yards underwater, giving up on speed, just so that it was able to shake off the hurricane. It continued going west at the speed of twenty miles per hour.


    The Eye of the Storm grew anxious. It was able to locate the whereabouts of its target, yet it was not able to attack something underwater, as the one at its tail had gotten within one-hundred miles from it.


    The head warden sessor in the small warship at the rear, the one wearing a ck cape, returned to the control room and began to issue orders for battle.


    ¡°Attention to all hands, prepare the cage. Priests, it is all up to you now. Unless your lives are in danger, I¡¯m not going to do anything to help you out.¡± The young man lost that smile he had before and was seen wearing an incredibly cold expression instead.

 Chapter 989: Hardness of Elementite (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 989: Hardness of Elementite (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The small-sized warship barged into the storm, yet performed in a more stable manner than the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. The howling gale and raging waves wrought by the Eye of the Storm had no effect on the ship whatsoever.


    The divine runes on the ship¡¯s side shimmered, and the waves calmed as they were over ten meters away before they actually hit the ship itself. The young man wearing a ck cape, who was a candidate for the seat of head warden, sat on themand deck and gazed forward. He could see the Eye of the Storm clearly through the crystal window. It appeared to be about five miles away.


    Although he was yapping about being immensely unwilling to bring that thing back, there was no way that he would have left a mission unfinished, especially one that had been handed over to him by the head warden. He could have cursed about all manner of things at that moment, and no one would have dared report him to the head warden. However, if he were to simply give up pursuing the target, his position would have been threatened.


    The ck Dungeon was an institution that regarded action as being of the utmost importance, more so than any other institution in the Holy See. As such, it requested little of its members, as long as they got everything that they had been tasked with doing done.


    This way of going about matters made them far more lenient than the Tribunal itself. While the ck Dungeon served under the Tribunal in name, it was actually an entirely independent institution. As such, if someone from the ck Dungeon made any mistakes, only the head warden would have been allowed to punish them.


    At the moment, there were two divine crossbows that had been installed at the front deck. These were rare pieced of divine equipment that could only be found in the Holy See.


    Their ranges might have been inferior to the alchemy crossbows that were employed by mages, yet they possessed the potential to inflict a lot of damage nheless. As such, every single one of theirrge bolts was infused with divine spells, which were specially crafted to detonate when the bolt hit its target.


    Thus, these bows¡¯ pration andteral damage potential far exceeded alchemy crossbows of the same ss. It was for this reason that they were both difficult and costly to produce, and only the core armies of the Holy See were supplied with them, and even then, the bows were only gifted in small numbers.


    At that moment, 12 holy masters appeared on the rear deck. They immediately surrounded a divine rune charm array and began chanting prayers.


    These 12 ck-robed holy masters had alle from the Tribunal, not the ck Dungeon. The Eye of the Storm had been crafted by the ck Dungeon for the Tribunal army, and it was about to be sent into battle before it had escaped. Hence, it was only natural for the Tribunal to grow anxious over the incident and send 12 powerful holy masters to pursue it.


    The navy that the Tribunal was trying to build had been in development for almost a hundred years, but it was still inferior to Cloudflow armies. In fact, they were not even capable of moving into Sikeqinya! The Eye of the Storm was also something that was produced by the Tribunal as an act of sheer desperation.


    Currently, the scene of the 12 holy masters chanting prayers around a divine rune charm array frightened the Eye of the Storm in the air immensely. It kept running around frantically, the small-sized warship at its tail.


    It was clearly afraid of that young man. This was because, among all of those who created it, the young man held the key position, which meant that he knew a lot about its weaknesses.


    However, as the 12 holy masters were surrounding the divine rune charm array at the rear deck and chanting, it made its confused souls shudder violently. It was already incapable of flight once the divine spell began.


    Then, the Eye of the Storm, which was a mile in diameter, fell into the sea. The wind element outer shell of the monster had an incredibly high weight. Nailisi cursed like there was no tomorrow from inside the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, which was currently underwater.


    If that one-mile-long monster was dropped down from above, their ship would suffer an intense impact. After all, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was not the Pan Turtle Alchemy Shi. As such, it was difficult enough for the ship to even descend 100 meters underwater. Hence, they would surely sink if they were hit like that.


    As the divine rune charm array was activated by the chanting of the 12 high-level holy masters, the powerful-looking ghost ship seemed to have been frozen in ce as well. The entire surface of the sea surrounding it froze over, while beams of seawater shot out all around it, wrapping around the falling Eye of the Storm tightly.


    The surrounding seawater was then sucked upwards, and the location where the Eye of the Storm and the ghost ship were seemed like an ind that had just appeared out of nowhere upon the sea. This ind-like apparition that was formed from seawater had countless white divine runes flying around it, which werepressing even more seawater and trapping the Eye of the Storm within them.


    The Eye of the Storm was powerful, which wasn¡¯t surprising, as it was, after all, a piece of equipment that had been meticulously created by the Holy See. Although it possessed an almost human-like intellect, it had no way of going against divine spells, which was the very reason why it ran away in the first ce.


    If its enemies had not been so many powerful holy masters, it would have simply turned around and killed them. But, there was a safeguard built into the depths of its soul, and as such, it had no way of winning against holy masters, all of whom knew its innermost secrets.


    At the moment, numerous divine runes flowed within the seawater that had trapped them and suppressed all of their abilities. The Eye of the Storm grew rather desperate as it continued trying to call for help, ¡°Help me! Help me!


    Saleen was immensely frustrated that the Eye of the Storm was yelling with a voice instead of simply sending a message to his soul. Everyone in the Holy See would have heard the cry for help by now!


    Therge-scale divine spell that was cast by the holy masters had also affected the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. The ghost ship was crushed outright when the Eye of the Storm crashed.


    While the seawater was fixed in ce by divine spells, the resulting powerful shockwave did not get negatively affected. Instead, it simply spread out to the surrounding waters.


    As for the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, it was right below where the monster had been and was thrown down to a depth of 250 meters, all with its defenses still operating at full power. The windows of the ship were broken, and seawater began gushing into the hold.


    This would have been okay if it was any other normal day, where the ship was manned by a crew that consisted of nothing but spirits. Yet, at that time, the vessel had grand mages and a crew that consisted of soldiers, as well as over 200 people that they had rescued upon it.


    Therefore, Saleen had to save these people, and as such, he had no choice but to leave the vessel with Nailisi. As the warship kept sinking deeper and deeper, Saleen took out his Magical Element Tower from a dimension stone.


    He tried not to think too much about the danger that he was about to face. Despite his great mental power reserves, he knew that it would still cost him one-fourth of his mental powers to take out something so huge.


    Saleen went into the tower as soon as he took it out. Then, he immediately unleashed Tempest Dragonmights to take the people from the ship.


    Saleen had originally wanted to take advantage of the situation, but he had not expected that the seemingly powerful Eye of the Storm would be totally suppressed by divine spells. In fact, it was so badly suppressed that it was not even able to retaliate!


    Worse still, his Dragon Remains Combat Vessel had be a lost cause. While the main body of the ship itself was entirely unharmed, it needed aplete overhaul to be functional again, which would cost him a great amount of funds.


    I would have ambushed that boat if I knew this would happen! Saleen grew increasingly regretful the more he thought about it.


    The Tempest Dragonmights were unable to move very fast underwater, and they were also inferior to the Blue Ice Maidens in terms ofbat capacity. The greatest advantage they had was their abilities to create air bubbles underwater, which could be used to help the conventional troops as they were entering the Magical Element Tower.


    While the 12 ancient warriors and those grand mages who were manning the magic power furnaces all entered the tower on their own, Saleen focused his attention on saving the sailors and the soldiers who followed Naberyne. By that time, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel had sank down to a thousand meters, so Saleen had no choice but to have the tower sink along with it. After all, he had to take the vessel away.


    As they were now amid the Deep Sea, the depth of which exceeded 5,000 meters, it was fortunate that he had the Tempest Dragonmights with him. Otherwise, most of the soldiers would have died!


    The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel sank very slowly, and Saleen dared not simply ce it in a dimension stone, as doing so would have cost him an even greater amount of his mental powers. Thus, he had to wait for the vessel to slowly reach the bottom before he emerged outside the tower and ced the vessel into a dimension stone.


    Having to extract and put away two humongous objects had ended up costing Saleen almost half of his mental powers. He then returned to the Magical Element Tower and had the grand mages watch over the magic power furnace while he meditated with a divine crystal in his hand.


    Saleen had decided to fight the Holy See, deeming that the previous loss that he had just incurred was uneptable without doing something topensate for it. Furthermore, the Eye of the Storm would have allowed Nailisi to open up a third space in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    In future battles, he would still need that powerful equipment. Hence, Saleen deemed that this current quest was more important than growing his ownbat capacity.


    The divine spell of that small-sized warship of the Tribunal had now beenpleted, and the number of divine runes that kept the seawater wrapped around the Eye of the Storm had reached upwards of tens of millions! White divine runespressed the seawater, and the wind element outer shell was pushed inward, oneyer after another.


    In time, all that was left was the core itself, which measured about 12 meters in diameter. The tens of millions of divine runes were reduced and frozen, then had merged with one another, taking the final form of a white cage, trapping the core of the Eye of the Storm within it.


    The white cage shimmered with flowing divine runes as it flew to the rear deck of the small-sized warship. Afternding on the divine rune charm array, a loud crashing sound was heard. The divine rune cage then merged with the charm array, which made it seem as if a huge building had just been erected at the rear deck.


    This was an extremely slow process, but it also took Saleen¡¯s ship a very long time to hit the bottom of the ocean, so it was not a problem. When Saleen had finished putting the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel away and was about to float upwards, the divine rune cage had just been ced into its designated spot.


    The 12 ck-robed high priests dared not leave. They simply remained at the rear deck.


    As the young head warden candidate gazed at the sea before him from inside the control room, he mumbled aloud to himself, ¡°Who is down there? The Eye of the Storm has an intellect. And... Is it... Crying for help?¡±


    He was thinking that if there was some powerful magic beast beneath the surface of the ocean that he had fished up and taken away, it would be unfathomable! When he thought more about it, a huge sense of crisis welled up in the depths of his soul.


    He had never experienced such an intense feeling since being made a candidate for head warden. This resulted in his reaction time being slowed by at least a second. To anyone less powerful, reacting a second slower would have been very terrifying.


    The young man reflected immediately... I haven¡¯t been fighting for some time, and this is how it¡¯s going down?


    Golden shes were seen in his brown eyes as he shouted, ¡°Prepare for battle!¡±


    All of the divine rune defenses onboard the small-sized vessel were activated as soon as the order was given. Hundreds of wardens also rushed to their stations.


    However, the sense of crisis that the young head warden candidate felt within his heart did not dissipate. In fact, it was at that moment that he found that he had made a grave mistake... The enemy is a human, not some magic beast!


    Saleen¡¯s mages then focused on bringing the Magical Element Tower to the ocean¡¯s surface with all their might. The tower rose at a frightening speed.


    Six Blue Ice Maidens cast vortexes beneath the tower, using the power of water magic to propel the tower at faster and faster speeds. Themon folk in the tower felt nothing, but the mages by Saleen¡¯s side saw everything very clearly.


    The external part of the tower was rubbing against the seawater violently, and huge ring-like ripples were formed by the resulting sound waves as they were spreading to throughout the surroundings.


    At that moment, Saleen had no idea exactly how fast the tower was moving. The Magical Element Tower¡¯s body was simr to conventional magic towers¡¯. What was different was the number of floors that it had, as well as the fact that its topmost floor had a pointed top instead of a tform.


    It was a tip that had been crafted using elementite, which was used to ram into the small-sized vessel ferociously. At that moment, hundreds of golden divine runes sprayed into the seawater, and the metallic bottom of the ship was torn into shreds by the tower.

 Chapter 990: Hardness of Elementite (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 990: Hardness of Elementite (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The white divine runes became golden as the Magical Element Tower rammed into the ship. However, this defense proved inadequate during the strong impact of the collision with the tower.


    In fact, this anger-fueled collision had cost Saleen quite a lot. The powers of all six Blue Ice Maidens, which were powering the tower, were depleted by more than half. Moreover, they were all summoned back to the elemental badge!


    The leader of the Blue Ice Maidens had yet to recover, and it would have required the six of them to rest an entire month before they would be able to restore their powers to their peak conditions. It did not even make things better that the Blue Ice Maidens were deployed in seawater, where they were able to borrow powers that were several times their own from their surroundings!


    As for the tower, it was entirely unscathed in the impact, while the small-sized ship was torn apart immediately. Its thick spine, which had been crafted using divine spells, was entirely broken.


    Saleen himself never had never done any experiments to find out how hard elementites actually were, but he was able to roughly tell this information based on observing Gaine¡¯s performance. Even a powerful astrologer had no way of carving an imitation magic array upon it, and only a very powerful mage, whose powers wereparable to those of the gods, was able to craft elementite.


    The level nine sorcerers from Sreeger Ind were only able to help Saleen craft magic arrays that were incapable of being fixed in ce. As a result, they underwent considerable wear and tear with every use.


    With that said, Saleen was reluctant to use the tower when he was heading back to Ceylon City. So, he opted to use the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel instead.


    The sh between elementite and metal resulted in the metal being torn into shreds. The divine rune cage on the ship was unable to avoid the impact as well. When the elementite pierced through the ship, its tip tore the divine rune charm array apart, sending the cage flying.


    There were also massive casualties among the soldiers on the ship. All of the officers, the leaders, and even the holy masters were sent flying during this assault as well. At that time, the leader of the wardens spread out the white wings of light behind his ck armor.


    As for the warriors, they were unable to achieve the true stated of flight before reaching level nine. As such, the level eight soldiers were capable of only short distance flights, which would have done them little good in this particr situation, as they were unable to escape crashing into the vast ocean!


    At this moment, the young man in the ck cape took to the air. Four warden leaders, who had wings of light spread behind their backs, stood behind the young man. They were then were immediately surrounded by 12 powerful holy masters.


    There were over 30 warriors, all with wings of light shooting out of their suits of armor, who were standing by at his side and awaiting his orders. They were clearly ready to charge at any given second.


    The wardens who fell into the water were not so fortunate. This was because they were all wearing metal suits of armor and were without any means of survival when they fell into the water. This was due to the fact that the Tribunal had never even considered the possibility that such a mighty warship could be torn apart like that!


    The warship had a very limited offensive capacity, as it had been created with all of its powers focused on its defenses for safety reasons. However, the Magical Tower¡¯s intense physical attack far exceeded what the warship had been designed to withstand. No one had expected the ship to be rammed by something several times its size from below!


    The Magical Element Tower had 24 floors, each floor being nine meters tall. It was a humongous structure that was built entirely of elementite, which meant that it was terribly heavy. As such, the force of its impact was naturally quite high!


    The divine rune cage that flew into the air had a crack on it. The Eye of the Storm knew that it had no chance of escape, so it shrieked when the crack appeared, ¡°Help me, and I¡¯ll follow you!¡±


    Saleen, of course, did not take those words to heart. Besides, he did not want a monster to be among his followers. The one who really wanted the Eye of the Storm was Nailisi, not Saleen.


    The young man from the ck Dungeon simply smirked. There was no anger to be found on his face.


    ¡°Honored sir mage, would you mind letting me see what you look like?¡± the young man asked the tower, which was emerging from the water¡¯s surface.


    The tower had only stuck the eight floors at the top in order to conserve energy. Currently, Saleen was on the 17th floor, which coincidentally was one of the floors that was sticking out of the water.


    The powerful hurricane that the Eye of the Storm had wrought before was nowhere to be found, and once again, the sea was calm. Saleen was dumbfounded to see his enemy soposed, even though he had just destroyed their ship. He tapped at the gourd at his hip, summoning the Water Puppet.


    He then said, ¡°Rossen, go talk to that fellow.¡±


    The Water Puppet had been unable to keep up with Saleen¡¯s speed of advancing ever since it had wanted to be independent. It had only the powers equal to that of a level eight sorcerer by then. The Water Puppet bowed after taking Saleen¡¯s orders, just like a human would have.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go at once, my liege,¡± the Water Puppet said.


    It then went through the tower and took Saleen¡¯s form, flying to the top of the tower. The connection between it and Saleen was strong as long as it stayed within a radius of a hundred miles away, which made it more like a summoned creature than the Winged Skull. However, the Winged Skull did not want to leave Saleen¡¯s side, while the Water Puppet often thought of being independent and bing a human.


    ¡°Are you looking for me? My name is Rossen.¡± The Water Puppet¡¯s expression was ice-cold. It did not call itself Saleen, as it figured that it would hardly matter if it did, as the enemy would have seen through it right away, regardless of the name it used right then.


    ¡°You¡¯re... Saleen¡¯s!¡± The golden glow in the young man¡¯s eye grew increasingly strong after he took a look at the Water Puppet, while struggling to keep his curiosity to himself.


    After all, this was a piece of equipment that possessed a real life force, or rather, it was a living weapon of war. However, most of such weapons came in the form of warriors. He had never heard of a weaponing in the form of a mage!


    ¡°Who are you?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Van Gogh... From the great Tribunal of the Faith,¡± the young man wearing a ck cape said.


    He then waved his hand, causing the divine rune cage that fell into the sea to float behind him. Sarcasm could clearly be seen all over his face, but it was not directed at Rossen.


    Van Gogh then added, ¡°The Tribunal is so great, it is just a matter of time before the maind is united under its name.¡±


    Saleen observed the young man from the Tribunal closely from within the tower. He was unable to tell for sure, but he felt as if every single organ in the young man¡¯s body was perfect.


    Mages believed that humans were the most perfect existences out of all living beings, and that Van Gogh was the most perfect existence among the humans. He looked even more perfect than Fycro, who Saleen had seen personally.


    If the ratio of his figure, his features, movements and voice were to be calcted using Figaro¡¯s Magic Form, it was a state almost perfect bnce. Fycro was rather hostile, and yet, the man called Van Gogh before him showed no hostility. In fact, Saleen even felt like he wanted to be friends with him.


    ¡°I want that thing over there!¡± The Water Puppet pointed at the divine rune cage in the distance.


    ¡°Sure!¡± Van Gogh¡¯s quick answer startled Rossen.


    But, Van Gogh then added, ¡°Kill every single one of us, and that thing can be yours!¡± Van Gogh said to Rossen, the Water Puppet, nonchntly. He was clearly being very sincere, as there wasn¡¯t a hint of sarcasm in his tone.


    Rossen the Water Puppet also did not seem angry. This was not surprising, as it was not a human, so it was still learning about human emotions.


    As such, the words Van Gogh said were more for Saleen¡¯s ears than anything. ¡°I¡¯m not joking. You would never be able to escape from us your current speed of flight. I have a magic tower right behind me... You¡¯re wee to try to leave.¡±


    ¡°This is funny... You¡¯re threatening me!¡± Van Gogh raised his brow and continued, ¡°But, if you were truly able to make good on your threats, you wouldn¡¯t be wasting your time just talking to me now, would you?¡±


    Saleen sighed as he thought that Van Gogh really did have an astute sense of judgment. His Magical Element Tower was only capable of using powerful attacks when it was hovering in midair. As such, he could have given chase if the other party was to fly away, yet he was unable to engage in battle while chasing him.


    ¡°That is not quite the case. My liege only did what he did because he didn¡¯t want to have any unnecessary casualties.¡± Saleen knew that the Water Puppet was unable to keep its identity a secret, so he chose to do so.


    ¡°Then... How about this? You follow me, and I¡¯ll give this thing to your master?¡± Van Gogh suggested.


    ¡°Sir, you can¡¯t do that!¡± The 12 ck-robed priests were frightened, and they all eximed in unison. Van Gogh¡¯s words were unfathomable to them, and they wondered... How can he make a trade like that, using the Eye of the Storm just to get one of the enemy¡¯s followers?


    ¡°I can¡¯t do that. I¡¯m not going to leave my liege,¡± the Water Puppet answered inly, while looking for an opening.


    Saleen had given it the Crystal Ring when it left the tower. He was, at the moment, a level eight sorcerer, whose body had been formed using the water element. As such, he would have been able to withstand the effects of the recoil better than Saleen even nowl. If it was not for the fact that Saleen had gotten himself a pair of gloves, he would not have been able to use the Crystal Finger skill.


    The Crystal Finger was a skill that only a sorcerer above level ten would have been able to use safely. Also, the level ten sorcerer would only be able to attack once he was wearing the ring. And.. he would have to deal with the recoil if he was to use it a second time.


    ¡°You can¡¯t? Really? After all, you¡¯re not his pet! Follow me, and I¡¯ll grant you true freedom, allowing you to be a true human!¡± Van Gogh got straight to the point.


    He seemed to know everything, and this startled Rossen to the core, leaving Rossen with no idea how to respond.


    ¡°My liege. Van Gogh¡¯s prophecy spells are too powerful. You must never leave the tower!¡± A feeling of fear suddenly emerged within Nichs¡¯ heart.


    He thought that he would never need to fear anyone from the Holy See, even Theisio, now that he had a new Scepter of the Fallen. However, the fact that Van Gogh was able to determine the Water Puppet¡¯s background with just the prophecy spell alone, then made requests and tempted the Water Puppet, floored him.


    ¡°Wait, does he have some means of keeping you under his control?¡± Van Gogh was startled as he took off the ck cape, revealing his bare arms. There was a long chain around his hand, which had a pointy spearhead at its end.


    Suddenly, the chain shot out without warning, the spearhead piercing through the lower abdomen of the Water Puppet and sticking out toward the tower behind him. Even though the Water Puppet was a level eight sorcerer, that attack had simplye too fast, leaving no time for deliberation. As such, the Water Puppet was hit and fell into the sea, its body going immediately limp.


    The spearhead did not make any sound when it hit the Magical Element Tower. It was as if air had rammed at the wall instead. Van Gogh was startled to find that his Lance of Order was incapable of piercing the tower!


    ¡°There is no point in ying dead in front of me.¡± Van Gogh smiled and wiggled the chains on his arm, flinging the Water Puppet away.


    After the Water Puppetposed itself, it took flight again, the tower behind its back. It intended to get close to Van Gogh and ambush him using the Crystal Finger.


    However, Van Gogh¡¯s Lance of Order that was on his hand was something that was capable of picking up the minute conditions within the enemy¡¯s ranks, and when Van Gogh saw that there were human-like organs within the woods, he felt ted. He also felt lucky for not having killed the humanoid weapon right away.


    This is because he wanted to use Rossen and develop a true ghost ship, which would end Cloudflow¡¯s reign at sea. While the ghost ship that the Tribunal had created was powerful, it needed the Eye of the Storm around to sessfully fight its enemies.


    At that moment, Van Gogh wondered to himself... Why is that magic tower so solid? My Lance of Order was a true godly item, something that the Lord of Glory crafted by killing a god of the same level. Yet, it was unable to prate a piece of equipment that was crafted by a mage?

 Chapter 991: Divine Eye (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 991: Divine Eye (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Lord of Glory was a true god, however, as humans went on campaigns to conquer nes and ughter adherents, even invading the realms of the gods, most powerful gods fell one after another. The Lord of Glory was but a lesser god of grade-15.


    The Magical Element Tower that the grandmaster had crafted for Saleen had been a grade-16 equipment even at the very beginning. The dimension stones within the tower were all upgraded to grade-18 after it was modified by Gaine.


    Regardless of how powerful a godly item of grade-15 was, in Van Gogh¡¯s hand, it would have performed as grade-10 at most. Such was the limitations imposed by the rules. Anymon person would have been able to go on a killing spree and fell powerful ones easily otherwise, and that would have been a joke in itself.


    Thepetition between both sides had revolvedpletely around the strength of their respective equipment. Van Gogh mastered quite a number of rules yet was still unable to break the crevices between the dimension stones open. The Magical Element Tower was crafted in a tricky manner. As the power of the grandmaster was not what it used to be, dimension stones were used as connecting materials instead.


    Even so, dimension stones were still mysterious materials, and they were not something Van Gogh was able to break. While he was able to touch the rules, he had yet to be able to master them. The power of rules was only able to be manifested using the Lance of Order.


    The levels of those rules proved inadequate to break the dimension stones.


    Even when Saleen used his water me to craft the dimension stones, he was only able to modify their external aesthetics; he was incapable of doing anything about the dimensional space within. Fycro¡¯s equipment would be directly upgraded to the status of godly items.


    Rossen, the water puppet, touched the wound on his abdomen, which was attempting to heal. Despite the fact Van Gogh went easy on him, the Lance of Order remained a true murderous weapon. If it had been wielded by a golden grand swordmaster instead, he would have been dead many times over. The water puppet had yet to develop a soul. From the perspective of his nature, that bit of life force within it was inadequate to make him a true living being.


    Such was the advantage of humanoid weapons¡ªthey were hard to kill.


    ¡°My liege, whatever you do, don¡¯t let the ancient warriors fight. Their souls are weak, and Van Gogh¡¯s prophecy spells are potent. They would make a nice target to ambush,¡± Nichs reminded Saleen. He did not know that the Eternal Control shards were capable of providing protections to their souls.


    ¡°Really? What about the grand duke¡¯s then?¡± Saleen did not borate to Nichs. He only wanted to know if the iron blood warriors, which had once been ancient warriors like his, would share the same weakness.


    ¡°The iron blood warriors...well, their souls are almost gone. My liege, souls are meaningless in their case. What I fear is that he and I share the same equipment. His god¡¯s grace was more powerful than my fallen divine spells. If he had something like the soul bead with him, he would have had at least one more chance to cast greater prophecy spells in full power.¡±


    ¡°Greater prophecy? Isn¡¯t that a skill reserved only for the pope?¡±


    ¡°The ones from the tribunal wouldn¡¯t care for such taboo. In life and death situations, Van Gogh would have even killed gods,¡± Nichs exined.


    ¡°Just how terrifying is the greater prophecy spell are we talking about here?¡±


    ¡°My liege, you have a powerful soul, and that means you will be simply killed off by such spells. Van Gogh¡¯s level was simr to yours after all. Prophecy spells have always been unpredictable, and furthermore, he was a formidable fighter as well. The thing on his hand is probably a godly item from the ck dungeon. If you end up being under the influence of his prophecy spell in battle...¡±


    Saleen understood. Imposa lost the previous battle because of the lesser prophecy spell Nichs had cast. Lesser prophecy spells were incapable of killing someone like Imposa, yet it created an opening that Saleen was able to exploit against him. It was precisely due to such an opening that he was able to defeat him.


    In the battles between professionals, split seconds would be more than enough to determine the oue of a life and death battle.


    ¡°Rossen,e back,¡± Saleen sighed. It seemed that the Eye of the Storm was not meant to be his. It was simply too dangerous. It would not have been that much of a problem if it was just Van Gogh himself. If the twelve high-level holy masters were to go all out, it would have put Nailisi in danger if she insisted on getting her hands on the monster.


    Saleen felt unsatisfied just walking away empty-handed. He summoned Vinny and handed the miniaturized cannon to him, ordering the creature to wait on the fifteenth floor.


    Rossen sniggered coldly outside the tower and said, ¡°Since you¡¯ve stabbed me once, I¡¯ll return the favor with an ice bomb!¡±


    The water puppet conjured an ice bomb with a diameter of two yards as he finished, which he sent flying in Van Gogh¡¯s direction.


    Van Gogh smirked andshed out with his Lance of Order, hitting the ice bomb urately. The water puppet took the opportunity to sneak back into the tower.


    Saleen was able to tell that Van Gogh wanted his water puppet very badly. Saleen had wanted research how souls were born using the water puppet. If was able to observe the entire process, it would enable him to advance into grade-10 almost immediately without having to umte experiences. The only limit to the growth rate of his magic chordsid with the depth of his knowledge; he had yet to be able toprehend the true meaning of souls.


    Upon understanding that, Saleen summoned the water puppet home and immediately had him enter the Shenhe. If Van Gogh insisted on getting his hands on the water puppet, he would have to take on the tower.


    No matter how powerful Van Gogh had be, he remained incapable of doing anything against Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower. Even the divine baby had to spend a good amount of time looking for openings to exploit when he was inside his tower.


    Van Gogh had only realized that the water puppet returned to the tower when he broke the giant ice bomb, when the tower dived into the water.


    ¡°You want to run?¡± Van Gogh dived straight into the ocean from where he levitated. Those behind him followed him as they did not have a choice. Golden runes appeared on the armor of the warden leaders, activating their divine armor exasperatingly as they dived into the water.


    Armors of such levels enabled the wearers to be submerged underwater, though thebat capacity of the armors was greatly reduced.


    Van Gogh pursued Saleen underwater, having no fear whatsoever of his magic tower. It would have been a surprise indeed, if someone of his level, holding a godly item and equipped with powerful gear, feared a magic tower.


    He was unfazed, but the holy masters who followed him were terrified. They feared for Van Gogh¡¯s safety. If anything were to happen to him, they all would be executed. The wrath of the ck dungeon was not something they were willing to experience.


    It was due to such that all twelve ck-robed high priests and the dozen warden leaders dived into the ocean with him. Nailisi charged out of the tower without even bothering to tell Saleen. She was going beneath the tower. She returned to her imp form under one-hundred yards, wagging her tail as she swam forward at full speed.


    A barrier of transparent light naturally formed around Van Gogh as he dived into the water. He was a quick swimmer and he noticed Nailisi who was swimming below, thinking that his opponents wanted to catch him in a pincer attack.


    That was due to the fact the tower simply rested before him instead of running, opening a window in one of the floors.


    Van Gogh saw a blindingly bright light soon after, and a hole with a diameter of three yards was seen before him as the seawater was evaporated. Van Gogh and Saleen were both able to sense danger before it hit. His Lance of Order went on to form a huge solid holy prose with its long chains before him, before the cannon was even fired.


    The cannon hit thence without making a sound and the light of the spell dissipated. No harm was seen on thence, yet the seawater rushed for the vacuum created by the cannon right after, creating violent shing noises.


    Cold sweat burst from Van Gogh¡¯s body. If he had not been able to sense the iing danger, the attack, which none of his equipment was able to take head on, would have hit him squarely. That would have resulted in very severe injuries, even if he was able to survive the attack.


    Magic cannons usually would not pose a threat to powerful figures. Even if the area of the attack had a diameter of three yards or more, it would not be able to lock onto someone like Van Gogh. The location where Van Gogh had entered the water seemed to have been calcted by someone within the tower. It seemed that the cannon was fired as soon as he looked in the tower¡¯s direction.


    His initially astonishment was quickly reced with fury.


    His divine spells had reached the pinnacle of grade-9 and were able to calcte after defending against the attack, that he was under the influence of a lesser prophecy spell. It was due precisely to that that he had stopped for a split second to look in the tower¡¯s direction. The enemy had been coordinating impably to take advantage of that very split second tounch an attack.


    ¡°A lesser prophecy spell! That meant that there is a powerful fallen holy master onboard! That holy master is a cunning one, getting me to stop for a split second instead of using it to kill me outright. Such prophecy spells cause very little recoil indeed.¡±


    Due to there being some fallen holy master capable of casting lesser prophecy spells onboard, it was only naturally for him to determine that he had to get his hands of those in the tower. He deemed it absolutely necessary to kill whoever that was, regardless of how far he had to pursue them to do so.


    Van Gogh took out a book from the badge on his chest soon after.


    Golden holy scripts were written on the ck cover of the book. He freed his right hand, letting thence form a Holy Prose Shield in front of him capable of Absolute Defense, before opening the book.


    ¡°O¡¯ Lord of Glory, my god, my father, I implore that you open that evil protection before me with your wisdom!¡±


    Divine arts were different from magic. While the arts possessed many powerful spells, casting required time to chant. It was all dependent on how much of god¡¯s grace a holy master had. Van Gogh was a favored one of his god, who received divine blessings as early as the age of twenty-four, allowing his body to be suspended at twenty-four years of age, and enabling his training in divine arts to be sped up with no worries of aging.


    Van Gogh was the one who received the highest number of divine blessings among all those in the ck dungeon. As he finished his short chant, a full golden holy prose emerged from the book in his hand. The holy prose seemed to be tangible, copsing quickly after emerging andpressing into a shining dot, which then flew into Van Gogh¡¯s left eye.


    Vinny continued firing away with the cannon. Saleen¡¯s voice was heard deep within his soul saying, ¡°Vinny, get back here!¡±


    Vinny stopped his attacks immediately. His continuous four shots were all fired at different angles and locations, yet the Holy Prose shield formed by the Lance of Order remainedpletely unscathed.


    The golden dot dispersed immediately as it got into Van Gogh¡¯s left eye, forming a web-like structure, enveloping his eyeball. He was able to determine the loop holes on Saleen¡¯s tower using theyer of golden webbing.


    He was dumbfounded to find that, other than that window that had just been closed, all loopholes flowed around the tower. The material from which the tower was constructed from was nigh-indestructible. Even with the power bestowed to him by the true god, he was unable to find a single location where he could havended a decisive hit on the tower.

 Chapter 992: Divine Eye (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 992: Divine Eye (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Van Gogh extended his hand but did not reach for the Lance of Order. He was rendered rather paranoid by the structure of the Magical Element Tower. The tower was simply too sturdy. While it was not that the tower had no loopholes, the loopholes themselves contained rules of dimensional space! Judging by his own capacity, he would be able to open up the ce with the aid of the Lance of Order and many holy masters, but it would take about three to five months.


    ¡°Three to five months?¡± He was only able to keep his Divine Eye active for six hours at most. Any more than that would have started to eat into his lifespan. He would only be able to keep the spell active beyond that time period by paying the price through aging.


    Nailisi took to the sky at that moment. Under the effects of divine powers, the Eye of the Storm remained levitated above the ocean. It was incapable of breaking the seal resulting from Holy Prose Imprisonment and felt that its power was growing weaker and weaker. High pitched noises broke out from the souls within, causing the Eye of the Storm confusion.


    Its intellect was derived from the many sorcerers within. However, crafting by the tribunal left it incapable of recognizing who and what it was, and there was no trace of humanity to be found in its being.


    Nailisi¡¯s body crackled with golden electricity. Holding the Twelve Notes of Purgatory on her left hand and Sword of Rules on her right, she charged straight for the Holy Prose Imprisonment, carving up a huge gash on it.


    ¡°Get out here!¡± Nailisi yelled. The Eye of the Storm intended to escape seeing the cage being cut up, but soon was able to see something like a portal within the gash. It was able to tell that it would only enter another cage.


    ¡°Hear me out!¡± The Eye of the Storm attempted to negotiate with Nailisi, and she responded with yet another sh. That other attack seemed to run right through the gash,nding hard on the Eye of the Storm itself.


    The monster felt like its soul was being torn apart. The pain was so unbearable that it let a fierce eerie shriek.


    ¡°Come out. You have one second, or you will end up dead,¡± Nailisi said coldly, without any hint of emotions.


    The monster understood Nailisi¡¯s mettle.¡± I will be more powerful outside than being within this cage after all.¡± It thought as it immediately squeezed itself through the gash, only to enter yet another space.


    Only after entering that other space did the monster find that it was being duped. That space was several sizes smaller than its body mass and volume. The opening was shut as soon as it entered. There was no way out altogether, and its bodypressed by several times within the space. The pain was no less than the sh that it had suffered earlier.


    The Eye of the Storm was simply down on its luck. The Holy See did not mean to destroy it after creating it, only wanting it to help them fight their wars at sea. If it had simply stayed behind on ck Dungeon Ind, it would have be an important figure within the ranks of the Holy See. That would have been possible if it had developed a full personality.


    It ran, and it ran in front of Saleen, and had tried to get him involved. Saleen was not one to be trifled with, especially when Nailisi was around.


    The Eye of the Storm had thought that Nailisi had too intended to subdue it, and as such, tried to at least break itself away from the Holy Prose Imprisonment to try its luck. Nailisi was a demon, and her thoughts were not something the likes of the Eye of the Storm would be able to figure out.


    That sh on its body had not been a warning. The injuries created by the Sword of Rules were incapable of healing. At the very least, in the case of the Eye of the Storm, the wound was to be a permanent one.


    As the soul of the Eye of the Storm was formed by merging the souls of three-hundred-and sixty sorcerers and had the protection of magic chords at its externalyer, it would have been safe. With the outer magic chordsyer cracked and unable to heal however, the mass of souls within were in danger.


    The space within the collection of purgatories was simply too small for it. It had thought only of escaping from the Holy Prose Imprisonment when it squeezed itself through the gash, and then found the opening shut as soon as it got through. The Eye of the Storm¡¯s predicament was akin to a dragon being stuffed into a bottle. Worse still, the bottle was an incredibly sturdy one, far beyond its ability to break.


    The souls that had been painstakingly merged cracked in an instant. The cracking of the merged souls of the sorcerers released terrifyingly powerful energies, surpassing even those demonstrated by the magic cannon. None of the three-hundred and sixty merged souls were able to escape. They all burst right through the wound, expanding the space they were thrown into.


    A living being sought more than survival by instinct. Sometimes, living beings sought death as well. Deeming the intense pain unbearable, it tried with extreme measures to disperse its soul, turning into pure soul energy. All memories, senses, skills and life dissipated. In exchange, it attained eternal tranquility, freed from all pain.


    The blown up souls were converted into energy within the collection of purgatories, expanding the space within. The body of the Eye of the Storm¡ªthe body that consisted of magic chords¡ªbegan to be absorbed by the space within. The process had been well-calcted, and it differed not one bit as to how Nailisi had pictured it. The only unexpected part of it all, was how the soul did not hold itself back when exploding. The space had been expanded beyond her expectation, and no pure item spirit of any sort was born.


    Nailisi had no time to check out the intricacies of what took ce in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. She was being surrounded on the surface of the ocean; the twelve holy masters had her surrounded from a distance.


    Nailisi smirked. She knew that if she shed with the holy masters, she would suffer dire consequences. The ones from the tribunal were sometimes an extreme sort. She valued her life too much to deem it worthy enough to be put on the line for those around her.


    Nailisi put her weapons away and dropped herself into the water. During the dropping process, the holy masters were able to see that the tail of the demon burst in size as its body wiggled about, growing to hundreds of times of what it had been a while ago.


    The being before them now sported a golden hide and scales, gleaming brilliantly under the sun. Nailisi let out a howl as soon as she was done changing into her golden dragon form. She knew that while the power of the dragon¡¯s breath was immense, it was not something that she was able to endure for long. The howl itself spoke a volume of the might of the ancient golden dragons nheless.


    The twelve ck-robed high priests from the tribunal shook under the howl of the dragon. Nailisi did not spare any time tangling with any of them and dived for the deeper reaches of the sea beneath her.


    Nailisi was mentally linked with Saleen. The reason she had left the tower was none other than to capture the Eye of the Storm. Since she had bagged her prey, she had no intention of tangling with holy masters or whosoever.


    The body of the golden dragon was incredibly powerful. It put away its wings and spared no time thinking about breathing, reaching a depth of more than one-hundred yards in the blink of an eye. A powerful soul energy rushed at her, yet Nailisi¡¯s dragon form hardly felt anything, and continued to dive.


    They were many types of golden dragons, and most sported remarkable physical defense, while their magic defense remained average. That was the result whenpared with other dragons. The golden dragon¡¯s mental powers were so immense, that any soul type attacks would need to be one whole level above it to take effect.


    Nailisi knew that Van Gogh split his attention to attack her. She paid him no heed and simply continued to dive, avoiding any contact with those people. The battle with the divine baby made her understand that if she was caught in a pinch, she would expose her master to danger as well. It was not worth the risk going against someone like Van Gogh. When her Twelve Notes of Purgatory was finished, she would no longer need to fear someone like him. The twelve purgatories within were connected with one another, and no matter who they were, she fully intended to skin them when she threw victims in.


    Nailisi¡¯s thoughts were sensible. Seeing that he was incapable of doing anything against the Magical Element Tower, Van Gogh turned his attention to Nailisi. He was slow in the water and had decided to simply thrust his Lance of Order at the water in front of him, creating a vacuum of one-hundred yards and traveled there instead, as he pursued Nailisi.


    Seeing the vacuum was catching up to her, Nailisi swiped hard with her tail, copsing the vacuum. Van Gogh, who had been pursuing her from behind, was suddenly caught by the copse as he made it to the middle of the tunnel. The seawater that rushed in prevented him from going forward further.


    While that move halted Van Gogh¡¯s steps, the pain in her tail was so intense that it had her in tears. While it was true that the body of the golden dragon was powerful, it was also true that Nailisi had yet topletely digest said power. The action of her tail sweeping up the vacuum created by the Lance of Order was akin to her ramming full force at a mountain.


    The tail of the dragon had bones connected to the spine. While said bone structure enabled attacks with the tail to be intense, the resulting recoil was equally as powerful, which caused Nailisi to feel as if she was being taken apart from head to toe.


    Nailisi had no choice but to take her devil form as she continued to dive.


    Van Gogh maintained his pursuit. Having been unable to kill off the fallen holy master in the tower, he would not forgive himself if he let the demon go free. His connection with the Eye of the Storm had vanishedpletely, a testament of the demon havingpletely subjugated the monster. Van Gogh would be renderedpletely speechless to his superiors if he was to return empty-handed.


    Under the effects of Divine Eye, Van Gogh became able to move frighteningly quick using the water currents. Nailisi took a form with three heads and four arms, and the weapons in her hands frightened him. He no longer dared opening tunnels with hisnce, as the spear in the demon¡¯s hand proved to be quite a threat to him.


    It was incredibly frustrating to him that there were loopholes all over the demon. He would have been able to exploit any of the openings and get rid of the demon within mere seconds, if he was only able to get near the demon. His speed proved inferior to Nailisi¡¯s and was able to do nothing as the distance between him and the demon widened.


    Van Gogh was anxious, and Saleen was even more so that he was. As Van Gogh pursued Nailisi, Saleen took his tower in pursuit as well. The tower moved incredibly slow in water. If it had not been for Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye, he would have lost Nailisi a while ago. There was no way the tower could haveunched any attacks worth speaking about while it was moving. Saleen was unable to help as the distance between the two widened.


    Van Gogh¡¯s mental powers were just too powerful. Saleen had attempted several times to lock onto him, attempting to wipe him out with his badge. Saleen¡¯s attempts were always foretold, resulting in him unable to move against Van Gogh despite having the badge firmly in his hand.


    Saleen had analyzed the power of the Lance of Order and determined that it was something that not even his grade-9 Darkness Shield would have been able to defend against.


    ¡°If only...Eleanor was here right now.¡±


    Van Gogh was getting increasingly frustrated. His left eye lit up with golden light, conjuring holy prose. The golden light¡¯s power was amplified by hundreds of thousands of times by the holy power and was shot right at the shield in Nailisi¡¯s hand.


    The bone shield was easily prated by the golden divine light, and Nailisi lost the arm that was carrying the shield, creating a hole with a diameter of about a foot behind her back.


    It was a derived skill from the Divine Eye¡ªthe Mountain-crushing Beam. It was said that the Lord of Glory could easily prate any mountain and destroy any city, with just a single beam of holy light. The all-destroying beam of golden light was derived from the Divine Eye, and a skill bestowed to Van Gogh by the Lord of Glory himself.

 Chapter 993: Hot Pursuit (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 993: Hot Pursuit (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was no description for the pain that Nailisi had just suffered. The devil form that she had gone to great lengths to repair had half of one of its arms torn off by the Golden Light of Destruction, and a hole was made in that form as well.


    Adding insult to injury, a beam shot through her heart right then and there, melting half of it! The form would have died if it was a true devil¡¯s form, yet Nailisi¡¯s devil form was one that was capable of surviving as long as her soul remained intact. However, having half of its heart gone meant that her devil form had lost most of its powers and was thus incapable of continuing to fight any longer.


    Van Gogh felt rather numb by this time. What he saw with his Eye of God was actually not what was actually there. Despite having half of its heart melted by the Golden Light of Destruction, the demon had actually survived! Furthermore, it had transformed into a skeleton, then dove into the water!


    What is with that skeleton? Its bones have pale magic patterns all over it. It¡¯s astounding to think that a skeleton of such a high level can actuallye naked, without so much as putting on spirit armor to protect itself! Van Gogh felt his brain going rather haywire.


    He sensed dangering from behind him, so he waved his arm to form a triangle with the chains of the Lance of Order. At that moment, a shot from a cannon was heading straight for him, which was quickly blocked by the Lance of Order.


    Saleen took the risk of letting Vinny leave the Magical Element Tower. Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spell had interfered with Van Gogh¡¯s senses again. The shot was considered an urate one. However, Van Gogh had reacted too quickly. Despite being targeted, he was able to block it using the Lance of Order.


    Saleen felt incredibly frustrated to see that the Lance of Order was capable of both attacking and defending, and was also incredibly sturdy. At this point, Saleen did not have any certainty of victory.


    Even if his family badge was able to kill Van Gogh, he had to wonder... Can the family badge really kill a true godly item?


    Saleen gritted his teeth and unleashed 12 Midnight Fangs. These elemental creatures were capable of moving quickly within the dark depths of the sea. They might have even been the fastest out of all six of the elemental creatures.


    However, these dark elemental creatures were naturally weak when pitted against the believers of the Lord of Light. Thus, they could easily be destroyed altogether by a believer armed with a godly item.


    Saleen knew that only the devil form of the spirit form, out of all of Nailisi¡¯s forms, had a highbat capacity. This was because her human form and dragon form both had significant weaknesses.


    That being said, Nailisi was not even capable of withstanding the pressure of the water in her human form, while her dragon form was too big of a target, as it had a body that measured over a hundred meters in length. This meant that it would not be able to dodge any of Van Gogh¡¯s attacks.


    At the moment, Van Gogh¡¯s brows were furrowed. This was because he had just discovered the 12 Midnight Fangs. While that magic cannon¡¯s attacks were powerful, they were also easy to predict.


    If he had not been affected by the lesser prophecy spell, the cannon would not have been even able to lock onto him, and he could have easily shrugged off the threat. However, the threat that the dozen of elemental creatures before him posed, needed to be taken seriously!


    As Van Gogh was backed into a corner, he grabbed over 20 figures from the badge at his chest and threw them all behind him. All of the figures then swung their sharp des out, while charging toward the Midnight Fangs.


    Astrologers were skilled in making weapons of war out of figures, while mages were skilled in crafting mechanical puppets. The greatest works of the holy masters in this regard were the Blood Knights. This is because these figures had no life-bearing materials in them, as they were only crafted from cloth.


    After the more than 20 figures located the Midnight Fangs, both sides shed. The Midnight Fangs¡¯ elemental des cut up 12 of those figures instantly. Their speed and power far exceeded that of Van Gogh¡¯s figures¡¯.


    However, Saleen still pulled back the Midnight Fangs quickly, as that one strike had drained them of half of their powers. At the moment, there were 10 figures remaining, and they all charged at Vinny, who was outside the tower.


    The Midnight Fangs were like human assassins. They possessed high damage potentials and were even capable of killing creatures of the same level in a single move! However, the energy drain that they suffered was just as frightening as their attacks.


    The 12 Midnight Fangs would have killed Van Gogh if they had been able to get near him. It was unfortunate that they were stopped by the 20 figures, which were all at around level nine.


    As the Midnight Fangs had retreated after striking once, Saleen had no choice but to unleash the Tempest Dragonmights. He did not unleash the ancient warriors, as he feared that his Eternal Control shards were incapable of fending off the divine spell attacks of his enemy.


    The ancient warriors¡¯ souls were their weaknesses. The Eternal Control shards that were put into the ancient warriors by Saleen¡¯s hands had problems with their crafting processes, which was something that he was still trying to perfect. Otherwise, those ancient warriors would not have any defense against attacks against their souls.


    As 10 figures rushed at the Magical Element Tower, Vinny, who was outside the tower, fired a shot at them. Two of the figures were unable to evade the attack in time, so they were reduced to dust.


    Vinny then went on to stuff the miniature magic cannon into its own body as it also brandished the magic war hammer, while charging at its assants. Since Vinny was a level ten elemental creature leader, it had little problems dealing with several figures at a time.


    At that moment, Saleen sent out six Blue Ice Figures to help Vinny deal with the figures. The Blue Ice Maidens¡¯bat capacity had been raised by several times in the water. Now, their Swords of Water Element were able to deal damage that was several times more intense than Vinny¡¯s war hammer.


    As the figures and the elemental creatures tangled with each other, there were torn clothes and chipped elemental suits of armor from the elemental creatures scattered everywhere. Both sides fought with everything they had.


    At this point, Van Gogh had gotten increasingly careful. All of his 22 figures had been hard toe by, yet all of them were easily destroyed by Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures. So, he had no choice but to turn around and draw a circle in the water. The circle shimmered with blinding light and quickly grew in size.


    This circle, which Van Gogh had drawn using his finger, soon grew to a diameter of five meters. Then, a heavenly angel emerged out of the center of the circle.


    The heavenly angel was eight meters tall and held a Sword of Glory in its hand. It was shining light to all of the waters within several miles.


    The seawater around it boiled as soon as it emerged. The appearance of the heavenly angel was blurred as Saleen stared at it.


    The only thing clearly visible thing about it was that sword in its hand. The Sword of Glory was over six meters in length.


    Saleen hurriedly called back all of his elemental creatures. It was apparent that the heavenly angel was at level ten, which meant that the possibility of the elemental creatures killing Van Gogh was near zero when he summoned that angel.


    Saleen deemed it was more sensible to deal with matters that came with a great cost. At the very least, his magic skills were far higher than thebat capacity of those elemental creatures.


    The tower went straight for the heavenly angel. At that moment, Saleen no longer had any intention of dealing with Van Gogh.


    The heavenly angel was simr to the elemental creatures in one aspect: they were both beings that would have revived in time unless they werepletely absorbed after being killed.


    Van Gogh apparently had a lot of tricks up his sleeve, so much so that he looked like he didn¡¯t have a care in the world as he summoned the heavenly angel. At the moment, Saleen had to conserve his strength, as Nailisi had reached the bottom of the ocean and went directly into a crevice at its bottom, which meant that she was safe for the moment.


    None of Van Gogh¡¯s subordinates went into the bottom of the ocean with him. It was a given that none of the warden leaders went into such depths with him either. After all, with their poor equipment, they would have been crushed by the pressure of the seawater around them.


    In fact, only the 12 holy masters wanted to follow him. However, they would not havested for long underwater for the same reasons. Holy masters were simr to mages in that their time allotment for moving about at great depths in the ocean was severely limited.


    Mages would have been fine, as they were capable of creating air bubbles, so all that they needed to worry about was the high pressure of such depths. As for Holy masters, the toll on their mental powers grew by every second that they spent underwater.


    As Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower rammed at the heavenly angel, its Sword of Glory shed down hard on the tower, sending a shower of white divine light shooting out as the tower trembled. Yet, the inside of the tower remainedpletely calm.


    Attacks from the angel felt like a thunderstorm, with every blow containing an immense amount of divine might. It was unfortunate for the angel that the level of the materials used to construct the Magical Element Tower was simply too high. As such, there was no way of dealing with it once it waspletely sealed.


    The only way to do so was to grind at it over an extended amount of time. If the ones within the tower had no intention ofing out or attacking, the weaknesses of the tower were something that could have only been discovered at level 12, and the attacks needed to be aimed exactly at those weaknesses.


    This was something that was very difficult to pull off, as the tower would have been capable ofunching attacks when it did not move, thus disabling assants from simply attacking it without retaliation.


    At that moment, the Magical Element Tower dove over 2,000 meters down into the ocean, while Nailisi had already made it to the bottom. A huge crevice was found at the depths of about 5,000 meters.


    The seafloor was not smooth, like it was onnd, but was a much more rough andplex terrain. Nailisi had found a crevice at a depth that even she had trouble calcting. Her mental powers had at least been able to determine that the crevice was deeper than the sea itself, which meant that it had to be deeper than 5,000 meters.


    Furthermore, the crevice was quite narrow. Specifically, its narrowest spot would have allowed for only a child to pass through it.


    There were many fearsome creatures in the crevice. None of those creatures showed any interest in her spirit form, as itcked true soul mes and had no flesh and blood.


    Her soul was also hidden too deep within it. As such, she was hardly different from a moving rock to those creatures in the crevice.


    Van Gogh, however, was quite different. He was bursting with power of life which, to the creatures in the crevice, made him appear like a huge pocket that was carrying the most delicious food that smelled really good!


    Due to Saleen¡¯s interference, the distance between him and Nailisi was about a meter away. Moreover, as this undersea environment was one that was filled with myriad lethal dangers, it was difficult to ambush him, as he had been careful to arm himself with the Lance of Order.


    Is it worth it going this far to pursue a monster though? Van Gogh wondered as he reached the edge of the crevice. He then floated at the top of it and looked down.


    Nailisi¡¯s location was revealed to him by the Eye of God. Then, that thing that took the form of a skeleton continued going down, while Van Gogh looked around and found the crevice, stretching hundreds of miles away, its end nowhere to be found.


    It was so vast, even if he wentpletely copsed the crevice, there was no guarantee that he would kill his target. Furthermore, it required a lot of power to copse a crevice that size!


    He would have been cing himself in danger if he ended up causing an underwater volcano to erupt or forced an earthquake to ur! Thus, Van Gogh decided quickly that it was not a wise decision to make such an attempt. He then reached into the badge on his chest and pulled out a puppet.


    Saleen wasn¡¯t frightened, but then he saw the puppet that Van Gogh had just pulled out! Every piece of equipment in Van Gogh¡¯s possession was powerful, and the one that he had just pulled out seemed to be a constructed puppet that looked like a great wolf and was gleaming with a bronze sheen.


    From the looks of such an extraordinary puppet, it seemed that the Tribunal had not stopped growing and had probably been researching the most powerful equipment ever seen in history. Saleen had to wonder... Figures! Constructed puppets! What could possibly be next?


    Saleen then saw Van Gogh wiggling about, while a silver-white armor appeared around his body.

 Chapter 994: Hot Pursuit (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 994: Hot Pursuit (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen calmed when he saw the armor appearing around Van Gogh¡¯s body. At that moment, he realized that Van Gogh was definitely not the most powerful being in the Holy See. In fact, he was not even among the top three, even when only the ck Dungeon was being considered.


    However, he knew that he still needed to use his family badge when dealing with someone like that, as he was still far from strong enough to take on such an opponent. The elemental creatures were slow to recover, and the souls of the ancient warriors had weaknesses. While he was a level nine sorcerer, he was far from being the strongest among them.


    For instance, the level nine sorcerer who destroyed the pce in Daliang City was immensely powerful. There were also the likes existences like Imposa to consider. If he were to take on Imposa in a one-on-one fight without his family badge, he would surely be killed.


    In fact, he needed to rely on his family badge for just about everything. However, the badge needed about half a year to recharge after each use. As he thought about this limitation, he shook his head... No enemy is going to give me half a year leeway to wait for me to get prepared. So... What can I rely on other than the badge?


    The Crystal Finger? The Star Gathering Needle? But... Both of these items have ranges of less than 10 meters! He knew that this would not work, as an offensive range of 10 meters was inferior to even a silver grand swordmaster¡¯s range.


    Van Gogh¡¯s silver-white armor looked to be as soft as silk as it clung close to his body. He did not have any visible patterns on his body, but he did have the space badge, which was fastened on his chest. There was also a small shield on the left arm of his suit of armor.


    After Van Gogh had changed into his suit of armor, he jumped into the saddle that was on the wolf puppet¡¯s back. Van Gogh then took the Lance of Order, activated the puppet, then made his way toward the crevice. At this point, if any enemy was to mistake him for being just a holy master, he would have died a horrible death!


    Van Gogh was also wearing a silver mask as he traveled, and his suit of armor was fully-sealed. This was because he had no need to keep himself protected using powerful divine spells at the time. It was, after all, quite an effort to maintain a divine spell at the bottom of the ocean!


    At the moment, Nailisi¡¯s skeleton king form held a bone de in each hand. She easily weaved through several tight spaces and managed to kill several low-level beings. Such creatures were found in abundance in such ces.


    The temperature of the crevice grew increasingly high, which suggested that there might be a volcano below it. Moreover, such a strange terrain was one that was simply not seen onnd.


    Everywhere one looked, there were ces with underground fires flowing at the bottom of the ocean, yet they would never erupted. If there were underground fires at the bottom of the crevice, there would have been many creatures that would have only been capable of surviving with the fire element.


    At the same time, the amount of creatures in such ces would have increased exponentially, as most of those creatures were only capable of living in ces with high heat indexes.


    Currently, the heavenly angel was swinging the Sword of Glory constantly, yet not one of the shes from its de left even a mark on the Magical Element Tower. After all, Elementite was not just hard, but it had self-healing abilities as well. So, when it was crafted with dimension stones added to it, it was a piece of equipment that could regrow even half of its lost parts gradually, unless it waspletely destroyed in one go.


    The light on the Sword of Glory dimmed gradually as the tower continued to quickly make its was toward the depths of the sea. It simply allowed the summoned creature to attack it without retaliating.


    This was because, without having clearmands, the heavenly angel was only capable of fighting via its instincts. Moreover, the weapon of war that was created by the gods was top-notch among level ten creatures, be it in terms of offensive capacity or speed.


    It was unfortunate that its enemy had turned out to be a magic tower that had a shell that was thousands of times harder than a Pan Turtle¡¯s! The heavenly angel had never encountered such intimidating enemies!


    Generally-speaking, a creature with such fearsome defenses would possess equally terrifying offensive capabilities. Such a creature would have usually destroyed anything with a mere p of its paw!


    As Nailisi dove down another 2,000 meters, the pressure at such depths became indescribable. If the skeleton king form was crushed, Nailisi would have no choice but to return to her imp form. However, despite its possessing a powerfulbat capacity, it would have been difficult for it to transform if it was severely injured.


    The bone de in the skeleton king¡¯s hands proceeded to take care of some obnoxious monsters. Meanwhile, Nailisi¡¯s eyes were sharp enough to locate a cave. She had searched with her senses in order to find the cave, which was thousands of meters deep. The cave had no end, and the branches within it were frighteningly numerous.


    However, Nailisi did not have time to worry too much about whether it was too dangerous, so she dove into it, without giving it a second thought. After entering the cave, Nailisi kept running.


    She still had her 12 Notes of First Purgatory, after all, so she knew that she could simply hide if things went south. Even if she all of her 100,000 demons were killed and the purgatory of the fallen copsed, everything would have been worth it as long as she was able to get rid of that fellow that kept pursuing her relentlessly!


    While Van Gogh was not as powerful as the Divine Baby, he was far smarter. The truly threatening features of humans were their endless imaginations. Hence, it was far more difficult to fight Van Gogh than the angel of fear.


    At the moment, the wolf puppet between Van Gogh¡¯s legs was jumping around in the crevice. Every single strike heshed out with his Lance of Order ended up killing a creature that was attempting to sneak up on him.


    The Lance of Order functioned simrly to Nailisi¡¯s Sword of Rules. While the wielder might not be able to master the weapon¡¯s powers, the power of rules that was imbued within the weapons ended uppletely killing their enemies regardless.


    However, the wolf puppet still differed from the ones that were crafted by the mages in small ways. The puppets that were crafted by mages carried numerous weapons, while the wolf puppet was modeledpletely after the magic wolves. This meant that it was capable of shooting divine light from its mouth every now and then, which revealed that it had things like divine crystals embedded within it.


    Currently, all three parties were more than three miles from each other, and two of the parties were in hot pursuit. Upon seeing Van Gogh go after Nailisi in the crevice, Saleen rammed the tower hard upon the crevice before sending out the Midnight Fang and Angel of Brightness leaders.


    Both of the elemental creature leaders were level ten beings. As such, they began tangling with the heavenly angel as soon as they exited the magic tower.


    Saleen had no intentions of taking part in a fight with summoned creatures, as both of the elemental leaders¡¯ groups brought 12 level nines as they went to suppress the heavenly angel. Van Gogh had not expected Saleen to have level ten elemental creature leaders with him, so he simply had to let the angel cover for him, while he shook off Saleen¡¯s pursuit.


    Saleen let Truman take control of the tower, while he brought 12 ancient warriors and Nichs with him, leaving the tower from the lowest floor. The heavenly angel¡¯s orders were to attack the magic tower.


    Saleen still had people within the tower, and as such, he was unable to put the tower away in a dimension stone, as he would have ended up killing everyone within it! So, he let the tower get stuck in the crevice, and the heavenly angel was dumb enough to tangle with two level ten elemental creatures, without caring about Saleen¡¯s leaving the tower!


    The dark elemental creature leader was reluctant to get close to the heavenly angel. This was because the divine light around the heavenly angel¡¯s body would have negated its powers.


    So, it stood in the shadows, whileshing out with the Sword of Dark Element every now and then, tearing off huge portions of divine power from the heavenly angel before dposing said power with dark element. It was said that dark element was actually the highest form of power in the world.


    It was believed that all types of energy would eventually be turned into dark element. However, many people doubted this theory. Regardless, it remained undeniable that dark elemental creatures possessed very high-quality offensive powers and were even capable of negating some elemental attacks.


    The Angels of Brightness used light elemental weapons, which enabled them tounch all sorts ofplex attacks. The Angels of Brightness were the heavenly angel¡¯s main opponents. With the dark elemental creature leader helping out every now and then when both sides tangled with each other, the heavenly angel¡¯s tempo became rather disjointed and was greatly affected.


    After Saleen chased them all the way into the crevice, Nichs could not help but remind Saleen to prepare himself for their retaliation. After all, Van Gogh¡¯s attacks were eerie and unpredictable, and he could ambush them with rare divine spells at any time.


    Saleen acknowledged Nichs¡¯ words. At the moment, the mask of his Devil Armament was blocking his face, the anti-magic recoil gloves were on his hands, and he had Raphael¡¯s crystal ring on his finger.


    Saleen had also stored his family badge within the Devil Ring, leaving it ready to be taken out at a moment¡¯s notice. He even had the Ring of Gifts on his finger, which pulsed with divine power that revealed the nature¡¯s goddess within. This divine power could be used to attack Van Gogh if the situation called for it.


    The divinity of the Lord of Glory was extremely exclusive. The divine power was derived from the power of faith of the nature goddess¡¯ believers, and it was the most potent poison to a believer of the Lord of Glory.


    Other than that, Saleen also had the level 12 Star Gathering Needle, which was attached to his glove, and he had the level 19 one in his mouth, ready to be spit out at any moment. Saleen had decided to attack Van Gogh with his family badge when the opportunity presented itself.


    If he were to let someone so dangerous return to the Holy See, it would only open the door to more severe troubles in the future. Van Gogh was different from Fycro. Specifically, Fycro was ambitious and intended to break away from the Holy See. Van Gogh, on the other hand, was probably the most loyal of believers to the Lord of Glory.


    With his secret exposed, the Holy See would havee for his head at all costs, just like how they had dealt with Emperor Chanake. Worse still, Emperor Chanake had only posed a serious threat to the Holy See due to his immense personal strength.


    In Saleen¡¯s case, however, he had many eerie pieces of equipment at his disposal. Thus, the benefits gained from killing him would be far greater than killing Emperor Chanake.


    At the moment, Nailisi ran extremely fast within the cave, and before she knew it, there was no seawater to be found within it. Nailisi felt as if she was wearing ayer of a thick membrane around her body, as the temperature had risen in the pitch ck cave and shiny gems were embedded in the sides of the walls all around her.


    If Nailisi had been how she had once been in the past, she would have stopped to pick several of the gems off of the wall. However, that was something she did not dare to do now. She could sense that Van Gogh was getting increasingly close to her, just about four to five hundred meters away.


    The wolf puppet surprisingly had a keen sense of smell. Thus, the scent that Nailisi left along the way became the best way for Van Gogh to track her. In this way, he had no worries that he would get lost and lose her trail, regardless of how many branches there were in the cave.


    Suddenly, Nailisi found herself at a dead end as she ran. The dead end was currently only about two miles away from her current location, but she could see it looming ahead of her.


    There were no other branches to moveterally. The cave just kept going downwards at an angle, and there was a hugeke ofva at the end of it, where the dead end came to a halt.


    At this point, the temperature within the cave had lessened a bit, so Nailisi felt a lot morefortable. She then took a Bloodstone out of her bracelet and threw it at the turning point behind her.


    As the Bloodstone exploded, dozens of pieces of rock fell onto the cave, yet did not block the cave¡¯s entrance. Nailisi had not hoped for the move to block Van Gogh, as she already knew that his weapon would have been powerful enough to prate the rocks, while carving a path out right then and there.


    What Nailisi meant to do was simply to obstruct his line of sight. So, she continued throwing one Bloodstone after another. Previously, she had thought that the stones would be rather fun to y with, which is why so had picked up quite a number of them from the Winged Skull to use for research purposes.


    Herck of patience meant that she was hardly able to yield anything from her research attempts, so she still had more than a hundred pieces of those stones left with her. While the stones did not possess any powerful offensive capabilities, they were very useful for destroying their surrounding environment.


    As the cave kept copsing, Nailisi and Van Gogh managed to keep their distance from one another. Soon, Nailisi arrived at the end of the cave.


    She saw a light at the end of the cave, as well as ake ofva that had a diameter of less than a hundred meters. Theke was filled with air that wasmonly found in the demon ne.


    The entire ce was filled with the strong smell of sulfur. Then, Nailisi jumped into that smallke, while taking out her collection of purgatory objects at the same time.

 Chapter 995: Diamond Cut Diamond (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 995: Diamond Cut Diamond (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi dived into the purgatory of demons. The Skeleton King was not able to hold on for long in theva. Nailisi siphonedrge amounts ofva into the purgatory of demons along the way. Demons loved the smell ofva, while the rules within the purgatory of demons wereplete, the ce had an area of about thirty-six square miles and was six miles wide. No volcanoes could be manifested in such ces.


    Theva siphoned into the purgatory would eventually cool and hardened regardless, but it was able to increase the thickness to the ce, as well as bring about the air of the earth¡¯s fire, giving birth to a more diverse environment.


    Nailisi was simply doing it on a whim. She immediately returned to her imp form after entering the purgatory of demons, to avoid getting attacked by the demons inside. one-hundred-thousand demons were having the time of their lives within the purgatory. The space mimicked the demon ne, and there wererge number of magic bugs found within, making it easy to get fed.


    After siphoning theva, Nailisi turned around and found several snakes emerged from the molten hot rocks, writhing about on the ground. As theva cooled, the snakes gradually petrified, bing statues.


    ¡°That ce was their of the great fire snakes!¡± Nailisi was at loss, not knowing if she was supposed to be happy or worried about finding that.


    Great fire snakes were powerful fire elemental creatures. While their powers were nowhere near that of fire type elemental spirits, they were not something Nailisi would have picked on in theva. Regardless, such types of fire elemental creatures would have made a good addition to the purgatory of elements toplete the collection of purgatories. The little snakes were all things spat out by great fire snakes, which were capable of developing intelligence and bing fire elemental creatures.


    However, the smaller snakes were simply too weak tost long outside of theva.


    Nailisi was happy of the fact that if she was able to capture great fire snakes, her elemental spaces could be made three, even four times more powerful. What worried her was, if a great fire snake was able to break through the purgatory it was housed in and enter the purgatory of demons, the rules within would prove inadequate to kill it, and she would have to rely on Gray Memory.


    Regardless of how powerful the Sword of Rules was, it was still a closebat weapon, and the space tens of yards around a great fire snake was easily filled with searing heat. Most of Nailisi¡¯s tricks would not have proven to be much of use in such situations. While she had some ideas it, she dared not open up the collection of purgatories and look outside.


    Van Gogh chased Nailisi to a dead end. His Lance of Order went breaking the rocks that were getting in the way and was going about it at reduced speed. He lost track of her when he came to theke ofva. He eyed theke ofva that hardly had an area of one-hundred square yards and thought it was all so peculiar. ¡°Did the demon end up jumping into theva That demon was but a grade-9 being, so how long would she be able tost inva? Half a day? Or just two to three hours?¡±


    Van Gogh was puzzled about how Nailisi went about it. He lifted his hand and drew a circle before him. The white circle gradually expanded, reaching a diameter of five yards, and a heavenly angel emerged.


    Summoning a second heavenly angel proved to be his limit. Van Gogh pointed at theke ofva without wasting time saying much. The heavenly angel held on to the Sword of Glory and jumped into theke without hesitation.


    The heavenly angels themselves were constructs of holy light and the power of faith. The temperature of theva did little to harm beings like that. That particr being¡¯s level allowed it to easily withstand high temperatures of several thousand degrees.


    Nailisi did not cause much of amotion when she jumped into theke ofva, as she dived into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory almost at the very same time. When the heavenly angel jumped into it, the small puddle ofva boiled immediately. Hundreds of giant pirs of me spouted from theke andshed out at the heavenly angel.


    Van Gogh stepped back from theke, as the high temperatures burned to him. It was fortunate for him that the level of his armor was high enough. So long as he stayed clear of theva, he would not end up dying from the heat itself. The spoutedva sshed all over the cave, being blocked by Van Gogh¡¯s Lance of Order. Thence formed a triangle in the air with its chains, isting him from his environment.


    Hundreds of shes were seen from the Sword of Glory, cutting up all the huge fire snakes emerging from theva. The fire snakes dropped into theva as they writhed about, beforebining andshing out at the heavenly angel again.


    Seeing how lightspeed skills proved incapable of killing the elemental creatures, he had no choice but to order the heavenly angel to switch skills. The Sword of Glory split, and twelve giant holy prose emerged, wrapping up the sword in the heavenly angel¡¯s hand. The heavenly angel slowed down with its swings. Every sh emanated powerful beams of light.


    The cut up fire snakes dropped into theva one after another but were unable to congeal again. The Sword of Glory was buffed with a rule of the gods¡ªHoly light Cutting.


    Boom!


    Two ten yard thick snake heads emerged from within theke. Both heads had three eyes respectively. The head on the left opened its big mouth and spat purple mes, while the one on the right did the same but spat out ck poisonous smoke.


    The mes hit the heavenly angel, which ended up burning it. The smoke quickly encased the heavenly being. The heavenly angel swung its sword around, cutting both mes and smoke to pieces, and dissipating them with the holy light.


    The mes that jumped about on the angel¡¯s body were yet to be extinguished. Pockmarked holes appeared on its body shining with divine light. The smoke that encased it seeped into its body through the holes, before making it out through its nose.


    Van Gogh felt dizzy before realizing the connection between him and the angel had been severed. It felt like something wiped the holy prose at the core of the heavenly angel, robbing him of control.


    He began to feel tense all of a sudden. The two snakes in theva were probably creatures of grade-10 or above. The heavenly angel, even when killed, would not evoke something so peculiar otherwise.


    ¡°The demon that had jumped into theke was probably devoured by those two snakes, and I don¡¯t see any point of carry on fighting anymore.¡±


    Van Gogh felt a tinge of desire to retreat. He coulde back at ater date if he wanted to capture the great snakes. The enemy was still out there. If he ended up losing too much of his equipment, he would not be able to fight the mage toe-to-toe. The giant tower weighed on his mind in an indescribable manner. He had to report his findings to the head inquisitor and head warden when he returned to ck dungeon.


    One such mage would have posed a great obstacle to the Holy See¡¯s ambition to unite the maind. Van Gogh had yet to hear about a mage capable of bringing their tower on their person, and the tower was even one that was capable of moving underwater. It would have been possible that one such tower could have even been capable of flight.


    As he was about to leave, Saleen emerged from the cave behind him.


    Seeing what happened before him, Saleen was dumbfounded for a second or two, before shouting in rage, ¡°You killed Nailisi!¡±


    Saleen summoned the Stone Statue Soldiers from his devil suit as soon as he finished the line. Six nine yard tall Stone Statue Soldiers rushed at Van Gogh. Saleen followed up with summoning a fire elemental creature, which appeared in a random form; the one summoned that time was a fire fox.


    Regardless of the types, anything the devil suit summoned was no lower than grade-9. The six Stone Statue Soldiers and the fire fox charged in Van Gogh¡¯s direction. His expression was a puzzled one when he saw the crazed look on Saleen¡¯s face.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t kill that demon!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s acting was good. He saw the two giant fire snakes behind Van Gogh and knew the ce to be a dead end, which meant that Van Gogh did not necessarily fight the snakes; the man might have wanted to just leave. Psychology came into very important y at such moments.


    Saleen knew Nailisi was still alive. If Nailisi had died, the soul bond with him would have disappeared.


    Putting oneself into another¡¯s shoes, Van Gogh felt that he would have reacted the same way if one of his demon servants was killed. As such, Saleen¡¯s expression managed to fool him, and caused him to hesitate for a moment.


    An angry mage would bring about angry devastation. It was something many holy masters reminded him about. The mage was unable to do anything to him with him being protected by the Lance of Order. He intended to kill the mage when the summoned creatures were all dead.


    Van Gogh changed his mind about leaving. Seeing how careless Saleen had gotten, he nned on killing him right there and then instead. ¡°Without his tower, that mage is no match for me!¡±


    The six Stone Statue Soldiers and the fire fox stopped at a spot about nine yards from Van Gogh in a very abrupt manner. Van Gogh was able to tell that the grade-9 elemental creatures did not ram into hisnce. They split and went sticking close to the sides of the cave¡¯s wall. A sh of blue lightning lit up and a thunderous boom was heard. Van Gogh stood there dumbfounded, unable to move.


    The cave was too narrow. The reason why Saleen summoned the Stone Statue Soldiers was so that he was able to block Van Gogh¡¯s view, allowing him to unleash his badge at someone so powerful.


    Saleen hadplete faith in the badge that had killed a grade-10 thunder dragon and a grade-12 angel of fear. Van Gogh was but a grade-9 professional. He would have been reduced to dust under the fury of the lightning st.


    The Lance of Order formed many triangles, with each having a holy prose in the middle, forming a shield that provided denser protection that any mage could have conjured. With the thick bolt of lightning hitting its target at such close range, Saleen and Nichs shut their eyes tight, as even dark element spells would not be able topletely block the light emanating from the bolt.


    The light from the bolt of lightning was too intense that time. All three-hundred and sixty holy prose conjured on the Lance of Order were sted clean. When the light subsided, both Saleen and Van Gogh stood, staring nkly at each other.


    Van Gogh emerged totally unscathed, and Saleen was almost able to feel his heart jumping out of his mouth.


    Van Gogh ended up more terrified than Saleen. Hepletely lost his connection with hisnce. The godly item he wielded was bestowed to him personally by his god, and the Lance of Order came to be like a part of his being, instead of just something controlled by his soul. The feeling of losing the Lance of Order felt like someone just cut off one of his arms: incredibly painful, and incredibly terrifying.

 Chapter 996: Diamond Cut Diamond (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 996: Diamond Cut Diamond (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    That was the very first time Saleen¡¯s family badge¡¯s attack ended up not killing his enemy. The shock he felt however, did not affect his actions. He recalled his badge back into his Devil Ring and held the golden magic book in his hand. The seven elemental creatures before himunched their attacks as well.


    Van Gogh was shocked to his core. He had thought he would have ended up dead. ¡°Was that a lightning bolt attack?¡± One shot, and his connection with hisnce waspletely destroyed. He no longer had any means of defending against such attacks if it was to happen for second time. The Lance of Order had been his strongest weapon, as well as his strongest shield.


    As Saleen put away his family badge, Van Gogh felt as if he had walked to the edge of hell and returned.


    ¡°Such attacks can never be cast twice in a row. There would be no one that that mage could not kill otherwise. He would simply be able to strike the core of the Holy See and kill Pope Theisio with his tower if he were that powerful.¡±


    As the thunderous boom stopped and the six Stone Statue Soldiers rushed at him, Van Gogh opened his mouth and spoke softly, ¡°Time, reverse.¡±


    The Stone Statue Soldiers and the fire fox were halted where they were. Grade-9 creatures were not things Van Gogh would be able to fend away with words alone. It seemed that time had truly stopped. Van Gogh bent over and picked up his Lance of Order. Despite having lost soul control over it, the weapon remained his sharpest arsenal. He flicked with his wrist, and the lone chains went straight and stiff. The tip of thence went on to pierce the chests of two Stone Statue Soldiers.


    ¡°Fossilize!¡± Saleen¡¯s reaction was quicker than Van Gogh¡¯s. The divine spell before had affected him. Saleen had only regained control of his Stone Statue Soldiers when they were pierced by thence.


    The Stone Statue Soldiers spell fixed on the devil suit was something, that even when totally destroyed, could be reconstructed within six hours, allowing for summoning again. They embodied the true meaning of cannon fodder and were beings that could be used as the user fancied. They were unlike the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers from the elemental badge, which while powerful, needed a month or two to restore if their cores werepletely broken. That was something made possible only when their leader was still alive and well.


    If the grade-10 leader ended up being crushed as well, the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers could only be summoned when the leader was restored.


    The tip of thence that prated the two Stone Statue Soldiers wiggled about in the air like the head of a snake, looking for the next target. Saleen¡¯s Fossilization spell activated right there and then.


    Fossilization, was a spell that was inherent in the statues themselves, instead of something that was derived from Saleen¡¯s elemental conversion skills. It turned the statue soldiers into giant rocks immediately, fusing with the earth beneath them. Saleen was able to tell that the floor of the cave was sturdy rock as well. The statue soldiers fused with the floor beneath them through the spell and trapped thence within.


    The two snake heads in the smallke ofva were severely cut up by the heavenly angel. The Sword of Glory that the heavenly angel wielded wasced with the Lord of Glory¡¯s rules on it. It had unique divine light which exhibited strong exclusivity, preventing them from healing quickly even in theva. Van Gogh¡¯s divine spell cast previously also affected the snake heads, while the heavenly angel remained unaffected. The heavenly angel added several hundred shes within half a second.


    The grievously injured snake heads retreated into theva and refused to emerge. The heavenly angel emerged from theva, moving in Van Gogh¡¯s direction with the Sword of Glory in hand.


    The very reason why he had summoned it back was because he knew he was no match for the mage. He had plenty of powerful equipment on his person, but it proved no match for the mage. The mages¡¯ attack was simply too quick, while divine spells were typically slow.


    sted lesser prophecy spell!


    Van Gogh stared at Nichs, who was at a distance, with cold eyes. The old man with gray hair held a scepter in his hand. It was an equipment of a fallen one, soul power remained on the weapon.


    The heavenly angel had the edge in terms of weaponry. The power of rules on the sword were something that Saleen used to unleash two grade-10 creatures to contend with. When fighting solely one-on-one, his grade-10 elemental creature leaders would not necessarily be a match for the heavenly angel.


    Van Gogh moved decisively. While the fire snakes were powerful, they hated to leave theke ofva. If he had not recalled the heavenly angel, he would have probably ended up being killed by the mage. He would have rather killed the mage, even if it meant inviting further trouble afterwards. It was especially so given how he had a fallen holy master with him.


    It was rare to see a mage and a holy master working together. The Holy See had mages as well, but their levels were low, and their magic chords regressed in time. It was only natural that the two never fought alongside each other. Van Gogh knew that despite holy masters¡¯ attacks being slow, they were near insurmountable and unpredictable, especially the likes of curses. The more advanced ones after that would be lesser prophecy spells.


    Greater prophecy spell attacks were a power bestowed by the gods, which worked simrly to magic. Lesser prophecy spells however, were inventions created of the fallen holy masters themselves. Whatever the result those fallen holy masters wanted, they would get it, hence its eerie nature.


    Van Gogh¡¯s attacks were slowed inexplicably, andg happened all the time. He knew it was the work of the old holy master. He had no choice but to let go of the fossilizednce, pointing his finger before him, he shouted, ¡°Protect!¡±


    A crystalline structured transparent beam of light shot out from the ground, blocking the Stone Statue Soldiers and the fire fox. The fire fox was nimble enough to stop one step before the barrier, while the Stone Statue Soldiers ran straight into it, cracking their bodies and making them wobble.


    The heavenly angel covered the distance of tens of yards in a blink an eye. Strong light exploded from the golden magic book in Saleen¡¯s hand.


    A twelve yard long shaft cut through the air and went for Van Gogh¡¯s chest. The speed of the spell was impossibly quick. It was a grade-9 spell left behind by the Angel of Brightness leader on the golden magic book, which came with a damage potentialparable to a grade-10 spell.


    The heavenly angel swiped its sword at it, cutting the shaft uppletely. The Lord of Glory was well-versed in all manner of light-based attacks, which included light-based weapons. The Sword of Glory itself was a construct created with divine power of light to begin with. The sh ruined Saleen¡¯s grade-9 spell. A simr shaft was refracted and went straight for Saleen.


    The counterattack surpassed Saleen¡¯s attack speed. None of the ancient warriors around him reacted to it, and the attacknded a hit on the area where Saleen¡¯s heart was.


    Van Gogh was able to see that the shaft disappeared all of a sudden, like it was never there in the first ce.


    Cold sweat was all over Saleen and Nichs was tense all over. He had buffed Saleen with Immunity from Death, and it actually activated. Lesser prophecy spells had a certain chance of failing.


    If Immunity from Death had actually happened, the lesser prophecy spell was something that was capable of suppressing attacks regardless of levels.


    Van Gogh underwent multiple mood fluctuations within just a single minute. First, there was the lightning attack that robbed his Lance of Order of most of its functions, reducing it to amon weapon. Then, Saleen¡¯s shaft of light, which prated his protection with holy light and almost killed him. The follow-up counterattack conjured by the heavenly angel was repelled right there and then by the lesser prophecy spell.


    ¡°Just what is with that old holy master!¡±


    Van Gogh had no time to dwell on it. The golden magic book in Saleen¡¯s hand unleashed yet another magical light attack. A ring of light appeared right under Van Gogh¡¯s feet containing a snow-white membrane that had holy prose flowing on it.


    The ring of light was only capable of providing protection to him, as it was a divine spell stored within his armor. The earth beneath Van Gogh¡¯s feet cracked as Saleen finished casting his spell, shooting violent pirs of fire from underneath. The mes crossed in the air, forming a magic pattern, raising the temperature of the me by a dozen times.


    The me attack conjured by the spell had a temperature far beyond that of theva.


    Van Gogh had not been able to react in time. He felt his nose boiling and his throat hurting, even breathing itself came with a searing sensation. The ring of light beneath his feet protected his body, yet it did not lower the temperature. Van Gogh was scared into shutting all gaps to his armor. He activated the divine crystals and divine rune charm arrays on his belt.


    Saleen felt the tension where he stood and continued to sweat. Had the counterattack from before been able to reach its intended target, he might have ended up dead, as there was no one capable of verifying if the devil suit was capable of withstanding such an attack. No matter how powerful he had gotten, he was still a human, and an attack that pierced his heart would definitely kill him.


    Both him and Van Gogh had ventured near the edge of death. While both wore high level armor, one practiced divine spells while the other practiced magic, which meant none of them were actually warriors. Experiencing each other¡¯s attacks in such distances weighed heavily on both men¡¯s psyche.


    While Saleen was immediately able to adapt to it, Van Gogh remained thoroughly shaken.


    Nichs did not say a word. He did not even need to chant anything. The new Scepter of the Fallen enabled him to directly cast any fallen divine spells without needing to chant.


    Van Gogh was surrounded by magic mes and the heavenly angel was unable to rush at Saleen in time. It had no choice but to stab its sword into the earth to cut off the magic attack. The light on the sword was visibly darkened when it pulled it out. The cost of cutting off a grade-9 spell directly was a hefty one.


    The heavenly angel was heavily fatigued from its battle with the two snake heads. Van Gogh knew that if he held back using his equipment, he would end up being killed by the mage before him. The golden magic book in Saleen¡¯s hand exploded with light for the third time.


    Van Gogh¡¯s armor was barely able to hold itself together against continuous grade-9 magic attacks. His opponent was a grade-9 mage, and one that could have cast at least twelve more grade-9 spells. He knew that in most cases, powerful mages like those would have ample mental powers. They would use spells stored within magic equipment during battles, to keep themselves at the top of their game.


    Van Gogh decided to go all out and pulled a small puppet from his space badge, which he threw out soon after. The puppet flew and expanded in size in the air. The puppet, which was about half the size of a full grown adult initially, grew to more than two yards tall in the blink of an eye. It then charged at Saleen.


    The puppet was more powerful than the one Van Gogh had unleashed in the sea. It moved nimbly and aggressively, picking up two Stone Statue Soldiers after running outside the prism constructed from light, and smashed them hard at each other. The two statue soldiers were reduced to dust in an instant. The fire fox pounced at it, but was quickly blown up with a single punch, scattering wisps of fire all over the ce. The puppet flicked its hand about, extinguishing the fire on it.


    Saleen was certain at the moment, that the puppet was something created by holy masters; it was a weapon belonging to astrologers. They left quite an amount of equipment behind all those years back. While it was modified by the tribunal, it nheless maintained its remarkablebat capacity.


    It was an act of the gods. Saleen retreated half a step behind and let his ancient warriorse forward. The warrior thrust its spear, stopping the puppet¡¯s advances immediately.

 Chapter 997: Black Dungeon Storm (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 997: ck Dungeon Storm (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Two spears pierced the figures, slicing through them easily. However, soon after, Saleen saw how unflinchingly the figures then took hold of the ancient warriors¡¯ spears, while snapping them effortlessly!


    Once the golden magic book in his hand had finished casting the spell, a huge ck shield materialized before him. Then, the dark element within the shield devoured the figure.


    This was the Darkness Shield, which was a level ten spell that had been converted to traits of level nine spells using special means. It was then stored within the golden magic book. This was a storage method that had been created by 36 sorcerers on Sreeger Ind, and Saleen used this as a means of keeping himself alive whenever he found himself in a tight spot.


    This particr spell possessed both offensive and defensive capacities when it reached level ten. However, it had a really short range, which was not something the Endless Night couldpare to. Hence, Saleen had only used the golden magic book after Nichs had hinted for him to do so.


    Nichs had never stopped using lesser prophecy spells. In the past, he had only used such spells to harass Van Gogh. However, he now was resorting to using such spells to affect Van Gogh¡¯s actions.


    However, these effects were limited. The reason for this was because the number of souls within Nichs¡¯ Blood Soul Tower was too small.


    This meant that, if he used powerful skills, he would shorten his lifespan. Hence, Nichs would never resort to using such means unless it was a life and death situation.


    At the very least, Nichs would not allow himself to lose the ability to fight before Nailisi showed up again. He found that if he supported Saleen, he would be able to boost Saleen¡¯sbat capacity by several times, even without using powerful skills.


    In fact, it was precisely the work of the lesser prophecy spell that led Van Gogh to throw the figure out. This was hardly considered a mistake, and as such, the effects would not drain much of Nichs¡¯ mental powers or power of faith.


    The figure had massive damage potential. As such, level nine elemental creatures would not stand a chance against even one strike from it.


    Saleen had seen simr figures in action. This particr figure was one that astrologers used to receive guests. Thus, the figure would not have attacked him on its own ord. This also proved that the one that Van Gogh threw out was apparently abat figure!


    Saleen¡¯s Darkness Shield was also one that he had cast before. Otherwise, he would not have been able to cast a level ten spell, even if it was one that was stored in a magic book.


    At the moment, the figure was enveloped by dark element that was emanating from the Darkness Shield. Saleen flung his hand out and shot the Star Gathering Needle that he had on his glove, causing it to stick into the figure¡¯s body.


    In response, the figure threw a short sword from within the darkness, which was blocked by the shield and shattered in an instant. At the same time, the sword dropped to the floor with a loud nging sound.


    The Star Gathering Needle shot straight into the center of the figure¡¯s brow. There was a holy prose within it, which was broken by the needle and immediately turned into numerous light fragments before dissipatingpletely.


    If the figure had been controlled by an astrologer, Saleen would not have dared to do such a thing. However, members of the Holy See were used to controlling figures via divine spells. Doing so ensured that the figure¡¯sbat capacity remained intact, and it also created a huge opening within the figure.


    Moreover, once it encountered an astrologer, any holy prose on the figure would be broken by the astrologer. But, this was rare, as astrologers no longer existed on this ne. Saleen was really the only exception.


    Even though he did not continue to learn astrology, he was able to advance to level two nheless, which enabled him to still be able to sense constetion power. The Star Gathering Needle that he had just shot had been wrapped in wind magic, which he had sessfully targeted at the vital point of the figure using his mental powers.


    Saleen had no idea if it was actually a good thing to advance his astrological training, but regardless, he knew that he was able to feel the power within the needle, which allowed him to urately target his enemy with magical control. For this, he was grateful.


    Now, the holy prose that was used to control the figure was broken, and Van Gogh felt like his head was about to split open! At that moment, the two ancient warriors rushed up and snatched away the figure that had just fallen on the floor.


    Saleen took the figure and felt joy well up within his heart. While the levels of the three broken figures that he had gotten from the astrology tower were no big deal, the one that he was currently picking up had a decent level and was geared forbat. So, if he were to re-craft using astrology, it would be one of his most powerful pieces of equipment!


    Suddenly, the figure¡¯s arm moved a little before it dropped down. Saleen was unable to extract the needle at the moment, as the scattered holy proses were still swirling around the needle, attempting to melt it down.


    Saleen knew that the level of the holy prose that was used was lower than that of the needle, which meant that it was impossible for the needle to be melted. Other than containing the rules of powers of astrologers, Star Gathering Needles also had a huge space within each of them, which was used by astrologers to craft the stars.


    As such, even a mage would have required decades before being able topletely melt the needle down. The script of the gods might have been intricate, but the ones that Van Gogh had would not have exceeded level ten.


    Saleen felt relieved after he threw the figure into the Devil Ring. The remaining heavenly angel would now be easy to deal with. But, he soon thought of something and couldn¡¯t help but wonder... Van Gogh wouldn¡¯t have more powerful weapons with him, would he?


    As Saleen thought of this terrifying possibility, he switched the book that was in his hand for a demon magic book. Upon seeing this, Van Gogh felt extremely frustrated that Saleen had yet another magic book.


    As he stared at it, he wondered... How is it possible for this mage to have more equipment than me? My divine puppet just got trashed, and he already has another magic book!


    This really bothered Van Gogh because he knew how precious magic books were. They were capable of storing magic spells for long periods of time and would almost never experience wear and tear, while a magic staff required constant maintenance! As for scrolls, they were even worse, as they were only good for a one-time-use.


    Currently, there were tens of thousands of mages throughout the entire maind, and hardly even one in a thousand of them possessed such rare equipment. What¡¯s more... Among the mages who possessed magic books, those who possessed golden ones were less than one percent.


    Yet, not only was Saleen a magic book owner, but he actually owned two! Van Gogh shook his head as he thought... That grey magic book definitely contains level nine magic spells! He wouldn¡¯t have even thought of using it against me otherwise!


    Van Gogh took a huge holy prose scroll out of his space badge and opened it. As he did so, a holy light glimmered and a huge teleportation portal appeared right beneath Van Gogh¡¯s legs.


    The portal was six meters in diameter, and it almost transported him out of the cave immediately. He did not even bother bringing the summoned heaven angel with him.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. He had never thought that Van Gogh would have had such a powerful scroll with him. Even though he did, however, there was no sign of their battle finishing any time soon. In his surprise, he thought... So... Van Gogh left, just like that?


    Boom!


    At that moment, the snakeheads emerged again from thevake. Theva sprayed out, shooting more than a hundred meters away, but was immediately blocked by Saleen¡¯s Darkness Shield.


    It was only then that the two snakeheads within theke showed their true form. The snakeheads were attached to a huge body, which had just climbed out of the ground. As Saleen saw that the two snakeheads were on one body, he gasped inwardly... A two-headed great fire snake!


    Although he somehow managed to keep hisposure, he still took half a step back reactively. At the same time, the ancient warriors moved to stand before him, while summoning the Vermillion Knights. While the Vermillion Knights might have been incapable of hurting the snake itself, they still could defend against its attacks. This was especially the case for the leader of the knights.


    A great fire snake was a level ten elemental creature, and a two-headed great fire snake was a mutated superform of such a being. As such, no one knew what its exact level was.


    Van Gogh did not run because of Saleen, but he ran because he was caught in a pincer attack. He could already feel how powerful the great fire snake could be based on the heavenly angel.


    Van Gogh was not a warrior. While he might have been more fearsome than most golden grand swordmasters while wielding the Lance of Order, if he was to fight the snake after losing thence, he might have as well hand his head over on a silver tter!


    At this moment, Saleen blocked the exit to the cave. And, as there was no one he could handle if they attacked him from two sides, he had no choice but to run.


    There was a huge ind just south of the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s waters. The ind was covered by a thick, ck smog all year long, so no one could see what the entire ind looked like.


    There were ships going in and out of the ind asionally, but all of them were made of pure metal. The surrounding sea was filled with unseen reefs, and there were also eerie magic beasts lurking nearby. Those beasts were all insane, and they were controlled by the ind people, who used them as protectors of the ce.


    This ce was known as the ck Dungeon of the Tribunal. It had about a hundred inds, thergest one serving as its main base.


    There was a tall stone house in the middle of thergest ind. As a divine light shone down upon it, Van Gogh appeared in the holy prose teleportation portal.


    The wardens outside the stone house were instantly alerted of his presence. After all, the portal had hardly been used, as only the most important figures of the Tribunal were allowed use it. Upon seeing Van Gogh, the wardens instinctively knew to scatter and hide.


    While Van Gogh had indeed been one of the more mild-mannered figures in ck Dungeon, none of the wardens intended to get themselves in trouble by dealing with him directly. After all, his ability to get to such a high position meant that Van Gogh was a brutal person nheless.


    As Van Gogh walked out of the stone house, he had no idea where he should go. As he tried to plot his next move, he wondered... Am I supposed to go see the person the Tribunal left behind here? Or... Am I supposed to go see the head warden?


    He hesitated for a bit before taking flight, heading for the southern part of the ind. He flew for more than an hour beforending.


    When hended, he did not take off his silver armor, as if he only felt safe when he was wearing it. The battles moments ago had been too much to swallow, making him incapable of easing his mind and checking out of fighting mode.


    ¡°Van Gogh...¡± A fleeting voice prated his armor and went straight into his mind.


    ¡°Teacher!¡± Van Gogh turned around and looked at apound at his left, where there was a huge crystal hanging above thepound. The crystal had hundreds of holy prose flowing within it, all of them casting a mild light throughout the entirepound.


    ¡°You suffered a defeat then? Come here,¡± the fleeting voicemanded.


    ¡°Indeed,¡± Van Gogh replied as he walked to thepound and pushed the door open.


    There was quite a lot of fauna in thepound. It was rare to see such weak and frail nts on ck Dungeon Ind. They would have all wilted if it was not for that floating crystal above thepound.


    Van Gogh soon came before a two-story stone house. He put away his silver armor before knocking on the door.


    ¡°Come in.¡± After hearing a voice granting him permission to enter, Van Gogh pushed open the door.


    The room was huge, and it had a bronze-colored furnace at its center. There were six sides to the furnace, each with an opening to be used for inserting materials in it. This furnace functioned differently than magic power furnaces, as the holy light glimmered within it, simr to a white fire.


    There was an elder wearing a ck robe, who was sitting on a chair and staring into the holy light of the furnace, while sending golden holy prose into it. The golden holy prose turned white after entering the furnace, then merged with the equipment within it.


    Van Gogh thought for a bit, then said, ¡°Teacher, I¡¯ve lost the Lance of Order.¡±


    The ck-robed elder¡¯s eye twitched as he sighed. He then asked, ¡°It¡¯s that serious, hmm? It looks like I will have to go and see the head warden myself.¡±


    He then added, ¡°The head warden, he... Well... The head inquisitor was under a lot of pressure and had been hurrying us for quite a while. What you lost was too precious. If you aren¡¯t able to give sufficient reasons for it, I will need to have the elders speak up for you. The head inquisitor will not let this slide otherwise.¡±

 Chapter 998: Black Dungeon Storm (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 998: ck Dungeon Storm (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Teacher, I lost the divine puppet too.¡± Van Gogh dared not hide such a fact from his teacher. After all, he was the only person he trusted on the entire ind. If he lied to his teacher, there would be no one else on ck Dungeon Ind who even wanted to help him.


    ¡°The divine puppet!¡± The ck-robed elder hardly even flinched when he heard that Van Gogh had lost thence.


    After all, the Lance of Order was a godly item, but the divine puppet that was currently in Van Gogh¡¯s hand was the only piece of equipment that had been sessfully crafted through divine smithing in the entire ck Dungeon Ind! It had been created by using the highest grade materials, which had been acquired from the ruins of the First Dynasty.


    There had not been a lot of research done on the puppet, as it was deemed more important to chase after the Eye of the Storm. It was for this reason that the ck Dungeon had let Van Gogh held onto it in the first ce. However, they never would have expected for someone who wielded the Lance of Order and had brought 12 powerful holy masters with him to have lost the divine puppet!


    That would have been impossible to imagine! After all, the divine puppet had summoned creature attributes that apanied it wherever it went. As such, one could have recalled it, even if it had ended up being controlled by the enemy.


    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m afraid that even the head warden wouldn¡¯t be able to let me off the hook after this. After all, that divine puppet was a research subject that was funded by the Tribunal!¡± Van Gogh said fearfully.


    ¡°Then... What do you n on doing?¡± The ck-robed elder acknowledged Van Gogh¡¯s judgment, then asked about his next move.


    While ck Dungeon was an independent institution, Van Gogh¡¯s mistakes were severe enough to cost him his position as sessor to the head warden. Even if he was spared for the moment, Van Gogh¡¯s future would be a grim one.


    The Tribunal had too many ways to making Van Gogh a walking dead man. They would have been able to make him continue to serve the Tribunal without needing to kill him, thus still being able to punish him in the most extremely brutal ways possible.


    ¡°Teacher, I want that piece of equipment. Then... I¡¯ll leave,¡± Van Gogh said.


    ¡°Leave?¡± the ck-robed elder asked, surprised by his words.


    ¡°Yes, teacher. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m fit for ck Dungeon. Even if became a head warden in the future, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to go that far. After all, the Holy See wants to see all of the empires on the maind destroyed.¡± Van Gogh shook his head, then said, ¡°I simply don¡¯t know what the future holds.¡±


    Att the moment, Van Gogh felt rather ashamed of himself.


    ¡°But, where else can you go?¡± the ck-robed elder asked.


    ¡°Alchemy City. With that piece of equipment, I can disguise myself as a mage,¡± Van Gogh replied.


    ¡°You¡¯ll fall, son...¡± the ck-robed elder said, clearly worried about him.


    ¡°So what? Teacher, I¡¯ve met a level nine fallen holy master. He was special, as he was able to affect me,¡± Van Gogh said.


    ¡°You¡¯ve made up your mind then?¡± The ck-robed elder looked somewhat disappointed, yet also a little excited.


    These two eerie expressions changed from one to another repeatedly on his face. He was disappointed that his student was about to fall, which meant that he was about to lose his only sessor. This meant that he would be all alone once again in ck Dungeon.


    On the other hand, he was excited to see if Van Gogh was able to avoid the soul corrosion after falling, thus continuing to advance. If so, it would have been something worthy of all of the research indeed! He even went on to capture some holy masters to be used for experiments for that very purpose, in order to find ways to make fallen holy masters be more powerful, while suffering no ill effects.


    From the Tribunal¡¯s standpoint, this was not something sphemous, as conflicts happened among the gods as well. In the conquest of heaven, they might have been required to fight believers of other gods. If they were able to find out ways to have these types of believers fall, the holy masters that were experimented on would have been considered offerings to the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°I can give you that piece of equipment, but first, I need to perform an experiment.¡± Van Gogh knelt on the floor and kowtowed to his teacher.


    This was usually a gesture of respect that was reserved for their god. Hence, such a sphemous things would have only been done by someone like Van Gogh, who was already ready to fall.


    The very reason he had risked his neck in returning to ck Dungeon was to get that piece of equipment that his teacher kept in secret. It was something that had been obtained by excavating some ruins of the First Dynasty by the previous generations of ck Dungeon elders.


    Many of these elders had taken many of these things from the ruins for their own use. What his teacher had kept was something that not even the elders knew about. That was the very reason why Van Gogh had dared to ask for it. He knew that it would not drag his teacher into his mess.


    At that moment, the ck-robed elder stood up and opened the furnace, then turned to Van Gogh and said, ¡°Get in.¡±


    ¡°Get in?¡± Van Gogh eximed in surprise.


    ¡°Yes. Put on your armor and get in. I will then craft your armor and your body with divine light. When you fall, most of the punishment will then be taken on by the armor. Otherwise... For someone who has received so many blessings, it would be incredibly lucky for you if you just die on the spot,¡± the elder said.


    Van Gogh gritted his teeth and jumped into the furnace. After all, he trusted his teacher. Even if his teacher wanted to do him ill, he saw no choice but to ept his fate.


    Despite everything, at this moment, Van Gogh felt that he was very fortunate, as he knew of no one else on the entire ck Dungeon Ind who had someone they were able to put their trust in like he did. If he were to end up being killed at his teacher¡¯s hands, it would be the same as being killed by someone else. But... If he was saved by his teacher...


    As Van Gogh recalled that grey-haired fallen holy master, hope welled up in his heart. People always hoped to live a good life, and there was very little that someone else would have been able to do if they were in his same position. However, Van Gogh would never give up.


    He had nned on turning his back ever since the very first time he received the god¡¯s blessing. It was just that the day hade too suddenly, and he found himself unable to ept it.


    At that moment, a divine light sted within that huge metal furnace. As the light was reflected by the crystals, it ricocheted off of the walls and hit another spot.


    Van Gogh sat in the middle of the furnace and let the divine light prate his body. The armor was entirely incapable of preventing this refining process of the divine light.


    Van Gogh was able to withstand the pain in the beginning, but when the silver armor becamepletely fused with his body, the pain reached became too much to bear. The pain was so intense that Van Gogh wanted to tear the armor away from his body, but quickly found himself no longer able to control his body!


    He wanted to call out to his teacher for help, yet the ck-robed elder simply continued to ce one holy prose after another into the furnace. The original equipment that had been sitting in the furnace was left inside of it, having already been fused together with Van Gogh¡¯s body.


    A mage¡¯s human body alchemy was apparently very different from what that ck-robed elder was practicing at the moment. Even Imposa did not have such daunting abilities! Imposa was, after all, just a level nine sorcerer, while the ck-robed elder was capable of borrowing the power of the gods while he was using the furnace.


    By this point, Van Gogh had stopped thinking of his body as being his own, but the pain he felt deep within his soul was not something that he was able to withstand. Countless holy prose within his body were being refined, and all of the blessings that he had received turned into the very root of his pain.


    The ck-robed elder patiently went about crafting his student, as he needed to force out every single mark of their god from Van Gogh¡¯s body, while fusing them with the silver armor. As the silver armor was first fused with his body, this act was not seen as falling. Instead, it was simply thought of as a clever trick.


    When Van Gogh truly fell, which was the moment that his betrayal became known by his god, the greatest punishment that he would face would be taken on by the armor. Only the ck-robed elder¡¯s divine smithing abilities were capable of aplishing such a feat.


    The furnace itself was a godly item, and furthermore, it was one that was crafted by another god before it was taken away by the Lord of Glory and bestowed upon a believer on Myers Maind. Myers Maind was the center of many nes, and due to this position, it was the most important.


    The Lord of Glory spread his faith in secret after all of the gods had fallen, and he had put a lot of effort into doing so. If it was in the past, he would have never even thought about getting such a ce for himself.


    Both the teacher and the student knew how terrifying the divine punishments of the gods were. As such, Van Gogh did not doubt, but simply let his teacher clear the divine blessings in his body.


    What can I do about the pain anyway? Van Gogh thought to himself. After all, he was trapped in the furnace, and even if he wanted to leave, he would have needed to have the Lance of Order with him in order to do so.


    At that moment, hundreds of ck-armored troops that were led by a ck-robed priest, arrived outside thepound and blocked the door. The ck-robed priest hesitated for a bit before asking at the door, ¡°Master Carlo, has Van Gogh shown up here?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± the ck-robed elder answered, without stopping what he was doing. Instead, he actually sped up the process.


    After the priest took a good look at the crystal chip in his hand, he thought... It seems that Master Carlo isn¡¯t lying.


    He then peered into thepound restlessly, while a sliver of golden light burst in that crystal that was hanging in the air. The light then shot directly into his eye.


    The ck-robed priest yelled out in pain as his left eye burst. At the same time, the troops behind him tensed up and drew their weapons, getting ready to storm thepound.


    The ck-robed priest was startled and angered. He had been blinded for simply taking a look! He seethed inwardly as he thought... I¡¯m still an adjudicator from the Tribunal! Can¡¯t that old man even give me a little respect?


    ¡°Carlo, how dare you...¡± The priest had no intentions of stopping his subordinates.


    He could not believe that an old man from ck Dungeon would dare to kill an army from the Tribunal. The Tribunal had stationed troops on ck Dungeon Ind at the moment in order to prepare for a conquest at sea. The priest thought... If Carlo isn¡¯t going to y nice, the head warden won¡¯t do anything to cover his a**!


    A golden light burst out from within that injured eye before the priest was able to finish his sentence. Then, with a violent bursting sound, the priest¡¯s brain turned into a mist of blood and flesh.


    Carlo did not care where the priest came from. On ck Dungeon Ind, hispound was the one ce that absolutely no one was allowed to enter. Even the head warden would have had to wait outside.


    The ck-robed priest did not know what he was getting into, and he had ended up dead because of it. The ck-armored troops under hismand were furious. At that moment, the leader of the troops rushed into thepound, followed by hundreds of others.


    Carlo then sighed and yelled, ¡°My god, purification!¡±


    ¡°Stop it!¡± An angry voice shouted from afar, while a heavily armored warrior carrying a halberd rushed to the scene, followed closely by 20 other ck-robed priests.


    The crystal hanging above thepound burst with gentle light. Threads of gold wereced in that white light, and when the light shone onto the bodies of the ck-armored troops, they disintegrated one after another and blood poured everywhere.


    The smallpound was only able to fit a little more than 100, yet had over 300 rushing in at the moment. Therefore, all of them were quickly killed off by Purification.


    As they died, their blood sprayed everywhere and fell all over the ground before being soaked up by the nts. Those dead soldiers¡¯ bodies were then swallowed by a giant hole that had suddenly appeared in the ground.


    The peaceful-lookingpound had numerous hidden traps within it, and as Carlo was the most powerful divine smith on the entire ck Dungeon Ind, there was no way that his residence would not have proper defenses. When the heavily armored warrior arrived outside thepound, all of the soldiers from the troops within it were dead. Not even their bodies remained.


    Upon seeing this, he furiously pushed his visor up and yelled at thepound, ¡°Carlo, how dare you kill my men from the Tribunal?¡±


    ¡°I dared to do so without regret, and now... I¡¯m telling you to get lost!¡± Carlo¡¯s harsh reply made the face of the warrior twist in fury.


    ¡°Alright then, I¡¯ll leave. You just sit here and wait for the head inquisitor to hand you your punishment!¡± the armored warrior yelled.


    ¡°Punishment?¡± Carlo snickered, then said, ¡°If you won¡¯t show me any respect, then I¡¯ll just have you stay behind!¡±

 Chapter 999: Red Rock Egg (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 999: Red Rock Egg (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The warrior was surprised by Carlo¡¯s aggressive attitude. He had already brought out the head inquisitor, and lord inquisitor himself arrived at ck Dungeon. ¡°Does that old fellow think he is the pope? Even the pope yielded to the head inquisitor!¡±


    A gray shadow leapt from the shadow, hitting the warrior right in the chest. The gray shadow seeped into the heavy armor, and blood shot out from within shortly after. All high priests present were shocked.


    The head inquisitor told them to be cautious with the actions in ck Dungeon, yet they were unable toprehend the intentions of the head inquisitor. It was a littlete for them toprehend what the head inquisitor meant. No one would know what would be of the high priests with their leader dead.


    ¡°Go home and tell the head inquisitor what happened in detail. Now get out.¡± Carlo said nothing further. The high priests dared not say anything any further. They quickly took flight and left thepound in a panic.


    Van Gogh left the metal furnace within the stone house. He felt limp all over as he slumped on the floor. His body had undergone modifications through Divine Crafting. Carlo was feeling rather anxious, resulting in his abnormally brutal methods. It was fortunate that the silver armor that Van Gogh wore was something he had created personally. Either the armor would be destroyed, the Divine Crafting would end up failing, or Van Gogh himself would end up dead otherwise.


    What Carlo did was basically modify the silver armor into some godly item that had been blessed multiple times by the gods. Van Gogh was but an essory in this case.


    ¡°Good. Now you get out of my sight too. Come look for me the day the Holy See is no more, but...¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I will keep a record of my status. If I¡¯m able to survive, I¡¯ll hand all of that to you.¡± Van Gogh knelt and picked up the cape on the floor to cover his body.


    ¡°You are a clever one, and I don¡¯t need you to swear or anything, not even a contract. You are my only student. It is a pity that you can¡¯t perform Divine Crafting, or...we would no longer need to fear that senile fellow,¡± Carlo spoke as he took out a piece of equipment, putting it before Van Gogh.


    ¡°Get to Alchemy City. The Holy See¡¯s army will still take quite a while to get there.¡±


    Van Gogh dared not stay any longer. He did not know what else would happen if he stayed for too long. After picking up the equipment he had dreamed of, he ced it into his ne. The space badge could no longer be used, as it was destroyed. That badge would also allow the tribunal to locate him any time.


    Due to fearing that he got Carlo into too much trouble, Van Gogh bowed to his teacher before walking out of the stone house. The dirt at thepound opened up again and Van Gogh jumped into it.


    It was a chute that Carlo used for garbage disposal, and it was also a powerful magic beast. The beast recognized Van Gogh and did not bite. It simply let him slide through his huge throat, reaching the underground through his body.


    Seeing his student left, Carlo touched his furnace and smirked. ¡°So, the head inquisitor made it to ck Dungeon Ind then? A bunch of reckless fools who go about causing trouble and they really think they can judge everything in this world...¡±


    He had no fear of letting Van Gogh go. He was different from other adherents. While he had not fallen, he had long devoted himself to his researches.


    The tribunal, ck Dungeon, and the pivotal council joined forces and excavated First Dynasty ruins all those years ago. What happened there was shocking to everyone present. Hundreds of holy masters went rogue right there and then, betraying their god.


    The pivotal council was utterly terrified and wanted to sink that ind. They went so far as to sh with the tribunal. The tribunal and ck Dungeon ended up bagging most of the equipment and materials, and the ind was sunk by the pivotal council, killing quite a number of members of the tribunal. The fissure between the two factions widened because of it, and it nearly led to an official split.


    The tribunal had even begun to elect a new pope, forming a new Holy See of Glory.


    ¡°There is no god but me? Ridiculous. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that so many gods have fallen, the Lord of Glory would not try to spread his faith here.¡±


    Carlo saw the gods that the First Dynasty army had captured in the ruins of the First Dynasty, and many more remains of the gods were found. He had lost all loyalty to the Lord of Glory that day. The very reason he kept his faith was solely due to being able to acquire power under the faith of the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°A false adherent. I¡¯m indeed a false adherent! If the Lord of Glory was indeed as powerful as he imed, why would he tolerate the existence of false adherents?¡±


    To false adherents, faith was but a trade.


    On ck Dungeon Ind, the head inquisitor was in a rage having lost two important subordinates. Saleen also recalled his Stone Statue Soldiers in the undersea cave, taking Van Gogh¡¯s Lance of Order with him. Van Gogh lost all control of the weapon, or he would have taken it even if it meant putting his life on the line.


    Saleen stowed the Lance of Order away. Everything about the weapon was wiped clean by his lightning attack. The sturdy material, however, remained useful for future tasks.


    The double-headed great fire snake pounced. Smoke filled the great cave. Saleen realized that the back of the cave was so huge, and it must have been the work of said snake.


    Van Gogh feared the great fire snake due to Saleen¡¯s presence. Saleen had faced powerful creatures before, and it hardly mattered to him if the great fire snake before him had one head or two heads.


    Saleen retreated and turned the corner. The ce got very narrow. Even if the snake had only one head, it would not be able to make its way through. While such elemental creatures did not necessarily have to feed on people, it was nheless its territory. When intruders appeared, the elemental creatures solely killed for no other reason than to enforce their im.


    It was not easy acquiring an underground fire spring. The snake would eventually leave the ce, and it needed to find a way out. There were countless fire elemental creatures at the mantle of the. Most were like those smaller snakes, which would end up dead as soon as they left theva.


    Saleen retreated, letting the Vermillion Knights block the corner altogether. The double-headed great fire snake spat fire in rage but was blocked by the Vermillion Knight. While both grade-9 Vermillion Knights and their grade-10 leader were no match for the double-headed great fire snake, such fire attacks were little more than what hot water baths would have been for humans.


    Most of the great fire snake¡¯s body was still in theke ofva. The head reached the end of the tunnel and was unable to turn. It was simply too tight there. The furious great snake stabbed around with its tongue. The end of its tongue was forked, with two crystallized fire elements on its respective ends. The crystallized body was abnormally sharp, and it ended up piercing the elemental core of one of the Vermillion Knights.


    Saleen retreated 100 yards further, and he was finally out of the tongue¡¯s reach. Seeing its enemy had retreated even further, it emitted eerie hissing sounds. The stomach-turning noises ended up summoning tens of thick fire snakes crawling out of theke ofva, making their way quickly to the corner of the cave.


    Nichs was unable to do anything to such elemental creatures. The fallen divine spell proved more powerful against creatures with souls. Going against elemental creatures would have proven rather strenuous, or rather, he would have had no way of conserving his power of faith. Under such circumstances, his offensive capacity would be lower than a grade-8 elemental mage.


    Nichs had no other options but to buff Saleen with divine spells, enhancing Saleen¡¯s defense and luck.


    Saleen unleashed six Blue Ice Maidens. The six water elemental creaturesbined their might and cast Absolute Zero, stopping the one yard thick fire snakes at the corner.


    The fire snakes summoned were not of high levels, and a spell such as Absolute Zero quickly turned the fire snakes into rocks.


    The spell cast by the Blue Ice Maidens covered the walls of the cave with icicles. The super cold temperature made the double-headed great fire snake furious. It dared not ram the walls, as it feared it would cause the ce to copse on them. A perfectke ofva, the passage it painstakingly opened, would have been ruined.


    It had only recently developed an intellect, and the structure of its soul began to appear. As such, it was only natural for it know some of the ways to advance, which was why it did not go on rampage. Amon great fire snake would have simply burned the ce down when provoked by Saleen, which would have brought rocks of thousands of yards thick down on their heads.


    Seeing the snake getting furious, yet being reluctant to go on a rampage, he felt a sense of glee in him. He decided to stay where he was and went directing his elemental creatures to cast water magic spells in a nonchnt manner. The great fire snake was able to do nothing. It could not bring itself to ruin its home for the intruder. All there was left to be done was just to keep spitting fire to melt the ice within.


    Saleen wracked his brain as he directed the Blue Ice Maidens¡¯ actions. The Crystal Finger would have proved inadequate to kill the snake, as the snake¡¯s elemental core would probably be bigger than a house. Stabbing it with the Crystal Finger would have only hurt it and little else.


    The spears of the ancient warriors would have fared somewhat better. They would had been somewhat effect at damaging the elemental core when thrown. It would have also simply hurt the snake though. Saleen came to realize the advantage of having such a huge size. One might throw the best one had at such beings, and one would possibly not even be able to scratch such beings.


    While Saleen was feeling troubled, Nailisi had sneaked out of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. She found the snake¡¯s body and it was spitting fire on the other end of the cave as soon as she got out. The act of spitting fire was as natural as breathing to the snake, and it was effortless. That was all because the other half of its body was still submerged inva, enabling to keep siphoning energy to itself.


    Nailisi weighed her options and found herself to be far inferior to the snake in terms ofbat powers. If she used Gray Memory to ambush it, she would be able to hurt one of the two heads, but there was no certainty that she would be able to pierce through the elemental core. The other remaining head would simply kill her for what she would do.


    The Sword of Rules proved too small to hurt it. She could have dealt hundreds of shes on it, and it would not be able to reach the vital points of the snake still. ¡°If I¡¯m able to master at least one rule, whatever kind of rule, I would fare better than this!¡± Nailisi regretted not being more diligent. She was then at wits¡¯ end about what to do with such a massive creature before her.


    ¡°So, how do I go about tricking that thing into my purgatory of elements then?¡± Nailisi thought for a bit, and her skirt was filled with golden electricity. She dived into theke ofva. The boiling molten rock within was unable to harm her due to being protected by the electricity about her. Nailisi dived further staying close to the snake¡¯s body, and soon reached a wider spot.


    Theva there was transparent, tens of times hotter than theva on top. If she did not have the electricity about her for protection, she would have been fried to a crisp.


    Green golden light flowed within her eyes and she was shocked to find that the floor of the giant cave was filled with red crystals.

 Chapter 1000: Red Rock Egg (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1000: Red Rock Egg (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Crystals were minerals capable of recing magic nuclei as means for storing elemental energies, but crystals were hardly found on crust veins. They did not emanate radiation like magic nuclei, rendering detection impossible. The crystal mines Saleen found in the Demon City were not pure, and refinement was needed before the end products could be put to use.


    True crystals were something that could be set on magic arrays as soon as they were cut or be used directly by mages for training.


    Most of those crystals were exhausted during the Second Dynasty, and not even areas near the ocean were found to house much deposits. What Nailisi saw right there however, was a red crystal cave with a diameter of at least three miles.


    Nailisi shuddered. The great snake¡¯s body still resided within that cave. The temperature of theva in the cave was very high, yet the liquid was clear as water.


    It was not magma, but liquid congealed by fire element. Nailisi knew little in the way of magical knowledge and she found it tedious to study. There was nothing like it back on the demon ne, and she had no choice but to ignore the liquid she was currently submerged in. Her gaze shifted to a pile of eggs.


    The eggs were piled at the center of the cave, very near the snake¡¯s body. Every egg was translucent with a diameter of about one foot and were about two feet in length. The eggs were arranged in a ring, stacked inyers. The middle of the ring was full, unlike somemon magic beasts, where they make an empty space in the middle of their nests.


    Nailisi dived for them and peered closely, confirming that they were no signs of life within the eggs. ¡°This is good stuff! They¡¯re the eggs of an elemental creature!¡±


    Elemental creatures were incapable of giving birth by default. Only those who had developed souls would be capable of reproduction when their souls fully developed. The soul of the great fire snake had yet to see any growth. The eggsid had only the power of life and were incapable of developing souls.


    As such, the fire element power within the eggs was more condensed than anything else found within the cave, several hundred times more potent than even the red crystals found earlier. Nailisi thought on it for a full three minutes before taking out her purple-gold sea urchin pouch. She began collecting the eggsid by the great fire snake.


    The power of life within the eggs would have been lost when chucked into any other spatial equipment. Without said power of life, the eggs would have just been crystallized bodies of very high levels. Due to being left in charge of the demon army, Saleen had given her 5000 said pouches. One would be able to tell from Nailisi¡¯s inherent personality that she never gave any to the demons; she left all of the pouches for her own use.


    The space in the purple-gold sea urchin pouches were not big, but they proved adequate for storing the eggs, yet maintained the power of life within.


    Nailisi was quick with her movements, fearing the great snake would be aware of what she was doing. She had only found that the great fire snake was hardly capable of sensing its eggs after filling more than a dozen pouches.


    It was only then that she found that the great fire snake was incapable of sensing any life without souls being moved. With the snake busy fighting Saleen, it was utterly incapable of knowing what was happening in her nest. Nailisi kept bagging one egg after another in the pouches in glee, before chucking them into the dimension stone.


    The space within the dimension stone was devoid of life, but Nailisi was able to find a way to circumvent the obstacle to store the eggs within. The space within the dimension became capable of housing anything with life, so long as it was protected with the purple-gold sea urchin pouches.


    It was still utterly incapable of storing any life with souls though. The eggs were something like the water puppet, but of even lower levels. If the eggs were able to develop normally, most would not give birth to anything. The end result would probably be losing all power of life within, reducing them to a pile of red crystals.


    Even if the eggs became capable of producing anything, what resulted would simply be low-level elemental creatures, which would die as soon as they left the ce. As Nailisi bagged the eggs, she looked around her, finding the giant cave of red rocks to have nothing else but the snake¡¯s body. Its body seemed to have been simply too big to be tricked into entering the purgatory of elements.


    Nailisi thought for a bit as she cradled one of the eggs in her arms. The temperature of the egg was not high, at least it was several hundred times less hot than the clear liquid in the red rock cave. Nailisi opened the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. An opening with a diameter of thirty yards formed, and the clear liquid from the cave gushed into the purgatory of elements. Nailisi swam with the current with the eggs in her arms.


    With the clear liquid in the red rock cave gushing into the opening, the great fire snake was finally aware of what was happening. Something happened to its nest. The great fire snake lost all will to attack the water elemental creatures conjured by Saleen, and its huge body retreated into the cave. It saw the opening of the collection of purgatories as soon as it returned.


    Nailisi immediately took the form of the skeleton king as soon as she saw that the snake made it back, sending death aura into the egg in her arms. The power of life within the eight was no match for the skeleton king at the pinnacle of grade-9. The egg diedpletely within the span of a single breath, bing a translucent crystal.


    The snake¡¯s instinct allowed it to know that Nailisi was killing its child. While said child would have shared little simrities with it even if it was hatched, the snake remained furious.


    It dived right into the purgatory of elements without a care. The space of the purgatory of elements had been expanded to reach more than five miles and was filled with wind element power. Elemental storms whipped up as soon as the clear liquid gushed within. Both fire and wind element shed, producing violent impacts. Destruction happened again and again within the sealed space, before giving birth to even purer wind and fire elements.


    As the great fire snake made it inside, a shadow of the Eye of the Storm was congealed in the air. The Eye of the Storm was about to be resurrected within the purgatory. It had no soul, and it immediately detected the great fire snake, which had a soul. The Eye of the Storm attacked immediately,unching hurricanes that seemed to threaten to tear the space apart. Countless wind des whipped about, and sonic boom attacks wereunched as well. Fire element was almostpletely disintegrated after being subjected to such attacks. It was about to be converted to wind element.


    The great fire snake tangled with the shadow of the Eye of the Storm and had long lost the ability to attack Nailisi. While it had been more powerful than the Eye of the Storm, its capacity forbat was quickly downgraded by a dozen times after leaving the red rock cave. The Eye of the Storm began to get familiar with more wind element rules within the purgatory of elements and was creating a wind element space.


    The addition of the great fire snake ruined its efforts inpleting the rules within. Having lost its soul, the Eye of the Storm¡¯s body was reduced to a shadow of its former self, acting solely on instincts alone. With the great fire snake having ruined its ns, it took the new intruder as its archenemy.


    Nailisi escaped from the purgatory, as the fighting within was simply too violent. As it was still beingpleted, Nailisi did not even have the ability to control anything within it. She let the clear liquid within the red rock cave continue gushing into the purgatory of elements, instead of shutting it tight. Theva at the top of the cave did not end up flowing inside as well, seemingly be prevented from doing so by some unknown forces.


    With the clear liquid within the huge cave gradually being siphoned into the purgatory of elements, the enraged double-headed great fire snake continued to tangle with the Eye of the Storm and was in no mood to leave. As more and more clear liquid gushed in, it became more and more ferocious.


    Nailisi had not expected to be able to trick the snake into entering the purgatory so easily. ¡°That thing does not seem to be all that intelligent after all, it¡¯s far easier to deal with than humans.¡±


    Nailisi only went shutting the entrance to the purgatories when the clear liquid was all siphoned, and then put it away. Saleen took Nichs into the searing hot cave. Many of his elemental creatures were severely damaged, and he had lost four ancient warriors.


    Seeing Nailisi was unscathed, Saleen let out a sigh of relief. Nailisi waved the Twelve Notes of Purgatory about in glee and informed Saleen, ¡°Master, I tricked that thing inside.¡±


    ¡°Good job!¡± Saleen was incredibly excited as well. He was more knowledgeable than Nailisi had ever been and was able to see the cave for what it was clearly.


    ¡°This ce is a red rock egg!¡± The entire cave itself was arge eggid by the earth itself, and the great fire snake was something hatched from said egg. The red crystals on the walls of the cave were actually the eggshell of the egg housing the great fire snake.


    ¡°Nailisi, we are rich!¡± Saleen¡¯s mood could not have gotten better eyeing the cave around them. The eggshell of the snake was, without saying, more precious than crystal veins. While the amount of crystals found within such veins was astounding, they were hardly ever as pure in fire element energy.


    ¡°But master, how are we going to bag all this?¡± Nailisi looked at the thick red crystals with a dazed expression. The great fire snake was tricked into leaving and it would not ever return. Yet the size of the eggshell itself was humongous, with a diameter of three miles. Even a sorcerer the likes of Joey would not have been able to chuck something so huge inside a spatial equipment, let alone Saleen.


    ¡°We¡¯ll break everything!¡± Saleen decided right there and then and unleashed Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. He had them wield their hammers to knock on the shell.


    Boom...


    The magic warhammer ended up being warped, with the striking surfacepletely melted, even the shaft on the hammer severely twisted. Having encased himself in a Water Shield, he was unable to feel that the temperature of the interior of the red rock egg remained high. Despite having lost the great snake itself, the temperature within was still more than enough to burn most beings to death.


    Saleen was dumbfounded and felt frustrated at being unable to bag such a huge pile of treasures right before his eyes.


    The red rock egg was equivalent to the purest of crystals, and mages used fire element spells the most during battles. As such, fire element magic wasmon, sporting the most bnced offensive capacity among all six major elemental magic.


    Lex was a mage who specialized in fire magic. If he took the shell of the egg back to her, her speed at training and study would have been sped up by at least several times. Saleen had thought of crafting a one-floor magic tower for Lex using the shell of the red rock egg.


    Such equipment would be so unattainable to most, that most people would have nothing but envy for anyone in possession of it.


    ¡°But how am I going to go about dealing with the red crystals? Current Cutter? Ridiculous. As soon as the water currents reached within, they will have evaporated in an instant. Sword of Rules then? But those crystals would have regressed being cut with that sword, bing onlymon crystals and losing most of its value.


    Nailisi gritted her teeth and took out Gray Memory. ¡°I have to try no matter what. The colors of the crystals here are too perfect. No selling any of them, strictly reserved for use of our mages.¡± Nailisi had no intention of giving up all those eggs that she had bagged. ¡°For Lex? Hell no!¡± She would have considered if they were to be given to Sika though.


    From Nailisi¡¯s perspective, she was far closer to Sika than she was to Lex. When Saleen first entered the temple, Sika had already been by his side, and Sika was also one of the contemporary humans known earliest to her.

 Chapter 1001: Taking over Ceylon City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1001: Taking over Ceylon City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi naturally had her own thoughts about who was closer to her. She left the snake egg behind and gave it to Sika, but Sika had no use for such things.


    Saleen had no idea that Nailisi kept snake eggs, which were even more precious. At the moment, he simply focused on the red rock egg¡¯s shell.


    The shell of that egg was hard and hot. As such, no conventional weapon would be able to cut it open. In fact, it would even be considered a very powerful piece of magic equipment on its own, at least when it was used for protection.


    Saleen could not afford to leave the shell behind. Van Gogh would escape if he did not end up taking it away, and members of the Tribunal would return and find ways to pick the ce clean.


    At that moment, Nailisi took out her Grey Memory, leapt into the air, and stabbed at the red crystal rock. The resulting sh from the spear was as powerful as she had expected, as it blew arge hole that was more than ten meters deep off of the hard crystal rock.


    Upon seeing this, Saleen felt his heart ache. After all, Nailisi¡¯s thrust had reduced a good number of the precious materials to dust.


    However, even with the big hole formed, the attack did not end up piercing the eggshell. So, Saleen had no choice but to search a bit with his mental powers, finally finding the average thickness of the shell to be about 120 meters in thickness. While Nailisi¡¯s weapon was indeed formidable, it was inadequate for piercing such arge eggshell.


    The egg¡¯s externalyer was filled with a thick red crystal rock of somewhat inferior quality. There was possibly an underground fire vein underneath that red crystal rock, which made it seem as if there was a red crystal rock mine at that precise spot.


    ¡°Master, how about you let re have a go at it?¡± Nailisi asked Saleen, who then had no choice but to summon the leader of the Vermillion Knights and his subordinates.


    re took a look at the inside of the red rock egg and got incredibly excited. He then said to Saleen, ¡°Master, if you let my subordinates recover here, all 144 Vermillion Knights will be able to keep fighting for you within about three days!¡±


    ¡°Recover? What I want is for you to cut this red crystal rock open! Can you get that done?¡± Saleen asked re, clearly exasperated.


    After all, this situation was dangerous and dire, and that ce was not at all safe. They were in a cave that was deep beneath ground, whichy within an undersea crevice. As such, even the tiniest earthquake would have been more than enough to bury all of them within it!


    ¡°Alright, master, I¡¯ll try...¡± re was incredibly disappointed by the response he received, but he had no choice but to obey.


    Thus, he summoned 24 of his subordinates and ced a magic array around them. He then came and stand at the center of the array and raised his spear.


    At that moment, he stabbed the ming Halberd into the earth. As he did so, an incredibly thin crack appeared in the red crystal rock.


    re felt that this was adequate to fulfil his orders, and as such, he summoned his steed while still standing at the center of the array. re¡¯s body grew humongous in an instant, and all 24 of the summoned Vermillion Knights grew to heights of over a hundred meters!


    None of them had weapons, as they did not need them. Instead, they simply worked in conjunction with each other to activate the magic array.


    Suddenly, a long beam of fire shot out from re¡¯s body, while the ming Halberd cut open a huge crack on the rock. Every single sh from the halberd extended the crack longer and longer.


    The area of the eggshell that Saleen was currently facing was pierced in an instant. It was then cut into huge square blocks.


    The crystal rocks had been dead to begin with. Now, without the fire snake around, and as they werecking protection from the magic patterns, re was able to easily cut the rock open by using the rules of the fire element.


    This had little to do with the powerfulness of his offensive capacity. Other elemental creatures would probably have been scalded, and it would have been impossible for them to cut open the tremendously thick shell. But, Saleen was able to take out a dimension stone and put all of those huge red crystal rock within it.


    The eggshell of the fire snake was incredibly huge and had a thickness over 100 meters. If it had not been for some help from elemental creatures like the Vermillion Knights, Saleen would have only been able to pick several pieces to take away and go home, having to return againter after assembling a team to pick up the rest. It was unknown if the cave would have been around for that long, not to mention that the Tribunal would have had their sights set upon that spot as well.


    re worked quickly as he instructed his subordinates to activate the magic array, while keeping his offensive capacity at its peak. It was only in such an environment that he would have been able to attack without regard for anything. Furthermore, during the process, all of his Vermillion Knight subordinates¡¯ conditions had reached their peaks as well.


    re let those 24 Vermillion Knights return to the elemental badge, while he summoned another 24. Saleen did not stop him.


    Initially, those 24 had been at their lowest. But luckily, they had absorbed fire elemental powers in a frenzy as soon as they entered the red rock egg, which instantly restored their vigors.


    re moved to another spot andid out the magic array once again. Those 24 Vermillion Knights, who did not have their elemental cores destroyed, had their powers restored, so they lent their efforts to totally wreck the ce as their injuries were mending.


    re stopped summoning new Vermillion Knights. After all, most of them had already had their cores destroyed, and it would be better for them to recover slowly. So, the remaining 48 Vermillion Knights would have to be enough to keep Saleen safe.


    While Saleen was busy digging up crystals at the bottom of the ocean, 12 ck-robed priests and warden leaders from the Tribunal were incredibly anxious. Van Gogh was never seen again after he left, and the Eye of the Storm was nowhere to be found either.


    At the moment, they had no idea what else to do. If they simply returned to the Tribunal like this, none of them would be able to keep their heads on their necks for long!


    The warden leaders looked at the 12 ck-robed priests, while the priests were eyeing each other, all of them unable toe to a unanimous decision. The eldest ck-robed priest then asked, ¡°How about we return to ck Dungeon Ind for now?¡±


    ¡°Lord Van Gogh isn¡¯t with us. Will we be able to enter it?¡± another ck-robed priests asked.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just return to the Tribunal,¡± the youngest ck-robed priest said, his eyes sparkling.


    Everyone knew that he was thinking of returning to the Tribunal, asking around with his friends, and then possibly running away if things did not turn out right. At least this would be a better option than going to ck Dungeon Ind. If they went there, it would be very difficult for them to leave again.


    ¡°What do you all think about that?¡± The old holy master looked around and saw that everyone looked tired and dejected.


    Flight capabilities of holy masters were inferior to those of the mages, and the cost of mental powers for taking flight was rather high. If they stayed any longer, there would be no guarantee that they would reach the shore by air. Hence, they all decided to take flight at once...


    ¡°Let¡¯s head to the Tribunal then.¡±


    ¡°I second that!¡±


    ¡°Agreed!¡±


    The old holy master looked at the warden leaders and asked, ¡°Do you guys want to return to ck Dungeon and take a look at the Tribunal?¡±


    The warden leaders had spent quite a bit of power from their divine crystals to keep themselves in the air while wearing their divine armor. Thus, the energy drain that they experienced was several times that of flying armor that was crafted by the mages.


    Thus, they had no choice but to nod and agree. Besides, without a ship, it would have been safer to keep the holy masters around in case they happened to encounter any flying magic beasts.


    The warden leaders knew exactly what the holy masters were thinking. If they were to return to ck Dungeon like that, it would have been the end of every one of them.


    When they talked about returning to the Tribunal, what they actually meant was that they would pick up news onnd. However, none of them wanted to say that out loud for fear of being made scapegoatster on.


    While the Tribunal was known for the severity of its punishments, it was willing to go easy on its own people, especially if one was willing to sell their own people out. As the group flew toward the shore, they all felt incredibly nervous.


    They did not dare fly too high, nor did they dare to stay too close to the sea. Although they flew in a very tight formation, they were still wary of each other. As such, every single one of them was tightly wound and incredibly nervous.


    When the red rock egg in the underground cave had been cleaned up quite a bit,va was poured on it from above. The egg was then put away in the purgatory of devils.


    Theva would have been useful to enrich the purgatory of devils¡¯ environment. Nailisi found it hard to find suchvakes, so she took all of theva away and nted the egg deep within the ground in the purgatory of devils, leaving it to congeal there.


    Saleen was quick with his work. He spent a whole day busily working underground and had bagged up almost all of the red crystal rock there was to bag before returning to the crevice the same way that he came.


    He then went to the bottom of the ocean along the crevice and found the Magical Element Tower, which was standing still in the opening. The heavenly angel was nowhere to be found.


    The heavenly angel was a summoned creature, and it was impossible for it tost for one whole day. With Van Gogh gone, the heavenly angel had disappeared after fighting two level 10 creatures.


    Saleen did not dare stay for long, as ke knew what Van Gogh was capable of. In fact, if it had not been for the power of his family badge, the Lance of Order would have beaten him to a pulp!


    The only way that he could keep himself safe was if he threw all of his elemental creatures at Van Gogh at the same time. So, the fact that his family badge was depleted and was out of use for half a year, it was the wisest choice for him to leave sooner rather thanter.


    Saleen took the tower to the surface and went all the way to Ceylon City. He had no idea that, due to him having bagged both the Lance of Order and the divine puppet, Van Gogh had escaped ck Dungeon Ind and had gone to Alchemy City.


    A conflict erupted on ck Dungeon Ind, and the head warden and the head inquisitor parted on bad terms. The ind was also filled with numerous dead bodies.


    The Magical Element Tower continued to fly close to the surface of the sea. Saleen cared little for fuel costs, so he chose to have all of the magic power furnaces working at maximum power. As such, the magic tower flew faster than when it hade the first time.


    The amount of red crystal rock was abundant. Other than the red rock egg, there was still a crystal rock vein that was hundreds of meters thick. The crystals, which were not that pure, were beneficial when used as fuel for the magic power furnace.


    At the moment, the lesser nobles of Sikeqinya who were within the magic tower were all behaving themselves. The battle they had witnessed was something the lesser nobles, who were allmon people, would have never been able toprehend.


    When the powerful heavenly angel appeared, the lesser nobles were so frightened that they knelt and prayed instantly. As for the Sikeqinyan people, they hardly ever cared about praying. As such, they could have simply turned their backs on the faith that they professed to.


    However, that heavenly angel was quickly caught in a pincer attack by two tall monsters. After duking it out for two hours, the heavenly angel was reduced to fragments, then scattered in the seawater. The lesser nobles stopped praying right then and there, then began singing praises to Saleen.


    Saleen did not bother listening to their praises and paid little heed to what the lesser nobles thought. How people fought had changed.


    In ancient times, human castes were determined by the amount of power one possessed, which meant that being rich was of little value. Bloodlines did not matter either, unless one was from a very powerful one that allowed them to be the ruler over some mighty kingdom ornd. However, Saleen still did not kill all of those lesser nobles, as he still had some use for them.


    Upon the journey, the Magical Element Tower ran into quite a number of magic beasts, but luckily, it was able to return safely to Magnolia Bay at Ceylon City.


    The towernded right at the port, and Nailisi immediately summoned hundreds of demons and had all of the lesser nobles brought to the house of the lord. The people of Ceylon City left the port in fear after seeing a magic towernd right before their eyes.


    At that time, there were several fishing boats which did not dare to return to port. Hence, the ce was quite deste.


    Saleen did not head for the house of the lord himself. Instead, he looked out at the city that was so familiar to him from inside the tower. As he did so, he had mixed feelings.


    The tall fort at the shore, the abandoned turrets, and the tattered and broken steps made of huge rocks, as well as the scarred and chipped statues and the wind with a fishy smell to it all made Saleen feel like he was going to cry. He had finally returned to his birthce!


    ¡°Teacher, what should we do with those people we saved?¡± Truman asked after noticing that Saleen had not instructed them on what to do with the merchants and sailors.


    ¡°Have Gugger lock them up for the time being. After all, smuggling is a crime,¡± Saleen ordered after taking a moment topose himself.


    He knew that he couldn¡¯t simply release those people. At the very least, he was not able to let the captain go free after he wrecked Ironwall City himself! As the leader of the chamber ofmerce in Ironwall City, that captain would have hated him to the bone and would surely seek revenge!

 Chapter 1002: Taking over Ceylon City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1002: Taking over Ceylon City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen knew what he wanted to do in the future. Now, he was ready to face whatever was toe, especially after he had already gone through so much. After all, a mage cannot simply go around killing people with impunity or treatingmon people as if they were nothing!


    This was due to the fact that those people were also part of the world. Thus, destroying them would throw the world out of bnce, thus causing the mages to lose the bnce that was necessary for further research in their environment.


    Besides, every mage emerged from the ranks of themon folk, which meant that their souls bore the mark of themon folk. As they were high level creatures, while there were many humans who went about killing each other, they were simply not a race that would do such a thing, as that would basically be the same as causing their own race¡¯s extinction!


    In fact, it was this very principle that separated gods from humans. When gods fell, their race fell with them and went extinct. So, when gods destroyed themselves, they were capable of annihting entire worlds. This was something that humans would have never done.


    Moreover, mages were not allowed to destroy entire worlds. Instead, they focused on making the world a greater ce, one with abundance.


    Also, Saleen was not like any regr mage. He was among those non-conventional ones, who knew that they were destined to carry great things, such as the resurrection of Goddess of Myers. Such a task, or rather, a mission like that was only able to be carried out by a select few mages throughout the entire maind.


    All of those mages carried special fates. But... What is fate? Saleen wondered.


    He had no idea what that concept was exactly, but at the moment, he came to realize something about it. He had been drifting on the river of fate for over 20 years, and the hopes that he once had were still floating along its same path, yet nothing had changed. This could only make him believe that if things kept going as they were currently, he would be a ve of fate for good.


    While astrologers attempted to hover high in the sky, looking down on the ground in order to get a good view of where the fates led, mages, on the other hand, analyzed the fundamentalposition of matter, thews by which all energy operated, and the most fundamental form of the entire world. This was also a way to chase after truth and an attempt to master fate.


    What Saleen was doing at the moment was simply taking his fate into his own hands. He was tired of simply getting by and merely getting his belly filled in order to survive.


    By this time, Saleen hade to understand Jason quite well. He was simr to Saleen¡¯s teacher, who had forged onward in life, always keeping his goal in mind and never yielding. He would have never given up, even if he was all alone and no one was by his side.


    At the moment, the merchants of Ironwall City were locked up, and the lesser nobles had signed agreements with Gugger, bing his vassal nobles. Meanwhile, Gugger became one of Saleen¡¯s pce nobles, advancing to the rank of grade one earl.


    Narsha, Viscount Gugger¡¯s wife, was brought to tears of joy upon seeing him return. However, he was solemn and serious, as he was filled with worry.


    ¡°Gugger, you¡¯re a grade one earl now, so why aren¡¯t you happy?¡± Narsha didn¡¯t understand why her husband looked so troubled.


    ¡°Narsha. His Highness Saleen wants too much. Do you know that his next goal will probably be to overtake the entire Myers Maind? If he seeds in doing that, we¡¯d all be rich and glorious. But, if he fails, he¡¯d be dragging us all to hell with him,¡± he replied.


    Narsha was dumbfounded and remained silent for a bit before asking, ¡°So, are you going to swear loyalty to Saleen, or are you prepared to betray him at any given moment?¡±


    ¡°No. In fact, that is the exact reason that I¡¯m so troubled. I have no intention of betraying him. After all, I¡¯m one of his closest nobles, at least in name, and he grew up in Ceylon City. So, he wouldn¡¯t cast me off, no matter what,¡± he replied.


    He then looked at Narsha and asked, ¡°Do you know that there aren¡¯t that many people who are able to earn a mage¡¯s approval and attention? AS long as I keep being a good, loyal earl, I won¡¯t even need to have any talent, as His Highness Saleen will make sure that I have a good life for the rest of my days.¡±


    ¡°Are you worried about the children then?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Indeed. Our youngest son is only two, and I already don¡¯t even know if he has a future.¡± As he spoke, Gugger¡¯s eyes shone with emotions that did not seem to belong to Sikeqinyan nobles, including a sense of loss, frustration, and fear.


    Narsha gritted her teeth and asked, ¡°Gugger, you must hand over our son to his Highness Saleen then. Don¡¯t pce nobles do that all of the time?¡±


    Handing over one¡¯s son to their lord, rendering their offspring as someone who would serve their lord for the rest of their lives, was something that wasmonly seen among the nobles. The nobles who did so did it as a gesture of their resolve and fidelity.


    While Gugger was still feeling troubled over the decision, Saleen¡¯s men had already begun modifying Ceylon City. The original n was scrapped. Since the Tanggsians¡¯ naval power was very formidable, then Ceylon City¡¯s fortification along the shoreline had be the utmost priority.


    Other than their being startled by Earl Gugger¡¯s announcement, there were hardly any signs of unrest seen among the citizens of Ceylon City. After Gugger announced his loyalty to Saleen, the first thing that he had done was to reduce the taxes that had been imposed on everyone in the city.


    This was a costly move. Earl Gugger had then announced aw during war times. Thisw stated that if Ceylon City was surrounded, the earl¡¯s residence would provide food for those who had lost their source of ie, as long as the city did not getpletely taken over.


    The only price that the citizens would be charged for this food provision was to work for the earl¡¯s residence, performing such tasks as building maintenance on facilities within the city, cleaning, and so on. This also kept them from being forced to go to the frontlines.


    The people of Ceylon City took all that with a grain of salt, however, as they hadn¡¯t seen many demons marching in the streets. So, everyone had grown somewhatcent, choosing to sit on the fence and simply watch to see what would happen. After all, they knew that it was unrealistic to think of trying to escape Ceylon City, as it was said that all of the surrounding nobles had already sworn fealty to Gugger.


    Earl Gugger had quite a reputation, and as such, the city did not see any riots, which was a fact that Saleen found quite satisfying. After all, he did not want an empty city. What he really wanted was for Ceylon City to be a profitable ce, one that was in charge of all of the trade routes that linked to the Tanggsi Empire.


    Currently, only magic warships were capable of sailing long distances, andmon merchant ships required huge supply points. As such, Ceylon City¡¯s location was very suitable for trade andmerce. However, it was unfortunate that the Tanggsi Empire had ced a heavy sanction on merchants, and the penalty for viting any of thesews was basically death.


    Saleen had taken Ceylon City for himself, without bothering to talk to Danny, the emperor of Sikeqinya. With Ironwall City destroyed, there was no way that Danny could let such actions slide. After all, it was nearly impossible for him to acknowledge Ceylon City¡¯s independence.


    However, Saleen did not even give Danny a chance to curse, much less retaliate, as Lex took over the Royal Harbor, while Saleen took over Ceylon City. Now that they had taken over these two locations, one in the west and one in the north, they wanted to see what Danny would do about it.


    Saleen would have been pleased if Danny had decided to attack the city, as there were more than 600 metal flyers stationed in Royal Harbor at the moment, which could be deployed to attack any surrounding cities at a moment¡¯s notice.


    Lex¡¯s strategies worked well, and Danny was no longer in any mood to coborate with Laiyin Duchy by joining forces to attack the Kingdom of Metatrin. After all, his own empire was a mess, so he had enough on his te already.


    Specifically, Ironwall City had been destroyed and the local nobles were all paralyzed with fear. As such, Danny had no way of mobilizing the nobles¡¯ main forces, so he had to resort to employing mercenaries.


    Moreover, the Holy See army had wrecked the Qin Empire¡¯s main defense, while marching toward the northern ins of Qin. The northern nobles of Qin had all retreated to their respective estates. All of this had resulted inplete chaos.


    Also, Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s army had taken Lianyun City. After conquering it, they immediately started to remodel it. As he seemed in no hurry, it really looked as if he intended to draw things out.


    At the moment, no one entered Metatrin and everything within Phoenix¡¯s borders looked peaceful. This is because the three duchesses who were working for Saleen had persuaded all of the nobles within Phoenix to submit to Saleen.


    The situation with northern Qin had also served to persuade the nobles of Phoenix as well. Aftering to this decision, Guya and the others were able to build cities within Phoenix without any trouble, thus locking down the two most important routes leading into Phoenix.


    As Sika backed all three of the nobles, the Tribunal¡¯s assault at Lonestar City yielded no results. Hence, they were forced to retreated back to Kroraina, while nning to march into northern Qin through the main battlefield.


    Lex¡¯s assault of Ironwall City proved to be an effective one. The very reason why the Holy See army had avoided the Kingdom of Metatrin was because they had a disadvantage regarding the terrain. Even if they were to steamroll over Lonestar City, an army of that scale would have great difficulty in secretly entering Metatrin.


    Things in Lex¡¯s Principality of Bitterwater remained quiet as well. After all, Daliang City controlled all of thends within a thousand miles, so no one dared to move against the city.


    The Tanggsians were also fearful of Lex going nuts and attacking them. Without a way to defend themselves against such threats, the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary force had no way but to circle around Saleen¡¯s and Lex¡¯s territories in an attempt to avoid them altogether.


    Alchemy City began dispatching mages to negotiate with local nobles everywhere. They did this in the hopes of gathering more power.


    The cities of those nobles would have provided them with new defense measures via Alchemy City, as long as they were willing to support Alchemy City. Sorcerers were also dispatched in order to build magic towers in those cities as well.


    Finally, Alchemy City had bared its fangs. After being dormant for nearly a millennium, the city had decided to join the fight for pieces of the maind.


    Due to this, the northern nobles had no choice but to submit, each signing agreements with Alchemy City. After that, the entire northernnd of the Qin Empire never heard any word from Holy Rock City again.


    After hearing this news, Saleen builtmunications systems between Royal Harbor, Metatrin City, Daliang City and Principality of Bitterwater. As such, constant news was being sent to Ceylon City, and the city soon became more modern and built-up.


    As Saleen worked continued to work on Ceylon City, he was quick and diligent. He drew a circle on the magic map, which covered the surrounding ins and all of thends fit for farming around Ceylon City.


    He then dispatched the demon army to persuade those nobles who had yet to sign the agreement to agree to his terms and pledge loyalty to him. Such forceful ways of going about things would normally not have been tolerated, but as Emperor Danny had enough to worry about in his own territory at the moment, he was unable to pay any attention to what was happening elsewhere.


    Originally, Saleen had intended to only take over about a hundred miles¡¯ worth ofnds. However, he had ended up taking nearly 360 miles from north to south and 280 miles from east to west. These tracts ofnd were enough to build a small nation!


    The northwestern in north of Sikeqinya was incredibly small. As such, the ce that Saleen drew on the map was already at the limit. Had he taken it any further, he would have had to stretch it into the mountains.


    As the demon army was incredibly persuasive, all of those nobles that they visited instantly agreed to submit to the great king of the Kingdom of Metatrin. Saleen was then able to dispatch forces and peacefully set up defenses at key locations. Then, the mercenaries within that area naturally had to submit to Saleen as well.


    The expansion of Ceylon City¡¯s port was handled quickly, and other than constructingmercial ports, Saleen had also requested that turrets and magic towers be erected, thus making it an effective military port. The military shipyard was now capable of repairing warships and was adequate to act as a strong supply point.


    Tasked with such improvements and alterations, Saleen¡¯s subordinates became unusually busy, and even Nailisi was dispatched to deal with mundane matters. Also, his student Truman was assigned to the mountains to help build a Metatrin fort.


    Unlike before, everything went smoothly, as no one dared toe and try to mess up Saleen¡¯s ns. With this momentum in full force, Saleen had no intentions of stopping, as there was another city getting in his way in the north, Yaoyang City!


    Earl Sufonso, the lord of Yaoyang City, had once destroyed Saleen¡¯s family graveyard. Now, Saleen intended to make him pay for these past transgressions.

 Chapter 1003: Acting on One’s Own (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1003: Acting on One¡¯s Own (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the Myersnguage, there was a set term for a concept¡ªthe revenge of mages.


    The term had existed before the Ancient Myers tongue came into being. In actuality, the term itself had always been an independent one, harking back even before the Mark of Hatred existed. The Mark of Hatred used by the gods was actually something learned from mages.


    Mages hardly spoke of vengeance, as everything was built upon the concept of equivalent exchange for them, and that included battles. When a mage was really enraged, they would nt a seed of vengeance on their enemies. The seed was something that could be sensed by other mages, attracting enmity towards the target.


    Offending a mage meant having such vengeance perpetuated, until the soul of the target was no longer intact.


    One was allowed to kill a mage, but one was never allowed to make a mage feel like they were being treated unfairly. Revenge of mages would be visited upon the one making said mage feel unfairly treated otherwise. It was a powerful mental type spell, and only usable by those of very high levels. When the power of humanity had fallen, people gradually forgot about the spell, leaving only the principle that one should treat mages well.


    If one shall obtain something, one shall pay the equivalent price.


    Earl Sufonso had offended Saleen and did it in a very bad way. If he sent people after Saleen, even if he were to persist until Saleen was reduced to mush, Saleen would not me him for anything. Regardless of what started the feud, it was a fact that Saleen had killed someone else¡¯s son.


    Earl Sufonso had torn down Saleen¡¯s family grave and did so in a very thorough manner. When Saleen had first returned to the stone house outside of the city, he had already sent the leader of the Midnight Fang to investigate. The result was that nothing was left.


    Earl Sufonso had gone too far. To the people of the Myers Maind, graves were something that should never be defiled no matter what. Saleen had lived a poor, wretched life since he was a child. What Earl Sufonso did was akin to driving a knife deep into Saleen¡¯s heart. Saleen was still able to feel the pain even then, as such, he would have never given up getting his revenge.


    Saleen thought differentlypared to how he thought it once. It was appropriate to punish only the one responsible for matters like that. In Earl Sufonso¡¯s case, he had someone else helping him with the task. Saleen had not want to drag others into it, unless...


    He called for Nailisi and handed her a letter, ordering her to deliver it to the magic tower of Yaoyang City. If his teacher still held enmity towards that mage, he would let his teacher to get rid of them himself. He had no intentions of destroying that magic tower, unless that mage themself got in his way of exacting his revenge against Sufonso.


    If possible, Saleen would have rather not get anyone else, not even a single person, into that.


    ¡°Master, if it was up to me, I¡¯d do it how we did to Ironwall City. Send 300 metal flyers there, and Yaoyang City would be razed within hours. Why all the extra trouble?¡± Nailisi asked with full intention to incite his hatred further taking the letter.


    ¡°What we did to Ironwall City, we will never do a second time. Doing it once was for deterrence. Do it twice, and we¡¯ll make everyone feel dread looming above them. If we go that way, no one else will be able to tolerate the existence of our nation any longer. They will have to get rid of us, before they can go get rid of Qin. Do you understand that reasoning?¡±


    ¡°I do, I do, master. So, what I meant was, can¡¯t we at least go scare them a bit?¡±


    ¡°What makes you think I haven¡¯t done that already? Just go and get back before it gets dark. There is hardly anyone that can be of use to me here in Ceylon City.¡± Saleen dismissed Nailisi with a smile, before taking out the dimension stone and releasing the Magical Element Tower. He then began crafting equipment for Lex. He had bagged massive amounts of red crystals, so much so that he was able to afford to splurge however he wanted. Lex was very good with fire magic, and Saleen decided to make her something specific for that.


    Nailisi had recovered from her injuries in the past several days. Her devil form was severely damaged with its heart half-melted. It was fortunate that they had the body of the divine baby and the power of faith within that body with them, as well as the dead bodies of nearly 1,000 blue monsters. All that enabled Nailisi¡¯s devil form to quickly heal.


    She knew that Saleen wanted to get rid of Sufonso with his own hands, and thus dared not do anything to him herself. All she did there was to simply make her way to Yaoyang City in her devil form, with the letter in her hand.


    Her new devil form sported three heads and four arms, and the wings were gone. Nailisi ran across the ins instead of flying by using demon magic. She did not bother hiding her aura, as her near grade-10 powers meant that no magic beasts would dare get near her. With the two extra arms growing on her back, manifesting devil wings became quite troublesome, as she had to put those arms away first. At that moment, she liked the speed she was running at.


    Ceylon City was less than 500 miles away from Yaoyang City. Due to problems with the roads, a long detour would be necessary. Nailisi however, went in a straight line by scaling the mountains in her way instead.


    She reached the outside of Yaoyang City before noon. Nailisi took a look at Yaoyang City from far and saw a pass.


    If Ceylon did not have a port, the passage northward onnd would have effectively been locked down by Yaoyang City. Merchants and armies were unable to simply scale mountains like Nailisi after all.


    Nailisi smiled. While Yaoyang City was indeed tall, it paled sorely inparison to Ironwall City. There was no sea to be found there, meaning the ce had no retreat. On a narrow in, one such city would pose as quite an obstacle to conventional armies. In the case of Saleen¡¯s army however, he could have easily razed the ce if he wanted to.


    A seven-floored tower stood outside the city. Nailisi¡¯s eyes were good enough to enable her to see the topmost floor, and there was yet another piece jutting out. It seemed that the sorcerer within was about to advance to grade-8.


    Yaoyang City¡¯s gates were shut tight, and the ce seemed to be in a recession. Nailisi¡¯s smile turned to a cold smirk. ¡°So, Earl Sufonso knows Saleen is back, eh? And what? He thought he¡¯d be safe by just shutting the gates?¡±


    She opened her purgatory of devils and summoned 1000 demons. Nailisi became able to openrge openings to her Twelve Notes of Purgatory, and her rate of summoning whatever lied within grew several times faster as a result, unlike how she used to need the beings to actually form lines to get in and out.


    All 1000 demons came well equipped and followed Nailisi to the tower. The magic tower did notunch any attack. Nailisi stood about 100 yards away from the tower and called for one of the demons. She handed the letter to it and had it deliver the letter to the magic tower.


    Hu An, the sorcerer of the tower, felt conflicted seeing the demon army from afar. If it had been in the past, he would haveunched an attack and even took some for his research. Now? Everyone knew the king of Metatrinmanded an army of demons.


    If he was to attack those demons, his days would be numbered.


    Curiosity killed the cat as they say. Regardless of how tempting the research potential would have proven, it was far less than enough to have Hu An make a move. He was even anxious, as he heard Saleen had already taken Ceylon City and had begun expanding the ce, even building fortifications. ¡°It seemed that he was there to stay. What would happen to me if I attacked? I know well of Saleen¡¯s feud with Sufonso from way back.¡±


    There was no peaceful resolution to it. If he had been the one who had his family grave wrecked, he would not have even endured for as long; he would have thought of ways to kill Sufonso off as soon as possible. The reason why Saleen had bothered enduring for so long, was because he had his eyes set on taking all of Yaoyang City.


    Seeing the tall demon walking in, Hu An asked his apprentice to get out there to greet the demon. Said apprentice¡¯s legs were shaking as soon as he saw the demon, yet they dared not defy the orders of the sorcerer.


    The ugly demon did nothing unbing however, and simply handed the letter to the apprentice, and then went outside the tower to wait. Hu An felt an itch as he saw the demon.


    The air about the demon said that the being was a true warrior. While Hu An¡¯s mind was still somewhere else, the apprentice brought him the letter.


    The letter was not arge one, and it did not bear a wax seal. Hu An took out the paper and was already shaken before he read the content¡ªSaleen had used starline paper to write the letter.


    Astrologers went extinct a long time ago, and such materials suitable for making scrolls were only seen in Alchemy City. Such papers were also several times the price of conventional scroll paper.


    The content of the letter was simple and to the point. The content, which was written with Dragon¡¯s Blood Ink, read as followed: Sir mage, please leave Yaoyang City. Or else this ce will be turned into yet another Ironwall City.


    The signature said Saleen Metatrin.


    Hu An¡¯s mind was shaken, and the starline paper burned all the sudden. It was a hidden spell triggered by his own mental powers. Saleen meant this as a warning instead of an attempt to sneak up on him. A sorcerer such as him was hardly seen as a threat to someone like Saleen.


    Hu An had ran the possibilities in his head. He had even imagined Saleen hiring him with a handsome offer, or at least bribing him to leave. He was, after all, a grade-8 sorcerer, and he would not be considered weak wherever he went.


    Saleen had only sent a letter, and the content of which was insulting.


    Hu An clenched the ashes left in his hands until his knuckles turned white. He could even hear his joints popping lightly. ¡°That Saleen is just too much.¡± He rxed his hands and let the scraps fall, as his mood calmed. ¡°I can¡¯t get angry. No getting pissed off right now.¡± Saleen was right to seek revenge. He had offended yet another mage who spoke in Saleen¡¯s favor back then. Strictly speaking, he should be on Saleen¡¯s hit list as well.


    Hu An kept consoling himself. Despite Saleen¡¯s rude and aggressive way of going about it, the man had at least differentiated himself from Sufonso. He looked at the 1000 demons standing outside the tower and the one leading them. He saw no choice but to suppress his anger.


    ¡°What right do I have to get angry? Is it to say that I should stay to help Sufonso?¡±


    Ironwall City had nine magic towers and three grade-9 sorcerers guarding the ce, yet the city fell all the same. Yaoyang City be no match for Saleen¡¯s might.


    As to the question of whether Saleen dared to go on a killing spree, what happened to Ironwall City was an answer in itself. More than 1,000,000 died within that battle alone. There were not many in Yaoyang City, and that meant Saleen would do anything at that point.


    The head of the demons walked up to the tower as he was still thinking of what to write in reply to Saleen. The demon slowly took to the air. Hu An¡¯s eyes were dazed with shock. Such means of flight meant that the demon was grade-9.


    ¡°Grade-9? That¡¯s a supreme demon!¡±


    Seeing Nailisi¡¯s three-headed form, Hu An was rendered dumbfounded, and looked rather unlike a sorcerer.


    ¡°Open the window, and talk,¡± Nailisi said to the tower.


    Hu An activated the magic array and opened a window. He was not even aware that he was being ordered around by the demon.


    ¡°You...¡± Hu An was at a loss of words seeing the demon in front of him.


    ¡°Mage, my master needs you to leave. Before you go, I need you to do something for me,¡± Nailisi¡¯s head facing forward said to him.

 Chapter 1004: Acting on One’s Own (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1004: Acting on One¡¯s Own (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Please...speak!¡± Hu An had only then realized his words were rather inappropriate. He had lost all his dignity in front of the demon and sounded even humiliated. As such, he ended up raising his voice.


    He then saw that the demonshed out with a spear in her hand, thrusting in his direction.


    Arge ice shield was erected right in front of Hu An there and then. Despite him being a sorcerer who had just made it to grade-8, he was still a sorcerer nheless. He would not let himself be ambushed inside his own tower. As those thoughts ran inside his head, he had prepared his next attack.


    The half yard thick shield was easily pierced by Gray Memory. Thick blocks of ice sprayed all over the ce. Nailisi smirked menacingly as she thrust the spear at Hu An¡¯s abdomen. The sorcerer lost all senses in his body, and then was hauled and thrown out of the tower in one go.


    The Gray Memory in Nailisi¡¯s hand was something made out of the spike on the silverline golden spearfish of more than 100,000 years old. Even a grade-10 sorcerer would have done well just evading the attack instead of throwing up magic shields to take it head on, let alone a shield erected by a grade-8 sorcerer.


    Nailisi did not even need to use the six eyes on Gray Memory for targeting when killing a grade-8 sorcerer, saving her a lot of mental powers. Hu An had been too careless, thinking that he would be able to instant-cast any spell on his turf, allowing Nailisi to get near. Saleen¡¯s letter had also led him to believe that Nailisi would not have moved against him.


    Nailisi was a demon after all.


    She put Gray Memory away after throwing Hu An¡¯s body outside the tower and went on to catch the dying man.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to kill you, mage,¡± Nailisi teased. She admired the fear in Hu An¡¯s eyes with glee and continued, ¡°My master wanted to keep you alive, but you¡¯re speaking to me in such a loud voice, and I don¡¯t like it.¡±


    There was also confusion with that fear in Hu An¡¯s eyes. ¡°How can a bonded creature move against the order of the mage controlling it? Saleen¡¯s letter was true, so why is this demon killing me? Is it really all because I yelled at it?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t like anyone else having pride but my master. Mage, I¡¯m giving you a chance now. Be my ve, and I¡¯ll let you live.¡± Nailisi threw out a tempting invitation.


    There was chaos within the tower. The demons from afar rushed at the ce. With Hu An no longer being in charge, the grade-4 grand mage left inside did not even dare resist. The situation where Hu An ended up being in the hands of a demon was watched by most of the mages and apprentices present. Seeing a grade-8 Ice Shield broken in an instant, the low-level mages and apprentices lost all courage to fight.


    ¡°Move, and I¡¯ll have all of you dead,¡± Nailisi said as she let her demons surround the tower. Without a sorcerer being in charge, the offensive capacity of the tower was reduced to close to nil. Nailisi had no fear of them killing demons either. She had grown to know human psychology well.


    So long as there was hope, no one would dare do anything stupid.


    Nailisinded on the ground and formted a n in her mind. Seeing the sorcerer who went limp, she continued, ¡°I will give you one chance. I¡¯m sure you know I am serious by now. If you¡¯d like to stick to your pride as a mage, I¡¯ll grant you a quick death. If you want to live, you have but to nod.¡±


    Hu An felt his neck still capable of moving and nodded furiously.


    Nailisi smiled and said, ¡°I knew it, but you were too slow, and I don¡¯t like you.¡± Nailisi grabbed hold of Hu An¡¯s head and extracted his soul as soon as she was finished talking, throwing it inside an old broken puppet.


    It was a low-level puppet Nailisi had gotten from Saleen. She had intended to use death magic to control it initially but housing a soul of a sorcerer within seemed to be a good option as well.


    Nailisi looked at thepletely dead body in her arms and put it inside the dimension stone. She returned to her imp form and kicked the door to the tower open, before letting some of her demonic spirits in.


    Demonic spirits did not exist with the purgatory of devils to fill up the numbers. There was a need for orderlies within the demon army. The demonic spirits possessed an intellect and were quick on their feet, as well as being fluent in demon tongue, making them excellent errand boys and messengers. The energies with the purgatory of devils were aplenty, much better than how it had been on the demon ne. The rules within the purgatory of devils were moreplete, and some within the 100,000 housed within were nearing advancement.


    The powers of the demonic spirits had also been enhanced. Nailisi was morefortable using the demonic spirits than she was with humans. Nailisi kept no imps around however.


    Seeing the trembling magic apprentices as soon as she entered the tower, she felt bored.


    She made it to the seventh floor and ordered everyone up there. A grade-4 grand mage, three grade-2 mages, one grade-1 mage, and twelve apprentices.


    Quite a group Hu An had there. There were no swordsmen though.


    ¡°Will you all be willing to serve me?¡± Nailisi askedzily. The mages and apprentices looked at each other speechless.


    ¡°Say yes, and I¡¯ll let you guys live. I need you to go do something else after all.¡±


    ¡°What do you need us to do?¡± The grade-4 grand mage asked.


    Nailisi shot a dragon crystal needle with her mouth. The mage¡¯s head was blown off before they knew what was happening. Nailisi chuckled and continued, ¡°You want to ask questions before you say yes? What do you take me for?¡±


    The three grade-2 mages stood still, while the grade-1 mage and the apprentices fell to their knees as a gesture of submission.


    ¡°Understood.¡± Nailisi took out her Sword of Rules and stabbed all three level two mages to death in a sh. The demonic spirits were licking their lips. Nothing that tasted good was ever left for them within the purgatory after all. It was lucky for them that the demons did not bully them, and there was no chance they would ever have their share of magic bugs.


    The bodies of the three dead mages smelled tempting. Once magic chords were formed, the bodies of mages began to differ from that ofmon humans, as those upgraded bodies housed pure energy.


    Nailisi waved and let the demonic spirits have their fill with the three dead bodies. She then had the demonic spirits search the tower to find out about the structure of the ce. Nailisi had no intentions of leaving. The magic tower was two miles away from the city. Yaoyang City still had no idea what happened there.


    While the walls of Yaoyang City were also equipped with alchemy binocrs, they were set only to watch the roads. Nailisi reached where she was by scaling the mountains, and there was no way the people of the city would have found out.


    Themon peoplecked the gall to watch the magic tower with the alchemy binocrs. There were rms set on the tower, and the mages would have known that they were being watched. It was due precisely to that, that Nailisi had nned to kill Sufonso on her own.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Nailisi asked a white-robed mage.


    ¡°My name is Aston, sir.¡±


    ¡°Weird name, umm...¡± Nailisi stayed silent for a moment, which terrified Aston, being scared that he had said something wrong. He saw what happened to the three grade-2 mages right there and then. The demon would not hesitate to kill anyone they did not find to their liking, and no warnings were given.


    ¡°Do you have any certainty of being able to trick Earl Sufonso?¡± Nailisi asked directly.


    Aston wanted to say no very bad, but what he saw before allowed him to understand how the demon operated. A ¡®no¡¯ would have simply ended with him being killed right there and then.


    ¡°Sir, I am not certain. Earl Sufonso is said to be struggling to advance into golden grand swordmaster. Despite being a silver grand swordmaster, he has a danger sense of some sort. Sir, my level is very low. If I go there, I¡¯ll end up being exposed.¡±


    ¡°You have your way with words. It¡¯s a pity to just kill you off.¡± Nailisi spared a nce at the white-robed mage and found the young mage to be rather good-looking. She became calm after talking to him for a moment.


    There was a theory among mages that said if the looks of a person could be considered good-looking, such person was said to be at least middle-upper ss in terms of talent. Saleen was good-looking. If he had learned swordsmanship instead of magic, he would have be a professional still.


    Not only did the mage have good looks, his bone structure looked good and the ratios about his body looked good as well. While he was but a grade-1 mage, he looked very young, at an age of 17 or 18 at most.


    ¡°Aston, once you are done with this, I¡¯ll get a sorcerer to be your teacher. You seem to have good innate talent. Where are you from?¡± Nailisi asked out of the blue. She did not necessarily have an eye for Aston¡¯s talents. Sregl Ind was filled with people like him after all.


    Aston calmed himself and answered, ¡°Sir, I¡¯m half Tanggsian and I have loved magic since childhood. The pope went about hunting death mages and elemental ones were having a hard time. I was but a low-level apprentice back then. My teacher left without taking me, so I stowed onboard a ship and came to Sikeqinya. I haven¡¯t been here for long, just about a month.¡±


    ¡°A month?¡± Nailisi narrowed her eyes and looked at Aston. If he had indeed only been around for month, she would definitely consider him worth keeping. If Aston was indeed Hu An¡¯s student, Nailisi would end up killing himter for betraying his teacher though.


    ¡°Yes. I didn¡¯t intend to stay when I got to Yaoyang City. I wanted to go to Ironwall City. More Sikeqinyan mages were found there.¡±


    ¡°Why not go to Qin instead?¡±


    ¡°Sir, I don¡¯t speak Qin. When speaking themon tongue, my Tanggsian ent would really show. Going to Qin would be difficult,¡± Aston answered truthfully.


    He had escaped from the Tanggsi Empire to avoid being embroiled in the holy war. He was a high-level apprentice back then and had advanced to be a grade-1 mage during his days as a refugee. Memory magic was a luxury to him. The mages who taught him magic did not teach himnguage. Mages like Saleen were not numerous in Sikeqinya, and there were even fewer in the Tanggsi Empire.


    ¡°Aston, it might be dangerous for you to trick Sufonso, but if you seed, you¡¯ll get a teacher to teach you from here on out. You¡¯ll be a grand mage, and then a sorcerer. Maybe even more than that. So, are you up for it?¡±


    Nailisi had nned that if Aston was to say no, she would simply use Ultimate Shapeshifting to look like Hu An and go trick Sufonso herself. Though Aston said that Sufonso was going to advance into the ranks of golden grand swordmaster.


    Warriors at such levels were very acute to things. While she would have not given herself away in terms of looks, the rtionship between Hu An and Sufonso was simply too close, so it would have been difficult to fool Sufonso for long.


    Her master meant more than to just take out Sufonso; he wanted to take Yaoyang City in a secured manner. If she ended up assassinating him, it would be difficult to take over the city in such a manner. If Sufonso made it into the rank of golden grand swordmaster, he would be able to easily escape, and there was no certainly she would be able to catch up.


    Tricking Sufonso into the magic tower would be something else altogether. Once he was tricked into the tower, Sufonso would be ripe for the taking.

 Chapter 1005: Slow Revenge (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1005: Slow Revenge (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi acted on her own and killed the sorcerer at Yaoyang City, but she remembered Saleen telling her to head home before dark, and it was not an order she wanted to disobey.


    She convinced Aston to cheat Sufonso and left the magic tower, nting magic bug eggs on the 12 magic apprentices. The eggs would have hatched any time by Nailisi¡¯s will, making it easy for her to deal with the apprentices.


    Nailisi left behind five demonic spirits and shapeshifted them into mages using Ultimate Shapeshifting, leaving them behind at the tower. The demonic spirits were also capable of hatching the eggs, which would have served well in cutting off the possibility of the magic apprentices betraying her.


    As for Aston, Nailisi saw no need to use any tricks. If the white-robed mage actually managed to finish his task without being subjected to any kind of control, Nailisi would not have minded looking for a teacher for him.


    The demonic spirits bagged everything valuable within the magic tower and hauled them back to the purgatory of the devils. The demons that Nailisi had prepared to storm the ce ended up being on standby the whole time. The Sikeqinyan sorcerer was too careless and ended up being killed with just a single thrust. The demons had returned to the purgatory of the devils as well. She avoided the roads and returned the way she came, flying for Ceylon City.


    Saleen stopped what he was doing when he saw Nailisi returning and asked about things in Yaoyang City.


    Nailisi hid nothing, revealing the truth about her acting on her own to Saleen. Saleen frowned. ¡°Why kill that sorcerer?¡±


    ¡°Master, that fellow read your letter and still intended to talk terms with you, so he apparently wasn¡¯t a good guy. Let him go and he wille back to bite you sooner orter,¡± Nailisi said nothing but the truth, no way of lying to Saleen, unless she canceled the soul bond on her own.


    ¡°Nailisi, did you really think I¡¯d be afraid of a level eight sorcerer?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not, but you can¡¯t say the same for those around you. Not all of them are as strong as you are. Master, better kill off troubles from the start than to let it fester,¡± Nailisi retorted. If the dead sorcerer were to see the conversation between her and Saleen, his jaw would have dropped to the floor.


    How can a bonded creature talk back to their master?


    Saleen did not mind. He found himself increasingly able to see what Nailisi was thinking. It was the perfect manifestation of the soul bond.


    Saleen had let the soul bond between him and Nailisi reach a perfect state. In such a state, there would not be any misunderstandings between the two. Saleen did not even need to express his orders clearly for Nailisi to get what he wanted. In battle, their synchronization with each other would have definitely been perfect.


    Saleen had a good number of bonded creatures at his disposal. The elemental creatures and ancient warriors were, strictly speaking, bonded creatures, yet Saleen had only one who was intelligent and capable of advancing without limit: Nailisi.


    ¡°Whatever. Nailisi, you don¡¯t get it. I had you persuade the sorcerer to leave because I had no intentions of moving against Yaoyang City right away. I can¡¯t just go about destroying the ce. That city will be mine and I want it whole. It¡¯s easy to kill Earl Sufonso. I wouldn¡¯t have felt any pressure dealing with him even if he was a golden grand swordmaster, but I wanted to do it in a perfectly justifiable manner.¡±


    ¡°Master, do you really need to justify yourself taking someone else¡¯s city?¡±


    ¡°I destroyed Ironwall City because I wanted revenge against Danny for attacking my Lonestar City. The thing between me and Earl Sufonso is personal, and it would be a hell lot of trouble taking Yaoyang City. I have to let Yaoyang City make the first move. Only then would I be able to retaliate in a perfectly justifiable manner. I had wanted to let the sorcerer leave and hand me the tower. With a mage of mine right outside the city, Earl Sufonso wouldn¡¯t even dare open the gates.¡±


    Nailisi gradually came to get it. Saleen wanted to slowly pressure Sufonso.


    ¡°Sikeqinya is not Qin, and Yaoyang City is a lotrger than Ceylon City. They wouldn¡¯t havested for long as they don¡¯t have enough food. Earl Sufonso would¡¯ve needed to ask for backup from the imperial city if he wanted to keep his city in one piece. Royal Harbor wouldn¡¯t be able to stop a full frontal assault from the Sikeqinyans no matter how fast they went about building their defenses. If Danny decided to attack Royal Harbor, then Lex needed to retreat to the seas. I have to let Dannye for me first. If the troops from the imperial city arrived at Yaoyang City, they would¡¯ve first attacked the magic tower. Hell, they might even havee straight for Ceylon City¡¯s territories.¡±


    Nailisi waspletely speechless. The incident with Ironwall City had left the local nobles wary and on edge. If Sufonso was to request reinforcements and the imperial city ignored him, Sikeqinya¡¯s days as an empire would have been numbered.


    It was not some high level trick, yet Danny would have had no choice but to y ording to Saleen¡¯s ns. If he was indeed able to kill Sufonso, it would have worked in Danny¡¯s favor instead. He would have called the nobles from all over Sikeqinya, rallying them to fight against the invasion from the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Saleen¡¯s idea had been a mean one. He was intending to have Sufonso live in fear even though he had no intentions of attacking.


    ¡°Master, I havee to understand something.¡±


    ¡°And what would that be?¡±


    ¡°Humans are indeed far more vile than demons,¡± Nailisi sang praises from the bottom of her heart. She had thought herself to be vile and scheming to the extreme, yet she came to find herself very much inferior whenpared to her master!


    ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ll save this forter. Go check on things tomorrow. Rece everyone in the magic tower with demonic spirits. Bring Aston over. I can¡¯t just go about killing everything wherever I go. What you promised him, I¡¯ll see to it.¡±


    Nailisi was relieved to find Saleen not pursuing the matter of her acting on her own any further. She was truly afraid that Saleen would have been angry. If Hu An had not been so ruthless and insolent, she would not have changed her mind and killed him.


    Saleen needed enemies to polish himself, but he definitely did not need the likes of Hu An. Nailisi wanted to clear every obstacle in Saleen¡¯s way. Her master¡¯s goal was to unite Myers Maind under a single banner, and that was a goal that could not be reached being pestered by trivial matters.


    ¡°So, where did you put the soul of that sorcerer?¡± Saleen did not pursue the matter further as he felt that Nailisi had not broken his ns. He still needed to craft something for Lex and until that was done, he saw fit to have Yaoyang City on edge for the time being.


    Nailisi took out the figure. It was something she copied from the Holy See, infusing a soul with a figure¡¯s head, as it had a function to house souls. While Nailisi was adept in controlling souls, she was incapable of merging the soul of the sorcerer with the figure. Her crude ways of going about it left the soul weakening by the minute.


    If it was left around for too long without being crafted, that soul would dissipate sooner orter, not even giving it a chance to be a spirit.


    Saleen took out a small jade bottle and handed it to Nailisi, saying, ¡°this is the marrow essence of the angel of fear. How many blood soul towers can you craft with it?¡±


    Nailisi took the bottle and gauged it, replying, ¡°four, maybe five, but best just leave it at four.¡±


    ¡°Go make four then. Take two yourself and leave two for me.¡±


    Nailisi began crafting blood soul towers without asking much. The blood soul towers were only precious when infused with the bone marrow of the angel of fear, or they would simply be a fair bit stronger than soul beads. Most of the marrow wasused by Saleen for experimentation. He had a little left, especially the essences, which he handed all to Nailisi. He knew Nailisi needed souls.


    Nailisi felt warm deep down. She went about crafting blood soul towers as quickly as she was able to while Saleen cast his Water me, continuing to craft equipment for Lex. He was crafting a ne at the moment. The Water mepressed the red crystal rocks as they were crafted, forming natural magic patterns. The interlocking structures had few redundant decorations on the outside.


    Saleen opened up spaces within the crystal as best as he was able to and carved magic patterns within, enabling the ne to store fire element. Lex was adept with fire element spells and was already a level nine sorcerer. She was capable of elemental conversion, and her magic chords were not limited by the elemental types she wielded.


    The reason Saleen was crafting such a ne for her was to prepare her for even more dire possible situations in the future, such as elemental istion. A mage¡¯sbat capacity dropped sharply in environmentscking elements.


    It was unthinkable for the situation to happen naturally on the maind. If they were to find themselves in such situations, it would have been because of a very powerful enemy. The ne would enable Lex to store massive amounts of fire element, which allow her to cast her most powerful attacks even if an environmentcking elements. It was more precious than any equipment he had ever crafted, and Saleen went at it meticulously, time passing without him noticing.


    Nailisi finished crafting the blood soul towers before Saleen finished the ne. She knew it was difficult for her to craft the figure, and so she went about chucking the sorcerer¡¯s soul into a blood soul tower. Nailisi envied Saleen for having figures, yet Saleen had no intention of crafting any figures and she was incapable of doing so. Nailisi went ring at that ragged figure she had in frustration.


    She was incapable ofprehending how astrologers controlled their figures, yet she was capable of mimicking the way Van Gogh did it, to a certain extent. Powerful figures were far more useful than ancient warriors, and they were capable of being repaired. Her master had Star Gathering Needles. When a figure got broken, they could be restored to fighting form again with simple stitches and whatnot.


    A red ne floated within the white Water me. The ne was made with the purest of red crystal rocks and all temperatures were stored within. Magic patterns interlocked on the surface of the crystals, making them seem as if they were made of hundreds of red threads woven together.


    The only ce that was not interconnected with all the other parts was a hole the size of a fingernail. ¡°Nailisi, give me a blood soul tower,¡± Saleenmanded.


    Nailisi reluctantly threw a blood soul tower into the Water me. The tower hovered and fit itself into the hole. The Water me expanded violently, signaling thepletion of the red ne. The blood soul tower sat in the middle of the ne like a gem.


    Saleen slowly dispelled the Water me after seeing the nepleted. He caught Nailisi putting away two blood soul towers in the corner of his eye, looking as if she feared Saleen would take them as well.


    ¡°Nailisi, you really want to craft that figure?¡± Saleen was very pleased with himself for getting the task done. The quantity of red crystal rocks expended to make the ne would allow the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel to remain airborne for two to three years. It was anyone¡¯s guess how much fire element the ne would be able to store.


    ¡°Master, that figure...¡±


    ¡°Van Gogh¡¯s figure is still incapable of moving. It¡¯s abat figure and controlled by divine spells. Unless I¡¯m able to break the power of the astrologerspletely, it would be impossible for even us both to deal with it, if that thing ended up absorbing constetion power.¡±


    Nailisi pouted and asked, ¡°so what shall we do next, Master?¡±


    ¡°Get ready for war, of course. Go get Aston and leave no outsiders in the tower. Rece all of them with demonic spirits. Don¡¯t go about killing Earl Sufonso. It would suffice to just keep an eye on Yaoyang City. Return as soon as possible, as the Metatrin Fort need demons to construct the basements. I¡¯m going to set up alchemy factories and have all mages from Sikeqinya work for me.¡±

 Chapter 1006: Slow Revenge (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1006: Slow Revenge (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi thought it was interesting to hear her master wanting to rope Sikeqinyan mages in. There would have definitely been a lot of coaxing involved, the easy way or the hard way.


    The king of Metatrin managed more than just the nobles; he managed the mages of the maind as well. It was a concept that Saleen had decided for himself. He wanted to be the greatest king in all of the maind, just like how it had been with the emperor of the First Dynasty.


    There were few mages in Sikeqinya and they were of low levels, making them easy to buy over. Saleen intended to use the Sikeqinya Empire as his guinea pig, to prepare for the day when he would take Alchemy City for the sake of uniting the entire maind.


    There would definitely be people refusing to submit to him in Alchemy City. Master is no longer aimless. Nailisi grew to feel secure about her master and stopped feeling so homesick about the demon ne.


    Nailisi headed for Yaoyang City the next day, recing everyone in it with demonic spirits and added a demon, who was about to advance to be a supreme demon, disguised as Hu An.


    Saleen contacted Royal Harbor and delivered the ne to Lex using the teleportation portal as well as borating on his ns. Lex was pleased about how mature Saleen had be. He was no longer the boy he used to be. It made her feel a little sad, but then again, she was not the kind of woman who wallowed in such emotions. As such, she replied to Saleen immediately.


    They exchanged information using the portal and after determining how they would go about dealing with the Sikeqinya Empire, Lex contacted Metatrin City, requesting them to send reinforcements to Daliang City.


    Daliang City, at the moment, only had six magic towers, and Sul was the only one in charge of military affairs. Such arrangements would have been secure enough in the past, but that was no longer so. The Holy See seemed to have avoided the Principality of Bitterwater¡¯s territories, but the truth was the city was under constant threat of being assaulted.


    Thend that Daliang City sat on suffered few natural disasters, with Sanlian City in the west being the only ce seemingly easy to defend. Thends in the north were filled with small cities. If the Holy See had wanted to attack them, they would have been able to do so at a moment¡¯s notice.


    Lex had wanted to send reinforcements a long time ago, but the current predicament of being short of hands everywhere meant that despite having a great number of mages in Metatrin City, they needed to be assigned first to Royal Harbor and Ceylon City. With Lonestar City added to the list, Metatrin City was stretching itself thin.


    Saleen¡¯s action meant that Lonestar City would be safe for the time being, and it was then possible to dispatch manpower to Daliang City without affecting existing ns, being able to handle any sudden turn of events to a certain extent. What was more intriguing was that Holy Rock City no longer had it took to take care of Phoenix, and the ce ended up being taken over gradually by the three duchesses using soft methods, which meant that the Kingdom of Metatrin gained itself a huge swath ofnd that was easy to defend and difficult to take down.


    The frontlines at Huoxing City was no longer a major point. The structure of the great Kingdom of Metatrin was finallypleted, and it was safe enough for the nation to hold the lines at two mountain passes. The enemy would have had no choice but to attack Lonestar City by taking a great detour at the north. Doing so would be very costly, and even if the enemy had no intentions of going to war with the Kingdom of Metatrin, the terrible weather at the north would make the troops think twice before venturing further.


    Lex¡¯s view of the greater picture had always been one notch above Saleen¡¯s. If there was anything that Saleen had that shecked, it was luck. She was even quicker at advancement in magic than Saleen was. Seeing how Saleen¡¯s ns had turned the tables, Lex had no choice but to look into things within her home. If Daliang City were to fall, the Cloudflow people would be able to attack from the Separation Sea, and the secret passages in the mountains behind her Principality of Bitterwater would be exposed.


    As such, she could not afford to lose Daliang City. Lex knew the stakes at y, so she wrote a letter to Jason without any regard of what others thought about her, requesting for him to send sorcerers to Daliang City.


    At the moment, Jason had too many sorcerers who were of average potential. They were all sent to the Six Elements¡¯ Space to train and would have emerged as level nine sorcerers within the next few months. Those of greater potential were assigned to the temple to advance slowly, but they were still able to advance several times faster than they would have otherwise.


    He had massive wealth at his disposal as well, and all of it was left over by his teacher. Jason¡¯s lineage of mages had had only one student and sessor for the past several generations, which meant that the umted wealth was massive enough to keep people fed.


    Even if he was unable to, he now had a student like Saleen.


    Jason did not hesitate to send men when Lex asked. Jason chose six level nine sorcerers, ording to the size of Daliang City, and had them lead about a hundred mages to Daliang City.


    The Holy See knew without doubt that Daliang City was a key point. They were able to connect with the Cloudflow Empire as long as they were able to break through Separation Sea. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s pompous and reckless actions made Pope Theisio realize that the pact between them and Cloudflow was an empty promise. The Cloudflow royalty was probably no longer able to keep the local nobles under control, which meant that they needed to include the Cloudflow people on their future list of enemies.


    However, things were in chaos within Sikeqinya. Danny waspletely frightened with the entire Ironwall City reduced to ashes. He no longer had any means of fighting projected warfare, and it went without saying that he had no means of allying with anyone to fight against Qin. If he were to attack Daliang City, not only would he have angered Saleen further, he would have made the Cloudflow people wary and they might have dissolved the alliance prematurely.


    Regardless, Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s actions of dispatching troops without permission from Cloudflow royalty to take over Lianyun City had thrown northern Qin into chaos. Only the Holy See forces would have been able to make breakthroughs head on and make it into Qin territory.


    From Theisio¡¯s perspective, it was unwise for Saleen to scatter his forces instead of keeping them together.


    Theisio, however, had no idea that Saleen had the 12 Notes of First Purgatory at his disposal, enabling him to easily dispatch 100,000 demons anytime and anywhere on the maind. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, nothing mattered more than keeping his home ground safe.


    Saleen was busy building up Ceylon City while Earl Sufonso, at Yaoyang City, spent his days in frustration.


    The sorcerer announced all of the sudden that he wanted to train for three years and did not wish to be disturbed. It was clear that he feared Saleen, whose territory had expanded from Ceylon City to about a hundred miles away from Yaoyang City. Saleen had killed his son, and he had destroyed Saleen¡¯s family cemetery. There was simply no way and no need to settle such scores in a peaceful manner.


    Saleen had the power of a nation at his disposal at the moment. Earl Sufonso felt a noose had already been tied around his neck, yet the noose refused to be tightened. It simply hung around his neck, making him feel as if days were creeping by like years.


    Saleen can¡¯t take Yaoyang City? It was something even Sufonso found unbelievable. The Kingdom of Metatrin assaulted Ironwall City and even though the city had nine magic towers, it was still doomed. What do I have inparison? A level eight magic tower that is outside the city, whose sorcerer has shut himself in instead of helping me out. What do I have at my disposal to keep this piece ofnd in one piece?


    If Saleen simply went to attack the city, even if it meant metal flyers dropping magic fire shells from the air, Sufonso would have felt a lot more at ease. Being red by someone so far away made Sufonso feel like he was about to go mad.


    Recent news had it that Saleen had begun toy down his forces at the border, and there was no way of telling how soon the assault woulde. Sufonso had no choice but to send word to the imperial city requesting reinforcements. That Saleen is a madman. If he were to actually make a move, Yaoyang City would be turnedpletely to dust.


    I hope His Majesty will realize that it is not a wise move to keep retreating. Doing so will only enable Saleen to grow stronger. Things will turn far worse if he is allowed to do so.


    Sufonso could not have helped requesting reinforcements, despite the fact that Saleen had only beenying down his forces at the border for two days. Everything was seen from the surveince magic array of the magic tower. Saleen knew his n worked and so he made haste in crafting weapons and repairing the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel.


    The Ancient warship was handed over to Lex and all of Saleen¡¯s bone warships had been sunk. All that was left with him were the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel and 12 high speed escort warships. A dozen or so ships, however, proved adequate to take on the Sikeqinyans. With the Sikeqinyan royal navy destroyed, the remaining warships locked themselves up at the small harbor, not daring to venture out to sea.


    What was truly worrying was the Tanggsi Empire, or more urately, the Tribunal.


    Saleen had not imagined in the least that Van Gogh would have betrayed the Holy See after he escaped, thus keeping the Tribunal in the dark longer. The Tribunal might have gotten very angry, but there was no way they could have traced it all to Saleen. The Tribunal had no idea that Saleen had acquired both the divine puppet and the Lance of Order. The ck-robed priests and the warden leaders found that things were off when they returned to Tanggsi Empire and found that Van Gogh had turned tail and ran. Those people, in turn, ran for their lives, hiding themselves in the Cloudflow Empire.


    Luck had it that Saleen had no actual need to worry about the threat from the Tribunal for the moment, yet he remained steadfast at building the port andying down defenses along the shoreline. Saleen was afraid that, one day, the ones from the Tribunal would show up at Ceylon City and trash his home city.


    Saleen sent all the elemental creatures down to the bottom of the ocean to dig it deep enough and expanded the port by over a dozen times, to make sure it would serve adequately. Saleen also set uprge number of magic cannons along the shoreline for defense.


    The magic cannons were made by mimicking the Second Dynasty¡¯s miniaturized magic cannons. Saleen had no way of copying them urately and made big, lumbering ones instead. The 15-meter-long body had a barrel with a diameter of over three meters. The output of their energy beams was not even half the output of the miniaturized magic cannon and were slower to fire. The only advantage they had was that they were sitting on huge alchemy machinery and powered by a magic power furnace, enabling them to change directions easily.


    Such huge shoreline defense cannons were far more useful than magic stone cannons. The shoreline cannons were capable of firing in a straight line within ten miles, enabling them to keep their waters locked down. Norge warships were capable of easily approaching Magnolia Bay.


    Suchvish spending was something only Saleen was capable of pulling off. The great amount of materials he reaped from the temple at the bottom of the ocean served little use to Saleen himself, so he made cannons out of them.


    Other than setting up the shoreline cannons, Saleen had also expanded the city itself, growing it to be nine timesrger than what it had once been. The designs of the walls were derived from Ironwall City¡¯s designs, being built inyers. What was different was that Saleen built huge number of metal towers between theyers of the walls.


    The towers wereid out ording to the designs on the Ancient, and Saleen decided toy out magic there.


    It wasparatively easy toy out the magic, as Saleen had schematics at hand. When the magic at Ceylon City was finished, Saleen would be able to quickly nurture a group of people capable of casting high level spells.


    Huge numbers of magic power furnaces were ced to serve as power sources to the metal towers. The people manning the towers were only required to have sufficient mental powers, and there was no need for magic chords. They would be capable of casting powerful attack spells only by chanting the words.


    The people were not true mages, and Saleen coined a term for them¡ªcasters.


    When the magic was done beingid, the entire Ceylon City would be in the casters¡¯ control. It was far easier than nurturing mages. As with the methods of enhancing a person¡¯s mental powers, Saleen had his ways of going about it.

 Chapter 1007: Volume of Silence (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1007: Volume of Silence (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Normal people would have an easier time bing casters than they would have bing mages. For Saleen however, he had both the Blood Soul Tower and the dead body of the divine baby. Both items boasted abilities to enhance a human¡¯s mental powers. The speed and height of the enhancements were also such that they would be able to make anymon man into a caster.


    Ceylon City was being expanded at a frightening rate. Earl Gugger did not go on to develop many ideas. The people and demons that Saleen brought with him had taken over management of the city, and he had a new earl¡¯s residence to himself, as well as more servants. The captains and vice captains of his personal guard were still his own men. Saleen had also assigned him with two grand mages. They were, of course, not there to serve him, but simply to protect him.


    Saleen had also arranged for four ancient warriors to stand guard at the earl¡¯s residence privately. He had to keep Gugger safe. He was, by any means, one of the more kind-hearted ones among the nobles that he knew, and Saleen owed a debt to him as well.


    The ancient warriors left with Saleen were not many. With 12 left with Sika, 12 with Aini, and 12 with Lex. The remaining 12 by his side, two of whom perished in the fight with Van Gogh, and four left with Gugger, Saleen was actually left with only six of them with him.


    While ancient warriors were more potent inbat than elemental creatures were, they were irreceable. Once they were dead, they stayed dead.


    Saleen did not bring many sorcerers with him, only grand mages. Saleen¡¯s alchemic factories were unable to produce some of his most important equipment, like Wings of an Elf, metal flyers, orrge scale magic cannons. He had to craft all three of those personally himself.


    As such, Saleen wrote a letter to Metatrin City, asking Sika to send at least 12 sorcerers over, regardless of levels. He needed more people at his factories, and many things could not be run without sorcerers. No matter how powerful his own water me alchemy had gotten, he was only capable of crafting one equipment at a time. He also needed breaks and meditations to restore his mental powers. If he relied solely on divine crystals, he would be reduced to a scrap of human sooner orter.


    Jason wrote a letter to Saleen, informing him that the mages of Sregl were to be sent into interdimensional spaces to restore the environment there. The one Raphael had chosen was one capable of growth and may have grown into a full ne like the Myers Maind in the next couple of hundreds of thousands of years.


    There were at least 36 grade-9 sorcerers maintained within Metatrin City, allowing the city to be kept safe. What Jason meant was Saleen could also select some reliable ones to be sent into interdimensional spaces. With the forests on the ce expanding and volcanoes diminishing, it would have allowed more to live within.


    Saleen, of course, knew of the importance of the interdimensional space, as Raphael left a piece of an experiment behind¡ªthe world in the Metallic Cheese. The elements of that world were ample and bnced. The world alone would have been able to house millions or even more. Maybe Fycro had wanted a world like that for himself, taking his believers with him and setting up his own Holy See.


    Saleen had no idea what level Raphael was at when he died, but it went without saying that no grade-11 mage would have been capable of creating a world like that. That interdimensional space was a shared property between Sregl Ind, Bitterwater Prefecture, and the Kingdom of Metatrin. The reason why Jason had Saleen enter the ce in the first ce was to remind him that what he needed to take was more than just the Myers Maind alone.


    While the mages of Sregl Ind had indeed sworn their allegiance for then, no one knew what would happen 1,000 yearster. With the living spaces within the interdimensional space expanding rapidly, nations would form sooner orter. If Saleen simply left the ce to its own devices, he would have ended up losing it as well.


    Saleen was short on hands. No matter how important the interdimensional space was, he needed to concentrate on solving the conflicts on the Myers Maind first. Meals needed to be eaten one mouthful after another, and matters needed to be looked into one at a time. Saleen had long grown past being one of those shortsighted oafs incapable of looking at long-term gains. He concentrated on setting up the magic, awaiting the arrival of the Sregl Ind mages.


    Thend under Ceylon City¡¯s control was huge, but Sikeqinyans did not like farming much, and mostnds were left uncultivated. Mostnds that were deemed not quite up to standards were quickly given up, and that upset Saleen. He had been changed by the Qin Empire without realizing it. An example was the way he looked atnd.


    The Qin nobles were the ones treating their peasants best among all four empires, regardless of if they were frence or privately hired ones. Their living conditions were tens of times better there than Sikeqinya.


    Saleen knew that customs and traditions of the people were not something that could be changed usingws or decrees. As such, he did not make any of the nobles go against their nature. Since they liked being mercenaries so much and loathed farming so much, they were sent to fight wars. With Phoenix serving as backup, there were simply no worries with regards to food supply. Eleanor had also given him multiple forms for crafting elvish medicines, which made storage of food a lot easier. The granaries of Phoenix were almost plundered clean by Saleen¡¯s men. It was enough for him to fight warssting for a hundred years.


    Saleen gathered 20,000 people and sent them to the north to take over his army after being given some basic training. Saleen dared not use his elite troops haphazardly, as they were taken from Lex¡¯s own stores as well, and one elite dead meant one elite fewer to fight. As a king, he knew the way to victoryid not with piling up bodies of his own men. The troops were his subjects too, and everyone had families to go home to.


    With the 20,000 mercenaries going to the frontlines, tensions in Yaoyang City rose. Saleen had also sent 10,000 demons to patrol the area not far away from the city, letting the soldiers at the walls watch.


    When he was done setting things up, all that was left to do was simply to wait until Yaoyang City gave under the immense pressure andunch an assault. If Sufonso chose to simply endure, Saleen had his ways of provoking the man.


    Saleen was under immense pressure himself, with the biggest problem at hand being theck of manpower. All armies trained to the standards of elite troops, and he had no choice but to do so. If it was not for the demon army holding out, he would have had no choice but to rely only on Lex instead.


    As such, Saleen devoted his energies to researching equipment, enhancing thebat capacity of his own troops. At that moment, he was researching the tainted blood armor of the ancient warriors. The armors boasted incredible defense. With the exception of being incapable of flight, all the other attributes of the armor eclipsed the flying devil armor. The flying devil armor was designed to be worn by demons. It would have put immense stress on any human wearing it.


    Saleen resorted to violence to suppress any untoward movements in Ceylon City. The once destroyed royal harbor was fully restored. The management of everything in the city was taken over by the nobles serving under Lex, and they had an easier time than Saleen¡¯s side.


    On that day, Lex was busy instructing the Mechanical Soul doubles to fish sunken ships out at the harbor and cleaning the ce up, when someone appeared out of nowhere in the sky andnded before her.


    Lex was very frightened that the figure was green hair tainted with blood. The figure also looked pale while smiling at her.


    ¡°Master!¡± Lex was at loss seeing Joey looking like that. He was apparently injured. Who could have dealt such injuries on him? Lex noticed that blood was stilling out of his nostrils.


    ¡°Take me to your tower,¡± Joey did not bother saying much. Tens of the Mechanical Soul doubles that came near were immediately kicked away by him. The tens kicked were immediately rendered scrap and fell into the sea. The Mechanical Soul that was hidden inside the Ancient shrieked in terror, and almost dived into the sea in fright.


    Joey¡¯s kick directly reached its soul in its original body. The Mechanical Soul doubles never felt that much terror before. Its soul was protected by the shard, and it had long thought that no one would be able to punish it but Saleen.


    Lex put down whatever he was attending to at the moment and brought Joey back to her tower.


    ¡°Master, what happened?¡±


    ¡°I went all prepared, and still I was unable to kill Fycro. He was ten times stronger than I thought he would be,¡± Joey sighed, and his eyes were filled with disappointment.


    ¡°Master, you went to fight against Fycro?¡± Lex was surprised. She and Saleen both had not wanted to speak that name. They were forced to sign the contract back then, and there was no way for them to back out unless Fycro was killed.


    ¡°Yeah, we had something going on between us before. Worse still, that scumbag threatened you. It is the least I can do for you. You are married now, and I¡¯ll leave Saleen in charge of things from here on out.¡± Expressions like those ofmon men were seen on Joey¡¯s face, and that was something that rarely happened.


    ¡°Saleen, he...¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t look for him anymore. I did what I had to do, and I don¡¯t need him to help me with anything anymore. Lex, Saleen¡¯s growth has greatly surpassed my expectations. If I hadn¡¯t saved him back then, I probably would still have to deal with something like this now.¡±


    ¡°But master!¡±


    ¡°What else do you need? I have given him the God¡¯s mulberry and the ghost oak tree that I kept for hundreds of years, and he only gave me the Seal of Divine Powers. Tell you what, Lex, if you find yourself unable to stay on the Myers Maind anymore in the future, go look for me in the Eastern Sea.¡±


    ¡°You are going to the Eastern Sea?!¡±


    ¡°Indeed. I have a map with me. The ruins of the Second Dynasty. An absolutely well-kept one by the way. To get to the eastern waters, I¡¯ll need to cross the Stormy Sea. I have taken Fycro¡¯s godly item, which will allow me to pass the Stormy Sea easy enough. Too bad he took the Seal of Divine Powers though.¡±


    Lex did not say anything. It was perfectly normal that Joey did not end up killing Fycro, as Fycro was probably the most difficult figure to deal with in all of the Holy See. He was someone who dared rob gods of believers and a grade-10 professional in possession of godly items. It would have been weird if such a person was to end up dead so easily.


    It had probably been Joey¡¯s n all along to take Fycro¡¯s godly item for his own use. Joey had indeed moved for his own benefit.


    On the other side, in the sky above the center of the Chaotic Swamp, Fycro, who was dressed in snow white colors, looked at the ground with a three mile radius hole in it in rage.


    The ce was his fortress, and tens of thousands of believers had been moved there. His battle with Joey however, ruined everything he had built. All the facilities he had been managing below were destroyed, and there was no telling how long it would take to rebuild it all.


    He had long been aware of the sorcerer following him. The range Joey kept at was one that was just about right for mages tounch their attacks. To holy masters however, such a range was rather out of reach.


    Fycro had provoked Joey to strike several times, and the sorcerer remained unmoved, until they got there. It was only then that Joey took out the Seal of Divine Powers and went to sh head on with Fycro.


    Both men ended up being severely injured. The Volume of Silence was a godly item that not even the pope had been aware of. The Seal of Divine Powers stored powers that Joey had been umting for the past several years.


    The powers shed, and the impact was led to the ground below, destroying everything that Fycro had painstakingly built.


    What proved more infuriating was that Fycro¡¯s Volume of Silence was taken by the sorcerer. While he took the Seal of Divine Powers from the sorcerer in return, it was something that had belonged to the pope, and thus was something of no use to him. Using it on his own would have alerted the pope, and the pope woulde asking him for it.


    If he insisted on keeping it, he would be branded a traitor to the Holy See and made a fallen one right there and then. He would not be able to open his own interdimensional space and create his own heaven then.

 Chapter 1008: Volume of Silence (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1008: Volume of Silence (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fycro was immensely frustrated, but there was simply nothing he could do about it. The sorcerer proved a tad more powerful than he was, and he owed his survival to the Volume of Silence itself. With the scroll no longer in his hands, he dared not go after Joey to retrieve it.


    Joey¡¯s injuries healed quickly within Lex¡¯s tower. He was already at the pinnacle of grade-10, and as such, was able to create elemental medicines. They were far more potent in terms of healing capacity than magic liquids. Elemental medicines were something that could only been used by professionals of grade-10 and above though. To humans below grade-10, such medicines were more than 100 times more toxic than most poisons.


    In actual fact, such elemental medicines could actually be used as poisons themselves, for killing any creature below grade-9.


    Joey¡¯s injuries had mostly recovered after ingesting the elemental medicine. He then began to look into the Volume of Silence that he got his hands on.


    The Volume of Silence looked like a one yard long book on the outside with a pale green cover, which looked almost transparent. There was only one page after opening the book, which was nk. Joey touched the nk page with his finger, feeling the power housed within.


    The violent burst of power he had unleashed using the Seal of Divine Powers was stopped by that very Volume of Silence before him at the moment. Joey felt time like stopped back then, as if all elemental vibrations were halted. The energy stored within the Seal of Divine Powers was not something that even Joey would be able to control, and yet it was blocked, then diverted, by the Volume of Silence.


    The godly item was not something that the Lord of Glory crafted himself, and it did not have any divine powers of light in it. ¡°Can Fycro be considered as being sphemous to his god by holding onto a godly item like this?¡±


    Joey¡¯s fingers were long and graceful, yet the power residing within was something that was capable of directly piercing through magic shields. A grade-10 sorcerer¡¯s body had to be strong enough to withstand the recoil brought about by powerful spells, and Joey¡¯s current level of power was above even that of grand swordmasters.


    Joey felt it extremely taxing to even move his finger about as he touched the nk page. The book had not undergoneplete crafting, and Fycro¡¯s way of using the book was simr to how Joey had used his Seal of Divine Powers.


    Joey attempted to wipe any residual divine power left on the Volume of Silence yet found it difficult to infuse his powers onto the item itself. He put ten points of power into it, yet what remained on the book was merely one point. As such, it made it very difficult for him to unleash the true power of the item.


    ¡°Master,¡± Lex called outside as he was still deep in thought of how to deal with the obstacle before him.


    ¡°Come in.¡±


    Lex walked into the room that had originally belonged to her, looking at Joey who fixated on the book and said, ¡°Master...maybe Saleen could be of help.¡±


    ¡°Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you intend to cross the Stormy Sea? There is something with him that could help you pass freely.¡±


    ¡°And what would that be?¡± Joey asked inly, without showing any further interest.


    Lex held a piece of crystal and yed the images stored within. Within the magical image, a chain was seen floating in the air, with a sharp and pointy spearhead at one end.


    ¡°And this is?¡± Joey¡¯s green pupils dted a bit. He was able to tell that the chain was something of high-level, a weapon infused with the power of rules.


    ¡°Something Saleen had taken for himself, called the Lance of Order. It¡¯s a godly item.¡±


    Joey thought about it and grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll make an exchange with him. He will have the Volume of Silence, while I¡¯ll take the Lance of Order.¡±


    Joey was very clear of the possibility that the Lance of Order was inferior to the Volume of Silence in terms of levels. There was no residue of the gods left within the weapon to deal with, and he would be able to easily make it a true equipment for mages.


    That meant that while he had no idea how long it would take him to research the Volume of Silence before he was able to use it, the Lance of Order was something that would work as a grade-13 equipment as soon as he got his hands on it.


    In a long term perspective, he would have ended up getting a bad deal. In a short term perspective however, the Lance of Order would prove a better fit for him.


    ¡°Lex, what are Saleen¡¯s coordinates?¡± Joey asked simply.


    Lex gave him the coordinates to his Magical Element Tower at that moment. Joey went on to draw a teleportation portal on the floor, stuff the book in a stone box, and sent the equipment over.


    It was definitely Lex who informed Saleen that he had gotten the Volume of Silence. Joey was not angry however, as it was seen as a fair exchange after all.


    The Lance of Order was delivered to him shortly after. Joey took the weapon that Van Gogh had lost and inspected it. The weapon proved to have no troublesome residues to deal with indeed, and it could be made a magic weapon right away.


    With the Magical Element Tower stationed in Ceylon City at that moment, Saleen took the Volume of Silence in his hand and a grin was seen on his face. Feeling strange about the exchange Nailisi said, ¡°Master, if that Lance of Order was to be fused with Gray Memory, it would have be a powerful weapon. What use do you have exchanging it for this book? Are you going to give it to that old man?¡±


    ¡°Nichs can¡¯t use something like this. It was taken from Fycro after all,¡± Saleen said as he opened the book, throwing his grade-19 Star Gathering Needle into it. He also pressed his family badge hard on the Volume of Silence.


    Loud, eerie shrieks rang in the heads of everyone within a 100 mile radius inside the city. A golden dot shot out from the book. Saleen had cast a Darkness Shield prior, and then went on to activate his family badge in an instant, absorbing the shining dot into the badge.


    Saleen slumped weakly onto the floor; he had given his all into the act, using a grade-9 spell to have his badge devour what was in the book. The badge did not disappoint. What was left in the book was forced out by the needle, and then fell into the trap that Saleen hadid beforehand.


    ¡°Gods, pfft!¡±


    The Volume of Silence gradually began to show its original form¡ªa squarish si. The si was translucent ck in color, and there were ancient divine runes at the bottom of it. On top of the square was a small carving: an unknown magic beast sitting with all four of its ws clinging to the si. The eyes of the carving were white, as if there was another world within them.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi looked at the si in Saleen¡¯s hand in awe. She was unable to understand how Saleen knew how to return the Si of Order into its original form. If Saleen had not done what he had done, she would have been unable to tell that the si had been disguised all along.


    Nailisi hoisted Saleen up and let him sit. The Star Gathering Needle shot through the air andnded in his hand. While he was incapable of using the power residing within the needle, it was still capable of automatically breaking all kinds of seals. It was an attribute Saleen was able to use despite being only a grade-2 astrologer.


    As to how he knew of the Volume of Silence¡¯s secret, it was all too easy for him. Raphael mentioned the equipment in his notes¡ªa hidden godly item, one that was crafted by humans.


    ¡°Nailisi, do you have any idea what this is? The material used to make the si was the divine persona of the greater god. Humans killed a good number of gods during their conquests all those years back. Divine personas, divine fires, and the bodies of most of those gods, were crafted into equipment.¡±


    Nailisi nodded. She knew at least that much. The war between the humans and the gods, put in a in and unceremonious manner, was fueled by humans¡¯ desire to take from others. It was unfortunate for the gods that they were practically living, walking, and talking pieces of precious materials.


    While the gods had their eyes on the souls of humans, the humans were eyeing the bodies of the gods. The war had been one that was geared to rob each other of resources. Humans were the ones that were able to provide the gods with the highest level of power of faith among all living beings, while the gods were the most precious and the purest high level alchemic materials avable to humans.


    The Volume of Silence was a rather renowned equipment back in those days. A human killed a greater god and used said god to craft a si, the si was then taken by one of the kings of gods in turn, to be turned into the Volume of Silence. That particr king of gods was then killed by the emperor of the First Dynasty, returning the Volume of Silence to human hands. The book went through many hands throughout the nes, before being lost after the First Dynasty perished.


    The item was renowned for its ability to allow any human holding it to disguise themselves as a believer of the gods. The attribute was created by that king of gods instead of humans though.


    The secret was entirely lost during the time of the Fourth Dynasty, with next to no one knowing it. Raphael was only able to find it out by chance. When he wrote it in his magic notes, hemented that if he was only able to find the si, he would be able to crush the Holy See.


    As the si¡¯s attributes were unique, it was able to stop the flow of time. If the attack received exceeded the limit of the si¡¯s current level, it would divert the attack at another target.


    After Saleen saw the Volume of Silence, he immediately wanted Lex to get it exchanged for something, whatever that may have been. No one else would be able to do anything about it; no one else but him. What the family badge absorbed was the Seed of Divine Fire. Equipment that was crafted using a divine persona was capable of giving birth to one such seed every 10,000 years. By the time it was 100,000 years of age, the divine fire within would burn again.


    Saleen¡¯s family badge was empty at the moment, requiring replenishment of all sorts of energies, and the Seed of Divine Fire made one of the best materials there was to serve such a purpose.


    The seed that was captured by the badge was disintegrated immediately. The space within the badge seemed to have grown considerably. Saleen was able to feel the change in the badge. The Seed of Divine Fire of a grade-17 god restored more than half of the badge and had gotten the rules of lightning one step nearer topletion.


    Only Saleen was able to infuse his mental powers somewhat into the badge to take a look at the space within. Anyone else doing that would have had their souls burned immediately. Lightning filled the space within the badge and the power provided by the seed would have enabled the badge to unleash its strongest attacks.


    The power of the lightning unleashed from the badge next time would be equivalent to that of a god¡¯s destruction.


    Saleen did not pay any mind to the growth in power however. Unless the badge was given a chance to absorb such high-level powers, one attack would reduce it to little more than an ornament for half a year. What he was happy about, was that the seal on the Si of Silence was able to be easily broken by his Star Gathering Needle. The needle was indeed something invisible, something that would have frightened even the likes of Seed of Divine Fire.


    It had been instinctual. If the Seed of Divine Fire had not escaped, there was no certainty that the needle would have been able to locate it.


    The Si of Silence waspletely made Saleen¡¯s. He would be able to use the si toprehend the rules of time. It would prove more potent than lesser prophecy spells. Saleen cradled the si lovingly in his hands.


    If he was able to master that piece of equipment, he would have no need to fear the heroic spirits of the Imperial City of the Abyss. He would be able to make his escape easily if anything untoward was to happen.


    ¡°A grade-15 Lance of Order was exchanged for a grade-17 Si of Silence. No such thing will happen ever again, right?¡± Despite him only being able to use their powers at grade-9 at that moment, he would be able to circumvent the rules of the Myers Maind the next time he visited the abyss, allowing him to look into the ultimate power within the si.


    That meant he would have be able toprehend rules beyond the limit of the ne he was in. No one else, even those with greater talents than him, would have a chance like that!

 Chapter 1009: Baiting the Enemy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1009: Baiting the Enemy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Regardless of how good a piece of equipment as, a person needed to be of corresponding level before they were able to bring out the equipment¡¯s full power. Saleen appreciated the Si of Silence for a bit before putting it away, crafting his next piece of equipment.


    Even though Saleen knew that capability was more important than gear, the problem was that he was not only a mage, but a king as well. That meant that he needed to be responsible for the equipment his followers and subordinates used.


    Saleen felt, for the first time after bing a sorcerer, like a coolie. The help that Truman was able to be to him was limited. It was fortunate that Saleen had massive mental power reserves, which enabled him to craft equipment while giving Truman lessons.


    That was the first time Truman had learned so patiently since he started following Saleen. He ate and drank almost nothing while staying by Saleen¡¯s side to help his master craft equipment. The magic chords in his body grew without his knowledge.


    His talents were far better than Saleen¡¯s, yet he did not have Saleen¡¯s luck. He was drowned by all the talent around him back in Sreeger Ind and no sorcerer bothered taking him in. He became rather dejected for a while.


    But, when he arrived at Metatrin City, Saleen let him manage the miniaturized magic cannon, and Truman felt he was being appreciated, and it changed his mood immensely. When Saleen actually took Truman in as his student, Truman¡¯s resentment and resistance towards magic had all disappeared, and he dedicated himself to the learning of magic.


    The feeling of knowing that there was a bright future ahead was irreceable. Truman¡¯s speed of advancement was frightening, and it was only then that he caught Jason¡¯s notice. The effect of rising levels of power throughout the entire ne was most apparent in the cases of mages with high potential like Truman. He was now a level five grand mage after spending several days working with Saleen continuously.


    What troubled him were matters rted toprehension of things. His magic chords grew several times faster than Saleen¡¯s had. Saleen¡¯s water element also made it very difficult for him to advance.


    Saleen had not expected Truman to advance to the next level so quickly. He had nned to let Truman go about developing an understanding of things on his own for several years, before teaching him the ways to advance to the ranks of sorcerers. However, with the state of things as they were then, it seemed that Truman would do fine staying by his side and learning instead.


    The sorcerers from Metatrin City arrived at Royal Harbor within those six days. It was not considered fast, but considering that the sorcerers had to take a group of warriors with them as well as many other grand mages, resulting them having to use three warships, the speed at which they had arrived was frightening.


    Metatrin City also brought Lex a great deal of supplies, mostly construction materials. Lex did not have many magic nuclei to spare. The ones that Saleen gave her were inadequate toy down shoreline defenses. It was fortunate that the Ancient and the doubles of the Mechanical Soul were there to share Lex¡¯s load.


    The 12 sorcerers remained at Royal Harbor for half a day, helping Lex install massive amounts of magic arrays before departing for Ceylon City.


    At the border of Ceylon City, less than a hundred miles away from Yaoyang City, 50,000 troops stood by. Saleen had all the vagrants and refugees conscripted to the army and assigned there. His demon army took 2,000 elites and loitered outside Yaoyang City.


    The demon army served far better as deterrents than as actualbatants. Their over-five-meter-tall stature struck fear into the hearts of Yaoyang City¡¯s troops. Such enemies made the troops feel hopeless.


    Yaoyang City was not a major city and as such, had fewer than a thousand elite troops, which were mostly filled withmon troops and low level mercenaries.


    Sufonso knew well that if things were to go on like that, it was only a matter of time before the troops suffered a breakdown. His city was doomed before the enemy struck. However, it was unthinkable for him to run. Yaoyang City was his family¡¯s estate and all of his rtives were in the city. If he were to run, all the lesser nobles and citizens would revolt against him.


    A greater noble who was incapable of keeping theirnds was to suffer grave consequences.


    The imperial city sent word when things were still looking grim for the city. His Majesty Danny gathered 12 mercenary groups and 10,000 royal cavalry to aid Yaoyang City. The 12 mercenary groups were capable of pulling their own weight as they were all level six and above, with the total number reaching above a million. The 12 mercenary groups fielded 100,000 troops to serve as reinforcements, together with the royal cavalry and personal guards of over 30 local nobles. The total number of reinforcements sent to Yaoyang City was 150,000 individuals.


    His Majesty Danny had spent a lot to hire the mercenaries. He was unable to sit around doing next to nothing. If things were to be allowed to continue, all the nobles would have revolted and sided with Saleen. Danny knew that Saleen would not destroy his cities unprovoked, as it would cause mass panic.


    There were fewer than 10 cities throughout the entire Myers Maind capable of withstanding an assault by the metal flyers.


    The metal flyers were not powerful, but their targets were bothmon troops and civilians. There was hardly any city capable of dealing with such attacks.


    Other than the troops, all of the surviving mages from Ironwall City went to Yaoyang City with the reinforcement. They intended to fix their cowardly actions. When the Magical Element Tower showed up at their door, all of them chose to cower. There might have been more who would have been able to escape if they had chosen to retaliate.


    Danny had also sent three pce mages, which were level nine sorcerers. They were a force to be reckoned with in the Sikeqinya Empire. Danny had also deployed mercenaries to keep Lex in check. If Lex were to divide her troops and sent aid to Saleen, the troops would assault her to take back Royal Harbor.


    The very reason why Danny took so long to move was because he was contacting the Holy See. Pope Theisio caught wind of the news and agreed to dispatch warships to attack Ceylon City along the shoreline.


    The veryst decree that Danny gave was that any mercenary group capable of taking Ceylon City would be made the lord of the city, as well as exempted from paying tax for the next ten years.


    It was a very enticing poison, but the mercenary groups were excited nheless. Saleen had finished consolidating the nearby lesser nobles. Ceylon City¡¯s territory was very bloated. Getting their hands on thatnd would be akin to getting their own private kingdom.


    The level eight and level nine mercenary groups were eager to move and many mercenaries of lower level proactively sought contact with stronger groups. The lesser groups knew that it was impossible for them to take the city on their own. What they wanted was very simple: take part in the campaign and share the loot.


    As a result, when the 150,000 strong reinforcement arrived at Yaoyang City, about 100 mercenary groups took action. They headed straight for Ceylon City under the leadership of six greater mercenary groups. There were groups that had few more than a hundred men in their ranks and thergest group had a little over 3,000 men. Over 400,000 mercenaries in total gathered in northern Sikeqinya. Other smaller groups of mercenaries, with only three to five members, flocked to Ceylon City to pick scraps.


    No one thought that Ceylon City was impregnable. The giant Ancient warship did not conceal itself at Royal Harbor. The ce was being expanded and the city was rebuilt. The number of troops was gauged as well. The majority of the forces that attacked Ironwall City stayed at Royal Harbor. No one knew Saleen had 100,000 demons at his disposal.


    From the mercenaries¡¯ perspective, if Saleen had what it took to crush Yaoyang City, he would have done so a long time ago. No one knew about the feud between Earl Sufonso and Saleen, but there was no doubt that Saleen did not bring his troops to Yaoyang City for sightseeing. There was a 60 to 70 thousand person army south of Yaoyang City.


    Saleen was very pleased to hear the news. It would have been hard for him retaliate if the forces sent at him were too small. The reinforcement currently sent against him was so huge that Yaoyang City had no way of keeping them in, so they had no choice but to attack his territory.


    Saleen quickly ordered the demons at the frontlines to retreat to a suitable distance. If the enemy proved to be strong, they were to escape back to Ceylon City immediately instead of tangling with them.


    As for the 50,000 new recruits, Saleen provided carriages as best as he was able to, allowing them to escape.


    The equipment issued to the new recruits was not considered pitiful whenpared with the low level mercenaries, as they were wearing paper armor provided by Saleen. The material used to create the paper armor was waste derived from practices conducted by magic apprentices and low level mages, sporting defensive capacitiesparable to leather armor. However, there were no good ways of fixing them, making them one-time-use equipment.


    The low level mercenaries of Sikeqinya treated even paper armor as treasure. The paper armor looked regal and with a few decorative pieces added, Saleen did not spend much arming the new recruits.


    Saleen would have been insane if he had hoped that the new recruits were able to kill enemies effectively, as less than ten percent of them actually had experience fighting as mercenaries.


    But then again, the generals leading the new recruits hailed from Principality of Bitterwater. Saleen had only given them one order: bait the enemy, lead them deep with their lines.


    The generals were puzzled about the vague order. They asked Saleen about where should they be leading the enemy to, and Saleen replied by pointing at the walls that were still under construction. ¡°Bring them here and I¡¯ll have you rewarded.¡±


    The generals gave the peculiar orders to the troops. The new recruits were given their first martial order: never ditch their equipment.


    Saleen had no intentions of sending the new recruits to their deaths, but allowing them to dump their armor to run was not helpful for their growth. It would make them ipetent instead. If they were to ditch their weapons and armor, there would be little hope for them in the future. Their equipment was very light. The paper armor, crossbows, short spears, and thin swords were issued because Saleen was concerned that they would not be able to carry much.


    Yaoyang City dragged things out until June before making sudden moves. The heavy cavalry barged onto the demons¡¯ turf. The demons were far less capable at fighting than Sufonso had anticipated them to be. The contact had them practically massacred by the cavalry ofparative numbers.


    The heavy cavalry was Danny¡¯s elite squad. Saleen had ordered the demons to go easy, but when the squad barged onto the demons¡¯ turf, they were not even able to pretend to be defeated.


    Earl Sufonso was very pleased, thinking his majesty¡¯s cavalry was indeed invincible. He ignored his subordinates¡¯ advise and led his 1,000 strong personal army and 2,000 auxiliary troops, heading outside Yaoyang City. Earl Sufonso was not being stupid; he was a golden grand swordmaster after all, and it was a given that he did not think his life was in danger.


    As his majesty had given the order to attack Ceylon City, he deemed it a good time to make his mark. The 150 strong army outside the city was simply the vanguard, with over a hundred mercenary groups right behind them. Just howrge the army at Ceylon City is? 20,000?


    So what if Saleen is a level nine sorcerer, eh? I¡¯m a golden grand swordmaster. If Saleen were left on his own, it would be easy to take his head.


    That Saleen destroyed Ironwall City. If I killed him, then I will definitely be promoted to duke.

 Chapter 1010: Baiting the Enemy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1010: Baiting the Enemy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sufonso was in his prime, developing some ambition after advancing into the ranks of golden grand swordmaster. Warriors were unlike mages, but after bing a golden grand swordmaster, they would be able to live two to three hundred years. He deemed it to be a waste of his capabilities if he was unable to do anything grand with the extra two hundred years that he had earned.


    The Sikeqinyan cavalry moved like floodwaters, gushing at the demon army¡¯s turf. The cavalry battalion suffered few casualties. The warhorse, rode by over 100,000 cavalry units, was of magic beast levels, and was also the true elite force of Sikeqinya.


    Common cavalries were only capable of building up speed when charging from behind; the warhorses needed meticulous care when not used in war.


    Yet, the battalion of Sikeqinyan cavalry was capable of high speed pursuit after charging in and the warhorses suffered next to no reduction in speed. The triangr formation quickly turned into a t one. The riders fired their crossbows and killed quite a number of demons.


    Sufonso charged outside Yaoyang City with his troops because he did not see any problem with the demon army¡¯s defeat, deciding to attack Ceylon City right then and there.


    He was familiar enough with Ceylon City to know that there were few to no natural hazards in the city¡¯s terrain getting in his way.


    The demon army retreated very quickly to the mountains. The regr Sikeqinyan army was unable to control the massive groups of mercenaries, and had no choice but to dispatch two of the most elite groups to pursue them in the mountains, but did not order them to duke it out with the demon army. The mercenaries¡¯ main objective was to blockade the way out of the mountain, preventing the demons from attacking Yaoyang City after they recuperated.


    The Sikeqinyanmander was very careful, having 20,000 starting construction work outside the mountains, while being supported by Yaoyang City, to prevent the demons from retaliating. The longer it took to get the construction done, the moreprehensive the instation ofrge scale equipment became. Even if the demon army was to be a force to be reckoned with, it would be impossible to simply assault them.


    The 140,000 remaining charged into Ceylon City-controlled territories through the narrow mountain pass, encountering the new recruits that Saleen dispatched.


    The camp of the new recruits consisted only of about 5,000 units and were the force nearest to Yaoyang City. The general leading the force saw the huge Sikeqinyan army before them was made up of veterans from Daliang City. He knew right away that taking such a huge force head on was not an option. They were not able to pretend that they were trying to resist the enemy.


    The over 5,000-strong army retreated. A fort sat about 30 miles behind their camp.


    Saleen¡¯s arrangements were intricate, all of which hinged on the rate the demon army was defeated. If they were defeated too slowly, the 5,000 new recruits would have escaped too early and the Sikeqinyans would not have been able to find them. The Sikeqinyan heavy cavalry ditched their armor and maintained only the most basic gear for their warhorses in order to maintainbat capacity.


    The force taking the lead was a mercenary group consisting of over a thousand light cavalry units. The light cavalry units were not very fast, as they all rode horses with emphasis on long distance endurance, enabling them to march for over a hundred miles.


    Light cavalries often had meager damage potential and their greatest use was simply to tail scattered enemies or to injure infantry units with bows and arrows from the nks. However, Saleen¡¯s 5,000 new recruits simply ran without fighting, thus enabling the light cavalry to pursue them easily, shooting arrows from behind.


    The 5,000 new recruits packed simple gear and their rear was all carts and carriages. When they turned and ran, the Sikeqinyan main forces had yet to arrive. More than half of the troops got into the carriages and prepped the crossbows, while most of the remaining half got onto horses and retreated to the fort along lesser-known paths.


    There were fewer than 1,000 troops who ran with their own legs. When the light cavalry was within sight, the new recruits were yelled at by their superiors and retaliated haphazardly with the crossbows on the carriages. The resulting battle looked rather funny.


    The Sikeqinyan light cavalry did not have formidablebat capacity and their arrows flew around without actual targets. Saleen¡¯s new recruits all wore paper armor. While the armor seemed to be useless, it actually excelled in protection against arrows, even though it was extremely weak against attacks from heavy weapons, such as battle axes and spears.


    The light cavalry pursued from behind and killed fewer than 100 recruits, while they suffered around 200 casualties from bolts being fired from the carriages. The weapons Saleen issued the new recruits were verymon, the only ones capable of dealing great damage being the crossbow bolts. Saleen never expected that despite the shabby gear he gave the new recruits, they still proved superior to the ones used by the low level Sikeqinyan mercenaries.


    A cavalry force pursued infantry units and ended up suffering greater losses. That would be quite a joke in Cloudflow.


    The generals from the Principality of Bitterwater, who led the new recruits, instead thought the situation was a grim one. If things were to continue, the Sikeqinyans might have been frightened and it would have screwed up the n. Their master had ordered them to bait the enemy deep into their territory! That could not have been done if the group of good-for-nothing infantry units actually managed to repel attacks from the enemy cavalry.


    The generals from the Principality of Bitterwater shouted orders to their subordinates to have the new recruits attack more sluggishly and began dropping caltrops along the way. Massive numbers of caltrops quickly filled up the path. The caltrops, which should have been made from iron, were all made of copper.


    The Sikeqinyan light cavalry¡¯s horses were not even wearing horseshoes. The pursuing cavalry had no choice but to slow down or to move alongside the path. Therge forces behind waited for the troops at the front to clear up the obstacle while two squads of mercenaries went around the wide path and pursued the new recruits riding inferior horses. Those two squads were able to catch up with the new recruits and the resulting battle ended up killing over 200 of the new recruits. The surviving ones hurried their horses and ran for the fort.


    The fort that Saleen had constructed around the area was very sturdy, capable of holding over 10,000 people. The 5,000 new recruits slowly retreated back and with 3,000 garrisoned there, the total number of people almost reached the fort¡¯s capacity.


    Having seen blood and lostrades, the new recruits calmed considerably.


    The generals from the Principality of Bitterwater only felt secure then. It was vexing for them to lead such weak units, as they were incapable of bringing their full capabilities to bear. It was fortunate that the enemy had very shabby gear and moved very slowly. The 10,000-strong heavy cavalry treasured their ownbat capacity and simply waited to do battle out in the open outside Ceylon City, which meant that they cked in their pursuit. As such, almost all of the new recruits were able to return.


    Saleen nned to have the recruits all in one ce before preparing them to retreat further. The location he chose to have the fort had its rear facing the mountain and its front facing the road, which was already blocked off with huge boulders. Catapults were installed right behind the boulders.


    Saleen did not dispatch any mages to that battlefield; he used arge number of catapults crafted by demons instead. The Sikeqinyans did not like using wood much and as such, Saleen¡¯s people were able to cut down great trees in the mountains to their hearts¡¯ content and used materials right where they were doing construction. The supreme demons were capable of using simple demon magic to dry the logs and build catapults quickly.


    Saleen received intel from the frontline in the city¡¯s magic tower and asked for Nailisi to begin deploying her demon army. The enemy was rather massive, but there were reinforcements arriving from Royal Harbor soon. Nailisi¡¯s demon army could be used in gueri warfare, but more importantly, most of Saleen¡¯s Vermillion Knights have been restored to their fighting form.


    There were few problems getting in the way. The demon army that Nailisiy down outside Ceylon City was about 60,000 strong, while she led about 30,000 demons and headed for Yaoyang City. The 60,000 demons at Saleen¡¯s side were more than enough for defense. The new recruits continued retreating, the 40,000-strong forces having gotten used to how the army worked. The ones who were fighting out in the open were a bunch of good-for-nothings. While the new recruits were capable of holding the line in cities, helping with transportation of weapons and killing injured and scattered units, theirbat capacity was hardly any better than auxiliary troops.


    Nailisi took her devil form and shot for the skies, heading straight for Yaoyang City. Saleen was concerned enough for her safety to dispatch two ancient warriors to serve as her escort. The flight speed of the ancient warriors was close to hers. The three of them flew close to the ground and saw what a mess the battlefield below them was. Scattered units were everywhere and the Sikeqinyan light cavalry continued moving forward quickly, able to catch up with Saleen¡¯s new recruits.


    Danny¡¯s offer was so enticing that the mercenaries cared little about possible dangers and fought the best they could. When amplepensation was offered, a rabbit could easily turn into a ferocious wolf.


    Nailisi paid no heed to what was happening. She could not have cared less even if all the new recruits ended up dead. She sped up and took a detour around the Sikeqinyan main forces. There were too many level nine mages, and it was impossible for her to take them on alone.


    Nailisi arrived at Yaoyang City when the skies turned dark. There were about 10,000 troops standing guard at Yaoyang City. Nailisinded right inside the city itself. There were no magic towers or sorcerers to be found inside the city. The lone magic tower outside the city had been filled with her own demonic spirits.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form dropped in from above and caused mass panic within the city. She opened a magic scroll and threw a level nine Storm Territory.


    She had acquired a map of Yaoyang City, and the ce shended on was none other than Earl Sufonso¡¯s residence. The level nine spell was a control spell, putting the entire residence within the spell.


    Nailisi paid no heed to Saleen¡¯s orders and decided to leave no survivors in the earl¡¯s residence. The pretentious promise being nobles was utterly meaningless to a demon.


    ¡°You trash my cemetery and I kill your entire family¡± were Nailisi¡¯s beliefs and she found nothing wrong about it. She thought her master¡¯s show of mercy to beughable instead.


    Any professional below level three within the Storm Territory was immediately turned to minced meat, and even the ones below level six could not hold for more than 10 minutes. Only those above level six were able to survive the storm. To a level nine professional, Storm Territory was but a level seven spell.


    The area controlled by the spell was wide and had little damage potential. It was arge scale spell and incapable of being cast instantly. It took Nailisi half a minute just to open up the scroll. If she had been targeting a specific person, the spell would have been of little use.


    All the buildings surrounding the center of the residence were torn apart by the huge Storm Territory. The raging wind element was totally out of control and no one was capable of surviving its onught. If the spell had been used on the battlefield, its slow casting speed would have made evasion easy. A storm that moved fewer than two meters per second was deemed too slow for infantries.


    However, the spell was terrifying when used in the midst of buildings. Almost everyone inside the earl¡¯s residence had little to no concept of magic. The personal guards were away and everyone left was a rtive. Some of the family members were students, and there were hardly any professionals worth mentioning.


    The Storm Territory razed the earl¡¯s residence and turned it into rubble swooping around in the air. Everyone touched by the flying debris was instantly crushed, their remains continuing to fly in the storm.


    Nailisi was surrounded by a bloody and gory mess.


    Nailisiughed. This is what revenge should look like, master. You¡¯re just too soft. Seeing the spellpletely cast, she took to the air with the two ancient warriors and looked for an open space. She released her demons within the city.

 Chapter 1011: Demons Slaughtering the City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1011: Demons ughtering the City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The 30 yard wide opening allowed the demon army to quickly charge outside from within the purgatory of devils at very high speeds. Nailisi watched the happenings at the earl¡¯s residence. A ck-robed mage escaped in shambles from the storm. Nailisi was able to see clearly the two magic symbols on the robe of the mage.


    It was a grade-8 mage. The badge they wore said that they were a royal mage from Sikeqinya. It was no wonder that Earl Sufonso daredunching an attack. There were those sent from the imperial city within the earl¡¯s residence to protect his family.


    The ck-robed mage held someone, who looked to be in their twenties and wore expensive clothing, which was rendered all tattered at that moment. It was only possible to tell that the person was someone important in the earl¡¯s residence from the material of their clothes.


    Nailisi was not yet done releasing her demons, and she had no choice but to send the ancient warriors to intercept them. If it was within a short distance, there was no way the sorcerer would be able to outrun the ancient warriors.


    The two ancient warriors went after the sorcerer with their spears in hand. The sorcerer was utterly terrified, as they were able to tell that the two at their tail were grade-9 warriors. The warriors gleamed with a red sheen all over them and blocked their way in an instant. The warriors went on to point their spears in Nailisi¡¯s direction, telling their captives where to head.


    The sorcerer had no choice but to submit, as they would only have a chance of making it out on top with a grade-9 warrior by their side. They did not even have certainty that they would be able to escape. If they went all out, they might end up killing one of the warriors, but the person under their protection would have no doubt died.


    The sorcerer, under the threat of the spears carried by the ancient warriors, came before Nailisi. They saw Nailisi opening the gate to her space, from which demons gushed out; the scene was an utterly terrifying one to them. With their enemies being so powerful, it was a wonder why the Imperial city would have thought an army of 100,000 strong would be able to solve their problems.


    ¡°Mage, who is that with you?¡± Nailisi took out the Gray Memory and held it in her hand. The spear was very threatening to the mage, as a shield erected by a grade-8 mage would stand no chance against one thrust from that spear.


    ¡°This...¡± The mage hesitated, before continuing, ¡°This is Earl Sufonso¡¯s son.¡±


    ¡°He did have a way of producing sons, hehe.¡± Nailisi smirked eerily for a moment, beforeshing out with her spear all of the sudden. The sorcerer was not simply going to roll over. A giant ring of fire shimmered around him and cast out. Nailisi pierced through the ring of fire with a sh from her spear, blowing up the head of the person in his arms.


    The sorcerer was dumbfounded. They had not expected their unique defensive spell to be so easily pierced through by the demon! Their ring of fire still shimmered around them instead of copsing. The sorcerer was left in cold sweat. All that was a solid testament saying that their enemy was far more powerful than they were. What surprised them even further was the power of the spear in her hand. While there were weapons of levels higher than grade-10 all over the world, few were capable of attacks as ferocious as that particr spear.


    They simply let go and threw the body aside, feeling rather relieved.


    Nailisi looked at the sorcerer with a rather ominous grin on her face; she was considering whether or not to kill the sorcerer before her outright. A grade-8 sorcerer proved easy to kill if they did not possess any powerful equipment. She had two helpers by her side.


    ¡°Can I leave now? If you want to kill those in the earl¡¯s residence, they are still plenty left here to kill. Your army would have done their job well,¡± the sorcerer asked with a rather worried tone. Their hands said that they were ready to cast spells at any given second.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form was one that would be fine regardless of the extent of injuries suffered so long as the soul stayed intact. She did not fear the spells of her opponents, and said rather slowly, ¡°Mage, what do you intend to do when you got home? Tell Danny that the ones you were assigned to protect are all dead?¡±


    ¡°All dead?¡±


    ¡°What? You think Earl Sufonso wille out of all this alive, because he is a golden grand swordmaster? Hah, my master has tons of warriors like that serving under him.¡± Nailisi pointed at the two ancient warriors as she borated.


    The sorcerer put their hands down instead of tugging them in their sleeves, so Nailisi could see them clearly.


    ¡°I am a pce sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Pce sorcerer...let me think. I don¡¯t want to kill you just yet, so what should I do with you?¡± Nailisi had time to think about it as she still needed time to release her demon army; she would have killed the sorcerer right there and then otherwise.


    The sorcerer was very tense. They were not all that old, just a little above the age of 80. They were apparently able to feel that the growth of their magic chords had been enhanced for the past several years, and it would not be a problem advancing to grade-9. That would mean that their life would be a long one if they seeded. They were not ready to leave the world just yet, and they certainly had no intention of dying soon. As such, they waited for the tall demon before them to continue.


    Nailisi¡¯s other two heads kept watching what was going on within the city. Armies quickly closed in on where they were and were met with the demon army. The rate of advancement of the demons within the purgatory of devils had grown as well. A demon would advance to be a supreme demon almost every week.


    The power of a supreme demon was at least equivalent to a grade-7 professional. If the demon in question proved to be an intelligent one, theirbat powers would be equivalent to grade-8 humans or higher. The pinnacle of power of a supreme demon would be at least equivalent to that of a golden grand swordmaster. Any higher than that, they would be called a devil. That was the standard set about ten years ago.


    The demon ne was closely connected to the Myers Maind, and shared even the same power levels. When power across the entire maind was increased, the same happened to demons on the demon ne as well.


    Nailisi¡¯s 100,000 demons trained and fornicated within the purgatory of devils. If it was not for Nailisi cing a strict order forbidding them from growing their numbers, their numbers would have easily doubled by then. The reproductive abilities of the demons were formidable. So long as they had enough to eat, they would be easily able to give birth to the next generation, and adolescent demons were born equipped withbat capacities equal to that ofmon human warriors.


    The adolescent demons boasted powerparable to junior swordsmen. When they were fully grown, they would sportbat capacities equal to swordmasters, and a barehanded demon was capable of taking on two or three human swordmasters.


    Only when humans who had reached grade-7 and above, where the effects of intelligence came into y, would be able to fight to a tie with said demons. Only when humans surpassed grade-9, would they begin to have an edge. Humans of grade-12 and above would possess the ability to close the gap of power inherent between races. Even gods would have feared humans of grade-12 and above.


    There were many peculiar bloodlines capable of holding their own against humans. For example, the Luoluokaluo, were able to consume formidable powers without suffering the resulting recoil, converting the consumed powers as their own.


    With 30,000 demons released, there were only demonic spirits and adolescent demons left within the purgatory of devils. Nailisi put the collection of purgatories away and told the sorcerer, ¡°Royal mages should be bound by contracts. If I don¡¯t kill you now, you¡¯lle back to work against my master. So, tell me, what should I do about you?¡±


    ¡°Technically-speaking, I serve only His Highness, Emperor Danny. The contract I signed did not have anything to do with the royal family. If Emperor Danny ends up dead, I¡¯d be free,¡± The sorcerer answered Nailisi¡¯s questions carefully. They were regretting the decision of not going to attack Ceylon City with Earl Sufonso, sending their mates there instead.


    No one would have thought that such powerful enemies remained at the rear, and even escape came to be a luxury. If they had not bothered rescuing Earl Sufonso¡¯s son, escaping only on their own, they might have actually made it. ¡°The kid really dragged me into this mess!¡±


    ¡°I assume Emperor Danny is a professional.¡± Nailisi had one of her ancient warriors lead the demon army to attack their enemies, while she and the remaining ancient warrior stood by the sorcerer¡¯s side, preventing any escape attempts. Nailisi was not a demon without a brain. If the sorcerer was unwilling to fight their way out, that meant that they were willing to talk, which in turn meant a lot could be learned.


    It was without a doubt that she would have simply been able to kill off the sorcerer and steal their memoriester. Nailisi had yet to make it to grade-10 and was not a true devil incarnate. If she were to do so, it would result in a certain degree of loss in the memories extracted, and useful information might be lost as a result.


    ¡°Far more powerful than Earl Sufonso,¡± The sorcerer answered carefully.


    ¡°If I just let you go, you won¡¯t be doing anything to betray Danny, correct?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°Then be my prisoner, mage.¡± Nailisi grinned. As she was still in her demon form, her grin remained a terrifying one. Any other of the three heads moving would have been able to scare the wits out of the sorcerer. It was all made worse by the fact that demons were known to eat people. If they ended up dead at the hands of that demon, there would not even be a body left to be foundter.


    The sorcerer knew the demon was good at controlling souls. If they ended up being eaten by the demon, their soul would remain captive as well.


    ¡°I can¡¯t. Demons can¡¯t be trusted,¡± The sorcerer answered bitterly. It had been because of their own abilities that they became a pce mage. A knowledgeable sorcerer with a lineage was seen as amodity to be fought over wherever they went. Even Nailisi would not simply go about killing them.


    It was a given that the one outside the city was an exemption. That one conspired with Earl Sufonso to move against Jason after all.


    Seeing how Saleen toiled to craft equipment, she had wanted to take several sorcerers more to do the dirty work for Saleen.


    Nailisi felt rather frustrated hearing the sorcerer¡¯s answer. Demons did not have a good reputation, and it was indeed difficult to get the sorcerer to believe her.


    ¡°How about this, let¡¯s sign a contract,¡± Nailisi told the sorcerer, mimicking Saleen¡¯s tone.


    ¡°A contract?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I will not harm you if you be my prisoner, at least until we meet my master. My master is the king of the Kingdom of Metatrin, Saleen Metatrin. I don¡¯t mind if you don¡¯t believe me, but you¡¯d at least believe a true mage, wouldn¡¯t you? I might be a demon, but I¡¯m powerless against the power of a contract!¡± Nailisi said as she took out a nk scroll paper. She realized all of a sudden that her master¡¯s habit of getting ready to make and sign contracts with others had rubbed off on her.


    The sorcerer was exasperated. While they knew they could kill the ancient warrior, they had no certainty of being able to kill the demon. They were knowledgeable enough to know that most demons had only one head. They had never seen a three-headed one before, and furthermore, one who easily pierced their own area of the ring of fire.


    Nailisi smiled with pride as she looked at the sorcerer write their own contract. ¡°If I take a sorcerer back to him, master won¡¯t hold anything against me about killing all of Sufonso¡¯s family, right?¡±


    The demon army shed with the army at the center of Yaoyang City. The one to have their lines copsing entirely were the Sikeqinyans. The demons killed with impunity while the supreme demons cast spells and wrecked multiple buildings. While there were no metal flyers involved that time, Yaoyang City would have suffered the same fate as Ironwall City, reduced to a chapter in history books.

 Chapter 1012: Demons Slaughtering the City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1012: Demons ughtering the City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The sorcerer signed the contract and followed Nailisi about obediently. They saw what was happening and asked out of pity, ¡°Sir, can you...¡±


    ¡°Can I let themon people go?¡± Nailisi asked, looking in the eyes of the sorcerer.


    The sorcerer nodded and continued, ¡°It is meaningless to kill them. If you want to set an example, Ironwall City is already a good one. It was more than enough to strike fear into the hearts of people.¡±


    ¡°Nope. I¡¯m not doing this to set an example. It¡¯s revenge against Sufonso. Golden swordmasters don¡¯t die that easily. I just want to know how it¡¯ll feel, for him toe back to a dead city,¡± Nailisi answered inly, however that was far from the truth. There was only one soul in her Blood Soul Tower. She would be able to get the item running again, if she killed every single living thing in the city.


    Of course, it was a given that she would be scolded by her master for pulling off such atrocities. ¡°So, what? It¡¯s not like people will have a better opinion of demons even if the demon army ends up killing no one.¡±


    Demons actually did not kill once they were done eating, yet most people had the opinion that demons hated humans and would hunt down everyst human they saw. Only the temple guards, and most people from Metatrin City held no enmity to demons, and Nailisi was not happy with that.


    Rumors came with a price too. What happened in Ironwall City had spawned a lot of rumors. Most people believed that it was the demon army that crushed Ironwall City, not the human army serving under Saleen.


    The longer Nailisi followed Saleen, the more she came to understand humans. The very reason she went on a killing spree was because she knew that humans were a contradictory bunch. People would not have a better opinion of her even if she did not go about killing people. With people fearing her after she went about killing people, only then would the humans truly begin to think seriously.


    The temple guards were established to have humans get along with demons. His assumptions were then verified. The humans and demons within the temple guards trained and went about killing alongside each other, so there was solidarity within the ranks of the temple guards. Demons within also becameparatively easy to control.


    Demons were more loyal than humans. When they had acknowledged everyone in the temple guards to be one of their own, no demon would have betrayed theirrades. Nailisi gained confidence in that as well. So long as the demons did not go about doing anything untoward within the Kingdom of Metatrin, she would not care if many more others out there went about scolding her. It was due to that, that she did not restrain herself when she went killing people and capturing souls.


    Her methods were more brutal than the Holy See¡¯s. The Holy See tricked believers to convert, and then went about feeding their god with the faith of their believers. What Nailisi did was to forcibly throw souls inside the Blood Soul Tower, and she had yet to know what to do with the souls harvested.


    Saleen had grown rather careless from his hectic schedule. He would not let Nailisie to Yaoyang City alone otherwise. Nailisi needed souls, or she would not have bothered going all the way to prepare a Blood Soul Tower. Souls of humans were the most wholesome out of all creatures and were able to provide the highest amount of power. Even amon farmer¡¯s soul would be more wholesome than that of a high level magic beast.


    Despite the great fire snake¡¯s painstaking efforts to break through into grade-10, its soul remained iplete. It was precisely because such that gods loved using humans to spread their faith.


    When the Myers Maind had truly broken through the limit of grade-13, gods would descend upon them. By then, no one would care about demons anymore. Nailisi paid no heed to reputation. All she was concerned about was to enhance her own powers as soon as possible.


    There were quite a number of spells geared specifically for dealing with souls in demon magic. Having a fully functioning Blood Soul Tower would allow her use of the power of all manner of soul magic at a fraction of the effort originally required. Nailisi¡¯s mind was more adamant than Saleen¡¯s. She wanted to get stronger, and for that, she ignored the plight of innocents in Yaoyang City altogether.


    When the nes reconnected with each other, there would be no innocents to speak of. Perished living creatures were calcted in billions in the war between nes. As the power level was raised across the entire Myers Maind, the barrier between the nes would grow weaker. Humans of the primary ne would have to deal with countless enemies they would have never seen before otherwise.


    Nailisi spected that Saleen¡¯s temperament would cost him dearly when fighting reached such stages where things were more violent and unpredictable. It would not be of any use to try to buy the hearts of people pretentiously, as the shing of nes would shatter all pretenses.


    ¡°I want souls, and I want to grow stronger!¡±


    The atrocities wrought within Yaoyang City were indescribable. Nailisi handed two Blood Soul Towers to the supreme demons to be used for collecting souls, while she remained in the earl¡¯s residence to clear a piece ofnd among the rubble.


    ¡°Right, Charles. Come over.¡± Nailisi had, without him saying, learned of the name of the sorcerer for having signed such a contract, and handed over a good bunch of materials for drawing magic arrays.


    ¡°Sir, you didn¡¯t mention anything about helping you kill in the contract.¡± Charles was starting to feel regretful of having signed a contract with the demon before him. He had not anticipated Nailisi to ughter the city. He watched the city before him crumble and was able to do nothing, not being able to be of any help to anyone around there.


    From a certain perspective, he had be an aplice out of fearing for his life. A grade-8 sorcerer would not sit idly seeing all those atrocities about. The demon had gone too far by involving him in all of that.


    Nailisi stared at the sorcerer with cold eyes and said, ¡°Kill? All lives are equal. If humans can go about killing other creatures, why can¡¯t they die themselves?¡±


    ¡°No! At the very least, humans have honor, and morals!¡± Charles retorted loudly.


    ¡°Honor? That¡¯s something built on the foundation of strength. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard of the First Dynasty, no?¡± Nailisi did notsh out. It would have been problematic if the sorcerer was one to say yes to everything instead.


    Charles had no idea why Nailisi brought the First Dynasty up, but he nodded nheless.


    ¡°The emperor of the First Dynasty, was a grade-18 professional. Do you know what his most powerful equipment was?¡±


    ¡°The Crown of Glory!¡± Charles answered feverishly. Most matters regarding the First Dynasty had been lost to history. There was still a lot of information going on about the emperor who founded the First Dynasty, and that piece of equipment was one of them.


    ¡°On the Crown of Glory, there were 18 jewels. All 18 gems were crafted using the kings of gods.¡±


    Charles never heard of something like that, and his eyes sparkled immediately. Kings of gods were equivalent in power to grade-18 human professionals. The emperor would have indeed been a powerful being for able to kill 18 kings of gods, and a testament of the strength of the First Dynasty!


    ¡°Every king of gods housed their own nation within their bodies, and within each such nation, were believers in the trillions. Your great mighty emperor of the humans killed 18 of the kings of gods, and that meant killing at least 18 trillion lives. Do you still think I¡¯m all that cruel now?¡±


    Charles was stunned. It was the first he had heard of such arguments.


    18 trillion lives was a number that thoroughly dazed Charles, rendering him utterly incapable of retorting. ¡°How many of those 18 trillion were humans back then?¡±


    ¡°So, Charles, do you still think there is such a thing called ¡®innocent people¡¯? The honor of you humans was built upon mass murder. So, I ask, who has the right to point fingers at me? Even if I were to kill everyst human on the Myers Maind, it would still pale inparison to that highest honor you speak of!¡±


    ¡°You are just making up excuses here,¡± Charles answered dejectedly.


    All three of Nailisi¡¯s heads nodded and said, ¡°I¡¯m not denying that, and you¡¯re unable to retort, mage. Logically-speaking, every word I uttered made sense. Nowe on, I only need you to draw me a summoning array.¡±


    ¡°Just a summoning array?¡± Charles was terrified of Nailisi in a different way then. Traps were simply everywhere dealing with that demon.


    ¡°Of course, do you think I need you around for killing?¡± Nailisi smirked in sarcasm at the sorcerer.


    Charles was utterly speechless. He took the paper from Nailisi and started drawing summoning magic arrays for her. The materials wereplete. Steel rocks were set on the ground, and even the materials used for drawing were high ss ones. For a grade-8 sorcerer, that job was a breeze.


    The summoning magic array waspleted in about half an hour. Nailisi even let Charles drink a bottle of magic liquid, gave him a piece of grade-8 magic nucleus, and gave him some divine crystal shards.


    With such logistical help, Charlespleted a summoning magic array of more than 20 yards in diameter. He straightened himself and felt only envy looking at the steel rocks on the ground. ¡°The Kingdom of Metatrin sure is rich, using such materials used for building magic towers to set up magic arrays and all.¡±


    Nailisi took outrge amounts of grade-7 magic nuclei and set them on the magic array. Charles counted the total to be 216 pieces.


    Nailisi felt nothing about using up so many high-level magic nuclei. She called several demonic spirits to her and had them drag a few bodies around. She then reduced the bodies to minced meat before throwing them on the array. Charles felt something was off and asked, ¡°Sir, what are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Summoning demons of course! I brought too few with me. While they are enough for killing everyone in the city, I still need extra hands topletely wreck the ce. Charles, thank you indeed. I wouldn¡¯t have been able to draw something so difficult without you.¡±


    Charles was thoroughly dumbfounded. He had not expected to truly be an aplice to the demon. Nailisi¡¯s gratitude sounded like nothing but sarcasm to him.


    Nailisi began chanting in the ancient demon tongue. Bloody mist began to rise in the magic array, and a portal began to open. The portal¡¯s width was about a 10 yard radius, and demons gushed from within. The demons that emerged all wore fine armor, and they also wore the same badge on their armor.


    Nailisi made a portal to a city of devils, summoning an army from the devil ne itself.


    ¡°Eat everyone in the city. Leave the souls behind for me!¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice reverberated in the vast space of the portal. Her true devil aura was more concentrated than those devils who led the demons. Those demons paled inparison to Nailisi¡¯s demon army in terms of intellect. After sensing powerful devil aura, they did not bother verifying Nailisi¡¯s true power, and went charging at Yaoyang City to execute Nailisi¡¯s orders instead.


    Nailisi pped and said to the sorcerer, ¡°See, doing it like this will be way faster. We can head back sooner to meet my master. Of course, if you keep your mouth shut, I won¡¯t go about telling anyone that you were the one who drew the magic array.¡±

 Chapter 1013: Indomitable (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1013: Indomitable (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The sorcerer was incredibly angry and sad at having been set up by the demon. The demons that came to ughter the city were summoned by a magic array that he had personally drawn, yet he had no way of knowing that a summoning array would end up summoning demons in such massive numbers!


    Human mages were also capable of summoning demons, but summoning more than one was unheard of. The magic array did not seem to be a high level, and judging from his experience, he would have been able to summon one or two powerful beings at best. He had no idea that Nailisi was able to create portals, as what happened would definitely not have been powered by a mere level seven magic nucleus.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get angry, Charles. The other side of the summoning array was a city of a devil. What I did would have angered the devil themselves. How can their army be controlled by a mere human? Think about it. If that devil were to get enraged and charge all the way here, I¡¯d be the only one who¡¯s able to protect you,¡± Nailisi said, feeling very pleased with herself.


    Charles was speechless. He came to understand why it was said to never trust the words of a demon. So I don¡¯t even have the right to get angry now, do I? If he were tosh out at Nailisi and she was irked enough to leave him to his own devices, there was no way he would be able toe out on top if the devil appeared.


    A devil capable of carving out their own territory was above level ten in the demon ne. He would have a hard time dealing with a level nine supreme demon, let alone a devil.


    ¡°Charles, just do what I told you. We¡¯re in this together, and there¡¯s no need to hold back. Who else would forgive you other than me?¡± Nailisi persuaded patiently. She knew that Charles would not heed those words, as she was obviously baiting Charles topletely fall.


    ¡°I¡¯d be hunted by Alchemy City...¡± Charles lost all will to fight Nailisi any further. There was nothing he could do to counter Nailisi¡¯s machinations.


    ¡°Charles, tell me. Is Alchemy City more terrifying, or am I more terrifying?¡± Nailisi dragged him to stand behind her, as there were many demons who wanted to attack the sorcerer who only held back because Nailisi exuded the aura of a devil, but it was only a matter of time before a more powerful demon gave in to the urge.


    The smell of a sorcerer was over a hundred times more enticing than that of amon human.


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s...umm, you, O¡¯ Great Nailisi. If I may ask, what further need do you have of me?¡± Charles submitted. The greater the disobedience he showed, the more Nailisi would have enjoyed torturing him.


    ¡°That¡¯s the spirit, Charles. When you¡¯re in no ce to resist, you need to learn how to enjoy pain.¡± Nailisi thought of the pain that she and Saleen shared. Saleen¡¯s badge would cast negative statuses on him whenever he trained to amplify his mental powers, and she wanted half of that pain every time it happened. However, her master came to do so far less frequently as ofte. He only did so when her mental power reserves werecking.


    Pain was mesmerizing at times.


    Nailisi was true to her word for once, but Charles would never believe it. He had no idea what the demon wanted to do to him. However, Nailisi had no more urge to torture him when he submitted. Nailisi did not like bullying the weak. If his level was lower than what it had been, Nailisi would not have even batted an eye at him.


    Well, his fault of being a level eight sorcerer, and one thar has a lot of potential of advancing to level nine.


    Nailisi¡¯s predictions were right. At the edge of the military camp of an incredibly huge city in the demon ne, thousands of demons were attracted to the smell of blood and gore in the magic array and walked towards the portal.


    The aura of a devil emanating from the other side of the portal eventually shook the king of the city, who was a very powerful level ten devil.


    Nailisi summoned over 20,000 demons to her side, who all burst out at great speed. The smell of blood and gore attracted the demons. Under Nailisi¡¯smand, they would have beenpelled to devour the humans around even if they were not actually hungry.


    It was something that Nailisi cooked up on the spot. It only urred to her when she was summoning the demons that she should have used her coordinates to attract a devil from the other side.


    Nailisi liked being at Saleen¡¯s side, but she was the best candidate to lead an army of demons. However, if she were able to beat a devil into submission, that devil would be able to lead the army in her stead, and she would be able to be by her master¡¯s side.


    A low, booming voice reverberated from the other side of the portal.


    ¡°Who is this? Panigryr? We had a deal of not fighting each other for 500 years! You...You¡¯re not that fellow!¡± The voice turned angry.


    ¡°You vile creature. How dare you entice my people!¡± The voice became even louder as they neared the other side of the portal. Nailisi saw a huge hand extending through the portal, pping down on several demons who were charging to the other side. A leg followed, crossing over to Myers Maind.


    Incredible speed indeed! Nailisi held her bone shield up in reflex. She was unable to repair the shield in time, and there was still a hole from Van Gogh¡¯s Eye of God. The hole was patched up with red crystal rocks, and she was able to see the other side from there.


    The ferocious devil¡¯s form was seen in its entirety from within the porta.


    The devil was only 13 to 14 meters tall and sported a pair of horns about two meters long. The devil¡¯s head wasrger than all three of Nailisi¡¯sbined. The scales all over their body had evolved into armor. The scales on their chest had merged into one single piece, shining with a purplish sheen.


    The devil held a giant cleaver in their hand, the de of which was over 10 meters long. The de was filled with magic patterns and some demonic runes that human mages never grasped. The back of the de was so thick that a human could have walked steadily on it. The de itself was blindingly red.


    Nailisi grew worried. That devil¡¯s weapon was incredibly rare. It was passed down from an ancient devil instead of something that devil crafted itself. The ancient devil had been a truly powerful one, a being above level 13. A devil who was able to wield such a weapon while suffering no recoil would have tremendously strong mental powers, as well as be capable of using some demon magic.


    No other way to deal with this other than going head-on then! Nailisi took out her Grey Memory and charged at the devil. All six eyes on the spear opened and ced the devil in a lockdown.


    The devil burst out in rage, intending to kill the being who had enticed their underlings. They had never expected to encounter a weak devil on the other side, one who was probably only level nine. They were unable to express dissatisfaction at being looked down on before being locked down by a terrifying weapon.


    I¡¯m locked down by a weapon? The scales on the devil¡¯s body contracted and their muscles turned stiffer than steel. The demonic runes on the huge cleaver, and some hovering above the de, shimmered violently. A powerful force came to control the space around the de.


    The weapons shed with each other. The Grey Memory¡¯s sh did not manage to prate the area of might materialized by the de, but the spear made a deep gash on the devil¡¯s cleaver. The tip of the spear was thrust straight into the lower abdomen of the devil.


    The area of might materialized by the demonic rune hovering above the de shattered the bones in Nailisi¡¯s arm. The power of the recoil was formed by power of rules, which Nailisi had no way of breaking. If she had not been learning human martial arts from J and let go before something worse happened, the recoil would have cost her the entire arm.


    The thrust rendered both sides severely injured, yet Nailisi only suffered a shattered arm. The other devil was hit by the Grey Memory in their lower abdomen, and their entire body went numb.


    Nailisi¡¯s movements were incredibly fluid. She spit out a Dragon Crystal Needle, which prated the devil¡¯s shoulder. The devil dropped the cleaver, smashing a huge hole in the ck steel ground. Nailisi¡¯s shield went flying, hitting the devil squarely in the face. Her other arm took up the shaft of Grey Memory again andshed out with another thrust, which went in over a meter deep.


    The devil¡¯s face was cut by the edge of the bone shield, and purple blood sprayed everywhere. The blue skin and muscles of the huge head trembled violently. The wound closed up within mere moments, leaving only a deep scar.


    The horns on that devil¡¯s head burst with intense light all of a sudden, shooting everywhere. When the light brushed her, Nailisi felt as if her head was about to split and fell to the floor. The Grey Memory was torn out of the devil¡¯s abdomen.


    That devil covered their wound with an arm and retreated before finding that the portal had closed. They were stuck at the ne.


    Nailisi took out a divine crystal shard and gulped it down, easing the headache. The soul attack cast by the devil rendered every living being around them unconscious, including Charles the Sorcerer.


    The ancient warrior was unharmed as their soul was protected by the Eternal Control shard. That attack simply rendered them dizzy. The warrior picked up their spear and charged when the light dissipated.


    In a life and death situation, Nailisi did not bother to leave anything for Saleen. It was better to have the ancient warrior dead than her. She picked Charles up and flung him far away. The ancient warrior had already stabbed the devil tens of times.


    None of the attacks managed to prate the devil¡¯s scale. The devil had only been forced to retreat a dozen steps. The Ancient kicked the cleaver beside them, and their leg was shattered by the area of might bursting from the de. The cleaver was sent flying as well, the power of the de inadequate to kill a level nine warrior when not wielded by the devil.


    The ancient warrior lost a leg, yet felt no pain. The red sheen all over them shed at blinding intensity and the red light on the spear turned white. It was thrown straight at the devil¡¯s eye.


    The devil roared and lowered their head. The spear hit a horn and broke. The devil saw their weapon being sent into another portal by the devil who enticed the underling demons. The weapon was the key to the devil¡¯s supreme reign in the demon ne. They were reduced to amon devil by losing the weapon and were no longer deemed fit to control the hundreds of millions they ruled.


    Nailisi held her pain in and smirked at the devil, telling them in demon tongue, ¡°you want your weapon? Come with me then!¡± Nailisi went inside the purgatory of the devils.


    The enraged devil charged at Nailisi and went inside the purgatory without hesitation, ending up on the other side of the portal. The ce smelled just like the demon ne. There was no mistaking it. That female devil created two portals through unknown means just to take my weapon.


    I cannot afford to lose the de of Power was the only thought in the devil¡¯s mind.

 Chapter 1014: Indomitable (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1014: Indomitable (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Roku!¡±


    The devil stepped into the purgatory, and a booming voice was heard from the sky. The devil was terrified, as it was thest part of their true name.


    The ce smelled unmistakably like the demon ne, yet the devil Roku did not feel a slightest hint of familiarity. The low level devil was nowhere to be found, and a vast wastnd opened up before them.


    No. This is just a small dungeon, far smaller than even an ind on the Vile Sea. The devil was shocked. Is this the Devil Cage? The space said to be created by the most powerful king among demons in the legends?


    Impossible. The ancient devils are all dead. I wouldn¡¯t have been able to take the de of Power otherwise.


    The bloodline of the supreme demons were beings with a very long lifespan. The devil Roku had been alive for over 30,000 years, and they had very deep impressions of very powerful demons. Back then,mon demons were able to advance to above level ten, supreme demons were powerful beings capable of reaching level 13, and devils ¡ª there were none below level 13.


    The ce smelled like the demon ne of old. How is it possible for something that is not an ancient demon to be able to create such a ce? The devil looked up. Their forehead split and a third eye appeared.


    The eye had a bright purple iris and looked incredibly evil. All negative emotions coalesced in the eye. The devils were still capable of finding ways of advancing after the power of the demon ne dropped. Roku did so by materializing the Evil Eye, coalescing all negative statuses on them in that eye. The eye was crafted into a powerful piece of equipment.


    The edge of the purgatory of the devilsy at the end of the 36 mile-high sky. The yellowish color in the air was not from a sun. Their Evil Eye was unable to find the target. The space¡¯s edges, length, width, height, even underground space, were all 36 miles long. Some weak demons were found living on thend, but the only thing they were unable to find was the devil who drew Roku in.


    Nailisi had actually left the ce a while ago. She found no point of tangling with the devil. The sh had caused the bones in her arm to shatter. If both sides were unarmed, it would have been incredibly difficult for her to win against the devil. The Dragon Crystal Needle was still inside the devil¡¯s body, but Nailisi was in no mood to retrieve it.


    She left the 12 Notes of First Purgatory and stored the huge cleaver in a dimension stone, isting the terrifying power emanating from the de.


    The cleaver did not even allow Nailisi to touch it unless she was armed with Lightning Protection. Nailisi did not want to waste her time taking the weapon. The de of Power did not suit her. Her Grey Memory was more than enough for her.


    The portal was destroyed. Nailisi deliberately used a level seven magic nucleus instead of one above level nine toy the magic array precisely to achieve such an effect. The Devil, Roku, crossed all the way onto Myers Maind, and the act depleted all the power of the magic array. Even the magic patterns drawn on the steel rock were wiped clean.


    Her shattered arm bones were caused by power of rules, which meant that it would take her quite a while before she could recover. It was unlikemon injuries, as she was required to purge the power of rules lingering within her arm, or her injury would have never been able to healpletely.


    Nailisi had no choice but to return to her imp form. She did not want to keep enduring the constant pain in her devil form.


    She put the Grey Memory away as well, taking out the Sword of Rules instead. Nailisi was only able to see the advantage provided by the Sword of Rules. It was capable of dealing massive damage to an enemy, even if one had noprehension of the 24 rules etched into it. Grey Memory was powered by mental powers, but the Sword of Rules was simply a weapon with huge destructive powers.


    The Sword of Rules apparently paled inparison to the de of Power, but it was a more fitting weapon for Nailisi.


    Nailisi saw the ancient warrior that Saleen had given her for protection lost a leg and felt rather sad about it. The soul of the ancient warrior was under control and knew no pain. They simply stood with their remaining leg. Nailisi waved and sent the ancient warrior into the purgatory of the fallen.


    Within the purgatory, the ancient warrior, which had an Eternal Control shard in it, would be free from any signs of degeneration for the time being, and Nailisi¡¯s double would not attack them either. All the living beings born within the purgatory would avoid the thing with only one leg left. The ancient warrior simply remained standing in the middle of the purgatory, staring nkly at the sky.


    A huge altar hovered in the sky of the purgatory of the fallen and there were two figures seen at the altar: one being Nailisi¡¯s double, and the other being the original body of the Divine Baby, which was shackled by the Shackles of the Fallen. The Divine Baby¡¯s body did not have divine fire within it and seemed to be asleep. Other than emanating a powerful aura, the body was no threat.


    Nailisi¡¯s double was researching the original body of the Divine Baby. If it were to be able to consume the body, the double¡¯s power would exceed Nailisi¡¯s, forming its own personality and soul. If that were to happen, it would be a revival of a pseudogod and Nailisi would no longer be able to control her double.


    However, that double apparently had no such intentions. The Shackles of the Fallen¡¯s chains went right through the Divine Baby¡¯s original body. If the double were to consume it, it would be put under the Shackles of the Fallen¡¯s control.


    Nailisi¡¯s double felt rather ridiculous. What the hell am I thinking? Eating that thing up and betraying myself? I¡¯m part of Nailisi! What use would it be if I were to split and acquire more power? If I were to split, and even if me and the main body were to be able maintain ourselves as separate entities after that, I would lose the unique attributes of a luoluokaluo. That would be one hell of a loss indeed.


    Nailisi¡¯s double threw a sliver of energy from the altar, which prated the ancient warrior¡¯s body. The ancient warrior¡¯s broken limb no longer had blood dripping from the wound.


    Not only was the purgatory of the fallen cut off from the faith of the gods, it weakened any rules that did not belong to the space. Everything was under Nailisi¡¯s double¡¯s control. The injury sustained by the ancient warrior would not worsen any further.


    The reason why Saleen had so many expectations of the piece of equipment belonging to Nailisi was because when the collection of purgatories waspleted, the 12 spaces with their own respective rules would be able to connect with each other, bringing a damage potential far higher than the sum of 12 purgatory spaces. When the 12 Notes of First Purgatory waspleted, all rules within would be united as one and form a massive space of rules.


    Eventually, the 12 Notes of First Purgatory would meld into one world: Purgatory of Rules.


    That was the luoluokaluo¡¯s true weapon, something that could have only be created by that unique bloodline. When the weapon waspleted, no one would ever be able to take it away from Nailisi ever again. Anyone else who attempted to wield Purgatory of Rules would be split into multiple personalities, causing their soul to fall apart.


    But then again, there was nothing absolute with the world. If another luoluokaluo with powers exceeding that of Nailisi were to appear and take the Purgatory of Rules away, they would be able to slowly convert it to their own weapon. However, even in ancient times, it would have been very difficult for a luoluokaluo to grow to Nailisi¡¯s level.


    Saleen¡¯s judgment had been apt. Nailisi would be his most powerful weapon.


    Roku¡¯s expression turned adamant in the purgatory of the devils. They had no idea why they were unable to find the devil who drew them in. Roku knew that their powers were at least halved without the de of Power, which meant that there was no way for them to escape the space. Their subjects, hundreds of millions of demons, would be taken away by other devils.


    Tears rolled out Roku¡¯s purple eye at the very thought.


    Thousands of years of effort had turned to nothing. Many of their underlings and subjects would be food, split between other devils and supreme demons. Why did I act so impulsively? If I had simply cut the portal apart, none of this would have happened.


    Blue and purple light shone from the Evil Eye, attempting to look for an opening in the space to no avail. The space wasplete, independent, and sealed. Roku had never seen another prison so perfect before.


    There were about 70,000 demons terrorizing Yaoyang City at the moment. Nailisi¡¯s demons were only there to steal souls, while those summoned from the demon ne were having a feast.


    The city had turned into a purgatory in certain ways. The air was thick with the smell of blood and gore, shooting high into the sky. With soul collection going well, Nailisi did not want to spend anymore time in the city. She had another ancient warrior take Charles and left.


    Over a thousand demons died, as the army and some mercenaries were still capable of fighting. When they knew they would have no way to escape, the resisting humans brought tremendously powerfulbat capacity to bear. More than 3000 demons sustained varying levels of injuries and they too, were taken away by Nailisi, but they were could not be put away in the purgatory of the devils, as there was a very troubling fellow down there.


    There were more than 40,000 summoned demons in the city and Nailisi had no intentions of taking those with her. She simply took her own demon army and left Yaoyang City. They headed for Ceylon City after regrouping.


    There was no straight route leading from Yaoyang City to Ceylon City, so they needed to take a detour around the fort that Saleen built. There were new recruits garrisoning the fort. The Sikeqinyan army did not storm it. An army was left there to keep the fort in check. The strategy had been a sound one. When the Sikeqinyans took down Ceylon City, the fort would have had no choice but to surrender.


    Nailisi took her demon army and crushed the mercenaries that were caught off guard. The demons did not go inside the fort after trampling the enemy camp. They took the longer route and went straight for Ceylon City.


    Saleen built a number of forts along the way. There were over 20 military facilities of varying sizes along the 500-mile path. The forts were ill-suited for attacks and the only good thing about them was that they were easily defensible. From a strategic point of view, building constructs that were only capable of defense was a waste of money and personnel.


    But Saleen never had any intentions of using the forts for attacking. He had only wanted to slow down the Sikeqinyan army¡¯s advance, keeping their forces in check. The forts were watched by at least two small enemy mercenary groups, keeping an eye on Saleen¡¯s new recruits.


    The demon army ughtered their way back to Ceylon City, killing every single mercenary group they encountered along the way. While she did not have anyone powerful at her side, a dozen or so supreme demon generals were more than enough for the job. The small Sikeqinyan mercenary groups had a great difference with therger ones in terms ofbat capacity.


    Nailisi went on an onught from behind. They were on the road for little more than a day and arrived at Ceylon City by the third day.


    The battle outside Ceylon City was in full force. The Sikeqinyan army was attacking the city.

 Chapter 1015: Assassin from the Holy See (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1015: Assassin from the Holy See (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There had been ancient warriors sent from Ceylon City to contact her before Nailisi was able to give the order tounch the attack.


    The ancient warriors brought two dimension stones, an earth elemental badge, and a letter with them. Nailisi calmed after reading the letter. Saleen asked for Nailisi to return to Yaoyang City in the letter, to tear down as much of the city as possible, and then expand the fort that had always been there on the road between the two cities, topletely block off the road leading away from Ceylon City.


    It was all done because when the Sikenqinyan army arrived at Ceylon City, the Imperial city gathered yet another army of 1,000,000 strong to march for Ceylon City, and that was not including mercenaries tempted by the reward.


    The Holy See had also sent ships in an attempt to blockade Magnolia Bay. The fleet from the Holy See was far too powerful to be able to be sunk with just one dragon Skeletonbat vessel alone.


    It was said that the Holy See had also sent many holy masters to enter Sikeqinya from Laiyin Duchy to serve as reinforcements to Danny. The army, which consisted of holy masters and believers from the Holy See, headed for the Royal Harbor. Lex was unable to spare any troops at that moment, but she was at least able to leave the Ancient there to defend against the joint forces of the Holy See and Sikeqinya.


    ¡°Danny was utterly insane, letting Holy See forces intrude his own territory for just the sake of taking out Ceylon City. If those darn sheep of god were to enter Sikeqinya, it would be near impossible to have them leave the ce. Those people will go about spreading their faith along the way, building churches and bing a thorn in Sikeqinya¡¯s side.¡±


    The situational shift made Saleen determined to take out Yaoyang City altogether, robbing the army about to attack Ceylon City of a possible base. He would then get the Sikeqinyan army of more than 100,000 strong surrounded within, letting not even one of them go. He thought the Holy See would have ced their focus on Qin and would not have bothered with Sikeqinya for the time being, but due to unknown reasons, the Holy See decided to instead dispatch huge forces to back up Danny, even when things at their own frontlines were extremely tense.


    Seeping into Sikeqinya would take time, and their focus should be focused on takingnds north of Qin instead.


    The two dimension stones carried only construction materials. The earth elemental badge was also loaned to Nailisi for construction purposes. Locking down the road leading to Ceylon was not as simple as constructing a fortress or two. The terrain there was not as narrow Phoenix¡¯s, and a wall of at least five miles long would be needed to lock the ce down.


    Nailisi¡¯s demon army would not have been able toplete such a huge project for defense without the help of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. It was fortunate that Saleen loaded the dimension stones with many finished constructed materials. Most metal facilities on the ground were simply the matter of putting the metal pieces together.


    Saleen did not send more armies Nailisi¡¯s way. He knew that Nailisi was capable of summoning demons. Since Demon City was founded, Nailisi got her hands on more coordinates on the demon ne, and she also had materials for readying summoning arrays at her disposal at any given moment as well.


    The northeastern region of Sikeqinya was reduced to arge warzone. Saleen¡¯s Ceylon City became a target of the Holy See.


    Nailisi took her demon army to slowly retreat. She paid no heed to the army that was about to attack Ceylon City. The enemy had thought the ce to be the small city that it used to be and had not brought any siege engines with them. While there were many sorcerers in the enemy¡¯s ranks, there was still Saleen¡¯s elemental badge and Nichs around, and that meant there would be no problems keeping the city safe. The 70,000 strong demon army could still be put to good use for that purpose as well.


    Saleen had wanted to buy time by not deploying his forces out of the city to meet his enemies, allowing therge forces outside to y their game ording to their set speed and schedule.


    Things within Ceylon City were held back by Saleen, and in Metatrin City...


    Saleen had rescued the demons, and faith in their new king among the citizens of Ceylon City grew. While trade was halted, the city was revitalized.


    The events at the arena became a favorite among the citizens of Ceylon City. With the rules of thepetitions bing increasinglyprehensive, there was also a magic arena established among the battles of the professionals, and the events were no longer blood sports. What attracted the citizens was new unique performances instead.


    The Caucasus people and the ancient warriors went deep into the northern wilderness, catching great numbers of magic beasts, and filled the arena with them. There were even magic beasts captured from the demon ne, serving as hunting targets for the professionals.


    While battles between people were exciting, hunting powerful magic beasts proved more popr with the audience. The beasts were of peculiar shapes and each possessed unique skills. There were simply too many ways to kill the beasts, and it was a no holds barred game for both the professionals and the magic beasts. There was no fear of being used of cruelty, and spectatorship boomed.


    As the Kingdom of Metatrin was in a constant state of war, the craftsmen of Metatrin City were paid handsomely, allowing them to easily provide for their families. The nobles within the city had their fill in Phoenix, and they were able to bear it for the moment even if there was no ie from trade to be had.


    Saleen never ceased recruiting soldiers. Not all training was able to bepleted on his own. Most nobles worked closely with him, with them providing human resources for management, nurturing low-ranking and middle-ranking officers for the army.


    The Metatrin Harbor waspletely turned into a militarized port, as with Demon City down south. The two cities, about 700 miles away from each other, were connected only through sea routes. The factories churned out one warship after another, as well as armed merchant ships. Commerce needed to be restarted sooner orter and could not be left unattended as it was at the moment.


    Sregl Ind mages and Caucasus warriors became the masters of Saleen¡¯s temple at the center of Metatrin City. Sika controlled the Caucasus warriors and was able to make herself a true Caucasus King. Mages working for Jason retained control of the teleportation portals leading to the interdimensional space, making defense of the temple airtight.


    Be it humans or demons, some young ones who sported exceptional talents were secretly sent to the interdimensional space. There was nearly a poption of 100,000 in the interdimensional space at that moment. Those people gathered around Raphael¡¯s tower, settling in the mountainous regions.


    Most of the functions of Raphael¡¯s tower were restored with the use of magic nuclei of levels higher than grade-10. The alchemyboratories within became capable of crafting precious equipment for the Kingdom of Metatrin, such as magic power furnaces of higher levels.


    The tower was also equipped with defenses. With grade-12 magic nuclei set in the main magic array, a transparent protective barrier was conjured, shielding thends around it, which included the forests. The barrier provided protection against the volcanic dust resulting from volcanic eruptions, as well as creating an image of a sun on top of the magic tower.


    The sun image provided humans living there with sunlight for farming. Food supply consumed in the interdimensional space easily eclipsed that of magic nuclei, which was why means for farming were required in the first ce. The food consumption also was something Jason had reminded Saleen of.


    Other than high level professionals and grade-13 figures,mon people needed to eat to sustain themselves. Recruitment of troops would have been pointless with ample food supply.


    Metatrin City was stable, and Sika was simply taking it easy, spending her days taking care of her children with Eleanor. The three duchesses began to take care of the day-to-day affairs of the nation, and only the most important of matters were left to Sika.


    In actual fact, it was like setting up a noble council.


    Sika had been powerless dealing with things, but no one was able to try anything funny with Jason around. J¡¯s injuries recovered gradually and he no longer needed protection from anyone else. Few things were happening in the temple itself.


    It was evening again. Sika and Eleanor brought the children for walks at the harbor. The inherent abilities of the children¡¯s bloodline became increasingly apparent, and both were capable of fluent speech by then. Both children were speaking the Ancient Myers tongue instead though. When they were talking to each other, there were hardly any Caucasus people capable of understanding them.


    The Caucasian guards followed their king faithfully and protecting the little ones.


    There were ships at the docks. Trained demons from Demon City were sent to Metatrin City periodically for further training under the temple guards. Trained demons were easier to get along with than demons that were simply summoned, and they were also capable of learningnguage faster. Sika¡¯s children had their divine beast on a leash and stood at the docks, chatting as they watched the demons going up and down the warships.


    The children were zing away with their chatter. Their speed was such that none of the Caucasus warriors standing behind were ableprehend what they were saying. They were simply able to stare nkly while keeping the childrenpany.


    Sika and Eleanor sat on the steps, and Eleanor asked, ¡°Sika, don¡¯t you miss Saleen?¡±


    ¡°How could I not?¡±


    ¡°Why are you not going to Ceylon City then? I heard that things are tense there, and Lex was at the Royal Harbor, incapable of dividing her forces.¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, you want to go to Ceylon City, don¡¯t you?¡± Sika asked in a straightforward manner.


    Eleanor flushed. ¡°I¡¯m still unable to make it to grade-9. I have beenzy, and now I¡¯m of no help to Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Taking care of those two was already a big help to him,¡± Sika said as she pointed at her children. They liked Eleanor a lot, which was hardly surprisingly; elves were inherently more approachable to children.


    Sika¡¯s daughter took out a small boomerang from her pocket and threw it. Her brother let the tourmaline chains of the divine beast go, and it chased after the weapon like a bolt of lightning, leaping and catching the boomerang in its mouth. Then it came back to the girl in glee and handed the weapon back to her.


    The Goddess of Myers¡¯ divine beast was reduced to little more than a dog by the children.


    When the divine beast grew up in theing tens of thousands, or more than a hundred thousand yearster, it would be anyone¡¯s guess of how it would feel about memories of that.


    The divine beast was hardly as big as a cat at that moment, and its growth was a slow one. After leaving the goddess¡¯ central temple and robbed of a suitable environment for growth, the growth of the divine beast was severely stunted.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you giving them names?¡± Eleanor asked with a puzzled look.


    ¡°Caucasus tradition. I told Saleen before; no names for them until they reach the age of two.¡±


    Eleanor nodded. Elves had simr traditions as well. A child was only officially given a name when they had reach 1,000 elvish days old.


    Sika added, ¡°Even when they get past the age of two, I don¡¯t think I will be in the mood to name them just yet. They are growing, and I don¡¯t quite want to think about it until things have gotten safer. The curses of the Holy See are potent after all. We¡¯ll do fine, but they won¡¯t be able to resist any of that.¡±

 Chapter 1016: Assassin from the Holy See (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1016: Assassin from the Holy See (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Eleanor, we all know what those from the Holy See are like. When Aini offended some nameless holy masters back then, he was cursed and ended up losing all his magic chords. If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen, that genius would have been reduced to a cripple now. For curses to seed, there is the strength of one¡¯s soul to consider besides level difference. The kids¡¯ souls are still not strong enough. If their real names were known, it would be easy to curse them.¡±


    ¡°Just with the names alone? Howe I...¡±


    ¡°It is a skill learned from the demon ne. Demons don¡¯t ever tell anyone their true names other than their spouses. The Holy See¡¯s art at curses itself was actually derived from such skills of the demons. To grown adults, the curses of the Holy See won¡¯t be of much use if only names were cursed, but the same can¡¯t be said for children.¡± Sika gazed at her children with gentle eyes.


    ¡°Sika, I would have never thought you would turn into someone like this.¡± Eleanor looked at Sika with envious eyes. Elves did not share such thick bonds with their children. The lifespans of elves were too long. The pain of losing such bonds would have been devastating if too much was invested into those bonds.


    That was not to say that elves did not feel love, but that elves had learned to forget, as a means of protecting themselves. All creatures with long lives were inherently born with such abilities.


    ¡°Are you saying I was a violent oaf?¡± Sika asked looking puzzled.


    Eleanor was speechless. While Sika had indeed been very violent, she was not quite an oaf. She probably onlycked the gentleness of females in general. Anyone who got on her nerves would have suffered worse than they would have when running amok demons.


    The children were still ying games with the divine beast, when a broken nk was seen floating on the surface of the sea. The nk was about four yards long, and there were six people holding onto the nk, yelling for help at the ships in the docks.


    ¡°This is boring. Can¡¯t the assassins try something new instead?¡± Despite what Sika said, she had the children get behind her nheless. The Caucasus warriors stood before them and a toon of demons emerged from the small fortress at the harbor as well. All of them blocked the roads off to Sika and Eleanor, letting no one pass them.


    It was near-impossible for the assassins to disguise themselves as Caucasus people or demons after all.


    Other than mages from Sregl Ind, most soldiers standing guard there were reced with loyal demons. There had yet to be any nations capable of infiltrating such a line of defense.


    When the floating nk got within sight, more than 200 demons gathered around Sika within just a minute. The powers of those demons nearly measured up to supreme demons, and they were handpicked by Nailisi herself to protect Sika and her children in a discreet manner. All of those demons were unusually buff and wore heavy magic armor. The horns on their heads were shiny, as they had a better time there than they did back in the demon ne.


    ¡°Your Highness, shall we kill them?¡± The leader was a supreme demon. While they were not as powerful as Cuisi, they were not all that far off. They lowered their head and inquired Sika¡¯s opinion. There had been quite a number of assassins lurking about Metatrin City. Any who dared get near the temple were quickly killed off.


    Sika needed no evidence. Only those with temple badges were allowed within the vicinity of the temple.


    ¡°No need for that. We¡¯ll just go home.¡± Sika sensed a tinge of danger in her. She was far from afraid, as herbat powers were among the top within the temple. She, however, was reluctant to risk it with her children around.


    ¡°Yes, your highness.¡± The demon leader carried the children on their shoulders. Saleen¡¯s son was pinching the divine beast andughing as he went grabbing at the supreme demon¡¯s horn. The supreme demon was embarrassed and red at the boy, which the boy returned with a smile before throwing down the divine beast and kissing the demon¡¯s neck.


    The white stone mountain at the left of the harbor shot out a great beam of light, hitting the nk. The miniaturized magic cannon was taken away and arge magic cannon crafted by the Sregl Ind mages was ced on the mountain. The weapon was powered by a magic power furnace and was able to be easily adjusted.


    One shot from the cannon was equivalent to a grade-9 magic attack, and it was confined to a small radius. The beam that hit the nk was a little more than three yards thick. A hole was made on the surface of the sea hit by the beam through evaporation from the sheer heat generated. The temperature persisted, and the hole on the water surface stayed for more than a dozen seconds before disappearing.


    Five out of the six of them were immediately reduced to dust by the magic cannon, while the remaining one took to the air to evade the attack. The nk had broken before the attack hit, and the remaining assassin took a longsword from the nk in their hand.


    The sword was about two yards long, a length which was usually too long for a human. The width however, was simr to themon eight-sided sword of Qin, and it looked thin.


    The cover of the assassin was blown immediately by the fact that they were able to sense the iing danger and evade it in time. They did not run as there was nothing but the sea behind them. The ship sending them all there had indeed sunk. They had no choice but to go to shore and assassinate the intended target.


    The assassin spread out a scroll in the air and they appeared on the docks among the demons after a bright light was seen. The sword in their hand went straight for the supreme demon carrying the children. The sword shed, but the demon was only capable of taking half a step back in a hurry, for fear of hurting the children. The sword carved up a hole with a diameter of one foot in the demon¡¯s abdomen, barely missing the heart.


    The supreme demon fell, and the assassin went to grab Saleen¡¯s son. They swept with the sword, conjuring a cold ring of light using sword aura around them.


    Saleen¡¯s daughter responded by throwing the boomerang in an instant, which went for the assassin¡¯s eyes. The weapon ended up shattered and turned to dust when it touched the sword aura. The difference in level was not something that could easily bepensated with skill alone.


    The hand that went grabbing the boy shone with green light. The assassin was a grade-9 professional, yet the sword aura was not a golden one, which meant he had been training with some secret arts.


    The boy who fell onto the floor did something utterly unexpected. He rolled around to the back of the demon, before grabbing their tail and running.


    The boy, who was not even two years of age, dragged a five yard tall supreme demon about, and ran at speeds that would shame any assassin who had been known for their speed. The magic patterns around the boy sparkled. It was not something of his own, but a magical power activated by a piece of equipment Saleen left with them.


    The green light had onlypletely exploded when the boy was done dragging the severely injured supreme demon away. The light turned into arge hand and grabbed at the stone floor beneath it. The move carved a big hole on the ground, sending debris flying everywhere.


    Saleen¡¯s daughter was more than ten yards away by then, well out of reach of the big hand.


    A stone ball was seen in therge hand conjured out of green light. The assassin had intended to take Saleen¡¯s children alive. The move failed to grab its intended targets, but the stone in its hand was not crushed.


    The assassin reacted quickly and threw the stone ball out with their conjured hand, which went straight for Eleanor. Eleanor already broke out her bow and fired the arrows, hitting the ball squarely in an instant. The ball was stopped in the air beforending on the floor right beneath with a thump. Sika rushed forward with a staff with metal spikes, going for the assassin.


    Eleanor turned and fired another arrow at the side of the docks. A tall figure emerged from the sea and was hit by the arrow.


    The assassin that was hit had their skin dried up in an instant. The life arrow took away 100 years of their lifespan right there and then.


    The assassin with the sword conjured a ring of green light with their sword, which killed more than a dozen demons around them. The demons at the rear had their legs severely injured, making it impossible for them to get near. Sika rushed at them, and the assassin responded with a smirk, before lifting the sword up and bringing it down hard on her. The two yard long sword conjured up a wide de with its sword aura. The magic weapon worked in perfect synchronization with their hidden arts. The thin sword was turned into a giant sword, going straight for Sika¡¯s head.


    The strike locked Sika up tight as some power of rules were activated, rendering Sika incapable of escaping.


    ¡°AH!¡± Sika shouted in a low voice. A fearsome roar was heard from her staff, as if it was responding to Sika¡¯smands.


    Blood was seen at the corner of the assassin¡¯s eyes and blood spouted maniacally from their nostrils. They felt as if their brains were stirred by something, which was so painful that he almost let go of the sword. With the power of rules within activated, he was incapable of changing the course of the attack and was not even capable of ditching the weapon.


    The sword had everything under control, including the body of the assassin wielding it.


    Sika feared nothing. Her children were behind her. She struck hard on the giant sword with her staff, and the roar within grew even more ferocious.


    The assassin was stunned. The headache onlysted for an instant, which was then followed by the sensation of being rammed. None of the power met was able to be dispersed, and the outer greenyer of the sword was vanquished right there and then. ck smoke burst from the beautifuldy¡¯s staff. It was like a warrior from ancient times fighting a dragon on a barren in.


    The assassin¡¯s proud weapon was shattered in one go by the staff and was broken into more than a dozen pieces. The power of the staff was unable to be dispersed, and the green sword aura of the assassin copsed within their body. They retreated with thest ounce of strength left in their body. They seemed to have stepped onto a patch of weeds, which tangled their ankle.


    ¡°Grass growing from within stone? ¡°The assassin had no time to think it through, and simply pulled their leg out with all their might. The edge of the nt was all sharp serrated. The assassin felt numb for a moment, before finding the flesh of their ankle torn away by the weed.


    Sika¡¯s full-powered hit shattered the power of rules. She then felt limpness washing over her but was able to dispel the exhaustion within the span of a single breath. All Caucasus warriors, demons, and her army within Metatrin City served to restore her powers.


    What helped Sika most were the elvish nts that Eleanor nted. The sea, thend, and the sky, all injected their energies into her the moment she felt any hint of weariness.


    Such was the power of a nature priestess. So long as the body stayed intact, they were able to restore their might at any time. Sika worked her way through the route ofbat shaman. So long as the power of her body remained, she was still a powerful warrior even if she was unable to cast blessings or use any shamanic attacks of the priests.


    The assassin lost all light in their eyes. With the female warrior being so powerful, was there any chance the third wave of assassins would be able to seed at all? They werepletely shaken by Sika¡¯sbat capacity, while the demons behind rushed and took hold of their limbs, which they tore at a momentter.


    The limbs of the assassin were torn off. Sika struck with her staff, causing a wisp of green aura to enter the assassin¡¯s body. The limbs were no longer attached to their body, yet no blood was seen.


    Sika red with a ferocious look on her face, ¡°You want to die? You think it¡¯d be that easy?¡± When the greenrge handshed out, Sika was thoroughly frightened. Her children were right there within striking range of the enemy, yet she was able to do nothing to get there in time no matter how quick she was able to move. If it had not been for Saleen¡¯s equipment, the children would have been taken away by the assassin.

 Chapter 1017: Interrogation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1017: Interrogation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika hated the assassin to such an extreme that she refused to let him die. As such, the assassin was not even allowed to kill himself. Sika returned to her children¡¯s side and had several demons protect them with their bodies. The demons were, in turn, surrounded by Caucasian warriors. Sika took up her staff and looked around.


    The distance between the harbor and the temple was over three miles. The enemy must have had someone nted on Sika and Saleen¡¯s side to enable such an attack. The enemy would not have learned her routine otherwise. However, the mole would have been one of a very low level, or they would have learned of the magic cannon installed at the White Rock Mountain. The magic cannon¡¯s attack forced the assassin to use a precious teleportation scroll to make it onto shore.


    When the assassins were in the water, Sika did not realize that someone powerful was among them.


    The green aura seeped into the assassin¡¯s body, burrowing right into his lungs and sprouting there, bing a green nt. The assassin felt breathing to be very difficult. His heartbeat slowed and was unable to keep the sword aura going. His body turned limp after that.


    A Caucasian warrior lifted his hair. The assassin¡¯s limbs were all torn and the wounds were scarred over. The scars were dark brown and resembled the bark of a tree. The team moved slowly. The magic power furnace was in operation on White Rock Mountain. Two mages and two Caucasian warriors operated the huge cannon and turned the barrel towards the city, looking for suspicious targets with alchemy binocrs.


    The magic rm was sent into the magic tower. There were two magic towers near the harbor and every tower had a level nine sorcerer.


    When Saleen¡¯s children were attacked, all 36 magic towers were activated, locking down Metatrin City.


    It became impossible for anyone to leave the city. Theyout of the magic towers ensured that at least six towers would be capable of coordinated attacks within any given region.


    Metatrin City was hardlyrger than Daliang City, yet it had four times the number of magic towers. As such, it was impossible for the enemy to take out all of the towers. Furthermore, the walls of Metatrin City were magical construction. White stones, stacked ording to Dante¡¯s Sequence, amplified the power of magic towers within the city to horrifying levels.


    Whenpared to Holy Rock City, all Metatrin Citycked was a set ofrge scale magic amplifiers.


    Sika did not dare let her guard down, despite being underyers of protection. The fact that the Holy See had teleportation scrolls with them was terrifying. It had actually enabled a person to teleport onto a general coordinate when the magic towers were not in defense mode.


    The ground at the center between the harbor and the temple shook violently all of a sudden. Six magic towers locked down on the position. There was someone intending to infiltrate the temple through the sewers, an action that triggered the magic arrays in ce.


    There were secret passages from the temple leading straight to the harbor with tens of checkpoints, all of which wereid using high level magic arrays. Saleen¡¯s divingbat vessels were allunched from underwater and would never float on the surface. There were three passages. The one that Saleen used was incredibly deep and no one knew of its existence. The remaining two were connected to the barracks of the temple guards, so there were more who knew of them.


    The trembling came from one of the passages, 50 meters below ground. A middle-aged man of average build was all curled up in a concave space cut out by a weapon. The passage was constructed using white stones. He was only able to make a ce he could curl up in using all of his might.


    The passage was filled with poisonous gas and magic beams shot indiscriminately, trapping him where he was. The assassin wore soft magic armor and held a very small sharpened targe.


    The assassin¡¯s face was pale. He was unaware of a trap beingid when he passed by a magic array, breaking the surfaceyer of the array and triggering the true attack. His leg was injured as a result. His speed, the most important aspect at being an assassin, was severely limited. He had no idea of how to leave. There were no branches to be found and the ce was filled with powerful magic arrays. The intel he had gotten turned out to bepletely false. The passage was a lethal impasse.


    The assassin was hesitating on whether to move forward or go back to where he came from, but a bunch of huge bugs shimmering with blue light wereing in from in front. The poisonous gas that filled the ce came from the bugs.


    The assassin leapt out of his hiding ce without hesitation. His sharpened targe hit the wall across where he stood. He turned around and dodged the wind des shooting furiously from below.


    The passages that Saleen had built were intended to serve as foundations for building an underground city. However, the environment turned out to be extremely weird. The entire city was sitting on top of an enormous white rock. The white rock was harder than steel, and it was beyond Saleen¡¯s capabilities to carve out spaces to serve as an underground city. All he was able to do was carve out spaces to serve as warehouses and pipelines for both water supply and sewage.


    Out of the three passages, only the deepest one was used for transporting troops. Saleen did not have sorcerers at his disposal in the beginning and Metatrin City was very vulnerable. Only the temple was operated and maintained painstakingly, which made it a necessity to keep the passage between it and the harbor smooth and free of obstacles, enabling the use of Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship for escape any time.


    The two passages above were ones that only people with temple badges were able to pass through unharmed. The magic arrays that were connected to the magic towers would easily be lethal traps. The intel that the assassin had gathered was outdated. With 36 level nine sorcerers helping to defend the city, its defenses were extended to outside the city. The two passages were made obsolete and the defenses were activated all the time, as they only served to transport secret goods in the future.


    The temple guard¡¯s demons did not bother searching the ce even when they found the enemy. They simply released magic bugs instead. The bugs werebat types and all of them bore the mark of the temple guard, preventing them from triggering the magic array and magic towers. The demons¡¯ crude and savage way of dealing with the threat proved to be the best method. The assassin became surrounded by thousands of huge bugs in no time. The concentration of the poisonous gas within the passage reached the point where it was able to corrode skin directly. The assassin did not have any respiratory equipment. It was only a matter of time before he ended up dead.


    The assassins of the Holy See appeared at Metatrin City at the same time, infiltrating with different methods, yet none of them was able to reach the temple, as they had no idea how the core of the city worked. The attack was orchestrated from varying angles, in order to box Sika and her children in at the harbor.


    Sika had passed through the passages and headed straight for the temple under the magic towers¡¯ protection.


    The seeds in the lungs of the assassin that Sika had captured had maturedpletely. The branches that grew from his nose and mouth worked like vines, enveloping the assassin¡¯s head. He waspletely dazed, so much so that he was unable to kill himself by ingesting poison. Sika said not to let him die, so he was unable to die.


    The controlled power of a nature priest was powerful. Even someone like Sika, who had advanced from the warrior priest branch, had control skills that were just asplete as any other priests.


    The assassin was hoisted by his belt with a spear and carried on a Caucasian warrior¡¯s back. There were more demons gathering around, blocking the view of outsiders.


    A small patrol team appeared far away. The magic cannon at the White Rock Mountain at the harbor fired furiously at them. Magic rms had already been sent to every checkpoint secretly, and the patrols were forbidden to move. All patrol teams were taken over by the demons of the temple guard.


    The demons that Saleen picked were all about five meters tall. The most gigantic humans were about three meters tall at most, making it impossible for anyone to disguise themselves as one of his demons.


    The defenses of Metatrin City wereid in such a way that there was no way for the assassins to ever find an opening to exploit. 36 magic towers were able to deliver orders to every toon. The towers were even capable of instructing individual soldiers should the need have risen.


    The assassins were unable to disguise themselves as Metatrin patrol teams; they were even unable to disguise themselves as trees. Trees in Metatrin City possessed a measure of intelligence, as they were engineered by elves.


    The patrol team that was hit by the magic cannon lost half of its members. It nearly swept through the entire team by attacking from above. The high temperatures of the attack injured the surviving assassins, scalding their skin to a crisp, almost falling off their bodies. The team of assassins had intended to attack using poison. They would release potent poisonous gas so long as they were able to get near their target, making them capable of killing even high level professionals.


    The magic cannon attack rendered the poisons that the assassins carriedpletely useless. All toxins were cleansed under the high temperatures. A squad of demons attacked shortly after the magic cannon attack, making minced meat out of the surviving assassins.


    When Sika¡¯s team passed, things on the surface had been cleaned, without so much even a piece of bone left on it.


    The assassins that the Holy See had nted continued their work within Metatrin City. Individual cells of assassins were unconnected with the others, a move that ensured the secrecy of their respective missions. However, there was no room for mistakes when executing their assigned tasks.


    The assassins did not make any mistakes, but the ones who gave the orders at the Holy See did. The one who nned the operations did not have the true secrets of the city.


    Even more powerful Caucasian warriors came to receive Sika from the temple. Under J¡¯s lead and three sorcerers¡¯ protection, Sika¡¯s children were taken into the temple safely. After Sika became a nature priest, she was able to see the inner thoughts of warriors with Caucasian blood, which made it impossible for people of the Holy See to disguise themselves as Caucasian warriors.


    All Caucasians who bore ill will towards them were cast out of Metatrin City by Sika.


    Sika chose a room on the second floor when she returned to the temple, hoisting up the captured assassin with a rope. The children were entrusted to Eleanor and taken to Jason¡¯s side. Sika did not want her children to see anything that she was about to do.


    Sika stood before the assassin. He was hung upside down, his face at the same height as Sika¡¯s head.


    Sika looked at the assassin and as her eyes moved, the green nts that wrapped the assassin¡¯s face unraveled its leaves, leaving the assassin¡¯s face exposed. Sika asked without beating around the bush, ¡°Talk. Who sent you? Tell me and I¡¯ll let you die.¡±


    The assassin had only regained the ability of speech at that moment. He screamed when he realized his situation. The nts that burrowed out of his nose twisted, turning his frightened screams into shrieks of pain.


    ¡°I know that you¡¯re from the Holy See, but I¡¯ll like to ask. Who nned all this? Who is that traitor in Metatrin City? I¡¯ll be able to find out even if you say nothing. Tell me, and I¡¯ll let you die.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t tell you, otherwise...¡±


    ¡°Keep your mouth shut and enjoy it all then,¡± Sika said and turned to leave the room. The doors shut with a huge bang, sealing the roompletely off. The assassin in the room shrieked eerily again, like a magic beast about to get ughtered.

 Chapter 1018: Interrogation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1018: Interrogation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika left the room and told the Caucasian warrior standing guard outside, ¡°go fetch Daniel. I need his help with something.¡±


    Sika went to Jason after she was done giving the order.


    ¡°Teacher, the Holy See began to scheme against the kids. What should I do?¡± Sika asked Jason politely. She and Lex both respected Jason very much. Sika knew Jason was more than a teacher to Saleen; he was also a surrogate father to her husband.


    ¡°The best solution is to send the children to the interdimensional space.¡± Jason was also very concerned. Even though Metatrin City¡¯s defense was airtight, there was no guarantee that there were really no opening to be exploited.


    ¡°That can¡¯t do, teacher, I need to stay by their side,¡± Sika answered patiently. Jason knew a lot about many things, but when it came to how to deal with children, he was only able to pick up simple knowledge from books, and that knowledge was not always urate.


    ¡°Then you can only do your best to keep security around them airtight. Better still, teach the Holy See a lesson. What Lex is doing is far from enough, I¡¯m thinking...¡±


    ¡°Teacher, now is not the time to go against the Holy See. Our people can¡¯t make it deep enough into Tanggsi just yet.¡± Sika was the de facto leader of the Kingdom of Metatrin, and she knew her priorities. None of Saleen¡¯s territories permitted him to enter the Tanggsi Empire directly. If they wanted revenge, their only option was to hit the enemy¡¯s rear, which came at a dire price.


    ¡°Who said anything about entering the Tanggsi Empire? Isn¡¯t the Holy See army inside Qin already? One of the armies is attacking Lonestar City and we have every reason to do something about that army.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, what Saleen meant was to not bother about what the Holy See was doing within Qin.¡±


    ¡°Saleen underestimated the Holy See¡¯s strength. The war has been going on for years, yet the Holy See army grows increasinglyrge. The Qin people, who¡¯re fighting at their home front, are the ones losing territory again and again instead.¡±


    Jason stopped at that. He did not want to intrude on Saleen¡¯s tactical ns.


    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m thinking of having Daniel go check things out, to see who was the one who nned the assassination attempt.¡± Sika was relieved to find that Jason supported her way with things.


    Sika dismissed Eleanor. They were absolutely safe within the temple. Both children were rather frightened, and Sika was unable to simply leave them alone, so she went to stay by their side.


    Daniel showed up at the temple soon after. He was the general manager of Metatrin City. All three major duchesses needed to have his approval to go about their political businesses, which was a way Saleen kept the powers in check.


    Daniel was very troubled. He found that he had been veering too far off the course of his ideals. He was a member of a hereditary line of nobles in the Tanggsi Empire. While his level was low, he could have slowly made his way up. However, he chose to learn death magic instead, because it was his passion.


    Now that he had sided with Saleen, he had ample material to conduct death magic experiments and train. Saleen even had the Winged Skull re-temper his dead soul me for him. Even when he was busy dealing with official business, he was still able to advance and be a sorcerer.


    What he loved most was still magic, but he could not leave the tasks given to him by Saleen unattended. Being a death mage meant that he had certain knowledge about the secrets of the soul. Few dared to lie to him when he was attending to official affairs. Furthermore, he could summon spirits to help and basically not have to do much personally. All he had to do was make decisions.


    The problem, however, was that the affairs to be taken care of within Saleen¡¯s city grew by the day and he was unable to see the end of it. Daniel showed up at the temple looking exhausted, thinking that Sika had some newws she wanted to announce and she was looking for him to talk about it.


    Sika had always left such details for others to handle.


    Sika returned to the second floor and met Daniel in the meeting room. Sika borated the assassination attempt at the harbor. Daniel sat up at his seat and looked rather angry.


    ¡°There are spies in the city, and they have infiltrated the army!¡±


    ¡°Correct, but the spy is probably a low level officer at most and not a part of the temple guards. Every soldier of the temple guards was inspected using magic. If there had been a spy among them, they would have been booted out long ago. It¡¯s not like we¡¯ve never done so before,¡± Sika consoled Daniel. It was not Daniel¡¯s fault as he was not in charge of such matters.


    Daniel set himself straight again, finding himself to have behaved rather impulsively, a reaction unbefitting of a death mage. He had been too irritated as ofte. The three duchesses were difficult to deal with.


    ¡°Daniel, you¡¯ve been following Saleen since the early days. Are you not wanting to be involved in the matters with the city council anymore? You¡¯d like to focus on magic?¡± Sika was not in a hurry. The matter with weeding out assassins within the city would take a while. The assassins were mixed in terms of capabilities, but they all probably carried terrifying equipment.


    The assassins killed by the magic cannon still had their weapons intact and left over for inspection, enabling their original attributes to be determined. Metatrin City was ced under lockdown by the magic towers and it was only a matter of time before the assassins were all found, meaning that they would not be able to do much.


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness, I...¡±


    ¡°Just get these done for the moment. You¡¯ll have all the time to train. Saleen sent me a letter telling you to be patient. He¡¯d craft equipment suitable for death mage use for you. You¡¯d be able to advance very quickly. You can go about reading more books now, which you are free to borrow from the temple. Jason will see to it.¡±


    ¡°That umm, Your Highness...¡± Daniel was not used to addressing Sika in such a manner. However, Sika¡¯s powers were way above his, which meant that it would have been inappropriate addressing her without any kind of honorifics.


    ¡°Hahaha, Daniel. Just keep addressing me like that. If we do it ording to Caucasian traditions, that honorific would have seemed even more suffocating, so much so that even I find it unbearable and order the Caucasian warriors to stop addressing me that way. Now I¡¯m really thinking that ¡®Your Highness¡¯ is not really something all that special,¡± Sika consoled Daniel.


    ¡°Well then, tell me what should I do,¡± Danielposed himself. He reminded himself that even if he were on the same level as Sika, he still would not have been a match for her. It waspletely appropriate to address her with an honorific and there was no need for him to get frustrated with that.


    ¡°I¡¯d need you to interrogate the assassins, nothing else. Death magic works best against souls after all,¡± Sika lied. As a nature priest, she was more capable at dealing with souls than Daniel. The powerful assassin was ced under her soul control skills before his weapon was broken with one strike from her staff.


    However, Sika was not fond of using that kind of skill. Her actions would affect the children, and she had no ns of having her children bing priests. Be it magic or swordsmanship, any would be a better choice than to be a priest who was expected to give them their all.


    Sika was now in charge of over 100,000 Caucasians. She was unable to kill all the Caucasians that she had exiled. She needed to give them a way out, but she had to prevent them from rebelling again.


    It was very troubling. Sika was a Caucasian queen and either her son or daughter would inherit the position in the future. However, she had no intentions of relying on the power of priesthood to forge the future of Caucasians.


    Daniel nodded. ¡°Your Highness, there are some means that I¡¯m afraid that His Highness Saleen wouldn¡¯t find to his liking.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. The enemy was after my children. If Saleen knew that, you could burn their souls and make soul puppets out of them, and Saleen wouldn¡¯t get angry in the slightest.¡±


    ¡°Very well then. I¡¯m a death mage, and I don¡¯t want people to mistake me for a ck magician,¡± Daniel smiled. The task seemed to be simple. He was allowed to use any means to interrogate the prisoner.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll get a ce set up. You can do whatever you want in there and no one will hear a thing,¡± Sika called for two grand mages to get a room set up, armed with a Mute Enchantment.


    All the assassins within Metatrin City were rounded up by nightfall. The assassins were staying too close to the temple. None was able to escape the search of 36 magic towers. Most of the assassins died fighting and there were only five captured alive, who were all sent to the room. All of them had their tendons severed before being sent inside to break their sword aura. Every single tooth in their mouths was knocked out, digging out any poison they had hidden within.


    Sika did not participate in the interrogation. She left it all to Daniel because she did not like doing such things. She would have taken control of the assassin before and he would have said something.


    Daniel looked at the five limp assassins on the alchemy table and smiled while summoning his partner, Pikoosi the spirit.


    Pikoosi¡¯s two heads checked left and right, settling on the one who looked to be the oldest.


    It was a skill of Pikoosi¡¯s, which enabled it to determine whose soul was the weakest.


    Daniel went on to introduce himself to the five captives. ¡°Let me introduce myself. My name is Daniel, and I¡¯m a death mage. I like researching the secrets of the soul and all of you are now materials for my experiments. If you want to avoid such an oue, then tell me honestly, who is the mole in Metatrin City. But of course, you¡¯re free to keep your mouths shut. It wouldn¡¯t matter because I¡¯ll have my ways to deal with you.¡±


    Daniel¡¯s smiled looked rather eerie. He touched the face of one assassin with his pale fingers. ¡°I¡¯m a death mage, and that is a very inconvenient for all of you. In my hands, death is just the beginning.¡±


    The one that he touched was the one with the strongest attitude among them all. While that strong one was unable to move, their eyes shone with resilience and defiance. Many assassins were martyrs, and no torture would make them betray their masters.


    Daniel¡¯s smile grew as he took note of the assassin¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°I like tough people. Souls that are too weak are not of much use to my research. In that case, let¡¯s begin with you.¡±


    Daniel told the others, ¡°All four of you, pay close attention, because this would be a long journey.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ll talk. I¡¯ll tell you everything!¡± The weak-willed one gave in before Daniel even did anything. They did not relent when their tendons were severed, but that particr one was finally unable to stand it any longer, knowing that Daniel was out for their souls.


    ¡°Patience. You¡¯ll be thest. I¡¯m not all that interested in your answers. What I like most is interrogating your souls slowly, after I¡¯m done dissecting you. I might not get any secrets, but I¡¯ll at least get interesting data. I¡¯ll forcefully take the information from your souls, and when all five get pieced together, we won¡¯t be all that far from the truth.¡±

 Chapter 1019: Sika’s Retaliation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1019: Sika¡¯s Retaliation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Daniel¡¯s current methods with things were courtesy of Nailisi. She knew many ways of torturing people, and her methods were devised by exploiting the weaknesses of the human mind.


    Even the emperor of the First Dynasty had weaknesses in his mind¡ªhis thirst for power.


    Nailisi went about lying mostly for fun, yet Daniel studied her ways diligently nheless, and his efforts paid off. Other than that, one stubborn assassin who refused to yield still, the minds of all the other four were shaken, their thoughts wavering in a very apparent manner.


    There was a myriad of methods with which death mages used to deal with prisoners, and they eclipsed even those thought up by the most bloodthirsty elemental mages. Daniel left the back room 14 hourster feeling very satisfied. He rarely had such opportunities, as he was short on materials all the time. Simply going about the city taking someone in for experiments was not an option after all. Some of those experiments required enemies specifically, especially those whom he deemed unforgivable.


    Daniel could have gotten all the intelligence he needed from the weakest of the assassins, however there was simply no telling how long it would have taken before Sika was able to send such precious research materials to his doorsteps again. The stubborn assassin possessed a tough soul, remaining intact even from all the experiments performed on it, yielding great amounts of data.


    The five assassins provided quite a bit of useful information. They were not of the same group. After cross-referencing their testimonies and the memories extracted from their soul with those of each other, as well asparing, selecting, andpiling the information acquired, Danielpiled aprehensive, detailed written report for Sika.


    Those assassins were nted in Phoenix by the Holy See quite a while ago. The target of their missions had initially not been Saleen, however after the events where Saleen ended up annexing one-third of Phoenix¡¯snds, and had recently bagged the remaining portions himself, the Holy See assassins nted in Phoenix gained entrance to Metatrin easily.


    Metatrin City was only strict when recruiting troops and practiced quite a loose policy with the inspection of the citizens. All those assassins possessed official identities in Phoenix, with some even being the lesser of lesser nobles, the kind without their own estates.


    After the assassins infiltrated Metatrin City, the Holy See did not assign them any missions, even those such as poisoning water supplies. It was because the defense of the city was too tight. There were no wells to be found. The water was all in the unidirectional pipes, which were buried under the white stone, essible only to mages.


    The Holy See did not want those people to be exposed easily. When the civil war between the Caucasus people inside and outside of the city broke out, those people took no part in it. The Sregl Ind mages came shortly after, and quashed the unrest swiftly, allowing the Holy See to see that their decision to have the assassinsy low had been a correct one.


    With the enmity and conflict between both sides intensifying by the day, the Kingdom of Metatrin became an archenemy of the Holy See. It was only then the tribunal thought of getting those assassins into action by taking Saleen¡¯s children to be used as hostages.


    With both children being so young, it would be easy to fool them if they were taken to the Holy See and converted to their faith. Saleen would not be able to do anything about it by then. The children shared the same blood with Saleen, and the Holy See had countless brutal ways of using them to destroy everything Saleen had built.


    The opportunity was right there to be exploited in the eyes of the Holy See. Despite the city having so many sorcerers about, they leaned towards being defensive. The ones capable of serving as Saleen¡¯s main attack force were all assigned to the Sikeqinya Empire. As such, the assassins made their move as soon as the order from the tribunal reached them. With the exception of the ones at sea, which were sent by the tribunal in a hurry, those who had infiltrated the city had been nted a long time ago.


    Saleen¡¯s series of defensive measures allowed the assassination attempt to only have a shy start. The one with the longsword killed more than a dozen demons and severely injured the supreme demon. They had almost seeded. The ones who attempted to infiltrate the temple and obtain the secrets within however, were all intercepted and killed.


    There were only three types of people at the temple which served as the city¡¯s core¡ªCaucasus people, temple guards, and Sregl Ind mages. All three types had undergone magical tests, and no spy would be able to infiltrate their ranks without being detected. Saleen¡¯s defensive measures were built on such purity alone.


    Without anyone from the temple itself leaking any information, no one outside would be able to learn of Saleen¡¯s weaknesses.


    Sika frowned while reading the words on the report.


    ¡°Three more head inquisitors promoted in the tribunal? There are six head inquisitors now then.¡± The position of head inquisitor came with a strict level requirement. No one below grade-9 would ever be a head inquisitor.


    Sika was deep in thought. With her vistas opened up, she became capable of looking deeper into problems. Such abilities were nurtured only when she became a steward to the throne. Amon Caucasus warrior, even after bing the most powerful priestess there was, would not have opportunities to learn such skills.


    The Holy See was one whole entity in itself, and all ns were interconnected. The Kingdom of Metatrin had yet to be able to truly centralize its powers or be used on one specific goal yet.


    The Kingdom of Metatrin had too short a history to speak of and had yet to be able to learn such things. Lex was capable of handling such matters, but she was not allowed directmand over Saleen¡¯s nation, and she did not want to do so. She wanted Saleen to learn as he went and teaching him hands on might not yield ideal results.


    Sika was not able to help but ask for pen and paper after thinking on it and wrote a personal letter to Saleen.


    There was one thing she needed to do right then, and that was going to Qin and crushing the army attacking Lonestar City. She was not acting out of impulse. It was just that the Holy See had been too bold for daring to assault her children, and she needed to teach them a lesson for doing so. She needed to discuss the matter with Saleen nheless. Saleen did not expect her to be away for long, yet she would lose contact with him for the time being nheless. As such, she needed to inform him beforehand.


    She also needed help from Lex to get it done. It would simply be too difficult for her to crush the army on her own. Sika hoped to obliterate the entire army sent by the tribunal.


    Thepleted letter reached the Magical Element Tower located in Ceylon City through the teleportation portal inside the tower. Saleen looked very troubled reading the letter.


    ¡°The Holy See dared attack my kids!¡± His anger was unquenchable, so much so that he had wanted to take his tower right there right then, to the Tanggsi Empire and go on a killing spree. He suppressed his urges however. Emperor Chanake had been very powerful back in the day, and he a had great number of troops as well as high-level equipment at his disposal; he ended up being ambushed by the Holy See and died in the battlefield all the same.


    What the Holy See had done was probably a means to incite him, leading him to make careless mistakes.


    Once he made it into the Tanggsi Empire, the huge number of adherents there would provide the holy masters with unlimited power.


    Sika¡¯s ns were feasible inparison. Things in Qin looked very messy. Armies on both sides went at each other¡¯s throats throughout the entire northern region. The Qin nobles retained control ofrge cities and had help from Alchemy City mages. What they had lost for that moment was simply theirnd at the countryside. Any Qin city would haverge warehouses for stockpiling food though.


    Every city would be capable of holding out for a dozen years without starving.


    Such circumstances put the Holy See under tremendous pressure. Sika¡¯s assault had a 90 percent chance of sess. The Holy See had been bold with their actions in Metatrin City, simply because they did not anticipate the city¡¯s retaliation.


    Saleen wanted to participate in the n very badly, but it would have been a bad time to leave Ceylon City. The joined forces of both the Holy See and the Sikeqinya Empire would be around soon. There were also the Holy See fleets to deal with, and that meant Saleen simply was not able to spare the manpower.


    He replied to Sika, telling her that he intended to ask for Lex¡¯s help personally. The reason Sika had written to him was precisely because she did not want to go ask for Lex¡¯s help herself. The incident happened to his own children, and Saleen simply could not allow Sika to ask for such favors herself.


    Sika needed Lex¡¯s metal titan, as it was imperative to take out the enemy¡¯srge scale equipment when one struck at enemy forces. One would suffer heavy losses when done otherwise. The metal titan was assigned to mining work at the northern wilderness north of Kingdom of Metatrin, and it was something only Lex¡¯s mages would be able to use.


    The metallic life form devouredrge quantities of ore every day, releasing extremely refined metals. Such a smelting process was an incredibly quick one, and the quantity of produced material easily surpassed any other mine. While mages were very capable of crafting metals, the rate of production paled inparison to what the metal titan was capable of.


    Almost all of the high-level metal materials found in the Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater Prefecture were produced by that very titan.


    Lex took Saleen¡¯s letter and read it carefully twice, and then wrote three letters in reply. One was for Saleen himself, borating on her worries. The Holy See seemed to have gained even greater powers, and that was why they grew increasingly bold with their actions. The lesson at Ironwall City seemed inadequate to stave off the Holy See.


    One of the remaining two was meant for Sika. It was containing only orders to her own sorcerers, having them hand the metal titan over to Sika. She had to help in the situation. ording to Qin¡¯sws and traditions, if she were to not bear children in the future, Saleen¡¯s children would be eligible to seed the throne of the Bitterwater Prefecture.


    What the Holy See did was equivalent to moving against the heirs of Bitterwater Prefecture.


    The third letter was meant for the general of Guderian City. She, as a member of the Grukos royal family, requested to have a portion of the city¡¯s army be allocated to Sika, to serve as the force to obliterate the tribunal army.


    That was not an order, but it did not make it any easier to refuse. While the Kingdom of Metatrin indeed to take over all of Phoenix, the king nheless shared a marital bond with a member of the royal family, which meant it was family business. The Kingdom of Metatrin swore to never send its armies into Qin territory. Regardless of how reluctant the general would feel about the whole deal, they had to do a member of the Grukos a favor.


    Worse still, with the entire northern region being a mess, Guderian City was reduced to an isted city. As the location was simply too difficult to attack, the Holy See army had no choice but to cross the ce off their list for the moment.


    If things were to beid out inly, if Guderian City refused to help out, and if the day came where the Holy See finally had some spare force for attacking the city, and then the Kingdom of Metatrin was to refuse allowing the city¡¯s army to retreat when the city was breached, it would be the end of the city¡¯s army by then.


    As such, it was a good thing for Guderian City to make friends with the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Seeing everything being taken care of, Sika sent someone to the northern mines immediately and asked for the metal titan. She had also deployed two temple guard forces, one main force consisted of 30,000 elite troops backed by 30,000 auxiliary troops, to make for the border of Phoenix¡ªthe city built by Duchess Guya.


    There was a narrow valley between that city and Guderian City, which was an important route linking Phoenix and Qin.

 Chapter 1020: Sika’s Retaliation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1020: Sika¡¯s Retaliation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    J¡¯sbat capacity had yet to recover enough to reach its peak. As such, Sika refused to bring him along, and brought Eleanor instead.


    The temple guard led the way, while the main force marched with Duchess Guya¡¯s troops. Guya had to participate in such expeditions to show her loyalty to the Kingdom of Metatrin, as well as to train her troops. The other two duchesses mobilized a force of 10,000 respectively and handed theirmand to the general serving under Sika.


    Saleen sent two items. One being a magic staff meant for death mages with a Blood Soul Tower set on top of it. It was something meant for Daniel. He would be able to collect some of the Holy See¡¯s troop¡¯s souls with it, which would enable him to advance easier.


    The other item was the wind elemental badge. He had Sika take six Tempest Dragon-mights with her before asking for the badge to be returned. While the elemental creatures were not as potent inbat as the ancient warriors, the Tempest Dragon-mights were very good flyers. They would serve well as means of escape when things went south.


    The temple¡¯s mages joined the ranks of crafting equipment in haste. Sika did not take many of the mages with her on the expedition. She brought all 12 of the ancient warriors with her, as well as six sorcerers, Eleanor, and Daniel; that was the entirety of her most elite fighting force. There were also more than a dozen grand swordmasters in the army, but they were not of much use to her.


    As such, the equipment crafted by Jason and the others were very specific ones.


    The metal titan reached Sika in two days. The metal titan was then more than 80 yards in height, yet it seemed condensed. Its body was covered with silver magic patterns, and its eyes were dark, looking like caves themselves.


    The metal titan took a detour around the city and made it to Western town. There was a huge chariot of more than 20 yards long there, and it was equipped with arge magic cannon.


    The chariot was a gift to Guderian City to pay the city for having them deploy their forces. The magic cannon was difficult to craft, yet the materials used were not all that expensive. The entire cannon package did not seem to be one that wouldst very long, and that was the intention of Jason and the others.


    Therge scale magic cannons that Saleen and the others used were ones that could easily withstand being fired at least 10,000 times. The one sent to Guderian City however, could only be fired little more than 500 times before it needed maintenance work performed on it by mages of Metatrin City, before it could be used again. The cannon was not equipped with a magic power furnace and required magic arrays to work the alchemic machinery in it instead.


    Still, the huge magic cannon would serve well to appease the generals within Guderian City. The item allowed the pressure on at least one of the walls to be lifted by a considerable degree.


    The metal titan pulled the huge chariot and cannon, and then ran with them in tow. Sika summoned her skeleton magic beast and took hundreds of Caucasus warriors to first reach the city of Duchess Guya¡ªGuya City.


    The Caucasus warriors rode on the Wings of an Elfs. There were not enough metal flyers around at that moment. It had taken more than a week to gather 200 of them. Daniel rode on the back of a Tempest Dragon-might. It was rather awkward. He was after all, grade-7, and his flight capabilities werecking. Summoned creatures were capable of flight, but they required energy still.


    Eleanor rode on a Wings of an Elf as well. The one she rode on however, was one that she had crafted herself. Its speed and defense were much higher than the ones used by the Caucasus warriors. The schematics that Eleanor handed to Saleen were modified ones. True Wings of an Elfs required the bloodline of elves to pilot.


    The remaining six sorcerers rode on Wings of an Elfs as well. Everyone was familiar with the equipment, and riding on them allowed the sorcerers to conserve their stamina and magic chords.


    Hundreds took to the air at high speeds and swiftly made it into Phoenix. They stayed at Huoxing City for a night, before Sika took her troops to the air and made for Guya City.


    Sika reached there first, and the temple guards followed. The rest of the army was still around Huoxing City, as they were unable to move as quickly.


    The city was left in charge by Duchess Guya¡¯s uncle. When Sika arrived, the man who was conferred the title of earl was very excited. If Sika had not simplynded right inside the city, he would have thrown a grand weing ceremony of sorts instead.


    Sika¡¯s temperament was well-known by the nobles throughout the Kingdom of Metatrin. So long as one was reserved with their praises and did not go all out to suck up to her, Sika would never get angry or resent the one receiving her.


    Sika had nothing but revenge in her mind at the moment. Her target was the tribunal army about 400 miles south of Guderian City. Common armies would take more than a day to get where they were. Only full magic armies, and one consisting of cavalry and infantry on wheels, would be able to get near quickly.


    Things changed every day north of Qin. Sika feared that said army was sent south instead. It would be inconvenient for her to enter Qin territory.


    It would not have done her any good being anxious with things. The duchesses¡¯ army would have arrived three dayster. Those armies had departed early and was nearby. The metal titan, however, would not be able to arrive so quickly. The tireless metal titan, rushed by the sorcerers, took another week more than Sika to get through Phoenix and arrive at Guya City.


    The Guderian citizens within Guya City felt restless. When Lex¡¯s letter arrived, Guderian City responded by sending out scouts immediately to keep an eye on the Holy See army.


    Sika¡¯s target was an army of about 200,000 strong, which was setting up camp more than 400 miles away. Their target was a middle-sized city in the north, the estate of a marquis. The marquis agreed to Alchemy City¡¯s terms. Other than the two sorcerers stationed in the city, Alchemy City sent four sorcerers to help with city defense. The city was built sturdy and had yet to be taken down.


    The tribunal army was also concerned about the backup at the rear of Guderian City, and as such, had waited for reinforcements from the Holy See to arrive, hoping to grow their numbers to 300,000 and set up defenses at their rear, beforeunching an attack on the city.


    The Holy See made it too quickly into the northern region of Qin. Its forces were scattered, and they had yet to gather inrge enough numbers.


    The leader of the generals in Guderian City was concerned that the tribunal army would leave the battlefield prematurely. If the army managed to breach the city or move its frontlines elsewhere, it would prove difficult to obliterate themter. It was a rather awkward situation to have the Metatrin army moving 400 miles into Qin territory. They were not allies after all, and the leader of the generals knew Prince Safilos¡¯ temperament well.


    When Phoenix was lost, Safilos got so enraged that he mobilized an army personally to take out the Holy See¡¯s army of 100,000 strong, before his anger was amply vented.


    The metal titan arrived with the huge chariot in tow, which carried arge scale magic cannon. The 30 yard long barrel would take thousands to move it if the metal titan had not been around.


    The distance between the two cities was close. It took only two hours to pass the valley.


    Sika¡¯s army followed right behind and entered Guderian City. It was not her first time there, and it brought back a lot of memories. She had simply been following Saleen around back then without knowing anything. When she passed through the ce back then, she was but amon Caucasus warrior.


    She was, however, a steward of a nation with a poption of 20 million. 100,000 Caucasus warriors served under her as well.


    The leader of the generals of Guderian City, Sauron, was also newly promoted. He shared a not-too-distant blood rtion with the royal family. He served in the south before. With things getting dire in the north, he was appointed rather haphazardly by Prince Safilos, and ordered to hold the line at Guderian City at all costs.


    He was a member of Safilos¡¯ inner circle, but he shared an amicable rtionship with Lex as well. It was due to that very reason that Safilos had sent him. The prince did not want war with the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Sauron was connected to Daliang City. The prince was no fool and knew of such rtionships even when Sauron was still in the south. The prince also knew that such rtionship would have also prompted Saleen, the king of the Kingdom of Metatrin, to consider providing reinforcements when a crisis hit Guderian City.


    The Wings of an Elf was not a veryrge piece of equipment and was fully capable of being stowed away in the purple-gold sea urchin pouch. The equipment, when folded, was only several square yards. It was able to be easily stored withinmon purple-gold sea urchin pouches. Sika did not simply fly into the city before everyone. She instead chose to ride on a skeletal warhorse, and had her army enter the city in batches.


    Sauron had Lex¡¯s personally-written letter in his hand, and he did not think Sika would have turned coat and taken the city for herself.


    Sika chatted away amicably with Sauron, while looking at the mages rushing to perform final magic buffs on the newlypleted turrets. Sauron found that the steward was not a brainless oaf that many made her out to be. Her bearing was such that it would even impress Sauron.


    He himself was someone nearing the advancement stage into a golden grand swordmaster and was able toprehend that Sika¡¯sposure came from her own formidable personal strength.


    Such a person would not be one to make it where she was through her feminine wiles. Sauron grew to respect Sika without realizing it. Lex made it very clear, in the letter, of Sika¡¯s motive for that expedition. Sauron was a father of three children himself and was able to understand what she was going through.


    ¡°Your highness, how about...why don¡¯t we go get ourselves ready at the general¡¯s residence?¡± Sauron suggested.


    ¡°There is no need to rush, sir general. We¡¯ll need at least two days of preparations before we can mobilize our troops. I¡¯d suggest that you check out what the magic cannon is capable of. It¡¯d put you at ease,¡± Sika answered politely. She had be rather ustomed to how others addressed her.


    ¡°Two days? My army has already got everything in ce. We would be able to depart in one day at most. We need to at least keep the enemy tangled, and not letting them escape.¡± Sauron¡¯s words made a good impression in Sika. He wanted to use his own forces to create a chance fornding the decisive hit for Sika.


    That was due to the immense value the magic cannon proved to be for the city. With the cannon installed, norge scale siege engines would be able to get near the southern walls. The magic cannon, after all, had far greater range than any catapults.


    ¡°General, I think you need to know what the army from the tribunal is capable of. It goes without saying that the troops are formidable fighters, and then there are alsorge numbers of holy masters in their ranks. So long as the warriors are still alive, they will be able to continue fighting. I know Qin has a lot of mages, and the low-level ones you have in your army are probably far more than what I brought here. The best way to deal with them is still poison. For that, I broughtrge stocks of poisons, general. They can be rubbed on the weapons themselves, and it will take only two days for the poisons to seep inside.¡±


    Sauron pondered for a moment and nodded. He did not want to see too many casualties either. He needed to do something as a token of his appreciation after taking the canon though.


    Sika continued with a smile. ¡°I don¡¯t want that army crushed. I want itpletely obliterated, to never to be found on the face of this ne again!¡±

 Chapter 1021: Golden Plains (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1021: Golden ins (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Complete obliteration?


    Sauron felt it was rather risky to take the magic cannon after hearing Sika¡¯s words. Defeating and obliterating an army werepletely different concepts, and the cost for executing them differed greatly as well.


    ¡°Rx, you see that big guy over there?¡± Sika pointed at the Metal Titan.


    Sauron nodded. He envied it for being able to transport such huge equipment.


    ¡°It is not for pulling carts. The Metal Titan is a heavy piece of equipment for crushing the enemy.¡±


    While Sauron was a warrior, he had made impressions of Metal Titans. The reason Qin created war puppets was because humanity ordered Metal Titans around to battle, and it was a concept that had survived the ages. The shoring of the Metal Titan was that it was incapable of transformations, unlike the Mechanical Soul. If the Mechanical Soul were there, it could have transformed into a mobile turret, carrying the huge magic cannon and running around with it.


    ¡°Rest assured, general, I¡¯ve brought enough poison and warriors with me. The metal flyers will be here in two days as well,¡± Sika consoled Sauron. Obliterating enemies cost a lot, but she had brought ample equipment for guerri with her, so the soldiers were there to kill any defeated and scattered enemy troops.


    Sauron became alert when he heard ¡®metal flyers¡¯. That was something that had brought indisputable, brutal might to bear on the battle of Ironwall City during the assault. He cautiously asked, ¡°umm, Your Highness, can you sell the metal flyers to me? I don¡¯t need schematics, and you can install self-destruct mechanisms in them. If I dare to look into them, you¡¯re weed to render all of them scraps.¡±


    Sika smiled. ¡°General, they¡¯re are not something you¡¯re able to use, unless...¡±


    ¡°Unless?¡±


    ¡°Unless you¡¯re able to suppress the sorcerers in the enemy ranks, even the ones in magic towers.¡±


    Sauron was speechless. He never expected the requirement to be something so steep. Everyone knew that Saleen had assaulted Ironwall City and destroyed it, but no one knew of the details of the battle. Sauron was able to gather from Sika¡¯s words that Saleen¡¯s army had suppressed all nine magic towers within Ironwall City before sending in the metal flyers for assault.


    If someone were to possess power capable of suppressing nine magic towers, they would be able to take down Ironwall City even without the metal flyers. How Saleen did it was different: he reduced Ironwall City to ashes, and the price he paid was small inparison.


    ¡°And furthermore, General, the metal flyers¡¯ survivability isn¡¯t as high as you think them to be. Once they¡¯re broken, they¡¯re worth little more than scrap metal.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, forgive me for...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not being delusional. If that thing didn¡¯t have that many weaknesses, Qin¡¯s capabilities and resources would be enough to develop things like that.¡±


    Sika was telling the truth. Qin had mages in abundance, and many were versed in alchemy. It was not a difficult task to develop equipment of that sort. But what use would such it be?


    A level six grand mage would be more than capable of taking down the flyers, and just how many level six mages are there in Qin? Every big city has them, and every city has more than one.


    The Sikeqinyans had been aggressive in their assault of Ceylon City, yet the casualties suffered by both sides remained low. Saleen had sturdy walls to rely on, and the countless metal towers were capable of shooting arrows like they cost nothing.


    The Sikeqinyans, on the other hand, relied heavily on low level puppets to serve as the main attack force. Saleen had never anticipated it. There was ack of mages in Sikeqinya and the low level puppets could be made without powerful alchemy. In fact, most puppet parts were things that evenmon smiths were capable of crafting. The puppets only needed mages to craft their cores.


    Furthermore, the low level puppets¡¯ main purpose was to block arrows for the invading troops. The Sikeqinyans never bothered with ramming gates or scaling walls. They tried lean,rge-scale equipment that was pieced together in haste as close to the walls as possible, intending to use heavy attack weapons to tear down sections of the walls.


    Saleen had not anticipated the enemy to be equipped with suchrge-scale equipment, but he was hardly fettered. He sent six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers to fetch arge magic cannon from the harbor and fired three times at the Sikeqinyans¡¯ giant catapults.


    The sorcerers among the ranks of the invading army were not able to do anything but see the catapults destroyed. Saleen never bothered to attack the enemy troops with the magic cannon. The Sikeqinyan sorcerers were confused as to why Saleen stopped, but they did not dare charge and destroy the fearsome weapon that Saleen had.


    The battles turned steady. Small catapults continued to hurl rocks at the city walls, and Saleen let the level nine Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers stand guard at the walls, swatting the iing rocks away. There was no waymon rocks were able to get near to the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers.


    Saleen turned around and returned to the Magical Element Tower when he saw that there was nothing harrowing taking ce. He took out a map of the maind and released magic images, before beginning to ponder things.


    There were many dots all over the map.


    Metatrin City, Lianyun City, Alchemy City, Dragon Ind, Holy Rock City, Principality of Bitterwater, Daliang City, Sanlian City, Purgatory Desert, Holy City, the Tanggsian Imperial City, Glorious City, Ceylon City, Sikeqinyan Imperial City, Royal Harbor, Didypus, Chaotic Swamp, Lonestar City...


    Saleen¡¯s eyes settled on Daliang City.


    Daliang City was one of the weaker cities of his, with only two small secret passages in the mountains linking the city to the Principality of Bitterwater. It was hard to defend. It had ins in the north and the Separation Sea at the south. The ins and the waters both made it easy for enemies to attack the city, and Sanlian City to the west was quite a distance away.


    So why didn¡¯t the Holy See attack Daliang City?


    If the Holy See was worried about retaliation, they wouldn¡¯t be stupid enough to touch his children. The lesson at Ironwall City made the Holy See quiet down for less than a month. What was happening within the Holy See in that month? Or rather, what happened to the powers within the Holy See that they paid no heed to attacks that were impossible to defend against?


    Daliang City is a threat to the Holy See¡¯s holy army¡¯s nks one way or another. The Holy See shouldn¡¯t be ignoring such a location.


    There was no way Saleen was able to reach the key to all that, no matter how hard he tried with his calctions. He opened the sound transmission magic array, feeling rather exasperated, contacting Lex at Royal Harbor.


    Saleen voiced his worries, and Lex had considered the entire problem. She said ¡°We have umted wealth so massive that most people wouldn¡¯t be able to amass over their lives, thanks to our mystical adventures and encounters. The same goes for the Holy See. You can¡¯t guess it, and I¡¯m just as confused as to what actually made the Holy See regain its aggressive attitude all of a sudden.¡±


    ¡°What do you n to do then, Lex?¡± Saleen felt rather lost.


    ¡°Daliang City¡¯s location is a crucial one, yet it iscking in defense. I think that you should head to my hometown, the Golden ins, the ce they call the Grukos Basin.¡±


    ¡°Get someone from the Grukos to garrison Daliang City?¡± Saleen asked, puzzled. He had the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake with him and, as such, was capable of mobilizing the core powers of the Grukos. The war had affected just about everywhere, but the Grukos were actually hardly affected at all.


    Holy Rock City was just a part of the Grukos. The true wealth of the Grukos was concentrated in the Golden ins. Within the huge basiny the core of the Grukos¡¯ power and where their wealth was concentrated as well.


    It was said that the ce possessed powers far greater than the Holy Rock City¡¯s. If Chanake had not chosen to be the emperor, he would have qualified to be a part of the n¡¯s core circle.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t Daliang City be another Holy Rock City then?¡± Saleen asked further. Despite the fact that Holy Rock City was an independent ce, as the Grukos would not interfere with the way that the emperors did things, but whenever Holy Rock City was in trouble, the Grukos was still called upon. The Golden ins were far above Holy Rock City.


    ¡°Rx, you have the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake with you, which means you possess a part of the Grukos¡¯ power. My father, he...he is too arrogant. He would have been able to borrow the power of the family, and he wouldn¡¯t have...¡±


    Lex did not continue. The mark was something his father gave her. If her father were to use the mark on his own, he would not be set up by the Holy See. The Golden ins had over ten people who were more powerful than her father. Any two of them, with her father¡¯s powers added, would have crushed whatever the Holy See was scheming against them.


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen was relieved. If the people of the Golden ins were to garrison Daliang City, there would be nothing for him to worry about. The most ring problem with Daliang City was that itcked high level powers. It would have sufficed if he and Lex were both avable to see to the city, but there were only a golden grand swordmaster and two level nine sorcerers taking care of the ce, and Saleen felt insecure about how things were with the city.


    Lex sighed. ¡°Saleen, I should be there in the city with you, but things in Sikeqinya required at least one of us to take care of things. I¡¯ll have the Winged Skull defend Ceylon City in your stead. Take Nailisi with you and head to Golden ins.¡±


    ¡°Now?¡±


    ¡°Now indeed. If we lose Daliang City, neither of us would be able to live with the embarrassment. Furthermore, the Principality of Bitterwater would be in a dire state.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll make a move as soon as the Winged Skull is here, but Ceylon City...¡±


    Lex had miscalcted. She realized that Saleen had insufficient troops with him and the city was defended by Nailisi¡¯s demon army alone. Lex said, ¡°go kill as many of the Sikeqinyans as you fancy, try to diminish as much of their power as possible, then let Nailisi garrison the ce. I¡¯ll send someone to help her out. You take the Winged Skull to Golden ins and ask for the n¡¯s powers to help defend Daliang City.¡±


    ¡°Is there anything I should look out for in Golden ins?¡±


    ¡°Noting that you should be concerned about. But I need to remind you that if the n wants to take back the mark of Six-winged Flying Snake, you should agree to their request, but...you need to do so with ample requirements from them.¡±


    Saleen was dumbfounded. He had never anticipated Lex to tell him to return the mark to the n. He would be able to mobilize the power of the n with something like that with him. What would have been deemed worthy enough to exchange for such an item?


    Lex was unable to see Saleen¡¯s expression, but she was able to guess what he was thinking. ¡°Saleen, the mark of Six-winged Flying Snake is a powerful equipment that belonged to the Grukos. If the n wants it back, you can name any price you want. So long as it doesn¡¯t sound too far-fetched, the n will agree to anything.¡±


    ¡°Understood. I¡¯ll wait for the Winged Skull to get here,¡± Saleen replied and shut the magic array, falling even deeper in thought.

 Chapter 1022: Golden Plains (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1022: Golden ins (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The magic map floated inside the Magical Element Tower, and the entire Myers Maind unfolded before Saleen¡¯s eyes. The mountains, rivers, ins, cities...


    Saleen turned his eyes to the Purgatory Desert. The Holy See army avoided the desert. A thought urred to Saleen: the key to the problemy within the Purgatory Desert!


    What is in the desert that makes the Holy See avoid it like a gue?


    However, there was a far more important issue at the moment, as Daliang City¡¯s safety proved even more important. Saleen had no one with him, so he had no choice but to send ancient warriors to Yaoyang City to look for Nailisi. He also sent sorcerers to take Tempest Dragonmights and fly for Lonestar City to have Aini send some death mages over.


    As for Ceylon City, he intended to let Nichs and Nailisi take care of it.


    It urred to Saleen to send someone to look for Gugger. It was the first time that Gugger had entered Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower, and he was rather curious. Saleen did not put any mental pressure on him, as je still felt quite a bit of gratitude for Gugger.


    ¡°Gugger, I need to leave Ceylon City for a while.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words terrified Gugger, as he thought that Saleen was abandoning the city because there was a great armying for them.


    ¡°Easy there. I¡¯m leaving Nailisi and Nichs to take care of things. I¡¯m not taking any sorcerers or equipment with me. The magic cannons will stay here as well. But I hope you leave, as I cannot guarantee what the war will look like. Gugger, I¡¯ll protect your city as best I can,. This ce is my home as well,¡± Saleen spoke from the bottom of his heart, and he felt rather exhausted from doing so.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going anywhere.¡± Gugger felt rather tired. He had earned wealth and prestige for following Saleen, but he had genuine sentiments towards his estate. It was the ce his family had been for generations.


    ¡°No, Gugger, this ce would still be yours. I intend to take your son with me and it is best that both you and your wife be there as well. When your son gets used to the life of a magic apprentice, you cane back here any time. The affairs of Ceylon City will still be managed by your people. My army will take care of the defense works,¡± Saleen spoke in a roundabout manner. He had promised Gugger to take the boy in.


    Saleen hadrge number of mages at his disposal. It was a very easy matter to make Gugger¡¯s son a mage.


    There was no need whatsoever for Gugger and his wife to tag along, as it was ridiculous for a magic apprentice to take their family along to learn from a mage. However, such words would put Gugger at ease.


    Gugger was a kind man, but he was not dumb. He would not have thought of ways to buy Saleen and take risks to leave something for Saleen, all of which enabled Saleen to escape without a glitch all those years back.


    He knew Saleen¡¯s good intentions, and he bowed solemnly to the young mage and king.


    Saleen sighed. ¡°Gugger, I¡¯ll keep Ceylon City as it had always been. Rest assured and leave with me. But before that, I¡¯ll need to destroy the army outside the gates.¡±


    Saleen was talking with Gugger in the Sikeqinyannguage, and ¡®destroy¡¯ did not mean killing them all. Gugger was unable to catch it all as he was rather dazed. He returned to his residence escorted by the ancient warriors.


    When he discussed the matter with his wife, Narsha made the decision, saying, ¡°leave with Saleen, or all your investment will be reduced to dust. You need to stay alive. If Saleen was telling you to leave, then he was saying that he isn¡¯t sure about things here. But it¡¯s best that you ask for Saleen¡¯s help to move the citizens of the city southward.¡±


    ¡°Southward? That¡¯s in the mountains.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s still better than dying in the war. The way I see it, Saleen is not a cold-blooded person. He would definitely supply food for our people. We both really are not cut out to be nobles.¡±


    ¡°Narsha, Ceylon City may be small but it still has a poption in the ten-thousands. We are at war now. Having tens of thousands of people moving would be too difficult. Saleen could be a saint, but there is just no way he would do such a thing.¡±


    ¡°How do you know before you try? You can see for yourself that Saleen was onlying back to deal with Earl Sufonso. All the people had cheated and bullied him before, did you see His Highness Saleen even mention any of them?¡±


    Gugger was dumbfounded. The way he saw it, Saleen was right to take his revenge against Sufonso, but he had never considered how many had bullied Saleen when he was a beggar. Saleen truly showed no signs of wanting revenge against any of them.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give it a try. You gather the personal guards and let them inform their families, and...the smiths in the city. Take them along, as they might be of some use to His Highness Saleen. All those who had been following us for years, remember not to leave any of them behind.


    Saleen had mobilized his army and gotten ready to battle outside the city while Gugger was still busy preparing at his side. The over 100,000-strong Sikeqinyan army was powerful, but there were no super powerful figures among them capable of keeping Saleen in check. Saleen could wipe them out using the War Drum of Fear alone. The army that had originally been stationed there was there so that Nailisi was able to surround the Sikeqinyans, which prompted the vanguard of the army outside to march quicker, preventing them from forming into a million-strong army. Taking them out bit by bit would lower the cost of the battle.


    Besides, Saleen had intentions of taking the army in and have them crush the external army. The 100,000-strong army would lose the courage to fight, which made them easy to take in. However, he no longer had the need. With him going to Golden ins soon and no one in charge of the battle there, it would be better to crush them as soon as possible.


    Two figures were seen hovering in midair within a skywell in the northern mountain regions of the Purgatory Desert, at the very center of Myers maind.


    The monster had two heads and was pitch-ck, making it difficult for anyone to keep their eyes on it for more than half a second.


    There were a man and a woman hovering mid air as well. They were both oracles of the Goddess of Nature, who had walked out of the temple in Purgatory Desert. They looked exactly the same as when they left. The one that was being suppressed below was the Dark Sky Devil, who had escaped onto the maind.


    The Dark Sky Devil¡¯s wounds were all healed due to some unknown happenings, but under the suppression of the two oracles, the Dark Sky Devil had no way of escaping the skywell.


    ¡°Don¡¯t force my hand, you two!¡± The Dark Sky Devil roared and yelled at the two in the sky.


    Neither Gessica nor Gauf paid any heed to the monster¡¯s words. They simply cast one holy prose after another and fortified the edge of the skywell, preventing it from being destroyed by the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s rampages. The ce was barren. They would not hurt any innocents regardless of how fierce the battle was. The magic beasts in the mountains had all ran away long ago.


    They had been leaving the temple for quite some time and both Gessica and Gauf learned during their pursuit of the Dark Sky Devil that there was another thing called the Holy See in this world, spreading the faith of the Lord of Glory.


    With the Goddess of Nature perished, there was no point in killing all the adherents, but Gessica and Gauf remained in pursuit of the Dark Sky Devil. The devilish god was too terrifying to be let loose. If it were to be left alone, it would be anyone¡¯s guess how many people on the maind would die. The Goddess of Nature wished for humanity to procreate and spread. It was written all over the doctrines what the oracles should be protecting.


    The Dark Sky Devil would be resurrected from souls of humans, so long as humanity was unable to cast out all evil desires. If such devilish gods were notpletely destroyed or suppressed and be left to grow, they would grow powerful enough to destroy an entire ne, and perhaps even destroy heaven.


    The Dark Sky Devil felt angry and powerless. There was a chance to restore its powers to level 12, yet both oracles were also level 12 beings. They were even able to break through the limit of level 12 in the previous battle and unleash an attack at the power of level 13. The attack almost shook the entire ne¡¯s powers and exposed hidden things of untold numbers. There were also some things that broke through the limit of the ne¡¯s control because of the battle.


    The Dark Sky Devil knew that it was no longer the most powerful creature to be found on the ne. The quicker the restoration of power on the ne grew, the lower its possibility to spread its faith here. When level 16 ones were to appear on the ne, it would be suppressed or even eradicated.


    The powers of the ne had loosened and it would be able to advance any time. When a level 13 powerful one were to officially appear, both oracles would advance immediately. It would lose its hope to escape altogether when the two ganged up on it.


    ¡°Well then, let¡¯s die together!¡± The ferocious parts of the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s vile temperament were unleashed. The two oracles tangled with it with the intention of wiping it from existence. In itster stages of escape, it was no longer able to find suitable human host to hide itself. Now that it was cornered, the Dark Sky Devil brought incredibly devastating powers to bear.


    The head on its right opened its huge mouth and chomped down on the head on the left, swallowing it.


    The body of the Dark Sky Devil expanded rapidly within the skywell. The wound in its neck closed. The horns on the remaining head entwined. It flipped around and charged to the bottom of the skywell.


    ¡°This is bad!¡± Gauf was shocked at the scene.


    Gessica saw it as well. The Dark Sky Devil intended to drill through the ground and cause a powerful earthquake. While there was no living creature nearby, their location was too near to the Purgatory Desert. If the crust of the earth were broken, it would cause a chain reaction. There were many terrifying creatures incapable of leaving, as there were traps and devicesid out by the goddess at the edge of the desert. The creatures would die immediately trying to leave the desert.


    But if the crust cracked, the devices would take over a year to repair. Hundreds of millions of desert creatures would rush out.


    The oracles looked at each other and dove straight into the skywell, pursuing the Dark Sky Devil.


    The bottom of the skywell was extremely hot, as it neared magma. There were no creatures at the bottom, just bald rocks. The spiral horns on the head of the Dark Sky Devil created arge hole at the ground with a diameter of over a hundred meters.


    It resulted from the Dark Sky Devil holding back. A level 12 creature would have turned the everything within a thousand meter radius into a hell.


    The Dark Sky Devil made a hole over 500 meters deep by ramming at the ground. The lone horn on its head fell off and continued drilling downwards. Where the horn touched, rocks crumbled and hot steam shot up, blowing the ck aura around the Dark Sky Devil.


    Even if I die, I refuse to die at the hands of those two oracles. If we go to hell, there is still a chance I will be able to resurrect. The Dark Sky Devil cursed the oracles using its uniquenguage, while keeping the horn running, drilling into the earth and drawing out the underground fire within.

 Chapter 1023: Retribution (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1023: Retribution (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Looking up from the ground, smoke of a myriad of colors was seen bursting in the skywell and shooting up. Loud impact noises were heard all over the ce. The two oracles ceased their ranged attacks and went fighting the Dark Sky Devil up close and personal instead.


    The Dark Sky Devil had no other choice. Its evil holy spells were coincidentally countered by the Goddess of Nature¡¯s holy spells. Even during melee, it was still two against one.


    The edge of the skywell was filled with green Goddess of Nature holy prose, which the Dark Sky Devil dared not ram, fighting the oracles in the cramped bottom of the ce.


    Somewhere high above in the sky, clouds zipped past at high speeds but suddenly turned around. It was Saleen and the winged skeleton within the clouds, and the colored smoke shooting up felt familiar to Saleen.


    ¡°Master, we¡¯d better mind our own business,¡± The winged skeleton reminded Saleen.


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Don¡¯t you feel the air to be rather terrifying in the battle taking ce there?¡±


    ¡°Which is why we need to leave.¡±


    ¡°No risk, no gain,¡± Saleen countered as he took the clouds to the sky above the skywell. He was flying at very high altitudes, about 3,000 yards above ground. When observed from the ground, not even sorcerers would be able to tell it was Saleen within the clouds. Saleen was able to see everything on the ground due to his Elemental Eye.


    The billowing smoke was unable to block Saleen¡¯s sight. He pped the gourd at his hip, releasing a water current about nine yards long. The water current was re-crafted and packed more power. Transparent magic patterns were packed within the azure water, which looked like the veins of nts.


    The water current shot through the clouds and made for the skywell, lurking near the edge. Saleen only went on to observe the ongoing battle inside when he was done with all that.


    Saleen only thought of leaving after seeing what was inside. What was fighting within were a hundred times more powerful than he had expected, and it was definitely the kind of things as strong as the angel of fear.


    ¡°My liege, we best leave,¡± The winged skeleton reminded him again.


    ¡°Just wait a moment longer,¡± Saleen said as he took out his family badge. While it was a bad thing to keep relying on it, it was nheless a useful tool for keeping himself alive. The three beings fighting down there were having really violent bouts between them. All three beings apparently did not have much equipment with them; they were fighting using only their own might.


    Saleen was still thinking if he wanted to simply shoot all three into oblivion with his badge, when the man below suddenly shouted, ¡°Come down and help out!¡±


    Gauf had felt Saleen¡¯s presence for quite some time, and he was able to sense the air of the Goddess of Nature about him. Saleen¡¯s God¡¯s Left Hand might have been taken away by the grandmaster, but he still had the contract with the goddess deep in his soul, and that was something no one could wipe off. While Saleen had never specifically looked into the holy arts, he used the God¡¯s Left Hand multiple times nheless, and had built up experiences with using divine power. His way of using magic had references acquired through such experiences with the holy arts.


    As such, traces of the goddess¡¯ holy spells were left on him.


    If Saleen had been a believer of the Goddess of Nature, he would have simply gone on one such suicide mission, with just that single shout from Gauf. The Dark Sky Devil killed one head and its powers burst, making it capable of taking on two oracles. While it was not a long term solution, the two oracles were not having a better time themselves. Due to not having aid from the goddess, their rate at healing was incredibly slow. They hoped that they could finish fighting sooner thanter.


    Saleen, who had appeared out of nowhere, was at the pinnacle of grade-9. The two oracles would not pay any heed to powers of such levels in general, but things were different at that moment. Due to neither side having a clear advantage of the other, one straw would have been enough to defeat the Dark Sky Devil, and Saleen¡¯s current level, was equal to that one straw needed in the eyes of the oracles.


    In the perspective of the oracles, it was nothing to kill someone if they were able to kill the Dark Sky Devil. It was a better alternative than having the rest of the maind screwed up after all.


    Saleen was no believer, and Gauf¡¯s shout resulted only in a strong repulsion welling up in his mind. Saleen was able to tell that it was something resulting from the Star Gathering Needle. The voice of the oracle pierced through Saleen¡¯s cloud and went straight of his soul. The Goddess of Nature¡¯s contract responded in kind within his soul. If it had not been for the Star Gathering Needle, Saleen would probably have jumped right into the fight.


    The grade-19 Star Gathering Needle exuded in constetion powers, formingyers of starlight deep within Saleen¡¯s soul, as if to protect his fate.


    ¡°Darn it!¡±


    Saleen was able to realize something. The man below had been using holy spells to trick him into going down there to fight! Saleen, however, was no longer amon mage. He was in control of a nation and had killed millions. His rather meek personality had grown to be resilient and strong throughout his ordeals.


    Realizing Gauf was using holy spells to trick him Saleen decided right there and then to make for higher altitudes. He flew right up to the sky about 8000 yards high. The air was thin and it was bone-chilling cold at such heights. If it had not been for Saleen¡¯s special Quickcloud spell, he would have been pummeled and torn by the peculiar wind element at work up there, which was like being attacked by sorcerers in the thousands.


    Seeing how the mage took off for higher heights, Gauf felt rather peculiar. With the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s attacks being fast and sharp, he had no time to dwell on it.


    After taking off to the height of about 8000 yards, Saleen estimated that the range of the badge would still be able to cover the distance to the bottom of the skywell, shooting from where he was. He activated his badge and did not bother locking on to any targets, preparing to simply take all three underneath out in one go.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care who you are, it doesn¡¯t change the fact that you wanted me to walk to my death. That monster is clearly something up to no good. The woman looks rather fine, but since she is apanion of the man, I¡¯ll just let them all die in one go!¡±


    All three beings at the bottom of the skywell felt something was amiss at the same time. Before Saleen was able to fire his lightning attack, the two oracles took off their belts and threw them in the air. That was their only equipment, and they were left behind by the Goddess of Nature.


    The Dark Sky Devil burst out inughter all of a sudden. It took the chance tosh out with its long tail. One of the belts was stabbed and got veered off-course before it was able to take its original form.


    Gauf was thoroughly shocked. He had thought the Dark Sky Devil would definitely chose to defend itself in a life-and-death situation like that. He had not expected that the Dark Sky Devil had a death wish and wanted to take them along instead.


    Nothing would be able to save them. The two belts did not connect with each other. One of them turned into half a circle and emanated green light.


    The thick bolt of lightning struck down from above. Energy vibrations that Saleen had never felt before burst from the skywell. He realized in an instant that it was simr to the time when the divine baby was about to ignite its divine fire. Saleen shook to the core of his soul. He had onlye to realize how careless his attack was.


    ¡°Ahahahaha!¡± The Dark Sky Devilughed away. As one of the belts did not manage to connect with the other, it was reduced to powder by the lightning. The other hardlysted for two seconds, before disintegrating in the attack. The thunderous roar copsed the skywell, and the holy prose that buffed the ce no longer existed.


    The two oracles buffed their powers to grade-13, and still were unable to resist the attack. Without the Dark Sky Devil being there to suffer the recoil as well, the ne¡¯s power whipped them back hard to grade-12, and both threw up blood as a result.


    The blood was quickly evaporated by the lightning bolt. The Dark Sky Devil took the chance to pounce on Jessica, stabbing her head with its sharp nails. The powerful oracle lost all means of defending herself under the onught of the lightning attack. The Dark Sky Devil itself copsed after holding on for less than three seconds.


    As both oracles shared a power link, when one was killed, the other became utterly incapable of withstanding the lightning bolt¡¯s attack. Theirbined defense when breaking through grade-13, would have amounted to being equal to someone of grade-14 giving their all in a fight. If it had not been for the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s ambush, one of the oracles might have survived.


    While the oracle had been cruel for thinking of Saleen to be little more than cannon fodder, Saleen was nevertheless brutal himself, for killing the two oracles and the Dark Sky Devil right there and then. If it had not been for the limitations posed by the unique environment of the skywell, neither the oracles nor the Dark Sky Devil would have been killed by Saleen¡¯s badge.


    Under normal circumstances, he would not have been able to lock on to either the Dark Sky Devil or the oracles, as they were simply moving too fast.


    With all three targets gathered at one ce and fighting up close and personal, there was no doubt that they would end up dead. Saleen¡¯s range with the badge was near 9000 yards, when the attack reached the bottom of the skywell, there was simply nowhere for all three targets to hide. The thickness of the bolt of lightning exceeded the diameter of the bottom of the ce itself.


    Saleen¡¯s attack created arge hole about 100 yards deep at the bottom of the skywell.


    The red badge on Saleen¡¯s belt glittered. re, the Vermillion Knights leader was summoned. ¡°Fetch me the remains down there!¡±


    Saleen pointed at the bottom. The temperatures down there were frighteningly hot. Saleen had not wanted to risk it. If the skywell copsed and what was inside was not entirely dead, it would be the end of him.


    re was equally afraid of the danger down there, but he was not able to resist Saleen¡¯s order. As such, he had no choice but to fly down there, and Saleen took his Quickcloud down to the height of about 1,000 yards, awaiting re¡¯s return.


    re was a grade-10 elemental creature, and that meant his flight speed was not all that slow whenpared to that of the Tempest Dragon-mights¡¯. Saleen did not have to wait long for re to return to the vicinity of the cloud, handing what he fished out from the skywell to Saleen.


    The skywell below copsed all of a sudden before Saleen was able to take a closer look. Magma from the mantle burst from the spot that Saleen had roasted. Saleen felt the entire mountain range shaking. He was dumbfounded for a moment before realizing that it was not the result of his badge¡¯s power; the crust was simply too thin there.


    It was however, wise to leave early. Saleen was wary of something like the great fire snake bursting out from below. With the power of his badge spent, his chances against powerful creatures dwindled considerably.


    Before he left, Saleen summoned the leader of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. Vinny, under Saleen¡¯smand, cast the Meteorite spell. Huge rocks flew down from above and buried the skywell. The grade-10 creature had to spent all its power, before filling up the entire ce.


    Magma leaked out from the cracks but cooled 100 times quicker. The skywell was finally blocked off entirely by Saleen.


    It was only after seeing how he was able to stop the magma from erupting further, that Saleen was able to take the winged skeleton along and leave the ce feeling satisfied. He left too quickly and failed to realize that the crust beneath the sealed skywell was still moving. The cracks were getting bigger and bigger, and it was extending in the direction of the Purgatory Desert. If Saleen had not sealed the skywell off and let the magma continue erupting, it would have dyed the crust cracking.


    With the hole stuffedpletely as the magma was just about to burst, the bursting and stuffing that happened too quickly caused tremors to happen beneath. The cracks on the crust, which were incredibly fine, were expanded indefinitely.

 Chapter 1024: Retribution (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1024: Retribution (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud was flying at very high speeds, and in order to avoid creating powerful and loud noises the likes of sonic booms, the spell interacted in a peculiar manner with the air around it, resulting in a very low noise flight despite how Saleen¡¯s clouds zipped about.


    The flight covered up to 1,000 miles in distance, and Saleen took the winged skeleton downward with him before arriving in Daliang City.


    Saleen took out his Magical Element Tower in the mountains and the two of them went inside.


    Saleen felt the need to check out the thing that re had brought home with him. He took out the dimension stone, and carefully summoned re and Vinny. The two grade-10 creatures were the ones he was more familiar with. Some of the other leaders were still hibernating, while some had yet to be named.


    re brought quite a lot back with him, but Saleen took only one out, out of concern of any lurking dangers. If it turned out to be something he and the winged skeleton proved inadequate to deal with, that would turn out to be a mean joke.


    The power unleashed by Saleen¡¯s st with his family badge was simply unimaginable. Anything that stayed intact after being sted by a lightning bolt of such thickness would be something incredibly precious.


    The first item was a horn that was about a yard long. The horn was a curved one, and it looked to be two horns entangled with each other. The end of the horn was unusually sharp. Saleen checked on it with his Elemental Eye, verifying that it was safe to have around, before handing it to the winged skeleton, telling him, ¡°Nice stuff. Very sturdy.¡±


    The winged skeleton threw the horn into the spirit space without checking it out further. The spirit space was one that proved to be more convenient to use that spatial equipment.


    The second item was a pure white ball of bone. The ball of bone had a crystal clear surface, like it was being painted with some shiny paint. The white ball of bone had a diameter of about half a foot. Saleen threw the thing out as soon as he got his hand on it.


    Intense resentment was felt emanating from within the ball of bone. If Saleen had not been training his mental powers for a long time using his family badge, making him almost immune to debuff statuses, he might be attracted by that ball right away and the debuff be cast at full power. Saleen dared not imagine what could follow.


    Souls resided in the white ball of bone still.


    The soul seemed to belong to that giant ck monster. Saleen remembered its aura well, and it seemed that the creature¡¯s soul had not suffered much damage.


    Saleen was irked that he had almost been tricked by a dead creature. The soul of the monster seemed to be an immensely terrifying and evil. The second Saleen touched the ball, the first thing that came to mind was the idea of killing the winged skeleton, then destroying all the elemental badges, before finally devouring the ball of bone to absorb its power.


    It was all a deceptive game set up by that monster¡¯s soul. Golden lightning runes shot out from Saleen¡¯s eyes, making marks on the ball until all 360 lightning runes seeped into it, before he picked it up again.


    ¡°Heh...¡± Blue electricity surged into the ball in Saleen¡¯s hand. The Dark Sky Devil¡¯s soul suffered pain so excruciating as it was being electrocuted that it wanted to escape the ball. Being encased by the golden lightning runes meant there was no way it could escape.


    A being like the Dark Sky Devil would end up possessing one who was even a bit careless, bing a parasite that fed on one¡¯s life. Once things went that far, there was nothing Saleen could have done regardless of how powerful he was. The thing within would have seeped into one¡¯s soul. So long as negative emotions were something your soul was capable of sensing, the Dark Sky Devil would be able to make itfortable inside.


    The Dark Sky Devil would have gradually assimted the creature it leeched on. If the host creature proved to be strong enough, the Dark Sky Devil would then make them its emissary to gather more followers. If the host creature proved to be a weak one, the Dark Sky Devil would simply suck the host dry of their flesh, making them into nutrients for its revival.


    The Dark Sky Devil however, met its match. Sound of Thunder burst as soon as Saleen kept his guard up, shaking the ball violently. It was as if countless lightning bolts coursed within the ball itself, torturing the soul of the Dark Sky Devil.


    The Dark Sky Devil had never suffered such attacks in its. It panicked, and attempted tomunicate with Saleen, before finding its senses no longer capable of reaching out of the ball it made.


    Seeing the thing within the ball was unable to escape, he began re-crafting the ball. What he was crafting was an Eternal Control shard.


    The Dark Sky Devil had been very unlucky. It was no big deal that he had lost his body. His powers however, jumped to grade-13 trying to defend against that lightning attack on it.


    Pseudogods of grade-13 would still not be able to resist the lightning attacks, and it knew that well. Itpressed the essence of its body in an instant, to create a soul parasite bead. The bead should be more than two yards in diameter. In order to defend against the lightning attack, arge amount of energy burst and shed with the lightning bolt, burning up most of it, bing the ball that was only half a foot long. In actual fact, the ball was actually being tempered by the lightning, expelling all the impurities within, leaving only the true essence behind.


    If the Dark Sky Devil had not been so anxious to trick Saleen, things might have been different. Saleen would have handed the ball, or soul parasite bead, to the winged skeleton for further research. The winged skeleton was of far lower level than the Dark Sky Devil and did not have a very peculiar soul like Saleen. The monster would have had absolute certainly of being able to make him into its puppet. The monster¡¯s chances of either escaping or assaulting Saleen would be way bigger by then.


    Saleen reacted quickly as the Dark Sky Devil assaulted his soul, sending lightning powers into the bead without any hesitation.


    Souls were weak against lightning. The Dark Sky Devil¡¯s soul was practically charred despite him not putting much power into it, and the soul looked as if it was about to shatter.


    Saleen stopped only when he felt satisfied and began crafting the soul parasite bead.


    The bone of the bead was the essence left behind by the grade-13 Dark Sky Devil. Having tempered been by lightning before, Saleen went straight to making an Eternal Control shard with the bead itself.


    With its soul being directly housed within the Eternal Control shard, it was as if it was being controlled by Saleen using the easiest method he had at his disposal. The material used to make the shard was after all, something that was used to house souls in the first ce.


    That Eternal Control shard was the most perfect one that Saleen had ever crafted himself. The material of that particr shard did not get downgraded from the crafting process. It still had a very tough shell that protected the Dark Sky Devil¡¯s soul.


    Saleen was not being nice there. He took out the War Drum of Fear and threw the Eternal Control shard into it. A low-level Eternal Control shard floated in the middle of the drum. Saleen took control of the shard and release a thread of soul within.


    The angel of fear¡¯s linked soul leapt at the Eternal Control shard made from the soul parasite bead that Saleen had crafted, without knowing what was happening. It ended up being sucked right into it. The monster¡¯s soul was severely injured at the moment, with the linked soul thrown into the bead shard, it gobbled the linked soul despite having little idea of what was going on.


    ¡°Arrghh!¡± The Dark Sky Devil¡¯s soul writhed in pain. ¡°How can this happen? That is just an iplete soul! How is it attacking me?¡± The Dark Sky Devil¡¯s rage was an understandable one. It had been a true god, yet it was reduced to defending itself against a broken soul that was not even a grade-13 pseudogod, causing it excruciating pain yet he was unable to simply die.


    ¡°Absorb it.¡± Saleen¡¯s cold voice was sent into the Eternal Control shard.


    Even without Saleen¡¯smand, it intended to absorb the piece of broken soul nheless, and the process was a very painful one. The angel of fear¡¯s linked soul was not one to usually yield. Saleen had yet to be able to subjugate the true soul of the angel of fear. As such, he wanted to have the Dark Sky Devil devour it, making it easy for him to research.


    Saleen observed the entire process of consumption. The monster was terribly out of its luck. The entire process it was being subjected to was torture using all manners of pain imaginable.


    The Dark Sky Devil had loved broken souls like that. Since its soul suffered shocks from Saleen¡¯s lightning its powers dropped sharply though. The fear within that broken soul burst. Even if the broken soul was not as powerful as the Dark Sky Devil, the rules of fear within were still veryplete.


    Fear was also a type of negative emotion, and one that the Dark Sky Devil had no problem absorbing. It would have even grown in power because of it. If it had absorbed the entire angel of fear¡¯s soul, it might gain enough power to create a new body for itself, escaping from the soul parasite bead.


    Saleen had only given it a thread of soul. After absorbing the thread of broken soul, Saleen sent his will inside the War Drum of Fear, saying to the monster¡¯s soul, ¡°You will now atone for your crimes by working for me.¡±


    The Dark Sky Devil was just about to curse at Saleen in rage, before its soul suffered another shock.


    ¡°Tell you what. In that Eternal Control shard, you will be punished if you so much as wish me ill will. If you like being punished like that, have it your way then. A being of your level won¡¯t die so easily after all.¡±


    The Dark Sky Devil¡¯s soul went silent. It came to realize how pathetic its choice had been. It would have been easier to just die being sted by that bolt of lightning, then remain alive using the soul parasite bead. If there were any other creatures that happened to be near it, they would have been able to provide power for its revival. What happened was that it was being trapped inside the bead it made instead and would have to suffer lightning attacks at any given moment.


    When the thread of the linked soul of the angel of fear waspletely absorbed, its memories were absorbed too. The memory began at its entry into the Eternal Control shard until it was being absorbed by the Dark Sky Devil. Memories where Saleen had been using the linked soul to fight battles for him were also absorbed.


    The Dark Sky Devil found out sadly that it had simply been made the linked soul¡¯s recement, and it would perform better.


    Saleen put away the drum and thought, ¡°I will have you cool down for a while. If that soul is still alive, then perhaps the souls of the other two will have survived too?¡±


    That man was the one that should be damned the most for trying to trick him to get down there to fight something so fearsome. If the monster had not been reduced to a soul form that feared lightning, he would have been killed.


    ¡°Since you wanted to do me harm so much, then you shall suffer retribution!¡±

 Chapter 1025: Crisis (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1025: Crisis (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The souls of the two oracles were over a hundred times more dreadful than Saleen had anticipated. Gauf and Gessica both boosted their level forcefully when they were in danger. However, they relied on the equipment left behind by the goddess to do so.


    The equipment was a set instead of one single piece. Despite being level 15, the material the equipment was constructed of was far inferiorpared to the Lance of Order.


    The Lance of Order was crafted from the body of a god and it had a miniaturized kingdom of the gods within. Such kingdoms were capable of housing over a hundred million adherents and enabled procreation as well. As such, the power such items held was massive.


    The two crescent-shaped belts that the Goddess of Myers left behind, however, only worked when they were used together. Thebination was interrupted by the Dark Sky Devil and the equipment destroyed by Saleen¡¯s lightning. Their divine arts only allowed them to leave behind a pair of soul stones. Both Gauf¡¯s and Gessica¡¯s souls were broken within their respective stones, relying on the bit of power left behind by the goddess to painstakingly repair them to keep their consciousness intact.


    Saleen observed the two soul stones and saw some of the inner secrets of the soul.


    ¡°Who among both of you intended to entice me to fight that monster?¡± The souls of the oracles looked similiar. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was not yet able to enable him to discern the minute differences within, and was utterly incapable of allowing Saleen to see the true, original forms of their souls. He needed to advance to level ten before he could see what the souls actually looked like.


    ¡°Defiler, do you know who we are?¡± Gauf¡¯s voice was heard outside of the stone. Saleen took hold of that stone andughed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care who the hell you are. You want to do me harm, then prepare to pay for it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m an oracle of the goddess. You have her powers on your person. Do you know the consequences of killing me?¡± Gauf¡¯s voice did not sound like someone who had just sustained grave injuries.


    Saleen did not fear him. The Dark Sky Devil had a strong soul, which posed a threat to him. The oracle, on the other hand, Saleen could simply use something like Soul Impact on him and it would end him. Saleen was the one capable of deciding the oracle¡¯s fate. The oracle could call himself a god, and Saleen would not budge at all.


    His attitude began to resemble what Jason had asked of him. A mage¡¯s path was one of no return. One could only forge forward, leaving no means of retreat.


    Saleen was thinking that he could shoot both of them with his family badge, and there was no way he would allow them to revive after that. What was done was done, and there was no room for regret, just like how they enticed him. If Saleen had headed down back then, he would have been killed by the monster. Of course, I could have done something right before I die and that would have turned the tables of the battle. A level nine sorcerer armed with powerful equipment is a force to be reckoned with. In ancient times, Saleen could have been among the ranks of the most elite forces and be off to great battlefields on other nes.


    ¡°The consequences of killing you are indeed dire.¡± Saleen narrowed his eyes. Although Gauf was unable to see his expression, the oracle was able to tell from his voice that he did not mean well.


    ¡°I bear the mission of the goddess...¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Saleen interrupted Gauf. ¡°Me too.¡±


    ¡°What!¡±


    ¡°Is that really surprising?¡±


    ¡°Ha, hahahaha! Not in the least, there¡¯s someone who tries to pull that every hundred years or so. You¡¯re but thetest unlucky a** to be added to the list.¡± Gaufughed maniacally. He was able to perceive the oozing animosity emanating from Saleen and did not try to sway the mage in any way.


    ¡°Unlucky huh? I thought as much myself. But since you¡¯re her oracle, I see no reason to go easy on you.¡±


    Saleen was not at all surprised by Gauf¡¯s words; he felt relieved instead. It seemed that he was not the only one chosen on the maind. There were some who attempted to look for the temple of the Goddess of Myers every few years or so, and there were people who signed a contract with the goddess every century or two.


    He was not the only chosen one; he was but one of the unlucky one among countless unlucky ones. How could the Goddess of Myers put all her hope of getting resurrected on one low-level mage indeed. Saleen had finally figured everything out.


    Before the goddess perished, she crafted a batch of Ring of Gifts. All who were deemed capable of resurrecting her only gained ess to the temple after acquiring the rings. If he had not signed the contract, he would have perhaps died. The matter with the goddess would spread throughout the maind otherwise.


    The oracle, Gauf, knew that it would only take three to five days for his soul to disperse and there was nothing anyone could do to save him. As such, he pulled out all the stops and fought the Dark Sky Devil, and was affected by the powers of the Dark Sky Devil without knowing it. If his body had been intact, he would have been able to cast divine spells to get rid of such awful powers. However, his soul was the only thing left of him. There were countless cracks in his soul, with all of the unseen damage he had sustained during the fight with the Dark Sky Devil emerging.


    The difference in power could be huge even at the same level. Saleen was a level nine mage, yet no mage at his level could be Saleen¡¯s match, and that was without taking Saleen¡¯s special equipment into consideration.


    Eye of Lightning and Crystal Finger, as well as Quickcloud, which was twice the speed any mage of the same level could pull, allowed Saleen to be nigh-invincible among his level nine peers.


    The only ones capable of fighting Saleen on equal footing were those who were close to advancing to level ten.


    Gauf was about to die and, as such, did not bother choosing his words. Saleen let out a coldugh and took the other soul stone in his hand. ¡°You too are going to die soon. Say whatever you want to say.¡±


    Gessica was dumbfounded for a moment, before replying calmly, ¡°I should have died a long time ago. It¡¯s boring living for as long as I did. Do your worst.¡±


    Saleen could have simply crushed the soul stones and wiped the two oracles from the face of the ne. However, he saw use for both of them and would not let them die so easily.


    The grandmaster and Gaine both had the opinion that the very reason gods appeared was because powers across the Myers Maind had weakened. In general, Saleen believed it, as he had witnessed with his own eyes how the Divine Baby treated her adherents.


    The gods saw their adherents to be little more than sheep. There was, without a doubt, need to keep their sheep protected. But what about when the sheep grew up? Their wool would be harvested, or they got killed for their meat, of course.


    Humans herd sheep and gods herd adherents. Both went along the same line of thought.


    ¡°You can¡¯t die yet. It¡¯s coincidental that my followersck souls like yours. Bing, prepare to suck both of them in,¡± Saleen said as he took out the Ring of Gifts. The ring was filled with the power of faith collected from the Divine Baby. Saleen sshed a bit of the congealed power of faith onto both soul stones.


    The gush of pure power of faith enabled the two oracles to quickly repair their souls.


    Saleen had no intentions of allowing both of them to resurrect. If both of them were to live, it would be him who had gotten the short end of the stick, especially when they both knew the connection between him and the goddess. If they were to resurrect, they would monitore his every move. Every deed of his needed to be for one specific purpose¡ªhelping the goddess resurrect.


    When Saleen felt that the souls of the two oracles were mostly repaired and the cracks on the stones disappeared, he brutally crushed the soul stones, allowing the souls to be absorbed into the Winged Skull¡¯s eye sockets.


    The soul me coalesced into the form of eyes again within the Winged Skull¡¯s eye sockets, instead of dancing about like other spirits. There was one Blood Soul Tower within each of the Winged Skull¡¯s eye sockets. The souls of Gauf and Gessica flew into an eye socket, to be absorbed into the Blood Soul Towers within.


    Gauf and Gessica were still in shock. They saw the liquefied power of faith that Saleen poured and thought Saleen had robbed a god of some sort. But they quickly found the power of faith to be the ones belonging to the Goddess of Nature! Both oracles were sent in a state of confusion and panic instantly, and were absorbed by the Winged Skull without a glitch.


    When they were both inside their respective Blood Soul Towers, the Winged Skull wiped their memories without a second thought. Two powerful souls ended up sitting at the 13th floor of the Blood Soul Towers.


    Gessica and Gauf¡¯s souls peered forward and saw the top of their towers, which looked like a boundless sky. A silhouette looking down from the sky.


    Is that my god? But why does it look so foreign?


    That¡¯s not what a god should look like. It¡¯s a pale golden skeleton with a pair of bone wings behind its back. A golden heart is beating within the chest of that skeleton, sending eerie power to every single bone, circting and returning to the golden heart.


    The oracles looked at the silhouette for some time before deciding to bow and worship the projection of the soul of the Winged Skull. The Winged Skull, however, did not absorb their power of faith; they turned such power into pure soul power instead, fortifying the Blood Soul Towers. Both oracles had power of faith to spare, but ended up wasting more than half of their powers after conversion, but the Winged Skull nheless felt their Blood Soul Towers getting increasingly strong.


    That was the true use of the Blood Soul Towers. The souls within the towers fortified their own prison with their own power. When the cages were deemed sturdy enough, then the Winged Skull would use the powers for their own battles.


    Saleen saw everything going well with the Winged Skull and took something out of a dimension stone.


    It was a half-broken rock. Its original shape was a drawing of a shield. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye scanned it and saw criss-crossing gashes on the half-broken rock badge, which he was unable to help but sigh at.


    It had been an equipment of rules, which unfortunately, had been broken by the monster.


    Saleen¡¯s judgment had been sound. The Dark Sky Devil was able to restore its powers due to having devoured half the badge. If the badge had been whole, the Dark Sky Devil would have probably broken the shackles of the ne and advanced to level 13 or higher. However, the badge contained countless natural magic patterns, which made Saleen reluctant to throw it away.


    The power of rules was something Saleen had yearned for. The rules within the half-broken badge were of far higher status than those on the Sword of Rules. Saleen had not been able to figure out how to use the badge yet, and so he simply put it away in his Devil Ring.


    Thest thing within the dimension stone was a piece of jade ring. 24 holy prose were carved on the inside of that ring. Saleen¡¯s lightning attack had not been able to even scratch the ring.


    Saleen held the ring and felt rather dazed while looking at it. What kind of jade is this? From the looks of the material, the ring was the sturdiest item that Saleen had ever seen other than his family badge and the level 19 Star Gathering Needle.


    The peculiar material piqued Saleen¡¯s interests. If he had not been in a hurry to get to Golden ins, he would have stayed right where he was and looked into it, finding out what that ring actually was.


    An item with such sturdy qualities yet devoid of any attributes.

 Chapter 1026: Crisis (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1026: Crisis (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen touched the ring. The structure of the ring was identical to the Ring of Gifts. What was different was that there was nothing Saleen was able to do to open the space within. He even sshed the ring with a drop of power of faith, and the ring did not react in any way. The drop of power of faith simply slid off the ring andnded on the floor.


    The blot of power of faith tried to enter the flooring of the Magical Element Tower, yet the elementite of the tower had been refined by Gaine to level 18, making it the sturdiest material in the entire series of crystal walls. The drop of power of faith rolled around, unable to get in.


    Saleen retrieved the drop of power of faith with the Ring of Gifts. While he never use any divine spells anymore, power of faith itself was a type of very pure energy, which could also be converted to the power required by mages. That was proven by the grandmaster and the others looking desperately for things rted to the gods.


    Mages wanted to get their hands on things like that at the very end of their training. What separated mages from gods was that mages would not go about increasing their number of adherents, while gods would suffer a sharp drop in power and lifespan if they were away from their adherents.


    The Winged Skull had gotten used to the existence of the two souls within his eyes by then. Saleen put away the Magical Element Tower and cast Quickcloud, flying to Daliang City with the Winged Skull.


    When Saleen used his badge to dispose of three powerful beings, within the Nico Cathedral in Holy City, located at Glorious ins of the Tanggsi Empire, several hundred red-robed holy masters gathered around an old altar, praying without pause. Three men stood at the altar: Pope Theisio, the second oracle and the second head inquisitor from the Tribunal.


    A glittering piece of equipment was hanging above the altar, a huge halo with a diameter of over ten meters. The halo was probably a gem like the Ice Ind Rock. The light shooting out from the giant ring-shaped equipment showered the entire cathedral.


    Every holy mater wore an expression joy and tranquillity on their faces.


    The light from the gods ne emanated from the halo. All three figures standing at the altar harbored different thoughts.


    Pope Theisio had silver hair, and his face was severely wrinkled. The price he paid for casting the greater prophecy spell was that his lifespan was reduced to being near its end. However, if the spell seeded, he would regain his youth as well as the blessing of his god. Any price was deemed worth it, since if he had not worked for it while he was still able to, he would have died many yearster as a forgotten pope.


    Theisio had not been able to achieve and contribute much throughout his life. The rtions between him and the Tribunal had simply bettered, instead of him being able to take the lead and give the head inquisitors orders.


    If he were to end his life uneventfully and missed one such chance, Theisio wondered if he would have regretted it when he entered heaven. Worse still, he could have fallen, barring his passage into heaven.


    Beyond the heaveny the kingdom of the gods. Theisio¡¯s ambition had inted alongside the rise of power of the ne. Thest time the power of the ne had loosened, the godly items reacted. As such, he gathered the people of the Tribunal and the oracle to perform a greater prophecy spell, hoping to call upon a true oracle with the loosening of powers of the ne.


    It would have been even better if they were able to call a double of their god, as the army of the Holy See would have been truly blessed, enabling theirbat capacity to spike, bringing them many steps closer to reigning supreme throughout the maind.


    Furthermore, an oracle descending from the realm of gods was many times more powerful than the ones nurtured on Myers Maind. The Holy City would have became a truly impregnable city, and they no longer had to fear that lunatic from the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Saleen¡¯s action of destroying Ironwall City had indeed shocked the Holy See to their knees. The Holy See had indeed ordered their forces to not get close to Daliang City, for no other reason than fearing that Saleen would have assaulted another important city of theirs. The Holy See had even recalled most of their forces and relocated them to Holy City, going so far to even considering abandoning other important cities.


    The Tribunal had instead taken a cautious approach. The pope was the highest authority in all of the Holy See. If he were to fail to call upon an oracle, the pope would gain nothing from all the effort put into the act, which meant that the Holy See would have to elect a new pope within a year at most.


    That would, in turn, affect the sacred war. What the Tribunal did not want to see even more was the advent of the oracle boosting the pope¡¯s power significantly, as that would mean the status of the Tribunal being diminished.


    The seven oracles did not have such concerns, because with the first oracle, Fycro, having disappeared for so long, an oracle summoned from heaven would replenish their powers.


    It was said that in all of the nes where the Lord of Glory was present, the oracles were the greatest force to be had in battle. If Fycro was still there with the Holy See, it would be the same with Myers Maind. However, no one knew where Fycro was.


    The remaining six developed their own agendas. All of them wished to be blessed by their god, enabling them to take over Fycro¡¯s ce.


    Calling upon an oracle was a long, arduous process. The adherents on Myers Maind had not been going through something like that for a very long time. While there had been the Goddess of Nature back then, the goddess herself was a god of Myers Maind itself, and as such, there was no need to call upon her.


    The adherents of the Lord of Glory were all praying below, feeling extremely excited.


    Pope Theisio was just as excited. He felt in that moment that the power in his body rose maniacally. It was the loosening of the power of the ne, and a sign that there were someone breaking through the limit of level 13.


    When Saleen¡¯s lightning struck, the two oracles of the Goddess of Nature and the Dark Sky Devil brought formidable power at the same time, oveing the limit of level 12 and breaking into level 13. At the same time, the ten-meter halo above the altar at Holy City had three silhouettes passing through,nding before Theisio.


    ¡°Pope, God has heard your prayers. You did well,¡± Three oracles with a stature over three meters tall smiled.


    The three oracles were not angels and had no wings, but the power contained within them was just as pure.


    Theisio was in tears. Did God really hear my voice?


    When the oracles came, nine level nine sorcerers of the Elemental Hand within the core magic tower of Alchemy City burst with powerful elemental vibrations at the same time. All magic towers in the city resonated with it, supplying the core tower with massive amounts of elemental power.


    All nine level nine sorcerers advanced at the same time. All mages within Alchemy City were able to feel the terrifying scene. The sky darkened, water element froze in the wind, taking form as thick, massive clouds, bearing on the city.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand yelled in joy. They had slept not well for many nights waiting for that moment. When thest time the loosening of the ne¡¯s power was calcted, everyone waited for the moment to happen again. It was a time when mages were able to advance easily. All mages above level six in the Elemental Hand had participated in the action to advance further.


    Everyone seized the very moment of explosion of elements that happened earlier.


    Everyone was able toprehend the power that showered on them out of nowhere, enabling them to absorb different kinds of knowledge. Everyone had much to gain, and the ones who gained most were the nine leaders of the Elemental Hand. All level nine sorcerers advanced. From then on out, there would be no one in Alchemy City capable of squaring off against the Elemental Hand.


    The reign of the Elemental Hand was able to continue. They had grown to be able to affect things throughout the entire maind.


    Things like that happened throughout all corners of Myers Maind. Thest loosening of power caught the attention of all the top notch powerful ones. They had all been waiting, including some mages in Metatrin City.


    Saleen was the only one left in the dark as he brought the Winged Skull flying towards Daliang City.


    The city gates remained shut. The number of magic towers within the city increased to 12. With several death mages advancing, three death magic towers were added.


    The de facto leader of Daliang City was Sorcerer Stephanie. Her advancement to level nine had put the people of Daliang City at ease. The number of the city¡¯s army dwindled with many deployed to Sanlian City. If Daliang City were attacked, Sanlian City would be attacked at the same time.


    There were only 50,000 elite troops and over 200,000 auxiliary troops left within the city.


    The Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group that Saleen hired was still in the city, bing the main force of the pce, left in charge of Lex¡¯s pce defense. Saleen went straight to Stephanie¡¯s tower as he passed by, not doing anything to rouse the others.


    Saleen was a level nine sorcerer, which meant that he was Stephanie¡¯s equal. She opened up her tower and let Saleen in.


    ¡°You advanced rather quickly.¡± Stephanie smiled, but her eyes were on the Winged Skull behind him. She deemed Saleen¡¯s follower to be somewhat stronger than Saleen, but was nheless suppressed at level nine.


    The Winged Skull paid no heed to Stephanie¡¯s attention on them. The silver soul mes in their eyes began to dance, blocking the human-like eyes behind. The Winged Skull had learnt to disguise themselves before strangers without needing Saleen¡¯s instructions.


    Stephanie had received Lex¡¯s letter and knew why Saleen hade.


    Saleen said, ¡°what would you do if Golden ins sent someone over?¡±


    If the Grukos sent many powerful ones and Stephanie was unable to keep things in check, she would feel ufortable to stay behind.


    ¡°I¡¯d return to Principality of Bitterwater. That is Lex¡¯s true home,¡± Stephanie answered. She did not seem to be angered over the matter in one bit.


    Saleen did not see anything pretentious with Stephanie and felt somewhat relieved. He then said, ¡°if you¡¯re willing, I can take you to Metatrin City. It is more suitable for training.¡±


    ¡°There is no need for that. I took thete Emperor Chanake¡¯s final orders after all...¡± Stephanie appeared rather sad. She did not like hiding her feelings.


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen knew there was no way he would have been able to get someone so powerful to serve him. Nheless, he took out six level 12 magic nuclei and put them before Stephanie, saying, ¡°this is from Lex.¡±


    Stephanie had initially intended to refuse, but she smiled after seeing the level of magic nuclei offered and put them away. ¡°Thank you. You don¡¯t actually have to do this. Per thete emperor¡¯s wish, I would never leave Lex.¡±


    Someone pushed the door open rudely from outside before Stephanie was able to finish talking.


    ¡°Master! Eh? Saleen, why are you here?¡±


    Saleen did not even need to turn his head around to know who barged in. What surprised him right there was finding Hogina there. I came that close to killing her teacher and we¡¯re enemies now. Didn¡¯t Hogina know that?

 Chapter 1027: Hogina’s Value (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1027: Hogina¡¯s Value (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen thought for a moment. He had already told Lex of his fight with Imposa, but Lex stayed outside of Daliang City, and did not know where Hogina was.


    Lex had always been a cautious one, and she would definitely inform the major cities of the news.


    Saleen looked at Hogina¡¯s face, trying to search for something on it. Hogina¡¯s eyes however, reddened as she looked at Saleen, and she spoke in a sad voice, ¡°Saleen, you were fighting with teacher and he... doesn¡¯t want me around anymore.¡±


    Saleen grinned looking at Hogina. ¡°Come with me then, it will only be a matter of time before you see your teacher again.¡±


    Saleen worried for her. While she was quite the genius when it came to magic, she was the quite the idiot when it came to just about everything else instead. The problem however, was that Imposa was immensely powerful, and Saleen was not sure if Imposa had any secret ways of controlling her. If there were indeed ways of doing so, leaving her behind in Daliang City would doom the city sooner orter.


    Regardless of how powerful Saleen had gotten, it was impossible for him to be aware of all mages¡¯ skills and techniques. Imposa¡¯s peculiar abilities still proved scary to Saleen.


    ¡°I¡¯m so not going anywhere with you, you...¡± Hogina did not finish her sentence, as she came to realize that Saleen had be a grade-9 sorcerer.


    Stephanie said to Saleen, ¡°Saleen, if you¡¯re to take Hogina away, make sure that she won¡¯t end up being Imposa¡¯s enemy.¡±


    ¡°That is a given.¡± Saleen epted. If his teacher one day decided to side with others, Saleen would still never move against his teacher. Regardless of what one¡¯s teacher had be, there was no doubt that a mage would never be where there were if not for their teacher.


    ¡°Master!¡± Hogina was frustrated. She saw Stephanie agreeing with Saleen, and she felt sad all of a sudden.


    ¡°Saleen is a master himself now. You can resume your training under him. Saleen is also richer than I am, Hogina. I will leave Daliang City, and I cannot take you with me to Bitterwater Prefecture.¡±


    Hogina stood there dazed, before opening her mouth again. ¡°I understand, it¡¯s just...¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to be my follower, do you?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes, Master Saleen,¡± Hogina did not have a habit of hiding things from others. She did not like being someone¡¯s follower, as that would be tantamount to robbing her of her freedom.


    ¡°Be my personal mage then. I¡¯d like to invite you, as a king of the Kingdom of Metatrin.¡± Saleen smiled and took out a nk scroll paper.


    Personal mages enjoyed a high degree of freedom than followers. The onlymon thing between the two was that Hogina would still be restricted by the contract, preventing her from attacking Saleen, or providing aid to his enemies.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Hogina took the contract and started writing. She had lost the grace and ease she used to have. Saleen thought of the days where he had no one to rely on. He however, did not let his guard down. Hogina was fine as an individual, but not her teacher, Imposa.


    Hogina seemed to have gotten a little happier after signing the contract. Stephanie then said, ¡°Hogina, excuse us. I have things to speak to Saleen in private.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Hogina became obedient as she briskly left the ninth floor of the magic tower.


    The door was closed, and the mute enchantment activated. Saleen then said, ¡°Stephanie, Lex told you about what was going on between me and Imposa, right?¡±


    Stephanie smiled and said, ¡°Saleen, weren¡¯t you quite the brave one back in the day? Hogina might have issues, but she knows human body alchemy. Those massive numbers of ancient warriors on your Ancient ship, how many of them can you control?¡±


    ¡°Oh, right!¡± Saleen tapped his head. He had only been able to see the dangers and had forgotten entirely about the rewards.


    Hogina¡¯s level was not high and she was not yet a sorcerer. Having followed Imposa for so long, her skills in alchemy were greater than most mages. If he himself was not learned in submerged alchemy, his abilities in alchemy would have been more than a million times inferior to Hogina¡¯s.


    That was especially true when it came to human body alchemy. It was something that would enable him to have control over more ancient warriors. While theirbat capacities would suffer a degree of loss, it would still be a better choice than him only being able to control tens through painstaking efforts.


    He talked for a moment with Stephanie regarding Daliang City, before taking Hogina and the winged skeleton away. He only intended to stop by in Daliang City for a moment, and it was entirely unexpected that he would add yet another mage to his ranks.


    Hogina was currently grade-6 and her flight abilities were terrible. It was fortunate that Saleen had no problem carrying another mage in his Quickcloud spell. Flying with Saleen¡¯s clouds had her feeling rather bored as she was unable to see what was happening outside, and it felt horrible to her. Saleen however, deliberately made it such, so he would be able to allow the ones inside to see what was outside, and could even enhance their sight, if he so wished.


    Hogina felt extremely bored in flight. Due to being taken along by Saleen, there was no way she was able to train. She had nothing else to do but to try to talk to him.


    ¡°Saleen...¡±


    ¡°You will address him as Your Highness, or my liege!¡± the winged skeleton berated her from the side.


    Saleen simply waved and said, ¡°Just call me master. I¡¯ve yet to be called that.¡±


    Hogina was startled by the winged skeleton, but hearing what Saleen said, she asked without thinking much, ¡°So, master, where are we going?¡±


    ¡°The Golden ins.¡±


    ¡°What kind of ce is that?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s in the Grukos Basin.¡±


    Hogina shook her head in confusion, and Saleen had nothing else to say. Hogina¡¯s sense of direction was probably just as bad as Sika¡¯s. ¡°I bet she hasn¡¯t been to many ces even inside Alchemy City. She has had every material she needed provided to her after all, and that means she never had to look at maps.¡±


    ¡°Hogina.¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°How did you manage to get back to Daliang City?¡±


    Hogina¡¯s eye gotten red again. ¡°I was following my teacher. After he got to Cloudflow, he took me to an ind, and then went to several more by boat. Then, one day, he just sent me off, I...¡±


    ¡°He just sent you off?¡± Saleen emphasized the word ¡®just¡¯, as if Imposa had just kick Hogina from his side out of the blue, it might have not had something to do with Saleen, but Imposa would have known that Hogina had nowhere to go and nothing else to do in the world without him. ¡°So why didn¡¯t she just head back to Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not something that just happened out of the blue.¡± Seeing Saleen¡¯s reaction with her words, Hogina returned to her habits as a mage, crafting her boration in the most urate manner. ¡°Teacher told me that he saw you, and he almost got you killed. There was already some irresolvable conflict between both of you. My teacher also said that he had foreseen that he would meet you yet another time, and there would be another sh, and the chances of him being killed by you were around 50 percent. If I were to stay with him and he died my future would be grim. If he died, Grand Duke Iron Blood would treat me no better than a ve.¡±


    ¡°He foresaw them, huh...¡± Saleen murmured. He had foreseen a lot of things himself, and most were verifiable. It was some inherent ability of grade-9 professionals. It went without saying that the ability had to do with the strength of one¡¯s soul. Imposa¡¯s soul was more powerful than his, and it would be entirely possible for him to have foreseen such things.


    ¡°Hogina, why don¡¯t you just return to Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Teacher owes quite a lot of money and took quite a bit of things when he left, so I can¡¯t just go back there.¡± Hogina only seemed sad and did not seem to be irritated by what her teacher had put her through.


    Back in those days, if someone had said to him that an alchemist of Imposa¡¯s status was a poor, he would not have believed one bit of it. Having seen the insane equipment Imposa was d in, he knew right away that building those things with only the money he earned with alchemy would not have been feasible.


    Wasn¡¯t Imposa rathercking in morals? It was one thing to run when you owed a lot of money, but it was another thing altogether to take quite a lot stuff away when you ran.


    Saleen was impressed by Imposa¡¯s courage nheless, as doing so would have made him the enemy of the city itself. Saleen realized that Imposa definitely had IOUs in the hands of others. At a ce like the Alchemy City, it was very probable that all IOUs were magic contracts. ¡°How could he have just run away like that? Is it to say that he found a way to break contracts?¡±


    It would have made Imposa very powerful if that was indeed the truth. Contracts were linked to the powers of a ne¡¯s rules, and one that was unbreakable. ¡°Just how was Imposa able to just ignore the contracts and flee Alchemy City? If Hogina possessed skills like that, wouldn¡¯t my contract with her be signed for nothing?¡±


    What baffled Saleen was that Alchemy City sent Imposa to visit during his and Lex¡¯s wedding, and Imposa went straight to Cloudflow after leaving Daliang City. It was obvious that he had gotten the grand duke¡¯s invitation then. ¡°All that was no coincidence. Just how was Imposa capable of all that?¡±


    ¡°The Elemental Hand had a good number of sorcerers that they could have sent, why send a stranger instead? Imposa seemed to have predicted everything. Did he know astrology? Imposa also said that he had a 50 percent chance of dying by my hands, which was to say that the other half would have me being the one killed instead.¡± Saleen would not have had entertained such judgments, not with him having his family badge and the elemental badges with him. Due to Imposa¡¯s strength and all those mysterious happenings, Saleen started to get worried.


    Hogina¡¯s personality determined that she would not stay quiet and bored for long, and she was unable to keep sulking for long either. Seeing Saleen had gone quiet, she began talking to the winged skeleton instead.


    ¡°Umm...Mr. Bones, how may I address you?¡±


    The winged skeleton ignored her. Hogina shared a simrity with Nailisi in that both called him things like that. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with being a skeleton? Skeletons are the most powerful spirits in existence; they are the closest to having a human form. If I wanted to be so, I could be a human myself.¡±


    ¡°Mr. Bones, may I request something of you?¡± Hogina knew the words to use when asking for favors.


    ¡°Speak.¡± Soldier¡¯s face was one that was incapable of expression. The crystal mask he wore glimmered coldly in the clouds.


    ¡°Your bones look special. If you happen to fight someone in the future and they happen to break a few, do you mind giving me one?¡±


    If the winged skeleton had been a human, he would probably be extremely angry right there. The silver soul mes in his eye sockets disappeared, bing like ck holes. He turned to Hogina and said, ¡°If one day, you suffer injuries so severe that you are beyond saving, would you mind giving your soul to me?¡±


    Hogina was thoroughly startled by the change in Soldier¡¯s eyes. She came to realize that the skeleton was one capable of very intelligent thought. Few even among humans would have given her such reactions in that conversation as he had.


    ¡°Oh! Mr. Bones...I¡¯m so sorry. I didn¡¯t realize you were such a powerful being, and one to be even smarter than I am!¡± Hogina¡¯s tone was earnest, and the winged skeleton was unable to actuallysh out at her.

 Chapter 1028: Hogina’s Value (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1028: Hogina¡¯s Value (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Hogina¡¯s naivete was not a disguise. Having followed Imposa at a very young age, there was no one to teach her how to get along with others. Hogina¡¯s talents, intellect, and perseverance were all spent on alchemy. Being able to apologize like she did when talking to a skeleton was already an achievement that took her several months in the past to train.


    ¡°Hmph...¡± The winged skeleton only snuffed lightly to express his irritation, before taking out his weapon.


    ¡°Mr. Bones?!¡± Hogina was frightened.


    ¡°Enemies ahead.¡± Hogina caught Saleen¡¯s voice, and he went on to hand several scrolls to her. They were all grade-6 and grade-7 scrolls. Saleen no longer had any use for them, but they would prove useful to Hogina.


    Saleen then took out a magic staff and stuffed it into Hogina¡¯s hands. It was something that Saleen had used himself before. Saleen rarely used magic staffs even since the very beginning. That staff stored two grade-7 spells and was meant to for contingencies. With Saleen being a grade-9 sorcerer, so grade-7 spells were a piece of cake to him.


    ¡°Soldier, stay your hand and let Hogina try it out for the moment.¡± Saleen was able to see clearly in the clouds that there was a huge flying magic beast somewhere faraway. There were three people riding on the backs of the beast.


    The flying magic beast had huge scales and a wingspan of more than 20 yards. Scales stood up on the beast¡¯s back, and there was a wooden tform on the scales meant for carrying personnel. The tform was barricaded with fences half the height of adults. One of the people sitting inside had an alchemy crossbow in their hand, the other had alchemy binocrs, and yet another one was holding scrolls.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye proved very useful. The scroll seen was a divine spell scroll, and he knew right away that those three were men from the Holy See. The ce they were was the mountain regions southeast of Daliang City. What were the Holy See people watching?


    Saleen did not recall having anything nearby. When Daliang City was built, the area within several hundred miles was searched. There were definitely no ruins within the mountains, and there was no temple of the goddess to be found either.


    The giant beast also looked familiar, looking like the false dragons that Cloudflow people liked using. The false dragons were mutated creatures created by splicing the gic materials of several magic beasts. They were creatures capable of flight and carrying personnel. They were also capable of attacking from above, like the metal flyers.


    Despite the false dragon¡¯s strengths, there was little space on them. Cloudflow people would usually arranged for mages to be on them, to serve as recements for the magic fire shells used on Saleen¡¯s metal flyers.


    That false dragon was one meant to carry three, a standard version used for aerial scouting. Lex had introduced such types of troops to Saleen before. No false dragons were used in the assault of Daliang City prior, but Saleen knew of them, and had watched magic images of them.


    False dragons had thick limbs, long bodies, and a head with a hard te on it instead of horns, serving as arge shield itself. False dragons were apparently incapable of dragon¡¯s breath. Long tusks were grown from their mouths, which could use the equivalent to the force of siege hammer when ramming.


    Hogina put away the scrolls Saleen gave her like some precious artifacts, and she did not even use the staff. She took out a weird-looking equipment from her spatial equipment. Saleen took a look and found it to have a structure of a miniaturized magic cannon. It had a long barrel, but way thinner, and it was only a yard long.


    The exterior of the equipment was all metal, with six very thin tubes at the front end, and the diameter was not even as thick as a person¡¯s wrist. Hogina held it in her hand and activated the magic array at the rear end. Six stone cones shot out of the six tubes at the front.


    The six stone cones were hollowed and filled with metal, forming strange-looking magic arrays.


    Hogina¡¯s alchemic equipment caught Saleen¡¯s eye immediately. That equipment¡¯s power was far inferior to therge magic cannon of his, and the speed at which the six stone cones were shot at and the range they were able to achieve, was something that a piece of equipment of such a size would not be able to reach. Hogina had only used a grade-6 magic array to shoot the six stone cones and had them flying at the flying beast five miles away.


    She apparently knew what the range of her weapon was capable of. As Saleen cleared out the blockage of the Quickcloud spell, Hogina became capable of seeing what was outside. It was only then that Saleen found that Hogina¡¯s sight abilities were far beyond what her level would have suggested.


    ¡°Five miles? Grade-9 sorcerers would be able to see about ten miles when using skills.¡± Hogina was no sorcerer; she was only a grade-6 grand mage.


    Saleen was sweating thinking about what she was capable of. The cannon was simply way more powerful than an alchemy crossbow. Of course,rge scale alchemy crossbows would have packed more power, butmon ones would hardly have been able to shoot more than a mile.


    The false dragon roared furiously, chasing after the Holy See scout that was sent flying by the shots, diving downward. It had probably run amok smelling blood. The false dragon apparently did not have much intelligence to speak of. Instead of going for the enemy, it went after the injured one that it had been carrying.


    Hogina stowed her equipment away. A green piece of ss in one eye disappeared in a shimmer, turning back to how it was normally. She did not like modifying her body, but as she had bad sight since youth, she made herself a pair of sses nheless. The pair was one that was able to be put in front of the eyes and stowed away quickly when needed. It required only a bit of mental power to be used.


    Saleen was unable to ask Hogina what they were in that moment. He increased their flight speed and made for the false dragon. The false dragon was a grade-4 or grade-5 creature. One made by Cloudflow would have been only grade-6 at most.


    If they were actually capable of creating high-level magic beasts, Cloudflow armies onnd would not have been as bad as they were known to be. Saleen did not want all three of the Holy See scouts be eaten by the false dragon. There were leads to be found from them after all.


    Saleen did not know when the Holy See scouts began appearing there but given that where they were was east of Daliang City, having Holy See people around would undoubtedly be bad news.


    Saleen¡¯s speed at covering the five miles had surpassed any kind of flying magic beasts, reaching a terrifying 400 miles per hour. If Saleen did not put up the Water Shield at such a speed. Ramming into anything would have dire consequences such as severe injuries, or instant death.


    Saleen was able to catch up to the false dragon with his cloud within little more than a minute. The false dragon caught the three fallen scouts with its ws. There was nothing the scouts could do to resist. While the beast¡¯s level was only grade-4, the defense provided by its scales was easily beyond that of a grade-6 magic beast.


    Such beasts were expensivemodities in Cloudflow. If they had been able to keep them inrge numbers, at least a squadron of them would have been seen at the battle at Daliang City way back.


    Saleen saw the false dragon opening its mouth wide when he reached the sky above them, eating the scout holding an alchemy crossbow. The crossbow was already falling to the ground below. There was arge hole on the scout¡¯s body, as the sturdy armor proved incapable of stopping the stone cones¡¯ impact.


    Hogina turned to look at Saleen, and he replied by shaking his head. The winged skeleton flew out of the clouds and went straight for the head of the false dragon. A long, thin, ck thorn appeared in their hand, which was stabbed into the skull of the false dragon, going straight for its brain.


    The winged skeleton was more powerful than the false dragon. The toughest piece of bone in the body of the false dragon fell short of being able to stop the winged skeleton¡¯s death magic. After the thorn was inserted into the false dragon¡¯s brain, it was turned into ck fog, and Soldier began to consume the soul of the false dragon.


    The soul of the false dragon was special, and it felt like soul shards, which meant it was unstable. The grade-9 death spell, Soul-steal, crumbled the false dragon¡¯s soul, turning it into soul fire in the matter of seconds.


    The body of the false dragon fell to ground quickly. The winged skeleton flipped and dropped down from the top of the creature¡¯s head, taking hold of the scout holding the alchemy binocrs. The winged skeleton did not have any room to spare for the one holding the divine spell scroll however, as that one had half of their body destroyed by the stone cones. While that scout was still alive, they suffered a severed spine and had a big hole in their abdomen. They would not live for long.


    The winged skeleton¡¯s current power surpassed the three kings in the beginning. Turning a grade-4 magic beast into a spirit was a piece of cake to them. The huge false dragon dropped onto the mountain below with a loud thump, breaking a myriad of things within it.


    Its body continued to roll down the mountain, breaking many trees as it went.


    Saleen took Hogina andnded. The winged skeleton dragged the remaining scout in their hand before Saleen. His death magic stopped the scout¡¯s bleeding and allowed them to feel no pain for the time being.


    While there were healing spells in death magic, they were useful mostly to spirits. What the winged skeleton did was probably only able to dy the inevitable for the human scout.


    The winged skeleton then carved a t surface out of a green rock with the axe in his hand and put the scout who was about to die on it.


    Saleen came to the scout and looked at them. They had a typical Tanggsian look¡ªdeep eyes, tall nose, and blonde hair. The scout wore leather armor with metal tes on it, which would have proven useful against crossbow bolts. Hogina¡¯s equipment however, carved out a hole at the scout¡¯s abdomen regardless.


    Saleen thought about how, five miles away and not touching the false dragon at all, her equipment was capable of locking down onto targets. It was pure magic equipment. The equipment was different from alchemy crossbows, which were intricately designed so thatmon people would be able to use them as well. The crossbows could be used by anyone who had mental powers equivalent to a magic apprentice¡¯s.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Saleen began interrogating the scout.


    The scout¡¯s pupils began to expand. They moaned and said, ¡°Just kill me. Both my parents are in the hands of the tribunal.¡±


    Saleen nodded. The Winged Skull blew out a breath of ck smoke, and the toxin within killed the scout instantly.


    Saleen knew he would have gotten nothing out of the scout, as they were concerned for their parents, Saleen did not want to use any brutal methods. The root of the problem was not far from where he was and finding answers would not be difficult.


    ¡°Soldier, go get that creature,¡± Saleen said pointing at the false dragon that had rolled down the mountain. The winged skeleton put his axe away and flew in the false dragon¡¯s direction. The beast had be a spirit, which meant it could be easily mended even if every single bone in it was shattered.


    Saleen took the alchemy binocrs from the body of the dead scout and looked at the lenses, finding them intact. The scout did not destroy any collected data, which meant that he could use magic to extract the information recorded by the equipment recently. While it was a rather tedious way to do it, it still proved a better choice than searching blindly everywhere. Saleen needed to get to the Golden ins soon, and he did not have much time to spare.

 Chapter 1029: Alchemical Genius (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1029: Alchemical Genius (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen thought for a bit and decided against taking out his Magical Element Tower. He summoned an Elemental Stone Statue Soldier and dug a hole in the hill, burying the scout from the Holy See in it. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldier even went to set up a grave marker for the poor fellow.


    Out of the three scouts, one was eaten, and one was crushed by the false dragon when they fell below the hill. Thest one was the only one who had a better fate, as they at least had a grave.


    However, Saleen stripped the scout of their equipment. A leather armor with a hole at the abdomen, an iron badge, a pair of alchemy binocrs, a rucksack, a short sword, as well as a divine spell scroll.


    He found nothing of much use among the pile of stripped geae. Saleen took up a scroll and felt it was a pity that he did not bring Nichs with him. He had no idea what the scroll was capable of. It was a low-level scroll made of verymon materials, probably the hide of a magic beast.


    Saleen scanned the scroll with his Elemental Eye and almost triggered elemental powers to burn the scroll. He retracted and put the scroll away.


    Saleen scanned the hole on the leather armor and was able to quickly calcte the power, speed, and targeting abilities of the piece of equipment that Hogina held. Saleen went to new heights with the use of Figaro¡¯s Magic Form. He became capable of using it to calcte matters pertaining to grand mages and even level seven sorcerers. His speed at calcting fixed values was even greater.


    The piece of equipment Hogina held shot six icicles, and the range exceeded eight miles, maybe even ten. The damage potential of the icicles was consistent within the range of eight miles, packing a greater punch.


    Hogina looked at everything from the sides and said to Saleen, feeling rather embarrassed, ¡°umm, Saleen...that thing, I can only make one at the moment.¡±


    ¡°Oh? And why is that?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t find suitable materials.¡±


    Saleen smiled. ¡°Rx. You¡¯ll get better materials soon enough.¡±


    Hogina said, ¡°And oh, that scroll you just put away, that¡¯s a coordinate scroll of the Holy See.¡±


    Saleen took out the scroll again after hearing Hogina¡¯s words,id it out on his hand, and studied it repeatedly, before saying, ¡°a coordinate scroll it is indeed. There are some peculiar parts of the divine arts worth studying after all.¡±


    Coordinate scrolls were capable of sending a set of coordinates to the maker of the scrolls, enabling easy construction of divine spell teleportation portals on the given coordinate. Mages had something simr, but the scroll in Saleen¡¯s hand was a very low level, probably equal to that of level one magic. If magic was used to achieve the same effect, a level four scroll would be needed at least.


    Saleen put away the scout¡¯s things. ¡°Alright, no need to look into them any further. Bing!¡±


    The Winged Skull was done enthralling the spirit false dragon with death magic and mended its injuries. The spirit false dragon wobbled as it took flight. The Winged Skull sat on it and flew to the top of the hill.


    Saleen took Hogina with him and flew upwards. The back of the spirit false dragon had more than enough space to carry all three of them. The creature had scales all over it, and no bones were exposed. Its incredibly huge wings pped as it took the trio towards Golden ins.


    Saleen was able to conserve his magic chords considerably using the spirit false dragon. He put up the Water Shield and wrapped both himself and Hogina. The Winged Skull did not need such measures as they did not need to breathe. The strong winds whipping at them during flight had no effect on them.


    The false dragon was able to fly at very fast speeds after bing a spirit, close to what Saleen had been able to achieve usually.


    Saleen had no need to worry about anything at the moment. With the spirit false dragon under the Winged Skull¡¯s control, he could even go to sleep.


    ¡°Hogina, what do you think the coordinate scroll can be used for?¡± He scanned his surroundings with his Elemental Eye. There were no forces of the Holy See to be found within a hundred miles. That meant that the scouts were not there for somerge scale operation.


    ¡°Just extract the info and you¡¯ll know soon enough. That binocrs were still intact after all.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s better to do it inside a magic tower. The quality of that thing...¡± Saleen did not continue. While the Holy See used alchemy binocrs as well, they did not have mages among their ranks, and divine smiths were in short supply as well. Most of them used massive amounts of equipment left behind over a thousand years ago.


    New gear usually had barely passable quality. The equipment that most of the holy masters used were far inferior to those used by mages, if they were not something bestowed by the upper echelons of the Holy See.


    There were few mages who were incapable of alchemical skills when they advanced to level four or higher. They needed to at least be able to craft scrolls.


    The alchemy binocrs that Saleen had taken from the scout was actually made by a very low level divine smith. The gear could easily bepletely destroyed during extraction of information if he were not careful, resulting in the loss of all data within. The process of extracting information and piecing it together had always been incrediblyplex. Saleen was reluctant to do it without use of a magic tower.


    Hogina thought for a bit. ¡°Coordinate scrolls are used most of the time for creating teleportation portals. But the three that we killed had no capabilities of creating such portals, so the scroll could have been used as a marker to be left in some location when they were searching for some ce, allowing the ones who came after them to find the exact location, and then create a teleportation portal.¡±


    Hogina¡¯s mind worked over a hundred times faster than it used to when professional questions were addressed.


    Saleen was reminded by Hogina as well. He thought that it did not necessarily mean that there was something importantying around, and that the Holy See had perhaps wanted to set up multiple coordinates, to provide maps for the time when their god arrived. The Holy See had definitely thought of ways of calling upon their god. Saleen had faced the Divine Baby personally before. The Divine Baby, whose actual powers were far below that of the angel of fear, was actually far more threatening due solely to the ability to master rules.


    If the Holy See managed to call upon their god, it would spell a great deal of trouble for him. At the very least, among his cities, Lonestar City would be caught in a very tight spot. The soul mes of spirits were inferior to the souls of humans; they were more vulnerable to divine spells. Furthermore, Aini could be a level ten sorcerer, and there would still be no way he could have taken on a god.


    Saleen learned a lot about the divine arts from Nichs, and he was most knowledgeable on the advent of gods. When gods were to descend onto their ne, it was unimaginable for them to be able to descend at a fixed point like the oracles, as the power of gods was simply too strong. Their advent would derail passage between the two nes.


    When a true god were to advent, multiple sets of coordinates were required to perform coordinate correction between nes.


    What was most dire was that when gods first descended, they would be unable to ustom to the rules of another ne immediately, which made them weak. As such, the gods would not take risks and would send a double instead.


    ¡°Saleen...¡± Hogina still had a hard time addressing Saleen as Master or Your Highness. Saleen did not mind at all and simply listened to what Hogina had to say.


    ¡°Actually, my teacher isn¡¯t all that bad. The reason why he went to help Grand Duke Iron Blood was because the Grand Duke was one of the few among the Cloudflow nobles who refused to cooperate with the Holy See. If you are not going to work with my teacher...¡±


    ¡°Hogina, what happened between me and your teacher stays between us. I would never get you involved. If I were toe into conflict with him, I won¡¯t ask you to make me something. It is true that I need your skills, but even without your help, I still have means to do alchemy,¡± Saleen said as the Water me floated above his hand.


    ¡°Water me Alchemy!¡± Hogina shouted. Such means of alchemy were one of the ancient secret arts, which were incredibly precious to mages. However, it was not something that all mages were able to learn. Talent mattered little if the mage in question was ill-suited to learn the art.


    ¡°Indeed. So long as we are on the right track, both me and your teacher would be able to craft the correct alchemical equipment. Furthermore, the beef between me and your teacher isn¡¯t the usual type.¡± Saleen sighed. He had wanted to conquer the entire ne. I bet Imposa had the same thought.


    Hogina was silent for a while before saying, ¡°my equipment is not of a very high level, and its attack period is limited. Firing once requires a cool down of half an hour to prevent the equipment breaking.¡±


    ¡°Faster rate of fire would require stronger materials, no?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Indeed. But then again, it¡¯s not worth it.¡±


    Hogina was right. The icicles that she fired were lethal to any professional below level six, but if she were to run into professionals of level seven or higher, it would not be so powerful, especially so in the case of someone at a level like Saleen. There was no way he could be killed by the icicles, as his Water Shield would be more than capable to defend against such attacks.


    Hogina¡¯s equipment seemed to require mages to be at grand mage levels to operate. Such equipment was useless tomon troops and would not be of much use to Saleen either.


    ¡°Is this something you researched on your own, or did you get it from Imposa?¡±


    ¡°I made it myself. My teacher wouldn¡¯t have researched something so boring. I¡¯ve intended to use it to hunt magic beasts underwater. The six icicles can be fired even further underwater.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s eyelids twitched but he quickly regained hisposure. ¡°Let me look at the schematics.¡±


    Hogina did not mind. Saleen was a level nine sorcerer and would not be very interested in the schematics of level six equipment. Furthermore, she was more than willing to give it to him if he asked. She had a lot to gain from being a pce mage, and there were duties that she needed to perform as well.


    The schematics that Hogina took out looked extremelyplex. If he were to judge by just the schematics alone, he would have thought it to be for level ten equipment or higher.


    Saleen calcted mentally. That thing could have been installed on metal flyers or on metal divingbat vessels, especially the divingbat vessels. When used in conjunction with bone spirits and bloodstones, there was no doubt it would pack a massive punch, but it would make targeting difficult and the gear very explosive as well.


    If such explosions were to happen in his ship, it would be the end for everyone onboard. There was basically no way anyone could survive a warship exploding underwater.


    If the equipment could be modified, then it would serve a greater purpose, be it on the divingbat vessel or the metal flyers, instead of being expensive to make and hardly any use.

 Chapter 1030: Alchemical Genius (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1030: Alchemical Genius (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The more Saleen was into his research, the more he came to value Hogina. Hogina¡¯s schematics showed her formidable understanding of elemental conversion. Saleen probably did not even have such a strong foundation when he was at level six.


    The equipment looked like an improved version of magic stone cannons, but the cannons were projectile-based equipment, with their damage potential entirely reliant on the power of the physical shots, and the force behind the shots being fired was far from being qualified as attacks.


    Hogina¡¯s equipment, however, fired icicles with huge impact and came with targeting abilities. Furthermore, its targeting abilities resembled those used in divine spells. While it was easy for targets to escape, its level requirements had been made far looser.


    For instance, Saleen now had a strong soul, which enabled him to target level nine beings, but his ability to target level ten ones was far inferior to Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory. Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory could easily lock onto level ten professionals, even the level 13 Divine Baby, when all six of the weapon¡¯s eyes were opened.


    The equipment also had ring weaknesses. First of all, it was expensive to craft. While Saleen was able to provide better materials, he would not be able to arm his armies with it, unless some far cheaper substitute materials were found.


    Next, the weapon needed a half an hour to cool down after being used once. Even when done, the magic arrays within the six miniaturized barrels required frequent maintenance and redrawing. The drawing of magic arrays within such tiny barrels required mages of at least level six grand mage.


    Finally, the targeting method. A crystal was embedded between the six miniaturized barrels, which was used for targeting by being linked to another crystal ss film. The ss film indicated if the target was locked onto. A mage would be able to save a lot of mental power using such equipment, butmon folk would almost never be able to lock onto the intended target.


    If the level of the target was too high, the targeting system would look faulty. At the very least, Saleen had many ways to undo such magic targeting methods.


    The strength of the equipmenty within its incredible damage potential. It might have been only a level six piece of magic equipment, but its attacks easily packed damage potential of level eight magic. When Saleen was at level six, the highest damage he was able to do was level seven, yet Hogina¡¯s equipment allowed her attacks to be two levels higher than she was. It could be said that Hogina was one of the geniuses in the history of alchemy for being able to design such a piece of equipment.


    The cost for firing the icicles were small, and most of ity with having to continuously repair the equipment and redraw the magic arrays used. It also required the user to be at least a grand mage. Furthermore, a level six one.


    Saleen had ways to make the equipment usable bymon folk, but its cost of manufacture would skyrocket. Saleen¡¯s stock of materials would enable him to only manufacture them in a limited production manner.


    But they were still quite a distance away from Golden ins, so Saleen took multiple materials out of his Devil Ring and began crafting a new piece of equipment.


    Hogina put the schematics away and watched seriously from the sides. While there was no way she could use Water me like Saleen did, she would still be able to learn some tricks and techniques of sorcerers, which woulde in handy in the future.


    Saleen took out seven horns of a single-horned white whale and threw them into the Water me. The Water me controlled the materials, tempering andpressing them. Six were turned into thin barrels with elvish magic patterns carved within. Floating magic arrays could be drawn on those magic patterns, which would facilitate easy repair while making them more resistant to wear and tear. The horn in the middle turned into the hundreds ofplexponents drawn on the schematics, linking the six miniaturized barrels together.


    Hogina had used too many types of materials, and Saleen used only one. It was not to say that he was better at material use; it was just that he was too rich at the moment not to. The single-horned white whales were something that not even Alchemy City mages would be able to hunt. Saleen, on the other hand, went straight to the Imperial City of the Abyss, where such horns were found everywhere in the city.


    The barrels created from the six whale horns made it a breeze for firing level six magic, as they were able to withstand even the strain of level ten spells. The essence of said whalesy not within their magic nuclei, but in their horns.


    Hogina was unable to understand without an Elemental Eye. It was incredibly difficult for Saleen topress such huge horns into essentially a tube over a meter long.


    She grew more impressed seeing Saleen skillfully crafting elvish magic patterns. There were few elvish magic spells left behind in all of Myers Maind, and there was not a single mage other than Saleen capable of crafting such magic patterns.


    She then saw something that surprised her even more. Saleen took out a piece of chlorite and ice ind rock and attached them to the seventh horn. The rocks served as targeting devices. Hogina was only using amethyst, but Saleen used gems that were considered rather precious even during ancient times instead.


    It would be more than just a waste if the piece of equipment ended up only being capable of casting level six spells; it would be a ring example of profligacy.


    The tinyponents that held the six barrels together were split apart within the Water me and rbined, melding the chained magic patterns that Hogina designed together. This process itself would cost more time than all the alchemical steps beforebined.


    Saleen finally began to add his own design into it. Hogina¡¯s design was the limit of thatprehensible by a grand mage. While the equipment was capable of attacksparable to level eight magic, it was still tooplex in terms of use of elemental powers. Crafting magic patterns within the insides of alchemical materials was something that sorcerers would do instead.


    The Water me used super low temperatures to alter the structure of the materials, resulting in stability over a hundred times than what was crafted using high temperatures. It was due to such reasons that Water me Alchemy earned Hogina¡¯s envy. If she was able to learn the technique, her crafted products wouldst tens of times longer than they would otherwise.


    When the equipment finally came to be, there was a hole seen from behind. The six miniaturized barrels were arranged around that hole. Saleen stuck his hand into the hole, which enabled him to firmly hold the handle within. The equipment seemed to be an extension of his arm, melding perfectly with Saleen¡¯s body.


    The white equipment was filled with pale green magic patterns. The six barrels that circled Saleen¡¯s arms had magic arrays at their ends, enabling magic nuclei to be embedded independently of each other. The ones used were level 12 magic nuclei, which Saleen had the most of in his stock.


    Saleen pulled down the mask of his Devil Armament. Golden lightning runes shot from his eyes. He used the Eye of Lightning to craft magic arrays on the crystal pans of the mask, which were linked to the set of gems used for targeting on the equipment he currently had with him.


    Hogina¡¯s design was too perfect, as it enabled mages to use the piece of equipment at a negligible cost in terms of powers.


    It was a pity that such a piece of equipment was unable to be mass produced. If Saleen was to use seven whale horns to make one, he would be able to arm 14 sorcerers with such equipment. It was quite a pity that he was only able to make one for his own use. Even if the damage potential was indeed great, it still proved rather costly.


    ¡°Master, try it out for a bit.¡± The Winged Skull took control of the spirit false dragon and flew close to a rocky mountain. Saleen fired an icicle from a barrel. There were hollowed rocky substances on the shell of the icicle, clouding it in mist and emanating high temperatures, looking as if it was about tobust at any moment.


    Hogina needed to fire six shots to keep the damage potential consistent. Saleen was capable of making a hole of over two meters in diameter at the mountain quite a distance away by shooting only one icicle. The hole was tens of meters deep.


    Saleen was dumbfounded himself. This is a level nine spell! He had expected to be able to cast a level nine spell just by changing the magic patterns and arrays. Furthermore, it did not cost his magic chords at all.


    What was even better was that a three-dimensional image appeared on the crystal pane on his Devil Mask when he was about to attack, depicting the location he aimed at. When the image was locked in ce by a circle, he cast the spell and hit the target without him even using mental powers to keep his shot controlled.


    Saleen knew well that it was not feasible when dealing with level nine professionals., but his enemies were not always humans. There were also level nine creatures with very limited intelligence, and the equipment would work very well against them.


    He went to check on the magic nucleus and found only a tiny bit of energy was expended. If the shot was powered by a level nine magic nucleus, it would probably cost him only half of its reserves, which meant that the energy expenditure was halved.


    Saleen checked the internal parts of the equipment, finding the floating magic arrays gone. The attack was too fast. A floating magic array that was not backed by high level materials disappeared with a single use. Even when used with elvish magic patterns and a level 12 magic nucleus, about three minutes were still required to restore the magic array.


    A restoration period of three minutes seemed like a fair improvement, as it was a lot faster than the half hour required by Hogina¡¯s.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re an alchemical genius!¡± Hogina praised from the bottom of her heart.


    Saleen smiled. ¡°Hogina, it¡¯s you who is the genius. I was only mimicking your thought. Furthermore, mine is even more expensive. If a level nine magic nucleus was used instead, it would be emptied with just two attacks.¡±


    Hogina clicked her tongue. A level nine magic nucleus embedded on a miniaturized magic array and can only be used twice? What a waste indeed! That is a standard size magic nucleus we¡¯re talking about after all!


    ¡°The strength of this thing is very apparent, having a range of probably over ten miles. Even true level nine magic spells hardly have attacks of such a range.¡± Saleen was very excited at the moment. If only this thing had no weakness. Oh well, the world of magic is about bnce after all.


    The equipment would be capable of attacking something over ten miles away, but it would be almost impossible to lock onto an enemy. It performed best when attacking fixed targets. With something like this, Saleen no longer needed to fear the likes of catapults when defending his cities. He had practically became a mobile magic cannon.


    However, if he were to deal with Cloudflow warships, the thing in his hand would palepared to magic cannons. Saleen put his newly crafted equipment away with a sigh, still thinking of ways of improving it.


    ¡°Saleen, how about you name the equipment.¡±


    Saleen answered nonchntly, ¡°Hogina¡¯s Gun it is then.¡±


    Hogina felt very happy. Saleen had modified it and made it even moreplete, yet it was still her who had painstakingly designed it. With Saleen naming the equipment after her, anyone who used the weapon in future would remember that on that very ne, there had been a powerful alchemist named Hogina.

 Chapter 1031: Hogina’s Gun (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1031: Hogina¡¯s Gun (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen let the winged skeleton stay in the air for a while, while he took out the magic map andpared the locations. They were about 1,000 miles away from the Golden ins. It would take them 10 hours in flight, riding on theparatively slow spirit false dragon.


    The false dragon suffered injuries all over it and the winged skeleton was able to little other than patchwork for the moment. The effects of the healing were not good, and they were flying at a slow speed. Saleen decided to justnd and find themselves a nd somewhere, then taking out his Magical Element Tower and bringing Hogina inside. Saleen prepared to get to know Hogina¡¯s gun better.


    The Magical Element Tower took root. While it was incapable of growing fibrous roots like the Divine Tree Magic Tower, its base was nheless capable of turning the ground to stone, enabling it to be connected to the earth. The winged skeleton continued healing the false dragon spirit. He was rather pleased with the new toy, as it was extremely stable in flight. The false dragon itself had been a formidablebatant in life. After being converted to a spirit, it gained the Spirit Breath ability, enabling it to spout venomous gases.


    Saleen stayed inside the tower to look at Hogina¡¯s schematics again. He did not find himself missing anything. The cost of having to use seven single-horned white whale¡¯s horns to craft one gun was deemed to be too high.


    When all six of the barrels of Hogina¡¯s gun were to be fired at the same time, with all six icicles locking onto their targets, the damage potential achieved would be that of a grade-10 spell. The equipment had a cooldown time of merely three minutes. While the expenditure was huge, it would be worth it. Saleen¡¯s family badge¡¯s offensive capacity was very high, but one use would require half a year to recharge the energies within. It was so because Saleen had 24 lightning dragons with him. If others were doing the same, such recharge would take at least a year toplete.


    Saleen¡¯s range of attack had always been his weakness. Almost every single one of his strongest attacks were meant to be used up close and personal. The more his powerful spells, the shorter the range of attack. His Eye of Lightning and the Crystal Finger were like that. Both had a range of about ten yards, and they were both attacks capable of taking out grade-10 professionals.


    Hogina¡¯s gun was an intricate equipment, and it had a rather short cooldown time. Even Hogina¡¯s own took only 30 minutes to cool down.


    Saleen rummaged through the materials the grandmaster had given him and found something better suited for the purpose¡ªthe remaining half of the silverline golden spearfish¡¯s spike. The spike was about six yards long and the tip was cut off by some unknown weapon, with only thetter half remaining. The six yard length proved adequate for Saleen.


    He took out one single-horned white whale¡¯s horn to serve as the base of the gun, then unleashed his water me to begin crafting.


    His first attempt was less than satisfactory. While he did not make any mistakes, he was not familiar enough with the details of the gun. The end product came out too long, making it a weapon ill-suited for a mage. It was a rather good item to be installed on the pan¡¯s turtle alchemical boat though.


    The quality of the spike was way higher than the single-horned white whale¡¯s horn. If it had not been broken, it would have served well for crafting a weapon of a level like the Gray Memory¡¯s. Saleen¡¯s water me struggled furtively topress that half of the spike into a one yard long barrel. Six thin magical tubes were found inside the barrel, and the solid magic patterns wereid.


    Saleen went all out with his creativity that time. He was, after all, more familiar with elemental conversions of the six major elements than Hogina. The targeting mechanism in the middle of the barrel was made out of the remaining eye of the spearfish. The thing had terrifying targeting capabilities. With all six eyes opened, locking onto a target one whole level higher than the user would be made possible, so long as the user possessed enough mental power. Saleen took lessons from the crafting of Gray Memory and added a dragon crystal to the eye.


    Saleen had Hogina watch the crafting processes closely. Hogina was greatly inspired. Her talents in the field of alchemy were at least ten times greater than Saleen¡¯s after all. Saleen had no intention of teaching Water me Alchemy to her. Even if he did, the possibility of her mastering the art would have been small.


    The difficulty of Water me Alchemy was such that Jason remained the only one capable of performing it out of the entire poption of Sregl Ind mages. Saleen was able to learn it because he had a body of water element, which made it 100 times easier for him to master water magic than any other mage.


    Saleen crafted lightning magic patterns into the barrel of the gun. The advantage of the lightning patterns was that it mitigated any concerns of the inner walls degrading from having to fire icicles.


    Saleen hardly made any other changes, as Hogina¡¯s weapon design was near-perfect to begin with. Saleen had simply added one more function to it, installing a purple-gold sea urchin pouch to a te on his devil suit¡¯s gauntlet, for storing the more than half a yard long gun.


    Doing so enabled him to be able to take out the weapon without being affected by environmental factors.


    Saleen tested the gun out, taking out the gun from his gauntlet, and the gun wrapped Saleen¡¯s arm with the white outer shell at its rear. It did not affect Saleen¡¯s movements one bit.


    The weapon was only half a yard long, which ran the entire length of Saleen¡¯s arm, and extended little more past his finger. That made the gun look like an arm protector of a warrior. The crossings of magic patterns of both ck and white imbued it with a peculiar type of beauty.


    Saleen had only grown satisfied with his weapon after that. Hogina¡¯s new gun sported simr offensive capacity to the first one that she crafted, but of more exceptional materials and having far higher targeting abilities. What was more important was that the equipment itself was upgradable, and the sturdiness of its materials meant that it would serve Saleen well until he reached grade-16.


    Saleen only put the gun away then, and asked Hogina, ¡°Were you able toprehend anything?¡±


    Hogina nodded. ¡°I fully understood. If I was of your level and had such good materials at hand, what I would have crafted would have blown yours out of the water.¡±


    Saleen choked at thement, but he did not mind at all. Hogina was unable to understand the lightning magic patterns heid within after all. The lightning patterns were hidden within three-dimensional pattern, which Hogina saw simply to be magic patterns of higher levels, not knowing that Saleen had developed theprehension of rules of lightning.


    Saleen nodded. ¡°Well, even so, the Water me Alchemy would also enhance the durability of the equipment. Give me your gun, Hogina, I¡¯ll re-craft it a bit for you.¡±


    Hogina did not refuse. The reason Saleen had stopped for breaks was mainly to craft equipment for Hogina after all. He feared for the safety of the alchemist girl tagging along. He deemed it best to craft powerful equipment for her to defend herself with, to prevent her from being helpless when something happened. He was unable to do anything for her personally.


    Hogina¡¯s valueid not within her capacity forbat, but in her aptitude for alchemy. If Hogina was to lead the alchemic factories, Saleen would gain equipment that was both sturdier and more practical in no time.


    The very reason why Saleen had demonstrated what he was capable of to her before they reached the Golden ins was to catch her attention, in a bid to keep her around. While she had signed a contract with him, it was not a follower¡¯s contract. Hogina could still get herself free if she was able to pay a certain price. If the Grukos from the Golden ins wanted her to work for them, there was no doubt that they would be able to afford it.


    There was a saying among mages that went, ¡°When knowledge lies before you, you should never turn your back against it.¡±


    Seeing what Saleen was capable of doing with his Water me Alchemy, there was simply little the Grukos would have been able to do to steal that alchemist with endless potential from him.


    Saleen had genuine intentions of hiring Hogina. He would not be able to bag one such genius for himself in any other way, and definitely not through violent means. He felt himself able to understand Imposa a little bit better. Imposa was reluctant to keep her in the midst of conflict, which was why he kicked her out. He had hoped that she would be able to find some ce quiet and without conflict, so she would have been able to stay alive, and keep studying.


    Hogina did not go to either Cloudflow or Holy Rock City. She returned to Daliang City instead, and that was something Imposa would not have anticipated.


    Hogina was indeed just as Saleen anticipated her to be. Even if someone was to put a mountain of gold before her, it would not have been enough to entice her to leave his side.


    Saleen took outrge amounts of metalized steel rock, to begin re-crafting her equipment.


    The problem with Hogina¡¯s gun was that it required constant maintenance, and half of it performed like consumables. The maintenance of the barrel was tricky, and it would be made far easier using metalized steel rock, as it was a material that would be easy to repair.


    Saleen noticed Hogina¡¯s change. The girl who seemed to be unable to grow up began to take interest in things around him. Saleen still went rummaging through his pile of materials when he went re-crafting Hogina¡¯s equipment.


    Hogina¡¯s eyes sparkled looking at the materials in Saleen¡¯s hands, just like how Nailisi did when she found her targets.


    Alchemists were not a greedy bunch. Their greatest desire usuallyid with crafting a unique piece of something with their own hands. It need not be something meant for war, but it had to be a magical equipment, and one that stood out from the others.


    One example of which was Hogina¡¯s gun. It was something she had researched andpleted on her own, and it was anyone¡¯s guess what she had gone through to be able to craft something like that. She did not have Imposa¡¯s aid inpleting the weapon, which gave her immense satisfaction when her equipment was finallypleted.


    The actual power of a mage and financial strength that Saleen had demonstrated would be more than enough to catch her attention.


    Alchemists did not yearn for battles. Their training methods were also done entirely through magic experiments, as well as crafting all manner of equipment and pharmaceuticals.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. I¡¯ll stay by your side from here on out and I¡¯ll never leave.¡± Hogina was not stupid; she was able to tell what Saleen tried to pull.


    ¡°That¡¯s nice to hear.¡± Despite obviously having his cover blown, he did not mind at all. It would have been peculiar if he did not try to do something like that instead.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to just craft weapons. I¡¯ll need an alchemyboratory. The very expensive kind.¡± There was sadness in her eyes. Saleen knew that Hogina did not want to lose her freedom, yet she could not help but be attracted to what Saleen had to offer.


    With the world being in such a mess, an alchemist like Hogina would either be hired or be killed, stemming from the mentality of ¡°f I can¡¯t have it, no one can¡±. Even if Saleen would not have gone to such extremes, he would still have thought of ways to prevent Hogina from working with others. The reason why Hogina did not dare to go to Cloudflow or Alchemy City was because she knew of her own value.


    It was not always a good thing to be of value. Her intuition told her, from her interactions with Saleen, that the man at least would not treat her with violence. Whatever Saleen had done, he was still a very proper mage.


    ¡°That is a given. I have factories, which means I won¡¯t need to craft equipment personally. What I need from you, is for you to continue to go about your research. At the very least, that is the best option you have before you.¡±

 Chapter 1032: Hogina’s Gun (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1032: Hogina¡¯s Gun (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Hogina was not one to hide things on her mind, but she was not one toment incessantly about things. After making the decision to follow Saleen for good, Hogina¡¯s mind was cleared, and she began to look deeper into Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower excitedly.


    Hogina demonstrated immense interest in elementite, yet it was a pity that it was not something that even Saleen¡¯s water me would have been capable of dismantling to itsponents.


    After re-crafting Hogina¡¯s weapon, Saleen took out a suit of magic armament and gave it to her. Hogina¡¯s own collection of equipment was not of terrible quality. It was just that much of Saleen¡¯s equipment was either personally crafted gifts from Joey or acquired from the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Some others were also taken from several of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ temples, and they were also something that would not be foundmonly on the maind. Hogina never had to fret about food and lodging throughout her life, with everything she had ever needed was handed to her by her teacher. She never knew how precious alchemic materials could be.


    It was not until her teacher¡¯s departure that she discovered some of the materials were so expensive, that not even nobles could afford them. What Saleen took out was just the tip of the iceberg, yet they were more than enough to keep Hogina around.


    ¡°I can¡¯t afford to stay here for too long.¡± Saleen took a look outside the tower. The winged skeleton had finished patching up the false dragon¡¯s injuries, which enabled it to continue flying. Saleen left the tower with Hogina and rode on the back of the false dragon again, making for the Golden ins.


    The Golden ins was situated in the southern mountains within Qin¡¯s territory, a basin that was half closed off, and the area was not too small. It was at least farrger than the actual area of Ceylon City that Saleen had manage to take. The area of the basin allowed for about a million people to settle in it and would still look very vast and empty.


    There was a meandering river west of the basin, one that led to the Separation Sea. The river was precisely why Cloudflow dared not attack Qin from that sea. If Cloudflow invaders were tond at the eastern side of the Separation Sea, other than having to scale mountains, they would have to also contend with harassments deployed from the Golden ins.


    Even several sorcerers would be enough to send the Cloudflow troops into a panic, let alone the Grukos¡¯ forces.


    The ratio of mages serving the Grukos, who had made the Golden ins their home, was far higher than Qin Empire itself. With the lineage of the family dating back several thousands of years, they had umted vast prestige, human resources, and frightening wealth. Their stock of equipment was definitely not inferior to the collections in Alchemy City¡¯s vaults.


    Saleen was able to see a magnificent sight after arriving at the exit of the Golden ins riding on the false dragon spirit.


    A river that was more than 100 yards long flowed from within the narrow valley, the flow of which was loud and the currents rapid. Water vapors rose at the mouth of the valley, and the peaks at the sides were carved into a string of giant statues. The statues were those of the long line of emperors of the Grukos family, as well somete important figures.


    If the 500 yard tall statues were simply stone carvings, it would not have surprised Saleen in any way. Each and every one of the statues seemed instead, to exude a powerful aura. More than 100 statues resonated with each other, creating a huge and powerful magic array.


    There was a huge stone bridge lining the peaks of both sides. The bridge seemed to be a work of nature, yet Saleen knew that it was something produced using very powerful fossilization spells. There were more than a dozen six-winged flying snakes coiling the bridge.


    The six-winged flying snakes were all grade-9 magic beasts. Disparity inbat capacity existed among grade-9 magic beasts too, and the six-winged flying snakes painstaking nurtured by the Grukos possessed high levels of intellect. They saw Saleen arriving on the back of the false dragon spirit, yet all of the snakes simplyzed about, and none got in his way.


    The winged skeleton hardly felt anything. There were beings of even greater presence in the spirit ne. More than 10,000 years ago, the strongest skeleton king had a body that was evenrger than the limit achievable by mechanical souls, and the king was able to stomp a mountain t if they so wished. After following humans in their conquests, the powerful spirits were lost. The few that perished were returned to the spirit ne by the humans, bing invible symbols themselves.


    Even kings did not dare mess with the bodies of the perished spirits. Every powerful spirit who had perished left powerful power of rules behind, and kings would have gone to learn about such powers, in order to learn the skills of the many ancient spirits.


    Saleen sighed. Those statues were able to look and feel so lifelike simply because the Grukos were rich beyond imagination. The statues were even capable ofbat on their own, as each and every one of those 500 yard tall constructs, wererge scale puppets.


    There was one such secret art among the Grukos which enabled the memories of the ones who had passed to be images, and be injected into the core of the puppets, making them function like a human¡¯s brain. None of therge scale puppets were lumbering brutes. If they were to actually move, they might be even more nimble than ancient warriors.


    There was a path at the right side of the river below which led into the valley. A man was seen flying out of the valley when Saleen was still considering if he should have gone down.


    The person was wearing a white magic robe and it bore no markings of any kind. The custom of the world would have determined one such person to be a magic apprentice. Magic apprentices were definitely incapable of flight though. Even the winged people, who were born with wings, needed to reach levels higher than grade-3, before they became capable of flight.


    Saleen¡¯s intuition told him that the person was around the age of 30. They looked incredibly young though, and sported a face like Hogina¡¯s, which would have caused others to have the wrong idea about him, and even grow to like him. The white-robed mage¡¯s power however, was definitely at the level of sorcerers, which meant he had be sorcerers around the age of 30.


    ¡°Who goes there? Why fly here? Don¡¯t you fear being shot to death or something?¡± The words of the white-robed sorcerer were spoken in a friendly joking tone.


    Saleen knew the white-robed sorcerer was referring to the line of over 100 great statues around them. Those things were not for show. If Saleen had truly wanted to fly into the valley riding the false dragon spirit, he would have been attacked by more than 100 grade-9 puppets.


    ¡°No. The level of these puppets is undetermined, but definitely no lower than grade-9. They be more powerful as they were practically part of the mountains. Their only weakness is that they are incapable of going too far. If I were to be enemies of these statues, the best and only way would be to take the fight elsewhere. I wouldn¡¯t be able to win even when unleashing all elemental creatures in my collection. The Grukos sure are rich, being able to install so much powerful equipment at their doorstep and all.¡±


    Saleen let the winged skeleton have the false dragon spirit levitate in the air. He stood up and walked to its head. He then said to the white-robed mage, ¡°I¡¯m Saleen, Saleen Metatrin. I¡¯m here to see your leader.¡±


    ¡°Do you think our head...¡±


    The white-robed mage opened his eyes wide before finishing his sentence, and then said to Saleen, ¡°Haha, it¡¯s you. And there I was, wondering what kind of idiot had just showed up. We have received Lex¡¯s letter, but the head of our family was not around. He will be back in perhaps three or five days, so you...¡±


    Saleen knew that called for verification, but there was little point proving his identity. He simply took out the Six-Winged Flying Snake Mark and waved it at the white-robed sorcerer. The sorcerer gulped in response and nodded. ¡°Come with me then, I¡¯ll arrange for a ce where you can stay.¡±


    Saleen smiled. ¡°No need to kick up a fuss. Just get me a cleared area where I won¡¯t be troubling anyone.¡±


    Saleen did not want to stay inside anyone else¡¯ magic tower, as that would have been tantamount to letting the master of the ce do whatever they wished with him. While it was unimaginable for the Grukos to do him harm, Saleen¡¯s habit dictated that he was only able to sleep well in his own tower.


    The white-robed sorcerer did not mind. While Saleen was a king, he was too a grade-9 sorcerer. It was a given that the temperament of sorcerers differed frommon people.


    The sorcerer conjured a magical fire, informing the ones in the valley. The sorcerer then took Saleen down to the ground, walking into the valley through the path at the right side of the river.


    The false dragon too, had no choice but to walk on the ground. It was fortunate that the newly converted spirit had thick, sturdy limbs. When its wings were put away, it was farrger than walking dragons were.


    The white-robed sorcerer took Saleen into the valley and there was hardly anyone doing patrols around. The Golden ins were located within the valley. The path they walked was a long one, which was probably a little more than 20 miles. The canal within the valley was probably carved out inter days. Saleen was able to see clearly, back in the air, that there was a damn at the end of the valley. If the magic floodgates were opened, the entire valley would be flooded.


    Common armies would have never been able to make it through the valley. Not even his demon army would have been capable of doing so. The dam apparently was not meant to be used as a weapon. There were huge swaths of nd beyond the valley. It was not all just mountains beyond the Golden ins, and farming was possible. Saleen was able to see viges around when he was still up in the sky.


    If a n wanted their lineage to survive, it would not have been possible for them to simply lock themselves up in such a small environment and cut themselves off from the rest of the world. The Golden ins would have been able to sustain millions, and the Grukos needed to foster capable people among the local poption. The 1,000 year old royal family was one Saleen would be able topare to. Despite having spent a lot recruiting troops, he was only able to recruit Caucasus people and the temple guards to serve as the core of his forces. The number of other troops, numbered to only 100,000.


    The 100,000 strong army consisted of all of Saleen¡¯s ten main forces. Saleen¡¯s remaining forces outside of those ten were, in Lex¡¯s eyes, far from adequate for anything important. Those would have served well as peacekeeping forces domestically, but they would be a burden to his main forces if they were to be deployed into battlefields. Auxiliary troops in the main forces would have proved stronger than the rest of Saleen¡¯s armies.


    ¡°May I know where your leader went to?¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was polite. He would not have behaved in such a way even when talking to the Qin emperor. The leader was an elder of the Grukos, which meant the head of the n was of higher status than he was.


    Lex told him before that the head of the n was definitely the strongest in the family. It was a rule set by the Grukos family. Emperors need only to be capable of managing the nation. It was for that very reason that Ojarvis ascended to the throne despite being a sickly person.


    The white-robed sorcerer had no intentions of hiding anything, answering Saleen¡¯s question frankly. ¡°Our leader went to Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. The northern side of Qin is in a mess, and that Safilos proved incapable to keep things under control. Alchemy City took the chance to buy off some northern nobles, and our leader felt very pissed off about the matter and decided to go teach the one responsible a lesson.¡±


    Saleen was practically covered in sweat hearing that. He had been to Alchemy City himself. There was no doubt that any mage from Alchemy City would be at a disadvantageing there. The head of the Grukos n went to Alchemy City on his own, and he was sure that he was going toe out on top?


    Alchemy City and Holy Rock City shared onemon trait¡ªboth cities were equipped withrge scale magic amplifiers. Even if the head of the n was a grade-10 professional, the odds would still be stacked against him.

 Chapter 1033: Provocation Skills (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1033: Provocation Skills (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After they made it through the valley, the white-robed sorcerer said, ¡°you can now use flying magic.¡±


    Saleen nodded and mounted the spirit false dragon together with Hogina, heading for the deeper parts of the valley with the white-robed mage. They passed through a vige and a vast farm. Saleen saw a group of buildings faraway, built with their backs against a mountain.


    The buildings looked like tall wooden pces, which resembled the style of the Fourth Dynasty. The white-robed mage pointed at the buildings. ¡°The ones from the n deemed fit enough to see the world are all there. All of them younglings.¡±


    He took Saleen to a peak. There was a swath of nd after they passed the peak, which was filled with peach trees all the way to the hills. It was mid-summer and the trees were filled with fruit. They looked small hanging from the branches.


    ¡°You wanted tond somewhere on the nds, so we won¡¯t be going further in. How about we just wait for Lord Chief here?¡± The white-robed sorcerer stopped and asked Saleen about his thoughts.


    Saleen nodded and thought if he had not agreed, he would have probably been arranged to stay in the group of wooden pces.


    The groupnded and Saleen took out his Magical Element Tower in front of the white-robed sorcerer without any hesitation. The tower required quite a bit of mental power when taken out. Saleen needed to perform a short meditation every time he took out or put away the tower. He needed to use divine crystals to quickly restore his mental powers.


    ¡°My name is Kamiratus, Your Highness. I¡¯ll be the one in charge of receiving you.¡± The white-robed mage was very shocked, but he nheless went on toy out magic arrays for Saleen before introducing himself.


    ¡°Thank you, Kamiratus.¡± Saleen was able to tell that he was at least a level eight sorcerer, probably even level nine. As such, Saleen saw no need to act high and mighty. Furthermore, Kamiratus was rather friendly. If it were someone else receiving Saleen¡¯s, it would be anyone¡¯s guess how they would have acted.


    Saleen was there to ask for help using the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake and he knew well that if he did not hand the mark over, members of the Grukos would behave very badly towards him.


    ¡°You¡¯re wee. Call me with this if you need anything. I¡¯d be on standby at all times.¡± Kamiratus took out a silver whistle and handed it to Saleen. He took the whistle and smiled, before putting it away in his Devil Ring.


    The whistle served as a locating beacon as well. If he were to leave it on his person, the Grukos would be able to locate him anytime, anywhere.


    Kamiratus had no choice but to leave as they had nothing further to say to each other, and Saleen apparently had no intentions of inviting him into his Magical Element Tower. The Magical Element Tower had 24 floors and each floor was nine meters tall¡ªeven taller than low peak before him.


    It seemed that those from the n who were still in their prime and snubbed their noses at rules had already found Saleen. Seems like the elders who hope to see conflict will be rather happy about this then? Saleen had erected a magic tower right on the soil of Golden ins after all, which was a moderate provocation.


    ¡°I will take my leave then,¡± Kamiratus said with a low voice.


    ¡°Hold on. Kamiratus, thanks for showing us the way. Here, this is for you.¡± Saleen handed him a divine crystal shard.


    Kamiratus had intended to simply refuse him, but he was unable to help but take it after he saw the small, transparent piece of material on Saleen¡¯s hand. He knew that Saleen would definitely not give him an inferior gem. Kamiratus surprised even himself by shouting in glee as he took the gem in his hand.


    The gem seemed to be a divine crystal shard, yet it felt like a dragon crystal shard as well. Regardless, it worked well with human souls, capable of boosting mental powers.


    Kamiratus was unable to refuse. Despite his family being rich and he had what all mages outside usually had, something capable of restoring mental powers quickly was something rare even to the Grukos.


    ¡°I thank you then, Your Highness. Right, when Lex sent us the message, many in the n did not like you. Your Highness, if someonees looking for trouble, please remain calm. You would have a hard time dealing with Lord Chief otherwise,¡± Kamiratus reminded Saleen carefully.


    Saleen smiled. ¡°That much is a given.¡±


    Kamiratus did not trust Saleen much, but he was unable to do anything against the guest. The circles of power within the n did not ovep. The younger ones who were free to leave Golden ins and enter Myers Maind were all proud, arrogant pricks. The ones to shoulder the future of the n were those versed in strategies and construction.


    There were probably over a thousand members of the n within the wooden ces not far away, and there were quite a number of exceptional people among them. The people were given a choice to either submit to the rules of the n or be sent outside. They chose to leave.


    The n needed to train them in groups before allowing them to leave, so as to enable them to adapt to the outside world.


    Saleen entered the Magical Element Tower and left the Winged Skull and the spirit false dragon outside, unleashing some low level spirits to guard the ce. He had the tower connect with the soil andid out defensive spells around.


    No one came to harass Saleen until nightfall, which he had not expected.


    He grew tired and after getting a room for Hogina, Saleen went to 17th floor and slept. He slept for ten hours straight. When Saleen opened his eyes, he saw himself being encased in a Mute Enchantment created using death magic.


    The Winged Skull locked Saleen up when he was asleep. He would not know anything happening outside the tower, and thus wouldn¡¯t be woken by any noise.


    The Winged Skull only opened the door when Saleen woke up, allowing Hogina, who was standing outside, toe in. Saleen nodded to Hogina and faced the magic images, admiring the view outside.


    The Golden ins was a nice ce and the view was beautiful. However, Saleen was not admiring was the rivers, mountains, or anything natural, but a group of people making themselves look very bad right outside the tower.


    Four young people brought a magic beast with them and were squaring off against the spirit false dragon. The four young people seemed to be of decent capabilities, but if they were unable to kill the false dragon, its poisonous breath would render them near powerless. They were not mages; they were people about to advance to the rank of grand swordmasters. If they were able to get near to the spirit false dragon, it would be easy for them to gang up on the seemingly powerful spirit and kill it.


    Saleen had some understanding of Golden ins before he came. Lex had never been there, but Emperor Chanake had introduced the structure of political power of the ce to Lex in detail.


    There were many capable people among the Grukos, and not all of them were willing to live in Golden ins. To those people, Golden ins was too small and looked boring.


    Those young ones would be sent to the south of Qin. Most of those people from the n would chose to hide their identities, but there were few who would join the circle of nobles.


    As such, there were quite a number among the southern nobles who supported the royal family, as the nobles were getting close to the Grukos. Those who betrayed the royal family had no idea who among their close acquaintances were members of the Grukos. That was why Safilos felt troubled.


    If the southern nobles were to rebel, there were still descendants of the Grukos among them waiting to strike.


    While those who chose to leave were an unruly, reckless bunch, their loyalty towards their n was every bitparable to those who remained on Golden ins. Saleen had no intentions of offending those people, yet they showed up at his door asking for trouble nheless.


    The four young people ganged up on the spirit false dragon, and from the looks of things, the beast was already killed by the four of them.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re awake!¡± Hogina was dense enough not to mind the Winged Skull forbidding her to see Saleen.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve been awake given how noisy it is out there.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, can¡¯t we kill them?¡± Hogina asked Saleen with a serious tone. She did not know that Saleen had already activated certain functions within the tower, allowing their conversation to be heard outside. The four young people stopped and backed off, eyeing the tall magic tower.


    They had the backing of their n and knew Saleen would not act against them. They were there to provoke him. If Saleen were to fight them, they would have gotten what they came for.


    That damned b**tard Saleen, marrying the most exceptional woman among the n of this generation¡ªLex.


    What was more vexing for them was how Lex was charmed by the one they deemed a bootlicker into even handing over the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake to him. That bootlicker was now on their turf with the mark, and they had no idea what he intended to do, but they were sure that he meant the n no good.


    ¡°Why kill them? Don¡¯t you think it¡¯s funny seeing them jump around like that?¡± Saleen said andmunicated with the Winged Skull in secret, which prompted the Winged Skull to have the spirit false dragon take flight, but only allow the beast to circle at a height of a hundred meters. It was not a distance that the grand swordmasters-to-be were capable of covering with their attacks. Even if they were able to cover such a distance, they would not be able to attack for long.


    The four youngsters were pissed off by Saleen¡¯s words, but seeing how Saleen said that they were jumping around, they refrained from actually jumping to attack the false dragon, or they would have made themselves Saleen¡¯s toy.


    ¡°Sh**, looks like we¡¯ll need big bro and the others to be here!¡± A young man holding a spear was heard saying in anger. The other three youngsters looked at the false dragon, feeling frustrated. The beast is a peculiar one. It is a level four spirit but the strength of its poisonous mist is way above its supposed level. The four knew that they had no certainty of being able to win if they were to actually fight the false dragon.


    Furthermore, spirits did not usually care about their own survival. Spirits with powerful offensive abilities were always a headache for warriors.


    ¡°Eh? Saleen, why are they stopping now?¡± Hogina asked curiously. She did not actually have any matters she needed help with. She was only there to get him to do something, the best of which would be to craft something. She was very interested in Saleen¡¯s materials, yet she was unable to bring herself to simply ask him like Nailisi, so she hoped that Saleen would allow her to stay by his side and watch him work.


    ¡°Well, they¡¯re off looking for grown-ups, seeing how they¡¯re incapable of dealing with us themselves. Kids...¡± Saleen sighed. Outside the tower, the four youngsters were so pissed that their heads seemed to fume.

 Chapter 1034: Provocation Skills (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1034: Provocation Skills (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had no intention to shut up. He continued to tell Hogina, ¡°alright, show¡¯s over. It¡¯s getting boring. I take it that you haven¡¯t eaten anything? Let¡¯s head downstairs.¡±


    The four youngsters were enraged when they heard that Saleen did not even bother paying any attention to them. The four turned around and left. From the looks of it, they were really off to get help without any care for pride.


    Saleenughed out loud. The tower was so sturdy that not even the Divine Baby would be able to budge it. The Grukos might have been powerful, but there were people of level 13 among their ranks. If he simply shut himself in, powerful ones from all over Golden ins coulde and there was still nothing they could do to him.


    His Magical Element Tower was capable of flight, after all.


    Saleen had no intentions of tangling with the youngsters any longer. While the four of them had decent strength, they were little more than just scouts and vanguards, and there were definitely those who were less than pleased with him, a stranger. Lex said it herself; Saleen was the first outsider who held the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake. Even though he was married to Lex, his surname remained as Metatrin.


    Not wanting to tangle with trouble did not equal being able to avoid trouble. Saleen was not one to be trifled with. If the head of the n refused to help him because he had moved against their people, Saleen would simply destroy the mark, making it so that neither had nothing to gain from the other.


    As such, Saleen deliberately went about provoking them, just to force out the ones who truly meant to insult him and get him into trouble.


    ¡°Are you hungry, Hogina?¡± Saleen did not project their voices this time, as the four had already left with their pet magic beast. They were still teenagers, yet all of them were about to advance to the ranks of grand swordmasters. Even if advancing was easy because powers across the entire maind had risen, he still deemed it unwise to underestimate the Grukos.


    ¡°A little.¡± Hogina rubbed her belly, and it grumbled in response, just like a cat.


    Saleen sighed. He was not into cooking and thought it would have been nice to have Lex around. He took some smoked bacon and some Cloudflow rice wine with milder vor outside. He cut up two fruits and made a vegetable sd for Hogina. Finally, he added the staple¡ªwhite bread.


    Hogina was not picky with food, as most of her time was spent doing alchemical experiments. Even if Saleen gave her ck bread and some crude butter, she would eat it. From Hogina¡¯s perspective, what Saleenid out on the table was a gourmet feast.


    ¡°Master, what should we do if they show up again?¡± The Winged Skull was feeling irritated by the good-for-nothings who pestered them like flies. The way the Winged Skull saw it, they had better note looking for trouble if they were not good enough, as it would be tantamount to inviting shame.


    ¡°Ditch the false dragon. We can¡¯t really kill them. Attack them using poison, but don¡¯t draw blood.¡± Saleen gave the Winged Skull his orders. The false dragon hadrge amounts of spirit toxins stored within it. If it had truly wanted to attack, it would pollute their surroundings.


    The Winged Skull nodded. Their movements looked very natural and humanoid. Hogina ate as she admired Mr. Bones.


    Fascinating skeleton. It has human-like intelligence and is incredibly powerful. Capable of closebat with abilities on par with that of golden grand swordmasters, and capable of using death magic too. I would like to have such a skeleton serving me. I¡¯m no death mage, but I can still instruct a spirit or two to fight for me.


    The Winged Skull looked at Hogina coldly. ¡°You want a spirit too?¡±


    Hogina nodded, flustered, and looked with expecting eyes. She had no pride nor resolve as a mage, and she definitely did not have any semnce of dignity dealing with spirits. The Winged Skull was far more powerful than she was, which meant that she was unable to put on airs even if she wanted to.


    ¡°Can you treat it with respect?¡± The Winged Skull¡¯s words puzzled Hogina.


    The Winged Skull added, ¡°If I were to give you an intelligent skeleton, would you treat it well, just like how you treat your friends and family, and never cease doing so?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯m not wanting one to fight for me. I just want a smart assistant, that¡¯s all. It¡¯s tiring doing alchemy. Can you really get me a smart spirit, Mr. Bones?¡±


    The jade skeleton, which was something they had re-crafted from the jade skeletons they had destroyed in the past, was noticeably smaller and it wore a full set of human armor. If it did not push it steel visor up, no one would know that it was a spirit inside the suit of armor.


    ¡°Thank you very much, Mr. Bones!¡± Hogina was surprised and excited, as she saw unusually stable soul mes in the eyes of the jade skeleton. It turned to look at the Winged Skull and sported very human-like expressions, just like the Winged Skull.


    ¡°Don¡¯t thank me just yet. If you can¡¯t fulfill what you promised me, I will kill you, and even Master won¡¯t be able to save you.¡± The soul me used for disguise in the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes disappeared, reced by human-like eyes.


    Hogina covered her mouth in fright and lost her voice for a moment.


    ¡°It is an intelligent being. If you cast it aside after signing a contract with it, it would be very sad,¡± the Winged Skull continued, but without the feeling of sadness they had in the past. Saleen was very good to them, insisting on keeping them around even in the most dire times.


    Daniel would never make the Winged Skull feel sad anymore. However, the small jade skeleton was something that the Winged Skull had crafted personally and given intelligence. The jade skeleton resembled the Winged Skull too much. It had devoured the soul of a human mage and began developing emotions. If it were to be cast away, it would want to die, just like the Winged Skull had once wanted.


    ¡°Of course not. Why would I want to cast my bonded creature away!¡± Hogina raised her voice. She then extended her hand. ¡°Mr. Bones, the contract.¡±


    The Winged Skull took out a contract scroll under Saleen¡¯s watchful eyes. It was covered with words. Hogina took it and was frustrated to find it written in huge amounts of spirit script. How would I dare to sign a contract that I can¡¯t read?


    ¡°Master, please trante this.¡± The Winged Skull handed the contract over to Saleen, who was now quite learned in spirit script, but he was unable to recognize spirit magic patterns. Their system of magic patterns were moreplex than their script and he was not able to learn it even after spending huge amounts of time and effort on it.


    Saleen read the contract carefully and began to exin it word by word to Hogina after finding no traps in it. Hogina looked much better after hearing Saleen¡¯s exnations.


    She looked at the jade skeleton, grit her teeth, and left her spiritual imprint on the contract scroll. The Winged Skull then picked a bit of soul me from the jade skeleton with their finger and threw it into the scroll. The contract was established, and Hogina immediately felt the connection between her mind and the jade skeleton¡¯s.


    ¡°What¡¯s its name?¡± Hogina was rather excited. She felt really happy to have a summoned creature by her side, and it felt as if the creature was an extension of her soul.


    ¡°Master, I do not yet have a name. Perhaps you¡¯d like to give me one,¡± the jade skeleton answered eloquently, with an ent of Qin nobles.


    Hogina ruffled her hair and wracked her brains to think of a name, and finally settled on one that surprised both Saleen and the Winged Skull¡ªGrand Duke Iron Blood.


    Hogina hated the grand duke¡¯s guts. If it had not been for Grand Duke Iron Blood, her teacher, Imposa would not have shed with Saleen, and he would have not developed a dream to conquer Alchemy City. It was the Iron Blood warriors of the grand duke that stoked the fires of ambition within Imposa.


    ¡°Alright, Grand Duke, we¡¯ll stick together from here on out.¡± Hogina smoothened her hair. ¡°I¡¯ll need to get you a ce to stay, but I don¡¯t have a Green Spirit...¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± Saleen interrupted her as he took out a Green Spirit Gem. The quality of the gem was somewhat inferior, but the jade skeleton was a level seven creature. Even the worst Green Spirit Gems would be superior to ck crystals.


    Saleen deemed it safe to finally invest in Hogina. The Winged Skull had done something to the depths of the jade skeleton¡¯s soul me. While Saleen was not sure what the Winged Skull did, the Winged Skull had a shinning track record, which put Saleen at ease. Saleen did not pursue the matter. The tacit understanding between both of them had long be second nature.


    If Hogina had not been Imposa¡¯s student, Saleen would not have acted so carefully. He feared that Hogina would be something else someday, no longer the pure, naive person and dedicated alchemist she was now.


    After all, Imposa dared to modify his own body. So what the hell was deemed beneath him?


    Saleen would never entertain the thought of turning himself into a monster in exchange for power. Imposa had gone thoroughly crazy, turning his back on the very reason why he learned magic in the first ce.


    While Hogina was busy crafting a shelter for Grand Duke Iron Blood, the four young grand swordmasters-to-be showed up outside the magic tower again, with a number of people in tow. The leader of the group was not all that old, looking about Saleen¡¯s age. The young leader wore a white robe and had a longsword at his hip, looking like someone from Cloudflow.


    The Cloudflow people were known for their varied and extravagant way of dress, which was more attractive than Qin¡¯s subdued styles. The young man looked up at the false dragon circling about in the air and gestured to the ones behind him to not attack. He then said to the magic tower, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, is it? I know you can hear my voice. I have only one question.¡±


    Saleen said nothing. The young man added, feeling rather prideful, ¡°so, Your Highness Saleen, you don¡¯t dare to answer even a question then? Are you scared?¡±


    The young man had looked proper and polite, but when he uttered that line, he turned pompous and reckless instead. The change in attitude was incredibly natural, and he was in a normal state, mentally speaking. He was simply trying to incite Saleen. He has trained in some kind of secret arts, and that makes him rather peculiar, mentally-speaking.


    Saleen was unable to simply sit by any longer. He spoke to the pompous face outside the tower in a crystal clear manner. ¡°I assume your folks are still around and you have teachers. If you have any questions, it¡¯s better to ask them. If you want advice from me about anything, there are two possibilities where I might entertain you. One, you bow to me as your teacher, or second, well, you know what to do...¡±


    The young man turned polite all of a sudden again after hearing Saleen¡¯s words. He smiled. ¡°I¡¯m just kidding, Your Highness. I hope you don¡¯t mind.¡±


    ¡°And I wasn¡¯t being serious either, and I hope you¡¯d understand that,¡± Saleen replied calmly. Both failed to provoke one another.

 Chapter 1035: Getting Vexed (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1035: Getting Vexed (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Since I¡¯m here now, I figure I might as well see for myself what you¡¯re made of.¡± The young grand swordmaster pointed at the false dragon spirit circling in the air, and a warrior and a sorcerer promptly leapt into the air to take on the spirit beast.


    Pale silver mes shot out of the winged skeleton¡¯s eyes, prating the magic tower and reaching straight into the soul mes of the false dragon spirit. The false dragon spirit howled and dived for the two who leapt into the air. Its long tusks were more fearsome than the dragon spears of the ancient dragoons. The body of a dragoon was nowhere near as hard as the false dragon¡¯s bones. A dragoon¡¯s ability to take on impactsid solely within their skills.


    The one who flew at the front was a ck metal grand swordmaster. That youngster from the Grukos carried a verymon spearde in their hand. The tusk of the false dragon spirit snapped right away after shing with the de. The de of the grand swordmaster shattered as well, as they were flung onto the ground. The sorcerer behind them cast a Wind Travel spell in a hurry to wrap around the body of the grand swordmaster. The false dragon spirit opened its mouth wide, spewing congealed ck toxic gases and sending them flying at the sorcerer.


    While the level of the false dragon spirit was by no means low, the toxic attack had next to nothing to do with levels. The toxin within the false dragon was injected into it by the winged skeleton, and it was something that even grade-9 professionals would have to be wary of.


    None of those who provoked Saleen were professionals lower than grade-5. They evaded as they saw the iing blob of ck shadow. The youngster who was taking lead drew their weapon with a serious look on their face. A golden beam of light shot out, cutting the toxic mist spewed by the false dragon spirit in half. The golden light scattered into shiny golden spots. Most of the remaining ck toxic mist quickly dissipated as it touched the spots, but there was still a bit left scattered around.


    The misted toxin quickly seeped into the ground, oozing an unbearable stench. Any toxic mist that scattered among the surrounding fauna quickly killed any nts it touched. Most of the nts on the hill were killed right away, turning into ashen dead scruff in mere moments. The ashen fauna, was in turn, turned into ash and dust as winds blew at it.


    ¡°You b**tard!¡± The young silver grand swordmaster cursed. Forests within a several hundred yard radius were destroyed by one single attack.


    ¡°Hey, you are the b**tard here. If you didn¡¯te looking for trouble, I wouldn¡¯t have needed to attack with that false dragon of mine. Are you suggesting that I should just let you guys kill it just like that? No one asked for you to be here. Get lost while I¡¯m still in the mood for mercy.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was as sharp and unforgiving as a knife out for blood.


    ¡°Really. So, you think I shouldn¡¯t kill that thing, do you?¡± The young silver grand swordmaster leapt at the false dragon that was merely 20 yards away. The golden sword aura on their sword sted away again. It was an attack of the rank of a silver grand swordmaster. It had a damage potential that was only slightly inferior to that of a golden grand swordmaster. It was no wonder then, that they dared to bring a group to mess with Saleen, a grade-9 sorcerer.


    Golden grand swordmasters had always been known to be able to overwhelm sorcerers, unless sorcerers had the advantage in numbers, or were doing battle from within their magic towers.


    The young leader was only in their early twenties, yet many within their n pledged their loyalty to the youngster. As soon as they became able to leave the Golden ins, the youngster would be able to get themself a nice status of some sort north of Qin. They had already intended to leave before catching wind of the king of Metatrin¡¯s arrival, bringing Lex¡¯s mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake with him.


    While it was clear that the young grand swordmaster was egged on by someone, mastering one¡¯s own mind became a crucial part of a grand swordmaster¡¯s training at such levels nheless. The youngster would not havee looking for trouble with Saleen if they did not feel offended somehow.


    Lex was the pride of the Grukos. She had a great reputation even within the Golden ins, and suitors were aplenty. Someone like Saleen, who just happened to have seized the opportunity with Lex, was very unweed in a ce like that.


    Saleen knew in his mind that the youngsters outside his tower were no fools, especially the grand swordmaster who served as their leader. They might not havee for him out of their own volition though. ¡°Are the Grukos trying to test me or something? If I knew things would turn out like this, I wouldn¡¯t havee!¡±


    Saleen had anticipated the trade to be a fast and no-frills one with the mark of Six-Winged Flying Snake. The Grukos had only needed to pay the price equivalent to the mark of Six-Winged Flying Snake itself. From the looks of things with them sending their youngsters out like that, it was apparent that the Grukos were simply waiting for the highest bid toe in.


    The trade might end up not happening after all.


    If Saleen¡¯s might proved insufficient, there would be no further business to talk about. They would simply take the mark, and then send someone to Daliang City as a token of sorts in Lex¡¯s service.


    Saleen would not be able toe to such a conclusion quickly if he had not been running a country of his own for some time. If he had only been a simple mage, the number of possibilities of why such happenings took ce would have seemed endless to him.


    Saleen smirked as he made sense of what was happening. There was nothing he could have done about the Grukos¡¯ methods. All there was left to be done was to face what was toe as a mage.


    If Lex wanted him to hand over the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake, it was only natural that she had her own ideas about things, and none of those ideas would have worked against Saleen; she would not have left something so important to him otherwise.


    The mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake was more than a symbol; it was also a powerful equipment. Saleen had yet to be able to unravel its secrets, as the mark was something only someone of the Grukos¡¯ bloodline would be able to use.


    It was something simr to his own family badge. He had let others around him have a go at trying it out, and no one was able to figure out the secrets within.


    The winged skeleton had no mind for such politics. While he sported a more stable temperament than Nailisi, he was still a spirit who swore loyalty to no one but Saleen. With someoneing to look for trouble and Saleen letting him have free reign to deal with the troublemakers, all he had to do with simply order the false dragon spirit to spew another blob of toxic mist.


    The young silver grand swordmaster was practically d in sword aura as they burst through the toxic mist,nding a blow right on the neck of the false dragon spirit. A huge gash was quickly made to the neck of the beast. It retaliated by swiping its very thick tail at the grand swordmaster¡¯s midsection, which they easily evaded.


    The difference in power between two parties was too great. While the false dragon sported formidablebat capacity, the silver grand swordmaster would have made short work of it if it was not armed with such powerful toxic attacks.


    The problem there was that the false dragon spirit was doing battle while being the winged skeleton¡¯s thrall. The winged skeleton¡¯sbat capacity was clearly greater than the grand swordmaster. When the grand swordmaster was done evading the swiping tail attack, their body was quickly rammed by the head of the false dragon and they were sent flying. The false dragon followed up by spewing another blob of toxic mist with a diameter of about five yards.


    The winged skeleton thought that, while the beast was not a big deal itself, it was still capable of doing massive damage when used in battle.


    Every city of Saleen¡¯s Kingdom went about collecting waste produced by the residents. The wastewater produced would have done great harm to the cities¡¯ surrounding environments if it were to simply be let into rivers and the sea. As Saleen had a great number of mages at his disposal, he had them collect such waste and had its toxicponents extracted before disposing of the purified water and harmless waste of other kinds.


    Theponents of such toxins were unusuallyplex and were easily made into very potent poisons when repeatedly refined.


    The extracted and refined toxin was mostly kept by the winged skeleton, and leakages of any kind packed the potential of ruining an entire city. The toxin that the false dragon spirit spewed exploded when it got near the ground, encasing everything within the vicinity of its explosion, including the Magical Element Tower itself.


    All professionals of grade-7 and higher took to the air. While the silver grand swordmaster was thrown off, they suffered no injuries. They were simply surprised and angered, as the toxin would have destroyed yet another mountain given time. The Grukos would have dealt severe penalties on them for the losses suffered.


    ¡°I¡¯m here on official business. If you insist on getting in my way, I¡¯ll have that false dragon spirit self destruct. I¡¯ll sit back and enjoy what your family is going to do to you.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice reverberated in the mountains. That made it so that it could be heard from tens of miles away.


    The false dragon took to the air again with its head almost severed. The ground was covered with toxic mist. The vibrant peaks were quickly corroded, turning everything into a dead, ashen white wastnd.


    ¡°I will bring my men away, Your Highness, Saleen. Can you please clear the toxin away?¡± The young silver grand swordmaster sheathed their sword and they became calm again.


    ¡°Hmph.¡± Saleen mumbled in the tower. An opening was made on the tower that began sucking in all the floating toxin. All toxic matter within a several hundred yard radius was cleaned in an instant. The Magical Element Tower then began to cast cleaning spells repeatedly. The spells that were only grade-1 began breaking down the toxic matter within the soil under the workings of the Magical Element Tower.


    ¡°Go home and tell the one that sent you people that I will continue to wait for the head of your n to return, and there is no need to send anyone else here. I will leave after six days.¡± Saleen shut off the magic sound array as he finished rying his message, not bothering himself with listening to any replies from outside.


    The Grukos outside the tower all retreated, without even a single person uttering another thing. The winged skeleton was puzzled and asked, ¡°Master, what do they mean by that?¡±


    ¡°Nothing much. I¡¯m just fed up with all these tests and whatnot. If they dare piss me off again, I¡¯ll just wreck everything around these parts with the poison. I¡¯m not the one asking for trouble here, and there is nothing the Grukos can do about me pulling such a stunt. I have the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake in my hand, and they will have to tolerate my presence, whether they like it or not.¡±


    The winged skeleton pondered for a bit before adding, ¡°That was a very stupid attempt at testing you, master. You were able to build your nation, tear down Ironwall City, take out the royal harbor, protect Lonestar City, and make Ceylon City your own. All that should be more than enough to prove your worth.¡±


    ¡°I think they see all that to be the work of Lex instead of me.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was a calm one; the thought would have thrown him into an unquenchable rage if he was who he once was.


    ¡°Saleen, will we run into further trouble?¡± Hogina was very irritated by the Grukos¡¯ methods. Her view of the Grukos became influenced by Saleen without realizing it, and she began disliking the n itself.


    Saleen sighed. The great task of unifying the maindid before him, and it was only a matter of time before he shed with the Grukos. It was fortunate that said great task was some far-reaching goal, and that things could still be peaceful between them at the moment. They were even able to cooperate on many levels if they were up for it.


    ¡°No more trouble for the time being. It¡¯s hard to say about in the future though.¡± Saleen took out a piece of metalized steel rock and began his attempt to make an even smaller version of Hogina¡¯s gun.


    Waiting was a chore, and mages were against wasting time. Hogina spoke all the sudden after seeing him attempting to make yet another piece of new equipment, ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m not quite satisfied with the weapon. Do you mind taking a look at another one of my schematics?¡±


    ¡°What would that be?¡± Saleen was barely able to keep his curiosity contained. If Hogina was not being limited by her level, her designs would have made her a renowned figure in the annals of history. From the looks of things, what Hogina mentioned existed only in paper and not in a three-dimensional, tangible form. It was apparent that her current abilities prevented her from bringing her prototype into reality.

 Chapter 1036: Getting Vexed (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1036: Getting Vexed (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen continued to research Hogina¡¯s schematics. There was a block of buildings making up a pce more than 30 miles away from the spot where Saleen stationed his Magical Element Tower on the Golden ins. If Saleen had taken to the air and scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye, he would have found the group of buildings to resemble Lex¡¯s pce in Daliang City.


    More magical materials were used in building the structure. Even the wood used in their construction was synthesized using magic, making them somewhat more expensive than natural wood. That type of magical wood sported higher defensive capacities as well as being immune to fire and water damages, bugs, and even earthquakes.


    The buildings, all of which looked old and tall, sat quietly in the evening sun. There were no magic towers, tall forts, or defensive walls to be found. Every single building was a formidable fortress on its own though.


    The core of the Grukosid within that group of buildings, yet the ce was hardly eye-catching whenpared to other residential buildings of the royalty of other nations.


    There was a huge hall made of jade within the group. Tens of people sat on the floor with a single desk in front of every one of them. Fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as exquisite wine, were ced on top of every table.


    Every single individual in the crowd were grade-9 professionals, and food was no longer a vitalponent to maintain their wellbeing.


    Every single individual sat right across another person, with the crowd being divided into two rows. The seat which supposedly belonged to the master of the ce, situated in the middle of the hall, was empty, with only a cushion ced there.


    At the east side of the hall sat a smiling elder, addressing the rest of the crowd. ¡°Everyone, Shodikas has been defeated. Saleen doesn¡¯t seem to be one with a good temper.¡±


    The female mage sitting across added in a loud and clear voice, ¡°How many could actually keep their temper in check when their practice of magic has reached such levels? The power of Saleen¡¯s soul must be powerful given the fact he was able to detect right there and then that we were testing him.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I tell you people not to go test him? If he gets angry about it and refuses to hand over the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake, I don¡¯t see any other option but to go steal it from him.¡±


    ¡°And why shouldn¡¯t we?¡±


    ¡°Shut up! Do you take us to be robbers?¡±


    ¡°Alright, point taken.¡±


    The hall, which had originally been rather quiet, burst into loud chatter in mere moments.


    ¡°Settle down, people. Our n leader never agreed to anything like that, and it is best that we refrain from speaking about it from here on out. Furthermore, do you think we can just take it from him if we so wish? Regardless of whether Saleen is actually able to just destroy the item, making such a move against him would be tantamount to getting on Lex¡¯s bad side. Saleen is still a rtive of the Grukos n regardless of what anyone thinks about him. So, think about it, have you people lost your damn minds? Suggesting that we rob one of our own?¡±


    ¡°But the mark is something important. Will Lord Chief really want to make a trade? It¡¯s going to cost us a fortune!¡±


    ¡°You know nothing, a**hole!¡± A seemingly mild-mannered middle-aged mage howled at the side.


    ¡°Hey,nguage!¡±


    ¡°This matter can only be decided by the Lord Chief himself. We knew from our previous test that Saleen is not one that responded well to force, and that meant that we needed to talk to him. As for the cost, if we can retrieve the mark, the Grukos will no longer have to fear the Holy See, or that wretched Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Those ingrates in Alchemy City. A thousand years ago...¡±


    ¡°Shut it. Don¡¯t bother talking about what happened 1,000 years ago. It is a rare thing for a rtionship of any kind tost more than 100 years. For the past millennium, Alchemy City has been watching over Holy Rock City, and that itself is already a service to us. Just think about how many emperors have actually failed at their jobs throughout that time.¡± The mage who seemed to be in charge raised his ss and chanted his toast in the midst of the messy chatter.


    ¡°Hmph...¡± A cold voice was heard outside the hall. A silhouette was seen walking in under the sunset. The young figure was seen wearing a tall crown, he had long eyebrows and he carried an ancient sword on his side.


    ¡°Dikas!¡± An imposing voice was heard behind the youngster. The cold look on his face vanished as he stepped aside and made way. A tall female mage walked into the hall from behind him.


    ¡°Lord Chief!¡±


    ¡°Chief!¡±


    Everyone who had been drinking all stood up and bowed.


    The head of the Grukos family, the one who controlled all of the Golden ins, was a female mage in her thirties. She wore amon white magic robe, but the robe was a very old one. Traces of magic repairs could even be seen on it.


    ¡°Teacher...¡± The swordsman called Dikas, bowed to the female mage.


    ¡°So, if I hadn¡¯t returned two days earlier, I take it you all would have continued messing around, wouldn¡¯t you?¡± While the words that came out of her mouth were clearly ones meant to chastise a person, it sounded rather unusual when she uttered them. The words seemed to sound like a sigh, yet at the same time, they were words meant to berate a friend.


    No one dared to retaliate. The female mage walked to her seat with Dikas in tow, staying by her side.


    ¡°Lord Chief, how has the negotiation with Alchemy City been going?¡± The elder who had seemed to be in charge previously asked carefully, after seeing their chief not opening her mouth after taking her seat. He knew well that while the current chief looked peaceful and amicable, she was actually very capable of brutal means, unmatched by any of her predecessors.


    ¡°The negotiation didn¡¯t end well. I came back as soon as I was done killing about 100 of them. If only the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake was in my hands...¡± The female mage did not continue. She saw the desk before her to be empty and turned to look at Dikas.


    Dikas rummaged in his spatial equipment in a hurry to find a tea set. He began making tea for his teacher. He was no mage, yet was capable of using spatial equipment, which was a rare feat indeed.


    The hall was silent, and magic lights lit up as the sky went dark. At the center of the hall, there was a magic array which was about a dozen yards in diameter. Arge amount of magic images appeared, all of which were songs and dances created by the mages themselves. Nobles kept dancers around, yet mages did not bother doing so for their asional entertainment; they created illusions using their own magic instead.


    Doing so allowed them to further practice magic as well. Every attempt at creatingplex illusions served to deepen their art at magic.


    The professionals of the Grukos n took a good look at their n leader and found her to be unscathed. The conflict with Alchemy City did not seem to be a serious one.


    The female mage said, ¡°Enough talk with the matter. We need the mark more than anything else. Saleen is a mage himself, and he should know well not to ask for too much. He would be inviting trouble.¡±


    The female mage stopped for a moment before continuing. ¡°I learned from this trip that one-third of our nobles in the south were bought over by Alchemy City. All of the men that we left were based in the southwestern and southeastern regions. Even Grand Duke Pompeii sided with Alchemy City. A shame indeed. I thought he was a loyal one.¡±


    ¡°Lord Chief, why did you not kill him?¡± A grand swordmaster asked.


    ¡°There was little point in doing so. I could have easily squashed anyone of those nobles if I so wished, but are we going to go about killing all of them if they can¡¯t stay put following orders from Holy Rock City? Armies matter little now. There were many professionals in Alchemy City, and their number of sorcerers far eclipsed ours. The value of Holy Rock City is no longer what it once was. So, do you think we should back Lex? She is now running Bitterwater Prefecture and is married to Saleen. She knows her way around things, and that is something we are incapable of.¡±


    ¡°Did you not mention that armies mattered little now?¡±


    ¡°Heh, don¡¯t you know that it was Lex who got Saleen to crush Ironwall City? Lex is a direct descendant of the bloodline. If she can bear a child for Saleen, rallying behind her would be our best bet.¡± The female mage tapped on the desk with her finger as she pondered, before adding further. ¡°Now, all we need to know is what Saleen is capable of. If he is one who can easily die, there is little value to him.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, would you mind if I take the task of doing so?¡± Dikas asked.


    ¡°You? I¡¯m in no mood to avenge you.¡± The female mage shot her student down as soon as he was done asking, giving him no face. Dikas¡¯ face became even colder after that. If it was not for his fear of his teacher, he would have probably gone to settle scores with Saleen with his sword drawn. Shodikas was a friend of his, and he had heard of Shodikas¡¯ sh with Saleen as soon as he returned. He had been nning to get his hands on him as soon as he heard the news.


    ¡°No matter how strong Saleen is, he is still a sorcerer, and there is no way I wouldn¡¯t be a match for him,¡± Dikas thought.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking. If the war on the maind bes what it once was, would it be wise for us to continue to stay on the Golden ins?¡± The female mage¡¯s words stunned everyone in the hall. The Grukos n served only to support the line of royalty and would never participate in the game of power on the maind. It was a tradition that hadsted for more than 1000 years.


    While the Grukos had been sending people across the maind in attempts to keep nobles under their thumb, they were only doing it for Holy Rock City, as well as to serve as a means to release unstable factors from Golden ins. A ce with too many professionals around was bound to see conflict after all.


    ¡°You are all dismissed. Return to your ces and tell your disciples that I¡¯m preparing to send men out to take on Alchemy City. By the way, tell Jalin to go look for Saleen. I want to speak with him.¡±


    Saleen was still studying Hogina¡¯s schematics inside the Magical Element Tower. It was something special that was created specifically for mages. From the drawings on the paper, the equipment resembled his own devil suit in some ways. The equipment was to be attached only to the torso though.


    Theplexity of the armament eclipsed that of Hogina¡¯s gun. It was something like a breastte. It was fitted with 12 independent spaces, enabling them to unleash 12 metal wheels. The metal wheels were made to circle around the mage wearing the equipment. Anyone who dared go near the mage would be attacked by the metal wheels.


    A mage¡¯s defense relied solely on magic shields traditionally, or some special magic buffs. The piece of equipment however, used defense through offense, by having the warriors who had gotten near to the mage be attacked by the wheels, or even killed outright. The metal wheels were controlled by the mental powers of the mage wearing the equipment.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, if a mage were to be armed with such equipment, the threat posed by assassins would be rendered nearly nonexistent. The equipment was one capable of flight too. When the 12 metal wheels were unleashed, the mage would then be able to control those wheels and take flight.


    A mage¡¯s flight relied on magic chords traditionally. Even with equipment like Wings of an Elf, it was still dangerouspared to using flying spells. The 12 metal wheels however, served primarily as offensive weapons. The only problem when flying with such a piece of equipment would be lightning. Common alchemy crossbows would be unable to prate the defenses afforded by the 12 metal wheels.


    The practicality of the equipment was indisputable. Be it to grand mages or sorcerers, it was a piece of dream equipment. Even low-level mages would be able to fly using it.


    A mage approached the Magical Element Tower while Saleen was still thinking of ways to improve the schematics and bringing the drawings into reality. The mage did not take to the air. She had chosen to walk to the peak instead. Every step of hers was capable of covering about a dozen yards of distance.


    She looked unppable while doing so. The speed vastly exceeded what was achievable by most mages¡¯ flying abilities.

 Chapter 1037: Jalin (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1037: Jalin (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mage Saleen, are you there?¡± A young female mage stopped by outside the magic tower, without attempting to peer into the tower using any magical means. She did not even use sound amplification magic. She simply used her own voice, as if she was talking to Saleen face to face.


    The mage wore a white robe and a paper mask. The mask was intricately made, and a pale red peach blossom was drawn on it. Saleen was unable to see the visiting mage through the mask, but her hands were just as delicate and supple as Hogina¡¯s, and she sounded very young.


    ¡°I¡¯m here. What is it?¡± Saleen put the schematics away. All six windows at the 17th floor of the magic tower opened. The windows of the Magical Element Tower were also magic arrays, and the arrays needed to be activated to move in and out of the tower, as one would in amon magic tower.


    ¡°I¡¯m Jalin. Lord Chief extends her invitation to you. Are you avable to talk now?¡± The young female mage felt totally different from Dikas. The young man was filled with murderous intent and was suppressing the cold emanating from his body at all times. In contrast, Jalin enabled others to want to approach her simply by talking as usual alone.


    ¡°Of course I¡¯d be avable, but the time...¡±


    The sky had turned dark and there were no magic arrays for illumination within the Magical Element Tower. Saleen and Jalin conversed in the dark.


    ¡°It is fine. My teacher has prepared a feast. She just came back herself and has not rested yet.¡± Jalin¡¯s voice prated the darkness, reaching into the magic tower. The Winged Skull snorted, apparently having a bad impression of the female mage.


    From the Winged Skull¡¯s perspective, Jalin seemed to be trying to seduce Saleen. If Nailisi were present, the demon would have shot her Dragon Crystal Needle at her without anyone noticing.


    ¡°Please wait for a moment.¡± Saleen turned to the Winged Skull. ¡°You and Hogina stay here. I¡¯ll go have a look myself.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. The members of the Grukos won¡¯t do me any harm. They wouldn¡¯t have sent those kids otherwise. It¡¯s totally pointless to lure me outside the tower. If they really wanted to do something to me, do you really think I¡¯d be able to leave Golden ins easily?¡±


    Hogina mumbled, ¡°That Jalin sounded awful. I think she¡¯s trying to seduce you.¡±


    Saleen chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s a type of secret arts. The Grukos is indeed powerful. I get to see three people having mastery of secret arts within just one day. Hogina, take this. Have fun researching it while I¡¯m not around.¡±


    Saleen took out something that he had crafted. It was a puppet that resembled a Witcher Spider. Saleen¡¯s Witcher Spider was destroyed and he missed it very much, so he crafted himself a copy.


    Hogina was used to people treating her like a kid. She took the ¡®toy¡¯ that Saleen gave her and said nothing. Saleen leapt out from the window andnded lightly on the ground.


    The Magical Element Tower¡¯s 17th floor was about 150 meters from the ground. The height of the tower exceeded the low peaks within the area. Saleen did not use Quickcloud when he dropped, instead using only the simplest Wind Travel, andnded before Jalin without making a sound.


    Jalin performed the courtesy gesture among mages and Saleen returned the greeting. This Jalin¡¯s abilities are probably not all that far from my own. Saleen was unable to sense the changes of elements around Jalin¡¯s body. That was the most difficult feat, as evenmon people affected the workings of elements around them, even if they did not even have magic chords.


    The elements around Jalin¡¯s body werepletely under her control, as if they were part of her body. That was the strongest state a sorcerer was able to achieve. One step further and she would be a level ten sorcerer.


    Jalin did not lead the way right after she saw Saleening out. She instead said to Saleen using a very gentle voice, ¡°Mage Saleen, I¡¯ve something that I need your help with. May I?¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡± Saleen was puzzled at the peculiar attitude that Jalin disyed.


    ¡°The tests that the elders did on you had nothing to do with Lord Chief, so...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind at all,¡± Saleen answered with a smile.


    ¡°What I meant to say was that I needed to test you out.¡± Jalin smiled. Saleen was being yed, but he was unable to get angry.


    ¡°But of course, that wasn¡¯t my teacher¡¯s decision. My brother in training is an arrogant one. Shodikas, the guy who came to harass you during the day, that was his friend. Even if I ended up not fighting you, he would have found ways to get you to fight. If the exchange between us is done through magic ,and there is no clear difference between your abilities and mine, he won¡¯t bother to look for trouble with you. He, well...he was never my match. I beat him into submission.¡±


    Jalin was rather quick with her boration, but she kept the tone of speech gentle, like the southern nobles reciting a song or poem, with a clear tempo.


    ¡°It seems to be something I can hardly refuse. After you then.¡± Saleen spread his arms to show that he was exasperated. What Jalin said seemed to be for his benefit, but the bottom line remained clear¡ªthey had to fight each other.


    ¡°Thank you. My teacher is in a rather bad mood now. I¡¯m afraid you¡¯ll get yourself into trouble,¡± Jalin put her hands together, casting a spell¡ªAbsolute Zero.


    Most level nine sorcerers were adept at instant magic. Jalin added a magic sign with her spell, which boosted the power of the spell by at least ten percent.


    Absolute Zero was an area-of-effect spell, the split second dy was not all that different from the effect of an instant spell.


    She went to cast level nine magic. While she sounded very gentle and soothing while talking, she was extremely brutal when fighting. If Saleen¡¯s reaction had been half a second slower and he had been hit by the Absolute Zero spell, not even holy masters would have been able to save him.


    Saleen cast Water Shield in an instant. The cloudy water element air was blocked by the Water Shield. A ball-shaped shield formed around Saleen¡¯s body.


    In the tower, the Winged Skull watched them fight, feeling nervous. If Saleen was in danger, they would not care about the course of things whatsoever. They would force themselves above level ten and destroy the soul bond between them and Saleen, if that was what it would take to kill the female mage outside the tower.


    ¡°Rx, Mr. Bones. Nothing will happen to Saleen.¡± Hogina observed the battle closely. She was looking at how Saleen used his equipment.


    ¡°How would you know?¡± The Winged Skull asked her.


    ¡°Saleen is...the most afraid of death I¡¯ve ever seen. If there were to be any actual danger, he wouldn¡¯t have left the tower,¡± Hogina answered.


    Jalin was surprised to see that Saleen was able to resist her Absolute Zero with a shieldparable to level seven, but she had not been adding the magic sign to boost the spells¡¯ power. She closed her hands and rendered all water element within tens of meters under her control, forming countless fangs and closing in on Saleen.


    Level nine water magic: Ice Dragon Fang.


    Jalin¡¯s continuous magic was almost all cast in an instant, as if she knew that Saleen would be able to resist her Absolute Zero spell. Her Ice Dragon Fang had a frequency of attack ten times other sorcerers. She had prepped her second spell for over three seconds. She had prepared over a dozen Ice Dragon Fangs, stacking them before releasing them.


    If the spell had worked, she would not have needed to cast her second one. Even if Absolute Zero failed to attack its target, its control attributes would render the enemy frozen on the ground, incapable of moving. The vicious attacks of the following Ice Dragon Fang would be something even level nine sorcerers had trouble dealing with.


    That attack would have been lethal. If Saleen had used magic equipment to defend the attack, he would have lost in terms of exchange of magic blows. If he were to not use equipment, he might have ended up dead.


    Jalin changed her hand signs, preparing for her third attack.


    Steam rose from the surface of the Water Shield all of a sudden, as if the spell that surrounded him was not Absolute Zero, but City Inferno. His Water Shield had actually burned. A mutated spell emerged, and a huge fireball expanded outwards.


    The spell was probably derived from Fire Ring of Resistance, a low level spell. It was modified by Saleen to expand in the form of a sphere. The Water Shield was consumed and Saleen put up another one immediately. The fireball then burned and expanded.


    All of the moves were cast instantly, as if Saleen had prepared long ago.


    The attacks from the Ice Dragon Fang were pushed away by the Fireball of Resistance. The huge fireball continued to expand, raising the temperature around instantly, negating Absolute Zero.


    Jalin was attacked byyers of fireballs before she was able to prepare more Ice Dragon Fangs.


    Jalin stacked multiple magic attacks, and Saleen was equipped with the ability as well. Saleen was rather excited, probably because he had not been fought using solely his own powers for quite a while.


    Jalin¡¯s powers were near his own. While the fight was a magic exchange, they did not hold back against each other. Saleen seemed to be able to smell the air of death about him. The feeling focused Saleen¡¯s mental powers like they had never been focused before. His mental calctions exceeded his limits. That was why he had been able to think of a way to break the Ice Dragon Fang almost instantly. Furthermore, he actually retaliated.


    An ice spear formed in the air and shot at Jalin. The ice spear appeared outside the area surrounded by the Ice Dragon Fangs, which meant that Saleen¡¯s elemental control powers were totally unaffected by Jalin. The ice spear was solid ck. Its surface was covered withplex magic patterns, resembling Grey Memory.


    What was more terrifying was that Saleen had even mimicked Grey Memory¡¯s targeting abilities. There were six tiny magic marks around the tip of the spear, locking Jalin¡¯s movements.


    If Saleen had not held anything back with the attack, and it had gone right through Jalin, she would have died on the spot. No level nine shields would have been able to withstand the thrust of the ice spear. The magic patterns on the spear were replicated from the Grey Memory itself.


    Mages were not permitted to have any other thoughts during battle, regardless of who stood before them.


    Jalin smiled. She had no choice but to give up her controlling magic. Her legs moved and she appeared on the other side of Saleen. Her movement skills were only a tad slower than Rainbow. The ice spear was not truly Grey Memory. Its momentary targeting was shaken off just like that.


    Saleen was shocked. He probably would not have been able to kill the female mage even if he were to use Crystal Finger. Such speed of movement required her to be restrained with some kind of control magic before anything else could be done.


    Saleen¡¯sbat capacity had, most of the time, been forged from life or death moments in battle. Saleen¡¯s killing intent grew increasingly thick as he sensed the danger posed by his opponent. The killing intent was borne out of instinct. It was not to say that Saleen had truly wanted to kill Jalin.


    Saleen turned around and flexed his hands, which were wearing ck gloves, and instant-cast a Death Impact.


    It was an instant death spell, which hit Jalin almost the very moment it was cast.


    Saleen heard a sound of paper being torn, and then Jalin¡¯s surprised shout.

 Chapter 1038: Jalin (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1038: Jalin (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jalin was able to call out, which meant that his instant death magic was rendered null. Saleen followed up immediately with another spell, but Jalin retreated to the bottom of the magic tower instead, leaning on the tower and holding her chest, saying, ¡°Saleen, stop!¡±


    Saleen waved his hand and hundreds of icicles dispersed in the air.


    Jalin was still in shock. The paper mask on her face had torn and the peach blossom flower on the mask fell to the floor, exposing a delicate face beneath.


    Saleen felt his heart skip a beat. Jalin looked even prettier than Nailisi. It was no wonder that she had to hide it behind a mask, as it would invite untold amount of trouble otherwise. Even Saleen, who was surrounded by beautiful girls, felt dumbfounded for a moment.


    So that mask was equipment too then? Only thoughts rted to magic would have been able to snap Saleen out of Jalin¡¯s influence in the shortest amount of time.


    ¡°You really dared go that far...¡± Killing intent welled up inside Jalin when she saw her torn mask. If she had not had the piece of equipment taking the fall, the instant death spell would have finished the job. This Saleen is really brutal. We made it clear that it was just an exchange, yet he really had no hesitation pulling the move. He definitely intended to kill me.


    ¡°Sorry. Force of habit.¡± Not even a hint of apology was heard from Saleen¡¯s words. He extended his hand and gestured a ¡®please¡¯ at Jalin.


    Jalin nodded took out a new mask from her space equipment and put it on her face, making her way down the mountain. Saleen noticed that the peach blossom on her new mask looked considerably paler.


    Saleen knew that he was being wary of Jalin¡¯s movement abilities when a killing intent welled up inside him. But Jalin was still alive and the n leader of the Grukos would not be able to do anything to him.


    Jalin did not bother using the unique abilities of hers when she travelled down the mountain, using amon Wind Travel spell instead. She wrapped Saleen into the spell and made their way to the group of pces tens of miles away.


    Every move that Jalin took made Saleen feel like he was seeing something he had never seen before. She had almost died at Saleen¡¯s hands, yet she acted as if nothing happened. Mages usually only kept their friends and loved ones, or subordinates and prisoners and whatnot, in their spells like that. She wrapped Saleen inside her spell and let the wind element drive both of them forward. She would have been able to attack any time within the vicinity of that spell.


    Jalin went about it very naturally and Saleen became reluctant to put up a Water Shield. It was fortunate that his Devil Armament was naturally buffed. Even if Jalin were to act against him, Saleen would probably not suffer any damage from the attacks.


    They were both level nine sorcerers and capable of moving faster than warhorses even by just walking. The trip, which was tens of miles long, took them about half an hour.


    There were no patrolling troops before the pce. It was all peaceful and tranquil on the Golden ins of the Grukos. Jalin brought Saleen through one hall after another. Saleen was right behind her and saw the female mage walking in a rather alluring manner. Saleen could not help but cast tens of lightning runes from his eyes,ying a film of pale golden color before his eyes and thunder rumbling in his mind, before he was able to calm down.


    This is eerie. Just walking alone can already be some skills and all. Saleen thought it fortunate that he was a mage. If the one who ran into her was a warrior, her opponent would have probably been reluctant to do her any harm.


    ¡°Saleen, we¡¯re here. Don¡¯t go making Teacher angry when you see her,¡± Jalin said and took Saleen around to a pce on the side. She then called from the corridor in a low voice, ¡°Teacher, he¡¯s here.¡±


    In the Qinnguage, the pronunciation of ¡®he¡¯ and ¡®she¡¯ sounded very different. Saleen only knew then that Jalin¡¯s teacher, Lord Chief of the Grukos, was a woman.


    However, it was hardly surprising. Qin women had been emperors before, so it was normal for one to be a chief. So long as she was powerful enough, she would have been able to nurture a mage like Jalin. The Lord Chief of the Grukos was probably on par with the likes of Joey.


    Saleen pushed his mask up and followed Jalin through the door. Only the center of the hall had magic lighting shining down into the pce, forming a bright spot of six meters in length and width. There was a broad table in that spot and the elders of the Grukos were all sitting there drinking tea.


    Dikas was attending to her. He red hard when he saw Saleening in. The mage felt his face hurt, as if it had beencerated by sword aura. That was considered an ambush. If Saleen had his mask on, the ambush would have amounted to nothing. He had deliberately pushed his mask up to show respect.


    Saleen felt a tinge of anger welling up in him, but recalled that Jalin told him that she had a brother in training. So this is him? But he¡¯s a grand swordmaster.


    The Lord Chief of the Grukos, a female mage, pointed at the seat across the table and said nothing.


    Saleen grew frustrated, but had no choice but to go sit across from the mage. Jalin came beside the female mage, standing at her teacher¡¯s nk with Dikas and attending to her teacher.


    The hall was dark, and Saleen knew that it was a Darkness Enchantment. If it had not been for the magicmp, Saleen would have had to use his Elemental Eye to perceive his surroundings.


    ¡°I¡¯m Arb, n leader of the Grukos. I take it that you brought the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake with you?¡± The female mage said all of a sudden.


    Saleen nodded and then shook his head. The rumbling noise in his head was still reverberating, negating the effects of Arb¡¯s magic on him.


    The female mage smiled, and it seemed to clear the air of frustration about her when she returned. She asked, ¡°tea?¡±


    Saleen took out a tea set from his Devil Ring and said, ¡°I brought my own.¡±


    ¡°Stubborn kid. No wonder Lex likes you.¡± The female mage was not angry at all, seeing Saleen lighting a fire and warming up his tea set.


    The tea set that Saleen had with him used to be Lex¡¯s. They were hardly able to see each other much after they got married. He was attended to by a good number of mages and everything seemed grand for him back then. But Saleen came to understand that it was Lex¡¯s way of nurturing him, allowing him to develop a kind of bearing for handling such situations.


    It was a power resembling rules. While it was nowhere as powerful as rules, it was nheless an importantbat skill. Lex might have been nurturing such a bearing from birth. No one who was able to keep their mind still would have been able to hold their head up before her, let alone actually move against her.


    Saleen was nurturing such a bearing as well, something Jason imparted on him, a bearing of forging forward and not looking back. Saleen had seen the outline of such a bearing with him when he battled Jalin earlier. When his sharp aura burst, the rate of sess of his instant death magic rose as well. It was an effect arising from a state where the powers within him reached a perfect bnce.


    In that very instant, Saleen broke Jalin¡¯s bearing and might, crushing her mask. That mask served as Jalin¡¯s second life.


    ¡°Lex hopes that someone from the n will be able to help her defend Daliang City. That is her city. If it were to be taken by the Holy See...¡±


    ¡°I will send 12 sorcerers and 500 warriors. You and Lex will be in charge of them from here on out.¡± Arb made a decision before Saleen was done making his statement. It was better Saleen had thought it would have been; he thought that the female mage would have tried to get in his way.


    ¡°I have brought the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, and I wonder what can I exchange it with.¡± Saleen went straight to the key question. He found that it was pointless to put up pretenses in front of Arb. The woman was someone like Joey: immutable.


    ¡°Who do you want in exchange?¡± Arb asked in return. She looked at Saleen, wanting to look for an opening in his eyes.


    ¡°I¡¯d like the Crown of Glory.¡± Saleen did not flinch at all. He had no way of knowing what valuables the Grukos had with them. If he were to simply ask for something just because Arb asked like that, he would have suffered quite a loss.


    The Crown of Glory was a piece of equipment that belonged to the founding emperor of the First Dynasty, crafted by killing 18 kings of gods. The Six-winged Flying Snake might have been powerful, but it didpare to that piece of equipment.


    ¡°How dare you!¡± Dikas shouted. His gleaming eyes shot at Saleen.


    Saleen was able to see that time that Dikas eyes emanated something like tangible power. That was control of rules, and he felt as if a formless sword aura wasing right for his face.


    Saleen did not anticipate that Dikas would behav so ruthlessly before Arb when he was first hit. When Dikas pulled the same trick again, Saleen was ready for him. He shot 36 golden lightning runes from his eyes, negating Arb¡¯s attack.


    Arb was astounded when she saw the golden lightning runes emanating from Saleen¡¯s eyes. The runes were something she had never seen before and she was unable to even to tell what type of skill it was. She and Saleen were one whole level away. She would have usually been able to tell attributes and weaknesses of skills, even the ones she had never encountered before.


    She, however, was unable to tell the weaknesses of the golden runes that shot out of Saleen¡¯s eyes. It was some power of rules that was very close to perfection.


    Given time, Saleen would probably grow into the most famous mage on Myers Maind, instead of how it was, where everyone merely saw him as a king, and furthermore, one who relied on Lex.


    ¡°Saleen, I have to admit that I underestimated you. Alright, I¡¯ll tell you now that I have two pieces of equipment with me. Each is of a levelparable to the Six-winged Flying Snake, but they are not suited for my use. Which one would you wish to take home with you?¡± Arb took out two unassuming pieces from her space equipment, putting them on the table.


    The one on the left was a ring, which was carved with metals and gems criss-crossing each other. It was a deep color, and the metal parts looked messy and the gemscked luster. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was unable to tell what it was. All he was able to tell about that ring was that it was probably carved from ore. The metals and the gems were fused together by some unknown power, making it look eerie.


    The equipment on the right was a small jade green crossbow. Saleen was able to tell right away that it was elvish equipment. As Arb put it, it was a levelparable to the mark of Six-Winged Flying Snake.


    Saleen began to ponder. He was able to tell just about nothing about the ring, but the small crossbow could be gifted to Eleanor. Saleen definitely knew the use of that item, which, once developed, would be able to serve as a powerful equipment, and it would be far more handy than his Crystal Finger.


    ¡°I can only choose one?¡± Saleen asked in an attempt to test the waters.


    ¡°Yes, one, per the principles of mages: equivalent exchange.¡± Arb looked at Saleen and saw no greed in his eyes. Saleen¡¯s blue eyes looked like the surface of a frozenke,pletely devoid of ripples and movement.

 Chapter 1039: Temptation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1039: Temptation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°This isn¡¯t fair, the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake is very important to you, and I know nothing about using this equipment. I¡¯m a mage, not a gambler.¡± Golden runes emerged from Saleen¡¯s blue eyes yet again. Arb had yet to cast any skills. Saleen was able to handle the situation using only his exuded aura.


    ¡°You are right, but from the perspective of the principle of equivalent exchange, you will be able to get your hands on this equipment by trading with the mark. With that, you will be able to take one more recement equipment from my private collection. As such, you are only allowed to choose one of these two for trading.¡±


    Saleen continued pondering. He took notice, from the corner of his eye, of Jalin¡¯s eyes locking onto the small green crossbow. From behind Arb he signaled Saleen to select the crossbow.


    Saleen took out the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake and put it on the table, before taking the ring and putting it on his finger.


    Saleen was able to see a tinge of frustration in Jalin¡¯s eyes, and even Arb seemed rather surprised by his choice. The green crossbow packed a lot of punch, and it was even able to kill a grade-9 sorcerer with a single shot if said sorcerer was caught off-guard somehow. While the ring might have been a more important artifact, it was left with little more than one-eighth of its original powers. When put side by side with the crossbow it became some trinket with mediocre offensive capacity.


    ¡°Well then, lord chief, let us go have a look...¡± What Saleen wanted was to go take a look at Arb¡¯s private collection and im his second equipment.


    Arb took the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake and rubbed it in her hand, saying, ¡°What¡¯s the rush? We still have unfinished business here.¡±


    Saleen answered immediately, ¡°Better get things done one thing at a time. I¡¯d feel safer having imed my second item.¡±


    Arb sighed and said, ¡°You are a true Sikeqinyan indeed. Alright then. Jalin, take Saleen to my private collection.¡±


    ¡°Yes, teacher.¡± Jalin crooked a finger behind Arb.


    Dikas took notice, and smirked. ¡°I wonder how many who have been marked by Jalin lived to tell the tale.¡±


    Saleen bowed and followed Jalin to the back of the pce. A lone six-floored tower stood behind the pce. Saleen scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye and found the ce to function simrly to a magic tower. The only notable difference was that wood of unknown kind was used in its construction. Analysis from his Elemental Eye revealed that the material used for constructing the ce was considerably stronger than steel rock.


    There was no one outside the tower. He saw a guard only after entering the ce.


    The guard was an old man who looked ratherzy. Saleen dared not underestimate the old man, as while the old man did not seem to bother with personal grooming, his eyes had a spark unlike any other. He deemed such people to be people who either had less than 72 hours to live, or people who were frighteningly powerful, so powerful that no trace of their power was leaked for others to detect. That prevented any weaknesses to be exploited.


    Saleen understood why Arb had such a powerful figure to guard the ce. While the contents within might not have all been Arb¡¯s, it was nheless an important ce to the Grukos. It was a privilege for him to even be able to enter the ce. The fact that Saleen was allowed a tour was some kind of remuneration for him in a way.


    Saleen said it himself, no matter how precious the material to be imed was, he was in no hurry to im it. The mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake was however, very important to Arb. She needed to get her hands on it as soon as possible.


    ¡°Uncle Glog, my teacher had mee pick something up,¡± Jalin greeted the old man. The old man opened one eye and nced at Saleen. He then nodded without saying a word.


    Jalin took Saleen inside, pushing the front door open and walking into the corridor.


    The door shut behind him, and Jalin quipped only after that, ¡°Saleen, I was being kind to give you a hint, yet you went and picked that broken ring.¡±


    ¡°Your teacher did say that the ring was of the same level as the elvish crossbow.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s still broken, so it¡¯s little more than a trinket to bolster one¡¯s mental powers. Do you actually intend to fix it? Well, you¡¯ll have to wait until you reach grade-18 then,¡± Jalin borated rather scornfully, as if both of them had been friends for a long time.


    ¡°I like broken things. Not so intoplete items myself.¡± Saleen was very wary of Jalin¡¯s habits. Having spent quite some time around her, he found that he might be enticed by her somehow, making it impossible for him to be hostile around her.


    ¡°Saleen, are you afraid of me?¡± Jalin stopped, turned around, and pushed a door open. ¡°The best ones are in here.¡±


    ¡°What about upstairs?¡± Saleen pointed above him. He remembered that the ce had six floors, and things of higher value were usually ced on higher floors.


    ¡°You sure you want to go up?¡± Jalin asked Saleen seriously.


    Saleen shook his head and said, ¡°How about you just tell me what is up there?¡±


    ¡°Broken trash that the Grukos has been collecting throughout the millennium. It¡¯s iplete stuff. You are a mage yourself, so you should know equipment like that needs to have a set of six to bepleted. If you deem yourself lucky, you might be able to find something useful here. None of the ones up there even appeal to me.¡±


    ¡°Is this the only vault?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. This is my teacher¡¯s private vault, so you can pick whichever thing you like in it. If the ce was one shared by the family itself, she would have had to ask for the elder¡¯s permission before letting you inside. But of course, if you feel like being greedy, you are practically giving her permission to kill you. She had a really bad time in Alchemy City and wants desperately to vent it out at someone.¡± Jalin looked as if she was telling him everything as she borated.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take my pick from here then,¡± Saleen said as he walked into the vault that did not look all that huge.


    The ce was filled almost to the brim with stacked slots, making Saleen feel as if he had walked into the nest of some insect. His perception of time and ce seemed warped, and Saleen found himself almost feeling like a bug crawling inside a nest that he had built. ¡°Just what is happening here!?¡±


    ¡°Hah!¡± Jalin walked right behind Saleen, but she did not seem affected at all. She borated further, ¡°While the Golden ins is indeed a safe ce, there is still a need to guard the vault nheless. My teacher brought everything important with her, but in case something untoward happened, she needed to leave behind quite a lot of things. All you see here is precious stuff like none other. If she happened to perish out there, what is in here is still able to ensure that the chief that seeded her would have it easier with things.¡±


    ¡°So that was why the magic array wasid?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a magic array, it¡¯s a magic sequence.¡± Jalin did nothing to hide anything, and Saleen asked only out of curiosity. There was no way he would not have known about magic sequences. Magic sequences were products of amalgamations of countless magic arrays. His own Metatrin City had Dante¡¯s Sequenceid, arming it with formidable offensive powers.


    There was no telling of how many slots were set within the small room, and every slot housed one independent object. Saleen went about looking around, and found equipment constructed of materials of mystical origins. It was a pity that none of the equipment wasplete, there were some that were little more than a box.


    Saleen knew that much of the equipment was required to be kept inside special containers, taken out only when the need arose.


    The vault had irregr height in its passages. Saleen went looking around the ce, being in no hurry to pick anything. Jalin stayed by his side and reminded, ¡°Saleen, magic sequences aren¡¯t something you can learn just by remembering them.¡±


    ¡°I know that. I just want to get familiar with the ce. I might end uping here again after all.¡± Saleen¡¯s words rendered someone like Jalin speechless. What Saleen could have meant, after all, was that he intended to tour around the ce on his own some time in the future.


    Saleen did not care if he was able to actually learn the sequence used there. He knew well that the magic sequence there allowed for space to be expanded to its greatest extent, allowing logical use of the space within. The magic sequence also possessed immense mind-bending powers, greater than the greatest of illusionary spells. There was no waymon thieves would be able to even make out the entrance. Saleen might not have been able to master the defensive powers of the ce, but he could at least learn how to use space in a logical manner.


    Noting that Saleen did not bother to heed her words, she simply followed him about. She was concerned, after all, that Saleen grew too greedy. She suspected he would take away more than he was allowed to. While it was true that none of the equipment housed within wasplete. The items were nheless made of very high-grade materials. Even if it was confirmed that they would never be able to bepleted, they were still capable of serving as fine materials to craft something else.


    Saleen took six items quietly after touring around for a bit. He took note of Jalin¡¯s words for the very first time. He did notck for finished items, and all he wanted at that moment was high quality materials.


    It was especially the case when he chanced upon a scabbard. If Saleen had not been bothered with the thunderous noise in his head, he would probably have been unable to keep his glee suppressed, allowing for Jalin to figure something out about him.


    It was a scabbard for a short sword, and Saleen was able to tell right away that it held 24 rules. It was a scabbard for none other than the Sword of Rules.


    The scabbard was something crafted to fit the Sword of Rules after the sword was made. There was no power of rules infused within.


    The scabbard was however, meant to be used with the Sword of Rules in a set. While the Sword of Rules was still quite a practical equipment, the loosening of the powers of the ne would render the weapon unusable by Nailisi.


    Jalin had no idea that Saleen had justpleted one set of equipment. She got impatient and rushed him. ¡°Hurry up, will you? My teacher is still waiting for you outside.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, noted.¡± Saleen threw a square-looking piece of jade away and took a huge piece of scale out from a slot. The scale was taken from the skull of a Six-Winged Flying Snake, and the quality looked like it was the same as the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake. The upside of the scale seemed to be iid withplex magic arrays. Saleen recalled that Nailisi¡¯s bone shield was prated. If the shield had been bolstered with the scale, she would not have suffered an injury by Van Gogh¡¯s hand, an injury that almost killed her.


    Jalin snorted as Saleen finished picking and took him out of the vault. It was Arb¡¯s idea to take Saleen to the vault, as she knew well that a mage of Saleen¡¯s level would be more interested in gathering materials.


    Arb had indeed been waiting for Saleen as Jalin returned to the pce with him. Saleen took his seat and Arb said, ¡°Saleen, are you satisfied with our exchange?¡±


    Saleen nodded, ¡°It is very fair indeed.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m d to hear that. Shall we discuss the matter to attack Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going.¡± Saleen refused without hesitation.


    Alchemy City was deemed so dangerous that even if he were to hide right behind Arb, there was still no guarantee that he would be kept safe. It was just like how no one from Alchemy City would have even thought about kicking up a fuss in Metatrin City, and Saleen was not foolish enough to go kick up a fuss in such a ce.


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying I need you there. I just need you to help me with something. I¡¯ll dly give you the manpower you need, but my men have things they need done nheless. If you want true help, it¡¯d be best that you help me clear something out along the way.¡± Arb borated nonchntly, as if she knew that Saleen had no way of refusing her.

 Chapter 1040: Temptation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1040: Temptation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°What do I get in return?¡± Saleen found that Arb behaved more like a Sikeqinyan than he did. It became easier for him, as there would hardly be any hoops that he needed to jump through.


    ¡°Saleen, it seems like you have no idea still. The steward of your kingdom, the Kingdom of Metatrin, has ventured through Phoenix and banded together with the general of Guderian City to attack the Holy See¡¯s army. However, that was a trap.¡±


    ¡°Was it?¡± Saleen smirked, seemingly unperturbed and not showing a bit of concern for Sika.


    ¡°Indeed. The Holy See deployed a huge number of Blood Knights there. The force amounted to more than a million, spread out throughout an area of several hundred square yards.¡±


    Saleen calcted, finding the density of the opposing force to be huge, and its deployment uncannily easy. If Sika dived straight into such a state of affairs, things might have actually turned perilous. His eyes remained fixed on Arb, waiting for what she had to add to that.


    ¡°Rx. Sika managed to escape, and the Holy See suffered huge losses, so much so that they might have just lost the power tounch massive attacks at anyrge cities within the year. The Holy See seems to be angered. They gathered their forces in the north and nned tounch an attack at Guderian City in the fall.¡±


    ¡°So, what does that have to do with me?¡± Saleen asked while looking rather puzzled.


    ¡°Saleen, there are some other ways we can go about solving our troubles with this war. How about Iunch an attack personally at the rear of the Holy See? That would certainly solve Sika¡¯s problems.¡±


    ¡°No need for that. Sika can handle her own problems.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, the harder your stance in this, the greater you care about it.¡± Arb went straight to making Saleen¡¯s weaknesses obvious. Sika was his weakness, and to Saleen, if anything happened to Sika, all his efforts would be for nothing.


    ¡°I have enough power to crush the Holy See¡¯s attacks.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, even Holy Rock City became unable to cover for Guderian City, as it was the pope himself who is leading the attack this time.¡±


    ¡°Theisio!¡± Saleen could not stress the name enough as he uttered it. The enmity he felt towards the Holy See became increasingly intense.


    ¡°I will send men to go to Guderian City with you. Get yourself an opportunity of some sort and get rid of Theisio. Then, the entire north will cease fighting for at least half a year. So, what do you think about this proposal, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Why me?¡±


    ¡°No one can act as a bait better than you do, as Theisio¡¯s target is none other than you. There would be no opportunity left to be exploited if you were to be left out of the equation.¡±


    Arb did not bother hiding her intentions to have Saleen be bait, which sounded even more enticing to him. Saleen knew himself to be better than anyone to act as bait, as he had his Magical Element Tower with him. If things went south, he would still be able to hide within his tower, and Theisio would not be able to do anything to him.


    ¡°How do you want to go about it?¡±


    ¡°You pick either one of my two students to act as your assistant, take my personal guards and head for Guderian City. Do not hold anything back with your use of magical equipment, as I willpensate you with more. Do your best to kick up a ruckus and make Theisio notice.¡±


    ¡°Is that all?¡±


    ¡°That will do. I¡¯ll bring the elders and tag along about 200 miles away from you. Are you telling me that you can¡¯t evenst an hour if you are to run into him?¡±


    Arb was very confident as her elders were all grade-9 professionals. They were more than capable of covering the distance of 200 miles within an hour. With her student and guards in tow, Saleen would not have any trouble keeping Theisio at bay for an hour.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but I can¡¯t say yes to this. Sika¡¯s problem is my own, and I¡¯ll deal with it myself. If you want me to be your bait, you need to do better than that.¡± Saleen refused Arb yet again. Even Dikas began to be feel impressed by Saleen.


    Millions would have jumped at Arb¡¯s invitation without hesitation. If anyone was to find out that Saleen had indeed refused Arb...


    ¡°Jalin, you have sparred with Saleen. How long do you think his powers would allow him tost?¡±


    ¡°Teacher, if he were to fight less than six grade-9 sorcerers, Saleen would need no help at all, and he would be able to leave any time he pleased.¡±


    Arb felt rather surprised. Saleen added, ¡°Lord Arb, my tower is one that I can take with me anywhere. If you want me to be your bait, I can hold out for more than two days. You can do whatever you need within that period. As such, let¡¯s talk about what you¡¯d be bringing to the table for me.¡±


    ¡°A tower that you can bring with you...Saleen, we will need to move within a week. You may be capable, but it is best that you take my student with you, as you will get plenty of rest doing so. You¡¯re nomander in the field after all.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll let Jalin tag along. I¡¯ll handmand of your guards to her and I¡¯ll stay out of it all.¡±


    It was a given that Saleen was reluctant to have Jalin by his side, but he needed Arb¡¯s men to be able to locate him quickly and ambush Theisio. He needed someone capable of rying messages by his side.


    ¡°Or maybe I¡¯ll take Dikas instead?¡± Saleen took one look at Dikas¡¯ cold face and decided to stay with their original n.


    Despite Jalin being troublesome, it still felt better to him to have her around instead of Dikas. Things would have felt awful if he were to have someone with such a cold expression looking at him all day. Dikas was one who would go about killing as soon as their sword was unsheathed.


    ¡°Alright, Jalin. From here on out, you will be following Saleen. I will send the guards your way when we are about to depart.¡± Arb finished and Saleen excused himself.


    Dikas quipped from the side, ¡°I¡¯ve heard that you were strong, Saleen. Even Shodikas proved to be no match for you. How about we spar a little, eh?¡±


    Saleen made a farewell gesture and left instead.


    ¡°Spar with Dikas? I was almost covered in sh** sparring with Jalin! He wants me to spar with a golden grand swordmaster? That might easily cost me my life.¡± Saleen believe that the secret arts that Dikas had been practicing yed a huge role in how he handled things. If the chance of killing him was presented to Dikas, the man would not hesitate to move against him.


    Arb turned around and said to Dikas after Saleen left, ¡°Stop ying around. He fought with Jalin before and Jalin lost.¡±


    ¡°Impossible!¡± Dikas shouted. Jalin was like a great mountain that had been overshadowing him since youth. He was unable toprehend how one such formidable figure lost to a mere stranger.


    ¡°There is nothing impossible about it. You¡¯ve overestimated what you are capable of. If you are unable to kill 100 holy masters on this expedition, then you can stop calling me your teacher from here on out,¡± Arb said coldly to Dikas.


    Saleen left the pce with Jalin in tow and did not bother using any magic spells. He simply walked with his own legs towards the Magical Element Tower. Saleen had hoped that Jalin would have just gotten fed up with him and gone off on her own, but Jalin stuck to him like some kind of glue, sticking around with no intentions of leaving.


    ¡°Jalin, since we will only depart about a week from now, juste look for me by then. Don¡¯t you feel uneasy tagging around like this?¡± Saleen decided to try to shoo her off using the simplest of tactics.


    ¡°Saleen, if I were to leave, Dikas would show up. Think about it. Your little wifey is now stuck inside Guderian City. If the Holy See gets tired of waiting, there is a good chance that they will just make a move. I suggest that you just bear with it all for the time being.¡±


    Saleen was renderedpletely speechless. ¡°Alright, have it your way. Stick around if you like it that way.¡±


    He had no fear of bringing Jalin inside the tower, as magic towers were something that worked at full capacity with their masters around. No other mages were allowed to use his tower for battle without his expressed permission. If he were to let Jalin inside his tower, he would have had absolute confidence of being able to kill the young sorcerer inside.


    Arb gathered a force consisting of 12 sorcerers and 500 elite troops of the Grukos to head for Daliang City to help Lex with the defense of her city. She only then gathered the elders and began discussing their n to assassinate Theisio.


    Guderian City was all silent at that moment. The army that was deployed alongside Sika¡¯s forces lost half of their men. Even the great general himself was in aa.


    None of the other surviving officers from Guderian City had anything to say against Sika, as she was thest to leave the battlefield. She also lost all of her demon forces in that battle. The result of their coalition however, was one astonishing achievement to the officers of Guderian City.


    The enemy forces amounting to a million werepletely crushed by Sika¡¯s army of demons. If it had not been for the fact that great numbers of professionals showed up within the ranks of the enemy, things could have been better still.


    Sika¡¯s show of courage on the field was one that was etched deeply in the hearts of the generals of Guderian City.


    Sika herself had no intentions of bragging about. She had used the magic tower in the city to write a letter requesting reinforcements from Metatrin City. Guderian City was surrounded and there was no way that she could just run off on her own. There were tens of grade-9 professionals in the ranks of the Holy See army that surrounded the city. It was entirely due to luck that she was able to escape.


    It was extremely dangerous for anyone to venture outside the city alone, and Sika had no intentions of fighting at the frontlines anymore. She did not fear death as she came to understand after bing a priestess, that the ancient Caucasus people spoke the truth. Souls of the dead returned to be one with their ne. There was little to fear about death.


    Said souls would revive some day, gaining fresh lives with the only demerit being losing their previous memories.


    If it had not been for the bond she had with her two children, Sika would have definitely had the courage to fight her enemies head on again.


    The army outside the city was divided into two massive forces. One force, amounting to 700,000, went into the valley. That force had intended to do more than just prevent Sika from returning to her home country; they also intended to assault Guya City.


    She looked at the map feeling rather frustrated. Just how long would it take for reinforcements from Metatrin City to arrive? The Metal Titan had almost died fighting, and she no longer had any means of dealing massive blows to the enemy.


    The army that had the city surrounded was, ironically, just as frustrated as Sika inside the city.


    The one in charge was, for the time being, someone from the Tribunal. The one who nned the assault was still nowhere to be seen. Pope Theisio should have arrived a long time ago.


    The two armies outside the city, one in the north and one in the south, waited desperately for Theisio¡¯s arrival. With things left in a stalemate like that, reinforcements from Metatrin could arrive to even the odds any moment.


    No one knew where Theisio was at that moment.


    Without Theisio, there was to be no borrowing of powers from the oracles. The ones from the Tribunal were practically gnashing their teeth at that moment. ¡°That godd**ned Theisio. Despite having paid such a hefty cost to summon three oracles from heaven, all three of them stayed back in the Holy City and refused to mobilize no matter what anyone said.¡±


    The powers bestowed by the millions of adherents in the Holy City dazed them. In heaven, everything belongs to the Lord of Glory. In the Holy City, they were free to take whatever they fancied.

 Chapter 1041: Original Sin (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1041: Original Sin (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Theisio was less than a hundred miles away from Guderian City. He intended to rush to the city, but the oracle had other thoughts.


    The other two oracles remained back in Holy City. If he knew what had just happened was going to happen, Theisio would not have allowed the oracle to tag along.


    He felt like pping himself. If he had not insisted on asking for three days off, the oracle would not have gotten interested in leaving Holy City.


    The trip had been awful. The oracle was interested in just about everything they saw and wanted research everything. Theisio had began to suspect if that oracle was simply a mage in disguise.


    But then again, mages would not have a temper as bad as the oracle¡¯s. After spending some time with them, Theisio was shocked at the true nature of the oracle.


    Greedy, lustful, feverish, distrustful, pretentious...


    All of the shorings mentioned by their god were shown in the oracle. Aren¡¯t these oracles beings closest to god? They were only a little over than a hundred miles from Guderian City, but the oracle altered their flight path and took Theisio to the mountains and dove into the cave.


    Theisio was almost rendered mad by the oracle¡¯s antics. The cave had many twists and turns, leading deep into the ground. He had no idea why the oracle had insisted on going to such depths to search the ce. Is there a beautiful female adherent waiting below or something?


    The regal, shinning figure of the oracle shimmered, attracting all sorts of bugs and monsters below ground, which attacked them. The oracle killed all of them. Holy Light Shimmer alone proved adequate to overwhelm all beings below level seven. It felt like a scenario where two sides were at war, but one side simply blew at their enemy and won.


    ¡°Lord Oracle, may I ask what are you looking for down here?¡± Theisio was unable to help but ask.


    ¡°Something a heretic god left behind, probably shards of divine persona.¡± The oracle answered without bothering to hide anything. Their level was one whole level higher than Theisio¡¯s and had far greater power of faithpared to him. They did not fear what Theisio was capable of pulling to go against them.


    Divine persona shards!


    Theisio was shocked. The oracle continued, ¡°That might not be it, maybe just some god bones or snuffed out seeds of divine fire.¡±


    The oracle answered in a natural manner, not even bothering to add other descriptive words like ¡®heretic god.¡¯


    Their advent was not ordained by their god. The Lord of Glory was fighting a war and the gods of other nes had already invaded the kingdom of gods. The three oracles went absent without leave from the battlefield and somehow managed to get summoned by Theisio.


    ¡°Lord Oracle!¡±


    ¡°Alright, alright, Theisio. Whatever you¡¯re dealing with, it¡¯s nothingpared to what¡¯s at hand here.¡± The oracle cut Theisio off impatiently. In their eyes, an army of over a million-strong waiting for his orders tounch a full frontal assault was somethingpletely insignificant.


    If the oracle was able to find broken divine personas, light up their own divine fire, break through the limit of level 13 and finally devour the shards of divine persona, they would be able to advance to the ranks of demigod.


    Myers Maind is really a nice ce. No wonder countless gods back then had tried to conquer the ce. There is just so much wealth and so many secrets to be found on the maind.


    ¡°My lord, there is a million-strong army waiting for us!¡± Theisio had enough. He had been nning the operation solely to lure Saleen out. He had found the weakness of the mage that earned the oracle¡¯s attention, the defiler, and that weakness was his loved ones.


    ¡°Alright, Theisio. You¡¯re afraid that your target is going to run off somewhere else, correct? If we can find whatever is down there, even if he¡¯s going to run back to that Metatrin City you speak of, I¡¯d simply go to tear the city down myself,¡± the oracle said without a care. They only gained such confidence after descending to that ne. A level 12 oracle caught in the midst of a war between kingdoms of gods was but a mid-level officer.


    Despite having their powers reduced by one whole level after descending to that ne, the oracle still had the rules they controlled with them. No one would be good enough to fight me.


    It¡¯s best if the Lord of Glory ends up dead. That wretched a** has been assimting heavens of each nes into his kingdom of gods, trying to fight his enemy to the death. ording to the oracle¡¯s estimations, even if the Lord of Glory was able to survive, he would have to go into deep sleep. A god who entered deep sleep would not be able to remember who the oracle was.


    If the oracle were able to get their hands on the divine persona shards and wiped out the other two, they would be able to do whatever they fancied.


    The oracleughed sheepishly at the thought. Their voice travelled deep into the cave, causing rocks to fall from above from the tremor.


    Theisio was exasperated. He was unable to do anything but to take whatever the oracle said seriously. If the oracle is indeed capable of destroying Metatrin City, good for us. We can finally rest easy after that prick is gone.


    They went more than a mile deep, and the air was mmy and hot, as well as very dry. Theplexity of the cave exceeded designs of some magicbyrinths. The oracle cared little about that due to having left behind many markings along the way. They even created a temporary coordinate at the entrance, allowing them to leave Theisio behind and run away on their own if anything untoward was to happen.


    Divine persona shards are not something that one could get their hands on easily after all. The same goes for seeds of divine fire.


    The oracle continued to walk forward. They were alerted all of a sudden and stopped.


    ¡°Theisio, did you hear anything?¡±


    Theisio listened seriously for a bit and shook his head.


    ¡°Hand me your God Grace Staff.¡± The oracle extended their arm.


    ¡°No. Only the Lord of Glory has the right to strip me of my scepter. It wouldn¡¯t do you any good even if I were to give it to you.¡± Theisio shook his head. The God Grace Staff was an important equipment of his, the most important of the three major godly items of the pope. While the Bramble Crown had formidable defensive properties, it did not have much in the way of attacks. The Seal of Divine Power had been lost for over a millennium. The one he had with him was a fake.


    The oracle frowned but did not pressure Theisio. If they killed the pope, the Lord of Glory would be able to sense it. If an oracle were to fall, the Lord of Glory would send a double into the ne.


    ¡°Heh, hand me the Seal of Divine Power then. It might be a fake, but it¡¯s still something that adherents had been worshipping for over a millennium, so it¡¯s still of some use.¡± The oracle extended their hand. Theisio had no choice but to hand over the fake Seal of Divine Power to the oracle. He had no way of refusing. If the oracle were to tell others, he would lose the trust of the adherents even though he was not the one who lost the seal.


    At that moment, Theisio¡¯s faith began to waver.


    Why am I even hiding it in the first ce? Why did the previous pope not let the adherents know that the three godly items were no longer aplete set, and therefore no longer able to suppress infidels?


    I might havee with the oracle, but why can¡¯t I simply head to Guderian City myself? If Saleen reached the city earlier than expected, my army would suffer unusually heavy casualties.


    Theisio still remembered in his dream where Saleen swung a bone hammer and beat a terrifying war drum. His army of adherents seem to be like grass at the mercy of a scythe, being ughtered by all manners of terrifying creatures.


    What was more terrifying was that the fear stemmed from reality. If Saleen were to reach the city before he did, the mage would definitely use lethal skills withrge area of effect. Would the powerful ones in the army be capable of facing off against Saleen?


    Theisio felt bitter looking at the back of the oracle. He had begun to have doubts. While the divine persona of the heretic god was indeed important. If the oracle were to get their hands on the shards, their powers would have been returned to level 12, and it was entirely possible for a level 12 oracle to tear Metatrin City apart.


    The oracle held onto the fake Seal of Divine Power and summoned 12 heaven angels to serve as scouts. The three oracles were not carrying any equipment with them when they descended. They were not gods, so they were only able to allow their bodies to traverse the nes. It was not pragmatic for them to bring anything with them, as even their clothes were something created using divine spells.


    There was a smell of sulfur before them and several ck shadows were seen writhing, crawling out of the depths of the hole in the ground. The shadowy figures were shone on by the light of the oracle, resulting in them shrieking eerily. Their skins began to pee,l and they writhed on the ground, attempting to get near to the oracle.


    The oracle wore no expression, finding it surprising that their Holy Light Purification was unable to kill the monsters right away.


    The 12 heaven angels went up and swung their swords of glory, killing the monsters in an instant. All the monsters turned to dust.


    The oracle did not stop and kept moving forward. If they were able to get their hands on whatever was deep inside the cave, they would have the chance to be a god. Who else is as lucky as I am? I¡¯m an oracle, but when I descended to this ne, the gods knew nothing.


    Such a chance would probably not happened even once in millions of years.


    Greed is an original sin, the nature of all living beings! The oracle kept moving forward. The 12 heaven angels¡¯ steps synchronized with the rhythm of the oracle¡¯s steps.


    Theisio hesitated for a bit before deciding to follow them as well. While the three oracles were nothing like what he had imagined, they nheless allowed huge amounts of professionals within the Holy See to advance and treated his injuries. He would have died of old age otherwise.


    Maybe I¡¯m just too foolish to understand the thoughts of God and the oracles.


    More and more monsters appeared before them, and the 12 heaven angels began to show signs of strain killing the monsters. Within the codex of the Holy See, all of the monsters were evil creatures, which meant that the damage dealt by the swords of glory would have been greater. But still, it was heaven angels who ended up injured.


    Being shined on by holy light, the monsters, which were about half as tall as a human, writhed in agony on the ground on all fours, charging at them without anyprehension of death.


    ¡°Disgusting, vile creatures!¡± The oracle shrieked on instinct. They held the Seal of Divine Power high. The holy light spread miles away, and more shril shrieks were heard from countless branches of the hole they were in.


    ¡°Halt, who goes there? Who is your god?¡± A thick voice was heard from the depths of the cave. The oracle¡¯s eyes sparkled hearing the voice. There is indeed someone waiting down there.


    Seems like a seed of divine fire instead of shards of divine persona then.


    Whatever. Bing a pseudogod takes precedence. It was only a matter of time finding shards of divine persona on this ne. The war between the Lord of Glory and his enemy gods will at least go on for hundreds of years. I have plenty of time to search.

 Chapter 1042: Original Sin (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1042: Original Sin (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The angels were urged by the oracle to keep pressing forward. More and more monsters emerged, increasingly powerful. However, their corrosive smell and poisonous smoke were dispelled by the oracle¡¯s light, not affecting the angels or Theisio.


    The 12 heaven angels¡¯ injuries were all restored by a healing spell. Such minor injuries were things that oracles would not have even bothered healing in the war between the gods.


    However, they were now on the ne of Myers Maind and it was difficult to summon heaven angels. As such, oracles deemed it necessary to keep the underlings around.


    The oracle¡¯s mind was taken over by greed and there was no stopping them from advancing further. Theisio¡¯s face had bitterness written all over it. He was perhaps able to sense the oracle¡¯s emotions. The oracle had no intention of hiding anything. Their powers would be restored in no time on this ne. The entire Holy See was but some power that they came to use, and they were ready to cast the Holy See away at any moment.


    The Lord of Glory said that greed was an original sin, and those were probably the truest words spoken by him.


    ¡°Vile infidels, go back to whence you came!¡± That voice trembled from the depths of the cave, which sounded like it traveled through vibration of the rocks.


    The oracle held the fake Seal of Divine Power in their hand and chanted a string of rushed short prayers. Theisio knew for the first time that prayers could be done in such ways.


    The oracle uttered over 9000 sybles in a dozen seconds. Theisio was only able to tell the numbers. If he were to actually decipher the content, his brain would have exploded from the strain.


    What kind of divine spell would result from a prayer of over 9000 words?


    A level ten group-casted divine spell had little more than 1000 words in the required prayers, and many level nine holy masters were required to spread the strain of the chants.


    The fake Divine Seal of Power was also a piece of equipment that had been made through prayers for over 1000 years, and it was crafted from the bones of a pseudogod. Its power would have probably be higher than the holy items popr within the upper echelons of the Holy See. Under the working of the oracle¡¯s powerful divine spell, the Divine Seal of Power burst forth with blinding light, lighting up a path in the darkness before them. The oracle ordered the 12 heaven angels and covered the distance of the path with one step.


    Theisio followed closely behind. The oracle arrived at a huge, empty karst cave in an instant.


    There was a huge ck rock at the center of the karst cave. There was a humanoid monster with eight arms crouching on the ck rock. The humanoid monster seemed to behave like a spider, spitting a web from its mouth and encasing the oracle in it.


    The oracle smirked and took half a step back, sending the heaven angels rushing at it. The huge, ck web trapped all 12 heaven angels, and the oracle uttered a word lightly. ¡°Explode!¡±


    All 12 angels exploded at the same time, their light shining throughout the entire empty cavern. The ck web was torn apart and the monster crouching on the ck rock had two of its arms on its head melted by the light.


    The oracle¡¯s eyes sparkled seeing that the move did not kill the enemy. So there is something else eh? Most of their holy light was quickly dispelled by the ck rock beneath the monster. The holy light shined onto the monster. If the ck rock had beenright in front of the monster, it would have emerged without so much as a scratch.


    The oracle did not continue attacking, saying instead, ¡°Who¡¯s your god? Well, since your god has already perished, how about youe with me?¡±


    That monster looked at its own injuries and grew two new arms from the wound, looking pale.


    ¡°Follow you? Pttuih...you¡¯re but an oracle of a low level god. You take yourself too seriously!¡±


    The oracle was hardly fettered and simply said with a cold smirk, ¡°do you really think that rock is able to keep you alive? You¡¯re alive only because I don¡¯t want to see too many deaths around me. If I¡¯m able to find you, I¡¯m able to get more people toe help. I don¡¯t think you have a way of getting out of here.¡±


    ¡°Go get your help, greedy fool. I believe you¡¯ll end up killed by your ¡®help¡¯ instead. You¡¯re here for this, aren¡¯t you?¡± The monster said as it spit out a transparent, gem-like shard from its mouth.


    The oracle took a step forward and almost reached beneath the ck rock, which was less than 20 meters away.


    The oracle¡¯s boots melted with a fizzle. The oracle backed away in shock. The ground beneath the ck rock was filled with ck holy prose. The holy prose was not drawn by hand, but had grown slowly from the ck rock and formed naturally.


    The oracle backed away and closed their eyes to ponder for a bit, before saying again, ¡°your master would be the Dark God of Destruction, am I correct? I can¡¯t believe that even that one has perished.¡±


    ¡°How would you know?¡± The eight-armed monster sounded nervous. It was not a good thing to have such details known, especially when it was unable to leave where it stood. Its enemy would be able to think of many ways to deal with it.


    The oracle looked at the poor below before them and said, ¡°because, darkness used to be my faith.¡±


    That monster¡¯s face twisted hearing the words of the oracle. Its expression turned ferocious as it red at the oracle¡¯s face in fury. Its voice turned raspy.


    ¡°You! You are that wretched creature!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like I had much of a choice. I ended up siding with the light.¡± The oracle continued to take jabs at the monster. Its master had been a middle god of level 16 and had over six kingdom of gods, but one was taken away by the Lord of Glory. The process was incredibly underhanded. The Lord of Glory sent adherents to disguise as adherents of the Dark God of Destruction, which perfectly fooled the middle god.


    There were oracles among the infiltrating adherents. The oracle had been a level nine professional back then and a rare case of being able to advance to the rank of oracle. Most oracles were like the heaven angels, weapons of war created by the gods, constructs of living energy.


    The deceivers caused an entire kingdom to fall, which was taken over by the Lord of Glory and purified. The gods were still fighting the humans back then and were losing. If such infighting was found out by the other gods, things would have looked incredibly dire for the Lord of Glory.


    The Lord of Glory disappeared without a trace after taking over a kingdom of gods, which almost drove the Dark God of Destruction mad. It was due to such reasons that weak gods like the Lord of Glory were able to survive the war all those years ago. All the other gods were busy mobilizing their forces to fight the human armies, but the Lord of Glory was running across a number of nes.


    The eight-armed monster had been an oracle of the Dark God of Destruction. When humans waged wars across multiple nes, including kingdoms of gods, there were many gods who were killed and their kingdoms ransacked, but there were also those who were taken back to Myers Maind for research in captivity.


    The Dark God of Destruction had been one of those who were captured in the war. Humans had captured many gods and were unable to keep an eye on all of them, resulting in some gods escaping. However, the rules of the ne of Myers Maind were simply too powerful back then. The gods, with their divine persona broken and divine fire snuffed out, were unable to do much.


    Furthermore, most of the escaped gods and their oracles were killed. There were too many powerful ones across Myers Maind back then. The bodies of the oracles and their gods made fine crafting materials, and many fought heated battles for them.


    The oracle protected its god and escaped all the way underground, but even then, the Dark God of Destruction was unable to escape his end. Ironically, it was the oracle who survived, a fate worse than death. The very reason it had survived painstakingly until that day was so that it was able to resurrect its god, and it put all hopes on that thought.


    Its hopes werepletely broken seeing an oracle of the Lord of Glorying all the way there. Given the nature of the Lord of Glory, there was no way his oracle would simply let go of such lucrative loot.


    Such was the oue from the wait thatsted for tens of millennia. The oracle of the Dark God of Destruction took a very deep breath. It did not like the body it had much, as it resembled humans yet it did not possess the evolving abilities of humans. However, it deemed that it was the end of its existence. If it was unable to resurrect its god, it might as well take everything around it in death.


    All of a sudden, its body expanded to over a dozen times its original size, taking over the entire top of the ck rock. It swallowed the divine persona shard that was on its tongue. Its thick neck pulsed and the Lord of Glory¡¯s oracle went pale.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± They did not forget to save Theisio. They intended to take the pope, turning around to grab him. However, Pope Theisio was nowhere to be found. He was more than 400 meters away from the ck rock, retreating to the exit of the karst cave.


    The oracle of the Dark God of Destruction opened its huge mouth and spit a blob of darkness.


    The blob was not some kind of energy, but simply darkness created by rules. If the Endless Night had been a powerful skill of dark magic, then the darkness that the oracle had spit was almost like creating a space.


    A space that was devoid of light; a space with only death.


    The light at the surface of the oracle of the Lord of Glory had beenpletely snuffed out. The entire cavern was encased in darkness, and it had almost swallowed Theisio. The Bramble Crown on Theisio¡¯s head shone with pale light, protecting Theisio and allowing him to leave the karst cave.


    The Seal of Divine Power in the oracle¡¯s hand was fake, and shattered right away when the oracle of the Dark God of Destructionshed out at full power. The gathered power of faith from adherents over a thousand years flowed into the oracle¡¯s hand.


    However, such power was deemed mediocre in the face of what was toe. The skill that the oracle of the Dark God of Destruction used was backed by the divine persona shard, and was activated by unleashing all energies umted over ten thousand years in the ck rock beneath its body. Its body was a medium. After the move, the Dark God of Destruction had truly ceased to exist. Its body was assimted by the darkness and the thing that sustained the darkness was the divine persona shards floating on top of the ck rock.


    The signature move of the Dark God of Destruction: Darkness Disintegration.


    The oracle of the Lord of Glory was nailed where they stood and felt the energies in their body crumbling bit by bit, dissipating and turning into nothing. They were very regretful of jesting with their opponent. The feud all those years ago pushed the oracle of the Dark God of Destruction over the edge.


    It was different from the oracle of the Lord of Glory, who was already nning to betray their god, and it could have even be said that they had already betrayed him. The oracle of the Dark God of Destruction, in contrast, remained loyal and protected the dignity of its god.


    This is frustrating, to think that I¡¯ve just gotten the chance of breaking free of a god¡¯s control...


    The oracle of the Lord of Glory struggled to move forward, walking towards the ck rock guided by memory. They extended their hand, intending to take the floating divine persona shard in the air. But no matter how they moved, it felt that they were simply stepping on the ground where they stood. Their hand was dissolved by the power of darkness, losing itsst bit of light.

 Chapter 1043: Intense Poison (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1043: Intense Poison (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Countless crawling creatures disappeared following the death of the oracle of the Dark God of Destruction inside the split passages within the cave.


    Theisio felt rather dumbfounded. He had been aware of the iing danger before the oracle of the Dark God of Destruction cast their ultimate skill. Instead of telling them of the looming danger, he escaped the ce.


    He had never thought himself to be one to abandon an oracle of the gods. He felt as if he was acting under some kind of spell. Or rather, that was probably a choice taken based on what he thought deep down inside.


    ¡°How long can a spellst? Fireball can stay around for about 20 seconds if it did not manage to ignite its target. Some grade-9 spells are known tost for hours, and then there are some magic spells capable ofsting up to three days.¡±


    Darkness Disintegration was a powerful divine spell and one that could hold for about 10 minutes, rtively shortpared to some grade-9 magic spells. The spell was simply too potent. Nothing capable of withstanding engulfment for more than a minute was found on the Myers Maind.


    It was a divine spell at grade-13 strength. The grade-12 Lord of Glory was only capable of using powers at grade-11 and would have ended up dead inside the cave within 10 seconds.


    Theisio stood right outside the cave and felt very conflicted inside. The life signs of the oracle werepletely wiped out. Darkness Disintegration was an offensive divine spell instead of one meant to control. Theisio was able to sense what happened within the cave using the power of his Bramble Crown.


    The spell seems like it would still hold for quite a while. ¡°Should I leave, or...¡±


    Theisio felt an urge of some kind within his mind and he struggled to suppress it. Everything within the cave would have disappeared by then; everything but divine persona shards. If he were to get his hands on said shards, he might advance to be a pseudogod in the future.


    Theisio felt his entire body burn as soon as the thought came to mind. He was burning with a fire called desire.


    He waspletely caught off-guard by that thought. ¡°If I were to be a pseudogod, wouldn¡¯t I be betraying the Lord of Glory? The Lord of Glory himself said it¡ªthere is to be no other god but I.¡±


    Pseudogods were still gods, beings possessing divine fire and divine persona. They were still capable of creating a kingdom of their own. ¡°If I were to be a pseudogod myself, wouldn¡¯t I be betraying the faith I¡¯ve held for almost a century?¡±


    Another voice was heard deep within Theisio.


    ¡°What is the worth of a century-old faith before the infinite lifespan of a pseudogod? You know well which one would prove more important! How should one choose between a century and infinity?¡±


    The joints of Theisio¡¯s hand holding the God Grace Staff were seen protruding and his veins were popping. An hour passed just like that. Theisio stood where he was. He stared into the empty cave. The oracle did not survive; the only thing standing was the huge, ck rock.


    Theisio walked into the cave and took to the air, finding shiny pieces of divine persona shards on top of the huge, ck rock.


    There was nothing to stop him then. Theisio headed for the rock, picking up the shards on top of it and storing them inside his spatial equipment as if nothing happened.


    ¡°I can¡¯t leave the shards here. If someone else were to pick these up, that someone would turnpletely into a believer of the Lord of Glory. How should I go about exining what happened to the other two oracles?¡± Theisio stayed and went into deep thought. ¡°I lost the fake Seal of Divine Power and the oracles are gone. There is no way I could have lied about any of that. Should I just hand over the shards to them just like that? Would the other two think about betraying their god, just like the one who ended up dead? No. There is no way I can hand the shards over.¡±


    Theisio began mumbling to himself and had even forgotten that the ones fighting at Guderian City¡¯s frontlines were waiting desperately for his arrival. ¡°The Seed of Divine Fire. There should be a Seed of Divine Fire here.¡±


    Theisio had read many books on theology, far surpassing anyone within the Holy See. A fallen god might have their divine fire snuffed out, but never the seed. Even a seed at the size of an elemental particle would eventually burn again, shining light onto the entire holy kingdom.


    Theisio was reluctant to leave the site, wracking his brains to think of a way to solve his current predicament. The army preparing tounch an assault right outside Guderian City was in shambles. Theisio¡¯s orders were for them to await his signal beforeunching an attack. Enemy reinforcements seemed to be arriving at any minute.


    At the Kingdom of Metatrin, there were more than five armies heading for the border. Within Qin territory, a rather huge army was also marching for Guderian City. Said army amounted to little more than 1,000 men. They went about wiping out just about all Holy See forces encountered.


    That army was the personal guard of Arb. They were led by Saleen.


    The force amounted to 1,200 and fought more than 100 skirmishes along the way. It came to a point where the Holy See armies came attacking it on their own. Even so, casualties suffered by the force when they reached Guderian City amounted to less than 100.


    The army itself was not some impossibly strong band of monstrous beings. Their victories were due mostly to Jalin and the mages tagging along. They packed an enormous number of scrolls and went about spamming spells like they cost nothing.


    Most Holy See forces encountered were in small bands, numbering to a 1,000 or 2,000, with several mages among their ranks. What Saleen brought with him however, were all elite troops armed with magic equipment, with more than 20 mages among their ranks. Moreover, half of the mages were sorcerers.


    The most terrifying thing about his force however, was the War Drum of Fear. He was in a hurry to reach Guderian City, and as such, he beat on the drum at any chance he got when attacking. When he found his enemies to be a little too strong, he simply went about unleashing the pests within the drum.


    Pests were beings of around grade-6. The Holy See soldiers they fought however, consisted mostly of peasants. While the elites among their ranks were indeed fearsome, they amounted to less than 200 in a band of soldiers numbering to about 1,000.


    Saleen practically went on a killing spree as he made his way towards Guderian City. As most of the Holy See forces were gathered at Guderian City and the central parts of the north, Saleen was already several hundred miles away by the time they were done gathering their forces.


    Jalin came to understand why Saleen behaved as he did when he sparred with her. The concept of mercy or holding back was nonexistent in Saleen¡¯s mind when he was in battle. Saleen would not hesitate to bring his enemies down, regardless of who he was fighting. Jalin was perceptive enough to tell that Saleen would still do the same if she were to fight Saleen again. Whether her mask would work again or not, waspletely outside Saleen¡¯s consideration. Saleen would have simply cast two consecutive Death Impacts just to prevent her from running away.


    It became understandable as to why the pope wanted to get rid of that particr king so badly. Said king was one who knew no restraint when dealing with enemies and was also one capable of growing at frightening speeds. If the pope was unable to kill Saleen off soon enough, Saleen would probably go about building an empire, an empire which was out to oppose the Holy See¡ªa replica of Qin.


    Saleen did not think himself to be the brutal kind. The ughter that he went about performing in battle was far less stressful to deal with psychologically than what he pulled with Ironwall City. He went so far as to think that there was little toment about if he actually ended up dead. Such was the battlefield.


    The entire northern region of Qin was engulfed in the fires of war. Many viges were destroyed along the way. While the Lord of Glory loved his adherents, his adherents however, apparently had no love for their own brethren.


    Most Qin viges had forts, and said forts managed to stay rather intact throughout the war. The Holy See used cruel, venomous means. They ughtered any vige they encountered before surrounding the forts andunching poisonous items into the forts.


    Most who died by the hands of the Holy See were peasants, personal guards of nobles, and regr army units. None of which would have garrisoned such pea-sized forts. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, such battles were all watered-down versions of the Battle of Ironwall City. They were replicated countless times by the Holy See.


    The Qin people did not have a habit of letting their flock graze out in the open. Most livestock kept within viges were poultry and pigs. Saleen did not encounter any surviving humans along the way and did not find surviving livestock anywhere. What he saw being strewn all over the ce were bones, enough to have the winged skeleton build an army of spirits.


    There was no such thing as a just war. In wars, one was only allowed to pick a side, there was no right or wrong.


    From the Holy See¡¯s perspective, all who refused to convert to the faith of the Lord of Glory were mindless barbarians and were seen to be little more than animals. Adherents to the Holy See¡¯s faith were brought up spoon-fed with such idealisms from youth. The pope would have easily been able to gather millions to form armies forunching holy wars.


    The Tanggsi Empire had thergest poption. With the God Grace Duchy considered, the total poption amounted to about 200 million. Most of said 200 million were adherents. Each and every one of them was more than willing to go to battle to fight for their god. When they died such deaths, they would then be allowed passage into heaven, an easier route to take than dedicating themselves to prayers throughout their lives.


    Saleen was in a hurry, and he deemed the speed at which they moved too slow. If he did not have the personal guard army in tow, he would have made it to Guderian City a long time ago. The 1,000 strong army nheless proved useful to Saleen. He came to witness instances where mages worked in tandem with regr soldiers.


    Even without him around, the army would still have been able to carve their way through any army numbering less than 10,000.


    It was fortunate that the army consisted of true cavalry units, where every soldier rode a formidable warhorse. In other ces, such horses would have been reserved for use by military officers. The warhorses, which were equivalent to grade-3 demonic beasts, possessed running endurance and load capacity well above that of regr horses. Saleen saw that none of the soldiers had spare horses to switch to.


    Saleencked horses, and as such, his armies consisted mostly of infantries. Such amounts of warhorses made Saleen very envious.


    The Golden ins grew special feed meant for such warhorses instead of human food. Food supplies of the Grukos were naturally the responsibility of Holy Rock City.


    Saleen arrived on that day at a ce about 200 miles away from Guderian City. The Holy See¡¯s 500 thousand strong army set up camp spreading out tens of miles south of the city itself.


    The camp was built sparsely, to limit casualties dealt by massive scale magic attacks by mages. Since Alchemy City¡¯s intervention, the Holy See had suffered multiple heavy setbacks. Three to five sorcerers, after all, were more than enough to wipe out regr troops in tens of thousands.


    ¡°Jalin, Theisio has yet to show up. What do you think we should do?¡± Saleen held his horse back as he gazed at the far away camp. Jalin did not possess skills like Elemental Eye, and as such, had no idea what Saleen was looking at. Saleen was observing, trying to figure out if it was a usible move to bring his drum into the fight in the Holy See army¡¯s camp.


    Jalin halted her steps on the hill and thought for a moment before asking, ¡°Saleen, what do you think then?¡±


    Arb rescinded Jalin¡¯s authority and left Saleen in charge of everything, so long as he remained bait instead of flying straight for Guderian City alone. Saleen went killing many of the Holy See¡¯s men, and yet Theisio did not turn up. Any further from where they were, they would have run straight into the Holy See¡¯s main camp. It was impossible for their 1,000 strong army to tear the camp apart and head straight for the city.


    ¡°What should we do?¡± Jalin had no idea.

 Chapter 1044: Intense Poison (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1044: Intense Poison (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Seems to me that we need to settle this my way!¡± Saleenughed. Jalin was able to sense a strange feeling when he fought her before from hisugh alone.


    ¡°Soldier, how many spirits will you be able to summon?¡±


    ¡°A little more than 100,000,¡± the winged skeleton answered inly.


    Jalin had only begun to seriously gauge the strange skeleton then. The pile of bones was obviously a bonded creature to Saleen. Instead of being stored inside some contracted space or equipment, the peculiar being was hanging around Saleen all the time. Saleen and the creature both rode nightmares, which were spirit creatures higher than grade-6.


    Having heard the winged skeleton was capable of summoning more than 100,000 spirits, Jalin began to calcte. ¡°Is that skeleton a grade-10 creature? That can¡¯t be possible. Saleen is a grade-9 sorcerer. How is it possible for him to own a grade-10 creature?¡±


    ¡°No need for such numbers. How many flying creatures capable of spewing poison like the false dragon spirit do you have?¡±


    The winged skeleton pondered for a bit before answering, ¡°Less than 2,000.¡±


    ¡°Well then, go prepare toxins for those spirits. When you¡¯re done, we shallunch an assault.¡±


    ¡°Launch an assault?¡± Jalin doubted her ears. Even with her and Saleen considered, there were only five grade-9 sorcerers in their band. There were eight grade-7 sorcerers, and the ten remaining mages were grade-6 grand mages.


    ording to Grukos intelligence, there were more than 30 professionals among the ranks of the army surrounding Guderian City. Even if they were to be split between two forces stationed in the south and north, Saleen would still need to contend with about 15 professionals.


    The bulk of the army in front of them was an elephant in the room. The enemy had more than 500,000 units standing in their way, while theymanded a force of a little more than 1,000 strong.


    While Saleen¡¯s War Drum of Fear was indeed a powerful equipment, the pests unleashed from within were incapable of going against grade-7 professionals. The number of said pests was limited. It was impossible for Saleen to crush a 500,000 strong army with just one single piece of equipment.


    Saleen knew that well himself. Within the environment of the Imperial City of the Abyss, the pests were able to resurrect indefinitely. Onnd however, the restorative abilities of the pests were far inferior to the elemental creatures¡¯.


    Then again, Saleen had no intention of killing every single soldier in the army before him. It was no Ironwall City; the camp was arranged in a very sparse manner. He alsocked support provided by his metal flyers.


    The winged skeleton nodded in agreement and went on to open the spirit space, unleashing the spirits he brought with him. The winged skeleton had learned of such methods from Nailisi. Since the winged skeleton came to know that Nailisi brought more than 100,000 demons with her all the time, the winged skeleton also began selecting spirits to be sent into spirit space.


    The jade skeletons under the winged skeleton¡¯smand also possessed some measure of intelligence. The winged skeleton had every six jade skeletons control a death magic array, which was kept operational for summoning spirits. Any spirits whom they found that failed their standards were sent back. Only the ones deemed fit for entering the spirit space were left behind.


    Many frail spirits were incapable of entering the spirit space, as doing so would have torn them apart. Only spirits with a certain measure of abilities were deemed fit to be taken alongside the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Jalin, I need help from your men.¡±


    ¡°Please speak.¡± Jalin was secretly gleeful that Saleen asked her for help.


    ¡°When the battle begins, please have your men protect Hogina.¡±


    Jalin felt very dejected at the request. She saw Hogina to be little more than a child and was puzzled as to why Saleen was concerned about that little girl so much. There was nock of grade-6 grand mages in the Golden ins after all.


    It was still a personal request from him nheless, and Saleen had never made any during their trip. Most battles were even fought by Saleen using little more than just his War Drum of Fear.


    The winged skeleton went about selecting spirits carefully. While he possessedrge number of spirits capable of flight, the toxins that Saleen crafted required spirits of certain levels. Such spirits needed to be at least above grade-4. They had their bodies reinforced and were capable of executing simplemands.


    Hogina stared at the row of spirits that the winged skeleton summoned from afar and felt nothing but envy, especially because there were so many of them capable of flight. The huge false dragon spirit was even capable of circling slowly in the air.


    ¡°Jalin, here is how I would go about it. When the winged skeleton is done with preparations, I would summon some elemental creatures on the ground to fight alongside the guards while we take to the air with the spirits. We will use them to fight off the enemiesing for the spirits. The spirits will take the lead, spewingrge amount of toxins. There would hardly be anyone capable of surviving such an attack. All of our troops will require magical buffs to prevent them from getting poisoned.¡±


    ¡°So, we¡¯ll just go in hard and fast like that?¡± Jalin asked out of concern. Her teacher was about 200 miles away. If they were caught in a pinch Arb would not be able to make it in time to save them.


    ¡°We will only be fighting our way into the city instead of trying to make ast stand. Theisio is nowhere in sight. Real troublees when he does show up.¡± Saleen had been observing from afar all that time. They were standing on a meandering slope, while the ins were right before them. Saleen was able to see more than 100 miles away, which was where the rear of the enemy forcesid.


    Judging from the logistics at the camp, the enemy had yet to prepare themselves tounch an attack. That meant that Theisio was nowhere near them. While that all seemed odd, Saleen did not bother to find out why. There were simply too many unexpected matters to be dealt with. If Saleen had encountered such idents, it was only natural for that to also happen with Theisio.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll leave you in charge,¡± Jalin answered gently. Saleen felt like he was covered with goosebumps all over, but he was unable to bring himself to tell her that she was being creepy.


    The winged skeleton had only finished preparing when the sky turned dark. Saleen then went on to summon Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, Vermillion Knights, and Angel of Brightness. Those three types were suitable beings to act as shock troops. He had only begun to truly let Jalin see what he was capable of then.


    Jalin was barely able to contain her excitement seeing more than 100 elemental creatures before her.


    Elemental badges! They had to be elemental badges!


    She wanted very badly to tell him that she needed a dark elemental creature, but Saleen did not continue summoning. The belt where the six badges were housed became the focal point for Jalin¡¯s eyes.


    Everyone had weaknesses. As long as one was a mage, there was just no way that Saleen¡¯s stuff wouldn¡¯t pique their interest.


    Saleen had quite a headache over the fact that Jalin had no weakness to exploit previously. That would have made her very hard to deal with. From what Arb told them, she meant for Jalin to follow him for a very, very long time, but he did not want such a mage to be hisrade-in-arms.


    There was hardly anyone who dared move against him in Golden ins, yet Jalin was definitely not one of those people. He would not hesitate to use instant death spells against her. If there was to be anyone who tried something like that with him, he would try to find ways to get back at them.


    Mages were known for holding grudges. The higher the level of a mage, the more inclined they were to do so.


    As soon as the elemental badges were used, Saleen felt relieved that he was able to find a weakness within Jalin which he was able to exploit. She was a mage, and as such, she was helpless in resisting something so extremely rare.


    The 2,000 strong flying spirits took to the air under the winged skeleton¡¯s instructions and began circling about in the air. Arb¡¯s personal guards suited themselves up with their magic armor as well, packing up before mounting their horses.


    More than 100 elemental creatures surrounded the personal guards and Saleen borated, ¡°These elemental creatures will only attack really powerful foes. Anything that manages to slip past them will be your job. Be alert, we¡¯re going to carve our way through those Holy See b**tards. Do you all feel fear? We are charging against an enemy force of 500,000 strong after all!¡±


    The personal guards smirked. ¡°What is there to fear? The worst that can happen is just dying in battle.¡± For them, being able to fight such intense battles was an honor. It was not a suicide mission. The power demonstrated by the Holy See forces was far below what was expected of them. With so many bulky beings around to help them out, the uing battle would probably be easier than it needed to be.


    The soldiers were familiar with tactical details and knew well that assaulting an enemy camp was different from shing with enemies head on. What proved most dire with such situations. They could be hampered by the terrain of the camp, preventing them from keeping their formations intact. With the help of those elemental creatures, they would practically walk over the enemy camp like it was not there in the first ce.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s move.¡± Those were not his troops, and as such, he did not bother giving them much of a speech. He took the winged skeleton and Jalin into the air, flying towards the Holy See army camp with the spirits.


    The Holy See army had no intentions ofunching an assault at that moment, and the camp leaned towards the rear somewhat. With their frontlines being destroyed by the magic cannon, the army retreated more than 50 miles away.


    As such, Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to make out the rear end of the camp. He looked about the camp and found a few tall battlements. The winged skeleton also took the spirits flying at heights of several hundred yards high, just enough to make attacking with divine spells very difficult.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s divine spells still proved deadly against spirits. That was why Saleen had the winged skeleton summon spirits with formidable flying abilities, instead of having a horde of 100,000 strong rush at the camp.


    While Arb had wanted him to be bait, he was far from foolish enough to send all of his forces doing it.


    ¡°Master, I will be taking the lead. Be careful.¡± The winged skeleton beckoned to Saleen, standing on the back of the false dragon spirit. They needed to takemand of the flying spirits after all. If the spirits were to be left to their own devices, all of them would end up dead soon enough.


    Jalin could not helped but feel envious of Saleen. ¡°That winged skeleton sure is an intelligent one and having just one such bonded creature is already a hundred times better than having a follower.¡± She always had a habit of collecting equipment, and then she began thinking about collecting summoned creatures.


    Looking from the rear, it seemed that a bunch of pitch-ck spirits were being led by a huge false dragon and charging straight for the Holy See army¡¯s camp. Under the moonlight, the winged skeleton held tight to his huge battle-axe while exuding incredibly cold air about himself. That was more than the air of a spirit; it was the air of a king about to conquer the world.


    ¡°Beings of old, I now implore you to lend me your strength!¡± the winged skeleton shouted loud at the sky, summoning mystical powers out of nowhere from the spirit ne. They were then channeled to the winged skeleton¡¯s battle-axe. The magic patterns on both sides of the axe, and the magic array which looked like a pair of eyes, exuded powerful death aura.


    At that very moment, the winged skeleton was able to sense every minute movements of all the spirits under hismand. Nothing the spirits did escaped his eyes, as if the spirits were an extension of his body.


    Such was the true power of a king!


    The winged skeleton then gave the order to strike. His order was clearly transmitted to every single one of the spirits, regardless of the unit¡¯s level of strength. All of the spirits used death magic to carry toxins specially crafted in Metatrin City. The false dragon spirit had the highest amount.


    Under the winged skeleton¡¯s orders, the false dragon spirit opened its mouth and spewed toxic mist at the camp.


    Out of concern for spells affecting a wide area, the Holy See camp was sparsely set. An independent campsite housed 1,000 at most, and most of those camps housed only about 500.


    The campsite targeted by the false dragon was one housing 1,000. It covered quite a huge area. The toxic mist that spewed out of the false dragon¡¯s mouth soon spread. When the mist reached the ground, the entire campsite was covered in it. The winged skeleton took a close look at the tents and found that even the metal barracks began to corrode.


    The troops at the core of the camp were instantly killed by the potent poison without making a sound.

 Chapter 1045: Might of Mages (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1045: Might of Mages (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The false dragon was a flying spirit and the only one that Winged Skull had actually went all the way to specifically create. It was huge and the Winged Skull had even added a purple-gold sack in the false dragon¡¯s mouth, capable of carryingrge amounts of toxin essence. When the essence was added to the poisonous mist that the false dragon breathed, it enabled the beast to continue spewing for over an hour.


    No other flying spirits had such powers, but having 30 to 50 of them attacking a small camp would yield simr results.


    The attack that Saleen pulled was different than the ones he pulled when he was dealing withrge armies. No other mage would have gone to collect refined toxins like he did for several years. Even the Winged Skull, who was adept at crafting poisons, were impressed by Saleen¡¯s thoughts. Whenrge amounts of toxins were added to themon spirit poisons, not only did it allowed them to kill living creatures, it also allowed the spirits to corrode most non-magical equipment.


    The Holy See army¡¯s camp was well prepared to deal with threats. The flying spirits were detected by the troops on guard at the rear when the spirits were still several miles away, and the entire army were alerted soon.


    The spirits were hit by arrows like falling rain as soon as they got close enough. However, few of the arrows were imbued with divine spells. While the arrows would have worked well against spirits below level three, the flying spirits were above level four. Common arrows were unable to harm the spirits. The first wave of attack had seen only two level four spirits being shot down by huge arrows and had their bodies crushed as they fell to the ground. The remaining spirits stormed the area and spewed terrifying amounts of mixed toxins at the ground.


    The Winged Skull chuckled as they instructed the spirits smoothly and began to massacre everything below. While the Holy See army was able to react fast enough, their formation was too sparse. As such, as Saleen had anticipated, they were only able to send out flying professionals to intercept the spirits.


    Powerful holy masters were just as quick in killing the spirits and that should not have been much of a problem.


    However, Saleen and Jalin, as well the Winged Skull, were among those spirits.


    Over 20 holy masters gathered from all corners. The flying speed of the holy masters was faster than the spirits¡¯. They intercepted the flying spirits, but were attacked by the Winged Skull before they were able to cast divine spells. ck light shimmered on their huge battleaxe, Death Break was cast in an instant, hitting the level nine holy master who was taking the lead.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s death magic was capable to be stored within the huge axe and that particr spell was the most sudden in all level nine death spells, as well as the most powerful offensive spell. The streak of ck light bisected the level nine holy master. Another death magic spell within the axe¡ªDeath Cloud¡ªenveloped the group of over 20 holy masters in an instant.


    The Winged Skull took the initiative and even though they were powerful, they still had problems killing a level nine holy master. It had been an easy kill simply because the holy master underestimated their enemies. The Winged Skull was a spirit and looked like weak skeletons. The level nine holy master was preparing a powerful area-of-effect divine spell when they were killed. The other holy masters all switched to instant divine spells immediately to protect themselves.


    Death Cloud did note with massive damage potential, but it was difficult to purify using holy light. The holy light that emanated from the surface of the holy masters¡¯ bodies turned grey. They were unable to shake the cloud off no matter where they went.


    The Winged Skull had considered the possibility of fighting holy masters before they left Golden ins. Holy masters were incredibly resilient and very hard to kill. They excelled in healing powers, especially the ones used on themselves, those were simply insane.


    As such, the Winged Skull had prepared two death magic spells that were made specifically to deal with such abilities in their magic weapon. Death Break resembled a full force attackunched by a golden grand swordmaster. Even a level nine sorcerer would have a hard time defending against such an attack all of a sudden, let alone a level nine holy master.


    The holy masters tainted by Death Cloud did not suffer much damage, but all divine spells cast after they were tainted were all grey, diminishing their damage to spirits considerably. The Winged Skull burst intoughter seeing the holy masters losing the attribute that gave them their edge, and they leapt from the back of the spirit false dragon, heading for the holy master closest to them.


    They spread the bone wings behind them. The Winged Skull was more nimble in the airpared to mages. The holy master that they targeted cast Divine Protection and unfolded a divine spell scroll.


    The Winged Skull arrived behind the holy master in a sh. The holy master was unable to lock on to the Winged Skull and was at a loss of what to do. They chanted a short prayer and shouted, ¡°Fall!¡±


    It was not a divine spell directed at the Winged Skull, but one that made themselves drop all of a sudden. The Divine Protection about them ensured that no harm woulde to them even when falling at a height of over 100 meters. It was the quickest way that holy master could shake off their enemy.


    The spirits spread out with their attacks, but the holy masters stayed in a tight formation. They saw the huge spirit false dragon and decided subconsciously to make the beast and the Winged Skull their target. Their initial charge had cost them their most powerful peer. The remaining holy masters scattered and went to hunt those spirits behind them.


    A holy master usually had an attack range shorter than a mage¡¯s, but there were nheless some special divine spells that had a very long range. The holy masters were terrified by the Winged Skull and were unable to help but cast the spells with the longest range of attack. However, being tainted by Death Cloud, the greater the range of the attacks used, the smaller the damage they were able to do against the spirits.


    The spirits did not bother to tangle with the holy masters. They flew straight ahead and the Winged Skull, who had killed their second holy master, flew for the camp as well. The attacks of the spirits were mostly melee, but with the power to spew poison added to their repertoire of attacks, none of the spirits wanted tond on the ground, opting to simply spew poison a distance away from the camp.


    Saleen and Jalin looked at each other. Saleen then said, ¡°24.¡±


    ¡°How about a match?¡± Jalin got what Saleen meant.


    ¡°Let¡¯s do it.¡±


    Hundreds of tornadoes whipped out of the clouds in Saleen¡¯s surroundings all of a sudden. Two Tempest Dragonmights appeared and provided Saleen with massive amount of wind element. Saleen¡¯s speed rose sharply as he began to hunt the holy masters.


    The holy masters were basically level seven. The ones of higher levels were killed by the Winged Skull. The remaining ones had scattered and none of them was able to handle level nine sorcerers.


    Saleen cast an ice spear, which spun in the air looking for its target. The target found was a level eight holy master, who was protected by white Divine Protection. The strongest defense divine spell was something that even level nine spells would have had trouble prating. However, that was the only level eight holy master in the group remaining; the other one was already killed by the Winged Skull. The Winged Skull continued on their way to attack other camps with the spirits in tow after killing two earlier, leaving the battlefield for Saleen and Jalin.


    The Winged Skull had full trust of Saleen¡¯sbat capacity. Hogina¡¯s Gun enabled Saleen to have an extrayer of protection when dealing with low-level professionals. Furthermore, the recoil of the Crystal Finger skill no longer cost Saleen his ability to fight after he had advanced to level nine. Even if he were to run into stronger opponents, he would still be able to do something.


    Most importantly, Saleen had the elemental badges with him and the Tempest Dragonmight excelled in aerial battles.


    Saleen was very excited. He had not anticipated the Holy See forces to be so weak. The group of over 20 holy masters were no match for him. He would have been scared if he did not have the elemental badges with him. However, at present, his attacks would be boosted by more than 50 percent, backed by the massive powers of the elemental creatures.


    The ice spear pierced the Divine Protection spell and the holy master was sent falling. They were shocked by the impact of the spear, making it impossible for them to maintain flight.


    Saleen would not simply let them escape. His flicked his finger up and had the ice spear steam, which soonbusted and turned into a fire snake, coiling around the holy master¡¯s body. The fire snake constricted and dispersed the divine spell into grey specks of light. The defense divine spell known to be the strongest was broken by two consecutive attacks from Saleen. The holy master within burned as they fell to the ground. Saleen did not forget to have the fire snake prate the holy master¡¯s body, to ensure that the poor fellow was truly killed.


    Jalin was able to score as well. Her arsenal of spells had all six elements gathered. She used only five seconds to deal with a level seven holy master, somewhat quicker than what Saleen had been able to achieve.


    The flying spirits were but bait for Saleen, meant for luring out the holy masters capable of flight, allowing him to destroy them midair. The Holy See army had been fooled. Holy masters were unable to perform as well as mages in aerialbat.


    The sh between holy masters and mages had never ceased. Both sides looked into any weaknesses of the other side that they were able to exploit, and it had became a habit. When his n worked, Saleen threw a scroll in his hand open.


    Level eight magic spell: Dark Cage.


    That spell was inferior whenpared to Endless Night, but it was extremely easy to use, as it was nearly instant-cast. The spell trapped a level seven holy master within and Saleen unleashed a Midnight Fang, sticking a dark elemental de in the mass of darkness and taking the head of the holy master.


    Jalin saw the scene and snorted. Saleen was not the only one with equipment; she had hers as well. Both were in a match to see who was able to kill more holy masters. She did not need to hide anything and pulled a huge magic staff out. There was a huge gem embedded on the staff, cut into eight facets.


    The gem cast six level nine spells at the same time and all of them hit holy masters. The six fell to the ground without making a sound, and Jalin turned to look at Saleen with a smug face.


    The holy masters realized that things were looking bad for them. Their enemy consisted of two powerful level nine sorcerers. The remaining holy masters gathered immediately, trying to cast arge scale divine spell.


    Saleen was put at ease seeing the holy masters huddling together. He was more afraid of his enemies scattering. They were attacking the Holy See¡¯s main camp after all. Anywhere the holy masters could have ran to, they would have brought help from powerful ones after all.


    Saleen cast a spell that he had been preparing. More than 1000 icicles appeared above the holy masters and rained down at them. White light glimmered outside the holy masters¡¯ circle. The spell that rained down from the sky was a mutated spell that Salen developed. Steam was found on the surface of every icicle, making them incredibly hot.


    ¡°Sh**!¡± Jalin knew it with just one look that it was a spell that Saleen had been preparing for a while. He knew that the holy masters would have gathered. There was no way she would have been able to catch up to Saleen¡¯s speed.


    The holy masters in the air were tortured by hot and cold energies at the same time. Saleen¡¯s spell had cast two opposing states on his targets.


    Breaking noises were heard all the while. Saleen¡¯s icicles were not simply one-off attacks; they were shot in volleys. Six holy masters were unable to react in time and did not manage to put up Divine Protection; they were soon shot to pieces by the icicles and burned, dropping to the ground as balls of fire.

 Chapter 1046: Might of Mages (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1046: Might of Mages (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The remaining holy masters were not enough to castrge scale divine spells, and the icicles continued to rain on them. They were able to do nothing but hold on, hoping the icicle attacks would stop soon.


    Saleen knew that the holy masters were waiting for reinforcements, but he had nothing to be afraid of. Arb, who was at his rear, would catch up soon enough. Pope Theisio had yet to show up, and killing just even a few more holy masters would worked well in the favor of the mages.


    Jalin looked at the unique icicles that Saleen cast and felt relieved for having yielded when she was fighting Saleen. Saleen¡¯s spell had been a level one spell, which he had upgraded to level seven and possessed offensive capacity close to level nine.


    While the rule usually said that a level nine sorcerer was incapable of being killed by powers below level eight, a sorcerer would actually fall from a level one attack if they were unprotected. Saleen¡¯s Icicle spell had covered all the powerful tricks capable of being brought about by magic: double casting, level two casting, preparations of prolonged attacks, stacking spells, upgradable magic, and magic transmutation.


    All the holy masters who were shot dead by the icicles froze within while they burned on the outside. That enabled the damage potential of the spell to be brought to even greater heights. Furthermore, the spell seemed to have formed the basic structures of rules.


    The holy masters were unable to do anything but resist. If Saleen had finished his attack back when he was fighting Jalin, she would have needed to cast away another mask before she was able to retaliate. Cold and hot states mixed with one another within the entire area of the attack. The icicle¡¯s pure physical impact brought the holy masters down to the ground, scattering the formations below. The white ring of light around the holy masters had dispersed.


    That was the true power of a level nine sorcerer: exploiting whatever openings there were and take full control of things from there. The remaining holy masters were not even able to leave the area where the icicles rained on them. They were able to do nothing but watch Saleen prepare one volley after another. Another thousand appeared right above the holy masters.


    Jalin knew that she lost again, putting away her huge magic staff glumly.


    She was not dumb and was already able to tell that Saleen¡¯s actions were all interconnected. He let the Winged Skull summon spirits just to hit the rear of the enemy camp hard. When the enemy was surprised, they would not be able to build up truly powerful retaliations. Saleen would then use that opportunity to destroy all holy masters who came as reinforcements.


    She went on to have a match against him. If it had not been for the spells that she cast being too powerful, the holy masters would not have gathered around to get tortured by Saleen¡¯s icicles.


    The area-of-effect style of casting Icicle was indeed powerful. It did not matter to Saleen if he was dealing with one enemy or a hundred enemies, but he needed to have the holy masters gathering up willingly before he was able to do so.


    The most unlucky thing for the holy masters was that they lost a level nine holy master from the get go, which led to how things were. The Winged Skull acted just as Saleen had predicted, and the skeleton had probably attained powers of a spirit king.


    Saleen¡¯s ways were brutal, as he had learned one thing after fighting holy masters: just letting the holy masters extend their hands would prove disastrous to him. The ck butler was capable of attacksparable to sorcerers. The fellows whoe from the Tribunal won¡¯t be any weaker than sorcerers if their gear proves to be powerful enough.


    Why are dragons so powerful? Because a dragon would breathe its most powerful breath to even kill a rabbit.


    It was a joke among mages, yet the joke held true. The group of level seven holy masters were inferior in terms of powerspared to Saleen and Jalin, yet if they were to be allowed to cast arge scale divine spell and some prophecy or curse, they would seed, and there was no way Saleen would have been able to guarantee that he could stay safe.


    Even a mage as powerful as Imposa ended up falling under an ambush by Nichs using lesser prophecy spells, and Imposa almost died at Saleen¡¯s hands because of it. As such, it was best to keep them from being able to cast such spells.


    Divine Protection was the most powerful defensive divine spells there was. The level seven holy masters kept their divine shields up painstakingly, only to find that they simply held through the first round of Saleen¡¯s attacks. Six of them were killed and the faces of the ones remaining became pale, utterly incapable of casting offensive spells to retaliate.


    Jalin stayed at the sidelines and watched. If any of them dared to try anything funny, the female sorcerer would seize the chance and kill them.


    Saleen kept the holy masters pinned with tworge scale Icicle spell before taking out a magic staff and casted a level nine spell: Green de.


    It was a spell upgraded from Wind de, but it did not have had the effect as the Dimensional de¡¯s effects and would simply evolved into Elemental Cutting if the direction of upgrades were not done right.


    Saleen¡¯s magic chords were pure water type chords. Much upgradable magic was unable to progress along the usual lines due to that. Furthermore, all magic spells stored within that magic staff were spells that he developed on his own.


    Joey had given Saleen many of magic staffs, all of them crafted from god¡¯s mulberry and ghost oak. Saleen, in turn, gave many of them to the mages of Sreeger Ind, leaving very few by his side. There were no level nine sorcerers to help him out to replenish the spells, so he had to do everything on his own if the spells within the staff ran out.


    The surface of the Green de consisted of incredibly furious wind element. The wind element vibrated and enabled the speed of the Green de to reach frightening speeds. Worse still, the spell waspletely silent. All of the heat produced from cutting air was recycled by the spell.


    An attack like that impressed Jalin. That was the pinnacle of level nine magic. Before rules werepleted and manifested, the power of such attacks were incapable to brought to further heights.


    The over three meter-long Green de swept and the divine spell known to be the most resilient was cut away. The holy masters were incapable of moving and they had no ways of casting other divine spells; all they were able to do was see themselves being bisected.


    The Green de only dimmed after cutting up all the six remaining holy masters, no longer capable of holding its form and bursting with a violent sonic boom.


    The strongest ofmon wind des were capable of producing sonic booms, yet the Green de had even absorbed the sound of its own sonic boom, returning to the strength ofmon wind des after its energy had dissipated.


    Saleen¡¯s continuous attacks were pulled off splendidly and smoothly. Complex magic felt like child¡¯s y in his hands.


    The umted powers in Saleen¡¯s body were brought to bear on his enemies. His enemies back in the day had been so irresistibly powerful that he had to rely on equipment to live. His stand-off with the holy masters was, in contrast, like a tiger walking into a herd of sheep.


    Saleen realized something that Jason had imparted to him that was incredibly precious.


    A mage¡¯s bearing, confidence, courage, and pride were all passed down from one generation to another. He had survived multiple dangers and ordeals, torturing himself using his family badge every day just so that he was able to scrub away the weakness in his soul. At that moment, Saleen felt that he had taken the reigns of his fate, and that he came to know himself better.


    At that very moment, the Star Gathering Needle in Saleen¡¯s Devil Ring let out a slight ding, as if it was resonating with Saleen¡¯s thoughts.


    The Star Gathering Needle had been an astrologer¡¯s weapon and was also a special equipment that the astrologers used for training. The astrologers were people who attempted to take control of their own fates, which from a certain perspective, made them mages as well.


    The level 19 Star Gathering Needle resonated with Saleen as he realized something about fate. Saleen himself did not know that his proficiency at astrology had jumped two levels, reaching the proficiency of level four.


    Of course, thebat capacity of a level four astrologer was far below that of a level four mage. However, astrologers possessed a variety of powers that magescked, such as premonition.


    Saleen did not know about the changes within him. All he knew was that he felt very refreshed. He unleashed yet another Green de from the staff in his hand. This time, it ended up killing the other eight holy masters. There was a white figure flying in his direction far away in the air, and quickly turned tail and ran when they saw what he just did.


    Jalin might have appeared weak, but her desire to prevail over others was stronger than most. She immediately went after the holy master who had fled. Saleen was unable to call her back in time, and had no choice but to put the staff away and take out his golden magic book, chasing after her.


    Saleen realized one thing: the ring in his hand was capable of providing mental powers to him. He surprisingly did not exhaust much of his mental powers despite having repeatedly castplex magic.


    The ring that he had traded the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake for with Arb was something that he had no idea of how to use. Arb did not bother telling him either. Saleen knew there was a seal on the ring and yet he did not attempt to undo it using the Star Gathering Needle. The seal was something that Arb put it on herself. If he were to undo it, he might as well tell Arb and would have earned the ire of all mages.


    Arb¡¯s seal was something that would have unravel in time, so long as he fulfilled his role as bait. That was part of the deal, and Saleen had no intentions of breaking it. But still, the ring with a seal on it managed to surprise Saleen.


    He had many skills, but he dared not use them often due precisely to not having adequate mental powers.


    For example, the Eye of Lightning. It would not have cost him much in magic chords, but it came with hefty mental power requirements. If Saleen was to attack using lightning attacks in full power, it would be something that would have exceeded even a level ten sorcerer¡¯s tolerance, and he would have been rendered a cripple after doing so, requiring him to recuperate for a long time. The ring, despite not having been unsealed yet, had already been able to provide enormous help in mental powers. I wonder what would happen if the seal on it gets undone.


    Saleen returned his mind to the task at hand. He was afraid of Jalin going too far after the holy master. He cranked up to his maximum flight speed with the help of two Tempest Dragonmights, catching up to Jalin in mere moments.


    The holy master who was running away flew farther and farther away. Saleen was surprised to find that while Jalin¡¯s way and speed of moving on the ground had been very terrifying, she was considerably slower in the air.


    Jalin dropped to the ground glumly as if she knew what Saleen was thinking. She elerated forward when she was less than a hundred meters from the ground, as if she was able to spring hundreds of meters forward simply by taking one step on the ground.


    Saleen had his Elemental Eye fully opened and seemed to be able to understand what she did. Jalin was using the power of the earth itself.


    There were eleration skills in magic of all six major elements, but it was the first Saleen saw someone using the power of earth element when they were in flight. There seemed to be some limitations to Jalin¡¯s skill, but if she was able to advance to level ten, the process would probably be much easier.


    Every mage has something they were deemed a genius in after all!


    Saleen recalled a saying. No one had been able to found such a technique for the past 10,000 years. Regardless if it was Jalin or Arb who had researched and developed the skill, Saleen was impressed.


    Jalin did not know that her leap had just opened up Saleen¡¯s mind, giving way to even more terrifying magic, a flying skill that had never been seen before.

 Chapter 1047: Mentally Challenged (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1047: Mentally Challenged (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jalin¡¯s speed had exceeded Saleen¡¯s limit of flight capabilities. Even with the power of wind element provided in full force by two Tempest Dragon-mights, Saleen had no way of keeping up with her.


    Saleen knew that unless he went summoning the leader of the Tempest Dragon-mights, there was simply no way he could close the distance between the two of them. If the one he was chasing after was Sika or Lex, he would have definitely summoned the Tempest Dragon-might leader by then. The one before him was Jalin though. Since Arb was confident enough to leave her by his side, the chance of anything happening to her was close to nil.


    Saleen lowered his flight altitude a bit, watching the ones wearing holy master regalia beneath him. He threw icicles at each one he saw, not caring if he would end up killing the enemy. If the ones being hit by the spell were holy masters below grade-7, Saleen did not think there was any way for them to defend against his mutated spell.


    In truth, Saleen hardly saw anyone alive along the way. The camp was set up sparsely and the route which the winged skeleton took was not heading for the most densely popted areas. That was done to lower the difficulty in making their way across the camp. The ones who managed to survive the poison attacks were basically holy masters or soldiers armed with magic equipment.


    The survivors struggled to resist the toxins, and Saleen needed little more than a grade-3 icicle to finish them off. Some even died under Jalin¡¯s foot when she moved about. The stepping motions that she did when moving in the air carried the power of the earth. No one was left alive where she stepped.


    Saleen caught up with the flying spirits shortly. The number of spirit casualties began to rise, and it was impossible for the winged skeleton to kill every single holy master who stood in his way. Jalin was nowhere to be seen, and Saleen knew she was probably caught in an enemy trap.


    Their predicament only resulted in the considerable weakening of the enemy ground defenses.


    Saleen made a snap decision to unleash six Vermillion Knights to start burning the camp. The knights did not need to do much, as everywhere they tread was set aze.


    The Vermillion Knights practically burned a path on the ground. As the fires were not the result of magic, they were not quickly extinguished. The tall bodies of the Vermillion Knights were not somethingmon human warriors were able to match. With Saleen in the air and the Vermillion Knights trampling about, they made it to the center of the camp in no time.


    It was a given that the huge army gathered by the Holy See packedrge-scale equipment. The route he took was devoid of any, and the ones nearby were being mobilized and gathered instead.


    The Holy See¡¯srge-scale equipment all had its own special traits. Most were controlled by holy masters, making them seem like some moving magic tower. At the same time, therge-scale equipment could not be moved by a single person. Such equipment utterly sacrificed mobility to maximize damage potential. On a battlefield, there was a variety of means topensate for such ring a weakness.


    In their situation however, the Holy See army was not facingrge-scale assaults by enemy forces, but a group of flying spirits with several powerful mages taking the lead.


    It had been a long time since thest time anyone had seen such massive deployment of spirits on the Myers Maind. Common death mages were capable of summoning spirits in the hundreds at most. Death sorcerers, while capable of summoning about 1,000 spirits, usually refrained from doing so, as the toll on their mental powers was simply too great. Only a being like the winged skeleton possessed the means ofmanding more than 100,000 spirits at the same time.


    The forces at Saleen¡¯s nks slowly closed in on them with theirrge-scale equipment in tow, yet they were quickly left in the dust by the flying spirits. Under the winged skeleton¡¯s instructions, none of the flying spirits bothered dealing with therge-scale equipment, so as to prevent adding to the death toll of their own.


    Saleen did not bother dealing with therge-scale equipment either. He knew Sika would have definitely installed magic cannons within Guderian City. As such, none of therge-scale equipment was capable of making it near the city, and its deployment put a heavy cost on the army¡¯s supplies. Every deployment required considerable amounts of divine crystals or magic nuclei.


    The holy masters, on top of their huge steel monsters, looked up at the mages flying by and were not able to do anything. Saleen flew at a high speed and was covered in clouds. He was further protected by two Tempest Dragon-mights. As such, only someone of his own level would be capable of posing a threat to him.


    Arb¡¯s personal guards, under the protection provided by the elemental creatures, advanced into the camp from the rear. The mages behind them caught up while the guards were only about ten miles deep into enemy territory.


    Arb was of course concerned about her own guards, as all of them were of levels above middle ss swordmasters. While there were few grand swordmasters among them, they were still young and had a great future ahead of them. Saleen had the troops experience war throughout the expedition, and casualties were kept low. That earned him Arb¡¯s approval, but Theisio was still nowhere to be seen despite having arrived right before the city itself. Arb was done waiting, as she received news about Jalin going out on her own to pursue holy masters.


    Arb took more than 30 sorcerers with her and made it outside the camp. The sight of the camp being corroded by poison rendered her somewhat dumbfounded. If she had yet to reach grade-10, she would have been very, very wary of Saleen.


    ¡°Chief, isn¡¯t this Saleen fellow going a little far with the killing?¡± An elder beside her asked.


    ¡°Against the Holy See? I wish he¡¯d killed more.¡± Arb scoffed at the elder with cold eyes.


    The elder lowered their head. Despite Arb¡¯s young appearance, she was actually more than 300 years old, and had been in charge of the Grukos for more than 100 years. Her bearing was impressive, and every move of hers was capable of making the elders nervous.


    ¡°Remember not to spread too far out. No matter who you encounter, keep the formation of six in a group.¡± While Arb was indeed harsh on her people, she was nheless concerned about casualties among the elders. The elders were still important figures within the n. If the casualties suffered were too high, the n would have had a hard time replenishing their numbers of grade-9 sorcerers.


    Arb¡¯s arrival relieved Saleen. He was also afraid of the possibility of a grade-10 holy master springing out of nowhere. He was alone, and all of his most powerful attacks were short-ranged ones. If something like that did happen, he would have had no choice but to run.


    As such, Saleen refrained from using Hogina¡¯s gun. While its rate of fire was high, the element of surprise would have been lost if it was used even once. It would have been very difficult to lock onto his enemies. It was no Grey Memory after all.


    If all six of the barrels of the gun were used, it would work well to cover his escape for some time. Arb would not simply watch him die from afar. If things got too dire, there was still the option of barricading himself behind the walls of his Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen was actually being rather paranoid, as most of the grade-9 professionals were found on the other side of Guderian City¡¯s walls instead. The deployment of the Holy See army was done in ordance to Theisio¡¯s designs. Theisio brought oracles with him, intending for them to block Saleen off at the south. It was a sound n.


    Theisio was nowhere to be seen, and as such, the number of professionals stationed at the camp on the southern side of the city were few. The Holy See had actually wanted to deploy grade-10 professionals in the south as well, but grade-10 professionals were hard toe by.


    Themander of the southern camp turned anxious as soon as they found Saleening. They deployed more than 20 holy masters to intercept him, yet none returned from their missions, resulting in further frustrations. Themander decided to take a different approach, which was to have a grade-9 holy master lure Saleen into a trap.


    The one who was lured was Jalin instead of Saleen. Jalin was moving too fast for that holy master to finish setting up their trap, catching up with them in no time. The dozen holy masters lying in wait inside the trap had no choice but to engage her. As such, there was hardly anyone standing in Saleen¡¯s way.


    While Jalin was about as strong as Saleen, her way of movement caught people off-guard easily. She was no match for the dozen holy masters, but they failed to surround her. Themander at the southern camp was left with no choice but to try to buy time with Jalin and deployed some of their troops to find Saleen.


    Three grade-9 professionals showed up before Saleen, with a ck-robed holy master taking the lead. Two grand swordmasters followed closely behind.


    Saleen caught all three of them in his sight. A brief analysis with his Eye told him that the two swordsmen behind him were silver grand swordmasters instead of golden ones. Saleen felt rather relieved about his findings.


    Golden grand swordmasters remained a great threat to him. Even when armed with the Crystal Finger, his speed was still inferior to that of a golden grand swordmaster. Golden grand swordmasters also possessed formidable skills for holding back their enemies. If the ones tagging along with the ck-robed holy master were indeed golden grand swordmasters, Saleen would have just turned tail and run.


    Saleen was gradually able to feel the strength of his Elemental Eye. Even the likes of Arb had problems seeing more than 100 miles away, yet he was capable of detecting his enemies acutely and effortlessly. By the time the trio got within two miles away from him, Saleen was done setting up his tactics.


    Both sides closed in on each other rapidly. Saleen¡¯s spell was readied when the distance between both parties were about a mile away.


    800, 600, 400 yards...


    Saleen could have just deployed Hogina¡¯s gun, yet he deliberately refrained from doing so, as he did not want to deploy such ast resort just yet. The way Saleen saw it, the gun was reserved for fighting grade-10 professionals. If he happened to be fighting someone of his level, he would have rather used staffs or scrolls. While those were still stored spells as well, they needed personal control from him and they were required to work in tandem with other spells before a solid strategy could be formed.


    From that point of view alone, it became apparent that the use of staffs or scrolls also served to deepen his understanding of magic.


    His family badge offered no such maneuvering. It was capable of nothing other than sting the enemy with a thick, menacing bolt of lightning, reducing the enemy to dust. The rules of lightning that Saleen was able to learn from every use were miniscule. He was able to learn more by quieting himself and prodding into the badge with his senses for further research instead.


    Such a piece of equipment, while very useful in battle, proved to be of little help in furthering his practice.


    It was something he came toprehend after fighting Van Gogh. Van Gogh¡¯s Lance of Order stopped Saleen¡¯s attacks with the badge dead in its tracks. While the lightning attack ended up tearing the power within thence apart, it nheless failed to kill Van Gogh. If Van Gogh were to be a grade-10 holy master, Saleen might have ended up dead.


    Over reliance on any one piece of equipment would bring about his doom sooner orter.


    There was no way for Saleen to know that if all underlying powers of his family badge were to be unlocked, no equipment of the same level would be able to withstand its attacks. The rules of lightning imbued within were not of the Myers Maind, and it was not even a Crystal Wall type. A Crystal Wall type of lightning powers would have been far inferior.


    As both parties got increasing near each other, the grade-9 holy master stood airborne with no intentions of moving, feeling glee that they had met their enemy. They knew that their attacks were far inferiorpared to who they were about to fight. If Saleen decided to simply turn tail and run, there was little they would be able to do about it. Powerful divine spells required some measure of preparation, just like powerful magic spells.


    The holy master looked rather menacing. The grade-9 holy master that the winged skeleton happened to kill was their friend. They had no idea that it was the Winged skeleton who killed their friend, however. As such he had decided to take it out on Saleen.


    A hundred yards!


    The holy master sped up all of a sudden with the grand swordmasters in tow. It was as if they teleported right before Saleen. The silver grand swordmasters crossed their swords and sted him with golden sword aura.


    Abined attack!


    The power of the two silver grand swordmasters was raised to extreme levels,unching an attack with damage potential simr to that of a golden grand swordmaster. Tens of beams of sword aura were shot, cutting Saleen¡¯s nks off. The holy master unraveled a scroll and looked at Saleen as if they were seeing a dead man before them.

 Chapter 1048: Mentally Challenged (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1048: Mentally Challenged (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The holy master opened up their scroll. Gold and white beams shed about. It was only then that they found the enemy¡¯s body to have been torn apart by the golden sword aura unleashed by two silver grand swordmasters. The remaining head opened its mouth and uttered a single line, ¡°You are a fool!¡±


    The holy master was baffled as to what that line meant. They had always been known for their cunning back in the Holy See.


    Their way of attack differed from the usual tactics employed. Other holy masters would have worked to hold the enemy in ce while the grand swordmasters would have been the ones dealing the killing blow. The holy master instead had the two grand swordmastersbine attacks to restrict the enemy¡¯s movements, creating an opening for the holy master tond the killing blow instead. The tactic went spectacrly well, it was evident from the death toll.


    Saleen¡¯s torn body was sent flying in the air, splitting and rbining into two identical bodies, sporting the same expressions.


    The divine spell scroll of the holy master was used up, and the resulting scene left them in shock, yelling, ¡°Impossible!¡±


    They were a holy master, which meant they were incredibly sensitive to signs of life. If what happened before them was simply an illusion, they would have known.


    The holy master had no way of telling that Saleen had learned a bit of divine arts from the Goddess of Myers herself. He was capable of granting illusions with a certain measure of life simply by using the power of faith within the Ring of Gifts.


    Then again, that trick could only worked once. The holy master would be able to tell the illusion from the real Saleen if he were to use the same trick again.


    There was no need for that however, as Saleen cast Endless Night right behind the holy master, engulfing his stunned enemy. Two huge fireballs were conjured in Saleen¡¯s hands, which he threw urately at the two silver grand swordmasters.


    The two silver grand swordmasters were hit by the fireballs as soon as they were done killing Saleen¡¯s illusion. While they would not be the kind to care about low-level spells like Fireball, the ones that hit them made use of their magic equipment and silver sword aura very difficult. The fireballs thrown at them were peculiar ones, as a huge ice bomb was found within each. The resulting fierce impact crushed the bones in their respective torsos.


    The very reason why Saleen deemed the holy master to be a fool was because, while the tactics employed by the holy master were intricate, instant divine spells would still work better to restrict a mage¡¯s movements. The thought of using grand swordmasters to hold mages back was a preposterous one, as there had never been a warrior capable of pinning a mage down throughout the past tens of thousands of years, even though golden grand swordmasters were always known to be more powerful than grade-9 sorcerers.


    While such a tactic may have worked well against magesckingbat experience, it did nothing against Saleen. It allowed him to conserve his magic chord reserves.


    Saleen felt lucky that he was capable of using Endless Night to finish things up. Other spells might not have yielded such excellent effects.


    The two grand swordmasters were burned to a crisp. Saleen then took a step into the Endless Night spell and found the holy master struggled to keep the encroaching darkness at bay with Divine Protection.


    A grade-9 Divine Protection was a tricky spell to deal with. While the dark element within Endless Night was incredibly potent and much more powerful, it would still take the spell some time to dissolve Divine Protection.


    Saleen decided that he had no time to wait. He took his family badge in his hand and pressed it against the Divine Protection barrier.


    Saleen¡¯s family badge was a voracious energy eater without preference for the kind of energies being absorbed. Saleen¡¯s mental powers were able to be replenished by the new ring he had just got his hands on, and as such, he did not concern himself with the cost of using skills. As soon as the badge was pressed on top of Divine Protection, the barrier waspletely absorbed within three seconds. It went on to devour even the energies within the holy master, all of them.


    Saleen was in no mood to waste magic chords. He could have used any kind of magic attacks on the trapped holy master, and that would end the fight in mere seconds. Saleen went to absorb his enemy¡¯s energy using his family badge, keeping him from wasting any magic chords.


    Other than the holy master who had lost all signs of life, there was also a scroll found within Endless Night. The divine spell scroll¡¯s powers were devoured by Endless Night as soon as it was opened, yet the scroll remained instead of being destroyed.


    Saleen took the scroll in his hand and saw it was packed with about 10,000 holy prose written in golden ink in dense lines. Saleen thought on the matter for a bit and concluded that it was but a coincidence. After the scroll lost its power, the dark element around it separated the scroll from the spell it cast.


    The scroll would nheless serve well as an item for studying the weaknesses of divine arts. Saleen stored the peculiar scroll inside his Devil Ring and put the whole thing behind him. He had yet to find out the retaining of a grade-9 divine spell scroll was tantamount to having something that the Holy See had guarded. If he were to devote huge numbers of mages to study the scroll, they would soon be able to discover weaknesses shared by all divine scrolls.


    If something like that were to be given to other gods, it would work well against the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen was in no mood to study divine arts. He had intended for Nichs to figure it out after taking it home. Saleen exited Endless Night and smirked at the sight of Arb flying in his direction with more than 30 sorcerers in tow.


    She was simply concerned about her student, which was something that had little to do with him.


    ¡°Chief, I was unable to catch up to Jalin,¡± Saleen said as soon as he came face to face with her, keeping himself away from the matter.


    Arb knew well as to how Jalin moved about, and Saleen was just a grade-9 sorcerer. It was a given that he was unable to catch up to her. Arb did not dwell on the matter, and asked instead, ¡°Where did she go? I¡¯m unable to sense her.¡±


    Saleen replied, ¡°I¡¯ll take you to her.¡±


    Saleen turned around and headed for the ce where Jalin was entangled. Having recalled his Tempest Dragon-mights, his speed of flight was far slower than Jalin¡¯s. Arb found it futile to worry. It was fortunate that the area of the camp was not too great to cover for a grade-9 sorcerer. Saleen quickly arrived at the scene with Arb.


    Jalin was seen being surrounded and attacked by nine holy masters and more than 100 warriors.


    The warriors were all equipped with alchemy crossbows. They were firing bolts at her every now and then. All nine holy masters were attacking Jalin with divine spells. Saleen was able to see that the nine holy masters were taking turns at attacking her; they were all using instant divine spells.


    Jalin danced about in the light of the divine spells, and no one was able to tell who she was under her mask.


    Her eerie movements proved to be a headache for the holy masters. None of the nine holy masters were able to get a fix on her. Jalin¡¯s attacks were dispersed by thebined powers of the nine, making her little more than a toy for them, but she was able to easily evade all of their attacks as well.


    Saleen was perceptive to find out that there was a dead body of a holy master lying not far away, the peach blossom paper mask on Jalin¡¯s face was a new one as well. Jalin probably killed the holy master at the cost of one mask.


    Jalin was still all bubbly and spirited despite being under heavy enemy fire. She suffered no injuries whatsoever.


    Arb was barely able to contain herself seeing her student surrounded and attacked by holy masters. She shouted and had her sorcerers, numbering more than 30, rushing at the enemies below.


    She was reserved enough to refrain from making a move herself. It was still 30 sorcerers taking on nine holy masters; the end result was as apparent as it could have gotten.


    The grade-10 professionals among the enemy ranks and Pope Theisio were nowhere to be seen, and that puzzled Arb. Saleen had been wreaking as much havoc as he was able to, and there was simply no way Theisio could have kept his hands to himself after seeing all that.


    Even though Theisio might have figured it all out to be a trap, he would have simply gathered more professionals to have a better chance at getting Saleen, instead of letting such a chance slip by.


    Arb had seen the magic images in Metatrin City and felt that even if she were to have the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake on her person, the chances of her being able to take the city remained low, unless all 39 grade-9 magic towers erected in the city were just for show.


    If Saleen was allowed to return to Metatrin City, the pope would probably have missed his greatest chance at getting rid of Saleen.


    Jalin was sulking. If she wanted to leave, she would have easily left the scene. The fact that she had only ended up killing one holy master sacrificing one mask was incredibly irksome to her. She knew well what the enemy was up to, and it was only because she still had cards in her hand that she stuck around trying to find an opening instead of leaving. Jalin deemed there was no need to hide anything any longer as soon as her teacher showed up. She took out a huge magic staff, which lit up with the brightness of six spells. Saleen was shocked to find out that the staff could cast six grade-9 spells all at once, but it seemed like the staff had just cast one spell instead.


    Jalin¡¯s staff was far more powerful than the ones Joey gave him.


    Even if he were to re-craft his Demonic Magic Book, its powers would still pale inparison to Jalin¡¯s staff.


    Arb found Jalin¡¯s childish methods amusing. The student of hers was always known for herposure. It was probably thanks to Saleen that Jalin had gotten so irked.


    Jalin could hardly be med. She had always been known as the most talented mage in the Golden ins since Arb took Jalin under her wing. There was no one capable of suppressing her in any way. Saleen, however, seemed to have endless amounts of tricks up his sleeve, which ignited Jalin¡¯s desire to win. That, in turn, made her barely able to contain herself.


    Saleen knew why Jalin acted the way she did. He kept a deadpan face while watching the elders of the Grukos gang up on the holy masters. The first batch of the 100 strong force of warriors armed with alchemy crossbows were taken care of. Jalin¡¯s spell went on to take the holy master organizing their formations. Eight were left, and they were being picked off slowly by the elders of the Grukos.


    Saleen observed closely, finding the ways in which the mages of the Grukos dealt with the holy masters to be rather impressive.


    Divine Protection cast by grade-9 holy masters was a powerful spell capable of defending against grade-9 magic spells; theysted very long as well. The mages were divided into two groups, and one of the groups went on to separate a holy master from their brethren, stopping them from getting help from other holy masters. The other half of the mages went on to take on the remaining seven holy masters, taking turns to cast magic attacks, making it near impossible for the holy masters to retaliate.


    The holy master that was separated from their own brethren was having a hard time, as they needed to fight 12 grade-9 sorcerers alone. While Divine Protection was indeed a powerful spell, it worked best on groups. The limitations of using Divine Protection alone would eventually result in death. It was made even more inevitable due to the fact that the sorcerers had long figured out ways to take on Divine Protection.


    The 12 sorcerers worked as a single unit, attacking in waves and disallowing the energies of the holy masters¡¯ shields to stabilize. The simple elemental attacks in waves ground on the Divine Protection spells, causing the holy masters much stress.


    The benefit of doing so was that attacking in waves required only power at grade-7 to be cast. With the 12 grade-9 sorcerers taking turns attacking, the expenditure in magic cost was kept very low. Such attacks would only work when the enemy was deemed helpless.


    That lone holy master had enough. They began preparing powerful divine spells for retaliation while still being shielded by Divine Protection. The holy master was fighting grade-9 sorcerers, who jumped on the chance tounch greater attacks. Three grade-9 sorcerers went on to crank the elemental vibrations to the limit, while the other three went on to cast grade-9 magic spells, which were sent through the tiny crack in the divine shielding.


    A fireball, a long ice sword, and a ck-colored wind wereunched at the holy master at the same time.


    Saleen nodded. ¡°So, this is how you gang up on people!¡±

 Chapter 1049: Origin Stone of Darkness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1049: Origin Stone of Darkness (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Grukos sorcerers taught Saleen a vivid lesson: the best tactic is overwhelming your enemies with sheer numbers. While there were some differences between a mage¡¯s and a holy master¡¯sbat capacity, it was not something overwhelming. At present, the mages of the Grukos were practically ughtering the holy masters.


    Jalin vented her frustration and anger for a bit and retreated, heading back to her teacher. Arb did not chastise her for using equipment and skills haphazardly. She simply looked on quietly as her elders continued to wear on the holy masters one by one.


    Her personal guards had not yet arrived. Even with the help of elemental creatures, it would be difficult to traverse the camp.


    Saleen was reluctant to miss such an interesting battle and kept his eyes on the battlefield, analyzing the moves of the Grukos sorcerers, seeing how they coordinated with each other and what the tactical n for the whole thing was.


    ¡°Stop!¡± A voice was heard from the sky above. A blindingly strong light burst from the moon, shining light onto the area for tens of miles. A huge figure appeared high in the air.


    Arb smirked. Theisio sure iste. About half of the top forces of his army has already been destroyed. What can he do even if he has a godly item with him now? He could bring all three godly items to bear and they wouldn¡¯t be a match for the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake in my hand.


    Saleen quickly came behind Arb. Theisio appeared high in the sky and even though Saleen had never seen him in person before, he would knew that it was the pope of the Holy See.


    The Bramble Crown on Theisio¡¯s head shone and was definitely the most blinding light that Saleen had everid eyes on.


    The Divine Baby might have been powerful, but her aura was reserved. The holy light before him seemed to be capable of seeping into any pore it found. Saleen put on the Water Shield at full power, resulting in crackling lightning patterns on it shimmering, before he was he was able to resist the holy light¡¯s invasion.


    That was just the result of Theisio not having actually used any divine spells yet. Saleen knew that he was no match for Theisio unless the pope allowed him to get near, enabling him to use his Eye of Lightning on the pope.


    Saleen could not help but feel frustrated. He was a mage, yet he was forced to fight like an assassin.


    ¡°Theisio, you¡¯rete,¡± Arb rose to midair and blocked Theisio. The pope red at Arb, the God Grace Staff in his hand.


    ¡°You! How can you leave Golden ins!?¡±


    ¡°Said the one who came all the way here to Qin¡¯s territory. Long time no see, Theisio, you look a lot older,¡± Arb continued her meaningless chatter. Yet another level nine holy master was surrounded and ughtered while she was talking.


    Theisio¡¯s expression was incredibly gloomy. He looked at the young-looking face of Arb and felt envious. Even with all three oracles casting divine spells on him, Theisio¡¯s appearance still looked as if he was in his sixties. Arb, on the other hand, was more than three times older than him, yet she looked like she was in her early thirties.


    ¡°God has decreed that on Myers Maind, there would be stopping the light of God. Arb, the survival of the Grukos now rests with your choice.¡± Theisio saw thest holy master getting ganged up on and knew that it was toote to save them. As such, he did nothing instead, and simply aimed any light that managed to escape Arb at Saleen, who was standing behind Arb.


    Saleen smirked at him. He did not even bother concealing the killing intent behind the pair of blue eyes.


    ¡°Theisio, are you going to just sit by while your people are getting killed? You call that god¡¯s decree?¡± Arb took jabs at him while holding the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake in her hand.


    The mark that was in her hand was totally different from when Saleen held it.


    The golden mark shone with a jade-like sheen. There were six protruding carvings and nine life-like six-winged flying snakes on the surface of the mark. The nine snakes¡¯ bodies were translucent, and within every snake¡¯s body, there was a red thread moving about.


    The seals on the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake had all been undone and the mark had came to live.


    Saleen gulped and he felt himself suffering quite a loss there. The ring in his hand could notpare to the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, no matter how powerful it was. It was a pity that the mark could only be used by people with the blood of the Grukos coursing through their veins. It was little more than an indestructible brick in his hand.


    Theisio looked at the mark in Arb¡¯s hand and felt wary. The Holy See had much intel on the Grukos, but none of it was able to make Theisio feel that it was urate.


    For instance, the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake. Some powerful ones from the n would make copies of the mark and seal level nine six-winged flying snakes in them. In the scrolls found in the Holy See, the equipment was described to be a level ten equipment, which meant that while the mark was created using level nine materials, it packed a punch of level ten.


    The mark in Arb¡¯s hand was the original one, which had been used by the founding emperor of Qin all those years ago.


    All the rumors about the equipment were little more than just hearsay. When the Qin emperor founded his empire, having fought for over a hundred years to do so, he was very reserved with his use of the mark. All those who had seen him use the equipment were dead, leaving no reliable information behind.


    ¡°Arb, do you really think that the gods are humanity¡¯s enemies?¡± Theisio asked all of a sudden. There was no army within a mile radius from Arb, and Theisio¡¯s question was totally unbefitting of his status as the pope.


    ¡°Huh? You¡¯re saying that they¡¯re not?¡± Arb felt the question to be peculiar. Theisio had been the most devout adherent that she had ever seen, yet the words sounded like sphemy.


    Theisio looked at Arb¡¯s young face and sighed. That mage has the sturdiest mind I¡¯ve ever seen. I could have been a god and I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to convince her otherwise.


    When Arb was young, she had broken through the limit of level nine before she reached 30, exceeding even golden grand swordmasters in abilities. Arb had been proud and arrogant. When she was making her pilgrimage, she went about her business in high-profile ways, making quite a number of enemies along the way. She ended up being surrounded by tens of powerful ones and stripped of her sword aura.


    The people did not kill Arb. One would have been as good as a thorough cripple when their sword aura waspletely destroyed. No one would have thought that Arb would go on to study magic when she returned to Golden ins, quickly bing a level nine sorcerer. No one knew when she had actually advanced to level ten, but thest time Arb left Golden ins, she did so to kill everyone who had ganged up on her before. She was still level nine back then.


    The woman became Lord Chief of the Grukos about a hundred years ago. As per the treaties forged between the nations, she had never left Golden ins ever since.


    It was insane to think that one could be able to convince a genius with such resilience of mind that they would study magic after losing everything with words alone.


    ¡°Looks like I¡¯ll have to do it the hard way then!¡± Theisio shook the God Grace Staff lightly and covered Arb and the two behind her, Saleen and Jalin, with light that was even more dazzling.


    Saleen felt his Water Shield practically pressing on his body. If it had not been for the lightning magic patterns shimmering, the Water Shield would have shattered.


    The peach blossom flower on Jalin¡¯s face turned bright red, as if it was about to bleed. Arb snorted lightly and the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake in her hand cast a huge, squarish space, enveloping all three of them within.


    There was only white light left outside the space created by the mark. The dazzling light was even more terrifying than the poisons that Saleen had concocted, corroding the space created by the mark.


    Arb¡¯s expression said that she was hardly surprised, as if she knew that that would have happened. She then said, ¡°So this is the Realm of Light then, Theisio? It is weaker than I thought it would have been. You only have two of the three godly items with you, no?¡±


    Theisio¡¯s face changed within that boundless light. ¡°How did you know that?¡±


    Saleen hesitated for a bit before saying, ¡°She didn¡¯t know. I did.¡±


    ¡°You?¡± Theisio¡¯s eyes pierced through the space created by the mark and fixed on Saleen. The one who had been a thorn in his side looked to be at the pinnacle of level nine powers as well. ording to the rumors pertaining to the mage, he had quite an arsenal of equipment, and was not one to be trifled with.


    ¡°The Seal of Divine Power is still in the Holy See. It¡¯s just that you don¡¯t know who is the holding it,¡± Saleen smirked.


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    ¡°I swear on the name of the elements.¡±


    ¡°Who took the Seal of Divine Power?¡± Theisio asked. His voice seemed to have some peculiar powers. The space created by the mark shook as a result.


    Saleen had been prepared for it, sending thunderous rumble in his mind, negating the prophecy spell, but he overdid it and rendered himself dizzy for a bit.


    He shook his head for a bit andughed.


    ¡°Hahaha, Theisio, I really would love to tell you and have your people in the Holy See tear each other apart, but it¡¯s more fun to have you guess who took it.¡±


    Jalin was unable to help butugh as well. Saleen is one hell of a rascal.


    Arb felt peculiar. The mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake had been an incredibly mystical item. If she were to put defense at full power, not even a greater prophecy spell would be able to affect them. Furthermore, she did not cover Saleen at all and had simply let Theisio¡¯s voice enter Saleen¡¯s mind. She wanted to see what was Saleen holding in his sleeves.


    However, Saleen was simply rendered dizzy for a bit, beforepletely dispelling the greater prophecy spell¡¯s control.


    Admittedly, Arb would have had a hard time dealing with a greater prophecy spell if she did not have the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake with her. Theisio was also a level ten holy master, which meant that his greater prophecy spell¡¯s power would have been wayrger than the ones cast by level nine holy masters.


    Theisio was even more surprised. While he had only advanced to level ten not long ago, it was unthinkable for him to slip when dealing with a level nine sorcerer. The greater prophecy spell had been sessfully casted, yet it had no effect on Saleen whatsoever.


    It is no wonder that there was a divine omen specifically meant for the mage. If he were to be allowed to grow, he would have turned into a jinx to all holy masters.


    Arb was perceptive enough to catch onto Theisio¡¯s weakness. ¡°So Theisio, it seems like you have just advanced, and yet you dare show up here at the Qin Empire. You really have no idea where you stand, do you?¡±


    A change took ce within the mark in her hand. The nine snakes circled the huge mark, as if they were levitating in mid-air. Countless magic runes spread from the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, expanding the space and absorbing Theisio inside.


    The light from the pope¡¯s God Grace Staff was snuffed out immediately.


    Theisio could not believe it. While it was true that he had just advanced, the God Grace Staff was still a level 15 godly item, a piece of equipment bestowed by the Lord of Glory solely for the pope. The light of the God Grace Staff was something that not even the oracles would have been able to cast.


    The nine snakes expanded thousands of times andshed out at Theisio.

 Chapter 1050: Origin Stone of Darkness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1050: Origin Stone of Darkness (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Six-winged Flying Snake was as powerful as a dragon, or rather, even a dragon would not be as mystical as the snakes. Dragons originated from the dragon ne while lineages of the Six-winged Flying Snake were literally everywhere. No one knew where the purest of the Six-winged Flying Snake bloodlines hailed from.


    Arb was not capable of using the powers of the true Six-winged Flying Snakes. It was already her limit just to conjure illusions of the nine snakes. Even so, the attack rendered Saleen dazed.


    There was hardly anything fake with the nine Six-winged Flying Snakes and each snake looked different from the other. The snakes were still chanting something when they pounced onto Theisio.


    Saleen was unable toprehend thenguage used by the snakes. He was not even capable of analyzing the structure of thenguage using Figaro¡¯s Magic Form.


    Thenguage had a twisty rhythm and powerful pronunciations. The bodies of the snakes shone with bright, colorful runes, none of which Saleen recognized.


    Theisio was no longer able to keep hisposure as his Realm of Light was consumed by the Six-winged Flying Snakes. Furthermore, his divine spells were ineffective, and he became incapable of sensing the light of his god.


    The rules within the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake were not from Myers Maind at all. The specters of the nine snakes cut off the connection between the pope and the Lord of Glory.


    Theisio¡¯s God Grace Staff and Bramble Crown were capable of unleashing the energy stored within. While the remaining power within the items was still massive, they were unable topare to that of the mark.


    The mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake was definitely not something that had been passed down only over the past thousand years. It was probably as ancient as the history of Myers Maind itself. At the very least, the mark was more than 30,000 years old.


    Theisio¡¯s expression twisted, and he seemed very reluctant. He uttered a string of peculiar notes from his throat and Saleen was able to tell that it was a dialect of the ancient Myersnguage. Thenguage had beenmon in ancient times.


    ¡°Descend, O¡¯ Origin Stone of Darkness!¡± Theisio was not finished yet. A huge, ck rock appeared in the space created by the mark. Theisio stood on the rock, and both his Bramble Crown and the God Grace Staff in his hand turned to the purest ck.


    Theisio had a pained expression. The Origin Stone of Darkness was something that he found in that cave. The core of the stone held the seed of divine fire of the Dark God of Destruction. Theisio had only intended to bring the rock back for research purposes or as an offering for his god. He did not anticipate any trouble in the process and the Origin Stone of Stone melded with his body, rendered inseparable.


    The seed of divine fire of the Dark God of Destruction had not been running away from humans to escape persecution; it was controlled by the Origin Stone of Darkness. The rock became like a piece of equipment as it entered Theisio¡¯s body. He knew that what he was doing was sphemous.


    The rock had divinity but it was unknown what god from which ne it belonged to. It somehow ended up in Myers Maind. Theisio was able to advance into a level ten holy master because he had attained the power of the Origin Stone of Darkness.


    It was incredibly bitter and uneptable ordeal to him.


    The Origin Stone of Darkness might have been very powerful, but it was not light of his god. The purity of the dark attributes of the relic was spoken for by how it was able to attract the Dark God of Destruction.


    What was even more terrifying was that the power of the Origin Stone of Darkness exceeded light attributes by a considerable margin, yet it did nothing to repel the skills belonging to the Lord of Glory. That meant that the relic was at least of level 16 and it possessed incredible devouring powers.


    Theisio was a powerful holy master and he knew traits of gods well. While he was still able to use the powers of the Lord of Glory, there was no telling what he would turned into when the Origin Stone of Darknesspletely consumed him. At the very least, it would mean that he was no longer in the Lord of Glory¡¯s favor.


    If the leader of a religion or a faith betrayed their god, their god would definitely find ways to send a double and kill the leader. It was especially so in the case of Lord of Glory, a god who was incredibly repellent of anything that was not his, and one was incapable of forgiving betrayal in any form.


    Theisio had no choice but to summon the Origin Stone of Darkness in the life and death situation. He would have been killed by the conjured specters of the Six-winged Flying Snake otherwise.


    The nine snakes rammed hard on the rock and the entire space created by the mark trembled in response. Saleen put up his Water Shield once again and resisted the tremor with thunderous rumble.


    It was a sound that the nine snakes produced deliberately, which carried incredibly devastating powers. The elements around the rock crumbled and Theisio, who was standing on the rock, bled from all his orifices.


    Arb was having a hard time as well. The full frontal strike resulted only in minor injuries on Theisio¡¯s part. She dispelled the space created by the mark, leaving with Saleen and Jalin.


    The outer areas of the Realm of Light were being corroded by the Origin Stone of Darkness as well, making it impossible to maintain.


    Arb shouted a ¡®run¡¯ to her elders and then headed to Guderian City without a care. All of the elders from her n were sly, scheming people. They all followed right behind Arb and flew several miles away in an instant.


    The Realm of Light disappeared, and a huge ck rock hung in midair. Theisio stood on top of the rock with a pained expression. Even with the space created by the mark of Six-winged Flying Snake gone, he remained unable to feel the blessing of his god.


    The Lord of Glory, who bestowed his power at all times, waspletely cut off within the area under the control of the Origin Stone of Darkness.


    The rock gave him power but at the same time, led him to fall. Theisio chanted the words and put the Origin Stone of Darkness away. It was only after doing so that the God Grace Staff in his hand and the Bramble Crown on his head returned to their original colors.


    Theisio felt his skin prick. The light fell onto him again, and there was a slight difort. The Origin Stone of Darkness did not repel the bathing of the light. Somehow, the powering from the heavens were once from the Lord of Light himself.


    Other holy masters usually needed to borrow power from adherents, yet the pope was bathed in the light of their god at all times.


    Saleen was able to talk in flight, and was unable to help but ask, ¡°Master, that Theisio...¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t kill him just yet, but he won¡¯t be tangling here for long. I think he has already fallen, and he will kill all soldiers within the area to keep word from spreading out.¡± Arb¡¯s words were filled with deep thoughts. She knew what Theisio was like as a person, and she had not expected even someone like him to fall.


    Theisio was indeed nowhere to be found, so much so that even Arb¡¯s personal guards were able to pass through the main camp without a scratch and arrive at Guderian City.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m taking the thousand of them away. I¡¯ll leave Jalin by your side to help you fight. I won¡¯t be going inside Guderian City, heh...¡± Arb did not exin why. It was a promise between the Grukos royalty and the n. The elders and the n leader were to not enter cities of such levels without a very good reason.


    While she had indeed broke the treaty by leaving Golden ins, it that was because the Holy See broke it first.


    Entering Guderian City would have frightened the kid, Safilos. Poor fool. Who would care about that Holy Rock City of yours anymore?


    Arb did not forget to undo the seal on Saleen¡¯s ring. ¡°The ring is just like the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, a level 18 equipment. But the mark has different effects when used by different people. The ring, however, you¡¯d be able to use it to the fullest just as it is. Your mental powers will grow six times more and 12 times less than your usual reserves, so long as you keep it ring on.¡±


    Saleen was dumbfounded. There was a limit to how powerful a person¡¯s mental powers could be, as they were limited by levels. His mental powers had broken through the limit of level ten and it was a rare exception hardly found in the past several millennia. Furthermore, if it had not been for his daily training with his family badge, his mental powers might have regressed.


    Arb continued, ¡°the added stores were all stored within the ring. Any mental power recoil from skills that you¡¯d have to suffer will be borne by the ring. Do you still think that you got a bad deal?¡±


    Saleen shook his head. To a mage, the ring was probably more precious than a golden magic book. There were too many spells that, due to limitations of mental powers, were something that mages could have only studied for a bit, getting next to no practical use out of them. Such limitations would have practically been removed during a mage¡¯s training.


    ¡°Oh right. Before I get to see you again, Jalin will not do anything of harm to you. So you could rest easy for now,¡± Arb consoled Saleen. Jalin put her hands to her side, looking gentle and warm.


    Sika did note out to greet Arb. She would not have felt anything even if she knew that Arb came, and there was no way she would have came out to greet the old mage personally. Sika was still inside the house of the lord. The general was severely injured and in aa yet not even she, a nature priest, was able to do anything. That meant that the general was beyond saving.


    Sika felt guilty. If it had not been for her wanting to kill greater numbers of the Holy See¡¯s forces, she would not have been surrounded by the powerful ones. She was able to return unscathed, yet the general suffered for her actions.


    Things were running smoothly within Guderian City. There was a vice general taking over, now that the general was ina. Sika¡¯s demon army suffered massive casualties. There were fewer than a thousand under hermand. The other armies of the nobles were still mostly intact for not having direct contact with the main battlefield. At the very least, they were not being systematically ughtered.


    Saleen recalled his elemental creatures and killed his way through. The elemental creatures served as meat shields. All of them suffered one kind of injuries or another when they reached Guderian City. The Holy See army was well stocked in terms of equipment. When Saleen was killing his way through the front, the forces that regrouped at the rear attacked the elemental creatures with all manner of equipment.


    Things were tense in Guderian City, but they were unable to attack without thought, as magic cannons were incapable of locking onto a mage like Saleen.


    The Winged Skull stood on the spirit false dragon and shouted at the city. It was rare to see sound transmission magic used by spirits, and the Winged Skull was using their own voice. The troops in the city were only at ease when they realized that the pitch ck spirits outside were forces sent from Metatrin City. But there was no way the Holy See would deploy armies of spirits, unless the pope had gone insane.


    Saleen did not trouble the garrison and chose to fly into the city. Hended at the walls and shed his badge. It was impossible to duplicate that type of magic equipment. Two demons walked up and bowed to Saleen, before the mage at the city was able to do any inspection. The demon had been waiting for Saleen¡¯s arrival at the city walls, and they were arranged to stay there by Sika.


    The battlements at the walls were de-alerted after his identity was confirmed, allowing the spirits to fly into the city.


    Saleen missed Sika very much, so much so that he took a demon with him and flew straight for the house of the lord. Oh Sika, you really are a reckless Caucasian for creating such a huge mess.


    Saleen was right. If Arb had not showed up and faced off against Theisio, Saleen would have had no idea of what he could have relied on to stand against Theisio¡¯s attacks.

 Chapter 1051: Sika is still a Woman (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1051: Sika is still a Woman (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°My liege!¡±


    Those who came out to greet him were none other than Eleanor and Nichs. Nichs hade there earlier in fear that Saleen would run into Theisio.


    Nichs seemed rather weak whenpared to the pope, as despite both of them being holy masters, Theisio was one blessed by a god.


    Nichs¡¯ face flushed as he felt rather embarrassed. While it was not his intention to get in Saleen¡¯s way, he was still Saleen¡¯s follower. For a follower to avoid fighting was rather unbing.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika ran out and crushed Saleen with a hug.


    Saleen practically started to suffocate. His grade-9 sorcerer¡¯s constitution was stronger than many swordmasters, yet Sika was the kind capable of hugs that even dragons would learn to fear.


    Sika had intended to let go, but she went clenching her arms yet again after seeing Jalin behind him. She went on to whisper at his ear, ¡°Who is that woman?¡±


    Jalin was wearing a paper mask, yet her figure was still alluring enough to attract the attention of many, simply by standing around. Sika went on high alert. Saleen was no longer the poor kid he once was. Her lover was a grade-9 sorcerer and a king; that appealed to many women.


    Jalin was irked by Sika¡¯s unbridled animosity. Instead of waiting for Saleen to open his mouth, she replied to Sika¡¯s question, ¡°I¡¯m Jalin, a good friend of Saleen¡¯s.¡±


    The line would have sounded very different if someone else was to say it, as Jalin said it in such a way that it could easily be misunderstood. Her voice was as gentle as flowing water, with a tinge of intense sweetness in it.


    Sika let go of her husband and pulled him close, before saying to Jalin, ¡°The name is Sika, the mother of Saleen¡¯s children. Feel free to get a ce to rest yourself. I wouldn¡¯t mind if you¡¯d just stood outside the door and eavesdropped on us though.¡±


    Sika dragged Saleen away as soon as she was done talking, without caring about how others reacted to it. She returned to her room with Saleen and shut the door behind them hard.


    Jalin chuckled and wanted to say something, but then Sika wasughing from within the room. She lowered her voice and said to Saleen, ¡°That woman...¡±


    Despite being a grade-9, Jalin failed to make out the lines that followed. All she was able to pick up from Sika¡¯sugh was intense sarcasm.


    Eleanor and Nichs had no intentions of standing around feeling awkward. They returned to their rooms and the winged skeleton addressed Jalin with his rather attractive voice. ¡°Master mage, should you not take a rest yourself? I¡¯ll have someone see to you.¡±


    Jalin might have been one with immense intelligence who was capable of maniptive means, but she was still very much irked by Sika¡¯s demeanor. Sika did not leave any room for her to fight. She simply left her words hanging and left Jalin to imagine the rest of what was being said. Regardless of how short-fused she was, there was no way she could simply barge through that door. Doing so would have turned the simmering animosity into a full-blown cat fight.


    ¡°Me, having an interest in Saleen? Are you kidding me?! I¡¯d beughed at by everyone in the Golden ins if that actually happened!¡±


    Sika felt glee inside the room and went hug Saleen and rub against him.


    ¡°Alright, alright. Gosh, look at you. So, how are the kids doing, Sika?¡±


    ¡°They are doing fine. It seemed like I fell into a trap and was almost ambushed, but if they thought they could keep me contained, hehe...¡± Sikaughed sarcastically. The enemy was unable to keep her down despite having her surrounded by many professionals. Even a grade-10 professional would have a hard time capturing her.


    ¡°Power is the only truth. When one possesses rules of power, no techniques are worth mentioning. One whack with my cudgel was all that it took to send the holy masters running back to their mommies.¡±


    ¡°So long as you and the kids are fine... Oh right, Jalin. She is the student of the chief of the Grukos. Don¡¯t ever go messing around with her.¡± Saleen reminded Sika.


    ¡°So, you mean that we can only go messing around with her when we be capable enough to mess around with that chief?¡± Sika asked in return.


    ¡°That is pretty much how it works. The old woman is a professional at the very top of grade-10. From what I can tell, she is definitely more powerful than either Joey or Fycro.¡± Saleen was reminded of the power of the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake and felt rather regretful.


    ¡°Just how many days has it been since she got her hands on that mark? I can¡¯t believe she is already capable of overwhelming the pope armed with two godly items. If she were to have full mastery of that thing, the pope would probably be dead, even if he was armed with the Origin Stone of Darkness.¡±


    ¡°How did you get to have such a troublesome woman tagging along?¡±


    ¡°Arb...that chief of the Grukos shoved her onto me. Probably as a way to test me or something, or maybe her way of having Lex be the empress. What good cane from someone like that, eh?¡± Saleen was finally able to speak his mind with Sika right before him. Arb might have been alive for several hundred years, but the way she went about things was hardly different from those figures in history books.


    Saleen liked Joey more, for he was a mage through and through instead of some scheming old fart who did it to keep their ns where they were.


    Arb¡¯s words to Saleen before she left felt rather enigmatic. Before she was able to meet Saleen again, Jalin would not lift a finger against him. That meant that Arb was still considering if Saleen was one worth backing. She took the mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake with her, and as such, Saleen lost any means of making any demands or requests.


    That ring that he took with him seemed to be less of a good deal. Seeing Saleen in deep thought rubbing the new ring, Sika asked in a rather irritated tone, ¡°What is bothering you again?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just thinking, it¡¯s been quite a while since west saw each other.¡± Saleen put his worries behind him and smiled at Sika. ¡°Let¡¯s get something to eat. I¡¯m beginning to miss the old days somewhat. Call the chef, I¡¯ll need him to get something for me.¡±


    The old days that Saleen meant were the days he spent running about in the mountains with Sika. Back then, Sika had been truly carefree. While she was stillrgely the same person as she was back then, her hands had be tied up in more ways than one. Things were not able to return to how they used to be.


    She had been little more than a Caucasian warrior who developed admiration for Saleen.


    The dishes that they had the chef make were sent to their room shortly. Saleen and Sika drank for a little bit. Saleen borated about the reasons behind the battles and their consequences with Sika as they ate. While the army outside the city remained, the threat it posed to Guderian City became greatly diminished.


    Arb went on tracking Theisio, as the pope would not stay to tangle with them there. He had probably returned directly to the Glorious ins, to the Holy City, trying to keep the troubles within his body under control. Without Theisio taking charge of things, Guderian City became as solid as it could get. The city became one that the grade-9 holy masters were unable to take down.


    The reason why the army was stationed there in the first ce was none other than to get Saleen¡¯s attention. Saleen felt strange about all that had happened. If it had only been Theisio alone, Saleen would have indeed lost, but he would have been still capable of running away.


    Theisio was no fool. He would not have been able to keep the Holy See under his thumb for as long as he did otherwise. He even went so far as to rebuild rtions with the Tribunal. Theisio alone was incapable of killing Saleen and capturing Saleen was definitely out of the question. Saleen was such a hated infidel that even the Lord of Glory himself gave the order to terminate him. The best way to deal with the likes of Saleen was to take him back to the Holy City and burn him in the za.


    Sika quipped as she heard Saleen¡¯s analysis, ¡°There is one thing I feel peculiar about. The number of holy masters in the Holy See seem to have leaped. I wouldn¡¯t have suffered such heavy losses or had so many of the demons die otherwise. It was such a pity.¡±


    Saleen felt pity about the whole ordeal as well. Both of them were unable to figure out why there were so many grade-9 professionals showing up in the ranks of their enemy all of a sudden, and even the numbers of grade-7 and grade-8 holy masters had grown by several fold. Power might have been raised throughout the entire ne, but there should have been no way that holy masters would advance quicker than mages.


    There was simply no way for them to calcte or to know that the pope had summoned three oracles using the brief loosening of powers across the ne. While all three oracles had their respective agendas, they were nheless capable of raising the powers of the members of the Holy See. Doing so was not detrimental in any way to the oracles themselves, and since the levels of the holy masters were raised, the power of faith the oracles had gotten in return was increased as well.


    The Holy See was more than capable of deploying their men in major cities throughout the Tanggsi Empire to defend against attacks from metal flyers. The metal flyers had a ring weakness, and that was their low survivability. They required backups from something like the Magical Element Tower to suppress any retaliation from the cities being attacked before the flyers were able to rain devastation as intended.


    In terms of survivability alone, the metal flyers were far inferior whenpared to Wings of an Elf.


    ¡°Sika, I don¡¯t think we need to y a part in the wars happening across the maind. While the Holy See might have grown more powerful, there are also definitely more people like Grand Duke Iron-blood out there as well.¡±


    ¡°So, what do you intend to do, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°We will definitely keep what we have gotten so far, especially Metatrin City and the interdimensional space. Lands suitable for farming have be increasingly numerous and the forests kept expanding. The interdimensional space¡¯s sun will have turn normal sooner orter. The space that Raphael created is capable of housing tens of millions. We have our own kingdom here, so we can also build our own kingdom there. As for the Myers Maind...¡±


    Saleen hesitated for a moment and said, ¡°I came to realize something watching Arb fight Theisio. Future wars will look like how it was back in ancient times¡ªthey¡¯ll be decided in fights between professionals. I¡¯m thinking about venturing around the maind for a little bit and discovering all the hidden temples of the goddess.¡±


    ¡°Are you saying that you want to return to the Imperial City of the Abyss?¡±


    Sika knew of Saleen¡¯s adventures in the Imperial City of the Abyss. She had thought, based on Saleen¡¯s personality, that he would have thought of ways to avoid going back.


    ¡°Yes, but not in the future. I¡¯m making a trip there right away, and you¡¯ll be going back to Metatrin City. Hand over affairs of Guderian City to someone else, let Guya and the others do their work. We¡¯ll just let them have all the spoils. Nothing but the raising of our own powers matters. If we don¡¯t make it to 0grade-010 soon, we will end up being kicked out of the game by fate.


    ¡°Why do you want to go back there? It¡¯s so dangerous!¡± Sika needed to care for her children and was unable to risk going on adventures with Saleen. As such, she objected with all her might.


    ¡°Sika, the greatest thing I¡¯m able to rely on is not the badge, but the tens of thousands of ancient warriors housed within the Ancient. Even if I end up advancing to grade-10 and have this...¡± Saleen waved the ring on his finger about and added, ¡°How many of the ancient warriors will I be able to control? Whatever the numbers, definitely not as many as Imposa. You saw it yourself, I brought Hogina back with me, but her skills are definitely nowhere near that of Imposa. Those ancient warriors are practically a waste staying with me. Just what can I...¡±


    Saleen went on to tell her about his ordeal with Van Gogh. Van Gogh had some unique ways of controlling his puppet.


    Saleen said to Sika, ¡°If the Holy See is capable of controlling the puppets using some other means, I think the astrologer back in the Imperial City of the Abyss would also have something simr with him. The true value of the ancient warriorsys within their memories and souls. If they were able to give up their physical bodies and be weapons of the astrologer, the Holy See would be no match for us, no matter how many professionals they havemand over.

 Chapter 1052: Sika is still a Woman (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1052: Sika is still a Woman (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, I just don¡¯t want to be away from you anymore.¡± Sika¡¯s voice sounded rather weak.


    ¡°What is wrong?¡± Saleen looked Sika, feeling puzzled.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know? The kids missed you.¡± Sika sighed.


    ¡°This...¡± Saleen found that to be inevitable, as he simply could not have brought himself bring his children along on his adventures. Despite both children being of exceptional talent, it was still too early to have both of them by his side when he went on his adventures.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory capable of carrying demons?¡±


    Saleen waspletely startled. He grabbed Sika and said, ¡°Demons are not humans. I can¡¯t let them get inside!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying to let them inside the purgatory of demons. Can¡¯t we just open another space? I want to go to the Imperial City of the Abyss with you!¡±


    Sika¡¯s request was very startling to Saleen. Come to think of it, Sika is still a woman. It¡¯s indeed been rather unbing of me to leave her back in Metatrin City to run things for me. But it¡¯s the kids we are talking about here. He deemed it too dangerous for his children to go on adventures with him at such young ages, and Saleen did not want to separate them from their mother.


    It was not just Sika. Saleen himself did not want to just leave the children behind. However, what he needed to do required for him to be outside of Metatrin City.


    ¡°Not this time. I¡¯m not just going to the Imperial City of the Abyss once. Sika, the children, they are still too young. 12 Notes of First Purgatory...no, just no.


    Their meal turned out to taste rather nd because of all that. They left the table and lied on the bed. Sika stared at the ceiling and said lightly, ¡°Saleen, I miss the old days. I knew nothing back then, and we were just running about in the mountains, fighting any magic beasts we were able to find. We were only able to get something to eat if we happened to kill one of those beasts. A level three or four beast was more than enough to have us running with our tails between our legs.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Saleen felt nostalgic as well. ¡°Back then, any magic nucleus that we were able to find was a treasure to us, and I was very reluctant to use any of them.¡±


    ¡°Well you¡¯re rich now, and you keep leaving us back home and wandering off somewhere else yourself. Isn¡¯t this how the bards put it? You became a king, and a hero...¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about, Sika? I¡¯m trying to figure things out here.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m not going to get in your way, alright. I¡¯m now better in fights than you are. I¡¯d like to see how you fare against me.¡± Sika ruffled Saleen¡¯s hair for a bit. However, the force she put in this time was little more than that of a breeze.


    ¡°Sika, I know you¡¯ve always been the one to have my back.¡± Saleen said in all seriousness. He then added, ¡°I¡¯m really trying to figure out how to solve the problem with the kids here. With things getting messier and messier in the maind, I don¡¯t even feel safe leaving them behind in Metatrin City anymore. I can just chuck them in the interdimensional space, but that would have widen the distance between us and them, and that is a no go.¡±


    Both of them mumbled for quite a bit, before their lids got too heavy for them to keep their eyes open.


    Saleen hardly had a good night¡¯s sleep as ofte. He spent most nights in meditation. He had only came to feel safe and rxeed with Sika by his side, and not having to think too much about anything. Whatever it was with things with the maind, all that seemed to have nothing to do with him.


    Saleen and Sika went to see the city¡¯s lieutenant first thing in the morning. The lieutenant had close rtions with the royal family of the Grukos, and Saleen¡¯s arrival was actually more awkward for him,pared to Sika¡¯s arrival.


    It was fortunate that the general was recuperating from his injuries at the moment and that he was only a lieutenant. He was speaking to Saleen out of need to fulfill his duty, and therefore, avoided invoking any dissatisfaction on the side of the prince. Furthermore, with the Holy See army still outside their gates, Saleen¡¯s arrival proved beneficial.


    As they were having their meeting in a restaurant, the atmosphere was a rather amicable one. Saleen did nothing to hide anything, and went on to tell the lieutenant straight in his face, ¡°General, I¡¯d be taking Sika away. But, rest assured, the Holy See army that had the city surrounded would soon retreat. I left 200 thousand alchemy arrows and 200 alchemy crossbows with you, as well as 100 scrolls, as my token of apology.¡±


    The lieutenant felt dejected at first hearing that Saleen was about to leave, but he soon felt relieved hearing that Saleen had left so many useful equipment behind. In actual fact, the city did notck for manpower nor equipment. What they required the most was backup. As Saleen went on to leave so many equipment of great value behind, it stood to reason that he had no intentions of giving up on Guderian City.


    That all sounded rather ironic, as the existence of Guderian City was to defend against Phoenix. With Holy Rock City now being unable to do anything to help them out, he had no choice but to ask for help from the king of Kingdom of Metatrin.


    It was as he had expected, as Saleen went on to add, ¡°The Kingdom of Metatrin will keep providing support to you. There are about 50 thousand elite troops on their way here. Once I returned to Metatrin City, I will have two additional magic cannons delivered to you. That should suffice to keep the city defended. Furthermore, you will have assistance from Duchess Guya. I will drop by Guya City on my way home and tell them what needs to be done. If things happen to totally go south, you will be able to retreat there with your men.¡±


    Saleen did whatever he was able for the city, and the lieutenant had nothing but gratitude for him.


    Saleen then continued, ¡°Send my men my wayter. I want to visit the camps in Guderian City. What Metatrin nevercked was equipment. I¡¯m sure you know that I have the best alchemist with me, and the alchemist will see to your needs personally, while I will bolster the numbers of your army.¡±


    The lieutenant stood and bowed to thank Saleen yet again. Saleen thought deep within that Guderian City was literally filled with elite regr Qin army units, and he did whatever he deemed needed to be done. If Holy Rock City were to fall, he would have been able to easily make Guderian City his.


    The lieutenant interjected while he was deep in thought, ¡°Your highness, I will need one more thing from you.¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡±


    ¡°The garrison forces with Guderian City amounted to more than 300 thousand strong. But since the war made it to the north, the families of almost every single troop fled to the city. I was hoping if you could let them into Phoenix...¡±


    Saleen thought and said, ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be appropriate.¡±


    ¡°Your highness, I¡¯m a military man, and it is an honor for me to die in battle. But I will need the families of my men protected, or it will be immensely difficult for me to defend the ce. If their worries were to be alleviated, I would feel that I¡¯ve done right by them even if I were to order these troops to go on suicide missions.¡±


    Saleen looked at the ones who were eating inside the restaurant, and he found every single one of them to be seasoned veterans. He recalled the lieutenant¡¯s awkward expression earlier, and Saleen felt like he knew what was going on. He was thinking how to go about it when the lieutenant went to ask of what he asked. Guderian City was indeed the northernmost city in the entire Qin, and the Holy See army had taken more than half of the north, isting Guderian Citypletely from Holy Rock City.


    Despite the lieutenant¡¯s ims of wanting to provide refuge for the families of his men, what he had in mind was the future of Guderian City.


    If the war were to be fought conventionally, it was near impossible to take Guderian City without help from level ten professionals. Saleen went to look around the city for a bit, and found it to be a standardrge Qin city. It had tall metal battlements and magic towers distributed in logical ways, as well as ample arms and food supplies. The city was more than equipped to keep an army up to a million strong.


    As to concerns about whether Guderian City was plotting to take Phoenix, Saleen was hardly worried at all. No wars in the future could have been won without having powerful ones at their side after all.


    If it had not been for Arb, Guderian City would have fallen.


    ¡°I¡¯ll need to discuss with Duchess Guya about that, as Phoenix was her territory. It¡¯s not quite appropriate for me to forcefully stuff that many people in her turf.¡±


    ¡°You have a point, your highness. With all that said and done, please take your time with the tour at the camps of the city.¡±


    The lieutenant knew that Saleen¡¯s intention of that visit was to buy hearts. He had no choice but to bear with it for the sake of the families of his men. He would have actually considered joining the Kingdom of Metatrin if things were dire enough to warrant such measures after all. Saleen was still Lex¡¯s husband, and might have ended up being one of Qin¡¯s aristocrats in the future.


    As for Guderian City itself, there was no need for Saleen to bag the city at this very moment. Even if the Holy See happened to take Guderian City, what Saleen would have ended up doing was little more than taking surviving army of the city in. So long as Holy Rock City stood, Saleen would not have made a move to take any part of Qin for himself.


    The uing visits were little more than a show for Saleen. He went about visiting all the camps in Guderian City dressed in his Devil Armament, before heading back to the house of the lord. Thepound right behind the house was taken by a huge fellow¡ªthe gravely injured Metal Titan. The beingid t on the ground and lookedzy. The being had stored ores of untold amount inside its belly. The amount of ¡®food¡¯ that the Metal Titan had eaten inside the mines north of Metatrin was more than enough to be digested for decades.


    As such, it was able to repair itself simply by resting, without any need for external intervention. Furthermore, humans had no means of healing it, at the very least, not even the Holy See was able toprehend the biological principles of the Metal Titan.


    Sika stood by Saleen¡¯s side as he pointed at the Metal Titan and said, ¡°I wonder if Lex would be having a heartache over what that thing had been through.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. That thing is tough, so tough that not even the divine spells of the Holy See were able to do much to hurt it. Large scale equipment needed to be used repeatedly to get it battered, and it even took out more than a dozen grand swordmasters.¡±


    ¡°Is this the Metal Titan? It¡¯s so beautiful!¡± Jalin seemed to have forgotten what happened the night before. She went up and touched the huge being. The body of the Metal Titan was ice-cold, and the magic patterns on it were naturally grown. It was indeed a beautiful being, in the eyes of a mage.


    Sika felt rather befuddled. If she were to be in Jalin¡¯s shoes, she would have came with her stick in her hand and vented out any indignation suffered the day before instead.


    ¡°You like what you see here, Jalin?¡± Saleen asked with a smile.


    ¡°I love it.¡± Jalin answered in a very soft tone, one that carried immense yearning within.


    ¡°That thing belonged to Lex. Jalin, do me a favor and send this to Lex. Come look for me in Metatrin City when you are done,¡± Saleen said in a very natural manner.


    ¡°With pleasure!¡± Jalin did not mind at all. She genuinely took a liking to the Metal Titan. It was such a huge living being yet it had nothing to do with the six major elements. A being like that was seen as some very valuable research material by mages in general.


    She could have only went on to study that being, on her way to deliver it to Lex.


    ¡°I will wait for you in Metatrin City then. Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen beckoned Sika, who kept herself from doing anything.


    Jalin went to store the Metal Titan inside her space equipment. Saleen¡¯s keen observation told him that the piece of equipment used was the earring on one of her ears. The earring was jade-colored, with a face carved on it, just like her own paper mask.


    While Jalin was indeed intelligent, she failed to see through Saleen¡¯s intentions. Without the personal guards holding them back, they departed from Guderian City and crossed Phoenix before going their separate ways.


    As soon Jalin left, Sika beganining. ¡°Saleen, the mines up north needed that Metal Titan.¡±


    Saleen smirked, ¡°How am I suppose to go to the Imperial City of the Abyss with her around?¡±


    The Winged Skullughed in crackled voices and that looked unusually eerie. Saleen had been more subtle with his tricks and means of getting things done. He deemed it imperative to send Jalin away. But what about her returning? Well, she can fly at zing speeds, but she will never be as fast as using teleportation portals. Saleen wrote a letter to Lex, and it became unbelievably easy to keep Jalin upied for two or three months.

 Chapter 1053: Astrologer’s Figures (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1053: Astrologer¡¯s Figures (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen shook Jalin off and had no intentions of bringing Hogina with him either. However, he had different reasons for doing so. Hogina was very important to him. The young alchemist was ill-suited for adventures and her level was still too low.


    Saleen wrote a letter to Lex right after he returned to Metatrin City, telling her to do whatever it took to hold Jalin back for three months. He then took the Winged Skull and Nichs on his journey.


    Saleen did not bring many with him, and Sika stayed behind in Metatrin City. For safety reasons, Saleen flew above the sea in his Magical Element Tower.


    There was a limit to how far mages were able to fly, but the Magical Element Tower was powered by magic power furnaces, which meant range was not a problem. As they had precise coordinates, Saleen was able to take the tower at its maximum speed all the way north.


    The tower¡¯s magic power furnaces were turned to their full power and the speed achieved exceeded 200 miles per hour. Saleen knew the specifications of his tower well, knowing that he would not need to put up any magic defenses even if they were to run into powerful magic beasts. At the very least, there would not be any magic beast of such levels of power appearing on Myers Maind for the next three for five years.


    The terrain of the Oceanic Ice Block was not parallel with that of Myers Maind and there were few points of entry avable. Saleen flew along the route he had opened up earlier. The trip took over a week and they rested twice along the way before reaching the outskirts of the icy ce, turning to fly east instead.


    While the tower was capable of moving underwater, its speed was considerably reduced.


    Saleen unleashed elemental creatures from within the Magical Element Tower to help him keep the tower in control, but he was unable to make time to train.


    Level nine was not the peak. After Saleen saw what Theisio was capable of, he knew that if he were to not advance further soon, his chances of surviving whatever was toeter would be very slim. The way the pope was looking at him was how one looked at a dead man.


    When Saleen was on bad terms with Fycro, the shrewd holy master was simply using him. Theisio, on other hand, sent chills down Saleen¡¯s spine just thinking about him. He even doubted if his family badge would have been able to take out the Origin Stone of Darkness.


    Saleen was only able to enter the Oceanic Ice Block by tracking a single-horned white whale on his first trip here. Gaine had provided Saleen with a set of better coordinates when he left, negating the need to navigate through the twisty undersea tunnels and enabling him to reach the outskirts of the Imperial City of the Abyss right away.


    Saleen knew that time was short. As such, he left Nichs behind and gave him a dimension stone, tasking the fallen holy master to collect as many magic beast bone remains as possible outside the imperial city. Most of the remains were corroded by seawater, enough to turn to dust with just a single touch. Any materials that were able to survive would have been ideal materials even to mages of ancient times.


    Saleen put the Magical Element Tower away and leapt through two city walls with the Winged Skull. No elemental creatures would do him harm due to having the badge the grandmaster gave him. Saleen headed straight for the astrology tower after entering the city.


    The badge he had gotten from the grandmaster would not do him much good inside the city. Even so, Saleen was reluctant to take out the Magical Element Tower. It was crafted by the grandmaster. While he had dismantled all traps found within, but Saleen knew that the old mage¡¯s senses had no connection with those magic arrays. The grandmaster would have known about his presence as soon as the Magical Element Tower shows up within the city.


    Based on how the grandmaster acted, he would have probably been taken away if he found Saleen in the city.


    Theisio, who was a level ten professional, had put immense stress on Saleen, making him think of ways to advance as soon as possible. The Lord of Glory was a level 15 being and the grandmaster was at level 16. Worse still, the old mage had had reached level 17.


    Beyond level 12, the difference in levels would be very different with how the levels were differentiated in the current Myers Maind. Saleen had experienced the Divine Baby¡¯s power first hand. She had a frail body, yet her attacks were irresistibly powerful due solely because she had mastered rules.


    Saleen now knew that there were no traps at the front of the astrology tower. That was because that ce was in Gaine¡¯s control. Gaine did not care about the rear, and that made it very dangerous. The grandmaster had wanted to test his abilities back, and the grandmaster seemed to not have paid any heed to whether he would have ended up dead or not.


    Saleen was able to tell from that fact alone that the ghosts at the Cemetery of Heroes were not actually united in thought.


    All that was going through Saleen¡¯s mind as he took the Winged Skull to approach the astrology tower from the front.


    However, a beam of starlight burst through the floor and encased both Saleen and the Winged Skull before they were able to get near, sending them both directly into the tower. The move had been pulled so quickly that Saleen was unable to sense anything. The Winged Skull was able to sense it, but they were unable to react in time regardless.


    ¡°Saleen, we meet again. So you want to be a level ten astrologer now?¡±


    Gaine appeared before Saleen. If Saleen did not know that the old astrologer was actually possessing the body, anyone who saw him would have thought that they were seeing a living person.


    ¡°Not yet, but I ran into some trouble and if I did note ask you for help, I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to return next time.¡± Saleen looked around and got himself a chair to sit on. The Winged Skull was not kicked out this time, and they remained standing behind Saleen.


    ¡°Not bad, you¡¯ve already advanced to level four despite not having left for long.¡± Gaine¡¯s eyes narrowed as he looked at Saleen with a smile, like he had found a rare gem.


    Saleen was shocked deep down to find that the Star Gathering Needle was capable of checking one¡¯s levels. However, he paid no heed to astrology and had always thought that his powers at astrology was only level two. It was not a good thing to not know that one had advanced. Did Gaine do something to my body or whatever?


    Saleen were having all those thoughts in his head yet nothing was seen on his expression.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see very grave dangers in your fate, Saleen. But, fate is never immutable. Tell me, what kind of help would you need of me?¡±


    ¡°I want to learn how to create figures.¡± Saleen looked at Gaine, who smiled. ¡°You¡¯ll get to learn it when you advance to level ten.¡±


    ¡°I need to learn it now and I need two that can be used for research. Two figures of considerable levels.¡± Saleen knew things about astrologers. Before the astrologers craft their figures, they had samples gifted from their teachers from research purposes.


    ¡°I don¡¯t recall having such a use in our agreement.¡± Gaine looked rather troubled. ¡°I remember mages say something rather pretentious, something about equivalent exchange?¡±


    ¡°We shall drop the pretenses then. Tell me, what would you want in return?¡± Saleen knew that there was no way Gaine would agree to do work for him for free, even though the reward might actually prove worthless to Gaine.


    ¡°You need to know that you¡¯ve yet to fulfill some promises, Saleen.¡±


    ¡°You can talk to me about that when I¡¯m dead,¡± Saleen retorted angrily. Has this old fart gone nuts? If I¡¯m unable to make it through this and end up getting killed by Theisio, he would probably not be able to get another to help him find the Star Gathering Needle.


    No grave dangers in my fate? Looking back, I¡¯ve been able to survive to this day due to miracle after miracle happening to me. If it had been someone else, they would¡¯ve died many times over.


    ¡°Well, there is no need to get angry. What you¡¯ve requested would definitely need to be decent equipment. I can get you anything at level 12 or 13, but I think nothing below level 15 would be of much use in your case. You¡¯de back to me soon enough if I were to be cheap.¡±


    Saleen suppressed his anger when he heard that and asked slowly, ¡°what level of figures would you be able to give me then?¡±


    Gaine extended his hand. ¡°The Star Gathering Needle that I gave you?¡±


    Saleen took out the level 12 Star Gathering Needle. Gaine put it away and took out a longer one and handed it to Saleen, saying, ¡°This is a level 16 needle with ample power of the stars in it. It¡¯s easy to craft figures, as you¡¯d simply need good materials and methods of putting power of the stars within them. To achieve perfect results with that, you¡¯d need the help of a Star Gathering Needle.¡±


    ¡°Could the figure hold a human soul? Thest time I went back, I ran into an enemy...¡± Saleen ced the figure that he had taken from Van Gogh in front of Gaine.


    Gaine looked. ¡°A figure that was controlled using divine arts is actually one that has the power of souls put into it. Adherents wouldn¡¯t be able to even activate the figures otherwise. But Saleen, don¡¯t you think doing so would be bad? The soul within a figure would be unable to feel pain, but they would be unable to feel joy as well. They wouldn¡¯t eat and wouldn¡¯t enjoy anything.¡±


    Gaine¡¯s words had a lot of thought in it. He had been living for too long. Such continuation of life was akin to the most brutal of tortures. He thought that Saleen was intending to use figures as weapons of war, and wanted to do so using souls ofmon folk.


    Gaine had nopassion formon folk. He was simply feeling sorry for himself.


    ¡°I¡¯d need it done one way or another. Our fates are still linked for the time being, no?¡± Saleen was in no mood for small talk with Gaine. A person like him that had been living for too long would always be one with mental problems. Admittedly, Saleen would never be able to bear such pain. Him, living all alone in the astrology tower, for tens, even hundreds of thousands of years.


    ¡°It is ,indeed. Don¡¯t you want to make something for your subordinate?¡± Gaine pointed at the Winged Skull standing behind him.


    ¡°I would like to if it¡¯s free.¡±


    ¡°Forget about it then. You really are a cheapskate.¡± Gaine liked talking to Saleen like that. He had been getting bored in the tower. Even though an astrologer was able to craft all manners of weird things just like a mage, even those imbued with life, they had no ways of getting rid of the loneliness.


    At such moments, Gaine felt deep hatred for the ghosts in the Cemetery of Heroes. He hated them for havingpany, yet none of his own peers were able to survive.


    Such was the price of freedom, and now, he no longer felt free. Gaine had no way of leaving the astrology tower, just like the ghosts were trapped in their graves.


    Saleen did not mind listening to Gaine yap away. Gaine had been stuck there for too long and just wanted to have someone to talk to, and that alone was a reward of some kind.


    Gaine took out two figures the size of a human hand and gave them to Saleen. ¡°This is what my teacher gave me all those years ago. They have been passed down for hundreds of thousands of years. You can have them, as they simply remind me of how sad I am now, keeping them around. Advance another level in astrology and you¡¯ll be able to look into the figures and learn how to craft them. Of course, I can also do it how you mages do it, stuffing the memory in your brain, but that would be harmful to you.¡±


    ¡°What about the way to infuse souls?¡± Saleen took the figures.


    ¡°Saleen, those two figures were of a level that was very rare throughout the maind all those years ago. You¡¯ll be able to learn everything from them.¡±


    ¡°Gaine, I have tens of thousands of souls in my hands and they¡¯re about to die. I don¡¯t have time to waste!¡±

 Chapter 1054: Astrologer’s Figures (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1054: Astrologer¡¯s Figures (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°You¡¯ve gotten yourself a ship or something?¡± Gaine asked, surprised.


    ¡°Hell, of course. I¡¯m no death mage. How else am I supposed to get many usable souls in my hands?¡±


    Gaine was able to guess the source of Saleen¡¯s souls right away, as the method of putting warriors to sleep had been verymon in ancient times. If the level nine warriors were not sealed and preserved, there would be a lot of side effects to deal with when they were traversing nes.


    ¡°Alright. How many years have the warriors been around? If we don¡¯t get to it soon, their souls will probably dissipate soon.¡± Gaine mumbled to himself and made a rough calctions, finding what Saleen said to be within reason. The warriors sealed with the Ancient were of only level nine. Their bodies would rot after having been around for so long.


    If the seals of the ship were not done well, their souls would not have been able to stay around for long.


    If the souls were able to be infused within figures, yet not be like how Gaine was at the moment, their souls would dissipate naturally in about another millennium. ording to customs of Myers Maind and even older legends, the souls would revive sooner orter.


    That would be better than to stay between life and death like he was at the moment. With those thoughts in his mind, Gaine tore an opening in the space and took out a wooden box.


    The box was three feet long, one foot wide, and half a foot thick, looking like a military space box used for storing arrows.


    ¡°This is a dimension box. Rare stuff even all those years ago. The box is filled with starline cloth and it¡¯s necessary for crafting figures. You can craft the cloth on your own, and these here are essences. Use some on each of the figure¡¯s head and you¡¯ll be able to store souls. Stay here and chat with me for a month and within the month, I will craft figures for you without rest, how does that sound?¡±


    Saleen extended his hand and put the box away in his Devil Ring. He smiled at Gaine. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll stay here with you for a month.¡±


    ¡°I mean a month outside,¡± Gaine added shrewdly.


    Saleen was rendered speechless. The passage of time within the astrology tower was different from that outside. ording to the grandmaster, the fastest passage of time was over a hundred time faster than it was outside. A month outside, wouldn¡¯t that mean I¡¯d have to spend years here?


    Gaine seemed to pick up Saleen¡¯s worries. ¡°I don¡¯t have what it takes to speed up the passage of time here. Time flows ten times faster than it is outside. Stay here for ten months and I¡¯ll advance your astrology proficiency to level ten.¡±


    Gaine continued, seeing Saleen¡¯s reluctant looks, ¡°this is the condition for the exchange. We¡¯ll null our deal before if you find it disagreeable.¡±


    Gaine added after a short pause, ¡°I don¡¯t have too much to give you here. I was able to walk around during my earlier days and then...I became incapable of leaving the tower altogether. As such, it¡¯s imperative that you advance to level ten. You can search around for something you need in the city. If you¡¯re unable to reach level ten as an astrologer, there are many magic arrays, star charts, and elemental creatures out to kill you here.¡±


    Saleen nodded. ¡°Have it your way then. I wouldn¡¯t be able to leave easily anyway.¡±


    Saleen calcted. He spent less than ten days getting there and he would have spent 20 days at most to and fro. If he were to stay in the city for a month, he would have still have 40 days to spare. Furthermore, the astrology tower would be able to serve as a good ce for researching magic.


    ¡°It¡¯s good you understand,¡± Gaine said. He took out starline cloth from his space equipment and began crafting figures for Saleen. Saleen needed a lot but astrologers were not tailors. Gaine released his level 18 Star Gathering Needle, which flew in the air and cut up pieces of cloth, sewing the figures at the same time.


    Gaine looked like he was having an easy time. Saleen asked, ¡°Are there thunder dragon bones in the imperial city?¡±


    ¡°Thunder dragons? Probably yes. But they¡¯re probably in the pce. What do you need those bones for?¡±


    ¡°To craft a special equipment.¡±


    ¡°If what you need is below level 16, feel free to try your luck at the general¡¯s residence. If you need anything of level 16 and above, you might as well give up. Even though those things might have been bones, you still won¡¯t be able to touch them.¡±


    ¡°Understood. Level 15 would be adequate,¡± Saleen answered. He was being prompted by what Theisio did. He initially had no intentions of crafting any other equipment, but the family badge needed half a year to charge after being used once, and it was very costly.


    He recalled Jalin¡¯s masks, which were capable of dying in her stead, and she had more than one. Saleen was reminded yet again the importance of good gear.


    A mage should not rely too much on their equipment, but it was important to not have nothing by their side. If Jalin was not armed with that mysterious mask of hers, she would have been killed by instant death spells. He deemed it necessary to get himself simr equipment.


    Gaine asked hastily when he saw Saleen get up, ¡°You¡¯re not going there now, are you?¡±


    ¡°Of course, I¡¯m very busy,¡± Saleen answered without hesitation.


    ¡°Alright, alright, I have level 15 thunder dragon bones with me. Just stay put here and let me tell you about the knowledge of astrologers.¡±


    ¡°I need to craft equipment now. Just talk. I¡¯ll be able to listen to everything.¡± Saleen did not budge. That old fart just told me that he had nothing. Now that he sees that I¡¯m about to leave, he actually tells me that he has level 15 thunder dragon bones with him.


    Saleen should not have med Gaine. Astrologers had formidable flight capabilities but, like mages, they feared lightning. As such, Gaine got himself thunder dragon bones to craft flying equipment for his student to prevent them from being killed by lightning, but his student was unlucky enough to have been killed before Gaine was able to craft anything.


    The bones were of no use to Gaine. He was a level 18 astrologer and while he still had to be wary of lightning, the possibility of being struck and killed by a stray bolt was zero.


    A level 15 thunder dragon was like a god. It was a pity that there were too few thunder dragons reared by humans, and it was difficult to keep them around. The thunder dragon that Gaine was able to get his hands on was exchanged with level 17 equipment.


    Astrologers, like mages, valued lineages. Gaine was investing a lot to get the dragon for his student.


    Equipment of simr levels would have different effects when different materials were used. The level 17 equipment that Gaine had gotten his hands on to exchange for the thunder dragon, was forged painstakingly after going to great lengths to kill a level 17 god.


    While it sounded easy, there were not many gods level 16 and above. Worse still, all of them had been very powerful. Gaine had not been level 18 back then and he needed help from several people to hunt and kill a level 17 god. There was not much to be distributed among them. Gods were as precious to humans as chlorite was to the current Myers Maind.


    Saleen had gotten his hands on the thunder dragon bone remains. The dragon was over 40 meters long and only a ce like the astrology tower, where space could be expanded to ridiculous extents, would have been able to house such a huge creature.


    Gaine did not argue with Saleen over that. He was not like the grandmaster. If his student had not needed it, he would not have batted an eye at the bones in the first ce.


    Saleen dismantled the bones of the thunder dragon skillfully. The bones were, surprisingly, flowing with electricity. But Saleen did not need to use his own skills; the pair of gloves that the grandmaster gave him were enough to protect him from any of the bones¡¯ harmful effects.


    A level 15 thunder dragon was equal to a lesser god, or maybe still somewhat stronger, as not even gods werepletely immune to lightning. Lightning was still very capable of doing damage to the gods.


    Saleen¡¯s research said that a level eight thunder dragon would have been able to cast lightning by vibrating their muscles. The pile of level 15 thunder dragon bones, from a creature that had been dead for tens of thousands of years still sparkled with electricity. That was the power of rules. If the dragon had had believers, it would have been able to create a godly kingdom of its own. Its body was of the shape of one such kingdom.


    It was aplete set of thunder dragon bones. Saleen carefully took out its huge magic nucleus. That magic nucleus was probably the most mystical one that Saleen had everid eyes on. It had a color resembling midnight. Electricity of all sorts of colors shimmered within the core.


    Saleen thought for a bit and decided to cut it despite his reluctance. It was level 15 material and he had no way of being able to do anything on his own. He had to ask for help from Gaine.


    Gaine never stopped talking throughout the process, imparting Saleen with astrological knowledge while still having enough focus to craft figures and demonstrate skills to Saleen. Saleen handed the magic nucleus to Gaine, who used his needle to cut 24 pieces of equal sizes for Saleen. The core part was nicely preserved and Saleen put it away. He would have put that thing to good use in the future.


    A thunder dragon began growing ws when they exceeded level ten. They had strong, thick legs, but they did not resemble the giant dragons much. The body of a thunder dragon looked too much like a snake with horns on them.


    Saleen inspected and selected the materials among the pile of bones carefully.


    Saleen was also getting familiar to the magic patterns on the bones of the level 15 thunder dragon while he was looking for suitable materials. The lightning magic patterns was over a thousand times moreplex than that of a level ten one, but the rules imbued within did not differ all that much.


    Saleen only managed to put all those magic patterns on the bones to memory after studying them for three months. For a mage who had formidable mental powers and means of expanding said mental powers over ten times, the speed spoke volumes of the immenseplexity of the patterns.


    Gaine imparted quite a lot of astrological knowledge to Saleen within those three months. Saleen had no idea that his proficiency at astrology was gradually advancing. Gaine was modifying Saleen¡¯s body at the expense of his own life force, and Saleen knew nothing.


    At the same time, Gaine¡¯s speed at crafting the figures exceeded Saleen¡¯s expectations. The level of intricacy and refinement of the figures made them look hardly any different from real people, and Gaine was able to make three within a minute.


    That was actually hardly surprising. Gaine was a level 18 astrologer and all the figures that Saleen needed were for housing level nine warriors. The figures would have been enough to ensure the safety of the ancient warriors¡¯ souls, when crafted at level ten strength. It waspletely pointless to make the figures too powerful, as it would have made it difficult for the souls of the ancient souls to control the figures.


    Saleen was ted to see one figure after another being thrown inside his Devil Ring. The figures were equal to the puppets crafted by mages. When infused with souls of the ancient warriors, their expenditure of constetion power would be minimal. At the very least, he no longer had to worry about Grand Duke Iron Blood. No matter how strong Grand Duke Iron Blood and Imposa became, there was no way they could control a ship full of warriors.


    Then there was Theisio. He would have no choice but to run if the ancient figures were to gang up on him, right?


    Saleen had no idea that ancient astrologers would not have crafted so many low level figures. They were unable to control so many at the same time, and they would not have killed elite soldiers and used the soldiers¡¯ souls in such ways.

 Chapter 1055: Starline Armament (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1055: Starline Armament (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    To Gaine, those puppets were crude junk. If it was not for Saleen¡¯s request, he would have rather spent 1000 years to make a level 18 figure, instead of making tens of thousands of junk ones within three months.


    Saleen did not rush to craft the weapon he had in mind after familiarizing himself with lightning magic patterns. He chose instead to continue interacting with Gaine, and went about familiarizing himself with the astrological arts that Gaine passed on to him.


    It was easy to advance in astrology in their earlier stages, but it got increasingly difficult as one progressed. As such, the likes of Gaine were few and far between throughout ancient times. Gaine admitted as much. There were simply too many people who wanted to know what their fate held, and most were simply able to go with the flow, bing little more than a speck of dust in the vast rivers of fate.


    Gaine told Saleen that mages perceived the world at micro levels while astrologers observed rules at macro levels.


    There were hardly right and wrong in such subjects, as Myers Maind was a constetion in itself. Eventually, both mage and astrologer would havee to the same point, researching the same problems.


    However, both sides were apparently unable to get along with each other well. Astrologers saw mages to be stiff and rigid, while mages perceived astrologers to be flighty and unreliable.


    Other than the fact that both sides wielded immense powers, they hardly hadmonalities with each other. Despite Gaine had Saleen learn astrology, he was not having any intentions for Saleen to be a powerful astrologer, as level ten was seen to be Saleen¡¯s limit.


    If Saleen were to practice astrology further than that as a mage, devoting increasingly more time on the art, he would no longer have any time left for practicing magic.


    It was not a problem about conflicting skills, but that knowledge of both sides were as vast the ocean and there was no end to both of them.


    Saleen himself did not have any intentions of doing great things with astrology. For him, magic was where the meaning of his life lied. However, astrological theories would have helped him a lot in learning magic, just as Gaine have gained understanding in many magical skills and inner workings of magic. There was hardly any difficulty inmunication between both parties.


    Saleen did not begin crafting equipment afterwards; he went to familiarize himself with the two figures instead. The two figures were of the size of his palm and there were no power of any sort infused in them. Saleen stuck level 16 Star Gathering Needles onto the head of the figures, and both figures sprung to life immediately. However, those two figures served little more than educational tools to help Saleen learn, and as such, required hismands to move.


    Saleen spent about a month before he became adept at controlling the figures. In the mean time, the Winged Skull provided ample amount of souls.


    Those two figures were precious due to them resembling upgradable magic equipment. While they were both high level equipment, they were able to be controlled by low level professionals. When level four or five souls were infused into them, the figures even became capable of moving on their own. However, the limit of their power remained at level four or five, and there was no advancement to be had.


    Such figures were the most precious, as they allowed low level astrologers take their time and learn how to use such weapons for battle. Astrologers usually carried about six figures for protection, and that spoke volumes about the importance of the figures. An astrologer would have only used their Star Gathering Needles when things became incredibly dire.


    More than a thousand souls were spent within a month, and Saleen ceased infusing the figures with energies. Saleen was satisfied of what he achieved, deeming the figures to be suitable ythings for his children, while providing protection for them.


    Saleen promised to stay for ten months and four have passed. Saleen had no choice but to begin preparations to craft his equipment. Once he was out of there, spending a few months doing only one thing would have be a luxury like no other.


    Gaine continued talking to Saleen without any intentions of stopping. However, he too, began to craft Saleen¡¯s figures seriously. If Saleen were to enter the pce and find the level 19 Star Gathering Needle, powerful equipment would have been required to protect him. Furthermore, it would have been a piece of equipment devoid of any hidden tricks, as if Saleen were to find out, the contract between them would have been voided, and Gaine would have nothing to gain.


    The huge remains of the thunder dragon were taken apart, and Saleen picked the softest piece of bone on the body of the thunder dragon¡ªthe windpipe.


    The lightning magic patterns on the windpipe were the mostplex, and the bone was about a meter long, which would have been rtively easy to craft. The windpipe also had an extremelyplex makeup. Saleen took six windpipes for his intended purpose, and there were six left still, which were apparently not the ones used for sting lightning.


    Saleenpressed and crafted the six windpipes of the thunder dragon into gun barrels, and that process took two months toplete. The windpipes were refined repeatedly by the Water me before they werepressed to the size of about a foot long.


    That piece of equipment was no longer Hogina¡¯s gun, as Saleen based the concept of the weaponpletely on lightning rules. He was preparing to craft an equipment that only he was able to use, and it was one that would have stayed with him for life.


    Gaine could not have helped but admire Saleen¡¯s tenacity. When Gaine was Saleen¡¯s age, it was impossible for him to spend several consecutive months exclusively on studying and crafting things.


    Gaine had no idea that Saleen was restoring power to his badge using Water me as a cover. The Water me was something that Gaine was incapable of prating, regardless of how high his level was. Saleen¡¯s family continued gathering power inside the Water me. Saleen had ample mental powers now and needed not worry about if he was able to continue crafting like that.


    Saleen¡¯s equipment waspleted at the ninth month. He had never spent so much time in alchemy after advancing into level nine. In the past five months, other than asional essential eating and drinking, Saleen spent almost all his time doing alchemy.


    Gaine was bing rather jealous. If only Saleen was my student...


    However, there was no way the studious mage would have dedicated himself to learning astrology. Even if Gaine were to forcefully infuse powers onto Saleen to modify his body, level ten would have still been the best Saleen would have been able to achieve. If Saleen wanted to go further, he himself needed to work on the art.


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s satisfied expression, Gained sighed and said to him, ¡°Saleen, you never cease to amaze me. Alright, I¡¯ll help you for free for once. Take your Devil Armament off. I¡¯ll re-craft it for you.¡±


    Saleen was delighted. His Devil Armament had weaknesses, and they were things that he could not have fixed with his current level of power.


    Gaine took the Devil Armament and scoffed. ¡°That grandmaster wasn¡¯t being nice with you. If you keep using this thing, do you know what would have happened?¡±


    Saleen was surprised, shaking his head as a gesture saying that he knew nothing.


    ¡°This thing here would help you in yourprehension of rules. But, those rules will never stay with you. If you ever get the chance to advance and be a level 12 sorcerer, you would have cursed the grandmaster, as you will never ever reach level 13.¡±


    Saleen began to sweat cold sweat as he asked, ¡°Am I in any trouble now?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. You would only discover the harm this thing would have done to you when you reach level 12, and there is no certainty that it would have been you who would have discovered it. What is more terrifying is that you may even think that you have reached level 13 and became capable of controlling rules, while the truth would have been that you, would have be part of the armament. This thing here would have given birth to a soul, and take control of your body.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible!¡±


    ¡°Why not? The grandmaster reached level 17 after all. That meant bing something like greater gods, or even more powerful than greater gods.¡±


    Saleen remained silent for a bit before replying, ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°No need to thank me actually. I need you to get me that Star Gathering Needle after all.¡± Gaine said as he drew a line in the air, plucking out some starlight from within and stuff them into the Devil Armament. The density of that bunch of starlight was even greater than the neb at the top of the astrology tower.


    However, despite the neb¡¯s thinness, it was connected to an area of a different ne; an area which was probably even more vast than the entire Myers Maind. On the other hand, while the starlight in Gaine¡¯s hand was thick, it was but of the size of a fist.


    Gaine stuffed the starlight into the figures crafted for Saleen. The figure was virtually identical to Saleen¡¯s size, without any deviation in any of its dimensions. The figure sprung to life as the starlight was infused into it. The grandmaster put the Devil Armament onto it, and the equipment became virtually dissolved by the starlight in an instant, and gradually took another form.


    The Devil Armament soon took the form of a robe and Gaine smirked. ¡°While this thing had indeed been an eerie thing up to no good, I had to say that the materials used to make this was incredibly fine. That grandmaster had quite a bit to lose indeed.¡±


    Saleen was not paying any attention to anything Gaine was saying. He was surprised to see that the figure that Gaine crafted for him gradually dissolved as well, merging with the robe. Every singleponent of the Devil Armament turned cloth-like. Gaine took Saleen¡¯s level 16 Star Gather Needle and soften it, before wrapping it around the Devil Ring.


    The six badges of major elements on the belt were undamaged at all. Mysterious star patterns appeared on the pair of ck gloves.


    ¡°A mage should look like a mage,¡± Gaine said inly. He never expected himself to develop a liking for Saleen, and he had even developed the urge to make Saleen his student.


    Given that that could have never been achieved, Gaine emphasized on the concept of ¡®mage¡¯s equipment¡¯ when he re-crafted it. It resonated deeply with Saleen. The original look of the Devil Armament made Saleen look like a warrior.


    ¡°Let me have a look at the equipment you have crafted.¡± Gaine said as he extended his hand. Saleen handed the equipment he spent five months to craft to Gaine without any hesitation.


    Gaine took a look and found Saleen had inserted an eye of the thunder dragon at the front of his equipment, at the center of the assembly of six barrels. Gaine nodded and asked for the other eye of the thunder dragon. He then took out a piece of starline paper carefully and cut a piece of it, before releasing a bunch of starlight and throw both the paper and the eye onto it.


    A paper mask was crafted shortly after. The mask reminded Saleen of Jalin. He had never thought Jalin¡¯s equipment to have astrology origins! He then came to realized that the Grukos was probably more mysterious than he had anticipated.


    After Gaine was done crafting the paper mask, Gaine took the Devil Bangle. No, that thing is no longer Devil Armament. What was seen inside the ck robe was silver star patterns.


    Gaine smiled and thought to himself. When was thest time I crafted anything for a mage indeed. He had never expected his next handiwork was for a level nine mage. A second piece of Starline Armament of such a level would probably never be found anywhere else on Myers Maind.


    The rules were arranged in 12 star charts on the bangle. Gaine stuffed the equipment that Saleen had crafted himself into one of the star charts, before handing the Starline Armament over to Saleen and said, ¡°Put it on. I¡¯d like to see what you will be able to craft if you were given another five months.¡±

 Chapter 1056: Starline Armament (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1056: Starline Armament (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Saleen saw his equipment disappear, he was at first startled, beforeing to realize that the bangle was meant for expanding slots for storage! It was a rare attribute and Saleen had only seen something like that in books, never seeing it in the flesh.


    12 star charts corresponded to 12 equipment storage slots.


    The use of equipment in the storage slot was entirely free from any environmental influence, even when one was to use it in the territory of others. It was one of the reasons that mage were stronger than warriors. The magic equipment of many warriors would have lost their powers when used in some territories, while the equipment slots that mages used were equivalent to a equipment territory it themsevles.


    The equipment of mages were rted to the human body. The human body was a mysterious world in itself. The number of equipment allowed to be equipped on the mages¡¯ fingers with rings, magic arrays allowed on their belts, and spells affixed to their robes were all rted to the human body. The difficulty of adding to the number of such slots were unimaginably huge.


    A bangle was usually allowed to only have one equipment slot, and Gaine expanded it to 12 instead.


    The feeling of hardness and cold on the armament¡¯s original form was entirely done away with its new incarnation as the Starline Armament. The robe was soft, warm andfortable to wear. The armament consisted of the Starline Ring, Starline Bangle, Starline Robe, Starline Belt, and the Starline Mask.


    Saleen felt a prickling pain on his hand when he was done putting on the armament¡ªit was from the Star Gathering Needle entwined on the Starline Ring, prickling a hole on his finger. Countless amount of information gushed in through the wound, and Saleen felt as if the armament was being absorbed by his own body. The equipment ceased to feel like a piece of equipment, and became something like a second skin growing right on top of his natural skin.


    The six elemental badges on his belt werepletely restored. The Blue Ice Maiden leader woke from her slumber, and all six leaders went to stand behind Saleen.


    What felt peculiar to Saleen however, was the feeling of having grown another soul inside his body. The peculiar sensation made him feel rather ufortable and rather rmed.


    Gaine smiled and said, ¡°That would be your Figure of Fate. Can you feel it now? You can summon it any time you like.¡±


    A chant seemed to emerge somewhere in his mind, and it was one that he did not need to actually chant, as he became capable of mastering the frequencies of its mental vibrations in an instant. A figure that looked exactly like Saleen himself emerged from his body as hemanded it.


    The figure was different from the water puppet. Saleen was able to tell that the figure had little in the way of thought, and it requiredmands from him to move about. What made him feeling uneasy however, was that the figure¡¯s level was far higher than his, and thus had a very strong presence. Despite being its powers being suppressed to be at the pinnacle of level nine, it nheless made Saleen feel as if a dragon was hiding inside his own body.


    ¡°Saleen, there is no need for you to summon the Figure of Fate our for battle. You were not familiar with the skills of astrologers and I didn¡¯t have time to equip it with anything. But, that thing would be able to take a fatal hit in your stead. The constetion power within it however, is something you need to replenish yourself. When its constetion power reserves are depleted, the Figure of Fate is as good as dead weight.¡±


    ¡°How strong of a punch can it take?¡± Saleen recalled the golden grand swordmaster who dealt a serious blow on J, the one who was equipped with the Substitute Puppet skill. The attributes of that Figure of Fate of his seemed to be simr to that Substitute Puppet.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have a good way of describing it. If the grandmaster were tond a blow on it at full force, the figure would have needed repairs. But, you will nheless emerge unscathed. Anything below level 14 would have depleted its powers at best. If something can¡¯t hurt the figure, then it can¡¯t hurt you. You get what I¡¯m saying?¡±


    Saleen nodded as a gesture to say that he understood. The reason why his instant death spell failed to kill Jalin was because of that peach blossom mask of hers. His Figure of Fate was capable of working in simr ways.


    ¡°Alright, let me have a look at your equipment.¡± Gaine looked at Saleen with practically sparkling eyes, before setting a dummy about a dozen meters away. That dummy was covered in starlight¡ªsomething meant for measuring the damage output of Saleen¡¯s equipment.


    Saleen put his Figure of Fate away and extended his left arm. The equipment which he spent five months to craft appeared on his arm, as one of the star charts spun a little on his Starline Bangle.


    The pitch-ck equipment was covered in silver magic patterns and resembled a miniaturized level 15 thunder dragon. The thunder dragon coiled around Saleen¡¯s arm, with its ws clinging hard on his arm as it opened its mouth. The eye shone with pale light, and Saleen seemed to have seen some weird image appearing on his Starline Mask.


    It was an indication that the eye of the thunder dragon on his equipment had locked on to its target. The constetion power outside of the dummy circled around it, forming a perfect defense.


    ¡°I shall call this...the Thunder Dragon ster.¡± Saleen sighed. That thing was, after all, not something that he crafted using his own alchemical abilities; it owed most of its powers to the thunder dragon¡¯s own magic patterns on its bones.


    Levels usually determined power output. Regardless of how powerful Saleen¡¯s mental powers were, he was still a level nine sorcerer. The Thunder Dragon ster was something painstakingly crafted over five months using level 15 materials, but it worked just like Hogina¡¯s gun. Its attacks paled inparison to that of an actual thunder dragon.


    The thunder dragon spewed an icicle from its mouth. The size of the projectile was simr to thating out of an ice gun. However, the speed of flight achieved by the icicle was not something Saleen had anticipated. It hit the target at almost the very split second it was fired. Saleen believed that at such speeds, even when his enemy were to be able to sense the iing danger prior, they would have been able to do nothing to avert it.


    Furthermore, the targeting capabilities of the Thunder Dragon ster exceeded that achievable by the Hogina¡¯s gun that he crafted before, by a significant margin. However, the mental power cost remained small.


    Blue electrical sparks jumped on the surface of the icicle as it hit the starlight on the surface of the dummy. The attack disintegrated the starlight defense instantly. The icicle did not enter the dummy; it froze the dummy instead.


    ¡°Some weapon you have there!¡± Gaine was thoroughly amazed. It was a magic attack at the pinnacle of level nine. What was more significant however, was that it entirely ignored energy defense of any kind.


    The ice attribute of the icicle achieved the effect of absolute zero, and it was something that was unleashed from within the dummy. The dummy may have looked like it was being frozen solid, but what happened instead was that it was being reduced to dust by the super-cold temperatures. A breeze was all that was needed to turn the dummy to icy debris on the floor.


    The Thunder Dragon ster crafted by Saleen was a ferocious weapon like no other. Anything hit by it had absolutely no chance of surviving.


    ¡°Alright, now let me see what will you be able to kill with that toy of yours!¡± Gaine said as he unleashed five more dummies and had them set faraway. Saleen shot another icicle as soon as he lifted his arm.


    The starlight on the surface of those level ten dummy was disintegrated immediately as well, with the dummy frozen yet again.


    Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster hardly expended mental powers. The notable expenditure was on the dragon crystal embedded on the equipment. Saleen did not even move his arm with his second shot, firing yet another icicle away from the Thunder Dragon ster¡¯s barrel. The third icicle turned on its own before hitting a level 11 dummy.


    The level 11 dummy remained incapable of stopping the electrical powers on the icicle. Saleen fired his fourth icicle. The starlight danced on the level 12 dummy¡¯s surface, and the icicle seemed to hit an obstacle. Electrical shes were seen on the surface, before the projectile slipped right through the starlight and hit the dummy¡¯s chest area.


    Gaine nodded. If the level 12 dummy was put under his control, it would have been able to avoid the lethal attack. But, even level 12 starlight proved incapable of stopping the icicle, allowing it to pass. Just how was Saleen able to harness so much from the thunder dragon¡¯s magic patterns?


    The fifth icicle was fired, and it was too one that changed its course automatically, heading straight for the level 13 dummy.


    The icicle struck the starlight on the level 13 dummy¡¯s surface. Starlight danced and the electrical pulses on the icicle jumped violently. The icicle split into 36 splinters, before exploding with a loud boom.


    The level 13 dummy¡¯s starlight failed to withstand the explosion and shut off. The dummy itself however, remained unscathed.


    The sixth icicle was fired onto the surface of the level 14 dummy. The starlight glowed with dazzling brightness and the icicle was broken right there and then. Thunderous boom was heard before the splinters hit the surface.


    The starlight immediately dimmed considerably, yet it did not die, disappearing together with the broken icicle instead. Starlight was seen bursting from within the dummy again, wrapping it inside.


    Saleen took a look at the level 15 dummy and saw that his equipment was no longer able to keep shooting another lightning icicle.


    Six icicles were the limit, and the speed of restoration seemed to be considerably slowed. If he was able to shoot all six of his icicles on one dummy, he would have still been able to break the level 14 dummy.


    The problem, however, was that his enemies were not dummies, and they would have came armed with powerful equipment.


    Theisio¡¯s Origin Stone of Darkness was definitely something his gun was unable to break through. Saleen recalled that not even nine Six-Winged Flying Snakes were able to break the stone¡¯s defense, and felt rather dejected about the fact.


    However, the Thunder Dragon ster had one advantage that other equipmentcked¡ªzero possibility of recoil when casting attacks.


    ¡°Very good, Saleen. When I was at your current level, there was no chance that I would have been able to craft something this powerful. That thing was able to break anything below level 13. The range seemed pretty long, and I believed it would have served you well,¡± Gainemented.


    ¡°Too bad this thing still can¡¯t kill the pope.¡± Saleen put away the Thunder Dragon ster. There was an image that only Saleen was able to see at the left eye side of the Starline Mask. The part that was responsible for storing energy inside his equipment was seen restoring gradually. The speed was slower than he had expected. The six magic nuclei embedded inside the Thunder Dragon ster were hardly expended. The inability to perform continuous attacks was due to the part responsible of converting energy and make the lightning icicle; that part needed to be recharged slowly.


    Saleen estimated that he would have needed about an hour for restoration, firing one lightning icicle.


    When the damage potential of the Thunder Dragon ster was taken into consideration, the rate at which it was restored was actually frighteningly fast. However, battles between powerful ones have victors determined within minutes.


    Regardless, hisbor proved incredibly fruitful. Gaine craftedrge amounts of figures for him, and every single warrior on the Ancient could be revived. The figure also had one advantage¡ªit was capable of being stored inside space equipment. He would have been able to mobilize his army of figures anytime, anywhere. Saleen calcted quickly and found his mental powers were expanded by more than 12 folds, almost reaching the limit of that ring.


    His own original mental capacity had allowed him to control 60 ancient warriors when he first came to the Imperial City of the Abyss. That number multiplied by 12, meant that he was able to now control 720 figures.


    That thought had Saleen felt that he became ready to do battle again.

 Chapter 1057: Thunder Dragon Blaster (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1057: Thunder Dragon ster (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Ancient warriors that were controlled by Eternal Control Shards were the most powerful, as they were several times stronger than figures and Iron Blood warriors. However, any damage they happened to suffer waspletely irreparable.


    If the damages were severe enough, the ancient warriors were as good as dead. The figures, on the other hand, could be repaired as long as their souls were intact, which would then allow Saleen to return the damaged ones to fullbat capacity by using his Star Gathering Needle.


    This was simr to the difference between scrolls and magic books. While scrolls were cheap, they could only be used once, whereas magic books could be used repeatedly. As for high level magic books, they were so powerful that they were basically indestructible!


    ¡°Sir, thank you,¡± Saleen thanked Gaine solemnly.


    The fact that he used the word ¡°sir¡± was a special honor, as it was only one rank below the rank and title of ¡°teacher.¡± The reason why Saleen used this term was to make Gaine understand that Saleen could never be a pure astrologer, as well as to show Saleen¡¯s respect for Gaine.


    ¡°Since you¡¯ll still be here for another month, it¡¯s best that you learn some astrology while you¡¯re you¡¯re here. At least go and learn about the meanings of the star charts. Otherwise, you won¡¯t be of much help to me,¡± Gaine said, while showing no emotion.


    Gaine was calm, as he was able to tell from Saleen¡¯s fate that the young man¡¯s achievement could be higher than his, as long as the young man was capable of reaching his current age.


    The crossing of two fates happened right inside the Imperial City of the Abyss. If Gaine were to acquire his freedom in the future, he nned to immediately break through the crystal wall and head to the higher worlds. He thought... If Saleen reached level 18, he would still need at least tens of thousands of years, even if his fate is a very good one, right?


    Saleen was able to sense Gaine¡¯s intentions, and he felt it all to be a pity as well. After all, Gaine was the most powerful person he had ever seen. Yet, even someone who was so powerful could be trapped within a figure and held within the astrology tower.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, Saleen. There¡¯s nothing to be sad about.¡± Gaine paused, then continued, ¡°You should be feeling rather irritated after spending nine months talking to me. But, we had a deal that you¡¯d be here for ten months and I¡¯d craft you a magic staff during thest month. You need to advance the defense spell that you¡¯re most versed in to level ten. It¡¯s imperative that you store three level ten defense spells within the staff.¡±


    ¡°Indeed,¡± Saleen agreed.


    He then sat down, beginning to n how to upgrade his Water Shield.


    His temperament was one themon one among pure mages. They were able to put everything aside to make way for their training.


    He might have obtained the Figure of Fate, but that was reserved for keeping him alive if he was to run into the strongest of enemies. As such, he had only relied on the level seven Water Shield for his defense in most other cases.


    The level seven Water Shield was capable of defending himself against level nine magic due to its having a sliver of power of rules, and thus far, Saleen had been content with it. However, from the looks of things at the moment, it was now far from adequate.


    But, since he had the Thunder Dragon ster, it made sense that his enemy would have simr equipment as well, and if he was to run into enemies that possessed such powerful equipment, he would certainly be in grave danger.


    Gaine finished crafting a magic staff for Saleen as he was still deep in thought about advancing his spells. There was no magic staff within the Starline Armament, as even the original Devil Armament did not have one.


    Saleen had many magic staffs, all of which were given to him by Joey. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, the staffs were but scrolls, which were capable of repeated use and as such, but were hardly precious.


    The magic staff that Gaine crafted for Saleen was much more heavy. The staff was one head taller than Saleen, and it was crafted from a material that was shining with silver starlight throughout.


    Gaine had only used astrological arts to conceal the starlight when he was about to finish crafting it, thus making it look a dull green. The tip of the staff was hollow, and it had six holes in it.


    Something of unknown translucent material that was shining with thin blue light was embedded at the center. It looked like water or some sort of gel, like the liquids that belonged to some kind of magic beast.


    Saleen went into his training state and paid no heed to Gaine, not even listening to a word that the old man was saying. Gaine felt rather bored and went to look at the Winged Skull, who had been silent for the past nine months.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Gaine asked.


    ¡°Bing,¡± he replied.


    ¡°What weapon are you using?¡± Gaine asked.


    The Winged Skull took out his battleaxe and il. Gaine took a look at them, but felt rather indifferent about them. Although the weapons had good thoughts put into their crafting processes and their materials were decent, they were not really powerful.


    ¡°Hand it over. I¡¯ll craft two things for you that willst you a lifetime,¡± Gaine said, while still feeling bored. Still, he had to admit that the Winged Skull had made a pretty good choice, given that Saleen was unavable for the moment.


    ¡°My lifetime will be a very long one.¡± The Winged Skull was telling the truth. As a king of spirits, he would be able to live tens of thousands of years.


    ¡°How about this?¡± Gaine asked as took out a huge scythe.


    The scythe was almost entirely ck, with only its de having a tinge of dark silver on it. The silver mes that were used for disguise within the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes were snuffed out the very moment the scythe was presented, thus exposing the human-like pupils in his sockets.


    ¡°That belonged to a god of the underworld!¡± the Winged Skull gasped and eximed.


    ¡°Indeed. When I was young, I happened to y a god of the underworld, then took his weapon. As this isn¡¯t something an ordinary human can use, I never give it away,¡± Gaine exined.


    ¡°This is not an equal exchange.¡± The Winged Skull hesitated.


    Attributes aside, the axe¡¯s quality of material was far inferior to the scythe¡¯s. Also, a god of the underworld¡¯s weapon usually disappeared when they perished, yet the huge scythe had survived. Thus, it would probably be very difficult to find an itemparable to it¡¯s value, regardless of which ne one went to.


    ¡°You¡¯re not a mage, and there are still 20 days or so for you left here. So, just stay and chat,¡± Gaine said.


    ¡°Alright.¡± The Winged Skull finally took the Reaper Scythe.


    The huge scythe was considerably longer than his axe. The Winged Skull acted as if his soul mes were touched directly by the light of a god as soon as he picked the scythe up. It was so painful that he had to let go if it right away.


    Gaineughed and said, ¡°Oh, you hasty pile of bones! You won¡¯t even be able to even take hold of this thing if I don¡¯t do something about it.¡±


    The Winged Skull knew he was being yed, but he was unable to do anything about it. The difference in power between him and Gaine was simply too great, greater than one between an ant and a dragon!


    Gaine, of course, had no intentions of toying with the Winged Skull, as he knew that the Winged Skull was immensely loyal to Saleen. Hence, it was important to craft a weapon for him in order to keep Saleen alive so that the mage was able to continue searching for a Star Gathering Needle for him.


    Gaine took the huge axe that belonged to the Winged Skull in his hand and studied it for a bit. He then melted the axe with starlight and extracted the refined rules, which were then thrown into the Reaper Scythe.


    Complex andpact death magic patterns suddenly appeared on the scythe, while two huge, eye-shaped magic arrays appeared at the top of the scythe. That was where the Winged Skull had been storing death magic!


    Gaine did not tell the Winged Skull that the Reaper Scythe actually contained a god and its kingdom, as the Reaper Scythe was something that a god of the underworld materialized using his will. Once the god perished, the weapon would dissipate as well.


    The gods of the underworld were not actually as powerful as most gods were, but their numbers were massive and they were almost immune to death. As such, killing a level 15 god of the underworld was more difficult than killing other gods at level 16.


    As Gaine and the Winged Skull chatted, he found the Winged Skull to not be as boring as he had first thought. Besides, there were no other living beings to talk to him, as Gaine had been alone in the astrology tower for a long time.


    A month passed quickly before Saleen finally awakened, feeling that his body had be incredibly weak. After all, a level nine mage still had to eat, and Saleen felt that he was near death after not eating and drinking for a month.


    He gulped down two bottles of magic liquid and gave a bitter smile. Such needs were being taken care of when he was in his temple back home. Mistakes like this would never have happened when he trained there!


    However, this experience proved to be a good thing, as Saleen had found that his fear about going hungry had all but disappeared. This had been a psychological fear that Saleen had never gotten over, even after bing a mage.


    He had been hungry too often when he was young, which had prompted him to stockrge amounts of food within his space equipment all of the time, even to this day. At the moment, Saleen even felt the feeling of hunger to be a familiar, heartwarming one instead of one that was terrifying.


    ¡°Saleen, you can go now. Put the matter of the grandmaster trying to do you harm aside for the moment,¡± Gaine said.


    ¡°Indeed, sir. Even if I were to reach the height where the grandmaster is now, I would still spare him once,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Oh? And why is that?¡± Gaine asked.


    ¡°When one wants to gain something, they must pay a price equal to what they yearn for. While the grandmaster wanted to do me harm, he nheless helped me a lot,¡± Saleen replied.


    Gaine was silent for a moment before he said, ¡°I understand. You¡¯re a mage. Leave now. You cane back when you¡¯ve advanced to level ten, then I¡¯ll help you advance to be a level ten astrologer. You will then be able to enter and leave the pce of the city as you please.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Saleen thanked him again.


    Gaine had refrained from advancing Saleen to level ten out of respect for his choice. If the level of his proficiency at astrology was to exceed that of his proficiency at magic, it would have affected his advancement greatly, so much so that Saleen might have switched to train in astrology and given up learning magic altogether.


    ¡°Also, there is no need for you to hunt in the city, as those figures will be able to take care of your troubles. Everything in the Imperial City of the Abyss is cursed by fate,¡± Gaine reminded Saleen.


    ¡°I know. I will leave at once,¡± Saleen assured him.


    ¡°Good,¡± Gaine said as he unleashed a burst of starlight from his hand, which enveloped Saleen and the Winged Skull within it.


    He then tore the space before him with his bare hands, while chucking Saleen and the Winged Skull into it. Soon after Saleen the Winged Skull were thrown through the space portal, the pair arrived right outside the city.


    Saleen chuckled bitterly. Gaine had acted too quickly.


    Saleen had intended to actually wander around the city for a bit to see if there were any new angels of fear or the like to be found, as he was wanting to take care of them using his Thunder Dragon ster. The War Drum of Fear was also a piece of handy equipment. At the very least, it proved exceptionally useful againstmon troops, as that drum allowed him to take on an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands.


    When he beat the drum, the enemy was forced to send out the absolute strongest warriors to fight him. The battle would have otherwise ended up with himing out on top, without a doubt.


    As Saleen thought about this, he had to admit inwardly... But, then again, Gaine has a point. What I need now is to arm my armies with something like a mid level magic nucleus. However, now that he had things like magic power furnaces in his possession, Saleen¡¯s need for a high level magic nucleus was no longer as strong as it had been before.


    ¡°Bing, a month has already passed here. I guess Nichs must be exhausted by now,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°That old guy...¡± The Winged Skull stopped before he said anything further, while he wondered... Why have I started to sound like Nailisi?


    ¡°My liege! My liege!¡± Saleen and the Winged Skull suddenly heard Nichs¡¯ call.


    Saleen scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye and found Nichs wearing a distraught look, while keeping guard over a huge magic beast¡¯s remains and using divine arts to unleash sound waves.


    Nichs was probably about 80 miles away from there, and it was clear that there was new scars on his face. It looked like he had fought a battle, and a very perilous one at that!

 Chapter 1058: Thunder Dragon Blaster (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1058: Thunder Dragon ster (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nichs did not want anything to happen to that holy master, as he had brought Nichs out to nurture the old man¡¯sbat capacity. Surviving an entire month at the bottom of the ocean would have caused a holy master a huge amount of stress, even without enemies to fight.


    However, Nichs had crafted several pieces equipment for emergencies recently. The only problem was that Nichs was not a divine smith, so his proficiency for crafting equipment was passable at best.


    At that moment, Saleen and the Winged Skull rushed to Nichs¡¯ side. Saleen put up his Water Shield and pulled Nichs beneath it for protection.


    Only then was the old holy master finally able to rest easy. If he had not been armed with a new Scepter of the Fallen, he would have been crushed by the seawater around him.


    ¡°Nichs, what happened?¡± Saleen handed Nichs a small bottle of magic liquid and had him drink it.


    Nichs panted for a bit. It felt good being able to breathe within the Water Shield.


    ¡°This thing... When I was picking bones, I didn¡¯t know that it was still alive!¡± Nichs said as he pointed at the six meter-tall remains before him.


    ¡°Huh? It¡¯s not a spirit!¡± The Winged Skull was able to tell right away that the huge monster that injured Nichs was not a spirit.


    There was not even a trace that showed that there had been soul mes burning in the remains before. The Winged Skull was capable of dealing with special soul mes like those of the Mechanical Soul, so there was simply no way that they would have overlooked a spirit. That huge pile of bones was about 50 meters long, and it looked like it belonged to a fish-type magic beast.


    ¡°We¡¯ll think about what that ister. For now, let¡¯s just bag it,¡± Saleen said as he put the huge pile of bony remains into his Starline Ring. The ring had been expanded over a hundred times, while Saleen¡¯s mental powers were over 12 times stronger, making the storage of that monster very easy.


    ¡°My liege!¡± Nichs suddenly shouted.


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen turned to find that Nichs was looking at him with a pair of wide eyes, as if he was looking at a monster.


    ¡°Howe I am unable to store this using the dimension stone?¡± Nichs asked.


    Saleen was dumbfounded for a bit regarding this, but soon came to realize the fact of the matter a momentter. The rules of the Starline Ring were higher than those of a dimension stone. It seemed like Gaine was putting quite a bit of work into his set of armament.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, Nichs. You¡¯ll get equipment like that someday.¡± Saleen smiled and patted Nichs on the shoulder.


    Nichs lowered his head dejectedly. He did not even bother to ask why Saleen¡¯s equipment had changed, as he had already gotten used to Saleen being rich.


    Nichs had cleaned up all of the bones within a thousand miles, picking only the best ones. As such, there was no need to stay any longer. Those bones would be sufficient for Saleen to craft equipment for his mages.


    With Hogina added to the fold, his alchemy factories were able to perform even better. Saleen hade to realize the importance of equipment within the previous battles.


    Fights usuallysted for a long time in the battlefield, some battles easilysting months. Soldiers with good equipment had much higher chances of survival, even more than ten times the chances of those with bad equipment.


    While this percentage was somewhat affected by one¡¯s own abilities, as soldiers with good equipment were usually the elites, such a huge difference in survivability still said quite a lot. Considering this, Saleen¡¯s thoughts were to arm all of his armies with magic equipment, right from their armor and down to their water bottles, including spears, every arrow, and more.


    After all, in his reasoning, he would need to wait 20 years for a child to grow to be a full-fledged soldier. Hence, it was far more efficient for him to keep a soldier alive versus having raise up and train another one!


    Saleen¡¯s operation at the Imperial City of the Abyss had been a smooth and crisp one. He had left right after he got what he hade for from Gaine.


    Massive amounts of pests appeared less than two days after he left the city. This time, the levels of pests was even higher, and their numbers were in the frightening hundreds of millions!


    Gaine was right. The Imperial City of the Abyss was indeed a cursed ce, and it was better for Saleen to not dwell within it for too long.


    Saleen had been away from Metatrin City for 50 days. ording to his original n, he would have needed to be out for three months.


    The remaining 40 days allowed him to get back to Metatrin City without encountering any trouble, even if moved very slowly. However, Saleen had no intention of staying on the road for that long. Hence, he put the Magical Element Tower away as soon as he left the Oceanic Ice Bock, taking flight with the Winged Skull and Nichs.


    In this way, Saleen was able to return to Metatrin City only ten dayster. The first thing that he did was to distribute the magic nuclei and magic beast remains among the factories.


    The alchemy factories were now being managed by Jason, and Hogina, as Jason¡¯s assistant, had begun working on the designs. Hogina liked Metatrin City very much and thought that it was a hundred times better than Alchemy City.


    This was because Metatrin City did not have the feeling of repression hanging over it like Alchemy City. All of the mages who ventured to Alchemy City felt like they had giants chasing after them. Thus, they all lived with enormous burdens weighing on their shoulders every day.


    Even the likes of Imposa came to owe a lot of money while struggling to survive within Metatrin City, let alone mages, who went to Alchemy City for better opportunities without any help or support. As such, many people were only able to stay in the city by providing freebor for the Elemental Hand. These people could have worked for ten years and still not have enough funds to buy a house.


    But, Metatrin City was different. Here, Hogina did not need to pay any fees, and she had sufficient ie as well. Also, if her designs were epted, she would have extra ie.


    Hogina was dissatisfied upon seeing how much Saleen had brought home after a single trip, and she startedining about Saleen¡¯s not taking her along.


    After hearing her disgruntledints, Saleen took out the Hogina¡¯s Gun that he had crafted himself in order to cate her, while saying, ¡°Here... Take this. Don¡¯t say anything about me leaving to umm... That Jalin...¡±


    Hogina smiled broadly, while taking Saleen¡¯s present. She then said loudly, ¡°Oh, I understand. She¡¯s a bad woman indeed, as she is fighting for your favor with big sis Sika. I like big sis far better, so I would definitely not be on that woman¡¯s side!¡±


    Saleen felt rather bemused by her antics, but he was unable to exin much to Hogina at the moment. Moreover, her mind seemed to be one that was made specifically for magic, alchemy, and nothing else. She simply was not able toprehend more than that.


    There were many grand mages who were simr to this. There were even quite a number of sorcerers who the same.


    The advancement of humans would have only been very obvious at level nine, as there were few level nine professionals who were so single-minded. One example of this phenomenon was Sika.


    She was far smarter than she had been once she became a nature priestess. But, nheless, Sika thought that this was because of her children.


    Saleen had been able to get a lot of loot from that trip. When he was distributing the supplies, Sika had brought the children to the factories.


    Both of them took one of the children in their hands respectively, while watching the mages taking the goods with glee. In that moment, Saleen felt that his days were going good... If it wasn¡¯t for the contract with the Goddess of Myers and that b*stard called Theisio being around, things would be almost perfect!


    Saleen asked Sika, ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we name the kids now?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to rush. After all, the Caucasians are in no rush. They are still thinking what their names should be,¡± Saleen replied.


    He thenughed heartily and said, ¡°Whatever their names end up being, their surnames will be Metatrin.¡±


    He then took his son by his hand, while the boy kept knocking on his head with his fist. However, Saleen felt no pain at all, as the Figure of Fate was taking the brunt of that boy¡¯s power.


    ¡°Sika, you¡¯re able tomunicate with these two, right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yeah. Why?¡± Sika replied.


    ¡°Just confirming. Let¡¯s go home.¡± Saleen then took Sika back to the temple.


    They went to see Jason first, who did not say much. He even stopped Saleen from telling him about the trip.


    ¡°If it¡¯s not something that threatens the safety of Metatrin City, you best keep it to yourself. Some matters are better left as secrets,¡± Jason said as he looked at Saleen¡¯s Starline Armament.


    Saleen and Sika then returned to their room and put the children down for bed. Saleen then took out two figures that were the size of his hand, while telling Sika how the figures worked.


    Sika pulled the children to her side, while smiling. She was talking to her children in the Caucasiannguage. The children took the figures in their hands and looked at them carefully.


    They were still too young, and it was ratherplicated to control the figures, but since Sika and Saleen were not able to think of any better ways to exin the figures to the children, Sika simply continued to talk with the children about them, while trying her best.


    ¡°So, Saleen, Jalin should be back soon. Don¡¯t tell me that you¡¯re just going to keep taking her on adventures and leaving me behind with the teacher.¡± Sika mentioned Jalin all of a sudden, and she sounded very displeased as she spoke.


    She now knew that Arb had been forced to set her aside against his will. Thus, Saleen had no way to refuse the arrangement.


    ¡°What would you have me do?¡± Saleenmented.


    Even though he now had the Thunder Dragon ster, he still would not have been able enough to get rid of Arb. His understanding of lightning rules simply were not deep enough. Otherwise, he would not be so frustrated.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care. You have the Magical Element Tower, so the kids¡¯ protection isn¡¯t a problem, right? Also, J has recovered, so you can take him with you. Otherwise, you¡¯ll get entangled with some female nobles, who will certainly get you in trouble.¡±


    ¡°J has recovered?¡± Saleen was ted to hear this good news.


    ¡°J said that he envies you for being able to marry a mage like Lex. So, he is ying nice with Guya now.¡± Sika was rather irked as she talked about this, and she thought... J is really a handful. If he gets together with Guya, then good for them. But, if he messed things up with her, he will ruin Saleen¡¯s rtionship with Guya!


    The four dukes and duchesses who were serving Saleen were getting increasingly important in the war. As Holy Rock City was now incapable of controlling Northern Qin and the territory belonged to members of those four major ns, many were siding with Phoenix, and some even came straight to Metatrin City and pledged their allegiance to the four.


    Those people brought a lot of manpower and wealth with them into the messy state of affairs, and every one of them was highly capable. As such, the Kingdom of Metatrin continued to expand, and in theter stages, there were little to no worries about its management.


    ¡°Alright, Sika. I¡¯ll take you along next time, as well as J and Nichs. We¡¯ll be taking Jalin as well, heading straight for Royal Harbor to meet up with Lex. I still need some hands with me for that,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Great!¡± Sika cheered in the Caucasiannguage as she hugged and kissed Saleen.


    Saleen almost had to wrestle with her to break free from her grasp as he said, while panting, ¡°Sika, you must get a letter to Lex. Have Jalin wait for us there.¡±


    ¡°Your highness!¡± All of a sudden, a voice that was using the Caucasiannguage was heard outside the door.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Sika asked after she calmed herself and regained herposure. After all, she was the regent!


    ¡°I have urgent news. Daliang City is under attack!¡± The Caucasian warrior did not enter as he made the announcement.


    He knew that Saleen had just returned and would most likely have wanted some y time with their lord priestess. Caucasians were mindful of such things, and if it had not been for the news being very important, he probably would have waited to deliver it the next morning.

 Chapter 1059: Rescuing Daliang City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1059: Rescuing Daliang City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Come in!¡± Sika let go of Saleen. Both of their children were by their side and they couldn¡¯t do anything intimate with the children watching. She would have usually entrusted both children to female Caucasus warriors at times like that. Saleen wanted to be with his children, so she took them to her room instead.


    The Caucasus warrior standing guard outside came in and handed the emergency letter to Sika, who then handed it to Saleen. She told the messenger to fetch the Caucasus warrior who usually took care of the children. She knew that Saleen was going to get busy.


    The children were both sleepy. They held onto the figures that Saleen gave them as The Caucasus warrior took them to bed. Saleen opened the letter and found that it came from Bitterwater Prefecture.


    Daliang City was near Bitterwater Prefecture and cost less when teleportation portal was used. The letter came with a magic map that had details highlighted.


    The Grukos had actually lent 12 level-9 sorcerers to Lex for reinforcements, as well as sending about 3000 soldiers her way. Those troops were all elites, and no auxiliary troops were among their ranks, as all of them were magic cavalry.


    The Grukos cavalry used an ancient system of organization, dividing their units to light cavalry, heavy cavalry, battle cavalry, and guerri cavalry. The ones deployed to Daliang City were battle cavalry units. They were inferior to light cavalry in terms of speed andcked the shock capacity of heavy cavalry. They were the ones capable of dismounting and fighting on foot when there was such a need for it.


    They were equivalent to mounted heavy infantry and magic heavy infantry. Arb raised the ranks of the units sent to Daliang City due to concerns about Daliang City¡¯s importance to the Golden ins. If the Golden ins were more powerful, then Daliang City would be a center point on the Myers Maind.


    The army was ordered to go downward along the river from the Golden ins, cross the mountains, then arrive at the Separation Sea by boat beforending north of the Separation Sea. They continued marching northward nonstop and came under attack about 1000 miles away from Daliang City.


    The 12 level-9 sorcerers were not just for show. Their assants were quite literally crushed. There were scouts who fled back to Daliang City, informing them that the Holy See had gathered an army. They joined hands with the Cloudflow Empire and took Sanlian City out. There were more than 100 thousand scattered troops from Sanlian City being chased all the way to Daliang City.


    If it was not for a pass east of Sanlian City that held the allied army for three days, it was feared that none of the 100 thousand would have survived the assault.


    The situation with Daliang City¡¯s assault was told in detail in the letter. If it had not been for the Grukos¡¯ support, the city¡¯s mages would not have been able to hold the line. Even so, things were still in a dire state in Daliang City. The number of enemies was huge, and many Blood Knights emerged, totaling to about a million. The Blood Knights that Saleen knew of where created from barbarians caught by the tribunal. The number of barbarians were few and far between though. In the war with the Qin Empire, all Blood Knights had perished.


    As such, there must have been a new source being used to create Blood Knights, and that might have been prisoners of the war, or even civilians.


    The allied army fielded huge amount of siege equipment, throwing all manner of destructive weapons at Daliang City every day. That wore out the mages in the magic towers.


    The situation was made worse by the fact that the army that the Holy See deployed was simply toorge. They went to take all thends north of Daliang City, as well as taking out the secret passages in the mountains between Daliang City and Bitterwater Prefecture. The mages of Bitterwater Prefecture had no choice but to blow up some of the narrower paths in the valley to defend against the invading army.


    As such, Daliang City was rendered an isted city being assaulted from all sides. It was fortunate that it was not yet winter, and the city was located in the central area of the maind. There was also steady rainfall for the time being. The wells within the city were useless as underground water sources werepletely blocked off by the mages outside the city. Daliang City resorted to filling the underground reservoirs to the brim.


    None of it could have been done without a good number of mages avable.


    Other cities would have long been taken out when faced with such assaults, as no one could live without water.


    It was also fortunate that, despite Daliang City being diligent in the effort of taking in immigrants, the city was still a militarized one in nature. The number of civilians within the city was less than one-tenth of the military poption within. When the assault urred, there was little panic in the city.


    Even the 100 thousand scattered troops from Sanlian City had mostly recuperated and were ready to fight again.


    Although Sanlian City was lost, it was not certain that they would lose Daliang City as well. Stephanie, who was in charge of Daliang City, knew that it was only a matter of time before an isted city would get ran over. It was different from Lonestar City, as that ce was defended by spirits who were tireless in nature. The amount of death mages around also meant that they could be rotated ording to needs.


    Daliang City, at the moment, had ample military units. If there were huge casualties, the army would have ended up more and more worn out, leading to critical failures.


    Saleen read the letter and said to Sika, ¡°It seems like the Holy See¡¯s power has gotten a huge upgrade. They wouldn¡¯t have gone wasting their forces like that otherwise. The region north of Qin had yet to be taken. If such an army were to be diverted at the northern regions, it would deal a crippling blow to Qin.¡±


    ¡°Why are they so insistent on taking Daliang City?¡± Sika asked a very direct question.


    ¡°They¡¯re after Bitterwater Prefecture.¡± Saleen pointed on the map and continued, ¡°There are five valleys being destroyed here, but if they truly wanted to make tunnels at these ces, it would be an easy job. At the very least, both of us here are already capable enough to do something like that. If they were able to take Daliang City and use it as a base to invade the Bitterwater prefecture, then Holy Rock City would be in trouble.¡±


    Sika recalled the terrain between Bitterwater Prefecture and Holy Rock City and knew Saleen¡¯s words were true. While there were rivers getting in the way, the ce was very suitable for stocking up huge numbers of military units, enabling arge scale invasion on Holy Rock City nearby.


    If they were to invade Qin from the northern regions, it would have actually proved more difficult instead.


    The Bitterwater Prefecture was huge, yet had a small poption, being a ce ill-suited for putting down roots. It was still a very important ce to Qin as a whole. Taking Bitterwater Prefecture meant that one would have created arge hammer west of Holy Rock City, which could then be used to smash the city.


    ¡°Why isn¡¯t there any news from the Holy See?¡± Saleen knew that Pope Theisio left and needed to return to the Holy City. Arb would have pursued him in hopes of killing him before he returned to the city. Saleen had heard of no news of such developments despite having returned for a few months. What was more eerie was that Arb did not spread any news about the fall of the pope. If such news were to spread, the Holy See would have definitely suffered massive internal conflict, preventing them fromunching any further ns of attack.


    ¡°No time to fret about all that. We¡¯ll head straight for Daliang City to back them up. With teacher here, nothing bad can happen to Metatrin City.¡±


    ¡°Well said, we should send someone to gather the nobles.¡±


    ¡°What for?¡±


    ¡°Guard Phoenix, of course! What would the nobles think if both you and I were to leave? The army in Guderian City retreated, but only retreated 200 miles, so it was hardly a retreat. We¡¯ll get the equipment ready while the nobles will be contributing funds and food to give everyone peace of mind. We¡¯ll talk about taking those from Guderian when we¡¯ve gotten the few cities at the border of Phoenix secured.¡± Saleen borated with great confidence.


    Saleen¡¯s call to the nobles was an effective one. A great number of nobles in Metatrin hailed from Phoenix. Even though many lost theirnds, Saleen gave them hope nheless. They needed to pull their weight to keep hope alive.


    Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories were required to producerge amounts of equipment every day. If none of the equipment was sold and there was a stockpile, it would have been a huge waste of money. The nobles had the money, but not the goods. The deal was a win-win situation for both sides and it was swiftly closed.


    The three duchesses were even more ted. They had fewnds to begin with and thends taken were restricted to be from within Phoenix. Once they expanded their armies, they would be able to attack Qin any time.


    That was especially so in the case of Guderian City. If the Holy See was actually able to take it and the duchesses were able to reim it, it would no longer be under Holy Rock City¡¯s control.


    Saleen and the nobles got all the details of the trade set after several meetings. He also contacted Lex, who wanted Saleen to head for the Royal Harbor. The ce was probably under a lot of military pressure.


    There was also Ceylon City. Things in Ceylon City were being taken care of by Nailisi. Most of the mercenaries were being held back around Yaoyang City, preventing them from entering Ceylon City territory.


    The demon army poured onto the battlefield in endless waves. None of those demons had undergone any training. Nailisi had no hope for them to take anynd anyway. They were only needed to fight the Sikeqinyans.


    Having fought for such a long time, no one in Yaoyang City area dared try gueri warfare anymore. Every time they did, thousands of troops perished. The demon army did not bother with taking prisoners, and they needed little else other than food. They could eat meat of any kind, including their enemies.


    Saleen busied himself with the arrangements in Metatrin City, before taking Sika and his children away. He used the Magical Element Tower, stuffing everyone in there and heading for the Royal Harbor.


    The tower flew at full speed, reaching the harbor in just ten days.


    Allied forces consisting of the Holy See and the Sikenqinyan army were found north of the Royal Harbor. The allied forcesunched an assault for months. The outskirts of the Royal Harbor were constantly shifting hands, neither side controlling it for long.


    Saleen did not go straight for the allied forces when he reached the Royal Harbor. He boarded the Ancient, gathering all the mages and grand swordmasters before opening up the rooms in the hold and beginning to craft ancient figures.


    The figures that Gaine had crafted were perfect and they only needed an infusion of souls from the ancient warriors.


    Saleen crafted 3600 figures before stopping. A week passed in the meantime and Daliang City¡¯s gates were breached once. Three grade-9 sorcerers were able to seal them, but there was still a bloody battle within the city walls. Thousands of the invaders were all killed before things turned stable again.


    Seeing things had taken a turn for the worse, Saleen did not bother going to the outskirts of the Royal Harbor. He simply left 1000 figures at the harbor. Without anyone tomand them, they were only able to perform simple defensive maneuvers, just like the wandering elemental creatures in the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    It was fortunate that 1000 figures proved adequate to hold their own against 10 thousand soldiers.


    Saleen brought Lex, Sika, the winged skeleton, J, Nichs, Eleanor, and the remaining 2600 figures with him, heading for Daliang City in a hurry.


    Saleen initially had no intentions of bringing Lex along. Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring was the only equipment capable of stocking ample number of metal flyers, which he brought more than 600 with him.


    The Magical Element Tower took to the sky and passed by the allied forces¡¯ main camp. Saleen stayed for a little while, throwing more than 100 level-9 spells downwards, before flying south again.

 Chapter 1060: Rescuing Daliang City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1060: Rescuing Daliang City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen ended up using uprge number level nine scrolls and Lex felt a bit of a pinch for him. Little did she know that he was simply clearing up old stocks.


    Saleen had used a month in the astrology tower to research level ten magic and crafted quite a number of scrolls. Crafting scrolls using starline paper guaranteed almost absolute sess, but control of the crafted spells would have been far worse.


    All those level nine scrolls actually carried watered down versions of level ten magic. No one would have been able to use them but Saleen himself, as such, the only use they were of to him were simply being thrown in huge numbers at conventional military camps. Even if the spells ran amok, they would have taken quite a number of enemies with them.


    The camp was left in shambles as the Magical Element Tower left. However, there were few powerful ones at Royal Harbor and there were only some sorcerers left behind to guard the ce; none of them dared move against the messy yet sizable enemy camp.


    On the other hand, none of the sorcerers and holy masters dared give chase to the Magical Element Tower.


    Having more than a hundred scrolls thrown out was a move that proved fatal to many. All of those scrolls carried level nine magic still, despite their weakened power. The allied forces quickly retreated when Saleen left, setting up camp again more than a hundred miles away from where they were attacked.


    None of themanders of the respective armies dared suggest giving up the assault, but none too dared say anything about advancing forward. The Holy See troops never had such orders with them in the first ce and saw no value in dying like that. The Sikeqinyans on the other hand, were truly frightened.


    The 10 thousand mile journey to Daliang City was being covered by Saleen¡¯s tower flying at about 200 miles per hour. It would have taken them days before arriving at Daliang City.


    Saleen and Lex went to research the map of Daliang City again within the magic tower, thinking about where they should be assaulting first. The number of mighty ones involved in the assault of Daliang City would have been massive. The city would not have suffered so badly despite having 15 level nine sorcerers with them otherwise.


    The one weakness with the Magical Element Tower was that it was incapable of unleashing attacks during flight. It was required to hover in mid-air before it could be used for battles. Such requirements made it easy for the tower to be surrounded. Lex searched for a bit in the magic map and decided tounch their assault from the eastside of the city, taking out the army putting Principality of Bitterwater under lockdown.


    Without Nailisi around, Saleen¡¯s main force for the ambush consisted only of the Winged Skull¡¯s spirits. Theirbat capacity was apparently inferior to that of the demons, but spirits proved far easier to control than demons, and they had even less fear of pain and death.


    The magic tower was flying high up in the air, encountering thunderstorms several times when they were flying in the clouds. Everyone was on guard, but Saleen was nonchnt. He knew from Gaine that elementite was an instors by nature.


    Of course, there was no way to forge a set of armor using elementite. The only way that would have rendered a construct totally immune to lightning attacks was to do it like Saleen did: creating apletely sealed magic tower usingrge number of elementite.


    If one was unlucky, said construct would have still been hit by lightning. It was just that one was totally free from such worries because of elementite¡¯s inherent properties of resisting lightning attacks. The elementite used in this case was of the highest quality. The tower would have simply fell to the ground with the flying magic patterns etched onto it destroyed when attacked by lightning. Saleen was in a hurry, and he had no time to wait for such storms to pass.


    Saleen¡¯s luck seemed to have took a turn for the better since he practiced astrology. Despite having zipped in and out of the clouds, the tower was never even hit by lightning once.


    The Magical Element Tower arrived in the mountains east of Daliang City. Due to the tower¡¯s altitude, the Holy See¡¯s army was not aware that Saleen¡¯s group was near.


    The Holy See deployed about 80 thousand troops to dig at the valley between the mountains. Despite having blown up the valley earlier, none of the mages stayed to guard the ce. Large number of holy masters from the Holy See and mages from Cloudflow were searching for people of Principality of Bitterwater after all.


    The 80 thousand were slow in their work. The assault at Daliang City had a long way to go still, and the Holy See saw no need to sacrifice any of their own to hasten the process. The blown up roads were stillden with magic traps, and every step needed prior detection from the holy masters and mages.


    Those traps have killed thousands of the Holy See¡¯s troops. That, coupled with casualties suffered when the valley was blown up, the Holy See had lost about 20 thousand troops.


    Saleen put his Magical Element Tower away and had the Winged Skull summon his spirit army. J stayed behind with the Winged Skull. They worked just fine as a unit with Nichs around too.


    The only troublesome part was the children, and it was fortunate that Sika brought her steed. Saleen was surprised to see a huge beast of about 100 meters long.


    Flesh and scales have grown on the bones of the beast. The huge being resembled a dragon, with long horns and sharp fangs. Its wings were carved with magic patterns, which were moreplex than any that Saleen knew.


    Sika stood on the back of that thing while the kids sat in front of her,ughing as the huge beast took flight.


    Saleen shook his head in exasperation, thinking that he was probably the only one in history to bring children of such young age into the battlefield. The scales on its back stood up after the beast took flight, protecting the children.


    The two children cradled their respective figures. They seemed to have lost all interest in the divine beast, not bothering to take it out and y. Those two figures werepletely rendered under their control, enabling them to put up all manner of expressions.


    Eleanor was arranged to be by Sika¡¯s side. She was at the pinnacle of level eight, being stuck and unable to advance to level nine. Her prowess with archery however, grew exponentially. She was no longer that level seven archer who would have exhausted herself almostpletely just to shoot one arrow.


    Saleen unleashed 360 ancient figures, having them get near the Holy See army on the ground with Lex. The two secret passages were near, and it was impossible to have all 80 thousand of their troops in one ce. They were forced to scale the mountain, which four areas were divided out of the two passages, with personnel in each area cleaning out sections being blown up by magic.


    All 360 of the ancient figures held magic weapons crafted in Metatrin City in their hand; all of those being heavy halberds without exception. Such weapons were too heavy for normal people to wield. Even swordmasters would have had trouble wielding them.


    The figures however, possessed great strength, exceeding even that of demons. The ancient warriors sneaked up the rear of the Holy See army under Saleen¡¯s instructions.


    The Holy See army did not bother setting up defenses at their rear, as the battlefield lied right at the rear. Conventional logic had it that there would not have been any enemies showing up there. All the mages and holy masters were sent to the front, while the troops rotated in swifts to do the digging. The 360 figures charged at the camp. Some of the troops who were resting were simply equivalent of low-level swordsmen, which meant they stood no chance against the sudden onught. The camp had only about 2000 troops. Saleen and Lex took care of the patrols while the ancient figures went wiping out the entire camp without making much noise.


    Sika and Eleanor watched everything unfold in the air. There was little left to the imagination with how things turned out below. None were able to escape the camp alive, and Saleen went to attack the next camp.


    Eleanor took the Seven Nights in her hand and said to Sika in a rather bored tone, ¡°Sika, do you think that that Jalin fellow will get us into trouble?¡±


    ¡°Get us into what kind of trouble?¡± Sika asked in puzzlement.


    ¡°Lex had sent her to Daliang City before any of us. She clearly didn¡¯t like Jalin much and the way she vented her displeasure was rather obvious.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that rather normal then? Even I wouldn¡¯t want her around,¡± Sika patted the head of the two children and felt herself being able to rte to what Lex did. Jalin was a very overeager woman with very strong possessive tendencies. She might have appeared weak and gentle on the outside, but she was actually nothing but trouble.


    ¡°I thought it¡¯d have been better to keep her around and have her charge at the frontlines. Arb wouldn¡¯t have anything to say about that, would she?¡±


    ¡°Lex wanted to rile her up somewhat. When she got somewhat pissed, it would have made her easy to manipte. Lex is far more capable than you¡¯d have imagined her to be. Don¡¯t let her amicable facade fool you. Have you ever seen her being caught with the short end of the stick before?¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you concerned for Saleen? If anything happens...¡±


    ¡°What is there to be concerned about. I know well what kind of person piques Saleen¡¯s interests. That Jalin could have been ten times prettier than she is now, and Saleen wouldn¡¯t even bat an eye still. Unless...¡±


    ¡°Unless what?¡± Eleanor felt curious and asked. She was not quite sure what would have attracted Saleen¡¯s attention.


    ¡°Unless she got turned into a magic beast, having valuable alchemy materials with her. Then she would have gotten Saleen¡¯s attention,¡± Sika said andughed.


    Eleanorughed as well. Sika¡¯s depiction was an apt one. If Jalin had indeed been turned into a magic beast, her appeal would have been increased by a thousand folds.


    Saleen was a nostalgic person and he was nicer to Eleanor than he was to Jalin. Despite being of high level and sported very attractive appearance, none of that would have mattered if she was a piece of s**t inside. Saleen liked being warm and fuzzy, and even Lex would have shed her strong, aggressive part of herself and turned into a gentle woman before him.


    ¡°But Eleanor, you¡¯d really need to advance to the next level soon. You¡¯d know when we got to Daliang City. Our enemies have gotten increasingly powerful,¡± Sika said with an earnest tone. Eleanor had once been Saleen¡¯s prisoner, before joining his side and bing his follower. She was alright as a person, but she needed to work on her attitude at training.


    ¡°Sika, it¡¯s not like I want to be stuck like this. My blood says that I¡¯ll have a hard time advancing in Myers Maind. I¡¯ve been looking for the medicines I¡¯ll need. It would be great if there¡¯s spring water of the Fountain of Life around, and I need it in huge quantities.¡±


    ¡°Is there any way for you to return to the elf ne?¡± Sika probed.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want to go back even if there is a way to do so. No one would¡¯ve epted an elf like me,¡± Eleanor said something casually; something which she had been keeping to herself.


    ¡°Something is around!¡± Sika said as she pointed. It was only birds flying east. However, the speed of their flight was so great that it caught her attention. Her observation skills as a priest told her that they were magic beasts being put under someone¡¯s control.


    Eleanor smiled and draw an arrow, shooting it nonchntly. The arrow turned into a bunch of illusions mid-air before spreading out, hitting every one of those birds down.


    During her days in Metatrin City, she developed an amicable rtionship with Sika. Sika had the alchemy factory made her a quiver and arrows. The amount of arrows Eleanor carried with her at the moment would have easilysted her for years.


    Sika looked at the scene in admiration and said, ¡°Too bad this isn¡¯t something I can ever learn.¡±


    ¡°Sika, your strength is something I envy you for,¡± Eleanorforted her in return.


    The two of them worked in tandem, with one being in charge of observation while the other shooting. None of the bird type magic beast set up around the camps were able to escape and deliver the news of their assault. Saleen went about sneaking up on camps on the ground until dark, before he was found by the Holy See troops.


    The rear of the camp was where the troops rested. The Holy See went with the digging by having 2000 troops worked for 40 hours being buffed by divine spells. As such, the troops at the rear havepletely let their guard down. After killing more than 10 thousand troops, the rest of the troops left were those who were almost done resting, being called to dig at the mountain again.


    Saleen did not bother hiding himself any further after he was exposed. He went through magic fire, which signaled the Winged Skull to send their spirit army. By then, they have already blocked all escape routes within the mountain.

 Chapter 1061: Magic Couple (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1061: Magic Couple (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    At the moment, they were only about 100 miles from Daliang City. The spirit army was not only preventing the enemy from returning to the camp, but they were also stopping any reinforcements froming from Daliang City.


    Saleen no longer concealed himself, deciding to simply unleash some elemental creatures. His badge had been repaired by Gaine, and the injured elemental creatures had all regained theirbat capacities as well. However, Saleen still refrained from unleashing the level ten elemental creature leaders.


    The battlefield in the mountains had been narrow the entire way. While there were no tall mountains near Daliang City, the short cliffs were still very steep. Moreover, the mountain paths werepletely destroyed by the mages from the Principality of Bitterwater, and they now required a huge number of mages to repair them.


    The Holy See and Cloudflow did not have near as many mages as the Qin Empire. Thus, the powers afforded by the holy masters and their believers only enabled them to fill up somerge holes.


    When the ancient figures charged forward, the Holy See had no way of gathering their forces. This forced them to scatter, while separating into units of about a thousand each in order to fight off any iing threats.


    Saleen crashed through eight camps before the holy masters and the mages at the front showed up. As soldiers tried to run away, they were intercepted and killed by the spirit army. As such, no one was able to flee and return to the camp outside Daliang City.


    ¡°Lex, do you see that? Those are the three.¡± Saleen pointed to somewhere faraway, where two mages and a holy master were on a hilltop.


    The two mages wore ck robes, and Saleen was barely able to see that they had three magic markings on them. The poor Cloudflow mages were responsible for digging mountains after they joined the Holy See army.


    The holy master wore a ck robe as well. He was empty-handed and had a shiny, bald head.


    The trio was surrounded by a group of mages and holy masters. There were also over a dozen warriors there, all of whom looked to be at the ck metal grand swordmaster level.


    While ck metal grand swordmasters were onlyparable to level seven sorcerers regarding capability, their prowess in close quarters was extra terrifying. In fact, Lex was only able to stay alive on her way to Holy Rock City in the past because she had four ck metal grand swordmasters with her.


    ¡°There are 38 of them. How do we go about this, Lex?¡± Saleen asked as he looked at the holy masters and mages in the distance. He felt the urge to meet them in battle.


    ¡°Well... It doesn¡¯t look like a trap, and no one would have known that we woulde out here personally. Hmm... Don¡¯t let any one of them escape, Saleen. I¡¯ll take care of the two mages. You take out the holy master,¡± Lex replied.


    ¡°Will do.¡± Saleen waved at the sky above, signaling for Eleanor keep an eye out for injured enemies.


    Then, Saleen¡¯s surroundings began to mist as he slowly took to the air, taking Lex with him. Quickcloud was Saleen¡¯s unique skill, and even mages of levelsparable to theirs would have had a hard time telling where they were inside the cloudy mist.


    Saleen¡¯s flight speed was incredibly quick, so they soon arrived more than a mile away within just a minute. At that time, he took out the golden magic book, which contained six level nine spells, six level eight spells, and six level seven spells.


    The golden magic book was far more useful than a magic staff, with the exception of the staff that belonged to Jalin. Lex took out her magic staff and followed Saleen closely, while preparing her magic.


    Mages usually had initial spells that they were used to casting, but that was not to say that they would always simply stick to one spell stubbornly.


    Saleen did not have many initial spells with him. In fact, he had only a little more than a dozen. Lex had far more.


    Soon, the pair quickly came within 500 meters from the enemy. The trio on the hilltop naturally knew that these two enemies were in the cloud, as they had sent a huge huge beast flying into the air and four mages, all of whom had just risen up, in order to take them on.


    The best range for an offensive attack for the mages was anything within a hundred meters. Even though a level nine sorcerer would have been able to manage a range of attack reaching 1,000 or 2,000 meters, they were nheless morefortable and used to casting one at this more familiar range.


    The way both of them approached their enemies slowly from a distance put a lot of stress on their enemies as well. Saleen simply flew straight, without any regard for the dozen or so grand swordmasters on the ground.


    Most mages would have usually kept their distance from grand swordmasters, while staying outside the 100 meter-range from them. Yet, Saleen was going right up to the enemies, forcing them to act first!


    Even though over a dozen magic spells and five divine spells were cast, none of them were able to lock onto the two targets within the cloud. Suddenly, a level eight Wind Dragon shot into the cloud and split into 12 level seven Wild Winds, intending to disperse Saleen¡¯s cloud.


    However, Saleen had already set huge amounts of tornadoes within it. So, when the wind spells from both sides shed, it only darkened the color of the cloud instead.


    The sh with the level seven magic allowed Saleen to release a greater amount of mist, making the cloud even more massive. It now covered over a mile! The cloud quickly covered the peak and encased all 38 of their enemies within it.


    Saleen then cast Endless Night, which was not from his Starline Armament. Saleen had not yet been able to fix magic spells onto the Starline Armament, as the original six spells were wiped out.


    The Endless Night spell was cast from the golden magic book, and four of the enemies were quickly enveloped within ot. All four of them had yet to reach level nine, and as such, Endless Night was aplete nightmare to them.


    The four who were enveloped by the spell were quickly corroded by the dark element within it, as they had no way of resisting its effects. Saleen flipped the pages of the book, then quickly cast the second spell on the holy master.


    The level nine sorcerer was able to tell where Saleen was after being encased by the cloud. At that time, the bald holy master pointed in Saleen¡¯s direction and called out, ¡°Truth!¡±


    Saleen then lifted his hand, causing the Star Gathering Needle to entwine with the Starline Ring, which shed with a beam of starlight. The holy spell of the holy master waspletely negated!


    However, Saleen¡¯s spell sted squarely on the holy master. At that moment, a white holy light shed and Saleen¡¯s Lifeless Totem was sted into pieces.


    The rare earth magic was probably the only one capable of being cast in the air. Among earth magic, the Meteorite was one that was backed by fire and wind-type magic, while the Lifeless Totem was simply used to ram at the enemy with a huge stone statue, which happened to break the Divine Protection as well.


    It took Saleen a lot of time to research all of this before he was able to find one spell that was capable of dealing with the Divine Protection. After all, the Divine Protection was too resilient, which caused many mages ofparable levels to feelpletely dejected when dealing with it.


    Lifeless Totem, on the other hand, was probably the strongest level nine magic in terms of its damage potential. The magic spell was so powerful that it required one to be at level ten before being able to learn it.


    But, the power it unleashed was still that of a level nine. As such, the magic was deemed suitable to be ced in the golden magic book.


    When the Holy See went to call upon the oracles, there were quite a number of people who advanced to level ten across the entire maind, including Jason. Otherwise, Saleen would not have rested easy while taking so many powerful ones away from Metatrin City.


    It was worth noting that Sika was probably the strongest level nine warrior. As such, Saleen had always been able to rest easy knowing that Sika was in charge of Metatrin City in his absence. Now, Sika could finally be relieved of her duties there.


    The holy master was unfettered, despite his holy spell failing and his Divine Protection broken. He took one step forward and pointed at the ground, while shouting, ¡°Enchantment!¡±


    At that moment, the mist around Saleen disappeared in an instant and huge holes appeared. Then, the elemental powers within the hole thinned, leaving only a pure light remaining.


    Saleen was encased within this light as well, and he cursed silently. The power of the bald holy master had clearly reached the pinnacle of level nine. As such, this enchantment would soon be a Realm of Light if it was upgraded.


    Any other mages trapped in such an environment would have despaired. This was because if elemental magic was cast using magic chords, their powers would have been severely diminished, making them hard to control.


    While thinking of this, Saleen made a snap decision and unleashed nine ancient figures and two Blue Ice Maidens. The nine ancient figures surrounded the holy master, while the Blue Ice Maidens stood behind Saleen, providing him with water element power.


    Saleen had found that elemental creatures were very useful under such environments. This was because the elements within the Blue Ice Maidens were capable of providing power to Saleen continuously.


    It was only at this moment that the holy master realized what he had gotten himself into. He peered behind Saleen and saw ten more elemental creatures appearing, one after another, all of them providing external aid to Saleen¡¯s magic book.


    The spells stored within magic books were just like spells that were cast by the mages themselves. All of them were cast by manipting elements that were already in the surroundings. These spells, when cast without such maniption, were unable to do much.


    The nine ancient figures held halberds in their hands as they went straight for the holy master. The holy master mumbled exasperatedly, ¡°Time, reverse!¡±


    The power of divine arts within the light enchantment grew at that moment. However, since the nine ancient figures had been crafted by Gaine, they possessed the ability to resist the maniption of fate!


    Prophecy spells were skills that triggered fate, so, at that moment, just as the nine ancient figures¡¯ halbertsnded on his body as he was finishing casting his divine spell, blood sprayed everywhere! The holy master¡¯s astounded expression froze in ce at the moment of his death.


    Meanwhile, Lex managed to take out her enemies as well. A sword aura of the grand swordmasters that was around two level nine sorcerers crumbled with just a shout from her!


    That secret art of hers was meant specifically for dealing with grand swordmasters, and the suppression that they experienced, due to their being of superior levels, rendered the swordmasters surrounding the sorcerers totally defenseless. This less than one second window enabled Lex to cast 14 fireballs!


    As these fireballs crashed onto the grand swordmasters, they burned huge holes into every single one of them. Lex then cast two level nine spells from her staff, the City Inferno and the Shower of mes.


    Immediately, mes sted out from above and below her. Then, Lex pointed her finger and cast a fire totem.


    The two level nine sorcerers unfolded their scrolls at the same time. One cast a huge Icy Enchantment, but as soon as it appeared, it was melted by the City Inferno. The other one caste the Space Petrification, but it was decimated by the Shower of mes from above.


    The two sorcerers were quickly backed away as the whirlwind around their bodies stopped the fire totem for a few moments. When Lex saw the sorcerers unfolding the scrolls at her nk, the God¡¯s Ring in her finger shed and she became encased in a multi-colored ball of light.


    Over a dozen spells rained down on the ball of light, but it remained totally unscathed, simply dispersing the spells as it came into contact with them.


    Lex soon closed the distance between her and her enemies, and when she was only 80 meters away from them, she cast her third spell. A white fireball that was the size of a fist wobbled its way forward, flying so slowly that it looked like antern that was floating on the water. There were over a hundred faces on the white fireball, each one of them about the size of a fingernail.


    Upon seeing this, the level nine sorcerers¡¯ faces were ashen. They had not expected such a legendary spell to appear before them.


    Now that the white fireball had targeted them, they knew that if they ran, there would be no way to shake it off. This was because the minute that they even moved an inch, the fireball would be provided with even more power, which only hasten its speed!

 Chapter 1062: Magic Couple (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1062: Magic Couple (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was a magic spell that had not appeared for several thousands of years, yet all of the mages had heard of it before. They had also attempted toplete it, but had failed.


    There was a saying, ¡°A mage who can only shoot fireballs is not a good mage,¡± yet the ¡°fireball¡± mentioned in the saying was not the kind that was before them. If a mage was capable of firing such a fireball, he would have to be an incredibly powerful one, so much so that none of his peers would have dared touch him.


    This was a spell thatpletely locked on to their targets, making it one that was inescapable and could only be resisted when attacked head-on. The problem however, was that the power of that fireball was not something that magic shields could face. Instead, it required magic spells that were capable of dismantling it in order to break free, just like how Saleen and Lex used to train in the past.


    However, the total sum of the mental powers of those two mages was not even near half that of Lex¡¯s mental powers, and they were far inferior in terms of calctive abilities. Thus, the two mages would not have been able to calcte key points that were necessary to break it before the fireball reached them.


    They would have already advanced to level ten if they had been capable of doing so, instead of being stuck at level nine, while powers across Myers Maind rose. Lex had only been capable of casting the fireball, and if she had been at level ten, she could have easily cast several of them.


    However, since she was also stuck at level nine and had no way to go forward yet, she was only able to cast one per battle. However, the fireball had immense power and was capable of killing three sorcerers consecutively, so it was still very effective and useful.


    Sika and Eleanor saw the mountains being shrouded by the cloud from the sky. Sika took out a javelin and got ready, while Eleanor kept her arrow on the Seven Nights.


    The two mages in the cloud were frightened and took to the air. Saleen was dealing with the holy master at the moment, so he didn¡¯t have time to deal with these mages.


    The two mages shot through the clouds and saw two ck dots flying out from the back of the huge beast in the air. The two were not all that adept with flight, as they were only level seven mages and had not even been at that level for long.


    The javelin that Sika threw was made of refined steel, which had some crystallized metal crafted onto its tip. The shield that the mage put up was incapable of stopping the javelin.


    The javelin¡¯s tip turned to dust, while the shaft pierced through the shield, prating the mage¡¯s body. The javelin was Sika¡¯s unique weapon. The metal shaft on the javelin was filled with reversed scales, which automatically opened after prating the mage¡¯s body, causing the wound be several timesrger.


    Soon, a hole the size of a bowl was seen on the torso of that mage. At this moment, Sika was probably the first person to ever break a sorcerer¡¯s magic using sheer power!


    The other sorcerer died an immediate death. Eleanor¡¯s arrow shot right through his eye and came out through his brain on the other end. The high pressure resulting from the arrow¡¯s flight made the grey matter in his brain squirt out, and the target was neutralized in less than a second.


    Saleen¡¯s assault had killed the enemy¡¯s lead figures right away, without mercy. This battle boosted Saleen¡¯s confidence, showing him that even if he did not use his family badge or the Thunder Dragon ster, he was still peerless among the mages of his same level.


    The two children on the huge beast in the airughed, and it seemed like they had no idea what their mother had just done. While the two mages died gruesome deaths, the scene was hardly gory, as most of it took ce in the clouds.


    A magic alert was heard from the cloud and was shot down by an arrow from Eleanor. A bursting light resulted from the explosion. While the holy master¡¯s spell caught Eleanor by surprise, it had not been one that she was incapable of stopping.


    Saleen had never seen holy masters sending alerts using divine arts. He and Lex worked seamlessly in the cloud and killed over 30 people continuously. The alert was sent while they were battling with several of them who were left, causing Saleen to feel rather exasperated.


    His initial n was to take out everyone within the mountains, theny traps there in order to lure their enemies to attack. After all, if they were to simply rush at the main camp, they would have been surrounded by many powerful warriors.


    The alert that appeared within the mountains could have brought powerful ones from the main camp outside Daliang City, which was about a hundred miles away from where they were, within an hour. That would have been far less time than what was needed toy any traps properly. Furthermore, there were three points in the mountains where enemies needed to be taken out.


    Saleen frowned as he dispersed his cloud, sending his ancient figures charging. Saleen paid no heed to the remaining sorcerers wanting to surrender, instead letting his ancient figures kill off the three sorcerers and a holy master.


    The figures¡¯ halberds were all broken, so Saleen gave them recements. The battles at the outskirts were still intense, yet only the figures were pursuing the enemy troops. While the figures had lowerbat capacities than the ancient warriors, they were able to move on their own without Saleen¡¯s orders, which was what Saleen liked most about them.


    At the moment, Saleen and Lex were both unscathed, even after taking out 38 of their enemies, three of whom were level nine powerful ones. Such a result meant that both of theirbat capacities were leagues above those of their enemies of the same level.


    As the beast in the air descended slowly, Saleen found out that the power that the huge beast controlled was something that was very unfamiliar to him. The huge beast¡¯s wings were simply there for maneuvering and speed control, not the key factor for allowing it to stay in midair.


    In fact, it seemed as if it was the power of the earth itself that was holding the huge beast up and enabling it to stay in the air. Things created by nature priests were indeed peculiar, as they had nothing to do with magic or divine arts!


    However, Saleen did not put much thought into it at the moment. Instead, he turned and said to Sika and Eleanor, ¡°The Winged Skull and J are in the outskirts of the city, preventing enemy reinforcements froming for now. Nichs has no way of stopping the level nine powerful ones from flying over either. So, we have, at most, one hour toy our traps.¡±


    ¡°Understood. I¡¯ll go clean up outside,¡± Sika said as she tapped on the beast beneath her. The huge beast immediately took to the air with Sika and Eleanor in pursuit of enemy troops.


    Saleen chose a piece of nd near a cliff and pointed at it as he said to Lex, ¡°Lay one of your illusion magic arrays here.¡±


    Lex acknowledged him with a nod and began to clear the ground,ying the magic array. Saleen then put away his elemental creatures, instructing the figures to hide within the nearby cliffs.


    The weapons of the figures were still not powerful enough, so they kept breaking after being used repeatedly against the sorcerers. However, there were simply too many figures at the moment, so Saleen was incapable of crafting enough equipment to arm all of them for the time being.


    After all, the alchemy factories were meant for mass producing regr weapons. These were simply not sufficient for his current needs, as they were low-grade and not capable of killing sorcerers.


    Lex drew her magic array quickly. Saleen then took out his Magical Element Tower and put in on top of the magic array before unleashing all of his elemental creatures and sending them all inside the tower. He then entered the tower shortly thereafter.


    Meanwhile, Lex continued toy her illusion magic array. The illusion magic array was capable of doing much more, but Lex simply had it twist the perception of the entire cliff for the time being.


    As the cliff was moved forward in the illusion, the battlefield from before was concealed. It remained to be seen if the divine spell alert was clearly seen over a hundred miles away, but the way that the trap had beenid was meant solely to conceal the Magical Element Tower.


    Once Lex activated her magic array, the entire tower disappeared, taking Lex¡¯s form in huge proportions. This illusion was capable of attacking as well, but still probably only had less than one-tenth of Lex¡¯s total power.


    Lex sat inside the tower and meditated. The fireball that killed the two sorcerers of the same level had exhausted over half of her mental powers and magic chords.


    Sika and Eleanor returned about half an hourter. Upon their arrival, Saleen hesitated for a bit before sending both Sika and Eleanor inside the tower. If there were someone of level tening from the Holy See¡¯s reinforcements, Saleen would not have been able to rest easy.


    Sika looked at the mountain path that was faraway together with Saleen as they stood on the 17th floor after entering the tower. At that moment, a beam of white divine spell light shot up in Daliang City¡¯s direction.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was incapable of discerning theplex meanings of the light, but it was known that magic alerts were capable of rying quite a lot of content. Thus, he figured that the divine spell alert was most probably working in simr ways.


    The army surrounding Daliang City was simply too huge. The Holy See gobbled up thends within Kroraina that belonged to the Principality of Bitterwater. This was something that had been thought up a long time ago, making them immune to Lex¡¯s metal flyers.


    Due to the massive increase in the Holy See¡¯s powers after the oracles had descended, which enabled the holy masters to advance at frightening speeds, the personnel problem had been resolved. As such, the Holy See saw no reason to hold back any longer.


    Daliang City had been an eyesore to them and had gotten in the way of them getting into Kroraina through the Separation Sea. Moreover, the Holy See intended to take the entire maind, including Daliang City, which was a key point in invading Cloudflow.


    ck Dungeon Ind was still anxious about creating warships, but when thetest ships were sessfully crafted, the Separation Sea would be bagged by the Holy Sea. They would then be able to attack Cloudflow from three directions: at sea, through the Separation Sea, and via the Red River¡¯s line of defense.


    The Holy See still needed to cooperate with Cloudflow for quite a while, but there was no harm in making preparations early. Their n was to first take Daliang City and make it a territory of the Holy See, which then make it easy for them to attack Cloudflowter.


    At the moment, Stephanie was not the one in the worst mood within Daliang City, as that title belonged to Jalin. This was because Lex had held her back in Royal Harbor for two months, then dispatched her to Daliang City right away.


    She had painstakingly carved her way out through the enemies, only to find that there was not a single magic tower reserved for her within the city! She would have tolerated staying at Saleen¡¯s side, as that was a mission that was give to her by her teacher, but this was different.


    She was frustrated as she wondered... What¡¯s the point of staying in Daliang City? I¡¯m told to help fight, yet I¡¯m not even given a tower!


    This was not the only thing that irked Jalin. She had beente, so all of the sorcerers from the Grukos had already taken all of the towers, which did not matter all that much. What she was really angry about was that she was not even allowed to stay inside Lex¡¯s pce!


    She grumbled about this to herself in her head... She¡¯s Lex... So what? She may be a member of the royal family, but I¡¯m the first student of Arb!


    Jalin was so angered by all of this that she did not even bother to help fight at the walls, but simply stayed in the house that she was assigned to in order to train. Hence, Eleanor did not guess wrongly, as Jalin was indeed angry because Lex did not seem to value her.


    Jalin was a proud person, who had been the pride of Golden ins since she was young. As such, she had never been able to stomach Lex¡¯s prestige. If she had been the viscount instead, she deemed that she would have been to be able to do a better job than Lex!


    At first, she had felt bad for Lex¡¯s, as Saleen had actually married two women. But after she saw Lex and spent two months around her, she sensed that Lex and Saleen were hiding something from her.


    Gradually, Jalin came to resent and hate Lex. As for Saleen, she found him to be increasingly amusing instead, and she couldn¡¯t help but wonder...


    How was that man ever capable of attracting Lex? That Sika also doesn¡¯t seem to be that impressive. A Caucasian... Even a Caucasian King... Isn¡¯t that big of a deal. That race¡¯s days are numbered, after all!

 Chapter 1063: Eerie Divine Spell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1063: Eerie Divine Spell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Outside the mountains, the winged skeleton, J, and Nichs led the spirits to search for enemies. The terrain wasplex, but spirits searched for humans by sensing their presence. Thousands of spirits weaved between the rocks in the dark. Red soul mes lit up, shining light on thend nearby.


    At times, there were Tanggsians discovered. They soon had tens of spirits gang up on them. Regardless of if the Tanggsians resisted or surrendered, the spirits killed anyone they were able to find per the Soldier¡¯s orders.


    The army that Saleen attacked was only a quarter of that was deployed into the mountains. The army was near Daliang City and had professionals to back them. The other three divisions only had about 20 thousand each, and there were hardly any level-9 professionals to lead them.


    After taking that particr army out, he waited for Tanggsian reinforcements to show.


    The moon hung high in the sky and the air was cold. Screams were heard from the mountain every now and then. The shrieks and prayers for mercy were abruptly cut off, signaling the loss of a life.


    Saleen realized that he must seem like the devil from their scriptures to those who were in the Holy See.


    They were however, not wrong to think so. Even if the Holy See had no intentions of invading Qin, the army of Metatrin would invade the Tanggsi Empire sooner orter. There was no right or wrong in it. No one cared what conventional troops thought about things in turbulent times.


    The moon in the sky shone with blinding light, as if a red sun was hanging in the sky instead. Hundreds of shapes flew from Daliang City. They were all wrapped in that ball of light as they headed for Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen¡¯s pupils dted. ¡°Someone is capable of taking hundreds with them in flight?¡± To do such a thing one would have to have a very powerful godly item or be of grade-10.


    Regardless of which it was, Saleen knew that the uing battle was one where he needed help from equipment.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was masked by Lex¡¯s illusion. Lex had created arge-scale illusion of a specter of her. There was also an ¡®enemy¡¯ before her in the illusion. Both sides fought a fierce battle in the illusion. Divine and magic spells flew about all over the ce. The huge specter of Lex seemed to be on the losing side, as the illusion magic cast became increasingly weak.


    Saleen looked at that ball of light and saw a middle-aged holy master in it, taking 240 ck-robed holy masters with them. Saleen had never seen anything like that.


    There were thousands of mages in the Kingdom of Metatrin, but only a few dozens were deployed that time. Their battles were mostly fought using warriors. The number of holy masters was somewhat higher than mages, but high-level holy masters were definitely fewer than high level mages.


    All of those 240 ck-robed holy masters had to be over grade-4 four and below grade-8. The middle-aged holy master who took the lead shone with light so bright that it was rather painful for the Elemental Eye to look at.


    Saleen was able to tell clearly that the 240 holy masters were channeling powers to the one who took the lead, as if the middle-aged holy master was a god of some kind, taking in the power of faith from their adherents.


    ¡°Eleanor, can you lock on to that fellow?¡± Saleen shared his senses with Eleanor. His mental powers were beyond level-10, yet he dared not stay in contact with Eleanor like that. He had to because the holy master was ten miles away and Eleanor was unable to see so far herself.


    Eleanor sensed the enemy¡¯s presence in an instant and said to Saleen, ¡°I can¡¯t do it. That fellow is armed with some very powerful equipment. I need to advance to the next level before I can even try.¡±


    Saleen hesitated as he opened the window of the Magical Element Tower and raised his left hand. Star charts spun slowly on the Starline Bangle, summoning the Thunder Dragon ster. Four dragon ws wrapped around Saleen¡¯s hand and the mouth of the thunder dragon opened, ready to fire icicles wrapped in lightning rules.


    Saleen equipped his Starline Mask. The holy light swirling about the holy master¡¯s body waspletely bypassed, turning it into energy flow under the observation of his left eye.


    The holy master rose sharply and increased their speed, shaking away the targeting of the Thunder Dragon ster in an instant.


    Saleen had no choice but to put his equipment away. The holy master was not exceptionally powerful; it was their equipment that was notable. The distance between them was too far. Even if Saleen was able to lock on to the holy master in an instant again, the holy master would simply shake the attack off again when the icicle flew close.


    Having gathered powers from more than 200 subordinates, Saleen had no certainty of being able to end them with one shot, regardless of how powerful his equipment was. Saleen had done a thorough analysis, determining that the holy master was simply using their subordinates as scapegoats. If his attack was unable to lock onto them alone, even if the shot was a hit, the subordinates would take the brunt.


    While the Thunder Dragon ster was powerful, there was no telling how many attacks it would take to kill. Even if there were just 30 of them, six consecutive attacks would have been less than enough to kill all of them.


    Saleen had never expected to face such a problem. He came to understand why Nichs had turned his back on the Holy See in such a clear-cut manner. When Nichs was of a high-level, so he definitely had seen some inner workings. The internal ssifications of the Holy See were far more brutal than that of nobles.


    ¡°Bing, back off. Do not tangle with those people.¡± Saleen contacted the winged skeleton in a hurry. Regardless of how powerful the winged skeleton had gotten, he was still a spirit, and holy masters¡¯ spells worked against spirits.


    The winged skeleton circled around smaller mountains with J and Nichs in tow, hiding somewhere among the mountains. When he heard Saleen¡¯s orders, he put away his Meteor Hammer and took out his Reaper Scythe instead. The winged skeleton had not intended to use the scythe in the first ce just to be safe, as the power of rules imbued within the scythe could deal fatal blows to other godly equipment. When the holy master who had been charging at Saleen¡¯s tower saw the Reaper Scythe, the huge ball of light turned the other way around, charging at the winged skeleton instead.


    J mumbled, ¡°Bones, you really know how to get us in trouble!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to be afraid of?¡± The winged skeleton said in a deadpan tone. The Reaper Scythe in his hand began to gradually lengthen, bing a weapon of about seven yards long. Magic patterns emerged from the ck de. Two eye-like magic arrays swirled on top of the scythe, devouring the power of all elements.


    Death magic, when mastered to such levels, allowed the user to begin controlling elements. That was the very reason the winged skeleton had absorbed the soul of a death wizard. The death wizard used to be a powerful elemental mage when they were alive.


    Saleen sighed in frustration,menting how he had to use the Thunder Dragon ster. The trio, with the winged skeleton taking the lead, was ill-suited to take on a holy master like that. Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spell might have been powerful, but there was no way he would be able to fight more than 200 holy masters at once, they were blessed by the gods after all.


    The winged skeleton was somewhere to Saleen¡¯s left, about two miles away. Saleen gave the order to prepare for the attack directly to the winged skeleton. He broke out the Thunder Dragon ster again and forced himself to lock onto the holy master¡¯s ball of light in an instant.


    A thin pale blue beam shot out of the mouth of the Thunder Dragon ster. The beam was actually an afterimage left in the wake of the huge icicle. The icicle was more than three yards long and covered with blue lightning; it rumbled as it flew.


    The ability of the ster to break energy shields was actually just one of its attributes. The truly terrifying part about the weapon was the speed of its shot projectiles. The icicle shot from the ster unleashed all of its stocked energy, whichbined six attacks in one shot.


    Its speed was six times what it usually was, and it would have been enough regardless of how short the time used for targeting was. An icicle¡¯s normal speed surpassed that of high-level magic. It was increased by six times, so the holy master did not have enough time to use their equipment to shake off the targeting. The three yard long icicle rammed into the ball of light.


    Blood sprayed from within the ball of light.


    The middle-aged holy master was crestfallen. ¡°What kind of energy is that!? It punched right through my Simted Territory!¡± The holy master¡¯s subordinates fell into chaos over the sudden casualties caused by one single attack. They were not even able to tell how many of their subordinates actually died. They were only able to tell that they lost more than half of their subordinates, and not even their souls were left intact!


    If they had been the one to take the attack...


    They had obviously been thinking too much. Two silhouettes were seen flying at their direction through the crevices between two low rocks at the peak before them. One of those silhouettes had huge bone wings at their back and held a seven yard scythe. The other one was d in golden sword aura with blue shes from top to bottom. Blue shes were seen within the golden sword aura.


    The holy master took out a scroll. They unfolded it within one hand and pointed at their iing enemy with the other, shouting, ¡°Imprison!¡±


    The winged skeleton swung the Reaper Scythe, tearing a huge gash in the air. The gash grew in size quickly and the divine spell that the middle-aged holy master had cast was torn apart by the weapon. J held Tears in his hand and in the next moment, stabbed it into the abdomen of the holy master. The speed at which it was pulled was frightening. As he was done stabbing the holy master, he went to attack the remaining subordinate holy masters. There were two dozen or so, and they didn¡¯t even manage to pull weapons out.


    The de pierced right through that holy master¡¯s abdomen, yet it did not end up killing them. The holy master pulled the de out and then and stabbed at the winged skeleton.


    ¡°Truth! Restore!¡± Nichs called from the ground trying to protect hisrades. He knew all too well how frightening high-level holy masters could be. Holy masters who were experienced veterans familiar with battle were capable of casting skills no one else was able toprehend.


    There was a soreck of variety in his fallen divine arts as hecked support from adherents. The new Scepter of the Fallen granted him immunity to the recoil of some of the more powerful divine spells though. Nichs had only begun to diversify his tactics.


    The sword had only gone half way through the holy master. Golden aura burst from the wound, blowing them in two halves. The holy master was somehow still alive.


    The winged skeleton brought the scythe into the opened scroll. ck aura and holy light burst at the same time, creating arge two-toned hole. The hole went on to devour everything around it in frenzy, including the bodies of dead holy masters that had yet to hit the ground.


    The winged skeleton picked up Tears and stabbed the holy master in the head with his scythe.


    J took out a dagger, which he filled with golden sword aura. He threw the de at full force, hitting the heart of that holy master. The giant whirlpool did nothing to them.


    The scroll, held by the holy master who had their heart pierced, fell to the ground and blew up yet again, bringing forth even brighter holy light. The ground shook with it.


    ¡°That b**tard is still alive!¡± Saleen said to Lex. Lex smirked. The holy master was simply transferring their soul from one subordinate to another, which made them frighteningly powerful. The rule with such powerful enemies was that they had to be killed as soon as possible, or one would have a hard time sleeping afterwards.

 Chapter 1064: Eerie Divine Spell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1064: Eerie Divine Spell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The 300-meter illusion seemed to look tangible all of a sudden, bursting out from the vicinity of the magic tower and leaping a mile away. The scene was frightening to behold. It was after all, a 300 meter giant covering more than a mile with just one leap.


    Saleen even felt his mind wavering for a brief moment, recalling the days when there were actual giants to help ancient humans conquer other nes. How tall were those giants? It was said that giants about a mile tall actually existed, and one of the oldest in existence was actually capable of taking up the space of one entire ne.


    The illusory giant was one skill in Lex¡¯s arsenal of rare skills. With the enemy only about two miles away, the illusory giant got within range of the dozen of remaining living holy masters with just another step.


    J felt frustrated. While he had been able to pinpoint the holy master¡¯s whereabouts, the holy master would have switched to another body whenever he killed one of them. The ck and white hole still devoured power in a frenzy and J had to resist it while attacking, resulting in him being able to use less than 10% of his true power. If it was not for the fact that the enemy was still a low enough level for him to handle, he would have turned tail and run.


    The illusory giant came and pped its hands. J dived in a hurry.


    J was a golden grand swordmaster. The speed at which he dived exceeded even that of mages. The dozen remaining holy masters still maintained the power-absorbing hole, yet they were quickly reduced to mush at the hands of the illusory giant.


    The illusory giant squeezed with its hand and the bunch of flesh and blood blew up right there and then. Nichs took to the air in tion, absorbing slivers of something from that bunch of messy flesh and blood into his Scepter of the Fallen.


    Nichs¡¯ action had been risky. The Winged Skull cursed under their breath. I¡¯ve never seen that old fart so happy before, and was he trying to get me killed? The Winged Skull drew a line the air slowly with the Reaper Scythe, separating Nichs from the power-absorbing bicolored hole, before yanking Nichs by his beard and dragging him down to the ground.


    Nichs yelled in pain but the Winged Skull paid him no heed. They resisted the hole simply to buy J time to kill the rest of the holy masters, yet the old fart showed up and had the Winged Skull spend at least half of their power with theirst attack.


    If it had not been for Lex¡¯s giant, the Winged Skull had no idea how long they would havested.


    The huge hole was being attacked by the giant as well. Having pped all of the remaining living holy masters to death, the only powerful soul ended up being absorbed by Nichs.


    The giant was a skill casted by Lex, and the skill absorbed more than half of her powers, which made it odd among level nine spells. However, the power supply came mostly from the magic arrays she set. It was the dream of many mages to be able tobine spells and arrays to perform attacks.


    Lex retreated back into the magic tower cautiously, holding a magic nucleus to replenish her powers. While she might have killed a lot of enemies and lost only a few spirits on her side, Lex feared being ill-prepared against a level ten professional. Saleen¡¯s one attack depleted all of the Thunder Dragon ster¡¯s energy, rendering the weapon a dead weight for an hour.


    There would have still been enemies emerging, and quickly.


    Nichs and the others hurried back to the magic tower. The Winged Skull packed up the spirits and summoned them back to spirit space. All of spirits were painstakingly trained and theirbat capacity was leagues above those untrained ones.


    The Winged Skull had been fast enough in collecting the spirits, but another army showed up outside the mountain. The army consisted of Blood Knights and wardens, and they charged their way in. The army of about 10,000 quickly reduced the spirits the Winged Skull had not been able to collect to pulp.


    Saleen thought for a bit and had the Winged Skull fly back to the magic tower. He then activated the magic power furnace and headed for Daliang City, leaving more than 600 spirits behind.


    The mighty ones looked on with gaping mouths as their enemy ran and ditched the spirits. They were unable to do anything about it.


    They had no idea that the Magical Element Tower was incapable of attacking while in flight. The imposing 24-floored tower had the holy masters looking totally dazed.


    The reason that Saleen ran was because Lex had not gotten enough rest, and he did not want to field Sika yet. It was top priority head to Daliang City and crush their enemies there using the War Drum of Fear. Luring enemies in the mountains was not the right way to fight a war.


    Saleen found the Holy See¡¯s weakness after shing with them several times, and that was their mighty ones might have appeared in droves, but they were not as powerful as mages in battle. As for the ones from Cloudflow, they were still mages and they hated more than anything to be bossed around by holy masters. As such, they were reluctant to fight with all their might.


    The holy masters were only powerful in terms of their level, as they have advanced so quickly that they did not have enough time to master the tactics to fight high level professionals. One notable example was the troublesome holy masters back there. While they might have brought more than 200 others and that made them very hard to kill, they were unable to do much when they were faced with someone like Saleen, who packed powerful gear. One shot practically decimated the entire group.


    If those 200 had not been tied to a single being, Saleen would have been able to kill one with each shot, regardless of how powerful his Thunder Dragon ster was.


    Professionals who had their powers forcefully upgraded were inferior to those who built their powers over time through experience. Saleen suddenly developed a new insight regarding the army surrounding Daliang City. The enemy was trying to shorten the time taking Daliang City through sheer numbers.


    Holy masters were now plentiful among the ranks of the Holy See, and they were no longer in a pinch like when attacking Metatrin City. Even Nichs would have been able tomand an expeditionary force of 100,000.


    The Holy See now had no qualms over using newly advanced high level holy masters as cannon fodder, which meant that they had developed ways of creating holy masters in droves. What Saleen felt more distressing was what actually happened within the walls of Holy City.


    Theisio had advanced to level ten recently, so recent that he hadn¡¯t heard of it.


    If Theisio had been a level ten professional for a considerable time, he would have been able to rearrange and unify the Holy See¡¯s powers with the God Grace Staff and Bramble Crown. Saleen felt that Theisio, when armed with two godly items, would have had powersparable to Fycro, regardless that he had only advanced to such heights recently.


    Saleen headed for Daliang City. Whenever the Magical Element Tower came across enemy camps along the way, it stopped for a bit and dumped all failed scrolls down on the enemy.


    Daliang City had received news of Saleening. The Magical Element Towernded within Lex¡¯s pce. However, he did not put the tower away; he simply let it stood to serve as Lex¡¯s residence.


    The total amount of military units within Daliang City had reached more than 600 thousand, and that was without taking consideration of more than 200 thousand auxiliary troops present.


    The officers and ministers close to Lex came to pay their visits. Only Gusion, leader of the Dragon-ughtering Mercenary Group, came to see Saleen with his men.


    Saleen saw Gusion to be how he had always been. The only notable difference being Gusion¡¯s level had advanced considerably. His armor and weapons were still the ones that Saleen gifted him. That Dragon ughtering War g hone with golden sword aura.


    ¡°Gusion, tell me about how Daliang City was doing.¡± With Lex being absent all this while, Saleen wanted to know something deeper from the mercenary veteran. The thoughts of the mercenaries were different from the nobles. Saleen needed different perspectives on things in order to figure out how to deal with the Holy City army at their gates.


    He could have, of course, simply charged outside and ughtered everyone using the War Drum of Fear. That method would draw out the mighty ones in the enemy ranks. However, it was a very dangerous move to pull. Having seen what Theisio had been capable of, Saleen deemed it unwise to pull such risky maneuvers. The mighty ones in the Tribunal hardly ever made themselves known. For instance, Van Gogh. Saleen had never heard of him before, yet he was powerful enough to almost kill Saleen.


    ¡°My liege, you¡¯re here!¡± Gusion said with a frustrated tone.


    ¡°Yeah? Gusion, are the people not treating you right?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, my liege. Sul said he wanted to focus on training all of the sudden and cooped himself up underground, never seen again for half a year. I¡¯m the only one who followed you, and they gave me the worst of everything,¡± Gusion said in a very irked tone.


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you in charge of defending the pce?¡± Saleen frowned. Gusion is one of my people, how is possible for the people of Daliang to treat him like that? Furthermore, the mercenaries still consisted of 10,000 elites. Didn¡¯t Daliang City need such force with them?


    ¡°It¡¯s happened recently, my liege. The mages from the Grukos took over allmand in Daliang City, which included the right to distribute provisions. There is no one left in the pce in charge of anything. Even Master Stephanie refused toe out of the magic tower.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s frown became even more apparent. Arb made it very clear that she had made them his, which meant that they needed to at least listen to Lex¡¯s orders. But from how the sorcerers behaved, it seemed that there was a change with things.


    Jalin!


    Saleen recalled all of a sudden. Jalin never showed up ever after he came to Daliang City.


    It had to be Jalin. It was thanks to her that the sorcerers from Golden ins changed their attitude. However, Saleen needed men to serve him and he was unable to do anything untoward to them.


    Seeing Saleen in deep thought, Gusion added in panic, ¡°my liege, forget I said anything. I¡¯m not the only one in trouble. There has been a change inmanding personnel in many battalions.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what? We are not organizing things that way!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Master Jalin¡¯s orders. The military organization was changed shortly after she came, and it was done very quickly.¡±


    ¡°Master Jalin! Heh...¡± Saleen snorted. He turned around and asked Sika, ¡°how are the temple guards organized now?¡±


    ¡°Ten, mostly demons,¡± Sika answered inly.


    ¡°Expand it to 12, and give Gusion a ce. The two teams don¡¯t need to have demons as the main force.¡±


    Sika shrugged. She was just a regent and from Saleen¡¯s tone, he seemed to have forgotten that he was the king of Metatrin.


    ¡°Gusion, let me look at the provisions that Lex assigned for youter. Your mercenaries are not among the temple guards. Yours will be the eleventh. From here on out, you report to no one, and only I and Lex will get tomand your armies. Ignore the sorcerers.¡±


    Saleen panted for a bit after he finished. Things could easily get messy with all the help involved. It was a pity that his men were too scattered at the moment. Nailisi was still holding the line back in Ceylon City. There was no one he was able to mobilize from Lonestar City, and it was the same with Royal Harbor.


    The only ce he could have mobilized people from was Metatrin City. The problem, however, was that Grand Duke Iron Blood had taken Lianyun City, which was not that far away from Metatrin City. A distance at sea of about five to six thousand miles could easily be covered by the grand duke¡¯s forces within two days.


    Heh, like I care. I¡¯ll just let Jalin suffer then. Since there is no way I can simply fall out with Jalin, I¡¯ll just take things slow with her. It was natural instinct that made Saleen try to kill Jalin thest time. This time, he intended to draw things out.

 Chapter 1065: Fate Heist (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1065: Fate Heist (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen made up his mind. Since the matter with Daliang City required Lex to be around to handle it, Saleen would have plenty of time to deal with Jalin in the future.


    Arb definitely did not ask Jalin to do what she had done, as it did not match the principles of the contract. But, then again, there was also no way that Arb would not have known about Jalin¡¯s personality and tendencies toward such action. The Lord Chief especially would have known that Jalin would cause him trouble.


    From that point forth, Saleen grew to resent Arb immensely. At the moment, Saleen thought... She wants to back Lex, yet she wants to take charge of everything too! Yeah right! Does she think that entire world belongs to Golden ins?


    But, he knew that he was unable to take Lex¡¯s ce. It was Daliang City, after all.


    For the moment, Saleen put his resentment aside. He then asked Gusion, ¡°Now... About Sul... Does he have contact with the outside world?¡±


    ¡°He asks for food once every week,¡± Gusion said.


    ¡°Nevermind then. Leave him be,¡± Saleen replied.


    Sul was attempting to break into level ten, but doing so as a grand swordmaster was even more difficult than as a mage. After all, a grand swordmaster¡¯s development of understanding of the soul was far less efficient than that of a mage.


    ¡°Gusion, let¡¯s talk about what happened outside the city. Did you guys organize an assault there?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°We did, and the n continued even after Master Jalin returned. Our attacks had no fixed patterns, so the enemy was unable to get ahold of us,¡± Gusion gave Saleen the details on how both sides fought.


    Saleen listened to every detail meticulously. What he specifically wanted Gusion to borate on were those low level fights that had taken ce.


    Mercenaries had a habit of recording logs. The Dragon-ughtering Mercenaries were allowed to fight outside, but not the army that was under Gusion¡¯s charge.


    Everyone was required to take turns to do missions, and it was incredibly dangerous to venture outside the city for battles. Every mercenary was supposed to record his own experiences with the battles, which would then bepiled into the collective recorded log of the Dragon ughtering Mercenary Group.


    These were the habits of mercenaries. A true mercenary organization was required to experience battles firsthand on the battlefield and be repeatedly tempered.


    The army that ventured outside the city was usually the size of one or two regiments, without the use of auxiliary troops. As the enemy was setting up camp just about ten miles away, they dared not get too close.


    Organization sizes that consisted of one or two thousand men were too small when the entire war was taken into consideration, but they were still unable to sneak right under the enemy¡¯s noses. As such, these attacks were required to be scattered, and there were mages to help out with things every time.


    Teams consisting of 1,000 men were usually divided into smaller teams of five, which split up to attack enemy camps or lookouts. The Tanggsians would have also sent scouts, which consisted of Blood Knights most of the time. Thus, cleaning up the Blood Knights became the main objective of those venturing outside the city.


    As Saleen listened to the details about the brutal battle that took ce outside, he calcted some things quickly in his mind. He found the ratios of the enemy troops and the Blood Knights to be rather peculiar.


    The number of Blood Knights never seemed to diminish, yet the casualties among the enemy troops were unusually high. The Tanggsians were able to ept defeat, but when fighting broke out, they would alwayse out to take back the dead bodies of their own men. In this case, the Qin warriors did not even have time to take the heads of their enemies, as every encounter took ce very quickly.


    The density of Blood Knights outside the city remained unchanged, and the assaulting armies from the city suffered few casualties. However, it was difficult to get near the enemy camp. Furthermore, the enemy mages almost never acted, while the Cloudflow armies stayed in the south.


    ¡°Any news from Bone Castle?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Destroyed. The Cloudflow ba*tards were building a dock!¡± Gusion answered. This was something that she had heard from Jalin.


    Saleen smirked. Cloudflow was indeed at odds with the Holy See, despite their being allies. However, what they did matched the known temperaments of the Cloudflow people, all of whom were tantly scheming, calctive, and small-minded.


    Saleen thought... Building a dock? Are they trying to just bring their ships here and force the Holy See to acknowledge Cloudflow¡¯s interests?


    Saleen found that he had no need to be here. If he had known all that had taken ce, he would have simply had Daliang City close its doors, then have sent some demons over as reinforcements.


    That would have been adequate to keep the city defended. Then, a sh between Cloudflow and the Holy See would have broken out as soon as the dock was finished.


    It seemed that he had gotten the first step right, and now, the most important thing was simply to clean up the enemies in the mountains, preventing the Holy See from quickly opening a path leading to the Principality of Bitterwater. Daliang City was important because it was a strategic spot that would have affected many important ces. But, to Saleen, the Principality of Bitterwater was more important.


    As long as the principality was safe, Lex¡¯s true estate would also be safe. This was a sealed estate that belonged to one of Qin¡¯s most important areas.


    The battles at the north might have been intense, but there had yet to be anyone capable of breaking into territories that were controlled by the Principality of Bitterwater. This was because there was only one way north from the Principality of Bitterwater, and the same went for the east as well.


    There was a secret passage that led toward Daliang City in the west, while the south was filled with only mountains, making it impossible for the army to pass through. Hence, if one intended to attack then Principality of Bitterwater from the east, one would have to first take out Holy Rock City.


    The Holy See army might have been ferocious, but even they did not dare enter within a thousand miles of Holy Rock City. The Holy See thought that it would be necessary to take all of thends in the north, even taking out Phoenix, before they would be confident enough to attack Holy Rock City, which would have most likely been theirst battle.


    Gusion left the ce after being consoled by Saleen. He now knew that there were only a few ces in the maind that were still safe, Metatrin being among them. Since the families of his brothers-in-arms were all there and were being well taken care of, there was no other way to go about things but to give his all to his lord as payment.


    ¡°My liege, you do not seem to be worried about Jalin...¡± Eleanor refrained from addressing Saleen by name when Sika was around.


    She had said such a thing because she felt that something peculiar was afoot. After all, Saleen was usually very unwilling to end up at the short end of the stick when details like these were concerned.


    Moreover, Jalin¡¯s ways of going about things were absurd. So, if Saleen did not intend to retaliate directly, he would have thought of other ways to take Jalin out.


    However, what Saleen meant to do at the moment was to simply withdraw thest forces that he had within Daliang City, thus letting the mages from Golden ins take care of everything. It just seemed strange to Eleanor.


    ¡°If worsees to worst, we¡¯ll just leave and let the city get attacked. But, Arb promised that she would help me defend Daliang City. After all, it was lost at the hands of her men, so it shall be her men to take it back!¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°But my liege, that...¡± Eleanor began to sau say something, but was cut of by Saleen, who said, ¡°The temple! The temple is the key! Sika, do you remember the time when we entered the first temple?¡±


    ¡°I do... What about it?¡± Sika replied.


    ¡°Back then, I shouldn¡¯t have actually been able to enter. It was all because of that ring. I think the rings have been passed around for quite some time in the maind, and there have been as many as 24 of them! When the pink ones came back then...¡± Saleen took a look at Eleanor as he spoke, and a tinge of sadness was seen on her face. But, there was no overwhelming sorrow in her expression.


    ¡°The pink thieves were probably able to take control of the temple because they had a Ring of Gifts with them. Everyone who entered the temple acquired different powers or wealth. The fate of everyone went along the routes that the Goddess of Myers hadid. Some veered off course and their lucks took turns for the worse, causing them to eventually lose everything, while I continue to go forward,¡± Saleen said.


    Sika felt that this all sounded rather eerie as Saleen was speaking of it. The Ring of Gifts was incapable of choosing its user, but the one who chose the ring was given powers by the goddess, and in turn, that person was required to work for the goddess.


    If Saleen had not ventured into the core temple, his fate probably would have taken a turn for the worse. However, ever since he ventured into the core temple in the Purgatory Desert and signed the contract, everything he had, including wealth, personal powers, or the power of his country, had all skyrocketed. If Saleen had not been training in astrology , thus making him very sensitive to fate, he would not have even thought of such possibilities.


    In the past, Eleanor¡¯s man, the noble, sounded like someone incredible, and his power had probably originated from the temple as well. And... In the end, he had been struck by lightning.


    Lex¡¯s fate did not look good as well, at least until she ventured into the central temple and signed the contract with Saleen. There was a famous saying among astrologers, ¡°Fate can bring you power, but it can also get you shackled.¡±


    Hence, if one was to help resurrect the goddess, the goddess would give that person power. Otherwise, the person was doomed to be ill-fated.


    As Saleen recalled the 24 magic array diagrams that he had acquired, which they had never actually put any importance into, he thought... Isn¡¯t that the true wealth I¡¯ve been given?


    ¡°Saleen, what do you n to do?¡± Sika was initially fond of the Goddess of Myers, but fear welled up inside her heart after hearing what Saleen had said.


    She then thought... So, the Caucasians only began to decline as a race after the goddess appeared, right? Many Caucasian priests started to have faith in the goddess, after all.


    But, then again, such rumors had only been going around in the vige. They were never heard elsewhere.


    ¡°What do I n to do, huh?¡± Saleen hesitated for bit, while thinking about collecting all of the wealth there was to be collected within the temples.


    He knew from the ghosts at the Cemetery of Heroes that Myers had once been a mage. What was left in the temple had nothing to do with divine arts.


    Myers had apparently predicted the demise of the nature faith. As such, her resurrection required help from the mages.


    Myers had left 24 Rings of Gifts behind, which enabled people to enter the temples and gain power, thus helping her to resurrect. Those who refused to help would have fallen upon hard times, as that was a level 18 divine spell that was irresistible.


    However, the option of picking all of the temples clean remained open, as that would prevent any others from getting anything, as well as prevent the the luck that was left by the goddess from being shared. Saleen came to understand that if the task that the goddess had left behind was aplished by someone else, it would have meant that he had failed to fulfil the contract.


    Then, when the goddess was resurrected, his souls would be a possession of the goddess, shackled for eternity. This sounded rather crazy, so Saleen did not voice this to Sika, as he wanted prevent her from getting tangled up in all that mess.


    Saleen had entered three temples: the one in the swamps, the one northwest of the Northern Sea, and the one where the pink thieves were. Lex knew of another one, which meant that Saleen had four temples within his grasp. If the remaining 20 were all excavated, no one else would be able to receive the task from the goddess.


    Without anyone else taking up the task, he would be the one to take all of the luck that the Goddess of Myers left behind. As for the goddess¡¯ resurrection, that depended on whether the grandmaster and those with him were able to break free from the Cemetery of Heroes.


    Saleen had lost all respect for the gods after getting to know Gaine, even in terms of their powers. As such, there was simply no stopping his seemingly crazy thoughts from being executed.


    But, then again, Saleen still hoped for the Goddess of Myers to be resurrected sooner thanter, as the sooner her resurrection urred, the weaker she would be. The upper limit of powers across the maind was still at level 12 at the moment. If their ne was to advance further, Myers would be a level 15 god right away.


    ¡°Saleen, what are you talking about?¡± Lex returned all of a sudden, appearing at the 17th floor of the tower.


    ¡°I was talking about fate,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Fate, huh?¡± Lex sighed, then said, ¡°I had intended to take care of things here and leave as soon as the crisis was handled. But, I received intel that the Tribunal had deployed three head inquisitors, who wereing to Daliang City.¡±

 Chapter 1066: Fate Heist (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1066: Fate Heist (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The first thought that went through Saleen¡¯s mind when he heard the news was to get his teacher there. After all, this was not something that Saleen was capable of resolving on his own.


    Having three head inquisitors from the Tribunal deployed was equal to having three popes showing up at their doorstep. Saleen had no idea what it was about Daliang City that would have attracted the three head inquisitors¡¯ attention other than its strategic location.


    ¡°Lex, something is not right.¡± After Saleen calmed down, his mind was quickly put to work.


    Lex thought that things were peculiar as well. Head inquisitors were people on par with the pope in terms of status, and they were all equipped with the most powerful equipment that the Tribunal had at its disposal.


    When the Holy See was first established, ces that the six head inquisitors treaded were rendered as wastnds and littered with bodies. Since their reputations were built upon actual powers, the establishment of the entire Tanggsi Empire and the rise of the Holy See would definitely not have been made possible by the pope¡¯s making speeches alone.


    The head inquisitors only seemed to fade out of existence when the four major empires signed their treaties, thus staying out of any territorial conflicts. After that, the powerful mages in Qin no longer roamed the borders to destroy enemy fortresses.


    The resulting peace had been kept for over 1,000 years. The mobilization of the head inquisitors to Daliang City signified the end of an era. The significance of this mobilization was entirely different from that of the pope¡¯s.


    The pope had at least been going out in secret, bringing no armies with him. The three head inquisitors, however, brought their forces, intending to destroy a city, just like when the Holy See was first established.


    Lex knew that it was only a matter of time before the treaties between the empires would be renderedpletely ineffective. However, she did not anticipate that it would begin with her Daliang City.


    She wondered... Can the city hold the line? Of course not. The head inquisitors have mobilized, which means that the Tribunal is no longer just an organization that assists the pope. They have now be a force of their own, and they will bring all that they have as they descend upon us.


    The main powers of the Pivotal Council came from the Tanggsi Empire, while the forces of the Tribunal werepletely gathered and nurtured on their own. The Blood Knights were but experiments conducted by the Tribunal.


    ¡°Lex, let¡¯s just give up Daliang City.¡± Saleen spoke his mind without waiting for Lex to reply. To both him and Lex, the temple was the true key to everything.


    ¡°Saleen, what happens to the near-million poption if we give up the city? Are we giving up on them, too?¡± Lex asked with a worried tone.


    It had been her idea to destroy Ironwall City, which meant that Lex was not soft. However, the matter at hand was different from how things were with Ironwall City. The city consisted of all of her elite forces, after all, and if she gave up on a 600,000-strong elite force, she would be giving up half of the power of the Principality of Bitterwater.


    ¡°Lex, I see that the armies outside are about to finish carving their ways to the passage that leads to the Principality of Bitterwater. We¡¯ll just retreat along the passage then,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Saleen, we have 900,000 people here. How many can the mountain roads hold at one time? Will the enemy simply let us pass through?¡± Lex was getting frustrated.


    Her concern was legitimate, as the passage in the mountains was over 500 miles long. While Qin armies were capable of marching very quickly on nds, they were hardly capable of going 10 miles per hour if they took the passage in the mountains.


    Even if the elites were capable of riding warhorses that were adept at running in mountainous regions, the path was intact. Also, even though were capable of moving at a speed of 20 miles per hour, the narrow path meant that not many of them would be able to make through it at any one time.


    ¡°Lex, I know you¡¯re reluctant to give up Daliang City. I also know you¡¯ve built a lot here, and it wasn¡¯t easy for you to carve your way out here. But, things are different now. If we can destroy Ironwall City, our enemies could destroy Daliang City just as easily. How many mages do we have in Daliang City? Fewer than a thousand, right? We have 17 level nine mages, including us. So, just look at the Holy See and tell me... How many level nine ones have they got in the ranks just to dig a way out in the mountains?¡± Saleen asked.


    Lex was speechless. She knew Saleen¡¯s take on the matter was was right.


    She was reluctant to give up Daliang City, as it was the ce where her wedding with Saleen had taken ce. Thus, giving the city up felt like she was giving up her heart.


    Daliang City was ill-suited for defense, as it was surrounded by nds. If the terrain around the city had been like that of Lonestar City¡¯s, she would have had confidence to hold out.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already made preparations to retreat through the mountains. I¡¯ll mobilize the Dragon ughtering mercenaries first thing in the morning tomorrow in order to make way for the rest of us. Lex, we can still retake Daliang City if we give it up now. If it ends up being destroyed like Ironwall City... Let¡¯s just say that not everything can be rebuilt.¡± Saleen was pouring his heart out in earnest with his words, but then he quickly switched topics.


    He asked, ¡°It would be just my armies retreating in name only. Have you regainedmand of the city?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Jalin¡¯s tricks were child¡¯s y. With the news of the head inquisitorsing for us, those from Golden ins had no choice but to let me take charge. Otherwise, they would have to make theirst stand here, fighting down to thest man,¡± Lex said.


    ¡°Well, we¡¯ll just have to let them cover our escape then,¡± Saleen smiled and said.


    It was incredibly dangerous to cover a retreat. Moreover, Saleen was not fond of those sorcerers, and it was entirely unexpected that they were capable of takingmand off of those who were previously in charge.


    If Lex had not shown up, Saleen would have had no way to deal with them. Saleen had only realized at that point that the mages from the Golden ins were not simply mages.


    They had definitely undergone military training. In fact, those people were probably nurtured as a force for the Golden ins to utilize in taking the world right from the start!


    ¡°Yeah, but since we¡¯re leaving, you should go and take a look at Sul. He¡¯s getting restless,¡± Lex reminded Saleen. After all, Sul had been in training mode for a year.


    ¡°I know. I¡¯ll get to it right away. Oh, Eleanor, you¡¯reing with me. Sika, get the Winged Skull to set things up in the magic tower. We¡¯re getting ready to leave,¡± Saleen said as he brought Eleanor outside the Magical Element Tower.


    Sul¡¯s training ground was actually below the tower in which Eleanor was staying. The underground facilities were still intact, despite the pce being destroyed. The tower had been an astrology tower in the past, which had six floors below ground, all of which were only discoveredter.


    Ever since Sul had made it down here, he had no contact with the outside world other than getting food. Saleen took Eleanor underground to the first floor.


    The mercenaries who were in charge of guarding the ce were tasked with providing all of the food, materials, and equipment that Sul required. He had been breaking about 1,000 swords per day at this point.


    Eleanor spoke loudly, while facing the tightly shut door, ¡°Sul, our lord is here!¡±


    The door opened with a creak about half a minuteter, and Sul walked out. He looked very clean, and there was hardly any exhaustion showing on his face.


    After Sul saw Saleen, he said, ¡°My liege, I¡¯m afraid I¡¯ve disappointed you.¡±


    ¡°You look okay. I expected you to look rather off when I first saw you. So, how are things? When do you think you¡¯ll be able to advance further?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Not for the time being, but...¡± Sul shed a beaming smile at him, then said, ¡°My liege, my currentbat capacity has definitely surpassed J¡¯s. How about that?¡±


    Saleen could not help but take a jab at him after seeing how pompous he had gotten. He asked, ¡°What about beingpared to Sika, then?¡±


    Sul was stunned for a moment. Even though Sika had not been making much progress for quite some time, he still felt that Sika was way above him.


    Even if he was armed with powerful equipment, it still wouldn¡¯t have changed anything. Sika¡¯s power was hardly something that was measurable by human standards.


    Saleen felt at ease after seeing that Sul¡¯s temperament had not taken a turn for the worse. It was very dangerous to learn the way of the sword, and there were cases of people going crazy with such training.


    In fact, Sul had been locking himself underground, not even bothering to set anymps up as he was training his art of the sword. He had done this for over a year inplete darkness.


    As Saleen thought of this, he eximed in his head... This guy really knows how to torture himself!


    ¡°Sul, let me see how much you¡¯ve improved,¡± Saleen said as he unleashed nine ancient figures.


    Sul¡¯s eyes sparkled as soon as he saw the nine figures, and he eximed, ¡°Wow! That¡¯s some good stuff that you have there, my liege!¡±


    ¡°Cut the chatter! What kind of weapon do you want?¡± Saleen chastised him, then asked him about weaponry with a smile.


    ¡°A sword,¡± Sul replied.


    Saleen took a sword out from his Devil Ring. It was not every day that he crafted equipment for warriors. With therge alchemy factories in ce, Saleen¡¯s Water me Alchemy had been used exclusively for crafting mage¡¯s equipment.


    Still, Saleen did have a small number of pieces of warrior equipment with him. Sika¡¯s weapons were indestructible, but J¡¯s Tears was not.


    Even though it was strong, it was nheless a piece of equipment that was between levels nine and ten. The sword that Saleen held was a product that he had been testing continuously, which he had been researching for the sake of J and Sul.


    Sul took the sword in his hand and infused it with his sword aura, which felt unusually smooth, just like how it felt when one was able to breathe easily. The veterans then looked at the surrounding figures excitedly, feeling both shocked and at ease.


    Saleen was their highest leader, and the figures that had been unleashed by him were all bearing the auras of powerful beings. Sul, however, wore a in smile instead as he took a step back and let the figurese at him.


    The nine figures all held halberds, and four of them attacked while the other five were on the defensive. Huge des swung about in all directions, making the mercenaries feel uneasy, as if they were the ones being surrounded. The four halberds them were working together in a formation, without using any fancy tricks.


    Sul turned his body about and slithered through the four halberds¡¯ trajectories beforeshing out with a thrust at the head of a defending figure. At that moment, Saleen felt a pinch.


    It would have been better if Sul had gone for the heart. With the head torn, it would have cost him quite a lot of constetion power just for repairs, even if the soul of the figure was unharmed.


    The figure that was attacked by Sul¡¯s thrust immediately dropped to the ground. It was clearly under Saleen¡¯s control.


    Sul had not brought his sword aura to bear. Otherwise, the figure would have been destroyed right then and there.


    The other four halberds cut Sul¡¯s way offpletely, and regardless of how mobile Sul had be, there was simply no way that he would have been able to sneak through the lockdown that was brought about by the eight halberds.


    The remaining eight figures reorganized themselves and went to lock Sul out of their range of attack again, while one of their own was also being attacked. There were no longer any openings to exploit.


    Sul frowned upon seeing that thebat capacities of the figures were far more powerful than the puppets¡¯, as they were able to synchronize their actions with each other in such intricate ways.


    He finally shot out the sword aura that he held within the sword in his hand. However, his sword aura was pure white instead of golden.


    At that moment, the eight halberds broke at the same time. The arms of the figures were torn where Sul¡¯s sword aura had passed. The eight figures then switched to using their limbs and knocked on Sul¡¯s sword nonstop.


    It all happened so quickly that Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye struggled to keep up. He saw Sul materialize one sword into eight, and every single de was attacking a different enemy.


    The sword then broke, causing Sul¡¯s expression to be rather gloomy. Even if it had simply been some high level magic equipment, he would have fared better than that.


    But, as such, his level nine sword aura had failed to keep the sword in one piece, which spoke volumes of the very experiencedbat techniques that the figures possessed. Judging from Sul¡¯s impressive prowess, his main weakness was clearly his weapon.

 Chapter 1067: Tragedy and Fear (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1067: Tragedy and Fear (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sul kicked with his legs, one after the other, sending all eight figures flying. He remained undeterred. If he was not concerned about breaking the figurespletely, he would not have held back at the very end despite having his weapon broken.


    Laughter was heard from outside the door. It was J hearing the Saleen wanted toe see Sul, so he followed silently.


    Sul did not think much about it. Even J would have found it difficult to quickly win withoutpletely breaking the figures. Saleen waved, sending the shards of the longsword on the floor to his hand.


    The longsword was a magic weapon, made of refined steel added with gori metal and some wind bronze. The edge was treated with crystallization, the sharpness and resilience of which made the weapon a powerful auxiliary item for a level nine golden grand swordmaster.


    It was especially so when one looked into the energy passages in the body of the de. It was created from Saleen¡¯s research in the flow of sword aura. When a grand swordmaster unleashed their sword aura, the weapon would enable them to bring out the greatest power at the lowest energy cost.


    ¡°Sul, looks like you need a good weapon,¡± J said with lethargic face, tapping at Tears hanging around his hip. When the weapon was recovered by the Winged Skull, there was hardly a scratch on it. Despite the fairymon material of quality not too high used to make the weapon, the de was infused with power of rules nheless.


    ¡°He will get one,¡± Saleen red at J, before returning to observe the shards of the sword in his hand.


    There was already a problem with the tip before the longsword broke down. Crystallized metals were products formed when said metals reached their maximum hardness. The crystallization at the tip was done sparingly, thinner than hair for quite a bit. It was done in a way that was incoherent, arranged in a serrated manner on the edge instead.


    It ensured the crystallized metal of the longsword would be capable of staying intact when bent, instead of breaking due to being brittle.


    The thinner-than-hair metal part had been severely corroded by the constetion power. The corrosion was so thorough that the sharpness of the longsword was no different from amon weapon.


    Saleen experimented on how hard crystallized metals could be. A piece of crystallized metal of such grade was ced inside an acidic solvent used by alchemists, and it took a month of being submerged before any signs of corrosion showed. In usual cases, solvents were usually used for etching magic arrays. Acidic solvents were used when materials even fire magic proved difficult to process were involved. But even such materials would have had a hard time dealing with crystallized metals.


    There was little mages could do to re-craft a piece of metal like that.


    Saleen had finally understood how potent the corrosive powers of constetion powers were, and he developed some conclusions about thebat capacity of astrologers. True astrology figures were more powerful than grand swordmasters. When fighting with mages, both sides relied heavily on luck.


    Constetion power could easily be used to corrode equipment below level nine. Such crystallized metals needed to be of qualityparable to that of the core of Sky City to be immune to such corrosion.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, Sul. We¡¯ll give up Daliang City, and you guys will return to your own teams. You will be the first to leave,¡± Saleen ordered the Dragon-ughtering mercenaries. He then added, ¡°you will be guarding Ceylon City, my birth ce.¡±


    The mercenaries were immediately very excited. Their status in Daliang City had always been an ambiguous one. They were all veterans instead of runt recruits. They were true mercenary warriors. If it had not been for Saleen looking after their families, especially the children, they would have given up a long time ago being cooped up in one such ce.


    True mercenaries were meant for the battlefield, after all.


    Denizens of Daliang City began preparing to retreat. With the passages in the mountains destroyed, they needed to find other ways of escape if they wanted toe out in one piece. It was fortunate that Saleen always had a way out. His Magical Element Tower was equipped with six magic cannons on every floor.


    The huge cannons possessed offensive capacitiesparable to level nine spells and sported a range of ten miles. It was the most powerful arsenal in Saleen¡¯s hands, so much so that the ancient figures were inferior inparison. However, deploying magic cannons at such numbers came with astronomical magic nucleus cost. If Saleen¡¯s fleet had not been venturing in and out of the Oceanic Ice Block repeatedly and had astronomical stock to begin with, Saleen would not have thought of it.


    There were six windows on each of the 24 floors of the Magical Element Tower, and the total number ofrge scale magic cannons installed was 144.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was deployed as soon as the sky turned dark. There were 360 ancient figures on the ground, leading the 20,000 mercenaries charging out from the eastern gate.


    The magic tower slowly took to the air, hundreds of spirits positioned right behind the mercenaries to cover their escape, preventing them from being ambushed by holy masters. While holy masters had advantages against spirits, it was near impossible for them to conceal themselves from them.


    The tower needed to pass by arge military camp when flying in the mountains. The camp had a small fort built by Lex, initially meant for protecting the secret passages in the mountains.


    With the fort being taken over by enemy forces, Saleen had no intention of keeping it. He had the Magical Element Towernd right in the middle of the enemy camp.


    With powerful ones at his side, Saleen nned to be quick. If the three head inquisitors from the Tribunal showed up, he might have been able to escape unscathed, but the same could not have been said for the poption of Daliang City.


    The tower might have been huge, but it was unable to carry people at such numbers. It had even less space now that it was armed with so manyrge scale magic cannons.


    The cannons were originally meant to be installed in Ceylon City for defensive purposes. However, Ceylon City did not need that many cannons, and there was no way to install so many along the coast. While magic cannons were indeed powerful, there was little they could have done to powerful ones. Nailisi now relied on ancient warriors to protect the cannons. If too many of them were installed, they would have been caught in a ditch if the cannons were taken.


    Saleen took charge of things in the Magical Element Cannon when descending upon his enemies. The Tanggsians were in a panic. There had been rumors about the flying tower and it was said that when it appeared, there would be countless metal flyers zipping through the sky, raining magic fire shells and reducing everything to ash.


    Regardless of how his enemies reacted, Saleen was able to see everything sitting on the 17th floor. The windows of all 24 floors of the tower were open and the barrels of the cannons were seen. Saleen ordered the cannons to fire at the enemies surrounding the cannon.


    144 powerful beams of light sprayed from the tower. Saleen felt a high like no other. I should¡¯ve done this a long time ago. Why bother concealing my strength? The dogs of the Holy See will not stop howling until they are killed. The ones who reign supreme are the ones with the most power, and their god isn¡¯t going to change this way of life.


    Until the Lord of Glory was killed, his adherents would never died outpletely. So long as they kept preaching in Myers Maind, they would never forget their dream of making the entire maind a holy nation of the Lord of Glory.


    There was no escape and no room for negotiations. Such was the current situation with the mages on Myers Maind.


    However, Saleen seemed to have neglected a problem. While the cannons were indeed powerful, ancient humans never used them at such a scale. Humans back in those days possessed far greater resources than he did. He only went hunting at the Oceanic Ice Block, but the ancient humans were conquering nes.


    With bombardment carried out at such frequency, a hell was born within a 20 miles radius of the Magical Element Tower. Everything was turned to ash, and even the areas between the beams burned from high temperatures. Saleen had to close the windows of the magic tower, and even the mercenaries who hadn¡¯t made it to the camp stopped.


    In the eyes of the mercenaries, there was a huge ball¡ªno, a ring of light¡ªshooting to the heavens several miles away from the camp. The light was perhaps even visible from over a hundred miles away.


    Elemental storms whipped up, Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower at the center. What followed was something Saleen had never expected: elemental annihtion.


    Countless cracks of space formed outside the tower, spewing out all manners of unidentified powers. There were many types of powers outside of the six major elements unknown to man, which any life would find difficult to control.


    With more than 100 magic cannons shooting from the Magical Element Tower at the same time, the space around them were destabilized. Energies spewed from the huge cracks in spaces, destroying everything in their paths.


    There were many pockets left untouched between the beams from the tower, as the magic cannons fired in straight lines, and the resulting radius of the attack was several hundred square meters of scorching temperatures. What spewed from the space cracks around the tower, however, formedrge energy balls.


    The balls seemed to be quickly expanding, their diameters going from hundreds of meters to thousands.


    The ground shook and even the earth beneath the tower was not spared. Other than where the tower stood, the ground of the camp sank by more than a dozen meters.


    The sinking was lethal. Earth element shot out, killing all life in an instant.


    Crap!


    Saleen never thought that would happen. It was fortunate that he did not have the mercenaries move with the tower, or he would have killed his own army.


    Gusion was an experienced veteran and after advancing into the rank of golden grand swordmaster, he developed an acute sense of danger. He made a snap decision to have the army return to the city.


    All powerful ones from Daliang City caught sight of the light faraway with gaping jaws. What the hell is that? What kind of power can cause such an astonishing effect. The ground within a hundred miles radius shook, and continued shaking.


    Saleen was speechless. While he had predicted that an attack would cause devastating effects, he never thought the situation would be so insane. Two magic cannons fired in a row would cause elemental resonance. His 144 cannons were installed ording to orders of the six major elements. When fired at the same time, the resulting resonance reached a never-before-seen point.


    Even ancient humans would have refrained from doing so, as the resulting elemental resonance would have been so powerful than even elite troops and mages would have died.


    The energy of 144 magic cannons fired was definitely not something 144 level nine mages could have been able topare to. No level nine sorcerer would have been capable of casting attacks as ferocious as the beam of the magic cannon.


    Cracks appeared in the sinking ground, spreading out in all directions, devouring more lives.

 Chapter 1068: Tragedy and Fear (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1068: Tragedy and Fear (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen waspletely puzzled as to what was happening. The only thing he was sure of was that his Magical Element Tower was unable to take off and was sinking with the ground beneath it.


    The magic arrays in the Magical Element Tower were not high level ones to begin with, and they appeared especially cheap in the predicament Saleen caught himself in. The magic power furnaces in the tower were powered by low level magic nuclei. They would be rather powerful magic equipment under level nine, but the space-time continuum outside the tower was in chaos.


    The elemental storm was cut apart by all types of energy. The tower was unable to even draw any power from its surroundings.


    The ground outside the city sank right after the mercenaries retreated back into the city.


    If Saleen had been observing the terrain around those parts, he would not have done something so dangerous that day. The astrological knowledge he had learned, when used in conjunction with Figaro¡¯s form, would have enabled him to calcte the rough results of the actions.


    Daliang City was less than 100 square meters. The irregr city was built on very solid ground. Qin people had a habit of selecting safer areas to build cities, employing mages to figure out the specifics. As such, there would have never been an earthquake in Qin.


    Yet, at the edge of the city, horizontal cracks began appearing beneath the city walls.


    The cracks stuck close to the walls and did not cause any damage to the walls themselves. However, the cracks continued spreading and thend outside the city was only tens of meters wide. The cracks were spreading right outside the city.


    Despite the fact that the magic catastrophe that Saleen createdy at the edge of the mountains, its influence spread into the Tanggsian and Cloudflow garrisons.


    The mages at Daliang City had dread all written all over their faces. They felt the raging elements that could not be brought under control by magic chords anymore. If anyone were to attack Daliang City, they would end up needing to fight with their powers at their lowest points.


    The fear felt by the mages was shared by the holy masters right outside the city. The magic catastrophe that Saleen created disabled the holy masters within a hundred meter radius from being able to sense the blessings of their god, as well as prayers of believers on the ne.


    With the ground sinking and the space reduced to chaos, Daliang City became the only safe ce around. Body counts in the camps outside the city continued to climb.


    It was not that those inside Daliang City were not afraid. The soldiers found that the city they were in continued to climb slowly. It was an illusion, as the ground outside continued to sink.


    The Qin mages chose a very special ce to build the city. Like Metatrin City, it was built on very solid rock formations. The difference was that Metatrin CIty was built right on top of rocks, while Daliang City was built on a several-hundred-meters thickyer of dirt on the rocks.


    Lex was unable to stay airborne. She came to the city and looked at where Saleen was. The huge ball of light had extinguished. The night turned to its usual ck, with specks of fire in the sky.


    Lex was unable to do anything but watch the storm outside the city grow increasingly violent. If she had been able to fly, she would have rushed to Saleen¡¯s side and see what was happening for herself. However, flying outside the city would be an insanely risky move, as she would have to use her own magic chords, without being able to wield any of the elements in the air.


    No one inside the tower was able to say anything. They all looked at Saleen, who was dazed. Saleen had no idea what to do. The magic arrays on the surface of the tower were scrubbed clean. The tower had be little more than dead weight, unable to take flight. It would have been fortunate if that was only the problem, but it was not. The tower sank alongside the ground beneath it.


    A huge crevasse spread right at the tower, which toppled it and sent it downwards.


    The tower had a diameter of more than a dozen meters, yet the crevasse was big enough to drop the tower more than 30 meters, before getting stuck somewhereparatively narrow.


    Going outside of the tower would risk getting killed, but staying in the tower would probably mean getting sted byva.


    Theva within the crevasse gushed before Saleen was able to say anything about their current predicament, sting the tower. Human power was minisculepared to the force of nature they experienced. The Magical Element Tower, which was as heavy as a small mountain, was thrown high into the air,nding hard in theva.


    It was fortunate that elementite was not capable of being melted byva. There was not any change in the temperature within the tower.


    ¡°My liege, should we leave?¡± J asked Saleen.


    Sika felt relieved that both her children were nearby. She held one of them while Eleanor held the other. ¡°We¡¯re not going out. It¡¯s a chain reaction caused by magic and will eventually subside. The tower might be heavy, but it won¡¯t be submerged inva.¡±


    Saleen nodded. ¡°Indeed. We¡¯ll just wait it out. The is the safest ce there is. If we were to go out now, someone would get hurt.¡±


    ¡°My liege, I seem to...be near my breakthrough,¡± Nichs said the line out of nowhere.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Everyone turned their eyes at Nichs.


    Nichs shook his head. ¡°This is not an illusion. Under such circumstances, the Lord of Glory wouldn¡¯t even be able to sense my presence. While I¡¯m a fallen holy master, I¡¯m still under his influence. My liege, I need a separate room, so I can go clear myself of the brandings the Lord of Glory put on me.¡±


    ¡°And the thing with advancement?¡± Saleen understood what Nichs meant. If Nichs had used the time to clear himself of those brandings, he would have wasted the opportunity to advance.


    Nichs smiled gleefully. ¡°I¡¯ll settle with being able to feel that feeling nearing advancement. If I get another chance like this again, I¡¯d have 100 percent chance of seeding. But if I don¡¯t get the divine brandings offpletely, I¡¯ll have a hard time eating and sleeping.¡±


    Saleen was able to rte to Nichs¡¯ words, as he had a contract with the goddess himself, and that had always been a weight on his shoulders. It was a looming nightmare until the contract was fulfilled.


    Nichs¡¯ situation was worse than his, because as long as the brandings stayed, he would run the risk of being set up and assassinated if a clone of the Lord of Glory were to descend into this ne, even if Nichs have grown to be more powerful than the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°Go to the 18th floor then,¡± Saleen let Nichs leave, then gestured for J to tag along.


    Lava continued to ooze out of the crevasse. However, even without theva, there would not have been many survivors left within the allied forces¡¯ camp. Following the elemental storm and space cracks, all manners of eerie energies zipped about in the air. The surroundings outside Daliang City were literally hell.


    Daliang City was almost a hundred meters taller than the ground outside the city and it seemed to still be climbing. Many of the weaker buildings had toppled. It was fortunate that the ce was militarized, with arge portion of the buildings having mages involved in their designs. Or else, having the water reservoirs crumbling would have given Lex a massive headache.


    The space within her God¡¯s Ring was near infinite, but there was no way she could have carried so much water to supply her troops. Regardless of how long the catastrophe wouldst, there would be a day where the underground reservoirs ran dry. The city had be an ancient city, hanging high above.


    A huge chasm appeared within 240 meters of Daliang City. Only Daliang City remained standing tall, as there was not even a single piece ofnd around that remained intact.


    Theva that spewed from the cracks of the earth carried potent poisons. ck smoke rose and killed all the survivors outside.


    Everyone within the tower felt another violent tremor. The speed at which theva was spewing dwindled. It was only then that Saleen activated magic arrays within the tower to see what was happening outside.


    The Magical Element Tower was floating at an angle in theva, with the topmost floors sticking out. All floors below the 15th floor were submerged in the scorching hotva. The temperature of theva gradually cooled. When it finally solidified, the tower would bepletely stuck.


    However, Saleen was not worried. Elementite andva werepletely different levels. When theva cooled and contracted, Saleen would cast water magic, allowing the tower to wiggle free from the solidifying rock around it, which would allow him to store it using a dimension stone.


    What proved to be troublesome was the chaotic flow of energy and space cracks outside, which prevented them from going out.


    Saleen came to the topmost floor of the tower without saying anything. On the 24th floor, he was able to look at Daliang City through magic arrays. Using his Elemental Eye, Saleen was able to see that the part rising beneath the city appeared to be arge statue.


    Or rather, something shaped like a human¡¯s head, with only eyes sticking out. Furthermore, it was not one statue, but more than a dozen carvings of human heads.


    The heads had a diameter of more than a mile, which would make the height of the entire body more than eight miles.


    Giants! Those are carvings of giants under Daliang City!


    Saleen never thought that there would be an ancient ruins that he had mages looking for all over the ce right beneath the city. Furthermore, the size of the ruins exceeded anyone¡¯s imagination. The catastrophe he had created was simply a shpoint. There had always been unstable elements beneath the ground under Daliang City.


    There were about 18 statues sticking out. The 18 giants were probably surrounding y an ancient ruin. Saleen recalled the Imperial City of the Abyss. In ancient times, humans were capable of constructing buildings the size of mountains and were even capable of enlisting help from giants. What he saw right there could have hardly be a miracle.


    It was a pure ident that the 18 statues of giants ended up protecting Daliang City from the magic catastrophe.


    Qin mages had only been designing outline of the city ording to terrain and energy reactions from within the earth. It was by pure chance that they end building the city right on top of the ruins. The coincidence saved more than a million lives in Daliang City.


    However, the magic catastrophe that Saleen created ended up killing almost everyone in the allied forces between the Holy See and Cloudflow.


    Only powerful ones would have been able to escape when it happened, and there were a few who were unlucky enough to be met with space cracks while they were at it, and ended up being torn to shreds. However, there were still chances that professionals above level seven escaped the catastrophe.


    The dust only truly settled over half a dayter. Saleen found that the elements around the entire Daliang City were still very difficult to control. If he wanted to use magic, he needed to rely entirely on the power of his magic chords.


    Any surviving holy masters of the Holy See would find that as well. There were no signs of the presence of their god to be found even more than a hundred miles away from Daliang City.

 Chapter 1069: Saleen’s Control (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1069: Saleen¡¯s Control (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As J brought Nichs to the Magical Element Tower¡¯s 24th floor, Saleen was still feeling anxious. As Saleen took a look at everyone around him, including the Winged Skull, J, Sul, Eleanor, Nichs, Sika and his children, he regretted bringing his children out for adventures.


    But, at least the children had no idea of the danger that they were in. At that moment, both of them left Sika¡¯s and Eleanor¡¯s side and went to hide in a corner, while talking to each other in anguage that Saleen was unable toprehend.


    The children stopped bullying the divine beast after obtaining the figures, but the divine beast¡¯s neck still had a chain on it. However, it was left on the ground and no one bothered to mess with it.


    ¡°Alright, everyone, let¡¯s talk about how you¡¯re being affected by the environment we find ourselves in now...¡± Saleen inquired.


    He was still capable of using all manners of elemental magic, but this was limited to only the energies in his magic chords. The magic chords of level nine sorcerers were clean, and the energy that they contained was massive. But, the problem was that, without being able to use the elements in the surroundings, many skills became too difficult to use.


    The only few skills that were unaffected by this were the Eye of Lightning, Crystal Finger, the Thunder Dragon ster and his family badge. Of course, Saleen had the advantage of being equipped with elemental creatures, which he could release whenever things went south, thus providing him with elemental powers.


    The ancient figures were hardly affected either, but Saleen could tell that the endurance of the figures¡¯bat capacites had been reduced somewhat. The only one that had stayedpletely intact was the Figure of Fate that was hidden inside his body.


    At that moment, the Winged Skull said, ¡°Master, it is difficult for me to summon creatures from the spirit ne now. But, the spirit ne and my weapons remain unaffected.¡±


    ¡°Good! What about you, J?¡± Saleen asked.


    J held Tears in his hand and sensed it for a bit before saying, ¡°The rules are unaffected, but my rate of recovery has been cut in half.¡±


    ¡°Sul?¡± Saleen inquired.


    Sul snapped his fingers and said, ¡°My power is not affected, and neither is my rate of recovery. But, my defenses are somewhat weakened.¡±


    ¡°Nichs?¡± Saleen turned his eyes toward the old holy master, who had looked rather haggard when he hade here earlier.


    He had apparently expending quite arge amount of energy ridding himself of the mark that his previous god had left on him. As a result, even the Blood Soul Tower in his Scepter of the Fallen did not seem to be emanating much energy at present.


    ¡°My liege, the gods were unable to know what was happening here. Even if level nine holy masters were to appear before me right now and my power was less than one-tenth of what it used to be, I¡¯d still be able to take on ten of them at one time. The scepter still works, and the fallen divine arts remain unaffected,¡± Nichs replied.


    Saleen was pleased to hear that. After all, things would have taken a turn for the worse if mages were the only ones who were limited. Saleen thought... So, even if the Tribunal¡¯s head inquisitors were to show up, they would still be in an area where their god couldn¡¯t do anything to help them. Nice!


    Eleanor then said, ¡°Archery is also unaffected. As for magic, it is not greatly affected either. However, at the moment, I can only use simple spells that I¡¯m not all that familiar with. Both my power and rate of recovery remain unaffected as well.¡±


    Everyone then turned to look Sika, who was had two children with her. This made her an important person to take care of and protect. If she lost herbat capacity, none of them would be able to leave the tower and would be stuck there having to think of ways to get out of their predicament!


    Sika took out her weapon, which was a huge staff. She ced her ear on the staff and listened for a moment, then said, ¡°No effect. The beast soul in it feels at home. As for me, my strength remains.¡±


    Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief as they turned to look at Saleen.


    Saleen then said, ¡°There is no need to carve a way out of the mountains. Let¡¯s think of ways to protect Daliang City instead. There¡¯re still about a million people there, so we can¡¯t just give up on them.¡±


    Saleen was feeling a mix of worry and joy at the moment. The army outside Daliang City was decimated and had been reduced to less than one-tenth of what it had been, but everyone had seen the ruins appear.


    As he considered this, Saleen worried... I assume that the Holy See isn¡¯t just going to sit by and let the people of the city dig. After all, the holy masters and mages all had their powers reduced to their lowest points, but the power of the warriors was hardly affected!


    At that point, theva outside the tower had solidified. Saleen called for Eleanor and went to the lowest floor of the tower, while casting water magic to cool the solidifiedva as he went.


    Steam rose, and the gradually solidifyingva became solid rock. This also left quite a gap between the cooled rocks and the tower.


    Saleen then cast more mist to lower the surrounding temperature. Because of this, space cracks no longer appeared, and the entire the chasm became an environment that waspletely devoid of elements. Saleen did not want to waste his magic chords here.


    Saleen only left the tower after the surrounding temperature had been brought down exponentially. Since the tower was still incapable of flight at the moment, Saleen put it away in the dimension stone before storing it in his Starline Ring.


    Elemental creatures were also affected in this environment, which prompted Saleen to summon two dozens ancient figures to serve as guards as they headed for Daliang City. The charred ground was still steaming, and the temperature had almost reached a boiling point.


    So, Saleen had no choice but to summon a Blue Ice Maiden, then let the creature take the lead. Everywhere the Blue Ice Maiden tread, the temperatures dropped sharply. The rocks on the ground became solid, and they no longer felt like they were scorching to the touch.


    Still, none of them were able to rx. Everyone was thinking exactly what Saleen was thinking... Although the Holy See¡¯s holy masters were no longer effective, the mages in Daliang City would have lost theirbat capacities as well. This meant that both sides had to rely uponmon troops in order to fight one another.


    It was fortunate that Daliang City was elevated very high above the ground at the moment, at a height of about 500 meters. As such, manymon troops would think twice about scaling such a great height.


    The sentries at the walls had already found Saleen¡¯s party using alchemy binocrs when they were about two miles away. At that time, some of them made a dash to report this sighting to Lex.


    Although this was not great news and it vexed Lex, there was one thing that Lex was pleased about, which was the fact that they had metal flyers. Luckily, these metal flyers were still capable of flight.


    While their fuel cost was now twice what it had been, the metal flyers¡¯ performance had stayedpletely the same. It was difficult to fly around Daliang City by then, so the metal flyers were used as very powerful weapons instead. Even sorcerers would hesitate to take flight and attack them.


    Saleen walked very slowly, while observing his surroundings with his Elemental Eye. With Daliang City as the center, all of the elemental powers had been ced under the control of some rules that Saleen had noprehension of, as the level of the rules in action was even higher than the Divine Baby¡¯s.


    Everyone around Saleen began to study the environment as well, trying to think of ways to survive within the area. Their current surroundings were different from any other ce on Myers Maind.


    The power of warriors were hardly affected, but the power of all types of divine and magic spells had been brought to their lowest levels. To golden grand swordmasters, this situation proved advantageous.


    As Saleen thought to himself, he wondered if demons would have found such an environment pleasing. If it was indeed so, he would have simply let Nailisi set up shop here.


    The troops at the walls cheered as Saleen¡¯s party reached just below the city. These troops had been following Lex for a long period of time, so they were naturally just as happy as Lex to see Saleen returning alive.


    It was a given that Saleen could not simply climb a height of 500 meters with only a rope. So, he unleashed Tempest Dragonmights and sent everyone to the walls.


    The Tempest Dragonmights were wind elemental creatures, so flying up to a height of 500 meters was an easy feat for them. But, Saleen was perceptive enough to see that it was difficult for the Tempest Dragonmights to recover their spent elemental power in such an environment.


    He was frustrated as he thought of this... This ce is really worse than an anti-magic territory!


    Saleen headed straight for the pce after entering the city. There were many soldiers who had been stationed along the sides of the road as a gesture of wee. They were also doing this to see for themselves that His Highness Saleen had not perished, which put them at ease somewhat.


    Saleen took out the Magical Element Tower as soon as he was back in the pce, then said to Jalin, ¡°Bring the sorcerers inside.¡±


    Jalin pouted, but followed his orders nheless. She knew that she was unable to do anything to change things now, as in such an environment, sorcerers were far less valuable than warriors. Seeing how Saleen was capable of summoning elemental creatures and had ancient figures with him, Jalin knew that she could only submit for the time being.


    Once all of the sorcerers were there, after having them all take a seat, Saleen asked, ¡°Lex, do you know how long we have before the ones from the Tribunal reach Daliang City?¡±


    ¡°ording to my intel, we have two days at most,¡± Lex replied.


    ¡°Two days...¡± Saleen took a look at all of the sorcerers, some of whom looked rather dejected.


    They had been the most important beings in Daliang City, but at the moment, they were reduced to people who the city could easy do without. It was also worth noting that Saleen had two golden grand swordmasters by his side, who were almost the strongest beings within the tower at the moment.


    ¡°I assume that the Holy See¡¯s Blood Knights were unaffected by the environment we found ourselves in now, so we¡¯re not actually safe. As for the 500 meter height, it would be easy to ovee withrge scale puppets. Furthermore, we can¡¯t just let them stay below the city, as there are ancient ruins sitting right beneath the city,¡± Saleen exined briskly.


    Upon hearing him, the eyes of the sorcerers sparkled for a moment before dulling once more. Judging from the current level of powers of everyone present, Saleen was the most powerful person. Also, since he had ancient figures by his side, he was able to easily grab all of the loot down there.


    All of the sorcerers in the room were unable to beat the two golden grand swordmasters, even if they worked together. This was not helped by the fact that there were three level nine sorcerers at Saleen¡¯s side.


    ¡°I¡¯ll need a day¡¯s time to search the ruins. If you people want loot, then you must sign a contract with me,¡± Saleen said with a smile. He then thought... It¡¯s been quite a while since I have signed a contract with anyone. Man, this feels good!


    The 12 sorcerers immediately turned to look at Jalin. Despite her face being concealed by a paper mask, Saleen was able to tell from her rapid breathing that she was not in a good mood.


    In theory, all 12 of the sorcerers were people that Arb had sent to serve her. Her teacher would not have had anything to say, even if all of them had ended up dead. Furthermore, all Saleen asked was for them to sign a contract with him.


    However, if the contract was signed, Jalin would no longer be able to control those sorcerers, which meant that she would be on her own. So, basically, Jalin would be reduced to someone who had no influence upon Saleen either! While her teacher had only tasked her to keep an eye on Saleen, Jalin was simply too proud of a person to just sit around and watch!


    If Lex had not been around, she would have been able to settle everything with just a few words. But, she did not anticipate that Lex was more versed than she was in maniption techniques, which had enabled Lex to quickly regainmand of the city.


    ¡°It¡¯s totally fine if you¡¯re unwilling to sign. I won¡¯t need help from mages in the excavation work anyway.¡± Saleen went cold upon seeing her reluctance.


    If he had known that there were such huge ruins sitting right under Daliang City, he would have gone to Golden ins to ask for help. He would have even given up Ceylon City if it meant that he would be able to take everything right beneath the city for himself!


    But, then again, everything seemed to be ordained by fate. If he had run into those troubles, he would not have been able to engineer such a magical catastrophe or discover the ruins in the first ce!

 Chapter 1070: Saleen’s Control (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1070: Saleen¡¯s Control (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Despite having ventured twice into the Imperial City of the Abyss, Saleen was actually still quite young. But, not that he had his own kingdom, Saleen had a that showed his high status, and it could be seen upon looking at him that he was a man who was responsible of the fates of many.


    The sorcerers needed to consider Saleen¡¯s words seriously. Ever since Lex had arrived and quickly regainedmand, the sorcerers had quickly realized that the she was not some soft pushover.


    At the moment, Saleen hadid out the truth right before them. If they wanted to be part of the ruins¡¯ excavation, they would require Saleen¡¯s permission first.


    It seemed that even Lex¡¯s authority wouldn¡¯t have been of any use in this case, as Saleen clearly felt that the ruins belonged to him. After all, he was the one who had discovered them.


    In this case, there was simply no point for the sorcerers to try to take a stand against Saleen. The catastrophe that Saleen had engineered was too terrifying. While there had been no exact word on just how terrifying the casualties in the battlefield were, they could see from the images that had been sent by the flying puppets that there were no survivors within a 120-mile radius.


    The enemy did not even dare to venture inside the area, so none of their bodies were found. The ground had shaken and folded several times over, causing all of their side¡¯s dead bodies to be buried within the rocks and dirt.


    Saleen had created a catastrophe of such a fearsome magnitude, that all the might and confidence that the sorcerers had before was rendered utterly useless andpletely disappeared when they had to face him. Some of them were even reduced to states ofplete panic.


    Moreover, they were could not even participate in the excavation if they refused to sign a contract with Saleen. The signing of the contract was basically them saying that whatever happened from now on no longer had anything to do with Golden ins.


    ¡°I won¡¯t be signing any contracts today!¡± Jalin was the first to open her mouth to respond to Saleen, and she took a very hard stand in doing so.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need you to sign anything, Jalin. As you are a friend, you¡¯re wee to enter the ruins first, but then again, the ruins belong to the kingdom. So, unlike them, you won¡¯t get anything out of doing so,¡± Saleen said in a matter-of-fact manner.


    Jalin¡¯s face behind her mask was boiling with rage upon hearing his patronizing words, but she managed to hold her anger in nheless. She was still capable of fighting to a certain extent, as she was armed with many pieces of weaponry and equipment and still had some tricks up her sleeve.


    But, she was still nothingpared to Saleen, especially in her current state and location. After all, that ce was Saleen¡¯s and Lex¡¯s territory.


    Furthermore, she was content that Saleen was even going to allow her inside. No one knew what would happen after she gained entrance, after all, and she just might get something out of it in the end if she yed her cards right!


    Jalin had ventured inside several ruins with Arb, finding many materials and pieces of useful equipment in the most obscure ces. It was for this reason that Jalin felt confident in her chances at finding something. Besides, Jalin did not believe that Saleen would be able to keep his eye on everything to where she would be unable to grab anything at all!


    While Jalin and Saleen were conversing, the 12 sorcerers from Golden ins discussed the matter among themselves in quiet murmurs. However, Saleen was still able to hear them, despite the low volume of their voices.


    They were all talking about what they nned to do. Arb had made it very clear when she ordered them to protect Daliang City that they had no other tasks besides that and there was no need for them to return to Golden ins in the future.


    If it had not been for Jalin¡¯s insistence, they probably would never have even found themselves in such a predicament. Even though the sorcerers were very adept inmanding armies, they were unable to help, especially after seeing the rather messy state of affairs in the city¡¯s defensive systems.


    After discussing all of their options for a bit, they came to a unanimous decision. Since Saleen had no conflicts with Golden ins and there didn¡¯t seem to be any reason that he would have any in the future, and Arb was backing Lex, who was married to Saleen, it did not seem that signing the contracts could be seen as an act of treason. This was especially the case because Arb had never ordered for them to return to Great ins in the first ce anyway.


    So, the 12 level nine sorcerers signed contracts with Saleen, but did so in a rather reluctant manner after being troubled over the matter for quite some time. Saleen felt very pleased with himself.


    While those 12 were not his followers, they could still have been made pce sorcerers of the Kingdom of Metatrin nheless. So, now that he had taken care of these 12, their students and followers all worked for him as well now!


    It was no secret that Saleen did notck manpower in Metatrin City, but he sure didck manpower in Ceylon CIty. Hence, once the defense of Daliang City was finished beingid, Saleen knew that he would need to send those people to Ceylon to help Nailisi with the defenses there.


    As she watched the contracts being signed, Jalin started to feel that she had made a mistake, and she wondered... Why did I even bother to stand up to Saleen? After all, it¡¯s all turning out like this...


    She then shook her head and thought... D*mn it! If I can¡¯t stayposed, advancing to level ten will be nothing but a pipe dream!


    Regardless, Saleen had no need for her to sign any contracts. Instead, he had decided to allow her to enter the ruins as his friend. That decision had served to split her from the 12 sorcerers right away, robbing her of their¡¯ support and the safety in numbers position that she had held just moments before.


    If Saleen would have forced her to sign a contract, even one that forbade her to act on her own, that would have earned her the sympathies of those sorcerers. As such, things had gone exactly as Saleen had intended, isting her entirely with just a few of his tricks.


    That move that Saleen pulled was quite brilliant, as the oue would not have been much different, even if the sorcerers had refused to sign the contract. In that scenario, the sorcerers would have been barred from entering the ruins, but Jalin would still have been allowed inside.


    That would have then earned her the ire of those sorcerers, rendering her incapable of ever asking them for help or assistance in the future. At that moment, Jalin recalled her teacher¡¯s evaluation of Saleen.


    Her teacher had described him as being a genius in magic, who was fit to be an emperor. This was an incredibly ttering evaluation, as there were few sorcerers who were willing to be emperors, much less those who were capable of doing so. This was because the position of emperor would have taken too much of a sorcerer¡¯s energies, thus robbing them of their time that could otherwise be used to conduct magical research.


    Suddenly, Jalin finally understood what Saleen was doing. Saleen knew the rules of the world like the back of his hand, and he was prepared to change in ordance to the changing times, thus breaking these rules altogether. As she thought of this, she wondered... If Saleen can do this, who is to say that an emperor can¡¯t be a mage in the future?


    Her teacher had also said that Saleen had not truly reached his potential yet. Once that day came, Lex would instantly be a nobody.


    At that moment, Saleen didn¡¯t care about what Jalin thought about anything. Moreover, they had little time to spare, as the people from the Tribunal would be arriving at their door within two days.


    While it was impossible for them to enter Daliang City right away and do anything, there were nheless things that they could be doing now. For instance, they could start figuring out the water supply.


    Before, the water reserves within Daliang City wouldst the near-million poption for over two weeks. But, the city¡¯s water supplies had now beenpletely cut off. This meant that the city had no way of getting water from its underground sources anymore. And, since there were no rivers nearby, unless something changed, everyone would die of thirst in only half a month.


    ¡°Lex, take the Winged Skull, J, and 200 ancient figures to fetch water from the Separation Sea. Bring as much as you can. The Winged Skull willy a teleportation portal at the bottom of theke. If there¡¯s a need to do so, we¡¯ll just take drinking water from the Separation Sea right away. Hurry! You muste back within a day!¡± Saleen instructed Lex.


    ¡°What about you?¡± Lex asked.


    She had wanted to enter the underground ruins first, but she knew that she could not refuse Saleen¡¯s request. After all, the city was filled with her own army, and there was no way that they could rely on the mages in the city without water.


    The water that the mages created was different from normal water, and only their restorative water could be drunk like normal water without causing harm. While it was entirely possible to extract freshwater from the Separation Sea using portals, it was incredibly costly to do so.


    The diameter of the portal used and the volume of the item transported were all factored into said cost, which exined why it was so high. Water extracted in such a manner would have been extremely precious. Furthermore, there was no guarantee that doing so would have been safe, as the enemy could simply destroy the portal if they found it.


    There was a possibility of adding poison to the other end of the teleportation portal. As such, the portal could then only serve as a backup for emergencies.


    Regardless, Lex had to follow what Saleen said in order to save the lives of all of the people in the city. So, she left Daliang City.


    As she went, she had the God¡¯s Ring and was protected by the golden grand swordmaster, as well as 200 ancient figures. As such, the broken forces of the allied army were unable to pose any threat to her at all.


    There was no use for anyone else to go to the Separation Sea, as only Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring had the capacity of storing an entire world within it, and it just so happened that it was the exact that was required to carry enough water for a million people!


    ¡°Masters, there is something I need your help with,¡± Saleen said as he took out the map of Daliang City.


    He then pointed at a specific spot on the map and said, ¡°I want to install a certain number of magic cannons at the walls in order to defend against anyrge scale equipment being set up there. But, as you can see, if the cannons were to be fired all at once, the results would be very unpredictable. So, the cannons...¡±


    The sorcerers knew where he was going with the conversation, so they all nodded before he even finished his sentence. There was no need for Saleen to make himself any cleared, as everyone already knew what he meant.


    Doing something like what they were about to attempt required precise calctions, and in order to calcte how the cannons should be ced and the frequency they should be fired to avoid triggering Elemental Resonance, was no easy task.


    The power of the cannons would have been far less effective in such an environment,so near the walls, but since they were powered by magic nucleus, it meant that they would have been able to cause more damage than elemental mages alone.


    If Elemental Resonance were to happen once again, it would result in a catastrophe. Then, no one could guarantee that Daliang City would survive. Even if they were to survive such a catastrophe, no one knew if the giant statues below the city would rise yet again.


    At the thought of all of this, everyone began to wonder... If the city is raised to a height of several miles, then what would happen to the people in the city?


    ¡°Eleanor, Nichs, Sul, you take care of the children,¡± Saleen said to his three followers.


    Nichs and the other two said nothing, only nodded. Everyone wanted to enter the ruins, but they had only two days, which meant that they would not be able to find much within that short of a time period.


    As such, Saleen was simply going there to look around. As such, he could not have taken everyone with him, especially his children!


    ¡°Alright, Jalin. Take a six-hour break. When the masters are done with their calctions, we¡¯ll go take a look down there,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Where should I stay?¡± Jalin asked, returning to her original gentle tone.


    ¡°Stay here, if you¡¯re willing. Pick any of the 16 floors you wish. No one wille to bother you,¡± Saleen answered with a smile.


    The tower was something that even he was unable topletely control. As such, he knew that it was impossible for Jalin to be able to learn any of its secrets.


    ¡°Thank you, Saleen. I haven¡¯t had a nice ce to stay for quite some time. I¡¯ll go and rest now,¡± Jalin said before she left the 24th floor.


    She then walked down along the stairs, while regaining herposure. As she walked, she thought... Saleen can¡¯t offend the teacher, after all. And... There will be plenty of opportunities to have him submit to me, as long as I remain by his side.


    Seeing how Jalin walked down the stairs, twisting about, Sika pouted and said, ¡°Her figure looks like that of a log.¡±


    Sika was strong and had a loud voice, so she would have been able to speak loud enough for Jalin to hear her, even if Jalin was outside the city. Jalin had a nice body and looked nothing like a log, but when she waspared to the likes of Sika, even Lex¡¯s figure appeared to be somewhatcking.


    As Jalin walked, she looked umonly displeased. She was simply showing the truest reaction of a woman. She was angry at Sika, but she held it in and kept walking, quickly disappearing from everyone¡¯s sight.


    At the moment, the sorcerers felt rather awkward and were unable to do anything but lower their heads and study the data on the schematics. Saleen greeted everyone and pulled Sika away, then gestured for Eleanor and the others to leave as well.


    The children were still sleeping when they returned to the 17th floor. That was the core of the entire tower, and no one was allowed to enter it without Saleen¡¯s permission. For this reason, Jalin had to take the spiral staircases outside, instead of going through certain parts of the tower using magic arrays.

 Chapter 1071: Imperial Curse (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1071: Imperial Curse (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was no way Saleen could rest for six hours. There was a ruins right beneath Daliang City, and there was no way he could just give it up. He would sooner destroy the ce than let it fall into the hands of the Holy See. Other than the dangerous magic cannon, Saleen still needed to set up other defenses.


    The best way to do so in the long run was to set up a magic around Daliang City. It would enable mages and enchanters to receive magic powers within Daliang City areas without weakening.


    The problem however, was that it would take a very long time to set up the. Furthermore, even if the was set up, there would not be that many enchanters emerging for a while. Demons could serve as substitutes, but there was no guarantee that it wouldst.


    There would not be any problem with the children, as Nichs, Eleanor, and Sul were tasked to protect them. Thebat capacity of the three hardly suffered any weakening from the drastic change of their current environment. Especially Eleanor, as level eight elvish royalty, the power of her bow was hardly any different from magic spells. If she did not suffer any weakening, Eleanor¡¯s currentbat capacity would exceed a level nine sorcerer.


    It was a given in Nichs¡¯ case, as he did not require blessings from gods. Or rather, what he feared most was gods looking for trouble with him. A ce where gods werepletely out of reach was probably the best ce a fallen holy master could find themselves in. He had collected quite a number of souls in his Scepter of the Fallen, after all.


    A golden grand swordmaster like Sul hardly suffered any weaknesses other than reliance on a good weapon. The young man had a heart of steel, more so than even Saleen.


    Saleen contacted Nailisi. The teleportation portal in Ceylon City hardly allowed anything to be delivered other than letters. Saleen asked her to build a magic array capable of transporting people as soon as possible, as well as deliver 30,000 demons to him herself.


    There was one very apparent strength with the Magical Element Tower: Coordinate Lockon.


    In most cases, building teleportation portals was messy. Building them in any part of Myers Maind would require the selected ce to have a very stable coordinate in order to prevent any idents. The location of the Magical Element Tower would always be a suitable ce for teleportation.


    The teleportation portal in Ceylon City would suffer a breakdown after being used several times, but the one in the Magical Element Tower had a durabilityparable to level 18 elementite, which even the gods found difficult to destroy.


    Six hours quickly passed. Saleen contacted Gusion and had him bring about two dozens of mercenaries. Every single one of them were to change into temple guard gear. 12 sorcerers were called, along with Sika and Jalin, to prepare to enter the ruins.


    The ruins were right beneath Daliang City, in-between the statues of giants.


    The sorcerers were concerned that Saleen was bringing too few troops with him, and had no choice but to bring troops from Golden ins along. Venturing into the ruins was definitely dangerous. Saleen had no intention of losing his men, and the sorcerers were forced to bring something to the table to get something from the ruins in return.


    Jalin was irked seeing Sika tagging along. If Sika had talked about something else, she might not have taken it to heart, but Sika was dissing her figure, and Jalin¡¯s figure was indeed inferior to Sika¡¯s, so Jalin held grudges against Sika.


    Sika, however, seemed to havepletely forgotten about it, jumping down from the city with glee.


    Even the elite troops needed to use ropes to descend to the ground. 500 meters was not a height anyone could have jumped. Jalin held a paper umbre. She opened it and jumped alongside Saleen from the walls. The material of the umbre was the same as her mask: incredibly sturdy. There were magic nuclei set in the umbre, which when opened, allowed Jalin to easily float as she dropped.


    She had been using it since she was at level six. It enabled grand mages to fly like sorcerers.


    The point where Saleennded was calcted. Hended on the nose of one of the statues. He looked around and found the dirt between the statues to be solid, which served as the base of Daliang City. The near hundred-meter thick earth right above served as an extension to those statues, making them incredibly sturdy.


    The ground beneath them felt soft, which apparently was the result of therge scale earthquake. The sorcerers gathered around Saleen, acknowledging him silently as the leader of the force. Saleen pointed at the nose of one of the statues. ¡°I heard that these ancient statues were built ording to the ratio of the human body down to thest detail. We will be able to enter through the nose.


    The sorcerers from Golden ins looked at each other, puzzled. Saleen smiled and added, ¡°We don¡¯t have much time. It¡¯s better for us to take the shortest route. ording to the books, I fear that the wind magic attacks are not something any one of us are able to deal with. We¡¯ll dig below from there, unearthing the ear of the statues, then we can enter from there.


    The sorcerers sighed in relief. It seemed like Saleen did know what he is doing.


    Saleen did not unleash any of the figures, as they were used only forbat. The sorcerers had no choice but to break out their puppets, digging under Saleen¡¯s instructions. The mages from Golden ins were a force to be reckoned with. Even Alchemy City was unable to produce their kind of puppets. None of the mages showed any concern at putting their puppets to do hardbor. It seemed like they had ways to make sturdy ones.


    Four puppets were put under each of the 12 level nine sorcerers to do the digging. Although they were incapable of using any of the elements in their surroundings, their mental powers worked just fine.


    If Saleen was able to get the magic set up, they would be able to function at the full capacity expected of level nine sorcerers, and perhaps perform even better than that. Magics worked like magic chords and were powered by magic power furnace after all, so as along as their mental powers proved strong enough, the would allow them to continuously cast spells.


    As for the ruins of the giants, the sorcerers had never dug anything like it. But they had studied quite a bit of the records concerning giants. They did not encounter any trouble when the puppets dug their way down. All potential trouble was triggered by the catastrophe. The magic catastrophe had ended.


    The giant¡¯s ear was soon unearthed. Saleen did not have the puppets continue digging; he cast his own water currents to clear the dirt out instead.


    Saleen was finally able to see how big the hole of the ear was. After clearing out the ear using a six meter long water current, he found that the hole was tens of meters tall.


    Saleen then summoned Rossen, the Water Puppet. With Rossen in the front and Gusion at the rear, the soldiers walked into the ear of the giant with magicmps.


    Rossen was very calm and there were hardly any emotional fluctuations. He had reached level nine with practice. He spent most of his days in the Shenhe meditating and figuring out problems. When Saleen summoned him, he opened the mental link between him and Saleen.Read the next chapter on our vipnovel


    Saleen sensed whatever Rossen was able to see. The Water Puppet took the lead while the sorcerers followed Saleen into the ear under the protection of their followers.


    Jalin put away her umbre and followed Saleen and Sika in. She knew that there was no way she could have wandered about the ruins herself. They were unable to control the elements around them even after entering the giant¡¯s ear. Thebat capacities of the sorcerers were still in all time low inside.


    The 12 sorcerers stuck increasingly close to Saleen without realizing it. Everyone knew Saleen hadmand of elemental creatures and ancient figures. They instructed the followers and puppets to follow the Water Puppet, being on guard to deal with any dangerous situations.


    There were none to be found. The twisty roads within the ear led them forward. Other than being uncannily dark, there were no magic patterns to be found anywhere.


    However, Saleen was very confident. He knew the ruinsy very deep beneath their feet. They had no choice but to enter through the statues as he had no time to have them dig deep into the ground. The correct way to do it was to have them keep digging downwards. There would definitely be a way to enter between the 24 statues.


    While the ce looked like a ruins of the giants, it was situated in the middle of Myers Maind. As such, the ruins definitely had something to do with humans.


    There were many bloodlines of giants and they were more than a hundred times moreplex than that of humans. However, it was known that pure-bred giants were all capable of growing to 1000 meters or more. That statue¡¯s head was already about 1000 meters. When calcted ording to body ratio, the body would reach between seven and eight miles in height.


    The Water Puppet walked before everyone else and it took less than 20 minutes for them to make it pass the twisty roads, reaching a wide cave. Saleen deduced the ce to be giant¡¯s mouth. There was another hole in the ground that seemed immeasurably deep at one end of the cave, which would have probably been the throat of the giant.


    The Water Puppet stepped back and Saleen gestured for the other puppets toe up front.


    One of the puppets under the sorcerers¡¯ control came to the hole on the ground. Magicmps were only capable of shining about a hundred meters in the mouth, and the puppet was sent to the edge of the hole to test things out. A huge w suddenly emerged from the hole and took hold of its head, dragging it deep down.


    Saleen heard the sound of the puppet¡¯s steel head being crushed. The sorcerers were frightened. How could there be any living being in the ruins? ording to history, Daliang City had been around for most of recorded history, which meant the ruins had to be many thousands of years old. That amount of time would have definitely starved any living thing.


    Saleen was the only one who was able to see the w clearly. He stopped and gestured everyone to stop testing.


    ¡°Jalin, how much do you know about giants?¡±


    ¡°Everything I know was from the books,¡± Jalin paused, and continued after not hearing Saleen say anything in response. ¡°It was said that there were lots of parasitic life forms inside a giant¡¯s stomach. When the giants fight, they would spew them out. The parasites were helpful in fights.¡±


    ¡°So that thing could be a parasite then?¡±


    ¡°Definitely. We humans have a lot of parasites within us, don¡¯t we? Many ill people have worms in their bellies and such. Those are all findings of mages. The parasites inside giants are different, as they possess intellect. If a giant dies, the parasites can¡¯t live for long.¡± Jalin knew that Saleen had no control of the situation for now, so she told them everything she knew without having anything back.


    ¡°Assuming that ce that we passed through...wasn¡¯t some statue of a giant, but a fossilized body of a giant. It would stand to reason that the parasites within the giant¡¯s body should have been long dead.¡±


    ¡°As such, the thing we¡¯re in is still a statue. That thing that showed up earlier was an ancient puppet.¡±


    ¡°Ancient puppets? They don¡¯t look like much!¡± Saleen asked in a puzzled tone. That w might have crushed a steel puppet, but it did not look to have strength beyond level eight or nine. That thing might not be a match for the ancient figures.


    ¡°Energy degeneration and Principle of Crystal Coffin,¡± Jalin said inly. The sorcerers and Saleen knew what she meant, but Sika remained puzzled. Jalin was doing it on purpose.

 Chapter 1072: Imperial Curse (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1072: Imperial Curse (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika was hardly bothered. She did not like doing brainwork much, unless it was something that concerned Saleen.


    In many instances, petty shrewdness had no effect on people withid-back, casual personalities like Sika. Jalin¡¯s provocation was entirely useless. The only way to truly go against Sika was through the fist. But Jalin¡¯s fist was hardly the size of Sika¡¯s.


    Energy degeneration concerned magic arrays. Any magic array, however perfect, inevitably suffered energy degeneration problems, even those imbued with energy bncing rules. Most of the time, it was not the problem of the magic arrays themselves, but the surroundings they found themselves in, where the flow of elemental energy was not permissible.


    After being around for tens of thousands of years, it was inevitable for the internal puppets to suffer energy degeneration.


    Principle of Crystal Coffin was a theory concerning powers of nes.


    The ruins of giants had maintained the highest power within that ne. The ruins possessed power which far exceeded the limit of power of Myers Maind.


    It seemed that arge cover of the crystal coffin had affected the ruins. The cover controlled the power of the ruins. If the power of Myers Maind increased, the ruins would increase in power as well. As such, it would maintain a limit without viting the rules of the ne.


    The ancient humans discovered it when they conquered nes. There were cases where powers exceeding those allowed by their respective ne rules existed, but said powers were immutable and incapable of being unleashed. The formless cover of a crystal coffin limited such existences.


    The ruins was one ce limited by the cover of the crystal coffin.


    Gods did not possess such powers, yet divine personas had such attributes.


    Under the workings of Principle of Crystal Coffin, the ruins would maintain the strongest power allowed by Myers Maind, but the puppets within the ruins ran ording to energy degeneration principle, and would continue to lose power.


    But then again, it meant that the puppets were not constructed for defensive purposes, or the ancient humans would have merged the power of the puppets with the ruins. In that case, Saleen would be going against level 12 puppets instead of something with powerparable to only level eight or nine.


    ¡°There are probably tens of thousands of those parasitic puppets within the stomach of the giant then?¡± Saleen sighed, thinking that he had painstakingly found a ruin of such value, yet it seemed to be near impossible to enter. Even if the power of the puppets was to degrade even further, they were not something he could contend with. They would easily overwhelmed him with sheer numbers.


    ¡°How about we just turn around?¡± Saleen asked Jalin. Since Daliang City was under his control again, he could enter the ruins any time he fancied, so long as the people of the Holy See do not end up taking the city.


    There was no way Jalin would agree to that. There was no telling where she would be next time.


    ¡°We¡¯ll either make it or die trying or we don¡¯t get to call ourselves mages?¡± Jalin smiled. Saleen was able to feel her insistence despite the mask covering her face. She took out a magic fire shell; Saleen never expected her to be carrying equipment of such low levels.


    Jalin wrapped the shell quickly with ayer of air currents using air element, before throwing the shell down the hole.


    ¡°Wait, no...¡±


    Saleen did not say it in time. The magic fire shell fell deep into the hole in no time, making it untraceable. Saleen heard a loud rumble about a minuteter. Flickers of fire and light were seen from beneath.


    Cracking noises were heard. There was nothing special about it but Jalin smirked. She turned around and said to Saleen smugly, ¡°how about that? There aren¡¯t all that many puppets down there. The one back there was probably thest.¡±


    Saleen nodded. Sometimes, luck went hand in hand with courage.


    ¡°Look out!¡± Sika yelled. Saleen heard heavy breathing sounds and deafening screeches. The space was suddenly filled with wind element. It was so thick that Saleen felt himself unable to breath.


    Roarrr!


    A peculiar roar was heard from the hole. Everyone, including Sika, was sucked into the hole by the huge force generated from the hole. Saleen was somehow able to summon Tempest Dragonmights in a hurry and wrapped everyone in wind element.


    There were more than 200 people in the expedition, but Saleen was unable to afford to ignore the 12 sorcerers and Jalin. Some soldiers were not so lucky. Unable to get used to being wrapped in wind element, they felt so bad that their eyes became bloodshot.


    Saleen had no time to deal with petty matters like that. Even the Tempest Dragonmights were unable to control the raging wind element. They had already given all they had just to keep the people alive. Everyone banged on the walls every now then as they fell.


    Tens of soldiers were sucked into other branches of the hole, never to be sensed again. Saleen knew that there was no way they coulde out alive.


    They fell at a frightening speed. Saleen put up arge Water Shield in a hurry, which covered all 12 sorcerers. Saleen upgraded that spell back in the Imperial City of the Abyss, turning the Water Shield into a level ten spell.


    Boom!


    More than a hundred of themnded hard on the ground. The ones protected by the Water Shield bounced immediately after hitting the ground. Saleen was no longer the minor mage he used to be. Therge ball formed by the Water Shield clung to the ground, and Saleen fixed it to the ground before it was able to bounce for more than half a meter up.


    Saleen thought he had been sucked into the stomach of the giant, but when he looked at his surroundings, he found himself somewhere rather eerie instead.


    The puppets brought by the sorcerers were all smashed, but the Water Puppet was unscathed. Gusion felt a heartache looking at the five mercenaries by his side, as some of his men who were sucked into the branch.


    Gusion knew that the reason Saleen wanted them there was so that the mercenaries could get something out of it. As a golden grand swordmaster, it would increase his power exponentially if he were able to get some good equipment from the ruins. Saleen had even changed the gear of the mercenaries, giving all of them purple gold sacks.


    The expedition had been for their benefit, yet now they suffered for it. The risk of venturing into the ruins was far higher than anticipated. About a dozen elite troops died for nothing, which saddened Gusion.


    Jalin, however, bounced from the ground like a swordsman. Her eyes glittered as she looked far away.


    It was a veryrge hole. There was no telling how tall the hole was. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was severely limited, allowing him to see only about three miles ahead. It was the limit of a level nine sorcerer. He did not know how others fared, but the senses acquired from Water Puppet told him that Rossen was hardly any different from a blind person, capable of seeing only about a dozen miles away.


    ¡°Leave this ce!¡± A loud, booming voice reverberated within the cave. Saleen¡¯s Water Shield had not dispelled yet. Outside the Water Shield, the surviving warriors all looked ill and blood trickled from their eyes, ears, and noses. The surface of Saleen¡¯s Water Shield flickered with lightning sparks, resisting the attack of the sound.


    Jalin charged outside the protection of the Water Shield, blinking a few hundred meters away in an instant. Saleen took notice that there was arge hexagonal magic array in front of Jalin with a stone tablet on top of it.


    The stone tablet was about a hundred meters tall and entirely ck. Saleen had failed to notice it at first due tocking elements and having no light around.


    Saleen lifted his arm and spun the star chart on his bangle for a bit, summoning the Thunder Dragon ster. He gritted his teeth, wanting to shoot Jalin, but was unable to get through with it. Arb was not something he could mess with, and he was filled with regret seeing her using the mark of Six-Winged Flying Snake.


    If she had not been armed with that mark, he would not need to fear her despite being at level nine. He could just call for his teacher if things didn¡¯t go his way.


    Sika felt something was off as well. No one knew that she was hardly affected by the environment, and her sight was somewhat better than Saleen¡¯s. The reason Jalin rushed at the magic array was because she wanted to enter the ruins by herself.


    However, Sika also took notice of the hundred meter stone tablet, as well as the words etched on it.


    Grave of brothers. Trespassers will be forever doomed. It was signed with a si with nothing else etched on it.


    Saleen recognized the si. Back when he wanted to disguise himself as royalty, Lex taught him the ways of the badge of nobles. The noble badges shared simrities with the si, and that si was the first one Saleen had learned about.


    The si of King of Glory, emperor of the First Dynasty.


    The First Dynasty was established by a level 18 professional, who had ughtered 18 gods of the same level. There was no way Saleen would ignore words left by someone like that.


    That ce was not some ruins; it was a cemetery, a cemetery for the giants.


    There was no weaklings among true giants. Furthermore, this giant was someone who the first emperor of the First Dynasty called his brother. Dragons did not call ants their brothers. As such, it stood to reason that the dead giant was just about as powerful as the King of Glory himself.


    Jalin is literally insane. She actually wants to just charge into the cemetery, ignoring the curse of the King of Glory?


    Crazy b**ch! Saleen put his ster away. There were 12 other sorcerers looking, not knowing what was happening. If he had shot Jalin dead, they would definitely tell Arb.


    Jalin was faster than grand swordmasters when she ran. Saleen had no idea where she had acquired use of earth element in a ce like this. She circled around therge gravestone and reached the hexagonal magic array in just three seconds.


    It was the entrance to the cemetery and there was no one to stop her. Jalin turned around and smirked at Saleen, before stepping into the magic array.


    ¡°Leave this ce! Leave...¡± The booming voice kept howling, but Saleen felt numb about it all. Jalin had actually went in. Is she thinking that she can actually handle the curse of the King of Glory?


    Saleen possessed a Figure of Fate, yet he had no certainty that he would be able to ovee such a powerful curse. The si of a level 18 professional who crushed hundreds of divine kingdoms stared at everyone in that huge space from that cold gravestone.


    Boom!


    Boom, boom...


    Something dropped from above. Saleen put up his Water Shield and called to all surviving troops. What fell from above were thousands of parasitic puppets in the giant¡¯s body. Saleen was able to tell from their ws.


    The puppets dropped without any protection and were quickly smashed to pieces when they reached the ground. The ce quickly filled with scraps, sending shivers down Saleen¡¯s spine. He was able to tell using his Elemental Eye that the smashed puppets were picking their broken bodies and piecing themselves back together. The puppets stood up when they were done doing so, then surrounded Saleen.


    Saleen regretted not killing Jalin. He thought that it would not have mattered who he offended.

 Chapter 1073: Area of Doom (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1073: Area of Doom (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    As Jalin entered the cemetery of the giant, Saleen was surrounded by parasite puppets. His Magical Element Tower had been left behind in Daliang City as well, so he had no choice but to fight the parasite puppets the hard way.


    Saleen understood why Jalin had done this. If he had been in Jalin¡¯s shoes, he would have done the same thing.


    However, even if he did have the time to weigh the pros and cons of the situation from Jalin¡¯s perspective, he had to admit that, either way, Jalin had truly gotten on his nerves!


    Jalin had done what she did not because she had Arb¡¯s support, as even if she was an unknown, low level mage, she would have still taken the same risk. Hers was simply the true and natural reaction that any mage who had seen an opportunity before him would have had.


    At that moment, Jalin saw the hexagonal magic array, but she really did not see that si on the gravestone. A level ten Water Shield couldst for a very long time, and Saleen knew that those level eight or nine parasite puppets were unable to do him any harm for the time being.


    Saleen then said, ¡°Masters, there is no need for you all to do anything. Gusion, take cover. Rossen, get back here.¡±


    After he gave these orders, Saleen unleashed the 24 ancient figures and arranged for the soldiers to protect the sorcerers. The figures then ventured outside the protection of the Water Shield. Saleen had exhausted half of his magic chords to cast the Water Shield, but luckily, his magic chords had recovered a bit within several minutes.


    This was because the level nine magic nucleus that was in his hand provided him with elemental power continuously. While there was no way that he could have used the elements in his surroundings in one such environment, the speed at which his magic chords were replenished using the magic nucleus was tens times faster.


    The sorcerers all watched Saleen nervously. Four of those sorcerers could not help but cast level one illumination spells, thus expanding their visibility by hundreds of meters.


    Before, Saleen¡¯s Water Shield had reached such an intricate level that when they peered at it from the inside, the sorcerers were simply unable to see the edge of it. Now, their sight was totally unhindered. But, if one peered through the shield from the outside, one was still only able to see little else but mist.


    The ancient figures were very nimble as they were swinging their halberds and cleaning up any approaching parasite puppets. On the other hand, the parasite puppets were stiff, and when they fell from above, they were quickly reduced to scattered parts, which, when pieced together, were simply not tough enough to sustain themselves.


    The halberds were heavy and the figures were somewhat stronger than the demons, so they used the backs of their des instead of the edges. The figures were knocking on the parasite puppets¡¯ heads lightly with the back of their halberd des. Their heads were even harder than metal, but were still rather brittle.


    It was easy for them to withstand blows from sword des, but the halberds were very, very heavy. Furthermore, they had to contend with the massive power and highly skilled techniques of the figures. As such, the puppets¡¯ heads were quickly crushed and scattered about on the ground.


    The head is indeed their weakness! Saleen thought. He was relieved to see such an oue.


    The parasite puppets had long bodies and were about a meter and a half tall, with a tail that served as a means of bncing their bodies. The parasite puppets¡¯ ws were rather unique, as they had one extra joint aspared tomon magic beasts and were over 50 percent longer. Furthermore, they were retractable.


    As the stiff-moving parasite puppets had their heads crushed by the ancient figures one by one, the sickening sounds reverberated throughout the empty cave. By listening to these reverberations, Saleen was able to tell the size of the cave.


    Saleen figured that the cave was about 10 miles high, and he could clearly see about three and a half miles in front of him. Judging by the sounds, there was no indication that there was anything else in the vicinity. The cave seemed like an enormous egg, with a top that waspletely sealed.


    Saleen was currently positioned on one side of the egg-shaped cave. The cemetery of the giant was at the center of the egg-shaped cave. There was a carving of the giant on the ground, which Saleen assumed marked the entrance to the cemetery.


    The King of Glory had constructed the cemetery to mourn his brother, which meant that it would not have beenpletely sealed. This was because no one dared to disobey his words when he was alive.


    Saleen was able to tell quite a lot of things by observing this scene. But, the question remained... How can one get out of here?


    Even if he knew the ce like the back of his hand, it would not have done him any good if there was no possible way of escaping it. Moreover, being surrounded by parasite puppets was not something that could be resolved using the ancient figures alone.


    At that moment, Saleen saw many more parasite puppets began to move nimbly about. They were scurrying along the ground and pouncing on the ancient figures.


    The ancient figures swung their halberds and were able to keep themselves safe for the moment, while several of the parasite puppets sted onto the surface of the Water Shield and were thrown into the air, their bodies quickly disintegrating mid-air. The level ten Water Shield was no longer a purely defensive spell, and it just so happened that its retaliatory power was the limit of what the parasite puppets were able to withstand.


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s go.¡± Sika did not want to continue taking such risks here.


    Sika certainly did not care about what the cemetery held, but the reason for such hesitance to remain was that the entire space of the cemetery was very eerie and was devoid of all signs of life, which made Sika very uneasy.


    Saleen gave SIka a bitter smile, then said, ¡°Well... We can¡¯t fly up there. Do you feel that?¡±


    Sika shook her head shook. Then, her body rose slowly and she quickly burst through the protection of the Water Shield, only to quickly drop back down again. Although the sorcerers looked at Sika with envy, they also found a serious problem... Sika¡¯s flying skills had ceased to work!


    ¡°What about you, Gusion?¡± Saleen asked the golden grand swordmaster.


    Gusion nodded, then said, ¡°I¡¯m still able to fly, my liege, but my flight powers are suppressed. Now, they are just a tad stronger than a level eight silver grand swordmaster¡¯s.¡±


    Upon hearing this, Saleen knew right away that Gusion was unable to fly to such heights as well. The egg shell was about 10 miles tall, and it puzzled Saleen as to how such a huge space had been created underground. If that space was real, the entire Daliang City would be doomed if the ce copsed.


    Saleen¡¯s flight skills were being suppressed as well, but he was hardly worried about it. This was because he knew that he could still slowly rise up using Quickcloud. But, even then, Quickcloud would have trouble bringing others as well.


    Using this n, Saleen, Sika, and Gusion would be able to escape from the entrance above them, as long as the entrance was devoid of enemies. Still, Saleen had to wonder... What about the others? Those 12 level nine sorcerers brought over two dozen grand mages with them...


    However, those mages were of no importance to Saleen, especially since he nned to construct a magic. But, before his enchanters were done being trained in order to aplish this feat, those mages would serve as the main forces in battle.


    Saleen thought for a bit, then slowly moved forward and unleashed even more ancient figures. As Saleen moved, the Water Shield moved alongside him. The mages were puzzled by this until they looked up and saw the gravestone was right before their eyes!


    ¡°Everyone, Jalin has entered the cemetery! Take a good look at the words on the gravestone and decide for yourselves...¡± Saleen closed his eyes and began doing some calctions in his head.


    The warning in the air was no longer heard, which meant that the true attack was about to start. The sorcerers¡¯ reactions all differed from one another after reading the words on the gravestone. There were a few mages who did not recognize the si and were eager to try, while all of the others looked troubled.


    ¡°Your highness. The cemetery is right here and won¡¯t be going anywhere. Let¡¯s head back and search the records to see which giant the cemetery was built for and what kind of battles took ce here,¡± the oldest of the sorcerers said.


    He then added, ¡°This ce is definitely the site of a battlefield. The giant¡¯s body was buried right where it died, instead of being moved elsewhere. The enemy of the giant probably died here as well. So, it¡¯s not necessary for us to enter the cemetery, as we wouldn¡¯t really gain anything by doing so. It¡¯s all the same if we just search the giant¡¯s body.¡±


    Upon hearing this, Saleen opened his eyes and nodded to the sorcerer. ¡°You¡¯re right. But, Jalin has already ventured inside, so are we just supposed to leave her there?¡±


    ¡°Your highness, you are not the one who let Jalin go in there alone. We will all serve as your witnesses regarding that!¡± all of the sorcerers dered in unison. They hade to resent Jalin as much as Saleen did after they had found out what she had done.


    The reason they said this was because they knew that the cemetery was filled with many dangers, and if Jalin died inside it, everyone present would suffer Arb¡¯s wrath. But, if they were to go inside and help Jalin, they would all have to bear the curse of the King of Glory.


    Saleen was especially sensitive to the curse. After his astrological proficiency was raised to level nine, Saleen became aware of a certain level of rules regarding fate.


    Even if no tangible harm came to him if he entered the cemetery, his luck would surely take a turn for the worse. In fact, it would be far worse than even what he had suffered when he was young!


    The thing with fate was that, while it was intangible and imperceptible, it was still entwined with everyone else nheless.


    Moreover, a person¡¯s fate was never truly unchanged. For instance, if one¡¯s fate looked incredibly smoother and better than most, in usual circumstances, their speed of advancement would also be far quicker than most if they were to be professionals. Furthermore, people with good fates lived longer than most.


    However, if one was to take part in doing something ridiculous, such as fighting a level 18 enemy, that person would end up dead, regardless of whether his fate had been very good up until that time.


    The astrologers said that a person was able to take the reins and control his own fate. What they basically meant was that people should not do anything stupid, and that they should always weigh the pros and cons of their actions before doing anything rash.


    ¡°Since this is everyone¡¯s unanimous decision, we¡¯ll leave,¡± Saleen said.


    He then sighed as he thought about everything. There was no way that he would have gone to rescue Jalin, especially when such a rescue brought with it the risk of shouldering the curse of a level 18 powerful one! As for things with Arb, Saleen had ceased thinking about those consequences.


    ¡°Is everyone ounted for?¡± Saleen asked, while he had the troops turn their magicmps to the brightest setting and instructed the sorcerers to count their people.


    There were only eight from Saleen¡¯s side, five of whom were grand swordmasters-to-be and Gusion¡¯s subordinates. None of these people were capable of flying. As for the sorcerers, they had 101 survivors on their side.


    Saleen then said, ¡°My elemental creatures are capable of providing one hour¡¯s worth of wind element power. Do your best to bring as many as you can. I¡¯m unable to see the exit up there clearly, but since the puppets are able to fall from there, the exit must be rather big.¡±


    The sorcerers nodded, signaling their agreement to Saleen¡¯s suggestion. Without Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures, those people would have had to search for the edge of the cave and climb up to the top to search for an exit.


    ¡°None shall leave!¡± Suddenly, a huge booming voice, and a strong light was seen shining down on them from above. The people in the dark were unused to the sudden brightness, so they shielded their eyes with their hands and gasped.


    Saleen pushed his mask down, and as he looked through the Starline Mask, it seemed thatrge amounts of magic arrays had been lit up at the top of the eggshell. They were now shining brightly throughout the entire space.


    Saleen¡¯s sight was restored and he felt that the elements in the air were no longer as thin as they had been before. While the power of his magic was not fully restored yet, his Elemental Eye was still able to see five miles away.


    But, after using the Starline Mask, Saleen quickly discovered that the thunder dragon¡¯s eye that had been crafted onto the mask allowed him to see over 15 miles away! Saleen realized right then and there that even a level 15 thunder dragon possessed incredibly powerful lightning rules, which werepletely unhindered, even in such an intense environment. Upon realizing this, Saleen¡¯s confidence grew a bit stronger.

 Chapter 1074: Area of Doom (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1074: Area of Doom (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Saleen turned and looked behind him, his heart sank. He saw that the ground within ten miles of the cemetery was packed with statues.


    These statues were not like the parasite puppets, as they consisted of many types of beings, all of which had been shackled there with the Fossilization spell. They all had awful expressions on their faces, which had been frozen at their moments of death.


    Many parasite puppets crashed onto the statues when they fell to the ground. None of these parasite puppets were capable of self-restoration, so it seemed as if they too were going to be fossilized.


    Saleen scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye, analyzing the identities of the statues. He was only able to figure out the identities of a few of them, and he discovered that one of them was a heavenly angel!


    Those tall figures, which had holy prose coursing through their bodies, were true oracles. Saleen also saw that some of the statues were high level beings, which seemed to be pseudogods. In short, all of the fossilized beings around the cemetery had something to do with the gods.


    As magic arrays lined up at the top of the eggshell, Saleen roughly counted and saw that the the ce was filled with statues in the hundreds of thousands as well, maybe even more. If they were to be counted together with the statues that were surrounding the cemetery, they would have easily numbered over a million!


    These million of godly beings all seemed to have been hit by a Fossilization spell at the same time, thus exining their current states at the moment. Fossilization was not a spell that would truly turn real people into stones. Under most circumstances, those that were hit by the Fossilization spell actually died of asphyxiation, as they were unable to breathe.


    Fossilization spells usuallysted for three to five days, but the high level spells were capable of keeping a person fossilized for over a year, which was enough to asphyxiate even a pan turtle!


    At that moment, the magic lights shone down and the parasite puppets that were caught between the statues moved their ws, putting their bodies back together. What was even more terrifying was that the statues began to move!


    ¡°He who defiles the dead shall repent in the Area of Doom!¡± The voice in the air sounded solemn and heavy as it reverberated throughout the eggshell.


    ¡°Run!¡± Saleen yelled.


    He was able to see the passage at the very top of the eggshell, which was over 30 meters in diameter. However, countless statues around the passage seemed toe alive at that moment, pping their wings and hovering in mid-air as they peered down at the scene below them. The expressions of the statues still remained pained, while the weapons in their arms broke off the stone-like shell and revealed their metallic colors beneath.


    Upon seeing this, Sika was unable to sit still. So, she summoned a huge beast and leapt onto it before calling Saleen. When Saleen heard her, he unleashed 12 Tempest Dragonmights and had them follow the 12 sorcerers. He then called Gusion and his men, who all leapt onto the back of the huge beast.


    The huge beast took flight, while the 12 sorcerers cast Wind Travel with great haste. They brought their people and followed right behind the huge beast, charging at the exit at the top of the eggshell.


    There was more than one exit. In truth, there were about 1,000 caves where the eyes could see at the top of the eggshell. But, Saleen was able to see the edge of the cave that he left a magic mark on when he fell.


    Regardless of what the Area of Doom actually was, it had not been activated for tens of thousands of years. This meant that its energy would have been greatly diminished.


    With the power across the entire Myers Maind weakened, Saleen was able to tell, ording to the Principle of Crystal Coffin, that he would be able to keep himself alive, at least as long as he was able to leave before the Area of Doom waspletely activated. However, if anyone was greedy enough to still think of taking something from the cemetery, then no one would be able to leave the ce alive.


    Saleen dared not overextend himself, so he had Sika take the lead with her weapon in hand instead. Meanwhile, he and Gusion protected th e onesat the rear. The sorcerers flew hastily together with the huge beast, and none of them needed to charge at the forefront.


    Suddenly, an oracle pounced on them from above and headed straight for Sika. The huge beast kept its head low as it flew, while ramming untold numbers of fossilized gods along the way. The longsword in the oracle¡¯s hand was over ten meters long, which looked rather incongruent with its body size.


    Sika did not even bother looking around before she started swinging her staff at whatever came at her. The sorcerers behind her all heard something like metals exploding at this moment. As they looked up, they saw that the oracle had been thrown back, then toppled over two dozens of its brethren.


    Skills and attributes were all meaningless in the face of Sika, as any enemy that dared to appear before her had to contend with her staff, and said enemy always paid dearly for it. This oracle was no different.


    The oracle had only been awakened moments ago, so its power was far below the pinnacle when it was being fossilized. Even if it was actually at its pinnacle, the oracle would have been inferior to Sika in terms of sheer strength.


    Most importantly, Sika¡¯s power was almostpletely unrestrained in this space. Also, her weapon was on par with the Lance of Order in terms of material quality.


    If the staff had not been crafted using her priestess¡¯ skills, the weapon would have been so heavy that no one would have been able to lift it. In fact, Sika might as well have been flinging a small mountain about, as no gods were able to withstand any of her swings.


    At that moment, the scales at the huge beast¡¯s back raised up and wrapped themselves around the legs of everyone on it, stabilizing them. The scales on its neck raised up as well. As the beast flew, sharp noises of air being cut were hearding from between the scales.


    More and more gods awakened, their forms still being fossilized ones. However, their maneuverability was no different from that of a figure¡¯s.


    The fossilized gods at the top of the eggshell all had twisted, terrifying expressions in their faces as they leapt from the eggshell and headed straight for the beast that Saleen was riding. The huge beast was about a hundred meters long, and most of its length consisted of its tail and neck. Its pair of wings were wide open and it was pping hard, swiping the fossilized gods down to the ground.


    The gods were being controlled by the Area of Doom. While they had immense hatred for the King of Glory, who had fossilized them, their bodies kept swinging their weapons at the humans who had intruded into the cemetery.


    Saleen calmly cast one ice bullet after another and did not bother using any powerful skills. He simply made do with what he had, while swatting off the iing fossilized gods. After all, in a ce where elements were incapable of being extracted, even high level magic would not have been very powerful.


    The gods had been fossilized for tens of thousands of years, and their souls were still intact, thus doomed for eternity. The King of Glory had been using the gods to mourn his brother, who was a nameless giant.


    Saleen had only rxed for a bit after flying more than three miles. The space still followed the rules of Myers Maind, which meant that those who awakened the earliest were all fossilized gods of lower powers, while those very powerful oracles and fossilized gods with higher levels than pseudogods didn¡¯t even flinch!


    No one knew how long it would have taken for them to be revived, so Saleen dared not stay any longer. As he started to depart, the 24 figures served as escorts at his nks, chopping off any fossilized gods that they missed in half.


    Their huge halberds were quickly broken, and Saleen took out new weapons from his Starline Ring, throwing them at the figures to use. The figures¡¯ bodies were littered with wounds.


    Saleen was incapable of retrieving them, so the injuries upon those figures¡¯ bodies continued to be incurred, each of them growing increasingly severe. Six figures were thrown off when they reached the height of eight miles up in the air, as they were no longer capable of maintaining flight at such an altitude.


    However, Saleen suffered no heartache over these lost figures, as Gaine had crafted almost 100,000 of them for Saleen¡¯s use. What made Saleen ache in his heart was the thought of the souls within the figures¡¯ bodies.


    Those ancient warriors had lost their physical bodies already, and if the figures were destroyed, it was only a matter of time before their souls were destroyed as well. Regardless, Saleen was unable to do anything about losing these six figures.


    As for Sika, she simply charged forward without a care. In her estimation, there were probably about a million of the fossilized gods at the top of the eggshell.


    Those of them that awakened quickly all had powers that were at level eight or nine. If it had not been for Sika¡¯s ferocity, Saleen would have had no way to escape with the sorcerers.


    The sorcerers from Golden ins were all frightened. Luckily, they were able to take the ones they had brought with them and use wind magic for attacks, thanks to some support from the Tempest Dragonmights. The 12 level nine sorcerers took turns striking, but there were still soldiers and grand mages falling off as they went.


    Sika continued swinging her staff at the front, sending powerful fossilized gods flying all over the ce like toothpicks. At the same time, Gusion was swinging his Dragon ughtering War g on the other side and did not seem to be under much pressure. As such, he easily swatted to the ground any gods that the ancient figures missed.


    Also, since he had the power control of a golden grand swordmaster, he had increased stamina, as this allowed him to conserve every bit of energy and not let it go to waste. While the war g had lost its capacity as a magic weapon, the sturdiness of its material still made it a very powerful weapon nheless.


    The serrated edges of the war g easily cut the fossilized gods apart. At the moment, the g was wrapping and constricting, smashing several gods into broken pieces.


    ¡°You dare to run?¡± An angry voice was heard in the air.


    As Saleen took out his family badge, he saw a huge fist coalescing above him. The fist then became increasingly tangible before it started punching toward them. The fist had a diameter of more than 500 meters, and it was even capable of crushing the temple in Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City!


    Saleen unleashed the power of the badge without hesitation, and a thick bolt of blue lightning rumbled heavily as it was being cast. Hundreds of thousands of sts of dynamite seemed to have exploded continuously from within the badge, and the first one that wasing from above was quickly hit. It had been destroyed by Saleen¡¯s lightning attack and was now breaking into numerous and chaotic flows of energy!


    Sika rushed the huge beast onward and streaked through these messy energy flows. The huge beast opened its mouth in glee and absorbed all of the extremely pure energy into its body. Saleen¡¯s badge absorbed it as well, but due to the rush, the energy that was absorbed by the badge was far from being enough to recover the spent energy within it.


    The huge beast arrived right outside the cave in a jiffy. It then folded its wings and swooped inside the cave. The beast¡¯s ws were incredibly sharp, allowing it to easily cling onto the cave¡¯s walls and climb up them. The beast¡¯s climbing speed was no slower than its flight speed.


    There were no longer any fossilized gods found within the cave, but there were still many parasite puppets scattered about. The beast crawled over and stomped on untold numbers of these parasite puppets along the way.


    Saleen turned around and saw that the 12 sorcerers behind him were struggling to keep up. There were only about 30 people left around them, most of whom were mages.


    While all of them had wanted to climb onto the beast as well, its tail kept wagging, keeping them doing so. The best clearly cared nothing for their lives, as it did not cease its tail-wagging, even when some of them actually got near it.


    At that moment, Saleen saw that there were a huge number of fossilized gods that were flooding into the cave behind the sorcerers. These fossilized gods were moving somewhat faster than the sorcerers. The power that was being provided by the Tempest Dragonmights was massive, shrinking their bodies until almost nothing was left of them but their elemental cores.


    The sorcerers watched in terror as Saleen lifted his arm and a pale silver light appeared on it. Immediately thereafter, a piece of ck equipment that looked like a snake-like magic beast shot out, cradling Saleen¡¯s arms with its four incredible talons. The magic beast then opened its mouth and shot out a blinding blue bolt of electricity!


    Is Saleen trying to kill us all and run away on his own? the sorcerers wondered as they watched the scene in awe.

 Chapter 1075: Sealing the Hole (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1075: Sealing the Hole (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Thunderous rumble reverberated inside Saleen¡¯s head. The Thunder Dragon ster in his hand felt as if it were a part of his body. Six near-transparent icicles shot out. The electricity on the icicles no longer jumped, but stayed fixed onto the ice like magic patterns.


    It was because the icicles fired too quickly, zipping through the air, straight past the gap between the sorcerers and prating the rock cliff behind them.


    The six icicles stuck to the rock and blue light sparkled before shooting out streaks of electricity, connecting them together. The connected flow of electricity turned into a purple electrical in no time.


    The fossilized gods pursuing from behind ran straight into the electrical and got cut into pieces, falling. It was only then that the sorcerers realized that Saleen was covering the rear. The sorcerers felt rather embarrassed, but little did they know that Saleen did not mind killing them to stop the enemy.


    The sorcerers refused to be his followers and made themselves a part of Kingdom of Metatrin.


    The beast wasrge, and it was fortunate that the diameter of the cave easily exceeded 30 meters. There were parasitic puppets emerging along the way, clearing the path of any obstacles.


    The six huge icicles continued releasing electricity. The attack had Saleen cranked all of the powers to the maximum. Lightning rules, energy bnce rules, and the bit of rules of fate that he had been able to catch a glimpse of.


    The 30 meter-wide electricalsted for one whole minute before dissipating entirely. The six icicles still emanated coldness. Any fossilized gods that passed through the field of cold slowed by at least 50 percent.


    The beast had ran for several miles within a minute.


    Sika left magic marks when she followed Saleen and found the exit of the statue of the giant: the huge ear they came in through.


    Saleen thought that the outside of Daliang City was still probably be considered part of the cemetery, which meant that there was no problem for the fossilized gods to make it outside. The problem was how to seal the ear.


    Saleen went outside the hole of the ear and said to Sika, ¡°Go up and get more magic fire shells.¡±


    ¡°What else do you need?¡±


    ¡°A magic cannon!¡± Saleen shouted and jumped down for the beast. Gusion followed Saleen, jumping down with the Dragon ughtering War g in his hand and feeling rather anxious.


    It was an exciting experience like no other. Despite having been a mercenary for decades, he had never experienced something like that. When the hundreds of thousands of statues came alive, the scene finally had Gusion understand what Saleen had said to him a long time ago.


    What you experienced before is hardly worth mentioning. If you want to reach greater heights, thene with me. I guarantee you that your view of the world would be opened a hundred times wider.


    It was apparent that Saleen did not lie to him. His view was opened far more than just a hundred times. That short battle had the instincts in his body achieving unimaginable breakthroughs.


    The human body had a weird, mystical structure to it. When one had reached a certain level, it would have been almost impossible to advance any further without stress ofparable levels.


    It worked all the same with mages. Every danger faced during advancement was an ordeal that one had to ovee.


    Saleen nced at the sorcerers and put his Tempest Dragonmights away, summoning 12 Vermillion Knights instead. The grand mages stood behind the sorcerers with ashen faces, which had them feeling rather awkward. The sorcerers then berated them, ¡°What are you waiting for? Seal the hole!¡±


    Sealing of the hole was easier said than done. Seeing Sika riding the beast and going up to the city, Saleen felt rather relieved. She had always had a calming effect on him.


    He summoned 24 Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, who were ordered to put their hammers away. Saleen took out huge pieces of steel and handed them to the Stone Statue Soldiers, to have them dig and fill the hole up.


    Only the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were capable ofbor like that. The steel that Saleen took out was used for making towers.


    The towers used for setting up magics were required to be nted deep into the earth and be connected to magic power furnaces. The crafting of the steel was difficult, and every piece was over a hundred meters long.


    That steel was used as shovels, digging up dirt and covering up the cave.


    The mages finally had something to do. They cast Fossilization at the dirt thrown into the cave, rendering it stiff to seal the hole. The 24 Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers threw dirt more than 10 meters into the hole of the ear until all of the dirt was finally fossilized. With the exception of the 12 level nine sorcerers, all of the mages who tagged along practically emptied their magic chords.


    Saleen unleashed 12 Tempest Dragonmights and sent the grand mages and thoroughly exhausted warriors back to the city above. He then distributed magic nuclei to the 12 level nine sorcerers, allowing them to replenish their magic chords.


    ¡°Your highness, we can¡¯t hold them in for long!¡± the sorcerer who was taking the lead reminded. His tone became earnest as he acknowledged Saleen.


    Saleen knew that a wall of merely a dozen meters thick would not be able to hold the fossilized gods in for long. The fossilized dirt was less than sturdy, and considerably weaker than the natural rocks around them.


    For powerful beings at level eight or nine, it was just a matter of time before they dug their way out of the rocks.


    ¡°Can we keep Daliang City safe without sealing the ce?¡± Saleen¡¯s expression was a serious one. He had lost the use of his most powerful attack given that he had already used up his family badge before.


    The Thunder Dragon ster would be operational in a bit, but even the ster¡¯s power would have proved inadequate for sealing up the cave.


    It¡¯s up to the magic cannon to seal the ce, then. Regardless of how many of them rush out of the ce, one shot would finish them off, wouldn¡¯t it?


    ¡°I¡¯ll have a temporary magic tower constructed and we¡¯ll use the magic cannon for the job for the time being. Everyone take turns to guard the hole. I think those things will just keep attacking. So long as...¡±


    Saleen did not continue. He too knew that so long as Jalin remained inside, that Area of Doom would continue to work, attacking anything within range. With time, there would be more and more fossilized gods being awakened, until level 10, 11, and 12 ones emerged.


    There would be no other way but to escape the region by then.


    But how is the army up to a million in the city going to run? Daliang City had been raised 500 meters from the ground. The city walls were directly connected to steep cliffs leading to the ground. There is just no way for conventional troops to leave the ce!


    The best way to go about it is to build ramps and have the army desert the city before any more powerful fossilized gods emerged, but when the ramp is finally constructed, the army of the Tribunal will probably show up at our doors.


    With three head inquisitors waiting outside, the army will still have to face the tribunal. Jalin really caused us a huge headache. I hope she¡¯ll just end up dead inside, Saleen prayed within his mind.


    Boom, boom!


    Loud ramming noises came from within the hole of the ear. Even the fossilized dirt wall was unable to prevent the sound from reaching outside. The sorcerers were frightened. Saleen unleashed 24 ancient figures calmly and had them armed, standing in front of everyone.


    It was fortunate that Saleen had gone on another trip to the Imperial City of the Abyss. If he did not have the figures with him, he would have had no choice but to desert Daliang City. The number of fossilized gods was simply too huge. Even though the ce was a narrow one, it was still unable to keep them in.


    Saleen felt like his head about to burst. Just how many fossilized gods are there inside an eggshell like that? The statues were packed to the brim. The density at which they were arranged far exceeded how conventional armies were organized. What he saw was simply the ones his Elemental Eye had allowed him to see.


    Would there have been fossilized gods of even higher levels in there? If that was so, there was no way he would be able to resist their attacks, even if hepleted the construction of all 80 thousand ancient figures.


    Sika returned soon enough, bringing 12 magic cannons with her. Saleen calmly instructed the Stone Statue Soldiers to install the cannons onto their rigs and fossilize the earth. The sorcerers retreated, helping Saleen build a temporary magic tower.


    Due to being incapable of gathering elemental energies, the power of mages would be weakened by 90 percent without a magic tower.


    Saleen had schematics and materials with him. The steel rocks were cut to size. The mages needed only to stack them to construct the much needed crude tower.


    It was a seven-floored tower with two additional basement floors. It was considered a peculiar structure, as no magic towers had basements. Due to being incapable to draw elemental powers where they were, however, those floors were made into foundation for stabilization purposes.


    The magic tower had seven magic power furnaces installed in it. The furnaces were originally made to be used within warships and, as such, were not very big ones. Without the furnaces, the tower would have been useless.


    The fossilized gods eventually bust through the hole of the giant¡¯s ear. The ancient figures standing guard outside rushed at them.


    One side was still building a tower while the other side was fighting a fierce battle. While the ancient figures did not suffer much loss, the fight nheless had Saleen feeling very nervous. There were times where some fossilized gods prated the blockade of the ancient giants and rush at the tower that was being built.


    Sika and Gusion dealt with them calmly, while Saleen kept replenishing the numbers of the ancient figures.


    A turret was finally set up and Saleen had a sorcerer take the turret, aiming for the hole and firing.


    Hundreds of fossilized gods were targeted in the narrow hole. However, without being able to draw power from elements, the power of the magic cannon was weakened. Most fossilized gods suffered only flesh wounds and only the ones at the very front were blown to shreds.


    Saleen got even more restless. If the killing was continued at such a rate, there was no way he could kill the fossilized gods off even if all of the cannons were to be rendered to scraps from firing too many rounds.


    ¡°Try using the magic fire shells then.¡± Saleen was at his wit¡¯s end. He summoned the Tempest Dragonmights and had them lob magic fire shells at the gods. The shells were attachments carried by the metal flyers.


    All metal flyers stayed put at the pce. Sika gathered more than a thousand of them. She was rather afraid of having them blow up in her hands, given how many of them she was actually carrying.


    When all 12 magic cannons were set up, Saleen had lost more than a hundred ancient figures. It was fortunate that there were ways to repair them so long as their souls remained intact. Saleen retrieved the broken figures one by one.


    The Tempest Dragonmights began lobbing magic fire shells, which went urately into the hole of the giant¡¯s ear. The shells, which were filled with fire oil of extremely high viscosity and added with magic powder, exploded.


    Their me could only be extinguished by magic, as water would prove useless against them.


    The magic cannons stopped firing, and the hole was practically boiling. The fossilized gods walked out from the fire, actually smiling in glee.


    Saleen was at a loss. The fossilized gods did not fear pain. The burning of the magic fire shells had instead made them feel as if they were freed. If only we can die from the fires!


    The souls of gods were frozen inside the fossilized bodies and were unable to die. Glee was actually found their mangled faces twisting in pain, which unsettled Saleen.

 Chapter 1076: Sealing the Hole (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1076: Sealing the Hole (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen wanted nothing more than to just run from the ce. If I were to die here, would my soul be sealed within those shells and doomed to repent before the giant for eons toe?


    The curse of the King of Glory was indeed powerful. No believers were able to receive their god¡¯s blessing within hundreds of miles radius. No mages were able to draw power from the elements. With the exception of unpopr professions like Sika¡¯s, everyone¡¯sbat capacity were affected.


    The magic fire shells slowed the movements of the fossilized gods. Their cracking bodies were no longer able to withstand the power of the magic cannons. Every shot ended up killing hundreds of fossilized gods.


    However, Saleen did not see any auspicious signs of souls dissipating. The souls from the fossilized gods¡¯ fragments were sucked back into the giant by some massive power. Saleen seemed to be able to hear their eerie screams.


    Were those souls just going to keep being punished? Saleen cared little if they actually ended up being punished. What concerned him was if the retrieved souls would have simply be given another body to act as fossilized gods, and be deployed in battle again.


    If that were to be the case, they would never be able to seal the hole.


    ¡°Saleen, why aren¡¯t those thingsing out from other ces?¡± Sika asked something that Saleen had never considered before.


    He was too stressed by the current predicament, putting all his mind into sealing the hole and little else, and that ended up with him being unable to see things as clearly as Sika who was watching from the sides. She¡¯s right. There¡¯re so many of the statues around, there¡¯ll sure be other exits, no?


    Even if his calctions proved apt and the giant they were at now was the main one standing right at the front, there still should have been another hole in another ear. He did not spend much energy digging the ear out. While the dirt covering the ear was hard, it was still way softer than fossilized dirt.


    Why don¡¯t the fossilized gods just open up the other ear then? If that happens, I¡¯d have had to give up entirely, wouldn¡¯t I?


    ¡°Take care of things here, I¡¯ll go have a look around,¡± Saleen left the 12 sorcerers in charge of the battle, while he took Sika and Gusion to the other side of the statue¡¯s head to look into the other hole at the ear.


    Both holes were found to be parallel to each other and that other hole was filled with dirt as well. Saleen went up and dug up a piece with his nails, smelling it. The dirt did not have any specialponents in it, just the smell of sulphur. The copse of the ground surrounding the ce was probably caused by some magic over level 15.


    Theva that erupted from the ground was probably caused by the aftershocks of the spell as well, instead of the earth truly splitting apart reaching the depths of the crust. Saleen scanned the dirt with his Elemental Eye and found no signs of power of rules.


    Why don¡¯t the fossilized gods simplye from this hole instead? Saleen wanted to do alchemic analysis of the dirt and see if there was something that the gods feared here.


    It was a pity that there was no time for that. The army of the Holy See would be upon them soon enough, and what was more dire was that all three head inquisitors would be there soon as well.


    Sika looked at the dirt in the hole.¡±Who cares what they are. Just dig a piece out and stuff it at the other end. We¡¯ll see what would happen soon enough.¡±


    Saleen pped at his forehead hard, thinking himself really to be dumb. It was as Sika put it, there was simply no need for him to figure out the principles behind the dirt. The most pressing issue then to simply seal the hole. There was no point in understanding anything about the dirt if he was unable to get the hole sealed up.


    He summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and had Gusion carve up the dirt meticulously. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers then dug up the entire piece of dirt with the steel materials.


    Six beings of over a hundred meters tall carried the dirt all the way to the other side of the head. The Stone Statue Soldiers looked rather flimsypared to the huge statue right beside them.


    12 magic cannons fired at once. The fossilized gods quickly turned to scrap while still burning. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers charged straight at the hole and stuffed the dirt into it.


    Everyone held their breaths as they waited for the result. No further sound was heard from within. Saleen was the first person who sighed a breath of relief. The fossilized gods had truly retreated, and retreated very quickly.


    The pieces of the fossilized gods outside the cave stacked up to a height of several meters. Saleen stored them inside his Starline Ring without saying much. The materials were rather special, as they were capable of isting powers of elements and faith.


    All 12 magic cannons were near depleted. Being fired at such high frequencies rendered them nearlypletely broken. Sika brought another 12 from the city and had the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers rece the ones that were being used earlier.


    Saleen dared not have more magic cannons set up when used at such a narrow ce.


    Thest time he fired massive number of magic cannons and caused an elemental shock, which in turn triggered a catastrophe. He dared not pull any risky maneuvers like that anymore. If the earth had actually copsed, the chasm of about ten miles deep would have been capable of swallowing the entire Daliang City.


    While the hole was sealed, things were far from settled. With the head of the statue of a giant excavated for all to see, the Holy See army would be able to catch sight of it from afar.


    Furthermore, he had built a magic tower and had 12 turrets aimed at one ear. It was a peculiar sight that would have piqued the interests of the Holy See.


    The three head inquisitors would probably simply order their forces to attack that spot, taking out the turrets and digging up the hole. Once they had done so, Saleen would be caught in a pinch again together with the ones from the Holy See.


    That was a very difficult problem and there was no way he could just go up to the people of the Holy See, telling them the hole was very dangerous and to not ever dig it up.


    The Holy See would be insane to buy his words like that.


    Saleen was reluctant to simply take the defenses apart. The dirt that filled the hole at the ear was little more than three meters thick, little more than a thin wall.


    Saleen also had no certainty of being able to block the fossilized gods, and he knew nothing about the reason the gods did not simply dig the dirt up. He saw the defenses outside as a necessary measure.


    Even if the dirt proved capable ofpletely fending off the fossilized gods, Jalin was still inside the cemetery.


    Saleen thought that Jalin would not die so easily. If she ended up escaping, she would return to the ce she came in from. If she were to get out from that hole, three meters of dirt were nowhere near enough to fend off Jalin¡¯s powers.


    If the hole was opened, the fossilized gods would definitely make it out again. Without suppression fire from the magic cannons, they would have no means of stuffing the hole. The more Saleen thought about it, the more he hated Jalin. Her greed almost destroyed Daliang City.


    Is it necessary to guard the ce like this? Saleen thought about his n and regretted the decision of bringing Jalin with him into the cemetery very much.


    His original n was to explore temples and there were little dangers in temples. All that was left in temples was treasure left forter generations to uncover.


    ¡°Masters, let¡¯s just head back for now.¡± Saleen sighed and left the sorcerers who reced the ones who had been fighting in charge of the magic tower. All of the sorcerers were Lex¡¯s men. The magic tower could still function adequately with the magic power furnaces installed.


    Saleen summoned Stephanie and the others when he returned to Daliang City in search for ways to deal with the problem at hand.


    There would not be much to deal with if they only had to deal with the fossilized gods. What was troubling at the moment was the Holy See forces that were about to show up.


    Worse still, the head inquisitors were among them. With the sorcerers severely weakened and the limited number of magic power furnaces Saleen brought with him, there was no way they could simply go about erecting magic towers.


    Furthermore, even if they erected magic towers, they would differ in nature from conventional ones, as their range would be very limited. The true solution to the problem was to construct a magic, but the solution was very time-consuming.


    Lex brought the Winged Skull back while they were still discussing, bringing back enough freshwater for the time being.


    Lex gritted her teeth hearing Saleen¡¯s description. She had never expected Jalin to be so bold. If she came back alive, there was no way Lex would let her walk free.


    She saw a need to end Jalin without being seen doing so. Her city was almost destroyed by that woman. Of course, it would be best if she was unable to make it back alive. Lex had her reservations going against Arb after all.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking of mobilizing Nailisi,¡± Saleen said to Lex.


    Lex thought for a bit. Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory allowed portals to be opened, which would be useful for sealing the hole. If the fossilized gods were stored with the purgatories, they would be a threat to her city.


    ¡°That seems to be the only way. But what about Ceylon City?¡± Lex asked Saleen, concerned. Things with Ceylon City was not going well. Nailisi lost huge amount of demons every day.


    While the Holy See navy was indeed held back by the magic cannons, there would not be a way to get things in control with that little demon around.


    If it had been other armies instead of Nailisi¡¯s holding the line, things would fall apart even if the other armies were more than a million-strong.


    ¡°I¡¯ll build a magic in Ceylon City. Get more mages there. Nurturing of enchanters has been going on for months, and there are already thousands of low level mages around,¡± Saleen said without the intention of hiding anything, telling Lex of the ns he had for Ceylon City.


    ¡°Masters, Ceylon City is my birth city. I will build a pce and a magic there. I believe you are all interested in magics.¡± Saleen turned around to the 12 level nine sorcerers from Golden ins.


    The sorcerers were now his pce mages. They were not difficult to keep around, and they cost less than followers. Saleen wanted to send them all to Ceylon City as soon as possible, or it would be a matter of time before the city fell. Without Nailisi around, he would have to send a huge number of mages.


    The sorcerers felt things at Daliang City were rather hopeless and thought Saleen would simply give the city up. Saleen¡¯s mention of the magic got their attention.


    Magics were of little worth to them, but the area covered by a magic would be as if someone was in their own magic tower wherever they went. Compared to enchanters, conventional mages truly reaped the benefits of magics.


    They cared nothing about what they could have gotten from the cemetery anymore. They were not extremists like Jalin. The sorcerers still feared the curse of the King of Glory.


    ording to Saleen¡¯s description, Ceylon City would be the first city in the entire maind to construct a magic. Given that they were the first batch of sorcerers to settle there, it also meant that they were the first batch of magic researchers in the entire maind.


    Ancient humans designed magics to be used for conquest in other nes by acting as a measure against extreme environments. They never bothered using it in cities on Myers Maind.


    Things were bustling in Daliang City throughout that night. Generals were called to rearrange defenses, mages were taught knowledge regarding magic cannons, such as how to use them and their frequency of use, and Lex filled each reservoir with freshwater.


    Daliang City¡¯s alchemy city was tasked with the dirty job of handling waste management by constructing new passages to handle the waste andying magic arrays for breaking it down.


    If such problems were not taken care of soon, the city, which was hanging 500 meters in the air, would be covered in stench, rendering the ce uninhabitable.

 Chapter 1077: Punisher (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1077: Punisher (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Since the reinforcements from the Tribunal would be arriving in one more day, Saleen did not rush to send the 12 sorcerers away. After all, the army in the city needed to be reorganized and the defenses were in a rather messy state, so he needed the sorcerers to stick around and help keep the city safe.


    The new schematics of Daliang City had just been sent to Metatrin City. The mages from Sreeger Ind had designed a magic in the shortest time possible, while having the alchemy factories craft all of the materials that were needed to construct this at the same time.


    Daliang City was farrger than Ceylon City, so naturally, the magic power furnace and metal towers that were required for constructing a magic were also several timesrger.


    At the moment, Lex had to return to the Metal Titan to Metatrin City using the teleportation portal. This was because the mines in Metatrin City were unable to produce adequate amounts of the required metals quickly enough without the Metal Titan around.


    Saleen hade to care little to nothing about the cost of using such portals, as he deemed it worth any cost, even if he had to use level nine magic nuclei to power them. Besides, Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring was capable of carryingrge amount of supplies, which was something none of Saleen¡¯s subordinates were capable of doing with their equipment. Even if Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory waspleted, its space would still have been smaller than the God¡¯s Ring¡¯s.


    At the moment, an army of 120,000 was seen, moving slowly about 600 miles west of Daliang City. This army consisted of mostly ck-armored wardens. There was also a force of 10,000 within it, and all of these units were d in purplish red suits of armor.


    The march of the army slowed to a halt by nightfall, as they set up camp ording to their n. At this time, the scouts at the forefront found the scattered units that were outside the city.


    The scattered units from the allied forces were literally in shambles. They were unable to bring any supplies with them and their camps had all been destroyed. The ones who had escaped were all stronger warriors who were holed up near the border.


    As for all of the low level holy masters and mages, they had perished in that magical catastrophe. There were even some grand mages and holy masters above level four who had been caught at the epicenter of the catastrophe. After being robbed of their flight abilities, they were pulled into the ground.


    The officers of the scattered army gathered whatever was left of their forces, which now consisted of fewer than 10,000 units. The ones who ran were unable to be recalled, and the over 9000-strong force became thergest force that remained of the original allied forces.


    There had been few elites in the Holy See army to begin with, and the scene of the magical catastrophe made the soldiers think that it was a manifestation of their god¡¯s wrath. As such, most of the survivors were reluctant to rejoin the army and fight, so they ran out and hid in the wilderness instead. Those soldiers would have all chosen to surrender if it meant that they would be allowed inside Daliang City.


    The magical catastrophe that Saleen had engineered killed 90 percent of his enemies, and any who survived were basically frightened to their cores. As for those people, what hit them the hardest was that they had lost their faith.


    This was because, when the catastrophe happened, all of their divine arts were rendered ineffective. This exined why 90 percent of the army had perished.


    In previous battles, it was easy to save the soldiers of the Holy See as long as they remained alive. What happened this time was different, as the surrounding areas of the city were rendered a living hell.


    Those 9,000 surviving troops were put under themand of the vanguard forces, who forced them to surrender all of their weapons. The dozen officers of higher ranks and a level nine holy master were then relegated to the forces in the middle of the army.


    At the moment three middle-aged men were sitting at a square table in arge tent in the army that was stationed at the middle. The ground was covered with nks and thick rugs, and there were many crystalmps hanging around the camp. Thesemps cast so much light in the tents that no shadows could be found at all.


    The level nine holy master and a silver grand swordmaster, who held the rank of lieutenant, were looking grim as they were being brought into the camp. Over two dozen holy masters stood behind the three middle-aged men, and they were all looking at the two with cold expressions.


    ¡°Names!¡± the youngest of the three barked at both of the men, who were now kneeling.


    A green emblem was sewed on hispel. The embled depicted a snake that was coiling around a weapon that looked like a ive. This was the mark of the Tribunal.


    Even though those two men had never been to the Tribunal, they knew what rank those three were nheless, due to the fact that the trio couldmand such arge army. The Tribunal had clear-cut ranks, but the way that these ranks were divided ording to the emblems they wore was much lessplicated than that of the Pivotal Council. They could tell that these three were the newly appointed head inquisitors, all of whom were at the pinnacle of level nine.


    The oracles had brought gifts for the Tribunal when they had descended, so all three of these newly appointed head inquisitors held godly items that had been bestowed upon them by the oracles. Any items which could bebeled as godly items were made of materials of at least level 13 or above.


    The oracles themselves were but level 12, which meant they would not have been able to craft such godly items. Nheless, the Tribunal had an unusually huge stockpile of them. This was partly because the wealth that they had umted back when the Holy See was first established was simply too vast to count.


    The equipment that the three newly appointed head inquisitors possessed was all heavily sealed, and these seals were not undone until the arrival of the oracles, which had brought their powers up several levels higher than what they had been.


    There were many in the Tribunal just like them, and the fact that they were able to make it this far and be appointed as head inquisitors spoke volumes about their superior luck, at leastpared to their peers.


    Their names were Morpheus and Kredian, both of which were verymon names. They both hailed from the bottom rung of society, and as such, it had been hard for them toe that far. Somewhere along the way, they had developed a great fear of the three middle-aged men, and they were terrified of offending them.


    ¡°We do not have names. We¡¯re known as the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth head inquisitor,¡± the middle-aged man sitting in the middle said slowly. The two who were kneeling on the ground were trembling all over.


    ¡°Alright. We¡¯ll put your sins aside for the moment. Tell us what happened.¡± After being asked this question by the fourth head inquisitor, Morpheus, the holy master, quickly began to tell them what happened that day.


    He did not actually know what had happened, but he did know that the catastrophe surrounding Daliang City was triggered by magic. As someone stationed at the outskirts, he had no idea what was going on inside Daliang City.


    ¡°Is that all?¡± The fourth head inquisitor looked displeased.


    He had hoped that they would have been able to get some useful intel. However, the only thing they were sure of was that there were no living persons left within 120 miles of Daliang City.


    The holy master and the silver grand swordmaster shivered with fear. If they angered the head inquisitor, they knew that they would be made to suffer!


    ¡°We¡¯ll give you a chance...¡± The fourth head inquisitor dragged his voice out as he said, ¡°Gather all of the scattered troops within the week and organize them. Your supplies shall be provided by the Tribunal. As the officers of the army, you two will be in charge of the first wave of assaults in the city.¡±


    After hearing this, both of them were ted. While their mission was clearly to serve as cannon fodder, it was still better than being taken away by the Tribunal to be used for experiments.


    ¡°Of course, we can¡¯t just let you off the hook.¡± As the fourth head inquisitor waved his hand, a ck-robed holy master came around the table and stood before the two men. He then took out a whip and whipped them hard with it!


    Both of them held themselves still, not daring to try to evade it. The whip had a massive amount of holy prose on it, so every singlesh left very apparent marks on their faces.


    It was actually a very light sentence, more like a shame whipping. The wounds created by the whipping were not severe, but the holy prose left deep marks not only on their bodies, but in their souls as well. This was because holy prose would continue to torture them until they finished their given tasks.


    After dismissing the two runaways, the head inquisitors looked into possible solutions for their problems. Their wardens were indeed elites, and they had brought the hidden power of the Tribunal with them this time, which was the Blood Army!


    The Tribunal had not fought in any wars for hundreds of years, and they had the highest number of divine smiths with them. The Blood Army was also a force that was rarely seen in the Holy See.


    The soldiers were born in the Tribunal and were raised by dark holy masters, who brainwashed them into being the most loyal warriors that ever served the Tribunal. The gruesomeness of their training was done with the sole objective of preparing them for truly brutal battles.


    However, it was still difficult for a 120,000-strong army to take Daliang City. Worse still, the necessaryrge scale equipment would only arrive in a week.


    This was why the fourth head inquisitor had tasked Morpheus with gathering the scattered units within the week. It was done in preparation for the arrival of therge scale equipment.


    The Tribunal had mobilized millions in order to take Daliang City and loot the rumored ruins. They had even gotten the Cloudflow people to mobilize armies in the hundreds of thousands to help them.


    Their operation had resulted in a great number of casualties, which made the three feel lucky that their armies had not arrived sooner. Otherwise, they would have suffered the same fate.


    After all, none of them were idiots. They knew that a magical catastrophe that had damaged over a hundred miles surrounding the city was not something that a lone mage could face.


    In fact, it would ever be difficult if all of the mages in Alchemy City were to face it. But, since the ce was being guarded so heavily, it certainly seemed that the rumors about some ancient ruins sitting beneath the city were true!


    The fourth head inquisitor then said to the other two inquisitors beside him, ¡°Fifth, sixth, should we call for backup from the great head inquisitor?¡±


    He had used a casual tone when asking the question. Those two, who had been his partners for many years, understood exactly what he meant.


    One of them replied, ¡°If we call for backup right away, it would make us look ipetent. We have no enemies within Kroraina anyway, so we¡¯ll just call all of the forces around the city here.¡±


    The sixth then added, ¡°Furthermore, we still have the punishers. The great head inquisitor did give us the permission to mobilize them when we left...¡±


    ¡°Punishers? But... They are meant to use when we take Holy Rock City!¡± the fourth quipped in a half-joking manner.


    The fifth then added, ¡°The punishers are just being sent to their deaths if they attack Holy Rock City! After all, the only ones capable of threatening Holy Rock City are the terminators. Daliang City is considered a second ss city, after all, so it won¡¯t be seen as leaking secrets if we use the punishers here.¡±


    He paused to take a breath, then added, ¡°We¡¯ve messed up Northern Qin enough, but it would still take us three to five years before we can attack Holy Rock City. By then, who would can guarantee that our weapons will still be under wraps?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good that you two are not against it, and I sure hope that the great head inquisitor will understand what we¡¯re doing and why we¡¯re doing it. After all, we just don¡¯t have enough troops...¡± The fourth head inquisitor sighed.


    Then, paying no heed to the fact that the holy masters were standing right behind them, he started issuing orders immediately.


    The area that was once the Titan Duchy territory was now the main camp of the Tribunal. News from the frontlines was delivered through the divine rune charm array.


    When the inquisitors in charge of the camp read the orders from the head inquisitors, they felt rather surprised. Nheless, they did as they were told and mobilized the punishers.


    The punishers served as the main weapons of the war. Every army with 20,000 men had 1,000 among them who were in charge of transporting the punishers.


    The punishers were a type ofrge scale equipment that was developed by the Tribunal. They looked like thorn dragons on the outside, but were muchrger, measuring around 18 meters in length.


    The punishers¡¯ scales were made of metals that had been forged by divine smiths, and they had spikes that were over a meter long each all over them. The punishers all had human faces, and huge divine crystals were embedded where human eyes would have normally been.


    The two armies had a total of 40 punishers with them, all of which were mobilized and transported to Daliang City immediately. As the punishers¡¯ huge bodies ran forth, a huge rumble was heard with every step they took. Pained wails and shrieks were also hearding from within the punishers¡¯ bodies.


    It was terrifying to see such massive machines of war moving in such a nimble manner. This alone made them even more terrifying than true thorn dragons!


    The punisher armies consisted of only cavalry units, which were running at great speeds, following right behind the punishers. If one looked at the scene from above, one could see 40 dusty trails that were streaking for several miles from the east to the west.


    The head inquisitors¡¯ orders were to have all 40 punishers reach Daliang City within a week. This was no easy task!

 Chapter 1078: Punisher (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1078: Punisher (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Tribunal was filled with powerful ones. The number of people suppressed by the Tribunal was staggering for the past millennium. Very few of those people were killed right away or executed hastily. Most people were imprisoned in the ck Dungeon to serve as research materials.


    The divine smiths in the Tribunal had the greatest number of prisoners in the maind to serve as guinea pigs. The punishers were some of their most matured works.


    There were semi-metallic bones and transformable innards, blood vessels and muscles within the bodies of the huge beasts. There was also a mass of flesh and blood and pulsed at the core, which served as a power source to the punishers.


    The messy pulp of flesh and blood served as a punisher¡¯s heart, which was also the control center of the beast. The punishers had no brains. Complex holy prose arrays littered within the heads of the beasts, which enabled to store multiple types of divine arts.


    There were untold numbers of souls shrieking within a punisher¡¯s heart. The controlled souls were in pain all the time. While the pain was not strong, the souls within knew that they were never able to break free forever, the knowledge of which served as their true source of pain.


    The divine smiths did not want the souls to suffer if it was possible, just like it was with the terminators. However, there were also level differences in divine smithing arts, and divine smiths capable of creating terminators were only a handful.


    The strength, purity and contained power of those souls were too inferior to serve as cores of terminators. As such, they were only able to be lumped together to serve as the heart of punishers.


    While the punisher armies were only 40 thousand-strong, but every punisher had power exceeding that of a golden grand swordmaster. Other than being incapable of flight, those products of divine smiths were near wless.


    It was especially so given the sheer size of the punishers. They were weapons far more ideal for attacking cities than for individual fights. The very reason why the Holy See had never fielded the punishers in their war with Qin so far, was to catch Holy Rock by surprise when they finally attack the city.


    However, the magical catastrophe of Daliang City enticed the three young head inquisitors immensely. ording to the Tribunal¡¯s records, a battle between humans and gods had taken ce in ancient times. The war involved massive numbers of very powerful beings, and tens of millions of gods perished in that battle.


    The record had always been thought to be over exaggerated in the past. To the holy masters, the gods should not have been the ones who lost and the number of casualties at the side of the gods should not have been sorge.


    However, the Tribunal was able to find rted supporting evidence when they went about excavating ruins, thinking that they had been ruins of a battlefield below Daliang City. Furthermore, the materials left behind in the ruins would have enabled the Holy See to craft equipment allowing them to conquer the entire maind.


    Daliang City.


    The tense atmosphere within the city was never actually loosened. The metal flyers began patrolling, searching for targets in ces near Daliang City. The metal flyers became more important by then, as it became unusually difficult for holy masters or mages to fly within the entire region.


    The hum of metal flyers seemed to be able to put the army within the city at ease somewhat. The mages within the army served as living proof allowing all troops to know that it was very difficult for mages to fly in such an environment, boosting confidence of their equipment by a considerable margin.


    The metal flyers were all fitted with miniaturized magic power furnaces, which were less than capable of supporting a magic. Saleen ordered for the army to do patrols with them.


    While the cost in low level magic nuclei was immense, they were very effective. The troops gradually returned to the state before the magical catastrophe hit. While things were tense, they were next to no feeling of despair seen in the city.


    There was no need to worry about the stockpile of food within the city. Qin cities had never been taken due to food shortages.


    The magic towers and turrets below the city locked on to the exit of the cemetery of the giant. The three meter-thick dirt seal was weak even to humans, but nothing was heard from within the cemetery and it seemed as if the gods had vanished.


    Lex returned the Metal Titan to Metatrin City and went back to Daliang City. Jason¡¯s reply to Saleen made him feel rather exasperated. ording to the calctions of the mages from Sreeger Ind, if they were toy a magic in Daliang City, they would needed more than four months to do so.


    Saleen received intel two dayster from the images recorded by the metal flyers that the Holy See army had gathered 130 miles away from the city. The metal flyers dared not fly too close as there were enemy holy masters who took flight and attempted to shoot down the metal flyers.


    The metal flyers turned tail and went home, and as such, were able to only record blurry images using alchemy binocrs.


    That was a camp that stretched out for miles and their numbers were messy. It seemed to be those survivors of the Holy See army before.


    There was no doubt that the force consisted of gathered scattered units, which became an effective fighting force as reinforcements from the enemy had arrived.


    Furthermore, the force that cameter had incredible control powers. Saleen knew very well that the magical catastrophe that he engineered had been a huge blow to even the troops at Daliang City, let alone the allied forces who had it worse.


    Saleen was unable to do much but being anxious. Daliang City was hanging high at a height of 500 meters. Other than mages and grand swordmasters, everyone else, includingmon troops, needed to rely on ropes to leave.


    But then, there was little use leaving now, as the Holy See army was already at their doorstep. What was more exasperating was thend that had belonged to Daliang City, had then being rendered under control of the Holy See.


    If there had not been a cemetery of the giant sitting right under the city, Saleen would have taken the metal flyers with him to harass the Holy See. But there was no way he was able to leave.


    If the dirt seal of the cemetery were to be broken, they would have needed to reseal it soon and help with his Thunder Dragon ster would have been required.


    If the fossilized gods ended uping outside, there was simply no way to throw them back in anymore.


    A week quickly passed and things in Daliang City had finally returned to normal. Large scale alchemy binocrs were set up at the four corners of the city and within the tall towers. The Holy See army was slowly approaching from the west side of Daliang City.


    Saleen climbed up while Lex and the others went to the walls. His Elemental Eye was being limited, but it was still nheless able to see further than the alchemy binocrs.


    The Holy See fielded 5000 men to serve as vanguards and they were approaching the city slowly. The ground outside Daliang City had copsed over 50 meters at the very least and in some ces, over a hundred meters.


    ording to the Holy See¡¯s calctions, there would have been many broken ces throughout the city and there might even have been walls that havepletely copsed.


    The Holy See¡¯s vanguards were able to vaguely see Daliang City when they were about 20 miles away. They were doubting if their eyes were fooling them!


    The now-500 meter-tall Daliang City seemed like a spiked up hill instead of a mountain. The copsed ground around the city formed a nd, making Daliang City¡¯s height seem very out of ce. They were able to see from the silhouette of the city 20 miles away from their alchemy binocrs.


    Magic cannons were incapable of attacking yet at such a distance. Saleen saw the enemy slowing down and called the mages in charge of the metal flyers, letting the equipment fly and throw magic fire shells at the enemy.


    Saleen ordered Gusion and Sul in secret to ride on two of those flyers and join the fray.


    40 metal flyers took to the air hastily and zipped towards enemy territory. A metal flyer was a four-man equipment, requiring at least two person to control. One of those pilots was usually a mid level spirit or at least, a high level magic apprentice.


    It was a given that the ones piloting the metal flyers were spirits, given that the Winged Skull was there with them. Gusion and Sul took a flyer respectively, feeling the experience to be very new.


    The metal flyers were capable of flying at great speeds and it did not feel stable in flight. Furthermore, the huge rumble resulted from its flight prompted the two to keep their helmets on properly, sealing themselves all over.


    The troops piloting the metal flyersughed heartily as they took the flyers charging at enemy territory. All 40 flyers split up and formed a straight, lowering to a height of around 500 meters when the enemy was about two miles away.


    The vanguards of the Holy See consisted of reorganized troops from the crushed allied army before. The force had intended to serve as a gauge to test Daliang City¡¯s military strength. The vanguard officer ordered their men to immediately split when they saw the metal flyersing.


    It was rather difficult for a force of 5000 units to split up immediately. The metal flyers arrived above them in an instant and went about throwing magic fire shells.


    The magic fire shells had limited effect on the fossilized gods, but brutally effective at killing conventional armies. The sshed mes were able to burn anything they touched and could not have been doused using water. The 5000-strong force was totally ruined when the 40 metal flyers had just dumped half of the shells carried.


    Screams were heard from the inferno for miles. Only the cavalry units who received the order to split the earliest were able to avoid such a brutal fate. However, they were unable to do anything but to watch the infantry units being burned alive.


    The hand crossbows armed by the cavalry units only had a range of tens of meters, which meant that they were utterly incapable of doing anything to the metal flyers. The metal flyers circled in the air and three flyers would have taken turns to dump shells on any spot that had troops gathering.


    While the magic fire shells were indeed low level equipment, they were not cheap to make. Saleen no longer paid any heed to cost just for the sake ofnding heavy blows on the Holy See.


    The 40 metal flyers still had about half of their magic fire shells remained with them. As such, they flew further and went another dozen or so miles forward, seeing the second army of the Holy See.


    The metal flyers no longer dared to dive and simply resorted to dump all the shells they had in a frenzy above, before turning around to leave.


    Two persons from the army took to the air and went after the metal flyers, just as Saleen had predicted.


    Both of them held scepters and their ck robes billowed. They were both powerful holy masters. Their scepters shone with bright light, encasing their bodies and provided them with flight powers.


    Other than magic fire shells, alchemy crossbows were installed on the metal flyers as well. However, there was simply no way for alchemy crossbows in flight to aim at their targets urately. Saleen had thought of installing Hogina¡¯s Gun on the flyers, but the problem was that the weapon required grand mages to work.


    The alchemy crossbows on the metal flyers shot away without a care at the rear. The two holy masters kept their pursuit and paid no heed to the iing bolts. None of those bolts were even able to nce at their intended target as well.


    Two metal flyers halted all of a sudden in the air and dived. Sul and Gusion took flight from the metal flyers at the same time, charging at the iing holy masters.


    Powerful ones of the Holy See¡¯s ground forces with good eyesight were able to tell that there were two holy masters bisected right away by two figures in the air. The bisected bodies then dropped to the ground.


    Everyone wanted to back them up but it was toote. The two figures flew away right away, bursting with golden sword aura. They were both golden grand swordmasters.


    The two metal flyers that dived let out deafening rumbles when they were about a hundred meters away from the ground, before turning forcefully upwards and headed back to Daliang City.


    The holy masters in the army were all dumbfounded. They all knew that like holy masters, mages were reduced to ten percent of what they had been capable of in such an environment. What they did not know was that the golden grand swordmasters were able to maintain full fighting capacity.

 Chapter 1079: Losing Troops (Part1)

    <h4>Chapter 1079: Losing Troops (Part1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen yed some tricks and killed two powerful holy masters, but he would never dare send out metal flyers anymore. The enemy definitely had ways of dealing with the metal flyers.


    The constructs were expensive to make, it was not worth the price even if one downed flyer ended up killing more than a thousand enemy soldiers.


    Saleen was reminded of Imposa all of a sudden. It was fortunate that Grand Duke Iron Blood refused to work with the Holy See, or the enemy would be equipped with something like that as well. Imposa¡¯s metal flyers were capable of flying in such environments as well after all.


    The metal flyers were dangerous to be around as they carried magic fire shells. Any violent collision would end up blowing the flyers up midair, killing everyone onboard.


    All the remaining metal flyers no longer carried magic fire shells. They were only sent to perform patrols. Not only would doing so increase the speed the flyers could fly, but there was also no fear of violent movement causing the shells to explode onboard.


    Even holy masters would have trouble catching up with the metal flyers.


    Saleen was rather relieved not to see any powerful equipment around. He turned around and headed for east side of Daliang City.


    There was inteling in as soon as he reached the east side, saying that two metal flyers were shot down while one escaped. Enemies showed up at the south side of the city, and were heading for the east side.


    Saleen checked the images of the alchemy binocrs at the tower and saw the image of the metal flyers crashing. There were thousands of cavalry units tagging behind huge monsters. One of the monsters shot a metal spike over a meter long from their body, shooting two metal flyers down.


    The images recorded by the alchemy binocrs were rather murky. Saleen felt something was off. He called his followers and dared not use the Magical Element Tower, for both of his children were still inside the tower.


    Metals flyers always flew at an altitude of about a thousand meters on scouting missions, with alchemy binocrs onboard used for observing the ground.


    The spike from that monster punched a hole with a diameter of about half a meter with just one shot. The extreme limit of its range was probably five times that, which meant it had a maximum range of about 5000 meters.


    The Holy See had finally fielded powerful equipment. Saleen hurried and ordered to reinforce the defenses of the turrets and magic towers.


    There were actually several small forts set around the turrets, and all of the forts were equipped with magic cannons. Saleen brought two golden grand swordmasters and Sika to the ground, leaving the defense of the city to Lex.


    The Winged Skull and Gusion followed Saleen down as well. Nichs, on the other hand, remained inside the Magical Element Tower, protecting the children together with Eleanor.


    At the east side of Daliang City, about a thousand demons were getting equipped within the small circle of defenses, ready to go out and fight.


    Nailisi dropped by the city twice, leaving more than 10,000 demons behind, before going back to Ceylon City to handle things back there. All of those demons were specifically selected for being easy tomand.


    Saleen had, of course, no intentions of sitting around and waiting for enemies toe. He had the Winged Skull summon Nightmares, before taking 500 demons to sneak up on the enemy from their nk.


    He had chosen not to fly, as flying in such an environment would be wasting magic chords. His speed when riding a Nightmare exceeded a grand mage after all.


    The one whomanded the demons was Gusion and he was also given a Nightmare. The spirit-type creature was powerful, capable of withstanding of residual energies emanating from a golden grand swordmaster when they burst with golden sword aura.


    Gusion had the war g on his shoulder and felt very excited. He never thought he would have a chance at living life like that.


    Gusion had actually felt his vigor being depleted at Daliang City, but everything changed when Saleen returned. He had 500 powerful demons behind him and two golden grand swordmasters by his side.


    His power had a steady increase. If things kept going the same, it was only a matter of time before he broke into level ten!


    Sika did not want one of the Winged Skull¡¯s Nightmares, summoning a cute, ck unicorn instead.


    Sika¡¯s exnation to Saleen was that Nightmares were unable to handle her power. If she needed to fight while riding, the Nightmare would fall apart.


    Sika had no concerns for an ambush, as being in such an environment meant her powers were amplified many times. The pesky holy masters had no way of casting powerful divine spells.


    ¡°Saleen, rx. The cemetery might be a good ce, but it¡¯s not going to bring you anything. Do you even dare go inside? If things end up not going our way, we can just ride my soul beast and fly out of here. Not even Arb can catch up.¡±


    ¡°What did you say?¡± Saleen doubted his ears.


    ¡°I said my soul beast can fly to very high ces that even sorcerers don¡¯t dare go to.¡± Sika chuckled, feeling smug.


    The very reason mages like Saleen crafted equipment painstakingly using hides of thunder dragons was so that there was a lower chance of being affected by lightning when flying.


    Sika¡¯s soul beast was practically immune to lightning. When the soul beast took to the air, even lightning would circle around them.


    Furthermore, the height that could be reached by the soul beast was about 10,000 meters. The air was so thin that they were unable to breathe. The peculiar energies in the air at such heights were very harmful to people.


    Even a level 10 sorcerer would not be able to do much at such heights. The energies that were avable to nature priests, on the other hand, were more than a hundred times more than usual.


    The golden grand swordmasters felt rather embarrassed hearing Sika¡¯s words. Having been following Saleen for a considerable amount of time, they knew how insanely powerful Sika¡¯s strength was. The golden sword aura that they painstakingly trained to acquire might not be capable of withstanding even one hit from Sika¡¯s staff.


    What her words meant to Saleen were entirely different. He had been worried for the safety of his children, and what she told him had put him at ease. So long as the environment she found herself in was not like the cave, Sika would be able to run with her children at any time.


    Those capable of catching up to Sika might not have what it took to fight her, and those capable of fighting might not have what it took to catch up to her. Saleen never knew Sika¡¯s soul beast possessed such special abilities. He decided to look into it when he had the time.


    Saleen waved his hand. ¡°Five miles front, right in the face of the enemy, follow me.¡±


    Saleen steered the Nightmare right. The distance between both sides got closer. Everyone felt the ground shaking even if Saleen said nothing. While the enemy forces were only 40 thousand-strong, they were all cavalry.


    Saleen had shown them the image of the monster, and they felt it was a headache.


    J and Sul were at the forefront as they did not want Saleen, a sorcerer, to risk himself. If it had not been for the fact that Saleen possessed arge number of scrolls, they would have locked him inside the city instead having him ride with them.


    Smoke billowed in front of them. Saleen¡¯s group was small enough to enable them to reach the right wing of the Tribunal forces by just turning a corner.


    There was little technique to talk about when fighting arge force with a small one. Saleen evaded the punishers at the forefront and charged at the side of the cavalry.


    Sul and J switched to their polearms: halberds that the Kingdom of Metatrin made specifically for grand swordmasters. Golden sword aura burst and the two were like a hot knife through butter, as they crashed into the right wing of the cavalry.


    Saleen was reluctant to field his ancient figures just yet. He took scrolls in his hand, ready to back up his grand swordmasters. The 500 demons caught up quickly. Due to the demons being capable of moving inrge steps, they were even faster than horses.


    The demons were used to running whole days in the demon ne to pursue their prey. Running was not a burden to demons; it was merely warm up to get their blood boiling.


    The 40 thousand-strong cavalry was packed tightly. The textbook tactic employed by the army of punishers was to charge at enemy territory using the punishers, before having the cavalry pick off the scattered enemies.


    With the 40 punishers charging at the same time, there was hardly any kind of army capable of withstanding the impact. In open-field battles, the punishers¡¯ abilities easily eclipsed the grand swordmasters¡¯.


    However, Saleen¡¯s small force chose to instead intercept them in the middle. The holy masters tasked with alerting the other units in the ranks of the Tribunal cavalry units were unable to sense theming. Saleen cut up the Tribunal forces of about a mile wide.


    Demons were taller than the cavalry units even without being on horseback. They swung their halberd around wherever they went, sending flesh and blood scattering.


    There was no way to stop charging cavalry. When the cavalry units spread out and prepared to charge again, Saleen had already dealt a crippling blow at them. The 500-strong demon army killed almost 1000 of their enemies.


    Saleen saw the cavalry units spread out far away, having monsters at the forefront turn around instead of charging. By then, he knew his n had failed. His enemies did not choose to surround them, and had instead let the monsters take the lead so to wear his forces out.


    While the demons were powerful, but they were not able to content with monsters¡¯ spike-shooting abilities. The demons¡¯ armor was mass-produced. It was impossible to arm them with the armor J wore, which was specifically tailored and crafted personally by sorcerers.


    Saleen had no choice but to use his scrolls, unleashing level nine earth magic spell: Crystal City.


    Shiny walls over 20 meters wide and three meters tall rose from the ground. Saleen sighed. In a normal environment, that scroll, which was crafted by a level ten mage, would have been several times more powerful.


    500 demons set up a line of defense at the rear, preventing the cavalry units from charging. Saleen summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and armed them six magic cannons, having them shoot at the monsters faraway.


    The punishers¡¯ huge ws stomped on the ground. The rumble of their footsteps got near. Three of the magic cannons hit the first three punishers charging at them.


    Saleen was surprised to find that the targets hit by the cannons burst with divine light. They continued to charge after staggering for a bit.


    The spot hit by the magic cannons were practically charred, yet the monsters felt no pain at all. They got more than 300 meters closer in the blink of an eye.


    Three cannons fired at the same time again. The punishers took the shots head on as they kept charging. Saleen was incredibly frustrated. He ordered the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers to fire three cannons at one target instead.


    The distance between both sides was less than 500 meters away. At such a distance, there was only enough time for the magic cannons fire another round. Even if the shots ended up killing the monsters, it would not change much.


    The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were fearless. The elemental powers consumed in such an environment could not be replenished. However, the Stone Statue Soldiers continued to hold still against the iing punishers, firing three shots at a single target.


    The other three Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers turned their cannons at the Tribunal cavalry on the nks instead.


    Even if they failed to kill the monsters, they would at least kill the cavalry units. Saleen intended to bail soon, but he deemed it necessary to rack up more kills before he left.

 Chapter 1080: Losing Troops (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1080: Losing Troops (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The magic cannons fired in sequence. Hundreds of cavalry units were burned to ash by the shots. The cavalry¡¯s formations were not as tight as the infantry¡¯s. A weapon like the magic cannon, which were only able to attack in straight lines, wracked up fairly limited kills with the cavalry.


    A magic cannon was only able to fire once at a time, and one shot only killed about 40 cavalry soldiers. Seeing there was little to gain by staying, Saleen ordered the demons to retreat.


    The three cannons at the front shot urately. That particr punisher¡¯s shoulder finally gave, a crippling wound where the hitsnded. Saleen saw white light spilling from the wound instead of blood. The wound began to close in a twisted manner.


    If the being hit by the cannons was a living being, the wound would never heal.


    Saleen threw out three scrolls that he had readied. An area about a hundred meters from the Crystal City turned to quicksand. The first punisher that stepped into it staggered and fell, sinking into the quicksand.


    However, the punisher sank for merely two meters before it sprung up again, struggling to stand still. It spewed a ball of light like the magic cannon. It was directed at the sand instead of the Crystal City. The quicksand crystallized, turning very hard and boiling hot.


    A metal spike shot out with a whoosh. A hole was punched in the walls of the Crystal City, with half the spike lodged within.


    Boom! Bang!


    The quicksand did not stop the punishers. The Crystal City, which was about 20 meters wide, was simply too narrow for the punishers.


    There were only two that rammed the Crystal City, yet the impact far exceeded Saleen¡¯s expectations: a huge crack formed from just one hit.


    Another few hits would send the walls tumbling down, but the two punishers simply jumped and reached the top of the Crystal City. They were simply testing the strength of the walls.


    The other 30 punishers circled around the blockade of the Crystal City, before charging at the scattered demons.


    Seeing how the monsters were capable of charging fast and turn nimbly, Saleen was finally able to determine that they were not some brutes without brains; they were weapons of war employed by the Tribunal, just like the figures of the astrologers.


    Sika hurried her pony and came to the edge of the Crystal City, lifted her staff and whacked one of the punishers¡¯ legs. A loud, crisp crack was heard for miles. The punisher lost its bnce tumbling forward. Sika brought her staff down from above, going right for its jaw.


    The speed of her attack looked anything but fast, but J and the rest were able to see clearly. Sika calcted where the enemy would fall, and leapt into the air during the attack, beforending on horseback again. She was so fast that afterimages were unable to form.


    The 18 meter-long punisher was sent flying with a loud boom. Sika¡¯s staff crushed its jawpletely, almost sending it inside its mouth. The punisher was sent flying backwards, drawing an arc in the air, before dropping in the quicksand.


    Another punisher leapt into the air at her and Sika frowned. The monster that Sika had just sent flying did not die; it turned around in the quicksand and struggled, trying to wiggle its jaw back out.


    ¡°Saleen, I can¡¯t kill it!¡± Sika was frustrated. She leapt for her pony to evade the attack, beforending her staff on the punisher¡¯s nose. The nose caved in, and its body tumbled down hard on the ground, losing its bnce.


    ¡°There is nothing that can¡¯t be killed!¡± The Winged Skull leapt into the air. Their flight capabilities were unaffected; they just had to use their bone wings.


    The Winged Skull swiped the Reaper Scythe across the punisher¡¯s neck. A whooshing sound was heard as the neck of the punisher was chopped in half.


    ¡°It¡¯s not dead!¡± Sika saw the punisher try to attack the Winged Skull with its tail. Her pony rushed forward and she held her staff high, sending the huge severed head flying.


    ¡°The heart is the weakness!¡± Lightning runes shone in Saleen¡¯s eyes as he saw past the punisher¡¯s disguise. It was shown in his Eye of Lightning that there was a mangled heart in the monster¡¯s body, a soul struggling within.


    The punisher¡¯s heart was small, about a foot in diameter, which whenpared to its massive size, made it a very difficult target to hit.


    There were two other punishersing from the nks. Gusion did not retreat alongside the demons; he chose to stay behind.


    He saw metal spikes flying at Saleen, and with a wave of the Dragon ughtering War g in his end, wrapped all the spikes within. Gusion shook the g once and the metal spikes all fell onto the ground, but his arms felt numb.


    Seeing how easily Sika had sent the punishers flying, he thought the huge beasts were nothing. He found that the force of just the spikes they shot rivaled the javelins thrown by golden grand swordmasters.


    If his Dragon ughtering War g had not been a powerful piece of equipment, the g would have been easily torn apart, and he would not have stood a chance against spikes shot with such force.


    The punishers from both sides got increasingly close. The one that was sent flying by Sika climbed out of the quicksand, leaping onto the Crystal City. The punisher that lost its head had all its spikes and its tail chopped by the Winged Skull, resulting in it losing anybat capacity.


    The wound created by the Reaper Scythe was incapable of healing. Seeing that she was incapable of fighting the monsters, Sika called her pony back and summoned her huge beast.


    Saleen leapt onto the back of the beast with Sika. The huge beast did not take flight. It simply stepped on the punishers.


    The punisher on top of the Crystal City was still looking for a chance to attack, before being stepped on by the huge beast that appeared out of nowhere. All the spikes on its back were broken.


    Sika¡¯s soul beasts were not true living beings. Their bodies were simply constructs conjured using witchcraft. Whaty beneath that huge paw of the beast were crystalline structures far harder than metal.


    The Crystal City was broken from the stomping attack and a crack formed. The punisher was caught in that crack, trying to wriggle itself free.


    Sika stood on the back of her soul beast and looked downward. She took out a javelin and threw it hard at the messed up back of the punisher. The two meter-long javelin went all the way into the back of the punisher, but it failed to pierce the heart.


    The heart of the punisher wiggled for a bit, evading the javelin.


    Saleen was left with no choice but to unleash his water me and send it inside the punisher¡¯s body. The silver-white water me froze the internal structures of the beast and shattered it. With nowhere left to run, the heart was finally pierced by the second javelin Sika threw at it.


    Saleen did not have any more time to help Sika out. Having stopped three waves of metal spike attacks, Gusion started to show signs of weariness. Saleen spun the star chart on his Starline Bangle, summoning the Thunder Dragon ster to his left arm, shooting four icicles at the same time at four different punishers.


    The four icicles were a meter long and covered with blue lightning. The speed they were shot at far exceeded that of the metal spikes. At such a close distance, there was no way the punishers could evade the attack.


    All four icicles hit their targets at the same time, and all four punishers had their hearts pierced. Lightning balls exploded at the core of the hearts, spreading out to form a.


    The hundreds of souls housed within the mangled heart of the punishers were reduced to pure energy by the electrical shock, rendering them incapable of controlling their respective punishers¡¯ bodies anymore.


    The Thunder Dragon ster was capable of firing two more lightning icicles, but Saleen put the ster away. The head inquisitors were not here yet, and he saw it unwise to show all his cards right there and then.


    ¡°Gusion, let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen summoned his men and had them all leap onto the back of the huge beast, which took to the air shortly after. Four of six punishers were killed by the Thunder Dragon ster, but their bodies hardly suffered any damage.


    They could be deployed again after they had their hearts reced. Among the other two, one had its heart intact but its body severely damaged, while the other waspletely destroyed, both body and heart.


    The remaining 34 punishers rushed at the demons and ughtered them.


    Saleen looked at battlefield from above and for the first time in his life, found demons to be frail creatures as well. There were hardly any demons capable of withstanding the punishers¡¯ rampaging charges.


    Their huge shields werepletely shattered by the impacts. Some demons, when toppled, had punishers run over them. Flesh and blood sttered all over the ce from the crevices of their armor.


    Out of the 500 demons, only a little over 50 of them were fast and strong enough to escape the punishers¡¯ rampage, running for Daliang City. The power of the demons were very, very near supreme demons. They would probably advance soon.


    One of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers that Saleen left behind swung around with its magic warhammer, knocking a punisher over and over. The hundred-meter tall Elemental Stone Statue Soldier quickly shrunk. Depleted elemental energies were almost impossible to replenish in such an environment.


    The punisher that had gotten beaten to a pulp did not die. With its heart still intact, it continued to struggle on the ground, freeing itself from the range of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s attack. The shrunken Elemental Stone Statue Soldier, now 50 meters tall, was crushed between two punishers, its legs broken.


    The soul beast climbed higher. The punishers on the ground continued to shoot metal spikes, but they were all shot down by Saleen using low level icicles. The Stone Statue Soldier was left for dead.


    Almost all of Saleen¡¯s 500 demons perished. The assault was a failure.


    If it had not been for the punishers, with three golden grand swordmasters, the Winged Skull, and Sika by Saleen¡¯s side, they could have caused huge casualties to the cavalry units. The punishers¡¯ appearance was unexpected and Saleen never took them into ount.


    The huge soul beast flew at an altitude of over 3000 meters. Saleen turned around and saw an army d in red armor appear on the battlefield below.


    Three holy masters in the army cast divine spells in synchronization. The remaining 100 demons who were still struggling were caught in three divine light cages. The battlefield suddenly turned silent.


    Saleen put on his mask and attempted to lock onto the holy masters, but he found it impossible to aim at any of them. There were only two shots left with his Thunder Dragon ster, which could still be effective at killing two punishers.


    However, Saleen did not do it. He saw the holy mastere before the monster he killed after taking care of the demons.


    Someone pulled the mouth of the monster open and the three holy masters stuffed some unknown item into its mouth. The dead beast wiggled and seemed toe to life again.

 Chapter 1081: Killing Officers (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1081: Killing Officers (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The soul beast flew further and further away. Saleen told everyone around him what he had seen. As a result, the hearts of everyone there turned rather heavy.


    The never-before-seen weapons of war were actually capable of resurrecting after being shot by Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster. It could even be said that it was the most difficult thing to deal with that they had ever seen.


    J lowered his voice and said, ¡°My liege, the three of us would definitely be able to kill one of those monsters.¡±


    The three he meant were he himself, Sul, and Gusion. Without a doubt, the three golden grand swordmasters would have been able to kill one of those monsters.


    The problem, however, was that if there were to be a huge number of powerful holy masters showing up to mess with them, the oue would have been very difficult to predict.


    Saleen grew increasingly determined of getting Nailisi to the city. Her Grey Memory would have been able to prate the monster¡¯s body easily, destroying its heart. Furthermore, the lock-on ability of the Grey Memory would have rendered the monster¡¯s heart incapable of escaping.


    But, then again, they had no idea how many of those monsters the Tribunal had in their possession. If the numbers turned out to be big, even Nailisi would not have been able to do much.


    ¡°I can definitely take one on myself.¡± Sika had higher a number of contacts with the punishers than everyone else. She simply went about swinging her staff at them, not feeling how difficult it actually was to bring one down.


    ¡°I saw that thing was capable of casting divine spells,¡± she said. ¡°If it had not been for them being in such an environment, it would have been even harder to kill them.¡±


    The Winged Skull attacked continuously with their Reaper Scythe, but they were still incapable of killing the punisher. Despite so, they were able to clearly make out some of the monster¡¯s attributes.


    ¡°In any other environment, my Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers wouldn¡¯t have been brought down at all,¡± Saleen said rather glumly.


    One of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers he had left behind did not even have a bit of energy flying back to the badge after its elemental core was crushed. That meant that the particr unit waspletely destroyed. There was no way to bring it back to life.


    The soul beast was able to fly faster than sorcerers. The Tribunal forces had no ns of pursuing them. They all saw the golden grand swordmasters at Saleen¡¯s side. Chasing after him without a sound n would have simply added to their casualties.


    Saleen went to look at how the magic cannons wereid out after returning to Daliang City, which made him feel somewhat assured. While the monster was powerful, it was still incapable of going as high as 1,640 feet with a single leap. It would have had no way of attacking Daliang City without being able to fly.


    What was causing him headache was still the fortress beneath. Just how were things inside the giant cemetery? Was Jalin dead or not?


    Saleen returned to the Magical Element Tower and gathered the sorcerers. They discussed other ways of fortifying the ce. Ceylon City was unable to function without a garrison.


    There was no way of summoning demons if Nailisi was called to the city. Losses in Ceylon City would have been difficult to replenish. Things in Ceylon City were messy. Troops from both sides were fighting right outside the city, and blood was being spilled every second.


    Nailisi was the only one capable of holding the fort in Ceylon City. If she were to be called to Daliang City, all 12 sorcerers and the Winged Skull had to go to Ceylon City as well. That was because the Winged Skull¡¯s spirit army would have been able to gain an advantage in sheer numbers.


    Regardless of howrge the Sikeqinyan poption was, there was simply no way they could have been able to fight a drawn-out war with the spirit army.


    Saleen instructed the Winged Skull to simply keep Ceylon City defended and wait for reinforcements from Metatrin. As for the outskirts of that city, the Winged Skull were to never put everything on the line.


    If worse came to worst, giving up territory was an option. The walls of the new city in Ceylon City had been finished. The circle of defense had gotten very huge, and they were able to build all types of metal towers. The magic was almostplete.


    The teleportation portal worked only once an hour. The sorcerers were to be sent to Ceylon City one by one. It was taxing to teleport living people. Additionally, the portal in Ceylon City required constant maintenance.


    The number of sorcerers over there were too few. If it had not been for Nailisi having ample high-level materials, it would have been a huge headache to even transport the 12 sorcerers to the city on the other end.


    The Winged Skull was thest to leave. Nailisi came from Ceylon City right after they left.


    ¡°Master, you missed me after all!¡± Nailisi jumped from the other side of the magic array and chuckled as she pulled at Saleen¡¯s sleeves. She had been fighting a boring war in Ceylon City.


    The Sikeqinyan¡¯s attacks were dull, but they could not be ignored. The enemy had massive numbers, and they came from all sides to attack Ceylon City to earn the status of a noble. From Nailisi¡¯s perspective, what they were doing was incredibly stupid.


    So what if you people take Ceylon City? It¡¯s only a matter of time before Saleen takes it back anyway. Anyone who takes the city will be the one down on their luck. Hell, they might even end up having entire ns destroyed, and that noble status is nothing more than poison.


    Lex said nothing, but Sika red at Nailisi, which prompted her to let go.


    Nailisi knew about things in Daliang City. At the moment, cavalry from the Tribunal was circling the city, observing how the defenses wereid out.


    In actual fact, there was little to look at. Daliang City was 1,640 feet high. Almost none of the equipment the Tribunal brought with them proved capable of attacking the city.


    The punishers were capable of shooting metal spikes. In such an environment, restoration of the spikes was far slower than restoration of magic chords of mages. It was also difficult to shoot any soldiers on the walls dead with the huge horns.


    Saleen had no means of attacking the cavalry peering from outside other than the magic cannons, and the cannons at the walls were not installed on fixed bases.


    They needed the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers to adjust the direction of barrels. But, it was difficult for the cannons to shoot the scattered cavalry units. Even if the shots were to be hits, it was still not worth the cost in magic nuclei.


    ¡°Nailisi, I called you here to kill a head inquisitor,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Master, isn¡¯t it rather difficult to have me do that?¡± Nailisi took a look around and saw three golden grand swordmasters around Saleen. There was also Nichs, the fallen holy master, and Sika around. It would have been easy for them to take out one head inquisitor.


    ¡°It won¡¯t be as easy as you thought it to be,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Someone at the rank of head inquisitor will definitely be equipped with very hard-to-handle equipment.¡±


    Saleen yed the recorded magic images of the previous battle. Nailisi looked at how the punishers fought with J and the others. She began to take she was told seriously.


    She took out her Sword of Rules and sensed it for a bit. She smiled and said to Saleen, ¡°Master, the weapon is still as it is. Lucky indeed.¡±


    Nailisi took out the Grey Memory. The hairs of everyone in the Magical Element Tower stood up as she took out the spear. The smell of blood emanating from the tip of the spear was akin to poison.


    Nailisi had been killing untold numbers of officers and generals in the battles in Ceylon City. Otherwise, her demons would not have been able to hold off the allied forces over there.


    What was even more eerie was the six eyes right behind the tip. The closed eyes emanated an evil aura filled with all manner of negative emotions and powers. All three of the golden grand swordmasters seemed to have felt their lives in serious threat.


    If Nailisi were to attack them right there, there was simply no way they would have been able to evade it.


    ¡°No restrictions as well!¡± Nailisi was very happy. It was a given that she wanted to help Saleen resolve his current predicament. The Grey Memory was her strongest means of offense. It was, after all, difficult to throw powerful targets into her collection of purgatories. The power within hardly mattered when battles were involved.


    Lex frowned and said, ¡°Saleen, if we were able to kill a head inquisitor, wouldn¡¯t we have gathered all powers of the Holy See here?¡±


    Her worries were sound. While the head inquisitors were not the ones in charge of the Holy See, they were just a tad lower than the pope in terms of status.


    The power of the Tribunal had even exceeded that of the Pivotal Council led by the pope once in the past. Even at the moment, when the pope had acquired help from three oracles, it was still not certain that he would have been able to keep the Tribunal in check.


    Killing a head inquisitor would have definitely raised morale, but it would have brought them more problems in the future.


    Saleen replied with a single simple line, ¡°Even if I were to not kill them, they woulde to kill me all the same.¡±


    Such was the underlying nature of things. Saleen had the War Drum of Fear, the Ring of Gifts from the Goddess of Myers, and huge amounts of power of faith stored in his ring.


    If the Lord of Glory decreed that he must be killed, the Holy See would have thought of ways to bring Saleen down one way or another regardless of the lengths he would have gone to avoid it. They were simply determined to see him burned at the stake.


    There was no other way out for Saleen. If the Holy See were to gather all of their forces there because one of the head inquisitors was killed, Saleen still had nothing to worry about. He would have let the fossilized gods out and taken everyone with him in death.


    ¡°Alright, whatever you choose. So long as you¡¯ve made up your mind, you¡¯ll have my support.¡± Lex stopped advising him against it. She touched the God¡¯s Ring on her finger.


    Its power was suppressed. However, it was fortunate that its space abilities were unaffected. It held enough food and equipment to feed and arm a million-strong army.


    While he made it sound rather easy, Saleen did not actually have much certainty in the killing of the head inquisitor. The only equipment he was able to rely on was the Thunder Dragon ster.


    He had summoned Nailisi so that in the event that the Thunder Dragon ster failed, there was at least a backup nearby.


    Nailisi was assigned to the walls. Sheid out her demon army. Her demon army from Ceylon City had all been summoned in short notice. As such, they were a messy bunch. The 100,000-strong demon army within her purgatory of the devils were still unused.


    The Tribunal army outside the city had found the small groups of forts at the east of the city, as well as the temporary magic towersid within. The constructs looked out of ce beneath Daliang City.


    The ones from the Tribunal would have been able to tell that there was something around, even if they were idiots. Furthermore, the Tribunal had actually gathered such a huge force to take the ruins in the first ce.


    The holy masters in the Tribunal army tried to fly, but found it incredibly exhausting to do so. All holy masters who were capable of doing so were level seven and above. Flying around Daliang City had them recall the days when they were at level six and had first learned flying divine spells.


    The cost in divine power was 10 times higher, and they were unable to feel the blessing of their god. They were also 10 times slower at recovery. It was really one hell of a sh**hole.


    The Tribunal¡¯s army began to gather east of the city. The camp was brought 10 miles away to the rear. The cannons were rendered ineffective at such a range. A cannon would have hit its limit attacking something five miles away when powered solely by magic nuclei.


    Offensive powers of the beams dropped by tens at a time outside that range, making attackspletely pointless.


    Morning quickly arrived. More and more from the Holy See army began to close in east of the city. Huge numbers of Blood Knights and warden infantries appeared.


    The 38 punishers were put at the very front of the camp, facing the small group of forts that Saleen had erected. The four punishers that Saleen killed had their hearts reced, and they were put into battle again.


    The other two, which had suffered damages beyond repair, could have only been taken apart and recycled. The three head inquisitors looked at the extent of their injuries and felt themselves trembling within.


    The sun rose higher and higher. The three head inquisitors were done arranging their offensive formations, gathering 10 square formations east of Daliang City and putting all 38 punishers in the middle.


    The charge was meant to destroy the small group of forts.

 Chapter 1082: Killing Officers (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1082: Killing Officers (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The wardens were behind the 15 square formations while the Blood Knights were put at the front. Every single square formation had about 1,100 units following right behind the punishers.


    The ramming power of the punishers exceeded that of a battering ram. At the very least, battering rams were incapable of cracking a level nine Crystal City.


    The group of forts below Daliang City was constructed in haste and piled up using magic. If it had been ced anywhere else, it would have been considered sturdy. However, in an environment where the power of magic was greatly diminished, the fossilized small forts were incapable of dealing with ramming attacks from the punishers.


    The punishers moved forward slowly. When they arrived about five miles away from Daliang City and about three miles away from the forts, the charge began.


    Charges ofmon cavalry were initiated thousands of feet away to prevent the horses from tiring and losing momentum. The punishers were capable of running for 10,000 miles. As such, the several miles distance was simply meant for eleration.


    Most catapults at the walls lost their uracy. When the ground copsed and Daliang City was shaken violently, most of the catapult bases were broken. Those that survived were not recalibrated.


    Numerous catapults threw huge rocks beneath. The balls of rock rolled in the air andnded near the punishers, who kept their heads low and flung the incredibly heavy rocks away without trouble. The horns on their heads sparked as the rocks were flung over a dozen miles away.


    While the catapults lost their uracy, their range remainedrgely unchanged. The second round of rocks flungnded on the backs of the punishers, rolling off at the Blood Knights.


    The Blood Knights were not as good at riding as the elite cavalry units. When the huge balls of rock rolled about, over a hundred Blood Knights were instantly turned to mush. Any Blood Knights who managed to evade slowed down considerably, making the formations messy.


    Saleen sighed deeply upon seeing how more than 20 catapults attacked but were only able to kill about a hundred enemies. The efficiency was truly terrible.


    However, he had personal experiences with the Blood Knights and knew thatmon arrows had no effect on them. They would only losebat capacity if high-level alchemy arrows hit vital areas.


    Although high-level alchemy arrows were capable of being shot at such a distance, even if the arrows were to connect, it would be hard to hit the Blood Knights in the vital areas.


    Other than Eleanor, only the level nine archer at Royal Harbor would have been able to hit the targets from miles away. Those two were the only level nine archers in both nations.


    There were hardly any hopes of advancement in the profession. It was simply too difficult for archers to survive in battles, yet they were unable to heighten their skills without participating in battles.


    The magic cannons within the forts began to fire away in a frenzy. All troops assigned below consisted of spirits and demons for safety reasons. Human armies had all retreated to Daliang City. No magic cannons were spared. The problem of whether the cannons would have malfunctioned was entirely nonexistent at the moment.


    The high rate of fire was all aimed at a single target.


    This time, the magic cannon attacks became effective. A punisher taking the lead had its head shot off. While it remained charging forward, it lost all sense of direction and was quickly brought down by a ball of rock flung from the air. It went to charge at the nks when it got up again, ramming into another punisher.


    Twelve magic cannons shot at another target. The punishers were now only about two miles away from the group of forts. There were cannons that missed the target, but most of them were able to hit the second target.


    The unanimous firing had caused a weak elemental resonance. The ground shook as a result, which Saleen was able to feel from the walls. Everyone felt like their hearts were about to jump out of their chests.


    It was fortunate that no elemental storms were whipped up or no magical catastrophe taking ce. Besides, there were too few of the magic cannons to do so. Their attacks were also several times weaker than what it would have been under normal circumstances.


    Saleen no longer cared for the forts. There was simply no way those small forts could withstand such weapons of war. He gazed far away and shared his senses with Nailisi.


    Three middle-aged holy masters were issuing orders while being surrounded by the army about 10 miles away.


    Saleen said, ¡°Nailisi, do you see them?¡±


    ¡°I see them,¡± she said.


    ¡°Your target is the tallest one,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Can you see that emblem on his chest?¡±


    ¡°I do, master,¡± Nailisi replied.


    ¡°Wait for your chance,¡± Saleen said. ¡°J and Sul will be there to protect you. Me and Lex will take on the other two respectively. Give it all you¡¯ve got. Hit them really hard, even if you¡¯re unable to kill him. Sika will be there to deal a killing blow in such cases.¡±


    Nailisi licked her lips and suppressed the excitement deep down. ¡°Rx, master. I¡¯ll die if he doesn¡¯t!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say things like that. Beware of the equipment in his hand,¡± Saleen said. The one he spoke of was the fourth head inquisitor, who was holding a thin, yellow book that did not seem to fluctuate with any power.


    Nailisi cared little for the details and sneaked outside the walls.


    The punishers had arrived several hundred miles away. None of the demons or spirits attempted to fight. They got inside the purgatory of the devils that Nailisi opened up instead.


    Boom...


    Noises of the forts toppling were heard. The short walls at the outskirts were all destroyed by many punishers. Once in, the punishers saw a huge portal and the demons and spirits running away in a hurry.


    The punishers turned around and charged. Nailisi gave a cold smirk as she turned the portal around. Six punishers ran straight into the purgatory of the fallen. She turned the portal around again and sent another six into the purgatory of the elements.


    Nailisi dared not take any more of the punishers into her collection of purgatories after sending 12 of them inside. The offensive power within the 12 Notes of First Purgatory was probably incapable of handling too many punishers in them. Furthermore, the spaces were simply too small, and their powers too limited. If the enemies thrown within were too powerful, there was no certainty that they would have ended up dead inside.


    She as actually being overcautious. Nailisi¡¯s double in the sky took notice as soon as the six punishers rushed inside the purgatory of the fallen.


    Twenty-four chains shot down from the hovering altar and chained all six punishers up. The 24 chains were originally meant for chaining the original body of the Divine Baby. It was too easy to finish off the punishers.


    Since they were unable to kill them, the punishers were chained up tightly. Divine powers imbued within the chains were gained from prayers of the adherents of the Goddess of Nature.


    There were hundreds of thousands of humanoid monsters throughout the entire purgatory, which continued to sing praises to and worship Nailisi¡¯s double. Divine power within the chains gushed and continued to assimte the energies within the bodies of the punishers.


    The power originated from the Lord of Glory seemed rather weak inparison to the new flow of energy within. The six punishers gradually quieted down and stopped struggling. The six punishers that were thrown inside the purgatory of elements struggled for much longer and suffered a worse fate.


    The Eye of the Storm in the sky noticed as soon as they came in. It had been fighting with the great fire snake for an unknown amount of time. Their powers had tangled with each other and had even begun to assimte each other¡¯s powers. The two elemental beings found a new target and went on to attack them instead.


    Countless wind des wrapped in fire cut up the bodies of the punishers. The entire space was a domain controlled by those two beings. There was nowhere to run. The punishers were incapable of gaining support of any kind and had to resort to using divine powers in their bodies to resist the attacks.


    However, the powers of the Eye of the Storm and great fire snake were cycled by the space itself, which essentially made the punishers¡¯ powers limitless. The wind des wrapped in fire cut them upyer byyer.


    Under the workings of stockpiled divine powers, their bodies quickly restored after being cut up, before getting cut up again. The cycle repeated itself over and over.


    The punishers at the rear barged into the forts and came into contact with the remaining demons and spirits. Nailisi knew there was no way she could take all her underlings with her. She rubbed her hands andid on the ground, quickly turning herself into a golden dragon and taking to the air. She snatched a punisher with her ws and began to tear it apart.


    While Nailisi had no way of controlling dragon tongue spells of the golden dragon form, she still had the immense physical power of the dragon. The punisher was quickly torn into pieces by the dragon ws.


    The punisher¡¯s tail whipped hard at the body of the golden dragon, but the level difference between the two was too great. The attacks were pointless.


    Nailisi was still able to feel pain since not taking damage did not mean not feeling any pain. She flew high into the air and threw the broken punisher to the ground. She took another one up and began biting it.


    The scene with the punishers was sent back to the head inquisitors, who all yelled in fright and surprise, ¡°A golden dragon!¡±


    The three young head inquisitors were ted. There is actually a golden dragon in Daliang City! Better still, the golden dragon can be captured and tamed using divine spells!


    Once tamed, the golden dragon¡¯s life would be incredibly long and could be shared with the tamer. The lifespan would be shared with the owner of the dragon as it remained alive. Such was the mystical parts of divine arts, which was something that mages were incapable of emting.


    Despite the keen interest, which shone in their eyes, they were unable to see anything wrong with the dragon. That was because the dragon had fully disyed its power. Lone punishers stood no chance against the dragon.


    Nailisi did not use dragon breath, which greatly diminished the cost of using the golden dragon form. She chomped on the punisher in excitement. While the monster was practically tasteless, it was still an ecstatic feeling biting and tearing something with dragon fangs.


    Saleen observed with his Elemental Eye and saw the people around all three head inquisitors waving their gs. The army d in red changed their formations. It became apparent they were about to attack.


    So they can¡¯t resist the temptation of the golden dragon and took the bait after all! Nice, bingo!


    Saleen was afraid that the three head inquisitors would not bat an eye at the dragon. If they were to attack slowly, the passage at the giant¡¯s ear would have been found. But, there was no way he could send troops to fight down there. The result would be massive casualties.


    ¡°Get ready, the targets are moving!¡± Saleen informed the people around him.


    Common troops did not take part in the battle. The Tribunal forces attacked without bothering to set up camp. The Tribunal knew that the terrain around Daliang City had suddenly changed. Even troops within city were unable to get used to it. Attacking with the punishers yielded effective results.


    The head inquisitors saw whatever the punishers saw. Saleen was able to tell as much from how they noticed Nailisi¡¯s dragon form. He held the urge to act in and stayed at the walls, letting Nailisi tear at the punishers.


    The walls were very quiet. The troops had forgotten to even cheer when they saw the golden dragon appear. They held their breath and stared at the battle below.


    ¡°There is another mile away. Let¡¯s go,¡± Saleen said as he leapt over the walls.


    Sika followed closely, and the golden grand swordmasters leapt as well. There was no need for Eleanor to go down. Her archery was most effective attacking targets at a mile away, which made it easy for her to attack from the walls. Thest to fly was Lex. Colorful lights coursed throughout her body, making her look like a butterfly.

 Chapter 1083: Brutal Battles (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1083: Brutal Battles (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The three head inquisitors moved forward the fourth head inquisitor. ¡°We¡¯ll take turns taming the golden dragon once we capture it. The beast belongs to the one who is able to tame it.¡±


    The fifth head inquisitor added, ¡°the one who acquired the dragon will be required to hand over two pieces of equipment found in this ruins.¡±


    ¡°Agreed. If there is no equipment deemed fit for our use, the one who acquired the golden dragon will be required to surrender two semi-godly items and 20 pieces of holy equipment,¡± the sixth head inquisitor continued.


    ¡°Alright, deal.¡± The fourth head inquisitorughed within. He had the Book of Pathos with him, so taming a golden dragon was hardly a problem.


    Giving up two semi-godly items was insignificant, for he would earn himself a very long lifespan after acquiring the golden dragon, which meant that he would secure his ce as the first head inquisitor in the long run.


    It would be worth it to give up a godly item for that dragon.


    The group of forts were overrun and the golden dragon was only capable of taking on one punisher at a time. Nailisi had done her best demonstrating the power of the dragon to entice the three head inquisitors.


    She did her best to tear off the limbs of the punisher and crush its head to mush. The heart was a difficult target, and Nailisi did not force herself to it. It would suffice to rob the punisher of its offensive capacity.


    The rushing red army flooded before the group of broken forts. ck Metal Grand Swordmasters, as the mighty ones in the army, carved the way open for the head inquisitors.


    The three of them were even more pleased to see that golden dragon falling to the ground. They were afraid the dragon would simply fly into the city, as it wouldplicate things.


    This darn cepels us to charge slowly just to cast any powerful divine spells. They needed to have their subordinates surround the dragon before they were able to take it down. They would have to waste powerful scrolls with them otherwise.


    The scrolls were meant for dealing with danger when entering the ruins, and the three head inquisitors were reluctant to use any of them haphazardly. If the progress with excavation of the ruins was affected, the great head inquisitor would not let the matter slide easily.


    Nailisi took to the ground and quickly dove behind arge turret, returning to her imp form. She took Grey Memory in her hand, before hesitating and taking the Sword of Rules in her left hand as well.


    She felt a lot more secure with the two powerful weapons in hand. Saleen and the others also leapt from the city above. Saleen unleashed over a hundred ancient figures to attack the remaining punishers.


    The metal spikes would grow quickly in a normal environment and serve as the punishers¡¯ powerful supplementary weapons. However, in the environment they found themselves in, the divine spells of the punishers became very difficult to cast and the metal spikes became their main weapons.


    The spikes, which were cut off by the figures wielding their halberds, needed more than ten minutes to regenerate6. The frequency of the attacks of the figures were too abnormally quick, which ended up having the punishers battered in no time.


    It was a pity that their halberds were unable to cleave the punishers open.


    The soldiers of the Tribunal, d in crimson armor, stormed the forts, and found dead bodies everywhere within. The target of the soldiers were the ancient figures, who were retreating under Saleen¡¯smand. The three head inquisitors had also appeared in the forts.


    The magic cannons that were destroyed by the punishersy in pieces.


    The aura of the golden dragon disappeared? The three head inquisitors sensed something was off. The catapults at the city were unable to attack at such a range.


    The 500 meter city wall made invasion extremely difficult, but it also made it just as difficult for the soldiers at the wall toe down and fight.


    Six Blue Ice Maidens were unleashed, and borrowing water element generated by the elemental creatures, Saleen cast a misty cloud, enveloping the forts.


    The head inquisitors cast Divine Protection at the same time. Massive divine power was cast from a huge crystal ball in the sixth head inquisitor¡¯s hand to provide energy for the Divine Protection spell.


    Four divine crystals spun slowly within the crystal ball. Such a powerful piece of equipment provided protection for the three of them, with a magnitude as powerful as if they were outside.


    Two powerful golden sword aura burst, covering Nailisi, and rushed at the fourth head inquisitor. Saleen and Lex turned their attention to the fifth and sixth head inquisitor, respectively.


    Saleen¡¯s side waspletely unaffected by the mist, while all the soldiers and the head inquisitors needed divine spells from the holy masters to allow them to see beyond the mist.


    The fourth head inquisitor smirked. He opened the yellow book in his hand and shouted gently, ¡°purify!¡±


    Yellow light shone on Nailisi, making her feel dizzy, and she suddenly felt apelling urge to worship the fourth head inquisitor.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen shouted. His voice was infused with rumbling thunder, snapping Nailisi out of her dazed state. She saw a spear of lighting for her chest, and she swung the Sword of Rules in her left hand, cutting down the spear.


    The six eyes in front of the Grey Memory in her right hand were opened, turning its gaze at the fourth head inquisitor.


    The fourth head inquisitor felt as if he had been locked in ce by some evil god, and his soul trembled. The spear shot right through the Divine Protection and went through his body.


    The wound quickly closed up, but the intense pain did not go away.


    The fourth head inquisitor knew that they had been set up. The enemyid out a trap for them. The other two head inquisitors were busy tangling with the mages.


    Two golden sword auras stabbed the area of protection provided by Divine Protection, tearing the shielding apart, and a spear was thrust inside the opening.


    Pfft...


    Nailisi¡¯s spear went right through the fourth head inquisitor¡¯s heart. Lights burst from his yellow book, making the lights seem red. The fourth head inquisitor surprisingly lived after being showered by that light. He struggled free of the Grey Memory and retreated backwards.


    Nailisi was rendered extremely weak. Sheshed out with the spear at full power, yet she failed to kill the enemy.


    J and Sul took Nailisi from her left and right, retreating. She took the form of the Skeleton King, putting away her Grey Memory, intending to move forward with her Sword of Rules still.


    Sika leapt from behind her and swung her staff, bringing the weapon on top of the fourth head inquisitor.


    Pure red light burst from the yellow book in his hand and he took to the air. Sika paid it no heed. The spikes on the staff shot out without changing the trajectory of her attack, going straight for the fourth inquisitor¡¯s head.


    A sharp sound was heard from within the red light. Sika¡¯s staff pierced through the light andnded on the head of the fourth head inquisitor, who was covered by Divine Protection.


    The shield broke and the head inquisitor¡¯s head was nowhere to be seen.


    Nailisi¡¯s spear rendered the fourth head inquisitor incredibly sluggish. None of the powerful equipment he carried with him was usable. With the Divine Protection being cut open, itpletely disappeared after suffering thatst strike from Sika.


    Saleen and Lex found themselves in danger. Two Heaven Angels appeared behind the fifth and sixth head inquisitors, swinging their Swords of Glory at them. Saleen and Lex hurriedly put up magic shields, but their shields were quickly shattered. A seven-colored beam of light glittered from Lex¡¯s body, stopping the attack.


    Saleen pointed with one finger. The Crystal Finger pierced the Sword of Glory and the fifth head inquisitor, whom he was fighting, cast Divine Bullet.


    J and Sul rushed up to face the angels. Saleen summoned two Blue Ice Maidens to stand before him, but they were quickly taken out by the Divine Bullet and retreated back to the badge.


    Countless needles shot from the sixth head inquisitor¡¯s ball of light. Nailisi was pierced by the needles as soon as she cut off the fourth head inquisitor¡¯s head and took away the yellow book. Her spirit form was very sensitive to divine light, and white smoke came out from her body.


    Gusion was astute enough to wrap himself with the Dragon ughtering War g, preventing him from taking any damage. The two golden grand swordmasters were only able to unleash their sword aura to resist.


    Energy overflowed from the huge crystal ball in the sixth head inquisitor¡¯s hand without any signs of diminishing. The needles kept being conjured and fired, and Saleen¡¯s Water Shield, which he put up in a hurry, suffered damages.


    Lex and Saleen were both startled by the fact that they were still able to use Divine Territory. Just what the hell is that crystal ball!?


    The two head inquisitors were more startled and angered than Saleen. The power of the equipment the fourth head inquisitor packed far exceeded theirsbined, yet he lost his head!


    The woman that crushed the fourth head inquisitor¡¯s head was seen swinging her staff, heading for the sixth inquisitor.


    Sika was able to tell that the equipment the sixth head inquisitor packed was too powerful. If he was to be left alive, everyone there would die. The power unleashed by the crystal was equivalent to territory conjured by a level ten professional at full force.


    Magic waspletely nullified in such a territory and even the powers of the grand swordmasters could hardly be used. Nailisi writhed in pain on the ground, unable to change into other forms.


    Sika was the only one unaffected. Her powers were still intact, and her weapon howled, as if the souls of demonic beast within were ted to be allowed to kill, acquiring more power.


    The fourth head inquisitor died a rather unceremonious death. Nailisi had no way to defend against his Book of Pathos, but she shared senses with Saleen. Saleen shouted in a thunderous rumble when Nailisi was about to be converted to a believer, his powerful rules of lightning breaking the hold of the Book of Pathos¡¯ spell.


    The spear of light was originally something that could not be defended against by any other weapon, yet the Sword of Rules enabled her to cut it down.


    Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory pierced the fourth head inquisitor¡¯s heart. Although the wound was mended by the Book of Pathos, the fourth head inquisitor was unable to use any other equipment while suffering such a grievous injury. He had only been able to see Sika leaping at him, whacking his head to mush with her staff.


    The synchronization in attacks made the fourth head inquisitor fall where he should not have. His Book of Pathos taken away by Nailisi.


    Sika¡¯s armor was able to fend off the attacks of the needles. She headed for the sixth head inquisitor, rendering himpletely frightened, as hisbat capacity was nowhere near that of the fifth.


    The fifth head inquisitor took out a box from his space equipment and opened it in haste. Twenty-four statues were packed closely within. The statues flew out and took the form of pitch-ck angels, surrounding Sika.


    The Angels of Repentance, created by the Tribunal using the sealed souls of mighty ones, had power that was twice of what the souls within had when they were alive.


    Every use of the angels shortened their lifespans, but the fifth head inquisitor was at his wit¡¯s end. If that ferocious woman were to be allowed to close in on the sixth head inquisitor, he would lose the help of the Divine Territory.

 Chapter 1084: Brutal Battles (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1084: Brutal Battles (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ck Angels of Repentance, armed with ck longswords, surrounded Sika. The des were serrated, and pale light coursed through the serrations.


    Sika swept at them with her staff without moving her body, swatting the angels who closed in on her. The fifth head inquisitor was incredibly frustrated, but he was unable to do anything else.


    The parts of the angels that were hit by Sika¡¯s staff were quickly reduced to dust, like the pests in the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The scattered parts would regroup and heal. Sika was frighteningly fast at attacking, so much so that none of the angels was able to get near her.


    With the spikes on Sika¡¯s staff extended, the wounded parts of the angels turned paler every time, with their energies behind swallowed by the staff with every single strike.


    The center of the battlefield was where the two head inquisitorsy. The crystal ball in the sixth head inquisitor¡¯s hand was the key. About a hundred holy masters behind the two prayed in low voices, providing power to the two head inquisitors.


    What was more surprising was that the soldiers in red armor were actually able to fight the ancient figures toe to toe.


    Most of the soldiers were right outside, chanting thenguage of the gods loudly. Only several hundred of the 10,000 were actually fighting at the forts.


    Red sheen burst out every single one, and every soldier had at least 30 of their own praying for them to serve as backing, increasing their powers by more than a dozen-fold.


    The warriors praying outside had incredibly low defensive capacity. If they were to be ambushed, massive casualties would ur. However, the tide was in the Tribunal¡¯s favor.


    The remaining punishers were still fighting the ancient figures. Daliang City had no way out of it for the time being.


    Saleen was incredibly frustrated. He was unable to summon his elemental creatures or his ancient figures. The only equipment that would have gave him an edge was the Thunder Dragon ster. He could not help but break the ster out, coiling it around his arm and pointing it at the sixth head inquisitor.


    The crystal ball on the sixth head inquisitor¡¯s hand detected the iing danger, casting ring-shaped waves and creating a huge portal. A huge white ape jumped out from nowhere. The only thing known about it was that it was a creature of the gods.


    The ape was only about a dozen meters tall, shortpared to elemental creatures. Its white fur was about a meter long. The fur billowed in the wind, casting divine light of the Lord of Glory. The white ape bared its fangs and charged at Saleen.


    Saleen cursed his luck and changed the manner of attack with his ster. He intended to fire all six icicles at the sixth head inquisitor to get them out of the pinch, yet with the creature of the gods unleashed, he was forced to deal with that danger first.


    The fifth head inquisitor also took out an over-three-meter crystal scepter and chanted the prose of the gods. Divine light came from the scepter, slowly healing the damages suffered by the Angels of Repentance, maintaining the lockdown on Sika.


    Sika kept throwing javelins and all of them were taken down by the angels. She was almost incapable of moving her legs. The angels did not bother to defend and simply chopped away with their weapons.


    The fifth head inquisitor gave everything he got. Even if he ended up killing Sika, the damages suffered by the angels would be difficult to repair and they would all end up as broken goods.


    That equipment would enable him to stop the advance of a great army. He had never seen a warrior of enough ferocity to take on 24 Angels of Repentance all on her own.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle shot at the white ape¡¯s heart, which sent it writhing on the ground. The sixth head inquisitor broke out in a cold sweat. While the white ape was only a level nine creature, it wasposed of pure energy. However, it behaved like just another magic beast of flesh and blood.


    The rules of lightning within the Thunder Dragon ster caused havoc on the internal systems of the creature, as if it actually had a heart that was then being destroyed. The ape dissipated in streaks of light, scattering in the Divine Territory.


    Gusion jumped into the fray with the g in his hand, helping Sika take out the angels. The sixth head inquisitor¡¯s crystal ball opened yet another portal.


    Another creature of the gods appeared and this time, it was a true angel holding a Sword of Glory. However, it was targeted by Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle the second it emerged.


    Saleen was incredibly frustrated. Within the Divine Territory, their enemies had no problem summoning anything while he was limited to six uses of the lightning icicles. The six Blue Ice Maidens had shrunk. Without them, Saleen would not be even able to maintain the mist around him.


    Boom!


    A huge sound of collision came from his right. What Saleen had been worried about finally happened. A young, lithe girl with billowing robe flew out of the sealed hole, punching a human-sized hole in the three meter-thick wall.


    ¡°Run!¡± Saleen had no intention to fight anyone anymore. All six of the Blue Ice Maidens shrunk to barely taller than two meters. The water element within the elemental creatures were sucked out by Saleen¡¯srge scale magic, unleashing hundreds of vortexes spinning up from the ground.


    The spell covered the entire group of forts. Saleen had no energy left enough forplete control. Some of the ancient figures outside were caught by the vortexes and were sent flying into the air and torn to shreds.


    Saleen had been preparing therge scale spell for a long time. His activation of the spell sent everyone around him flying into the air, thrown outside the control of the Divine Territory. Even Nailisi, who was writhing on the ground, was no exception.


    She took to the air and turned into a devil, taking out her weapon once again.


    The Skeleton King form was severely damaged. She was irked that she was unable to change forms within the vicinity of the Divine Territory. The weakness of the Skeleton King was so apparent that it almost cost her life. She would take any other form other than spirit.


    After being thrown into the air and escaping the Divine Territory, the vortexes rose several hundred meters high before dissipating.


    Therge scale spell was derived from Quickcloud, and would havested just as long. However, within the Divine Territory, suchrge scale spellssted for less than ten seconds before dissipating.


    It was fortunate that all of Saleen¡¯s group was able to escape the vicinity of the Divine Territory, sent flying far away.


    It was the method that everyone agreed to. The fifth and sixth head inquisitor had not been anticipating something like that, with Saleen sacrificing six Blue Ice Maidens to escape.


    They were, however, hardly to be med. A rumble that shook people¡¯s minds came from the hole behind Jalin as she emerged. The fossilized gods chased after her.


    With the dirt wall broken, there was no stopping the fossilized gods.


    Jalin burst through the passages of the cemetery with light gashes on his face. She quickly took out a mask and put it on her face. The peach color of the mask was so pale that it was close to white. She had long sensed the power of the Divine Territory. The magic staff in her hand glittered with yellow light. With a few leaps, she escaped the army of the Tribunal, going outside the vicinity of the Divine Territory.


    Sika summoned her soul beast, and everyone stood on its back. They were able to see Jalin.


    Sika asked Saleen, ¡°Saleen, should we kill her right now?¡±


    Saleen agreed with Sika wholeheartedly. However, he knew he was probably unable to keep up with the mage. Seeing how easily she was able to escape the Tribunal army, Saleen knew that her mystical movements were hardly affected. Or rather, Jalin¡¯s huge magic staff provided her with huge earth elemental support.


    ¡°Jalin,e up here,¡± Saleen shouted.


    Jalin looked up and saw the soul beast under Sika¡¯s control. She hesitated for a bit before leaping into the air, taking a few jumps midair, beforeing to face Saleen.


    The Thunder Dragon ster was still coiled around Saleen¡¯s arm. He kept his arms down and suppressed the raging anger inside him, before saying to Jalin, ¡°Give me a good reason not to kill you.¡±


    Jalin replied very calmly, ¡°If it were you, would you have had given up the chance to enter the cemetery?¡±


    ¡°Saleen is talking about Daliang City being dragged into this mess because of you. I know you¡¯re powerful, Jalin. So how about this, we go at each right here, right now. Whoever lives or dies, all up to how good we are,¡± Lex spoke.


    She was hardly injured in the Divine Territory and hardly expended any powers. The defensive powers afforded by the God¡¯s Ring was something not even Divine Punishment would be able to do anything about.


    ¡°Anything is up for trade, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯m willing to give everything I got down there and provide information on everything I know about the inside of the cemetery,¡± Jalin hardly flinched and did not agree to Lex¡¯s challenge.


    She knew if she were to kill Lex, her teacher would not let her off easily. If Lex actually dared move against her, the fight would have hardly been considered fair.


    Sika lifted her staff without any warning and brought it down hard on Jalin. She hurriedly put up her huge magic staff to fend off the hit. The gem on her magic staff shattered with a loud crack, the pieces so small that they were like dust.


    ¡°You!¡± Jalin was furious.


    ¡°I what? I¡¯m very angry and do you really think you can fend off my attack with that stick of yours? If Saleen wanted you dead, I would have killed you,¡± Sika said furiously and pointed her staff at Jalin¡¯s nose.


    Jalin¡¯s mask had cracked as well. Sika was true to her word. If she wanted Jalin dead, there was nowhere she could have run to on the soul beast.


    ¡°What, Jalin? So you are afraid of the curse of the King of Glory, and you wanted us to share the load with you?¡± Saleen asked sarcastically. ¡°It¡¯s a given that you have to pay for the damages Daliang City suffered, but not by sharing what you found inside the cemetery. If you don¡¯t want to die, sign a contract with me. Everything you can share with me will be what you use to pay for damages. I don¡¯t want to have anything to do with the cemetery.¡±


    ¡°Dream on! Kill me now if you dare,¡± Jalin bit her lip.


    ¡°Killing you now is hardly a dare. Go home and tell your teacher what you did and stay the hell away from me. If you feel like paying, you will have the chance,¡± Saleen answered coldly.


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying you don¡¯t want the stuff?¡± Jalin smirked coldly.


    ¡°Of course I want the stuff. I can¡¯t kill you for it, but I sure can strip you clean.¡± Saleenughed.


    Jalin was utterly terrified. She knew what kind ofpany Saleen kept around him, and there were several who cared little for the consequences of their actions.


    If Saleen gave the word, stripping her clean would be done very easily. She regretteding up to face Saleen. She never thought he would be so brutal and cold.

 Chapter 1085: Jalin’s Compromise (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1085: Jalin¡¯s Compromise (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The soul beast flew increasingly high, circling at a height over 2,000 miles above the Tribunal army.


    Jalin thought about Saleen¡¯s threat and said, ¡°I¡¯d have just run away if I knew this would happen.¡±


    ¡°Arb had you stuck with me. Would you really run away?¡± Saleen retorted.


    He wanted to kill Jalin badly, but he would have had nothing to gain from killing her. Furthermore, Saleen wanted to know what was in the cemetery, but he had no intention of going inside to look around himself. Jalin was the only one who had entered, and her information was very valuable.


    Jalin was rendered speechless by Saleen¡¯s retort. Her teacher stuck her to Saleen¡¯s side, so she definitely had a purpose to serve. While her teacher was rather lenient with what she did with him, it would have been problematic if she were to run away and Saleen chased after her. It would have been very awkward.


    She could leave for a while, but not in a way in which she had Saleen at her tail. If he were to chase after him, there would have been hardly any reason for her to return to Saleen¡¯s side. That would mean the mission given to her by her teacher would bepletelypromised.


    ¡°Put down what you have willingly, or we strip you down. Otherwise, run away right now. The choice is yours.¡± Sika held on to her staff. Her eyes werepletely hostile as she looked at Jalin¡¯s charming face.


    Jalin¡¯s emotions seemed rather unstable with her mask torn. ¡°Do your worst, Saleen. I¡¯m not signing any contracts with you.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Nailisi, she¡¯s all yours,¡± Sika said.


    Nailisiughed maniacally and grabbed Jalin. She flew on top of the soul beast. Her huge body bent over. With all three of her heads speaking to Jalin at the same time, she said, ¡°Don¡¯t try to resist. Do so, and I¡¯ll kill you.¡±


    ¡°Stop! Saleen, we can discuss this...¡± Jalin¡¯s voice trailed off.


    Pfftt...


    Nailisi¡¯s huge hand took hold of Jalin¡¯s body. She turned into a whiff of smoke appearing beside them.


    ¡°What¡¯s more to discuss? Sign the contract and I¡¯ll forgive what you did,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Refuse to do so, and we¡¯ll be mortal enemies. I¡¯ll let you off alive once at most for Arb¡¯s sake. I won¡¯t go easy on you if I were to see you again.¡±


    ¡°Master said that he would let you go alive, but I can¡¯t guarantee I¡¯m going to do the same.¡± Nailisi said as her four arms closed in at the center, making an attack gesture.


    While they were over 2,000 miles in the air, it was still a difficult ce to cast spells. Sika had broken Jalin¡¯s magic staff. While she had barely been able to escape the first attack, there was no way to escape the second one.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen, I agree,¡± Jalin said.


    Nailisi took hold of Jalin¡¯s waist and squeezed hard. Saleen said, ¡°Don¡¯t kill her yet!¡±


    Saleen knew Nailisi¡¯s temperament too well. She would ruin things before thinking about the consequences of doing so. If she wanted to kill someone, Saleen had to warn her beforehand.


    If he was only half a second slower, he would have only been able to retrieve a bisected Jalin. If he wanted anything useful by then, the only way to do it was to extract the memory fragments from her soul.


    If he were to let Jalin die in pieces and have her soul extracted for torture, Arb would have flown into a rage. There was no need to offend a level 10 professional at that juncture.


    Saleen was afraid of what Nailisi would have done, and Jalin was even more so. She was able to smell death as Nailisi¡¯s sharp fingernails punctured her magic robe and scraped against her skin. Death was within an inch of her life.


    Jalin believed that if she were to be tortured to death, her teacher would avenge her. The question was, however, was it worth it to argue with a demon?


    If Jalin remained adamant, Nailisi would have crushed her to death. With that, all the great ideals she had would have been no more.


    There were plenty of cases where geniuses died young, including death caused by people of low status. Jalin was thoroughly frightened. She lost all courage to fight Saleen any further.


    Saleen was still watching the battles taking ce beneath. He found troops swinging weapons at the passage to the cemetery on the ground, intending to dig it open, which was followed by a punisher ramming at the passage and dropping dead right away.


    The power within the dirt seal had absolute killing power over gods and their adherents. The head of that punisher had massive stores of power of faith. The ram had rendered the punisherpletely dead, so much so that it did not even twitch.


    However, arge hole was torn at the dirt seal. The fossilized gods within rushed out of the exit. They swung their weapons without hesitation as soon as they caught sight of the Holy See troops.


    Things were hardly peaceful between humans. It was even less so with the gods. The fossilized gods and Lord of Glory were of entirely different races. Furthermore, the Lord of Glory was a very xenophobic god. Intense hatred welled up deep within the souls of the fossilized gods as soon as they saw the adherents of the Lord of Glory around.


    Worse still, the light that was maintaining the Divine Territory fell onto the fossilized gods, causing them great pain. If it had not been the skin of the fossilization skill having an edge by being able to suppress divinity, the fossilized gods would have been injured.


    The hole was not veryrge, and the number of gods rushing out was few. They were quickly surrounded and taken care of by the Tribunal army. The dead fossilized gods¡¯ souls were sucked back into the cave. It was apparent that the light of the Divine Territory was incapable of cleansing them.


    The two head inquisitors went pale. The ruins are actually a turf of other gods?


    They were unable to tell the details of the fossilized gods, but they were able to sense the scent of other gods. That was the scent the Lord of Glory hated most.


    ¡°There are no other gods but me,¡± the Lord of Glory said so himself.


    While he was a level 15 god, the war between humans and the gods had rendered almost all powerful gods dead. A level 15 god was probably the most powerful one left among the gods. There were no level 16 gods found in any nes thus far.


    The Lord of Glory was one example of lesser gods who scoured ruins in battlefields throughout the nes and acquired all manner of godly items left behind by the ancient, powerful gods. Because of that, he became rather powerful.


    The gods warred against each other frequently without intervention from humans. The hatred between the gods never ceased. The two head inquisitors had even less reason to back away after the fossilized gods appeared.


    Saleen was a defiler at most, but the ones appearing before them were subjects of heretic gods.


    ¡°Fifth, takemand!¡± The sixth head inquisitor chose wisely and gave upmand. He knew well that the death of the fourth head inquisitor would have been a bad thing for both of them.


    Theirbat capacity had greatly diminished, and they would take the me. Only by killing the subjects of the heretic gods within the ruins and taking Daliang City would the mistake of the fourth head inquisitor getting killed in battle be absolved.


    The fifth head inquisitor knew the reasoning behind themand as well. He came before the body of the fourth head inquisitor, took the ring from the fourth¡¯s right hand, and put it on his own.


    The sixth had no intentions of fighting for the items with him. It would suffice to have it taken back and redistributedter back in the Tribunal.


    The fifth head inquisitor tore a ne off the neck of the fourth and handed it to the sixth, saying, ¡°These belong to both of us. We¡¯ll settle it after we get back to the Tribunal.¡±


    The sixth nodded in agreement. He took hold of the huge crystal ball and maintained the Divine Territory. The Tribunal troops pounced onto the fossilized gods within the passage like hungry predators, cutting them to pieces within the Divine Territory.


    ¡°Get the Blood Knights here and seal the hole. Take a few of them alive,¡± the fifth ordered.


    The red-armored army took control of the ce while the Blood Knights were assigned to the border. The punisher army¡¯s cavalry did not enter the group of forts.


    The fifth issued one order after another.


    A few hundred fossilized gods were let out in a controlled manner. The Blood Knights rushed to the scene, attracting the attention of the powerful fossilized gods.


    The power of the fossilized gods were greatly diminished within the Divine Territory. The levels of those fossilized gods were not high at all. The high level ones were still deep within the cemetery. Those outside the cemetery were weaker ones that had awakened earlier.


    The two head inquisitors had no idea of all that. They only felt that while the enemy was strong, they were still suppressible. If they knew that there were literally millions of fossilized gods inside the cemetery, they would have probably turned around and ran.


    The fossilized gods dared not dig at the exit on their own, charging outside only through the nine-foot-wide hole brought about by the punisher.


    There were punishers in the Tribunal army, as well as the sixth head inquisitor, summoning the heaven angels continuously. They had little pressure dealing with the crisis before them.


    Hundreds of fossilized gods were lured away from the forts by the Blood Knights. The cavalry at the border charged within and managed to capture over a dozen with irons reinforced by divine spells.


    There were fossilized gods moving too quickly to be caught. They were killed by the cavalry in turns. The souls of the fossilized gods from the hole were sucked back to the cemetery after their bodies were cut to pieces.


    The curse of the King of Glory was active within a 200-mile radius from the cemetery. There was no way the fossilized gods would have been able to break free.


    While the two head inquisitors had things under control, they still felt heavy deep down seeing the soul beast circling high in the air. The fourth head inquisitor was assassinated by the people of Daliang City.


    If the assassination attempt were to be carried out again, both of them would probably have had to pay a great price to avoid it. The thrust of that spear, the hit of that staff, and the mage capable of shooting electrified icicles all made them feel rather helpless.


    The power of the Divine Territory would have been greater if they were elsewhere. And, they would not have had to suffer something like that. However, the ruins were below Daliang City. They were unable to pick their battlefields.


    The ones who killed the fourth head inquisitor were circling in the sky. The two head inquisitors remaining grew jealous of their flight capabilities. It was not that they were totally unable to fly. It was simply too costly to do so, and they were unable to bring anyone else with them.


    As such, they were unable to do anything but watch the killers sitting back and seeing everything unfolding below.


    ¡°Master, should we go for another round of killing?¡± Nailisi was excited to try again. She had managed to intimidate Jalin to signing a contract and felt very pleased with herself. She hadpletely forgotten the pain of taking the form of the skeleton king but wanted to have another go at the Holy See forces.


    ¡°Return to the city. This will all get very troublesome. Ask Jalin what happened in the cemetery and we¡¯ll see,¡± Saleen said as Sika took the soul beast and flew for Daliang City.


    Jalin¡¯s face soured. The paper mask on her face was pure white without any drawings of peach blossoms. The adventure below had almost cost her life. Worse still, she had to give everything up to Saleen.


    The pure white paper mask had no attributes left to speak of. Jalin was simply wearing it to conceal her face. It was the first time she had suffered such a huge loss in her life. Strangely, she hated the women beside Saleen instead of the man himself.


    If it hadn¡¯t been for those b*tches, Saleen definitely wouldn¡¯t have been so brutal.

 Chapter 1086: Jalin’s Compromise (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1086: Jalin¡¯s Compromise (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    No one knew what Jalin was thinking at the moment, and no one cared. While she was Arb¡¯s student, Lex never truly saw her as someone untouchable.


    Her extreme thoughts resulted from not having suffered since her youth. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, he had done well restraining himself by not killing her where she stood.


    Of course, if the magical catastrophe had not been caused by Saleen in the first ce, he would not have held back like he did. After all, he had been the one responsible for putting Daliang City in such a crisis.


    If he had not opened up the cemetery and released the fossilized gods, the Tribunal would have crushed all powers found in Daliang City and robbed the ce clean.


    The battle outside the cemetery was clear when one were to look down from the walls 1,640 feet above ground. The level nine powerful ones were able to see everything that themon soldiers were incapable of seeing.


    ¡°Gusion, stay here with J. Sul, get back and take a break. Eleanor, I know it¡¯s hard for you, but stay here and keep an eye on things.¡± Saleen gave his orders and took Jalin back to the Magical Element Tower.


    Jalin quieted down after entering the tower. She asked Saleen in a low voice, ¡°If I hadn¡¯t agreed to your terms, would I have died?¡±


    Saleen did not answer her. Jalin was trying to find some psychological bnce by asking about things after the deed was done. The contract is signed. There is no way she can back out now, and I don¡¯t have to make her feel better about anything. That¡¯s simply unfair for Lex and Sika.


    Nailisi went up to the 17th floor. Saleen was very cautious with Jalin and took her straight to the 24th floor. The 17th floor was the control hub of the entire tower. Everything about the tower could be controlled at 17th floor, for example, magic power furnaces to be installed in the future.


    The Magical Element Tower had to be able to fight during flight sooner orter. It was just that elemental support for the tower had to be provided by magic power furnaces. It was not stable enough to absorb wind elements in the space they were in. Common magic towers worked by absorbing limitless power from the earth, which enabled them to bring massive powers to bear.


    What was even more important was that Saleen¡¯s children were staying inside the 17th floor. He did not want Jalin to see his children ever again. You can never rest easy with this woman around.


    Jalin did not know any of that. She liked the 24th floor of the tower.


    Nailisi arrived at the 17th floor and looked for Nichs to have him use fallen divine spells to heal her spirit form¡¯s injuries. She could have recovered slowly on her own. Given that she would be needed in battle at a moment¡¯s notice, she was unable to afford to wait and neither was Saleen.


    In the 24th floor of the tower, Jalin took out everything she had gotten inside the cemetery from her space equipment under Sika¡¯s and Lex¡¯s watchful eyes.


    Jalin took out a sack and undid the strings at the opening. She poured the contents of the sack on the table. Colors sparkled all over the magic tower as about a thousand crystalline bodies stacked high on the table.


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°That¡¯s all.¡± Jalin spread her hands.


    Saleen smirked and snatched the sack from her. The sack did not belong to Jalin. He was able to tell that it was space equipment with one look of his Elemental Eye. Furthermore, the equipment had the unique aura of the cemetery about it.


    Jalin pouted in anger. She knew the worth of that sack. It was space equipment capable of carrying living creatures. While the space within was not that big, it was enough to stuff a golden dragon in it.


    Saleen took the strings of the sack and fastened it before throwing it to Sika. ¡°It¡¯s yours.¡±


    Everyone was able to hear her teeth grind despite her shutting her mouth tight. While the crystals were invaluable, there were many capable of recing them. The sack, however, was something very few would have been able to craft in all of Myers Maind.


    Saleen did not originally pay much heed to that equipment. He had dimension stones, and Lex had her God¡¯s Ring. Sikacked a good piece of space equipment, so Saleen took it from Jalin.


    Sika fastened the sack at her hips with a sheepish smile. Jalin turned her head away. She was nowhere strong enough to fight Sika. Even looking at Sika would have infuriated her further.


    Saleen picked up a piece of crystal and took a closer look. ¡°I have heard that a giant¡¯s head is not to be touched. It¡¯s something that needs to be buried after they die while the rest of them should be cremated.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Those are bone crystals, something left behind only when a powerful giant was burned.¡± Jalin¡¯s voice sounded tight as she felt her heart bleed.


    ¡°That¡¯s all you¡¯ve got?¡± Saleen took his time to put the bone crystals of the giant away.


    Jalin was dumbfounded for a bit before continuing, ¡°Those things almost cost me my life. Every single fossilized god in there was stronger than my teacher.¡±


    ¡°So, how did you get out?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°The crystals provide elemental powers. I used my movement techniques...¡± Jalin did not feel like continuing.


    She had survived for 10 horrible days scurrying about like a rat and being chased all over the ce by fossilized gods. Every single one of those fossilized gods was more powerful than her teacher. They were probably level 12 beings. Furthermore, they were of the lowest level.


    There were other fossilized gods that had yet to awaken. ording to the Principle of Crystal Coffin, level 12 beings were probably the strongest to be found within the cemetery. If fossilized gods were to be revived, powers across the entire Myers Maind were required to be raised.


    To Jalin, the fossilized gods were even more valuable. It was a pity that she did not have the means to capture any of them. It was unknown who fossilized the gods¡ªthe giants or the King of Glory¡ªbut whoever did it was someone capable of using level 18 Fossilization.


    The Fossilization spell used had perfect rules. Jalin was a sorcerer who specialized in earth magic. If she were able to get to the bottom of the secrets of those rules, her training from then on out would have gone well.


    ¡°Jalin, per the terms of the contract, you are required to tell all of us everything you knew.¡± Saleen spelled the line clearly to Jalin.


    ¡°I...¡±


    ¡°Right, you¡¯ve definitely gotten more than these. There are some other things that you might not think are valuable, which are not equipment or materials illustrated in the contract, but I hope you will unload them all, nheless.¡± Saleen took the bone crystals in his hands and continued to lean on Jalin.


    Jalin angrily dumped massive amounts of things from her ring onto the table.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°So, what did you encounter after getting in? Oh, and maps.¡±


    ¡°Paper! Pen!¡± Jalin could not help but raise her voice. Saleen swept away all the unknown material on the table. He took out starline paper and put it on the table. He then handed Jalin a magic pen.


    Jalin was bound with a contract, preventing her from holding anything back. She went on to recount everything that happened after entering the cemetery.


    She spoke very slowly. Saleen stayed by her side to guide and ask her about things, letting both Sika and Lex hear everything clearly.


    This was not something done to spite her. Jalin was facing huge amounts of pressure in the cemetery, which meant that there would have been matters that she had selectively overlooked or forgotten. Humans had such physiological traits about them, even sorcerers were not exceptions.


    Jalin had actually found her magic powers restored to a certain extent after entering the cemetery. She had enough gall to keep looking further inside and found a group of graves belonging to humans.


    She did not touch the human graves. As a mage, she hardly ever did things like that herself. Without appropriate help by their side, mages turned away from human graves or tombs instead of looking into them further.


    Jalin was no exception. Having followed Arb since her youth, that habit had taken deep roots in her being.


    There was no light in the space of the cemetery. Jalin had been reluctant to waste her magic chords. As such, she simply went about making magic marks on the ground, walking along a straight line as she went further into the cemetery.


    The human graves were no longer in sight after walking about 30 miles. Jalin spected that those were the graves ofmon folk. A mountain appeared after she made it past the human graves. She had to light up a magicmp and scale the mountain.


    There was an abandoned city in the mountain, which had an area of only about two square miles. Jalin did not find anything valuable within it, so she passed through the city and kept moving forward.


    She saw a huge wall made of energy after moving forward around a hundred miles. She walked along the wall for about half a day and was still unable to find its end. She attempted to phase through the wall of energy, but she found herself making it into the wall totally unscathed.


    It was a world with light on the other side and a huge moon hanging in the air. What astounded Jalin was the scene beneath the moon. There was a crystal-clear peak far away. The peak was formedpletely with bone crystals. There was a huge head at the top of the peak.


    The head was definitely over a half a mile tall. It looked angry, frozen at the split second before the giant the head belonged to perished.


    There were countless translucent god beings around the peak where the head was ced as an object of worship. The rings of beings nearest to the peak were all tall, huge gods.


    Those gods were seen lying prostrate on the ground, looking as if they were worshipping the peak. The expression of every god looked to be filled with humiliation, anger, fear, and resentment.


    Unlike the fossilized gods outside the cemetery now, those fossilized gods had bodies that seemed to have been crystallized in translucent forms. Jalin had never even heard of Fossilization capable of achieving such effects.


    Worse still, there was massive power hidden inside those fossilized gods¡¯ bodies. It made it seem like they could have been revived at any moment.


    Jalin didn¡¯t dare get close. What happened next shocked her even more. There was a god more than half a mile tall among the gods nearest to the head of the giant. Its body shone with bright holy light. Suddenly, the entire space became filled with his divine power as a whiff of divine fire burned.


    Jalin had wanted to escape before seeing the huge moon in the sky cast a bolt of purple lightning. It urately hit the burning divine fire, which was unable to resist and quickly snuffed out.


    Pained moans and low roars were heard from within the crystallized god¡¯s body. The extinguished divine fire was turned into pure energy and absorbed by the huge moon in the sky.


    There were few other gods, all of whom were less than 1,600 feet tall, attempting to stand up. The crystals on the surface of their bodies were heard cracking and shattering.


    The moon cast several bolts of purple lightning again. It suppressed the gods on the ground, scattering the built-up energies within their bodies and absorbing them.


    The head at the peak suddenly opened its mouth and roared. The moon in the sky unleashed thinner bolts of lightning in higher amounts, hitting the fossilized gods on the ground.


    Jalin was shaken enough by the head of the giant to drop to the floor. She saw those gods with frightening amount of energy in their bodies beingpletely subdued by the bolts of lightning. The energies within their bodies was dissipated by the attacks.


    The giant was dead, but its will did not. The gods that killed the giant were eternally sealed in fossilized bodies, bound to provide power for the cemetery.

 Chapter 1087: Planning for the Future (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1087: nning for the Future (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jalin¡¯s description was lively. The threat that she received was probably the most terrifying one that she had ever experienced in her life. Her pride was meaningless before absolute power.


    There was no way she would be able to resist an attack with such force, even if she trained for a thousand years more.


    Saleen shuddered. He had thought himself to be the only person to have mastered the power of lightning. It seemed that there had been humans in ancient times who mastered the use of lightning powers.


    His lightning rules were nothing inparison.


    If he entered the cemetery and looked into the moon that unleashed lightning powers, there was no doubt that he would be able to perfect his lightning rules quickly. However, if he were to enter at such a low level...


    Saleen recalled the curse of the gravestone. Jalin did not fear curses, but the same could not be said about Saleen. The more he came to know about fate, the more cautious he was when dealing with curses.


    However, he never expected the inside of the cemetery to be what it was. It was too tempting for Saleen.


    ¡°I was able to recognize that as the crystallized structure of a giant¡¯s bone, and so I bagged some of it. I never expected some fossilized gods to be revived. I ran all the way until I got out.¡± Jalin felt incredibly frustrated as she recalled the days spent running.


    She had fossilized gods on her tail simply because she took some crystallized bone. Worse still, all of the crystallized structures had to be taken away by Saleen.


    Saleen was not that greedy. Even if he entered the cemetery, he had no intention of taking any of the bone crystals. The amount of bone crystals was so vast that he would be able to take on the Holy See armed with the power provided by the crystals.


    However, every single one of the fossilized gods was level 12 at the very least. The only reason Jalin was able to escape was because of her extremely eerie movement abilities.


    Furthermore, the fossilized gods had just been awakened and their bodies were stiff, which made them incapable of using the power of rules they had when they were alive.


    Jalin finished drawing the map at that point and said to Saleen, ¡°I¡¯m specting this to be a piece of space carved out of a huge tract ofnd by an ancient powerful one. That space had been a battlefield. The gods surrounded the giants and killed them all. The gods were killed by the humans who arrivedter.¡±


    ¡°Why build the cemetery then?¡±


    ¡°So visits could be made,¡± Lex added. ¡°The King of Glory wanted to be able to enter the space at any time from the maind, so tomemorate the nameless giant, as well as to punish the gods.¡±


    Saleen thought that was the only sound exnation. When the King of Glory was still alive, he would not expect that someday, a puny level nine human mage would move the bone crystals in that cemetery.


    While the bone crystals were indeed precious, they were oncemonce. Giants only cared about their heads, thinking that...


    Saleen froze. Giants believed that so long as their heads remained intact, they could be revived a million yearster.


    Was the King of Glory trying to resurrect the giant? Why would he keep so many gods imprisoned and carve out a space, providing it with limitless energy just to keep that head intact?


    A million years¡¯ time, just to resurrect his brother?


    Saleen was shocked at the lengths the King of Glory was willing to go to aplish such a feat, and he did not know how he felt about the whole thing.


    ¡°Jalin, you¡¯ve got some nerve barging in under such circumstances. Didn¡¯t you have any fear of being killed by the lightning?¡± Saleen tried his best to calm himself down and avoided thinking about the huge temptation inside the cemetery.


    ¡°Why? That lightning was meant for the gods. I just took some bone crystals. The lightning wouldn¡¯t even consider me a target. It was a simple magic principle.¡± While Jalin was unspeakably terrified then, she had grand words after escaping.


    She was not actually wrong, however. Many magic traps orrge scale magic arrays had trigger requirements. Power at her level was as good as nonexistent in that ring of energy.


    Of course, while she was nonexistent in the perspective of the moon capable of unleashing lightning bolts in the sky, she was very much a target in the perspective of the fossilized gods.


    The fossilized gods were held against their will. Anyone who wanted to enter or to touch the giant¡¯s grave, they would have to deal with the fossilized gods on their tail.


    Furthermore, she had underestimated the power of the fossilized gods and had almost died. She sacrificed quite a bit of equipment just to stay alive.


    ¡°Why risk your neck?¡± Saleen asked, looking at the map Jalin had just drawn.


    Jalin pondered for a bit. She could have chosen to ignore the question, but Saleen asked precisely to see how she would react.


    If she kept it to herself, Saleen would chase her away and even if the mission that her teacher gave her was considered aplished, she would face punishment from her teacher nheless.


    ¡°The crystals of giant bones contained the power of the earth. The power of giants originated from the earth itself and I train primarily in earth magic. When I get to break into level ten, instructions that teacher would have been able to give me would have been next to none, which means I have to figure something out myself. While the power of rules found in those bone crystals are few, it is still something that fits my direction of research.¡± Jalin answered.


    Saleen found Jalin¡¯s answer satisfying. He knew little about giant bone crystals. While it was possible for him to just go ask his teacher, it was more convenient to get answers from Jalin.


    Jalin continued, ¡°everyone knows howrge giants were. The shortest were still more than a thousand meters tall. The tall ones were able to reach nearly ten miles in height. The very reason why creatures with such huge bodies were able to fly was that giants¡¯ bones were powerful and enabled them to absorb elements in all environments without exception.¡±


    Lex finally understood why Jalin had been so crazy about it all. Materials regarding earth magic passed down through the ages were the least numerous. Jalin was already a level nine sorcerer.


    If she were to advance any further, she would be able to do so easily if she switched to fire magic, which was the mostmon branch to be trained in.


    However, almost every single mage was monomaniacs in one way or another. It would be uneptable for her to switch her training to one of the other five elements.


    Furthermore, doing so would be time-consuming, as she would need to learn new rules. Jalin¡¯s fire magic might be very powerful, but she would need about ten times more effort and time to study the rules.


    The temptation posed by the power within the bone crystals of the giants was to Jalin what the moon unleashing lightning bolts was to Saleen.


    Saleen took two bone crystals out from his Starline Ring and yed with them. He then said to Jalin, ¡°before the crisis of Daliang City is settled, you won¡¯t have these two pieces of crystal.¡±


    Saleen put the crystals away. Jalin rolled her eyes and looked outside the tower, angry at herself.


    The calmer and more decisive Saleen appeared to be, the more difficult she found it to hate him. If Saleen went soft and gave her the two giant bone crystals, she would have probably despised Saleen immensely for it.


    ¡°That battle was tiring. Jalin, if you have any strength left in you, go see if you can help out with anything at the walls. I need to rest for a bit.¡± Saleen put the simple map of the cemetery away.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go,¡± Jalin answered while gritting her teeth.


    Lex only spoke after Jalin left. ¡°Saleen, is there really a need to keep her around?¡±


    Saleen smirked. ¡°For real? Once we¡¯re done with the business with Daliang City, we will go to the temple and dig all of them out. We definitely can¡¯t bring her along to ces like that anymore. Something will happen.¡±


    ¡°The way I see it, if we don¡¯t kick her out now, we might as well be getting ourselves in trouble in the future,¡± Sika said with a displeased tone.


    ¡°What trouble are you talking about? She knows the rtions between both sides well now. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that she had a good teacher, I¡¯d have killed her even if that meant I get nothing out of it.¡±


    ¡°If she knows, then she shouldn¡¯t...¡± Lex did not continue. She did not wish for Saleen to keep Jalin around. The woman had apparently developed some sort of peculiar liking for Saleen.


    ¡°Keep her around. Have her talk about magic or whatnot. That sounds like a good idea.¡± Saleen smiled at Lex.


    ¡°Saleen, just what the hell are you thinking?¡± Sika was irked. While she had some regrets having Saleen marry Lex, she did not want Lex to be sad.


    ¡°Lex, Jalin¡¯s earth magic is powerful. Just wait for her to make another mistake, then you¡¯ll get to demand her to trade her secrets with magic. Someone like her who thinks she can never be wrong will definitely make a mistake sooner orter.¡±


    Lex was startled. She asked, ¡°that¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Of course, why else would you think I¡¯d keep her around? Because she¡¯s pretty?¡± Saleenughed. Keeping Jalin around was not a choice he enjoyed making, but he was the one who proposed it nheless.


    If Jalin were to make another mistake, he would be able to fish out secrets about her earth magic out of her. Jalin¡¯s eerie movements unsettled Saleen.


    Arb definitely was capable of something like that. If he faced off with Arb in the future, Saleen feared that he would be killed before he was even able to take out his equipment.


    Just like how it was when the Blue Ice Maidens used Rainbow. The move almost killed him.


    Being familiar with Rainbow would enable one to easily determine the location of one¡¯s enemy, Saleen had no way to make sound judgments against that earth magic.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, someone like Jalin would never admit that she was wrong. She never admitted that her actions put nearly a million lives in Daliang City in dire peril.


    She would do something no one would be able to forgive her for sooner orter. The discord between Saleen and Arb would be increasingly unsettling.


    All matters required prior preparations, especially when it came to dealing with an enemy like Arb.


    As for Jalin, Saleen still deemed her to be easy to deal with. If she was able to submit once, there would be a second time as well. If Jalin remained adamant against signing a contract with him and giving up all she had, Saleen would take everything she had forcefully.


    That would intensify the discord and it would be up to Arb to decide if she wanted to be his enemy.


    ¡°Alright, Sika. Hand me your armor. I¡¯ll re-craft it a bit for you.¡± Saleen stopped talking about Jalin. If it had not been for Lex telling him to hand over the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, Saleen would not need to be tense when it came to Jalin.


    He personally witnessed what the mark was able to do. He would have been able to do nothing to resist it.


    Sika removed her armor and threw it to Saleen. She leaned on the chair for meditation and dozed off. The price of using the soul beast was huge, after all.


    While the power of soul beasts were unlimited, it was difficult to restore one¡¯s mental powers in such an environment. Sika was very exhausted. She had worked the hardest in thest several battles.


    ¡°Lex, go get some rest. I¡¯ll look for you if I need anything,¡± Saleen shut off the connection between the Magical Element Tower and the outside world. He took out the level 19 Star Gathering Needle.


    Other than dimension stones, the most important piece of material used for making Sika¡¯s armor had been the divine trees of the Goddess of Myers. Saleen witnessed the effectiveness of the armor firsthand that day.


    Sika was thoroughly unscathed when divine light shone on her. It was a very handy trait, yet it was a pity that divinity still lingered within the armor. Saleen deemed it necessary to purge it of all signs of divinity, making the armor purely magic-based.

 Chapter 1088: Planning for the Future (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1088: nning for the Future (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen took out the level 19 Star Gathering Needle carefully. There was nothing like Principle of Crystal Coffin with the needle. If he activated its full power, it would bring about a greater catastrophe.


    Saleen had not been able to activate the powers of the Star Gathering Needle, but since Gaine had raised his level at astrology to level nine, he became able to use part of the needle¡¯s powers.


    Saleen was extremely nervous and shut the Magical Element Tower off from the outside worldpletely. He then stuck the needle into Sika¡¯s armor.


    Astrologers were very familiar with destroying gods and signs of divinity. It was the very reason why astrologers were so popr back in the days.


    Even gods were unable to escape the machinations of fate.


    Sika and Lex were right in front of Saleen. Sika¡¯s breathing was so light that he was hardly able to sense it. Lex¡¯s breathing vaguely resembled the frequencies at which elements vibrated. Her frequencies were different from Saleen¡¯s, as hers were much higher than normal mages.


    Saleen personally crafted Sika¡¯s armor, and he was about to throw it into the Water me once again. Saleen did not dare to throw the bone crystal of the giant into the Water me as well.


    He feared that if they entered the cemetery in the future, Sika might as well paint a big red target on herself wearing such armor.


    It was fortunate that he acquired quite a substantial amount of high level materials from the grandmaster. Saleen took a ten-meter long strip of Starline cloth and merged it with the lining of the armor. Saleen finished fixing Sika¡¯s armor in about four hours.


    The Star Gathering Needle destroyed all elements rted to the Goddess of Myers, and Saleen ced the armor beside Sika. He then left the magic tower.


    Saleen was concerned about the battle on the east side of the city. He wondered what happened after four hours.


    Saleen called Nailisi over secretly and went to the east side of the wall, peering over it. The red army of the Holy Seepletely blocked off the exit of the cemetery.


    Twenty-four punishers stood in front of the exit and crushed any fossilized gods that made it outside. The punishers¡¯ power seemed endless.


    The crushed gods¡¯ souls were sucked back into the cemetery. Soldiers from the tribunal immediately picked up the bodies of the fossilized gods.


    ¡°Saleen, we can¡¯t let this go on!¡± It was a surprise to see Jalin keeping watch at the wall. She even greeted Saleen at her own will when she saw Saleen around.


    Nailisi smiled at Jalin, without showing any hint that she had taken a devil form and held Jalin by the neck, fully intending to kill her. Jalin also seemed to have forgotten the displeasure from before and nodded at Nailisi.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°Look.¡± Jalin tugged on Saleen¡¯s robe and pointed below the city. ¡°The fragments of the fossilized gods are the most prized materials among the divine smiths. Even if the materials prove useless at the moment, they would be turned into a huge number of powerful equipment once they are delivered to the Holy See. By powerful, I mean equipment capable of boosting the power ofmon adherents by tens of times.¡±


    ¡°There is a price to be paid for acquiring any type of power, they...¡± Saleen stopped before he finished his sentence.


    Would the fanatics even care about the price they had to pay? Adherents aside, even Blood Knights that were forcefully created would have their lifespan shortened to a couple of years, acquiring power by burning the power of life.


    The Holy See did not care about such costs.


    What kind of powers would the shells of the fossilized gods hold? The power to force something against their will!


    Saleen looked at the Holy See army with a solemn look. He pondered for quite a while before saying, ¡°let them continue killing. Deploy the metal flyers once every hour armed with half the magic fire shells and drop the shells from a height of 1000 meters.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir,¡± the herald at the wall answered. Saleen took out a badge and handed it to the herald, sending them to execute his orders.


    The Tribunal¡¯s army grew, with the majority gathering at the east side of the city. Thend that had been under Daliang City¡¯s control was filled with the Tribunal army. They were gathering at Daliang City under the orders of two head inquisitors.


    The news at Daliang City was ryed back to the Tanggsi Empire. The Tribunal and the Pivotal Council were ted over the samples of fossilized god fragments, especially the divine smiths at ck Dungeon Ind.


    The rules contained with the fragments were unique. Even Pope Theisio, who had disappeared for quite a while, appeared to deal with the fragments, requesting for the Tribunal to lend some divine smiths to the Pivotal Council.


    The main objective of the Holy See¡¯s tactics changed as well. Allying with Sikeqinya Empire no longer seemed that important, and they recalled all naval forces fighting in Ceylon City waters.


    The armies onnd were being recalled one after another as well, returning to the God Grace Duchy. Even the battle north of Qin was affected by the affairs at Daliang City.


    Most of the Holy See¡¯s armies retreated and the holy masters within the armies gathered at Daliang City. The Pivotal Council, the oracles, and the Tribunal all sent more powerful ones to Daliang City.


    There was no way to keep mobilization of forces at such arge scale under wraps. The spies that Lex ced in each country delivered messages back to Daliang City.


    The battle beneath Daliang City seemed to have no end. Saleen deployed the metal flyers and dumped magic fire shells, causing a lot of trouble for the Holy See army.


    While magic fire shells were expensive, they did wonders in causing damage to the enemy. The metal flyers flew at extremely high altitudes and every deployment was apanied by ancient figures.


    The two head inquisitors dared not take to the air, fearing trapsid out by Saleen. Daliang City had air superiority.


    Saleen allowed the Holy See no respite. He had catapults taken apart from other ces and reinstalled on the east side of the city. They lobbed stone projectiles below the city nonstop.


    Saleen lost his chance at assassinating the other two head inquisitors. While the fifth and the sixth head inquisitors¡¯ powers were inferiorpared to the fourth, the fourth inquisitor¡¯s luck was in the gutter. He appeared where he should not have and faced off against Saleen.


    It was not that he was weak. Not many that Saleen killed personally were weaklings.


    Both Saleen and Lex were unable to sit around after hearing news from the Holy See. They gathered their trusted people at the Magical Element Tower to discuss a way out of their current predicament.


    The stance that the Holy See had disyed resembled the time when all four major empires were being established. The Heaven Knights attacked Holy Rock City.


    That battle caused the Heaven Knights to almost be wiped from existence and Holy Rock city suffered dire losses, preventing the Qin Empire from fulfilling their dream of uniting the maind under one rule.


    Lex looked at the others in the Magical Element Tower. ¡°It is a given that we cann¡¯t hold Daliang City for long. I¡¯m thinking about inviting Holy Rock City and Alchemy City to join the fray. We cannot let the cemetery fall into the hands of the Holy See!¡±


    Sika shrugged. ¡°Daliang City is yours. Whatever decision you make, you have our support.¡±


    ¡°No, this is something that concerns all our futures. Every one of you has a part of the cemetery; it isn¡¯t my ce. The oue of inviting Holy Rock City and Alchemy City is unpredictable. I¡¯d like to hear suggestions from all of you.¡±


    ¡°Contracts.¡± Saleen said only one word.


    ¡°Contracts are not a end-all-be-all thing,¡± Lex retorted.


    ¡°We need to repair the magic tower,¡± Eleanor said. A Magical Element Tower that was unable to fly proved severely restrictive to Saleen.


    ¡°I need to open the fourth purgatory,¡± Nailisi said out of nowhere.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Lex asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ll enter from the other ear hole of the statue, punching through the dirt seal. I¡¯ll use the 12 Purgatories of First Note to absorb as many fossilized gods as I¡¯m able to, which would be enough toplete the fourth purgatory. That purgatory is capable of housing normal humans. Viscount, I¡¯d be able to transport 600 thousand of your elite troops anytime anywhere by then, leaving Daliang City guarded by demons. Once that is done, it would be difficult for either Alchemy City or Holy Rock City to bag this ce for themselves.¡±


    Nailisi spoke with incredible seriousness. Jalin listened from the side and calcted to see if she was able to enter the cemetery again. It was only lethally dangerous after entering the energy barrier inside the cemetery.


    There was a lot of equipment and materials scattered outside, which were quite a fortune. Furthermore, there was more than one body of giants in the cemetery, which meant that there were definitely remains of giants who were weaker.


    She would be able to break through level nine with just a little bit of the materials. When she finally reached level ten, there would be no need to be wary of the people around Saleen.


    Jalin failed to notice that she never thought of leaving Saleen¡¯s side; she was thinking all about fighting the people around him.


    ¡°You sure about that?¡± Saleen looked at Nailisi. The only certainty he had was that if Nailisi did what she said she needed to do, it would do him a lot of good as well. But would that be enough to keep Daliang City safe? He dared not believe in that.


    ¡°I can¡¯t actually be sure, but this is the only way of taking the viscount¡¯s elites away. If we used teleportation portals, you both would go bankrupt. No, even if you both went bankrupt, there is still no way for you both to teleport so many away,¡± Nailisi pointed out Lex¡¯s weakness without reservation.


    Daliang City was a dire ce to be. All soldiers were trapped, bing hostages. If there were powerful ones in hundredsing at them, Daliang City would soon turn into yet another Ironwall City.


    ¡°Alright, see to it then!¡± Lex made a snappy decision. The army gathered at Daliang City would not be a burden if they were sent elsewhere.


    However, with things at Daliang City as they were, the city had be a focal point of the entire maind. The enemies they were about to face would be the most powerful group of powerful ones that the Holy See was able to gather.


    That was how Father died.


    ¡°I need Jalin¡¯s help,¡± Nailisi requested.


    Saleen looked at Jalin. In their current environment, Jalin¡¯s abilities were powerful. It was evident from the fact that she was able to escape the cemetery of giants.


    ¡°I need a giant bone crystal,¡± Jalin requested instead of rejecting outright.


    ¡°No problem,¡± Saleen said as he took out a crystal. Jalin continued instead of taking the crystal right away, ¡°I need you to craft me a magic staff. Mine was broken by Sika.¡±


    ¡°Alright, no problem.¡± Saleen quickly took out a magic staff and conjured his Water me, crafting the requested staff by adding the crystal onto it. Saleen even asked Jalin about what to look out for as he crafted.


    Jalin told him everything she needed without seeming to hold anything back. Saleen could have determined some magic rules from Jalin¡¯s needs. Jalin¡¯s unique skills were movement abilities based on earth magic.


    ¡°I¡¯ll contact Holy Rock City.¡± Lex nced at Saleen and headed for the 17th floor. Saleen crafted the staff slowly, calcting the rules of earth magic in his mind.

 Chapter 1089: Book of Pathos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1089: Book of Pathos (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was not where she was supposed to be due to her being petty and cautious. As her powers developed, the imp¡¯s intelligence grew. Her way of looking at problems was not what it had once been. It began to weigh a lot more on her mind.


    Saleen was in an inconvenient position to dispose of Jalin. He also needed to acquire the secrets of her magic.


    Nailisi truly came to want to enter the cemetery of the giant. The very reason she wanted to do so was none other than to set Jalin up. She had her own ns, which she had no intention of telling Saleen.


    If Saleen came to know about it, and Jalin knew something was off with him, the n would not be able to be executed.


    The battle beneath the city never ceased. The two head inquisitors were far more at ease by then. While they had lost the fourth head inquisitor, it was clear that none of the people from the city walls dared toe down. They had resorted to throwing magic fire shells from above.


    While damage brought about by the shells was deadly to huddled up targets, especially city buildings, the Holy See forces¡¯ camps were no longer packed together and had been set up sparsely.


    Furthermore, there were holy masters guarding the camps. Their only task was to stop the spread of any fires happening with divine spells.


    Saleen had metal flyersmit arson once every hour. That was done to have his enemies let their guard down. After harassing them several times, the two head inquisitors were no longer all that concerned about attacks from Daliang City.


    If it had not been for Lex deciding to go to Holy Rock City and Alchemy City for help, Saleen would have wanted to go all out by unleashing all of his ancient figures, killing every single member of the Tribunal forces.


    The cost-benefit analysis of that action would not have been a sound one. The ancient figures had level nine souls and level 10 bodies, but they were only able to bring power somewhat above level eight to bear on their enemies.


    Saleen needed time to train the ancient figures to be true level nine elite troops. If he were to fight head on with the Tribunal forces like that, there would likely be no way to repair the lost ancient figures.


    There was no way to replenish the numbers brought about by the loss of ancient figures, but the Holy See¡¯s forces were practically limitless in that regard. Saleen was not insane enough to think that his forces were powerful enough to wipe out Tanggsi Empire¡¯s poption, which numbered at 200,000,000.


    If he were to truly enrage the Lord of Glory to such an extent, he would turn the entire Tanggsi Empire into a virtual kingdom of gods and sacrifice all his believers just so that he could wipe Saleen from the face of that ne. He would so even if he risked losing the faith from this ne.


    The Tribunal forces cked. Both Jalin and Nailisi saw an opening that could be exploited.


    Nailisi descended from the other side of the city and found a spot with no one around. She took Jalin east of the city, which Jalin did not object to. The piece of the giant¡¯s bone crystal would have easilysted her for a month. It would have also heightened her understanding of earth magic.


    Jalin was indeed powerful. Despite being in such an element-impoverished environment, she was still able to bring Nailisi with her and turn into a shadow, running on the ground like she was flying, just by extracting the energies of the bone crystal from her magic staff.


    To put it more urately, Jalin would have been faster running on the ground than sorcerers flying in the air.


    She was gradually able to feel the sealed power within the ground beneath her when she was running, resonating with the bone crystal on her magic staff. While she was incapable of borrowing the power of the ground, she became more adept at controlling her own magic and was able to be more fluid with manipting the details.


    Both of them arrived east of the city, but Jalin did not stop. Instead, she charged right into the other ear hole of the giant. The dirt was over 32 feet thick in that ear hole.


    Other mages would suffer concussions so massive that they would have vomited on the spot, even if they were able to avoid getting injured. Jalin, on the other hand, had been able to carve a hole by ramming straight through the dirt, continuing to charge inside with Nailisi.


    The Tribunal forces only had cavalry units stationed around the ces near the city walls, for fear of getting hit by random rocks flung from the walls. The forces were only alerted when both of them had barged right through the other ear hole of the giant¡¯s statue.


    They still needed time to mobilize the army and the powerful ones. Nailisi and Jalin had gone deep into the statue by the time they realized what had happened.


    The Tribunal forces were only able to make do with what they had. They mobilized avable men to set up defenses, trying to prevent any fossilized gods from emerging from the other end.


    Jalin only stopped moving after getting deep into the statue. ¡°So tell me, what do you want by telling me to get here?¡±


    ¡°Your mask,¡± Nailisi answered with a beaming smile.


    ¡°Impossible. That¡¯s something gifted by my teacher.¡± Jalin refused without any hesitation.


    ¡°No problem. Make me a narrow passage,¡± Nailisi ordered.


    Jalin pointed her staff at the front. The 62-foot-wide cave had yellow crystalline bodies growing out of the walls, which spread further as they grew. The passage¡¯s width was reduced to about 19 feet.


    ¡°That¡¯s all I¡¯ve got,¡± Jalin said with a pant.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Nailisi answered with a pretentious tone.


    Jalin felt her chest heaving and even started to get nauseous. She would not have done anything so fake in the past. Yet, Nailisi seemed very adept at being fake. The demon even let her know that her words had no sincerity behind them.


    Jalin coldly said, ¡°You¡¯re just a bonded creature. Saleen won¡¯t let you kill me, so what are you going to do about that?¡±


    Nailisi turned around and smirked at Jalin. ¡°I don¡¯t know, Jalin. I¡¯ve got to try it out to know. Just rx.¡±


    Her smirk made Jalin feel dizzy. Nailisi¡¯s smile was incredibly charming, yet it was also cold and lethal. Jalin was unable to do anything but tell herself that the demon was making things clear because she dared not actually do anything.


    Jalin had been judging Nailisi¡¯s actions withmonsense. ording to the principles of contracts, bonded creatures were incapable of vitingmands from their masters.


    She had no idea that not only were the two bonded creatures free to vite his orders, they were even willing to suppress their own powers and refrain from advancing just so to not lose that contract within their souls.


    There was simply no way Jalin would have been able to figure out something that eerie on her own.


    Nailisi had no time to bicker with Jalin, nor was she bothered to do so. Jalin was not the Winged Skull, so she saw no need to bicker with the sorcerer. She took out her 12 Notes of First Purgatory and opened a portal, throwing the Book of Pathos taken from the hands of the fourth head inquisitor into it.


    The Book of Pathos was packed with over a thousand demon runes. Nailisi went to great lengths to suppress the powers within and hid it in a dimension stone. The book immediately made the demon runes burst after leaving the dimension stone, casting a strong light.


    The new space was the size of hundreds of square feet. The burst of power from the Book of Pathos immediately expanded that space. At that moment, the fossilized gods had also found the other exit and were attempting to rush from the passage that Jalin created.


    The fossilized gods rushed straight into Nailisi¡¯s collection purgatories. The Book of Pathos continued to emit bright light, dissolving the hard shell of the fossilized gods¡¯ bodies. The cores of the fossilized gods exploded with a loud bang before being turned into smoke-like energy and absorbed into the Book of Pathos.


    The faith of the Lord of Glory had two different sides to it. One side used the kind,passionate nature of living beings to spread the faith. The other side exemplified the Lord of Glory¡¯s overbearing nature.


    The nature of the Lord of Glory¡¯s divinity was also incredibly xenophobic. Once this trait was exposed and the disguise torn apart, the Lord of Glory would have given it his all to kill the other gods.


    The Book of Pathos brought those traits of the Lord of Glory to their fullest. When being controlled by someone, the light within would have even dazed someone like Nailisi, who was strong of will, and rendered her almostpletely purified.


    If the Book of Pathos were to encounter other gods while not being controlled by anyone, it would have turned into an extremely violent and brutal killing machine.


    The fossilized gods outside the cemetery numbered in the millions. The fossilized gods that rushed into the purgatory were immediately killed by the book and their energies absorbed. Not even their souls were able to escape.


    When the powers of the fossilized gods absorbed exceeded the book¡¯s capacity, said powers would have been expelled and be used to expand the space of that purgatory. The 19-foot-wide cave had the portal to the purgatory right at its end.


    Nailisi sat back and watched the fossilized gods rush into her collection of purgatories in a frenzy. They were all quickly killed and assimted by the Book of Pathos.


    The book lost all sense of restrain after no longer being controlled by the fourth head inquisitor. Any fossilized gods appearing before it were shined on with its light and killed.


    The awakened fossilized gods were all beings of low level, at only level eight or nine. The equipment, which even someone at the pinnacle of level nine like Nailisi was unable to resist, had an easy job killing all the gods that were just awakened. As the number of dead fossilized gods grew, so did the power of the Book of Pathos.


    The ones enteringter were stronger, but their powers paled inparison to that of the quickly expanding Book of Pathos nheless.


    Any equipment had its limits. If the Book of Pathos had a spirit dwelling within and was controlled by someone, it would have kept absorbing power and chose to slowly digest and absorb, raising its own level before attempting to devour more enemies.


    However, the owner of the book died too soon. There were no spirits within to control it. There was no way it could have restrained itself when the other gods were around. The space expanded and gradually reached the limit of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory itself.


    Within the space where height, width, and length were all 36 miles, the Book of Pathos silently hovered in midair, casting light of unparalleled power. The only thing unaffected within was the void that separated the spaces of the collection of purgatories.


    After the space expanded to its limit, there was nowhere for the Book of Pathos to expel its absorbed powers. The pale yellow book began to bloat itself. Eventually, the book was no longer able to hold the massive power within it. A specter emerged from its pages, which was over 650 feet tall, and shone all over with holy light. It held a scepter and looked around with an incredibly enraged expression.


    ¡°Who is it!? Who is it that has imprisoned my will!?¡± the specter yelled. Where the scepter in its hand was pointed, all fossilized gods rushing at it were turned to dust.


    If there were any adherents of the Holy See, they would have been surprised to see that the 650-foot-tall specter was identical to the statue of the Lord of Glory.


    With a loud boom, the will of the Lord of Glory came out in full form. The Book of Pathos was torn to shreds. Panic was seen on the face of the specter, without a hint of imposing might befitting a god.


    The being pointed the scepter to the sky and cast holy light, attempting to break through the walls around it. But, the holy light reflected was absorbed by its body.


    It wanted very badly to stop absorbing energy like that, but there was nothing it was able to do to change it. If it had awakened earlier to control the book, it would not have suffered such a terrible fate.


    As the power increased, the Lord of Glory¡¯s will was no longer able to handle it. It began to tear at its body in pain.


    Eventually, a fossilized god took flight and rammed straight at the specter¡¯s leg. The leg was quickly encased in a rock-like substance, which lessened the pain.

 Chapter 1090: Book of Pathos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1090: Book of Pathos (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°No!¡±


    The specter stomped its leg in the air, breaking the shell covering it and exposing its translucent toes. However, the being was an actual double of the Lord of Glory and did not have power. It was simply tied to the core rules of the Book of Pathos.


    The fossilized gods continued to rush at it. A bit of its body was quickly fossilized as one crashed into it as ayer of thin shell covering the crashed area. The specter struggled at the beginning.


    It was still something that did not possess actual intelligence. Every time it was fossilized, the part beneath the rocky shell felt somewhat better. As such, it gradually lost the will to resist.


    Nailisi was able to sense the change within the 12 Notes of First Purgatory as another space was opened up. That space was made specifically for taking out gods. It was quite a pity that the level of that space was not high enough. It was incapable of imprisoning gods above level 12. How about level 11? Probably not. Seems like the most it can take now are level 10 gods.


    The specter of the Lord of Glory¡¯s eventually became encased in a thick rocky shell. It was only then that it found itself no longer able to shake off the shell¡¯s control.


    More and more fossilized gods rushed at it and turned into thicker and heavier shell.


    ¡°Lost one, there is no need for faith...¡± Nailisi¡¯s voice was heard within. The portal of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory was closed. The collection of purgatories returned to her hand.


    Nailisi held the collection of purgatories in one hand and the Sword of Rules in the other. She easily knocked down two fossilized gods and dodged to the side. The fossilized gods within the cave charged at Jalin instead.


    Jalin was filled with rage. She wanted to cast spells and sneak around Nailisi, giving the demon a dose of her own medicine. However, when Nailisi passed by Jalin, she rubbed the Sword of Rules lightly on the magic staff.


    The staff snapped, and the bone crystal on the top shattered. Jalin was suddenly robbed of her most important power source.


    Nailisi chuckled and charged outside. She turned around and shouted, ¡°Hey Jalin, I dare not kill you, but I wouldn¡¯t say the same for those gods.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re insane!¡± Jalin shouted in rage. What Nailisi did was no different from personally killing her. Is that bonded creature¡¯s head broken? Or, has Saleen lost control of her?


    The mask on her face was already torn as she continued to shout. She cast Crystal City with a wave of her hand and sealed the passage.


    The fossilized gods began knocking hard on the barrier that Jalin cast with their weapons in a frenzy. She turned around and ran. Having lost the support of the magic staff and the bone crystal of the giant, her speed of movement was equal to that of amon beginner swordsman.


    Jalin felt despair for the first time. The mask was akin to her double. A Crystal City spell cast by using the power of the mask would not be able to block the fossilized gods for long.


    The depth at which both she and Nailisi found themselves in, and her current speed of movement, meant that the fossilized gods would be able to break her level nine spell at any moment.


    Jalin felt cold deep within. There was simply no way Nailisi would have had everything calcted so well if she had gone crazy.


    Has Saleen rendered the contract between him and Nailisi null simply to kill me? No way! A bonded creature of Nailisi¡¯s strength wouldn¡¯t have stayed at Saleen¡¯s side if he had released her. Saleen would never give Nailisi up just to kill me!


    The cold in her mind seeped into her bones as she pondered further.


    Did Saleen have it all thought out? Why am I only able to figure this out now? To Saleen, I¡¯m less than even a bonded creature!


    If Nailisi knew what was going on in Jalin¡¯s mind, she would have scolded the sorcerer, deeming the sorcerer brain damaged. She had been through thick and thin with her master and was willing to give up everything for him. Jalin was nothingpared to her.


    Jalin continued running for hundreds of feet and began to pant. Her constitution was such that it would not have been difficult for her to run three to five miles. However, the sounds of the gods attempting to break the barrier behind her seemed to be hits on her mind itself.


    The pride of a mage was turned to nothing. Without support of elements, any spell cast using solely her own magic chords probably maybe kill a level eight fossilized god. She would be able to fend off the gods¡¯ attacks another six times before she exhausted her magic chords.


    Am I going to just die unceremoniously like this? Jalin felt her feet tripping and eyes daze, but she quickly saw Nailisi turning around and hoisting her up.


    Nailisi had long nails. When she was holding Jalin¡¯s wrist, her nails scraped on the walls of her blood vessels.


    ¡°So Jalin, you¡¯re afraid of death after all. And, I thought you were a brave young woman,¡± Nailisi said with a sarcastic tone.


    Jalin¡¯s blood was boiling, but she knew that it was pointless to resist now that Nailisi had grabbed her. ¡°What do you want?¡±


    ¡°Do you want to live?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°I do!¡± Jalin eximed.


    ¡°I¡¯ve no certainty of being able to get you out of her. How about this? You get in here, and I¡¯ll get you back to Daliang City,¡± Nailisi said and opened a portal.


    Jalin had personally seen the door gobbling up tens of thousands of fossilized gods. There was no way she would have went inside willingly.


    Nailisiughed sheepishly and said, ¡°Oh Jalin, I¡¯m here to save you. If you¡¯re not getting in, and if your teacher is going to question us in the future, even a level ten mage¡¯s lie detection wouldn¡¯t have yielded anything. I¡¯m not the one who killed you after all.¡±


    Jalin was clever but not as clever as an imp. Nailisi had be very adept at manipting people. She had left Jalin pacing back and forth at the verge of death several times in less than half a minute.


    ¡°If anything were to happen to me, my teacher won¡¯t let you off easy!¡± Jalin dared not dy and hoped that Nailisi was truly not there to kill her. She stepped into the portal.


    Nailisi put the collection of purgatories away and quickly turned into a devil. She swapped her Sword of Rules for Grey Memory and charged at the entrance.


    With her powers and in such an environment, it would have been easy for her to toss Jalin inside the collection of purgatories. However, Nailisi was worried about getting Saleen in trouble.


    By tricking Jalin into it, even if she were to end up dead and Arb got furious, it would not have had anything to do with Saleen. Neither prophecy spells nor lie-detection magic would be able to tell how Jalin died.


    Of course, it¡¯s still best that she stays alive. My new space will be rather fun after all.


    Nailisi took her devil form and charged outside the passage. She saw the ce filled with Tribunal troops and hundreds of holy masters guarding them against the catapults at the city walls.


    The catapults did not even budge when Nailisi burst outside. She began stabbing with the Grey Memory. Many holy masters dropped from being stabbed by countless thrusts of the spear.


    Nailisi had no intentions of getting herself surrounded. She flew up the walls while her enemies panicked.


    Saleen watched Nailisi¡¯s actions from the walls. She had been inside for several hours, but the Holy See forces dared not enter and attack. It worried him that they stayed around and guarded the entrance.


    His heart sank when he saw Nailisi emerge alone. He asked before shended, ¡°Where¡¯s Jalin?¡±


    ¡°I saved her!¡± Nailisi answered tactfully.


    ¡°Good. Is she injured?¡± Saleen¡¯s questions worked well with Nailisi¡¯s n since they were being watched by many at the wall.


    ¡°It¡¯s rather tricky,¡± Nailisi vaguely said.


    ¡°Head back to the tower as soon as possible and let Nichs take a look at her,¡± Saleen said as he took to the air with Nailisi in tow.


    He was the only one who was able to afford wasting his magic chords like that in Daliang City. While the Tempest Dragonmights¡¯bat capacity had been severely reduced, they were still capable of providing him with wind element power.


    Saleen returned to the Magical Element Tower and barred anyone from entering the 24th floor. He locked Nailisi in the tower alone and asked, ¡°What did you do?¡±


    Nailisi thought for a bit and answered cautiously, ¡°Master, there were too many fossilized gods around. Jalin was unable to cast spells, so I saved her using the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Well, I didn¡¯t break any of her equipment.¡±


    Saleen pondered what Nailisi¡¯s words meant. It was obvious that she broke the magic staff that had a bone crystal of the giant on it just to rob Jalin of herbat capacity. He had been the one who crafted the staff, which had nothing to do with Jalin nor the mages from Golden ins. Nailisi¡¯s description was urate.


    The contract between him and Jalin remained unbroken, which was a good thing.


    ¡°Do you have any certainty of being able to save her?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Eighty percent,¡± Nailisi answered.


    ¡°You have one day.¡± Saleen left the 24th floor of the tower as soon as he finished and went on topletely seal the entire floor.


    He returned to the 17th floor. Both Lex and Sika were in there. They both asked at the same time, seeing Saleen¡¯s glum expression, ¡°Did Nailisi get herself into trouble again?¡±


    ¡°A small one, yes.¡± Saleen gestured for both of them to drop the subject. Both of them shut up at the same time. They knew what Nailisi was like. This time, Jalin was really out of luck.


    Nailisi took out her 12 Notes of First Purgatory. The equipment had be increasingly sturdy. The strength of the collection of purgatories grew twice as strong with everypleted space. The four spaces were interconnected with each other. The power of every space bore was shared between the other three. The equipment would only be deemedplete when all 12 spaces werepleted.


    She knew what was happening inside the space that she had just created. The fossilized specter became Nailisi¡¯s eyes and ears. It was as if it was her own double. What was different was that she was able to master a bit of power of rules, which was the fossilized shell of the specter.


    The being within the shell still retained its consciousness. It was continuously being tortured.


    Nailisi opened a portal and walked inside. It was a calm, tranquil world within. She saw a garden with a small fort at the foot of a mountain far away. The warm glow of the sun bathed every corner of the space, which was the only thing peculiar about the ce.


    There were no shadows to be found within that space.


    All who were living within that space were fossilized gods. Those gods no longer looked pained. They all looked like humans, farming and living on thend. The sun in the sky would never set, always emanating warm light that shone on those fossilized gods.


    The light made everyone feel peaceful and happy within.

 Chapter 1091: Earth Magic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1091: Earth Magic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Things below Daliang City practically went to the dogs. Fossilized gods poured out of both exits at the statue of the giant at an increasing rate. Massive casualties resulted in the ranks of the Tribunal army.


    It was bound to happen. With the head inquisitors separated, Divine Territory proved useful for controlling only one exit, the other requiring soldiers to block it off.


    However, without help from Divine Territory, the difference inbat capacity between the Tribunal troops and the fossilized gods became very apparent.


    Stone projectiles stopped being thrown from the walls, as the stockpile of ammunition was limited in the city. With the Tribunal struggling to deal with the fossilized gods, the city above saw no reason to waste their own resources.


    Demons and human powerful ones continued to observe the battle below from the city. The fossilized gods did not bother telling apart people from the Tribunal and the city when they attacked.


    The ones from the Tribunal were closer and contained traces of divinity of the Lord of Glory, which had a greater appeal to the fossilized gods.


    Once everyone from the Tribunal was killed or forced to retreat, there would be only Daliang City left. It was only a matter of time before the fossilized gods began attacking the city.


    Both head inquisitors were knew that, but they were reluctant to let the shells of the fossilized gods go to waste. The shells would be useful in helping both the Tribunal and the Pivotal Council to build a powerful army.


    Even the Oracle Corps, who had lost their first oracle and was at the brink of disappearing, mobilized, just to get their hands on the fragments of the fossilized gods.


    There was a huge number of Holy See soldiers gathered near Daliang City, and there were still armies from Kroraina, Qin, and Titan heading their way.


    The two head inquisitors werepelled to acquire more fragments of the fossilized gods and looked as if they wanted to continue fighting, even if it meant all of their subordinates would die.


    The most apparent sign of their desperation was that some of the light-armored troops tasked only with logistics were mobilized to the frontlines to help with the battles, despite the fact that the best types of soldiers for fighting the fossilized gods were heavy infantry and cavalry.


    Saleen waited for full a 24 hours in the Magical Element Tower, before Nailisi emerged from her collection of purgatories.


    ¡°How was it?¡± Saleen was unable to help but ask as soon as she got out. He soon found out the results from the joy in the depths of her soul, but since it concerned the secrets of Jalin¡¯s magic, Saleen still felt rather restless.


    ¡°There doesn¡¯t seem to be a problem, master. Nichs, you¡¯re up. Heal Jalin with your divine spells. She forgot everything about me, so make sure you don¡¯t stir her memories up. Master,e with me,¡± Nailisi said and dragged Saleen to the 18th floor of the magic tower and had him shut the floor off.


    Nailisi took out a small crystalline structure and stuffed it into Saleen¡¯s hand.


    ¡°A memory crystal!¡± Saleen was able to tell at once using his Elemental Eye. A memory crystal was fragment of copied memories forcefully extracted out of a person¡¯s mind. It caused huge damage to the one subjected to the procedure.


    ¡°Rx, my liege. Jalin is mostly fine. She isn¡¯t harmed in that new space, as I don¡¯t want to get on Arb¡¯s bad side. I¡¯ll have to wait till you¡¯ve reached level ten to do so.¡± Nailisi urged Saleen to absorb the contents of the memory crystal.


    Saleen knew that since the deed was done, if he became reluctant to absorb the crystal, he might as well have offended Arb for nothing.


    Saleen covered the memory crystal with his mental powers and absorbed the information within. The information was immensely pure, as it was all about the training of earth magic. He was puzzled as to how Nailisi had been able to get the information. No other part of Jalin¡¯s memories were touched in the extraction.


    Having seen Saleen forcefully absorb all the memory within the crystal, she took it back quickly and put it in her collection of purgatories. The memory crystal flew right into the specter of the fossilized god, fusing with it.


    Nailisi had only sighed a breath of relief then. After the crystal was being fused, nothing would be able to decipher the secrets within, not even when Arb questioned or holy masters casting prophecy spells.


    Jalin had already forgotten about Nailisi tricking her for her memories. She would not have regained that part of her memories until that specter inside Nailisi¡¯s purgatories waspletely broken and dissipated.


    Jalin slowly regained consciousness on the topmost floor of the magic tower. She saw Nichs beside her, drenched in sweat.


    Jalin sat up all of a sudden, feeling very dizzy.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    Nichs checked her condition and said in a puzzled tone, ¡°Jalin, Nailisi was going too far. I hope you won¡¯t mind.¡±


    Jalin froze for a bit before saying slowly, ¡°I understand. She didn¡¯t want to see me having equipment crafted by Saleen. Yeah, I still remember that she was the one taking me out of that exit...¡±


    ¡°Your injuries are minor. You can see for yourself,¡± Nichs said carefully and cast a lesser prophecy spell. It was a doubleyered safeguard. If Nailisi¡¯s skill failed for any reason, there was still the lesser prophecy spell to prevent Jalin from recalling what actually happened.


    Jalin checked her body and found herself to only rather weakened. But Nichs was a holy master and it was actually a good thing feeling weak after the healing session. It was a sign saying that Nichs did not go on to burn her life force as cost for the healing.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Jalin expressed her gratitude and Nichs felt exasperated.


    Nichs had done something to her after all. Lesser prophecy spells were difficult to detect. It was impossible for even Arb to detect anything. The key was Jalin.


    If she had something to counter fallen divine spells, everything would be exposed.


    However, his lesser prophecy spell did not activate. It seemed that Nailisi¡¯s abilities were more intricate than his, as he was unable to tell what Nailisi had pulled.


    Saleen was more curious than Nichs. He thought of sensing Nailisi¡¯s mind, to see how she did it.


    Nailisi let out a bitterugh, which was rare. ¡°Master, the space was the product of a pure ident. I can only call it... purgatory of purification. Nothing inside that space will suffer any attacks, unless I want attacks to happen.


    ¡°Purgatory of purification?¡±


    ¡°Yes, capable of purifying souls of people and dispelling hostility, even make them your subordinates. The purgatory is most effective to gods and least effective to mages. I only had Jalin borate on the secrets of her magic, and even that took me one whole day. If she were a god, I¡¯d have been able to do the same thing in just half a minute.¡±


    ¡°You said there is no danger involved?¡±


    ¡°Master, I... used a double in the purgatory. Until that double is destroyed, Jalin will never be able to recall what actually took ce, and not even her teacher will be able to tell what happened. Furthermore, she would never tell anyone that I bested her in something.


    ¡°Nailisi, what you did was very, very risky,¡± Saleen only began to chastise her then.


    ¡°I know, master, but it¡¯s either take the risk or wait until we run out of time.¡±


    Saleen cut Nailisi off. ¡°I know that. I wouldn¡¯t have agreed to you taking her down there otherwise. This was a test to you. If you had screwed things up, I would have never let you do anything on your own again.


    Nailisi pouted. If she knew what Saleen had been up to, she would not have made her move like that.


    It was near impossible to trick a mage of Jalin¡¯s level if they left the environment they were in. Without her being able to use her most powerful spell, Jalin was little more than a toy to Nailisi.


    ¡°Well then, master. How should I go about dealing with Jalin from here on out?¡± Nailisi asked something she had been stuck on for some time. Saleen had gotten what he wanted, so he could just kick Jalin off the boat.


    Keeping her around would be like continuing to work with Arb. Her master was having some conflict in his mind.


    ¡°Continue being hostile to her, or she¡¯ll cause trouble for me,¡± Saleen said. There was hardly anyone by his side capable of getting along with Jalin, and that was troubling to him.


    Jalin came to see Saleen and as expected, she brought nothing up, only ring at Nailisi with eyes full of hostility.


    Saleen thanked Jalin. ¡°Jalin, Nailisi is crafting equipment capable of transporting the troops in Daliang City, she...¡±


    ¡°I know. I only have a shot at getting the giant bone crystals when the crisis of Daliang City is averted, right?¡± Jalin¡¯s felt rather awkward. Her deduction led her to the conclusion. What Nailisi did was most probably Saleen¡¯s idea.


    There was little she could do, as the contract between her and Saleen clearly stated that she could not have the crystals yet. Her original staff was broken by Sika and she was not permitted to settle her score with Sika.


    Jalin might not have spent much time around Saleen, but she observed quite a lot. Battles usually took ce with Sika at the center of things if Sika was around, even though it appeared that Saleen and Lex were the ones taking charge.


    It was Sika¡¯s decisivest blow that killed the fourth head inquisitor. The sheer irresistible brute force was something that even a level nine mage found frightening.


    Even if she were to give her all in defending one blow, her chances of being able to actually defend against a blow like that from Sika was close to nil.


    Any type of fighting methods, when refined to the extreme, would be extremely frightening, so much so that they might develop into unique rules. Sika¡¯s attack was an example. The sheer unbridled power, when coupled with that unique weapon of hers, would make her into something like a dragon.


    ¡°Alright, Jalin. I need you around to fight. I cannot give you the giant bone crystals just yet. Use this instead.¡± Saleen took out a level 12 magic nucleus and handed it to Jalin.


    Jalin¡¯s resentment subsided quite a bit after taking the magic nucleus, and she stopped asking Saleen to make a new magic staff for her.


    ¡°Go get some rest. The Magical Element Tower will not see use for the time being. There are several newly built magic towers at the royal pce. Split up and protect the ce. Alchemy City and Holy Rock City will be sending emissaries at noon tomorrow to discuss the cemetery. We¡¯ll have Lex do the talking, and no one is allowed to have any opinions or suggestions, are we clear?¡±


    Saleen was warning Jalin. Jalin nodded in agreement before Saleen dismissed them.


    He returned to the 17th floor of the magic tower. That was where Sika and their children took up residence, and no one else was allowed inside.


    ¡°Sika, take the kids and head back to Metatrin City,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°What then?¡± Sika looked at Saleen with angry eyes.


    ¡°I¡¯ll have teacher re-craft the tower a bit. I can¡¯t take you and the kids with me as long as the tower remains grounded.¡±


    Sika only realized what happened then. She grabbed Saleen. ¡°You¡¯ve got quite some nerves ying me like that!¡±

 Chapter 1092: Earth Magic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1092: Earth Magic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen chuckled. ¡°Sika, I¡¯m not ying you. Go ask Teacher to craft you some weapon suitable for long-range use. You¡¯re not fit for adventuring.¡±


    Sika let Saleen go. Both of their children had fallen asleep, and she pushed Saleen to the ground.


    Saleen startled. ¡°Sika!¡±


    Sika gagged Saleen and whispered in his ear, ¡°wake the kids, and I¡¯ll make mincemeat out of you.¡±


    Sika¡¯s breath riled Saleen¡¯s libido up. Having fought so oftentely, he was feeling stress piling up inside him. Saleen had almost forgotten that for a while. Sika¡¯s sudden invitation for ytime caught Saleen by surprise.


    Sika used some unknown techniques and had the hard floor grow soft green grass. They yed hard and naughty with each other before Sika turned and fell asleep.


    Saleen sat up and put on the Starline Armament, heading for the seat he had been using for meditation and searched his memories for secrets regarding earth magic.


    Jalin¡¯s knowledge about earth magic was vast and had formed its own unique system. There were some standards of measurementsid down by Arb, determining where her earth magic would head when reaching high levels.


    Saleen did not search specifically for the skills that enabled her to move in such a way. He observed and pondered the principles and rules of earth magic instead.


    He only looked into Jalin¡¯s mystical movement abilities after feeling that he had learned enough about the unique traits of earth magic.


    The earth was a star. All weight originated from the effects of gravity of stars.


    The power of earth still remained in the void. It was hidden and undetectable.


    A theory regarding astrology came to mind when Saleen searched that particr part of the memories. From the perspectives of astrologers, Myers Maind was arge star. The power of the earth coined by mages was also a type of power of the stars.


    The power used by astrologers was usually derived from stars existing in astronomical numbers in the void, which included thend beneath their feet. Furthermore, they used thend as a center point andid out a hugework of stars, deriving the power of countless stars using thatwork.


    Battles of astrologers were fought by absorbing the power of stars into a Star Gathering Needle, which boosted theirbat capacity. If they did not have a needle with them, astrologers would use the power of the earth instead.


    Saleen felt vigorous and conjured a series of earth magic within his mind, using spirit type magic. The conjured magic included structuring and sequencing of the elements and so on.


    He researched until dawn and was finally able to master some of the frequencies of the earth element.


    In Saleen¡¯s case, it was impossible for him to learn Jalin¡¯s skills right then. He was only able to mimic them, solidifying his water element and synchronizing the elemental vibrations of water with the earth element. Even so, the earth magic that he mimicked was ice.


    The knowledge that Saleen was able to get in touch more with the knowledge regarding the power of stars. The flying problem that Jalin was unable to get around was nonexistent for Saleen.


    There was the power of stars everywhere in the sky, especially the upper atmosphere of the maind where the air was thin. The higher he went, the more ample the power of stars was.


    Saleen did not mimic Jalin¡¯s magic. He researched his own, adjusting the sequencing of the elements again and again.


    No one else was capable of such a feat. It was a coincidence that Saleen¡¯s understanding of the power of stars was at level nine, which was about the same as his knowledge of magic.


    Saleen¡¯s pondering had him working for an entire day and night. Emissaries from Holy Rock City and Alchemy City arrived in Daliang City. They went to Lex¡¯s pce to discuss how to deal with the Holy See.


    Holy Rock City and Alchemy City had never sat down to discuss what to do with their enemies for the past hundreds of years.


    When Emperor Chanake was ambushed and killed, Alchemy City sent out sorcerers on their own to retaliate against the Holy See. Alchemy City did notmunicate with Holy Rock City whatsoever.


    Alchemy City sent three emissaries; all of them were level nine sorcerers and at the peak of training. They did not advance suddenly due to rising power levels across the maind.


    Holy Rock City sent a level nine sorcerer, a golden grand swordmaster, and an archer. The depth and vastness of the Grukos was demonstrated. The number of level nine archers was pitifully small, far rarer than level nine sorcerers and golden grand swordmasters.


    The one working with Lex had only just advanced to level nine, yet the one sent by Holy Rock City was struggling to keep their powers contained, which made them on par with golden grand swordmasters.


    Every step the archer took contained great pressure, and their eyes seemed to be capable of seeing through the people before them.


    That archer was so powerful that being gazed at from afar was enough to cause goosebumps


    It had nothing to do with the archer being cocky. It was simply due to their powers having reached the limit of that level and on the verge of going out of control. Only by advancing to the next level would they be able to keep their powers in check, looking peaceful and hardly different from normal people.


    There were also few level nine sorcerers in Lex¡¯s Daliang City. Stephanie was the most powerful without taking Saleen¡¯s subordinates into ount. However, if Lex were to use the secret arts of her family and the God¡¯s Ring, Stephanie might not have been able to match her blow for blow.


    Both cities sent the same number of emissaries, which was a gesture of sincerity.


    They were not able to afford brushing the threat aside. If they scoffed at Daliang City and the Holy See actually took Daliang City out, they would sufferter.


    It was very good news for both cities that Lex had reached out to them by sending magic letters asking for cooperation.


    They spent half a day negotiating. The matters discussed earlier were easy to deal with, as both cities agreed to send an ample number of powerful ones and equipment to help with Daliang City¡¯s defense. It was the distribution of the ruins that put them in a deadlock.


    Lex insisted on dividing the findings in the ruins in four parts: herself, Saleen, Alchemy City, and Holy Rock City.


    Neither Holy Rock City nor Alchemy City was able toprehend why Lex wanted to divide the findings like that. The Principality of Bitterwater was allied with the Kingdom of Metatrin after all, which meant that getting one share was already considered quite a good deal.


    The level nine sorcerer who was the leader of the emissaries of Holy Rock City said to Lex, ¡°Your Highness, while it is true that His Highness Saleen is a king, the total poption of both of your nations is less than 50 million. The poption of the Qin Empire is near 200 million. You¡¯re an heir of an empire yourself. Surely you understand that Qin cannot be put at the same level as a kingdom.¡±


    The sorcerer was being polite. They thought that if someone became the emperor, they were weed to take everything, but Qin was in the prince¡¯s control at the moment.


    The people of Alchemy City grew frustrated. The sorcerer thought the poption of Alchemy City plus the regions under the city¡¯s control was less than 10 million. If things were to be calcted in such a way, wouldn¡¯t Alchemy City only be getting one-tenth of the share?


    ¡°Your Highness, we all know what you and His Highness Saleen are capable of, but as it stands now, the powers of the kingdom and the principality are too scattered. If Daliang City is to be kept safe, you will need a lot of manpower from our side.¡±


    Lex smiled. ¡°Things are indeed as you put it, but Saleen has been helping me with defense all this while. Daliang City would be lost without him. Furthermore, Daliang City has earned Golden ins¡¯ support...¡±


    The reason why Lex said something that was because she saw Saleen arrive outside the hall. Nailisi was right behind Saleen.


    Saleen was able to hear the fuss in the hall from afar. He also knew that Lex was simply buying time, waiting for him toe to wrap things up with a finalpromise.


    Furthermore, things in that cemetery were deemed inauspicious and share of the loot hardly mattered. You think I¡¯d be happy to get one more share in that curse of the King of Glory?


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re here,¡± Lex called out softly. Saleen passed through the hall and stepped onto the tform. Lex¡¯s seat was on top of the tform while the emissaries were seated at the sides.


    Saleen nodded in acknowledgment and sat beside Lex. Nailisi stood behind him.


    The emissaries of both cities nodded to Saleen. All of them were level nine powerful ones. If Saleen cast away his status as a king, he would stand at the same height as all emissaries present.


    ¡°It seems like everyone is rather displeased with the distribution of loot,¡± Saleen said with a beaming smile.


    The sorcerers did not reply, waiting for him to speak his mind instead.


    ¡°That is normal. I¡¯ve put in too many resources and too much effort into Daliang City. Manpower too. Even the ruins was something I broke through. If you were in my shoes, surely you would find it irksome too, no?¡±


    Seeing how both sides remained silent, Saleen changed the subject. ¡°There is little point arguing. The area below us is being taken over by the Holy See. If Daliang City is lost, tactically speaking, we¡¯d have lost high ground as well. The Holy See sees taking down Daliang City as an imperative. If Holy Rock City and Alchemy City are willing to provide supplies and help build Daliang City, then I¡¯d be willing to give up my request, taking only one-third of the share with Lex.¡±


    ¡°Just like that?¡±


    The emissaries were rather startled. They were told that Saleen was stubborn and calctive. Yet the conditions offered by Saleen were lofty.


    While great expenses had to be made for building a city that was all magical, with Daliang City drawing the attention of the Holy See, they would have a lot to earn by taking down the ruins.


    ¡°Of course, Lex¡¯s family name is still Grukos. So there is little difference to how much we¡¯re able to get from the ruins.¡± Saleen took out a contract.


    He put it on the long table. ¡°Here are theprehensive details regarding the content of the trade. Feel free to have a look. If you find it satisfactory, we will resume our cooperation.¡±


    Some of Lex¡¯s personal guards took the contracts and handed them to the emissaries of Holy Rock City.


    None from Alchemy City was displeased. They looked at the emissaries from Holy Rock City curiously. The expressions of the emissaries of Holy Rock City were vivid. The contract had thousands of words on it, and when the scroll wasid out, it was several meters long.


    The emissaries from Holy Rock City were level nine sorcerers as well. They were able to quickly read all the words and have the personal guards hand the contract scroll over to the emissaries from Alchemy City.


    The emissaries took the contract, and the list of materials to be supplied was enough to render them dizzy.

 Chapter 1093: Constructing the Magic Net (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1093: Constructing the Magic Net (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The materials that Saleen listed were enough to build a new Daliang City altogether. Furthermore, it would have been an all-magic city. The materials used for drawing magic arrays themselves were more than what could have been measured using gold.


    The main materials for constructing cities were stones and wood, but Daliang City¡¯s construct apparently used more metals. There was simply no way Alchemy City would have been able to produce so many of the required metals.


    Holy Rock City would have been able to gather ample materials from warehouses all over the ce, but that too was not something that could have been aplished within a day or two.


    The two emissaries frowned as they looked at Saleen. He smiled and said, ¡°I know there are quite a lot of materials listed here, and even an empire wouldn¡¯t have been able to gather so many in such a short span of time. But, then again, feel free to write an evidence of debt. I believe what is beneath Daliang City will be worth your while.


    The two emissaries had no problemsprehending all that. The fossilized gods that rushed outside were themselves precious materials. The Holy See would rather let scores of their own die instead of giving up the ce.


    Holy See or not, if I have control of what¡¯s going on down there, who¡¯s to say that I wouldn¡¯t have done the same?


    The two sorcerers acknowledged his points, which meant that Saleen had them convinced.


    ¡°Get another contract scroll written. We have the authority to call the shots,¡± the two emissaries said to Saleen at the same time.


    As emissaries, they were given a certain measure of power beforeing to Daliang City to sign contracts with the city. While Saleen¡¯s demands were somewhat scary, they were still deemed eptable.


    Lex¡¯s insistence had been for such conditions. When Saleen went to draft another contract, he began discussing with the two emissaries meticulously, looking at what kind of materials they were able to procure.


    The discussion went on for several hours. Furthermore, there were some things that the two emissaries were truly unable to be certain of, requiring them to contact Alchemy City or Holy Rock City through the use of magic arrays.


    The first batch of materials delivered to Daliang City was used to construct arge scale teleportation portal.


    The portal was constructed east of the city, a mile away from the wall. Everyone had the schematics of therge-scale teleportation portal, but its construction was something that had not been seen for the past several thousands of years.


    Saleen needed such a portal since Alchemy City would have sentrge numbers of sorcerers through when there was a need for it. He had also promised to use resources from all three parties to firstplete the construction of the magic to protect the safety of the sorcerers.


    Not only would theirbat capacity not be diminished within the magic, their powers would have been brought to their peak.


    Saleen did not hide his intentions of nurturing enchanters. In Alchemy City¡¯s perspective, while enchanters were powerful auxiliary forces, they were not as versatile as mages.


    There were mages all over Alchemy City. If it had not been for such an environment, they would not have had considered constructing a magic.


    The city¡¯s huge number of magic towers were capable of providing mages with support. The cost of maintaining the was hefty, but it was built so that evenmon folk would have been able to cast spells. There were simply nothing for mages to gain from it.


    Even Saleen himself did not like magics much. That was because if humans grew to rely on magics, there would probably ck in cultivating their magic chords.


    There was a huge difference between enchanters and mages. An enchanter would have been useless outside a magic. There was no use for them other than the chants they memorized.


    However, only those who had truly cultivated their own magic chords would have understood that it was ultimately futile to rely on external apparatus. A mage was utterly incapable of bettering their physical constitution without magic chords and unable to attain long life.


    What is a lifespan? It¡¯s time. Only people who have lived long enough would have been able to learn more. If mages were only capable of living to 100, there would have been no more level nine powerful ones emerging in the future.


    But, their current predicament said that they would have only been able to defend themselves against enemy attacks by constructing a magic.


    When the signing of the contract was finished, the people of Alchemy City attempted to talk with Saleen, hoping to acquire the manufacturing schematics of the magic power furnace.


    Saleen refused tactfully. But, he offered it on one condition, which was therge-scale magic amplifier.


    If Alchemy City was able to provide a set ofrge-scale magic amplifiers, Saleen would provide three types of manufacturing schematics of the magic power furnace.


    The emissaries were incapable of deciding on that matter since therge-scale magic amplifier was simply too precious. The device would have enabled the city to be the strongest of strongholds to be found in the world, amplifying a mage¡¯sbat capacity by more than three times.


    The problem was that therge-scale magic amplifier was something that humanity was no longer capable of crafting, even for Jason who had mastered Water me Alchemy. The price that Saleen set was simply too high for Alchemy City to bear.


    However, the mages of Alchemy City were not disappointed. The extreme demand simply meant that the matter at hand was still negotiable.


    After therge-scale teleportation portal was constructed, all materials required by Saleen were delivered to Daliang City one after another without pause.


    Nailisi had moved all 600,000 elite Lex troops away and reced them with mercenaries. The cost of the mercenaries was borne by Alchemy City and Holy Rock City.


    The internal parts of Daliang City were quickly modified. With the exception of the core pce, every other ce had been remodeled intoplex forts. The construction of the magic was faster than Saleen had anticipated.


    The alchemy factories in Metatrin City were capable of churning out magic power furnaces quickly. Their production speed was only hindered byck of materials, which was solved quickly. Production was virtually limitless.


    The magic power furnaces were delivered to Daliang City en masse.


    Some of the furnaces were retained by Metatrin City. ording to the scrapping ratio, when crafting magic equipment, Metatrin City was able to retain at least a quarter of the produced magic power furnaces.


    The magic power furnaces were to be installed in warships andrge-scale puppets.


    Alchemy City did not bother arguing over such matters. Alchemists would hold a certain portion of materials back while crafting equipment for others. Plus, they were doing it at a higher amount than Metatrin City.


    The very reason Metatrin City was able to retain so many magic power furnaces for their own use was because Jason, a level ten mage, was in charge. He also had level ten Water me Alchemy. And, there were hardly scrapped ones produced when crafting low-level magic power furnaces.


    Saleen handed the schematics of the metal towers to Alchemy City. The factories within Alchemy City quickly producedrge amounts of metalponents, which were delivered to Daliang City to be used for buildingrge numbers of metal towers.


    The bottom part of the metal towers were used for installing magic power furnaces. In order to construct a magic enveloping Daliang City, Saleen needed over 2,000 magic power furnaces.


    Such a cost would have taken at least years to cover if he were to only rely on Metatrin City. If he wanted the process to be sped up, he would have needed to take the Ancient warship apart.


    Lex¡¯s pce was the first to be installed with the magic. Demon spirits, trained in secret by Nailisi, reced thest batch of elite troops she sent away. The demon spirits¡¯bat capacity was inferior than that of demons, but their mental powers were just as strong.


    There were about 3,600 demon spirits. All of them were to stay in the royal pce and be enchanters.


    There were two camps appearing at the east of the city: one from Alchemy City, and the other from Holy Rock City.


    No one had been able to develop space equipment capable of carrying living beings other than Nailisi. The two camps were filled with hastily recruited troops. It was fortunate that there was no need for them to venture outside of the city to do battle. As such, there were not that many of them recruited.


    Nailisi recruited mercenaries in batches and brought them to Daliang City using the purgatory of purification. The mercenaries all looked dazed when emerging from the purgatory of purification, having no recollection of what happened. They simply took it to be a side effect of the spell, which enabled troops to be delivered to Daliang City in droves.


    There were more and more powerful ones from Alchemy City and Holy Rock City settling down in the two camps. The main gate of the eastside of the city was modified as well, bing the core of the magic at the east.


    The army outside the city grew increasinglyrge. It seemed that a showdown was inevitable.


    Saleen took the opportunity to sneak the Magical Element Tower back to Metatrin City. He had no way of restoring its flight capabilities on his own and needed his teacher¡¯s help.


    Other than metal tower and magic cannons, huge amounts of heavy alchemy crossbows were also found on the eastern city wall of Daliang City. Those were backups from Holy Rock City. The range of the alchemy crossbows surprised Saleen: five miles.


    Of course, it was impossible for the heavy crossbows to maintain the uracy of their smaller cousins at such a range. However, the heavy alchemy crossbows provided by Holy Rock City were truly professional works.


    Other than being able to shoot alchemy bolts of over 13 feet long, those crossbows were capable of shooting hundreds of smaller bolts at the same time.


    The experience had broadened Saleen¡¯s vista. The list he made basically came from data gathered and some information fed to him by Lex. Some war equipment thought to have existed only in legends now appeared right before his eyes, such asrge-scale metal cannons firing magic fire shells.


    The metal cannons were set up within the main camp in the city and had a range of over a dozen miles. They were firing true magic fire shells, which made them look likerge Fireball spells.


    Casualties among the Tribunal forces reached 600,000 within half a month. The numbers continued to climb. Dead troops were buried where they fell. New recruits were mobilized to fight the fossilized gods.


    The endless replenishment meant that the Tribunal needed to pay over 50 lives just to get one fossilized god killed. That was only achievable with the help ofrge number of holy masters. If it had not been for all types of equipment being constantly resupplied, the two head inquisitors would not havested long.


    Mages from Alchemy City and Holy Rock City waited in anticipation within the royal pce. The magic power furnaces beneath the hundreds of metal towers in the pce were activated.


    The sky suddenly lit up. Since it was evening, the light made everyone within over a hundred miles feel as if the sun had risen high in the air from the horizon. It was as if time had rewound.


    The magic light disappeared right away as hundreds of mystical streams of magic energies connected with one another. Even the sky thousands of miles above the royal pce was covered by the formless magic.


    The mages were ted to find that they were once again able to sense the elements in the air and manipte them at will. Many could not have helped but cast their specialty spells. The royal pce was filled with the light of magic again.


    The mages, who were usually known for their restraint, cheered. They had felt very repressed in an environment like Daliang City.


    The disappearance of the elemental powers they were so used to manipting every day rendered them feeling insecure. All of mages were excited and ted to find their powers restored.


    The magic quickly dissipated since it was but an experiment. If it had not been for the state of war they were in, there was no way anyone would have simply agreed to having hundreds of magic power furnaces run at the same time.


    The news was quickly delivered back to Holy Rock City and Alchemy City. Within half an hour, both ces deployed their truly powerful forces, level ten mages, to Daliang City.

 Chapter 1094: Constructing the Magic Net (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1094: Constructing the Magic Net (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    While the Tribunal army beneath the city suffered heavy losses, there were more than 10,000 fossilized gods killed. Their pieces being carted away.


    Neither Holy Rock City nor Alchemy City had any idea what the insides of the ruins was truly like. They did know the value of the fossilized gods.


    Daliang City attacked yet again after staying quiet for a while, deploying over 200 metal flyers to throw huge numbers of magic fire shells outside the city. The surroundings outside the city were quickly reduced to an inferno.


    Saleen was summoning everyone around him in the pce and was preparing to leave Daliang City.


    ¡°Lex, Daliang City is safe now, but you still need to be around for a while. Take Gusion with you. I¡¯ll keep in touch through the portal,¡± Saleen said to Lex while feeling rather sorry for her.


    They were unable to spend much time with each other. Even Sika could, by then, could afford to go on adventures with him, yet Lex had to be in charge of Daliang City.


    ¡°Rx, just go. I¡¯ve nothing to worry about with Sika by your side,¡± Lex said.


    She hugged Saleen and reluctantly let go. It was something they had discussed earlier, so there was no turning back.


    Saleen felt rather reluctant as well, but he took out a piece of dimension stone from his Starline Ring and handed it to Lex ¡°I know you still have a lot of magic nuclei with you, but take these anyway. There is no telling what course the war from here on out will take. If you¡¯re reluctant to give up the city, the magic nuclei in here will be enough for you to hold the line.¡±


    Lex smiled and took the dimension stone. ¡°Anything else?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, keep an eye on Jalin,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Don¡¯t let her get too near the people of Holy Rock City. There is no way I can take her along to search the temples, so I¡¯m sorry that you¡¯ll have to see to her. After all, she¡¯s a huge pain in the a**.¡±


    ¡°No problem, if she dares cause me anymore problems, I¡¯ll just kill her,¡± Lex said while tapping on Saleen¡¯s hand.


    She let him go and went to watch the party leave from the back of the pce.


    Gusion stood behind her and said, ¡°Your highness, his highness will be back soon enough.¡±


    Lex turned around and took a look at the honest golden grand swordmaster and smiled, saying nothing. Saleen would definitely return soon, but she was still rather sad. She had been giving too much for their so-called ideals.


    There was next to no one left west of the city. Saleen took Sika and the others on their way, encountering no huge groups of enemies along the way. There were only small numbers of scouts patrolling. When the scouts saw Saleen and his party get closer, they fled the ce.


    Saleen¡¯s party for the adventure consisted of himself, Sika, Nailisi, J, Sul, Nichs, and Eleanor. He had to harden his heart and send his children back to Metatrin City. They were about to enter the temple and search every single one of them, taking whatever within the temples they were capable of taking. This would ensure no one else acquired the goddess¡¯ luck within the temples.


    Other than the main temple at the center of the maind, the Goddess of Myers had built 24 temples before she perished. They were spread across the entire maind. All 24 temples resonated with each other, so their locations could be calcted. It was, however, a given that the calction feat needed to be carried by a lot of mages. The mages of Metatrin City never ceased going about the task.


    The locations of all 24 temples became increasingly clear. Errors were kept within a 30-mile radius. Such a range was hardly consideredrge whenpared to the size of a temple. The calctions, in this case, were even considered very urate.


    The first temple that Saleen was going to visit was the one in Titan Duchy, which was also the ce where he took Eleanor in.


    Any remaining members of the pink thieves within the temple were probably eaten by the magic bugs. Saleen had only begun to feel that the metalized steel rocks within the temple were very rare materials.


    If there had been huge amounts of metalized steel rocks at his disposal, his magic cannons could have been made smaller and easier to repair. The body of his magic cannons were all crafted using precious rock materials. It would have been easily damaged if the internal structures were constructed using metals.


    But, Saleen was not there for the metalized steel rocks. He was there to empty the temple of its contents.


    The Goddess of Myers had been a mage herself, a human who became a god. She left a lot of things behind. They were all suitable for a mage¡¯s use. Saleen believed that there were some magic skills left over by the goddess in some temples from his current level of 18.


    Even the grandmaster himself had not been a level 18 mage. The skill books he gave Saleen carried contents that could have only been discerned when Saleen reached level 12. Saleen dared not practice all the magic skills after. He followed the research materials given to him by the grandmaster.


    The grandmaster had intended to set him up. Saleen believed that he could have done something with the research materials as well.


    Saleen had seen quite a lot and was no longer as careless as he used to be. The party was split into three teams. He and Sika were to sit on the soul beast and fly in the middle. Nailisi was to take her devil form and be on the lookout at the front with two supreme demons. The rest of the party was to sit on the Wings of an Elf and tail them from behind.


    The teams were separated for several miles from each other. They were to keep their flights at low speeds. Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was not finished being repaired yet, which was also why he dared not take his children with him. It would have been safer to have the tower with him. Not even a level 10 professional would have been able to do anything to them if they were to simply shut themselves inside the tower.


    After flying for less than 500 miles, Saleen saw something off with a mountain below him. He called for the other two teams to stop while he flew higher and scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye.


    A lone mountain was being surrounded with cloudy mist, and there was a small tform at the peak. There were thin traces of writing on it, ¡°Help me!¡±


    The writing looked familiar. Saleen began to search his memories. He immediately recalled it to be Isabe¡¯s writing.


    Lex sent over a thousand people, as well as spies nted in all nations, to search for Isabe after she was taken away. They had never given up on the professional who was trained in both magic and martial arts.


    Isabe was Saleen¡¯s follower, and he needed to be responsible for her.


    It seemed as if Isabe simply disappeared without a trace. The one who took her never showed up again. There was simply no way Saleen would have overlooked Isabe¡¯s writing at the peak of the mountain. Regardless of how rushed the trip was, he waspelled to look things up to see if he was able to find anything about Isabe.


    Nailisi turned around from the front and had the two supreme demons keep an eye from afar. She descended to the peak with Saleen, holding the Grey Memory in her hand. She was ready to punch a hole through any threatsing their way.


    Sika did not descend. The tform at the peak was too small while her soul beast too huge. If she were to descend, Saleen would no longer have any need to search for anything.


    Eleanor glided down like a breeze. Her Wings of An Elf could be folded. It was very convenient. While she had not broken through level nine, her flight capabilities were surprisingly good.


    Saleen stood at the center of the tform and looked around, finding the tform to be shorter than the peaks around it. If he had not been flying nearby, he would not have been able to find it.


    The writing on the tform was really big. Saleen bent down and took a sample, stuffing it into a crystal ss.


    Eleanor walked up to him and said, ¡°My liege, the writing is poisonous.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Saleen sad. ¡°The poison has seeped into the rocks, which attracted the bugs or whatever. The ck marks of the writing were only seen when said bugs got poisoned and died. It¡¯s a trick of Isabe. I¡¯m now trying to think how long the writing has been around.¡±


    ¡°So that¡¯s to say that Isabe had a certain amount of freedom?¡± Eleanor had a good impression of Isabe. Speaking of which, Isabe should have been categorized as a mage instead of a grand swordmaster practicing magic.


    ¡°Freedom is rtive,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Having written something like this meant that her life was still in danger.¡±


    Sika leapt from her soul beast seeing that Saleen was staying for a while at the peak. She was actually capable of flight even without her soul beast. She did so only because she thought the huge beast saved her a lot of energy, and she was even able to sleep on it. The huge soul beast was also apanion inbat, which was way more superior than a mage¡¯s summoned creatures.


    Nichs came down and walked up to Saleen. He sensed the ce for a bit with his Scepter of the Fallen in his hand and said, ¡°My liege. This ce has been affected by divine arts. I¡¯m afraid you won¡¯t be able to calcte the exact time this took ce with magic.¡±


    ¡°I can, but it¡¯d just take too much time. I can¡¯t bring this back to Metatrin City without a teleportation portal as well. Man, if only I had the Magical Element Tower around.¡± Saleen sighed.


    Nailisi toured around the ce for a bit and returned to Saleen¡¯s side, saying, ¡°Master, how about I let the demons search the mountain for bit. We can take a break here for the night.¡±


    Saleen nodded in agreement. He had departed in the morning and had originally nned on traveling under the cover of the night. Now that they found leads about Isabe, it was deemed permissible to dy their n for just one night.


    Sika let the soul beast to go rest somewhere in the shades after hearing that Saleen intended to stay instead of simply putting the beast away. Nailisi opened her purgatory of the devils. She summoned several supreme demons who had advanced and could search for anything suspicious around. Demons were most suited for such tasks since their sensitivity to smells and energy far surpassed that of humans.


    The winds at the peak were strong. Saleen went to build four walls with magic to have everyone surrounded. The walls were crystal clear, but they were actually made of solid ice. It was fortunate that none of them hated strong winds or were they afraid of cold. Even Eleanor, the weakest in the group, was a level eight professional.


    Sika did not reside within the walls. She summoned her pony and stood at the edge of the tform. The pony stuck the horn on its head at her sleeve. She caressed its mane. The pony quieted down and took a deep breath.


    Sika took out a piece of equipment from her bone ne and dangled it in front of her eyes. The equipment hovered before her. Even the strong winds were incapable of making the nearly white item, which was nearly three feet, budge.


    The equipment looked like a starfish, but it only had three corners. One was longer than the other. The equipment was t and hollow. It had sharp edges and resembled a boomerang.


    The mountain winds blew through the triangr equipment and howled, like someone singing a sad tune.


    ¡°Master, what is Sika doing?¡± Nailisi peered outside the transparent ice wall curiously.


    ¡°She is crafting a weapon,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°A weapon that sings?¡± Nailisi grew even more curious.


    ¡°All weapons were used to kill,¡± Saleen said and cast the Water me, settling down and beginning to craft javelins for her.


    The weapon that Sika was crafting at the moment would take a long time to finish and be deemed functional in battle. He told Sika that shecked a ranged weapon, which probably made her anxious. It had prompted her to craft another weapon with battle souls of magic beasts in it.


    To Sika, it was done a little too early.

 Chapter 1095: Betrayal (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1095: Betrayal (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika¡¯s powers atmunicating with nature were stronger than even Eleanor, a royal elf. The way nature priests craft weapons also differed from mages and divine smiths.


    In Saleen¡¯s eyes, the triangr weapon was being modified by some unfamiliar powers and became more streamlined. The triangr hollow piece of bone got further and further away from Sika, eventually hovering over 500 meters away.


    The sound from the bone piece remained flowing and melodic at that distance. It was not until it flew more than 800 meters away that the sound from the wind turned intense and high. Sika breathed lightly and recalled the bone piece.


    It seemed that 800 meters was the limit of the weapon, and it would start bing strenuous after exceeding that distance. Control of the soul beast within 800 meters was a breeze.


    While it was iparable to some powerful equipment, it was still a long range weapon. Sika hovered the bone piece before her, and it no longer made any sound.


    No one could tell how Sika did it, and the bone piece was hardly powerful. However, Saleen was able to somewhat understand. Since Sika advanced to the ranks of nature priest, any battle soul of a magic beast that sheid her eyes on would not be too weak in level. Her staff housed a very powerful magic beast¡¯s battle soul.


    However, battle souls required nurturing. It was a pity to use the triangr bone piece for striking enemies. Nurturing yet another one once it was destroyed would be very difficult. As such, Saleen crafted a magic javelin for her.


    The magic javelin was only a meter and a half long, shorter than a full grown adult woman. The tip of the javelin was a grooved wedge-shaped piece. The groove was etched with a magic array. Once it prated a target, the weapon would suck the blood of its target dry within seconds. The wind magic¡¯s suction was so powerful than it was able to overwhelm powerful magic beasts.


    Behind the tipy three staggered grooves which were capable of deploying thin metal wings. The symmetrical wings were useful for directional adjustments. Caucasian hatchets and boomerangs were all capable of pulling off curved attacks.


    The javelin that Saleen made for Sika worked with simr principles. It did not require mental powers from Sika and was solely based on throwing techniques, yet the javelin was able to achieveplex curves in the air.


    Saleen¡¯s crafting was incredibly quick. It would invite envy from other alchemists if they saw the finished product. Saleen was able to craft six intricate javelins in about an hour, putting them neatly before him.


    Everyone became tense. Nailisi even turned her entire body to the south.


    Saleen stood up and picked up all twelve javelins. He stood beside Sika, and she put them all at the sack strapped to her hips. She turned her eyes southward.


    Two demons climbed down from the tform and went to Nailisi, saying something in demonic tongue.


    Nailisi frowned. ¡°We¡¯ll need to drill a hole again!¡±


    Everyone looked at Nailisi. ¡°The demons found a cave at the south with signs of peopleing and going. The cave was very deep too. The demons searched for more than two miles and they were unable to see its end. But they ran into some trouble and one demon died. These two fellows said that they encountered creatures from other nes, possibly those of the gods.¡±


    Creatures of the gods! Are gods really that cheap now?


    Saleen felt the power across the entire ne of Myers Maind increasing, which meant there was more trouble to be found, such as creatures which were being pinned down by the rules of the ne awakening one after another. There had been ancient battlefields on Myers Maind itself and it was anyone¡¯s guess how many powerful creatures died on the maind.


    The creatures would not have been a problem as ancient humans would have simply killed them all. Theparatively weak ones however, became a problem given how humans did not bother with them, and they ended up only being suppressed.


    Theparatively weak creatures were only weakpared to ancient humans. With things in Myers Maind as they were then, a level 12 creature would kill many powerful ones.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go have a look.¡± Saleen would not be able to sit well if he did not go. If it had only been amon creature of the gods, it would not have piqued his interests. That ce however, was where Isabe had once settled. He was unable to simply give up, as the follower was captured and there was no telling whether she was dead or alive.


    ¡°My liege, allow me.¡± Sul looked worried.


    J smiled. ¡°What are you so worried about? Our lord isn¡¯t going to enter the cave himself. Just tag along.¡±


    Sul felt embarrassed. He had been training alone for too long to know what kind of powers Saleen possessed at the moment. Saleen did not ride on a soul beast. He cast Quickcloud and took two golden grand swordmasters with him, while Nailisi followed behind.


    Eleanor and the others rode on the Wings of an Elf and brought the two demons along, having them lead the way.


    The group quickly arrived at the entrance of the cave. It was a natural cave with a huge entrance, which narrowed after venturing inside for hundreds of meters. They saw a path that was about three meters wide. Saleen stopped and took out his War Drum of Fear, cing it before him and beating at it hard with his bone mallet.


    Saleen would never feel helpless even when facing a great army in Daliang City, so long as he was armed with the drum. As the option of using the drum was present, he saw no reason to enter the deeper ces of the cave without a solid reason.


    Hundreds of pests gushed out from the drum and rushed into the depths of the cave. The two demons chatted away with Nailisi in demonic tongue. Saleen was able to understand some of what was being said. The demons were saying that the creature of the gods within was very powerful, and that the pests were no match for them.


    Saleen paid them no heed. While it was true that the levels of the pests were not high, but they were still powerfulpared to the demons. Furthermore, the pests did not fear conventional physical attacks, unless it was of a force at Sika¡¯s level.


    Saleen only put his drum away after unleashing more than a thousand of the pests. He then ventured deeper into the cave under the protection of the two golden grand swordmasters.


    The ground shook, and Saleen cursed exasperatedly. Just why would there be an earthquake happening at a time like this? Wait, no. That is probably not an earthquake. Maybe a magic array got triggered or something.


    The cave before them sank. The pests that Saleen sent scouting got buried in the cave. However, only about a hundred of them suffered that fate. The hundred or so pests were instantly pulverized. They dug their way out from underground and went back into Saleen¡¯s Starline Ring, before returning to the War Drum of Fear.


    Saleen and the others were all calm, and none of them retreated. Even Eleanor just stuck closer to Sika due to being rather weak, being cautious against getting crushed by something falling all of the sudden.


    The path before them was not all blocked despite being copsed. An even greater cave appeared leading upwards.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi took her devil form. The face at the back looked at Saleen, signaling that they still had no way in.


    Light brightened when they reached the deeper reaches of the cave. Saleen frowned as the ce did not seem to show signs of being habited by humans. Isabe was probably not inside. However, the creature of gods probably had something to do with the Holy See. The light emanated by the creature was too familiar to them. Having fought the Holy See numerous times, Saleen came to be rather sensitive to the divine light.


    While Saleen was unable to tell much about the gods, Saleen was certain that there was no mistaking it when it came to gods from the line of the Lord of Glory. A very strong exclusivity belied the gentle surface of that light.


    The remaining hundreds of pests rushed at the light under Saleen¡¯s instructions. Saleen was uncertain of the oue and had Nichs be on guard. Nichs took hold of his Scepter of the Fallen and stuck close to Saleen.


    There were many hidden ambush-like skills in the divine arts. While the skills were hardly powerful, they were difficult to defend against.


    The predictive abilities of mages were inferior to holy masters¡¯ in terms of speed. Nichs was afraid that something would happen to Saleen in such a meaningless ce. He focused his mental powers and sensed the changes inside the cave.


    ¡°Heh... someone is finally here. Too bad it¡¯s mages though.¡± A heavy voice was heard deep within the cave.


    ¡°My liege, is that you?¡± A high-pitched voice was heard and Saleen froze. Is that really Isabe? He was able to vaguely sense the power of the contract deep within his soul vibrating.


    ¡°Isabe?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice prated the cave and reached directly where Isabe called.


    Isabe¡¯s voice disappeared. Saleen let out a coldugh. He had little idea of the divine spell used, but one thing was certain: it changed the ce where Isabe was hidden. If he had not been searching with his magic voice, he might have actually fallen into the trap.


    ¡°There is a heavily wounded oracle here. Mage outside,e help out,¡± The heavy voice did not bother hiding its location anymore. The voice prated all that stood in its way, giving Saleen a detailed coordinate.


    ¡°My liege, no,¡± J advised against it.


    ¡°Isabe is really in there,¡± Saleen said with a frown.


    ¡°Master, allow me then,¡± Nailisi said and put her Grey Memory away. A seven meter-long spear would be hardly of any use. Nailisi switched to the Sword of Rules and took out her 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    The light before them grew increasingly strong. Nailisi knew that there was a problem with her spirit form, resulting in the form having zero resistance to holy light. She opted to fight in devil form instead.


    The twisty pathway ended after they went up for another 300 meters or so. They turned, and Nailisi found a very vast cave. There was a barrier of light at the center of the cave and there were two people in it: a middle-aged man wearing cloth clothing and Isabe wearing a magic robe.


    There were more than a dozen sparkling tiger-like creatures outside the barrier of light. They circled around the light barrier and attacked in rhythm. The creatures seemed to be higher than level nine. A human-like creature of the godsy down behind them, with wings sprouting behind their back.


    Oracles did not usually grow wings. Only low level angels grew sparkling wings for flight. However, the oracle looked different. They were not equipped with any armor and the sword in their hand was not a Sword of Glory, but a magic weapon instead.


    The oracle seemed to be injured, lying down and instructing the creatures in a dazed manner, having them attack the transparent light barrier.


    Nailisi was in glee. She took two steps forward and let Saleen, who was behind her, emerge from the narrow pathway. ¡°Master, there is a gravely injured oracle here, so...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s yours,¡± Saleen answered simply.

 Chapter 1096: Betrayal (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1096: Betrayal (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The gravely injured oracle looked even more tense as soon as Nailisi appeared. They dragged their broken bodies to sit up and instructed two of the creatures to stand before them, but did not tell them to attack, but opened their big mouth and swallowing one of the creatures, which was about their size, whole.


    ¡°Toote.¡± Nailisi took out all of her weapons and charged at the oracle, waving all four of her arms. The Sword of Rules was brought down quickly. The surface of the oracle¡¯s body shimmered with thick holy light but was quickly torn apart by the Sword of Rules, which went right through their heart.


    The oracle was dumbfounded, refusing to believe that such a low level demon was able to break through their defenses.


    After having her attacknd on her target, Nailisi opened the purgatory of purification and threw that oracle inside. The other dozen or so creatures of the gods gave up attacking the light barrier and pounced at Nailisi, but they were sent flying with Nailisi¡¯s big shield, making them incapable of getting near her.


    Saleen and the others had an easier time. The oracle suffered grave injuries and was unable to move, making them easily controlled by Nailisi. The remaining dozen of creatures were far easier to deal with afterwards.


    Saleen had no fear even if that oracle did not suffer any injuries. There was no doubt that his Thunder Dragon ster would make short work of the oracle, which would then be left to Nailisi to deal with in the purgatory of purification.


    What Saleen feared was being outnumbered. There was no certainty that his Thunder Dragon ster would be able to kill enemies of levels that were too high, and worse still, the ster had a limited number of times it could be used.


    The light barrierwas still there. Saleen came before the barrier and looked at the middle-aged man keeping the barrier up. The man held a short spear and stabbed it into the ground. The energy emanating from the shaft coalesced into the small barrier. The barrier held two within it, which seemed to be a little too narrow.


    ¡°Isabe, I¡¯m sorry I took so long to find you,¡± Saleen looked at the middle-aged man despite speaking to Isabe.


    That middle-aged man returned the gaze. The ends of his hair were light grey. It was hidden by the light, and he would not have noticed if he did not walk up to the barrier.


    ¡°So you¡¯re Isabe¡¯s master?¡± That man finally spoke, which sounded rather different from the time he called for help. The man did not bother masking his voice, which sounded like rusted metal being snapped.


    J and Sul drew their swords and went up, helping Nailisi throw all of the remaining creatures of the gods into her collection of purgatories. The middle-aged man shuddered, seeing what was happening before his eyes. If it had not been for the oraclemanding the creatures, he would not have feared them, but it was beyond him to be able to make short work of them without breaking a sweat.


    ¡°Regardless of who you are, let go of Isabe,¡± Saleen said patiently. Nailisi looked at the light barrier with curious eyes. She drew a gash at the barrier with the Sword of Rules, but the sword was repelled and the barrier was hardly affected.


    There was no wonder why the dozen of creatures were unable to destroy the light barrier despite attacking it so frequently.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking the same thing, but I can¡¯t dispel this thing,¡± the middle-aged man answered with a bitter smile.


    The reason he brought Isabe there was because hisrades left a map, which stated that there had been a small battlefield there back in ancient times, and there were some weapons left behind by the ancient gods.


    The God-hunting Spear was his target, but he found soon after entering the ce that there was already an oracle figuring ways of bagging the equipment. However, the spear repelled the gods. The spirit housed within the weapon dissipated after injuring the oracle, and made it easy for the man.


    However, with the oracle summoning creatures of the gods to surround him, there was no way for him to escape, and he activated the divine spell within the weapon. It was too bad that the divine spell ended up being one he was unable to control. Until all the energies within the spear were depleted, there was no way to dispell the spell.


    Saleen looked closely at the barrier from the outside and found the flow of energies on the barrier had energy bncing rules. If no one attacked or dispelled the barrier, it would probably be able tost for hundreds of years.


    The Thunder Dragon ster would probably be able to destroy the light barrier. The only troubling part was not knowing if the short spear that was stabbed into the ground would have other means of retaliation. Nichs walked up as Saleen hesitated and poked the barrier with his Scepter of the Fallen, before telling Saleen, ¡°My liege, this is troubling. There is no way to pass through the barrier, but voice can still get through. This isn¡¯t something that can be pulled off by something lower than level 13 pseudogods.¡±


    ¡°How long have you been inside?¡± Saleen looked at Isabe.


    Isabe¡¯s eyes were bloodshot. ¡°More than ten months now. The flow of time inside is different.¡±


    Saleen shuddered. The power of that short spear had made a mage lose her sense of time, which meant that it was a powerful piece of equipment. If he were to use his Thunder Dragon ster against it...


    I¡¯m so stupid! Saleen pped his head. The barrier was pure energy and there was nothing easier to break than that. He took out his family badge. ¡°I can let you out, but you¡¯ll need to sign a contract with Isabe.¡±


    ¡°What contract?¡± The man did not refuse. He had been relying on the bit of food left in Isabe¡¯s space equipment to survive. If they were stuck for another year or so, there was no doubt that both of them would die of starvation.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know who you are in the Holy See, but I need you to fall,¡± Saleen said seriously.


    ¡°To fall eh,¡± the man said inly. His eyes turned even paler, so pale that they looked grey. Isabe, who was beside him, felt incredibly cold. The man had actually dropped the temperature within the barrier to freezing.


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to?¡± The Thunder Dragon ster was already equipped on his left arm. He would be able to kill the man with one shot after his family badge absorbed the light barrier. He would not have wasted his time talking to the man if he was not concerned for Isabe¡¯s safety.


    ¡± I fell quite a long time ago. It¡¯s just that Theisio won¡¯t admit that I did,¡± The man¡¯s words made Saleen feel a tinge of pity. Saleen mumbled a chant in his mind and a thunderous rumble shook his mind, dispelling that feeling.


    Nichs said angrily, ¡°My liege, he¡¯s attacking you.¡±


    ¡°I can tell,¡± Saleen said as he put the badge on the light barrier. Saleen said to the middle-aged man after pressing his badge against the barrier, ¡°if you¡¯re unwilling to sign the contract, I¡¯ll have to take the risk then.¡±


    ¡°Is Isabe that important to you?¡± The man looked at Saleen and found it rather unbelievable.


    ¡°No mage should¡¯ve given up on their followers. I¡¯ve been looking for her for a long time, and it was only today that I was able to find some clues. I was surprised that you were so close to Daliang City.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re called Saleen, right?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°If I choose to turn my back on the Holy See and follow you, what would I get in return?¡± the man asked. Saleen had no idea of how to answer. The first time he met someone from the Holy See offering to follow him at their own will was Nichs. Even then, he had spent quite some time before he was able to have Nichs truly submit to him.


    ¡°Who the hell are you?¡± Saleen asked in return.


    ¡°My name... is Sukcha. I was amander of the Heaven Knights.¡±


    ¡°The Heaven Knights are long gone.¡± Saleen did not buy that man¡¯s words. When Qin first established their empire, the Holy See attacked Holy Rock City and every single member of the Heaven Knights died below that city.


    ¡°The Heaven Knights have been rebuilt four times and I served asmander thest time the corps was rebuilt. I went by another name: Don,¡± The man borated, but Saleen felt as if he was telling the story of another man.


    ¡°I had been imprisoned by the pope, but he wanted to rebuild the Heaven Knights so he found a reason to release me.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know why should I trust you.¡± Saleen looked at Don. The man¡¯s face was peculiar. Despite looking about 30 from afar, he actually looked very old upon close inspection, as if he had been living for hundreds of years and had gotten tired of living.


    ¡°Why trust me? I¡¯m as good as dead. The only reason I didn¡¯t destroy myself was so that I would see the Holy See fall in the end.¡±


    ¡°That is not enough,¡± Nichs, who was standing beside Saleen, cut in. ¡°Our lord would not let someone who is tired of living to be by his side. Doing so is just too dangerous.¡±


    Don looked at Nichs, and his eyes sparkled for a bit.


    ¡°A fallen holy master. There are actually fallen holy masters now, and one who is at level nine. Looks like the Holy See¡¯s days just got worse and worse.¡±


    ¡°Quit wasting our time,¡± Sika said impatiently. ¡°Saleen, just hurry up and get rid of that fellow.¡±


    Saleen was able to tell that Don wished Isabe no ill. He said, ¡°there is only one condition for you to be my subordinate.¡±


    ¡°Please, go on.¡±


    ¡°I want to build a Guardian Knights corps of the Nature Faith, and I want you to be themander.¡± Saleen smiled.


    ¡°Nature Faith? Myers had already fallen!¡± Don¡¯s curiosity was piqued. Despite being imprisoned in the Holy See, he was still able to tell that the Nature Faith had gradually disappeared after the goddess had fallen, and there was no trace of the faith to be found.


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll just resurrect her. She would serve well to fight the Holy See and besides, it looks fun,¡± A clear nid out gradually in Saleen¡¯s mind. While the resurrection of the goddess was a very long process, building an army for the Nature Faith was something he was able to do early.


    While it was absolutely forbidden to have an army of the Nature Faith within his own kingdom, he would be able to do it outside, and it would be best to start with the Sikeqinya Empire.


    ¡°Alright, your highness Saleen. How many men can you get me?¡± Don asked seriously.


    ¡°None. You will be the only one. If you want men, you will need to capture them yourself, and you¡¯d best start with capturing people of the Holy See,¡± Saleen beamed, and Don smiled in return.


    ¡°Alright, a knights corps with me being the only member. I don¡¯t have any equipment though.¡± Don¡¯s eyes were on the God-hunting Spear.


    ¡°If you swear loyalty to me before the Goddess of Myers is resurrected, that piece of equipment is yours.¡± Saleen was hardly fettered. The man had served as amander of the Heaven Knights, which meant that he had ample experience in creating a corps, and he was adept at battle and management as well. He could be entrusted with propagation of the faith as well.


    Saleen felt rather reluctant to have Nichs do all that.


    Don sighed and nodded. ¡°I never expected this. Amander of the Heaven Knights, betraying the Holy See at his own will and is able to get nothing in return. What has the worlde to...¡±

 Chapter 1097: Group (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1097: Group (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I don¡¯t like this world all that much either,¡± Saleen said.


    The badge in his hand began to absorb the energy of that light barrier. The God-hunting Spear might have been a powerful divine spell equipment, but there was no energy left within. The spirit of the item had died as well. The remaining energy was quickly sucked up by Saleen¡¯s family badge.


    The hard stone floor beneath the spear cracked. The spear took flight but was quickly captured by Nailisi.


    Don did nothing as Isabe stood and walked to Saleen¡¯s side, leaving him behind. He simply stood on the ground waiting.


    Grey light from Nichs¡¯ Scepter of the Fallen glittered and shone into Isabe¡¯s body. Nichs nodded to Saleen after finding nothing wrong with her.


    Saleen took out an empty scroll made of Starline paper and levitated it before writing contract contents on it at blinding speed using the magic pen. He handed the contract to Nailisi when he was finished.


    Nailisi came beside Don and handed him the contract. Don read every single word written on the contract while Sika asked Isabe about what happened after she was taken away. Isabe hid nothing. She had been by Don¡¯s side since the day she was taken away.


    Don had only stood up when Isabe finished telling her story. He asked for the magic pen from Nailisi and wrote his name on the contract. The Starline paper burned and turned to dust. The contract truly went in effect. Don did not y any tricks.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, where is my weapon?¡± Don looked at Saleen after he was done signing the contract.


    Saleen took a look at Nailisi, who handed the God-hunting Spear somewhat reluctantly to Don. The old man yed around with the weapon for a little bit and found it to be a good fit for him.


    Even if the weapon were to be one devoid of divinity, its sharpness and sturdiness would still enable him to use it to the greatest effect. Common weapons were simply too easy to break for someone at his current level.


    Isabe felt incredibly mentally exhausted. If she had not been a mage, it would have been difficult to even relieve herself while staying by Don¡¯s side for so long. Even so, she still felt herself to be incredibly dirty.


    It was something she was unable to bring up to Saleen, which made her feel awful. Saleen had let Don go, which made her feel uneasy. Does that mean I¡¯ll have to continue working with this man?


    Sika understood what Isabe was thinking. She calmly walked up to Don after he took the spear. As she stood before the old man, she suddenly said, ¡°Saleen is only taking you in for the moment. But, don¡¯t you think you owe someone an apology for what you did?¡±


    Don shook his head and said, ¡°She¡¯d still feel awful even if I were to apologize. What would be the point?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just asking,¡± Sika said and quickly brought her staff up, flinging it hard down on Don.


    Isabe covered her mouth, but no one around them had any intentions of helping.


    Don frowned and thrust the spear at Sika¡¯s throat. The move was incredibly quick. It was possible that his spear would have been able to prate Sika¡¯s neck before she was able tond a blow on him.


    The trajectory of Sika¡¯s blow remained unchanged, but she sped up all of a sudden. The eleration seemed to be done in anticipation of Don¡¯s attack. If he were to stick with his attack, his brain would get smashed first.


    The God-hunting spear was quickly turned horizontal to block the staff.


    Don had intended to go with the flow. Hend a thrust on her, forcing her to back off. However, the power of the blow felt unexpectedly heavy. His wrist bone broke with a pop.


    Sika retrieved her staff along the trajectory of her attack. Don¡¯s weapon fell to the ground with a ng.


    Sika coldly said, ¡°The reason why Saleen kept you alive was because it was inconvenient for him to make a move against you since it would have probably messed up Isabe as well. How strong do you think you are? You can¡¯t even take one blow of mine. You can be no more than a knight leading a group with no one but yourself. It¡¯d be a damn waste to even have one more person working under you!¡±


    Don¡¯s numbed heart ached violently as he was being provoked by Sika¡¯s words. However, the pain of his broken wrist prevented him from picking up his weapon, let alone retorting Sika¡¯s words.


    Isabe cried immediately after hearing Sika berate Don. She had been a strong woman who had refrained from showing any weakness when she was taken away by Don. That had prevented him from hurting her.


    Isabe reminded Don of his daughter, but she did not know that. She was under immense pressure being at Don¡¯s side, which had almost drove her crazy.


    She bore some resentment toward Saleen for epting Don¡¯s surrender. She felt a lot better when she saw Saleen not doing anything to stop Sika¡¯s actions. However, the oue still surprised her. Since when did Sika be so powerful?


    Seeing Don feeling rather dazed, Saleen said, ¡°Nailisi, put Don¡¯s weapon away. Nichs, patch him up. We¡¯ll have him take the lead.¡±


    Saleen was able to feel that there were some godly beings remaining in that cave. Since the cave was an incrediblyplex one, he saw no need to kill those creatures one by one.


    It was out of pure ident that he found Isabe without having to jump through hoops. Good things like that were hard toe by again.


    Don epted Nichs¡¯ healing without saying a word. He left the cave first while Saleen and the others tagged along behind.


    The demons waited patiently outside the cave. Don was not walking fast. He was only briefly stunned to see a demon. He quickly calmed himself down. Just what kind of people is Saleen surrounding himself with?


    Curiosity sparked in his originally numbed, unfeeling mind. The demons did not attack. They simply sealed the cave.


    Nailisi dismissed the demons while Saleen cast Quickcloud, taking Isabe with him to the little tform on the peak.


    The ones by Saleen¡¯s side said nothing throughout the entire process. It was as if they all knew what would have happened.


    Don was immersed in thought. His daughter was killed by the Holy See. Her soul hadpletely dissipated. Nothing about what happened was known other than Theisio did not keep his word and rescue her.


    He was done serving the Holy See and had no intention of following Saleen. However, things back then were such that if he were to say so, he would have died on the spot.


    While he waspletely at peace with dying, Don was not willing to die lying down. He hoped to see the Holy See being crushed. Only by killing every single one of those people who had tortured his daughter would the pain in his mind be eased.


    He did not return to the Holy See because he knew that the Pivotal Council and Tribunal had made peace. No punishments would have been visited upon the members of the Tribunal even if he were to head back.


    Even if he were to be the head of the Heaven Knights, the oue would have been the same. The status of a head inquisitor was far above that of a leader of the Heaven Knights in the Holy See.


    A devout believer should have borne hatred, but Don¡¯s mind was no longer bound to the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°We¡¯ll depart after a four-hour break.¡± Saleen returned to the tform and set up a tent specifically for Isabe before letting Eleanor and Nichs perform more thorough healing on her.


    Saleen sat outside the tent and called for Don. He inquired about the Holy See¡¯s internal affairs from Don while crafting javelins for Sika.


    Saleen was not concerned about the possibility of Don ambushing him. A huge swath of Water me separated him from Don. Even a grand swordmaster would not have been able to cross the Water me and attack him.


    Don hadplicated feelings when he felt the power of the Water me. Things were different than how Theisio had described it. The pope told him that Saleen was just a sorcerer who had advanced not long ago.


    After chatting for an hour, Saleen found out that Don had been incarcerated for a long time. He probably knew less about the Holy See¡¯s internal affairs than Nichs did.


    Don mostly knew about the infighting between the upper echelons of the Holy See while Nichs knew things about the middle and bottom echelons. All of that information was still useful.


    Javelins were low-level magic equipment. Saleen did not need to put in much mental powers during the crafting process. He talked to Don while paying attention to the soundsing out from the tent.


    Eleanor and Nichs emerged from the tent not long afterward. Nichs nodded to Saleen. The gesture said that there was nothing wrong with Isabe¡¯s body.


    Eleanor rode on her Wings of an Elf without saying anything and took to the sky. She had also seen to Isabe¡¯s conditions for a bit. Elf magic worked rather well on Isabe.


    Isabe grew rather homesick despite having nothing wrong with her body.


    ¡°You¡¯re not a good fit for this group. Your heart died a long time ago,¡± Saleen said to Don while continue crafting javelins.


    Don¡¯s hands were healed, but they were still incapable to be used for battle. He sat before Saleen silently. After a moment of silence, he finally said, ¡°If it had been 30 years ago, I¡¯d have envied you people. I might have even wanted to be part of the group.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, so long as you¡¯re willing to form a group of knights,¡± Saleen said ¡°I need someone who knew how religions propagate to get this done.¡±


    ¡°Are you really wanting to establish the Nature Faith?¡± Don asked rather doubtfully. Saleen was a mage after all.


    ¡°Of course I am. I didn¡¯t sign a contract with you just to bind you,¡± Saleen said. ¡°This is my own wish as well.¡±


    ¡°But, you¡¯re a mage,¡± Don replied.


    ¡°Well, if you can be a knight of the Nature Faith, why can¡¯t I establish a Holy See dedicated to Nature Faith?¡± Saleen took out the six newly crafted javelins from the Water me and put them by his side before continuing to throw in materials. He had no intention of stopping.


    Don was utterly incapable ofprehending Saleen¡¯s words. He had been in contact with many mages before. Their attitude toward the Holy See had all been more or less the same.


    ¡°It¡¯s a personal matter and an attempt to rebuild the Nature Faith,¡± Saleen said. ¡°As such, I can¡¯t let everyone around me be involved. That was why I wanted you to be a part of this. Of course, if you¡¯re able to get this done well, I¡¯d be willing to support you materialistically. There is a forced time limit to the contract. Our rtionship wouldst for 1,000 years.¡±


    The temperatures around the Water me was incredibly cold. Don could not help but shiver. That cold feeling was something he had not been felt for the past century or so.


    ¡°Are you not afraid that I¡¯d take control of the religion and be your enemy after 1,000 years?¡± Don asked.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes pierced through the silver-whitish Water me Looking at Don, he said, ¡°Not a bad idea for you to do so. I wouldn¡¯t need to bother about the bond we¡¯ve built over the past millennium. Plus, I¡¯d be able to just kill you by then while getting rid of the religion along the way.¡±


    Don shivered yet again as the winds blew at the mountain. Saleen¡¯s words were incredibly cold and brutal, so much so that even his numbed and unfeeling heart was able to feel the bone-chilling coldness.


    He had no idea what Saleen was trying to pull. Is this young mage simply trying to set up the Nature Faith as a personal hobby?


    He had no idea that Saleen was feeling very relieved after uttering that line. His mind felt freed after speaking the thing that had bothered him out loud.


    I¡¯ll just let the Goddess of Myers resurrect if she wants it so badly. I¡¯ll just kill her when she¡¯s done resurrecting herself.

 Chapter 1098: Group (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1098: Group (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen continued crafting the javelins while Don silently healed his own injuries. Sika walked into the tent and looked at Isabe, who was lying on a carpet.


    ¡°Isabe, you aren¡¯t ming Saleen for keeping that guy around are you?¡± Sika sat beside Isabe, who felt rather warm inside. She was developing a sense of security she had been robbed of for a long time.


    ¡°His highness was afraid that I¡¯d be hurt,¡± Isabe cautiously answered. She could not have med Saleen¡¯s way of going about it. She was right beside Don. He was powerful enough to kill her without having to do much.


    ¡°Don is useful to Saleen. The contract is signed, so he can¡¯t hurt the old man for the time being. Did Don do anything to hurt you?¡± Sika was being straightforward with her questions. However,ing from someone like Sika, most people would feel that she was being a simpleton instead of being rude.


    ¡°It¡¯s just that something doesn¡¯t feel right inside.¡± Isabe continued talking to Sika and found herself feeling a lot better. What frustrated her the most was that she had no freedom or dignity when she was forced to stay at the side of a powerful one, even though Don never said anything much to her and had never touched her.


    ¡°I¡¯ve given him a good beating. He¡¯ll behave himself.¡± Sika spoke in a frank, matter-of-factly manner.


    ¡°Thank you, his highness...¡± Isabe hesitated.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to do it regardless if he feels alright with it anyway,¡± Sika said.


    ¡°But, Saleen is someone who¡¯s careful with people,¡± Isabe said. ¡°He won¡¯t befortable having Don feel that he¡¯s not in charge. If Don and Saleen were to go separate ways one day, I guarantee you¡¯d be the one to finish him off.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I would.¡± Sika was leading Isabe along, helping the poor girl rebuild some of her confidence.


    ¡°Just rx for the moment. You don¡¯t know much about how things are with the maind right now, and there¡¯s not much point telling you about it now. Saleen and Lex both have 40 million people under their rule. The focus is now in Phoenix. They¡¯ll have Phoenix conquered in no time and have the Kingdom of Metatrin and the Principality of Bitterwater as well.¡±


    Isabe¡¯s eyes gradually sparkled as she said, ¡°His highness has so manynds now!¡±


    ¡°The Sreeger Ind mages that splintered from Alchemy City were all stationed in Metatrin City now,¡± Sika said ¡°We now have over 40 level nine sorcerers. Saleen¡¯s teacher is now a level 10 sorcerer. You¡¯d be a level nine sorcerer yourself in five years at most. Just rx for now.¡±


    ¡°His highness... He¡¯s already a level nine sorcerer?¡± Isabe asked?


    ¡°Indeed, and so is Lex,¡± Sika said. ¡°We now have two golden grand swordmasters in the team. Nailisi... Well, don¡¯t bother about her for the moment. Just try to stay away from her.¡±


    ¡°Why? Isn¡¯t she a capable one who has helped his highness a lot?¡± Isabe lifted her head. ¡°I¡¯m different from them. I decided to be his follower so as to have a bright future. I want to be a powerful mage with a tall magic tower...¡±


    Sika smiled. Isabe might have been a thief, but her aspirations were no different to that of amon mage.


    ¡°You¡¯ll get one,¡± Sika said ¡°Now, just go meditate. I¡¯ll keep youpany.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Isabe sat up obediently and began meditating.


    The sky gradually lit up. The demons had been preparing food for everyone, building a fire at the peak. Don¡¯s hands were mended after taking a short break and healing himself. Nailisi still refused to hand him the God-hunting Spear. He, on the other hand, had simply taken it as if nothing had happened without mentioning it being time to hand him his weapon.


    Of course, Saleen was turning his back on his word. The God-hunting Spear was a fine weapon. He was having Nailisi take the chance topletely destroy all the divine rune charm arrays on it, making it a weapon better-suited for a warrior. The spear was being shined on by the cleansing light in the purgatory of purification. It would soon bepletely transformed. Unless Don was willing to nurture and developprehension of rules on his own, there was simply no way the weapon would have developed a spirit of its own ever again.


    The group was split into four teams. J and Don were to take the lead at the front, Saleen and Sika were to take Isabe and stay at the center, Sul was to take two supreme demons and stay at the rear, and Nailisi, Nichs, and Eleanor flew at a higher altitude above them.


    The teams were to stick closer to each other, maintaining a distance of only a mile away from one another as they flew for Titan Duchy.


    They were flying incredibly fast this time since Saleen did not want to waste any time. The temple within Titan Duchy¡¯s domain was hidden in the swamps. They had detailed coordinates because they had been there once before. That enabled them to quickly locate the entrance.


    All of them dived one after another, with the soul beast and the Wings of an Elf put away. Nailisi sent demons to serve as sentries and rangers around the temple¡¯s vicinity. After getting security detailed, Saleen took out the Ring of Gifts and opened the passage to the temple.


    Walls made of metalized steel rock stood tall and proud within the temple. The broken door had been repaired. The hole in the wall was no longer there.


    ¡°Master, how about we just charge head on?¡± Nailisi took out her Sword of Rules and drew a mark at the center of the huge door.


    Saleen nodded and summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. Nailisi walked to the front door and leapt. She stuck her sword at the crevice between the doors, sliding down from top to bottom.


    She did a somersault after she was done and backed away about 330-feet. The six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers swung their magic War Hammers and charged, banging hard on the door.


    The frequency of the attacks were surprisingly fast. They all had only been able to hear several rushed rumbles before the doors were flung wide open by the War Hammers. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers rushed inside and found no one. The air felt fresh.


    None of the magic bugs that used to be around were found. Nailisi summoned her demons and began to search the hall.


    ¡°What is this ce?¡± Despite knowing where they actually were already, Don still asked Saleen.


    ¡°A temple built by the Goddess of Myers. I¡¯m here this time to take the ce apart.¡± Saleen was ted to find that there were no signs of life within the temple.


    It was confirmed so shortly after. The demons returned one after another to report to Nailisi. She followed the demons and walked into another adjacent temple. She found a huge mound in the empty temple.


    She dug at the mound and found crystal-clear magic bug eggs in it. The eggs had mutated and became green, transparent eggs of smaller sizes without a hint of their usual red colors.


    Nailisi bagged the eggs in glee before returning to Saleen¡¯s side. ¡°Master, everything here has been eaten clean by the magic bugs. All that is left now is the house itself.¡±


    ¡°What are we waiting for?¡± Saleen asked. ¡°Let¡¯s take the ce apart!¡±


    He knew by then that all 24 temples left behind by the goddess had their own spaces. They could have taken the ce apart with nothing left and the space itself would have still stayed intact.


    As such, Saleen had the demons take the temple constructions apart without any worries. The materials used for constructing the temple were all considered decent equipment materials, evenpared to what was avable in the contemporary Myers Maind.


    The most difficult thing to be taken apart was the walls of the temple. All 24 temples built by the Goddess of Myers had different styles of construction. The one that Saleen was in mostly had the most basic of materials left behind, such as metalized steel rocks and the mystical doors at the walls.


    Those wooden materials capable of self-repair were not of the Tree of Life. Saleen went to take the doors apart personally. The huge amount of metalized steel rock were to be dissolved slowly by the elemental creatures and cut in huge square blocks, which were then put inside Saleen¡¯s dimension stones.


    They began taking the ce apart from the top and worked their way down to the bottom. The deeper they went, the more precious the materials used for construction became. When they arrived at thest three floors below ground, soft jade was used for all of the flooring, which was usable for crafting high-level magic arrays.


    The temple was veryrge. With the help of Nailisi¡¯s demons, everything in the temple was dissolved, taken apart, and put inside dimension stones within a week. When they were done, the space that the temple had upied was nothing but a huge empty void with an exit leading outside.


    The deconstruction was done at a speed that could have even taken the Holy Rock City apart quickly, let alone just a group of temples.


    ¡°Your highness, since you wish to rebuild the Nature Faith, why...¡± Don was puzzled seeing how Saleen had taken everything in the temple apart. While the temple was apparently damaged, it would have been easy to repair. It would have been perfect to have the temple serve as the religion¡¯s base of operations.


    ¡°You don¡¯t use construction materials of those grades to build temples. The ones I¡¯ve bagged are to be used to arm my armies. The battle at Daliang City could be drawn out for years, and the battle will definitely be resource-intensive. We can¡¯t just keep relying on Alchemy City and Holy Rock City for the war effort.¡± Saleen answered without getting to the gist of things.


    Don saw no other choice but to keep his puzzlement suppressed, observing what Saleen¡¯s next course of action would be.


    Saleen did not feel disappointed at not finding any hidden secrets. The temple had been found a long time ago. Nothing would have been left for him to find even if there had been secrets lying around. That mysterious noble would have known a lot about the temple¡¯s secrets, which was what enabled him to acquire mystical powers. It was fortunate for him that the noble had been struck by lightning and died, ending his luck and saving Saleen the effort of having to hunt him down.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. The next target will be at the source of the Red River.¡± Saleen had Nailisi pack the demons away in the purgatory of the devils and take out the Ring of Gifts to open a portal leading outside.


    Saleen would have still been able to use the ce. Its huge storage capacity would have been useful for storing food and keeping his armies. However, if he were to have people live in that space, he would have needed to craft a huge magic power furnace to serve as a surrogate sun. Otherwise, the space would have been condemned to eternal darkness. No crops would have been yielded here.


    Not only would it have been immensely expensive to construct a magic power furnace of such sizes, Saleen did not have the means to do so at the moment. Even if Jason were to see to it personally, no one would have known how long rted researches would have taken. That was all only remotely usible because Saleen had schematics of all manner of magic power furnaces with him. Otherwise, there was nothing he could have done about the void.


    Saleen looked at the sky after arriving at the swamps. Dark clouds littered the skies. It looked as if it was going to rain soon. He thought for a bit and said, ¡°We¡¯ll stick to the ground. It isn¡¯t far from here to the Red River. We¡¯ll just ride.¡±


    Saleen was practically immune to the lightning storms in the clouds. It made it safe for him to fly but not for J and the others. While equipment crafting from thunder dragon hide came with the function of evading lightning, he had no certainty how well such equipment would have worked in an environment where lightning bolts were everywhere. Saleen would have only let his people fly in such weather after doing experiments with live subjects.


    Nailisi took her skeleton king form in glee and summoned the Nightmares to serve as steeds.


    Sika was the only who summoned her pony and rode alongside Saleen. All the others rode Nightmares summoned by Nailisi. The Nightmares stepped on ck fires as they ran in the thunderstorm that suddenly hit them.


    Eight people and two supreme demons zed a white line in the storm. Three hours after they left, Another group of people appeared in the swamps. The group consisted only of about a hundred men led by an old holy master. There were 12 young holy masters by his side. All the others were warriors d in golden armor.

 Chapter 1099: Pursuit and Traps (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1099: Pursuit and Traps (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The 12 powerful holy masters wore calm expressions. All the 160 gold-armored warriors rode level four horses. The warhorses were d in golden armor from top to bottom.


    At level three, warhorses were deemed fit enough to follow their masters into battle without fear of arrows. When d in armor, the horses were strong enough to withstand attacks from mid-level human swordmasters.


    Furthermore, mid-level swordmasterscked the endurance of the magic beast warhorses, which were able to scale mountains like they were running on nds.


    Warhorses originated from another ne, which were captured by humans and bred with many types of horses. Not only were they strong, the difference in their guts and the guts ofmon horses was like heaven and earth.


    Such level four warhorses became rather rare about a thousand years ago. They were made steeds of elite troops of all sorts. Now, only high level generals rode them. Empires used them mostly for breeding purposes.


    The gold-armored warriors surrounded the 13 holy masters, waiting for further orders in the storm.


    The old holy master wore a ck robe. He was short and lookedmon. However, the energy vibrations emanating from his body looked as if they did not belong to a human, like he was an evil dragon trapped in the dark, threatening to devour all life.


    He had dark red eyes, only his pupils crystal clear with thin purple lines.


    The old holy master pointed at the pathway that Saleen had once opened, after peering about for a bit. ¡°There, but... the man is long gone.¡±


    ¡°Sir, shall we pursue?¡± a young holy master near the old holy master asked.


    All 12 of the holy masters wore long robes and shone with holy light. No rainwater was able to wet their clothes. The only difference was that each of their ck robes was etched with a holy runes from one to twelve. The rune on the robe of the young holy master who had just spoken to the old holy master meant ¡®one¡¯.


    ¡°No need for that. Let¡¯s just see what they were doing here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±


    The young holy master got down from his horse and took out a ring, casting weak green light. If Saleen had been there, he would have been surprised to see a holy master from the Holy See also armed with a Ring of Gifts, and furthermore, able to activate the divine spells stored within.


    ¡°Sir, shall we inform the two head inquisitors and try to block them off?¡± another young holy master asked quietly. They both shared a very close rtionship with the elder. Not anyone would be able to state their opinions or give suggestions with the elder in front of them.


    ¡°There is no need for that. Just let them keep an eye on Misty City. With so many people eyeing Daliang City, I really can¡¯t understand why Saleen would sneak out. There should be something more important than Daliang City. The fellow wouldn¡¯t just leave his wives behind otherwise.¡±


    From the elder¡¯s tone, one would be able to tell that he held a lot of power in the Tribunal. He would not have talked about the other two head inquisitors in such a tone otherwise.


    Only the great head inquisitor would be able to talk in such a manner in the Tribunal, and the great head inquisitor was the most powerful person in the Tribunal, for he was a level ten holy master.


    The young holy masters said nothing more. They were able to tell how much importance he ced on the matter, given that the great head inquisitor decided to move personally and bring all 12 of them along.


    The second and third head inquisitor did not participate in the battle of Daliang City, and that was a product of the great head inquisitor¡¯s decision.


    The great head inquisitor wanted to go to Daliang City himself, but news came that the king of Kingdom of Metatrin, Saleen, who was also a level nine sorcerer, had left Daliang City and was nowhere to be found.


    The Tribunal had captured massive numbers of mages in its earlier days, but it did not mean that the Tribunal would underestimate mages. The greater the number of powerful mages they capture, the greater the respect they have developed for the mages.


    A level nine sorcerer would be the most powerful among powerful ones, even if power levels across the entire maind were raised.


    The great head inquisitor was a level ten holy master who had just broken through recently, and there was no certainty that he would win against a level nine sorcerer at the pinnacle of his level.


    The difference within the level was so huge that in the eyes of many, it was deemed insurmountable, but the great head inquisitor knew that some level nine sorcerers carried very powerful equipment.


    The equipment left behind from ancients was capable of making up for half of the differences in a level, which when used by a level nine sorcerer at their peak, would enable them to kill any powerful ones below level 12.


    There had been reports regarding Saleen. The great head inquisitor had developed some level of knowledge of the person. Saleen would definitely be armed with super powerful equipment.


    The army that was sent to take out Metatrin City before would not have been wiped out otherwise. Be it the Tribunal or the Pivotal Council, everyone thought Metatrin City would be taken down. Because someone among the powerful ones had a level ten thunder dragon.


    Even a level ten thunder dragon ended up dead and the golden grand swordmaster turned to dust, so there was simply no way the great head inquisitor would let his guard down against Saleen.


    The group that pursued Saleen consisted of himself, the great head inquisitor of the Tribunal, and 12 of his most trusted adjudicators. All of the 12 adjudicators were originally level eight holy masters, who all received blessings by the descended oracle and advanced into level nine without difficulty.


    The great head inquisitor was able to advance to level ten right away, bing a level ten professional ahead of Theisio.


    The gold-armored warriors were high-powered forces of the Tribunal and were only deployed when the great head inquisitor decided to move personally. No one else, not even the pope, was able tomand them.


    All of the equipment was crafted ording to the specs of the equipment used by the Heaven Knights all those years ago. The secrets of the equipment were known only to members of the Holy See.


    A young holy master opened the pathway leading to the temple using the Ring of Gifts and the gold-armored warriors rushed inside. They returned soon after.


    ¡°Sir, there was nothing in there.¡±


    ¡°Nothing?¡±


    ¡°There was only a huge space crafted using divine spells. But there was nothing else but... earth.¡±


    Despite being able to understand the words, the great head inquisitor was still puzzled as to why Saleen woulde to such a ce alone.


    ¡°Sir, would this be a temple of that heretic god?¡± a young holy master asked.


    The great head inquisitor had no intentions of going through the pathway and ponderedfor a bit in the rain, before saying, ¡°they did not take flight this time. It would be rather easy to trace their tracks on the ground. We¡¯ll just follow him and ask him when we get our hands on him. Then we¡¯ll know what they¡¯re doing here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±


    The holy masters said nothing more. About a hundred of the gold-armored warriors mounted their horses and turned around, continuing their pursuit of Saleen. The great head inquisitor was still analyzing the situation. This ce should have been a temple of the heretic god, but why is there nothing inside?


    Despite the great head inquisitor¡¯s high intelligence, he never thought Saleen emptied the entire temple of such vastness and truly left nothing behind when he did.


    Saleen had no idea that the big boss of the Tribunal, the great head inquisitor, was chasing after his team. However, he nheless had Nichs cast lesser prophecy spells out of caution, wiping his tracks as much as he was able.


    The group moved with great speed. The Nightmares had frightening running speed back in the spirit ne. Even on Myers Maind, not even level four warhorses were able to keep up with them.


    While the area of the storm was vast, Saleen and the others were still able to leave the storm behind.


    The Nightmares¡¯ speed wasparable to the flight speed ofmon mages when running in the mountains, which made the journey incredibly dangerous.


    However, even Isabe, the weakest of the current party, had abilitiesparable to grand swordmasters, and they were still more than adequate to keep the Nightmare in control.


    The team quickly entered the mountains with Nailisi leading the way. They scared off untold numbers of magic beast and ran over untold numbers of dead trees.


    Despite looking as if they were running, the Nightmare¡¯s feet never actually touched the ground. The creatures were even capable of flight back in the spirit ne.


    They traveled more than a thousand miles in haste, before Saleen decided it was time everyone take a break. It was Isabe¡¯s limit while the other two golden grand swordmasters hardly felt worn. It was far less taxing for the grand swordmasters to ride on steeds than running on their own.


    Isabe knew that she was the reason Saleen stopped. They were near a river bank, which was all dried up. Saleen had Eleanory down some spells to prevent them from being flooded while setting up camp.


    None of them were actually afraid of floods, but there was no reason to look messed up.


    The camp was quickly set up and Sika asked Saleen, ¡°why stop now?¡±


    If they were doing it because of Isabe, she could have summoned her soul beast and taken flight, taking Isabe with her in the air.


    ¡°Some people are looking for us, and they¡¯ve been tailing us for more than a thousand miles, but they weren¡¯t able to pinpoint our location. It was only a matter of time before we were found. We¡¯ll justy down a trap here. If they actually are able to catch up, we¡¯ll see if we can kill them. If they can¡¯t find us, the campsite will confuse them, and we¡¯ll just have the demons go south...¡±


    ¡°My liege, the ones on our tails are holy masters from the Holy See. They have broken my lesser prophecy spells several times,¡± Nichs said, looking worried.


    His lesser prophecy spells were matured and even level nine professionals would have a hard time breaking them. That meant that there was someone terrifying among the people on their tail.


    ¡°I know. They were definitely holy masters. No one would be obnoxious enough to keep chasing us for so long,¡± Saleen said as he beganying down magic traps around the campsite.


    The river bank had steep, tall mountains on both sides. Eleanor flew up to the cliff and found a ce to hide herself, and J followed her.


    Eleanor was still quite capable of holding her own in closebat, but with the ones at their tail being powerful people, Saleen had to be careful. Her long range arrows were more powerful than level nine magic spells. Closebat was better left for golden grand swordmasters like J.


    Nichs and Sika stayed by Saleen¡¯s side.


    Don finally got his weapon, the God-hunting Spear. His confidence grew many times stronger with the spear in hand. The ones pursuing them were from the Holy See, and based on his heightened sense of smell, he thought that people from the Tribunal had made a move.


    His daughter died in the hands of the Tribunal, and as such, Don hated the Tribunal more than Saleen did.


    Saleen did noty down very powerful magic traps. Traps like that were meant for dealing with low level people. A victory in their case could only be secured with one¡¯s own powers.


    It was a pity that there was too little power left inside that spear. Even after absorbing the energy barrier generated, Saleen¡¯s badge was still far from capable of unleashing powerful lightning attacks.


    Saleen¡¯s only reliable equipment was the Thunder Dragon ster, as well as Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    The sky turned dark. Sul and Don were tasked with keeping watch. The two men looked at each other sitting at opposite sides of a snuffed out fire.

 Chapter 1100: Pursuit and Traps (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1100: Pursuit and Traps (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sul was armed with a slender sword that was covered with magic patterns, which was a new weapon that Saleen crafted for him. Sul used a crystal to polish the edge. Most magic weapons were incapable of being polished, yet Sul had his own ways of maintaining his weapon.


    However, in the sub-maind ne, crystals capable of polishing magic equipment were simply too expensive, and his family was unable to afford to let him splurge like that.


    The mystical energies in the crystal were squeezed out by golden sword aura, seeping into the edge of the de. No sound was made when the crystal scraped against the edge.


    Don held the God-hunting Spear in his hand. Seeing Sul eyeing him, he asked, ¡°are you feeling frustrated, thinking that you¡¯re a follower and yet a weapon like this is given to me?¡±


    Sul chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m not a beggar. My liege wouldn¡¯t just give me any junk he found, unless he deemed it a weapon fit for me. I learned how to use a sword, but what did you learn to use? Your tongue?¡±


    Sul¡¯s words were sharp. He did not envy Don for possessing the spear. While his sword was inferior to the spear in terms of materials used, all of the sword¡¯s attributes were very fitting for the sword techniques and sword aura he employed.


    If he were to be jealous of anything, it was the fact that J had Tears. J crafted using rules it he came toprehend. While Sul¡¯s slender sword was sharp, it was devoid of any rules he hade toprehend.


    ¡°I¡¯m not a beggar either. I¡¯m just thinking of killing a few more before I end up dead.¡± Don¡¯s voice was coarse, like broken metal.


    ¡°That will do fine. After you¡¯re dead, your soul will still be of good use to our lord. Maybe that will be the only time we will get to fight alongside each other.¡±


    Don frowned. ¡°What have I done to irk you?¡±


    Sul¡¯s crystal scraped against the edge and this time, a light ting was heard.


    ¡°All those around our lord worked as a team, having each other¡¯s backs. You took Isabe away and you never apologized for it.¡±


    ¡°Why should I apologize? It is all just a trade between me and His Highness Saleen. It¡¯s just that this trade will be a long one,sting for a thousand years. Sul, you¡¯re golden grand swordmaster, but I am a level nine knight. If you¡¯re going to talk to me like that, I¡¯d say let¡¯s just duke it out.¡±


    Sul sheathed the sword slowly into the scabbard at his hip and smirked. ¡°Duke it out? I¡¯m telling you the people around His Highness work as a team. If you¡¯re really going to fight me, regardless if you end up winning or losing, you¡¯ll have to fight all the others one by one, and you can¡¯t even defend against one strike from Sika. And now, you have the guts to challenge me. I wonder if I should consider you brave or stupid.¡±


    A tinge of anger welled up inside Don. That strike from Sika left me a huge impression on him. Sul was poking where it hurt, wounding his pride. Sika¡¯s age was apparently very young.


    It was an incredible insult for someone like him, who was more than a hundred years old, to be defeated by a warrior like Sika.


    ¡°There is no need for you to get angry. You¡¯re lucky to tag along with him. You really think that death would be the end? I heard that the souls of all those who betray the Lord of Glory are to be thrown into purgatory after death. And I¡¯m telling you this: betray him, and you won¡¯t even get to enter purgatory.¡±


    Don faced the young grand swordmaster and said slowly, ¡°do you really think I¡¯m no match for Sika? If I hadn¡¯t been locked up in that ce for so long, I wouldn¡¯t...¡±


    ¡°Sika wasn¡¯t out to kill you. If she had wanted you dead, you wouldn¡¯t havested three seconds,¡± Sul finished and stopped paying Don any heed. Hey down and observed the snuffed out fire, gazing at the glimmering red light on the pile of ashes.


    They were bits of fire element. If the enemy were to pass that point, not only would they need to kill both him and Don, but they would also have to face the magic trap.


    Don pondered Sul¡¯s words. The group around Saleen worked as a team covering each other¡¯s backs, while he was just an outsider.


    He had nothing against apologizing to Isabe as he had no hatred for the little mage. Or rather, he actually took a liking to her. Isabe¡¯s eyes resembled his daughter¡¯s, very much so.


    But would there be any meaning to doing all that? I can apologize and Isabe still won¡¯t feel any better. Would I need to be a part of that team? Ridiculous.


    What he wanted was to see the monster that was the Holy See crumble and fall. He would kill any that was left of them.


    Warmth,radeship. He had no need for any of them.


    His brothers were long dead, all of them perished while clearing out infidels for the Holy See. If he were to have such emotions again, he would be even more tethered to the world they were in.


    Don held the spear in his hands and veins were bulging, but his breathing gradually eased.


    Sul¡¯s words were unable to incite him, all but the part where Sika was brought up. He seemed to still have a bit of pride left as a powerful one.


    At the end of the long, winding river valley, beneath the slopes more than a dozen miles away, a group of gold-armored warriors struggled at pulling their horses, taking a detour through the woods. The great head inquisitor was still on his horse, while the 12 adjudicators followed behind.


    They arrived at the end of the river valley.


    Level four warhorses were capable of scaling mountains but were unable to do it with the ease demonstrated by the Nightmares. The adjudicators dismounted and looked for signs of their prey in the valley.


    Saleen did not cover his tracks there and had instead let the Nightmares step on the ground deliberately, leaving burn marks.


    ¡°Sir! They were spirit creatures!¡± The voice of the adjudicator was a little too loud, and the great head inquisitor frowned.


    It was incredibly easy for sound to reverberate in such a terrain. Amon person could shout and the sound would travel tens of miles away.


    The young adjudicator knew that he was too excited and hung his head low in apology. The great head inquisitor said, ¡°we¡¯ll camp out here and rest for eight hours.¡±


    The adjudicators looked at each other and the great head inquisitor said, ¡°that is the sign of our prey having discovered us and wanting to meet and fight us. I¡¯m not here for a fight. I want to know the destination of our prey and what are they looking for. That Saleen wouldn¡¯t have left the battlefield at Daliang City behind and sneaked out just so that he can go on a trip.¡±


    The adjudicators nodded in agreement as they took out tents from their space equipment, handing them over to the gold-armored warriors and setting up the campsite.


    The two parties, more than a dozen miles away from each other, set up camp. Saleen walked out from his tent the next morning and saw Nailisi in her devil form resting on a piece of huge rock, protecting his tent.


    ¡°Nailisi,¡± Saleen called out with a smile. His mood had gotten better as he had decided what to do in the future. Regardless of how powerful his enemies would get, the mage was hardly bothered.


    Mages feared losing their way more than anything. Once they had a clear goal ahead of them, everything else could be analyzed and calcted.


    ¡°Master.¡± Nailisi jumped down from the rock. ¡°I found something. A demon died.¡±


    Saleen asked, feeling peculiar, ¡°and that didn¡¯t provoke them into attacking?¡±


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ve looked at the people behind us. They seem to be waiting for us to reach the next temple.¡±


    ¡°You have a point. This is troubling,¡± Saleen no longer smiled. He had the demons call out to the others and gathered them around, making preparations for departure. He started figuring out how to shake his enemies off or incite them into fighting.


    It was a hassle to turn back to look for the enemy and it was a bad move. Doing so would make them fall into the enemies¡¯ fighting tempo. However, it was also bad to have their enemies continue to tail them all the way to the temple.


    Everyone gathered and Saleen took out a magic map. He looked at it for a bit before saying, ¡°Nailisi, let¡¯s change course for a bit and take this path.¡±


    Saleen activated the water element around him with his hand and drew a path. The path required them to pass through the mountains, moving into the territory of Titan Duchy, which would definitely lead them to their enemies.


    The region north of Titan Duchy had been taken over by forces of the Tribunal. The northern nobles of Titan had a choice of either surrendering or retreating back to the southern bank of Red River.


    Nailisi asked nothing. She nodded and let the two supreme demons take the lead, forming a 200 strong group and letting them open the path in front. Saleen and the others rode their Nightmares and followed behind.


    Knowing that their enemies kept tailing them and refused toe up to fight, Saleen stopped increasing their speed. They simply followed the demons and changed course.


    The marching of the demons was not slow, as they were capable of moving at speeds of over 50 miles per hour. Conventional armies were unable to keep up. Only elite cavalry were able to keep up with demons, provided that they were not carrying any supplies.


    Nailisi kept her devil form instead of returning to her true form as they followed the group of demons.


    The group quickly passed through the mountains and reached the northern ins. It was early autumn and ripe wheat fields were everywhere. There was no fires of war to be found within Titan territory after simple restoration efforts any longer. Everything looked peaceful.


    Saleen sighed. Give the Holy See several decades and every piece ofnd that the Holy See took before will bepletely absorbed by the Holy See.


    Grudges can be forgotten, especially in this case of the Holy See, who excels at brainwashing. They are better at turning their enemies into sheep than anything else.


    The demons marched within Titannds in broad daylight without concealment. The farmers in the fields all hid out of fright, seeing the ferocious-looking demons.


    Even young men who had joined the army hesitated to provoke them, seeing that the demons were over five meters tall, with huge horns on their heads, and armed with humongous halberds.


    Nailisi looked forward, feeling rather bored. Sheined, ¡°why is there no church to be seen? What a terrible country!¡±


    Even Sika knew what Saleen was up to. The people on their tail would be unable to escape Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye, and they in turn, had ways to keep their eyes on Saleen¡¯s group.


    The demons slowed after walking for half a day. They were not tired; they simply found a vige.


    Nailisi turned back and looked. She quickly flew into glee, seeing Saleen nodding to her. She split the demons and walked up to the front. The two supreme demons bowed courteously to her. Nailisi said, ¡°Harm no ordinary people but adherents. You hear me?¡±


    She was speaking demonic tongue. The two supreme demons asked in confusion, ¡°my king, how should we tell ordinary people and adherents apart?¡±


    ¡°Get a church and follow my lead. You¡¯ll know soon enough.¡± Nailisi took the army of demons with him, walking into the vige with impunity.


    There were several hundred households in the vige and there was a small fort at the entrance. However, the troops simply cowered in their forts seeing the army of demons and Nailisi, who was over ten meters tall. None dared move against them.


    With the troops not doing anything, the auxiliary troops dared not cause a ruckus either. All of them pretended as if they saw nothing.


    Nailisi walked up to a child ying at the roadside. The child looked to be about seven or eight years old and was ying with a cat. He was not frightened by the sight of the demons, and simply looked at the oddly shaped creature before him.

 Chapter 1101: Demons and Believers (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1101: Demons and Believers (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The child¡¯s mother was packing up the clothes that she had hung at the front of her door. She was a little toote to pick her child up when the demons went inside the vige, so she was unable to do anything when she saw Nailisi walk up to her child and squat down.


    From her perspective, Nailisi was not smiling. Is that three-headed monster going to eat my son? She wanted to go up and snatch her child away, but her legs seemed to have been renderedpletely stiff. It made her incapable of budging.


    Nailisi was almost on all fours on the ground and still was unable to look at the child in the eyes. The child held on to a cat and lifted his head. He looked at Nailisi¡¯s big head and got very interested in the horns on it.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Nailisi gently asked. She had impable control of her voice, so the child was not frightened at all.


    ¡°Gagas,¡± the child replied.


    ¡°Right, Gagas, can I ask you a question?¡± Nailisi asked.


    The vige waspletely silent. There were vigers looking outside the window. None of them dared to make any sound for fear of spooking the demons and harming the child.


    ¡°No problem, but who are you?¡± the child asked.


    ¡°Me? I¡¯m a demon,¡± Nailisi patiently said to the child.


    ¡°What¡¯s a demon?¡± The child extended his hand, wanting to touch Nailisi¡¯s horns, but was unable to reach it.


    What¡¯s a demon? Nailisi was rendered speechless by the child¡¯s question. She thought for a bit and said, ¡°Demons are bad people.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re lying.¡± The child was angry and put the cat on the ground pouting. That cat was so spooked that all the fur on its body stood. It ran without a second thought after gaining its freedom.


    Nailisi had no intention of harming such a weak creature that was not even considered a magic beast. She smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯m not lying. I¡¯m here to kill the missionaries in the vige. You know... Umm, priests.¡±


    ¡°Very good, very good!¡± The child pped and pointed at the white tower at the end of the vige. ¡°The priests are right there. They live in the white house and are not doing any field work.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, little one. Here, a gift for you from a demon.¡± Nailisi picked out a small statue with her nails and handed it to the child before standing up and waving at the supreme demons.


    The demons hastened their steps and rushed at the white house.


    Seeing the demons going far away, the mother wobbled out of the door and picked up her son, running inside apound.


    Saleen followed right behind the squad of demons and shook her head at the scene. ording to historical records, evenmon peasants did not fear demons to such extent in ancient times.


    They had been mutated, crazed demons out to harm humans back then. The peasants in those times would have simply gathered around to hunt those demons. Tens of peasants were more than capable of beating amon demon to death. Even three to five retired soldiers would have proven more than enough to capture a level nine demon alive to be sent to the nobles to be dealt with. ording to those records, humans back then were probably professionals the very moment they were born.


    Saleen knew that Nailisi had no intention of ying withmon folk. She only had fun manipting and torturing powerful professionals, which was why Saleen was not worried at all when Nailisi went up to ask the child about things.


    A level one priest was seen preaching to several vigers in a white two-story house at the other end of the vige. He was talking about a story in the Holy Codex. It was difficult to propagate the faith in that vige. The vigers did not even bother building a true, official church.


    There were only a handful of vagrants who bothered listening to the priest¡¯s preaching. Of course, there were also several devout believers, which made the priest feel rather pleased. The first believer would have continued to preach to their own families when they returned home. In time, more would join the faith.


    As for the vagrants, they were only there for the free dinner after the preaching. Everyone had bad days after the war. It was deemed worth it to waste an afternoon to get a meal with meat at night.


    Nailisi¡¯s demon squad came before the white house. She quickly found that even the demons behind her had problems getting into the house, let alone she herself. She cut a slit at the wall with the Sword of Rules and tore at the front wall with her four arms.


    As she pulled, the whole wall came tumbling down. Saleen cast Cleaning and suppressed the dust that kicked up from the crumbled wall.


    It was a level one priest who was seen preaching. His was babbling away feeling pleased with himself when the wall at the front suddenly disappeared. A tall demon stood right outside, staring at him with pitch ck eyes.


    The priest opened his mouth and quickly found he had lost his voice.


    Among the ten who were listening to him preach, six fled to the backdoor after letting out terrified shrieks. The other four stood up and hid behind the priest with terrified looks on their faces.


    Nailisi was looking right at the nervous priest. Saleen suddenly shared his senses with her. His eyes saw a squad of knights d in golden armor at a high ce over 10 miles away escorting over a dozen holy masters.


    The old holy master was observing the inside of the vige using something like a pair of alchemy binocrs.


    Isn¡¯t that a little too far? Even if she were to kill the priest right there and then, their squad would not have been able to get there immediately. When she was done killing who she came to kill, those people would probably pretend they saw nothing and continue to tail Saleen¡¯s party.


    So, what if we just turn around and go kill them? Sounds like a good way to go about it. But, if they are to flee like that, are we going to chase them all the way back to Daliang City?


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± The priest mustered all of his courage and shouted as he saw the demon spacing out.


    ¡°Oh? Right, priest. I¡¯d like pray to your god. I wonder if you¡¯d be kind enough to hear me out?¡± Nailisiughed.


    The priest was done for. If the ones behind are not going to do anything while I have my time with this fellow, we can always just go look for the next town. There will be one holy master in those towns that are deemed important enough to save, no?


    That priest gulped and wanted to tell Nailisi that he had no intention of doing so because of what Nailisi did to the ce.


    Then again, Nailisi politely asked if she were to be allowed to pray to their god, which was something a priest was unable to refuse. If they were to refuse someone who wished to pray to their god, their days in the Holy See would have been numbered.


    ¡°Alright, dear lost... believer, state your name,¡± the priest said.


    ¡°Right, priest. I¡¯m not a believer, I simply want to tell the Lord of Glory that he, the stupid pig, should die as soon as possible. I wish for his divine fire get snuffed out, his divine persona broken, his kingdom crumbled, and his body eaten by me,¡± Nailisi said. ¡°I feel very disgusted seeing his faith propagated everywhere. Why does a piece of trash like him deserve to propagate his faith? Even a wild dog in my master¡¯s city proves more noble than he is. At least the dog won¡¯t go about barking in other people¡¯s ces and force others to hear it bark. Priest, do you get what I¡¯m saying?¡±


    The priest was baffled when she was done.


    Nailisi called out again. It was only then that the priest came to his senses and pointed at Nailisi¡¯s big nose, saying angrily, ¡°All people who defile our god...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not people, I¡¯m a demon!¡± Nailisi corrected the priest nonchntly.


    It was seen in the Sensory Sharing between Nailisi and Saleen that the golden-armored warriors at the hill did not move. The holy masters had no intentions of getting near the vige either. Nailisi felt rather disappointed.


    ¡°Demon! You foul creature, how dare you tarnish the light of our lord!¡± The priest thought he was done for anyway, so he got enraged. He pointed at Nailisi and said, ¡°It was god who created everything. It was god who gave humans happiness. It was...¡±


    ¡°It was you mother. It was your mother who gave you your life. It was your mother who gave you a family. It was your mother who gave you everything. What does anything has to do with god? Is he your father or something?¡± Nailisi had always been sharp-tongued. People were usually thrown into blind rage by her words.


    Furthermore, she was attacking at the highest being in the priest¡¯s mind.


    That priest jumped and yelled, ¡°Without god, this world would be condemned to darkness. Without god, all cmities would fall upon us. People would never get a full meal, and they would always shiver in the cold. You demon, don¡¯t you dare try to y with the hearts of men!¡±


    ¡°Oh stupid one, the poorest empire in the whole of Myers Maind is your Tanggsi Empire controlled by the Holy See while the richest is the Qin Empire. That outright forbids any preaching in their domain,¡± Nailisi said ¡°What has your god given your Tanggsians?¡±


    ¡°The wrath of god has been visited upon the soil of Qin. The light of god shall light up the entire world!¡± The priest retorted with a firm posture and a proud voice. The army of the Tanggsi Empire had invaded Northern Qin. It was something known throughout the entire Holy See.


    ¡°So, he goes about wrecking other people¡¯s homes just because they don¡¯t believe in him?¡± Nailisi asked. ¡°Tsk tsk, so that is the god you believe in, eh? What an *sshole.¡±


    ¡°It was you people who defiled the gods in the first ce,¡± the priest said. ¡°God has anger too!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re kind of right about that,¡± Nailisi replied. ¡°Humans did kill quite a number of gods, and all of them more powerful than the Lord of Light. A good-for-nothing piece of sh*t like the Lord of Light wouldn¡¯t have stood a chance preaching in the Myers Maind otherwise. Wait, don¡¯t you know how Myers Maind got its name? It¡¯s thanks to the Goddess of Myers, not some sh*thead going by the name of Lord of Light.¡±


    ¡°You b*stard!¡± That priest swung its fists and charged at Nailisi. A believer pulled at his sleeves and peered over his shoulder, saying, ¡°There are no other beings befitting the title of ¡®god¡¯ other than the Lord of Light. Myers was but a swindler. She is no god.¡±


    ¡°Well, how would you know?¡± Nailisi had no intention of attacking anyone. She could have easily killed every single person before her with just one finger. She was simply baiting the ones behind toe save those people she was toying with.


    ¡°That¡¯s what the god said. That¡¯s god¡¯s decree,¡± the believer answered in a straightforward manner.


    Nailisi was puzzled for a bit before getting what the believer meant. The demons behind her burst intoughter. The powerful sound waves made the house, which lost a wall, shaking like it was about to copse.


    ¡°So, you just buy whatever he says?¡± Nailisi asked the believer with exasperation.


    ¡°Of course, god never lies.¡± The believer looked incredibly adamant, losing all the previous fear.


    ¡°How do you know your god doesn¡¯t lie?¡± Nailisi asked. The demon was curious as to how amon believer came to know their god.


    ¡°Because god said so. He said he never lied,¡± the believer answered.


    That answer made Saleen, who was right behind the squad of demons,ugh. Oh yeah, that¡¯s how the believers behave. They won¡¯t hear whatever you have to say. In their minds, their god is the only righteous being alive.

 Chapter 1102: Demons and Believers (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1102: Demons and Believers (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Over a hundred people simply stood on a hill like they were being nailed to the ground about 10 miles away from the vige. The strongest of the golden-armored warriors were but silver grand swordmasters, preventing them from seeing what was happening over 10 miles away.


    Even the 12 adjudicators were incapable of seeing so far away. Only the great head inquisitor was able to observe patiently with the Eye of Divine Smith in his hand. The demon was baiting him to make a move. Should I make a move here?


    If he were to do nothing, the demon would have had no problem killing the priest and the believers. While his subordinates were unable to see anything happening there, everyone passing by the vige would know what was going on.


    His subordinates would not hold it against him if he were to do nothing. However, the demon would not stop at once. There would be another town another few miles away from there, and there would be a church in there as well.


    What if the demons massacred the holy masters in that church? There would be another small city about 300 miles beyond that town. If they were to move 600 miles further, they would find themselves before a garrison of the Tribunal. Should I act now, or should I wait for a little bit longer?


    Nailisi eyed the believers who were ring at her. Such puny creatures actually have the courage to stand up against me because they have faith. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?


    ¡°So, the act of the Holy See starting up wars and having Kroraina and Qin plunged in the mes of war was a manifestation of god¡¯s wrath. Am I correct?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°Indeed. Dirty defilers are not fit to live on Myers Maind,¡± the believer said.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t any of you afraid of death for talking to me like that?¡± Nailisi¡¯s tone was not eerie at all. She suddenly understood how mages felt. A decent humans turned incredibly stupid just because they came to believe in some god. Everything was ¡°god said this, and god said that.¡± Whatever ¡°god said¡± would be the ultimate truth. There was no need to learn, research, or explore.


    What is the difference from being dead if one was to live like that?


    ¡°Death? Can you actually kill me?¡± That believer gave a sarcastic smirk. ¡°Death was but the beginning. I will live forever in heaven.¡±


    ¡°Live forever! Haha, even the gods themselves can¡¯t live forever. Those lies are good for only fooling stupid *sses like you people.¡± Nailisi lost any interest in arguing with the believers.


    She was able to see from Saleen¡¯s Sensory Sharing that the ones at the hill had no intention ofing into the vige to rescue their people. The priest and believers before her had outlived their usefulness.


    That priest suddenly said, ¡°Defiler, you shall forever be condemned in the purgatory of god. You shall suffer eternal pain in the fires of purgatory!¡±


    Nailisi was angry. You puny holy master, whose level is no better than a level two mage, dare to try to use curses on me?


    Even if the curse were to seed, the priest would have died immediately. The price for cursing a demon of such levels was not something a priest like this one would have been able to bear. Furthermore, the curse that the priest used was the vilest of curses. If the priest were to seed, he would have been able to truly drag the enemy¡¯s soul into the Lord of Glory¡¯s purgatory and rob the enemy of their freedom for eternity.


    Then again, even a level nine holy master would have found it difficult to curse Nailisi. Being a demon already made it difficult to curse her. Additionally, she already had two doubles in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    The doubles continued to supply power to Nailisi. One of the doubles was in the purgatory of the fallen while the other was in the purgatory of purification. Both of those doubles were anti-god and anti-divine spell doubles. They were extremely lethal to gods and those wielding divine arts.


    Even a level nine holy master would have had to be condemned right there and then if they were to be thrown into any of the two purgatories. There was no way a vige priest¡¯s curse would have seeded on Nailisi.


    Nailisi¡¯s original, near-dissipated intention of killing those people before her was riled up again by the curse. She grabbed onto the priest, brought him to her, and squeezed. With a sheepish smile, she said, ¡°You mentioned purgatory, didn¡¯t you? Well then, let me show you what the fires of purgatory are like.¡±


    She drew a wisp of fire from her double in the purgatory of the fallen and spat it right on the priest¡¯s face. The priest began to burn with pale grey mes. The mes did not stop by burning the priest¡¯s body; it burned his soul as well.


    The priest immediately shrieked in pain. The pain of the soul was an unbearable one. Furthermore, he was able to witness from the mes of the purgatory of the fallen how the kingdoms of various gods were broken and attacked by humans. His faith copsed right there and then.


    Without a belief supporting his soul, the priest was little more than a professional who was slightly stronger thanmon folk. There was no way he could have been able to bear such pain.


    ¡°As for you people, you are humans who have chosen to have faith in a puny god. It¡¯s an utter disgrace,¡± Nailisi said as she chucked the three believers with adamant beliefs into the purgatory of the fallen.


    The other six attempted to run, but there was nowhere to run to. They had curled up at the walls when they saw the demon begin to kill people. They cried and begged Nailisi for mercy. ¡°We don¡¯t believe that thing. We don¡¯t believe him at all.¡±


    ¡°Spare me, I¡¯ll never listen to him again...¡±


    ¡°You all are the true filth of the bunch.¡± Nailisi pped hard.


    The two-story building copsed right there and then. The six false believers were instantly turned to mush. She did not even bother picking up their dirty souls.


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s go.¡± Nailisi was very irked, but she was unable to tell why she felt so.


    Saleen nodded and took Nailisi away from the vige with the demons. The conversation between the demon and the believers put him in deep thought and made him understand that humans were once a glorious race, but they were no longer so. The weak, dirty parts of humanity wereid right before his eyes, as well as the pitiful foolishness.


    Humanity was not actually such. All that was but a part of the human soul. When their race was no longer glorious, the pitiful, vile parts emerged. Saleen was not disappointed. There were, after all, still humans who refused to yield and fall.


    For example, most mages found on the maind did not betray their own faith even when the powers across Myers Maind had fallen to its lowest point. It was a faith in themselves that the mages existed to understand thoroughly the truth of the world. To mages,bat was but a small part of their lives. Most of their time was spent conducting experiments, doing calctions, learning, and creating.


    The copsed house was at the other end of the vige. Saleen turned around as he followed the squad of demons out of the vige. He found the group at the hill had finally moved. They were moving at the same speed as Saleen¡¯s group.


    He pointed at the copsed house and said to everyone around him, ¡°You see that? Even when Titan had fallen for years, it was still immensely difficult for the Holy See to propagate their faith. Most people, even such a small vige, refuse to buy into their lies.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were actually meant for himself. In his mind, he had already developed some vague structures of how to propagate Nature Faith and what to preach. There would be no more lies about the gods creating the world. Every being would have the chance to be a god.


    The 200 demons left from the main path and the peasants in the vige slowly began to gather. The vigers were puzzled as to how to clean up the mess left behind while over a hundred golden-armored knights charged into the vige from the other end.


    The knights in gold all heldnces of over 13-feet long. The knights spread out when they came to the vige. Half of them stepped into the fields while the other half rushed into the copse white house.


    The golden-armored knights began to ughter everyone before the vigers were able to react.


    ¡°All who defiles the gods shall die!¡± The great head inquisitor gave the order to ughter everyone in the scene without giving any exnations.


    Many of the vigers had witnessed a demon killing a priest and had heard of the conversation between them. What happened would have been very bad for the Holy See¡¯s rule.


    The vige was not actually that small. The knights chased after peasants in the fields as they killed them. While there were a magic beast or two used for plowing the fields retaliating and some retired soldiers fought back with hoes, the task given by the great head inquisitor was easily aplished.


    There were only a swordmaster or two in a vige like that.


    However, the fields were vast. There were peasants faraway running into the mountains. The great head inquisitor took out a golden book with a cold expression. There was a huge ¡°X¡± mark on the cover of the book.


    No script or form of writing on Myers Maind had such a hard, geometrical alphabet. The symbol was something from another ne. The great head inquisitor opened the golden book. The 12 adjudicators circled around him, beginning to chant prayers.


    A huge, ck ¡°X¡± mark flew into the air, forming into a huge dark cloud. Every single living being shrouded by the mark withered. The handful of running peasants and ones hiding in the holes of their own fields died without making a sound.


    The young adjudicators saw the great head inquisitor put the golden book away as the sky began to light up. It was only then that they stopped chanting.


    The golden-armored knights returned to their formations one after another. They looked unfazed, just like the great head inquisitor. For them, the order from the great head inquisitor was to be executed to the letter without the slightest of doubt. The reason for killing peasants did not matter.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± The great head inquisitor felt Saleen¡¯s group had gone too far by then. He held onto the reins and had his people pursue them westward.


    The golden-armored team followed quickly. The vige burned in great mes. Everything was reduced to ashes. It was as if the vige had never existed in the first ce.


    A long time after the great head inquisitor left, a short figure was seen crawling out from the rubble. It was none other than the boy, Gagas, who had talked to Nailisi. While he had suffered burns on his limbs, he felt nothing.


    Everything in the vige was destroyed. He was the only one left alive. He held onto the carving that Nailisi gave him as a present. The small demon statue only had half of it left. The other half had burned to nothing. If it had not been for the statue protecting him, the boy would have died as well.


    ¡°Dad? Mom?¡± Gagas did not cry. He dared not cry before seeing his parents.


    There was no one around to answer him. The vigers were the target of the great head inquisitor¡¯s divine spell. Even the scavenging magic beasts in the air and the rats underground perished under the workings of that spell.


    As the sky gradually turned dark, there were some houses still burning. The air was scorching hot. Tears fell out of Gagas¡¯ eyes as he began to leave the vige, one step at a time.


    He was all that was left in the area. He was still holding on to half of that statue in his hand.

 Chapter 1103: Judgment (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1103: Judgment (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The great head inquisitor pulled out a nk divine spell scroll and wrote on it with divine power: demons destroyed the vige and the wheat fields were consumed by a great fire. The defilers will invoke the wrath of god and when divine punishment is visited upon us, the world will rise again from the ashes.


    The nk scroll shone with pure divine light when the writing was done. The spell was sealed into the scroll, a level eleven Divine Punishment. It came into being as the great head inquisitor distorted truth and falsehood.


    The demons ran on the street. They ran into the deeper reaches on Titan. Merchants, mercenaries, and even patrolling armies went out of their way. The demons never bothered attacking. Both sides were reluctant to fight.


    The demons felt rather exhausted after moving for over 300 miles, and only then did Nailisi slowed down.


    Saleen turned around and peered back. The holy masters came up again, keeping a distance of 15 miles.


    The sensory connection between Nailisi and Saleen was severed. She let the two supreme demons lead the way while she returned to Saleen¡¯s side, saying in a rather frustrated tone, ¡°Master, the people behind wouldn¡¯t give a damn if we end up ughtering the city, no?¡±


    ¡°They would. The vige we passed earlier ¡ª they burned it down,¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was rather eerie. It was rare for mages to be truly angered. It was especially rare for them to be angered on behalf ofmon folk.


    Nailisi felt nothing peculiar. ¡°Master, don¡¯t tell me that you¡¯re thinking that we doomed the vigers.¡±


    Saleen almostughed. Although he held that urge in, he actually felt better.


    Responsibilities were not simply shouldered. Any resistors were all sinful ording to the reasoning of the Holy See, but if one were to simply submit and roll over, then they had spared others of further suffering. Just what kind of bulls**t is this?


    It was unthinkable for Saleen to feel dejected over the great head inquisitor ughtering the entire vige, for he had been strong enough to shoulder the deaths of over a million in Ironwall City.


    However, if they continued what they were doing, they would end up pulling more innocent people into their fight, and it would not change how their pursuers acted.


    ¡°Nichs, any ideas how to go about it?¡± Saleen asked the old holy master.


    Nichs thought for a bit. ¡°My liege, if we want to provoke them into attacking, we need to head back to the mountains. We¡¯ll capture a few holy masters in the next town or city and purify them using nature divine spells in the mountains. I don¡¯t think that will sit well with them.¡±


    ¡°Nature divine spells eh, I¡¯m not sure I know how to use them. Don, can you use them?¡±


    Don replied with his unique voice, ¡°so long as Your Highness gives me enough of the nature goddess¡¯ divine power, it¡¯d be quite a simple task to someone who has no way of defending themselves.¡±


    ¡°What about the power of faith then?¡±


    ¡°Even better. I know several nature divine spells. If Your Highness has chants, prose, or runes of nature divine spells, we can have people within tens of miles feel it. There is at least one level ten holy master among the ones on our tail. Well then, Your Highness, do you still want to provoke them?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Do whatever you can.¡± Saleen waved and let the demons continue moving forward. He told Nailisi to take a detour around the next town and head forrger cities.


    There were many destroyed cities in Titan after the war. While they were in a central region near the north, things still looked rather deste. There were fewer than half of the viges that had been around. Most peasants were taken away to the south by the nobles.


    The demons slowed down and walked for tens of miles. They continued after resting for a bit. Don was envious of the demons¡¯ constitution. He asked Saleen while riding on a Nightmare, ¡°Your Highness, could the demons be made a part of the knights corps of Nature Faith?¡±


    ¡°Demons don¡¯t do religions,¡± Saleen put up his Water Shield. While he was riding the Nightmare, the buffers he had on him were never dispelled.


    ¡°It¡¯s totally fine that they don¡¯t have faith. The knights corps need no such thing after all. Your Highness, if you need an organization like the Tribunal, I can help you set one up.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need a Tribunal. The knights corps will do,¡± Saleen rejected Don¡¯s request. He had immense hatred of the Tribunal after all.


    Don sighed in relief. He was testing Saleen. If he had to establish a Tribunal, he¡¯d have beenpelled to figure out ways to kill Saleen before the thousand-year contract between them was fulfilled to destroy the Nature Faith.


    The team took a detour around the town and spent half of the night resting. They departed again around midnight, heading for their target. It was a newly established mid-sized city with a poption nearing 100,000.


    It had been an ancient city of Titan that was destroyed in the war. Most of the residents moved away. With only several thousand left, life in the new city looked rather deste.


    While the Holy See did their best to get the ce prosperous again, the war between Kroraina and Qin robbed the path of its business opportunities. With the absence of merchants, development of the city stalled.


    The Holy See perfected their ways of keeping the peasants under control, but they had little to deal with merchants. There were many factors, such as the existence of the Sikeqinya Empire and Qin merchants making a point to never trade in regions under Holy See control, among others.


    The ones who were willing to trade with the Holy See were the Cloudflow people, who were adept at sea trade, but also kept being pirates.


    Nailisi slowly and meticulously unleashed demons from the purgatory of devils. The number of demons grew by more than a thousand by the time they reached the city.


    Over a thousand demons would prove enough against a city with a poption of several thousands. They were in central Titan. With most of the army stationed at the borders, there would not be many troops in the city.


    When Nailisi brought a regiment of demons and rushed at the city, the guards were hardly able to react. Despite receiving alerts about approaching danger, calctions estimated the demons to take about two days to arrive at the city.


    The city was taken over by the Tribunal. While the army consisted mostly of Titan people, delivery of news was still done using flying magic beasts, which enabled news to be ryed at great speed.


    Their miscalction was dire. It was not only the estimated arrival of the demons that was miscalcted, but also the numbers, which differed greatly from the intel. They were told that there were only about 200 demons arriving, but more than a thousand showed up on their doorstep.


    There were about 100 wardens throughout the entire city and the wardens intended to mobilize the troops against the iing enemy. It was a pity that the gate was already destroyed by the demons.


    None of the Titan troops were willing to throw their lives away, seeing how the demons rushed into the city. All of them ran instead.


    All who remained in the city had tasted war first hand before. Back then, their country was taken by the great army of the Holy See. The civilians hid in their homes, unwilling to help with fighting. The only ce resistance urred was the church at city center.


    The church was built by the Pivotal Council and was a four story building. It remained a very eye-catchingndmark in a city that had experienced war. Over a thousand demons slithered through the streets, surrounding the church. The wardens had no choice but to block their way in front of the church.


    Saleen did not bother using tactics of any kind. Nichs cast a fallen divine spell to suppress the divine light of the church, before the two golden grand swordmasters and the two supreme demons rushed at the church, scattering the wardens, toppling the top of the church and barging through the main door.


    Nailisi did not take out her Grey Memory and used the 20 meter-long spear instead, tearing down the church with one thrust after another. There were quite a number of holy masters in the church and over a dozen of them were captured.


    The great head inquisitor felt rather tense seeing the demons barge into the city. He wanted to go in and save the holy masters, but he held the urge in and let the demons ughter their way in. He would gain more use of the wrath of god.


    Nailisi paid no heed tomoners. When demons ughtered, it had to do with food and life forms encountered. Under Nailisi¡¯s binding, the trained demons became entirely disinterested in demons. The demons slithered through the city and scattered after capturing the holy masters, leaving a pile of dead wardens behind.


    The most notable damage the demons wrought was stomping and destroying the stones the streets were paved with and destroying a church. They wrecked nothing else.


    The intense battles that Nailisi imagined did not happen. While the 100 wardens were strong, they only managed to kill about a dozen demons. With J and Sul around, all powerful warriors were taken out early in the fight.


    The most powerful warriors among the wardens were only silver grand swordmasters. There was no need to guess at the oue of a silver grand swordmaster ganged up on by two golden ones.


    Nailisi chose to strike in the evening. The demons were returned to the purgatory of devils. It was dark when they made it into the mountains, and there were about 200 demons left.


    The ones by Saleen¡¯s side grew tense. The dozen or so holy masters were all low-levels, but they were nheless proper professionals acknowledged by the Holy See.


    The people served as the face of the Holy See, and Saleen was about to p at the face of the Holy See hard. If their pursuers were unable to hold it down, a battle would inevitably breakout.


    Saleen unleashed the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers after reaching a t terrain and began to clear the ground. After the ground was cleared, they dug up the earth and added magic powder. A tform over a hundred meters long in length and width waspleted after the ground was petrified.


    Saleen took out a piece of chlorite and infused it with power of faith from the Ring of Gifts, before handing it to Don.


    Chlorite was useful for maintaining divine power, the power of faith, and other energies with divine attributes. It was due to such properties that it was known as a Rock of Taboo.


    Saleen had few of the rocks with him as all veins containing the minerals were depleted back in ancient times, with the only veins left untouched being ones in the sea.


    Don was slightly surprised before taking the uncut chlorite. Saleen handed several scroll papers to him, infused with the nature divine spell that Saleen had arranged, as well as writings of the Nature Faith. The only thingcking was the holy prose created by the goddess of nature.


    It was not necessary to cast divine spells using divine tongue. The divine scripts left behind by the goddess of nature were based on Myersnguage in nature. As such, it wasparatively easy to cast nature divine spells.


    Their sight was blocked when moving in the mountains. Saleen was unable to see the great head inquisitor, and the great head inquisitor was unable to see Saleen. He followed Saleen immediately after the mage captured more than a dozen holy masters, not knowing what Saleen was up to.


    The sky turned dark and Saleen¡¯s party stopped moving. The great head inquisitor also ordered his group to set up camp.


    Saleen slowly set up his divine rune charm array, getting prepared to judge the dozen or so holy masters of the Lord of Glory.

 Chapter 1104: Judgment (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1104: Judgment (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Don began toy out the altar ording to the runes and schematics handed to him by Saleen. Saleen had seen very high level altars before. The altar he wasying out was done ording to the schematics, drawn by mimicking the altar at that undersea temple where the divine baby was held.


    However, the materials Saleen used were incrediblymon and the altar was little more than camouge. Nailisi¡¯s help was required to truly recreate a divine nature spell and, furthermore, one capable of judging the adherents of Lord of Glory.


    Nailisi¡¯s double absorbed the power of the true form of the divine baby in the altar within the purgatory of the fallen, and had grown to be able to control the Shackles of the Fallen, fighting within the purgatory of the fallen.


    The altar was simply to disguise the entrance to the purgatory of the fallen, a way to trick the great head inquisitor into entering.


    Saleen had little certainty of being able to do anything against the level ten holy master if he was not thrown into the purgatory of the fallen. The lesson learned in the fight with Van Gogh left asting impression on him.


    A level nine holy master who had been capable of defending an attack from his family badge using only the power of an equipment.


    The old holy master looked far more powerful than Van Gogh had been. The gold-armored knights were on par with grand swordmasters in terms ofbat capacity. Saleen was able to sense mystical energies coursing throughout the knights¡¯ equipment.


    If Saleen¡¯s judgment had been sound, he would have deduced that the knights¡¯bined skills would enhance the power of their attacks by many times over.


    Don told Saleen that such equipment and methods ofbat weremon among the Heaven Knights. While the Heaven Knights were no longer around, the Holy See would still be able to gather a force consisting of simr units.


    The 12 young holy masters were, in Saleen¡¯s perspective, on par with Nichs before he had fallen. Theirbat capacity might have been somewhat weaker, but such weaknesses were easilypensated under the old holy master¡¯smand.


    The demons and the elemental creatures toiled until midnight before the huge altar waspleted. Every corner of the altar had runes of the goddess of nature written by Don.


    The runes differed from holy prose and were devoid of any faith, yet were able to serve for their intended purpose. They could be activated when infused with the power of faith.


    Divine spells of every god had things to act as recements, as it was a long process to have a life formpletely believe in a god. False adherents would also emerge during the propagation process.


    The false adherents would also require power of the gods. Most gods would tolerate them, judging them only when they became fully exposed.


    In the gods¡¯ perspectives, propagation of their faith was of utmost importance, even if the process ended up being used by someone else. So long as the faith spread, most gods cared little about the purity of their adherents.


    There were also kind holy masters in the Holy See, and even they would tolerate bad things going on.


    All sixteen of the captured holy masters were thrown onto the altar surrounded by mountains. They were tied with ropes and any abilities were suppressed.


    A long table was ced on the finished altar. Saleen and his people sat behind it while the demons stood guard around the altar. All 200 demons were given elvish alchemy crossbows. The two supreme demons were given Hogina¡¯s guns.


    The equipment that Saleen cooked up in a hurry was still more powerful than alchemy crossbows. The limit that the supreme demons were able to achieve wasparable to the peak of level seven magic among human mages.


    In actuality, level four magic would suffice. What Saleen needed was the incredibly long range of attack of the Hogina¡¯s gun. When enemies turned tail and ran, the guns were incredibly effective.


    The two supreme demons had powerful mental powers, capable of targeting enemies who were the same level as they were. A level one icicle would be able to pierce rocks. A level seven spell would enable them to pierce any equipment without magical defense attributes.


    Nailisi currently was in her usual form instead of her devil form. Her current form looked identical to the Goddess of Myers. Don saw it but dared not ask anything. The demon was something he was reluctant to mess with.


    Nailisi came before the 16 holy masters and counted on her fingers one by one. She smiled. ¡°There are only 12 pirs for judgment, so four heads have to drop.¡±


    Eight demons who rushed up to the altar and dragged four of the holy masters off the altar. The four holy masters struggled but were unable to make any sound. The demons dug four holes on the ground briskly with their halberds, before dumping the holy masters into the holes and burying them.


    Nailisi stood at the edge of the altar, looking at the four holy masters with only their heads sticking out of the ground. She smiled. ¡°We¡¯ll have their headster. The altar will still need their blood.¡±


    Don finishedying out the runes of the altar and found the power of faith inside the chlorite almost entirely depleted. He was rather impressed with Saleen¡¯s calctions.


    Such abilities were acquired instead innate. Honing such abilities required repetitive training that was incredibly boring. There were mathematics of simr nature among the holy masters, but the number of people in the entire Holy See capable of achieving what Saleen did was less than ten.


    Nailisi came to stand at Saleen¡¯s side. ¡°Master, can we begin?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye searched his targets. With the mountains in the way, he was incapable of pinpointing the exact location of his pursuers.


    However, it would still be an easy task to attract their attention. He nodded. ¡°Let Don get on with it. Get him a hundred demons to serve as members of his knights corps.¡±


    Nailisi nodded reluctantly and walked down the altar. She had 100 demons return to the purgatory of the devils, before assigning 100 who had not been trained for long to Don.


    All demons housed by the purgatory of devils were elites, yet they were hardly useful when faced with level ten professionals. However, if they were to deal with level nine ones, their massive numbers might have been the key to turning the tide of the battle.


    Nailisi was reluctant to use them in such ways, so the demons she assigned to Don were all lower levels.


    Don was indifferent. He was considered a leader with a hundred demons by his side. There was nothing difficult about forming a knights corps, but it was something else altogether propagating the faith of the knights. Demons had no need for faith and Don had no need for his followers to believe in anything.


    His mission was simply to kill all enemies of Nature Faith.


    Troops of the demon ne did not ride on warhorses. The huge demons were able to move faster than horses, and were not held back by terrain. Be it ice ornds covered in fire, demons were able to charge through it.


    The eight demons were still waiting for Nailisi¡¯s orders. Nailisi waved and four halberds were brought down. The heads of the four holy masters rolled. Their blood sprayed more than 10 meters high.


    Nailisi turned around and said to Don, ¡°well then, let the judgment begin.¡±


    The four holy masters¡¯ soul shot into the air alongside their spraying blood. However, the souls of adherents of the Lord of Glory were unable to enter heaven even when they died if they were around the altar of the nature goddess. They lingered around the altar, wailing.


    The entire altar exuded green light. The souls of the dead holy masters rammed at the light, but were unable to escape the cage formed by the divine light of nature.


    The faith of the Lord of Glory had too much exclusivity. Even when bathed with the nurturing energies of the divine light of nature, the four adherents still felt excruciating pain.


    Pain inflicted directly on the soul was unbearable. The wails of the four holy master spread far and wide. At the camp more than a dozen miles away, the great head inquisitor, who was asleep, sat up.


    Anger was finally seen on his face.


    Saleen had used the most direct way to provoke him. The mage was asking him for a fight!


    Defiling the souls of holy masters and barring them from entering heaven was beyond the limit of tolerance of the great head inquisitor. The 12 adjudicators were alerted as well. The level nine holy masters gathered around the great head inquisitor, awaiting his orders.


    ¡°I believe you are all able to smell the heretic god, no?¡± The great head inquisitor¡¯s voice remained calm, yet the 12 were able to feel that the body of the great head inquisitor had be as hard as metals underneath his long, ck robe. It was the sign that the great head inquisitor was about to move.


    ¡°Although our goal was to unite the entire ne, which requires patience and nning, I will not tolerate this insult. Get the knights up and prepare for battle.¡±


    ¡°Sir, should we distribute the meds?¡± the first adjudicator asked.


    The great head inquisitor nodded. ¡°Do it. Tell the knights that they will go to heaven.¡±


    The 12 distributed the pharmaceuticals. The great head inquisitor walked out of his tent and took flight, peering faraway. Green light shot through the sky more than a dozen miles away in the mountains. Wailing of souls were heard from within that light, all of which belonged to the devout holy masters.


    The great head inquisitor felt a sense of respect for the four being tortured. The pain would dissipate if they chose to fall and betray their god.


    Saleen looked at the pained souls in the sky and knew that himself. What he felt was not respect, but coldness. Humans are actually able to withstand pain at such extent just for their faith.


    They were souls that had given themselves entirely to their god without even a tinge of ego left in them. Even if their souls were thrown into purgatory and be tortured for tens of millions of years, the holy masters would never betray their faith. Would there be many like them in the Holy See?


    A mere level 15 god is able to turn people into such beings. If the nature goddess truly resurrects, would I be able to keep things under control?


    Nailisi returned to Saleen¡¯s side and knew what Saleen felt at the moment. She whispered one word at Saleen¡¯s ear: purification.


    Saleen nodded. However, purified souls would lose a part of themselves. It had to do with the study of souls, which Saleen had yet to be involved with.


    He did not know which part would be lost and if the lost parts be incapable of restoration for good. If the damage was permanent, he would be incapable of saving anyone.


    Perhaps the only way to prevent such happenings is to kill all the gods? But something like the Dark Sky Devil is born in nature, and hasn¡¯t that been hidden in the hearts and minds of humans all this while?


    Does it mean that all humans need to die then?


    Saleen never felt so lost since the day he became a mage.


    ¡°Saleen, get ready for battle,¡± Sika, who was by his side, reminded him. Saleen was only alerted then.


    Now is not the time to think about things like this. The holy masters will definitely be unable to sit still and wille asking for a fight. I¡¯ll just have to save the problems with the gods forter. If it still bothers me, I¡¯ll just go ask Gaine. The astrologers are in control of fate, and perhaps they have answers.

 Chapter 1105: Lightning Versus Divine Spells (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1105: Lightning Versus Divine Spells (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    I might have done a lot of things that are against the teachings of the Codex, but I remain the staunchest of believers.


    The great head inquisitor took his golden book and approached the altar that Saleen built while being escorted by the golden-armored knights. His mind was calm as he blessed himself with prayers.


    Even the most powerful of mages did not possess as many pure status type spells as buffing spells in the divine arts. The golden-armored knights did not ride quickly.


    The status buffs on the great head inquisitor grew by ayer with every mile they rode. White holy light shimmered and leaked under the ck robe, as if it was an angel made of pure energy was hidden beneath the robe.


    The judgment had only begun. Don did not go about it per the ways of the Holy See. He did not inquire anything and simply said with his rusty voice before every holy master chained at the pirs, ¡°In the name of the Goddess of Nature, I judge you to be sinful!¡±


    Don forcefully ced a green seed that he had acquired from Nailisi into each and every one of the holy master¡¯s bodies. The green seeds absorbed energy in a frenzy after they entered the bodies of the holy masters before sprouting within the bodies of the holy masters.


    While fear was obviously seen in the eyes of the holy masters of the Holy See and they struggled hard, the chains that Saleen chained them up with were something he had crafted for the moment. They mimicked the Shackles of the Fallen left behind by Goddess of Nature.


    Saleen did not know much about the rules on the Shackles of the Fallen, but the holy masters¡¯ levels were too low, far lower than that of the Divine Baby. The Shackles of the Fallen replicas that he had crafted shackled the souls of the holy masters tightly, making escape impossible.


    The holy masters undergoing judgment were unable to speak. They had no choice but to see Don going about his business with restraint.


    The seeds were something nurtured in the purgatory of the fallen and had a bit of divinity of the Goddess of Nature in them. Having such seeds growing inside the bodies of the holy masters was akin to dripping cold water in a boiling hot cauldron of oil.


    One of the 12 holy masters 2qw finally unable to endure the suffering and opened his mouth. ¡°I¡¯m wrong! I want to repent!¡±


    ¡°Let him down.¡± Saleen looked at the holy master, whose pain-filled expression was lightened considerably after hearing his words.


    That holy master had chosen to fall and betray the Lord of Glory. As such, the Goddess of Nature¡¯s Seed of Punishment was no longer growing inside them. The resulting nt left in their body no longer continued to harm them.


    The remaining 11 holy masters red at the one begging for mercy with despise in their eyes. The holy master who begged for mercy was thrown into the purgatory of purification by Nailisi.


    The troubled parts of their body would gradually be erased within that purgatory. They still had ns for that holy master. While they were but a level four fallen holy master, Don still needed extra pairs of hands.


    The remaining 11 holy masters did not get to despise their fallen brethren for long. The Seeds of Punishment that Nailisi had created were simply growing too fast, so much so that it was hardly even meant for punishments.


    She had no control over the divine powers of the Goddess of Nature. If it had not been for her double¡¯s help, Nailisi would have never been able to create something with divinity in it. She was a demon, not a god.


    Saleen was very satisfied. If a god were to punish a person, the process would have taken a very long time. That was not the kind of judgment that he wanted. He was simply trying to get those who tailed them to show themselves.


    The fact that they were able to follow Saleen¡¯s group for days without being shaken off meant that they were able to travel quickly. If Saleen were to turn around and chase them, there was no certainty his group would have been able to catch up.


    What he wanted most at the moment was to execute the dozen of holy masters quickly to prevent further troubles of them being rescued.


    He had seen how the great head inquisitor went about killing the vigers. Even though Nailisi had more than 100,000 demons under hermand, the great head inquisitor would have been able to make short work of all of them given time.


    Unless he was able to unleash ample numbers of ancient figures, there was simply no way pure numbers would have been able to do any harm to an enemy of such a level. The only things that he was able to rely on were the followers by his side and his own power.


    ¡°Defilers! Cast off the evil intentions in your minds and ept the cleansing of god...¡± The great head inquisitor¡¯s voice was heard from several miles away.


    The entire altar shook. The green holy light above the altar was dispelled by the purifying voice. The four holy masters¡¯ souls cheered and began to leave.


    Eleanor brandished her longbow and shot elvish life arrows at them, which hit all four of them almost instantly. Shecked the ability to target souls on her own, which waspensated by Saleen¡¯s instant Sensory Sharing. It enabled her to shoot down all four souls in mere moments, which meant less than one-fifth of a second.


    A level eight royal elf¡¯s prowess at archery was hardly different from that of a level nine human archer. Furthermore, Eleanor was armed with Seven Nights, which was an equipment equal to a godly item and allowed her to use her own abilities to the fullest.


    ¡°Proud, unbridled ones, prepare to bask in the wrath of god.¡± A huge sun appeared in the air when the great head inquisitor finished casting.


    The sun was not all that hot, but it epassed the entire altar. The green holy light at the altar waspletely dispelled. The sun, however, came a little toote. The bodies of the remaining 11 holy masters were renderedpletely stiff, covered in something like the bark of a tree. Their internal organs were all turned into nt fibers.


    The holy masters quickly withered under the holy light in the air, breaking down to ashes all over the ce as the wind blew.


    Saleen¡¯s body became wrapped in a cloudy mist. The mist spread and shrouded the entire altar. Nailisi had opened the portal to the purgatory of the fallen quietly. Twenty-four chains sneaked out of the portal.


    The purgatory of the fallen was the space she had the most control of. While the rules within the purgatory of devils wereplete, its level was not high enough. As for the purgatory of purification, itcked stability. The purgatory of elements also only had two major elements.


    The power of the Shackles of the Fallen came directly from the Goddess of Myers. While the goddess herself had perished, the 24 chains were items that belonged to the goddess and had retained their powers. Even Saleen¡¯s family badge would not have been able to destroy it.


    No one shrouded in the mist was afraid of the holy light shining from above. All within the mist surrounded Saleen and were ready to move. Don was the only one who sneaked outside the mist with the God-hunting Spear in his hand. His body turned spectral and sank into the ground. He hid right beside one of the killed holy masters.


    The God-hunting Spear¡¯s attributes were all wiped out by the purgatory of purification. It had be a weapon more suitable for Don, especially when he was hiding, since the spear no longer emitted any energy fluctuations.


    The galloping of the warhorses sounded like war drums. Over a hundred golden-armored knights appeared between the mountains, charging straight for the altar. The great head inquisitor did not charge at the forefront. He had instead been surrounded by 12 adjudicators as he prepared to cast powerful divine spells.


    The 12 adjudicators chanted prayers quietly. Saleen could not afford to ignore that situation.


    The 12 level nine holy masters were chanting long prayers at the same time. If the divine spell were to bepleted, it would be more difficult to deal with than a level 10 magic spell. After all, the one who was in charge of that divine spell was a level 10 holy master.


    Saleen lifted his arm. With a spin on the star chart of his Starline Bangle, the Thunder Dragon ster materialized. Four dragon ws clung to his arm as a bolt of electricity sparkled at the barrel. A lightning icicle was fired.


    The lightning icicle zipped through the golden-armored knights as if it had a life of its own. Saleen had no way of targeting the great head inquisitor, but he had no problem targeting any one of the 12 adjudicators. The great head inquisitor had halted the divine spell when the lightning icicle reached them.


    If there was one way that divine spells proved better than magic spells, it was that the recoil was small when halted all of a sudden.


    The great head inquisitor stopped therge-scale divine spell. It did not harm anyone around him. An ¡°X¡± mark on the cover of the golden book in his hand rose, blocking the lightning icicle.


    The lightning icicle sparkled with electricity and instantly adjusted its angle over a dozen times within several feet, but it still sted straight onto therge ¡°X¡± mark.


    The great head inquisitor was one whole level higher than Saleen, so it was immensely difficult to circle around the great head inquisitor¡¯s defense by controlling the projectile alone.


    While the enemy¡¯s attack was also halted, the ¡°X¡± mark could have only been used again in another two or three hours. That meant the ¡°X¡± mark had been renderedpletely useless in that particr battle.


    The great head inquisitor found it rather regrettable. The mark had been an offense-type skill. It had been a miscalcted move to use it for defense.


    The second icicle came before them in no time. Saleen had no intention of stopping before he was able to hit someone. The golden-armored knights shed with the demons.


    Things were looking dire for Saleen¡¯s group. With the exception of the two supreme demons being able to withstand the impact, the other demons were all forced onto the altar by the knights, making them utterly incapable of stopping the knights¡¯ advance.


    The golden book on the great head inquisitor¡¯s hand automatically flipped to another page. A ck symbol, which looked like a straight horn, flew out. The symbol was more straightforward. It simply shed with the lightning icicle from Saleen, which was shattered. The horn-like symbol flew for another 300 feet or so before it dissipated.


    The great head inquisitor was able to keep calm. When the third icicle reached him, the golden book automatically flipped to the third page. It sent out a cut-off square symbol. The icicle sted right onto the cut-off part of that symbol.


    Everyone heard a crisp crack within a radius of hundreds of feet. The icicle had shattered, but the symbol that the great head inquisitor had unleashed also shattered.


    Saleen¡¯s mind was incredibly calm. He shot the fourth and the fifth icicles at the same time, targeting two adjudicators.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s golden book flipped to the fourth page. There was a wavy symbol on that page, which was divided into three sections. The symbol flew out and swiped the fourth lightning icicle in midair before crashing into the fifth icicle.


    Both symbol and icicle shattered at the same time. But, the fourth icicle swooped down from above, crackling with electrical energy as it went for the head of an adjudicator.


    The adjudicator threw a metal disk in his hands calmly, sending it flying at the lightning icicle. The metal disk was only the size of a palm, but it immediately turned into a three-foot target as it hit the air.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s mouth ticked. He was about to do something to stop it, but he was toote. The sixth icicle was right before them as the golden book flipped to the fifth page.

 Chapter 1106: Lightning Versus Divine Spells (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1106: Lightning Versus Divine Spells (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s golden book was flipped to the fifth page. A round symbol flew out. The sixth icicle was trapped by the symbol, which crushed it into bits of ice.


    The adjudicator targeted by the fourth icicle had his head silently prated by the projectile after it pierced through the round metal shield. The lightning icicle prated right through the adjudicator¡¯s skull and burrowed right through his crotch. Everything in the icicle¡¯s path was turned to mush. What was even more terrifying was that the adjudicator¡¯s soul dissipated right there and then.


    The lightning icicle, while capable of being destroyed by powerful equipment, was incredibly lethal when it entered a target¡¯s body. It was toote to do anything to save the victim by then.


    After seeing one of his prized subordinates being killed by a lightning icicle, the great head inquisitor¡¯s ck robe suddenly fared out. A dark shadow flew from underneath the robe. The shadow had been hiding in the light, making itpletely undetectable.


    It had originally meant to be a hidden weapon, but he had no choice but to let it out to take the fourth adjudicator¡¯s ce. The great head inquisitor was preparing to use a level 10 area-of-effect divine spell¡ªLuster of Purification.


    That divine spell was not one that would kill a person. It wouldpletely purify a soul and turn the person into a believer of the Lord of Glory. If Saleen were to be purified, the secrets in his mind would no longer be hidden. He would bepelled to spill everything to the great head inquisitor.


    It was an extremely level-oppressive divine spell, which meant that anyone below level 10 would have been affected. Furthermore, that divine spell was capable ofsting for a long time. It needed him to be in charge while being executed at the same time by 12 level nine holy masters.


    Oncepleted, it could have only been defended by equipment of the same level capable of defending for the same amount of time. But, what kind of equipment or skills would have been able to hold out for up to six hours?


    Saleen was able to tell what the great head inquisitor was up to, so he gave it his all to kill his subordinates. The great head inquisitor summoned the dark double to rece the fourth adjudicator. The golden book flipped to the sixth page.


    The symbol that flew from the sixth page was a square one as well, with an opening on the top and bottom sides. The symbol flew high into the air and shrouded the great head inquisitor, the 11 adjudicators, as well as a dark double, within something like a house.


    The great head inquisitor was frightened. Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle far exceeded his expectations. If he had not been armed with the Armageddon Codex, half of his subordinates would have been ughtered by Saleen.


    The metal target that the fourth adjudicator had unleashed was a renowned holy item in the Holy See. While it was inferior to godly items in terms of materials used, it was a powerful piece of equipment.


    Yet, Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle was able to destroy such a holy item right there and then. The level nine adjudicator¡¯s Protective Holy Light and Divine Protection spells were unable to do anything to block the attack. They were shattered instantly by the lightning icicle.


    He did not care how many of those icicles Saleen was able to cast. The great head inquisitor began rushing his subordinates to prepare the Luster of Purification as soon as the sixth symbol was cast.


    The Luster of Purification was specifically made to deal with living beings. If it were to be sessfully cast, he would be able to acquire the powerful equipment Saleen had in his hand.


    The huge symbol protected everyone within¡ªthe great head inquisitor and the guards of his subordinates. Holy light coursed all over the transparent symbol as shadows of countless angels danced within.


    It was impossible to destroy that symbol. The Armageddon Codex of the great head inquisitor was said to have been acquired from the first head inquisitor who came to office.


    The Holy See teemed with powerful ones when it was first established. The first head inquisitor was a demigod serving the Lord of Light, and one who had been robbed of his divine persona. That demigod carried the Armageddon Codex with them.


    If the ne was beyond saving, then one should destroy the ne. Those were the words of the first inquisitor, who represented the will of the Lord of Glory.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s power was far from adequate for destroying the Armageddon Codex, but there were only seven pages to the codex. The first six pages were sealed by the first head inquisitor, making themparatively lower powers avable to only level 10 powerful ones.


    As one advanced in the divine arts, one would have been able to wield all of its powers when the seal was` undone.


    It was a method that the first head inquisitor developed by observing mages, which was being modified to be used in the divine arts, while providing easy ess to the Armageddon Codex.


    The codex would have been avable to people at level 13. At a time when the powers of Myers Maind had gradually weakened, the first head inquisitor had his hands forced enough to do something like that.


    Saleen was pleased to see the great head inquisitor using protective methods instead of being shocked. Hecked ample energy to be absorbed by his family badge. The energy unleashed by the huge divine symbol would have been enough to feed his badge.


    However, he would have had to face a level 10 professional and 12 level nines if he were to get near the symbol to absorb its powers. Saleen was reluctant to go to such extremes. It was fortunate that the badge could be used right away after absorbing energies.


    Saleen took the immense risk and called his followers around him, including Sika, to give up fighting the golden-armored knights and charge the great head inquisitor with him.


    Eleanor was the only one who stayed where she was. Drawing her Seven Nights longbow, she shot three green arrows, an elvish time arrow, elvish space arrow, and elvish emperor arrow. The three arrows symbolized the whole of attributes of matter. She shot all three arrows with her fullest power and the stored power of life in the Seven Nights burned.


    If Eleanor were to pay such a price herself, her lifespan would have been reduced by at least 100 years. Furthermore, it was a price deemed affordable by an elf, especially a royal elf. If it had been a human shooting those arrows, even a level nine professional would have lost half of their lifespan.


    Eleanor valued her life. With the power of life provided by Saleen and stored within Seven Nights, she no longer had to burn her own to cast skills. The three arrows swooped down from above, heading straight for the great head inquisitor.


    Thousands of angels burst out within the light. The three arrows burst through the bodies of the angels like bolts of lightning. However, all three arrows were considerably diminished after killing over half of the angels.


    Hundreds of angels turned into white light and charged the arrows. The arrows fell. The skills imbued in them werepletely destroyed.


    Eleanor knew well that her skills would not work. While she had high proficiency in archery, the inherent attributes of her art were not as overpowering as that of the Thunder Dragon ster. That one equipment of Saleen alone was more than able to overwhelm most other equipment.


    Any skill had a level where it would have been able to do nothing about, but Saleen¡¯s lightning skills were the highest power within their ne. Even though none of his skills, other than his calctions, wereparable to the great head inquisitor, he was still able to force the great head inquisitor¡¯s hand relying solely on the edge provided by his element and equipment.


    Eleanor¡¯s attack waspletely negated. Saleen hardly felt surprised. If those three arrows would have worked, there would not have been any need for him to rush at his target.


    The great head inquisitor let out a cold smirk as he saw a cloud of mist approaching him. Saleen¡¯s skill had its limits. If he had simply kept shooting, there would be no telling how long he would have been able to hold out.


    The Armageddon Codex had seven pages, and the sixth was already used, which had been considered the most powerful trick he had with him. If he wanted to use the seventh page, Saleen would have been required to be a god for the codex to work.


    Is he attempting to defend against the attack with help from the golden grand swordmasters? That¡¯s impossible. This is a pure defensive divine spell, and there are 128,000 angels in it, more than enough for me toplete the Luster of Purification.


    Half of the 200 demons had perished. The knights had taken a wedge-shaped formation. Everywhere the golden-armored knights treaded, the demons were either dead or severely injured.


    The power that the golden-armored knights brought to bear was at the pinnacle of golden grand swordmaster level. Worse still, that did not seem to be their all.


    The pincer attack tactic employed by the demons was hardly effective. The huge halberds werepletely ineffective against the armor d by said knights. Golden holy light shone in the knights formation. It instantly healed every knight¡¯s wound and repaired any damaged armor.


    Furthermore, the golden-armored warriors were capable of changing their formations very quickly. With every change, the knight taking the lead were cranked up to the pinnacle of level nine.


    It was a very terrifying skill. If every single knight had been a level nine professional, the one taking the lead would probably be brought up to the pinnacle of level 10.


    If the burst of powers were deemed still tolerable, the instant repair and healing would have exceeded the power of the demons, who had inherent powerful healing abilities themselves, to handle.


    Don hid himself near a holy master who had lost his head. Blood seeped into his garb. Yet, he was in no hurry to act.


    The Tribunal actually managed to copy all of the Heaven Knights¡¯ equipment and skills. Back then, it had been a formidable army within the ranks of the Heaven Knights that enabled the Holy See to reign supreme in all of the maind.


    They were only eliminated by therge-scale magic amplifier operated by over a hundred level nine sorcerers in Holy Rock City, when the knights were attacking the city. After that battle, 10,000 Heaven Knight armors werepletely wrecked. It was only then the power of the Pivotal Council suffered a huge drop.


    Don knew well enough that even if they were to kill the knight taking the lead, the others would soon take their ce. Only by killing at least one-tenth of them at one go would they stand a chance against such formations¡¯ powers.


    If only we had two more supreme demons with us. Don felt regret seeing the two supreme demons struggling to hold the line.


    Eleanor took to the skies. The altar had been taken by the golden-armored knights, so it was dangerous for her to stay on the ground. While the golden-armored knights were powerful, they stood no chance chasing after her riding on the Wings of an Elf.


    She peered at the battle at Saleen¡¯s side and saw him gesture in the clouds. Surprisingly, he was telling her to help Don attack the golden-armored knights.


    Saleen watched the entire battle and found the true battlefield to be where he was at. His Quickcloud was going so fast that he came before the holy masters protected by the huge symbol.


    The cloud was swept by a white beam of holy light and immediately dissipated. Saleen knew that it was due to him having too little understanding of rules. Otherwise, the misty cloud would have covered the entire battlefield and made it into his territory.


    Saleen stepped forward and extended his hand, holding the mysterious family badge of his. No matter how powerful the barrier was, it stood no chance against the family badge¡¯s absorbing powers. He came to understand that the attacks of his family badge were negated by equipment made of high level materials, but the badge¡¯s absorbing powers were something totally indefensible.


    The angels within the light did not storm at them, but Saleen tripped and fell sideways to the right. Missing that huge barrier of light, he was unable to press his badge onto it.

 Chapter 1107: Prophecy Spell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1107: Prophecy Spell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s family badge would not be able to absorb energies without sticking it onto the target. Saleen had tried various means of controlling the badge but was not able to yield any results.


    No one but him was able to use the badge. It was only able to bring its two elements into y when it was in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    It was capable of absorbing energy of any type. When the stored energy reached a certain level, the badge would unleash incredibly powerful lightning attacks.


    If the badge had a third element, it would be its level of hardness, which rendered it unbreakable.


    Saleen missed and all sorts of information flooded in from everyone around him.


    ¡°Master, the Grey Memory was unable to lock on to its target!¡±


    ¡°My liege, the rules within Tears were unable to break that territory!¡±


    ¡°My liege, the golden sword aura was being suppressed!¡±


    ¡°My liege, the lesser prophecy spell was being negated. It was some equipment over level 12!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, my powers are intact, but I¡¯m unable to prate the barrier!¡±


    ¡°Never mind, watch me,¡± Saleen said and 3,600 golden runes shot out from his eyes. Blue lightning shimmered as it cut open the field formed by divine spells. Saleen shouted in a thunderous voice to keep the opening open and stepped inside with a single step.


    Other than using Quickcloud for movement, he had also infused new skills within his step. Using earth magic mimicked from water element, the ice sheet beneath his feet froze into an apparent path of icy earth, straight for the great head inquisitor.


    The great head inquisitor lost his way, seeing Saleen getting near. Within several seconds, Saleen arrived at the side of the light barrier, moving in an eerie manner and at an even more frightening speed. He was not capable of tracking the afterimages that resulted from Saleen¡¯s movements.


    Saleen pressed his family badge onto the light barrier, which ended with the 100,000 angels flying within absorbing into Saleen¡¯s family badge. After absorbing power energies, the space within the badge seemed to have grown.


    Saleen scanned and saw the angels reducing to pure energy in the sea of lightning inside the badge.


    The great head inquisitor had not anticipated that oue. The thunderous voice from Saleen¡¯s mouth was magic that he had never heard of before. While the spell¡¯s power levels were hardly high, the rules contained within had him shuddering.


    The ring of defense formed by the Armageddon Codex had threeyers broken. Saleen¡¯s mystical badge pressed onto the barrier as he got close, absorbing its energies at a frightening rate.


    The Armageddon Codex trembled violently in the air, attempting to shake off the badge.


    The great head inquisitor knew that he would not be able toplete his Luster of Purification, but he deemed Saleen as having a death wish for getting so near him.


    Attacks on holy masters were usually executed at a shorter rangepared to mages, yet the great head inquisitor¡¯s level within range was one whole level higher than Saleen¡¯s. In a fight fought at such close range, Saleen was at a grave disadvantage.


    Furthermore, the great head inquisitor had more than just the Armageddon Codex with him. As the most important figure within the Tribunal, he had the sixth and fifth godly items, and the fourth godly item was under his control as well.


    However, the huge godly item was inside the headquarters of the Tribunal and was unable to be brought out.


    The Light Barrier of Armageddon was quickly absorbed by the badge in Saleen¡¯s hand and turning thin, and the hovering Armageddon Codex in the air was also at the brink of copse. The great head inquisitor immediately took his weapon, a crystal skull, out.


    Pure luster swirled in the crystal skull¡¯s eye sockets, one red and one white.


    It was the most famous weapon in the Tribunal¡¯s possession, far more renown than the Armageddon Codex.


    The Divine Skull!


    It was said to be crafted out of a powerful god killed by the Lord of Glory. The god possessed two powerful rules, one which was very simr to the divine light of the Lord of Glory, while the other was the rules of mes.


    A popping sound was heard in the air and the Armageddon Codex fell to the ground. The huge light barrier shattered and about half of the angels were absorbed by Saleen¡¯s badge. He unleashed the lightning powers of the badge at the great head inquisitor without a second thought.


    The crystal skull in the great head inquisitor¡¯s hand was frightening. Saleen knew that if he let the great head inquisitor¡¯s equipment unleash its powers, none around him woulde out alive.


    There was simply nothing to hold back. Powerful light was unleashed from Saleen¡¯s badge, which suppressed the divine light cast by great head inquisitor and the 11 holy masters.


    The great head inquisitor sensed a thick air of death looming. He sent the darkness under his controlshing out at Saleen. There was no way for a level nine sorcerer to have anybat capacity left after casting such a terrifying skill.


    The great head inquisitor guessed correctly, but he did not know that Saleen was armed with powerful equipment capable of boosting mental powers. If it had been in the past, Saleen would be a sitting duck if he used his family badge after casting Eye of Lightning.


    Saleen did not lock on to the great head inquisitor. The badge was filled with energy so quickly that control became impossible. The resulting lightning bolt was several meters thick, enough to cover all 11 holy masters with its attack.


    The crystal skull in the great head inquisitor¡¯s hand was unable toplete its unleashing of energies before jumping up, turning into a skull that was over ten meters in diameter.


    The skull was nothingpared to the head of the giant, but when that crystal skull returned to its original form, countless lines of holy prose filled up the insides of the skull, forming aplex image.


    Things happened too fast for anyone to react. The thick lightning bolt hit the skull. Being named Divine Skull, it was apparent that the equipment was crafted using the body of a god.


    While Saleen¡¯s lightning attack was powerful, it was still less than the most powerful the badge was able to muster. The badge had been damaged, resulting in it being able to hold less than one-ten-thousandth of its reserve when it was whole.


    The huge skull was blown away by the power of the lightning bolt. The one attack by Saleen¡¯s family badge snuffed out the lights within the skull¡¯s eye sockets, and the skull itself suffered severe damage. The holy prose within the skull was almost all wiped away.


    The great head inquisitor felt the connection between him and the Divine Skull severed. The skull flew far away into the mountains. It still had not yetnded even after flying more than ten miles away.


    The Darkness Double sneaked up in front of Saleen, popping out from the ground. It was unfortunate that it met Sika¡¯s staff. The illusory, shadow-looking double was crushed to dus. A whiff of ck smoke returned to the great head inquisitor¡¯s robe, still wailing.


    Sika felt her staff get heavy all of a sudden. Her weapon was contaminated from crushing the Darkness Double. She had never encountered it before and had no time to repair her weapon.


    She put it away, as the magic beast battle soul within the weapon would be capable of dispelling the contamination. She took out a javelin and threw it at an adjudicator.


    That adjudicator pointed with one finger and shouted, ¡°Down!¡±


    Sika¡¯s javelin dipped and kept flying at the adjudicator, who had to point several more times before the weapon fell to the ground. Sweat beaded on the adjudicator¡¯s brow. He needed to cast three divine spells before he was able to break a pure physical attack. Just how strong is that woman?


    The great head inquisitor had gotten worried, which was why he did not hesitate to cast a level 11 divine spell.


    Seven ck lines of holy prose floated between his ten fingers, coalescing into a term.


    ¡°Defiler, your life ends at this very moment. Your soul will be broken into seven pieces. Your future will be bleakness for eternity!¡±


    The great head inquisitor cast a dark prophecy spell, above his level, which was more vicious than Divine Punishment. He was able to tell that it would be impossible to take Saleen alive. If Saleen remained alive, the powerful ones by Saleen¡¯s side would have incredible kill counts.


    He was locked onto by a terrifying weapon. Even with more than a dozen buffing divine spells, he was unable to shake the locking off. The attack woulde any second.


    The only one who detected the danger was Sika. She wanted to summon the skills stored in her ne but found herself having lost her voice. The fluctuations in her mental powers failed to remain stable. She would not be able to even throw her javelin, let alone use the skills within the ne.


    While the great head inquisitor¡¯s skill targeted Saleen, everyone else was too close to Saleen and were caught within that status without any way of retaliating.


    The seven ck scripts appeared above Saleen¡¯s head, which then went into Saleen¡¯s body.


    The dark prophecy spell took shape!


    Sika felt her mind falling downward,s and it seemed as if the earth crumbled right beneath her, unable to support her body and provide her with power.


    Every follower by Saleen¡¯s side at the moment felt a terrifying vibrationing from the depths of their souls. It was the contract trembling!


    Only Nichs was able to keep his consciousness when the dark prophecy spell was cast. He thumped the Scepter of the Fallen in a rather despairing manner.


    Grey light spread and when the dark prophecy spell waspleted, all statuses disappeared. Nichs extracted all powers within the Blood Soul Tower and uttered only one sentence: Let the world burn!


    Saleen felt himself being thrown into absolute immobility. Something snapped within his being, which flew out of the depths of his soul.


    It had only been mere seconds, but Saleen felt as decades have passed.


    The Figure of Fate that Gaine crafted for him shattered, which would take a very long time to repair. Saleen¡¯s soul waspletely intact. It was just that he seemed to have lived the content spoken by the dark prophecy spell.


    Pfftt...


    Saleen and the great head inquisitor both spit blood at the same time. The 11 holy masters were caged by Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spell. Everyone within feltpelled to destroy everything before them. As such, all 11 holy masters moved, with their targets being theirrades at their sides.


    The dark prophecy spell of the great head inquisitor was to me. It boasted a huge area of effect, and other than the target being almost incapable of withstanding any attack, its residual powers would affect others, which included himself.


    Divine spells and magic spells worked identically in that regard ¡ª if a spell beyond one¡¯s level was cast, there was a possibility of suffering its recoil.


    Nichs destroyed two powerful souls within the Blood Soul Tower out of despair. A level ten lesser prophecy spell was cast. All 11 adjudicators were still being subjected to the effects of the dark prophecy spell, which made them vulnerable to the level ten lesser prophecy spell.

 Chapter 1108: Prophecy Spell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1108: Prophecy Spell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Blood sprayed and over 20 pieces of holy equipment flew. The 11 adjudicators unleashed their strongest powers and attacked each other without bothering to put up defenses.


    Eight of the adjudicators of lesser powers died. The remaining three, ranked the top three, were severely injured. It was only then that their equipment switched to defensive modes, unleashing divine light and attempting to repair their injuries.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s power was at an all time low. He had no choice but to take out a bottle of potion and drink it. It was concocted by divine smiths and the Tribunal had not stockpiled much for the past few hundred years.


    Even after drinking the potion, the great head inquisitor felt only half of his mental powers restored.


    He saw Saleen¡¯s lifeless eyes clear and turned to look at him.


    Saleen is not dead? How is this possible?


    The dark prophecy spell worked. Even if Saleen had two souls, he should have died!


    The great head inquisitor was unable to keep calm. His fingers trembled as he pointed to Saleen and the people around him, casting a level ten divine spell.


    ¡°God decreed that the flow of life is inevitable. You will all wither...¡±


    It was unexpected that most of the great head inquisitor¡¯s attacks consisted of prophecy spells, which meant that the attacks were not energy-based. Sul and J felt the effects most acutely. Power within their bodies dropped sharply, so much so that they were hardly able to hold their weapons still.


    Nailisi regretted not bringing the 12 Notes of First Purgatory with her, having set it behind the altar to serve as a trap instead. She had not lost much life, since as a Luoluokaluo who possessed a golden dragon form, Nailisi¡¯s life was far longer than Eleanor¡¯s.


    It was impossible for an aging spell cast by a level ten holy master to kill her.


    Eleanor was such as well. However, the stored power of life within her Seven Nights was depleted quickly after being hit by the divine spell, so much so that she was unable to use it anymore.


    Nichs was protected by a lesser prophecy spell. His Scepter of the Fallen was coated in ck stains. The aging spell did not work directly on him, but it sealed his scepter, preventing him from attacking with it.


    Saleen was totally unaffected. His voice was infused with thunder. The thunderous sound no longer reverberated in just his mind; it reverberated throughout his entire body, from the seams between his bones down to the depths of his pores, every single part of his body vibrated with the thunder.


    ¡°Old man, do you think you¡¯re the only one capable of using prophecy spells?¡±


    Saleen lifted his hand, pointing at the great head inquisitor. ¡°O¡¯ stars of worlds, you hold the tracks of fates. When the stars shift, every living being will hear the sound of the world crumbling!¡±


    Two rings on Saleen¡¯s fingers shot beams of light. One was the crystal ring of Raphael, while the other was the Starline Ring.


    Magic script appeared around the crystal ring, while the level 16 Star Gathering Needle coiling around the Starline Ring unleashed dazzling starlight.


    The great head inquisitor felt fear rising out of nowhere. When Saleen was done casting both skills, the great head inquisitor found himself thrust into a starry sky and the stars around him crumbled one after another. The resulting power locked him in.


    A dazzling magic light glimmered among the stars.


    The crystal ring of Raphael was crafted specifically for killing holy masters. Saleen cast the skill with full power. The crystal ring¡¯s light shot through the dozen of divine spell buff statuses on the great head inquisitor, piercing his ck robe and heading straight for his heart.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s body was shackled by the power of the stars. It was not shackled based on energy, but on the effects of an astrologer¡¯s greater fate spell.


    Saleen had the sudden inspiration of fusing the two skills together, and mystical effects were yielded. The shackling powers of the greater fate spell far surpassed all skills in the dark prophecy spells, while the Crystal Finger was definitely one of the most unique skills in magic spells.


    If Saleen had not been armed with the crystal ring and the gloves given to him by the grandmaster, the attack would cost him his entire arm. It might even damage his body.


    If a level eight mage used the Crystal Finger without being buffed by equipment, they would explode. Due to the terrifying recoil, no one dared test it even if Saleen actually published the learning methods of the skill.


    The great head inquisitor felt ridiculous. Fear rose in his mind, something he had not felt for more than a hundred years.


    What is fear? Fear, is usually something that manifests when dealing with something unknown.


    Even though he knew of the skill that Saleen cast, he felt fear. It was astrology, something that had been gone for as long as anyone could remember.


    While the Qin Empire imed that they had astrologers, Merlin never fought. He simply told prophecies for the royal family.


    The astrologers were something heard in faraway legends, a group of people who attempted to control fate.


    Saleen did not let his guard down. The elder¡¯s heart was pierced, but Saleen did not feel any signs of death. He drew about with his finger in the air, unleashing the power within the Starline Ring and quickly drew a star chart.


    ¡°O¡¯ power of stars anywhere and everywhere, I call upon you to split the world!¡±


    The starlight in the sky was absorbed by the star chart and manifested as a, wrapping around the body of the great head inquisitor. The contracted and everyone was able to see the great head inquisitor¡¯s body being cut to hundreds of pieces.


    ¡°Defilers, you will shoulder the wrath of god!¡± The great head inquisitor was heard once again. Everyone around Saleen was still under the effects of the dark prophecy spell. With the exception of Sika, the only one capable of fighting at the moment was Eleanor, who was far away.


    As for Don, he hid without any intention of doing anything.


    A bitter smile was seen on Saleen¡¯s face. It was no wonder that his teacher had him train basic skills. Powerful equipment and special powers proved inadequate topletely win a battle.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s body disappeared and reappeared somewhere else. There was hole in his ck robe over his heart. The blood at the corner of his mouth had yet to dry. He red at Saleen, and it was anyone¡¯s guess what was going in his mind.


    ¡°I can still kill without using lightning!¡± Saleen waved and about a thousand icicle appeared in the air, all of which were infused with a bit of lightning magic patterns. However, Saleen had yet to master the spell and was unable to unleash the lightning powers.


    Lightning icicles were capable of being unleashed without use of the Thunder Dragon ster, but Saleen needed to be at least level 13 to do so.


    Level 13 was when one truly mastered the rules. While it was possible to unleash a territory beneath that level, the territory would be uncontrble, as onecked in-depth understanding of rules.


    Saleen never wasted his magic chords, but he knew that the great head inquisitor could not be finished off with a single skill.


    Despite having cast several powerful skills, the old man was still alive. While he looked to have suffered grave injuries, Saleen knew that as long as the members of the Holy See were still breathing, they would be able to fight hard and strong.


    ¡°Ages, run!¡±


    The great head inquisitor pointed at Saleen and the icicles above him. Saleen could not help but unleash the spells that he had prepared, as he had no way of controlling them.


    That was the very reason he overspent his mental powers. The mental powers stored within the ring werepletely depleted, while he had about half of his mental power reserve with him. All of the skills he cast had a cost above the limit of level nine magic spells.


    ¡°Blue Ice Maidens!¡± Saleen shouted and 36 Blue Ice Maidens shot out from the elemental badge, circling him. The icicles triggered by the divine spell were all stopped immediately, crumbling quickly and splitting into over 3000 fragments.


    The leader of the Blue Ice Maidens appeared suddenly behind the great head inquisitor and stabbed him.


    The water elemental sword let out a sharp ting when it stabbed into the ck robe. The great head inquisitor felt as if his bones were breaking.


    Divine light shone on the robe but it was incapable of defending against the massive power of a level ten elemental creature. His body was sent flying to Saleen. Over 3000 icicles in the air were wrapped in fire and shot down.


    The great head inquisitor had nowhere to run, but it was extremely difficult to kill him. His robe inted ten times his size, blocking the first round of icicles. The robe burned as a result.


    The huge icicles were crushed and turned to mes. While the great head inquisitor felt surprised, there was still only one hole to be found on his robe ¡ª the one created by the crystal finger. As such, there was no problem of defending against the mes. He took out another piece of equipment from his robe.


    The Armageddon Codex was unable to be used for the time being and the Divine Skull was thrown faraway, unable to be summoned back. The great head inquisitor took out a semi-godly item.


    As the highest leader of the Tribunal, it was a given that he had more equipment at his disposal than Saleen did.


    Nailisi finally resisted the dark prophecy spell, but her mental powers were severely used up from using the Grey Memory. Seeing that the great head inquisitor was still alive, she leapt high into the air and took the form of a golden dragon, spitting dragon¡¯s breath at him.


    Sika threw six javelins at the same time.


    Nailisi¡¯s dragon¡¯s breath was spit in full power. If all that proved incapable of killing the great head inquisitor, there would be little else they were able to do. She fell to the ground after spitting the dragon¡¯s breath.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s ck robe was on par with Saleen¡¯s Starline Armament in terms of quality. The fires on the robe werepletely extinguished by the dragon¡¯s breath, but the hole the size of a finger on the robe expanded more than a dozen times.


    The dragon¡¯s breath seeped through tet hole and with a loud wail, one of the great head inquisitor¡¯s arms disappeared.


    That was the first time he suffered near irreparable damage. The rules of the dragon ne were once the highest there was. Nailisi¡¯s dragon form was acquired by devouring a true high level golden dragon.


    Once the rules infused within the dragon¡¯s breath were brought to be bear, even his robe would have a hard time withstanding it.


    Saleen gave control of the spell to the level ten Blue Ice Maiden after seeing an opening to be exploited. He mobilized the power of the stars.


    His mental powers were far from enough to sustain a level ten magic spell, but level nine was only enough to severely injure his enemy and was definitely incapable of killing a holy master armed with equipment of such power.


    Saleen red at the great head inquisitor with his Elemental Eye, afraid of getting confused by any of his skills. He chanted, ¡°O¡¯ stars anywhere and everywhere, I call upon you to move fate forward. All gods that work outside of fate shall be cast away by fate...¡±

 Chapter 1109: Divine Tablet Spell (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1109: Divine Tablet Spell (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Star light covered the whole ce. The great head inquisitor felt his body being shackled. Divine arts could be overwhelmed when used against skills of astrologers. What was even more terrifying was that Sika¡¯s javelins came right before him.


    The javelins came swooping down from above. A huge hole appeared on the great head inquisitor¡¯s robe. All the javelins seemed to have changed course at the same time, heading straight for the hole.


    The great head inquisitor was unable to control his body midair, and he was already facing upward. One of his arms was destroyed by the dragon¡¯s breath, putting him in so much pain that he was unable to chant his prayers.


    Semi-godly items wereparatively easy to craft. The Sreeger Ind mages had joined efforts to craft one. The only problem was that its materials were difficult to procure.


    The semi-godly item in the great head inquisitor¡¯s hand turned automatically into a square tablet after it dropped from his hand, stuffing the hole that was burned by the dragon¡¯s breath.


    Six javelins hit the tablet one by one. The javelins broke inch by inch while the great head inquisitor spat blood yet again.


    Sika¡¯s javelins were far inferior to that tablet in terms of materials, but the impact caused by her strength was all transferred to the semi-godly item. The great head inquisitor was too injured to use the semi-godly item properly to absorb the shock. As such, he had to bear all impact from the javelins with his own body. His breath quickly smoothed after he spat blood. He hastily said, ¡°My god, lend me life!¡±


    The square tablet¡¯s size expanded after the line was spoken, blocking the great head inquisitor¡¯s entire body. The unending icicles from the air were unable to hit the great head inquisitor¡¯s body. The dark double from within the great head inquisitor¡¯s robe appeared once again, but in a color as pale as water.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s body went straight into the double¡¯s body. In no time, his arm grew out.


    The star light in the sky dimmed for a bit. The great head inquisitor¡¯s soul did not seep into the double. Instead, it went to summon over a hundred angels, which blew up in the sky.


    When the dazzling white light dissipated, there was only a tall, ferocious dark double left in the air, d in armor. The eyes of that creature shone with purple light, yet the soul of the great head inquisitor was nowhere to be found.


    Saleen slumped to the ground. Having given his all to cast the astrological spell and a level nine magic spell with arge area-of-effect, his level of exhaustion exceeded his body¡¯s tolerance.


    Sika felt rather worn as well. She had a broken semi-godly item with little more than sixmon javelins. The outburst of power made her incapable of searching the whereabouts of the great head inquisitor¡¯s soul.


    The crisis was not over yet. The dark double simply hovered in midair. The purple eyes in its sockets began to spin slowly, locking its gaze on the people on the ground.


    Nailisi¡¯s golden dragon form wiggled on the ground and transformed into a devil. She dared not take her skeleton king form haphazardly. Her skeleton king form was having a feud with the Winged Skull. It seemed inappropriate to use now. It was unable to reach perfection before devouring more king level ones.


    She still did not have any certainty of being able to take on the monster in the air even after taking her devil form. She saw Nichs had greedily taken the souls of the 12 adjudicators with his Scepter of the Fallen. The severely injured adjudicators were unable to fight against the attack of the fallen holy master.


    Nichs still wanted to search the adjudicators¡¯ bodies for equipment after he was done bagging their souls. There was only one power left in his scepter. If he were to fight, he needed a new weapon. He regretted not crafting more equipment for himself and thought the Scepter of the Fallen would have been enough.


    Nailisi took Nichs up by the neck from behind while her other three arms took Sika and the two golden grand swordmasters. She swiped herrge tail in a hurry and coiled around Saleen, running toward the altar. She knew that Saleen would be angry even if there was one of their people left behind. She usually kept her tail concealed since it took quite an effort to control it. If it had not been for the Starline Armament having tremendously high defensive powers, Saleen would have had bones broken from being coiled up by such arge tail.


    All 36 Blue Ice Maidens that he had summoned took to the sky while the level 10 elemental creature leader returned to the badge. Having forced herself to attack a level 10 holy master and suffering a recoil made it very hard for her to maintain a stable form. Her elemental core would be wrecked if she did not return to the badge to recuperate in time.


    The dark double held the huge square tablet up and brought it down hard on the ground. All 36 elemental creatures were thrown in the air and hit by a specter with a diameter of over 900 feet, crushing them all at the same time.


    Those elemental creatures had grown rather weak after providing Saleen with elemental powers. The dark double had no concerns for recoil and worked the semi-godly item with all its might. Not even the elemental cores of the 36 Blue Ice Maiden was able to escape.


    But, the obstacle had depleted more than half of the semi-godly item¡¯s energy, making such an attack impossible to be pulled again. The dark double rushed at the ground and saw Nailisi fleeing for the altar with five people in tow.


    The battle at the altar was almost done. Casualties could be seen among the golden-armored knights. At the side of the demons, only the two supreme demons were seen taking a handful of surviving demons running all over the ce.


    Nailisi passed through the altar and went straight into the purgatory of the fallen hidden behind the altar.


    The dark doublended on the ground and headed straight for the altar. Don, who had been hiding beside a dead body, finally found the chance to strike. Golden energy burst from his God-hunting Spear, which struck the head of the dark double. His speed and skill were brought to bear with that one attack.


    While the dark double¡¯s powers were formidable and had been infused with most of the great head inquisitor¡¯s energies, it was still no match to Don, who was a veteran knight in terms of close-quartersbat.


    Don¡¯s God-hunting Spear circled the square tablet¡¯s block eerily and went straight into the dark double¡¯s head, which blew up.


    The dark double¡¯s square tablet rammed hard on Don¡¯s spear. He felt as if he was about to stop breathing altogether, like death was within an inch of him. He was sent flying more than 300 feet, crashing hard onto a rock. The spear left his hand.


    The God-hunting Spear was far superior to the tablet in terms of material quality. Unfortunately, Don¡¯s strength wascking whenpared to the dark double. It spoke volumes of his skill to be hit by the tablet and still survive.


    Most of the impact was absorbed by the spear. Don was left with enough to pant. Unable to retaliate, he sighed. There was nothing he could do if Saleen proved incapable of surviving the ordeal.


    He brought a devastating skill to bear after hiding for so long, yet he was still unable to kill that dark double. If Saleen died, that scaly creature would never let him off easily. Don was not afraid of death, it was just that it felt vexing to die before aplishing what he wanted to do.


    The dark double wiggled its shoulders, attempting to grow a new head after having its head blown up being hit by the spear. However, the pure power of the spear itself proved adequate to suppress the attempt. The head was unable to grow out.


    The dark double stopped caring about its head since it did not need eyes to see. It went up the altar in great strides. The golden-armored knights chasing after the demons all knew what was happening and lost all intention to fight.


    When Nailisi streaked past them, none of the knights bothered lifting a finger against her.


    With the great head inquisitor gone, the golden-armored knights began to want to leave. Given that the dark double was still around, it was anyone¡¯s guess what punishments would have awaited them back home if they were to simply run away.


    The dark double walked onto the altar guided by instinct after losing its head, attempting to chase after Nailisi and the others. The 24 chains hiding within the mistshed out at it as soon as it went onto the altar, dragging it into the purgatory of the fallen.


    Nailisi could be seen panting in the purgatory. She returned to her imp form after putting everyone around her down.


    The purgatory of the fallen looked prosperous and peaceful. The dark double, which was dragged in by the Shackles of the Fallen, was hoisted to the altar floating in the air. The Shackles of the Fallen sealed its powers and began to slowly absorb it.


    The dark double had sustained severe injuries and totally lost the ability to fight back.


    Saleen lifted his head to look at the sky. The purgatory of the fallen was only 36 miles high. His Elemental Eye was able to see every single corner of the ce.


    The Shackles of the Fallen prated the dark double and shackled it at the center of that altar. Nailisi¡¯s double opened its eyes and observed the internal energy structure of the dark double.


    It was a pity that the Shackles of the Fallen were incapable of leaving the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Otherwise, it would have be a powerful offensive equipment. If the dark double had not lost its head, it would have been difficult to get it near the range of the chains since the Shackles of the Fallen was unable to go far.


    Saleen recovered for a bit and saw Nichs began to breathe regrly. He asked, ¡°Nichs, who was that old fellow?¡±


    Saleen was unable to kill the great head inquisitor despite giving his all. Not even the lightning bolt from his family badge or the attacks of his Thunder Dragon ster proved adequate in prating his enemy¡¯s defenses. No figure like that would have gone unnoticed within the Holy See.


    ¡°He¡¯s the great head inquisitor. I only saw him once when I was young. Damn, I never knew he was that strong...¡± Nichs was impressed with what he had done.


    He was unable to tell that they were fighting the great head inquisitor from looks alone. When the great head inquisitor brought the Divine Skull to bear, he finally recalled who that old man was.


    ¡°Great head inquisitor, huh. It¡¯s too bad we didn¡¯t get to kill him,¡± Saleen said in a rather regretful manner.


    ¡°My liege, it¡¯s lucky enough that none of us died fighting him.¡± Nichs let out a bitter smile. ¡°The great head inquisitor had three godly items. While those items were not as powerful as the ones held by the pope, which would have suffered a huge reduction in powers when separated, they did note in a set. If every single one of those items were to be used at full power, we wouldn¡¯t even have the chance to run.¡±


    ¡°So, why didn¡¯t the final attack kill him?¡± Saleen asked in a vexed manner. He had unleashed all of his strongest attacks and was still unable to kill the great head inquisitor. The Holy See was a little too powerful.


    ¡°The Divine Tablet spell,¡± Nichs said. ¡°I¡¯m sure the great head inquisitor had one.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a Divine Tablet?¡± Saleen asked.


    Nichs pondered for a bit and said, ¡°Well, my liege, you do know the spirits, right?¡±


    Saleen nodded.


    Nichs continued, ¡°Spirits are capable of entering the bodies of any creature and taking said creature¡¯s form. They are able to possess other creatures as well. The Divine Tablet spell is something simr, but it¡¯s very brutal.¡±

 Chapter 1110: Divine Tablet Spell (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1110: Divine Tablet Spell (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen patiently waited for Nichs¡¯ illustration. The old fallen holy master looked rather lost. While he had been elevated after bing a level nine holy master, he was still able to hearparative secretive things going about.


    ording to convention, there was no way he, as someone from the Pivotal Council, would havee into contact with the Tribunal. However, due to his rather awkward status in the Pivotal Council, there were many from the Tribunal trying to have him on their side.


    As time passed, he came to know a lot about the Tribunal. The Divine Tablet spell was not known outside the Tribunal, but it was not a big deal within the ranks of the Tribunal.


    The Tribunal had too many brutal things going about them. The Divine Tablet spell looked rather odd inparison. As a skill for keeping oneself alive, the spell would have taken a very long time to work and was costly, making it a spell easy to know about but hard to use. Only someone at the level of the great head inquisitor could have afforded to use a century to nurture a Divine Tablet.


    ¡°My liege, if a human soul were to enter another body, it would have done a lot of damage to said soul, especially in the case of holy master,¡± Nichs said. ¡°They could have lost the blessings of their gods.¡±


    Saleen nodded to indicate he understood. From the perspective of the gods, if a human were to switch their souls about, it would have amounted to sacrilege. If a human were to know too much about the secrets of the soul, who would believe what the gods preached?


    ¡°The Divine Tablet spell was done by selecting a female adherent to conceive a divine fetus with...¡± Nichs did not go deep into the details in this department since the selection process hardly mattered. It did not even matter if the selected adherent was against it or not.


    ¡°After the divine fetus was conceived with said female adherent, the one to cast the divine spell was to extract a sliver of their soul and cast it into the divine fetus,¡± Nichs said. ¡°This was a dangerous and easy-to-fail process. If the process were to fail, said sliver of soul would fall and continuously devour the female adherent¡¯s soul to grow during the incubation period.¡±


    Everyone suppressed the icky feeling in them and continued to hear Nichs¡¯ illustration.


    ¡°Even if the spell were to seed, that sliver of soul would have absorbed the soul of the mother to grow regardless. When the divine fetus was finally born, that female adherent would have turned into a total retardate.¡±


    Boom!


    A rumble was heard, but it was the sound of Sika regaining some of her strength and punching the ground. Everyone was startled by the power of her punch.


    ¡°Those b*stards!¡± Sika was not Nailisi. She hardly scolded or cursed anyone, but such a simple line was the best she was able toe up with.


    Nichs stopped. No one smiled. Sika¡¯s punch made the pent-up emotions within everyone erupt. The Divine Tablet spell was so evil that it made professionals, who were used to killing, feeling queasy.


    ¡°The birth of the divine fetus became a Divine Tablet in itself,¡± Nichs said. ¡°If the tablet were to grow further, it would have required female adherents to nurture. Any woman who was not of the faith was not allowed to even feed the divine fetus. Furthermore, the divine fetus would not have any siblings, so any women who would feed it, the other children...¡±


    Nichs grew reluctant to borate the details. He had thought something like that to be little more than an idea. Seeing how the great head inquisitor was able to escape the power of the stars, he was convinced that it was none other than the Divine Tablet spell at work.


    ¡°Go on. Keep your point on the limitations and weaknesses of the spell.¡± Saleen wanted to hear the rest. The Divine Tablet spell was not just a diving spell used to keep oneself alive in dire situations.


    ¡°As you wish, my liege,¡± Nichs said. ¡°Speaking of the probabilities, it would require the sacrifice of over a thousand people to nurture a divine fetus for the spell. When the Divine Tablet was matured, it needed to be stored within a sealed equipment, with the only contact with the outside world being the Great Divine Tablet Rune Charm Array. If said array were to be activated and the soul of its master was unable to return to the fetus, the fetus would grow on its own.¡±


    ¡°There would probably be no one capable of destroying that Divine Tablet Fetus, right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Indeed. When the great head inquisitor gave up his body to activate the spell, his soul was immediately returned to the divine fetus used for cing the spell, which meant his soul was right inside the Divine Tablet,¡± Nichs said. ¡°The process is an indestructible one. Furthermore, when a soul enters the Divine Tablet, it isn¡¯t able to restore its power within a short period of time. It would require at least three months to do so.¡±


    ¡°That means we won¡¯t be attacked by the great head inquisitor within theing three months,¡± Saleenmented.


    ¡°Indeed, my liege, but the Tribunal still has the second and third head inquisitor avable,¡± Nichs said. ¡°The powers of those two are far above the ones right outside Daliang City, and their gear...¡±


    Saleen came to understand. It was impossible to destroy the Divine Tablet when the skill waspleted. The great head inquisitor had returned to the Tribunal. The skill was indeed a powerful one.


    Inparison to that, his own Figure of Fate was the true skill to keep oneself alive. While the figure was destroyed by a dark prophecy spell, it hardly bothered Saleen. The spell wasparative easy to deal with so long as he had the Star Gathering Needle with him.


    What made the Divine Tablet spell more powerful than the Figure of Fate was that it enabled a soul to return to a designated point instantly to evade danger. While his Figure of Fate was able to take hits for him, he would have still been within the range of attack after the attack was executed, unable to immediately leave the battlefield.


    ¡°Nichs, tell us everything you know about the Tribunal!¡± Nailisi felt her double had gainedplete control of the dark double, so they were no longer threatened. She began to tell the old fallen holy master to hurry up.


    She was very irked by Nichs. He was acting very greedy just moments ago, searching for equipment on the dead adjudicators while his neck was on the line.


    Nichs smiled bitterly and said, ¡°My liege, the Divine Tablet spell was not that much of a secret in the Tribunal. Many knew it but were unable to afford doing it. The great head inquisitor had been in charge of the Tribunal for too long, which was why it waspletely normal for him to be able toplete the spell. No other person would have been able to do so. The second and third head inquisitors are newly appointed people. I know little of their skills. One thing is certain, both have a right to a piece of equipment equal to the rank of godly items. I don¡¯t know if the great head inquisitor has given them their gear.¡±


    ¡°Assuming he gave them their gear, what would that be?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°The Tribunal had six godly items, the powers of which paled only inparison to the three held by the pope,¡± Nichs said. ¡°The great head inquisitor had the Armageddon Codex, the Divine Skull, and Purgatory Holy Mountain. The second head inquisitor might get the Eternal Fire while the third, Wings of Heaven.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t there one more?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°The remaining one rests in the hands of the head warden of ck Dungeon,¡± Nichs said. ¡°Nobody knows what that is.¡±


    Six head inquisitors and only three of them had godly items. Saleen came to a decision. The two supreme demons had also escaped into the purgatory of the fallen with the demons. The altar in the air made the demons shudder. They all hid behind Nailisi.


    ¡°What about the remaining two head inquisitors?¡± Saleen asked. ¡°What are their powers like?¡±


    ¡°My liege, in theory, both the second and third would be inferior to the great head inquisitor in terms of power, even with their powersbined,¡± Nichs said. ¡°But, both of them would never act alone like the great head inquisitor. He was simply too sure of himself...¡±


    Nichs was beating around the bush with his words, but he was not wrong. If the great head inquisitor had brought ample help instead of just 12 adjudicators, the oue of the previous battle would have been hard to tell.


    The death of the 12 adjudicators was closely linked to the great head inquisitor¡¯s skill. Nichs alone would not have been able to kill those adjudicators. Even if the adjudicators were just professionals forcefully brought up to level nine, a veteran level nine holy master like him would not have been able to take all of them down.


    Nichs had simply gotten lucky, and he dared not boast. So, he borated on that weakness to Saleen in a roundabout manner. That meant that within a certain vicinity, Saleen would not be able to summon elemental creatures and even his greatest power would be limited. The number of star figures he was able to control was still low, and their powers were weaker than those of the level nine holy masters¡¯.


    It required time to raise their powers. However, the longer the matter got drawn out, the greater the number of powerful ones from the Tribunal showing up. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, it was a bad idea to simply keep buying time.


    The other two head inquisitors woulde looking for trouble with Saleen soon enough after the great head inquisitor returned with clipped wings. Furthermore, the great head inquisitor had learned of all Saleen¡¯s tricks, which meant there was no way the second and third head inquisitor would fall for them.


    ¡°How long would you all need to recuperate before you can fight again?¡± Saleen was only able to ask the most realistic question at the moment. Everyone had been under the influence of the great head inquisitor¡¯s dark prophecy spell, diminishing theirbat capacity.


    Sika rather glumly said, ¡°Saleen, my weapon is contaminated. It would need about half a month to restore, longer than I expect it to be.¡±


    J and Sul were just as frustrated. They were attacked by the dark prophecy spell before they were even able to fight anyone. The prophecy spell type attacks were capable of suppressing anything of lower levels. ¡°My liege, even if you¡¯re in no hurry, we¡¯d still need two weeks to rest.¡±


    Nichs said, ¡°My liege, it¡¯s best to rest for a few more days. J and the others will suffer diminished lifespan. I¡¯ll need to dispel it gradually with lesser prophecy spells. That¡¯s the power of a curse after all, so it¡¯s best that we exercise caution.¡±


    Nailisi added, ¡°Master, better listen to them. I can still keep everyone safe for the moment. No harm woulde to any of us here. The Tribunal will choose to block us from the front instead of tailing us.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s Eleanor?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m here, my liege.¡± Eleanor was seen dragging Don, who was all bloodied, into the purgatory of the fallen. Its portal remained open, but Nailisi was not worried about any of the golden-armored knightsing in. While she was unable to take on over a hundred of them outside, if they were to make it inside, she would have been able to take on a wholepany of them.


    Don felt d to see Saleen and the rest of the party alive. There was no way he would have been able to bring the Tribunal down even if he was able toe back alive.


    If Saleen were to die, he had no idea what he would have done. He might have just brought the God-hunting Spear with him to keep killing important figures within the Holy See, in all territory under the Holy See¡¯s control, until he was surrounded by the adjudicators of the Tribunal, fighting to his death.


    ¡°What about the knights?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°They¡¯re gone,¡± Eleanor said. ¡°I can¡¯t keep them here on my own.¡±


    ¡°Gone, huh... It¡¯s best that we leave too. We can¡¯t stay there for too long,¡± Saleen said and opened a magic map. Pointing to a river at the west, he added, ¡°We¡¯ll move south and cross the river to the area under Cloudflow control.¡±

 Chapter 1111: Following（Part 1）

    <h4>Chapter 1111: Following£¨Part 1£©</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen decided to cross the Red River to Cloudflow-controlled territory.


    A level 11 divine spell had plunged thebat capacities of everyone around Saleen to rock bottom. Saleen had no intentions of acting on impulse and running into the other two head inquisitors.


    But Saleen did not know that the head inquisitors were at the south of the Red River, negotiating with the Cloudflow people.


    Nailisi put her 12 Notes of First Purgatory away and dispatched two supreme demons to look for the Crystal Skull that Saleen¡¯s family badge had thrown. However, the group was unable to find the godly item even after searching for hours.


    Saleen dared not stay any longer. He saw no other option but to head south and make for the south of Titan.


    The Titan Duchy consisted mostly of mountains, with the nds concentrated in the west. The Red River was peculiar. The source of the river was less than 200 miles from the sea, but it flowed eastward into the center of the mountains, before splitting into two streams.


    One flowed to Separation Sea, making it an ind river, and the other flowed to Cloudflow, cutting through the nation and flowing into the sea.


    The river that Saleen was about to cross was the ind river flowing to Separation Sea. The one that flowed towards Cloudflow was known as the Red River, also known as the Chishui River.


    There were not any golden-armored knights harassing them along the way, which eased Saleen quite a bit. While everyone else sustained injuries that were quite severe, Saleen himself was simply worn out and had not sustained any serious damage.


    Nailisi¡¯s forms were all in top fighting shape, so there was no worry of attacks from magic beasts.


    Saleen had also crudely infused with some power of faith into Eleanor¡¯s Seven Nights longbow, which enabled it to use skills. Mages were reluctant to use the power of faith like that, but for elves, such power was purer than the power of life.


    The power of faith of adherents was, after all, essence coalesced by giving their lives.


    The terrain gradually turned t. Nailisi summoned even more demons and had them serve as escorts. Eleanor kept to the skies and monitored everything below.


    Saleen chose a valley and had everyone take a break.


    ¡°We¡¯ll stay here to recuperate for half a month before moving forward. We¡¯ll stop going by foot; we¡¯ll head straight for our destination through the river instead.


    ¡°Through the river?¡± Don was the only one who did not get what Saleen meant.


    ¡°Indeed. The river is rather deep, about 20 meters deep. Traveling along its depths will be easier than going onnd. I¡¯ll craft equipment for theing two weeks, allowing everyone to move underwater.¡±


    A river with a depth of 20 meters was definitely not shallow. The Holy See had quite a number of bird-type magic beasts, which made it easy for them to monitor their territories. Saleen¡¯s party would be easily discovered if they made their journey by foot, which would lead them to sh with powerful ones from the Tribunal.


    It would be fine if they were still in Qin territory, but the ce they were in was filled with people from the Holy See. If they were to sustain damage, it would make escape very difficult.


    Saleen also needed the break to buy some time for repairing his Figure of Fate.


    His fight with the great head inquisitor had onlysted a couple of minutes, but it exhausted all of Saleen¡¯s tricks. If it had not been for the Figure of Fate, Saleen would have died.


    Dark prophecy spells were not divine arts in a conventional sense. Such spells were capable of ignoring most defensive equipment and hit the intended target. Saleen¡¯s Figure of Fate was crafted personally by Gaine. The materials used for its crafting exceeded the ones used for crafting the Starline Armament.


    Saleen distributedrge numbers of alchemy crossbows to the demons. The crossbows were all medium-sized, and humans were only able to use them by mounting them on chariots. However, it was man-portable in the hands of the demons.


    The purple-gold solutions that Saleen carried with him were given to the demons to apply on their own. Bolts with the solution applied would enable them to prate most armor and magical equipment. The weapons were just as lethal to holy masters¡¯ equipment.


    The demons set up defenses all over the valley, while Saleen had the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers build a stone house in the middle.


    Saleen summoned his Figure of Fate. The figure sat before Saleen, identical to him in almost every way. The figure was naked, and there were harrowing injuries all over it, which split it into eight parts.


    If it had not been for the remaining power of the stars holding the pieces together, the Figure of Fate would be mere fragments.


    Saleen took out his level 19 Star Gathering Needle and began sewing up the damaged parts of the figure. The gashes were pitch ck, a sign of lingering powers of the dark prophecy spell.


    The ck energy was gradually absorbed, destroyed, and dissipated as the needle was put to work.


    Saleen rested for an hour. The potent powers of the dark prophecy spell had Saleen on high alert. If any of the ck energiestched onto him, his resulting injuries would be more severe than those of his people.


    If he had to resort to using magical means to dispel the dark prophecy spell instead of the Star Gathering Needle, it was anyone¡¯s guess how long it would take. The difference in level could only be bridged by using equipment.


    Saleen¡¯s current level of mental powers had been expanded more than ten times, yet it would take him a week to repair the Figure of Fate. He had no means of using greater constetion powers.


    If it had not been for the fact that the needle was of sufficient level, as well as the fact that the level 19 needle had an eerie trait of being able to use certain power of rules, there would be little Saleen could do.


    Of course, he could go to Gaine to get the Figure of Fate repaired. However, the time used for making a trip to the Imperial City of the Abyss and back would far exceed the time required using the level 19 Star Gathering Needle.


    The valley was quiet for six days. No enemies approached them. Saleen took to the skies every day to scan with his Elemental Eye. If anything peculiar was found within a hundred miles radius, he would have to move immediately.


    Saleen inquired about his followers. Both Sul and J required continued healing. Nichs had also gotten very worn out having to dispel the damage of the dark prophecy spell for both of them with his lesser prophecy spell every day.


    It was fortunate that he had taken the opportunity to absorb the souls of the 12 adjudicators, which prevented the power of his Scepter of the Fallen from plummeting.


    Sika was still in her best condition; it was her weapon that was tainted, but she suffered no damage. The magic beast soul in her weapon had taken the beating in her ce. Furthermore, a magic beast soul had special properties that made them different from normal souls.


    The curse properties of the dark prophecy spell were unable to be used on the magic beast soul. However, the soul was encased by a tainted weapon, preventing it from providing more power to Sika.


    Don suffered external injuries, which were gradually healed using Saleen¡¯s magic liquid. Nichs refused to heal him, as Don¡¯s injuries would leave no permanent damage.


    J and Sul, on the other hand, required thorough healing without cutting down their lifespan, which proved to be very tricky.


    Saleen could not sit idly by. J and Sul needed at least another eight days to heal. He took the time to craft needed equipment.


    Saleen took out a 15 meter-long thunder dragon hide. The thunder dragon hide was aplete piece. All Saleen needed to do was simply to craft several spaces within, enabling him and his people to stay within.


    He used the hide to wrap a bone structure. Saleen had looked into theplete bone structure of the thunder dragons, so it proved to be an easy feat. The ones that he had studied had ws, so Saleen added ws outside the hide, enabling the equipment to move by crawling.


    All of that proved to be the simplest tasks at hand. The only notable thing he created was the starlines etched on the thunder dragon hide.


    The addition of starlines enabled the giant snake-like equipment to be difficult to detect using divine arts.


    Saleen needed to craft quite a number of equipment. The semi-godly item left behind by the dark double, the square shield, was made into a shield suitable for Nailisi. The shield was adjustable in size. Needless to say, its defensive properties were formidable.


    High-frequency level nine magic attacks were unable to scratch or dent the shield.


    There were quite a lot of issues to look into. Saleen found that it was difficult to use the elemental badges within area-of-effect territories. His Starline Bangle, on the other hand, was unaffected.


    The levels of the elemental badges were rather low, but they proved essential. As long as the elemental creatures were still around, the magic powers avable to Saleen would grow by several times.


    For instance, arge scale Icicle spell. Saleen was able to freeze and produce more than 3000 icicles with the help of the elemental creatures, enabling him to attack in tens of rounds.


    His Thunder Dragon ster was entirely unaffected, and territorial skills were not able to seal his Eye of Lightning. Saleen knew that if he were able to craft a sufficient number of Thunder Dragon sters and put them in his Starline Bangle, hisbat capacity would increase over a dozen times.


    However, the windpipe of a thunder dragon was required for crafting a Thunder Dragon ster. A thunder dragon only had one windpipe, and it was unthinkable for Saleen to kill the one sleeping within his ne.


    His level was too low. Saleen knew that appraisal sounded rather ridiculous, as there were not that many mages at the pinnacle of level nine all over the maind.


    While there were quite a number of mages who were forcefully advanced to level nine, less than one percent of them were capable of fighting him on an equal footing.


    However, if Saleen did advance to level ten, he would only be able to rely on his Figure of Fate to fight prophecy spells. He had no other way of resisting such attacks.


    Saleen felt the frustration brought by level difference once again. He had anticipated having quite a bit of time after advancing to level nine to add to his knowledge. From the looks of things, however, he needed to think of ways to advance.


    There was no way he would be able to continue making copies of the Thunder Dragon ster. Lightning magic patterns seemed to be a good choice for dealing with high-level holy masters. Nailisi did not use Lightning Protection, yet her lifespan was unharmed by the dark prophecy spell.


    While the bloodline of the luoluokaluo was formidable, there was also the fact that Nailisi¡¯s own constitution had been altered by the skill: Lightning Protection.


    Saleen felt that hecked attack powers, so he called for Eleanor. ¡°I intend to bestow you with a skill to heighten your archery skills, but it might slow down your advancement.¡±


    Eleanor asked in a puzzled manner, ¡°Saleen, you¡¯ve always wanted to advance as fast as me, but why...¡±


    ¡°My hands are forced. You¡¯re the only one who is versed in ranged attacks, and your skills... are difficult to pull off in an area-of-effect territory. Hand me your bow.¡±


    Eleanor handed her Seven Nights to Saleen without hesitation. He took it and caressed it. While the longbow reached the level of a godly item, itcked a spirit, which made it exhausting to use.


    ¡°Eleanor, do you wish to... follow me forever?¡± Saleen asked.


    Eleanor blushed for a bit, even though she knew Saleen did not mean it that way.


    ¡°My liege, I would follow you till my life ends.¡±


    ¡°No, what I mean is that after my death, you are to continue following my children and protect them.¡± Saleen¡¯s face turned solemn.

 Chapter 1112: Following (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1112: Following (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor was stunned. What Saleen required was an entirely different contract instead of a branch of the follower¡¯s contract.


    ¡°My liege, do you...not trust me?¡± Eleanor¡¯s expression did not look good. Furthermore, it was a request that was specifically for her.


    ¡°Eleanor, what I¡¯m about to teach you is something that not even my student has learned. It is the only skill unique to the Myers Maind ne¡ªlightning rules. What I would be teaching is more than just magic patterns or chants. It is the root mechanism behind the magic. I would be teaching you everything I know. It is not that I do not trust you, but you have to realize what it means for me to teach you all of it.¡±


    Eleanor¡¯s rtionship with Saleen grew even closer, making her equal to Truman. While Truman was hardly around Saleen, he would one day be a very important person to him.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to teach me your lightning skills?¡± Eleanor asked in disbelief, so much so that she simply asked the question without bothering with formality.


    ¡°Indeed. As such, I need to set up a reasonable contract. You will still be my follower, but you shall swear fealty to the bloodline of the Metatrin family. After I die, you shall be an elder of a different surname to my family.¡±


    ¡°Why me?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a royal elf and live a very long life. Regardless of how powerful I be, if there are contracts that I¡¯m unable to fulfill, I¡¯ll quickly end up dead.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, the Tribunal isn¡¯t that terrifying...¡±


    ¡°Eleanor, will you do it?¡±


    Eleanor looked at her liege, a mage who was less than one-tenth of her age. The expression of Saleen¡¯s face did not change.


    After he died, Eleanor¡¯s bonds would not be as severe as they used to be. While she had to look after his children per the contract, Eleanor would be an elder to the Metatrin family and wield considerable power.


    From then on out, her interests would be intertwined with the Metatrin family for as long as she lived.


    ¡°Saleen, there are few elves who are pure mages like me, but I...I¡¯m unable to resist the temptation of the lightning rules.¡± Eleanor smiled. ¡°From here on out, I shall be named Eleanor Metatrin. I shall relinquish my elvish surname and all power and interests of my original family.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s sign the contract.¡± Saleen took out the contract that he had prepared. The contract was drafted with the best starline cloth that Gaine had presented to Saleen, which could be used to craft figures of the highest grade.


    Eleanor read the contract seriously. It was written in magic script and was very specific. There were no loopholes to be exploited, which meant that it was devoid of traps.


    Eleanor left a soul brand on the contract, and Saleen did the same.


    The contract was reduced to ashes in a flurry of starlight. A clear brand was left deep on both their souls. Even if their souls were purified or evolved, there was no way they would be able to be stripped of it.


    At least until one of the two entered a higher crystal wall system.


    Saleen attempted to share senses with Eleanor. Saleen used to keep sharing as short as possible with Eleanor and his other followers, as it ced a great toll on mental powers on both parties.


    If he was unable to maintain it and the sharing was prolonged, the one he shared senses with would be exhausted of their mental powers.


    Saleen did not cut the sharing so easily this time. The new contract allowed their souls tomunicate more easily. While the connection paled inparison to Nailisi and the Winged Skull, it would be able to easilyst a short battle.


    ¡°My liege, as I¡¯ve be a member of the Metatrin family, please allow me to show you my original appearance. Eleanor unbuttoned her shirt, and an elf wearing a green robe walked out of her robe.


    Saleen gasped. Saleen had trouble digesting Eleanor¡¯s appearance for a moment. What he found even more surprising was that the human body remained right behind her true form!


    Eleanor smiled and returned to her human body. The elf that he saw was just an illusion.


    ¡°My liege, I possess two bodies with one souls.¡±


    ¡°How did you manage to do that?¡± Saleen found his voice was hoarse. While the elf might not have been perfect, in the perspective of a mage, every single detail of Eleanor had achieved bnce.


    ¡°Royal elves are able to suppress ghosts because of such an ability. I was unable to tell you before because I intended to return to the elf ne, my liege. The human body got in the way of me advancing further. But as you already know, I would be unable to go far on human ne without this body.¡±


    Eleanor was right. Saleen still felt rather dazed. It was not that he had never seen beautiful girls. Every single person around him, including the imp that took a human form, were the best-looking on the ne.


    The elf¡¯s appearance seemed to be a skill, capable of mesmerizing people and causing them to like the caster.


    ¡°What is the level of your elf form?¡±


    ¡°Level eight as well. I need to keep bnce, my liege,¡± Eleanor said exasperatedly. It would be easy for her to advance to level nine if she cast the human body aside.


    But if others learned that Saleen had a royal elf by his side, there would be a good number of them that wanted to take her away for research. Not even level ten professionals would pass up on such a temptation.


    Saleen knew that Eleanor was unable to take her original form without ample precautions. She would mesmerize a good number of people within his nation alone. It might even cause a riot in his country.


    ¡°No worries, Eleanor, you um...have it your way.¡± Saleen took out the demon magic book and handed it to Eleanor. ¡°The magic book records everything I know about lightning rules, and there are 3600 lightning runes to it. The magic book also stores six spells of any level and system.¡±


    Saleen had nned to give the book to Eleanorter, but seeing how he and Eleanor were alone, he felt rather antsy.


    Eleanor smiled. Saleen was doing a good job restraining himself. Her original form was considered perfect even back on elf ne. She would not havee running all the way to Myers Maind otherwise.


    ¡°Your highness, may Ie in?¡±


    Eleanor put the magic book aside after hearing Don¡¯s voice and stood behind Saleen.


    ¡°Come in.¡±


    Don pushed the door open and entered Saleen¡¯s house. He carried the God-hunting Spear on his back and held nothing in his hand. He and Saleen were the furthest apart in terms of rtions, and he did not want to alert anyone else.


    ¡°What is it, Don?¡± Water me hovered before him. It was used to craft equipment, and he was still rather wary of Don. With the Water me standing between them, it would at least guarantee that Don had no way of assaulting him.


    However, that possibility was extremely small. If Don attacked Saleen, he would suffer the consequences per the contract and would die. But ording to what Saleen knew about Don, he gave little thought to his well being.


    Don did not find it strange that Saleen was crafting equipment, since Saleen had been doing it for days. Other than flying and observing if there was anyone getting near them, Saleen spent his time exclusively in that room.


    The temperature of the Water me caused the outside of the room to be full of ice and difficult to approach. Saleen no longer cared to maintain the Water me¡¯s temperature in hopes of speeding up the crafting process. Don felt as if his blood was freezing standing right before the Water me.


    ¡°I require equipment, Your Highness,¡± Don said straightforwardly.


    ¡°Oh? What do you need?¡± Saleen had time to spare. He did not want Sul and J¡¯s injuries to leave any unwanted side effects and would rather stay recuperating for a few more days. Their speed going against the current in the river was not slow.


    ¡°Armor...the demons that Nailisi gave you are all dead. Why do you need armor for?¡± Saleen¡¯s words were pointed, as Don had not been working with the others during the previous battle. He had simply waited somewhere else for a chance to strike.


    ¡°I need 100 sets. I need the armor to be for elites this time, because I don¡¯t want to give them up so easily.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Saleen was surprised. Nailisi was very stingy and if Don had been able to get 100 demons from her, that would mean that Don had bribed her.


    Nailisi took Isabe¡¯s hand inside the purgatory of the devils and asked, ¡°You willing to leave now?¡±


    Isabe remained hiding inside. While she was being put under the immense pressure of the purgatory of the devils, she was unwilling to leave. She was even unwilling to go to the purgatory of the fallen, which would be better on her than where she was now.


    ¡°Nailisi, thank you, but if I went out now, I wouldn¡¯t be able to be of much use to him, and I would probably get in his way.¡±


    ¡°Well, you have a point, but are you at level eight now? If you kept staying in this purgatory, you¡¯ll suffer serious damage. I¡¯ve vented your frustration for you, not that it couldpare to what you¡¯ve been through, but...¡±


    Isabe interrupted her. ¡°Nailisi, I¡¯ll go out. I understand...¡±


    ¡°You still feel vexed?¡± Nailisi asked seriously.


    ¡°I think I get what Don is thinking. He has no intentions of continue living and it would be stupid if I kept feeling sad over it.¡±


    Nailisi took Isabe out of the purgatory of the devils in high spirits. Sacrificing some of her demons was no problem as she had been able to solve a problem for Saleen.


    Inside Saleen¡¯s stone house, Don said to Saleen, ¡°Nailisi allowed me to choose any demon I fancy inside the purgatory of the devils. Isabe was there. I pick a demon and she gets to p me hard. No resistance and healing allowed.


    Saleen noticed that Don¡¯s face looked rather swollen and there were gashes as well. In order to pick his demons, he had been pped 100 times by Isabe.


    While she was still incapable of using skills, she had powersparable to ck metal grand swordmasters. Her strength was formidable even when she was not using sword aura. Don¡¯s face was not capable of self-healing either.


    Saleen had not expected that to be the price that Nailisi had Don pay. ¡°Do you feel vexed when Nailisi did that?¡±

 Chapter 1113: Origin·Crafting (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1113: Origin¡¤Crafting (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Don, you¡¯re not my follower.¡± Saleen said to Don in a polite, roundabout way. If Don was Saleen¡¯s follower and he needed high level equipment, he was weed to ask Saleen, and Saleen would do his best to provide.


    However, Don was but Saleen¡¯s retainer or something like that. The reason he addressed Saleen as ¡®Your Highness¡¯ was solely because he was unable to harm Saleen, per the contents of the contract.


    While followers were required to give away a certain extent of their freedoms, but they had a great deal to get in return as well. Saleen paid close attention to the levels of followers around him, as well as the kind of equipment they required. He would then do his best to provide for them.


    His followers also did not need to think about daily expenditures; Saleen had them all covered.


    For instance, the amount of magic nuclei Saleen provided mages like Isabe and Daniel was over a dozen times more than what he providedmon subordinates. When they were about to advance, he even provided them with magic nuclei and magic towers of high levels.


    Followers were allowed to participate in the affairs of Saleen¡¯s kingdom, essentially making them nobles without titles. They enjoyed absolute immunity.


    If any of the followers were to perish and leave descendants behind, Saleen would keep providing for them, spending a good amount to nurture them into high level professionals.


    Things were different with Don. Saleen could not simply provide Don with extra equipment without concrete reason. The God-hunting Spear was the most Saleen was able to afford him.


    A godly item, even when stripped of its attributes, still made a formidable weapon in the hands of a knight.


    Remaining the power of rules in the godly item as well as its inherent, exceptional durability, was the highest value of the God-hunting Spear.


    ¡°Your Highness, what would you need me to pay for it with?¡± Don did not find Saleen¡¯s reluctance peculiar. Saleen would have no problem providing him withmon equipment without cost.


    But arming a hundred demons, requiring them and the equipment they carry to be up to the standard he required, would be costly. It could be too much to ask even for a follower.


    ¡°What could you pay me with?¡± Saleen asked in return. He knew Don had little to give. A person like that was long dead inside, which made them ill-suited to be a follower. Followers were required to have wants and goals, as well as aspiring to grow and advance with him.


    Don hesitated. What can I pay him with indeed?


    He had nothing. His daughter was not dead when he left the Holy See, and still, the pope could not rest easy with that fact. His weapon was destroyed when he left, which was why he had to get his hands on the God-hunting Spear in the first ce.


    ¡°I know of one ruins...¡±


    ¡°Don, do you know that if we keep getting into ruins, it would take us years before we finish visiting a good amount of them, even if we don¡¯t run into any trouble?¡±


    Don was rendered speechless, but Saleen was right. Saleen did notck information like the whereabouts of ruins.


    While Saleen never told him where they were going to head next, he was able to tell from how the people around Saleen simply followed him about without asking that Saleen was not looking for one or a few ces; he was looking for many of them.


    ¡°I... I know of one ruins, a ruins that belonged to the Lord of Glory. I¡¯ve been to the ne before, and only the leaders of the Heaven Knights knew. It was a secret that had been passed down for over ten thousand years. The pope, the oracles, and the tribunal, none of them knew anything about it.¡±


    While Don was still talking about ruins, it was different. There were many ruins on Myers Maind. So long as one was willing to risk their life, they were free to venture into them. What differed was what they would get out of the ruins.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes narrowed as he smiled.


    Don¡¯s valuey within his identity as a former leader of the Heaven Knights. One would know a lot of secrets in such a position.


    While Nichs seemed to be the more powerful former Holy See person, and might even grow powerful enough to overwhelm Don with Saleen¡¯s help in the future, he had been ostracized in the Holy See. What he got to know was too little.


    Saleen would be able to squeeze whatever Don knew bit by bit.


    ¡°We have a deal then. Tell me, what kind of armor do you need from me?¡±


    Don carefully extended his left hand and picked a strip of skin off of his pinky. He then began to strip it down. Saleen watched Don¡¯s finger being stripped down and soon enough, the finger was gone.


    A diagram was found on Don¡¯s hand.


    ¡°This is the secret of the Heaven Knights. Part of the reason why Theisio kept me alive was to get his hands on these schematics. This thing would be considered precious even to a mage, but I know that this will not be enough to get me your support,¡± Don borated politely.


    Saleen knew that Don was only being polite out of habit. That was how Don worked, so much so that it had be instinct.


    Saleen took the schematics andid it out. Holy light shrouded them, preserving the lines and images on it.


    Saleen found that even his Elemental Eye had trouble looking through the schematics and learning its secrets right away. Furthermore, it rendered his memory magic null, meaning the schematics was something beyond level nine.


    It was drawn by a divine smith. Everyplete Heaven Knights corps had their own divine smiths who all knew the secret of the schematics and would never divulge them to anyone, including the pope. However, the item was kept by the leader of the Heaven Knights.


    Saleen would be able to craft Heaven Knights armor ording to the schematics, as he had the power of faith stored within his Ring of Gifts.


    That was where mages proved more capable than divine smiths. A mage was able to manipte power of faith after reaching a certain level, enabling them to do alchemy. Divine smiths, on the other hand, essentially became cripples when they lost their faith.


    Saleen looked at the list of materials at the bottom corner of the schematics. He had most of the materials with him. A few had to be procured from Metatrin City, and Lex would be able to provide some precious materials as well.


    None of the materials were hard to find. In fact, they were all verymon. Some materials would just take far longer than others to craft. Saleen would be able to read the holy prose and chants, finding energies to substitute the power of faith, if the materials had been readied.


    Constetion power was a viable choice, but the powers within the level 19 Star Gathering Needle were simply too powerful. Saleen dared not use them, as he was afraid of triggering the recoil of the ne. On the other hand, the energies within the level 16 could be used.


    Gaine had intricate nning. The constetion power that he extracted was coincidentally = one that Saleen was able to use. As Saleen¡¯s level grew, the Star Gathering Needle¡¯s seal would gradually be undone.


    However, Saleen used the level 16 needle to mobilize the ancient figures. Saleen would have to rely on the ancient figures in the future. It was ridiculous for him to simply keep going on adventures and rely on his own powers to fight all the time.


    He needed the ancient figures to serve as his army to support a great nation. Only then would he be ready to conquer the world.


    Nailisi¡¯s double in the purgatory of the fallen would probably be able to help.


    Saleen knew deep down that the most troublesome part with crafting Heaven Knight armor was gathering required materials, as well as the time required for crafting them.


    ¡°Leave the schematics with me, Don. When do you wish to get the one hundred suits of Heaven Knight armor?¡± Saleen felt satisfied and asked Don in a pleasant manner. The schematics would serve well to expand his knowledge and thoughts at crafting armor. The Devil Flying Armor could be improved in the future.


    ¡°Your Highness, the armors were meant to be worn by demons...¡±


    ¡°I know that. The cost in materials will far exceed that required for humans, but it¡¯s worth it. Your chosen demons will be ones about to be supreme demons. Once a demon advances to supreme demon, they have powersparable to a human silver grand swordmaster, maybe a tad stronger. The demons will all be elites of the knights corps, so it¡¯s normal that they cost more.¡±


    ¡°Well, in that case, Your Highness, I shall have time in half a year. In the meantime, I¡¯ll train the demons, and they would probably be advancing by the time the armors are ready.¡±


    ¡°That should do it. I will provide you with one hundred sets of Heaven Knight armor. I will embed yours with chlorite, which will enable you to take in divinity and power of faith.¡±


    Don bowed and performed a gesture of respect of the knights.


    ¡°Your Highness, that ce is somewhere that I¡¯m unable to tell by word of mouth. I would need pen and paper for drawing you schematics. You¡¯re free to look at it when you find the time...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not in a hurry, Don. I¡¯ve actually finished working on your armor, but from the looks of things, I need to get you something else. Get on with what you should be doing. I need to study the schematics.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness.¡± Don retreated from Saleen¡¯s stone house and saw Isabe and Nailisi walking at his direction. He made way for the two of them. Tears began rolling down Isabe¡¯s eyes before she even made it into the house.


    ¡°Alright, Isabe, stop crying. It was my fault that I wasn¡¯t able to find you right away. Do you still feel wronged?¡±


    ¡°My liege, I¡¯m simply hoping to heighten my powers as soon as possible.¡± Isabe bit her lip as she blushed.


    Saleen breathed a sigh of relief seeing that Isabe was putting the past behind her. Isabe had not been following him for long, and she spent a long time being in captivity. Saleen feared that the incident would leave asting impact on her, twisting her temperament and making it hard for her to advance.


    Nailisi¡¯s way of dealing with things were rough and unruly, but beating up Don had a cathartic effect on restoring Isabe¡¯s state of mind. Nailisi was smart and was more sensible than she used to be.


    Saleen had been right. Don did not bother hiding he had been pped by Isabe. Nichs and the others would probably share the same thoughts. Nailisi had be a centripetal force of the team, and no one knew how sly she actually was.


    Nailisi was usually feared, so much so that even J was hesitant to cross her, even though she was far prettier than Lex and Sika.


    It was a given that Saleen had been the reason such a brutal, cunning, and greedy demon would stand by Isabe.


    Nailisi consoled Isabe. Saleen thought of having Eleanor learn lightning skills from him, but Sika barged in.


    ¡°Saleen, I need a hand.¡±


    ¡°Need a hand with what?¡±


    ¡°Oh! Excuse us for a bit, you guys.¡± Sika chased the others out. Eleanor and the others had no choice but to leave. It was only then that Sika took out her triangr hollow bone piece. ¡°I need to borrow your constetion powers to work on this thing.¡±


    ¡°Borrow?¡±


    ¡°Yes. What? You¡¯re not telling me you¡¯re reluctant?¡±


    ¡°Not at all, but did you have to kick all of them out?¡±


    ¡°Saleen, we need to do this together. Our souls will be linked during the crafting process, and who knows if you¡¯ll get horny after you¡¯re done.¡±


    ¡°Well... that umm, Sika, you¡¯re right. It¡¯s been quite a while since thest time I got naughty with you. I¡¯ve been damn busy.¡± Saleen grinned as he pulled Sika to his side and caressed her face. ¡°How about we get to the crafting partter, eh?¡±

 Chapter 1114: Origin·Crafting (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1114: Origin¡¤Crafting (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Hell no!¡± Sika refused Saleen¡¯s request firmly, but quickly felt herself being too hard after she spoke. ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m just concerned that you won¡¯t have any strength left for crafting equipment. We¡¯re already half a month behind schedule.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t have any strength left? That¡¯s ridiculous! I¡¯m a level nine sorcerer. Even if I fight a swordmaster up close and personal, there¡¯s no certainty that I¡¯ll lose!¡±


    Sika¡¯s eyes were wide open. ¡°Well how about we have a match in who can take down the house faster then? You take the left and I take the right.¡±


    Saleen was getting rather impatient. ¡°What does this have to do with taking the house down? Thest time we did it, oh yeah, thatst time. Who was the one ended up asking for a break, eh? Was I the one getting exhausted?¡±


    Sika could not help but chuckle. ¡°Alright, Saleen, let¡¯s get the equipment finished. We¡¯ll do it your way after that. And man, you actually dare bring up thatst time. You insisted on testing that mutated water type fossilization or whatever, and you almost got frozen instead.¡±


    Saleen grinned and hugged Sika. ¡°Alright, I was just messing with you. Well then, how do we go about this?¡±


    The stone house had a Mute Enchantment set up. Nailisi came to the front door and took her golden dragon form, then stayed coiled up there, feeling rather frustrated. Master is going at it with Sika again, and they kick me out. But Sika... well, it¡¯s best to not get on her bad side.


    If her master dared do so with other women, she would swallow them alive.


    Saleen and Sika stayed in the stone house for six days. A whole week passed before the Mute Enchantment was dispelled. Nailisi would never train on her own. She simply stayed in her golden dragon form coiled up before the door, spending all six days sleeping.


    When she woke up, she had forgotten what form she had taken. She swiped her tail and took out half of the walls of the huge stone house.


    All the others watched the scene, dumbfounded. They were all looking at the stone house; even Eleanor had gotten curious as to what happened. She was wondering what Saleen and Sika were doing in there, and if the scene would turn out to be awkward.


    Thick water element burst from the rubble. The mist covered half of the valley in an instant. Saleen¡¯s mist would not cloud his followers¡¯ sight. Everyone other than Don was able to see what was at the center of the stone house. Thick starlight gathered at an retro-looking piece of equipment.


    The triangr equipment was no longer a construct of bone. It was covered in lightning magic patterns and between them, constetion power pulsed, as if it was a breathing living being.


    The equipment hovered in the air and both Saleen and Sika circled around it. Complex golden runes shot from Saleen¡¯s eyes, which were etched on the piece of equipment. Green energy shot out from Sika¡¯s eyes. Mystical shapes were hidden within the energy.


    Nailisi turned around in a hurry and took her devil form, looking at Sika¡¯s new equipment, which made her feel threatened. It was a feeling she had when her life was in danger.


    The edge of the triangr thing was smooth. Powerful life force seemed to be imbued within, attempting to escape and devour someone.


    However, Saleen and Sika simply continued to add power to the shell of the equipment. The thing hidden within gradually stopped rampaging. The pulse of constetion power mellowed out as well.


    Sika was only able to let her guard down then. The trouble of her magic beast soul growing too quickly had been settled. If it had not been for Saleen¡¯s help, it would have taken an untold number of years before the equipment was finished.


    Saleen put his hands down. ¡°Let¡¯s name it.¡±


    That triangle in the air shuddered for a bit, then circled around Sika in glee. A melodic sound was heard from the hollowed part of the triangle.


    Saleen sensed everyone¡¯s sight around him. ¡°What are you looking at? Come get your gear!¡±


    Nailisi was the first one to go. Her body shrunk in midair, returning to her imp form. Saleen seemed to understand something when he saw that. Nailisi would have probably been able to advance a long time ago if it had not been for her amodating to his level.


    He finally understood why there had been times where his soul bond with her felt as if it had disappeared.


    ¡°Nothing for you here,¡± Saleen said exasperatedly to Nailisi. He had given her the semi godly item that served as her shield, which was taken from the great head inquisitor. He was in no mood nor had any energy left to craft her more.


    The equipment that Nailisi had on her person was probably second only to that of Saleen. The Grey Memory, the Sword of Rules, and the shield were made of materials above level 13. Saleen had yet to see a weapon as sharp or pointy as the Grey Memory.


    ¡°Hehe... I know, master. I was just checking the stuff out for them,¡± Nailisi looked on as she waited for Saleen to take out the new equipment.


    ¡°Sul,e here.¡± Saleen waved and took out a regr Qin eight-sided sword and handed it to Sul. The sword was a segment shorter than conventional Qin eight-sided swords, which fit Sul¡¯s size perfectly.


    Sul took the sword in his hand and immediately felt it to be different than any weapon he had wielded before. The sword was light, only half as heavy as the short sword that he was using.


    The sword was also capable of holding ten times more sword aura than any piece of equipment he had used before. The greater the amount of energy an equipment was capable of carrying, the longer a warrior would be able to use it. The sword wouldst him at least until level 12.


    Saleen then took out a garment and handed it to Sul. ¡°Your way of the sword is quick and sharp, making heavy armor ill-suited for you. This is a piece of starline cloth armor made specifically for you. You can rest easy with the defense this thing affords you. You won¡¯t lose fighting capacity when you face a holy master or whatever next time.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, my liege.¡± Sul took the armor, wanting to change into it right away, but there were too many women around him at the moment, and it would be rude for him to do so.


    ¡°J.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here. I have Tears, my liege.¡±


    ¡°A pair of braces for you. They should give you some defense against prophecy spell-type divine spells.¡± Saleen handed the braces to J. J was an incredibly versatile warrior, capable of wearing any type of armor.


    He was able to maintainbat capacity even if he wore heavy armor, but Saleen had not nned to craft armor for him.


    J took the braces without saying anything. He put them on his forearms.


    J was unable to do anything against prophecy spells. He had some defense against level nine ones, but the one that hit him aged him by decades.


    The level 11 one that he had to deal with before almost cost him his fighting capacity after he was even caught in the aftershock.


    ¡°Eleanor, this is for you.¡±


    Saleen took out a quiver and handed it to Eleanor. The arrows within were all crafted specifically for her.


    Eleanor took the quiver and drew one arrow out. The lightning magic patterns on it hummed as soon as she clipped it between her fingers.


    ¡°Nice stuff, but just too precious!¡± Eleanor had spent the week learning to memorize. She had developed a rough understanding of lightning rules, but she was still unable to master it. However, she was able to tell how effective the arrow would be in dispelling magic.


    She was still unable to use lightning skills, but she was able to shoot an arrow with offensive lightning effects.


    It was akin to a magic scroll used by mages, adapted to archers.


    Every arrow shot equaled to learning the skill of lightning attacks once, which was the same as a mage unleashing a scroll. Saleen spent most of his focus and energy on the lightning arrows. His foundation in lightning skills was shakyl.


    ¡°Nichs...¡±


    ¡°My liege?¡± Nichs had not expected Saleen to have something for him. Saleen should not have known much about his fallen holy arts after all.


    ¡°I have something for you.¡± Saleen took out a huge scroll. The scroll was nearly a meter long. Nichs struggled to hold it, looking rather awkward.


    ¡°I can¡¯t do much with divine spell scrolls, so I made a nk one instead. You can add skills to it yourselfter.¡±


    Nichs extended his senses to probe the scroll and was overjoyed. While the scroll looked rather awkward in his hands, the material was like no other.


    Saleen used methods not known to Nichs to fill the nk scroll with ample power of faith, which was also perfectly bnced with the power of elements in it.


    It was capable of allowing divine spells to be continuous added and stacked until the scroll was unable to take anymore. The nk could be stored repeatedly with over ten divine spells, which could be cast all at once.


    While it was a one-time-use equipment and troublesome to use, Saleen had provided him with ideas to research further. His divine spells were able to be stored within the Scepter of the Fallen, which could be cast all at once. What it cost him was mental powers.


    Saleen had a piece of equipment capable of enhancing mental powers. While Saleen would definitely not give Nichs something like that, Nichs could make a copy. Saleen¡¯s methods would enable Nichs to enhance his mental powers by two times.


    ¡°Isabe.¡± Saleen smiled warmly.


    ¡°My liege.¡±


    Saleen took out a sharp and pointy metal spear and handed it to Isabe. ¡°You¡¯re equally exceptional in both martial arts and magic. The spear will serve as a magic staff, but also an equipment capable of storing sword aura. This is a set of starline armor. Take it.¡±


    Isabe took the equipment Saleen crafted for her and nodded her thanks. While the things that Saleen had given her seemed to be the mostmon, they were the most suitable for her use.


    Furthermore, she found that the level of the magic nucleus embedded within the short spear was ridiculously high. It wouldst her for a very long time, sparing her the need to switch weaponster.


    ¡°Don...¡±


    Don was stunned. Saleen had him wait, so he did not expect to be getting something so soon.


    ¡°This is your personal Heaven Knight armor. I¡¯ve used special materials to craft it. Defense might becking somewhat, but... you¡¯ll know when you wear it. Here are ten sets of Heaven Knight armor for demons, which all differ somewhat from the schematics you gave me.¡±


    Don took the Heaven Knight armor. One set was incredibly heavy, weighing over 55 pounds. Common mages would probably have a hard time carrying something like that, yet Saleen handed it to him with one arm.


    The set was crafted by Saleen using fragments of the fossilized gods, which was capable of self-repair. Every single set was capable of providing power to another set, which was the basic principle of Heaven Knight armor.


    Saleen recalled the Tribunal came up to grab materials in a frenzy, so he had the epiphany to try the fragments out. The fragments proved to be the ideal material for crafting Heaven Knight armor. There was no need to add anything else to it.


    While it came at the cost of lower defense, when Don led armies consisting of thousands, such equipment would enable arge number of golden grand swordmasters to appear among the ranks of his army.


    It would make them something like the golden-armored knights riding alongside the great head inquisitor.


    Saleen drew a teleportation portal specifically linked to Daliang City after knowing that, writing to Lex to have her gather as many of the fragments as possible.


    Even if she was unable to do so, she would screw up the Tribunal operations as best she could.

 Chapter 1115: Tangling in the Dragonboat (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1115: Tangling in the Dragonboat (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Every single piece of equipment that Saleen crafted for everyone present had magic arrays capable of defending against prophecy spells etched into it. Saleen was considerably relieved after handing his people their equipment.


    At the very least, if they were to run into people from the Tribunal, their enemies would no longer be able to take all of them down with one single skill.


    Saleen had to reflect on his own mistakes as well. If he had put on the mask of his Starline Armament, it would form apleteyer of defense and would be able to somewhat defend against prophecy spells.


    However, his Figure of Fate was damaged because he was used to not wearing his mask.


    The only regret he had was having the house torn down just as he and Sika were about to finish her equipment. It robbed him of his chance to be naughty with Sika, and it was ridiculous for him to repair it just to do so.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± Saleen uttered in a rather dejected tone, and none of his followers knew why.


    Nailisi put away her demons, even the hundred that she gifted to Don. There was little in the valley worth taking, but Saleen still had Nichs cast a fallen divine spell to erase the signs of them having set up camp there.


    Everyone changed into their new equipment and headed north, arriving at a tributary of the Red River.


    The tributary was incredibly rare in how it was able to maintain depth and width despite winding through the mountains, making it seem like it was carved out by humans.


    Saleen took out the dragonboat he made. The underwater boat made from thunder dragon hide was only 18 meters long. It was translucent, and there were more than a dozen individual pockets in it, which served as rooms.


    Saleen and Sika got thergest pocket. The others looked at each other and found their own pockets. The translucent dragonboat sealed itself up after everyone was in.


    The pockets were sealed as liquid filled up outside the pockets. All the upants were high level professionals, and thus, they were able to tell that the pockets were capable of taking in air from the liquid outside for the upants to breathe.


    Eleanor had no idea how Saleen had made it. Isabe, whose level was lower than everyone else, grew very curious.


    Saleen took control of the dragonboat and the mechanical parts began to move without making a sound. Eight ws below the dragonboat pushed away from the ground and began to crawl into the river.


    The dragonboat sank as soon as it entered the river. The ws were only taken out again when it reached the bottom. It began to crawl forward.


    The dragonboat¡¯s crawl felt amusing to the ones in it. The pockets were unstable, and it felt as if they were riding a huge magic beast. The gentle swaying made it feelfortable.


    The appearance of the dragonboat was a piece of shed hide of a thunder dragon. They were special in that they had no scales, turning translucent after being crafted.


    Saleen spent a lot of time filling the inner parts of the dragonboat with restorative water. The pockets were made from the swim dders ofrge fish, originally meant for crafting magic pharmaceuticals.


    Saleen crafted them to be small holds capable of fitting people. The holds were also capable of breaking down gases using restorative water and excreting waste gases.


    Saleen had long thought of such designs and was simply testing them out. It turned out to be a huge sess.


    The dragonboat moved against the flow of the river, relying on the eight mechanical ws beneath for thrust by crawling at the bottom of the river. It was capable of reaching an astounding speed of over 30 miles per hour.


    It exceeded the speed of what a small magic power furnace was capable of producing. However, the special qualities of the thunder dragon hide allowed the dragonboat to move underwater with little resistance.


    Saleen crafted the bone structure ording to the physiology of thunder dragons, making the movements very smooth.


    It was definitely slower to move underwater than to fly. They were moving slower than when they were riding on Nightmares. However, the Red River tributary was incredibly deep. Unless someone observed from a very close distance, it would be very difficult to detect the dragonboat.


    The dragonboat had natural lightning patterns all over it, making it difficult to be detected using prophecy spells.


    It was Saleen¡¯s first time riding in something like this. He would not have dared craft it and put it to use before proper testing if the ones around him were not all powerful professionals.


    He did so only because the river was only about 20 meters deep. The stream¡¯s depth did not exceed 100 meters even back in the nds. If something happened to the dragonboat, it would be easy for them to escape to the surface.


    Saleen held Sika in his arms. He was able to see through the clear waters easily. Manning the dragonboat was a new feeling.


    He was not the only one. Many were admiring their underwater surroundings during the trip.


    There were all sorts of living beings in the tributary of the Red River. Whatever magic beast they encountered werepletely normal given that they were traveling 20 meters deep.


    However, all of the magic beasts were frightened by the thunder dragon¡¯s aura, preventing them from causing trouble for Saleen¡¯s party.


    The dragonboat¡¯s design was exceptional. The only trouble was the inside. No one but Saleen was capable of casting any attacks from within.


    What was more amusing was that fish and magic beasts of higher levels circled around the dragonboat as they traveled, while weaker beings were unable to sense any danger. Some even stuck close to the dragonboat.


    Saleen was in no mood to attack any of the creatures. The dragonboat seemed to move like a living thunder dragon as it made its way upstream.


    ¡°Sika, I really regret crafting this thing transparent.¡±


    Sika pinched Saleen. ¡°Keep those thoughts in check and your eyes forward. Don¡¯t overturn the boat.¡±


    ¡°I can cast Quickcloud and let Nailisi take control of the boat through Sensory Sharing.¡±


    Sika pinched Saleen¡¯s leg again and said with a stiff tone, ¡°Sensory Sharing? What do you intend to share with her?¡±


    Saleen exined exasperatedly, ¡°She¡¯d know anyway. The soul bond...¡±


    ¡°If you do that, I¡¯ll share senses with Nichs and the others. Don¡¯t even think that you¡¯re the only one that knows how to use the skill. Nature priests are capable of connecting thousands of Caucasians at the same time after all.¡±


    Thousands? Saleen surrendered immediately. That would take the joke a little too far!


    ¡°But Sika, if we¡¯re not leaving the river, we need to travel for at least another 7000 miles or so. Even if we go full speed, we¡¯re only able to cover about 700 miles a day, which means we¡¯ll get to our destination in ten days. Ten days could be very boring, and I can¡¯t use Water me in a ce like this.¡±


    ¡°You can talk to me, Saleen. Are you telling me you don¡¯t like that?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I love it. What are we going to talk about then?¡± Saleen abided by Sika¡¯s wishes and asked.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we talk about Lex, then?¡±


    ¡°Lex? What¡¯s there to talk about?¡± Saleen was reluctant to talk about Lex in front of Sika. Women always wanted their men to be their only one, even though many men in this world had two or more women.


    Saleen did not want to boast about Lex in front of Sika and hated the idea of speaking ill of her even more. He had no idea what to talk about even though Sika let him.


    ¡°Saleen, if we were to lose everything, will Lex still stick with us?¡± Sika asked, lying in Saleen¡¯s arms.


    ¡°She would.¡±


    ¡°Why are you so sure about that?¡±


    ¡°Lex is the daughter of Emperor Chanake, and since the emperor gave her a boy¡¯s name, it made it difficult for her to make friends. Who treats her like an equal but us?¡±


    ¡°Heh, well let¡¯s just assume that, in the worst-case scenario, we lose to the Holy See and we have to run, leaving Myers Maind and going to the sea, looking for a ce to survive in the eastern seas. Would Lex give up her kingdom and her nobles?¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit. ¡°I don¡¯t know, Sika. Lex¡¯s not like you. You know what you want. She is shouldering too much and wanting too much as well.¡±


    ¡°Well then, I treat you better than she does, is that it?¡±


    Saleen was silent. While the union between him and Lex felt rather rushed, and it could be little more than a marriage alliance, he knew what Lex felt about him.


    Lex would not have chosen anyone but him. She had no time to talk about rtionships. The only time, however little, that she did so was when she was spending her days with him in the Hell of God¡¯s Punishment.


    It served as a warm reminder in Lex¡¯s life. Even if they had no future, the memory would be enough to console Lex.


    ¡°Yeah, you don¡¯t have to say anything. I know what you¡¯re thinking. You really don¡¯t know how to sweet talk girls, Saleen.¡±


    Saleen did not keep quiet this time. He said rather seriously, ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re the best, Sika. Other than me, you seem to care little about anything else.¡±


    ¡°Finally, some words pleasing to the ear. That¡¯s why they say to never marry a mage. You don¡¯t even know how tofort people.¡±


    Saleen chuckled. Sika might have been strong, but she was still a woman. He lowered his head and breathed at Sika¡¯s ear. Sika flinched. ¡°What was that for?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t keep myself in check anymore.¡± Saleen tried his best to sound less horny, but he felt embarrassed for saying such things in such a ce.


    ¡°You¡¯re their lord!¡±


    ¡°I can control Quickcloud. No one would be able to see through the mist.¡±


    ¡°This is embarrassing, Saleen. If you dare share senses with Nailisi, I¡¯ll turn you into meat pie when I¡¯m done!¡± Sika said rather ferociously, but she was unable to keep up the act for long.


    Saleen was overjoyed. ¡°No need for that. I¡¯ll just get a little busier, keeping the boat controlled while we¡¯re at it!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, why do you want me so much all of a sudden? Are you suffering from some aftereffects of the prophecy spell?¡± While Sika was aroused, she was alerted.


    ¡°Something to do with it, I guess, but the cmity I should have faced was all taken by the Figure of Fate. The world is bnced, so my powers got somewhat stronger. You have no idea that I get so invigorated as ofte that I can¡¯t even sleep. Even if I don¡¯t meditate, the restoration of my mental powers is ridiculously quick.¡± Saleen told her of his troubles, slithering his hand before Sika¡¯s belt as he did.


    He was the one who crafted Sika¡¯s armor. One push and Sika¡¯s armor woulde loose and retract into the belt.


    Sika grinned. ¡°Now I¡¯m starting to think that you crafted the armor for me just for this very day.¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± Saleen replied. His mental powers were so overflowing that he was troubled, as if his veins were about to burst. While his powers had increased, his magic chords did not.


    Saleen even began to have delusions that if he started training in the art of the sword, he would advance to ck metal grand swordmaster right away.


    Sika gave up resisting and let Saleen take off thest of her clothes. It felt very exciting. Ayer of thin mist was all that kept everyone¡¯s sight off them. Saleen cast Water Shield to block off any sound from leaking.


    Then Sika let Saleen get into her. The dragonboat had always been unstable with its movements underwater. Sika sat on Saleen and did not even need to do much. They simply enjoyed the exciting and new way of tangling with each other.

 Chapter 1116: Tangling in the Dragonboat (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1116: Tangling in the Dragonboat (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The dragonboat moved forward a hundred miles and Sika turned around and asked Saleen, ¡°Do you feel it?¡±


    ¡°Feel what?¡± Saleen did not get what she meant.


    ¡°Up in the sky. There¡¯s someone watching us from above.¡±


    Saleen stopped and spread his senses out after she said that, searching the sky discretely. It was like Sika said. A vague form of power was searching from high above.


    Saleen¡¯s senses were very sharp within a mile, and was considerably reduced after that, requiring the use of his Elemental Eye for observation.


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    He lifted his head and his gaze looked past the mist and the Water Shield, searching the sky. A huge bird was flying very high above and moving along the river. It was faster than the dragonboat.


    The bird was about 10 meters long, with a wingspan of 16 meters. Its feathers were devoid of impurities, every feather emitting powerful energy waves.


    Saleen let Sika go and let her put on her armor. He put on her Starline Armament and put on his mask properly.


    ¡°They haven¡¯t found us yet, but there is no telling how long we have to hide.¡± The dragonboat rocked, the currents turning torrential all of a sudden.


    The bottom of the river sank all of a sudden and making the depth drop to over 30 meters. The dragonboat remained moving forward and downward.


    The bird above them elerated and flew farther. Saleen knew that they were no longer in trouble for the moment.


    That bird was a powerful magic beast of at least level nine. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was unable to see past the bird¡¯s body, making it impossible for him to know if there was anyone riding it.


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    He and Sika had been enjoying themselves. The sudden interruption robbed both of them of their mood to continue.


    ¡°I think the Tribunal mobilized their forces to look for us, Sika. It was a mistake not killing the golden-armored knights.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, will they be able to find us.¡±


    ¡°If the river stays this deep, the Tribunal will have a hard time doing so, unless the head inquisitors are able to deduce where we¡¯re going and set up defenses on the shore.¡±


    There was no way for any one of the head inquisitors to know where Saleen was heading. The bird elerated and did not bother to turn around to look for Saleen. The dragonboat elerated in the deep parts of the river and headed west at zing speed.


    ¡°Everyone, look sharp. Anyone who spots any danger lurking is to inform me immediately!¡±


    His voice was heard in every one of the holds, but only Nichs replied, ¡°My liege, that was the third head inquisitor. He definitely summoned powerful flying creatures using the Wings of Heaven to look for us in the sky. If you hadn¡¯t thought of travelling in such a way, they would¡¯ve found us a long time ago.¡±


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    There was no way for anyone on the ground to run when they were being searched from above, but they were traveling underwater.


    Unless the Tribunal had some special skills that enabled them to prate the surface of the water and reach all the way down to the dragonboat, sight and sensory divine arts alone would make it very difficult to spot it.


    Coincidentally, they came across an extremely deep part of the river, which concealed the dragonboat even further, preventing them from being detected by the creature summoned by the Wings of Heaven.


    Saleen found himself very lucky. It was an effect of having his astrological arts reach level nine, and there were indeed mystical changes to his fate.


    While Saleen made the dragonboat incapable of traveling very quickly, it hade to deeper waters when the bird was found in the air. There was no way for him to know what the terrain of that Red River tributary was like.


    Despite all of that seeming to be a coincidence, Saleen calcted things for a bit with astrology and found that he would be able to evade the disaster one way or another.


    The great head inquisitor would definitely hand his equipment and exin its features to the third head inquisitor. If the third head inquisitor was also level ten, it would make it difficult for Saleen to deal with him.


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    He was heading for the source of the Red River, which was like charging into a storm. It would be incredibly dangerous, regardless of the equipment one carried, if one was not aa sufficiently high level.


    There were many mystical tricks avable to the Holy See, such as the skill and equipment employed by the Heaven Knights and unavoidable curses like the dark prophecy spells.


    His luck would stay with him for the time being, if he were to be incapable of taking his fate in his hands and make yet another mistake, his fate would take a turn for the worse. It seemed to follow a pattern.


    The more Saleen came to learn of fate, the less inclined he became to let his guard down.


    ¡°Sika, when will you be able to advance?¡± Saleen asked, rather frustrated.


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s very difficult for nature priests to advance. I¡¯d need a third magic beast soul. The higher the level the better,¡± Sika answered.


    ¡°How far would you be able to advance?¡± Saleen knew little about nature priests. Sika and Saleen did not get to meet often, which meant that they did not get to talk about the subject much.


    ¡°Level nine is only the beginning for a nature priest. We need three powerful magic beast souls to be able to even begin to advance to level ten. If we advance beyond level 12, we need six. But then again, that is my unique route of advancement. I advanced along the path ofbat priest, which made it more difficult, but my power was over a hundred times that ofmon priests.¡±


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    ¡°A hundred times?¡± Saleen was startled. He only knew that Sika was physically strong. Common Caucasian warriors possessed great strength, so it was only natural for priests to be stronger. But Sika is a hundred times stronger thanmon priest! Just what kind of concept is this?


    Sika chuckled. ¡°A hundred times is nothing, Saleen. Ancient humans would exceeded dragons when they reached certain levels. If I made it to level ten, I would no longer fear having to fight anyone up close.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and figured it made sense. Demons were subservient to humans in ancient times. The physicality ofmon demons were urate gauges of how strongmon humans were back then.


    A nature priest who had advanced along the route ofbat priest would eventually exceed ancient humans.


    ¡°Would that bird be enough to serve as your magic beast soul?¡±


    ¡°Definitely not. Its level is too low!¡± Sika was frustrated as well. Her advancement was not too difficult whenpared to mages.


    However, powerful magic beasts were in short supply, and Sika was reluctant to usemon level nine ones, as they would prove insufficient after reaching level 12. Such magic beasts would be no help advancing to level 13. Worse still, it might hold her back.


    ¡°Nichs...¡±


    ¡°What is it, my liege?¡±


    ¡°What is that Wings of Heaven? Why would it be able to summon powerful magic beasts?¡±


    ¡°My liege, the Wings of Heaven has a god serving as its spirit. The third head inquisitor is incapable of using a spirit of such a high level, but he is able to summon magic beasts to fight for him.¡±


    Saleen asked Sika, ¡°would weapon spirits be good enough to serve as magic beast souls?¡±


    Sika licked her lips. Saleen¡¯s question was enticing. However, killing the third head inquisitor did not seem to be an option at the moment.


    ¡°I understand. Let¡¯s keep hiding for now. If we ever run into the third head inquisitor and have to fight him, our goal will be taking the Wings of Heaven and capture the spirit within, making it your magic beast soul!¡±


    ¡°So long as you have the confidence to do so.¡± Sika smiled, relieved. Saleen did not suffer any serious trauma and his confidence was still brimming. While she had be stronger, shecked the Saleen¡¯s psychological state.


    Saleen rubbed Sika¡¯s shoulders. ¡°If I were not confident, we¡¯d all be doomed. Most of us are level nine, but if we run in to a level ten, we wouldn¡¯t get to snuff them out even if we put our lives on the line. You know what my equipment is like. I can easily beat ten level 9s with those.¡±


    The dragonboat crawled along the bottom of the river and covered several hundred miles more. The bottom rose again but the river grew wider. The amount of water in the river was fixed. When the river got shallower, it had to get wider.


    Saleen searched the sky again. While his Elemental Eyecked offensive powers, it enabled Saleen to evade dangers time and again, by enabling him to decide how to go about battles before his enemies approached him.


    Advancement, the only solution to our problems at hand.


    Saleen¡¯s thought became increasingly firm. Metatrin City was safe because his teacher was there to hold down fort. His teacher was level ten and controlled 36 magic towers. The city was virtually impregnable.


    Even if the great head inquisitor sent the Heaven Knights to attack the city, it would still be impossible for him to take it down.


    When Saleen advanced, his astrological arts would advance as well. He would be capable of bringing the fullest extent of the constetion powers to bear, enabling all of his figures and puppets to be level nine. That would make it easy for him tounch assaults with them.


    Ancient humans had lead level nine elites across all nes. Any life form below level nine was deemed too fragile.


    It was proven through J and Sul, who had both became golden grand swordmasters. Their lifespan was the only thing affected when they were hit by the dark prophecy spell. The divine spell that hit them was level 11.


    Less than half of the river was within Titan territory. The mountains were outside Titan jurisdiction. They only belonged to the duchy in name.


    The dragonboat would enter the ins in five days. The river straightened out.


    Saleen rode the dragonboat and evaded the Tribunal¡¯s blockade. They went into Titan and finally arrived at the source of the Red River on the 10th day. The current was too swift further up, so the dragonboat just made it into the mountains before stopping in a deepke.


    A waterfall was right before them. It was several hundred meters tall, and the falling water sounded like thunder.


    Saleen docked the dragonboat and had everyone disembark, before putting it away in his Starline Ring. He took out the magicpass and map, determining where they were at the moment.


    ¡°Our destination is about 400 miles from here. Everyone, take a break.¡± Saleen pointed at a cave near the waterfall. ¡°We won¡¯t build houses this time. There are people from the Tribunal not far from here.¡±


    Everyone followed Saleen into the cave, which was hundreds of meters deep. Moss was everywhere, and there were bugs and snakes as well. Saleen cleaned it up with magic andy down a magic array, covering the entrance of the cave in mist to avoid being discovered.


    It might have been Saleen¡¯s ridiculous good luck that they never encountered danger after entering Titan. They rested for one night in the cave. Two groups from the Tribunal passed by outside, but neither of them found Saleen.


    Saleen found the cave to be a nice ce and modified it before he left, leaving behind a concealed space with magic arrays and coordinate markersid out. The space was unusually stable and from Saleen¡¯s perspective, they could build a teleportation portal there.


    400 miles would takemon folk days to cover. Saleen and the others walked off the beaten path and scaled the mountains instead, moving in a straight line and arriving before arge hole.


    The hole had a diameter of over two miles and dropped straight down. It was covered by mist, so its depth was unknown.


    Saleen¡¯s magicpass no longer worked, but the goddess¡¯ temple would definitely be somewhere down the huge hole.

 Chapter 1117: Hundred Years of Loneliness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1117: Hundred Years of Loneliness (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The hole was called Skywell in Qin. In Cloudflow, it was called Copsed Earth.


    Saleen and the others ventured into the Skywell cautiously. They found that the ce had few dangers when they descended slowly along the edges.


    Magic beasts found within the Skywell were all small, thergest little more than a meter long. There were not many puddles inside the Skywell, which meant that there were underground rivers drawing rainwater away.


    Saleen began using astrology for calctions after the magicpass was rendered useless. While the starlight above could hardly be seen even at night, Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye allowed him to clearly see the power of the stars amidst the clouds, reaching the bottom of the Skywell.


    The starlight showed him the way. While Saleen¡¯s level nine astrology was not that powerful, he was able to roughly deduce where the entrance to the temple was.


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    The margin of error was only about 500 meters. The Skywell was notrge, as it was merely the size of a small city. Peculiar stones littered the ground. Saleen quickly locked on to their coordinates and began testing the ce after taking out the Ring of Gifts.


    He searched within a 500 meters radius. Although slow, the task was not difficult.


    He searched for about half an hour before the ring finally sensed the spot to open the temple.


    There was a crevice there, which wasrge enough to fit Nailisi inside in her devil form. ck mist shrouded the bottom of the crevice, which crackled and burned after Saleen dropped some power of faith on it.


    The ck mist did not dissipate after burning; it turned even thicker, but the toxins within the mist were all burned up by the fire. A path opened up, and Nailisi took her devil form and held onto the Grey Memory, jumping inside before anyone else.


    She had been in such temples many, many times, so she knew any dangers lurking within would be easy to deal with.


    However, her experience would prove to be a downfall formon folk, as she was unable to see the ground even after dropping for over 500 meters. A huge vine slithered from the side and coiled around her leg.


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    Nailisi swiped her Sword of Rules at it, cutting the vine up. The power of the sword was too much for the vine, and it retracted.


    Saleen leapt into the ce with everyone else. His body was covered by Water Shield and lightning danced on its surface, shining light on their surroundings.


    Saleen was exasperated to find another huge hole within the huge hole. The nts in the holeshed out with their vines. What has the Goddess of Nature been doing with the ce? All nt life here has offensive capacitiesparable to high level holy masters.


    Nailisi had nothing to fear with the Sword of Rules in her hand. Saleen had his Water Shield, and the vines were afraid of touching the dancing lightning on the shield.


    Sika and Eleanor had no problem within the environment, as they both possessed powers to control nature. While their powers were not exceptional, it was still easy for them to evade the attacks.


    Nichs pulled Isabe to him and cast pale grey light from his Scepter of the Fallen, enabling him to somehow evade the attacks. The two golden grand swordmasters and Don, however, had to deal with the attacks one at a time with their own powers.


    Saleen was perceptive enough to tell that the passage of time became faster. The passage of time within wasparable with that in the astrology tower even though they had only been falling for a hundred meters.


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    That temple of the Nature Goddess was actually a ce that changed the flow of time.


    Everyone descended faster. Saleen had no choice but to cast Quickcloud and shroud everyone within. Tornado, Windde, Fireball, Snow Flurry were within the mist, cutting, burning, and freezing all the nts that had gotten near.


    The passage of time became increasingly fast and Saleen felt his falling elerating as well. It was fortunate that the speed adjusted itself. Saleen was able to feel the ground after falling for about ten miles.


    The mist was dispersed by the heavy impact, then the Water Shield was no longer able to protect everyone and shattered. Flight abilities were limited.


    The impact made Saleen feel as if all of his bones woulde apart. If it had not been for Sika catching him in time, he would have been injured.


    ¡°How¡¯s everyone doing?¡± Saleen casted Fluorescence and shone light into the surroundings.


    Groans were heard everywhere as everyone hit the ground. They had all been falling at irregr speeds, and none of them was aware that they were about to hit the ground, until they were about ten meters away from the ground.


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    Nichs was the least injured. His fallen divine arts were unaffected, but holy masters were not good with flight, and he had to protect Isabe while he was doing it.


    The space before them was huge. Saleen found the tall temple without even having to search for it. The temple had the most extravagant appearancepared to all the others that they had visited.


    The 24 pirs outside the temple were over a hundred meters tall. The gate of the temple was open, and Saleen was able to see the altar within. There was nothing at the altar. There were only carvings that seemed to be dancing and shifting on the walls.


    Saleen distributed magic liquids while Nichs patched everyone up. Saleen and Sika peered inside.


    Time passed even more quickly inside the temple. Saleen peered inside and looked at the carvings on the walls. The passage of time was at least ten times faster than it was outside the gate.


    Saleen lifted his arm and cast an ice bomb. The ice bomb shot into the air and burned, lighting up arger area.


    It was a huge, independent space. There were only fourrge halls with some distance between them. Saleen looked at the four halls and pondered.


    ¡°Master, there might not be much around.¡± Nailisi unleashed demons to search. The demons were specifically trained to search for valuables and had developed a keen eye for things. None of them returned with anything noteworthy.


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    The halls were not constructed of conventional materials, as they were able to keep the temple intact for over ten thousand years. They were incredibly high level.


    The main purpose of the construction materials was to maintain the passage of time, and Saleen was wondering if he should tear the temple apart and bag everything.


    ¡°Take the demons in and have a look.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Nailisi summoned a weak demonic spirit and had it head into the hall before Saleen. Its movements became incredibly fast after heading inside.


    ¡°Nailisi, tell the demon to measure the space,¡± Saleen ordered. The ce was not huge and his Element Eye proved sufficient to see everything.


    However, every ce seemed to have different flow of time, and only the inside of that hall seemed stable. Relying on the Elemental Eye would yield inurate results.


    ¡°What do you all think?¡±


    Everyone looked at each other. They followed Saleen with the very clear goal to search for any equipment capable of enhancing their powers within the temple. Saleen had set an example by taking apart the temple theyst visited and leaving nothing behind.


    ¡°My liege, we can¡¯t afford to take this one apart. The chaotic flow of time would overwhelm us,¡± Nichs said. He knew that when someone was sufficiently trained in divine arts, they would be able to control the passage of time within arge area.


    Such abilities were avable within prophecy spells. However, the area such spells worked in was too small and they were usually used for attacking individuals.


    ¡°Heh!¡± Saleen was hardly disappointed. ¡°I¡¯m going to train inside. The passage of time here is way, way faster than in Myers Maind. It changed with every single meter we dropped.


    The passage of time was the most stable in the hall, and it was possible that it was hundreds of thousands of times faster than outside.¡±


    Everyone was excited to hear Saleen¡¯s decision. Everyone would be able to enhance their powers before they left.


    Saleen had powerful enemies. If he were to be able to advance while training there, he would no longer have had to fear the great head inquisitor.


    ¡°I take it that there are no objections?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°You¡¯re the boss!¡± Sul answered. Saleen was acknowledged by everyone present and even Don did not object to it. He wanted to advance as well, and he would need to heal the damage he sustained from the pope, and that would require time.


    The space that was created by the Goddess of Myers had been amon training ground back in ancient times.


    The Six Element Space created by Raphael bore some simrities. What was different was that the changes in the passage of time within the Six Element Space was limited.


    The greatest use of that space was to provide powerful elemental powers, far exceeding the elemental badges and elemental creatures that Saleen mastered.


    Saleen grinned and intended to walk into the hall, but J pulled him back. ¡°We¡¯ll head inside first, one after another. We will tell you toe in if we find no problems after spending a day in there.¡±


    Saleen did not refuse. J circled around Saleen and entered.


    There was no danger within the hall. His braces did not even react even he went inside. Saleen and the others saw J trace the walls as he walked, searching for traps. J finished touring the hall within minutes.


    He walked onto the altar, and there was nothing to be found there. J stooped down to study the materials of the altar, pondered for a bit, and then waved.


    Nichs walked in next. He mimicked J¡¯s search for danger after venturing inside. The hall was only about 300 meters both in length and in width. Nichs searched for a bit and found no problems.


    Eleanor went next. She, an elf, searched the ce with her elvish senses and skills after entering the hall, and found no danger. Saleen said, ¡°No need to search any further. We¡¯ll all train here. Furthermore, the ce shoulde apart soon enough.


    Sika was startled before she understood what Saleen meant. The temple was only in operation after it opened. The passage of time below was the same as it was above ground before they came here. The Goddess of Myers¡¯ divine spell would work when someone opened the temple.


    The construction materials there weremon, at least back then. A level 18 god would be capable of constructing a space that could stay in operation all the time. Ten thousand years were nothing. However, the materials did not seem to be able to hold that long.


    It was a training ground that the goddess had prepared for future generations. As time passed too quickly within, the temple would decay. Saleen had no way of calcting when the divine spell would cease, so he had to use whatever remaining to his benefit.


    Saleen went straight into the hall without bothering with anyone else, walking straight to the altar.


    His Elemental Eye finally stabilized after he entered, and he was able to observe the materials used for the altar, which served as the core of the hall and kept the divine spell in operation.


    ¡°Go find your own ce to train,¡± Saleen said and then sat down, beginning to meditate.

 Chapter 1118: Hundred Years of Loneliness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1118: Hundred Years of Loneliness (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen determined to train there, and he was able to tell that there was a limit to how long the temple was able to maintain its peculiar time tricks. Looking from the outside, the passage of time was probably over a thousand times faster.


    As soon as the temple¡¯s passage was opened, the nts within the passage immediately matured, reaching a terrifying level eight. That alone was a statement of how quickly time passed, and that was within the passage.


    Time within the hall was too precious to waste. They would never have another chance like that.


    Saleen began to meditate as soon as he sat down, casting away anything within his mind that was unrted to the matter at hand.


    Sika waved and had the otherse into the hall. She sat right behind Saleen and began nurturing his magic beast soul.


    There were four halls, so the Goddess of Myers apparently wanted to give ample space to the ones who would help her resurrect, enabling them to develop the powers of their subordinates.


    Such divine skills capable of adjusting the rate of flow of time were not exempt from the ne¡¯s rules. All four halls had their lifespan. Once the divine spell began to operate, there would be no stopping it until the halls crumbled.


    Saleen¡¯s meditation was incredibly fast. After casting out unnecessary thoughts, he took out his family badge and put it before him, looking at it for a bit. If he trained in the rules of lightning, he would acquire a moreplete form of magic patterns, chants and lightning runes.


    However, his rootsy within elemental magic, and he deemed it unwise to overstretch himself.


    Saleen began recalling his life for the past 20 or so years, beginning from when he learned his first spell and the birth of his magic chords.


    Saleen dedicated his entire being into learning magic and slept little. He did not go to see Sika even when he had to eat and relieve himself. If his powers were not able to break into level ten, he would have to let Sika protect him in the future, and that did not sit well with him.


    I should be the one protecting Sika!


    Time passed. Saleen¡¯s magic chords continued to grow, without making any sound, giving him no trouble.


    Saleen polished, calcted and rearranged every single rule he had ever touched, making them into his unique powers. His magic chords grew bit by bit ording to the rules that he had developed.


    Pure water elemental magic chords began to change colors. Saleen began to achieve bnce of the six elements within his body. The magic chords continued to modify his body. A level ten sorcerer¡¯s body was akin to a grand swordmaster.


    Only Nailisi did not enter the other halls. She had long been able to advance to level ten; she was simply waiting for Saleen. She took her golden dragon form, coiled up outside the hall that Saleen went into, and slept.


    Golden mes were breathed through her nostrils after sleeping for an untold number of years. The golden dragon¡¯s body gradually turned perfect.


    The abilities of Luoluokaluo were envied by demons. Demons of their bloodline did not need to train much, as they were capable of advancing by using the powers they had devoured.


    A hundred years passed and Saleen extended a finger while in a dazed state, writing magic runes in the air. Behind him, an icicle ¡ª or rather, an ice spike ¡ª appeared.


    The ice spike was coalesced from pure water element and covered with lightning magic patterns. The appearance of lightning magic patterns made the ice spike free of impurities. The ice spike was thin and about a meter long. Lightning magic patterns were inside the ice spike in manyyers.


    The ice spike graduallynded on the altar and Saleen sensed that he was able to gain control of flying attacks of icicles again. The feeling was surreal and definitely not one a level nine sorcerer would be able to understand.


    His magic chords seemed non-existent. The ice spike frozen through magic seemed to be an extension of his body, and the way he was able to control itpletely changed.


    He understood why he felt so intensely helpless when he first saw Joey. The difference between level nine and ten was like heaven and earth, likemon folk and an official mage.


    Saleen summoned an ancient figure, which proceeded to bend down to move the ice spike on the ground. It was only able to move it after mustering its strength several times and wobbled around for a bit.


    Tears appeared on its arms. If it had not been for having constetion power to keep it in one piece, that ancient figure would have lost its arm.


    The ice spike was less than a meter in length, but it was incredibly heavy. The ancient figures did not even have problems moving gold the size and volume of their bodies, and gold was one of the top ten heaviest metals found in Myers Maind.


    Saleen turned around and looked. Sika was still steeped in her training. The altar was only about a hundred meters in length and width, and they were several meters away from each other. Saleen did not interrupt Nailisi. He put the ancient figure away and unleashed Vinny, the leader of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers.


    Vinny bent over to pick up the ice spike, looking strained as it did so.


    Despite being in its core form, it was still a level ten elemental creature. Its strength was not that different from its giant form, which was over a hundred meters tall.


    Saleen put Vinny away and let the ice spike stay where it was, not bothering with it. He wanted to find out how long the ice spike wouldst.


    An ice spike of such mass would be able to kill most of its enemy targets just by its weight alone.


    Vinny was capable of lifting a magic cannon weighing tens of thousands of pounds and dobat with it. The weight of the ice spike would easily knock down castle walls simply by ramming it.


    It was an ice spike that Saleen had coalesced using aplete form of magic. It was incapable of being cast instantly and was something that he had only developed moments ago. Preparation of the spell would beparable to apleterge scale spell.


    Saleen used about 30 minutes. There was no way he could create something so perfect in battle, as no enemy would give him 30 minutes to get spells prepared.


    The Ice Spike spell was far more powerful than the Icicle. If Saleen was able to conjure thousands of ice spikes in an instant, he could rain them down to destroy anything within sight, including very sturdy buildings like magic towers.


    Saleen observed his surroundings with his Elemental Eye. The construction materials the hall were beginning to show signs of decay. Key points in the materials as well as the carving illusions on the walls began to chip.


    Time to re-craft my gear then! Saleen knew that the hall would notst for much longer. He did not know how much time had passed, but in such an environment, materials used to maintain the divine spell¡¯s operation would decay at a frightening rate.


    Saleen stood up and the robe of his Starline Armament expanded. He took out the magic array schematics that he had acquired in a temple for the first time. The schematics had a map on one side and 24 magic arrays on the other.


    Saleen was unable to figure out the secrets of that magic arrays when he was at level nine. Even Joey, who was at level ten, was unable to tell anything.


    But now that he had learned astrology and h adadvanced to level ten, Saleen finally understood what the 24 magic arrays were.


    The schematics flew and coiled around the Starline Robe, merging with it. Saleen¡¯s Water me surrounded his body, crafting the magic array image into the Starline Robe.


    He no longer had to write any scrolls in the future. 24 star charts appeared on his Starline Robe and within the charts, 24 huge magic arrays. The magic arrays were capable of storing all types of magic beneath level 18. It was a powerful piece of equipment left behind by the Goddess of Myers.


    Saleen would have to be at least level 13 to be able to use the equipment originally. He had used skills of astrologists to put the magic arrays into 24 star charts, sewing them up using the Star Gathering Needle and then crafting them using Water me.


    Saleen spent another ten years crafting the Starline Robe. The ground of the hall began to crack and potholes were everywhere. When Saleen was about to finish, he heard 24 thunder dragons awakening within his ne. The thunder dragons howled and unleashed powerful electricity.


    The electrical currents flowed along the ne and coursed through his body. Saleenughed heartily. While he was unable to learn Nailisi¡¯s Lightning Protection, he became able to use identical effects of the skill. It would make it extremely difficult for curse-type divine spells to ambush him.


    So long as he was able to sense it, he would be able to cast lightning at will, breaking divine spell attacks in an instant.


    Saleen took a deep breath and felt the call of the thunder dragons within the ne. All 24 thunder dragons¡¯ rate of evolution had been fast enough.


    The passage of time within the ne was faster than the outside world, after spending over a hundred years in the hall, the thunder dragons finally evolved from level eight to level nine, enabling them to survive outside of water.


    Saleen was even able to feel short wings sprouting, which was a sign that they were about to advance to level ten.


    It was unfortunate that they were limited by inherent restraints. If the thunder dragons were unable to devour higher level people, there would be no way for them to advance to level ten.


    Unless... there is enough time for them to remain alive for the next 30 to 50 thousand years, enabling them naturally evolve to level ten. Magic beasts knew nothing about training. They simply grew using the power of their bloodlines.


    A level nine thunder dragon, while capable of flight, was not exceptional at it. But Saleen had no intentions of summoning the thunder dragons. He only needed them to provide him with power.


    With the help of 24 level nine thunder dragons, he would be able to make his family badge restore faster. Even if it was merely twice as fast, it would still earn him another means of keeping himself alive.


    ¡°Saleen...¡± Sika called him gently from behind. Saleen turned around only to see Sika rushing at him with his staff, bringing it down on his head.


    Saleen had no way to evade the attack, not even if he had looked into how Jalin developed her movement skills.


    Sika was unable to advance even after a hundred years, but when the staff was brought down on his head, although it was little more than a sparring session to test their abilities, Saleen nheless felt death was within an inch.


    Sika did not advance, but her powers grew, and grew by a lot.


    Saleen subconsciously mobilized the ice spike on the ground and blocked Sika¡¯s staff. Saleen felt dizzy and the blood in his body almost froze. The staff and the ice spike shed and a loud rumble was heard.


    The resulting rumble was so loud and even the pirs at the top of the temple shook.


    The sound exceeded the concept ofmon rumbles. Even a level ten mage like Saleen was rendered dizzy by it.


    The ice spike split into six pieces and fell onto the ground. Six holes burst on the altar, and Sika was disarmed, and the staff fell onto the ground.


    Sika¡¯s hands turned numb and unable to move. She looked at Saleen with an astonished look. She had been extremely confident of her own power. She thought that after spending so much time training, it would be sufficient for her to take on a level ten professional.


    She did not anticipate Saleen being able to knock her weapon out of her hands with just an ice spike.


    What was more eerie was that the six pieces of the ice spike wiggled on the ground, merging with the other pieces. It seemed as if the ice spike had a spirit within, making it seem like it was capable of self-repair so long as the spirit within remained intact.

 Chapter 1119: Power of Level 10 (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1119: Power of Level 10 (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was just as stunned. When Sika brought her staff down on him and he subconsciously took control of the ice spike to attack, he thought he would send Sika¡¯s staff flying. He did not anticipate Sika¡¯s staff breaking the ice spike.


    Saleen was able to tell from Sika¡¯s expression that she found the oue a frustrating one. Heughed and shot two golden beams from his eyes at Sika, who felt very dazed andfortable all over. The resulting damage from the recoil waspletely healed by Saleen¡¯s spell.


    The spell seemed to be lightning magic, but it was actually a mix of water and light magic. Saleen had created it by taking notes from divine arts over the past hundred years.


    Sika extended her hand and her staff flew back to her hand with a swoosh, startling Saleen. The ice spike pieces on the ground had finally connected with each other and be whole again.


    Saleen took one step forward to prevent Sika from trying anything further. He took her hand. ¡°Are you alright?¡±


    Sika shook her head. ¡°Fine, no big deal. I can heal it on my own.¡±


    Despite her words, she felt rather dejected. It was the first time that her immense strength, which she took immense pride in, failed to work. And furthermore, she was being countered by Ice Spike. Isn¡¯t that a ridiculously simple spell?


    Saleen knew what she was thinking. ¡°Do you know how powerful that one swing of yours was? That Ice Spike spell was level ten magic and took me half an hour toplete. When was thest time you saw me cast a spell that took more than a minute?¡±


    ¡°Half an hour?¡± Sika was speechless. While she was not a mage, she knew a lot of them. Nature priests had skills resembling magic and divine spells.


    Anything that took more than three minutes to cast was incredibly powerful. She did not know that Saleen had prepared that spell for half an hour!


    Sika¡¯s mind finally calmed and she regained her confidence. Level ten magic that had been prepared for half an hour was only able to disarm her.


    Saleen was not bluffing. The ice spike had to be cast from a distance to truly be powerful.


    They were too close to each other and the ice spike was unable to gather momentum, making it about half as powerful as it would be. The ice spike¡¯s impact could exceed any level ten spell.


    Like Meteorite, the Ice Spike required quite a distance to fulfill its intended use. The speed of the Ice Spike would far exceed Meteorite.


    If Saleen had been using the spell for ambush, no warrior, even if they were holding an indestructible shield, woulde out as more than a messy pile of flesh and blood, unless they had strengthparable to Sika.


    Her feat of breaking the ice spike had truly frightened Saleen.


    Saleen took control of the ice spike and put it back into his Starline Bangle. The Starline Armament had finally shown offensive powers, instead of simply defending like in level nine.


    Saleen did not bother concealing anything before Sika. 24 pale star charts cycled on the Starline Armament¡¯s robe, as if a starry night sky had manifested onto Saleen.


    The 24 star charts were capable of storing magic spells like a magic book. A mage capable of storing 24 level ten spells was far more terrifying than a holy master of the same level, even if the spells were difficult to impossible to be cast instantly.


    Powerful magic spells required time to prepare, just like how powerful divine spells required prayer chants. Many divine spells could not even be cast by a single person.


    Inparison, it was simpler to craft scrolls for mages, and divine scrolls had the advantage of being able to craft teleportation scrolls, which were difficult to craft.


    Saleen took an immensely bold action. He melded the 24 magic array images left behind by the goddess and used a Star Gathering Needle to destroy any trace of divinity in the images.


    Saleen did not care for the secrets in the magic arrays. Regardless of what they were actually capable of doing, Saleen only needed them for their ability to act as slots for storing spells. That alone made them more powerful than magic books.


    In the same vein, the magic array images that Saleen had incorporated into the Starline Robe altered its attributes. While Gaine did not put any tricks into it that would act against Saleen, he was not being able to rest easy. He was afraid that Gaine would control his fate through the Starline Armament.


    Even if such maniption turned out to be benevolent, Saleen had no intentions of leaving his fate in the hands of others.


    Saleen had finally be confident enough to use astrological arts after advancing to level ten. He put up the Water Shield and let Sikae in, sharing his senses with her.


    The Water Shield did not look any different from the outside, as the changes were only on the inside. There was little more than pale blue bubbles when observed from the outside, but it was filled with lightning magic patterns and star charts.


    Both were capable of defending against curses like prophecy spells. No holy master would be able to ambush Saleen when he put up his magic shield.


    Mages had lots of ways to deal with curses, but doing so required ample mental power on the mage¡¯s part, which enabled them to sense iing curses. Power of curses originating from prophecy type spells were the easiest to detect.


    Such attacks were limited in range, preventing them from being cast from afar.


    The best way a mage could deal with such spells was to break the casting process of the one who was cursing.


    Any interruption, no matter how small, would suffice to dispel a curse¡¯s effect, like throwing a huge rock into the river of fate, changing the flow of its water .


    Sika was immediately able to understand the intricate parts of the spell when she shared senses with Saleen. She had been most concerned for Saleen¡¯s safety.


    Nature priests had skills far more vicious than divine spells. Sika was better than anyone at defending against such attacks using ancient shamanic arts. When the level 11 divine spell caught her, only her weapon was tainted, and she waspletely unscathed.


    Saleen only stopped sharing senses with Sika when the mental powers within his ring werepletely drained. Sika pondered quietly and stored what she felt to memory.


    What she sensed when she was indirectly using a level ten professional skill would prove immensely precious. It inspired Sika when she first encountered such workings, furthering her knowledge of level ten professions.


    What they did had such an effect on her because Sika was not only a warrior. J and the others would be able to learn something using such methods, but they were incapable of learning as much as Sika did.


    Such enlightenment would work only once. It was impossible for Saleen to replicate the experience for Sika.


    Sika went into deep thought. Saleen walked out of the Water Shield and let her stay inside to ponder on her own.


    There were signs saying that the altar was about to copse. The passage of time was still stable. The divine spell had sacrificed duration to keep the space stable, allowing the ones toe into the temple to train in peace.


    If the temple fell apart, it would simply injure the people in it instead of triggering a terrifying time turbulence.


    Saleen knew that Sika would need quite a lot of time to digest what she had just learned. He took that time to check his equipment. He had been to too many ces and had acquired too much gear. Saleen had lost track of what was inside his Starline Ring.


    The things that Saleen had been most careful in crafting were his elemental badges. He coerced the six elemental creature leaders to sign coexistence contracts with him and then re-crafted six Eternal Control shards.


    He added lightning starlines on his elemental badges. Saleen was wary of territorial powers. Strong territorial powers would prevent him from being able to summon his elemental creatures while he was caught in the territory.


    After the re-crafting processes, Saleen could draw elemental powers from the elemental badges without having to summon the elemental creatures. Even if he were stranded in a ce devoid of elemental powers, Saleen would still be capable of fighting for quite some time using the elemental badges.


    The most valuable thing about the elemental creatures was that they possessed huge elemental shells. After Saleen advanced, he was able to learn the magic skills possessed by the elemental creatures and cast them.


    The six elemental badges enabled Saleen¡¯s conversion of water magic chords into the other elements to be more fluid. It also shortened preparation of spells by a considerable margin.


    Saleen retrieved the broken jade pieces left behind by Shann. One of the pieces contained the angel of fear and its linked soul. The two souls were crafted into the War Drum of Fear by Saleen. The war drum was his most powerful group attack equipment.


    It was the only piece of equipment in Saleen¡¯s possession that was capable of telling friend from foe. In most cases, cast spells were incapable of doing so. Only mental attack skills could be fully controlled by a mage to spare allies.


    The War Drum of Fear had an offensive range of 20 miles, which was arge battlefield. Conventional troops were utterly incapable of withstanding the angel of fear¡¯s powers within ten miles from the drum.


    The most valuable equipment remained Raphael¡¯s Crystal Ring. Saleen became able to somewhat cast the Crystal Finger without having to worry about recoil. A level ten mage would barely be safe casting the spell, and that made Saleen doubt the im that Raphael was only a ten level mage.


    The Crystal Finger skill was created by Raphael; a spell without level limitations that became increasingly powerful as a mage¡¯s power level rose.


    The family badge was the most powerful equipment in Saleen¡¯s arsenal. The badge had expanded several times in the hundred years. Saleen was dejected to find that in order to charge the badge fully, enabling it reach casting threshold, would require another half-year.


    The only good thing was that the badge was able to store greater amount of power, and its offensive capacity became significantly greater.


    Saleen remembered the time when the badge unleashed its most powerful attack was when it killed three powerful beings when they passed by the mountains in Kroraina. Saleen had no control over the power the badge had absorbed.


    Saleen was pleased with the ring he had gotten from Arb. The ring was slowly regenerating. It was capable of expanding his mental powers by 12 times. The ring still retained that ability even after Saleen advanced to level ten.


    It made Saleen think that he had gotten a good bargain by trading for it with the Six-winged Flying Snake mark.


    It was a pity that he remained incapable of using the Si of Silence. He had traded the Lance of Order for it. Saleen was only able to observe it for a certain amount of time every day, familiarizing himself with the rules hidden within.


    It was also unfortunate that he was of insufficient level, limiting the secrets he was able to learn.


    The only equipment of his that had been upgraded was the Thunder Dragon ster. Saleen had crafted all the bones of the level 15 thunder dragon into it, enhancing its offensive capacity by a considerable margin. It had added one more lightning icicle.

 Chapter 1120: Power of Level 10 (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1120: Power of Level 10 (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    One more lightning icicle might not have sounded like much, but if Saleen had just one more of the lightning icicles to spare during his fighting the great head inquisitor, he would not have almost died. What Saleencked back in that particr battle was simply the power to deal the final blow.


    He had given the demon magic book to Eleanor and he was thinking of giving the set of magic books given to Saleen by the grandmaster to his student, Truman .


    Even if Saleen was not able to stay by Truman¡¯s side to guide him, it would do Truman a lot of good, by having take notes and write his thoughts in the magic books, as well as letting him try to store magic with them.


    Saleen had considerably reduced need for magic books after he possessed the Starline Armament. A magic book could store 18 magic spells, six of them his level.


    The six spells corresponded to the six major elements. It would be ridiculous to have all six to be from one single element.


    Saleen had even less need of magic books than magic staffs. The Starline Armament had 24 star charts capable of storing spells, so it became absurd for Saleen to waste his energy on magic books.


    Saleen finally was able to craft high level magical equipment using the materials that Joey had given him for crafting magic staffs. When god¡¯s mulberry and ghost oak were used together, he could store three spells in one staff.


    Furthermore, a magic staff enhanced a mage¡¯s mental powers and recovery rate.


    A mage, when armed with the magic staff, would have almost twice thebat capacity of a mage their level.


    Despite having a good magic staff of his own, Saleen deemed it necessary to continue crafting them. There were too many mages serving him. While the Sreeger Ind mages were wealthy, a staff that could stay with its mage until they reached level 12 was a preciousmodity.


    Saleen had two shenhe, one of them used to create the water puppet. Rossen the water puppet¡¯s powers wereparable to a level nine sorcerer. He wanted to be human, and Saleen allowed him to do so.


    The price that Rossen had to pay for freedom was that he now had to work on his own to achieve any progress.


    Saleen had thought he had squandered the other shenhe, but he recrafted the gourd after advancing to level 10. Mystical changes were seen in the azure current within.


    The current had been a thin, six-meter line. After Saleen advanced and recrafted the shenhe, the current turned into a ball of water, which contained all the power of rules that Saleen mastered.


    There was also aplete star chart in the ball of water. The star chart was a mirror image of the starry sky within the level 19 Star Gathering Needle that Saleen had acquired a while ago.


    Lightning powers could be stored within the ball of water. While its powers were far below his family badge, it was stronger than the Thunder Dragon ster.


    The ball of water became like a magic nucleus that was capable of storing anything. It had actual magic nucleus abilities capable of powering Saleen¡¯s magic.


    The shenhe was modified so much that it looked nothing like its original form. Saleen named it the Star Water and put it inside his Starline Bangle. Saleen did not mind that it took up a slot, as it meant that it would be unaffected by territorial powers.


    The only thing that Saleen found frustrating was that his mark of hatred remained. He was unable to clear it using any skill.


    It was left on Saleen by Ismail before he died. That mark made him the enemy of the King of the Underworld. If he entered the purgatory ne, he woulde under attack by the king and their believers.


    Saleen did not know if he would ever go to the purgatory ne, but the thought of having such a mark on him made him feel ufortable. If the powers in the purgatory ne were normal, the King of the Underworld would have be a level 15 god.


    Having made such an enemy had Saleen on guard at all times.


    While there were conflicts between the gods and the King of the Underworld was against the Lord of Glory, it did not mean that the King of the Underworld would let him slide.


    Saleen had amassed a huge amount of magic scrolls from training for over a hundred years. Almost all of the scrolls contained unique magic skills that Saleen had developed on his own.


    Scrolls crafted using starline paper wouldst for a very long time. Even if Saleen made it to level 12 and lived as long as an oracle, he had no need to worry about the scrolls losing their powers.


    Saleen identally put the Ring of Gifts within the Starline Bangle, which also took up a slot. It enabled Saleen to borrow divine powers, and he had to keep it on his person until his contract with Myers was fulfilled.


    It was where Saleen¡¯s luck was found. So long as the Goddess of Myers continued to wish to be resurrected, the power of fate that she left behind would be inherited by the one carrying the ring.


    Many mages would envy Saleen for the equipment that he came to possess. He had a staggering amount of materials with him, and because he came to possess ways of crafting magic power furnaces, he also came to hoard magic nuclei of all levels.


    Materials easily piled into mountains within the dimension stone, which was in turn, stored within the Starline Ring.


    Most of the material he had gotten from the grandmaster was low level junk to the grandmaster. However, they were hard toe by treasures on Myers Maind. The grandmaster knew nothing about the changes in the outside world and saw them to be means of tricking Saleen.


    Little did the grandmaster know that Saleen had been able to craft arge amount of high level equipment in the alchemy factories in Metatrin City, including magic power furnaces, due to having so much ¡®low level¡¯ material and equipment with him.


    Saleen and Sika did not change much in appearance. When humans reached level nine, their appearances would stay fixed.


    Signs of aging slowed at level seven. At level ten, Saleen felt that his lifespan could reach over 3000 years, calcted with astrology.


    Nichs was only able to be a level seven holy master due to limited resources. When he reached level nine, his appearance was fixed at 60 or 70, making him look old.


    Saleen was increasingly impressed with his teacher, Jason. Saleen had used 100 years to advance, yet Jason never used any external powers to get where he was, a level ten mage.


    Jason remained the wisest and most talented mage that Saleen had ever seen.


    Jason did not get himself into trouble and go on mystical adventures like Saleen did. Jason was only amon mage, and it had been sufficient for him to be one of the strongest to be found on the maind.


    What was most regretful to Saleen was that his fate was unpredictable due to his contract with the Goddess of Myers. Astrology was unable to be used to calcte specifics, which made Saleen ce more importance on the contract.


    The hall would stay intact for another three to five years, but Saleen had no intentions of continuing his training. Sika was still taking in the secrets of level ten that she came to learn.


    Saleen walked down the altar and then went outside the temple. If he did not use anymore of the temple¡¯s powers, the ce would probablyst twice the amount of remaining estimated time. He let Sika train on her own for a little bit more.


    Saleen walked outside the temple and came before Nailisi, who had taken the golden dragon form. There were arge amount of magic nt fragments by her side.


    ¡°Master.¡± Nailisi spoke in human tongue. A level ten golden dragon would not be able to speak humannguages. There were many rumors and legends about the dragons, the ability to speak humannguages being one of them.


    The body structure of a dragon was different from a human, and the way they made sound was very different. It was utterly impossible for a human to learn dragon tongue magic. Conversely, if a dragon learned humannguages, they needed to advance to level 13 and take human form to do so.


    But how many dragons would be willing to take human form? That would diminish most of the power that a dragon possessed after all.


    ¡°What is all this?¡± Saleen pointed at the magic nt fragments on the ground.


    Nailisi shook her head. ¡°Master, the passage of time in the tunnel was extremely fast. A bunch of magic nts showed up every few months... and wanting to enter the temple. I cut them all up.¡±


    ¡°Magic nts capable of movement?¡± Saleen thought for a bit. It seemed that there were other secrets within the hall. Magic nts usually had powerful auxiliary powers. Myers was known as the Goddess of Nature, so it was a given that her powers to control nt life was no weaker than a nature priest.


    The passage of time within the tunnel allowed the magic nts to advance quickly. It was normal for them to be something like magic beasts.


    Saleen was still pondering what it was that felt off. The hall behind him trembled and crumbled within mere seconds!


    Saleen was frightened, but he did not sense any harm to Sika. Nailisi moved forward a couple hundred meters, which Saleen covered in one step, preventing him from being hit by the crumbling hall.


    That was just the beginning. The other three halls shook and crumbled within seconds. The people training all came out, instead of staying inside the hall like Sika.


    Saleen saw his followers after the halls crumbled. He was ted to find Nichs had advanced.


    Unsurprisingly, Eleanor had advanced to level nine as well, and even Isabe had made a breakthrough, reaching level nine. Saleen was unable to tell if it was her sword techniques or magic that had advanced. In the usual case, that would have been her magic side.


    What was regrettable was that between J and Sul, only one of them had advanced to be a true might. It was J, who never seemed to be serious about anything and spent his days fooling around.


    While Sul had reached pinnacle state of golden grand swordmaster as well, from Saleen¡¯s perspective, it would take Sul another ten years to advance to the next level. He was curious as to how he trained in the hall.


    The other one who emerged looked rather cold, and it was none other than Don. He stood quietly with the God-hunting Spear in his hand. It was unknown what was going on inside his head.


    Saleen was able to tell that Don had also advanced to be a true might, but his state was not as stable as J¡¯s. It was probably due to hiscking state of mind. The young man had already let go of his hatred and fear of his younger days, imbuing all of his sorrow into his sword, Tears.


    Don, on the other hand, was thoroughly dead inside. It was due to his vast experience, which was umted from training for over a hundred years before he encountered Saleen, that he was able to advance to the rank of a true might.


    However, the God-hunting Spear was unable to take in his anger, so his state was less stable after he advanced.

 Chapter 1121: Farewell, Head Inquisitor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1121: Farewell, Head Inquisitor (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    All of them rushed to Saleen after emerging out of the crumbled halls. The ground beneath their feet began to crumble and shatter. Rumbles were heard all over the ce. Saleen found that the space upied by the four halls was but a small part of the entire temple.


    The ground crumbled, and they fell. Saleen scanned with his Elemental Eye and saw what was actually happening.


    He was actually on a huge nt. The four halls were on one of the tforms on a branch of the huge nt.


    The huge ancient tree was probably over a thousand miles tall. Most of its branches had withered, but green was still seen near the crumbled halls. The tunnel he fell from also had leaves growing out of it. The myriad of magic nts were simply parasites living off the ancient tree.


    It was a tree left behind by the Goddess of Myers and it had no divinity to speak of. It was simply remains of intelligent nt life. The branches and leaves seemed to possess powerful life force, as if they had been revived.


    None of them was able to see as far as Saleen, but a level ten professional was able to see three to five miles without needing additional skills. All of them grew aware of being on a huge, ancient tree.


    At that moment, Sika burst outughing from the hall that seemed to have buried her. ¡°Hahahahaha...the power of nature!¡±


    Everyone was puzzled. They were not used Sika behaving in such manic ways. Saleen called and had Nailisi return to her imp form. Everyone backed away at his prompting.


    The huge ancient tree began to shrink at a frightening speed. Within half an hour, the ancient tree was reduced to the size of about 500 meters tall.


    The tree began to transform after shrinking to such extents. Its many branches turned into a torso and the roots, which Saleen was able to see, began to transform into shapes resembling the lower half of humans.


    A tree puppet? No, a tree puppet can¡¯t be this powerful. Aini¡¯s death nts are never this strong.


    Saleen was smart, but he was unable to tell that the ancient tree was how the Goddess of Myers achieved godhood. Myers turned into a god and renounced her identity of a mage.


    The tree died as a result. Myers was so sad that she had mages craft the tree and ce it under the secret temple.


    Sika was trained in the shamanic arts of a nature priest, which resembled the route that Myers had taken before she became a god. The ancient tree came to life again because of Sika¡¯s arrival. The nts that had been living off the ancient tree all grew in a frenzy. They advanced so much that they were able to harm people.


    The ancient tree was already a powerful piece of magic equipment, and Myers was incapable of using it after bing a god, so she left it behind as a memento. It was totally unanticipated that when Sika was pondering the secrets to advance to level ten, she unknowing connected with the ancient tree.


    Sika was bold enough to use shamanic arts to nurture the power of life within the ancient tree, enabling the tree to grow something like a magic beast soul.


    The tree¡¯s original soul had died and the newborn thing was not a magic beast soul, but was able to serve identical functions. Sika took control of it and put it away, enabling the ancient tree to return to its magic equipment state.


    However, the skills of the shamanic arts were very different from magic. While the skills did not run against magic like divine arts, the tree became a unique piece of equipment resembling a shaman.


    It was originally a soul that could only be nurtured at level 13, but it was nurtured by Sika before its time. The ancient tree became a shaman tree. It was not a weapon, but it was a tool of war and looked like a huge puppet.


    The ground and the pces on the shaman tree had crumbled. Sika was unable to protect the pces as she was unable to reach level ten. What she did was akin to forcefully interrupting everyone¡¯s training. If they had a dozen more years to train, Sul might have broken into level ten and be a true might.


    ¡°Smaller, smaller I said!¡± Sika was still howling. The shaman tree had shrunk in half again, but it was still about 200 meters tall.


    Sika let out thick panting noises. No one was able to make out what she said from then on. It was all old andplex sybles, which sounded rushed.


    As Sika unleashed her ancient shamanic skills, the tree finally shrunk normally.


    Saleen only found something off at that moment. The shaman tree seemed to be shrinking without stop. He quickly cast Quickcloud and wrapped everyone in it, flying towards the space tunnel.


    ¡°Saleen! Wait for me!¡± Sika yelled. Saleen had no intentions of doing so. Saleen had no certainty that she was able to keep things ident-free her first time trying out such shamanic arts.


    When Saleen had risen several hundred meters in the air, the shaman tree had shrunk to the size of about a foot tall. Sika cradled it in her arms. The space around her copsed violently.


    Sika was unscathed due to being protected by the power of the tree, but if Saleen and the others had remained where they were, they would have died.


    Sika forcefully took the shaman tree away and disrupted the bnce of the space. She found herself in a tight spot and took flight. A priest¡¯s flight abilities werecking without a soul beast.


    Sika burst through the obstacle caused by the copsing space and caught up to Saleen after fumbling about.


    Saleen took her into the mist and rushed upward.


    A space copse was not as easy to deal with as space turbulence. Within the vicinity of a space copse, the basic structure of all matter would be altered, and even Saleen¡¯s Starline Armament was unable to deal with it.


    Sika was not actually doing anything wrong. If she had left the shaman tree, it would be taken by others.


    The shaman soul was not actually that powerful, as it was only just born and required nurture. The uprooting of the tree triggered the space copse, diminishing the powers of the shaman tree by an unknown margin.


    Saleen had no way of ming Sika for the mishap. It would be regretful if Sika did not find the tree.


    If such powerful equipment fell into the hands of others, trouble woulde to him. The temple was not something that no one would discover. He had been there and left tracks behind, which the Holy See would definitely be able to trace.


    If they found where he went, the Holy See would definitely be able to open the temple, and then take away the tree.


    The passage they came in was over a dozen miles long, but at Saleen¡¯s current speed, it was a journey that would take them a little more than a minute. They soon arrived at the exit of the passage.


    Don elerated all of a sudden and burst out of the mist. As soon as he emerged from the exit, spears came at him.


    Don smirked coldy and swept the spear nearest to his body, sending the other spears flying. All who thrust their spears at him had their hands cut.


    Saleen emerged shortly after. He saw what Don did and did not get near the ground, aiming for the skies instead. There were more than a dozen holy masters surrounding a middle-aged man in the sky. The middle-aged man cast an instant divine spell after seeing someone emerge from the passage.


    A huge shaft of light spear headed for Saleen. The holy master was actually able to target Saleen in the mist.


    Saleen just advanced to level ten, but his powers were stable. He cast an ice bomb, which burned instantly and the surrounding elements became unstable.


    The burning ice bomb shed with the light spear, which prated the bomb and got reflected aside.


    Saleen fired a lightning icicle. The middle-aged holy master sensed somethinging and threw out a light ball of their mouth right after. Heavy breathing sounds were heard from within the ball of light.


    While Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle was capable switching directions midair, the ball of light came all too suddenly. The lightning icicle shed into it and fizzled and was swallowed whole by the ball of light.


    Saleen was startled, but the middle-aged holy master was in a worse shape. They were able to feel the power taken in by the ball of lightning. The thing that had been swallowed overflowed with lightning power, which they had to take in.


    The holy master tumbled in the air, about to hit the ground. The dozens of holy masters around them cast a divine spell at the same time, stabilizing them in the air.


    Saleen knew that the figure was not the third head inquisitor, as the third head inquisitor would not so weak. Three holy masters cast powerful beams of light from afar, shooting high in the sky.


    It was early in the morning and the holy beam of light was seen more than a dozen miles away.


    Saleen knew the holy masters were calling for reinforcements. He did not mind. Don was capable of taking on the forces on the ground on his own. The terrain in the Skywell wasplex. While Don¡¯s powers were unstable, he was a level ten knight armed with the God-hunting Spear. If the enemy was incapable of surrounding him, they would be ughtered.


    J charged without waiting for Saleen to make further moves. Sul followed closely behind.


    J was moving too fast. He thrust his sword as he came before the holy master, who had buffed themselves with over a dozen divine spells. Despite having put up Divine Protection, they were stabbed by J¡¯s sword.


    The holy master turned illusory, as if they were about to run. However, the power bursting from J¡¯s sword kept them locked in.


    The holy master shrieked in horror, forcibly blocking Tears with the Scepter of Honor in their hand.


    A sh of white light was drawn by Tears, cutting both the holy master¡¯s scepter and arm off. The holy master fell and unraveled a divine spell scroll. J pulled his sword down and destroyed the spell that had just been cast.


    White light shot out of the holy master in a frenzy. Layers of Divine Protection stacked. The defenses put up were too powerful to be destroyed in one go by J.


    However, when Jshed out with yet another thrust, the holy master was about to spew blood. The surrounding holy masters intended to protect them, but they were all thrown off by Sul¡¯s sword.


    The holy master was not be able to keep up with the flight abilities of golden grand swordmasters at the pinnacle of their level.


    Seeing how sword aura burst all over Sul¡¯s body, which exceeded the holy light in brightness, the holy masters dared not split up. If they did so, their heads would probably end up being collected by Sul.


    Saleen did not continue attacking. He was able to sense that several powerful people wereing at them from the west. He immediately took out the ice spike that he had put into the Starline Ring.


    Despite having been severely damaged after it waspletely, the ice spike remained intact. Saleen felt that the powers remaining within the ice spike were one-tenth of its original capacity, but he was able to use it.


    He locked onto his targets with the Thunder Dragon ster at the same time.


    The holy master was d in a red robe. No hair was found on his head and he looked about 40 years old. A pair of fiery energy wings were behind his back, flying at Saleen at a speed that even Saleen was unable to achieve.

 Chapter 1122: Farewell, Head Inquisitor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1122: Farewell, Head Inquisitor (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was able to tell right away that the iing person was the third head inquisitor. The red energy wings behind the bald man¡¯s back were definitely the Wings of Heaven.


    When Saleen caught sight of the third head inquisitor, the third head inquisitor saw Saleen. He had God Sight. It was an ability bestowed by their god after his bloodline was awakened. For that reason, the great head inquisitor had bestowed the Wings of Heaven to him.


    His God Sight was able to see tens of miles away when used in conjunction with the Wings of Heaven. Such early detection abilities allowed him to keep his ce as third head inquisitor.


    The three newly appointed head inquisitors were nothing inparison.


    Saleen tracked the third head inquisitor¡¯s trajectory and knew that there was no way he could get a clear shot. Saleen simply fired a lightning icicle, which flew over ten miles in an instant, hitting the third head inquisitor.


    Saleen was surprised, and the third head inquisitor was even more so.


    What Saleen had found surprising that his lightning icicle was able to prate the third head inquisitor¡¯s body right away, seeping into the fiery wings of energy. What the third head inquisitor was surprised about was that his Wings of Heaven were unable topletely negate the damage he had taken.


    He felt intense pain in his lower abdomen, and it took three divine healing spells to clear out the damage wreaked by that icicle. The icicle was eerie. Even though the damage was healed, the pain remained.


    What alerted the third head inquisitor further was that the icicle was swallowed up by the Wings of Heaven, but it did not get converted into holy powers. The attack drained quite a bit of power from the Wings of Heaven instead, beforepletely destroyed the icicle.


    Level ten professional!


    Both Saleen and the third head inquisitor came to the conclusion, but they still headed towards each other. Saleen had a limited number of lightning icicles. They were too far for a lightning icicle to outright kill a holy master.


    The third inquisitor had no means of harming Saleen from more than ten miles away, unless Saleen was below level seven.


    There were several powerful people at the third head inquisitor¡¯s side, and they were all warned by the great head inquisitor. The third head inquisitor dared not let his guard down. Nailisi took her devil form beside Saleen, while Sika followed closely behind with her staff in hand.


    Nichs joined J in his fight, helping him as quickly as he was able to, killing the young holy masters. Nichs hailed from the Holy See and knew what the holy masters were capable of.


    If they were of adequate numbers and the third head inquisitor was able to stall Saleen and the others, the low level holy masters would be able to cast arge scale divine spell, which was powerful enough to threaten a level ten professional.


    Emperor Chanake, who was more powerful than Joey back then, was killed by the Holy See because of such maneuvers.


    Nichs intended to take out all the holy masters who were above level seven and capable of flight before the third head inquisitor got near enough to prevent them from being surrounded.


    Eleanor summoned her Wings of an Elf, helping to clear warriors from the Tribunal on the ground. There were also holy masters on the ground. At the Skywell, the third head inquisitor brought a huge number of people, there toy out a huge divine rune charm array.


    However, Sika had uprooted the ancient tree and copsed the space. Saleen and the others were able to make it out in time, thus ruining the third head inquisitor¡¯s n. Such was fate indeed.


    Under normal circumstances, he might have emergedter and the enemy would have finishedying out the divine rune charm array, shrouding the entire Skywell under their divine spell territory.


    While he no longer feared the powers of such territories, the same could not be said for those around him. Furthermore, even if his powers remained intact when he was caught, the enemy¡¯s powers would grow by leaps and bounds.


    In short, he would get the short end of the stick.


    Both sides were covering the miles of distance between them. The third head inquisitor got two items ready: a scroll and a codex. A level ten professional would long be able to use such equipment with one hand. A level nine one would be able to barely do so, but control was not as easy.


    Saleen took Sika and Nailisi with him, increasing the area covered by his mist. He held a magic staff¡ªone that he had just finished crafting, which contained three level ten spells.


    Saleen was unable to learn enough level ten magic spells, as he had just advanced and needed to focus on steadying his level and state. He had no time to perfect any skills learned at level ten.


    Only Saleen, who possessed incredibly massive wealth, would dare to waste god¡¯s mulberry and ghost oak to craft one magic staff.


    If the two materials were used separately and the finished products needed to only store two spells each, five magic staffs would yield the same amount of materials.


    However, if he ran into enemies like head inquisitors inbat, there was no time for him to switch magic staffs.


    Sika threw a javelin when Saleen¡¯s party was less than a mile away from their enemy. Sika had three more in her hand.


    She already saw six beside the head inquisitor, and every one of them was a level nine powerful one. Furthermore, all six of them wore armor that resembled the Heaven Knight armor, but of better make.


    If the power of all six of them could be stacked, the group would be on par with a level ten professional.


    Some were flying in their direction further away. Every one of them had prepared divine spell scrolls in their hands. The third head inquisitor¡¯s prophecy spell had failed and Saleen showed up early.


    The holy masters changed their attack, deciding to use scrolls to take care of the enemy before them instead.


    Sika knew Saleen¡¯s thoughts. The triangr bone piece hovered behind her, ready to strike at any time. When they were about 200 meters away from each other, Sika threw another javelin.


    The third head inquisitor unraveled a scroll. Holy light shot to the heavens within a mile radius. Holy light showered from above, calling the third head inquisitor.


    The third head inquisitor had used a prayer scroll, allowing the light of God to prate through their ne and reach above the Skywell. However, things did not happen the way the third head inquisitor¡¯s expected.


    All three javelins that Sika threw were almost entirely unaffected. When the holy light shed, all six knights behind him seemed to be within the area of the javelins¡¯ control.


    Sika might have only been level nine, but her javelins had all been crafted by Saleen. All of them were covered with lightning patterns, negating most of the effects of the territory had on them.


    A level nine warrior could notpare to Sika¡¯s power either. A vacuum tunnel formed behind the three javelins.


    There were over a dozen unassuming holy masters behind the six knights. White light burst from the holy masters, covering the knights. The knights became very nimble, forming a triangle, and the one taking the lead actually swiped Sika¡¯s javelin away with theirnce.


    Saleen¡¯s senses caught such an oue early and his mind was at ease. The ice spike before him elerated all of a sudden, rushing at the third head inquisitor.


    All six knights seemed to shriek at the same time. It was near impossible to have Glory Knights shriek like that.


    Sika had simply thrown a physical attack at them and the lightning patterns on the javelins, merely decorative magic patterns meant for negating buffs, prevented them from being robbed of their flight abilities in special environments.


    All three javelins were deflected by the knights¡¯nces, yet they as if a dragon had stepped on them. Furthermore, it seemed to be a dragon with over a dozen legs.


    Blood burst from all six knights. The triangr bone piece behind Sika screeched and came for them, zipping around the knights.


    The magic beast soul within the triangr bone piece had matured within the past hundred years in the temple, and the weapon no longer resembled a boomerang.


    The third head inquisitor knew the tables had turned. The enemy¡¯s power was ten times stronger than what was described by the great head inquisitor.


    Things would not be so dire if the third head inquisitor was amply prepared, but with all six powerful knights taken out as soon as they showed, he had only the auxiliary holy masters behind him.


    Even if his powers grew several times more potent, he still would not be a match for three level ten professionals.


    The third head inquisitor thought Sika was a level ten professional, yet Sika was just ridiculously strong. She was still level nine.


    Saleen saw the panic in the third head inquisitor¡¯s eyes and felt pleased at the turn of events. The Holy See had backed him into a corner before.


    Even if he had advanced to level ten, he dared not let his followers him leave his side. Saleen knew that he was still not a match for the great head inquisitor.


    Saleen¡¯s ice spike was about to disintegrate. It flew in front of the third head inquisitor, who dared not counter it with prophecy spells. His prophecy spell had failed him once, because Saleen had emerged from the space tunnel.


    ¡°God Advent!¡± The third head inquisitor shouted at the codex in his hand. An illusion of an oracle appeared from within the codex. However, Saleen¡¯s ice spike hit it without waiting for the oracle to do anything.


    The powerful impact shattered the oracle¡¯s illusion. The ice spike changed course and shot into the third head inquisitor¡¯s Wings of Heaven.


    Saleen had only just advanced to level ten and was brimming with power. He did not care about the results the maneuver would yield. Thick ice covered the surface of his body, making him look like a statue. He pointed forward and his speed grew over a dozen times in an instant.


    The concept of his speed increasing for over a dozen times meant that if Saleen¡¯s body was covered with hard elemental ice, his flesh would probablybust from friction with the air.


    Saleen rammed at the third head inquisitor. He elerated over the distance of 200 meters. The third inquisitor was incapable of reacting in time. Saleen burst through theyers of light screens in front of the third head inquisitor. Theyer of ice on his body waspletely shattered.


    ¡°Farewell, head inquisitor.¡± Saleen smirked and pointed a finger at the third head inquisitor¡¯s head.


    Saleen drew power from his elemental badges and cranked the power of the Crystal Finger to the limit. The third head inquisitor never anticipated that a mage would face him up close and personal like a warrior.


    The third head inquisitor¡¯s head burst into a mist of blood. The Crystal Finger¡¯s power diminished extremely quickly.


    None of the holy masters were affected. Saleen thought, you holy masters might not have feared getting your hearts puncture, but let¡¯s see how you people survive with your heads busted.


    The third head inquisitor leaned backwards. Saleen saw the blood from the third head inquisitor¡¯s neck wrap a wisp of energy and take off. Saleen cast the three spells in his magic staff: Endless Night, Water Shield and Thunder Shock.


    All three spells were prepared by Saleen to specifically deal with escaping souls of holy masters. The ball of blood was covered by Endless Night and lost its way, ramming straight into Water Shield, and then Thunder Shock was triggered.

 Chapter 1123: Forced Falling (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1123: Forced Falling (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Over a dozen holy masters who stood behind the third great head inquisitor were thoroughly shocked. Their skills were all support types, which were capable of buffing up the all attributes of powerful warriors or holy masters over twice of their original parameters.


    But if told to fight on their own, the holy masters were entirely helpless. In order to acquire powerful support powers, the holy masters paid the price by learning next to no offensive divine spells.


    Saleen had no intention of leaving any potential devastating loose ends behind. While holy masters were incapable of attacking on their own, if they were paired with head inquisitors, Saleen would have a massive headache to deal with.


    The third head inquisitor¡¯s soul was wrapped in the ball of blood and had lost its way in the Endless Night. It was wrapped thoroughly by Saleen¡¯s Water Shield, making escape impossible. The ball of blood was finally subjected to Thunder Shock attacks, dispersing it, and its remains were absorbed by the Water Shield.


    Nailisi was stunned. Saleen had taken care of the third head inquisitor before she was able to do anything, which she was not used to. While Saleen had never been weak, every time he needed to make a move against anyone, he would need Nailisi to be the main attack force.


    Saleen worked seamlessly with Sika, robbing Nailisi of any chance to do anything.


    When Saleen grabbed the third head inquisitor¡¯s soul, Nailisi came to her senses, throwing his soul into her Blood Soul Tower.


    That Blood Soul Tower was hastily crafted, which made of inferior quality to the one destroyed. It was almost filled to the brim taking in only one soul.


    The third head inquisitor¡¯s bald head was blown up by Saleen, his remaining body fell. An enraged howl was heard from the holy light high above the sky.


    Saleen calmly said to Nailisi, ¡°Follow my lead.¡±


    Saleen charged at the support holy masters while Sika charged below. The third head inquisitor¡¯s Wings of Heaven were still pping, intending to take flight. However, without instructions from the head inquisitor and the godly item not having its own autonomous spirit, it was no longer capable of taking flight.


    The Wings of Heaven refused to give up when Sika came near. While the spirit within remained dormant, the godly item still pped its fiery energy wings about by instinct, and attacked Sika.


    Sika took out the ancient tree, and with a single shake, it burst to a height of over seven meters, bringing down the Wings of Heaven.


    The Wings of Heaven crashed hard into the ground. Sika quickly caught up with the Wings of Heaven, whose mes were sprawling all over the ce from the attack. She snatched the godly item with her bare hands and stuffed it into her sack.


    The Wings of Heaven lost all power to resist within the sack. Its mes were extinguished, and it was turned into a small statue, which looked like a pure white demon. It was unknown what race the god was, only that it had bright red wings.


    Nailisi flew faster than Saleen, and she charged into their midst before they knew what happened. Nailisi was already at level ten. Her Grey Memory easily targeted the holy masters around her, who were not a high level. Nailisi thrust away with her spear in a frenzy. The only thing that mattered was speed. The holy masters had no hope of catching up with her.


    When Saleen finally reached them, there were only six of the holy masters left. Sika¡¯s triangr bone piece had disposed of all six powerful knights, and it headed for the holy masters next.


    Saleen unleashed an Ice Bomb Fireball. The remaining holy masters were taken care of by Sika and Nailisi.


    The triangr bone piece headed to the ground and Sika caught it. She sniffed it for a bit and smiled, patting the bone piece. ¡°Well done, but you can¡¯t just go about eating everything you can find. The holy masters and whatever are dirty, after all.¡±


    The bone piece let out a gleeful sound and Sika carefully sheathed it into a slot in her belt. She put away the tree and took out her staff, taking to the air again.


    The holy masters watched the third head inquisitor getting killed. There was no other course of action for them to take. They would die if they went back to the Holy See, so they charged at Saleen instead.


    Saleen waved nonchntly, and over a thousand icicles were conjured, raining down his enemies.


    The icicles were filled with lightning patterns. While they were incapable of doing lightning attacks, the patterns allowed them to break down divine spell defenses. Nailisi was startled enough to halt as the icicles fell.


    The icicles differed from the War Drum of Fear in that they were incapable of telling friend from foe.


    Saleen experienced the edge of having overwhelming superiority for the first time. The holy masters were caught in the attack. He was able to target his enemies using mental powers, making sure none of his targets were able to escape the icicles¡¯ attack.


    The raging howl in the sky was still there. Saleen shouted at the sky, ¡°shut up!¡±


    His voice was imbued with thunder as it shot to the skies. It was a sound wave-type magic attack. The attack was originally a wind-type attack, yet Saleen¡¯s unique lightning rules enabled his voice to travel even in vacuum. But it was still incapable of being used in a true vacuum.


    The howl in the sky was disrupted and disappeared. The holy light showering down on the Skywell vanished as well. Saleen smirked coldly. This isn¡¯t even Descension and you think cheap tricks like this are enough to scare me off?


    Saleen¡¯s vista was broadened after advancing to level ten. He became able of doing rough deduction on skills that he had never encountered before. If he deemed that an oracle or the double of a god would be upon them soon, he would choose to run.


    However, the voice was simply resonance of holy might heard across the ne. The Lord of Glory was merely a level 15 god, but even if he were level 18, there was nothing for Saleen to fear in this situation.


    Geniuses among humankind would take three to five thousand years to reach level 18. But when gods advanced, a single level would take them millions of years.


    Saleen broke the god¡¯s howl with his thunderous voice. The holy masters, by then, had lost all of the powers they were able to borrow, which ended up with them being thoroughly suppressed by Saleen¡¯s icicles.


    Saleen¡¯s icicles were instant spells, and the cost in magic chords were negligible. Their offensive capacity was only at level six. With the power of the lightning patterns added in, they were barely considered a product of a high level spell.


    The holy masters would have no problem defending against a single icicle. However, with over a thousand icicles taking turns raining on them, the Divine Protection that they had cast felt as if it was about to fall apart.


    Seeing how a round of icicles proved incapable of killing the holy masters, Saleen waved again. This time, he drew power from the elemental badges. Over 3000 icicles were conjured and took turns raining down on his enemies again.


    The reason Saleen took the trouble to refine the Icicle spell before he advanced was because the Holy See always overwhelmed their enemies through sheer numbers, which he found very annoying.


    The Icicle spell¡¯s cost only equaled the amount of magic chords at level six. Every 1800 icicles conjured only cost the amount of magic chords used to cast a level nine spell.


    It was only a matter of time before the holy masters died. There were no longer any powerful ones from the Holy See to be found near them. Reinforcements would take over half an hour to arrive.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye did not catch any signs of powerful enemies showing up. Saleen threw Nailisi a scroll, which she took and flew to the edge of the Skywell.


    The Holy See had used divine spells to alter the terrain around the edge of the Skywell. A slope of a steeper anger was over ten meters wide, sliding into the Skywell at an angle. Nailisi arrived at the top of the slope and unraveled the scroll. A huge Ice Bomb was fired down the slope, burning with white mes.


    The Ice Bomb had a diameter of over three meters, yet the mes it was wrapped in were over a dozen meters wide. The Ice Bomb crashed onto the slope and destroyed it.


    Seeing that the exit in the Skywell was destroyed, shended onto the ground and began searching for holy masters who were tasked withying down divine rune charm arrays.


    Saleen monitored everything from above. His followers split up and took care of the warriors and holy masters from the Holy See. There were over 7000 people put into the Skywell to set arge divine rune charm array within.


    The Holy See had no need to alter the terrain at the Skywell¡¯s edge to construct slopes otherwise.


    The 7000 people were considered elites when put into the battlefield, but the terrain wasplex in the Skywell and huge boulders were everywhere, making grouped attacks difficult.


    J and Sul jumped about in such environments like fish in the water. Eleanor simply rode on her Wings of an Elf and returned to Saleen¡¯s side.


    ¡°Eleanor, nice work at advancing,¡± Saleenplimented her.


    Eleanor just grinned. She had used over a hundred years to advance and then spent some time training in archery. It was all thanks to the demon magic book that Saleen had given her.


    While her human body held her back somewhat, it came with benefits. She would not have been able to train in Saleen¡¯s mystical arts if she was in her purely elf body.


    While elves were beautiful, many skills were rted to bloodlines. Skills developed by humans would work best with a human. It was just like if a human trained in dragon tongue magic, the result of a human using such magic would not be one-tenth of it cast by dragons.


    If she trained with a body of an elf, she would never be able to master even a bit of lightning rules even if she spent 1000 years training.


    ¡°Saleen, why do we need to keep killing people?¡± Eleanor pointed inside the Skywell. The warriors and holy masters were no match for Saleen¡¯s followers. It was not a battle happening, but a ughter.


    ¡°Adherents. They can only be killed physically. Furthermore, both Don and Nichs need people, so it¡¯s a good idea to take some of them prisoners.¡±


    Eleanor nodded. There were also wars over faith in the elf ne, and they were just as brutal. I guess fighting to rope believers in is something that happens in every ne. Unless it¡¯s some primitive ne where they are no gods or outside invaders.


    Battles within the Skywell were not over. At the same time, in a tall ck church within the Tribunal¡¯s headquarters, located beneath a mountain near the shores of the Tanggsi Empire, the second head inquisitor, who was summoned, wore a grim expression.


    The adjudicator who delivered news was a newly recruited subordinate of the great head inquisitor.


    The great head inquisitor was gravely injured and was resurrected using the Divine Tablet spell. While the holy baby¡¯s body would allow the great head inquisitor to gain greater power, he was rendered incapable of doing anything for half a year.


    It was impossible for him to leave the Tribunal headquarters for the time being.


    At a crucial time like that, it was reported that the third head inquisitor had died. Within the underground secret room beneath the church, the soul image under the great head inquisitor¡¯s control crumbled. It was a sign of the third head inquisitor¡¯s soul being destroyed.


    ¡°What did the great head inquisitor say?¡± The second head inquisitor¡¯s tone was t, which sounded like he was devoid of human emotions.


    ¡°He wishes for you to return to the ck Dungeon and mobilize the forces there. Most of the Tribunal¡¯s forces are relegated to Daliang City, making them difficult to mobilize.¡±


    ¡°ck Dungeon huh?¡± The second head inquisitor¡¯s tone remained unchanged, but he was against the idea. He was rather fearful of the head warden. He dared not step foot onto ck Dungeon Ind without the great head inquisitor by his side.


    ¡°Yes, the great head inquisitor also said that both the Pivotal Council and the oracles are not to be trusted. Only the ones in the ck Dungeon can be considered our own,¡± the adjudicator borated calmly.

 Chapter 1124: Forced Falling (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1124: Forced Falling (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    While the second head inquisitor knew that the ones from the ck Dungeon were their own, he felt himself shivering when he thought of the head warden.


    It stemmed from the depths of his soul. Even if he advanced to level ten, he still had no way of wiping the feeling away. He even began to suspect that the head warden had advanced to level 11. Otherwise, why am I so scared of even thinking of him?


    Saleen¡¯s men were still after their targets. The wardens and knights from the Tribunal had lost all will to fight. Any who continued to resist were killed.


    Nailisi left a magic bug egg on each of the dead bodies, letting them hatch. After Saleen and his people left, the magic bugs would finish eating the dead bodies and hide, waiting for their next meal to arrive.


    Saleen¡¯s followers did not attack the ones who gave up resisting. They let Don and his demons take away their weapons and equipment.


    The number of the demons grew and they led the ones who lost the will to fight to a nd. Saleen cast Fire Rain. Countless water drops appeared in the air and burned.


    The ones on the ground looked at the fire raining from the sky with dazed expressions. They only knew that their time was up.


    Shrieks were heard all over the Skywell. Believers who chose to surrender had remorseful looks of varying degrees on their faces. Saleen pretended that he saw nothing.


    He did a rough calction and found at least 2000 people had surrendered. The number differed from his spections, and there was no way he could take so many prisoners with him.


    Saleennded on the ground and gestured at Nailisi, who opened the purgatory of purification. She had the demons chase the believers who had surrendered into the purgatory.


    Over half of the ones who entered the purgatory of purification dropped to the ground immediately, writhing painfully on the ground. They were unable to see what was in the sky. They were only able to feel a huge hand tear at their bodies and their souls.


    There were over 300 people who saw no change. Nailisi let those people out. The 300 truly turned their backs on the Lord of Glory. Saleen pointed at them. ¡°Don, these people would be your subordinates from here on out.¡±


    No noise was heard from the purgatory of purification after about 10 minutes. Nailisi only let the believers who were barely alive out. The powers within the believers¡¯ bodies was drawn, and they had lost their faith. All of them looked dazed.


    Saleen asked Don, ¡°do you have any use for these people?¡±


    Don nodded. ¡°No problem, as long as they¡¯re alive, I have ways to coerce them into believing in a god. It¡¯s simply a matter of time.¡±


    ¡°Time is something we don¡¯t have. I¡¯d venture into Cloudflow territory next to look for another temple.¡±


    ¡°Then these people¡¯s lives would be shortened.¡±


    ¡°Do it. You have one day. Would that suffice?¡±


    ¡°I need less than that.¡± Don answered.


    Dony down divine rune charm arrays. He did not believe in the Goddess of Myers, but it did not prevent him from using the Goddess of Nature¡¯s powers. The Nature Faith had an epassing doctrine, enabling it to tolerate the presence of false adherents.


    Don had the Heaven Knight armor and the chlorite embedded in it was capable of storingrge amount of power of faith, which came in handy to activate the divine rune charm array.


    The purified adherents were able to have their powers restored, at the cost of giving up a part of their lifespan.


    They were forced to fall so their power of faith would not be too pure. Saleen did not care for any of that. Having them be false believers of the goddess would be better than continuing to serve the Holy See.


    Regardless of how they fell, the Holy See would no longer be able to tolerate their existence. Gods had no time to discern such matters, especially one who loathed other gods intensely like the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen took out the Heaven Knight armors that he had crafted when Don was out toy out his huge array. It was a given that the armor did not fulfill Don¡¯s requirement and the material it were crafted from was ridiculously simple.


    It was crafted with metalized steel rock as the main material, which was mixed with bone armor of magic beasts and bits of refined steel. The lining was made of magic beast pelt.


    The most important aspect of the armor was that fragments of fossilized gods were added, enabling it to serve some of the functions of the original Heaven Knight armor.


    Don was unable to recruit elite troops, and the armor was very fine equipment for conventional troops.


    Saleen only prepared 90 sets of armor of high quality, which was reserved for the 100 demons. Some of the demons had acquired equipment, so Saleen only had to take care of the remaining 90.


    Don felt pleased seeing Nailisi distributing the armor to the demons and giving them weapons. While he had a ragtag band of soldiers, his training would make the 2000 and additional 100 demons into fearsome killing machines in no time.


    What pleased Don even more was that while the 100 demons were truly considered his assets, the remaining 2000 were all troops from the Tribunal.


    He approved immensely of Saleen¡¯s methods, as it was the most direct way of getting revenge: making the adherents of his enemies his warriors. Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of purification was a surprise like no other to him.


    He never anticipated the existence of equipment capable of robbing others of their faith. If the Holy See knew that something like that existed, they would probablye to kill her at any cost.


    Such a piece of equipment was simply too terrifying. If there was no limit to how the equipment worked, the Holy See would be robbed of everything they umted sooner orter. However, ording to Don¡¯s knowledge, there was no equipment with no limits.


    Nailisi and Saleen had wanted to purify every single adherent in the Holy See, but doing so would require them to at least put them into the purgatory of purification. There was no adherent who would just walk into such a ce obediently. If Saleen wanted to purify them, he had to first take them prisoner. It was akin to catching a rat stealing food.


    Even mages knew that it would suffice to simply kill it on the spot. There was no need to use any high level magic on the rat.


    The battle began early in the morning and ended at noon. Without a level ten professional around to take charge, battles became meaningless. Saleen was reassured as to how future battles would be fought.


    It would be reserved for the powerful ones. Anyone below level nine would not be a qualified soldier. Anyone below level seven would best go home and plow the fields instead.


    Furthermore, from the notes gathered in the astrology tower, ancient humans with power lower than level four were not even qualified to be farmers. Saleen had been able to deduce how things worked back then.


    Alchemy machinery back in ancient times was not as advanced as it was at present. The best way of clearing and opening upnds was to userge magic beasts. However, there was nopletely docilerge magic beast. There were times where they would get angry. Being a farmer was not an easy job. They needed to have means of subduing animals weighing over a thousand pounds to get the job done.


    Don was still being busy with his work, and Saleen did not care about how he was getting the task done. Saleen found a ce toy out the magic map and began to discuss their next destination with Sika.


    Not much time had passed in the outside world since they had entered the temple. Only a little more than a month had actually passed. It was not even mid-autumn.


    There were only four of 24 temples built by the Goddess of Myers in Cloudflow. One of them seemed to be on an ind. The ind was several thousand miles away from the maind.


    Saleen was unable to find images of the ind on the magic map, which meant that the ind was more than 2000 miles away from the maind.


    ¡°Saleen, why not go to the Tanggsi Empire. Here, you see.¡± Sika pointed at a marker marking the location of the temple. ¡°It is far away from the vital points of the Holy See. We get to see a lot of enemies there.¡±


    ¡°Sika, we can¡¯t do that. The Holy See is watching our every move. There are already two temple ruins found by the Holy See. We picked both ces clean, leaving nothing behind. If the third was found by the Holy See, they would be able to do what we did, mobilizing holy masters in the thousands to calcte the locations of the remaining temples.¡±


    Sika understood right away. Even if the third temple¡¯s location was discovered by the Holy See, they would not be able to calcte the locations of the other temples. But if the Holy See was able to find the fourth temple, they would definitely know what Saleen was up to.


    To the public, the Holy See had been around for more than a millennium. The actual history of the Holy See was far longer than that. The Lord of Glory had wanted to sneak into Myers Maind during the Third Dynasty.


    However, the Lord of Glory¡¯s power was insufficient for him to preach on the ne, and the power of humans was still strong.


    During the Third Dynasty, humans were still capable of waging wars against believers of all manner of gods by using power equipment. There were very powerful humans on Myers Maind. Even if a god advented personally, they would get nothing.


    The Holy See had beenying low for nearly 10 thousand years, so they knew a lot about the history of the maind. They would definitely pay attention to anything that had to do with the Goddess of Myers.


    While the temple construction projects were carried out secretly by the Goddess of Myers, when the secrets of the temples were discovered, the Holy See would be able to determine the goddess¡¯ intent for carrying such projects in the first ce.


    Once the Holy See came to such conclusions, they would stop at nothing to prevent the goddess from being resurrected.


    Saleen did not care about the goddess¡¯ ns, but he cared a lot about the contract between him and the goddess. He needed to carry out her ns until she was resurrected.


    The greater the number of temples he unearthed, the greater his luck would be. Saleen had no doubt about it, and he had gotten solid proof. The luck that he had acquired was incapable of being calcted using any forms, even astrological ones.


    ¡°So where do you intend to go? Don got over 2000 subordinates so he can¡¯t just die. Even Nichs is enticing three holy masters to fall,¡± Sika pointed somewhere far away. Three devout holy masters stood before Nichs and were listening to Nichs¡¯ lecture about the lies of gods.


    ¡°I know what to do, we¡¯ll start from here.¡± Saleen pointed somewhere outside Alchemy City, about 5000 miles south of Sreeger Ind. ¡°There is a temple here and Cloudflow paid next to no attention to it. Alchemy City did not do anything with the ce, so that makes it the only safe one. We¡¯ll head back to Metatrin and depart from the sea, sailing alongside the edge of the Stormy Sea, circling around Sreeger Ind and head there before anywhere else. It will take us more than a month. The Holy See won¡¯t be able to find us and they¡¯ll go nuts.¡±


    ¡°Go back?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I need to ask Teacher about progress with the Magical Element Tower.¡± Saleen said as he put away the magic way and unleashed Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers to clear up the ce. He began to set a teleportation portal.

 Chapter 1125: The Next Temple (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1125: The Next Temple (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The teleportation portal that Saleenid out was not only capable of transporting small items, but it could also be used to transmit sound. The elemental environment of the Skywell was stable. The space had be unusually stable after the space tunnel disappeared.


    Saleen only found out after contacting Metatrin City that the Magical Element Tower was not finished. His teacher was adding a greater number of magic power furnaces to it, allowing to have greater offensive capacity.


    The Magical Element Tower was only able to defend and fly. It was unable to attack in flight. However, it was hardly trouble for Jason to fix. He designed magic arrays that enabled the tower to cast spells like Water Mirror Reflection in flight.


    It was not an active offensive spell, but it was capable of reflecting most energy and physical attacks.


    What was more important was that the upants within the tower would be able to determine how powerful an enemy was by reading the amount of power reflected by the spell, enabling development of countermeasures based on the way the enemy fought and their strength level.


    Saleen no longer had much use for the function. However, the modifications held significant meaning, as the Magical Element Tower would serve as his main and most important piece of equipment in the future.


    Saleen spoke directly with Jason. Six level nine magic nuclei were thoroughly exhausted with them talking for several minutes before the magic array.


    It hardly bothered Saleen. The things he had acquired every time he entered a temple were hardly able to be calcted by value of magic nuclei. Heid out another teleportation portal, and it came with automatic self-destruct function. They would tell the precise coordinates to the Holy See otherwise.


    Nichs finished his brainwashing process when the other magic array waspleted. The three holy masters chose to fall and followed Nichs.


    It was hardly surprising, as the holy masters had just advanced to level seven and were only able to do so due to the rise of power across the maind. Their mental state,bat prowess, AND knowledge were still at level six.


    Nichs, on the other hand, was already a pure level ten holy master. It was an easy feat for him to trick several mid-level holy masters.


    Don finishedying out the divine rune charm array. Saleen and the others watched from afar. Don stood in the middle of the array, surrounded by 100 demons. All of the demons wore masks, but blooming flowers were drawn on their masks, and the armor they wore was well-decorated. They looked like walking greenery and seemed to be wearing golden threads.


    Don¡¯s body hovered in midair, surrounded by over 2000 people who chanted prayers alongside him. While the Goddess of Myers was no longer around, her divine crystal shards that Don possessed and the power of faith stored within the chlorite proved sufficient to support the divine rune charm array.


    Power of faith emanated from the piece of chlorite on Don¡¯s Heaven Knight armor. In the eyes of the fallen believers, Don¡¯s body was covered in holy light. A loud, faraway holy song was vaguely heard, as if countless beautiful angels soared through the sky. The 100 demons also looked rather sacred and pure.


    The power of faith showered downwards like flowing water, absorbed by over 2000 believers beneath.


    Don¡¯s expression was cold. He led the believers to chant prayers that sung praises to the Goddess of Myers. However, his face did not look like a believer at all.


    ¡°The goddess is fair and impartial!¡± Don chanted ording to the book and the believers repeated after him, ¡°the goddess is fair and impartial.¡±


    ¡°The goddess shall grant you power!¡±


    ¡°The goddess shall grant us power!¡±


    ¡°Your souls would live on forever in the kingdom of the goddess!¡±


    ¡°Our souls would live on forever in the kingdom of the goddess!¡±


    ¡°Your sins would be absolved!¡±


    ¡°Our sins would be absolved!¡±


    ¡°You shall fight for the goddess!¡±


    ¡°We shall fight for the goddess!¡±


    ¡°Give her your all...¡±


    ¡°Give her our all...¡±


    Eleanor gave Saleen a peculiar look. ¡°So this Don guy just keeps saying absurd bulls**t like that?¡±


    ¡°It will be more than enough. Just watch.¡± Saleen shared his senses with Eleanor. She became able to see Don¡¯s power of faith being fed into the bodies of the 2000 believers, and he was almostpletely drained.


    However, as the believers chanted their prayers, power of faith began to well in most of their bodies, which was fed back to Don. The depleted power of faith within Don¡¯s chlorite was gradually replenished and grew even further.


    ¡°That is the rtionship between a god and their believers. The believers think that everything they are and own was given to them by the gods. In actuality, they¡¯re keeping their god alive. It¡¯s a very stupid trade!¡± Saleen said, in deep thought.


    Nailisi shrugged. ¡°Humans herd sheep for their wool and meat, but if the sheep were not herded by humans, they would end up in the bellies of magic beasts.


    ¡°Sheep will return to nature someday,but once the believers enter the kingdom of their gods, they stay sheep for the rest of their lives.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s mouth twitched.


    ¡°Big sis, I¡¯m just saying that it¡¯s better to strive to be powerful instead of a sheep.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Sheep have no right to choose.¡± Saleen patted Nailisi¡¯s head, approving of her way of thought.


    ¡°Master. Do you think these people are pitiful or pathetic?¡± Nailisi asked. Demons never liked the gods. Devils did not need power of faith and would never recruit believers.


    Demons talked with their fists. If someone was proven powerful enough, they would be sought out and followed by weaker ones. Demons were born with long lives. As all demons were capable of seeing through weakness in souls, they would never buy the lies perpetrated by the gods.


    ¡°It is a pity that humans were born with great potential for growth. If they did not believe in the gods and there are enough resources to spare, simple guidance is all that is needed for them to be mages, warriors, or priests capable of connecting with nature. It is unfortunate that powers across the entire Myers Maind were too weak. These people have no future.¡±


    ¡°Are we throwing them from the frying pan into the fire then?¡± Nailisi¡¯s words sounded rather irksome.


    ¡°You can say that again. But where else could they go?¡± Saleen was devoid of remorse for his actions. The people had believed in the Lord of Glory and intended to shine the light of their god on every corner of the maind. That was a heavy sin.


    If you want salvation, you all shall lose your faith and fight the believers of the Lord of Glory then.


    ¡°Master, you¡¯re a bad person indeed.¡± Nailisi smirked. However, she did not finish her sentence. What she actually meant was her master was a bad person, and she was a bad person, and she liked that very much.


    Nailisi dared not say things like that in front of Sika, who still held her staff. Nailisi would not be able to withstand a blow from her, even though the demon was level ten.


    Saleen grinned. ¡°Nailisi, humans areplex creatures. You can¡¯t just describe them as good or bad.¡±


    Believers who were purified lost all will to resist. After Don brainwashed them in the divine rune charm array, they soon became dazed.


    It was easy for them to believe in gods.


    As the setup was done hastily, the divine rune charm array slowly lost its light. The first prayers of the believers of the Goddess of Myers werepleted quickly.


    Saleen had no intention of staying around any further. He summoned Don. ¡°I¡¯m heading back to Metatrin City. Send your knights to fight at the north of Qin. While the Qin people disliked believers, but so long as you¡¯re fighting against the Holy See, you¡¯d have your ce among them.¡±


    ¡°Your highness...¡±


    ¡°Rx, I¡¯ll have Nichs tag alongside you. You¡¯ll be able to reach me anytime.¡±


    ¡°My liege?¡± Nichs was rather reluctant. He had intended to follow Saleen and search each temple. He did not want to fight in Qin, as it was very boring for him. Nichs hated the idea of the establishment of the Nature Faith in the first ce.


    Saleen stopped Nichs with a look in his eye, and the old holy master swallowed his words. Saleen was reluctant to give Don full autonomy. Nichs knew that his main role beside Don was not to help Don fight, but to keep a close eye on him in Saleen¡¯s stead.


    He was to observe how Don constructed a powerful Nature Knights Corps to fight the people of the Holy See.


    There was no way Saleen could let Nailisi do something like that. Theter the Holy See discovered her purgatory of purification, the better. They were able to keep things under wraps because they were no survivors out to leak the information.


    Furthermore, the purgatory was used when the battle was over, so the enemy was unable to find out much anyway.


    Don naturally followed everything Saleen said. What he was worried about was being cut off from Saleen¡¯s support. He was satisfied to have Nichs around him, enabling him to contact Saleen anytime.


    There was no way he could bring over 2000 believers back to Metatrin City using the teleportation portal. There would not be enough magic nuclei left with Saleen for anything else, and materials usable for constructing magic arrays were in short supply.


    If he transported all the people back, he would need to use magic nuclei above level ten. Without Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower around, the cost of using such portals was high.


    Nailisi¡¯s help was required in the task. Don let the Nature Knights enter Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of the devils, which enabled them to survive within, despite the environmental conditions being so bad that even the air was toxic.


    The believers only needed to stay for several minutes, which was far from killing them. As Don said, it was a test for them from the goddess, so the believers were actually eager.


    Saleen watched as Nailisi entered the teleportation portal with the believers in her 12 Notes of First Purgatory and shook his head exasperatedly. He wondered if the minds of the believers were pure or crippled. There was no way they would believe such lies otherwise.


    In order to conserve magic nuclei, the teleportation portals only allowed one person to be transported at a time, and even then, level ten magic nuclei were used.


    He was thest one to enter the portal and before he left, he activated the self-destruct spell. He prepared a huge ball of water on the portal, which would burn immediately after its surface vaporized.


    Even if the self-destruct function of the portal was inadequate to get the job done cleanly, the level ten Fireball would burn everyst bit of data with the coordinates of the temple in Metatrin City with it.


    After Saleen disappeared into the portal, a huge bird swooped down from the sky several thousands of miles away, intending to prevent the magic array from continuing to operate. However, the fireball expanded and the huge bird cried as its feathers burned, thrown to one side.


    Fireballs the size of fists split from therge fireball, and chased after the bird. As Saleen¡¯s body was transported into the temple, the portal at the Skywell exploded.


    Saleen¡¯s face was vaguely seen in the huge fireball, mming at the ground. The area within several hundred meters turned into an inferno. The temperature of the mes vaporized the materials used to draw the magic array right away.


    Even the steel rocks used toy out the array would be melted down.

 Chapter 1126: The Next Temple (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1126: The Next Temple (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s caution paid off. While the bird had only attacked the magic array out of instinct, even if it was unable to plunge Saleen into a space-time turbulence, it would easily stop the self destruction process of the magic array.


    If it had not been for the Fireball spell that Saleen had set up before he left, the Holy See would have been able to develop tactics allowing them to directly attack the temple at Metatrin City, by using the magic array.


    The Holy See might have even ambushed Saleen using the coordinates from the portal, sending infiltrators into the temple at an unknown time. The construction of Saleen¡¯s temple had been free of exploitable ws, making infiltration impossibly difficult, with the only problem being teleportation portals. Saleen left the task of confirming and securing the coordinates of his temple to no one else.


    The huge bird that came as soon as Saleen left was a level nine magic beast, but it waspletely burned by the fireballs. The water element with the Fireball continued to vaporize and transmute. Its attack speed and time were only twice the conventional Fireball spell, but even Saleen had no idea how long the spell would actuallyst.


    An inferno soon raged beneath the Skywell. The huge Fireball spell that Saleen had left behind split up into thousands of smaller fireballs, spreading all over the ce in the Skywell. Even rocks were melted into puddles where the fires burned.


    Saleen left his people behind as soon as he returned to the temple in Metatrin City and headed to find Jason, his teacher.


    Jason was briefly stunned when he saw Saleen, and thenughed heartily. It was rare for Saleen to see his teacher in such an excitable state. ¡°I¡¯m a bad teacher and yet you, my student, are able to be a level ten sorcerer. You have good luck, Saleen, and mine isn¡¯t all that bad.¡±


    ¡°Teacher?¡± Saleen did not know why Jasonughed. Even though his advancement to level ten was good news, it should not have pleased Jason that much.


    ¡°I¡¯mughing because mages of our lineage finally freed ourselves from the shackles of fate. I¡¯d been able to make it in time to be in the midst of the raising of power across the entire Myers Maind, and I advanced. You had lots of mystical encounters and adventures. I assume that you haven¡¯t got wind of it yet, but your student, Truman, is now a level nine sorcerer.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what?¡± Saleen was surprised, but quickly became impressed. While Truman had written all of his magical experiences in magic books, and Saleen had left a good number of magic notes for his student, he never expected him to be able to advance to level nine in such a short period of time.


    Speaking of which, there were, at the moment, only three mages from Jason¡¯s line, Saleen having the worst talent among the three. As soon as Truman had gotten opportunities to learn and ample magic nuclei and materials, he advanced to level nine in no time. While the rise in levels across the entire maind had something to do with it, not every mage was able to advance to level nine so easily, even back in ancient times.


    ¡°You¡¯re back in time, Saleen. It¡¯s absurdly difficult to craft your Magical Element Tower. There are only three level ten sorcerers in the entire Metatrin City, and I sent one to the Principality of Bitterwater. It took a lot of time, and progress is excruciatingly slow with just two working on it. Stay behind for a bit and all three of us will get your tower finished before you leave. Or else, I won¡¯t be at ease with you out there, even though you¡¯re now level ten.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that, teacher?¡± Saleen had thought that he was nearly invincible after advancing to level ten. He did not expect Jason to say that he was still in danger.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re not the only one who advanced. Others did too. There are level ten professionals in Lianyun City, and they repelled attacks from Holy Rock City. However, Lianyun City does not seem to be in a hurry to take any other cities. It seems that someone there is nning something big.¡±


    ¡°Think about it: one single grand duke in Cloudflow proved enough to fight us, a nation. There is a good number of level nines not showing themselves, and they have advanced using the instability throughout the entire maind. Someone like Joey would probably advance to level 11.¡±


    Saleen listened to his teacher¡¯s lecture attentively, feeling that he had been too confident before. While he had powerful equipment and had be a level ten sorcerer, when he thought closely, he was quite a distance away from where Joey was. If someone like me could advance, would someone like Joey just stay where he was?


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to be anxious. I¡¯m just reminding you. There are level 11 professionals in the maind, so don¡¯t let your guard down. A level 11 professional won¡¯t be able to do much to you if you have that tower with you. You should hear about Daliang City as well.¡±


    Saleen had spent a month and a half in the temples, so things at Daliang City had gotten somewhere no one anticipated.


    First, there was the case with Holy Rock City. Prince Safilos had finallye to his senses and knew that now was not the time to be petty with Lex. He deployed a 50,000-strong army to Daliang City, passing through the Principality of Bitterwater and marching hundreds of miles through the mountains. He constructed a huge, sturdy fortress east of the city. There were also 100,000 soldiers gathered from the nobles of the north all stationed in said fortress. Nearly 150,000 soldiers held the mountain passages tight, preventing the Holy See¡¯s forces from attacking the Principality of Bitterwater.


    Daliang City was considered free of further worries at the moment. The troops were holding the ce. There was no way anyone would be able to take down the fortress between the mountains, unless a great number of powerful professionals were gathered. During times of peace, no one would build such a fortress in the mountains, as it was pointless. A fortress like would only prove useful by keeping the situation stable and under control.


    The fortress that Safilos built was coincidentally located at the edge of the cemetery of the giant. If the Holy See forces attacked the fortress, they would need more than ten times the forces they had fielded. It was a testament of Safilos¡¯ aptitude in military affairs. He was able to choke a great amount of forces from the Holy See with less than 150,000 soldiers.


    Then, there was Alchemy City, which dispatched more and more mages into Daliang City. After the magic in Daliang City waspleted,bat capacity of the mages within Daliang City was restored to how they normally were. When they had a great amount of mental powers to spare, they were twice as effective inbat.


    The battle at the entrance of the cemetery was abnormally fierce. It was a battle royale between three distinct forces. Both the fossilized gods and the Holy See forces were the city¡¯s enemies. The Holy See kept dispatching troops to fight for the fossilized gods. Both had gains and suffered casualties. Due to the magic set up in the city, they were able to gain more than 60% of what there was to gain from the fossilized gods, while the Holy See forces were able to get only about 30% of the fossilized gods¡¯ fragments.


    Due to the massive investments made in the city, Ceylon City and Royal Harbor were secured.


    Metatrin City had begun to deploy its naval forces to hunt in the Oceanic Ice Block as the city had no wars to fight, restoring the supply of magic nuclei. The warehouses of Metatrin City saw a surplus of over a 100,000 magic nuclei every month.


    Due to the rise of powers across the maind, humans were no longer the only ones who advanced, as magic beasts had undergone simr changes as well. The number of magic beasts found in the oceans had increased considerably, so much so that they began to show signs of disrupting the ecological bnce at the Oceanic Ice Block. Metatrin City had no choice but to deploy their forces en masse to hunt as many magic beasts in the ocean as possible to prevent an explosion in the poption of magic beasts, which would threaten the sea routes.


    Magic nuclei below level seven were bing less important to sorcerers, but Saleen had a great number of mages to take care of, and he needed to provide low and mid level magic nuclei for the magic power furnaces as well. As such, the hunt bore significant importance. Furthermore, they did not need to get too near to the Oceanic Ice Block to gain more than what they were able to gain before.


    ¡°So Daliang City is safe then, Teacher?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Daliang City is indeed safe, but...¡± Jason hesitated for a bit. ¡°Your territories are too widespread. You have to support three cities at the border of Phoenix, and you can¡¯t afford to lose Lonestar City. Now that you¡¯ve added Ceylon City and Royal Harbor to the list, that means that your tiny kingdom has to secure six vital locations. What do you think will happen when the battle at Daliang City is over?¡±


    Saleen grinned when he saw his teacher not sporting a worried look. ¡°Teacher, the battle at Daliang City is not going to end soon, at least not in the next ten years. I don¡¯t even dare to think about what¡¯s inside, for fear that the temptation would get the better of me.¡±


    ¡°Heh, d to know that you know what you¡¯re getting into, Saleen. Mages of our lineage don¡¯t need much external help when we need to be aggressive; we simply need better luck.¡±


    Saleen was at ease about Daliang City when he was done talking to his teacher. He was afraid that there were spies at Daliang City, so he did not contact Lex. Even the nobles in Metatrin City knew nothing.


    He needed to attend to the crafting of his Magical Element Tower. Two level ten sorcerers adept at Water me Alchemy, as well as a level ten sorcerer from Sreeger Ind who had just advanced, were giving their all into crafting the tower. It took Saleen merely a week to finish patching up thecking parts of the tower.


    Saleen took Jason¡¯s words to heart and was on high alert. His currentbat capacity proved more than enough to deal with mages of the same level, but he dared not say the same having to go against a level 11 professional wielding high level godly items. A level 11 human professional was not something dumb like the angel of fear. The handful of times where his family badge failed to work were all when he had to deal with humans.


    The reason why Nailisi advanced easily and there was no need to worry about Ceylon City was because Saleen had advanced. That meant that the Winged Skull would advance as well. A level ten spirit armed with a Reaper Scythe, and furthermore, one with intelligenceparable to humans, made it far stronger than a pure king level spirit.


    The magic at Ceylon City was about to be finished as well. There were more than 12 pce sorcerers there to take care of things, so Saleen did not need to worry about it. The Ancient warship was stationed at Royal Harbor, which could be given up as it was too difficult to defend. Saleen would be able to retake the ce any time when his naval forces grew powerful enough.


    Saleen began nning to head to the sixth temple as he became free of pressing worries. Saleen had the Magical Element Tower with him in his expedition to the sixth temple. As such, regardless of whether the temple was on an ind or beneath the ocean, it was no longer a problem for Saleen. What he needed was enough equipment to deal with unforeseen trouble.


    There were 12 equipment slots on Saleen¡¯s Starline Bangle and he nned to fill all of them before heading to the next temple. An enemy above level ten would be able to use territorial powers if they had corresponding equipment with them. The most powerful skill that Saleen had at his disposal was the lightning rules. However, he had not been able to use the powers in a territorial manner yet, which he found very frustrating.


    They stayed behind at the temple at Metatrin City until the end of August, before Saleen became ready to make his next trip. He did not bring many with him on the trip, just Sika, Nailisi, Eleanor, and Sul. He left J behind in the temple to protect his children. Furthermore, if something happened to any of his cities, J, the true might, would be able to be deployed at any given moment to deal with the crisis.


    Finally, Saleen summoned Cuisi to return under Nailisi¡¯s suggestion. All six of them rode on a divingbat vessel the alchemy factories made specifically for Saleen and departed for their next destination: the sixth temple.

 Chapter 1127: Big Fish (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1127: Big Fish (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s divingbat vessel was only 18 meters long. It had a long and narrow body, which was divided into four parts: holds for rest, storage room, control room and an alchemy room installed specifically for mages.


    The material used for building the ship was special, as it was made of refined thundercloud wood. The backbone of the ship was made of bones of ancient magic beasts that Saleen had gifted to Jason.


    No metal was used. The advantage was that it made the vessel extremely light, which meant that it could travel at very high speeds.


    The ship was named after Saleen. The final part that Saleen installed on the ship was a Hogina¡¯s Gun that he had crafted. While the Thunder Dragon ster was incredibly powerful, its materials were incredibly rare.


    Even if Saleen ughtered all 24 thunder dragons he had with him, it still would not be enough to craft the one that he had with him.


    Hogina¡¯s Gun was more practical that the Thunder Dragon ster. Only Saleen was able to wield the ster. Hogina¡¯s Gun could be constructed by a great variety of substitute materials so long as the schematics wereplete. It could be made in different sizes. If it had not been for the weapon being very fragile, Saleen would arm every single mage of his with one.


    The cost for crafting a Hogina¡¯s Gun could make him approximately three other pieces of equipment of the same level. Furthermore, the equipment required little maintenance, while Hogina¡¯s Gun required constant repairs. Mages whocked in alchemy techniques were ill-suited to use such a piece of equipment.


    There were three Hogina¡¯s Gun on the ship, one main gun and two meant for dealing with small vessels, other individual magic beast, or even humans. Even if the vessel were discovered, it would be very difficult to probe into its internal structure or crew using magic or divine arts, as the inside of the thundercloud wood shell was lined with thunder dragon hide left by Saleen.


    The entire ship was finished by Saleen and Jason working together. It was reinforced using Water me Alchemy. While it was not a godly or semi-godly item, it was more sturdy than conventional holy items.


    The Saleen was capable of going deepest, other than the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship.


    The vessel had undergone tests at the Oceanic Ice Block when it was being constructed. It was found to be capable of diving to about 5000 meters before something went wrong. After being reinforced with Water me Alchemy, the Saleen was capable of diving anywhere in nearby waters.


    As the shipcked a shell as thick as the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship, the entrance was through a device that looked like a back fin of a fish, which was on top of the ship.


    That protruding part was a hollowed out attachment that could be detached. The fin also served as a weapon, as it was capable of cutting through metal, which enabled it to tear ships apart when it traveled underneath them.


    The Saleen secretly left Metatrin Harbor. There were few people on the vessel and so the ce felt rather spacious. Nailisi summoned two demons to serve those onboard.


    The vessel was powered by a magic power furnace, which gave it incredible speed and made it capable of traveling at over a hundred miles per hour a thousand meters underwater.


    While it paled inparison to ships traveling at the surface, it was incredibly difficult to achieve underwater. Underwater resistance was immense.


    Even golden grand swordmasters were only capable of moving quickly for short distances if they were not boosted by skills. They would otherwise exhaust too much of the sword aura and drown.


    If metal underwater vessels travelled at such speeds underwater, they would only be able to do so in short bursts. The vessels would risk disintegrating otherwise.


    Furthermore, metal underwater vessels were only capable of diving about a hundred meters deep. They were unable to withstand the pressure at further depths.


    The Saleen, on the other hand, looked effortless while traveling at such high speeds at a depth of a thousand meters. No one at the surface would be able to detect ships traveling at such depths.


    Saleen was able to radiate his level ten aura without concern, which naturally repelled underwater magic beasts, making their journey smooth.


    They took a detour around Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s ocean pce. Saleen was unable to find any signs of the grand duke¡¯s ships going near Metatrin City. Saleen gave up searching and elerated his ship to twice its original speed, making for the sixth temple.


    Saleen chose not to travel by air, as he would need to deal with the grand duke¡¯s forces and Alchemy City. While Alchemy City helped defend Daliang City, they only did so because they had something to gain. While the grand duke was powerful, if Alchemy City truly stopped his advance, there was little the grand duke¡¯s armada would be able to do to prate Alchemy City¡¯s defenses.


    Even Saleen, who had brought so many soldiers and pieces of equipment with him, would need repeated transfers using Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory if he prated Alchemy City¡¯s defense.


    Saleen stuck close to the edge of the Stormy Sea as he went south. He did not encounter any trouble along the way.


    There were few who dared to venture out to the deep sea, and as the Grand Duke had set his sights on thends nearby, he did not bother to develop ships capable of traveling underwater.


    The Saleen was also a specially made vessel. The high performance came at the cost of the ship¡¯s size and offense.


    No one was in any mood to admire the underwater view. Everyone onboard trained in their own rooms. Nailisi was the only one controlling the vessel and was bored. Saleen crafted equipment for his subordinates in the alchemy room.


    Their destination was about 20 thousand miles away and the Saleen was able to travel 4800 miles per day. It was far less time-consuming to travel like that than to use any other magical equipment. Saleen arrived after only three more days at sea.


    The temples were in really obscure ces.


    Saleen finished a piece of equipment and was about to hand it to Sul, when the vessel trembled. An 18 meter-long warship was a rather small piece of equipment, which meant it could shake from any rapid underwater currents.


    At first, Saleen did not worry, but he quickly found that the passage of time within the water was changing rapidly.


    Saleen headed towards the control room and found a giant fish approaching the vessel from the images projected on the magic walls of the ship. The fish opened its mouth wide. Every single fang in it was incredibly sharp and longer than the vessel.


    Saleen was so steeped in crafting equipment that he only found a magic beast on their tail then.


    As the Saleen was radiating level ten aura, anything that dared chasing after the vessel was definitely ferocious. Only something ofparable levels was daring enough.


    Furthermore, the beast was capable of concealing its aura, preventing Saleen from noticing. The feat spoke volumes of the beast¡¯s powers.


    Their current problem, however, was that the beast was turning tail and running. It was terrified by the big fish right in front of them.


    The fish was not after the Saleen, but the magic beast behind the vessel.


    Saleen said to Nailisi, ¡°why didn¡¯t you say anything?¡±


    Nailisi shared a soul bond with him. Even if she stayed silent, she could send thoughts about the looming danger to Saleen telepathically.


    Nailisi shrugged. ¡°Master, we can¡¯te all the way here and run around all the time anyway.¡±


    Saleen thought about it. There was no way he could let one magic beast deter him from finding the temple. The temple¡¯s coordinates were only several hundred miles from where they were.


    If we kept ourselves from the temple just because there are magic beasts around, then what are we doing here in the first ce?


    Nailisi took control of the vessel. The ship was nimble, but the powerful suction was unavoidable.


    Saleen¡¯s ship was sucked into the fish¡¯s mouth. The fish¡¯s fangs were over a dozen meters long, but they were far apart. The ship waspletely overlooked and thrown out into the water again from its gills.


    Saleen was able to see from the projections that one single scale was longer than the Saleen. The ship slid out of the gills and glided along the body of the fish.


    Before Saleen was done sighing in awe, he felt his ship dragged downwards by underwater currents.


    There was a huge abyss right in front of him, which was far more terrifying than the one at the Imperial City of the Abyss. Saleen was ted. This has to be the location of the temple. Legend has it that this ce is called the abyss of Myers Maind. Even the Cloudflows avoided this ce.


    The abyss was not a danger to the surrounding waters, as it had limited effect on its surrounding waters. But if something were dragged into the abyss, it would prove difficult to resist even if it was of the size of the Ancient.


    The vessel kept being dragged downward, but the surrounding pressure remained unchanged. No signs were told by the magic arrays, but Saleen had his magic tower prepped and ready.


    If the vessel disintegrated, they would plunge more than ten thousand miles into the ocean. While he would not be affected due to his water element body, the same could not be said for those around him.


    There was a magic tform with an expensive, high-levelpass on it. Machinery for control and a t magic panel was right beneath it. All 24 bright red lights shed on the panel. Saleen almost took out his Magical Element Tower.


    His tower was farrger than the vessel itself. If he took it out, there was no doubt that his ship would disintegrate. All the magic arrays would copse and a space chasm would appear.


    Saleen saw another, bigger mouth and gave up taking out his tower. Saleen¡¯s vessel was probably little more than a speck of dust to that mouth. If he took out his tower, he would be treated as an enemy instead.


    Saleen had no idea how big the mouth was. The length of the fangs within was probably over a hundred meters long. The trembling seawater around them originated from the breathing of that big fish.


    Seawater was absorbed into the fish¡¯s mouth and then expelled through the gills, collecting the energy within, which sustained the fish. Saleen took over the controls of the ship immediately and sent it straight into the fish¡¯s throat.


    The gills were terrifying. Seawater was dissolved into all manners of wind element, which was then absorbed by the fish. If Saleen intended to run, his ship would have to contend with the fish¡¯s prowess at breaking down elements.


    Saleen had never encountered a magic beast that powerful before. Even the silverline golden spearfish was only exceptionally adept at offense. This fish, on the other hand, threw out a magic attack above level 10 with just a single breath, and the area-of-effect was huge.


    It was fortunate that such a magic beast only resided in the deep sea. If it were onnd, it would probably devour an entire city.


    Saleen did not need to ponder such thoughts for long, as Saleen¡¯s ship went straight into the fish¡¯s throat, the width of which seemed to be more than a mile wide. Saleen recalled the hundreds of huge fangs, which were spaced wide apart. It was unthinkable that the fish was sustaining itself on magic.


    He took the ship past the fish¡¯s throat at the fastest speed the ship could muster, heading straight for its belly.


    He then quickly found an Ancient within, which was digested until only pieces of wreckage remained. The Ancient was a main battleship.

 Chapter 1128: Big Fish (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1128: Big Fish (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even the shortest of the main warships of the armada of Ancients was over 8000 meters long. It was capable of traversing nes, waging wars by bringing countless warriors onboard.


    The ship was broken into three sections. Most materials capable of resisting powerful magic were scattered. However, Saleen was at ease, as it meant that the acid in the fish¡¯s stomach was not especially powerful.


    The Ancient warship had been there for countless years and was still notpletely corroded.


    Other than the wreckage, Saleen saw many huge boulders and metals. All of the things seemed insignificant in the fish¡¯s stomach. The fish¡¯s stomach wiggled all of a sudden, and Saleen saw a mass of flesh, over three miles wide, was torn apart by the wreckages, rocks, and huge chunks of metal. The broken mass of flesh stuck to the fish¡¯s stomach walls and was absorbed.


    The Saleen tumbled around within the huge masses of wreckages around, painstakingly avoiding the shing and churning of the hard bits of material. Saleen realized that the wrecks, metal, and hard boulders had all been swallowed intentionally to help with the fish¡¯s digestion.


    It was unknown what kind of magic beast the flesh was from. Its inherent resilience was such that even Saleen would require constant cutting using level ten magic, before he could take it apart. But this fish tore it apart like it was nothing. What in the world.


    Sika came behind Saleen, unnoticed. She looked at the magnificent scene in awe. ¡°If only this fish was one of my beasts!¡±


    ¡°Big sis, are you sure you can afford to feed such a huge thing?¡± Nailisi was not teasing; she was telling the truth. Saleen might have gotten himself a country, but even he would not be able to feed such arge fish.


    Sika red at Nailisi. ¡°I guess feeding you to the fish should do it?¡±


    Nailisi was speechless. What Sika meant was that Nailisi could be useful due to her ability to summon demons. But the thought was ridiculous. There were countless magic bugs in the demon ne, but even the vast number of coordinates on her list would not be enough to feed the fish.


    It was fortunate that the fish stopped doing anything else after wiggling its stomach. Saleen knew that such a massive creature would require a long time to digest its food after eating. Some magic beasts were capable of evensting one whole year eating just one meal.


    Saleen¡¯s vessel was not the only moving thing in the big fish¡¯s stomach. There were also many small fish and small magic beasts living within the big fish¡¯s stomach.


    The massive pieces of flesh that the big fish had digested would not all be absorbed by the walls around them. Whatever scraps left would sustain many other living beings.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here.¡± Saleen called, seeing that things were rather safe within the big fish¡¯s stomach.


    None of the people who came with him on this trip would fear such an environment. The pressure within their surroundings was small and there was water around. There was acid and massive quantities of scraps in the stomach, which many small fish fed on.


    The stomach of the big fish was probablyrger than the entire Metatrin City.


    Saleen had deduced that the sixth temple¡¯s coordinates were probably somewhere within the fish¡¯s body. If it turned out to be true, the sixth temple was probably not anywhere on the ne of Myers Maind. They were after a portal to the temple.


    Everyone followed Saleen and left the vessel, which Saleen put away. He then covered everyone within his Water Shield. The concentration of the acids in the fish¡¯s stomach was low, but the quality of air within such an environment wascking.


    There were many perks to advancing to level ten, one being amplification of low level magic¡¯s power. The Water Shield that Saleen had just cast was not level ten, but he was able to easily take ten people inside the spell.


    A level seven Water Shield had decent defensive parameters. It would defend against attacks from magic beasts within the fish¡¯s stomach.


    Saleen was able to see that within the gastronomical fluids and on the walls of the fish¡¯s stomach, many parasitic magic beasts were killing each other. Some of the dead ones were absorbed by the fish, bing nutrients to sustain it.


    Saleen handed a newly crafted piece of equipment to Sul. It was a rucksack, which Saleen pieced together using several purple-gold sea urchins. It had a volume of 36 square meters. The rucksack contained magic pharmaceuticals that Saleen had crafted, magic liquids to be ingested, as well as magic weapons.


    All of the weapons were things that Saleen crafted for practice. They were of all differed attributes and elements. Sul was at the edge of advancement, and Saleen thought it would probably do Sul more good to get his hands on all manner of magic weapons, which he could derive inspiration from.


    Sul loved th rucksack and handed the one he originally had back to Saleen. He equipped his new gear on his person. Sul never had to worry about materials and equipment with it.


    He was different from J in that space equipment maniption was not among his list of skills to research. Even if he advanced to level ten, he would still be unable to use any space magic equipment.


    There were no magic beasts above level ten within the stomach. Saleen and the others began searching for coordinates. He brought his people to the edge of the Ancient warship¡¯s wreckage and stood at the backbone of the ship near the bow.


    The backbone had been broken into three sections. Saleen observed the broken parts and attempted to cut them using his own magic. He quickly discovered that even with the use of level ten magic, it was difficult for him to destroy it.


    It looked like the backbone was metallic. Saleen was very impressed with the alchemical feats of ancient humans.


    But then again, it might have been something that formed within the fish¡¯s stomach. Saleen knew that while the fish was incapable of alchemy, it was able to alter the properties of matter within his body.


    He dared not mess around much, and simply cut a piece about a dozen square meters with his Water me, before putting the piece into his Starline Ring.


    There were also the unknown boulders, which could be used as digestion tools. They were very resistant to corrosion and were very, very high strength. There were also the metalying around, which Saleen thought was refined from the swallowed rocks.


    Saleen¡¯s mind went into a flurry calcting the amount of material around him. He had touched less than one percent of everything within, for fear of angering the big fish. He did not believe that the fish was unaware of the changes in its own body. If he took everything that was to be taken, which would cause indigestion for the fish, his days would be numbered.


    He did not bother considering the fish¡¯s level. Even if it was a level 12 being, it was still the most powerful magic beast on the entire ne.


    The fish was so massive that even if over a hundred level 12 professionals attacked it, they would still have a hard time taking it down. Being at the same level did not equal having the samebat capacity.


    Nailisi held apass to pinpoint the coordinates. Where they were was very close to the entrance of the sixth temple. However, given how the fish seemed to be moving, the coordinates kept changing as well. Nailisi was unable to do anything about it.


    No one but Sika could tame a magic beast of such size and power, and the thought of fighting it was ridiculous.


    Saleen was very impressed with the Goddess of Myers¡¯ methods. The entrance to the sixth temple was unexpectedly within a powerful magic beast. The fish might have been disdainful of other gods. If believers of other gods approached it, there was no doubt that they would end up dead.


    Saleen kept the Ring of Gifts on his finger the entire time. Everyone passed through the Ancient¡¯s wreckage and came to the end of the fish¡¯s stomach. A slowly contracting organ was seen where Saleen¡¯s Fluorescence shone.


    Below it was a pitch ck passage. It was anyone¡¯s guess what kind of digestive organs they would go through.


    However, Saleen noticed that none of the magic beasts in the stomach went near it. They probably knew that if they entered the organ, unimaginable danger awaited them.


    ¡°Master, I found it!¡± Nailisi shouted in glee. Saleen unleashed power of faith ording to the coordinates shown on thepass without hesitation.


    Green energy and holy prose opened up the portal in the fish¡¯s stomach, but Saleen heard heavy impact noises behind him. A figure appeared right next to him. They passed right through the Water Shield and kicked Sul away. The dagger in their handunched straight for Saleen¡¯s throat.


    The figure appeared abruptly, and Saleen gauged their power level immediately. The figure must have been a level ten professional to be able to kick a golden grand swordmaster at his pinnacle aside.


    Saleen unleashed a thunderous roar. Golden lightning runes shot out of his eyes, blocking the pale green de before him.


    Saleen saw the face of the assassin. It was a young person dressed from head to toe in skintight ck garb, without any unnecessary parts that stood out. Saleen¡¯s lightning runes were imbued with paralyzing effects, but the young assassin¡¯s left hand was not shaking at all.


    But Saleen¡¯s thunderous roar had no doubt affected the assassin. Their movements became slow and a sh of white light appeared before the assassin. It was Sika¡¯s weapon: the triangr bone piece.


    The assassin had not expected Sika, a level nine warrior, to bring offensive capacity of such levels. Furthermore, her reaction was far faster than Nailisi, whom the assassin was wary of.


    Another two figures were behind that assassin. They were both women and were dressed in assassin garb as well. One of them held a ck short sword, while the other carried a moremon metal spike.


    Three assassins, wielding three short weapons, hit Sika¡¯s bone piece.


    Nailisi and Saleen rposed themselves and retaliated. Saleen cast Endless Night from his magic staff. A pitch ck water current was right behind Endless Night, slithering into the Endless Night and wrapped around the assassins.


    Sika¡¯s bone piece was frighteningly powerful. The young assassin was thrown off, but they were seen to use the force from Sika to propel themselves at the portal.


    The young assassinughed and disappeared into the portal. The two women behind them disappeared as well. Saleen was able to hear the assassin¡¯s voice: Your Highness Saleen, thank you for opening the temple. I¡¯ve been searching for it for a very long time. I¡¯m Agares...


    Agares! The emperor of the Cloudflow Empire advanced to be a level ten assassin!


    Agares definitely spent quite a lot of time advancing. He is very adept atbat, given how he was able to propel himself into the portal using Sika¡¯s force.


    Saleen chased after Agares without hesitation. Sika and the others dared not linger around and hurried after Saleen, rushing into the portal. Saleen might have been a level ten mage, but his enemy was a level ten assassin!

 Chapter 1129: Take It Apart! (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1129: Take It Apart! (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi chased after Saleen. ¡°Master, that guy wanted to steal Her Highness Lex but he wasn¡¯t able to. Don¡¯t do anything stupid...¡±


    Saleen wanted to turn around and slug her in the face, but he did not have time. If he lost sight of his target, who was a level ten assassin, it would be difficult for even his Elemental Eye to detect him when he concealed himself again.


    Agares had probably been in the fish¡¯s stomach for a long time. Saleen had not been aware of Agares¡¯ presence, and that meant that his worries had been real.


    Agares¡¯ughter hadpletely disappeared. Saleen was distracted by Nailisi, and he lost Agares. Agares seemed like he had never been there in the first ce. Even under close scrutiny of the Elemental Eye, there was no trace of human activity in the portal to be found.


    Saleen slowed down. He had powerful defenses, but they would not be able to resist Agares¡¯ dagger. The dagger had emergedpletely unscathed even after being attacked by his Eye of Lightning.


    Sika and Nailisi came to his side immediately after he slowed down, taking their ce by his nks, protecting him.


    Sul dared not act tough. Agares did not manage to harm Sul with his kick, as the starline cloth armor negated Agares¡¯ attack. If Sul went up front however, he would get in Saleen¡¯s way. He and Cuisi took the rear, on guard against any other tricks the enemy might try against them.


    Eleanor held onto the Seven Nights and followed close behind. She regretted not burning lifeforce and shooting the assassin. Agares was the strongest foe that Saleen had to face, but he was the deadliest.


    Saleen was still unable to figure out how Agares was able to take both of his underlings and hide them. The two women were at the pinnacle of level nine. Their equipment looked unassuming, but their hardness exceeded crystallized metal.


    All three assassinsbined their powers and attacked, but they were unable to break Sika¡¯s weapon. The triangr bone piece looked small, but it was not much weaker than Sika¡¯s staff. All of the powerful knights who served beside the third head inquisitor perished by the triangr bone piece, after all.


    ¡°Keep a close formation.¡± Saleen solemnly reminded his people. Agares could not kill them with a single strike, but the same could not be said for the others.


    ¡°Master, should I summon the demons?¡± Nailisi asked for Saleen¡¯s opinion.


    ¡°No can do. Assassins cantch onto demons. The greater the number we have on our side, the greater the edge the assassins would get.¡± Saleen stopped Nailisi.


    If they were up againstmon folk, sheer numbers would be useful. Even beings as powerful as the pope and armed with godly items would have to expend energy to kill.


    However, assassins excelled in one thing: ambush. They were capable of bringing massive offensive capacity in a split second. If the ce were filled with demons, Agares might have even been able to move between the demons¡¯ shadows andy in wait for an opportunity to strike.


    Saleen buffed them with three level seven Water Shields. The shields were incapable of stopping Agares¡¯ attacks, but they would diminish the impact. Furthermore, they would alert Saleen.


    Saleen was incapable of buffing his people with level ten Water Shields. It would only work at level ten when he used it on himself.


    Agares disappeared into the darkness and Saleen cast hundreds of Fluorescence, shining light 200 meters away. Assassins excelled in striking in the dark, so Saleen made sure that there was no darkness in close vicinity. At level ten, the Fluorescence spells spent as much as energy as walking.


    The portal leading to the temple was huge. Saleen walked for over ten miles before seeing the temple¡¯s gate.


    The temple¡¯s gates were shut and there was a hole a little over the size of a grown man. The hole was obviously fresh. There was a word written beside the hole in Qin: coward.


    It was Qin ng. It was obvious that Agares never intended to ambush Saleen along the way to the temple; he was moving all the way forward and carved a hole at the door when he saw the gates.


    If Saleen had been quick, he would have been able to catch up to Agares before the assassin reached the gate.


    It was tremendously difficult to destroy the gates of the temple. Agares had no divine means of entering like Saleen did, so he had to do so through sheer brute force, and that took time.


    Saleen had not been angered by Agares. He had simply cast Cleaning to wipe the words off, but when the light of his magic reached the word, the ck ink transformed into a venomous snake, whichshed out at Saleen.


    If he had not been cautious and had simply passed through the hole, the snake would have attacked.


    Saleen conjured a mist and the snake was immediately cut up into pieces by the snowkes. Saleen cast a water ball and wrapped up the pieces of the snake.


    The water ball was over two meters wide, but it turned pitch ck in the blink of an eye.


    The snake had not been high level, but the potency of its venom surprised Saleen. Saleen tapped at the shenhe at his hips. Rossen came out, and Saleen pointed at the venom-filled water ball. ¡°Can you eat this up?¡±


    The water puppet nodded. ¡°It¡¯s just venom. It can harm a physical body, but it can do nothing to energy.¡±


    Saleen realized something. The venom had sacrificed any attribute for harming souls to gain massive potency against a flesh and blood body. Once the venom touched the body, there was no way of detoxifying the body. The only way to survive was to give up one¡¯s body and transfer one¡¯s soul elsewhere.


    Unless one had means like the great head inquisitor, transference of a soul would cause massive damage to the soul. It would result in diminished powers and dimmed intelligence.


    ¡°Hold on, master!¡± Nailisi came up and stopped the water puppet. If the water puppet absorbed the venom, it would earn the water puppet another attribute.


    However, the water puppet had been a mage, which meant that he was already capable of casting poison-type magic. It seemed like a bad deal to have Rossen ingest the poison.


    Nailisi took out a magic bug egg and threw it into the venom-filled water ball.


    The magic bug dissolved. Nailisi asked her master in an awkward tone, ¡°Master, can you please dilute it with ten more water balls?¡±


    There was no way for Saleen to catch up to Agares, so he conjured ten more water balls and diluted the venom. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye watched everything closely and found the venom to be alive.


    That meant that the venom itself had life and was capable of reproduction. Even after adding ten water balls, the potency of the venom was barely even halved.


    Nailisi took out another magic bug egg and threw it into the venom. The egg hatched immediately, turning into a cute green worm.


    The worm did not grow just after ingesting the venom. It stopped growing after reaching the size of a human middle finger, and then beganying eggs.


    Saleen thought they would have to wait for quite a bit, but the magic bug died afterying its eggs. The new magic bugs hatched quickly, and the cycle repeated itself. The number of bugs grew tens of times with each cycle. After the cycle repeated itself five times, the number of magic bugs had exceeded 100 thousand, even after some devoured each other.


    Nailisi let out a shrill voice. The magic bugs stopped devouring each other andying eggs. She let out short, rushed, and weird sybles, which resembled the noise made by rats chewing on wood.


    One bug looked like a caterpir, which not even a peasant would find terrifying. However, having hundreds of thousands of them squishing within the huge ball of water was rather unsettling and disgusting.


    The magic bugs absorbed thest bit of venom before dropping to the ground.


    Nailisi continued issuingmands. Hundreds of thousands of magic bugs rushed into the hole in the gate. Saleen and the others had felt considerable relief.


    Nailisi exined, ¡°Rx, people. The bugs aren¡¯t going to attack us, as long as we don¡¯t touch them. The bugs will spray venom if they blow up from being attacked.¡±


    Everyone felt relieved hearing that. Magic bugs were food for demons, but there were some that were so powerful that even demons dared not hunt them.


    The most powerful attack that the magic bugs were capable of was spraying venom. They had long lifespan. If they had not been forcefully grown and were allowed to reproduce normally, they would be able to live for 20 to 30 years.


    ¡°Master, the bugs will be able to spread all over the temple, and I¡¯d know even if one of them dies.¡± Nailisi bragged to Saleen. ¡°The magic bugs¡¯ venom mutated. Even if Agares was immune to the original venom, he will be afraid of this one.¡±


    The way that Nailisi did it looked unassuming, but it was the best course of action at the moment. Saleen was capable of doing something simr, but it cost him a huge amount of magic chords.


    Agares had left the snake behind to cause stress to Saleen, however, the n backfired, and Nailisi had used it to her advantage, breeding huge number of magic bugs to do her bidding instead.


    Agares¡¯ skills as an assassin might have been formidable, but there was no way he would be able totch on to bugs the size of a finger. He would not be able to use the bugs¡¯ shadows to his advantage either. If he were capable of such feats, Agares would be level 13 instead of level ten.


    There had indeed been level 13 assassins recorded in history, but whenpared to level 13 mages, they were hardly worth mentioning. Near the end of one¡¯s advancement, any other professions looked weak to mages.


    When a mage advanced beyond level 13, they became capable of fighting for prolonged periods, and warriors lost their edge.


    Saleen followed the venomous bugs into the temple, which looked different than the ones Saleen had visited and taken apart before. For some reason, the Goddess of Myers never used the same designs to build two temples.


    The halls were connected to one another. Agares was not in the first one. Saleen saw the bugs wiggle their way into the first one, so he left it behind and went to the next hall.


    ¡°Master, nothing...¡± Nailisi was incapable of controlling all of the bugs at once. She was only able to tell if they were killed. Two consecutive halls were filled with the green bugs, but there was no trace of Agares.


    ¡°We¡¯ll go to thest hall, and we¡¯ll start taking things apart.¡± Saleen came up with countermeasures immediately.

 Chapter 1130: Take It Apart! (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1130: Take It Apart! (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The main reason Saleen visited the temples was to take them apart, preventing others from acquiring the luck bestowed by the goddess. Saleen had little interest in whatever secrets the temples held. He deemed it sufficient to not let anyone else gain any help from the temples.


    Saleen decided to head straight for the prize. The way that temple was designed had the halls arranged in a straight line, and the best was stored in thest temple.


    There were paths on the nks of the halls. Saleen took his people on the left path and reached thest hall quickly. The path was straight, and there were statues on both sides of the path, arranged close to one another.


    The statues were all modeled after creatures the goddess liked to keep, no statues of humans to be found.


    Saleen flew close to the ground, his feet between less than a meter away from the ground. He was shrouded in mist, which took a form and enveloped everyone following. Saleen had four wind dragons leading the way.


    Wind Dragon could be learned at level eight, which meant that in order for a person to learn the spell, they had to be a level eight sorcerer. Two wind dragons kept the path congested.


    If Agares intended to intercept them, he would have to break the Wind Dragon spell. The wind dragons were not something Saleen conjured, but a product of the wind elemental creatures in his badge.


    The wind dragons were very durable. Until the Tempest Dragonmights that conjured them were dead, the Wind Dragon spell wouldst for as long as required.


    The magic bugs were still invading one hall after another, taking up every spot they passed. The path was more than a dozen miles long, but Saleen¡¯s flying was so fast that it only took him over a minute to reach thest hall.


    The 24th hall did not look any different from the ones before. It had huge pirs, steps and wide gates. Saleen dispelled Quickcloud and took everyone up the steps and peered inside the hall.


    There is actually something on the altar of this hall!


    Saleen had been to several temples. With the exception of the undersea temple in the northern waters of Sikeqinya, there had never been anything on the altars. Furthermore, what he found in the undersea temple was a shackled believer who had betrayed the goddess.


    However, what he saw in the hall before him was equipment.


    Saleen came before the altar and walked up the steps to the top. Sika and Nailisi followed closely, holding tight on their weapons and getting ready to strike. Saleen¡¯s eyes were fixed on the set of equipment, his Elemental Eye working hard to analyze it.


    It was a peculiar set of magical equipment, with something resembling a puppet ced in the middle at a height of about 5 meters. It was apparent that there was a seat in the puppet, and magic patterns were etched in the walls.


    Saleen was unable toprehend the secrets of the magic patterns. He was only able to tell that the puppet could house a person and was made of very precious materials.


    The remaining metal weapons were of all shapes and sizes. Under the Elemental Eye¡¯s scrutiny, Saleen found that every piece corresponded to the puppet, which meant that all of the 18 weaponsid out were made specifically for the puppet.


    Saleen gave up thinking, as he remained incapable ofprehending the secrets. He took out a piece of dimension stone and bagged all of the equipment on the altar. Even if there was something afoot with the puppet, it could not destroy the internal structure of the dimension stone.


    Saleen only scanned the internal space of the hall after bagging the puppet and its peripherals. The hall resembled the temple that Saleen had first visited. It was unnecessarily spacious and there were small rooms at the rear.


    ¡°Get on with it. Sul, Cuisi, and Nailisi, barricade the gates.¡± Saleen summoned his ancient figures, beginning to take apart the internal structures of the hall. Saleen took control of the figures and Sikamanded the demons that Nailisi summoned.


    As it was not their first time, they were able to quickly take everything in that hall apart like locusts swarming a field. Even the stone floors were not spared.


    Regardless of what Agares was looking for in the temple, Saleen had taken apart thest temple, which guaranteed that Agares was prevented from taking away the most important pieces within the temple. There might have been material and equipment that Saleen was unfamiliar with, but he did not need to choose. He had enough manpower to take everything he saw.


    There were never secret passages in the halls. Everything worth bagging wasid out right before their eyes. The true test was how to find the entrance of the temples.


    After Saleen finished taking apart thest hall, he took everyone to the 23rd hall. He took apart one hall after the other until he reached the 12th, but he was still unable to find Agares. However, with the exception of thest three halls, the altars on every hall were empty.


    The portal led straight to the temple. Saleen was able to findrge quantities of alchemical materials, and they were not inferior to the ones given to him by the grandmaster. In fact, some were even better quality.


    However, the very reason he was able to acquire all of the materials was because Saleen was walking off the beaten path. He had taken to cutting up and bagging every single thing found in the halls, throwing them into dimension stones.Not even the goddess had anticipated it.


    Saleen had taken apart half of the halls within the temple in a very short amount of time, which frustrated Agares, who was lurking in the dark. There was nothing he could do. The magic bugs that Saleen unleashed were all over the halls in the front, which made it excruciatingly difficult for him toy traps.


    The magic bugs were incapable of flight and would not be able to do him any harm. But if he killed the bugs, it would alert Saleen and the others of his position. Any traps heid would be exposed. Agares grew intrigued about Saleen.


    He had long put the matter of losing his chance with Lex behind him. To Agares, it was something hardly worth of holding grudges over. While it was difficult to find a woman who would be able to surpass Lex, there were still quite a number of people of notable bloodlines to be found on the maind.


    Agares cared little about his own bloodline. He deemed it enough to let his brother take his ce and shoulder the burden of passing on their genes. What mattered to him was the growth of his powers.


    His chosen profession¡ªassassin¡ªwas incredibly difficult to advance in after level ten, which made it impossible for him to rival mages at the speed of advancement. Unless he was able to find the lineage of the assassins, one above level ten.


    The profession of assassin had declined. It was a true decline, unlike the mages who were still able to find huge numbers of notes left behind by their predecessors. Even if they were left without guidance from teachers, they would still be able to keep advancing.


    Agares wanted very badly to advance, carving out a path that belonged to no one but himself. Creation felt more satisfying than learning.


    The problem, however, was that even after advancing to level ten, an assassin¡¯s lifespan would still merely be several hundred years, which paled inparison to mages. The time that Agares had was almost ten times shorter than Saleen.


    If he were unable to advance to level 11, Agares would age very quickly.


    Assassins had too many skills that required them to burn their lifeforce in exchange for powerful attacks, which worked like Eleanor¡¯s elvish life arrows. Agares had used some skills like that before he advanced.


    Even after advancing to level ten, he had only a little more than 300 years left, which was half of what an assassin usually had at that stage.


    It was fortunate that he still was able to find something. Agares had acquired special metals in the fish¡¯s stomach, which could be used to make equipment tailored for assassins. He had also reached the temple before Saleen and managed to bag the inventory in the first several halls, which he deemed to be a satisfactory result.


    He was unable to open the peculiar portal. The Ring of Gifts that he had acquired was inferiorpared to Saleen¡¯s. He did not have help in the form of power of faith, and it was impossible for him to open an extremely unstable portal.


    Saleen was still unable to find Agares even after taking 12 halls apart. He had an idea and used a magic skill. ¡°Your Highness Agares, how about we have a chat, man to man?¡± His people continued to take apart the remaining 12 halls counting from the front.


    It was difficult for Agares to get into every hall with the magic bugs getting in the way. He had no choice but to watch Saleen gather materials and taking structures apart.


    He would still be able to deal a lethal blow to Saleen if he ambushed the mage, but doing so would mean that he needed to contend with the two women beside Saleen in closebat, and he wanted very much to avoid that.


    A shadow gradually coalesced at the square of the 12th hall before Saleen. He took a good look and found it to be an illusion. However, it surprisingly packed offensive capacity of level nine, which drastically changed Saleen¡¯s opinion of Agares.


    This emperor is something indeed. If Saleen created magical illusions, they would have the prowess of a level seven sorcerer at most.


    The illusion conjured by an assassin was able to reach level nine while the main body was a level ten professional. Furthermore, both parties were able to synchronize with each other at the highest level. Agares¡¯ powers had indeed been greater than what Saleen had anticipated.


    The mage, however, was unafraid. There were 24 very potent magic spells in his Starline Armament. If Saleen ran into a head inquisitor, he alone could take them down.


    However, it would require a very long time for a level ten mage to store level 11 magic in all 24 star charts. If Saleen wanted to restock, he would need to ask for his teacher¡¯s help, so he had no intention of wasting them on the assassin.


    Agares¡¯ illusion lifted his head and looked at Saleen at the top of the steps. ¡°Your Highness Saleen, I heard that you hail from Sikeqinya. So you wish to trade?¡± Agares¡¯ tone was sarcastic, ridiculing Saleen¡¯s birth.


    Saleen did not mind. Cloudflow people are all like that. If you were angry over something like that, even Emperor Danny would have to kill himself.


    ¡°No, Your Highness Agares. I¡¯m just curious. The Cloudflow Empire imed to be the descendants of the Fourth Dynasty, so why ally with the Holy See? I remember that during the founding days of the four empires, the Sikeqinyans were the ones in bed with the Holy See. Cloudflow and Qin were staunchly against such pacts.¡±


    Agares¡¯ illusionughed. Saleen was able to feel that there was soul projection within the illusion, which meant that the illusion was not merely an illusion. It would function like a true level nine assassin, bringing level ten offensive capacity within an instant.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, I¡¯m just an emperor. You said it yourself, I¡¯m a descendant of the Fourth Dynasty, but the Fourth Dynasty did not crumble because of the Holy See. To tell you the truth, I have no control over the southern nobles of the empire. If they wished to ally with the Holy See, my protest would amount to nothing.¡±


    Agares took a jab at Saleen¡¯s birth, and Saleen returned the sarcasm, but Agares looked indifferent, which enabled Saleen to understand something about the emperor¡¯s personality.

 Chapter 1131: Resisting Temptations (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1131: Resisting Temptations (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°So, that¡¯s to say that you, the emperor, only has your own pce under control?¡± Saleen knew everyone had a line that cannot be crossed, and he was searching for Agares¡¯ line.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to control? They¡¯re just a bunch of toadies and bootlickers. Your Highness Saleen, just tell me, what do you n on talking to me about?¡± Agares asked indifferently.


    ¡°Well, I don¡¯t actually know what there is to talk about.¡± Saleen answered exasperatedly.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about forming an alliance then.¡±


    ¡°With the Cloudflow people?¡±


    Agares¡¯ illusionughed. ¡°Your Highness Saleen, you¡¯re a Sikeqinyan, but you have the air of superiority of the Qin. Isn¡¯t that ironic?¡±


    ¡°How do you manage to get here?¡± Saleen asked out of nowhere, not expecting Agares to answer him seriously.


    ¡°It¡¯s like this. The Cloudflow Empire are descendants of the Fourth Dynasty after all, so the amount of information to be found in the pce is more than what I¡¯d bother keeping count. Only mages would be capable of remembering all of that. Much of the information I read as little more than stories when I was little, until one day, I got my hands on this thing here.¡±


    Agares¡¯ illusion lifted his hand. There was a Ring of Gifts on one of his fingers.


    ¡°So, Your Highness Saleen, how did you manage to get here?¡± Agares asked.


    ¡°I rather not talk about it.¡± Saleen smiled.


    ¡°Well, fine. After I entered thest temple, I managed to advance to level ten without any glitches. I presume that you owe your achievements to the temples one way or another. The Goddess of Myers was truly intriguing. More so than the Lord of Glory, I¡¯d say.¡±


    Saleen went silent. Agares simply blurted without thinking, but what he said was almost the entire truth of Saleen¡¯s rise.


    ¡°I think that the Goddess of Myers should have left 24 temples behind, with different types of wealth in each one. I¡¯m looking for the one that has something for assassins. As for you, Your Highness Saleen, I assumed that you¡¯ve found the temple that has something for mages, no?¡±


    Saleen was on guard. Saleen was unable to ce what he was feeling , but he knew that it was not anger.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen. Work with me and open up all the temples. If you refuse, I¡¯ll sell all that I know to the Holy See. I¡¯m after the lineage of assassins after all. I care for nothing else.¡±


    It was clearly a threat and sounded almost like it was made by a rascal. Saleen would find the threat normal if the one saying it was not the emperor of Cloudflow. However, it seemed that Agares did not care about the interests of the Cloudflow Empire.


    Seeing Saleen saying nothing in response, Agares continued, ¡°you¡¯re a mage. It¡¯d be safe if you¡¯d simply sign a contract with me. And rx, I¡¯m not going to ambush you.¡±


    ¡°Any profession would grow just as strong in the end. Your Highness Agares, do you wish to have a fair showdown with me at the end?¡±


    ¡°Oh no, Your Highness Saleen. You¡¯re getting the wrong idea here. I¡¯ve no interest in showdowns or whatever. I¡¯m simply interested in moving towards the highest ne, bing like ancient humans. The strongest assassin in the First Dynasty had a godly item that was crafted from a god¡¯s divine persona. That would be my dream.¡±


    Saleen did not buy into Agares¡¯ ridiculous ramble, but he was aware that Agares might not want to make him an enemy. However, Saleen was a mage, and Agares was the best specimen to test his skills against at the moment.


    Even if Agares did not have any intention of killing Saleen, he would be looking for opportunities to test his skills on Saleen.


    It would be far more dangerous to work with Agares than to work with Jalin.


    However, Saleen instead asked, ¡°how do you propose we work together then?¡±


    ording to Saleen¡¯s calctions, there were at least three more temples in Cloudflow Empire territory. If Agares had mastered the locations of all the temples and was simply unable to open them, it would be feasible for him to talk to the Holy See about it.


    If the Holy See got involved, it would be near impossible to carry out Saleen¡¯s n of taking down every single temple.


    The materials and equipment that he acquired from that one temple was more than enough for him to arm his temple guards when he returned. Furthermore, what he found would be enough to arm every single one of his soldiers.


    The ns he had for a 300,000 person army, all equipped with magic armor, all mages armed with scrolls and magic nuclei, and the feasibility of creating huge amounts ofrge scale equipment, magic power furnaces, and much more. The wealth in that one temple was beyond his imagination.


    Saleen decided to not leave any temple unsearched, as one temple held more wealth than what he bothered calcting.


    The 300,000 temple guards consisted mostly of elite demons, which meant that material expenditure was ten times what it cost to arm normal humans. It also meant that what he found in that temple was enough to arm over a million humans. It seemed that the temple they were in was left behind for human generals.


    ¡°We would sign two contracts. The first one is the agreement to search and excavate all temples together. I¡¯d only require the equipment and materials rted to assassins. Regardless of the level of materials involved, you¡¯d not be allowed to turn your back on your word. I have two lieutenants and 12 servants; you¡¯re not allowed to harm any of them. You¡¯re free to choose 14 of your own, and I will not lift a finger against any of them.¡±


    Saleen knew that Agares knew more than he let on. The equipment of the assassin was probably unusually powerful. Saleen might have had the Magical Element Tower, but he still felt that there was something out there more powerful than it.


    ¡°What about the second contract?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to bet with you, Your Highness Saleen.¡±


    ¡°A gambling contract?¡± Saleen was intrigued. He wanted to know what Agares intended to ce his bet with.


    ¡°We¡¯ll take a bet against each other, and see who gets to kill Theisio.¡± Agares proposed his terms, which intrigued Saleen further. He deemed it necessary for him to kill Theisio. If he had help from Agares, the possibility of killing Theisio rose considerably.


    ¡°The stakes?¡±


    ¡°The one who loses shall kill a target designated by the one who wins.¡± Agares was an assassin, which meant he had tremendous bloodlust. Furthermore, his skills were best honed in battle, which differed from mages.


    ¡°What if the one in question failed to honor the deed?¡± Saleen asked, as he was very interested in the gamble.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking of betting on this with my life, but you wouldn¡¯t bother with that. How about this? The gamble is to be fulfilled within a hundred years. The one who loses will serve the one wins.¡±


    ¡°Be of service?¡±


    ¡°A very contract,¡± Agares¡¯ illusion said with a smirk.


    Saleenughed., ¡°Your Highness, what if we both fail to kill Theisio then?¡±


    ¡°If we still can¡¯t kill him in ten years, we might as well go kill ourselves.¡± Agares¡¯ words were incredibly arrogant, but Saleen did not find it irritating. If a level ten assassin spent ten years in nning to get rid of a specific target, they would have a considerable chance of seeding.


    On Saleen¡¯s side, the number of level ten professionals had grown as well. Within another three to five years, Sul might advanced as well.


    ¡°But if I be a ve for a hundred years, I need you to prove that you¡¯re worthy of having me do that. Come out, Agares. Let¡¯s duke it out and find out if you¡¯re worth having me doing that.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m an assassin. There¡¯s no way I¡¯d fight you face to face. Your Highness Saleen, are all mages so boring?¡±


    Saleen was unable to retort. He was not afraid of shing with Agares. Crystal Finger, Eye of Lightning, Thundering Sound, and many other skills at his disposal were all very powerful closebat skills.


    Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger was more terrifying than a full-power strike of any assassin.


    ¡°Wait, are you telling me you¡¯re afraid, Your Highness Saleen?¡± Agares¡¯ tone was rather condescending.


    Saleen woke up suddenly. He was enticed by Agares. Agares knew that he and the pope were mortal enemies and there was no room for reconciliation between them. As such, heid out a trap, waiting to ensnare Saleen.


    It would be a lot easier for Agares to kill Theisio. At the very least, Agares would be able to meet the pope personally due to his status. It would be incredibly difficult for Saleen to even get near the pope.


    It wasn¡¯t a fair gamble to begin with. It would be pointless for him to wrack his brains, trying to make the stakes fair for both sides.


    ¡°Agares, one shall pay an equivalent price for whatever they intend to get their hands on. Go look for someone else to gamble with you.¡±


    Agares did not expect for Saleen to see through his game. He had failed to tempt Saleen using Theisio as bait. It looked like he had underestimated Saleen, and it was a pity that such a good prey had slipped through his fingers.


    A ve for a hundred years!


    ¡°As for the temples, we¡¯ll do what we each can.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone grew determined. ¡°I¡¯ve had the magic bugs blocking the portal. If you don¡¯t run now, then prepare to stay here for the rest of your life.¡±


    The 12th hall¡¯s floors were all taken apart by the time Saleen finished. Saleen took his people and walked down the steps. The assassin¡¯s illusion disappeared without a trace.


    Agares had no intention of wasting the assassin¡¯s illusion. It took him half a month just to make one. Furthermore, the illusion was not a magic skill. Agares was only able to make one. Until that illusion disappeared, there was no way for him to make another one.


    The negotiations had soured and Saleen became aware that Agares intended to take on the Holy See. Furthermore, that assassin probably had means to null the contract. If Saleen bet against him, it would only end in failure. Saleen¡¯s faith in contracts wavered after seeing the angel of fear¡¯s linked soul.


    If there were two souls residing in Agares¡¯ body, it would be easy for him to cheat.


    Regardless, none of it affected Saleen¡¯s will. He was too much of a pushover in the past, and it did nothing for his growth. Jason had showed him the way, and there was no need for petty tricks, especially when it came to working with someone like Agares.


    If Saleen signed that contract, Lex would probably not be pleased. Once Saleen could see through it, he realized how perilous Agares was. An assassin would use any weakness to attack their enemies.


    Saleen recalled reading something like that in his notes, and many mages said the same thing. It made him shudder. If Agares lost and became his ve, but was unrestrained by contracts, the possibility of him getting assassinated would be about 90%.


    It was an interconnected trap! if Iid one step on it, that would be the end of me!


    ¡°Keep taking the ce apart!¡± Saleenmanded the figures and began working his way into the 11th hall. Agares was not in that hall. No one knew where he was hiding, but Saleen felt at ease. It was precisely due to the fact that Agares had no certainty of being able to kill Saleen that he had tried something else.


    He woulde at me if he was so sure about it.


    If had located Agares, he would kill him without a second thought. Agares knew too much about the temples.

 Chapter 1132: Resisting Temptations (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1132: Resisting Temptations (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen used violent means of taking the halls apart. While it was very crude, it had gotten Agares flustered. He wanted very much to stop Saleen, but it would expose him.


    The simplest methods were the most difficult to deal with.


    Agares was able to do nothing but watch Saleen take the halls apart, bagging everything into his space equipment. Even though Agares only wanted anything useful to assassins for himself, he felt a heartache. If he sold all of the material, it¡¯d have made the royal family far wealthier than the local nobles.


    Even in their current state of affairs, Qin still had more than one-third of their nobles under control. Agares¡¯ royal family, however, only held sway over less than ten percent of their nobles. It would be a lie to say that he felt nothing about their state of affairs. He would not have dumped his position of emperor to his brother instead of being one himself after all.


    Bing an emperor was not in the way of him being an assassin. He only gave up the position because he felt his efforts were futile and felt dejected.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was not the only forceful noble within the Cloudflow Empire. People like him were all over the ce, but the royal family could not afford to take on all of them by force.


    If the royal family killed all of their local nobles, it would be reduced to an empty shell. There was nothing to be gained from it.


    Saleen came before the steps of the next hall and kept his hands behind him. Sika and Nailisi, who were both standing by his side, monitored their surroundings. If Agares¡¯ illusion showed one more time on the za, Saleen would shoot six lightning icicles from his left arm.


    He kept his hands behind him to conceal the Thunder Dragon ster. The lightning icicles curved when they were shot,ing right before Agares¡¯ illusion when he showed. Six lightning icicles flickered as they conjured an electrical web, blocking any escape for the illusion.


    Two icicles were shot into the illusion itself. The projectiles exploded with crackling sparks. The illusion was shocked until it dissolved in the flow of electricity. Saleen was able to vaguely hear the pained wail of the soul within the illusion. Even a soul projection would be harmed when shocked.


    Agares dared not stay any longer after he was ambushed by Saleen. He rushed along the path on the right, lurking in the statues¡¯ shadows.


    Saleen smirked coldly. While he was unable to find Agares, it felt just fine getting rid of the assassin¡¯s illusion. If Agares showed up, he would have hisst icicle lock onto the assassin. Regardless of if it would kill Agares, it would create an opening for Nailisi and Sika to attack. So long as the enemy was exposed, there was nothing an assassin could do to fend off attacks from both Sika and Nailisi.


    Agares did not show after a few seconds passed. Saleenughed, filling the hall with his thunderous sound.


    Agares came before the temple¡¯s portal and heard Saleen¡¯sughter from afar, as well as that sarcastic word.


    ¡°Coward indeed! Hahahaha...¡±


    That was something that Agares had left for Saleen at the gates, which was then returned to him word for word. Agares¡¯ expression remained unchanged. The ground was filled with magic bugs. He simply stepped on them and rushed outside the portal.


    That was to tell Saleen that he had left. He would no longer be able to hear anything more that Saleen had to say.


    ¡°Master, Agares left through the portal.¡± Nailisi sighed in relief. Agares was so good at lurking and concealing himself that it made everyone around tightly wound.


    ¡°I know.¡± Saleen smirked. He felt pleased with himself. Killing an illusion was nothing worth getting excited about, but he learned some secrets about the assassin¡¯s illusion. If Agares used it next time, he might as well expose himself. The Mark of Lightning was etched on the soul for good.


    Assassins were not mages. Every illusion they created was identical, both in appearance and in energy fluctuation signatures, especially when a soul projection was involved, as it had no room for mistakes.


    Saleen had no fear of Agares alone. What he was wary about were the two female assassins that Agares was bringing with him. If both of them burst with level ten attacks, it would trigger his Figure of Fate. If that happened, he would no longer be safe when he had to deal with Agares¡¯ attackster.


    It was fortunate that he had spent quite some time training in the Imperial City of the Abyss. There was no way he could resist Agares¡¯ temptations.


    Agares left the portal as quickly as he was able to. He came to the fish¡¯s stomach and the two female assassins revealed themselves behind him.


    ¡°Your Highness, you¡¯re hurt!¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Agares shook his head and added, ¡°That was simply the illusion being destroyed. I can¡¯t use it against him anymore.¡±


    ¡°Is he that powerful?¡± The other assassin gasped in surprise.


    ¡°His skills, level, and equipment were more powerful than I anticipated. He didn¡¯t simply rise because Lex was backing him. The spies were trash, feeding me withpletely useless intel.¡± Agares said angrily. His spies were all over the maind and he had umted quite a lot of information on Saleen. He had nned on moving against the mage for quite some time.


    In Agares¡¯ mind, he was an emperor, so his target should also be high profile people if he derived any sense of satisfaction from his assassinations. He mentioned killing Theisio, and it was not a lie. It was but a distant goal, one that needed to wait until he was done crafting all pieces of equipment required.


    Emperors, princes, lords, and dukes of every single nation on the maind were Agares¡¯ targets. He did not bother lifting even a finger againstmon folk.


    ¡°What should we do then?¡± the two female assassins asked.


    ¡°What should we do?¡± Agares turned around and looked at the portal. He had no way of destroying the portal, but portaly within the fish¡¯s stomach.


    ¡°Hehehe, you two, help me out.¡± Agares took out three bottles, giving one to each of them and leaving one for himself. ¡°I¡¯ve done some calctions. If Saleen intended to bag everything inside, he¡¯d need more than six hours. I bet he won¡¯t even leave the statues behind.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± The two female assassins took over the bottles and poured a drop of pink liquid out of each of them. The pink liquid was suspended by their powers and hovered before them. Both female assassins mimicked Agares and took out another bottle each, and poured some goo inside, wrapping it outside the two drops of pink liquid.


    The pink liquid was pain-inducing drugs, the highest level of pharmaceuticals capable of being crafted by alchemist on Myers Maind. If the liquids were coated on weapons, they would cause their enemies to die of excruciating pain.


    A single drop, smaller than the tip of a needle, could be used to make huge amounts of sensitivity pharmaceuticals when diluted. It was useful for heightening a human¡¯s mental powers and sensory powers. Agares had a lot of pain-inducing pharmaceuticals, and he brought them all out just to make Saleen suffer.


    Agares knew that his trap would not be enough to harm Saleen. But then again, they were inside the fish¡¯s body, and the fish was a mega-sized magic beast. The fish only needed to open its mouth and suck to tear a Cloudflow armada apart.


    If he did not use such a massive magic beast to his advantage, Agares could not call himself an assassin.


    The portal was about four meters across. Agaresid out the trap. Even a level ten sorcerer would have no choice but to take it apart through brute force. If the trap was broken, the gooey balls suspended elsewhere in the fish¡¯s stomach would drop into the fish¡¯s stomach acids.


    Agares took the two female assassins with him when he was doneying the trap. From the fish¡¯s perspective, the three of them were smaller than ants, so they had no problem slipping out of the fish¡¯s mouth.


    The gooey balls suspended in the air were all about to fall and the portal turned unstable after six hours. Saleen¡¯s silhouette was seen at the other end of the portal at that moment.


    Saleen caught sight of the trap at the other end of the portal. Nailisi was in Sensory Sharing state, so she simply summoned several thousand magic bugs and had them rush at the trap, breaking it down in mere moments.


    The trap would release incredibly toxic gases at their targets. Saleen simply dispelled them with a Cleaning spell and the balls suspended faraway dropped into the fish¡¯s stomach acids. The goo at the surface of the balls was impervious to poison, but was incredibly susceptible to acids. The balls quickly dissolved after they dropped into the stomach acids.


    The pain-inducing pharmaceuticals were quickly absorbed into the fish¡¯s bloodstream. It had no fear of poisons and the pharmaceuticals were far less than enough to kill it. However, the sudden surge of pain made the insides of the fish¡¯s stomach turn upside down.


    Saleen and his people had just gotten out of the portal and quickly found themselves in a pinch. He wrapped everyone using Water Shield.


    The Water Shield that Saleen conjured was from a magic staff. The level ten Water Shield was rather tight, so everyone had to squeeze, but it was far safer than level seven. All of it happened so suddenly that Saleen had no time to take out his Magical Element Tower. All manners of wreckage, metal chunks, and boulders churned like they were thrown into a storm.


    The big fish¡¯s stomach contracted violently and something that Saleen never expected happened. Everyone around him, the magic beasts living in the fish¡¯s stomach acids, and some bugs were sucked away by a powerful force, thrown into another digestive organ further inside its body.


    The fish had small andrge intestines, and they were very terrifying.


    The intestines of the fish were wider than any road that Saleen had ever seen, but they were being contracted at the moment, doing their best to flush out anything in the fish¡¯s stomach. The force was so massive that even Saleen had no way to resist. Furthermore, the corrosive properties of the liquids in the intestines were far more potent than the ones in the stomach.


    The fish¡¯s intestines contracted and expanded, pulverizing anyrge sized object within. Saleen had no choice but to keep casting Water Shields, level seven and level ten ones being used alternately. He saw a ten-meter boulder pulverized right before him. The boulder was harder and stronger than metalized steel rock.


    Nailisi made a sour face. ¡°Master, it wasn¡¯t me!¡±


    ¡°I know that!¡± Saleen was incredibly frustrated. It had to be t Agares. Saleen had no idea how long the fish¡¯s intestines were, but he estimated it to be more than a hundred miles long. He struggled to hold on and he felt fortunate that one of the spells that he spent most time refining after advancing was the level ten Water Shield. It was also most stocked in his magic staffs and scrolls.


    It was all a matter of luck if they were able to make it out alive. Saleen had no way of taking out his Magical Element Tower with everything in chaos around him.

 Chapter 1133: Thousand Miles of Fish Intestines, Tens of Thousands Miles of Oceans (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1133: Thousand Miles of Fish Intestines, Tens of Thousands Miles of Oceans (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The fish¡¯s intestines were longer than Saleen expected them to be. A level seven Water Shield was able tost for about two miles of the journey before copsing. In contrast, level ten wouldst over 20 miles. Things were hellish and chaotic in the fish¡¯s intestines.


    The walls kept expanding and contracting. Any matter that entered the intestines turned into weapons against Saleen and his people.


    Even if Saleen¡¯s calctive abilities were very bad, he knew it was a matter of time before things would take a turn for the worse. He said to others around him, ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be able to keep doing this till the end of the journey. If you guys have anything else to bring to the table, work with me and get things in order. We can only protect everyone here by doing so.¡±


    Sul answered immediately, ¡°my liege, the golden sword aura would work, but it would only work with you, and I have no idea how long it wouldst.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. Leave the calctions to me.¡± Saleen had ample mental powers at the moment; it was running out of magic chords that concerned him. If his scrolls and magic staffs were depleted in such a predicament, he would only have himself to rely on.


    Nailisi said, ¡°Master, my shield could cast Demonic Protection, but I can¡¯t hold it for long.¡±


    Saleen nodded in acknowledgment. He looked into Nailisi¡¯s shield before. If Nailisi was capable of using it to cast demon skills, it would possibly work better than his Water Shield.


    Eleanor then said, ¡°I¡¯m not quite sure of my defensive skills. It could protect everyone here but the duration...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do the calctions. Rx.¡±


    Sika then said, ¡°I¡¯d be able to keep everyone safe for about a hundred miles. But if restoration is to be taken into consideration, I¡¯d probably only be able to use it once.¡±


    Cuisi felt rather sorry for himself. ¡°Your highness, I¡¯d only be able to protect myself. If any of you run out, feel free to leave me out. I¡¯d be able to survive for some time.¡±


    Saleen smiled. ¡°We won¡¯t need to do that. We have Nailisi to me for not giving you a set of powerful gear. If we survive this, I¡¯ll have her see to it.¡±


    Nailisi stuck out her tongue and ground her teeth secretly. Cuisi was the most powerful of the four demons directly under her, and the most loyal. It was entirely within reason to get him a decent set of equipment. However, her failure to do so in time meant that it was entirely within reason to have her master chastise her for it.


    Saleen thought for a bit. ¡°Sika is able to hold on for the longest duration. We¡¯ll have her use her skillsst. Eleanor¡¯s duration is the one that¡¯s most difficult to pinpoint, but she is able to stay in Sensory Sharing with me for quite a long period. She¡¯d be the second to use hers. Cuisi, no need to fret. If Sika were longer be able tost, I¡¯d keep you out of the loop. You¡¯d need to only focus on protecting yourself. I¡¯d be able tost for another hour by taking care of one person less.¡±


    Cuisi nodded, and Saleen continued, ¡°Sul, you¡¯re up first. You¡¯re able to recover golden sword aura quickest. Nailisi will be next. She can share senses with me, so nothing will go wrong. If Nailisi¡¯s strength fails and you¡¯ve recovered enough, you¡¯ll take the helm again.¡±


    Sul understood. While his powers paled inparison to everyone around him, he was able to regenerate the most quickly. A golden grand swordmaster¡¯s regeneration rate was far above a mage¡¯s.


    It was his edge over everyone else. When Sul was so tired that he was no longer able to regenerate in time, others would take his ce. When everyone was worn out, he would be able to help Saleen hold on for the next few rounds.


    After Saleen got the n in ce, he cast hisst Water Shield. The level seven shield simply served as a buffer before the n began. When the Water Shield burst, Sul unleashed thick golden sword aura under Saleen¡¯smand, keeping everyone wrapped in it.


    Saleen had considered using the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. But if he did that, the resulting massive spatial fluctuations would alert the big fish. If a person knew that something dangerous lurked within their stomach, they would take some magic pharmaceuticals to kill it. The big fish¡¯s powers might not have exceeded level 12, but it would be at the pinnacle of level 12 at all times.


    Its powers had been limited by the rules of their ne, but if it were a human being and its powers likened to a level 12 sorcerer, it would be capable of casting more than 10 thousand level 12 spells continuously.


    Such was the difference between their powers and that of the fish. As such, Saleen had no intentions whatsoever to fight the fish. He was, after all, so insignificant to the fish that they would make it through safely so long as they did not alert it.


    If he had a death wish and summoned his elemental creatures, demons, and ancient figures to fight the fish, then the fish would digest them, reducing them to nutrients.


    When Sul¡¯s golden sword aura was unleashed, Saleen was able to tell the difference between Sul then and now. Sul¡¯s powers had reached the pinnacle of golden grand swordmaster after training for a hundred years.


    The golden sword aura stuck close to everyone¡¯s bodies, causing no difort at all. In the fish¡¯s perspective, the golden sword aura waspletely devoid of offensive capacities. It was a pure defensive measure.


    Sul had developed such precise control of his sword aura, but he was still unable to advance to level ten. It was a testament of how potent the powers of a level ten True Might would be.


    Saleen had developed quite a deep understanding of whatbat capacities of swordmasters were like rtive to their levels. Sul did not disappoint. His golden sword aura protected six people andsted for more than 30 miles before dissipating.


    Saleen had Nailisi take his ce immediately. She took out her shield, getting ready for the moment the golden sword aura was no longer around, before casting ck energies and enveloping everyone within.


    It was apparent that Nailisi was unfamiliar with the skills needed to do so. Saleen maintained a sensory connection with her, allowing him to assess her skills. She relied on the shield¡¯s inherent power to protect everyone around her.


    Nailisisted a very long time. Her energies were only exhausted after about a hundred miles. All skills had their limits. Nailisi was able to maintainbat readiness, but she was no longer able to activate the shield. It was the shield, rather than her, thatcked the ability to continue doing so.


    It was satisfactory to Saleen. He deemed it fortunate that he had discussed with everyone beforehand. He had expected the fish¡¯s intestines to be little more than a hundred miles long, but they were still unable to see the end even after moving over 200 miles.


    Saleen shifted his Sensory Sharing to Eleanor after sensing that Nailisi was about to give. The longbow in Eleanor¡¯s hand shone with brilliant green light, shrouding everyone. The ck energies from before dispelled without a trace.


    Nailisi smirked. She was able to see that Eleanor¡¯s longbow had grown in power, which meant that her master had worked on it again.


    Nailisi spected if there was something going on between her master and the elf. However, as Sika was around, she dared not ask about it, and it bothered her immensely.


    Saleen was able to feel Nailisi¡¯s emotional fluctuations. However, it was his utmost priority to take care of everyone, which meant that he had no time to spare to analyze Nailisi¡¯s thoughts.


    Eleanor was humble about her abilities. Saleen had initially prepared to keep Sensory Sharing activated between them, but there was no sign of her skills giving in after over ten miles.


    Saleen was at ease enough to temporarily cut his connection with her. He knew that the Seven Nights that he had re-crafted would be over ten times more powerful in the hands of an elf than it would in the hands of a human.


    While Eleanor did not hide any of the elf¡¯s skills to Saleen, but he was unable to train in most of them to begin with. Such all-epassing defensive skills used at the moment was something that would see limited use in battle, so he had never seen Eleanor use.


    He quickly found, in surprise, that it had worked better than his level ten Water Shield when she dide to use it.


    That was that level ten spells was inferior; it was just that Saleen stillcked the mastery of his Water Shield spells. He was concerned about lightning patterns on the shields shocking the fish, so he rubbed it all off for the moment.


    That, unfortunately, meant that his Water Shields suffered a sharp drop in performance. If there were lightning patterns on the surface of the Water Shield, electrical currents would jump when it came into contact with the fish¡¯s body, which would definitely alert the fish.


    Other creatures were incapable of attacking things inside their bodies, but Saleen was sure that something of that size would have means to do so.


    Eleanorsted for over a hundred miles before her skill copsed. Half of the power of faith within the Seven Nights was exhausted. Saleen cast a level seven Water Shield to cover for her, then gestured for Sika to get ready.


    Sika took out her triangr bone piece, which expanded to the size of a small boat in Sika¡¯s hands, the hollow parts spacious enough to hold all of them. Everyone bent and wiggled into the bone. Green energy then seeped out of the bone¡¯s crevices, sealing it altogether.


    Sika¡¯s work was not done. She kept her focus and steered the bone. The sharpness of the bone¡¯s edges exceeded any de. However, Sika dared not try and see for herself if the fish intestines were able to withstand the bone¡¯s attacks.


    If the bone truly cut up the intestine, it would be the end for them all.


    Saleen, however, was at ease. He conjured Water me. ¡°It seems like everyone is doing fine. Restore your mental powers as quick as you can. We have no idea what awaits outside.¡±


    A tornado was conjured out of the Water me as he spoke, which flew outside the bone and wrapped its edges. the tornado was incapable of damaging the bone piece.


    The tornado was hardly a threat to the fish intestines. It was enough for Sika to simply maintain the energies at the crevices of the bone.


    Sika sighed in exasperation. ¡°I¡¯ve underestimated a priest¡¯s skill. I would have crafted a totem if I knew sooner. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.¡±


    Everyone calmed down, finding themselves safe in the fish intestine. Other than Saleen and his people, there were also some small magic beasts to be found in the fish intestine.


    The magic beasts were all caught by surprise. Most were absorbed into the fish¡¯s body and died. There were, however, some fish that were enveloped in energy balls, which kept them safe.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye peered out to analyze and record the energy balls conjured by the small fish, keeping the records forcefully etched in his mind using magic.


    The way the energy balls worked differed considerably with magic, and only the Water Shield shared some simrities with them. Saleen knew that it was his chance at improving the Water Shield. The fish had probably spent years inside the big fish¡¯s body, and had developed self-preservation instincts as a result.


    The small fish¡¯s energy balls were formed through trial and error. They were wless as defensive measures, and only absolute, overwhelming power would be able to crush them.


    All of them were moving forward and around the fish¡¯s intestines for over 1700 miles. Saleen helped Sika seal the bone¡¯s crevices several times throughout the journey. They alternated in keeping everyone safe, and did not run into further dangers.


    The fish¡¯s stomach felt a sting within and decided to flush the pain-inducing pharmaceuticals and other small impurities out of its body. It never intended to kill any parasitic life forms inside its body.


    The life forms were not entirely useless to the fish, as they helped the fish clean the insides of its body. They were even some fish that were so small, that they were capable of entering the fish¡¯s bloodstream and help clear any true parasites and impurities within.


    It was due precisely to such an environment and special attributes of the big fish that Saleen and his people were able to stay safe. Any single part of the big fish could unleashing powerful attacks. If the fish¡¯s intestines contracted earnestly, everyone would be crushed to death.


    ¡°The exit is near. Everyone, brace yourselves!¡± Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye caught sight of that exit that continued contracting and expanding, and he felt rather disgusted...

 Chapter 1134: Thousand Miles of Fish Intestines, Tens of Thousands Miles of Oceans (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1134: Thousand Miles of Fish Intestines, Tens of Thousands Miles of Oceans (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The exit that Saleen saw was the end of the magic beast¡¯s intestine¡ªthe anus. It was fortunate that he was a mage. While he seldom dissected humans, he had researched many magic beasts, so the disguststed only for a brief moment.


    The reason why he felt that was because he recollected what he went through in the intestine and what was being trashed about around him.


    The waste shot out with Sika¡¯s bone piece, being sent flying for over hundreds of miles away, before sinking to the bottom of the ocean slowly.


    Saleen did not struggle as he was sent outside the fish¡¯s body. Violent currents from the fish moving forward turned the seawater around them chaotic.


    It was fortunate that the currents were ono threat to Saleen and his people, but he dared not allow them to venture outside the bone that housed them. The depth they were at was not a ce that a level nine professional could survive in.


    Even Sul, a golden grand swordmaster at the pinnacle of his level, wouldst less than a minute before being thoroughly exhausted, and then turned into mush.


    Saleen nced at Sika. ¡°I¡¯ll go have a look outside when we reach the bottom. Keep everyone safe.¡±


    Saleen was able to see the bottom as he spoke. They were about over a dozen miles away from hitting the ocean floor. Over a dozen miles was over ten thousand meters. Furthermore, they had been falling for miles. Saleen began to wonder if they were still in Myers Maind.


    The deepest parts of Myers Maind wouldn¡¯t be more than 30 miles deep, would it?


    The violent currents gradually subsided and the bone piece quickly sank to the bottom. It trembled several minutester,nding on arge piece of underwater rock.


    Saleen cast Water Shield and passed through the green energy barrier, venturing outside the bone piece. His Elemental Eye allowed him to expand his sight over a dozen miles. There was no living being around them, which was quite a relief to Saleen.


    He calcted for a bit and found the water pressure to be less terrifying than he had anticipated. At the very least, the pressure there was only twice as heavy as the pressure at the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    A level nine professional would be able to survive for quite some time. However, one would be in serious disadvantage if they fought there without level ten powers.


    Saleen grew bold, seeing no living beings around him, and he began looking into his surroundings. He was ted to find that the ocean floor was filled with precious materials, more so than the fish¡¯s stomach.


    However, it was a pity that there wasn¡¯t very much. He quickly realized that it was probably the fish¡¯s excrement. All of the materials lying about had been refined by the fish¡¯s body.


    Anything thaty around at the ocean floor were refined products from materials, things that the fish was unable to absorb.


    Saleen wanted tough. Agares had wanted to cause him harm, but the assassin ended up sending him to a huge treasure chest of materials instead.


    He would not have been able to find it if he had not been forcefully brought there.


    He returned into the bone piece and ryed the things happening outside, before replenishing his magic staffs. He only needed the Water Shield, and he was able to put in 24 at once.


    Most of Saleen¡¯s magic staffs had been given to his teacher, Jason, which were then distributed to others. He only had about 30 staffs with him, which he had prepared to give his followers.


    The number of magic staffs with him meant that he was able to store over 60 spells. Saleen rested for a whole day with everyone else, before finishing replenishing all of his staffs.


    He returned to the water, casting his Water Shield and collecting materials lying on the ocean floor. The materials had probably been around longer than the Goddess of Myers.


    Saleen had no fear of the water. The Water Shield was there to prevent seawater from gushing in when he was picking up material.


    It was immensely difficult to use space equipment. Common folk could not use anything unless they were adherents, which enabled them to use something like the Ring of Gifts.


    However, the ring worked by borrowing rules left behind by the goddess. While evenmon folk were able to open the space within, they needed to spend mental powers to do so.


    Usually, even level four grand mages were incapable of using space equipment. A level six mage was barely able to open up a space that was only a couple cubic meters.


    The toll on mental powers was immense. The greater the volume of the item to be stored, the greater one¡¯s expenditure of mental powers was.


    Saleen was unable to withstand thousands of liters of seawater gushing into his space equipment. He had no smart way of preventing seawater from seeping into his gear with the materials to be stored.


    As such, he was only able to do it crudely, and that was to hold the seawater off while he stored the materials one by one using a dimension stone.


    Furthermore, the way he used the dimension stone was to stick the stone on the material he intended to pick up, controlling the process with his mental powers when it was being stored. While the process was tedious, Saleen deemed it better than having arge amount of scraps taken in.


    While the materials in the goddess¡¯ temples were fine, they paled inparison with the ones that had spent countless years being naturally refined in the big fish.


    The Goddess of Myers had probably not been as long-living as that fish. Saleen tried using his Water me on the materials and found it very difficult to break them down. The materials themselves were almost godly items.


    The materials wereplex and he even acquired something made of wood. He found arge hole full of roe inside a rock. The roe did not fossilize or get digested by the fish. The eggs were dead. Saleen had never heard of such biological materials.


    Saleen even found pearls asrge as a human head and scales several meters across. All the things were little more than specks of dust to the fish. The fish¡¯s scale was probably miles long.


    He would not be so excited if he had simply gotten metals or gems. The ce was littered with biological materials, all of them leftovers of things digested by the fish.


    It was due to the materials having undergone digestion that they were precious and very small. Anything of conventional quality would have been reduced to scraps. What Saleen was able to find was mostly several meters. Thergest was only a little more than 30 meters.


    Saleen spent a whole day cleaning up the litter. He knew that he would probably not show up in such a ce again. Furthermore, there was no telling if he would be able to discover the fish the next time he was there. He was even less sure of being able to find the specific location.


    What he was undergoing at the moment was purely due to luck. If the fish had swum too far, there was simply no way he would be able to chase after it.


    He went back to the bone to take a break, telling his people what happened outside. Everyone had no choice but to bear with their predicament. Saleen ended up spending two days and one night picking up all the materials.


    Saleen had been at it for so long that he grew numb. He felt nothing about high level materials. If the grandmaster patronized him for usingmonce materials, he would definitely no longer bat an eye.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking for a bit. If we leave, we can¡¯t use the Magical Element Tower. It may be safe, but it¡¯s not fast enough. If we run into something like that big fish and are swallowed, it would make leaving much more difficult. It¡¯s better to leave as we are now.¡±


    ¡°What do you suppose we do?¡± While Sika was capable of controlling the bone piece, it was difficult for her to see the way.


    ¡°We¡¯ll just go up. No need to be concerned about directions.¡± All powers were immense at the bottom of the ocean, maism, pressure, or whatever. The magicpass was renderedpletely useless.


    However, the tool would regain its functions when they reached the surface.


    ¡°Alright. Don¡¯t me me if we get lost,¡± Sika answered exasperatedly. Her words made everyone feel exasperated.


    Sika had been crafting the bone piece using her powers as a nature priest, and it was not taxing to control it. The magic beast soul within the bone was doing the precision work with directions; all Sika had to do was simple controls.


    Saleen kept everyone in ce with magic. The bone piece stood vertically and headed for the surface.


    The bone had a sharp edge. It tore through the water, shooting upwards at over a hundred miles per hour.


    It was due to Sika¡¯s expert control that the energy fluctuations remained small. The force of seawater parting was not enough to attract the attention of powerful beings.


    However, Saleen felt different. While the bone piece tore throughyers of space for an hour, he was able to tell that the bone had prated over 30 space barriers. While it was easy to prate space barriers, but Saleen¡¯s calctions told him that they had very wide areas. ording to Figaro¡¯s Magic Form, the barriers probably covered over ten thousand miles.


    The depth exceeded ten miles and definitely was not hundreds of miles. IThe goddess had created it using divine arts. She had used the power of the entire ne to expand the space to the limits.


    Is this how gods do things? Saleen felt his powers were insignificant inparison. If the Goddess of Myers resurrected and still had memories of the rules she mastered in her past life, even if she were a lower level than he was, he would be nowhere near capable of fighting her.


    They prated over a hundred space barriers in six hours before the bone shot out of the water and headed for the skies.


    Sikaughed. ¡°How about it? I didn¡¯t get lost this time!¡±


    No one elseughed. While Sika was lighthearted, no other equipment would be capable of hoisting them up from the ocean floor, except Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower.


    Boom!


    A fireball shot from the skies suddenly, hitting Sika¡¯s bone piece. Everyone, including Sika, immediately took to the sky. Sika stood on the bone piece and lifted her head, seeing a dragoning at them from above.


    The dragon was pink and was about 30 meters long¡ªrather small. The shape of its horns told Saleen that it was a low level dragon and of mixed blood. It was a true dragon above level nine.


    Nailisi had suppressed her frustration for a very long time. She was unable to turn around inside. She immediately took her devil form aftering out and rushed at the red dragon with the Grey Memory in her hand.


    Saleen and the others spread out. ¡°Take note of your surroundings. That dragon probably belongs to a human!¡±


    The fireball did not crush its target, which surprised it. The red dragon turned tail and ran, seeing humans emerging from the bone. It was able to tell that the humansing out from the bone was not people to mess with.


    Are dragons proud beings? They definitely are. But they are not stupid. If they fought enemies they couldn¡¯t beat, they might as well offer themselves up as alchemical materials.

 Chapter 1135: Comet Flash (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1135: Comet sh (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen shouted to halt Nailisi after seeing her about to chase after it. ¡°Nailisi, get back here!¡±


    Nailisi backed off reluctantly. Saleen added, ¡°We¡¯re probably somewhere near Dragon Ind, and we don¡¯t have what it takes to get on that ind. We have to leave soon, or we¡¯ll have to fight them.¡±


    Saleen had no time to tangle with the people of Dragon Ind. His goal was simple: tear down all temples left behind by the Goddess of Myers in the shortest time possible.


    They did not have much time to spare, as he was not the only one with a Ring of Gifts. If Agares was able to get his hands on one of the rings, others would as well. If they wasted more time there, Agares would have enough time to excavate all three temples located within Cloudflow.


    While the goddess¡¯ power of faith was hard toe by, that did not mean that Agares had no way of getting his hands on some.


    Saleen conjured some mist and enveloped everyone in it, heading north right after he was done. The maind was probably several thousands of miles away. He only had one rough destination this time: the Cloudflow Empire.


    Agares had set Saleen up before, and he deemed it necessary to settle the score. He nned to take out all of the temples in Cloudflow in order to do so. If he ran into Agares again, he would not hesitate to take lethal measures.


    Saleen cranked Quickcloud to the extreme, reaching a terrifying speed of 300 miles per hour. He needed to use Water Shield, or someone would be injured if they ran into anything.


    They zipped past inds, and Saleen looked back, finding a ce to settle down after seeing no one was chasing after them. He took out the Magical Element Tower and contacted Metatrin City.


    Saleen transported the three sets of equipment from the temple and some materials stored inside dimension stones back to his own temple to have his teacher help analyze them. He had been spending his time running around, robbing him of any time to perform detailed analysis.


    The Magical Element Tower stopped on a small ind. A storm hit suddenly, and tall waves engulfed the entire ind, but it did not bother Saleen and the others.


    Saleen contacted Daliang City next after contacting Metatrin City, speaking directly to Lex.


    Things at Daliang City did not turn more severe. The Holy See suffered massive casualties and had not been able to field more troops. The addition of their allies from Cloudflow did not boost the Holy See¡¯s ie.


    The Holy See had no choice but to continue with how things were. They were only able to take about 30 percent of any broken fossilized gods. The rest were carted away by Daliang City¡¯s forces.


    The Cloudflow people seemed to not care. They raised their forces at a very slow pace, putting no pressure on Daliang City.


    It was Sikeqinya, where everyone had pulled out, that had gotten messy. The battle at Ceylon City waspletely hopeless. Emperor Danny called upon the nobles for reinforcements, but many of the nobles refused toply.


    There were even two level nine mercenary groups in Sikeqinyan territory that refused the emperor¡¯s orders. Things felt rather tempting to some. There were two grand dukes in Sikeqinya recruiting troops in secret to expand their powers by signing mercenary contracts.


    It was forbidden. If Danny had not lost Ironwall City and had forces to spare, he wouldunch assaults at them. However, no mercenary in the empire bothered with the emperor¡¯s orders, which made it seem like Danny had just lost an arm.


    Saleen and Lex discussed for a bit and found the battle at Daliang City considerably expanded. While casualties on both sides remained small, as it was mostly the fossilized gods dying, there were too many wounded soldiers to take care of. Holy masters and mages spent most of their focus and energy healing, and no one was able tounch arge scale assault.


    Both sides seemed to have reached an agreement without meeting, choosing not to add more troops to the fray. The empire would be empty if more troops were added.


    The Tanggsi Empire wasparatively poor, as most of their wealth had umted in the Holy See. If Holy Rock City called upon the nobles of the north, they would have to pay a hefty price.


    Saleen was relieved to find that both Daliang City and Ceylon City were safe. Even the Royal Harbor was not being threatened. It was the first time Saleen saw things so peaceful since he had established his own kingdom.


    The only problem that lingered in his thoughts was Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s expansion ns. He had expanded Lianyun City several times and began to attack nearby cities. The armies north of Qin focused their attention on severalrge cities.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood did not touch any of the ces. He simply took back the cities that had been part of Lianyun City¡¯s territories and renovated them. It was like he was trying to build a duchy and had no intention of further expansion.


    Saleen deduced that the Grand Duke did not have the means to attack Guderian City. The city could call upon Guya City. The Kingdom of Metatrin had actually reached an agreement with Guderian City¡¯s troops.


    The city was importing many magic cannons and equipment from Metatrin City in secret. Furthermore, Guderian City had frightening stockpiles of food, so there was no need for the Grand Duke to take out the city.


    Saleenid out the magic map and gestured. ¡°We¡¯ll head here next.¡± The ce he was pointing to was a mountain range west of Cloudflow. There were few ports on the west. There were two coastal cities, and they were both small ports, which made it impossible for them to hold warships.


    There were many mountains, and the ranges were messy. The one that Saleen pointed to was mediocre in height but had veryplex terrain. The spot that Saleen pointed to was the furthest away from them. If Agares returned to the maind and intended to open the other temples, it would definitely be thest that he would find.


    Saleen knew that it was impossible for him to take down every single temple. But Agares was an assassin, and there were no powerful mages around him. Even though he was level ten, he did not have enough power to take down the temples and bag everything. Agares did not even have means to destroy the portals.


    The reason why Saleen chose that particr temple was so that he could take theplete pieces of gear within. It would be aughable irony to Saleen if that particr temple happened to be one prepared for assassins. He would tear the whole thing apart and leave Agares to wallow in agony.


    The storm stayed for quite a long time, and Saleen let his tower take flight, not waiting for the storm to pass. He headed straight for the Cloudflow Empire, flying at an altitude of 3,000 meters. Common mages only flew below 1,000 meters to prevent them from running into any danger.


    There was nothing in Saleen¡¯s way throughout the journey. The red dragon had returned to deliver the message, but no one chased after Saleen and his people.


    The ocean was vast, and no one knew where Saleen chose to head to. They were on the outskirts of the Dragon Ind, thousands of miles away from the ind. It was simply impossible for them to catch up to Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower.


    It was safer to fly using the tower. Its method of flight changed after Jason upgraded it, enabling it to fly horizontally like a boat, the tip of the tower facing forward. The durability of level 18 elementite meant that if it crashed into a mountain, it would carve a hole through it.


    Furthermore, the flight of the tower was powered by magic power furnaces, giving it extremely stable output and preventing it from being affected by environmental factors.


    Saleen and his people were over 10,000 miles away from the seventh temple. Saleen was flying the tower at over 100 miles per hour, and it did not even require people to man it.


    Eleanor took the brief period to ask Saleen about magic, mainly lightning rules. They talked for three days straight, and she felt she had learned a lot from the conversations. Eleanor asked one final question, ¡°Saleen, when you assaulted the head inquisitor, I was able to understand how you did Crystal Finger, and I knew I would never be able to learn it. But the speed at which you moved...¡±


    Eleanor remembered the battle particrly well. The third head inquisitor died after being ambushed by Saleen, who had increased his speed ten times. Saleen¡¯s limit was about 300 miles per hour, and ten times would mean that he was moving at over 3,000 miles per hour.


    It was unimaginable. The water elemental armor that Saleen wore was thoroughly melted, which spoke volumes about the skill¡¯s power.


    ¡°It was a spell derived from water element fused with rules of earth magic. It isn¡¯t something you¡¯d be able to learn, Eleanor, unless you¡¯re made of water element.¡± Saleen answered her question with a smile.


    He had always been dissatisfied with his inherent water elemental body, but ever since he looked into Jalin¡¯s earth magic, he had been mimicking the movement ability using water magic. He changed the magic chant and fused it into a high level water magic. The final product was an immensely powerful movement ability, which he dubbed Comet sh.


    While Comet sh was not truly unique magic, as it was a rehash of sorts, its potentialy in the fact that it was notpleted. Once it waspleted, the skill would surpass level 12 skills, and it came with a bonus of being upgradable.


    More importantly, the skill incorporated rules that Saleen was familiar with, which included lightning rules. When the skill was thoroughlypleted, Saleen could encase himself with thick water elemental armor. His form would probably resemble a water elemental creature, his body serving as the elemental core, controlling the huge elemental armor from within.


    Outside of the elemental armor, he could even incorporate water elemental hard ice, enabling Saleen¡¯s flight to surpassmon mages¡¯, which would enable him to fly outside the maind, shooting for the stars.


    ording to Saleen¡¯s calctions, if hepleted every single spell at his disposal, he would turn into aet, flying at a speed unattainable by any other living being. His body¡¯s durability would allow him to tear through any energy shield.


    The flight was fueled by the power of the stars instead of conventional earth elemental energies. Saleen could sustain his flight using the gravitational power of stars, even if he left the maind and headed for the vacuum above. It would take Saleen less than an hour to reach any part of the maind.


    It was no longer simply a movement spell. If Saleen had his magic projection use Comet sh, he couldunch abined attack, and the speed the Cometnded at could result in the destruction of a small city.


    The mage who created flight using earth magic was a genius, and Saleen was standing on the shoulders of the genius when he created an even more eerie and powerful spell.


    Seeing how Eleanor was disappointed at the answer, Saleen smiled. ¡°But I can teach you Jalin¡¯s movement skills. I only have one request.¡±


    ¡°Shoot away!¡± Eleanor answered gleefully.


    ¡°Before I am certain I can deal with Arb, you can only learn the spell. Never let Jalin know about this.¡±

 Chapter 1136: Comet Flash (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1136: Comet sh (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleanor smiled. ¡°There is no way I¡¯d let her know. Arb may be level ten, but she is more powerful than you are. The mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake has far fewer limitations than your Thunder Dragon ster. I think she has that life-preserving trick like the great head inquisitor. Getting on her bad side would be way more precarious than offending Agares.¡±


    Saleen nodded in agreement. Arb would possibly advance to level 11. Her proficiency atbat would probably rival his teacher¡¯s, and his teacher would not be able to advance as early as Arb would.


    He likened Arb to Joey, and he had no intentions of taking her on any time soon. He had a clear goal, and that was to gain further mastery of lightning rules when he was still at level ten.


    He deemed it imperative to master lightning powers before he advanced to level 13. His mastery of rules would be iplete after surpassing level 12 otherwise, and that would prevent him from advancing further.


    While Gaine was not a mage, he knew the taboos regarding mage advancements better than Saleen. Any experience Saleen had acquired from Gaine was more precious than any magic notes he found.


    Saleen differed from other mages in that he learned some shallow, limited rules before he advanced to level ten. It would have made it easy for him to form his own territory, if the skills that he had advanced with were not lightning, which did not belong to any elemental magic categories.


    If he did not master lightning rule, his achievements would always fall short of his expectations. Saleen¡¯s current goal had long surpassed where Joey was.


    Joey was the most powerful mage that he had ever met, but Saleen wanted to be more powerful. He wanted to take the reins of his fate in his own hands.


    Saleen no longer held any taboo with Eleanor after teaching her Jalin¡¯s magic. He even taught her his lightning rules. Eleanor had be like a family member. From there on out, ¡®elf¡¯ was no longer Eleanor¡¯s firstyer of identity.


    Emotional fluctuations of elves were usually small, so Saleen had no worries about Eleanor leaking secrets.


    Eleanor acquired earth magic skills and went off to train on her own, while Saleen continued looking into his Comet sh. Elemental armor continued to appear and disappear. Saleen spent every single second he had on his training.


    Saleen felt the pressure from his teacher. Jason had reached a height that many mages were unable to achieve throughout their lives, simply by learning and advancing through usual progression routes. Saleen, inparison, had spent a hundred years to advance to level ten. If he cked off, others would surpass him.


    The magic tower continued to fly high in the sky, alerting powerful ones as it zipped past. The powerful professionals among the Cloudflow people mostly resided on inds or somewhere near the ocean.


    Saleen was coincidentally passing by. Some level ten professionals were alerted of the Magical Element Tower¡¯s presence, but they were unable to keep up and had to give up chasing after it.


    Saleen was not doing anything to provoke them. The height he was flying at was not meant for scouting either.


    Saleen had been deliberately flying at such altitude to see how many powerful people were in Cloudflow. The result of his findings were frightening. More than five level ten professionals were along the Cloudflow shores, and three more on the inds.


    Level nine ones were in even greater abundance. The rise of powers throughout the maind had apparently benefitted many people from Cloudflow.


    Saleen was rmed. He had been able to maintain an edge when everyone was level nine. Things became very different after he had advanced to level ten. Many would surpass him if he cked off.


    The one advantage of bringing Nailisi along was that she had no need of training, which meant that she could fight any time. She had a further advantage in that her 12 Notes of First Purgatory was capable of holding huge amounts of demons.


    Demons made the best warriors, as they were capable of surviving in the horrid conditions of the demon ne.


    While their powers were somewhat suppressed aftering to Myers Maind, it was still a veryfortable ce for the demons, which meant that they had some form of rebate in terms of powers.


    All in all, demons were the rare type of creatures whose powers did not dwindle when they came to Myers Maind.


    Saleen¡¯s magic tower reached its target¡ªthe Idle Mountains¡ªseven dayster.


    The mountain range was not long, but it wasrge. Saleen found a ce tond near the set coordinates. Saleen released Rossen the water puppet from the Shenhe and had him take control of the tower. He had Nailisi leave some demons behind to help Rossen while the rest of them ventured outside with magicpasses to begin looking.


    Cloudflow in August was at its hottest, which made the cool mountains very refreshing.


    Cloudflow mountains had aplicated terrain. There was no massive, regal feeling of the north. Rivers, jungles, and precarious ces were literally everywhere. Any professionals below level four would have a hard time getting around.


    Saleen carried all the others in flight, so the terrain had little effect on them. Nailisi held the magicpass as she continued to adjust their coordinates.


    Shoop...


    An arrow shot at them, which was easily deflected with a level one Icicle from Saleen. The arrow had beening from their nks, originating from the top of a rocky cliff. The cliff waspletely bald but was covered with trees on top. The entire terrain there extended forward, blocking the sunlight above.


    There was no way an arrow couldpare to magic in terms of speed. Saleen¡¯s level one icicle turned around in midair. The arrow shed hard with the icicle and was sted to shreds.


    Eleanorughed. The arrow was simply too weak. She drew an arrow and threw it at the cliff.


    A grumble was heard from the woods, and Eleanor was dumbfounded. The arrow did not kill their enemy.


    ¡°Let it be. It¡¯s someone sent by Agares. I think the news is out and Agares will know that we¡¯re here soon enough.¡± Saleen did not mind at all, as they were in Cloudflow territory.


    Agares knew the rough location of every temple on his turf, which meant that he could send huge armies to wait for Saleen.


    It was like if someone kicked up a ruckus in the Kingdom of Metatrin, Saleen would be able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to surround the enemy.


    Agares was still the sovereign after all. Local nobles would cooperate if he only needed some men somewhere. While they were in the mountains, it was wrong to think that logistics would be a problem for the people.


    Saleen had no intention of pursuing his assant. The one sent there was not someone important to Agares. Being easily hit by an arrow also meant that the assant was not powerful.


    However, Saleen had Nailisi dispatch more demons to clear the peaks nearby. He did not want specific coordinates that he acquired to be found by anyone other than his own after all. If Agares somehow had means of contacting huge numbers of powerful ones, even contacting the Holy See, things would turn very dire for Saleen.


    Nailisi opened up the purgatory of the devils and tasked two supreme demons with serving Cuisi and cleaning up the peaks nearby. Saleen came before a small pool of water. His Elemental Eye told him that it was about five miles deep, which was very rare.


    Saleen turned around to look at Sika, who coincidentally was turning around to look at him. They recalled the first time they met. Saleen was practicing his spells in the water while Sika happened to pass by to take a bath.


    Sika punched Saleen, who fainted. Sika had been dense enough to fear Saleen waking up soon and punched him again. The resulting ck eyested for days.


    They had gotten closer as they learned about each other. Sika wanted to earn money for her vige, while Saleen had wanted little more than to have his belly filled and not be bullied by anyone.


    They were very different now. The ideals had been long forgotten and both of them had children.


    ¡°Master?¡± Nailisi interrupted the warm moment between them, and Sika red at her. Saleen simply jumped into the water. A depth of five miles fed only by a small river made the pool suspicious.


    Saleen finally found an underwater current when he dove down four miles. There was an underground river passing by, but it was not the reason why the pool was so deep. Saleen saw a teleportation portal at the bottom of the pool.


    It was a divine rune charm array, which required holy powers and power of faith to work. Saleen did not think things would be that easy. There were six springs surrounding the divine rune charm array, cold water gushing out of them.


    Conventional logic said that when temperatures of water hit freezing, the water would be ice, but the water was far below freezing and flowed. Furthermore, it did not affect the underwater currents above.


    Saleen realized that while the ce was simple, it was difficult to find. Common mages would be able to see hundreds of meters below the water surface using skills, but Saleen was capable of seeing over ten miles.


    If it had not been for the peculiar freezing water current, he would not have found the divine rune charm array.


    There was ayer of cold water over a hundred meters thick above the array. Saleen stuck out his finger to check and found the cold bone-chilling. If he did not have a body of water element, the potent elemental corrosive properties of theyer of water would dissolve his flesh.


    A protectiveyer resembling Water me!


    Saleen was still not at ease. He took a level four magic nucleus and threw it in. The magic nucleus prated theyer of cold water, reaching about 30 meters deep before disintegrating.


    Saleen was only able to be sure then that the temperature beneath was probably not all that different from Water me.


    It was a divine rune charm array that only he would be able to stand on. If there was someone else going down, it would not do any good. They might have been well-protected enough by powerful equipment to enable them to stand on the teleportation portal, but the array required pure power of faith to activate.


    It would not work if messy energies of all manners gathered. Worse still, it explode instead of being activated.


    Saleen turned around and swam up. He stood at the surface. ¡°There is a teleportation portal down there, but I¡¯m the only one who can go through. You all get back to the tower. I¡¯ll call for Nailisi when I¡¯m back.¡±


    ¡°Do you need to bring the tower here?¡± Sika asked out of concern.


    ¡°No need for that. There¡¯s no one who can get in but me.¡±


    Saleen was right. The cold water current could disintegrate a magic nucleus at just 30 meters deep. Anyone who did not have Water mes would die trying to get in.


    Saleen turned around and dove after giving his orders. He came before the thickyer of cold water in mere moments. He put on his gloves and put his mask in ce, before diving straight in.


    It was fortunate that he had trained Water me Alchemy to level ten. Saleen felt rather lucky. The temperature beneath would exceed his threshold if he entered as a level nine.


    Furthermore, it would be a predicament he would have to face even with the Starline Armament equipped.


    Saleen dove until he reached above the divine rune charm array, holding back the cold. He poured power of faith from the Ring of Gifts into the array. Green light lit up in the water and Saleen felt his body disappear for a brief moment, before appearing before a huge swath of open field.


    A lone temple stood tall faraway. Dazzling starlight danced behind the temple: a ce seemingly without end.

 Chapter 1137: Water Element (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1137: Water Element (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was only one, huge hall. There were no walls or paths anywhere. In the vast tract ofnd and the night sky, the temple looked rather lonesome.


    The scene before Saleen, however, was peculiar. The hall seemed to be stacked inyers and there seemed to be no end. There was still space behind the hall and beyond that space, there was another temple.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was unable to see through it all. He was able to only see threeyers of space, and everything turned blurry after that.


    The huge teleportation portal beneath his feet was so massive that it would quickly andpletely drain all power of faith that Saleen brought with him.


    Saleen came to the shocking realization that if he had brought insufficient power of faith, he would not be able to activate the one beneath him and leave.


    Myers¡¯ designs were truly interconnected. But I bet she never anticipated someone having massive amounts of power of faith, even after she had been dead for more than ten thousand years.


    The traitor that the Goddess of Myers had reignited her divine fire and keptrge numbers of believers with her, supplying her with powerful power of faith. Saleen had collected all of the power and what was left in the Ring of Gifts was enough to activate the teleportation portal.


    If Saleen was devoid of such an amount of power of faith, the only way he would be able to leave was to truly be a believer of the goddess.


    Nice trick indeed!


    Saleen saw through the Goddess of Myers¡¯ trap right away, but he was hardly concerned. The power of faith stores in his Ring of Gifts was massive, and it was enough for him to activate the portal beneath him.


    The only thing he needed to find out was what was left in the temple.


    The temple¡¯syout was apparently reserved for a true believer. There were mages who believed in the goddess. She differed from the Lord of Glory was that the Lord of Glory was incredibly xenophobic.


    If one embraced the faith of the Lord of Glory, they would only be allowed to use divine arts. The Goddess of Myers, on the other hand, was a polytheistic god and her doctrines were loose.


    In the past, there were many races who believed in the nature faith, such as demons, elves, dwarfs, and halflings.


    Saleen took a deep breath and thought that there was probably something capable of converting one¡¯s faith inside the temple.


    He cautiously cast Quickcloud, which was far more convenient than Wind Travel, given how the spell was able to be cast from the ground, and how it was able to automatically circumvent obstacles.


    The temple was about four to five miles away, which meant that Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to see it clearly. The starlight in the sky was dazzling, but there was no moon, so thend still looked very dark.


    Saleen arrived beneath the steps of the temple and found the building incredibly majestic. The pirs were tall¡ª120 meters¡ªand the gates were open, enabling one to see the altar within. The only difference was that there was a statue on that altar.


    A statue of the Goddess of Myers!


    Saleen calmed himself and slowed as he walked the steps, looking at the statue of from outside the gates.


    The doctrine of the nature faith was such that adherents did not erect statues. Images of the Goddess of Myers were always depicted in murals, on the same level as humans, magic beasts, and gods.


    Saleen had only seen the goddess¡¯ statue once, and it was created by Ismail. He was a believer of a god of the underworld, but he was able to convert to her faith while retaining his faith in the god of the underworld. It was the most shocking thing that Saleen had ever witnessed.


    The Goddess of Myers¡¯ doctrines were far more terrifying than that of the Lord of Glory.


    The statue at the altar looked down on Saleen without making a sound, and he felt an immense pressure on his shoulders. It was not emanating from the statue; the entire temple bore down on Saleen.


    Saleen wanted to worship the goddess, but a lingering grievance inside him prevented him from doing so.


    Myers, you were once the most powerful mage among humans. Why did you choose to be a god? Why did you let the powers of the entire Myers Maind fall? Now, even the Lord of Glory can enve humans on this piece ofnd!


    When the maind bes the Lord of Glory¡¯s farm, it will be turned into his kingdom, and sooner orter, the maind will be reduced to an interdimensional space. Dimensional spaces will lock up the ne. The sun, the moon and the stars will no longer be seen, and this beautiful maind will be reduced to a wastnd.


    Yes, that process will take tens of millions, even over a hundred million years toplete. I will be nowhere to be found by then. But can I just simply sit by and do nothing?


    The feelings of frustration within Saleen reached a critical point and was about to burst, but only a single syble was uttered, ¡°Heh...¡±


    The syble was infused with the Thundering Sound that Saleen had been training in, reverberating througho the entire hall. The pressure within the hall disappeared. Saleen looked straight into the eyes of the statue of the goddess. ¡°Sorry, I can¡¯t believe in you!¡±


    Saleen walked towards the altar. He still wore the Ring of Gifts on his finger. He stopped in front of the goddess¡¯ statue and took a good look.


    The statue¡¯s size resembled a human, instead of being made imposingly tall. It was actually a little bit shorter than Saleen.


    Saleen smirked. Well, well, well, if it isn¡¯t Nailisi standing right in front of me. He took out a small piece of chlorite and siphoned some power of faith from the Ring of Gifts into it. He then put the piece of chlorite onto the statue¡¯s open palm.


    The power of faith was quickly absorbed by the statue at the speed of a person drinking a small cup of water.


    And then, the goddess came alive...


    ¡°Believer, what is your wish?¡± The statue opened its mouth and spoke.


    Saleen knew that it was merely a shadow left behind by the goddess using divine arts. The shadow acted ording to the spell¡¯s arrangements after offering the power of faith. He knew enough about divine arts to be able to deduce that much, instead of simply thinking that the goddess knew about his existence.


    Powers of divine arts had their limits. Gaine was a level 18 astrologer and was once at the same level as the Goddess of Myers. Even he had not been able to predict small details about Saleen before he met the mage.


    ¡°I want everything.¡± Saleen answered in ancient Myersnguage.


    ¡°Then you... will pay a hefty price.¡± The statue of the goddess was not alive. It was a puppet imbued with the power of life. It was an incrediblyplex divine spell. The statue was even capable ofbat to a certain extent.


    ¡°People need to pay a price equivalent to what they wish to attain.¡± Saleen¡¯s answer was a pure maxim of the mages.


    The statue was confused. The hall was capable of suppressing any professional below level 12, but Saleen¡¯s lightning rules were capable of counteracting all manner of rules.


    The temple¡¯s powers were formed using Principle of Crystal Coffin, in ordance to the goddess¡¯ ns. Even the most powerful being on the maind would worship the statue and submit to it if they entered.


    However, Saleen did not do so. Thundering Sound continued to reverberate in his mind. While it caused considerable pain, it kept him very awake. The goddess¡¯ might was incapable of affecting his judgment.


    ¡°Believer, ept my blessing.¡± The statue said as two beams of green holy light shot from its eyes, converting power of faith into divine power.


    The statue looked even more confused after shooting the holy light. ¡°Believer, there¡¯s something left for you...¡±


    Saleen pressed the Ring of Gifts onto the statue. Green holy light surged into the ring, purifying the power within the ring and turning it into unbelievably pure divine power.


    The statue quickly petrified, devoid of any vitality to speak any longer. Saleen then sighed. ¡°Stop talking. I¡¯m very disappointed in you!¡±


    The statue stared at Saleen with a dazed look, no longer able to hear what he said. Saleen stored the statue inside the Starline Ring, as he still had a use for her. The ability to shoot divine power enabled it to be abat puppet. That¡¯s just so...


    Saleen had no words to describe what he felt. His thought probably existed only among ancient humans. The statue was carved out of wood that he did not know. It was incredibly light, but its durability was on par with the things that the fish digested.


    Saleen was ted to bag the statue. It was capable of wielding divine powers and casting divine spells, which was exactly what he needed to establish the nature faith. It would be a lot easier for him to y god with it at his disposal.


    He passed through the hall and came to the second temple, which looked empty. Saleen searched around for a bit and found many pieces of divine power gems. The gems were not high level. They were inferior to the divine crystals that Ismail was able to coalesce.


    However, they were what Saleen really needed. The inside of his Ring of Gifts was raging with divine power, but it was only a matter of time before the ring was depleted.


    The knights corps that Don was building did not yield enough power of faith for his own use. Furthermore, Saleen had uses for the people, which prevented him from having them around to supply him with power.


    The amount of divine power gems offered to the goddess by her believers was staggering. He put them in his Ring of Gifts and converted them into divine power.


    The temple was interesting, as it finally showed that the Goddess of Myers had some desires and ns.


    It was difficult to resurrect without devout believers. The temple could be opened and would eventually have something to do with the knights corps that Don was building. The appearance of over 2000 believers threw a wrench into the goddess¡¯ ns.


    However, the temples were interconnected. If he took apart the one that came before, he would not be able to enter the space behind.


    He passed through one hall after another, bagging only the divine power gems. He continued to visit the halls until he reached the 22nd, where he finally found something he wanted.


    There was a shenhe sitting on the altar of the 22nd temple.


    Essence of water element sat on the impably green gourd. Saleen was very excited. The two shenhe that he had gotten before were not powerful enough.


    The one in his hand contained essence of water element so pure that it looked as if it was an elemental spirit. The shenhe was made specifically for water mages. The entrance of the temple was easy to enter only for water mages.


    Saleen bagged the shenhe carefully. It would bethe key to his advancement to level 13! Water elemental rules were the most basic manifestation of what was contained within it.


    Saleen was satisfied. While he was unable to attain assassin equipment and materials, he had acquired what was most suitable for him. That was more of a bargain than ruining his enemy¡¯s ns.


    Even if Agares died right before his eyes, it would prove less meaningful than advancing to the next level tomorrow.


    Furthermore, there were still two more halls, and it was anyone¡¯s guess what powerful equipment he would find in them.

 Chapter 1138: Water Element (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1138: Water Element (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The original goal of the goddess leaving so many temples behind was to enable the people who chose to resurrect her to be converted into believers and have them live in the temples.


    As such, the temples were built using the best materials. However, she never anticipated that one of the people would take the halls apart.


    ¡®Gods are not omnipotent¡¯ was said by astrologers.


    Saleen could not wait to go to the 23rd hall. The hall¡¯s core was not an altar; it was a cage. A divine power cage!


    The cage was carved entirely from crystals. It was over 30 meters tall and countless green holy prose was found in the crystal, which was still coursing about. Saleen approached the cage and peered inside.


    A tall water elemental creature was caged inside.


    The creature looked like a fox. The water element that made up its body formed into thin, white, dense coat of fur. It was unknown how long it had been caged there, but it was a surprise that the elemental power had yet to dissipate.


    Saleen came to the side of the cage and the water elemental creature opened its eyes to look at Saleen, shutting its eyes again.


    A very high level creature indeed! Saleen was able to see intelligence in the eyes of the water fox. It was locked up, but it showed no signs of aggression. It was obvious that the goddess left it as a gift forter generations.


    Saleen smirked. The others might have wanted to tame the fox, but he had no such intention and simply stored the entire cage in the Ring of Gifts. The cage was an independent piece and not connected to the earth. The coursing holy prose within the crystal was unable to resist the power of the ring.


    The internal space of the Ring of Gifts had expanded tens of times after acquiring power of faith from the divine baby. He was not worried at all about leaving; he had ample divine power to spare.


    The water fox panicked, but it was stored in the ring before it could even think of ways to mesmerize Saleen.


    Taming the fox was supposed to be a test, as it required him to be able to control the divine power cage. The problem however, was that Saleen was not in the mood for any tests. The expanding of the Ring of Gifts seemed to be done specifically for taking in the cage.


    The hall began to shake as the cage disappeared into the Ring of Gifts, splitting and creating a portal leading straight to thest hall.


    Saleen took to the air and headed straight for thest hall, which was standard dimensions. However, the area outside the temple was filled with tightly packed holy prose, circling around the temple.


    He took a step forward and found that the ring was no longer able to grant him smooth passage.The holy prose shut out all power. He was unable to get through even after putting in divine power.


    Green light shrouded the entire hall and a blue piece of crystal was seen hovering on the altar.


    He peered into it with his Elemental Eye and saw a huge world, which was housed within the blue crystal. However, the world waspletely dead.


    Desire began to well in Saleen¡¯s mind. He had to get the crystal for himself!


    It was coalesced from something that surpassed water element. If he was not mistaken, it was a manifestation of a divine persona!


    The divine persona had been sealed by the Goddess of Myers using divine power seals. Even if the god the divine persona belonged to had its divine fire reignited, the god would not be able to find it. Saleen wandered outside the temple in frustration, having no idea how to get past the seals and take the blue crystal.


    Saleen¡¯s mind calmed after pacing for a few rounds. He realized that he had all kinds of precious materials. The level 19 Star Gathering Needle far surpassed the divine persona in value.


    While the divine persona was left behind by a water type god and would do him a lot of good, but if he were to take up faith in Myers because of it, he would trade himself for something lesser, and that would be a true loss.


    He analyzed the intention of that temple once again. He learned from Agares that many of the temples left behind by the goddess were tailored for specific targets. Agares was looking for the one with skills and equipment left behind for assassins. The temple that Saleen was in was left behind for water mages, and it coincidentally held things that Saleen needed.


    It was tremendously tempting, but if he took the bait, he would have to make himself an adherent of a faith. The first hall was made to have the water mage that entered embrace the nature faith.


    Once that was taken care of, the massive amounts of divine power gems stored in the following halls would allow the faith to grow and evolve, making the adherent powerful. The shenhe in the 22nd hall was capable of allowing a water mage to advance!


    A water elemental creature was in the 23rd hall, caged by the divine power cage. If the water mage who entered had be a high level adherent and a high level sorcerer, it would enable them to open the cage and tame the water fox!


    If the water fox were tamed into a divine beast, the mage would be granted passage to thest hall, allowing them to take the divine persona.


    Way to go indeed, Myers!


    Saleen smirked coldly. It was fortunate for him to have grown so knowledgeable, having ventured to the Imperial City of the Abyss and being taught by Gaine. He might have actually taken the bait and be a believer of the goddess otherwise.


    As soon as he received the goddess¡¯ blessing, it would make it very difficult for him to shake her off.


    He took out the goddess¡¯ statue and cast Water me, crafting it beneath the hall¡¯s steps.


    Saleen etched lightning magic patterns on the statue. It was a n that he had kept in mind for a long time. It was originally meant for crafting the shenhe, as he had already experimented on the shenhe that he had gotten before. Crafting this time was a n that he been hatching for a long time.


    That statue of the goddess waspletely lost. Saleen¡¯s Water me was easily able to etch lightning magic patterns on it. However, the level of the statue¡¯s material was too high, and he felt an incredible strain. The Water me attempted to enter the inner parts of the statue and failed.


    He had an idea: casting other spells when he used Water me Alchemy on it during the first time. He began to chant.


    Thundering Sound reverberated and shook the statue¡¯s material. Suddenly, his Water me seeped into the inner parts of the material, and he sensed a space within the statue. It was the location of its heart, which housed a ball-shaped divine rune charm array.


    Saleen was ted and reced the holy prose with lightning magic patterns. The crafting of the lightning magic patterns was quicklypleted with the help of the Thundering Sound. He took a short break.


    Time within the temple¡¯s space had a different ratepared to the outside world, but the difference was too small for him to be able to stay around for long.


    The goddess¡¯ statue waspletely ruined. Its key part was converted into a lightning space before he attempted to put in some divine power into it. The statue blinked and looked at Saleen, dazed.


    He found the statue devoid of intelligence, so much so that it mademanding it difficult. He took out the divine power cage and began to craft it slowly as well.


    The water elemental creature within the cage was no longer able to sit well. It paced about as its eyes burst with emotion, seeing how Saleen was recing the cage¡¯s holy prose with lightning magic patterns.


    Anger, hatred, exhaustion, and resentment were seen in its eyes. It had been trapped within the cage for too long. It had anticipated the end, and it would rather die than help any who acquired the cage.


    But what is this guy doing here? Is he trying to destroy the cage? He¡¯s not even a believer!


    Saleen patiently crafted the divine power cage. It was carved from a piece of crystal and the amount of holy prose within was enormous. Saleen had to put in a lot of mental power to rece them with lightning magic patterns. If he had not acquired the ring from Arb, there was no way he could have done what he was doing.


    ¡°Hey, mage. What are you doing here?¡± The water fox could not help but ask. Its level enabled it tomunicate using humannguage. However, it was speaking in ancient Myersnguage. If had been speaking to a knight, they would not understand.


    ¡°Nothing, just trying to get you to help out with something.¡± Saleen did not let his hands rest. Complex magic patterns were crafted into the crystal bit by bit. He added lightning runes.


    ¡°I won¡¯t help you.¡±


    ¡°I know, but I¡¯m going to make you.¡± Saleen answered with a smile.


    ¡°I¡¯d rather die!¡±


    ¡°I take it that you¡¯ve spent over ten thousand years in this cage. How are you not dead?¡±


    The water fox was speechless. If it was capable of dying, it would have killed itself a long time ago. However, true death was not allowed within the cage. It would simplye back to life. It was a water elemental creature, which made it difficult for it tomit suicide.


    ¡°Just stay inside and do nothing. I¡¯d tell you what to do when I need your services. Resist and you¡¯ll spend your life in misery. I¡¯m busy so please don¡¯t bother me, or I¡¯ll make sure you suffer a fate worse than being trapped.¡±


    The water fox was irked by Saleen¡¯s words. It smirked coldly. ¡°I wonder what you would be able to do to me.¡±


    Saleen nced at it. ¡°You¡¯ll find out soon enough. I¡¯d negotiate with you if I weren¡¯t in such a hurry. What Ick most now is time. Work with me, and I¡¯ll let you livefortably.¡±


    ¡°In your dreams! Not even the Goddess of Myers was able to tame me!¡±


    ¡°What a pity. If she didn¡¯t tame you, why do you call her a goddess?¡± Saleen finished and no longer bothered with the creature¡¯s rants. He sped up the crafting process.


    All the mental power stores in Saleen¡¯s ring were exhausted. It regenerated twice before he finished converting the divine power cage into a lightning cage. The material of the crystal was not bad. There were hardly any cracks despite having been crafted on twice.


    Saleen ced the statue of the goddess before the cage and looked at the water fox in the cage. ¡°Well then, you feel like working with me now?¡±


    The water fox stopped bothering with Saleen and slumped in the cage, pretending it did not see Saleen at all.


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯m sorry that I have to do this.¡± Saleen activated the magic patterns on the cage. Hundreds of lightning bolts shed and hit the water fox. It jumped, every single hair on it standing.


    Ow...


    360 shes of electrical arcs fixed the water fox at the center of the cage, suspending it midair. Saleen lifted his Thunder Dragon ster and shot an icicle into the water fox¡¯s head, carving a hole on it. He took out a piece of broken jade and threw it inside the water fox¡¯s head.


    The water fox¡¯s soul was immediately sucked into the broken jade, and the lightning magic patterns on the jade fragment were put to work. The wound on the water fox¡¯s head healed immediately, but its body writhed in pain.


    The crystal lightning cage opened with a crack. Saleen lowered his head. ¡°Get in there, help me do something, and I¡¯ll grant you your freedom in the future.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s hand pointed at the statue of the goddess.

 Chapter 1139: Martyrs (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1139: Martyrs (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The water fox looked dazed. The cage cracked, the electricity that controlled it was still around, but it had lost some of its sensations.


    ¡°Why do you have this?¡±


    Saleen knew what the water fox meant. ¡°I¡¯m a mage, not a believer of the goddess. In youring days, I¡¯ll need you to y as the goddess¡¯ double. Do you think you can do that?¡±


    ¡°I can, but why?¡± The water fox was incredibly frustrated. It was easy for it to y as the goddess¡¯ double. It would only need the statue to do so. The mage was probably a sphemer.


    If it had known he was a sphemer, it would not have bothered resisting. Its actions had resulted in its soul being control. Elemental creatures¡¯ ability to develop souls had more to do with actual prowess. Luck and many other factors came into y as well. Among the tens of thousands of elemental creatures, there might have only been one capable of developing a soul.


    An elemental creature could only advance when it had a soul, or they would stay at the same level for the rest of their lives. Elemental creatures that happened to have developed souls would usually hide, avoiding notice from more powerful beings. Elemental creatures were the best bonded creatures, as theycked means of resisting rules of contracts.


    The water fox was captured by Myers as soon as it had developed a soul and was locked in the cage. It bore intense resentment towards the Goddess of Myers, but for some reason, the goddess refused to use any divine arts to craft or tame the water fox, and had simply left it in the temple. That was when it began its long wait.


    It had taken Saleen to be a believer of the goddess when it first saw him, and so it was very rude. It did not anticipate the man to be so bold as to have it disguised as a double of the goddess.


    The water fox was under Saleen¡¯s control and was able to sense that if Saleen could even wipe its memories if he wanted to, turning its soulpletely nk. Is that what he meant by ¡®suffering a worse fate¡¯?


    The water fox thought about it and walked out of the cage obediently, entering the space in the statue¡¯s heart. Saleen smiled. The water fox attempted to control the statue from within that space and found the statue not budging at all.


    ¡°Be patient.¡± Saleen installed a piece of chlorite on the goddess¡¯ statue, which he siphoned huge amounts of power of faith into.


    ¡°Use that sparingly. Use your own magic skills in usual battles.¡± Saleen pointed at the divine persona hovering above the altar. ¡°Go get that thing and we¡¯ll leave this ce.¡±


    The statue was only able to move after absorbing some power of faith. The water fox asked, ¡°why aren¡¯t you signing any contract with me?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d need some measure of freedom and hope. How am I supposed to get you to work otherwise? Oh right, you¡¯d be called Myers from here on out.¡±


    The water fox nodded and turned to walk towards that hall¡¯s gates. The surface of her body shone with a green sheen of holy light, enabling her to slowly pass through seals created by countless holy prose. She entered the hall.


    She turned around to look at Saleen, who smiled at her. The water fox thought for a little bit. What if I refuse to leave this ce? Would doing so free me from the mage¡¯s control?


    In the depths of her soul, the jade fragment jolted at that thought. The water fox¡¯s body writhed within the statue, wallowing in pain. Hell, the mage talked about freedom and all, but this measure of soul control is far worse than any contract!


    She had no choice but to extend her hand at the divine persona and hold it tight. The divine persona was originally meant for a believer of the goddess. The water fox resided within the statue and she was covered with the goddess¡¯ divine power, making her resemble the goddess¡¯ double. It did not trigger the divine spell within the hall when she took the divine persona.


    Saleen was pleased to see the water fox walking out of the temple. He took the divine persona and stuffed it into his ring without saying anything.


    The temple was erected for believers. Saleen wanted to take it apart but he dared not do so. The halls were interconnected. Taking apart any one of them would trigger a chain reaction, which would prevent him from leaving.


    Saleen meticulously searched every storehouse on his way back, as well as spaces beneath the altars. He surprisingly found some other materials, all of which were meant for forging implements of faith, which meant that they were intended for crafting equipment for believers.


    Saleen took them all without any hesitation. The water fox asked, feeling rather peculiar, ¡°that umm...¡±


    ¡°My name¡¯s Saleen. You can address me as Your Highness. I¡¯m the king of the Kingdom of Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, if you¡¯re not a believer, why are you taking all these things?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because I¡¯m building a nature faith, and I need to resurrect the goddess,¡± Saleen answered.


    The water fox¡¯s hand shook in fright. Saleen smiled and borated further, ¡°no worries. The goddess won¡¯t get to live for long even if she¡¯s resurrected. She won¡¯t get to kill you.¡±


    The water fox knew about the goddess¡¯ ns, which was why she thought Saleen would not be able to do anything about her, which was in turn, why she dared to sh with him. She knew that he meant to go against the goddess, and that put the water fox at ease.


    She was not afraid of impersonating the goddess but that the goddess woulde looking for her when she was resurrected.


    Outside the pool, Sika and the others waited in the Magical Element Tower for Saleen for six days. However, there was no sign of Saleen emerging. Sika grew concerned and wanted to look at the pool, and she was held back by Nailisi.


    However, Sika did not want to just stay and wait, so Nailisi had no choice but to summon her magic bugs and throw them into the pool. The bugs were immediately frozen to death. It was only then that Sika stopped thinking about going in.


    Nailisi had been sending her demons to lurk in the mountains. There were hundreds of battles fought within the span of just one day.


    At the beginning, they were only fighting Agares¡¯ people, but as the days went by, there were local nobles from Cloudflow taking the initiative to send small squadrons to find out what was happening.


    Everyone knew about the demons in the mountains and immediately linked them to the demon army of the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    The nobles were very pleased to find the demon army appearing in the mountains. They did not have too much of an idea about the Kingdom of Metatrin. What they knew was that the emperor had sent troops to attack Daliang City and lost because the Kingdom of Metatrin was backing the Principality of Bitterwater.


    Nailisi did not bother with the scouting parties. Even an army with formidable fighting capacity would suffer a sharp drop in performance if they fought in the mountains.


    Her demon army, on the other hand, was hardly affected by terrain. Demons were capable of fighting in watery and fiery situations.


    However, powerful flying magic beasts appeared on the sixth day. Several grand swordmasters peered down from the magic beasts. One of them was shot down by Eleanor with a single arrow and the others fled.


    The captured grand swordmaster yielded and confessed before Nailisi was able to do much interrogation.


    The people served the Grants, which was a formidable force within the Cloudflow Empire, whose status was higher than Grand Duke Iron Blood. They had control of most of the southeast regions.


    Where they were at the moment was the border of the Grants¡¯ turf. The family had dispatched true powerful ones and were on their way. The ck metal grand swordmasters riding flying magic beasts were scouts.


    Nailisi did not fear having to fight. The weakest in the party was a level nine warrior, after all. Even if powerful enemies showed up, they needed to be much more powerful to have an edge over Saleen¡¯s party.


    But then again, her master had yet to return, and things would take a turn for the worse if the teleportation portal were destroyed.


    ¡°Are you saying that Grand Duke Jatan is going to show up personally?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, and he¡¯s a level ten grand swordmaster. I¡¯d advise you people to just surrender.¡±


    While the ck metal grand swordmaster was indeed spineless¡ªwho yielded before Nailisi had to work on them¡ªthey did not forget to brag about their master¡¯s powers. They even went so far as to advise Nailisi to surrender, which she found baffling. Just what are the Cloudflow people thinking...


    Nailisi waved and Sul acknowledged her gesture, sealing that grand swordmaster¡¯s powers using sword aura. Nailisi summoned magic bugs surrounded the grand swordmaster. The number of magic bugs grew and eventually became a mound.


    The Cloudflow grand swordmaster only had their head sticking ou. It looked funny and scary at the same time.


    Nailisi sat down. ¡°Quit your prattling and tell me, that...what¡¯s his name again?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Jatan!¡±


    ¡°Right, Grand Duke Jatan. How many powerful people does he have at his disposal? You better tell me what I want to hear. If you tick me off in any way, I¡¯ll have the bugs crawl through every single hole on your body and reduce you to an empty skin. Are we clear?¡±


    There were bugs looking at them. The bugs were slippery and slimy. The eyes on their heads lookedplex, but they bore sharp teeth, which made them easy to identify. The grand swordmaster nodded in fright, not daring to say anything useless.


    ¡°Talk!¡± Nailisi did not like spineless people. A magic bug jumped at the grand swordmaster¡¯s face, scaring them so bad that they shrieked.


    Nailisi wanted little more than to kill them. Sika tapped Nailisi¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I¡¯ll do the questioning.¡±


    ¡°I ask and you answer. If anything happens, she¡¯ll take over to do the interrogation.¡± Sika pointed at Nailisi. ¡°Are we clear?¡±


    The magic bug slipped from the Cloudflow grand swordmaster¡¯s face. They were still scared as they nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you everything.¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Jatan. Is he a true might?¡±


    The grand swordmaster was frightened. Being able to use ¡®true might¡¯ to describe a warrior¡¯s level meant that their interrogator knew a lot. ¡°Indeed, he is a level ten true might.¡±


    ¡°How many did he bring with him?¡±


    ¡°Leaving us out of the calction, 600.¡±


    ¡°Any one of them that are more difficult to deal with?¡± Sika asked in a simple, concise manner.


    The grand swordmaster thought for a bit. ¡°The grand duke himself is very powerful. People of my level, he would be able to squish us without using a weapon. He had 12 mages around him and he brought six with him. There is another sorcerer who just joined and is very powerful.¡±


    ¡°All seven of them are sorcerers?¡±


    ¡°There was only one, the new mage who just joined him.¡± The grand swordmaster answered truthfully, not daring to y word games. There were several magic bugs burrowing inside his pants.


    ¡°A level ten sorcerer?¡±


    ¡°Yes, he fellow just advanced and has a powerful magic amplifier.¡±


    The magic bugs stopped burrowing in his pants when the grand swordmaster finished saying that. In fact, they stopped moving at all. The grand swordmaster felt relieved. If they messed around there, the bugs would make a mess out of him.


    ¡°Are you saying that Grand Duke Jatan brought seven mages with him, and the rest of the 600 are people like you?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. He is surrounded by people with a death wish. They are more terrifying than those from the Tribunal.¡± The grand swordmaster looked troubled when they mentioned the people.


    They had talked too much. If the grand swordmaster ended uping out of this alive, the people woulde for them instead.

 Chapter 1140: Martyrs (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1140: Martyrs (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi could not help but ask, ¡°there are people among you Cloudflow people fit to serve in a death squad?¡±


    A death squad had at one time meant nobles who graciously epted impossible or suicide missions, throwing themselves at the face of death for noble causes. The definition changed to mean nobles who were not afraid of sacrifice due to responsibilities they bore. The definition changed again to be what it was presently, which meant people who were willing to die to aplish their missions, which literally made them soldiers going on suicide missions.


    Nailisi¡¯s impression of the Cloudflow people was that they were afraid of death. She was not the only one who thought so. That ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s expression shifted back and forth from indignant frustration to tant fear.


    They were unable to muster the courage to defend their people, and so they simply said, ¡°the people followed Grand Duke Jatan at a very young age. The Grand Duke¡¯s orders serve as infallible truth to them. There were many baffling feats demanded of them during their training, like the Grand Duke would have them march even though there was a thousand meter tall cliff right just steps away. Those who dared not follow his orders would be cast out of the squad.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t the death squad be all dead by then?¡± Sika was dismissive of such methods of training. One did not necessarily need to resort to such measures to nurture courage.


    The Caucasians never did anything like that, but there were no cowards known to run away from battle in any battle they have fought.


    ¡°There will always be some who survive,¡± the grand swordmaster wore a bitter smile.


    ¡°What are the people like, in terms of fighting capacity?¡± Sika had no interest in asking boring questions. Any country would have several who were not afraid of death. It was hardly surprising, especially given how the death squad was nurtured from a very young age, meaning theycked critical thinking of any kind.


    The grand swordmaster ground their teeth.¡±All of them learned the secret art of the Grants. They are incapable of using sword aura, but capable of using magic armor and are immensely strong. If I fought one of them, I¡¯d surely be able to win. If I fought two of them at once, I¡¯d definitely die.¡±


    They had truly sold the grand duke out with the words. No one who did not serve Grand Duke Jatan would know about details like that.


    ¡°Alright, big sis, let me have a go.¡± Nailisi summoned two demons, recalling the magic bugs that surrounded the grand swordmaster.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name again?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Shakko.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Shakko. Fight the two demons, and fight them with all you¡¯ve got, because they might actually kill you. But if you end up killing both of them, I¡¯ll kill you.¡±


    Shakko¡¯s expression looked very troubled. Nailisi threw them a sword, which he took. ¡°Where should I stab if I did not want to kill them?¡±


    ¡°Anywhere but the heart.¡±


    Shakko acknowledged her and thrust at the demon before them. The demon held a massive halberd. Shakko jumped and the demon blocked their attack with the halberd. Shakko¡¯s sword bounced off the massive weapon.


    The demon¡¯s arms went numb from the attack. While demons were undoubtedly strong, they were incapable of standing off against a ck metal grand swordmaster¡¯s sword aura.


    Shakko was terrified of death. The sword bent after bouncing when they thrusted. Shakko¡¯s body drew an arc in the air, beforeshing out at the other demon.


    The second demon punched, which nced at the side of the sword. Shakko punched in retaliation. Fists of two different species shed, and the one who was sent flying was the demon.


    Sika was surprised and said to Nailisi, ¡°good foundations indeed, but why would that fellow turn out to be like that?¡±


    ¡°Big sis, being able to fight well doesn¡¯t mean being brave.¡±


    Shakko was already in danger. The other demon straightened themselves andshed out with a straight thrust. Shakko¡¯s sword burst with sword aura in order to boost the next attack.


    The sword was brought down onto the halberd, but was stuck. The demons were battle-hardened veterans with ample tricks on their sleeves. The halberd was not repelled by the sword. The demon twisted and the de on the side of the halberd tangled the sword instead.


    Shakko¡¯s strength exceeded a demon when they burst with sword aura. However, the demon that Shakko had thrown off earlier pounced and grabbed Shakko¡¯s head.


    Shakko let go, but the demon had already caught them. The demon¡¯s tail stuck right before Shakko¡¯s throat.


    ¡°What do you think, Shakko? What would be the oue if my demons fought with the death squad?¡± Nailisi asked gleefully. The two demons were not all that exceptional, but they worked together, the grand swordmaster was immediately cornered when their judgmentpsed.


    ¡°Three demons like that would probably be able to kill one of them. If they came out unscathed, six of them could take on one.¡± Shakko answered truthfully.


    Nailisi imagined the fights for a little bit. The death squad members were indeed very powerful and were armed with magic armor. There was no need for her demons to tangle with such powerful enemies.


    She gestured and had the demon let go of Shakko. ¡°Shakko, you have two choices here. Leave us and run, but the Grand Duke wille for your head. Or you could follow me instead.¡±


    ¡°Follow you?¡± Shakko looked at Nailisi rather sheepishly.


    ¡°Yeah. My demons need sparring trainers. Their technique looks rough. Your job would be to fight the demons every day, and I assure you that no harm woulde to you. How about that?¡±


    Shakko looked rather dejected. ¡°I¡¯d just run then.¡±


    They saw a female archer holding an arrow in her hand as soon as they finished saying that. Shakko trembled. The very reason they were unable to fight the demons was because they had been shot in the abdomen by Eleanor. While the injury was quickly patched up, it still held them back when they fought.


    The sky was clear then and they were over a thousand miles in the air, looking down with alchemy binocrs. The arrow came absurdly fast, piercing through the magic beast and into their abdomen.


    The archer¡¯s target was the magic beast, and getting the grand swordmaster was simply a bonus, which meant their injury was not severe. If the archer wanted to kill them instead, there would be no way for them to run.


    ¡°What¡¯s up? Don¡¯t feel like running anymore?¡± Nailisi asked sarcastically.


    ¡°Oh hell, no way I¡¯m running!¡± Shakko shook their head furiously.


    ¡°Good thinking. The level of guts you have means that no one could make use of you anywhere. You just concentrate on beating down my demons from here on out. You¡¯ll get to live safely at least. If your luck is good, you might even advance to be a silver grand swordmaster, and you¡¯d spend your days in safety till you die of old age.¡±


    ¡°Right, umm...¡± Shakko looked at Nailisi.


    She threw a scroll at Shakko. ¡°Write down your name and be my ve.¡±


    Shakko clenched the scroll and looked very exasperated. There was no simply no way they could reason with her. If they did not sign the contract, they would definitely be killed.


    The mound of magic bugs were still wiggling before Nailisi. Shakko felt their throat feeling rather awful and spit out a glob of phlegm. The glob wiggled on the ground, and a very tiny magic bug was found within.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡± Shakko yelled in fright and quickly bit their finger, writing down their name on the contract without any dy.


    Nailisi only wrote one type of scroll, and that was a very contract. As such, the scroll was prepared. The scrolls that Saleen made for Nailisi were all made of starline paper as well. A ck metal grand swordmaster was incapable of trying anything funny.


    ¡°Cuisi, dismantle the traps. Deploy demonic spirits and magic bugs. Give a signal when enemies are sighted.¡± Nailisi knew there were many powerful ones among their enemy and was reluctant to field the demons.


    Cuisi nodded. Nailisi took her skeleton king form and began summoning spirits.


    Nailisi was barely able to get herself a spirit space, which was capable of housing hundreds of spirits. However, shecked the patience of the Winged Skull and refused to train the spirits. As such, the spirits were difficult tomand.


    There was only a path leading from the magic tower to the pool. Nailisi deployed all of the spirits at the narrow valley path and then tasked two supreme demons to take 100 elite demons with them.


    All of them were armed with elvish alchemy crossbows, taking their positions at the sides of the valley, waiting to ambush their enemy.


    Saleen was not out yet, so Nailisi and the others had no choice but to wait patiently.


    When the sky turned dark, a signal from a demonic spirit was seen at the outskirts. Huge amounts of magic bugs were killed. Nailisi tensed up immediately. She the most powerful member of their party at the moment, but she had less stamina to spare in battle than Sika.


    In order to conserve her stamina, she only took her spirit form, holding a bone spear that was over four meters long.


    She hid herself among the spirits and lurked in the valley, leaving the fighting to the others.


    Eleanor dared not take flight. There was a level ten true might among the enemy. If they happened to get near her while she was on the Wings of an Elf, there would be nowhere for her to run. She stood at the top of the magic tower, enabling her to retreat into the tower at any time.


    The magic tower was controlled by the water puppet, and there were demons and ancient figures lying in wait.


    The demons at the outskirts were recalled. Only demonic spirits were left behind. The demonic spirits were small, which enabled them to easily hide, but Nailisi was able to sense that the demonic spirits were rooted out one by one from their hiding spots and killed. None of them were able to make it out alive.


    The enemy had gotten close. A flying magic beast was seen in the air. Eleanor did not hold back. There were three arrows between her fingers, and she shot all of them.


    After the three arrows were shot, three more were nocked on the Seven Nights. The second wave of arrows were shot right behind. Eleanor shot nine arrows in three consecutive waves.


    The nine arrows zipped past, making high-pitched noises, hitting the abdomens of nine magic beasts and piercing through, killing the warriors riding them.


    No one in the air had anticipated the archer beneath to be so powerful. They spread out immediately. Eleanor was only able to identify the leader of the enemy: a tall man who was sitting on the back of a golden eagle.


    Eleanor drew an elvish space arrow and aimed.


    The tall man behind the golden eagle saw Eleanor as well and threw a huge iron ball right at the tower. The trajectory of the ball was coincidentally on the path where Eleanor¡¯s arrow would travel. Eleanor let go and the space arrow shed. Eleanor then drew a lightning arrow that Saleen made specifically for her.


    Boom!


    That iron ball with a diameter of half a foot was blown up by the arrow. The space arrow appeared right before the golden eagle¡¯s eyes. The man behind quickly drew a dagger and blocked the arrow.


    Eleanor was unfettered. She had already shot her third arrow, and it was a lightning arrow.


    The man behind the golden eagle drew a four-meter-long sword, which made it look like a spear. The swordshed out straight at the arrow.


    The warriors who had spread out earlier began throwing javelins from behind the magic beasts.


    The lightning arrow shredded half of that man¡¯s sword with a loud boom. His formless sword aura was incapable of stopping the lightning arrow¡¯s might. He flinched.


    Sika¡¯s javelin reached the golden eagle¡¯s abdomen!

 Chapter 1141: Bloody Canyon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1141: Bloody Canyon (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika found an opening in front of the tower. The golden eagle seemed to have sensed the power of Sika¡¯s javelin. Its ws gleamed with red light, intending to deflect the javelin.


    The golden eagle would have to be a level ten creature to deflect Sika¡¯s javelin. The man on the golden eagle¡¯s back sensed something was amiss, leaping away from where he stood.


    The javelin punched a hole half a meter wide on the golden eagle¡¯s body, as if it were made of paper. The golden eagle¡¯s ws crumbled, and it dropped to the ground with a wail.


    The golden eagle had been a level nine magic beast. The man that had been on its back brandished a bronze staff.


    There were people who used blunt instruments as weapons, like Sika. However, the staff that the man held was of equal thickness along its length, and both ends were carved with magic patterns, looking like spear tips. The weapon manipted wind element as it was swished around, forming Wind des.


    The man leapt and came down on Sika with the staff in his hands. Sika had killed his beloved steed, and he was furious. The staff came down from above like a mountain, and the man simply guided its trajectory.


    Sika spread her legs and swung her staff from below, shing with the blow.


    The staves shed, and the man¡¯s eyes filled with disbelief. The staff, which had been imbued with the power of wind element, rattled and transmitted the force back to his hands. An irresistible force swept up from below, as if his mountain had shed with anotherrger mountain.


    A crack was heard. One of the man¡¯s hands was unable to let go in time and was blown up by the force sent by Sika.


    She felt something pressing on her chest as well, as the man had been using his own massive power and the power of wind element on her. All of that coupled with the mysterious aerial technique and the 1000 meter distance between them enabled him to bring serious force upon her.


    The resulting burst of power brought her down onto the floor. She felt as if her entire body had been drained.


    However, as soon as Sika hit the ground, the earth beneath her sent power back to Sika¡¯s body. Her legs sprung up and she was back on her feet again. The man continued to watch with disbelief.


    He was unable to fathom how the woman before him could be stronger than him. He had all the advantage needed, bringing maximum force.


    The man was a golden grand swordmaster level warrior who served the Grand Duke Jatan. The magic staff in his hand almost enabled him to be invincible throughout the duchy. He was of high birth as well, and learned secret techniques inherited from his family and had a level nine golden eagle as his sidekick.


    He had never suffered in the past as much as he did then.


    The man was able to tell that Sika was not a level ten true might. While he had lost one hand, it was not an irreparable injury. Furthermore, his way of the staff was different from others as it was guided by the power of wind element. Losing one hand would hardly affect his attacks.


    He focused all of his hatred on Sika as she had killed his golden eagle.


    The man had been thrown over 100 meters away by Sika. He brandished the staff and came from above again, but quickly heard a stern voice shout from afar, ¡°Suz, retreat, you¡¯re no match for her.¡±


    The man was frustrated but he dared not act against the voice. He quickly turned and shot for the sky. Sika threw another javelin at him, which Suz deflected with all his might, finally feeling how terrifying the woman on the ground was.


    The javelin was unable to borrow force from anywhere, but the massive force it brought dispersed the wind element around his staff. Is all that powering from that midget of a body? Is she the legendary king of giants?


    When the king of giants¡¯ body grew to their limit, they would shrink until they reached the height of a human.


    However, if that woman was truly a king of giants, she would have died long ago.


    Dark clouds flew from the sky, and Sika observed closely, finding an even bigger man dressed invish clothing, but sporting extremely cold aura. The amount of power emanating from him caused the sky around to lose its colors.


    The middle-aged man was handsome. Sika was a nature priest, so she was able to see every detail of a person¡¯s constitution. The man had a matured look to him, meaning he was about 40 years old, but his bodily performance was at its peak.


    Sika had seen attacks from Agares. Not even a level ten assassin would be able topare to the middle-aged man.


    The master armed with a staff behaved very respectfully around the middle-aged man, which apparently meant that he was Grand Duke Jatan. The triangr bone piece hovered behind Sika, ready to strike at any moment.


    The Grand Duke was not angry about his capable subordinate being injured. While he was brimming with killing intent, the smile on his face remained sincere.


    He looked down on the tall Magical Element Tower and expressed in surprise, ¡°that really is like a godly item! How I should address you who is below?¡±


    Sika pointed at the Grand Duke. ¡°Come down here if you want to talk.¡±


    While she was only level nine, she was not afraid at all. The strength of level ten professionals would probably pale inparison to hers. She had simply flung her staff around without a care and underestimated the man wielding the staff, which was why she suffered.


    ¡°As you wish.¡± The Grand Duke brought his people down to the ground about 300 meters away from the tower. From the looks of things, he was not afraid of the tower. The range of attack of the tower would easily reach one mile, even when manned by a level seven sorcerer.


    Furthermore, that one mile was the range where a sorcerer¡¯s power would be able to work at its fullest.


    There were seven mages behind Grand Duke, Jatan and one of them was patching Suz up with magic. The pain of a shattered hand was unbearable.


    After the bones were restored through magic and submerged in magic liquid, coupled with healing with golden sword aura, the hand was free of any unwanted after effects.


    ¡°I assume you¡¯re Grand Duke Jatan?¡± Sika swung her staff around, eyeing the middle-aged man. Cloudflow people were known for theirvish way of dressing. and the Grand Duke was no exception.


    However, the Grand Duke had good enough taste to avoid piling precious metals on himself. Every single essory he had on was magic equipment.


    ¡°And you are?¡±


    ¡°Sika, king of Caucasus.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness,¡± the Grand Duke said without any hint of sarcasmt. He knew of Sika by name. The woman served as steward to the Kingdom of Metatrin. She was young, but definitely had her strengths. From the looks of things, she was a formidable fighter as well.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to ask why did you kill our people?¡± Sika was in no mood for pleasantries. She shoved the staff at the Grand Duke¡¯s face and began questioning him.


    ¡°The demons are your people?¡± The Grand Duke looked surprised.


    ¡°Demonic spirits!¡±


    ¡°Heh, hardly any different. This is Cloudflow territory and you¡¯re king of Caucasus. Youing caused His Highness unrest, so we figured that we shoulde look.¡±


    The Grand Duke behaved amicably, but nothing he said so far had been truthful. Agares would probably send troops, but having the emperore out to fight personally would require the entire empire to be on the verge of total copse.


    ¡°How could the emperor be restless? I just saw him a while ago and he was about to sign a joint effort contract. I¡¯m not lying. and if I lied...¡±


    The Grand Duke interrupted her. ¡°There is no need for you to swear. I believe you.¡±


    ¡°Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m looking for someone.¡±


    ¡°Looking for someone?¡±


    ¡°My subordinate was minding his business and flying in his own country when he was shot by you people. He was also taken. Your Highness, it¡¯s not all that grand for you to show up here. Even if His Highness were concerned, he wouldn¡¯t have used force against you, but now, you¡¯re in the wrong for injuring my people.¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡± Sika wore a doubtful expression. Her act was so convincing that even Nailisi, who was watching from the canyon, felt that her expressions were surreal. She thought she knew Sika very well, but she apparently thought wrong.


    Sh**! All humans are capable of lying. Sika might not be shrewd, but that doesn¡¯t mean she is being truthful with you. Better be careful in my further dealings with her.


    If Jatan had truly been there to look for his people, he would be fooled by Sika. Even if nothing had actually happened to his people, he needed to me Sika for something.


    ¡°I can assure you that something did happen. My subject is right inside your tower.¡± The Grand Duke pointed at the tower.


    ¡°Well, I can¡¯t do anything if you don¡¯t believe me. Pleasee in and see for yourself.¡± Sika gestured, inviting the Grand Duke inside the tower. If the enemy fought within the tower, they would have to face the water puppet whosebat capacity was enhanced over a dozen times.


    ¡°We¡¯re in no hurry. We¡¯ll wait until my men are all here.¡± Grand Duke Jatan¡¯s face sported a smile throughout the conversation, looking very confident.


    Another 500 showed up on the ins in front of the magic tower. The tower was backed against a mountain. The other end as connected to the canyon. Only a professional would dare enter such a dire terrain.


    Sika looked at the 500 before her and became somewhat convinced of what Shakko told her.


    All 500 warriors wore magic armor and carried long des with peculiar curves. Every single one of them wore an iron mask, and they were stained with the blood of the demonic spirits. The murderous aura coalesced with the 500 being packed in one ce made them look like they were an army of thousands.


    Every single one of them had no qualms in dying to fulfill their mission. Just having one more around would raise considerable concern.


    Sika slowly retreated to the tower and the water puppet shut it off immediately, insisting on denying the usations. Sika invited the Grand Duke into the tower and in the very next moment, she had the water puppet shut the tower off instead.


    The speed at which she changed her attitude was trained from being the steward of the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Grand Duke Jatan was dumbfounded. Isn¡¯t the enemy a Caucasian? That shameless act of hers is hardly any different from the Cloudflow people!


    Everyone knew that among the four empires, the people from Cloudflow knew best how to weasel out of things. None had ever heard of a Caucasian doing the same.


    Sika¡¯s voice was then heard from the tower. ¡°Sir Duke, you¡¯re weed toe in, but I¡¯m not opening the door for you. So please...¡±


    The Grand Duke was baffled but not angry. If he was able to cheat in the first ce, then there was no reason to assume that his enemies would not do the same. Such was the notion of fairness that the Cloudflow people held in high regard.


    ¡°Well, think of something.¡± The Grand Duke handed the problem to his men while he looked around. His eyes quickly turned to the canyon across the tower.

 Chapter 1142: Bloody Canyon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1142: Bloody Canyon (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The one-mile distance between the tower to the mouth of the canyon was coincidentally within range of the tower¡¯s attack. Eleanor¡¯s attack range was even bigger than that. Nailisi, who was waiting to strike in the canyon, would not be fighting alone.


    The mages at Grand Duke Jatan¡¯s side took out arge amount of materials from their space equipment and beganying out a magic array on the ground.


    Rossen the water puppet looked at Sika. ¡°What should we do, Your Highness? If the magic array on the ground is finished, it will be able to fight the tower.¡±


    Sika retorted, ¡°they¡¯re not trying to attack the tower. That array is for cutting off the connection between the tower and the canyon. The guy found our secret and is probably about to attack the canyon. Rossen, take care of the mages. Eleanor, clear the warriors out. No need to hurry. Just take out the high level ones. Sul, Cuisi, get ready to storm the canyon with me. We need to help Nailisi.¡±


    There was no way Rossen would allow the Grand Duke¡¯s mages to keepying out the array nonchntly. He began attacking with magic spells. A huge water ball coalesced above the tower, shooting at the Grand Duke¡¯s mages.


    The water balls burned while being conjured. Every single one of them packed level nine power, despite being only level eight spells.


    However, even the weakest of the seven mages on the Grand Duke¡¯s side was level nine. The mages all retaliated while putting huge magic shields to protect the array.


    Rossen was in no hurry either, as he was simply buying time. Theter the enemy found the pool, the better. When Saleen emerged, it would not matter if none of the enemies were defeated. The Magical Element Tower enabled them to run if they were outmatched.


    Furthermore, Saleen would be able to take the people out when he emerged.


    Over 500 warriors were grouped into four teams. Over 80 who followed the Grand Duke were among them. They were powerful among the warriors, serving as the main force getting ready to storm the canyon.


    Sika said to the water puppet, ¡°Open the window and let Eleanor shoot.¡±


    She was able to tell that while Rossen¡¯s attacks were powerful, the enemy were mages of the same level and they were defending using magic shields and nullifying Rossen¡¯s attacks with their own attacks.


    The magic array was about to bepleted. If they intended to back Nailisi up, only Eleanor, who was able to attack at a longer range, would be any help.


    How about I go myself? Nah, better not. Screw this up and Saleen will be mad when he gets home.


    Rossen nodded and opened a window. Eleanor stood before it and began shooting. The mages¡¯ pressure grew, and no one was able to continueying the array. Eleanor¡¯s arrows were imbued with skills. The water puppet¡¯s fire balls continued to harass them as well.


    Both of them worked to hold the seven mages back, two of them being level ten sorcerers.


    One of them grew angry, intending to attack Eleanor in the tower, before being stopped by the Grand Duke.


    The enemy was buying time. Taking down the magic tower came with a considerable cost. It would suffice to simply cut them off before external backup.


    The warriors marched to the canyon, led by theirmanders. The canyon was only a mile long. The first hundred of them had just begun to walk when arrows rained down on them from their nks.


    None of the warriors batted an eye. The demons were using crossbows. While the power of the demons¡¯ crossbows was stronger than humans¡¯, shooting from hundreds of meters away meant that they hardly harmed the armor-d warriors.


    The hundred walked without turning their eyes sideways, following theirmanders forward. Their state of mind was terrifying.


    Any living being would react instinctively to attack, but the warriors simply let the arrows hit their bodies without bothering to evade nor defend because theirmanders did not issue any othermands.


    The demons had no idea what kind of magic armor the warriors were wearing. None of the demons¡¯ crossbows were able to have an effect. The arrows dropped to the ground. Some demons threw their halberds at them.


    The halberds were over 200 pounds and were definitely not something magic armor was able to resist.


    The sorcerers at the rear continued toy out the magic array, attempting to cut off the connection between the tower and the canyon.


    Eleanor¡¯s eyebrow twitched. She switched to using the lightning arrows and shot three of them, curving around the magic array and heading straight for the canyon. The lightning arrows were imbued with Thundering Sound, blipping in and out of existence as they flew.


    They prated the barrier above the magic array and hit three of the warriors. They attempted to deflect the arrows using their des, but were quickly bisected by the lightning arrows.


    The power of the lightning arrows surpassed the capacity of even high level magic armor. They would not be able to avoid Eleanor¡¯s targeting.


    ¡°Charge.¡± Grand Duke Jatan gave the order. 600 of them charged for the canyon with just one word from the Grand Duke.


    The magesying out the magic array saw that the tower was still able to provide backup. The restless level ten mages turned to look at the Grand Duke, who nodded his permission. The mage shot into the air, a short staff appearing in his hand.


    He conjured an enormous fire dragon; the dragon¡¯s tail alone was ten meters long. It headed straight for the spot that Eleanor stood.


    The fire dragon moved at a frightening speed, so Eleanor was only able to shoot one arrow before having to shut the window. Rossen was startled. The fire dragon¡¯s speed surpassed mages considerably.


    If the attack were used against human opponents, no mage below level ten would be able to dodge.


    When the Magical Element Tower was sealed off, opening it from outside required the tower¡¯s master¡¯s permission. Opening it through brute force would require power of astronomical proportions. The fire dragon rammed into the tower, causing it to rattle violently, but no one in the tower was worried.


    The fire dragon was an element creature refined and made into equipment and stored within the magic staff. It was no wonder that they did not bat an eye at the tower¡ªhaving a mage equipped with such a powerful elemental puppet meant that they had no need to fear.


    The fire dragon did not know pain. Its head was crooked after ramming into the tower, but it quickly recovered. The four huge ws clung to the tower and refused to let go, breathing fire.


    Common magic towers would notst for even minutes when subjected to such attacks.


    The battle raged on in the canyon. Nailisi did not ce many demons on the mountains at the canyon¡¯s nks, and most demons were bad at shooting. Seeing the first team of warriors charging into the canyon, Nailisi licked her lips and summoned a huge bone demon.


    The bone demon was a transmuted form of a demon. Demons did not usually be spirits when they die, and only Nailisi, a luoluokaluo who possessed peculiar bloodlines, was able to summon something so special. There were hundreds of spirits right behind the bone demon, charging at the iing warriors.


    The sides shed and shrieks were heard.


    Ksshhkk...


    Crack!


    The warriors¡¯ curved des cut one spirit after another into pieces. They all possessed formidable skill inbat. Other than the few more powerful ones at the bone demon¡¯s side, none of the spirits was able to put up a fight against the warriors.


    The bone demon was held back by themander among the warriors. Nailisi continued to watch in the dark. She was not concerned at all for the spirits; she was concerned about the warriors¡¯bat prowess instead.


    Among the hundred of the warriors, the one who took the lead was at least a silver grand swordmaster¡¯s caliber. How could this be?


    It was probably power due to forceful enhancement. Nailisi calcted for a bit and found that there was a golden grand swordmaster in the lead.


    While she was able to take out a team of such formidable powers on her own, she wondered if she would exhaust all of her powers if she took on two of the teams.


    If the people possessed the power of the temple knights, the silver grand swordmasters would all be turned into golden grand swordmasters, and the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s power would be raised to true might level. Such skills usually cost life force, but it did not seem that any of them would mind.


    Their fates were sealed from the moment of their birth. None of them were destined for a good ending.


    Nailisi sighed and summoned thest batch of spirits. They were over 400 of them, and they all charged forward. She took a bone spear and hid in the spirits, disguising herself into something weak.


    The spirits were in chaos. They did not look like an army whenmanded by Nailisi. She missed the Winged Skull. Even Aini would be better atmanding spirits than she was.


    If Aini tookmand, the spirits would bring out the best of the advantage in numbers, killing over half of the iing enemy warriors.


    Nailisi¡¯s skeleton king form suppressed her powers and charged at the golden grand swordmaster of the first team, covered by the spirits around her. There was no soul me in her eye sockets. Her ck, empty eyes looked at the golden grand swordmaster as she thrust her spear.


    The huge ded shield in the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s hand sent two spirits flying before blocking her attack. The bone spear prated the magic shield with a crack, shooting ck liquid at the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s mask. The mask dissolved in seconds.


    The grand swordmaster shrieked eerily and shot golden light, but was unable to dispel the poison¡¯s damage.


    It was not poison from the spirits, but something Nailisi concocted using the magic bugs.


    Nailisi prated the magic shield with one thrust of the spear, killing the golden grand swordmaster. She realized something. The golden grand swordmaster had just advanced. His power was at the pinnacle due to the formations they took.


    The warriors behind him were providing him with power.


    The warriors¡¯ formation paled inparison to the Heaven Knights.


    She would have enough to spare to deal with the Grand Duke even after taking out all of them! Nailisi made a decision and began summoning demons. The 12 Notes of First Purgatory was opened and demons walked out of it in great strides.


    ¡°Kill them all!¡± Nailisi took her devil form. Her height reached well over ten meters, and she had three heads and four arms. Nailisi did not bother hiding her strength, leading the charge of the demons at her enemies.


    The canyon was quickly stained with blood. The warriors shed with Nailisi and two supreme demons head on. Huge halberds came down from above, not even stopping for the weapons wielded by the warriors.


    Nailisi was trading the demons¡¯ lives for the heads of the warriors. The warriors had exceptional fighting prowess and were better at fighting, but the sheer force brought by the demons worked exceptionally well in the narrow canyon.


    Every single thrust with Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory took the life of a warrior. She kept control of her power and prevented things from turning into a one-sided ughter. Grand Duke Jatan watched it unfold at the end of the canyon. When all of the warriors died, then the true battle would begin.


    The blood of the demons mixed with the warriors. The crossing of blue and red came with a disgusting stench.

 Chapter 1143: Delusion (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1143: Delusion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The temperature of demon blood was lower than human blood. The two types of blood mixed with each other and seeped into the ground, giving it a pungent stench.


    Nailisi charged all the way, and casualties from both sides were almost equal.


    However, Nailisi felt heartache. The two supreme demons were severely injured and had to be pulled from the battlefield, and the rest of the demons died. It was the first time she fought a battle like that, where the tall, hulking demons were inferior to human opponents. If it was not due to her side having the advantage of numbers, the casualties would be a lot more severe.


    Sika felt how frustrating it was to be overpowered because of level difference for the first time as well. While the Magical Element Tower remained impregnable, having the fire dragon coiled around the tower meant that the people inside were unable to attack their enemies.


    But then again, it was fortunate that they had enough level nine professionals on their side to keep the level ten sorcerer busy. Eleanor¡¯s arrows were a great threat to the Grand Duke¡¯s men. Archerscked in defense, but their capacity at offense was on par with mages. If they were equipped with decent equipment, it was easier to enhance an archer¡¯s attacks than a mage¡¯s.


    Sika dared not let Eleanor charge outside. That was one mistake they made. If Eleanor was in the air several thousand meters above the ground, their enemies might not have been able to keep up with her.


    Grand Duke Jatan looked at the magic array and found the mages had finished building it. Light shimmered from the array, and a small territorial space appeared. The ones in the tower would not make it through the territory to help their own fighting in the canyon.


    ¡°Come with me.¡±


    Grand Duke Jatan called his mages and left only the level ten sorcerer to man the magic array. The other warriors followed the Grand Duke.


    The Grand Duke took to the air and brandished his own weapon: a de curved into a half-circle. The de was over four meters long and looked incredibly awkward.


    The Grand Duke stood high above the canyon andughed. He swung the de, and the de¡¯s aura shot towards the mountains at the nks and killed the demons one by one.


    The demons that were hit by the de¡¯s aura were shredded. Blood sttered everywhere and flowed down the cliffs, staining them blue.


    Nailisi was incredibly frustrated, but she dared not take on the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke had a lot of people by his side, the most notable being a level ten true might and a level ten sorcerer. Nailisi was no match for him. She was only able to open the purgatory of the fallen and stand before its entrance, summoning the Shackles of the Fallen.


    The Shackles of the Fallen were connected to the altar and were unable to be summoned entirely from the purgatory. The altar¡¯s power was incredible in the purgatory. However, the 24 chains had a limited area of attack when they were used outside the purgatory. Furthermore, the most powerful attack only worked when used against believers.


    There were some fallen believers of the goddess in the purgatory, but Nailisi did not mind it anymore. She summoned hundreds of them and had them stand at the entrance of the purgatory, blocking the entrance of the canyon.


    The believers were translucent, and their legs looked squishy. They were useful for moving around in the water, but hardly useful onnd.


    Grand Duke Jatan was curious when he saw a huge demon bring weird creatures and block his way. He slowed down with the ughter and saw the demon use short sword, which seemed like less than a dagger in rtion to her size, to cut off the head of a golden grand swordmaster.


    The sh was incredibly quick. The de held in her hand was never seen in battle, and the golden grand swordmaster was unable to defend against it. His head was cut off by the Sword of Rules.


    Grand Duke Jatan was furious as he swung his curved de downward. shes of aura shot at Nailisi. The attacks were unleashed with the power stored within the de, making it look easy. However, the attacks were deceivingly powerful. Nailisi took control of the chains and used them to deflect the aura attacks. Her Grey Memory continued to take out one warrior after another.


    The Grey Memory had a range of over 100 meters, which was amon attack range of mages.


    The Shackles of the Fallen were made of materialsparable to godly items. None of the Grand Duke¡¯s attacks was able to tear through the chains and hit Nailisi. Nailisi held four weapons in her four hands: the Grey Memory, the Sword of Rules, a square semi-godly shield, and a il that Saleen crafted for her. It was a replica of the Winged Skull¡¯s weapon, but was used for close quartersbat. The head was over half a meter in diameter, enabling it to be used like a small shield.


    No one in the air was able to do anything to her while she was protected by the Shackles of the Fallen. The chains shot out for tens of meters from the purgatory of the fallen, protecting Nailisi.


    The Grand Duke hesitated. What is Saleen doing? And what is the demon is working so hard to protect?


    A huge fireball descended from above, but it was the work of the level ten sorcerer at the Grand Duke¡¯s side. Almost every mage knew Fireball, but few used it as their main skill.Visit on our vipnovel


    The Fireball spell had three fireballs chained together, each having a diameter of over a meter. Nailisi sensed the iing danger andshed out with the Grey Memory. All three fireballs blew up in the air after one powerful thrust. Nailisi took the opportunity to prep the Dragon Crystal Needle in her mouth.


    She charged into the mes and headed straight for the sorcerer.


    The Grand Duke saw the demon left the protection of the chains and got excited. He charged forward with his de and brought his de down from above at Nailisi¡¯s head.


    Nailisi had three heads, and from the Grand Duke¡¯s perspective, she would survive with one of the heads cut off, and she would serve as a decent servant.


    Nailisi¡¯s shield went up when they shed. The curved de made sparks, and Nailisi felt her entire arm go numb. The Grand Duke was not having a good time either. He had used all his strength, but a demon¡¯s strength was inherently greater than a human, but both were level ten and his technique was more refined, which meant that he had an advantage.


    However, the shield absorbed most of the impact from the force stored within the curved de.


    Grand Duke Jatan shouted, ¡°take this thing alive. I¡¯m going to make a ve out of it!¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form was tremendously frightening, but it looked more beautiful than any treasure the Grand Duke could think of. It was a demon capable of taking a full-powered hit from him and had high intelligence. When fully subjugated, it would serve as a spokesperson of his n¡¯s power. The Grants possessed power that seemed to surpass the royal family. If someone like him, a Grand Duke who had lost the support of others, did not have true power to bring to the table, he would be reced.


    Nailisi gritted her teeth and charged again. She wanted to get close enough to kill a level ten professional with the Dragon Crystal Needle. The needle was so sharp that only people armed with godly item-level equipment would be able to resist it. Regardless of how powerful a human¡¯s skill was, there was no way any skill would block the needle.


    The level ten mage shot another six fireballs before the level nine ones were able to act. The six fireballs were arranged in a ring as they flew at Nailisi. Their flight was unpredictable, but they were not flying very quickly. However, Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory was no longer able to lock onto the fireballs.


    Only one of the six fireballs was conjured out of pure fire magic. The other five were made through elemental conversion. It was the first time Nailisi had seen a mage who was more adept at elemental conversion than Saleen. The six fireballs came behind Nailisi. She had two more arms on her back, so she quickly turned the shield around and protected her body. The ck energy from the shield absorbed all six of the huge fireballs.


    Nailisi was unable to feel the arm that was holding the shield, as if it had been burned. The fireballs banged on the shield, throwing Nailisi to the ground. If she had not been protected by the shield, the fireballs would have burned half of her body off as they turned around her.


    The shield flew off her hand and the fireballs disappeared. The sorcerer was startled, but he pounced in her direction. She was not his target; he wasing for the shield.


    He had to get his hands on the powerful piece of equipment! His judgment was sound in determining that the shield was not meant for warriors, but for casters of spells.


    Nailisi was unable to use the shield¡¯s full power. If it had been a mage or a holy master using it, no level ten magic would be able to do anything against the wielder of the shield.


    Grand Duke Jatanughed out loud and went after Nailisi, who was on the ground. He took out a 30-meter-wide and threw it with one hand, spreading all over Nailisi.


    He had captured many magic beasts with that piece of equipment. Even level nine magic beasts would not be able to muster any strength once the touched them. The power of rules the surpassed territorial powers.


    Nailisi looked at the Grand Duke with frustrated eyes. She sped up and dove into the mass of chains below.


    The unexpectedly dove into the chains with Nailisi, wrapping her up securely. Nailisi was thoroughly frightened as she found her powers dissipated when she was wrapped in the. The 24 chains retreated into the collection of purgatories after the power controlling them was no longer detected. The portal closed and the thing holding the purgatories dropped to the floor.


    There were only around 200 fallen believers who were caught unprepared.


    Grand Duke Jatannded and took the shield. Nailisi was furious, but all of her powers had been bound by the rules of the, making her incapable of lifting a finger.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s curved de shed with brilliant light. One swing and the fallen believers around her were swept clean. Their blue blood stained the ground, but they smelled very nice.


    Nailisi attempted to change form, but luoluokaluos were not invincible. She remained in her devil form.


    The Grand Dukended when there were no other enemies around him. He put the huge de away and pulled out a small bottle. The bottle was made of crystal and it was filled with a pink liquid. He walked up to the. Nailisi¡¯s body felt squishy and she was unable to lift her head up. The Grand Duke looked at Nailisi in the eye. ¡°Submit to me, and I shall conquer the entire maind with you by my side!¡±

 Chapter 1144: Delusion (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1144: Delusion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Submit to you?¡± Nailisi sighed and stopped talking. However, the sarcastic undertones were obvious.


    Grand Duke Jatanughed and wiggled the bottle in his hand. ¡°Guess what is it.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I know, my death,¡± Nailisi answered calmly.


    ¡°No, this is your new beginning. You¡¯ll understand soon enough that it doesn¡¯t make a difference who you follow.¡± The Grand Duke swiped at the mouth of the bottle lightly. A pointy needle shot out of the bottle.


    Nailisi was devoid of strength. The rules imbued with the web were not resistible by a level ten luoluokaluo like her. Nailisi regretted not taking her golden dragon form. The power of the golden dragon had properties allowing her to resist rules. At the very least, she would not end helpless against a bottle of drugs.


    The needle was stuck right below her eyes. Nailisi felt a cooling sensation in her body. If it had been others, they would have been confused, but she knew that the drugs were trying to take control of her body.


    If she gave up resisting even for a split second, the drugs would stain her soul.


    Grand Duke Jatan saw the injection of the pink liquid. ¡°Demon, how about you call me master?¡±


    ¡°You? Master? You¡¯re a pile of sh**...¡± Nailisi cursed breathlessly.


    The Grand Duke had absolute certainty that things would go his way and was hardly irked. He stroked Nailisi¡¯s horn with a smile. ¡°Even if I happen to be a pile of sh**, you won¡¯t be able to spit it out. How does it feel? Does your soul feel good? Submit to it.¡±


    ¡°Someone once told me that there¡¯d be a time in life where you¡¯d have to eat sh**. Just remember not to chew on it,¡± Nailisi¡¯s words turned incredibly crass and finally made the Grand Duke feel disgusted. The feeling of disgust was so strong that it lingered in his mind.


    This demon is stubborn. But the more stubborn a creature is, the more precious it is!


    Grand Duke Jatan was forced to take out another bottle and inject the contents into Nailisi¡¯s body. That time, Nailisi finally looked up at the Grand Duke. Her eyes were pink.


    The Grand Duke was ted and flipped the on Nailisi¡¯s body over. It worked.


    Nailisi felt strength returning to her body, but only the power of her muscles returned. The ability to shapeshift was still sealed. The Grand Duke put away the. Worse still, the head facing the Grand Duke had been tainted by the drugs and began showing signs of submission.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form had three heads, and one of them housed her soul.


    The fire dragon was still coiled around the Magical Element Tower, tainting it with a red glow of fire element. The tower was unable to see what was going on outside and no one knew that Nailisi was being softened by the Grand Duke.


    Rossen the water puppet only had level nine powers, making it difficult for him to fly the tower.


    He wanted freedom and lost direct mental connection with Saleen. Their mental vibration frequencies were getting increasingly different. The connection between the water puppet and Saleen was maintained only because Saleen still had control of the shenhe.


    Nailisi¡¯s pink eyes looked at the Grand Duke and he took out a contract. He smiled. ¡°Be my ve.¡±


    Nailisi was unable to resist. The drugs had prated her brain. However, she had two heads, and one of them controlled an arm and swung the Sword of Rules.


    The power of rage burst from the Sword of Rules. It was the first time Nailisi felt anger.


    Are you trying to make me leave my master?


    There were rules of rage imbued with the sword. Any creature would be able to bring forth power several times greater than usual when they were angry. Nailisi¡¯s power was restrained by the rules, but the Sword of Rules was not.


    She was unable to attack the Grand Duke, but she was still able to attack herself.


    Am intense sh of light burst between the acting rules. Nailisi cut off the head facing forward with one swing of the sword.


    The huge head dropped to the floor and the blood seeping out of the wound was a shocking red. Nailisi¡¯s devil form had red blood, just like humans.


    Nailisi cut one of her heads off just so that she was able to resist the drugs.


    I¡¯d rather die than submit to this human! She followed Saleen because she liked it very, very much. Her master was like her. He had a bit of cunning and a bit of cowardice. All of that gradually disappeared, and Nailisi had been sad because of it.


    However, people grew up, and Nailisi knew that she was growing up as well. Furthermore, as she grew, she found it increasingly difficult to cut herself away from Saleen.


    Not every human was worth following. Nailisi looked at Grand Duke Jatan and felt only disgust. Thatvishly dressed human was extremely full of himself. Him? Conquering the maind?


    She found his thoughts delusional, much more than her master¡¯s ideals. You really think you can throw your weight around all the time just because you have powerful people around you?


    Grand Duke Jatan had never encountered a situation like that, where the soul of a creature stained by his drugs was unwilling to submit to him.


    He wondered if it was because his drugs were losing their effect. However, the act of the demon swinging a sword to cut her own head off meant that they worked. It was just that it was unable to totally control the demon.


    Everything happened too quickly. Everyone behind the Grand Duke gasped after seeing the demon refuse hismand in such a horrifying manner.


    The shouts felt like they were making a sarcastic jab at him, and he was very irked.


    ¡°If you¡¯re unwilling to submit, then you shall die. You should serve well as materials for crafting.¡± The Grand Duke brandished his curved de.


    Nailisi turned and said to the Grand Duke with one of her remaining heads, ¡°my master shall avenge me. You would no longer have any bloodline to speak of. All that you love shall be destroyed by my master. Your soul shall endure the raging fires of purgatory for eternity!¡±


    Nailisi cast a demon skill that did not require any power for support¡ªa demon curse. It was something that demons were able to use when they were near death.


    Nailisi finished casting the curse, and tears formed in the eyes of the two remaining heads. Her body began to crumble. The requirement for using the skill was harsh, as it required said demon to pay with their life. It was the simplest requirement there was.


    Grand Duke felt something happening to his body. The feeling was eerie and peculiar, as if some power fell onto him out of nowhere.


    Nailisi¡¯s words made him shiver. Her adamant refusal caused him extreme distress. However, greed lingered in his mind and the remaining bit of luck he felt made him swing his de.


    He wanted to stop her body from crumbling. Every part of Nailisi¡¯s body would be able to serve as material for crafting equipment.


    Pfff...


    Nailisi¡¯s second head was cut off by the Grand Duke¡¯s curved de.


    ¡°Stop!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice was heard from the end of the canyon. He emerged from the teleportation portal and sensed that something was disappearing in the depth of his soul. It was the soul contract with Nailisi.


    Nailisi is in trouble? Saleen took the Water Fox and quickly emerged out of the pool. As soon as he emerged out of the water, he saw Nailisi¡¯s devil form get one of her heads cut off by the Grand Duke.


    ¡°I am not stopping!¡±


    The Grand Duke shouted and shed again. Nailisi¡¯s third head was cut off. Her devil form was barely able to keep her upper body up when it hit the ground. The devil form was no longer able to close the wounds using the power of her muscles.


    Red blood sprayed from her wounds, shooting high and causing a rain of blood within her immediate vicinity.


    ¡°Myers, help her,¡± Saleen told the Water Fox. The Thunder Dragon ster appeared on his left arm. Four dragon ws clung to her arm and the mouth of the dragon opened. Seven lightning icicles shot out at the very same time.


    The Water Fox nodded in acknowledgment. She sensed Saleen¡¯s anger and heartache.


    It¡¯s just a demon. Do you need to feel that much?


    The seven lightning icicles flew right before Grand Duke Jatan in an instant. The Grand Duke¡¯s mind seemed to be plunged into the abyss. Electrical arcs danced around the icicles and a thunderous rumble was heard. The rumble slowed his skills down, making it difficult for him to cast them.


    The Grand Duke shouted and ayer of red armor appeared on his body.


    It was a skill possessed only by level ten individuals¡ªTrue Might Armor!


    Six lightning icicles formed a magic array and sent blue electrical arcs flying around the Grand Duke¡¯s body. The True Might Armor crumbled between the arcs and thest, huge icicle at the center prated the Grand Duke¡¯s heart.


    The lightning icicle was infused with intense power. It unleashed high temperature with electricity. The True Might Armor was still there when the high temperature vaporized the Grand Duke¡¯s body, leaving an empty shell.


    The Grand Duke was not supposed to have ended so pathetically. He had many skills and was experienced inbat, but Nailisi gave her life to cast a demon curse before she died, slowing him down.


    All of his people were baffled at the death of Grand Duke Jatan.


    ¡°Retreat!¡± the level ten mage shouted. While the Grand Duke was dead, there was still the Grants. They would only need to elect a new Grand Duke. The enemy was ferocious, and it was unwise for them to stay behind and fight.


    Cloudflow people usually looked elegant, but were cowards as soon as their defeat was confirmed.


    ¡°Leaving eh?¡± Saleen¡¯s expression was ferocious. He had no idea if the Water Fox¡¯s nature divine spells would be able to revive Nailisi, but the sorcerer who shouted retreat was holding Nailisi¡¯s shield. He shall die!


    Saleen¡¯s body was wrapped in thick water element armor and the power of the earth propelled him forward. Saleen¡¯s body seemed to burn. The outeryer of the water element armor was unable to withstand the friction brought by moving at over 3,000 miles per hour.


    The fire element in the air was ignited.


    Saleen appeared in front of the level ten sorcerer almost instantly and pointed a finger at the sorcerer¡¯s head.

 Chapter 1145: True Oracle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1145: True Oracle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    While level ten sorcerers were not actually the highest beings in their ne, not even the oracles of the Holy See were confident enough to say that they would be able to take out the sorcerers with one hit.


    Saleen¡¯s Comet sh brought him right before the sorcerer. He cast the Crystal Finger, and the sorcerer¡¯s head exploded.


    The level ten sorcerer¡¯s body dropped to the ground, and the level nine sorcerers dispersed like flies, running for their lives. Saleen killed two level ten professionals using solely his strongest attacks and powerful equipment. Saleen had never been so explosively powerful.


    The use of the Crystal Finger drained half of Saleen¡¯s magic chords. The recoil was mostly absorbed by the equipment he had. The constitution of a level ten sorcerer enabled him to recover quickly.


    ¡°No one is leaving alive!¡± Saleen cast three more spells from his Starline Robe. The sky seemed to freeze over. It was a level 11 magic spell¡ªDeep Blue Barrier.


    Five powerful level nine sorcerers were killed instantly by stacked level 11 spells. They cast spells and invoked the powers of their equipment but were unable to escape Saleen¡¯s wrath.


    A thickyer of frost formed on the ground, and the surviving warriors were all frozen to death. The canyon turned white, and the temperature dropped below the tolerance of living beings.


    Saleen¡¯s body stayed in the air for a while before casting Quickcloud. The spell was quickly frozen. The mist froze into snowkes and Saleen had to forcefully invoke the power of elemental conversion, enabling the snowkes to burn. He then dove to the ground.


    Boom!


    Without help from Quickcloud, Saleennded like a warrior and suffered intense pain all over his body. While his constitution equaled a grand swordmaster, hecked the protection of sword aura, sustaining himself using only weak magic powers.


    The Figure of Fate had to absorb the shock to prevent him from being injured.


    The remaining level ten sorcerer saw everything happening on the ins outside the canyon, and felt as if his eyeballs were on the verge of popping out of their sockets. He cast Wind Travel without hesitation and headed straight for the woods in the mountain.


    He did not dare to fly, as it would attract too much attention and he might be killed by Saleen.


    Due to having run in a panic, he dared not even recall his fire dragon. The fire dragon continued to coil around the tower and breathe fire element powers.


    The sorcerer had been frightened to the point of losing all sense of reasoning. Two professionals of his level and five level nine sorcerers died without being able to fight back. He forgot that he had a magic amplifier, which would make his powers equal at least three level ten sorcerers.


    Saleen, on the other hand, strained his body beyond its limits due to using such powerful skills consecutively, which meant that he would not be able to use such terrifying attacks anymore.


    However, Saleen was in no mood of pursuing the sorcerer. Nailisi¡¯s body dropped to the ground and all three of her heads rolled elsewhere. Saleen dropped beside Nailisi and felt helpless.


    The Water Fox emerged inside the canyon and stood before Nailisi¡¯s body. She had the image of the Goddess of Myers. Her clothes billowed, and she looked stunning. The clothing on her body was constructed from water element as well.


    The Water Fox looked at the dead body. ¡°Your Highness, what price would you be willing to pay to resurrect this demon?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I know that you have a grand n, and I need to put a lot of energy into the n. However, if I saved this demon, my powers would drop by two whole levels and be a level ten elemental creature. If I remain at level 12, your n can be carried smoothly.¡±


    ¡°Save her!¡± Saleen answered without hesitation. He was in no mind to talk about ns of any kind at the moment.


    ¡°Will do. It seems like you value your people, Your Highness,¡± the Water Fox said inly, learning something about Saleen. She might actually be able to acquire her freedom if she followed Saleen.


    As to whether she was to treat Nailisi, that depended on Saleen¡¯s wishes. She was unable to go against his orders.


    Saleen realized the key to the problem when he looked around. Nailisi held the line, worried that someone would destroy the teleportation portal. If the portal were destroyed, there would be a possibility that he would no longer be able to return to Myers Maind.


    Even if he were able to survive, it would be totally pointless. His wives and his two children were still on Myers Maind. If he were unable to return, he would be as good as dead to them.


    A portal was difficult to destroy, but the same could not be said about a teleportation portal.


    ¡°Right, here, take this.¡± Saleen took out a bunch of notes, handing them to the Water Fox. ¡°These are some notes regarding nature divine spells. You possess divine powers, so maybe they¡¯d be useful to you.¡±


    The Water Fox wore a bitter smile. ¡°I have no use for these, Your Highness. When Myers took me back then, she force-fed me all kinds of divine spell knowledge. I originally nned to never use them even if I died. However, since you separated my soul, I no longer need to fear having the divine spells change my thoughts.¡±


    The Water Fox did not know if she was lucky. Saleen had used an Eternal Control Shard to imprison her soul and prevent her from leaving, enabling him to punish her. However, it was due precisely to having undergone such treatment that her soul would be immune from the taint of power of faith if she used divine spells. Her nature itself was prevented from changing as well.


    ¡°Are there any risks involved in treating her?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Your Highness, there won¡¯t be any. There¡¯s a fire dragon; take it out.¡± The Water Fox began preparing her spell. Her outer form was a statue of the goddess, making it easy for her to use divine spells.


    All divine spells below level 12 were instant-cast ones, so long as she had ample divine powers to spare.


    Saleen was relieved and tucked away the bodies of the enemies he killed. He was in no mood to inspect their equipment, as long as Nailisi¡¯s shield, the Sword of Rules, the Grey Memory and the 12 Notes of First Purgatory were ounted for.


    Saleen emerged from the canyon after putting away the dead bodies, arriving at his tower.


    The fire dragon had little intelligence. It was still breathing fire to attack the tower. Saleen cast Deep Blue Barrier again and the dragon began to shrink. With the mage controlling it gone, thebat capacity of the fire dragon paled inparison.


    The Cloudflow mage that ran awaycked Saleen¡¯s means of controlling the fire dragon¡¯s soul, so he had no choice but to extract it. While doing so would ensure that the fire dragon would not turn on him, it also robbed the fire dragon of intelligence.


    Without the mage¡¯smand, the fire dragon was little more than a level ten target.


    If the Magical Element Tower had not been sealed off, Sika would have been able to think of ways to deal with it, if she was able toe out.


    The divine light cast by the Water Fox shrouded the canyon. She controlled the divine spell and sent the power of her life into Nailisi¡¯s dead body. The reason why she was certain that she was able to treat Nailisi was because Nailisi had a special bloodline. Her soul remained intact.


    The divine power dispersed the power of rules of the. The Water Fox felt herself get increasingly weak. She had been a powerful water elemental creature, but the 10,000 years of imprisonment had robbed her of her powers, so she was only at level 12. Using divine spells to resurrect a dead demon put a considerable toll on her.


    The only benefit was that the statue¡¯s powers were activated. The Water Fox would truly be able to use divine spells without fear of the impact on her soul. The Water Fox¡¯s water element powers were still retained.


    She would eventually return to level 12 if she continued to umte power, and would not need to learn much. It could be aplished with ample time.


    Elemental creatures nevercked time. When she was able to return to level 12 again, the control that the goddess ced on her would no longer be around. If Saleen granted her freedom, she would not be bound to anything.


    As a creature that survived from ancient times, the Water Fox knew that it was better to follow humans than gods. Following a human would allow her to achieve something someday, while she had to wait for the god¡¯s downfall if she followed a god. Even if the god perished, there was no guarantee that she would be granted freedom.


    Most gods had ample preparations before they perished, such as Myers, who trapped her in the divine power cage. If Saleen did not find her, she would have been trapped within until the end of her days.


    What was even more terrifying was that the god might even devour her using their divine persona, making her a part of the divine persona and preventing her from being able to separate herself.


    A divine persona was the purest thing to exist in the world. Being assimted by a divine persona equaled losing one¡¯s ego for good.


    Seeing the power of life in Nailisi¡¯s dead body surpass most level ten professionals, the Water Fox said, ¡°in the name of Myers, the rules of nature shall be reversed and life shall be bestowed upon all living creatures. Thou shall need not have faith, need not follow me. O¡¯ fallen soul, rise as of this moment!¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form shuddered. It resulted from extreme pain of the soul. The soul in slumber was jolted awake, but was separated from the body.


    While the Water Fox¡¯s powers continued to drop, the powers of her body came from the statue itself. The statue was made of a material that even Grey Memory would have a hard time punching through. Her body¡¯s strength surpassed extremely refined types of special metals.


    She bent over and picked up one of Nailisi¡¯s heads, casting green divine light on the wounds and reattaching it to the body. Nailisi continued to shudder from pain. The wounds were unable to be restored in an instant. It was a process that made Nailisi feel as if her head was being repeatedly severed.


    Saleen finished putting the fire dragon away into the lightning cage. The lightning cage was the best ce to put prisoners. No skill or energy would work within the lightning cage.


    Saleen subdued the fire dragon and dispersed thestyer of fire element on the tower. The ones inside were finally able to see what was outside. Sika leapt out in excitement at seeing Saleen.


    ¡°Get back inside,¡± Saleen said calmly. He took Sika by the belt and hurled her back through the tower¡¯s window.


    The Water Fox sensed powerful professionals appear from faraway. It sent shivers throughout her body. It was not a feeling of fear, but disgust. The smell of gods!

 Chapter 1146: True Oracle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1146: True Oracle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had little power left with him for having killed several powerful enemies consecutively and subjugating a fire elemental puppet. His most powerful means at the moment was none other than his family badge, and the level 11 magic spells in his Starline Robe.


    However, that powering from afar made Saleen felt stressed, as it was not exactly something that could be dealt with using level 11 magic spells. He had incredible luck to have left the temple for quite a while, and the enemy had only showed up by then. Things would be very dire otherwise.


    The Water Fox sensed that powerful aura as well. She quickly put the other two of Nailisi¡¯s heads in a hurry and flew to the area outside the tower, with Nailisi hoisted with one arm.


    Nailisi opened her eyes by then. The power of the pharmaceuticals in her head had been dispelled by divine spells, enabling her to regain rity. She only smiled lethargically when she saw Saleen, before closing her eyes again.


    The Water Fox felt the weight on her arm lessened considerably. Nailisi¡¯s devil form gradually shrunk and returned to her imp form. The Water Fox was startled. Nailisi¡¯s imp form greatly resembled the Water Fox¡¯s own current form.


    But then again, it was not the time for hesitation. She followed Saleen into the Magical Element Tower and he activated the magic power furnaces within. The tower shot to the skies immediately.


    ¡°Stay back for a bit.¡± A loud voice enveloped the entire mountainous region in the sky. The area within tens of miles radius was covered by holy light. Saleen lost control of the elements of the tower. If it had not been for the magic power furnaces serving as power sources, the tower would fall to the ground right there and then.


    Saleen sighed and slowly brought the tower back down. The location he chose was that deep pool he emerged from. Every floor of the tower was nine meters tall, with the total height of the construct being 216 meters as it had 24 floors. The tower dropped into the pool and disappeared without a trace.


    Saleen was in no hurry while inside the tower. The enemy came from the Holy See and the strength of that light surpassed any enemy he had ever encountered. However, regardless of how strong said enemy would be, the limit of their world meant that they would not be strong enough to break the tower¡¯s defenses.


    The water puppet was only level nine, which made it considerably difficult for him to man the tower. However, he had a level ten mage grinded for a long time taking on the tower, and still not seeding in breaking into it.


    The difference between level nine and ten was a lot bigger than that between level 10 and 12. The difference in the former was something of considerably different nature after all. Rules that were mastered above level 10 was considerably more profound.


    The light enveloped the mountains and an oracle that advent on Myers Maind appeared in the sky. Three oracles advent and one of them was missing. However, the remaining two hardly felt anything about it. Having one of their own dead would prove to be a good thing for them. If it had not been for the attributes of the oracles making it difficult for them to attack each other, the remaining two would probably long be going after each other¡¯s throats.


    They were the highest being in Myers Maind at the moment.


    The two oracles finally regained the power of level 12 somewhat after a period of restoration. And that time, the Holy See acquired intel from the Cloudflow Empire, saying that Saleen appeared in the mountainous regions of Cloudflow, looking for a temple left behind by the Goddess of Myers.


    The Holy See¡¯s forces were focused on Daliang City. The remaining main force was all at the Holy City and said force dared not be deployed haphazardly. Furthermore, with the Tribunal and the Pivotal Council always being at odds with each other, Pope Theisio had little power that he was able to deploy, so he had to go to the two oracles.


    One of them was intrigued enough to get to the Cloudflow Empire on his own, wanting to see what the Goddess of Myers had left behind.


    ¡°Master...¡± While Nailisi had returned to her imp form, she remained lethargic. Being controlled by rules, robbed of her ability to shapeshift, and having all three of her heads cut off, Nailisi had truly died once. While her soul did not dissipate, she suffered considerable injuries.


    The divine spells cast by the Water Fox were not truly through the goddess¡¯ own hands, so it would take some time before Nailisi could truly recover.


    ¡°Rest assured, I killed all who harmed you,¡± Saleen uttered a simple line, putting her at ease. She did not get excited, but felt that everything that she had given so far had been worth it. Nailisi was able to feel why Saleen was so angry. It was not because she had died, but because the Grand Duke Jatan wanted to rob her of her freedom.


    ¡°Saleen, the thing outside?¡± Sika pointed up. The thing that cast Territory of Light was apparently not someone any of them would be able to take on.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. He can¡¯t get down. It¡¯s about time I develop my own territory, and when I¡¯m done, we¡¯ll be able to leave. If that thing wants to keep me trapped, he¡¯ll need to be a god.¡± Saleen answered very confidently, putting Sika at ease. Mages had no tendency to boast. If Saleen said that they would be able to leave, then there would not be any problem.


    The oracle dropped beside the pool and cast intense light from his eyes, shining directly on the tower. The oracle saw the tower and was dumbfounded to find that it was made out of elementite. It would be difficult to break it.


    The oracle was three meters tall, and a huge, crystal clear ring hovered behind his back. The oracle thought for a bit and summoned over a hundred angels from the ring, which flew out and stood around the pool.


    The oracle chanted prayers, and the angels became huge chunks of crystal. The oracle hovered in midair and cast a divine spell at the pool. The clear rocks surrounding the pool were all inscribed with holy prose.


    Saleen saw the divine rune charm array appear above the pool and smirked.


    ¡°I need to train and won¡¯t be able to talk to anyone for half a month. Rossen, continue to man the tower¡¯s defenses and don¡¯t pay any heed to what is going on up there. That thing is not enough to cause us concern. When I develop territorial powers, we¡¯ll leave.¡±


    The oracle was far more powerful than Grand Duke Jatan, but Saleen was hardly fettered. The angels of fear dared to take on the Divine Tree Magic Tower, but that servant of the Lord of Glory don¡¯t even dare to try his hand?


    Saleen was only concerned if it possessed powerful equipment. If it did not, then his family badge would enable him to kill virtually anything.


    ¡°Oh yeah, and this is Myers. She¡¯d be with us from here on out.¡± Saleen pointed at the Water Fox. None of them found calling her Myers peculiar. The Water Fox resembled Nailisi, which was what they noticed.


    Saleen took the Water Fox to the 24th floor of the tower. ¡°I need to re-craft the tower to imbue it with the power of rules. It will keep us from being trapped like this again, but I need your help.¡±


    ¡°Have it your way, Your Highness,¡± the Water Fox said exasperatedly.


    ¡°Give me your water elemental powers.¡± Saleen sat down where he meditated. The Water Fox came to Saleen¡¯s side quietly and spit out some clear blue energy.


    The mass of energy was incredibly pure. While the Water Fox¡¯s level had plunged, the rules of water element that she controlled were hardly weakened. Conventional water elemental creatures would not be a match for her.


    Saleen conjured the Water me and spread it throughout the entire 24th floor, infusing it with the power of water element. Saleen was prepared for the crafting process. He infused massive amounts of divine powers from the Ring of Gifts into the Goddess of Myers¡¯ statue, enabling the Water Fox to have ample power for sustaining conversion of water element. He prepared divine crystals and magic drugs to replenish his energy.


    The power of water element coursed within the magic tower. The elementite did not resist Saleen¡¯s power, so it was easy, so much so that he modified his Starline Robe at the same time. The starlines on the Starline Armament were crafted using constetion power, and Saleen was not used to using them. Furthermore, he was a level ten sorcerer and would be more powerful using elemental powers.


    The water element began to modify the Starline Armament. The constetion power melted off, and Saleen¡¯s elemental conversion abilities allowed him to modify even constetion power because he understood where the source of the power of the stars came from¡ªthe earth itself.


    The Water Fox did her task with a sullen face. Dropping to level ten and still providing massive elemental power to Saleen was a very, very difficult task for her. However, if a human mage was capable of doing it, there was no reason for her to whine to Saleen.


    Endless constetion power within the Starline Robe was reced with the power of water element. The intricate star charts gradually became ones drawn using water element. Such conversions modified the star charts at negligible margins, but said changes meant the difference between the heaven and the earth, in regards to use of the magic robe to Saleen.


    Invoking the star charts needed pure constetion power, but Saleen was using the power from elemental conversion. Any of the six major elements would be able to be converted into energy required to invoke the star charts. It was a type of new energy that was between constetion power and the power of earth element.


    Saleen¡¯s crafting of his Starline Equipment made him realize that Gaine had been very good to him. All of the starlines and star charts on the Starline Robe had room for modifications and Gaine did not y any tricks with them. A piece of equipment that he would have on his person all the time would originally had not been something, that mages would want others to craft for them. Even if it happened to be something from the mage¡¯s teacher, it would be kept as a memento. A mage needed to craft one¡¯s own set when their training reached a certain level.


    Saleen was not doing an overhaul. He simply wanted the Starline Armament to be more fitting for his own use after all. It was no longer difficult for him to craft high level equipment after advancing to level ten. He never expected the equipment that Gaine gave him had room for modification, sparing him of the need to find new materials for re-crafting. Saleen then moved on to modify the other parts of the Starline Armament. All of them were easily modified using water element without exception. All of the starlines were converted to water element magic pattterns and only Saleen knew, that the magic patterns on the armament could still be invoked using constetion power.


    When every single part of the Starline Armament was modified, Saleen felt immediately that the magic chords in his body melded closely with the water element in the air around him. Such melding felt different from when he advanced. He felt as if the water element around him came alive and was coursing about like they were his own blood.


    Spells that had been fine and difficult to control became easy in an instant. Saleen had one thought and rendered all elements within the 24th floor turned into water element. Every single element particle was rendered under his control.


    The Water Fox was considerably startled. The magic training of that human before her was instead faster than any living creature she known. Saleen was only a level ten elemental mage, but he was able to master Water Element Territory!


    It was worth noting that she herself had only mastered Deep Blue Territory when she advanced to level ten back then, which had been a branch of Water Element Territory. It was due to such that she had only been able to master water element rules at level 15, after training for tens of thousands of years.


    If Saleen was able to master Water Element Territory while he was at level ten, there was hope for him to master Water Element Rules when he reached only level 13!

 Chapter 1147: Water Element Territory (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1147: Water Element Territory (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The reason Saleen had not been able to develop territorial powers was because he had trained in the power of the stars. The instant the Starline Armament modification finished, his water element was restored immediately, which made him realize the secrets of water element.


    It would have alle a lot more naturally, and he would have been able to develop territorial powers if Saleen did not have the Starline Armament.


    However, if that had been the case, Saleen might have only been able to acquire a branch of some kind of territorial powers instead of the basic territorial powers of one of the six major elements.


    The moment Saleen¡¯s Water Element Territory waspleted, his Water me Alchemy¡¯s power grew. The Water Fox felt that she was no longer able to keep up with Saleen¡¯s drain. The Blue Ice Maidens in Saleen¡¯s elemental badge began to provide Saleen with power as well.


    With the Blue Ice Maiden joining the crafting of the magic tower, all the other five elemental creatures chipped in as well. The power of the six badges in Saleen¡¯s belt gradually began to work together.


    Saleen had also unintentionally invoked the other star charts and starlines on his magic robe. Dazzling starlight shone on his belt.


    The constetion power did not participate in the crafting of the tower and simply maintained Saleen¡¯s constitutional bnce. Saleen was able to sustain the crafting of the tower at full force. What he acquired from the Water Fox and the Blue Ice Maiden was siphoned endlessly into the tower.


    The magic patterns within the tower were all converted. Torrential power welled up and the initially independent floors of the tower were all flooded by the power of water element, so much so that Saleen was able to hear the sound of water flowing in raging torrents.


    Whoosh!


    All the dimension stones embedded in the elementite of the 24th floor were flushed out, and all the pieces of elementite melded into one. Intense water element storms formed in the spaces of the elementite, and fierce lightning was conjured within the storms.


    The two types of powers that Saleen mastered¡ªwater element and lightning¡ªmerged together and expanded the space on the 24th floor. Rumbling was heard. There was thunder and the raging howl of the water element.


    The space in the tower was expanded over 200 meters in diameter, and it kept going.


    Saleen willed the halt of the expansion when it reached 360 meters. ording to his calctions, if the expansion continued, his powers would not be able to maintain it.


    The power of water element and lightning was transmitted downward. The 23rd floor of the tower began to expand.


    Most magic towers had spatial properties of some sort, making the internal space look bigger than what was suggested by its outer appearance. Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower hadcked such properties, as the diameter was expanded to 360 meters and the height was raised to 120 meters.


    That ratio was smaller than the dimension stones Saleen owned and paled inparison to the Starline Ring. However, it humans were capable to stay in it to train.


    Saleen would be able to cerger pieces of alchemical machinery and install magic power furnaces of a greater scale.


    The source of power for tower was the magic power furnaces. However, due to spatial restraints, the magic power furnaces were the smallest. With the ce expanded, Saleen was able to install thergest magic power furnace in the Ancient.


    Only arge magic power furnace would be able to provide more power, enabling enhancement of the tower in offense, defense, flight, or any other aspects.


    The Water Fox was the first to be exhausted, while the Blue Ice Maidens and the other five elemental creatures had seemingly inexhaustible power. She had just resurrected Nailisi and that had taken a serious toll on her.


    If it had not been for her massive power storage and the fact that she was a level 10 creature, the Water Fox would have been totally drained a long time ago.


    However, seeing the changes to Saleen¡¯s tower, the Water Fox gritted her teeth and told Saleen, ¡°My liege, release the limit of my heart!¡±


    Saleen did not ask any further and did not care about the Water Fox¡¯s new way of addressing him. He unlocked the limiter on the heart of the Goddess of Myers. The Water Fox, which had been hiding within, spit out a clear blue bead. The bead flew into Saleen¡¯s body, making him feel as if his body had expanded.


    He felt like his entire body was submerged in thick water element, like he had turned into a water elemental creature. His body of water element merged easily with the bead. His magic chords were infused in the bead and absorbed the pure water elemental power in a frenzy.


    Saleen¡¯s control of the Water me grew even stronger. The Water me seeped into every floor of the tower with the water element, refining every single floor. However, the lower they went, the weaker his ability to control the water element became.


    Saleen burst open six floors without any problems until he reached the 16th floor, where the mechanical core of the Sky City began to absorb his water elemental powers as well.


    Saleen was at his wit¡¯s end. The mechanical core absorbed so much energy, it had Saleen spit out the Water Fox¡¯s bead in three seconds and put the Water me away. Over half of the Water me disappeared, absorbed by the mechanical core of the Sky City.


    Saleen stopped refining the Magical Element Tower. The 24th floor to the 17th floor were all expanded, but when his powers hit the 16th floor, the mechanical core¡¯s power was simply too terrifying.


    Saleen figured that even if he threw all of his elemental creatures into it, he would notst against the absorption for one minute.


    However, Saleen did not feel that he had failed at all. What he gained far exceeded his expectations. The elementite that Gaine had modified was suitable for crafting. He would not be able to modify the level 18 material otherwise.


    While the lower 15 floors were not expanded, it was sufficient. Defense and offense on every floor was changed. All magic patterns were converted into water elemental patterns.


    Nailisiughed painfully, seeing the tower expanded from the 17th floor.


    ¡°Master has finally developed territorial powers. Sika, get ready to leave!¡±


    The oracle outside the pool had left a long time ago, leaving only a huge divine rune charm array behind. There was a teleportation portal stacked on top of the array. It would enable him to teleport there immediately if anything happened with the magic tower.


    Over a hundred angels were turned into energy stones, supplying endless energy to keep the pool sealed.


    Saleen looked at the bead in his hand, which was tarnished dull.


    ¡°Myers, let me finish one more thing and you¡¯ll have your freedom.¡± Saleen handed the bead back to the Water Fox.


    The Water Fox was ted, but replied inly, ¡°thank you, my liege.¡±


    ¡°Better stick to addressing me as ¡®Your Highness¡¯. You still have to y the part of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ double.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Your Highness.¡± The Water Fox smiled. Her gamble paid off. Saleen had no desire for her water element essence. She has spent hundreds of thousands of years to develop the bead. Without it, it would be nearly impossible for her to get restored in the future.


    Saleen siphoned divine power in the Ring of Gifts to the Water Fox, allowing her powers to be restored. Saleen returned to the 17th floor. The crafting process only took him ten days. What he truly found exhausting was the work he did with the top six floors.


    While the 16th floor had been expanded with the top six floors, it waspletely taken over by the mechanical core of the Sky City, which meant that it was unable to amodate people.


    Saleen took back control from the water puppet after returning to the 17th floor and began to absorb the cold waters from below. The cold water that burst from the spring had simr effects to Water me, and he saw no reason to waste it.


    Things that would be able to carry the water, aside from the Magical Element Tower, were limited.


    The freezing water was sucked into the magic tower oneyer after another. The lower spaces of the tower were not that big. Saleen stopped after water flooded the 12th floor. There was a possibility that it was thest time they would be at the pool. Saleen cast a huge icence from the tower, stabbing the teleportation portal at the bottom of theke.


    Hundreds of icences split and rained down on the array, eventually dismantling it. The holy prose on top was wiped clean.


    Saleen destroyed the teleportation portal and had no intentions of entering the temple again. The divine crystals and divine persona were already obtained. Furthermore, it was a divine persona of a water elemental god.


    He no longer fearedcking materials. The divine persona alone was enough to enable him to advance all the way beyond level 15.


    Refining a divine persona and making it a part of his mage equipment was what Saleen wanted. The gift left behind by the Goddess of Myers had been a good one. It was a pity that he remained staunchly against bing her believer.


    Saleen had two people he respected the most, one being his teacher, Jason, and the other being the emperor of the First Dynasty.


    The founding emperor of the First Dynasty, the King of Glory, killed 18 king of gods, refining the divine personas of all 18 of them into his own crown. Furthermore, he only used his own followers in the killing of the 18 king of gods. The achievement had been passed between the mages for thousands of years without being lost.


    It was the glory of humans, a species that had once been on every single ne of the crystal wall system.


    After the teleportation portal was destroyed, Saleen activated the magic power furnace, and the tower shot up at a great speed. Power of water element emanated from the tower, wrapping it up. Lightning powers sparked in the elementite, forcing the water element out and forming a Water Element Territory.


    The pool began to boil. The tower reached a speed that it had never before, enabling it to move faster than in the air. The tower burst out of the water and rammed straight into the divine rune charm array.


    The magic power furnace consumed thousands of magic nuclei instantly, coalescing the Water Element Territory until it became as solid as crystal.


    The Territory of Light split, and the Magical Element Tower tore through the sky. Without the oracle to man the Territory of Light, there was no stopping the tower.


    ¡°Stay back!¡± The divine rune charm array was restored. Half of the oracle emerged from the teleportation portal, and a beam of holy light shot from the oracle¡¯s palm.


    There seemed to be millions of angels howling in the beam, as if they were about to tear everything in front of them apart.

 Chapter 1148: Water Element Territory (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1148: Water Element Territory (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Don¡¯t make meugh!¡± Saleen looked at the holy light from the tower. The Thunder Dragon ster on his arm was prepped for retaliation.


    He had originally needed to open the window of the tower to cast the spell, but with thepletion of the tower¡¯s crafting, Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles were able to phase through the elementite and shed with the iing holy light, nullifying it.


    ¡°Huh?¡± The oracle had intended to take to the air to pursue them, but seeing how the four icicles had broken his Divine Wrath spell, he stopped immediately. The enemy¡¯s power was not all that great, but the lightning that coursed about the icicles reminded the oracle of something.


    Something from the depths of his memory welled up and the oracle¡¯s face calmed.


    Isn¡¯t the God of Thunder dead already? As I recall, his divine persona was shattered and his divine fire waspletely snuffed. Even his body was made into equipment by humans and every single believer in his divine kingdom is dead.


    There are no more than three humans capable of manipting lightning, and there had not been any lineages left!


    He definitely did not inherit the lineages of the three. His power is too weak, and the rules are different. He can¡¯t be a believer of the God of Thunder. Who the hell is this guy?


    Was a gap in the gods¡¯ memories, leaving some powerful ones unounted for?


    There was that possibility. There were many powerful humans on the Myers Maind ne who did not participate in the conquest of nes, just like how some gods chose to hide. The lineages of humans were not recorded in the gods¡¯ memories.


    The oracle¡¯s hesitation bought the tower some time, enabling it to fly far away. He would still be able to catch up to it if he wanted to, but there was no certainty that he would be able to trap the tower. The tower developed territorial power,s and there was no way he would be able to break it.


    If he wanted to suppress it, he would have to use his full power, preventing him from leaving.


    He was unwilling to go that far. Staying back to cage a tower and fight a mage would mean that the other oracle would take advantage of things.


    The oracle chuckled, as he had an idea. Saleen would have to leave the tower sooner orter. There would still be a chance to kill him. The target was tricky, so it was better to let the other oracle take on the mage.


    He, on the other hand, was going to dive into the pool and look at the secrets beneath.


    The crystal ring behind the oracle¡¯s back spun once and the stones that the angels became flew back into the ring and were absorbed. None of the angels were revived.


    The oracle took a deep breath, sated. It was a pity that the ring was only able to summon that many angels every month, making him feel hungry for more.


    However, even if he were able to summon more, he would not dare do it. There was a limit to how many angels could be spent in the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom.


    Eating too much would attract the Lord of Glory¡¯s attention. His own brethren were probably summoning angels in secret and eating them. The total number of angels eaten was best to remain below 300 every month.


    Saleen¡¯s tower flew for several hundred miles. He looked at the magic map and took the tower southeast. He arrived at a city six hourster.


    He looked down at the city. It was a small town, with an area of less than 200 square miles and a poption in the tens of thousands. However, the town looked busy. There was a river passing by that was not very narrow. There were merchant ships on the river.


    Saleen dropped the tower outside the city. ¡°We¡¯ll wait here and see if people from the Holy Seee for us. If they don¡¯te, we¡¯ll go for the next target.¡±


    Saleen was rather uneasy. The powerful one from the Holy See had cost him four lightning icicles with just one nonchnt attack. It was obvious that he was beyond level ten. Skills cast by level ten professionals would cost him only one lightning icicle to nullify.


    He would be lucky if he was noting for him. If that person had indeed pursued him, he would have to leave the Cloudflow Empire.


    Agares would leak his whereabouts to the Holy See, enabling that person toe after Saleen.


    No one dared to get close to the tower that dropped out of nowhere. The nobles in the city had no idea what had happened. The tower was over 200 meters tall, was covered in ayer of cloudy mist, and looked like a small mountain.


    The city¡¯s nobles did not even dare to send someone to look into the tower.


    It was an honor to have mages visit a city. However, no one had said anything about a mage bringing a tower and dropping right outside their turf.


    While Saleen waited, the oracle had already dove several miles into the pool. He saw the exceedingly coldyer of water in the final 20 meters or so. The oracle was overjoyed and shouted, ¡°The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water!¡±


    The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was good stuff and would never appear on divine kingdoms, as only the nes with living beings had it.


    Regardless of how many divine kingdoms the Lord of Glory possessed, he would not be able to find any. The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was very useful to the gods, as it could serve as material for further training.


    While Saleen had no knowledge of the material, he sensed something special about it and took it. The oracle did not know that three quarters of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was gone. He was overjoyed, but he was also troubled.


    He had nothing with him that could be used to carry the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water. While his ring would be able to somewhat carry it, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was inherently anti-god. He would be able to use it for training if he carried some with him, but carrying that much would wreck his godly item.


    ¡®Godly item¡¯ referred to equipment beyond level 13. To the people of the divine kingdoms, the term meant equipment crafted by gods.


    Saleen¡¯s tower was made of level 18 elementite. Even without further refinement, the material would be able to withstand the corrosion from the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was dwindling as it seeped into the earth. The bottommost part of the pool had a divine rune charm array, and the Goddess of Myers used special methods to enable the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water to circte, preventing it from draining.


    Saleen destroyed the divine rune charm array and rocky surfaces were incapable of withstanding the power of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    If he did not take the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water away as soon as possible, it would eventually seep deep into the earth, merging with the underground fires and give birth to intelligent life. It would be difficult to take, as not even oracles dared to venture deep into the earth.


    The oracle was troubled, and Saleen was troubled as well. He had used 12 floors of the tower to take the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, but he had no idea what it was.


    Everyone trained on their own after the towernded, and Nailisi continued to recuperate. Saleen began looking into ways to store the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water to free up space in the tower.


    He was in a hurry to take the materials and equipment and everything else stored beneath the bottom 12 floors before they were reduced to dust. It was a considerable loss, but it was one that enabled Saleen to see for himself how powerful the water was.


    Saleen attempted to store some of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water in a purple gold pouch, but the pouch quickly melted. Saleen then used the space equipment that he made, but it crumbled as well.


    One cup already strained the equipment beyond limits and rendered them junk.


    Saleen had no other way. While the Starline Ring was capable of storing the water, there was still a possibility that the items within would interact with each other. If all the materials that he had gathered were reduced to dust, he would lose more than he gained.


    The ring had things that Saleen needed to take out in a quickly, meaning that there was no way he could throw everything into the dimension stones.


    Saleen had no idea if dimension stones were capable of withstanding the effects of the water, but he was reluctant to experiment with them. He deemed them too rare, so much so that he had never seen any in any of the goddess¡¯ temples.


    He got a considerable amount of other precious gemstones instead.


    An idea popped in Saleen¡¯s mind. He took out a nk starline scroll and wrapped the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water with Water me, infusing it into a nk scroll as if it was a spell.


    The thought originated from the sealing of elemental creatures. Not everyone could create Elemental badges. Common mages could only carry them by sealing them into scrolls and releasing them when needed. However, that was a one-time-use technique.


    Saleen attempted and failed several times. After destroying several starline scrolls, Saleen finally was able to store six cubic meters of that water into a starline scroll.


    He continued to over 200 scrolls, before finding that he had only stored two floors¡¯ worth of Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water. Storing all of it would require him to craft about 1,000 scrolls.


    Crafting over 200 of the scrolls had already cost Saleen¡¯s two days. Furthermore, the speed was only possible because his mental powers were over 20 times stronger thanmon level ten mages. Water me Alchemy was also not a spell that cost magic chords, so he was able to keep his magic chords in a stable state.


    It was only costly to craft the scrolls in terms of mental power consumption.


    He hesitated over if he should have continued crafting. He had no idea what the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was, but he knew that its rarity rivaled dimension stones.


    It was not that troublesome to just keep it stored within the tower, as the water could be safely kept inside a container and there were ways to scoop it up when he needed to use it.


    Someone arrived at the tower. It was a personal guard of a noble, sending a letter.


    The guard was a subordinate of the small city¡¯s noble, but the letter was addressed to Saleen, and written by Agares.


    Saleen checked the letter with magic before opening it. Agares¡¯ letter was simple and clear-cut, devoid of any tones that Cloudflow people usually used, and instead resembling Sikeqinyans.


    Your Highness Saleen, I was the one who pointed to the people of Holy See where they needed to go. I had no idea that the Holy See sent an oracle, who was at least level 11. If enough time has passed, the oracle will have his powers restored to level 12. Stay safe, Your Highness.


    The letter seemed to be meant to provoke him, but it provided him with important intel. A level 12 oracle from a divine kingdom was the supreme being in their ne. But why did the Holy See not send one to Daliang City?


    Saleen grew restless. If that thing had been a level 12 oracle, then he was unable to be so careless with his actions. If the oracle had showed up at the pool before he did, he would have probably died inside the temple.

 Chapter 1149: Six Elements’ Heavy Water (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1149: Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After much consideration, Saleen still felt that he could not make the decision and needed to discuss it with his followers.


    He passed the letter around for everyone to take a look. Sul and Nailisi¡¯s opinion was to give up on the Cloudflow Empire¡¯s other two temples, because they were afraid that the temples would have already been cleared out by Agares. Within the Cloudflow border, even if Saleen and the others¡¯ whereabouts could be hidden, the final destination could not be. Agares would only have to arrange for people to wait at the temple.


    If they died, Agares might even send a letter to the oracle.


    Agares had sent a letter to Saleen, probably with the aim of allowing Saleen to understand who his opponent was. However, it did not mean that Agares would not send any letters to the Holy See. Agares would also not mind using the oracle¡¯s hands to get rid of Saleen.


    However, Sika said, ¡°Saleen, if you want to go then go. The two remaining coordinates are far away, but we have one possibility to meet Agares. If he is not there, we should quickly demolish the temple. With thebined efforts of 10,000 demons, it will not even take half a day.¡±


    ¡°And if we run into him?¡±


    ¡°Kill him.¡± Sika¡¯s answer was simple.


    Saleen nodded. If they ran into Agares, killing him was the best choice. However assassins excelled in escaping, and they were even better at concealment. In a situation with no guarantee, their actions would be exceptionally cautious. Not to mention Agares¡¯s people tended to treasure their lives. If there was any sign of danger, they would escape.


    Nailisi and the others saw that Saleen wanted to stay in Cloudflow and could not do anything about it, but they reminded Saleen to contact Metatrin City. Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower¡¯s extended to the 17th floor, and could now amodate arge-scale magic power furnace. If the need arose, it would be safe to modify the magical tower, and then search for the temples.


    Metatrin City already had arge-scale magic power furnace. It was only because theycked materials that only one magic power furnace was sessfully manufactured. The alchemic factory¡¯s mages were researching substitute materials for the magic power furnace. Therge magic power furnace was left in the alchemic factory as a sample for the mages to refer to in their research.


    Saleen could use therge magic power furnace, but he could not change the original one. It was necessary to be in the alchemic factory with his teacher and a hundred of mages taking turns refining. Only then could therge-scale magic power furnace be ced inside.


    Saleen had no other alternative but to return to Metatrin City. He recalled that he had once refurbished a cave in an uninhabited area. Now there would no longer be people from the Holy See patrolling the area, and he had already dismantled the temple.


    Having decided to return to Metatrin City, Saleen decided to contact Daliang City to deliver the fire dragon sealed in the scroll to Lex. Lex was skilled in Fire Magic. Taming a fire elemental creature would be tremendously helpful in raising her Fighting Power.


    The Magical Element Tower once again took off, flying towards the north. It was no longer stationary in Cloudflow.


    Even mages had no way to spy on the vast Cloudflow Empire. The informer arranged by Agares had long lost sight of Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s destination was the waterfall at the source of the Red River. The Magical Element Tower flew up to an altitude of 10,000 meters. The winds were bitterly cold but had no impact on the Magical Element Tower¡¯s flight. Terrifying energies started to appear, many of which were extremely harmful towards the human body.


    If they were not in the Magical Tower, even level 9s would not dare to stop for too long. Breathing was also a problem. Perhaps only a mage like Saleen would dare to fly high to such an extent. The Myers Maind was no longer from the past, and the mages¡¯ activity were restricted to 1,000 meters and below. Any higher and it would also be very dangerous for mages.


    During the flight, Saleen felt that the lightning dragons in the ne had awakened. After the lightning dragons advanced to Level 9, they continued to be in a deep sleep for the sake of strengthening their powers, and only asionally awakened to eat. The lightning dragons¡¯ diet included only a small portion of sea fish. It consisted mainly of magic bugs.


    The energy contained by the magic bugs was not bad and was enough to satisfy their appetite.


    Twenty-four lightning dragons awoke at the same time and released a call towards Saleen. It was a continuous thundering sound. Saleen was unable to understand. He only knew that the lightning dragons were feeling eager.


    What did the lightning dragons need? The lightning dragons had eaten not long ago, so they did not need to be fed. The magic beasts did not eat much because they were about to advance.


    Saleen tried to establish Sensory Sharing with the lightning dragons, and their thoughts appeared in a blurred fashion in Saleen¡¯s mind. The lightning dragons wanted was the bizarre cold water!


    It was anticipatory, and also slightly fearful.


    Saleen did not dare to be careless. Hemunicated with the 24 lightning dragons, and finally decided that the lightning dragons wanted the water.


    Saleen was not able to confirm if that water contained anything harmful towards the lightning dragons and the ne, but since the lightning dragons made the request, he was unable to refuse. Saleen used magic liquid to dilute some Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water in one cup, and sent it into the Goddess¡¯ ne.


    The cup of diluted Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was quickly separated from the magic liquid, which very quickly lost its effect. Elemental Power was plentiful in the Goddess¡¯ ne. In the blink of an eye, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water condensed into clear water that exceeded its own volume by 10 times.


    The lightning dragons howled excitedly, somewhat ear-piercingly. However, Saleen knew that the water was not harmful to the lightning dragons.


    After waiting for a moment, the ne also did not show any signs of damage. Saleen poured out half of the water in the 3rd floor down the passage into within the ne.


    He was ying it safe. He never thought that after the water entered the ne that it would flow in the space, condensing into even more clear water. And the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water ferociously collided into the barriers of the space, causing a channel to be opened between the spaces of the two nes.


    The lightning dragons¡¯ cries became louder and louder. Saleen poured the remaining Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water into the ne. As the amount of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water entering increased, it became a world of water in the ne. The 24 points linked into one, ultimately forming into a circle.


    The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water moved in a loop in the ne. It did notbine with the clear water, as though it was half of the living creatures in the clear water. The 24 lighting dragons¡¯ bodies were over 30 meters long, butpared to the current, they looked like small snakes.


    After the spaces in the ne had been linked, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water released a roaring sound. The entire ne came to life. Water Element even overflowed from the ne.


    Saleen was able to feel the 24 lightning dragons moving through the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water with great care. Every time they moved through it, the lighting dragons would all float up onto the clear water, slowly recovering from the erosion of their bodies.


    The lightning dragons¡¯ behavior was just like humans during cultivation, and it was as regr as clockwork. The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water had no consciousness; it flowed in an orderly manner. The lightning dragons were able to control the length of time that they moved through the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    Saleen was also able to feel that the lightning dragons now had a strong feeling of hunger, which demonstrated that the lightning dragons were about to advance again. For the advancement, who knew how long the lightning dragons would take before they were able to provide power for Saleen.


    Saleen felt both joy and anxiety. Originally, it was only with the lightning dragons¡¯ help that his n badge was able to regain its power within half a year. During the lightning dragons¡¯ advancement, there was no way for them to provide him with any help.


    After the 24 lightning dragons had all advanced, Saleen estimated that he would be within the ranks level 10, and there would no longer be any match for him.


    Level 10 lightning dragons were able to fly and could release long distance lightning attacks. At the beginning, if he had not had the protection of his n badge, he and those at his side would have been killed by the Grand Swordmaster.


    After Saleen cleaned up the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water from the Magical Tower, the Magical Element Tower flew to the front of the cave that Saleen had refurbished. Saleen put away the Magical Element Tower, and everyone entered the cave. The cave already possessed a Water Element territory, and Saleen was able to strengthen the power that was disguising this cave. The waterfall naturally changed the position of its descent, causing the cave to be thoroughly blocked from view.


    Saleen did not stop there, installing a teleportation portal in the cave. After confirming that the coordinates were good, he brought the people with him and returned to Metatrin City. However, Saleen did not rashly close the portal.


    During the time in Metatrin City, at most a few days, the enemies would have to search for at least half a month before they would be able to find it .


    Returning to the temple, Saleen always went to see his teacher first, and he told his teacher about the situation with the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    After Jason heard about the properties of the water, he pondered for a moment. ¡°Saleen, I reckon this is Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water. It is hard toe by on the Myers Maind. Apart from you, I am afraid that others would have difficulty in collecting it even if they searched all the depths of the earth.¡±


    Saleen immediately retrieved all of his scrolls, wanting to pass them to Jason. Jason smiled and took half, returning the other half to his student.


    ¡°Saleen, I have Water me Alchemy, or else I would not value these types of materials. These are enough to use.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, this Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, what use does it have?¡± Saleen asked. When he gave anything to his teacher, he would either ept it without a word, or craft it into equipment before giving it to him. It was only this time that his teacher told him to keep it for his own use.


    ¡°It is the essence converted from the six great elements. It is extremely harmful towards gods. It¡¯s the main material for refining magic amplifiers, how precious do you think it is?¡±


    ¡°Magic amplifier!¡± Saleen was finally impressed. Things like magic amplifiers were very difficult toe by because Holy Rock City had arge magic amplifier that was able to stand undefeated for 1,000 years. The Holy See had attacked up to the depths of Holy Rock City, and the Heaven Knights were defeated there.

 Chapter 1150: Six Elements’ Heavy Water (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1150: Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Yes, magic amplifier. If you want to refine a magic amplifier, you must possess Essence of the Elements. It is very difficult to extract the Essence of the Elements, not to mention this type of essence is converted from six different elements. It is in the form of water, and can be used to refine equipment of any shape,¡± Jason patiently exined to Saleen.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ll give this to you,¡± Jason retrieved a book of Magic Notes from his Space Equipment.


    ¡°Teacher, what is this?¡±


    ¡°Some writings on how to refine a magic amplifier left by an unnamed mage.¡±


    Saleen solemnly received the Magic Notes. It was a predecessor¡¯s painstaking effort. What made Saleen feel somewhat embarrassed was that every time he wanted to repay Teacher, he ended up realising that it was Teacher who was guiding him and providing him with aid.


    From the time that he had helped Saleen when he was still young, Jason¡¯s teachings might not have seemed to not be much, however every time it would be what he needed the most. Saleen was unable to help but think of his own student, the pitiful Truman.


    He guessed that it was only because Teacher gave a few pointers that Truman was able to improve so quickly. The tips that he had given to Truman were honestly too few. It seemed he had been unable to live up to the title of ¡°teacher¡±.


    Now was not the time to refine magic amplifiers. If he wanted to refine a magic amplifier, it was best not to ask others to do it. If it was refined by himself, the power of the magic amplifier would be greater. Furthermore, the process of refining a magic amplifier would teach about magic that was precious and rare.


    Saleen was anxious to return to Cloudflow, he wanted topete with Agares over the temples. Thus, he could only give up on this matter and refine the Magical Element Tower.


    The Magical Element Tower was ced in the alchemic factory, Saleen had not gone to the alchemic factory in ages. He almost could not recognize the present factory.


    Thergest alchemyb was 100 meters underground and 600 meters big. It was just an isted alchemyb. In the center, there was a tform made of metalized steel rock. The rock was not only sturdy, but also easy to repair.


    There were hundreds of moving metal tforms in all four corners. There were also a few robotic arms stretched out, all powered by the magic power furnace. It was likely the safest alchemic factory in the Myers Continent in the millennium.


    Ordinary alchemic factories were powered by magical energy. When unstable, it would result in elemental garbling. The resulting explosion would be sufficient to kill the mages who were performing alchemy.


    Saleen and Jason both appeared at the alchemic factory. The mages were ecstatic. They already knew that they were going to move therge magic power furnace into the Magical Element Tower. During the assembly, they would be able to gather plenty of magical knowledge and practical experience.


    More than 200 of the best Grand Mages were ced. The Magical Element Tower stood on the alchemy tform, and all of the magical tower¡¯s windows were open. After Saleen used the Dimension Stones to transfer the magic power furnace into the magical tower, the mages entered the magical tower to view it.


    The mages were envious. The magical tower could move, it was made of the rare elementite, and the elementite was of the highest grade. The mages just touched the stones and already felt extremely satisfied.


    The majority of mages would not choose a life of battle. Manufacturing and research were what mages liked the most. Saleen was the same. Every time Saleen refined equipment, it would always result in a sense of wonder. Testing the ideas would also allow his magic to improve.


    The Magical Element Tower was refined by the Grandmaster, although traps were left behind as part of a plot against Saleen. However the quality of the magical tower was undoubtedly genuine. After all, in the future, the Magical Element Tower would bebined with the mechanical core of Sky City.


    The magical tower¡¯s windows were wide open, and the mages began to rece the magic power furnace. The mages had already taken apart the small magic power and moved it to the ground. Therge magic power furnace had a total of 36 openings, and each side was 81 meters. At the base of the furnace, there were 24 legs, and it was possible to smelt on the ground. However, the legs were extended and were joined with Sky City¡¯s mechanical core.


    The joining process was controlled by mages. The master-disciple pair Saleen and Jason smelted the energy pathway of the magic power furnace. The pair encapsted the furnace with their Water me. Over 200 mages used their mental power to control the small detailed connections and follow the magic patterns on the surface.


    Originally they could all bepleted by Sky City¡¯s mechanical core. However, it would take a long time. Saleen urgently needed to use the magical tower for battle, which was the reason why he allowed so many mages to help. Within the Magical Element Tower the mages¡¯ mental strength was extraordinarily stable and formed a mental power resonance. Thepatibility between them had an unprecedented naturalness.


    ¡°Saleen, follow what I am doing,¡± Jason said calmly, retrieving a Starline scroll that had the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water sealed in it, which Saleen had given him. Saleen also retrieved a scroll.


    Jason opened the scroll, surrounding the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water with Water me power and sent it inside the magic power furnace.


    The magic power furnace quivered for a moment, and mes spewed out of the 36 openings. Jason and Saleen made good use of the Water Element, controlling the mes. The mes appeared about the same as an ordinary me, but it was a Water me, its temperature was also very low, within the magical tower apart from Saleen and Jason, no one else would have any means of controlling this type of Water me.


    The mages were shocked and broke out into a cold sweat. Saleen saw that Jason had retrieved 12 pieces of Dimension Stones and threw them inside the magic furnace. Saleen¡¯s face reddened, and he also retrieved 12 pieces of Dimension Stones and threw them in.


    Teacher had once reminded him not to recklessly use Dimension Stones to refine equipment. He did not understand why then, but he knew. When he gave Sika the armor to refine, it was not worth it to use the Dimension Stone. The effect was not good, since only a collecting function had been added.


    The Dimension Stones dissolved in the Water mes and flowed into the magic power furnace. However, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water caused Sky City¡¯s mechanical core to react, countless sparkling and clear metal threads twisting and probing in the insides of the magic furnace.


    The metal threads entered the magic power furnace, directly plundering the power of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water. The metal threads and magic power furnace began tobine into one entity. If they did notbine, the magic power furnace would not be able to withstand the corrosion caused by the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    ¡°Saleen, pay attention!¡± Jason reminded Saleen. Saleen was still admiring the change in Sky City¡¯s mechanical core, but hearing Teacher¡¯s voice allowed him to focus his energy on the inside of the magic power furnace.


    Inside the magic power furnace, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water stimted the growth of the metal threads, each drop of Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water broke down into elements, and the resulting explosive power¡¯s strength allowed all of Sky City¡¯s mechanical core to quickly inte and expand.


    ¡°This is the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water¡¯s power, if you are able to utilize all of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water to refine a piece of magic equipment, using the magic equipment as an amplifier, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water will continuously break down and condense in a never-ending cycle, which will allow a mage¡¯s power to increase by many times.¡±


    Saleen listened carefully. The mages were entranced from observing the mechanical core¡¯s growth. Manyplicated elemental structural rbinations could be seen. Furthermore, it was not a skill. It was the mechanical core¡¯s natural changes and could be imprinted on the mind using memory magic powers.


    They could slowly reflect on it in the future, so it held an important meaning for the future growth of the Grand Mages.


    Saleen obtained the most benefits. Memory magic had limitations. It was not able to thoroughly replicate the subtleties of the elements. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to see the most minute ces, and his mental strength was also sufficientlyrge. All of the element conversions, growths,binations, and transformation would be seen by Saleen. He calcted that there would be more changes.


    His Figaro Magic Form seemed to suddenly achieve a breakthrough. 128,000 additional magical texts were arranged. There was non-stop shifting, which formed one spell after another.


    Magic was a mutual shifting of powers! There was never any loss of power!


    The resulting explosive power of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water dissolving was very strong. Saleen saw that it was about equal to an intermediate level magic spell. Just how many elements did this Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water contain?


    It was infinite. The powers were sufficient for Sky City¡¯s mechanical core to repair itself.


    Actually, the mechanical core was not damaged, but its extensions were long gone. However, to power Sky City, having just the mechanical core was not enough. Many spare parts were also required. The spare parts regrew by themselves, rather than being forged via alchemy.


    The walls of the magical tower were encapsted by the metal growing out of the mechanical core. In the 120-meter tall space, countless sparkling, clear metal spare parts appeared in the air. On each part, there were solid magic patterns soplex, they surpassed the level of any magic patterns that Saleen was capable of refining.


    There were more and more spare parts, and after reaching a certain quantity, they began to gather at the ceiling, forming a hanging structure. It looked like an upside down towers filling the entire ceiling.


    The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was still providing energy to the magic power furnace. Jason couldn¡¯t help butugh bitterly. ¡°Saleen, I underestimated the power of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, since its like this, I¡¯ll head down, you take care of the upper part, we will use mental power to control the growth of the mechanical core.¡±


    Mental alchemy? Although Saleen knew that the unpopr branch of alchemy existed, but he never thought that he was able to do it.


    Actually, it was not considered mental alchemy. It was simply Saleen using mental power to guide the growth of the mechanical core. It was a hundred times easier than mental alchemy.


    The sparklin, clear metal continued to grow. The magical tower¡¯s 17th and 18th floor became made of metal. When it reached the 19th floor, Saleen¡¯s heart moved, and he used mental power to control it, allowing the mechanical core to grow into the likeness of a metal tower as was required by the magic.

 Chapter 1151: Gratification (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1151: Gratification (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen allowed the parts that grew out from Sky City¡¯s mechanical core to be incorporated into the appearance of the metal tower,pletely covering the six uppermost floors of the Magical Element Tower. The metal towers could grow up the exterior of the Magical Element Tower or contract back inside, which made it seem as if the Magical Element Tower¡¯s peak had gained a giant mechanical gear.


    Arge portion of the mechanical core¡¯s power had been absorbed by Jason, meaning Saleen controlled the 17th floor and above, and the 16 floors below were all controlled by Jason.


    The master and disciple pair, based on their own individual concepts, turned the parts that grew out of the mechanical core into two different strange forms.


    The part controlled by Saleen was very realistic. It was a huge metal machinery, where a magic could beid out. Jason created a variety of sun, moon and stars, mountains and rivers, as well as flowers, trees, and nts, as if he was creating a new world.


    Within Saleen¡¯s reality, there were many meticulous and beautiful tempos and rhythms, the magic patterns on the metal towers were alreadypletely different from the ones obtained from the ancientbat vessel.


    Within Jason¡¯s romanticism, a boundless murderous intent was concealed.


    The mountains and rivers were obviously arge magic array that had changed in form. The sun, the moon, and the stars were all ced on the nodes required for Elemental Resonance. The flowers, trees, and nts were all fatal. Even what looked like dirt was Earth Element that looked on the verge of copse and able to cause arge number of disasters.


    Jason¡¯s techniques were extremely skilled, as if it was prepared for a long time or had been refined for hundreds of thousands of years.


    After the two exhausted their powers, the power of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water had still not beenpletely absorbed. It was only after this time that the bottom 16 floors opened up and expanded up to the same extent as the upper floors.


    The inner space of the Magical Element Tower expanded up to 360 meters on each side, and every floor was 120 meters tall.


    It could not bepared to the space refined by the Goddess of Myers. Saleen and Jason were both only level 10 Mage Trainers, and their powers were far worse than the Goddess of Myers.


    Therge magic power furnace and Sky City¡¯s mechanical core had fused together, and the mechanical core had expanded to every floor of the Magical Element Tower. The center of the magical tower was not very different from other magical towers, however the top had been able to change into tiers of metal towers, arranged into aplicated magic.


    The lower part was modelled after a rich world, but Saleen had no idea what its purpose was. The flora and fauna would not jump out of the magical tower to engage in battle. Saleen was only a level 10 mage, there was no way for him to create anything that was alive.


    But Saleen was not worried. These changes would not weaken the magical tower¡¯s offensive capabilities, and in the future, the magical tower would be capable of attacks even during flight. The power provided by therge-scale magic power furnace, as well as the appearance of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, caused the properties of the magical towers to bepletely changed.


    Since the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was so wonderful, who knew what kind of changes his 24 lightning dragons would undergo. Saleen felt more and more anticipation for the result.


    ¡°Saleen, these are all only the processes,¡± Jason¡¯s words echoed timely. No matter how wondrous the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was, it was not worth it for him to lose his bearings because of it.


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen smiled widely. ¡°I will now proceed to the next temple, and look to see what things Myers left behind for me.¡±


    ¡°Go, Saleen, now that you have grasped this domain, I am able to set my mind at ease.¡±


    Saleen bade farewell to his teacher, brought his followers, quickly moved the magical tower, and returned to the cave. The cave had not been discovered by the people from the Holy See, but Saleen still wiped out all traces of the teleportation portal, snuck out of the cave with Sika and the others, and headed south.


    The Holy See did not deploy troops to that sort of ce, as the cave where Saleen hid himself was hundreds of meters away from the deceased head inquisitor¡¯s skywell.


    It was only when they were almost at the Cloudflow borders that Saleen released the Magical Element Tower and flew towards the 8th temple. The magical tower quickly flew from the mountainous area and passed a number of cities. Saleen did not increase the altitude, using it to brazenly tell Agares that he had returned.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was no longer purely for defense. Nailisi ced thousands of demonic spirits in it. The bodies were much worsepared to demons in terms ofbat ability, however they were equally strong in mental strength.


    The demonic spirits were carefully selected and cultivated, and they were already able to release high level magic spells. Thousands of demonic spirits were equivalent to thousands of sorcerers. Even Alchemy City did not have such a luxury.


    The demonic spirits all became enchanters. Saleen¡¯s ideas had not been achieved in many cities, but they had been achieved in his own magical tower.


    Sika and the others were also much more rxed. The demonic spirits were able to attack within a range of 500 meters from the magical tower, thus they would no longer have to grapple with enemies. For the time being, everyone could make use of this time to learn.


    The 16th to 18th floor of the Magical Element Tower were now residences. The 16th floor was where the mechanical core was ced. Nailisi took the whole area for herself. After she was severely wounded, she rarely spoke, and seemed to have be more gentle.


    The 17th floor was Saleen, Sika, Elena, and Sul¡¯s residence.


    The 18th floor was given to Truman, Isabe, Daniel and the level 9 archers who had been transferred from the royal harbor.


    The demonic spirits stayed in the upper six floors. The lower 15 floors only had six mages living on each floor, who were all from Sreeger Ind and had never entered the Six Elements¡¯ Space before. They were all genius mages who had advanced to be sorcerers. Jason had no ns to allow them to utilize the Six Elements¡¯ Space to advance and ced high hopes on them.


    Due to the Magical Element Tower¡¯s change, Saleen felt sufficiently secure in his own safety, so he brought a group of mages out to practice and gain experience. Nailisi¡¯s demons looked after them.


    The Magical Element Tower¡¯s method of flight looked the same as before. It was shrouded in clouds and mist, and within the clouds and mist, magic of the six great elements assisted in the magical tower¡¯s flight. However, Saleen knew that the power of the Magical Element Tower had increased by an unknown amount.


    For the current Magical Element Tower, Saleen was able to enter and exit at will without needing a teleportation portal. To him, this magical tower was like a mini piece of equipment that could be easily manipted.


    The 24-floor magical tower originally had six windows per floor. Attacks from within the magical tower need no longer be through the windows, so Saleen could have the windows sealed shut. Unless the magical tower suffered a great deal of harm, they would no longer need to do such a troublesome thing.


    Within the air, giant clouds were dispersed by the Magical Element Tower, and the magical tower suddenly began to descend into a vige.


    The Magical Element Tower fell to the ground with a loud sound and smashed a mud house into pieces, causing mud to fly everywhere. The magical tower was buried deep into the ground.


    The people in the house were killed. Saleen joked coldly, ¡°Cloudflow people are really petty. Are they passing off as peasants to hinder my path?¡±


    Saleen actually did not speak incorrectly. His magical tower had descended and destroyed a farmhouse, and dozens of able-bodied men dressed as civilians instantly rushed at him, pointing towards the magical tower and swearing loudly.


    It was too much. Although mages rarely killed innocents, when they handled their affairs, the majority of them would not take the lives of normal people into consideration. If they were really civilians, if they encountered a situation where a magical tower fell from the sky, they would escape. They would definitely not rush up and start scolding.


    If people want to search for death, there were many ways, and making a nuisance of mages was the least sensible way, because their death would take a very long time.


    ¡°Sul, time to get to work.¡± Saleen yelled. Sul had already rushed out from the magical tower, the longsword that Saleen had refined for him dancing in his grasp. The civilians were unable to maintain their disguise. Sul¡¯s sword aura spread widely, causing their blood to boil.


    ¡°How is it.¡± Saleen pointed towards the exposed ¡°civilians.¡±¡±Truman, you no longer pity them now right?¡±


    Trumanughed bitterly. ¡°Teacher, I will not pity them. We are showing off too much. Agares will think and n to use all kinds of methods to use magic to record this incident of you killing the fake civilians and ce it within the memory crystal.¡±


    ¡°If that is the case, we will be very passive.¡± Truman exined the fact to Saleen, forcefully speaking the sentence.


    ¡°Truman, the reason I am doing this is to tell you that when you possess the power to refuse, you must never pretend to be a weakling. Agares obviously has level 10 strength, but the way he does things is still so wretched and petty, he is not much different from other people from Cloudflow. Perhaps the greatest difference is his ideals are still so grand. At the very least he wants to assassinate the Pope.


    Saleen taught with his words and deeds. He had experienced something simr to Truman, from a Grand Mage he quickly became a level 9 sorcerer, he had been unable to limatize to such advancement instantly, and his attitude had not changed the slightest.


    IT seemed to have obstructed Saleen¡¯s advancement, if not for Jason¡¯s reminder, Saleen going to the Imperial City of the Abyss to polish his mind to be as bright as a crystal, Saleen would not have been able to advance to level 10.


    Truman and Saleen were about the same, after leaving Sreeger Ind, Truman was still a normal mage and did not have any areas that he excelled in. Even if Saleen had identified his talent, he had only given him a few pointers and encouragement.


    The current Truman was just like the past Saleen. The difference was that Saleen¡¯s most direct method was to let Truman understand how a mage like Jason handled affairs.


    ¡°I can understand, but to do this for my sake, the cost is quite big,¡± Truman said calmly.


    ¡°Cost? If one wants to gain something, one must pay for it. That is the case for you and for me. All this time I have not had the patience to give you guidance, but you have not disappointed me. Truman, ah, thinking of how Teacher treated me, it makes me very ashamed.¡±


    ¡°Ai...¡± Truman heaved a long sigh, not knowing what to say to his teacher. He already felt extremely grateful towards Saleen. Without Saleen¡¯s support and guidance, he would forever have been unable to achieve what he had, not to mention any future prospects.

 Chapter 1152: Gratification (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1152: Gratification (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Truman, as a mage, you should be calm and collected, but to be strong, you must live with gratification.¡± Saleen looked at Sul who was fighting a distance away. ¡°Look at him, at a young age, he has already be a Golden Grand Swordmaster. If not for the fact that the power level in the maind has suddenly increased, he would already be a top tier professional. Not many people can defeat him one-on-one.¡±


    Truman saw that Sul¡¯sbat was like a performance. Every time his long sword swung out, it was like it was expressing emotions.


    Truman¡¯s advancement was too fast, and the fighting spirit he had when young had been consumed, so he really needed guidance from Saleen. Although Saleen was simrly young¡ªin terms of his age on the Myers Continent, even without taking into consideration the Imperial City of the Abyss¡ªhe had engaged in more than 120 years of cultivation at the Goddess¡¯ Temple.


    In terms of actual age, Saleen was even older than Jason.


    In terms of natural talent, Jason was the real genius, the strongest talent that Saleen knew. Jason had never mentioned his age, but based on the analysis by the mages on Sreeger Ind, Jason could not be above 40 years old.


    It was a terrifying thought. When Saleen was in his 30s, he was still a level 5 mage. It was from the constant umtion of his efforts, and he had never had any doubts about his future.


    Magic was not like divine spells, even if you believed in the gods of magic, it would not guarantee that you would be able to attain the power you aspired to achieve.


    When Sul faced the soldiers disguised as civilians, he was full of contempt. Warriors should always express themselves openly. When going against their foes, they should do so using their battle strategies and tactics, instead of using such dirty tricks to frame them.


    The foolish Cloudflow people. Would Master fear such false usations? Master had destroyed Ironwall City. Killing a few fake civilians would not cause his heart to feel burdened at all. Even if they were real, he would also not have such feelings.


    As Sul thought it, the power of his sword showed traces of what he was thinking. It was a frequent urrence ever since he had advanced to the peak of level 9. It was a sign that he was about to advance further.


    Scoffing at the opponents¡¯ swordcraft! Saleen saw that Sul¡¯s sword aura gradually changed from gold to a lighter color. Although he had not yet achievedplete advancement, but the power he possessed demonstrated his potential.


    The disguised soldiers had discussed blocking off the temple¡¯s coordinates. They had devised hundreds and thousands of countermeasures, but they never thought that once Saleen appeared, he would just kill without any hesitation.


    Saleen did not require any exnation and did not need to take responsibility for anyone. What he wanted was the temples in order to prevent Agares from bing even stronger. If a level 10 assassin were able to obtain the skills and equipment left behind by the goddess for assassins, Saleen felt that it would truly be a huge nuisance.


    He was ultimately unable to constantly protect all of the people close to him by cing them in the Magical Element Tower. However, aside from the Magical Element Tower, Saleen did not know of any other ces that could guarantee their safety against an assassin.


    What he had said to Truman was correct. The strong must live with gratification.


    Once someone has found a goal that they want to achieve, they should not be overly cautious. One example was the people of Cloudflow. They mobilized millions of people to attack a city, but suddenly decided to withdraw. It was truly a joke.


    The people concealed by Agares numbered more than 3000. A vige of Cloudflow people was indeed that big, but it would not consist of only strong, fit males.


    Sul had only killed 30 more people, and the Cloudflow people began to have an inkling that they would be defeated. The strong supervisory troops were on the backline, as the soldiers had weak fighting capabilities, causing Sul to feel as if he was really killing civilians who had never done any training.


    ¡°There is no end to killing these weaklings!¡± From the tip of Sul¡¯s sword, the Eight Paths¡¯ sword aura suddenly shot out, forming a mark. The mark retracted backwards, and then spread outwards.


    The mark became an even more powerful sword aura. It stuck to the ground and flew out. Wherever it passed, the buildings, soldiers, and even the ground were allpleted torn into pieces.


    ¡°Cloudflow people are all cowards, every single one of them, from the emperor to the soldiers!¡± Sul stood upright. There was no longer any person alive around him.


    ¡°What a pity he is still unable to advance,¡± Saleen sighed in the distance. Because the enemies were not at all strong, he did not let others in the magical tower help.


    ¡°The enemies are too weak, so it is difficult to incite a more powerful fighting spirit in Sul.¡± Sika identified the crux of the problem.


    ¡°Sul is searching for his own path. We should not help him,¡± Truman contributed.


    ¡°I am aware, but...if there are no strong enemies, we should probably clean up. It will take a while to search for the coordinates, we must not stall here with the soldiers.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, he allowed the magical tower to take flight. On the upper six floors of the magical tower, metal machinery suddenly grew out and grouped together. They looked likeyers andyers of huge gears covering the top of the Magical Element Tower.


    The magical metal machinery was extended from Sky City¡¯s mechanical core. When looking from the inside, the huge metal gears were actually metal towers that formed a magic.


    The magic power furnace only released a bit of energy, and it caused the metal towers to start running. The demonic spirits gained power from the magic and immediately became enchanters. Magic spells poured out from the tower. The scene had already urred before in Daliang City, but it was not this spectacr. Daliang City¡¯s magic was not like Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower. It could not fly in the air or control a diameter more than two meters.


    Thousands of advanced level magic spells rained down from above. It was only one bout of attacks, and all of the buildings and soldiers within the circr area had been sted to dust by magic.


    If there were any other hidden conspiracies, they would all rise to the surface.


    Saleen saw that the area below waspletely nk, apart from three lonesome silhouettes, and said to Sika, ¡°Three assassins. I suppose they are Agares¡¯ servants. He said there was 12.¡±


    ¡°There will not be any more nearby, but look at Sul.¡±


    Saleen looked at the distant Sul. His longsword once again burst out with the Eight Paths¡¯ sword aura, and the Eight Paths¡¯ sword aura directly expanded, enveloping the three assassins. In the blink of an eye, Sul was able to assess the strength of the three assassins.


    ¡°It is only this much!¡± Sul eximed, and at the same time he suddenly retracted his sword aura. The strongest among the assassins had been cut into pieces.


    The other two assassins stood in front and behind, surrounding Sul.


    ¡°What a disgrace to warriors!¡± Suddenly, there was another short sword in Sul¡¯s left hand, and he threw it back at one of the assassins. The other assassin was stabbed in the heart by his long sword, dying immediately.


    The two people were not a sufficient distance away, and Sul did not emit his sword aura this time, so how could the long sword pierce his body?


    Saleen was able to see things clearly from above, after Sul had killed the first assassin, actually he suddenly moved forward one step, but because the speed of his step and retreat was too fast, the assassin who had been killed by him did not even feel it when Sul closed the distance between them.


    After killing the assassin, Sul turned around and returned to his original position, once again thrusting his sword out and killing the third assassin, his actions crisp and clean.


    Saleen realised that Sul¡¯s currentbat style consisted only of advancements and no retreat. Every time he attacked, it would always be a forward step, and when it was necessary to retreat, he changed directions and continued to advance forward.


    It looked like Sul had found abat style that belonged to him, which meant that he should also begin to prepare some real equipment for Sul. The Qin Eight-sided Sword was merely a piece of transitional equipment. Saleen had always been waiting for Sul¡¯s advancement.


    Now, although Sul had not advanced, Saleen understood the direction of his progression.


    What Sul cultivated was the Sword of Valor.


    Although the three assassins did not escape, they did not willingly go towards their death. They were merely under Agares¡¯ control; their own wills had died or were already given to the Cloudflow Emperor.


    After clearing away the three assassins, Sul still felt dissatisfied. The enemies were too weak. They could not even withstand one strike.


    What Sul did not know was that his Sword of Valor was equivalent to the power of a mage¡¯s territory. Any person who was enveloped by his sword aura would develop feelings of defeatedness, even if they were a person with a heart of ice like Don.


    This was a fortune that belonged to him, as it was an extremely difficult technique to cultivate.


    Ever since Sul returned to the Myers Continent from the maind ne, he had felt a sense of inferiority. Furthermore, after chasing after Saleen, his capabilities were not considered powerfulpared to Saleen and hispanions, he was only hovering around the middle of the pack.


    Saleen did not even know how Sul had cultivated the Sword of Valor. He did not know that all of it had to do with him.


    Sul had graduallye to understand Saleen, and Saleen¡¯s transformation was witnessed by him, hence he knew the incident where Saleen had to cultivate deep underground at Daliang City. He had gone through such a painstakingly difficult type of cultivation in the subcontinental ne that he would have rather died if he had failed.


    Sul did not seed, but he had seen that there was hope. Saleen had encountered many more setbacks than him, but he had never mentioned that he wanted to withdraw.


    Saleen¡¯s improvements were built on many setbacks, and he had never shown any signs of losing heart. Saleen would always n for the future to allow the situation to develop in a better direction.


    If Saleen had been hit by a fatal magic spell, he would still try to let himself die in a more dramatic way to let his enemies feel more upset


    Saleen, his Master, had never been afraid of failure.


    Sul was the same. He had unknowingly been influenced by Saleen. All the things that Sul had umted suddenly broke out. The soldiers were weak, so he was unable to unleash it. However, for the three assassins, although they had the identities of servants, but they all possessed level 9 capabilities.


    Three level 9 assassins became Sul¡¯s whetstone.


    When Sul killed the first assassin, he was still using a little territorial power that he had justprehended, but when he had killed the second assassin, Sul had grasped the meaning of the Sword of Valor. For the third assassin, he was inplete control of his sword techniques. Even if they were not dead, the assassin would at the very least be a waste without anybat ability.


    Under the Sword of Valor, the enemy¡¯s will and courage would bepletely destroyed.


    Saleen confirmed that there was no one else spying on them and retrieved the magicpass to search for the entrance of the temple. The people that Agares had left behind to disrupt them had been exterminated. No matter what n Agares had, they were all the same to Saleen.


    Enter the temple, destroy everything, leave.


    Saleen¡¯s n was that simple. There was no need to consider the enemy¡¯s thoughts because what he needed was already in his hands ¨C a piece of a water god¡¯s divine persona.

 Chapter 1153: Puppet World (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1153: Puppet World (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A person with no desires could not possibly be destroyed.


    Although Saleen had desires, in regard to the Myers Goddess¡¯ temples, all of Saleen desires had been fulfilled. His final wish was to destroy the temples to prevent others from gaining the fortune of the Goddess.


    Destruction was always easier than construction, and Saleen only needed to destroy the teleportation portal to make a few temples disappear from the dimensional ne.


    The Myers Goddess probably never imagined that the person to revive her would exert all their efforts to destroy all of her temples.


    Saleen¡¯s thinking was simple. Even if the Goddess was revived in the future, he would still want to destroy the temples. Destroying them now would be easier. Furthermore, the temples left behind by the Myers Goddess were not necessarily left for him alone. There were at least four or more others who, because of a chance encounter with the temples, became strong in a short period of time, including Lex. Saleen did not believe that Lex had only obtained gold coins from the temples.


    Lex¡¯s special physical constitution was probably acquired from the temples. Otherwise, if her physical constitution had been the same since she was young, no matter how much Safilos disliked her, he would have allowed Lex to be brought back to the Golden ins.


    The Golden ins also did not want Lex, demonstrating that Lex¡¯s physical constitution was not good when she was young. Emperor Chanake also had no choice but to allow her to leave the imperial city.


    The topography there was smooth. It was not possible to create any concealed traps as the area consisted entirely of t ins. Thus, Agares also could not be med for using the most stupid method to deal with Saleen, which was to mix three assassins amongst ordinary soldiers.


    Originally, wanting to differentiate the assassins from the rest would be impossible even for Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye, however the attack from thousands of demonic spirits caused the three assassins to be exposed. If they wanted to continue to stay sessfully hidden, they had to die with the soldiers to keep their identities hidden.


    The most stupid method used by Agares would perhaps be able to deal with other people if a good opportunity arose. However, Saleen had used the most violent method topletely destroy his n upfront.


    Mages had a proverb, ¡°after the mes of magic have finished burning, fine gold and copper can be identified at a nce.¡±


    After finding the spatial pathway to the coordinates, Saleenpressed the Magical Element Tower. No matter what position the Magical Element Tower was in, Saleen was able to enter and leave it freely.


    ¡°Sika, look outside. If there are any strong opponents, you don¡¯t need to hold back. Let the demonic spirits attack with full force, there is no need to save on magic nuclei...¡± Saleen paused for a moment andughed. ¡°We must let the enemies know we are very rich and can squash them to death with money.¡±


    Saleen was not boasting. With over 3,000 demonic spirits in the magical tower, borrowing power from the magic, they would still have the capabilities of a level 7 sorcerer in the worst case. More than 3,000 demonic spirits were divided into three waves, taking turns to attack to maintain the length of theirbat power. It could definitely surpass Saleen.


    Saleen was able to hold off hundreds of level 7 sorcerers by himself, but if thousands attacked him at the same time, he would be unable to bear it.


    The strengths of the Magical Elemental Tower were when more than 1,000 demonic spirits attacked at the same time, it could target attack in a very small area and would not result in elemental garbling. It was much safer and much more efficient than a magic cannon.


    ¡°Saleen, if you won¡¯t let me follow you, you should at least let Nailisi go, right?¡±


    ¡°Sul will follow me. I feel that luck is on Sul¡¯s side!¡± As Saleen spoke, he felt as if he had just opened arge gate. He had obtained what he needed, but his subordinates still had their needs. He was able to use the magical tower to directly locate the spatial pathway¡¯s coordinates due to luck.


    If they did not make use of luck while it was this good, it would leave them.


    It was the superposition theory of fortune mentioned by the astrologers. When someone rejected fate¡¯s favor, fate would thoroughly abandon them.


    Saleen used the godly power within the Ring of Gifts to smoothly open the pathway to the temple, bringing Sul with him. Sul was very rxed, learning from Saleen¡¯s attitude towards fate. He would just do his best without any fear.


    ¡°Master, in the future, it is better if I stick to using dual longswords? I have achieved some understanding, though it is still not stable, but I have a set of secret techniques passed down through my family. If I cultivate for a bit, I will be able to run through the skills from the past. I really like these two swords, Master, I wish to continue using them.¡±


    ¡°Then keep it as a memento, I will follow the specifications of the two swords and refine some new equipment,¡± Saleen said to Sul, and suddenly, a huge fist came bounding over.


    Just a fist.


    A lone fist came flying over, battering towards Saleen¡¯s face. Lightning shot out from Saleen¡¯s eyes, incinerating the fist. Saleen was clearly able to tell that it was merely a puppet¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Master!¡± Sul eximed at the leg flying out from the darkness, heading directly towards Saleen. With a cleave of his sword, the puppet leg was chopped into pieces and fell to the ground.


    Swish!


    This time, it was a puppet¡¯s armor, a part that wasmonly seen during ancient times. Modern mages were unable to create good puppets, so armor had be rare goods.


    Saleen treated it as a piece of scrap, raising his hand to envelop it in Water mes and turning it into trash.


    ¡°This mage is rather interesting!¡±


    ¡°After killing him shall we analyze him for a moment?¡±


    ¡°Mages are living creatures, after killing him, the research value would not be much!¡±


    ¡°But if he is alive, he will think of ways to analyze us!¡±


    ¡°Then isn¡¯t that very fair?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go and die? Being particr about fairness with humans?¡±


    Two voices quarreled in the darkness.


    ¡°Come out. Trying to incite our curiosity is useless. You are only puppets, however strange the puppet, I have seen them all before,¡± Saleen said calmly.


    Two mutted puppets immediately jumped out. One of them was missing an arm, its toes had been cut off, and its waist had arge opening from which energy was leaking out.


    The other puppet was missing both legs, it relied on its extremely long hands to move. The puppet was extremely humanlike, giving off a feeling that it should be concealed.


    They were absolutely a mage¡¯s puppets, instead of an astrologer¡¯s figures.


    ¡°Mage, youing to this temple, is it to revive Myers?¡±


    ¡°You absolutely must not, that b*tch...¡±


    ¡°Shut up, Myers is not a b*tch.¡±


    ¡°It serves you right to have your legs cut off!¡±


    The two puppets quarreled, and Saleen interrupted with a cold expression. ¡°It was very difficult for both of you have been born with souls. Why learn from how humans behave? I havee to attain wealth. If you are not able to provide help, you will be treated as spare parts from my research.¡±


    The two puppets screamed and pointed at Saleen. ¡°Arrogant mage, you are only at level 10, yet you dare to threaten us?¡±


    ¡°I have no more patience.¡± Saleen saw that the souls of the two puppets had weakened. It was obvious that they did not have much time left. They were most likely thinking of ways to trick someone strong into taking them in, and then they would turn on their master, obtaining new spiritual power.


    Saleen was not certain on how the puppets had gained souls, but as for the rtionship between souls, he understood far too much.


    ¡°No patience? Haha!¡±


    ¡°Heh heh...¡±


    The two puppetsughed, and the puppet without legs said, ¡°Mage, we are bored and just teasing you.¡±


    As the puppet finished speaking, Saleen and Sul saw that the strange darkness within the temple¡¯s space had disappeared. Two giant magic lights not far from them lit up.


    The two magic lights were actually the eyes of a gigantic puppet. The gigantic puppet was sitting on the floor and was more than 300 meters tell. Its head drooped and its hands were ced on the ground. Saleen and Sul were in the palm of its hand.


    The gigantic puppet was not too strong. It was probably level 9 and itsbat power could perhaps reach level 10, but the puppet had not been repaired in a long time and it was missing the souls of the two puppets standing on his shoulder. Thus, to Saleen, the gigantic puppet was only a pile of materials.


    ¡°Master, it seems this is a puppet world!¡± Sul looked left and right. Hundreds of thousands of puppets appeared from all four corners. Therge puppets were several hundred meters tall, while the small puppets were about the size of a person¡¯s finger.


    ¡°Haha!¡± Saleenughed. ¡°Look into the distance!¡± Saleen shared his perception with Sul. One copsed temple after another was being upied by the puppets.


    Gods were not omnipotent. The Myers Goddess had left behind 24 temples, which held enormous wealth, as well as skills, equipment, and materials. To prevent people from easily obtaining the things from the Myers Continent, the majority of the temples were positioned in the dimensional ne or the interdimensional space. The nes did not contain any life, so Myers could use divine spells to open up spaces to preserve the temples for a longer time.


    After Sul¡¯s perception was cut off, he also understood. They had not gone the wrong way; the temple was already upied by puppets.


    ¡°Mage, submit to us. Let the radiance of puppets shine on all nes, form a contract with me!¡±


    The puppet without legs spoke passionately to Saleen. Saleen couldn¡¯t be bothered to pay attention to it, as the puppets had already aged and their energy was insufficient. If their energy was sufficient, Saleen would be worried about their power. If the puppet were to exert slightly more force, its remaining energy would spray out from the wound at its waist.


    What Saleen found strange was why the two puppets knew about Myers. When the temple was attacked, Myers was long dead. Otherwise the puppets would have been easily destroyed with one divine spell from Myers.


    ¡°Mage, don¡¯t listen to him, so what about all nes, I want to establish a ne for puppets. You can be the first human to create a ne for puppets. We can work together. It will just be a coborative rtionship! You can provide mages for us to mend our bodies, and we can provide all kinds of puppets to you, satisfying both sides!¡±


    Saleenughed. ¡°Speaking from the perspective of a mage, the temptation of establishing a ne for puppets is really great.¡±


    ¡°Does that mean you agree?¡± The puppet missing an arm was overjoyed.


    ¡°Idiot,¡± he puppet without legs said.


    ¡°Who are you calling an idiot!¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t even understand after listening. If you are not an idiot, then what are you?¡± the puppet without legs said very proudly. ¡°The people remaining on Myers say that we are not logical. If this is not logic then what is it?¡±

 Chapter 1154: Puppet World (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1154: Puppet World (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The two puppets with souls argued while Saleen expressionlessly observed the gigantic puppet.


    The gigantic puppet was probably about 800 meters tall. The radiance emitted by its two eyes was able to pierce through the darkness of space. Originally, Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was subject to limitations, but even with the limitations he was still able to identify the scenery from up to 500 meters away.


    The dpidated temples obviously did not be worn out due to the passing of time. There were so many traces of battle that it made one feel terrified. Arge temple had been split right down the middle, as if it had been cleaved apart by a sharp de.


    Thebat ability of the puppets was still not bad, but Saleen wanted to know where the puppets initially came from.


    The Myers Goddess¡¯ temples were all located not far from the Myers Continent, and the energy required for spatial pathways or teleportation portals was not much. Otherwise after thousands of years¡¯ consumption, it would be easy for them to fail.


    Saleen had been to quite a few temples. First the one at Chaotic Swamp, then the one within the Titan Duchy¡¯s borders, the one in the depths of the sea...


    The space of every single temple was very stable. Even Elemental Storm Magic would not be able to create a crack within the space or cause the space to copse.


    The stability was fixed. If someone wanted to enter the spaces, the most convenient method was to use the Goddess¡¯ godly power to enter from the ne of the Myers Continent.


    How did the puppets enter this temple?


    ¡°Mage, don¡¯t think anymore.¡± The two puppets stopped quarreling, and the puppet without legs spoke. ¡°There is nothing in that temple. The Goddess¡¯ disciples have beenpletely killed off by us.¡±


    ¡°There is nothing remaining?¡± Saleen had an expression of disbelief.


    ¡°Of course, we puppets do not lie.¡±


    ¡°I will go and take a look. You have a lot of time, isn¡¯t that correct?¡± Saleen spoke to the puppets and released a wind travel spell and flew from the palm of the gigantic puppet¡¯s hand, heading directly towards the temple in the distance.


    The temple was mutted. Saleen flew to the upper part of the temple and looked downwards. As expected, the temple¡¯s materials had begun to decay, which would have taken millions of years.


    Saleen was suddenly aware that the passage of time within the space was terrifying. Puppets were originally imperishable. The two who were the strongest were just like elderly peoplein their twilight years.


    An ageing spell? Why had the entire space also aged ordingly?


    The name of a divine spell floated into Saleen¡¯s mind. Amongst the divine spells of the Holy See, there was an ageing spell that would also affect magic spells and astrology. The type of skill gravitated towards being a curse, but it also involved some magical technique.


    The ageing of matter was rted to time, and the passage of time was the result of the movement of matter.


    The theories had always been in the knowledge systems of mages, but it had never been subjected to any experiments for verification. The various types of research conducted by mages had been extracted and connected in calctions to produce the result.


    Saleen flew to the upper part of the temple. The two puppets did notunch any attacks or interact with one another. They merely patiently waited for Saleen to return.


    Saleen descended towards the ground and directly entered the temple that had been split in two. There was still quite a few murals, but the altar had been dismantled. Saleen was even able to see the foundations of the altar.


    Saleen was able to tell that the puppets¡¯ decay was much faster than natural copse of the temple. The puppets were searching for materials to mend their bodies. The material that puppets needed the most was mostly metal, as well as jade stones or magic nuclei. Saleen was only able to see a few steel rocks and all types of stones.


    Steel rocks were not normal rocks, but they were also not jade stones.


    Unexpectedly, the wood within the temple had been preserved. Saleen knew that whencking Starline cloth, wood materials could also be used to create figures, and wood materials were alsomonly used in the creation of puppets.


    The wood appeared to bepletely whole and without damage. Saleen released an ancient figure to move the wood materials further away. As Saleen had predicted, once the ancient figure¡¯s hand touched the wood, it was reduced to ashes.


    Saleen ordered the figure to collect the ashes. The wood was an extremely high grade material. Even after it had been turned into ashes, it was still a precious material for alchemy. The puppets did not know how to perform alchemy, so they could only use the most stupid methods to mend their bodies. Every object in therge temple could be used as materials for alchemy.


    Saleen remained expressionless. He summoned the ancient figures one by one, and in the blink of an eye, there were 360. The appearance of so many ancient figures could not possibly remain undetected by the distant puppets.


    The chief of the two puppets saw that arge number of figures appear at Saleen¡¯s side and was stunned.


    ¡°I say, is that a mage or a figure master?¡±


    ¡°An astrologer?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not right, he is definitely a mage.¡±


    ¡°No matter what profession he is, look, he has so many helpers, are we still able to capture him?¡±


    ¡°Impossible, our subordinates¡¯bat power can only frighten ordinary people.¡±


    ¡°How about we let the big guy act?¡±


    ¡°No, if not for the big guy holding things up for us, we would have aged to death!¡±


    The two puppets¡¯ discussion was unable toe to a conclusion, and Saleen began his process of taking apart the temple. Although themunity of the temple had been severely damaged, it was only the portion on the surface. The underground portion of some temples were still in one piece. Unexpectedly, Saleen found a storehouse for magic nuclei underground.


    The magic nuclei were not sorted ording to quality. Like cement g, they were randomly piled in the storehouse.


    The ancient people did not value magic nuclei as much, but it was still a rtively precious type of object. The Myers Goddess had left behind so many magic nuclei for a reason. The temple was left for a mage.


    The underground warehouses could only be opened by a human mage who was level 10 or above. Not much godly power was needed.


    The puppets, whocked a human¡¯s mental power, had not discovered the underground warehouses. Saleen did not waste his trip. It turned out that the materials and equipment for mages were long gone, but the magic nuclei were sufficient to make up for the loss.


    Because the Myers Goddess was not as stingy as the Grandmaster, all of the magic nuclei left behind were level 9 and above. Even Saleen was unable to quickly tell which magic beasts had left behind the magic nuclei. The variation between the kinds of magic nuclei was tooplex, and the majority of them were definitely from other nes. Saleen even found a few magic nuclei with god properties. They were likely left behind from the magic beasts raised by the gods after they had been killed.


    It looked like what a few books had mentioned was not wrong, Myers had participated in battles against other nes, and it was not as most legends had described, where Myers was a god of peace.


    Myers had left behind the magic nuclei. Every piece was probably stained with traces of blood. They were the spoils of war that Myers had obtained from the different nes.


    A level 18 god was the rank of the king of gods. When they killed, only a god with a simr rank could possibly be able to match them. What kind of god what Myers at that time? Saleen could understand. The consequences of offending Myers probably would not be too good.


    Although Saleen thought it, he continued to take apart the temple without stopping. The temple had already copsed, but Saleen wanted to erase all the traces left behind by the Myers Goddess.


    Gods were no longer necessary. So what if he would be affected by the restraints of the bond, even if he had to revive Myers, he would absolutely not allow Myers to grow to the terrifying level 18 level again.


    If the gods wanted to be revived, they must first relight the divine fire, and the basic requirement for lighting divine fire was level 13.


    Saleen dismantled the temples, as he was afraid that if Myers really revived from level 13, she would be able to use the temples to quickly regain her strength. If not for the measures she had arranged before her death, every time the goddess advanced, it would be millions of times more difficult than it would be for humans. It was the cost of Myers bing a god.


    After reaching level 12, the speed of a human¡¯s advancement was counted in thousands of years, while a god¡¯s was counted in terms of millions and billions of years!


    There was another detail. The geniuses amongst humanity would be able to break through the limitation of time, while gods, no matter how powerful, could only slowly endure it.


    The emperor of the first dynasty was said to have only taken 40,000 years to advance from being a normal person to the highest level of advancement within the system of the Crystal Wall. while under normal circumstances, humans who wished to advance from level 17 to level 18 would require more than 120,000 years.


    Within the temple, there was also the existence of puppets. Saleen had let the ancient figures circle around the puppets, but realised that the puppets were basically all decayed. Even if they were able to move, theycked anybat abilities, so he could just look for a nk Starline scroll to seal the puppets that were more unique inside.


    Puppet magic wasparatively difficult magic, and Saleen had learnt very little. The structure of the puppets themselves were the essence of alchemy, Saleen talked about sealing them because he was afraid that the puppets would continue to decay, and he would not even be able to obtain the structural diagrams of the puppets.


    Twenty-fourrge temples had been destroyed, and Saleen had plundered them. Apart from the magic nuclei storehouse, the most valuable were the puppets.


    Saleen saw that the ancient figures had cleanly taken apart thestrge temple. Only then was he satisfied, getting the ancient figures to cluster around him, and returned to the front of the gigantic puppet.


    ¡°Have you finished your discussion?¡±


    ¡°What discussion?¡± The two puppets asked, baffled.


    ¡°Will you be my subordinates or continue to wait for death here?¡± Saleen asked.


    The two puppets were both furious, the puppet without legs pointed at Saleen and shouted, ¡°the goddess¡¯ disciples wanted to make us yield, but even purification techniques were ineffective against us, and you want us to be ves?¡±


    Saleen smiled slightly, pointed at the ancient figures beside him. ¡°Right now I am stronger than both of you. The figures are not subject to the rules and limitations of this ce, and they are my eyes. I only need 100 figures to deal with the big guy behind you. Now, I merely cannot bear such waste, so I think it is best to properly discuss with me about the kind of trade we should have.¡±

 Chapter 1155: The Nature of Life (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1155: The Nature of Life (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mage, you are too greedy. You will pay the price for greed.¡± The souls of the puppets fluctuated, which told Saleen that they were angry.


    But did that matter?


    The ancient figures he summoned needed time to bepatible with the environment. Taking apart the 24 temples had already made Saleen summon 360 ancient figures. The figures were all at the peak of level 9 capabilities, and Saleen¡¯s limit for manipting figures of the grade was 360.


    There was no need to be afraid of the approaching new territory. Saleen¡¯s 360 figures were not subjected to any limitations.


    Saleen had assistants. Facing thousands of puppets was not a frightening prospect. The process of taking apart the temples allowed him to experiment with his magic over and over again. His elemental magic was subject to very few limitations. The ageing spell was ineffective on his body due to the Starline equipment, which had resistance towards curse skills. Even his figure of fate was not affected by the ageing spell.


    ¡°Looks like both of you don¡¯t want to make a trade, in that case let¡¯s battle.¡± As Saleen spoke, he leapt and flew up, using the Quickcloud Spell for his flight. The dense cloud wrapped around Saleen¡¯s body, but allowed Saleen¡¯s perception to be released even further. Saleen possessed a basic territory, but it was very pure and concise. A territory of the same grade would have no chance of affecting him.


    A water element territory caused Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell to change. Within the range that was covered by the clouds, Saleen¡¯s mental power controlled elemental power, forming attack-type living creatures.


    The mental power used was not much, but the living creatures were seen and analysed by Saleen.


    The strong living creatures Saleen had encountered before were not few, and the Tiago giant dragon was one of them.


    Within the clouds created by Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud spell, a huge Tiago giant dragon shot out frost. It was the most powerful living creature created by Saleen. The scales of the giant dragon looked real. The only regrettable part was that it was too weak.


    The Tiago giant dragon¡¯spanion was a golden giant dragon. The golden giant dragon looked even more realistic, and its dragon¡¯s might was strong. Saleen had Nailisi transform many times for him to analyze it, otherwise he would not have been able to imitate the giant dragon¡¯s skills and forms.


    There were many more other types of living creatures, and their numbers became muchrger. The Quickcloud spell could envelop about 200 meters, which had room for thousands of living creatures of all kinds that had been imitated by Saleen.


    There were even elemental creatures like great fire snakes and eyes of the storm.


    Single-horned white whales and silverline golden spearfish were within the range of Saleen¡¯s imitations. There were also pan turtles and the krakens from the sea.


    When Saleen hunted at the entrance of the Frozen Sea, he encountered many marine creatures. For almost every kind of living creature that could be caught, Saleen brought one back for the mages of Sreeger Ind to properly analyze.


    A few flying-type puppets jumped up and approached Saleen¡¯s clouds. The puppets drilled into the clouds, but ended up in a head-to-head encounter with a single-horned white whale. The original body of the single-horned white whale wasrger than the Quickcloud spell, but Saleen¡¯s imitation was only several meters long.


    The head of the single-horned white whale butted against a puppet.The horn on the crown of its head shed with the radiance of magic, smashing the puppet into pieces. A great fire snake came from behind, swallowing all the pieces in one gulp.


    Saleen¡¯s clouds immediately expanded by one meter. The puppet¡¯s energy had been absorbed by the great fire snake, and it spit out the remains onto the ground, causing vigorous mes to burn.


    Even more flying-type puppets rushed into the clouds, but they were attacked by living creatures created by Saleen. They did not even manage to catch sight of Saleen before they were disintegrated, bing appetizers for the territory¡¯s living creatures.


    From Saleen¡¯s water element territory, a new territory was derived ¨C the elemental creatures¡¯ territory.


    It was a benefit that waspletely due to Saleen¡¯s proficiency in Element Conversion, otherwise he would have only been able to gain a water elemental creature territory, and not a territory range that was ready to amodate the six great elements.


    The derivative territory was more beneficial for attacks. While Saleen¡¯s water element territory expressed his own fundamental power, it was the foundation for his advancement.


    Without the water element territory, Saleen would have been unable to gain the elemental creatures¡¯ territory.


    How powerful was the elemental creatures¡¯ territory? Saleen was able to understand it by himself. On the ground, a huge puppet brandished a battle axe that weighed more than 3,000 jin and flew directly towards Saleen.


    A pan turtle rushed to meet it, using its shell to block the attack of the gigantic battle axe. The battle axe hit the and was embedded into it. The puppet wanted to retrieve it, but the pan turtle was bound by a kraken, whose tentacles were wrapped around the battle axe.


    The puppet was unable to summon back its weapon, and its head suddenly exploded. Under the influence of the ageing spell for many years, the puppet¡¯sposition had degenerated severely and was unable to bear fierce battle.


    Saleen saw that his derivative territory was powerful and rxed. Because the derivative territory controlled a muchrger area than his water element territory, he was finally able to use territorial power to battle with his enemies.


    When the area controlled by the elemental creatures¡¯ territory exceeded a radius of one li, it meant that within the square area of one li, Saleen was able to summon thousands of elemental creatures without much of a cost.


    The strengths of the territoryy in the fact that maintaining the territory and using the territory forbat took about the same levels of consumption.


    Having seen Saleen¡¯s suddenly explosivebat power, the two puppet chiefs felt some hesitation. They controlled all the puppets, but there were only about 30,000 puppets capable of battle. The remaining puppets were barely able to wave gs and cheer. If they fought, they would disintegrate.


    Could it be that they had to personally take action?


    The two puppets nced at each other. The human mage had not even used any equipment¡¯s power and was already this powerful. If this mage had strong equipment, the two already battered puppets were afraid that they would die.


    They stood on the shoulders of the gigantic puppet. The gigantic puppet had not participated in the battle, but at this moment, it suddenly spoke to Saleen.


    ¡°Human mage, I will trade with you, I want to leave!¡±


    ¡°Big guy, what are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be stupid, he is human, you are a puppet!¡±


    ¡°Big guy, it was not easy for you to be born with a soul. If you are enved, there will never be any chance for growth.¡±


    ¡°That mage, he is very capable...¡± The gigantic puppet had some difficulty expressing himself. His soul was just born, and he bore a majority of the ageing spell¡¯s curse. He could not fight at all.


    ¡°You cannot believe humans!¡± The puppet without legs shouted, wanting the gigantic puppets toe to its senses.


    ¡°The two of you are so shameless. Without this big guy, could you have lived? Now it wants freedom, you forbid it. If that is the case, I have no choice but to get rid of you two.¡±


    As Saleen spoke, the Thunder Dragon ster emerged. Dragon ws held on to Saleen¡¯s shoulders, enabling Saleen to feel the connection between himself and the Thunder Dragon ster as if they were rted by blood.


    The might of the Thunder Dragon ster was not limited by Saleen¡¯s grade. The only thing that was limited was the method of locking on to the target. In the eyes of Saleen¡¯s Starline Mask, the two puppets with souls were targeted, and Saleen was even more assured that the puppets had been affected by the curse, causing their capabilities to have long be a shadow of their former selves¡¯.


    However, the gigantic puppet¡¯s capabilities were the strongest, and it bore the most of the ageing curse. If he got rid of all the puppets, would it be asking for trouble?


    It should not be the case. At most, he would release the Myers Goddess¡¯ godly power, and everything would be settled. The natural ageing spell could definitely be broken by natural godly power.


    ¡°Big guy, follow me for a thousand years, and I will give you freedom,¡± Saleen tempted it.


    ¡°Dream on!¡± The two puppets objected at the same time. The gigantic puppet¡¯s eyes sparkled, and the whole space flickered ordingly.


    ¡°I am willing, mage. Save me!¡± Although the gigantic puppet had not been alive for long, its heart was very clear. The two ancient puppets created it, and even gave precious soul power to it, because they wanted it to bear the majority of the curse.


    By the side of the two ancient puppets, it would never be able to obtain release.


    ¡°Big guy, you are disobedient. I am very disappointed...¡± The puppet missing an arm jumped, a hand inserted into the gigantic puppet¡¯s ear hole.


    Saleenughed coldly. The two things had really thought that others did not know about their selfishness. The gigantic puppet was not an idiot. Having seen the opportunity, it would definitely think of ways to escape from their oppression.


    If it remained, the gigantic puppet would be the two ancient puppets¡¯ scapegoat.


    ¡°Mage, save me!¡± the gigantic puppet shouted. An Eternal Control shard flew out of Saleen¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Eat it, I wille and save you.¡± On the Eternal Control shard, a green Divine Glow twinkled, the Myers Goddess¡¯ natural godly power.


    The puppet without legs suddenly had arge buckler in its hand, aggressively hurling it at the Eternal Control shard. The buckler was hundreds of meters wide and was probably prepared for the short people among the Giants.


    Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster shot out two thunder icicles: one towards the buckler, and one towards the puppet.


    Although the thunder icicles had been firedter, they achieved their purpose. They shot a hole the size of a basin through the buckler. The Eternal Control shard went through the hole and fell into the gigantic puppet¡¯s mouth. The gigantic puppet forcefully sucked in, absorbing the Eternal Control shard into its brain.


    A puppet¡¯s core was typically its heart, but there were puppets which imitated humans and had their core in their head. The gigantic puppet was hundreds of meters tall, but its head was its weak spot. Apart from the core, it was almostpleted fitted with thick metal armor. The gigantic puppet sought for release, so it determinedly swallowed the Eternal Control shard into its mind, where its soul parasite was located.


    The Eternal Control shard was specialized for engulfing souls. No matter the grade of the soul, if it met one it would try engulfing it. The gigantic puppet did not have any resistance, and with a whizzing sound, the gigantic puppet was engulfed in the Eternal Control shard.


    On the gigantic puppet¡¯s shoulders, the two puppets attacked it. Suddenly, the puppet¡¯s body shook all over, and the restraints on the gigantic puppet¡¯s soul were forcibly removed. At the same time, the two puppets were severely damaged.

 Chapter 1156: The Nature of Life (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1156: The Nature of Life (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Most mages would only specialize in one branch of magic. For the other five branches of magic, all of their cultivation was mainly in magical theory and the corresponding magic chords, for the sake of a smoother advancement.


    Even Jason had also only specialized in Water me magic.


    Saleen was limited by his magic chords. At first, he had only researched water magic. After advancing to level 9, Saleen¡¯sbat style had not yet been fixed, but because of thews he hadprehended.


    Other mages would first cultivate a territory, then cultivate aw. Saleen had first gathered knowledge aboutws, and then cultivated a territory at level 10.


    Saleen¡¯sbat was like the water element: it could change into a variety of forms.


    The two puppets had been damaged, which was swiftly caught by Saleen. He immediately gave up on using the Thunder Dragon ster to attack. Instead, he retrieved a magic staff from his ring and released the magical power that was stored within the magic staff.


    The Endless Night engulfed the two puppets. Saleen sent the water ball in the second Shenhe. The water ball had been refined by Saleen the earliest. At first, it only had the Current Cutter form, but after changing its restrictions to a water ball, various kinds of symbols, magic patterns, and shes of lightning floated inside of it.


    The water ball entered the Endless Night, exploding with a violent light between the two puppets. Electric current shot out, forming a tight electric web and caging the two puppets inside.


    The grade of the two puppets was high and theirbat power was indisputable. It was a pity that the two were afraid of death and stuck a thread of soul onto the gigantic puppet¡¯s soul, continuously stealing the gigantic puppet¡¯s soul power.


    That was why the gigantic puppet had no way to continue to grow. It was unable to detect that it was providing life to the two ancient figures. However, the instincts of life enabled it to want to leave them. Saleen¡¯s appearance allowed the gigantic puppet to make up its mind.


    The two ancient puppets only wanted to get through the difficult times and then help the gigantic puppet to dispel the curse, but the two discovered that the curse was difficult to dispel and their intention to help the gigantic puppet faded.


    Life was selfish. If the gigantic pupper gained release, then all of the curse could only be carried by the two of them. The rest of the puppets had long been on theirst legs.


    Because of selfishness, the soul divided by the two puppets was erased, and the two of them suffered damage that surpassed the degradation of their bodies. Their analysis of souls was not in depth. Being able to divide out a thread of soul waspletely an instinctual power that the most basic grade could achieve.


    They did not know how to protect both the soul that had been broken and the soul in their own bodies. When the two threads were erased, the two puppets immediately turned weak and limp, and the spare parts all over their bodies had all loosened.


    A huge wound appeared on their souls, and soul power flowed out of it. Saleen¡¯s Endless Night was released, the two puppets had no way of resisting. The electric released by the water ball captured them, and Saleen was toozy to tame them. He could directly allow the elemental creatures in the territory to feed on the two puppets.


    The two puppets¡¯ level, even now, was level 12, which had nothing to do with theirbat ability. The energy in their bodies was unusually great. The elemental creatures in Saleen¡¯s territory were immortal, but devouring the two would still be rtively difficult. Saleen was not in a hurry, his newly derived territory¡¯sbat ability was strong, and it happened to require energy to be replenished.


    Even more puppets rushed into Saleen¡¯s territory, but therge puppet became half asleep. The Eternal Control shard was not an evil type of controlling equipment. Any soul that was attacked by the Eternal Control shard would receive the protection of the shard. The gigantic puppet¡¯s soul had taken severe damage, and on top of that was the power of the curse that was still working against the soul.


    The natural Goddess¡¯ godly power that was stuck onto the Eternal Control shard began to repair the gigantic puppet¡¯s soul. On the outside, Saleen used his own territory to devour the thousands of puppets.


    The puppets did not know fear, so they advanced. Within Saleen¡¯s territory, thebat ability of the elemental creatures was maintained at the strongest state per Saleen¡¯s understanding. It was the original state of thew, once the elemental creatures¡¯ territory wasplete, within Saleen¡¯s territory range, professionals of the same grade would never be their match.


    The assassins that Saleen was worried about were no longer a concern. However no matter how strong the assassin was, they could not possibly deal with that many strong living creatures, especially the two types of giant dragons. The dragon¡¯s might was able to destroy most concealment skills. Furthermore, within the territory, assassins also had no way of hiding their traces.


    Saleen was afraid of the assassins¡¯ sneak attacks, and not their head-to-head battles.


    There were so many puppets, and the true level of each of them was so high, having devoured so many puppets. Saleen¡¯s territory immediately produced a new change. His elemental creatures¡¯ territory did not expand, but derived a third type of territory ¨C puppet world.


    The puppets that had been killed appeared one by one in Saleen¡¯s new territory. The puppet world wrapped around the outside of Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures territory, and the water element territory was inside that.


    The water element territory¡¯s range was only several meters, while the elemental creatures¡¯ territory¡¯s range had a diameter of close to 800 meters.


    The new puppet world territory controlled a radius of one li, but it was constantly enriching and expanding itself.


    Saleen was extremely envious of the oracles who had territorial ranges of several li. Now, the area controlled by his threeyers of territories were able to be counted in li.


    Saleen did not know how the time was flowing, but the Magical Element Tower was suppressing the exit, so he did not need to worry about others destroying the spatial pathway. The temple was not connected to the Myers Continent by teleportation portal, so its stability was the strongest, but it could also be easily found by others, and it was easy to enter.


    Saleen was not afraid of any future trouble. After the Magical Element Tower was sealed off, there were very few professionals on the Myers Continent who could be captured. The level 12 oracle would need to rely on the terrazzo¡¯s effort to slowly deal with it. Only then could the defenses of the Magical Element Tower be broken.


    If Saleen was around, he could use the properties of the magical tower and borrow the power of the magic power furnace, and people would not dare go near the magical tower.


    ¡°Spare us!¡± After Saleen cancelled the Endless Night, the two puppets saw the situation clearly and were scared out of their wits. The electric released by the water ball wrapped them up, and the puppets were not capable of resisting.


    ¡°I won¡¯t spare you.¡± Saleen smiled slightly while replying. His puppet world territory could devour the two, and they would be replicated in the puppet world. He did not need puppets with a soul. The two guys and Rossen were different. Rossen was created by Saleen, and they were like friends, and also like father and child.


    As for the two puppets? They wanted to harm their most importantpanion. They were puppets, but they were just like humans: capable of doing the worst things. Saleen did not hold much interest in their souls.


    ¡°Mage, aren¡¯t you afraid that once we die, you will be attacked by the curse?¡± The puppet without legs scared Saleen.


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m not afraid,¡± Saleen swung the Ring of Gifts. On the Ring of Gifts, the green natural Goddess¡¯ godly power shone faintly.


    ¡°So you are the gods¡¯ckey!¡± The puppet without an arm swore harshly.


    ¡°Really, how tragic. The two of you just wait to be devoured and assimted into my territory. Communicating with you is a disgrace to my intelligence.¡± Saleen no longer wanted to say anything to the two things. His elemental creatures¡¯ territory surrounded the two puppets, and Saleen began to wholeheartedly concentrate on dealing with the other puppets in the periphery.


    Thousands of puppets charged, but only a few hundred coulde into contact with Saleen. Following the expansion of Saleen¡¯s territory, the number of puppets that could enter the territory also increased.


    Saleen did not spare even one, converting the puppets into territorial power and replicating them one by one. The third territory gradually expanded to 4 li, and the radius in which Saleen could attack reached more than 2 li.


    ¡°Mage? Mage!¡± The two puppets in the elemental creatures territory yelled loudly. After they confirmed that Saleen would not pay any attention to them, the two puppets then began to panic and me each other. The two who had supported each other for more than 10,000 years began to swear at each other.


    The two puppets soon began to attack one another. After devouring the other one, even if they could not escape Saleen¡¯s control, they could resist for a period of time.


    For the sake of the small benefit, the two puppets quickly fell out with each other. The surrounding elemental creatures eyed them covetously, but did not attack.


    The radius of Saleen¡¯s three territories added together had grown to 4 li. It was capable of enveloping Metatrin City. At least 50,000 puppets had been devoured by the territory, although Saleen temporarily could not replicate all of these puppets forbat, the puppet¡¯s energy had been absorbed.


    The power of a level 10 mage¡¯s territorial power was close to the Bright Light territory created by the oracle.


    Saleen expertly scraped out everything from the distance and took all of the puppets into the territory. Saleen could confirm that the puppets did note from the Myers Continent. Perhaps, in the future, he could find the puppets¡¯ ne and expand his own territory to its pinnacle.


    As the number of puppets devoured increased, Saleen was able to roughly calcte the direction of his territory.


    After all the puppets disappeared, Saleen dispersed the elemental creatures, and returned to the two puppets who possessed souls. The gigantic puppet had not yet awakened, and Saleen put it in a Dimension Stone. Under the protection of the Eternal Control shard, the gigantic puppet would not have any problems with entering the Dimension Stone space.


    ¡°Are you volunteering to be devoured by me? Or will you let me strengthen and use you?¡± Saleen asked the two puppets, who were at the end of their rope.

 Chapter 1157: Three-Layered Territory (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1157: Three-Layered Territory (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Mage, we surrender!¡± The two puppets were already wounded. They consumed thest bits of their energy in their fight. There was no way that they would be able to resist Saleen. If they resisted, the two would use up their final bit of energy. Their souls would directly be broken down, and their wounds would no longer be protected.


    ¡°The situation is like this, and you still wish to surrender?¡± Saleen gazed at the two. Even if the two puppets had been people, they would only be Cloudflow people.


    ¡°We will trade secrets for freedom!¡± The two puppets still grudgingly spoke about conditions.


    ¡°The big guy will know the secret. I am already prepared to give him a bit of freedom. For both you, it is better to forget about it.¡± As Saleen spoke, he retreated, allowing the puppet world territory to slowly devour the two puppets.


    The engulfment was extremely quick. The two puppets were wrecked by a wave of electric current, and their ability to resist plummeted to the lowest level.


    However, the type of engulfment was notpatible with the two puppets. Saleen had no way to gain very much information from the two puppets in such a short amount of time.


    They had to be digested slowly in the future. Saleen swept a nce through his surroundings. Within the range of the territory, there was nothing in sight.


    Onnd, Saleen had taken apart the temple¡¯s foundations, and the figures within the territory had gained additional power. Saleen¡¯s mind moved. Originally, he had wanted to take the opportunity to create the fourthyer of territory, but he recalled that he did not want to cultivate astrology to such a high extent of achievement. Even if he pushed himself to create a territory, it would not be that powerful.


    Unless he had a chance to get a level 19 Star Gathering Needle in the future. However at that time, would he still have the Crystal Wall system?


    Putting away the ancient figures, Saleen followed the pathway and returned to the magical tower. He did not encounter any enemies or trials. Saleen spent a total of six days devouring puppets and transforming them into the puppet world territory.


    The Magical Element Tower was surrounded by people, including people from the Holy See. Their numbers were not much¡ªabout 2,000 wardens and 100 holy masters. The head holy master was grouping up the forces and arranging arge-scale divine rune charm array.


    There were about tenrge divine flying puppets who had put a divine territory in ce, preventing the magical tower from flying.


    Water puppets controlled the Magical Element Tower, so there was no need to be anxious, as enemies would need at least a few months to find the magical tower¡¯s weakness. After finding its weakness, opening the magical tower would need another few months. With such a long time, Saleen would definitely havee out.


    Saleen appeared in the magical tower, saw that everybody was peaceful and calm, and felt amused.


    The powers the Holy See arranged were not weak. Although the holy master who was in charge of the divine rune charm array was level 10, it was evident that this power was forcibly raised. Theirbat ability was much weaker than some of the head inquisitors that Saleen had encountered.


    The benefits brought to the holy master by level was the ability to ce higher level divine rune charm arrays. They were even able to request for assistance directly from the gods, causing power to descend into their body. Of course, the results of doing so was that the holy master would have the possibility of being chosen by the gods and constantly rely on such an identity.


    It was an honor, but it was also death.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we won¡¯t battle them. It will be very boring.¡± Saleen looked down on the power of the holy masters. He boosted the magic power furnace, and outside the magical tower, ayer of water elemental power appeared. Immediately, outside the water element territory, the elemental creatures¡¯ territory appeared. The area controlled by the elemental creatures¡¯ territory was able to reach 600 meters across.


    The divine territory in the sky was no longer able to control the Magical Element Tower. The Magical Element Tower flew into the sky, knocking arge divine puppets into pieces.


    If Saleen had not advanced, even if he possessed the Magical Element Tower, he would be unable to deal with the divine puppets. The Holy See had sent the puppets, meaning that they had ced some degree of importance on Saleen. However, they did not ount for the fact that Saleen¡¯s territory was able to counter against high grade divine territories.


    After rushing through the divine territory, the Magical Element Tower no longer had any obstacles. In the blink of an eye, its speed reached 300 li per hour. At such a speed, and with the driving force from therge magic power furnace, there were no foreseeable difficulties.


    Saleen did not want to fight. He was anxious to rush to the third temple in the Cloudflow Empire.


    The temple must have been opened by Agares. If the temple was not connected via teleportation portal, Agares would have had no way to destroy the pathway, and Saleen would still be able to enter. After entering, he would take apart everything that Agares was not able to take away.


    Theter he went, the more forces Agares would be able to mobilize. Perhaps Agares would also learn from him and take apart the temples.


    Agares was the Emperor of the empire. No matter how pitiful he seemed, he controlled more resources than Saleen. The Cloudflow imperial family had existed for thousands of years, so they would definitely still have powers like the Golden ins in existence, otherwise the imperial family would have been overthrown long ago.


    The Magical Element Tower was too fast. Saleen did not have any demonstration. Rather, they flew for about half a day and then descended in a primeval forest.


    The Cloudflow Empire¡¯s territory was broad. The forest was also positioned in a in and took up hundreds of li ofnd. Many of the trees were millenium trees, and there was nt life that had existed for more than ten thousand years.


    The number of magic beasts was great. The resources of the Cloudflow Empire were disyed through this forest.


    Although the Cloudflow people were greedy, they knew that they could not kill the goose thatys the golden egg. The huge forest was protected and kept intact, and the magic beasts inside were sufficient for the empire to capture. The Cloudflow people had not destroyed the forest, so the forest was able to provide arge amount of magic beasts materials to the Cloudflow imperial family, as well as some rare medicinal herbs.


    The imperial family did not even need to send people to enter. They sent troops to guard the entrance to the forest and purchased the game obtained by adventurers.


    Of course, the purchase price was very low, but adventurers rarely died, since the edges of the forest were not dangerous. Hence, it became an adventurer¡¯s paradise.


    The ce where Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower descended was a dangerous area, the magical towernded directly in a level 9 magic beast¡¯s nest. The magic beast had been asleep, but was crushed by the Magical Element Tower¡¯s territory. The elemental creatures sprang up and devoured it.


    ¡°Rossen, look after the magical tower, Sika, follow me to see if Agares is still here or not. Sul, youe along as well. Nailisi, will you being?¡±


    Nailisi shook her head. ¡°Master, I want to sleep.¡±


    ¡°Go sleep then, let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen retrieved his magicpass and left with Sika, Sul, and Truman.


    On top of the Magical Element Tower, the manyyers of giant metal gears floated up. The demonic spirits took their positions. If they met any trouble, the demonic spirits would attack indiscriminately.


    The magic beasts and poisonous insects in the forest were frightened by Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower, and not many dared to approach.


    Maintaining a territory needed mental power, as well as some magic chord power. The consumption of Saleen¡¯s threeyered territory was not much greater than others¡¯, but he only released the water element territory, allowing those beside him to stay within the territory to avoid surprise attacks.


    Agares, I really hope you will fight me again. Saleen thought secretly. If he could encounter Agares again, he possessed a powerful territory and he would most likely would not be forced to retreat.


    Inside the forest waspletely dark, the ground was extremely damp, and if they were not professionals, they would probably not be able to live for even half a day. Poisonous gas floated about, and there was a huge number of tiny ferocious mosquitoes.


    The poisonous gas was very pretty. It was colorful and gave off a charming radiance.


    Hover, it no longer had a way to approach Saleen. The water element territory was about 60 meters in diameter. For a distance of 30 meters, it acted as a magic amplifier. If he had a magic amplifier as well, hisbat power would surpass the limitations of level, and he would be able to kill higher level professionals, such as the oracle.


    The magicpass indicated that the pathway was nearby, but Saleen did not discover any traces of others having been here.


    There was definitely a problem. Saleen opened his Elemental eye, observing the surroundings in detail. He was able to identify where the problemy. Although the forest had tall trees and numerous living creatures, the age of the trees was problematic.


    Saleen released an ice de, cutting into a big tree. The tree copsed at an angle, hitting another big tree. Saleen nced at the growth rings of the trees and discovered that the tree did not have any growth rings.


    What did it mdan? The meter-thick tree probably grew in a few days.


    Growth medication was not considered too valuable. Many farmers used it to temporarily grow crops to tide them over the harsh days during rough times.


    The medication allowed nts to grow quickly. If it were arge tree, the amount of medication expended was terrifying. Considering Agares¡¯ position, Saleen did not find it surprising at all.


    Using disguise spells against a mage like him, Agares was really looking down on him.


    Saleen followed the direction that the magicpass pointed, heading south for roughly 40 meters, and saw an ant¡¯s nest behind a rock. This ant¡¯s nest reflected the shine of metal. If Saleen had not advanced to level 10, perhaps he would have chosen to leave. There were probably millions of soul eater ants in the nest.


    The position of the pathway was precisely where the ant¡¯s nest was located.


    Saleen spread out the elemental creatures¡¯ territory. A golden giant dragon stepped on the ant¡¯s nest, and blew out a puff of dragon¡¯s breath. The ant¡¯s nest was immediately destroyed. The soul eater ants in the ant¡¯s nest had not even attacked before being burnt to death by the golden giant dragon.


    The soul eater ants were afraid of high temperatures. Dragon¡¯s breath was so hot that it could be used for alchemy. The golden giant dragon blew out two more puffs of dragon¡¯s breath at the nest, and the ground caved in about 10 meters. Only then was Saleen satisfied.


    When you possessed absolute power, devious schemes becamepletely useless.

 Chapter 1158: Three-Layered Territory (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1158: Three-Layered Territory (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The golden giant dragon¡¯s breath caused the creatures that Agares ced near the pathway to bepletely wiped out.


    Saleen held the magicpass and looked left and right, and in the surroundings of the ant¡¯s nest, he very quickly found the entrance of the spatial pathway.


    It was a cycad tree, and the tree trunk in the air was the pathway. The cycad tree had been arranged on top of it.


    Agares had not done much for concealment. Once Saleen found the tree, any other measures for concealment was meaningless. The hollow in the tree was about the height of a person. If Saleen entered, there would be no need for him to bend over.


    Agares was testing Saleen¡¯s courage. The tree hollow was small, so would he dare to enter?


    A mage, facing an assassin of the same level, would they not be afraid?


    Saleen shook his head and sighed. When he was one step away from entering the tree hollow, he was scared by the people beside him. Sul was the first to rush in, but Sika had waited for Truman to enter. Saleeen observed it for a moment and threw a green seed in front of the tree hollow. The seed fell into the soil and quickly germinated, bing a vine. The vine¡¯s dense leaves blocked the tree hollow. The veins of the leaves were bright red, like the blood vessels of humans.


    Agares had notpletely opened the pathway. After Saleen jumped inside, he immediately released the Myers Goddess¡¯ natural godly power from the Ring of Gifts.


    There was a severe fluctuation in the pathway, and it immediately expanded tens of times. Saleen proceeded forward. Sul, who was beside him, felt quite exhausted, and wanted to call out to Master, but did not dare to. He did not want to lose courage, so he released his golden sword aura to its peak, picked up his speed, and persistently followed Saleen.


    Saleen nced backwards. Sul would not be able to maintain the state for long. Saleen cast a power stabilizing spell on Sul. It was rare magic to decrease consumption, but it was not prepared for mages, but warriors.


    After Saleen cast the spell on Sul, he did not bother with the other two and flew along the pathway. After about 10 minutes, they arrived at the space that temple was in.


    Saleen saw that only ruins remained. There were a few gigantic puppets, whose glint in their eyes had been extinguished, as if they were in deep sleep.


    The puppets were from the powers that counterattacked while the temple was being destroyed and had been broken.


    The puppets had been broken, and Agares had no way to bring them back. He was an assassin. His method for carrying therge puppets would be to use scrolls to seal them, but he was not a mage, so the broken puppets could only be haphazardly thrown away.


    Saleen looked at the copsed halls, and his heart felt funny. Agares had learned from him and destroyed the temple, but did not know why he destroyed them. He did not want the Myers Goddess to be able to utilize all it to increase her power. Agares had not been thorough in his destruction. Saleen had no choice but to help Agaresplete the job.


    Saleen did not require help. He expanded his territory to control a radius of over 4 li. Within the territory, various types of puppets emerged and, under Saleen¡¯smand, began to take apart the dpidated temple.


    Therge puppets were also devoured by Saleen¡¯s puppet world territory. The level of the puppets was very low, but it was better than nothing. Within the territory, nothing was left untouched unless it was an even higher level.


    Saleen performed a detailed search, and was still able to reap some good rewards. Agares had not taken everything away from the temple. Most of the things he needed had been taken away, but some things that were too bulky or could not be examined had been left for Saleen.


    Saleen did not require the demons¡¯ help. He used the territory¡¯s power to destroy the temple. The feeling in his heart was iparably refreshing. It was a pity that he had not brought along the water fox, otherwise, taking apart her pce in front of the Goddess, it would feel even better.


    There was also good news. The temple was not prepared for assassins, but for warriors. The temples in Cloudflow did not have specialized equipment or material targeted towards assassins. If Agares wanted to advance quickly, he would still need to search for other temples.Read more chapter on vipnovel


    That was the conclusion that Saleen wanted to see. If Agares had obtained the things he needed, his speed of advancement would be faster than Saleen. Saleen¡¯s talent was not outstanding. If he did not have the help of the temple where the flow of time was rapid, he might not even have been able to advance to level 10.


    Furthermore, while being level 10, Saleen had concisely developed a threeyered territory. In the future, after advancing to level 13, when beginning to grasp the rules, it would be a huge obstacle. Other people would only need toprehend one set of rules to advance, but Saleen would need to learn at least three sets, or perhaps even more. He had not yet formed a lightning territory. Once formed, he would need to understand all of the lightning rules. Only then would he attain an existence like the pseudogods.


    Humanity addressed the level as level 13. It was definitely the shackles that most souls were unable to break through.


    After passing through the bottleneck of level 12, the lifespan of all professionals increased sharply, reaching a level that made ordinary souls envious. It was a step towards bing a god.


    Even without bing a god, a level 13 professional would be respected and admired by all kinds of souls.


    From within arge puppet that had been devoured by Saleen¡¯s territory, a tiny puppet leapt out. After the tiny puppet jumped out, it abruptly exploded. Before that, Saleen had not even felt any elemental vibrations.


    Puppet trap: the assassin¡¯s level 10 skill.


    It was a pity that Saleen possessed a territory. The puppet explosion shot out thousands of fragments but were all blocked by the elemental creatures in the territory. A pan turtle reared upwards and blocked arge portion of the attack.


    ¡°Master.¡± Sul arrived at Saleen¡¯s side, saw these changes, and said, ¡°Agares is nning for you underestimate him so he can strike. If you drop your guard, the next attack will be fatal.¡±


    ¡°I know. Agares will definitely not stop at such measures. It¡¯s just that since he did not obtain what he wanted from here, and he is not familiar with the positions of the other temples. He wants to track me, not to kill me. The might of this puppet explosion is strong, but it is insufficient to kill a level 10 mage.¡±


    ¡°Track?¡± Sika, thest one to arrive, was not nervous at all, taking her time to run over from the pathway at a steady pace.


    ¡°Yup, if I don¡¯t spread out my territory and we want Agares to lose our trail, the his movements will not be able to escape my observation.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you don¡¯t want him to lose our trail, right?¡± Sika spoke to the point.


    Saleen nodded. ¡°Every time, Agares only gives the Holy See one address, because he does not want to let the Holy See know too many secrets. If he can follow me, then he will no longer be able to disclose information to the Holy See. The equipment required by assassins is Agares¡¯ trump card.


    From now on, if I don¡¯t help him to find the things that the Myers Goddess left behind for assassins, the Cloudflow Emperor will be dying to send his army to protect me.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, this is also the only chance to kill him, right?¡± Truman asked. The task of taking apart the temples waspleted by the puppets in the territory. Nobody needed to act. They only needed to remain at Saleen¡¯s side so that they could learn from experience.


    ¡°Sounds about right. Also in the future, I may not necessarily want to kill Agares. He is an assassin, not an adventurer. If my level exceeds his too much, he will not see me as his target. Ultimately, our enemy is the Holy See.¡±


    ¡°Master, leaving Agares behind will be problematic.¡± Sul recalled that Agares had kicked him once, causing him to be kicked away from Saleen¡¯s side, so he always gnashed his teeth in hatred, wanting to take revenge.


    If not for the fact that Master was strong, he would already be considered to be a follower who had lost his profession, such a situation was a disgrace.


    As a follower, the supplies gained from Master were hundreds of times more than the ones gained by servants or any other types of subordinates. Saleen¡¯s expenditure for looking after a follower was enough to hire a huge amount of mercenaries, or to bring even more aristocrats under his control.


    Consuming that many of Master¡¯s provisions every day, but being incapable in the end, would always be engraved in his memory.


    Saleen might be one of the best Masters. Although the battles were all very dangerous, the supplies were also the most plentiful, and every professional would be able to obtain the things that he wanted.


    Saleen understood Sul¡¯s mood and patted his shoulder. ¡°Our target in the future will not stop at the Myers Continent. There will be many times when we will meet assassins, so you can use others to practice your skills. If you want to kill Agares, you will need a specific opportunity. His luck is extremely good, or at least for this period of time it is.¡±


    Saleen did not exin the cause, but he already perceived it. Agares had probably gained the Goddess¡¯ favor. An assassin finding more than two temples, and opening them all, could only be exined by the luck inherited from the Goddess. It had already begun to be divided by Agares.


    Wanting Agares to die would require him to pay a considerable price.


    Saleen used the territorial power to take apart the temple, and it was even faster. After seeding, Saleen quickly evacuated from the pathway. The magic beasts in the forest had already evacuated from the area controlled by the Magical Element Tower. Saleen got into the magical tower and dispersed his perception, but even with this search he was unable to find Agares¡¯ position.


    In the magical tower, Saleen¡¯s perception was expanded by at least six times, and now his perception ovepped with his territory. That meant that in the Magical Element Tower, Saleen would be able to detect professionals at the same level or below at a distance of 24 li.


    It looked like Agares possessed a godly item. He was able to hide himself from a scan that used territorial power.


    Saleen did not find it unexpected at all. A strong assassin would inevitably possess equipment with such properties. Otherwise, upon reaching level 9, any profession¡¯s perception would be able to expand to a very big range. An assassin¡¯s attack power could only be used at short ranges. If others held them back by one li, how could they still be considered an assassin?


    It looked like he would have to start ying hide and seek with Agares.

 Chapter 1159: The Insult Up Close and Personal Plan (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1159: The Insult Up Close and Personal n (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen left the forest as fast as he could. His Magical Element Tower shot into the sky, reaching over ten thousand meters. No mage dared to fly that high without care. However, Saleen heard that the Sky City that humans created back then had been capable of reaching even greater heights.


    The core of the Magical Element Tower served as the core of the Sky City. Saleen¡¯srge scale magic power furnace had no problem whatsoever powering the Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen¡¯s target was the Grand Duke of Pompeii¡¯s turf in Qin.


    The Grand Duke of Pompeii was one of the most powerful nobles in the south and he had many powerful followers. He had probably been in bed in Alchemy City before the incident at Daliang City broke out. The reason Saleen was heading to Qin was to settle some scores.


    Grand Duke of Pompeii¡¯s underlings thought of capturing Lex when Saleen and Lex passed by. Saleen was not willing to just let it go. When Saleen established his own kingdom, the Grand Duke had been the one who was most thorough in his opposition against Lex.


    Half of the southern nobles were willing to back Lex into bing empress, while most of the other half sympathized with Lex. The Grand Duke was one of the odd few among the other half. If the Grand Duke continued to get in Saleen¡¯s way, he would have no qualms about crushing the grand duke¡¯s n.


    All of the people who came along with Saleen served to protect him. However, Saleen was the most powerful among all of them. Truman did not mind, but the fact did not sit well with Sul. J was already a level ten professional, and other having acquired the power of the Sword of Valor, he was still quite a bit of distance away from reaching level ten. That bit of distance was something that some were unable to cover after a lifetime trying.


    Sika had little pressure in advancing. She had acquired three suitable magic beast souls and would make it to level ten in three to five years. Eleanor, on the other hand, was at a loss of what to do. She was already at the pinnacle of level nine, and she needed to advance.


    Saleen chose tond in an uninhabited in on the southwestern side of Qin territory, before putting the tower away. ¡°I¡¯m going to settle the score with the Grand Duke of Pompeii, but if I just flew over, he probably wouldn¡¯t dare to make a move. So we will takend transport instead. We¡¯re about 2000 miles away, and he won¡¯t expect me to trick him into making a first move. Me reaching level ten is known only by the higher-ups of the Holy See and Agares,¡± Saleen borated as he got four chariots ready.


    All four vehicles were magic equipment and a little longer than conventional chariots. The extra length made room for a small magic power furnace. It did not need horses, as mechanical legs could be installed at the sides to enable the vehicle to run in perilous terrain.


    Saleen did not want to attract that much attention, so he got horses ready for the chariots. Every chariot was pulled by four puppet warhorses.


    Saleen had originally been bad at crafting puppets. He had considerable knowledge of the theory, but puppet alchemy was alien to him. However, after devouring hundreds of thousands of powerful puppets for no reason, a puppet world realm was formed in him. As time passed, he became a powerful puppetry mage despite having never delved into the intricacies of puppet-crafting.


    Saleen crafted the puppet warhorses for practice. There were 16 of them divided into four teams that pulled one chariot. The drivers were Ancient Warriors, beings that Saleen subjugated the earliest.


    Saleen and Sika rode in one, Eleanor and Sul rode in another, Daniel and Isabe rode in the third, and the remaining one was taken by Nailisi and an unknown archer from Sreeger Ind.


    Nailisi spent most of her time resting and thinking. The unknown archer felt restless sitting in the same chariot with Nailisi. He learned a lot from the trip despite having never attacked anyone. Saleen did not allow him to do anything and simply had him sit around and watch, so to learn how the rest synchronized with each other.


    Saleen ced heavy emphasis on the level nine archer, as it was immensely difficult for archers to advance. However, when they did happen to mature, they also became the most difficult professionals to deal with.


    ¡°Lady Nailisi, am I still not allowed to make a move?¡± The archer asked in a frustrating manner.


    ¡°Master doesn¡¯t need your skills at the moment. Why are you in a hurry anyway? Haven¡¯t you noticed just how many people Master has happened to have offended already?¡±


    The archer nodded. ¡°I can see that, but it hardly matters. An enemy is simply a target to an archer. The number of enemies simply trantes to the number of arrows needed to be fired.¡±


    ¡°Ha! Hahahaha....¡± Nailisi was amused by the archer. The archer was so prideful that it made it difficult for her to conceal her emotions.


    The archer dared not offend Nailisi as he knew that she was a level ten professional. As such, he simply let Nailisiugh without showing any signs of displeasure.


    Nailisi saw all that and formed a better impression of the archer. What mattered was one¡¯s powers, not the opinion of others.


    ¡°Heh, well then. What¡¯s your name?¡± Nailisi looked at the archer. He was a typical Qin. He had an average build, long, slender fingers, ck hair, and clear eyes. However, they had ck pupils instead of blue ones.


    ¡°My name¡¯s Qin.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°When the mages on the ind picked me up, I was on a tattered boat and there was only a Qin banner. The mages did not bother to give me a name and settled on calling me Qin.¡±


    ¡°An orphan then. Kind of like me.¡± Nailisi became rather friendly.


    ¡°Lady Nailisi. I¡¯ve something to ask and I don¡¯t know if it¡¯ll sound offensive.¡±


    ¡°Shoot.¡±


    ¡°Your powers have been above His Highness before, and he only surpassed you after advancing. But why would you follow him?¡±


    Seeing how Nailisi sank into deep thought, Qin added, ¡°I heard that you have a rather bad temper and there are few around his highness who would dare offend you. I feel it¡¯s rather curious for someone like you to be following His Highness.¡±


    ¡°Qin, are you itching to be Master¡¯s follower as well?¡±


    Qin nodded and did not bother to conceal his thoughts. He continued, ¡°I¡¯m an archer and it¡¯s already a miracle that I¡¯m able toe this far to level nine. But if I grew any further, I¡¯d need suitable equipment instead of just getting into more fights. But then again, I¡¯ve no master to serve and I¡¯m not exactly of high stature in Sreeger Ind, so the materials I can acquire are limited.¡±


    ¡°Envious of Eleanor, are you?¡±


    ¡°I am. I heard that the bow wielded by Eleanor was crafted by His Highness personally. It¡¯s surreal.¡±


    ¡°You want to find out what kind of loyalty that Master would need then, eh?¡± Nailisi was an expert with people. While the archer had a stable bearing and behaved neither superciliously nor obsequiously, she was able to see through him.


    ¡°Indeed. While archers are rare, His Highness already has Eleanor, so he might not need me.


    ¡°But you don¡¯t bother serving anyone else. No one else would¡¯ve been able to provide you with what you might get here, no?¡± Nailisi continued to ask.


    Qin nodded. He was after what Saleen was able to provide, but he did not know what Saleen would need from him.


    ¡°I was initially tricked into serving Master, you know,¡± Nailisi uttered inly, and then stopped altogether.


    Qin pondered what she said. It took him about half an hour before he responded, ¡°I understand, My Lady. His Highness is truly a person worth serving. I¡¯ve been thinking too much.


    Saleen and Sika rode on the same chariot. The vehicle was designed to carry eight people, which meant that it had so much space that they could lie down. Sika leaned over on the cushion. ¡°If we move against the Grand Duke now, won¡¯t the southern nobles harbor any ideas against Lex?¡±


    ¡°Sigh...¡±


    Saleen sighed and thought. ¡°I might not have thought things through, but I kept a close eye on things in Daliang City. They seemed to have reached an unspoken consensus and bnce, but it wasn¡¯t actually a good thing. We might get one-third of the loot, but all of it should have been ours. With things divided like that, be it Alchemy City or the Holy City, none of them would want to spend too much there.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re reluctant to suffer more casualties than needed. I can understand.¡± Sika was also exasperated. Of all the forces at work, Lex was the weakest. Despite Saleen expanding his turf at a frightening rate and being backed by Sreeger Ind, hecked deep pockets and reserved powers like the other empires.


    ¡°In the end, everyone gets fat while we be the most disadvantaged. I¡¯ll move against the Grand Duke of Pompeii and see how the Alchemy City reacts to it. If Alchemy City turns against me, I¡¯ll just go look for Grand Duke Iron Blood. I sure as hell doubt that madman would refuse the offer. If I ally with him, we¡¯d definitely be able to screw Alchemy City up real good.¡±


    Sika gasped in surprise. ¡°Isn¡¯t it a little too early to move against Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Sika, look. The mages of Sreeger Ind are getting increasingly powerful. It isn¡¯t just you and me who are getting more powerful from the rise of powers across the ne. There are so many mages in Alchemy City already, and if they grew just like the Sreeger Ind ones, we¡¯ll be left in the dust. There are already at least nine level ten mages at Alchemy City. If we wait any longer and one or two of the level ten ones advanced...¡±


    Sika saw no reason to disagree with Saleen. Imposa, who had run from Alchemy City, had almost killed Saleen. With Alchemy City having so many powerful mages, it was entirely normal for a few like Imposa to emerge.


    ¡°What would you do if the Grand Duke decides not to move against you?¡± Sika asked Saleen.


    Saleenughed. ¡°Sika, we¡¯re here asking for trouble. If I kicked down his door and threw dirt in his face, do you think he¡¯d just sit by and do nothing?¡± He paused. ¡°Even if he was able to bear that, if I killed his son, the one that nned something against Lex in the first ce, he wouldn¡¯t be the Grand Duke of Pompeii if he could sit with that.¡±

 Chapter 1160: The Insult Up Close and Personal Plan (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1160: The Insult Up Close and Personal n (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Made sense that you chosend transport. You¡¯re going in as a king instead of a mage!¡± Sika was rather exasperated with the trick.


    Saleen smirked. ¡°Well, his son wanted to take me out, and I didn¡¯t hold it against him. It was just business after all. If I held a grudge against every wrong done to me, I would have no time to practice magic. Right now though, this score waiting to be settled justes in handy for gauging Alchemy City¡¯s response to things. The Grand Duke is out of luck.¡±


    ¡°Alright, you¡¯re not a Caucasian. If you were a warrior and dared y tricks, I¡¯d have split your head open with my stick,¡± Sika said as she epted Saleen¡¯s ideas.


    ¡°You weren¡¯t wrong. My magic chords meant that I could only learn water magic, and that was the beginning of it all. I observed all types of water: rivers,kes, ice, and the sea. If there was one thing I learned about my observations of water, it was that water has no need for a permanent form.¡±


    ¡°Water has no need for a permanent form?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Water can be vaporized, dismantled then burned, frozen. It can refract light and also block out all light. If a body of water was turned to a river, then it would be destined to reach the ocean. Regardless of the difficulty of the journey, the end result will almost always be the same. If water gets vaporized and bes clouds, it gains attributes of wind element, but it¡¯s still water. What is most mystical about water is that it can be dismantled and burned, but will still yield the same amount of water afterwards. Regardless of what I do now, I¡¯m still that little mage from back then, Sika.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, save the sweet talk, Saleen. If you change, I¡¯ll take the kids somewhere you¡¯ll never find us.


    Saleen was about to say something but bit down on his lip. Sika continued, ¡°don¡¯t underestimate the power of a nature priest. If I leave, not even the gods would be able to get in my way.¡±


    ¡°If I betrayed my conscience, I would no longer be a mage, Sika. If you don¡¯t want me to change, then I¡¯ll never change.¡±


    ¡°Fine then. Right, did you see that archer¡¯s skills? Since you put him together with Nailisi and all.¡±


    ¡°I do, but I can¡¯t just ask him to be my follower just like that. No one appreciates things thate too easily. There¡¯s no way the kid wouldn¡¯t have thoughts with Eleanor around. The Seven Nights longbow is a godly weapon for archers after all.¡±


    ¡°So how do you intend to test him?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be simple: he¡¯ll do fine just as long as he doesn¡¯t die of an ident. There¡¯s no need for you to help. Nailisi will do just fine.¡±


    Sika turned around and looked at Saleen closely. She opened her arms and hugged Saleen hard. He felt as if his bones were about to pop, but did nothing to resist.


    Sika whispered at Saleen¡¯s ear, ¡°I really wish you didn¡¯t have to y so many tricks with people and just practice magic happily.¡±


    ¡°Not like I don¡¯t want to.¡± Saleen only cast Heal on himself when Sika let go of him, getting rid of the pain from the embrace. ¡°Can¡¯t do anything if the people won¡¯t just let us have peace.¡±


    ¡°Tell me of your n.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Saleen thought it would be good for him to share his thoughts if Sika wanted to share his burden. It was quite tiring to do the thinking on his own all the time. ¡°The n is simple. I contacted Safilos and told him I intended to move against the Grand Duke of Pompeii.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what?¡± Sika never expected that. Saleen truly knew how to catch others by surprise. ¡°What did Safilos say?¡±


    ¡°He said he didn¡¯t care.¡±


    ¡°Right, a tricky answer indeed.¡±


    ¡°I just said I needed excuses to spare the empire from any mess. So I told him I was about to contact the three major nobles west of the Grand Duke¡¯s territory.¡±


    ¡°And what did Safilos say about that?¡±


    ¡°He said the emperor would need to get involved personally.¡±


    ¡°So he passed the buck. Seems that the Grand Duke really got on his bad side!¡± Sika was no longer a naive girl. She was able to tell cause and effect well.


    ¡°So you contacted the emperor?¡±


    ¡°No way. If I got the emperor involved and acknowledged my actions, the matter would be the emperor¡¯s responsibility. However you put it, he is still Lex¡¯s little brother. Safilos, on the other hand, knew how to do it cleanly. And so I have no choice but to act on my own.¡±


    Sika thought for a bit and understood how things went. Getting the emperor to acknowledge Saleen¡¯s actions against the Grand Duke was not a problem. It would not cause any problem if Safilos did it. But having Saleen get three powerful nobles in the south to his side looked rather stupid. Safilos definitely would not agree to that, but if he wanted the Grand Duke of Pompeii out of the picture, someone else needed to take the me.


    The emperor outlived his usefulness. If Safilos was able to do something for the emperor before leaving him, it would end things perfectly.


    The magic chariot ran a thousand miles in a day and quickly reached its destination: somewhere that belonged to a greater noble at the south of Qin.


    The territory was farrger than the Grand Duke¡¯s estate, but the lord was just a marquis. The territory consisted mostly of mountains and no agriculture could be carried out. To Qin people, a piece ofnd that could not be farmed was worthless.


    The lord, Marquis Carloranna, gave Saleen a very warm wee. The marquis had been incredibly close to Emperor Chanake and shared an amicable rtions with Lex. The marquis had even presented Saleen and Lex with avish gift during their wedding.


    Carloranna looked like he was in his early thirties despite being well over 60. He was a powerful grand swordmaster. The marquis¡¯ father¡¯s generation had only two people. By the time the marquis took over, he was the only person of his n. However, the marquis sired 13 sons, and the 13 sons in turn bore over 60 descendants for the n.


    Emperor Chanake practically piled feoffments and awards on him throughout the years, which enabled his territory to be expanded to what it was. Despite his territory consisting only of mountains, there was still wood and magic beasts to be harvested.


    The Grand Duke of Pompeii had been extremely loyal when Emperor Chanake was in power, but the emperor saw problems with him, which led him to ce three of his most trusted nobles west of his territory. All three marquis held great power, enough to stop the grand duke¡¯s armies¡¯ advancement into the west.


    As such, most of the Qin nobles west of the Pompeii City were still loyal to the royal family. Otherwise, there would definitely be some who were so pressured by the Grand Duke that they chose to submit to him. Holy Rock City was close to Pompeii City after all.


    Saleen¡¯s party did not bother pulling any punches. Saleen had Nailisi deploy a thousand demons when they were about to reach Gauss City, the main city of Marquis Carloranna. All of them were equipped with temple guard gear.


    There were no human armies deployed, but Saleen summoned 200 Ancient Figures. All of them wore helmets and were disguised as his personal guard. With four magic chariots and over a dozenrge puppets for transporting goods added to the mix, the people of Gauss City were all excited to see Saleen¡¯s weing ceremony.


    The reason for their tion was simple. Doing business with the Kingdom of Metatrin was lucrative. Saleen imed the expedition was for building trade rtions with ind territories. They intended for Gauss City to serve as a waypoint for transporting goods southward at the west of Qin.


    The nobles, however, knew what was going on. The alliance was tactical instead of based on trade. Lex was about to make her move, and the southwestern nobles could get in line or get kicked out of the picture.


    Qin ceremonies were long. The marquis only invited Saleen to the House of the Lord after the people of Gauss City had been exposed to the Kingdom of Metatrin¡¯s army.


    Gauss City was built in the mountains, so the House of the Lord was also built on top of a hill, taking the surroundingnds for themselves. It enabled the ce to be securely defended even after the city was taken by invaders.


    It was a norm between all nearby nobles who were pressured by Pompeii City. All of them built their residences like fortresses.


    Carloranna was able to advance to be a golden grand swordmaster due to the rise of the maind¡¯s powers. It enabled his lifespan to be well over 200 years, even 300, so he valued the alliance between him and Saleen.


    Long ns for the future dictated that Carloranna would be able to get morend for his descendants. Between Qin and the Holy See, one must fall. Carloranna was an old school noble who hoped that he could put Emperor Chanake to rest in peace, even if he died doing so.


    He was all set to help Lex, and if their n seeded, Lex would treat his descendants well. His n rose from lesser nobles. Siding with the winning team was always the staple of politics.


    Carloranna did not bother doing anything pretentious and weed Saleen¡¯s entourage joyfully to the House of the Lord¡¯s secret room. He had all his personal guards cord the surrounding areas off, preventing anyone else from getting close.


    That also, in the way, told the spies in Gauss City that he was up to no good with the king of Metatrin.


    It was what Carloranna and Saleen hoped would happen. The faster the news travelled, the better. If Saleen was able to help speed up the process, he would even want to get his mages to help.


    It was not a rumor; it was provocation. Their target was none other than Pompeii City.


    ¡°You¡¯re finally here, Your Highness.¡± Marquis Carloranna was so moved that he was almost brought to tears. If Saleen was there personally, then his im of backing Lex would not be said for fun.


    ¡°Marquis, all the 18rge puppets and goods on them are for you. No need to rush about trade. We¡¯ll need to get rid of Grand Duke Pompeii before we can get trade running after all.¡±


    ¡°All of that for me. What about the other two then...¡± Carloranna was reserved. He did not want to get on the bad sides of the other two marquises. It was difficult to maintain good rtions. It would be bad if over 40 years of friendship were ruined by material goods.


    Saleen was ted to hear that. It seemed that Carloranna knew how to go about things. While Saleen had chosen Carloranna to be his main cooperator, he had no intention of giving up the other two marquises. If Carloranna intended to take everything for himself, Saleen would consider meeting the other two instead.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. That¡¯s a personal gift anyway. The gifts that Lex prepared for all three of you are all in my storage equipment.¡±


    ¡°Excellent. Your Highness, I hope that we get more material support from you. Of course, we¡¯re ready to buy them.¡±


    ¡°Gold no longer has that much meaning to me. What I value is your attitude towards Lex. You would have all the material support from me, so long as I have your word.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, please state your terms,¡± Carloranna answered solemnly. Despite being a golden grand swordmaster, but he was utterly unable to see the limits of Saleen¡¯s power, and that boosted his confidence in Saleen.

 Chapter 1161: I’m Here to Invade You (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1161: I¡¯m Here to Invade You (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen said to Marquis Carloranna, ¡°I¡¯ll take care of Pompeii City. You won¡¯t have to bear much of the brunt from the assault. You can use the materials I provide to build new armies, which can be trained when attacking Pompeii. The true battlefield should happen between us and the Holy See.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, you¡¯ve brought less than 2000 with you!¡± While Marquis Carloranna was very impressed with Saleen¡¯s powers, he still deemed it to be too straining for Saleen to take on the Grand Duke personally. From his perspective, the power of one person was always limited.


    ¡°No, I brought 100,000 with me and there are hundreds of level nine ones among them. The Grand Duke¡¯s Pompeii¡¯s estate is not a true duchy, so he can¡¯t have amassed toorge of an army. Take down Pompeii City and it¡¯d be the end of everything. I¡¯ll leave the rest to you.¡±


    Marquis Carloranna knew that the mage would not lie to dupe his allies, but the marquis was unable to see Saleen¡¯s army. Saleen smiled. ¡°I can guarantee that my demon army has absolute loyalty.¡±


    ¡°Well then, Your Highness Saleen, I¡¯ve heard that you¡¯re capable of employing special equipment to mobilizerge demon armies. Now I wonder if we can be of help in anything at all.¡±


    ¡°Marquis, whether Lex ends up bing empress is of no concern to me. What I¡¯m concerned about is your loyalty towards her, and how far you¡¯d back her. The war between the Holy See and Qin might slow down due to what is happening in Daliang City, but the war wille back sooner orter. The south side of Qin is connected to Cloudflow geographically. Would you fight Cloudflow for Lex?¡±


    Marquis Carloranna answered without much doubt, ¡°I and the other two marquises are willing to back Her Highness Lex to be the next empress, but our current emperor... well, he¡¯s still Lex¡¯s biological brother after all. We¡¯ll only be able to keep things as they¡¯re now until he steps down, not supporting any of the prince¡¯s decisions.¡±


    His words were as clear as they had to be. The current Qin emperor was ofmon folk and of poor health. Lex, on the other hand, was a level nine sorcerer and could live at least for over 1000 years.


    ¡°There are more than 300 nobles in the southwestern region other than you, and they have considerable military power. How many of them do you think you could sway to your side?¡±


    ¡°274 of them. The others are not worth buying over.¡±


    ¡°Excellent. Few ces in southwestern Qin are connected to Cloudflow. What you need to do is to make sure the remaining ones will not get any chance to sneak up on you. Your enemies wille from Cloudflow.¡±


    ¡°What about Pompeii City?¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t be handing the city over to Safilos once I¡¯m done taking it.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure about that, Your Highness?¡± Carloranna did not fear Safilos. What he meant was if Saleen was sure that he could hold Pompeii City. The city was right beside a river, which made it tactically important.


    ¡°Safilos won¡¯t be a problem. The problem is Alchemy City.¡± Saleen paid close attention to Carloranna¡¯s expression. No fluctuations were seen on Carloranna¡¯s face. He¡¯s truly a golden grand swordmaster. They might have reservations about mages, but they do have limits.


    ¡°Your Highness, Alchemy City has never posed a threat to the empire. It was due to the expansion of the empire¡¯s power throughout the ages that led to how things are today.¡± Carloranna¡¯s view was new, but Saleen had no intentions of delving deeper to see if it was urate. He only needed Carloranna and the nobles to not fear Alchemy City.


    Saleen asked for 20,000 soldiers from Carloranna. He did not ask for them from Carloranna alone. It was a total gathered by all three marquises as well as some from other nearby nobles. The 20,000 soldiers were tasked with escorting Saleen into the grand duke¡¯s estate, and he had no intention of saying hi first. If that proved inadequate in angering the Grand Duke, then Saleen would resort to writing a letter demanding the Grand Duke to hand over his son.


    Southern Qin had always been prosperous and powerful. The three marquises and over a dozen nearby nobles took just one day to gather the needed numbers for Saleen. It had to do with being prepared, but being able to mobilize a 20,000-person army meant that the southern nobles¡¯bat capacity had always been intact.


    Saleen stayed at Gauss City for two days before meeting the southwestern nobles, signing over 300 contracts and taking the 20,000 soldiers onto the Grand Duke¡¯s turf.


    Saleen only took notice of the perks provided by his status. He was able to get the southwestern nobles toply because he was a king and hadnd and troops. It was as if he was begging for help even though it was a joint operation.


    The wars that Saleen participated in before usually involved millions, but wars involving 10,000 wererge enough. The 20,000-persin marched and protected Saleen¡¯s entourage all the way into the Grand Duke¡¯s territory. The nobles siding with the grand duke panicked.


    The first to rise against Saleen out of panic was a viscount who attempted to mobilize his forces, about 1000 soldiers, to stop Saleen¡¯s attempt. Saleen was invading, after all!


    It was the kind of response that Saleen had wished for. Hemanded his army and crushed the noble¡¯s personal guards. The viscount did not expect Saleen to truly make a move, and Saleen did more than that. He took well over half of the opposing forces prisoner.


    While hostilities between the southwestern nobles were not really serious, but Grand Duke of Pompeii¡¯s actions had led many to resent him. The Grand Duke¡¯s noble army suffered over a hundred casualties and the rest were taken prisoner by Saleen, who then handed them over to the southwestern nobles to be returned to their respective territories. They would be dealt with after the war was over.


    Qin people did not have a habit of killing prisoners, especially with skirmishes fought between nobles within their own country. While the prisoners all looked dejected, they knew well that it was a fate better than dying on the battlefield.


    Saleen deliberately slowed down and headed for the coordinates of the temple. Less than 2000 miles took Saleen almost ten days. Even to the Qin people, that was too slow.


    Saleen had to deal with opposing forcesing to harass him over and over. The forces were always small, even mercenaries. Saleen kept the casualties in check, as the lesser nobles were not at each others¡¯ throats. The troops consisted entirely of Qin locals. If he went too far with the killing, it would be bad for his rule in the future.


    When the weather gradually turned cold, Saleen¡¯s forces reached outside of a city.


    Saleen dispatched a messenger and wrote a letter to the city lord. The letter was written in an incredibly pompous manner and made his intentions very clear: he wanted to take this city for himself for six months. During that period, everyone in the city were scattered outside. The city lord, a veteran earl, included as well.


    Saleen then set up magic cannons outside the city, aimed at various targets in the city. His cannons were all installed on artificially created hills, allowing the weapons to fire directly into the city.


    The earl read Saleen¡¯s letter and got incredibly angry. His underling, however, knew the power difference. ¡°Sir, Saleen is a king, which means that he¡¯s being incredibly callous with his actions. You¡¯re not his match, sir. How about this? You agree to scatter the people of the city, but he would need to pay for the losses suffered.¡±


    The earl thought for a bit and figured that the proposal made sense. While he had over 3000 elite troops, but the lesser nobles before had already proven sufficiently that if he went against a 20 thousand-strong southwestern noble army, it would be like throwing eggs at a stone wall.


    Saleen watched in the military camp outside the city. He knew what the Qin elites were capable of. Despite having be a level ten mage, he remained as ted as he was before.


    The prior battles had proven the demons¡¯bat prowess. With the cannons set up, the city before him could be taken at a very small cost. The troops, however, did not let their guard down about the uing battle. The camp¡¯s atmosphere was tense. Even the soldiers feeding the horses were on guard.


    Military discipline was strictly enforced and the troops were divided into two major camps. Things went very smoothly, which meant that the troops¡¯ training had been done professionally.


    Saleen patrolled the camps, apanied by themander when a soldier delivered the news, that the messenger dispatched by the city asked to meet His Highness Saleen.


    ¡°I¡¯m not doing it. I don¡¯t want to risk getting angry and killing the messenger. Just tell the messenger what I said.¡± Saleen fully intended on shooing the messenger away before Nailisi whispered in his ear. Saleen stopped the soldier and took out a piece of paper, writing several lines on it with magic and handed it to the soldier. ¡°Tell the messenger to take this back to the city. If they dare dispatch anyone else, I won¡¯t go easy on them.¡±


    The earl waited anxiously for Saleen¡¯s reply. He was thinking about running even if Saleen refused topensate him. It was stupid to fight such a powerful enemy. However, Saleen was there to ask for trouble. The letter that the messenger brought back contained news that brought him to tears.


    Saleen told the earl that in order to show that he meant business, he had decided to bombard the House of the Lord with the magic cannons. Saleen gave the earl an hour to tell his family to run.


    There was a map drawn below the lines of words, which clearly showed theyout of the city, as well as the location of the House of the Lord. Saleen drew a red line around the House of the Lord, and area inside the line was where he intended tounch his attack.


    ¡°How can this be! How can this be...¡± The earl mumbled in pain. He stared nkly at the paper. It would only take him over a few minutes to scatter everyone; he was grieving over the treasures in the House of the Lord.


    Saleen is going too far. Does he even see me as a noble?


    A streak of magic light lit up on the paper and a powerful line appeared before the earl, glittering in the air.


    ¡°Earl, I¡¯m here to invade the ce, so be quick about it.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words made the earl jump. He yelled, ¡°what are you all still waiting for? Get the hell out of this sted ce now!¡±


    The earl understood that Saleen had no intentions of killing anyone, but he did not necessarily have any reservations about killing. Ironwall City served as a good example. While he was an earl, the city had 80,000 people, less than one-tenth of the Ironwall City¡¯s poption.


    The House of the Lord was emptied within half an hour. Everyone saw the magic cannons outside the city and knew how precious life could be. As for hidden treasures, the earl could only me himself for not storing them in the imperial bank.


    However, it was something that all nobles serving the Grand Duke of Pompeii did. They were all afraid of problems when putting their money in the imperial bank.

 Chapter 1162: I’m Here to Invade You (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1162: I¡¯m Here to Invade You (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Grand Duke of Pompeii did a lot of calctions, but he never thought that would be his downfall.


    The Imperial Bank of Qin was under the Grukos royalty¡¯s control. It had a good reputation and most nobles were willing to store their money there. However, most of the Grand Duke¡¯s people were up to no good and had most of their wealth converted into either magic nuclei or gold, which were stored in their own homes.


    While Emperor Chanake never sent anyone to the Grand Duke¡¯s turf to search for any evidence, but he was able to specte that over half of the wealth in Pompeii City did not pass through the Imperial Bank.


    As such, the emperor resorted to using three marquises to cut off the Grand Duke¡¯s rtions with the southwestern nobles.


    Saleen finished patrolling the camp outside of the city and found the soldiers reliable. There were also ample mages, so it would not be a problem to hold such a small city down.


    An hour passed and the cannons that Saleen set up attacked. Thick energy beams razed the earl¡¯s residence in seconds.


    The cannons were manned by demons. They were veryrge evenpared to the demons, who were over five meters tall. The demons have been following Saleen long enough to find Myers Maind to be amusing and gradually lost the will to return to the demon ne.


    It was the goal of the demons to join the temple guard instead.


    It was a pity, however, that once they joined the temple guard, they would not be able to see battles. Saleen¡¯s kingdom was still rather and safe for the most part. While they were practically stepping over their enemies this time, the demons were very happy.


    The magic cannons fired a second time at little more than rubble.


    The residence waspletely destroyed. While it did not look as bad as the time the Magical Element Tower deployed thousands of demon spirits and everything was reduced to ash, things looked bad enough that nothing was worth restoring.


    Saleen waited outside the city. The earl brought his army and left the city on his own about half a dayter. Saleen was apparently ying him for a fool with emptying the city. The earl knew to leave without making any demands, bringing his people with him


    ¡°I¡¯ll be back sooner orter!¡± The earl said to his most trusted with tears in his eyes, before having his entourage move east. The southwestern army did not surround the city. They instead stood on the west side of the city. The earl left, lookingposed, unfettered, and sorrowful...


    However, the mages behind the earl turned to look at the city, looking reluctant. They did not miss the city; they missed the person who was about to take it¡ªSaleen.


    They all knew that Saleen had countless mages serving him and even low-level ones would get the chance to be appreciated, which meant the chance to be privileged.


    It was said that Master Saleen¡¯s student had originally been a low-level mage, and he had grown to be a level nine sorcerer within just a few years of following Saleen.


    The mages, however, had consciences. The earl had kept them around for years and they had no intention of betraying him. When they were done returning the favor to the earl, some of the mages would definitely flock to Saleen¡¯s camp.


    Saleen¡¯s Kingdom of Metatrin had be akin to Alchemy City. At the very least, mages perceived it to be so.


    It was far more difficult to join Metatrin City than to join Alchemy City. However, once a mage became a part of Metatrin City, their living conditions were far better than Alchemy City.


    Most of the money that the mages made in Alchemy City were taken away one way or another. Any diligent mage working in Metatrin City would be able to save a lot.


    Even if they left the city for a while, they would not worry about bing destitute. The savings were magic nuclei.


    If someone was unable to join Metatrin City, Lonestar City was a decent alternative. Lonestar City was the capital for death mages, but elemental mages had considerable status in the city.


    The city lord, Earl Aini, gave periodical lectures and exchanges to the mages, making the city conducive for learning magic.


    There was also the Principality of Bitterwater, which belonged to Countess Lex. The countess was Saleen¡¯s wife and the ce looked decent, which perhaps was due to Saleen¡¯s support.


    If the mages did not have favors to repay to the earl, they would not even want to talk ill of Saleen, let alone actually fight him. Saleen gradually built considerable influence among the mages.


    Other than Metatrin City¡¯sbat capacity, it also broke Alchemy City¡¯s monopoly of magic nucleus resources. Metatrin City¡¯s mages became capable of crafting magic power furnaces, which enabled them to craft all manners of puppets.


    The contraptions enabled easier ess into the Oceanic Ice Block, which allowed the mages to hunt for more magic sea beasts. Magic nucleus supplies no longer bothered Saleen anymore.


    A mage¡¯s training did not require magic nuclei. However, every single mage was racing against time. If they made it through the next level before their lives ended, their lifespan would be extended considerably.


    As such, mages saw magic nuclei as necessities, as they enabled them to shorten their training, enabling them to put more time into studying the intricacies and secrets of magic.


    Saleen gained control of magic nuclei and broke Alchemy City¡¯s pricing system on such a precious resource. It angered Alchemy City ,and given how previous negotiations between two parties yielded no results, it was only a matter of time before they shed.


    It was why Saleen said that he held no enmity against Grand Duke of Pompeii, but just that the Grand Duke was unlucky enough to be made a tool by Saleen.


    With the city¡¯s army withdrawn and the gates opened, Saleenmanded his army to take the city. Tens of thousands of citizens within were hardly frightened and Saleen did not go overboard.


    He simply had his troops post announcements saying that the Kingdom of Metatrin would be taking the city, and everyone needed to leave.


    It was, without a doubt, a lie. Saleen nned to have the southwestern nobles take the city, provoking the Grand Duke of Pompeii to attack him, and then he would head straight for Pompeii City.


    Saleen had an edge. All he needed was a reason to attack the Grand Duke.


    He did not scatter the residents after taking the city, but built a new wall on the ruins of the earl¡¯s residence instead. Saleen forbade anyone from getting close.


    Territorial powers were cast, encasing the entire city. Saleen took control of the Puppet World Realm¡¯s powers and had them build a new residence.


    The residence would be themand center from there on out. The coordinates that Saleen was looking for were right under it. He would not waste the magic cannons to attack a group of buildings with no tactical value.


    It would only be convenient for him to build magic constructions after razing them. He did not use the Magical Element Tower to avoid any risk involved, but he had something constructed on top of the portal.


    A tall metal structure was built right on top of it. Having be a level ten mage, Saleen absorbed metals within the earth element in the ground for construction. He had Water me Alchemy, which enabled evenmon metals to be put to great use after being tempered.


    It was a huge tower, and the base consisted only of stones. Saleen was incapable of absorbing the metals of the core of the earth, and the metals he was able to craft consisted only of the top part of the tower.


    A thick pir of copper stood at the center, surrounded by fearsome-looking metallic machinery. There were rooms surrounding the pir on top of one another. The rooms provided shelter for the demonic spirits.


    There were considerable amounts of mages among the southwestern nobles¡¯ ranks, but Saleen had no intentions of wasting them at a ce like that.


    When the construction was finished, the building could be seen from miles away. Saleen raised the height of the wall and installed magic cannons at the top. The definition of a level ten professional was quite different in Saleen¡¯s case as he gathered even stronger territorial powers.


    The Puppet World Realm worked like a level ten magic spell when used, and he was able to maintain it for over an hour. Furthermore, the territorial powers did not cost magic chords. He was able to maintain the powers for over 500 hours.


    It was all thanks to the ring from Arb, which manifested its true worth by then. The longer a mage was able to maintain their territorial powers, the greater theirbat capacity.


    The ring was capable of enhancing Saleen¡¯s mental powers by 12 times, and his mental powers were considerably stronger than mages of his level, so much so that it seemed to be something of an entirely different level altogether.


    Conventional level ten mages, even having mastered territorial powers, were capable of maintaining them for little more than 10 minutes. It was considered an amazing feat for mages of higher strength, when backed by magic pharmaceuticals, to enhance their mental powers by twice their original amount.


    Saleen, as someone who was able to maintain his powers for over 500 hours, was able to use territorial powers in battle without affecting his spell-casting.


    The entire city was encased by the territory, but itmon folk would not notice. Saleen¡¯s Puppet World was capable of manifesting in tangible forms and the puppets appeared humanoid.


    There were beast-like puppets, as well as puppets that looked like buildings, trees, vehicle,s and so on.


    The citizens would only feel that there seemed to be more strangers around than it used to be and buildings that had not been there originally.


    That was only because Saleen did not bother to control the citizens¡¯ thoughts. They would not notice the changes in their surroundings if he had done so.


    The city was six miles long and Saleen raised the city wall to 60 meters, which was divided into two floors. It gave conventional armies an edge in defense and a considerable number of magic cannons were installed on top of the wall.


    Many metal towers were erected as well. The city did not have arge poption, but it was by no means small. Saleen could not construct a magic using territorial powers all on his own. He was able to construct a little more than a framework.


    There were people from the Kingdom of Metatrin to help the southwestern nobles construct a city that was easily defensible but difficult to take down.


    Saleen said that he was there to invade the city and actually did it. Setting up a base in other people¡¯s territory was a sure way of inciting them to attack.


    The Grand Duke of Pompeii did not have any other choice. Saleen, on the other hand, looked into the temple beneath while the Grand Duke was busy amassing his forces.


    The Magical Element Tower was deployed, but only used for contacting Metatrin City. A small magic power furnace was set up to allow a magic to be constructed.


    Mages were required, as the construction of magics required a considerable number of magic patterns to be crafted. Saleen set up the framework of the, and the rest was assigned to the mages from the alchemy factories.


    Everything was set up, and all they had to do was wait for the Grand Duke to make his move. Saleen returned to the House of the Lord, opening a portal using divine powers in the Ring of Gifts, standing below the tall metal tower.

 Chapter 1163: Shards of the Sky (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1163: Shards of the Sky (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had someone stand guard outside and did not bring Sika in. He brought Daniel and Isabe instead.


    They were not high level mages, but since the temple was built in a ce with so much human traffic, the Goddess of Myers¡¯ personality dictated that she would not ce something terrifying.


    Furthermore, Saleen wielded the powers of the Puppet World Realm, making him practically immune to being surrounded. The territorial powers were greater than even his own, and bringing Nailisi and the others would not make much of a difference.


    Saleen¡¯s family badge was filled with energy. The Thunder Dragon ster only needed an hour to cool down, and 24 level 11 spells were infused within the Starline Robe.


    Saleen no longer needed to be as cautious and meticulous, and he no longer shirked things, as long as the enemy did not possess greater equipment.


    Daniel and Isabe both knew that Saleen was making things up to them. Every single person that Saleen brought into temples had something to gain. Daniel was swamped with day-to-day affairs.


    If it had not been for a lesser noble like Daniel working hard when Metatrin City was first established, Saleen would not have had time to attend to other matters.


    As for Isabe, she had been away for quite some time and Saleen hoped that she would be able to brush up on her powers as soon as possible to be capable of truly serving him.


    Her ordeal would either enhance her unique skills or pose an obstacle for advancement.


    Saleen did not want Isabe to give so much o following him and end up gaining nothing in the end.


    The portals to the temples were all different and this one had some light in it. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye scanned it and found the light emanating from phosphor. Phosphor could originate from bones, which was precisely what had happened in the temple.


    It was unknown how many magic beasts and humans died in the portal, leaving behind piles of bones. The phosphor from some bones were capable of burning for hundreds of thousands of years.


    The bones had natural magic patterns on them. Bones with magic patterns were a sign that the creatures were level 12 or above when they were alive. Saleen was ted to see the bones and said to Daniel, ¡°You, Aini, and the Winged Skull can split the bones.¡±


    Saleen knew that despite having be a level eight sorcerer, Danielcked decent space equipment, so he grabbed them for Daniel. The bones were of high enough level for crafting powerful spirit equipment.


    The portal ended after six miles. There were no temples at the end, only the remains of a huge battlefield. Bones and armor pieces littered the ground. Broken weapons andrge scale equipmentid about.


    There were even huge puppets that were practically torn to pieces, the sheen in their eyes long gone.


    It seemed that millions had duked it out there. Judging from the quality of the broken weapons, the battlefield was ancient. Saleen frowned and took to the air, scanning the area with his Elemental Eye. He did not find the edge of the battlefield nor any signs of the temple.


    This is impossible. If the Ring of Gifts was able to open up a portal, that means that this is where Myers built her temple. The Elemental Eye can see over a hundred miles away. Why isn¡¯t the temple in sight?


    His Ring of Gifts was able to detect temples. Even if his Elemental Eye happened to be blocked by divine spells, it would not be able to escape the Ring of Gifts¡¯ detection.


    The sky was pitch ck but there was light. Aini and Isabe were both capable of seeing their surroundings using skills.


    ¡°My liege, the air here seems thin,¡± Isabe said to Saleen.


    ¡°This is not Myers Maind, but some independent space that the goddess created to hide the temple.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not. This is an interdimensional space!¡± Daniel did not fall into inertial thinking and found the problem quicker than Saleen.


    An interdimensional space?


    Saleen was ted. Raphael had been able to find an interdimensional space, preventing him from being hunted by the Lord of Light. Fycro wanted to find an interdimensional space in the hopes of amassing his own believers.


    Interdimensional spaces were precious and rare. Saleen would have to build a city rivaling the Holy Rock City to conceal the secret teleportation portal.


    The interdimensional space he found was even more precious, as it was probably very near the Myers Maind. The goddess was incapable of opening a stable portal, resorting to using teleportation portals instead.


    ¡°My liege, it¡¯d be quite a loss for us to give this city to the southwestern nobles!¡± Isabe developed a keen eye for preciousmodities. She knew that the equipment and high level bones were nowhere near as valuable as the interdimensional space itself.


    Saleen hesitated for a bit. If he advanced to the next level, he would be capable of creating ne coordinates, making it easier to link the interdimensional space with Myers Maind. The cost of getting to Myers Maind from that interdimensional space was far less than Raphael¡¯s.


    The air there was thin and there were hardly any nts. There were few stars in the sky, which was probably blocked by the air. There were thick clouds floating in the sky. They had no idea if the interdimensional space was growing about to copse.


    ¡°No need to be in a hurry to clean up the battlefield!¡± Saleenmanded his two followers to create a set of coordinates. It was an effort involving all three of them, as it would make the coordinates considerably more stable.


    Daniel used death magic, Saleen used elemental magic, and Isabe used silver sword aura. A set of coordinates with three types of attributes would make it difficult to be erased. Saleen created a link between them and the coordinates to prevent them from getting lost.


    Magicpasses were not all useful in interdimensional spaces. If one intended to return to a certain point, it was best to use coordinates. Saleen did not think that to be enough and summoned arge puppet. He simply let the puppet stand there, doing nothing.


    There were many puppets left on the battlefield and all of them had long been drained. The damages they suffered were difficult to repair. Therge thing that Saleen had taken in a while ago did not look out of ce at all in a battlefield littered with puppets.


    Therge puppet served both as a guard as well as a mark. Saleen would still be able to connect to the puppet¡¯s soul so long as he stayed within a hundred miles radius.


    Once he was done with all that, Saleen took his two followers and took to the air, flying at the defending side of the battlefield.


    Saleen had tond every hundred miles to set up new coordinates. The battlefield spanned over 400 miles. Saleen flew over 1000 miles before arriving at the end of thend.


    A ck oceany at the end of thend and Saleen felt a lot better at seeing water. That interdimensional space was not all that deste, but the water element was not all that stable as well, feeling rathercking. Water element finally looked thick when they came near the ocean.


    However, Saleen was not in the mood to look into the ck waters. He only knew that the ck waters did not contain poisons and that someponents within were hardly of any difference with that on Myers Maind. The waters should be able to host living beings, but it was entirely dead instead.


    What Saleen was concerned about the most at the moment was that he finally saw the temple, floating on the ocean.


    Saleen was very moved. It was the first time he felt so strongly about bagging the entire temple. There was a patch ofnd beneath the temple of unknown material. His Elemental Eye scanned the dirt and rocks, finding a beehive structure.


    There were 24 temples on top of the ind. The temples were constructedpletely of wood, elegant and intricate. They bore no simrities to the other temples of the Goddess of Myers.


    The ind was about 80 miles away from shore and the hall took less than one-third of the ind. Saleen took a deep breath to calm his rising emotions. ¡°Let¡¯s get up there.¡±


    Daniel and Isabe were both unable to see it. Their sight was limited to little more than two miles.


    Saleen easily took them along using Quickcloud and arrived on the ind. The ind was 36 miles in length and width, just like Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    Saleen attempted to use territorial powers and found nothing resisting his turf. He grew even more ted as it meant that there were no other powers in the interdimensional space.


    But how am I going to bag an ind that is 36 miles across? Can I take it apart? It looks feasible given how the ce seemed to be put together in blocks. But the puppets would take too much time to take the ind apart.


    Give up? Hell no! This floating ind may actually be part of the Sky City.


    He had the mechanical core of the Sky City, Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water to nurture the core, and his teacher possessed the Heart of the Sky. If he got thend part of the Sky City, then he would be able to build aplete Sky City, which was far more powerful than a flying tower.


    He would no longer need to painstakingly train armies to wage wars. He would only need to bring the Sky City above his enemies¡¯ cities and bombard cities. At altitudes of over ten thousand meters, even a pebble could wrought devastating damage.


    ¡°My liege?¡± Both Isabe and Daniel were aware that something was not right with Saleen.


    ¡°Do both of you know that the ind beneath our feet might actually be a part of the Sky City?¡±


    Daniel and Isabe werepletely dumbstruck.


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen the Sky City¡¯s schematics. It¡¯s huge and this ind is less than one-tenth of its size. But, even if we are able to create just one chunk ofnd...¡±


    ¡°My liege, this is crazy! There is no way we can take something this big with us!¡± Daniel wailed, while Isabe eyed thend beneath her feet with wide-opened eyes.


    ¡°There is definitely something we can do. You saw how big that portal was, how did Myers get it ] here?!¡± Saleen immediately knew he was not making sense.


    Even if Myers was not a god, she was a level 18 mage and had space equipment that probably rivaled God¡¯s Ring.


    The God¡¯s Ring would definitely be able to bag the entire chunk ofnd beneath their feet. However, even if Lex gave him her ring, his mental powers meant that he would not be able to take such a huge ind.


    ¡°My liege, let¡¯s head down to the temples. We might find clues there,¡± Daniel reminded Saleen. The Goddess of Myers would definitely have a purpose for leaving a part of the Sky City behind like that.

 Chapter 1164: Shards of the Sky (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1164: Shards of the Sky (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen felt dejected. Even if he expanded his territory to the limit, it would not be able to match a single corner of the Sky City. If the Sky City could be broken so easily, it would not be considered one of the greatest achievements of ancient humans.


    Even if he were a pseudogod and bombarded the Sky City with all he has gotten, it would not have any effect on the construct, and he was just a level ten mage.


    Water me Alchemy might have had ways of dismantling the inner parts of the ind, but doing so would be extremely time-consuming and would make assembly near-impossible.


    All three of them lit their way with magic, walking towards the temple one step at a time. Saleen noticed that there was no holy prose written on the temple. The pirs were all etched with magic patterns.


    Was this ce is not built before the Goddess of Myers perished?


    The inside of the temple looked even more different, so much so it made him feel as if the ce was a pce instead of a temple.


    Saleen grew more sure of the thought after venturing inside the temple. While the hall was identical to the others in size andyout, there were no altars or prayer rooms in the hall¡¯s inner structure.


    There were all kinds of houses, bridges, artificialkes, rivers, fake mountains, gardens, and so on between the halls.


    The ce was probably built before the Goddess of Myers attained godhood. Saleen recalled the news that he had gotten from the Imperial City of the Abyss. Before she became a god, her level was the same as the First Dynasty¡¯s emperor. She was a level 18 mage.


    A level 18 mage was fully qualified to possess the Sky City.


    There had been more than one Sky City in Myers Maind. All the masters of the Sky Cities had been level 18 professionals. All of them fought in wars on other nes, invading kingdoms of gods and capturing them. The Sky Cities vanished with the powerful figures.


    Myers remained behind on the maind, which meant that the Sky City that belonged to her was not taken away.


    There were no schematics of ancient pces left behind, as their design was entirely up to masters of said pces, devoid of all the rules that weremonce in present day.


    Mages participated in the construction of every single building back then, which enabled them look extremelyvish and elegant. Even some astrologers appreciated the designs.


    It was fortunate that the pce had lost all power. The only thing that remained was the extremely durable wood of the construction. The magic patterns served as little more than decorations after it lost its power source.


    Saleen walked inside a hall, which held a wide living space. There were tables and chairs and decorations on the walls.


    It looked like a waiting room. All 18 chairs were ced beneath the window. A unique table was in front of every chair.


    Myers had been an extremely important figure on the maind before she became a god. There had been a Sky City belonging to Myers among all the others found in the sky of the maind. The ce that Saleen and his followers were in was probably a pce that belonged to Myers before she became a god.


    Saleen continued to analyze as he walked past the halls. Theyout looked like it belonged to someone serving as the core of a country. It was a pity that no documents were left. Humans had extremely long lifespan back then and hardly considered anything about after their passing.


    Humans who were capable of fighting gods might not have lived as long as the gods, but their lives were not short.


    Saleen¡¯s only bounty from the search was knowing that the pce was built directly on the core of thend part of the Sky City. The core of thend, which had a beehive-like structure, was capable of clinging to dirt.


    The group of pces might have served as a control hub of the Sky City. Saleen saw a huge magic array in another za. The pces looked different from the temples he had seen. There were some with two or three floors, the tallest being nine floors.


    A nine-floored pce enabled evenmon folk to gaze on the pces.


    Saleen was unable to find any leads even after exploring the ce for hours.


    ¡°Let¡¯s head back,¡± Saleen said calmly.


    ¡°Head back? Aren¡¯t we taking the pce apart?¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t do that. The pces are different from temples. They would lose their value if we took them apart. We¡¯ll head back and clean up the battlefield.¡± Saleen forcefully suppressed his greed. It would not do him any good even if he stayed.


    He ran through all sorts of ideas and found that there was no way for him to bring the entire piece ofnd out of the interdimensional space, unless he broke up the structure of the Sky City.


    He did not mind as the city connected to this ce was not that important. Nobody would know the truth about him holding down the city. Not even Agares would figure that he had kept the whole temple intact instead of taking it apart.


    Daniel and Isabe did not mind at all. Good stuff littered the ancient battlefield, but it would be quite troublesome to clean up. It was fortunate that their liege¡¯s territory excelled in troublesome menialbor like that.


    Over half of the puppets resembled humans in size, and there were also smaller puppets, enabling them to bag any equipment or material that was deemed worthy.


    Saleen took the two with him and returned to the maind of the interdimensional space. Saleen left a good number of marks behind to confirm the coordinates on the Sky City¡¯s piece.


    Regardless of where the ind ended up, Saleen would be able to find it, so long as it remained in the interdimensional space.


    Saleen¡¯s way of dealing with the battlefield was simple. He expanded his territory to the limit and had the puppets take everything, including blood-stained dirt.


    Saleen thoroughly searched the ce, not letting even a single arrowhead be left behind. It was easier that way. It cost mental powers to control the entire territory. The simpler Saleen¡¯s orders were, the smaller the cost on Saleen¡¯s mental powers was.


    Furthermore, bagging everything was the quickest. There was nothing of value left on the battlefield. Saleen found a broken de that looked different from contemporary weapons, as it was made of hard materials and unnervingly sharp. Such metals were usually used on the edge of des. The broken de would contribute to making sharp weapons when taken home.Read more chapter on vipnovel


    There were also arrowheads. Most of the arrowheads on the battlefield were crafted by mages. Saleen even managed to find some that were crafted by astrologers.


    Saleen initially did not pay much heed to such materials, but when he thought about it, he would still need an army even if he was able to craft an entire Sky City.


    The army could be deployed from the air to any ce on the maind. The temple guards could well serve as a model for the Sky City army.


    The temple guards¡¯ equipment was not powerful enough. Saleen needed to arm a demon army of over 200,000 humans and demons. The materials would be sourced on the broken equipment littering the ancient battlefield.


    Saleen took half a day to clean up the entire battlefield. He took huge amounts of samples, dirt, and water. While there were no living beings there, it was a ce suitable for housing people.


    The only problem was that it required massive amounts of energy. Saleen had stayed there for almost a whole day, and there were still no signs of the sun rising.


    If he intended to carry out agriculture, he would have to either rely on magic gardens or nt fauna from the subterranean ne. The subterranean ne¡¯s above ground was inhospitable and all living beings were underground. nts grew without need for a sun.


    All the things were taken back to be analyzed by mages. The results would show the interdimensional space¡¯s rate energy decay and passage of time, as well as the length of its existence. The results would eventually be able to tell them if that interdimensional space was at the brink of copse or was growing.


    Saleen built the framework of a teleportation portal once he felt that he left nothing left. There was no telling how long the teleportation portal couldst and if it would eventually be destroyed by its surroundings.


    Saleen would not dare use it for a second time and it served only as an alternative. If the portal they came through happened to copse, he would have to resort to the alternative.


    When Saleen returned to the metal tower through the portal, Nailisi, who had been waiting outside, gasped in surprise. ¡°Master, you¡¯re quick.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll talkter,¡± Saleen left the area with his trusted ones, taking out the Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen only told everything he saw to his followers when they arrived on the 17th floor of the Magical Element Tower and were in apletely sealed space.


    The archer stood at the side. He faced Saleen and employed ancient customs without any hesitation, kneeling down. ¡°Master, please allow me to be your follower. I am willing to pay the highest price asked of me to do so.¡±


    Saleen looked at the archer. ¡°Qin, you need to know that if you became my follower, you would be losing your freedom so long as I live.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m aware, but I¡¯m at a loss about the future, and I hope I would receive guidance from you, master. If there is no future, then no amount of freedom matters.¡±


    Saleen heard the mage¡¯s idiom that the level nine archer had just blurted and smiled. ¡°So this is to say that you¡¯ve prepared everything?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, master.¡± Qin did not get up. He silently waited for Saleen¡¯s answer.


    ¡°Your level and abilities were all disyed in the battle of the Royal Harbor. However, infighting is entirely forbidden between my followers. Can you rely on each other, swear to never betray us, fight with us, and never give up?¡±


    ¡°I can, master.¡± Qin answered resolutely.


    ¡°Would you give everything up when I need you, including your life?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, master.¡±


    Qin knew that Saleen was about to hand him the follower¡¯s contract, identical to the ones signed by Daniel and the others. He would be treated equally with Saleen¡¯s other followers.


    If Saleen was willing to have him as a follower, that meant that Saleen would be willing to invest in him. Even with the least of expectations, Saleen would think of ways to enable him to be a level ten archer.


    Even if the day came where Saleen really needed his life, Saleen would not simply ask for him to die immediately. He would be tasked to carry out an extremely dangerous mission. It was a price that he deemed worth paying.


    ¡°Alright then, Qin, sign this contract with your blood.¡± Saleen he took out a starline scroll. It was prepared for Qin. Saleen had kept a close eye on the archer for a long time and deemed him a professional worthy.


    He had deliberately talked about the secrets of Sky City¡¯s piece in front of the archer to gauge the archer¡¯s reactions.

 Chapter 1165: Southwestern Strategies (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1165: Southwestern Strategies (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Qin pricked his finger and wrote his name on the starline scroll with his blood. Starlight lit up on the scroll, and it was reduced to dust.


    Saleen confirmed that nothing was wrong with Qin¡¯s contract before continuing, ¡°Qin, now that you¡¯re my follower, I will tell you things regarding the temples. You won¡¯t be excluded from what we talk about from here on out.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my liege.¡± Qin never worried about his treatment under Saleen, as his liege never spared expenses in the department. Even a professional who was close to him would not be treated very differently.


    He was a rare find¡ªa level nine archer¡ªand so he did not need to worry about being mistreated.


    ¡°Alright, listen up. A part of the Sky Cityy within this temple, which should be a piece ofnd. Thend is just too big, over 30 miles in both length and width, and is over two miles thick. I¡¯m unable to bring it out with me, and I will have it one way or another. If I can¡¯t have it, no one else can. We can¡¯t afford to lose the city. Things will be safe here for a short period of time, but I¡¯m concerned about Agares.¡±


    ¡°Agares won¡¯t necessarily know the secret here, Master. You can just draw his attention elsewhere.¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡± Saleen agreed to Nailisi¡¯s words. ¡°I don¡¯t n on expanding here. We¡¯ll only need 10,000 to hold it, since I¡¯ll be using demonic spirits and demons. The Magical Element Tower can make it back here any time once we¡¯ve got the teleportation portal set up.¡±


    ¡°My liege, who do you n to leave behind?¡± Daniel asked, concerned. He was reluctant to go back to handling day-to-day affairs, anding with Saleen had been the right choice.


    Saleen had absolute trust on Daniel by now. During Saleen¡¯s most difficult time, he had stayed in Metatrin City and worked hard, passing the test.


    Saleen smiled. ¡°No need to worry, Daniel. I¡¯ll have you around. I¡¯m nning on building a second Demon City here, and I¡¯ll leave things to Cuisi. He will set up a mercenary group consisting of demons.¡±


    Sika and the others followed Saleen¡¯s trail of thought and found the n sound, as it was capable of concealing their true motives from everyone else. With the headquarters of the demon mercenaries there, the southwestern nobles would have ess to reinforcements at any time.


    They needed to resist the pressure from Alchemy City from the east. Building a demon force would not rm any of the locals.


    ¡°Master, Vinz and the others got familiar with my ce and they won¡¯t choose to leave.¡± Nailisi was reluctant to let them go. The four magic beast swordsmen that Saleen had taken in had all advanced to silver grand swordmasters.


    Actualbat prowess notwithstanding, the four had developed a keen sense in training demons and be very familiar with them. They were able to pick all types of demonic tongue ents and were very knowledgeable on demonic bloodlines and breeds.


    With the four handling things in Demon City, elite demon army units were able to be trained quickly, easing Nailisi¡¯s burden considerably.


    ¡°Heh, Nailisi, there are many who would kill for the position, you know,¡± Sika jabbed at Nailisi, seeing how she was reluctant to make sacrifices. Sika felt that she needed to remind the imp to keep her in check, as she was prone to frustrating antics if she got too full of herself.


    Nailisi lowered her head, looking as if she knew what she did wrong.


    Saleen pretended as if he did not see any of it. ¡°Daniel, I¡¯d need you to advance to level nine, or you¡¯ll be too easily suppressed when fighting the Holy See. Make a list of what you need as soon as possible. We can pretend that the temple doesn¡¯t exist for the moment. We need to attack Pompeii City immediately.¡±


    Eleanor added, ¡°it was said that Pompeii City was in league with Alchemy City and gained a lot of support from mages. There were many towers in the city, making it very difficult to deploy the metal flyers.¡±


    ¡°So we¡¯ll see how many troops the Grand Duke will send in our way. If they¡¯re noting here, I¡¯d just set up the Demon City. If he¡¯s here...¡± Murderous intent glimmered in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Everyone but Sika was taken aback, sending shivers down their spines.


    If the Grand Duke of Pompeii sent his forces to attack the Demon City that Saleen built, it would be the end of the invading army. The Grand Duke was formidable, but he did note from a thousand-year-old n like Grand Duke Iron Blood. Being in league with Alchemy City was simply a move to help in Pompeii City¡¯s defense.


    On the other hand, Saleen had 100,000 demons, as well as thousands of demonic spirits at his disposal. They were capable of dealing with enemy forces ten times their size.


    ¡°Acknowledged, Master. I¡¯ll send demons to scout for news and see howrge of the force it will be. We¡¯ll see if Alchemy City will move against you at once.¡± Nailisi summoned demons capable of flight. There were even some flying demonic spirits. Nailisi gave her orders and the demons nodded, flying off to carry out their tasks.


    Saleen met with the generals andmanders of the allied forces after finishing his discussion with his followers. Saleen stated that he intended to build a Demon City and that he would be able to keep the demons in check. Only trained demons would be assigned to the nobles.


    Qin people were envious of and intrigued by the demons. ¡°Your Highness Saleen, how about this? You create an alliance with the nobles and everyone chips in to organize these demon mercenaries. I¡¯m fully aware that you¡¯re not concerned about the cost, but doing so would allow the demon mercenaries to serve directly under the allied forces,¡± one high ranking general suggested.


    The general continued after seeing ack of interest from Saleen, ¡°none of the southwestern nobles will fight for loot that mercenaries acquire. Everyone simply wants their name in this, which means that if any of the southwestern nobles are harmed, the demon mercenaries are obligated to help out, and no one would have any right to refuse.¡±


    Saleenughed. ¡°The Qin Empire really is something. Nice idea. What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°The name¡¯s Bourg.¡±


    ¡°Well, Bourg. If there is a day you feel like serving me, juste look for me. I¡¯ll make you themander of the elites.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, military officers of the Qin Empire hold loyalty in high regard,¡± Bourg refused Saleen¡¯s offer in a roundabout manner. Saleen was not ticked off at all. If the warrior behaved like the Cloudflow ones, it would only be a matter of time before the Qin Empire crumbled under the Holy See¡¯s assault.


    Saleen had fought with the Holy See personally. A hastily organized expeditionary force had been more than enough to make Saleen¡¯s army retreat to Metatrin City.


    If Saleen did not have Metatrin City as his back-up, his forces would have been annihted by the expeditionary force.


    Believers do not care for their own wellbeing when they fight. No, they are worse than that. Believers believe that death on the battlefield is the greatest disy of loyalty to their god. In return, they get to enter heaven where they attain immortality.


    People like fight and wee iing des with a beaming smile, as they fear nothing.


    The northern nobles of Qin fought only with personal and regr troops, and they were able to stop the Holy See¡¯s advance, giving them a hard time. It prevented the Holy See from attacking the south, so much so that they were not even able to take the river for themselves.


    The southwestern nobles were very united. The n that Saleen had was originally formed ording what Bourg mentioned. He knew that the nobles would suggest something like that. He would y things to their wishes. He only wanted the city.


    Saleen made a snap decision and renamed the ce New Demon City.


    New Demon City served as the alliance headquarters for both the southwestern nobles and Principality of Bitterwater. The southwestern nobles would send envoys to stay permanently in the city, helping Saleen¡¯s men deal with political affairs in the southwest.


    The southwestern nobles would side with Lex. The New Demon City that Saleen took became a waypoint for Lex.


    As such, Saleen grew even more reluctant to leave. He reinforced the tower at the center of New Demon City and redesigned theyout. The core of the city served as a hub for training and summoning demons. It made expansion at the outskirts a lot easier.


    New Demon City was built on high ground. There was about an 80 meter difference between the old and the new city. Saleen wanted to hold down the old city, as the portal was at the center.


    Saleen took out the Magical Element Tower and contacted Lex. She was impressed with what Saleen had done. ¡°Saleen, you have finally be a true king.¡±


    Saleenughed. He felt that after advancing to level ten, it became easy for him to think his way out of problems and often went straight for the core of problem. He had a lot of personal problems to iron out, and all of that became matters of the past.


    Any living being would gain considerable evolution when reaching level ten, as if they were about to be some other type of creatures. A level ten human had incredible intelligence and brimming life force. Their speed of processing knowledge was enhanced.


    If things can reach this far by getting to level ten, how about level 13? That¡¯s the territory of pseudogods, and they possess very long lives.


    Flying demon scouts had been sent out for three days and nothing of value returned. New demons were deployed constantly. The demons looking for signs of Pompeii City¡¯s ns of assault were practically everywhere: the sky, thend, or even the rivers.


    They were only about over 400 miles away from Pompeii City. While there were mountains in the way, there were many broken ces in the ranges, and there were eight routes that assaults could be carried out through.


    If the Grand Duke of Pompeii wanted to march his armies in, they would reach New Demon City in no time.


    Saleen refurbished New Demon City in the three days that the Pompeii army did not bother to show. He had been set in how to go about the southwestern strategies, so Saleen built the core of New Demon City into a fortress.


    The Puppet World Territory ran all the while. 500,000 puppets worked tirelessly, building New Demon City ording toyout of the demon ne.


    A hexagonal city popped up from the high ground, no cracks in the walls to be found. Metal towers used toy out the magic were erected everywhere. Huge bunkers were built underground, each one housing a magic power furnace.


    Nailisi installed 12 huge summoning arrays at the center of the city, surrounding the tall metal tower. The entire city was turned into brutalist-looking fort. Demons loved the architecture design for its loud and showy disy of power.

 Chapter 1166: Southwestern Strategies (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1166: Southwestern Strategies (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was not until the sixth day, when Saleen finished crafting a set of equipment for Qin, that the demons brought some substantial news back. Pompeii City mobilized a 50,000-soldier army and they were heading east for New Demon City.


    An army consisting of 50,000 soldiers was only considered a small force if one talked about Qin and the Holy See, but in a ce as small as the southwest, a 50,000-soldier army was already considered grand.


    Saleen did not bother leaving his tower when he heard the news, and said to themanding officer of the allied forces instead, ¡°Tell Nailisi to take care of any support you¡¯d need. This would be little more than to gauge what we can do. They would send no more than two to three thousand soldiers here.¡±


    The military officers of the allied forces were hardly fettered. New Demon City was built too strong after all.


    If a 50,000-soldier army was to attack a city like that, they would have to pay a hefty price even if they managed to take it, unless the city had little more than 2000 soldiers stationed.


    The allied forces consisted of about 24,000 soldiers and there were many demon forces going in and out of the city, which amounted to an additional 10,000 soldiers.


    Morale was strong and Saleen¡¯s orders were quickly ryed. Nailisi took charge as the suprememander of the Kingdom of Metatrin and mobilized the demons, preparing them for a fight.


    Nailisi had initially been versed in hit-and-run tactics. She learned a lot aboutrge scale battles in the battles fought in Ceylon City. What she did notck was veteran generals andmanders who were versed in battles.


    She did not even kill enemy generals and simply retained them by her side, learning about war.


    Nailisi had be capable enough to handle most battles with just several months of training.


    None of the generals andmanders in the southwestern forces were idiots. While few battles were fought in the southwest throughout the years, most of the generals andmanders actually left the southwest to participate in battles.


    Most mercenaries outside of Sikeqinya came from regr armies. The Qin people dared not get rusty in battle. There were even times where scuffles at the borders were fought by generals andmanders who longed for a fight.


    The 50,000-soldier enemy force marched for the southwest. However, due to them having to march from nds into difficult terrain, the Pompeii City¡¯s convoy had to stop about 200 miles away from New Demon City. They had to switch horses or continue by foot.


    The demons gained thorough intelligence about the army while watching from high above in the sky, reporting back to Nailisi. The ratio of mages was rather high in the army, as they were about 500 mages in their ranks.


    From Nailisi¡¯s perspective, the mages were little more than scraps, as there was only one level nine mage in their midst. Most mages were below level six.


    In contemporary battles, an army without a powerful professional taking charge was a joke. There had been eight level ten professionals near Daliang City, both sides having four.


    If there had not been for level ten professionals on the Holy See¡¯s or Daliang City¡¯s sides, the battle would have been over.


    Saleen continued to bolster his territory¡¯s power in the tower. With Sika at Saleen¡¯s side, Nailisi, who was left in charge, grew rather boisterous and full of herself. There was no use for Sika knocking sense into her, as it was how just Nailisi behaved.


    She was having a good time chatting with the generals andmanders in the war room. When her demons reported back, Nailisi pointed at the magic map. ¡°Everyone, Pompeii City¡¯s forces will arrive tomorrow. Who among you are willing to go out and fight with me!¡±


    The generals looked at each other and one of them said, ¡°Madam, we have the city to lean on and even if the enemy forces are twice the size of what they are now, we will be able to hold the city without incurring many casualties.¡±


    What that general meant was it was stupid to go out of the city and fight.


    Nailisi snickered. ¡°You¡¯re telling me you¡¯re afraid of a 50,000-soldier enemy force? I held back over a million-soldier one back in Ceylon City.¡±


    ¡°Madam, even if you intend to crush the enemy¡¯s morale, there¡¯s no need to fight head on. We know the terrain and the enemy is not moving fast enough. We have more than enough time toy out traps behind the river. There is only one level nine sorcerer in the enemy¡¯s ranks, and they won¡¯t be able to break the traps...¡±


    Nailisi cut them off. ¡°Are you Qin a bunch of cowards? I¡¯d bring the demons onto the battlefield. You can stay at the rear if you want to. I don¡¯t mind you picking off any remaining scraps.¡±


    The generals andmanders were pissed off, but given how Nailisi was a coborator and she had actually asked to lead the charge, taking the most dangerous job on herself, there was no point for them tosh out at her.


    ¡°We¡¯ll proceed per your ns then, madam.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯m simply reminding you that there will be more and more powerful ones joining the fray in future battles. I¡¯ll set an example and show you what true battles are like. Leave 5000 to garrison the city and the rest follow me outside the city!¡±


    The generals andmanders mobilized the army ording to Nailisi¡¯s orders. Some went to the Magical Element Tower and discreetly asked to meet Saleen, but he did not bother entertaining them, intending to have them listen to Nailisi for once.


    Saleen knew that all of the Qin troops were elite and would not lose even if they had to sh with the enemy head on. Unless there were a level 11 professional in the enemy¡¯s ranks, nothing could go wrong with Nailisi¡¯s n.


    The generals andmanders, on the other hand, knew psychology well enough to know that if Saleen had no objections with Nailisi¡¯s pompous ways, then there would not be any problems.


    However, the generals andmanders still did their own calctions. Nailisi had them bring no less than 19,000 soldiers into the battlefield, leaving 5000 behind. They deemed the garrison number to be too small and arranged for 3000 militia units to be assigned to defense as well, bolstering the garrison to 8000. They might have deemed the move safe, but Nailisi snickered.


    It would usually take two to three days to gather forces thatrge, but given how all of them were elites, one day was more than enough to have them gathered. Logistics was taken care of at the same time as well.


    The battlefield was only about 100 miles away from the city and there was little need for logistics. Nailisi distributed her equipment before venturing out. The equipment was Devil Flying Armors for the generals andmanders of the southwestern allied forces.


    Defensive parameters of the Devil Flying Armors were definitely inferior to the ones worn by the demons, visible from the fact that they were even several times thinner. However, magic arrays within the helmet enabling voice transmissions were retained, enabling them to hear Nailisi at all times.


    Nailisi took her own demon army and ventured outside the city, lining up her forces in the ins. She looked back and saw the generals andmanders doing the same. She took her devil form and held weapons in each of her four hands, swinging them about, and roared.


    10,000 demons roared into the sky with Nailisi, letting out the pent up, inexhaustible vigor inside them.


    The southwestern allied forces looked on with envy. Their troops looked at the demons, who were all over five meters tall, and did their own calctions. If someone took on a demon like that, they would need at least two to three soldiers to deal with a single demon.


    If someone were not an elite like they were, a conventional army unit would need 30 to 50 soldiers to take on a single demon.


    It was said that the southwest had demon mercenaries, and they deemed themselves fortunate. The demons would, in time, berade-in-arms to southwestern Qin.


    Nailisi held Grey Memory, the semi godly square shield, Sword of Rules and a demon il.


    The 10 meter-tall devil led the 10,000 demons behind in a sprint. The earth shook as Nailisi cast a devil skill: Demonic Stampede, boosting the morale of the demons to the max.


    Nailisi had once only been able to use the skill on the battlefield and was unable to maintain it for long. She was capable of casting Demonic Stampede over a hundred miles away. While morale was already boosted to the max, their power continued to stack.


    The southwestern forces were all riding horses. The Qin army only found the rumors true when following the demon army: when demons ran, they were the same speed as warhorses.


    The swordmasters in the midst of the troops knew that if they ran at full speed, they could easily overtake the demons. However, they were unable to do so for 100 miles and still fight when they reached the battlefield.


    Conventional cavalry units were not even capable of catching up to the demons. Only elite troops riding on level one warhorses were capable of keeping up.


    Nailisi was not actually charging without heed. The demon scouts in the air continued feeding Nailisi updated information. Nailisi stopped the army¡¯s advance about 30 miles away from the enemy and took a break.


    The demons loosen the blood bags they carried with them and drank like mad. They rested and continued to talk about longing for a good fight, putting tension at all time high.


    All spies from Pompeii City had been disposed of and the demon scouts suffered heavy casualties as well. However, Nailisi did not mind. Isabe was the only follower by her side in this battle.


    Nothing was permanent in the battlefield. When fighting with the Holy See army, the demons would simply eat their enemies. However, when fighting against Qin people, the demons took to drinking animal blood to bolster their ferocity instead.


    The Pompeii City¡¯s army got increasingly close and Nailisi had the demons shape up and be armed when the enemy was about three miles away, making for high ground. As soon as they scaled the high ground, there was a gentle slope downwards, which was perfect for charging.


    While Nailisi had been boastful around the generals andmanders, she had actually ordered the demon scouts to draw a detailed map of the area¡¯s terrain, finding a good spot to do battle.


    ¡°Everyone, just look at how I¡¯m taking them down.¡± Nailisi turned on the voice magic array of the Devil Flying Armor and ryed her words to all of the generals andmanders. She came before the top of the high ground when she was done saying that, before leading the demons charging downwards.


    The southwestern allied forces were about two miles behind the demon army. At such a distance, the cavalry served as reinforcements when the demon army¡¯s charging speed slowed.


    It would also allow the infantry units behind the cavalry units to get down their horses and get organized. The Qin¡¯s career soldiers synchronized seamlessly, but when the allied forces¡¯ cavalry reached high ground, they found the scene before them unbelievable.


    Nailisi¡¯s demon army had carved the enemy¡¯s army into over a dozen sections and the demons were busy killing away at the nks.


    The enemy¡¯s two vanguard regiments were all eliminated and the demon army was busy with Pompeii City¡¯s main forces: a main army consisted of three battalions. Behind the three battalions, there was still one heavy battalion and behind them, reserve forces consisted of 8000 soldiers.


    None of them were left intact. The demon army carved through the enemy¡¯s formation like a sharp knife, and furthermore, they behaved as if they were hitting the enemy with the back of the knife, crushing the enemy¡¯s skull with the blunt side.

 Chapter 1167: Mystical Third Eye (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1167: Mystical Third Eye (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After breaking up the enemy¡¯s formation, the demon army brandished the sharpest side of their prowess. However, the showdown had little to do with the human warriors. Nailisi went straight for the level nine sorcerer.


    The sorcerer saw Nailisiing for them about a thousand meters away. They were initially dumbstruck, but quickly cast Elemental Amplification.


    Nailisi was caught by surprise. She knew a great deal about magic and was able to recognize the skill as one cast for the mages around the sorcerer. From the level nine sorcerer¡¯s perspective, the most sensible course of action would be to stop Nailisi¡¯s advance from the furthest possible range of attack instead.


    However, what the sorcerer did made Nailisiugh. The sorcerer simply took the mages around them and flew eastward.


    The mage chose to run without fighting!


    Nailisi snickered and cursed but did not choose to pursue her quarry. Her flight speed was inferior to Saleen¡¯s, and shecked weapons capable of attacking at long distances. As such, she simply let the level nine sorcerer run.


    Nailisi was confident in killing the sly fellow, but she was not in the mood. She aimed to take down the enemy¡¯s forces as quickly as she was able and let the southwestern allied forces see what true battlefields were like.


    The terrain was not actually all that narrow, but there was no way it could amodate a 50,000-soldier army. The demons¡¯ charge proved lethal.


    There were two supreme demons at the front who, while weaker than golden grand swordmasters, were stronger than silver ones. The supreme demons possessed great powers, and the heavily armed demons tore at the Pompeii City¡¯s army. The Pompeii soldiers had no choice but to fight solely to defend themselves.


    The hill, as well as the narrow ins right beneath it, were bloodstained in no time. Nailisi gave up pursuing the level nine sorcerer to maintain Demonic Stampede.


    She charged with Grey Memory in her hand, looking invincible. Every step she took connected her with the rest of her kind, terrifying the enemy forces.


    With such a powerful skill at y, all the buffs of mages among the Pompeii City army¡¯s ranks were practically negated, enabling the demons to bring a decisive edge against their enemy.


    Unruly power coupled with heavy, sharp weapons and bolstered with full sets of magic armor stripped the effectiveness of every single spell the Pompeii City mages were capable of casting.


    The magic armor was incapable of taking hits indefinitely, and the mages were incapable of casting spells indefinitely on the battlefield. When the need rose, mages were allowed to retreat first before anyone else.


    Nailisi charged into the Pompeii City¡¯s army¡¯s heavy forces. Beams of over a hundred meters long shot from her Grey Memory, punching through soldiers, killing them immediately.


    The power in Grey Memory was more than just pration. There was no way human soldiers could withstand something not even single-horned white whales were capable of surviving.


    Every single heavy corps in any nation¡¯s armies consisted of elites among elites, and Pompeii City was no exception. However, the Grand Duke of Pompeii was not as blessed with miraculous encounters as Saleen, which meant that he could not have so many true heavy units at his disposal.


    There were only three regiments that were truly and fully heavily armed, and Nailisi took three out first.


    No conventional soldier would be able to evade or resist her weapon. With Nailisi thrusting away, everything hit by the beams from her spear was torn to shreds.


    It was the first time the southwestern allied forces, who were on high ground, saw such an unforgiving, brutal ughter up close and personal, so much so that theypletely forgot to charge downwards and help Nailisi¡¯s demon army out.


    There was actually no need for them to do so, as Nailisi was calm enough to guide Isabe, who was in full warrior regalia and on the killing spree together with Nailisi.


    ¡°Isabe, your spells need to be your own. Master was able to get as far as he did because he found the best path that suited him and he never gave up on it. Since you¡¯re versed in both magic and sword aura, you need to figure things out from your unique standpoint. Come and kill with me. See if you¡¯re able to figure something out from the resulting bloody mess.¡±


    Nailisi was just mouthing off without much thought, but Isabe believed the imp. Theoretically speaking, Nailisi waspletely correct, but one had to wonder what would result from magic learned from going on a ughter.


    In the Magical Element Tower in New Demon City, Qin was listening to Saleen lecturing about archery.


    Saleen, a sorcerer, was actually teaching an archer archery.


    Furthermore, what Saleen was teaching was a skill that he created on his own. However, he had yet to be able to perform the skill to the fullest, and was only able to provide Qin theory.


    Saleen imitated arrow aura employed by archers and told Qin how arrow aura worked, as well as casting methods. It was a unique skill that Saleen employed to lock onto his enemies, which came as aprehensive summary of his many skills.


    Qin employed the arrow aura per Saleen¡¯s instructions, and found that the middle of his brow twitched and bulged, as if a third eye between his eyes had opened as some weird powers started working.


    It worked like sensory skills, enabling him to see everything without light. However, the sensory skill wasparatively weak, extending only about ten meters.


    Qin had never attacked anything less than a hundred meters away with archery since he was 15 years old.


    However, Qin had no intention of giving up, as Saleen had been crafting a set of magic equipment specifically for archers, and to be used specifically in tandem with the skill.


    Saleen was not simply bbering away. He came across a lot of information about ancient times in Gaine¡¯s astrology tower. Most of it had long been lost in Myers Maind.


    There had been several books mentioning that humanoid creatures were the fewest in many nes, but they were also the most powerful. There had been a race of humans who were born with three eyes and possessed powerfulbat capacity.


    Humans had researched the three-eyed race¡¯s abilities, and it was said that there had been humans who seeded in opening the mystical third eye, gaining special powers in the process.


    Many training methods were recorded, but Saleen dared not let Qin try them out immediately. Saleen had refined and modified them before passing them on to Qin, refraining from telling the archer that he would be able to obtain a third eye, but guaranteeing enhancement of his ability to target enemies.


    The skill incorporated attributes of the six eyes of the silverline golden spearfish¡¯s spike. Some methods of manipting the required energies had been calcted by Saleen using Figaro¡¯s Form, which was incorporated in the new skill.


    Having the Elemental Eye meant Saleen was able to keep a close eye on Qin¡¯s progress and if he found something out of ce, he could halt it.


    Saleen even modified the arrow aura¡¯s maniption methods while he was teaching Qin, and the archer was willing to experiment on the imparted skill as a guinea pig.


    Saleen determined the final form of the weapon he was to craft for Qin when he no longer found anything dangerous happening to Qin¡¯s body.


    The weapon was a longbow, the limb sourced from two broken bows from the ancient battlefield. Saleen used the horn of the single-horned white whale to fuse the two, and an Eye of Rules from the silverline golden spearfish infused on the bow.


    The evil-looking eye brought a terrifying lock-on ability when it was still on the body of the fish itself. Saleen was unable to get a hold of a set of six eyes, but he deemed one eye sufficient, as the main ability of the bow was to lock onto a target instantly.


    Qin¡¯s skill allowed him to lock onto enemies and a piece of equipment bolstering such abilities would be more than enough. The weapon would serve him well until he reached level 13.


    If Qin mastered the power of the third eye, he would be able to use powers above his level with the help of the bow.


    The third eye not only enabled its user to lock onto their targets, but was also capable of extraordinary feats such as predicting the target¡¯s movement, possible course of actions, and so on.


    The skill was simr to prophecy spells or astrology. If an archer possessed the abilities, there was no target that they would not be able to hit.


    Saleen had a lot to gain from crafting equipment for his followers. He developed unnerving understanding of all types of professions and a keen sense of attacks any professional could pull off. The familiarity served to enhance Saleen¡¯s survivability considerably on a battlefield. Saleen no longer feared any archer¡¯s attacks, as no archer was capable of feats as extraordinary as Eleanor¡¯s.


    Saleen feared assassins the most. He had no high level assassins in his ranks and had not been able to develop any specific way of dealing with them, which meant his only means to deal with them was the hard way: eliminating any he encountered by direct, violent means.


    If he understood most attacks assassins employed, he would not be so frustrated. He wanted to head back to Metatrin City just to check on Bain, who was recuperating. Saleen wanted to learn the secrets of assassins from the veteran.


    While the longbow was built on very good ideas, Saleen was not satisfied with the materials, treating it as a transitional weapon as he presented it to Qin.


    With Qin and Eleanor by his side, Saleen believed that there would be few to no blind spots that his enemies could exploit within several miles when both of them had advanced to level ten.


    A level ten archer was able to shoot through any kind of armor from any angle, even magic metal armors on the front of magic chariots would not be able to withstand the force of amon arrow shot by a level ten archer.


    There was no way Saleen would allow his followers to usemon arrows. While the ones that he made for Qin were inferior to the lightning arrows crafted for Eleanor, they would still be stronger than anything alchemists on the maind crafted for archers.


    Due to material being difficult toe by, the arrowheads that Saleen used were from rusted metals found on the ancient battlefield. The arrowheads were hollow and filled with dirt stained by the blood of the ancient people. The dirt had fossilized and shined with an azure sheen.


    The azure pieces of stone were magically melded with the hollow magic arrows. Saleen incorporated gravity magic patterns from the earth magic that he stole through Water me Alchemy.


    The gravity magic patterns enabled Qin to control the arrows using his mental powers when he opened his third eye. In theory, the arrows could fly indefinitely.


    With the right materials and the right amount of power, the azure arrows would be able to keep flying, using the power of the earth, until the arrows disintegrated.


    If the arrows were shot into the air, they would be able to fly through the clouds and reach the stars. The arrows could still continue flying when used in conjunction with the power of the stars.


    Qin was impressed by Saleen¡¯s ideas. He trained hard in hopes that he would be able to perform such skills soon.


    If the azure arrows werepleted, it would enable him to shoot his arrows at any distance he required. If he shot for the stars, then the arrows would keep flying until they reached the stars.

 Chapter 1168: Mystical Third Eye (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1168: Mystical Third Eye (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The materials used to make the azure arrows came from the ancient battlefield and were imbued with strong killing intent, as well as coalesced grievances of the beings killed in the battlefield.


    All of it proved devastating to living beings andmon folk would not be able to even search the ancient battlefield, as they would be damaged by all the negative energies permeating the ce.


    Saleen designed dozens of types of arrows for both Qin and Eleanor and the azure arrow was but one of dozens. As the number of arrow types crafted grew, he developed a greater understanding of the myriad of skills employed by archers.


    Alchemy did more than just enabling alchemists to craft equipment for other professionals. It also enabled mages to learn of how energy of different kinds worked in the world. Mages would not have usually encountered a lot of the knowledge.


    Saleen crafted arrows in the Magical Element Tower with Truman helping. Saleen took some time out to teach Truman. While Truman was incapable of using Water me Alchemy, he learned a lot from the experience. Eleanor, as a mage who was versed in archery, also designed arrows.


    Even Daniel gained from it as there were a lot of things littering the ancient battlefield that proved suitable for death mage use. Daniel picked from the pile and stocked up on the bones from the portal, and began to draw design schematics.


    His dead soul me had been purified before, which sufficed for making his own equipment.


    Qin¡¯s training improved by leaps and bounds and his forehead felt as if it was about to split. Saleen and Eleanor were unable to help but check on him, finding that the energies on his head were stable, but magnitude had reached critical point. His metal hair band snapped and his hair billowed with pent up energy.


    A blood-red slit appeared in the middle of his brow. The slit twitched as if something was about to wiggle out. His ck hair began to turn grey before gradually turning snow white, and then slowly turning transparent.


    The sound of a crystal cracking was heard and Qin¡¯s forehead looked as if it burst. The eerie-looking slit sealed itself up, leaving a fixed slit on his forehead. A pale eye appeared from the slit. The eye perked up, the pupil a grey line.


    Errr... Qin moaned in pain. With the exception of his head still hurting, every single part of his body felt warm and fuzzy. The arrow aura in his body had yet to advance but the running of the energy were altered. The third eye on his forehead was not imnted equipment; it was a part of his body.


    Nutrients and energy carried in his veins would pass through the eye, the effect of which was far more powerful than any human body alchemy could achieve. From then on out, Qin had third eye. Even in ancient times, a human who wanted to train to gain a third eye required incredible luck. Qin¡¯s luck came from Saleen.


    Saleen used fate spells in astrology while Qin trained, providing some luck for the archer. That bit of luck contained the great luck left behind by Goddess of Myers. If a level 18 god intended to be resurrected, they would do far more than just leaving behind material.


    Saleen threw the longbow to Qin and the archer took it. As soon as the longbow reached its hand, changes happened. The upper part of the bow turned pitch ck and the lower part turned a shining red. The middle part remained white, the color of the single-horned white whale.


    Qin was overwhelmed. He was a genius in archery and had been well taken care of back on Sreeger Ind, enjoying the same privilege as any other mage, but he was near advancement not long after following Saleen.


    With the third eye, the path before him widened considerably. He gained material support from Saleen. Saleen had ways to provide anything he needed.


    ¡°My liege!¡± Qin was unable to help crying happy tears. The eye at his forehead closed and became a barely-there slit.


    Saleen was happy, as well. There was too much need for mages in his kingdom, enabling him to only bring demonic spirits with him.


    The demonic spirits failed to bringparable offensive capacity once they left the magic tower, so Saleen had been relying on his Thunder Dragon ster and Eleanor¡¯s archery for long range attacks.


    He finally gained a second archer. While Qin¡¯s archery was not as ferocious as Eleanor¡¯s, his archery was more enduring. Eleanor¡¯s attacks posed incredible threat to even level ten professionals.


    A level ten true might could be killed by her arrow if they were caught by surprise. The Elvish Life Arrows were capable stealing life from enemies, making them very eerie, but Eleanor was incapable of more attacks like that.


    Qin¡¯s skill, on the other hand¡ªeven with the still immature three-eyed mystical arrow¡ªwas stablemon attacks. So long the arrows were sharp, they would work well enough under a level nine archer¡¯s skill to suppress any other professional below level nine.


    It worked well on even assassins. If an archer survived, they needed to train in closebat archery as well, which was an even greater threat to assassins than magic.


    ¡°Qin, I¡¯m attacking Pompeii City in ten days. Get prepared and get familiar with your new skill.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my liege!¡± Qin took the equipment that Saleen handed to him and fastened the purple gold sack at his waist.


    ¡°Get to the 18th floor. No one will bother you for the next ten days. If you¡¯re hungry, look for the demons attending to you.¡±


    Saleen began inspecting Daniel¡¯s schematics after sending Qin off to the 18th floor of the Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen was not a death mage. Death mages just often coborated with elemental mages when crafting equipment, and there were even times that they would simply have elemental mages craft things for them.


    Only a death mage like Aini, who possessed special dead soul mes, would take time to study and make their own gear.


    Daniel did not have a good financial foundation and had only been able to reach where he was due to Saleen¡¯s support. Saleen appreciated him for hisck of ambition and formidable management abilities, which meant that he would not cause problems for people around him.


    As for loyalty, it had been something that Saleen hardly concerned himself with. Anyone who would sign a follower contract with Saleen would not be stupid enough to betray him unless they were at least one whole level higher than him.


    With Saleen freeing Daniel from his administrative duties, Daniel went into an emotional overdrive and put everything he had into his training.


    It was more difficult for death mages to advance between level seven to level nine than elemental mages, mainly due to being unable to train in the spirit ne.


    However, Saleen had many treasures left behind by the three kings and an imp like Nailisi, who had coordinates in the spirit ne, so Daniel nevercked any materials or environment needed to further his training. Saleen even created an environment filled with death energy at the bottom of the tower, enabling Daniel to train in an environment that resembled the spirit ne.


    The schematics that Daniel drafted was a rarerge scale death magic equipment. The equipment itself had long existed and Daniel simply designed the equipment¡¯s usage. The modifications he made to the equipment¡¯s design were minimal.


    He was not a spirit and his training methods were off the beaten path. He was unable to open a spirit space and was only capable of summoning a level eight Pikoosi, so Daniel designed a new spirit gate, which, when fully opened, became a hulking gear that reached 18 meters in height and 7 meters across.


    The equipment seemed to be a set of six gates mashed together. Six gates faced all different directions. The height of the gates allowed creatures like bone dragons to pass.


    Daniel did not have any mystical encounters, and so crafting one such orthodox death mage equipment was most useful for him.


    However, Saleen frowned when he looked at the spirit gate¡¯s schematics and then said to Daniel, ¡°Why are you designing something like this?¡±


    Daniel asked in a puzzled manner, ¡°Is there any problem with it, my liege?¡±


    While Daniel was a death mage, he wanted to hear Saleen¡¯s thoughts. Saleen was a level ten mage and would definitely see more of the world than Daniel had been.


    Saleen continued, ¡°we have the best materials at our disposal and while I can¡¯t just craft equipment specifically for you by myself, I¡¯m able to provide you with materials no one else has. Therefore, I suggest you go and craft a spirit temple instead of a spirit gate.¡±


    Daniel was dumbstruck. The difference between a spirit temple and a spirit gate was that a spirit gate summoned all kinds of powerful spirits from the spirit ne, while a spirit temple was meant for keeping a summoned spirit in a designated space, enabling it to be summoned for battle at any time.


    Spirit gates were limited when used in certain environments, especially so when Daniel was just level eight. If he faced a level nine professional, his summoning might have even been interrupted.


    ¡°Daniel, you¡¯ve followed me for a very long time. When have you seen me ever have reservations when giving you guys materials to work with?¡± Saleen destroyed the schematics and took out a starline paper, looked for a design in his magic book, and copied it onto the paper. He handed the new schematics to Daniel. ¡°Do whatever modifications you¡¯d need. I¡¯ll craft you a spirit temple in the next ten days.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my liege.¡± Daniel took the schematics and turned around to amend it on a tform. Saleen did not look down on Daniel due to his lower levelpared to others, which put Daniel at ease. His efforts actually paid off.


    He had been neglecting magic training due to being busy with administrative duties for the past few years. All of that bore fruit in the form of a promise by Saleen to craft him spirit temple. The equipment cost over 100 times more than the spirit gate.


    While Daniel was busy amending the schematics, Saleen exined the problems encountered in the past few days to Truman. He wasted no time in enhancing his followers¡¯ powers.


    Their enemy would grow increasingly powerful. Truman was his only student and he could not afford to see this student get killed.


    Daniel took one day to finish amending the schematics of the spirit temple, which he thenhanded to Saleen.


    Saleen took over the schematics and began preparing required materials. Data of all kinds of powerful spirits shed in his mind. He intended to craft the spirit temple into something on par with the longsword, Tears.

 Chapter 1169: Hand Over Your Son (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1169: Hand Over Your Son (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The number of followers by Saleen¡¯s side increased, which was increasingly helpful for him. J was able to work alone, and once Eleanor and the others advanced to level 10, Saleen would not need to worry about direct conflicts with the Holy See.


    Now that he wanted to face Alchemy City, he required helpers. Daniel could be trusted, so Saleen might as well refine a piece of level 13 equipment for Daniel to use.


    The flow of time in the Magical Element Tower was fast, due to the fact that Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower used too much power and its movements were too quick.


    Saleen had note out from the Magical Element Tower, and Nailisi had already returned triumphantly from New Demon City.


    The Southwest aristocracy¡¯s allied forces had already been conquered by the imp. Nailisi led the allied forces in andslide victory. Pompeii City¡¯s military force of 50,000 had been killed instantly. The mages in the troops had mostly escaped, and the number of soldiers who had died in battle exceeded 10,000. The number of soldiers that escaped back to Pompeii City was estimated to be less than 10,000, and the remaining people were taken as prisoners.


    The Southwest allied forces acquiesced. Nailisi led only 10,000 demons and was able to destroy Pompeii City¡¯s elite troops. Although the reason was due to the suppression of level, what Nailisi did was chase away the mages in Pompee City¡¯s troops.


    Without mages, they were on even ground, and the loss of the demons was almost negligible.


    Unless the demons were killed in battle¡ªeven if they were heavily injured¡ªafter about 10 days, they were able to reenter the battle. If the demons were mixed in among the human soldiers, they could break out with an even strongerbat power.


    The cooperation between the humans and the demons formed the core of the battle. After Nailisi drove away most of the mages, the battle core was able to easily find thest of the enemy soldiers, and quickly annihte them.


    It was the toughest battle. After most of the formation had copsed, the soldiers who were still able to form a system forbat were the core of the whole formation, which was what the humans and demons destroyed together.


    Humanbat was extremely professional, refined, and pertinent. The demons were strong and recovered quickly. When they worked together with humans, it formed a very unique style ofbat. The humans were the core of their small teams and led the demons and headed towards the enemy¡¯s most vulnerable spot.


    Using the method that was most economical in terms of energy, they destroyed Pompeii City¡¯sst resistance.


    After Nailisi returned, she lost her arrogant and conceited attitude. During Saleen¡¯s absence, she had taken control of the generals of the Southwest alliance forces.


    The concept of New Demon City had been brought up by Saleen, but it was Nailisi whopleted it. The confidence of the Southwest aristocracy¡¯s allied forces towards setting up armies that employed demons greatly increased. They were not very different from humans in intelligence. There were also mages among the demons, and although their numbers were sparse, it proved that they had the qualifications to seek the world¡¯s mysteries.


    New Demon City¡¯s House of the Lord had only just begun to be established. They needed to wait until Cuisi¡¯s trusted followers and the others arrived, and then they would be able to officially form troops and change it to Lex¡¯s territory. The Southwest aristocracy dispatched an emissary to reside there and coordinate battle arrangements.


    Saleen no longer ced much importance on such things, as they were only a small portion of his n. He wanted to taunt Alchemy City. By seizing Pompeii City, he wanted to see what Alchemy City¡¯s stance was.


    It was not that Saleen could never work together with Grand Duke Iron Blood. The things Grand Duke Iron Blood plotted included the Cloudflow Empire, so he was Agares¡¯ enemy. Saleen had no interest in the political powers of the continent. If Grand Duke Iron Blood could allow the Nature Faith to be widespread, as long as the Myers Goddess was revived, Saleen would abandon everything, leave his kingdom for future generations, and begin to use all of his life to explore the mysteries of magic.


    Saleen had no interest in bing emperor. The First Dynasty¡¯s Emperors had all vanished in history¡¯s endless flow. Only the Founding Emperor had left behind a few traces, but it was due to his achievements in magic, not his identity as an Emperor. If not for the fragments of ancient history that had been recorded in the mages¡¯ journals, none of the emperors would have left behind anything in history for people to pay their respects towards.


    Ten days passed very quickly. Saleen used the Magical Element Tower¡¯s teleportation portal to look for Cuisi and the other demons, entrusting them with the ns for New Demon City.


    ¡°Your Majesty, I am only a level 9 supreme demon and can¡¯t suppress this situation, if Master stayed...¡± Cuisi said with some hesitation.


    Nailisi kicked the supreme demon¡¯s rear. ¡°I won¡¯t ever bother with such things. I already subdued the Southwest aristocrats. How long a road do you want me to pave for you?¡±


    ¡°But you also can¡¯t just ignore it!¡± Saleen disciplined Nailisi. ¡°Cuisi follows you, so you must let him have a future. Don¡¯t tell me you are just going to let him to toil on until death and not be able to gain anything?¡±


    Nailisi did not respond, since Saleen made sense. Of the four demons that had followed her from the beginning, Cuisi¡¯s achievements were the greatest. There was even hope of advancing to level 10 and bing a devil.


    Having only one capable subordinate was not good.


    ¡°Mm, how about this. I cannot mobilize Master¡¯s power, as they all have their purposes. but I recall West Town has two level 9 sorcerers. What were their names?¡±


    Cuisi nodded.


    ¡°Forget it. No matter what their names are, they can be changed. Send them here. I will give you the method for managing demonic spirits. No matter what kind of situation arises, if you rely on the demonic spirits and magic, you will be able to hold onto this ce. Oh right, I will grant you authority that no matter who is mobilizing you, you can ignore them. As long as you think your life is in danger, you cannot leave the protective range of the magic.¡±


    Cuisi nodded. His current capabilities were not sufficient. The other three demons were capable subordinates. Managing the New Demon City was not a problem.


    ¡°Cuisi, handle things well. Once Master haspleted his affairs, if you have not thrown the city away, I will restore a masculine body for you.¡± Nailisi did not forget to promise some benefits. To her, the reward was ordinary, but it made Cuisi tearful and excited.


    Finally, there was hope to revert to masculinity. The woman¡¯s body made him feel impulsive enough to kill.


    ¡°Alright Cuisi, if there are no other important matters, you can stay here and cultivate. Advance as quickly as possible. Nailisi will sometimes forget your request, so you can look for me.¡± Saleen consoled Cuisi.


    Cuisi bowed. Only then did Nailisi retrieve an object, passing it to Cuisi. ¡°This was refined by me. It is a Devil¡¯s Si. You are now a level 9 supreme demon and are not far from advancement. If you use demonic magic to refine the Devil¡¯s Si, even if you summon a supreme demon that is close to your capabilities, you will be able to suppress them. Take note to choose demons with pure bloodlines to set up your own troops. In the future, there will be many times where I will be following Master, so its time for you to have your own forces.¡±


    Cuisi was overjoyed. Nailisi was just like the real devil on the demon ne who would allow subordinates to establish cities and instate them as kings.


    From that point on, although he still possessed the identity of a servant, Nailisi would not allow him to do a servant¡¯s work. Having reached that point, he would begin to have some degree of precious freedom. As long as he did not disobey Nailisi¡¯s orders, he would eventually be a real devil.


    It was only after properly arranging the affairs of New Demon City that Saleen was relieved and could go with his followers to Pompeii City.


    Qin had stabilized his condition and had a prototype for all of his new skills. Saleen was not anxious, so he allowed Naisi to dispatch flying demon scouts and continued to gather information about Pompeii City. His Magical Element Tower had attained flight speed of 100 li per hour and did not even need therge magic power furnace to be opened. It only required the use of the backup small magic power furnace.


    The demons flew high in the air. They searched the ground with alchemy binocrs. There were no traces ofrge numbers of soldiers being dispatched.


    It seemed that Pompeii City had finally thought things through. Attacking Saleen would not bear any fruit. Perhaps Alchemy City¡¯s mages had also given their opinion, as it was possible that Alchemy City had been able to guess what Saleen was thinking.


    Saleen was not worried. Within the magical tower, he began to arm the big guy from the temple with weapons.


    The big guy had been modified by Saleen. Its height was lowered to 100 meters, with a body structure like an elemental stone statue soldier. The big guy was created by the two puppets, and itsposition was fine and delicate. It was a pity that it had undergone spatial corrosion, and the strength of its body was not equal to an elemental creature. Saleen changed its spare parts and added some specialized equipment for puppets.


    Saleen even installed a magic cannon. The magic cannon¡¯s body was 60 meters long. Normally, it was retracted into the equipment slot in the puppet¡¯s shoulder. When necessary, it could be summoned out to attack. Normal puppets could never have such an ability. It was only because the big guy possessed a soul that he could use equipment slots.


    Saleen stopped their advance 100 li outside of Pompeii City. If the demons were to keep flying forwards, it would be dangerous. Even though demons who could fly were normally stronger, there were several dozens of magical towers in Pompeii City. They had all been built with the help of Alchemy City and had hundreds of mages.


    They were different from the low level mages among the troops. The level of the mages in the city were higher. With the help of the magical towers, theirbat ability would be increased. Saleen did not want to make meaningless sacrifices. Since he had already arrived, the Grand Duke of Pompeii would not have any good oues.


    The Magical Element Tower descended to the ground. It left behind two demon soldiers and then took flight again. The demon soldiers hid themselves in the westward path that was necessary to cross. The Magical Element Tower flew directly into the skies of Pompeii City.


    Pompeii City was a bit bigger than Metatrin City. Saleen could see the traces of the city constantly expanding. There were some ces which even had low castle walls.


    ¡°Master, shall we descend first, or shall we start fighting now?¡± Nailisi asked Saleen.


    ¡°Let¡¯snd first. We must be reasonable.¡± Saleen looked at the ancient city and sighed. It would be great if it were not the Grand Duke of Pompeii¡¯s ce. If so, it would not need to go through the baptism of the mes of war.

 Chapter 1170: Hand Over Your Son (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1170: Hand Over Your Son (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, why must we be reasonable?¡±


    Sika had been cultivating on the 17th floor of the magical tower for the past few days and had not been by Saleen¡¯s side. Nailisi had been sticking to Saleen.


    ¡°Because I can¡¯t possibly conquer the whole world. It can¡¯t even be done by the Lord of Glory. Most of the time, I have to choose to work with people, or other people will work together to deal with me. Before this, I overcame all kinds of cmities and a few life or death crises. Me being able to survive was due to the fact that the enemies were fighting the battles by themselves and did not work together to deal with me.¡±


    Saleen paused. ¡°Now, even if I want to kill and conquer cities, I need to have a reason. Then, if people talk about it in the future, they will not criticize me for being a tyrant. They will only say that I came to help Lex to seek revenge. Like that, when others work with me, they will not have any misgivings because I am an unreasonable person.¡±


    ¡°Of course Master is reasonable.¡± Nailisi chuckled. Saleen had be reasonable, but by a mage¡¯s definition of reason.


    The Magical Element Tower flew to the skies of Pompeii City. Even though it was at an altitude of 3,000 meters, it was still discovered by the magical towers in the city and triggered the magic rms.


    Saleen saw the panic in the city and felt emotional. At the beginning when he and Lex had passed through, they had to be very careful. Now that he hade again, the other side¡¯s anxious appearance formed a distinct contrast.


    ¡°Let¡¯snd over there,¡± Saleen pointed at the square in the east part of the city. The water puppet Rossen, who had grasped the flight of the magical tower, used an almost rough method to make the Magical Element Tower descend.


    From an altitude of 3,000 meters, the Magical Element Tower smashed into the ground in an upright position. Inside the magical tower, the tremors could not be felt, but outside was not the same. The huge impact smashed a 500-meter hole in front of Pompeii City¡¯s monument.


    Fragments flew everywhere, casualties were scattered, and nearly all patrolling soldiers were killed. The symbol of Pompeii City, the huge memorial, was also on the verge of destruction from the magical tower¡¯s descent and nted towards the west.


    The big guy took a step out from the magical tower, using the puppet¡¯s characteristic metal sound to shout, ¡°Grand Duke Pompeii, hand over your son!¡±


    The big guy¡¯s yell was transmitted over hundreds of li, so Grand Duke Pompeii was able to hear it. However, the ones who quickly came before the Magical Element Tower were two mages.


    The two mages were not holding magic staves and wore red magic robes. When Saleen saw the two mages, heughed coldly. ¡°Alchemy City is really willing to part with their capital. These two are actually level 10 mages, but we don¡¯t know what measures they used to advance to the position. Nailisi, we can each kill one.¡±


    ¡°Master, why is that necessary? With the presence of the demonic spirits, we can test out 3,600 high level magic spells and see if they can kill two level 10 mages.¡± Nailisi gave a sinister smile. The demonic spirits¡¯ mental strength was roughly enough to release six to seven of the strongest magic attacks. Of the Magical Element Tower¡¯s might, the strongest mode had not yet been released, so they could use the two amges to test it out.


    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± Saleen realized there was no need for him to waste mental power. If he did not use the demonic spirits, it would be a waste. Having 3,600 demonic spirits who could attack simultaneously was precisely the most horrifying parts of the Magical Element Tower.


    ¡°You must be Your Majesty Saleen.¡± The two red robed mages used sound transmission magic, sending their voices to the high altitude, but Saleen ignored them. He let the big guymunicate with the two mages on his behalf.


    ¡°Mages, this situation does not concern you. The enmity is between a king and a duke.¡±


    The two mages nced at one another andughed. ¡°We are Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s personal mages. You are trespassing on the Grand Duke¡¯s territory. Are you trying to provoke a war?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, didn¡¯t you know of this a long time ago? My troops have already upied Pompeii¡¯s city and killed tens of thousands of soldiers. Why are you still asking such a childish question?¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty Saleen, you are a mage. We can use a mage¡¯s methods to solve this situation,¡± the level 10 mage baited Saleen.


    The big guy continued to faithfully speak for Salee. ¡°Alright, then let¡¯s use a mage¡¯s methods.¡±


    After it finished speaking, the big guy leaped up to the magical tower¡¯s 16th floor and went through it. On the magical tower¡¯s upper six floors, huge metal machinery grew, forming gears that started to rotate. The two level 10 mages frowned, not knowing what Saleen wanted to do. They could smell the scent of danger.


    3,600 magic spells were simultaneously released from the peak of the Magical Element Tower, aggressively bombarding the two mages. The magic attack was not as intense as a magic cannon and did not result in any elemental resonance. The more terrifying thing was that under normal circumstances, it was impossible for one person¡¯s body to bear such a concentrated attack. There was no way that so many mages could release magic spells from the same position, and it was even more impossible for them to all be targeted towards the same person.


    In front of such a terrifying magical construction, highly concentrated attacks had be the norm. The magic spells of 3,600 demonic spirits descended at the same time. The two mages, who had advanced with great difficulty using secret methods, had not even tasted the sweetness of strength before they were sted into dust.


    Therge stone tablet behind the mages vanished with them. A 100-meter cavity appeared in front of the Magical Element Tower. The effects of the attack of the magic spells was horrific. All of them were level 7 and above and had ck magic mes. Therge magic power furnace started up, providing unmatched levels of energy to the magic.


    Only then was Saleen satisfied. ¡°This is precisely a mage¡¯s method.¡±


    Saleen memorized the two level 10 mages¡¯ deaths. The scene did not instill much joy in people. Every demonic spirit¡¯sbat ability was equivalent to ordinary swordmasters, and there were some demonic spirits whosebat ability was at the level of a high level swordsman. But within the magic, the demonic spirits had broken out with the power of a sorcerer.


    The level 10 mages¡¯ magic shields were weaker than paper under the bombardment of thousands of high level magic spells. A magic shield that was able to block a magic cannon¡¯s attack could not even hold out for one second before it was destroyed by the concentrated high level magic spells. If it had been Saleen who had encountered the attack, he would have also been unable to take it, unless his territories were all opened, causing the magic spells to be unable to express their might.


    It looked like he had made the right choice by refining a territory as quickly as possible. If the two level 10 sorcerers possessed the power of a territory, their deaths would not have been so quick. They could have been able to hold out for about 10 seconds.


    The nearby magical tower saw the attack, and everyone who had seen it became solemn. Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower caused them to lose hope of victory.


    The attack was too powerful. It was so powerful that it broke thews of bnce.


    The two level 10 mages were not the strongest people in Pompeii City, but they were level 10 mages. Within less than a second, they had been vaporized by Saleen¡¯s attack. What if it had been them? Everyone thought about it.


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t someonee and converse with me? I guarantee that I will use a mage¡¯s method.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was conveyed through the magical tower, enveloping the whole city.


    In a 10 floor magical tower in the centre of Pompeii City, Grand Duke Pompeii broke out in sweat as he stood in front of a red robed mage.


    ¡°Master, please save my city!¡± Grand Duke Pompeii was not wearing an aristocrat¡¯s outfit, but was d in soft armor. The armor was lined with ayer of silk armor. He was dressedpletely in a military outfit. Originally, he was prepared to assemble his troops and attack New Demon City once more. He never thought that Saleen woulde right to his doorstep.


    Coming right to his doorstep did not matter, but Saleen was actually strong. With one magical tower, he had suppressed the whole city. It made Grand Duke Pompeii despair, but no matter what, he could not bear to give up his position, city, and hisrge number of people.


    The red robed mage in front of him appeared to be aged, with a head full of grey and a grey beard. The mage had wrinkles, and its strange shape made it appear as if it were a natural magic pattern. The mage sat there, seeming more powerful than the two level 10 magesbined. The power emanating from his entire body flowed all over the magical tower, causing the energy in the magical tower to flow even faster.


    Hearing Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s plea, the elderly mageughed. ¡°Grand Duke, since the Elemental Hand has allowed me toe and help you, they will not let you die. If you don¡¯t die, you can have a few more sons.¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t bear it? That Saleening today is because of the misfortune stirred up by your son. Since this is the case, I will go and ask. If handing over your son is not enough to let him leave, I will think of other ways,¡± the elderly mage spoke mildly.


    Grand Duke Pompeii gritted his teeth. ¡°Then I will listen to the Master¡¯s instructions.¡±


    The elderly mage used sound transmission magic to talk to the distant Saleen, ¡°Saleen, right? I am the Elemental Hand¡¯s Kang Bai. May I ask, the Grand Duke¡¯s son has not caused your wife any substantial harm, so why do you want to bring a killing spree?¡±


    ¡°Killing spree? Kang Bai, I think you are sick in the head. Not killing anyone when taking revenge? Don¡¯t tell me I must also help him to establish a city. It is said that Pompeii City has a poption of one million, and I killed less than a hundred. If you really want me to go on a killing spree, then I will fulfill your request.¡±


    Sorcerer Kang Bai¡¯s facial expression immediately turned much uglier, but he said, ¡°I also respect Her Majesty Lex, and since nothing actually happened to her...¡±


    Saleen interrupted Kang Bai. ¡°The Grand Duke¡¯s son wanted to capture my wife. Based on your intention, as long as nothing really happened, it does not matter? In that case, Lex was also a grand mage, so it was an insult to a mage¡¯s dignity. If as long as nothing was done means that there should be no hatred, then if I went to capture the Grand Duke¡¯s wife now, before she has been captured, all of you would not be allowed to act against me, what would you think?¡±


    Kang Bai was speechless. Saleen did not have any intention of conversing further. Since he had used a projected voice to speak, at least 10,000 people would have heard the conversation. It would not matter if he used his own means to solve the matter. Grand Duke Pompeii had suffered enough humiliation.


    The problem was that Saleen¡¯s anger was understandable to any mage, and none of them would feel that Saleen was going overboard.


    ¡°Furthermore, Lex is of royal blood and her surname is Grukos. Grand Duke Pompeii can still be considered a Qin aristocrat. His son hasmitted an offense. My arrival today is with the intention of exterminating his whole house. The Elemental Hand really wants to stand in between and block me?¡± Saleen suddenly changed the subject and targeted Alchemy City.


    Saleen¡¯s words were putting Alchemy City at odds with the Grukos royal family. Kang Bai could not bring Prince Safilos up. Doing so was tantamount to him creating a divide. All of the Qin people would hate him.


    Some things could only be done and not said.

 Chapter 1171: Level 10 Decisive Battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1171: Level 10 Decisive Battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Kang Bai hesitated. Should he go head to head with Saleen? If he did so, the cooperation with Daliang City would be broken. On Daliang City¡¯s side, they would be able to obtain arge amount of fossilized gods fragments. If they attacked the graveyard, they would gain many more rewards, possibly tens or hundreds of times more benefit.


    If he killed Saleen, Daliang City would rage a bloody war with them. The Grukos imperial family would definitely take the opportunity to monopolize the benefit.


    Although Daliang City appeared to require outside help, it was still under Lex¡¯s control. After Daliang City¡¯s magic had been built, without Lex¡¯s support, even Alchemy City would not dare to im that they could defend Daliang City. To be precise, if Lex got angry, Alchemy City¡¯s power in Daliang City would be wiped out.


    The husband and wife pair had already grown to that level and could match Alchemy City in strength?


    ¡°This matter is between Lex and Pompeii. Mages from the Elemental Hand can leave Pompeii in three days. And the magical towers, I want them. Kang Bai, make a detailed list of the damage as quickly as possible and I will repay you double.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice continued to be spread throughout the entire city. Even if Kang Bai intended to leave, he could not agree at the time, otherwise it was equivalent to admitting that the Elemental Hand was afraid of Saleen, who was only one person.


    Kang Bai understood that Saleen¡¯s arrival at Pompeii City was basically to go against Alchemy City. By doing so, it meant Saleen must have been very much certain that he was not Saleen¡¯s match, right?


    It was said that Saleen had just advanced to level 10, and his aptitude was not particrly outstanding. He relied on the strength provided by Sreeger Ind to reach the level he was. Mages with unstable foundations who relied on equipment were not even worth mentioning to Kang Bai. But why did he have a sense of danger in his heart and have no way of judging the source of this danger?


    ¡°Saleen, let us use a mage¡¯s methods to resolve this problem.¡± The elderly mage had no means to retreat. If he left, he would no longer have any significant position within the Elemental Hand when he returned.


    Saleen grinned. ¡°Kang Bai, if I used the magical tower, you would not stand a chance. Come, I will leave the magical tower to battle with you. I can guarantee that I will not use the magical tower¡¯s power to attack you. I swear in the name of a mage.¡±


    Saleen was full of confidence. Hisbat abilities were at their peak, and all of his equipment was in good condition. His n badge, Thunder Dragon ster, Constetion set, his Figure of Fate, ancient warriors, ancient figures, and all kinds of magic staffs and magic books were high level. There were not many people who would be able to match up to him.


    Not using the magical tower¡¯s power and using Kang Bai to temper his ownbat skill by having a fair battle could let his magic gain greater benefits.


    Kang Bai had to ept the suggestion because his magical tower was able to fly. If Kang Bai did not agree, Saleen waspletely capable of making the magical tower descend opposite of Kang Bai¡¯s magical tower. Within the closest distance, he could use the advantages of his magical tower to wipe everything out.


    ¡°Saleen, since this is a fair battle, could you wait one day for me? I have another piece of equipment that requires one day for its refining to beplete,¡± Kang Bai requested.


    ¡°Of course I can. In a battle between mages, equipment ys a major factor. If I don¡¯t let youplete the refining of the piece of equipment, I am afraid you would be unconvinced.¡±


    Saleen did not at all believe that Kang Bai had any equipment that could be refined in one day. If it were reversed, Kang Bai would also definitely not expect that there could be such an oue.


    Kang Bai spoke to Grand Duke Pompeii, ¡°for the time being, do not mobilize the forces in the city. Alchemy City¡¯s protection towards you is still effective. However, Saleen hase to go against Alchemy City. There is no use even if you surrender. Saleen wants to upy your city and lure Alchemy City toe forward and attack. This is an action that he often uses. You...can choose to surrender.¡±


    ¡°Surrender? Master!¡±


    ¡°After you surrender, the contract between you and Alchemy City will still be effective. I will request for forgiveness from the Elemental Hand for the situation. We are in the south of Qin, and it will be very difficult to look for another suitable candidate if we lose you.¡± Kang Bai was not worried that Grand Duke Pompeii would be arrogant or make things difficult for him because of the situation. Currently, Grand Duke Pompeii could not even protect himself. Even if he had millions of troops, he was still unable to deal with Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower coulde and go as he pleased. Unless it was a city like Alchemy City or Holy Rock City where there were numerous mages and arge magic amplifier, a ce that was considered to be impregnable by ordinary people was merely a joke for Saleen.


    Grand Duke Pompeii was silent and somewhat mournful that he was unable to follow the changes of the world. In the past, Holy Rock City would never disregard him and make their position towards Saleen¡¯s invasion unknown. Even Prince Safilos gave up on him.


    The current situation had also urred at Alchemy City. Alchemy City allowed him to surrender, meaning that they had not taken him to heart at all. When they wanted to use of something, they would take it, and when it was no longer needed, they would kick it aside.


    Compared to Cloudflow¡¯s Grand Duke Iron Blood, he was nothing at all. He had supported hundreds of mages, but none of them were able to oppose Saleen. There was no way for him to resolve the situation in front of him. If he left Pompeii, there would never be another chance for him to return.


    Surrender to Saleen? It would be impossible for him to gain Saleen¡¯s trust. Even if Saleen was to put aside their past grievances and took him in, he would also have no reason to rely on his support.


    ¡°Master, I will leave Pompeii. Requesting Master to please protect my citizens.¡± Grand Duke Pompeii bowed to Kang Bai, wanting to leave the magical tower. Kang Bai¡¯s eyes immediately revealed a murderous intent. Grand Duke Pompeii wanted to leave?


    Saleen hade to find trouble with Grand Duke Pompeii, but the one he wanted to deal with was Alchemy City. If Grand Duke Pompeii left, there would be no possibility for him to survive. Saleen would mobilize the magical tower¡¯s power to kill him. It would also be easy for him to find a reason to do so, because he had released Grand Duke Pompeii.


    Grand Duke Pompeii was no fool. He had probably thought through the crux of the matter. As long as he could bear to give up his city managed, Saleen would have no interest in pursuing and killing him. But doing so was equivalent to pushing him towards a road to ruin.


    ¡°Grand Duke,¡± Kang Bai squeezed out from behind clenched teeth. A chain made of mes suddenly bound Grand Duke Pompeii. A golden sword aura shed from Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s body, twisting the me chains and destroying them.


    ¡°You!¡± Grand Duke Pompeii only spat out one word, before he would no longer be able to say anything else. A tiny needle shot inside Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s mouth. The golden sword aura was thoroughly crushed. He had just advanced and his power was inferior to Kang Bai¡¯s.


    ¡°I am going to have a decisive battle with Saleen. If I lose, I will hand over your corpse to him, then leave.¡± After Kang Bai finished speaking, he used an ice spell to freeze Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s body. The me chains were withdrawn, drilling back into Kang Bai¡¯s bracelet.


    Grand Duke Pompeii had not expected that Kang Bai would act against him. The alliance formed by the two parties seemed to have no binding power on Kang Bai. He did not immediately die, but red at Kang Bai with a venomous expression.


    Kang Bai smiled and walked down one floor of the magical tower.


    On the ninth floor of the magical tower, a six-meter teleportation portal was arranged. Theplicated teleportation portal was divided into more than tenyers of magic patterns. It could transmit sounds, objects, and even living people.


    Kang Bai activated the sound teleportation portal. He faced the figure that floated upwards from the magic array. ¡°Senior Elder, something has happened.¡±


    ¡°What happened?¡± The virtual person within the teleportation portal opened its eyes, as if it was extremely dissatisfied at being disturbed.


    ¡°Pompeii City, I may not be able to defend it.¡±


    ¡°What about Dusi and Turing?¡±


    ¡°They are both dead.¡±


    The Senior Elder¡¯s eyes shot open, revealing bloodshot eyeballs. ¡°Who killed them?¡±


    ¡°Saleen. Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible?¡± The Senior Elder asked, as if not daring to believe it. Saleen had been to Alchemy City and left behind magical images. Alchemy City had confirmed that they were not body doubles, and it was definitely Saleen himself. All of the data left behind by Saleen had been gathered and analyzed. All of the elders had thought that Saleen¡¯s aptitude was normal and he would not attain particrly great achievements.


    Kang Bai did not dare to speak, and sent over the magical images of the two level 10 mage trainers Saleen had killed.


    ¡°So it was like this...¡± The Senior Elder saw the magical images, and his emotions became a lot more bnced. If Saleen alone had the power to kill two level 10 mage trainers, he would be a really big nuisance.


    ¡°Senior Elder, Saleen has arranged for a battle with me. I would like to request that the Elemental Hand provide me with a godly piece of equipment to ensure my victory.¡±


    The Senior Elder faltered a moment. ¡°If you win, what will you do?¡±


    ¡°I will kill him.¡±


    ¡°Wait for my news.¡± The Senior Elder cut off themunications with Kang Bai. He could not make the decision. The Elemental Hand was a huge andplicated organization. No matter how strong his individual ability was, he also could not decide whether or not they could fall out with Lex. As long as the cemetery of the giants had not been taken, he could not make the decision.


    Within the Magical Element Tower, Nailisiined, ¡°Master, that guy is dragging out time, he could be looking for help.¡±


    Saleen smiled. ¡°Looking for help? No matter how wealthy Alchemy City is, there is no way they can send over more than 3,000 sorcerers. I suppose he is waiting for some equipment. If it is a godly item, I can use my family badge to destroy them, and everyone will still be able to fight fairly.¡±


    ¡°Master, we can¡¯t be too careful.¡±


    ¡°Of course, I will be very careful. Kang Bai is extremely sly. As long as he has help, you should order the demonic spirits to kill everyone. As long as we are fighting within the range of the Magical Element Tower, what is there for us to be worried about?¡±


    ¡°Master, how about this. Since he is dragging out the time, I will take advantage of this one day of leisure to walk around in the city,¡± Nailisi pleaded.


    ¡°What are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°I am going to look for the Grand Duke¡¯s warehouse, and let the demons empty it out and move everything away.¡±


    ¡°That does not need to be done immediately.¡± Saleen knew that Nailisi was not speaking the truth. However, he nodded. ¡°You can go out for a walk if you want, but you must bring along apanion when you go, and yourpanion cannot meet any harm, understand?¡±


    Nailisi agreed helplessly. She knew that Saleen was using it to restrict her from doing things that were too dangerous.

 Chapter 1172: Level 10 Decisive Battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1172: Level 10 Decisive Battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi thought for a while and brought Isabe when she left the Magical Element Tower. Although Isabe¡¯s grade was not that high, she was learning swordcraft on the side. Nailisi had many means she could use to protect a person who cultivated both magic and martial arts.


    ¡°There is still one day. Heh heh, I am not sure if that Alchemy City is only going to send over equipment to Kang Bai, or if they will send over a level 10 powerful one again.¡±


    Some things could not be left unguarded. Saleen opened the teleportation portal, so he might as well get in touch with his teacher.


    The light of the magic in the teleportation portal shed continuously. Saleen put in painstaking effort to send people to and fro, and in the blink of an eye, Jason had brought his six closest subordinates and arrived in Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen did not conceal anything and exined the entire sequence of events. Jason listened and gave a satisfied smile. Saleen knew how to look for opportunities. He caught Pompeii City off guard and only a level 10 mage was left behind to takemand. And Saleen happened to be able to use the level 10 mage to temper his own skills.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t worry. Unless Alchemy City brings over theirrge magic amplifier, I will kill all of the people they send. There are still some rough edges when using your Magical Element Tower. During this one day period, you need to follow the method I give you to train the demonic spirits. When the timees, the 3,600 demonic spirits will be sufficient to let you be an undefeated existence amongst level 10s. No matter how many enemies there are, they will stand no chance against you.¡±


    ¡°Then what about you, Teacher?¡±


    ¡°I am refining a magic amplifier. Once it has been refined sessfully, I won¡¯t have to be afraid even if I have to face Alchemy City alone. I can definitely get away safely.¡± Jason spoke mildly, as if such a thing was not worth mentioning.


    Saleen froze for a moment. He never thought that his teacher would be able to start refining magic amplifiers so quickly. Magic amplifiers were found everywhere. For example, a magic staff could amplify magic. However, a real magic amplifier did not enhance the effectiveness of the magic, but magnified the actual magic power.


    They werepletely different concepts. A magic staff could only cause elemental power to be released in a more appropriate manner. A normal mage would waste more than half of their elemental power. By using a good magic staff, they couldpletely maximize the usage of their magical power. There would be no change in the properties of the magic, but the degree of its release would achieve perfection, thus seeming as if the power had doubled.


    Magic amplifiers magnified the power of the magic itself to its limits. The degree of the magnification would depend on the properties of the magic amplifier.


    The difficulty of refining a magic amplifier was a hundred times more difficult than that of refining a perfect magic staff. It was too difficult for a level 10 mage to refine a magic amplifier..


    Jason saw Saleen¡¯s expression andughed. ¡°Saleen, Water me Alchemy is not a skill from this ne. It is an ability that came from a higher grade ne. Thus, on this ne, the people who are able to grasp Water me Alchemy are extremely rare. This type of skill can no longer be learned based on innate talent. It requires a body whoseposition is suitable for this type of skill. Only then can it be truly grasped. For people like us, many of our equipment refinements arepletely different from conventional alchemy. Think about it for a moment, isn¡¯t that so?¡±


    Saleen thought back for a moment and discovered Jason was right. In the past when he refined the longbow Seven Nights, it did not live up to any particr standards, yet Seven Nights continued to be equivalent to a godly item. Without Water me Alchemy, he would never have been able to attain the achievements he had today.


    At the very least, a piece of equipment as menacing as the Thunder Dragon ster could only be created by only two people on this ne¡ªhim and Jason.


    Jason continued, ¡°your Elemental Eye is able to observe tiny changes in energy. I have a simr skill which can adjust the most minute operations in alchemy which is even stronger than yours. For a magic amplifier, the most important thing is that the problem of the materials is hard to resolve. Once I am sessful, I will pass on the experience to you.¡±


    Saleen spoke on a whim, ¡°Teacher, can I look at the blueprints?¡±


    Jason smiled. ¡°You want to help me modify it? It¡¯s not that you can¡¯t, but I designed the blueprints based on the materials that I have on hand, if you were to make changes...¡±


    Saleen smiled shyly. ¡°Of course I will help Teacher to make up for the materials.¡±


    ¡°Fine, this gesture of your filial piety, I will take it. Saleen, us two as master and disciple, if we possess a magic amplifier, you will no longer have to worry about situations like today¡¯s.¡±


    Saleen took the blueprints that Jason passed to him. ¡°But Teacher, to refine this thing, how long will you need to spend?¡±


    ¡°Time is not a problem, but refining this is more troublesome than refining a godly item. It will attract the attention of all the strong parties. Especially those among the Holy Masters who have an understanding of fate. If we want to refine it, we must go to the interdimensional space.¡±


    Saleen spread the magic blueprints on the table. A solid design model floated up and expanded, turning into an image about 300 meters tall. The magic amplifier was not small, but it was also not strange. For powerful equipment, the smaller it was refined, the more difficult would be.


    Although Jason could refine a magic amplifier, he could not possibly make it the size of a ring, or even a bracelet.


    The piece of equipment had all kinds of metallic colors, but its glow was dim. Saleen had never seen the magic patterns it had on top before. It was extremely mysterious. In terms of its structure, the magic amplifier looked like a devil.


    The magic amplifier had three heads and six arms. There were three eyes on each head. Because it was a transparent picture, Saleen was able to see into the inner part. There was a circr space in the middle. The magic patterns in this space looked far moreplex.


    Jason pointed to the space . ¡°I will ce the Heart of the Sky here. Once we have found something suitable to rece it, I will return the Heart of the Sky to you.¡±


    ¡°Teacher?¡± Saleen was surprised. Although he wanted the Heart of the Sky, if this magic amplifier had the Heart of the Sky, it would be exceptionally powerful. Saleen could tell that the space was meant to hold the core that would provide energy to the magical amplifier.


    ¡°The Heart of the Sky is like a human¡¯s heart. It can transform into all kinds of elements. However, I need something that can let all kinds of elements be broken down. If you can bear to part with the Magical Elemental Tower, it can also work. By allowing the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and elementite to flow through one another, a current surrounding the space can be formed. It will be like a never ending source of energy.¡±


    ¡°Elementite...¡± Saleen had elementite and he was not unwilling to give it to Jason. It was just that out of the elementite he possessed, the highest grade was level 16, while the Magical Element Tower was level 18 elementite.


    ¡°If we can have divine personas, that is also fine. However, it needs to be a divine persona with no properties. It would be best if it has not touched the six great elements.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I can look for level 18 elementite for you. Currently in my possession, there is only level 16,¡± Saleen said with regret.


    ¡°There is no need to rush, this elemental envoy is my test product. Anyway, the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water that you gave me is sufficient for me to use. Once I have advanced to level 13, this elemental envoy will be given to Truman. When that timees, I can refine an even more powerful magic amplifier. The magic amplifier can be used for more than just battles. Saleen, when mages research, the most important ability is control. With the help of the elemental envoy, when I perform magic experiments, I will have almost no failures.¡±


    Supplementary elemental abilities? Saleen felt his respect towards his teacher grow. He had to stand on the shoulders of his predecessors to continuously learn and imitate them, before he could refine many powerful pieces of equipment. However, Teacher directly transformed theory into practice with no material objects to act as evidence in between.


    ¡°Teacher, if the six arms of this elemental envoy are able to control the six great elements, is it missing a ring of bnce?¡± Saleen pointed at the blueprints.


    ¡°No, the three heads are there to rece the ring of bnce. Also, I will refine six weapon¡¯s spirits inside. They will be grouped in twos to form an even more perfect bnce. By doing so, it will not only save arge amount of Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, it will also allow the ring of bnce to be restored. What I want to refine is an undying weapon¡¯s spirit, hence I will need that primitive eternal control shard of yours.¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡± Saleen had three pieces of broken jade in his possession, which were all used to control the more important guys. However, Saleen¡¯s current technique of refining equipment was sufficient to create imitations of even more powerful eternal control shards. Although it would not be as sturdy as broken jade, it would barely be enough to control the few who were harder to keep a hold of. Saleen was willing to give the three pieces of broken jade to Teacher.


    ¡°Also, this elemental envoy can be armed with equipment, hence I n to refine a set of elemental armor. Once this situation is over, bring me to the Imperial City of the Abyss to catch a few elemental creatures. We can refine elemental armors together.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I have needed elemental weapons all this time!¡± Saleen looked at the structure of the solid blueprint and felt that he really did not have much that he could provide to Teacher. Jason¡¯s design was nearly perfect.


    ¡°You are still able to help me. I don¡¯t want to waste time refining elemental weapons. Hence, we might as well make six more elemental badges and directly refine them on the elemental envoy¡¯s hands.¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment. That was easy. For elemental badges, the most difficult thing was to capture elemental creature leaders with a soul. Otherwise, the elemental badge would be unable to advance, and there would be little purpose for it.


    At the beginning it was very difficult for Saleen to capture elemental creature leaders. He was only at level 9, while the elemental creature leaders were at the very least level 10. He had to look for elemental creature leaders in an unstable condition or who were gravely injured. Otherwise, he was not able to capture them, but rather he himself would be done for.


    Now that he possessed the Thunder Dragon ster, and had smoothly advanced to level 10 and stored up 24 level 11 magic spells in the Constetion outfit, he no longer felt such a great amount of stress about capturing level 10 elemental creature leaders.


    ¡°Saleen, what have you gained after looking at the blueprint?¡± Recently Jason would give very few pointers to Saleen. Although Saleen¡¯s currentbat ability could not bepared to his, his magic system was already beginning to deviate from his. The only thing he could give Saleen pointers on was inbat. As for matters of cultivation, Saleen would have to rely on himself.


    ¡°I have learned a lot. Once I have reached level 11, I will also try to refine my own magic amplifier.¡±


    ¡°Mm, Saleen, you have self-confidence. Don¡¯t be confused by the descriptions in the magic notes. Perhaps the mages who wrote the notes did not have as deep an understanding of the elements as you do.¡±

 Chapter 1173: Duel of Water and Fire (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1173: Duel of Water and Fire (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    What Jason said was an exnation of a magical proverb¡ªmagical notes could only be used as a reference for learning.


    Mages would all write down their cultivation experiences, especially the ones that were important. However, only the things that were confirmed would be written into books. Notes were the umtion of scattered pieces of knowledge. Some might not necessarily be urate or suitable for every mage.


    The master and disciple pair began to study the blueprints on an even deeper level. Saleen was unable to think of ways to modify the blueprints, so he focused on learning from his teacher¡¯s design experience.


    The higher Saleen¡¯s level became, the more he felt that Jason was inconceivable. Many predecessors had mentioned theories that had never been practiced, yet Jason was able to realize the theories and even draw them out on blueprints .


    The magic blueprints were not a regr design draft, but had a fixed experimental function. In other words, when the blueprints were wed, the blueprints would break into pieces.


    The elemental envoy designed by Jason was perfect. Its energy obtained the bnce that Saleen had long hoped for.


    One day and one night passed like that. Saleen felt like a dry sponge who had been submerged in the sea of Jason¡¯s knowledge. One day of learning felt more effective than fumbling about by himself for one year.


    ¡°Alright Saleen, you can meditate for a moment. Kang Bai will be arriving soon.¡± Jason looked at his student with satisfaction. He had already forgotten that he had to start refining the elemental envoy.


    Saleen immediately went to meditate. No matter what his current position was, Jason would always be his teacher. Jason had never been a talkative person, so Saleen greatly valued any pointers from him. It didn¡¯t matter if he had to immediately meditate on such things. Saleen calcted for a moment and discovered that it was the best opportunity for him to meditate at this time.


    Kang Bai had arrived early outside the Magical Element Tower. He stood on the edge of therge pit in front of the magical tower. It was originally Pompeii City¡¯s monument. Standing on the other side of therge pit was Daniel.


    Daniel smiled slightly. ¡°Master, my master is still meditating. Please wait for a moment. Why don¡¯t you take this time to analyze this pit. It was after all formed by the attack of thousands of high level magic spells.¡±


    Daniel¡¯s demeanor was dignified as he stood on one of the heads of Pikoosi, one of the Spirits of the Dead. The level 8 Spirit of the Dead was no longer suitable for them, but its was still considered quite fast amongst the Spirits of the Dead level 10 and below. With Pikoosi¡¯s help, Daniel was guaranteed to be able to escape back to the magical tower.


    Kang Bai would not dare to attack Daniel. On the Magical Element Tower, there were thousands of demonic spirits. If Daniel were attacked, Kang Bai would be unable to escape.


    Kang Bai heard Daniel¡¯s words, but he did not lose his temper. What Daniel said was reasonable. The pit had many traces of spells left behind on its surface. Saleen had not removed them. By observing it, Kang Bai could gain a lot of useful information.


    Saleen had that kind of attitude, allowing Kang Bai to feel a little more rxed, since Saleen was not be thinking of killing him.


    ¡°Alright, I will wait.¡± Kang Bai stepped towards the pit and began to analyze it. The bottom of the pit was made of crystallized soil. Kang Bai lifted his hand and released a wind de to cut out a part of the soil. He kept it in his space equipment. He would bring it back to Alchemy City to let the mages decipher the might of Saleen¡¯s magic tower and the number of attack modes it possessed.


    From the portions of crystallized soil, perhaps they could decipher the magic pattern¡¯s frequency of movement.readics on our webnovel.live


    Daliang City had magic patterns, but they were all operated by demonic spirits. Alchemy City¡¯s mages could note into contact with them. The demonic spirits¡¯ attack did not follow anyws and required few movements. Alchemy City had always hoped to gain data on magic patterns, but Daliang City could not have any losses, so none of them had seen what a magic pattern running at full power was like.


    If he could bring back data left behind by Saleen¡¯s attack, he would not be punished by the Elemental Hand.


    Daniel was calm and collected. He turned and returned to the outsides of the magical tower. He did not enter, but he merely watched Kang Bai¡¯s movements. Kang Bai specialized in research and did not understand Saleen¡¯s methods. On the other hand, it was Jason who let Saleen meditate. It showed that his understanding of his student was thorough.


    On the surface it seemed like Saleen was giving Kang Bai the opportunity to analyze his magical tower, but in reality, the battle was about to begin. If Kang Bai did so, he would be splitting his focus, which would bring no benefits for the following battle.


    Saleen was learning from one of the stances from J¡¯s swordcraft of using arge gesture for his magic and battle.


    Kang Bai fell into the trap. However precious the data was, it could never bepared to life. Saleen was not a merciful person. If he was merciful, he would have been ughtered by others. Kang Bai had already lost a point. A difference in strength was already seen.


    Saleen hadfortably finished his meditation in the Magical Element Tower. He went to the 18th floor, where Sika was.


    ¡°Sika, I am going to fight the guy downstairs. If there is any danger to my life, I am not nning to call for any help. What do you think, will I win or not?¡±


    ¡°You will.¡± Sika¡¯s reply was simple.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°If he does not use much equipment, I can kill with my club. It is stupid for a mage not to use any equipment.¡±


    ¡°But I am also a mage!¡±


    ¡°You have the Crystal Finger.¡±


    ¡°Understood. I won¡¯t underestimate the enemy.¡± Saleen knew that Sika was rarely sarcastic. He was beingcent and wanted to kill this level 10 mage to stabilize his own confidence. By going to Sika, Saleen could be considered to be proud, wanting Sika topliment him. However, Sika reminded him that he had the Crystal Finger. It was hard to guarantee that the opponent would not have any unusual skills.


    If Kang Bai had a simr skill, Saleen would be in a lot of danger. For a battle between level 10 mages, where neither of them held back, as long as they were hit by magic spells, there was practically no chance of revival.


    ¡°If you understand then that¡¯s good.¡± Sika hugged Saleen. Saleen felt the pulses of power in Sika¡¯s body, and his mood stabilizedpletely.


    He returned Her hug. After Sika pushed him away, he stepped out of the Magical Element Tower smiling, and used a dexterity spell to slowly descend onto the ground.


    ¡°Master, Master Kang Bai is waiting for you.¡± Daniel saw that Saleen hade out and returned to the magical tower.


    Kang Bai was somewhat anxious. He had collected sufficient materials, but Saleen had not appeared. He even thought that Saleen wanted to go back on his word. If Saleen went back on his word, then he would not have an opportunity to chase Saleen away. The extent of the Magical Element Tower¡¯s power did not require that many people to calcte. Even Kang Bai could put together an estimate.


    He was no match for it. Having a few thousand high level magic spells descend at the same time was too terrifying.


    Seeing that Saleen, Kang Bai stepped out of the pit. It was a wind travel spell. The utilization of the wind element was perfect. When he moved, thepels of his robe only swayed gently.


    ¡°Master Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Master Kang Bai.¡±


    ¡°Please set the rules for the battle you called for.¡± Kang Bai¡¯s words sounded like they were spoken by mercenaries. The elderly mage¡¯s skills were tempered over time, but he did not deal with people very often. He mostly came into contact with his Followers and a few people who asked him to help them handle their affairs.


    ¡°Our battle cannot go beyond the range of this square. Attacks from magic spells can go out of range. During the process of the battle, no one is allowed to call for help. As for equipment, it will be left up to the individual. How is that?¡±


    ¡°Very good. Let¡¯s begin!¡±


    The two were standing close to each other. After Kang Bai finished speaking, he released his territory, which was a giant sea of fire. The temperature suddenly rose to a degree that would cause most living creatures to die. The attack power of fire magic was the strongest out of the six types of magic. The fire element territory had an especially rming killing power.


    A ball of silvery white water mes floated above Saleen¡¯s fingertips. The temperature of the water mes was even lower than absolute zero. An area sealed by ice appeared in Kang Bai¡¯s territory. Saleen was using the water mes forbat.


    On another Crystal Wall system, water mes were a rare skill. The skill was originally used forbat. After Water me Spells were passed onto the Crystal Wall system where the Myers Continent was located, it was slightly modified for mages to use for alchemy. The effect exceeded items that were in the same league as the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    Once Kang Bai saw that there was no way to control Saleen using his territory, he felt some panic, because it was not not a territory. it was a water type skill. How was it possible that it could destroy his territorial power?


    Saleen calmly prepared his attack within the area sealed in ice. He retrieved a magic staff and pointed at the distant Kang Bai. In his right hand, he readied a skill that waspatible with the magic spell that was stored in the magic staff.


    A level 11 magic spell was stored in Saleen¡¯s staff, which Jason brought to him. Since Alchemy City could provide Kang Bai with equipment, Metatrin City could do so for him as well.


    Dimensional sound waves could be disyed in a small number of territories.


    Kang Bai also released his equipment: the me Ne. When the ne was released within his territory, its length would be close to that of the range controlled by the territory.


    The me Ne headed towards Saleen and wound around him. Ayer of water element territory released around Saleen at the same time. Immediately, the might of the water mes increased a few dozen times.


    The temperature dropped again. A circr zone of frost appeared. The me territory became a fire ring, and the me ne that had rushed into Saleen¡¯s water element territory was extinguished.


    ¡°Use all of your power. If you rely on this kind of attack, there is no way for you to win against me.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was transmitted from within the territory. The territories of the two level 10 mages ovepped and conflicted with one another. Elemental storm magic had already started to brew on the edges of his territory.


    A gigantic twister appeared out of thin air, sharp edged snow mixed within it.

 Chapter 1174: Duel of Water and Fire (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1174: Duel of Water and Fire (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The magic spell was derived from Saleen¡¯s Water me Alchemy and only consumed Saleen¡¯s mental power. Saleen¡¯s elemental conversion and the might of the other five types of magic spells was undoubtedly powerful. However, the consumption of mental power was enormous, and the consumption of magic chords also could not be reduced by using skills.


    Snowkill could be advanced. However, Saleen¡¯s Water me Alchemy was level 10, and this newly derived magic spell was only at level 9.


    It was the first time that Saleen did not take the initiative to create an advantage by attacking. Rather, he persuaded Kang Bai to use his toughest attacks to attain victory.


    ¡°Saleen, do you really want to die that much?¡± Kang Bai was angered. Saleen was showing disdain.


    ¡°I can¡¯t possibly die. I am carrying out the will of fate.¡± A wave of starlight fell from the sky and prated the territory, enveloping his body.


    ¡°Constetion Wishing spell!¡±


    Kang Bai recognized the skill. The Constetion Wishing spell wasmon. Although astrologers had disappeared, mages preserved pictures of some of the skills for them to refer to.


    The Constetion Wishing spell was able to prate through territories, and could even ignore rules. It became one of astrologers¡¯ favorite skills. It was different from the Wishing spell, which was one of the divine spells. The Constetion Wishing spell did not require astrologers to pay any cost in life. The skill increased an astrologer¡¯s luck during a short period of time.


    For example, even if Kang Bai were to use a level 11 instant death spell on Saleen now, Saleen would not be affected in any way.


    Kang Bai saw that Saleen had utilized the Constetion Wishing spell and immediately knew that Saleen was definitely not as he was described in the data from Alchemy City. A person who was proficient in magic spells and astrologer skills was definitely not mediocre. Perhaps it was just that this person had not received any pointers from his teacher when he was young and he had had unstable foundations, hence his performance at Alchemy City had been so ordinary.


    Kang Bai¡¯s conjecture was not at all urate, but this did not prevent him from developing feelings of fear towards the current Saleen.


    With this kind of person, how would they possibly be afraid of Alchemy City, and how would they possibly show any mercy towards him!


    In the blink of an eye, Kang Bai overturned all of his previous deductions. He retrieved the equipment he had borrowed from Alchemy City without any hesitation. A flower petal flew above his fingertips.


    The flower petal was brilliant and dazzling, it was iparably gorgeous. At the beginning there was only one petal. However, as the magic patterns on the broad wooden bangle on Kang Bai¡¯s wrist all began to flow, the entire sky was covered in the colorful petals.


    Saleen suddenly felt that the passage of life was truly uncontroble. It had been a mere two seconds¡¯ time, yet he felt that he had aged by at least a month or more. Such a tough and domineering piece of equipment caused all of Saleen¡¯s hairs to stand on end.


    In front of Saleen, the n badge was suspended in the air, and a massive lightning bolt was shot out. He was long prepared, that once something simr to what was happening before him ured, to think of ways and means to stop Kang Bai.


    Kang Bai¡¯s equipment was indeed more menacing than he had expected. This piece of equipment was extremely famous, and it was a godly item that was refined by the Myers Goddess ¨C Withering Dance.


    When the flower petals descended from the sky, they had already changed from a splendid and vibrant appearance to a dry and withered state. The witheredness of each flower petal would take away a part of Saleen¡¯s life energy. If not for the Figures of Fate which helped to withstand the damage for him, a level 10 mage like Saleen would not be able to survive under Withering Dance for more than three minutes.


    And Kang Bai, who was on the edge of the flower rain, had absorbed arge amount of life energy. The wrinkles and his face seemed to have lessened a lot.


    One Saleen¡¯s n badge came out, Kang Bai was even more terrified than Saleen. But he had released a godly item¡¯s power, so he could not stop. This godly item¡¯s power had already controlled the surrounding area of the square within a range of a few li. Apart from those who were sealed shut within the Magical Element Tower, the living creatures in all the other ces had their life energy taken away.


    Ordinary nts becamepleted withered within half a breath¡¯s time, and even turned into ashes. Even constructed buildings were affected by Withering Dance. Cracks appeared on the walls and the inner parts began to decay.


    With this square as the centre, the surrounding buildings began to copse one by one, and the people within the buildings turned into bones.


    Kang Bai paused within the flower rain. He had not at all thought that this godly item¡¯s effects would be this horrifying. At this time, a massive current had been shot from Saleen¡¯s n badge.


    The wooden bangle on Kang Bai¡¯s wrist shone with a green light. It was not under Kang Bai¡¯s control and directly flew to the skies. It wanted to hide from the current¡¯s attack.


    The massive current still graze Withering Dance. Saleen¡¯s counterattack was too quick. After the current was shot, the flower rain at Kang Bai¡¯s position had been stopped in the blink of an eye. From Kang Bai¡¯s body, a huge fire ring was released. Under the power of the fire ring, his body moved furiously towards the side to dodge Saleen¡¯s lightning bombardment.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning was not targeted and shot at him, his target was precisely that wooden bangle ¨C Withering Dance.


    Myers was a goddess of nature, she held life in her grasp. For anyone who she wanted to kill, their life would directly be taken away. And for anyone who she wanted to bless, they couldpletely be brought back to life after death. This Withering Dance was a godly item that she had bestowed upon her own disciples. If this skill was to fall into the Oracles¡¯ hands and used by them, the whole of Pompeii would be a wastnd.


    The lightning grazed past Withering Dance. Within the wooden bangle, a shrill howling sound broke through the silence of the entire city. Immediately the sound ceased abruptly, and the wooden bangle fell onto the ground.


    Saleen felt that the Figure of Fate within his body had decayed, aged and died. There were still numerous flower petals in the sky, and with each petal that withered, more of his life energy would be taken away.


    But at this time, Saleen was being enveloped in the flower rain and had no way to release any skills. As he had plenty of mental power, he could choose to release scrolls. However, his scrolls were basically all of an attack type, he did not have even one status type scroll. In other words, there was no way for Saleen to rely on skills to escape the envelopment of the flower rain.


    ¡°Myers!¡± Saleen screamed. The frequency of the screaming sound was the same as the Thundering Sound that he had cultivated.


    This was a method that a mage would only utilize his magical power for in a helpless situation. The surrounding space was locked down by the flower rain. Within Saleen¡¯s ne, the 24 lightning dragons echoed the sound of Saleen¡¯s scream and released growls that sounded like the roar of thunder.


    Boom! Boom! Boooom...


    Under the rumbling of the Thundering Sound, the magic chords within his body finally began to recover their ability to utilize elemental power. At this time however Saleen did not dare to use magic spells that were purely elemental. On the surface of his body, a gigantic water shield was propped up. On the surface of the water shield, shes of lightning continuously shone. On the bubbles that were formed on the water shield, magic patterns were packed together and blocked this menacing divine spell skill.


    The power that stole away life was sealed off on the outside of the water shield by the lightning. At this time Saleen propped up the water shield without holding back, and simultaneously began to recite the astrologers¡¯ curse.


    ¡°The long rivers of fate, please return the life that belongs to me!¡± After Saleen¡¯s voice has ended, from the sky, starlight condensed together to form arge star river which fiercely poured into Saleen¡¯s body. Saleen could feel that his own Figure of Fate began to recover. All of the damage that it had received disappeared bit by bit, and thepse of his own life had also stopped.


    Kang Bai was anxious and uncertain. From his hands a wind dragon was release. It pounced towards the Withering Dance that had fallen onto the ground. This godly item was too important, if it was lost, he too would not be able to live on. The Elemental Hand supported him, but this did not mean that it could forgive him for losing such an important piece of equipment.


    ¡°Dream on!¡± Saleen had already taken damage, there was no way he could let Kang Bai retrieve that bangle. He raised his hand and shot out six icicles, leaving one for backup. The six lightning icicles formed a hexagon, cutting off all contact between Kang Bai and Withering Dance. One lightning icicle hit Withering Dance dead on. The bangle that was wrapped within the wind dragon fell to the ground, and the wind dragon disintegrated in the blink of an eye.


    The other five lightning icicles directly headed towards Kang Bai.


    Saleen originally wanted to use skills to have a duel to the death with Kang Bai. However, Kang Bai¡¯s equipment had angered him. He already did not want to continue with such a battle.


    On the surface of Kang Bai¡¯s body, the gigantic fire ring once again expanded open. The defensive fire ring had reached level 10. It had already advanced to be a powerful magic spell with all properties that could both attack and defend.


    However the lighting icicles were still able to prate the fire ring with no obstacles. Four of the lightning icicles pierced through Kang Bai¡¯s arms and legs. Another one of the lightning icicles targeted and hit Kang Bai¡¯s abdomen.


    Today¡¯s Saleen already had an extremely adept control over the lightning icicle¡¯s power. The four lightning icicles in front directly broke Kang Bai¡¯s four limbs with a violent force. At the ces that were hit, at least half a chi or more of his limbs had disintegrated. Unless it was revived by a goddess of nature, otherwise these limbs would no longer grow back.


    The final lightning icicle was unusually reserved. It was like a thin needle that pierced through Kang Bai¡¯s abdomen. The lightning power caused all of Kang Bai¡¯s magic spell skills to be unable to stop this harm. From his abdomen onwards, Kang Bai was frozen by the icicle, turning into a human shaped chunk of ice.


    Saleen moved a step forward, catching Withering Dance in his hands. However his mood was still unable to calm down.


    He recalled Sika¡¯s warning. He had looked down on the power of other professions too much. If he had not had his n badge, even his Thunder Dragon ster would have no way of stopping this divine spell.


    Putting away the godly item created by the Myers Goddess into the Starline Ring, Saleen propped up the water shield that was filled with lightning patterns and currents, and escaped towards the Magical Element Tower. Although he was about to leave, he did not forget to use magic power to write a line of words in front of Kang Bai ¨C Alchemy City, wait for my revenge.


    Saleen entered the Magical Element Tower and quickly returned to the 16th floor. He sat down and continuously took all kings of magic medicines to stop the inertial injuries on his body. At the same time, he was using the power of constetion to stop damage that continued to be on Withering Dance. The Magical Element Towerpletely cut off all damage from the outside world¡¯s effects. Although Saleen only had level 9 astrology, he still went through the trouble to wipe them off from the body.


    At this time, Sika had already rushed up. She could see extremely clearly that Saleen had been hit directly by a deadly skill. Sika could only sigh in relief and rx once she had seen Saleen. The state of Saleen¡¯s injuries were hundreds and thousands of times lighter than what she had imagined. That bizarre piece of equipment had not gotten around the Figure of Fate, so it had not been able to descend upon Saleen¡¯s body in its full force.


    Even Jason hade over, looked at Saleen and asked, ¡°Saleen, this time what have you learnt?¡±


    ¡°No matter how weak the opponent, I must deal with them with all my strength,¡± Saleen replied with a bitter smile.

 Chapter 1175: A City’s Tragedy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1175: A City¡¯s Tragedy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°The opponent was not weak, Saleen. Confidence does not equate to being able to look down on the enemy. Opponents should be treated like tests. Would you rx the mental power used to control a test object because its quality is inferior?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Mm, so don¡¯t do such things in the future.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Teacher.¡± Saleen epted his teacher¡¯s discipline. If he had not had the Figure of Fate, even if he had managed to kill the opponent, he would still have lost hundreds of years of life.


    ¡°Give me the equipment that you obtained,¡± Jason said to Saleen.


    Saleen retrieved Withering Dance and handed it to Jason. Jason released his Water mes and threw it into the wooden bangle. Saleen saw divine words fly out from the bangle. They were refined by Jason¡¯s Water mes and turned into droplets of a green liquid. The droplets did not contain any divine properties. They were made of life energy.


    Jason used a stone jug to collect the droplets of life energy. He collected more than 60 jugs before Withering Dance stopped releasing the divine words.


    Jason threw the jugs of life energy liquid at Saleen. ¡°Keep it. There will be many uses for it in the future. I will take this bangle to refine a genuine magic amplifier. Help me collect wood refining materials. It is best if the elemental envoy possesses its own life. Six souls is too much. I am trying things out to see how I can create a single spirit that can control the six great elements. This bangle should be able to rece the Heart of the Sky.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, wouldn¡¯t it be too dangerous?¡± Saleen referred to Withering Dance.


    ¡°I will take my time to refine it. I am going to break down all of the power left inside. My level is too low, but as long as I have sufficient time, I can eventually make this bangle my own object.¡±


    ¡°Whates after that?¡±


    ¡°After that? Saleen, didn¡¯t you want to upy this city? I will go and destroy all of the opponent¡¯s magic towers. You just need to send those imp troops to control them. It will not be beneficial to your rule if you kill too few people.¡±


    Jasonughed at Saleen¡¯s disbelieving look. ¡°You¡¯ve killed the three strongest people in this city, and the remaining people are not enough to defend the magical towers. Even when I was a level 9 mage, I would have tried. If you don¡¯t believe me,e with me.¡±


    Saleen was naturally disbelieving. Jason wanted to use the power of one person to destroy all of the magical towers in the city? It was something he could learn from.


    Nailisi had not yet returned, and he did not know what she had brought Isabe to do. The surroundings had beenpletely cleared out. The death and destruction caused by Withering Dance had caused everything around the tower to start to decay.


    Jason brought Saleen out of the Magical Element Tower. The tower was left in the care of the mages from Sreeger Ind. Although Rosen the water puppet was level 9, its ability to direct the demonic spirits was still not on par with a human mage.


    Sika followed the two. Jason flew out of the magical tower, and a snake flew out from his sleeve. The snake was more than 100 meters long. The giant creature released its scales with the sound of friction.


    A magic beast summon!


    It was a true magic beast summon and not something that had signed any contracts. The great snake had probably been reared by Jason since young. Furthermore, Jason had space equipment that could amodate living bodies.


    The space equipment was like a miniature interdimensional space. Inside was apletely man-made environment that could allow living bodies to survive or advance. Saleen also had an item like that ¨C the Goddess¡¯ Ne.


    However the Goddess¡¯ Ne quite harsh. Only living creatures that possessed lightning energy and naturally broke down elements for energy could survive. Ordinary magic beasts would die.


    Jason told Saleen and Sika to stand on the great snake. ¡°This snake advanced to level 10 a long time ago. Both of you look at how I use a creature summoned to fight.¡±


    As Jason spoke, he had already flown above one magical tower. The great snake pounced and wrapped around the magical tower. The magical tower had 8 6-meter floors. It was smallpared to the snake.


    The great snake¡¯s body coiled towards the magical tower, and the attacking magic spells from the tower were blocked. A fireball floated above Jason¡¯s finger. It was a little smaller than a human pupil. It was yellow with a faint hint red. The snake opened its mouth and pierced a window of the magical tower.


    The window had been meticulous crafted by grand mages and was pierced by the great snake, causing tiny holes to form. Jason¡¯s fireball flew in the small holes. The great snake¡¯s body squirmed for a moment and soared upwards.


    Saleen and Sika looked back, only to see that the magical tower suddenly explode. The entire 7th and 8th floors flew into the sky, and the bottom six floors copsed.


    Not a single person escaped. Jason¡¯s attack was clean. He used to great snake to seal off the magical tower¡¯s exits, then used a fireball spell to burn all the people in the magical tower into ashes.


    The great snake flew to the top of the next magical tower. It was only a seven-floor magical tower. The great snake wound around it, but this time, the great snake wriggled effortfully and contracted inwards, cutting the magical tower into three pieces.


    Saleen saw that the great snake¡¯s scales were packed with magic patterns. After it touched the magical tower¡¯s defensive magic spells, the spells disintegrated. The offensive magic spells were allpletely negated or blocked. The snake¡¯s body was extremely tough, even mages in a magical tower forbat were helpless against it.


    Not too far from the seven floor magical tower was another six floor tower. The great snake¡¯s tail held it up on the ground. It leapt forward and rushed to the front of the six floor magical tower. The snake turned and used its huge tail to whip the magical tower.


    There was a deafening sound, followed by screams from within the magical tower. Thick smoke billowed everywhere. The snake¡¯s tail whipped downwards, causing the magical tower to topple immediately.


    Jason could not be bothered to kill the mages in the magical tower. He summoned the great snake and flew towards the next magical tower.


    Pompeii City was a mess. In the 10 floor magical tower at the centre of the city, a red robed mage activated a teleportation portal and transported himself back to Alchemy City. The mage was the one who had sent the godly item to Kang Bai. Kang Bai had been killed in battle, the godly item had been lost, and since he was not a match for the opponent, he might as well leave.


    He had not lost the godly item, so he did not need to bear any responsibility, so he did not have to risk his life to face Saleen. He had observed Saleen and Kang Bai¡¯s battle from within the magical tower and had seen that Saleen¡¯s n badge was able to shoot out a current more than two meters thick. He knew that Saleen had already be a powerful enemy for Alchemy City.


    The people of the Elemental Hand wereughable. They had wanted to force Saleen to give up the benefits of the magic nuclei.


    Sika and Saleen followed Jason, but they had no opportunity to act. Jason controlled the great snake, and with the cooperation between man and beast, small magical towers were unable to stand more than 10 seconds.


    A magical tower was undoubtedly a mage¡¯s most powerful construction. However, the 10-floor magical tower no longer had anyone to support it. Of the remaining magical towers, the tallest was only nine floors, and most of the mages had already escaped.


    Many mages had seen Saleen¡¯s lightning attack. The ones remaining were all Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s mages. The mages had chosen not to leave because of a sense of honor. The ones who had escaped were all from Alchemy City.


    Their mission was to cooperate with Grand Duke Pompeii. Now that the Grand Duke was dead, there was no point in staying.


    Most of the towers that Jason had destroyed had not contained any mages. Jason asked Saleen if he needed the towers, as they would be considered Saleen¡¯s property in the future. Saleen shook his head. If the magical towers had been made with steel rocks, even if the great snake had been two levels higher, it might not have been able to destroy them so easily.


    Pompeii City was now his. Saleen did not kill anyone, he only followed Jason to drive the mages away.


    Saleen did not make the remaining mages surrender. A majority of the mages were supported by him. The mages had epted Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s provision, and now it was time for them to pay the cost.


    The four corners of the city went up in mes, and Saleen knew that it was Nailisi¡¯s work. The demon troops began to appear, hiding from the magical towers and cleaning up Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s troops.


    The sounds of massacre were loud. The demon troops quickly arranged themselves in formation for battle and pushed the streets back one by one. Some of the demons were close to 10 meters tall and carried alchemy crossbows. They destroyed many buildings along the way.


    Nailisi controlled them well. The demons did not kill any civilians, and only pursued and killed the troops.


    Jason destroyed the magical towers without pausing. Hundreds of mages were escaping from Pompeii City, heading towards the canal. There was only one quiet ce: the 10 floor magical tower.


    Jason saw that there was resistance that was especially strong and brought Saleen close to the 10 floor magical tower.


    Jason stamped his foot, and the great snake stopped midair. Its scales were bloody. During the process of destroying the magical towers, killing the enemies could not be avoided. The great snake¡¯s scales were a weapon and could fly out to attack enemies.


    ¡°Saleen, that magical tower is about to copse and form an elemental storm. How do you n on settling this?¡± Jason pointed to the distant 10 floor magical tower.


    Saleen gazed into the distance. ¡°Record the images. It was not caused by me.¡±


    ¡°Mm, not bad. You should not be softhearted. The teleportation portal in this magical tower should definitely be opened. If you get close to it to think of ways to stop its copse, you would meet an even more dangerous attack. Let¡¯s go up.¡± As Jason spoke, he flew the great snake up more than 5,000 meters into the air.


    Saleen looked downwards, in aplicated mood. He summoned Nailisi and allowed her to withdraw the demons and stop killing the enemy¡¯s troops. After 10 minutes, Pompeii City no longer existed.

 Chapter 1176: A City’s Tragedy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1176: A City¡¯s Tragedy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi heard Saleen¡¯s voice transmit through her soul and jumped in fright. She could not help but rejoice that she had only released about 3,000 or so demons and had not pursued and killed all of the enemy¡¯s troops.


    She had been afraid that the demons¡¯ destruction would be too severe and that Saleen would be unhappy.


    The demons were summoned back into the purgatory of devils. Nailisi grabbed onto Isabe¡¯s belt, incarnated as a demon and flew high into the skies. The skies continued to darken, and huge dark clouds covered the entire city.


    Nailisi flew towards the snake that Jason was on, but Jason urged the great snake to rush towards the east part of the city.


    It looked like it was about to rain, and lightning started to form.


    The lightning was not naturally formed. Before the magical tower had copsed, it had triggered energy fluctuations, resulting in a huge thunderstorm.


    Sika summoned out her soul beast. The soul beast¡¯s current length was about 100 meters. She said to Jason, ¡°Teacher, this thing is not afraid of lightning.¡±


    Jason was curious. He sent his great snake back into his summoning space and followed Saleen onto Sika¡¯s soul beast. Nailisi also rushed over. Saleen waspletely focused on recording the event. At the 5,000 meter altitude, there were misty clouds everywhere. They had a tremendous amount of energy, but it was not targeted towards any particr person. Even if the soul beast flew amongst the clouds, it would not attract any lightning.


    In Pompeii City, the troops and residents were all lost in a state of extreme panic. The mages had escaped, the aristocratic bureaucracy who were under Grand Duke Pompeii had lost their purpose, and the smaller lords had not even realized that disaster wasing. They were curled up at home and did note out.


    Every floor of the 10 floor magical tower in the city center released energy currents. They were wrapped around the magical tower, causing the magical tower to bepletely sealed shut. A fire red bead appeared in the teleportation portal, continuously spinning.


    An elemental creature also appeared ¡ª a wind swallow.


    The wind swallow drilled into the fire red bead head first. The fire red bead quickly expanded andpletely filled up all nine floors of the magical tower. It also expanded outwards.


    The foundations of the 10 floor magical tower were very deep. It had a 1,000 meter metal pir. It reached the most shallow part of the earth¡¯s terrain. The temperature there was high but still very far from the earth¡¯s magma. After the red bead expanded, it shot a white ze down the metal pir.


    It rushed through the earth. The ground tremored, causing stones to split. The temperature became higher and higher. The elemental ze flow prated the ground. Underground fires began to shoot upwards, causing the metal pir to melt. The magic patterns on the metal pir that were meant to protect against high temperatures were rendered useless.


    Pompeii City had been built on top of a shallowke ofva.


    Because the earth¡¯sposition was extremely stable and the rockyer was sufficiently thick, there had been no danger. However, Alchemy City¡¯s mages had prated the rockyer. The underground fire could be triggered at any time.


    Lightning began to form around Sika¡¯s sould beast, falling towards the ground. Most of the lightning bolts disappeared before they hit the ground. It was the first time that Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye saw lightning from natural causes, and he watched, entranced. The lightning had an even greater might than his n badge, but its dissipation was thousands of times faster.


    If the energy could be utilized, the explosive energy of a thunderstorm would be enough to destroy any city, including Holy Rock City.


    Jason saw the transformation of the 10 floor magical tower and sighed. ¡°The Elemental Hand¡¯s people are so ruthless. They don¡¯t give any leeway when they do things. If it was not like this, the Devil¡¯s Horn and Sreeger Ind¡¯s mages would not have reached the extent it did today. Alchemy City would not have faced a crisis either.¡±


    ¡°Faced a crisis?¡± Saleen did not know. In his eyes, Alchemy City was indestructible.


    ¡°Mm, what Grand Duke Iron Blood wants to deal with is Alchemy City. He invited Inbosa to attack the south. Lianyun City¡¯s current range of influence has expanded to more than 500 kilometers. It is all made up of small cities along the coast. ording to my information, Inbosa¡¯s subordinates include crowds of Iron Blood warriors. Their numbers have probably surpassed 5,000.¡±


    ¡°5,000 Iron Blood warriors!¡± Although Saleen had more than 90,000 ancient warriors, he could control less than 1,000 of them, and in the future, the number he could control would definitely not exceed 10,000.


    The level 9 ancient warriors, if directed well, were an unsurpassable military force on the Myers Continent. Based on his current strength, even just three to five hundred soldiers would not be able to do much to him. But for 5,000 level 9 warriors who could all fly, the only thing he could do was to escape.


    Inbosa was probably level 10 now, right?


    Salen recalled the mage who had modified half of their body into alchemic machinery and felt extremely ufortable. For the sake of attaining power, they could give up their human body. If this person were pushed to extremes, they would likely cause an exceptionally grave problem.


    The level 10 magical tower rocked severely. Rain began to fall from the skies. The dense raindrops began to wash over Pompeii City in the direction of the wind element. The people in the city still did not know that judgment day had arrived.


    With a loud crash, the magical tower was blown open. The fire element inside had expanded into a giant fireball. Saleen saw the violent energy rush towards the skies, formingyers andyers of circr energy rings that continuously spread outwards. As the fire element¡¯s energy spread out, all of the living creatures it passed were turned into dust. Constructions that were built with metal and rock were scorched. Some melted, and some were blown about by the wind element.


    ¡°They are vicious!¡± Saleen felt jittery. If he had gone to stop this, the Figure of Fate would probably have been destroyed at the core of the explosion. Whether or not he would have been able to survive would have depended entirely on luck.


    Everything within a range of 500 meters was no longer in existence. Even if he had used original magic spell skills to preserve the image, he would have been affected.


    Perhaps the Elemental Hand wanted to spread that Pompeii City had been destroyed by them?


    ¡°Anything that the Elemental Hand is unable to obtain, it will not leave behind for others to gain,¡± Jason exined to Saleen.


    ¡°Teacher, this Alchemy City...¡±


    ¡°You find it strange, don¡¯t you. Normally, Alchemy City¡¯s mages protect civilians, so why would they do such a thing.¡±


    ¡°No, I can understand. Protecting civilians is one of Alchemy City¡¯s strategies to limit other professionals and use their influence. It¡¯s just, what can they gain from destroying Pompeii City? The situation at Ironwall City was done by me. I don¡¯t care about being framed.¡±


    ¡°The first reason is that there is a possibility of killing you. The second reason is that if you don¡¯t die, you would have reservations towards such power. When you handle matters in the future, you could be cautious and hold back. It is a form of demonstrating their power.¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Saleen scoffed. Arge portion of the city below had been turned into a wastnd. Pompeii City was huge: close to 4 kilometers across. However, the 10 floor magical tower¡¯s explosion resulted in as much power as a magic spell above level 13. And the ce where the magical tower disappeared,va was already spurting into the air.


    The thunderstorm andrge fire mingled together, turning Pompeii City into hell on earth.


    The rainwater was dissolved by elemental power, but helped the fire to be more intense. Even without such an oue, any ce thevanded turned into a mess of destruction.


    Pompeii City was on high ground, which was advantageous for defense. Theva was spilling down. so mone of Pompeii City¡¯s people had a ce to hide.


    Saleen felt somewhat mournful. When he and Lex had arrived there, they had liked the city so much.


    The rich signs of life, beautiful constructions, and ancient history had disappeared, bing a part of history.


    The names of the heroes that were recorded on the stone tablet and the wall murals that were fixed along the site of the ancient battles were destroyed. The earth was still shaking. With the ruins of the magical tower as the center, it split into two sides.


    The whole Pompeii City had broken apart. The temperature of the underground fires caused the clouds to evaporate, forming an even more intense elemental convection current.


    Thunder boomed. Saleen saw humans running around madly for their lives. However, they could not escape the incineration of the underground fire.


    ¡°You really want to change this result, isn¡¯t that so?¡± Jason looked at his students and found that Saleen¡¯s expression revealed his reluctance.


    ¡°Yes. I am thinking, could my study of magic be only for my own sake? When such a situation urs, millions of humans will die.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that you don¡¯t care?¡±


    ¡°No, I care. When I destroyed Ironwall City, I gave people time to escape. But the Elemental Hand did not give people any opportunity to survive. I only killed enemies, but the Elemental Hand did not do so!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you don¡¯t like to kill wilfully. This is very good, but you will understand sooner orter that killing enemies and killing uninvolved people is about the same,¡± Jason spoke calmly. He had seen many magic images that had been passed down from ancient times.


    Sometimes, an entire ne would be destroyed. What was being destroyed before their eyes was merely one city.


    ¡°How is that so?¡±


    ¡°Life has its own fate. The fate of these citizens of Pompeii City goes hand in hand with Grand Duke Pompeii, even though they did not have a choice and were innocent. However, who is there that is not innocent? Saleen, let me tell you a true story.¡±


    Jason stood on the back of the soul beast and looked towards the distant lightning that struck wildly. He did not need to worry about the ones who were not near the soul beast. He took advantage of the time to tell Saleen about a situation that he knew of.


    ¡°In an iparably cold and gloomy ne, there were numerous living creatures living a difficult existence. On this ne, there was a powerful person who swore to change the state of the ne. He used 128,000 years to light divine fire. Then, he used another 300,00 years to be one of the ne¡¯s gods. He chose the path to protect this ne using his own life, but once he became a god, the ne transformed into his own divine kingdom.¡±


    ¡°The ne ultimately copsed?¡±


    ¡°No, the god did not die and the divine kingdom was not exterminated. But he became was a sun god. Everyday, he had to steer his sun chariot to fly across the skies of the divine kingdom to provide sufficient energy for the divine kingdom. This was to enable the farmers to nt vegetation, and to enable living creatures to breed.¡±


    ¡°There are also selfless gods?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there are indeed. Just like how there are many selfish people among humanity.¡±

 Chapter 1177: Return to the Abyss (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1177: Return to the Abyss (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°The god resolutely protected his Divine Kingdom. The citizens in his Divine Kingdom were filled with unparalleled worship for him. The god very quickly advanced from a low level god to a high level god, and his Divine Kingdom expanded. He rode the sun chariot everyday through the skies of his Divine Kingdom, watching over thend that he was protecting...¡±


    Jason¡¯s voice remained discernible amongst the thundering sounds. Sika and Nailisi were listening earnestly. Saleen was able to identify a sense of coldness in his words.


    ¡°Later on, did he give up on his Divine Kingdom?¡±


    ¡°No, he left behind six sons. The six sons were pseudogods from birth. His Divine Kingdom continued to expand. Sooner orter, he would advance to the king of gods and be a level 18 god. Within the Crystal Wall system there were very few people who were capable of destroying his country. It was just that he loved his sons too much.¡±


    Jason gazed at the city below, and with a tone of voice colder than the present rainfall, he said, ¡°the sun god¡¯s youngest son had the weakest godly power, but was also the most lively and smartest of his sons. If the descendents of gods wish to grow, they need to spend tens of thousands of years. The youngest child had always wanted to ride on his father¡¯s sun chariot to inspect the Divine Kingdom. The sun god rejected his son¡¯s request, as inspecting the Divine Kingdom was a responsibility, not a game. The sun chariot was not something that a pseudogod would be able to ride.¡±


    ¡°This son caused trouble, didn¡¯t he.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. One day, the sun god¡¯s youngest son secretly stole the sun chariot from the temple. He rode the chariot across the skies of the Divine Kingdom. The sun chariot was a high level god¡¯s item. Its high temperature scorched the sun god¡¯s son. He lost control of the me dragon serpents that pulled the chariot. The sun chariot fell onto the ground and the entire Divine Kingdom was incinerated, just like the scene below.¡±


    ¡°Then what about the sun god? Why didn¡¯t he retrieve the chariot?¡±


    ¡°His son was still in the sun chariot. The sun god wanted to rescue his son and used all of his godly power to protect him. The mes of the sun chariot had spread outside of the Divine Kingdom and burnt through the two closest nes.¡±


    Saleen listened to the story his teacher had recounted. He heard Jason say, ¡°the sun god loved his citizens, and also loved his son. The living creatures who had believed in him did not know why the sun gods had descended his mes of wrath onto them and destroyed the Divine Kingdom. In reality, it was simply just a disaster that was brought upon them by a juvenile god.¡±


    ¡°Since these people are Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s citizens, they cannot be said to be innocent from Grand Duke Pompeii¡¯s destruction.¡±


    ¡°I understand, Teacher.¡± Saleen secretly was determined. He definitely needed to protect Metatrin City well. There were so many people following him. If he died, their fates ] would perhaps be simr to Pompeii City.


    ¡°Mm. Even so, I still do not endorse the Elemental Hand¡¯s actions. Alchemy City¡¯s current level of power remains to be one of the foremost powers of this continent. Even if they directly oppose the Holy See, they would not be ced in a disadvantageous position. For them to use this method to deal with you by sacrificing an entire city, they are reallycking in morals.¡±


    It was rare to Jason to use the term ¡°moral.¡± Seeing Saleen¡¯s questioning gaze, he added, ¡°Saleen, mages are not required to adhere to thews of any kingdom, but that does not mean the mages have no bottom line. Your actions in the past were carried out under the identity of a king, so I won¡¯tment on them, but you must never be obsessed with massacre.¡±


    Saleen felt as if his entire body had been doused in cold water. His teacher¡¯s words were to warn him of all of his actions.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to be so nervous, I am saying that you should not wilfully admit to causing the situation here. If Alchemy City wants to frame you, then you should reveal the images that you have recorded using crystals today.¡±


    ¡°What if they don¡¯t do such a thing?¡±


    ¡°Since the Elemental Hand has already started to do such a thing, they will not stop. It will happen as long as you wait patiently.¡±


    Saleen and his teacher chatted idly on the soul beast¡¯s back. In the central area of Pompeii City, a chasm 300 kilometers long appeared, dividing Pompeii City into two parts. The Magical Element Tower was still parked on the east side of Pompeii City. Saleen did not retrieve it, because he wanted to see how powerful an attack the Magical Element Tower was able to withstand.


    Red-hot mes were everywhere. Pompeii City burned amidst arge downpour. The rain got heavier and heavier, but it was unable to extinguish the disaster caused by the elements. The first time that theva erupted, it had also sent out poisonous dust and gas. The dust pollutants and gases had been brought back to the ground by the heavy rain and burnt by the mes. They permeated the wreckage of the entire city.


    The Magical Element Tower was outside the range of the explosion. When the mes spread, the Magical Element Tower steadfastly stood its ground. Temperatures that could be used for the refinement neared the surface of the Magical Element Tower and kept burning. However, the temperature of the level 18 elementite had not been increased, so the mages in the magical tower could not be bothered to pay attention to such circumstances.


    Pompeii City trembled a few more times. Even moreva was shot out. However, it only shot up about 10 meters and flowed along the chasm towards two directions.


    Saleen looked upon the tragic sight while simultaneously using crystals to record the process. What his teacher said was correct. It had not been done by him, so there was no need for him to admit to it. As for how to deal with Alchemy City, Saleen had not thought it through yet. He said to Jason, ¡°Teacher, I wish to contact Grand Duke Iron Blood. He seems to be very interested in conquering the continent. However, he is Alchemy City¡¯s enemy and will not join forces with Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°That is fine. For things like this, you should decide for yourself. It is fine as long as you are clear on what are the things that you want. Don¡¯t deviate from your direction in life.¡±


    ¡°It looks like there are any more survivors?¡± Nailisi had been observing. Saleen had not shared his sense with her, so she was unable to see the edges of the city.


    ¡°There are. Sika, there are a few mages over there who are not dead.¡± Saleen pointed towards the east side of the city. Behind the Magical Element Tower, there were a few of Pompeii City¡¯s mages. They had hidden below the Magical Element Tower and had not been killed by the first wave of elemental assault. They also had one less side to defend against the burning of the mes and had been able to hold out.


    Sika allowed the soul beast to fly above the Magical Element Tower. Saleen said to the people below, ¡°Let them enter.¡±


    The mages in the Magical Element Tower heeded his words and opened a door, allowing the six mages of Pompeii City to enter the Magical Element Tower. The six did not bother with the fact that they and Saleen were on opposing sides. They swiftly entered through the gate, so exhausted that they sat directly on the ground.


    The soul beast flew up once more, flying through the clouds. Saleen observed the split-open Pompeii City. A majority of the buildings in the city had been destroyed, and the remaining ones were twisted or melted. Saleen calcted ceaselessly, and finally said to Jason, ¡°Teacher, theva here seems to be unable to change the pressure from underground?¡±


    ¡°Mm, the Elemental Hand is unable to control everything. This was not a ce where such a disaster should have happened. Look...¡±


    Jason pointed at the chasm. ¡°The pressure below has disappeared, and theva river has also seeped into the terrain. This eruption could only happen once.¡±


    Saleen immediately understood. ¡°I can rebuild Pompeii City!¡±


    Pompeii City had been destroyed by the mes of war a few times, but it had been rebuilt every time. The geographical position was rtively important. The mountains were not too precipitous and led to the Southwest aristocracy¡¯s territory. To the east of Pompeii City, only the Grand Canal was linked to Qin. The canal made the movement of goods back and forth extremely convenient. It was ten times faster thannd transport. To the south of Pompeii City, there was only arge river that headed towards Alchemy City.


    Thend was bountiful and the river currents were stable and never overflowed. The seasons were clear, and winter was not too cold. Pompeii City was established at the entrance to a fault in a mountainous range. Both in front and behind were rtively more precipitous roads. Pompeii City was still a key area in connecting east to west, otherwise people would have to take the waterway instead.


    On the waterway, there were chains ced horizontally to block it off. Saleen could modify it to be more difficult to pass at any time.


    If such a good ce could be rebuilt, it wouldpletely belong to Saleen. Grand Duke Pompeii had not been killed by Saleen. Even Kang Bai had not been killed by him; he had merely broken his four limbs and frozen him.


    ¡°Mm, originally your powers were scattered, which is disadvantageous for defense. However, for your future battles, they will have nothing to do with ordinary people. Even professionals level 7 or below can only be ordinary troops,¡± Jason said to Saleen.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. If we want to rebuild, we will need a lot of materials. Let¡¯s go to the Imperial City of the Abyss.¡±


    ¡°Mm. As for the mages that you rescued, how about you bring them back to Metatrin City. I will bring them under my control. If you save some more people in the city, bring them all along. In the future, when Alchemy City tries to frame you, they are all witnesses.¡±


    ¡°Master, I will go.¡± As Nailisi said this, she left Isabe on the soul beast¡¯s back and flew down by herself to search the city. The current temperature in Pompeii City had finally dropped. It was just a bit hotter than the demon ne. Nailisi was unafraid of the fact that the environment here was poisonous.


    The six mages who had been rescued were on the first floor of the Magical Element Tower, feeling uneasy. They did not know what their ending would be, and did not know why Saleen, the enemy, would want to save them.


    Jason returned to the 17th floor of the magical tower. Saleen walked down alone and arrived at the first floor of the magical tower. It looked like a vast courtyard with metal flowers and herbs. The mages¡¯ levels were not high. They could not tell that the nts had been derived from Sky City¡¯s core.


    Saleen looked at the six Pompeii mages. ¡°Are you the Grand Duke¡¯s Followers?¡±


    ¡°No, but the Grand Duke provided for us for 20 years.¡± The leading mage had attained level 7 and had not just been promoted. It looked like they were about to be a level 8 sorcerer. Saleen nced at him. The mage¡¯s foundations could be considered solid, and they could be counted as a useful person.


    ¡°The Grand Duke was not killed by me, and the city was not destroyed by me. If you want to take revenge, I¡¯m afraid that will not be possible. Alchemy City has thoroughly destroyed Pompeii City. Look.¡± As Saleen spoke, he directly released the images that the crystals had recorded, allowing the mages to see.


    ¡°Your Majesty Saleen, do you n on taking us in?¡± the leading mage asked tentatively.


    ¡°Mm, go to Metatrin. I can only guarantee your safety. However, if you want to take revenge for the Grand Duke, it will be impossible. I have my own ns and need to take things one step at a time.¡±


    The mages nced at each other.


    Saleen said, ¡°You can discuss it for a moment. I will not allow you to go anywhere else. If you go to Metatrin City, you can choose which group you want to join. I need arge number of mages.¡±

 Chapter 1178: Return to the Abyss (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1178: Return to the Abyss (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The six mages were helpless. They had epted the Grand Duke¡¯s provision. Although they were not followers, now that Grand Duke Pompeii had died, they still ought to avenge him. However, the enemy was Alchemy City. Saleen could not agree to them immediately taking any action.


    The level 8 mage said, ¡°we are ready to follow Your Majesty¡¯s instructions. But if you need us to fight, we only wish to battle against Alchemy City¡¯s mages. We are not going to help Your Majesty expand your territory.¡±


    ¡°Matters of battle will not be left to you.¡± Saleen spoke mildly and left the first floor of the magical tower. Nailisi went out to the city and searched for a few hours, but only managed to rescue about 20 mages and 100 warriors. The warriors were not the Grand Duke¡¯s. They were the protective forces for arge merchant caravan that hade. They had been guarding some important goods in a metal storehouse and fortunately had mages with them to seal the storehouse shut, so they had been able to escape the disaster.


    Saleen did not have to lift a finger regarding dealing with Alchemy City. Whether or not Alchemy City would frame him still depended on whether Alchemy City was able to find out whether or not Saleen was alive. If Saleen had been killed by their magic trap, then there was no need to defame Saleen. If Saleen had survived, then Alchemy City could release rumours saying that Saleen¡¯s demon troops had destroyed Pompeii and killed everyone.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower took flight. After circling around Pompeii City once, it then flew towards Metatrin City. Jason wanted to go to the Imperial City of the Abyss to search for materials for refining the magic amplifier. The elemental creatures around the periphery for the Imperial City of the Abyss were easier for Saleen and Jason to capture.


    The strong people in the Imperial City of the Abyss were either dead or limited in their range of activity and could not leave. The most dangerous enemy for Saleen while hunting in the Imperial City of the Abyss was the Angel of Fear. It was not that Saleen had no means to deal with it. As long as his Thunder Dragon ster could lock down on a foe, even a level 12 Angel of Fear would not be able to block it.


    The Angel of Fear was not like the Head Inquisitor, who possessed powerful equipment. A level 12 Angel of Fear only had level 12 power and had no way of stopping the Thunder Dragon ster or Saleen¡¯s n badge.


    The Magical Element Tower flew high without rming anybody. Saleen let the Magical Element Tower fly at an altitude of 10,000 meters. The environment had worsened drastically, and nobody would be probing such a high ce. Mental power would also be subjected to a great amount of limitation at this ce. Saleen stealthily flew from Pompeii City and returned to Metatrin.


    Jason had continuously refined materials for his magic amplifier. After returning to Metatrin City, Jason allowed the mages following him to return. He did not let Sika follow. He only brought two people, Nailisi and Sul, and advanced towards the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    With Nailisi, Saleen would notck helpers. The 100,000 demons in the purgatory of devils had started to multiply and produce the next generation. The numbers of the demons would soon increase by at least three times. Demons born in the purgatory of devils were extremely loyal to Nailisi and would definitely not betray her. The demons were more talented than the ones on the demon ne. The rules in the purgatory of devils wereplete. If the demons grew up, they would be like the ancient demons and would possess various kinds of strong powers.


    The teacher and student pair did not stay in Metatrin City. Saleen only contacted Lex for a moment, confirming that there were no abnormalities on Daliang City¡¯s side and that Alchemy City had not revolted due to what had happened at Pompeii City.


    It was normal. Saleen¡¯s death status was not known by anyone, and although Pompeii City had received Alchemy City¡¯s support, Grand Duke Pompeii was a Qin aristocrat in name. Even if anything had happened to Pompeii City, it would be Holy Rock City who made their appearance.


    Would Holy Rock City make an appearance? Safilos had already quietly consented to Saleen¡¯s actions. He did not know about Pompeii City beingpletely destroyed. Even if he found out, when faced with the benefits from Daliang City, Safilos would not make an appearance for the Grand Duke Pompeii, who had betrayed him, unless he came to the point where he had to fall out with Saleen and needed a reason to do so.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower flew towards the Frozen Sea. It was close to October, and it would start snowing in Metatrin from the north parts soon. Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower did not fly along the sea this time, but chose to fly across the northernnd. After entering the northern oceanic area, it would then fly east.


    This airborne route contained very few dangers and had a very clearndmark. They did not need to use the magicpass to navigate.


    Saleen controlled the speed at which they flew towards the Frozen Sea. The flight path required them to fly for less than 10,000 kilometers. Saleen would arrived at the Frozen Sea within a week.


    Jason systematically gave Saleen one round of instruction targeted towards Saleen¡¯s cultivation path. Jason exined the problem that he would not be able toprehend through cultivation.


    The instruction enabled Saleen to understand where he wascking. It was mainly a problem with cultivation. Saleen possessed a threeyered territory, which was unique among all level 10 mages. Even Jason only had a twoyered territory.


    However, Jason¡¯s twoyered territory was an elemental territory with dual systems of water and fire, so it was extremely powerful. When the twoyered territorybined, it already possessed a third property type.


    Saleen did a swiftparison. If he did not use his n badge, he would not be his teacher¡¯s match.Read more chapter on vipnovel


    Seeing that Saleen had doubts, Jason said, ¡°I have passed on Water me Alchemy to you, but there is still a skill that you have no way to learn: the zing me Soul-refining Technique. You have a body of water element, which is advantageous for learning Water me Alchemy, but there is no way for your body to learn the zing me Soul-refining Technique. Even if you can imitate it, the effects will be much worse.¡±


    Saleen understood. His elemental conversion could not allow Water mes to be converted into zing mes. It was not a skill from the ne, so there would be some extraordinary rules.


    ¡°The temperature of Water mes can be lower than absolute zero. And zing mes can be hotter than lightning.¡±


    ¡°Hotter than lighting?¡± Saleen stared at his teacher, not daring to believe what he had heard.


    ¡°No, the temperature of true lightning is terrifying. It can reach tens of thousands of degrees, but only the lightning in the natural world has such a great might, and it cannot be sustained for long. Lightning skills practiced by human mages are unable to reach such high temperatures. However, zing mes are extremely sustainable, and does not consume magic chords.¡±


    As Jason spoke, he demonstrated to Saleen. He released his territory, retrieving a magic chord from the territory. It was a level 4 magic chord and it was unusually stable. However, within the Water me territory, the magic chord was quickly turned into a pile of powder.


    He then used another level 4 magic chord to test the zing me territory. The magic chord was in the zing me territory.


    Saleen saw that Jason¡¯s two territories controlled an area with a 60 meter radius. It was about the same as his Water Element territory.


    Jason continued to demonstrate. He released the two territories at the same time. The Water me territory and the zing Fire territory fused together, forming a unique territory. Because of Jason¡¯s permission, Saleen would not be harmed within the territory, but he could feel how fearsome it was.


    The temperature alternated between freezing cold to zing hot. The change was calcted in terms of frames. In such an environment, any material would be iparably weak. Even a magic shield would be no different.


    Saleen retrieved a single-horned white whale¡¯s horn and threw it into his teacher¡¯s territory. Jason used his territory to attack this whale horn. Cracks immediately appeared on the horn.


    Jason controlled the horn, tossing it onto the ground from a height of one meter. With a snapping sound, the whale¡¯s horn, which was even more stable than metal, was broken into powder, as if it was a piece of porcin.


    Jason said to Saleen, ¡°Although my territory¡¯s range is only 60 meters, as I advance, the range of control will expand faster. Every time I advance by a small rank, the range controlled by my territory will expand by four times. If I can advance to level 24, the entire Crystal Wall system will not be able to amodate my territory.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, what about my territory?¡± Saleen released his own threeyered territory.


    ¡°Your Water Element territory is very good. It can grow into the most powerful territory. However the other two territories are a waste of time. You don¡¯t need to cultivate them, just let them develop naturally.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen looked unwilling, Jason said, ¡°You possess lightning skills, so you should quickly analyze and develop a lightning territory. If you have a lightning territory, it won¡¯t matter if its range of control is only as big as mine. Almost nobody under level 12 will be able to harm you.¡±


    Saleenughed bitterly. ¡°Master. I want to possess a lightning territory, but I don¡¯t have any useful information, and I don¡¯t have anyone to guide me...¡±


    ¡°Then you can create. At the beginning, for the sake of understanding the special properties of zing mes, I went deep underground. I went to search for underground fires. At the time, I was only at level 7. If you search for the source of lightning, it will be much easier than it was for me. I think for you and Sika, there is no need to fear the lightning.


    Saleen had an awakening. When had he developed a fear of difficulty? Indeed, with no one to provide guidance, he could just fly to the skies to investigate. At least, now that he had the Magical Element Tower, he could first analyze the formation of lightning.


    It was not possible for Jason to guide Saleen for lightning skills, but he was able to help Saleen open his eyes. Apart from learning, mages also needed to create. Otherwise, magical knowledge would not be bountiful, but would be lesser and lesser.


    Unknowingly, one week had passed. Under the operation of the water puppet, the Magical Element Tower flew to the periphery of the Frozen Sea. It suddenly descended and entered the depths of the sea. This time, with the help of the Magical Element Tower, the magic beasts in the water did note and attack them. The gigantic magical tower dove to a depth of over 5,000 meters, rushing into the abyss.


    Seeing the copsed city walls of the Imperial City of the Abyss, Jason revealed an expression of interest for the first time.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower directly rushed into the Imperial City of the Abyss. An elemental creature rushed towards the front of the Magical Element Tower, swinging an axe.

 Chapter 1179: Everything is up for the Taking (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1179: Everything is up for the Taking (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When in the Imperial City of the Abyss, powerful ones were either trapped in the Cemetery of Heroes or the astrology tower. The elemental creature before them was the most obnoxious of creatures still capable of moving in such a deste ce.


    Due to the high density of elements present in the city, the amount of elemental creatures was frighteningly high.


    There were actually magic arrays that were still working at the center of the city. They were magic arrays created by ancient humans to summon or create elemental creatures. Despite the ce being practically a dead city, the amount of lingering elemental creatures were still terrifying.


    The ones that were attacking the magic tower were earth elemental creatures: an Elemental Stone Statue Soldier. It differed from the ones that Saleen subjugated in the sense that it was a level ten creature, but it did not have a soul.


    ¡°Nice ce indeed, Saleen. I¡¯d need your help with territorial powers to capture that Stone Statue Soldier out there.¡±


    Jason had no problem fighting such a massive creature¡ªabout a hundred meters tall¡ªall on his own. However, his territory was not a well-controlled one and it was far from being able to be formed into a world on its own.


    If the Water me Territory and the zing me Territory were used there, any target attacked would be killed right away with zero chance of survival.


    The reason Jason was in such a rush to craft a magic amplifier was because his territory was too powerful and difficult to control.


    The ability that mattered the most to a mage was the ability to control their powers. Otherwise, a mage might be very powerful, but their powers could only be used for destruction, not creation.


    If the Water me Alchemy Territory and the zing me Soul-refinement Territory werebined, it would have given birth to the ckfire Spirit spell.


    With the addition of a magic amplifier, the power of a spell was guaranteed while many requirements and parameters of spells could be lowered, including offensive capacity. The less offensive one¡¯s spell was, the easier it would be to control.


    The range of Saleen¡¯s territory was incredible. When expanded, it could easily reach over a hundred miles. When the Puppet World Territory was used, the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier outside the magic tower was quickly surrounded by over a hundred thousand puppets and attacked.


    The massive Earth Battleaxe appeared in the level ten Elemental Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s hand, which looked terrifying when wielded by an elemental creature. Saleen¡¯s territory did not manage to cut down the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier¡¯sbat capacity. Any puppet in the territory that was even grazed by the battleaxe disintegrated right away.


    However, the puppets in the territory were simply an extension and manifestation of the territory. When they were destroyed, they were converted into energy and resurrected.


    The battleaxe only managed to take away a minute part of the energy used to create a puppet when it fell. ording to actual damage suffered, the puppets would be able to continue resurrecting even if they were cut down thousands of times.


    However, Saleen could not maintain the territory indefinitely. If they captured the massive elemental creature, Saleen had to make a move himself.


    It was easy for Saleen to capture the Stone Statue Soldier. The creature had only been difficult to deal with due to theck of effective equipment. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldier was too strong and only Sika would be able to fight it head on.


    Anymon folk who were attacked by the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier would have no choice but to evade its attacks.


    At present, Saleen had a piece of equipment, which, while the attributes of the equipment were unusable, was the perfect gear for capturing things. The equipment was the huge that the head inquisitor had used to capture Nailisi.


    The¡¯s attributes had been wiped clean by Saleen. Even if the Lord of Glory came personally, there would be no way to restore the¡¯s attributes. The only use the had at the moment was to capture things.


    Saleen stepped outside the tower and arrived coincidentally at the top of the Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s head. He spread the out like a fisherman would when catching fish, trapping the Stone Statue Soldier.


    The elemental creature had no soul and was only fighting on instinct, devoid of any idea how difficult it would be to deal with the attribute-less. As such, it did not even bother to evade.


    The trapped the Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s body, and it attempted to tear the off by swinging its battleaxe, but quickly found that it was unable to tear the stic.


    The level ten Stone Statue Soldier breathed fire. No one expected the Stone Statue Soldier to be able to convert earth element to fire element at level ten.


    Countless sharp, t pieces of rock shot from the Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s body, attempting to cut the away again. However, the waspletely undamaged.


    The Stone Statue Soldier flew into blind rage, leaping 100 meters away from the ground and expanding its body quickly, attempting to break the.


    Nailisi was bored watching from inside the tower. The almost took her life and she hated the equipment more than anything else. Despite the Stone Statue Soldier beingpletely trapped, she was not amused.


    If it had not been for the fact that the was nigh-indestructible, she would tell Saleen to destroy it. Every time she saw the, she felt as if she was being captured again. It was the first time Nailisi felt insulted since bing Saleen¡¯s follower.


    However, Saleen was reluctant to throw the piece of equipment away. The material was peculiar. It was capable of expanding and shrinking to various sizes.


    At itsrgest, it was capable of capturing a single-horned white whale, and at its smallest, it was capable of binding magic bugs the size of a fingernail. Saleen hardly felt any pressure from the trip to the citypared to hisst several visits.


    Jason and Saleen were both level ten sorcerers and were equipped with powerful gear and territories. As long as they stayed away from the Cemetery of Heroes, there was hardly anything that could pose a threat to them.


    The level ten Elemental Stone Statue Soldier continued to struggle, and Saleen waspletely unfettered as he opened up a sealing scroll. He chanted the words when the scroll wasid out.


    A low rumble of thunder was heard, which was held back by Saleen¡¯s territory. Even if his territory were expanded to the maximum, it would not be able to reach the Cemetery of Heroes.


    The Stone Statue Soldier¡¯s struggle weakened considerably with the thunderous rumble. The Earth Battleaxe was no longer in its hand. The scroll in Saleen¡¯s hand started to shimmer with magical light.


    The Stone Statue Soldier was sealed in the scroll at its weakest. A level ten being without soul was inferior to a human professional of the same level, especially when sealing skills were concerned. The Stone Statue Soldier was unable to resist.


    What was most important was that Saleen¡¯s sealing spell was level 11, and the scroll was written by Jason personally using starline paper of better quality.


    Saleen used the thunderous rumble to confused the energy in the Stone Statue Soldier. While it onlysted for a brief moment, it had been more than enough. His abilities in controlling his spells were calcted in milliseconds, after all.


    A few milliseconds was all it took for the sealing scroll to work.


    The second Stone Statue Soldier appeared in no time. The levels of Stone Statue Soldiers of the area that Saleen ventured into were not all the same. Saleen was able to see some that were level eight.


    Level eight Stone Statue Soldiers were considerably weaker, so much so that Saleen was not in the mood of subjugating them.


    However, in Saleen¡¯s territory, puppets held absolute advantage over any elemental creatures below level ten. Saleen did not waste the opportunity and released puppets to take a level eight Stone Statue Soldier in, which was sealed and thrown into a dimension stone.


    The area inside a hundred mile radius was filled with Stone Statue Soldiers. Saleen had the magic tower moved with him and caught one Stone Statue Soldier after another with the, the internal energy workings of which he broke with Thundering Sound, and finally sealed using sealing scrolls. The method took him less than half a minute to finish.


    However, there was no sign of the level 11 leader of the Stone Statue Soldiers found even though Saleen had captured hundreds of them. There was not even a single elemental creature with a soul in the area.


    It was fortunate that Jason did not need elemental badges. He was not concerned if the creatures had souls or were capable of advancing.


    The elemental envoys were pieces of transitional equipment to Jason, and he deemed it sufficient if they were able tost him until level 13. While Jason was confident, he was far from arrogant. He decided to achieve his goals one step at a time, instead of acquiring level 18 equipment right away.


    Six level ten Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were caught by Saleen and sealed in the scrolls. Only Saleen and Jason possessed the ability to easily capture elemental creatures of such high levels.


    The served well to limit their movements and the sealing scrolls that Jason made were very peculiar, capable of sealing their target in a very short period of time. The amount of time had originally been incapable of sealing any powerful creatures. Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound was capable of quickly confusing a creature without a soul, and confused creatures could be easily sealed.


    Jason acquired quite a number of earth elemental creatures as they blitzed away. Six level 1p creatures had far exceeded Jason¡¯s expectations. While elemental creatures yed important roles in the magic amplifier that he was about to create, level requirements were actually low. Thirty-six level nine elemental creatures were more than enough for Jason.


    Six level ten Stone Statue Soldiers were over a hundred times more effective than the 36 level nine ones.


    The battles continued without any surprise. With such a territory at his disposal, Saleen only needed to hold the elemental creature¡¯s movements back with the puppets.


    When the was spread, the fight was over. Jason and Saleen only took two days to gather five out of the six elemental creatures required. Angels of Brightness, however, were incapable of being captured in such a manner.


    While Blue Ice Maidens were capable of using Rainbow, their true selves remained solid. Angels of Brightness, on the other hand, were capable of turning themselves into light. With the attributes of the wiped, it had no means of suppressing the ability.


    Jason never thought he would be able to gain so many, and he had resorted to continue working hard on crafting sealing scrolls. Other mages might not have even been able to splurge like that with scrolls, but Saleen was able to acquire huge amounts of starline paper, and even starline cloth, in the city.


    Water, earth, and dark elements were abundant in the Imperial City of the Abyss. The density was so high that Jason was reluctant to leave. He began crafting the magic amplifier in the city itself.


    A magic amplifier was assembled in sets, which made it possible to separate the crafting processes. Jason crafted his gear in the Magical Element Tower while Saleen focused on dealing with Angels of Brightness outside.


    Saleen needed to work with Nailisi to deal with Angels of Brightness. For some unknown reason, the number of level ten elemental creatures grew considerably on the trip, but none of them possessed souls.


    Whenpared to the leaders of elemental creatures in his elemental badges, there was next to no chance the creatures could grow further.


    Angels of Brightness were capable of moving at frightening speeds. Saleen put his territory away and barged into the area controlled by one, and over a dozen quickly came. While the Imperial City of the Abyss had long been destroyed, the elemental creatures continued to protect the ce throughout the generations.


    Anybody who attempted to invade the city would have to fight life or death battles with the elemental creatures.

 Chapter 1180: Everything is up for the Taking (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1180: Everything is up for the Taking (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    None of the elemental creatures had any concerns for their own safety. Creatures without souls acted solely on their instincts. The reason Saleen was able to capture them so easily was because there were no special magic patterns found within the creatures¡¯ internal structures.


    They were still under the ancient humans¡¯ control, protecting a ce that was devoid of any humans.


    The elemental creatures took Saleen for an enemy when Saleen put the badge that Grandmaster gave him and did not bother using the astrologer¡¯s key. The creatures would not run even if they knew they were no match with the intruder.


    Nailisi opened the purgatory of the fallen and had Saleen stand in the area controlled by the Shackles of the Fallen. The Angel of Brightness broke through the puppets¡¯ hold and came before Saleen, but any attacks were shot down by 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen.


    A level ten Angel of Brightness was capable of a powerful skill: Cleansing Light.


    The ¡®cleansing¡¯ part of the spell¡¯s name differed entirely from divine spells. Cleansing Light consisted of high temperatures created using light element, which was incapable of being blocked by any skill.


    However, the version of Cleansing Light used now was blocked by the Shackles of the Fallen. That Angel of Brightness saw no other choice but to close in on Saleen and attack him using an elemental sword.


    Nailisi was ted. The area of effect of the Shackles of the Fallen was extremely limited. If the Angel of Brightness continued attacking from a distance, there was nothing she could do. The 12 Notes of First Purgatory was incapable of moving when opened.


    The elemental sword tore through the darkness and was about to hit Saleen, when 24 chains coiled around the Angel of Brightness, trapping it.


    Nailisi was incapable ofughing out loud in water. She was only capable of expressing her excitement by whipping the Angel of Brightness after trapping it. She was too a level ten creature, and the feeling of being able to capture a level ten elemental creature using her existing equipment was exhrating.


    ¡°Alright, cut it out, Nailisi.¡± Saleen began to seal the Angel of Brightness trapped by the Shackles of the Fallen using a scroll. He put up a Water Shield just to allow Nailisi tough for a bit, preventing her excitement from being pent up.


    The Water Shield encased Nailisi and she onlyughed when there was air around.


    ¡°Master, any elemental creature we catch around here will work far better than any magic nucleus. A low level elemental creature could work far better than magic nucleus over level ten when thrown into a magic power furnace!¡±


    ¡°What the hell do you know?¡± Saleen berated Nailisi. ¡°Teacher would definitely have better ways of absorbing and converting the energy of the elemental creatures. Throwing them into magic power furnaces would destroy them. The most precious part of the elemental creatures lie with the regenerative abilities. Only idiots would use them like magic nuclei.¡±


    ¡°Master, what I meant was that if we threw an elemental creature into the magic power furnace, the burst of power would activate every single attribute of the furnace. They woulde in handy in desperate times.¡±


    ¡°You have a point, but any elemental creatures above level nine will begin to develop intelligence, so don¡¯t ever do that. It would be fine if you captured some below level eight.¡±


    Mages often dissected magic beasts to extract their magic nuclei. They even dissected one of their own. However, it was done at the lowest requirement. No mage would resort to such brutal measures to deal with intelligent life unless they were enemies.


    Being thrown into a magic power furnace would be far more excruciating than being thrown into purgatory through divine punishment to an intelligent lifeform.


    Beings devoid of souls would fare better, as they would die more quickly. However, powerful beings with souls would have to suffer for a very long time when thrown into a magic power furnace.


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Nailisi was happy. She had a piece of equipment that originally had not been able to bepleted. Only a devil on the demon ne could craft it.


    However, she gained a miniature magic power furnace¡¯s schematics and it would allow her wish of getting a devil¡¯s equipment toe true.


    The problem was that devil¡¯s equipment had a costly consumption. Even with a magic power furnace, Nailisi could not simply borrow Saleen¡¯s name to take huge amounts of magic nuclei from the warehouses. She had to solve the energy source problem on her own, so the huge amounts of elemental creatures within the city became Nailisi¡¯s target.


    Saleen¡¯s mental powers were exhausted after capturing six level ten Angels of Brightness. All of his targets were level ten creatures and he had been using level 11 scrolls, both of which took a toll on his mental powers.


    ¡°Nailisi, go out and catch your elemental creatures. I¡¯m going to craft equipment here with Teacher using them. You have one week. If you¡¯re not back after a week, you¡¯re on your own.¡±


    ¡°Got it, Master. I go by myself this time.¡± Nailisi was afraid that Saleen would tell her to take someone else with her, as she did not want to babysit anyone.


    While Sul might have been a golden grand swordmaster, in the environment at the bottom at the ocean, she would not concern herself with Sul even if she was still at level nine.


    ¡°Get out here already.¡± Saleen shooed Nailisi away. She put her collection of purgatories away and ventured out to the west side of the city alone. Saleen had headed east the first two times he was there, before heading north.


    Nailisi chose somewhere unfamiliar instead. The Imperial City of the Abyss was so big that it could be a nation on its own. There were still many ces in the city that Saleen had yet to explore, and there were all very dangerous.


    Saleen was totally uninterested in any enticements involving ruins. He had only been searching for the temples to hog all the luck that the Goddess of Myers had left behind for herself. Destroying the temples was simply minimize the luck left behind.


    Saleen was a mage and he knew that the more he got from the goddess, the higher the price he had to pay.


    Nailisi took her devil form and unleashed several demons to serve as bait. The few unlucky demonscked powers and intelligence. They were forced to ept their fates under the pressure of Nailisi¡¯s devil form.


    Elemental creatures continued to emerge to attack the demons and Nailisi snatched them up with the that Saleen had given her. She did not care for the types or elemental attributes. She had not lied to Saleen as she fully intended to use low level elemental creatures as fuel for her magic power furnace.


    The lower the level of the elemental creatures, the easier it was to capture them. Nailisi was only catching them using one hand and it actually turned the elemental creatures squishy. Their fates were totally up to Nailisi.


    There had always been an abundance of low level elemental creatures in the Imperial City of the Abyss, and she threw any that she happened to capture into the purgatory of elements to replenish the space of the purgatory.


    The Eye of the Storm and the great fire snake had both been slowly subjugated by Nailisi, but they continued to fight each other for supremacy and control of the space.


    The creatures paid no heed to the elemental creatures that Nailisi threw into the purgatory. They werecking in level and were hardly worthy of notice.


    It was only when Nailisi opened a portal and ordered both of them to help capture elemental creatures outside that they reluctantly stopped fighting and began bringing out their unique skills.


    The portal was disguised by the two powerful elemental beings into an elemental gate. Every single elemental creature within a hundred mile radius was able to sense the gate and all flocked there in a frenzy.


    As soon as the elemental creatures barged through the portal, there was no way for them to leave. The great fire snake and the Eye of the Storm trapped them all in the purgatory of elements and awaited her orders.


    There were asionally level 10 elemental creatures falling into the trap. However, Nailisi needed to deal with the level ten beings personally, attacking them with the Sword of Rules and Grey Memory, weakening them before kicking them into the portal proper.


    There was no longer need for demons to serve as bait. The elemental creatures charged in droves, mistaking the gate as the path to a new life.


    Once an elemental creature entered an elemental gate, it was as if they have been baptized and there could be a chance of souls being born within it.


    Once an elemental creature possessed a soul, it would be able to break through the limit of level nine, enabling them to grow further and expand their lives.


    It would be a mistake to think that elemental creatures lived forever, as not even gods were capable of such a feat. Many low level elemental creatures were not even capable of living for more than a day. Elemental creatures that were born at dawn and died at dusk were literally everywhere.


    Nailisi had initially gone out to capture elemental creatures to provide fuel for her magic power furnace. As more and more elemental creatures charged into the purgatory of elements, it had actually began to metamorphose.


    The rules of the purgatory of elements had never beenplete, as there had only been fire and wind elements in it.


    However, the low level elemental creatures actuallypleted the rules bit by bit. The six major elements worked in tandem and against each other, developing into a cycle and converting into one another.


    Nailisi was ted. Saleen had given her a week, which was more than enough to capture ample elemental creatures to form a perfect framework for the purgatory of elements. As to when it could be trulypleted, it would be a matter of luck.


    Nailisi, who was still in her devil form, continued heading eastward. She stopped after running for 200 miles and opened up the purgatory of elements again, having the two powerful beings to help her bait more elemental creatures into the purgatory.


    Nailisi continued capturing elemental creatures without any reservations, enabling her to have venture as far as 5000 miles in just three days. The purgatory of elements was filled by low level elemental creatures, and they began to tear and devour each other, keeping the purgatory of elements from being so full that it would break.


    Nailisi intended to venture further for two days. She did not go quickly so that she was able to capture more elemental creatures. If she rushed, she was confident in being able to return to Saleen within a single day.


    Nailisi¡¯s flight was fast enough to barely able to keep up with Saleen. Furthermore, she had several forms that she could use interchangeably, enabling her to continue on her return journey without stopping.


    A red re suddenly shot up high and lit up the ground for over a thousand miles, from the central area of the Imperial City of the Abyss, about a thousand miles away from Nailisi, when she was still having fun capturing elemental creatures.


    ¡°Who was it? Who was it that took my soldiers?¡± the voice roared in anger. Its voice heard over a thousand miles away, reaching Nailisi¡¯s ears.

 Chapter 1181: Elemental Fury (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1181: Elemental Fury (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nailisi was having the time of her life capturing elemental creatures. For someone at her level, if it had not been for such a special environment and possessing weird equipment like the 12 Notes of First Purgatory, it would be impossible for her to capture that many elemental creatures.


    While she had initially only been capturing the creatures to feed her magic power furnace, she got increasingly excited about it.


    It got to a point that whenever she found herself, there was no elemental creatures spared. Regardless of level or use, every single one of them was chucked into her purgatory of elements.


    Nailisi quickly put away her equipment when she heard the loud, terrifying voice. She transformed into her skeleton king form and took a nightmare out of the spirit space.


    The nightmare was level nine and it should have evolved into some other form of spirit. For some reason, however, there were no changes with it and it was stuck being a nightmare.


    Nailisi leapt onto the nightmare and began running at breakneck speed. Her skeleton king form was not capable of moving quickly, but when she rode a nightmare of such high levels, her running speed was on par with Saleen¡¯s flight speed.


    Nailisi had no idea if she would be able to make it back to the Magical Element Tower like that, but she knew that the creature that let out that angry roar was not something she could deal with on her own.


    Regardless if she was able to make it, she had to run, as standing still and waiting for the creature was not an option.


    Nailisi was unnervingly sensitive when gauging levels. The voice had definitelye from a being above level 11. The Imperial City of the Abyss was not like Myers Maind.


    The cap on level limit was weak, and so it was entirely possible for a level 13 creature to show up. In some special ces like the Cemetery of Heroes, there were even level 18 ones around.


    Saleen was getting materials ready for crafting with his teacher, Jason, when he was alerted.


    ¡°Teacher, listen to this!¡±


    Jason was actually aware of the danger earlier than Saleen, but the older man had been more excited. He said to Saleen, ¡°Let¡¯s go and get Nailisi. She¡¯s in trouble. It is a fire type element spirit!¡±


    Fire type element spirits were powerful but very well-loved among mages, especially to the likes of Jason, who was versed in fire magic. If they were able to capture one for crafting equipment, their control of fire element would reach unimaginable levels.


    When Jason left Sreeger Ind, he let go off his possession of a fire type element spirit with a heavy heart for Saleen. He had never expected to find fire type element spirits in the Imperial City of the Abyss, a ce with weak fire elemental powers.


    Jason knew fire type element spirits very well. Generations of Sreeger Ind mages had been thinking of ways of getting their hands on them.


    At present, due to possessing a godly item crafted from fire type element spirits, Sreeger Ind rivalled the Elemental Hand in terms of powers. The fire element equipment was the most powerful and the most difficult to craft.


    Saleen dared not hesitate. While Nailisi was at level ten, it would still be very difficult for her to deal with a fire type element spirit on her own. Even the 12 Notes of First Purgatory would have a lot of trouble keeping a fire type element spirit under control.


    In Saleen¡¯s mind, Nailisi was like a child who always ended up getting him into trouble. He had only let her out for a couple days and she ended up with such huge trouble in her hands already.


    The magic power furnace of the Magical Element Tower ran at full force, tearing through the water. Saleen cast a water element territory, which enabled the speed of the tower to reach a frightening 500 miles per hour.


    He resorted to throwing several low level elemental creatures into the magic power furnace. Magic patterns emerged on the magic power furnace.


    It was the first time the furnace disyed an all-elemental state. The six major elements were hard at work, providing huge amounts of energy to the mechanical core of the Sky City.


    Even so, Saleen felt that they were not going fast enough. He steeled his heart and threw a level nine elemental creature into therge scale magic power furnace. Furious howls emerged from the magic power furnace, as if the furnace itself had turned into a living being.


    The speed of the Magical Element Tower was enhanced again, reaching a speed¡ª800 miles per hour¡ªthat Saleen dared not even imagine in the past.


    If they had actually been flying, Saleen could use special skills to crank up the speed to even more terrifying levels. However, they were in water, and the resistance was over 100 times greater than the air.


    Despite going at such high speeds and Nailisi running in the tower¡¯s direction at over 300 miles per hour, it would still take them over four hours to meet up. The fire type spirit element was only about 1000 miles away from Nailisi, which made the situation all the more dire.


    There was a volcano in the Imperial City of the Abyss, which had been created artificially by ancient humans using magic arrays. A hugeke surrounded the volcano and while the fire-spitting mountain itself had died, it continued to nurture a fire type element spirit within.


    It was difficult for even ancient humans to capture fire type spirit elements and that had been their answer: a method to slowly nurture a fire type spirit element that belonged to their ne.


    However, the fire type spirit element was still not sessfully grown even when humans disappeared from the city. The fire type element spirit had only emerged in the past millennium. The being gained intelligence as soon as it came alive.


    The fire type element spirit was cunning enough to tell that its power was suppressed in the Imperial City of the Abyss¡¯ environment, so it had taken to watching patiently for hundreds of years, before confirming that every single free-moving elemental creature in the city was inferior to it.


    The fire type element spirit avoided dangerous ces and began to slowly gain control of the elemental creatures around it to serve it. The fire type element spirit needed elemental powers to sustain itself.


    While the volcano had long died, it intended to continue living, and it needed to find ways to acquire fire elemental powers to maintain its power.


    The Imperial City of the Abyss was a huge ce, but the volcano where it emerged remained the most suitable ce for it to live. Fire elements from other ces were collected with the help of its underlings.


    Vermillion Knights, zing smanders, and other beings of somewhat lower level were among the types of elemental creatures captured by Nailisi.


    The fire type element spirit did not devour the fire elemental creatures and had simply had them to find more fire elemental crystals, magic nuclei, and underground fire elemental veins for it.


    The fire type element spirit had only been alerted because Nailisi had been going overboard with capturing elemental creatures. If it let Nailisi have her way, the fire type element spirit would have to look for sustenance personally in the dangerous parts of the city.


    There had been many Vermillion Knight leaders in the areas surrounding the volcano that the fire type element spirit lived. The leaders were of levels as high as level 11 and they allmanded level nine Vermillion Knights in the hundreds, while serving the fire type spirit element.


    ¡°Go out and kill the one who took my soldiers!¡± The fire type element spirit gave its orders. It had no idea if the one who took its soldiers were someone from the dangerous parts of the city or an outsider. It had not been born long enough to explore every single part of the city.


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Vermillion Knight leaders rode on fire tigers and took their subordinates across theke outside the volcano. The fire type element spirit stood at the mouth of the volcano and watched from afar.


    However, it was too far away from Nailisi and was unable to learn much, other than what it was shown from the senses of the elemental creatures captured. It had no idea of the enemy¡¯s level or looks, only that its underlings were being taken en masse.


    Over ten thousand fire elemental creatures ran at the bottom of the ocean. While level 11 Vermillion Knight leaders were capable of running at frightening speeds, they could only do so onnd. Their powers were limited in the sea and were only capable of reaching about 100 miles per hour.


    The fire type element spirit felt something was off when the Vermillion Knights were gone for over three hours. Its Fiery Voice did not harm the enemy, which meant the enemy was stronger than the Vermillion Knights. They might not have been able to catch up to the being who dared to challenge its supremacy.


    The fire type element spirit felt rather restless from what it learned from its inherent ancient memories. It was not born just moments ago, and it had acquired a great deal of ancient memories.


    Beware of gods, beware of humans.


    But if it had a chance to be something else, it would choose to be a god or a human, and never again an elemental creature.


    It was a conclusion that the fire type element spirit had gotten from being around for a millennium. It was a tragic fate being an elemental creature. Humans and gods all had ways to deal with elemental creature. An elemental creature needed either humans or gods to use powerfulbat capacity.


    The being that had been taking its underlings could possibly be a human. Humans often carried weird devices with them. If the 36 level 11 Vermillion Knights were taken away by that being, it would be the end for the fire type element spirit.


    It had grown ustomed to being supported and fed by its underlings and was unable to imagine having to run around on its own.


    Hmph, seems like I have no choice but to do this myself.


    The fire type element spirit retreated into the volcano and emerged from the mouth momentster. It was d in a set of armor. The fire type element spirit was only about three meters tall, and some very imposing humans were able to reach about two meters and a half.


    The fire type element spirit resembled a human after being d in armor.


    The fire type element spirit took out a fire elemental chariot after putting on the armor and leapt onto it. There were six ming giant dragons in front of the chariot.


    The fire type element spirit held a pitch ck whip, which was made entirely from ck fire. The fires hardly jumped and there were three-dimensional magic patterns coursing within.


    ¡°Ride!¡± The fire type element spirit howled and the six dragons howled at the same time. White mes shot from the crevices between the dragons¡¯ scales when the ck whip pped on them. The six dragons burst and the fiery chariot streaked forward at breakneck speed, forming a thick path in the seawater.


    The fiery chariot was able to reach about 1000 miles per hour underwater thanks to the six dragons. If the chariot had been running in the air, its speed would easily rival Saleen¡¯s Comet sh.


    The rumbling noises felt like howls from giants. The movements that the fire type element spirit made in the Imperial City of the Abyss were heard a thousand miles away. Elemental drafts formed whenever the fiery chariot passed.


    However, the drafts were incredibly stable and did not result in elemental storms or space chasms. The fire type element spirit looked at the equipment it packed with a satisfied look. It was all scavenged from the city by its underlings and restored on its own.


    Regardless of what being captured its underlings, it deemed it necessary to kill it. The fire type element spirit felt restless. Its eventual goal was to create its own elemental kingdom, and it intended to gradually take over the entire Imperial City of the Abyss.

 Chapter 1182: Elemental Fury (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1182: Elemental Fury (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The fiery chariot shone light into several areas undersea. Due to the fire type element spirit having already searched the nearby areas thoroughly and confirmed that there was no enemy who could do any harm to it, it became ruthless.


    It continued to whip the ming giant dragons to make them go faster. In the Imperial City of the Abyss, people had to stick close to the ground even when flying. If someone took notable altitude, they might have been attacked by a magic array.


    In ancient times, there had been many ces resembling the Imperial City of the Abyss, and many powerful ones resorted to walking.


    Any attempts to take flight would attract the attention of the guards and would cause them to be killed, even if they were a god.


    The armor that the fire type element spirit was d in was dazzling and luxurious. Its appearance suggested that its body of a little over three meters tall was entirely wrapped in ayer of golden-red liquid.


    The armor was in a liquid state, and the magic patterns on it glimmered and emanated great power when coursing about the fire type element spirit.


    There were four gs jutting out behind the liquid armor. Images of four types of fire elemental creatures were drawn on the gs: the great fire snake, the ming giant dragons, the crimson lord, and the fiery white raven. All of them looked livid.


    The fiery chariot sped and the long skirting armor and gs billowed, smoothing the wake of elemental draft behind the fire type element spirit resulting from the vacuum path.


    If the draft had not been smoothed and negated, every single building caught in the wake of the fiery chariot¡¯s passing would copse.


    The fiery type element spirit blitzed forth and quickly caught up with his subordinate Vermillion Knights, who made way seeing their master decide to take matters into its own hands. The fiery type element spirit waved and the chariot zipped past, leaving a mess behind it.Read more chapter at vipnovel


    Nailisi was speeding along as well. While the nightmare was capable of achieving high speeds, they were still in an abyss with immense pressure. If she maintained speed in such an environment, she would have to force the seawater apart using skills. While it would hardly fetter Nailisi, it would ce tremendous strain on the level nine nightmare.


    The rumble of the chariot from afar reached Nailisi¡¯s ears. She knew that she was unable to run from it. The enemy¡¯s level was far above hers. She could only be safe entering the Magical Element Tower.


    What am I going to do? The 12 Notes of First Purgatory might have been able to trap her enemy for the time being, but there was no way it would stay put and be taken in. It would be difficult to trick her enemy into falling into the trap as well, and she might need to use herself as bait...


    Nailisi pped on her forehead at the thought and slowed the nightmare down. She took a turn and went onto a sidestreet. The street was over a hundred meters wide and both sides were filled with shops.


    Nailisi continued moving forward and saw a huge door. The statues at the door¡¯s nks were considerably weathered and broken.


    Nailisi looked left and right and saw no other better ce toy her trap. She came down from her steed and summoned a huge magic bug.


    A level ten luoluokaluo sported an even more powerful Ultimate Shapeshifting skill. The ferocious bug, which was over ten meters long, was turned into something resembling the angel of fear. It stood at the door while Nailisi began working on it.


    The door was linked seamlessly to the portal of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Nailisi also summoned many demonic spirits and imps, which she turned into pests being controlled by the angel of fear.


    Nailisi went through the door, going into the purgatory of the fallen through the portal.


    At the wide altar of the purgatory of the fallen¡¯s sky, Nailisi¡¯s double hadpletely controlled the Shackles of the Fallen, the 24 chains of that could be used to attack every single corner within the purgatory.


    Nailisi ced every single valuable belonging she had on her person on the altar, then cast a Demonic Prayer spell, sealing her precious collections up. No one else would be aware of the collections other than Saleen, her master.


    She had no certainty of being able to defeat her enemy even if the battle was to be fought within the purgatory of the fallen. Once she was done with that, Nailisi had a demon take her looks, which she sent riding east on a nightmare. The trick probably would not work on her enemy.


    While the enemy had not been locking onto her, it would be able to tell of her area of activity and presence.


    Nailisi was devoid of any fear of death at the moment. She was simply thinking that if she actually died, there would be nothing he could do to revive her. Take good care of the Winged Skull and don¡¯t let him go on unnecessary adventures. It would be bad for that thing to end up like me.


    Nailisi, the Magical Element Tower and the fire type element spirit formed a triangle. Nailisi had been running for two hours and she and Saleen were only about 3000 miles apart. Even when she stopped, Saleen¡¯s current speed meant that he needed about four hours to get to her.


    The fire type element spirit, on the other hand, was only about 1600 miles away from her, and would be able to reach her in about an hour and a half.


    Nailisi needed tost for two and a half hours before Saleen was able toe to her rescue.


    Saleen was unable to calcte the time, but he knew that the sooner he got to Nailisi, the safer she would be.


    ¡°Teacher, is there any way we can go faster?¡±


    Jason turned to look at his student. ¡°How important is Nailisi to you, Saleen?¡±


    Saleen pondered for a bit. ¡°She¡¯s like a daughter to me.¡±


    Jason continued, ¡°if that¡¯s the case, then she shouldn¡¯t have allowed your child to wander outside your line of sight. It¡¯s a mage¡¯s idiom. Haven¡¯t you heard of that?¡±


    Saleen hung his head low in apology. He had not expected something so powerful was wandering free in the city.


    ¡°The speed can go up to between 1500 and 1800 miles per hour, but the Magical Element Tower would no longer be able to fly. The magic patterns outside the tower would need to be re-crafted.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, teacher.¡±


    Jason nodded. The crafting of the Magical Element Tower was a painstaking effort undertaken by all the mages on Sreeger Ind. The amount of material consumed was astronomical. However, it was hardly worth mentioning to the mages, as theprehension developed from the crafting process far exceeded the cost.


    Over a thousand mages were mobilized in the crafting of the flying magic patterns of the Magical Element Tower. Almost every single mage advanced one whole level due to having participated in the magic pattern crafting.


    Jason took out six sealing scrolls and threw all level ten beings of the six major elements into therge scale magic power furnace. The six level ten creatures shrieked painfully.


    While none of them possessed souls, they knew that the disintegration this time could never be restored.


    The magic power furnace had no preferences nor emotions. Elemental creatures, magic nuclei, or crystals were all just fuel and energy sources.


    The six level ten elemental creatures were quickly disintegrated by the furnace and strong resonance emerged from the insides of the Magical Element Tower. The magic patterns outside the tower jolted out of the body of the tower and formed into a shell of magical elements.


    The Magical Element Tower¡¯s speed was really greatly enhanced, reaching a terrifying 1800 miles per hour.


    However, going that fast had its price. The magic patterns outside the tower began to disintegrate after an hour. While the rate of disintegration was not high, it was irreversible. The tower gradually lost its flight ability and slowed.


    Saleen was still about 2000 miles away from Nailisi, requiring more than an hour to reach her. The fire type element spirit, on the other hand, was riding on the fiery chariot and caught up with the dummy demon riding on a nightmare that Nailisi put forth.


    The demon shrieked after seeing itself being chased by the fire type element spirit, ¡°I¡¯m not Master!¡±


    ¡°All the more reason for you to die!¡±


    The fire type element spirit was furious. Itspse of judgment caused it to be baited by the demon and make a thousand mile detour, catching up to a fake instead.


    It made the fire type element spirit furious. It was created naturally and was envious of living beings possessing both souls and intelligence. It hated to be taken for a fool more than anything else.


    The demon¡¯s wails were akin to pping it across the face. It was extremely angry at being unable to see through such a cheap ruse.


    The fire type element spirit whipped the six ming giant dragons and caught up with the demon. Itshed out hard with the ck whip. The demon did not intend to betray Nailisi, but wanted to live through the predicament, leading it to tell the enemy that it was not its master.


    However, the words ended up costing its life. The fire type element spirit might not have wanted to kill the demon and might have intended to try to subjugate the demon, taking it away and deciding what to doter.


    The level nine nightmare burst in speed, evading the strike that was most surely would connect. It shot to the sky.


    The creatures that were chasing after it were six ming giant dragons and a fire type element spirit. The nightmare did not possess high intelligence and simply acted out of instinct to evade the attack.


    The fire type element spirit grew even more angry seeing how the nightmare evaded its attack. The level of the target was low, but the fire type element spirit actually missed.


    The six dragons pulling the chariot took to the sky, arriving right behind the nightmare in no time.


    ck fire on the four hoofs of the nightmare was rescinded and suppressed by the fire type element spirit, so it was unable to use the runaway skill it was most versed in.


    The demon grew agitated and ferocious. It blurted aplex and difficult curse, knowing that the end was near.


    A demon curse!


    The fire type element spirit snickered and one of the gs behind its back grew, wrapping the spirit up. The demon curse was blocked by the g with the image of a great fire snake on it.


    It was a Warg Double!


    The Warg Double was less mystical than the Figure of Fate but was very hard toe by. A demon curse was entirely useless against equipment like that. The fire type element spirit evaded the curse andnded the whip on the demon¡¯s head.


    The demon was split from head to crotch by the ck whip.


    The resulting wound was immediately cauterized. The fire type element spirit had impable control, as the whip only killed the demon, leaving the nightmarepletely unscathed.


    It intended to subjugate the nightmare. However, having been put under severe stress, the nightmare simply turned around and lowered its head, ramming straight at the fire type element spirit. The horns on its head glittered with a grey aura.

 Chapter 1183: Weak! (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1183: Weak! (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Nightmares were ferocious beasts. The level nine nightmare went all out using a soul attack skill. The ck horn on top of its head glowed and a halo was manifested. The grey aura was but a disguise.


    The fire type element spirit was born in the Imperial City of the Abyss and did not have anyplexbat experience. None of its inherent memories from ancient times contained anything regarding nightmares.


    The volcano that the spirit was born and lived in was considered an outskirt of the city. The spirit that could be allowed to exist there was level 13 at the highest.


    It had been in the outermost part of the city due to chasing Nailisi. If it had not been d in the fire armor, it would be killed by the rules of the ne a long time ago.


    The fire type element spirit retainedbat capacity at level 13 and it was all due to its armor.


    Nothing the nightmare did would be effective against it if the beast was attacking the body of the spirit directly. Even magic weapons were not able to pierce the fire type element spirit¡¯s body, as they would simply be melted.


    However, the halo on the nightmare¡¯s horn shimmered and the fire type element spirit was hit squarely.


    The reason ancient humans wanted to create a fire type element spirit was to create weapon spirits for equipment.


    The best weapon spirit was born within equipment itself, as not only would it be powerful, there was also no emotional barrier between the user and the weapon, making possibilities of betrayal entirely non-existent.


    Unless the equipment¡¯s existing user ended up dead, the spirit within the equipment would not acknowledge another user.


    A weapon spirit infused from outside, however, was different, as they had their own will, which needed to be forcefully suppressed before being able to serve the master of the equipment it was infused into.


    The fire type element spirit was created by humans andcked inherent strength. If it had not been for the fact that there were no longer powerful beings left in the Imperial City of the Abyss, it would need to be nurtured for over 10,000 years before being deemed suitable for use.


    As such, the fire type element spirit waspletely caught off-guard by the nightmare¡¯s skill and did not have any ways to counter it. All four of the Warg Doubles behind it wrapped around its body while the whip in its hand smacked the nightmare¡¯s horn.


    The grey shimmer was shattered and the beast¡¯s horn was broken by the whip, taking a part of the nightmare¡¯s forehead with it.


    A nightmare¡¯s horn was incredibly resilient and it was also the hardest part of the beast. The essence of the beast¡¯s body rested on the horn as well. The horn snapped and hit the ground, and the nightmare shrieked terrifyingly before turning into grey mist, dispersed by the elements in the water and rendered dead.


    The nightmare might have died but the skill continued to work. The fire type element spirit was gued by a literal nightmare.


    A strong body housing a weak soul was a fitting description of the fire type element spirit¡¯s constitution. It was thrust into an illusion the moment the beast was killed.


    The nightmare¡¯s attack went straight for the weakest part of its target¡¯s mind. Even if the target was far higher than the beast in level, the target would still suffer the consequences.


    The only one to be practically immune to a nightmare¡¯s ambush was if the person hit possessed an indomitable mind and had specifically trained to hone their mental powers, as how Saleen had been using his family badge to constantly enhance his mental abilities.


    It was different in the case of the fire type element spirit. A weak mind by its strong exterior. It would not be so easily angered and agitated enough to leave its ring of safety that was the volcano otherwise.


    It would mean nothing for something like elemental beings to have underlings dying in scores. Such beings would hardly leave a ce like the volcano if they had a ce like that to live in the first ce.


    The illusion seen by the fire type element spirit was simple. It saw two humans walking towards it. They seemed to be the ones who created it. Both of them wore ferocious smirks as they extended their hands, intending to take it.


    Its fire armor, Warg Doubles, and chariots, did not matter in the illusion. Even the six ming giant dragons were nowhere to be found. The fire type element spirit was not aware of any of that. It looked at its arms and legs, quickly finding its entire body shrinking.


    It would be an extraordinary sight if someone witnessed it happening. A level 13 elemental being being attacked by a level nine nightmare, and the skill actually worked.


    The fire type element spirit saw the two humans packing it into a box-like equipment, which consisted of 27 slots. Every slot contained a weapon spirit, assembled into a veryplex three-dimensional space.


    The 27 spaces crossed with each other and the spirits had to fight each to determine the victor, which would be made the core of the equipment and allowed to live.


    The fire type element spirit threw itself into the ughter without any hesitation, without any thought of resisting the two humans at all. If it had been strong of mind, the continuing illusions would not happen.


    If it killed the two humans, the illusion would cease to exist. The two illusionary humans were not more powerful than the nightmare after all, and the spirit could actually just break the attack using brute force.


    However, its weak mind made it so that it entirelycked the courage to fight the two humans. In its illusion, it had been made by the two humans and they represented the most powerful beings in the world, capable of wiping it out of existence.


    Resistance was futile and only by submitting to the will of its creators would it be able to carve out a path to survival by killing its own kind.


    However, the path imagined would be folly instead. The two humans at the beginning of the illusion were created by the nightmare and they were only level ten. The following 26 of its kind were born out of the fire type element spirit¡¯s own imagination, and every single one of them had level 13 powers.


    If it left the illusion behind, it would need to wait for the nightmare¡¯s skill to end while not killing any of its kind.


    In the fire type element spirit¡¯s perspective, it was lucky that the nightmare had been killed, as the skill would onlyst between half an hour to an hour. If the nightmare¡¯s horn had beenpletely destroyed, the skill would end.


    However, there was no one else to help destroy the remaining horn. The Vermillion Knights were over a thousand miles away.


    The Vermillion Knights had no idea that something bad had happened to the fire type element spirit. They arrived where Nailisi had hidden herself and blocked the door.


    The level 11 Vermillion Knights were all confused about the next course of action given that their master was not around.


    ¡°Let¡¯s attack!¡± the Vermillion Knight roared. While their level was high, they had less intelligence than re, whom Saleen had subjugated.


    ¡°Is this the target?¡± another level 11 Vermillion Knight asked dismissively.


    ¡°Who cares. We¡¯ll destroy it and look for our next target.¡± The Vermillion Knight who had suggested it answered, frustrated. Another dozen or so Vermillion Knights agreed to it.


    ¡°Well, let¡¯s get to it then.¡±


    The remaining Vermillion Knights answered indifferently seeing how no one was there to act as an effective leader. They were thinking that since their master decided to move on its own, it did not make any difference if they did anything; the enemy would end up dead anyway.


    It did not matter if they killed the wrong target, as the abyss would be their master¡¯s turf sooner orter.


    The 36 Vermillion Knights mobilized over ten thousand of their subordinates and blocked the street off. After deciding to attack, the short-tempered Vermillion Knight led its subordinates personally and charged into the purgatory of the fallen.


    Nailisi had been waiting for quite some time. The moment she saw a level 11 Vermillion Knight barging into the purgatory of the fallen, all 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen shot up and hauled the Vermillion Knight off its fire tiger steed.


    The short-tempered Vermillion Knight did not end up using even one skill, as any that it had intended to use was suppressed. The Shackles of the Fallen pierced through its body, severe damaging it.


    Nailisi had a decisive edge being inside the 12 Notes of the First Purgatory. She stood on the altar and looked down, as there was no need for her to fight personally. The one fighting the intruders was her double.


    The level 11 Vermillion Knight did not possess an elemental shell, appearing only as an over 20 meter-tall elemental core d in armor. It allowed Nailisi to take the Vermillion Knight without difficulty.


    Furthermore, the Shackles of the Fallen had attributes, unlike the that she was wielding. All powers of the Vermillion Knight were shackled once the chains pierced through its body, preventing it from using any skills.


    Nailisi threw a resentful kick at the Vermillion Knight¡¯s head, shattering it. mes shot out wildly as a result. While the Vermillion Knight did not die, it was severely damaged.


    Nailisi¡¯s prowess at closebat was very powerful. The power of that one kick was something that not even the core of the Vermillion Knight was capable of withstanding.


    She did not intend to let out her frustration with that kick, as she had simply wanted topletely cripple the Vermillion Knight. Nailisi, who was standing on the altar, drew a line in the air with her finger to open a portal, throwing the Vermillion Knight inside.


    It was an ability unique to her. Every single space within the 12 Notes of First Purgatory was connected. However, all of the spaces were sealed off to anyone other than Nailisi.


    Nailisi threw the crippled Vermillion Knight into the purgatory of elements, allowing the great fire snake to make short work of the severely damaged elemental creature.


    The elemental creatures all had a master and Nailisi had no intentions of subjugating them. She simply let the great fire snake devour them.


    More and more Vermillion Knights charged into the purgatory of the fallen. There were also living beings inside the purgatory of the fallen: the believers of the divine baby in the undersea temple.


    The translucent blue beings were not of low level. They were only put under control by the divine baby¡¯s original body chained by the Shackles of the Fallen, turning into the warriors of the purgatory of the fallen.


    The low level Vermillion Knights were quickly surrounded by the fallen believers. The space inside the purgatory was very hostile to the Vermillion Knights. The believers were still as frenzied as they had been, and had no concern for their own wellbeing when fighting the Vermillion Knights.


    The altar in the sky provided them with all the power they needed, enabling them to mend their broken bodies anytime.


    Nailisi watched for any high level elemental creatures charging inside while being high above the sky. She immediately sent the chains flying at any level 11 Vermillion Knights charging in, catching them, breaking their core, then throwing them into the purgatory of elements.


    The great fire snake in the purgatory of elements was extremely excited. It gobbled up any of the level 11 Vermillion Knights that Nailisi had crippled. Digestion was very easy as there was no way they could resist.


    It had always been at a disadvantage fighting the Eye of the Storm. However, after having devoured more and more elemental creatures, the great fire snake felt its powers surpassing the Eye of the Storm.


    Nailisi was not having an easy time with her battles. Her double needed to take on over ten thousand Vermillion Knights and 36 among them were level 11. Nailisi was unable to directlymand the Shackles of the Fallen.


    She needed to put in mental powers to control her double while battling the enemy. Her double would be unable to determine the enemy¡¯s level and utterly incapable of locking onto specific targets otherwise.


    Controlling the Shackles of the Fallen took a huge toll on energy consumption. The chains were very high level godly items to begin with, and the double needed breaks whilemanding the chains.


    Nailisi was afraid of losing her most powerful edge in battle, and dared not attack every single target with the Shackles of the Fallen. She resorted to watching the battles, preventing the purgatory of the fallen from being destroyed by one very powerful being.


    Why is it not showing up even now?


    Nailisi grew restless. Did it happen to run into Master? You better not underestimate that fellow then. That thing is definitely at least level 13. It wouldn¡¯t have been able to control this many level 11 elemental beings otherwise.

 Chapter 1184: Weak! (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1184: Weak! (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There was no need for Nailisi to fret. She could not afford to leave the space. If she did not put the purgatory of the fallen to good use, any of the Vermillion Knights would be powerful enough to kill her.


    Even if she had Grey Memory and the Sword of Rules, there was no way she could fight over 30 level 11 beings at once, so Nailisi resorted to holding the line in the purgatory of the fallen.


    If the Vermillion Knights decided not toe in, there was no other way to get out of her current predicament.


    The believers within the purgatory of the fallen suffered heavy casualties. The Vermillion Knights were so powerful that Nailisi¡¯s double had to put all she had into fighting the Vermillion Knights. Nailisi forbade her to heal any of the fallen believers, just to be ready to fight the terrifying creature that was toe.


    However, none of the believers were in despair. It was not a difficult thing to be resurrected so long as one¡¯s soul stayed intact. Even if their souls were destroyed, it would be in service to the god in the sky. It was an honor and a duty to them.


    The Vermillion Knights charged inside in droves and their wild temperament burst as soon as they saw so many fallen believers inside. There was no one to provide any instruction, so they resorted to attacking the poor believers.


    The purgatory of the fallen was 36 cubic miles. It was more than enough to serve as a huge battlefield, amodating millions of beings while they tore at each other.


    Saleen was increasingly near to Nailisi¡¯s location. The magic patterns on the tower that the mages of Sreeger Ind had painstakingly crafted broke one after another, making repairs impossible.


    The greater the number of broken magic patterns, the slower the tower became. When the tower¡¯s speed dropped to about 300 miles per hour, Saleen and Jason simply flew outside the tower and put it away.


    Saleen did not let Sul leave, as the tower was so resilient that it was capable of supporting life no matter where it ended up, even when put away in space equipment. Prior to the tower¡¯s existence, Saleen¡¯s only way of carrying living beings on his person was to rely on Nailisi¡¯s collection of purgatories.


    ¡°Saleen, keep up,¡± Jason said as he cast Water me Territory.


    The Water me Territory wrapped Saleen up as well. If it had not been for the fact that he had been trained in Water me Alchemy, he would have died. The master-apprentice pair sped through the water with Jason taking the lead.


    Jason¡¯s speed exceeded 500 miles per hour. It was unbelievably fast for a level ten sorcerer. Even if he it was only because of being bolstered by traveling inside Water me, it was still a powerful movement skill.


    Jason was capable of achieving even higher speeds, but they would notst. Saleen was capable of reaching 3000 miles per hour but only able to do so momentarily.


    Jason was still able to talk while speeding in the dark underwater environment with Saleen in tow.


    ¡°Saleen, you had a body of water element. Why not put it to good use? If you¡¯ve created your own unique skill with it, no mage could match your speed while moving underwater.¡±


    Saleen let out a bitterugh. ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m very busy.¡±


    ¡°Is there any mage who isn¡¯t? The two territorial powers in your possession are powerful, but they serve as an obstacle to furthering your advancement. I¡¯m wondering if you should strip yourself off of the two territories?¡±


    ¡°Wait, territories can be stripped off?¡±


    ¡°Of course they can. Gods and humans have simr skills at levels above 13. But it can only be done when the other party is willing. If you¡¯re willing, I¡¯d help you strip the two territories off your body, crafting them into equipment instead.¡±


    Jason continued when he saw Saleen feeling reluctant, ¡°what are you being reluctant for? Neither of the skills are easy to advance. You already have a water element territory. If you added Lightning Territory to it andbine them, it would allow you to be invincible on this ne.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I really don¡¯t have time,¡± Saleen answered exasperatedly.


    ¡°You will have time. I¡¯m researching lightning magic patterns now and I would be able to mostly finish the magic amplifier in about a month. I¡¯ll help you get your thought patterns arranged. Ancient humans seeded in acquiring Lightning Territory. The only problem is that it is a very dangerous skill to train with. It would be easier in your case given you¡¯ve a body of water element.¡±


    ¡°Why is that so, Teacher?¡±


    ¡°Just look at lightning in nature. It manifests exclusively during rainy days. You¡¯re versed with water magic and that would enable you to observe and record things high up in the sky, which can be analyzed using magic forms. The mages working under me can help you in calcting all the things.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Teacher. I¡¯ll relinquish the two territories and focus on researching Lightning Territory.¡± Saleen made a decision. There were definitely solid reasons why Jason repeated advised him to do so. Saleen himself did not have high hopes for the two territories that he possessed, after all.


    Even if he created a puppet world, it would still prove inferior to the lightning rules that he was familiar with.


    Such was the benefit of having a teacher. Jason¡¯s sight had always been on greater things than Saleen, and he had been able to advance at a frightening speed.


    Saleen felt that Jason was so focused on crafting the magic amplifier not because he wanted to amplify hisbat prowess, but that he wanted to advance to level 11 through the crafting process.


    He had spent over 100 years in the temple and finally caught up to his teacher¡¯s level, and his teacher¡¯s level would soon be further away from his. Jason did not even bother considering the Six Elements¡¯ space an option.


    Jason was relieved to learn that Saleen did not get anxious after advancing to level ten, and was still able to listen to him. More importantly, Saleen was able to tell what was right without him having to say much.


    Teachers were there to guide their students, but a teacher¡¯s guidance was not always correct. Some students were so eerily talented that they became something that not even their teachers could aspire to be.


    Jason was able to see that Saleen was destined for great things. So long as the power across the ne continue to rise, it was only a matter of time before Saleen made it to level 13. It had nothing to do with talent, as it was due to Saleen¡¯s luck.


    Mages believed in luck, and Saleen¡¯s luck seemed to be closely linked to the Myers Maind. The boon that Saleen acquired from the rise of power of Myers Maind exceeded any person on the ne.


    Jason had brought Saleen over a thousand miles away before he realized it. Saleen was even able to sense Nailisi¡¯s presence.


    ¡°Teacher, over there!¡± Saleen said as he pointed at a direction. It was where Nailisi had hidden herself, about a hundred miles away.


    Saleen breathed deeply as he saw fiery lights about a hundred miles away. They were undersea, and any being capable of lighting fires in such an environment would be incredibly powerful. Saleen¡¯s ears caught the roar of the golden dragon, one of Nailisi¡¯s forms.


    Things got this bad?


    ¡°Don¡¯t fret, Saleen. The most powerful being is not here yet. The fire type element spirit seemed to have run,¡± Jason said calmly.


    Saleen was exasperated. His speed was inferior to his teacher¡¯s. If he covered over a hundred miles, he had no choice but to move within his teacher¡¯s territory.


    A huge number of elemental creatures appeared outside of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. It was not due to more underlings of the fire type element spirit appearing, but due to the skill of the remaining Vermillion Knights¡ªElemental Rampage.


    All elemental creatures within 1000 miles radius were summoned. They intended to do it in the dumbest way possible¡ªmassive numbers rushing into the purgatory of the fallen and overstuff the equipment until it breaks.


    While the method was dumb, it was very effective. There were simply too many elemental creatures roaming the Imperial City of the Abyss, and even elemental statues in front of some buildings were summoned.


    If the collection of purgatories had been thoroughlypleted and all spaces were interconnected, the inner space could be expanded even greater and be practically immune against such attacks.


    At present, however, the size of every single space within the collection of purgatories was fixed and it cost Nailisi energy to open portals leading to the next space.


    Nailisi found her double showing signs of exhaustion after capturing over 20 level 11 Vermillion Knights. With believers dying in droves, restoration rate slowed as well.


    Nailisi regretted not filling the space with more fallen believers. If there have been ample fallen believers, her double would be able to be restored quicker. Nailisi had no choice but to take her golden dragon form after seeing more and more believers dying and her double¡¯s power growing weaker and weaker.


    She charged outside the purgatory of the fallen and began fighting the Vermillion Knights up close at the portal.


    While the golden dragon was incapable of using Grey Memory or the Sword of Rules, it was capable of shrugging off small level differences, enabling her to fight the Vermillion Knights up close.


    Nailisi only hoped her attacks would be capable of stalling the enemy¡¯s advance into the space. She was not capable of shutting the portal altogether, as there was simply no time nor chance to do so.


    If she had opened the purgatory of elements, she might have been able to call upon the Eye of the Storm and the great fire snake to fight. However, she had only herself to rely on.


    The Vermillion Knights were wary of the golden dragon¡¯s breath. The power of the dragon¡¯s breath did not lie with the temperature, but its ability to disintegrate anything without regard of level difference. Any living being that was hit by a dragon¡¯s breath was disintegrated by the breath¡¯s power.


    Nailisi was at level ten, increasing the number of times she was able to use dragon¡¯s breath. Her body had been battered from the fierynce attacks from the Vermillion Knights, but she was able to still rely on the dragon¡¯s power restorative powers to continue fighting.


    Every time when she was at the brink of copse, she shot another dragon¡¯s breath at the enemy, making even the level 11 Vermillion Knights shirk momentarily.


    Nailisi was still calcting in her mind. At the speed her master was moving, if he threw elemental creatures into the magic power furnace, he would be able to reach her in about an hour or so.


    I¡¯ll justst for another hour then!


    Nailisi roared and brought the might of the dragon. The level 11 Vermillion Knights were the only ones still standing, as many other elemental creatures of lower level were paralyzed, subdued by the dragon¡¯s might.


    The move was low level. A dragon¡¯s might was incapable of subduing level 11 Vermillion Knights. The remaining 12 high level Vermilion Knights charged again, inflicting another dozen of wounds on her while she took a break.


    The wounds quickly closed, but she was unable to keep the golden blood from spraying out with each thrust.


    The 12 Vermillion Knights sucked up any of the golden dragon¡¯s blood in the water in a frenzy, as it was something capable of lengthening their lifespan. Elemental creatures paid close to the length of their lifespan as well.


    Boom!


    Nailisi fell to the ground. Her giant dragon head created a massive crater on the ground.


    So this is it, huh?


    Nailisi opened her eyes and swiped at a Vermillion Knight, sending it flying several hundred meters away. The Vermillion Knight suffered a huge gash, but it quickly closed.


    How long would it take for master to get here? Nailisi felt herself getting drowsy. She had overspent her mental powers.

 Chapter 1185: Ferocious Master and Apprentice (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1185: Ferocious Master and Apprentice (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Luoluokaluos possessed transformation abilities, a very formidable feat. When Nailisi fell down, she felt her mental powers were exhausted and knew that she was unable to keep her golden dragon form for long.


    The 12 Vermillion Knights saw an opening and charged. They intended to eat Nailisi. If they were able to devour a golden dragon, all of the Vermillion Knights would advance.


    Nailisi wiggled on the ground andshed out with one of her ws at a Vermillion Knight. She no longer bothered defending and opened her mouth, shooting dragon¡¯s breath at the Vermillion Knight.


    The Vermillion Knight was quickly riddled with holes before its elemental core blew up.


    However, Nailisi was quickly pierced by the remaining 11 Vermillion Knights. The attack severed all of her tendons, immobilizing her.


    The Vermillion Knights did not bother crying over their deadrade. All they saw was how valuable Nailisi¡¯s body was.


    Her dragon head was almost cut off. Despite that, she continued grinning ferociously through the severe pain. She swiped her tail and her body shrank, turning into her skeleton king form. She threw out thousands of magic bugs from her space equipment the moment she finished transforming.


    The magic bugs were all venomous and nurtured using the terrifying venom concocted by Agares.


    While Vermillion Knights generally had no fear of venom, it depended on the type of venom in question. The Vermillion Knights found themselves to have underestimated their target when the magic bugs jumped on them. The bodies of all remaining 11 Vermillion Knights were corroded by the venom.


    While their elemental cores continuously restored their elemental shells, it failed to stop the venom from seeping in.


    The magic bugs were only capable of injecting their venom one time before being burned to death.


    What frustrated the Vermillion Knights was not the damage they suffered, but the golden dragon¡¯s disappearance. The reason they kept tangling with Nailisi was to acquire the golden dragon¡¯s body. With the golden dragon gone and so many of their own missing, their master would definitely punish them!


    Every single Vermillion Knight thought of that. The level 10 skeleton king was not a threat to them; the true threat was the fire type element spirit¡¯s unruly and unstable temper.


    The Vermillion Knights gave their all. If they went back empty-handed, they would have to answer to a fire type element spirit who would be out to make their lives miserable.


    Vermillion mes shot out from the 11 Vermillion Knights¡¯ cores. It was the fire of their lives. The vermillion mespletely burned all the venom that was clinging to them. They shed their elemental shells so venom was unable to seep any further into their bodies.


    They gave up their shells and retained only their cores in the most basic form.


    While it was a crippling move, it enabled all of the Vermillion Knights to shake free of their poisoned states.


    Eleven weaponsshed out at Nailisi again. She felt she was very unlucky for running into so many elemental creatures who were a higher level than she was. She would have made short work of them if they were of her level.


    However, when levels went beyond level 10, every single level was an insurmountable difference of power.


    If she had to deal with only one level 11 Vermillion Knight, she would have ways to go about it. But at the moment, she had to deal with 11 of them that synchronized with each other quite well. It would be difficult to make further sacrifices in another form just to kill another one.


    The golden dragon form suffered severe damage and would need at least a month to recuperate. Her skeleton form was quickly turned into a pile of shattered bones after taking the brunt of the attack.


    Nailisi was able to time her transformation well enough to change into her devil form and retreated quickly, holding her shield and blocking the entrance to the purgatory of the fallen.


    The remaining 11 Vermillion Knights witnessed their enemy killed only for the enemy to resurrect in yet another form. Their rage had hit a critical point. While the enemy was not powerful, it had many tricks up its sleeve.


    The magic bugs might have been weak, but had been capable of withstanding high temperatures for long enough to cause major trouble for the Vermillion Knights.


    The elemental shells that they shed had evolved for tens of thousands of years. New elemental shells would be iparable to the ones they just lost.


    One of the Vermillion Knights mobilized their fire tiger, which rammed into Nailisi¡¯s shield. The Vermillion Knight was about 20 meters tall and reached 24 to 25 meters when riding on the fire tiger. Nailisi¡¯s height at the moment was only ten meters, but the shield was more than able to cover her entire body.


    The Vermillion Knight was not even able to attack sessfully using superior height.


    However, level 11 creatures possessed great strength. The Vermillion Knight thrust its fierynce at her shield, rendering Nailisi¡¯s armpletely numb.


    The shield was unscathed as it had belonged to a head inquisitor. Despite its attributes beingpletely wiped clean, it was still incredibly sturdy.


    While the Vermillion Knights were of average intelligence, theirbat prowess was formidable. One ram was all they needed to tell that Nailisicked brute strength. Regardless of how resilient the shield was, it still needed someone to wield it.


    The second Vermillion Knight mobilized their fire tiger and rammed the shield. Nailisi buckled and retreated half a step. If she had stood her ground, her arms would have gonepletely numb. Nailisi missed Sika.


    If Sika had been holding the shield, she might have been able to bash the Vermillion Knight badly enough to make it retreat.


    There were times where brute strength worked best.


    Nailisi continued to hide behind the shield, holding both the Grey Memory and the Sword of Rules. The remaining arm held the that Saleen had lent her. While the proved useless against the Angel of Brightness, it worked well against the Vermillion Knights.


    But she waspletely outnumbered. Even if she managed to trap one of them, victory still wouldn¡¯t be hers. The other Vermillion Knights would rescue their trapped brother and take her away.


    Boom!


    The third Vermillion Knight rammed into her shield, and this time, Nailisi moved forward. It was a move learned from warriors. Nailisi took the step before the Vermillion Knightpleted its attack, which greatly diminished the force it could deliver.


    The Vermillion Knights saw that they were unable to match Nailisi in skill and spread out. Two Vermillion Knights rammed into her instead.


    The portal wasrge enough to amodate the shock from two elemental creatures¡¯ attacks.


    Nailisi¡¯s skill was nullified. The two Vermillion Knights had a half secondg between their respective attacks. It became impossible for her to deflect her enemy¡¯s power. She was not J, and thuscked such refined abilities.


    It was the first time Nailisi felt the importance of technique. If she had been willing to learn from J, the man would have done his best to teach her. However, she had wasted too much time sleeping. Nailisi now regretted that.


    Nailisi swallowed a piece of divine crystal while the enemy backed away in order to replenish her mental powers in the fastest way possible. She wondered how long it would take her double in purgatory to restore to full fighting strength.


    There were too many damaged or dead believers inside, and Nailisi¡¯s double needed to help treat and revive them.


    Boom! Boom!


    Three Vermillion Knights rammed into her. They gave up their steeds and chose to stand on their own feet. The attack forced Nailisi five steps back, retreating almost into the portal.


    Nailisi lowered the shield and thrust the Grey Memory. One of the Vermillion Knights looked at the huge hole in its chest in disbelief. The hole was unable to be restored; its elemental core was shattered by one thrust from Nailisi.


    The entire street trembled as the level 11 Vermillion Knight exploded. Its brethren around it bunched up to resist the shock from the explosion. Nailisi raised the shield again and knelt, letting the fires from the explosion hit the center of the shield.


    The mental powers that she had painstakingly restored were almost exhausted again after she dished out that thrust.


    ¡°Put down your shield and follow us back to see our master. We will spare your life if you do!¡± one of the Vermillion Knights shouted. Its voice was heard in the surrounding seawater, spreading out in all directions.


    Two figures suddenly charged from the shadows. One of the figures pointed a finger at the Vermillion Knight¡¯s chest, and the core of the Vermillion Knight crumbled.


    However, it was still alive. Saleen unraveled a sealing scroll, sealing the level 11 Vermillion Knight inside the scroll.


    Saleen turned around and shot seven lightning icicles. He went all out in the attack, since he was able to tell that Nailisi¡¯s mental powers had been severely depleted, resorting to fighting.


    However, she was no match for the level 11 creatures. If he had showed up anyter, Nailisi would have probably been taken away.


    Saleen shot seven out of the remaining ten Vermillion Knights, leaving only three behind for Jason. He relied on powerful equipment to fight while Jason relied solely on his own power.


    He wanted to see how strong his teacher actually was.


    Saleen still remembered how his teacher had dared to challenge a magic tower when he was still at level five. Saleen knew Jason¡¯s temperament well enough that his teacher would provoke him when not in any mortal danger.


    Jason¡¯s actions far exceeded Saleen¡¯s expectations.


    Jason¡¯s ck magic robe billowed in the water like a soft wing. He used an unknown skill and came beside a Vermillion in an instant, pressing his palm on the Vermillion Knight¡¯s chest.


    Saleen saw that Jason had sent a sliver of Water me into the Vermillion Knight¡¯s body. The Vermillion Knight crumbled piece by piece as the Water me passed.


    Jason¡¯s territory expanded furiously and shrouded yet another Vermillion Knight.


    The level 11 Vermillion Knight shot mes from all over its body, but the mes were ck. The ck mes burned the Vermillion Knight alive and reduced it to an inner core of just a little more than three meters tall. There was only one final Vermillion Knight left standing before Jason.


    It was incapable of subduing Jason despite being level 11. Jason¡¯s zing me Soul-refinement was so powerful that not even fire elemental creatures were able to withstand the temperatures.


    ¡°Submit to me!¡± Jason shouted at thest level 11 Vermillion Knight. The level 11 Vermillion Knight shivered and fell to its knees while facing a level ten human.


    Saleen watched with glittering eyes. Jason¡¯sst shout seemed to be imbued with Thundering Sound, but that was actually not the case. The skill actually worked on the internal parts of a living being¡¯s body, causing a powerful resonance which made it feel fear from the inside out.

 Chapter 1186: Ferocious Master and Apprentice (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1186: Ferocious Master and Apprentice (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The level 11 Vermillion Knight lost the will to resist when Jason shouted. Its limbs were all on the ground, and its head hung low before Jason, allowing the mage to seal it.


    Saleen was unable to fathom how his teacher managed to subjugate an elemental creature one whole level higher than him. Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound was even greater, but it only managed to half the enemy¡¯s movement. If the enemy¡¯s level was higher than his, the skill would only be able to slow the enemy down.


    However, one shout from Jason and the Vermillion Knight submitted.


    But it was not the time for studying such problems. Saleen shared senses with Nailisi and she borrowed Saleen¡¯s mental powers to quickly put her collection of purgatories away. Saleen took out the Magical Element Tower and allowed Nailisi to go rest within.


    ¡°Teacher, what should we do next?¡± Saleen had no idea if he should fight the fire type element spirit.


    Jason answered, ¡°hold on for a bit. Let me subjugate the elemental creaturepletely before we move on.¡±


    There were still about 1000 elemental creatures outside when Saleen and Jason moved inside the tower, letting the creatures attack all they liked. They could not do anything about the Magical Element Tower¡¯s defense.


    Jason created a contract sealing book and threw the level 11 Vermillion Knight into it, before beginning to read the elemental creature¡¯s memories.


    Half an hourter, Jason said Saleen, ¡°the fire type element spirit is a level 13 creature with a soul. Tough opponent. When will Nailisi be ready?¡±


    ¡°She needs another four hours.¡±


    ¡°When she is done recuperating, we¡¯ll go get the fire type element spirit.¡±


    ¡°Is that possible?¡± Saleen recalled how the Sreeger Ind mages had used magic arrays left behind by their predecessors, and had only been able to subjugate a fire type element spirit when it was at its weakest.


    The fire type element spirit they were about to deal with had underlings. That meant that it was intelligent and even tougher to deal with.


    For example, the Vermillion Knights. It was far more difficult to subjugate re, who was level ten, than killing any of the level 11 Vermillion Knights. re had a soul and was capable of self-evolution. It was capable of many methods ofbat, unlike the level 11 Vermillion Knights who relied solely on their superior power.


    When they were up against something like the Thunder Dragon ster, they were easy targets.


    ¡°Saleen, an enemy¡¯s strength lies with the question whether the enemy¡¯s mindset matches its level. This fire type element spirit is a coward, but very unruly and arrogant.¡±


    Saleen knew what his teacher meant. A weak-willed person threw their weight around, but when they came across some enemy more powerful than they were, or just an enemy they perceived to be stronger, they would chose to run.


    Such an enemy had too many weaknesses and that meant that there were a myriad of ways to deal with them.


    His teacher had apparently managed to find some ways to exploit the fire type element spirit¡¯s weaknesses from the Vermillion Knight¡¯s memories.


    Saleen faced a level 13 creature once¡ªthe divine baby.


    He knew well about how terrifying level 13 creatures could be. They were no longer resistible with skills and techniques. It required an immense amount of power, strong equipment, and ample luck to emerge victorious against them.


    The most important factor was luck.


    His teacher¡¯s magic amplifier was nowhere nearpletion and his Lightning Territory was not even constructed. It was risky to capture the fire type element spirit. However, Jason¡¯s methods of training had no room for fear.


    Jason probably wanted to use the fire type element spirit toplete his advancement.


    ¡°Saleen, get ready and have the 3600 demonic spirits prepped for battle.¡± Jason gave his instructions and ordered the water puppet to get the magic tower up, heading towards the volcano that the fire type element spirit lived in.


    It did not count as flying, as they were underwater. The Magical Element Tower was not actually swimming, either. The magic patterns on the outside the tower were beyond repair.


    They were simply moving at speeds below 100 miles per hour in the water, approaching their target slowly. The elemental creatures outside the tower continued to chase it and attacked futilely.


    Jason smiled and turned to Saleen, seeing the younger mage still looked worried. ¡°The fire type element spirit is easier to deal with than a light type element spirit. Just throw the out and half of the fire type element spirit¡¯s power will be restricted.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that I can¡¯t get it trapped.¡± Saleen remained worried.


    ¡°We¡¯ll just run if that happens. Your Magical Element Tower is different from what it used to be. Even in such an environment, you can still teleport outside the Imperial City of the Abyss.¡±


    Nailisi had recovered while the pair talked. She came to Saleen¡¯s side and returned the to him.


    Jason said, ¡°there is no need for all that trouble, Saleen. When we get there, I¡¯ll take control of the tower, and you¡¯ll see how I capture the fire type element spirit!¡±


    Saleen listened. The tower took one whole day to reach the side of theke.


    There was noke water there as the entire city was already submerged underwater. The terrain looked more like a volcano standing in the middle of a basin. It was created entirely by humans. Saleen looked at the peculiar terrain in awe.


    The volcano was covered in magic patterns, and when there had actually been ake, it was probably one gigantic trap. It was near impossible to get anywhere near the volcano then. Furthermore, the Imperial City of the Abyss ouwed flight. Anyone who dared to fly would be dealt with harshly.


    That was no longer the case. The magic tower stuck close to the ocean floor, and it would definitely not trigger any attacks from the broken magic arrays. Even if there were any attacks, the only things to suffer any damage were thest of the magic patterns outside the magic tower.


    None of the attacks would be able to harm level 18 elementite, unless a powerful mage controlled the offensive magic arrays and magical buildings.


    Jason took control of the tower and flew over the chasm that had been ake, going straight for the peak of the volcano. The volcano was only several miles in radius. Jason had already brought the tower into the mouth of the volcano before Saleen was able to get ready.


    The tower dropped down into the mouth of the volcano altogether. While the volcano was dormant, it had been artificially created by ancient humans. There were huge amounts of fire element crystals left behind in the mouth.


    Crystal mine veins were preciously few on the Myers Maind. However, the ancient humans had gone into every single vein. Getting some of the crystals and putting them at the mouth of the volcano to nurture a fire type element spirit was easy.


    The Magical Element Tower dropped into the fiery hole. The exterior of the volcano was etched with water element magic patterns while the internal were all fire. The two types of magic patterns resonated with each other. If theke was there, it would have been turned into a world resembling Jason¡¯s territory.


    Might amplified considerably with both water and fire working in synch.


    The magic arrays had all been dismantled by the fire type element spirit. It feared the possibility of tricksid by ancient humans. Only the magic patterns were left behind and rendered under its control, casting the fire elemental attacks it was most familiar with.


    When the tower dropped, the fire type element spirit had just finished shrugging off the nightmare¡¯s nightmarish illusions. It was still shuddering from the experience.


    It hesitated when it saw the magic tower appear and did not attack. It would simply seal off the mouth of the volcano otherwise.


    When the magic tower stuffed the mouth of the volcano, the fire type element spirit was coincidentally stuck underneath. While there were pathways underneath the volcano, but the mouth of the volcano was where it lived. With its turf being invaded, the fire type element spirit attacked its enemy instinctively.


    Furthermore, everything it owned was kept there. All the treasures, equipment, and energy that it had the elemental creatures gather from the city were kept in the mouth of the volcano.


    The Magical Element Tower rumbled and stuck more than two miles deep into the volcano, blocking the eruption pathway of the volcano.


    The fire type element spirit brandished its weapon and intended to destroy the huge construct. Its ck whip whipped away at the bottom of the tower, but it was only able to throw sparks of ck fire.


    The Magical Element Tower waspletely unscathed. The fire type element spirit summoned the fiery chariot from within the tight spaces underneath, as well as the six ming giant dragons. It charged upwards, intending to find out what kind of a thing the tower was.


    It did not expect the flying monster to be a magic tower. The six dragons charged into the first floor of the tower, totally cut off from the chariot. Jason¡¯s control was near perfect. The six dragons were trapped in the first floor of the tower, barging left, right and center.


    However, there was no way they could damage the elementite around them, regardless of how powerful they were.


    The fire type element spirit was dejected after losing the six dragons. It was able to feel that the dragons were still alive but trapped.


    It bent over and took a deep breath, sucking in fire element. Some fire element crystals around it disappeared, stored within its body, which expanded several times. It punched at the bottom of the Magical Element Tower.


    ¡°Foolish indeed.¡± Jason watched the fire type element spirit and found it to be incredibly stupid. It learned nothing from the loss of its six dragons.


    The tower dropped suddenly and the fire type element spirit charged inside the tower. It entered the tower¡¯s second floor. Saleen grew envious of Jason¡¯s ability to manipte the space of the equipment.


    The tower belonged to Saleen, but his ability to control it paled inparison to Jason, who just used the tower at the moment.


    Jason activated the magic array¡¯s self destruct device as soon as the fire type element spirit went inside the tower¡¯s second floor. The teleportation magic patterns of the two bottommost floors disappeared.


    The tower was crafted with Jason¡¯s help. Saleen never understood why such designs were incorporated, but he now knew. If the fire type element spirit intended to escape, it could barge its way through the teleportation portals.


    Its level was far above Saleen¡¯s and Jason¡¯s. Conventional methods would be useless to trap it.


    However, with the teleportation magic patterns and teleportation portals of the tower destroyed, the fire type element spirit had no choice but to go up.


    Jason had alreadyid the out at the third floor, waiting for the fire type element spirit to barge in.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. ¡°Teacher, isn¡¯t this all too easy?¡±


    ¡°Hardly,¡± Jason answered Saleen seriously. ¡°Would anyone else be able to possess a tower made from level 18 elementite? The tower even flies and you have a on par with godly items. If any of the three items was missing, things wouldn¡¯t have gone like this. In the entire Myers Maind, there are fewer than 10 mages who are as rich as you are.¡±

 Chapter 1187: Elemental Envoy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1187: Elemental Envoy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Yeah, teacher...¡± Saleen felt rather embarrassed. The way Jason put it made it sound like he was some kind of upstart. Jason relied on his own power and took down a level 11 Vermillion Knight cleanly without using any equipment. Saleen, on the other hand, relied on the powerful Thunder Dragon ster.


    The power of the Thunder Dragon ster had already been tested in the astrology tower. Level 13 defense was practically useless against the equipment, and the Vermillion Knights were only level 11 beings.


    Elemental creatures were not humans and did not possess any powerful equipment. They relied solely on their own elemental powers to fight.


    ¡°To mages, their own equipment constitutes a part of their own power, Saleen. There¡¯s no need to feel bad about this. Among the gear you own, I like the Thunder Dragon ster the most, despite it being inferior to the Magical Element Tower. I¡¯ve looked into Hogina¡¯s Gun as well, and while you might have borrowed ideas from her, you¡¯ve created something else entirely different altogether. That was your own power.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Saleen answered and felt a lot better about himself.


    The fire type element spirit barged around in the tower for the second time and found itself incapable of breaking the walls of the tower. It began to look into other means of escape.


    Every single floor of the Magical Element Tower was equipped with teleportation portals. In Saleen¡¯s case, he was able to reach anywhere within without having to activate the portals. The entire Magical Element Tower had became the most important arsenal in Saleen¡¯s possession.


    The passage from the second floor leading to the third floor was not destroyed. However, breaking it required intense brute force. There was no way it could use that teleportation portal without Saleen¡¯s permission.


    The fire type element spirit shrunk itself from a height of over three meters to a figure of less than half a foot tall. The armor and equipment that it had on its person were also shrunk.


    The equipment was controlled by its elemental powers. The way humans saw it, the fire type element spirit was a weapon spirit for the equipment.


    Controlling the equipment in such a way that it ended up even controlling itself, was probably something that can only be done by a natural born being like the fire type element spirit.


    It was capable of such a feat due to having no guidance from anyone and had only yed around with its powers guided solely inherent ancient memories.


    Even humans would be reluctant of doing such a thing. Gods possessed divine personas and so long as said divine persona survived, no god would make themselves into weapon spirits.


    The fire type element spirit was apparently a clueless newbie in terms of training. It looked for ways of manipting any powerful equipment from the fragments of memories of the ancient past.


    The ancient memories would only be whole if it was already level 15 when it was born. The memories would otherwise exist only in very fragmented pieces.


    Without holistic ways of training, the fire type element spirit had turned itself into a weapon spirit to control the dragons and the fiery chariot. The wargs and even that nameless ck whip were all ces where it stored its soul.


    While doing so would enhance the power of its weapons to the max, but the danger within was also very apparent. If the equipment were taken by others and crafted, it would lose its freedom and be made a ve.


    It was something that was simple reasoning andmon knowledge among human mages, but the fire type element spirit knew nothing of that.


    The fire type element spirit wielded the long ck whip like a spear when breaking from the second floor to reach the third floor. It pierced the crevice between spaces and made it up violently.


    Jason had been waiting for that to happen. When the fire type element spirit reached the third floor, the teleportation magic pattern waspletely destroyed. If it wanted to leave, it would need to wait until Saleen and others crafted magic patterns for the tower.


    A huge fell onto it. The fire type element spirit shot a white fiery breath, intending to melt the. However, not even Saleen¡¯s Water me was capable of dismantling the. There was no way a level 13 fire type element spirit would be able to destroy it.


    The quickly trapped the fire type element spirit and contracted. It was surprised and quickly expanded its body. However, it remained incapable of breaking the even after expanding to over 30 meters tall.


    Jasonughed and sealed the third floor off, wiping all the magic patterns clean. Under the workings of the mechanical core of the Sky City, the third floor of the Magical Element Tower became a truly sealed off space.


    In doing so, the second and fourth floor of the tower ceased to run. However, Saleen was indifferent. The fire type element spirit was thoroughly trapped. They would open the third floor when he and his teacher found ways to get around the problem.


    The fire type element spirit howled. It was unable to fathom how was it possible for it to be captured when the enemy was not even all that powerful.


    ¡°I¡¯ll subjugate it when I have time, some time near advancement to level 11.¡± Jason said and left the Magical Element Tower with Saleen.


    The Magical Element Tower was at the mouth of the volcano, but the volcano was unlike any normal volcanoes. Its inner walls wereid with fire elemental crystals. The crystals were not something from Myers Maind, but something excavated from other nes, put there specifically for nurturing a fire type element spirit.


    The fire type element spirit had been very slow at absorbing the crystals, which was why it had taken so many underlings to search for magic nuclei and fire element from the ley lines. If it had been born at level 15, it would be able to simply eat the crystals to sustain itself.


    ¡°Saleen, we¡¯ll take everything here.¡±


    The space beneath the magic tower was not small. The fire type element spirit had ced every single material and equipment that its underlings gathered there, admiring them every day.


    Saleen was indifferent to most of the equipment there, as they were severely damaged and devoid of possibility for growth, but he could dismantle them using Water me and craft them into something else, and they made decent materials for the purpose.


    The fire element crystals were also the best energy source to power the magic power furnace. The amount of fire element crystals at the mouth of the volcano was frighteningly high. Otherwise, it would not be able to nurture a level 13 being.


    Nailisi followed them but Jason shot her down, telling her instead, ¡°Nailisi, go to the first floor and subjugate the six ming giant dragons. I¡¯m afraid the fire type element spirit would borrow their powers to escape.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡± Nailisi followed his orders, turning around and returning to the tower. While she was very interested in the fire element crystals, she dared not disobey Jason¡¯s orders.


    She was finally able to see how truly frighteningly powerful Jason was. Jason had been able to ignore level difference. He did not even need to use equipment to hunt and kill level 11 beings.


    Saleen and Jason used Water me at the same time, cutting fire element crystals off of the walls of the volcano. While master and apprentice had different personalities, they had the same attitude when it came to treating precious magic materials. Nothing was to be left behind.


    The fire element crystals¡¯ hardness surpassed high level magic nucleus. If it hadn¡¯t been for both of possessing Water mes, it would have been impossible to cut every single piece of the crystals out.


    Jason finally stopped after two days. There was no other materials deemed worth picking up.


    ¡°I¡¯ll craft equipment. If I¡¯m unable to finish it within a week, we¡¯ll just leave.¡±


    Nailisi was inside the purgatory of elements at the moment, helping the Eye of the Storm and the great fire snake devour the six ming giant dragons. The dragons¡¯ power surpassed the great fire snake, but the potential for growth of the double-headed snake was unpredictable. Nailisi treated the two beings nicely and them eat the six dragons.


    The Eye of the Storm no longer rampaged. The purgatory of elements was just too perfect for beings like them. They had no worries of being taken away by people and made into equipment, and it was an environment where they were able to fight best as well.


    Nailisi did not have to do anything to coerce the two beings into following every single word she said.


    Jason chose the 17th floor of the tower for crafting his magic amplifier while Saleen watched from the side. It was between the two of them that such significant alchemical process was allowed to be showcased.


    Jason cast his Water me Territory and used Water me within. Saleen found his teacher¡¯s Water me different from his. His teacher¡¯s hadplex attributes.


    It was probably a product of melding Water me and zing me. Saleen knew that he was unable to pick that up, but he was able to learn his teacher¡¯s alchemical techniques.


    Jason took out Withering Dance¡ªthe bracelet left behind by the Goddess of Myers¡ªto use as the core of the magic amplifier, putting a piece of dimensional stone within. The dimension stone melted in the Water me and was infused within the bracelet.


    Jason only took out some materials that he had been preparing for a long time, as well as the materials that Saleen had added for him, throwing all of them into the Water me.


    Saleen saw that his teacher waspletely using mental powers to guide the process. Every single material within the Water me came into being naturally and assembled at the Withering Dance.


    A three-headed and six-armed devil structure appeared before Saleen gradually, the Withering Dance serving as the core. The crafting of the elemental envoy was less than ten percent done, and the materials were less than one percent depleted.


    Time passed and Saleen looked on with focused eyes. Analysis using his Elemental Eye saw that ck mes were concealed in his teacher¡¯s Water me. Every single material was refined in a two-fold process.


    His teacher did not craft any magic patterns. When the parts crafted from the materials came together, the expected magic patterns naturally appeared.


    The elemental envoy¡¯s image was over three meters tall, and it did not look as ferocious and imposing as the devil. The Withering Dance spun in the core of the elemental envoy. A specter gradually came into being in the Withering Dance.


    Saleen gasped in surprise. He had no idea when Jason had crafted a weapon spirit!


    Everything took ce right before his eyes but he saw none of it taking ce.


    Jason was having an easy time crafting and had only replenished his mental powers using a piece of divine crystal. He did not do so because his mental powers were near depletion, but as a measure of prevention.


    The elemental envoy no longer looked transparent after six days of crafting. Its muscle hardly looked any different from a human. Of its three heads, one was crafted in the image of a human male and another as a human female.


    The remaining head was a devil¡¯s, long horns stretching up.

 Chapter 1188: Elemental Envoy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1188: Elemental Envoy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    External appearance hardly mattered, as Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to watch the elemental envoy¡¯s internal structure. With thestponent assembled, every single part within the elemental envoy¡¯s body fused together, as if it were a natural lifeform born with bones, blood vessels, internal organs, hair, teeth, and everything else.


    Saleen was even able to see that the Withering Dance at the heart part of the elemental envoy disappeared, reced with a strong, resilient and continuously beating heart.


    ¡°Teacher, is this true divine crafting?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. The ones used by the Holy See are nothing but cheap knockoffs. This is true divine crafting, an art that creates life that possesses a soul,¡± Jason said calmly, as if none of it was actually worth mentioning.


    ¡°Just how powerful is this elemental envoy?¡±


    Jason thought for a bit. ¡°If I advanced to level 12 and brought the elemental envoy with me, no enemy at level 13 would be a problem.¡±


    Saleen understood what he meant. The elemental envoy¡¯s usefulness exceeded his expectations. The power difference between level 12 and 13, was tens, even hundreds, of times more than the difference between level 11 and 12.


    Jason had been capable enough to deal with a level 11 elemental creature without breaking a sweat. With the elemental envoy in his possession, it was akin to being invincible below level 12.


    But only if the enemy did not happen to possess stronger equipment.


    Anyone was capable of crafting and possessing equipment. Saleen had seen many powerful pieces of equipment with his own eyes, including the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake.


    He had no idea how to counter its power if it were used against him. His only countermeasure was to destroy it with his family badge.


    However, Saleen¡¯s family badge required half a year to recharge. The Thunder Dragon ster was powerful but definitely not undefeatable like his family badge.


    Even high level godly items would have their attributes wiped clean by the lightning bolt unleashed from his family badge.


    ¡°Teacher, do you mind letting me see what it¡¯s capable of?¡± Saleen was feeling antsy. It was the very first time he hade across such a mystical piece of equipment. It was alive, hardly any different from any other living beings.


    ¡°Alright then, let¡¯s have a look.¡± Jason brought his student to the 15th floor of the tower. ¡°You¡¯ll see what the true power of territories is like!¡± Jason cast his two-fold territory.


    Jason¡¯s two-fold territory was different. The Water me Territory and zing me Territory were no longer what they used to be. The Water me used to be white, not silver. zing me turned ck with a tinge of gold.


    The two territories mashed together and formed a space with ck and silver melding with one another.


    Within that space, the distance of single hair¡¯s thickness meant temperature changes between melting and freezing.


    The territory was cut into very thin, discreteyers. Even the space of a hair was cut into thousands of spaces. Saleen knew that it was not the final effect. Jason would only be able to bring the true two-fold territory to bear using his magic amplifier.


    The area of control of the territory was beingpressed as much as possible by Jason.


    He told his student, ¡°my area of control of this territory can reach up to 60 meters. When the territory is finished, I will advance to level 11, and then the radius of my territory will be 240 meters. After I advance to level 12, the radius will grow to 1000 meters.¡±


    Saleen clicked his tongue. While his territory had a far wider radius, its powers were 1000 times weaker than his teacher¡¯s. He was able to tell that if his Puppet Territory shed with his teacher¡¯s two-fold territory, his would be disintegrated. It would be like throwing snowkes into raging fires.


    The elemental envoy stood right behind Jason. Saleen was unable to see any signs of the elemental envoy providing energy to Jason, but there was no doubt that every skill that Jason used centered around him and the elemental envoy.


    The elemental envoy enabled Jason¡¯s skill to resonate with his environment in some inexplicable ways. Neither the Elemental Eye nor the Eye of Lightning was able to analyze the mystical frequency.


    Jason had already been able to cast a two-fold territory, but without the help of the elemental envoy, he was not able to maintain its effects for long.


    He was initially able to maintain his territory i for mere seconds, which had no practical use for battle. It even felt inadequate for practice.


    Practicing a skill that onlysted for mere seconds required him to rest for half a day. It would be extremely difficult for Jason to advance reliably if he continued like that.


    However, as he possessed the elemental envoy. The device served as a magic amplifier, and it became a breeze for Jason to maintain his territory.


    The elemental envoy itself was like a puppet. Even if it were not seen as an actual living being, it would be taken as a peculiar puppet. No one else would suspect it was a magic amplifier.


    Saleen was very impressed by the wonderful thought behind his teacher¡¯s design. He had been relying on others¡¯ thought processes too much. Even if he invented something that totally epoch-making, it would not be entirely his own invention.


    It seemed that his teacher was pointing the way for him. If he possessed Lightning Territory, the power of his new skill would beparable to the two-fold territory.


    Lightning was able to achieve terrifyingly high temperatures and its anti-soul properties wereparable to the zing me Soul-refinement skill.


    Any remaining feelings of befuddlement deep in his mind disappeared. Regardless of what happened in the future, Saleen only needed to walk the path of mages. The problems awaiting him and Lex were simply a part of a mage¡¯s life.


    He was definitely not a king. If he were forced to choose between the two identities, Saleen would choose to be just a mage.


    ¡°The elemental envoy can actually fight on its own. The reason I allowed you to see it is in the hope that you won¡¯t mimic others all the time in your efforts in alchemy from here on out. You¡¯re very, very smart. Of all the Sreeger Ind mages I¡¯ve seen, none are as diligent and intelligent as you are,¡± Jason encouraged Saleen.


    He waved at the elemental envoy after saying the words. The elemental envoy transformed into a wooden bracelet, flying towards Jason and secured itself on his wrist.


    The wooden bracelet looked entirely different from the Withering Dance. It was a ck bracelet with silver patterns on it. Saleen was unable to read the patterns and deduce their use. It might have been invented by Jason.


    ¡°Alright, we spent six days here and the elementite has absorbed ample magic patterns. Let¡¯s get back to Metatrin City.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit. His teacher had gathered enough elemental creatures and seeded in crafting the elemental envoy. There was no need for him to continue hunting for beings in the abyss, as Nailisi had captured huge amounts of elemental creatures.


    He had no need to worry about fuel for his magic power furnace for a very long time.


    However, Saleen was unable to fathom what Jason meant by the Magical Element Tower absorbing magic patterns. He expanded his senses and looked into every corner of the tower, finding that huge amounts of mystical, inexplicable magic patterns filled in the inner spaces of the tall tower.


    The magic patterns, which filled the inside and outside of the volcano, had been crafted by ancient humans.


    The tower had not absorbed them, but given how the volcano was at the brink of copse, the seemingly semi-sapient magic patterns had automatically found their way inside the Magical Element Tower.


    The tower itself would not refuse the infusion of magic patterns as they posed no threat. Inparison to the elementite used to construct the tower, the magic patterns¡¯ level was low.


    The core of the Sky City had even began to actually absorb the magic patterns, altering the exterior of the Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen realized something. When one¡¯s magic training reached the absolute pinnacle, everything would look alive. The magic patterns had been semi-sapient, and Saleen never noticed.


    The fire type element spirit did not either as it only knew wanton destruction, never realizing that the magic patterns were far more cunning than it was, choosing to hide deep within the volcano instead.


    Saleen took onest reluctant look at the Imperial City of the Abyss. It was truly a treasure trove. If there were a day where he would have no need to fear the grandmaster, he would bring the entire city with him.


    He would take everything of value with him, just like what he did with the goddess¡¯ temples.


    Jason was still at the tower¡¯s helm. Fire element crystals were thrown into the magic power furnace and orange fire shot out of the rear end of the tower. The tower was able to break the seawater and shoot upwards thanks to the thrust provided by the fires.


    They were not using the magic patterns¡¯ power, but simply used the magic arrays at the bottom of the tower. The method of propulsion allowed the Magical Element Tower to regain speed at over 300 miles per hour.


    The magic arrays needed a two-hour break for every six hours. Saleen took the two hours to cast his Puppet Territory and hunt for magic beasts at the Oceanic Ice Block.


    Saleen was unable to help but recall the first time he came to the Oceanic Ice Block. He needed the power of the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship¡¯s powers to get his way around before daring to venture in such a terrible environment. Now, just like his teacher, he had no need for any equipment for chasing at giants in the deep waters.


    When he possessed territorial powers, the gigantic ocean life was no longer something difficult to deal with. With the territory at work, the puppets simply rushed and ganged up at their target. Even single-horned white whales would eventually fall against such an onught.


    What made Saleen envious was his teacher¡¯s elemental envoy. The construct was not only a magic amplifier, but also a puppet-like bonded creature.


    Jason helped Saleen hunt for beings and the elemental envoy attacked just like Jason would; the only difference was that the elemental envoy did not possess Jason¡¯s territories.


    Saleen was very envious of his teacher and began to have thoughts of his own. When he possessed Lightning Territory, he would definitely be able to craft an even more powerful magic amplifier.


    He had gotten his is ne from the Goddess of Myers. The ne was not a godly item; it was a pure mage¡¯s equipment. Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water and 24 thunder dragons filled the ne¡¯s internal space.


    The 24 thunder dragons could be made into weapon spirits while the goddess¡¯ ne could act as a natural magic amplifier!


    Furthermore, the thunder dragons had been living within the ne¡¯s space since they hatched. They could continue to grow when they became weapon spirits. When there was a need for it, they could even be unleashed to do battle.


    Despite doing so would mean that he had simply borrowed his teacher¡¯s ideas, Saleen did not feel anything wrong with it. He had been researching Lightning Rules after all, and as such, it could be considered entirely original.

 Chapter 1189: Dice of Fate (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1189: Dice of Fate (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The master and disciple pair rushed back to Metatrin City from the Frozen Sea. Their speed became faster and faster. The magic patterns absorbed from the volcano had been gradually digested by the Magical Element Tower and were being used to repair the damaged flight magic patterns.


    Sky City¡¯s mechanical core possessed a capability for memory. It was only now that Saleen knew how precious the piece of equipment was. It had been picked up from the bottom of the sea by Nailisi.


    Saleen recalled the variety of strange signs exhibited by the mechanical core. He grew increasingly certain that, if he possessed sufficient power to ce the magical tower on the floating ind, the mechanical core would be able to regain its past glory, allowing the ind to fly.


    On the other hand, it was the flight magic patterns in the memory of the mechanical core that were not too important. They were nothing but a type of transformant for rules. For a mage who was at level 9 or lower, they would still hold some attractive power, but after seeing Jason¡¯s divine crafting, Saleen¡¯s sights aimed even higher. He no longer had much interest in simple transformant.


    The Magical Element Tower flew high in the air. By the time it returned to Metatrin Harbor, arge vessel anchored at the port could be seen. In Metatrin, a battleship that was smaller than 100 meters long was considered small, and the vessel that hadid anchor outside the port was over 300 meters. Saleen looked down at the vessel, which was an armed merchant ship that had magic stone artillery, but they were not in position. They had adhered to Metatrin Harbor¡¯s legition that stated that any vessel approaching the port was not permitted to appear in an armed state.


    The ship was entirely powered by magic. Only three masts could be seen, used to aid the vessel in adjusting its direction and increasing speed. After Metatrin Harbor gained arge magic array, freezing began a littleter. Even so, there were very fewrge vesselsing to the port during the current season. Once they were frozen in the port, they were unable to leave for six months, resulting in significant losses.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was suspended high in the air, and the armed merchant vessel had not discovered it. Saleen¡¯s legition for the port was strict. If magic was used near the port for spying purposes, they would be sunk by magic cannons. No merchant groups had ever dared to infringe on the ban, specifically because there had once been a battleship that hade to the port to make trouble and had been sunk by the magic cannons. The people of Metatrin City had not asked for the battleship¡¯s intentions or purposes, had simply used the magicpass to probe on the battleship for a moment, and then used 10 magic cannons to st it at the same time, causing that unlucky vessel to sink to the bottom of the sea.


    Furthermore, the surrounding boats that had intended to rescue the vessel had also been attacked by the magic cannons, resulting in arge number of casualties. If even a battleship had not survived, of course the merchant vessels that hade for trade and business would seek misfortune.


    ¡°It¡¯s a boat from Alchemy City.¡± Jason saw the symbol on the boat. ¡°It came from Devil¡¯s Horn. Devil¡¯s Horn and the Elemental Hand do not have a good rtionship, but you should still be wary. If Alchemy City is in any danger, Sreeger Ind¡¯s mages are also suitable for providing aid. Unless...¡±


    ¡°Unless it is us who gains Alchemy City, isn¡¯t that so?¡±


    ¡°Correct. Let¡¯s return to the temple and look at what the people from Devil¡¯s Horn came to do.¡±


    The Magical Elemental Tower did not enter Metatrin City at a low altitude like before. Rather, it raised its altitude to more than 10,000 meters. Then, it released a strong mist, as if another cloud had been added to the sky and blocking it from sight.


    The magic power of the Magical Element Tower attracted arge amount of water vapor. A heavy rain was brewing above Metatrin City. No one saw the descent of the Magical Element Tower. Although rain in this season was somewhat out of the ordinary, no one would have thought that it was due to the return of Saleen and the others.


    The scene in the city square was one ofplete leisure. The temple guard was notpletely responsible for patrolling around the core of Metatrin City, but there were still some Caucasian warriors who were responsible for the square. A few magic wolves were alsozily lying around without a care for the impending rain. Only when the Magical Element Tower descended did the magic wolves be excited. They walked to the front and barked.


    Some of the Caucasus warriors came forward weingly, while others went to deliver the news to Sika. When Saleen left, he had consumed a month¡¯s time. It was clear that they were about to enter the cold winter season. The two children had also grown again.


    The rain finally begin to fall, cleansing the city. Jason borrowed Sul to wait on him in his daily life and to protect him. He brought Sul and vanished from the highest floor of the temple. Saleen had returned, so Jason would no longer manage any of the affairs. It was his student¡¯s city; he had just been helping for a short while.


    Saleen also knew that his teacher had borrowed Sul for the sake of tempering him. When Sul was by his side, there would always be fewer opportunities for Sul. Even when he had brought Sul, he had not really gained any benefits.


    Saleen returned to his own room. Sika was already waiting for him.


    ¡°Saleen, people havee from Alchemy City. Would you like to rest for a moment, or hear them out to find out what the matter is?¡±


    ¡°I will rest for a moment first,¡± Saleen replied.


    Not expecting this answer, Sika asked, ¡°You¡¯re not worried anymore?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to see the children.¡± He pulled Sika along and walked toward the opposite side of the temple. The design of the temple¡¯s interior had more and more magical factors. Anyone who wanted to go to Saleen¡¯s children¡¯s rooms was required to pass Saleen¡¯s door. It was a one-way path. To leave not only required the temple badge¡¯s magic imprint, but also Saleen¡¯s or Sika¡¯s permission.


    The inside of the temple was tailored to open an area for Saleen¡¯s two children, both of whom were taking a nap. Saleen and Sika sat in front of their beds and conversed softly.


    Sika suddenly shut her mouth without mentioning the matter of people arriving from Alchemy City. It was not something that could be resolved within a couple of days. ¡°Saleen, ording to the Caucasian priests¡¯ traditions, the children are two years old and ought to be given names.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t they already been given names?¡±


    ¡°This is for their true names, which possess the mysterious rules of fate. It is a secret that even astrologers cannot change.¡±


    ¡°So what does this mean?¡±


    ¡°We must decide now whether or not the children will be priests or something else. Naming is a very important event. I inherited my knowledge from what the ancients left behind. I want you to help me decide.¡±


    ¡°They won¡¯t be priests. We can let them be mages, and we can instruct them together.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good. Since we¡¯ve decided they will be mages, we need to do this together...¡±


    As Sika spoke, the carpet in the room was exposed, revealing the mage¡¯s array underneath it. Numerous symbols and magic patterns alternated within the mage¡¯s array. No one knew how much time Sika had spent drawing it.


    ¡°Saleen, for the sake of the two children, what can you give up?¡± Sika pulled Saleen into the mage¡¯s array, causing Saleen to feel chills all over his body. It was the first time that he felt that the life energy in his body was out of his control since he advanced.


    ¡°I can give up everything,¡± Saleen replied without any hesitation. Although he was rarely with his children, he knew that for the sake of his children he would give up everything, including his life.


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I want to create some dice of fate. Each die will have six faces, and each face will consume 100 years of our lives, or perhaps even 200 years. Are you willing to pay this price?¡±


    ¡°I am willing.¡± When Saleen¡¯s voice descended, it was as if an energy storm erupted from his body. The power of life flowed into the mage¡¯s array like a water tide. It was the same on Sika¡¯s side.


    Saleen didn¡¯t panic, nor did he resist. His current life span had reached 3,000 years, so even giving up 1,000 years for the sake of his children was not an issue. He believed that he could quickly advance to level 11. When he followed his teacher on hisst outing, Saleen had developed a strong sense of self-confidence.


    The power of life of the two people tangled together, gradually forming a pair of transparent dice, which was supplemented ording to life energy. The writings on top¡ªwritten in mage¡¯s script that was left behind by the ancient Caucasus people¡ªbecame more clear.


    Together, the two dice had 12 faces. The words on top changed continuously. Saleen was able to feel that his life was being burnt up to form the words on the two dice, and the more his life was being burnt up, the clearer the words on these dice became.


    Saleen was faintly able to grasp something and, without hesitation, he utilized the power of constetions on his magic robe and sent even more life energy into the mage¡¯s array. Sika¡¯s face was full of delight, and she, too, went all out to transfer the power of life into the mage¡¯s array.


    The two children had already woken from their nap. In the silent room, above Saleen¡¯s and Sika¡¯s heads, the transparent dice shot toward the children, who giggled instead of panicking. The dice didn¡¯t enter their foreheads, but they did leave a mysterious script on their foreheads. The script quickly faded, as if it had never existed. Sika slowly sat down on the ground.


    The children smiled as they climbed down from their beds and ran toward their parents. Sika¡¯s power was also recovered in a sh.


    ¡°Saleen, how many years did you give?¡±


    ¡°I gave about 2,400 years.¡± Saleen smiled, feeling the warmth of his child on his chest.


    ¡°I also gave 2,400 years of life. I still have 300 years to live, but once I advance to level 10, I will once again live longer than you.¡± Sika smiled.


    ¡°I still have 600 years. Once I advance to level 11, I can once again live for about three to five thousand years.¡±


    As they shared the number of years of life they had each given up, neither of them felt a shred of regret. If they were unable to advance within this span of time, it was equivalent to them transferring their life to their children.


    Saleen was able to find out from astrology that this type of dice of fate caused no harm. It was only harmful toward him and Sika. For the children, it was equivalent to inheriting all of his and Sika¡¯s good traits. In the future, whether it was cultivating magic powers or learning priest skills, they would learn much faster.


    The most important thing was that it was simr to a shaman¡¯s witchcraft. It gave the two children¡¯s souls an additionalyer of protection. As Saleen and Sika¡¯s levels increased, the protection would also be stronger. Any curse skills would be ineffective against the two children, unless the person who applied the curse was much higher than Sika and Saleen. For example, Saleen was at level 10. Anyone who wanted to curse his children would at least need to be level 13 to seed.

 Chapter 1190: Dice of Fate (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1190: Dice of Fate (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°I¡¯ve already seen the trajectory of fate. These sacrifices are all worth it.¡± Sika had recovered her physical strength, but she was still exhausted mentally. After catching her breath, she said, ¡°in a year, the children will be able to read, and then you will have to take them along with you to teach them, starting with magic words.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely. I have also seen the trajectory of fate, and neither of them will meet any danger for at least 30 to 50 years.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I saw the words on the dice of fate. The elder boy shall be named Austin, and the younger girl shall be named Flodi.¡± When Sika spoke the two names, she felt as if something was being taken away and arge amount of sweat flowed from her pores. Saleen held her hand, not knowing what to say.


    Sika had a greater loss with the skill. A person who could peer into fate would always be afflicted with some type of curse. Hence, astrologers would seldom get to the point of the matter and instead would use analogies to allude to the trajectory of fate that they had seen, but Sika had read the words on the dice of fate aloud.


    Saleen softly called out for the Caucasus warriors, who were standing outside. As they walked in, Saleen handed the children to them. ¡°Sika and I are going to the top floor. Look after them for a moment, all of you.¡± As the children saw their parents leaving, they iled but didn¡¯t cry.


    Saleen took Sika to the top floor of the temple on the rooftop, where his Magical Element Tower was parked. Only after they entered the tower did Saleen allow Sika to stand within the 17th floor¡¯s magic array. It was a bncing magic array. Its only purpose was to allow space and energy to stay in a practically stationary state. When performing alchemy, mages often chose that type of magic array to prevent any danger from surfacing.


    Sika stood up straight as Saleen retrieved the level 16 Star Gathering Needle. Until now, he had used the power in the Star Gathering Needle to create ancient figures, but now he wanted to demonstrate some astrology skills to Sika.


    Dazzling starlight flew out of the Star Gathering Needle and sank beam by beam into Sika¡¯s body. Saleen began to chant: ¡°the long rivers of fate, please cleanse my lover¡¯s soul. The constetions of all nes, please protect my lover¡¯s body, so that she will not suffer the punishment of any of the fates...¡±


    Saleen chanted the Constetion Wishing spell, a chant that every astrologer knew. He cut out more than half of his power of life, which followed the power of the constetions and sank into Sika¡¯s body. The powers of life and of the constetions entangled and merged with Sika¡¯s life. The damage caused by Sika revealing the true intentions of fate was healed.


    Saleen was overjoyed. There were now only about 200 years left in his lifespan, but it was enough. Advancing to level 11 could be aplished within 100 years. If he was unable to advance by then, with so many enemies across the whole continent, he could be killed at any time. Others would still be capable of improvement, even if he did not improve.


    It was the equivalent of Saleen not leaving himself any way out. His thoughts had a level of rity that he had never experienced before. His level ofprehension toward fate had also deepened greatly.


    All external objects were illusory. The singr thing that all living creatures pursued was life itself. That was what he understood after giving up his life.


    The principle had been written down many times in the notes of mages. Perhaps even a level 1 mage would know about it, but knowing it did not equate to understanding it. Saleen was able to understand the true implications of the sentence. Only people who had made sacrifices in life would understand it. For those who had not sacrificed, it would merely be a sentence found in a book.


    With this thread of understanding, Saleen was able toprehend what his teacher had said in greater detail. Any other messy territorial powers were of no use. Only by fumbling his way through the lightning territory would he have any chance of progressing and bing a level 11 mage.


    And as for advancing to level 13, he could not use territorial power that had been looted from others. He could only rely on the territory that he painstakingly cultivated to be promoted to the rank of rules. At level 13, one would truly begin to touch on rules.


    Before, Saleen¡¯sprehension of the rules had made him like a small fish in the big pond. To obtain anything, humans had to pay a price at the same level. Saleen had never agreed more with the statement than he did now. If not for the two children or Sika, how would he have ever understood the principle so quickly.


    ¡°Saleen, you should first go and settle Alchemy City¡¯s matter. I¡¯m probably about to break through the level 9 boundary.¡± Sika¡¯s words excited Saleen. Sika had had a tough time with no way to advance, but now the one who benefited was not just Saleen. After Sika gave up almost all of her life, she had finallyprehended the priests¡¯ principles regarding sacrifice as well.


    After advancing to level 10, she would be a true nature priest. It would be the same, even without the three war souls. Originally, if she had wanted to advance, it was inevitable that she would have to lose at least one of the three war souls. It was to allow her to understand the principles of sacrifice and the source of the priests¡¯ power, but now it was no longer necessary. Sika used the ancients¡¯ witchcraft. In the blink of an eye, she understood her own fate.


    Saleen saw that Sika was about to break through, so he returned to the temple and searched for J. Although J was not very reliable, out of all the people by Saleen¡¯s side, J was most suitable for handling things. In the beginning, when J had been a mage of the Cloudflow court, he had a special ability that allowed him to lead people who had a level simr to his¡ªJ still had the means to slowly tame them.


    Such leadership was innate. It required a person to have experiencedplicated life experiences. Only then could such a skill be perfected. Of all the people by Saleen¡¯s side, there were many who were innocent and simple. Only J had had rough experiences.


    Once he found J, Saleen questioned him about what was going on with the people who hade from Alchemy City. They had arrived a week ago in a fleet of vessels to purchase metals, but the amount they wanted to purchase was extremelyrge. J had not made any agreement with them yet, using the excuse that both Saleen and the steward were absent.


    Sika had been present, and given what she and Saleen had discussed in the past, she knew that it was inevitable for them to fall out with Alchemy City and that, in the end, they would likely be ced in a life or death situation. If Alchemy City required metal, there was no way she would be willing to sell it to them.


    Aside from what Saleen had, all metallic ores were in the firm grasp of the Qin imperial family. The Grukos family¡¯s control over metallic ores was extremely strict. After losing control in the northern area, the Qin mages had destroyed many mines. The destruction of the mines had been so thorough that even after three years, the people of the Tanggsi kingdom had not been able to restart any excavations.


    There were also metallic ores within the borders of Phoenix, but not very much. Furthermore, during initial trades, Saleen had agreed to sell all of the Phoenix metallic ores to the Grukos family. His mining facilities even farther north had enormous yields.


    J had tly rejected the trade of metal. Alchemy City¡¯s people were not surprised or put off and wanted to wait for Saleen to return. The mages from Alchemy City had imed to be from Devil¡¯s Horn. They were not necessarily be from the same group as the Elemental hand. J had believed them, but still refused to agree to a trade.


    The mages from Alchemy City were patient. They purchased many goods, such as lumber, and most of the vessels had returned to Alchemy City with their cargo, leaving behind arge merchant vessel to wait for Saleen.


    Having seen the people hanging around and not leaving, Sika was not worried that the mages would cause any troubles. The leader of the mages from Devil¡¯s Horn was a newly minted level 10 mage, but the others were all level 8 sorcerers.


    Having dispatched a level 10 mage trainer indicated that they ced importance on this matter, and not having brought along a level 9 sorcerer represented that they did not intend to resistant. It was all for show. In Metatrin, even if the people who hade were all level 10 mages, they still needed to have sufficient numbers to to gain an advantage.


    J gave Saleen an introduction on the proceedings of the situation. Saleen thought deeply. ¡°Give me the list of goods they need.¡±


    J readily retrieved a thick book with the list of items and handed it to Saleen, who tossed the list into the air and released his territory. With a sweep of the territory¡¯s power, he memorized all of the items urately and in detail.


    Saleen analyzed the list and shared his conclusion. ¡°From the looks of it, Devil¡¯s Horn wants to create arge magic battleship!¡±


    But that was confusing: Devil¡¯s Horn originally controlled the seas and were more capable than the Elemental Hand, and they possessed a magic battleship that could fly at a low altitude. Creating more battleships did not make sense.


    ¡°Master, why don¡¯t you go and have a chat with the mage?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because he said that what he will be offering is not gold coins, nor magic chords. Perhaps it will be a material that you need?¡±


    ¡°Haha, no wonder they¡¯ve stayed behind and to pester us. They have actually brought something that is sufficient to tempt me.¡± Saleenughed heartily. ¡°I will go and look, but... let¡¯s wait a little while. Wake them after midnight.¡±


    If the proposal had arisen in the past, Saleen might have rejected this trade, because it would have likely created a negative impact on him in the future. The current Saleen, however, understood that every decision nhad immeasurable possibilities.


    People could never refuse to eat due to a fear of choking to death.


    Besides, even if the mages from Devil¡¯s Horn were unable to buy metal from him, they could always purchase them from other ces, such as the Tanggsi kingdom. The Cloudflow people might sell metal to them. Agares might even sell the entire kingdom as long as they paid a sufficiently high price.


    Saleen was not anxious. He wanted to deliberately dy it for a few hours, waiting until past midnight when everyone was asleep before he going to disturb the mages from Devil¡¯s Horn.


    Nailisi had also been called over. Along with J, the two of them sat with Saleen. After instructing those below to prepare a meal, Saleen felt he might as well hold a small banquet in the temple and allow the ones who had been following him for a rtively long time toe and eat.


    Saleen looked at the two long tables and his dozens of trusted subordinates, and couldn¡¯t help but sigh. His fate was enough for people to envy. From a little beggar who had owned nothing to the king and a level 10 mage, he had received the favor of fate.

 Chapter 1191: A Mage’s Honor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1191: A Mage¡¯s Honor (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The dishes for the banquet were prepared with magical beasts and magical nts. Eleanor had sown the nts, which were good for increasing humans¡¯ strength, among other benefits. Since, they were nted at the South Court, there was not much yield, so only the people close to Saleen were allowed to eat them. There was no alcohol on the table. Each porcin cup contained a diluted magic liquid.


    It waste autumn, but spring blossoms were on disy in therge room. With the help of magic arrays, it was spring all year inside the temple. The seasons were only expressed where it was necessary.


    The simple decorations had magic patterns concealed all over them, adding to the luxuriousness of the pce. The magic patterns were directly refined through alchemy on top of precious steel rocks.


    During the banquet, apart from humans, there was Eleanor, an elf, and as demons. If the Winged Skill had been around, there would have been a Spirit of the Dead present, too.


    The Myers Continent had been sealed off for a very long time. Rare creatures from other nes had be Saleen¡¯s subordinates. Even Alchemy City did not have them.


    Saleen¡¯s subordinates were quite happy. Saleen had advanced to level 10, and Saleen¡¯s teacher was also a level 10 mage. J was a level 10 True Might. The number of level 10 people in the city seemed as if it was about to exceed single digits. Sreeger Ind¡¯s mages were about to advance to level 10, as well.


    The number of level 10 people might not have equalled Alchemy City or the Holy See, but they did not have any incidents of infighting or scheming against each other. Metatrin City was everyone¡¯s fortress and homnd. Saleen did not expect them to go out to the battlefield; it was enough to protect their own territory.


    Everyone treasured everything before them. A stable country in the chaotic world, without being troubled by wars and without being infiltrated by the religious powers, was extremely difficult to attain.


    Toward the north of Qin, a church had already appeared. Although the number of people who practiced the religion were few, its existence still caused people to feel uneasy, because in past experiences, when any churches appeared in Qin, countless civilians would participate in attacks.


    For the first time, solemnity appeared on the upiednd.


    If the Holy See¡¯s power in the north increased, who knew if the faith of the Lord of Glory would spread. The professionals and aristocrats were unwilling to see it.


    The banquet continued until just before daybreak. After everything had been cleared away, tea leaves and snacks were served, and Saleen and his guests began to casually discuss everyone¡¯s requests.


    What surprised Saleen was that the professionals did not need him to provide more material things. They only hoped that Saleen would be able to have closer rtions with everyone.


    If Saleen was not free, he could allow J and the other level 10 people to share what they had learned from their experiences. Even if some were only at level 10, it would still be immense help for professionals at a slightly lower level.


    Saleen recalled Lex¡¯s teacher, an elderly sorcerer who had given lectures in Bitter Water Prefecture for low-level mages to attend. When Saleen had been at Bitter Water Prefecture, he had benefited greatly from them.


    Saleen spontaneously and generously struck a deal and confirmed it. In the future Metatrin City, Saleen would arrange tomunicate with professionals in each area of the city and the temple. Themunication would be targeted toward low-level professionals, whereas the ones in the temple would be for Saleen¡¯s trusted professionals to gather and talk. Every week, a level 10 person would host the talks.


    It was not difficult for Saleen. Jason might not be bothered to do such things, but level 10 mages had begun to appear at Jason¡¯s side. They could help Saleen by passing on their experiences.


    Saleen decided to give his first speech, and continued for more than two hours. Because Saleen had not made any preparations, he was not as smooth as he usually would be, but the mages and grand swordmasters were still entranced. And he wasn¡¯t the only one. Nailisi and J led discussions, from debating the learnings of past battles to detailing the problems that had surfaced during cultivation.


    Saleen nced at the clock. It was three in the morning. Alchemy City¡¯s mages were probably fast asleep. Only then did he allow Daniel to call for the people from Devil¡¯s Horn. Arge number of professionals retreated. Saleen only let his followers, Cuisi, and the other demons stay behind.


    The Caucasus warriors all retreated, leaving behind only demons as protection. The demons were, at a minimum, level 4, with a maximum of level 9. Saleen had not anticipated that the demons would have to fight. In any case, the five-meter-tall demons stood in the background, stressing out the others.


    Even a level 4 demon could fight a ck Metal Grand Swordmaster. It was because their bodies were tough. It was just like how Sika could kill a level 10 person, while being level 9.


    But the demons also had an advantage over Sika. If she were injured, she would immediately lose herbat capabilities. That was not the case for demons. As long as they were able to move an arm or a leg, they would continue to pose a threat.


    The tables and chairs in the hall were reced by the demons, changing it from the luxurious style that suited aristocrats to drab and minimal. Even the walls, which had been decorated borately, looked old. With a light touch from a corroding spell, the hall looked as though it had been used for years.


    Saleen was seated at the head of the long crystal table, dressed in his Constetion outfit. Nailisi, J, Eleanor, Nichs, and the others sat with him, waiting for Alchemy City¡¯s mages to arrive.


    After 10 minutes, a few demons arrived outside the hall to say that the mages had arrived. Saleen did not go to receive them, and the Followers by his side did not move.


    Daniel led seven young mages inside, which surprised Saleen. The leading mage wore a red magic robe, and the other mages wore ck sorcerer robes. Notably, each mage was empty-handed. None carried a mace, representing the respect they held for Saleen.


    The red-robed mage did not express anyints toward Saleen¡¯s remissness. He walked to the other side of the table and bowed toward Saleen from a distance. Saleen had no choice but to stand and return the bow.


    ¡°I am Glenn. My teacher ordered me to represent Devil¡¯s Horn to do business with Metatrin City.¡±


    Saleen smiled, but carefully analyzed them. No mention of his true age, but Glenn had mentioned a teacher, which was worth noting. A level 10 mage¡¯s teacher would have to be outstanding, and this Glenn was already outstanding. Saleen used his Elemental Eye to scan him and found that the energy in Glenn¡¯s body was extremely bnced. The degree of subtlety to his control was about the same as his, which meant that the mage¡¯s battle experience was rich, and his mental strength was powerful.


    ¡°Master Glenn, please sit.¡± Saleen smiled and waved his hand. The demons entered and began toy out the dishes. Even if they were a mage, they would not have much of an appetite for food, but Saleen did. He had lost a lot of life energy. Although food and drink would not be able to replenish much, it was one means to do so. Part of the reason why sorcerers¡¯ lifespans were so long was because they could absorb more nutrients from food. However, Saleen would eat as much as he could.


    Glenn beckoned for the six mages behind him to sit. Saleen raised his cup. ¡°Here¡¯s to weing these great mages. A person who has attained level 10 strength is at the pinnacle of this world. Master Glenn, it is an honor to meet you. Saleen used an aristocratic tone and did not receive Glenn¡¯s words at all, as if he had no intention of mentioning anything rted to business.


    Glenn raised his cup and discovered that the wine in the cup was mixed with magic liquid. He was somewhat displeased with Saleen¡¯s extravagance, but he continued to maintain an expression of amiability on his face.


    ¡°Master Saleen, you are too polite. I have long heard of your battle prowess.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not worth mentioning, Master Glenn...¡±


    ¡°We are both level 10¡ªjust call me Glenn.¡± He couldn¡¯t stand Saleen¡¯s tone, but because Saleen was also a king, Glenn was more than willing tomunicate as a mage.


    ¡°Alright, Glenn. Have youe to represent Devil¡¯s Horn or Alchemy City?¡±


    Saleen repeated his question, causing Glenn to ponder deeply. Saleen¡¯s words held a deeperyer of meaning. If he said he was there to represent Alchemy City, that meant that Devil¡¯s Horn was there to rece the Elemental Hand. If he said he was there to represent Devil¡¯s Horn, that meant that the business deal would not benefit Saleen, because Devil¡¯s Horn and the Elemental Hand would continue their rtions.


    ¡°I represent Devil¡¯s Horn.¡± It was better for Glenn to speak the truth. For now, it was impossible for Devil¡¯s Horn to break apart from the Elemental Hand.


    ¡°Then that¡¯s troublesome. The enmity between me and the Elemental Hand can no longer be resolved.¡±


    Glenn knitted his brows. ¡°What hatred is there between mages that cannot be resolved?¡±


    ¡°The Elemental Hand makes me feel very ufortable,¡± Saleen said.


    The furrow in Glenn¡¯s brows deepened. Saleen¡¯s words were domineering, but he recalled the past when Saleen had not been strong. The Elemental Hand had once tried to coerce Saleen into handing over the trade rights for magic chords.


    ¡°Why are you ufortable?¡± Glenn asked earnestly, as he wanted to make a decision about whether or not they really wanted to cooperate with Metatrin City.


    ¡°Pompeii City!¡± Saleen said loudly. ¡°Pompeii City had millions of people. Because the Elemental Hand wanted to kill me, they all died. I admit, I was overly cautious and did not rescue them. I could only stand on the sidelines, watching as an ancient city was destroyed. I was powerless and felt very small. I hate the Elemental Hand. The situation is that simple. As long as I, Saleen Metatrin, live, my goal is to eliminate the Elemental Hand!¡±


    ¡°But, Saleen, for the sake of controlling the situation, you destroyed Ironwall City!¡± Glenn reminded, puzzled.


    ¡°Ironwall City was my enemy. Pompeii City was the Elemental Hand¡¯s ally. I am disgusted about this. As mages, should we not ce importance on alliance treaties?¡±

 Chapter 1192: A Mage’s Honor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1192: A Mage¡¯s Honor (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Glenn nodded slowly. ¡°What you said is correct, but the Elemental Hand said that you were the one who destroyed Pompeii City.¡±


    ¡°And I am saying that the Elemental Hand did it. Who do you believe?¡±


    ¡°I guess I¡¯ll believe you, whether or not you have any evidence.¡± Glenn¡¯s reply surprised Saleen. ¡°Because I am very familiar with the Elemental Hand¡¯s methods,¡± Glenn added.


    ¡°Then who do you agree?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Destroying cities and killing civilians are never good things. Even I am able to understand that.¡±


    ¡°That means that the Devil¡¯s Horn still supports the Elemental Hand?¡±


    ¡°It is far from support. The Devil¡¯s Hand is on the seas, so we still require aid from thend. As a small ind, what can we possibly do?¡±


    ¡°Seize the city. Let the Elemental Hand be history.¡± Saleen tried to drive a wedge between them.


    ¡°Therge magic amplifier.¡± Glenn responded, stopping Saleen.


    Jason¡¯s magic amplifier was small, and it already felt hopeless to go against it. What about arge one? When he went to Holy Rock City, Emperor Chanake had sounded the magic clock for his daughter, which had allowed Saleen to advance.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn was definitely weaker than the Elemental Hand. Furthermore, the Elemental Hand was also in control of the magic amplifier. The Devil¡¯s Horn had practically no chance of recing the Elemental Hand. It was just that the Elemental¡¯s Hand maritime power was weaker, and they did not want to waste any effort on the Devil¡¯s Horn.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn and Sreeger Ind had some rtions. Whenever either side needed to, they would oppose the Elemental Hand together. The magic amplifier was powerful, it was difficult to move. There were also many limitations in cing it, and it definitely could not be taken aboard a battleship.


    Thus the Devil¡¯s Horn had no way to fight ashore, and the Elemental Hand could not control the sea.


    ¡°Saleen, I have heard that you and Sreeger Ind have a close rtionship.¡± Glenn suddenly spoke.


    ¡°Indeed, My teacher was born on Sreeger Ind.¡±


    ¡°Master Jason, the person I greatly respect.¡±


    ¡°Mm, my teacher is a great mage,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Saleen, if you return to Sreeger Ind, we may not be unable to cooperate.¡±


    Only then did Saleen understand what Glenn meant. Glenn was hoping that he would control Sreeger Ind. The two inds could have a greater degree of cooperation. If they possessed the might of the Metatrin kingdom, opposing the Elemental Hand could be possible.


    ¡°My apologies, but when we left, my teacher left all of the rights and authorities on Sreeger Ind. I do not wish to go back.¡± Saleen rejected Glenn¡¯s suggestion. ¡°This is a mage¡¯smitment and will never change.¡±


    ¡°In that case, could you provide me with some ore, so that I can go back andplete my mission?¡± Glenn¡¯s words kept leaping back and forth, but Saleen was able to understand the thoughts underlying them.


    He shook his head. ¡°Why? I need to know the reason.¡±


    ¡°Have you heard of the Impregnable Wall of Bronze and Iron?¡± Glenn asked.


    ¡°No.¡± He did not have a vast amount of knowledge, and most of what he knew was not rted to equipment.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure you have seen Sreeger Ind¡¯s fortresses before.¡±


    Saleen nodded. On the fringes of Sreeger Ind, there were vertical castle walls. They were extremely imposing, and not that much inferior whenpared to those of the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    ¡°The Devil¡¯s Horn wants to smelt fortresses that are even sturdier than the Sreeger Ind one to oppose Cloudflow. The Impregnable Wall of Bronze and Iron is a magical construct from another ne. The entire ind will be protected by the metal fortress. No matter how powerful the enemy, it will be difficult for them to attack.¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment. ¡°No matter how sturdy the fortress is, it can still be attacked. I don¡¯t know what the Impregnable Wall of Bronze and Iron is, but perhaps it is a blueprint that was seized when the our predecessors went to war against other nes. Being able to seize the blueprint demonstrates that they attacked the Impregnable Wall of Bronze and Iron.¡±


    ¡°That is correct. However the most powerful were level 18. Don¡¯t even mention the Impregnable Wall of Bronze and Iron, even if it were the Crystal Wall system, they would have had a way to pierce through it. Whereas now, the most powerful person is merely at level 12.¡±


    Saleen thought about the level 13 guy shut in his Magical Element Tower.


    Glenn heaved a sigh. ¡°Saleen, amongst the Cloudflow people, there are three grand dukes who are the most vicious. Even the Cloudflow imperial family had no way to control them. One of them is Grand Duke Iron Blood. Now he has already seized Lianyun City. When I came here this time, I also had to make a very long detour.¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood is an interesting person. At least, he is more interesting than the Elemental Hand.¡± Saleen was not deluded by these words. To him, it was indeed the case that Grand Duke Iron Blood was easier to ept. Although both sides had hostile to one another, but there was no necessity to distinguish between life and death, and victory or loss. Alchemy City would definitely not allow him to introduce the faith of the Goddess. Even if it was only temporary, it would still not be allowed.


    If the Goddess were revived, Alchemy City would also fall into misfortune. Even if the Goddess fell again, it would still have an effect on Alchemy City¡¯s prestige. It might even cause Alchemy City¡¯s position to fall drastically.


    Glenn held some doubts. Saleen waspletely different from what the reports had described. Saleen had refused to yield even an inch. Previously, when Saleen had negotiated with others, he would allow the other party some leeway.


    He did not know that when Saleen had gone to the Imperial City of the Abyss, he had received his teacher¡¯s provocation. He was determined to progress and get as little aid from external sources as possible. He no longer wanted to negotiate andpromise.


    Since there was no way to resolve the conflict between him and the Elemental Hand, he would just leave it all on the surface and be enemies with them.


    Daliang City¡¯s side would very quickly make their move. The Elemental Hand would not retreat willingly. However, there was a question of integrity. Daliang City and Alchemy City had signed a contract, so they could not go back on their word.


    Hence, Saleen wanted to make Alchemy City go back on their word. He had already secretly made his decision to look for Grand Duke Iron Blood and see if he could deal a heavy blow on Alchemy City.


    Alchemy City was dangerous. When there was not much need, they wanted to give up their allies or even sacrifice them. In Saleen¡¯s view, it was better for an organization should be cleared up as quickly as possible.


    ¡°Saleen, what if the Devil¡¯s Horn cooperates with Metatrin City?¡±


    ¡°Alone?¡±


    ¡°Yes. My teacher has given me the authority to choose. If it is a solo cooperation, then the Elemental Hand can be cast aside. You will not need to look for Grand Duke Iron Blood.¡±


    ¡°For the sake of what? Glenn, I do notck anything. I have troops and mages. I have magic chords and minerals. I do notck food or grain. There is enough for my kingdom to eat for dozens of years without nting a single seed. My kingdom has millions of mouths to feed. So tell me, why should I cooperate with the Devil¡¯s Horn?¡±


    ¡°I havee to purchase metal. I did not bring along a single gold coin or magic chord. I have only brought this.¡± Glenn retrieved a wooden box and ced it on the table.


    Saleen waved his hand, and the ck box slid in front of him. He used his Elemental Eye to perform a quick scan. The box did not contain any traps and was not dangerous at all.


    Still, Saleen handed it to Nailisi, allowing her to open it.


    Nailisi handed the box to a demon beside her. The demon opened the box, and a golden light lit up the entire hall.


    Saleen saw a piece of a soft metal. There was a pattern of muscle that trembled slightly, releasing a golden glow.


    Saleen had seen liquid metal before, but this was between liquid and solid. Even if it was only a fragment, the energy it contained would still surpass any of the level 12 magic chords that Saleen had ever seen before.


    ¡°What metal is this?¡± Saleen looked at the object in astonishment.


    ¡°A heart fragment of the God of puppets. The Devil¡¯s Hornpleted collecting them, but we have no way to assemble them. I want to use all of the fragments to exchange for ore for 600 vessels. It is for the type of boat that we have in the harbor. We definitely do not need any space equipment,¡± Glenn said to Saleen.


    Saleen smiled. ¡°I definitely do not have that much ore.¡±


    ¡°The waters in the far north have been sealed off by Metatrin City¡¯s battleships. I know that there are dozens of inds there. There is no need to excavate the mines on these inds for ore. They can be mined directly from the ground.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, the Devil¡¯s Horn has inquired very clearly.¡± Saleen¡¯s tone was rigid and forbidding.


    ¡°I am being sincere,¡± Glenn pointed at the box in Saleen¡¯s hand. ¡°This can be considered to be the first deposit, as long as you permit my vessels to go to one of the inds to mine and guarantee the safety of the vessel en route to the far north.


    ¡°It seems like the God of puppets is worth a lot more than this.¡±


    ¡°No, this object is something that was refined by humans. Whereas the ores, there is no way for those of us at the Devil¡¯s Horn to transform them out of thin air. Do you know how many ores are needed for 600 vessels? Eachrge-scale merchant vessel can take up 100,000 cubic meters¡¯ worth of materials.¡±


    Saleen thought that the ores that they wanted could not be all from one ind. At the very least, based on the types needed, the ore would have to be taken from more than 20 of the inds. The inds close to the Frozen Sea had plenty. Saleen had already considered those as his own.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn had probably also coveted them for a long time. If he was not able to control them, the inds would be seized.


    ¡°Give me three daysand I will give you my answer. How about that? I need to discuss this matter with my teacher.¡± Saleen made an excuse, but did not return the heart fragment to Glenn. He epted the deposit.


    ¡°Then I will wait for three days.¡± Glenn saw that Saleen had epted the deposit and smiled as he rose and took his leave. As long as Saleen epted the item and he could live and get the inds, it would be very simple for them to seize the mineral veins in the future if they wanted to.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s navy was not necessarily weaker than Metatrin¡¯s. Ultimately, greed could not be wiped away from the human hearts.


    After Glenn and his mages left, Saleenughed coldly and said to Nailisi, ¡°transfer the Winged Skull back here and have the ancient battleships return and wait in the Frozen Sea. If they see the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s flying battleships, destroy them!¡±


    ¡°Master, this isn¡¯t good, right?¡± Although Nailisi said that, her expression was extremely excited. Master had finally decided to be vicious. He was no longer as indecisive as he was in the past.


    ¡°Why isn¡¯t it good? I think that the Devil¡¯s Horn and the Elemental Hand are equally dirty. Their goal is to cheat me of the inds and seize my mineral veins. I will not allow them to get anything.¡±


    ¡°But Master, you don¡¯t want this?¡± Nailisi pointed at the wooden box in Saleen¡¯s hands.

 Chapter 1193: Barging into the Temple Alone (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1193: Barging into the Temple Alone (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The heart fragment of the God of puppets. Before he had gone to the Imperial City of the Abyss, Saleen might have desired it at all costs. If his Puppet World territory absorbed it, its strength would be unparalleled. It might have even surpassed his Water Element territory for a bit.


    However, Jason told Saleen that only his own creation would be perfect. For a mage, the importance of a territory was self-evident. The level of perfection of a territory would determine the level of understanding of the rules that a mage possessed after advancing to level 13.


    The God of puppets was definitely not above level 15. Although the energy contained within the heart fragment made Saleen¡¯s heart waver, Saleen¡¯s magic power furnace could transform any magic chords, crystals, and even elemental creatures ced inside it into pure energy.


    The value of arge magic power furnace was about the same as the fragment. Within half a year, Metatrin City¡¯s alchemic factory would be able to produce another magic power furnace. As long as there were sufficient materials, Saleen would not everck methods and equipment for sources of energy.


    The Grandmaster felt that magic power furnaces were not rare, and gave Saleen everything he needed to produce a magic power furnace. The methodology behind it, the various models avable, the different sizes and levels, had all been included.


    The materials were scarce, so Saleen would not be able to produce all of the different types of magic furnaces. The item was originally given to low level professionals in the ancient times.


    The strong ones then were able to tear apart dimension pathways with their bare hands. How would they possibly have any need for such items?


    ¡°This Glenn person, do you think he can be trusted?¡± Saleen asked Nailisi.


    Nailisi shook her head. The level 10 mage was far too moderate and restrained. That type of person would not take anything to heart, and the world revolved around them alone.


    ¡°He covets my inds at the periphery of the Frozen Sea. Now that I have ced battleships to keep watch, it will be difficult for him to take them. However, once I am at war with Grand Duke Iron Blood, it will be easy for his people to take all the mineral veins. Thus, Nailisi, dispatch someone to go around Lianyun City and say that I would like to meet with Grand Duke Iron Blood. The location cannot be somewhere that is controlled by either party and will be left to him to choose.¡±


    ¡°Master, who should we dispatch?¡±


    ¡°It cannot be you, of course. Grand Duke Iron Blood may not necessarily be willing to cooperate with me. The person who goes will inevitably face danger.¡±


    ¡°Then let the water puppet go.¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± Saleen gradually began to allow Nailisi to make some decisions. He could not always use Nailisi as a bodyguard. There would eventually be a day where Nailisi would have to be independent. Now Nailisi would frequently act on her own ord; it had also been one of her requests.


    He needed to let Nailisi have a sense of responsibility and not simply just loyalty towards him.


    Children eventually grew up. With Nailisi¡¯s personality, when she left his side, she would face trouble sooner orter.


    The Winged Skull had received Saleen¡¯s message and rushed back to Metatrin City. On Ceylon City¡¯s side, the battle affairs were basically finished. Thus, there was no need for the Winged Skull to continue to stay to help. Viscount Gugger had also returned to Ceylon City and was gathering talent to bolster his forces. Of course, Saleen was the one forking out the money.


    Gugger¡¯s capabilities were ordinary, and he was not good at securing personal gain. Otherwise, he would not have been at Ceylon City for so many years and would not have bribed the imperial city¡¯s council of elders. However, he was good at preserving the achievements of his predecessors. As long as Saleen built up Ceylon City properly and gave Gugger manpower and funding, Gugger would be able to protect the territory.


    In Saleen¡¯s view, a person like Gugger was hard toe by. Gugger would deploy the manpower that he sent to Ceylon City properly, and nobody would feel that they had been treated unfairly. Gugger could even take good care of arge majority of the inhabitants. Gugger possessed the style of the ancient aristocrats.


    The Winged Skull returned, but the Genga was not as quick. The Winged Skill returned to Metatrin City via teleportation portal, but the mechanical soul controlling the ancient battleships had to return by sea. However, the ancient battleship did not need to return directly to Metatrin harbor. Saleen requested for it to stand by along the channel that led towards the Frozen Sea.


    Near the Frozen Sea, there were thousands of kilometers of water and countless small inds. When Saleen was not around, Jason created many battleships to maintain control of the inds among them which had mineral veins. There were more than 600 of Metatrin City¡¯s battleships around the Frozen Sea, all operated by demons.


    Although it could not bepared to the Cloudflow Navy, it surpassed the navies of a few other empires. All of Metatrin¡¯s battleships were equipped with magic cannons, miniature magic patterns, and demonic spirits to act as enchanters.


    A level 10 person would not be afraid of the battleships. However, for those below level 10, it would be difficult for them to unt their power, not to mention dealing with the numerous demons and therge variety of powerful equipment from Metatrin City.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn knew that Metatrin City had a powerful navy stationed on the Frozen Sea¡¯s periphery, so they did not dare to invade rashly. They dispatched Glenn to gain a clear understanding of Saleen¡¯s ins and outs.


    Saleen deployed his troops. He had decided toy out a trap. When the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s flying battleships appeared, they would immediately be sunk. Saleen was not clear on precisely how profound the might of the Devil¡¯s Horn was. However, based on Glenn¡¯s attitude, it should not be greater than Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    After 3 days, Saleen¡¯s arrangements were put in order. Only then did he call for Glenn to discuss trade.


    Glenn wanted ore for 600 vessels. The Devil¡¯s Horn did not own 600 vessels, so they used 100,000 cubic meters as a base volume to calcte the value of the trade.


    Saleen mentioned that the deposit was little. Glenn did not mind and took more than 60 pieces of the God of puppets¡¯ heart. It was half of all of the fragments. The other half would be paid when they had obtained Saleen¡¯s ore.


    Like before, Saleen was unwilling, saying that since he was responsible for the safety of the goods during passage from the northern waters to Metatrin City, he would need to mobilize his battleships at a huge cost. What he said was not wrong. Metatrin City¡¯s battleships were all powered by magic power and used magic power furnaces. Although the level of consumption was 90 percent less than a single mechanical battleship, every time a battleship was sent out to sea, thousands of gold coins would have to be spent.


    Glenn was helpless and could only retrieve hundreds of magic chords to pay for Saleen¡¯s protection fee.


    Saleen assembled his battleships. A total of 10 vessels escorted the merchant vessel towards the periphery of the Frozen Sea.


    Glenn personally advanced forward, but Saleen did not follow. He arranged for J to bring Eleanor, as well as two of Sreeger Ind¡¯s level 10 mages, to escort them.


    The two level 10 mages were dressed in white robes. He did not know what methods Jason had used so that even Saleen was unable to tell what levels the two mages were. He thought that they were low level mages. The two were concealed amongst the grand mages in the following boat.


    Saleen arranged all of the matters. He said his farewells to his teacher and Sika and went north of Metatrin City alone to the northernmost point of the maind.There was a temple there.


    The water puppet returned with a message. Grand Duke Iron Blood had politely declined Saleen¡¯s invitation. He had said that he did not have any ns to continue attacking Qin. If the two parties wanted to work together, it could only be considered after at least one year had passed.


    Saleen was surprised. However, Grand Duke Iron Blood had notpletely rejected him, which was good news.


    There were still two more temples to the north of Metatrin City. One of the temples was in the sea and Saleen was not anxious to look for it. However, the other was onnd. Although there were no cities in the northern wilderness, there were many unknown professionals who were cultivating there.


    Saleen was anxious to excavate the temple. He nned to strip off his Puppet World territory and Elemental Creatures¡¯ territory to manufacture two pieces of equipment. Once the Puppet World territory was stripped off, even if it was added into the God of puppets¡¯ heart fragments, it still would no longer be as convenient to use.


    Saleen drove the Magical Element Tower alone, flying from Metatrin City to the temple in the north. The magic patterns of the Magical Element Tower recovered quickly and its flight speed reach over 150 kilometers. Saleen did not waste the elemental creatures; he only used magic chords to fuel the tower, cing the magic chords into the magic power furnace.


    In over a day, Saleen arrived at the area where the temple was located. It was a small in. It covered the primitive forest. After Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower descended close to the temple¡¯s coordinates, he used the magicpass to search for it.


    Fortunately the pathway where the temple was located was directly north about 15 kilometers away. Saleen put away the Magical Element Tower and headed directly to the position of the coordinates.


    In the northern forest, the leaves fell from the trees once winter arrived. Only a small proportion of magical nts still had thin needles amidst the snow. Saleen found that the location was alreadypletely covered with snow. It was the northernmost part of the continent. It was freezing cold, and its winters began two or three months earlier than Metatrin City.


    Saleen ced the Magical Element Tower to suppress the spatial pathway. Then, he released his territory and pushed all of the nearby snow to outside the magical tower, forming a castle of ice and snow.


    The puppets were stationed within the castle. Saleen entered the spatial pathway alone. Technically, he did not go alone, as there were 3,600 demonic spirits within the Magical Element Tower who could help him in battle. The water puppet Rossen could also operate the Magical Element Tower when he was away.


    Not long after Saleen entered the spatial pathway, a small band of explorers appeared outside of the castle. The small group wasprised of six people. The leader was a warrior who was dressed in a mboyant leather armor. The other five people were two mages, one archer, one Caucasus person, and one assassin.


    The leading warrior was young. Of the five people that he led, the oldest was a 30-year-old level 7 sorcerer. When the small group approached the castle, they were not spotted by the puppets. The Puppet World was not being presided over by Saleen. If the puppets were not attacked, they would not take any action towards the explorers.


    ¡°Hm? Why is there a castle here?¡± The assassin held a magicpass in his hand. He was a magic assassin, an assassin who had changed from being a magic apprentice. Because they had had no prospects in their study of magic, there were many who changed to other professions. They could also use low level equipment, such as a magicpass.


    ¡°Haha! All of you, look. There are puppets in the castle, but there are no signs of human activity. Brothers, we have found a ruin. We have struck gold!¡± The warrior guffawed, as if the castle of ice and snow left behind by Saleen had already indisputably be his.

 Chapter 1194: Barging into the Temple Alone (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1194: Barging into the Temple Alone (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Young Master, let me go and take a look.¡± The assassin raised his hand to block the young warrior. He took a step forward into the snow towards the castle of ice and snow.


    ¡°What is there to be afraid of? With our capabilities, it will be easy for us to seize the castle and kill the puppets,¡± the young warrior muttered.


    ¡°Young Master, it is still best to be careful,¡± The level 7 sorcerer said to the young warrior, as if he was soothing a child.


    The assassin stalked forward until he arrived at the base of the castle. They had yet to encounter any attack. In his heart, he secretly thought, ¡°It looks like Young Master was correct. This castle does not have an owner. We have hit the jackpot!¡±


    As he was having such thoughts, he had identally stepped on a tiny worm. The worm immediately bit a hole in his boot. It had almost managed to injure the assassin¡¯s toe. The metal thorn in the assassin¡¯s hands stabbed into the snow and pierced through the worm.


    His stab was stealthy and silent. Even if there was someone standing opposite him, they would not have been able to discover it. However, all of the puppets in Saleen¡¯s Puppet World Territory shared amon perception. The small worm was a miniature puppet. After it had been stabbed, hundreds of puppets immediately rushed down from the castle and surrounded the assassin¡¯s party.


    Once they were attacked, all of the puppets would react, fixating on the assassin as their target to hunt down and kill.


    Dozens of weapons were thrust towards him from all directions. The assassin was transformed into a shadow clone. However, it was hit by the poisonous liquid that one of the puppets had shot out, and the shadow clone was transformed back to the assassin¡¯s body. The assassin screamed in pain, but sounds were not transmitted out.


    The territory was not meant to be used that way. It was only because Saleen had nned on giving up on the territory that he had used it as a magic skill. The territory could be sustained for more than six hours. The assassin was immediately cut into pieces by the swarm of puppets. Outside the castle, the explorers were still bitterly awaiting his return.


    If they escaped, it would still be fine for them. Saleen did not allow the puppets to attack wantonly. The puppets would only attack if they had been harmed. The assassin did not understand and wanted to kill the miniature puppet that had attacked him. As a result, he had brought on a fatal disaster upon himself.


    Numerous puppets rushed out from the castle, surrounding the remaining five explorers.


    The young warrior¡¯s expression turned ashen with fear, but he loudly shouted, ¡°I am the son of the True Might of the wilderness, you can¡¯t...¡±


    Pfft...


    A gigantic axe descended from the sky, cutting the young warrior into half from head to toe. Of the remaining four explorers, none of their capabilities exceeded level 8. These explorers had been the strongest team on the Myers Continent. However, now there were more and more people at level 10 on the continent. In the face of the territorial skill, the small group was powerless to resist.


    ¡°Chop them into minced meat!¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, haha...¡±


    The demonic spirits in the Magical Elemental Tower grew excited and yelled as they looked on. Saleen had looked after them, allowing them to be spared from the humiliation faced by demonic spirits and to avoid being turned into food. The demonic spirits had gained the power of the magic and the viciousness in their blood had increased. In the ancient times, even demonic spirits had the possibility for them to be professionals at level 10 and above. Now, demonic spirits were made to y second fiddle and were treated as food. Even an imp would be able to hunt them down.


    ¡°Split up and escape!¡± The mage shouted and flew up into the air. However, he was shot by hundreds of flying puppets with crossbows. The small group of explorers had not evensted three minutes before they were swallowed up by Saleen¡¯s Puppet World.


    On a mountain peak more than 500 kilometers away, the snow was a few meters thick. On top of the snow, a middle-aged man stood alone in the wind. He stepped solidly on the soft snow. He had not released anything, but he did not sink.


    Only a True Might would be able to attain that type of control. Even if a golden grand swordmaster wished to stand on top of snow, they would only be able to by using their sword aura.


    The man stood in the freezing cold wind. Wind element surrounded his body, and a long sword flew back and forth. It was not borrowing the power of the wind element, but was pulling along the cracks of the wind element with the man¡¯s mental power.


    Suddenly the middle-aged man¡¯s sword crashed into the ground. The middle-aged man¡¯s ck eyes glowed explosively. ¡°My child! Something has happened!¡± The middle-aged man originally had a peaceful expression, but suddenly turned into anger. The winds on the mountaintop were attracted to him in an instant, forming a huge twister. The long sword took flight once more. The man grasped the long sword in his hands. ¡°ves of the sword!¡±


    ¡°Master!¡±


    Countless voices replied from the surrounding mountains, valleys, and slopes amidst the deeply piled snow.


    ¡°Go and see who killed my child!¡± The man¡¯s voice was a hundred times colder than the frosty snow. The anger that knitted his brows lessened in a split second, turning instead to some level of suspicion.


    There weren¡¯t any powerful forces in the surrounding areas. Of the professionals cultivating in the area, his powers were the strongest. Who else would dare toe and find trouble with him?


    His own son was nothing special, but he was still a silver grand swordmaster.


    There were an archer, mages, and an assassin protecting his son. With such abination, even if they had encountered a golden grand swordmaster, they would be able to gain the upper hand. The scroll that he had left to the mages should also have been able to protect his son and allow him to escape from arge majority of dangers.


    Who was it? Could it be that they were targeting him?


    Saleen did not know that his territory he had set in ce had a level 10 person¡¯s son. Furthermore, their capabilities were much greater than J¡¯s.


    A True Might¡¯s boundary, once mature, was able to oppose a territory.


    Saleen passed through the spatial pathway and journeyed forward. The pathway was unusually narrow, as it could only allow amodate three people. It was also exceptionally long. The space seemed to be underground. Apart from earth elements, Saleen felt that the other five types of elements were sparse.


    Fortunately Saleen had learned Jalin¡¯s movement skill and had created the Comet sh. In ces rich in earth element, Saleen was even more swift.


    He had advanced for more than 50 kilometers, but there was still no end to the pathway. Saleen picked up speed, treating it as practice for his skills. Saleen¡¯s speed shot up to 150 kilometers per hour in a split second. To be able to reach this type of speed when running on the ground, Saleen needed to have a firm grasp of the Water Shield spell. Otherwise, he would have been ttened after hitting into a wall.


    After running consecutively for six hours, Saleen was still unable to exit the pathway.


    Saleen understood that he had entered an illusion. Or perhaps it was a maze.


    It had been six hours, and he had covered close to 1,000 kilometers. What pathway could possibly be that long? Spatial pathways were just like magic patterns. Depending on the length, the energy required to maintain them was huge. Thus, most magic arrays had fixed specifications and were divided intorge, medium, and small. The length of magic patterns were fixed to allow mages to save arge amount of their time and resources.


    In order to calcte a new scale of length for magic patterns and all of the necessary symbolsplementary to it, arge amount of a mage¡¯s time would be consumed for each small change.


    Maintaining a spatial pathway was the same. Typically, the energy consumption was most economical if the pathway was 600 meters to one kilometer. Maintaining low levels of consumption for anything longer or shorter required a significant amount of time to arrange the forme and recalcte every minor detail.


    Even the ancient humans were unwilling to do it. Of course, the Myers Goddess would not, because her spatial pathways needed to be maintained of tens of thousands of years. Although they were sealed, requiring her to open them herself, a special length would cause the loss of energy to be especially severe. There could even be a possibility that she would have no way to reopen the pathway.


    Saleen began to chant a lightning rune. Thunder rumbled and the pathway became broader. In the pitch-ck darkness, arge number of forked pathways appeared. It was no longer the lone pathway that had been before him.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye able to tell that, amongst therge number of split paths, only one would lead to the temple. He had walked 1,000 kilometers, but he had just been going back and forth at the entrance.


    Saleen adjusted his bearings. There was no pressure in using his Elemental Eye to dissect the details of the maze. The Figaro Magic Form analyzed itpletely. Saleen reduced his speed to about 15 kilometers an hour. Atst, he found the correct path to enter the temple.


    Of course, the best method for anyone who wished to enter the temple was to use the Ring of Gifts and the Goddess¡¯ power of faith or godly power. However, Saleen did not wish to. Godly power was convenient, but using it too much would cause a reliance.


    Saleen ignored the numerous splits in the pathway. He walked to the end of the pathway, which was a broad exit. Outside the exit were floating white clouds. Amidst the clouds were 24 tall and majestic temples.


    Saleen was indescribably delighted. Although there weren¡¯t any Sky City¡¯s fragments, the white clouds were formed from solidified essence of water element. The temples were built on a huge piece of essence of the elements.


    Equipment that was refined with water element essence could amodate the equipment of the 24 temples.


    The Magical Element Tower was sturdy and durable, but when taking flight, its attack was too monotonous. The demonic spirits and magics could not be used. The Magical Element Tower was only a formidable attack power when it was floating and had changed its form.


    To Saleen, the Magical Element Tower¡¯s only benefit was that it was difficult to destroy. Any level 16 professional would have to consume arge amount of time and mental power to breach it sessfully.


    If he was able to collect the clouds, it would be sufficient to carry 100,000 soldiers in the air.


    Saleen thought for a moment and created a wind dragon that rushed towards the white clouds. When the level 8 wind dragon entered the white cloud, it immediately dissipated, as if it were dust.


    ¡°As expected, it won¡¯t be easy. Thankfully, I am a body of water element!¡± Saleen had already decided that the white cloud was his.

 Chapter 1195: Killing the True Might (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1195: Killing the True Might (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The wind dragon had been dissipated by the water element, but Saleen was not afraid. He leapt up, wrapped some mist around his body, and rushed into the cloud.


    It was the first time that Saleen had felt the weight of the elements. The water element felt like flowing metal as it entered into Saleen¡¯s body. Saleen did not resist, as the process was merely an exchange between the elements and the elements in his body. Joey had performed it on his body before. What the water element in the clouds was doing was not much different.


    Saleen¡¯s body was once again infused. However, he had initiated the infusion.


    When Joey had helped Saleen, he had also been level 10. Now, after Saleen advanced to level 10, he finally possessed the ability to control the elements and allowed the water element to take away all of the residue in his body. They had umted during his magic cultivation. They were not harmful to his body but were not beneficial for his future advancement.


    The surface area of the cloud was enormous. Saleen felt like he was a fish swimming in water. It was extremely liberating. There were no weapon¡¯s spirits or magic arrays left behind by the goddess. It was simply a piece of equipment that had formed into a cloud and bore the weight of the Goddess¡¯ temple.


    Saleen plunged into the white cloud. On one hand, it allowed the water element to wash through his body. At the same time, he was moving towards the temple. However, when he arrived at the temple, he discovered that the temple was also made of solidified water element. It was alreadypletely empty inside the temple.


    The white cloud temple was originally one entity. Following Saleen¡¯s entrance, the temple had fallen apart,bining with the white clouds. Saleen¡¯s entrance had caused the water element to return to its original appearance.


    Saleen was not disappointed. Since the white cloud temple did not contain any weapon¡¯s spirits, he might as well open his first Shenhe. A piece of water current had been refined in the Shenhe. It had now formed a water ball. Lightning patterns flowed along the surface of the ball.


    Saleen forcefully broke apart his power of life and used the Constetion Wishing spell to force it into the white cloud. Immediately, another Saleen formed. Apart from being extremely frail, it was a clone of Saleen.


    Of course, Saleen had not done it for the sake of creating a weapon¡¯s spirit. He allowed the clone to rbine with his body and absorbed it back. Saleen could feel that the white cloud and his body had be even morepatible.


    The water element frantically gushed in. Saleen¡¯s bones became even harder, and some vital areas were tempered into crystal. Saleen could not be bothered to absorb all of it. He allowed it to enter his body at its will.


    He controlled the transformation of his bones. The strength of his bones continued to evolve from a crystallized state. Its toughness and hardness increased each time. Saleen began to refine magic patterns on his bones. The magic patterns were simple, but were the results of his understanding of lightning found in the natural world.


    There were 206 bones in the human body, and Saleen refined lightning magic patterns on every inch. The process was lengthy. The more magic patterns he refined, the more quickly the water element melded within his bones. Finally, all 15 square kilometers of water element essence entered Saleen¡¯s body.


    Two huge crystallized runes flew out from Saleen¡¯s body. Saleen raised his hands to receive them. They had been formed by the solidification of his two territories.


    After the water element had re-infused his body, Saleen had forcefully stripped off the two territories. It was much better than letting his teacher help. If Jason had helped him, the things that Saleen would have been able toprehend would have been reduced by at least half. He would have needed to make up for it in the days toe.


    Saleen ced the territory crystals into the Starline Ring. His body was still standing in the void. The pathway to leave was in the distance, but Saleen did not choose to leave immediately and instead stayed to cultivate.


    When he opened his mouth, he spat out the water element essence that had been part of the white cloud. Under Saleen¡¯s control, the water element essences became thicker. However, Saleen kept feeling as if there was something missing. He retrieved a scroll and released the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water in it tobine with his water element essence.


    The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water frantically corroded and devoured the water element essence. However, the amount of water element essence was too much. Saleen saw that the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was diluted by the water element essence. He released his Water mes, mixing them with the thickening cloud.


    The white cloud became a dark cloud. The water element had thickness by a significant amount. Saleen retrieved another sealed scroll, releasing the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water in it. He did not know what he was doing. Was it divine crafting? He concluded that he did not have the capability. Furthermore, even if it was divine crafting, he could not refine the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water. It required way too much time.


    The speed at which Saleen had broken down and diluted the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water was extremely fast. In about a few hours¡¯ time, all of the scrolls that Saleen carried on him had been used up, and the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water had beenpletely mixed into the water element essence.


    The white cloud turned pitch-ck. If not for the fact that it was under Saleen¡¯s control, even Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye would have had no way of seeing through it.


    ¡°This is really splendid!¡± Saleen sighed in appreciation. The dark cloud felt like a part of Saleen¡¯s body. It could be released at will, like breathing, and was not a skill.


    In other words, even if Saleen was breathing hisst breath, the dark cloud could be manipted as he wished.


    It was an unprecedented fortune. The Goddess had left behind the white cloud, so there must be some other purpose for it. However, after Saleen had used it to dilute the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, any seals that were in the water element essence no longer existed. The Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water ability to dissolve and corride was too strong, and had broken down the water element essence.


    It was impossible for any seals to survive an element being broken down and resolidified. Even if it had been left behind by a god, there was no way to restore it. Saleen unexpectedly discovered that the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water possessed that effect. It was a pity that he had used so much, as now there was only some in the Goddess¡¯ Ne, but Saleen nned to craft the ne into a magic amplifier, so the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water inside it could not be utilized.


    Saleen tried to condense magic patterns in the dark cloud, and they formed very quickly. Saleen chanted a mantra softly, and a blue colored current appeared on the magic pattern. Howerever, there was no thundering sound.


    Even so, Saleen was already extremely satisfied. This would eventually allow him toprehend the profound mystery of lightning and form a lightning territory. The benefits were unimaginable. Saleen had originally nned to use 100 years to analyze the lightning territory, and now, that would be shortened to within 10 years.


    ¡°O immanent constetion power, flood this space!¡± Saleen raised his hand, and the level 16 Star Gathering Needle released dazzling starlight in the blink of an eye. The constetion power of countless nes were also instantly triggered and poured inwards. The space began to copse.


    Saleen stepped into the spatial pathway and took flight. The space could probably still conceive other things. Saleen¡¯s sensitive perceptions felt it, so he destroyed the Goddess¡¯ space instead.


    Saleen came out of the spatial pathway and entered the Magical Element Tower. He saw that the castle surrounding the Magical Element Tower had copsed, and thousands of warriors surrounded the magical tower.


    The warriors were all dressed with magic armor. They circled the tower half a kilometer away.


    Saleen had lost the Puppet World territory, but he could still question the demonic spirits about what had happened. The demonic spirits scrambled to tell Saleen about the explorers who had been killed. After the explorers had died, professionals began to show up, staring at the Magical Element Tower from a distance.


    Saleen asked the demonic spirits again. They did not know where they originated from. They had tried to attack the Magical Element Tower, but stopped after the demonic spirits had killed more than a hundred. It was as if they were just waiting for somebody.


    Saleen went to the top floor of the magical tower. The demonic spirits swarmed around him, showering Saleen with endless praise. Saleen quickly stopped their ttery. If it continued, the demonic spirits would eventually create power of faith, which would continuously flow to him.


    If it was not managed well, after 30 to 50 thousand years, he would be able to ignite a divine fire and achieve a divine persona.


    The situation was not particrly good. Saleen looked down and opened his Elemental Eye. Saleen saw someone setting up magic equipment on a mountainside 20 kilometers away. The magic equipment appeared to be an ancient cannon.


    The might of an ancient cannon was not equal to a magic cannon, but it could be made without any limitations and had an enormous level of consumption.


    The cannon was originally made for guards of honor. Many items that were used for decorative purposes during ancient times be weapons of great might.


    Saleen thought the cannon was hrious. Although the ancient cannon was immensely powerful, it was difficult to aim. It could hit its target within half a kilometer, but depended entirely on luck. Thus, even though the blueprints of ancient cannons had been passed down through generations, no country was willing to manufacture it.


    Discounting the fact that it was a waste of national power, it could also only be used on a few the battlefields.


    Saleen observed it again. On the mountain top, a person was standing where the umted snow was the most shallow and looking at the Magical Element Tower. This person was able to see beyond 25 kilometers?


    Saleen immediately became alert. His Elemental Eye could not tell how powerful the person was. Their capability of concealing their energy had already reached the peak condition of level 10.


    At a distance of 25 kilometers, even the Thunder Dragon ster would not be able to hit him. Saleen thought for a moment and returned to the 16th floor of the magical tower, allowing the water puppet to operate the magical tower. The spatial pathway had already begun to close. The space created by the Goddess was copsing, and there would be no traces left, except for the wreckage created by the castle.


    The Magical Element Tower suddenly soared up to the sky. The warriors surrounding the magical tower panicked. The Magical Element Tower flew over their heads, and Saleen allowed the demonic spirits to release a spray of magic spells.


    The irregr attack of hundreds of magic spells killed over a hundred powerful warriors.


    Saleen took special note of the middle-aged man on the mountaintop. As expected, the middle-aged man¡¯s gaze was focused on the Magical Element Tower.


    He had provoked him for no reason. Saleen felt somewhat helpless. The powerful person could be a True Might. If he left the Magical Element Tower, he would have to be careful.


    Since that was the case, it was best to remove the source of the problem. He could not stay inside the magical tower forever. Saleen allowed the water puppet to slow the magical tower down and fly east.

 Chapter 1196: Killing the True Might (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1196: Killing the True Might (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The seay 1,500 kilometers to the east. The coast had already been sealed in ice. Saleen flew at a steady pace. The True Might saw that the person who had killed his son was able to fly a magical tower and immediately deduced Saleen¡¯s identity.


    ¡°Damn it. It was actually Metatrin¡¯s king!¡±


    The True Might discovered the flying magical tower, and there was only one flying tower on the continent. Perhaps other people could create flying equipment, but they would not be able to move people¡¯s hearts as much as the Magical Element Tower.


    He had heard rumors about Saleen. Even in the northern wilderness, Saleen¡¯s name was unmistakable. Ever since Metatrin Kingdom had been established, the power of the Holy See was no longer as pervasive in the northern wilderness. The barbarians who had escaped into the wilderness had slowly begun to leave. They had returned into Metatrin Kingdom¡¯s borders and led a decent life.


    Many professionals were bitterly cultivating in the northern wilderness. The produce was notcking, and it was sparsely popted. It was more suited for professionals who disliked loud and bustling ces. Saleen had identified the presence of magical towers in the mountainous area before. Thus, although Saleen had not conducted a deep investigation of the northern wilderness, he also knew that the forces there were definitely not small.


    However, it was ultimately a wastnd. The presence of forces was a result of dividing up territories.


    Saleen was worried if the True Might chose not to act, just like him. If so, that would be very troublesome. Thus, he did not fly quickly, allowing the True Might to choose between following him or giving up.


    The True Might hesitated for a moment. He saw that Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was about to fly out of his line of sight. Only then did he fly up from the mountaintop and follow behind the Magical Element Tower.


    He could not possibly give up on the anger caused by the death of his son.


    No matter how great Saleen¡¯s reputation was, he was just a king. The information in the northern wilderness was not up to date and the things that Saleen had recently done had not spread there yet.


    Saleen saw the middle-aged man had caught up to him, so he allowed the Magical Element Tower to speed up. In the hands of the water puppet, the Magical Element Tower could go more than 100 kilometers per hour. Saleen did not let the water puppet to recklessly insert any elemental creatures into the magic power furnace, only permitting normal flight.


    The Magical Element Tower sped up. The True Might perceived it as Saleen being afraid of him and increased his speed. Saleen smiled coldly. He was really seeking death. Since that was the case...


    Saleen released the Thunder Dragon ster, prepared to attack at any time.


    The distance between the two grew smaller and smaller. Saleen saw that there was a smallke and allowed the water puppet to lower the Magical Element Tower. Theke had already frozen over, so the Magical Element Tower¡¯s rough descent broke a hole through the surface of the ice with a loud bang. The Magical Element Tower sank down into the water.


    The True Might caught up to them, and his brows furrowed at the scene. He lunged after them, heading directly to the gigantic hole on theke¡¯s surface.


    His eyes were covered with ayer of gold aura and saw a person dressed in a splendid robe had already stepped out of the Magical Element Tower. They were currently facing him and had their left hand raised.


    There was a piece of equipment that looked like a serpent on the mage¡¯s left arm. He did not recognize the lightning dragon, treating it as a serpent that had grown legs.


    The Thunder Dragon ster did not have any parts that looked terrifying. The equipment was an imitation of Hogina¡¯s gun, which was also soplex that it did not look particrly menacing. Even mages who saw its blueprints would have to calcte the extent that they would feel dizzy.


    Saleen raised the Thunder Dragon ster. Seeing that the True Might had jumped into the freezing coldke water, Saleen did not know what would be appropriate to say. To face a warrior in such an environment, even if he was not a body of water element, was still taking advantage of the circumstances.


    If this person was not being conceited, then he was being too stupid.


    A lightning icicle appeared in front of the level 10 True Might without any preamble. In the water, the movement of the lightning icicle was almost like a jump. It jumped from Saleen¡¯s arm to right in front of the True Might¡¯s face.


    The True Might was startled, and a sword aura beam shot from his mouth. As the sword aura was shot out, the True Might¡¯s nose and throat split open. A thread of fresh blood flowed out, and sword aura immediately healed the wound.


    The sword aura was hit by Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle and exploded. Small ice chips flew in all directions, and numerous small injuries were inflicted on the True Might¡¯s body.


    It was the True Might¡¯s first time encountering such a terrifying piece of equipment. His sword aura could protect his body from all magic spells below level 8. Even level 9 magic spells would not cause visible damage. It was only for level 10 and above that he would consider using a skill, either to destroy or defend against them.


    Saleen had used an icicle without much care and hadpletely annihted his sword aura.


    The middle-aged man¡¯s entire body suddenly emitted an even more intense gas. The water around him was pushed back by the pressure, forming a shield of wind element.


    Pfft...


    The second lightning icicle pierced through the wind element shield, slicing across the man¡¯s ribs and taking away a chunk of bloody flesh.


    The two were simultaneously rmed. The level 10 True Might¡¯s rm was due to the fact that his protective elemental skill was extremely rare among the True Mights and could utilize a mage¡¯s power. Saleen¡¯s rm was due to the fact that he had locked onto his enemy, but he was able to dodge harm at critical moments. The lightning icicle had merely grazed across the True Might¡¯s ribs.


    The surface of the level 10 True Might¡¯s body suddenly inted into a translucent ball. Saleen¡¯s third lightning icicle unexpectedly slid across the ball. It only cut it in half, and did not break it.


    Both were once again rmed. Even a level 11 person would have no way to resist Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster and would rely on equipment to do so, but this level 10 True Might only needed to use a skill to slide the lightning icicle away. Furthermore, it had caused Saleen to lose control of the third lightning icicle and he had no means to continue manipting the icicle to attack.


    The level 10 True might was stunned. Only a professional ranked above him could destroy his skill. It had allowed him to progress from being a trainee swordsman to bing a True Might. It had never been destroyed. Today¡¯s enemy had used one icicle and damaged his sphere. He was somewhat afraid.


    Whoosh!


    The longsword in the True Might¡¯s hands broke out with a low frequency buzz, and Saleen lost his target.


    The long sword took the True Might away and disappeared from Saleen¡¯s line of sight. Saleen¡¯s perception was unable to detect any enemies, but did not panic. He released a jet ck cloud and enveloped the entire area within the permitted boundary.


    The True Might screamed. His skin was corroded by Saleen¡¯s water element essence. Even the long sword¡¯s protection was unable to deflect. The dark cloud had a corrosive power that surpassed all existing magic medicinal liquids.


    After finding his target, Saleen shot out his fourth lightning icicle. The True Might disappeared once more. His long sword cut open the dark cloud, and he distanced himself from Saleen and escaped. The True Might¡¯s movements in the water were very fast. Saleen lost his target for the second time. He did not shoot out the fifth lightning icicle and instead continued to disperse the dark cloud.


    When the radius of the dark cloud expanded to a diameter of two kilometers, the True Might was once again corroded by the dark cloud, causing fresh blood to drip liberally from his entire body. It was again immediately healed by his sword aura.


    Saleen had once again discovered his opponent. This time he did not use the Thunder Dragon ster, but instead rushed over.


    The True Might saw Saleene and momentarily furrowed his brows in anger. A sword spirit from his long sword released a terrifying growl. The growling frightened all of the living creatures in the area, causing them to go limp.


    Saleen also released a loud roar. Thundering sound mixed with his roaring sound, offsetting the sword spirit¡¯s growl.


    The long sword emitted an amber sword aura, which looked like balls of hair. It permeated the surrounding 100 square meters. It was a True Might¡¯s territory.


    It was much more arduous for a True Might to utilize a territory than a mage, and the duration that it could be maintained was much shorter. However, a True Might¡¯s territory had immense killing power. The man had only used his immature territorial power that under circumstances where he had no other choice. He wanted to kill Saleen swiftly.


    Saleen raised his hand to shoot all of the remaining lightning icicles. The amber colored sword aura was momentarily broken apart by the sh of electricity. Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles dissipated into theke waters.


    ¡°Spare me, Your Majesty!¡± The True Might eximed.


    Saleen¡¯s figure halted and he looked at the True Might, whose entire body had countless wounds. Although the man had yelled for him to spare his life, he had not thrown aside his weapon, and the amber colored sword aura continued to wind around his longsword.


    ¡°Why?¡± Saleen questioned. He guessed that the one his puppets had killed was this middle-aged man¡¯s kin. Spare him? If hisbat ability had not been good enough, he would probably have been killed by this middle-aged man long ago.


    He paused to ask only because he was adjusting his mental power.


    ¡°Your Majesty, the one you killed was my son. Hatred can be reconciled. Since I achieved the rank of a True Might, my lifespan has reached more than 1,000 years. I can just have another child!¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± That was the first time that Saleen had met such a heartless person. If anyone harmed his children, even if he was level 18, Saleen would still fight to hisst breath.


    ¡°I have 8,000 sword ves who are all under my control. Even the weakest one is a swordmaster and can be escorts for Your Majesty.¡± The middle-aged man gasped as the wind element around his body continue to keep him apart from theke water.


    Saleen smiled. Before condensing a thickyer of ice on the surface of his body, he spoke one sentence: ¡°I don¡¯t care!¡±


    As his words sounded, Saleen arrived in front of the middle-aged man. His finger pointed at the man¡¯s heart. Since Saleen was too fast, theke water had exploded outward and the high temperature caused the freezingke water to evaporate. Theyer of ice on theke¡¯s surface burst open.


    After the enormous energy caused the True Might¡¯s heart to shatter, his corpse also blew up, forming a huge blood cell in front of Saleen.


    Saleen swiftly retreated. The attack had consumed arge amount of his mental power. Saleen did not even seek out the opponent¡¯s longsword. The longsword was good quality, and had a sword spirit. However, Saleen had already discovered a second enemy, one who was even more powerful than the level 10 True Might. They had been concealed at a distance all this time and were waiting for an opportunity.

 Chapter 1197: Puppet Constellation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1197: Puppet Constetion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was only after Saleen had released the dark cloud that he had discovered this enemy. Since they were concealed outside the battleground, they obviously did not harbor any good intentions. Saleen¡¯s Comet sh and Crystal Finger both had extremely high levels of consumption. After killing the level 10 True Might, he escaped towards the Magical Element Tower.


    In theke water half a kilometer away, amidst the pitch-ck shadows, Agares, seeing that Saleen had escaped back to the Magical Element Tower, did not act. He turned and left, instead.


    Saleen was too wily. This time, he had acted extremely honestly, but Agares still would not go and chase after him.


    The Magical Element Tower¡¯s attacks were terrifying. If he were really chased after him, he would be bombarded with magic spells. None of his equipment would withstand it.


    After Saleen returned to the Magical Element Tower and turned around again to check, Agares had disappeared into theke water.


    It was him!


    Saleen was able to identify the thread of aura that Agares had left behind. The assassin emperor had actually been unharmed inside his dark cloud. It was evident that he had an even more powerful piece of equipment that could temporarily resist the corrosive effect of the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    Saleen rejoiced. The dark cloud contained the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, which forced Agares to use his equipment. Otherwise, he would have been unable to discover the presence of the powerful assassin.


    He had advanced and strengthened his abilities. Agares had not fallen behind.


    Saleen made the decision on the spot. He did not stop either. He allowed the Magical Element Tower to rush up to the surface of theke and fly towards Metatrin City. Agares following his trail had two meanings. The first was that he wanted to hunt him down and kill him. The second was that he wanted to see if he could follow him to find new temples.


    This time, he was extremely fast, so he had shaken off Agares. Next time, he might not necessarily have such good luck. Agares¡¯ sneaking skill was menacing. Among the people at level 10, perhaps only Jason would be able to discover him. However, he could not bring his teacher every time he went out. That would be too embarrassing.


    Agares had not gone far either. He saw Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower fly into the distance from thekeside. Only then did he reenter theke water, retrieving the level 10 True Might¡¯s longsword that had been thrown aside. The longsword was a powerful piece of equipment. Assassins were able to use it as well.


    After obtaining the longsword, Agares flew out of the surface of the water and headed for the mountains in the west. The level 10 True Might¡¯s 8,000 sword ves were still there, and he wanted to take control of them. Saleen did not value such things, but Agares did. The sword ves had been subdued by the True Might¡¯s skills, so they were merely a bunch of powerful ves.


    They were equivalent to 8,000 elite soldiers. Furthermore, most of them possessed magic armor. Thus, they did not even need equipment prepared.


    Agares knew that it was difficult for him to kill Saleen for now. However, if he followed Saleen, there would always be benefits for the taking, such as the 8,000 sword ves. If he had relied on his own efforts, he would first have to kill that dangerous True Might. He did not have anything of the same caliber as the Magical Element Tower, so he had not dared to make a move the whole time.


    After Saleen had seeded, he escaped far away, rushing back to Metatrin City. Glenn and his party had already sailed off. If they did not set sail, Metatrin harbor would be frozen over.


    Saleen cleared up his train of thought and decided that he should go looking for the temples. Regarding the trade with the Devil¡¯s Horn, if the other party did not dispatch the battleships, he would not be able to locate his subordinates for the time being. Ultimately, he could not kill off the Devil¡¯s Horn. He needed to wait patiently; he could only retaliate once the other party made their move. Otherwise, the contract¡¯s restrictions were noughing matter.


    In order to understand that, Saleen went to the temple¡¯s top floor to look for his teacher.


    Jason was in a very good mood. He had gone with Saleen to the Imperial City of the Abyss one time and had been able to obtain all of the required elemental creature materials to sessfully refine the magic amplifier. Fortunately, his student was able to use Water me Alchemy and could help him. Otherwise, it would be way too difficult to handle.


    Saleen retrieved two territorial crystals, cing them in front of Jason.


    Jason was delighted. ¡°You actually managed to pull out your territory!¡±


    It was the first time that Saleen had seen his teacher lose hisposure. Normally, Jason was always calm even in the midst of an emergency. Even if lightning and thunder struck beside him, he still would not lose hisposure.


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s doubtful expression, Jasonughed. ¡°Saleen, since you were able to pull out your territory, your future prospects will be unlimited. There is also the possibility that you may surpass me. We mages from the same origin have not made ourselves known for far too long!¡±


    ¡°Teacher, I know that mages ce great emphasis on inheritance. This matter, does it have a deeper level of meaning?¡± Saleen asked about the matter for the first time.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t really have any deeper meaning. Mages too will die. Who on earth would ever wish for everything about themselves to disappear after they die? Mages can die, but magic should be passed down the generations forever. As for you, you are in fact considered to be my hope and my future.¡±


    Jason spoke calmly, but Saleen was able to tell that he was restraining excitement.


    Saleen said, ¡°I also feel this way. I feel extremely ashamed about Truman.¡±


    ¡°You have opened up a broader path for him, Saleen. This is Truman¡¯s fortune. If you had not discovered him, perhaps he would have been drowned in the midst of Sreeger Ind¡¯s numerous mages and would not have attained any particrly great achievements in his life.¡±


    Saleen nodded. ¡°This time, I will consider it carefully and bring him along to give him guidance. But Teacher, I wish to refine these two territorial crystals into pieces of equipment. Is that possible?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you give the elemental creatures¡¯ territorial crystal to me. I rarely want anything of yours. I think you are really anxious about it.¡± Jasonughed.


    Saleen nodded in embarrassment. He had always wanted to repay Jason with something, but every time it was Jason who gave him more assistance.


    ¡°The Puppet World Territory still holds many uses for a king. Didn¡¯t you obtain the God of Puppets¡¯ heart fragment? Give me three days. I will have all the mages in Metatrin Citye together to calcte and design a piece of useful equipment for you. In the future, you will no longer have to bring along a group of Followers for battle. Your Followers will all be able to cultivate and be fully independent.¡±


    That was Saleen¡¯s advantage. He had a qualified teacher and close to 10,000 mages working for him. They could calcte extremelyplex forme at any time and design equipment that only appeared in theories.


    Saleen could afford to wait three days. He could stay in Metatrin City and contact Lex to ask her about Daliang City. On Daliang City¡¯s side, the fossilized gods were still endless, which made Saleen very joyful. If the fossilized gods became lower in number, he would have to return. Within the huge energy barrier in the cemetery of the giants, there were mysteries of lightning that were waiting for his research.


    All of Metatrin City¡¯s mages stopped the work they were doing, and came to help Saleen design his new equipment.


    The God of Puppets¡¯ heart fragments did not need to beplete. Saleen already had half of it. He only needed to use one third and he would be able to supply enough to be used for his equipment.


    Territory crystals was even harder toe by, otherwise it would not be necessary to mobilize all of the mages toe and design the equipment blueprints. This type of equipment rarely appeared in theories. The design of magical equipment gradually became moreplex. The equipment designed by the ancient humans were made of extremely strong materials. There were not many tricks to it, but they were able to achieve the most perfect oues.


    On the current Myers Continent, good materials were more and more scarce. Mages put forth their greatest effort, and many well thought-out pieces of equipment appeared. If they were able to obtain materials that were perfect enough, the equipment created might be no worse than the ones designed by the ancient humans.


    In the three days, he mages did everything they could to help with the calctions for the equipment, including therge weapon¡¯s spirit in the alchemic factory, and helped Saleen design the blueprints.


    Saleen was amazed when the three dimensional blueprints were brought to him. It was the benefit of numbers. If it were left up to him alone, it would probably have taken him about three to five hundred years to produce such a design.


    On the 17th floor of the Magical Element Tower, all of Metatrin City¡¯s eight level 10 mage trainers were present, including Jason. The memory crystal had been ced in the magic array, triggering the image of the three dimensional blueprints.


    The equipment was about two meters long. It looked like an irregr sphere, since it had a total of 144 faces. Each face had a circr opening. The openings were all linked to one another, countless magic symbols passing through and forming magic power currents.


    It looked just like a ball.


    Jason triggered the movement of the blueprints. The ball gradually expanded. It covered the entire 17th floor of the magical tower. Amidst theyers andyers of circr bodies within the sphere, the magic power currents were even moreplex. Saleen counted, there were 144yers of circr bodies, and eachyer was a gigantic space.


    If the sphere expandedpletely, its diameter would reach about 4 kilometers. Inside, there were over 20,000 spaces, each with about a dozen puppets. The core at the innermostyer was a piece of the shattered heart. The mages had not attempted to restore the God of Puppets¡¯ heart and instead deliberately crafted it in a shattered state.


    The shattered heart provided never-ending magic power current to the Puppet World. All of the puppets could battle, repair, and revive within the magic power current.


    The puppets could also be summoned from the 144 openings. Saleen was not required to open the Puppet World to use them.


    ¡°This piece of equipment can be advanced up to level 15.¡± Jason¡¯s eyes shone with delight. If the equipment was sessfully refined, many among the mages would advance as well. For such aplicated piece of equipment, the core would have to be crafted with thebined efforts of the level 10 mages in the tower. However, the outer parts could be refined in the alchemic factory.


    All of the mages who took part in the refining would benefit. Jason had established the alchemic factory for that reason.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes twinkled as he looked at the gigantic sphere. ¡°It still needs modifications, give me one day.¡±


    Jason and the other level 10 mages looked at him. Saleen said, ¡°I possess the power of the constetions and can make this even moreplete.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine as long as you are willing. After all, this is meant for you.¡± Jason beckoned towards the other mages and left, leaving Saleen alone.


    Saleen looked at the image of the gigantic sphere. He began to imagine that the sphere had the appearance of a. He retrieved the level 16 Star Gathering Needle and began to add star patterns to the magic image.

 Chapter 1198: Puppet Constellation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1198: Puppet Constetion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen added star patterns and starlines onto the Puppet World. They refined the Puppet World into a model of a. Of course, being a level 10 mage was not sufficient to refine a. Even a lesser god would not be able toplete the task. Only a person at level 17 or 18, a greater god amongst the gods or King of Gods, would be able to refine a or destroy a ne.


    Saleen did not go overboard and expect to be able toplete it when he was at level 10, but he wanted to allow his Puppet World to be a Puppet Constetion. If that were the case, it would not only increase the puppets¡¯bat ability, but it could also provide energy for his Comet sh.


    The Comet sh skill was not perfect. Every time it was used, Saleen would always waste arge amount of mental power. Because he had tomunicate with earth elemental power or the power of constetions, it was extremely taxing for him. The Body of Water Element had its strengths, so of course it also had weaknesses. Its weakness was that whenmunicating with earth elemental power, it would consume more mental power than it would for normal mages.


    If Saleen had not obtained the ring from Arb, he would not have been able to aplish any of it


    The star patterns in his memory were refined on the inner part of the crystal. A variety of star constetions showed up one by one on the magic image. Saleen did not require the power of the constetions to provide much help to the puppets. He only needed it to stabilize the Puppet Constetion, so that the puppets would be able to provide the power of the constetions.


    The entire Puppet Constetion would be the ce where the puppets¡¯ faith would be located.


    Who would hope for the world they were in to copse? The puppets were just like living creatures. The only thing they were missing was a soul. A life without a soul would not give rise to particrly strong power of faith. It would only be used to materialize the equipment. Saleen did not have any hope that the piece of equipment would be able to evolve as long as it was sufficiently stable.


    For about a dozen hours, Saleen perfected the star patterns for the Puppet Constetion. After the Puppet Constetion was released, it would turn into a floating on the horizon. Aside from the Puppet Constetion itself, there would be an illusory gxy formed by the power of constetions. It would envelop the entire area at which Saleen was battling. The area was about the same size as the original Puppet Territory, which was about six kilometers across.


    It was the equivalent of covertly restoring the territory¡¯s power. Of course, Saleen did not want such a handy territory to vanish. When he needed to plunder and destroy each temple, he could rely on the puppets. Otherwise, each time he went out, Nailisi would have toboriously order about the demons and be exposed to danger.


    When the drawing of the blueprints waspleted, all of the mages were once again absorbed in the new calctions. Such a huge andplicated piece of magic equipment needed its calctions to be clear before it could be refined. Whether or not Saleen¡¯s starlines could be refined along with the magic lines was also a huge problem.


    Saleen had experience, having tried simr methods at Gaine¡¯s astrology tower, but for the mages at Metatrin City, it was their first time.


    The calctions once took a day. Close to 10,000 mages collected data, and hundreds of sorcerers analyzed the uracy of the data. Finally, eight level 10 mage trainers redrew the detail parts of the prepared blueprints. Only then did they start the alchemic factory¡¯s facilities to refine the Puppet Constetion for Saleen.


    Saleen was noting up with strange ideas by himself, because Sky City contained astrologers¡¯ equipment. In the olden days, there would have been countless constetions above Sky City. The constetions were much more powerful than magics. The entire Sky City could not possibly be attacked from above.


    Saleen wanted to obtain Sky City¡¯s fragments, and allow the ind to fly. He wanted to put in ce something simr above the ind. The refining was to make preparations for the future.


    Saleen and Jason took out all of the materials they both had, including the construction materials Saleen had plundered from the various temples and Sreeger Ind¡¯s resources that had been umting over thousands of years.


    Out of all the materials, the most suitable ones were selected and then distributed to the different sections where the refining would take ce.


    Close to 10,000 mages were busy for a month. The eight level 10 mage trainers refined the core, crafting the God of Puppets¡¯ heart fragments into the Puppet Constetion¡¯s core. Layer afteryer of spare parts were assembled on it. Every day, Saleen and Jason would use Water me Alchemy to fuse the spare parts to the core.


    The project was huge. Even if it was only a piece of medium equipment for personal use, the amount of materials consumed was unmatched evenpared torge equipment.


    On thest day, Saleen summoned the big guy. He solemnly said to therge puppet, ¡°Big guy, I have refined a piece of equipment and need a weapon¡¯s spirit. If you are willing...¡±


    ¡°I am willing!¡±


    Saleen never thought that the puppet would immediately agree. The big guy had birthed a soul with great difficulty. Bing a weapon¡¯s spirit was equivalent to losing a lot of freedom.


    ¡°You must think it through clearly. I will not force you.¡±


    The gigantic puppet kneeled in front of Saleen¡¯s feet, and reverently said, ¡°My Master, as a puppet, my ending will always be tragic. I have been clear about this pointthat. The two puppets used me. I knew, but I was powerless to resist. I believe Master will let me live on and continue to grow. That will be enough. Eventually there wille a day when I will want to break free from the position of a weapon¡¯s spirit. When that timees, I know that Master will give me freedom.¡±


    Saleen paused once again. ¡°Since that is the case, after three days we will begin the refining ceremony. Within these three days, I will give you a lot of materials and help you to toughen up your body and even advance. I will need your help in many other areas in the future.¡±


    ¡°I am willing to serve Master.¡± The big guy¡¯s expression already had a degree of piousness to it, as if he was a disciple facing his god.


    Saleen retrieved a piece of the God of Puppets¡¯ heart fragment and handed it to the big guy. ¡°Go ahead and absorb this. Your body has suffered too much damage and your soul is not stable enough. In the new equipment, you will obtain much greater power, but the recovery of your soul is a lengthy process.¡±


    ¡°Many thanks, Master.¡± The big guy inserted the God of Puppets¡¯ heart fragment into his body.


    It was approaching October. Metatrin City¡¯s harbor hadpletely frozen over, and heavy snow covered the country. Only the arena in the western part of the city was still bustling with activity. Apart from the arena, the entire country was silent, as if the war raging in the middle of the continent had nothing to do with Saleen¡¯s world.


    On that day, the temple¡¯s surrounding suddenly became lively, because Saleen¡¯s Puppet Constetion was about toplete its final step of refinement. All the mages wanted to see exactly what the equipment would look like.


    The part of the refining they had participated in was the simplest. Even so, among the mages who had participated, there were ones who had advanced by two levels. The ones who had been promoted by one level consisted of an even greater proportion. Only a small minority of mage mages had only stabilized their levels.


    10,000 temple guards sealed off the area surrounding the temple to prevent any disturbances. The mages looked towards the sky, where at the top of the temple, Saleen held a piece of equipment the size of an eyeball in his palm. He was excited.


    The sess of the equipment had exceeded his own expectations. All of the God of Puppets¡¯ heart fragments had been smelted in and the Puppet Constetion thoroughlypleted.


    The big guy had been absorbed into the Puppet Constetion¡¯s core. His body had fused and turned into a weapon¡¯s spirit¡¯s state. Saleen¡¯s soulpletely controlled it.


    ¡°It really is perfect.¡± The Puppet Constetion slowly lifted off Saleen¡¯s palm and expanded. The sky darkened, the sun eclipsed by the Puppet Constetion. A beautiful starlight enveloped the temple, emanating from the river of stars that ran across everything above the temple.


    Saleen had never felt the power of constetions as clearly as he did then. Based on his intuition, if he used the Comet sh, it would not consume any mental power. The Puppet Constetion wouldmunicate with the constetions in the sky, attract the power of constetions, and allow Saleen to use it. Its effects would be much more powerful and much easier.


    Saleen soared upwards without using Quickcloud. He borrowed the power of constetions and floated into the sky. The feeling was wonderful. Saleen floated along the tracks of the constetions, and then started to jump.


    The gigantic Puppet Constetion floated above the temple. It rotated, showing the tens of thousands of puppets waiting for Saleen¡¯s summons.


    ¡°Mages, attack!¡± Saleen yelled loudly.


    Over 9,000 mages followed the nned order and made their move. Magic spells from the six great elements danced and filled the sky. There was no particr target, but arge proportion of them were aimed towards the Puppet Constetion.


    The level 10 mage trainers did not move, but the power of the more than 9,000 mages still far exceeded 3,600 demonic spirits. The control of the magic spells allowed the properties of the magic spells to attain a high level. The power that had been explosively released was also of the most powerful rank within each type of magic.


    The magic spells were submerged in the river of stars and absorbed. The thousands of star patterns had borne the magic powers of less than 9,000 separately. Within the Puppet Constetion, the big guy¡¯s body solidified and took form, changing into a 300-meter-tall puppet.


    The puppet held a long whip. The power of constetions was flowing along the long whip. There were thousands of figures that Saleen had refined into the Puppet Constetion to act as the big guy¡¯s protective forces.


    The startled cries of the mages spread. All of Metatrin City was able to hear themotion from the temple.


    The remaining mages were still attacking, but they merely wanted to see what the limits of the powerful equipment were. After all of the mages had attacked for two rounds, Saleen began to feel that the equipment was somewhat unable to bear it any longer.


    ¡°Alright, stop.¡± The mages stopped their attacks. Saleen, under the attack of tens of thousands of magic spells, had not suffered from a single unexpected attack.


    The magic spells that had entered into the area controlled by the Puppet Constetions had not been weakened at all. Saleen was just able to dodge them.


    The trajectory of fate had been urately seen by Saleen. Saleen¡¯s astrology had finally been promoted to level 10.

 Chapter 1199: Iron Blood Treaty (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1199: Iron Blood Treaty (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mages cheered, but Saleen did not feel lightheaded, as they were none who came out to face him, and there were no territorial powers used against him.


    ording to Saleen¡¯s analysis, if Jason had used territories, his Puppet Constetion would not have had any effect. However, his Puppet Constetion was very powerful, which meant that the territory that had been ripped from Saleen was already restored.


    The Puppet Territory was extremely invasive, as it contained properties of the Puppet of God¡¯s heart. Saleen realized why his teacher asked to have his territory stripped after he realized its properties.


    Such properties were detrimental to mages because they added too many abilities that hindered a mage¡¯s advancement, but when the properties were transferred to a piece of equipment, it became beneficial instead.


    Saleen was able to use such equipment to do tasks usually reserved for demons, enabling easier dismantling of temples, which enabled the low level materials in the Puppet Constetion to be absorbed.


    The puppets in Puppet Constetion took the materials and created new puppets, adding to the mass of the Puppet Constetion.


    It was capable of self-evolution. At the end of the process, it would possess the power of the God of Puppets.


    A God of Puppets might even appear in the equipment, giving birth to divine fire and manifesting a divine persona. If a god appeared, they would be a part of Saleen¡¯s weapon spirit. Saleen was extremely impressed by his teacher,.


    The cheers gradually subsided. Everyone was happy because they learned something. If they only read about it, it would take them decades toprehend.


    The Puppet Constetion was miraculous. Any mage below level ten could not even aspire to obtain it.


    The mages¡¯ personal experience with the equipment could not be reced and could not be described with words.


    The Puppet Constetion shrank and the sun in the sky appeared again. The dazzling stars around disappeared as well. A ball of the size of an eye dropped into Saleen¡¯s hand.


    Saleen caressed it and sensed the Big Guy feeling relieved. The Big Guy would heal quickly in the space and no longer need to fear death.


    The Puppet Constetion took up a slot in the Starline Bangle. Saleen descended from the sky, and the mages dispersed to return to their own residences and digest everything they learned.


    The temple guards returned to their formations, heading back to their respective garrisons. Saleen went to Jason¡¯s ce after he returned to the temple.


    ¡°Teacher, I finally got what you said,¡± Saleen said when he saw his teacher. It was rare for him to skip formalities and share his excitement with his teacher.


    ¡°d you did.¡± Jason did not mind. Saleen¡¯s growth meant that his n could bepleted earlier than expected.


    Jason began telling Saleen about interdimensional spaces. The one connected to the temple was growing at breakneck speed, as if it was growing alongside Myers Maind.


    Thend around Raphael¡¯s magic tower expanded to over 300 square meters and the forest grew at an even more frightening rate. The volcano no longer erupted and most of the dust in the air settled.


    There was a hill beneath Raphael¡¯s magic tower. A huge spring appeared below the hill with freshwater fit for irrigation flowing. Furthermore, ording to the mages¡¯ calctions, the number of wellsprings would only increase.


    More wellsprings would appear below the hill, forming a river that would flow everywhere.


    Raphael had chosen the ce because it was on the path to bing a full-fledged ne. There were celestial entities in the sky and the sun was no longer bright red.


    The heat would enable nts to grow, and not just the ones native to the interdimensional space that relied on the energy provided by underground fires to survive.


    Jason told Saleen that the entire interdimensional space would surpass Saleen¡¯s kingdom sooner orter. It would be deemed fit for human living and the flying puppets created by the mages had detected sea at the end of thend. The sea would give birth to native life someday, despite only being dead water at the moment.


    ¡°What should I do then, Teacher?¡± Saleen asked for Jason¡¯s thoughts on the matter.


    ¡°Myers Maind is on its way to restoration, but things are getting increasingly worse. It¡¯s best to move all of your subjects to the interdimensional space. Unless it is interfered with by gods, it will not decay for millions of years.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a tall order.¡± Saleen was exasperated. Move everyone to the interdimensional space? No way the teleportation portal can be used for that. His kingdom had over 10 million people, and they were all very loyal.


    There were more than five million loyal subjects at Lex¡¯s side waiting to be moved. The total number of people to be moved neared 20 million.


    ¡°When the Puppet World advances to level 13, it will be able to carry living beings, and you will be able to move over a million people at once. What are you fretting about?¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit. It was impossible for him to move his subjects right away, but since there were no one in the interdimensional space at the moment, he could take his time to build a city and get farmingnds sorted out, creating the basic infrastructure that every nation needed.


    When that was done, he could move his subjects.


    He was, after all, a king, and he needed to answer to themon folk who chose to follow him. His alchemy factories would need to be moved as well, as the interdimensional space would not be a battlefield.


    If all else failed, he could sever the connection between the interdimensional space and Myers Maind. He could manage the interdimensional space.


    The Winged Skull arrived with news. The trade waspleted and Glen delivered the rest of the heart fragments of the God of Puppets. 600 ships of ores were taken away. However, there were no warships of the Devil¡¯s Horn seen and no space coordinates found on any of the inds. Glen left just like that.


    Saleen did not believe that the Devil¡¯s Horn would simply give up. He sent the water puppet to Lianyun City to inform Grand Duke Iron Blood, making it clear that he had just sealed a very huge trade between him and the Alchemy City.


    The Grand Duke, as expected, delivered different news. He told the water puppet clearly that both parties could sign a treaty tost for over 100 years, but he wanted to talk to Saleen about it in person.


    The venue was decided by Saleen. Saleen admired Grand Duke Iron Blood. The Grand Duke did not even reject the notion of having treaty negotiations take ce in Metatrin City. That meant that the Grand Duke was sincere.


    Saleen asked his teacher, and Jason answered, ¡°this Grand Duke acquired absolute power and was not the least bit worried about you crossing him out, so he agreed to it.¡±


    ¡°Absolute power?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Iron Blood has the Dragon Ind, so there is no need for him to be worried about equipment. He acquired True might Territory and corresponding equipment, bing confident that you won¡¯t be able to do him any harm, so he agreed to talk about the treaty with you and gauged what Metatrin City is capable of at the same time.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit. ¡°I understand. I¡¯ll see him in Metatrin City¡¯s royal pce. The treaty seems weird, seeing how we were enemies...¡±


    ¡°The only enemy to mages is time,¡± Jason quoted at Saleen.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll have a nice chat with him.¡± Saleen felt the world was a mystical ce. He had once wanted to destroy the very person that would soon be an ally of his. Furthermore, the Grand Duke was serious, stating that he would bring Imposa along and cease all hostilities for the moment.


    So long as they remained allies, even Imposa would not make any moves against Saleen.


    Saleen understood. Imposa would kneel and kowtow to Saleen or whatever else Saleen demanded him if it meant that he could enhance his powers. Imposa gave everything to the study of magic.


    It was like... a zealous adherent who had no faith.


    The meeting was set to happen in November. Saleen had more than a month to spare, so he took the time to get familiar with using Puppet Constetion.


    Nailisi and Eleanor were summoned back, and the outskirts of the Oceanic Ice Block were left to the Winged Skull. Saleen was confident in the Winged Skull¡¯s powers. If the full brunt of the Reaper Scythe were brought onto the enemy, not even a level ten magic shield would be able to defend against it.


    The Ancient was super powerful on its own. If he signed a treaty with the Grand Duke, both parties could seal all routes to the Oceanic Ice Block within 100 years.


    Truman had been hard at work. It was rare for Saleen to be around to teach him, and Saleen even gave a whole set of magic books to him. Truman had nock of simr equipment until he reached level 18.


    The news of Grand Duke Iron Blooding to Metatrin City was not kept secret, as the Grand Duke had an entourage of 10,000 people, heading straight for Guderian City onnd, before passing Phoenix and arriving Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City. There was no way of hiding news of 10,000-person entourage marching that far onnd.


    Safilos from Holy Rock City wrote Saleen a letter immediately, demanding to know why he had chosen to ally with the enemy nation.


    Saleen replied Safilos sincerely,ying out the feud between him, Alchemy City, and Agares. Saleen made it clear that the Grand Duke refused Misty City¡¯smand, effectively making the Grand Duke splinter from the Cloudflow Empire. Saleen saw fit to be on his good side.


    Safilos fumed over Saleen¡¯s reply. His words meant that Saleen had forgotten that the Grand Duke was still taking Lianyun City. However, with so many cities falling at the northern side of the empire, if Safilos were petty, he might have simply earned Saleen¡¯s ire.


    The 10,000-person entourage was only a show of force to make it clear to Saleen that the mage could no longer back away. The alliance between them was not forged in secret. Saleen was relieved, as it meant that the treaty mattered a lot to the Grand Duke.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s entourage finally made it to Metatrin City in the middle of November. Saleen threw a grand weing ceremony to receive the powerful noble.


    6,000 guards of honor weed their guests outside Metatrin City. The Grand Duke had left most of his people at Guderian City. Only 2,000 arrived at Metatrin City. There was even a merchant group among them, making it clear that they intended to trade with Metatrin City.


    There were two powerful ones at the grand duke¡¯s side, one of the mages reced by someone else¡ªa red-robed level ten mage. The golden grand swordmaster, Dark Blue, had advanced to be a level ten True might.


    However, Dark Blue¡¯s power paled severely inparison to the Grand Duke. He looked totally insignificant at the Grand Duke¡¯s side.


    The only notable difference that made him stand out was that his eyes had six pupils. It was a powerful thing to take note of, as it meant that he had at least 10 chances of escaping death.

 Chapter 1200: Iron Blood Treaty (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1200: Iron Blood Treaty (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Dark Blue had advanced to a True might. His blue eyes had a total of 12 pupils in them, which served as a key part of his life-saving skill. At the brink of advancement, Dark Blue had endured pain and given up a part of his life in order to restore the skill.


    During his fight with J, he had relied on that skill to severely injure J, who was the superior sword wielder.


    The red-robed level ten mage was quite young. He followed right behind the Grand Duke. ¡°This Metatrin guy sure is grand, uncle. I never expected to see Dante¡¯s Sequence used on city walls.¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood liked his nephew very much. It was not a good time to talk, but he asked, ¡°what about it? Is it very difficult?¡±


    ¡°Difficult in terms of human resources and manpower. Aplishing it needs a lot of mages. Metatrin City probably is near Alchemy City in terms of power.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, you have a point.¡±


    On a carriage behind the young mage, Imposa¡¯s broken metal-like voice was heard. ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°Rx. I¡¯m here to sign the treaty. Metatrin City could be nicer and I still wouldn¡¯t want any part of it. My sight is set on Alchemy City. The Elemental Hand has been pressing on me for over 100 years, wasting a precious chunk of my life...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve my gratitude, master.¡± Imposa stopped talking.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was relieved. Imposa was powerful enough to have the Grand Duke on guard against him, and he was afraid that the mage would decide to turn on him.


    He did not need to worry about his subordinates¡¯ equipment with Imposa around. While his nephew had been able to advance after working hard, his proficiency at alchemy remained poor.


    ¡°You¡¯re being too kind, Grand Duke. We weren¡¯t able to be a part of the deal in Daliang City, and Alchemy City took quite a lot from there. I see that Saleen and Alchemy City won¡¯t be able to stay in the same boat for long. Getting this treaty signed benefits me as well.¡±


    Saleen came from within the city to wee them while they chatted.


    Saleen wore a brimming smile and dressed up for the asion. Grand Duke Iron Bloodughed as well, as if they had never been each other¡¯s throats.


    ¡°Wee to Metatrin City, Grand Duke!¡± Saleen did not fear the Grand Duke¡¯s status as a True might. They were less than three meters away, and their horses were nose to nose.


    The Grand Duke was impressed with Saleen¡¯s courage. Even if Saleen had special methods to enhance his body, as a level ten mage, he would only beparable to a ck metal grand swordmaster.


    A level True might would not even break a sweat dealing with a ck metal grand swordmaster at a distance of three meters.


    It was incredibly bold for Saleen to appear like that while also showing immense sincerity. The Grand Duke was put at ease.


    ¡°Your Highness, about what happened between us before...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve been enemies. No holds barred, everything was fair game!¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°d to hear that. Well lead the way, Your Highness.¡± The Grand Duke saw Saleen different from he heard from rumors. The mage was so decisive with his actions that even veteran nobles paled inparison.


    Saleen turned around and nodded at Imposa in the carriage. Imposa was taken aback seeing Saleen. The young mage¡¯s powers are enhanced again!


    It was entirely normal to Imposa. Saleen was definitely a genius.


    Genius mages did not necessarily have to be the ones whose magic chords grew quickly but the ones who had the opportunities show up at their door and knew how to seize the opportunities.


    Mages carried out countless experiments during their lives, and the sess of more than half of the experiments depended on luck.


    Saleen was very lucky. Imposa was envious of him, opening the curtain of the carriage and nodding to Saleen.


    The entourage entered the city and Saleen took the Grand Duke to his pce. He did not arrange for the nobles to meet, but instead had the amodations of the Grand Duke¡¯s men arranged.


    The merchant group was arranged by the town hall to stay in the west side of the city.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was a level ten true might, which meant that he needed little rest. Saleen brought his followers to talk about the treaty when he was done arranging amodations for the Grand Duke¡¯s men.


    Negotiations were a breeze. Saleen and the Grand Duke exchanged thoughts about how things were in Qin. Both forces and turf did not even seem to have any sh of interests. Saleen had no ns of invading Qin for the time being, unless the Qin Emperor died and Prince Safilos ascended to the throne.


    Saleen asked for Guderian City to serve as the core, and the west side starting from the canal were given to Saleen, while the Grand Duke attacked Qinnds east of the canal.


    They were not true military allies, but when one party was out on a campaign, it would be the duty of the other to cooperate, such as mobilizing forces to pressure the enemy¡¯s rear.


    In ordance to the principle of mutual nonaggression, they drew out their plots of Qin¡¯snds in detail on the magic map. Saleen took the west of the canal while the Grand Duke took the east. They also discussed about carving up the Cloudflow Empire.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood requested that Saleen take control of the Separation Sea, keeping the Titan Duchy firmly in his grasp, while the Grand Duke intended to take the east side of the Cloudflow Empire as well as most of the coastal cities.


    Saleen had no disagreements with that. However, in the second part of the n to carve out Cloudflow, they would need to join forces against the Holy See.


    It was the most detailed part of the treaty, since if they intended to take control of Cloudflow, they would have to do something with the Tanggsi Empire at the north.


    After a round of detailed discussions, they agreed that it would be difficult to clear out the Holy See¡¯s forces, so their frontlines would beid somewhere south of Red River. More importantly, the Grand Duke asked Saleen to mobilize the Ancient to join forces with his Ancient to take out ck Dungeon Ind.


    That was where they first disagreed, as Saleen wanted to take out the Sikeqinya Empire first.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood said to Saleen, ¡°the Tanggsi Empire is all talk and no show, making them far easier to deal with than Sikeqinya. Sikeqinyans are difficult to conquer because they are ready to turn on you if someone pays a higher price.¡±


    Saleen knew that part of the Sikeqinyans well. ¡°Sikeqinya is where I came from. Ceylon City is now in my control and the Holy See¡¯s forces have no way of going up north. If we built a huge base around Ceylon City, then we would be able to take ck Dungeon Ind out in a pincer attack.¡±


    The Grand Duke was unwilling to attack Sikeqinya for Saleen as he knew that Sikeqinya was Saleen¡¯s birth country. Saleen probably intended to take the empire for himself while he took the Tanggsi Empire.


    They argued for quite a while before Saleen said, ¡°the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s worth is far above Sikeqinya. If it hadn¡¯t been for the Holy See taking control of the empire, with Tanggsi¡¯s inherent material resources and climate simr to Qin, the empire wouldn¡¯t be so poor. Taking out Tanggsi would benefit you far more than it would me.¡±


    Seeing how the Grand Duke was unmoved, Saleen continued, ¡°Do you know that my final goal isn¡¯t actually to take somend? I¡¯m a mage just like Imposa, and my final goal is to search for the deepest secrets of magic. I had to build my own kingdom because of the beef I have with the Holy See. I need the power of a nation to crush the Holy See!¡±


    The Grand Duke seemed to be finally moved by Saleen¡¯s words. He pondered for quite a while before saying, ¡°my family has been around for thousands of years and we have a very, very long and dark history with the Holy See. How about this then? Let¡¯s settle our treaty. Unless the Holy See falls, it¡¯ll be mutual nonaggression between us. As for attacking Tanggsi or Sikeqinya first, let¡¯s decide on that after we¡¯ve taken out the other ces. With Holy Rock City¡¯s power, it might take a few hundred years after all.¡±


    ¡°Alright, how about this then? The treatysts for 100 years. After that, we¡¯ll see if we intend to keep working as allies.¡± Saleen knew that the Grand Duke had no intention of dividing the entire maind evenly with him.


    He wanted everything and only allied with Saleen out of desperate need. Saleen¡¯s naval forces were very powerful and the Grand Duke needed his approval to go on a conquest at sea.


    ¡°Well, 100 years it is then. Your Highness Saleen, would you please have the mages draft the treaty?¡±


    Saleen nodded and called mages to his side, ironing out the details between the negotiations and writing them down on a contract scroll. The contract was tight.


    Saleen and the Grand Duke asked their mages to read the whole contract again when the writing was done, confirming that there were no magic traps, before both parties signed a contract that wouldst 100 years.


    The treaty stated that Saleen was to never mention anything about being attacked by Grand Duke Iron Blood, and Grand Duke Iron Blood was to never mention anything about Saleen taking an Ancient warship away from him.


    Saleen finally felt far safer. They were very close to each other. Saleen dared not get so close if he did not have the Figure of Fate.


    If the Grand Duke went on a rampage and killed someone, he probably would not be able toe out alive.


    With the treaty signed, they began to trade.


    Saleen took the initiative. ¡°Grand Fuke, before we trade, there¡¯s a piece of news I¡¯d like to sell to you. Do you want to know what Alchemy City bought from me?¡±


    ¡°You have my trust, Your Highness. Name your price.¡± While they were allies, important intel required currency transaction. The Grand Duke did not mind that bit of money spent. He knew that Saleen would give him his money¡¯s worth.


    ¡°I don¡¯tck magic nuclei or any of that. I need a dragon, one that is at least level ten,¡± Saleen threw out a very exorbitant price without hesitation. One level ten dragon, nothing else.


    ¡°No problem. I¡¯ll get someone to deliver it in half a month,¡± the Grand Duke answered.


    ¡°Right, the Devil¡¯s Horn of Alchemy City bought 600 ship¡¯s worth of metal ore. I can give you the list of goods bought and I¡¯ll throw in another piece of news. The Devil¡¯s Horn is said to intend to use the ore to build metal walls. Master Imposa, I take it you know what that means.¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± Imposa took the list that Saleen prepared and took a look, saying, ¡°Your highness, the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s people deceived you. They are not trying to build any wall, but they are going to build a warshiprger than the Ancient!¡±


    Saleen chuckled. He had known that the Devil¡¯s Horn would not tell him the truth. Crafting a warship would require too many special metals, and the types of metals that could be forged on his ind wereplete.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn would be able to refine ample materials from the 600 ships worth of ore.

 Chapter 1201: Ball Lightning (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1201: Ball Lightning (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was not disappointed with the information he had paid for with a dragon. The shipping manifest allowed the Grand Duke to have his mages calcte and determine what was the kind of ship the Devil¡¯s Horn was trying to build, and what attributes the ship would have.


    Imposa was a master alchemist and was superior to Saleen.


    The Grand Duke and Saleen moved to the true trade that they had set up the meeting for afterwards. Dragon Ind had lots of materials that Saleen required, such as dragon bones and fresh dragon blood.


    Dragon Blood Ink was not truly made of dragon blood but concocted by mages using herbs. If scrolls were made using real dragon blood, they would be at their most powerful. The scrolls could even carry dragon tongue magic.


    Saleen had something that the Grand Duke needed as well. Wood from the north served as material for crafting merchant ships, and even warships needed wood for interior spaces. The Grand Duke was in no shortage of magic nuclei; what he needed was magic power furnaces.


    Saleen had no worry about the Grand Duke reverse-engineering the furnaces, as they were difficult to craft even if one had schematics. For example, only one of therge magic power furnaces had beenpleted even though over 10,000 mages had worked at it.


    It would be difficult to gather materials to craft another one, and the possibility of getting into the intricate parts and unlocking crafting secrets without schematics was practically zero.


    The Grand Duke had an Ancient, and he would not need to purchase magic power furnaces from Saleen if it had been so easy.


    It was not worth uninstalling the magic power furnace on the Ancient, as the worth of the warship was far above taking it apart and getting the furnace within.


    Saleen was capable of crafting magic power furnaces and the Grand Duke no doubt wanted to get his hands on the schematics, but it was impossible. He would not be stupid enough to put up such a request.


    As such, he took the lesser alternative and requested that the furnaces be sold to him at a discount, hoping to pay for them with special materials from Dragon Ind.


    Saleen did not bother ying any tricks on the magic power furnaces requested, as what the Grand Duke needed was simply small and middle scale ones, which could be mass produced in Metatrin City.


    Saleen reduced his profit margin on the sale of the magic power furnaces to 300%, which meant that if crafting a magic power furnaces would cost 100 gold, Saleen would sell them for 400. The price was fair as nowhere else was capable of crafting such ancient equipment.


    Saleen refused to sell them for gold, as it meant little to him. The four Grand Dukes of his own kingdom, including Aini, were all capable businesspeople and versed in management. Saleen nevercked funds.


    What Saleen needed was material to arm his temple guards. Elvish alchemy crossbows required dragon sinew and dragon horn to craft. Wings of an Elf required dragon scales and hide. Equipment made out of refined materials would exceed the elves¡¯ design in performance.


    The trade was satisfactory for both parties. Grand Duke Iron Blood acquired the magic power furnaces that he needed and Saleen acquired dragon materials, which he would hand to the alchemy factories after restocking, crafting standard equipment for the temple guards.


    Imposa purchased quite a number of materials from Saleen, and the products he used for trading were exquisitely crafted mage equipment. Imposa was the most powerful alchemist that he hade across other than Jason.


    The equipment that he crafted had better attributes than the ones that Saleen crafted personally.


    Even if he had simr materials, Saleen was unable to manipte them like Imposa. Imposa was capable of creating powerful one-time-use equipment using onlymon materials.


    Saleen paid little heed to durability. To him, equipment capable of performing to specification at key moments qualified as good equipment.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood stayed in the city for three more days. His merchants purchased huge amounts of supplies from Saleen¡¯s city, including some metal and war time essentials.


    Saleen even sold some elvish pills, which were easy to store and carry around. One pill would rid of a person of any hunger for ten days to half a month.


    The pills were not like holy water, created using divine arts, and prolonged use would not affect health. The elvesmonly ate them all the time, which was why they were all strong and ferocious.


    Food storage, even using magic warehouses, had its limit. The elvish pills were capable of being stored for prolonged periods, keeping their effectiveness even after 10,000 years.


    Saleen sent the Grand Duke off in the middle of November, and something finally happened at Daliang City.


    The mages from Alchemy City went on a rampage to take Daliang City, Lex¡¯s pce serving as Daliang City¡¯s core. The magic of the pce was activated when the mages from Alchemy City went on a rampage, and all the other parts of the magic were shut down.


    The mages from Alchemy City suffered heavy casualties. Holy Rock City chose to side with their own¡ªLex, whose surname was Grukos.


    Lex talked with Saleen using magic arrays and told Saleen to stay put. She made a list cataloguing required war equipment and told Nailisi to send her some demonic spirits.


    Demonic spirits suffered higher casualties in the battle with the mages from Alchemy City.


    Saleen had no need go, as Holy Rock City had taken the opportunity to send hundreds of mages to Daliang City, and most of them came from the Golden ins.


    Saleen calcted for a bit and concluded that he needed to continue searching for temples. The temples were too well-stocked, and the things the goddess had left behind were precious.


    Furthermore, the goddess had been a powerful mage before ascending to godhood. Many material supplies that she left behind were specifically for mages.


    It was a pity that Sika was unable to apany Saleen on the trip. She was at the precipice of advancement into level ten. It could take her one or two years, or it could take her up to ten, which was the longest it would take. Sika would be an extremely powerful priest.


    Agares was still watching Saleen from the shadows, and he deemed it best to have Nailisi tag along after weighing his options. The Winged Skull was still searching for the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s warship, and there was no other choice but to leave the management of the fleet at the Oceanic Ice Block to it.


    There was other good news¡ªBain had fully recovered from his injuries. The veteran assassin was only at level nine at the moment. Due to his aging body, Nichs needed to continuously cast divine spells on him to make his body grow younger.


    Any hidden ailments would cost Bain¡¯s life otherwise and any talk of advancement would be futile.


    Nichs had no idea what the thing that Bain had taken from Glorious City actually was, but it seemed that not even the ones from the city knew what it was. The ruins¡¯ existence was not recorded in the city¡¯s database after all.


    Saleen chose a temple north of Qin. The reason he chose that temple was because he had came to an agreement with Grand Duke Iron Blood in their plots to take northern Qin. There was no way for the Grand Duke¡¯s army to cross the canal and attack Saleen¡¯s forces.


    Furthermore, Don had established a knights corps serving the Nature Faith and had amassed adherents in hundreds of thousands.


    Qin originally believed in gods, but no one had any prejudices against the Goddess of Nature. The first doctrine of the goddess¡¯ teachings was to repel any god who did not originate from Myers Maind after all.


    To northern Qin people, they needed a force like that to bring everyone together and unite them against the Holy See.


    Saleen intended to head to northern Qin to open up a temple for Don to serve as a base for propagation purposes.


    A religion with a hundred thousand adherents was too small. Compared to Qin, which had a poption of over a hundred million, the Nature Faith was but a framework.


    Saleen set out with four of his followers on November 25. His Magical Element Tower flew in the skies without making a sound, heading straight for the temple¡¯s coordinates north of Qin.


    Saleen left the water puppet behind to pose as him, who was still organizing activities within the temple and giving magic lectures to the mages.


    Saleen wanted to find out if there was a spy in their midst. There was no way Agares could watch him when he was flying that high. If Agares still managed to find him, then there was something wrong with someone around him.


    Something wrong with the Sreeger Ind mages? Saleen did not buy that. If something was wrong with someone, it could only be a temple guard or a close nobles.


    Among the four dukes, Aini would definitely not betray him. The one who would was Irene.


    The magic tower flew south at 300 miles per hour. The distance between their destination and Metatrin City was but over 8000 miles away. Saleen was able to reach the temple¡¯s location within just two days.


    Saleen found thunderclouds gathering beneath his tower after flying for a day. The tower¡¯s altitude had reached over 10,000 meters. Saleen learned that thunderclouds typically formed between 8,000 and 16,000 meters. At an altitude of 10,000 meters, the temperature had dropped to freezing.


    It was easy for lightning to form at such a height. The Magical Element Tower was capable of withstanding lightning attacks, but evenmon lightning could be fatal to professionals, as the temperature could easily reach over 10,000 degrees, a temperature capable of burning up most equipment.


    Having found lightning forming beneath him all of a sudden, Saleen let the magic hover in midair and observed the secrets of lightning up close.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to see lightning bolts shooting at the ground from the thick clouds in the air. The resulting thunder was so powerful that not even the Magical Element Tower was able to shut the sound outpletely.


    Lightning branched out like trees, but its branches were far less visible. The energy dissipated in an instant, making it very tiring for Saleen to watch.


    Pure water element did not conduct electricity. Saleen released water elemental creatures to test if lightning was capable of harming said creatures.


    A dark blue flying fish swam in the clouds and ball-shaped lightning seeped into the water elemental creature, which vaporized it in an instant.


    It was the first time Saleen witnessed ball-shaped lightning, which was was divided into ck and white types. The one that killed the water elemental creature was ck. Saleen continued to release water elemental creatures. A water snake was killed by a white type ball lightning.


    The lightning seemed to have its sights on certain targets, attacking living beings. Interest welled up in Saleen, as the lightning¡¯s energy was slow to dissipate. Saleen was even able to see one hit the ground, which stayed intact for a while without dissipating.

 Chapter 1202: Ball Lightning (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1202: Ball Lightning (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen mimicked what he saw and cast a lightning attack, but the one that he cast was so weak that it could only numb his enemies. The power of lightning in nature was very powerful, but was unable to stay intact for long.


    That was the first time Saleen saw a ball-shaped lightning, and it reversed everything Saleen knew about lightning.


    Thunder resulted from the explosive release of lightning, which was imbued with stunning properties, so much so it was better at stunning than dragon¡¯s might.


    ¡°Master, let¡¯s go.¡± Nailisi had the Lightning Protection skill with her, but lightning in nature frightened her.


    ¡°Why do we need to? This ce is nice for research.¡±


    ¡°Master, it¡¯s winter, and lightning appearing in winter is a bad omen.¡± Nailisi¡¯s words almost made Saleenugh.


    ¡°Your master is an astrologer, alright.¡±


    Saleen had just finished speaking when a ck ball shaped lightning phased through the Magical Element Tower¡¯s walls and hit the tower¡¯s 19th floor.


    The demonic spirits watched the lightning sh outside with terrified expressions. The ball-shaped lightning that entered seemed harmless.


    A demonic spirit extended their hand to touch it out of curiosity. The lightning hovered in the tower, evading the one intending to touch it and hit another one instead. The unlucky demonic spirit did not even get to yell before they were reduced to a pile of charcoal.


    ¡°That thing can phase through the tower!¡± Saleen yelled. No professional below level 12 could do anything against his Magical Element Tower. Professionals between level 13 to 15 would need a lot of time to find a weakness they could exploit. The ball lightning snuck into his tower without Saleen even sensing how it got inside.


    ¡°Bad omen!¡± Nailisi saw the lightning phase inside the tower, but she didn¡¯t know that a demonic spirit had died.


    Saleen grew increasingly reluctant to leave. He released another low level elemental creature and wrapped it in his own dark clouds, sending it outside the tower. The low level elemental creature was a fire spider. It was wrapped in ayer of Water Shield imbued with lightning patterns.


    Another ball of white lightning appeared and headed straight for the fire spider. The dark clouds that the spider was wrapped in were infused were Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water. Saleen saw the ball enter the cloud and kick up energy ripples in the dark clouds.


    The energy infused in the ball was so terrifying that not even the water element essence in the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water was able to defend against it.


    Saleen felt weird. The ball lightning did not seem to consume much energy in movement, so why did it exhibit offensive attributes as soon as it entered the dark clouds?


    He was, after all, human, and it was impossible for him to cast a thick stream of lightning attack like the badge. However, if he unlocked the secrets of the lightning, it would be possible for him to use simr moves.


    The lightning patterns on the Water Shield were practically useless. The white ball lightning punched through the Water Shield and hit the spider, disintegrating it in mere seconds.


    Saleen, however, was put at ease. Lightning attacks had two parts. There was no need to mention about thunder as any living being without a soul would not be able to defend against it. The ones with souls would probably be injured at their souls instead.


    The lightning bolt was capable of destroying any living being. Any matter would melt in the high temperatures, and Saleen even found that lightning over a million degrees could appear.


    It was not the most powerful lightning attack. Despite the ball lightning¡¯s attack being so peculiar, Saleen did not find its energy exchange any different than conventional lightning attacks.


    Why did lightning did not exchange energy when it passed through the clouds and phased through the walls of the Magical Element Tower? Why was there no dissipation and no loss?


    It meant one thing¡ªthe ball lightning was stable to maintain a ball shape. Under the works of some rules, ball lightning was capable of maintaining such states.


    Saleen took control of the Magical Element Tower and began to release puppets. Elemental creatures were more precious, while his puppets could simply be revived in the Puppet Constetion even if they were destroyed. Every single puppet functioned like they were weapon spirits.


    So long as the main weapon spirit maintaining the Puppet Constetion remained alive, the other weapon spirits within could keep reviving.


    It was just a matter of energy cost, and Saleen did not mind at all.


    A mid-level puppet would not even cost a level three magic nucleus to be revived.


    The puppets flew outside the tower d in Water Shield, testing the power of the lightning for Saleen. The tower itself no longer hovered at one spot, opting to fly around instead.


    Lightning powers continued to be unleashed within the clouds very high in the sky. Saleen was able to see through the clouds with his Elemental Eye and look at the ground, finding a majestic, tall church on the ground.


    The Holy See is building a church here? Saleen took a piece of white rock and threw it out of the Magical Element Tower. The rock weighed thousands of pounds, and it was thrown from an altitude of over 10,000 meters, heading straight for the top of the church.


    It was not magic of any kind; it was pure physical destruction.


    The white rock passed through the clouds andnded squarely on the roof on the church. Seeing the top of the church crushed by the rock and the walls around crumbled by the resulting shockwave, Saleen felt a lot better.


    There might have been some good, decent people in the Holy See, but it would not be the holy master who ran from the copsing church.


    There were few balls of lightning, but there were still quite a number that ended up inside the Magical Element Tower. The stunning defensive capacity that the tower had been so proud of waspletely meaningless before the ball lightning.


    Saleen watched how the holy master rescued their believers while observing the formation of ball lightning.


    There were no magic patterns in the clouds. The power of nature remained a mystery to mages. No one knew how long it would take them to truly be able to gaze at the truth of the world.


    Saleen gradually gained someprehension on how ball lightning was capable of phasing through solid matter. Lightning was a type of element but smaller than the six major elements known to all mages and very difficult to control using mental powers.


    What Saleen was able to see with his Elemental Eye was not even the true nature of lightning. Matter that the Elemental Eye was able to perceive was of the size of an element particle¡¯s diameter.


    The standard element diameter was based on water. The lightning element particle was millions of times smaller than that of the water element.


    Furthermore, the six major elements were very stable, while lightning was constantly in flux. Saleen¡¯s current level of mental powers enabled him to observe it for less than a minute, before giving him a headache.


    Saleen was unable to look into the flux patterns and details, but was able to see what conditions allowed lightning to phase through matter. Most of the 10,000 puppets were destroyed by lightning, providing him with massive amounts of data.


    Saleen cast Water me in his hand and tornadoes appeared around the tower. The tornadoes were under Saleen¡¯s control, forming a tube. A ball lightning zipped by and went straight into the tube of the tornado.


    Saleen was ted to see that in the tornado, there was next to no exchange of energy in the ball lightning, passing through the tube and flying to the other side.


    ¡°Master...¡±


    Intense admiration was seen in Nailisi¡¯s eyes when she saw what was happening. It was not due to conventional infatuation, but because the powers disyed by Saleen were impressive.


    There were many tornadoes and only one was able to ship the ball lightning away, but it had been a stunning result. To mages, one sess would definitely lead to another one.


    ¡°Teacher, that¡¯s just...unbelievable!¡± Truman was watching as well. Despite not having learned Saleen¡¯s lightning rules, he realized what it meant.


    Thest one that Saleen brought with him was Eleanor, who was learning lightning rules. While herprehension of lightning was still very shallow, she had a lot to gain from watching the scene.


    ¡°Saleen, this can¡¯t be possible!¡±


    Saleen smiled. ¡°It isn¡¯t me. It¡¯s just that the rules of the ball lightning are weird.¡±


    ¡°Well, master, let¡¯s just stay put.¡± Seeing how Saleen learned so much, Nailisi decided to stay despite the risk. The sess was difficult to replicate, but he remembered the details that led to the sess, enabling him to test it over and over.


    His Water me Alchemy had Tornado and Snowkill in it when cast, costing only mental powers and not magic chords.


    To Saleen, his mental power capacity far exceeded his magic chords, so much so that his mental powers seemed inexhaustible.


    Saleen did not continue experimenting as there were not many balls of lightning. The branch-like lightning bolts were incapable of being blocked or nullified. A bolt of lightning was all it would take to destroy anything that was thrown outside the tower, regardless of if they were puppets or elemental creatures.


    It seemed as if the lightning was being absorbed into the ground.


    Earth element in the earth was extremelyplex, and the formation of lightning in the sky seemed to have something to do with the earth. Earth element, power of stars...


    A train of thought gradually formed in Saleen¡¯s mind. It was unfortunate that people who studied lightning skills were few and far between even among ancient humans, with hardly any documents left behind for Saleen to learn from.


    ¡°Teacher.¡± Truman saw the holy masters on the ground were leading the believers in prayers through the projection array of the tower. A huge bolt of lightning shot down to the earth, and three of the prayer believers were killed.


    The believers scattered in terror and no longer followed the holy master in prayer. No one even wanted to be near the church.


    Not a lot of the church ended up destroyed. A rock was far from capable of destroying an entire church, but it would put a lot of stress in the minds of the people.


    Dark clouds gathered in the sky. Lightning shed and thunder rumbled. It was incredibly rare in winter. Furthermore, a rock had just shot down from the clouds and destroyed a portion of the church, followed by believers killed by a lightning bolt.


    The believers were the ones gathered in Qin and had not spent a long time embracing the faith of the Lord of Glory. Their faith wascking stability.


    With something that could not be exined taking ce, the faith that the believers held was shaken to the core. Some believers even began to show signs of falling.


    ¡°Where is the light? Where is the light?¡± A believer shouted at the sky like a mad man.


    Arger piece of rock dropped from the sky and this time, it was a pir with holy prose carved on it. Saleen had acquired it from the temples, and half of it was already rotten. The pir, which was about four meters long, swooped down and fell right onto the shouting believer, reducing them to a pile of scattered meat and blood.


    ¡°Those who betrays their faith shall be punished by god!¡± The holy master called out in vain. Truman found something in the dimension stone that Saleen handed to him that could be thrown, intending to crush the holy master with it.

 Chapter 1203: Nature City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1203: Nature City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    There were times where there was no need to kill enemies with special weapons. Truman was simply looking for trash in the dimension stone. After Saleen gained possession of the Starline Ring, he no longer found himself out of storage space.


    The dimension stone was used considerably less as a result. There were items that had not been cleared out when taking apart temples en masse.


    Among the items, there were stone statues without any attributes. While the statues were not actually worthless, given how nobles would buy them with a considerable amount of gold, the so-called art pieces were little more than garbage to mages.


    Truman was looking for garbage to throw. He had no way of actually carrying rocks weighing thousands, or even tens of thousands of pounds, but he could wrap it in wind element, enabling him to take aim.


    Due to the growing noise of the church on the ground getting trashed, the shouts of the holy masters were muffled. The believers were unable to suppress their fear and scattered.


    The holy masters were exasperated. They had objectives to achieve with building a church in a ce like that. The believers were little more than smokescreens, and it hardly mattered if they ran. They could just get more from the empire.


    However, with the church trashed and rocks and statues falling from the sky, four holy masters had already died. They were all low level holy masters and utterly incapable of defending against things dropping on them from the sky.


    The church was huge. Despite having thrown many rocks at it, Truman was unable to destroy the ce entirely. He only ended up destroying half of the walls and a clock tower.


    There had been guardian knights and a red-robed bishop stationed there, but heretics appeared, and the red-robed bishop led the knights corps on an expedition to crush them.


    With the surrounding armed forces mobilized, the church emptied and the low level holy masters were unable to do anything about attacksing from the sky.


    More than 20 holy masters stood on an open field and chanted prayers. Truman, who was high up in the sky, had no idea what the holy masters were up to. He resorted to simply taking out a magic fire shell and throwing it at them.


    Saleen carried a hefty amount of magic fire shells with him, and Truman threw hundreds at them. The shells formed a ring and exploded one after another, giving birth to raging fires.


    The holy masters continued chanting prayers in the raging fires. It was unfortunate for them that the magic fire shells were very lethal, and the ssh damage was capable of burning their targets to the bone.


    High temperatures, toxins, and a rapidly depleting air supply quickly stole the holy masters¡¯ ability to continue chanting, burning them where they stood.


    The church was not built in the city, but in the remote wilderness. The fires could be worse and would not end up harming innocents.


    Truman looked for targets in the church after he was done with the holy masters, but he was unable to find any worthy of attack. The Magical Element Tower stayed in the sky and the rest of Saleen¡¯s entourage focused their attention on observing the lightning¡¯s secrets.


    Ball lightning phased into the tower every now and then. Saleen found that the lightning did not necessarily need to attack living beings. They could simply remain hovering aimlessly until dissipating.


    Saleen had released over 10,000 puppets by then, watching them being reduced to dust by the lightning in a myriad of ways.


    Saleen did not dare cast Puppet Constetion. The equipment might have been strong, but there was no way it could resist the power of lightning in nature. The Magical Element Tower took a hit from the branch-like lightning bolts.


    Saleen was perceptive enough to sense that the power absorbed from that hit was dispersed to every single inch of the elementite. Some of the energy from the lightning was sent into the dimension stones, and the mechanical core of the Sky City also absorbed some energy.


    Seeing that the mechanical core was capable of absorbing energy, Saleen looked over therge scale magic power furnace again, finding that the furnace was incapable of absorbing the scattered energy. If he had been able to send the ball lightning into it, things might have turned out very differently.


    It was unfortunate that other than that one time when Saleen seeded in attracting a ball lightning using a tornado, he never seeded in doing so again.


    Saleen was hardly discouraged. His luck had been good enough to get him one idental sess, enabling him to continue attempting to manipte the ball lightning, feeling every attempt being very near seeding.


    It was not peculiar for mages to repeat their experiments over 10,000 times. A mage like Saleen who possessed such powerful mental powers was capable of running 10 to 100 experiments in one go. It would not cost him a lot to repeat experiments over 10,000 times either.


    The trait became increasingly apparent as a mage rose in level. Low level mages were only capable of performing one or two experiments in one go, and their lives were short, which was why it seemed so unusually difficult to advance.


    Mages relied on hard work before reaching level seven, but relied on talent beyond level seven.


    Despite not being able toprehend how the lightning formed and not developing a way of manipting ball lightning, the lightning patterns on Saleen¡¯s Water Shield looked increasingly clear and simplified, erasing parts that proved unnecessary.


    The number of lightning runes on his eyes grew to a staggering 360,000. The standard size of the lightning runes was the size of an element particle.


    Saleen knew that if he were able to thoroughly decipher the lightning runes as they were supposed to be, the runes could be made over 1,000 times smaller than they were at the moment. If that proved to be the case, he would end up learning 360 million lightning runes.


    Magic with over 360,000 runes was practically unheard of. Most magic had between 360 and 3,600. The most powerful magic that Saleen knew required chanting 36,000 magic runes.


    Few mages were willing to learn such magic, as it was impossible to use mental powers to guide magic chords to enable silent casting when one just began to learn a new spell.


    A new spell meant that one had to start all over, every single syble of the runes pronounced correctly. How long would it take to chant 36,000 runes? And how long would it take to repeat the chanting until one was able to achieve silent casting?


    It was hardly surprising why so few learned lightning magic even in ancient times. It required the mage to possess unparalleled mental powers. It would take up to 10,000 experiments to achieve the rate of progressparable to learningmon magic.


    Saleen was not discouraged. He had acquired the ring from Arb and if the ring waspletely restored, it would expand his mental powers to a frightening level. It was possible to train in lightning magic once he possessed powerful mental powers.


    Furthermore, lightning magic needed powerful mental powers when picking spells up. Once a mage mastered a lightning spell, it would cost little more than ten times the mental powers needed to mastermon magic spells at most.


    It would enable a mage to cast spells that were beyond their level. Even though no other mage learned lightning magic, Saleen saw a need to try.


    Saleen, Nailisi, and Eleanor all developed someprehension of lightning magic, which was why all of them were steeped in observation and research.


    Isabe and Truman knew nothing of lightning and did not intend to take the path. They simply observed the ground below to see if there was anything from the ruins that needed to be cleared out.


    Time flew and the observation took Saleen over ten days. December came without any of them noticing and the ruins were dead. Nobody from the Holy See appeared, and the clouds that had gathered around dissipated.


    Saleen felt once more that the earth contained a myriad of mystical powers and matter.


    The dark clouds were probably formed because of minerals underground.


    The sky and the earth were never separate. The rtionship between earth and wind, as well as between water and fire, had always been a mystical and beautiful subject to mages.


    Saleen did not have to stay around if there were no clouds. The church was gone and there was no need to look for fights with the Holy See.


    Saleen allowed the water puppet to take control of the magic tower and continue heading south. The price for the learning process was losing over 100 demonic spirits.


    Nailisi resorted to summoning more demonic spirits from the purgatory of the devils, replenishing the number to 3,600.


    Due to the setback, Saleen took the Magical Element Tower at a lower altitude. He looked around with his Elemental Eye, seeing if it was possible to find Agares.


    He found nothing. He contacted Daliang City and the mages from Holy Rock had taken over the posts that originally belonged to people from Alchemy City, fighting the Holy See with Agares¡¯ mages.


    The number of fossilized gods in the cemetery of the giant began to dwindle, but Saleen knew that there were more fossilized gods waiting in the deeper reaches of the cemetery.


    Furthermore, the fossilized gods in the energy barrier were far higher levels than the ones outside. Jalin almost died, and that was from only one or two fossilized gods going for her head.


    If every single fossilized god within the energy barrier was awakened, Saleen spected that it would take the entire maind¡¯s professionals to fight against them before it even became possible for them toe out on top.


    Saleen did not worry about the treasures of the cemetery of the giant being taken away. The mages from Golden ins, who knew what was going on, simply could not afford to venture inside. They simply waited to see if there were any changes happening to the cemetery, before talking about going in deep.


    A new city emerged in northern Qin: the Nature City that Don had been building.


    The location of Nature City was at the coordinates of the temple that Saleen knew about. Don did not know the details, and Saleen had simply told him to build a city there to spare himself further trouble.


    None of Saleen¡¯s men stayed at Don¡¯s side to help. The knights corps of the Nature Faith expanded to 10,000, protecting Nature City.


    Thending of Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower caused quite a ruckus in the city. The nature holy masters almost attacked Saleen¡¯s tower.


    Don built a simple, unceremonious temple at the center of the city. Saleen¡¯s towernded right on the za in front of the temple. He walked out of the tower and was received by Don and several hundred knights. There were over 100 holy masters by Don¡¯s side.


    ¡°Greetings, Your Highness.¡± Don bowed to Saleen solemnly before turning to the holy masters around him. ¡°This is the king of the Kingdom of Metatrin, and a backer of the Nature Faith. It is thanks to His Highness¡¯ help that we¡¯re able to spread the faith.¡±


    The holy masters all sported expressions of reverence. Nature Faith¡¯s doctrines were unlike the Holy See. The nature holy masters were very respectful to the ones who backed the faith financially, as the Nature Faith promised nothing in return.


    Even if you donated to the cause, your soul still would not be destined for heaven.


    The Nature Faith had amicable rtions with the nobles in the early days because the doctrines of Nature Faith were not aggressive and invasive. The Holy See, on the other hand, had taken thend that had the most resources in the Tanggsi Empire.

 Chapter 1204: Nature City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1204: Nature City (Part 2)</h4>


    Don never mentioned how the establishment of the faith came about, and the effect was actually better than if he talked about it prior.


    Saleen entered the temple with a crowd around him. The simple temple was built out ofmon green stones, but the nature holy prose carved on them was exquisite.


    Saleen sat at a long table and had Isabe take out materials, assembling a magic array on the table before putting a memory crystal on it, activating the schematics within.


    ¡°Don, you have enough Heaven Knight Armor to arm your knight corps. I¡¯ll provide a sturdy city for the Nature Faith, which would allow the faith to be well protected.¡±


    ¡°This ce doesn¡¯t seem to be the right spot for building a faith¡¯s sacred ground,¡± Don refuted.


    Saleen smirked. ¡°I signed a hundred-year-treaty with Grand Duke Iron Blood. While this ce may be close to the canal, there is no risk of getting attacked by the Grand Duke¡¯s army. Just keep a close eye on the Holy See. Unless you¡¯re telling me that 100 years are not enough for you to build an invincible army.¡±


    Don shut up. He never understood why Saleen wanted to build a city there, as the terrain was too t and devoid of any natural protections. The only relief was that there was a lone hill not far away from the city, which could be used to construct a fortress that would be closely linked to the city.


    Saleen expanded the magic projections and revealed a huge magic map, suspended within the temple. Saleen pointed at the outline of Nature City and activated the magic array, saying, ¡°The city is to be expanded by ten times what it is now, taking in the fortress as well.¡±


    The magic projection disyed the city Saleen designed as he spoke. The green city was incredibly beautiful and a creature that the Goddess of Nature had created¡ªa kaplon¡ªwas flying in the sky.


    Magic veins hung from the city¡¯s walls, and the buildings within the city were all made of magic wood materials. A huge temple that was hundreds of meters tall sat at the center of the city, overseeing the surroundings.


    A river was designed as well, which was excavated and from over 600 miles away from the city, which could be guided to flow into the canal. The river was branched 600 miles away and a huge reservoir needed to be built to irrigate the fields near Nature City.


    The holy masters were in awe. The city was beautiful. Theyered buildings all looked like artwork. It captured the hearts of everyone who saw it, and even the ones who knew nothing about art were captivated at a spiritual level.


    ¡°How much...is all of this going to cost?¡± Some holy masters could not help but ask.


    ¡°Can faith be weighed in gold?¡± Saleen uttered a line that sounded like the pretentious sham than any priest said. If a mage heard Saleen utter such a line, they would throw Fireballs at him. However, the holy masters were moved.


    Even if His Highness Saleen was not a believer, he seemed to be very close to god.


    The hundred or so holy masters around them were the earliest batch of adherents of the Nature Faith, with the exception of the ones who had betrayed the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen addressed the minor holy masters, the elders of the faith in the future. ¡°I¡¯m only building Nature City for the goddess as an individual. I implore every one of you to bear witness that I¡¯m going to make it so that the goddess will advent on the maind again, and cast the Lord of Glory, the fiend of a god, out of Myers Maind!¡±


    The words that Saleen spoke contradicted Nature Faith¡¯s teachings. However, none of the holy masters caught on, as the Lord of Glory¡¯s presence had been around on the maind for generations.


    Everyone had an impression that so long as the Lord of Glory was present, no other gods were allowed to propagate their faiths.


    As such, it was not actually the Goddess of Nature¡¯s problem for wanting to cast the Lord of Glory out, as it had been the Lord of Glory who refused to tolerate the Goddess of Nature¡¯s existence in the first ce.


    Saleen¡¯s words were extremely seditious. ¡°If I begin building the city now, Nature City will be built within the next three days.¡±


    ¡°Three days?¡± Even Don found that unbelievable.


    ¡°From this day onward, the goddess¡¯ teachings shall shine on thisnd,¡± Saleen said as he cast Puppet Constetion.


    Saleen yed his hand well, as he was not actually duping the believers entirely. He was fated to help Myers resurrect, and he would pour his heart and soul into it. The contract between them would only be fulfilled when the goddess was resurrected.


    The huge Puppet Constetion hovered in the air and shrouded the entire Nature City. The sparse poption of the city all saw the sun disappear and stars rise. The sky was wlessly pure. It was a blue color that neared ck.


    The rate of the stars at work had not originally been observable with the naked eye, but at that moment, everyone saw how the stars worked and they felt rather insignificant.


    That was fate¡ªthe fate of people. It was just like how they were able to see the stars, and that even if they were able to see how the stars ran, there was simply nothing they could do to alter them.


    Powerful people fought against fate, but they were destined to perish sooner orter. Such was the fragility of humans, and gods were no exemption as well!


    The adherents of Nature Faith all knew that the goddess had perished, but she would once again rise on Myers Maind. It was a message that the goddess had left, and one that every adherent believed with all their heart.


    The stars shrouded thend and countless puppets emerged. All manners of construction materials piled into mountains before the temple, and more still emerged from Saleen¡¯s space equipment.


    The puppets began building Nature City per Saleen¡¯s instructions. Saleen¡¯s Puppet Constetion had an area of effect of 12 miles, which was the diameter of Nature City. Saleen had no intention of building a bigger city. Expanding it any further would cost him too much mental power and life force.


    No way I¡¯m going to go that far for the goddess!


    Saleen lost over 60,000 puppets researching lightning in the clouds. Half of the lost puppets were restored and he still had 470 thousand puppets in standby in the equipment. None of the 470,000 were lower than level four. All of them were frighteningly strong constructs, and they came in very handy for building a city.


    The reason why ancient humans created puppets was to use them for construction, notbat.


    Even fully constructed puppets, the kind able to carry out veryplex tasks, were just tools that ancient humans used to manipte other tools.


    Don was shocked at what Saleen was doing. He is trying to build an exquisite city all on his own. Just how powerful Saleen are mental powers?


    Among the puppets, over 99% of them had no sense of aesthetics. It came down to Saleen to watch the details of bringing the exquisite design of the city to life.


    The newly built city expanded outwards, Saleen at the center. Multiple underground passages were dug by the puppets. Some were meant for transporting, some were for water, and some others were tools forbat.


    Furthermore, transportation of goods, food storage, and all the functions that were standard to Qin cities were in Nature City.


    Underground construction was incrediblyplex, but the constructions needed noprehension or appreciation for art. All buildings above ground were built with abination of the goddess¡¯ style, Qin¡¯s sense of aesthetics, as well as the holy prose carvings, making every single building lookplex and exquisite.


    More and more puppets arrived. The reason Saleen was confident enough to say that they would finish constructing Nature City was because the puppets were all conditioned prior.


    Furthermore, all construction materials were crafted in the alchemy factories. Evenmon wood materials could be made into precious materials.


    The mages crafted the materials ording to schematics. What the puppets were doing was simply assembling and installing the material, which was an easy job. With the construction of every buildingpleted, Saleen controlled Puppet Constetion, raining power of the stars from above and activating the magic array, reinforcing all the buildings. There were no cracks found at assembly points.


    The holy masters were right to ask just how much is this going to cost?


    Saleen paid no heed to cost, as many of the materials used were acquired from taking the temples apart. There were few that had valuable attributes left on them due to weathering.


    He had brought the materials out when he was taking the temples precisely to build a city that belonged to the goddess.


    He chose the north instead of the south, as it was closer to his own kingdom, making it easy for him to destroy the city if he needed to.


    Saleen was not actually the only one who was doing all of it. 3,600 demonic spirits from the Magical Element Tower helped Saleen with assembly of the modr construction pieces using a magic.


    Many of the materials looked old as they were derived from temple materials that had been sitting around for 10,000 years.


    Don was speechless. Saleen was ying god. It would not be weird for ancient humans to pull off such a feat, but Saleen was able to build the Nature City in just three days, using a special equipment like the Puppet Constetion.


    Nailisi summoned huge amounts of demonic spirits, demons, and imps from the purgatory of the devil to fill the city up. Some revived fallen believers gushed out from the purgatory to help with adding new holy prose to the city.


    The Kaplon appeared as well. It was a beautiful creature, and had vibrant feathers growing all over its body. It was lithe and winding, devoid of any sharp fangs.


    The creature was effective in repelling harmful magic beasts and pests. With such a creature guarding a ce, crops would grow in abundance.


    Menace from pests such as rats and locusts would never happen in a ce where a Kaplon lived.


    A Kaplon was a type of puppet. Saleen did not originally possess the schematics, but acquired it from the Big Guy. As a result, there were few Kaplons in the Puppet Constetion.


    The demons began nting flora in the city. The seeds of the nts were all provided by Eleanor. Saleen created growth pharmaceuticals which, when mixed with restorative water and pure rainwater, enabled nts to grow after being watered for three minutes.


    From the standpoint of construction cost, Nature City was more expensive to build than Metatrin City.

 Chapter 1205: Fate is Inevitable (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1205: Fate is Inevitable (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen mobilized over 10,000 mages to build the city. Over 100 magic towers and countless magic nuclei were used in the magic power furnaces.


    Saleen usedmon materials instead of high level ones in order to achieve maximum speed, which meant that they needed to be reinforced with magic and have their attributes boosted.


    If it had not been for his alchemy factories possessing great numbers of magic power furnaces, it would ce a serious toll on even someone like Saleen.


    Saleen built a huge city in just three days. The city leaned against a tall lone hill and canals were excavated outside the city, which was tasked to the demons for the time being. Saleen needed to attend to something more important¡ªopen up a temple.


    The Nature Knights were deployed and began summoning adherents. There were already about 400,000 people who embraced the Nature Faith in northern Qin.


    The adherents came to the holy city for pilgrimage, and they were allowed to choose to live there. The Nature Goddess was capable of making good weather and ensuring crops grow in abundance. It was lethally attractive to the Qin.


    The Cloudflow people jeered at Qin people for being countryside dorks, not only because of their aristocratic pride, but also because Qin loved thend too much. Some Qin nobles even got themselves plots ofnd just to nt things.


    The plots were not allowed to be touched by anyone else, as the nobles themselves would nt things on them personally. It was a type of satisfaction that the Cloudflow people would never know. The Cloudflow people inherited the Fourth Dynasty¡¯s tradition, making them too extravagant,cent, andzy.


    Holy masters were sent out as well. There were only about 100 holy masters in a believer poption of 400,000. The ratio was too small, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Anyone could be made a believer but only people who fulfilled rtively strict requirements could be holy masters.


    Especially so with the holy masters of the Nature Faith, as they needed to be knowledgeable not only in terms of religious doctrines, but also knowledge about magic andprehension of the world.


    Many of the Nature Faith¡¯s holy masters were schrs, and some were even magic apprentices.


    Saleen was reluctant to make qualified magic apprentices into believers, finding it unthinkable to lure even the ones of average talent into the Nature Faith.


    He could have to destroy the faith personally in the future. If he had been the one who proselytize them, it would be incredibly awkward if to kill themter.


    While mages hardly suffered moral pressures from doing things, Saleen did not want to end up burying people he was supposed to lift.


    He had learned it from his teacher. Jason drew a clear line between his own and his enemies, and would never bring innocents into his fights. Such people were more broadminded with their methods and their minds more resolute as well.


    Anyone who dare stands in my way, I shall crush using magic. Anyone who has nothing to do with me, I shall not involve them in my business.


    Despite the fact that mages ced little importance on emotional attachments, they ironically happened to be the ones who knew people the best. Only mages who ended up achieving little would know nothing but magic.


    Even Hogina was actually very smart, but was reluctant to use her brains in other things.


    It was the same with Imposa. He looked like a monster, but he had toughed things out in Alchemy City for many, many years. If he had been a stupid oaf, he would have died a long time ago, regardless of his proficiency in alchemy.


    To the mages from Alchemy City, everything was disposable and receable.


    He dismissed the holy masters and had them summon believers to the Nature City. Saleen left the Magical Element Tower to stand guard over the city, while he took Don to open a portal and enter the temple.


    The interior of the portal was broad and bright, which Saleen found new. Furthermore, the portal was unusually stable. He was able to tell with one look with his Elemental Eye that the portal had not been opened for 10,000 years and the energy did not dissipate.


    Saleen almost changed his mind, but he quickly caught on to the fact that if he maintained the portal, the adherents of the Nature Faith would know that the temple was left behind by the goddess, which would diminish his standing.


    The reason Saleen had offered them favors was to establish two idols in their minds; the goddess and himself. Saleen had no need for power of faith, but if he destroyed the faith in the future, the believers would not go nuts against him.


    The portal was short, and the temple left behind by the goddess was at the very end. The temple wasn¡¯t unusual. It simply looked morevish and extravagant.


    Saleen cast the Puppet Constetion and sent puppets to raid the ce, while he and Don talked about things in the north outside the temple.


    Don told Saleen straight to his face, ¡°Your Highness, I suggest that you do not eliminate the holy masters and believers of the Lord of Glory for the moment.¡±


    ¡°Why so?¡±


    ¡°The Lord of Glory is merciless and brutal. The doctrines seemed to be filled with mercy and love, but at its core, the faith sanctions elimination of all life who refuses to heed his words. The Nature Goddess is different. Anyone is weed into the faith, and no one is coerced into it. Non-believers would not be called infidels and there are no brutal punishments. When youpare things like that, it makes it easy for people to choose to either join the Nature Faith or the Holy See.¡±


    ¡°But the Holy See would attack adherents of the Nature Faith.¡±


    Don smirked. ¡°My liege, didn¡¯t you build Nature City for waging holy wars? Wars push more people into seeking faith. The war between the gods are all just a ploy to reinforce their own kingdoms.¡±


    ¡°Heh, one hell of a way you have of looking at it, but Don...¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness?¡±


    ¡°I never knew that you were capable of smiling. Your smile is really horrendous.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Don burst out inughter. ¡°Your Highness, my mind has been dead for quite a while. But havinge this far, I finally feel that there is actually a chance that I will be able to crush the Holy See with my own hands, so of course I¡¯m happy. I don¡¯t need any bit of sadness. I want to exact my revengeughing.¡±


    ¡°Vengeance makes people fall. That is pretty much the only truth in the Lord of Glory¡¯s teachings,¡± Saleen said in exasperation.


    ¡°There is another¡ªhe who is evil shall fall into purgatory.¡±


    ¡°Right, so you intend to send the Holy See to purgatory, am I right?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Your Highness, and I need to thank you for making me understand that there is a lot that I¡¯d need to get done while I¡¯m still alive. You have no idea how many things that I once thought to be fact would look absolutely ridiculous today, like giving myself to service and sacrifice. All of that looks hideous, but we yearn to bask in the holy light. The Holy See is one hell of a joke!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t get too extreme, Don. In the perspective of mages, one could start anew anytime. I¡¯m using you, sure, but that doesn¡¯t mean that I¡¯d like for you to pave your way to destruction. You may find a path that is truly yours someday.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, you really are more suited to missionary work than I am.¡±


    ¡°So do you believe what I said?¡± Saleen asked while looking straight into Don¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°I do. It¡¯s a pity that you were born toote and I too early,¡± Don answered dejectedly. If he had followed a king like Saleen when he had first chosen his profession, he definitely would not have ended up where he was.


    ¡°Alright, Don. I believe that you¡¯ll have a future because I¡¯m an astrologer as well. I see the fates of people.¡±


    Don was moved by Saleen¡¯s words. He stayed silent and pondered what he said.


    Saleen, however, interrupted his thoughts. ¡°You¡¯re right, I¡¯m indeed hoping to start a holy war when the Nature Faith is established. We would only be defending at the start. The Nature City would serve as the main base for the Nature Faith, so I intend to pull this temple apart and put it on the ground.¡±


    Don finally understood why Saleen never bothered constructing a temple despite having built the Nature City.


    The temple that the puppets were taking part used a lot of jade, as well as thundercloud wood. The thundercloud wood was the only material exempted from the list, while every other precious construction material was used for rebuilding above ground.


    There was nothing dangerous sealed inside, and there were no treasures left behind. The materials the temple were constructed from were parts of arger divine rune charm array.


    With the temple being so well-preserved and no signs of aging found in any of the materials, it seemed as if the Goddess of Myers had foreseen that day. She seemed to know that Saleen would need aplete temple to amass believers.


    ¡°I¡¯ve designed a temple that will serve as the Nature City¡¯s core. It will create a huge divine rune charm array that will serve as something like a magic. But magics are mature technology while the divine rune charm array needs many holy masters to man, which means we¡¯re short on manpower in Nature City. Don, I need you to get this fixed as soon as possible. I¡¯ll assign some false believers¡ªthe demonic spirits and imps¡ªto y the role of holy masters.¡±


    ¡°You seem to have everythingid out in detail, Your Highness. What else do you need from me?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve done a good job so far. I¡¯m very surprised to find over 300,000 believers in the faith now. Oh, right, the demons, tell them to never believe in the goddess, and tell the believers to ept the demons.¡±


    ¡°Understood, your highness. I¡¯m already at it, but...¡±


    ¡°But?¡±


    ¡°There are huge amounts of powerful professionals from the Holy See 1000 miles from the north.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± Saleen was alerted. A thousand miles away meant that it was near the church that he had just destroyed. Large number of powerful professionals? Don couldn¡¯t mean professionals who are lower than level nine when he said that.


    It would hardly be surprising if Daliang City was not a warzone at the moment.


    However, with the fighting being so intense at Daliang City, so much so that the Holy See would give up on a full force assault on central Qin, the Holy See would only send the powerful professionals to the cemetery of the giant if they had such manpower to spare.


    Why would they send people to northern Qin?


    ¡°How long has this been going on?¡±


    ¡°It started in June this year.¡±


    ¡°Almost half a year ago then! Alright, I¡¯ll send someone to look into it,¡± Saleen said as he controlled the Puppet Constetion, taking apart the temple patiently. It was not a destructive type of deconstruction, meaning that it needed more time. It was fortunate that there were over 1,000 types of puppets in the Puppet Constetion, making deconstruction a breeze.


    A huge number of materials were taken apart and dumped into dimension stones. Saleen thought it would be over soon, but he didn¡¯t expect to see a huge silhouette when he was taking down thest hall, emerging from within aid hall.


    ¡°Sh**!¡± Saleen cursed as he saw the silhouette. It was a huge, lively statue. It was 24 meters tall and looked rather dazed. The features suggested that it was an image of the goddess herself. Saleen was so used to Nailisi¡¯s looks that he had no problem recognizing the goddess.

 Chapter 1206: Fate is Inevitable (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1206: Fate is Inevitable (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s proficiency at astrology was at the pinnacle of level nine. Due to using constetion power frequently, it was seemingly inevitable that he would advance, so when he saw the huge statue of the goddess, he saw a sliver of fate¡¯s signs in it.


    It seemed that the goddess had predicted that he would build a city there that would serve as the holy city. As such, the temple there served only one purpose¡ªa ce for believers to worship.


    The goddess¡¯ temple fitted the psychology of people of the current era perfect, 10,000 years after the temple was built¡ªextravagant, elegant and exuding an aura of mystery. It had little to no simrities to the practical and simple designs used back when the goddess was alive.


    Worse still, the statue was living and was filled with divine crystals!


    That meant that even if the Goddess of Myers perished, believers would receive some blessings from worshipping the statue. It was a statue that the goddess created personally.


    If she had no idea what was to happen in present time, she wouldn¡¯t have crafted such a thing to begin with!


    Saleen felt set up. Regardless of how he struggled, there was nothing he could do to change the course of fate. Fate is inevitable. It was a line uttered by holy masters often. However, mages existed because they wanted to take their own fate into their own hands.


    The dreaded feeling made Saleen curse again. The tall statue could be manipted easily. While it was alive, there were no signs of souls or consciousness within it.


    It was divine equipment left behind by the goddess for the ones who woulde after she perished. With that piece of equipment, believers were provided power even after the goddess perished.


    Saleen knew that if he erected the statue in the temple, the holy masters in the entire Nature City would be able to receive divine power by praying to it. The bestowing of power was reciprocal.


    Prayers from the believers in times of peace allowed the divine crystals within to coalesce. When there was a need to fight, the divine crystals would then be broken down to powers needed by the believers.


    In short, the statue would only grow bigger, unless the number of believers was so small that they were incapable of providing required power of faith to sustain the statue.


    Saleen even felt an impulse to just throw the statue into the purgatory of the fallen, but he worried about that too, wondering if the Shackles of the Fallen left behind by the goddess would react in unforeseen ways.


    He was concerned that if he threw the statue in, he would have to lose both the 12 Notes of First Purgatory as well as Nailisi.


    ¡°All gods are indeed up to no good!¡± Saleen cursed again before lifting his left hand, trying to summon the statue with the Ring of Gifts on his finger. The statue actually walked towards Saleen with dazed eyes.


    Saleen dripped a bit of divine power within the ring and imbued it inside an Eternal Control Shard, before throwing it at the statue, shooting for the statue¡¯s forehead.


    The statue absorbed the power of the goddess in a frenzy immediately, which naturally resulted in the shard between left within the head of the statue. Saleen only felt somewhat relieved then.


    If a soul manifested within the statue, it would immediately be absorbed by the shard. With that, the statue would never be able to pose a threat to him.


    The statue quieted down after absorbing divine power. The dazed expression in its eyes was gone and turnedpletely into an unmoving statue.


    Saleen stored the statue inside a dimension stone, thinking that if he destroyed the statue, none of his mages would have to ever worry about insufficient mental powers.


    Divine crystals were best for replenishing mental powers. Holding just a standard-sized piece of crystal would double a mage¡¯s mental powers.


    Wouldn¡¯t destroying the statue invoke a punishment from the goddess though? While Saleen had to decide, it was not the time to do so. When his proficiency of astrology reached level 15, it would nullify all curses from the gods. If his proficiency in magic reached level 15, it would block curses from the gods as well.


    Other than slowing down his progress in magic training, there were little trouble practicing astrology. At the very least, it would not cost him his magic chords like if he took up faith in the gods.


    Saleen knew that his talents were not like Jason and paled inparison to Truman. However, luck was on his side, which was why his speed at advancement far surpassed mages whose talents were superior to his. He deemed it inconvenient to break the statue, as it might cost him his luck.


    The Goddess of Myers sure knows her way in calctions!


    It reminded Saleen of how the grandmaster treated him. The super powerful beings sawmon people the same way¡ªthings that they could manipte as they fancied.


    How about Gaine then? Wouldn¡¯t he be hiding something from me too? Saleen shut the thought down immediately. Other than his teacher, no one else had been as helpful in furthering his training than Gaine. The astrologer could be said to be his teacher of sorts as well.


    ¡°Your Highness?¡± Don sensed something out of ce and called Saleen with an inquiring tone.


    ¡°I¡¯m alright. Yeah, does your spear need recrafting?¡±


    ¡°No need for that, Your Highness. I only need my weapon to be resilient and sharp. Any other attributes would simply get in the way of my fights.¡± Don was filled with confidence when it came to his profession.


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be the case, Don. You need to cate your subordinates. Be it to reward or to punish them, there is a need for a standard, especially in the case of reward. I¡¯ll give you divine equipment and warrior equipment. Don¡¯t go around giving them like they cost nothing. I¡¯m putting everything in your hands. Reward and punish your people in ordance to a strict standard.¡± Saleen did not bother concealing such methods from Don.


    Don listened and figured it was probably how Saleen manipted his people as well.


    However, Saleen did provide abundant supplies. He did not even bother hiding anything to Don. He gave anything that he deemed necessary and no expenses were spared in that regard. At the very least, Don did not feel that he deserved that spear in the first ce.


    There were two of Saleen¡¯s followers who needed the God-hunting Spear: J and Sul.


    Since Saleen put it that way, Don began picking from the supplies that Saleen offered. All of it took ce in the temple, so no outsider would know anything.


    That was why Don never resented Saleen, since he provided Don with favors as he would his own people. The knights corps would be Don¡¯s personal power sooner orter.


    Saleen did not see the knights corps to be worth spending his focus in, as his final goal was not to control the Nature Faith. As for Don, he did not do it to be a leader of the knights. He would not have any use for the power after he crushed the Holy See.


    There would be a day when both Saleen and Don would not bother with the temple knights¡¯ future, so Saleen told Don to refrain from recruiting believers into the knights corps as best as he could.


    The knights corps were made into a specialized mercenary group that served no other but the Nature Faith. That had always been Saleen¡¯s intention. He wanted the knights corps attached to a religious organization to only consist of false or fallen believers.


    It was even more far-fetched than the Tribunal, as the Tribunal still hadrge numbers of true believers and zealots. The Nature Faith¡¯s temple knights, on the other hand, had no need for faith.


    The temple was quickly taken apart and stored in Saleen¡¯s space equipment. Every single material was marked using magic to ensure that nothing would go wrong during assembly.


    Saleen sealed the portal when he left. Such a stable space, despitecking in size, could be used as a secret warehouse. No other people could gain ess to it, either, unless they possessed a Ring of Gifts like Saleen.


    Saleen began to order his puppets to build a temple when he emerged from the portal. Construction was rtively slow, as the temple was divine construct instead of magical. The types shared many simrities, but divine parts required divine power to restore them.


    The empty space that Saleen had reserved was enough for constructing 24 halls.


    The temple was identical to the one that had been taken apart. The main hall was meant for the goddess¡¯ statue. Theyout of the temple differed from the ones in ancient times. There was no altar at the center of the temple, a base for the statue in its ce.


    The statue was ced at the end of the hall. There was a huge dome before it, which was carved with holy prose and runes, capable of directing power of faith from the believers into the statue.


    The statue was able to bestow some blessings to the believers using the structure of the temple as well.


    The Lord of Glory made the rtionship between god and believers very clear. Believers were sheep and to them, the shepherd provided everything. However, the shepherd needed the sheep¡¯s meat, milk, and wool. When the shepherd had needs, the sheep were expected to give everything.


    There was actually a downtrodden bard who had illustrated the rtionship between god and believers in a deeper manner.


    There was no love without reason in this world.


    The saying ¡®god loves the people¡¯ was aplete lie.


    It was the lie of rulers toud the nobility of love. It was an excuse of the fallen to condemn love to be selfish. Love should originate from the heart and have no attachments to it.


    There was another reason why Saleen was unable to destroy that statue. His n could be sped up with that statue, as many of the Nature Faith¡¯s holy masters would be able to advance smoothly.


    The Nature Faith would never be able to stand against the Holy See otherwise, let alone throwing out the Holy See from Myers Maind.


    After Saleen was done with the main hall, the holy masters who were in charge of the nearby areas of the city returned. The holy masters started to think of Saleen as a god after seeing the temple that he ¡®built¡¯.


    Don did not bother bursting the bubble, so he did not reveal that temple was actually built by the goddess and that Saleen had just moved it from somewhere else.


    Saleen¡¯s n went smoothly, as the Nature Faith¡¯s teachings in the codex and other documents stated that there was more than one god in the world.


    The Goddess of Nature also sang praises to some other gods, making her different from the Lord of Glory, so there were even some believers of the Goddess of Nature who worshipped in two gods at the same time.


    Saleen¡¯s actions was meant to make it as if he was the second god of the Nature Faith. It would make it easier to lure the believers into falling.


    It was not umon for a religion to splinter into factions, as even the Holy See had signs of splintering: the oracle, the Tribunal, the Pivotal Council; all three institutions stood independently.


    Like the astrologers say, ¡®one¡¯s fate is in one¡¯s hands¡¯.


    Saleen would rather die in Ceylon City if he were told to ept fate¡¯s arrangements. There would be no need to learn magic I would just submit to fate. You think it¡¯s easy to train my mental powers using the family badge? Using the family badge felt worse than death in the beginning.


    Saleen¡¯s persistence, as with that of all mages, originated from the desire to take their fate into their own hands.

 Chapter 1207: Birth of an Epic (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1207: Birth of an Epic (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The core of Nature City was surrounded by the artificial river. Twenty-four temples were spread out.


    Over 300,000 believers surrounded the temple, and the most devout ones entered the hall at the center, heading towards the Goddess of Myers¡¯ statue and offering prayers.


    Outside the main temple, magic veins dangled from the top of the temple, swaying in the wind. Five-meter-tall demons d in Heaven Knight Armor stood quietly between the pirs of the temples, holding a weapon most often seen held by the goddess¡¯ warriors¡ªhalberds.


    The Heaven Knight Armors were inscribed with tight holy prose. The words had a golden sheen to them and divine power flowed through them, as if they were soft liquids and clouds at the same time.


    The tall steps spread out for several hundred meters. The height of the main temple hall far exceeded the surrounding ones. Even believers from far away would be able to see the middle of the temple and the tall statue of the Goddess of Myers.


    The 24 most devout holy masters stood beneath the statue. The holy masters had advanced immediately after looking at the statue, making Saleen understand that they were the ones chosen by the goddess. That made them the Hallowed Ones in a conventional sense.


    The holy masters stood in a line before the statue, leading thousands of believers in the hall in prayer. The chants were heard throughout the entire city. The believers in the temple chanted together. The temples were shrouded in pale green light.


    Vibrant, raging power of faith emerged from the prayers of over 300,000 believers, all directed into the statue. Time passed and the statue of the goddess burst in green light, showering the believers beneath it.


    The green light was unable to be contained and spread outwards, expanding several miles. Wherever the holy light passed, the magic seeds that were created by Eleanor and nted sprouted. The ones that had already sprouted before grew at an astonishing rate.


    ¡°A divine miracle!¡± Saleen was unable to help but voice his thoughts. He did not join the prayers. The demons who were guarding the temples did not join either. Faith was something that no one would be able to put down once they did it for the first time.


    ¡°Master, if there are miracles, it¡¯s thanks to you,¡± Nailisi looked the excited faces of the believers and praised Saleen.


    ¡°Divine miracles are nothing. Hehe, I have a n. Select a few hundred demons who are versed in both ancient Myers tongue and demon tongue for me. I¡¯m going to write an epic foretelling the resurrection of the goddess. I¡¯ll build a tall divine tablet here and carve the epic onto it. All whoe will know that it was I, Saleen Metatrin, who prophesized the resurrection of the goddess and cast out the Lord of Glory.¡±


    Don shivered. Saleen was bing increasingly meticulous with his methods. With that, even if the goddess was resurrected, she would be overshadowed by Saleen.


    ¡°I predicted a lot of things, including wars between nes. This time, we shall decide the course of history and humanity shall once again regain their former glory!¡±


    ¡°Teacher, why won¡¯t you write it yourself?¡±


    ¡°Because the light of the goddess was able to shine across the Myers Maind ne. The demons are outsiders and I¡¯m the master of the demon ne who happens to be an outsider as well. Only by doing so will I be able to keep myself out of any trouble.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°Right, Nailisi, I¡¯m going to unify the demon ne. The epic shall be written in demon tongue, then tranted in ancient Myers tongue. I¡¯m a human king and the king of demons. That should be considered perfect enough.¡±


    ¡°But too many years have passed, and I don¡¯t know if the demon ne...¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, I calcted the change in powers of the demons you¡¯ve summoned. The rise of power in the demon ne is not as quick as the one happening in Myers Maind. By the time I reach level 12 and am about to break into level 13, the demon ne will probably be at about the same level as Myers Maind right now.¡±


    Nailisi looked calm on the outside, but she might as well have been shooting fireworks deep down.


    She was an imp and yearned to return to the demon ne very badly. Furthermore, a part of her bloodline had been activated, enough for her to throw her weight around when she returned. Saleen definitely had no intentions of actually bing a king of the demon ne. The title would be given to her eventually.


    Green divine light swept through the ones who talked. There was not even a tinge of divine aura on Saleen and his people. The nature holy light of the goddess did not even seep into Saleen¡¯s Ring of Gifts, showering only the believers who were praying.


    ¡°Master, since you¡¯re nning to conquer the demon ne, why not be a devil?¡±


    ¡°A devil?¡±


    ¡°Prayers of demons are very devout and there are huge amounts of living beings in the demon ne. It¡¯d be very easy for you to obtain such powers. Once you¡¯ve reached level 12, it would be very easy for you to spark a divine fire.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, why would I want to be a god? It¡¯s a pain in the a**. Gods need to fight wars and pige continuously to maintain their kingdoms. Being a mage is good enough. If I don¡¯t have a country getting in my way, I don¡¯t need much to stay alive. There were many level 18 professionals back on the maind in ancient times, but there was only one level 18 god.¡±


    Nailisi was just saying that out of nowhere. She felt that not putting the many living beings in demon ne to use was quite a waste, but Saleen had decided to walk the path of a mage, and had no interest in bing a god of any sort.


    The Goddess of Myers had been a level 18 mage. If she had not be a god, she might not have perished on the maind.


    Saleen experienced the power of faith, divine powers, divine crystals, and many other godly products first hand. Thefort when using the powers and items was a stark contrast to what he felt when using his family badge.


    In Saleen¡¯s perspective, the indulgence was fundamentally throwing himself away.


    Ever since he had acquired the ring capable of boosting his mental powers, he basically stopped using divine crystals to replenish his mental powers. The power of faith and divine powers would not umte on him.


    The high from using the two types of power would make even mages addicts. If Saleen had not been using his family badge all year long, he might have sumbed to the temptation.


    Saleen¡¯s body had gotten used to pain, and it was only in pain that Saleen was able to feel a sense of safety. The sensation offort when using divine powers put Saleen in high alert.


    As such, even though he had massive amounts of divine power within his Ring of Gifts, he had only tried using the power to train himself once, before giving it up.


    Saleen took time out of every day to use his family badge to continuously train his mental powers.


    Eleanor grew interested in the goddess¡¯ powers when she her elvish seeds sprouted and grew into massive nts. From Eleanor¡¯s perspective, nature divine arts had definitely borrowed from elvish magic.


    Myers was definitely capable of traversing nes at will, and learning elvish skills in the elf ne was a piece of cake. She lost any use of magic skills after bing a god, but her divine persona would incorporate the rules of such skills.


    Magic was driven by magic chords, which were inherent in humans. Godscked magic chords and were incapable of mimicking the magic chords. However, gods were capable of manipting rules.


    Once Eleanor got a hold of the rules and advanced to level ten, she would be able to develop territorial powers and touch rules, which meant that she would be able toprehend and develop powerful elvish magic from nature divine arts.


    Eleanor did notck for methods in training in such magics, but it could not be passed down using words.


    If Eleanor were there to experience the power of the divine arts after breaking into level ten, she would be able to strip rules that originally belonged to elvish magic, makingprehension an easier feat.


    The prayers went on for a whole day. None of the believers experienced any fatigue or hunger. The life force within their bodies grew several times.


    Some devout believers even managed to grow their life force more than ten times. The 24 holy masters leading the event acquired massive powers from the statue, leaping from level seven or eight to level nine.


    If there was one thing that holy masters were better at than mages, it was their speed at advancement. It was not peculiar for a level one holy master to advance to level nine instantly if they were blessed and favored by their gods.


    Powerful gods were capable of modifying their believers using divine powers, making them into oracles. The dead would be able to keep their souls intact, which were absorbed into their kingdoms and made into believers who were even more devout.


    Mages only had one life, but holy masters were capable of living far longer under the protection of their gods until their gods perished.


    While the demons had no faith, their Heaven Knight Armor was imbued with divine powers when basking under the holy light, bing even more durable. The divine spells on the armors brought greater power when they were activated by the holy masters.


    The Goddess of Nature was versed in healing and restoration, while demons inherently possessed powerful life force. Being d in armor meant that unless the demons were killed, they could bounce back from any injury regardless of severity. They would be able to suffer the worst of disabilities and fully recover.


    The Heaven Knight Armor were created using fossilized gods. The fossilized gods, who were capable of endless restorative abilities, imbued the armor with self-healing abilities.


    ¡°Carry on.¡± Saleen was bored. He had analyzed most of the secrets of nature divine arts. A statue being activated by devout believers who had just embraced the faith was hardly able to produce miracles that would pique Saleen¡¯s interests.


    However, Saleen knew that sooner orter, the statue would wake up again, bing a shadow of the Goddess of Myers.


    Most of the nature temple knights¡¯ members were not inside the city, as they were patrolling outside the city. They had yet to take the surrounding cities for themselves, but the Nature Faith¡¯s power was massive enough for their generation.


    However, they were still incapable of beingpared to Qin nobles and the invaders from the Tanggsi Empire.


    War could break out at any moment, and the city was incapable of being protected by a group of knights. Saleen needed to wait longer to have Nailisi mobilize more manpower from Demon City to protect Nature City.


    With that, Saleen¡¯s epic would not be all lies, as the demons had truly protected the Goddess of Nature once, and that would be irrefutable truth.


    Saleen¡¯s n was all interconnected, and it would need to prove the demons¡¯ contributions to the Nature Faith. His prophecy would be made into legends in the Nature Faith.


    History was created by many seemingly insignificant people. Saleen was only a level ten mage at the moment, but he was creating history.


    1

 Chapter 1208: Birth of an Epic (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1208: Birth of an Epic (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°O¡¯ stars of all nes, please guide us in the course of fate.¡± Saleen stood at the za and chanted spells of astrology in a low voice.


    The za was huge, making the adherents of Nature Faith feel out of ce. The arrangement of the 24 temples and every building in the city were in perfect harmony. The za was the only ce that looked empty.


    Saleen stood in the empty za, over 10,000 demons standing behind him.


    The ground at the east side of the za had cracks in the rocksid on the ground. A pale green tablet rose from the earth. The tablet had no signs assembly. It grew out of the ground like magic nts.


    The believers were shocked to see the tablet getting taller, stopping only after bing several meters taller than the main temple. The tablet was rectangr, and the front and back were covered in demonic script while the sides had nature holy prose.


    Muralsmonly seen in Nature Faith were carved onto the base of the tablet. The goddess¡¯ image was on the mural as well. There were no signs of magic used, and over 10,000 believers witnessed the miracle personally.


    It definitely would not be a trick by mages!


    All of the believers, even the level nine holy masters, were in awe at the sight before them.


    The Goddess of Myers truly is going to be resurrected!


    While their faith was as devout as ever, what was happening before them meant that they had to put their lives on the line. If their goddess was unable to resurrect, they would be killed by the Holy See. The side of a religious holy war fought with guidance from the gods left little to the imagination.


    Every single believer believed that Saleen brought luck to the goddess.


    It was a strange phenomenon that would only happen on Myers Maind. Humanity never lost their honor and glory. Most of the time, believers believed that humans and gods were not all that different, as there had been humans who became gods, such as Myers.


    Saleen was like a hardworking peasant, spreading seeds within the hearts of the believers and waiting to harvest the fruits of hisbor. What he was doing were investments for the future, which would see returns in tens of millions of times of what he invested.


    Saleen did not use the power of the stars to project peculiar phenomenon. He simply raised the tablet buried deep underground using astrological powers. Holy masters were more sensitive to elemental powers.


    If Saleen used magic to y tricks, his cover would be blown by the holy masters. Astrology, on the other hand, was simr to divine arts. While the power was from stars, it was imbued with the rules of fate.


    Myers Maind was a huge star, sorge that it was tens of times, even 100 times bigger than amon ne. It was easy to use the power of the stars on such a huge star.


    While Saleen was only a level nine astrologer, he raised a massive tablet without any of the holy masters noticing anything.


    It was not actually that difficult to aplish, given how Saleen had built the entire Nature City. He buried the tablet when he was building the ce.


    When the tablet froze, devils appeared on top of it. They were only silhouettes and roared at Saleen.


    ¡°Saleen, you should not have unraveled this secret!¡±


    ¡°I shall be the master of the demon ne. Be gone!¡± Saleen said and shot three lightning icicles. Blue electrical arcs formed between the icicles, trapping the devils¡¯ silhouettes into it.


    Some believers began chanting the contents of the book of prophecy somewhere in the city.


    ¡°Saleen, the great master of the demon ne, sage among mages and prophet, used the power of his life and gazed upon a torrent in the rivers of fate. The almighty Myers shall heed the call in the prophecy. The light of the goddess shall shine once again on Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°The goddess, the almighty Myers. Her divine fire shall purge the gods of evil. Her resurrect shall be eternal. The great master Saleen, shall record everything in the annals.¡±


    ¡°Gods of all nes are trembling. The power of demons coalesced into oceans and mountains. Under the guidance of the master, they shall purge the evil god¡¯s armies and cast them into purgatory.¡±


    ¡°The great prophet Saleen shall awaken Myers. The evil god shall be drowned in his own wrath.¡±


    Saleen felt a tinge of power of faith from the prayers of the believers. The believers had bestowed power upon Saleen as they served the Goddess of Myers. Saleen did not absorb the power of faith, sending all of it into his Puppet Constetion instead, which was then absorbed into the heart fragment of the God of Puppets and began to mend it bit by bit.


    Saleen was able to see many more secrets that time. The main weapon spirit of the Puppet Constetion was the Big Guy. It was still unable to master the power of the stars, which meant that the powers would be Saleen¡¯s sooner orter.


    Saleen siphoned some divine power into the Puppet Constetion from the Ring of Gifts. The core of the Puppet Constetion was a heart fragment of the God of Puppets. As the divine power of the Goddess of Myers was siphoned, the heart fragments melded, leaving only visible cracks on the construct.


    The initial mending of the heart allowed the puppets within to all be restored to their prime form. All of the puppets that were lost when Saleen was researching lightning were all revived as well.


    ¡°Big Guy, do you want to be a god?¡± Saleen was unable to help but asked.


    ¡°I do, master,¡± Big Guy answered without any hesitation.


    ¡°Why so?¡±


    ¡°Gods are puppets of the highest levels and it is my ultimate wish to attain godhood.¡± After Big Guy recovered, it seemed that his intelligence was no longer hindered by its injuries.


    ¡°Big Guy, that¡¯d be a long journey, one that not even I would be able to see its end with you.¡±


    ¡°Master, if therees a day where I would be a god, I shall protect the Metatrin family for eternity,¡± Big Guy knelt within Puppet Constetion and made a pledge that it could never betray. If it truly became a god, that pledge would be part of its divine persona.


    ¡°Well then, every bit of power of faith that I am able to steal from here on out, I shall siphon to you. As for the spark of divine fire, it¡¯s up to you.¡±


    ¡°Master, I need a name befitting a god.¡±


    ¡°A name for a god?¡± Saleen searched his memories and found the names of many gods were tricky to pronounce, so he said, ¡°how about Dante then?¡±


    ¡°Dante, the God of Puppets?¡± Big Guy thought the name had a nice ring to it. In reality, Dante was the shortened version of a great mage¡¯s name.


    The mage created Dante¡¯s Sequence, elemental construct, and many powerfulbination magic. It was said that the level of the mage was not one that the crystal wall system could contain.


    ¡°Take this, Dante.¡± Saleen took out a series of magic books and threw them into the Puppet Constetion. Knowledge regarding Dante¡¯s Sequence and others were recorded within the books.


    Other than Saleen, Dante was the other one who had control of all puppets within Puppet Constetion. Furthermore, Dante would be able to achieve control of the puppets in far higher precisionpared to Saleen.


    When the puppets were used in forming elemental constructs, the changes could be said to be limitless.


    Saleen had little use of Dante when he was using the Puppet Constetion, so he had Dante learn from books instead. If Dante was able to master magic, Saleen would only need to install arge scale magic power furnace, and Dante would be a power magic puppet.


    When mages crafted equipment, what was needed most other than skills was wealth. Someone as rich as Saleen was naturally able to select such a path.


    In the case of other mages, they could not even afford a mini-sized magic power furnace without bankrupting themselves, let alone arge one.


    Not all mages were rich. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s family would not be able to keep so many mages around for thousands of years otherwise. Even Imposa had only taken the grand duke¡¯s side due to severeck of materials.


    Saleen had an increasingly clear view into his own future. His senses turned pure and his thoughts unwavering. His magic chords grew at a frightening rate andpressed, bing dense and refined. What he had not been able to fathom just a while ago became clear.


    Saleen was neither ted nor sorrowful. 360,000 lightning runes flew out from his sides. All of them were transparent as they circled him, forming into lines.


    The lightning runes coalesced on their own, and Saleen had no control whatsoever over them. However, he was able to remember thebination wlessly. His understanding of lightning rules grew again.


    Some mistakes in his Thundering Sound were found. When the greatest part of his Thundering Sound manifested, Saleen originally had trouble mastering the details and was able to maintain control for three seconds at most.


    The newfound understanding contracted his Thundering Sound¡¯s burst within one-sixth of a second.


    While it was hardly instant casting, one-sixth of a second was short enough. Saleen became confident in being able to break every single spiritual type spell cast by mages of his level. Even if he ran into the angels of fear again, he would not be set up anymore.


    As for lightning skills, Saleen gained a lot, managing to acquire three skills at once.


    Thundering Explosion, Thundering Shock, and Thundering Phantasm.


    Thundering Explosion was capable of breaking an enemy¡¯s skill. With 12 continuous thunder cast in the span of microseconds, it was capable ofpletely nullifying most spiritual type spells and causing severe rebound to the caster.


    Thundering Shock was an active attack skill. One shout was capable of breaking an enemy¡¯s skill, causing a very annoying rebound as well.


    Thundering Phantasm was an idental find. It enabled him to choose to cast all manners ofplex, detailed illusions as the thunder was cast. Anything Saleen had seen before could be replicated in his illusions.


    COMMENT


    Thundering Phantasm also broke spiritual attacks. However, more important was the fact that while the illusions were incapable of causing much damage, if the enemy extended their senses to search, they would be attacked by the thunder.


    The attack attracted the enemy, making it practically indefensible.


    Elemental illusions were mixed within Thundering Phantasm. If the enemy dared not search the illusions, Saleen would have many more options to deal with the enemy. If the enemy searched, their souls would be damaged.

 Chapter 1209: Divine Horses (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1209: Divine Horses (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s confidence grew after acquiring the three Thundering skills. The most difficult of skills to deal with when fighting powerful ones above level 10 were territorial skills and skills that had stun effects.


    Furthermore, there were some skills that had nothing to do with magic, but were still able to stun people. For example, Sul¡¯s swordsmanship was forceful and overbearing. J¡¯s swordsmanship held great force within sorrowful strokes.


    Mages were unable to even gather their spells when dealing with martial artists, and they were killed without being able to make a move.


    Dark Blue, who was serving Grand Duke Iron Blood, was a true might who held simr skills. Mages below level nine would probably die when facing true mights if they got within 50 meters.


    Staying over 100 meters away was not necessarily safe. A true might¡¯s movements were considerably faster than a golden grand swordmaster.


    The speed of mages, on the other hand, held an edge in endurance. However, endurance mattered little when one¡¯s head was cut down before things could be drawn out.


    Mages only stood a chance against martial artists if they were able to withstand the attacks or were able to act before getting into range of a martial artist¡¯s attacks.


    When a mage reached level nine, their lifespan grew, and they began to train in some close offensive spells. All close spells for attack were instant-cast and very powerful. All of them were meant specifically for dealing with martial artists.


    For instance, Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger only had a range of 12 meters even at level 10. However, nothing a martial artist was able to pull would be able to withstand the Crystal Finger¡¯s attack within such a range.


    Saleen was not afraid of attacks from martial artists as he had the Figure of Fate. The fights would end so long as he was able to survive the initial strike, and then follow up with one strike with Crystal Finger.


    It was a solution for if Saleen was bereft of his other equipment. Saleen stored 24 level 11 spells in his Starline Robe.


    He would not bring only four of his followers out for adventures otherwise. He did not have the Puppet Constetion back then and his enemies could easily overwhelm him with sheer numbers.


    Holy See took notice of Nature City, and an army was being amassed over 1000 miles away. A certain percentage of all forces within a 1000-mile radius from Nature City that belonged to the Tanggsi Empire and the Holy See were drafted to form an army to fight a holy war.


    While the main forces of the Holy See were mobilized to Daliang City, northern Qin still possessed a huge army. The previous battles would be all for nothing otherwise.


    The appearance of a nature god shocked more than just the Tribunal, who was undertaking secret missions there. Even the Holy See¡¯s headquarters back in Tanggsi was shocked.


    The Nature Faith was several months old and was unable to amass enough power, so the Holy See paid them little heed.


    The battle at Daliang City was far more important. No one knew how much wealth the cemetery of the giant held, but it would be enough to affect the entire maind. The Holy See even gave up its ns to continue attacking the rest of Qin.


    However, the emergence of Nature City made the Holy See restless. The Nature Faith was backed by a powerful force, so much so that the force was able to fake divine miracles. It was a trespass that the Holy See was unable to stomach.


    If they sat around and did nothing, the entire northern Qin would be taken over by the Nature Faith.


    The expeditionary force out to destroy Nature City was 200,000 soldiers. While it was a ragtag army, there were over 30,000 wardens and tens of thousands of blood knights unounted for. The suprememander of the army was a level 10 holy master.


    Saleen caught wind of rted intel very early. The 200 thousand-strong army looked pointless to him, as there were only one level ten powerful professional taking charge. They might have as well been walking to their deaths. However, at Kroraina¡¯s side, a seemingly insignificant force attracted Saleen¡¯s attention.


    It was the new Heaven Knights corps set up by the Holy See.


    The Pivotal Council¡¯s Sacred Knights were all very well-equipped, but the Heaven Knights remained the most powerful knights corps in the Holy See¡¯s history. Saleen was able to learn a thing or two about the Heaven Knights¡¯ skills from Don.


    They consisted of little more than 100 members and were organized in a way that any one of them could have theirbat capacity boosted by one whole level.


    The enhancement made theirbat capacity formidable. It did not involve drugs and had little to no side effects. It was terrifying to have a golden grand swordmaster appear at any moment among a squadron of knights.


    Golden grand swordmasters were capable of killing mages quickly. Saleen would not have had to bring powerful martial artists with him before he reached level nine otherwise.


    An encounter with a golden grand swordmaster had Saleen on high alert for when he encountered an angel of fear.


    A human¡¯sbat was far more terrifying than the natural born devilish beings. The beings fought mainly by instinct, but humans relied on techniques amassed and refined over thousands of years.


    Saleen was relieved to have Don take charge of Nature City. With the nature temple assembled, the holy masters of the entire Nature City were enhanced by one whole level. Although the 24 level 9 holy masters were incapable of actually advancing to level 10, it would suffice for defending the city.


    Saleen gave a very straightforward order to Don¡ªhe was to hold the line and never venture outside the city. Saleen brought four of his followers and went all the way to Kroraina to intercept the Holy See¡¯s Heaven Knights corps.


    That army was about 30,000-strong, and ording to the rules of the Holy See¡¯ knights, each of the 30,000 knights had four or more servants. Thebat capacity of the servants equaled an elite career soldiers.


    The servants were all formidable fighters, due to the fact that the death of their knight meant their own deaths. Saleen ventured out to see for himself how far the Heaven Knights could affect the battles.


    If his Puppet Constetion was incapable of handling the holy war army, then conventional troops would be hopeless against them.


    Nature City was about 8,000 miles away from Qin border, but due to Kroraina¡¯s copse, the Heaven Knights were able to ride through Kroraina territory at full speed. When Saleen got near the border, the Heaven Knights were about to enter Qin.


    The army consisted of about 150,000 soldiers divided into three groups. They were all on Kroraina¡¯s ins, crossing a river.


    It was winter and the river had frozen over, negating the need for bridges. The Heaven Knights were well-equipped enough to be practically immune to the cold. Over 10,000 knights advanced at a decent speed, and some inferior horses carried surplus equipment.


    The ice was not thick enough and having fully-armed knights running on the ice was dangerous. If every soldier advanced at the same speed, it would copse the entire sheet of ice.


    The extra horses were there to make sure that the vibration frequencies on the ice were scattered.


    Saleen flew over the river in the Magical Element Tower and looked at the Holy See¡¯s Heaven Knights, feeling concerned.


    The first wave of the army had crossed half of the river and the army at the rear was gathered at about five miles away. Their synchronization was perfect. Saleen scanned the armor on the soldiers with his Elemental Eye, and found that it was made from fossilized god fragments.


    Holy prose filled the Heaven Knight armor, and the weapons were not simplences, but huge ones that the Holy See had crafted specifically for the Heaven Knights.


    There were flying magic beasts flying above the army bought from Cloudflow.


    The flying beasts flew at an altitude of about 1,000 meters. The soldiers riding on their backs were able to easily monitor the ground using alchemy binocrs. The Magical Element Tower stayed at an altitude of 10,000 meters, but some people on the ground noticing his presence.


    ¡°Eleanor.¡±


    Eleanor nodded and broke out the Seven Nights. She prepared threemon magic arrows and shot them from the tower. Not even level 10 mages were able to guarantee uracy at that distance.


    However, it was achievable by archers. The three magic arrows were wrapped in wind element and flew down like eagles and hawks, piercing the skulls of three magic beasts from above.


    Magic arrows were capable of eleration, so Eleanor only needed to calcte the enemy¡¯s trajectory. It enabled them to attack from over 100 miles away, with the condition that the Seven Nights was capable of shooting that far away.


    Blood sttered high above the sky. Eleanor¡¯s arrows felt like rain, and every single arrow hit its mark.


    The warriors on the flying magic beast dropped to the ground. The attack came from above and they were experienced enough to know that speed and defense were incapable of dealing with such ferocious attacks.


    Saleen kept a close eye on the ground and found none of them panicking. Teams of over 1,000 people split up, and the 1,000 ditched their servants and formed teams of about 100.


    Every hundred-man-team had three holy masters.


    What happened next left Saleen baffled. The 1,000 Heaven Knights took to the air and quickly gained altitude.


    Eleanor¡¯s arrows were quickly swept aside by the holy masters¡¯ divine spells, and she was no longer able to hit the warriors riding the magic beasts.


    Holy light burst, and Saleen saw that the holy masters were d in equipment crafted from fossilized god fragments. The equipment connected the powers of all the holy masters, and the power of individual holy masters grew by over one level when casting spells individually.


    The warhorses that the Heaven Knights rode were also d in armor. Holy light burst and the warhorses took to the air. The holy light on the horses¡¯ hoofs was the most concentrated. The warhorses carried their knights instead of flying by borrowing the power of the knights.


    The 30,000 Heaven Knights were practically riding on 30,000 nightmares!


    Saleen knew that the abilities would notst very long, or rather, they were able to do so by consuming divine crystals. But they had no need of fighting like that for long, because the speed of the warhorses were enhanced to over 200 miles per hour.


    It was a speed that most mages were unable to achieve. Only mages of level nine and above would be able to surpass the horses.


    They were divine horses!


    Saleen knew that if he had not been there personally and it had been a demon army taking them on, they would have perished.


    None of the demons would be able to run.


    It was fortunate that they had the Magical Element Tower. Saleen made a snap decision and took control from the water puppet, taking the tower down.


    There were silver grand swordmasters in the Heaven Knight teams. The silver grand swordmasters would be able to turn into golden ones at any time when backed by thepatriots, bringing powerful speed and offensive capacity.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was descending so fast that it crashed into a team. The tower¡¯s immense height and weight, as well as terrifying speed, killed several of the knights.


    Regardless of how durable their armor was, they would not be strong enough to take a mountain ramming into them.

 Chapter 1210: Divine Horses (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1210: Divine Horses (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was like a tiger charging into a herd of sheep. While the magic was unable to be used during flight, the 3,600 demonic spirits were still capable of casting spells.


    3,600 spells were cast in a very tight area and due to not having the magic to smooth things out, Elemental Shock happened and the resulting Elemental Burst made things feel as if they were about to rupture around them.


    Due to the magic not being avable, the spells were simply Fireballs.


    A mage who was capable of casting Fireballs was not a good mage, but they were able to shoot 3,600 Fireballs of over level five in one go, they were definitely a powerful mage.


    If the 3,600 Fireballs were capable of achieving Elemental Burst, then the mage was above level ten.


    The Magical Element Tower was capable of remembering one spell and have the demonic spirits cast it, making it an equivalent of a jury-rigged magic. Saleen chose Fireball due to the fact that under simr conditions, it was the most powerful spell and was difficult to miss.


    The ground surrounding the tower turned into a sea of fire. The Heaven Knights were all hit by the Fireballs. Saleen saw over half of the knights sted away and their armor broken. However, over 300 knights remained and charged at the tower.


    The armor of the knights who had been sted spun in the air, drawing eerie arcs and returning to the knights, piecing themselves together.


    There had been less 100 knights who were attacked too many times and burned to a crisp by the overwhelming Fireballs.


    Saleen nodded. Impressive equipment. If it had been a conventional army, it would have ended with about 10,000 killed. However, that attack did not even manage to kill 100 Heaven Knights.


    There were over 300 Heaven Knights charging to at the Magical Element Tower. Saleen¡¯s tower spun furiously, flinging the knights away andnding on the ground.


    The water puppet, Truman, Isabe, Eleanor began attacking from the tower.


    The three mages¡¯ attacks were boosted by the magic tower, but Eleanor¡¯s attacks were the only ones that worked. Her elvish magic arrows could not be negated by armor. Elemental armor was useless against space arrows.


    All of Eleanor¡¯s arrows wereced with poison from Saleen. It was concocted by Agares for killing Saleen. The Heaven Knights who were shot by the arrows died almost instantly and turned into puddles of blood within a minute. Only empty armor was left behind.


    The armor was corroded by the poison and rendered irreparable. Even if it was repaired, no one would be able to wear it.


    The attacks by Truman and Isabe hardly worked. The defenses provided by the armor seemed to be interlocked with each other. If one of them was attacked, the rest of armor would react and share the brunt of the attacks.


    ¡°So it works well against magic attacks.¡± Saleen nodded and Eleanor¡¯s arrow hit with physical attacks instead of elemental ones.


    However,mon physical attacks were unable to even prate the Heaven Knights¡¯ defenses, so it was a weakness that would hardly matter in the battlefield.


    Eleanor¡¯s level nine magic arrow possessed damage exceeding level 9 magic and physical attacks.


    Saleen gave up on using magic attacks. While his magic attacks far surpassed his student, he was reluctant to waste his magic chords. The number of enemies was huge, and if speed was to be taken into consideration, then he would need to rely on the Puppet Constetion.


    The huge Puppet Constetion rose from the top of the Magical Element Tower, shrouding the Heaven Knights corps. The sun disappeared, and the sky was overtaken by night and dazzling stars.


    Hundreds of thousands of puppets pounced from the Puppet Constetion, and the Heaven Knights began to panic. The Magical Element Tower stopped attacking and Eleanor switched to using three powerful magic arrows, waiting for the powerful ones among her enemies to show.


    As Saleen expected, a rare purple-robed holy master walked towards the Magical Element Tower. They pointed at the Magical Element Tower and shouted, ¡°the mes of god shall manifest as bad luck and be cast upon you!¡±


    ¡°Bul**hit!¡± Saleen shouted. He used Thundering skills, and the holy master¡¯s curse was thrown back before it was even finished.


    The level ten holy master was decisive, summoning an angel when they realized the curse was unable to bepleted.


    The angel appeared from the void and took the brunt of the curse¡¯s recoil. The angel¡¯s body was reduced into white light. Saleen saw the pure energy of the angel disintegrated by some dirty energy. None of the white light was able to coalesce.


    The purple-robed holy master snorted and retreated half a step. The puppets that were attacking them were incapable of getting near them, being stopped 50 meters away from the holy master by some invisible barrier.


    ¡°Nailisi, can you kill that holy master without using Grey Memory?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Sure I can, Master.¡±


    ¡°Very well then. Eleanor, shoot him. Pay close attention to my gestures. When I cast my spell, there will be about 10 milliseconds where the holy master ispletely stopped.


    Saleen asked Nailisi, but he had Eleanor attack instead, making her incredibly frustrated.


    Saleen did not bother heeding the holy master¡¯s words. He saw the holy master take out a scepter and hold it high, pointing at the Magical Element Tower. A holy master who dared to take on a magic tower was definitely above level 10. Level 9 ones would not even battle before the towers.


    Saleen was able to feel the holy master cast a powerful territory. A ball of white light burst in the Puppet Constetion, shining light onto every Heaven Knight in a one-mile radius.


    The holy master¡¯s skills had yet to bepleted when Saleen shot an icicle. The projectile was over two meters wide, and it mmed into the invisible energy barrier around the holy master. It was not Divine Protection, as Saleen never had so much trouble taking out Divine Protection before.


    The projectile burned, but it was consumed by the invisible shield. The fires were soon extinguished and when the core of the projectile burst, the barrier hardened, blocking the sharp fragments.


    Pop...


    Saleen finally saw energy ripples. He caught how the energy worked with the invisible barrier.


    Arrghh! Saleen unleashed Thundering Shock 10 milliseconds after his gesture. The holy master¡¯s skill was once again disrupted by Saleen, stunning them.


    While both of them were level 10, Saleen would not be able to kill the holy master even when he was boosted by the tower. However, halting them for 10 milliseconds was more than enough for Eleanor.


    Elvish Time Arrow, Elvish Space Arrow, and Elvish Emperor Arrow.


    All three arrows were released in a certain order. The Time Arrow extended the halting period to 30 milliseconds. The Space Arrow prated the invisible energy barrier, hitting the holy master¡¯s throat.


    It was the most difficult to hit the throat, and it was not necessarily lethal. However, the one arrow almost took the holy master¡¯s head off. If it had beenmon folk, they would most certainly die a grisly death.


    No blood spurted out. White light shed from the holy master¡¯s neck and the wound disappeared.


    ¡°A hard b**tard to kill,¡± Nailisi grumbled, seeing the power of life in the Seven Nights quickly depleted. The third arrow hit the holy master¡¯s chest.


    It hit the heart squarely, and blood seeped out of the holy master¡¯s purple robe. Blood continued to drip from the robe¡¯s long sleeve.


    They eyed the Magical Element Tower in disbelief, puzzled as to why their body, which was blessed by a god, would age and be incapable of restoring the wound.


    Over a hundred puppets jumped onto the holy master, tearing them to shreds.


    The Heaven Knights did not scatter as they continued to sh with the puppets. The death of the level ten holy master did not break the Heaven Knights in the slightest.


    Saleen was alerted, feeling the tower locked onto by someone. While the Puppet Constetion still worked in the sky, he was unable tomand it. Some mystical power had severed the connection between him and his equipment.


    Saleen felt something was off. He stood in the topmost floor of the tower and looked around. He saw over 100,000 soldiers surround the tower on the endless ins. No, they are not soldiers. They are ves!


    There were some who dressed in Qin garb. There were soldiers and civilians.


    What are they up to?


    Saleen intended to take flight but quickly found his tower grounded.


    The 100,000 people were suppressed by divine arts and were kneeling on the ground. A huge divine rune charm array appeared on the ground before Saleen¡¯s eyes. Just how big is this thing?


    It had a diameter of 28 miles and there was holy prose in the millions within. The ground became covered in snow and ice. Wherever the wind blew, there was holy prose shimmering.


    ¡°Saleen, I knew you woulde. You¡¯re not going anywhere this time!¡± A familiar voice was heard. Saleen looked up and saw Theisio¡¯s face. There was a tall oracle standing right behind him.


    ¡°Now I see why the trajectory of the stars looked messed up. It was the work of a level 12 oracle messing up my astrology!¡± Saleenughed and put away his Puppet Constetion.


    The Puppet Constetion behaved like a territory when cast, and no outsider would be able to tell the difference, so the oracle did not take the Puppet Constetion. Saleen took the chance to put away the powerful equipment.


    ¡°Theisio, even if you cage me, so what? My tower is not something you can take out!¡± Saleen had crafted his tower into equipment, and it was no longer how it was before, where he was unable to attack or transmit his voice in a sealed space.


    He shut his tower away while taking the time to ridicule the pope.


    ¡°Saleen, 128,000 people will die because of you. I hope you like the show,¡± the pope replied.

 Chapter 1211: Getting swallowed into the Kingdom of Gods (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1211: Getting swallowed into the Kingdom of Gods (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Theisio, it¡¯s no use scaring me like that. I ughtered over a million in Ironwall City,¡± Saleen answered with a snicker.


    ¡°That was different, Saleen. The ones who will die here will resent you and know who you were. 128,000 souls shall torture you so long as you live.¡±


    Nailisi snickered. ¡°So they¡¯re vengeful souls? You can¡¯t create ghosts, so you create vengeful souls, eh? What¡¯s there to be afraid of? They¡¯re like supplements to demons. Master, don¡¯t be frightened by this old fart.¡±


    ¡°Bul**hit. How can he create vengeful souls? I think that the divine rune charm array is meant for breaking the tower¡¯s defense. We¡¯ll just get ready to bail.¡± Saleen kept his eyes faraway. Every single point of the huge array had someone who was ready to be ughtered.


    A warrior stood behind every single one of the people, holding axes to cut their heads off.


    ¡°This is brutal, Teacher!¡± Truman felt reluctant. He was not feeling bleak like themon folk. Waiting to be ughtered was nothing like dying in battle. There was no dignity and no value in dying in such a way.


    Death was not a sad thing to mages and would not rile them up. If a mage thought that such a way of dying was too much, then it was too much.


    ¡°It is indeed brutal, but what can we do? Just get ready to run. The guy in the sky is level 12.¡±


    ¡°Level 12! How can we possibly run from a level 12!?¡± Isabe found escape the most unbelievable.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t we? Our master is better at running away than fighting, you know,¡± Nailisi red at Isabe.


    Saleen did not feel abashed. He simply said, ¡°it is nearly impossible for them to break the tower. I think Theisio is trying to seal us in a space that we can¡¯t run from, and he¡¯ll take his time to deal with us.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, we can¡¯t contact Metatrin City.¡± Truman tested the magic array for a bit, finding the space surrounding the towerpletely cut off. They were indeed trapped.


    The Heaven Knights surrounded the magic tower and began to chant prayers.


    The oracle in the sky joined in the chanting. Saleen felt that the oracle behind Theisio had eyes that were too pure.


    Saleen had seen an oracle in the temple of the goddess in Cloudflow before. The oracle¡¯s eyes had been filled with desire.


    The oracle before them was bereft of any desire for the world. Its eyes held no material or emotional desire. One would simply feel a clean rain falling when the oracle looked.


    Saleen took notice of it and looked at Theisio, finding something hanging against his chest.


    He knew the thing too well. It was the Seal of Divine Power that he found on Raphael.


    ¡°Sh**!¡±


    The Seal of Divine Power, the God Grace Staff, and the Bramble Crown. When all three of the holy items were put together, it would bring the greatest power down on enemies.


    Did something happen to Fycro?


    Saleen recalled that Fycro had not contacted him for a while. He also recalled how Joey had fought Fycro, and both of them were severely injured. If Fycro had encountered Theisio in such a situation, he would not necessarily be able to fight the pope.


    Saleen checked the contract deep within his soul and found the contract between him and Fycro intact. That meant that Fycro was still alive. But if Fycro is still alive, why would he give the Seal of Divine Power to Theisio?


    Fycro saw Theisio to be an obstacle to his ns.


    If Theisio acquired the Seal of Divine Power, hisbat capacity would be boosted more than ten times. Saleen wondered if Arb would fear Theisio as he was.


    Saleen had no one to rely on but himself. He turned his eyes downward and saw a shadow moving in a corner outside the magic tower.


    Heh... Saleen let out a dryugh and sent his voice at the shadow. ¡°Agares, I didn¡¯t expect you to get trapped here too.¡±


    The shadow rippled and Agares¡¯ voice was heard. ¡°Saleen, let me inside the tower!¡±


    ¡°Why should I?¡±


    ¡°Theisio is trying to send us to the kingdom of god! I will be able to help you fight it.¡± If Agares had not feared being detected, he would have shouted a long time ago.


    ¡°Sent to the kingdom of god?¡± Saleen shuddered. He did not fear getting thrown into any interdimensional space, but if they were thrown into a kingdom of god and had to face the Lord of Glory, not even having his teacher would suffice, let alone just Agares.


    The Lord of Glory was a lesser god of level 15. Regardless of the tower¡¯s level, it would have some weaknesses because of him, and professionals above level 13 would be able to find it.


    The Lord of Glory was a level 15 god, and he would eat Saleen alive.


    ¡°Agares, if we get into the kingdom of god, we¡¯d be dealing with gods. Even if I worked together with you, our chances ofing out alive would still be zero. It¡¯s better that you just stay back at Myers Maind and die here. At the very least, your soul would still be free,¡± Saleen said without flinching.


    ¡°Saleen, the pope has no way of sending us to the kingdom where the Lord of Glory reigns. He is only able to send us to some that the Lord of Glory took. The kingdoms would only have believers and they would be level 12 at most!¡±


    ¡°Agares, do you really think that makes any difference to me? I feel things are more dangerous with you here.¡± Saleen was relieved to hear that they were not being sent to the Lord of Glory¡¯s own kingdom of god after all.


    ¡°Saleen, what do you need me to do to let me in? Look, we¡¯re both enemies of the Holy See. Don¡¯t you want another ally on your side? I heard that you¡¯ve just a treaty with Grand Duke Iron Blood.¡±


    ¡°That was because the Grand Duke was sincere.¡±


    ¡°Alright, what kind of sincerity do you need from me?¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s the spy that you put at my side? I don¡¯t like it when you know where I¡¯m all the time.¡±


    ¡°This umm...¡±


    ¡°I can inspect with magic and see if you¡¯re telling the truth. We might be the same level, but don¡¯t think of lying to me.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll let me in if I tell you?¡± Agares asked.


    ¡°Of course not. I need to check if you¡¯re telling the truth and if you¡¯ve missed any seemingly unimportant people. I¡¯m talking to you about this, meaning that even if you¡¯re telling me nothing, I¡¯ll check my people one by one when I get home. It¡¯ll take a lot of time, and time is precious.¡±


    ¡°So we...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll sign a truce until we¡¯re free from Theisio¡¯s control.¡±


    ¡°Sure!¡± Seeing the divine rune charm array about to bepleted, Agares knew that if he disagreed with Saleen, he would die very soon.


    It was not a lot to ask from him to tell Saleen about the spy. The spy that he was able to put at Saleen¡¯s side was idental. The news that he got was not up to date. If the news had been effective, it would not have taken him so long to catch up to Saleen.


    Agares told him three names, and Saleen opened the magic tower to test Agares for lies with magical detection, letting the assassin onto the tenth floor of the tower.


    ¡°Saleen, why aren¡¯t youing to see me?¡± Agares shouted.


    ¡°Hold on for a bit. I¡¯m writing a contract.¡± Saleen answered nonchntly. There was no need for him to draft any contracts, as he carried a variety of contracts with him all the time. When a contract needed to be signed, he only needed a name and a signature.


    However, Saleen had gotten two level ten scrolls ready and put them into his Starline Bangle¡¯s star chart. The two scrolls were made specifically against assassin¡¯s skills. Saleen did not want to face Agares unprepared. He had no intention of wasting the level 11 spells imbued in his robe.


    Saleen had Nailisi follow him and let Eleanor take charge of things for the moment. He arrived on the tenth floor of the tower. The floor had a garden created by the mechanical core. Saleen ced the power of stars above the garden, forming starlight and shrouding the surrounding buildings.


    Agares stood in the garden with his hands by his side, astonished. Saleen had opened up spaces within the magic tower.


    While it was little more than 300 meters in length and width, he was impressed with Saleen¡¯s power. It could not be ranked by conventional definitions of levels. He felt it was best to give up trying to assassinate him for the moment.


    Before he was able to escape the trap, the best way to deal with it was to form an alliance with Saleen.


    ¡°So, what do you think of my ce, Your Highness Agares?¡± Saleen appeared out of nowhere without any warning, startling Agares. He quickly realized that he was still in Saleen¡¯s tower and the mage had eerie movement skills, which were hardly inferiorpared to high level assassins.


    There was simply no way he could beat Saleen in such an environment.


    ¡°Nice ce, and the air is fresh. If you¡¯d keep expanding, you¡¯ll perhaps be able to open up an interdimensional space right in the tower.¡±


    ¡°Too early for that. If every single floor was an interdimensional space, I¡¯d have to be level 16,¡± Saleen answered with a smile.


    ¡°Shall we sign the contract?¡± Agares was unfettered. He saw the deep well in the garden and all kinds of magic nts and knew that Saleen would grow into such high levels one day.


    ¡°What¡¯s the hurry, Your Highness? There¡¯s something I¡¯d like to ask.¡± Nailisi was standing behind him, holding Grey Memory. She wouldunch with the most powerful attack as soon as Saleen gave the order. She would go so far as to injure her imp form to kill Agares with one shot.


    ¡°What¡¯s up? Are you reneging on your word, Your Highness Saleen?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a mage and I don¡¯t go back on my word. I¡¯m only asking if you¡¯re interested in propagating Nature Faith in your kingdom.¡±


    ¡°Nature Faith?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. A faith that belongs to the Goddess of Myers.¡±


    ¡°What do I get for doing this?¡±


    ¡°Oh you¡¯ll get something. The Nature Faith doesn¡¯t do things like the Lord of Glory. You¡¯d have good weather in your kingdom once the Nature Faith is in ce. Furthermore, with the adherents of the faith in ce, it would be a lot harder for the Lord of Glory to invade Cloudflow.¡±


    Agares was on high alert. ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re a mage. What do you get by doing this?¡±


    ¡°Agares, sometimes, you only need to do things when you know it¡¯s beneficial to you. That¡¯s the true spirit of merchants. The interests of the other party is none of your business.¡±

 Chapter 1212: Getting swallowed into the Kingdom of Gods (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1212: Getting swallowed into the Kingdom of Gods (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Agaresughed. ¡°In that case, I¡¯d tell you straight to the face. I hate all religions. I won¡¯t get in your way if you¡¯d want to propagate Nature Faith, but don¡¯t expect me to help you out.¡±


    Saleen frowned but quickly understood that Agares was the same as him in that regard¡ªthey held their professions in high regard, and the matters of their kingdom would alwayse second.


    Agares resented the gods and religions, so much so that his disgust seeped deep into his soul. If he turned on his own convictions and allowed religions to be propagated in his kingdom, then Agares¡¯ professional advancement would be severely hindered.


    ¡°Alright. In that case, we shall get to the contract.¡± Saleen threw the contract to Agares. A beautiful woman shed before him. The woman was dressed in pce minister garb but Saleen was able to tell that she had been one of the two assassins by Agares¡¯ side.


    ¡°An enviable skill indeed!¡± Saleen sighed. Agares was an assassin and having such a skill meant that he had two more powerful assistants by his side, who were capable of hiding in his shadow.


    Saleen was not even able to tell with his Elemental Eye how the two women had been following Agares around.


    ¡°I envy you too...¡± Agares turned his eyes at Nailisi, who rattled her spear at him, shutting him up. He felt a looming scent of death. There were six shut eyes on Grey Memory. Extremely evil aura emanated from the weapon, making Agares flinch.


    ¡°Do you still envy me now?¡± Saleen asked in a peculiar tone, ¡°This servant girl of mine isn¡¯t actually all that obedient. Even if I tell her not to kill you, there¡¯s no guarantee that she¡¯d follow my orders.¡±


    ¡°That is not a good joke.¡±


    ¡°It is not a joke. Our contract is in effect, Agares, but if you piss Nailisi off, I won¡¯t be able to guarantee anything. You do know that contracts with mages always have some loopholes.¡±


    Agares flicked his hand as he heard Saleen. Blood at the tip of his finger dripped onto the contract scroll, which burnt to nothing. It was so powerful that its binding powers equaled ne rules.


    ¡°But then again, what I said was a joke. I¡¯m a mage, and if there are any loopholes in contracts, they work on both parties. You¡¯re an assassin, and I don¡¯t like having loopholes in contracts with assassins. It¡¯s too dangerous for me.¡± Saleen¡¯s smile looked rather despicable to Agares¡¯ eyes.


    But Agares smiled. ¡°That¡¯s the spirit. We were originally enemies after all. Your alliance with Grand Duke Iron Blood means that we won¡¯t stay allies for long. So, what shall we do next?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, Your Highness. Just look outside.¡± Saleen unleashed over a dozen star figures, which split up and prepared a feast.


    Saleenid out tables and chairs in the garden. The table was long, and there was a magic array carved on it on one side, which enabled them to view magic projections of the outside.


    ¡°Your Highness, I have no way of leaving, but if we got into the kingdom of gods, we¡¯d stand a chance instead.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, we¡¯re enemies, so just call me Agares and drop the honorifics. That¡¯s what the world calls us, anyway. I¡¯ll be upfront with you. I have two level 9 assassins with me and 101 spectral servants. I only need dark ces to summon them.¡±


    ¡°I have the Magical Element Tower, and there are 3,600 enchanters in the tower.¡± Saleen told his enemy a little bit about himself. Agares was unable to tell that Nailisi was level ten. The assassin was only able to tell that she was not a human and that her equipment was life-threatening to him.


    Eleanor¡¯s archery, the water puppet¡¯s Crystal Finger, and Isabe¡¯s training in both martial and magical arts were all secrets. The ones knew about all of that were either Saleen¡¯s most trusted or dead.


    The pope¡¯s huge divine rune charm array was nearlypleted outside the Magical Element Tower. The humans] sacrifices had their heads chopped off, and their blood flowed into the holy prose.


    A huge ck hole appeared in the sky. The holy prose continued to spin, the ck hole was at the center.


    The ck hole looked increasingly twisted and as all of the sacrifices died, over 100 thousand dark auras shot up to the sky and gushed into the ck hole.


    An eerieugh was heard from within the ck hole. Aoo uuuuu...


    ¡°Really delicious souls you have here. What do you want, puny beings?¡±


    ¡°Swallow this up!¡± A thin line of holy light burst from Theisio¡¯s fingers, hitting the Magical Element Tower.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll do that.¡± The head of a huge beast emerged from the ck hole, which looked like a toad and snake. It had long fangs. The beast gobbled up the tower without any hesitation.


    When the tower dropped to the ground, there was fossilization pinning it to the ground. The huge beast sucked the tower up in one go and it left a huge crater.


    ¡°Delicious!¡± The huge head retreated back to the ck hole and Theisio¡¯s face was ashen. It was clear that it took a lot of mental powers for him tomunicate with the huge beast.


    The ck hole did not disappear after the beast retreated back to the ck hole. Theisio then told the oracle behind him, ¡°I¡¯ll leave the rest to you. I need to crush Nature City and take all the Heaven Knights away.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, lord pope.¡± The oracle answered Theisio respectfully.


    Saleen was able to feel that the Magical Element Tower traversing a huge portal after the tower was swallowed up by the beast. The portal seemed to be the insides of the beast.


    The portal was twisty, which was unsafe, unlike the one left behind by the goddess. The tower barged through untold numbers of elemental storm areas and space tears as it traversed the portal.


    If it had not been for the tower, Saleen thought that he probably would have died inside that portal.


    It was not that there were pieces of wreckage inside, but that the wreckage was all rotten. Being corroded and torn apart by the energies and space tears in the portal for prolonged periods was not something that anything less powerful than level 18 elementite would be able to endure.


    What made Saleen exasperated was that after the tower was re-crafted, some abilities were already etched within the elementite, such as the ability to see what was outside. However, the flying magic patterns were not.


    The Sreeger Ind mages were incapable of taking level 18 elementite apart, which meant that they were only able to coat the patterns outside the tower.


    With the tower being banged up, the flying magic patterns on the elementite were damaged once more.


    The flying magic patterns were precious, as without them, the tower¡¯s flying speed would be reduced to below 100 miles per hour. Even though it was still capable of flight, any sorcerer versed in flight would easily be able to catch up to.


    Most flying magic beasts were capable of achieving speeds higher than that.


    However, Saleen remained smiling, chatting away with Agares.


    Saleen had to admit that despite the fact that Agares kept him on edge, he was an interesting man. He was devoid of themon ws of the Cloudflow people and actually resembled a Qin more.


    Both of them whined a lot when it came to running a country. Saleen had little affection for nobles and Agares shared his sentiments.


    However, Agares did not like the nobles not because they were disobedient to the royal family, but because they were utterly useless. While the Misty City was extremelyvish, it was possibly the only city in the Cloudflow Empire that did not have starving people.


    Regardless of how wasteful the royal family was, they would always get food ready, enabling everyone within the city to have at least a full belly.


    Every project undertaken by the royal family brought work to the poor. Nobles were forbidden to get involved.


    Agares even told Saleen somethingughable. If he distributed supplies to the poor in Misty City, he would be ridiculed. He learned from his father¡¯s ways¡ªgetting some ridiculous thing done and reasons to spend money, letting the poorp up the offer.


    Saleen was dissatisfied that his nobles viewed their interests above their dedication to their tasks. While the Qin nobles were not all that bad, it was the same with them as well.


    The nobles simply did what they should have been doing and they had the subjects of their fiefs sworn loyalty to them. In Saleen¡¯s view, it was an unequal exchange.


    Qin had the greatest amount of food, and the soil was the most fertile. However, Qin still had hungry people.


    Saleen was able to identify with themon folk as he was from the slums, but he was unable to fathom why Agares was also able.


    The two talked about their training. Since the conversation did not involve their most secret skills, Agares and Saleen were able to talk frankly.


    Saleen learned of some very practical skills of assassins while Agares was aghast at howplex a mage¡¯s skills could be. Over 100binations could be made from just twomon spells for different environments, situations, and enemies.


    ¡°Saleen, I think that if you advanced to level 11, it would be very difficult for me to kill you,¡± Agares grumbled.


    ¡°Same goes for me. Your hiding skills might have something to do with dark element, and that¡¯s what I¡¯m bad at. If your level were level higher than mine, it would be very difficult for me to detect you.¡±


    The Magical Element Tower passed through one dangerous area after another in the portal, and finally flew out of the dark and into a bright world.


    Saleen and Agares stopped talking at the same time. They were able to see a corner of the world in the magic array¡¯s projections. The disgusting glow was everywhere.


    Saleen let out a bitterugh. ¡°Agares, it seems that there are no shadows in this world.¡±

 Chapter 1213: Crazy, Sick Place (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1213: Crazy, Sick ce (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Agares frowned hard. The world outside the magic tower was a clean sheet of white. White sky, white river, white mountains, white ground, and...a group of white people in a literal sense.


    The people were the same proportion and size as Myers Maind humans and wore clothes. However, they werepletely snow-white, including their eyebrows, moustache, hair, and nails.


    Even their lips and gums were snow-white.


    Like Saleen said, the world had no shadows.


    There was no sun in the sky, as light was everywhere. If they did not reach out to the beings with their senses, they would not have been able to tell anything apart.


    ¡°This is one crazy, sick world,¡± Nailisi quipped. To demons, darkness was beautiful and demons were able to see further in the dark, and their senses abnormally sharp in such environments. At least half of the nts in the demon ne had no need for sunlight. They only needed heat to survive.


    ¡°This is a stolen divine kingdom. Every single being here believed in the Lord of Glory. Of course, the beings were originally believers of other gods. Lucky for us, the Lord of Glory hasn¡¯t had this world for a very long time. Or else, the Lord of Glory would be able toe in himself,¡± Agares exined to Saleen.


    ¡°How do youe to know so much?¡±


    ¡°My interests. My one interest is to be a great assassin. But killing humans is boring. Someday, I¡¯ll kill the gods one by one. A divine kingdom crumbles with every god killed. How beautiful.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re rather sick,¡± Nailisi quipped again.


    ¡°Maybe. Only obsession keeps you alive. Isn¡¯t that a mage saying?¡± Agares was hardly irked by Nailisi¡¯s words.


    ¡°Seems to me that the beings are not that hard to deal with.¡± Truman stood by Saleen. The control of the tower were left to the water puppet.


    ¡°It¡¯s the other way around. See, the kids are almost professional swordsmen level. Inparison, humans at such an age are not professionals by any definition unless they¡¯re specifically trained.¡± Saleen was able to tell that while the beings looked like humans, they were actually another type of being.


    ¡°How about getting someone to have a look outside, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Sure. Who?¡±


    Agares waved and summoned an assassin from his shadow. Saleen scanned them with his Elemental Eye and found them to be a level seven assassin.


    Agares said that he had 101 spectral servants. If all of them were level seven, it would make him very tough.


    It was not difficult for assassins to kill higher level individuals. It was difficult to defend against over 100 assassins.


    The assassin covered their face with a magic cloth, and held a thin, narrow de in their hand. They knelt before Agares and said nothing, waiting Agares¡¯ orders.


    ¡°Saleen, I think you can send one of your figures out there. The figures¡¯ powers could maintain a shadow without spending much. My spectral servants are capable of hiding in the shadow of your figures.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± Saleen looked at the ground outside. The divine kingdom was built on another star and his figure would not lose its power. The elements around were bnced. The white holy light was unable to destroy elements. It was only able to weaken them a little.


    Saleen was capable ofmanding about 1,000 star figures. If the one sent outside died, it would not be much of a loss.


    The Magical Element Towernded in an empty field. However, many divine kingdoms had no cities. Divine kingdoms¡¯ subjects had no need to work as they only needed to pray every day.


    They were immune to disease, aging, and death unless their god perished. The beings were capable living indefinitely otherwise.


    A star figure appeared in front of Saleen, and Agares¡¯ assassin jumped into the figure¡¯s shadow. Saleen learned the way assassins hid themselves, but Saleen knew that it was definitely not how Agares did it.


    It was very good. The assassin borrowed the power of the shadow and moved alongside the figure, spending little to no energy of its own. The figure leapt outside the magic tower and the assassin followed suit,nding outside the tower.


    A few white beings approached them out of curiosity. The beings had their original faiths wiped clean and did not behave like pure believers, attacking anything that did not believe in their gods. The wiping of faiths damaged the soul.


    The beings¡¯ intelligence was hampered because their souls suffered.


    The star figure held its de with no expression, dragging a shadow behind. They were not believers of the Lord of Glory, as believers did not have shadows in the divine kingdom.


    Saleen and Agares watched from within the Magical Element Tower and found the white beings did not attack the star figure. They were ted.


    The divine kingdom probably had just been conquered. It was also connected to Myers Maind, so the ne¡¯s power would not be that highpared to Myers Maind.


    Myers Maind had once been a very powerful ne, and there had been thousands of nes directly connected to it. It also had the highest rules in the crystal wall system.


    Powerful ones from Myers Maind were capable of entering lower nes, but beings from lower nes were unable to enter Myers Maind.


    The rules still applied. It was very difficult for beings from other nes to enter Myers Maind.


    The star figure walked around near the tower for a bit and found no beings that attacked the figure. The beings from the divine kingdom seemed to have no desire to attack anything. It was an aftereffect of divine battles.


    Conquered divine kingdoms were cleansed by the winning god, and beings within would lose all will to fight.


    The gods feared resistance from conquered kingdoms, so they resorted to such lowly measures to ensure that resistance did not happen. Even though the beings would not cause any true harm to the gods, it would be a loss to see them suicide.


    Saleen took Eleanor and the others, as well as Agares, outside the magic tower. There were 100 star figures behind them and every single figure¡¯s shadow had a hidden spectral servant.


    Saleen put the tower away. If they left the divine kingdom, they would need the space coordinates stored in the tower. They were able to contact Metatrin City directly from the tower. The huge teleportation portal at 17th floor was capable of traversing nes.


    Saleen never worried about getting into divine kingdoms and Theisio would never expect Saleen to build interdimensional teleportation portals. Such portals cost too much to use, and it was pointless for mages on Myers Maind to use such teleportation portals.


    However, Saleen possessed interdimensional spaces, and there would be a day where he would enter the interdimensional spaces using the Magical Element Tower.


    The reason Saleen did not choose to leave was because the tower might have been lost in the divine kingdom if he left.


    He needed some time to find a safe ce in the divine kingdom and seek help from his teacher through the interdimensional teleportation portal to build a temporary interdimensional portal to allow him to bring the Magical Element Tower home with him.


    Furthermore, Saleen did not want to go home empty-handed. He wanted to get the coordinates of the divine kingdom, which he would give to the grandmaster and his gang at the Imperial City of the Abyss to exchange for more favors.


    The grandmaster and his gang liked everything that had to do with the gods, as they were capable of using every single thing of that nature. There were many believers of the gods in that divine kingdom, and every inch was filled with holy light, making it perfect to fulfill the needs of the grandmaster.


    The group began searching the divine kingdom. Agares was clearly reluctant to go home without taking anything.


    The divine kingdom was warm and cozy, and edible nts were everywhere in the wilderness. All beings behaved harmoniously, but Saleen felt increasingly ufortable. What¡¯s the meaning of living like this?


    Wherever Saleen saw living beings, he saw them praying. Not all the beings were praying at the same time, but they were all capable of sensing each other. Once one stopped praying, another would take its ce to continue their daily prayers.


    Inexhaustible power of faith gushed and merged with the divine kingdom. Most of the power was dispersed outside the kingdom and absorbed by some powerful thing in the air. It was some form of the Lord of Glory¡¯s power. The newly conquered divine kingdom brought him a lot of benefits.


    All conquered beings converted to believers meant that he earned hundreds of billions sources of power of faith doing nothing. The entire divine kingdom¡¯s living beings would definitely be more than that, as even an ant generated power of faith.


    A star without life was simply a dead space. A star with life and faith of living beings brought more power to the star. As such, the gods needed to conquer the nes and make them their divine kingdoms.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was capable of seeing over 100 miles away. He searched specifically for ces with few living beings.


    The group maintained an average pace of about 40 miles per hour. Saleen was doing so to avoid using too much power of the stars. At such speeds, the star figures were capable of maintaining bnce between energy input and output.


    There was a white river before them, and Saleen did not find anything hostile in it. He stepped onto the river surface, and it froze over immediately. Every step Saleen took caused ice to form behind him, enabling the star figures to easily run behind.


    Agares stayed close to Saleen and stepped onto the ice. He was unable to feel the temperature of the ice despite wearing special boots. That meant that Saleen was not creating a simple ice bridge. It was difficult for the bridge to be maintained without emanating coldness.


    ¡°Sh**!¡± While Saleen was maintaining good control, they were in the divine kingdom, and someone quickly felt something was off with the ice bridge.


    ¡°ukr!¡±


    A huge person riding a white deer-like magic beast charged at them, shouting at Saleen and his people.


    Saleen was unable to understand what that person said and things turned dire. The person brandished a shining long sword and charged at Saleen.


    A star figure stepped in front of Saleen and brought its halberd down. The person on the white deer flicked their sword upward, deflecting the star figure¡¯s weapon.


    Some strength!


    Saleen¡¯s star figure was not a living being and had no concern of overexertion. The star figures were able to wield huge amounts of power, so long as it was within the limits of the material they were constructed from.


    The halberds wielded by the star figures were not special weapons. They weighed about 100 pounds, since they were made for demons.


    The person was able to deflect the star figure¡¯s halberd, and Saleen gasped. However, before Saleen was done, an assassin leapt out of the star figure¡¯s shadow, piercing the throat of the person riding the white deer.

 Chapter 1214: Crazy, Sick Place (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1214: Crazy, Sick ce (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The assassin¡¯s attack startled Saleen, as the timing of the attack waspletely off. However, the long sword seemed to warp through space and pierce its target two meters away. The spot that should not have been reached by the sword aura was now drenched in blood.


    Blood spilled from the neck of the believer riding the white deer.


    The blood was red and Saleen finally found somethingfortable to look at in that ce. If even their blood was white, then the workings of energies in them was different from humans.


    Red blood was capable of disintegrating wind element. Humans and most living beings got their life force from it.


    The blood on the assassin¡¯s tunic waspletely absorbed. The ck tunic had magic runes and patterns on it, absorbing the bloodpletely. Saleen felt that the tunic even absorbed the smell of blood, keeping anything from leaking.


    There were 101 spectral servants serving Agares and all of them were high level assassins. The strike was clean. The assassin retreated back to the star figure¡¯s shadow after killing the enemy.


    However, they were in a divine kingdom. A dead believer would trigger the senses of thousands around them, and many rushed at the river. Saleen had been choosing ces with very few believers, but they were quickly surrounded by up to 10000 beings.


    101 star figures surrounded Saleen. Saleen and Truman cast magic spells calmly, and Saleen lectured Truman while he fought. Isabe hardly attacked, simply following behind Saleen, holding a wooden sword.


    The wooden sword was given to her by Saleen and enabled her to easily burst sword aura, but was able to serve as a magic staff.


    Isabe listened to Saleen lecture about magicbat and did not attack. Eleanor used conventional magic arrows, shooting at faraway beings slowly, preventing them from being surrounded by too many powerful beings.


    The female assassin by Agares¡¯ side disappeared and retreated back into his shadow.


    It seemed to be rolling terrain, as the ne consisted of peaks of hundreds of meters tall. All kinds of beings rushed at them from between the low peaks.


    Saleen was exasperated and took out the Magical Element Tower. Huge metal gears emerged from tip of the tower, forming a magic.


    The demonic spirits cast spells again, but 600 attacked at the same time.


    ¡°Puny beings. Why have you invaded the divine kingdom of the lord!?¡± A booming voice was heard in the hills. Saleen saw a dragon¡¯s head lift up, blood-red eyes glowing.


    ¡°Divine kingdom of the lord?¡± Saleenughed. ¡°You¡¯re a dragon, no? How did youe to believe in the Lord of Glory? Isn¡¯t this ce conquered? What happened to your original master? Did they get killed? Did you choose to betray your previous god out of fear?¡±


    Saleen saw blood rush to the dragon¡¯s head, but the power was dispersed. The dragon¡¯s original level had probably been above level 13, but it was not even level 12.


    ¡°I would have fallen without the lord¡¯s guidance. Are you human?¡± The dragon was able to understand Saleen¡¯s words, but it was talking in magic tongue.


    The Myersnguage was no longer the lingua franca of the nes. However, many beings were still able to master the magic tongue.


    ¡°Come out and I¡¯ll show you what it means to fall.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, why do you want to piss it off!?¡± Agares was irritated.


    ¡°I need a dragon to make a bow for my archer,¡± Saleen said it deliberately in magic tongue. The dragon was angered and leapt out from the hills. Saleen realised that the dragon¡¯s proportions were off. It had a small head while the body was hundreds of meters long.


    One of its huge ws held a round ball, which seemed to be rusted but undoubtedly metallic. The dragon threw the ball at Saleen.


    The ball was about 13 meters across. If it werended, it would take a full-power level 11 Water Shield to resist.


    The huge round ball was like a shooting star. Saleen did not resist or evade. He simply had Nailisi open up the 12 Notes of First Purgatory and sent the ball into the purgatory of the fallen, chained by the 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen within.


    ¡°Thank you. Good stuff you¡¯ve got there. It¡¯s no wonder why people like dragons so much. You make a great host,¡± Saleen continued to provoke the huge creature.


    Dragons had nasty tempers. However, under usual circumstances, people could do anything to provoke a dragon, and it would not bother with them. Dragons saw most beings as beneath them and not worth noticing.


    It was like how ancient humans were powerful and imposing. If an ant bared its teeth, they would not even bother to extend a finger to squish it.


    After provoking the dragon, the huge creature was finally unable to take it. Rainbow colors shot from the surface of its body, bringing a bit of liveliness to the snow-white divine kingdom.


    With the burst of colors, the dragon took to the air. Saleen caught sight of a white chain on its tail, attaching it to the hills. As it took flight, a hill was yanked out of the ground.


    The dragon¡¯s rear end happened to be a weak spot. The yank caused the dragon to let out an earth-shattering howl.


    Saleen burst out with his Thundering voice to protect everyone around him. The ripples of sound waves negated the force of the dragon¡¯s might.


    Agares was totally taken aback. If Saleen used that skill against him, he would probably be stunned out of his hidden status. The Thundering voice could be endured but not resisted.


    Agares had been lurking specifically in the wilderness during thunderstorms during his training, waiting for the lightning and thunder to strike.


    The shock of the Thundering voice was capable of causing a person¡¯s mental state and soul to copse. Agares had only been able to get used to thunder in nature, but he had no way of breaking it.


    While Saleen¡¯s Thundering voice did not have the power of nature, it was designed forbat, resulting in very high offensive capacity in the sound waves produced.


    Thunder in nature did not have specific targets.


    Nailisi¡¯s double in the purgatory of the fallen had chained up the rusty metal ball with 24 of the Shackles of the Fallen chains. The rust peeled offyer byyer, revealing a shimmering translucent object underneath it.


    It was not actually in a nice sphere, but looked like an asteroid that had been pummeled countless times, resulting in it looking patchy. The object was only revealed after the chains peeled off the outeryer of metal.


    Golden light shot out, and Nailisi¡¯s double shrieked in pain. Half of its body was melted. However, the chains wrapped the object tightly, preventing any light from escaping.


    The golden translucent object was soft, with a texture like fat, but resembled liquid metal at the same time.


    Nailisi was totally unharmed, but it irritated her to find her double injured. She quickly found the object was devoid of any soul and had no life force, making its origins unclear.


    The object had a diameter of 12 meters, and the power imbued in it could easily tear the purgatory of the fallen apart.


    If it had not been for the Shackles of the Fallen being exceptionally high quality, the throw from the dragon could have easily killed everyone present.


    ¡°Master, we need to kill this thing,¡± Nailisi spoke to Saleen through soulmunication. The dragon had been chained in the mountains and it definitely was due to it protecting something.


    The ball was little more than something the dragon threw in a whim, but the energy was massive.


    ¡°Understood. Get back to the tower andmand the demonic spirits!¡± Saleen put up a Water Shield, wrapping Nailisi in it and sending her back to the tower.


    There was still a 600 meter tall hill strapped to the long chain below the dragon¡¯s tail. The dragon was in such pain that tears were seen in its eyes. However, it continued to drag the small mountain, dropping it onto Saleen and the others when it flew by.


    The tower was crushed by the small mountain and half of it sank into the ground. There were no signs of damage on the tower¡¯s walls. Level 18 elementite could not be broken using physical attacks.


    However, the dragon continued to endure the pain, picking up and dropping the mountain, burying the entire tower in the ground.


    Saleen lost support from the tower. The ground of the divine kingdom was totally different from conventional nes, as it was imbued with the divine powers of the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen zipped by using the movement skill he learned from Jalin, arriving about a mile away. He did not use the Crystal Finger attack, so the cost was not huge. However, his Water Shield elongated as it pulled Eleanor, Truman, and Isabe¡ªhis remaining followers¡ªaway as well.


    Agares was nowhere to be found. He used some unknown method totch onto the mountain and climb all the way to the dragon¡¯s body along the chain. Agares looked like a gust of wind, only a mass of energy.


    COMMENT


    The star figures dug down until they reached tens of meters below ground. Saleen originally thought the figure¡¯s digging skills were useless as it would not enable them to go far. However, the skill saved the figures and the assassins hiding within their shadows.


    Seeing how its three previous attacks were utterly useless, the dragon opened its mouth and prepared tounch a dragon¡¯s breath. Nailisi¡¯s dragon¡¯s breath was incredibly powerful. The one that they were facing now was a true dragon.


    If the dragon¡¯s breath hit, Saleen¡¯s Water Shield would not be able to stand against it.


    Dragons were tough beings to deal with. The dragon had been giving Saleen a hard time before even using dragon tongue magic.

 Chapter 1215: Genesis (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1215: Genesis (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was lucky for them that the dragon was chained, reducing its maneuverability. When Saleen saw that the dragon turned around and was about to use dragon¡¯s breath on him, he shot a lightning icicle at it.


    At the same time, he cast Thundering Phantasm. Twelve Saleens appeared around the dragon. Six of them were illusions created by Saleen¡¯s magic while the other six were Thundering Phantasm, having negligible offensive capacity.


    The dragon never expected humans to possess such eerie skills. It immediately used mental powers to determine which of them were illusions and which was Saleen¡¯s true body.


    The dragon¡¯s mental powers dashed by six Thundering Phantasms and loud thunder rumbled in every corner of its body.


    The dragon dropped to the ground with a whimper. Its soul had already been severely damaged by the Lord of Glory, and it had dropped by two levels. Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasm burst at the same time, one-upping the dragon.


    The dragon was not able to use dragon¡¯s breath after its soul was severely damaged again. Dragon tongue magic was totally out of the question.


    Saleen shot an icicle from the Thunder Dragon ster at the wound that was connected to the chain.


    The dragon flinched, and its entire tail was frozen. High temperature lightning burst, and the dragon¡¯s bone actually snapped.


    Dragon bones were one of the hardest materials in existence that still possessed exceptional flexibility. Otherwise, they would not be so strong.Any living being of exceptional strength had bones made of the toughest materials, which alchemists loved the most.


    The dragon¡¯s tail was frighteningly thick. It would not be able to lift a 600 meter tall hill up otherwise. However, under the lightning icicle¡¯s attack, the tail was no longer able to sustain the weight of the hill and snapped, sending the hill crashing into the ground.


    Agares escaped somewhere near the dragon. He held a ck dagger, which he threw hard and hit the gap between the dragon¡¯s scales.


    The rainbow-like colored light around the dragon¡¯s body disappeared. The dragon then began to twitch all over. The pain-inducing pharmaceutical worked.


    Its damaged soul was unable to take the pain, and Saleen was able to hear the dragon¡¯s wail from the depths of its soul.


    A level ten mage joined with a level ten assassin to assault a level 11 dragon, which perished with the help of equipment.


    Agares leapt onto the dragon and extended his hand, retrieving the dagger. Saleen stayed on the ground and put the 200 meter dragon tail into his Starline Ring.


    With the dragon on the ground, Saleen and Agares worked together to dismantle it. The 101 star figures below ground also dug their way up to help Saleen.


    The assassins did not help at all. Agares knew that Saleen had an astonishing number of figures. If he called for help from the assassins, Saleen would simply summon even more figures.


    It was more prudent for him to hold back for now, as Saleen would be more courteous as well.


    Seeing how Agares did not ask anything for help, and he was the only one carving materials from the dragon, Saleen refrained from using the Puppet Constetion. Otherwise, there would be thousands of puppets tearing the dragon apart, and Agares would get even less from the dead dragon.


    Agares knew his boundaries, and Saleen had no intention of wasting time. He only took what he wanted the most. The chain that locked the dragon up was incredibly resilient.


    While dragon¡¯s fangs were capable of cutting most materials, the chain¡¯s quality was spoken for by the fact that the dragon had been unable to get itself free.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s second weapon was a il. The reason Saleen had been unable to craft one for the Winged Skull was because the chain needed was difficult toe by.


    If he had not traded the Lance of Order away because he needed the Si of Silence, Saleen would have destroyed it to craft a weapon for the Winged Skull. He had now finallye across the ideal material to do so.


    Agares¡¯ target was the dragon¡¯s fang and ws. An assassin¡¯s weapon needed to be forged repeatedly. Only materials of such quality would be able to keep up with an assassin of Agares¡¯ level.


    The dragon¡¯s scales beneath the abdomen were ideal materials for crafting soft armor for assassins. Saleen was after the sinew and blood. The hardest scales on the back of the dragon would serve well for crafting heavy armor.


    The star figures worked with them and dismantled the dragon in no time.


    The power of magic scrolls crafted using blood from a level 13 dragon would be several times more potent. Agares knew that dragon blood was precious, but he did not have the equipment to carry it.


    Even if he got any, the quality of the dragon blood would gradually degrade. It would be better to just let Saleen have it, earning himself a favor.


    The two men had an unspoken consensus and only took what they needed. Saleen was wary of Agares¡¯ dagger. Dragons were known for their resilience and ample life force, and it was unable to endure Agares¡¯ pain-inducing pharmaceuticals.


    While Saleen had severely damaged the dragon¡¯s soul before Agares hit it, the power of the pharmaceuticals was very frightening. It would be fatal to just have one¡¯s skin pricked by Agares.


    Nailisi hid on the 17th floor of the Magical Element Tower.


    The controls to the tower were on 16th to 18th floor and deemed off-limits to outsiders. Nailisi began managing her collection of purgatories.


    She had finished patching up her double. Being so severely damaged, her double was unable to help Nailisi manage the golden translucent object, so Nailisi had to do it herself. She opened up a crack between the chains, scooping up some materials and dropping it into her own equipment.


    The blob of matter was not all that offensive, so it was quite a pity that Nailisi¡¯s double suffered that much damage. When the Shackles of the Fallen tied the matter up, it emitted massive amounts of energy without any intention of attacking Nailisi¡¯s double.


    Nailisi broke the matter carefully and fused whatever she scooped up into the collection of purgatories.


    She began with the purgatory of the fallen. The purgatory had been 36 miles in length, width, and height, but began to quickly expand.


    The beings within the purgatory, however, were all killed by the golden light, and Nailisi was unable to do anything about it.


    Nailisi¡¯s double tried to absorb some of the matter to fix her own damaged body.


    30 miles, 50 miles, 80 miles, 100 miles!


    The purgatory of the fallen did not stop expanding even after reaching 360 miles in all dimensions. Nailisi forcefully took control of the space¡¯s expansion rate, and it finally stopped at 1200 miles.


    Nailisi felt she was unable to control such a huge space and quickly sent the mysterious matter into other spaces.


    The devils from the purgatory of the devils were all transferred to the purgatory of the fallen, while the purgatory of the devils expanded. Nailisi felt that her mental powers grew in ordance. Less than one percent of the matter had been used, but the effect was astonishing.


    Nailisi began to fill the spaces in the purgatories with the mysterious matter and expand them. All 12 spaces were expanded to 1200 miles.


    The only w was that the matter did not possess life or creativity. It even killed the fallen creatures in the purgatory of the fallen. While Nailisi¡¯s double had be powerful, her restorative abilities were considerably weakened without the believers.


    Nailisi had an idea and took out a scroll. It was the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water that she took from Saleen.


    Nailisi released some of the golden matter and fused it with the heavy water. The matter began to change. Nailisi was wary of being attacked by the golden matter, so she kept electricity running all over her to protect her.


    The matter with Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water began to disintegrate into minute granules, dropping onto the ground.


    Nailisi took control of her double to unleash some power of faith. The golden drops began to gather the shards of souls in the space. New life was then born in the purgatory.


    None of the life forms hadplete souls, but their life force was strong.


    The creatures looked more or less the same, like the one that resembled a fish but possessed arms and head of a human. Its scales shone with a golden sheen.


    The mermaids worshiped Nailisi¡¯s double as soon as they were born. They were created from Nailisi¡¯s double and given their broken souls. They were unable to remember who they once were.


    Nailisi was very pleased. The blob of matter and the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water quickly reached over 100,000. The mermaids did not need water as they were capable of swimming in air. They worshipped Nailisi¡¯s double like a mother goddess.


    The purgatory of the fallen¡¯s rules werepleted in no time. Any believers who entered would have their connection with their gods severed. All power of faith would be the power of purgatory and provided to Nailisi¡¯s double.


    Nailisi¡¯s double stood on the hovering altar. The 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen reached over 1,000 miles long, enabling them to attack any corner. Nailisi felt that the chains had yet to be fully extended.


    The Goddess of Myers had probably crafted the equipment from the body of a god. If the equipment were restored to its original form, it would probably be of the size of a divine kingdom.


    Creatures from the purgatory of the devils, the purgatory of purification, and the purgatory of elements were transferred before the expansions took ce. Nailisi attempted blend the golden matter using the heavy water and distributed it to the beings in the spaces.


    Over 10,000 demons in the purgatory of the devils absorbed the diluted matter. Their ugly scales began to change, turning pale gold with demon magic patterns covering them. There was also a tinge of green in them.


    The imps and demonic spirits gained a lot. Nailisi took all 3,600 of the enchanters from the tower and threw them into the purgatory of the devils and enhanced.


    Nailisi had no idea that the golden matter was created from gods killed by the Lord of Glory.


    The Genesis Stock Solution.


    Her level was too low and if she had not been using it together with the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, there would have been no way she would have been able to use the stock solution. Nailisi only used the fluid to expand the spaces on a hunch, but the results far exceeded the designs of that fallen god.


    All spaces in her collection of purgatories had been expanded to 1200 miles, and the Genesis Stock Solution began to create lifeforms that fit the rules.

 Chapter 1216: Genesis (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1216: Genesis (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Only living beings that reached level 15 were able to create worlds.


    Or rather, they were able to create life on a ne. Nailisi was only level 10, but she already doing it. It was very important to her. She had taken a human form instinctively, taking in her double into her current form.


    Her human form was her weakest, and having one weak form affected her advancement.


    The power of creating worlds was fed back to her human form, which was helped to digest by her double. Nailisi¡¯s human form began to evolve.


    She needed to guide it using her experience. Since she did not have that, she mimicked Sika, using whatever knowledge she gained from observing Sika to modify her current human form.


    Sika¡¯s body was a work of perfection. The ratio of bone structure to muscles enabled her power to reach the peak of permissible limits. The working of energy in Sika was very unusual, as if it was a grand swordmaster wielding sword aura at all times.


    From what Nailisi was able to tell, the strength of Sika¡¯s body was hardly different from a dragon.


    However, Nailisi was unable to fathom how Sika fought. The strength of her body continued to rise, reaching level nine, ten, then all the way to 12. The evolution halted altogether. Nailisi thought of Isabe. She had intended to be a mage when she first took her human form.


    Nailisi waszy and never had much patience for learning magic, but at the moment, she finally had the chance to do so. Seven types of magic chords formed within her body¡ª the six major elements and one lightning magic chord.


    Nailisi¡¯s body had only taken in a minute amount of the Genesis Stock Solution. The power to modify her body was fed back to her by the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    It was not that the stock solution had given her magic chords. In truth, if Nailisi had intended to use the stock solution to modify her body, she would probably end up bing a god.


    A level 13 pseudogod, one that had divine fire but not a divine persona.


    Nailisi was creating worlds instead of just creating living beings. Low level gods usually would not use their divine powers to create worlds, and would instead choose to keep believers in a ne devoid of life or an interdimensional space that was still growing.


    The gods would grow their divine kingdom from there slowly.


    After imbuing her 12 Notes of First Purgatory with the stock solution, her equipment began to take the form of worlds. It was something that only high level gods did.


    Nailisi used the power acquired from creating worlds to modify her body, stopping at level 12, which was a terrible waste. That amount of power could be used to reinforce a divine persona.


    However, Nailisi¡¯s luck was incredible. What Saleen wanted very badly¡ªlightning magic chords¡ªshe ended up getting. Nailisi had consumed a thunder dragon¡¯s magic nucleus, hide, and flesh before.


    When Saleen acquired a level 15 thunder dragon, she had taken some of its flesh and blood as well.


    Nailisi¡¯s Lightning Protection was decidedly different from Saleen¡¯s skills. Hers was effective when touching an enemy. However, Nailisi wanted to be a mage and used the power of world-creation to modify her body. Magic chords formed, and there was surprisingly a seventh one.


    Nailisi¡¯s human form surpassed Isabe despite her not actually knowing what she was doing, bing a level 10 mage and a level 12 warrior. The ¡®level 12 warrior¡¯ was limited solely to her body¡¯s strength. She did not have any warrior¡¯s skill, such as sword aura..


    Demons did not train sword auras, as they were capable of using huge amounts of power. However, humans were incapable of doing that unless they were someone like Sika, who possessed skills of abat priest and wielded weapons specifically made for priests.


    A luoluokaluo¡¯s instinct allowed Nailisi to achieve that much. Her 12 Notes of First Purgatory was capable of continuous growth, but she needed more than just the Genesis Stock Solution to do so.


    The dragon had been the steed of the god that perished. When its original god was killed by the Lord of Glory, the dragon was chained up, and the Lord of Glory did not know that many things in the dragon¡¯sir were incredibly precious.


    Divinebat destroyed the kingdom¡¯s foundations, and the Lord of Glory was unable to get inside it anymore, as it would result in copse. It was an incredible waste as the tens of billions of believers and living beings that he had painstaking acquired would be lost.


    As such, the Lord of Glory did not raid the divine kingdom.


    Gods had no need to hurry into anyway. When such kingdoms werepletely theirs, none of the living beings on it were able to resist. Any secrets would surface in due time.


    However, no one expected Saleen to be thrown into a divine kingdom, kill a dragon, and raid itsir.


    The Genesis Stock Solution was one of the most precious things in it, and Nailisi had used more than half of it. If the Lord of Glory found out, he would rather destroy the kingdom than let Nailisi get her hands on the stock solution.


    Nailisi was doing all of it in the Magical Element Tower, and the level 18 elementite it was built from was capable of isting the earth-shattering changes within.


    The Lord of Glory was just a level 15 god. There was no way he could know everything taking ce in his divine kingdoms. The Lord of Glory had fought countless wars of conquest to acquire power, and he had umted quite a number of divine kingdoms.


    As a lesser god, the Lord of Glory possessed too many divine kingdoms, making him unable to manage all of them effectively. Myers Maind would not see the power of the Holy See getting increasingly weak otherwise.


    The Lord of Glory was impatient. He was unable to wait for propagation of faiths in his divine kingdoms to advance to be a level 16 middle god, so he resorted to plundering other divine kingdoms, killing other gods of levels simr to his to take their divine persona.


    He was able to grow and advance to level 16 at the fastest speed possible simply by modifying the believers of the divine kingdoms that he had taken and digesting the divine personas of the gods he killed.


    There were no unwanted aftereffects when gods did that because they had incredibly long lives, giving them ample time to digest their enemies¡¯ powers and get rid of any unwanted parts slowly.


    The tower was hammered into the ground and magic patterns on the tower disappeared. Saleen cast Puppet Constetion and the Big Guy leapt out, grabbing the topmost floor of the tower and yanking it out forcefully out of the ground.


    Saleen told Nailisi toe out as soon as the tower was yanked out, before putting it away. The living beings around them continued to charge at them. Saleen unleashed more star figures to open up a path, while he and Agares moved towards the mountains.


    There would definitely be more wealth stored in the mountains the dragon made itsir in.


    There were tens of billions of individuals in the divine kingdom to provide power of faith for the Lord of Glory, but there were only hundreds of millions capable of fighting.


    Furthermore, they were scattered throughout the kingdom. There was no way for them to be in the same spot.


    The ce Saleen was in had few beings. There were only hundreds of thousands capable to fight him. Saleen charged into the mountains and began scanning with his Elemental Eye, quickly finding the dragon¡¯sir.


    There were huge metal balls in their. Every single one of them was rusted and looked like dragon eggs.


    Saleen had no reservations and the Big Guy leapt out and bagged all the metal balls. Agares was unable to do anything but watch anxiously. His space equipment was not as powerful as Saleen¡¯s.


    Even if he were allowed to take the balls, there would be no way he could store them.


    Saleen saw many things in the dragon¡¯sir. All of them had been possessions of believers of their previous god or something that their previous god had prepared for the believers in their divine kingdom, ready to be bestowedter.


    The Lord of Glory was unable to raid the ce, and Saleen and Agares ended up taking all of the wealth instead.


    Saleen did not bother being polite with Agares. All therge materials and pieces of equipment were carted away by Dante. The smaller ones were taken by the star figures.


    Agares only released two of his female assassins to help him take anything that was of worth to assassins.


    It was fortunate that assassins needed little consumable materials. Agares¡¯ eyes glowed when he found a piece of purple asteroid metal. The piece of metal was big enough to make a dagger.


    Saleen found that Agares slowed down after picking up the metal for his new dagger.


    ¡°Agares, found something good?¡± Saleen asked Agares.


    ¡°A piece of 12-dimensional metal. I don¡¯t know how mages look at the world, but to assassins, the world is 12-dimensional. 12-dimensional metal is capable of attacking any target of any space attribute and has a very high damage count. No magic shields is able to withstand it.¡±


    Saleen listened. ¡°Give me half of it and I¡¯ll craft you a dagger.¡±


    ¡°I have level ten mages in my own royal pce,¡± Agares refused Saleen¡¯s proposal.


    Silver Water me lit up in Saleen¡¯s hand, and Agares¡¯ expression changed drastically. ¡°You¡¯re going to take it by force?¡±


    ¡°My contract is absolutely effective. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn¡¯t have let you inside the tower. This is Water me, and only my teacher and I know how to use it to do alchemy. I¡¯ve used it to craft holy items when I was at level nine. Hand the 12-dimensional metal to any other alchemist, and you would¡¯ve squandered it,¡± Saleen borated to Agares.


    Agares stay silent for a moment. ¡°Why should I trust you?¡±


    ¡°Agares, if you¡¯re willing to give me half of the 12-dimensional metal as payment, I¡¯ll do my best. You¡¯re the first enemy that I¡¯d craft equipment for, and also thest.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll buy that.¡± Agares threw the 12-dimensional metal to Saleen. It was only the size of a fist but incredibly heavy.


    Saleen took the 12-dimensional metal and threw it inside the Water me. The piece of metal had cracks, meaning that it was raw material. The power of Saleen¡¯s Water me was much greater than it used to be. He used only half an hour to split the metal into two pieces, which he weighed using a magic scale.


    Agares was startled to find the two pieces of metal to be the exact same weight.


    Saleen smiled. ¡°See that, Agares? This means that my mental powers allow me perfect control of the metal. Otherwise, differences in weight would ur during cutting.¡±

 Chapter 1217: 12-Dimensional Metal (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1217: 12-Dimensional Metal (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Agares had been keeping many powerful alchemists around for the sake of his equipment, so he definitely knew what Saleen was talking about. That was precisely the reason why he was so surprised¡ªthat piece of 12-dimensional metal was the best material that he knew about.


    Being able to manipte it to such a high level of precision indicated that there had been few errors during the crafting process.


    Saleen threw his own piece of the 12-dimensional metal into his Starline Ring, but gave the other fragment to Agares instead.


    Agares looked at Saleen, feeling puzzled. Saleen exined: ¡°We¡¯ll have an exchange when I¡¯m done crafting it. If I go back on my word, well, you¡¯ll still have the other half of the material, which would be enough for you to craft your ideal weapon, anyway.¡±


    Agares was speechless. Saleen smiled and borated, ¡°What I mean is, I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll get out of here alive. If I end up dead, I¡¯ll have no way to fulfill my promise, no? Our contract doesn¡¯t involve any other parties. My followers, children, wife, and others would inherit my wealth, but not the promise between you and me.¡±


    Agares was relieved to hear that. If Saleen were to indeed go back on his word, there would have been little to nothing he could have done. He had agreed to this with Saleen because he knew that he needed the man¡¯s help to leave the divine kingdom.


    As for the matter of Saleen¡¯s supposedly impending death, Agares did not bother giving it any thought. That was because, while the number of level-ten professionals in the world must have grown, there probably were not any who would be capable of killing Saleen in a one-on-one fight.


    Agares knew what he was capable of, and if he himself were to set out to kill Saleen without help from anyone, he would probably fail.


    Saleen had taken quite a lot of loot from the dragon¡¯sir. His Magical Element Tower had, indeed, been able to contact Metatrin City through the interdimensional teleportation portal.


    Jason was unfettered upon hearing that Saleen was trapped. He wrote a long letter to Saleen, exining, in detail, the rules of teleportation between nes.


    That divine kingdomcked a god to manage it, and so the Lord of Glory would not be able to arrive there personally. As such, it would be rtively easy for Saleen and his people to leave that ce. They only needed an elementally stable environment to build a one-time-use teleportation portal.


    He could, of course, have used the one inside the Magical Element Tower to get back to Metatrin City, but doing so would have left the tower in the divine kingdom without any way of retrieving it.


    As for the 12-dimensional metal and the Genesis Stock Solution, Saleen had also sent some of those back.


    Jason instructed Saleen to craft Agares¡¯ equipment in the divine kingdom while he prepared the materials required to build the one-time-use teleportation portal back in Metatrin City, so as to enable Saleen to leave that ce.


    Jason then warned Saleen to refrain from killing too many of the divine kingdom¡¯s beings, as it would attract the Lord of Glory¡¯s attention.


    Saleen was prudent enough to simply stay hidden within the Magical Element Tower while inside the dragon¡¯sir. That ce had the lowest number of beings around, and they were not aggressive types, either. This was because there was a dragon there, and many creatures were reluctant to go near it.


    Anyone who did dare to get close was stupid and had little offensive capacity to speak of, as such beings would seem insignificant to the dragon.


    Saleen had also chosen that mountainous region because of the existence of powerful beings around. As long as he managed to take care of said powerful beings, there was no trouble in any other form to be found.


    Saleen had the materials he needed to create a teleportation portal on hand as well, but they needed refining. He cast the Puppet Constetion and sent 500 thousand puppets out to search the nearby areas of the divine kingdom.


    Those puppets were all neutral equipment without souls, and so would not be noticed by the Lord of Glory.


    No believers in the divine kingdom would have bothered attacking anything that did not have a soul, either, so long as the puppets did not draw the first blood. The area within several hundred miles were picked clean by Saleen¡¯s puppets.


    Saleen remained within the tower and did not pay any heed to any low-level beings harassing it. He simply crafted Agares¡¯ equipment in silence.


    Saleen needed to be careful with that equipment, as 12-dimensional metals were precious in the extreme. There were two reasons as to why Saleen had decided to help Agares out.


    First of all, it was said that all of the nes were only capable of producing such metals in very small quantities. Any that Myers Maind might have produced had evidently been found a long time ago and used up, meaning that it was futile to look for any of the metal there.


    Consequently, that fragment of 12-dimensional metal was the only piece that Saleen would be able toe by for a very long time.


    Secondly, Saleen would make better use of the metal. He had a number of alchemical recipes, especially the ones that he had gotten from Gaine, almost all of which contemporary alchemists knew nothing about.


    The 12-dimensional metal could be mixed with some metals that were even more rare using alchemy. With the Genesis Stock Solution that Nailisi had with her, Saleen could acquire more of those 12-dimensional metals.


    In actual fact, Saleen would be able to multiply the amount of the material that was in Agares¡¯ hand ten times over using said methods, which was why he had generously gave Agares half of the piece that he found.


    When he was done crafting the dagger for Agares, the remaining 12-dimensional metals that he still had with him would have been enough to make equipment for J and Sul.


    Of course, the most important use of the 12-dimensional metals, to his mind, was to craft true space equipment for Sika. That was why Saleen had been so anxious to get his hands on them.


    Sika always was in need of a totem pole, but shecked the necessary materials, as not even the bones of ancient dragons would be resilient enough to craft such an item.


    The mix of 12-dimensional metal, Genesis Stock Solution, and level 16 elementite in Saleen¡¯s hands would be enough to craft something that Sika could use.


    Crafting a dagger for Agares was simply a way of practicing his skills, as it was, after all, the first time that Saleen crafted something of such a high level. His sess was not guaranteed even with the use of the Genesis Stock Solution.


    Saleen chose to use molds¡ªa method that he rarely used¡ªto craft the dagger.


    The elemental nature of 12-dimensional metals was very delicate. Saleen first used a piece of clean crystal to repeatedly chip out the shape of the dagger, before melting the elementite and wrapping it around the de. At that moment, the crystal melted and the elementite congealed, yielding a precise mold.


    Saleen used the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water to blend a tiny bit of the Genesis Stock Solution before cutting down a bit of the 12-dimensional metal and mixing it with all manner of precious metallic materials. He then threw the mixture into the Water me.


    Saleen¡¯s Water me alchemy melted and blended the materials evenly. 12-dimensional metals had the strongest attributes; the Genesis Stock Solution blended it in and added said attributes to the other metals in the mix.


    In thenguage of the mages, the Genesis Stock Solution went by another name: Aqua Reg.


    The Genesis Stock Solution was most precious to the gods; yet, to the mages, Aqua Reg was but a level-16 skill.


    While it was impossible for a mage to craft so much Aqua Reg alone, they were capable of creating it by working with one another. If enough mages went at it for several hundred years, they would be able to create Aqua Reg as well.


    After the liquid mix was sessfully concocted, Saleen pour it into the mold, solidifying it into the shape of a dagger.


    The Water me powered alchemy at low temperatures. By the time the metal solidified, it would have burst the level 16 elementite. Saleen would then have acquired a dagger. The strength of the metal was indicated by the fact that it was able to expand and crack level 16 elementite.


    Saleen took a look and saw that he had only used one-eighth of the 12-dimensional metal piece that Agares had given him. He had never expected to be able to conserve so much. ording to the ratio he had used, the weapons for both J and Sul still would not use up that half piece of 12-dimensional metal.


    The reason why Saleen had used a mold for crafting was because the materials used to craft the item could not then be altered. If Agares wanted to re-craft the dagger, the weapon would lose its attributes, and the metals would be degraded.


    As long as he did not re-craft that dagger, the magic patterns that Saleen had infused at the core of the weapon, which had a frequency that Saleen was capable of sensing, would make it impossible for Agares to use the dagger against him in the dark.


    The dagger was too lethal for Saleen to not put some kind of safeguard on it.


    Agares acquired the equipment he expected within six days¡ªa dagger than was less than a foot long.


    It was a dark blue de in a wavy kris shape, with magic patterns covering every single part of it like the scales of snakes. On either side of its tip, there were eye-like magic patterns. The handle looked the way a snake did as it slithered forward. Agares held it in his hand and felt that it fit perfectly in his grip.


    He felt, for the first time, that a weapon resonated with him, bing a part of his body.


    That alone was a testament that Saleen¡¯s understanding ofbat techniques had reached at least that of the Silver Grand Swordmasters.


    ¡°Do you like it, Agares?¡± Saleen asked, rather smugly.


    While the dagger had only been the product of an experiment, it was nheless a very sessful one. Agares nodded, and Saleen said, ¡°There is a space crafted specifically for you on the handle¡ªenough for an assassin like you. I¡¯ve divided it into 12 parts. Your mental ability should be sufficient to take any item from any of the slots.¡±


    Agares was ted. As an assassin, the only thing that truly troubled him was the problems of using space equipment. Any professional became able to use space equipment when they reached level ten, but the sizes that assassins were able to open proved problematic to them.


    He would not have to target only what he found to be the most precious and give up anything else of less rtive importance when he was raiding a dragon¡¯sir, with Saleen or otherwise.


    ¡°Saleen, I believe this is yours,¡± Agares said, and threw the remaining half-piece of the 12-dimensional metal to Saleen.


    Saleen took it honestly and put it away in his Starline Ring before continuing, ¡°The 12-dimensional metals cannot be imbued with poison, so I crafted magic patterns on the dagger¡¯s de. You¡¯ll only need to stow poison at the hole at the tail end which you can then activate using your skills or mental powers, sending it to the de.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Saleen.¡± Agares had thanked him¡ªa rare thing for the assassin to do. The damage dealt by the 12-dimensional metal would trump any kind of poison, but such attributes needed to be activated using skills nheless.


    Things were different in the case of poisons, as he was capable of concocting brews capable of killing a dragon. He would only have had to cut an enemy¡¯s skin to kill them.


    ¡°I saw that you dropped your dagger when you were killing the dragon. Such attacks were not ideal for assassins. Once you have gotten familiar with that dagger, you¡¯ll realize that you¡¯vee to possess a weapon capable of attack at mid-range. The eyes on the snaky de are capable of locking down on enemies.¡±

 Chapter 1218: 12-Dimensional Metal (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1218: 12-Dimensional Metal (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°You¡¯re weird, Saleen. Aren¡¯t you afraid that I¡¯ll attack you with this weapon?¡± Agares¡¯ question was obviously one that needed a satisfactory answer from Saleen. He was not convinced that the mage before him had not done anything fishy to the de.


    ¡°Well, here¡¯s how it is, Agares. I didn¡¯t put anything in the de that will harm you. I¡¯ve written down every single attribute on a scroll and you can familiarize yourself with everything by reading it. That is, I have held nothing back in the crafting of this weapon. As such, it wouldn¡¯t be strange at all to say that forging this thing has benefited me. So, if you¡¯re nning to kill me with this de in the future, it will be far more difficult than you¡¯d expect it to be.¡±


    ¡°Good. 12-dimensional metal weapons were originally meant to kill gods. I¡¯d only need amon weapon to kill a human.¡± Agaresughed.


    Yeah, right. Wait till I acquire lightning magic chords, then. You¡¯ll be sure to change your mind after that. Common weapons were utterly useless against the power of lightning. One hit and it would reduce them to a heap of scrap metal.


    ¡°You¡¯re an honest mage, Saleen. Please, name my weapon.¡± Agares knew that the possibility of Saleen doing something fishy with the de was slim. It would have sufficed for him just to be able to make the most out of the weapon. He had never thought of assassinating Saleen with that de.


    ¡°How about ¡®Snakerun,¡¯ then? That¡¯s the name of a renowned assassin, no?¡± Saleen replied somewhat solemnly.


    That dagger that was to be called Snakerun was quite a weapon. Due to the properties of the material of its make, it was capable of being used against godly items. That was to say, it would have been difficult even for Saleen to melt it down and to reforge that weapon.


    The possibility of the de being damaged and broken in battle was infinitely small and it would stay keen for eternity without any need for sharpening.


    Saleen took out a reading scroll after he was done and handed it to Agares. ¡°Here are all the attributes of the dagger. Some of them level up as you advance.¡±


    Agares took the scroll and began reading it on the spot. He read it twice within 10 minutes and made sure that he remembered every single detail, before crumpling it up and reducing it to ash.


    ¡°Get familiar with the de. I¡¯ll look for ways to get us out of here,¡± Saleen said, and left the tenth floor of the tower, returning to the 17th.


    Metatrin City took a week to prepare all the materials for crafting an interdimensional teleportation portal.


    If Saleen had not happened upon the dragon¡¯sir in the divine kingdom, the materials for constructing said portal alone would have caused him to incur huge losses. The cost of building a single-use teleportation portal was the same as that of a permanent one, but Saleen specifically had to craft one that could only be used once. Otherwise, the beings from the divine kingdom could appear in Metatrin City at any given moment.


    The beings that were attacking the Magical Element Tower had apparently gotten fed up. Hardly any creatures hade near it for the past two days. The dragon was dead, and the air around them felt stifling.


    Everything seemed perfect in the divine kingdom, but there was, nheless, still death. The Lord of Glory had yet to work on that particr realm.


    If the Lord of Glory had been capable of entering that kingdom, melding it gradually into his own, death would never ur there. Saleen needed to leave soon, as the death of the dragon had caused the believers in that divine kingdom to waver. The Lord of Glory would take notice soon enough.


    The interdimensional teleportation portal was quickly constructed with the help of the demons. They erected a huge metal ring inside of which was the teleportation tform, hovering at a height of 60 meters.


    Saleen then called out Agares. They had been hiding in that divine kingdom for almost 10 days, and he had no idea how things were in Nature City. If Theisio had lead the attack personally, the city that Saleen had painstakingly built would have ended up being destroyed.


    The interdimensional teleportation portal was set up. Saleen and the others walked up to it, but they did not depart immediately.


    Saleen first said to Agares, ¡°Do you want to leave something behind in this divine kingdom?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    ¡°I need the most potent of poisons.¡± Saleen was a mage and was adept at alchemy, but his skill in the art of crafting poisons paled inparison to Agares¡¯.


    Agares took out a bead made from tremolite and handed it to Saleen. ¡°This is the Grey Potion¡ªit¡¯s not suitable for coating des, but it works well with airborne distribution. Break the bead, and you¡¯ll be able to kill over a million in a city.¡±


    Saleen peered into the tremolite with his Elemental Eye and saw that the rock held a drop of something in it, which was about the size of a grain of rice. The potency of the liquid¡¯s poison was indeed frightening.


    That speck alone could kill up to a million¡ªwhich would prove far easier than bombarding a ce with fire magic shells using metal flyers.


    ¡°Heh!¡± Nailisi summoned a rotten spirit and ced the Grey Potion bead into its fourth eye, covering it with rotten flesh.


    The rotten spirit then leaped from the tform, heading deep into the divine kingdom.


    Rotten spirits were the most contagious of all spirits. Their capacity forbat was average, but once they began to infect others, they could quickly create frightening numbers of spirits.


    The newborn spirits would too be extremely contagious. Their only weakness was that they had short lifespans, amounting to less than a month.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Hopefully, this divine kingdom will be able to purify that spirit,¡± Saleen said,ughing as he activated the portal. There were six of them, and the smallest of portals was enough for transportation.


    The huge metal ring that crossed over the portal began to spin. As Saleen and the others disappeared from the divine kingdom, elemental chaos took ce at the portal¡¯s core, bringing an elemental storm shortly thereafter.


    Divine kingdoms were built from elements, as well. Once an elemental storm formed, the resulting ripple would spread out, drawing the attention of powerful beings.


    The rotten spirit took the chance to sneak out of that mountainous region and traveled all the way into densely popted areas, getting ready to create more like spirits.


    Saleen and the others left the divine kingdom through the teleportation portal. It took one whole minute for them to be transported back to the temple in Metatrin City. Jason stood right outside the portal. Agares was rather shocked to see Saleen¡¯s teacher, another level-ten sorcerer.


    He put the Snakerun away immediately to avoid any misunderstandings with Jason.


    ¡°Agares, wee to Metatrin,¡± Jason said to the emperor of the Cloudflow Empire with a smile.


    Agares felt a chill on his sensitive skin. Jason¡¯s smile made him shudder. It felt as if Jason was looking at a dish of food or something just as delicious which he was ready to throw into the fire. The territory that Jason had mastered did not need to be demonstrated to strike fear into the hearts of others. His terror was very real, and it was not restricted by level.


    Agares snuffed the thought ofmitting the deed right there and then in Metatrin City. It would have been his only chance to use the Snakerun against Saleen. The next time that he got close, the mage would be able to detect what he was up to.


    Saleen looked at the assassin emperor and thought that, having been frightened by his teacher like that, the assassin would definitely not dare to infiltrate the city from that point forward. If Saleen sent him off and killed him right afterward, he would have lost someone whom he could use for training.


    Saleen did not think that it mattered if he let the assassin live, as Agares would not be able to use the Snakerun against him. It would be difficult to destroy the Figure of Fate using any other weapons, either.


    ¡°Well then, I had better not hold you any longer, Your Highness. J, send His Highness Agares off.¡± Saleen called J and had the level-ten True Might send the walking troublemaker away.


    ¡°Thanks for everything, Saleen.¡± Agares bowed elegantly at Saleen as a gesture of gratitude. The mage had let him into the Magical Element Tower and had saved him, after all. If he had passed through the portal on his own, there was simply no way that he would have been able to make it out alive.


    ¡°No need for pleasantries, Agares. Theisio seems to have subjugated that level-12 oracle, so I¡¯d suggest that you stay clear of him for the time being.¡± Saleen reminded him out of ¡°kindness,¡± and saw a smile in Agares¡¯ eyes.


    Saleen was baiting him, and it was a bait that he had no way to resist. Agares found Saleen to be an amusing and interesting target, one worth his time.


    Theisio needed to die. While Agares loathed being emperor, he still had a bit of a sense of responsibility in him nheless. The Cloudflow royalty was weak, while the nobles were strong.


    It was not something that he could do anything about, but he definitely would not allow the Holy See to spread their religion within Cloudflow territory.


    Theisio was a truly exceptional pope, a rare find in the past millennium. If Theisio were to end up dead, the Holy See would probably find it difficult to get another pope within the next hundred or two hundred years with such an ability to consolidate.


    As for the level-12 oracle, Agares now possessed the Snakerun, enabling him to kill beings of that rank.


    Saleen only began to talk about the divine kingdom after seeing J send Agares away.


    While he was spending most of his time within the divine kingdom, he had cast Puppet Constetion and used the 500,000 puppets to plunder the dragon¡¯sir, while also gathering a huge amount of information about the divine kingdom. It felt as if Saleen had aplished all of that on his own.


    Saleen gave Jason a bottle crafted using divine crystals, which carried Genesis Stock Solution. The gift was a hefty one, for, while mages were capable of creating something like that, they needed to be above level 15 to do so.


    Furthermore, the final form of the magic amplifier that Jason intended to build was not something transitional like the Elemental Envoy. That magic amplifier required many hard-to-find materials. With the Genesis Stock Solution, Jason¡¯s sess rate in crafting said magic amplifier would be near 100 percent.


    ¡°And this, teacher, is the 12-dimensional metal.¡± Saleen took out the piece of metal and handed it to Jason.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need that much, Saleen, and. umm...I know that you have your own ns, but don¡¯t leave Metatrin City just yet. Now that we have so many materials at hand, let¡¯s craft a batch of equipment together, including your and my magic amplifiers. As for the Elemental Envoy, just give it to Truman.¡±


    ¡°Teacher¡ªare you saying that you can craft a true magic amplifier now?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Furthermore, when I¡¯m done crafting it, I¡¯ll definitely be able to advance to level 11. Craft an identical one for yourself. When you no longer have a use for it in the future, give it to me. I¡¯ll need it for something important.¡±

 Chapter 1219: Kill Who? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1219: Kill Who? (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Jason said that he would definitely be able to advance to level 11 after crafting the magic amplifier. It was this surety and a sense of confidence that inspired Saleen.


    His teacher was truly a rare genius in the world of mages, the sort that was born once in 10,000 years. Jason was not yet even 50 years old, and he was already able to advance to level 11. It would have been an extraordinary feat, even in ancient times.


    The lifespan ofmon ancient humans had been probably reached up to 1,000 years. As such, it had not been unusual for them to advance to level 11. However, being able to get to level 11 when one was not even 50 years old yet was astonishing nheless.


    ¡°Get ready, Saleen. Didn¡¯t you say that Theisio had subjugated a level-12 oracle? That means that the Holy See has been able to acquire greater help from their god. If I don¡¯t break into level 11 soon, you won¡¯t be able to keep this city of yours for long.¡±


    Saleen grumbled deep down but agreed with his teacher nheless. He was lucky to have survived being thrown into a divine kingdom by Theisio. If he were to be thrown right before the Lord of Glory himself, not even his Magical Element Tower could keep him in one piece.


    ¡°After advancing to level 11, I¡¯ll be able to use the magic amplifier to craft permanent flying magic patterns for the Magical Element Tower, which I could etch inside the tower itself. This will prevent any situation that could keep you from controlling the tower, and, effectively, ensure that this won¡¯t happen again,¡± Jason borated to Saleen.


    They got to scheduling soon enough. Both of them went to the 17th floor of the magic tower and began to get the materials ready to craft their magic amplifiers.


    They were both still in the tower when, a monthter, urgent news came from Daliang City.


    The Heaven Knights corps of the Holy See had not attacked Nature City; they were relocated to the frontlines at Daliang City instead. The Heaven Knights were all capable of flight, and that proved troublesome.


    The city hadpletely lost its height advantage. While Daliang City had been able to win in the infighting between its forces and Alchemy City¡¯s, they had suffered quite a bit of casualties nheless.


    It was fortunate that Alchemy City would never allied with the Holy See, as they would have lost all control of their Cemetery of the Giant.


    The Holy See¡¯s forces wereunching repeated assaults on the city at that point of time, straining its ability to cope.


    However, as long as Saleen stayed within the tower, no one was able to order around Nailisi. Without Nailisi inmand, the powers of Demon City could not mobilize, as those demons only followed her orders.


    Nailisi herself was also in the Magical Element Tower. She had molded her human form in rather strange ways and needed to get used to it.


    She was not only training on her own; she had asked J, Eleanor, and two other level-10 sorcerers from Sreeger Ind to help her develop all manner of skills. That meant that it would be a while before she left the tower.


    The troops that they could gather from the Principality of Bitterwater were inadequate. Among those at Saleen¡¯s disposal, only Demon City had ample forces, enabling hundreds of thousands of demons to be mobilized at any time.


    Thebat capacity of those demons was higher than elite soldiers in the conventional sense.


    Mobilizing Sreeger Ind mages in Metatrin City would require Jason¡¯s approval as well. Hence, Lex was unable to acquire any forces from Metatrin City¡¯s side.


    Daniel knew his priorities well and wrote a letter to Aini in Lonestar City, borrowing hundreds of death mages, and sent an army of spirits as reinforcements to Daliang City.


    Saleen and Jason had entered the most critical stage of their crafting in the Magical Element Tower.


    Once Jason sessfully made a magic amplifier, the level-12 oracle would no longer be a threat. When Jason made it all the way to level 12, he would be able to kill level-13 pseudogods.


    Saleen had a family, and, if he had not had someone like his teacher taking care of things back home, he would not have dared to go all over the ce. If what he did outside resulted in his enemies kicking down his door, his strength would have been pointless.


    A ring with a diameter of a meter hovered before both Saleen and Jason. The ring looked like Saleen¡¯s ne, which was divided into 24 segments representing the four states of the six major elements.


    Bronze colors appeared on the metal ring, and there was crimson writing on each segment, without a single magic pattern. There wereyers of shadow in rings within the ring itself, making the whole thing look like a metal disk.


    Saleen felt the ring had expanded his powers 24-fold. That figure meant that, when Saleen cast a level-nine spell, it would be more powerful than level-10 ones. A level-10 spell would equal the power of 12 level-nine ones stacked together.


    With rule factors taken out of the equation, this form would remain constant in all situations.


    Of course, this did not mean that 12 level-nine sorcerers attacking at the same time was equivalent to the power produced with this device. The root concepts were different. After all, the 12 sorcers would not be able to synchronized perfectly as they attacked.


    Saleen felt disbelief. The schematics of the magic amplifier seemed to be something one would have little chance of building sessfully; but Jason had been able to sessfully build not just one, but two at the same time, one of which he entrusted to Saleen for the time being.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen, that¡¯s it.¡± Saleen saw fires jumping within the ring one meter in diameter that was Jason¡¯s magic amplifier. It was the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier, a fire-type element spirit.


    Jason had finally subjugated something that he had been suppressing for a long time. In his advancement, he had left behind bangs and shes.


    ¡°Teacher, if I find a water-type element spirit, I¡¯ll be able to give the amplifier back to you,¡± Saleen said as he came to realize something.


    ¡°It works like this. These two rings are called Elemental Orders. They¡¯re originally of one set, which consists of six rings and requires us to gather six element spirits. But the magic that I trained in is too specialized, and only calls for two types to act as weapon spirits. Equipment like this isn¡¯t always better the moreplicated it is.


    ¡°Well, then, teacher¡ªyou¡¯ve seen my ne. Do you think I¡¯ll be able to craft a lightning amplifier?¡±


    ¡°Theoretically, yes. You can try if you¡¯re not afraid of damaging the ne. I¡¯ll help you craft it in due time.¡±


    ¡°But, water-type element spirits¡ª¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re hard to find. I can do it with a water-type element spirit, as well.¡±


    ¡°How about gods...?¡± Saleen was speechless at his teacher¡¯s level of confidence, and had difficulty understanding it. It seemed that Jason dared to imagine and to try anything and everything, and, furthermore, that he seeding again and again.


    Well, never mind. It¡¯ll be quite a while before he advances to level 12, anyway. I¡¯ll still have plenty of time to catch a water-type element spirit; I¡¯ll probably be able to get one by then.


    He had a suitable bait in his hand, after all¡ªa divine persona of a water-element god¡ªand he only needed to know where such beings were.


    His magic amplifier could already magnify the power of his spells 24 times over, despite not having a weapon spirit in it. He wondered how powerful his teacher¡¯s amplifier would be.


    Saleen had been feeling troubled. Theisio had the help of an oracle, and it made him feel powerless. But things had turned out for the better, as his teacher had grown more powerful all of a sudden, and both Theisio and the oracle would not be able to threaten Metatrin City.


    However, other than his teacher, there were probably also some among the veteran level-10 professionals who had advanced to level 11, such as Joey and Fycro.


    Saleen was particrly concerned about Fycro. He had never expected him to hand the Seal of Divine Power to Theisio. There must have been some kind of trade involved.


    Saleen did not feel all that afraid at the moment. Once Sika advanced to level ten, their powersbined would prove more or less capable of taking on Theisio¡¯s set of three godly items.


    If his family badge was avable by then, one of the three godly items would definitely be broken. At the very least, he could take out one of their attributes.


    ording to the records, the godly items were at their most powerful when all three were used in conjunction. Losing just one had severely affected the Holy See¡¯s efforts to propagate itself during the past millennium. It served as a testament to how important it was for all three of them to be together.


    After Saleen came to possess the magic amplifier, there was no need for him to break out his family badge all the time as his solution for everything. Thus, he could reserve its powers specifically for breaking the synchronization among the three godly items.


    With such secure measures at his disposal, it was no surprise that Saleen no longer feared running into Theisio.


    Jason¡¯s magic amplifier flew to his hand and transformed into a ring small enough to fit onto his finger. Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier did not contain a weapon spirit and, as such, was incapable of such a transformation, which meant that he had to use a slot on the Starline Bangle to house it.


    Saleen only opened the Magical Element Tower when both of them had finished crafting their magic amplifiers. Daniel had been waiting for quite a while outside of it.


    Daniel came up to Saleen as soon as he walked out of the tower and said, ¡°My liege, the situation is dire in Daliang City. I¡¯ve asked Duke Aini to send death mages as reinforcements, but, for the past two months, we have suffered severe casualties, and the spirits and the death mages are unable to hold on any longer. Another batch has gone to take their ce, and more than 500 thousand spirits have been lost.¡±


    ¡°What about Demon City?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi is also training in the tower, and, without her orders, we couldn¡¯t mobilize anyone from Demon City.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi is training!?¡± Saleen sensed that something was off. That imp had always been veryzy. Her bloodline was such that she simply needed to consume powerful beings to gain all manner of mystical powers. Training was hardly necessary in her case.


    Daniel dared not speak to ill of Nailisi. The way that she went about thingsmunicated that she ced her interests before those of everyone else. If she were a follower instead of a bonded creature, she would havee under attack from everyone else around her a long time ago.


    However, the fact remained that Nailisi was a bonded creature. Even if she had armies that only she was able tomand, it wasn¡¯t out-of-bounds.


    Everything she owned belonged to Saleen, after all.


    ¡°Let her train. Ry my orders. Mobilize 200 thousand demons and an army to Daliang City. By the way, tell Sul and J toe see me.¡±


    ¡°My liege, J is training with Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°Umm... Tell them all to get over here,¡± Saleen added. He did not know what to think of Nailisi¡¯sck of diligence. If she were not so steeped in her training, she would not have neglected to reinforce Daliang City. Lex had probably heard all this as well but was unwilling to have someone practically beg Nailisi toe out.


    She was a sovereign, after all. Lex would never have asked her people go out and look for the imp, who also happened to be Saleen¡¯s bonded creature.


    Nailisi was rather reluctant, but, after she was yanked outside, he threw her a ring, saying, ¡°Dragon Crystal Needles.¡±


    A beaming smile appeared on her face immediately. She had yearned for such equipment for a long time. She did not have magic chords and was unable to shoot the needles in the way that mages cast magic spells. But this would no longer be a problem, as the needles, once shot out, could be recalled to her ring.


    It would have been dificult for Saleen to craft such a piece of equipment for anyone else; but his and Nailisi¡¯s sould were connected, and he thus had an uncanny understanding of the frequencies of her Nailisi¡¯s mental power, in the same way that he understood his own.


    As a result, that piece of equipment was far more intricate than Eleanor¡¯s quiver, and more practical as well.

 Chapter 1220: Kill Whom? (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1220: Kill Whom? (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Everyone was ounted for other than Myers the Water Fox. It was hard work to get used to synchronizing her body with that of the statue, and they were afraid of causing a space copse if anything were to happen.


    Saleen was bold enough to ask it to take Myers¡¯ statue, but it did not mean that the Water Fox was equally daring.


    Saleen did not rush it, as it was, after all, of high enough level. When it finally hadplete control of its powers, Saleen would earn yet another powerful helper.


    Saleen took out a magic map and pointed at Daliang City. ¡°This city is in quite a predicament now. Most of the fossilized gods at the outeryers are hardly revivable. I think that the Holy See is now amassing power and is ready to venture inside the cemetery. With the pope having gathered three godly items, as well as Daliang City and Holy Rock City losing support from Alchemy City, it will be difficult for us to get much out of this. Consequently, I intend to put the Holy See in their ce, and I¡¯ll need a target.¡±


    ¡°Master, whom do you intend to kill?¡± Nailisi got excited immediately.


    ¡°Who? Someone rtively important, of course.¡± Saleen pointed at a mark on the magic map and said, ¡°The number of powerful professionals fielded by both the Tribunal and the Pivotal Council is the same, but Theisio is not around, and that means that the Tribunal is hiding someone of even greater importance. That person is probably the great head inquisitor. I¡¯ve almost died at his hands previously. This time, I intend to kill him.¡±


    The great head inquisitor possessed the Armageddon Codex. Nichs had told Saleen that much. However, he should be far less threatening after losing the Divine Skull.


    The sess of the Divine Tablet spell might have enhanced his level, but the fact that he had lost a godly item would save Saleen a lot of trouble.


    His family badge was capable of breaking godly items. The Armageddon Codex would not be able to keep Saleen from killing his target.


    Saleen¡¯s confidence had grown considerably after the sessful creation of the magic amplifier, and he set his sights on the great head inquisitor.


    If the great head inquisitor were to end up dead, and Theisio remained as headstrong as he had always been, then the Tribunal might not help out the Pivotal Council that much. This was because the eventual distribution of wealth would have be imbnced.


    ¡°Of course, before we go about doing that, I have a batch of equipment for all of you. First of all, J and Sul. Here¡¯s my question: who wants a powerful sword spirit?¡± Saleen said as he took out two longswords and handed them to J and Sul, respectively.


    Both of them shook their heads and said, at almost the same time, ¡°My liege, we¡¯re hoping to develop our own sword spirits.¡±


    They¡¯re developing sword spirits on one¡¯s own?


    Saleen had acquired one quite a long time ago, but no one who was around Saleen back then had been able to use sword spirits.


    At the moment, Sul was about to break into level ten, and J was already a True Might. If they were to incorporate a sword spirit into their weapons and go on to connect with the powerful sword will within, it would enhance theirbat capacity quickly and directly.


    Saleen did not expect both of them to refuse his offer.


    ¡°My liege, give it to me, then,¡± said Isabe all of a sudden.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Yes. My ultimate goal lies on the path of magic, so I won¡¯t be putting that much time into sword training. With the help of a sword spirit, I¡¯ll be able to advance quickly, and it wouldn¡¯t hurt mybat capacity much. Hence, I¡¯ll be able to spend more time on magic training,¡± Isabe borated in a matter-of-fact manner.


    She knew that what Saleen was giving them on that asion exceeded the level of the boons that mages usually gave their followers. This sword spirit was probably an unusually precious one.


    She still liked magic better and did not like spending too much time on sword training. However, without both her magic and sword skills intact, she would not be of much importance as a follower of Saleen.


    ¡°Alright, then.¡± Saleen took out a longsword, which was a little over two meters long. The hilt was about twice as long as that of regr longswords. The de was broad and thin, and it looked almost transparent.


    A whiff of Water me jumped from Saleen¡¯s hand, containing the sword spirit that he had been holding onto for a long time. He forcefully channeled it into the longsword by Saleen, and then sealed it within.


    ¡°The sword¡¯s name is ¡®Soullocker.¡¯ I¡¯ve sealed the sword spirit so that none of the sword will within is lost. Isabe, you may prefer to see yourself as a mage, but remember to respect the sword and the spirit within. It shall bring you power and enable to go further on your journey as a mage.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my liege!¡± Isabe took Soullocker with glee; she sheathed it and wore it at her waist.


    It was not that she did not have space equipment; rather, she needed to keep the sword spirit of the weapon by her side and tomunicate with at all times before she could subjugate it. The sword spirit would have simply gone dormant if she were to keep it in space equipment.


    ¡°J, here¡¯s your weapon,¡± Saleen said as he took out a Qin Eight-Sided Sword. Its appearance was antique and simple, devoid of any re. It looked fierce and unyielding¡ªtheplete opposite of J¡¯s Tears.


    J looked at the sword and felt rather touched. Saleen knew J¡¯s weakness very well. The attributes of Tears were more on the soft, feminine side. It had not affected J adversely below level 12, but, like magic, swordsmanship was ultimately about bnce. After level 12, J was going to need new breakthroughs.


    The sword was fierce and tough, striking a perfect contrast with J¡¯s Tears.


    ¡°The sword is named ¡®Face.¡¯ When you be capable of using it and bringing out the full extent of its power, it will be a sign that you are bing a forcemaster.¡±


    ¡°I shall work on it, my liege.¡± J took Face and smiled. Saleen had his way of naming the weapons.


    ¡°Sul, this is yours.¡± Saleen took out a blue short sword. The short sword was only half a foot shorter than regr longswords, which made it far longer than was conventional for short swords.


    The short sword¡¯s color was simr to that of Saleen¡¯s eyes. It was a blue that was so clear that one could see all its details. The short sword felt like water and hardly showed any sign of aggressiveness or ferocity; it looked nothing like a tool made to kill.


    The short sword looked more like the decorative items of nobles. It was so beautiful that it did not seem to be meant for actualbat.


    ¡°The short sword¡¯s name is ¡®Spring Lake.¡¯ Sul, your way with the sword is too fierce and strong. There is a saying among mages: ¡®The harder something is, the easier it breaks.¡¯ That saying has a truth to it. Magic nuclei are harder than metals, but why does no one make des out of them, then? It¡¯s because des made of magic nuclei break too easily. Metals might be hard, but they¡¯re still flexible.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words to Sul made things far easier to understand. This was because Sulcked anyplicated experiences, and so had a lot of troubleprehending the deeper aspects of swordsmanship.


    He was not able to advance to be a true might, despite being over a hundred times more hardworking then J in other respects.


    Sul took Spring Lake and fell deep into thought. He understood what Saleen meant and thought back to his journey so far.


    He could not return to where he came from, and, while he was appreciated at Saleen¡¯s side, he felt pressured and had always wanted to surpass J¡ªyet thetter had always eclipsed him in level.


    This all had led him to acquire an aggressive, fierce, and robust way with the sword when he was at level nine. However, that had hindered his progress into true might. If Saleen had not awakened him in this manner, he would not have understood, even if J were simply toy out the fact for him directly.


    Spring Lake was like the water of ake in early spring¡ªsoft and harmless.


    ¡°Eleanor,¡± Saleen called to the elf, who had taken his surname as their rtionship had gotten closer. He took out a bracelet and handed it to her, saying, ¡°I took something like a magic amplifier from you a long time ago. Now, I¡¯m giving you something simr.¡±


    ¡°Right, got it.¡± Eleanor took the bracelet and put it on her wrist. The bracelet had been the Withering Dance, a possession of the goddess, which he had re-acquired after taking apart the Elemental Envoy and swapping out its core.


    However, the bracelet¡¯s attributes had all been wiped clean. It did resemble a magic amplifier after Saleen re-crafted it, but its effects were all due to the properties of its material alone. It was a piece of space equipment was a dimension stone in it. Furthermore, the goddess¡¯ bracelet was highlypatible with the elf¡¯s abilities.


    The Elemental Envoy¡¯s power dropped somewhat after he removed the bracelet. It was lucky that Truman was only a level nine mage and could still use the Elemental Envoy until he reached level 12. If he were to advance to a higher level, the power of the Elemental Envoy would have no longer been able to keep up.


    ¡°The bracelet is still called ¡®Withering Dance.¡¯ You can create your own territory in the future and merge it with the bracelet.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Eleanor replied in a low voice, feeling very happy about it. The bracelet was a very suitable piece of equipment for an elf. Nothing on Myers Maind other than the goddess¡¯ instruments would have been sopatible with Eleanor.


    ¡°Daniel, here¡¯s your necro scepter, the Heart of Nekros,¡± Saleen said as he pulled out a magic staff. The staff was one of those of the three kings, with a Blood Soul Tower crafted onto it.


    The scepter¡¯s material was too well-made for even Saleen to replicate. He had given one to Nichs and had left this one for Daniel. Saleen intended to give thest one to Aini.


    Daniel took the Heart of Nekros with mixed feelings. He had been short-sighted back then, trading away the Winged Skull, a bonded creature with an unlimited potential to advance, for a level-eight spirit.


    By that time, Pikoosi had be something that Daniel could have easily done without, and the regret still lingered in his mind. That necro scepter from Saleen served as a reminder for him to always cherish his thoughts and mind, and to refrain from changing them at a whim.


    ¡°My liege, I shall keep this equipment with me until the day I die,¡± Daniel swore; it was a mage¡¯s oath.


    ¡°Right, your turn now,¡± Saleen said, looking at Nichs.


    ¡°I already have this, my liege,¡± Nichs said, tapping the Scepter of the Fallen in his hand and waving the Codex of the Fallen.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Nichs, this will be very important for you.¡±


    Nichs¡¯ beard stood on end immediately as he looked at what was Saleen¡¯s hand. He had always known Saleen to be generous to his subordinates.


    If Saleen said that the item equipment would be important to him, then there was no way that it was somethingmon. In this context, it wouldn¡¯t even be something that was powerful only in the conventional sense.


    There was a metal ball in Saleen¡¯s hand. It looked rusted, but it was something that he had gotten from the dragon¡¯sir. The amount of power contained within it surprised Nichs like he had never been surprised before.


    He just took the ball from Saleen¡¯s hand without saying anything. This was not just being rude; it was the first time in Nichs¡¯ life that he had lost himself like that.

 Chapter 1221: Getting Prepared (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1221: Getting Prepared (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The ball was small and crisscrossed with red and green rust. Nichs¡¯ eyes lit up as he held it in his hand. Nailisi was unable to do anything, but mumbled, ¡°Are you getting aroused here, old man?¡±


    J sighed and said, ¡°You would be too if you were a holy master.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s so impressive about it?¡± It urred to Nailisi that her master had plundered it all from the divine kingdom and that it was hardly peculiar for Nichs to like it, as getting in and out of divine kingdoms was very, very difficult. Common folk would be converted to believers as soon as they entered.


    They would have had a hard time keeping their minds in one piece, let alone actually leaving afterward.


    ¡°My liege, this... This is divine fire!¡±


    When a creature became a god, it naturally sparked divine fire in them. When a god perished, their divine fire was naturally snuffed out as well. However, there was actually divine fire within that ball that had yet to be extinguished.


    A person was unable to achieve godhood simply by getting their hands on divine fire; nheless, the power and rules contained within it were unusually powerful, and only beings at level 13 were able to possess it. Acquisition of apletely divine persona only happened at level 15, at the lowest.


    That thing was actually more precious than a divine persona. A god¡¯s divine persona was left intact after they perished, but not their divine fire. Countless gods had died on many nes.


    In addition to the divine personas that have been lost, there were plenty of others scattered here and there in obscure locations, as well.


    It was difficult to preserve divine fire, and, she thought, Saleen had only been able to acquire it because the divine baby was still alive.


    Furthermore, when Saleen had acquired this divine fire, it was almost all used up.


    From Nailisi¡¯s perspective, Nichs was rather easily-impressed, and had clearly never seen much good stuff. But, in actual fact, while the divine fire in that ball was iplete, its level was far above the divine baby¡¯s.


    It had been left behind by a level 15 god¡ªthe god that the Lord of Glory killed.


    ¡°Good stuff, indeed. You need to know how to put it to good use. This is the best material that I can give you at the moment, Nichs,¡± Saleen told him warmly. Only then did Nichs calm down.


    ¡°My liege, I¡¯m afraid that I won¡¯t be able to keep this thing intact for long!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to be afraid of? From here on out, you¡¯ll either follow me around or stay with my teacher. No enemies are worth fearing with us around. If Theisio shows up, we¡¯ll see to it that he never gets home.¡±


    ¡°Well, then... Allow me to refine this thing.¡± Nichs dared not linger around for long and headed straight for Saleen¡¯s tower to refine the divine fire and put it inside his Scepter of the Fallen. It would be a long, arduous process, and he would probably not be able to help Saleen out in the meantime.


    Saleen was thinking about hunting down the great head inquisitor, an idea with which Nichs had initially disagreed. However, seeing how prepared Saleen was and how all of his followers had just acquired powerful weapons, Nichs knew that Saleen was ready and that he had grown considerably as well.


    Nichs finally felt relieved and at ease in following such a master; his future was guaranteed.


    The crowdughed as they watched Nichs waddle all the way to the tower without saying anything. So, the old man has forgotten that he can fly?


    Saleen then turned serious and said, ¡°Some of the mages aren¡¯t here. I¡¯ve prepared equipment for Pasatilo, Kanuka, and the others. All of my followers will switch out their gear. Our enemies are getting increasingly powerful, and things will be tougher from here on out than they have been.¡±


    ¡°The winds on the highest peak are always the strongest, and the water in the deepest depths is always the coldest,¡± said J, blurting out two lines from a proverb of the Cloudflow people.


    ¡°Indeed. What we¡¯re about to do is akin to standing on the highest peak.¡±


    Saleen finished andid out the magic map again, saying, ¡°It¡¯s very peculiar that Nature City is still unscathed. It seems that our enemy is determined to fight on the front lines at Daliang City. Good, then. Nature City is currently within our control, and it¡¯s not permissible to give anything up when fighting a war. This time, I¡¯ll be sending more demons there, but I¡¯m taking you people along as well.¡±


    Saleen said this he pointed west of the Separation Sea. There was a path leading into the Titan Duchy. All of the Tribunal¡¯s forces came from there, while the forces of the Pivotal Council entered from Kroraina. The armies from both sides were scheduled to meet below Daliang City.


    There was a problem with this arrangement. Both sides should have actually beenmanded by Theisio himself, but the forces of the Tribunal refused to enter through Kroraina, insisting on taking the narrow path through the Titan Duchy instead. It was worth noting that it was easy to get trapped when taking such narrow paths.


    ¡°My liege, the great head inquisitor probably won¡¯t be taking the lead anymore,¡± J said, pointing out where the problem was. Given that the great head inquisitor had used up his Divine Tablet spell, if he were to run into any more danger, he would have no way to escape.


    As such, the great head inquisitor would be a lot more cautious.


    ¡°I have a way to bait him,¡± Saleen answered, smiling. That was the first time that he did not exin the details of his n to his subordinates.


    ¡°We¡¯ll head for here.¡± Saleen pointed at the center of the Separation Sea and then took out another scroll, saying, ¡°You¡¯ll find the gear and materials that you need here. Go get them from the alchemy factories. We¡¯ll need to be careful this time.¡±


    Saleen was usually the one to personally distribute the things that his followers would need. This time, however, Saleen had ordered the alchemy factories to forge equipment and consumables for his followers instead. One could say that he hadpletely changed.


    He had begun to seek stability andprehensiveness in everything he did.


    Every single follower of his had their own space equipment, after all. Even Sul had a purple and gold pouch that could store dozens of cubic meters worth of stuff. It was better for them to bring more gear along.


    Saleen¡¯s trip that time did not include any Sreeger Ind mages. He considered it a waste to have them fight in battles, as Sreeger Ind mages usually were more knowledgeable and had better foundations.


    Most mages paled inparison to them when they were put to work at the alchemy factories. Furthermore, Saleen had interdimensional teleportation portals in Metatrin City, and a certain number of mages was needed to guard them. Those mages, in turn, had to be people that Saleen could trust in the extreme.


    A person who went through an interdimensional teleportation portal had no idea where they would end up, but the ones in control of said portals were capable of determining the space coordinates.


    Although the calctions involved in doing so were incredibly difficult, Saleen did not want to leave such variables, no matter how small, to chance.


    Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space was one that was growing, and, furthermore, it was growing exponentially. That was to say that Saleen would be able to see it grow into a star or a continent asrge as a main ne in his lifetime.


    The Magical Element Tower needed re-crafting for the trip, and Saleen had be more prudent, no longer thoughtlessly performing feats that damaged the magic patterns on the tower¡¯s exterior.


    Flying magic patterns, even when incorporated inside the elementite, would still see some wear and tear, but that would first require the outeryers to be damaged. Until Jason reached a level above 13, they would have no way of refining the elementite itself.


    Saleen knew all about Gaine¡¯s methods. A magic tower of such a level would have been little more than a toy in his hands.


    If both Saleen and his teacher were to be truly powerful, they would only need to use the magic amplifiers while inside the tower, and it would give them an area of attack over a hundred miles in radius.


    By then, anywhere his tower was erected would have be the safest ce around. It would make it far easier to protect a city.


    The people whom Saleen brought with him this time were Nailisi, Eleanor, J, Nichs, Sul, Truman, Daniel, and Isabe.


    The Winged Skull was stationed at sea on guard against Glen, and so could not be summoned home. It was fortunate that Nailisi¡¯s human form had acquired considerable power, and she had upgraded herbat capacity. Her human form now was equal in prowess to three-and-a-half level-ten professionals.


    Nichs stayed cooped up on the 18th floor of the magic tower to slowly refine the divine fire. The quality of his scepter as superb. Saleen was unable to melt down and craft the equipment left behind by Shann. However, he could still incorporate the divine fire, working to boost the scepter¡¯s power.


    There were also 3,600 demonic spirit enchanters within the Magical Element Tower, and Saleen needed little help as well, as he still had Puppet Constetion in his possession. Anyone who tried to overwhelm him with sheer numbers would be at a huge disadvantage.


    The level-nine archer was left behind at Metatrin City. Jason had promised to use materials exchanged from the Dragon Ind to craft some true archer equipment.


    The Seven Nights longbow that Saleen had crafted for Eleanor actually worked better than elvish magic equipment. If Eleanor had not possessed special skills, she would not have been able to use its powers properly.


    Saleen had gone to the trouble of recalling his most trusted people back to Metatrin City, and then fellpletely silent. It was something that ought to have attracted attention. However, not only had Agares ratted out the spies that he had ced around Saleen, but he had also provided the mage with information on other force¡¯s operatives.


    Saleen was nice to Agares because he gained something from it. Agares was able to make the other spies disappear while doing essentially nothing, and that had allowed him to make further ns.


    No one knew what Saleen was up to, only that he had mobilized a 500,000-strong army, and was going through Qin and heading all the way to Daliang City to reinforce his wife, Viscount Lex.


    His entourage was massive, but no one could see where the 500,000 demons were.


    Saleen had, in fact, mobilized them, but they were inside the purgatory of the devils. The best thing about that purgatory was not that just it was capable of carrying demons, but that it was able to produce magic bugs.


    The area within that purgatory had expanded to a diameter of 1,200 miles. The magic bugs that it produced were frighteningly massive.


    Thanks to the ample depth of the soil, there were underground fires andva, enabling the production of special magic bugs capable of sustaining over a million demons.


    The Magical Element Tower headed straight for Daliang City, and, that time around, Saleen hardly ran into any obstacles. Theisio was already waiting outside Daliang City. While he had yet to do anything, everyone saw the pope outside the city and blessed their own armies.


    The reason that the pope had yet to make a move was that he did not want to expose his trump card. The true fighting would only begin when the fossilized gods at the outer areas of the Cemetery of the Giant were all killed.


    Saleen was already amply prepared and wanted to sh with Theisio on the way to the city, but the pope himself was busy. Morale within Daliang City was at an all-time high, and the armies of the Holy See had been considerably drained of their human and material resources.


    They even gave up most of northern Qin as a result.


    Theisio even suspected that this front was all an borate trick yed by Saleen. One huge pile of ruins had attracted about half of the powers of the few massive forces on the maind.


    If it had not been for the cemetery at Daliang City, Theisio would havemanded his armies personally to take out the Kingdom of Metatrin, wiping the bane that was Saleen from the face of the ne.

 Chapter 1222: Getting Prepared (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1222: Getting Prepared (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    What frustrated Theisio the most was that he hadid an borate trap to throw Saleen into a divine kingdom, yet the mage had actually been able to escape home. That meant that Saleen had interdimensional teleportation portals and coordinates.


    Would Saleen have just gone and crafted an interdimensional teleportation portal in Metatrin City without a good reason? He might be rich, but he definitely wouldn¡¯t have been so indulgent. It was worth noting that the cost of crafting an interdimensional teleportation portal would, after all, be equivalent to building a city.


    Furthermore, building cities only requiredmon materials, while crafting interdimensional teleportation portals called for precious ones, some of which it was difficult even for the Holy See to acquire.


    Therefore, he deemed that there must be some very important secrets in Metatrin City. However, the spies hired by the Holy See had all died all of a sudden for no apparent reason, cutting them off from any useful sources of intel.


    Metatrin City was built like a fortress, and all of its vital points were in the temple. Worse still, the whole vicinity within half a mile of the temple was deemed off-limits. The temple guards even performed patrols around the area.


    The members of the Holy See all had the power of faith in them, which made it absolutely impossible for them to infiltrate Metatrin City.


    Metatrin City¡¯s security measure seemed loose and were hardly checks of any kind. However, the threeyers of city walls and nine sets of gates were all designed ording to Dante¡¯s Sequence. The temple knew everything that happened within the city. Furthermore, the number of mages in Metatrin City was ridiculously high, and they took turns monitoring everything from the 36 magic towers around the clock.


    A level-ten professional was necessary to monitor the ce, and even they would not be worth much, as they would be exposed as soon as they tried anything funny.


    The members of the Holy See would have needed powerful equipment for concealment and had no way of staying for long in Metatrin City.


    As such, all of the spies deployed by the Holy See to the city were outsourced from forces like bands of thieves. The Tribunal had considerable control of them, but they were unclean, which made it difficult for them to infiltrate into the city.


    Saleen had practically announced his return from the divine kingdom, yet Theisio could not be seening to stop him.


    Saleen was in no hurry, as his target was not actually Theisio to begin with. If Theisio were to show up, then he would give up taking on the great head inquisitor. Saleen had gotten very adept at employing such adaptive measures to deal with problems.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood sent intel periodically to Saleen, per the treaty, from the shores. Things in Alchemy City began to grow chaotic. The Devil¡¯s Horn had indeed begun to craft warships en masse with materials acquired from Saleen.


    Common warships would not have been much of a concern, but the ones being crafted resembled those of the Ancients in many ways. There were building structures like magic towers on the huge ships.


    The Grand Duke did not go about making baseless assumptions, but Saleen believed that they were craftingrge-scale magic amplifiers.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn is actually ambitious enough to build something like that. Large-scale amplifiers would act like magics on warships. As such warships were built exclusively out of metal, thebat capacity of the Devil¡¯s Horn had definitely been enhanced a hundred times over.


    There was no longer any need for them to fear the Elemental Hand. Thepletion of the warships meant that both sides were of equal might.


    Saleen caught wind of the news that the Elemental Hand had their hands full and wanted toe to an agreement with the Devil¡¯s Horn. They needed to make contact with each other, one way or another, to confirm the power difference between them.


    If both sides were, indeed, of equal might, then a fight would not be necessary.


    Saleen feared that Alchemy City would take the initiative to mess up his ns, as he had too few men at his disposal. The number of mages in Metatrin City was still inadequate whenpared to Alchemy City.


    The Magical Element Tower flew at great speed, its entire body wrapped in a cloud of mist, and its flight velocity was gradually approaching 400 miles per hour. That was not actually the fastest speed that the tower could achieve¡ªits max speed exceeded 1,000 miles per hour.


    However, if the tower were to do that, the flying magic patterns would end up being damaged again.


    However, they could still throw some elemental beings into the magic power furnaces and boost its speed to about 800 miles per hour.


    While most mages had no qualms about pulling off something cruel like that, Saleen did not like the idea of killing elemental creatures just because he was in a hurry. However, if his life were threatened, it would be entirely fine by him to sacrifice some elemental creatures.


    They made the 20,000-mile journey at a pace of about 7,000 miles per day. The tower had no longer needed to take breaks during flight ever since the magic power furnaces were installed. Saleen reached Daliang City within three days.


    It was difficult to cast spells from the top of Daliang City, as the flight of Saleen¡¯s tower was powered entirely by the magic power furnaces, and was incapable of using ambient elements. The most that he could do was to throw elemental creatures into the furnaces.


    Saleen only needed one low-level elemental creature to safelynd the tower within the grounds of the city¡¯s pce.


    There was only one tower capable of flight in the world. The demonic spirits sensed Nailisi¡¯s presence, and no one dared to attack. Lex¡¯s pce was quite safe, as it was under the protection of a magic.


    The Alchemy City mages were dumb enough to not check things thoroughly before making their move there, and they ended up being pummeled by the enchanters.


    Lex was not there to receive Saleen, as the fighting was so tense at the walls that even she, the head of the state, needed to be present personally. Lex possessed God¡¯s Ring, and, while no one was certain of its full capabilities, everyone knew that the protection it afforded was unparalleled.


    A level-nine archer had once tried to assassinate Lex. The arrow shot right toward Lex but quickly disappeared without a trace, before she even batted an eye at the projectile.


    Every single such attempt ended in this manner, and the Holy See¡¯s people eventually gave up the thought of shooting Lex dead from afar.


    The battlefield between the two sides was concentrated outside the city¡¯s eastern walls, where the entrance to the Cemetery of the Gianty.


    Daliang City¡¯s walls were 500 meters tall, making it seem like a mountain. They made it inconvenient for people from the city to get in and out. With the Heaven Knights, who were capable of flight, showing up at their door, the people within the city hesitated even to step outside.


    It was fortunate for them that the number of fossilized gods had gradually dwindled, and the Holy See was unable to get many.


    A hanging bridge had been constructed descending from the walls, enabling troops to charge to the ground from above. The bridge was full of magic equipment and was difficult to destroy, as it was protected by the magic from the city walls.


    Officials from the Principality of Bitterwater received Saleen, some mages among them, all of whom Saleen was familiar with. Saleen instructed Nailisi to unleash the demon army.


    It would take some time to mobilize the 500,000 demons. After Saleen was done dropping off Nailisi and had spoken with the officials, he flew the tower to the east side of the city.


    The Magical Element Towernded somewhere behind a city wall that was about 40 meters tall. The tower stood behind the wall, and metal gears extended from its top inyers, slowly turning and forming the magic.


    The magic of the tower was powered by two sets of sources: the six small-scale magic power furnaces on every floor, and therge-scale magic power furnace on the 16th floor.


    Saleen gave no thought to the cost and simply activated the magic. Coincidentally, there were coincidentally two forces duking it out below the city: the Blood Knights of the Holy See and several thousands of spirits.


    The spirits looked very battered. If they were to sustain further injuries, they could only be revived back in the spirit ne.


    The Blood Knights were not faring well, either. Both sides consisted of about 3,000 units, and some others were taking on the fossilized gods charging from the cemetery. Although things were indeed heated for the 6,000 fighting each other, they had little influence over how things were going in the battle atrge.


    Saleen looked toward the cemetery¡¯s one exit beneath the city, guarded by pitch-ck wardens, and the other exit, guarded by the demon army.


    As the cemetery had two exits, they were split into four groups which were engaged in different activities: two groups from each side guarded the exits, while two other groups from each side charged with doing battle with each other.


    These peculiar battles have been fought for over a month.


    Death mages did not like such battles much, as spirits were lifeforms, as well. While the spirits who became casualties could be revived, they did note back as the same ones.


    When the mages summoned spirits, they usually did so repeatedly, calling the same spirits to serve them. It was the same with the spirits they used inbat, which were all capable of being summoned repeatedly; that way, the grew inbat capacity.


    However, not all of the mages were capable of creating spirit space. Hence, that kind of expenditure was deemed too extravagant.


    Saleen¡¯s men were able to afford spending resources like that. While Aini had yet to advance to level ten, his skill in summoning spirits were terrifying. With the help of two spirit ne creatures, Aini was almost capable of performing forced summoning from the spirit ne without any concern for cost.


    He then distributed the summoned creatures to his subordinate death mages.


    Death mages were usually able to subjugate one or two of those creatures at a time, and saw all those remaining as consumables. They usually subjugated the unusual or special ones, which were usually also the most intelligent.


    The others, which were deemed not worth subjugating, just became more cannon fodder in the spirit ne.


    The Holy See was frustrated, as such a battle of attrition could only result in dwindling numbers of Blood Knights. However, without an order from the pope tounch a full-on assault, they had no choice but to fight this way, day after day.


    Saleen counted and found there were about 4,000 wardens standing guard over the exit to the cemetery. he waited for Lex to enter the magic tower before saying to her with a smile, ¡°Sorry for beingte, Lex.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m d that you know you are. Take care of those wardens down there for me, will you?¡± Lex pointed at the 4,000 wardens in a rather tired manner.


    Saleen remained smiling, despite seeing that Lex was rather irked, before giving the order to attack. The area covered by the Magical Element Tower¡¯s magic was far greater than that of the one on the city walls. Saleen was capable of attacking with magic spells within ten miles radius.


    They threw one elemental creature after another into therge scale magic power furnace. Under Saleen¡¯s orders, all 3,600 demonic spirits cast a level-seven spell simultaneously.


    Pale white rays shed out from the top of the tower. It was a level-seven instant-death spell: Life Steal.


    This instant-death spell had a low rate of sess, but Saleen had found that, given the trajectories of fate, everything happening within the cemetery would otherwise take a turn for the worse. Having the luck of the Goddess of Myers at his side gave him an edge.


    The Holy See¡¯s forces were not the only ones who were dumbfounded by the 3,600 instant-death spells they cast; even the mages on the walls found it to be baffling. The 3,600 level-seven magic spells ended up killing over 3,200 enemies. Less than 400 of them ended up failing.


    It was a form of ughter aplished through magic, and one against which the enemy had no way to defend.


    Instant death magic was something that could only be evaded through luck, or through a sheer level difference that prevented one from being targeted by the enemy. Once targeted, if the spell happened to work, one had no choice but to ept the oue.


    The effects could only be overridden by level difference; nothing else worked against such spells.


    Practically-speaking, only people of level ten and above could truly shrug off this level-seven instant death magic.

 Chapter 1223: Getting Prepared (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1223: Getting Prepared (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was extremely difficult to train wardens, and losing over 3,000 would nullify any defensive divine arts that they had put in ce. The fossilized gods burst out of the exit and reduced the remaining wardens to mincemeat.


    The Holy See had reserve forces, but they consisted of only just over 2,000 cavalry units. The instant death magic spells that Saleen cast from his tower had an unusually high rate of sess in such environments, and had messed up the Holy See¡¯s ns.


    By the time the cavalry arrived, it was toote. Over 1,000 fossilized gods had been released, and they rampaged on the ins.


    The Holy See was still able to press forward, and retreat was not an option. After all, while the forces from Daliang City could retreat under the protection of the magic, but there was nothing but a vast in outside the city, which meant that there was nowhere for the Holy See¡¯s forces to run.


    After fighting many battles thatsted over a year, the Holy See¡¯s knights were no longer inexperienced military men as they had once been. They knew that, if they were to run, it would only result in greater casualties.


    Lex saw everything happening beneath the city and sighed. ¡°It would have been great if you¡¯d been able to get here sooner.¡±


    ¡°If I had shown up sooner, the forces from Alchemy City would have revolted sooner, too. Lex, the grudge between me and Alchemy City is now all on the surface. They might have appeared to be acting against you, but it was actually me they were targeting. They destroyed Pompeii City in an act meant to keep the southwestern nobles in check. But now that I¡¯ve settled that side of things for you, you¡¯ll be able to rally them if you send someone over. Then, you can catch Holy Rock City in a pincer-like attack.¡±


    There were no mages from Holy Rock City in the magic tower, and, hence, Saleen did not bother concealing anything in his speech.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to do that. My brother is still alive, after all.¡± Lex sounded rather sad as she said this. Her brother had some inherent physical defects that no magic pharmaceuticals could cure. His body would onlyst to about the age of 40.


    Any extra days he lived from that point on were simply bonuses, and there was no way he could run a country in that state. The throne would be hers in 20 years or so. If Safilos found that disagreeable, then it would be a good time to take the city by force.


    Saleen had simply been testing the waters with Lex, and, since she refused to do it, he put the matter aside. As Saleen saw it, Lex¡¯s brother had no intention of bing emperor. Saleen was a king and loathed being one. He expected her brother to feel doubly so, as he was ill all the time andcked energy.


    Managing the day-to-day affairs of a nation was not much different from doing battle, and it might actually be more tiring. Mages who went out on adventures had longer lives than emperors, on average¡ªbeing emperor was a high-risk profession as well.


    However, it was beneficial to not have to attack Holy Rock City. The Holy See was still around, and Holy Rock City would hit them all the same.


    But then again, the problem at hand was that, while Holy Rock City was quite able to defend against the Holy See, they were utterly incapable ofunching assaults. As such, Saleen needed to clip the Holy See¡¯s wings in order to give Holy Rock City an easier time retaking Kroraina.


    Things could get gotten more chaotic, and more people could die; still, Myers Maind would not crumble. When a person became capable of living over 1,000 years, they had a very different view about life and death¡ªbe it their own or that of others.


    Saleen had felt heartache when he destroyed Ironwall City, as it was done out of desperate need. He would no longer have felt so at present: it was simply fate. If fate had decided that he had to die, then he would have fought back. But if fate demanded the deaths of others, Saleen simply stood by and watched.


    When gods perished, all the beings within their divine kingdom were in trouble as well. It involved the lives of tens to hundreds of billions, even trillions. Inparison, the wars on the maind were hardly worth mentioning.


    Saleen recalled the times he had felt rather ufortable around Faerun when he was dissecting dead bodies. Looking back on it now, Saleen saw that Faerun had only been thinking about magic knowledge, and that it had nothing to do with cruelty.


    ¡°The southwestern nobles will be disappointed,¡± Saleen said nonchntly.


    However, Lex unexpectedly replied, ¡°I¡¯ve reached an agreement with Arb. She will support me, so I won¡¯t need to attack Holy Rock City. So long as I¡¯m able to maintain the defense of this ce, Golden ins will see to it that this ce bes the second capital city.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re setting up a new country?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Let¡¯s save gobbling up Qin for when my brother is dead. I can now rally the southwestern nobles and make sure that Holy Rock City gets no support from the south. I hope that you¡¯ll be able to take control of Separation Sea for me around the vicinity of Daliang City, cutting the Cloudflow¡¯s fleet off from its waters for good. I¡¯ve lost all control of the areas in that city¡¯s domain. I may give upnds here, but I¡¯ll take the area east of Titan and seize control of all the regions surrounding Separation Sea.¡±


    ¡°Daliang City will be the frontline, then!¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this ce the frontline already? Who doesn¡¯t want a piece of the Cemetery of the Giant? If I can keep this ce, then I¡¯ll be the empress of a nation. If I lose it, then I¡¯ll just go spread your faith with you and be a chatan. When our contracts are fulfilled and we¡¯re finally free, we¡¯ll build our own kingdom in the interdimensional space.¡±


    ¡°Fine, but Lex, no need to worry, we can¡ª¡±


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m running out of time.¡±


    ¡°Lex, I¡¯m not here to help you with the defense of the city this time.¡± Saleen had no choice but toy it all out like that.


    Lex was, evidently, too exhausted to look like a queen. In that moment, she felt more like a tired, weak woman.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here to hunt down an important figure of the Holy See. If a certain someone ends up dead, you¡¯ll have an easier time here.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s your target, then?¡±


    ¡°The great head inquisitor. We¡¯ve fought before, and he was very tough. He possessed powerful holy items, as well.¡±


    ¡°How certain are you of your ability to pull this off?¡±


    ¡°60 percent.¡±


    ¡°Will you need me? Saleen, I¡¯m a level-ten mage now, too.¡±


    Saleen was mildly stunned, but quickly replied, ¡°No need for that. I will face the enemy all on my own.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯ve been so loud and pompous because you were justing to attract the enemy¡¯s attention?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. I¡¯d be heading to the Separation Seater. I¡¯ll bait the great head inquisitor into action from there.¡±


    ¡°Huh? Hahaha...¡± Lex was stunned for a second beforeughing. Saleen¡¯s methods seemed too simple and straightforward; but there were times in which, the simpler the n, the more effective it proved nheless.


    Saleen was, indeed, at Daliang City on very important business. He was about to leave the city and head for Separation Sea, as the ce, obviously, had something of equal value to the Cemetery of the Giant.


    The Holy See would definitely have sent forces there to overwhelm Saleen, and they would need someone ofparable power to Theisio in order to do so.


    But, given how Theisio was needed at Daliang City and could not give up on the Cemetery of the Giant, the person who had probably gone to fight Saleen would be someone from the Tribunal.


    ¡°Lex, don¡¯tugh. I¡¯m about to get something very important done. Do you remember the coordinates for this spot of the Separation Sea?¡±


    ¡°I do. So, you¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yeah. This is the so-called ¡®eye of the sea.¡¯ It has a portal connecting to the deep sea. The precise reason why the portal was never recorded in any books is because it has been suppressed by eye. The very reason that the Separation Sea has never had any water-rted disasters is that there have never been any abnormalities in the eye.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, for real?¡± Listening to Saleen¡¯s analysis, Lex thought that it sounded rather far-fetched.


    ¡°We¡¯ll know once I get there.¡±


    ¡°Here. Take this, then,¡± Lex said as she took off the God¡¯s Ring, attempting to put it onto Saleen¡¯s finger.


    Saleen was truly touched. The God¡¯s Ring was no ordinary equipment, and even godly items paled inparison. It was something that Lex¡¯s father had left behind for her, and he could not afford to lose it.


    Saleen took the ring and put it back onto Lex¡¯s finger, saying, ¡°Lex, I¡¯ll show you what I¡¯m capable of now.¡±


    As he said this, Saleen released his own magic amplifier from the Starline Bangle¡ªthe Elemental Order.


    ¡°What is this!?¡± Lex asked, stunned.


    ¡°The Elemental Order¡ªa magic amplifier capable of boosting my powers 24 times over.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you said that you have a 60-percent certainty of killing the great head inquisitor, right?¡± Lex asked. She had found a problem with that statement.


    ¡°Indeed. The great head inquisitor might have advanced to level 11.¡±


    ¡°Then, what level of certainty does he have of killing you?¡±


    ¡°10 percent,¡± Saleen answered confidently.


    The coldness on Lex¡¯s face dissipated and she patted Saleen¡¯s shoulder, saying, ¡°Alright; go, then. When I¡¯ve be an empress, then you shall be king. Getting to this position will be more difficult than advancing in magic.¡±


    Saleenughed. Lex finally was able to rx; his teacher had been wise to have him craft a magic amplifier. He put Elemental Order back in its equipment slot and said, ¡°I¡¯ll stay here for the night and leave tomorrow morning.¡±


    Lex blushed and said, ¡°What do you n to do during your overnight stay?¡±


    ¡°Oh? Didn¡¯t you go looking for Eleanor to ask her to make some meds for you so that you could bear me a son?¡± Saleen asked yfully; Lex seemed to be in a good mood.


    But Lex¡¯s expression turned glum upon hearing that, and Saleen was puzzled. Lex sighed and said, ¡°Even if I wanted a child right now, we wouldn¡¯t have time to raise one. I¡¯m so envious of Sika...¡±


    Saleen thought that what she said was sensible. He and Lex held a lot of people¡¯s lives and livelihoods in their hands, with the result that they had to be on guard at all times. Sika, on the other hand, only needed to take care of the couple hundred of thousands of people from the Caucasus.


    Furthermore, those Caucasians treated her as if she were their god, and her children, too, were hailed as the lifeline of the Caucasians.


    Even though Sika had no intention of letting her children be priests, those two had nevertheless been born with priestly powers.


    ¡°Well...we¡¯ll justy off the meds for the time being, then,¡± Saleen said and scooped Lex up, heading straight for the floor below. No one could enter the 16th floor, and Saleen was the only one who had been granted ess to it.


    That floor held the mechanical core of the Sky City and was also where therge-scale magic furnace was housed.


    ¡°Do you still think about me, Saleen?¡± Lex did not struggle, and wrapped her arms around Saleen¡¯s neck instead as she whispered into his ear.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Even when Sika¡¯s around?¡± Lex asked a very woman-like question. She was a perfect example of royalty, and would not have ever asked such childish questions.


    ¡°Yeah, I still do,¡± Saleen said, nodding hard. He was not a kid anymore and knew well enough that that was the only correct answer at that moment.


    ¡°Mages are not allowed to lie,¡± Lex pinched Saleen¡¯s nose, seeming a little forceful in it. But, then again, her strength was iparable to Sika¡¯s, and, to Saleen, her pinch felt incredibly soft and gentle.


    ¡°I¡¯m an astrologer, as well,¡± Saleen said and cast the Puppet Constetion. The equipment did not fully open within that space of the magic tower. The ball hovered in midair and cast thousands of stars around them.


    Brilliant starlight filled the space, making it seem like they were floating among the stars. The mechanical core of Sky City transformed. The metal structures around them transformed into flowers and trees.


    Lex then smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯ll still be happy, even if that was a lie. You know, it¡¯s only when I¡¯m around you that I find running this country to be incredibly boring.¡±


    1

 Chapter 1224: The Cosmos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1224: The Cosmos (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen examined the transformations within the tower and felt satisfied. He had trulye to feel that he had already advanced to level ten.


    He had just now felt that his power being enhanced and his number magic chords growing, making him more than ten times more powerful than he had once been. Yet, at the moment, he found that what had truly changed was his mental powers.


    Mental powers were, in their origin, a manifestation of one¡¯s soul force. One was incapable of channeling power from the soul until one reached level ten, unless some secret method was used. And, when thetter was done, the damage to the soul was almost irreversible.


    The changes to the mental powers were more than simple enhancement in terms of magnitude, as his control became considerably more refined as well.


    The entire space around him, which stretched 360 meters in all dimensions, was not a huge one; however, it was filled with parts from the mechanical core of the Sky City. The intricacies of those metal parts rivaled that of level 18 elementite, and, previously, Saleen had simply let the mechanical core itself run everything.


    As Saleen gained a hold of what was happening in there using his mental powers, he found that his faculty of control was no longer something that level nine sorcerers could even imagine.


    It was the true manifestation of strength. Magic chords were necessary, but if they were not used in conjunction with mental powers, all magic spells cast would be crude and utterly incapable of working at their best.


    Lex sensed that Saleen was different, as well. He put her down and extended his left hand. That ring that he had gotten in an exchange with Arb still looked battered, as he had not repaired it.


    It was not that he was incapable of fixing it; rather, he had been concerned that, if he were to do so, his mental powers would grow exponentially again, and things would exceed his control.


    Saleen was confident that he could now restore the ring to its original state using Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water, 12-dimensional metal, and a bit of Genesis Stock Solution. He was only concerned about whether he would have been able to keep the ring under control if he were to repair it.


    Saleen was able to sense, by then, that the ring was not only severely damaged, but had something sealed within it as well. That thing was probably the root of the reason that the ring was able to enhance mental powers. There was a possibility that that thing in it would end up possessing his body if the seal failed to hold.


    Saleen was unable to help, but asked Lex about everything he was thinking.


    Lex listened to Saleen¡¯s suspicions and said, ¡°Saleen, the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake is not something that¡¯s fun to hold on to. Among the few pieces of equipment that Arb had on hand, this ring was the best one¡ªfor mages, that is. If you¡¯re concerned that some powerful weapon spirit is sealed within and you¡¯ll be unable to keep it contained, then I can tell you that the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake will eventuallye to life.¡±


    ¡°The mark wille to life?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. There are not nine, but 13 Six-winged Flying Snakes that are smarter than humans sealed within. I¡¯m not sure about their levels, but I can tell you that even ancient humans would have needed to be on guard against them. Do you really think that a race of beings of such power would have simply been willing to serve the Grukos as guardian creatures? The snakes that were kept at Golden ins are all now suppressed by the mark. If the snakes within it were to escape, it would be the end of the Grukos.¡±


    Saleen nodded in agreement. If he had been sealed by some level-one creatures and forced into vebor for thousands of years, he would probably do the same thing the minute he was freed.


    Lex continued: ¡°The ring is more than it seems. Arb didn¡¯t know that for very long, and only my father understood more. He told me something about the ring and then had Master Joey wipe that part of his memories. Naley: when you¡¯re done repairing the ring, only I can tell you what it¡¯s truly used for. But I don¡¯t want to get my memories wiped like that.¡±


    Saleen was aghast. Emperor Chanake had actually had Joey wipe part of his memories. It sounded very surreal; spells for erasing memories were harmful to people.


    However, Emperor Chanake seemed to have told his daughter the secrets because he had foreseen his destiny, and knew that he probably would not have made it to old age.


    If he had ended up dead before his time, then the secret might have been lost. There were many skills in their world that allowed people to peer into souls, after all. The emperor had actually entrusted something that important to his beloved daughter...


    Saleen was at a loss of words. He recalled what Emperor Chanake had looked like, and he seemed to have been more approachable than Safilos. Or, rather, he had never thought about how brutal Lex¡¯s father had once been.


    ¡°I¡¯m staying here for three days at most before making a move. I¡¯m afraid I won¡¯t be able to fix the ring in time,¡± Saleen said doubtfully.


    ¡°Three days are more than enough. Stay here with me for three days, and we¡¯ll get this done together,¡± Lex proposed, taking the initiative.


    Saleen had lost all the lustful desire that he had previously had and took off the ring immediately. He conjured the Water me with a size of several meters and wrapped the ring in it.


    That was themon w of mages. Due to their vastly expanded lifespan, they tended to put certain things off to attend to at ater date, and spent almost all of their time on magic.


    This ring which was capable of expanding mental powers was one of the reasons that Saleen had be exponentially more powerful. If he were to operate without the ring, he would lose almost 80 percent of his current powers.


    His control over the Puppet Constetion and the Magical Element Tower both required powerful mental powers. Without those two pieces of equipment, Saleen would be little more than amon level-ten sorcerer.


    The battered parts of the ring were dissolved bit by bit as he washed them with the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water, and were then melted by the Water me. With the exception of the Water me, the resulting matter was reduced to a pile of metal dust that fell to the ground. The amount remained considerable.


    Those incredibly hard materials had been little more than the ring¡¯s disguise.


    The gem embedded on the ring had melted off as well. The liquid mixture that he had concocted from the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water had a bit of Genesis Stock Solution in it. The ring began to repair itself ording to its original rules.


    To put it precisely, the ring turned into something in and unassuming.


    He used the 12-dimensional metal to patch up the damaged parts, and it ultimately took three days for the ring to return to its original state. Lex continued to use the God¡¯s Ring to contain the continuously leaking energy,pressing it back into the ring. The seal within it remained tight with the help of the God¡¯s Ring.


    Only the massive powers afforded by the God¡¯s Ring were capable of something like that. Despite currently being more powerful than Lex, Saleen had no way of pulling such a thing off on his own.


    The ring was restored to its original form; or, rather, it transformed into a new piece of equipment: a ring that looked somewhat thicker than ordinary ones.


    The old-looking ring was divided into twoyers that were closely linked to each other. The outeryer was of dark silver metal, and the inner one was ck. 16 runes were etched on it.


    The 16 runes were extremely simple signs¡ªso much so that Saleen was unable to figure out what they meant.


    He was only able to tell that the 16 runes were repeating, with eight runes on each of the twoyers. The ck metal of the inneryer could spin; the two sets of eight runes thus had interchangeablebinations, making a total of 64 pairs.


    In other words, the small ring had 64 spaces in it, all of which were, for the moment, only capable of storing mental powers. This was more difficult than storing matter, and Saleen knew that he had made the right choice. From then on out, the ring would be able to expand his mental powers 64 times over.


    Furthermore, thebinations of the eight runes made for 64 powerful rules.


    The rules were so powerful that their scope was beyond Saleen¡¯s imagination. It was no wonder that Lex had asked him for the mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake in exchange for it. The value of the ring far exceeded that of the mark!


    What surprised Saleen most was the material of the ring continually shifted, being reinforced and enhanced by the powers contained within it. While the enhancement process was progressively slowing down, Saleen still felt that it would be somethingparable to the Star Gathering Needle in quality before long, making it nigh-indestructible.


    ¡°Lex¡ªso Arb has absolutely no knowledge of this thing¡¯s secrets, then?¡± Saleen asked again, unable to help himself. The ring¡¯s power was beyond hisprehension. He felt like a three-year-old holding an extremely heavy battleax that belonged to giants.


    Furthermore, the ring apparently had yet to be restored to its truest level of power, as this was forbidden by the rules of Myers Maind itself.


    ¡°I¡¯m the only one among the Grukos who knows. As the ring has fallen into your hands, I have no intentions of spreading the secret to the family. From here on out, the ring belongs to the Metatrin.¡± Lexposed herself before continuing: ¡°Alright, pick that dust up and forge a broken ring again. Don¡¯t let any outsiders know about this.¡±


    Saleen then realized that, if he were to ¡°lose¡± his old ring at the same time as this new one appeared on his finger, Arb might find out, and things would take a turn for the worse for him. The ring¡¯s secrets had belonged to the Grukos, after all.


    Lex had cared little about the Grukos ever since she married him. She hade to see herself as a member of the Metatrin family instead. Consequently, the longer the secret could be kept under wraps, the better.


    They nheless needed to y nice with Arb, after all. Saleen recalled those young mages in Golden ins, and how the exceptional stock among them hade to adopt their own agenda.


    He picked up the metal dust on the floor immediately threw it into the Water me, adding a gemstone and forging an essory identical to the original one.


    This ring was still capable of enhancing mental powers, as Saleen had added white crystals and divine crystals to it. It would have been peculiar if were just a decorative essory instead.


    Saleen sighed as he put the ring he had forged on his finger. The replica that he had crafted would have been astonishing even if it only enhanced mental powers three times over. However, whenpared to the ring that had yet topletely restored, the replica was garbage.


    ¡°Lex, tell me, then¡ªwhat¡¯s the story being the ring?¡± Saleen was no longer in any hurry to get to the Separation Sea. The fighting outside the tower had gotten increasingly fierce in those three days. The Holy See had suffered huge losses and had mobilized powerful holy masters immediately, who lead the charge toward the city¡¯s walls.


    Daliang City would never fall, as it was backed by the magic. The attacks were simply retaliation. Both the Heaven Knights and the demon army suffered casualties. Things were still in a deadlock, and Theisio was still keeping his hand to himself.


    Saleen was amassing his powers before making a move, and Theisio was doing the same. He intended tounch his strongest assault only once he entered the Cemetery of the Giant. The true fighting would only happen then.


    The casualties that they were suffering at the moment were little more than warm-ups.


    ¡°That ring came from a powerful Crystal Wall system, which was said to have broken through the limit of level 24 and crumbled. Some said that it was from somewhere beyond our universe, and that it had leaped to another ce, with no way of returning,¡± Lex borated slowly, while Saleen listened attentively.


    He did not think that any of her words were false. He felt that what Lex said was, surely,pletely true.

 Chapter 1225: The Cosmos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1225: The Cosmos (Part 2)</h4>


    The reason that Saleen was sure it was true was that he was unable to peer into the ring¡¯s secret, no matter what he first tried. He was unable to even interpret the small amount of its content on the surface.


    ¡°This thing is called the ¡®Ring of Cosmos,¡¯ ¡± Lex said, speaking the sybles awkwardly to make sure that the name was clear.


    After seeing Saleen looking puzzled, she added, ¡°That was the true name of the ring. Thenguage that the namees from is something that we can only piece together with transliterations, and we cannot fully express its true meaning. If it were to be tranted into the magguage, it would turn into a thesis or an entire book¡¯s worth of magic notes.¡±


    Saleen only nodded as a way of telling her that he understood, somewhat.


    Lex continued: ¡°The Lord Chief of the Grukos was a level-18 powerful professional back in those times and had been taken inside a different Crystal Wall system. There were humans in that system as well, and yet the powers they wielded werepletely different from what we have here. They were terrifyingly powerful¡ªso much so that not even the crystal wall system¡¯s rules were able to hold them back.¡±


    Lex took a breather before continuing. She told him that she had sealed that secret using magic and was unable to remember much of it, recalling only that a memory like that existed. The way she exined to Saleen, it felt as if it was being said by someone else and had nothing to do with her.


    ¡°This Ring of Cosmos was a powerful piece of equipment from that Crystal Wall system. My ancestor had earned merit through battle, and was bestowed with it. However, he died as soon as he came back to Myers Maind. As a result, the Grukos did not ascend until the Fourth Dynasty copsed. The Grukos then borrowed the power of the mages and built an empire.¡±


    ¡°The Grukos had quite a lot of patience indeed.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. The mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake is something we inherited from that ancient ancestor as well. It wasn¡¯t until the end of the Fourth Dynasty that the Grukos began to rise and carve themselves a piece of the maind.¡±


    ¡°What about that magic clock in Holy Rock City, then?¡±


    ¡°That was something that the aforementioned ancestor crafted himself.¡± Lex smiled and added, ¡°That Crystal Wall system might have been powerful, but not everyone was a professional, and it would have been downright impossible for everyone to attain 18 and above. Otherwise, my ancestor wouldn¡¯t have been... invited to help with their war.¡± Lex almost broke out inughter as she borated on all of that.


    The truth was, her ancestor had been taken against his will to help with the war all those years ago, in the same manner that spirits from the spirit ne were summoned by humans. The spirits did not need to agree to be summoned.


    However, that other Crystal Wall system had its own rules. Such methods of recruitment came with their own rewards. It was quite fortunate that that ancestor of the Grukos was able to return alive.


    Saleen had no problem understanding that. He had in-depth knowledge of the other Crystal Wall systems. At level 18, one could do as one pleased in the system that they were in at the moment.


    However, in this other Crystal Wall system, a level 18 was just another powerful being, and not the pinnacle of professionals.


    He realized from listening to what Lex said that the other Crystal Wall system. which Gaine had so looked forward to getting to, was not one that had the highest rules. The highest one would be at level 24.


    Saleen sighed and smirked.


    What use are those highest rules or whatever to me, anyway? I¡¯m but a level ten sorcerer, and I need to train one step at a time. His teacher¡¯s knowledge regarding such matters might even have paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s, but Jason nevermented anything.


    By the time he was able to get that far, his destiny would have beenid out before him...


    Destiny?


    Saleen recalled, all of a sudden, that, if he were to reach level ten with his astrology, he would need to get to the Imperial City of the Abyss and get that level-19 Star Gathering Needle for Gaine.


    I¡¯ve promised Gaine that. Should I do it or not?


    The level 19 Star Gathering Needle was on his person at all times. If he were to give it to Gaine, the astrologer would simply take the entire astrology tower and head for another Crystal Wall system. He would have lost one very reliable support if that were to happen.


    If only it had been Teacher... Such thoughts would have never crossed his mind!


    Saleen steeled his mind. If my astrological arts advance to level ten, then so be it. If Gaine wants to leave, then I¡¯m in no position to hold him back. If Myers were to be resurrected, there are still grandmasters and the others, after all.


    The grandmaster might have been an a**hole, but, if there was any truth to his words, ity in the fact that he definitely wouldn¡¯t have permitted any gods to exist on this ne.


    ¡°Boundless courses of fate are contained within this Ring of Cosmos, and I¡¯m unable toprehend any of it, Saleen. But, since you¡¯vee to understand it, you can teach me. I need to be able to see my path before me.¡±


    Saleen was surprised that Lex would say something like that. He had always known her to be strong and firm, never showing weakness to anyone, Nheless, she had just behaved in such a way in front of him.


    ¡°Alright. Now that you¡¯ve something like that, you should stand a better chance against the great head inquisitor. Go, Saleen. I¡¯m through with all fighting in Daliang City.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Saleen said, putting the Water me away. He took out the mental power ring and handed it to Lex.


    Lex smiled and said, ¡°My God¡¯s Ring is far more powerful than this thing here. Give it to your student, Truman. He needs this more than anyone right now.¡±


    Saleen reflected that what she was saying made sense. Truman would struggle to use a powerful piece of equipment like the Elemental Envoy. Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring was extremely mysterious. Every time her power was enhanced, she drew more power from the God¡¯s Ring.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be off, then. Take care of yourself.¡± Saleen parted with Lex in a hurry. She returned to her pce right away, while Saleen summoned his people to him and reentered the Magical Element Tower. The tower left Daliang City right in front of the crowd below and headed straight for the Separation Sea.


    The Tower had veritably tortured the Holy See¡¯s forces or days. The 3,600 demonic spirits were all enchanters, and, with that many enchanters under the magic, it had felt as if they were fighting 3,600 mages at the same time.


    Theisio could clearly see the tower flying away all of a sudden and was puzzled as well. He then smirked, havinge to realize something, and prevented his men from chasing after it.


    Saleen¡¯s tower seemed like a piece of very tough bone. Theisio had been unable to kill Saleen when he had previously thrown the mage into a divine kingdom. Now that he hade to possess all three godly items, he had no intention of wasting his time and energy on Saleen.


    The great head inquisitor is still here, anyway.


    The great head inquisitor had revived himself using the Divine Stone tablet and advanced to level 11, cing huge pressure on Theisio. His ns to consolidate the Holy See had to be pushed back as a result.


    If the three godly items are really able to work as they should and can bring forth the power spoken of in legends, then the Tribunal and the oracle will have had no choice but to bow to me.


    He was puzzled as to why his god was reluctant to grant him more power. If he could acquire the god¡¯s blessing, the three godly items¡¯ power would grow exponentially.


    The Magical Element Tower flew southward and passed by the wardens¡¯ main camp. The great head inquisitor was there.


    The great head inquisitor was stunned when he saw the tower fly by, but quickly burst out inughter.


    ¡°So, this Saleen is baiting me, eh?¡± At his level, he could vaguely sense his fate and the looming crisis, despite never having trained in astrology.


    Saleen¡¯s intentions wereid bare for all to see. He hadn¡¯t concealed anything at all.


    ¡°Sir, shall we mobilize the Crimson Army and chase after it?¡± A newly-advanced inquisitor asked for the great head inquisitor¡¯s thoughts.


    ¡°Theisio didn¡¯t bother doing anything about him, so why should we? Saleen¡¯s wife is in that city right now. I sure as hell don¡¯t believe that he would just leave her behind like that.¡± The great head inquisitor then paused for a bit before saying, ¡°Send several shadow wardens after him and see what this Saleen is baiting me with.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡± The young inquisitor received his orders, bowed, and left the building which the great head inquisitor was in. The great head inquisitor had set it up to serve as his residence. There was a dungeon below it, keeping under lock and key some unknown beast that roared and howled every day.


    Nothing within a hundred miles radius could escape the eyes of Saleen, who was inside the tower. He could have even used the tower itself to watch over the are thaty within dozens of miles of it.


    Several wardens d in armor tailed the tower. Saleen could have simply killed them on the spot, as the Thunder Dragon ster surpassed any level-ten magic spells when in range. However, Saleen simply let the wardens tail him while he observed the red armor that they were wearing.


    Those wardens were fairly powerful, and seemed to be at level five or six. Having people of such levels serving as rank-and-file soldiers spoke volumes of the Tribunal¡¯s power. However, warriors at level five or six were incapable of flight.


    There were only two reasons that the six wardens were able to catch up to Saleen¡¯s tower. The first was that Saleen was having it fly at less than 100 miles per hour, waiting for them patiently; and the second was that the red armor that the wardens wore allowed them to obtain a decent flight speed, enabling them to keep up with mages of at least level six.


    The distance between Daliang City and the Separation Sea was only several miles. The bone castle on the shore of the Separation Sea had been rendered useless.


    Without the Winged Skull taking charge of the ce, Mu En the great sorcerer was unable to hold it for long. He had never been a ¡°great sorcerer¡± or whatever in the first ce; that was only a title that Saleen had used to intimidate others.


    The city at the Separation Sea¡¯s shore was still intact, as the Holy See had not razed the ce. They did want to take it, raze it, and rebuild it.


    The city was still in Saleen¡¯s hand and there were fewer than 1,000 of the weak, old and disabled in it. It would be impossible for them to hold the ce, as their numbers were so low that they could not guard the city¡¯s gates.


    Saleen left over 10,000 demons in the city as he passed it. The demons and the magic bugs made the ce into their turf for the time being. The leading demon possessed level-nine power. That would suffice to hold down the fort unless the Holy See decided to send huge forces to take the city.


    Saleen assigned his people there for a while before flying the tower toward the Separation Sea again.


    Things were calm on the Separation Sea, and Saleen flew close to the water. His Elemental Eye scanned everything below, and he flew all the way to the sea¡¯s center, but he did not find the eye of the sea as had been deduced by calctions using magic forms.


    Seems like it¡¯s truly being suppressed then. Deep down, Saleen was ted.


    Even if there were a water-type element spirit below, it would not be all that powerful. Such a spirit would probably be hiding in another space, not daring to emerge.


    He turned around to look at the wardens tailing him and then dropped the tower into the water without warning.


    The general depth of the Separation Sea was about several hundred meters, but no one had ever bothered to check the depth at the center. The Magical Element Tower continued to drop for a mile or so but had yet to reach the bottom. In this location, Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye caught sight of the ocean floor below.


    Someone capable of controlling the water element enough to fool Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was definitely one very powerful being!


    Saleen elerated the tower and dived for the deepest depth of theke. The tower just shook violently and stopped, having dived over ten miles down.


    They finally reached the bottom. Saleen peered outside the tower and saw the leg of a very huge turtle

 Chapter 1226: Amplifier (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1226: Amplifier (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Everyone around Saleen was able to tell that it was only an illusion. Saleen did not even bother breaking it with Thundering Sound. The Magical Element Tower stopped and the huge metal gears on top of the tower began to spin rhythmically, forming a magic.


    ¡°Truman, there are quite a few magic beasts. Use them to practice magic,¡± Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye swept his surroundings and found a thousand magic beasts.


    ¡°Will do, Sir.¡± Truman leapt out of the tower with the Elemental Envoy. J followed suit as a precaution, as Truman was only level nine. Fighting in such deep waters mean that he had to divide quite a lot of his powers to resist the immense pressure.


    Their location exceeded the depth of most oceans: ten miles. If amon person were submerged at such depths, they would be crushed.


    Truman was different from Saleen in that he did not have a body of water element. He cast a protection spell as soon as he entered theke: Water Element Shield.


    It was derived from the Water Shield and behaved like a formless energy shield. It formed a humanoid protectiveyer around Truman¡¯s body.


    Its defense paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s Water Shield, but was decidedly more convenient and quicker to cast. While it excelled in resisting pressure, it wascking in defense against ded weapons.


    Saleen did not find any powerful beings there, but having so many magic beasts gathering meant that there was definitely something off with the ce. He let Truman fight with the intention of training his student.


    Truman took out the Golden Magic Book as soon as he left the magic tower. The book was able to store 18 spells from level seven to level nine. Six spells of every level could be stored within. The six spells corresponded to the six major elements.


    Truman was not Saleen and had no problem casting magic of any type, so the Golden Magic Book served him better than it did Saleen.


    The 18 spells were listed in order. Blobs of magic light lit up in Truman¡¯s hand, shining light into the dark deep under the Separation Sea.


    Saleen watched his student fight. Truman spared no time wasting his energy, casting all 18 spells to take care of the first hundreding at him. Saleen was able to tell that Truman did not set targets for every spell, which enabled him to conserve a great deal of mental powers.


    Only one magic beast managed to evade the attacks, but it was quickly hit by a spell from a magic staff that Truman took out. It was the first time Truman locked onto a target using mental powers.


    The level nine beast was a ten-meter-long tfish, with a mouth filled with sharp teeth.


    Truman fought how a musician yed: smooth and elegant.


    Saleen sighed as he saw how his student fought. Circumstances where enemies were not powerful was an opportunity to solve problems using one¡¯s own powers exclusively.


    Saleen only fought like that when there were many powerful enemies around. Magic chords were the base for ensuring survival, but if they were not trained adequately and the user relied only on equipment, it was the beginning of trouble in training.


    Saleen knew it very well, as he fought in such a manner for a period of time: never using his own magic chords when he had equipment to spare.


    It was not a good habit. Saleen smile bitterly. He had been too extravagant and his student took after him. Unless Truman became capable of going onto adventures himself and acquired massive wealth, it would only hinder his growth.


    Saleen¡¯s might not have been old, but it was only a facade, as he trained for over a hundred years in a temple. Truman¡¯s true chronological age was far younger than his. The maturity that came with the passage of time was something that no training could rece.


    ¡°Truman is fighting well, master. He hasn¡¯t used scrolls yet,¡± Nailisi said.


    Saleen figured that she made sense. He had prepared huge amounts of consumable gear for all of his followers in the trip to Separation Sea. Truman had at least two thousand of the scrolls with him and had used none of them. That meant that Truman was quite tight-fisted.


    Scrolls were not magic books and using scrolls was akin to burning money. Magic books could be replenished after the spells were used, enabling them to serve far longer than magic staves.


    Truman took care of the wave of the most ferocious magic beasts using the Golden Magic Book. He then took out the Silver Magic Book and cast 18 spells, killing another wave, before beginning to use his own magic to fight.


    J simply held onto his sword and watched, ready to jump in if anything happened.


    Truman¡¯s battles were boring. He calcted well, but nothing about it was spectacr to watch. J found Saleen¡¯s battles amusing, as there was little repetition, since his liege always had new ideas. Saleen did not want to be a researcher mage. His talent was shown only fully in battle.


    ¡°Eleanor, what do you think about Truman?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Hmm...¡± Eleanor pondered for a bit. ¡°You fight differently from Jason as well.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s doubts were cleared after hearing Eleanor¡¯s words. It was good that Truman was not like him, just like how he shared few simrities with Jason. If Truman behaved exactly like him, there would be little prospect in his student¡¯s future.


    No two people shared the same fate. Magic lineages always continued to be enriched. It was fortunate that he was able to pick up the Water me Alchemy from his teacher. When he advanced, Truman would be able to learn more from him.


    The following battles served as testaments of how stingy Truman was. After he was done using the spells in the magic books, Truman began to use Icicles, which cost very little, to continue fighting.


    Truman was most versed in fire and earth magic, but water magic was more effective at the bottom of theke.


    Truman¡¯s water magic was considerable, as it was the area that Saleen lectured the most about, and Saleen liked using Icicle as an example.


    The most powerful water magic in Truman¡¯s arsenal was the Ice Lance. An Ice Lance could be converted into a Fire Dragon, which could then be converted to Glitter, and finally into Mark of Darkness.


    It was invented by Truman, and not even Saleen was capable of it.


    As for Icicle, despite not being able to use lightning magic, there were lightning magic patterns on Truman¡¯s Icicles, which excelled in breaking energy shields. Mages loathed learning through mimicking, but it was the most time-conserving thing to do in battle.


    After Truman acquired a mental power ring, he became more daring in preparing hundreds of Icicles in one go. The number of magic beasts ganging up on him was only several thousand.


    Most of them were still far away and the Icicles would be able to take care of over a hundred magic beasts in one go.


    Water magic beastscked in defensepared tond beasts, but the ones with exceptionally high defense rating, like the pan turtle, would be difficult to kill using Icicles.


    ¡°Shall we call it a day, my liege?¡± Daniel felt his hands getting itchy after seeing the bodies of magic beasts piling up. He had been able to advance to level nine with Saleen¡¯s help, but it would be more difficult for him to advance from then on out. His talentcked inparison to Aini, as thetter would definitely be able to advance to level ten. Daniel kept feeling that he was at the end of his magic training, so he gradually got interested in being part of daily menial affairs.


    ¡°Gosh, you¡¯re so dumb.¡± Nailisi berated. Daniel looked at Nailisi, vexed. She continued, ¡°Master is using the tower to hide all of our powers. The magic tower looks no different from a piece of rock. He let Truman fight so that we can lure the bigger, more powerful thing toe out and fight. If we all fought, are you going to find the thing if it just curled and hid somewhere?¡±


    Daniel kept his head low, so Nailisi stopped tearing into him. ¡°You had your chance in battles, and don¡¯t keep thinking that you can¡¯t advance.¡±


    Daniel trembled at her words but quickly regained hisposure. He feared and resented Nailisi at the same time.


    He had no idea why a creature like her could be so important to Saleen, but he did not dare do anything to change the status quo. Nailisi¡¯s powers were getting stronger and when she took human form, the pressure he felt from her was greater than from anyone else.


    He valued Nailisi¡¯s words more than anyone else. So she¡¯s saying that I could still advance?


    Saleen smiled. ¡°Daniel, you¡¯ve been following me for quite a while and did a lot for Metatrin City. I¡¯ll think of ways to get you to level ten even if it costs me a fortune. But after level ten, it¡¯d be up to you.¡±


    Daniel was filled with both joy and sorrow at Saleen¡¯s words. He was sad that he had wasted a lot of time and opportunities before getting Saleen to say that, but he was happy that Saleen did not just give him up.


    Saleen instead continued to nurture him without any regard to cost. Advancing a death mage to level ten was far more difficult than elemental mages. They needed far more.


    A death mage¡¯s lifespan grew considerably after getting to level ten. Outsiders could not help with further advancement, and it was more than enough for Saleen to help him get to level ten!


    ¡°Alright, the star of the show is about to appear,¡± Saleen raised his hand and gestured for everyone to shut up and shape up as he watched the changes at the bottom of theke.


    Bodies of dead magic beasts piled like mountains. While Truman¡¯s battles were boring and brutal, it enabled him to conserve magic chords. Furthermore, it was very effective.


    His Icicle was able to easily take care of magic beasts above level four and below level six when aided by the Elemental Envoy. The magic beasts were low levels. Most of them fought with only physical fortitude, which was incapable of resisting magic attacks.


    It was the first time Saleen saw the Elemental Envoy in battle. He never thought that magic amplifiers would be so powerful, and its performances far exceeded his expectations.


    A level one Icicle killed level four magic beasts, eh? It was theoretically possible, and the Elemental Envoy turned theoretical into reality.


    The Icicles were ten times the size of the usual ones and their power was several times more. Their speed in the water even exceeded their speed traveling in air.


    A huge crevice gradually appeared in the dark bottom of theke. Thick water element aura gushed from the crevice.

 Chapter 1227: Amplifier (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1227: Amplifier (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen frowned and stopped the demonic spirits from their preparations.


    The thing was definitely not a water type element spirit. Its powers were far below the fire type element spirit. It could be a level 11 elemental creature, and it would not exceed level 11.


    It could be dealt with using the Thunder Dragon ster, so there was no need for 3600 demonic spirits to prepare.


    What made Saleen frown was that there were definitely elemental creatures and furthermore, they were definitely as powerful as the water type element spirit. The problem was that the thing was intelligent enough to find a scapegoat instead of showing up itself.


    It was not done out of instinct, but through solid thought. If Saleen had never seen a fire type element spirit personally, he would have been fooled.


    Intelligent elemental creatures were the most difficult to deal with. If the water fox had not been trapped in the divine power cage, Saleen would not have been able to take it.


    Gosh, things just turned a lot more difficult! If the great head inquisitor showed up and messed things up again, wouldn¡¯t it be like saying that I have no chance in capturing this thing anymore?


    If Saleen captured something like that, he would probably have to venture into the oceans over 10,000 miles away from the maind, before he had any chance of finding any water elemental creatures.


    However, it was the most probable spot to acquire a water type element spirit.


    Saleen would go straight to the Imperial City of the Abyss instead, and there would be no need for him to show up at Separation Sea, if that was not the case.


    The crevice at the bottom of theke was over a mile long, and Truman finally retreated several steps, keeping a distance of 50 meters from the crevice. A huge hand extended out and a roar was heard. ¡°Who interrupted my rest?¡±


    ¡°Truman, back away!¡± Saleen yelled. He gestured at Eleanor, who shot an arrow.


    The arrow shot through the Magical Element Tower and drew an arc in the water, hitting the hand that came searching from the crevice. The arrow was coated with poison and the water elemental creature was slow to react.


    It did not mind having its hand grazed by the arrow, as the projectile was so small that it was like a human getting bitten by a mosquito.


    The problem, however, was that the mosquito was venomous, and it was unable to withstand the venom. The creature let out a pained shriek.


    Ouch!


    Brrruumm...


    The crevice suddenly cracked wide open. Truman retreated quickly, widening the distance between him and the creature to over 500 meters, which was behind the tower. Saleen was relieved. He saw a 100-meter silhouette leap from the crevice, stirring the bottom of theke.


    Two of the wardens that followed Saleen tried to dive to the bottom, but found that it was extremely difficult to go any further than 500 meters deep. Their level was not high enough and 500 meters was their limit.


    The wardens returned to the surface and discussed among themselves, deciding the only thing to do was to fly back to Daliang City and report to the great head inquisitor. However, they were about 1000 miles away and were exhausted from the chase.


    They had no choice but to rest on an ind before returning to Daliang City. With that, they had to dy reporting by over 12 hours.


    If the great head inquisitor decided to go to theke immediately, it would take him about 18 hours. That meant that Saleen had 18 hours to subjugate the water type element spirit without being interrupted by anyone.


    However, the problem was that the water type element spirit chose not to show itself and had sent something else up instead.


    The thing leapt and formed a level eight vortex under theke, heading for the tower. It took the demonic spirits two Disperse spells to nullify the vortex.


    The elemental creature looked like a Blue Ice Maiden on the outside, but Saleen knew that it was like a water puppet, who seemed to have developed a bit of intelligence.


    Saleen deemed the hundred meter tall thing as difficult to deal with. If it was a Blue Ice Maiden, it would have an elemental core, but his would not be able to capture the water puppet-like thing.


    The had lost all rule powers and was only extremely resilient and capable of shifting sizes. It was incapable of trapping the water puppet, which was liquid.


    Furthermore, Saleen had to keep his trump card to himself while capturing it, as it would be more difficult for him to deal with the water type element spirit, which was more powerful.


    There was something even more powerful in the eye of the sea, and Saleen had no idea how powerful it might be.


    ¡°Truman, get back,¡± Saleen called and prepared to take the tower into the eye of the sea. He nned to charge as soon as the eye appeared and overwhelm the enemy with his firepower. The eye of the sea was like a portal, and there were many dangers lurking within.


    Truman returned to the tower, and J followed suit cautiously.


    The huge elemental creature was still in pain as it threw a punch at the tower. A huge fist appeared in front of the tower and retaliated.


    The move was called Mage¡¯s Wrath, and was an earth magic spell. Saleen initially knew little about the spell, but he quickly realized why the spell was called the Mage¡¯s Wrath after seeing the two fists sh.


    The creature¡¯s entire arm exploded after shing with the earth element fist. It might have been a level ten creature, but there was no way it was able to contend with a spell cast by over 3000 enchanters in the Magical Element Tower.


    To mages,bination magic was extremely difficult, but to enchanters, it was almost effortless due to help from the magic. It was also why Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower was so powerful.


    If it had note equipped with such eerie equipment, Saleen would not have dared to run all over the ce, going so far to even bait the great head inquisitor in broad daylight.


    Things did not end when the elemental creature¡¯s arm exploded. The fist conjured by Mage¡¯s Wrath thennded onto the elemental creature¡¯s chest. The water element froze immediately, due to rule powers like Fossilization.


    Over 3000 demonic spirits brought their power at the same time, resulting in a level eight magic spell with enough rule powers to subdue a level ten creature.


    Saleen realized something at that moment. When power was gathered to a certain extent, itpensated for differences in level. However, the requirements for doing so were extremely steep. It was 3.600 demonic spirits versus one level ten elemental creature, after all.


    The elemental creature¡¯s chest froze and its water element body was gradually converted to earth element, turning into a huge statue. Saleen did not hesitate, flying out of the tower and putting that elemental creature away into the dimension stone.


    Level ten elemental creatures would serve well as soldiers. Furthermore, it was not the Blue Ice Maiden, but a water puppet.


    If the elemental creature refused to submit to him, Saleen would not mind Rossen devouring it. It would allow him to advance to level ten.


    A thin, long fish sprung out of the crevice before Saleen was able to return to the tower, shooting freezing stars as it charged at Saleen.


    Saleen would haveughed if he was not in the water. The elemental creature¡¯s intelligence apparently remained at the level of battles with magic beasts. It had yet to acquire inherited memories of ancient times, which was in Saleen¡¯s favor.


    If it had been like the fire type that his teacher had subjugated, which was equipped with ancient memories, it would be very difficult to fight it.


    Saleen conjured many light wisps, shing with the elemental projectiles. He had learned the nullifying techniques when he was still a low level mage. They cost mental powers but conserved magic chords.


    Saleen¡¯s mental powers were practically inexhaustible. The Ring of Cosmos amplified his mental powers 64 times. That meant that Saleen¡¯s current mental power reserves had reached that of a level 11 sorcerer, and maybe even higher than that.


    If others reached the same level, they would not continue to torture themselves, but Saleen insisted on training himself with his family badge every day without fail. He did not even stop torturing himself during the hundred-year training.


    His mental powers felt stronger than ever. Saleen even felt that if he cast a mental spell, it would be tangible and capable of reaching effects like elemental magic.


    The thin fish arched and sprung, arriving before Saleen in mere seconds.


    There was a very hard spike in front of the fish¡¯s mouth, making it seem like a small Silverline Golden Spearfish. Saleenughed and imbued Thundering Phantasm into it.


    Six identical Saleens appeared underwater, all acting differently. The fish lost its focus right away. Magic beasts were not smart and acted ording to their instincts. The fish searched with its mental powers, hoping to find the true target.


    Everyone saw the fish¡¯s head, which was covered in rust-colored scales, explode. A magic nucleus flew from it and was caught by Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasm was extremely effective against magic beasts, as theycked any type of skills used for protecting their souls and their brains were also the most vulnerable part of their constitution.


    It had only been searching the Thundering Phantasm using mental powers, and that was enough to blow up its head.


    Attacks that were entirely reactionary did not seem to be of much use, but in battle, an enemy that was incapable of separating illusions from true bodies meant that they had to deal with many enemies at once.


    ¡°Come out already. I¡¯m here for you.¡± Saleen faced the huge crevice.


    Theke water was dark and cold. Saleen put his Water Shield up and wrapped it around him. The transparent ball had lightning magic patterns coursing over it, sparkling with blue electricity.


    Furthermore, he had the Figure of Fate, which meant that there was hardly anything that could end him in just a single strike.


    He had left the tower with full intentions of making himself bait.


    ¡°Do you want to die so badly, human?¡± A calm voice was heard from the crevice. It was speaking in Ancient Myersnguage. Saleenugh coldly, as he found it was another scapegoat, but a higher level one.


    ¡°Spare the chitchat. You¡¯re a water type element spirit, so talk to me in Elementish instead.¡±


    The voice from the crevice stopped, and a transparent monster came out from the crevice. It was inappropriate to say that it was a monster, as the six meter-tall thing was of simr proportions to the Elemental Envoy. It had three heads, six arms and four legs.

 Chapter 1228: Elemental Frenzy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1228: Elemental Frenzy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Its appearance was hardly weird, as there were many beings throughout the nes that had many heads and limbs.


    It was an elemental creature as well, but at level 11. However, it was far easier for Saleen to deal with elemental creatures than it was to deal with level ten humans. Humans were capable of thought and crafting powerful equipment. Even level nine humans would be able to beat Saleen if he let his guard down.


    Saleen pointed his finger after seeing the creature charge at him. Spells descended from the Magical Element Tower. It was hardly any different whether Saleen was inside or outside the tower, as he couldmand the demonic spirits just as well.


    The level 11 elemental creature, which was covered green magic patterns, sted over 20 level 11 spells before it was even near Saleen.


    The attack was very aggressive, as it blocked all of Saleen¡¯s ways out, so much so that it was almost able to pin him where he stood. Saleen chuckled, as he was not fighting alone.


    600 demonic spirits cast level nine spells in turns, dispersing the level 11 spells.


    Saleen realized that having 600 demonic spirits attack at the same time was akin to him castingpound magic, the only difference being that he did not use his own magic chords. Only the tower would be able to streamline the 600 spells on top of each other.


    Under his control, thepound magic spells cast were capable of resisting level 11 magic attacks.


    The magic attacks cast by elemental creatures were many times more powerful than the ones cast by human mages.


    Saleen was unable to instantly break the spells¡¯ weak parts and resorted to nullifying them with his own magic.


    There was one major and two minor levels between level 11 and level nine. Saleen could cover up the difference using sheer numbers or his Thunder Dragon ster.


    This time, he used the Elemental Order. The ring hovered behind Saleen. Elemental light was concealed in the ring and nothing was able to be seen from the ring itself, making it seem like a ck hole was hovering behind Saleen.


    Three sharp spears were thrust at Saleen¡¯s front and nks¡ªall of which were conjured by the elemental creature.


    Water elemental spears were incredibly sharp on their own and came with powerful freezing effects. Saleen was all too familiar with the skill. While his own were level seven ,and the spears conjured by the elemental creature were level 11, their nature was hardly any different.


    The greatest difference was targeting¡ªSaleen was unable to run.


    But he had no need to do so. He pointed upwards and 600 more spells gathered and formed a huge ice bomb. The ice bomb disappeared suddenly and shot out of the ring behind Saleen. His own body seemed to be a mere shadow, letting the ice bomb pass through him and sh with the iing spears.


    The power of water spells was the greatest at the bottom of the ten mile-deepke. The ice bomb was over 30 meters wide after being amplified by Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier. It did not look like a level two magic spell at all.


    That was also apound magic spell: Comet Drop. True Comet Drops could only be conjured at level 12, but the spell was a mimicked product derived from 600 spells amplified by the magic amplifier.


    While it was not a true Comet Drop, it was able to crush the three level 11 spells cast by the elemental creature. The huge ice bomb crashed into the creature¡¯s body.


    Two triangr magic patterns crossed, forming a hexagram. It was a method employed by the enchanters, and the ones employed by mages were far moreplicated. The hexagram trapped the level 11 elemental creature, petrifying it instantly.


    Comet Drop was abination between water and earth magic, just like Saleen¡¯s Comet sh.


    The simple magic array spun and extracted all of the water element from the petrified water elemental creature, reinforcing the earth magic array.


    Saleen had no need to wait further. He took out a sealing scroll and sealed the water elemental creature within.


    Sealing scrolls were precious, but Saleen had starline paper to spare. Gaine did not even bother thinking about it. Sealing scrolls made from starline paper were utterly incapable of misfire.


    ¡°Come out already!¡± Saleen shouted. His Thundering Shock stunned the creature inside the crevice, dispersing its preparations.


    ¡°Why have youe looking for trouble?¡± The water type element spirit finally asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to, but my teacher needs you,¡± Saleen told it as it was.


    ¡°What if humans were enved by elemental creatures instead?¡± the water type element spirit asked.


    ¡°There are enved humans in the divine kingdoms. Do we need to talk about morals?¡± Saleen snickered. It was childish of the water type element spirit to try to sway him with flowery words.


    The water type element spirit would probably kill any human who got close, just to protect the secret at the eye of the sea.


    The water type element spirit was only concerned that he would bring humans of even greater power by asking such questions. He would have to make a move eventually. The water type element spirit would definitely not let Saleen escape even if he intended to.


    Knowing how to sway one¡¯s enemy with words before duking it out meant that the water type element spirit was more difficult to deal with than expected. Saleen might have been affected by such words in his younger days, making him hesitate.


    However, Saleen had beenpletely awakened by the methods employed by the grandmaster against him. Saleen now reserved mercy and pity to only the people around him.


    The water type element spirit was not a human and if he intended to use it as a weapon spirit, then there was no ce for mercy or pity.


    The water type element spirit was rendered speechless. The human had a heart of stone.


    ¡°Come out already. Or are you actually trying to suppress something staying in the eye of the sea instead?¡± Saleen shouted again, targeting his Thundering Voice deep into the crevice instead.


    Sand came loose and the water turned murky.


    ¡°Don¡¯t me me then, human!¡± Four dazzling beams of light shot to the surface from the crevice.


    The four beams formed four corners of a magic array. The water type element spirit rose from the magic array, four snakes beneath its feet. Saleen snuck back into the tower with a whoosh as soon as the snakes appeared.


    Four level 13 beings were suppressed by one water type element spirit. The water type element spirit was not level 13, but level 14. Are we no longer on Myers Maind now?


    Level 14 was the level of demigods. Powerful ones among humans who had reached level 14 were capable of traversing space without using magic arrays.


    If Saleen remained outside as bait against a being of such levels, he would end up as food.


    ¡°Quick feet you¡¯ve got there. Pity that it¡¯s toote for you!¡± The water type element spirit was about eight meters tall, but it was merely an elemental shell. Element spirits wereparable to humans, which was about two meters tall.


    The four snakes beneath the water type element spirit spit thick poisonous mist, shrouding the tower. Nothing could be seen anymore. Even Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was unable to see through it.


    Some poison indeed!


    ¡°Saleen, I can¡¯t lock onto it!¡± Eleanor put her bow down. The level difference was just great. Not even Eleanor¡¯s godly item was able to perform as it should.


    ¡°What about you, Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°I can thrust once, but if I targeted it, I¡¯ll be rendered useless,¡± Nailisi replied as she shook her head.


    Sh**, a pain in the a** to deal with then!


    Saleen was exasperated. He was able to deal with any beings below level 12 by working in tandem with his people, nut having to deal with something level 13 and above, and five of them at once, was something that brought him to the end of his wits.


    Even if his family badge were able to kill the water type element spirit, he still had to deal with the four snakes. They were level 13 creatures, the level of pseudo-gods.


    The Magical Element Tower rose to the surface. Saleen intended to see what the water type element spirit would do next.


    The tower was sucked back to the bottom by a powerful force before it was able to rise beyond ten meters, right into the huge crevice.


    The eye of the sea was beneath the crevice. Saleen had no way of resisting. The water type element spirit¡¯s power was the most powerful enemy he had encountered so far, way above the fire type element spirit that his teacher had subjugated.


    His Lightning Cage would be able to lock it up, but the problem was how to get a being with such wit into the cage.


    Saleen had intended to use the divine persona of a water elemental god as bait, but the enemy was surprisingly on demigod level. If it got its hands on the divine persona, it would advance to level 15 on the spot.


    If that were the case, there was no guarantee that Lightning Cage would be able to trap it.


    The Magical Element Tower dropped into a weird portal, which was formed from water element. Furious elemental turbulence raged within. The tower knocked here and there, spinning furiously as it dropped beneath.


    The water type element spirit maintained its pursuit relentlessly. It wanted to kill every single human in the tower. It was unable to rest if even one of them got away, as there more humans woulde for it, intending to subjugate, seal, and refine it.


    If Saleen had been fooled by the level 11 elemental creature and left after subjugating it, the water type element spirit would not have bothered doing anything further. But unfortunately, Saleen knew it was in the eye of the sea.


    The eye of the sea was connected to other nes, as Myers Maind would not allow a level 14 being to exist. While the other ne was good, the rules there were broken. If it wanted to advance further, it had to go to the Myers Maind and wait for the powers of that ne to be restored.


    ¡°Mage, now that you¡¯ve entered my world, you shall be the ve!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s tower entered another ne. The water type element spirit¡¯s body expanded to over 1000 meters tall. There was nond on the ne. Ocean was everywhere. The water type element spirit stood on the surface of the ocean, looking down on the floating Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen was able to see that all beings were born of water element, and furthermore, every single being seemed to obey the water type element spirit¡¯smands.


    ¡°Big thoughts you¡¯ve got there. So you want to be a god?¡± Saleen¡¯s voice came from within the tower. The water type element spiritughed.


    ¡°Of course I do. Why would I not? When I be a god, I shall preach in the Myers Maind, and make all humans on it my ves!¡±

 Chapter 1229: Elemental Frenzy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1229: Elemental Frenzy (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°And I thought crazed idiots only existed among humans,¡± Nailisi quipped.


    ¡°That thing is far from a crazed idiot. The reason why divine fire did not spark in it and no divine persona was formed, was because the rules on this ne are iplete.¡± Saleen scanned his surroundings and found that water element was unusually abundant. There were the other five elements as well, but they were rtively small in concentration.


    If a being achieved godhood in an imbnced ne with broken rules, their divine persona would not beplete. Worse still, the divine persona could never bepleted.


    The water type element spirit was unusually clever, reaching Myers Maind through the eye of the sea. The powers throughout the entire maind had fallen, but the ne¡¯s rules remainedplete right till level 18.


    Humans of bygone ages were able to break through the limit of level 18, which meant that if things had gone well, Myers Maind could have advanced as well, bringing the entire crystal wall system to break through the limit of level 18.


    The reason of Myers Maind¡¯s decline instead of further advancement remained unknown.


    If the water type element spirit wanted to be a god on Myers Maind, it would only need to make it until level 15 to be a lesser god.


    Saleen was relieved that he did not bait it using a divine persona. Things would have taken a turn for the worse if the water type element spirit had devoured the divine persona. No one on the entire maind would have been able to fight a level 14 god.


    The Lord of Glory was unable to enter Myers Maind, but the water type element spirit was able to.


    If a god entered a ne directly, it would only be a matter of time before that ne was turned into a divine kingdom, unless there were beings more powerful.


    Saleen broke out in a cold sweat at the thought. He had only been there to subjugate a weapon spirit and had never expected to encounter something so cunning and ferocious. The water type element spirit was eyeing the entire Myers Maind for itself!


    It was not crazed; it was simply extremely conceited.


    Saleen no longer hesitated. He chanted lightning runes in a low voice, resonating with the 24 thunder dragons in his ne. The thunder dragons had been kept since birth. Time within the ne passed quickly, and they cost a lot to keep.


    At present, every single thunder dragon had reached level ten, and all of them were waiting for nutrients to keep advancing.


    ¡°Come out!¡± Saleen shouted and all 24 thunder dragons burst out of the ne, letting out thunderous roars that shocked everyone as they circled around Saleen. Their huge head lowered affectionately and nudged Saleen¡¯s head.


    Even Nailisi was startled. Green magic patterns covered the thunder dragons¡¯ bodies, and they lookedpletely different from their level eight brethren.


    What was more notable was that there were two horns on each of the thunder dragon¡¯s heads. The lightning magic patterns on their horns gleamed with golden light.


    After ying with Saleen for a bit, they lined up behind him. Everyone witnessed the frightening scene of the 24 thunder dragons forming a huge magic array.


    A ball of lightning formed at the center of the magic array.


    Saleen was unable to achieve any results despite having researched lightning for such a long time, but the thunder dragons were able toprehend their workings naturally.


    However, the 24 thunder dragons were a low enough level to necessitate a magic array before being able to conjure a ball of lightning. However, it was more than enough. Saleen was ted as hemanded the thunder dragons to send the lightning outside the tower.


    The lightning was grey and it looked flighty, making it seem harmless. Not even Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to find anything abnormal about it. He figured the ball was around level seven. Furthermore, it moved extremely slowly.


    The water element spirit was very worried as the magic tower was very weird. However, it did not concern itself with the lightning shooting out of the tower.


    A spell for probing. How boring.


    The element spirit cast a level 12 spell. A multi-faceted objected appeared before it. It looked strange that a thousand-meter-tall being cast a spell that was only about 100 meters in diameter.


    The element spirit was actually on guard against Saleen. What happened next totally exceeded its expectations. The grey ball lightning phased through the multi-faceted magic crystallization and headed straight for it.


    The water type element spirit stomped and a level 13 snake shot out, opening its mouth and swallowing the grey ball.


    The problem with the ball of lightning was that it moved slowly, and given Saleen¡¯s current level, he had no way of controlling it. There was also no way for the thunder dragons to control it like human mages could.


    After the huge snake gobbled up the ball lightning, its neck burned with a puff. The bones where the fire burned were reduced to ash.


    The water type element spirit discovered that the level 13 water magic beast that was under its control had lost its soul altogether.


    The grey lightning disappeared, as if it never existed. The water type element spirit turned and intended to run, but quickly realized that there was no way for the mage to possess such frightening powers. It was definitely something conjured by a piece of equipment.


    A huge ice hammer was conjured in the water type element spirit¡¯s hand, and it brought the hammer down hard onto the tower.


    The head of the hammer was over 200 meters long, and it smashed right onto the top of the Magical Element Tower. The tower¡¯s body shook violently and Salenughed. He hardly felt anything within the tower itself.


    Anything constructed out of level 18 elementite would have its weaknesses exploited through magic attacks, as any crafting methods would leave seams in one way or another. However, it was nigh-impossible to crush elementite using physical attacks.


    The water type element spirit¡¯s strike caused the tower to sink, dispersing over half of the force sustained, while the hammer was quickly rattled and almost sent the hand holding it flying off.


    Saleen¡¯s senses exchanged with the thunder dragons at high speed. The thunder dragons were incapable of speech, but Saleen knew that they were capable of casting three more balls. That was their limit. They were unable tounch any more attacks after that and would need rest.


    Saleen was troubled. The balls of lightning was incredibly powerful, so much so that not even level 13 beings were able to withstand its might, but he had no control over the spell. The enemy had been fooled once and probably would not be stupid enough to eat another one.


    Unless he was able to convert the skill to something of his own, the spell would be little more than bangs and shes.


    Saleen felt the severeck of skills on his part. If he were able toprehend the highest lightning rules and became capable of conjuring lightning of all kinds, no one would be able to overwhelm him through level difference.


    At the very least, his mental powers were not that much weaker than the elemental creature¡¯s. It was possible to lock onto it. But do I really want to use the family badge and kill it?


    ¡°Use that thing, master,¡± Nailisi urged Saleen.


    Saleen made up his mind. Even if he had to kill the spirit and no longer get an elemental creature to serve as a weapon spirit, he would not let it escape. The ne was filled with water. If that water type element spirit intended to run, there would be no way for him to locate it.


    Saleen took out his family badge as he determined what to do next. The power of the badge had yet to be fully charged. A second grey ball lightning was unleashed from the magic array, which was absorbed into the badge. That gash on the badge was immediately filled with blue liquid.


    Saleen aimed the badge at the water type element spirit without hesitation. The water type element spirit sensed fear. Saleen had targeted it with his mental powers.


    If Saleen was still incapable of locking onto the enemy even with his mental powers expanded 64 times, then the level difference between the two would be more than two major levels.


    Unless the target was level 16, there was nothing that he was unable to lock onto. The Ring of Cosmos enabled him to ignore the level difference between the two parties.


    A thick bolt of lightning shot out from Saleen¡¯s family badge. The stream of electricity was blue of the outside and had a diameter of nine meters. It was something that was created entirely due to effects from the magic amplifier, enhancing the power of the lightning attack exponentially.


    Everyone shut their eyes in fear of having their eyes scalded by the lightning bolt.


    The water type element spirit cast Rainbow immediately after seeing the iing bolt of lightning. Level 14 Rainbow was equal to the power of the teleportation scroll. However, its speed still paled to that of electricity.


    The Rainbow needed one-thirtieth of a second to be cast.


    The stream of electricity, in contrast, too less than half of that to reach its target.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes were cold and his heart ached. The precious soul of the water type element spirit was wiped out in a single shot by the thick lightning bolt from the family badge. A hole with a diameter of tens of meters was seen where the heart of the water type element spirit was.


    Water element at the edge of the hole was being disintegrated by the residual electricity, breaking down into finer matter, millions of times smaller than elemental particles.


    However, that form was unable to be kept for long. A ck hole appeared where the wound of the water type element spirit was, absorbing the entire being¡¯s body into it.


    Saleen was unable to hold back any longer. He activated the tower and unraveled a sealing scroll, intending to seal the ck hole. However, the scroll unexpectedly burned in an instant. The sealing failed!


    The ck hole continued to implode before expanding exponentially, unleashing vermillion shes of light.


    The tower was sent flying by the resulting force, but Saleen was ted instead of startled, throwing the Lightning Cage out in an instant, intending to cage the ball of vermillion light in it.


    Sealing did not work, so he had to capture it by force.


    The vermillion ball of light expanded at breakneck speed. The ball of light copsed in an instant. A new water type element spirit was born from the core of the ball of light.


    ¡°I will kill you, human!¡± The water type element spirit actually held onto the memories of its previous life, charging maniacally at Saleen¡¯s tower.


    ¡°You really need to know your ce, you piece of presumptuous sh**,¡± Nailisi was unable to help but mumbled. However, she dared not jump out of the tower, as there were still three venomous snakes lying in wait.


    Awwrr!


    The water type element spirit crashed onto the Lightning Cage and was zapped all over by blue electricity. It flinched all over, feeling the pain of the soul for the very first time.

 Chapter 1230: Hunted to Extinction (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1230: Hunted to Extinction (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen never expected that a water-type element spirit was capable of resurrection. But he quickly found it to be rather normal when he sat down and thought about it. A level-14 being was the most powerful being that existed on that ne. Furthermore, all of those water elemental creatures were willing to heed hismand.


    If it was willing, divine fire could be sparked at any given moment.


    If the water type element spirit was willing, it would be able to form an iplete divine persona and be a demigod.


    If it were to be a demigod, the power of the entire ne would be put under itsmand. Saleen would only be able to win by destroying the level-14 divine kingdom if his family badge¡¯s powers werepletely restored.


    A demigod would be capable of resurrection. Saleen had not thought of it because the water-type element spirit refused to spark the divine fire within it.


    If Saleen had hesitated and not caged the ball of vermillion light with the Lightning Cage, the water-type element spirit would have kept its memories intact and would have chased Saleen down until it killed him. Killing him would prevent it from being targeted and killed again by his family badge.


    The water-type element spirit would have been able to escape using Rainbow if it were in any danger, disabling Saleen from targeting it.


    3,600 demonic spirits cast Tornado at the same time, scooping up the Lightning Cage back into the tower. This was done so quickly that the three venomous snakes continued to look at the tower with puzzled eyes. Their intelligence was hardly different from that ofmon magic beasts.


    The water-type element spirit would never allow those four to develop intelligence, as their levels were not all that different. If the four huge snakes were to develop intelligence, they might revolt.


    Arruu...


    The water-type element spirit rammed into the cage again, causing electrical sparks to run all over the cage. Saleen looked at the water-type element spirit within the cage with a smirk and asked, ¡°How does it feel being captured?¡±


    ¡°I will kill you!¡±


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m so scared!¡± Saleen put one hand on his chest while gesturing to Eleanor with the other.


    ¡°Saleen?¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t be able to kill this thing, so use it for practice to your heart¡¯s content. Use up all the arrows I¡¯ve made for you and you¡¯ll probably get a feel of what it¡¯s like to fight level-14 creatures.¡±


    ¡°What about me, master?¡± Nailisi was just as excited. There was no way for the water type-element spirit to escape now that it had been caged within the Lightning Cage. Even someone like her, who had Lightning Protection, would not have been able to do that. The power between the two was different.


    The strength of Nailisi¡¯s Lightning Protection skill was so weak that it could only break the magic shields of her enemies. The power of the Lightning Cage, however, enabled it to wipe out souls on the spot.


    ¡°You? Well, follow me and think of ways to subjugate those few pesky snakes out there. There should be quite a number of elemental creatures on this ne, and many other magic beasts as well, all waiting for us to bag them. Don¡¯t you want a go at it, Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°I do, I do!¡± Nailisi chuckled and stars could be seen in her eyes. The entire ne was their hunting ground!


    ¡°Alright, yeah. Truman, take them to train your skills using the water-type element spirit. I¡¯ll take control of the tower and hunt in this ne. No ce suits me better than this ce...¡±


    Desire sparkled in Saleen¡¯s eyes. It had been quite a while since thest time he was so worked up. The number of water elemental creatures were obnoxiously plenty and they were of decent levels. With the exception of that water-type element spirit, there were many level-12 beings to be found.


    He needed quite a lot of energy to craft his own magic amplifier. It cost him a fortune to keep the 24 thunder dragons around. Not even the contents of the Oceanic Ice Block would be enough to keep the 24 thunder dragons and enable them to continuously advance.


    The number of beings in that ocean ne was far higher than on Myers Maind.


    The tower sped up all of a sudden and rammed into the three level-13 snakes, angering them enough to make them attack the tower. Another ball of lightning shot out and flew around.


    Saleen saw the ball of lightning target one of the snakes and strike it, reducing it to ashes and leaving nothing behind, soul and magic nucleus included.


    The other two snakes knew that things were not in their favor and dove into the water, refusing to surface ever again.


    Saleen had no intentions of capturing those two snakes. Their levels were too high to be of use to him. Their venom would probably pale inparison to anything crafted by Agares.


    The Magical Element Tower took to the sky and began to hunt for creatures up in the air.


    Saleen¡¯s hunting methods were simple. Anything that he found to be slow-moving, he would simply catch up to and capture it using the resilient before throwing it into the ne.


    The 24 thunder dragons within the ne would then pounce on the prey and eat them up.


    The 24 thunder dragons within the ne all had massive appetites. Due to theck of food, they spent their time sleeping, only waking to feed. This time, Saleen was being very quick with his hunting since low-level elemental creatures required little effort to hunt.


    He simply let the demonic spirits cast Magic Confinement, bagging a good bunch in one go.


    Saleen activated his magic amplifier and enhanced the power of all his spells exponentially, making capturing low-level elemental creatures an unbelievably easy feat. The tower flew over 1000 miles and found a few creatures daring to take flight.


    After that, he dropped the tower into the ocean and began hunting sea life.


    Due to the presence of the water-type element spirit, no other creatures developed intelligence, making it extremely easy for Saleen to hunt them. He had no fear of making food out of intelligent life.


    Saleen¡¯s hunting speed increased. He even threw divine crystals to the demonic spirits, enabling them to speed up their mental power recovery rate. There was no need for the demonic spirits to possess magic chords to serve as enchanters.


    All elemental powers were provided by therge scale magic power furnace. The demonic spirits needed only to maintain ample mental powers. If he wanted more of them, they were even able to practice magic within the vicinity of the magic.


    However, Saleen had no need for them to do so. He alone was able to control the spells cast by the demonic spirits, the magnitude of which could be amplified by the magic amplifier and be cast further away.


    The usefulness of the Ring of Cosmos was fully manifested in such endeavors. Saleen kept at it for over a dozen hours and he still had mental powers to spare. After the Ring of Cosmos was restored, it was able to gradually replenish mental powers while they were being used.


    That was to say that, in actual practice, Saleen¡¯s mental powers had expanded more than 64 times.


    In the context of an actual battle, Saleen¡¯s mental powers had expanded by over 100 times.


    A huge formed around the tower. No creatures beneath level-ten would have been able to resist. The¡¯s diameter exceeded 100 miles. Saleen¡¯s range of attack had expanded to about 60 miles under the effects of the magic amplifier.


    A magic attack range only extended out by about ten miles in usual cases.


    Saleen knew that this was due to the water elemental magic in that ne being enhanced. Having a body of water element gave him an absolute edge at fighting in that ne.


    Nailisi followed Saleen to hunt everywhere. She was at the edge of the areas within the tower¡¯s control and captured all that she was able to capture using the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Her demons needed food, after all.


    While magic bugs were packed with nutrients and high in energy content, they could notpare to elemental creatures.


    In the same vein, the purgatory of the elements needed replenishing from elemental creatures. That purgatory looked very empty at the moment and there were only two powerful weapon spirits in it. Those two had ceased fighting with each other after their space had been vastly expanded. They¡¯d gone on to train on their own instead.


    Some of the creatures that were thrown into the purgatory of the elements were eaten by either the great fire snake or the Eye of the Storm, while others were kept alive and began their new lives in that space.


    Common magic beasts were made to be little more than food, but there were quite a lot of creatures that remained alive in the purgatory of the fallen. That was because Nailisi¡¯s double required fallen believers to acquire fallen power to strengthen herself.


    The Shackles of the Fallen was capable of controlling all of purgatory, so the possibility of the creatures revolting was nil.


    ¡°Master, 18 hours should be up soon!¡± Nailisi flew back to the magic tower and reminded Saleen of this all of a sudden. 18 hours meant that the great head inquisitor would be showing up soon.


    Saleen replied, ¡°No need to bother about him. Kudos to him if he was able to get it. If he were to simply pass through the portal without a tower simr to mine, he¡¯d get battered all the same when he got here.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re not going against him then?¡± Nailisi asked with a puzzled look.


    ¡°The family badge is now emptied and the great head inquisitor possesses the Armageddon Codex. My Thunder Dragon ster was unable to do anything to him thest time we fought. If he has advanced to level-11, who knows how much more powerful the codex could have gotten? If I had the family badge to suppress his godly items, then we¡¯d be able to fight him with our own powers.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s quite a trouble to just leave him be.¡±


    ¡°Rx, Nailisi. I¡¯ve begun to have some certainty of developing lightning magic chords.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? Hurray!¡± Nailisi was excited. She had developed lightning magic chords in her body, but she did not have any lightning magic that she was able to use. Those chords served as little more than decorations at the moment.


    ¡°Yeah, my thunder dragons are able to create balls of lightning due to their magic patterns working in synch with the magic array. It¡¯s an inherent ability of theirs which I could learn. When I¡¯ve developed lightning magic chords, I won¡¯t need to care about any kind of godly items.¡±


    Saleen seemed rather boastful with his words, but it actually made sense. Lightning attacks worked best for breaking weapon spirits. A godly item that lost its weapon spirit would have its powers drastically reduced.


    While the three godly items of the pope were powerful, they did not have weapon spirits in them. If the Lord of Glory were to be able to bless the items and infuse them with weapon spirits, the pope would be able to unite the entire Holy See, and no one would be able to stand in his way.


    The Armageddon Codex was capable of harnessing a weapon spirit as well. If the great head inquisitor had reached level-11, he would pose a greater threat than the level-13 divine baby. The power of the Armageddon Codex had only been using less than one percent of its actual powers back then after all.


    ¡°Master, we¡¯re getting too slow. We still need to get back as soon as possible.¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯m looking for a spot that can attract the highest number of elemental creatures. When I¡¯ve found it, you¡¯ll only need to wait in the tower for them to show up.¡±


    Saleen took out the water elemental god¡¯s divine persona, waving it before Nailisi¡¯s eyes.


    Nailisi licked her lips and wanted to have a bit. But she knew well enough that, while she was capable of crunching magic nuclei, it would cost her the teeth in her mouth if she were to actually bite the divine persona.


    1

 Chapter 1231: Hunted to Extinction (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1231: Hunted to Extinction (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen did not originally have ns of massacring the ne, but when he realized that the water-type element spirit actually intended to be a god, he decided to plunder the ne until nothing was left.


    While the water-type element spirit was caged securely by the Lightning Cage, Saleen nheless feared that it would spark a divine fire. The cage did not truly iste the water-type element spirit from the outside world after all, and that was the Lightning Cage¡¯s weakness.


    If the cage contained something that had no external support of any kind, there was no doubt that the Lightning Cage would be the most difficult thing to break into in the world.


    To put it precisely, the cage was virtually impossible to break out of from within.


    However, given that there were so many living beings on that ne that the water type element-spirit had long subjugated, it only needed to wait until it reached Myers Maind to advance. Then it would be able to gain a divine persona.


    From that point on, that ocean ne would be filled with believers in that water-type element spirit.


    It was still possible for the water-type element spirit to fight like a madman. Once it became a god, it would be able to summon its believers and have them attack Saleen. They could even block the eye of the sea off and break it, making it difficult for Saleen to return to Myers Maind.


    Total extermination was needed in this case. Saleen intended to destroy the base of faith of that water-type element spirit, so much that, even if it were to be a god within the cage, it would be reduced to being a general without troops.


    The 3,600 demonic spirits beganying out a huge magic array under the control of the Elemental Order. There were two huge traps within that magic array. One of them was the Magical Element Tower. The other was Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    Countless magical runes wereid out underwater. Saleen spared no expense and used all the materials he had acquired from the grandmaster and Gaine to set out a magic array with a diameter of 16 miles. A wide area of the ocean was taken over by Saleen¡¯s tower and leveled using magic before the inscriptions were made.


    The magic array gradually came to be. The great head inquisitor arrived above the Separation Sea and watched the battles that took ce underwater. He hesitated for a bit and ordered the Tribunal to mobilize all the ships they were able to spare. He wanted to wait for Saleen to emerge.


    The Tribunal¡¯s naval force was far greater than that of the Pivotal Council. Ships showed up at the western shore of the Separation Sea. It would have taken half a day at most for them to show up where they needed to be.


    The great head inquisitor had no intention of taking risks, so he simply waited for his enemy to show. Saleen needed toe out of the crevice at the bottom of the sea eventually. The wisest course of action at that moment was to simply wait for him to show, thenunch a fatal, devastating attack.


    Saleen was taking his sweet time in the ocean. He¡¯d spected very early on that the great head inquisitor would not pursue him there.


    That was because the great head inquisitor¡¯s Divine Tablet spell was a troublesome skill. After it was used, it took a very long time to create another one.


    During that period, it would have been like Saleen losing his Figure of Fate for the great head inquisitor. He would have been very cautious due to having lost hisst tool for survival.


    The stronger a person became, the more they came to fear death. Common folk had 120 years of life at most. They were able to fight without a care on the battlefield, as they would only lose tens of years of their lives. If they happened to survive, they might even end up rich.


    However, when professionals reached a certain level, their lifespan increased and things were different.


    A level-nine sorcerer could live up to 1200 years old. When a person became able to live that long, that person no longer acted rashly. They would hesitate before taking big risks.


    In ancient times, evenmon folk had been to live up to 1,000 years. Humans were very exploratory back then and could be found throughout the entire crystal wall system.


    Jason¡¯s lineage of mages had taken on the spirit of ancient times. As such, they were adventurous and daring, enabling them to advance several times faster than other mages.


    Saleen had sacrificed over half of his lifespan for his children. He only had hundreds of years of life remaining. However, it was precisely due to these sacrifices that Saleen¡¯s soul had be even more powerful.


    Saleen had few worries about advancing to level-11.


    After the huge magic array was built, Saleen ced the water-type element spirit in it. The entire ne was enraged in an instant. Countless water elemental creatures recklessly rushed into the magic array that Saleen had set out.


    The two traps within the magic array were activated. Nailisi lured the water elemental creatures into the 12 Notes of First Purgatory, having a part of them be food while the others were subjugated within the purgatory.


    Saleen, on the other hand, sat in the tower and simply threw any elemental creature that rushed inside into the ne, letting the thunder dragons feast on them.


    The thunder dragons began to expand, then quickly contracted due to the pressure of the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water. The process repeated several times as their physical body grew several times stronger. The thunder dragons began to turn ck and advanced to level-11.


    Saleen guessed that the number of elemental creatures filling the entire ne must be above one hundred billion. The ne itself consisted of nothing but the ocean, and there were many more creatures to be found there than on Myers Maind.


    Those creatures had suffered pressure from the water-type element spirit and had been prevented from advancing to higher levels. As such, they were basically all below level-10. Level-11 and 12 creatures made up only a handful of the ne¡¯s poption.


    Saleen had details about level-16 thunder dragons on his mind. Furthermore, due to the information acquired from Gaine, Saleen came to learn everything about even level-18 thunder dragons.


    It was a pity that his thunder dragons seemed to have taken a different direction with their advancement, making them incapable of growing in the way thunder dragons usually would have.


    Saleen did not mind at all, as his thunder dragons actually developed methods of creating balls of light. That meant that the thunder dragons were developing intelligence.


    When they advanced to level-11, all 24 thunder dragons would be able to do more in battle. They would no longer only provide energy to the family badge as they once had.


    The divine persona¡¯s aura leaked and the elemental creatures washed up at the magic array in massive waves, charging inside without concern before being swept into either the tower or the purgatories by some massive forces.


    The magic array was left to run for six days. Saleen lost track of how many elemental creatures that his thunder dragon ended up eating. He only knew that the thunder dragons eventually became incapable of eating more, even with the help of the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water.


    On thest day, all the elemental creatures that Saleen threw into the ne ended up being of no use.


    The water elemental creatures were then disintegrated by the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water, filling the ne with the power of the water element.


    Seeing that his requirements were fulfilled, he asked Nailisi, ¡°How are things going on your end?¡±


    Nailisi answered from outside the tower, ¡°Master, we¡¯ll need more time.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and decided to continue capturing elemental creatures, letting his family badge absorb the energies of the elemental creatures. The number of magic beasts was far lower than the number of elemental creatures throughout the entire ne.


    Saleen came to learn a lot on that trip. If it had not been for that ne, it would have been anyone¡¯s guess as to how long it would take for his thunder dragons to continue advancing.


    The great head inquisitor had waited for more than a week at the Separation Sea and had grown somewhat restless. He¡¯d even considered that Saleen may have died and thought about sending someone in to check. As the thought crossed his mind, the Magical Element Tower burst to the sky at an extremely high speed.


    The great head inquisitor did not even have time to use the Armageddon Codex to subjugate the tower before he felt that the entire Separation Sea had been considerably raised. The earth seemed to have shaken alongside it.


    The ground at the bottom of theke shook violently. Having lost suppression and then having Saleen bursting out forcefully, the eye of the sea essentially had the portal within it fully opened.


    That, in turn, meant that all the seawater in the entire ocean ne gushed into the Separation Sea. Furthermore, it was done at a very high rate due to the workings of the portal.


    The Magical Element Tower had been able to skyrocket from the bottom of the ten mile-deepke right up to the sky due to riding on that force. The surface of the tower was filled with high-temperature water vapor due to friction with theke water.


    ¡°Doombringer!¡± The great head inquisitor scolded loudly. While he did not know what had actually happened, he knew that Saleen had triggered yet another cmity.


    The entire Separation Sea seemed to boil all of a sudden. Countless vortexes formed by water elements rose to the sky. The temporary portal of the ocean ne sent trillions of pounds of seawater into the Separation Sea.


    It was indeed a disaster. At the very least, when the seawater came in, only a fraction of the creatures in the Separation Sea managed to survive.


    While the Separation Sea had the word ¡°sea¡± in its name, it was actually a freshwaterke. There was no way the creatures in theke would have been able to survive in saltwater environments, with the exception of magic beasts that had reached certain levels.


    All other creatures would have otherwise been sentenced to death as soon as the seawater gushed in.


    Lightning coursed throughout the body of the Magical Element Tower. The burst brought the tower to an altitude exceeding 20,000 meters. There was simply no way the great head inquisitor would be able to intercept him. He had no choice but to watch Saleen escape.


    Everything below was crumbling. The Separation Sea itself sank for hundreds of meters as seawater continued to gush in. All manner of storms whipped up by water element raged and every single ind on theke sank.


    Huge clouds formed in the sky. Saleen was unable to pierce through the clouds, even at an altitude of 20,000 meters.


    Saleen was ted. He needed nothing more than to observe the power and rules of lightning up close, and here he was, caught in thunderclouds of such huge sizes.


    The tower stopped where it was, waiting for rain and lightning to appear.


    The bottom of the Separation Sea sank over 600 meters, yet the seawater level continued to rise, flooding the shores. It did not stop there, and the seawater continued to spread. It would reach cities near theke soon.


    There were over 10,000 demons in the city. There was also a human army consisting of over 1,000 people. Saleen was unable to disperse the poption, so it was fortunate that they were several boats around. The remaining mages fixed the boats in ce using magic.


    The human army boarded the boats with the help of the demons. The demons, meanwhile, remained in the water, having no problem surviving in the water.


    Seawater continued to gush in the direction of Daliang City. There were no mountains between the city and the Separation Sea, nothing but small ins between them and the surge of water. The gushing seawater flooded northward without anything stopping it.


    The eastern side of the Separation Sea was filled with mountains. The rivers flowing into the Separation Sea were immediately flooded as the water level of the Separation Sea rose, rushing eastward into the Golden ins like a huge water dragon.


    There were routes leading to Titan at the western shore. While the routes were perilous, they did nothing to stop the flood. The hills were soon turned into individual inds sitting in the water.


    The south had originally been a swamp. It quickly turned into a part of the sea with the passing seawater. The flood had only stopped about 1,000 miles away near the mountains there.


    The Separation Sea continued to spread. The waves at the north had already reached past Daliang City.


    The city itself was elevated 500 meters, but the surroundingnds had copsed tens of meters, making it into a basin. When the seawater arrived, the armies at the ins were all caught in the ditch. The million-strong army of the Holy See felt like it was being swept away by a sudden cmity with no way to escape.


    The Heaven Knights and the elite wardens were able to escape, but the armies ofmon troops were all flooded out by the sudden surge of seawater, suffering massive casualties.

 Chapter 1232: Entering the Cemetery Again (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1232: Entering the Cemetery Again (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Lex and the mages from Holy Rock City watched Daliang City from above with gaping mouths.


    Common floods were no less powerful than magic spells, especially when the waves were tens of meters high. Floods of such force were capable of bending steel. Any magical equipment or siege engines below were wrecked by the flood.


    Due to the emergence of the cemetery of the giant, the surrounding areas of Daliang City were turned into basins. The Holy See had never expected this terrain would contribute to such lethal cmity.


    Suddenly, seawater flooded into the northern terrain of Daliang City. Most of the water pooled there. Anything that had not been put into space equipment was wrecked by the flood. The armies below all suffered massive casualties.


    Anyone who had survived was devastated by fear. They were afraid because of the descriptions and stories regarding the wrath of God flooding the earth that were inscribed in the Holy See¡¯s codex.


    Did God just abandon us?


    Countless numbers of believers had fallen in that single moment.


    Even the mages in the city sighed and wondered¡ªWhat is the Lord of Glory doing?


    More than a million soldiers surrounded Daliang City. They were all elite troops of the Holy See. The problem was that, despite them being elite soldiers, not all of them were capable of flight.


    The heavy cavalry of the Holy See was capable of taking on silver-grand swordmasters in charges consisting of up to 10,000 units. The problem was that the armor worn by the knights exceeded 100 pounds each, while the warhorses they rode were all level-two magical beasts. The horses would not have been even able to run d in armor otherwise.


    Despite being such fearsome warriors, they were not able to do anything but cry for help in the face of floods like that. Their squires had all been washed away by the floodwater and there was no one else there to help them take off their armor.


    The heavy armor had specialponents on the outside that needed two or three squires working together to take apart. In such floods, the protective measures that would have enabled the cavalry units to resist attacks from silver-grand swordmasters had be steel coffins.


    Daliang City was 500 meters above sea-level, so the city was safe from the flood. Furthermore, the thing that supported the city was none other than the cemetery of the giant. The cemetery itself was stronger than mountains made of steel, making it more than able to resist the force of the floodwater.


    The two exits of the cemetery were flooded by the seawater, so for the time being, there were no fossilized gods charging in from outside.


    Lex looked at the sea outside the city and did not know what to think about it. The fossilized gods would being at them soon enough. Even the flood was utterly incapable of taking out beings that did not need to eat or breathe.


    But then again, the Holy See¡¯s army had finally been crushed. While the Heaven Knights were tough, the demon army was there to take them on. The enemy¡¯s elite troops all perished in the flood. Qin was safe for the time being.


    The most dejected of them all was none other than Theisio. He watched with his own very eyes as his army was decimated, unable to stop it. While the three godly items had fearsome powers, theycked weapon spirits. As such, they were unable to be opened and used to save the adherents.


    ¡°Retreat,¡± Theisio said to the people around him dejectedly. A group of red-robed bishops from the Pivotal Council was by his side, and all of them were in a panic.


    ¡°Lord Pope, we still have the Heaven Knights!¡±


    ¡°The enemy brought a flood to us. There is no way for us to win,¡± Theisio said to the red-robed bishops. ¡°In the codex, it is said that the world-ending flood will arrive to punish those of impure faith...¡±


    The red-robed bishops were speechless. They had no idea where the flood hade from. Even if they were to regroup, they would not be able to do anything to restore morale. The total number of remaining Heaven Knights and wardens equaled less than 100 thousand.


    The army stationed faraway might have been over a million strong, but they were not elites, and with the flood hitting them so hard, their morale had already been totally broken.


    ¡°This is just like a spider getting entangled in its own web!¡± It was unknown if Theisio was ming their god or their codex. It was unknown how many living beings had died in that flood. Everything within 1,000 miles from the Separation Sea would have been hit by the flood.


    Saleen looked down from above and knew what the result must have been. He was not worried, as the forcefully opened portal would copse before long. It was rather surprising that the flood had reached all the way to Daliang City, as he would not have been able to be so precise with his calctions.


    That was the second time he had caused an ident. Just as the first one had done, it hit the Holy See very, very hard. Saleen was unable to hold himself back andughed at that thought.


    Only the northern shore of the Separation Sea was densely popted, as the western shore¡¯s poption was sparse. The Cloudflow people kept a very small naval force at the Separation Sea which would have been destroyed in the flood.


    The great head inquisitor was right below him. Saleen looked at the waters while the great head inquisitor red at the sky. He then turned into a shadow and disappeared from the surface of the waters.


    So even that old guy is gone then. There was nothing left for the Holy See in Daliang City. The tables at the battle of Daliang City had totally turned against them. Most professionals below level-five were dead from that flood, and most who remained were above level-six. Professionals at such levels had never been all that numerous.


    Saleen did not go down to end the great head inquisitor. He was not disappointed. He had, after all, acquired a powerful water-type element spirit that was waiting to be refined back at Metatrin City. After that, his teacher¡¯s magic amplifier would bepleted.


    As for Saleen, his own magic amplifier was alsoing together. The weapon spirits powering it were ferocious, as they were none other than the 24 thunder dragons he¡¯d had since they were young.


    As such, he would have no need to wipe their memories, even when they were turned into weapon spirits. They would have been able to retain their intelligence as well. With that said, his own magic amplifier would be a formidable power.


    His teacher¡¯s magic amplifier would have its own abilities. His would-be an inherently powerful offensively-oriented equipment. The ability of the thunder dragons conjuring balls of lightning was important to Saleen.


    The flood had disastrous. The sky was dark and there was thunder rumbling in the clouds. All manner of lightning bolts went down to the water, dissipating before reaching the surface.


    Saleen began to memorize the traits of the lightning bolts and paid extra attention to finding any balls of lightning. However, there were no balls of lightning to be found on the seemingly endless waters. The thunder, on the other hand, was ceaseless.


    Saleen had enough time to spare and contacted Daliang City, borating on what had transpired. The very reason why he¡¯d done this was so he could eventually destroy the eye of the sea. This would make him the only one left knowing the coordinates of the ocean ne.


    Lex was excited to hear that Saleen had been able to find coordinates of another ne. While that ocean ne was far from powerful, it was nheless abundant in resources. Mining reserves of that size would make a country unimaginably powerful.


    Lex possessed a powerful Metal Titan which could be used for mining on that ne. With that, their respective nations would no longer have to worry about the consumption of metal. That one ne would be far richer in resources than the metal inds near the Oceanic Ice Block.


    The flood stayed around for about half a month. The Holy See¡¯s forces retreated in that time. The main battles fought at Daliang City were focused on killing the fossilized gods.


    The Holy See¡¯s people had not truly left, they had simply changed their way of doing things.


    Theisio began attempting to send forces into the cemetery as teams of explorers, mobilizing professionals of level-nine and above, as well as Heaven Knights members who were capable of going underwater. They were waiting for an opportunity 500 miles north of Daliang City.


    There were no longer any fossilized gods bursting out of the water when Saleen returned to Daliang City. The city itself had be an ind, requiring enemies to mobilize their navies if they wanted to hit the city.


    However, when it came to naval forces, only the ones from Cloudflow were considered powerful. The Tribunal¡¯s navy had always been under the ck Dungeon¡¯s control. The ck Dungeon never went too deep into the battles at the cemetery of the giant.


    Furthermore, it would have been impractical to send the ck Dungeon¡¯s navy all the way to the Separation Sea.


    The mages of Daliang City and Holy Rock City gathered around and discussed methods of gaining entry into the cemetery. Saleen did not attend the meeting as he was busy researching new lightning magic patterns. He did not have any mind to spare to anything other than lightning magic and rules.


    The flood had drowned a sizeable portion of the Holy See¡¯s armies, yet their most powerful soldiers had been able to escape. The holy masters and Heaven Knights had all fled. The flood hadn¡¯t been caused by magic and therefore couldn¡¯t affect living beings in the air.


    Lex heard about things going on within the cemetery from Jalin and had no intention of entering it immediately. There were even more powerful fossilized gods within the energy barrier inside the cemetery, so many that even level-ten gods were consideredmon.


    Only Lex would probably be able to stay unscathed if they were to enter, and that was due to the protection of God¡¯s Ring.


    Saleen and Jalin were capable of maneuvering and getting to safety with their peculiar movement skills, but that was the same as saying that they would be able to return with abundant loot. Jalin was lucky enough to bag a small number of giant bone crystals, but she would not get so lucky the next time.


    Even though Saleen stayed cooped up in his Magical Element Tower, no one from Holy Rock City dared to ignore Saleen or take him out of the equation.


    Lex told them straight to their faces that it was Saleen who¡¯s caused the flood. Lex would not tell such a big lie. There were indeed types of lie detection magic in their world. If Lex were put to such tests and was found to be lying, she would lose all credibility.


    Those sent from Holy Rock City were not from Prince Safilos¡¯ side. All of them were pce mages. There were even pce swordsmen. Those two camps had always been loyal to the direct line of the royal family. Lex was closer to the throne than Prince Safilos.


    Not to say that the Qin didn¡¯t value their women, it was only that the Grukos had incredibly powerful bloodlines in terms of gic lineage.


    Even if a woman of the Grukos were married to a foreigner, their descendants would still exhibit strong traits of the Grukos, enabling them to learn all manner of secret arts of the n.


    The ones from the Holy Rock City were not in a convenient position to im any merit after Saleen caused such a disaster. It was fortunate that the mages from the Alchemy City were all kicked out, meaning that it would be easier for the remaining parties to discuss loot distribution.


    Lex said, ¡°Saleen said that he only wanted a single piece of equipment. As for anything remaining, it shall be distributed equally among all who were able to leave the cemetery. Anyone below level-nine is forbidden to enter.¡±


    There were no mages below level-nine from Holy Rock City. There were even three level-ten mages staying there. Otherwise, they would not have been able to withstand the Holy See¡¯s attacks. There was nothing else those mages could have said to terms like that.


    Little did they know, however, that the equipment that Saleen intended to get his hands on was none other than the moon. It was capable of conjuring lightning.


    It was a powerful weapon capable of overpowering all the gods. If he were able to get his hands on that thing, the giant bone crystals would be of no value to him.


    It was April and Daliang City had begun to organize the first trip into the cemetery. The external parts were all cleaned up and there were no fossilized gods capable of resurrecting anymore. The shards were all made into pieces of equipment resembling Heaven Knight armor and were distributed to the armies.

 Chapter 1233: Entering the Cemetery Again (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1233: Entering the Cemetery Again (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen held his people back and forbade them from entering the cemetery of the giant. Lex summoned Bain in secret and took him with her, along with 12 level-nine supreme demons that she had personally selected, and Stephanie the sorcerer.


    Stephanie had the possibility of advancing to level-ten. She had originally gone to the Principality of Bitterwater, but had returned to Daliang City to help Lex out.


    Saleen¡¯s only follower who had entered the cemetery with Lex was Gusion. He had not been around Saleen much. Most of the time, he was fighting for Lex. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, there were no lurking dangers in Gusion¡¯s fate for the moment, so Saleen had Gusion try his luck out.


    Saleen did not actually let any of his followers into the cemetery out of fear of any dangering to them.


    In the battles of the past several months, all the fossilized gods at the outer parts of the cemetery had beenpletely taken care of by forces from both the Holy See and Daliang City.


    He¡¯d done this because he intended to act against the Holy See. Saleen erected the Magical Element Tower right at the entrance of the cemetery of the giant, waiting for his enemies to strike.


    Lex and the others had already entered the cemetery. The tower had been erected underwater, forming currents around it. A huge vortex whipped up with a one-mile radius, drawing in everything nearby.


    The Holy See¡¯s army had actuallye to Daliang City on metal ships.


    Metal flyers dropped magic fire shells from very high altitudes above Daliang City, intending to burn the ships. However, all of the ships were guarded by professionals above level-six and Heaven Knights. All of the shells were shot down by crossbow bolts in midair.


    mes burned on the water but were unable to get close to the ships.


    Theisio held the God Grace Staff and white light lit up on the surface of every single ship.


    Attacks from Daliang City were utterly ineffective against the hundreds of the Holy See¡¯s ships. The Heaven Knights rode their warhorses on the ships and leaped into the water. The warhorses were all d in watertight armor. The Heaven Knights were able to maintain a speed of above 30 miles per hour after diving in.


    There were only about 100 men on every ship, which amounted to little more than 10,000 men in total.


    Saleen saw over 10,000 men dive into the water and thought that the scene was funny. He had been able to rely on numbers because he had the Magical Element Tower and was armed with the magic. Sheer numbers tranted to strength in such cases.


    However, the same could not be said for the elite Heaven Knights. Aren¡¯t they just walking to their deaths right now?


    ¡°So Theisio, you¡¯re a dumb**s after all,¡± Saleen shouted very, very loudly. The voice prated the surface of the water and hit the skies. It was none other than the Thundering Shock.


    All 10,000 of the knights were stunned for a bit by the Thundering Shock move. Then, 3,600 demonic spirits at the top of the tower cast Snowkill at the same time.


    Snowkes danced in the water at depths of over 400 meters. The hexagonal snowkes were unnervingly sharp. They neither melted in the water nor froze the seawater.


    They simply spun at high speeds due to the force of the currents. The snowkes, numbering in the tens of thousands,cerated every single thing they touched.


    Anyone being surrounded by Snowkill would end up being cut to tiny pieces.


    Saleen used his magic amplifier. Truman used his. It was Truman who was in charge ofmanding the battles. Saleen waited in the dark for the great head inquisitor to show.


    Saleen did not have any certainty about being able to kill Theisio. With all three godly items in his hand, he became more troublesome to deal with than Saleen.


    Theisio did not dive into the water despite Saleen¡¯s ridicule. He thumped the God Grace Staff on the ship and Saleen immediately saw swords zipping into the water in a blinding light.


    The swords were constructed purely of holy light, messing up all spells cast from the tower.


    Over 10,000 knights rushed into the cemetery¡¯s entrance.


    ¡°Idiot.¡± Saleen definitely had more tricks up his sleeves. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, which had not seen action for quite a while, stood ready with magic cannons in hand inside the tower. 360 magic cannons fired at the same time. Theisio¡¯s divine spells were no longer able to stop them.


    Theisio was capable of breaking powerful spells due to those spells having discernible patterns since they had been cast by enchanters. While the magic cannon attacks were slightly weaker, he had no way of breaking them up in one go.


    The huge swords of light stirred in the water and deflected half of the cannon shots. The remaining ones punched through the knights¡¯ formations, injuring about 1,000 of them.


    The Heaven Knights¡¯ armor was indeed formidable. While the huge magic cannons were imitations, they still possessed incredible power. None of the Heaven Knights were actually killed.


    The problem was that Saleen had no concern over the consumption and loss of the cannons. They fired without rest and the second volley was upon the Heaven Knights in no time.


    The pope was unable to react in time. While his holy masters were able to cast divine spells, none of their spells were capable of going that deep. He was unable to do anything but watch Saleen kill up to 1,000 Heaven Knights using the magic cannons.


    ¡°Theisio, I¡¯ll admit that you are indeed more powerful than I am, but when ites to deep pockets, you¡¯re no match for me!¡± Saleen¡¯s prideful voice reverberated in the water. The Heaven Knights were hit by his voice before they knew it.


    Theisio was truly angry but he was unable to do anything. He knew that Saleen¡¯s tower was not something he could take out using only the three godly items. As such, he was only able to suppress the mage enough to keep him froming out of the tower.


    The problem, however, was that Saleen had no need toe out. The Magical Element Tower was capable of flight.


    ¡°Saleen, get lost!¡± Theisio¡¯s rage hit a critical point after being provoked by Saleen¡¯s crass words. He uttered somethingughable.


    ¡°Are you saying that you would dare to enter the cemetery if I moved aside?¡± Saleen asked.


    Theisio was speechless. If he brought his forces into the cemetery and Saleen ganged up on him from behind, he would end up caught in a pincer attack.


    ¡°Theisio, I¡¯ve always thought that the Holy See was my greatest enemy. It seems like I have the wrong idea after all,¡± Saleen said, provoking the pope.


    He observed the surface while ridiculing the pope. He¡¯d only managed to kill about 1,000 out of the 10,000 Heaven Knights. Since the magic cannons had been fired twice consecutively, all of them were out of order.


    The Heaven Knights¡¯ armor was too powerful. They were able to disperse the attacks, letting every single knight bear a share of the brunt of the attacks. The number and offensive capacities of the cannons were inadequate to overwhelm their defenses. Thest two volleys had not ended up doing much.


    Armor forged out of the fossilized gods¡¯ fragments was capable of self-repair. It would only take two to three days for all the armor he¡¯d damaged to be thoroughly repaired.


    Saleen sent Nailisi to capture the knights using the. Then she threw them into her collection of purgatories.


    Doing it this way was incredibly slow, but Saleen had already ced potent poisons at the entrance. The armor of most of the knights had been damaged and would require some time to be repaired. The poisons were meant for the injured knights.


    ¡°Saleen, I shall go to Metatrin City and raze your base once and for all!¡± Theisio blurted without thinking.


    Saleen continued tough. ¡°Theisio, if you actually dared to do so, you would have done so a long time ago!¡±


    Theisio snickered coldly and said, ¡°You¡¯re right, I don¡¯t have what it takes to get there right now, and the city¡¯s defenses are of ample might. But I¡¯ve organized my men to have god descend upon your city. I¡¯ll see how long you¡¯re able to keep that smirk on your face!¡±


    ¡°Threats are useless. It¡¯s obvious that as a pope, you¡¯re only saying all this to scare me. Theisio, nothing you said scares me. I¡¯m able to return to Metatrin City at any given moment and bring my most important people out. It¡¯s fine to have the city razed. You Holy See people are good people and you¡¯d protect them in my stead.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying that to scare you, Saleen. I¡¯ve subjugated two oracles this time and they can get to Metatrin City and begin to summon God. When he is here, you¡¯ll know howughable your so-called imprable fortress is.¡±


    ¡°No problem. I¡¯ll just stay here and round up every single adherent of the Holy See and cut them into pieces for research. I have many death mages serving me. I¡¯d be able to disperse all of their souls and stop them from entering the divine kingdom,¡± Saleen replied pointedly. He was actually beginning to get somewhat nervous.


    Theisio had not brought level-12 oracles with him after all.


    ¡°Hmph, you won¡¯t be able to stay smug for long. Metatrin City will soon be history.¡±


    Saleen had already opened the magic array and contacted his teacher before Theisio finished saying all that. He sent his Lightning Cage and Elemental Order back to the city. Both of those items would enable Jason toplete his magic amplifier.


    Saleen no longer had any personal need for the Elemental Order. His ne was already a magic amplifier with the 24 thunder dragons within it serving as weapon spirits. Not only were they able to amplify spells of the six major elements, but they were also able to conjure balls of lightning.


    COMMENT


    Regardless if the two level-12 oracles in Metatrin City to stir up trouble, Saleen believed that if his teacher were to possess apleted set of magic amplifiers, he would no longer need to fear the advent of any gods.


    The god that would descend upon them would not be beyond level-12.


    Saleen continued to ridicule Theisio after dealing with those two matters done. ¡°Theisio, how about you just turn on your god? I don¡¯t see the Lord of Glory as some guy worth your time.¡±


    The Seal of Divine Power hanging on Theisio¡¯s neck burst with powerful vibrations above the water before Saleen was able to finish. A de of holy prose in the shape of a crescent moon prated the water and headed straight for the tower.


    The crescent-shaped holy prose was not all that quick, yet Saleen smelled the danger nheless.


    The ball of lightning was incapable of moving quickly, but getting hit by it meant certain death. He summoned the thunder dragons without dy. They conjured a gray ball of lightning and shed with the de of holy prose.


    A ck hole appeared in the water and both the holy prose de and the gray ball pf lightning disappeared at the same time, leaving an energy hole the size of a fingertip.


    The ce had long beencking elements. The ck hole copsed as soon as it was formed, releasing the energy within and shaking the seawater into eerie waves.


    Pure energy attacks were converted into pure physical attacks.


    All remaining 9,000 Heaven Knights were hit and swept away by the wave. Riders were separated from their horses, their armor cracked and broke, and their weapons were thrown off. Everything under the water was swept clean by the shock. Only the Magical Element Tower remained standing.

 Chapter 1234: Price of Darkness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1234: Price of Darkness (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The shock stopped Saleen¡¯sugh from being sent out of the Magical Element Tower. The pope¡¯s Seal of Divine Power was nullified by the ball of lightning, but the godly item was sturdy enough to not cause Theisio to suffer any recoil.


    Saleen was relieved that he had not used Puppet Constetion. While the equipment would not have been damaged by the shock, the 500,000 puppets would have been reduced to dust. It would have taken a very, very long time for them to be restored.


    If the Puppet Constetion suffered such damage, it would be only able to help Saleen cast earth elemental magic and would lose its ability to attack through sheer numbers.


    Blood seeped out from the cracks in the Heaven Knights¡¯ armor, and none was able to get up.


    Theisio stopped being angry. Saleen did not do it on purpose; it was coincidental.


    The earthquake Saleen caused had been coincidental, as was thest flood he caused. The energy shock caused moments ago was also coincidental. Saleen did not know how things would turn out, but the coincidental disasters dealt devastating blows to the Holy See every time.


    The 10,000 Heaven Knights were equal to a million-soldier army. Theisio did not fret over the dead troops. So long as there were still adherents, it would be easy to raise an even greater army.


    The Heaven Knights, on the other hand, were painstakingly nurtured by the Holy See and all of them were unquestionably loyal. Theirbat was just as unquestionable, and the value of just a single warhorse of theirs was startling.


    What surprised Theisio was the level 13 divine spell stored in the Seal of Divine Power, Divine Wrath, was nullified by a single spell cast by Saleen.


    Divine Wrath was capable of phasing through obstacles to attack its target, which meant that the spell behaved like a ball of lightning, enabling it to phase through the Magical Element Tower.


    It was specifically prepared to deal with Saleen from the lessons Theisio learned in hisst scuffle with the mage.


    However, while Divine Wrath was only a level 13 divine spell, it was excruciatingly difficult to store. The two level 12 oracles failed over 100 times, before being able to store a single worthy Divine Wrath in the Seal of Divine Power.


    The sess rate was unnervingly low for the level 12 oracles.


    What kind of spell did Saleen cast?


    ¡°Lord Pope, it¡¯s best that we call it a day,¡± said anky young man with a pale face beside Theisio. The young man apparently had little respect for the pope, judging from his tone and words.


    ¡°Great head inquisitor, are you saying that we should just let this sphemous infidel throw his weight around?¡±


    ¡°Lord Pope, didn¡¯t you just send the two oracles to destroy his kingdom?¡± The great head inquisitor looked very young after switching bodies using the Divine Tablet spell, and his level had been raised to 11.


    However, his level seemed to be negligible before Theisio.


    The energy emanating from the Bramble Crown that Theisio wore was not weaker than a level 11 professional.


    ¡°Do you have any idea what kind of secrets are buried here?¡± Theisio¡¯s face was tremendously cold. He wanted to get rid of the great head inquisitor, but he had the backing of ck Dungeon.


    The head warden was the truly fearsome figure. Theisio shuddered just thinking about them. He did not know if a person who had been in charge of the ck Dungeon could be considered a human.


    The demon that their god mentioned was perhaps the head warden.¡±


    ¡°How else would anyone know what¡¯s buried down there? It¡¯s not like you Pivotal Council people are willing to tell us,¡± the great head inquisitor voiced his displeasure. If the great head inquisitor feared Theisio just because the pope had gathered all three godly items, then he would not be the great head inquisitor.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a cemetery of an ancient giant. The giant had some connection with the emperor of the First Dynasty.¡±


    ¡°A level 18 giant?¡±


    ¡°Level 18,¡± Theisio finally told the truth. Blood rushed to the great head inquisitor¡¯s pale face.


    ¡°You¡¯ve kept secrets long enough, Theisio,¡± the great head inquisitor smiled. He knew more or less what was down there, but as long as the pope kept his mouth shut, the great head inquisitor would not be able to mobilize more men for him.


    The ck Dungeon was too powerful for the great head inquisitor. It was fortunate that the head warden did not care about power and only care about the ones by his side.


    It was because of that that the great head inquisitor was able to maintain the Tribunal. Otherwise, the ck Dungeon would have splintered and be a fourth force in the Holy See.


    The great head inquisitor did not dare to think of ways to change it. He knew that even if he advanced, he would not be able to fight the head warden. Death was preferable to getting on the head warden¡¯s bad side.


    ¡°Saleen¡¯s flying magic tower blocked an entrance. If we entered through the other entrance, he might have tailed us and caught us in a pincer attack,¡± Theisio exined.


    ¡°So we need to take the magic tower out first?¡± The great head inquisitor was still flushed, making him look like a carrot.


    ¡°There is no doubt about that.¡± Theisio nodded. He did not tell anyone that he had thrown Saleen into a divine kingdom, and the mage came back alive and kicking right before them.


    ¡°So it¡¯s up to me?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the great head inquisitor. It¡¯s your job to deal with these infidels.¡±


    ¡°Right, and it¡¯s your responsibility to give us orders, pope!¡± The great head inquisitor said as if he was reciting a poem.


    ¡°Oh, please. If you kill Saleen, the magic tower will be yours. I think that none of the treasures you¡¯ll find in the cemetery will beparable to that tower.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re correct, but if I run into any danger...¡±


    ¡°I shall provide backup.¡± The pope raised the God Grace Staff.


    ¡°Well then, please bestow me with an Eternal Blessing to start.¡± The great head inquisitor smirked sheepishly. The pope¡¯s face froze, but he raised the staff and chanted the words.


    Eternal Blessing was a divine spell with no regard of level, and it had to be bestowed by gods. There were three Eternal Blessings stored in the God Grace Staff, which the pope relied on for protection.


    Every pope was given three from their god. Theisio hesitated at the great head inquisitor¡¯s request for one, but he granted their wish.


    Saleen was powerful. If he did not back the great head inquisitor, he might actually die by Saleen¡¯s hands.


    Holy light emanated from Theisio and slowly seeped into the great head inquisitor¡¯s body. A shadow in the great head inquisitor¡¯s heart gradually dissipated, seemingly avoiding the holy power.


    The light seeped into the great head inquisitor¡¯s body like mercury.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s thin lips smiled at Theisio. ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m off to kill Saleen. That flying magic tower shall be mine.¡±


    Theisio¡¯s smile looked uglier than a crying face. The great head inquisitor cast a secret trick of the Tribunal, not only taking Eternal Blessing, but also a huge amount of divine power and life force.


    The skill was called the Price of Darkness.


    The Tribunal hovered between light and darkness and possessed immense power, but they were dark powers, and there was a price for using them. The base skill of the Tribunal was the Price of Darkness, which every single holy master of the Tribunal needed to learn.


    If they did not learn Price of Darkness, they would fall after joining the Tribunal, cast away by their god for good.


    The great head inquisitor used a level 11 Price of Darkness, which meant he had gauged Saleen¡¯s hazard level. A considerable portion of Theisio¡¯s life force was sucked away, and worse still, he had to keep quiet about it.


    It seemed that he had to pay a hefty price to kill Saleen.


    The great head inquisitor did not say anything. He knew that Saleen was very hard to kill. He was only showing Theisio that the Tribunal would not take unnecessary risks.


    Theisio needed to pay just like he did. It was only fair.


    The great head inquisitor dispelled the skill, but he did not know that the shadow in his heart had formed again. The Eternal Blessing was severely diluted and no longer looked like it was bestowed by gods. It seemed to be cast by a low level priest.


    ¡°Lend me a golden knight.¡± The great head inquisitor did not call for his own people, asking Theisio¡¯s instead.


    Theisio nodded, and a knight d in purple armor stepped forward, following the great head inquisitor.


    ¡°From here on out, he belongs to the Tribunal, which means he¡¯s one of yours.¡± Theisio hardly felt anything. Golden knights were not golden grand swordmasters. It was only a name. The golden knight that he had sent to the great head inquisitor¡¯s side was level ten.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be off then.¡± The great head inquisitor pointed at the water, and a white portal appeared. The dark green seawater parted around it.


    The great head inquisitor leapt from the boat and the golden knight d in purple armor followed suit. Holy light lit up under his purplebat boots with every step, and he was unnervingly quick.


    Saleen was naturally able to see what was going on above. He could hear the conversation between the great head inquisitor and Pope Theisio. Saleen turned to the people around him. ¡°Let¡¯s hear this and tell me what you think about them.¡±


    J and the others shook their heads. They only heard about the infighting in the Holy See from other sources. With the conversation reying right before them, everyone was aghast at how fragmented the Holy See was, but the Holy See was greedy enough to want to unite the maind.


    ¡°Nichs, what¡¯s Eternal Blessing?¡±


    ¡°My liege, it¡¯s...a power bestowed by the gods. Every pope acquires three from the God Grace Staff even if they are incapable of contacting god. It was the reason why everyone wanted to be pope.¡±


    Saleen was unfazed. It was hardly a lofty goal to want to be pope, as even the water type elemental spirit wanted to be a god, instead of a god¡¯s spokesperson.


    Theisio and the others chose to believe in their god, so their prospects were destined to be limited, making them pale inparison to Fycro. Fycro intended to create his own divine kingdom and be free of god¡¯s control.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, Fycro was powerful among the people from the Holy See that he knew. Van Gogh was one of those people as well. The two would definitely not be bound by the gods. Their faith was fallen at the very core.

 Chapter 1235: Price of Darkness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1235: Price of Darkness (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen only considered Theisio capable, not truly powerful.


    Saleen realized it from watching Jason. A truly powerful person needed a mind that refused to be bound by any conventions. Powerful people madepromises, but they would definitely not be enved.


    Theisio¡¯s mind submitted to the Lord of Glory entirely, making him little more than a dog. However, the dog¡¯s fangs were sharp and Saleen needed to think of ways to kill it to prevent it from biting the people he cared about.


    The Seal of Divine Power was capable of offense, and the God Grace Staff was capable of defense, while the Bramble Crown was able to casting inexhaustible blessings.


    The trinity of the three godly items were used as a single entity, inspiring despair in those who went against them, just like Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower.


    As such, Saleen¡¯s target was first the great head inquisitor.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s skills were evil and peculiar. He had used the Divine Tablet spell to cheat death in a certain-death situation during theirst encounter. The Divine Tablet spell was far more convenient than the Figure of Fate, but it was a one-time-use spell.


    The Fate of Figure was capable of taking fatal hits in its owner¡¯s ce, but Saleen was unable to escape immediately after the attack was deflected. The Divine Tablet spell, on the other hand, would send the owner¡¯s soul away when a life-threatening situation was encountered.


    The soul was able to be safely sent to the Divine Tablet, even from thousands of miles away.


    However, given that the great head inquisitor had acquired an Eternal Blessing from the pope forcefully, he would prove to be quite troublesome to Saleen. Nichs borated on the properties of Eternal Blessing and powers in corresponding levels.


    Saleen learned that regardless of how powerful his attacks were, the Eternal Blessing would be able to deflect them once, unless his attack surpassed what was bearable by the god that bestowed the spell.


    The great head inquisitor did not bring the Armageddon Codex with him and instead brought a huge scepter. The scepter was made of bone and Saleen was able to sense the massive power stored within, as well as lingering resentment.


    The knight in purple armor behind the great head inquisitor carried a pair of axes. The pair of great axes had holy prose on both sides of their des. They were not etched onto the de, but produced from the light shining from within.


    The golden knight moved at incredible speed, just like how Jalin, but unlike Jalin, he was unable to cover odd corners and make peculiar turns. Saleen knew that it was due to thebat boots that the golden knight wore, instead of the knight being capable of wielding earth magic.


    The axes were a greenish bronze. The golden knight held the axes high and appeared before Saleen¡¯s tower in an instant, bringing them down with great force.


    The axes shed with the elementite of the tower, producing a sound like rotten wood cracking.


    A tornado fell from the top of the tower, shrouding the golden knight. The great head inquisitor pointed with the scepter at the tornado and shouted, ¡°Dispel!¡±


    The spell cast by 600 demonic spirits disappeared without a trace.


    Saleen did not cast the ball of lightning despite seeing how he had failed to keep the golden knight at bay. The speed of the balls of lightning were just too slow. Unless someone was able to keep the enemy still for several seconds, they would have to rely on luck to hit the enemy.


    However, the balls of lightning had massive powers and were easier to conjure than tree-shaped lightning bolts. Furthermore, balls of lightning were able to stay in shape, making them seem like a natural magic spell.


    But that was not an urate description. At the very least, the lightning attack unleashed from Saleen¡¯s family badge resembled natural,rge scale lightning bolts more. That meant that when one¡¯s level reached a certain point, even humans would be able to mimic nature.


    Saleen was able to cast four balls of lightning and seven Lightning Icicles every day, so he had no reason to fear the great head inquisitor. Furthermore, Lightning Icicles only needed an hour to cool down, making them the most effective equipment in Saleen¡¯s possession capable of recing Crystal Finger.


    The great head inquisitor gazed at the tower in the tower and suddenly regretted what he promised the pope. He had little to gain from the effort as the tower¡¯s walls were too resilient.


    The golden knight charged again and brought the great axes down hard onto the tower, but there were only two more gashes found on the tower. Furthermore, the gashes did not result from the tower being damaged, but from materials chipped from the des of the axes.


    The great head inquisitor raised his scepter and pointed at the tower. A voice rang from in his skull, like resonating sounds heard in vast, empty spaces.


    ¡°O¡¯ omnipresent darkness, thou art the opposite of light. Thou art the shadow of light. Take this singing of praise and grant me power. I am thy believer and thou serve the Lord of Light. I shall pay with the price of my soul to be rid of the sphemous one right before me!¡±


    The great head inquisitor cast a stripping type of divine spell, which worked like an instant death magic spell. It would strip the enemy of their life when sessfully cast.


    Saleen cursed under his breath. The tower could not defend a skill like that. The Figure of Fate was probably going to take the hit. The Figure of Fate could be summoned to battle, but he had never needed to do so since he had the Puppet Constetion.


    The Figure of Fate was able to cast magic that far surpassed Saleen¡¯s own level.


    Unknown power seeped into the tower and brought unpredictable rule properties with it, heading straight for Saleen. The Ring of Cosmos on Saleen¡¯s hand turned on its own. Two runes stacked and unleashed a rule power that Saleen found unfathomable.


    The power was vast and magnificent, as if he had opened a gate where he stood, bringing rules from another crystal wall system onto Saleen.


    Saleen felt that his fate had be incredibly powerful. The power of fate! No, this isn¡¯t the power of fate, but immutable rules, cast right onto me. Saleen merged with the rule, overpowering all other rules working on him.


    What the hell is this? Saleen almost threw the Ring of Cosmos away. He had no control over the power.


    Saleen knew that if anyone mastered the power, all the living beings on Myers Maind would have no choice but to submit.


    However, the power was gone as quickly as it came. The skill cast by the great head inquisitor was destroyed. The Ring of Cosmos quieted down and the inneryer no longer turned.


    Saleen lifted his arm and shot all seven Lightning Icicles from his Thunder Dragon ster. The great head inquisitor spit blood onto his scepter and a ck shadow let out an eerie, pained shriek.


    The great head inquisitor backed away at breakneck speed and brought out the Armageddon Codex.


    A huge sign flew out of it and wrapped around him. All seven icicles came from different directions but were blocked by the spinning sign. The sign was broken and the electrical spark on the icicles died, reducing the icicles to pieces of ice.


    They were still 100 degrees below freezing and the cross on the Armageddon Codex shot out, opening an irregr portal before him.


    The great head inquisitor dove straight into the portal and stopped experimenting.


    Saleen¡¯s skill frightened him tremendously. He had never felt anything like that, not even when he wasmunicating with the Lord of Glory.


    In that instant, he only felt an urge to kneel and worship.


    The great head inquisitor ran without hesitation. A strong thought welled up within his mind: Theisio set him up. Saleen¡¯s strength was so great that only the three godly items would be able to take him on. After he lost the Divine Skull, he had lost all means of taking on Saleen.


    Seeing his enemy so frightened and fleeing in terror even after blocking all seven of his Lightning Icicles, Saleen despised the great head inquisitor. There were only a handful of people capable of blocking all seven Lightning Icicles at the same time. Saleen knew the overbearing properties of the Lightning Icicles better than anyone else.


    Saleen was not in the mood to go after the great head inquisitor. Even Theisio was shocked by the power disyed within the Magical Element Tower.


    While the power may havecked magnitude, the rules seemed to have vaguely surpassed the Lord of Glory¡¯s rules of light.


    Theisio wanted to retreat as well. Even if Saleen had only borrowed such power instead of truly mastering it, it would enable him to stand undefeatable. The rules were too overarching, making it seemed as if all rules within their crystal wall system were infused with that set.


    Theisio felt the rumble of the three godly items, which had nothing to do with the Lord of Glory. They feared Saleen. Theisio was both surprised and ted.


    He was surprised at how Saleen¡¯s mysterious powers were so insurmountable, but at the same time, he was ted at how the three godly items actually began to develop their own weapon spirits.


    If weapon spirits emerged from the three godly items, it would mean that he was finally freed from the Lord of Glory¡¯s control, and that the three godly items would be at their most powerful.


    The three godly items were about to develop their own weapon spirits despite being on Myers Maind for less than 10,000 years.


    Another terrifying thought welled up in Theisio¡¯s mind before he realized. Would he be a god after he mastered the three godly items and had shaken free of his god¡¯s control.


    It was a huge temptation. If Saleen had not brought the power of the Ring of Cosmos to bear, he might not have had such thoughts, but the rules unleashed by Saleen had surpassed everything that the Lord of Glory was and had.


    Their god was no longer omnipotent!


    Such thoughts were seeds, and it was only a matter of time before they sprouted. Theisio was terrified. If that were the case, it was only a matter of time before he fell.


    No, this is not falling. This is just a thought. I shall gain God¡¯s forgiveness through prayers.


    But why did God never advent on Myers Maind? He knew that the three oracles snuck out without permission. If even the oracles lost control, where was the Lord of Glory. What actually happened?


    The thoughts ran around Theisio¡¯s mind and he forgot about the great head inquisitor, who had just returned.


    A mist of ck aura shot from the great head inquisitor¡¯s heart up to his mind. The Armageddon Codex in his hand opened and flipped to the third page. His sclera lost all its white, and his pupils were a dark purple.


    ¡°Look out!¡± A red-robed bishop saw something amiss and cast a huge spear of light, aimed at the great head inquisitor, who let out a ferocious smirk and cast a ball of grey light from the Armageddon Codex.

 Chapter 1236: Flower of Evil (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1236: Flower of Evil (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°You¡¯re mad!¡± Theisio came to his senses after seeing the great head inquisitor attacking him.


    The huge spear of light was broken with a punch from the great head inquisitor. A sign from the Armageddon Codex could be seen on his fist.


    ¡°I¡¯m not mad, I¡¯m awakened!¡± The great head inquisitor¡¯s face began to twist and golden light dissipated from the Armageddon Codex, turning bluish-ck.


    Seven huge signs flew out at the same time, heading straight for Theisio. 49 red-robed bishops at the pope¡¯s side cast Divine Protection at the same time, erecting a dazzling barrier of light before the pope.


    ¡°Eleanor!¡± Saleen called. Eleanor acknowledged, drawing a lightning arrow and shooting it right away. Eleanor did not practice lightning magic herself. She was only familiar with the properties of lightning, enabling her to shoot arrows with lightning attributes gifted to her by Saleen.


    It was more than enough. Lightning had devastating power on its own, able to reduce the power of all energy shields by over nine levels.


    Eleanor¡¯s archery had reached the pinnacle of level-nine. No energy shields from anyone could defend against hermon attacks. After all, the Seven Nights was a powerful god-tiered piece of equipment.


    Eleanor shot 49 arrows consecutively against the 49yers of Divine Protection. All 49 arrows lined up into a straight line, prating the defenses of Divine Protection as a sh of blue light.


    Eleanor used the Elvish Space Arrow skill and did not feel any resistance shooting from underwater.


    The lightning arrows¡¯ speed was quicker than the great head inquisitor¡¯s attack, wrecking theyers of Divine Protectionpletely. Pope Theisio¡¯s face went pale. The seven huge signs from the Armageddon Codex were upon him.


    A huge specter appeared from within the God Grace Staff. It was over ten meters tall and stood before Theisio.


    Saleen was stunned when he saw that, yet quicklyposed himself. The specter actually held the image of their god. The Lord of Glory¡¯s blessing was actually sealing a part of his power within the God Grace Staff, protecting the leader of his shepherds.


    God¡¯s grace. There is god¡¯s grace!


    Eternal Blessing was like trashpared to the grace of their god. Theisio knew very well that Eternal Blessing would not be able to contend with the power of the Armageddon Codex, so he cast God¡¯s Grace instead.


    The grace of God was akin to the ocean.


    Theisio¡¯s status had never been so high before. A white light began to shimmer on the Bramble Crown on his head. The light was not shooting out at his surroundings, but wrapping Theisio in a white, transparent robe from top to bottom.


    The pope was also known as the ¡°Emperor of the Faith.¡± The Bramble Crown cast Divine Robe, the power of which emanated from the inside out. It seeped into every cell of Theisio¡¯s body.


    Theisio¡¯s powers were heightened in an instant and reached level-11 right away. Furthermore, the advancement was a true, solid one. Even when the skill dissipated, Theisio would not drop back to level-10.


    The Seal of Divine Power on his neck cast a huge flower.


    The ck flower had thousands of petals and they opened bit by bit. The area within 100 miles was shrouded by the rules of the Seal of Divine Power, sealing in all manner of energy within.


    A huge cage was conjured by the Seal of Divine Power¡¯s power.


    The power of God was akin to a prison!


    Only the image of the Lord of Glory continued to emanate light within the area of the Divine Might spell. The red-robed bishops at the pope¡¯s side all fell to the ground. They were unable to bear the power of Divine Might. They fell prostrate as they worshipped.


    ¡°What is this!?¡± The purplish-red pupils within the great head inquisitor¡¯s ck eyes spun furiously, intending to see those huge petals clearly. However, his eyes blew up in his eye sockets, spraying ck liquid everywhere.


    The power of Divine Might forbade any to peer into it.


    Saleen sealed the Magical Element Tower off altogether. His Ring of Cosmos did not act funny again, as if what happened earlier had nothing to do with the ring at all. Saleen knew, however, that the Ring of Cosmos had yet to bepletely restored. He had no way of wielding that terrifying power.


    The huge metal gears at the top of the Magical Element Tower rescinded. Saleen had no way ofmanding the demonic spirits to do battle at the moment, but the tower¡¯s defenses reached their pinnacle nheless.


    Saleen decided to simply sit by and watch events unfold after over 40 arrows were fired.


    Saleen did not attempt to leave after the huge ck flower bloomed. There was simply nowhere to run. The area within 100 miles was shrouded by the ck aura from the flower. There was nothing holy about that ck aura.


    ¡°Flower of Evil!¡± Nichs shouted.


    ¡°Flower of Evil?¡± Saleen watched the huge petals and had no idea why Nichs was so worked up.


    ¡°The Lord of Glory said that he was just, holy, and pure...¡± Nichs uttered the three words in a very sarcastic tone.


    He then continued, ¡°During the time between the Goddess of Nature¡¯s demise and the advent of the Lord of Glory, many religions formed on Myers Maind. There was one that had been of incredibly powerful, yet it was eliminated secretly by the Lord of Glory. All the gods of that religion were killed. The war between the two religions was very short,sting less than 20 years. It was not even recorded.¡±


    Nichs then continued to calmly borate while the crowd listened. He then said to Saleen, ¡°My liege, the religion that was crushed also had a codex. The divinity of the Lord of Glory was mentioned in that codex. The Lord of Glory was actually the title of two gods who had been a single god. When he advanced from a demigod to a lesser god, he attempted to purge the evil part of his attributes, intending to acquire pure divinity and advance to level-16.¡±


    ¡°You know about stuff like that too?¡± Saleen asked, feeling rather surprised.


    ¡°I was young and I was curious. I found the answers, I didn¡¯t believe them. Anyway, the Lord of Glory didn¡¯t seed. He simply ended up suppressing his evil side, splitting it into a second persona. That second persona did not give birth to a corresponding god and it remained as a part of the Lord of Glory Himself. As such...¡±


    ¡°As such, that Flower of Evil is the evil side of the Lord of Glory?¡±


    ¡°More or less. And a very, very powerful side.¡±


    ¡°I feel nothing though.¡± Nailisi watched the battle on the surface.


    Nichs rolled his eyes. It was an expression only shown when he was around Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi, if you¡¯d leave the tower for a second, you¡¯d soon find out how terrifying that evil power is. The evils of the world often have their reasons for being so, yet the evil of gods is their very own nature and unusually pure. The purer something is, the more terrifying it is.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯ve been prattling on and on just to tell us that the Lord of Glory¡¯s soul split?¡± Nailisi was hardly fazed. Soul-splitting was a type of terminal illness with no cure and there were hardly any healing arts capable of dealing with it.


    While it was very difficult to split a person¡¯s soul and only very high-level professionals were capable of such feats, not even a level-18 professional would be able to rejoin a split soul.


    ¡°Gods don¡¯t have souls. They only have one divine persona, a whiff of divine fire, and a mind of origin.¡± Nichs recalled many things he¡¯d dared not think about since he¡¯d fallen from grace.


    While his status within the Holy See was not high, he was able to learn many secrets nheless. The Holy See had never expected that a level-9 holy master would fall.


    ¡°So the Lord of Glory¡¯s mind of origin cracked and he was still able to stay alive and kicking. Impressive,¡± Saleen said to Nichs.


    ¡°That was why I never believed such legends. That was not to say I was pure in my faith, it was just that things like that were unbelievable.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well, we¡¯ll just keep watching the show then. I think the great head inquisitor is done for. But Theisio, he actually advanced in an instant like that, yeesh...¡± Saleen sighed.


    His Ring of Cosmos did nothing. His family badge was emptied and wouldn¡¯t be usable again until half a yearter. The Thunder Dragon ster would take an hour to recharge and be ready for use again, but it still wouldn¡¯t be of any good against Theisio.


    The Flower of Evil hadpletely bloomed. The evil side of the Lord of Glory. Within it, there was no chance of escape from ughter, curses, resentment, and much more. Saleen cut all of those sentiments off and he became the only one capable of feeling it. Everyone else in the tower simply saw the images of what was happening outside.


    Such feelings were extremely appalling, yet they had been something that Saleen had been bearing since his teenage years every day. The family badge loaded Saleen with all manner of negative statuses every time it was used to train his mental powers, including what was illustrated by the Flower of Evil.


    Saleen had been incredibly pure back then. He¡¯d had to endure what no one else would have been able to endure simply because he wanted to stay alive.


    Not even Jason would have been able to help him back then. If he was unable to develop magic chords, there would have been no way for him to be a mage. When the opportunity showed itself, he threw everything away and jumped on it.


    Just like a caged animal, or floodwaters right outside a dam.


    It was not all that difficult toprehend. It was difficult for gods to stay alive. A god who failed to attain greater strength would end up being killed by enemy gods and be used to refine their divine kingdoms.


    The Lord of Glory had be something with a peculiar divine persona in order to attain greater power. The two personas were of the antithesis of each other. It was no wonder why the Lord of Glory¡¯s teachings were so extreme, so much so that they were hardly seen in any other religion.


    Saleen began to feel pity for the Lord of Glory. Yet his drive to kill the Lord of Glory grew even more intense as well. If that thing were to appear on Myers Maind, the entire ce would be in trouble.


    He felt awfully disgusted as he recalled those living things that behaved like walking dead in the divine kingdom that the Lord of Glory had conquered.


    The battle on the surface became intense all of a sudden. The seven huge signs seeped into the Lord of Glory¡¯s specter. The entire specter became far from powerful than Nailisi¡¯s in the purgatory of purification.


    The one in the purgatory had been conquered and refined by Nailisi, yet the one before them seemed to be imbued with the very will of the Lord of Glory himself.


    Pfftt...


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s specter spat the seven signs from its mouth. Seven long, deep slits appeared on its body. The slits were continuously mended and split again...


    The rules of the Armageddon Codex made the Lord of Glory¡¯s specter created by God¡¯s Grace difficult to mend. However, the Flower of Evil hadpletely bloomed, and 360 female angels walked out from the flower.

 Chapter 1237: Flower of Evil (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1237: Flower of Evil (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The angels that walked out of the Flower of Evil were female.


    Angels were genderless creatures of energy. Strangely, the angels that emerged from the Flower of Evil had meaty wings. They looked like evil abominations.


    The female angels were naked, and what Saleen found unbelievable was that they had hair all over their bodies.


    Their bodies did not show an inch of the purity of angels usually disyed. The liquids flowing over their bodies looked like rotten flesh and the smell was awful.


    All of these angels carried curved des that were over 10 meters long. The des were inscribed inyers of ck holy prose and made from holy prose energy.


    The angels were all three meters tall, which made them about one-third taller thanmon humans. They were able to wield such huge weapons because they were mainly fighting in the air. The length of their des enabled them to easily control their surroundings.


    God¡¯s Grace blocked the lethal strike from the great head inquisitor. The 360 angels emerging from the Flower of Evil created by the Divine Might spell surrounded the great head inquisitor.


    Their formations were so tight that there were no openings between them.


    The great head inquisitor was carved up by more than 300 curved des. Countless holy prose weaved in between as the des cut and tore at the great head inquisitor¡¯s body.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s body behaved like a shadow, continuously merging back into one entity as he was being cut. The curved des made of holy prose had no effect worth mentioning on the great head inquisitor.


    ¡°Body of Darkness!¡± Theisio was stunned and then yelled, ¡°You¡¯re not the great head inquisitor!¡±


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m not. I¡¯m Baudire, a God Grace Knight. You killed my entire family and threw their souls into the purgatory, just for a Divine Tablet spell. But now I¡¯ve escaped the purgatory and you all shall face judgment!¡±


    The Divine Tablet spell required powerful bloodlines for the power of the spell to work at its fullest.


    The sess of the great head inquisitor¡¯s Divine Tablet spell was made possible by killing the God Grace Knight of the Holy See, destroying an entire bloodline, and throwing their souls into the purgatory in order to acquire a perfect body.


    However, God Grace Knight¡¯s soul had escaped through unknown means, merging with the body that was effectively his descendant¡ªthe Divine Tablet.


    The great head inquisitor did not find anything wrong after his soul entered the Divine Tablet, but Baudire was the one who was closest to the bloodline. He began to take control of the body in secret, retaking control entirely after the great head inquisitor was in a state of panic.


    ¡°Only God shall judge. Get purified!¡± Theisio was unfazed. He had heard of the name Baudire. While he had been a level-9 knight and had been blessed with god¡¯s grace, Theisio was at level-11.


    The 360 evil angels continued to carve up Baudire one after another like clockwork made of giant gears. The ck aura intensified in Baudire¡¯s body. Every single sh ended with holy prose disappearing.


    Baudire¡¯s body grew increasingly tall as if he had been supported by the holy prose.


    ¡°Sh**!¡± The pope was unable to help but curse. Baudire had escaped from purgatory, making a body from the Divine Tablet spell filled with evil. The evil angels¡¯ attacks had worked like fuel and supplements, making Baudire¡¯s body stronger.


    The 360 evil angels were unable to stop attacking. Those energy creatures seemed to have been attracted by Baudire¡¯s body. One after another, they threw themselves into his body, carving him up with their long des in rotation.


    Baudire¡¯s body had reached over 30 meters tall. He would have been able to grow even taller, but he had reinforced his body with the energy from the evil angels.


    Long des kept protruding from inside Baudire¡¯s body. All of them were made of holy prose.


    The pope was thinking that if the matter was to be spread outside, it would make the propagation of the faith difficult. If all present there were to survive, the teachings preached by the Holy See would be madeughing stock.


    It was fortunate that the cage created by the Flower of Evil continued to shroud the area within 100 miles. Even Daliang City came to be shrouded by the ck aura, preventing them from casting any attacks.


    If not for the fact that the city was built on the cemetery of the giant, the entire city would probably have been corroded into dust by the ck aura.


    Even so, the walls in some ces had crumbled. Only the spots protected by the magic saw little damage.


    Pope Theisio¡¯s Purification spell wasplete. A rainbow-colored beam rained down from above, striking Baudire¡¯s body.


    Baudire began to melt after being hit by the light of the Purification spell.


    Hundreds of des continued to protrude from Baudire¡¯s body, attempting to fight the Purification spell. The des continued to dissolve. Baudire finally showed fear.


    The voice of the great head inquisitor was heard. ¡°Lord Pope, save me!¡±


    360 evil angels emerged from the Flower of Evil again. This time, the angels began to pray instead of trying to attack Baudire.


    ¡°The great head inquisitor is dead. You are Baudire!¡± Theisio¡¯s heart was as cold as steel. Even if it was the great head inquisitor controlling the body at the moment, he intended to kill the whole entity regardless.


    ¡°Bravo!¡± Saleen watched the dramatic scenes unfold and he smiled.


    Why does Theisio insist on killing the great head inquisitor? Or should I say, killing Baudire? If I were him, I would have thought of ways to save the great head inquisitor and turn him to my side instead.


    Does it have something to do with the Flower of Evil? The problem is that I see the Flower of Evil too. So is Theisio thinking that he can kill me? While the ce is being shrouded by Divine Might, there would be no way for him to stop me if I were to teleport back to Metatrin City.


    Not even the Lord of Glory could stop me from running... if he were to show up, that is.


    There were many ws with the Magical Element Tower, but the advantages of the tower were very obvious as well¡ªpure physical or energy-based attacks would be blocked by the tower. Saleen also had lightning skills which made breaking spiritual and rule attacks easy.


    He could bail at any given moment if he found himself holding the short end of the stick, so long as he was willing to give the tower up.


    ¡°Theisio, are you trying to kill the great head inquisitor as well?¡± Baudire¡¯s body stopped shrinking. Purification had its limits. He snarled at Theisio and said, ¡°If the head warden finds out that you have killed the great head inquisitor, your Pivotal Council will see the end of its days.¡±


    ¡°Everything belongs to God,¡± Theisio answered calmly. The 360 evil angels finished praying. A purple w emerged from the sky, tearing through space as it reached for Baudire.


    ¡°Abomination.¡±


    360 curved des shot out of Baudire¡¯s body and shed with the purple w. Cutting and cracking sounds were heard. The purple w had broken over 30 curved des made of holy prose.


    The w then hit Baudire hard. He was being overpowered by Divine Might and the Armageddon Codex in his hand was of no use. He was able to do nothing as four huge gashes were torn on his body.


    ¡°Theisio!¡± The great head inquisitor¡¯s voice was heard again. ¡°The head warden will kill you. He will kill you!¡±


    Theisio confirmed by then that the great head inquisitor¡¯s soul had not dissipated. While Baudire was being severely damaged, the great head inquisitor regained a measure of control over the body.


    Saleen then said in the tower all of a sudden, ¡°Truman, head back to Metatrin City and tell everything that you saw to the teacher.¡±


    Saleen did not allow Truman any time to say anything and simply pushed his student into the teleportation portal, forcefully activating it and sending Truman back to Metatrin City.


    The pope will definitely want my head for this. Saleen was unable to keep this a secret one way or another. He did not believe for a second that the pope would negotiate with him.


    He was one that the Lord of Glory had decreed to kill after all. Judging by Theisio¡¯s attitude, he definitely would not make anypromises with Saleen, even if thepromises were only temporary.


    Voom!


    The purple w disappeared and the great head inquisitor¡¯s voice disappeared as well. However, the Armageddon Codex on Baudire¡¯s hand had been flipped to thest page automatically.


    The peculiar sign on the Armageddon Codex disappeared on thest page, reced with the great head inquisitor¡¯s original image.


    He then shouted from within the codex, ¡°Theisio, I shall forever serve the gods of darkness. I shall curse you, I shall curse you that you shall fall into purgatory and no god shall be able to save you!¡±


    Saleen held his hands together andughed. The great head inquisitor was truly one of a kind. He had wrecked Baudire¡¯s family only to eventually be made into a weapon spirit of the Armageddon Codex, which at the moment, was held by Baudire.


    Baudire was incredibly pleased.


    ¡°Theisio, we shall meet again!¡± Baudire generated a powerful attraction from the codex. The petals of the Flower of Evil were torn by some unnamed force. They were torn apart and absorbed into thest page of the Armageddon Codex.


    The great head inquisitor absorbed the petals in a frenzy. While Baudire knew that letting him do so came with the risk of possible escape, if Baudire forbade the great head inquisitor from destroying the Flower of Evil, there was no way Baudire could survive his current predicament as well.


    Baudire did not hate only the great head inquisitor, he hated everyone from the Holy See.


    He would have walked the path of vengeance after escaping purgatory, just so he could kill every single believer he was able to find.


    ¡°O¡¯ Lord of Glory, my god, my father, heed my prayers...¡± Theisio saw that the Flower of Evil was being broken and that the cage of the Divine Might was loosening. He knew that the power of evil was incapable of subduing Baudire. The former knight had fallen. His power came from abominations.


    If not even Purification can to kill him, then...


    ¡°Sh**, not Divine Punishment again!¡± Saleen saw Theisio¡¯s gestures from within the tower and thought they looked familiar. It was the same Divine Punishment spell cast by the oracle when the oracle had wanted to kill both him and Lex.


    If it had not been for God¡¯s Ring, both Saleen and Lex would have perished back then.


    A square holy prose sign appeared on the Seal of Divine Power with even tinier holy prose arranging themselves in cubic formations. They continued to work like high precision alchemy machinery, continuously changing formations and forming a string of long holy prose.


    ¡°All who betray God shall suffer the wrath of God. They shall suffer Divine Punishment!¡± Theisio¡¯s face was solemn and he sentenced Baudire to death.

 Chapter 1238: Legend of the God of Purgatory (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1238: Legend of the God of Purgatory (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Bullsh**! I¡¯ve met the God of Purgatory and he granted me eternal life. The Lord of Glory is nothingpared to him!¡± Baudireughed maniacally.


    The image of the great head inquisitor in the Armageddon Codex hovered high in the air, yet Baudire dove into the water, heading straight for the cave of the cemetery of the giant.


    Divine Punishment descended from above in the form of a huge sword.


    The sword zipped down with a sh trailing behind it for several miles, diving into the water. The sh swiped past Daliang City, drawing a gash that was about 200 meters wide. Nothing was left alive in the wake of the sh of the sword.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s specter continued to expand, transforming into over 300 thousand holy prose and coalescing into a tight defensive array. Nheless, it was quickly cut to pieces by the Sword of Divine Punishmenting down from above.


    The great head inquisitor¡¯s face formed into images that were shouting at Theisio. However, this time, the only thing he was shouting was holy prose. Saleen was in no mood to hear him out. The sword from the sky was upon him.


    Baudire was not able to make it into the cemetery himself, so he simply turned around and snuck behind the Magical Element Tower instead.


    Hundreds of thousands of solemn faces shed on the sword. It was as if the believers within the divine kingdom were coalescing on the sword.


    The Magical Element Tower rattled and the sword ricocheted off with a ng. Level-18 elementite was not something that could be broken through by sheer force alone. Despite being imbued with powerful rules, Divine Punishment failed to damage Saleen¡¯s tower.


    Furthermore, the Magical Element Tower was not God¡¯s Ring and had no level requirements from Saleen to bring the best of its defensive abilities to the forefront.


    The sword dealt 13 shes to the tower. Saleen responded with 13 Thundering Sounds.


    The Divine Punishment spell consisted of more than physical and energy attacks, it was also imbued with powerful stunning effects. If Saleen had not been nullifying said effects with Thundering Sound, all 3,600 demonic spirits within the tower would probably have been converted into believers in the Lord of Glory.


    Theisio¡¯s Divine Punishment spell was surprisingly overbearing.


    Baudire continued to hide behind the tower. The stunning powers of the Divine Punishment did not seem to be able to do much to him. His statement about having met the God of Purgatory was probably true.


    The 13 shes of Divine Punishment were symbolic.


    The 13 shes caused a corner of the city to be destroyed, yet the cemetery of the giant and the Magical Element Tower below remained totally unscathed.


    While Theisio had borrowed the power of the holy items within that space to cast Divine Punishment, he remained incapable of breaking through the entrance of the cemetery.


    Theisio was shocked and wondered if it was wise to continue attacking. Baudire leaped out from behind the tower and disappeared into the cemetery.


    Theisio was baffled. He had expected Saleen to permit Baudire entry into the cemetery.


    He quickly calmed down and realized his error. Saleen was a sphemer and Baudire was one as well. There was simply no need for him to fight Baudire, even though Baudire had used Saleen¡¯s tower to survive something that should have killed him.


    While the Sword of Divine Punishment was powerful, it was capable of independent thought. While Saleen¡¯s tower was getting in the way, the sword refused to take a detour around the tower to get to its target. There was hardly anything that could survive a hit from the Sword of Divine Punishment.


    ¡°That sly as**ole!¡± Nailisi cursed Baudire for making Saleen take the brunt of the sword for him as he snuck into the cemetery himself.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it great though? Theisio could no longer keep waiting outside. I¡¯m more than relieved to see that he is going in with us after all.¡± Saleen deemed the oue to be a good one.


    ¡°Master, are we going?¡±


    ¡°No need to rush. We¡¯ll just tail him after he gets in.¡±


    Saleen had just finished his sentence when Nailisi saw Theisio leaping up from the surface with 49 red-robed bishops following right behind him. He was heading straight for the entrance into the cemetery.


    There were also at least 50 squires and knights assigned to each of the 49 red-robed bishops who jumping in as well, meaning that the group had over 2,000 people going with them. Theisio did not even leave reserve forces on the surface. He dove into the water with every single one of his people, heading straight for the cemetery.


    There was no way he would let Baudire off, even if it meant having to let go of Saleen. Saleen had two nations that he could not forsake. Baudire had nothin. All of his rtives had been massacred by the Holy See.


    Baudire was little more than a mad dog at that moment. He would bite any person from the Holy See that he was able to find. From the perspective of the Holy See, Baudire was a greater liability than Saleen.


    Theisio was forced to bring his people into the cemetery. Every single n had changed due to Baudire¡¯s emergence. Fate was something seemed resistible, but the opposite was always true.


    Saleen watched as Theisio brought his men to the cemetery¡¯s entrance. He only put the tower away after everyone had already disappeared within. Then he brought his own people into the cemetery as well.


    With the exception of Truman, every single follower at Saleen¡¯s side was more than able to handle the situation.


    While those followers might have beencking in terms of level, their equipment was nheless powerful enough for the job.


    Saleen cast Water Shield on every one of his followers. His magical abilities meant that a level-7 Water Shield couldst for up to six hours. Even when repeatedly hammered on during a battle, the spell could be maintained for over an hour.


    Breathing and movement were not limited within the Water Shield spell. It enabled them to fully use their greatest powers underwater.


    Saleen did not leave anyone outside to watch the ce. While Daliang City was broken, there was still an army within. Furthermore, only the 500-meter city wall and some buildings within had destroyed.


    Saleen and Lex had discussed this in length earlier. Lex would not have entered the energy barrier within the cemetery recklessly. She would have searched and cleaned up the outer areas with her people beforehand, and that would have taken her about half a month to do.


    They tailed the forces of the Holy See into the cemetery. Saleen gestured that they had reached the huge cavern that the fossilized gods had formed. The true entrance to the cemetery was within the cavern.


    The warning words on the gravestone were still intact. Theisio and the red-robed bishops actually halted, watching things from the outside. He did not even bring his forces out to pounce on Saleen¡¯s group, even though he saw theming.


    Theisio gestured to his people and all of them remained standing where they were. Theisio walked up to Saleen.


    Saleen was getting very excited. If they got close enough to each other, he would not mind taking the pope out with the Crystal Finger.


    While the pope was the symbol of many things in the eyes of many, to Saleen, the pope was little more than a blob of elements with a soul attached to it. Mages had no concern for religious backgrounds whatsoever.


    The Holy See, the Tanggsi Empire, the Lord of Glory... Saleen¡¯s considered none of it.


    Theisio was his mortal enemy. There was no more need for words.


    ¡°Your Highness, Saleen.¡± Theisio stopped about 50 meters away from Saleen. It was a close enough distance that J couldunch a full-powered attack. However, Saleen knew well enough that even an attack from a true knight would prove inadequate for ending Theisio.


    If a level-11 powerful being armed with the three most powerful godly items from the Holy See were killed like that, the Holy See would not be able to achieve what they wanted to that day.


    The most reliable spell at hand was the Crystal Finger. It was an attack meant specifically for dealing with gods and their believers. One single shot was all it would take to break even the souls of its victims.


    ¡°Theisio.¡± Saleen put on a cold face as he looked at the pope.


    ¡°Baudire is incredibly dangerous. He brought with him the faith of the God of Purgatory, which could turn the world into a terrifying, gory ce. If he were to acquire more power, he would need to continue making sacrifices to the God of the Purgatory, and that means ughter. Only by him doing this would the God of the Purgatory gain souls and provide him with greater power.¡±


    ¡°And what does any of that have to do with me?¡± Saleen looked nonchnt. It was as if he would have been happy to watch the world burn.


    Theisio looked past Saleen at Nichs and said, ¡°You tolerate a traitor of the Holy See, yet you won¡¯t just talk with me without hostility for a second?¡±


    Saleen smirked and said, ¡°Theisio, I wouldn¡¯t be where I¡¯m today without the Holy See, but I don¡¯t like the Holy See one bit, and I sure as hell don¡¯t like you. Regardless of how kind you are to your adherents, that¡¯s little more than a facade. The Lord of Glory was unable to kill off and purge its evil side. I take it that the Flower of Evil is a part of the Seal of Divine Power, no? Why would I bother with a believer of the God of Purgatory then?¡±


    ¡°If Baudire gains power here, the first thing that he will have destroyed is Daliang City.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve given orders for all subjects of Metatrin to leave Daliang City. Should I take it that most of your forces have retreated? Let¡¯s focus on what¡¯s at hand then,¡± Saleen said, chatting away.


    It was not that Theisio¡¯s army had retreated, it was that his forces had been wiped out by the flood Saleen had brought.


    ¡°So the possibility of us working together is zero?¡± The pope¡¯s face looked ice-cold.


    ¡°Not quite.¡± Saleenughed. It was a pleasant one, the type that made people feel warm and trusting. Saleen possessed the bearing of a ruler without realizing it, enabling him to influence the people around him as well as his surroundings.


    The pope loosened up and continued, ¡°Well then, Your Highness, let¡¯s talk terms. My only goal here is to kill Baudire.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying you want nothing of the riches in there?¡± Saleen asked curiously.


    ¡°If those riches are indeed something obtainable, you wouldn¡¯t have let Baudire or me in here, would you? All of this has always been part of your n, am I wrong?¡±


    ¡°In that case, why are you worried that Baudire will end up getting in there then?¡±


    Theisio looked at Saleen, intending to read the mage¡¯s intentions from his face. However, Saleen was a mage, which meant that he did not inly wear his true emotions on his face. A mage¡¯s expression was, for the most part, designed to fit the vibrations of elements.


    It was part of the equation, done solely to enable them to channel their magic chords at any given moment.


    Saleen was a mage through and through. He provided no information of use to Theisio through his facial expressions.


    ¡°Your Highness, you really have no idea what the God of Purgatory is like, do you?¡± Theisio asked in return.


    ¡°I know the God of the Underworld,¡± Saleen answered truthfully.


    The God of the Underworld was the greatest being on the purgatory ne.

 Chapter 1239: Legend of the God of Purgatory (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1239: Legend of the God of Purgatory (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Theisio¡¯s face twitched. The God of the Underworld was a heretical god in the Codex of Light. It was a being that must be killed. However, the Lord of Glory did not possess the strength to do so.


    ¡°The God of Purgatory was a heretical god that was banished to purgatory by God. It was not a being from the purgatory ne. Hell was something created by God, originally meant to punish...¡±


    ¡°To punish people like me, eh?¡± Saleen interrupted Theisio with a smirk.


    Theisio realized all of a sudden that Saleen was teasing him, talking with him only to buy time. He was enabling Baudire to get further into the cemetery.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re a disappointment.¡± Theisio stopped talking altogether, having deemed it a waste of breath. Saleen¡¯s smirk remained unchanged, just like the mage¡¯s mind.


    ¡°No, Lord Pope, I really want to know. What is the God of Purgatory?¡± Saleen looked at Theisio sincerely. Even the likes of Theisio could be yed by Saleen. To him, the Holy See was no longer something that inspired awe in any sense. Theisio was little more than a very powerful enemy to him.


    Theisio suppressed his irritation and continued to exin. ¡°It is a demigod, which means that it is not a god.¡±


    Saleen thought deep down that, as a level-14 being, there was no way of dealing with that demigod unless the Lord of Glory went to purgatory himself. The oracles that he¡¯d sent were at level-12 at the very most.


    ¡°Lord Pope, demigods are incapable of going against the Lord of Glory. This Baudire seems to be a lesser threat than I am,¡± Saleen said to Theisio in a normal tone.


    ¡°Are you telling me that you want to fight me to the death right now?¡± Theisio looked at Saleen. The mage had dealt one heavy blow to him after another. The army had suffered massive losses which had caused a considerable setback to their n of unifying the entire maind.


    ording to reason, he should be killing Saleen first, but Baudire now proved to be more dangerous than anyone else.


    A person returning from hell would be the sessor to the God of Purgatory. If such a sessor were to spark a divine fire within the ne, it would mean the end of the entire Holy See.


    Theisio knew well enough that it was impossible for the Lord of Glory to advent on Myers Maind in theing millennium.


    ¡°You have the three godly items, so I can¡¯t kill you. I have the Magical Element Tower, so you can¡¯t kill me. A tough issue for both of us indeed,¡± Saleen replied with a troubled tone.


    Theisio knew that Saleen was telling the truth. His instant divine spells, even level-11 spells, would not be able to kill Saleen. The difference between levels 11 and 10 was not as pronounced as the difference between levels 10 and 9.


    Furthermore, Saleen was armed with powerful equipment, some of which rivaled even the three godly items in terms of power.


    Divine spells of greater strength were not instantly castable ones. They needed a lot of preparation time. If they were, it would have enabled Saleen to deploy his tower and hide inside.


    He had seen what it was like for Saleen to be inside the tower. 13 consecutive shes from the Sword of Divine Punishment had failed to even scratch the tower.


    ¡°Saleen, Baudire might be the next God of Purgatory by sparking a divine fire on Myers Maind,¡± Theisio said, revealing a bit of the rted secrets while observing changes in Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen¡¯s blue eyes looked like a frozenke without a single ripple on it.


    ¡°So that¡¯s how it is then, Lord Pope. I take it that you know about me building the Nature City with the intention of resurrecting the Goddess of Myers then?¡±


    ¡°Why you!¡± The pope stopped altogether and raised the God Grace Staff in his hand. Saleen brandished his magic staff.


    Boom!


    Gray light shed through the pope¡¯s staff over a hundred times. Saleen only cast a level-11 spell before him¡ªCrystal Mist.


    Countless fine, minute crystals spun before Saleen, forming a misty structure.


    Theisio¡¯s attacks were deflected by the mist and weakened, dissipating before they even reached Saleen.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Tens of thousands of water droplets appeared right before Theisio, all of them imbued with potent poisons that vaporized without warning. It was apound magic spell.


    High-pressure water vapor shrouded Theisio in an instant. The poisons within the vapor were so potent that one breath was all it would take to kill even dragons immediately.


    An airtight protective barrier was conjured from Theisio¡¯s God Grace Staff, keeping him safe. The light shone onto the mist and caused massive explosions. However, no burns resulted from the explosions as the explosions were simply the elements being disintegrated in the high-pressure environment.


    A three meter-tall angel appeared eerily behind Saleen. Nailisi, who was behind it, shed at the angel with the Sword of Rules.


    The wings of the angel were torn to shreds by the Sword of Rules in an instant. Nailisi opened the purgatory of purification and sucked the angel inside. The angel had pure energy which would serve as a decent power source for the collection of purgatories once it was purified.


    Genesis was something difficult. If the upkeep was difficult on a daily basis, the 12 Notes of First Purgatory would eventually slow to what they had once had been.


    Both sides cast two attacks each. Neither was able to one-up one the other. Saleen had the advantage in numbers while the pope had powerful equipment.


    Unless he was able to appear out of nowhere at very close distances like Agares, Saleen could not sneak up on Theisio while he was armed with the God Grace Staff.


    Nailisi¡¯s human form was capable of both magic and martial arts. The power of the Sword of Rules had only begun to be disyed, yet she had already been able to easily cut down a level-10 angel.


    ¡°You want to have another go, Theisio?¡± Saleen felt the power of the Thunder Dragon ster being restocked, enabling it to attack again. While it was less than enough for what was needed to end Theisio, it nheless would be able to force Theisio into using a lot of his powers.


    A lightning icicle was more than capable of breaking a piece of equipment.


    The pope probably had many other means of protection besides the three godly items. He would not have dared to get so close to Saleen otherwise.


    ¡°Saleen, the heir to the God of Purgatory is actually a clone of the god itself! If Baudire bes a new God of Purgatory and sparks a divine fire on Myers Maind, it would mean opening the gates of hell right here. Countless abominations would be unleashed onto Myers Maind. Make no mistake, abominations are not demons. Abominations love ughtering everything within sight. Nothing will be able to save Myers Maind from destruction then.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be a good thing? You have your Holy City and I have the Nature City. We can just hole ourselves inside those cities and be safe.¡± Saleenughed.


    ¡°If the God of Purgatory creates 12 clones and advances to level-15, not even Myers would be able to get resurrected, as he would simply kill all of her believers!¡±


    ¡°Be more concerned for your Lord of Glory if you have time to butt into Myers¡¯ affairs!¡± Saleen¡¯s words were extremely pointed and Theisio had finally had enough. He raised the Seal of Divine Power in his hand and faced Saleen, yet he felt incapable of doing anything more.


    Saleen was just a level-10 mage, while Theisio had advanced to level-11 and was armed with three godly items.


    Saleen lifted his left arm and aimed the Thunder Dragon ster at Theisio.


    ¡°Theisio, divine might means nothing to me. You¡¯d better think of something else instead!¡± Saleen was not teasing the pope. He had Thundering Sound skills. Each of them was capable of taking on the might of the gods.


    It was especially so in the case of the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen felt that the power of his Thundering Sound skills had grown considerably, although he didn¡¯t know why. The power of the rules in them was also amplified.


    It seemed as if the Ring of Cosmos was imbued with lightning rules as well. They were greater than the ones he knew.


    ¡°We¡¯ll talk about a ceasefire if you can take this one hit of mine and survive!¡± Theisio was in a very bad mood due to being repeatedly pushed by Saleen. No prayers could ease him. At that moment, he was upied only with the thought of killing Saleen.


    The mage did not enter the tower, but he nheless felt that he would be able to do nothing ifrge scale skills were used.


    Theisio was burning with rage and was unable to be calmed.


    ¡°Anything that attacks my liege is evil. Anything that believes in the gods is foolish. Anything that refuses to stop shall be aged...¡± Nichs chanted some prayers all of a sudden. His chant was of a lesser prophecy spell of the fallen holy masters.


    The spell was aimed at Pope Theisio, who possessed the three godly items.


    The pope¡¯s ns were in shambles all of a sudden. He shouted in rage, ¡°You will die, Nichs!¡±


    ¡°Bullsh**!¡± Saleen shouted back. He used Thundering Sound skills and 12 rumbles of thunder were heard. Theisio was unable to continue as he felt the rumble of thunder reverberating in his mind, cutting him off from any divine skills he would have been able to use.


    While it was not a territorial power, the Thundering Explosion nheless possessed properties of the territory.


    Saleen came to realize something about those properties. While hecked the talent of Jason to digest and use what he¡¯d learned in battle right away, it sufficed to be able to possess realizations.


    Saleen was confident that it would take only about half a month for him to develop a Thundering Territory.


    The Thundering Territorypletely ignored level differences and was able to nullify any skills rted to stunning, mental shock, and curses below level-13. Not even skills of such nature beyond level-13 could be smoothly cast within the Thundering Territory.


    Talent was something that no one was able to improve upon. Saleen had mystical encounters of all sorts, yet he was unable to truly keep up with his teacher. Furthermore, Jason himself probably had his own encounters in addition to his powerful lineage.


    The lesser prophecy spell waspletely without problems. Contained within Nichs¡¯ Scepter of the Fallen was a wisp of divine fire.


    He had forcefully absorbed the power of the gods and the lesser prophecy spells until they were over 100 times stronger than they would have been.


    He was no longer afraid of the recoil. The wisp of divine fire would naturally be absorbed in his stead.


    As such, Nichs had no qualms about casting the skill that he was most versed in, not even against someone like Theisio.


    The original skill within Theisio¡¯s Seal of Divine Power was cut off and the Flower of Evil bloomed again. Over 300 evil angels emerged this time. They took the brunt of the lesser prophecy spell in Theisio¡¯s stead, aging and crumbling one after another.


    That was the very reason why Theisio dared not to fall despite having acquired two level-12 oracles. He would no longer be able to use the three godly items if he fell.


    Without the three godly items, he felt that he would longer be able to overpower Fycro.


    The Seal of Divine Power that Fycro had given him did note without cost. Theisio had exchanged for it with treasures that had been kept in the Pivotal Council for ages.


    Fycro would probably be someone like the head warden if he were to be able to find ways to use that newly acquired equipment. That would make it difficult for the pope to keep him in check.


    Seven lightning icicles shot from Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster, heading straight for Theisio. The pope breathed for a little bit and cast Divine Protection.


    His Divine Protection waspletely different. Countless images of angels flew within the white barrier of light. It was something resulting from the power of Eternal Blessing. The lightning icicles shot from Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster disappeared within the Divine Protection Spell.


    Defense Territory!

 Chapter 1240: Stand-in Figures (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1240: Stand-in Figures (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was the first time that Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle did not work at all. Not even the pope¡¯s territory had been prated.


    Saleen was dumbfounded and Theisio was utterly shocked. His Eternal Blessing had been used!


    Eternal Blessing was an ability that could be used repeatedly. There were three of those spells within the God Grace Staff. With the great head inquisitor taking one away, two were left in the staff. Eternal Blessing was a blessing bestowed by the gods, meaning that they had rule powers at level-15.


    There was no skill below level-15 capable of prating Divine Blessing that was also buffed with Eternal Blessing. Those were the rules and only rules of higher status would have been able to fight against it.


    Saleen shot seven lightning icicles from the Thunder Dragon ster, but they were all absorbed by the Divine Protection and converted into power for the territory. However, the power imbued within the lightning icicles had nullified the Eternal Blessing.


    While the Divine Protection had been rendered even more solid and powerful, losing the help of rules meant that if Saleen were to have another seven lightning icicles to spare, thatyer of Divine Protection would onlyst for seconds against them.


    Theisio almost felt utterly terrified. If it had been someone else in his ce, Saleen would have killed them outright!


    There were only three Divine Blessing spells within the staff, and replenishing it required Theisio tomunicate directly with the Lord of Glory. He needed to ask for his god to bless him again.


    ¡°Hmph, we¡¯ll see each other again soon enough. Your Metatrin City won¡¯t be standing around for long.¡± Theisio left after uttering his threats.


    A thick mist rolled off Saleen¡¯s body. Pure, elemental crystalline coalesced into mage armor on his body. Saleen appeared right behind Theisio.


    He then pointed with one finger!


    Pfftt...


    A bloody hole appeared in Theisio¡¯s body. The pope shouted in terror and Saleen lost a finger, retreating right after that.


    The ambush injured Theisio. While the Crystal Finger did not end up killing the pope, it opened up a huge wound over the pope¡¯s heart. Theisio¡¯s heart almost split apart. The third Eternal Blessing came into effect in an instant, mending his heart before he ended up dead.


    However, there was no way for the scar on his heart to be restored. Raphael created the Crystal Finger specifically to deal with the Holy See. Healing Arts of the gods were almost ineffective against the Crystal Finger.


    If it had not been for the fact that Saleen¡¯s level was too low, far lower than the Lord of Glory, Theisio would have been killed right there and then.


    Golden light from the Bramble Crown covered Theisio¡¯s entire body, forming a long golden robe. Theisio was almost killed by Saleen and his rage dissipated in an instant. That mage had been powerful enough to talk to him face to face.


    Saleen sighed deep down. If his family badge had still been capable of casting lightning attacks, he would have been able to kill Theisio right there and then. Ambushing Theisio would be incredibly difficult from then on.


    Saleen had taken his medicine and applied it externally to his broken finger. The bones were quickly mended and patched up with the help of level-10 magic.


    The grandmaster¡¯s gloves were of a very high level. The assassination put a toll on Saleen that he had never experienced before. If it had not been for the glove, his entire body would have exploded from using that move.


    The Crystal Finger had destroyed a blessing from a level-15 god. The rule powers were nullified by the Crystal Ring by 90 percent. Then the remaining 10 percent was reduced by the grandmaster¡¯s glove by 90 percent. The recoil that Saleen suffered was less than one percent of the spell¡¯s true might.


    As such, he¡¯d only paid the price of one finger.


    The Thunder Dragon ster, the Crystal Finger, and the family badge were three of the most peculiar objects Saleen had at his disposal. They were also his most powerful.


    Of all three skills, only Crystal Finger could be used repeatedly. However, Saleen had ended up spending half of his magic chords after using the move just once. If he were to use it again, he would have had to call it a day right after.


    The power of the Crystal Finger grew considerably after he advanced to level-10. Its properties became ferocious. While Saleen had been unable to kill Theisio, he was nheless satisfied. It was an experience that could not have been bought, regardless of the amount of money he was willing to pay or the amount of time he was ready to spend.


    He was not a genius. He was unable toprehend and develop anything that he learned as quickly as Jason. However, Saleen¡¯s abilities in certain areas were something that most mages were unable topare with.


    Saleen was absolutely one of the most resilient beings in existence. He was able to endure all manner of negativity his family badge put onto him, year after year. Even if the path leading to strength was set before one¡¯s eyes, there were not many who would be able to tough it out or torture themselves to the extent he had, over and over.


    Such torture enabled Saleen to never panic in battle. He was never subjugated by the stunning skills of any enemies.


    Saleen had endured all manner of suffering that life had thrown at him. His temperament was not one that could have been fettered by suffering. Even when his finger was broken, Saleen hardly felt any pain. He had instead ingrained all that he had learned from the battle into his memory.


    It was the dream of every mage to achieve such an indomitable state of mind.


    Saleen wouldn¡¯t be frightened even if the entire ne crumbled right before his eyes. Due to having acquired such a stable state of mind, even though Saleen might havecked some talents, he was able to keep the rate of advancement on par withmon mages.


    He did not pursue Theisio who had returned to the side of his 49 red-robed bishops. Many skills of the Holy See were used in tandem. Thebined powers of the 49 red-robed bishops were anything but weak. Said powers could be somewhat more terrifying than what Theisio had already disyed. The only difference between those people and Theisio was that theycked powerful pieces of equipment like the three godly items he had.


    If Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster recovered, there were still other ways to take on the pope.


    The Flower of Evil disappeared and Theisio took the red-robed bishops into the portal behind the gravestone.


    Theisio did not pay any heed to the curse of the King of Glory.


    Saleen did not pursue them. The Thunder Dragon ster would be recovered an hourter and his magic chords would be replenished by then as well. He stood before the cemetery¡¯s portal and said to the ones behind him, ¡°Do any of you fear the curse?¡±


    ¡°We do,¡± everyone said at the same time.


    ¡°I¡¯m going in, are you people going to follow me inside?¡±


    ¡°We will!¡± No one hesitated then.


    ¡°Don¡¯t let it get to your head. Hold on for a bit,¡± Saleen said as he took out some star figures and handed one to each of his followers.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯m an astrologer. While there is no way for me to resist the curse of a level-18 professional, I can do something to deflect the curse nheless. Wait for me for about half an hour. I¡¯m about to advance.¡±


    Saleen was going to advance to be a level-10 astrologer. When he reached level-10, he was certain that he would be able to lower the power of the curse. Level-9 astrologers had hardly been considered powerful in ancient times.


    Lex had the protection from God¡¯s Ring. Saleen did not need such protection for himself. However, he did not want any harm toe to his own people. By getting to level-10, he would be able to use more of the Star Gathering Needle¡¯s power, enabling the star figures to take the curse in their steed.


    However, he needed to fulfill his promise and return to the Imperial City of the Abyss after advancing to help Gaine find a level-19 Star Gathering Needle.


    Saleen did not mind at all. He had a level 19 Star Gathering Needle in his hand to begin with. Even if he gave that to Gaine, he still had the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen deemed its powers more useful than those of the Star Gathering Needle.


    Saleen had no intention of wasting more time on astrology after getting to level-10. The level-19 Star Gathering Needle was little more than a weapon to him, resembling something like the Dragon Crystal Needles.


    Saleen had made up his mind¡ªgive up on further training in astrology and continue to research magic.


    If he were willing to continue training in astrology, Gaine would definitely be willing to stay within their ne and continue to guide him.


    However, there is no way Saleen will give up magic!


    Regardless of how powerful Gaine was, Saleen deemed that Jason could give him more.


    Nailisi, Eleanor, J, Sul, Nichs, Isabe, Daniel, and the others looked at Saleen. He took out the Magical Element Tower and said, ¡°I can train anytime, anywhere. No worries, people. Even if Theisioes back after getting in there, there is nothing he can do to me.¡±


    Despite what he said, he still felt somewhat disappointed. He had even managed to pierce Theisio¡¯s heart, yet the pope lived.


    Theisio would have to be prepared for their next encounter. That skill of his could be nullified by Theisio¡¯s equipment, making it difficult to use on the pope himself.


    Seems like the only option left for taking on Theisio is mastering balls of lightning.


    Saleen knew that he had been able to hurt Theisio because the pope had underestimated him. Furthermore, the pope was not used to the way he fought.


    There was no other mage that was able to move as quickly as Saleen. The pope was unable to calcte Saleen¡¯s movements. That enabled the Crystal Finger to be so powerful. The range of its attack was simply too short. Even when it was used in conjunction with Comet sh, there were still some loopholes to be exploited.


    Those few microseconds were more than enough for Theisio to prep his defenses.


    The Magical Element Tower blocked the portal of the cemetery of the giant. Saleen was not concerned about anyone making it out. In actual fact, he would be able to trap everyone inside using such means. However, although Theisio possessed all three of the godly items, Saleen would be able to hold Theisio back for half a month if he used the tower.


    With so many red-robed bishops around the pope, they would be able to cast some skills to push the tower further away.


    The entrance would truly be sealed off if the tower merged with the cemetery of the giant. It would trap those people inside forever.


    The advancement of astrologers was a far more quiet affair than the advancement of mages. They did not even need toy star charts out. Saleen only needed to absorb the power and knowledge that Gaine had hidden within the level-16 Star Gathering Needle and he would naturally make it to level-10 as an astrologer.


    Saleen reached the edge of level-10 after multiple uses of astrology. He even came to possess the power of the level-10 astrologers. It was a benefit brought to him by the level-19 Star Gathering Needle.


    Starlight filled the insides of the tower. The space created by the mechanical core of Sky City seemed to have truly been turned into a natural world. If not for the fact that it was only 360 meters in diameter, such illusions would be near-impossible to see through.


    Those starlights possessed equal power to the constetion. They basked in every single one of them as if they were being blessed by divine spells.


    Eight star-figures were lined up before each of their owners. Saleen took out the level-19 Star Gathering Needle and began infusing power into the figures.


    There was a starry sky contained within the level-19 Star Gathering Needle. The power of that sky was ample and seemingly bottomless, enabling Saleen to siphon power from it almost indefinitely.

 Chapter 1241: Stand-in Figures (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1241: Stand-in Figures (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The wooden faces of the eight figures slowly changed. Under the influence of the constetion power, all eight of them took the image of Saleen and the rest of his people. That was not all. The internal structures of those figures began to change as well, bing bodies of flesh and blood full of life.


    Level-10 astrologers were capable of maintaining such statuses for hours. In actual fact, having the star figures around at the moment of entry into the cemetery would have sufficed, as the curses would have definitely fallen onto the figures.


    The curse¡¯s power had definitely been weakened after being around for tens of thousands of years. Saleen still made one for himself just in case.


    Stand-in figures were verymon tricks employed by astrologers. Defense measures employed by astrologers were not as varied as those of mages. However, the defensive ability of the stand-in figures was incredible.


    The stand-in figures were capable of taking the brunt of all skills, including the ones meant for attacking souls. Powerful astrologers even had hundreds to thousands of simr stand-in figures on standby at all times.


    Doing something like that was veryvish, but it made the one doing so very hard to kill.


    Common astrologers often spent some time and effort on preparing over a dozen of the stand-in figures for themselves.


    However, starline cloth was very expensive, and the extravagant spending of astrologers went no further than that. Having huge numbers of stand-in figures was the dream of every astrologer, yet the ones capable of achieving such feats were as rare as mages like Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s level-10 astrology was not capable of maintaining many figures at once. Ten would have been about his limit. In this situation, he was only using the stand-in figures to deal with the curses and did not need them for battle. As such, the stand-in figures he createdcked anybat capacity.


    The eight figures were infused with the bodies of their respective owners. Saleen then rushed everyone out of the Magical Element Tower, saying, ¡°Get in there quick. The figures will onlyst for six hours. After that, they will only be able to take hits from attacks in your stead.¡±


    ¡°Within those six hours, you are free to attack however you like. The figures are capable of withstanding attacks from any kind of power. They will be able to take even fatal hits for you at least once.¡±


    Saleen had borated on the attributes of the figures before. Nheless, he reminded them one more time.


    Saleen left the tower behind. There were 3,600 demonic spirits and Rossen there to keep watch over things. If Theisio wanted to leave, he would have to spend a huge amount of time and effort on doing so. Meanwhile, Saleen was able toe and go from there at any time by using the tower.


    That line of thought was why Saleen had let Baudire into the cemetery of the giant in the first ce.


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    Once they entered, those who went inside before Saleen would have to deal with him and the 3,600 demonic spirits in the tower all at the same time.


    Saleen was no longer fond of schemes and tricks. Even Theisio knew that such calctions were done only because their hands were forced. The pope had to get inside the cemetery.


    That was because there were mages from Daliang City and Holy Rock City inside the cemetery. If he couldn¡¯t get inside, there wouldn¡¯t be anything left for him. As for Saleen blocking the entrance, that was something left to be dealt withter.


    If push came to shove, then he would simply invoke the power of the three godly items and leave forcefully. He could stay holed up within Holy City for a year and no one would be able to do anything against him.


    What the pope had calcted, Saleen was able toe to the same conclusion. Both parties knew that if negotiations failed, they would have to duke it out, regardless of whether or not they were actually capable of taking each other on. The cemetery of the giant was simply too hard to resist.


    None of them would rest well until they got inside.


    Covert schemes were no match for overt schemes. Overt schemes were no match for the well-beaten path.


    Do whatever you have deemed necessary and back your enemy into a corner.


    If Saleen attacked the Holy City with an army, Theisio couldn¡¯t just run away and leave the city behind. Even if he were to be unable to resist the army, he would have to hold the line one way or another. Such was the tried and tested beaten path.


    There was no need for tricks when wars were fought in such ways.


    All eight of them entered the cemetery and Saleen shared his senses with Nailisi, enabling more of them to be on the lookout. He observed the ce using the Elemental Eye. I was just as it had been described by Jalin¡ªbarren and devoid of light.


    If he did not have the Elemental Eye skill, everyone¡¯s sight would have been restricted to hundreds of meters.


    However, there were several people at level-10 among those at Saleen¡¯s side, including J, Nailisi, and Nichs.


    Among the others, Daniel was a death mage and was immune to the dark. Eleanor was an elf. Her vision was over ten times stronger than that of humans. Isabe was somewhat weaker, yet her closebat abilities were formidable enough to deal with enemies who got up-close and personal.


    The most frustrated one was Sul. He had no way of advancing to level-10. In such an environment, he was the one who was most likely to get injured. However, golden grand swordmasters were no weaklings, and they would be able to survive better than level-9 mages.


    Saleen put up his Puppet Constetion and unleashed the puppets. The Puppet Constetion was hardly affected within the cemetery of the giant. The area the territory was able to cover expanded to 60 a mile radius as Saleen¡¯s astrology ability advanced.


    It was an unexpected gain. But Saleen did not want to spend too much mental power on it. As such, he would not fight in such a manner.


    The puppets began to collect all manner of material and equipment under Saleen¡¯s instructions, even the broken ones. Many broken wares could be made into decent materials for alchemy.


    Bronze rust, for instance, that was around ten thousand years old was would on par with gold in value. However, it had to be from alloys made ording to certain ratios instead of naturally formed bronze.


    Only such materials with bronze as the main ingredient and many rare metals added in, which then rusted for over ten thousand years, was ever deemed qualified to serve as alchemical material.


    The cemetery was filled with things like that.


    The ancient battlefield had never been cleaned and there were many ancient battlefields outside the energy barrier. Abandoned cities were all over the ce. What Jalin was able to see was just the tip of the iceberg. The ce seemed like another ne altogether.


    Saleen no longer had any need for those alchemical materials himself, but Metatrin City needed them. A mage¡¯s growth required many magical experiments to be performed, and alchemy was a good way to enhance one¡¯s magic level.


    Saleen had almost ten thousand mages in his employment, but he did not have lineages and stockpiles like those in Alchemy City. If he didn¡¯t sweep everything up everything he found, he would be able to take care of the mages serving him.


    There were over 9,000 mages that Saleen could put to work in the alchemy factories when he wanted equipment crafted.


    Efficiency on that scale had its price. The price was having to keep those mages in long term employment while enabling them to live better lives at Metatrin City than they would elsewhere.


    All eight of them had merged with their stand-in figures, yet none of them met any enemies. Saleen was unable to do anything about that. He was not a level-13 astrologer, so it was not possible for him to craft stand-in figures that could be stored for prolonged periods.


    All the figures he crafted needed to be used immediately.


    The walls of the city up ahead were wrecked. However, there were still some buildings left standing. Saleen had the puppets begin dismantling the city. The rate at which 500 thousand puppets worked to aplish such a goal was frightening.


    Many of the puppets were like mechanical souls, meaning that they wereplex machines instead of weapons forbat.


    The very reason why humans had crafted alchemical machinery was to have them perform menialbor in humans¡¯ stead.


    Thoserge scale puppets were only average inbat, yet they were far quicker at taking houses apart than golden grand swordmasters would be. Plus, they were able to do so with better efficiency. What Saleen needed were materials in theirplete forms instead of materials that had been reduced to dust.


    Saleen was very pleased with his progress. However, in the eyes of others, he was probably seen as a swarm of locusts, leaving nothing behind wherever he passed.


    Saleen wanted what was within the energy barrier as well, but those powerful fossilized gods were not something that he wanted to take on at the moment.


    He would probably have to leave the Magical Element Tower there from then on out, making it so that anyone who wanted to get into the cemetery of the giant would need to pass through the Magical Element Tower.


    Saleen was in desperate need of power. The Magical Element Tower was arge scale piece of equipment that was inconvenient to prepare. It was also iplete. The tower would eventually be ced on the fragments of the Sky City in order to create a flying city.


    When the city was finished, Saleen would have no need to fear any army.


    In Saleen¡¯s mind, his royal city was definitely not Metatrin City. It was his Sky City. His most trusted people would be able to live in Sky City. The city would be able to move in lightning and thunder, preventing any powerful people from invading the ce.


    When humans created the Sky Cities, they usually took them to other nes, leaving none behind on Myers Maind. Such was the power of the Sky Cities. They were capable of traversing nes.


    Saleen had not dared to dream about such things initially, but Jason told Saleen with his actions that if a mage didn¡¯t imagine and dream, then they would have been better off bing warriors.


    Every single piece of equipment Saleen had at his disposal was the product of immense feats of imagination.


    There was no worry about running out of space in which to keep the massive amount of materials he¡¯d taken apart. The 12 Notes of First Purgatory was Saleen¡¯srgest piece of space equipment.


    Other than the few pieces that possessed special properties that prevented them from being used for storage, all the other spaces were capable of holding practically endless amounts of items.


    With a diameter and height of 1,200 miles, there was hardly anything that his equipment was unable to store.


    Nailisi summoned some demons just in case and split them into squadrons. Every single squadron consisted of 20 demons that spread out near Saleen ording to the rules of formations employed by armies.


    Such worries were actually pointless since there were no nts to be found in the barren cemetery of the giant. No living being would have been able to survive for long in such an environment.


    ¡°Master, the Holy See.¡± Nailisi pointed to the front all of a sudden. She was sharing senses with Saleen and was the second furthest seeing person in the party.


    Saleen looked up and saw a knight d in crimson armor lying dead on the ground.


    The knight¡¯s armor was unscathed and not even their weapon showed signs of use. Saleen shuddered and checked the stand-in figure. He found that there was only an hour of life left on it.


    If the curse is so powerful, how did Jalin end up unscathed back then?


    ¡°It¡¯s a curse. Be on your guard,¡± Saleen said, reminding all of them before walking up to the knight¡¯s dead body. He was only about 20 miles away from the knight, which was a distance that Saleen was able to cover in an instant with his heightened speed.


    Saleen observed the dead body of the knight in the crimson armor up close.


    The originally crimson mask of the knight had ck marks all over it. It was a sign of being burned.


    ¡°My liege, it was a purgatory curse. A work of Baudire!¡± Nichs¡¯ voice was cold.

 Chapter 1242: Mage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1242: Mage (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The dead knight¡¯s armor was still in perfect shape. Only the mask on the face had been charred ck. There were bits of carbon stuck around the holes for breathing.


    One was able to deduce that when the knight had fallen, he¡¯d been breathing fire. The fire was derived by burning the fats in the knight himself. His teeth were carbonized. When the mes shot out of the mask, the bits of carbon had gotten stuck to the holes.


    The knight had been turned into a walking body of fire in purgatory.


    They were burned as if had been sacrificed. This meant that there was no way the knight could have been saved using divine arts. Not even Theisio would have been able to do anything but watch the knight as he burned to death from the inside.


    ¡°Divine spell from the God of Purgatory I take it?¡± Saleen asked Nichs.


    ¡°Indeed. Divine arts of the God of Purgatory have spells many involving sacrifices and curses. Evil exists in the hearts of men, and the God of Purgatory is always able to find ways to get to us. However, there is no need to worry, my liege. The curses of the God of Purgatory and the Lord of Light are different. Only people with huge exploitable darkness in them are targeted.¡±


    Saleen nodded. Mages usually had stable, resilient temperaments. Such skills were mostly meant for dealing with warriors.


    That had a lot to do with mental factors. The mental powers of mages wereparatively high and had better immunity against curses. Saleen notwithstanding,mon level-11 mages did not even have mental powersparable to Saleen¡¯s. Furthermore, he had the Ring of Cosmos with him. When equipped, his mental powers would eclipse even those of level-12 mages.


    ¡°What about your lesser prophecy spell then?¡± Saleen asked all of a sudden.


    ¡°Lesser prophecy spells are not curses in their nature and they do not borrow the power of the gods. While they are not as powerful as greater prophecy spells, they leave no trace of their attacks. They are very potent against mages,¡± Nichs answered. Seeing Saleen pause, Nichs added, ¡°My liege, you have the Figure of Fate, so lesser prophecy spells are basically not able to cause you any harm. They also wouldn¡¯t be able to affect your skills.¡±


    Saleen was relieved then. He knew what lesser prophecy spells were like. Those spells were not lethal in nature, but they worked by affecting the rules of fate. Such effects were usually very lethal in battle.


    However, such skills needed to affect the soul before they were able to affect the target¡¯s surroundings if they wanted to affect their target without leaving a trace.


    Such skills had little effect on Saleen, but in actual practice, they were nheless an ability that could be leveled-up indefinitely. Greater prophecy spells were affected by the gods. For example, the greatest prophecy spells of the pope were capped at level-15.


    The pope had never cast any greater prophecy spells on Saleen. Such skills were apparently very damaging to the pope as well.


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    ¡°Logic... Yes, it¡¯s material logic!¡± Saleen came to realize the workings of lesser prophecy spells all of a sudden. Nichs looked at his lord with a startled expression. Even holy masters would have envied such a level ofprehension.


    It seemed to him that Saleen was ill-suited to be a mage. If Saleen had be a holy master instead, he probably would have been able to reach higher achievements than Theisio.


    Lesser prophecy spells affected souls first, but they were limited by the scope of material logic. It was something that many holy masters were incapable of realizing during their lives. Furthermore, Saleen was using a magguage to describe the phenomenon, which was very apt.


    ¡°In that case, the purgatory curse isn¡¯t actually all that threatening after all. My Thundering Sound skills would be able to dispel it at any given moment. If I were to acquire Thundering Sound Territory, anyone who cast such a skill in front of me might as well be digging their own grave!¡± Saleen felt refreshed and was considerably less concerned about Baudire.


    They continued forward and found more dead knights of the Holy See on the ground. They had died in a myriad of ways and they were all cursed. What was simr among them all was that, based on their armor alone, they had no wounds.


    Saleen began to frown after having seen over 100 dead bodies.


    ¡°Nichs, does this purgatory cursee without negative effects on the user? The way I see it, Baudire seems to be using it without restraint!¡±


    Nichs wore a bitter smile and said, ¡°My liege, the skill¡¯s recoil reflects on the God of Purgatory himself. Baudire was merely the one to offer sacrifice. It has little to do with him. He just has a little to gain by killing.¡±


    Saleen only came to realize why Theisio was so concerned about Baudire after hearing that. Such skills were very lethal to themon folk. Very few people had skills and luck like Saleen, who was practically immune to curses.


    Most people around Saleen were not immune to such curses.


    Common folk did not even have ways of defending against such damages. Theisio was worried that Baudire would act against the adherents of the Holy See frequently. Baudire was capable of using such skills with impunity after all.


    If Baudire was allowed to run all over the maind, looking specifically for low-level adherents, or even formon nobles and other people to kill, things would prove disastrous very quickly.


    ¡°Everyone, be on your guard. If you happen to see Baudire, find a way to end him and don¡¯t ever let him leave the cemetery.¡± Saleen no longer bothered with the bodies and simply gave the order to kill Baudire on sight.


    All seven of his followers acknowledged and the demons got closer to the center. The party did not move towards the center of the cemetery. They instead took a detour and continued to search the ancient battlefields and abandoned cities.


    Saleen was certain that they were no longer on Myers Maind.


    While there were possibilities of ancient battlefields being hidden on Myers Maind, the cemetery was simply too huge. ording to the calctions of the mages, spaces concealed on Myers Maind could not make up more than one percent of the total area of the maind. Somehow, thend they were on was almost the size of an empire.


    This ce was probably somewhere like the Imperial City of the Abyss. Saleen sped up and chased after Pope Theisio.


    More than 300 people around the pope were dead after pursuing their target for a day. Baudire did not stop. His resentment ran deep, right down to the bone. So long as he existed, he would act against the Holy See and attack them ceaselessly.


    Furthermore, having embraced the God of Purgatory, the possibility of Baudire still holding any morals was nil. He would act against and attack any adherents that he was able to find. Saleen came to even realize that he would have probably acted against the believers of the Goddess of Nature.


    It was a resentment directed to the gods, despite the fact that Baudire had embraced a god himself.


    Saleen did not want to see Baudire killing believers of the goddess along the way. He would not have wanted to do anything if he had remained ignorant of all that, but now that he¡¯de to realize the gravity of the situation, he waspelled to stop Baudire.


    They circled around the energy barrier at the center of the cemetery and had traveled over 3,000 miles before they caught sight of the Holy See¡¯s party.


    It seemed that the Holy See¡¯s party had lost about half of their numbers, leaving only about 1,300 behind. Such an oue exceeded Saleen¡¯s expectations. Baudire had killed about 800 knights in his quest. The rate at which he ughtered knights was frightening to even Saleen.


    There were still 49 red-robed bishops with the knights to deal with, and not to mention, Theisio, who possessed the three godly items.


    Baudire was right behind those powerful on beings, hunting down his targets one by one.


    Saleen watched things unfold from about 80 miles away. He was still unable to find traces of Baudire. It was no surprise that the pope was at wit¡¯s end against Baudire, as not even Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to trace him.


    Saleen shrunk the area covered by the Puppet Constetion to avoid stacking with the territory Theisio emanated.


    While Saleen was being very careful, he nheless saw Theisio¡¯s eyes turn in his direction. It seemed that Theisio¡¯s three godly items had a greater range than what he had expected.


    However, Saleen was indifferent. He knew well what Theisio was capable of. If he were to be robbed of the three godly items, Saleen would be able to take him on. With the three godly items still on Theisio¡¯s person, none of them would be able to do anything against the other.


    Theisio had indeed found Saleen. While Saleen had put the Puppet Constetion away and rendered the area under his control down to a dozen miles, the God Grace Staff was still able to pick up Saleen¡¯s familiar presence.


    Theisio thought that there was no need to fight Saleen further. Saleen¡¯s skills were too eerie. Theisio needed to give his all to fight that mage. He would not be able to lower his guard for even a split second.


    If he wanted to kill Saleen, he needed to wait until he could advance to level-12 and devour the two oracles.


    However, Theisio did not realize that having such thoughts meant that he had begun to fear Saleen. He had, after all, been pierced in the heart by Saleen. Theisio indeed felt like he had already died once.


    Raphael would have definitely been more than just a level-10 mage. He had created a skill capable of damaging souls that could make even people like Theisio fear Saleen. But then again, neither Saleen nor Theisio had given the matter much thought.


    Surviving an attack by the Crystal Finger had its repercussions. If Theisio were to lose the three godly items, he would run right away and would not dare to face off against Saleen ever again.


    No mage had ever looked into skills meant specifically for dealing with believers.


    Saleen slowed down for a bit. He still had enough mental power to continue plundering equipment and materials, while at the same time keeping a close eye on the Holy See¡¯s party. He wanted to see how Baudire hunted down adherents of the Holy See.


    A demon fell on his back all of a sudden. Intense mes shot out from his armor.


    Saleen shot a lightning icicle immediately. Baudire had actually acted against him!


    The lightning icicle drew an extremelyplicated arc in the air, pursuing the target that Saleen locked onto. Baudire had exposed himself by killing a demon.


    A slit in space was conjured over 100 meters in front of Saleen. Baudire¡¯s face was smirking in an evil manner at him.


    Voom!


    The Seven Nights rang and an elvish space arrow was loosed. Eleanor was prepared for this. The arrow pierced the slit, firing urately at Baudire¡¯s face.


    ¡°Saleen, you can¡¯t kill me!¡± Baudire said with a shrill, bird-like voice. His mouth jutted out and looked like a hard beak. However, birds had no teeth, yet sharp teeth filled his mouth. There were ck bloodstains on his teeth as well.


    The elvish space arrow broke the slit in the space. Eleanor¡¯s arrow worked perfectly.


    Baudire drew a line at his side using his finger, conjuring another slit. He then leaped into it with the lightning icicle following close behind.

 Chapter 1243: Mage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1243: Mage (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    I can¡¯t kill you?


    Saleen smirked deep down. Baudire was thinking too highly of himself.


    One of the defining characteristics of mages was that they were the most studious kind of people on any ne. Once they set their sights towards a goal, there was simply nothing that they were unable to aplish. Baudire was at level-10, yet he was actually weaker than Saleen. When their equipment was taken into ount, Saleen was definitely more formidable than Baudire.


    So what if you¡¯re a believer in the God of Purgatory? By the time Saleen reached level-11 and acquired skills like Lightning Territory, he would gain an absolute advantage against believers in gods.


    ¡°Baudire, get out here at once!¡± Saleen stressed every single word as he shouted.


    The space behind Saleen twisted and a slit appeared. Baudire held a ck scythe high, intending to cleave Saleen in half. However, Saleen¡¯s Thundering Explosion twisted even the space around him. Baudire was aiming at a spot where no one was standing.


    The scythe swung down and Nailisi thrust her spear into Baudire¡¯s chest before J could make a move.


    Baudire did not run that time. The lightning icicle emerged when the slit in space was opened, piercing Baudire¡¯s back.


    Blue electrical arcs jumped and Baudire shrieked as he made for the skies.


    Electrical arcs jumped as he made for the sky. Both skills that hit him were damaging to the soul. While the lightning icicle¡¯s power paled whenpared to Grey Memory in terms of power, it was longersting power. Baudire jumped twice, yet the lightning icicle continued to pursue him, piercing into his body and continuing to do damage.


    Pfft...


    Baudire spat out a piece of ice, expelling the lightning icicle from his body. The ice was pitch ck and the lightning magic patterns on it had disappeared. However, electricity continued to rage within his body.


    Baudire wanted to jump into another slit, but Eleanor shot another arrow right away, destroying the slit.


    A level-10 professional was not capable of traversing space at will. Baudire was borrowing power from his god, jumping about using spatial slits in very small areas. It was something dangerous to do sessfully. Saleen had no doubt that he knew what he was doing.


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    Eleanor¡¯s attack was not aimed at Baudire. She was simply using elvish space arrows to destroy Baudire¡¯s escape routes.


    ¡°I can¡¯t kill you? What a joke. Baudire, you shouldn¡¯t havee looking trouble with me!¡± Saleen had a spell readied by the time he finished talking. 3,600 icicles surrounded Baudire, caging him in the middle and making the whole formation look like a huge ball of ice.


    Baudire had lost any spatial slits that he would have been able to jump through. He immediately took out the Armageddon Codex. The book transformed into a golden sheet of paper, wrapping his body up.


    Saleenughed as he shot all six remaining lightning icicles at Baudire.


    The six lightning icicles reached Baudire and stabbed through the Armageddon Codex. Seven signs on the golden paper spun about violently, yet it was incapable of stopping the lightning icicles.


    That thing would have been able to stop Saleen¡¯s attacks if the great head inquisitor had been using it. However, Baudire had never used the codex before and was unfamiliar with its properties. The ability to turn the codex into a piece of golden paper was a skill from the God of Purgatory.


    The Armageddon Codex was essentially indestructible, but Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles were simply slipping through the gaps of the codex. Like living beings, they were capable of seeking out gaps themselves.


    Baudire¡¯s body was covered with blue electrical arcs. The 3,600 icicles that Saleen had readied earlierunched at him after that.


    The golden paper caved in violently. Baudire had lost all control. The 3,600 icicles were unable to tear the codex apart, but the codex was no longer a strong defense. It was as soft as cloth and was being pushed inward by Saleen¡¯s icicles, making it thoroughly incapable of weakening the lightning icicle¡¯s physical attacks.


    ¡°Baudire, tell me now, would I be able to kill you or not?¡± Saleen continued to attack with Thunder Explosion. Baudire was rendered dizzy from the skill, making him incapable of answering Saleen.


    His body was created using the Divine Tablet spell and was extremely resilient. However, the electricity of the lightning icicles had carbonized most of that body, making it lose vitality.


    Baudire only knew fear by then. However, he was not even able to speak anymore, making him unable to even surrender.


    Saleen did not let him off. All of his followers attacked at the same time. Four weapons of different lengths, three arrows, and a lesser prophecy spell fell onto the person who had only been resurrected a short time ago.


    The golden paper on Baudire slipped off and transformed into the Armageddon Codex once again. What seeped out from his body was not blood, but thick ck smoke.


    He was actually able to speak in that state.


    ¡°Saleen, you shall not escape from the God of Purgatory!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m tired of hearing sh** like that.¡± Saleen waved and Nailisi shed with the Sword of Rules. Baudire¡¯s head rolled onto the ground.


    The Armageddon Codex flew into the sky. It was so fast that not even Saleen was able to catch up to it.


    ¡°Thank you very much, Saleen! Hahahaha!¡± said the great head inquisitor¡¯s from the codex. He¡¯s actually not dead! Furthermore, it seemed that his memories were intact even after bing a weapon spirit.


    Saleen smirked coldly and paid no heed to the Armageddon Codex flying off. The great head inquisitor was cunning to the extreme, yet his luck paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s. Lightningtched onto the Armageddon Codex and the great head inquisitor. It made it so that there was no way he would be able to get near Saleen in the future.


    Saleen would be able to sense him within a 100-mile radius without even using his Elemental Eye.


    The threat from the great head inquisitor was over.


    Saleen opened the space of his ne and threw Baudire¡¯s body inside. The great head inquisitor escaped, yet Saleen had acquired a body created using the Divine Tablet Spell. The body was severely damaged and thoroughly irreparable, yet the evil rules within it served well to nourish the thunder dragons.


    The thunder dragons did not fear evil things like that. The power of lightning was far more terrifying than the purifying holy light of the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°Now, you should know that I¡¯d be able to kill you after all, eh?¡± Saleen smirked and looked at Nailisi¡¯s hand which had a sliver of ck aura emanating from it. It was a bit of soul splintered off from Baudire. Demons were capable of devouring and capturing souls.


    The splintered soul shrieked and struggled in Nailisi¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Master, do you want this thing dead right away, or..?¡± Nailisi inquired.


    ¡°Spare me! I¡¯ll tell you secrets about the God of Purgatory!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to know any of that,¡± Saleen answered inly.


    Nailisi did not make her move immediately. She knew that Saleen was simply raising the stakes.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you something. If you think it¡¯s worth it, then spare me. If you don¡¯t think it¡¯s worth your time, kill me then!¡± Baudire knew that if he were to talk terms, he would end up dead right there and then. Saleen and Theisio were enemies, so even if Saleen ended up killing him after spilling the secrets, it would still work to his advantage by dealing a crippling blow to the Holy See in the future.


    It would be even better if he found a way to escape in the process.


    Saleen found Baudire¡¯s words to be amusing. It seems like this guy isn¡¯t just putting up airs. That bit of soul was weak, yet there were no signs of damage to it, which meant that it would be able to be restored to its strongest form. That skill of Baudire¡¯s would prove useful for death mages.


    ¡°Alright, speak. If I deem what you say to be of value, I may spare you,¡± Saleen answered with a smile, acting as if the overbearing mage was someone else altogether.


    ¡°Saleen, cast your territorial power. I don¡¯t want the pope to know this!¡±


    Saleen cast Water Element Territory right away. Baudire¡¯s soul was rather weak and shuddered for a bit in Nailisi¡¯s hand. Saleen saw that and took out a star figure. Then he took Baudire¡¯s soul and chucked it into the star figure.


    Baudire was shocked. This level-10 mage can just grab onto souls like that?


    However, he quickly found that his soul was trapped within the figure and that escape was probably impossible. He went silent for quite a while. He knew that by doing this, he would be able to recover some of his strength. There were also powers that he could have used within the figure that were more or less equal to level-10.


    The problem however, was that the figure was under Saleen¡¯s control. If he were unable to escape the figure, it would simply mean that he had be Saleen¡¯s puppet.


    Saleen then said to Baudire, ¡°Do not mistake this for me trying to control you. I have better ways of doing so that would prevent you from ever turning on me. Tell me your secrets and I¡¯ll decide what to do with you.¡±


    Baudire was shocked. It seemed that Saleen¡¯s methods of controlling souls were indeed powerful. That woman who had been able to grab him could be more powerful than him, yet she was wholeheartedly willing to serve Saleen, calling him ¡°Master.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, I have a question. I heard that you built a Nature City. Are you a believer in the Goddess of Myers?¡±


    ¡°Nope, I¡¯m the creator of Goddess of Myers.¡± Saleen¡¯s smile looked rather horrifying in Baudire¡¯s eyes. Creator of the goddess?


    ¡°But...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll only answer that one question of yours. If I¡¯m ready to kill you, I¡¯ll let you continue asking. Well then, out with the secrets of the God of Purgatory.¡±


    ¡°The God of Purgatory has a divine persona but he doesn¡¯t need faith from others. If he is able to continue ughtering, he will be a level-18 god eventually, destroying nes one at a time.¡± Baudire told Saleen the most important part first.


    Baudire saw the hope of surviving, seeing how Saleen listened to him intently. The mage was far more powerful than he had imagined him to be. Most people would have been fazed somewhat by hearing something like that. It was worth noting that a god capable of rapid growth that could sustain himself exclusively through killing would have struck fear in any living being.


    Baudire regretted having made an enemy out of this mage.


    Mages were the true masters of that world. A truly exceptional mage could deal lethal damage to the gods, preventing the gods¡¯ faith from being propagated.


    Baudire had never believed any of that before, but he believed it after seeing Saleen.

 Chapter 1244: Building a Holy See (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1244: Building a Holy See (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The God of Purgatory did not need faith, only ughter. Yet Saleen, a mage, had countermeasures against all of the powers wielded by the God of Purgatory.


    Baudire continued, ¡°The God of Purgatory is not a God of the Underworld. The ne he is from was created by the Lord of Glory. Well, the Lord of Glory was actually incapable of creating such a huge ne. He destroyed an entire main ne. He ughtered every single living creature there and created hell.¡±


    ¡°Hell?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Anything that was not conquered by him and refused to submit to him was banished to hell. That ne is one made for punishment.¡±


    ¡°How did the God of Purgatorye to be?¡±


    ¡°The God of Purgatory had once been one of the most devout believers in the Lord of Glory. The Son of God, if you will. But the God of Purgatory eventually had delusions about taking on the Lord of Glory out of pride, intending to rece him.¡±


    ¡°So he fell then?¡±


    ¡°Not exactly. The God of Purgatory actually swayed 170 million angels to his side, betraying the Lord of Glory at the same time.¡±


    Saleen had only begun to straighten himself up then and paid close attention to Baudire¡¯s borations. The God of Purgatory is truly something. What are angels? The most devout believers in their gods, humanoid weapons of war, and the army for propagating the faiths of their gods.


    The God of Purgatory actually managed to sway 170 million of angels to betray the Lord of Glory at the same time. This guy must have some charisma.


    ¡°There were no angels at beginning levels who followed the God of Purgatory; all those who followed him were level-11 and above. The 170 million angels were equal to half of the Lord of Glory¡¯s original main power. He had actually only managed to defeat the God of Purgatory after sacrificing 12 divine kingdoms that he had taken over and all of the living beings in them.¡±


    The people at Saleen¡¯s side listened, intrigued. The tale of the God of Purgatory was truly legendary. Saleen was wondering what would happen if he was in the God of Purgatory¡¯s shoes. Would he have been able to sway that many angels to betray their god?


    Well, when the Goddess of Nature resurrects in the future, I¡¯ll probably need to do something simr, no?


    He wanted the people he conned into embracing faith to live. However, to do that, they would have to betray the goddess.


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    Such an act would be a lot easier if he possessed the God of Purgatory¡¯s ability.


    ¡°The God of Purgatory was defeated and escaped to a purgatory ne. His divine fire was lit and he took away 170 million soldiers of the Lord of Glory¡¯s grand army.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that he was defeated, yet he lost none of the angels that he swayed?¡±


    ¡°No. About 100 million perished in the great war. The God of Purgatory killed that ne¡¯s God of the Underworld and robbed him of his divine persona. He used it to revive the angels that followed him.¡±


    ¡°What was the level of the God of Underworld that he killed?¡±


    ¡°Level-15.¡±


    ¡°Well then, carry on.¡± Saleen had a solid idea of things. The God of Purgatory had been able to go beyond his level and kill a level-15 god, which meant that he had super powerful equipment at his disposal. If Saleen were to fight such a god, there was no way he would be able to survive.


    ¡°The God of Purgatory seeded in resurrecting over 90 million angels. All of them were still willing to follow him, even if doing so meant falling. They had no regrets. The war raged on, but the God of Purgatory knew that there was no way for him to continue reviving those angels indefinitely. If the grand army of the Lord of the Army caught up to them, fallen angels would be permanently killed sooner orter. As such, the God of Purgatory went to hell, a ce that the Lord of Glory could never reach.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean ¡®could never reach¡¯?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°While hell was created by the Lord of Glory, the rules born from the hell ne totally went against the Lord of Glory¡¯s divinity. Even if a double of the Lord of Glory were to advent on that ne, it would be erasedpletely by that ne. That has nothing to do with levels, the rules that have to do with attributes.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that¡¯s when that the God of Purgatory took over hell?¡±


    ¡°More or less. Since then, the Lord of Glory lost all control over hell. Dark angels that he sent were killed by the God of Purgatory. The Lord of Glory had to create new Divine Punishment spells, throwing those that were killed by the spell into interdimensional spaces where they continue to endure pain and suffering.¡±


    Saleen recalled his own experiences. It was different from how it was written in the Holy See¡¯s codex, but fit Baudire¡¯s descriptions. He and Lex had both been hit by Divine Punishment and, instead of hell, were sent to an interdimensional space under the God¡¯s Ring¡¯s protection.


    ¡°This God of Purgatory is interesting indeed. I could understand why you¡¯d choose to take up faith. But tell me then, what do any of these secrets have to do with me?¡± Saleen asked, trying to find the key point of it all.


    It was a question that Baudire¡¯s life was hinged on. If Baudire was unable to give a convincing answer, Saleen would not even want to keep him around as his ve.


    After all, it was a clone that the God of Purgatory had prepared for himself, and Saleen felt that it was too dangerous to keep around. While the God of Purgatory¡¯s level was not as high as that of the Lord of Glory, he sounded difficult to deal with nheless.


    ¡°The God of Purgatory would not settle to live in hell for all eternity. If he left hell, the Lord of Glory would be the first to know. As such, he created clones. I was a spare.¡±


    ¡°How many clones are on Myers Maind?¡±


    ¡°Two. The other one is not on the maind, but in the Eastern Sea.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡±


    ¡°That clone is already carrying out mass ughters. The nations of the Eastern Sea never stopped warring against each other. The deaths of those humans are his mission. By the time everyone on the Eastern Sea is dead, it will be time for him to evolve into a true clone.¡±


    ¡°What happens then?¡±


    ¡°He would fight me then. The one who survives shall rule this ne and eventually run to hell and meet up with the God of Purgatory.¡±


    ¡°This is how the God of Purgatory enhances his powers?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, quite simple.¡±


    ¡°It is simple, but he shouldn¡¯t have sent people to Myers Maind. I¡¯ll one day fight my way to hell and make that guy my ve.¡±


    ¡°very is bad, Master,¡± Nailisi joked all of a sudden.


    ¡°Yeah, I know. But having gods like that as ves sounds fun to me.¡± Saleen had little qualms about killing. Mages andmon folk were two different kinds of beings.


    However, Saleen definitely would not havemitted ughter just to increase his powers. Regardless of how powerful a mage was, they had evolved from humanity.


    Humanity was the root of all mages.


    The God of Purgatory wanted to kill every single human on Myers Maind.


    ¡°Saleen, if you kill me, then please extract a piece of my treasured memories. The piece contains information regarding the other clone of the God of Purgatory,¡± Baudire continued. He did not ask to be spared, but Saleen was no longer in the mood to kill him.


    ¡°Baudire, if I let you live, would you continue killing?¡±


    ¡°I would. But the only ones I want to kill are the believers in the Lord of Glory!¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t you do it in some other way? Like... enticing them to fall?¡± Saleen said, steering the conversation.


    Baudireughed. His smile appeared on the face of the figure, looking very eerie.


    ¡°Master Saleen, I¡¯ve dedicated my life to the God of Purgatory in exchange for the extermination of all believers in the Lord of Glory. I¡¯ll lose power if I don¡¯t kill.¡±


    ¡°Baudire, I could supply you with power, so long as you betray the God of Purgatory.¡± Saleen¡¯s smile was a sincere one. If he had not seen Saleen¡¯s methods firsthand, Baudire would have almost knelt in front of Saleen.


    ¡°My soul would not be my own. Kill me, mage.¡±


    ¡°No. I could protect your soul from harm for good,¡± Saleen said as he took out a piece of Eternal Control Shard. ¡°You¡¯d only need to enter here, and you¡¯d be free forever from the threat of any god. If you trust me, that is.¡±


    That Eternal Control Shard was something that he and his teacher had created together. He¡¯d tried to craft an Eternal Control Shard aftering to possess the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and Genesis Stock Solution.


    While that piece of Eternal Control Shard paled inparison to those of the Three Kings, there was no longer a significant difference between them.


    ¡°What would you need me to do, mage?¡±


    ¡°Revive the Goddess of Myers and kill her,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°Your request is even more peculiar than that of the God of Purgatory!¡± Baudire continued, ¡°It¡¯s an enticing offer. I do have a knack for running into weird people and things.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re willing to do it?¡±


    ¡°No. I want to know, what do you see in me? If I fall short of the requirements, I¡¯ll suffer a fate worse than death.¡±


    ¡°I have two souls in my hands which I could kill and not subjugate. I¡¯ll run into more things like that in the future, and I hope you¡¯ll take care of them for me. As for Theisio, I¡¯ll need to kill him and I¡¯d need some skills of yours to be imparted to my holy master,¡± Saleen said as he pointed to Nichs.


    Baudire nodded solemnly and said, ¡°I could do all of that. So, am I your ve then?¡±


    ¡°Hmph. Saleen is my master. Don¡¯t even think about it,¡± Nailisi quipped, interrupting Baudire.


    However, Baudire kept his eyes on Saleen, awaiting his answer.


    ¡°ve? No. You¡¯d be my number one holy master. The Nature Faith will need you to be its pope!¡±


    ¡°Pope?¡± Baudire gritted his teeth as he said the word.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you like that? As a pope, you¡¯d be upied with thinking how to kill the god you¡¯re serving at all times,¡± Saleen said, continuing to entice Baudire.


    Baudire sighed and said, ¡°I¡¯m unable to resist. A mage like you resembles the God of Purgatory very much.¡±


    ¡°Well then, my pope, please get your soul inside that thing. You shall have my protection unless I end up dead. The God of Purgatory will no longer be able to control your soul,¡± Saleen said, chucking the shard into the figure¡¯s head.


    Nailisiughed and said, ¡°Nichs, your position of pope is gone! Are you angry?¡±


    Nichs¡¯ eyes were wide open. He said nothing. He¡¯d never wanted to be pope and he did not like the Nature Faith. He was feeling ratherfortable as a fallen holy master.


    ¡°Alright, Nailisi, quit messing around. I have the temple knights and now I have a pope. We¡¯ll need a Tribunal after this. Hell, this feels rather amusing,¡± Saleen said as he looked at Theisio in the distance.


    Theisio looked at Saleen as well. He was unable to see Saleen, but he found that Baudire hadpletely disappeared all of a sudden. None of his skills, not even the three godly items, could sense his presence anymore.


    Did Saleen really kill him?

 Chapter 1245: Building a Holy See (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1245: Building a Holy See (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen chucked the Eternal Control Shard into the figure¡¯s head and Baudire¡¯s soul entered it. No one truly wanted to die, especially someone like Baudire. He had an intense hatred for the Holy See and, given how Saleen had given him a chance, he had to continue living.


    After all, he had only sold his soul to the God of Purgatory to exact his revenge on them.


    It was all the same to him regardless of who he swore his allegiance to, so long as the one he served was against the Holy See. Baudire¡¯s soul had already been twisted and he had no other desires. His only meaning in life was to go against the Lord of Glory.


    In actuality, much of what the great head inquisitor had done had nothing to do with the Lord of Glory. In fact, the Lord of Glory would not have liked the Divine Tablet Spell at all. The problem, however, was that Baudire would not have cared for any of that. The great head inquisitor was a believer in the Lord of Glory. As a god, it was his responsibility to keep the believers in check.


    ¡°Alright, now we have a clone of the goddess, a pope, a knights corps, and a Nature City. Shall we begin a war between religions then?¡± Saleen said to himself as he looked at Theisio.


    Baudire felt a powerful life force as soon as his soul entered the Eternal Control Shard. Feeding into his soul was a life force converted from divine power. As such, it was incredibly pure.


    His soul had entered a ce without a chance of escape. Baudire gained the power bestowed by the God of Purgatory, enabling him to observe things with his soul.


    He would not have been able to traverse narrow spaces freely otherwise. If he had only been able to see his way around with his eyes, he would have been sucked into the spatial turbulence and died.


    The ce that his soul was in seemed to be cage filled with wormholes, each containing energy that nourished the soul. But at the same time, there were mystical magic patterns all around him which he found unfathomable.


    The energies on the magic patterns seemed to be something capable of causing extreme damage to the soul. Baudire did not know about lightning magic patterns, but that did not prevent him from fearing them nheless.


    However, those magic patterns were something that protected the soul at the same time. Any external powers intending to enter that space to cause harm to the soul would have been shut down by the magic patterns¡¯ powers.


    So there was some benefit he gained. While he was unable to betray Saleen, he would be spared from the God of Purgatory¡¯s punishment as well. Baudire felt rather lost for a moment, not knowing what his life had been for so far.


    Saleen cast constetion power into the Eternal Control Shard. The space within the shard seemed to expand by millions of times. Saleen¡¯s voice was heard as well.


    ¡°Your life has been to serve me!¡±


    The thundering sound reverberated throughout the space. Baudire felt himself shedding tears, but figures had no tears to shed. Two streaks of constetion power flowed from the eyes of the figure, which were sucked back in through the nostrils.


    The Ring of Cosmos on Saleen¡¯s hand was spinning. He was rather shocked himself. However, the suddenprehension had something to do with the Ring of Cosmos. The ring seemed to have enhanced his mental powers.


    No, not mental powers, but the powers of the soul.


    Baudire had actually been subjugated by him. He knelt willingly before him.


    ¡°Master, I, Baudire, willingly serve you.¡± He did not use any respectful honorifics in his words. In ancient Myersnguage, such a casual manner of speech would have required the permission of the other party.


    ¡°Alright, Baudire, get to the Nature City at northern Qin. Take the badge I give you and be a pope. I¡¯ll have Don y along with you. Spread the faith there and deal with the enemy by whatever means necessary. Just bear in mind not to harm the native people of Qin.¡±


    ¡°Understood, master.¡± Baudire took the badge that Saleen gave him.


    Saleen then added, ¡°You have no equipment. I now bestow you with the Scepter of Nature. As a pope, you shall have a Crown of Nature and the Ring of Gifts as well. Keep these three items well.¡±


    Saleen no longer had any need for the Ring of Gifts. The power of the Goddess of Nature had been almost drained. It was not an easy feat to use Water me Alchemy to create an amplifier.


    Saleen¡¯s ne had consumed too much power, including divine power from the Ring of Gifts and the Constetion Power from the level-19 Star Gathering Needle.


    Saleen turned to address the people around him after Baudire left. ¡°Well, I¡¯m supposed to return to Metatrin and see what is happening there, but I have confidence in my teacher. Even if there is actually an oracle at Metatrin City¡¯s doors, he won¡¯t be able to harm him. We¡¯ll stay here and plug the exit. Whatever Theisio wants from this ce, I¡¯ll have him spit it out.¡±


    Saleen was most wary of Theisio. That old man just seems unkible.


    Everyone had their own thoughts on Saleen¡¯s words. They were likewise incapable of doing much against Theisio. The defense around Theisio¡¯s territory was just too powerful. Level-9 professionals were utterly incapable of attacking him at all.


    Theisio was wearing a sour look. He¡¯d confirmed that Saleen had taken care of Baudire.


    None of the 49 red-robed bishops said anything. They had hundreds of knights, yet they were unable to track Baudire at all.


    Baudire made for the exit of the cemetery as the Armageddon Codex pounced on him from above. He was startled and wanted to cast movement skills, but found that his ability to tear space was gone.


    The power bestowed by his god had disappeared due to his betrayal.


    The great inquisitor¡¯s specter appeared from the codex,ughing maniacally as he enveloped Baudire¡¯s body.


    ¡°Baudire, I¡¯ll...¡±


    ¡°Die already!¡± 360 beams of constetion power burst from the figure¡¯s body, shrouding the great head inquisitor with the Armageddon Codex.


    Baudire¡¯s Scepter of Nature mmed hard against the Armageddon Codex. It was purely a physical attack. However, Baudire was a knight instead of a holy master, so he used to much power with that strike. Information from Saleen had been left within the figure¡¯s body so he could take on the great head inquisitor.


    Although the great head inquisitor ran away, Saleen knew that there was no way he would be able to escape the cemetery. The cemetery¡¯s exit was blocked by the Magical Element Tower.


    Theisio would have probably been able to escape using the three godly items, yet the great head inquisitor would not have had such luck, given how he had be a weapon spirit whose control of the codex was limited.


    As such, Saleen had let Baudire leave on his own, specifically for the purpose of baiting the great head inquisitor into making a move. Only by having control of a body would he be able to use all of the Armageddon Codex¡¯s power.


    Having some knowledge regarding souls, Saleen could not be fooled. The great head inquisitor¡¯s tricks were just asughable as child¡¯s y.


    Saleen had gone through a painstaking process of getting someone to serve as pope. Furthermore, it was someone who would not be able to betray him. There was no way he would let Baudire die so easily.


    The area shrouded by the constetion power became a constetion territory.


    While level-10 astrologers were not powerful enough to aplish it, there were some people capable of having territorial powers. In ancient times, astrologers of such levels weremon. However, the territorial powers that Saleen had left within the figure were more than enough to take on the great head inquisitor.


    The great head inquisitor had lost his body. While his level remained intact, he was unable to use any skills as he was pinned down by the constetion territory. Baudire attacked the Armageddon Codex with all his might using the Scepter of Nature.


    The Scepter of Nature was actually one of the Three Kings¡¯ scepters that Saleen had selected. The scepter was iid with chlorite filled with the goddess¡¯ divine powers. That thing proved adequate for Baudire¡¯s use for the time being.


    The scepter¡¯s properties might not have been suitable equipment for a pope of the Nature Faith, but the scepter¡¯s material was extremely resilient, making it a bludgeoning weapon of grades that Saleen spected to be on par with Sika¡¯s staff.


    Furthermore, every single attack that Baudire executed caused nature power to seep into the Armageddon Codex.


    The codex was a piece of equipment created by the Lord of Glory. It absolutely rejected anything that did not originate from him. The divine powers fought each other within and brought devastating, explosive powers to bear. The great head inquisitor was having a bad time in there as weapon spirit.


    ¡°Do you fear me now?¡± Baudire kept slugging the Armageddon Codex. All seven signs were knocked out of the book bit by bit, floating within the constetion territory.


    The ruling power imbued within the seven signs had originally surpassed that of Saleen¡¯s constetion territory. However, the codex did not have a user at the moment, and the great head inquisitor had been overpowered by the two divine powers shing with each other inside.


    He was unable to do anything but look at the seven golden signs leaving the codex.


    The seven signs were absorbed into the Ring of Gifts by Baudire. The ring was something that could be used without needing any special abilities.


    ¡°Baudire! You have betrayed two gods!¡± the great head inquisitor shouted in rage.


    ¡°I have. If you want to, I can introduce you to my master. You could be a head inquisitor for the Nature Faith.¡± Baudire acted ording to Saleen¡¯s instructions and attacked the great head inquisitor with his words.


    ¡°Who cares!?¡±


    ¡°Well, die then.¡± Baudire continued to beat on the codex. The seven pages of the codex were being tempered bit by bit. The golden colors faded and the book began to shine with green glimmer.


    All of the holy prose markings on the Armageddon Codex had been erased by the Goddess of Nature¡¯s divine power. Baudire did not spare any divine power within the Scepter of Nature as he knocked on the Armageddon Codex.


    The goddess¡¯s writings began to appear on the Armageddon Codex.


    24 multicolored holy prose began manifest within the Armageddon Codex. The codex of the goddess began to take shape.


    Baudire held a piece of Eternal Control Shard, waiting for the great head inquisitor¡¯s escaping soul, ready to subjugate it. However, he had been waiting for some time. All 24 holy prose hadpletely taken form, yet the great head inquisitor¡¯s soul had yet to leave.


    Baudire calmed down and found that he had actually shattered the great head inquisitor¡¯s soul.


    Everything that had to do with the great head inquisitor¡¯s memory had been beaten to pieces by the Scepter of Nature. His soul had been rendered nk as it was infused into the codex.


    It was not power bestowed by Saleen, but by the rules of the scepter itself.


    The constetion territory disappeared all of a sudden. The remaining constetion power returned to the figure¡¯s body. Baudire bent over and picked up the Nature Codex, flipped it about to take a look inside, then quickly left.


    Saleen no longer paid any attention to Baudire. He had his eyes on Theisio¡¯s party and wanted to harass them.

 Chapter 1246: Aerial Assault (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1246: Aerial Assault (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Theisio was at no point able to pass through the energy barrier. The cemetery of the giant struck fear into his heart. As the pope, he knew that the Lord of Glory was but a level 15 god, whereas there were beings above level 15 found within the cemetery.


    If those things were to awaken and leave the cemetery, they would wipe out almost all traces of the Lord of Glory¡¯s powers on that ne.


    Theisio believed without a doubt that the Lord of Glory would eventually be the highest god. As the pope, it was his duty to spread his teachings, and he would give everything he had to see that aplished.


    But, of course, doing so had its perks. The pope of any god would without a doubt be granted the right to enter a divine kingdom after death, and a fine position would await them there.


    Theisio did not fear death in the least. What he feared was being unable to see through his responsibilities as pope before he died. That would anger his god immensely.


    Saleen knew this very well, which was why he was hunting all those who were serving the pope.


    Theisio brought only some of the strongest knights and holy masters in the Holy See to the cemetery with him. He had apparently miscalcted. He had never thought the inside of the cemetery would be like this. However, if he had not entered the cemetery, he would never have known what it was like inside.


    Saleen blocked up the exit, intending to fight Theisio in a ce where there was no way for him to receive aid from his god.


    Theisio has 49 red-robed bishops serving him.


    Seven of them were level-ten holy masters; among the remaining 1,280 knights, one was a level-ten true might, 12 were golden grand swordmasters, 40 were silver grand swordmasters, and the rest were at least one step away from bing grand swordmasters.


    Saleen borated Theisio¡¯s powers to his men. Nailisi and the others showed no fear. Theisio had left a sizable reserve force back in Holy City instead of bringing them all to the cemetery of the giant. Even so, the forces that Theisiomanded at the moment were, nheless, powerful enough.


    Some of the forces of the great head inquisitor were left¡ªthere had been some survivors from the Tribunal at the Separation Sea, after all.


    None of them would be able to prevent Baudire from leaving, but Saleen was not worried in the least. What he needed to do, at the moment, was simply to clip Theisio¡¯s wings off in the ce where the powers of his god could not reach.


    Once all of the 49 red-robed bishops were dead, the Holy See would lose all offensive capabilities for the time being.


    Saleen had only brought seven people along, but, in actuality, he had 500,000 demons, over 1,000 ancient figures, and tens of thousands of star figures at his disposal.


    Saleen had troublemanding both the ancient figures and the star figures. While he had ample mental powers, he had no intention of wasting them on something like that.


    Imposa was capable ofmanding thousands of Iron Blood warriors, but those powers were not actually his. Saleen¡¯s only thought at the moment was to develop his lightning skills and to create a territory with them.


    That was what he wanted the most, and nothing else mattered.


    Nailisi and Sul formed a team and led the demons. J and Isabe also teamed up, while Isabe tookmand of the ancient figures. Eleanor, Nichs, and Daniel formed a unit, with star figures serving as their troops.


    Saleen himself took to the sky, getting ready to take on Theisio at any moment.


    The Thunder Dragon ster needed just an hour to recharge, which was the greatest advantage that weapon possessed. Based on that perk alone, the Thunder Dragon ster could be held to have surpassed level 12, and was definitely a piece of equipment above level 13. Equipment was not only graded by its current offensive capacity, but also on how its abilities could be sustained inbat.


    Saleen¡¯s family badge was powerful¡ªso much so that not even godly items were able to endure even one hit from the badge. However, it required half a year to recharge afterunching just one attack. Such equipment was destined to have a love-hate rtionship with its owners.


    Sul followed Nailisi and she took her devil form,manding about 800 demons, and tailed the pope¡¯s knights. Each of her arms was decked out with her beloved weapons. Her devil form was about 10 meters tall, which made her difficult to hide. The height of the demons was about five meters.


    Nailisi had not brought too many demons with her. Sheer numbers were pointless against Theisio. The 800 demons wore Heaven Knight armor. The defensive capacity of this armor, made specifically for demons, was unmistakable, as it was all crafted using fossilized god fragments.


    The suits of armor that Saleen¡¯s side had crafted were all more intricate than those made by the Holy See. There were ample number of mages in Metatrin City and the alchemy factories were in full swing; as such, they were capable of producing huge amounts of high-level equipment.


    The mages were able to raise their magic level by participating in alchemical work, and they did not need not purchase their own materials to work with. It was a win-win arrangement.


    Nailisi knew all about hunting. Other than the devils¡¯ cities, all ces in the demon ne were governed by a kill-or-be-kill lifestyle every single day.


    Theisio saw the three teams pursuing him and frowned, finding it surprising that Saleen wanted to duke it out with him here.


    If they were to simply evade Saleen¡¯s forces, Theisio believed that his men¡¯s speed would leave Saleen¡¯s teams behind in the dust. But, then again, the cemetery was littered with alchemical materials which would serve the divine smiths well.


    Furthermore, if Saleen were allowed to take everything, it would eventually pose an immense threat to the Holy See.


    If he stopped here, he would have to fight Saleen¡¯s people. If he left as soon as possible, everything lying around would be Saleen¡¯s for the taking.


    Theisio came to realize that, although the events so far had not all been things calcted by Saleen, the final result was what his opponent wanted nheless.


    The fighting outside had never held any importance, which was why Saleen had let the two sides fight each other without bothering to back Daliang City up. He had only brought the Magical Element Tower into the cemetery after the fossilized gods had been decimated down to a handful.


    He had then blocked off the exit, making all fighting outside utterly pointless.


    The Holy See had been putting too much effort in all of that, which had dyed their offense into Qin and lost them further cooperation with Cloudflow as well. Furthermore, even Sikeqinya now had little to no interest to the Holy See; Danny had lost all trust in them.


    Saleen had used only one city and one ruin to attract all of the Holy See¡¯s attention, altering every single n that they had had.


    Theisio had initially thought that it was all him imagining things; but now, with hindsight, it looked as if everything had been an borate trapid by Saleen.


    Of course, Saleen had never expected Daliang City to turn out this way. However, what had subsequently urred had allowed Saleen to orchestrate the events, leading to the current situation.


    All those joint effort attempts and negotiations with the mages of Alchemy City and Holy Rock City had been but tricks and smokescreens, making Theisio think that the city was of great importance and that he had to take it.


    While the cemetery of the giant was indeed important, the ce had never been valuable enough to send armies of millions to take it.


    The two previous battles had ended with the Holy See losing over half of their elites, robbing them of the ability tounch an all-out assault on Qin.


    What frustrated Theisio most was that Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood had signed a treaty. ording to Theisio¡¯s spections, Saleen was nning to quickly take control of northern Qin by sacrificing Daliang City¡¯s interests.


    It was a losing deal, as there was no way Saleen would move against Holy Rock City immediately; Lex was in the way. Controlling the north would not be of any help in expelling the Holy See¡¯s forces.


    Thinking through it all, Theisio realize that all of that had been simply a means of fooling him.


    Saleen had rushed there as soon as the fighting outside Daliang City was over. Did he n the flood out in the first ce?


    Theisio had lost some of his confidence and began to make erroneous judgments. There was no way Saleen could have known that the flood would happen. He had been heading to the ocean ne for nothing but the water-type element spirit. That creature held the key to his teacher¡¯s advancement. When Jason advanced, Saleen would have had little to worry about. There was utterly no need for him to return to Metatrin City. The Sreeger Ind mages would make that city a fortress as impregnable as Holy Rock City.


    ¡°Do not spread out.¡± Theisio had the red-robed bishops keep the knights in check. There were golden grand swordmasters and a level-ten true might among the knights, making them difficult to deal with. Baudire had targeted knights below golden grand swordmaster, as well.


    Saleen had the Puppet Constetion above him, but he had not unleashed any of the puppets. Theisio¡¯s voice reached Saleen clearly.


    Do not spread out? Saleen smirked. The space in the cemetery was of almost infinite height. He invoked the Puppet Constetion and flew up to an altitude of 30,000 meters. Saleen then took some junk from the Starline Ring and began dropping it.


    Useless pieces of rocks proved more devastating than magic cannons when dropped from a height of 30,000 meters.


    Saleen simply used the power of the stars to guide the trajectories of the rocks, which then came down on the heads of the knights with great kic energy.


    It was entirely possible to evade the rocks, especially for knights of silver grand swordmaster level and above. While the rocks were traveling at great speed, their trajectories were obvious, and Saleen did not bother targeting anyone specifically. It was not a difficult feat for grand swordmasters to predict where they would fall and evade them.


    However, there were simply too many of them falling from above, and the knights were getting tired dodging them.


    ¡°Keep your formations tight, indeed, Theisio. Otherwise, it¡¯d be quite a heartache to see them die.¡± Saleenughed out loud high up in the air.


    Theisio¡¯s expression was ice-cold. He wanted to take to the skies and duke it out with Saleen. However, Saleen¡¯s three teams were right behind him. If he were to leave, there would be no way for the three godly items to protect all of his people. Casualties would ur soon after he left.


    Saleen¡¯s people had no concern for casualties. After all, they had demons, figures and puppets at theirmand.


    ¡°Theisio, I had the demons dig out several mountains and bring them along just for this very day. Enjoy them to your heart¡¯s content!¡± Saleen said as he continued dropping rocks. The rocks were also coated with poison, puppets and some magic bugs.


    The intense assault had the knights tightly wound. All of a sudden, one of them was unable to dodge in time, and the falling rock grazed them and their horse. The corners of the rock warped that knight¡¯s armor.


    While it had not ended up tearing up the armor apart, the human body within the armor was warped beyond repair as well; there was no way for them to survive.


    ¡°Theisio, are you afraid to ept my challenge in front of your men?¡± Saleen said, continuing to provoke the pope.


    ¡°We shall have a showdown, Saleen!¡± Theisio answered. ¡°The one who loses shall never enter this cemetery again!¡±


    ¡°No, Theisio. Here¡¯s how it¡¯ll go. We¡¯ll fight up in the air, and let the ones below duke it out among themselves. My men will think of ways to kill all of your knights when you¡¯re gone.¡± Saleen¡¯sugh was imbued with thunder, descending from the sky and making Theisio¡¯s knights shudder.

 Chapter 1247: Aerial Assault (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1247: Aerial Assault (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    That as**ole is indeed a threat like no other!


    Theisio had no intentions of flying up and take Saleen¡¯s challenge. He was considering the possibility of leaving or entering the energy barrier to look for the treasures of the cemetery.


    Regardless of the sheer amount of alchemical materials outside, all of them were broken. What lied within the energy barrier within the cemetery was something that would have truly proved enticing.


    ¡°How about it, Theisio? You¡¯re afraid to get in there?¡± Saleen continued to jab sarcastically at the pope while watching his movements. Saleen was ready to brandish his Thunder Dragon ster as soon as Theisio used any of the three godly items.


    While the Thunder Dragon ster would not have been able to destroy the three godly items, it was nheless capable of breaking any skills cast using the three godly items.


    Saleen¡¯s confidence grew. He knew that while his Crystal Finger might not have been able to kill Theisio, it would have nheless robbed Theisio of hisbat capacity for the time being.


    Such effects would havested for at least an hour, which meant that his Thunder Dragon ster would have been ready to strike again, as soon as Theisio recovered. Furthermore, Saleen would have been able to restore half of his magic chords within that one hour.


    There was no way he would have been caught in a disadvantage in his showdown with Theisio.


    ¡°Are you baiting me, Saleen?¡± Theisio looked up and said.


    ¡°I am. Do you dare go in?¡± Saleen knew that there were fossilized gods of greater power within. Lex was capable of concealing their presence with the God¡¯s Ring. Those from Holy Rock City would have been decimated to a handful if it had not been for Lex¡¯s help.


    However, all of them were loyal to Emperor Chanake, so Lex would not have been so brutal with them.


    If the God¡¯s Ring proved inadequate to keep them concealed, Lex would have escaped by then. Saleen determined that Lex was taking her sweet time piging within the cemetery. Theisio would not have had such luck if he were to get in there.


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯ll make sure to bring the oracles here next time, Saleen.¡± Theisio waved and ordered his men to move towards the cemetery¡¯s exit.


    ¡°So that¡¯s all you¡¯ve got?¡± Saleen continued dropping rocks on them. The knights were forced to spread out by then. While their route remained unchanged, they had to meander their way around instead of running in a tight formation.


    Not even golden grand swordmasters would have been able to defend against having such rocksnding on their heads.


    While Saleen continued to jab at Theisio sarcastically, he became somewhat worried. The pope did not choose to get inside the energy barrier and refused to fight him as well. Are we really to have two sides shing right before the tower?


    The Holy See was skilled at synchronized attacks.


    Theisio chose to run because he was a pope. He was unable to just let the 49 red-robed bishops die there. There was no way to receive blessing from their god within the cemetery. Things were different there from the outside.


    The pope would have been able tomunicate with powerful beings within divine kingdoms using the three godly items, acquiring power from them.


    He had never expected all means ofmunication would have been shut down altogether after venturing into the cemetery. He was no longer able to sense his god¡¯s presence.


    Saleen began to attack Theisio in a frenzy after seeing that the pope tried to run. He had actually had the demons dug out several mountains and storing them within the Starline Ring, enabling him to attack with impunity without any concerns for any of the rocks missing.


    It was far easier to do so that attacking with magic, with the only drawback being incapable of targeting anything. Saleen lowered the altitude and began attacking from a height of over 5000 meters. He was able to calcte the escape routes taken by the knights using Figaro¡¯s Magic Form, enabling him to strike preemptively.


    All of that, coupled with the power of astrology, increased the rocks¡¯ uracy drastically.


    The rocks dropped onto the head of each knight urately like the Meteorite spell. The knights had to use their own skills and deflect the rocks with theirnces by then.


    Over a hundred knights below level seven were crushed within moments. Their armors were utterly useless against the onught.


    They were several hundred miles away from the cemetery¡¯s exit.


    Nailisi and the others began to pursue any knight who had fallen behind, hunting down every one of them. Saleen¡¯s rocks had carved the Holy See¡¯s formations up. Theisio was busy protecting the 49 holy masters, who in turn, cast divine spells on the knights.


    However, being cut off from the power of their god, the power of faith of divine power stored within their equipment would have eventually been used up.


    The knights¡¯ casualty count continued to climb. Saleen was able to iste the true might from the other knights ording to n, before summoning the thunder dragons. All 24 of the thunder dragons formed a magic array right behind him, conjuring a grey ball lightning at the center of the array.


    Saleen then mixed the ball lightning within a Meteorite spell before throwing it down.


    ¡°A level nine Meteorite?¡± That true might-level knight saw Saleen¡¯s attack and became rather pissed at Theisio¡¯s weakness. Why didn¡¯t he go after the mage up in the air?


    Purple aura burst from the goldennce on the knight¡¯s hand, which he then thrust at the sky. Saleen saw a snake-shaped beam of energying for him.


    He never expected that level ten true might¡¯s attack range to be able to reach beyond five miles.


    Saleen cast a huge Ice Bomb right away. Fire burned intensely on the Ice Bomb, which had a diameter of over ten meters. That was Saleen¡¯s level nine Ice Bomb spell, which was capable of being converted to all manner of attacks.


    The snake-shaped purple aura was intercepted by the Ice Bomb. Elemental energies on it continued to rapidly convert, shaving off the purple energyyer byyer.


    The level ten true might continued to thrust hisnce at lightning speed. Over a hundred thrusts ended up breaking up all the Meteorite, before the ball lightning in their midst appeared right before the true might.


    The knight thrust the goldennce with a burst of purple aura at the ball lightning, which swayed about and just rode along the length of thence somehow.


    The level ten true might knight¡¯s hair stood up and the holy prose on his armor spun, casting over a thousand purple aura and coalesced into a pointy spear shape, piercing the ball lightning.


    The grey ball lightning punched through the purple energy and dropped onto the level ten true might¡¯s head.


    He quickly lost consciousness right afterwards. The ball lightning seeped through the armor and embedded into his body. Resisting lightning through force was tantamount to suicide.


    The lightning attack was not a targeted one, as Saleen was incapable of doing so at the moment. The ball lightning¡¯s attack was all up to fate after it went over two to three hundred meters away from Saleen. However, the knight did not know that resisting the attack through force would have caused his body tobust instead.


    That was especially so with him being d with expensive metal armor all over his body, as it would have attracted lightning like nothing else. The pointy spike on his helmet worked like a lightning rod, attracting the attack to him.


    It was precisely due to him wanting to kill that level ten true might, that he did not use any magic attacks. He knew that if that knight was able to be made a part of a formation, said knight¡¯s ability would have been raised from level ten to 11.


    Even Nailisi would have had to attack him head on, if she were to score a victory against him.


    She would have had to give up defense altogether and thrust the Grey Memory at him. It was a one-shot victory that would have only been made possible with her suffering severe damage as a result.


    Only Pope Theisio sensed the death of the true might. Saleen threw three more ball lightning downwards. 12 golden grand swordmasters went on to defend against the lightning attack hidden within the Meteorite spell.


    ¡°Retreat!¡±


    Theisio was unable to make it in time. Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles went straight for the red-robed bishops at his side.


    Most of them were level nine, but there were seven of them who were level ten holy masters. Those holy masters¡¯ powers were forcefully enhanced by the oracles. Although they might not have been much of abatant, they were nheless level ten professionals, so Saleen saw fit to get rid of them first.


    Theisio brandished his God Grace Staff, conjuring a golden vortex above him. Pure white light shone within the golden vortex, casting on the level ten red-robed bishops.


    All seven of those bishops cast Divine Protection at the same time.


    Theisio saw the 12 golden grand swordmasters being struck by the ball lightning. Half of them dropped right away while the remaining half shuddered as if they were having seizures.


    Three ball lightning ended up killing six knights. However, the ball lightning was something capable of entering another target after phasing through one. None of the knights knew how to defend against a skill that was so peculiar.


    The golden grand swordmasters notwithstanding, not even Saleen himself knew how to defend against ball lightning. He was only able to run if he were to encounter one, as the only drawback about ball lightning was that they move slowly.


    The golden grand swordmasters made the mistake of treating Saleen¡¯s lightning attacks withmon magic knowledge.


    Generally-speaking, magic spells attacking at slow speeds had possibilities of speeding up. They might have looked slow, but once the target started evading, such types of spells would have moved increasingly fast to chase their targets. The power of such spells grew as a result as well, bing indefensible eventually.


    Such spells could have been cut down using sword aura as soon as they were seen. They were easy to dispel at the beginning.


    However, that was not how ball lightning worked. They were incapable of eleration and while they looked flighty and aimless, it was not a result of Saleen¡¯s control; Saleen had no control over them whatsoever.


    If the golden knights were spread out and ran, none of the three ball lightning would have able to hit any of the intended targets. However, all 12 of the golden knights connected their squadron¡¯s armors together to defend against them and retaliate. Such a move resulted in six dead and six severely injured.


    The Flower of Evil was in full blossom. 260 evil angels burst out and intended to defend against the lightning icicles in the holy masters¡¯ stead. However, the lightning icicles were simply moving too fast. They prated the Divine Protection and killed three of them.


    The remaining four were grazed by the lightning icicles and rendered paralyzed.


    Shrieks were from the knights at the rear. Saleen¡¯s teams followed closely behind, hunting down knights that dropped out. Saleen was attacking from above, preventing Theisio from splitting his attentioin.


    The pope was very regretful. He would not have entered the cemetery if he knew things would have turned out like that.


    None of the three godly items is able to connect to the divine kingdoms. Are you going to just die here?


    He had no idea that Saleen was only able to conjure four ball lightning. All of the thunder dragons had returned to Saleen¡¯s ne, requiring a day of rest before being able toe out.


    Saleen was very pleased. He never expected the people of the Holy See to be so incapable of adapting on the fly. They actually resisted spells that moved so slowly with their weapons.


    He had killed all who were above golden grand swordmasters and the six that survived with severe injuries would have had a hard time recovering. It was simple to deal with the rest.


    Saleen then took out a bunch of scrolls...

 Chapter 1248: Clipping Wings (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1248: Clipping Wings (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    To other people, magic scrolls were incredibly precious. To Saleen, however, they were just another consumable.


    He had acquired too much starline paper in the Imperial City of the Abyss. While such things were extremelymon things to astrologers, there were still expensive to ancient mages, though they were not prohibitively so.


    Scrolls were moremonly seen in ancient times, so Saleen was like someone who was living in ancient times for possessing huge amounts of starline paper. He distributed them to mages who were close to him, and used them to train mages.


    Writing scrolls was a part of a mage¡¯s magical training, and starline paper was almost immune to failure, which made it irresistible to mages.


    Saleen was able to get countless mages willing to work for him simply by asking forpleted scrolls in return for the starline paper he distributed. None of the mages would ask for money. In fact, they would pay Saleen to get such a privilege.


    It allowed the mages to familiarize themselves with unfamiliar magic for free, which deepened their understanding of magic.


    Failure in writing scrolls yielded next to no return for the mages. Only sess would benefit the mages. Saleen¡¯s mages would create scrolls for him without charge, so long as he was able to provide starline paper for them.


    Saleen did not ask for money simply because that was a privilege given to his closest mages. If they had been total strangers instead, they would not get the right to create scrolls for Saleen to begin with.


    As such, the scrolls that Saleen took out were all equipped with level nine magic spells. He unraveled them and dropped his altitude further, throwing them down when he was 800 meters away from the ground.


    With the level ten holy masters injured and the high level leaders of the knights all wiped out, Theisio was reduced to fighting on his own.


    Saleen knew that the power stored within the three godly items was limited, but the amount of scrolls in his possession would drive Theisio insane. He threw level nine magic spells like they cost nothing.


    When other mages cast level nine scrolls, they would only be able to cast 24, even at Saleen¡¯s level. However, Saleen¡¯s mental powers allowed him to continuously cast more than 3000 of them.


    The Ring of Cosmos had expanded Saleen¡¯s mental powers by 64 times.


    With level nine magic spells raining down on them, Theisio was forced to invoke defense territory. If he did not, all of his knights would be wiped clean.


    360 evil angels emerged from the Flower of Evil outside the territory and headed straight for Saleen.


    Saleen smirked and summoned 360 ancient figures and had them deal with the iing angels. Both parties consisted of level nine creatures. The evil angels wielded huge curved des, and the ancient figures were d in Tainted Blood Armor and wielded seven meter-long spears. The figures were repairable and the angels revivable. Such battles were just fought to buy time.


    ¡°How does it feel being cornered, Theisio?¡± Saleen ridiculed the pope while his people continued to hunt down the knights. The demons and the figures suffered greater casualties, but the knights were the cream of the crop for the Holy See.


    Theisio had a massive heartache. ¡°Saleen, you shall...¡±


    ¡°I shall destroy your faith!¡± The Puppet Constetion above Saleen flickered with starlight. Constetion Wishing nullified the pope¡¯s prophecy spell.


    The pope¡¯s territory continued to be hit by the level nine scrolls one after another. None of the scrolls were capable of breaking the pope¡¯s territory, as the pope was level 11.


    However, the pope¡¯s territory had to cover the red-robed bishops, and Saleen did not mean for the scrolls to attack Theisio. They were simply meant for using Theisio¡¯s mental powers.


    Saleen¡¯s Puppet Constetion was able to do more than provide him with puppets forbat. It also amplified the powers of astrology and earth magic. The equipment was developed by separating Saleen¡¯s territorial powers, so Saleen had effortless control of it.


    ¡°Do you really want to do attrition warfare against me, Theisio? You¡¯re backed by the Tanggsi Empire and I have two countries backing me. Well, how about you just stop here and we¡¯ll see if you, with a thousand years of umted wealth, would win over me, a very rich upstart?¡±


    Theisio was getting rather pissed after being continuously provoked by Saleen, but he knew that if he got angry, he would make mistakes, and Saleen was very good at exploiting small mistakes.


    He had seen enough of Saleen¡¯s attacks and if it had not been for his men dealing with the attacks badly, he would not have lost so many powerful people around him.


    While it would not happen again in the future, the fact that he had lost so many red-robed bishops and grand swordmasters remained, and that made Theisio feel as if his heart was bleeding.


    He deemed himself stupid for being intimidated by Saleen then. If he had had a showdown, or simply snuck into the energy barrier, his losses would not be as considerable.The Flower of Evil continued to provide energy for the evil angels. Thebat capacity of the evil angels paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s ancient figures, but they were restored by the Flower of Evil, making them difficult to deal with.


    If Saleen¡¯s ancient figures were broken, he would have to infuse constetion power slowly and personally to restore them.


    Nichs did not stop. The teams continued to move as the Flower of Evil spun. Saleen¡¯s attacks consisted of huge rocks thrown downwards as well as the spells.


    Saleen was totally unfettered despite seeing his attacks being unable to break the pope¡¯s territory. He summoned over a hundred puppets and had arge magic cannon attached to every single one of them.


    He was in no hurry and simply let the huge cannons fire slowly: three shots a minute.


    The magic cannons were not a high level, and they were only capable of level nine attacks. However, every single shot carried the power of many level nine spells attacking at the same time.


    With the magic cannons added to the fray, Theisio felt the power within his God Grace Staff being depleted at a far quicker rate. While the cannons would eventually get busted, it would only happened hundreds of shotster.


    Over 100 magic cannons meant that tens of thousands of attacks could be cast, and that made them all the more terrifyingpared to level nine scrolls.


    ¡°Lord Pope, just leave. Saleen won¡¯t be able to do anything to you!¡± the remaining level ten red-robed bishops said. All of them sustained severe injuries and were incapable of using any skills, so they figured that they would meet their doom in the cemetery.


    The only unknown factor was if their souls would be able to enter heaven after dying in a ce like that.


    Theisio was even more unwilling to give up his people after hearing the red-robed bishops. Furthermore, he was still getting power from the bishops to sustain his defense. If he ran away alone, he would lose the use of all the powers.


    ¡°I¡¯m absolutely not giving up on you!¡±


    ¡°Oh please, Theisio. If I were able to kill you right here, right now, would you still choose to defend your people instead of running? I know you have skills for escape and you¡¯ve got them prepped, am I right?¡±


    ¡°Quit your prattling, Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Why, I¡¯m having fun prattling, Theisio. I didn¡¯t expect you to shirk from my challenge despite having advanced to level 11. When I¡¯ve gotten to a level as high as yours, I wonder if you¡¯ll turn and run like a dog when you see me.¡±


    Saleen no longer sounded like a mage; he did not even sound like a noble or royalty anymore. Such crass words made him sound like a Sikeqinyan merchant instead.


    Theisio got truly angry. How did I get so screwed up at the hands of someone like that?


    Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles were not restored yet. There was no need to use level ten or level 11 scrolls for ranged attacks. He had more level nine scrolls to spare, with some even gotten from the Grandmaster.


    In Grandmaster¡¯s perspective, level nine scrolls were bestowed to his troops. One could only imagine howrge his stock of such scrolls was.


    He was in charge of the entire rear end of the army, and one distribution to a regiment at the rear cost him tens of thousands of scrolls. Consumption of scrolls was extremely huge when the armies went to war in other nes.


    Theisio¡¯s party continued to dwindle in number. Nailisi had Sul attack while she held onto the Grey Memory, on guard against hidden powerful ones among the knights.


    The other two teams behaved in a simr manner. The ones withparative low levelmanded their troops to hunt the knights, while the ones of high levels supported them from behind, to ensure that nothing would go wrong.


    Theisio shrunk the size of his territory to the minimum, protecting only the holy masters. The knights were in deep trouble.


    Anyone who encountered such predicaments would be very frustrated. Theisio had powerful godly items and his level was even higher than Saleen, but his skills enabled him to ignore level differences. That one shot from the Crystal Finger was something that Theisio never wanted a taste of ever again.


    However, Saleen simply caused Theisio to waste his power with scrolls after he refused Saleen¡¯s challenge.


    Saleen was right in saying that he was an upstart and that he was in a match with Theisio to see how among them was more wealthy.


    ¡°Theisio, you fail at being a qualified enemy.¡± Saleen continued, ¡°I found how easy it is for me to take care of your people. There is a saying among the Sikeqinyans that goes, ¡®any trouble that can be solved with money is no trouble at all¡¯.¡±


    Saleen began to boast with impunity. He discovered that using the movement skills that he learned from Jalin was effortless when he was under the Puppet Constetion. While his control was not as fine as Jalin, he was able to use it unparalleled when running away.


    Theisio was utterly incapable of keeping up with him, and was only able to use ranged divine spells for attack. Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound skills also made him virtually immune to Theisio¡¯s prophecy spells.


    ¡°My lord, leave us. It would suffice if you were able to escape, Mobilize the oracles to destroy Metatrin City to avenge us!¡± The holy masters tried Theisio again.


    Theisio was actually troubled. He wanted to escape, but the Magical Element Tower blocked the exit and he needed sacrifices from his people to move the tower aside.


    However, there was no way he could ask for such a thing. He only deemed it necessary to sacrifice the holy masters when things were dire.


    The Flower of Evil continued to spin, and no one dared to stop them from the front, so Nailisi and the others resorted to tail from the rear. If Theisio had been able to thoroughly utilize the power of the Flower of Evil itself, Saleen would have run into the energy barrier a long time ago.


    The hunt was difficult for the side that hunted as well. The knights were organized in a squadron of 40 units, and every one of them was able to enhance their powers by one whole level all of a sudden. There were over 1000 demons dead so far.


    All of the demons were painstakingly selected and were all d in devil flying armor. They were a step away from grand swordmasters in terms ofbat capacity.


    However, when such demons had to face knights using Heaven Knight skills, one thrust of the spear was all it took to take them out. The knights were giving up their lives but nobody cared, as they would enter heaven after death anyway.

 Chapter 1249: Clipping Wings (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1249: Clipping Wings (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Theisio saw his knights giving up their lives and knew that it was due to his insufficient level. If he was able to reach level 15, he would be able to break through the space¡¯s barrier andmunicate with his god.


    Because the nature of sacrifices enabled the Lord of Glory to break through such obstacles to obtain the life force of the knights directly, which were then fed back to the knights in the form of divine power. As such, there would be no such thing as sealed space.


    Only sacrifices were not restricted in that space, which meant the limit was imposed to rules below level 15. When someone reached level 15, they would be able to open up a portal through sheer force.


    If it were inside the energy barrier, not even level 18 gods would be able to transfer power through nes.


    The inner part of the cemetery only suppressed powers level 15, while the outer part suppressed powers at level 12.


    The cemetery of the giant had clearyers, but only the bone crystals of the giant within the energy barrier was of true value. They were more precious than magic nuclei, given how they no longer existed in their world.


    Saleen saw what was happening and threw hundreds of rocks at the knights intending to make the sacrifice.


    The knights were incapable of performing sacrifices while running. They were incapable of evading the rocks when they slowed down. Saleen split his attention for attacks, continuing to throw level nine magic scrolls.


    Theisio was unable to shake Saleen off, so he had to sustain his territory while moving towards the exit.


    Theisio was able to stay alive due to being level 11 and having powers stored in the God Grace Staff to spare. If someone else had been bombarded by Saleen in such a manner, they would be killed a long time ago.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see how long you can keep this up!¡± Saleen added a level 11 wind magic scroll scroll in the mass of level nine scrolls.


    Countless Wind des cut up fine cracks in the space above Theisio in an instant, cutting through Theisio¡¯s defense through sheer force. Two red-robed bishops were cut up, and their blood was sucked by the power of vacuum generated, reducing them to little more than two pieces of skin in mere moments.


    The Divine Protection was stillrgely intact, but it was unable to keep the holy masters alive.


    Theisio felt rage burst through his body. He never expected the restrictions of the space was so solid that he was unable to cast many of his divine spells, relying solely on the powers in the God Grace Staff. He was wondering if the elites of his Pivotal Council would all die in the cemetery.


    ¡°Don¡¯t make me do this, Saleen!¡±


    ¡°Oh, Theisio, I am making you do this! What are you going to do?¡± Saleen was only 500 meters away. To a level ten professional, the distance was like having a grand swordmaster standing ten meters away.


    ¡°Bishops, I¡¯m unable to take you all and leave. Would you be willing to give your lives to god?¡±


    Theisio¡¯s Bramble Crown let out a deafening sound.


    ¡°Lord of Glory, you shameless scoundrel!¡± Saleen shouted loudly. Thunder roared, but it did not stop Theisio¡¯s divine spell.


    ¡°Lord Pope, we are willing!¡±


    The remaining holy masters were able to see that it was near impossible for them to escape. The mage in the sky seemed to possess limitless mental powers. Level nine magic spells rained down and pinned the pope, preventing him from retaliating.


    ¡°Well then, let¡¯s...do this together!¡± Theisio¡¯s voice carried mystical powers. The remaining 40 red-robed bishops opened their holy codeses and began chanting prayers of sacrifice.


    ¡°Demons!¡± Saleen shouted, and hundreds of demons formed arge magic array. Every demon was giving their lives as well. It was Constetion Sacrifice, a spell that Saleen had prepared for a long time.


    The lives of hundreds of demons were quickly drained. All of them had several thousands of years of life. Some even had up to ten thousand. With the massive numbers sacrificed, the demons¡¯ sacrifice was far more potent than the red-robed bishops.


    ck rain fell from above, sttering Theisio¡¯s defense territory.


    The rainwater seeped through, and the Divine Protection of the holy masters chanting prayers was strippedyer byyer. The ck rain fell onto their red robes and bounced, but the droplets thatnded on their skin corroded their flesh and went straight for the bone.


    The red-robed bishops all sported twisted looks, as they bore the pain and continued their chants.


    The ck rain continued to fall down on them. The three teams that Saleen had set up earlier had to retreat. Rainwater seeped in through the cracks in the armor of the knights that were hit, manifesting as magic bugs that bit the knights.


    It was only the beginning. A huge magic array formed in the sky, and a divine rune charm array was not far away from the magic array.


    Saleen aimed a level 11 magic spell and shot it into the divine rune charm array. The spell punched through the divine rune charm array, but was unable to do anything. The divine rune charm array had to be above level 13, as it was unable to be destroyed by a level 11 magic spell.


    Sacrificial arts worked slowly but were difficult to interrupt, just like how Theisio was just as helpless in stopping Saleen from sacrificing the demons.


    Theisio wore a solemn expression and continued to lead the severely injured holy masters in loud prayers.


    As pope, the effect of his prayers was the most apparent. The divine rune charm array was unusually clear in the sky. A god d in white armor emerged from the divine rune charm array.


    A huge devil emerged from the magic array of the demons as well, preparing to fight.


    Saleen¡¯s tricks were all used up. The Thunder Dragon ster needed 20 more minutes to recharge, and the lightning could only be cast in a day. The family badge needed nearly a year before it was able to be used again.


    Saleen had no time to be concerned about the potential dangers. He dove, d in extremely resilient water elemental crystals. He could cover the 500 meter in a single breath using Comet sh.


    Crack!


    Saleen¡¯s finger broke again. The finger was pointing at Theisio¡¯s Bramble Crown.


    That was not Saleen¡¯s mistake in targeting, but a result of the Bramble Crown¡¯s power.


    Saleen poured magic medicines that he had prepared beforehand to heal his finger. All 12 spells on his Starline Robe were cast at the same time.


    Theisio was wrapped in dark element all of a sudden. It was a level 11 Endless Night, and Theisio was being attacked magically from all directions.


    The sacrifice was finally halted. The god in the divine rune charm array became somewhat blurred, but the divine rune charm array was still intact. Saleen¡¯s magic spell had surrounded Theisiopletely. The remaining 11 spells cut the holy masters up to pieces.


    None of the dead bodies was in one piece. The power of earth, water, wind, fire, light and darkness was at work.


    The magic of all six elements was cast by Saleen. The level 11 spell was hidden within the magic array burst, and there was nothing the level nine holy masters could do to stop it.


    Rarrr!


    Theisio¡¯s Seal of Divine Power broke through the Endless Night, and he saw the result of Saleen¡¯s work at the same time. All of his holy masters were ughtered by a flurry of magic spells from Saleen.


    That would not have been the oue if all seven of the level ten holy masters were still intact!


    Saleen¡¯s battles were all interconnected, and there was no way Theisio knew that Saleen would be able to cast that many level 11 magic spells.


    Level 11 spells were indefensible to level nine holy masters.


    Only four of the holy masters were able to rapidly burn their lives in time, and their bodies disintegrated into holy light, attacking Saleen. However, the Water Shield on Saleen¡¯s body was level ten and there were fouryers of it. Everyyer was packed with lightning magic patterns.


    The only good lightning magic patterns did was defend against energy attacks, and they were particrly effective at doing so.


    The Flower of Evil spun again, giving birth to 360 evil angels. Saleen cast another level 11 Endless Night. That dark elemental magic was very potent and its greatest use was trapping enemies, before killing them.


    Saleen was unable to kill Theisio in time and given how the pope was armed with the God Grace Staff, he would be unable to kill the pope anyway.


    The strike from the Crystal Finger was blocked by the Bramble Crown, rendering it unusable for the time being, but Saleen was unable to use the Crystal Finger as well. He would thoroughly deplete his magic chords if he used it again.


    Saleen turned around and pounced on the Flower of Evil, taking out his family badge and pressing it onto the divine spell.


    He had not used that function of the family badge in a long time. As his level grew, Saleen was caught in such dire predicaments less and less.


    The Thunder Dragon ster was more than enough to take care of all of his problems in battle usually.


    A frightening shriek was heard from within the Flower of Evil when Saleen¡¯s family badge was pressed onto the divine spell.


    ¡°Lightning badge! How could such a thing still exist?¡±


    The petals of the Flower of Evil imploded violently, as it intended to hide itself in the void, but raging powers burst from the lightning-shaped gash on Saleen¡¯s family badge, sucking the petals in piece by piece.


    The petals of the Flower of Evil were torn and sounds that were usually only heard duringndslides were heard.


    A satisfying moan was heard from the family badge.


    ¡°Lightning badge, spare me!¡± A shrill voice begged from the center of the Flower of Evil.


    Saleen¡¯s family badge paid no heed as it continued to absorb the petals¡¯ powers. Theisio was only able to escape Endless Night then. His robe was torn to shreds, revealing the long tunic underneath.


    The pope as not allowed to dress in ck clothing ording to the rules of the Holy See.


    Theisio saw the Flower of Evil begging as soon as he escaped from the Endless Night. He threw the Seal of Divine Power in the air, intending to retrieve the Flower of Evil, but Saleen¡¯s family badge opened a ck hole, swallowing the flowerpletely.


    It was the first time Saleen saw new tricks yed by the badge, and he found it baffling.


    It was the power of rules; specifically, rules of lightning.


    In the space surrounding the family badge, less than 100 meters away, lightning shed. None of the sounds were heard. If Saleen had not already established a mystical connection with the badge, he would not have been able to see the changes.


    The Seal of Divine Power wailed and dropped onto Theisio¡¯s hand.


    Theisio turned and ran. The god¡¯s specter in the divine rune charm array broke free, but Theisio no longer felt that he had any chance ofing out on top.


    What Saleen had made even the Seal of Divine Power shudder in fear.

 Chapter 1250: Territory Creation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1250: Territory Creation (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Flower of Evil was abruptly sucked into Saleen¡¯s n badge, and the power of rules formed around it. The Flower of Evil became a supplement, allowing the n badge to be overwhelmingly strong.


    Saleen immediately used two skills: the Eye of Lightning and the Elemental Eye. He memorized the various kinds of energy wave transitions that were given off by the n badge.


    It was a lightning rule that had attained its peak. Even a god would yield before it.


    It was not possible for Saleen to learn the rules. However, by observing, he could gain territorial knowledge. First form the territory, then slowly research it. Saleen was not at all worried that he would forget it.


    More and more lightning runes appeared. The rules in the n badge were too big, and Saleen could not control them. The Eye of Lightning also advanced unexpectedly.


    Fortunately Theisio had already escaped and had not discovered Saleen¡¯s vision. If Saleen were interrupted, even if he could counterattack, he would lose the opportunity to advance his skills.


    Nailisi knew about Saleen¡¯s vision, so she gave out orders on Saleen¡¯s behalf, having J pretend to chase after Theisio. She would then lead the remaining people and demons to stay with Saleen and ensure that he was protected.


    Within the demons¡¯ magic arrays and divine rune charm arrays, the shade of a god jumped at the same time as a devil. The shade of the god waved a gigantce, which had a crescent de on one side. The devil pounced and the two living creatures grappled.


    The demons¡¯ sacrifice was thorough. Saleen had summoned a level 11 devil. Theisio¡¯s summon had only beenpleted halfway, so the god¡¯s shade did not even reach level 12.


    The two sides were equally matched, and the deafening sound of attacks sounded.


    Saleen could not hear it at all. Only the Thundering Sound could be heard in his ears.


    Saleen¡¯s pupils ovepped, and he felt his 360,000 lightning runes begin to divide. In the blink of an eye, they had grown ten times longer.


    The feeling of his pupil splitting could only be endured by Saleen. If it had been another mage, they would long have lost their minds due to the pain. Even so, it was the first time that Saleen felt that his body was unable to handle the transformation.


    Could it be that he had to pay the price with his eyes?


    As he was at a loss, the inner part of the Ring of Cosmos in Saleen¡¯s hands began to rotate. The two runes ovepped, and even more lightning runes began to appear around Saleen¡¯s body.


    The pressure on Saleen¡¯s pupils was reduced and they could slowly break down the runes.


    The n badge discovered the change in the Ring of Cosmos. It hesitated for a moment and did not try to devour the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen¡¯s Ring of Cosmos did not have the intention of devouring any energy either. It was only helping Saleen take on some of the troubles of advancing the Eye of Lightning.


    Saleen could rx and observe his own transformation. Lightning runes started to contract in the dual pupils, bing smaller and smaller. Finally, after it had more or less reached the size of an element, it stopped.


    Saleen calcted it with the Figaro Magic Form. The lightning runes in his eyes had increased up to 360,000,000.


    With so many lightning runes, if he had note across the Ring of Cosmos andpressed them to the size of an element, the power that each rune contained would be able to burst Saleen¡¯s eyeball.


    He observed the n badge once more. Saleen was able to see every nook and cranny.


    It was an ocean of lightning!


    An infinite electric current formed and dissipated within the n badge, without a continued existence. The energy of the liquid state was about to solidify. The energy that Saleen normally saved up had not fused within the n badge.


    In other words, the power Saleen used had not originated from his family¡¯s n badge¡¯s initiated attack, it had merely been a coincidence.


    The Flower of Evil had beenpletely absorbed into the n badge. The liquid within the n badge contained an endless amount of lightning. With a single breath, millions of lightning bolts were created and disappeared. The space was iparably vast. Although the Flower of Evil had been created by a god, it could not fill up the entire space.


    The purpose of the Flower of Evil was only to open up the space¡¯s exit, allowing Saleen to see the inner portion of the n badge. The soul in the Flower of Evil had been purified and smelted by the lightning. Not a thread of it remained.


    Once Saleen put his mind to it, the Water Element territory¡¯s prowess was disyed. The Water Element territory expanded to 50 square kilometers, bing extremely thin. However, Saleen immediately released the 360,000,000 lightning runes and started to integrate them into the water elements¡¯ arrangement.


    The liquid in the n badge gave Saleen an endless amount of inspiration. Imitating the energy flow within the n badge, the water elements formed a mist around Saleen¡¯s body, and lightning started to be produced.


    The lightning bolts were extremely weak, but they were a perfect match for the lightning rule.


    Saleen yelled loudly. The Thundering Sound rumbled. All of the Holy See knights within 50 kilometers fell to the ground.


    Only then did Saleen realise that the Thundering Sound was that powerful. The Holy See knights had Heaven Knight armor and all possessed the power of Zun Grand Swordmasters at the very least. With a loud yell, all of them had been defeated.


    ¡°Kill!¡± Nailisi urged the demons. The knights had not died, but were temporarily paralyzed. Nailisi couldn¡¯t be bothered to bring the knights under control. It was the cemetery of the giants and sparing the knights held no purpose.


    She had set her eyes on thousands of sets of Heaven Knight armor. The materials could be taken back, refined, and given her demon army.


    ¡°Thunder Dragon!¡± The hibernating thunder dragons flew out from Saleen¡¯s ne and rushed towards the horizon. The 24 thunder dragons rose sharply. In the blink of an eye, their bodies had expanded up to 600 meters long. Sharp horns grew out from the tops of their heads. Lightning patterns flowed along the horns, shining with an electric sh.


    Saleen threw the Goddess¡¯ Ne into the air. The ne was arranged in a circle. The Puppet Constetion was absorbed into the circle and slowly became non-existent.


    Under the tempering of the lightning, the Puppet Constetion and the Goddess¡¯ Ne fused into one body.


    The magic amplifier had been sessfully refined!


    The thunder dragons roared. Saleen felt that the Thundering Sound from the thunder dragons was not as strong as his own.


    Eight balls of lightning appeared, four ck and four white. The balls of lightning danced around Saleen. It was only after about three minutes that they slowly dissipated.


    The thunder dragons seemed to be tired and reentered the ne. The ne descended from the sky and hung around Saleen¡¯s neck once more. However, Saleen¡¯s Lightning territory did not disappear. The Puppet Constetion did not return into the ne either. Rather, it had be part of Saleen¡¯s territory.


    The Puppet Constetion produced a huge change. After Saleen¡¯s 360,000,000 lightning runes had been tempered onto the Puppet Constetion, the puppets inside it had unexpectedly started to divide, fuse, and exchange spare parts with one another.


    After 500,000 puppets were divided and grouped together, their numbers changed to 360,000. The number of puppets had been reduced, but an electric current flowed through the ones that remained. The energy was produced when the puppets moved, and had been converted to an electric current.


    Lightning Constetion!


    A vision appeared in Saleen¡¯s territory. The big guy was still a weapon¡¯s spirit, but millions of lightning runes appeared inside the big guy¡¯s body. For the other puppets, based on the differences in their rarities, most had hundreds to thousands of lightning runes in their bodies.


    Because it had fused with the Lightning Constetion, the Lightning territory¡¯s range expanded to a diameter of 60 kilometers.


    Saleen heaved a long sigh. A white electric spark was released and was gradually extinguished.


    After working for so long, he had finally created his territory. Saleen did not feel delight or grief. He just trained on the changes in his territory non-stop.


    Thundering Explosion, Thundering Shock, and Thundering Phantasm became even more powerful. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning had advanced and birthed a new skill.


    He could blow an electric spark from his mouth after reciting mantras. The attack was quick, but energy dissipated extremely quickly as well.


    Within 100 meters, Saleen was guaranteed to be able to hit any target.


    Flying Needle of Electric Sparks destroyed all defenses. Saleen no longer had to worry that his Crystal Finger would be ineffective. He could use the Flying Needle of Electric Sparks to destroy the enemy¡¯s defenses. Then, when attacking with the Crystal Finger, he would not encounter something like the Bramble Crown. Saleen¡¯s finger would not be broken again.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi felt that Saleen¡¯s skill advancement hadpleted.


    ¡°Catch up to Theisio. Don¡¯t let him run away!¡± Saleen urged, using clouds to bring everyone with him towards the entrance of the cemetery of the giants to hunt down the enemies.


    The Lightning Territory had been cultivated sessfully, but Saleen had not advanced to level 11. Theisio¡¯s rank still posed a threat to Saleen. If he left the cemetery of the giants, Theisio¡¯s three godly items could demonstrate enormous power. Furthermore, Theisio was a pope and couldmunicate with the gods.


    If he attracted the attention of the Lord of Glory, Saleen estimated that even his Lightning territory would not be able to do much to the damned god.


    The territory was not powerful enough. It was still waiting to grow.


    Unless it grew to the power of the lightning within the inner space of the n badge, it would not do. Saleen could feel that any type of living creature would not be able to survive in the n badge. If that was his territory, killing anything below level 15 would be guaranteed


    In his current territory, the most powerful attack was the eight balls of lightning. The other electric currents would not be able to handle enemies who possessed a territory.


    It was enough. He would no longer have to worry about others besieging him.


    Level 9 and below would all be paralyzed by his electric current. The lightning puppets could easily kill the enemies who could not fight back. The territory had yet to appear on the Myers Continent. Saleen was the first to cultivate and develop such a power. As for the mages before him, even if they had cultivated lightning skills, they had not been as strange as his.


    The strange properties had not been brought by the n badge, but the Ring of Cosmos, which had allowed Saleen¡¯s lightning runes to directly increase up to 360,000,000.

 Chapter 1251: Territory Creation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1251: Territory Creation (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Currently, under the effects of the territory, Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud Spell shed with electric sparks. They were the same as the lightning bolts in the n badge. They were immediately created and extinguished and could not attack enemies.


    However, under the protection of the electric sparks, there was no way for any type of curse to have an effect on Saleen¡¯s body. Nobody would be able to sneak around in such a territory.


    Eleanor saw the edges of Saleen¡¯s lips quirking upwards and could not help asking, ¡°Saleen, I felt territorial power, but it seems that this territory does not have any offensive capabilities?¡±


    ¡°How could it not have any?¡± Saleenughed. ¡°At least Agares will no longer be able to approach me.¡±


    Saleen slow his flight while he spoke. The electric current within the Quickcloud Spell had a fixed effect on increasing speed. Saleen was now flying at a speed of 150 kilometers per hour. With that kind of speed, he would very quickly catch up to Theisio.


    The pressure on the group had reduced a lot. They did not need to bother with the devil and god¡¯s shade that were still engaged in battle in the sky.


    In an hour at most, the two lives would automatically dissipate. Although Saleen really wanted to devour the god¡¯s shade to increase the power within his n badge, the most important matter was to kill Theisio. If Theisio escaped, Saleen would have no guarantee of being able to raze Holy City.


    When the cemetery of the giants was 30 kilometers away, Saleen contacted the water puppet Rossen.


    Heid down the order to intercept Theisio, and then slowed down to allow Nailisi and her party to check their equipment in preparation to surround and kill Theisio. As long as he was in his territory, Theisio¡¯s subordinates would not find it easy to kill Saleen.


    Saleen wanted to leave the three godly items behind, bring them back to Metatrin City, and think of ways to destroy them.


    Without the three godly items, even if an outstanding pope was elected, the Holy See would have no way to consolidate their power andunch an attack.


    If there was really no way to destroy them, then he would secretly seal them in the interdimensional space. The gods would have no way to perceive the presence of godly items when they were in a magical tower in the interdimensional space.


    Theisio¡¯s face was full of tears as he flew towards the exit of the cemetery of giants.


    He had been defeated thoroughly and not inconceivably. Saleen¡¯s rank was obviously not as high as his and his subordinates were not as strong as his own, but the strange skill had killed off the subordinates that he had been most proud of.


    Connecting it to the floods, Theisio¡¯s heart shook. Could it be that the gods have given up on us? Lord of Glory, my Father, have you ever heard my cries?


    Boom!


    Hundreds of magic spells shot directly at his face. Theisio lost concentration, which had allowed the magic spells to be thoroughlypleted. The Magical Element Tower stood in the way,pletely blocking the exit.


    Theisio lifted a finger. A gigantic light beam formed in front of him. When his body was submerged in the light beam, the magic spells attacked the ce he had been.


    All of the magic spells had been scattered and annihted by the light beam.


    A level 11 Holy Master could not be readily hunted down and killed by the demonic spirits. A degree of ferocity arose in Theisio¡¯s heart. Ever since he had be a Holy Master, it seemed as if he had not had such feelings.


    The Bramble Crown had temporarily lost its functios. All of the power inside it had been sealed by the Crystal Finger.


    Theisio lifted the God Grace Staff and eximed, ¡°My Father, my God, from now on, there is no way for me to obtain power. Please permit me to release the evils within my heart!¡±


    A dark and gloomy radiance was released above the God Grace Staff, encasing Theisio. Theisio, in his despair, had used the divine hell spell.


    The divine hell spell did not require prayer. It was bestowed upon the popes of every ne by the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°For every bit of light, there is an equal amount of darkness, but if light does not exist, darkness will prevail. This truth has been unchanging since ancient times. Lord of Glory, my Father, guide my directions, please don¡¯t let me be lost!¡±


    The holy and pure radiance was no longer present on Theisio¡¯s face. It had been reced with unspeakable evil.


    An everrger Flower of Evil blossom flew out from the Seal of Divine Power. This time, it was not a fallen angel that appeared, but rather an abomination.


    The water puppet Rossen, who had stayed behind to guard the tower, saw the scene and was perplexed.


    Wasn¡¯t Theisio the Lord of Glory¡¯s pope? Why would he summon an evil creature now? Could it be that the Lord of Glory had been corrupted?


    No, the God Grace Staff was still releasing a holy and pure radiance. The radiance was protecting Theisio and had not attacked the abominations that Theisio had summoned.


    The abominations had bodies of a human, but their heads were different, with goat, cow, dog, and even fish heads.


    The abominations were born from the Flower of Evil and werepletely naked. They were in the pistils and stamens of the Flower of Evil. They readily retrieved their weapons and jumped to the ground in front of Theisio.


    ¡°Abominations also need to receive guidance, just likembs. All of you, go and defeat God¡¯s enemies!¡±


    Theisio pointed at the Magical Element Tower. A dark and gloomy radiance shot out from the Seal of Divine Power. Souls appeared in the cemetery of giants from the belt around Theisio¡¯s waist, and began to charge at the various kinds of puppets.


    Puppets of God!


    The fossilized god¡¯s fragments had not beenpletely used for creating the Heaven Knight armors. The ones who had a higher level had been crafted into Puppets of God. The Puppets of God had fused with the souls released by Theisio. It was as if empty shells had been filled. They wove around weapons and followed the demons to rush towards the Magical Element Tower.


    The Magical Element Tower once again released a series of attacks. The water puppet Rossen unhurriedly threw an elemental creature into therge magic power furnace.


    The only thing the demonic spirits possessed was mental power. Their hand-to-handbat was not equivalent to imps. The demonic spirits did not even need magic chords inside the magic. Hence, having seen therge number of demons and Puppets of God, Rossen triggered the attack formation.


    600 magic spells shot out at the same time. The demons shed the grey-colored light of hell, resisting the attack of the magic spells.


    The magic spells covered both the sky and the earth and caused a disaster in front of the Magical Element Tower.


    Boom!


    A demon with amb¡¯s head lifted a gigantic battlehammer and smashed it against the Magical Element Tower. The Magical Element Tower swayed for a moment. Under the attack of the demons, the 200-meter tower had no way to remain steady.


    The cemetery of giants could not be used by the Magical Element Tower. Magical towers could not be connected to thend to form one body. Saleen had just dug a hold and slotted the magical tower in it, using it as a means of stability.


    Even more demons rushed forward. Some of the demons were 30 or more meters tall.


    The Puppets of God were not too big, but their power was not much less than the demons. The gigantic weapons were brandished, and the Magical Elemental Tower swayed.


    It would not take much time for the Magical Element Tower¡¯s swaying to reach the limits for maintaining stability. It did not even need to copse. As long as an openingrge enough for one person to go through was made, Theisio would be able to escape.


    Theisio was confused. Releasing the evils within their heart was the pope¡¯sst resort, so why were the demons so strong, and why were there so many?


    Could it be that a heavy burden had been concealed deep in his heart? If he was like this, could it be considered corruption? Oh God, please save me!


    ¡°Theisio, you can stop!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was transmitted out. The Lightning territory had enveloped the exit of the cemetery. Within a range of a few kilometers around the Flower of Evil, the demons had all been protected. However, the demons and Puppets of God who had rushed to attack the Magical Element Tower were slowed down within the electric current. They were dyed, and their power level had also dropped.


    All properties were weakened in the Lightning Territory. Even the pope felt as if he had descended by one rank.


    ¡°Saleen, if I die, it will attract the attention of God. My death will trigger the descent of God!¡± Theisio threatened Saleen.


    ¡°Very good. It just so happens that my equipment iscking a god to be its weapon¡¯s spirit. Theisio, you are foolish. I am a mage. Mages are the enemy of gods. I will not be like you, choosing to prolong my death. If the gods descend, I will choose to have a final showdown.¡±


    ¡°You are the one who is foolish. You will never understand the majesty of the gods!¡±


    ¡°Theisio, I was the one who gave the Seal of Divine Power to Fycro. Don¡¯t you know what the Holy See has be? You are still trying in vain to change this ce into God¡¯s country?¡± Saleen lied, but used was astrology skills.


    Chaos of Fate, this skill would give enemies all kinds of wrong delusions.


    Theisio had always treated Saleen as a mage. He had never paid any mind to his other identity. Astrologer was even more mysterious than a mage.


    Theisio had not noticed that the Saleen, who stood hundreds of meters in front of him, was actually a shade. Saleen¡¯s actual person was still more than 20 kilometers away.


    Thundering Phantasm was able to appear anywhere in Saleen¡¯s territory. It was just like Saleen, except it did not have Saleen¡¯s numerous skills.


    Theisio was aplete mess. Saleen had given the Seal of Divine Power to Fycro? Fycro had actually lied to him, saying she had killed a powerful mage and obtained the Seal of Divine Power.


    Impossible. How could a mage who possessed the Seal of Divine Power kill Fycro? The mage seemed to be a well-established mage trainer from Qin. Fycro was powerful, but could not match him. If he did not have the three godly items, it would also be difficult for him to kill a mage who possessed the Seal of Divine Power.


    Furthermore, two of his godly items and the Seal of Divine Power were able to react to one another. Fycro had always used mysterious skills to sever the reactions.


    Fycro had betrayed the gods!


    The shock that the news gave Theisio was even greater than Saleen¡¯s killing of his subordinates. Who was Fycro? He was the envoy of God, the person closest to the gods on this ne and had received the favor of the gods the most.


    If the Lord of Glory was the sun, then Fycro was the constetion beside the sun. Even when the sun was up, it would be unable to conceal the radiance of the constetion.


    It had not been said by Fycro, but rather by the god¡¯s orders that had descended from the gods.


    The oracle who was closest to the gods had betrayed them?


    ¡°Theisio, just die quietly. There is no way for you tomunicate with your gods!¡± As Saleen spoke, his actual person was half a kilometer from Theisio. At the same time, the level 11 phantom appeared.

 Chapter 1252: God-exterminating Thundering Sound (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1252: God-exterminating Thundering Sound (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen created 12 Thundering Phantasms. The power obtained from being in the territory. Originally, he could only create six. Nailisi and J stood in the middle of the phantasms, enclosing around Theisio.


    Theisio shook his head. ¡°Saleen, do you really think you can kill me? I am Theisio, the spokesperson of the gods. Gods can grind you into powder easily and send your soul to hell to suffer forever.¡±


    Saleen shook his head, too. ¡°Theisio, do you know? Do you really think I cannot kill you? I have many methods to deal with gods. The simplest one is to let my imps eat your soul and digest it. Even your Lord of Glory would not be able to give you any redemption.¡±


    Theisio¡¯s face distorted. ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter. The imp would be captured by the gods and broken down into a soul to refine me once again. It is divine crafting; you would not know it.¡±


    ¡°Divine crafting? Hahahaha. Theisio, you really want to know what is hidden inside that energy barrier, don¡¯t you?¡±


    Theisio¡¯s face stiffened. 13 Saleens were talking to him, but he did not dare to examine them with a skill. The phantasm was a trap. Since he knew that, he would not be tricked by it again.


    ¡°The cemetery of the giants contains the gods hunted down by the King of Glory. Some are many times stronger than than your Lord of Glory. The gods have been repenting before the cemetery of the giants for thousands of years. What is the Lord of Glorypared to that? I am cursing at him before his Pope. Even so, he has no way to descend upon this ne. Compared to humanity, gods are just a pile of trash.¡±


    Theisio looked at Saleen from afar. Only one of the thirteen Saleens was real.


    ¡°Saleen, you have forced me up here. I admit that you are very strong. Your luck is also very good. However, when you curse the gods, you will be subjected to the gods¡¯ wrath. Have you not at all found it strange how I was able to take control of two oracles?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not strange. It could simply have been a chance encounter. Otherwise, a person like you would forever be stuck at level 10.¡± Saleen also did not attack. He just calmly allowed his subordinates to kill the abominations and Puppets of God with the lightning puppets.


    ¡°Rough Stone of Darkness,e out!¡± Theisio summoned a gigantic stone. The stone blocked the cemetery¡¯s exit. Theisio burst intoughter. ¡°Saleen, you want to trap me here until I die? You won¡¯t leave either!¡±


    Theisio leapt and was embedded within the Rough Stone of Darkness. He was not willing to show himself any longer.


    Saleen paused, then pointed his finger. A white ball of lightning flew out and crashed into the Rough Stone of Darkness.


    A strong power erupted from the stone. Saleen quickly raised his territory. Electric currents shot wildly from his territory. Outside his territory, the Rough Stone of Darkness and the ball of lightning collided. The ball of lightning was merged into the Rough Stone of Darkness. The stone also reflected a huge energy assault that headed directly towards Saleen and his party.


    Saleen¡¯s territory received a fierce impact. He had no choice but to release the Water Shield in session to buffer against the tremors.


    The Water Shield was not only used for self-defense. The bubble had a diameter of about 10 meters. It met the top of the energy assault head on. The bubble fiercely changed shape. It was constantly beingpressed, bounced around, and destroyed.


    Saleen had no choice but to retreat. He was not afraid of the Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ counterattack, but the people by his side had been affected by it. Eleanor, Sul, Daniel and Isabe were unable to bear it.


    Only someone with level 10 strength would be able to bear the energy fluctuations of the Rough Stone of Darkness.


    Four subordinates had received light injuries. Saleen might as well retreat far away. As he looked at the Rough Stone of Darkness, Saleen was somewhat dazed. It was too sturdy. If his n badge shot at it, perhaps it would only be able to kill Theisio, who was concealed inside it. However, it was evident that there was no way the stone would be sted to pieces.


    Furthermore, the energy fluctuations that would be caused by sting the Rough Stone of Darkness into pieces would probably destroy the cemetery¡¯s exit.


    Evidently, Theisio was not afraid of death and had decided to waste away with him. How could a human enter a stone? The stone was not even a piece of spatial equipment!


    Saleen had never thought that his continuous provocation of Theisio would actually force Theisio into a dead end. It looked like Theisio wanted to sacrifice himself, and also wanted to trap Saleen.


    Saleen couldn¡¯t help butugh. It was an impossible matter.


    He had expanded his territory. Under the envelopment of the Lightning Constetion, establishing an internar teleportation portal was still possible. At most, the teleportation portal would not be fueled by magic chords. Six small magic power furnaces would be ced. An elemental creature would be ced in each magic power furnace. The resulting power would be sufficient to send him back to Metatrin City.


    Even the Divine Kingdom could not trap him. How could a space that was targeted towards the gods be able to trap him, a mage?


    However Saleen increasingly felt that his teacher was really a wise military genius to have established a fixed transmission point at Metatrin City. Although there was the danger of being attacked from the inside, it was also convenient for people toe and go.


    ¡°There is no way I can respect someone who has lost courage.¡± Saleen looked at the Rough Stone of Darkness. He felt that he had so many pieces of equipment, but he was somewhat disheartened.


    Ultimately, Theisio had not dared to face him in head-to-head battle, but had chosen to drag him down with him. Was blocking off the exit the only method?


    Saleen¡¯s territory was released and the Lightning Constetion shone high in the sky. This transformation was so inspirational, it was as if it hade from one of Jalin¡¯s descriptions. The bright moon in the middle of the cemetery of the giants was controlling all of the gods.


    The Rough Stone of Darkness was only targeting Saleen. The demons and Puppets of God were not impacted. Nailisi and the others still had to patiently eliminate them one by one. The Magical Element Tower was on the other side of the exit that had been blocked by the Rough Stone of Darkness, and could no longer help Saleen.


    The Flower of Evil!


    Saleen held the n badge in his hand and pounced once again. The pregnant soul within the Flower of Evil felt terror. The demons from the Flower of Evils turned back and began to attack Saleen.


    Saleen was unfamiliar with the demons. They had been created by the gods. The gods had created the evil creatures for the sake of telling their disciples that the gods were pure and noble.


    As a mage, the theory was difficult to ept. Saleen could only exterminate the demons.


    The Rough Stone of Darkness had already devoured Theisio. Saleen was not clear on whether Theisio would evere out or if he had died. The Tempest Dragonmight appeared and blew the demons away. Saleen held the n badge in his hands and pressed it on the Flower of Evil. The n badge¡¯s ability to absorb energy was still present. A piercing sound rang out from the flower.


    Escape! Quickly escape!


    This time, Saleen was quite clear about it. Millions of creatures cried out from within the Flower of Evil.


    Indeed, the Flower of Evil was a space created by the gods. The power in it was equivalent to an army of a million demons. The Flower of Evil was also able to provide energy. The demons could be revived in the Flower of Evil.


    However, now that the Flower of Evil had been frantically absorbed into the n badge, the demons also felt that theirst days had arrived.


    Within the Flower of Evil,munications were sent to hell. Although the God of Purgatory had betrayed the Lord of Glory, he was unable to prevent the Lord of Glory from retrieving demons from hell to fight for the gods.


    Of course, the envoys of hell would also tempt disciples to corruption, enter hell, and became warriors under the God of Purgatory.


    The Flower of Evil had been absorbed. The power that the Flower of Evil contained was sufficient to allow Saleen¡¯s n badge to create excess energy and release a lightning attack. However, in Saleen¡¯s opinion, the best function of the n badge right now was to allow him to observe the rules of lightning that had already been opened in its inner space.


    On the Rough Stone of Darkness, a gigantic god¡¯s shade gradually solidified and took form.


    Theisio¡¯s voice transmitted out. ¡°Saleen, this is the Dark God of Destruction. All evil creatures are his disciples. Let¡¯s see how you can kill a god!¡±


    Saleen readily ced a ck ball of lightning. The ck lightning headed directly towards the shade of the Dark God of Destruction. The ce where the lightning had gone over, the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s body was already broken into pieces under the effects of the electric current.


    ¡°Theisio, I am most unafraid of this type of god. Obviously, it is already dead, but it still wants to hurt me with its residual power?¡± Saleen¡¯s mouth stiffened, but he knew that the Dark God of Destruction and the Rough Stone of Darkness were difficult to handle.


    If the Rough Stone of Darkness could be approached, it was doable. He could use the n badge to absorb it. However, the explosive power released by the Rough Stone of Darkness made it difficult for Saleen toe within 100 meters of it.


    Theisio¡¯s voice disappeared. Saleen had easily broken one god¡¯s shade. Such power caused others to feel grim.


    Originally, the god¡¯s shade could not be touched at all, unless it was after the shade became substantial. However, when the shade became substantial, it would approximately have level 13 power and could easily eliminate the mage in front of it.


    The second Dark God of Destruction¡¯s shade began to solidify. Theisio no longer spoke. He did not believe that Saleen¡¯s skill could be utilized without limit. However, the power contained within the Rough Stone of Darkness could summon god¡¯s shades almost limitlessly.


    Saleen also knew that although his balls of lightning had increased in number, but he could only release eight in one day. If the skill to summon god¡¯s shades could be used limitlessly, he was really in trouble. Could it be that he still had to use the n badge to settle the problem?


    One Thundering Phantasm pounced up and headed directly towards the Rough Stone of Darkness. A strong energy assault was released from the Rough Stone of Darkness, but the Thundering Phantasm was not affected. It passed through the waves of energy and pounced onto the god¡¯s shade.


    With a ¡®poof,¡¯ the two phantasms were destroyed. The Thundering Sound within the phantasm erupted, immediately exploding within the god¡¯s shade. Before the shade had formed a solid body, it could not resist the tremors of the Thundering Sound and was broken down into granules the size of an element by the Thundering Sound. It could no longer solidify.


    Saleen was delighted. Theisio was stunned.


    Both were clear that Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasm could be utilized many times. The Thundering Phantasm relied entirely on mental power to mobilize lightning runes. Saleen¡¯s mental power was so abundant that very few people would be able to surpass him.

 Chapter 1253: God-exterminating Thundering Sound (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1253: God-exterminating Thundering Sound (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°I am relieved.¡± Saleenughed. He summoned the people beside him and allowed Nailisi to lead everyone in cleaning up the ancient battlefield and abandoned city. Saleen stood guard 5 kilometers from the Rough Stone of Darkness and used his Thundering Phantasm to destroy the god¡¯s shades from the Rough Stone of Darkness.


    Theisio could not help but feel immense regret. He had entered the rough stone, and leaving was far too difficult. Unless Saleen allowed him to quietly summon a god to create a body for him, he would be trapped within the Rough Stone of Darkness until his death.


    How could Saleen allow his summoning to be sessful. Only the two oracles would foolishly allow him toplete the action.


    The Rough Stone of Darkness was like a small mountain, blocking the exit of the cemetery of the giants. Saleen used his territory to envelop the Rough Stone of Darkness. The stone was unable to disperse Saleen¡¯s territory and continuously release energy assaults. Saleen could stand at a ce that was further away as much as possible to wait for Theisio¡¯s summon skill.


    Once there was a shade, Saleen released a Thundering Phantasm. It only possessed offensive power under certain circumstances.


    Saleen recalled a proverb, ¡®there is no magic spell that is ineffective.¡¯.


    Theisio had ced himself in a hopeless situation. As he recalled the entire process, Theisio discovered that if he had not made mistakes in one part of the process, he still would havee to this situation. It was as if it was Fate¡¯s arrangement. He had put up an intense struggle, but he had struggled into an even deeper mire. Of the choices he had made, there were a few times where he had felt muddleheaded.


    Was Saleen fortunate, or was someone helping him?


    A skill of fate was something that the Lord of Glory definitely did not possess. Only a professional who was at least level 16 would be able to perform it.


    Furthermore, up till now, Theisio did not have any grounds to choose. He had to summon the Dark God of Destruction. It consumed the power in his three godly items. Now, they werepeting to see who would be able tost to the end. If Saleen¡¯s magic could not be released, then he would only be able to look on as the Dark God of Destruction took form and killed all of the living creatures within the cemetery.


    Theisio gritted his teeth and persevered. He did not believe that a level 10 mage would be able tost against a level 11 holy master with three godly items for long. Destroying the summon skill could only be done by Saleen. No matter how many subordinates Saleen had, they would not be able to approach the Rough Stone of Darkness.


    Of course, Saleen understood that. He had calcted it very clearly. With the speed of his mental power regeneration, he could not keep releasing the Thundering Phantasm. However, he still had the Thunder Dragon ster, which could also destroy the Dark God of Destruction. While using the Thunder Dragon ster, he could take the time to rest and recover his mental power.


    Theisio wanted to exhaust his mental power. He needed to consume all of the divine crystals he had on him before he could even think about it.


    Saleen was not at all anxious. He slowly analyzed the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s shade.


    The image of the Dark God of Destruction was a god in human form and about 30 meters tall. The god¡¯s facial features were cold and handsome and did not appear particrly evil. He had three arms. The third arm held arge snake.


    The two normal arms held weapons. One held a warhammer, and the other carried a square shield.


    A god who liked to battle was not easy to deal with. No matter what, Saleen could not let the Dark God of Destructione out. He had a means of escape, if it was necessary. He could enter the energy barrier for Lex¡¯s protection.


    Time dragged on. Saleen calcted that Theisio¡¯s summoning the gods was slower and slower. It was not because Theisio¡¯s capabilities had increased, but because Theisio was testing Saleen¡¯s power.


    Saleen¡¯s calcting was stronger than Theisio¡¯s. He was able to calcte that, unless Theisio was able to use frames as a unit of measurement in summoning the gods, his mental power could hold for a few days.


    Saleen retrieved the Thunder Dragon ster to refine it again.


    The runes on the Thunder Dragon ster were too simple.He possessed 360,000,000 lightning runes, so he could promote the Thunder Dragon ster to a higher grade.


    The Thunder Dragon ster originally shot lightning icicles. Saleen no longer needed that as he knew how to condense balls of lightning. Using the Thunder Dragon ster to shoot out a ball of lightning would be a fatal attack.


    What Saleen needed to consider was whether or not to retain the power of the lightning icicles.


    Releasing a ball of lightning would be too stressful for the Thunder Dragon ster. The time would take to recover would probably be way too long. Saleen was also afraid that the Thunder Dragon ster would refine into a piece of equipment that he could only use once in half a year. He could not bear it.


    Saleen calmed his mind, retrieved the level 19 Star Gathering Needle, and began to draw star charts on the inner part of the Thunder Dragon ster. If he wanted to stabilize the Thunder Dragon ster, it was a necessary procedure. After the thunder dragon materials had been refined, they would be at the pinnacle of level 16. Adding in star charts and starlines made sure that the equipment would not be under too much pressure every time a ball of lightning was released.


    The power of the constetions in the Star Gathering Needle was poured into the star charts by Saleen. Saleen had already decided to gift the Star Gathering Needle to Gaine, sp there was no longer any need to conserve the power inside it.


    What Gaine wanted was the needle, not the power in it. Gaine would be able to escape from the Astrology Tower with the needle. After escaping from the Astrology Tower and entering a higher ranked Crystal Wall system, Gaine wished to regain a human body, which was not difficult either.


    The Thunder Dragon¡¯s appearance did not change much. The starlines and star charts were engraved on the inner part of the Thunder Dragon ster. Saleen was timid. He wanted to avoid destroying the properties of the materials themselves. If not for the fact that thunder dragons were naturally able to manipte electric currents, the Thunder Dragon ster could not possibly have been smelted either.


    If the materials were destroyed, it would be very difficult for Saleen to find the same materials again.


    Saleen refined 360 star charts in the pipe of the Thunder Dragon ster. The star charts consumed arge portion of the energy in the level 19 Star Gathering Needle. The constetions¡¯ radiance flowed along the Thunder Dragon ster. Only then did millions of lightning runes fly out before Saleen¡¯s eyes and gradually vanish inside the Thunder Dragon ster.


    The original magic patterns had been modified. Saleen used the magic arrays crafted by his thunder dragons as a basis to refine the Thunder Dragon ster once more. Water mes enveloped the insides of the entire ster. Saleen only put in a miniscule amount of Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water.


    It was as if a life was born in the inner part of the Thunder Dragon ster. Saleen felt the tremors of Thundering Sound that had not been released by him. Saleen hurriedly ced Water mes into the Genesis Stock Solution. The item could catalyze the creation of Weapon¡¯s Spirits.


    A huge thunder dragon shade surfaced in the ster. The thunder dragon was over 600 meters long. It roared in Saleen¡¯s lightning territory. Saleen looked at the weapon¡¯s spirit he had created and without hesitation, he measured out even more Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water from his ne and gave it to the thunder dragon¡¯s shade to devour.


    The thunder dragon suddenly drilled into the Thunder Dragon ster. It seemed that it was impossible for the shade to be a real thunder dragon. Saleen did not mind. He saw that the Thunder Dragon ster had changed into the likeness of the shade.


    The space between the two sharp horns on its head had formed an octagonal magic array. The middle of the array was the ce where the ball of lightning would be released. The mouth of the Thunder Dragon ster continued to be where the lightning icicles were released.


    Saleen was extremely satisfied. It was already good that this item had not been spoiled.


    A small silver ball of lightning appeared between the two horns of the Thunder Dragon ster. It was probably only the size of a pinecone, while the size of the balls of lightning created by Saleen¡¯s thunder dragons were the size of a watermelon.


    The difference between the energy contained in the two types of lightning was not small. Saleen was satisfied. Although arge ball of lightning was powerful, it was still a waste of energy. The ball of lightning was small, but it was sufficient to kill strong enemies. The area in which lightning was the most amazing was rules. No matter how little energy was contained in it, it surpassed most of the magic spells that Saleen knew.


    The power contained in this pinecone-sized ball of lightning surpassed all of the level 13 divine spell attacks that Saleen had encountered before.


    He didn¡¯t know how fast it was.


    The scales of the dragon body of the Thunder Dragon ster were still growing. Four dragon ws sped Saleen¡¯s arm. Saleen felt like a thunder dragon was growing on his arm. The feeling allowed Saleen to be more familiar with the rules of lightning.


    As for the weapon¡¯s spirit inside, Saleen tried to summon it, feeling that the weapon¡¯s spirit did not have much intelligence. He would still need his own mental power to maneuver the piece of equipment when he used it.


    The good thing was that Saleen had time. He did not expect that once he was a level 10, he would be able to refine a satisfactory piece of equipment.


    Saleen quickly recovered his mental power with a divine crystal. The refining session had consumed over half of his mental power. The Dark God of Destruction¡¯s shades were still appearing from the Rough Stone of Darkness increasingly quickly.


    Saleen waited until after the growth of the scales of the Thunder Dragon ster waspleted. Only then did he raise his arm to shoot a silver ball of lightning.


    The silver colored ball of lightning was under the control of Saleen¡¯s mental power and flew in a straight line. it was also much faster, close to the speed of a bow and arrow.


    The ball of lightning had not dissipated after 5 kilometers. Saleen maneuvered it, even making a curve in the air. Being slow had its benefits, as the lightning was very easy for Saleen to manipte. He did not feel as if his mental power was burning away.


    It had a weapon¡¯s spirit. The effects of its usage obviously surpassed its original self.


    The Dark God of Destruction had already descended to his death. What the Rough Stone of Darkness summoned was merely the power of rules that had been formed before. It could simte the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s power and properties. The stone was even more stable than a divine persona. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the Dark God of Destruction had been born from that piece of stone.


    The ball of lightning hit the newly appeared god¡¯s shade dead on. This time, the lightning was not destroyed along with the shade. Rather, it erupted with a strong Thundering Sound, shaking the clone until it shattered. Then, the ball of lightning crashed into the Rough Stone of Darkness headfirst.

 Chapter 1254: The Corruption of the Pope (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1254: The Corruption of the Pope (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Theisio¡¯s physical body had already been melted away. His soul was in the Rough Stone of Darkness, resting in the Bramble Crown. Although the Bramble Crown had been damaged by Saleen, it was still a powerful godly item. It was thanks to the Bramble Crown that Theisio had dared to give up his body.


    The silver ball of lightning had actually entered inside the Rough Stone of Darkness and headed straight for the Bramble Crown.


    Within the Rough Stone of Darkness, the God Grace Staff had opened up a ce to contain the three godly items. Theisio had received the stone and had used it to tempt two oracles who had betrayed the gods and bring them back. The quality of the Rough Stone of Darkness had been tested by Theisio many times and there had never been any means to destroy it. Even the Seal of Divine Power could not create the slightest scratch on its surface.


    Originally Theisio had thought that it was impossible for the Rough Stone of Darkness to suffer any damage. Now he felt some panic, and he hurriedly manipted the Seal of Divine Power to resist against the lightning¡¯s attack.


    The ball of lightning melted into the Seal of Divine Power. A shrill howling erupted from the Seal of Divine Power.


    The ball of lightning vanished. Theisio felt a bit of the brand deep in his soul had been erased. Saleen¡¯s attack had actually caused him to lose his responsiveness towards the Seal of Divine Power.


    If his physical body was still around, it would not mean much. He would have been able to recover his control in an hour. However, now only his soul that was hidden within the Bramble Crown was remaining, so he could no longer summon the Seal of Divine Power again.


    Of course, there was no way for Saleen to perceive the changes in the Rough Stone of Darkness. He was checking his Thunder Dragon ster. The hovering magic array was still between the thunder dragon¡¯s two horns. It was just temporarily unable to solidify a ball of lightning.


    Saleen was disappointed. The skill was not able to attack consecutively, but it was good that the lightning icicles could still be used.


    Saleen hardened his heart and retrieved the water element god¡¯s divine persona, tossing it between the thunder dragon¡¯s two horns. Then, he used his 360,000,000 lightning runes to begin refining it.


    Saleen was a wastrel. If the water element god¡¯s divine persona was given to a powerful mage to refine, they would be able to refine a godly item that was at least at level 16. The godly item would allow the might of all of Saleen¡¯s water element magic spells to increase and would reduce the magic chord consumption to the lowest levels permitted by theory.


    The godly item would be able to store water element magic spells and save the level 16 ones. Saleen was just letting the divine persona store a ball of lightning.


    He had no means to change the various properties of the divine persona. He could only use its special trait of being difficult to destroy to refine a magic array on top to contain the ball of lightning.


    Saleen had not even used 0.01% of the divine persona¡¯s effectiveness.


    However, Saleen was satisfied. The Thunder Dragon ster would be able to shoot out two balls of lightning. Lightning magic was his future. No divine persona would be able to rece it!


    Theisio¡¯s Seal of Divine Power had been damaged by Saleen, and he felt somewhat despondent. What was wrong with him? If he had not hidden and used the three godly items in a decisive battle, Saleen would not have been able to take advantage of him.


    ¡°Saleen, why?¡± Theisio summoned the Dark God of Destruction.


    ¡°What do you mean why?¡±


    ¡°Why do you want to establish Nature City? Why do you want to revive Myers!¡±


    ¡°Because, I am thoroughly pissed off by the Holy See!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice spread out from the phantasms¡¯ mouths, sounding hollow.


    Saleen would never tell Theisio about the contract. He was reviving the Goddess because he had no choice.


    ¡°You are a mage. Why would you ever want to revive a god!¡±


    ¡°Treat it as me training myself.¡± Saleen was not willing to give Theisio a satisfactory answer. The speed at which Theisio summoned the gods was bing slower and slower. Theisio¡¯s power would eventually bepleted exhausted. Saleen could already see the dawn of victory.


    The Holy See had been established for 1,000 years in name only. In reality, it had been hidden on the Myers Continent for more than 6,000 years. The cumtion of thousands of years had actually lost to Saleen.


    Saleen was a true nouveau riche. The materials for his equipment had basically all originated from the Goddess¡¯ temples. He had been blessed with the luck of the Goddess. Hence, although Saleen¡¯s journey had been fraught with danger, but he had always been able to make a miraculouseback.


    The Goddess had arranged for a grand spectacle. She wanted to revive when the Myers Continent was regaining its power. Her fortune would increase sharply. The Lord of Glory would be immersed in a war with numerous gods and would not be able to mind the Myers Continent.


    The humans and gods were engaged in a long battle. Gods level 16 and above almost went extinct. The ones who were fortunate enough to survive did not dare to ck off even the tiniest bit. The strong humans had notpletely disappeared either. Some even had the possibility of being revived. The gods went on reciprocal conquests for the sake of increasing their own power.


    If a level 15 god wanted to advance to level 16, it was not known how many hundreds of millions of years it would take. For humans, it was way too fast. It caused the gods to feel jealous and terrified.


    The Lord of Glory had gone through the battles at the beginning. He was fully aware that if he did not make the most of his time, even if the humans only had a slim chance of revival, he would be reduced to a ve.


    The Crown of Glory was refined by 18 kings of gods. Predictably, once the greedy humans developed, they would cause a great disaster to fall upon the gods. The Lord of Glory did not intend for his divine persona to be a human essory, so he frantically increased his strength and coveted the Myers Continent.


    The gods did not want to differentiate between who was right or wrong, or who was just or evil. Everyone was doing it for the sake of survival. Bing an unparalleled existence was the only choice.


    Saleen was not anxious. Theisio was already mourning as if he was dead. If it had not been Saleen and his followers who had surrounded and killed him, things would not have gone to that extent.


    Forget it. Forget it!


    Theisio was already in a soul state and could not shed tears. He simply went into the Crown of Glory, bowed to the ball of white radiance in the crown. ¡°My God, my Father, forgive me. I have be corrupted and can no longer preach. Please don¡¯t redeem my soul...¡±


    The ball of white light seemed to understand Theisio¡¯s words. There was an intense tremor. However, under Theisio¡¯s determination, his soul flew out of the Bramble Crown and flew directly to the centre of the Rough Stone of Darkness.


    The centre of the stone had a narrow space. The space had been hurriedly opened and was only about 100 meters across. A pile of bones had sunken into the middle of the space. The bones had already broken up, and there were hundreds of metallic armor leaves besides them.


    Theisio did not overthink, he pounced on the skeleton, sending his soul into it.


    A ck mist was suddenly given off. The armor scattered on the floor and reassembled a step before the skeleton. The pile of bones automatically restored itself with a crack.


    The ck mist was absorbed into the bones, and blood, flesh, and skin grew on the bones. The bones had miraculously changed after Theisio had attached himself to it.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± The skeleton stood and roared loudly towards the sky. The skeleton shook violently once again, as if it was enduring boundless pain.


    The armor assembled itself. Long and sharp stingers grew out. They pierced through the armor and gathered together. Theisio¡¯s voice was grieved and angered. He cursed loudly, and saw the third arm below his ribs.


    He was no longer human!


    The pile of bones was the original body of the Dark God of Destruction. After bing a god, the body had be useless and was sent into the Rough Stone of Darkness by the Dark God of Destruction as a memento. Now that the skeleton was being upied by Theisio and divine power was poured into it, it caused Theisio tremendous pain.


    The flesh that had grown on his body had darkness property.


    Finally, Theisio could not bear the pain and no longer resisted. He allowed the third arm below his ribs to grow flesh. The snake skeleton in its hands grew. The writhing snake¡¯s eyes were pitch-ck. It wound around Theisio¡¯s body, using its tongue to sniff his scent.


    Its memories were in pieces. The snake only remembered that its master had be a god, after that, it could no longer remember anything.


    ¡°Master!¡± The great snake transmitted a piece of information to Theisio.


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°Your weapon is...¡±


    Theisio raised his hand. From a narrow space in the Rough Stone of Darkness, a warhammer and a square shield flew to his hands. The Rough Stone of Darkness was like an egg where the Dark God of Destruction was incubating. There were so many miraculous things that Theisio could not grasp them all.


    ¡°Master, you must absorb sufficient darkness. Otherwise, we will be dispelled by the light.¡± The great snake reminded its master. It had detected that its master was muddled and could not control the power of darkness.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got it.¡± Theisio allowed the dark mist to permeate his body, modifying his body to be stronger and stronger.


    The strength was foregin. There was not a shred of simrity with the things that Theisio had mastered before.


    Originally, the skeleton was only about two meters tall. After absorbing the darkness force, it grew to about 6 meters. The weapons in Theisio¡¯s hands grew ordingly and absorbed the dark mist.


    The pain disappeared. Theisio knew that he had bepletely corrupted and could no longer return to the Lord of Glory¡¯s side. However, the corruption had brought Theisio an endless amount of delight.


    The feeling of delight was hard to describe in words, it was like...


    It was like the first time he had basked in god¡¯s favor, that feeling of when holy light had shone upon his soul.


    So corruption...was like that!


    Originally, Theisio had advanced to level 11. After he had obtained the body, he felt that his power had strengthened even further. Corruption brought power to a person. No wonder the God of Purgatory had wanted to betray the Lord of Glory.


    The feeling of himself being a master was so good!


    It was the first time in his life that Theisio could make decisions for himself. Originally he had wanted to borrow the body of the Dark God of Destruction to make Saleen die with him. Now, his feelings had changed. He did not want to continue fighting with Saleen. Instead, he wanted to find a ce where nobody would find him and analyze the power of darkness.

 Chapter 1255: The Corruption of the Pope (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1255: The Corruption of the Pope (Part 2)</h4>


    Only darkness can be eternal.


    The sentence surfaced in Theisio¡¯s mind. He faintly felt that if he followed down the path that the sentence was pointing towards, he could be a god.


    The three godly items had perceived Theisio¡¯s corruption. The corruption was so thorough that even the three godly items could not bear it. They emitted a buzz in the Rough Stone of Darkness, wanting to break out and fly away.


    How was that possible?


    Millions of ck threads were woven intos, encapsting the three godly items. The threads contaminated the surface of the godly items and infiltrated their insides.


    The quality of the godly items¡¯ materials was outstanding. They had been forged from the skeleton of a god above level 16. The ones who had survived the great war between the humans and gods in the beginning had taken considerable advantage.


    Such a high level divine item would only be bestowed upon the sole Pope of each n by the Lord of Glory.


    The threads saw that there was no way for them to enter the three godly items. They became worms and began to gnaw away at them.


    Light coexists with darkness, but it cannot exist simultaneously with darkness forever.


    The Holy Codex had that written in it. The dark worms gnawed at the light godly items, causing them to turn into ashes.


    Light and dark are like day and night. Only when daylightes to an end can the dark night descend.


    The Holy Codex said it.


    The worms were infinite. The ashes of the worms turned back into ck threads and bound the three godly items. Daylight woulde to an end.


    The fallen Dark God of Destruction had spoken the words.


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    Who was right and who was wrong?


    The power in the three godly items was as great as the sea. The Rough Stone of Darkness was like a ne, and one formed with the power of darkness.


    Two of the three godly items suffered from severe damage.


    The Crystal Finger and the ball of lightning both strongly restrained the use of godly power.


    ¡°What a pity...¡± Theisio sighed. Although the three godly items would definitely not be able to win against the power of the Rough Stone of Darkness, they could not be used by him either.


    The divinity of the Lord of Glory was too strong. When the power of darkness ate into it, the final result could only be the destruction of the three godly items. The sturdier an object was, the more difficult it was to repair.


    The three godly items were destroyed, and Theisio had no way to reverse the oue. If the Rough Stone of Darkness did not erode them, or if the godly items had not had such an intense reaction towards his corruption, the situation would not have urred.


    There was no way both sides could be satisfied. Theisio could only look on with wide eyes as the such precious godly items headed toward their ruin.


    Theisio¡¯s body was continuously strengthening. He had upied the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s body and could endlessly obtain power from the Rough Stone of Darkness. He felt intoxicated.


    Theisio stopped summoning god¡¯s shades at the Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ surface.


    ¡°This is extraordinary!¡± Saleen continued to admire the perfection of the Thunder Dragon ster. The divine persona had merged into the Thunder Dragon ster. It still needed the Genesis Stock Solution to be added to it. Otherwise, the two types of materials would repulse each other, and Saleen would need to continuously pour in his power to maintain its stability.


    The process did not take much time. About an hour was enough.


    Saleen retrieved his n badge and aimed it at the Rough Stone of Darkness. He did not have any guarantee that the n badge could destroy the Rough Stone of Darkness, because he had experienced some powerful godly item equipment for which shooting out lightning with his n badge only destroyed one of its properties, weapon¡¯s spirits, or caused it to temporarily lose the equipment¡¯s ability.


    The lightning might not have been able to destroy all of the power, or maybe the lightning had not reached such an extent.


    Saleen had to wait for the true disturbance to appear. Otherwise, one shot would not do. Even if he could not pierce through the Rough Stone of Darkness, Saleen did not believe that Theisio could not be shot to death.


    A huge divine rune charm array shed on the Rough Stone of Darkness. Saleen was rmed. He quickly contacted Nailisi so that she would not bring the others over ande to assist him alone.


    Nailisi happened to be about 50 kilometers away and could hear Saleen¡¯s call. Or perhaps, she had not dared to go far and had been waiting for him.


    Nailisi returned stealthily. Saleen took the initiative to start up a soulmunication.


    ¡°Nailisi, the situation is wrong. A terrifying change has urred in that stone.¡±


    ¡°Master, there is no problem. You use the Thundering Sound and I¡¯ll use the Grey Memory for abined sneak attack.¡±


    ¡°That is my intention. If it is still unable to defeat the enemy, we must escape into the energy barrier.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Master. Don¡¯t mind me, I will go in a different direction from you.¡±


    The divine rune charm array on the stone shed once again, emitting even clearer traces. Saleen suddenlyprehended something. He summoned about a dozen lightning puppets to protect him and used the Water Shield to envelop them and rushed towards the Rough Stone of Darkness. At the same time, Saleen had 12 Thundering Phantasms surround the Rough Stone of Darkness. Six of them rushed forward.


    The Thundering Phantasm did not have the ability to initiate an attack. The divine rune charm array was not a god¡¯s shade either and would not trigger the Thundering Sound¡¯s response. Saleen was just preparing so that the divine rune charm array would not undergo any changes that he was unable to control.


    A distance of 5 kilometers was somewhat distant. Saleen hoped that he could rush up to the Rough Stone of Darkness and use his n badge to absorb its power. The Rough Stone of Darkness was not counterattacking because it bore a life.


    Theisio¡¯s soul hadbined with the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s body.


    Saleen did not use the Comet sh. Comet sh could not move 5 kilometers. He used Jalin¡¯s skill. That split second speed was very close to Saleen¡¯s maximum flight speed. Under the Lightning Constetion, the earth element was still strong and was not constrained by the cemetery.


    It was necessary to destroy the divine rune charm array before it changed.


    The divine rune charm array shed for the third time. The Lord of Glory¡¯s im was that he had created the world in seven days. The Dark God of Destruction had said that he could destroy a n in five days.


    Destruction was a new beginning. The Dark God of Destruction had not simply destroyed, but modified the ne into the likeness that he had wanted. No matter if it was the Lord of Glory or the Dark God of Destruction, they were all passionate about creation.


    In the Lord of Glory¡¯s codex, one week was seven days. Seven was the highest cyclical number. In the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s kingdom, one week was only five days.


    The divine rune charm array shed five times. Theisio was once again born in the world, bing its darkest creature.


    Saleen did not know all of it. He rushed forward based on an astrologer¡¯s perception. If he knew all of it, he would have hoped even more that Theisio had not be corrupted. The Lord of Glory had still required seven days¡¯ time to create everything, after all.


    Time was of the essence.


    Saleen could run 5 kilometers in less than two minutes. The divine rune charm array shed once every 30 seconds. However, Saleen had moved after the divine rune charm array had shed two times. In one and a half minutes, the creature of darkness would be born.


    Theisio had used his own corruption as the cost to steal a part of the Dark God of Destruction¡¯s power.


    On the other side of the spatial door, the water puppet Rossen had sensed Saleen¡¯s emotions. He summoned 3,600 demonic spirits to simultaneously release an earth type magic spell ¨C Stone Statue Army.


    Each Stone Statue Army could create six stone statue soldiers every minute. The stone statue soldiers were different from elemental stone soldiers and could not utilize magic spells. They only possessed an immense physical attack power.


    The stone statue soldiers charged towards the spatial door. They waved their warhammers and pounded them against the Rough Stone of Darkness. The Rough Stone of Darkness did not have any ability to counterattack, but it was still not something that the stone statue soldiers could destroy. All of the stone statue soldiers¡¯ arms were broken and their warhammers shattered. The Rough Stone of Darkness had shaken on instinct and it had destroyed the level 9 puppets.


    After 10 seconds, another 3,600 stone statue soldiers rushed forth. The stone statue soldiers ovepped one another, exceeding themon knowledge of magic. They attacked the Rough Stone of Darkness at the same spot.


    However, a difference in level could not be made up for. If the demonic spirits¡¯ mental power had been somewhat stronger, and the magic spells stored within the magic had been a few levels higher, perhaps the stone statue soldiers would have reached level 11 and could just barely cause the Rough Stone of Darkness to sway for a moment.


    Currently, the 3,600 stone statue soldiers were broken once again.


    Rossen¡¯s direction were not wrong. If it was a battle of energy, they would be devoured by the Rough Stone of Darkness, bing the Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ supplements. Using a purely physical attack could avoid that scenario from urring. Even if they could not damage the Rough Stone of Darkness, at least they would not have increased its power.


    In 30 seconds, another 3,600 stone statue soldiers rushed forth and aggressively pounded the Rough Stone of Darkness.


    Every time the stone statue soldiers attacked, their strength increased. For the third attack, all of the stone statue soldiers were broken. The Rough Stone of Darkness stood steadfast.


    The water puppet Rossen had no other alternative. Amongst his attacks, the strongest was the Crystal Finger. However, the Crystal Finger could not destroy the Rough Stone of Darkness either. It was not as strong as the power of 3,600 demonic spirits attacking at the same time.


    When Saleen had rushed one kilometer away from the Rough Stone of Darkness, the divine rune charm array had shed for the fifth time.


    The tall silhouette of the Dark God of Destruction appeared atop the Rough Stone of Darkness. Saleen sucked in a cold breath. It was stronger than the Angels of Fear he had encountered before.


    Saleen could not hesitate. The power of lightning within the n badge had to be shot. A massive electric current shot out. Theisio instinctively raised his square shield to block his front.


    Awoo...


    Below Theisio¡¯s rib, the great snake that was wound around his third arm let out a terrifying howl. Snakes knew how to howl?


    Saleen had not figured it out. He only saw that the electric current shot out by is n badge had been dissolved by the strange object¡¯s shield. Half of its arm disappeared.


    Energy counterbnce!


    The shield was meant to counterbnce all types of energies, but Saleen¡¯s n badge was too strong. The shield was not a godly item; it was just equipment that the God of Darkness had used before bing a god.


    However, the equipment was sufficiently powerful. It had actually deflected the electric current in another direction. Theisio had only lost a shield and half an arm and had blocked Saleen¡¯s instant kill attack.


    Theisio¡¯s arm was in severe pain, but his heart was clear. He knew what had happened. Saleen¡¯s badge had a very big limitation on its usage, and it could not possiblyunch an attack again.


    Even if he had lost an arm, Saleen would definitely not be his match!


    ¡°Saleen, this time, the one to die will be you!¡± Theisio eximed loudly.

 Chapter 1256: Darkness Territory (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1256: Darkness Territory (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Even Theisio was surprised. With such reasoning and such emotions, it seemed as if Saleen had allowed himself to end up dancing in the palm of his hands.


    He felt a bit brutal, but also a bit pleased.


    Before, whenever he felt that he held all of the advantages in battle, Theisio would only feel the sacredness of the gods.


    Sacredness was no more, he had been corrupted...


    The feeling was so good!


    Theisio began tough madly. For hundreds of years, he had been a ve. Once he had escaped and dropped the immense burden, Theisio felt like he was flying. Furthermore, in a situation where he had not used any skills, he really started to float, hovering above the Rough Stone of Darkness and getting a bird¡¯s eye view of the distant Saleen.


    Even after losing a shield and an arm, Theisio was still in high spirits.


    Saleen suddenly stopped and put away his n badge. He released his magic amplifier ¨C the Goddess¡¯ Ne.


    24 crystals hovered in the sky and there was a constetion shade in the middle, but it was the most marvellous power created by the Goddess¡¯ Ne. It concealed the Lightning Constetion within a parallel space.


    Even if the Lightning Constetion was currently not stable enough, no one would be able to attack it. Still, it could provide earth elemental power and lightning puppets to Saleen.


    Saleen expanded his territory. He saw Theisio, who had been transformed into a monster. ¡°Pope, is that you?¡±


    ¡°It is me, Saleen. I¡¯m sure you didn¡¯t think that I would turn into this state.¡±


    ¡°Mm. So you have a little bit of courage. I thought that the Holy See¡¯s people were all cowards,¡± Saleen replied calmly. Theisio had had one of his arms blown off by his n badge and had no way to restore it, but his power was still great.


    ¡°Saleen, would you express anger towards an ant?¡± Theisio continued to smile, raising the warhammer in his hand.


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    The warhammer soared in the air towards Saleen. It connected to more than 100 shades . Each shade¡¯s attack power was equivalent to the level of a level 11 divine spell.


    Bo...


    The shades shattered. But the warhammer¡¯s attack was targeted at the Thundering Phantasms.


    ¡°Theisio, what happened to your intelligence?¡± Saleen cautiously maneuvered the phantasm and said to Theisio.


    Theisio knew that Saleen¡¯s phantasm had its oddities. Even if his level was much higher than Saleen¡¯s, he did not dare to try using his mental power to identify which was the real Saleen and which was a phantasm.


    ¡°When one¡¯s power attains a certain level, all tricks will lose their effects.¡± Theisio said and pounded the second phantasm t. With the warhammer in his hand, he engulfed the transformed shade. If it had been the real Saleen, with the swing of a hammer, he would have turned into a meat pancake.


    Saleen was a mage and would not take any gamble. He would not test Theisio¡¯s intelligence. Hence, it was still a Thundering Phantasm. Under the pounding of Theisio¡¯s warhammer, the phantasm shattered. Theisio immediately pounded towards the third Saleen.


    Saleen observed patiently. He saw the arm below Theisio¡¯s ribs. The great snake¡¯s eyes were pitch-ck and darted everywhere from left to right. A magic pattern flowed within its pupils.


    Was it rted to the Elemental Eye?


    Ao!


    The great snake shrieked, using its mental power to investigate Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasms and received a blow. The Thundering Sound resounded inside the great snake¡¯s brain. The great snake was powerful. Its head¡¯s seven orifices were all bleeding, but it did not die.


    The Rough Stone of Darkness beneath Theisio¡¯s feet emitted a ck colored mist that seeped into the great snake¡¯s body. The great snake¡¯s injuries were almost immediately healed.


    Saleen was not dismayed. The Rough Stone of Darkness had increased Theisio¡¯s power. Healing the damage inflicted upon a soul was not a particrly strange matter either.


    The stone was detestful. Perhaps only a power as great as the n badge would be able to inflict injuries that could not be healed.


    Evidently Theisio had also noticed. The Rough Stone of Darkness beneath his feet flew up and hovered.


    ¡°Saleen, there is a pathway below here. You can escape outside.¡± Theisio deliberately revealed the exit that led to the outside.


    Saleen could not be bothered to pay him any mind. He simply used the Elemental Eye to observe how the great snake¡¯s injuries had healed.


    If he left, he would have to pass below the Rough Stone of Darkness. No Thundering Phantasms would be able to conceal his body. What was truly strange was why Theisio would let him go.


    ¡°Now who is the coward?¡± Theisio looked towards Saleen¡¯s 10 phantasms.


    ¡°This is an issue of intelligence. Theisio, even if you no longer believe in the Lord of Glory, you can¡¯t change the fact that your brain is like a pile of flour. Don¡¯t you know Prophecy Magic? After your corruption, you still can use a lesser prophecy spell. Try and see if you can find me.¡±


    Saleen tempted him. Theisioughed coldly. ¡°Lesser prophecy spell? You think I will learn that kind of disgusting thing?¡±


    As Theisio spoke, the great snake in his hand flew out and headed directly towards Saleen¡¯s phantasms.


    Theisio could not make the judgment. There had been a total of 13 phantasms. He had already eliminated three and 10 of them were remaining. If he searched them one by one, he would eventually be able to find Saleen.


    ¡°Fool!¡± Saleen eximed fiercely. Another 12 phantasms appeared. The Thundering Phantasm skill¡¯s consumption was extremely small. Because itcked attack power, the threat it posed towards enemies was just in terms of silent machinations. It could not cause direct harm.


    ¡°Are you dragging out time? Saleen, I have more than enough time.¡± Theisio manipted the great snake. The great snake cruised about in the air and bound one of Saleen¡¯s phantasms. The scales on the great snake¡¯s body moved one after another, twisting the phantasm within them. With a cracking sound, the phantasm spat out a red liquid that looked like blood, as if it were real.


    Theisio¡¯s brows furrowed. It demonstrated that Saleen¡¯s mental power was so abundant that it was almost as if it had not been consumed.


    Saleen was waiting. After his magic chords had ] recovered, the Crystal Finger would be able to be used. The Thunder Dragon ster still could not be summoned for the time being. His body could be imitated, but once the Thunder Dragon ster was retrieved, Theisio would be able to distinguish the phantasms from him.


    3,000 stone statue soldiers rushed in through the spatial door, swinging their warhammers.


    In the Magical Element Tower, the water puppet Rossen continued to release skills and order the demonic spirits to proceed with attacks. The stone statue soldiers rushed below the Rough Stone of Darkness. Atop the Rough Stone of Darkness, Theisio¡¯s gigantic warhammer swung downwards in a fierce attack. Saleen saw the warhammer pound down on the phantasm on the ground. Hundreds of stone statue soldiers were pounded into powder by Theisio.


    A violent tremor, as well as the mes caused by the energy wave, caused the entrance to the cemetery of the giants to be a deep pit with crystals everywhere.


    ¡°Theisio!¡± Saleen released a Thundering Sound in session for a consecutive explosion and locked on to his target.


    Theisio immediately discovered Saleen¡¯s position. Saleen was to his left, about 600 meters away. Theisio¡¯s left arm had been destroyed and the great snake below his ribs had been released. Only a bare arm was remaining.


    Theisio¡¯s figure paused. The explosion of Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound contained a disturbance skill. He would rather avoid any carelessness. During the short pause, a glowing spear violently pierced through his chest.


    Theisioughed coldly, his facial expression sinister.


    ¡°I knew something like this would happen!¡± As he spoke, a scale grew at his chest. The scale had a pentagonal appearance. There were connected magic patterns on the adjacent ends, forming a simple magic array.


    Before the Dark God of Destruction had be a god, he was a magical creature. There were oveppingyers of magic arrays. It was as if there were tens of thousands ofyers.


    The Grey Memory¡¯s prative power was strong, but its defense towards certain types of spatial states was hopeless.


    Theisio created a space with countlessyers on one scale. The space was extremely small and eachyer was probably thinner than a piece of paper, but the property was sufficient to block arge majority of attacks.


    Although the Grey Memory was strong, it did not have a skill that was able to surpass spatial attacks. For eachyer of space it prated, the Grey Memory¡¯s might would weaken. A scale that had the thickness of a fingernail had blocked the Grey Memory¡¯s glowing spear.


    Suddenly, Nailisi took a step forward. The step was extremely strange. It was Jalin¡¯s movement skill. Nailisi had studied magicboriously. She knew she was good at closebat, so she specially learned the movement ability and had practiced it with J, a strong True Might, in countless duels.


    The use of any equipment was not allowed. She had been thoroughly beaten up by J, but Nailisi had endured, and finally learned the movement magic spell, so when J and she had engaged in battle, they had an even chance of victory.


    That was under the premise that both parties did not use equipment. J did not want to seek his humiliation. His equipment was obviously not on par with Nailisi¡¯s.


    Nailisi took a step forward, and the Grey Memory¡¯s body pierced into the scale. The Grey Memory¡¯s body was not a glowing spear. Thousands ofyers of the space had been pierced through by the Grey Memory¡¯s spear. The tip of the spear had plunged into Theisio¡¯s chest and directly into his heart.


    Once therge arm below Theisio¡¯s ribs swung out, Nailisi pulled out the spear, and she slowly vanished. Theisio¡¯s p hit the air and the wound at his heart healed. Not even half a drop of blood had flowed out.


    ¡°I do not have any weaknesses!¡± Theisio was somewhat crazed. His warhammer rose once more, rushing towards the stone statue soldiers in the cemetery and pounding hundreds of them. Nailisi had already retreated out of his attack range.


    ¡°Master, it¡¯s not working!¡± Nailisi used the soulmunication method to speak to Saleen.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we are not his match.¡± Saleen sighed. As long as Theisio did not leave the Rough Stone of Darkness, even if he used his n badge, he would not be able to shoot him to death.


    ¡°Wanting to leave now is a bit toote!¡± Theisio was starting to be familiar with his body. The arm that Saleen had injured began to regrow a new limb. The great snake he had released circled around the air, having attacked and destroyed about 10 Thundering Phantasms.


    The great snake¡¯s scales flew about, dripping with fresh blood. However, under Theisio¡¯s coercion, it could only continue to destroy Saleen¡¯s skill. Within the range covered by the Rough Stone of Darkness, the wounds on the great snake¡¯s body also recovered quickly.


    Its pain was even more intense. It was as if there was someone who was continuously pulling out its scales and then healing it again and again. There was torture.

 Chapter 1257: Darkness Territory (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1257: Darkness Territory (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen saw that Theisio¡¯s arm was slowing growing back. Although it was very slow, it was also not a particrly good phenomenon. If a living body that had been attacked and destroyed by lightning was able to grow back, the level was already way beyond Saleen.


    Theisio was even more powerful than a divine baby.


    A divine baby¡¯s alter was to control its power. What Theisio possessed was the Rough Stone of Darkness, which could endlessly supply Theisio with the power of darkness.


    The darkness diffused outwards, ovepping with Saleen¡¯s territory. Saleen had no choice but topress his territory to prevent the darkness from corroding it.


    Nailisi released a strange cry. Her entire body shed with an electric current, drilling inside Saleen¡¯s territory. She was unable to bear the darkness territory.


    It was the first time that Saleen felt that darkness was powerful. His territory could not expand outwards. The lightning territory hadpressed to only half a kilometer. Within that size, Saleen would never be corroded by the darkness. The lightning territory was stable.


    The territory was being pressured topress itself more than 100 times. Saleen raised his hand and shot out lightning icicles. Seven lightning icicles split up in different directions and shot into Theisio¡¯s body. Only then did Saleen realize that Theisio¡¯s movement was still very slow.


    The electric current on the seven icicles contained a destructive power. Sevenrge holes appeared on Theisio¡¯s body.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye saw that within the sevenrge holes, the ck mist flowed like a liquid and tried to restore the damage caused by the lightning.


    The icicles¡¯ freezing ability had long been dispelled by the mist of darkness.


    If Saleen did not have lightning skills, he would not be able to wound Theisio at all. Although there were many holes on Theisio¡¯s body, he did not have a shred of pain in his expression. He roared withughter. ¡°Saleen, the more injuries you create on my body, the more my understanding of the body increases. Many thanks to you!¡±


    Saleen mentally said that it was not good. Theisio was not lying to him. He was still unfamiliar with his body, so many of its skills could not be disyed. Once Theisio was familiar with it, he would have all kinds of methods to deal with Saleen.


    The seven lightning icicles all hit Theisio right on target, but Saleen was unable to find where Theisio¡¯s soul was concealed. He was unable to lock on to it, and was even more unable to directly take Theisio¡¯s life.


    ¡°Heh...¡±


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    Eight balls of lightning appeared around Saleen¡¯s body. They surrounded Saleen¡¯s body and began to revolve. Saleen exerted force beneath his feet, arriving behind Theisio, and used the Crystal Finger to poke his back.


    Theisio did not solidify the scale in time to block the attack. Saleen¡¯s movements were too strange. He could not judge at the position Saleen would stop at all.


    With a ¡®poof¡¯, there was an additional hole at the center of Theisio¡¯s back. Saleen held the n badge in his hand and shoved the n badge inside it.


    Saleen could feel that his arm was about to be dissolved by darkness. If he had not been wearing the Starline outfit, he probably would have been unable to approach.


    Theisio could feel the terrifying power. A ck hole appeared in his body, sucking Saleen¡¯s n badge inside it. The purpose of the ck hole was to iste every single property.


    Once Saleen¡¯s hand loosened, the n badge had already been sucked into the ck hole.


    Within the ck hole, it was as if time had stopped. The n badge also stopped the sucking energy. Saleen¡¯s badge was left inside Theisio¡¯s body. Saleen¡¯s hands were empty, and one of the balls of lightning around his body had been extinguished.


    In the darkness territory, the closer the position to its center, the stronger the territory¡¯s corrosive power.


    Saleen just barely maintained his lightning territory, just because the lightning territory¡¯s rules were powerful. Now Saleen did not have any means to wound Theisio at all. Theisio was unkible in the darkness territory.


    Nailisi was hidden behind Saleen. Her Sword of Rules flourished, slicing out a portion of space with no darkness around Saleen.


    It was just a temporary solution. The power of the Sword of Rules that Nailisi could mobilize was too little.


    Theisio was familiarizing himself with his body and his movements were slow. However, Saleen had attacked consecutively, and his n badge was inside, yet he had not killed Theisio. Saleen wast at a loss.


    Nailisi¡¯s hands shed with an electric current. She grabbed the great snake that was flying back to Theisio¡¯s body and held it forcefully.


    The great snake¡¯s snake head was crushed by Nailisi. Within the darkness territory, it began to heal once more.


    ¡°Your struggles make me feel exhrated. Saleen, you are the first creature that I will kill after my corruption. I will make your soul...¡± As Theisio spoke, suddenly Saleen¡¯s Star Gathering Needle was thrown and entered his mouth.


    Once the Star Gathering Needle entered Theisio¡¯s mouth, Theisio¡¯s arm stopped growing. The Star Gathering Needle was destroying Theisio¡¯s body. However, the power hidden within the Rough Stone of Darkness was continuing to heal Theisio¡¯s injuries.


    The fight between both was urring at Theisio¡¯s head. Within the gigantic skull, a banging sound was emitted.


    Within the Rough Stone of Darkness, millions of thin ck threads gradually divided, wanting to wrap around Saleen¡¯s Star Gathering Needle. Saleen had seen things up to that point and felt extremely anxious. His Elemental Eye was able to see everything that the Rough Stone of Darkness did.


    The Rough Stone of Darkness obviously wanted to absorb Saleen¡¯s Star Gathering Needle.


    After the Star Gathering Needle was separated from Saleen, the Star Gathering Needle would not initiate any attacks and the advantages of the Star Gathering Needle¡¯s level would no longer be expressed.


    Because the Star Gathering Needles was not a weapon, and it was also not a piece of equipment that Saleen had sacrificed or refined before. As a level 10 astrologer, Saleen could not manipte the level 19 piece of equipment.


    In the void at the top of the head, within the lightning constetion, lightning puppets pounced forth one by one and tried to attack Theisio.


    The lightning puppets were covered in a blue colored electric current and could still act as they wished within the darkness territory. It was just that Theisio was protected by the Rough Stone of Darkness. The wounds inflicted by the puppets¡¯ attacks were not as fast as the Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ restoration.


    Saleen had already decided that he wanted to leave. Since Theisio had not started to find ways to attack him, why should he not escape.


    He manipted his territory and moved towards the bottom of the Rough Stone of Darkness, wanting to rush out of the cemetery of the giants. Saleen realized that his movement speed was as slow as a snail¡¯s.


    Unknowingly, with the power released by the Rough Stone of Darkness, millions of thin ck threads had tied up and suppressed Saleen¡¯s territory.


    Saleen¡¯s n badge was slowly absorbing power within Theisio¡¯s body and did not initiate any attacks. Saleen was only left with magic abilities, as well as the two balls of lightning which could be released.


    Magic abilities. Saleen only had 12 level 11 magic spells on his person a they were not a threat to Theisio.


    ¡°Master, I...¡± Nailisi gritted her teeth and did not speak further. She just approached Theisio in the air, opening the 12 Notes of Purgatory.


    From the Purgatory of the Fallen, 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen flew out, firmly tying up Theisio¡¯s body. Even the Rough Stone of Darkness could not help Theisio to escape. The binds could not drag Theisio into the Purgatory of the Fallen. They could only stop Theisio from devouring the Star Gathering Needle and n badge.


    Theisio¡¯s injuries stopped recovering.


    The warhammer swung and hit the Shackles of the Fallen. Theisio felt as if he was pounding himself and his entire body was about to crack open.


    Nailisi screamed, entering the Purgatory of the Fallen head first and standing on the altar, allowing the incarnation to heal her own injuries.


    Theisio had been bound by the 24 Shackles of the Fallen, and the Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ power had also been absorbed by the Shackles of the Fallen. Nailisi¡¯s incarnation was also frantically absorbing the Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ power. After the powers of darkness passed through the Shackles of the Fallen, they were converted to the power of Purgatory. There was not a hint of the mist of darkness.


    With a ¡®swish¡¯ sound, three arrows sliced through the air and arrived. Eleanor had already barged into the darkness territory. With the length of her longbow and the green colored energy mist covering her, she could just barely rush into Saleen¡¯s territory.


    The elves¡¯ Time Arrow, Space Arrow and Emperor Arrow simultaneously hit Theisio.


    However, Eleanor was only level 9. All of the power of life within her longbow disappeared in an instant. The cost for the Time Arrow had been paid by the longbow Seven Nights. The longbow that was like a godly item had lost all of its properties.


    Theisio¡¯s body had aged following it. He turned pale with fright. He had felt thepse of his lifespan.


    Thepse of his lifespan however was not something that the Rough Stone of Darkness could replenish. The Dark God of Destruction¡¯s body had fused with his soul, giving birth to a long lifespan. Theisio had estimated that it was about 40,000 years.


    After he had been shot by Eleanor¡¯s arrow, itd lifespan had lost over 30,000 years. Theisio caught a whiff of the scent of death. He swung his great snake and threw it towards Eleanor.


    His body was being controlled by the Shackles of the Fallen and he could not move. Only the great snake and his warhammer could attack.


    Saleen saw the great snake open its mouth and lunge towards Eleanor. His Thunder Dragon ster immediately shot out a silver ball of lightning. His ball of lightning was extremely fast. In the blink of an eye, it had sunk into the great snake¡¯s head. The upper half portion of the great snake¡¯s body turned into ashes in an instant.


    ¡°Eleanor, why have youe here!¡± Saleen scolded loudly. Eleanor could not solve the problem either.


    ¡°I now have the surname Metatrin!¡± Eleanor brows set. She was not willing to leave. Even if she had wanted to leave, it was no longer possible. One could only enter the core of the darkness territory. The territory had the Rough Stone of Darkness to provide its energy.


    Even Saleen could not resist the power. Eleanor, a level 9 elf, would all the more be unable to leave.


    ¡°Everything that harms my master will be destroyed. Everything that endangers my master will all be abandoned by fate!¡± Outside the darkness territory, Nichs released a lesser prophecy spell, but Rough Stone of Darkness¡¯ power was far too strong, even a lesser prophecy spell could not turn the tides of the battle.


    Nichs felt some despair. The level of the enemy was probably above level 13.


    Theisio was just being beaten up and did not retaliate. Once he had finished adjusting his body, everyone would have to die.


    The darkness territory crafted by the Rough Stone of Darkness could not be breached even by a True Might. J and Sul helplessly raised their longswords outside the darkness territory.

 Chapter 1258: Totem (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1258: Totem (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, do you feel death now?¡± Theisio was chained by the Shackles of the Fallen, but he was not afraid.


    While the power of the Shackles of the Fallen were powerful, the Origin Stone of Darkness was gradually cutting away the binding of the chains. It would not be long before the Origin Stone of Darkness would free him.


    ¡°Death?¡± A crisp sound was heard and Saleen saw a silhouette enter from outside the cemetery of the giant beneath the Origin Stone of Darkness. Not even the Origin Stone of Darkness was able to prevent her from getting near.


    That was Sika. Sika is here!


    Saleen only got anxious then. Sika advanced? However, a level ten nature priest would not be able to do much. Theisio¡¯s level was too high. Not even Sika would be able to take him on.


    ¡°Sika, run!¡± Saleen shouted with Thundering Shock, hoping to etch his words into Sika¡¯s mind.


    It did not matter if he died, but if Sika ended up dead as well, there would be no one to take care of their children.


    ¡°Hahahaha!¡± Sikaughed and took a weapon out from her space equipment. It was not the staff that she usually carried, but a huge metal pir.


    That metal pir looked rather familiar to Saleen.


    Sika was shorter than Saleen. The pir was so thick that she was unable to wrap her arms around it.


    The height was something else altogether. The metal pir was almost 18 meters tall. Sika took and swung it around like, looking like an ant swing a branch.


    Boom!


    The entire Origin Stone of Darkness shook. Theisio¡¯s expression changed drastically. That stone had been hovering in the air, and Sika swiped it to the ground with just one swing.


    Theisio grew immensely confident after he fell, but he was quickly brought back to reality by Sika¡¯s attack. The power of the Origin Stone of Darkness was not his. He was not even able to borrow the stone¡¯s power. He was just a monster that the stone gave birth to.


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    Saleen and his people stared with their mouths gapping.


    Nailisi murmured to herself, ¡°Sister Sika, are you going on a rampage?¡±


    Sika had no intention of going on a rampage. She was wearing a cloth armor that Saleen crafted for her. The muscr lines on her body were smooth, and she was lithe and vigorous, instead of physically powerful.


    There was no messy aura coursing about her. Life overflowed from Sika¡¯s body. The metal pir in her hand was of the same state.


    Nature power filled every cell of her body and emanated outwards, forming a Nature Territory.


    Saleen finally was able to recall that the metal pir, which was hollow, was from Raphael¡¯s magic tower. He had once entered the metal pir itself. But did the pir shrink?


    Saleen had seen many ferocious martial artists, and in the Kingdom of Metatrin, there were humans who were about two meters and a half in height. Demons were even bigger, reaching five meters in height. All of the warriors wielded maces, halberds, greatnces, long axes...


    But Saleen had never seen or heard of someone making a weapon out of a pir.


    Sika simply swung the metal pir around and hit the Origin Stone of Darkness. She stepped on it and wherever she stepped, fauna began to form.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye caught sight of something very peculiar. There were lifeforms from another world in the metal pir, supplying endless nature power to Sika.


    The pir carried another world in it.


    ¡°That can¡¯t be!¡± Theisio saw Sika running at him and was unable to believe that one woman had cut his power supply from the Origin Stone of Darkness using a peculiar weapon.


    The Origin Stone of Darkness no longer supplied any power to Theisio and the injuries on his body began to bleed.


    The three arrows that Eleanor shot continued to work. His purple hair turned grey and his life force draining away. His body seemed to have been cut up by the power of space, forming more wounds. Fear began to well inside his mind.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard from Rossen that you¡¯re in trouble, Saleen, so I got here as soon as possible. Who¡¯s this monster, by the way?¡± Sika swung the pir at Theisio¡¯s face.


    ¡°It¡¯s Lord Pope Theisio himself. Our pope here has fallen and betrayed his god, bing a monster. It¡¯s a pathetic sight.¡± Saleen saw the dazed look in Theisio¡¯s eyes and took the chance to ridicule him. His words were uttered using Thundering Sound.


    Saleen failed to notice that the Ring of Cosmos on his finger had stopped spinning, without releasing any peculiar power. If Sika had not showed up, the ring might have been able to save his life.


    Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound hit Theisio¡¯s mind. The pope was shaken. Why did I fall? Isn¡¯t all this just to protect the Lord of Glory? I¡¯m here to kill Saleen, so that the faith of the Lord of Glory can spread in this ne.


    But why did I feel exhrated from the violence I wrought earlier? Is power really going to corrupt people?


    The thoughts were unable to stay in his mind for more than mere fleeting moments, as Sika¡¯s metal pir slugged him in the face.


    There was no sh, as if the power of the entire world was focused on one point. Theisio¡¯s head disappeared.


    The head disappeared, not shattered.


    There was aplete world in the pir that was unusually huge. The metal pir was able to bring out inexplicable powers in the hands of a nature priest.


    The body of the Dark God of Destruction shed with the world in the pir, so Sika was able to siphon the power within for attacks. If it had not been for the Origin Stone of Darkness possessing attributes like that, Sika¡¯s attack would not be so ferocious.


    She pulverized matter into nothingness, absorbed by another space.


    The bnce of energy was broken. Theisio, who had lost the upper half of his body, was finally dragged into the purgatory of the fallen by the chains. Nailisi leapt out and looked at Sika, not knowing what to say.


    Nailisi¡¯s double, in the purgatory of the fallen, dug out the Star Gathering Needle and Saleen¡¯s family badge from Theisio¡¯s dead body. The two were then wrapped inyers of ck energy, and only Nailisi¡¯s double dared to touch them personally.


    The double was incredibly powerful, possibly more powerful than Nailisi.


    ¡°Nailisi, I see that you¡¯ve grown stronger, eh?¡± Sika smiled and put down the pir, sticking it on the ground close to her. The metal pir, which was stuck on the Origin Stone of Darkness, dispelled the Darkness Territory right away. nts began to grow on the stone¡¯s surface.


    Saleen¡¯s remaining four ball lightning would be extinguished soon, so he threw them inside the Origin Stone of Darkness. Where the ball lightning entered, the nts grew even faster. Saleen finally was able to confirm that lightning was able to give birth to life as well.


    Eleanor looked at the Seven Nights in her hand. The power of life within the godly item began to gradually restore, but it was siphoned by Sika from the pir into the Seven Nights. Once Seven Nights regained its life, there would not be any need for energy infusions.


    Eleanor¡¯s tightly wound mind rxed. She had gambled by forsaking the godly item in order to kill Theisio, and she failed. Sika appeared when things looked to be in utter despair, and she killed Theisio the great enemy without doing much.


    Saleen was, however, able to see the downside of Sika¡¯s attack¡ªit was excruciatingly slow.


    The Origin Stone of Darkness simply hovered in the air without moving. Theisio was as well.


    While Sika had incredible strength, she was slow because she had to swing such a huge, thick pir. If she had been attacking J instead, there was no doubt that he would have escaped.


    ¡°It¡¯s all thanks to you, Big Sis Sika,¡± Nailisi bent her knee elegantly, curtseying.


    ¡°You¡¯ve improved a lot. It puts me at ease that you¡¯re with Saleen. Don¡¯t go into adventures like that though. If it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that my totem skill had awakened and I acquired this weapon, my kids would lose their daddy,¡± Sika chastised Saleen for a bit but did not say anything much after that.


    It was Saleen¡¯s idea to go into the cemetery of the giant. There was nothing Nailisi was able to do to stop him. Her words were meant for Saleen.


    Saleen smiled bitterly. ¡°Sika, I didn¡¯t expect that Theisio would turn into that.¡±


    ¡°Whatever. Where¡¯s Lex?¡±


    ¡°At the center of the cemetery. She has the God¡¯s Ring with her, so she can conceal herself.¡±


    ¡°So we¡¯ll just wait for her toe out?¡±


    Saleen nodded and Sika continued, ¡°Well, since we¡¯re not in a hurry to leave, let¡¯s put this away.¡±


    ¡°Put this away?¡± Saleen looked at the Origin Stone of Darkness. ¡°It is not dark elemental energy. It¡¯s pure darkness, we¡¯ll...¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, give it a try, would you?¡±


    Nailisi nodded. The stone¡¯s powers had been suppressed, so she tried to put it away into the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. The spaces within her collection of purgatories had been expanded. One of the spaces was actually able to maintain the stone.


    Sika only put the metal pir away then. Nichs and the others ran over to them like mad men. Every one of them knew that Saleen was fine and their contracts were still intact.


    Things were shocking. All senses were cut off and not even Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spell had been able to invoke any responses from Saleen.


    Saleen cast Lightning Territory, and Nichs and the others sensed Saleen¡¯s tremendous presence in an instant. While Saleen had lost the fight with Theisio, he had a lot to gain.


    Especially since Saleen had noted Theisio¡¯s ability and crafted a thin scale armor, which was able to defend against energy attacks. Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory would not be able to pierce through the armor, unless it was the physical body of thence doing the piercing.


    There was the way the ck energy insted the badge. While the Origin Stone of Darkness was needed for the feat, it was an extreme way to do so. If Saleen wanted to trap someone in the future, he would be able to craft simr magic arrays to achieve the same effect.


    COMMENT


    Such magic arrays would need to be powered by magic power furnace, and someone needed to keep feeding it magic nuclei.


    ¡°Nailisi, dig out the three godly items from inside the Origin Stone of Darkness when we get home,¡± Saleen reminded Nailisi. Even if the three godly items had been destroyed, their materials were extremely difficult to find.


    If he gifted them to his teacher, Jason might be able to craft something useful for even level 14 powerful ones.


    Saleen understood a lot of things. The godly items were mostly derived from materials from the bodies of other gods.


    The bodies of the gods were tremendously resilient and carried some mystical properties with them. For example, the Seal of Divine Power was able to store the Flower of Evil.

 Chapter 1259: Totem (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1259: Totem (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen only inquired about affairs in Metatrin after giving Nailisi her orders. Theisio said that he would send the two level 12 oracles. Saleen had extreme confidence in his teacher, but he would not dare say that Jason would be able to kill the two level 12 oracles.


    ¡°Someone attacked the temple and coincidentally, I happened to finish making this totem pole. I fended off the attack with my teacher, and the damage was small. Several hundred demons and over 30 Caucasians dead,¡± Sika answered nonchntly.


    ¡°What about the assant then?¡±


    ¡°They just left, and then I came here to take care of your problem,¡± Sika answered.


    Saleen thought about it for a bit. Theisio had probably lost control of the oracles after he had fallen. If the oracles regained their freedom, there would be no way that they would throw their lives away fighting Metatrin City.


    The two oracles left and were not killed by Jason, which was a reasonable oue. Saleen thought about it for a bit and felt that things were not good for him. Having sumbed to Theisio¡¯s control probably meant that they had thoughts about betraying the Lord of Glory.


    The next logical step after the oracles regained their freedom was to gain control of the Holy See with a perfect excuse.


    With the three godly items unavable, there was no equipment capable of restraining them. They would be able to do as they pleased with the people of the Holy See.


    The two oracles were far more brutal than Theisio had ever been. If they united the entire Holy See under their rule, there was no doubt that the Holy See would be a much greater disaster.


    Even if his teacher advanced, he would only be able to get to level 11. Leaving the Metatrin City¡¯s temple to look for trouble with the oracles would be dangerous.


    If Saleen were unable to get to Glorious ins and get rid of them, the Holy See would grow strong again when the two oraclestched onto an empire.


    Sika was unable to help but asked, seeing Saleen steeped in deep thought. Saleen voiced his thoughts and Sika replied, ¡°We¡¯ll wait for Lex to emerge and ask her what she thinks. I won¡¯t be the one to handle this. While this totem pole is powerful, it won¡¯tst for long, unless I advance to level 13.


    Saleen figured that what she said made sense, so he just stood guard at the entrance instead of going in to look for Lex. Lex was bringing the people from the Holy Rock City into the energy barrier. Saleen was doing it as a precaution.


    If any of the sorcerers from Holy Rock City had any funny thoughts, he would be able to cover for her.


    The wealth in the cemetery of the giant was enticing, and Saleen was afraid that some of his allies would be treacherous.


    After over a dozen days, Nailisi was done extracting the remains of the three godly items from the Origin Stone of Darkness. The stone had no will of its own and did not know how powerful her collection of the purgatories were.


    The 12 Notes of First Purgatory were interconnected. In their eventual forms, every single purgatory would be affected by the other 11.


    The Origin Stone of Darkness was thrown into the collection of purgatories and quickly suppressed by the powers of the few purgatories. All of that, coupled with the catalyzing effects of the Genesis Stock Solution, the stone was melded into a part of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    The rules of darkness were incapable of surpassing the rules in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory after all.


    Saleen spent the days refining his Thunder Dragon ster, gradually wearing down the barrier between the divine persona and the weapon. It was learned from observing the Origin Stone of Darkness. Saleen used bits of electrical power to grind theyer of rule power on the surface of the divine persona.


    Saleen was getting rather frustrated and anxious when Lex emerged from the energy barrier, heading for the exit of the cemetery of the giant.


    Saleen saw Lex from afar and Lex was all smiles, obviously very happy.


    Saleen invoked his territory. Lex was able to sense it from over 60 miles away. The mages behind her also sensed Saleen¡¯s territorial power.


    Lex and Gusion knew Saleen¡¯s aura very well, and the smiles on their faces were increasingly obvious. The mages of the Holy Rock City were startled. The power of the territory was very peculiar.


    Saleen held himself back and refrained from causing them any pressure, but the mages felt their mental powers and magic chords being slowly drained.


    Even though there were no attacks, energy tended to disperse in Saleen¡¯s territory.


    Neither mental powers nor magic chords could escape getting worn down. The rate that their powers were being worn was not fast, but in battle, it would be ringly obvious.


    ¡°You¡¯ve finally grown, Saleen!¡± Lex was very excited. If Saleen had been unable to create his own unique territory, his future prospects would be limited due to the nature of his magic chords.


    The territory was so unique that the power of rules that Saleen would be able to master in the future would not be any weaker than other mages.


    If he was unable to master such a unique territorial power, Saleen, due to relying only on one type of elemental magic chords, would grow very weakpared to others, and would be be left in the dust by other mages.


    Lex was able to see Saleen from over ten miles away. Even level ten mages were not able to see that far without using skills. Lex was able to see him due to the powers of the God¡¯s Ring. She saw Sika as well.


    Why is Sika here? Did something happen to Metatrin City?


    Lex was unable to help but take to the air with her mages and warriors, heading towards Saleen.


    ¡°No need to rush, Lex,¡± Saleen went up to her.


    Boom!


    A tremendous quake happened somewhere far away. It was the moon in the energy barrier, unleashing lightning and striking any of the fossilized gods intending to revive.


    Lexughed as she met up with Saleen. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here. We can¡¯t stay here for long.¡±


    Saleen did not inquire about the reasons and cast Lightning Constetion to enable the mages from Holy Rock City feel better. No one bothered with formalities, as they were in a hurry. They left the middleyer of the cemetery following Saleen¡¯s lead,ing to the vast caverns outside.


    All of the fossilized gods had been wiped clean with no chance of resurrection. Saleen plugged the exit using the Magical Element Tower, before asking Lex about what happened in the cemetery.


    Lex was attacked by the fossilized gods as soon as she entered. While the lightning moon in the sky would not attack any living beings that were not gods, it reacted to the invasion. Some low level fossilized gods were permitted to be resurrected to attack Lex and her people.


    While the fossilized gods were lower levels, they were deemed so inparison to other fossilized gods in the barrier.


    The gods who were resurrected were level 12, with some at level 13.


    Thanks to Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring, a territory-like power was cast, concealing their presence. The Lightning Moon took control of the fossilized gods again.


    The mages from Holy Rock City were dumbfounded. If it had not been Lex being there to assist them, there would have been no way for them to leave. Loot distribution aside, it would be impossible to even stay alive.


    Lex needed to give hints of her importance to make the mages obediently sign contracts with her. None of the mages had any right to take anything from the cemetery of the giant, unless they were able to kill their way out of the endless waves of fossilized gods.


    All of the mages chose to side with Lex and promised to convince the pce mages of Holy Rock City to do the same. It was not difficult to ask. When Prince Safilos was at odds with Lex, the mages had actually been supporting her in secret.


    The pce mages leaned towards having Lex be the empress. However, as Lex¡¯s brother was still alive, none of the mages would do anything to get rid of him. He was a child of Emperor Chanake after all. Everyone was simply waiting for the current emperor to die.


    He was in poor health and would not be able to live 80 years. While many toiled to keep him alive with magic medicines, the emperor would not be able to live over 100 years.


    Lex, on the other hand, would be able to live over 1000, so she could afford to wait. Her request for them to swear fealty to her was simply bringing the inevitable to an earlier date.


    The mages still served Holy Rock City. The contract they signed with Lex had magical binding powers, instead of what the world perceived as showing loyalty. They would follow her regardless if she ended up bing empress. If a war broke out, they would stand by Lex.


    Lex was able to win the mages of Holy Rock City over without doing much.


    She took the mages to the core of the cemetery, which had a huge mountain of the giant¡¯s bone crystals.


    Jalin did not tell the truth. There were actually 13 mountains: 12 shorter mountains circled the tallest. The head of the giant was ced on top of that mountain.


    The other 12 mountains were only bone crystals of the giants, without their heads. Lex dared to be greedy. ording to the records of magic notes. Giants were capable of resurrection so long as their heads were intact. The emperor of the First Dynasty, the King of Glory, had constructed the cemetery to resurrect his friend.


    No one dared to touch the materials in the mountain in the middle. Lex spent her days in there carefully collecting the other 12 mountains¡¯ bone crystals.


    No one objected to Lex¡¯s thoughts. The moon in the sky was capable of killing people. Even level 16 gods wouldn¡¯t be able to resist the moon¡¯s lightning.


    The collection process had not been smooth, as they were often fossilized godsing up to harass them. Lex chose to use the God¡¯s Ring¡¯s power of concealment.


    Such powers worked well against non-sapient equipment like the Lightning Moon. If they had chosen to defend, they would be seen as the enemy and lightning would struck them.


    Lex did not feel that his God¡¯s Ring would be able to sustain endless barrages of lightning attacks. As such, she resorted to taking on the fossilized gods one by one while collecting the bone crystals.


    They almost used all the scrolls and equipment acquired from Saleen before Lex was able to cart all 12 mountains away. They managed to capture about 12 fossilized gods alive while they were at it.


    ¡°Capturing the fossilized gods alive? What¡¯s their level?¡± Saleen was getting excited.


    ¡°Level 11. I advanced to level ten due to having to constantly fight as well. The God¡¯s Ring would not have been powerful enough to enable us to leave the ce alive.¡±


    ¡°The fossilized gods are capable ofing after us then?¡±


    ¡°Yes, if they are below level 12.¡±


    Saleen was relieved. No fossilized god below level 12 would be able to push the Magical Element Tower aside.

 Chapter 1260: Floating Sky (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1260: Floating Sky (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika told Lex that the level-12 oracles had attacked Metatrin City and that they had probably headed back to Holy City.


    After hearing all of that, Lex slowly said, ¡°The mages of Holy Rock City will back me up. I think it¡¯s better to hand the fighting within Qin territory over to Nature City. I will allow the propagation of the Nature Faith so that the Qin mages will not look for trouble in Nature City.¡±


    ¡°While the two oracles are of high levels, they are not actually all that dangerous for the time being. The gods are a very selfish bunch, so those two will not see eye to eye with each other.¡±


    ¡°The trouble right now is Alchemy City.¡± Under the cover of Saleen¡¯s Lightning Constetion, he projected a map of the entire maind. He pointed at New Demon City and said, ¡°Here. This is the core city of the southwestern nobles. They are loyal to you now. And here...¡±


    Saleen then pointed at the razed Pompeii City and said, ¡°This is where the line between Alchemy City and southwestern Qin was drawn. If we were to rebuild Pompeii, we¡¯d end up shing with Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily.¡± Sika pointed at the ruins of Pompeii City and said, ¡°We could rebuild the ce without migrating anyone there.¡±


    ¡°Without migrating anyone?¡±


    ¡°Hah!¡± Sika scratched her head in frustration and said, ¡°Saleen, do you remember that there is a memorial in Pompeii City?¡±


    ¡°I do. On the memorial, there is a list of soldiers who died in the line of duty defending Pompeii City.¡±


    ¡°We could preserve the ruins of Pompeii City and build an even bigger memorial, recording the city¡¯s history and destruction. Alchemy was the one that destroyed Pompeii City, there is no denying such a thing. So...¡±


    ¡°I get it now. If Alchemy City destroys Pompeii City a second time, it will make everyone fear Alchemy City. If Alchemy City dares to expand, it would mean that they are attempting to rule the entire maind!¡±


    Sika¡¯s suggestion was indeed very original. She would have Saleen buildmemorative buildings in the ce where Pompeii City had been, but not ones meant to house anyone. Alchemy City would not attempt to destroy the city again since itcked a reason to do so.


    Lex started to view Sika in a different light. It was an ingenious suggestion. Sika had seemed rather dumb in the past, but that was no longer the case. Could a person¡¯s intelligence really grow after advancing?


    There was no doubt about it. Even magic beasts came to possess greater intellectual capacities after their levels were raised to a certain point. Sometimes, they would even begin to learnnguage and writing.


    Sika was a human, so there was no way she could have remained a single-minded fool after advancing to level-ten.


    If Alchemy City wanted to attack the newly restored Pompeii City, they would only be able to do so if they were willing to cast aside reason. Saleen needed time to consolidate his powers. At that moment, he only needed to ensure that his territories were not invaded by others.


    The 12 mountains of bone crystals that the giant had acquired from the cemetery of the giants would allow Saleen to arm all of his forces. When the armies of the two nations were converted into full magic forces, theirbat capacities would be raised enough to threaten some very powerful professionals.


    For instance, the Holy See¡¯s Heaven Knights. Anymon level-nine or even level-ten professional would die if they faced that relentless force.


    Thebat capacities of professionals were limited. Few were capable of having so many types of equipment at their disposal or of summoning 500,000 lightning puppets from the Lightning Constetion like Saleen was.


    If a level-ten professional intended to kill a Heaven Knight, they would need to cast skills no lower than level-seven. The Heaven Knights were very well-fortified and their defenses were unparalleled. Level-ten professionals, on the other hand, were generally not able to cast over 100 level-seven skills.


    A squadron of Heaven Knights consisted of about 60 members. There were also squadrons with about 100 members. Even level-ten professionals would only be capable of thinning some of their numbers before being forced to flee.


    The Heaven Knights¡¯ suits of armor were capable of distributing attacks to all of theirpatriots. Such equipment was a headache to deal with.


    A level-ten professional was able to kill all of their enemies with just one single skill otherwise.


    Holy See was so concerned about the fossilized gods because their fragments were capable of being forged into Heaven Knights¡¯ armor. Saleen had baited the Holy See using the fossilized gods, luring Theisio and a good number of elites into the cemetery of the giants.


    He¡¯d then taken them all out with a single sweep after baiting them inside.


    Saleen¡¯s n had not felt thorough, as if every single step had been something improvised instead. However, the Holy See was never able to resist such temptations, so both Theisio and the great head inquisitor had ended up dead.


    Lex had been able to rake a small fortune out of the cemetery of the giants.


    The bone crystals of the giants were of far greater value than magic nuclei. Not even magic nuclei above level-12 couldpare with those bone crystals.


    Saleen knew his own level well and that there was no way he could have taken down the Lightning Moon in the cemetery of the giants, so he¡¯d had no choice but to leave it be. It was fortunate that no one but Lex was able to get inside ande back out alive.


    Saleen was right outside the cemetery of the giants, dividing the loot into different portions. Saleen had gotten therger portion. He needed to build a Sky City, and the required materials to do so were astronomical.


    Lex took some from the remaining smaller portion, and the rest of it was sent to the alchemy factories.


    The mages who had sided with Lex were unable to get much. While the bone crystals of the giants were indeed consumables, they burned inefficientlypared to magic nuclei.


    They somewhat resembled dragon crystals, which were capable of slowly recovering lost energy within their crystalline structures over time.


    As the crystals were very precious, none of those mages dared to ask for many. 100 pieces each wouldst them for a very long time. They would be able to get some more from Lex after theirs were all spent by following her.


    The mages did not need too many of the bone crystals. If the crystals were to be used for experimentation, three to five pieces wouldst them for over a decade.


    None of the mages were very poor. The royalty had always been generous to the mages they kept around. If Lex had not been a beloved daughter of Emperor Chanake, none of those mages would have ever chosen to follow her, even if they were tempted with the crystals.


    There was also a huge amount of other materials within the cemetery of the giants, and Saleen had taken them all. Saleen had selected a good number of materials which he deemed suitable for use by the mages and gifted them out.


    The mages were about to return to Holy Rock City. They had to bring something back for the pce mages in the royal pce.


    The collections found within the material warehouse within the empire¡¯s pce would have probably been many, many timesrger than Saleen¡¯s stores. However, those materials left behind in the ancient ruins were something that could not have been bought with money.


    All of the ancient battlefields found on Myers Maind had been picked clean. Those materials that had survived the ages were incredibly difficult toe by for mages.


    Saleen was considering doing them a favor and did not want any money from them. He simply asked them to deliver a single letter.


    Saleen remembered that he had been introduced to a level-seven mage when he had obtained his Devil Armament.


    That mage should have reached level-nine by this time.


    With Saleen¡¯s current status, he did not have to care about level-nine mages. However, Saleen was a very nostalgic person, and he wanted to go back and see for himself how the people he had known all those years ago were doing.


    Saleen had even prepared a gift for that mage and had the pce mages bring it home with them.


    Saleen was unable to rest after returning to Daliang City. He had to return to New Demon City because he had be confident enough to refine the fragments of the Sky City. Said fragment was a huge piece, measuring 36 miles both in length and width, which was at least several timesrger than all of Metatrin City.


    Saleen wrote a letter to his teacher inside the Magical Element Tower. Jason did not say anything much and stepped through the teleportation portal into Daliang City. He too wanted to have a look at the Sky City¡¯s fragment.


    For the sake of safety, Sika returned to Metatrin City. If Sika were to hold the line at the temple, it would make it very difficult for the two oracles to attack the ce. Saleen had seen what that metal totem pole was capable of.


    Sika¡¯sbat capacity in head-on battles surpassed that of her own level. The level of strength was all that mattered in her case.


    There was a world within the totem pole. All of the living beings of that world were supplying Sika with backup.


    Under usual circumstances, this was something that could have been achieved at level-14. Sika¡¯s nature priest skills had some exceptional qualities. There had been arge number of ethnicities wiped from the face of the maind throughout the ages.


    The fact that the Caucasians had been capable of surviving until the present day and had sessfully spread their culture was surprising.


    Truman was summoned again. He was Saleen¡¯s student and would be able to learn a lot of details regarding space when the young mage entered the temple. Saleen had not forgotten to get something for Truman.


    The Magical Element Tower had not been left behind in the cemetery of the giants. Saleen had dyed everything until the fourth month,ying a huge magic array at the entrance of the cemetery of the giant with his teacher, preventing any outsiders from getting in.


    The space within the cemetery was huge and he was unable to clean all of the ancient battlefields up. Saleen needed to get to it at ater date. It would incur considerable losses on him if someone else were to enter the cemetery.


    There was already a magic in ce when he returned to New Demon City. Cuisi had been appointed as the suprememander in charge of everything. He was very happy to see Saleen¡¯s return and asked him, ¡°Your highness, shall we summon the nobles to see you?¡±


    ¡°No need for that. I¡¯ll be leaving soon enough.¡± Even though Saleen put it that way, nheless, he asked about the southwestern nobles. Cuisi patiently exined to Saleen how things were going in the southwest. The southwestern nobles had banded together and cast out any lesser nobles who were unwilling to follow Lex.


    The southwestern nobles were very united at the moment. There were some among the nobles whose families dated back over 1,000 years ago. There were many capable people among them.


    Based on their discussions, they¡¯d concluded that there was a great war, like one not seen in over 1,000 years, about to take ce on their ne.


    Furthermore, the way war was fought had changed as well. Numbers mattered little in deciding the oue of war if there were no powerful leaders taking the helm.


    Both Saleen and Lex had their own respective nations. Following Lex meant gaining Saleen¡¯s support. Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories were gradually getting famous. Some cities that had not yet been assaulted in northern Qin had their nobles buying equipment from Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories.


    Following Lex would mean that Saleen was ready to provide that equipment to them for free.


    While this was only a simple illustration, Saleen was nheless able to see what would happen to those nobles who refused to follow Lex. It would have sufficed if they were willing to leave. Those who insisted on staying would have their entire ns wiped clean.


    With Cuisi at the helm, the southwestern nobles no longer needed to worry aboutbat capacities of their forces. Demons that were then trained and assigned to battlefields came to their ne in droves,


    After dismissing Cuisi, Saleen entered the interdimensional space with his teacher and followers. This time, Saleen went straight to the side of the ck ocean and found that the floating ind at sea had disappeared!

 Chapter 1261: Floating Sky (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1261: Floating Sky (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, you really do have a bad memory!¡± Jason joked with his student.


    Saleen opened his Elemental Eye and looked, but did not find the floating ind. The inds were not very big. Whenpared to true inds at sea, the ind in question was little more than a piece of smallnd.


    There was no such thing as a mage with a bad memory. Even if a said mage indeed had an inherently bad memory, they could just use a skill called Memory Magic.


    Saleen then said, ¡°Looks like we need to look for it slowly. The ind couldn¡¯t have disappeared into the waters.¡±


    Jason said, ¡°Let me take you people for a spin.¡±


    Saleen smiled. Jason was intending to teach flying skills to both him and Truman. However, he was sure that his own flying skills were exceptional among level-ten sorcerers.


    While all of that was going through Saleen¡¯s head, Jason had unleashed his own magic amplifier¡ªtwo rings with a diameter of a meter each. They appeared behind Jason as both the water and fire elements in the air thickened.


    Saleen felt himself be enveloped by formless power¡ªJason¡¯s territory.


    Water me Alchemy and zing me Soul-refinement. Jason had melded both territories and formed a new territory that was without form. Saleen was unable to even peer at its rules using his Elemental Eye.


    Jason took ten people into the air. Their speed reached 500 miles per hour in an instant. Saleen felt the blood rushing to his head, causing him to get dizzy and requiring him to adjust using a magic skill.


    Wha...


    Jason smiled and said, after seeing how startled Saleen was, ¡°How about it? Did you learn anything?¡±


    ¡°There is no end to magic,¡± Saleen answered truthfully. He recalled Baudire¡¯s ability to traverse space at the gods¡¯ ce. Saleen knew that he had been letting his ego get to his head.


    ¡°This is nothing, Saleen. I¡¯m now a level-11 sorcerer. This is just my usual speed.¡±


    Saleen was speechless. He knew that level-11 sorcerers were capable of flying at over 300 miles per hour on average. His teacher¡¯s flight ability was almost one-third faster than that.


    ¡°The extreme limit of my flight would surpass the speed of sound.¡± Jason¡¯s words shocked Saleen again. Such an extreme flight speed did not mean instantaneous bursts. If that was the case, skills like Rainbow or some others would have allowed one to move faster than flight, yet skills like Rainbow were unsustainable.


    The extreme flight speed meant here was the very limit of a mage¡¯s ability to have prolonged, sustained flight.


    The speed of sound exceeded 1,200 miles per hour in the air. Jason was able to sustain his flight well over that speed. Such an ability would enable him to almost traverse the furthest distance between two points in any of the empires within just a single day.


    Such speed would also enable Jason to punch through armor made of steel tes, simply by throwing a stone while in flight.


    Saleen recalled his own Comet sh. That movement skill was even more ferocious. When refined to the very extreme, it would make him move like a meteorite. It could burn up his body until nothing was left in flight.


    It was not a kind of speed that any armor could defend against.


    If he were to truly reach the speed ofets, Saleen would be able to cause a disaster on the ground, simply by throwing down amon piece of rock while he was high up in the air.


    However, said rock would need to be huge enough that it would not burn down to dust as it fell through the atmosphere.


    If Theisio had been able to separate himself from the Origin Stone of Darkness after he transformed, Sika would have been the one who had ended up dead. The speed of a level-13 powerful being was not something Saleen would have been able to imagine. They would have probably been able to move faster than his teacher.


    Saleen flew above the ck ocean, his teacher taking the lead. Jason no longer bothered to conceal his powers and elerated, taking everyone over the ocean.


    The energy in the middle of each of the two rings of fire and water flowed ceaselessly, sustaining Jason¡¯s flight. Jason was not using his own magic chords. He had only been flying using the power of the magic amplifiers.


    Saleen was even able to see the workings of energy within the rings of fire and water when Jason did not bother concealing his power. He was, of course, able to see more than Truman was able to.


    Even if Truman was able to train and obtain the Elemental Eye, he would not be able to maintain it for more than several seconds.


    Energy spewed from within the rings of fire and water, creating a wedge-shaped space of energy around every single one of them. The tangling of water and fire energies brought forth the energy of greater purity, pushing the wedge-shaped space forward.


    The wedge-shaped space itself was a tremendously powerful weapon of mass destruction. Saleen spected that if he were to just keep flying like that, he would be able able to even punch through a city wall.


    It worked somewhat like his Water Shield. However, his Water Shield wasparatively mild when it came to offense, relying on the lightning magic patterns on it to break the enemy¡¯s territory or elemental bnce.


    Saleen pointed at a ck spot in the air after flying for several hours and said, ¡°Teacher, that thing is up there!¡±


    Jason quickly adjusted his direction and took them upwards. The fragment of the Sky City was floating at an altitude of only about 20,000 miles. Jason quickly flew up and was quite moved, seeing an entire piece ofnd floating in the sky.


    ¡°Good stuff indeed!¡± Jason praised. The Sky City fragment had a thickness that differed from Saleen¡¯s spection. It was actually 360 miles in height, which meant that the thing looked like a cone in the sky.


    Its lower part was pointed. The upper part was the tform carrying the goddess¡¯ temple.


    The structure below the tform was simple. Saleen saw a frame constructed with level-18 elementite at its core. All manner of magical materials formed thend.


    The magic arrays formed by the magical materials were not all thatplex byparison, even though all of them were three-dimensional magic arrays. Saleen was able toprehend what he saw with his Elemental Eye.


    Many kinds of slots were found on thend. Saleen saw many ovepping spaces.


    Below the 36 square mile tform were all manner of resources. Magic arrays provided the water required to sustain life, as well as all kinds of nourishment.


    The thing that had shocked those seeing it was only a fragment. Aplete Sky City was said to be thousands of miles long. One could only imagine what it would have looked like.


    Jason brought Saleen and his people onto the Sky City¡¯s fragment. Saleen ced his Magical Element Tower on an open space.


    ¡°While it¡¯s quite early to do this, given how we need to take on the Holy See, we have to do it all the same.¡± Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower connected with the Sky City fragment as soon as itnded.


    Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and Genesis Stock Solution were released all at once, melding within the tower.


    The properties of the Genesis Stock Solution indicated that the Sky City fragment was being repaired. Doing this required massive amounts of energy. Saleen threw the bone crystals of the giant into it and melded them with the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, all of it seeping into the Sky City fragment.


    Massive cracking noises were heard and the Sky City fragment shook. The mechanical core of the Sky City within the Magical Element Tower continued to grow outwards, entering the Sky City fragment,bining with the materials and magic arrays in it.


    Saleen then saw the Magical Element Tower gradually sink to the ground as if it were being sucked in by the Sky City fragment. Saleen needed to keep observing with his Element Eye to locate the mechanical core of the Sky City.


    Under the workings of the Genesis Stock Solution, the mechanical core of the Sky City merged with the tower within the Sky City fragment. The bone crystals of the giant that Saleen had thrown in were also being used to restore the Sky City fragment.


    The fragment itself was not all that badly damaged. It would not have been able to float in midair otherwise. After the tower merged with it, that piece ofnd was truly able to fly, no longer just being taken wherever the wind blew.


    As he¡¯d spected would happen, Saleen¡¯s tower was gone, yet he¡¯d gained an evenrger flying equipment in exchange.


    Said equipment was hardly considered a piece of equipment at all. The Sky City fragment was over 300 miles tall and had far exceeded the area of the airyer covering thend.


    If it had not been for the fact that that piece ofnd was covered with ayer of thick elemental gas that moved with it, Saleen would have had to put up the Water Shield a long time ago.


    So, how should I bring this thing back to Myers Maind then?


    The Sky City fragment began to exhibit new changes as that thought went through Saleen¡¯s mind. The cone beneath the fragment began to shrink. The fragment became much shorter under the mechanical core¡¯s control.


    After the matter waspressed to a certain level, things began to get converted. All manner of magic arrays were stacked andpressed, forming new magic arrays.


    Saleen had never expected to see such changes happening.


    The way the structure of the Sky City fragmentpressed resembled folding paper toys yed by children. The changes that took ce in the matter afterpression caused the level of the matter to enhance tens of times over.


    The lower part of the fragment had looked like little more than a bunch of rocks in the beginning. After thepression, the outer shell of the entire Sky City fragment looked like something as dense and hard as the bone crystals of the giant.


    The material gleamed with dark golden colors. Its original 360-mile height was eventuallypressed to just 900 meters. Suchpression would have turned a pile of sh** into a diamond.


    But then again, how do I take away something this big from the interdimensional space?


    The fragment¡¯s core gave Saleen the answer he sought. A huge magic array appeared where Saleen stood, right at the center of thend.


    ¡°A space-jumping magic array!¡± Jason¡¯s eyes were still looking at the magic array, not turning away or blinking even once.


    That magic array was of aplexity exceeding anything that Saleen and Jason had ever imagined. Such magic arrays would have required many powerful mages to craft together in ancient times. If it had not been for the Genesis Stock Solution, there would have been no way for Saleen to ever restore it.


    The magic array was octagonal, with a huge magic power furnace appearing in each of the eight corners. Those were the true power sources that powered the Sky City¡¯s movement. The magic power furnaces looked like towers, requiring people to get inside them to get them working.


    The mechanical core grew out from the lower part of the Sky City fragment, forming into tens of thousands of metal spikes. The spikes then formed a magic, covering the entire Sky City fragment in the opposite direction.


    The area within a 100 miles radius was even covered by the magic from the fragment.


    In ancient times, the Sky City had been more than housing for people. The Sky Cities had been powerful weapons of war. The spot where Saleen stood at an altitude of 360 miles, high in the air above the ocean of that interdimensional space. Anything thrown from such a height would be turned into lethal weapons.


    Furthermore, a massive magic was ced beneath the lower part of the Sky City. Tens of thousands of enchanters would have been housed within that magic. The spikes gradually receded after shooting out, turning the lower part of the fragment into something resembling a beehive.


    ¡°We¡¯ll call this a Floating City, Saleen.¡± Jason observed all the changes happening in the Sky City from start to finish, learning a lot from it in the process. He had etched all of the ancient magic arrays deep in his mind.


    ¡°Sure, teacher. Let¡¯s get out of here,¡± Saleen said, unleashing hundreds of elemental creatures into the magic power furnaces of the octagonal magic array. Eight huge magic power furnaces burst with massive power which was siphoned into the magic array.


    Millions of magic patterns within the magic array were invoked. The entire Floating City tore through space in an instant, traversing the nes and appearing right above New Demon City.

 Chapter 1262: Playing Tricks (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1262: ying Tricks (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Floating City appeared at night. Thick clouds floated overhead. The Floating City hovered at an altitude of over 30000 miles. All of this meant that, with the exception of some powerful individuals, no one in New Demon City had discovered the massive construct hovering above their heads.


    The reason some powerful ones had been able to discover the Floating City was that the space vibrations resulting from such the massive construct jumping through space were very strong. Even powerful individuals who were over 1,000 miles away were able to detect the intense changes in space, let alone those who were in New Demon City.


    Said changes quickly stabilized. The people who were far away were unable to see that far, but they knew well that New Demon City was not a ce that they could easily peer into, so nobody continued to observe what was happening.


    The Floating City continued moving upwards and Saleen did nothing to stop it. He only knew that he was able to control the Floating City like he controlled the Magical Element Tower. He let the Floating City keep climbing upwards. They would have attracted too much attention otherwise.


    Just one jump consumed hundreds of Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures. To pay such a cost was truly heart-wrenching.


    Jason saw his student¡¯s pained looks. He pointed out to him, ¡°With this thing, you¡¯ll be able to mobilize your armies as you fancy. You could even attack Holy City right away with it. Regardless of the fuel cost, it is worth it.¡±


    ¡°I know, I know...¡± Saleen kept repeating that, but he was unable to suppress his sour mood.


    Jason was exasperated as well. His student was a decent person, yet he had the character w of being tight-fisted.


    ¡°Well, there is nothing around. How about we test the flight abilities of this thing for a bit?¡± Jason had no intention of saying more. A mage could raise their levels, but not necessarily change their personality and temperament. It was nheless a good thing that Saleen knew conservation and moderation. If he were to be unrestrained with his spending, no amount of wealth would have been able to keep him afloat for long.


    Saleen was steeped in thought for a bit. If he wanted to fly,mon magic nuclei would have sufficed. Magic power furnaces were capable of eating anything, regardless of energy levels. However, the cost of such a flight would be massive nheless, so he deemed it necessary to find a specific destination.


    ¡°Master, how about a trip to Alchemy City then?¡±


    ¡°No. The Floating City is still empty. I¡¯d only head there if you¡¯re capable of forking out tens of thousands of enchanters for me right now,¡± Saleen replied to Nailisi. There were only 3,600 enchanters in the Floating City, making it wholly inadequate for taking on Alchemy City. There was no way he and his teacher alone would be able to overpower all of the top-notch powerful people in Alchemy City, as their city was armed with arge scale magic amplifier.


    As for the 500 thousand lightning puppets, while they would have all of the advantages if taking onmon professionals, their limited lightning powers would only render a few mages in Alchemy City temporarily paralyzed. That limited power was not enough to kill their enemies.


    ¡°Master, isn¡¯t this thing capable of doing space jumps?¡± Nailisi, of course, meant running away if they were unable to take down their enemies.


    Saleen wore a bitter smile and gave Nailisi an answer without waiting for Jason toment.


    ¡°This space-jumping magic array is not actuallyplete. In ancient times, humanity possessed detailed data regarding every space coordinate, but not even they would have been able to calcte how to move such massive equipment with pinpoint uracy. If I were to use that magic array again, what would most likely take ce is simply us getting teleported back to the interdimensional space. It would be lucky if things actually turned out that way. The worst that could happen would be us getting teleported to somewhere unknown. This is called sequential coordinates...¡±


    ¡°I get it...¡± Nailisi had begun to learn magic and had memorized countless magic terminologies.


    Sequential coordinates referred to a set of coordinates a jump was made to if no specific coordinates were found, based solely on the memories of the Sky City.


    The Floating City would most likely jump back to Myers Maind in its first teleportation. That was something that both Saleen and Jason knew. This time, however, Saleen had no idea where the sequential coordinates would lead them to. If said coordinates prevented them from ever returning to Myers Maind, it would be very troublesome. After all, Sky City was used specifically for traversing nes.


    It was amon tactic of the ancient humans to have the Sky Cities carry the Ancients, transporting their troops to other nes.


    Fuel costs for the Ancients were far smaller than for the Sky City, yet they were the most cost-effective standard equipment used for fighting within a ne. The standard operating procedure back then was probably to have one powerful human professional make it to the destination ne, who would then have calcted the detailed ne coordinates there, which were then transferred back to the Sky Cities.


    Such coordinates were not meant for transporting several people, butndmasses at lengths measuring over 1,000 miles. Even if Saleen¡¯s mental powers were boosted ten times over what they were now, he still would not be able to make the calctions all on his own.


    Furthermore, such space-jumping magic arrays were actually the most energy-efficient method for teleportation between nes. Teleportation done within the same ne was actually done by traversing two nes consecutively, enabling the teleported thing to return to Myers Maind.


    Such a design was not unreasonable. It was simply done due to safety reasons.


    Ancient humans were capable of simply throwing a broken divine persona in to serve as fuel for their magic power furnaces. However, Saleen could not afford to spend like that. He was reluctant to even spend captured elemental creatures like that, let alone using divine personas as fuel.


    ¡°My liege, let¡¯s return to Nature City. Along the way, we can...¡± Eleanor gave Saleen a suggestion.


    She did not finish her sentence. By ¡°along the way,¡± she no doubt meant raising Saleen¡¯s status in the minds of the adherents of the Nature Faith. Furthermore, there were doubts about Baudire¡¯s ability to perform as a pope. The very reason that Saleen did not get involved was to gauge Baudire¡¯s performance.


    ¡°Sounds good.¡± Saleen felt the idea to be a decent one. Pompeii City was the nearest destination, but there were hardly any humans there, so it would be a waste of effort. There should have been hundreds of thousands of adherents at Nature City by then. He could deliver some subliminal messages to the adherents of Nature Faith by flying there with his Sky City. This would also make it easier for the adherents to fall in the future.


    Floating City gradually began to move. It was a huge construct after all. The activation process of the Magical Element Tower¡¯s flight abilities was extremely quick, but the Floating City was only able to fly at an initial speed of just over 30 miles per hour. It was fortunate that the fuel cost of such flight was far less than what Saleen had imagined it would be.


    Activating onerge scale magic power furnace within the Floating City would have enabled the Floating City to fly.


    Furthermore, the rate of consumption did not change after the speed increased. The construct was only slow to start. Its fuel cost during flight was actually only over 20 times that of the Magical Element Tower.


    If he were to be willing to let it fly slowly, the Floating City¡¯s fuel cost could be reduced to that of the Magical Element Tower.


    If Saleen was not in a hurry, he would have simply spent his time training on the Floating City while traveling over the entire maind.


    The Floating City¡¯s cruising altitude continued to be adjusted until he finally deemed that 30,000 meters was the perfect height for flying efficiently. Above that, the air was so thin that it was almost non-existent.


    If they were to stay in a true vacuum, their fuel cost would skyrocket. Flying in a vacuum required putting up an invisible protectiveyer around the city to keep the air from dissipating into the vacuum.


    Getting the Floating City down on the ground would not cut fuel costs by a lot either. The entire Floating City was like a piece ofnd within an energy fortress. The magic arrays¡¯ consumption did not stop simply because theynded.


    When Saleen had first found the Floating City, the energy within had been depleted long ago. It had been necessary for it to sacrifice its own materials to keep it afloat. It could have crumbled otherwise.


    As such, the Floating City he¡¯d seen back then was nothing like how it now looked. The Floating City only regained its vigor after he had infused it with huge amounts of Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, Genesis Stock Solution, and bone crystals of the giant. All the magic arrays on it were restored, again capable of being used in battle.


    The Floating City measured 36 square miles. The height of its wall measured 900 meters. A city like that was on par with the likes of Holy Rock City.


    The Floating City moved increasingly fast. It only stopped elerating after reaching 300 miles per hour. Flying any faster, fuel consumption would double.


    The northern and southern ends of Qin were about 20,000 miles away from each other. However, the two cities situated on either end were less than 10,000 miles away from each other. The Floating City simply required one day to travel over 7,000 miles. Saleen was above Nature City with his Floating City within just a day and a half.


    Nailisi went about making their arrival a bigger deal than it would have normally been, sending a flying demon down dressed in temple knight garb to sneak into Nature City. Nailisi was the one who had designed the badges of the temple knights, so creating another one was an easy feat.


    Aplete religious structure had already formed within Nature City.


    Baudire had proved himself to be verypetent. Despite being an infamous figure, he had actually managed to be the pope. Don had be the leader of the temple knights, enabling him to expand the knights¡¯ corps. As for Water Fox, she had naturally made it into Nature City as well.


    COMMENT


    Water Fox imed to be a soul clone of the Goddess of Nature, creating her own oracle temple.


    The core of Nature City was a true temple, so none of the adherents of the faith doubted anything. They fully affirmed and acknowledged the identity of those three.


    Of the three, only Don was truly a human. That fitted well with the Goddess of Nature¡¯s teachings. Where there was life, there was nature.


    The believers received a divine omen when the sun rose. It was the second divine omen to appear to them since the establishment of the Nature Faith. The first one was only known to those who had betrayed the Holy See. There was no doubt that even that one had been faked.


    This divine omen seemed rather weird. It had simply told the believers that when the sun rose to the highest point, they would receive...


    There was nothing else said after the word ¡°receive.¡±


    However, all of the believers would have listened to and followed along with anything their God told them to do. There were almost a million believers gathered at the Nature City. Most of the believers were peasants, but there were also a handful of nobles, craftsmen, and soldiers among them.


    Over 800 thousand believers waited at the great za of the Nature City. When the shadows of the pirs had almost disappeared, a massive construct descended from the sky.


    Under the sunlight¡¯s reflection, the golden Floating City glittered brilliantly.


    It seemed as if the sun had fallen from the sky, yet it was not a scorching one. Saleen yed his tricks and shrouded the area within a 120-mile radius with Lightning Constetion.


    The ¡°sun¡± disappeared and the stars circled around the Floating City. Blue electricity jumped among the shadows of the countless stars.


    All the believers were stunned at this sight.


    Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound said to them, ¡°I¡¯m Saleen. Saleen Metatrin. I shall assist in the goddess¡¯ resurrection and repel the heretical gods of other nes. Pope,e see me right now!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice could be heard throughout all of Nature City.

 Chapter 1263: Playing Tricks (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1263: ying Tricks (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°As you wish, your highness.¡± Baudire walked out of the temple and a green bridge appeared beneath his legs. He walked up to the Floating City one step at a time on the bridge, as devout as one on a pilgrimage.


    Saleen saw that Baudire was dressed in avish, elegant robe and that his face was covered with an intricate mask. The mask was transparent, with a nk, deadpan face of the figure visible underneath.


    Green holy prose coursed over the transparent mask, exuding a mystical charm.


    The eyes of the figure were made from a pair of tiger-eye stones. Such low-level gems shone with a brilliant light over Baudire¡¯s face.


    Baudire did not conceal the fact that he was a figure. He had used unknown means to get the adherents of Nature Faith to acknowledge him as the pope.


    People who had been in contact with gods had all learned a trick or two. The tricks were either used for deception or salvation.


    The green bridge was conjured using divine spells. Saleen did not know that the Goddess of Nature had once created such shy yet practically useless divine spells. That might have actually been an invention of Baudire¡¯s. However, Saleen had to admit that the believers loved that scene very much.


    The feeling of walking up to heaven, and the temptation of attaining eternity.


    Baudire came before Saleen, kneeling to kiss Saleen¡¯s shoe.


    Saleen did not feel any disgust over what he did, as Baudire was a devout follower. None of what he did there was seen by any of the 800 thousand believers below, but they were able to feel it nheless. The pope submitted before Saleen. Saleen behaved very in a veryposed manner.


    In other religions, such a scene would have wrought havoc. But then again, Saleen was the one who had established the entire Nature Faith in the first ce, and every single believer knew that.


    Furthermore, with even more shocking scenes unfolding right before their eyes, what they saw right then did not surprise the believers all that much.


    That was the subtle influence that Saleen had on his audience.


    On that day, he shocked the believers with the advent of the Floating City. Baudire took the chance to channel his faith through Saleen, making his silhouette look even clearer in the minds of the believers.


    ¡°You¡¯ve done well, Baudire,¡± Saleen said to him in encouragement.


    Baudire did not stand up. He simply straightened up while still kneeling and answered, ¡°Your highness, I feel that now you have all the power you need to crush the Holy See.¡±


    Baudire was talking about the Floating City. The size of the city notwithstanding, what was more important was that every inch of the city¡¯snd could be used to craft equipment.


    It was extravagant to the extreme, yet such extravagance was yed well. It exuded their weight and importance instead of only their wealth.


    ¡°Baudire, I know that you hold great enmity for the Holy See. But there are two level-12 oracles there, and they are from his divine kingdoms...¡±


    Saleen looked at Baudire¡¯s demonic eyes and found the resentment and hatred within them to have considerably thinned since hest saw him. Baudire then lowered his head and said, ¡°Your highness, I shall keep waiting then.¡±


    ¡°Yes, you need to keep waiting.¡± Saleen paused for a bit and sensed no ripple from Baudire¡¯s soul. He only continued after feeling that. ¡°I¡¯ve killed Theisiopletely. I take it that you¡¯ve gotten rid of the great head inquisitor, no?¡±


    Baudire¡¯s body only shuddered as he said, ¡°Indeed, I¡¯vepletely eradicated the great head inquisitor. Not even the Divine Tablet spell would be able to save him.¡±


    He did not know what he felt when he heard news of Theisio¡¯s death. There was no way he could have asked to be allowed to exact revenge with his own hands.


    While Theisio looked amicable and kind, the Tribunal had only been able to pull off all their unforgivable atrocities because the pope had given his silent permission.


    Theisio had died, but Baudire had wanted to end him very, very much.


    The Holy See had only regained its vigor over the past several decades because of Theisio. Because of him, the power of the Holy See had expanded significantly. Theisio had raised over 100 red-robed bishops by himself. While they were not extremely powerful, they were good at management and administrative work.


    The Tanggsi royalty had only been able to take back some of what was theirs after toiling for hundreds of years, all of which they lost again during Theisio¡¯s time as pope. Such was Theisio¡¯s worth.


    If he had not encountered Saleen, Theisio would have definitely be the greatest pope in history. However, was also the weakest in terms ofbat capacity.


    The previous pope had been at level-12 when he¡¯d taken up the position.


    Saleen did not care how Theisio died, but Baudire did. He had hoped to see Theisio die within Holy City, right before his devout believers and the red-robed bishops. Instead, he had died unceremoniously and silently.


    ¡°Your highness, I mean no offense, but I feel as if Theisio is still alive,¡± Baudire blurted out all of a sudden.


    ¡°Maybe. If Theisio has methods to resurrect himself, there is nothing I would be able to do about it. But at the very least, he has already died once by my hand. The Holy See is truly a pain in the a**...¡± Saleen answered nonchntly.


    Baudire did not continue. Saleen was an astrologer, so Baudire¡¯s words put him on guard. The great head inquisitor had means of resurrecting, so why was Theisio, the leader of the Holy See, killed so easily by my hands?


    Night fell. Pope Baudire and Saleen the Lightning King spent hours talking. Millions of seeds rained down from the Floating City, taking root, sprouting, blossoming, and finally, bearing fruit in Nature City.


    When dawn came, Nature City was filled with the fresh scent of the red fruit.


    It was the purest fruit of the Nature Faith, a favorite of the Goddess of Myers.


    The Floating City hovered above Nature City for three days, sending down hundreds of thousands of demons. All of them were d in temple knight armor as they joined Nature City¡¯s ranks.


    Baudire gained his first bishop as well¡ªa kind spirit.


    It seemed to be a sign that the light of the Goddess of Myers was about to shine on other nes.


    The spirit was a jade skeleton, was, of course, assigned from the Winged Skull¡¯s side. The Winged Skull had finished cordoning the seas off. Alchemy City had attempted to break through, but they were met with resistance from Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s fleet.


    There was little left to the imagination when it came to naval battles. The power of the Ancient gave Alchemy City a hard time. Unless Alchemy City came to possess warships of simr ss, the Ancient would simply be an insurmountable pass at sea.


    The alliance between Grand Duke Iron Blood and Saleen was also a technical one. Restoration of the Ancient was one of the terms they¡¯did out. Saleen had acquired dragons bred on Dragon Ind, all manner of methods for taming dragons, as well as arge number of dragon eggs.


    Grand Duke¡¯s investment paid off. Saleen released part of the Ancient¡¯s schematics to him. They, of course, had the manufacturing process of magic power furnaces omitted, but some technical aspects of building the magic were included.


    Laying out a magic was costly. Without something like the Magical Element Tower present, a magic was only good for defense and utterly incapable of being used for offense.


    Of course, it was possible to set up a magic on the Ancient, but the warship was incapable of flight and was only able to sail on the sea.


    Saleen had no fear of the grand duke using the Ancient against him. The grand duke was not that stupid. In the same way, Saleen would have been able to use the dragons against the grand duke.


    Saleen sent his teacher back to Metatrin City after he finished with the affairs at Nature City, He then assigned Sika to his side.


    Saleen was unable to continue looking for temples because he had two matters to address first. One of them was building a memorial where Pompeii City had once been. The other was giving Gaine the Star Gathering Needle in the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    He was unable to dy with either, as Saleen had promised to meet Gaine at the Imperial City of the Abyss as soon as he reached level-10 as an astrologer.


    It was fortunate that Saleen already had the Star Gathering Needle with him, so he did not need to spend more time locating one. As such, he decided to make a trip to Pompeii City.


    On his way to Pompeii City, the number knights in the Nature Faith¡¯s corps expanded to 500 thousand strong, 400 thousand of which were demons. The number of human knights increased to about 100 thousand.


    It was a very frightening rate of expansion. No religions had been able to expand at such a speed in Qin before.


    Furthermore, Nature Faith¡¯s expansion seemed to be increasing. It was like a monster that kept bloating up, taking up more and more of northern Qin. Pope Theisio had perished, the Holy See¡¯s forces were crushed by the flood, all 49 of the red-robed bishops were dead, and the great head inquisitor was nowhere to be found.


    All of that robbed the Holy See of their remaining powers in northern Qin, forcing them to retreat to Kroraina.


    The Nature Faith absorbed the knights into their forces, preparing to retaliate.


    Within Holy City, the church that had once belonged to the pope was gone, reced with two towering buildings. The two oracles had moved two mountains and had the holy masters carve them out, building two churches that were near 1,000 meters in height.


    The pope¡¯s chief of affairs, Sharjah, had taken over the position of the pope for the time being. Sharjah, who was armed with the Ring of Many Gods, could have be a supreme figure at one time. But given the return of the two oracles, he was once again made into a figurehead.


    His use was only to serve as a temporary appointee within the codex.


    Until the next pope was elected, Sharjah would wield the powers of the pope in the pope¡¯s ce. However, Sharjah did not even have the right to appoint red-robed bishops. All of the new red-robed bishops were appointed by the two oracles.


    Sharjah was vexed, yet there was nothing he could do about it. He was no match for the two oracles. Despite being pope, he was sent to Glorious City to investigate an important case from almost two years prior.


    Glorious City had once served as the core of the Holy See. It had since fallen on hard times. Sending him to such a ce was apparently a part of a move taken by the two oracles to get rid of any figures deemed as eyesores. The oracles needed to fool the Lord of Glory, so they were unable to outright kill Sharjah.


    The pope¡¯s chief of affairs was a position appointed by their god. If both the pope and the pope¡¯s chief of affairs ended up dead at the same time, their god needed to take note. As a precaution against this, the two figures never ventured outside together.


    One of them needed to take care of things at the core of the Holy See, getting ready to face any unforeseen circumstances.


    The two oracles appointed a new pope as soon as Sharjah left Holy City.


    The new pope was a boy. It was said that he had not been a part of the faith¡¯s ranks for long. He was not even someone from the Tanggsi Empire.


    The name of the boy pope was Gagas.


    The intention to cast Sharjah aside was apparent, but he had no choice but to take his orders. His entourage consisted of less than 100 people. He had lost the position as the pope¡¯s stand-in while he was on the road. He was no longer able to serve as the pope¡¯s chief of affairs.


    Sharjah became little more than a joke in the Pivotal Council. Furthermore, if he were to return to Holy City, he would have to surrender the Ring of Many Gods.


    The 60 holy masters he had with him felt dejected as well. It was as if all of them had been exiled. The Holy See¡¯s core powers no longer had anything to do with them.


    The horse carriages moved along the road, making almost no sound. The horse carriage at the front stopped suddenly. Sharjah frowned and his body froze. He saw a young man dressed in a white robe before him. He had no idea when the intruder had entered the carriage, or how he was sitting right in front of him.


    ¡°Lord Fycro...¡± Sharjah addressed the man before him.

 Chapter 1264: Goodbye, Gaine (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1264: Goodbye, Gaine (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Sharjah, why are you so afraid of me?¡± Fycro asked amicably.


    Sharjah made his voice sound as calm as possible as he asked, ¡°Lord Fycro, why are you here?¡±


    Fycro was not angry that Sharjah hadn¡¯t answered his question. He smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯m here to save you.¡±


    ¡°Save me?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Those two as**oles from the divine kingdom had probably betrayed god. What they want is the entire ne. Getting a kid to be pope and kicking you out, do you really think this is all over?¡±


    Sharjah then said in a very angry tone, ¡°What more do they want!?¡±


    ¡°Well, your Ring of Many Gods for one. Even I would want that, let alone those two oracles.¡± Fycro¡¯s smile turned rather peculiar and Sharjah tensed up.


    If Fycro wanted to go against him, he wouldn¡¯t be a match for him, even when armed with the Ring of Many Gods.


    It was due to Fycro¡¯s powers alone that the Oracle Corps had been able to shake off the Pivotal Council¡¯s control. No one other than Fycro would have been able to arrange the seats of the seven oracles.


    ¡°Why are you shaking again?¡± Fycro asked. Then he said to Sharjah with a chastising tone, ¡°And I thought it would be a good idea asking you to be a part of the Oracle Corps.¡±


    Sharjah did not know how to answer that. He still wasn¡¯t ready to believe the news about Theisio¡¯s demise came. He hadn¡¯t dared to take up his power back then. By the time the oracles had returned and dered Theisio¡¯s death, it had already been toote for Sharjah to do anything.


    By the time he grasped what was going on, the two oracles had already kicked him out.


    Sharjah had no idea if it was a fortune or a curse that Fycro wanted to recruit him. Fycro¡¯s intentions were clear. If he joined the Oracle Corps, he would not have to hand over the Ring of Many Gods. Then again, that meant that he would have to be enemies with those level-12 oracles.


    ¡°Sharjah, you lost your chance when Theisio died. Do you really want to hand the godly item to those two? Do you want to be a bootlicking holy master all your whole life?¡±


    ¡°Absolutely not!¡± Sharjah mustered his courage all of a sudden. He definitely did not want to live such a life, not even for a single day.


    ¡°Come with me then. Forget about going to Glorious City, by the way,¡± Fycro said, waving his hand. Sharjah carriage suddenly shot into the sky.


    The internal changes of the Holy See affected the war on the maind. Over half of northern Qin had fallen. After the devastating blows dealt by the Nature Faith¡¯s knights corps, over half of the invading armies of the Holy See had retreated to Kroraina.


    The Laiyin Duchy had been invaded by the Nature Faith¡¯s knights, most of which were demons. The Laiyin army would be lost if they attacked the demons.


    Things would turn relentlessly messy once if tangled with the religious armies.


    In general, religious armies had no intention of taking the cities of other nations. However, if the invaded nations attacked them, it would result in a war that would wipe the entire nation out.


    As such, when the Holy See went about requesting permission for additional troops or to pass through a ce, Laiyin Duchy did nothing to stop them. They even sent mercenaries to help with the war effort. As a result, there were many mercenaries from Laiyin Duchy in the Holy See¡¯s expeditionary forces.


    When the Holy See had been defeated and the Nature Faith had been engaged, the Laiyin Duchy had be confused. Mercenaries would remain loyal so long as they were paid. As soon as payment from the Holy See was cut off, some mercenaries had switched sides to fight at the frontlines for the Nature Faith instead.


    It was easy to take on the scattered, losing armies. Mercenaries were most adept at fighting such battles.


    There were nobles in northern Qin who chose to hold out, but they were in trouble due to the presence of Alchemy City. When Alchemy City had agreed to help the nobles defend their cities, they had not done so unconditionally.


    With the emergence of the Nature Faith, the mages of Alchemy City requested for the nobles to refuse entry to the temple knights.


    Conflict inevitably broke out. Holy Rock City did not release any statements saying that the Nature Faith was illegal. The nobles did not want war with yet another Holy See, but the mages of Alchemy City were forcing the local nobles¡¯ hands. The nobles were unable to resist due to having signed contracts.


    Casualties were low when they were pursuing the Holy See¡¯s forces, but the battles with mages of Alchemy City caused the Nature Faith to lose many of their holy masters.


    While a new religion is first being established, even low-level holy masters are incredibly precious.


    Due to the delicacy of the situation, Saleen did not head straight to Pompeii City. Instead, he took the Floating City to northern Qin to join the fight.


    The battle was spectacr. The Floating City dropped magic fire shells from above and thousands of enchanters cast magic attacks at the forces below. Countless puppets dropped rocks from tremendous heights. The rocks, dropped from a height of about 10,000 meters, ended up being more lethal than anything thrown by the catapults.


    None of the northern nobles were able to resist such attacks.


    The mages of Alchemy City were unable to fend off Saleen¡¯s attacks either. Equipment like the Floating City had been considered extremely powerful even in ancient times.


    Even though its size was several hundred times smaller than what it had once been, and its attacks were also considerably reduced, to conventional armies, the Floating City was nothing less than a flying nightmare.


    The mages dispatched by Alchemy City were all sorcerers. There were thousands of demonic spirits in the Floating City that, with the help of the magic, were all effectively sorcerers as well. Only exceptionally powerful beings would have been able to resist such forces.


    Alchemy City had ample numbers of powerful professionals, but they had never expected to fight Saleen. Even if they¡¯d intended to do so, they would not have been able to catch up to him.


    People who were able to catch up to Saleen were in short supply. They were also afraid of not being able to take him on when they were at a disadvantage.


    The Floating City was indeed such an abhorrent menace. The shock of seeing such a huge city flying overhead was something that even their enemies couldn¡¯t suppress.


    Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s Floating City was 36 square miles. Being of such a humongous size, it could easily crush any city itnded on, let alone just throwing by rocks down from above.


    Saleen had actually done so. A local noble had killed hundreds of adherents of the Nature Faith, so Saleen had immediately gone there with the Floating City. He¡¯dnded right on top of the city belonging to said noble. The city was reduced to dust in mere moments.


    No northern nobles had been able to put up a decent fight after that. The Alchemy City mages had contracts in their hands, yet all of them proved useless. No nobles were able to fight Saleen. Only Alchemy City would have been able to stand a chance against him if they were willing to mobilize their mages and armies.


    Alchemy City¡¯s army was small, numbering less than 100 thousand. They had more mages than soldiers. The problem, however, was that there had been a strict contract signed between Alchemy City and Holy Rock City. Mages of Alchemy City were allowed to deploy, but their armies were only allowed to defend within the city or on warships at sea.


    The city¡¯s mages had taken to the sky to attack the Floating City. However, the Floating City¡¯s altitude was at a height that mages were very wary of. Few dared fight recklessly. They were all beaten to a pulp by the enchanters. Those who were not able to fly fast enough had been blown to bits by iing magic attacks.


    As soon as Saleen¡¯s Floating City was deployed, it seemed as if the tables had turned. The entirety of northern Qin had seemingly being swept clean by a tidal wave.


    Due to their rtions with Lex, the resistance from the northern Qin nobles was not intense. If not for that, Saleen would have had to ughter every single city he found.


    Alchemy City had never suffered such a crushing defeat when the Holy See was at the height of their power. They were incapable of doing anything to reverse their defeat, as Saleen¡¯s Floating City was able to trample over any conventional armies.


    The mages from Alchemy City retreated. Saleen¡¯s Floating City headed for the ruins where Pompeii City had once been.


    There was no need to actually rebuild the ce. Saleen simply instructed the lightning puppets to repair the walls of the ruins. The walls were treated like artwork. Many expensive stone materials were used for the repair.


    The newly built city wall had an irregr square shape and a circumference of ten miles. The walls were carved with murals and borate writings, illustrating Pompeii City¡¯s history.


    A huge memorial was built on the eastern side of the city. Over a million names were carved on the memorial. It contained all of the information found in the household register of Pompeii City.


    Alchemy City had destroyed Pompeii City, yet their magic records survived. Saleen did the best he could to illustrate the names and identities of all those people on the memorial.


    The memorial was surrounded by a Qin-styled cemetery where all of the dead bodies that remained were buried. The entire cemetery was a huge magic array, including the gravestones.


    Withmand over a Floating City, it became incredibly easy for the enchanters to cast spells from a height of about 100 meters overhead.


    As Alchemy City had suffered a devastating blow at northern Qin, Alchemy City did not dare to send any mages to harass Saleen. There was no need to do so, as Saleen¡¯s strength had grown to the point where they had to take him seriously.


    However, Saleen did not simply let the matter slide. He sent an adherent of the Nature Faith to Alchemy City, asking to be refunded for the house he¡¯d bought there. Alchemy City felt disgusted by Saleen¡¯s antics.


    They were selling real estate properties to earn money. Mages had to bear with the exorbitant cost if they intended to stay in Alchemy City.


    However, with Metatrin City rising up topete with Alchemy City, the mages had to go elsewhere. Real estate prices plummeted in Alchemy City as a result.


    Saleen asked to be refunded at the highest price possible. Alchemy City was already enemies with Saleen, and he was provoking them for doing such a thing.


    However, the contract was still in effect. If Alchemy City were to refuse, Saleen would have other reasons to look for trouble with Alchemy City.


    While Alchemy City felt disgusted by what he¡¯d pulled, there was no way for them to weasel out of the deal, so they refunded Saleen who took back the house. However, things took a turn for the worse when the Nature Faith adherent was unable to leave Alchemy City. The adherent was robbed and killed right in front of the Elemental Hand¡¯s tower.


    The killer was a powerful assassin. Alchemy City practically turned the ce upside down, but no one was able to find the killer.


    Saleen then asked Alchemy City about how they would settle the matter with him.


    Alchemy City was naturally unwilling to stomach a loss like that, but Saleen was quick on his feet. He simply took the Floating City to territories under Alchemy City¡¯s control and poisoned every single field that belonged to them.


    The poison was not a strong one and was incapable of killing anyone, yet it would prevent the soil from producing crops for over ten years.


    Saleen left feeling very pleased with himself. He took Sika to the Imperial City of the Abyss through the teleportation portal. The other end of the teleportation portal was a huge ind outside of the Oceanic Ice Block.


    That ce had been converted into a spirit ind by the Winged Skull. Their warship was patrolling nearby.


    ¡°Master, why didn¡¯t you bring Nailisi with you?¡± The Winged Skull asked on the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship.


    ¡°Nailisi need to man the Floating City, as only she is capable ofmanding that many demonic spirits. I¡¯m totally at odds with Alchemy City now. I never thought that, as a mage, I¡¯d havee this far,¡± Saleen said, sighing deeply.

 Chapter 1265: Goodbye, Gaine (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1265: Goodbye, Gaine (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°So it¡¯d be only the three of us heading to the Imperial City of the Abyss this time?¡± The Winged Skull took a look at Sika and sensed the overflowing power from her. Her strength could have eclipsed even dragons.


    ¡°Yes, just the three of us. We can¡¯t afford to have the others know about this,¡± Saleen said to the Winged Skull.


    The Winged Skull wore a human smile and chuckled. They arranged for the jade skeletons tomand the surrounding warships. Meanwhile, the mechanical soul took over the management of the Ancient.


    Saleen did not bother with Genga. The mechanical soul was the kind who would forget the pain once the wounds healed, thinking of ways to enhance its powers and devour enemies.


    Doing so would enable it to betray Saleen when it reached a certain level. Saleen knew that better than anyone else.


    However, if one were to break free of the Eternal Control Shard, one needed to reach the level of the person who had controlled the Three Kings back then. Saleen did not think that Genga would be able to go that far.


    No teleportation portals could be used once they entered the Oceanic Block. The elemental bnce was off. If one were to use teleportation, things could easily go haywire. Saleen was in no hurry.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship¡¯s speed in water was able to exceed 240 miles per hour since the Winged Skull had advanced.


    But then again, there was a need to ce ayer of bubbles outside the ship. The friction in water would have made the ship very hot otherwise.


    Saleen¡¯s powers had grown considerably. He came to understand how much of a risk he had taken back then by taking the Pan Turtle Alchemy Shi deep underwater. He had been the only one with a body of water element back then, making it possible for him to survive underwater without problems.


    The others, however, were all unable to withstand the high pressures underwater. If the ship had been destroyed, he would have been left alone, but every single follower of his would have been killed.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship drew a white line underwater. One could only find the line if they observed it up close.


    Saleen¡¯s magic had be so intricate that the Water Shield that he¡¯d coated the ship with forced the surrounding water to part, reducing the underwater resistance significantly. The water currents were even able to generate a certain amount of thrust after they circled around the ship.


    Saleen found that the number of magic beasts around them increased as the ship ventured deep inside the Oceanic Ice Block. In particr, the number of red krill grew by a frightening degree. He dropped the ship¡¯s speed because of this, nudging his way slowly through the schools of red krill.


    Saleen had to even kill a certain amount of red krill and throw them into his Starline Ring. If the path continued to be so congested, it would have taken him years to reach the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    ¡°What is happening?¡± The Winged Skull was shocked. They had killed many magic beasts in the outer regions. Due to being busy with a lot of other matters, the Winged Skull had cked off in the hunts.


    They¡¯d never expected the magic beasts in the Oceanic Block to grow to such frightening numbers within just several months.


    Sika answered in a matter-of-fact manner, ¡°This is a sign of the rise of the entire maind¡¯s power. The past several years were not actually the beginning. The explosive increase of low-level magic beasts allowed more high-level ones to hunt. Where would the food of the high-level magic beastse from otherwise? Nature always finds its bnce.¡±


    Saleen took her words to heart. He had been afraid of killing too many magic beasts and affecting the ecological bnce of the Oceanic Ice Block. He no longer had such worries and killed his way through them.


    He cast Lightning Constetion, causing the lightning puppets to start hunting huge amounts of mid-level magic beasts within about 100 miles of them.


    500 thousand lightning puppets were more than enough to overpower magic beasts below level-7. Saleen drew scores of said magic beasts into his dimension stone. The dead bodies of magic beasts taken into the dimension stone would never rot.


    Despite being at level-4, the red krill nheless made the best equipment for armies. Due to their massive numbers, the red krill could be used to craft massive amounts of magic armor.


    One red krill¡¯s spike could be made into at least three magic arrowheads.


    Such magic arrowheads were things that only level-9 archers could use. They were at least several hundred times more precious than metal ones. One could only imagine how many arrowheads Saleen could make after going on a killing spree of the red krill.


    Regardless of thick a mage¡¯s shielding was, they would always be afraid of getting rained on by tens of thousands of arrows.


    Saleen ended up hunting millions of red krill as he killed his way through the magic beasts. In the past, such a venture would have made Saleen insanely rich.


    At present, however, the upkeep required to maintain his armies was simply too massive. Such numbers were nothing worth mentioning after he was done distributing the resources.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship headed straight for the abyss after Saleen realized that they had spent too much time tangling with the magic beasts.


    Saleen had cleaned up a decent number of carcasses and bones left behind by the single-horned white whales and other magic beasts outside the Imperial City of the Abyss. The ce looked a lot more empty when he visited the ce again. Saleen put the ship away.


    With all three of them being level-10 professionals, they were easily able to deal with the pressures of the deep sea. Saleen had a body of water elements. Sika was a nature priest. The Winged Skull had a body of massively powerful bones and didn¡¯t need to breathe. As such, they were all safe in the depths of the sea.


    All three of them scaled the walls and met a level-12 Blue Ice Maiden head-on. The Blue Ice Maiden possessed a soul. When she shed with her water elemental sword, the move resembled that of a powerful human professional. It had overbearing might, just like the moves dealt by Sul¡ªoverbearing and proud.


    ¡°Great, the elemental badges need upgrades!¡± Saleen shot a lightning icicle right away, paralyzing the Blue Ice Maiden for a brief moment. Then he cast a, trapping her.


    While Saleen was only at level-10, his level difference with level-12 creatures was not all that huge.


    It was far easier for him to deal with level-10 elemental creatures now than it had been back when he was at level-9. Saleen had not even possessed a weapon as powerful as the lightning icicles back then. The nigh-indestructible was the best equipment for dealing with elemental creatures.


    With the exception of the Angel of Brightness, capturing creatures of all five other elemental types was a breeze with that.


    An Elemental Stone Statue Soldier rushed at him from right behind the Blue Ice Maiden. It was struck down to the ground by Sika with just one hit.


    The guards of the Imperial City of the Abyss had actually advanced to level-12.


    If it had not been for Sika¡¯s massive strength, the three of them would have had to resort to wearing their Imperial City Badges. The Winged Skull was the one who did nothing. While their level was on par with Saleen, theirbat capacity was no longer superior to his.


    Furthermore, the Winged Skull only had an overwhelming advantage over beings of flesh and blood in battle. Having them fight elemental creatures would have been a waste of energy.


    Saleen and Sika hunted down over a dozen elemental creatures quickly, heading towards the inner parts of the Imperial City after cleaning up the guards nearby.


    The general and the grandmaster were at the edge of the Cemetery of Heroes. The grandmaster looked glum as he said, ¡°General, that Saleen has been here several times and never gone inside the cemetery. How about I just go get him?¡±


    ¡°Nope. He has obviously met Gaine. You have yourself to me for setting up traps in the equipment you gave him. He would not have been on guard against you otherwise. Grandmaster, it¡¯s exactly due to you being so small-minded that you¡¯re unable to get to the highest level.¡±


    The grandmaster looked angry but he was unable to do anything. The general¡¯s prowess was such that, even if the grandmaster were in his prime, it would still have been difficult to take general on.


    ¡°So, we just leave him be?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Gaine will leave sooner orter. Without Gaine around, we¡¯ll be the ones he¡¯lle to for help,¡± the general answered calmly.


    ¡°How long do we have to wait?¡±


    ¡°Not long. Gaine... is not the kind of person who¡¯d do something he has no certainty of.¡±


    The grandmaster¡¯s soul shuddered. He wanted to say something but was unable to say anything. He would not have dared to look for trouble with a level-18 astrologer, as his own luck had already been bad enough. After all, he had already been trapped in the cemetery for hundreds of thousands of years.


    If he were to offend Gaine, even with words alone, and the astrologer cast a Constetion Wishing spell on him, he would not be able to leave, even when he truly died.


    Curse you, astrologer! The grandmaster cursed the astrologer deep down, but he dared not voice the words out loud.


    Saleen, Sika, and the Winged Skull came before the astrology tower. It was the first time Gaine¡¯s voice was heard from within.


    ¡°Saleen, why have you brought two others with you?¡±


    ¡°Can we get inside?¡±


    A beam of starlight shot from the astrology tower and hoisted all three of them right before Gaine. He no longer concealed his presence, as he knew that he would not be able to fool the general in the Cemetery of Heroes.


    The only being capable of taking him on in the entire city was the general. The general was the only one among all of the heroes who had been able to maintain his powers after death.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯m here with a request.¡± Saleen stood solemnly before Gaine.


    Gaine frowned and said, ¡°This is... rather inconvenient...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a mage and I know the rules of the price. I¡¯m here this time to deliver this,¡± Saleen said as he took out the level-19 Star Gathering Needle. He was ready to give it to Gaine unconditionally. However, there was no way Gaine would have asked for it without giving something in return. It had something to do with astrological rules.


    Astrologers and mages shared the same belief that there was a bnce of rules in the world.


    Gaine kept his eyes fixed on the level-19 Star Gathering Needle, but he did not extend his hand and take it. He said to Saleen, ¡°You¡¯ve had this with you for a long time, no?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, I¡¯ve had it with me for a long time.¡±


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you talk terms with me before?¡±


    ¡°There was no need for that. My request was not that much of a tall order. You¡¯d have helped me even if I wasn¡¯t going to exchange it with the Star Gathering Needle. I promised you before that I¡¯d be here to search for this for you when I reached level-10.¡±


    Gaine¡¯s hand was shuddering somewhat. He took the Star Gathering Needle and held it in his hand, letting the sharp end stab through his palm.


    A sensation of pain was soon felt. If it had not been for the body of the figure, Gaine would have shed tears right there and then.


    How many years has it been? I¡¯m no longer able to feel pain. I can taste nothing. Every pleasure ofmon man no longer has anything to do with me. I can no longer even suffer the pain felt bymon men.


    He was finally able to free himself from the body of the figure with that thing!


    ¡°What do you need, Saleen?¡± Gaine asked after quite some time.


    ¡°Sika, the totem pole,¡± Saleen said to Sika.


    Sika nodded and took out the 18 meter-long totem pole, putting it right before Gaine. Gaine wore a startled expression. A mage made this thing. It¡¯s magnificent, it¡¯s...


    ¡°I¡¯m hoping you¡¯ll be able to help my wife by infusing the world within the totem power with the power of the stars. It would enable the world within to operate in bnce, to be whole,¡± Saleen borated on his request.


    ¡°That¡¯s simple. Is there anything else?¡± Gaine continued to ask. The level-19 Star Gathering Needle was more important to him than anything.


    He would be able to thoroughly regain his powers with that thing. It would enable him to head to crystal wall systems of higher levels. Gaine had no intention ofing back after leaving, so Gaine wanted to help Saleen fulfill his wishes as best as he could.

 Chapter 1266: Lightning Constellation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1266: Lightning Constetion (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen pondered seriously for a bit and said to Gaine, ¡°I have some matters which I¡¯m thinking if you¡¯d be able to help me with, master.¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡±


    Saleen cast his territory and unleashed his own magic amplifier. At the center of the device, the shadow of the Lightning Constetion was disyed. At the same time, Saleen created an illusion using magic which showed the Lightning Moon inside the cemetery of the giant.


    ¡°I want to take this thing for myself and merge it within my equipment.¡± Saleen pointed at the Lightning Moon.


    Gaine took a look and wore a troubled expression. After studying it for a bit, he said, ¡°Your equipment is too weak to hold this unless you merge your equipment into it.


    Saleen expanded the illusion and revealed the countless suppressed fossilized gods beneath.


    Gaine was somewhat shocked and said, ¡°All of them are gods. I¡¯m surprised they stayed alive after being suppressed for that long. Oh, it was done so deliberately!¡± Gaine quickly saw through what the King of Glory¡¯s had been up to. None of those fossilized gods were truly dead. It had been done so to provide power to resurrect the giant. The power of a level-18 giant was beyond anyone¡¯s imagination. The wrath of one angry giant would have enabled them to destroy many divine kingdoms.


    Having such power meant that the giant had a powerful life force. As such, resurrecting one such being would have meant paying a greater price. It was anyone¡¯s guess as to how many divine kingdoms the King of Glory had destroyed in order to capture so many gods.


    ¡°Not a request that I¡¯d say is overboard, Saleen, but it is indeed a difficult one!¡± Gaine did not answer Saleen immediately, but Saleen knew that Gaine had agreed to do it nheless.


    ¡°Anything else?¡±


    ¡°My skeleton.¡± Saleen pointed at the Winged Skull and said, ¡°I know that in the spirit ne, there was a King of Spirits above the kings. Would you be able to advance him?¡±


    Gaine took a look at the Winged Skull and said, ¡°A rather interesting form of life. Not all that difficult to advance. Is that all?¡±


    ¡°That would be it. As for the path to walk after advancement, that would be up to them,¡± Saleen answered.


    The Winged Skull felt grateful. While his powers would have been to surpass Saleen¡¯s and continue to grow, but in the end, Saleen was the one with greater potential and the one who would have achieved more.


    Saleen was doing so to make the Winged Skull¡¯s path in the future smoother. If Saleen were to die one day and that the Winged Skull had advanced to be a King of Spirits, they would have been able to continue advancing even without outside help.


    Even if a spirit wanted to ovee such a threshold, the encounter that would have enabled them to do so came in the chances of one in thousands.


    ¡°Well then. Three matters. The totem pole and the matter with the skeleton, I¡¯d take care of them for you right away. As for that Lightning Moon, you¡¯d need to wait for an opportunity.¡±


    ¡°Wait for an opportunity?¡±


    ¡°If the giant were to resurrect, you¡¯d be able to take it down. I¡¯ll work on your Lightning Constetion. By then, the two pieces of equipment will be able to merge. I¡¯llplete all of the level seals for you. As you advance, you¡¯ll be able to unravel the seals one at a time, unleashing the true power of the equipment.


    Saleen looked rather disappointed and said, ¡°When would the giant resurrect then?¡±


    Gaine smiled and said, ¡°Well, don¡¯t get too greedy. Get someone to be on the lookout for you. If the energy barrier disappears one day, that¡¯d mark the giant¡¯s resurrection. He would then break through the barrier between nes and return to the giant ne. The gods outside would then be truly dead and you¡¯d get a bunch of materials for crafting high-level puppets. All of them were powerful fossilized gods, and so, don¡¯t think about taking the power of life in them. Those are for the giant and if you were to attempt to take them, you shall be attacked by all of those gods. Even I wouldn¡¯t have been able to stay alive under such circumstances.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen nodded in acknowledgment.


    ¡°I¡¯d be leaving when I¡¯m done with all that, Saleen. You could try to take everything in the Imperial City of the Abyss. What you¡¯d find here would enable you to conquer the entire maind. The astrology tower shall be yours. I¡¯m not taking anything with me but this Star Gathering Needle.


    Gaine ended up leaving massive wealth behind as a result. The amount of astrologer equipment and mage equipment left behind in the astrology tower was massive. The entire astrology tower was filled with material and equipment in massive amounts. Every single room was considered an independent space and the amount of starline cloth lying around was astronomical.


    The astrologers who had once been in the astrology tower would not have even considered using starline paper of just one level lower than their own. Materials like weremon consumables for astrologers. To mages, however, those were the best materials for crafting magic scrolls.


    It was due to their stable nature. Both starline paper and starline cloth were incredibly stable materials, making it easy to create energy pathways in them.


    What was different was that, in the hands of astrologers, starline paper was something capable of being reused several times. In the hands of mages, however, one use would render them destroyed. As such, mages did not use such materials much in ancient times. Starline cloth was far more expensive, and yet mages were still only able to craft one-time-use consumables with them. Astrologers crafted figures with them instead.


    Even Saleen would have been reluctant to craft scrolls using starline cloth. With Gaine gifting the entire astrology to him, the Kingdom of Metatrin would probably never see another day where they ran short on scrolls.


    Gaine smiled looking at Saleen¡¯s expression. ¡°While the astrology tower¡¯s wealth is massive, the most precious things you¡¯d find here are the sterites that the astrologers had umted from many other nes. You¡¯d be weed to have them. It¡¯s better than just letting them go to waste,¡± Gaine said as he took out a wooden box. The box was square and it was only about the size of a book.


    ¡°This thing here is called the Mysticube. It was something rare even back all those years ago. It¡¯de in handy somehow. Take the sterites out from the inside when you¡¯re free. Everything the sterites are capable of is recorded well in the book. I¡¯m not giving you any guidance in this regard. You¡¯re a mage, after all, so use it as you please.¡±


    Saleen took the Mysticube. The thing was formed by 27 spaces and was capable of turning freely around. Sterites of many types were stored within the 27 spaces. Saleen knew about sterites because mages used them for crafting equipment. However, they were hard toe by and the ones that one happened to find, did not necessarily have suitable qualities. As such, prices were usually ridiculously high and few bought them.


    The sterites found within the 27 spaces would fulfill any alchemical requirements that Saleen would ever have.


    In actual fact, only 24 types of sterites were found after scouring all nes. There were some repeated types found in those 27 spaces.


    Gaine did not dy further after Saleen put the Mysticube away. He went on to first craft the totem pole. The Star Gathering Needle which he had carried with him bore into the totem pole right there and then, disappearing from sight.


    Saleen and the others waited in a bored manner outside. The totem pole was something mystical and it was not something that Raphael would have been able to craft all on his own. Time passed and the totem pole gradually shrunk, bing a bead with only a height of six meters.


    The thickness of the totem pole hardly changed. Despite having shrunk, it was still difficult for Sika to wrap her arms around it when she was using it. Nothing changed about the holes on the totem pole. Sika could set the totem using only her fingers.


    Gaine quickly flew out of the metal totem pole and he waved at the Winged Skull.


    The Winged Skull took a look at Saleen, who nodded. Only then, the Winged Skull came before Gaine.


    ¡°You have a decent state of life, between dead spirits and living beings.¡± Gaine saw that mighty heart of the Winged Skull and said, ¡°Do you want to return to being a spirit or remaining as you¡¯re?¡±


    The Winged Skull thought for a bit and asked, ¡°How shall I serve my master better?¡±


    ¡°Be a god. if you¡¯re a god, you¡¯d be able to create angels of death. Theirbat capacity is the highest among all types of angels.¡±


    ¡°Master is a mage. He doesn¡¯t like gods.¡±


    ¡°Then just keep yourself as you¡¯re instead of bing King of Spirits. You would evolve into... an avicar?¡±


    ¡°An avicar?¡±


    ¡°A being that exists between life and death and one that does not believe in the gods. You¡¯d be able to acquire or create suitable warriors on every ne.¡±


    ¡°Well then, that shall be it.¡±


    The Winged Skull nodded and Gaine waved. The Winged Skull took to the air and into the neb within the astrology tower with Gaine. The astrologer only brought Gaine back about three dayster.


    ¡°Saleen, let them train on their own. You,e with me.¡±


    Saleen nodded and had both Sika and the Winged Skull head to the lowest floor of the astrology tower. Gaine took Saleen back to his own room.


    The space within that room was frighteningly enormous, but no signs of life were found. Saleen was only able to see the boundless stars and the floor about a hundred meter square beneath his feet.


    The ceiling was hanging within the neb.


    ¡°Cast your equipment, Saleen.¡±


    Saleen unleashed the goddess¡¯ ne as instructed. The shadow of the Lightning Constetion appeared shortly after. Gaine felt rather impressed with Saleen¡¯s crafting methods. While it was somewhat crude, but the idea behind it was something rarely found between young mages.


    The goddess¡¯ ne became a huge ring consisted of 24 ck crystals. The shadow of Lightning Constetion was inside the ring itself. Gaine threw the Star Gathering Needle out. It shot far away into the sky at a speed Saleen found unfathomable. The Star Gathering Needle disappeared within the sky for quite a while, before flying back to Gaine.


    The illusion of stars created by Lightning Constetion became tangible beings one after another under the effects of the Star Gathering Needle. Saleen¡¯s sight was extremely sharp, and he found that the stars at the far side seemed to have dulled somewhat.


    ¡°This is my home. But since I¡¯m about to leave, you¡¯ll get to have it.¡± Gaine patiently threw the Star Gathering Needle out one time after another, bringing back a huge amount of materials and constetion power each time he did so, fusing with Saleen¡¯s Lightning Constetion.


    There were no impurities fused within Saleen¡¯s equipment other than constetion power. As a level-18 astrologer, Gaine was able to pull such feats off in an incredibly refined manner.


    The 24 ck crystals above Saleen¡¯s head gradually disappeared, returning to Saleen¡¯s neck and transforming back into its ne form. 128,000 stars within the space of the Lightning Constetion hovered.


    The space created by the Lightning Constetion was hardly changed, yet the space became solid. Saleen no longer needed to invoke special properties of territories or his magic amplifier to use the Lightning Constetion.


    A huge star chart was formed within the entire Lightning Constetion. The star chart was well-sealed by Gaine¡¯s power. Theyers of seals on it were tailored specifically to Saleen. He would be able to ess the properties of the next level as soon as Saleen¡¯s power grew.

 Chapter 1267: Lightning Constellation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1267: Lightning Constetion (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen looked at Gaine¡¯s work without saying anything. He learned that when the powers of professionals reached their pinnacle, the difference between the professionals was no longer distinct.


    Gaine was incapable of using Water me Alchemy, yet he was able to use Saleen¡¯s methods to control equipment at will during the crafting process.


    128,000 stars were refined, each one little more than a hundred meters long. All of the stars hadplex and intricate star charts on them. The star charts resonated with each other and created star charts of greater areas.


    Gaine then said, ¡°When you reach level-13, that would more or less be the time that you be able to take that Lightning Moon. After you¡¯re done taking it, you¡¯d be able to unravel the first seal at level-14. Before you get to that stage, you won¡¯t be able to use the power of the Lightning Moon.¡±


    Saleen nodded furiously. It was a very satisfying result. He had no idea if the giant would have been resurrected by the time he got to level-13.


    ording to conventional logic, there was no way that could have happened. A giant¡¯s resurrection would have taken over a million years to achieve, and that was said without considering the time difference caused by altering the flow of time.


    The disappearance of the First Dynasty happened less than 100 thousand years ago.


    But then again, there was no doubt that theyout of the interiors of the cemetery of the giant would have been anything but simple. There was practically a sea of fossilized gods supplying life force to the dead giant within the cemetery. The resurrection of the giant would have been definitely done at a highly elerated rate.


    Saleen was able to wait. There was no need to use the Lightning Constetion in his battles with others after all. The Lightning Constetion was little more than a piece of auxiliary equipment forprehending and developing lightning skills after all.


    ¡°Saleen, the way of lightning was something that less than a hundred mastered since ancient times. There were only three among the gods who walked that path. I would not stop as you¡¯ve already made up your mind. You have your own teacher and he would have his own reasons. But,mit this star chart that I give you to memory. It marks the location of a dead god of thunder all those years ago, and only astrologers knew of that fact.¡±


    Gaine said and forcefully opened a path into Saleen¡¯s soul. That was the first time he did something like that ever since he came to know Saleen.


    ¡°Do not ever try this before you reach level-13. That god of thunder¡¯s power had been at the top among the gods. While his level was but 16, even level-17 or 18 would have been reluctant to fight him. That god of thunder was killed by humans who wielded the power of lightning as well. Judging on that human¡¯s temperament, there was no way he would have took that god of thunder¡¯s divine persona. He wouldn¡¯t have even wanted something like that.¡±


    Gaine paused before speaking about the man. ¡°That guy¡¯s named Shann. Any news you have of me, pay close attention. The path you walk would be a difficult one, and having someone to guide you would save you tens of thousands of years in training.¡±


    Saleen wanted to ask something, but Gaine quickly interrupted, ¡°If he is still alive, never tell him that I have brought this up. If he is dead, then pay utmost respect to whatever he left behind.¡±


    Saleen swallowed his words. He wondered what would have a mage that earned an astrologer¡¯s respect been truly like.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. I¡¯ve given you anything I should be giving you. I¡¯m taking this Star Gathering Needle. The astrology tower is yours. Don¡¯t take it outside the Imperial City of the Abyss just yet. Leave it here and I¡¯ll construct a teleportation star chart for you. You would be able to connect the portal with the Magical Element Tower. I¡¯ll leave you to figure out the problem with fuel consumption yourself. I¡¯d need a massive amount of energy to break through this crystal wall system, and I might end up dead during transit...¡±


    Gaine did not continue and Saleen did not try to stop him. When one reached the level of Gaine, one would have rather ended up dead, than to not try to reach a crystal wall system of higher level. There was nothing left for him in that crystal wall system he was currently in after all.


    ¡°This is the key controlling the astrology tower. Promise me this, unless you¡¯ve yourself a student suitable to be an astrologer, never give this astrology tower to anyone. If you should feel that your life has near its end, this ce shall be where you rest for good,¡± Gaine felt rather sad as he said all that, yet he disappeared before Saleen at a speed that Saleen was never able to anticipate nheless.


    Gaine¡¯s departure was a very, very sudden one, yet Saleen was nheless able to tell that Gaine had been very patient for talking to him about so much. When a soul was trapped in a figure and was unable to leave, such pain surpassed any kind of imprisonment.


    Even the expression of the general, who was in the Cemetery of Heroes, changed drastically. All of the powerful heroes watched the top of the astrology tower. A stream of stars appeared and then vanished.


    ¡°How is Gaine able to leave!?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible!!¡±


    ¡°General, did something happen?¡±


    ¡°General...¡±


    The general waved and said solemnly, ¡°He is freed, and that is not a bad thing for us. We need Saleen¡¯s help if we want to leave this ce. Furthermore, none of us want to return to Myers Maind. If we want to make it to another ne, we¡¯ll need to be more prepared. Let Saleen help us. I¡¯ll speak to him personally when he¡¯s here next time. Grandmaster, you shall stay out of this when he shows up the next time.¡±


    The grandmaster knew that he had made the wrong move before. But then again, no one would have expected a puny, rank-and-file-soldier-level mage to have gotten so lucky. Yet he had been able to help Gaine escape.


    That was something that not even the heroes would have been able to pull off, even if they worked together.


    ¡°Saleen, if you need me, feel free toe and see me. We¡¯ll talk for a bit,¡± the general shouted to the air around him. His voice coalesced into slivers of green threads, flying towards the astrology tower, incapable of getting in.


    The general was exasperated and put the threads way. He cast a sword soul instead.


    Unlike sword spirits, sword souls did not possess thought and were incredibly pure, enabling them to deliverplex messages without changing into a form of life. The sword soul was in itself, a great gift he could give to Saleen.


    A sword soul created by a level 18 hero would have never been lower than level 13.


    Saleen was holding the key to the astrology tower and figuring out how to control the ce when the sword soul flew by. Saleen opened the window and let the sword soul in.


    While his level at astrology was just level ten, but Saleen was able to control the tower¡¯s defensepletely with the key in his hand. The sword soul was utterly incapable of harming him within the tower itself.


    ¡°Interesting.¡± Saleen allowed the sword soul to fall into his hand. The sword soul was very tame, behaving well as it delivered the message to Saleen telepathically.


    The sword soul then became something with no master, bouncing about on Saleen¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Bing!¡± Saleen called. The Winged Skull, who had been waiting for days outside, walked into the room. Saleen handed the sword soul to the Winged Skull and said, ¡°While the Reaper Scythe is powerful, itcks a spirit. Merge this with your weapon.¡±


    The Winged Skull nodded and took out their huge Reaper Scythe, merging the sword soul within.


    The Reaper Scythe chirped happily. While the sound was piercing, it did no damage to anyone.


    Sika then walked inside and asked, ¡°What happened, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°The general had sent word, asking me to see him when I have the time. Hehe, it seems that the grandmaster hasn¡¯t suffered any punishment. Those bunch is really looking down on me.¡±


    ¡°Just leave them be then. The way I see it, none of them would be leaving that ce.¡±


    ¡°Of course. Gaine was somewhat stronger than the general and he was trapped in a figure all the same. It¡¯s about time those hero gravestones expire. Those heroes would immediately die as soon as they leave the ce. Leave them be. We¡¯ll head back to Myers Maind!¡±


    ¡°Where is Gaine?¡±


    ¡°Gone, and we¡¯ll probably never see him again,¡± Saleen said rather regretfully. If he had been willing to take Gaine as his teacher, then the astrologer would have been willing to stay in that ne for a little while longer.


    However, Saleen already had his own teacher, and there was no way he could have cast what Jason had done for him aside. If it had not been for Jason back then, he would have long starved to death.


    Magic or astrology. It was a no-brainer for Saleen. The way he saw it, he¡¯d never had a choice.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Follow me and go take a look at the astrologer¡¯s teleportation portal,¡± Saleen said as stars circled about him. He brought both Sika and the Winged Skull to the center of the astrology tower, to the neb at the top floor.


    Saleen was rather baffled when he got there. The neb was almost entirely gone. Only the center remained shining brilliantly. The starry sky formed a huge star chart, which worked identically in terms of spatial theories with magic teleportation portals.


    That thing was very easy to maneuver, but teleporting from it would have required arge number of constetions or magic powers.


    Unless Saleen was willing to dump all of his elemental creatures into it, there was no way he could activate the portal.


    It was not about distance, as not even teleportation between nes would have had such a high cost. It was because the Imperial City of the Abyss was too special, shrouded by some kind of unnamed energy.


    They were not in Myers Maind. They were blocked by something simr to crystal walls. They would have had no choice but to rely on their legs to get outside.


    It was no wonder that Gaine had told him to figure that part out himself. However, that star chart teleportation portal seemed to have another way of initiating space jumps. That space jump was capable of breaking something as hard as crystal walls. Such was the value of the teleportation portal.


    ¡°Never mind...¡± Saleen was speechless. The grandmaster had almost emptied the energies of the neb to get himself through the crystal wall system. He deemed it wise to not attempt such methods of transit that would have required such a huge amount of fuel.


    ¡°So we head back now, master?¡±


    ¡°No, we¡¯ll have a look around and see what Gaine left us.¡± Saleen was thinking that it was fortunate that he had not brought Nailisi. She would have begun to raid the ce like a rat in a granary.


    Saleen was likewise not in a hurry. He brought the two of them to begin searching the third floor. That search ended up robbing Saleen¡¯s interests in further explorations and adventures. The wealth within the tower was like Gaine had described¡ªmore than enough to let him unify the entire maind.


    Figure soldiers, weapons, equipment, just about anything he could have imagined.


    There were no magic nuclei around, yet there were all manner energy stones all over the ce. Magic nuclei suited mages better, but Saleen possessed magic power furnaces. There was hardly any difference between the energy stones and magic nuclei to Saleen.


    Other than that, astrologers loved collecting meteorites, and the amount was so massive that Saleen found it uneptable. All manner of meteorites literally piled into mountains in some rooms.


    Those meteorites werebeled in Ancient Myersnguage and their information was detailed. Other thanbels made by astrologers, there were alsobels made by mages and warriors among the materials. All of them were determined by their use along the lines of professions.


    The astrology tower had just about everything but gold coins.


    Furthermore, there was actually gold on the lower floors. However, none of the gold had been refined. The wrought gold-stock solution, heavy water, and terrifying metallic poisons could have been refined from them.

 Chapter 1268: Interception from Alchemy City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1268: Interception from Alchemy City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Metallic poison was something that could be refined from any metal. However, the more precious the metal was, the more potent and high-leveled the poison would be.


    The gold coins circting in the world consisted of gold that had been refined. There was next to nothing else to be extracted from them, just the purest of gold. However, that was not the case with ancient gold coins.


    As such, when mages wanted to refine metallic poison, they would purchase ancient gold coins. That was the reason why one ancient gold coin was worth a hundred of their contemporary counterparts.


    Metallic poisons were not meant for killing people; they were an essential ingredient for corrosive etching of magic armors. A set of magic armor without the use of metallic poisons in theirposition would need the use of mithril or metallic poisons to etch magic arrays. There were no other ways of doing it.


    If it had been easy to meld elemental powers into steel, mages would have long ago created warrior equipment that enabled their wearers to fly. Mithril was no doubt expensive and their metallic poison was also extremely difficult to refine.


    The Grukos royalty gained control of metallic mines precisely for the rare metallic poisons. Not even Alchemy City would have been able to wrestle with the Grukos in this regard.


    Saleen¡¯s loot was massive. Even his Starline Ring was filled up, so it was fortunate that he had the Mysticube.


    While the Mysticube given to Saleen by Gaine was not dedicated space equipment, its capacity was far higher than that of the dimension stone.


    Saleen knew that he had no way of moving the astrology tower at the moment. The huge building was simr to the Magical Element Tower, but definitely nowhere near as portable as the Magical Element Tower. Its internal space was so huge that it would not have been able to fit within the Starline Ring.


    Not even the 12 Notes of First Purgatory would have been able to carry it due to reasons rted to levels.


    Until the day Saleen became an astrologer above level-16, there was no way he would have been able to move the astrology tower.


    The only feeling that Saleen had gotten after searching the lower floors to the upper floors, was that astrologers back in the day had definitely been more wealthy than the Goddess of Myers. He came to realize that what the grandmaster said had not been exaggerated after all.


    Myers was a mage herself back then, and the astrology tower had probably housed collections of all the astrologers within the city. The size of the Imperial City of the Abyss was at leastrger than the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    There were many ces within it where space ovepped. There was a map of the imperial city found within the tower, and Saleen¡¯s eyelids twitched when he saw it.


    It was like a corner of the maind had been cut apart to build that city. There were mountains and rivers, as well askes and ins within the city itself. Saleen was baffled at the extravagance embodied by that city itself.


    After he finished collecting all of the astrology tower¡¯s wealth, Saleen left with Sika and the Winged Skull. The tower was not all that far away from the cemetery, and if the general had been able to send a sword soul there, he would have definitely been able to send something even more terrifying.


    While the general behaved in a prudent manner, Saleen nheless knew that powerful beings of such levels were willing to follow their hearts. It was just like that with Saleen, who found it unthinkable to bow and kneel to a magic apprentice, even if he had a favor to ask.


    ¡°We¡¯re finally going home!¡± Sika was still as she always was. She left the Imperial City of the Abyss and went on to the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship.


    ¡°We¡¯re going home,¡± Saleen said. Metatrin was indeed his home. Whatever happened, he eventually had to return to the city that he had created.


    As for Ceylon City, while he had indeed rebuilt it, he held little memory or fondness of it.


    Mages were not people who were prone to sentiments. Returning there once had been enough for Saleen. The city that had given birth to him and raised him became a part of his memory.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy City quickly left and Saleen began to craft the elemental badges on the ship. A set of elemental badges would make hisbat capacity more ferocious.


    While the Lightning Constetion was capable of holding greater elemental powers, yet it was a pity that it was based mainly on earth elements with water element serving an auxiliary role. It was adequate for Saleen¡¯s own use, but if he were to take care of all the mages around him, then the elemental badges were a must.


    Saleen began crafting some elemental badges of lower levels. He wanted every mage close to him to be able to use such equipment. The greatest use of such things was to enable mages to manipte the elements for doing battle at any time, without being limited by environmental factors after all.


    As such, Saleen did not have excessive demands of the badges, requiring all of them to be filled with high-level elemental creatures. In general, he would have refined any elemental creature that had reached level-9. One elemental belt after another formed within Saleen¡¯s Water me.


    There were simply too many environments, like that of the cemetery of the giant that severely limited a mage¡¯s powers. Worse still, that had been something decided to limit the power of the gods. If it had been made to deal with mages, it would have made it extremely difficult for mages to manipte all elements in the air around.


    An anti-magic territory was no joke.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship left the Oceanic Ice Block and floated onto the surface. That was the way to raise their speed to the maximum and the outer regions overran with magic beasts. The staggering number of beasts killed each other in a frenzy and even then, the numbers were hardly reduced.


    Saleen did not want to tangle there. He wanted to head home andy out his ns anew.


    Gaine had taken away the level-19 Star Gathering Needle but left behind three level-18 ones for Saleen. Those were Gaine¡¯s own equipment, which Gaine no longer needed after he left the Imperial City of the Abyss. The value of one level-19 Star Gathering Needle eclipsed 100 level-18 ones.


    That thing was the key to opening the crystal walls after all.


    Saleen¡¯s powers were hardly enhanced, but the Lightning Constetion nheless came to possess true growth potential after it had been re-crafted.


    If the opportunity presented itself, he would have gone to take the Lightning Moon, which would have enabled the Lightning Constetion to be the most powerful equipment in Saleen¡¯s possession.


    Not even Saleen¡¯s family badge would have been able topete by then. He knew the use of that badge very well. It was little more than an auxiliary item. An attack that was only capable of being used once in half a year would have driven its user insane due to the wait.


    The Winged Skull alone was enough to man the ship. An unremarkable floating object was rammed by the ship as it cruised at great speed, shattered upon impact.


    The Winged Skull stopped the ship and Saleen retrieved his Water me. He scanned the ce with his Elemental Eye and was shocked when he saw the fragments.


    That was a piece of his own warship!


    The entire Oceanic Ice Block had been controlled by his fleet, and he wondered who it was that had assaulted his fleet.


    All of Saleen¡¯s warships were basically made of steel. Some were even constructed using thundercloud wood. Their sturdiness was such that so long as they did not go about provoking level-9 magic beasts, they would not have been sunken.


    Furthermore, there was no way three to five level nine magic beasts would have been able to take on the warships. It would have required a whole pack of them to ensure a warship would not have been able to escape.


    All of Saleen¡¯s fleets were capable of traveling at great speeds. Due to the use of magic power furnaces as power sources, they were capable of a sustained cruise. Saleen left the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship right away and took to the sky, patrolling around.


    The fighting was fierce over 60 miles away in the south.


    The Ancient and a huge metal warship were shooting at each other. Both were using magic cannons.


    The area was filled with warship wreckages, both Saleen¡¯s and Alchemy City¡¯s.


    What came to Saleen¡¯s mind first was the thought of Grand Duke Iron Blood going back on the treaty. There was no way that many warships of Alchemy City would have been able to break through the grand duke¡¯s line of defense.


    However, Saleen dismissed that thought soon enough. All of Alchemy City¡¯s warships were new ones.


    Having stayed in Alchemy City before, he knew what Alchemy City¡¯s warships looked like. While they were powerful, they had many weaknesses as well. Most of those warships relied on mages when fighting against the Cloudflow fleet.


    All of those new warships Saleen saw resembled the Ancient somewhat. Furthermore, the speed of all those warships would have probablye close to that of his fleet.


    There was an ind nearby that produced copper ores, and that was also the area where the Ancient patrolled, which led straight to the Oceanic Ice Block.


    That huge metal warship was made precisely from materials that he had provided the Devil¡¯s Horn with. Saleen¡¯s eyes grew cold as he took in all that.


    It was nothing peculiar that Devil¡¯s Horn had acquired metals using deception, but since Devil¡¯s Horn had allied itself with the Elemental Hand, there was no need for him to consider any options for negotiation.


    ¡°Sika, we¡¯ll go sink that ship!¡± Saleen said, pointing at the huge construct.


    That was not a fortress at sea, but an all-magic warship. The number of magic cannons installed onboard was greater than those on the Ancient. Metal flyers that flew out of the Ancient were all quickly downed by attacks from the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s warship.


    However, there were a considerable number of metal flyers that made it to higher altitudes, dropping all manner of attacks below.


    Among those attacks were magic fire shells and metal magic balls.


    The number of mages on the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s metal warship was staggering. There were hardly any attacks thatnded on that ship. Even if some managed to drop on to it, they were quickly neutralized by magic.


    Only shallow dents were created when huge metal projectiles crashed onto the deck. Furthermore, all of the troops stationed on the deck wore magic armor. Unless they were directly hit by the metal projectiles, there was almost no way for ssh damage of any kind to hurt them.


    The Ancient was manned by the mechanical soul, Genga. While the ship was bulky, its maneuverability was hardly affected. However, Genga¡¯s attack method was rather one-dimensional and Saleen did not assign many ancient warriors to it. The mechanical soul clones were likewise unable to resist the mages¡¯ attacks.


    The Ancient would have still been able to hold out for the moment, yet Genga was unable to protect the surrounding Metatrin warships.


    If it had been conventional naval battles, those warships could have still evaded for the time being. As those ships were protecting the ind and the route into the Oceanic Ice Block, there was simply no way they could have run.


    It was fortunate that there were few sailors on those warships. They mostly consisted of demons and imps.


    Demons were hardly afraid of dying. If the ships they were on sank, they could swim for thousands of miles. Saleen¡¯s ind was about 200 miles away and there was a smaller version of Demon City on it.


    Saleen waited until Sika had gotten into his territory, before bringing Sika and cranked his flight speed to the highest¡ª500 miles per hour.


    At such speeds, it took Saleen six minutes to cover the 60-mile distance. His body was shrouded by a thick mist. He was high above and would not have attracted the attention of the powerful ones.


    Saleen had also cast the Lightning Constetion, conjuring lightning. While they looked furious, the bolts carried little energy and were unable to attack well.


    The speed at which the lightning bolts dissipated made it so that they were almost incapable of attacking anything more than ten meters away.


    However, to the mages that had been observing the dark clouds above them, that cloud was definitely not a ce humans would be able to hide in.

 Chapter 1269: Interception from Alchemy City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1269: Interception from Alchemy City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Master, stay back. It¡¯s a trap!¡± Saleen heard the mechanical soul¡¯s voice say all of a sudden. The mechanical soul used some unknown method to transmit its voice to him without alerting the enemy.


    Saleen smirked. He knew without a doubt that it was a trap, but there was no way he could have just stayed away. His enemy would have crushed his entire fleet otherwise. There were still about 60 ships of various sizes remaining, and he could not just give them all up.


    Furthermore, he had little to worry about traps, as there was no way he was still afraid of traps set up by Alchemy City. Having a body made of water elements, he had all the advantage he needed in naval battles.


    The power of water element magic was amplified by his magic amplifier 24 times. Not even level-11 mages were a match for him.


    Having eight balls of lightning and seven lightning icicles at his disposal meant that he could make ns to kill 15 professionals of his level.


    Better still, Sika was around, which made destroying the huge metal warship an easy feat.


    The dark clouds reached them and Saleen chose to cast a scroll imbued with level-11 Meteorite. The huge rock descended from above. Both Saleen and Sika followed right behind, heading straight for the metal warship that was attacking the Ancient.


    Tens of level-9 mages took to the air. Saleen¡¯s cloud was no longer able to fool anyone, as there was simply no cloud that would have descended together with a meteorite.


    Saleen counted, finding that, with the exception of the three mages taking the lead being at level-ten, the other 60 mages were all level-9 sorcerers.


    Alchemy City truly thought highly of him for having so many mages ready to take him on. It seemed that the secret about Quickcloud had been leaked. Saleen shouted midair and cast 12 Thundering Phantasms.


    One level-10 mage used their senses to tell the illusions apart as soon as the Thundering Phantasms were cast, determining which among the 13 silhouettes was truly Saleen.


    The mages had been toiling to pierce the cloud, putting all of their focus to telling the illusions apart. The level-10 mage was hit by the Thundering Phantasms¡¯ traps.


    Smoke billowed out of the level-10 mage¡¯s orifices without warning. Their brains vaporized as ten other level-9 mages dropped with them. All of those other ten mages observed their targets, incapable of observing three at the same time as the level-10 sorcerer had been able.


    11 enemies dropped out of the fight in an instant. The remaining level-10 mages were startled. They knew Saleen had advanced to level-10, but they had never expected him to be so ferocious. None of the remaining mages knew how theirpatriots had died.


    Yet another level-10 mage went about sensing the Thundering Phantasms. That illusion broke with a crack, but an unlucky level-10 mage still dropped out of the sky. They did not die immediately, but nheless suffered a drop in power as the Thundering Phantasm attacked their brain.


    However, they were not able to stay alive for long before having their throat slit by a triangr bone. The white bone zipped about in the cloud, its trajectory flighty and unpredictable.


    The magic beast soul within it had already been sessfully matured, making it impossible for a severely injured level-10 mage to defend against it.


    The remaining mage could have been dumb, yet there was no way that the only remaining level-10 mage could be oblivious as to how the two level-10 mages had died.


    ¡°You¡¯re dead, Saleen!¡± That mage determined Saleen to be the enemy and cast a stream of magic me at him. Saleen saw the huge Ancient elerate all of a sudden as it rammed the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s metal warship.


    While it was not actually a suicide attack per se, the mechanical soul had nheless been uncannily valiant. It knew well that if it were to leave Saleen¡¯s side, it would simply be made into someone else¡¯s ve and would never acquire its freedom.


    There was no way to shrug off the Eternal Control Shard. It was simply ying the victim when it did what it usually did. But when Saleen was truly in danger, it saw no choice but to help out.


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to go that far, Genga.¡± Saleen felt heartache for his own ship due to what Genga had pulled. He consoled the mechanical soul using Thundering Voice. He then took Sika behind the meteorite and crashed into the metal warship.


    The opposing mages were spread out. A three-dimensional magic array appeared on the metal ship. There were 36 magic power furnaces surrounding said magic array and there were 36 powerful mages standing on the furnaces, all looking as if they had been waiting for Saleen for quite some time.


    ¡°Fools!¡± Saleen let out a cold smirk as he said it. He cast a ck ball of lightning straight at the magic array.


    There was immediately a mage casting a huge fireball at him. The mage¡¯sbat skill was formidable, as they were able to determine the trajectory of Saleen¡¯s ball of lightning in an instant.


    It was worth noting that Saleen had only been able to determine a ball of lightning¡¯s final destination despite having worked on it for so long. He was still incapable of controlling its direction of movement.


    That mage was able to determine something that not even Saleen himself was capable of knowing. The mage probably either had formidable calction equipment or exceptionally keen battle sense.


    That mage did not need any magic shields due to having such abilities, as it enabled them to nullify high-level spells using low-level ones, conserving a huge amount of magic chords.


    The ball of lightning phased through the fireball and pierced through another magic shield beforending on the magic array. Saleen had chosen an elemental point on the magic array. The ck ball of lightning disappeared and the elemental point on the array melted all of a sudden.


    Explosions were triggered as soon as the point melted. It was something that was rarely seen in the use of magic arrays. While magic arrays were capable of exploding, it was hardly ever due to a point being destroyed. An elemental point was a very stable location. Its stability even exceeded elemental vibrations within anti-magic territories.


    ¡°Whatever tricks you people still have, bring them on!¡± Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles pierced the abdomen of the third level-10 mage. That mage had never expected a projectile to be capable of piercing his level-10 earth elemental armor.


    That earth elemental armor was an extremely powerful defense skill after its wearer got to level-10. It was so formidable that even if it were to be hit by level-12 spells, it would simply shatter, absorbing the lethal attack in the mage¡¯s ce.


    The attack that Saleen cast was indeed an elemental magic spell instead of a physical attack. In the conventional sense, while spells as low level as icicles had certain physical attack attributes, there was no way it could break a level-10 spell.


    Saleen did not even bother using his equipment on any of the remaining level-9 sorcerers. He threw level-10 scrolls on each of them. Half of them downed and the rest fled in terror.


    Saleen¡¯s power had grown since he¡¯dst shed with them.


    The three-dimensional magic array on the warship had been broken and the magic power furnaces stopped working altogether as well. The mage who was taking the lead began to tense up and shouted, ¡°Summon!¡±


    The remaining Thundering Phantasms had already charged at the warship¡¯s deck, yet they chose to attack the magic power furnaces instead. The furnaces were stable and the phantasms would have only been able to disable them for a while.


    It was something that Saleen had taken risks to test out.


    Magic power furnaces did not explode, as they were capable of absorbing most types of elemental energies, yet the thundering sound within the Thundering Phantasms was something difficult to absorb, causing the elements within the furnaces to be chaotic instead.


    The magic power furnaces would have then stopped working altogether as a measure of self-protection, until the elements within became stabilized.


    All 36 magic power furnaces would have stopped working for at least an hour and a half, making it pointless to repair the magic array.


    However, the mages apparently had no intention of repairing the magic arrays. They chanted short chants instead. Those chants were apparently something that had been prepared in some equipment andpressed.


    Saleen dropped onto the deck within a second. The deck caved in at that moment, with three huge metal puppets appearing around him.


    No. Those are not puppets. Those are energy beings!


    ¡°Saleen, even without the control of the magic array. I bet you won¡¯t be able to beat these three metal angels!¡± The young mage who was in charge of the magic arrayughed maniacally. That mage looked to be of simr age to Saleen, who was dressed in red magic robe and was at the pinnacle of level-10.


    Saleen looked at that mage coldly and frowned. That mage was the first one he had seen from Alchemy City who had been forcefully enhanced. The young mage used some unknown means to have their powers enhanced from the rank of a sorcerer to level-10, and their soul suffered severe damage as a result.


    It was a result that he had seen using astrology, and it irked him somewhat.


    Alchemy City had once been the holy ground in the minds of mages, and he had not expected them to do something like that!


    Metal angels? Did Alchemy City acquire control over some god?


    The three metal angels were over four meters tall, approaching the height of the demons. The metal wings behind their backs coursed with elemental powers that Saleen was not that familiar with, and it seemed to have originated from earth element.


    However, they possessed formidable offensive capacity, which differed from the attributes of the earth element.


    ¡°Who the hell cares!?¡± Sika¡¯s voice was cold. She neverughed at her enemies. A huge metal totem pole was brought down right on top of the metal angel taking the lead.


    That metal angel¡¯s mask twisted for a bit, seemingly smirking. A heavy sword with a thickness approaching half a foot was in the angel¡¯s hand, blocking the metal totem pole.


    The metal angel apparently did not believe that a human would have been able to exceed that of the metal gods, who were known for their strength.


    Boom! Boom! Boom!


    The continuous rumble forced all of the mages around to protect their ears using magic. A huge crater was seen on the deck, which was over ten meters wide. Sika had not only smashed that metal angel t, but she had also broken through two deckyers, cracking even the thirdyer.


    ¡°The shell of a turtle sure is thick and hard!¡± Sika was saying that sarcastically instead of being impressed. She leaped into the hole and continued to attack with her metal totem pole. Violent sounds of metal shattering were heard. The mages were rather dumbfounded.


    Is she even human? Not even dragons would have been able to break the Angel Warship!


    The two remaining metal angels were even more surprised. Their leader had been smashed into a metal pie by that human female, and despite two seconds have passed, there was no sign of their leader returning to its original form. That metal angel was not afraid of physical attacks.


    Even if it was to be cut into pieces, it would have reassembled itself and not suffered any injuries.


    Saleen was in no mood to talk to the metal angels about resurrection in detail. Sika¡¯s metal totem pole dealt more than physical damage. There were countless living beings within the totem pole and there was constetion power as well.


    Be it the powers of priests or the power of the stars wielded by astrologers, both were capable of dealing lethal damage to gods.


    If that angel intended to resurrected, it could be done if Saleen let it be for three days and three nights straight, letting it absorb all metallic energies to restore itself.


    But Saleen would not have done such a thing. Two of his lightning icicles shot the two metal angels who were stillpletely dumbfounded. At the same time, he threw a huge at one of them.

 Chapter 1270: Might makes Right (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1270: Might makes Right (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The metal angel was formidable enough to keep struggling even after being covered by that. It was attempting to cut it open with the heavy sword in its hand. The contracted in an instant, trapping the angel securely. The metal angel continued to wiggle about, shooting countless metal des to cut the.


    Saleen did not bother with it and shot another lightning icicle at yet another metal angel. He then opened a sealing scroll and threw the metal angel in the inside the scroll. That scroll¡¯s creation was entirely dependent on luck, as it was at level-11, the highest level of a scroll that both Saleen and his teacher were capable of creating.


    As a level-10 mage, the creation of a level-11 scroll only had 20 percent of sess even when starline paper was used. Every time Saleen ventured outside, he had to bring about 100 scrolls of such level.


    To have a level-11 scroll sealing a level-12 angel would have also been a matter of luck, as the rate of sess of such sealing would have only been one percent, even if that angel had lost consciousness. Saleen was fully ready to throw the next sealing scroll.


    He did not realize that he had actually seeded in the first throw.


    ording to statistics, the probability of sealing the second metal angel was even lower. Saleen put the scroll away and unleashed lightning puppets to block the metal angel who had regained consciousness. He picked up the and picked up the sealing scroll.


    Two of three metal angels were taken out in a jiffy. Thest remaining one looked terrified. However, it was being subjected to magical control and was incapable of running, so it had to continue attacking Saleen.


    The huge heavy sword was over half a foot thick and over four meters in length. One sh caused the air around to explode. Being grazed by the shockwave alone would have torn a person apart. Saleen would have never engaged a metal angel in physicalbat. He opened his territory and let the lightning puppets pounce on and tangle in it. Saleen took the opportunity to deal with the mages around him using magic scrolls.


    There was all manner of professionals onboard the giant metal warship. Once the mages¡¯ magic array was destroyed, the grand swordmasters pounced and were ready to do battle. But when the two metal angels were defeated, the grand swordmasters became rather afraid instead.


    However, with the enemy on board the ship, there was no way they could have avoided fighting. They were not onnd. Mages were capable of prolonged flight. If the grand swordmasters were to fall into the water, they would only be able to pray that there would be decent inds for them to climb on. More importantly, they would have to pray not to encounter any seaborne magic beasts that were too powerful. Mages were far better at swimming than grand swordmasters were.


    Saleen¡¯s magic skill was at an all-time high then and he was able to wield low-level magic spells like they were his own limbs. Furthermore, the enemy¡¯s reaction had been noticeably slowed when fighting in his territory. Saleen only needed to use low-level spells to fight them.


    The leading mage of Devil¡¯s Horn, that young level-10 sorcerer was still unable to properly gauge Saleen¡¯s power after observing him for so long, thinking that Saleen was only armed with mystical equipment. That mage charged with two golden grand swordmasters by their side after seeing Saleen being adept at long-range fighting.


    Saleen took his time on and off to have the lightning puppets attack the low-level mages and warriors controlling the magic cannons at the gunwale. Attacks from the metal warship weakened gradually and were then overpowered by the Ancient.


    The remaining 60 and more ships in Saleen¡¯s fleet had their pressures lifted off and they began to attack the ships of Alchemy City. The metal warship that shook heavily all of a sudden¡ªSika had made it to the bottommost floor, knocking a few holes at the bottom of the warship.


    Sika had even broken the warship¡¯s pure metallic keel. The warship began to creak in the waves and it seemed that the sinking of the ship was imminent.


    The metal angel continued to bring all of its might to ughter its enemies, yet its enemies consisted of lightning puppets and nothing else. Saleen took the opportunity to hunt down mages instead of fighting that level-10 sorcerer. The young sorcerer was practically fuming, yet they were unable to keep up with Saleen¡¯s speed.


    Despite being at sea, Saleen had the elemental badges on his person and he had the Lightning Constetion cast, so he was in nock of earth elemental powers. His movements came to resemble Jalin¡¯s more and more. That level-10 mage was incapable of even touching Saleen¡¯s shadow. The thick mist created using water element grew increasingly thick,ing to shroud the entire metal warship.


    It was only then that the young sorcerer found that something was off. They lost all support.


    Saleen¡¯s territorial powers prevented their territorial powers from being cast. It was not something resulting from level difference but from a territorial difference. Saleen¡¯s territory had always been more powerful than that of conventional level ten mages. The territorial powers of that young mage had been something forcefully put onto them, making them incapable of controlling it smoothly. When faced with something like lightning territory which had clearly been more powerful and capable of dealing debuffs, that young mage¡¯s territory was incapable of being cast at all.


    Saleen was unable to help but asked, ¡°How did such an idiote to be a sorcerer!?¡±


    That young mage felt thoroughly ashamed. They were unable to even see where Saleen was by then. Even when Saleen¡¯s shadow appeared in the mist, they did not even dare to sense if that was real.


    They were able to guess the attributes of Lightning Phantasm even if they were to be even dumber than that. The illusions seen within the mist was like some enticing poisons. That mage had only dared to use magic for targeting and attacking at most, not daring to even find out if those shadows were real.


    Actually, it would have been easy to break those illusions¡ªhaving amon warrior sh at them once or twice would have sufficed. The illusions had unspeakably weakbat capacity, so much so that even a swordmaster would have been able to easily break them. The problem, however, was that Saleen was moving too quickly. The speed at which the illusions move was something that no swordmaster would have been able to keep up with.


    When the number of low-level warriors around him grew, Saleen would have only needed to cast a multiple target spell to deal with them. One level-9 spell alone would have caused a good number of them dropping dead.


    That young sorcerer had even begun to doubt if they were the ones ambushing Saleen, or Saleen was the one hunting them down.


    A powerful level-12 magic array, three level-12 metal angels, and a squadron of mages capable of conjuring flying magic arrays; all of them were broken by Saleen alone. Saleen was indeed taking out everyone on the huge metal ship all on his own.


    But then again, he was not actually alone; Sika was there as well.


    Sika had only returned to the deck after breaking the warship sufficiently. Thest metal angel on the deck continued to swing its sword around. Every single swing caused over a dozen lightning puppets getting bisected. The metal sword emanated liquid form sword aura, bringing unparalleled cutting power to bear along with high temperatures.


    The metal angel was surrounded by fuming, vaporized metal. No one dared to get near other than the lightning puppets.


    Sika looked at all of that and brought the metal totem pole to shoot dazzling starlight out of the hundreds of holes on it. The constetion power had been molded by Gaine, enabling nature priests to use them at will. While the attributes were different, the power was not even slightly diminished.


    The metal totem pole crashed onto the metal angel heavily, reducing it to a pie. The metal feathers from the squashed angel shot everywhere, killing countless warriors. Saleen, who was watching the fight from afar, felt the flooring beneath shaking, so much so that he was almost sent flying. While Sika¡¯s strength hardly grew, but the attack of the metal totem pole itself was formidable regardless.


    The people onboard the metal warship were all in shambles. The mages were incapable of keeping things in control and there were even warriors casting out lifeboats, getting ready to run. However, all of the lifeboats were under the mages¡¯ control, so the warriors in the water were unable to go anywhere still.


    Sika then put the two metal pies¡ªthe crushed metal angels¡ªinto her own space equipment. Saleen called for Sika and took to the air, finding the fighting tiresome and simply let the Ancient st the remaining people alive on the ship instead.


    Saleen was not angry at all. The metal warship created by Devil¡¯s Horn was indeed formidable. If it had not been for the fact that he was exceedingly powerfulpared to the others of his level, and that Sika had the metal totem pole with her, getting surrounded by the metal angels would have meant him having to exhaust all-powerful means he had with him.


    He took Sika high up in the air and admired the view within half a mile radius. Things below the water surface were safe now that Alchemy City¡¯s support fleet was gone, and there were many magic beasts below waiting for the result of the fighting patiently.


    Those magic beasts seemed to have been far more intelligent than they used to be, as none of them came up to grab the dead bodies. They seemed to know that when the fighting was over, the humans would have left and that was when the feast began.


    There were over 40 ships from Alchemy City left, but those supporting the metal ship was almost downed, making them incapable of organizing andunching effective assaults.


    Genga was very excited. With Saleen¡¯s attack being so powerful, it was spared of the fate of getting its level reduced. Furthermore, things around returned to its control. Over 60 ships from Metatrin guarded the Ancient and attacked Alchemy City¡¯s fleet onest time.


    Bone spirits were released by the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship below water. The sounds of Blood Cry Explosions were heard over 100 miles away.


    Saleen then said to Sika, ¡°It¡¯d seem that the oue of naval battles would have been decided by powerful professionals in the future as well.¡±


    Sika nodded. In that day and age, there was no way low-level soldiers would have been able to affect the oue of a battle. In ancient times, only level-9 grand swordmasters could have been considered as elites and warriors above level-7, considered as soldiers. Any remaining professionals could have only served as auxiliary troops at most, being used for all sorts of misceneous tasks.


    In Myers Maind, such ways were bing reality. The key in that battle was Sika alone. Sika had broken the metal warship and Saleen destroyed the ones manning the magic cannons on the ship. The Ancient was only able to continue to dominate at sea after that.


    Genga, who was controlling the Ancient, had gradually been backed to a corner. It was not until Saleen appeared that the Ancient regained control of things.


    ¡°Sika, do you think the world would get more boring, or more interesting, from here on out?¡± Saleen watched the fighting below and asked. That level-10 sorcerercked the courage to even storm the ancient. There were hundreds of enchanters on the Ancient. Those enchanters were of low levels and capable of only defending the ship, utterly incapable of long-ranged attacks.


    Saleen had assigned all decent enchanters to the Floating City. The number of enchanters on the Floating City had grown to over 10,000. The demonic spirits, imps, demons and supreme demons were of level-4 as enchanters at the very least. Most of those enchanters became capable of casting spells above level-7. The earliest 3,600 who served had even be capable of casting level-9 spells.


    Any ce with a magic would have been a heaven for enchanters, and the entire Floating City was covered by a magic.

 Chapter 1271: Might makes Right (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1271: Might makes Right (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen continued after Sika didn¡¯t respond. ¡°Theing age will be boring. It¡¯s lucky that I¡¯m a mage. I¡¯d be bored to death otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Why would things turn boring?¡±


    ¡°Because might makes right, and that¡¯s a very shi**y way for things to turn out. I hate Alchemy City, but if the order of mages that Alchemy City created were to crumble, there would only be more messy, disgusting affairs taking ce afterward. In an age without order, killing would be everywhere, and I wouldn¡¯t have much time to spend staying in any one space to research magic or look into the secrets of the world.¡±


    ¡°Will you still think so when you¡¯vee to stand at the pinnacle of this world, Saleen?¡± Sika asked in a peculiar tone.


    Saleen was silent for a moment before saying, ¡°I don¡¯t know. If I were to stand at the pinnacle, I¡¯d probably end up bing like the grandmaster... no, someone like Gaine, who no longer cares about life or death ofmon folk, and focuses only on getting to higher levels single-mindedly. Even without a divine persona, I¡¯d probably end up being a little different than the gods in time.¡±


    ¡°That was probably why the ancient humans fell,¡± Sika said after putting her metal totem pole away. She stepped closer to Saleen.


    ¡°Is that a nature priest¡¯s prophecy?¡±


    ¡°Nature priests despised skills like prophecies. Whatever happens, we¡¯ll just let it unfold.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to rebuild order again, Sika?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°So you want to leave then?¡± Saleen caught on to Sika¡¯s thoughts and felt rather sad. Have I been so engrossed with how things are that I¡¯ve forgotten what I once had?


    ¡°Not really.¡± Sika smiled and said, ¡°You¡¯re my man and I¡¯ll follow you wherever you go. You¡¯re not turning out too bad at least, so we¡¯ll just face all of that together.¡±


    Face it all together, huh? Saleen was unable to bring himself to smile. In Sika¡¯s point of view, all of that fighting was pointless. If it had not been for him, Sika would have probably left for somewhere far away with her Caucasians.


    With the metal totem pole in her hand, she could move all the Caucasians inside. ¡°Nature priests taking control of the world¡± had once been a legend, but it no longer was. The powerful priests of bygone ages probably brought all of their people along and left Myers Maind a long time ago.


    Religion, war, greedy nobles, and self-righteous mages. All of them felt pointless to a nature priest.


    The metal ship took less than half an hour to sink. There had been almost 100 sorcerers onboard. Alchemy City had wanted to kill Saleen, so they had made ample preparations. It was a pity that Saleen¡¯s power far exceeded their expectations. The ambushid out by Alchemy City had ended up in total failure.


    Saleen saw the Ancient killing sorcerers using the magic cannons and said to Sika, ¡°So the Elemental Hand had taken Devil¡¯s Horn in. It seems like it won¡¯t be long before they take Sreeger Ind as well.¡±


    ¡°Another reason to start a war?¡±


    ¡°No. It¡¯d be for my teacher this time,¡± Saleen answered.


    Sika only nodded slowly and said, ¡°That¡¯s a given, since...¡±


    She did not continue. When Earl Sufonso of Yaoyang City destroyed Saleen¡¯s family cemetery, Jason stood up for him without having any concern that he was at a low level.


    It would have been peculiar if Saleen did nothing should anything happen to Sreeger Ind. If that were the case, Sika would not like Saleen anymore.


    Very little could have escaped Saleen¡¯s search when the ce was being covered by his territory. The young sorcerer killed one lightning puppet after another in despair. The lightning puppets had be rather powerful, and their rate of resurrection was over a dozen times faster than it had once been. The levels of all puppets had been enhanced in the process when Gaine modified the Lightning Constetion.


    The smaller ships from Alchemy City were sunk by the Winged Skull. Any mages who dared to board the Ancient were quickly surrounded and taken down by the enchanters onboard. Metatrin City suffered considerable losses in that battle. Consumption of magic nuclei was incalcble and the fleet lost over 30 ships. Two of them wererger warships with over 3,000 demons on them.


    ¡°Saleen, I surrender. I surrender!¡± That young level-10 sorcerer shouted.


    Saleen¡¯s expression turned cold. If every mage in the world turned out like that, then there would be little meaning to the profession. Did that magee from Cloudflow?


    It was no wonder that Alchemy City had to forcefully enhance their power. If it was not done, that mage would have no future to speak of.


    Sika sighed and did not bother with the battle anymore. The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship floated. Both Saleen and Sika went inside. Saleen said to the Winged Skull, ¡°Bing, there is one level-10 mage left on their side. Go out and practice fighting with a mage.¡±


    The Winged Skull nodded and left the controls of the ship to Saleen while they flew outside, heading straight for that level-10 sorcerer.


    The sorcerer stood on the water and saw one dark, golden skeleton flying at them. They had no idea if they should attack the skeleton or not. The sorcerer had just pleaded for mercy with Saleen. If I were to attack the skeleton, would I be...


    Their thoughts were unable to continue. The Winged Skull¡¯s Reaper Scythe came down, cutting both the human and the shield in half. The level-10 magic shield maintained itself in the shapes of two half-circles. It took quite a while before the halves dissipated.


    The Winged Skull was puzzled. Why is this sorcerer so weak? Dead before I get to use any of my following measures?


    It was not the sorcerer¡¯s skills that had been weak, it had been their mental fortitude. They¡¯d thought that Saleen would want a prisoner of their level. It was worth noting that, despite the rise of levels throughout the entirety of Myers Maind, there was still only a handful of level-10 sorcerers to be found.


    However, there was no way that they could have understood that Saleen never wanted someone that spineless. To Saleen, keeping one such person by his side would have meant sowing the seeds of disaster. Even if Saleen were to sign an extremely harsh contract preventing that mage from revolting, at some point, the mage¡¯s cowardice would cost irreparable damages to Saleen.


    The temptation of taking in a level-10 mage was, of course, great, but Saleen was already powerful enough himself and there were already many followers that he needed to keep and maintain. Those followers¡¯ interests were directly tied to Saleen, so they would not betray him. There was simply no need for him to keep someone unreliable by his side.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go home.¡± Saleen witnessed that sorcerer being killed. There was only one level-9 mage left among the defeated troops. All the other powerful ones had been killed by his puppets.


    Most of the ambushers had been forcefully enhanced. The only true threat had been the three metal angels. It seemed that Alchemy City was not trusting enough of those mages to give them powerful equipment. There were not even level-9 scrolls distributed among them.


    There was a small Demon City at the nearby ind with a teleportation portal. Saleen brought Sika and the Winged Skull directly back to Metatrin City. Saleen had little else on his mind after he sent Gaine off. The astrologer had given him ample returns as well. He had no intention of returning to the Imperial City of the Abyss for the time being.


    What he needed to take care of at the moment was Alchemy City.


    The Holy See was the true enemy, yet Alchemy City remained a thorn in Saleen¡¯s side. If he were to simply leave the thorn alone, he would not have a good night¡¯s sleep.


    Saleen, however, had to change his mind after returning to Metatrin City. He had received a letter from Fycro. He did not sneak into Metatrin City anymore, as he seemed to know that the city was no longer what it used to be. Still, he could not simply run around the ce as if he owned it.


    The letter from Fycro had only asked for Saleen to meet him at the Chaotic Swamp, to talk about the propagation of the faith.


    The ¡°faith¡± meant here was naturally the Nature Faith. With the exception of the Kingdom of Metatrin, the pastors had even gone all the way to the Cloudflow Empire and begun to spread the Goddess of Myers¡¯ teachings there.


    There were, of course, some who entered the Sikeqinya Empire. It had always been in a state of chaos. A considerable part of it had been created by Fycro. Saleen would not have been able to push the empire to the brink of copse simply by taking two port cities for himself.


    Fycro had hope for Sikeqinya. He had gained control of Laiyin Duchy and Didypus after taking over the Chaotic Swamp. The base of power that he had created in the Chaotic Swamp had been rebuilt after suffering a devastating blow. He traded the godly items with Theisio. Fycro regained his vigor and reset the roster of the Oracle Corps, appointing six new oracles.


    The reason he came looking for Saleen was to ask Saleen to take down the Holy See with him.


    Fycro had had enough. The emergence of the two oracles made his oracles utterly pointless. The oracle that descended from the divine kingdom had to be the leader of the Oracle Corps. He, being a native of Myers Maind, had to give up his position soon.


    ¡°How about we use this chance to take out Fycro?¡± Daniel made a suggestion that seemed brainless.


    ¡°No, Daniel. You¡¯re thinking in the right direction, but we shouldn¡¯t take out Fycro. He might be a greater threat than the Holy See in the long run. Have you considered the fact that, before reaching level-15, Fycro wouldn¡¯t dare take Myers Maind? Due to the presence of the Lord of Glory, Fycro was forced to rely on other forces as much as possible in whatever he wanted to do, including me.¡±


    COMMENT


    ¡°My liege... holy prophecy spells! Fycro definitely used holy prophecy spells to predict the fate of Theisio!¡± Nichs said all of a sudden.


    Saleen¡¯s thoughts became even clearer. There were definite reasons why Fycro had been willing to hand the Seal of Divine Power to Theisio, and the greatest possibility was, as Nichs had put it, that Fycro had predicted Theisio¡¯s death.


    Theisio would not have dared to take the risk of entering the cemetery of the giant without the Seal of Divine Power. He had only made that severe mistake after his power grew considerably. As such, it also meant that if it had not been for Saleen having so many lightning skills at his disposal, he would not have entered the cemetery and ended up killing Theisio.


    When someone came to possess formidable powers, their confidence grew. Both Saleen and Theisio were taking risks. What differed between them was that Saleen was the one emerging with a good oue.


    ¡°Sika, stay with the kids for a while. I¡¯ll bring Nailisi and the others to the Chaotic Swamp.¡± Saleen made his decision right there and then. Despite having lost the Magical Element Tower, he was still able to ensure that he could leave at any given moment. Fycro¡¯s level was level-11 at best, and his family badge was also functional. Saleen did not believe for one second that Fycro intended to capture him. Both of them had contracts with each other and said contracts were still in effect.


    He saw no problem with Fycro wanting to be a god, as Saleen was nurturing a Goddess of Myers himself. When Fycro came to possess divine fire, the goddess would probably be resurrected as well. By then, due to not being allied, Myers Maind would truly see real chaos.

 Chapter 1272: Fycro’s Deal (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1272: Fycro¡¯s Deal (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Sika did not object. If it had not been for Saleen needing her around, she would not have wanted to leave her children behind. Both of her children were growing fast, at least twice as fast asmon children. They were already capable of learning some skills.


    Everyone within the temple was a teacher to the two children, yet they only had one mother.


    Saleen left Sika behind and he dared not bring Daniel and the others along with him either. He brought only Nailisi, Eleanor, J, and Nichs on that trip. While Eleanor had yet to advance to level-10, her Seven Nights would have a formidable offensive capacity once its powers were restored.


    Furthermore, Eleanor¡¯s flight speed was getting faster. If she had the Wings of An Elf with her, she was even capable of reaching over 300 miles per hour in flight.


    The Winged Skull had to return to the outer regions of the Oceanic Ice Block. That ce was apparently as safe as it had once been. The number of magic beasts there had seen an explosive spike. If Alchemy City were to hunt magic beasts there, they would gain huge amounts of magic nuclei. As such, Saleen had to be on guard.


    Saleen even had Aini help the Winged Skull out at the outer regions of the Oceanic Ice Block. Aini only needed a few years to advance. If he was lucky, he would get another shot at advancing by the end of the year.


    Death mages weremonly seen advancing during battles, theplete opposite of elemental mages. In thetter¡¯s case, even if they were to learn something from battle, they would have to return and research their findings carefully before being able to advance.


    That was the very reason Saleen had arranged for Aini to get to the outer regions of the Oceanic Ice Block¡ªto increase Aini¡¯s speed of advancement. Aini¡¯s two ways of summoning spirits would be of great help to the Winged Skull as well.


    Saleen would have to build a spirit army sooner orter, as taking on the Holy See would end in massive casualties among conventional troops, and Saleen hated to see that.


    While he might have been brutal enough to raze the entirety of Ironwall City, he was reluctant to see even one of his own troops die.


    He had illustrated his worries about Sreeger Ind to his teacher, yet Jason was hardly fazed. He simply smiled and said to Saleen, ¡°Do what you need to. If the need arises, I¡¯ll take back Sreeger Ind.¡±


    Saleen was not irked seeing his teacher so rxed. He then took his people and left Metatrin City, heading straight for the Chaotic Swamp.


    Phoenix was totally under Saleen¡¯s control by then. He headed straight for Deep Forest Town, entering the Chaotic Swamp through the Beast Jungle. The jungle had expanded several times over, but that was due to Eleanor sending people to nt all manner of magic fauna.


    The jungle posed next to no danger to Saleen. The long, narrow forest became a barrier to the west side of Phoenix. Towering trees were everywhere in the jungle and the number of magic beasts found within had seen a spike as well.


    Saleen did not fly over it. Instead, he chose to pass through it, listening to Eleanor talk about the magic nts.


    Eleanor was a royal elf and she had traversed nes to Myers Maind. The equipment she had with her was nearly destroyed, yet she kept many high-level elvish nt seeds within her body. Those seeds were nurtured using royal blood, making it possible for them to stay intact for over ten thousand years.


    Eleanor had been reluctant to have them nted until she had changed her surname to Metatrin.


    From then on out, Myers Maind had been her home. It was only then that she took out all of the seeds, nted, and nurtured them. She nurtured even more magic seeds at the southern garden of Metatrin City before spreading the seeds in various locations throughout the rest of the maind.


    Magic nts were extremely resilient, yet without nurturing from elves, it was difficult for them to bear fruit. Those nts only had a chance of bearing fruit after living for thousands or even tens of thousands of years in the wild.


    As such, Eleanor had no worries about the nts being taken away. Furthermore, few would have known much about those nts. Even sorcerers would have known next to nothing about them.


    The elf ne and Myers Maind had been separated for too long. Any knowledge pertaining to the elf ne was basically lost.


    Saleen listened to Eleanor¡¯s introduction and felt interested in theyout of the beast Jungle. ording to Eleanor, if 10,000 elves were stationed there, it would make the ce into an imprable line of defense. All magic nts were capable of serving as an elf¡¯s weapon after all.


    It was a pity that Eleanor had no means of summoning elves to do battle. It was difficult for the elf ne and Myers Maind to form a connection. They would probably need to wait for Myers Maind to continue advancing before being able to connect both nes again.


    Of course, it was still possible to summon one or two elves, as nes were neverpletely separated from one another.


    Saleen did not care about summoning elves. He was only concerned about being able to craft equipment using those nts.


    Eleanor felt rather reluctant in that regard and said, ¡°Saleen, the nts are living beings as well. It would be a waste making equipment out of them. It would be nice having them here as a barrier nheless.¡±


    Saleen smiled and did not insist.


    Elemental creatures were living beings as well, yet he had no qualms about chucking them into magic power furnaces. But since Eleanor did not like the idea of using her nts in such a way, he saw no reason to insist on it.


    He had plenty of thundercloud wood at his disposal. The ancient humans had cut down a good number in the giant ne in ancient times after all.


    Eleanor was right as well. The Beast Jungle formed a natural barrier. After the magic nts grew, some groups of adventurers found it difficult to survive there. Even the Deep Forest Town looked rather dpidated as a result.


    If it had not been for Saleen keeping the town alive, the ce would have been deserted altogether.


    Nailisi pointed at a river up ahead as they passing out of the Beast Jungle and said, ¡°Master, do you remember this ce?¡±


    Saleen nodded. There was no way he could have forgotten. That was where he¡¯d passed when he ran all those years ago. The river was filled with bloodsucking bugs that were also venomous. It was Nailisi who had carried him when he ran. The presence of an imp repelled the bugs.


    Saleen would not have been able to cross the river otherwise, as he had been incapable of flying back then.


    He¡¯d run into a hill cyclops and had almost died at the hands of that brainless creature. Coming back to the jungle now, the only danger in the Chaotic Swamp was Fycro.


    ¡°Someone¡¯s here,¡± Saleen said, bringing Nailisi and the others across the river. He cast a vortex, collecting some venomous bugs within.


    Mages usually collected these bugs for alchemical purposes and Saleen was no exception. He was already capable of crafting magic equipment using metals, and etching magic arrays required a lot of poisons.


    Over 100 ck-robed high priests appeared from the distance. The high priests were all being led by one person that Saleen knew.


    ¡°Picasso, is that you?¡±


    Saleen looked at the high priest. While he was actually excited, memories flooded into his mind nheless. When he¡¯d first met Picasso, he was but a level-6 holy master Now, Picasso had reached level-9. Furthermore, it was apparent that he had betrayed the Pivotal Council and joined the Oracle Corps.


    ¡°Lord Saleen, I¡¯vee to receive you,¡± Picasso said, smiling. He looked just as dashing as ever. Both of them had been very different in terms of powers. At present, even though Saleen had practically walked up to him, Picasso seemed to have felt nothing at all.


    Saleen nodded and Picasso took out a huge carriage, inviting Saleen onboard. Two unicorns were pulling the carriage.


    Fycro had even been able to nurture unicorns, so something was definitely up with him. Saleen thought about it for a bit and boarded the carriage. Eleanor and Nailisi followed suit, but Nichs and J refused to get onboard.


    Nichs summoned two nightmares from his Scepter of the Fallen. Both he and J rode on a nightmare respectively and followed the carriage at its nks.


    Picasso did not mind at all. He took the reins of the carriage and brought Saleen deep into the Chaotic Swamp to meet Fycro.


    Picasso handed the reins of the carriage to his subordinates after traveling for a dozen miles before getting inside the carriage.


    ¡°There are things that I need to tell you in here, Lord Saleen,¡± Picasso said. He wasposed, appearing neither subservient nor condescending.


    ¡°Speak.¡± Saleen had a deep impression of that holy master, as Picasso had once let him go. While Saleen had his own tricks, it was also clear that Picasso had not intended to kill Saleen back then.


    ¡°Lord Fycro said this...¡± Picasso exined seriously. ¡°Laiyin cannot have people of the Nature Faith in it. Conflict will result sooner orter. If we were to divide the Pivotal Council, Lord Fycro needs control over this route. Please do not take the regions north of Kroraina. We shall draw the line at the center of Kroraina, and the rest shall be handed to the Principality of Bitterwater.¡±


    ¡°The price?¡± Saleen did not say whether he agreed to it or not. Instead, he asked what was it that Fycro was willing to pay to seal such a deal.


    ¡°Lord Fycro¡¯s people shall never cross that line. As long as the adherents of Nature Faith keep their hands to themselves, Lord Fycro¡¯s men shall not attack as well.¡±


    Saleen shrugged. A promise made by word of mouth alone in such matters would have amounted to nothing. He would have been foolish if he were to agree to that.


    ¡°We could forge an alliance. The Goddess of Myers is not someone stingy after all,¡± Picasso smiled and said.


    ¡°Myers is not, but I am,¡± Saleen answered seriously. The so-called will of the goddess was in his control after all. One word of his would have been as good as a decree to the Nature Faith.


    ¡°What do you n to do then, Lord Saleen?¡± Picasso seemed to have known that Saleen would refuse, and so he continued asking without being flustered.


    Saleen took out a magic map and drew a circle, saying, ¡°This is where Fycro has control. The rest shall be mine.¡±


    Picasso took one look at the map and felt troubled. Saleen had generously given half of Sikeqinya to Fycro, yet that took Laiyin and Kroraina away. That half of Sikeqinya would be of little use to Fycro.


    Saleen smiled and, seeing Picasso getting speechless, said, ¡°Picasso, Fycro sent you because you¡¯re one of my acquaintances. Regardless of how irksome your words might be, I wouldn¡¯t have made a move against you, and the iing negotiations will not affect you. Right, I understand. Fycro is being sincere indeed. He¡¯s only testing me with you. What we discuss here may not actually be something concerning the problem.¡±


    Picasso¡¯s face twitched as he listened to Saleen¡¯s very forting words, yet he was unable to do anything.


    ¡°Thank you, Lord Saleen. I was being rather offensive before and I was lucky that you did not mind.¡± Picasso lowered his head and apologized to Saleen.


    ¡°Picasso, how about youe over to the Nature Faith then?¡± Saleen blurted out all of a sudden.


    He pondered that for a bit and said, ¡°To tell you the truth, Lord Saleen, Lord Fycro told me before I came that you¡¯d try to buy me over. What made you do so, if I may ask?¡±


    ¡°First of all, it is because you are capable. Second, you¡¯re not of blind faith. Third, it is my gesture of gratitude for letting me go all those years ago and my way of sparing you as well.¡± Saleen looked at Picasso with an amused expression.


    ¡°I shall report it to Lord Fycro. If he is willing to let me go, I shall swear allegiance to you, your highness.¡± Picasso changed the way he addressed Saleen and Saleen knew why he did so. Picasso would have never joined the Nature Faith, but he could still work under Saleen¡¯s name. This person¡¯s faith was anything but pure.


    Picasso then added after seeing Saleen go silent, ¡°Your highness, forgive me. I¡¯ve had enough of religions. If I were to believe in some gods again, I¡¯d fall in a matter of days.¡±

 Chapter 1273: Fycro’s Deal (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1273: Fycro¡¯s Deal (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°But, if you were to follow me, it would mean that you¡¯ve fallen all the same,¡± Saleen said with a in tone.


    ¡°Your highness, the way I see it, betraying the Lord of Glory would not be considered as falling. Besides, Lord Fycro has already written my name on the Book of Salvation,¡± Picasso answered sincerely.


    ¡°What do you mean by ¡®Book of Salvation?¡¯¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a godly item, capable of preventing one from suffering the effects of falling,¡± Picasso answered.


    ¡°Did Theisio know that such a piece of equipment existed?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a secret of Lord Fycro.¡±


    ¡°Why would you tell me then?¡±


    ¡°Lord Fycro told me to be upfront if you were to ask about it. He had also asked that you keep this a secret.¡±


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°I would bring this up with Fycro if you¡¯re willing toe to my side. My Nature Faithcks people. If you don¡¯t like religions, there¡¯s no need for you to embrace it... I¡¯d set up a Fourth Pivotal in the Nature Faith and you¡¯d be in charge.¡±


    ¡°What would this Fourth Pivotal be?¡±


    ¡°There are the Temple Knights, Temple Pivotals, and Oracle Temples within the ranks of the Nature Faith. All three of them have adherents in them. As for your Fourth Pivotal, it would serve as something resembling the Tribunal, taking care of things and people that the faith finds inconvenient to deal with.¡±


    ¡°How many among my people would be adherents of the faith then?¡±


    ¡°None. The Fourth Pivotal answers to me at the end of the day. Not even the pope would be able tomand you.¡±


    Picasso was smart enough to realize right there and then that it was a measure for Saleen to keep the Nature Faith in control in the long run. As for Picasso, it was actually a good thing.


    Embracing the faith of a god was troublesome business and he had long ago seen through the ws. Fycro was willing to dig Picasso up because of Saleen.


    ¡°Thank you, your highness. If Lord Fycro is willing to set me free, I shall do my best.¡±


    ¡°Now that you have left the Pivotal Council, what are you exactly?¡±


    ¡°The Book of the Fallen erased my name in the list of believers. My divine arts are still intact, yet they lean towards darkness. I¡¯m now a dark holy master,¡± Picasso answered.


    ¡°The Lord of Glory sure is interesting,¡± Saleen quipped, then said no more. Picasso seemed to have been prepared long ago and was reluctant to talk any further with him. He bowed and left the carriage.


    The Chaotic Swamp¡¯s area was small and the carriage ran on the swamp as if it was on tnd. It was capable of treading over mud without any problems. The carriage brought Saleen before a tower after traveling for hundreds of miles.


    Saleen got out of the carriage and looked at the tower, then struggled to keep from bursting intoughter. Fycro had simply rebuilt the magic tower. That ce had probably been a magic tower built by a powerful mage of the Second Dynasty and had long ago been destroyed.


    It was apparent that Fycro had not looked for the temple where Saleen found had Nailisi. There was a small city behind the tower. The city was entirely white and built from stone. The stones that were used in its construction were not of the same material.


    They were refined using divine arts, turning them into stones of the same material and the same color.


    There was a rocky mountain behind the small white city, a steep one. There were poisonous swamps at its nks and it was apparent that there were huge divine rune charm arrays ced throughout. There was a huge fissure behind the tower and before the white city with a wire bridge across it.


    The white city had no creativity in its construction and had been built square and sturdy. Saleen thought for a bit and realized what had happened.


    The carriage had taken a detour around the tower and entered the white city through the wire bridge. Saleen looked into the fissure on the ground as they went across the wire bridge. There were signs of space fractures below the fissure. The fissure was not formed naturally, but something created forcefully by powerful professionals.


    After crossing the bridge, Saleen found that there seemed to be hundreds of thousands of worlds within the fissure. Boundless energy rules were in chaos, making detection impossible. It was a result of a sh between some unknown skills cast by two powerful professionals.


    The carriage was going very slowly and Saleen tried tomit everything to memory. It was deliberately being shown to him by Fycro as a gift. He would not have let others cross the bridge without good reason.


    One would have been able to take the chance to look into the rules of power within the fissure when they were moving at certain speeds on the bridge.


    Fycro¡¯s vista was bigger than Theisio¡¯s!


    Saleen had his worries but quickly put the, aside. It was impossible to expect his future enemies to all be unbearably weak. If he were to aplish what he set out to do, then it would mean that he needed to raise his powers to a level where no one else could reach. It was the only correct way to do so.


    Fycro never dismissed his own thoughts and simply worked on them. It was a testament to Fycro¡¯s confidence that he would one day be a god.


    There were countless geniuses throughout the maind. If one were to kill every single one of them, one would have exhausted all the time they had, meaning that they would have been left with no time to do what they had to do.


    The inside of the white city hardly differed from anymon city. The entire city seemed like a factory. Saleen did not see a church but found a huge altar with countless idols of gods on it instead. The idols were all made with the fragments of the fossilized gods and were imbued with divinity.


    It seemed that Fycro had people in either the Pivotal Council or the Tribunal. Materials like that would not have fallen into his hands otherwise. The Oracle Corps did not send people to fight at Daliang City after all.


    Saleen came to realize that Fycro had long intended to negotiate with him. It seemed that Fycro had quite an understanding of fate as well. When dealing with fate, resisting it through and through was not the right way to go, as fate was devoid of any sentiments.


    The powers that be and life itself seemed to have nothing to do with each other.


    Regardless of whether one resited or went along with it, fate would always flow like a great river.


    Astrologers knew their fates, but that did not prevent them from going extinct. The profession was not evenparable to mages, as mages left behind a great deal of knowledge.


    Besides, as the power of mage continued to grow at such frightening rates in the present day, there would probably be mages standing at the very top every time the power across Myers Maind was raised.


    Astrologers kept advising others to go along with fate, but they themselves kept resisting it.


    Fycro¡¯s residence was a three-story house. There were no defenses around it, only two knights waiting for Saleen at the gates. They were not wearing official armor and they were unarmed.


    Saleen and the others were invited into the house. Fycro sat waiting for them in the living room, researching a piece of metal machinery. Fycro smiled and bowed as Saleen entered. Saleen returned the gesture and Fycro said, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, would you mind helping me to find out what is wrong with this thing?¡±


    Fycro behaved very politely and amicably as if Saleen was an old friend of many years of his.


    Nailisi pouted and followed behind Saleen. She held a Sword of Rules in her hand, getting ready to deal with the fellow before them.


    Saleen was not as tense as she was. From Fycro¡¯s perspective, the two level-12 oracles were giving him a lot of pressure, so he needed an ally to deal with them. While Saleen was reluctant to be an ally of Fycro, there was no doubt that they would be able to take on the oracles together.


    J and the others were tense as well. Nichs was even more on guard against Fycro than anyone else in their party. He clenched the Scepter of the Fallen tight, getting ready to burst with the most explosive of his attacks.


    Eleanor simply stood at the door and did not bother to go in.


    Fycro seemed not to see any of them as he only greeted Saleen.


    Saleen came before the table. There was a piece ofplex metal machinery on it that looked like some huge bug. It had over a dozen metal legs and there were long, foldable wings on its back. The wings were translucent and werepletely opened. There were twoplex eyes on the head of the metal bug.


    The eyes were filled withyers of holy prose. Saleen only took one look and it caught his attention.


    Insects wereparatively low-level creatures, yet their eyes were very intricately built. The eyes of many insects were soplex that not even mages were able to research them.


    The metal bug that Fycro showed Saleen had actually managed to replicate thepound eyes of insects, and furthermore, they actually disyed the properties ofpound eyes.


    Mages hoped to be able to create suchpound eyes to be used onbat puppets. Conventional puppets only needed eyes created using crystals, butbat puppets needed to be aware ofplex directions and positions in order for them to cover all angles when doing battle.


    However, that was not the point. There was nothing wrong with the metal bug¡¯spound eyes. What was problematic was the internal structure of the bug itself. The internal structure of bugs in nature consisted mostly of liquids, yet that metal bug did not replicate that part, as its internal structure consisted ofplex machinery.


    However, all of that machinery consisted of tiny metal balls that were interconnected yet capable of working on their own.


    The problem was with those tiny metal balls. The machinery would have been able to work normally despite losing half of their metal balls, yet the bug jammed at present.


    Repairing it would not have been difficult for Saleen. His calctive abilities were such that there were hardly any among level-10 mages would have been able topare to.


    ¡°Fycro, you¡¯re not telling me that you¡¯re giving me one huge gift, are you? Saleen looked at Fycro and asked. The calctions involved could have been moreplex and it would not have bothered Saleen at all. He had a huge group of mages at his disposal after all.


    ¡°You could say that,¡± Fycro said in aposed manner. ¡°You provide me with simr help, and I will give you detailed schematics of that pair ofpound eyes. Your abilities are such that you¡¯d be able to create something suitable for the mages¡¯ use.¡±


    ¡°Would such cooperation require you getting me toe here all the way?¡±


    ¡°Of course it would. Well, Ick the help of mages right now. There is little to talk about between me and Alchemy City. The only one that came to mind was you,¡± Fycro answered with immense sincerity.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the important part of the deal.¡± Saleen was unmoved. If what Fycro wanted the most was not something within Saleen¡¯s ability to help with, then there was simply no need to talk about the smaller problems.


    ¡°No, we¡¯ll get to the dealter. Saleen, I want to cancel the contract with you.¡± Fycro¡¯s had just uttered unbelievable words.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. The contract was one that benefited Fycro immensely.


    ¡°It was my fault back then for forcing you to sign that contract. And the one with Lex, let¡¯s cancel all of them,¡± Fycro said to Saleen with a smile.


    ¡°Are you worried that my level will get higher than yours?¡±


    ¡°No, Saleen. I¡¯m worried you are thinking that I¡¯m not being sincere about wanting to work with you. You see, I could have taken your life any moment that I wished back then, but I didn¡¯t because I thought that you were someone blessed by fate. It would benefit Myers Maind if you grew.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by that!? You¡¯re a holy master, aren¡¯t you!?¡±


    ¡°Holy masters are people too. Saleen, canceling the contract does you no harm, so why not do it?¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and smiled. He then said, ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll cancel the contract. But, even if the contract is canceled, it does not necessarily mean that I will agree to what you¡¯re going to propose.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want Picasso?¡±


    ¡°I do!¡±


    ¡°Well, we¡¯re back in business then,¡± Fycro said as he took out a peculiar-looking scroll.

 Chapter 1274: Catastrophe (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1274: Catastrophe (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Canceling a contract was a very troublesome thing to do, but there were exceptions nheless, like in cases of forced contracts. If Fycro was willing, one contract-canceling scroll would suffice to get it done.


    Saleen looked at the scroll and felt rather reluctant to put his name on it.


    It was a scroll that was made of pure dragon hide. There were 12 scales on the scroll and every scale had three-dimensional holy prose on it. A scroll like that could be used to create a level-12 magic scroll if Saleen and his teacher had it.


    The key point was that the scroll was one that consumed dragon scales, which meant that the scroll could be used 12 times. The effect of each use would not diminish it. Each use was capable of creating scrolls surpassing major levels.


    It meant that Saleen would be capable of creating level-14 scrolls when he was at level-12. When unraveled, the scroll would be able to cast the properties of dragon tongue magic as well.


    However, it was still more important to cancel his contract now, so Saleen put down his name down and Fycro wrote his name as well. The scroll did not burn, a dragon scale crumbled instead. The holy prose on the scale disappeared as well.


    Saleen felt things deep within his soul light up as that thing that bound him disappeared.


    ¡°Lex...¡±


    ¡°Her contract was bound with yours. You could check with her and see how it went.¡±


    Saleen shook his head. He knew what had happened and he simply wanted to hear it from Fycro. It was very important for mages to get such things in words.


    ¡°You¡¯re indeed sincere, Fycro, and I¡¯m touched.¡± Saleen had not actually changed any of his opinions about Fycro despite the fact that the holy master had gotten more friendly. His remark was a sarcastic one. Fycro was not doing this for Saleen, he was only doing this because his hands were being forced.


    It was probably due to the luck he¡¯d acquired from the Goddess of Myers. The contract seemed to have a negative effect on Fycro. If the contract continued, both sides would suffer dire consequences. It seemed that he had been right to go about tearing the temples apart.


    The fewer the number of temples left, the better his luck would be.


    ¡°I¡¯m touched.¡± Fycro did not look like a powerful being at all when he said that. His expression hardly changed as he talked nonsense with Saleen.


    ¡°Well...¡± Saleen was defeated. He was still too young for this.


    ¡°Speaking of which, I¡¯m here to make a deal with you and I¡¯m afraid you won¡¯t agree to it. As such, I¡¯d like things to go your way for a bit. You¡¯re a decent mage. You know when to advance and when to retreat. So, I don¡¯t mind giving you some benefits in advance.¡± Fycro finally got to the point.


    ¡°I¡¯m interested in deals, so long as they¡¯re reasonable. You¡¯re quite a decent holy master yourself, Fycro, and you know the principle of equivalent exchange well.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s like this... Lex¡¯s assassin got something from the Glorious City. The Pivotal Council does not know of its importance. It was only due to the extent of damage that the assassin wrought that the Holy See went all the way to Lonestar City. I take it you don¡¯t know what I¡¯m talking about here.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t, indeed.¡± Saleen did not try to bluff. What Bain had brought home was something that lookedplicated. After the Sreeger Ind mages took it apart to analyze it, they were unable to put it back together again.


    However, the core was a semi-liquid metal. It was very heavy and had a structure like mud, making it capable of changing shape.


    ¡°I guess that thing is still intact, no?¡±


    ¡°The core is intact, but the outer parts have all been taken apart.¡±


    Fycro sighed a breath of relief. He was worried that the mages might have gotten too curious and had taken apart the core as well. He would be at a disadvantage if that turned out to be the case.


    ¡°That thing is not a piece of mage equipment, nor is it one meant for a holy master. It is a living being. That living being is so precious that its value can bepared to dragons, and the dragons would be trash in thatparison,¡± Fycro said, showering praise upon that thing.


    ¡°So what is it?¡± Saleen grew curious, seeing how Fycro was not bothering to hide the facts from him. Fycro would have definitely paid a good price for something like that, but it happened to already be in his possession.


    ¡°An abyssal soul. That thing can release abyssal matter continuously and expand territories. If nurtured, I¡¯d be able to connect with an interdimensional space with abyssal properties, then use it in an interdimensional space. Furthermore, that would make me a god in that interdimensional space.¡±


    ¡°Fycro, you¡¯re being really honest here, so...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m about to give you an offer that you won¡¯t be able to resist.¡±


    ¡°And what would that be?¡±


    ¡°The method of nurturing that thing, in exchange for half of it. With that, both you and I would be able to open up half of the abyss ne.¡±


    ¡°Fycro, opening up a ne requires up to 100 million years. I won¡¯t be able to live that long.¡±


    ¡°No, Saleen. This ¡®opening¡¯ doesn¡¯t refer to creating a ne through sheer power. That thing is capable of emptying the space beneath the magma and creating abyssal properties within that space. You only need to be rich. Be it magic nuclei, crystals or whatever, all of that will enable that creature to grow quickly, making another world out of the underground.¡±


    ¡°What if that thinges up to the surface?¡±


    ¡°That thing loves high heat and rocks and metals. The surface is too cold for it, and it would simply go into hibernation.¡±


    ¡°What do you n to offer then?¡±


    Saleen loosened up even though he wanted more. He was capable of modifying Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space. He had learned of things like the abyssal soul within the materials of the astrology tower, but no astrologers bothered with that thing.


    The astrologers were only interested in killing anything that they were able to find as to prevent the cores of stars from being modified.


    Mages might not have cared what a star¡¯s core looked like, but astrologers cared a lot about that.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t the methods of nurturing that thing be enough?¡± Fycro asked in a rather dissatisfied manner.


    ¡°I have no need for that thing, but you do.¡± Saleen went straight to the core of the problem. Fycro might have been the only one who knew about how to nurture an abyssal soul, yet Saleen had no need for such beings to create abysses or anything.


    ¡°You have a point!¡± Fycro scratched his head. Saleen was indeed a decent trade partner, yet it was precisely due to this that Fycro was unable to get any extra advantage out of their deals.


    ¡°Fycro, you¡¯ve put up quite a show. All those god idols on the altar, you wanted me to take note, no? Alright, I won¡¯t be greedy. I want to know how to make those idols.¡± Saleen stopped beating around the bush. Fycro was sincere, so Saleen saw fit to get the deal sealed.


    ¡°Hah...¡± Fycro sighed. It was his choice. That abyssal soul was too important to him. He would not have disclosed the methods of creating the god idols otherwise. While it would have been difficult for a mage to replicate the processes, it was not impossible.


    Furthermore, Saleen had no shortage of holy masters. While the number of holy masters within the Nature Faith was small, there were thousands of them.


    Only something of such a bargain would have moved Saleen.


    ¡°So, we have a deal?¡±


    ¡°We have a deal!¡± Fycro answered like a merchant.


    ¡°Alright, Fycro. You wish to have the support of mages, no?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Divine smiths pale inparison to mages in the creation of machines. I don¡¯t have a lot of smiths with me. When the great wares, I¡¯d need to arm my troops.¡±


    Saleen smelled profit and pressed on. ¡°Equipment capable of upgrading the level of soldiers, and more powerful than Heaven Knight armor?¡±


    ¡°Well indeed. You have experience in making the metal flyers, so it would beparatively easy for you to make this equipment. It¡¯s not that I can¡¯t make them myself, but Ick the manpower to mass-produce them.¡±


    ¡°How would you guarantee...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d need a million sets of said equipment. I¡¯d give you the full schematics and about half of the required materials.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this going to be quite a loss for you?¡±


    ¡°No, Saleen. The contract has time limits. You need to provide me with a million sets of said equipment within the time stipted by me. I¡¯m guessing that your mages will only be able to research the core secrets of the schematics once the contract is over. I¡¯ll provide you with the control part when everything else is finished,¡± Fycro exined to Saleen. What he meant was that he would be the one crafting the core controlponents.


    When Saleen was done with the contract, he would be free to research the equipment. However, he was confident that before Saleen would be able toplete a million sets of equipment, the mage would not be able to sessfully unlock its secrets.


    Saleen had no qualms about waiting. Fycro would give him the full schematics after the contract was done.


    ¡°Unless you tell me what is going to happen, I won¡¯t dare promise you that. I need to fork over half of the materials for the equipment you asked after all,¡± Saleen said in a roundabout manner.


    ¡°I¡¯d definitely tell you what is going on, but even if I were to not do so, you don¡¯t necessarily have anything to lose. Saleen, the equipment I was talking about, is this.¡± Fycro pointed at the metal insect on the table and continued, ¡°This is a personal use flight armor. It could be made out of metals or fragments of fossilized gods. You have more of those fragments than I do, and you¡¯re capable of modifying this thing. You would eventuallye to possess an extremely powerful army.¡±


    ¡°Extremely powerful?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Bug angels, thebat weapon of the insect ne.¡±


    ¡°I take it you¡¯ve got the contract ready?¡± Saleen asked Fycro.


    ¡°Indeed, and I¡¯ve been waiting for you.¡±


    ¡°How much time would be required to get a million of these up?¡±


    ¡°Begin crafting in June and finish production by December.¡±


    ¡°Half a year. Seems like this thing is reallyplicated.¡±


    ¡°It is indeedplicated, so much so that I¡¯d be willing to provide whatever you need, to let you help me fix it.¡±


    ¡°Fix?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. This thing has massive defensive properties, making it hard for the soldier to get injured, but it would still break, and fixing it would be very tricky. I¡¯m hoping that your alchemy factories will provide me with the service.¡±


    ¡°Would this need to be written in the contract?¡± Saleen asked carefully.


    ¡°Let¡¯s have it separated. I don¡¯t want to cause you extra concerns about me!¡±


    ¡°Hah...¡± Saleen sighed and said, ¡°Fycro, having dealt with the Holy See for so long, you¡¯re the first one that I find satisfying to deal with.¡±


    Fycro smiled and asked, ¡°So, everything is settled then?¡±


    ¡°More or less. Set Picasso free first.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine with that.¡± Fycro took out a book and flipped the pages, erasing Picasso¡¯s name from it. He then summoned Picasso and said, ¡°You¡¯re now free. You could choose to follow Saleen.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lord Fycro.¡± Picasso remained respectful as he bowed deeply to the holy master.

 Chapter 1275: Catastrophe (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1275: Catastrophe (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Picasso stood behind Saleen automatically, keeping his distance. Saleen would not sign any contract with him in front of Fycro. The contracts would be settled after they left.


    ¡°Fycro, now can you tell me, why are you so anxious about building such a powerful army?¡±


    Fycro and Saleen had different goals. He already had millions of believers following him and he had no intention of building his power base on Myers Maind. From what Saleen was able to tell, Fycro had definitely found a suitable interdimensional space to develop his ns, and it was an interdimensional space that was growing.


    For a human whose goal was to be a god, such interdimensional spaces would have sufficed.


    Such interdimensional spaces had no history and therefore posed next to no trouble. Unless he provoked others first, no other gods would learn of the existence of such a ce. Fycro must have been taking his own time developing. There was no rush about anything.


    ¡°The powers across Myers Maind are rising. I take it that you¡¯re aware of that?¡±


    Saleen nodded. Any powerful being who had reached level-9 was aware. If it had not been for the explosive growth in power throughout the entire maind, there would not have been so many powerful beings popping up. It was a result of Myers Maind having spent thousands of years stocking up on power.


    ¡°When a true level-13 powerful being emerges, that will be the time when the barrier between Myers Maind and the other nes is shattered. Back in the day, humans opened up pathways connecting a lot of nes and none of them disappeared. When said barriers get broken, residual sizeable powers from those nes flowed into Myers Maind. Things turned out to be disastrous. Saleen, while I indeed intend to be a god, I¡¯m also aware that bing a god would do harm to Myers Maind. As such, I chose to go to other nes. But before I leave, I don¡¯t want to see my home get destroyed while I sit by and do nothing.¡±


    Saleen wanted very much tough as Fycro talked, but he was unable to bring himself to do it.


    In the eyes of mages, holy masters were people devoid of any sense of humanity. What Fycro said made it feel like he was a packaged Lord of Glory, appearing very holy and very noble.


    Fycro was known to be the being closest to the gods, the brightest star in the sky, within the Holy See. Was he just acting all along?


    Could Fycro really be sopassionate?


    Why would a guy about to be a god care about things like his home?


    Saleen was unable tough because he did not hear any change in Fycro¡¯s heartrate. Not even a single ripple came from the energies in Fycro¡¯s body.


    If he had been anymon man, that would have been little more than pretense. However, in the case of a level-11 professional, that meant that Fycro was extremely determined.


    ¡°If this turns out to be true, I¡¯ll be rather moved.¡±


    ¡°A catastrophe is about to hit Myers Maind.¡± True divine colors began to show in Fycro¡¯s face as he spoke. ¡°Saleen, I don¡¯t know about other things, but I do know that one ce is connected to the abomination ne. Even the normal ones among the abominations would only be slightly less powerful than demons. The puppets of the gods back in the day had formidable bodies, indomitable souls, and brutal temperaments. Powerful abominations would have fought in ways more terrifying than mages. Have you seen level-9 locusts? That would be how they would behave...¡±


    ¡°Are you telling the truth?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re wee to see it with me. There are already low-level abominations getting into Myers Maind. When the pathways linking the nes are fully opened, I shall stand guard there with my millions of bug angels. If I survive, I¡¯ll advance to level-12 and divine fire will light within me, making me a pseudo-god!¡±


    ¡°What if you end up dead?¡±


    ¡°Then the ones who have followed me shall be your believers!¡± Fycro said in a brimming manner.


    ¡°But if you end up dead, then what could I possibly do?¡± Saleen was not buying it.


    ¡°Luck. I shall be there with you and get some of your luck. If I survive, my level will see a spike. There is no way around it. Myers Maind is running out of time.¡±


    ¡°Who else knows about this?¡± Saleen believed Fycro. It was a trust that had nothing to do with Fycro¡¯s perception. Saleen had gauged Fycro using astrology and found what Fycro said to be true.


    ¡°Theisio.¡±


    ¡°Theisio!¡± Saleen frowned. Theisio knew about all of that and yet he did not say anything.


    ¡°There is one more who may or may not know about it.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°The head warden.¡±


    Saleen was silent.


    Fycro continued, ¡°If you were to side with me, we would stand a chance of defeating the head warden. If we were each to fight him on our own, we would definitely end up killed.¡±


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s smile, Fycro borated, ¡°I know you have the lightning badge and you have equipment capable of shooting lightning icicles. None of those would pose any threat to the head warden. His power now leans toward ck Dungeon. The head warden is the most powerful person within the Holy See¡¯s ranks. Why would Theisio have chosen to take you on despite having acquired the three godly items? Consolidating the entire Holy See should have been his top priority.¡±


    ¡°What about the oracles?¡±


    ¡°Hehe...¡± Fycro smirked coldly and said, ¡°Those two traitors. I have severed their possibility of advancement.


    Fycro did not get into the details. The very reason he had enticed Sharjah to join the Oracle Corps was so he could acquire the Ring of Many Gods.


    He would have exchanged another godly item with said ring. Then the oracles would not have been able to break through level-12 using the ring¡¯s power.


    Fycro did not bother with those two fools at all.


    If he were in their shoes, he would have killed Sharjah without hesitation and taken the Ring of Many Gods by force, not allowing others to rob him of it.


    ¡°What I mean is, between the oracles and the head warden, who would be the stronger one?¡±


    ¡°If the head warden is not going to leave ck Dungeon, then the two oracles would be walking to their graves. But if he were to leave, the oracles could still run,¡± Fycro answered.


    Saleen shuddered, feeling lucky that he had not asked for trouble with the Tribunal at ck Dungeon. He would never have expected the head warden to be someone that powerful. Saleen felt confident about taking on the two level-12 oracles, but he needed to be at Metatrin City with the help of his teacher to do so.


    If he faced those two level-12 oracles alone, that would be about the time his luck ran out.


    ¡°There are 12 dark angels at the head warden¡¯s disposal, Saleen. The very reason why I stayed hidden this long was that I didn¡¯t want the head wardening after me personally. Those 12 dark angels are the most powerful arsenal the Tribunal has at its disposal. The head warden¡¯s godly item is called the Halo of Hell. It is capable of resurrecting the dark angels.¡±


    ¡°What are the dark angels like in terms of levels?¡±


    ¡°They have no levels. The stronger the head warden is, the stronger the dark angels are. If the head warden is weak, then the dark angels are weak as well.¡±


    ¡°What would he do if he knew what you¡¯ve just told me?¡±


    While Fycro had alreadye to his conclusions about the question, he thought about it for a bit nheless. Then he said, ¡°He would capture the abominations and feed them to the Halo of Hell. The Halo of Hell can do more than summon dark angels. It can summon all manner of evil beings.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that if the head warden knew about this, that he would capture the abominations and we would be in his way?¡±


    ¡°No. He would simply let the abominations run free. It¡¯s easier to capture them like that. The greater the abominations¡¯ kill count is, the stronger they be. The head warden would probably be a level-12 professional by then.¡±


    ¡°Looks like I have to agree to your proposal then. You¡¯re very persuasive indeed, Fycro.¡±


    While Saleen was not as noble as Fycro, he couldn¡¯t simply let Myers Maind be overrun by abominations. He was the king of a nation and his wife has a principality to run.


    The total poption of both countries amounted to tens of millions. It would take years to move them all to safe interdimensional spaces.


    While the 12 Notes of First Purgatory was capable of transporting a massive number of people at once, those people would have to live in different ces nheless. Sending them to interdimensional spaces would require massive manpower to facilitate a migration of such an enormous scale.


    Even if he were to be able to move all of his poption to safety in one shot, Saleen would be able to return to Myers Maind after that. If the goddess were to be resurrected, the Nature Faith needed to develop on Myers Maind. Saleen had no other options.


    ¡°Good then. But it won¡¯t do with just me going about persuading others. You¡¯ll have to do the same as well.¡±


    ¡°Lex wanted to fight the Holy See.¡±


    ¡°No. Persuade Grand Duke Iron Blood instead. The man will not let such a chance slip by. Just tell him that abominations are capable of believing in gods, and if they were to be left alone, the Holy See would get incredibly powerful.¡±


    ¡°But the one he wants to go against is Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°The Elemental Hand... I¡¯ll talk to them,¡± Fycro¡¯s expression was rather grim when he said this. The power of Alchemy City was not as simple as Saleen had once seen it.


    ¡°That probably won¡¯t do. I came back from overseas this time and Alchemy City hadid a brutal trap for me, intending to kill me. I¡¯d hit them as hard as they hit me. Before I get back what I deserve, I¡¯m not going to fight alongside Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°Saleen...¡± Fycro frowned.


    Saleen shook his head adamantly, prompting Fycro to think.


    ¡°Are you sure you could crush Alchemy City then?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°Well then, I won¡¯t be going to Alchemy City, but you¡¯ll have to hand over the abyssal soul to me right away!¡± Fycro said adamantly. He was rather worried about not having support from Alchemy City.


    ¡°No problem. So the bug angels...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you all the schematics. Make another 100 thousand sets of the armor for me. I¡¯ll hand over the secret schematics of the core controls and all data required right away!¡±


    ¡°Deal. I¡¯ll head home right away. Another thing, about the division of territorial power, are you testing me or do you really want the Laiyin Duchy?¡±


    ¡°I truly want the ce because Laiyin holds the portal connecting the abomination ne.¡±


    ¡°You can have Laiyin then. But promise me this, so long as you live, your people shall never step past Beast Jungle!¡±


    ¡°You have my word!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll contact the pope immediately and have his holy masters leave Laiyin.¡±


    The exchange between both parties was unusually quick. It was as if it had been rehearsed beforehand.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll contact you in December. We shall meet at Laiyin.¡± Fycro did not say more to Saleen and took out all the contracts instead, signing each of them with him. Fycro then handed over all the schematics that he had prepared to Saleen.


    ¡°Get to Metatrin City once in September. I¡¯ll hand over 500 thousand sets of Bug Angel Armor to you in advance.¡±


    ¡°You sure?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡±


    ¡°Well then, I shall head over at the start of September.¡± Fycro waved as he finished, letting his knight send the guests off. Picasso followed behind Saleen and left without saying a word.


    ¡°Master, you should have stayed out of this,¡± Nailisi said, walking up to Saleen¡¯s side.


    ¡°Why not? Are you saying we should just let the abominations overrun Myers Maind and kill everyone?¡±


    Nailisi intended to say that, but seeing that Saleen was in a grim mood, she changed her tone. Instead, she said, ¡°What I mean is that we should have asked for more. Look at Fycro, he¡¯s f*cking loaded, man.¡±

 Chapter 1276: Bug Angel (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1276: Bug Angel (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen knew what was going on in Nailisi¡¯s mind, but he was unable to change anything. Nailisi was an imp, and Myers Maind was not her home.


    While demons had long lives, they were indifferent about life and death. Demons would not be sad after seeing hundreds or even thousands of their own die right before them. Unless such deaths involved their spouses, demons were not known for shedding tears.


    Weird creatures!


    Saleen thought that maybe Nailisi had the same thoughts about humans.


    None of them spoke during the journey, and Saleen took the few at his side straight to Metatrin City. He did not even bother taking a detour to Lonestar City. Fycro¡¯s news was just too shocking.


    Saleen did not assemble the nobles after getting home either, going straight to meet his teacher to tell his teacher about what Fycro said.


    Jason remained unperturbed. ¡°Begin transferring themon folk immediately. Leave Nailisi and use her 12 Notes of First Purgatory to transport people to the interdimensional space. Don¡¯t ever use the purgatory soul in the interdimensional space. Search your memory for anything useful. You¡¯ll be able to create a world there.¡±


    ¡°What about the Bug Angel Armor?¡±


    ¡°Get to it immediately. Don¡¯t use metal. Make them with fossilized god fragments. Pick the right imps for the purpose from here on out. Their size makes them most suited for piloting such armor.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mind calmed. He had more to worry about than the abomination ne, as it was just the beginning. Fycro also meant that the powers of Myers Maind would rise after December.


    By then, there was no way to keep the portals sealed, and all kinds of peculiar creatures would flood Myers Maind.


    It had not been long since thest time Myers Maind saw a spike in power, so there would not be many powerful ones on the verge of advancing. But it would be a different storyter on.


    The entire Metatrin City got busy right away. The crafting of Devil Flying Armors was shelved for the time being. The crafting process roles were assigned as soon as the schematics of the Bug Angel Armors arrived at the Alchemy Factories.


    He needed to provide Fycro with 500,000 sets. Saleen was in no hurry to craft them for his own troops, and the selection of imps would take months.


    Lex had to make her way to Metatrin City. She had to go to the northern side of Metatrin to take control of the Metal Titan to speed up the refining of metals. Huge number of demons were summoned, and the northern veins were being strip-mined. The only factor that mattered was speed.


    The mining caused the eventual production to be reduced by about 30 percent, but Saleen did not care. If they did not dig then, they would have no chance in the future.


    Saleen threw himself into the production of the Bug Angel Armor. The armor was peculiar and was nothing like equipment that he had seen before. Even humans would be bug-like when the armor was donned, developing omni-directional sight and devastating offense capacity.


    Devil Flying Armor was only suitable for demons, but the Bug Angel Armor was able fit any kind of living creature. The insides consisted of machinery formed by round metal beads. When liquid was infused, an isted pocket would form.


    People could sleep inside, and it would feel morefortable than a mother¡¯s womb. It was piloted through senses and mental powers.


    Imps were more suited to such armor. Without training, humans¡¯ mental powers were considerably inferior to demons. Saleen had no time to train humans, so imps were the only way to go.


    Saleen did not forget to upgrade his own lightning puppets. He changed the forms of all the puppets. All of their heads were installed withplex eyes. Saleen¡¯s control over the puppets would be far easier.


    Lightning Constetion finally had a very important use. The puppets lost their blind spots when fighting.


    The abyssal soul was cut in half and sent to the Chaotic Swamp. Saleen elerated the performance of alchemy. Over 2,000 mages were sent from Principality of Bitterwater and put to work in the Alchemy Factories.


    The factories gained over 2,000 pairs of extra hands specifically meant for crafting the Bug Angel Armor for the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    The remaining 10,000 were tasked with crafting Fycro¡¯s military equipment.


    Saleen had to hand over 500,000 suits of Bug Angel Armor to Fycro by September. He also made 100,000 suits for himself. All fossilized god fragments were reserved, and the Heaven Knight Armor was put aside altogether.


    The Temple Knights of Nature Faith used Devil Flying Armor and Devil Possession Armor for the time being.


    The fossilized god fragments were mystical. Saleen added properties of Heaven Knight Armor to the Bug Angel Armor that he crafted for his army. With that, all 100,000 suits of armor would possess powerful defense when used in Saleen¡¯s territory.


    It went without saying that Saleen had to test the armor¡¯s properties. After the first set of Bug Angel Armor was crafted, Nailisi had an imp get into it and fight J.


    The imp was only about 1.5 meters tall. After getting into the pocket, the spikes behind the Bug Angel Armor closed one by one, encasing the imppletely. The 12-legged bug angel came alive and pounced on J ferociously.


    J did not use powerful weapons and instead used standard equipment of temple guards. The Qin greatsword, armed with piercing sword aura, was brought down onto the Bug Angel Armor.


    The armor split, and the imp within shrieked in terror, but its cry worked through the armor instead.


    The noise made everyone¡¯s eardrums hurt, and everyone within earshot felt rather dizzy. Any warrior below level nine would probably be dazed for half a second.


    J¡¯s hand was several frames slower, enough time for the imp to twist around and evade the killing blow. The magic nucleus embedded in the Bug Angel Armor¡¯s internal space melted a bit, patching up the crack in the armor quickly.


    Saleen was astounded. While such methods of repair were wasteful, it made the patch incredibly resilient, as if ayer of magic nucleus was coated on metal. Furthermore, it was done frighteningly quickly.


    It was both a huge waste and a huge finding.


    Jnded over 100 shes, which made the Bug Angel Armor even more resilient. That was why J refused to kill the imp. On a battlefield, the Bug Angel Armor would not be able to resist attacks from a level ten true might.


    ¡°Contact the Winged Skull and tell them to devote their time to hunting. I want more magic nuclei!¡± Saleen ordered. He found that the Bug Angel Armor had depleted over 100 magic nuclei after being attacked by J. The entire set of armor glittered, crystallized all over.


    There was no way J would be able to cleave the armor open with a single strike anymore.


    The more frequently the armor was attacked, the more resilient it became. It was no wonder that Fycro said that Saleen had a lot to gain. Only Bug Angel Armor crafted from fossilized god fragments would have such properties.


    If they were made with metal, their recovery rate would be faster and cost less, but the armor would et be weaker.


    The Winged Skull was puzzled about the reasoning behind such an order, but they immediately mobilized all ships and began to hunt magic beasts in the Oceanic Ice Block.


    The magic beasts there had increased to terrifying numbers, but the Winged Skull was equipped with the Reaper Scythe and hunting magic beasts became easier than cutting grass. The warships were simply following behind to pick up the dead bodies.


    There was a noticeable shortage of metals in the alchemy factories. Saleen tested it and found the shell of red krill to be a decent substitute, albeit a rather expensive one.


    It was fortunate there were so many red krill. Saleen decided to exclusively use their shells to craft Fycro¡¯s Bug Angel Armor.


    There were many shells left, which were used to createrger versions of the armor. The armor could fit several imps and could be donned by supreme demons.


    The best version, after undergoing many tests, was still the standard Bug Angel Armor.


    However, Saleen had no concerns about waste. He crafted 200rge versions specifically for Nailisi, letting her select supreme demons to wear it. To the supreme demons, the Devil Flying Armor was not that practical, but the Bug Angel Armor hardly had weaknesses.


    J found it difficult to cut down the supreme demons wearing such armor, even if they were only level eight or nine.


    All grand swordmasters at Saleen¡¯s side were assigned from the army, and were ordered to give their all to attack the special armor. In September, Saleen would finish the 100,000 suits for his own use when he was done crafting 500,000 for Fycro.


    The other 200 sets were suits of Crystal Bug Angel Armor crafted from crystals of very high purity.


    Saleen imbued dark space magic patterns on all of the suits. While their physical defense was only marginally strengthened, their defense against energy attacks reached baffling levels.


    The defensive capacities were built upon huge fuel cost. Every single set of Crystal Bug Angel Armor needed to be fit with 12 magic nuclei above level ten. Only then would they be able to resist magic attacks above level 10.


    Nailisi patiently moved Saleen¡¯s subjects using the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Saleen did not prioritize the transportation of warriors and transported farmers, smiths, some mages, and apprentices first.


    Saleen left anyone with any measure of fighting capacity behind in Metatrin City.


    Fycro came to Metatrin City personally, taking all 500,000 suits of Bug Angel Armor with him. Saleen only brought 20,000 sets with him and went to look for Grand Duke Iron Blood, when he found that there were a few problems with his armor.


    He had no time to look for trouble with Alchemy City, but Imposa would definitely have time. Imposa controlled massive numbers of Iron Blood warriors, and they were all capable of piloting the Bug Angel Armors.


    Saleen only brought Nailisi with him to Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s Pce At Sea.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood had made the Pce At Sea into a fortress. The magic cannons that he bought from Saleen sealed the port without leaving any exploitable angles. Every spot that could bended on had a huge number of magic cannons installed nearby.


    The Grand Duke did not seem to want to attack anything, but wanted to make it a point in his line of defense!


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m happy that you found time to see me!¡± The Grand Duke received Saleen with a loudugh. There were already four level ten sorcerers behind him. The Grand Duke¡¯s forces had grown since theyst met.

 Chapter 1277: Bug Angel (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1277: Bug Angel (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°Grand Duke, you should be sad. Meing here all the way means that your ce is no longer safe.¡±


    ¡°Why is that, Saleen? We had a deal, didn¡¯t we?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood yed dumb. Saleen stopped just about everything else in Metatrin City and dedicated all of his efforts to crafting the Bug Angel Armor. There was no way the Grand Duke did not know.


    When they became allies, Saleen silently approved of the presence of the Grand Duke¡¯s spies at Metatrin City. Everything was fine as long as the spies stayed away from the temple.


    ¡°We need a quiet ce to talk. Grand Duke, we¡¯re in deep trouble, and I¡¯m not sure I can handle it.¡±


    The Grand Duke looked at Nailisi, who was standing beside Saleen and hesitated for a bit, but he chose to tell his mages, ¡°I¡¯ll head to the Dragon Pce. Tell Imposa His Highness Saleen is here.¡±


    Saleen smiled and was reminded that he was no longer what he once was. He had needed Nailisi¡¯s protection in the past, and she had been the most formidable fighting force he had at his disposal.


    However, since the Thunder Dragon ster had been upgraded, hisbat capacity was not any lower than Nailisi. The Grand Duke was on guard, fearing that Saleen would turn on him.


    However, it was obvious that the Grand Duke had skills or equipment that he held in very high regard, as he would not get close to Saleen and Nailisi. He knew Saleen well enough he knew that the mage was capable of fighting hand-to-hand, and Nailisi was even more adept than her master.


    The Dragon Pce was magnificent. It was called the Dragon Pce because almost all of the defenses installed were built using materials sourced from dragons. Saleen was envious of the prosperity and abundance disyed on Dragon Ind.


    Even dragon spit was very good magic material. One could imagine how rich an ind capable of raising dragons was. Saleen and the Grand Duke had traded many times. There was already a dragon in Nature City.


    The reason Saleen did not put the dragon in Metatrin City was because he needed something to mesmerize people in Nature City.


    Even though Saleen had purchased abundant dragon materials, his eyes sparkled at the instations in Dragon Pce. Nailisi was getting ready to rob the pce. However, if they actually robbed it, there was no certainty that they would be able to run away with their loot.


    Imposa arrived quickly, saw Saleen, and nodded as a greeting. They were not that fond of each other. They had been at each other¡¯s throats before, and bing friends after all that proved to be a tall order.


    Furthermore, Saleen had no intention of bing friends with Imposa, even though thetter had entrusted his only student to Saleen.


    Saleen cut the chatter and took out a piece of memory crystal, projecting the illusions within using magic.


    ¡°Abominations?¡± Imposa did not get excited when he saw the creatures, but he was not calm either. He was calcting theirbat capacity.


    ¡°Indeed. The portal between the abomination ne and Myers Maind will be opened some time after December. I¡¯m here to ask if you intend to get involved.¡±


    ¡°How did you learn of this, Saleen?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood might have been a warrior, but he was able to tell that they were not recordings, but illusions created using magic instead.


    Saleen did not bring such things to deceive the Grand Duke. It was just that he had not been able to observe them in the field.


    The abominations had crimson magic patterns etched all over their green skin. They had curved horns and wore kilts around their waists. Some were naked. The onlymon thing between them was that every single abomination was above level seven. It seemed rather unlikely.


    ¡°Grand Duke, I assume that you know someone by the name of Fycro?¡±


    ¡°I do indeed. A very tough guy to deal with.¡±


    ¡°He ordered one million and two hundred thousand sets of armor from me, specifically for taking them on.¡± Saleen took out a set of Bug Angel Armor crafted from the shell of red krill.


    Imposa looked at the Bug Angel Armor before eximing in surprise, ¡°Fycro ordered that many of these!?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve already delivered five hundred thousand suits to him,¡± Saleen answered.


    The expression of both Grand Duke Iron Blood and Imposa became grim. The Grand Duke looked at Imposa, who asked, ¡°this is the quality of the armor that you delivered to Fycro?¡±


    There was a reason why Imposa asked. He was a grandmaster in terms of alchemy. His proficiency at the art of alchemy had surpassed what his level would suggest.


    The unique properties of the Bug Angel Armor, coupled with being crafted using magic beast shell, enabled the armor¡¯s defensive capacity to reach the top of the line.


    The defense of level four magic beasts was not very formidable, but when they were processed by mages, defenses of such materials would surpass the level seen magic beasts seen in nature.


    ¡°I¡¯m rather short on metal, so I¡¯d say about half of them were made like this.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words made the Grand Duke and Imposa frustrated. Dragon Ind was rich in resources but theycked trade, which prevented them from trading the dragon materials for other materials. That was why the Grand Duke traded with Saleen.


    The mage had huge amounts of low level materials that he needed.


    Saleen told him that he was short on metals, but used magic beast shells, which were better quality, to make the armor. That said that he had more of the shells at his disposal than metal.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ll get you the metal, and you get me the shells. How about that?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke, we¡¯re allies so I¡¯ll definitely look out for you.¡± Saleen smiled. ¡°Right now, I need hands to help me fight the abominations, if¡­¡±


    ¡°If I don¡¯t do it, the shells would have to be dyed. Am I correct?¡± The Grand Duke asked.


    ¡°More or less so. I need them myself, after all.¡±


    ¡°Imposa, what do you think?¡± The Grand Duke was incapable of assessing the properties of the Bug Angel Armor urately. He simply knew that the armor far surpassed his imagination.


    ¡°Very good stuff, and there is still room for modifications. No one would have been willing to sell these in the past. The fact that Saleen is willing to put it before us states the gravity of the situation.¡±


    The Grand Duke thought for a bit. ¡°I¡¯ve already had a setup to attack Alchemy City. If I devoted my resources into this, my army would be severelycking.¡±


    ¡°Army?¡± Saleen smiled. ¡°This is for the Iron Blood warriors.¡±


    ¡°Attacking Alchemy City requires use of Iron Blood warriors.¡±


    ¡°Alchemy City has arge magic amplifier, even if you were armed with Iron Blood warriors, you won¡¯t have any advantage.¡±


    ¡°I have ways to stall the magic amplifier. My elites will storm and destroy the nine major magic towers of the Elemental Hand. As soon as the magic towers are down, it will be as if a huge hole had been punched in the city. Even if the magic amplifier were restored, fighting in the city would still be a lot easier.¡± Imposa answered.


    His voice was very irritating. His half-man-half-machine appearance made him look terrifying.


    ¡°The thing with abomination ne is of greater importance. Imposa, you want to destroy Alchemy City, right?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Alchemy City has been turned into hell of mages!¡± Imposa said angrily. His resentment built up when he was still in Alchemy City.


    Things had gotten even worse. The city employed terrifying methods to forcefully upgrade some young mages, looking as if they were ready for full expansion. From the standpoint of tactics, only dealing a heavy blow to the city would prevent things from spiraling out of control.


    Alchemy City¡¯s crazed antics meant that there was more toe, and Imposa had no intention of seeing them brought to reality. He wanted to destroy Alchemy City before things got that far.


    ¡°How certain are you in the sess of your n?¡± Saleen mellowed out.


    He had scores to settle with the city forying out an ambush for him. He wanted to destroy Alchemy City.


    ¡°20 percent. If you¡¯re willing to provide 10,000 sets of that armor, the chances would be raised to 50.¡±


    ¡°20 percent?¡± Saleen never thought Imposa would take such risks. Mages usually only attempted things when the chances of sess were over 40 percent.


    ¡°This is nothing, Saleen. Help me destroy Alchemy City, and I¡¯ll help you kill abominations unconditionally.¡±


    ¡°Unconditionally?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. I¡¯ll only take the dead bodies of abominations I killed. I want nothing else.¡±


    ¡°How about you, Grand Duke?¡±


    ¡°Me? Saleen, this concerns Myers Maind itself. If the abominations get here, the maind is finished. Do you really think that I only want to be an emperor and care for nothing else?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood was rather displeased with Saleen.


    He came from a family that had a long history. His family was thousands of years old. It was his duty to protect Myers Maind and his subjects.


    ¡°My bad. Now, let¡¯s talk about prices.¡± Saleen took out three sets of armor.


    One set was crafted entirely of metals, one crafted using metals and magic beast shells, and thest one was a set that Saleen had modified. Other than not having ways to upgrade it using crude means, the magic patterns on the armor had been infused with defenses using dark space.


    ¡°What are the prices?¡± The Grand Duke left pricing to Saleen. It was a habit he acquired after bing allies with Saleen. His prices tended to be higher than usual at times. Saleen was truly fitting as a trade partner.


    ¡°Metal armor in exchange for food. I need a lot of food, and Dragon Ind has abundant stock. Even if food were used for trades, it still wouldn¡¯t affect your ns. Hybrid armor is made for humans. They have simr properties but are more expensive to craft. Warriors above level six could wear them. I would need low level materials from the dragons in exchange for them. Armor crafted using magic beast shells exclusively, I¡¯ll need dragon scales, Grand Duke.¡±


    ¡°What about this then?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood pointed at the armor of the highest level and asked.


    That highest level armor was crafted specifically for human warriors. If the Iron Blood warriors wore them, the effects making them difficult tomand would be nullified, and their capacity at fighting autonomously would be enhanced.


    Even without the fact that the Iron Blood Warriors wearing Tainted Blood Armor taken into ount, the magic patterns on the Bug Angel Armor alone would be able to resist any magic attacks below level nine.


    Such equipment was precisely what they needed to attack Alchemy City.


    ¡°I¡¯m not selling the armor.¡± Saleen yed hard-to-get.


    ¡°Not selling?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood asked with a puzzled expression. ¡°Are you telling me that you¡¯re just going to give them to me then?¡±

 Chapter 1278: Dragon Blood (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1278: Dragon Blood (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen narrowed his eyes, and Nailisi got excited seeing the expression. It had been quite a while since thest time Saleen did so. Looks like Grand Duke Iron Blood is going to lose a lot of blood this time.


    ¡°Grand Duke, this armor is something that only I and my teacher are able to craft working together. Even if you had the full schematics and Master Imposa is here to help you, you still won¡¯t be able to craft it. As such, I really am not selling this. However, for every one hundred sets that you order, you¡¯ll give you one set of this for free.¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood felt like he was going to puke blood. The free armor was the one crafted purely using magic beast shells, and the armor he had to buy would be exchanged only with dragon scales.


    He would only get the best armor avable if he had enough dragon scales to spare.


    Dragon scales were very good materials for crafting armor, but the Grand Duke only had one master alchemist in his employment: Imposa. He could not afford to trade dragon scales without good reason. Dragon scales had always been the least traded item between him and Saleen. He had put a strict control on dragon scales due precisely to their importance.


    ¡°By the way, I want only the scales on the backs of the dragons, the ces where people could ride,¡± Saleen added.


    The Grand Duke was speechless. Saleen was practically forcing the Grand Duke¡¯s hand. While the armor that Saleen offered were very good, they were not crafted using high level magic beasts, so he thought Saleen was just trying to rob him.


    But the bonus armor was very, very tempting.


    What Saleen meant by ¡®not selling¡¯ was that Saleen had taken the armor to be his own personal, high level equipment, and he was not going to sell them in future either. If Grand Duke Iron Blood got his hands on them, he would only be able to acquire as bonuses through such trades.


    ¡°So Grand Duke, how many sets of armor do you intend to purchase?¡±


    ¡°Get me 10,000 ¡ª no, 20,000 ¡ª sets to start!¡± The Grand Duke gritted his teeth. He cursed at Saleen. You Sikeqinyan bloodsucker!


    ¡°What about the other armor, Grand Duke?¡±


    ¡°A hundred thousand as well,¡± the Grand Duke answered without hesitation. He had done the calctions. He knew that he had to provide massive amount of armor to Fycro, and thus was unable to sell too many.


    ¡°Alright then!¡± Saleen threw out a list, listing the materials he required and the corresponding amount. Grand Duke was relieved as he read the list. Other than requiring high level dragon scales as payment, the other parts were all fair trade.


    While the Grand Duke was frustrated about the trade, Saleen began to rummage his space equipment. ¡°I¡¯ll give you the metal and hybrid armor in a bit. I¡¯ll give you the ones you need most right now. I¡¯m sure that you aren¡¯t going to cheat me.¡±


    The Grand Duke was ted. Trade involving high level equipment was usually done slowly. Saleen would craft the ones for his own use, before he began providing for others.


    Saleen took out 20,000 suits of armor, meaning that the Grand Duke¡¯s forces could be upgraded right away.


    ¡°Grand Duke, I cherish the treaty between us. I hope that after the treaty expires in about 100 years, we¡¯ll be able to keep signing such treaties,¡± Saleen said to the Grand Duke as he took out the equipment he was selling.


    The good will that was being tantly disyed made the Grand Duke happy.


    ¡°However, I¡¯m not sure I¡¯ll be able to keep the good will between Fycro and me for long. How about we sign another personal contract against Fycro, Grand Duke?¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood looked at Imposa, who nodded. The contracts had few loopholes to be exploited. Contracts involving a third party were difficult toy traps in. Imposa was a level ten mage and knew Saleen¡¯s thoughts well. Fycro was a holy master and was not reliable after all.


    So long as Fycro existed, the alliance between the two of them would be closer.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood agreed. Contracts with a specific target needed tost until Fycro died. It would bind both parties until then. The Grand Duke was on guard as well. Fycro¡¯s powers were growing, so much so that he needed one million sets of Bug Angel Armors.


    The Holy See was an enormous monster, shaking the Tanggsi Empire to the brink of copse. Even if the Holy See crumbled, its factions would be able to stand independently as powerful forces.


    Despite having lost six head inquisitors, the Tribunal still had the ck Dungeon. The Pivotal Council lost Theisio, but two oracles emerged to take his ce. Fycro of the Oracle Corps had stayed silent for a very long time and acquired a huge number of warriors. It also meant that he had a lot of holy masters serving him as well.


    The main force of the Oracle Corps consisted of the ascetics. They were not considered part of the Holy See¡¯s internal parts. Many ascetics did not even bother praying in churches.


    Ascetics were far more terrifying than zealots. In the minds of ascetics, hardly anything could be considered suffering, and there was little joy. Their goal was solely to enter divine kingdoms. Their faith was worn thin due to having such a specific goal.


    The ascetics were difficult to understand, even to mages. And Fycro had huge number of ascetics serving him.


    Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood spoke in length regarding the contract¡¯s contents, the terms both parties were bound to, and so on, before a high level magic scroll was used to seal the deal.


    After the contract was signed, Grand Duke Iron Blood said to Saleen, ¡°I know that you have better armor. I¡¯m rather short on mages but I have a lot of powerful warriors. I need armor specifically made for human warriors. All of my warriors are of level seven and above.¡±


    All of them level seven and above?


    The Grand Duke continued after seeing Saleen¡¯s puzzled expression, ¡°The ancient warriors on the Ancient would have left me broke sooner orter. Do you really think that my family would rely on that? I have armies that are nurtured for a prolonged period using dragon blood. If I wish, I could have taken at least half of Cloudflow Empire.¡±


    ¡°Half?¡±


    ¡°There are several dukes who are powerful. As for Cloudflow royalty, they are nothing once they leave Misty City.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He was able toprehend something from the Grand Duke¡¯s words. Misty City did not look like much, but it had absolute defense capacities and the capacity for offense.


    The safety of Cloudflow royalty would be guaranteed so long as Misty City stood. While local nobles were powerful, they never thought of revolting, as there was little point unless they were able to kill every singlest member of the royalty.


    ¡°Grand Duke, you¡¯re not telling me that you¡¯re going to give me the secrets of the Dragon Blood Warriors, are you?¡± Saleen joked.


    It was rather unexpected for the Grand Duke to reply, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, if you¡¯re willing to buy, I¡¯m willing to sell.¡±


    Saleen chuckled. There was little point to him acquiring such things, but he had to pay a hefty price for it. He had no way to rear dragons and he had no coordinates of the dragon ne. Where am I going to find dragon blood?


    Furthermore, keeping Dragon Blood Warriors would probably require generations of management before a sizeable number would emerge. Even if he bought the secrets, he would have little use for them.


    ¡°What do you want, Grand Duke?¡± Saleen did not refuse. They were allies, so he saw fit to give something good to the Grand Duke in return. When he had amassed ample dragon scales, he would be able to craft dragon scale armor for his followers.


    ¡°I want a safe interdimensional space to keep my future Dragon Blood Warriors,¡± the Grand Duke said.


    Saleen realized that he was able to do so. Furthermore, there was no need for him to search for interdimensional spaces. Sika¡¯s metal totem pole would serve as a suitable space for the Dragon Blood Warriors to live.


    While it was true that he would not be able to amass an ample number of Dragon Blood Warriors for the time being, it was not to say that it would be true in the future. The strength of Sika metal totem pole relied on the strength of the beings living within.


    If the metal totem pole was filled entirely with Dragon Blood Warriors, they would be able to supply Sika with limitless power so long as they had strong life force, even if their skills were just average.


    ¡°Are you¡¯re capable of providing ample dragon blood? What is an interdimensional space, Grand Duke? A space enough to develop a nation!¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood hesitated a bit. ¡°Dragon blood, eh? It¡¯s quite costly to keep dragons. If you¡¯re able to provide me with ample magic pharmaceuticals, I¡¯ll give you the dragon blood you need. In that case, both of us will have opportunities for further development.¡±


    Saleen recalled what he saw when he arrived at the Pce At Sea. He was wondering if the Grand Duke also knew if some great disaster was about to happen, prompting him to consider his options for retreat.


    Saleen guessed right. The reason the Grand Duke wanted an interdimensional space was to move the entire Dragon Ind into it. His family and over half of his power was focused on Dragon Ind, and the wealth there was almost incalcble. As long as he was able to keep Dragon Ind safe, even if his family¡¯s influence on Myers Maind was entirely uprooted, he would be able to build his forces up again within 100 years.


    Saleen was impressed of the Grand Duke¡¯s vision and vigor. The trade would definitely be theirrgest.


    If he were willing to offer the secrets of the Dragon Blood Warriors, then he was not popr solely because of the wealth and history of his family. It was impossible for such figures to appear in every generation of a family or n. Grand Duke Iron Blood might actually be a great emperor of an empire.


    From the perspective of mages, nobles who guarded their family secrets closely would be eliminated sooner orter. Grand Duke Iron Blood continued to trade for more things with his secrets, enabling his family to continue growing, until they became so huge that they were able to rule a ne.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was already a level ten true might. ording to convention, it would be no surprise if he ended up living for more than 1,000 years. So long as he did not die in battle, the next millennium would enable his family¡¯s powers to reach an ideal level.


    While Saleen was a king as well, he was also a mage and would not fight for supremacy on Myers Maind. He would move his nation to interdimensional space that he found suitable for development instead.


    A nation of mages that had no quarrel with the world was the shared ideal between Saleen and Lex.


    Saleen did not leave the Pce At Sea right away. Grand Duke Iron Blood had a teleportation portal. He delivered the dragon scales Saleen needed, adding a huge amount of dragon blood as well.


    Saleen knew of the existence of some interdimensional spaces, but the one truly suitable for the Grand Duke had a link found within Cloudflow Empire territory.


    It would need verification from both of them. There was no way the Grand Duke would give Saleen his reward after getting a set of coordinates. The dragon blood was just a deposit, which amounted to 120 thousand pounds in weight.


    Saleen finally understood why the Grand Duke did not seem strong. He actually knew how to get to the dragon ne and hunt low level dragons.


    The dragon ne was farrger than Myers Maind and had a huge number of dragons. Nobody paid attention to low level dragons, and the Grand Duke had been relying on the blood of the dragons to nurture and maintain his family¡¯s warriors.

 Chapter 1279: Dragon Blood (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1279: Dragon Blood (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    It was due to Grand Duke Iron Blood sending his family¡¯s powerful ones to the dragon ne that he did not seem to be much on Myers Maind. He became the family¡¯s leader not because he was the strongest, but because he was the best at management.


    Saleen was considered more adept at management than other mages. There would not be a Metatrin City otherwise.


    However,pared to the Grand Duke, his abilities at management were nothing. The Grand Duke was even able to recruit the likes of Imposa and got along with him. He grew to like the Grand Duke as a person.


    An average dragon reached tens of thousands of pounds, with some reaching hundreds of thousands of pounds. Low level dragons might be somewhat lighter, but definitely not below 10,000 pounds.


    Dragons had huge amount of blood. It was possible to extract thousands of pounds of blood from just one dragon alone.


    120,000 pounds of dragon blood was hardly worth mentioning to Dragon Ind. Saleen recalled the trade with the Grand Duke in the past and felt that he had lost out on quite a lot.


    Saleen returned to Metatrin City with 120 pounds of dragon blood and 2,000 pieces of high level dragon scale. He handed them to his teacher and let him deal with them, before taking his followers teleporting to the Floating City.


    The Floating City was at Guderian City and had yet to reach Metatrin City. Saleen took the city to the East Sea. He intended to get to Stormy Sea in three months to search for a temple there.


    The location of the temple was the most dangerous, and Saleen had to get to it as soon as possible. With the Floating City, the journey to Stormy Sea was smooth. It would be easy for Saleen to attack the nations of the East Sea in the future as well.


    As soon as he took the temple, Saleen intended to deal a huge blow to Alchemy City with Grand Duke Iron Blood. When he was done taking down Alchemy City, Saleen spected that it would be about time for him to defend the pathway leading to the abomination ne.


    Saleen did not spend his time idling. He researched the magic pharmaceutical form of the Dragon Blood Warriors. The form needed to be replicated using magic instead of taking notes conventionally to prevent anything unintended.


    The Grand Duke ced huge importance in that trade, so he was unusually careful, as he dared not cause Saleen to suffer a loss.


    The interdimensional space was too important to the Grand Duke. Dragon Blood Warriors were hardly worth mentioning before reaching level nine, as they were not even as useful as the Iron Blood warriors.


    However, once the power of the maind rose again, the speed at which Dragon Blood Warriors would advance would far surpass that of conventional warriors.


    He would possess the strongest army.


    Saleen knew that the reason he was researching the form was to look for ways to improve it. Saleen was no genius in terms of magic, but his forte in any field rted to magic was his talents in formting magic pharmaceuticals.


    Saleen was adept at calctions as well. Few mages were able to master Figaro¡¯s Magic Form to his level. Even his teacher, Jason, was impressed.


    Due to Saleen not being able to find ways to advance, he was several times more diligent than other mages topensate.


    The secrets of the Dragon Blood Warriors wereplicated. Dragon blood served as the main ingredient and all the other herbs weremon on Myers Maind, but he was able to find something off.


    The form hadpromises, which meant that it was made so that it could be easily created on Myers Maind in great quantities. Saleen contacted his teacher immediately.


    Jason had not been paying attention to the form, but when he heard what Saleen said, he realized that something was off with the form as well.


    The Grand Duke Iron Blood had not kept something from him. The one that the Grand Duke knew had always been the one they both have at the moment.


    ¡°Teacher, would you be able to calcte what the original form was like?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a matter of time. My men are all working in the alchemy factories, devoting all their time to crafting armor.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll think of something myself then.¡± Saleen did not wait for Jason to remind him and pped his head in frustration. The number of enchanters working for him reached 20,000, consisting of mainly demonic spirits and imps.


    Creatures of that bloodline had inherently strong mental power capacity. With assistance from the magic, their calctive abilities far exceeded the mages in Metatrin City and even him, if he let them learn Figaro¡¯s Magic Form.


    Saleen decided to immediately craft a set of Figaro¡¯s Magic Form¡¯s models and uploaded what he knew about the form to the Floating City¡¯s magic.


    The workings of the magic differed from usual magic because someone needed to store all parts of a magic spell in the magic before the was capable of providing support for the magic.


    If an enchanter cast an icicle, the magic needed to have all chants, signs, and other requirements stored within, which enabled the magic to be able to resonate with the magic spell.


    Only by doing so would an enchanter be able to mobilize the magic via the magic power furnace and cast a magic spell.


    The benefit of a magic was that it saved a lot of the enchanter¡¯s time, enabling them to advance quickly. The downside, however, was that once an enchanter left a magic, they would be reduced to what they used to be.


    Saleen stopped the Floating City specifically for that purpose and began to work, uploading Figaro¡¯s Magic Form onto the magic. It would be troublesome if someone else did it, but Saleen only needed to send the energy vibrations stored using Water me.


    He had crafted the magic over the Floating City. His effort at perfecting the city had surpassed the effort he devoted to any of his equipment.


    Most of the Floating City was still empty. It was filled only with enchanters, demons and some mages performing experiments. There were no warriors to be found. Saleen had used lightning puppets and star figures to take the warriors¡¯ ce for the time being.


    Gaine had taken the level 19 Star Gathering Needle with him and left the astrology tower to Saleen. Saleen was free to take anything in the astrology tower, which included a huge amount of unimed figures.


    Most of the figures were high level, the mostmon being level nine. It was a pity that their number was small. Saleen was already a level ten astrologer and was capable of crafting level nine figures. However, he was unable to craft a level ten one even if he was to be given a month to make just one.


    Saleen was reluctant to use starline cloth, so he had been using other materials as substitutes, which made his star figures only level seven.


    Level seven would suffice. Conventional troops, even the elites, were only level four or so. Saleen¡¯s level seven figures would be more than enough to mop up most armies.


    Until they encountered wardens or Temple Knights, the star figures were basically invincible.


    The enchanters on the Floating City began to learn Figaro¡¯s Magic Form quickly, but they were unable to truly master it. To put it precisely, Saleen enabled the enchanters to use the magic¡¯s calctive abilities.


    If they left the magic, the enchanters¡¯ knowledge of Figaro¡¯s Magic Form would not be greater than a warrior¡¯s.


    Saleen was unconcerned. Demonic spirits were lowly beings in demon ne, and they spent their lives as food for others. Even if they learned magic, their achievements would not be higher than humans.


    The demonic spirits¡¯ bloodlines and control of magic would never be as strong as humans.


    Magic had originally been researched by humans, even dragon tongue magic. However, dragons were smarter than demonic spirits, enabling them to upgrade dragon tongue magic into powerful skills.


    There were 24,000 enchanters on the Floating City. The enchanters began to calcte theponents of the Dragon Blood Warriors¡¯ secret form. Saleen was able to derive the principles of Dragon Blood Warriors¡¯ form, enabling him to reform the form.


    Even if he was incapable of acquiring the original form, Saleen would be able to improve it. That was the importance of manpower. In ancient times, even low level mages were able to bring frightening powers to bear, let alone the powerful ones all over the ce.


    It was easy to assemble up to a million mages back then. If a million mages calcted at the same time and were supported by equipment like the magic, they would be able to calcte forms for all kinds of magic pharmaceuticals.


    What Saleen was doing had never been done on Myers Maind. At its limit, the Floating City would be able to amodate over a million enchanters. Saleen would truly be fearless.


    Unless there were powerful ones who were two levels higher than he was, he would be able to put up a formidable defense using practically limitless creature and material resources, even if he was unable to take the powerful ones head on.


    Enchanters chewed through the magic nuclei quickly. One form after another was developed, which were used for further deducing the principles of magic pharmaceuticals. All kinds of data were written on magic paper by enchanters, sending the images to Saleen.


    Saleen had acquired three forms when he reached Stormy Sea. Two of the three were improved, one tailored to humans and the other tailored to demons. The remaining one was the original form deduced using Figaro¡¯s Magic Form.


    Saleen found something that exceeded his capacity to spend in the form.


    All kinds of precious materials and herbs were listed in the form, most of which had already disappeared on Myers Maind. Saleen had many of them in his stock, which he had acquired from the astrology tower. However, using such a form to nurture Dragon Blood Warriors would be expensive.


    It seemed that he needed to think of ways to deal with it. The other two new forms acquired were decent, which would raise the chances of sessfully nurturing Dragon Blood Warriors by 20 percent.


    All the materials listed in the other two forms were found in great quantities on Myers Maind, and Saleen would be able to nurture huge amounts of Dragon Blood Warriors.


    ¡°Let¡¯s gather the seeds.¡± Saleen sent the form back to Metatrin City to allow them to collect seeds.


    The Stormy Sea was right before them. It seemed calm when Saleen entered, but the waves were over a dozen meters tall. If it had not been for the Floating City, the winds there would have easily torn sails made from magic beast hide to shreds.


    The wind was natural magic conjured by wind element. It was no wonder why Joey needed to be well prepared before entering the Stormy Sea.


    The Floating City slowly descended to the surface of the sea. The ten-meter waves hardly bothered the Floating City, which had a thickness of 900 meters.


    Only Saleen, who possessed insanely powerful equipment, would be able to venture inside easily andnd right on top of the coordinates he wanted to be on.


    Saleen had no idea what he would find within the temple hidden in the Stormy Sea, and he looked forward to it. His luck increased every time he destroyed a temple. Not even the Goddess of Myers would think that someone would do that.

 Chapter 1280: The Goddess’ Gratitude (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1280: The Goddess¡¯ Gratitude (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Destroying temples was not a good move for growing luck, but Saleen had already destroyed quite a number of temples, and destroying another one meant there would be less chance of others gaining luck from the goddess by making contracts with her. It was a cut-off method described by astrologers.


    It was just like how if there were only two dragons left in the world, both dragons would be incredibly precious, but killing one of them would make thest one more expensive than the original prices of two of thembined.


    That was the method employed by merchants. Saleen felt that he was running out of time and so, he was unable to be concerned that much.


    The Floating Citynded on the ocean and Saleen had the enchanters search for the coordinates. It was far easier that way. The number of enchanters were huge and the radius of the area covered by the Floating City reached 120 miles.


    The enchanters found the entrance to the temple for Saleen within mere minutes. Saleen summoned Nailisi and moved the Floating City and came above the coordinates.


    Rossen the Water Puppet remained within the magic tower. As the tower was absorbed into the city, its defenses were vastly improved. If Rossen insisted on noting out, no one would be able to enter and Saleen had no worries of the Floating City being taken.


    Saleen and Nailisi dived into the water at great speed. The Stormy Sea was unstable, but once they reached the depth over a mile, the currents beneath became considerably less intense.


    The Stormy Sea was incredibly deep. Oceans weremonly about 5000 meters deep and there were some reaching over 8000 meters. However, average depth of Stormy Sea exceeded 10000 meters.


    Ferocious magic beasts at the tranquil underwater setting was startlingly high. However, Nailisi had electricity coursing all over her and Saleen was shrouded by his territory. The ferocious beast avoided them. None of them wanted to pick on the two humans.


    They dived for over 20000 meters beforeing to the bottom of the ocean. Things were very tranquil there and there was only one magic beast sitting there, without any other living beings around. But then again, that magic beast was a huge cuttlefish.


    Saleen killed cuttlefish in the ocean before, but only the huge fish found at the southeastern seas, which he had been to, would berger than that cuttlefish. Every single tentacle of that thing had a length exceeding 2000 meters. There were eight eyes on its head and looked at both Saleen and Nailisi with curiosity.


    That was the ce it rested and no other beings darede near. They were the first humans it encountered for the past 10000 years or so.


    ¡°Get out!¡± Saleen shouted using Thundering Shock.


    The huge cuttlefish was startled and all of its tentacles twitched for a bit. And then, before Nailisi¡¯s startled eyes, that huge monster under the sea was actually chased away by one shout from Saleen.


    ¡°Master...¡± Nailisi was at a loss for words. That huge cuttlefish was probably a level 11 magic beast and hadbat capacity that would fend off level 12 ones.


    The cuttlefish¡¯sbat capacity would make it a king of the region even at the Oceanic Ice Block. Nailisi found it baffling that Saleen was able to have it leave with just one shout.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get concerned with that. Let¡¯s look at what¡¯s down there.¡± Saleen pointed at the floor where that cuttlefish sat. There was a huge tform at the floor and an extremelyplex magic array wasid on it.


    That was not a teleportation portal, but a magic array used for defense. There was arge hole at the center of the magic array, which was also a stable portal.


    There was an energy barrier covering the portal, preventing seawater from getting in.


    They were over 20000 meters underwater, but the barrier was capable of keeping seawater from getting in. It meant that the barrier was resisting powerful attacks at all times. That was really a precious magic array indeed!


    Saleen did not hesitate to memorized the magic array right there and then using a memory crystal, before using a magic spell himself, etching theplex magic array deep within his mind.


    He wasying twoyers of insurance, but he was not satisfied when he was done. He unleashed his territory and took out starline cloth, beginning to draw the magic array on it shortly after.


    He had employed the first two methods in fear of the magic array disappearing. Drawing it manually was actually the most secure way of preserving it. There were many magic arrays that would gradually fade when copied using memory magic and equipment.


    The reason why Saleen drew details of that magic array was because defensive properties of that magic array was too powerful, but the cost was the smallest from what Saleen was able to understand.


    The power of the magic array was drawn from earth element underwater. That was to say that the magic array had properties beyond that of territories¡ªthe power of rules.


    Regardless of howplex such magic arrays would be, there was a need to craft them, especially in the case of the Floating City. The city, as it was then, relied solely on its formidable construction materials and the 24000 enchanters for defense.


    What Saleen needed wasying out a huge magic array in the middle of the Floating City, which could be activated at any given moment. When done so, he would no longer need to worry about getting hit by powerful magic, even if it approached Alchemy City from above.


    It took Saleen over an hour to draw the magic array while covered by his territory. He and Nailisi arrived at the center of the magic array, passing through the defense barrier and entered the portal.


    He put up his territory and squeezed Nailisi into the barrier. Other than spending quite a huge amount of mental powers, he had no other problems with it. The Goddess of Myers hadid out the magic array to keep seawater out, not preventing humans from getting in.


    The ones intending to resurrect her would have nothing to gain otherwise.


    Saleen was never worried about that. It was certain that magic arrays had weaknesses. That one was able to block attacking seawater, but was unable to prevent Saleen and Nailisi, both of whom were wrapped in electricity, from getting in.


    Electricity had always been best for dismantling attacks, and defense consisted of elements. Nailisi had been relying on that one skill alone to go into other people¡¯s territories, so much so that she was able to fight up close in it.


    Armed with a Grey Memory, a Sword of Rules, a square shield and the meteor hammer that Saleen had crafted for her, Nailisi was all offense. That square shield was a bludgeon weapon in her hands as well.


    While her force using shield to bash things was not as fierce as Sika, she was capable of killing many magic beasts known for their defensive capacities.


    Saleen felt the difference as soon as he entered the portal. The portal was the more stable than he had ever seen before. It was not supported by external forces, and it seemed to be a hole carved onto the Myers Maind.


    It was not surprising how the magic array was able to keep it safe for so long and not let any seawater seep in.


    They finally saw light after moving 200 miles. Saleen kept his distance from Nailisi for a bit. Nailisi took her devil form, which was ten meters tall. She waspletely armed, as she was afraid of trouble ahead.


    While the goddess¡¯ temples were no doubt for descendants of the maind, she was not omnipotent. Both of them had encountered the divine baby in the undersea temple. If Saleen had not been armed with his family badge, he would have died.


    Saleen and Nailisi were not the type to put their hopes on others. Saleen put up his territory and unleashed Lightning Constetion in the dark.


    There was light before them, emanated by thousands of insects. They looked like fireflies, but they were three to five timesrger. They moved faster as well.


    Saleen observed them for a bit with his Elemental Eye. The bugs posed no threat to them and were not even level one magic beasts.


    Where they were was an interdimensional space, albeit a pathetically small one. The entire space was within Saleen¡¯s sight, and it was notrger than any of the spaces in Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    However, there were living beings within, and there was a yellow sun hanging in the air. There was green everywhere, and tall pces stood out amidst the jungle.


    Saleen saw a thick barrier at the edge of the interdimensional space. Boundless voidid right outside the barrier.


    ¡°Nailisi, this is what level 18 professionals were capable of. They had, well...¡± Saleen saw the barrier and was at a loss for words. His sight allowed him to see through the barrier and be able to catch sight of stars here and then, but his senses were unable to tell him how thick that barrier actually was.


    So this is the barrier between nes? 200 miles thick perhaps? The portal had been long, and Saleen was unable to sense any methods to fold the space.


    He was of insufficient level, but his judgment was intact.


    The ce was 240 square miles, and if Saleen stood in the middle of the small interdimensional space, he would not be able to see its edge. His magic amplifier was incapable of amplifying the range of his Elemental Eye¡¯s sight.


    ¡°Nailisi,e with me.¡± Saleen gazed at a corner of the temple in the jungle and felt rather uneasy. There were living beings in the interdimensional space, and they were not hostile, but all of the beings were extinct in the Myers Maind.


    Saleen spected that the Goddess of Myers knew that the beings were about to go extinct, so she kept them there.


    I wonder what is in the temple.


    Nailisi saw that there was no danger, but she kept her devil form up. It was not her most powerful form in terms ofbat, but it possessed the most resilient life force.


    The jungle was filled with harmless creatures. Saleen expanded his territory. He had no intention of frightening the weak creatures; he was simply searching for suspicious things.


    No dangers around indeed.


    Is this interdimensional space just treasure trove? Once he got the astrology tower, Saleen had lost interest in treasure troves and vaults.


    The temple gradually showed what it was originally like. When Saleen got to the temple, he felt that, despite having gone on countless adventures, it was the first time he felt nothing but joy.


    The temple was made of wood, and while some ces were already rotten, most of it was intact. The rotten parts were not due to attacks but simply a result of age.


    The pce was at the core was the most intact. It was built with the most precious wooden materials in ancient times, which differed from the surrounding pces. That was Saleen¡¯s goal.


    The green covered the pce. Saleen used magic to carve a path, while Nailisi walked in front, holding a fireball for light.


    Nailisi¡¯s huge foot stepped on the flooring, causing it to creak under her weight. The smell win that dimly lit passage was bad. The goddess had never meant for the pce to be a destination for pilgrimages, so it was not built in a grand andvish manner.


    The interdimensional space was simply prepared for descendants of the Myers Maind.


    Saleen recalled that it was suitable to serve as a supply point. When he opened the path to the East Sea in the future, warships would need to brave the Stormy Sea, and the interdimensional space could serve as an outpost for warships to resupply.

 Chapter 1281: The Goddess’ Gratitude (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1281: The Goddess¡¯ Gratitude (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    After Myers Maind connected to its neighboring nes, they would probably be all kinds of wars. Saleen already had thoughts about conquering the East Sea nations.


    However, with the Stormy Sea standing in the way, there was no way for his fleet to carry huge amounts of space equipment to resupply, and it would require a huge number of mages to be assigned to the ships.


    Saleen had been searching for purple-gold sea urchin, but he still was unable to acquire 100,000 of them. It was impossible for all armies to carry such equipment. The location of the temple was thus very, very strategic and convenient.


    So how do I allow a ce 20,000 meters underwater to deliver supplies to the surface constantly?


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi reminded Saleen that they reached their destination.


    They passed through a courtyard full of weeds, and a four-story pce was right before them. Saleen was unable to fathom the materials the pce was made from even when he got up close. He only knew that building a pce with such materials was a huge waste.


    The materials were far better than thundercloud wood. A piece of floorboard alone would serve as a magic shield and would be a waste when given to a level nine warrior.


    Saleen saw a piece of cover screen when he walked up the stairs, which was a magic equipment. Saleen was barely able to keep himself from taking the cover screen for himself.


    What a huge waste indeed. There was a drawing on the cover screen and a magic array was hidden in the drawing, which would allow the cover screen to form a barrier than was more powerful than level ten earth magic.


    Twenty-four women were illustrated on the cover screen. All of them dressed inly. The onlymon thing about them all was that they each wore a Ring of Gifts.


    The oracles of the goddess then?


    There was something like a living room behind the huge cover screen, and it looked very different from the pce¡¯syout. The inside of the pce looked likemon residence.


    Saleen had Nailisi shift into her human form instead of taking the cover screen. She held the Sword of Rules just in case. They entered from the side doors, passing through the living room.


    There was a courtyard and a four-floored building. Saleen thought for a bit and headed straight for the building.


    It was not a pce. Saleen found the study room and a garden behind it. The garden faced a huge window. There was a nt below it, keeping the room smelling fresh.


    The fragrance from the nt repelled bugs from the room, and the books on the shelves looked clean, without even a speck of dust on them.


    The ordinary, unassumingyout seemed designed by a little girl, without any hint of the regality of level 18 professionals.


    Saleen walked behind the study table and sat. There was a letter on the table, sealed by a magic lock. The paper used to make the envelope was incrediblymon. It was not that difficult for Saleen to put a magic lock on a table like that. What was difficult was maintaining the lock for over 10,000 years.


    Saleen¡¯s finger swiped at the magic lock and infused his mental powers. His magic amplifier was unleashed as well, and his Ring of Cosmos was mobilized.


    Saleen¡¯s mental powers raged as they were sucked dry by the magic lock, so much so that a piece of divine crystal that Saleen prepared in advance was reduced to dust.


    Saleen slumped onto the table. Nailisi was frightened and went up to him. He stopped her, looking dead tired. ¡°Hold on. I¡¯m just drained.¡±


    The advantage of training his mental powers all year long with his family badge became apparent. If any other mage had their mental powerspletely drained, it would harm their bodies.


    However, not only was Saleen¡¯s body able to recover quickly, there was few aftereffects. All of that enabled hisbat capacity to be kept at tip-top condition, while not affecting his training.


    After seeing Nailisi look so worried, Saleen said, ¡°just a small test. The more mental powers I send inside, the greater the benefits I¡¯ll get. The contents of the letter differ ording to the level of the one opening it. It was a method employed by mages, and it seemed that Myers did not forget her roots after all.¡±


    Nailisi scoffed but said nothing. She did not want to offend the goddess on what was technically the goddess¡¯ turf. The more temples Nailisi visited, the more apparent the fact that Myers was not someone to be trifled with.


    There was no point in poking fun at the goddess. It would be far more satisfying to resurrect her and then kill her with one thrust from her spear.


    Saleen regained some mental powers and took out a divine crystal to restore half of his mental powers. Then, he opened the envelope.


    There was a magic paper within, and he was very careful with it, refraining from remembering the magic patterns on the paper, using the crudest way¡ªhis eyes¡ªto try to read and memorize everything instead.


    That magic pattern had been able to preserve the paper for such a long time and maintain its attributes, making the magic pattern extremely precious. The higher a mage¡¯s level was, the higher their requirements of such magic equipment became.


    However, high level materials did note easily. Such methods of modifyingmon materials weremonly used by powerful professionals.


    If the paper were used to make scrolls, they would remain intact for tens of thousands of years.


    The words were written in Ancient Myers Language, making it easy for Saleen to read. The very first line was ¡°Revered Sir Mage...¡±


    The magic lock was very intricate. The way the envelope was opened determined the contents written on the paper. Saleen¡¯s mental powers had been reinforced and, when forcefully unleashed, had reached extremely high levels.


    The magic lock was incapable of telling that Saleen was just a level ten sorcerer and thought he was beyond level 13.


    But there was no mistaking the profession. The way that Saleen used his mental powers was how mages did.


    The contents opened with an idiom that Saleen was familiar with: one shall pay for what one desires with an equal price.


    Sir Mage, being able to get here means that you¡¯ve put in a lot of effort. As a former mage, I admire your resilience. Your efforts shall be rewarded.


    A map was drawn below the paragraph, which showed the small interdimensional space, including some =buildings underground. Everything in the space was drawn on the map. There was a list of items below the map.


    Saleen looked and found it to be a huge warehouse. Everything in it was meant for mages. The grandmaster was stingy inparison. The materials tailored for mages stunned Saleen for quite a bit.


    He would not be able to acquire all of that if he was of insufficient level. If he were an assassin, it would disy another map instead and there would be a set of coordinates written there. The interdimensional space was prepared for mages.


    The Goddess of Myers did not y tricks. Her method was one that mages had been using for tens of thousands of years. Saleen knew that very well.


    The warehouse beneath the pce consisted of independent spaces opened by the goddess. There were no suits of armor or weapons, only magic nuclei, crystals, scrolls, pharmaceuticals, gems, and many other rare materials.


    The goddess probably only needed to plunder one ne to acquire everything. Inparison, Saleen would probably not be able to amass that much wealth even if he spent 100 years.


    Saleen was in desperate need of the materials in his uing war with the abomination ne.


    ¡°Master, are we going to take the ce apart this time?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°Do you have to ask? Of course we¡¯re not taking it apart. We¡¯ll keep this ce and use it as a fortress.¡± Saleen gestured for Nailisi to head to the goddess¡¯ warehouse with him to move its contents. At the moment, Nailisi¡¯s space equipment was farrger than Saleen¡¯s.


    The 12 Notes of First Purgatory had space to spare. While there would be problems if they carried living beings, it was ideal for carrying cargo.


    There were 24 huge warehouses in the interdimensional space¡¯s underground locations. Saleen spected that every single warehouse would probably berger than his own dimension stones.


    He had other uses for the dimension stones and had begun to use them sparingly. He let Nailisi move the materials in a frenzy, to prevent the materials from being carted away by others.


    His magic power furnaces could make do with magic nuclei from level four red krill, but the ones that he distributed to his mages to be used in battle needed to be different levels.


    Saleen rummaged through the magic nucleus warehouse and eventually found two different things.


    One was magic nuclei capable of storing divine power, which probably originated from the bodies of magic beasts from divine kingdoms. The other was what Saleen had looked forward to¡ªlightning magic nuclei.


    There were more than 600 crates of them and every crate had a capacity of eight cubic meters. Saleen put all of the crates of lightning magic nuclei into his Starline Ring, feeling rather satisfied.


    The number of lightning magic nuclei was the smallest in the magic nucleus warehouse. It seemed that even the goddess was not able to hunt too many magic beasts with lightning type powers.


    The lightning magic nuclei would enable him to forcefully use the Thunder Dragon ster should the need arise. A broken Thunder Dragon ster could be repaired.


    Most importantly, Saleen could begin to research lightning type magic arrays. Such arrays were incapable of being powered by magic power furnaces; they needed lightning magic nuclei embedded in them.


    The goddess had been generous. Saleen¡¯s army could be farrger, and he would still be able to maintain the upkeep.


    There were then more than 10,000 mages working at Metatrin City, and Saleen needed to maintain upkeep for at least half of them.


    While the mages were all capable of creating value themselves, most of their products were required in battlefields, and they were not allowed to be sold or traded for necessities of the mages. Saleen needed to use his own stores to provide help for the mages.


    The mages did not require payment, but working for Saleen meant that they would require magic nuclei for their daily training. Their training would be slowed if there was a shortage of magic nuclei, and that would be something that no one would tolerate.


    Even the mages who did not need maintenance from Saleen were unwilling to leave Metatrin City. The prices of magic nuclei that Saleen sold to them at were about one-fifth of the cost in Alchemy City.


    All of them had enough of Alchemy City ripping them off, so even though Saleen was able to earn a small profit, the mages still had no intention to leave Metatrin City. All of them signed magic contracts with Saleen.


    There was no need to worry about bing jobless as a mage in Metatrin City. Saleen had too many schematics with him, so much so that despite having over 10,000 mages working on them, it still looked rather inadequate.


    It was especially so in times like that. Benefits acquired by the mages were raised by over 30 percent. Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories were online all day long, producing hundreds of suits of armor every day.


    ¡°Master, we¡¯re rich!¡± Nailisi¡¯sment was straightforward, but Saleen was unable to think of any other way to say it.


    He was indeed rich. The amount of wealth was left by the Goddess of Myers as gestures of gratitude for Saleen.


    Saleen felt rather reluctant to kill the goddess. Could we actually consider not killing Myers? The goddess is so generous and friendly!


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    Chapter 1282: Assaulting Alchemy City (Part 1)


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Let Myers go. It was a weird thought that never urred to Saleen before. He quickly suppressed it. If the Goddess of Myers had been friendly and amicable, where the hell did all these magic nuclei came from then?


    And oh, dragon crystals. Are there any dragons who would willingly give up their dragon crystals? And their flesh and scales?


    They were all victims of the Goddess of Myers. Hell, what is going on with me? Am I under the influence of the goddess¡¯ divine arts.


    Heh, you chose to be a god, Myers, and that was probably the reason why the powers all over Myers Maind fell. That alone would easily maintain my thoughts about you.


    Saleen came to a conclusion¡ªhe would kill the Goddess of Myers as soon as she was resurrected.


    It was the terms of his contract thatpelled him to resurrect the goddess and killing her would prevent Myers Maind from bing good-for-nothingnd again.


    If the powers of the ne dwindled further, it would eventually be reduced to an interdimensional space, bing as huge as the one he was standing on at that very moment.


    If the goddess had not protected the interdimensional space with her divine powers, that ce would crumble, or perhaps be absorbed by other nes. Either way, it would disappear.


    It was possible for Saleen to move his entire family away and live in the interdimensional space that Raphael found. However, trillions all over Myers Maind would perish.


    Mages were not kind people, but they clung to one principle¡ªbnce. Mages could raid a ne, but they would ensure the ne¡¯s continued survival. Only the gods would obliterate an entire ne.


    nes that were wrecked by powerful humans the most were divine kingdoms of the gods. Humans never destroyed any singlemon ne in history.


    The propagation of humans could only continue by having more and more nes around. Humans were different from gods. Gods inherently possessed very long lives, while humans needed to continue procreating in order to survive as a species.


    Jason did not teach Saleen that many things, but the elder mage made him a pure mage. Saleen was incapable of dooming an entire ne, so he did not like the Goddess of Myers much.


    Mages and gods were destined to be mortal enemies.


    Saleen made Nailisi summon demons and had them tear the hall apart after they picked the storage left behind by Myers clean. Saleen tore the pce apart The lightning puppets intricately dismantled the thin pirs under Saleen¡¯s careful control, leaving them unharmed


    Saleen intended to keep every single material as it was. Buildings would make a good living space for himself when assembled on the Floating City. As for other surrounding buildings, he had the demons tear them down quickly.


    The ce would serve well as a warehouse, and he would be able to build an alchemy factory there. The interdimensional space was unusually sturdy and, best of all, connected to Myers Maind, making it both convenient and safe.


    Saleen cleaned up all of the nts in the interdimensional space. Most of the fauna was herbs. After Saleen was done collecting the seeds, he had no intentions of letting the nts survive. All of the seeds would be moved to Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space to enrich the resources there.


    Saleen intended to make an underwater alchemy factory out of the small interdimensional space. Elements would always bnce and cost for conducting magical experiments would be low.


    Nailisi brought a lot of seeds with her. She wanted to nt some demon ne nts on the interdimensional space. The ce had a yellow sun, making it suitable for demon ne fauna to grow there.


    Saleen and Nailisi prepared to leave after settling their business there.


    The trip¡¯s reward had been surprising. No one got in their way or messed up their ns. There were no trials, just pure gifting. Even the cuttlefish was chased away with just one shout.


    However, Saleen had no idea that the original guard had not actually been a cuttlefish, but a level 16 magic beast. The power across Myers Maind had gotten too weak, so it had entered an isted space to hibernate, leaving behind the cuttlefish to guard the ce in its stead.


    While the cuttlefish was very capable inbat, it had no guts. The cuttlefish was deceptively smart. It had no intention of guarding the ce for the goddess after seeing Saleen and Nailisi around. Nailisi behaved in a hostile way, and her weapon was clouded in a terrifying aura. The cuttlefish knew that if it fought, one thrust from that monster would kill it.


    After making such judgments, that cuttlefish threw its pride away and ran.


    It was imperative for it to remain alive, as its lifespan would reach tens of thousands of years. If it were lucky, its life force would be double. Guarding the goddess¡¯ treasure had been the job of its predecessor, and it had nothing to do with it.


    There was nothing in the hole worth protecting since the goddess was already dead.


    While the cuttlefish was smart, it had little grasp of the meaning and value of the wealth left for humans. It had no way of leaving the sea, so all of its knowledge was limited to that of the sea.


    It was due to the goddess¡¯ miscalctions that Saleen was able to obtain the wealth within. She had intended for the beast to guard the space. However, the magic beast was tempted by its prey and was left stranded outside with no way of returning.


    It was that beast¡¯s natural instinct to hunt outside the portal. The goddess did not let the beast take up faith in her, so she had no way of controlling that magic beast¡¯s instincts.


    If the magic beast took up faith in the goddess, but was unable to suppress its instinctual urges, it would fall and kill all humans who tried to get close.


    Saleen happily brought 24 huge warehouses-worth of wealth and left the narrow interdimensional space, floating up to the surface and entering the Floating City. He had been dyed for less than ten days, so Saleen¡¯s n could still go on without a hitch.


    The huge cuttlefish at the ocean floor appeared again. It thought f that it would be better to return to the magic array and rest upon it. The magic array had huge benefits, as it kept it from feeling hungry even if it did not go out hunting.


    There was no need for it to toil and absorb elemental powers, as the magic array would enable it to slowly advance. It did not matter what the human took away, so long as the magic array remained intact.


    The cuttlefishid on the magic array feeling satisfied, but it had no idea that due to its negligence, the goddess¡¯ ns had all gone to waste.


    If there were a battle fought there, the portal behind the magic array would react differently, changing the looks of the interdimensional space that Saleen saw.


    Saleen returned to the Floating City and copied all of the mage skill books that he had acquired from that interdimensional space, teleporting them back to Metatrin City to his teacher. He then mobilized all of his subordinates in Metatrin City to the Floating City, preparing tounch an assault on Alchemy City.


    Saleen drafted schematics again on the Floating City, preparing to design armor that were more suitable for the star figures.


    The star figures would have an easier time piloting the armor and creation of the armors would be quicker. While Saleen had lost the level 19 Star Gathering Needle, he had been using the needle¡¯s power to fill the Lightning Constetion.


    Gaine left four level 18 Star Gathering Needles for him. There was massive stocks of low level needles in the astrology tower. The residual power in them would enable Saleen to create an army of figures.


    It would be difficult for him to advance his astrology further, but with a little bit of research, his skills would be adequate to enable him to craftmon warriors of level nine.


    The Bug Angel Armor was not suitable for human use, or more precisely, not suitable for use for humans below level nine. One needed to reach level nine, where one¡¯s constitution no longer had anything to do withmon humans, before the value of the armor shined.


    However, it mattered little to him. He obtained methods of crafting Tainted Blood Armor from the records left behind by the goddess. His human army would be able to fortify their defenses better with such powerful armor.


    The attributes of the Tainted Blood Armor allowed for healing. Its crimson color hade from being stained by warriors¡¯ blood. A warrior¡¯s chances of death was lowered to the minimum while wearing the armor.


    Unless the warrior were killed, a mage would be able to keep them from dying, regardless of how grave their injuries might be.


    The crafting of the Tainted Blood Armor was made top-secret. Jason had his most trusted mages from Sreeger Ind enter Raphael¡¯s tower, crafting the cores of the armor inside the alchemy room left behind by Raphael.


    While such methods of crafting were considerably slower, it would prevent that the secrets of the Tainted Blood Armor from being leaked. The alchemy factories of Metatrin City tested the loyalty of every single mage and signed contracts with them, but there was still no guarantee that said secrets would be kept well.


    The Bug Angel Armor might have been formidable, but they were ill-suited for humans, so there was no need for such measures of extreme secrecy.


    Tainted Blood Armor was different. The armor would boost their wearers¡¯bat capacity to the maximum and was the best for ensuring survivability, so only elites were allowed to wear them even in ancient times.


    Jason took care of things at Metatrin City, as Sika was transported to the Floating City. The uing battle was against Alchemy City, so Saleen needed to fight alongside Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, such treaties had meaning when battles urred. Only when both parties fought alongside each other would they treasure the alliance that they painstakingly forged.


    If the Grand Duke had been a mage, the alliance would be difficult to maintain. However given how the Grand Duke was a warrior, what they sought was destined to be different.


    Even the Grand Duke had a high regard of the alliance. The invitation for Saleen to fight alongside him against Alchemy City was to first increase their chances of sess and more importantly, to forge a bit of true friendship with Saleen.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood had no intention of attacking Saleen¡¯s territory after taking out Alchemy City. Most of the mages would side with Saleen while a handful would side with Imposa.


    The Grand Duke had made his calctions, finding that he would need Saleen¡¯s service a lot in the future, and Saleen had his own king of a powerful demon army, so the mage would have little need of him.


    Maintaining the treaty would benefit him further and there was no catch. He would only be able to be free of Saleen when he could keep high level dragons, but there was no telling how high Saleen¡¯s level would be by then.


    It was unthinkable for him to make Saleen his ultimate enemy, so the Grand Duke needed to maintain a certain measure of goodwill.


    When Saleen¡¯s Floating City came from the seas and wanted to lean on his pce, the Grand Duke surprisingly allowed such a request. Doing so would need him to disable half of his defenses. If Saleen took the opportunity to attack him, he would suffer great losses.

 Chapter 1282: Assaulting Alchemy City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1282: Assaulting Alchemy City (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Let Myers go. It was a weird thought that never urred to Saleen before. He quickly suppressed it. If the Goddess of Myers had been friendly and amicable, where the hell did all these magic nuclei came from then?


    And oh, dragon crystals. Are there any dragons who would willingly give up their dragon crystals? And their flesh and scales?


    They were all victims of the Goddess of Myers. Hell, what is going on with me? Am I under the influence of the goddess¡¯ divine arts.


    Heh, you chose to be a god, Myers, and that was probably the reason why the powers all over Myers Maind fell. That alone would easily maintain my thoughts about you.


    Saleen came to a conclusion¡ªhe would kill the Goddess of Myers as soon as she was resurrected.


    It was the terms of his contract thatpelled him to resurrect the goddess and killing her would prevent Myers Maind from bing good-for-nothingnd again.


    If the powers of the ne dwindled further, it would eventually be reduced to an interdimensional space, bing as huge as the one he was standing on at that very moment.


    If the goddess had not protected the interdimensional space with her divine powers, that ce would crumble, or perhaps be absorbed by other nes. Either way, it would disappear.


    It was possible for Saleen to move his entire family away and live in the interdimensional space that Raphael found. However, trillions all over Myers Maind would perish.


    Mages were not kind people, but they clung to one principle¡ªbnce. Mages could raid a ne, but they would ensure the ne¡¯s continued survival. Only the gods would obliterate an entire ne.


    nes that were wrecked by powerful humans the most were divine kingdoms of the gods. Humans never destroyed any singlemon ne in history.


    The propagation of humans could only continue by having more and more nes around. Humans were different from gods. Gods inherently possessed very long lives, while humans needed to continue procreating in order to survive as a species.


    Jason did not teach Saleen that many things, but the elder mage made him a pure mage. Saleen was incapable of dooming an entire ne, so he did not like the Goddess of Myers much.


    Mages and gods were destined to be mortal enemies.


    Saleen made Nailisi summon demons and had them tear the hall apart after they picked the storage left behind by Myers clean. Saleen tore the pce apart The lightning puppets intricately dismantled the thin pirs under Saleen¡¯s careful control, leaving them unharmed


    Saleen intended to keep every single material as it was. Buildings would make a good living space for himself when assembled on the Floating City. As for other surrounding buildings, he had the demons tear them down quickly.


    The ce would serve well as a warehouse, and he would be able to build an alchemy factory there. The interdimensional space was unusually sturdy and, best of all, connected to Myers Maind, making it both convenient and safe.


    Saleen cleaned up all of the nts in the interdimensional space. Most of the fauna was herbs. After Saleen was done collecting the seeds, he had no intentions of letting the nts survive. All of the seeds would be moved to Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space to enrich the resources there.


    Saleen intended to make an underwater alchemy factory out of the small interdimensional space. Elements would always bnce and cost for conducting magical experiments would be low.


    Nailisi brought a lot of seeds with her. She wanted to nt some demon ne nts on the interdimensional space. The ce had a yellow sun, making it suitable for demon ne fauna to grow there.


    Saleen and Nailisi prepared to leave after settling their business there.


    The trip¡¯s reward had been surprising. No one got in their way or messed up their ns. There were no trials, just pure gifting. Even the cuttlefish was chased away with just one shout.


    However, Saleen had no idea that the original guard had not actually been a cuttlefish, but a level 16 magic beast. The power across Myers Maind had gotten too weak, so it had entered an isted space to hibernate, leaving behind the cuttlefish to guard the ce in its stead.


    While the cuttlefish was very capable inbat, it had no guts. The cuttlefish was deceptively smart. It had no intention of guarding the ce for the goddess after seeing Saleen and Nailisi around. Nailisi behaved in a hostile way, and her weapon was clouded in a terrifying aura. The cuttlefish knew that if it fought, one thrust from that monster would kill it.


    After making such judgments, that cuttlefish threw its pride away and ran.


    It was imperative for it to remain alive, as its lifespan would reach tens of thousands of years. If it were lucky, its life force would be double. Guarding the goddess¡¯ treasure had been the job of its predecessor, and it had nothing to do with it.


    There was nothing in the hole worth protecting since the goddess was already dead.


    While the cuttlefish was smart, it had little grasp of the meaning and value of the wealth left for humans. It had no way of leaving the sea, so all of its knowledge was limited to that of the sea.


    It was due to the goddess¡¯ miscalctions that Saleen was able to obtain the wealth within. She had intended for the beast to guard the space. However, the magic beast was tempted by its prey and was left stranded outside with no way of returning.


    It was that beast¡¯s natural instinct to hunt outside the portal. The goddess did not let the beast take up faith in her, so she had no way of controlling that magic beast¡¯s instincts.


    If the magic beast took up faith in the goddess, but was unable to suppress its instinctual urges, it would fall and kill all humans who tried to get close.


    Saleen happily brought 24 huge warehouses-worth of wealth and left the narrow interdimensional space, floating up to the surface and entering the Floating City. He had been dyed for less than ten days, so Saleen¡¯s n could still go on without a hitch.


    The huge cuttlefish at the ocean floor appeared again. It thought f that it would be better to return to the magic array and rest upon it. The magic array had huge benefits, as it kept it from feeling hungry even if it did not go out hunting.


    There was no need for it to toil and absorb elemental powers, as the magic array would enable it to slowly advance. It did not matter what the human took away, so long as the magic array remained intact.


    The cuttlefishid on the magic array feeling satisfied, but it had no idea that due to its negligence, the goddess¡¯ ns had all gone to waste.


    If there were a battle fought there, the portal behind the magic array would react differently, changing the looks of the interdimensional space that Saleen saw.


    Saleen returned to the Floating City and copied all of the mage skill books that he had acquired from that interdimensional space, teleporting them back to Metatrin City to his teacher. He then mobilized all of his subordinates in Metatrin City to the Floating City, preparing tounch an assault on Alchemy City.


    Saleen drafted schematics again on the Floating City, preparing to design armor that were more suitable for the star figures.


    The star figures would have an easier time piloting the armor and creation of the armors would be quicker. While Saleen had lost the level 19 Star Gathering Needle, he had been using the needle¡¯s power to fill the Lightning Constetion.


    Gaine left four level 18 Star Gathering Needles for him. There was massive stocks of low level needles in the astrology tower. The residual power in them would enable Saleen to create an army of figures.


    It would be difficult for him to advance his astrology further, but with a little bit of research, his skills would be adequate to enable him to craftmon warriors of level nine.


    The Bug Angel Armor was not suitable for human use, or more precisely, not suitable for use for humans below level nine. One needed to reach level nine, where one¡¯s constitution no longer had anything to do withmon humans, before the value of the armor shined.


    However, it mattered little to him. He obtained methods of crafting Tainted Blood Armor from the records left behind by the goddess. His human army would be able to fortify their defenses better with such powerful armor.


    The attributes of the Tainted Blood Armor allowed for healing. Its crimson color hade from being stained by warriors¡¯ blood. A warrior¡¯s chances of death was lowered to the minimum while wearing the armor.


    Unless the warrior were killed, a mage would be able to keep them from dying, regardless of how grave their injuries might be.


    The crafting of the Tainted Blood Armor was made top-secret. Jason had his most trusted mages from Sreeger Ind enter Raphael¡¯s tower, crafting the cores of the armor inside the alchemy room left behind by Raphael.


    While such methods of crafting were considerably slower, it would prevent that the secrets of the Tainted Blood Armor from being leaked. The alchemy factories of Metatrin City tested the loyalty of every single mage and signed contracts with them, but there was still no guarantee that said secrets would be kept well.


    The Bug Angel Armor might have been formidable, but they were ill-suited for humans, so there was no need for such measures of extreme secrecy.


    Tainted Blood Armor was different. The armor would boost their wearers¡¯bat capacity to the maximum and was the best for ensuring survivability, so only elites were allowed to wear them even in ancient times.


    Jason took care of things at Metatrin City, as Sika was transported to the Floating City. The uing battle was against Alchemy City, so Saleen needed to fight alongside Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, such treaties had meaning when battles urred. Only when both parties fought alongside each other would they treasure the alliance that they painstakingly forged.


    If the Grand Duke had been a mage, the alliance would be difficult to maintain. However given how the Grand Duke was a warrior, what they sought was destined to be different.


    Even the Grand Duke had a high regard of the alliance. The invitation for Saleen to fight alongside him against Alchemy City was to first increase their chances of sess and more importantly, to forge a bit of true friendship with Saleen.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood had no intention of attacking Saleen¡¯s territory after taking out Alchemy City. Most of the mages would side with Saleen while a handful would side with Imposa.


    The Grand Duke had made his calctions, finding that he would need Saleen¡¯s service a lot in the future, and Saleen had his own king of a powerful demon army, so the mage would have little need of him.


    Maintaining the treaty would benefit him further and there was no catch. He would only be able to be free of Saleen when he could keep high level dragons, but there was no telling how high Saleen¡¯s level would be by then.


    It was unthinkable for him to make Saleen his ultimate enemy, so the Grand Duke needed to maintain a certain measure of goodwill.


    When Saleen¡¯s Floating City came from the seas and wanted to lean on his pce, the Grand Duke surprisingly allowed such a request. Doing so would need him to disable half of his defenses. If Saleen took the opportunity to attack him, he would suffer great losses.

 Chapter 1283: Assaulting Alchemy City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1283: Assaulting Alchemy City (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s Floating City did not fly by for fear of causing unnecessary trouble. The Floating City was sturdy, but the number of magic cannons ced at the Pce at Sea was simply too many. Saleen had no intentions of fighting Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    However, the Floating City¡¯snd area was simply too huge, and parking it near the Pce at Sea would pose a threat to the ce as well. The reason why Saleen made such a request was to gauge the Grand Duke¡¯s reactions. The Grand Duke agreed to it and he made up his mind to fight Alchemy City. The assault would require them to mobilize naval forces.


    Attacking from the sea would make the Floating City a makeshift giant warship. The Ancient looked like a toy beside the Floating City.


    It was essentially a blitz instead of a siege. There was no way one couldy siege to a city full of mages for long. Getting inside and destroying the enemy¡¯s magic amplifier would suffice. Once the magic amplifier was gone, taking out Alchemy City would no longer seem to be such a tall order.


    It was the middle of September, and the agreement with Fycro was to be fulfilled by the end of December. Having more than three months to spare meant that Saleen and the Grand Duke would have ample time tounch a true assault, which would not take more than a day.


    If the assault were drawn out for more than a day, they would either be forced to destroy the city or the city would annihte the opposing joint forces. All of that was foreseeable.


    While it was true that Alchemy City had not been able to do anything effective against Saleen despite their past efforts, it was mostly due to none of the core Elemental Hand members making a move.


    There was no way they could take Alchemy City by surprise, which meant that they had to hit and run instead. Imposa knew the weakness of Alchemy City¡¯s magic amplifier, and the city would not be able to do much to him if he just broke the magic amplifier and ran.


    The parties of the allied forces needed to be upfront with each other, introducing the equipment and forces that they were able to field.


    Two level 10 true might were fielded from the Grand Duke¡¯s side, excluding the Grand Duke himself. There were also four level ten sorcerers, excluding Imposa. The Grand Duke had eight level ten professionals joining the fight.


    On Saleen¡¯s side, there were six level 10 professionals: Saleen, Sika, Nailisi, the Winged Skull, J, and Nichs. The rest were at level nine.


    Even 14 level 10 professionals storming Alchemy City felt inadequate. They needed to reinforce their equipment before they would be able to stand a chance. That alone served a testament of the city¡¯s might.


    Imposa had his mole within Alchemy City. The current intel suggested that the nine in power in Elemental Hand had all advanced to level 10. There were 21 other level 10 professionals, which meant that the city had 30 level ten sorcerers.


    The social status of warriors in Alchemy City had always been low. However, there were also two level 10 true and over a dozen golden grand swordmasters in their midst. The group was quite a force to be reckoned with and if they teamed up, it would pose serious danger to Saleen¡¯s side.


    The side with Devil¡¯s Horn was even more troublesome, as Imposa had little information on mages at Devil¡¯s Horn. The only thing known about them was that more than four level 10 sorcerers emerged from their ranks.


    Sorcerers who were forcefully advanced were not included. The sorcerers who left Alchemy City to carry out their missions did not have high status at Alchemy City.


    Furthermore, Devil¡¯s Horn served as a barrier at sea for Alchemy City. If anyone intended to attack Alchemy City, they would have to first destroy Devil¡¯s Horn.


    Devil¡¯s Horn had flying warships, making them difficult to deal with. It was due to that fact that Grand Duke Iron Blood hoped that Saleen was able to deploy the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. Only a vessel capable of flight would be able to take on flying warships of Devil¡¯s Horn.


    Saleen agreed. The Grand Duke deployed his Ancient into the assault. An Ancient served as the main force of a fleet. In ancient times, such small fleets usually had about 30 auxiliary escorts. The Grand Duke was willing to deploy escorts and his personal army manned the warships.


    Saleen gained more warship schematics and had little intention of keeping the metal divingbat vessels secret. He was willing to provide information regarding the ships with the exclusion of the magic power furnaces, allowing the Grand Duke¡¯s men to repair the ships.


    Unless the magic power furnaces were broken, the Grand Duke did not need Saleen¡¯s help with his underwater fleet.


    The Grand Duke also asked Saleen to supply magic cannons. Saleen had already acquired manufacturing schematics of true magic cannons, but they remained very difficult to craft. They came with alchemical requirements of a level 9 sorcerer at the very least.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood told Saleen, ¡°in this assault of Alchemy City, we only have one day to get to it after taking out Devil¡¯s Horn. We¡¯re not allowed to bring what we¡¯re truly capable of to bear before that. It is only when our troops have all gotten to shore to wreak havoc that we can deploy the magic cannons. I¡¯ll only need the old types. We¡¯ll just dispose of them if they¡¯re broken.¡±


    Saleen frowned. ¡°Won¡¯t that be a little too costly?¡±


    ¡°This is Alchemy City we¡¯re talking about. We need to prepare to throw our gear away. What is broken is dead weight. We¡¯ll just take whatever to cover the losses,¡± the Grand Duke was being upfront and heated with his words, so much so that Saleen was feeling embarrassed.


    The Grand Dukeughed. ¡°Your highness, this...¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s still kind of embarrassing to word it out loud.¡±


    ¡°Hahahahaha...¡± The Grand Duke almost choked on hisughter. He patted Saleen¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Alchemy City took Pompeii out, so you¡¯ll need to get something back.¡±


    Saleen nodded. ¡°It makes me feelfortable that you share these thoughts.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s hands got sweaty when the Grand Duke patted his back. The Grand Duke was a level 10 true might, but Saleen¡¯s constitution was on par with a silver grand swordmaster at most and he had no sword aura for protection.


    Saleen was not worried. Sika was sitting right beside him and if the Grand Duke truly intended to kill him, he had the Figure of Fate to step in and ensure that he¡¯d survive. Furthermore, he could use lightning skills to paralyze the Grand Duke.


    Nothing could survive Sika and her metal totem pole. He and Sika had done synchronization training. If he were able to paralyze his opponent for 30 frames, Sika would be able to brandish her metal totem pole and finish the attack.


    30 frames was to about half a second.


    Balls of lightning would be able to attack quickly when fighting up close. The Grand Duke might even be killed by the ball of lightning, making half a second of paralysis insignificant. Saleen was well-equipped with a mage¡¯s advantages but had none of a mage¡¯s shorings.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was impressed at seeing Saleen looking calm after his shoulder getting patted. Mages like that were few and far between.


    Saleen agreed to change the magic cannons for the Ancients and even equipped Imposa¡¯srge puppets with magic cannons. It would allow the puppets to go onto shore right away and attack Alchemy City together with the army.


    Alchemy City¡¯syout was little different from Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City. There were no walls at the ports. Alchemy City ced magic towers for defenses. Six nine-floored towers were found near the ports, making their defenses formidable.


    There was no need to talk much about armor and weapons. The Grand Duke made another list and all required supplies were listed. The wealth of Dragon Ind was like Saleen¡¯s¡ªdifficult to be converted to one¡¯s own needed supplies. The trade had given both of them what they needed.


    The final agreement stated that Grand Duke Iron Blood mobilized 200,000 men while Saleen mobilized 30,000. They were about to take Alchemy City, which had been standing tall and proud for over 1,000 years, with just 230,000 men.


    As for loot distribution for this assault, things had never been simpler since the day Saleen participated in wars¡ªfinders keepers.


    Everything depended on luck.


    Saleen knew well that Imposa knew Alchemy City very well, meaning that he knew where most of the wealth was being kept. Alchemy City was unlike Saleen¡¯s own nation. His nation kept most of the wealth at the temple while he and his teacher carried a portion on their persons.


    Anything that could not be distributed was sent to the interdimensional space. Alchemy City needed to have shared storage. The power of the Elemental Hand was so huge that no single person would be able to control it in its entirety.


    Furthermore, not everyone would have equipment like 12 Notes of First Purgatory, which came with humongous storage space. The space equipment that a level ten sorcerer usually carried had less than one-tenth the capacity of a dimension stone.


    Saleen never had any worries about the finders-keepers policy. He had the Elemental Eye and his huge Lightning Territory. He had more than enough to cover the entire Alchemy City.


    He had 50,000 lightning puppets piging for him. The rate at which he was able pige was not inferior to Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    Saleen was extremely rich. Robbing the ce was but an act of revenge. If he was careless for even a split second when Alchemy City ambushed him, he would be meat on a chopping board for the three metal angels.


    Saleen did not think that his wealth would suffice, as fighting off the invasion from the abomination ne would incur a massive cost. Be it manpower or supplies, it would be quite an ordeal to his nation.


    It was a good thing if he got windfall of some kind at Alchemy City. Taking on Alchemy City would cause many mages toe to his side. Even if the Grand Duke turned out to be the one with the greater loot, he would still be the one to have some solid gain from the assault.


    Saleen liked the policy very much. It was up to Imposa toy out the ns for the battle after that.


    Imposa took out defense schematics of Alchemy City of sufficient detail. Saleen looked at the defensive schematics and felt Imposa was really, really bold.


    Alchemy City looked like a magic fortress. Every single building had magic defense attributes. If it had not been for the fact that he was equipped with the Floating City, there would be nothing he could do to Alchemy City. The tightly packed magic defense array schematics were disyed and Saleen made rough calctions.


    If they took the city from the front, it would require a 10 million-person army before the city¡¯s defenses could be taken down and allow them to enter the city.


    The ones that woulde to shore were puppets and Iron Blood Warriors. The Grand Duke¡¯s army needed to wear Bug Angel Armors and drop into Alchemy City from the Floating City.


    Alchemy City had an attack range beyond ten miles. If their troops dropped unscathed, the Floating City would need to stop at an altitude of about 12,000 meters before dropping the warriors.


    Everything else would be out of the question without the use of Bug Angel Armors.


    A thought urred to Saleen. Did Fycro give me the schematics of Bug Angel Armor because he had predicted all this? That I¡¯d attack Alchemy City with Grand Duke Iron Blood?


    Despite Fycro¡¯s pretty words, Alchemy City remained an obstacle on his path to godhood. In order to expand his powers, he needed to recruit believers from Myers Maind.

 Chapter 1284: Naval Battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1284: Naval Battle (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Fycro was smart, and smart people definitely did not choose paths with no options.


    However, even if Saleen knew that Fycro intended to use him, he intended to try his luck at Alchemy City with the Bug Angel Armors he had. The Devil Flying Armors were made specifically for demons, but the Bug Angel Armors were suitable for many species.


    With an ally like Grand Duke Iron Blood by his side, Saleen would be able to cut his losses considerably.


    While the Grand Duke had no intentions of losing too many of his troops, the venture was worthwhile. His interests at sea were limited to Cloudflow due to Alchemy City.


    Even after he took out Lianyun City, he had no intentions of expanding his forces further, as Alchemy City could stab him in the back at any moment.


    Alchemy City had control of the sea routes, making Lianyun City lose its economic value, and was self-sustainable, so it had no fear of being harassed by the Grand Duke.


    The preparations continued through the end of October. The weather had gotten cold, which was a great opportunity for both Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood. Alchemy City rarely deployed warships to hunt magic beasts during winter.


    The Floating City was unable to fly all the way to Alchemy City. Saleen dropped at a certain depth beneath the waterline, following right behind the Ancient and heading south. The Floating City was too massive, so it had to slow down to 30 miles per hour when floating beneath the water surface.


    It would take quite an amount of time to reach Alchemy City traveling at such speeds. Saleen took the opportunity to craft equipment onboard, while Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s 200,000 soldiers waited patiently.


    The fleet headed south and the Ancient was escorted by 60 ships on its nks, running into no trouble along the way. They were near Alchemy City.


    The magic arrays on the Ancient were activated, and huge amount of magic nuclei were dumped into the magic power furnaces. The Ancient became shrouded in ayer of mist, covering the entire fleet.


    The wind was nowhere near strong enough, and a patrol ship from Devil¡¯s Horn barged into the mist, finding their magicpasspletely useless. The needle spun uncontrobly, making it impossible for them to tell direction.


    The mist blocked out the sunlight. Everyone onboard lost sight and sense of direction.


    The ship, which was only a little more than 50 meters long, shook violently, snapped in half, and sank.


    ¡°Use the scrolls!¡±


    ¡°Request for rescue!¡±


    The sailors and troops aboard were thrown into chaos. A level 3 mage unleashed a scroll meant for SOS. A vermillion fireball shot into the air, but was quickly thrown off by a gale before it was able to even reach 20 meters.


    Wild Wind spell!


    The mage was unable to see it but they were able to sense it . They had run into an enemy.


    The mist parted. Figures d in crimson armor appeared on the broken ship. The group took less than half a minute to cover the distance between stern and bow and killed every single person who intended to escape by jumping into the waters.


    The mage was unable to run. They only saw red shining on the spears of the warriors d in red armor, which looked like mes of hell, before their throat was pierced with just a simple thrust.


    Iron Blood Warriors were level nine warriors and a product of human body alchemic modifications. The number that Imposa was able to control was ten times what Saleen controlled. However, theirbat capacity was weaker than ancient warriors.


    But to troops below level nine, the Iron Blood Warriors were manifestations of death.


    Patrol ships disappeared one after another on the outskirts of Devil¡¯s Horn, alerting the ce in mere moments. Devil¡¯s Horn was shrouded by ayer of mist all year long and the warriors on the ind all wore fully sealed armors.


    The visors were actually made of pieces of crystals instead of just beehive-like holes, enabling them to see far into misty environments.


    Saleen was no longer on the Floating City. He came to the Ancient and met up with the Grand Duke ¡®s men, getting ready to assault Devil¡¯s Horn.


    The Ancient elerated, shrugging off the Floating City and heading straight for the ind shrouded in mist.


    The warriors were getting ready to depart from the ports on the ind, when over a dozen warships rammed into the Ancient. The Ancient had instant eleration powers, which came with a hefty fuel cost.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood did not care for any of that. The Ancient crushed over a dozen warships from Devil¡¯s Horn, blocking the ports.


    The ports of Devil¡¯s Horn were deepwater ports, deep enough to have even the Ancient parked there. However, the Ancient had only one thing to do¡ªfiring magic cannons and flinging projectiles at the port.


    The power of the catapults was weak, but due to Imposa having installed too many puppets on the Ancient, they were capable of attacking by controlling hundreds of catapults. The cost of the catapults were far smaller than the magic cannons.


    The catapults were able to hit the docks while the magic cannons were capable of shooting further. If it had not been for Devil¡¯s Horn having a mountain, the cannons¡¯ beams might have been able to reach half of the ind.


    Magic towers on the docks of Devil¡¯s Horn retaliated immediately.


    The catapults rained magic stone shells in a frenzy. The magic catapults that Imposa crafted impressed Saleen. Not only were they urate, they were also capable of continuous firing.


    If it had not been for their range being considerably inferior to magic cannons and having weaker offensive capacities, Saleen would want to buy some.


    The magic towers of Devil¡¯s Horn were not destroyed by the catapults, but they were incapable of defending against the catapults¡¯ attack. The men at the docks suffered heavy casualties. Ships at port with mages onboard survived, but the ones without mages onboard were almost sunk with just three hits. Saleen never thought catapults could be such a force to be reckoned with.


    Devil¡¯s Horn built about six towers at the ports. Three of them were capable of covering the entire port with magic. However, there were simply too many catapults onboard the Ancient. The magic tower was unable to prate the ship¡¯s defense at all.


    Imposa was unable to get apleteyout of Devil¡¯s Horn, but he had urate intel about the port. Saleen even brought the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship, defending against unforeseen circumstances below the waterline.


    There were over 100 metal divingbat vessels that the Grand Duke purchased from Saleen, lying in wait to pounce. However, with the Ancient elerating and crashing into enemy ships, there was no need for the ships underwater to strike. The warships docked at the port were unable to even leave.


    The metal divingbat vessels spread out underwater, returning to the rear of the fleet, guarding against any enemy ship.


    That was a very good move. There wererge warships out on patrol south of Devil¡¯s Horn, which were originally meant for defending against Cloudflow navy. With the port under attacked, the fleet returned immediately.


    The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel hid silently in the mist. Devil¡¯s Horn had flying warships as well. If they were deployed, it would cause huge damage to the Ancient¡¯s deck.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy City received news and moved southward from the port. They ran into the returning fleet about 100 miles away. The divingbat vessels were all modified to fire a magic metal shell.


    Saleen was againpelled to feel impressed. The magic metal shell was a puppet through and through, capable of seeking out targets autonomously, before carrying outplex attacks with the drill at its tip.


    One single magic metal shell was more than enough to tear a huge ship apart if their armor was not madepletely out of metal.


    Imposa¡¯s Iron Blood Warriors manned the metal ships. One Iron Blood Warriormanded tens of puppets. While the warships were precious, their loss was not significant if they were capable of destroying the enemy fleet.


    Boundless wealth awaited as soon as they took out Devil¡¯s Horn.


    Bloodstones were installed in the magic metal shells. The Cloudflow people had originally been versed in using the materials. With a master alchemist like Imposa onboard, their weapons were far better than Saleen¡¯s.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn fleet had less than 20 ships. All of them were installed with metal armor and capable of frightening speeds. The mages onboard the ships discovered the magic metal shells and immediately began to block iing attacks.


    The shells swam less than 100 meters below the surface, pouncing on Devil¡¯s Horn warships. The sorcerers on the warships cast huge amount of magic spells, destroying the iing underwater attacks one after another.


    However, Cloudflow people had very refined tactics and every spell would only be able to take out one magic metal shells. Ten ships were hit by the first round, with two suffering critical damage.


    The magic metal shells rammed into the metal armors and stuck within. The warheads split open and hundreds of small puppets rushed outside. They all had hard gears all over them.


    The metal of the gears was crystallized and were harder than metal. Bigger holes were torn into the two warships after being hit.


    A puppet about a meter tall brought the bloodstones into the tear. The stabilizing solution and magic were rescinded, creating violent explosions.


    The remaining eight warships suffered less damage, as the bloodstones detonated prematurely, preventing them from hitting the weakest internal part of the warships. The assault weapons were not that stable.


    Mages cast magic at the tears of the eight warships, patching them up with thick, heavy metal tes, preventing too much water from flooding the ships.


    Arge amount of boats were thrown off the two severely hit ones. The boats were created using magic beast hide, which were inted after they hit the water. The troops covered for the mages as they jumped onto them.


    While the mages were capable of flight, they were too far away from Devil¡¯s Horn. The mages needed to conserve stamina as they were unclear of the enemy¡¯s numbers.


    The second round of attacks came immediately. The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship joined the fray. The Winged Skull was able to see that the dozen ships were not the main forces of Devil¡¯s Horn, so it was best to get rid of them as quickly as possible.


    Bone spirits were hidden in the magic metal shells, and they swam at a slower speed. Over 100 magic metal shells wereunched, but only one hit its target. The Winged Skull was impressed with the discipline of Devil¡¯s Horn mages.


    But bone spirits were living creatures. They elerated as soon as the shells were intercepted, evading the enemy¡¯s interception, and all of them eventually hit their targets.


    The third roundmenced immediately. None of the 19 ships were able to travel at high speeds anymore. All of the ships had one or two holes below the waterline.


    Hundreds of lifeboats were thrown from the warships. Mages took to the air one after another andnded onto the boats, searching for the enemy, but the metal warships were capable of diving about 300 meters deep.


    They had to rise to attack, making it easy for the sorcerers to locate them. If the metal warships engaged the sorcerers, none of the ships would be able to survive.


    However, over 20 ships from the Ancient¡¯s fleet had been deployed and joined the fray. The Cloudflow people¡¯s mobilization at sea was unnervingly quick and very nimble. The small warships began to attack the boats withrge alchemy crossbows.

 Chapter 1285: Naval Battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1285: Naval Battle (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Cloudflow tactics had clear assignments for its units. The divingbat vessels downed therge enemy ships before fielding warships fighting above the waterline, practically carpet-bombing enemy territory usingrge scale magic equipment.


    The Winged Skull did not participate in the second round of attacks. The formations of the fleets were very sparse and the ships were over 1,000 meters away from each other, covering the entire region spanning tens of miles. Even if they did not summon spirits and attacked the enemy personally, the results would still be limited.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship was originally meant for gueri warfare. The Winged Skull did nothing after downing enemy ships. They simply waited for what wasing next to unfold.


    Large alchemy crossbows fired in a frenzy at the Cloudflow warships, as if they had no concerns about breaking their own gear. The mages dared not resist such onughts head on and chose to evade instead.


    The distance between the assants and targets was simply too far, making it almost impossible to kill mages using the alchemy crossbows.


    While the mages were capable of evading the attacks, the same could not be said for the boats. Large number of boats were downed, and warriors were killed. The surviving warriors took off their armor to avoid drowning right away. However,rge magic machinery was seen on the Cloudflow warships, dousing the troops in the water with oil.


    The troops panicked. The oil floated on the water surface and could be ignited with a single spark, making escape impossible. The mages were only able to protect themselves and dared not stay within the sea of mes that were about to manifest.


    The warship that was spraying the oil was 200 meters long and there were many mages protecting the puppets spraying the oil. Imposa made full use of the puppets¡¯ design.


    The mages in the water took to the air and wanted to attack the enemy, but were quickly killed by the Iron Blood Warriors.


    The mages from Devil¡¯s Horn saw the tables turned against them and chose to fly towards Devil¡¯s Horn instead. Few were clever enough to fly from the direction they came, and no one pursued them.


    The mages who were heading towards Devil¡¯s Horn were in bad luck. The Iron Blood Warriors flew faster than mages in short distances. More Iron Blood Warriors took flight from the decks, surrounding and attacking the mages.


    None of the Iron Blood Warriors wore Bug Angel Armors and were not part of the forces attacking Alchemy City. Devil¡¯s Horn was just the beginning. The real battle took ce at Alchemy City.


    The fleet from Devil¡¯s Horn wasrge but was ambushed by an even more powerful one by the Cloudflow people. Devil¡¯s Horn had no idea about the existence of divingbat vessels and that turned the battle into a ughter.


    The Cloudflow forces lost none of their ships, while the 19 warships from Devil¡¯s Horn were all downed.


    The most notable difference in powery with the Iron Blood Warriors. If the warriors had not been around, the hundreds of mages onboard the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s fleet would have been able to locate every single metal divingbat vessel, and sink every single one of them.


    If it had not been for the Iron Blood Warriors, the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s mages would have been bold enough to take the enemy ships as their own.


    The Cloudflow people continued to hunt every soldier in the water in cold blood. The soldiers had long discarded their gear. When the Cloudflow troops attacked from above, either with alchemy crossbows or magic, none of the soldiers was able to resist.


    The Winged Skull unleashed a bone spirit to record the fighting. They found that Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s men did not have the usual weaknesses seen among the Cloudflow people. They were very calm and amply brutal.


    While they were definitely not Dragon Blood Warriors, they were still probably from Dragon Ind. They were isted from the maind since young and were the personal troops of the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke¡¯s family was the only ruling ss on Dragon Ind.


    They had limited contact with the Cloudflow Empire, so they felt more like an amalgamation of Qin soldiers and Sikeqinyan mercenaries. They possessed the Qin¡¯s mettle while sporting the brains of the Sikeqinyans.


    The Winged Skull was unsure how long the alliance between the Grand Duke and Saleen wouldst, so they were doing what they should have been doing the most¡ªcollecting firsthand intel.


    The Cloudflow people did not guard against the skeleton. Outsiders would not be able to understand the Winged Skull¡¯s abilities anyway. Themanders of the underwater warships did not know that the Winged Skull had the intelligence of a powerful professional.


    Tens of thousands of strings of information were recorded by the Winged Skull, coalescing into spirit script and stored within scrolls. All of them were about thebat tactics of the Cloudflow people, theirbat capacity, as well asbat details. The Winged Skull left no detail out.


    Neen warships, tens of thousands of soldiers, over 500 mages were destroyed. Half of the divingbat vessels remained behind, lurking where they were. There were still thousands of soldiers on the surface who were not killed.


    The Cloudflow people did not bother rescuing them and took the fleet northward instead. If there were other fleetsing to rescue the soldiers, the metal divingbat vessels wouldsh out. It was a tactic that always worked like a charm.


    The Alchemy City¡¯s warships would definitely need to slow down to send out boats and rescue the soldiers in the water. It would be easier for the divingbat vessels to attack when their enemies were not moving.


    The attack on Devil¡¯s Horn was entering at all-time-high. Over 100 towers on the ind were activated, forming a defensive circle.


    They lost the port due to bombardment from enemy magic cannons, and three magic cannons were eventually destroyed. Regardless of how powerful the magic towers¡¯ defenses were, they were not meant for resisting sustained attacks from the Ancient.


    With three of the magic towers down, the remaining three lost offensive capacities. The Ancient¡¯s entire fleet unleashed the boats right away, sending troops to shore.


    The docks were picked clean, and there were no enemy troops standing in their way. The Iron Blood Warriors brought the mages, puppets, and demons to Devil¡¯s Horn.


    The Grand Duke fielded his main force, sending powerful mages behind them. They began assemblingrge puppets as soon as they got onto shore. There were even magic chariots.


    The magic chariots were bought from Saleen inrge quantities, as Saleen bundled them with their schematics.


    If the purchase volume was low, then Saleen would not sell the schematics. Imposa was there and given ample time, he would be able to replicate the magic chariots himself.


    It was easier to craft them than to craft the magic power furnaces. Saleen gave the schematics for free with every 100 chariots sold. All of the magic chariots had been modified by Imposa.


    There were rapid-fire alchemy crossbows on the magic chariots, making them capable of avoiding being surrounded. The chariots even had magic arrays capable of controlling puppets, allowing mages of lower levels to control therge scale puppets.


    Therge puppets were assembled on the broken docks. All of them were over 100 meters tall, capable of carrying magic cannons for attack. In actuality, Imposa created therge puppets just for speed and ease of control.


    Therge puppets had six legs and were capable of traversing very difficult terrain as if they were flying.


    The Cloudflow army began attacking after the preparations were done. Devil¡¯s Horn hadplex and difficult terrain, but Saleen put the death mages to good use. After the Grand Duke¡¯s army gained ess to skeletal warhorses, terrain was no longer much of a problem.


    They were concerned that some of the enemy that escaped to Alchemy City, so there were none of bug angel army in the assault of Devil¡¯s Horn. All 14 of the level ten professionals were deployed.


    Saleen did not even bother holding anything back. He took out the scrolls like he wanted to dispose of them, unraveling one after another and cast them.


    The level ten sorcerers at the Grand Duke¡¯s side looked on with gaping mouths. All of them deemed themselves fairly wealthy and the duke was very generous, but none of them dared fight like Saleen.


    Saleen was clearing out stocks. He had no intention of keeping any of the scrolls that he brought out from Sreeger Ind. All scrolls from Metatrin were made from starline paper. It would enable higher stability, greater power, and longer preservation periods.


    Devil¡¯s Horn never expected to be subjected to such ferocious attacks. All of the 14 level ten professionals were capable of overpowering a nine-floored magic tower individually.


    None of the level nine professionals around Saleen were easy to deal with. Truman brought his elemental envoy, which enabled his offensive powers to almost equal level ten sorcerers.


    Countless elemental spells were gathered and cast, and the entire Devil¡¯s Horn seemed to have entered an elemental turbulence. It seemed to be about to rain. The already gloomy day appeared even colder.


    Saleen had already killed at least four level 9 sorcerers with the Thunder Dragon ster. The level 9 sorcerers relied on the magic towers and showed their heads to attack, but they were quickly discovered by Saleen and killed.


    All professionals below level 9 suffered the same consequences when they took on the lightning icicles without knowing their attributes. Trusting their usual judgments too much only ended with being killed by the power of lightning.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was very close to Saleen. His eyelids twitched as he watched Saleen cast his lightning icicles. It was no wonder that Saleen had no fear of getting near him.


    He would not be able to defend against such attacks and very powerful equipment would be needed to fend them off. The speed of the icicles were simply too terrifying.


    Saleen finally got to see the Grand Duke attack. He had a longbow and was equipped with a space quiver. Any one of the arrows he fired could fly for several miles. Grand Duke Iron Blood was definitely not an archer, but the power of the arrows was almost the same as level ten magic spells.


    No level ten mage would be able to cast so many level ten spells. The Grand Duke¡¯s longbow could easily be on par with Seven Nights.


    Seeing Saleen having an eye on his weapon, the Grand Duke borated, ¡°Your Highness, this is a godly item from the Dragon Ind, which was crafted using the body of an ancient dragon. The bow was crafted with a 600 meter-long dragon. Even during those years, it was still quite a formidable equipment. It¡¯s quite a pity that I¡¯m not an archer.¡±


    ¡°Quite a cost for using this, eh?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. It requires dragon crystals, and the crystals used are incapable of recovering their power,¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood answered.


    One whole ancient dragon just to make one bow! Saleen was incapable of doing such a thing. Every single inch of the dragon¡¯s body was stronger than steel. Compressing all that material and crafting the end product would require a huge amount of time.


    Even if Saleen used lightning, he would need no less than a dozen years topress an ancient dragon to such a degree.


    ¡°I assume the bow is a sealing godly item.¡±


    ¡°It is indeed. I¡¯m only able to cast level ten attacks. Enhancement of its offensive capacity would be capped at level 11, but the cost of doing so would be ten times greater. It is not really all that worthwhile.¡± the Grand Duke killed enemy mages as he borated to Saleen.


    The speed at which his arrows were shot could not bepared to the projectiles fired by the Thunder Dragon ster. However, the Thunder Dragon ster was only capable of firing seven lightning icicles at once. It would need one hour to recharge.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s godly item could be fired continuously. Saleen was very envious.

 Chapter 1286: Dragon Knight (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1286: Dragon Knight (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Using dragon crystals as fuel was not worth mentioning. Grand Duke Iron Blood had the backing of Dragon Ind, which probably had a stockpile of dragon crystals so massive that it would make gods jealous. Furthermore, one dragon crystal couldst countless level ten attacks.


    The way dragon crystals stored energy was very different from magic nuclei. A piece of dragon crystal was hundreds of times more expensive than a magic nucleus of the same level.


    The Grand Duke used various measures to break the enemy. He had the magic cannons suppress the enemies¡¯ defenses, before gathering the powerful ones and taking out the magic tower one after another.


    None of the mages of Devil¡¯s Horn was able to take on the Cloudflow army without their towers. The Grand Duke¡¯s men were armed with formidable gear as well.


    Two of the four level ten sorcerers had magic books. The remaining two wielded magic stave, which had magic amplification effects. Of course, it would notpare to the elemental envoy, but it for magic staves to have amplification.


    The Devil¡¯s Horn had over 100 towers on the ind, but only three were level nine or above. That meant that there were only three level ten sorcerers throughout the entire Devil¡¯s Horn.


    The rise of power throughout Myers Maind did not benefit the Devil¡¯s Horn very much. Many became sorcerers, but only two became mage trainers.


    The three mage trainers were in different corners of the ind. Level ten mage trainers had no concern for magic cannons and were even able to retaliate. However, three level ten mages from the enemy¡¯s side eyed the three towers.


    As such, all retaliatory measures from the towers were nullified. Even after fighting for hours, the towers had only been able to destroy some of the magic cannons.


    The magic towers, on the other hand, toppled one after another. After the mages manning the towers were killed, the huge puppets tore the towers open, allowing the Iron Blood Warriors to pige them.


    Saleen did not bring many people to the ind. He had an army of 20000 imps, but he was unable to put them to work on the ind, so he let the Grand Duke have fun piging the ind while he sat by and did nothing.


    If he unleashed his lightning puppets, he could gain quite a lot, but Saleen was not in the mood to pige. He was looking into how to take out the magic towers.


    The Grand Duke had been ferocious and looked unstoppable on Devil¡¯s Horn, but it was the result of ample preparation. There had been over 1000 Iron Blood Warriors on the ind. An army of over 1,000 level nine warriors could take on armies in the millions.


    ¡°Looks like Devil¡¯s Horn had indeed been annexed by the Elemental Hand. Theyout, well...¡± Saleen shook his head. There were no other elites other than the three level ten mage trainers. It was quite obvious to Saleen that none of the other mages had much of a future.


    If not for Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s value as the first line of defense at sea, the Elemental Hand would probably tear the ind apart instead of keeping it around.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood nodded. The casualties were smaller than expected, and the loss of magic cannons was not as high as expected. Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s prowess had deteriorated instead of improved, so taking it out was no longer even a problem.


    He had invested quite a lot of money and materials in the assault. If he had failed, the losses would have been considerable. With Devil¡¯s Horn conquered, he could either destroy it or take it for himself, enabling him to make it a bridgehead to pin down Alchemy City.


    Two figures flew from the sea. Saleen observed the two with his Elemental Eye, seeing at least two level ten professionals. Saleen called and flew in their direction.


    The Grand Duke put his bow away and took out a dragon spear, before summoning a purple-gold dragon to ride.


    A dragon knight! Grand Duke Iron Blood is a dragon knight!


    The dragon was rare and known for its defensive capabilities, but not its magical abilities. However, as a steed for a dragon knight, the purple-gold dragon offered powerful defense and a formidable life force to the knight riding it.


    As long as the dragon lived, it would be very difficult to kill the knight killed.


    The most peculiar part of the purple-gold dragon was its forehead, as it bore a huge sealing mark. Grand Duke Iron Blood used some unknown means to seal the powers of a powerful dragon, enabling it to traverse the Myers Maind without suffering judgment from the rules of the ne. The purple-gold dragon looked about level 12.


    Saleen felt immense pressure behind him. His magic amplifier flew out and formed a huge ck ring behind him. The ck crystals spun slowly and would provide him with powerful balls of lightning at any given moment.


    The Grand Duke had been concerned for Saleen¡¯s safety, as the two who were flying from the west were true mights, who were faster than mage trainers.


    He was afraid of the enemy getting too close to Saleen. If the mage were killed, the Grand Duke would suffer a great loss. Having an ally like Saleen meant that there would be no shortage in supplies.


    If he did not have Saleen¡¯s backing in ventures like attacking Alchemy City, there was simply no telling how long he would have to prepare on his own.


    If Lex took control of both nations, he would not necessarily be rxed enough to sign any treaties. Lex was a Grukos after all, and she had a huge family behind her. Saleen, on the other hand, was on his own. While he had the backing of mages from Sreeger Ind, he had no blood ties with them.


    None of the Sreeger Ind mages wanted a piece of the maind for themselves, and no one would want to be emperor.


    However, seeing Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier, the Grand Duke regretted summoning his dragon. When a level ten mage trainer was equipped with magic amplifiers, theirbat capacities would be far above level ten true mights.


    Saleen was also smart enough to never allow hostile true mights to get near him.


    But since he had already exposed his true powers, the Grand Duke saw fit to simply be quick. The dragon let out a loud roar. The roar went past Saleen and hit the two true mights who were flying at them.


    The two were unable to help but shudder. They were not capable of resisting a level 12 purple-gold dragon. The momentary shudder was more than enough for Saleen to hit both of them with two lightning icicles.


    Saleen had no intentions of killing them with one shot, but targeting the abdomen made the two lightning icicles hit parts that were most difficult to evade.


    Saleen only had two lightning icicles left. He dove as he hit the two true mights, stopping 100 meters away from the water. The two lightning icicles fell into the water.


    Red blood bloomed in the seawater and Saleen dove into the sea without hesitation. There was another person hiding in the sea that was hit by the lightning icicles, which made them bleed, which meant they were able to resist burns from the lightning attacks.


    While they were able to resist burning, it was unknown if they would be able to resist paralysis. Saleen had no intention to let them off. The person lurking under the water had been able to survive being hit by two of his lightning icicles, which put Saleen on guard.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood saw Saleen dive into the water and his dragon stopped before the two true mights. No skills were used as the purple-gold dragon chomped down on the two of them and swallowed.


    The dragon made a show of swallowing them and looked very pleased. The Grand Duke forbade the dragon from killing as it fancied and eating any living beings, making it very frustrated.


    There was only one exception to the rules¡ªwhen the Grand Duke fought others. It was permitted to raze an entire city as it fancied, so eating his enemies was a no-brainer.


    The dragon dove into the water with Saleen. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was unable to distinguish things underwater, but the dragon was able to see everything clearly.


    The thing hit by Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle was not human, but a crystal sea snake. There was a person hiding beneath the crystal sea snake, ready to deal a killing blow to Saleen.


    The dragon was able to tell that Saleen would not be in any danger. The reason the dragon dove was to get to the crystal sea snake.


    The venom of crystal sea snakes wasparable to dragons. The creatures were never below level nine. The snake was only paralyzed when it was hit by Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles. The snake was 100 times more delicious than humans to the dragon.


    Dragons had no fear of poisons and even deliberately ate venomous creatures to amplify their powers. It cast a dragon magic spell as soon as it hit the water.


    The crystal sea snake¡¯s body was being torn apart by chaotic currents and bled profusely as it got sucked before the dragon.


    The snake was still paralyzed and fear was seen in its eyes when it saw the dragon.


    The Grand Duke said, ¡°Leave its magic nucleus behind for Saleen. That is his prize!¡±


    The dragon understood the Grand Duke¡¯s words. While it was irritated, it dared not disobey him. It grazed the snake with its fangs and the snake¡¯s body disintegrated. It swallowed the venom nds, flesh, and blood, leaving only its skeleton, skin and magic nucleus behind.


    The Grand Duke flicked his dragon spear and grabbed all three items. Saleen¡¯s fight was over as well.


    Saleen cast Thunder Phantasm and 12 clones materialized in the water. The assassin extended their senses to tell them apart in reflex and ended up spurting blood from all of their orifices.


    Saleen unraveled the scroll in his hand and cast an Ice Bomb, which burned with blue mes.


    The assassin¡¯s body shone with white light and quickly recovered. Such massive damage to the soul was but a flesh wound to the assassin. They threw a dagger, breaking the Ice Bomb.


    The dagger drew an arc in the water to continue attacking Saleen but was warped by the blue mes on the Ice Bomb. The temperature of mes capable of burning in water was unimaginably hot.


    All of Saleen¡¯s illusions surrounded the assassin, who panicked, as was impossible to tell them apart with their naked eyes. However, detection using mental powers would cause severe damage.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s dragon came before them as they hesitated. It opened its mouth and ate the assassin.


    The assassin struggled, attempting to break free, but vortexes already formed around the dragon¡¯s mouth, trapping them. When the dragon intended to eat, it did not just hunt like conventional magic beasts; it cast magic spells as well.


    It was quite unfortunate for the assassin, who had just advanced to level ten, to have run into peculiar specimens like Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood, a mage who was versed in close quarterbat and a warrior who had a dragon as a steed.


    The purple-gold dragon¡¯s defenses was such that even if it allowed the assassin to attack, they would not be able to injure it.

 Chapter 1287: Dragon Knight (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1287: Dragon Knight (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The purple-gold dragon¡¯s weaknessy with its weak magic defense. However, due to it being a level 12 creature, it would be extremely difficult for level ten magic spells to harm it.


    Saleen turned around and shot out of the water, looking westward where Alchemy City lied. The city knew that Devil¡¯s Horn was under attack and they probably knew how the battle ended.


    It was not a good thing for them. His own territory had secretly been isting the area nearby, yet news spread.


    The dragon shot out from the water as well and the Grand Duke threw the skin, bones, and magic nucleus of the crystal sea snake to Saleen, which the mage put away quickly.


    The crystal sea snake was indeed a rare breed. Its transparent skin had frightening defensive properties. If he had been using spells instead of lightning icicles, not even level ten ones would be able to break through its defenses.


    The assassin died mostly because the crystal sea snake died before being able to serve its intended use.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood let the dragon hover beside Saleen instead, looking in Alchemy City¡¯s direction.


    ¡°I see the flying warship. Alchemy City sure is quick to respond.¡±


    With the Devil¡¯s Horn annexed by the Elemental Hand, the flying warship became theirs. With the flying warship around, it was considerably more troublesome for the Ancient to destroy the port. The Devil¡¯s Horn would not let theirnd to be easily taken by Cloudflow.


    If their forces were unable to make it to shore, they would have to rely on the level ten professionals to fight. Saleen estimated that he and the Grand Duke would be forced to stay on the ind for days, if that were the case.


    Almost 100rge puppets carried magic cannons and tore the ind apart with the Iron Blood Warriors.


    ¡°They arete!¡± The Grand Duke flicked his dragon spear and intended to charge. He had no fear of any flying vessel with the purple-gold dragon around.


    ¡°We¡¯ll head back for now. The flying warship is able to contact Alchemy City any time. It¡¯s best to keep them from knowing you have a dragon,¡± Saleen cast a mist and shrouded the dragon.


    The Grand Duke found that reasonable. The results would be very different if he summoned his dragon after getting into Alchemy City.


    He sent the dragon back to the summoning space and flew back to the ind with Saleen. The ind¡¯s defenses were kept intact by three ten-floor magic towers struggling to do their job. While resistance continued, none of them were able to pose any threats to the Grand Duke¡¯s army anymore.


    The magic arraysid on the ind were bombarded by therge puppets using magic cannons, and most of them were destroyed. The low level mages were unable to do much without help from magic arrays. Only sorcerers level seven and above could remain fighting.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s army was terrifying. The Iron Blood Warriors were second only to golden grand swordmasters.


    The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was summoned and the Winged Skull put the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship away after hearing Saleen¡¯s call, heading back as quick as possible. The wings of the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel spread and met the flying warship from the Alchemy City head on.


    Powerful magic spells were cast and the enchanters on the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel cast 600 Wind Shields in order, blocking the iing spells.


    The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel had a magicid out, which was very useful. The Grand Duke was envious of the magic, but hecked enchanters, unless he became able to summon demons.


    The Grand Duke being envious of Saleen¡¯s magic was like Saleen being envious of him being able to summon a dragon. Saleen was able to keep most of his mages back in Metatrin, putting the mages to work in the alchemy factories and letting them practice magic.


    Battles were mainly taken care of by the enchanters, while mages were assigned from Metatrin City in rotation. It ensured that the alchemy factories were able to run smoothly and allowed Saleen to keep hisbat capacity up.


    An enchanter¡¯sbat capacity was not much weaker than a mage¡¯s when working under a magic. They were even more powerful at times.


    The magic was able to formte counter spells before battles of special properties broke out, and the enchanters only needed to sharpen their skills at thest minute to affect battle considerably.


    For instance, Wind Shield was weak but capable of traveling quickly. When 600 enchanters learned Wind Shield under the magic, the Wind Shield¡¯s defensive properties would be enhanced by several hundred times over.


    The flying warship¡¯s attacks were ferocious, but they were blocked by such spells, forcing them to slow down.


    The flying warship was inferior to the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. It had no magic, and there was no way to carry 600 mages onboard. They suffered a disadvantage in terms of numbers and were unable to rely on the ship¡¯s performance.


    The mages were not idiots. When the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel appeared, they knew immediately that trouble hade knocking at their doors.


    The Winged Skull was in charge in the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. The vessels traded blows from three miles away from each other, so neither was able to do much to the other.


    Over a dozen figures took off from the flying warship, all golden and silver grand swordmasters. There was a red-robed mage in their midst who looked young.


    Large pieces of magical equipment emerged from the bow and the nks of the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. They were Hogina¡¯s Guns.


    Hogina¡¯s Guns were delicate and expensive, as they needed hundreds ofponents fit within a narrow space. Therge Hogina¡¯s Gun was actually weaker than magic cannons, but more powerful than alchemy crossbows.


    Hogina¡¯s Gun maintained its rate of fire despite being scaled up and needed very little maintenance inparison to their smaller counterparts. It was all about speed. Even a rock was lethal when shot at such speeds.


    Among the 18 enemies, ten of them were silver grand swordmasters. They wore full sets of magic armor and borrowed flight capabilities from it. Theirbat capacity neared conventional level nine warriors.


    However, the flight achievable by magic armor was inadequate in battle. Four out of the 12 huge icicles hit the silver grandmasters hard, turning the armor and person into meat pies.


    Blood sttered from the crevices in the armor. The remaining 14 were horrified. The golden grand swordmasters only evaded using their senses. None of them were able to guarantee that they would be safe if they relied on sight to track the icicles¡¯ trajectories.


    Advancing did not necessarily mean that one¡¯sbat capacity would be unbeatable. For instance, even if Sul became a true might, there was no way he would be able to fight J.


    There were processes people needed to go through to familiarize themselves with abilities offered by one¡¯s level. Such processes might take a little or a lot of time. Some people spent over a dozen years before they mastered their skills as golden grand swordmasters.


    J, on the other hand, spent little more than a year to stabilize his level.


    Multiple target spells were cast from the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. Tens of thousands of Wind des targeted the silver grandmasters. Every enchanter cast tens of thousands Wind des. While the Wind des were not very powerful, they were still quite lethal.


    Icicles and level 10 Ice Crystals were capable of prating metal. So long as the target was unable to defend themself, spells of any level would be able to kill them.


    The Wind des were level seven and capable of maintaining their form for a very long time.


    The red-robed mage cast territorial powers immediately. Ayer of ice crystals formed around their robe, protecting them from all angles.


    However, the warriors were caught in a ditch. Things were better for the golden grand swordmasters, as their speed allowed them to dispel the Wind des using their swords. The silver grand swordmasters were not as lucky.


    The remaining six were quickly cut to pieces by the Wind des. There were too many Wind des, and their abundant elemental powers quickly dispersed the blood, casting a thin red mist.


    The Wind des dispersed quickly in the red-robed mage¡¯s territory. Any that managed to maintain their shape shattered when they hit the mage¡¯s blue ice crystal armor.


    Eighteen was reduced to eight in mere moments: four golden grand swordmasters, five level nine sorcerers and one red-robed mage. The red-robed mage was shocked. They knew that the attacks on the Devil¡¯s Horn were anything but ordinary, and they were about to be wiped out.


    If the mage simply pressed forth, they would probably be killed.


    The red-robed mage shouted. The sorcerers and golden grand swordmasters flew backwards with him. The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel pursued them relentlessly. The Winged Skull had no fear of all of them. They had acquired very powerful life-force.


    Gaine¡¯s modifications differed from that illustrated by Saleen. The Winged Skull¡¯s body remained that of a skeleton, yet its insides circted with the same types of energies found in humans.


    The golden heart provided power for all of that, making the Winged Skull something that seemed to be existing between spirits and humans. They became capable of training sword aura and even training to gain true might skills like a human.


    They were capable of using death magic, manipting sword aura at true might level and even craft sword spirits.


    The Hogina¡¯s Guns continued to fire, pinning the remaining eight in a certain area. Six hundred enchantersunched another round of attacks, in the form of all-engulfing Fire Balls.


    They were true level nine magic spells and there were 600 of them. Thousands of magic nuclei were consumed. While all of them were mid-level, only Saleen was generous enough to spend them like that.


    The magic consumed magic nuclei at breakneck speeds in the battle. Most people were not even able to spend enough to construct magics to begin with.


    Inparison, the fuel consumption of Hogina¡¯s Guns and the Thunder Dragon ster was considerably smaller. However, both had too high of a requirement for their wielders and were prohibitively expensive to craft.


    The magic, on the other hand, enabled anyone with strong mental powers to be enchanters. The consumption all came from magic power furnaces and mid-level magic nuclei would suffice to fulfill all needs.


    Boom!


    Boom, boom...boom...


    The sounds of the Fire Balls exploding were deafening. The entire flying warship was caught in the Fire Balls¡¯ attack range. The warship spread its wings and took flight. Powerful elemental vibrations burst from the ship¡¯s body. A huge shadow appeared before the flying warship, which looked like a metal angel.


    Bombardment from 600 magic spells rendered the area unbearably hot for humans. Steam whipped up at the sea¡¯s surface. The vapor disintegrated and burned for half a second before exploding.


    The flying warship was thrown up by the currents. The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel elerated and pounced, lining up with the flying warship in a bid to fight it. It actually to twist the ship around and even extended its ws to cling onto the belly of the flying warship.

 Chapter 1288: Succumbing Quickly (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1288: Sumbing Quickly (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was hardly used by anyone else. The ship was being crafted as if it was arge-scale puppet. It had the basics of a warship, yet it was as nimble as a lithe boat.


    The materials of the warship had been broken here and there. After acquiring materials from Dragon Ind, Saleen repeatedly added dragon bones to the mix, melding them with the ship with Water me.


    The melded product was then refined, patched and the entire ship changed size repeatedly dozens of times. It was currently 180 meters in length, yet it was over a hundred times sturdier than it had been in its earlier incarnation, finally making it truly look like a dragon.


    Saleen also used his knowledge of astrology to craft star charts on the dragon bones, making them capable of containing all manner of energy attacks. The dragon skeleton was extremely sturdy in its entirety. When it clung onto the flying ship, it simply raked with its ws and the entire lower section of the ship was torn apart.


    The dragon skeleton then clung onto the flying warship again and whipped its dragon tail about, shaking the ship in the air. The people who were in the ship were no longer able to hold their ground and dropped into the ocean one after another.


    Demons crewed the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel and they were all too familiar with such manner ofbat. All of them fixed themselves onto something, so while the warship shook about as if the sky was about toe down, nothing would have happened to them nheless.


    While the flying warship was a piece of magic equipment in itself, it was not one designed for fighting up close and personal. When the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel shook the ship about, the mages aboard dropped from their magic arrays and out of the ship.


    The ones still in the hold frantically cast spells to escape.


    The dragon skeleton twisted about and tore the flying warship. The mages from the warship flew outside but were not able to do anything.


    The red-robed mage was already in the water when the explosions happened. While the explosions were so ferocious that not even magic shields would have been able to resist them, one could have stayed safe when diving over 100 meters deep.


    The sorcerers and golden grand sword masters around the red-robed mage were all out of luck. None of them had been able to avoid the magic attacks and the explosions that followed.


    All of the red-robed mage¡¯s subordinates ended up dead. The mages gave up their pride and cast movement skills underwater, running in Alchemy City¡¯s direction.


    The Winged Skull took notice from the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. Finding no figures that were too dangerous remaining on the flying warship, they notified their jade skeletons before jumping into the sea with the Reaper Scythe in their hands.


    The level ten mage trainer was rather troublesome to kill, but the Winged Skull had no intention of letting someone like that escape. Their master spent a fortune on that venture, the cost of which could have only been recouped when they took Alchemy City.


    As such, they were to kill any that they were able to find. When someone like that were to make it back, they would have gained help either from magic amplifiers or magic towers, which would have made them very difficult to deal withter.


    The Reaper Scythe cleaved through the seawater from above. A ck beam of light forced a huge ditch to open in the seawater. The water dragon cast by the red-robed mage was destroyed right there and then.


    The Reaper Scythe seemed to be imbued with an indomitable will, blocking that level ten mage trainer right where they stood.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s Reaper Scythe became over eight meters long and was swiped. The red-robed mage was only able to cast a level ten Disturbance in time, yet quickly found that said Disturbance waspletely ineffective.


    One would have needed to have mental powers greater than Saleen to be able to shock the Winged Skull. The skeleton was Saleen¡¯s bonded creature. While their advancement was hindered because of that, they had huge benefits to gain nheless.


    Saleen¡¯s mental powers were of such capacity that not even level 12 mage trainers would have been able topare, let alone a level 10 one. All shock-type skills below level 13 were little more than child¡¯s y to the Winged Skull.


    The red-robed mage never thought of any of that when they saw the Winged Skull. They thought such powerful spirits were a product of hasty summons. The mage was actually considered careful, as hastily summoned spirits had no loyalty to speak of.


    When they were frightened, there was a possibility that they would simply return to the spirit ne right there and then.


    The scythe was swiped side to side and the blue crystal armor was cleaved open. A wound appeared on the red-robed mage¡¯s chest. The Winged Skull made a frowning expression. Disyed by that barren skull, it looked incredibly eerie.


    The Reaper Scythe was considered a formidable weapon, yet when it cleaved through its target¡¯s defenses, it was only able to cut through cloth, leaving a superficial scratch in its wake.


    Boom!


    Seeing Disturbance failing to do its job, the mage instant-cast a level ten Demolition. The spell was a wind-based magic spell. The red-robed mage used elemental conversion and cast it while using the water element, amplifying its power at sea.


    They had only wanted to force the powerful skeleton away before using scrolls to escape.


    However, they should never have used Demolition. The Winged Skull forced them into the core of the spell and with a single beat from their golden heart, the energies in their body were invoked and manifested power at the level of a true might.


    Not even true mights would have had such a powerful body and heart. The charge made a crack in the spell. The Winged Skull charged all the way before the mage along that crack and swiped the scythe from below. It ended up tearing the mages from between their legs all the way upwards, splitting them in two.


    Such was the result of being closed in by a true might. The red-robed mage died fighting a good fight. No one would have expected a skeleton to be capable of human skills.


    A face appeared on the scythe, opening its mouth and swallowing the mage¡¯s soul. It let out a satisfiedugh.


    ¡°Shut up!¡± The Winged Skull shouted and the face stoppedughing right away, with the only sound heard beingborious gulping. It was difficult for a newly formed weapon spirit to gobble up the soul of a level ten mage after all. It was fortunate that the Reaper Scythe had enough power to suppress resistance from the mage¡¯s soul.


    The seawater ditch closed up again by the time the Winged Skull killed the red-robed mage. No one was there to witness that. The fighting at sea turned even more intense. When the Winged Skull returned to the surface, there were already mages charging onto the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel.


    Mages from Alchemy City were not weaklings, especially the sorcerers. It was difficult to kill them all, despite having 600 demonic spirits onboard.


    The Winged Skull spread their wings and returned to the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, beginning to pick on the mages that boarded their ship and killing them. The interception was seen as a perfect one. No reinforcements came from Devil¡¯s Horn and the rate at which their enemy was crumbling elerated.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood put his dragon away and took out the bow, killing enemies from afar with Saleen. There was little to worry about by then. There were still powerful ones on the ind and none of the level ten mage trainers died.


    The magic towers were still as sturdy as ever, yet none of that would have changed the eventual oue.


    The grand duke and Saleen crushed Devil¡¯s Horn inch by inch without any concern for cost. All magic towers below level ten were toppled and plundered.


    Such bloody incidents had never taken ce ever since a mage¡¯s ind was established there. Alchemy City never expected some dire oue like that would have resulted from them taking away the elites and the flying warship.


    Otherwise, Devil¡¯s Horn would have been able to hold on until reinforcements from Alchemy City arrived.


    Alchemy City dared not send out any reinforcements. From their perspective, the attack on Devil¡¯s Horn was meant to draw mages away from Alchemy City¡¯s magic amplifier. All of them were then intercepted while they were outside.


    That would have proved to be a decent tactic, but Saleen and the grand duke would have never spent that much just to attack Devil¡¯s Horn. They were actually afraid of Alchemy City sending out reinforcements. Once Alchemy City sent enough mages on their way, the city would have soon learned of their true intentions.


    The fighting had to be done quickly. What theycked most at the moment was time. If Alchemy City were to realize what was happening and doubled on their defenses, it would have made assault all that more costly to pull off.


    Both Saleen and the grand duke were acting the most leisurely at the moment. Eleanor stood beside Saleen, while all of the others were sent out to hold the level ten magic towers back.


    Eleanor¡¯s Seven Nights caught the grand duke¡¯s attention and his expression was a rather crazed one.


    ¡°How much for this bow?¡± The grand duke asked right there and then.


    ¡°I¡¯d happily trade it for your bow,¡± Saleen answered.


    The grand duke fell silent immediately. Seven Nights were crafted using divine trees of the Goddess of Nature, so it was more or less simr to his bow, the Dragon Soul. However, given how he was a Dragon Knight, the attacks of the Dragon Soul would have been boosted exponentially while he rode dragons.


    While Seven Nights was a good weapon, it was more suited for elves.


    Eleanor found it rather funny. If the grand duke actually agreed to such a high price proposed by Saleen, he would have suffered quite a loss. While she liked Seven Nights very much, she had no problems trading it for Dragon Soul.


    Power brought forth by elfish royal arrows shot from the Dragon Soul would have easily made up for Seven Nights¡¯ loss. She sat on the Wings of an Elf and watched the battle below, struggling withplicated feelings.


    She was a royal elf. If she had not left the elf ne, she would probably be leading great armies at that moment. However, she would not have been able to enjoy the freedom she enjoyed serving Saleen. As royalty, it was imperative that she be married to one who was deemed a suitable match.


    However, she was able to do as she pleased on Myers Maind, falling in love with a human and using a human body. Saleen did not mind that at all and never required her to return to her elf form.


    If she were to return to her elf form, she would have turned level ten already, instead of being suppressed at level nine as she was then.


    ¡°About time. The mages outside were all pinned down. Time for us to make a move,¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood pointed at the three level ten magic towers at the center of the ind.


    The three level ten magic towers were precisely two miles away from each other, forming a triangle. There were quite a few magic buildings between the towers that had remained intact. They were well-preserved and most mages retreated there, hoping to hold the ce with help from the level ten magic towers.


    If it had not been more for the higher number of mages being drawn away from Devil¡¯s Horn, the resistance would not have looked so appalling, to begin with. From the perspective of those mages, as soon as reinforcements from Alchemy City arrived, the invaders would have been quickly crushed.


    ¡°We¡¯ll take them one by one.¡± Saleen pointed at the tower nearest to the west and added, ¡°We¡¯ll go with this one first. It has the least number of mages.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood nodded, took out magic equipment, and shouted amand to his own subordinates.


    The mist on Devil¡¯s Horn was dispersed by arge number of mes lit up everywhere. The magic towers meant for stabilizing the mist were all destroyed. It was difficult to gather the mist again once dispersed. Looking down from the sky, over 100rge scale puppets were getting near the level ten magic towers.


    The westernmost tower was already surrounded by the grand duke¡¯s sorcerers. Any attacks from within were taken out by the sorcerers in turns, preventing the attacks from harming the puppets.


    The puppets climbed to the hills nearby and began a final attack on the level ten magic towers.

 Chapter 1289: Succumbing Quickly (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1289: Sumbing Quickly (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    How powerful the force of over 100 magic cannons attacking in rotation? Saleen knew that he would have been able to resist such forces simply by expanding his territory. Few people possessed lightning powers in their territories. Magic cannons were pure energy attacks, and lightning could have easily dissolved such attacks.


    Defensive capacities of the magic towers were even stronger, yet theycked such capabilities. When subjected to relentless bombardment from the magic cannons, the first level ten magic tower they attacked gradually lost its capacity to retaliate.


    The other two towers were ced two miles away and their attacks were blocked by level ten professionals, making the mages in those towers practically unable to do anything despite seeing the other level ten tower being relentless bombarded.


    The mage trainer in that tower was incredibly angered. If it had not been for the Elemental Hand taking away all of the tower¡¯s elites, robbing the tower of over half of its magic arrays¡¯ effectiveness, things would have turned out very differently.


    Even though the magic cannons were extremely powerful, the stockpile of magic nuclei within the level ten tower would have at leaststed him for about half a month being under siege.


    With no one manning the magic arrays, there was little a mage trainer was able to do to turn the tables around.


    Damn you! Sh**!


    The level ten mage trainer who were being attacked shouted all of a sudden, ¡°Who is it that is attacking us out there!? Pleasee out and talk!¡±


    Saleen took one look at Grand Duke Iron Blood, who shook his head. His lips twitched. Imposa, who was attacking far away, stood on a huge metal cog and said to the mage in the tower, ¡°I¡¯m Imposa.¡±


    ¡°Imposa, you came from Alchemy City, why...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m from Alchemy City and you¡¯re from Devil¡¯s Horn. Are you feeling unsatisfied that I¡¯m hammering you then?¡± Imposa interrupted the mage¡¯s words and said.


    That mage was very pissed, but then quickly realized something and asked, ¡°Are you trying to attack Alchemy City?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Submit to me and I¡¯ll restore Devil¡¯s Horn!¡±


    ¡°Impossible. You¡¯ve killed so many!¡±


    ¡°You fool. A cmity is about to hit Myers Maind and Alchemy City has delusions about using the cmity to conquer the maind. Are you telling me that you know nothing about that!?¡±


    The mage inside the tower was speechless. One of the reasons why the Elemental Hand consolidated Alchemy City was because a cmity was about to hit Myers Maind, so everyone needed to pool their strengths to defend against said cmity.


    None would have believed such a thing, but when those words came out of Imposa¡¯s mouth, the mage trainer understood immediately, that the words were not excuses; they were truly what was about to happen.


    It would not have made any sense for the enemy before their eyes to show up otherwise. It was due precisely to a cmity about to strike and people were trying to get their act together and strengthen themselves. The mage waspletely speechless after thinking about the actions of the Elemental Hand as ofte.


    Such things should have been made public. Regr armies were being formed in Alchemy City and everyone was racking their brains for solutions against the cmity. The way the Elemental Hand did things obviously meant that they had their own selfish interests in mind.


    The mage quickly ran through all of those thoughts. He understood the reasoning behind and he thought of all manner of solutions to deal with the cmity, but none of those solutions felt remotely doable. Imposa had definitely been fully prepared when he came.


    ¡°Surrender your tower. When I¡¯m done with Alchemy City, I¡¯ll return it to you!¡± Imposa continued to pressure the enemy mage.


    ¡°Why should I believe you?¡±


    ¡°My target is Alchemy City. Devil¡¯s Horn was but a start.¡±


    ¡°What about Sreeger Ind?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll let them off for the time being.¡±


    ¡°Alright, but I want to sign a contract to ensure my own safety.¡± That mage trainer did not bother bringing about the return of their magic tower back. What mattered was their own safety at the moment, and it proved to be a wise move.¡±


    ¡°No problem. Mages, hold your fire.¡±


    Attacks using magic spells and from magic cannons ceased when they talked. The red-robed mage walked outside and looked dejected. There were only three students around them and all of them were low level mages. They were also very young.


    The mage had only three attendants managing the entire magic tower, so it was within reason that the mage resented the Elemental Hand.


    Imposa turned around and Saleen threw a contract scroll from afar. The contract scroll was brought to them by a Wind Dragon, flying up to Imposa¡¯s hand. Imposa opened the contract and scanned it for a bit, finding the contract that Saleen wrote without giving much thought was nheless strict.


    Saleen did not want to see casualties climb as well. That mage had a magic tower and if he were to go all out, it was entirely possible for him to kill one or two level ten mages on Saleen¡¯s and the grand duke¡¯s side. If an elemental rampage was triggered, more than half of the puppets could not have survived.


    It was fortunate that that mage looked rather young still and possibly less than 100 years old. With so many years ahead of him, he would have hesitated to go all out. If that mage were to be someone nearing the death, then there would not have been any need for talk. Fighting to the death sounded like a more sensible choice by then.


    That mage was afraid that Imposa would have turned back on their word, even though such people were few and far between among mages. As such, he quickly signed the contract and were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.


    Imposa read that mage¡¯s name and looked rather troubled. Imposa knew of that mage and he was rather renowned on Devil¡¯s Horn. Such a person would not been absorbed within the Elemental Hand¡¯s ranks, as their prestige would have affected that of the others, even attracting a sizeable group of mages as followers.


    It was lucky that the Elemental Hand did not think about killing him, so Imposa had no worries about that mage pulling tricks against him.


    ¡°Alright, Toni. Persuade the other two towers and I promise you, I¡¯m not after your things and I¡¯d keep the towers in one piece.¡± Imposa gave the mage his word.


    ¡°Alright!¡± Toni understood right there and then when he heard all of that. Devil¡¯s Horn was really not Imposa¡¯s target after all.


    The suppressive fire on the other two magic towers ceased as well. Toni flew to the north side tower and transmitted Imposa¡¯s words. The mages of all three towers had been friends and they were practically robbed by the Elemental Hand. As such, they had actually been frustrated about how things went.


    With such matters taking ce at present, it was totally impractical to rely on them to buy time for Alchemy City.


    However, if Grand Duke Iron Blood were to not clear all of the outer towers and show irresistible force, none of the three mages would have surrendered.


    The grand duke wanted things to be settled peacefully as well, as he too worried about having insufficient magic towers. The attack on Alchemy City was the one that would have really cost him the cannons instead.


    Devil¡¯s Horn was practically ransacked by Alchemy City and the powers significantly reduced. Losing too much equipment taking out such a ce would have been quite a loss.


    All remaining magic towers on Devil¡¯s Horn receivedmand from the three mage trainers, so all mages from the ind gave up resisting altogether. They had better luck than most, as due to being able tost as long as they did, the wealth within their towers could have still been preserved.


    The grand duke¡¯s people went to take over the magic towers, but he had no intentions of robbing them. He was only doing so to ensure that the mages from Devil¡¯s Horn were robbed of their powers for the time being.


    Without their magic towers, none of those sorcerers would have been able to stand against the Iron Blood Warriors. The grand duke and Saleen onlynded after that, discussing with the three mage trainers from Devil¡¯s Horn.


    Despite the introductions, the three mage trainers remained resentful. Saleen said instead, ¡°Masters, the way the Elemental Hand go about things, even if you are able to keep the ind, you¡¯ll lose everything sooner orter. How about joining Sreeger Ind instead?¡±


    The three mages felt rather puzzled. Saleen then borated, ¡°Sreeger Ind originally belonged to my teacher, and he had only given it up due to reasons rted to Metatrin City. With Sreeger Ind being taken by the Elemental Hand, I¡¯ll have to take it back sooner orter. However, given their position being too far away and would not have posed any threat to this operation, I let them off for the time being. When we¡¯re done taking Alchemy City, I¡¯d turn around and attack Sreeger Ind. Mages there would gain independence and be freed from Alchemy City¡¯s control.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t they going to be under your control then!?¡± One of the mage trainers felt dissatisfied and jabbed at Saleen sarcastically.


    ¡°Is it so back to be under my control then?¡± Saleen asked in surprise, ¡°Just look at the mages from Metatrin City. Did any of them have anyints?¡±


    That mage trainer was at a loss for words. Mages did not mind working for others so long as they were wellpensated and amply respected. Many mages from Alchemy City chose to side with Metatrin City because Saleen treated them well. It was also easier to train in Metatrin City instead.


    ¡°My teacher is already a level 11 mage. Furthermore, he would also advance to level 12 in the next 10 years. Are you telling me that you¡¯re willing to give up on such opportunities?¡± Saleen threw yet another piece of shocking news, which rendered even Imposa frowning.


    But then again, he knew a thing or two about Jason and knew that Jason would definitely note around and fight for Alchemy City with him. Imposa felt very much relieved aftering to such conclusions.


    ¡°Your highness, allow us to discuss the matter for a bit.¡±


    Saleen took one look at the grand duke, who nodded. Both of them were allies and while Saleen made a proposal, he needed the grand duke¡¯s agreement nheless. Saleen was actually undercutting the grand duke doing so.


    Both Sreeger Ind and Devil¡¯s Horn were locations far out at sea. If Saleen were to take both ces, it would have posed a threat to the grand duke¡¯s naval forces.


    Saleen immediately mobilized his people and prepared to attack Alchemy City with the grand duke, after seeing the grand duke give permission.


    The Ancient was unable to serve as the main force for attacking Alchemy City. The true power lied with the Floating City. The Ancient was but something there as a diversion.


    The three mage trainers were done with their discussions,ing to a conclusion given how they have already been practically robbed clean by the Elemental Hand, it was immensely difficult to keep Devil¡¯s Horn.


    If they were to join Elemental Hand¡¯s side, getting eliminated would have been something that would have happened sooner orter.


    Joining Metatrin City seemed like a decent choice. They wanted to know more about the cmity that Saleen spoke of as well.


    Saleen never expected things to go so well. All three level ten mage trainers chose to join him without him having to do much. He had spent way more time talking just to persuade level nine sorcerers to join his side once upon a time.


    But then again, it was entirely normal. Metatrin City was not what it once was. There were more than 10000 mages in the city and there were huge alchemy factories around. The city enjoyed ample supply of magic nuclei and the ce was guarded by a powerful army.


    Metatrin City at present was more or less a contender to Alchemy City. The only difference being their histories, and even that was but a matter of time.


    In terms of reputation, Metatrin City far surpassed Alchemy City.


    ¡°Well then, if you¡¯re willing to follow me, we shall sign contracts and I¡¯ll let you know why I dare to attack Alchemy City,¡± Saleen said as he threw three contracts at them. Those were not follower contracts, but contracts allowing the mages to be his pce mage.


    The status of pce mages were not low and while they may not have been able to earn as much as followers, but there were also far less need for them to do battle. They only needed to stay behind at Saleen¡¯s pce and protect the city.


    When mages reached such levels, they needed to spend most of their time training and were hardly seen outside. Level ten mages who still needed to go out often practically did not exist, with exceptions being the likes of Joey, who intended to search ancient ruins.

 Chapter 1290: Insect Plague (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1290: Insect gue (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had indeed prepared this type of contract long ago. After seeing the starline paper, the three mage trainers were stunned. They immediately recalled the various types of rumors that had been spread about Metatrin City.


    So it had actually not been a lie. This Saleen actually used starline paper to sign contracts. It should be known that contract scrolls were the most stable kind of magic scroll and did not require particrly good materials. This starline paper was a very precious substance. Because astrologers had died out, items that were originally cheap had be extremely valuable.


    After looking at the contract, they did not spot any issues. The three mage trainers heaved a sigh of relief, feeling as if they had cast off an immensely heavy burden. It was only after they had written down their names on the contract that the three felt truly safe.


    The original contract was just a temporary measure. Initially, after waiting for the Grand Duke and his party to leave, the three people had wanted to group up and leave as well. If the three mage trainers were together, they would definitely be able to find a ce to stop and rest no matter what. They could not bepared to those low-grade mages, and they also had a lot of wealth with them. This was sufficient for them to reconstruct magical towers and continue cultivating.


    Now, with Saleen¡¯s contract, they would be pce mages, hand over the Devil¡¯s Horn, and then go to the pce to cultivate. It was still better than this ce, which was suspended in the air. If it was possible...


    The three mage trainers had also thought of the fact that Saleen providing for them was probably only for the sake of iming the Devil¡¯s Horn¡¯s status in the future.


    Mages were not thieves. With this status, if nobody wanted to fight over this ind with Saleen, it would be somewhat difficult.


    The ancient battleships packed things up neatly once more. The soldiers and puppets boarded the battleships one after another. Saleen brought the three mage trainers, and his subordinates entered the sea from the eastern part of the Devil¡¯s Horn, diving into the waters directly.


    They were still at a distance of about 100 li from the ind. The three mage trainers were protected by Saleen¡¯s territory and flew forward. In terms of speed, when moving forward in the water, nobody couldpare to Saleen. He was a body of water element. Any water magic spells would be half again as strong than those of other mages in his hands.


    Water magic also had movement skills. The Quickcloud Spell had been Saleen¡¯s creation. With his current movement speed in the water, it took less than 20 minutes to arrive at Floating City.


    Floating City was underwater. It was covered in a huge energy barrier and appeared as if it was twinkling with light.


    Although it was called Floating City, it did not have any city walls. With a 900-meter stick crystal as its building material, it was much sturdier than any wall. There was no need to look at the situation at the bottom part of Floating City. Simply seeing this huge energy barrier had made the mage trainers speechless.


    Saleen had not wanted to rob them. Compared to him, they were all paupers.


    Of course, this way of thinking was wrong, but there was no need for Saleen to correct it. However wealthy a thief was, they would still rob others. If they had not sworn allegiance to Saleen, Saleen would not have minded looting all they had.


    What difference was there between the king of a country and a thief? Attacking and upying cities, this was the greatest form of plunder. It was just that ¡®king¡¯ sounded more pleasing to the ears, and the conquered people could still beg for a tomorrow.


    It was not that Saleen did not gain any benefits from being a king either. He had quickly seen through these things and would definitely not go all out for any of the powers of this continent. All of his power would be used in the pursuit of the true meaning of magic. All other matters were nothing.


    The current Saleen was rich and ostentatious. It was also much easier for him to take in subordinates. After the three mage trainers had seen Floating City, they no longer had a hint ofint. Saleen was so rich; he obviously would not covet the few secrets they had in their hands.


    The ancient battleships went full speed ahead towards Alchemy City. Floating City slowly circled underwater and followed behind them.


    Within Floating City, there was an elite troop with a total of 220,000. 20,000 of these were Saleen¡¯s troops. The other 200,000 were Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s troops. These 220,000 soldiers were all dressed in Bug Angel Armor. This was the first time that the Bug Angel Armor would be used in a real battle, and Saleen had high expectations of it.


    Within the Bug Angel Armor, too much magical knowledge was contained. If a low-grade mage was to participate in its refinement, the umtion of knowledge would be sufficient for them to utilize until they were at the stage of a sorcerer. However, mages who had had this type of special encounter numbered less than 1,000. In Metatrin City, an ordinary mage needed to strictly follow the procedures of the alchemic factory and split up to produce the parts of the Bug Angel Armor.


    It was only because of this that Saleen was able to provide the armor at such a rapid speed. Grand Duke Iron Blood needed them, and Fycro needed them as well. He also had to refine higher-grade armor for himself. If they had not proceeded to divide up the work, it was likely that even at the time when abominations would be found everywhere on the Myers Continent, Saleen would still be unable to produce the corresponding numbers.


    The Bug Angel army was awaiting orders at the border of Floating City. The might of this armory in the fact that soldiers could survive within it for the long term without needing to disarm. This was especially so for Saleen¡¯s 20,000 suits of armor. The outer skin had not been filled with normal magic medicines. Instead, with the Restorative Water as the foundation, magic liquids and all kinds of potions had been mixed to produce it. Furthermore, the imps within the skins had elfish pills as their rations and did not need to leave the armor.


    Of course, the disadvantages of this armor were also evident. After growing used to the Bug Angel Armor, the person inside would not be willing to leave. The armor would provide people with power on the level of a magic. When the imps wore the Bug Angel Armor, even power demons would be no match for them. Once they left, they would turn back to their original frail state.


    What this armor gave people was not assistance, but destruction. If a swordmaster was to put on the Bug Angel Armor, it would also affect their Mood, and it might even make it difficult for them to advance to a True Might.


    Hence, Saleen wanted to give this armor to the imps to use. If he gave it to his powerful warriors, the losses would outweigh the gains.


    However, Grand Duke Iron Blood did not care. For his Dragon Blood warriors, advancement did not rely on cultivation. With the Bug Angel Armor, these Dragon Blood warriors would be strengthened even further. A few aftereffects could be overlooked.


    The Floating City moved forward underwater. This would not be able to remain hidden from Alchemy City¡¯s mages. However, just before entering the range of perception of the mages, the ancient battleships had alreadymenced their attack on Alchemy City.


    Alchemy City¡¯s pier was much more powerful than that of the Devil¡¯s Horn. Under the fire of hundreds of magic cannons, only the pier was destroyed. Dozens of magical towersbined, blocking most of the magic cannons¡¯ attack.


    The magic cannons had been modified by Saleen and Imposa before. Their might was not equal to the magic cannons produced by the ancient humans, and their shooting speed was also lower. On both sides of Alchemy City¡¯s pier, there were small castles, which also supported magic cannons. These cannons were even weakerpared to what Saleen and Imposa had modified, yet they posed a threat towards the soldiers on the ancient battleships.


    The battle was intense. Who would think of searching underwater?


    Like this, Saleen¡¯s Floating City had arrived in the oceanic area within 10 li of Alchemy City. Then, it rushed up skywards from within the ocean.


    Floating City itself did not require any movement power to float in the air. Wanting it to sink underwater, on the other hand, was a waste of magic chords. After flying to midair, Floating City flew towards the west at a speed of 2,000 meters per minute. The people of Alchemy City could clearly see this giant object fly up from the ocean. Countless magic spells immediately tilted and attacked this strange object that covered the sun and sky.


    These magic spells were subjected to an increase in speed by the magical towers. The distance of their attacks was also lengthened by several times. It was just that below Floating City, 24,000 mages were concealed and couldunch a counterattack using the magic. Even if they could not strike back, the light gold-colored crystal below Floating City was not something that could be destroyed by ordinary magic spells.


    Besides, Saleen was already at the core of Floating City, expanding his territorypletely from within the Magical Element Tower. Below Floating City, electric currents shed wildly. Any magic spells that approached would first be dissolved. Even if they could not be dissolved, they would be weakened.


    The magics were opened entirely and the magic power furnaces were all switched on. Every hour, Saleen would ce tens of thousands of magic chords to maintain its consumption. If the battlested for one day, close to a million magic chords would be consumed.


    The strength of Floating City was indeed unparalleled, but this was with immense wealth as its basis. Without so many magic chords ands, Floating City would merely be a piece ofnd that was able to float.


    About 20,000 Bug Angel warriors lunged down from high in the air under the support of the magics. These Bug Angel Armors varied in size. Thergest was about a dozen meters long, and the smallest about four or five. The vision of the warriors hidden inside was able to cover all angles.


    At the back of the Bug Angel Armor, there was a pair of transparent wings that pped, releasing an ear-piercing sound.


    Alchemy City saw that Floating City had arrived above it and was already in a continuous state of terror. Floating City might not be able to harm powerful mages, but if it were really to press downwards with all its force and go all out until both sides lost, Alchemy City would probably have to be rebuilt as well. Immediately, the magic spells that were attacking Floating City had decreased. Everyone was afraid that they would cause Floating City to be shot down, resulting in a lose-lose situation.


    Saleen did not wish for this either. If Floating City was really to be grounded, the consequences could be disastrous. If it were smashed forcefully, Floating City would also suffer serious damage. Furthermore, after descending to the ground, Floating City¡¯s greatest advance would also vanish, and the effects of the magic would be practically gone.


    Thus, Saleen directed the enchanters to begin attacking the key areas below. The targets of his attack were all ces where magical towers would normally be located, thus there would be no waste of energy. About 20,000 Bug Angel warriors rushed into Alchemy City. Unlike what had been stated beforehand, these warriors began to kill without any reservations.


    Saleen naturally understood that this was the result of Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s longtime grudge. He had subdued the mages from the Devil¡¯s Horn. If he continued to subdue Alchemy City¡¯s mages, he would not be able to gain anything.


    If Alchemy City was to surrenderpletely, how could Grand Duke Iron Bloode again to rob it?


    Although this was not that likely, Grand Duke Iron Blood wanted, first, to create a scene of massacre to avoid the urrence of such situations in the future. With this, he would no longer be able to grow close to the hearts of the mages of Alchemy City so easily.


    This was Grand Duke Iron Blood severing Saleen¡¯s way out, but Saleen had no choice but to continue.


    Originally, he and Alchemy City were enemies. Even if this hatred were expanded, it would not matter. After all, allies were only allies. Grand Duke Iron Blood would not blindly take Saleen into consideration. However, his actions made Saleen feel relieved. If Grand Duke Iron Blood had not made any move, allowing Saleen to collect benefits as he wished, it meant that he wanted to scheme behind his back and plot against Metatrin City.


    Allies were not friends. Saleen would not sacrifice anything for the sake of Grand Duke Iron Blood, and Grand Duke Iron Blood felt the same. This was truly fair trade.


    The massacre of the Bug Angels was shocking and fearsome. The defenses at the harbor immediately copsed and the entire city behind it was in an uproar. Defending the harbor once more held no meaning either. At the harbor, Grand Duke Iron Blood rushed to the pier and began to engage in destruction and theft. After clearing out the harbor, therge-scale puppet was moved to the pier and was engaged in assembly.


    This time, Grand Duke Iron Blood assembled thousands ofrge-scale puppets. On the body of each, a magic cannon was carried.

 Chapter 1291: Insect Plague (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1291: Insect gue (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The bodies of therge-scale puppets were outfitted with magic cannons, forming an army at the pier. There were about 20,000 Iron Blood warriors and about 1,000rge-scale puppets. Additionally, with the Dragon Remainsbat vessels that rushed into the harbor, magics covered the pier. Alchemy City¡¯s pier was slowly captured.


    The Bug Angel troops ravaged the city, causing the mages at the pier to lose heart.


    Saleen tookmand in the middle. On his Bug Angel Armor, there wereplex Bug-type magicpound eyes that could transmit all images back to the Magical Element Tower. There was no need for Saleen to make a move in order to be able to see the details of the battle.


    Of the 20,000 Bug Angel Armors purchased by Grand Duke Iron Blood, only 2,000 sets had Saleen¡¯s Dark Space magic patterns added on them.


    Nevertheless, the Bug Angels without the Dark Space magic patterns still had a defensive power that was shocking. Saleen allowed the 3,600 demonic spirits that had stayed within the Magical Element Tower to record the details of the battle faithfully and search for the Bug Angel Armor¡¯s weaknesses.


    The battle between the mages and the Bug Angel warriors was extremely intense from the start. Most of the mages¡¯ battles originated from fire element magic spells. These mages did not have any skills to take control of the warriors. This was because the numbers of the Bug Angel warriors were too great. Taking control of them would be a waste of mental power.


    Fire Serpent, Wings of me, Fireball, and even fire magic arrays formed by pentagons, hexagons, and octagons burned within Alchemy City. The temperature of these mes was enough to melt iron. Yet Saleen discovered that the soldiers within the Bug Angel Armors only felt as though the temperature had increased slightly. This increase in temperature was something the armor allowed for the sake of warning the soldiers of the current danger, telling them that they should try their utmost to either leave or change the environment.


    In the Bug Angel Armor, all kinds of magic patterns provided protection. Between the skin inside the armor and the outer part of the armor, it was filled with liquid and spherical metal machinery. Some of this machinery was independent. They could alsobine and rotate together so that it could continue to operate even after a major portion of it was lost.


    The special properties of the insect race were disyedpletely. The fire magic attacks did not even cause the speed of the Bug Angel warriors to slow down by half. Dozens of Bug Angels rushed towards a seven-floor magical tower. Half of them dug up the ground. The other half spat out magic mes and attacked the tower.


    After the magic chords that were stored within these Bug Angel Armors stimted the magic arrays, they could carry out attacks that were more simple, and the distance was also rather close. However, this was sufficient. These Bug Angels had basically climbed up the magical tower to burn it up.


    The seven-floor magical tower had been a bit too careless. Its windows were not closed and one Bug Angel warrior rushed inside.


    The mages and warriors within the tower immediately attacked this Bug Angel. About ten warriors chopped it with their greatswords. The Bug Angel warrior twisted its body, deflecting all of the blows. There were now merely a few faint scratches on the Bug Angel Armor.


    While the scratches were still rapidly healing, the Bug Angel¡¯s six long legs had already swung, slicing and dismembering the warriors. The insect¡¯s long legs had fine andpact sawteeth at their end. Magic arrays were refined at the sawteeth. Under the urging of the magic chords, it erupted with strong cutting power.


    The mages were terrified. Amidst those warriors, there had been a Silver Grand Swordmaster. The sword aura of the Silver Grand Swordmaster had more or lesspletely permeated that insect¡¯s body, yet it had been unable to cause any damage. For close-rangebat, the sword aura of a Silver Grand Swordmaster had a stronger killing power than that of a grade-7 mage. Some could even surpass grade-8 magic spells.


    The most horrific thing was the wings of this bug. When the transparent wings vibrated, it would release dozens of wind des that flew around wildly within the small and narrow magical tower. These wind des did not have a particr destination to speak of, but in such an environment, nobody could hide.


    Apart from the Silver Grand Swordmaster, the middle-grade mages could not block it at all.


    The Silver Grand Swordmaster yelled angrily and the sword aura of his body suddenly increased by ten times. With a stroke of his sword, he had pierced the spot between the Bug Angel¡¯s two eyes. That was the weak spot at the head area.


    However, the Bug Angel was basically just a suit of armor. Between its eyes, some poisonous liquid was stored. Once it was pierced open by the sword, the poisonous liquid was immediately evaporated by the sword aura, forming a poisonous mist within the magical tower.


    The protective shields held by the mages who were hurt by this did not block it. Essentially, protective shields were a form of defense that could only block attacks from one direction. A water shield like Saleen¡¯s was also something that only a few mages could use.


    The sawteeth on the Bug Angel warriors¡¯ toes continued to dance about in the state of a magic de. It was only after it had killed all the people on that floor that it rushed towards the upper floors.


    The sorcerer on the top floor had no choice but to cut off the connections between each floor. The Silver Grand Swordmaster had been unable to resist the Bug Angel, so he, a grade-7 sorcerer, would definitely be unable to do so.


    Once the magical tower was sealed shut, the Bug Angel was unable to continue attacking the upper floors. He could only rampage through the bottom six floors, killing all of the remaining soldiers and low-grade mages. Only then did he block off the pathway heading towards the lower part of the tower from the 7th floor and wait for reinforcements to arrive.


    The Bug Angels outside swarmed in. It was only after they had destroyed the magical towers inside until very few were left that they started tounch attacks on the 7th floor. The method of sealing the magical tower was simple: firmly lock the gates. The magic arrays blocked the gates from opening and closing. Magical towers like the Magical Element Tower, which relied on teleportation portals to carry outmunications, were too few. Because teleportation portals had a very high consumption, even if the distance of transmission was only about 10 meters, the magic chords consumed would still be worth thousands of gold coins.


    With this kind of defenses, how could it resist the Bug Angels¡¯ attacks?


    Within the Bug Angel Armor, most of the fighters were Dragon Blood warriors. By themselves, they were sufficiently menacing. When maneuvering this type of armor that was simr to a puppet while relying on their mental power and battle experience, the weapons they were able to utilize included the sharp magic des and the spitting of magic spells and poisonous liquids. When the two wings vibrated, they could also directly trigger wind des. Within the small and narrow space, their killing power was horrific.


    The speed of the wind des was too fast, and their dissipation was slow. After releasing them in the magical tower, unless the magic arrays within the magical towers wereplete, it was very difficult to defend against them.


    After the Bug Angels entered the magical towers, the first thing they did was to destroy the magic arrays that were used for defensive purposes. It was only after the defensive magic arrays lost their effect that they triggered the wind des. This series of actions had all been tested by Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood. They had established a simted battleground in Floating City and let the Bug Angel army train a few times. Only then had they implemented them in Alchemy City.


    Alchemy City¡¯s mages had been the first to encounter this type of enemy. They basically had no experiences or preparations in ce.


    Saleen observed patiently. He discovered that the Bug Angel Armor also had its weakness, which was that it had too many attack modes. The warriors within the Bug Angel Armors needed to be like the Dragon Blood warriors or the imps, who were races that were not worried about exhausting the mental power. For ordinary warriors, if their mental power was depleted, the harm caused towards their bodies would not be small.


    Indeed, the attack modes of a human were still better!


    Saleen involuntarily let out a sigh. Although the attack modes of this insect race were powerful, he could calcte that once humanity advanced above grade-13, they would immediately reform their truebat abilities and suppress the insect race.


    The insect race¡¯s eyes and mentality were naturally divided and could cope withplex environments. They were more suited for survival. Magic bugs were an example. Even if it was the demon ne, these magic bugs were still great in number and could not be exterminated. Although they were at the lowest rung of the food chain, they were great in number, allowing the insect race to exist everywhere. Once they had an opportunity, they would give birth to an even stronger body form.


    Humanity¡¯s mental power was strong in the manner of focus. For such a lifeform, once they had grown to grade-13, they would be able to grasp the rules. More importantly, humanity¡¯s capacity for creation allowed humans to be able to imitate any type of lifeform to create magic spells that were suitable for human usage. For example, the Bug Angel Armor was one such case, capable of allowing humans above grade-6 to fight against a Silver Grand Swordmaster.


    Hey!


    Not even ten minutes after the Bug Angels had entered Alchemy City, there was already damage, yet it was mostly on Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s side. The Bug Angel Armor was a metal armor that covered the whole body. Its magical defenses were low, but when they collided, they were strong and powerful, like an iron battle chariot.


    While the Bug Angels were charging on their way forward, they had collided into who knows how many enemies. However, in the end, they had been pierced by a gigantic alchemy crossbow. A Golden Grand Swordmaster had fired this alchemy crossbow. The Golden Grand Swordmaster had added his golden sword aura onto the arrow of the crossbow. The Bug Angel Armor had been torn apart by the sword aura. The crossbow arrow grazed against the body of the warrior inside, and the sword aura directly sliced his body into two pieces.


    This Bug Angel warrior died, but the armor still convulsed and frantically released attacks. The Golden Grand Swordmaster that had cornered and attacked this Bug Angel Warrior was grievously injured. The wind de flew wildly. Some even flew back, slicing injury upon injury into its own armor.


    The poisonous sac at the head of the armor immediately burst open. The magic chords stored inside it had followed it in exploding. There were mes everywhere, and the poisonous mist, as well as the parts of the Bug Angel Armor, flew about. Within an area of a few dozen meters, arge hole had been blown out. The Golden Grand Swordmaster looked on from a distance, feeling shocked. What was this monstrosity?


    The Golden Grand Swordmaster felt more and more shocked the longer he looked. For this type of giant insect, he would not even break a sweat after killing eight of them. However, he could not protect the people on his side. In addition, if these insects were numerous, even he would eventually be surrounded and killed.


    Were there thousands of this type of insect? Based on what he could see, there were tens of thousands flying about in the sky and attacking magical towers. No, there were over a hundred thousand!


    This was a disaster akin to that of doomsday. It had actually descended upon Alchemy City. This was really an unimaginable situation!


    If it had only been theserge insects, it would be one thing. The huge city in the sky was sending a flood of magic spells downwards! Even the sun had been blocked out. The edges of Floating City had turned into a brilliant golden glow. The entire Alchemy City had been covered in darkness, with only the glow of magic spells flowing down.


    Whoosh...


    The Golden Grand Swordmasters felt an intense vibration in their brain and fresh blood spurted from within their noses. They had been hit by a sound wave magic spell and the protective golden sword aura had not reacted in time. It had only been in time to staunch their wounds.


    It had been Saleen who had discovered the powerful swordmaster and ordered the enchanters to target and take care of him.


    A Golden Grand Swordmaster was even more difficult to handle than a grade-9 sorcerer was. That was under circumstances where the numbers were equal. Within the small and narrow range, Saleen¡¯s Floating City was able to assemble hundreds of enchanters tounch an attack against a single target. It was truly strong in this area.


    The numbers of Alchemy City¡¯s mages were great, but they were unable tounch a targeted attack at a small and narrow territory at the same time.


    The Ice Pistol spell, Extreme Cold spell, me Explosion spell...


    Three consecutive magical spells fell. Three hundred enchanters engaged in a wild and unrestrained bombardment aimed towards this Golden Grand Swordmaster. The Golden Grand Swordmaster died with eyes wide open, staring at Floating City in the air, and his breathing stopped in an instant.

 Chapter 1292: Unrestrained Robbery (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1292: Unrestrained Robbery (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Golden Grand Swordmaster had died, and the surrounding warriors had also met with a great cmity. The two wings of the Bug Angel Warriors vibrated, releasing a wind de, which caused the ground of the entire street to be sliced open. The wind des had attacked all of the surrounding creatures, and none had escaped.


    Saleen frowned deeply. He did not believe that Alchemy City was this weak and helpless. The attacks had already been ongoing for about half an hour. Not only had the Grand Duke¡¯s forces raided hundreds of magical towers, but even his puppets had taken advantage of the situation as much as they could, using this opportunity to plunder the assets of about ten magical towers.


    At this time, Grand Duke Iron Blood had already advanced one li into Alchemy City from the pier. He yelled towards the sky, ¡°Attack!¡±


    Saleen no longer hesitated. 24,000 enchanters released Saleen¡¯s specialty, the Ice Bomb Spell, at the same time. These ice bombs were like hailstones that filled the sky and pounded downwards. They differed from regr hailstones in the sense that what the more than 20,000 ice bombs were attacking was a single target.


    Over there was an inconspicuous six-floor magical tower. The magical tower¡¯s surroundings were a circle of iron constructions. ording to Imposa, this ce was one of the weak spots of the magic amplifier. It was said to be a weak spot, but in fact, it was about the same as an elemental point. At most, it could be considered as a position that could be attacked.


    Tens of thousands of magic spells poured down, triggering an elemental vibration. It seemed as if it was about to create an elemental storm. If not for Saleen¡¯s territory that was secretly suppressing it, these magic spells would have canceled each other out.


    There had never been such a strange attack before. About 20,000 magic spells were spaced out by two frames. Thirty would be released within one second, 1,800 would be released within one minute, and within about 10 minutes¡¯ time, 24,000 identical magic spells would bombard the same position. The ice bombs would turn into fireballs when ignited and would then explode. Their might was equivalent to that of a typical grade-9 magic spell.


    Arge pit with a depth of about 100 meters had been formed by the explosion at the target position. At the base of therge pit, a piece of gigantic magic equipment appeared. This was a part of therge-scale magic amplifier. Currently, this copper-colored piece of magic equipment had been destroyed by Saleen¡¯s attack. The revolving energy current had already beenpletely destroyed.


    If Alchemy City¡¯s mages were to repair it at this time, perhaps three to five minutes would be sufficient.


    Yet Saleen would not give anybody that opportunity. He divided out half of the enchanters to continue to attack this part. Anyone who approached would all suffer from the attack of tens of thousands of magic spells.


    For such a level of consumption, even Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s heart would palpitate with anxiety. If Saleen were to go and attack Dragon Ind, perhaps he would have to summon all of his Dragon Knights in order to resist against them.


    In that case, Dragon Ind¡¯s expenditures would be much greater than Saleen¡¯s.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was astonished, yet his hands were not careless. All of his forces were already storming into Alchemy City. The magical towers in which Alchemy City possessed immense wealth were all mapped out in his mind. That was based on the intelligence from Imposa. Imposa did not rob them alone either, only bringing the information to the duke. When the time came, he would share in the profits as well.


    However, this did not mean that Imposa would not make a move against him. He stepped on the gigantic metal gears beneath his feet. His flight speed was several times faster than that of the Bug Angel Warriors. When he had advanced to grade 10, this body that was part human and part machine had be even more menacing. The speed of the magic spells it released was about 10 times more than been before.


    Alchemy City had its own troops, yet they were not as well-organized as those of Metatrin City. Each part of the troops was designated to different mages. Amidst the Elemental Hand, their position was not high enough.


    In this round of attacks, Alchemy City was not able to estimate how dangerous it would be at all. On Floating City, the might of the enchanters had caused the mages to feel chills in their hearts for the first time.


    They were obviously a group of useless idiots, but within the magic, they became great sorcerers. The magic spells that these enchanters knew were extremely few and even in battle, they fought under Saleen¡¯s instructions. However, no matter how much these enchanters were looked down upon by others, during the battle, the might of the magic spells they released was not at allcking.


    The energy provided by therge-scale magic power furnace allowed the enchanters to attack without any reservations. Saleen¡¯s Divine Crystal had long been melted into a liquid and refined into medicine that was distributed. For the sake of destroying Alchemy City, he would go all out regardless of the cost, even if these enchanters all ended up suffering from heavy injuries and turned into waste.


    If they were unable to suppress the enemy during the initial half-hour, Alchemy City¡¯s ferocious counterattacks would cause Floating City to suffer severe damage. Arge number of mage trainers was no joke. If these people were to fly up to Floating City and attack its inner parts, Saleen¡¯s losses would be great as well.


    Attacking Alchemy City was a dangerous matter. If they were not ruthless enough and acted too cautiously, they would not be able to gain anything in the end. All of their ns would go up in smoke.


    Under repeated attacks towards the magic amplifier, the part of it that was on the ground had only received slight damage, and the damage was not to the magic amplifier itself. Saleen immediately knew that thisrge-scale magic amplifier was likely an ancient godly item. The ces hit by his attacks would only be temporarily unable to revolve. Now, this was troublesome!


    The tallest construction in the middle of Alchemy City had already been destroyed by magic spells. Nine grade-10 magic towers stood surrounding the city. At this time, they became eye-catching. The magical towers all released an intense elemental vibration at the same time. The concealed magic arrays below the magical towers allmunicated with one another. With the castle walls as the core, a huge magic pattern was released onto the ground.


    With one look, Imposa intuitively felt that this was not good. This had temporarily cut off the magic amplifier, yet it allowed the area between the great magic towers and the castle walls to form a defensive circle. The two huge statues guarding the west gate also came to life at this time, rushed into Alchemy City and began to hunt down the Bug Angel Warriors.


    The pieces of stone on entire bodies of the two giant statues, which exceeded 100 meters in height, had all turned into metal armor at this time. They held terrifying giant war hammers in their hands. With a single wave, they could pound a Bug Angel Warrior into a messy lump of bloody flesh.


    On the castle walls of Alchemy City, the glow of all kinds of elements turned more and more dazzling. They gradually formed a magic shield that enclosed the entire Alchemy City within it. Once Saleen saw this, he simplyughed coldly. Such defenses were good against ordinary people, but to deal with him, they were somewhat foolish.


    The protective shield was one and a half li tall, with the form of an eggshell. Saleen¡¯s Floating City immediately pressed down on it, directly knocking onto the magic shield. He did not care if Floating City was harmed. Furthermore, this degree of a collision could not possibly inflict harm upon Floating City.


    The nine magical towers trembled. The energy shield was abruptly pressed by Floating City until it broke. It released a great crash that shook the heavens and earth, and three sides of the city wall all copsed.


    At the base of Saleen¡¯s Floating City, a crack had also appeared.


    However, this crack was very shallow. The dull gold-colored energy current flowed within this crack for a few dozen seconds and had finished repairing it. In the upper part of Floating City, they had not even felt anything particrly dangerous at all.


    Hundreds of enchanters had perished in this collision. Saleen ordered the enchanters in the Magical Element Tower to make up for these losses, then handed Floating City over to the water puppet Rossen to control it. He then brought Nailisi and the rest of the party to rush down from Floating City.


    He could no longer stay put. The attacks on Floating City were unable to be of any threat to the remaining enemies. After the two giants had borne the continuous attacks of the magic spells, they had also swiftly recovered and could not be destroyed by grade-9 magic spells at all.


    In addition, there was really no way to destroy the magical towers by attacking them from a high altitude. Saleen had deliberately used Floating City for the collision but was also worried that after the collision, his Floating City would be worn out and temporarily unable to fly.


    Both sides had their own misgivings. The final method could not be utilized in Alchemy City.


    Saleen made his move and identified a benefit. At the borders of Alchemy City, in the ce that the giant statues had left behind, there was a magic warehouse. He was able to perceive that this magic warehouse was entirely a result of the practice of darkness spatial magic patterns. The magic warehouse had also been covered in attacks, yet it had not suffered any damage at all.


    The magic warehouse had a depth of at least one li underground. Because the giant statues had passed by this position, it had been lifted by hundreds of meters and was already in a dpidated state. The warehouses on the upper floors had not all been destroyed, and only the stone foundations below the ground had been exposed. It looked as if it were a magical facility for the flow of underground water.


    However, this could not fool Saleen. Close to this deep pit, there were 18 magical towers, divided into grade-9 and grade-10. The purpose of these magical towers was to guard this magic warehouse.


    Saleen rushed down from the skies, with Sika and Nailisi following beside him. J and the rest of the party had to defend Floating City to avoid the strong grade-10 people from rushing up to Floating City and upying it.


    Saleen forcefully rushed down. The 18 magical towers reacted speedily and immediately discovered Saleen¡¯s movements. The towers all released magic attacks at the same time. Behind Saleen, the magic amplifier flew and rotated. Saleen¡¯s territory suddenly increased its strength. Countless lightning bolts formed and caused the magic spells to be dispersed. The magic spells that were able to prate the electric currents close to his body were also nullified by the grade-10 Water Shield.


    ¡°There!¡± Saleen pointed at a grade-8 magical tower. Nailisi had already transformed into a devil. Holding the Grey Memory in her hands, she rushed forth. Her body was also shing with an electric current. She did not look at energy attacks at all. It was only for thepound types of magic attacks that she would use her square shield to block them.


    In the blink of an eye, Nailisi had already rushed up to the front of this magical tower, using a bay to pierce into the window on the eighth floor.


    The Grey Memory stirred, and all of the people in the eight-floor magical tower had been killed by the Grey Memory¡¯s bay.


    Sika was even faster than Nailisi. Her target was a grade-9 magical tower. A triangr-shaped bone piece flew out from her. This bone piece drilled into the grade-9 magical tower¡¯s window and flew about wildly. It had cleanly killed off the mages inside.


    The remaining towers only wisened up after this. One after another, they closed their doors and windows, releasing their own attacks separately from the magic array towards the outside.


    It was toote, however. With two magical towers destroyed, the remaining ones had difficulty in forming a joint attack. Sika summoned a soul beast and flew above a grade-9 magical tower. This ce was still an area untouched by attacks. Only the mages within this magical tower would still be able to engage in an attack against her. The other 10 or so magical towers already had no means to take care of this ce.


    Sika¡¯s hands held a metal totem pole. Following the tip of the magical tower, she pounded it downwards.


    With a loud crash, this magical tower shook and split, yet it still did not topple. The mages inside were already scared out of their wits. That female warrior had flown over and waved the huge weapon in her hands once, and had actually destroyed even the magical tower¡¯s defenses with her pounding.


    Was this a human?


    The triangr bone piece flew in. The dazed sorcerers had their necks sliced by Sika, and numerous heads tumbled down onto the floor.


    The magical towers¡¯ joint defenses had thoroughly copsed. Saleen drilled underground headfirst and released a Dissolution Scroll while facing the peak of the warehouse. Whening to Alchemy City this time, Saleen had made sufficient preparations. He was toozy to snatch ordinary wealth. Only such a warehouse was his target.

 Chapter 1293: Unrestrained Robbery (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1293: Unrestrained Robbery (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    This was a grade-11 Dissolution Spell that was originally meant for mages to deal with a powerful True Might at close range. Saleen throwing it at the peak of the warehouse was purely wasteful.


    However, without a grade-11 magic spell, this warehouse would really be difficult to open up. Saleen did not have the time to go and analyze this magic lock. Alchemy City¡¯s magic locks would definitely be grade-11. If they were to calcte things by the book, Saleen alone would still have to spend a few hours on it. A few hours¡¯ time would probably be sufficient for Alchemy City to summon even a grade-13 creature.


    Alchemy City was not like the forces of some small nobility. There were more than 10,000 mages here. In Alchemy City, those below grade-4 were not considered mages, and only those who surpassed grade 4 would be honored with that title.


    The actual number of mages in Alchemy City was estimated to be between 800,000 to 1,000,000.


    With such arge number of mages, the talents amidst them would not be small in number either. Under these circumstances where the city was about to be destroyed, it was very normal for any strange and unusual skills to be demonstrated.


    Saleen did note for a fight to the death. He wanted to take advantage of the chaos within Alchemy City to snatch away the items that he needed.


    What was the best item in Alchemy City? It was the ancient relic.


    Saleen¡¯s gains from searching the temples himself were undoubtedly plentiful, but the items left behind by the Four Great Dynasties would indeed be the greatest spoils. Apart from the Tanggsi Kingdom, because of the Holy See¡¯s control most people, no matter if they knew that there was an ancient relic, would not go and excavate it.


    Selling such information to Alchemy City would be able to fetch a decent price. Alchemy City would then organize their forces to go and relocate the entire ancient monument.


    Hence, within Alchemy City¡¯s warehouse, only such an item would be able to attract Saleen.


    His Floating City was still iplete. If he were able to find other fragments of Sky City, even if everything else was given to the Grand Duke, it would not matter.


    The grade-11 Dissolution Spell dissolved the peak of the magic warehouse up to a depth of about 8 meters. No matter how sturdy the magic material was, it had no way to resist Saleen¡¯s corrosion because of how ancient it was.


    If Alchemy City had elementite, perhaps this result would not have arisen either.


    The powerful Dissolution Spell stopped its work. Saleen saw that the peak of the warehouse still had its mezzanine. Within the mezzanine, there was ayer of magic array drawn with wrought gold. This caused the grade-11 Dissolution spell to lose its function as well.


    This type of magic array was connected to the earth¡¯s power and was rich in the earth element. Even Sika would not be able to use the metal totem pole to smash it.


    Above Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster, a silver-colored ball of lightning immediately flew out and sunk into the magic array. The points of the magic array were invaded by Saleen¡¯s ball of lightning and melted away in an instant.


    This was not just the power of high temperatures, but also the suppression of rules.


    The one who had drawn this magic array was a grade-10 mage trainer. They possessed territorial power and had used exceptionally high-grade magic materials, yet the magic array could not defend against Saleen¡¯s ball of lightning. After Saleen had found the elemental points, he could easily destroy this magic array.


    Another grade-11 Dissolution spell was used. This time, the magic warehouse¡¯s peak was smoothly dissolved.


    The thickness of the whole warehouse peak exceeded 20 meters. It had been entirely refined with magic materials. The mezzanine in the middle was able to nullify even a grade-13 magic attack and resist it three times at least.


    All of these preparations had beenpletely disintegrated in front of the Lightning Rules.


    Saleen leaped into a gigantic warehouse. The warehouse was divided into three floors. The items ced inside were mostly magic materials. There were noplete pieces of equipment. There were also crates and crates of magic nuclei, which were allbeled with their grades, sizes, purity, and the creatures they originated from, as well as their hunting time.


    Saleen summoned the lightning puppets to help him collect everything within the three floors of thisrge warehouse. Then, he used the fastest method to move all of them to the bottom floor of the warehouse.


    At the bottom floor, Saleen directly used the lightning icicles to pierce a hole that was 100 meters deep into the ground. Then he sent the second silver-colored ball of lightning into it.


    After the ball of lightning had entered, it quickly disintegrated the mezzanine the lightning icicle had not been able to pierce. Below the mezzanine, there was still another one.


    Yet Saleen did not know that these actions of his had already caused the Elemental Hand to feel frightened.


    Although the warehouse did not have any defenses, even a grade-10 mage trainer would not be able to invade it. Such warehouses were numerous in Alchemy City and were all shared by the Elemental Hand. The nine great mages did not trust one another. An item of the highest grade such as this could not be concealed within one¡¯s personal space; hence, it had been arranged within the warehouse whose defenses were strong enough to make one feel anxious.


    Now the warehouse¡¯s upper floor had been pierced open. This did not matter as the upper floor was originally a disguise. However, if the lower floor of the warehouse were pierced open any further, the precious item would be lost.


    They were not afraid of losing this item. They were not able to achieve any results when analyzing this item either. It was just that the material was of much too high a grade and was itself valuable enough to be stored and saved up. What the Elemental Hand was frightened about was this consideration: what kind of person would be able to swiftly pierce through the mezzanine of the warehouse and directly enter its bottom part?


    Saleen continued to throw down Dissolution Spell scrolls to corrode through the remaining defensiveyer and then jumped down.


    This warehouse was evenrger than the one above. The area it upied was about one li in size. If not for mages, an ordinary person would have trouble in constructing such a deep warehouse without any beams and poles underground.


    Saleen ignited the mes of magic and looked at the items stored within the warehouse. He was somewhat disappointed.


    It was an ancient alchemy tform, but all of its mechanisms were different from those of the present and its style was a bit strange. There was no need to mention its materialposition; it was entirely made of metal materials that could not be excavated from the current Myers Continent. Alchemy City did not take apart this gigantic alchemy tform. They probably wanted to look for its blueprints and restore it.


    If the gigantic alchemy tform could be restored, the pieces of equipment it would create daily would be calcted in terms of thousands or even tens of thousands.


    At this time, Nailisi rushed down. Saleen turned and left, calling out, ¡°ce it in the 12 Notes of Purgatory. We can¡¯t use it, so we will not leave it for Alchemy City either!¡±


    Saleen had only taken a hurried nce and had not discovered any secrets deeper underground. He left at once.


    None of the nine strongest magical towers of Alchemy City had been destroyed. Once the enemies counterattacked, there would no longer be any hope of making a quick buck.


    Saleen made some swift calctions and deduced the position of a simr warehouse. He recalled other ces that had simrly been surrounded by magical towers, went up above the ground, and called Sika.


    Sika had already destroyed four magical towers and was somewhat exhausted. Seeing that Saleen hade out, she immediately allowed the soul beast to fly down, grab Saleen, and leave. Saleen turned over and sat on the soul beast¡¯s back. He pointed towards a ce thaty in the south.


    The two wings of the soul beast pped, and in the blink of an eye, it had gone forward by hundreds of meters. For the first time, Saleen felt that the soul beast¡¯s speed was this frightening. This was also normal. When Sika had been grade-9, the soul beast¡¯s flight speed had already been faster than that of most mages.


    No mages would be able to keep up with such speed. Saleen felt as if he was traveling through space. It was just that the distance was too short. At one time, they could only travel for about 500 meters. In less than half a minute¡¯s time, Saleen had already arrived at his destination. He contacted the water puppet in the sky. The water puppet immediately organized the enchanters to release strong magic spells downwards.


    They were all variations of the Fireball spell. After the Ice Bombs had atomized, they were once again ignited and finally exploded.


    The earth shook, and deeper and deeper pits were sted in it. They instantly arrived at the position of the warehouse. The magic spells continued to attack. It was only after attacking downwards for dozens of meters that they touched the mezzanine of the warehouse. The mezzanine of the warehouse that had been crafted by Alchemy City was indeed tough. The tens of thousands of enchanters on Floating City had attacked it, yet they were unable to rip it open.


    Saleen ordered the attacks to cease. He jumped down and released a ck-colored ball of lightning to destroy an elemental point once more. Saleen could only produce eight such balls of lightning per day. He originally wanted to use it to deal with powerful enemies, but now he had no choice but to use it to destroy the defenses of the warehouse. This was a matter about which he felt very unwilling.


    After the mezzanine had been destroyed, Saleen took flight and once again allowed the enchanters to attack and thoroughly destroy the ceiling of the upper floor of the warehouse. Creating a grade-11 scroll was extremely difficult, even if the sess rate was high.


    A grade-10 mage trainer could only create one within a day and would then have to rest. Saleen did not want to make all of Metatrin¡¯s grade-10 mage trainers do this task.


    After entering this warehouse, Saleenughed. In the warehouse, there were the items he most liked ¨C elemental crystals.


    These fire elemental crystals would normally only be attainable from the particles found deep insideva. Saleen had once gained a significant amount of these and had distributed them all out to be used in refining weapons. Otherwise, he could not possibly possess such powerful pieces of equipment to give out to his troops.


    His Bug Angel Armors also had fire elemental crystals added to them. At the ce where he captured the Great Fire Snake, he had also gained some wealth.


    The lightning puppets were once again summoned and frantically looted the ce. Then, Saleen used the Dissolution Spell Scroll to corrode the floor below. It was a piece of cake for him. Again, he released a white-colored ball of lightning and pierced through the mezzanine on the lower floor of the warehouse.


    There were a few rounds of repetition. Sika, who was looking on, also felt dazzled.


    ¡°Find Nailisi and ask her to return. I may not be able to take away the items downstairs myself!¡±


    Sika nodded. At this time, she also knew that time was of essence. Saleen had personallye down to search. Such an opportunity would note by again. Alchemy City had met with a disaster. After looking back on this incident, they would rebuild the city and create a fortress that was difficult to capture.


    Saleen leaped down to the lower floor of the warehouse. This time, he was not disappointed, because he had seen all kinds of fragments that had spilled out in the warehouse. These had indeed originated from Sky City.


    In a corner, Saleen discovered three of Sky City¡¯s mechanical cores. The three mechanical cores were in a state of ruin, but that did not matter. He had the Genesis Stock Solution. At most, he would waste about 10 times more materials, but he would still be able to restore them.


    Floating City¡¯s flight had always been a problem. After gaining these three mechanical cores, they would more or less be able to solve Floating City¡¯s motorization problem.


    Saleen kept the three mechanical cores within his Starline Ring on the spot. In this warehouse, there weren¡¯t any items that were toorge in scale and there was no need for Nailisi¡¯s help. He directly used his territorial power to sweep up all of the fragments and keep them within the ring.


    In this single story, a countless amount of all kinds of Sky City¡¯s fragments had been umted. Adding in the three mechanical cores, Saleen¡¯s actions of attacking Alchemy City had finally paid off. If he had only gained some magic nuclei, Saleen would cry until no more tears were left for him.


    Indeed, Alchemy City was extremely wealthy, yet it was iparably petty! If the nine leaders of the Elemental Hand had not been so guarded against one another, how would such materials have been left to umte in this warehouse?

 Chapter 1294: Angel City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1294: Angel City (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen turned and went back to the floor above, but saw that Sika had fallen and descended instead.


    Saleen released a white ball of lightning without any hesitation. It rushed out of the hole that he had corroded. A person who was capable of forcing Sika to retreat could only be level 11.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m fine!¡± Sika turned over and stepped on the triangr bone piece. Evidently, she was unhurt.


    ¡°What about the soul beast?¡±


    ¡°Above. It¡¯s a God Puppet. Be more careful.¡± As Sika spoke, a piercing whistling sound emitted from below her feet, and she once again rushed out of the hole. This time, she did not use the metal totem pole. The cost of using it was quiterge for her. Her staff was the easiest to use.


    Saleen used Jalin¡¯s movement skill, propped up the Water Shield, and rushed in front of Sika in the blink of an eye. He was prudent and summoned dozens of lightning puppets from the air to quicklye down to the ground and stand in front of him.


    Arge hand swept away the puppets and sent them flying, but its movements had been affected by the electric currents on the lightning puppets¡¯ bodies. Saleen took the opportunity to grab Sika and rush up to the surface, but saw a metal angel that was waving around a ymore and killing the Bug Angel Warriors.


    There were very few Bug Angel Warriors, and they were unable to surround it. Saleen felt it was fortunate. If the metal angel encountered the Bug Angels, they would be able to suppress it. The warriors who were maneuvering the Bug Angel Armor did not have a sufficiently high level and did not have any means to deal with the higher lever metal angel.


    The angel was not afraid of physical attacks, but elemental attacks were not the Bug Angel Warriors¡¯ strong suit. Fire elemental crystals could be added within these Bug Angel Armors.


    Saleen was aware of the extent of the Bug Angel Armor¡¯s strength. Most magic spells below level 9 would be unable to rip it apart. If the warrior within the armor was not hit, the Bug Angel Armor would be able to continue fighting. However, with a stroke of the metal angel¡¯s sword, the Bug Angel Warriors would immediately be sliced in two.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Saleen leapt onto the soul beast whose tail had been cut and flew upwards.


    The metal angel saw that Saleen leaving and paused, as if it had received somemands. It threw aside the Bug Angel Warriors around it, jumped, and flew up, chasing after Saleen.


    The soul beast¡¯s tail had been injured, but it did not affect its flight. With a flutter of its wings, it travelled a quarter of a kilometer. The metal angel dispersed the air, forming a visible pathway in the sky, and immediately caught up behind the soul beast.


    Saleen returned a Sigh of the Earth. Under the effects of the magic amplifier, the level 9 magic spell became exceptionally powerful. It actually petrified the metal angel, causing it to fall towards the earth. Saleen did not stop, heading straight towards Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    However, Grand Duke Iron Blood had not seen his actions. After attacking two warehouses, Saleen found the items that he wanted, and his thoughts of piging the city immediately weakened. He did not even want to capture the metal angel and left it for Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    The metal angel fell to the ground and broke into pieces, but the petrification effect vanished. It had been an elerated attack. Being able to petrify it had entirely been due to the efforts of Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier.


    The fragmented metal angel was like liquid, and flowed along the ground and assembled once more. Once it got its bearing, then continued to chase after Saleen.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood saw Saleen from a distance, Sika standing beside him and a gigantic metal angel releasing a Booming Sound behind him. He immediately understood Saleen¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°Many thanks.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood summoned a rainbow dragon, and the item in his hands swapped to a red dragon spear. The rainbow dragon¡¯s body was much smaller, but its level was the same as the purple gold dragon. They had all been sealed at level 12.


    With a p of the soul beast¡¯s wings, they moved about 500 meters. The metal angel attacked fiercely a few times and failed. Saleen had made several turns before arriving where Grand Duke Iron Blood was to give Grand Duke Iron Blood time to prepare.


    A rainbow colored radiance shone on Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s red colored dragon spear. The metal angel swayed slightly, and the rainbow dragon already rushed forth. The Grand Duke spear pierced through the head of the metal angel.


    It was the first time Saleen had seen a dragon knight battle. He felt that the spear was more menacing than Nailisi¡¯s Grey Memory. The Grey Memory relied on the Silverline Golden Spearfish bay¡¯s inherent magic power, whereas the Grand Duke¡¯s spear focused all of the rainbow dragon¡¯s power. He was merely the person who aimed it.


    Magic shields below level 12 would definitely be pierced by the spear. After Saleen made this evaluation, he attached even more importance on Grand Duke Iron Blood. If dragon knights were that intimidating, he could wrangle some more benefits from Alchemy City before leaving.


    The originally powerful recovery ability of the metal angel waspletely useless before a dragon knight. The red dragon spear contained the power of the rainbow dragon. The metal angel¡¯s body hardened, its wounds opened even more quickly, and its head broke into two pieces.


    When hit by a dragon spear, they needed to resist the power of the giant dragon. After Saleen had looked, he smiled at Grand Duke Iron Blood and retrieved a sealing scroll. ¡°I need a giant dragon like this.¡±


    The sealing scroll in his hands was level 11 and made of starline paper.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood hesitated. ¡°I want 50 pieces!¡±


    ¡°Deal!¡± Saleen readily expanded the sealing scroll, sealing the metal angel inside, and tossed the scroll at Grand Duke Iron Blood. Grand Duke Iron Blood was stunned. He immediately realized that they both had special goods. Saleen¡¯s starline paper was extremely valuable and the sealing scrolls created from it would be especially effective, while he possessed giant dragons.


    With Saleen¡¯s capabilities, if he could sneak into the giant dragons¡¯ ne, he would be able to hunt down level 12 giant dragons as long as they were alone. However, the coordinates of the giant dragons¡¯ ne were only known by the core figures in his n.


    By exchanging 50 level 11 scrolls for a level 12 giant dragon, neither of them would lose. The starline sealing scrolls could be used to deal with level 12 creatures. However, the giant dragon Saleen wanted was a sealed giant dragon, which meant that it had to be higher than level 12.


    Of course, Grand Duke Iron Blood would not capture a powerful dragon for Saleen. It would be level 13 at most, so Saleen would not lose either. If it was simply a level 12 giant dragon, Saleen¡¯s 50 pieces of scrolls would have been too much.


    A giant dragon above level 12 was not meant for cultivating dragon knights in particr. It was to allow the giant dragon to rece the level 10 dragon in Nature City. A level 10 giant dragon was not adequate for bing Nature City¡¯s guardian mythical beast.


    The trade wasplete. For a trade of that level, Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood could not be bothered to sign a contract. Attacking Alchemy City had allowed the alliance between the two to stabilize naturally. Otherwise, dealing with Alchemy City¡¯s fury alone would be troublesome.


    Currently Saleen was at Pompeii and Grand Duke Iron Blood was at Lianyun City. Both controlled Alchemy City from a distance. No matter which side Alchemy City chose to attack, the other side would alsoe to attack them.


    The rainbow dragon circled in the air and rushed towards a magical tower. It opened its mouth and spewed out dragon¡¯s breath, destroying the peak of the magical tower.


    Saleen contemted. He saw Nailisi take flight and made a decision. He caught up to Grand Duke Iron Blood. ¡°I know a high level giant dragon will leave behind a dragon soul and will not be exterminated. I want a golden giant dragon¡¯s dragon soul, and its level cannot be lower than level 16. Quote me a price.¡±


    The rainbow giant dragon growled angrily, and Saleen roared back. His Thundering Sound was intimidating and blocked the level 12 dragon¡¯s might.


    The rainbow giant dragon could not help but retreat a few meters. It felt slightly ashamed and angry and wanted to attack Saleen. Immediately, a white ball of lightning appeared in front of Saleen.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood scolded. Only then did the rainbow giant dragon close its mouth.


    Saleenughed coldly, tossing the ball of lightning at another metal angel that came from the ground. The white ball moved swiftly, entering the body of the metal angel and causing the metal angel to fall to the ground. Its entire body turned rigid, and it was unable to get up.


    The rainbow giant dragon immediately looked afraid. Grand Duke Iron Blood said, ¡°Saleen, a level 16 golden giant dragon¡¯s dragon soul is too difficult to settle. If I was able to obtain such a powerful dragon soul, I would have to feed my own dragons first.¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke, is it not good for you to quote me a price? Don¡¯t worry. As long as it is not my Floating City, feel free to state anything.¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood hesitated. The golden giant dragon was the most difficult to capture. Its magical resistance was too high, and its physical defense was ridiculously strong. Even a level 10 giant golden dragon would be difficult to handle, and Saleen wanted a level 16 dragon soul?


    They could only be found in the Cemetery of Giant Dragons. The golden giant dragons¡¯ dragon souls possessed arge portion of its strength when it was alive. His dragon capturing squad could not handle it.


    ¡°If it¡¯s your ancient battleship, I can help you restore it, including the magics. You have Dragon Blood Warriors. Dragon Blood Mages can be created as well. A low level Dragon Blood Mage would definitely have extremely strong mental powers. It would undoubtedly be the best if they were used as enchanters.¡± Saleen tempted the Grand Duke.


    The golden giant dragon devoured by Nailisi was not a low level, but without a dragon soul, Nailisi¡¯s advancement would be slow. The golden giant dragon¡¯s corpse obviously did not have a dragon soul.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was immediately moved, but he still said, ¡°it depends on luck. The giant dragons¡¯ ne is fraught with danger. The cemetery of the dragon race cannot be easily entered. I will help you to search. Once I find it, we will strike a deal, how about that?¡±


    Saleen nodded. It seemed like the matter of the dragon soul could only be dyed.


    From afar, Inbosa saw that Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood were having a discussion and could not help but toss aside the metal angel that was engaged in a fierce battle with him. He steered his gigantic metal gear and flew back.


    ¡°Saleen, how were you able to enter the underground warehouses, I am willing to trade!¡±


    Saleen burst out inughter. ¡°Inbosa, for the things in the underground warehouses, what will you trade with!¡±


    ¡°Golden giant dragon scroll. An ancient giant dragon¡¯s soul is sealed in it. Do you want it or not!¡± Inbosa retrieved a red-gold scroll. The scroll was not tied up with themon magic beast¡¯s hide, but instead with a dragon¡¯s vein.


    Saleen paused. He had used his territory to control sounds, but Inbosa had still been able to hear it. Even if he had not deliberately controlled it, such power caused people to be on guard.

 Chapter 1295: Angel City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1295: Angel City (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen paused. ¡°The dragon soul within this scroll, what level is it?¡±


    ¡°level 16!¡±


    ¡°What level is its current power at?¡±


    ¡°level 16!¡± Inbosa said eagerly. ¡°Give me the method for entering the underground warehouses, and this scroll is yours. I will handle the metal angels, and we will divide the items equally in half!¡±


    ¡°What are you looking for?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to worry about it. Is it alright or not?¡±


    Saleen no longer hesitated. If he entered the underground warehouse, dealing with the metal angels would be a problem. Many of his balls of lightning had already been consumed. He could still mobilize four today. The four balls of lightning were used to protect his life.


    Inbosa was willing to help Saleen deal with the metal angels, and Saleen did not mind continuing to gain wealth either.


    ¡°Hurry, Alchemy City will react very quickly. We will be able to clear out two warehouses at most. After that, it will be a bitter fight!¡± Inbosa hurrying Saleen was a rare sight, and he no longer worried about showing courtesy. His half metal face was slightly distorted with nerves.


    Saleen tossed the level 11 Dissolution Spell Scroll at Inbosa. Inbosa saw the scroll and couldn¡¯t help but smile bitterly. He also had the means to create it, but his chance of sess was much lower than Saleen¡¯s because hecked starline paper.


    Furthermore, very few mages were willing to cultivate a level 11 Dissolution Spell when they were at level 10. Most mages would choose a strong offensive magic spell.


    Saleen was able to have many Dissolution Spells because Metatrin City¡¯s mages had more choice, and it was not urgent for them to pursuebat capabilities.


    Inbosa attacking Alchemy City was not without purpose. He saw that Saleen was able to enter within the underground warehouses and immediately thought of the item that he needed. The opportunity would note back once it was lost. Inbosa made a split decision, taking on the responsibility of fending off the metal angels. Even if he had to give Saleen half of the benefits, he still wanted to locate that item.


    ¡°How much of a guarantee do you have?¡± Saleen did not forget to ask.


    ¡°Within approximately three warehouses, I will have two chances.¡± As Inbosa spoke, he summoned his Iron Blood warriors. Twelve Iron Blood warriors with lively expressions in their eyes stood on the metal disc. They surrounded Inbosa and rushed towards the southeast part of the city.


    Saleeny down an order for Rossen, for the enchanters to focus on dealing with the two giant statues. As of the other metal angels, they did not have to pay them any mind.


    The giant statues were the backbone of Alchemy City. The metal angels had all been summoned. Without killing the enchanter, the metal angels would be infinite.


    Alchemy City¡¯s stores would definitely be able to summon sufficient numbers of metal angels.


    Who knew which god¡¯s divine kingdom Alchemy City had obtained to make them able to summon this many angels. Saleen had already lost all hope for them to defeat Alchemy City. He simply hoped that Grand Duke Iron Blood would kill as many enemies as he could and take away their assets.


    At the core of Alchemy City, a huge magic array was flowing with golden liquid. For each half an hour, three metal angels appeared in the magic array. The golden liquid continuously emerged between nine magical towers. The number of metal angels was slowly increasing. In the magical tower, the nine grand mages filled with anxiety.


    They had summoned the metal angels, but they had dyed the restoration of the magic amplifier. There was no way for such summons to be stopped. The enemy¡¯s casualties were undoubtedlyrge, but because theycked the assistance of the magic amplifier, Alchemy City¡¯s mages suffered simr losses.


    The metal angels were ferocious, but they did not know how to distinguish friend from foe. Alchemy City¡¯s mages were identally injured by the metal angels. It seemed to be a three way battle.


    Saleen¡¯s territory expanded. Although it could not control the metal angels¡¯ movements, but most of the battle was within his perception.


    The metal angels¡¯ numbers were increasing. The periphery of Alchemy City had been destroyed by Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯srge joint puppet. However, the Bug Angel Warriors¡¯ battle had met with an obstruction. They were not able to resist the attacks of the giant statues and the metal angels.


    Saleen called for Sika and Nailisi to follow him, leave the city center, and follow behind Inbosa. Inbosa headed to an underground warehouse. Metatrin City also had underground warehouses, hidden even deeper.


    The 12 Iron Blood warriors at Inbosa¡¯s side looked strange to Saleen. They were controlled by human body alchemy and typically looked dazed and silly and were much worse than his own ancient warriors. The 12 Iron Blood warriors had a ferocious gaze, and a dark and cold aura was emitted from their bodies.


    ¡°Master, do you think this Inbosa has lost his mind?¡± Nailisi asked from behind Saleen.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°His soul... split again. At this rate, even if he has secret arts, he will lose control eventually.¡± The jade green glow of Nailisi¡¯s two eyes shed as they looked at Inbosa.


    Soul-splitting...


    Saleen recalled thest time he fought with Inbosa. He had been able to kill Inbosa, but he had escaped. It seemed that Inbosa had relied on was a soul-splitting spell.


    Nailisi switched to use soulmunication to speak to Saleen. ¡°Master, be on guard against Inbosa. Once the timees when he is unable to control this skill, even Grand Duke Iron Blood will not be safe.¡±


    Saleen nodded. Inbosa had modified himself into half human and half machine for the sake of power. Now he had also split his soul in an attempt to gain even stronger power. It seemed that he was indeed a little crazy.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was such a calm person. Why would he use of Inbosa, who was crazy? Was it simply because of his alchemy skills?


    Saleen was unable to understand. He knew that he had Water me Alchemy and did not need to beg others for any matters, so he did not feel that Inbosa was particrly important. Perhaps to Grand Duke Iron Blood, Inbosa¡¯s usefulness could not be reced.


    ¡°This won¡¯t do!¡± The Elemental Hand¡¯s nine mage trainers felt things were not good. One of the mage trainers transmitted a sound to his partner. ¡°The summoning speed of the metal angels is too slow. If we wait for the summoning to beplete, the city will bepletely destroyed!¡±


    ¡°Then what should we do?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we summon an archangel that can bring all the angels along at the same time!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s too dangerous.¡± Immediately, there were some mages who objected.


    ¡°We can take this opportunity to restore the magic amplifier. As long as the magic amplifier is restored, our magic arrays will be able to join up and form an ancient array. When that timees, we will be able to control the archangel.¡±


    ¡°Everyone vote whether or not to summon the archangel.¡±


    The nine mage trainers knew that things could not be dyed. The nine of them controlled everything, and the core of the city was theirs. The Elemental Hand divided to take charge of different mages. During battle, there was no way for the people below them to form an effective cooperation.


    The power structure did not necessarily have any significant problems. It was just that Alchemy City had never thought that there would be people who would directly engage in battle with them in the inner part of the city.


    Alchemy City only had this one weakness, and it had been grasped by Inbosa. As a result, Saleen¡¯s Floating City aggressively sent in about 200,000 Bug Angel Warriors, and from the pier there were about 20,000 Iron Blood warriors. This immediately caused Alchemy City¡¯s defenses to fall apart as if they had been captured.


    If the city had been attacked from the outside, the current scenario would not have happened.


    Alchemy City¡¯s mages felt that doomsday had arrived. The only glow in the sky was the radiance of magic from Floating City. At the fringes of the city, there were actually mages who began escaping.


    At the city centre, the Elemental hand¡¯s nine grand magesmunicated with one another using magic arrays. Each of them wrote down their decision on the magic array.


    Five people agreed to summon the metal archangel, the other four people objected.


    ¡°Since this is the case, let¡¯s take action!¡± the mage trainer who had suggested summoning the metal archangel said.


    ¡°Alright...¡± One of the mage trainers who had objected to summoning the archangel sighed. The crisis of Alchemy City had suddenly blown up, causing a few people to be caught off guard. The magic amplifier also had to encounter an issue. Restoring it was simple and could bepleted if a few of them took action. Perhaps it would not even take an hour.


    However, the summoning magic array could not be stopped. Even if they stopped, the summoning array would not stop. If there was no one to control it, the summoning array would consume the prepared magic nucleipletely before stopping.


    They were afraid of enemies attacking, the nine grand elders would have no excess energy to respond. Now it was fine, but it had tied their hands. Because if no one kept watch over it while the magic array kept running, what it would summon might not be a metal angel but something else from the divine kingdom that was even more terrifying.


    Creatures summoned from the divine kingdom could not be sent back. The metal angels could be controlled, but many creatures of the god race could not be. Even if the enemies did not attack, Alchemy City would still be done for.


    Since they had made their decision, the nine grand mage trainers began to modify their summoning mantra, manipting the puppets to replenish the magic array on the ground with even higher level magic nuclei.


    There were level 10 and level 11 metal angels, but an archangel would definitely be level 13. The metal archangel had some special traits. Even if it had been summoned to the Myers Continent, its capabilities would not be reduced much. It would still be able to be level 13. Furthermore, it would possess all the skills of level 13.


    The Elemental Hand¡¯s mages did not hope for the archangel topletely kill off their enemies. Rather, after they finished summoning the archangel, the magic array would more or less stop running, and the nine people would not need to keep watch. They could mobilize the forces they held to fight with the enemy.


    Golden liquid surged from the magic array. A huge hexagram had formed in the center with elemental vibrations had already reached a level that would soon be uncontroble. The nine mage trainers carefully maintained the magic array. They had only tried to summon a level 13 creature once before.


    A pure white hand stretched out of the hexagram, stabilizing the elements around the array. Immediately, a pure white arm followed it. A female angel climbed out from the magic array.


    Angels were all androgynous. Male and female typically meant they had certain special properties.


    ¡°I have been summoned?¡± The female angel stood resolutely and looked about, not at all bothered about her naked body. Angels were a god¡¯s weapon. A weapon did not care about whether or not they were revealed to others.

 Chapter 1296: Each Takes What is Needed (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1296: Each Takes What is Needed (Part 1)</h4>


    Six of the towers shot aplex magic beam into the air. Energy flowed in the beams, and there were tens of thousands of magic runes.


    The other three level 10 magical towers shot the same magic beam towards the sky. They entwined, forming a solidified magic array.


    The female archangel was engulfed in the magic array. About 1,000 magic runes floated up from the magic array, about to enter the angel¡¯s body.


    The archangel furrowed her eyebrows, and the pure white feathered wings on her back fluttered. The nine magic beams were sliced at the root. The nine mage trainers only saw nine feathers slice apart the energy at the tip of the magical towers. They could no longer maintain the magic array.


    ¡°Summoning me is one issue, but you want to enve me!¡± The archangel grumbled. She turned back and reached out her hand into the hexagon, pulling out a silver suit of armor. It shivered in her hands and draped over her body. Her hand touched the inside of the summoning array and pulled out a spear.


    ¡°Yes? I¡¯m really free!¡± The archangel was delighted. She lowered her head, rushed towards the spatial pathway formed by the summoning circle, and yelled, ¡°everyonee out!¡±


    The earth trembled, and the summoning array split in half. The spatial pathway became a huge spatial door, and hundreds of metal angels took the moment to emerge from the spatial door.


    The archangel led the metal angels to expand their wings. With a whoosh, they flew up high towards the sky.


    The summoning array on the ground copsed, and the spatial gate would also fall apart in a few seconds. All other constructions had already been destroyed by the dimensional storm formed by the copse of the spatial door.


    Everything had urred without a sound. The nine mage trainers¡¯ mouths hung open. It took 10 seconds for everybody to react. The mage trainer who usually tookmand shouted, ¡°quickly trigger the city territory!¡±


    City territory!


    The mage trainers lost theirposure and began yelling. There were a total of 24 level 10 magical towers in the city, and they all erupted with a great amount of energy. Each tower was an elemental point of the magic array. After they erupted, the energy shield released by Alchemy City¡¯s city walls stopped operating and withdrew.


    A formless territorial power was released. The Elemental Hand¡¯s elders panicked. There should not be any mistakes when summoning a metal archangel. How could this be?


    The mages were in a frenzy of panic and had unconsciously released the city territory.


    The city territory was the main asset used for Alchemy City to protect their lives. Once it was used, it would be difficult to mobilize within the next few dozen years as it needed to slowly draw on power from the earth. Alchemy City was a huge piece of magic equipment and the 24 core magical towers formed the city territory.


    Floating City shook vigorously in the skies of Alchemy City. This was elemental garbling!


    The water puppet hurriedly made Floating City fly up. It flew up by about 10,000 meters. Only then did it escape from Alchemy City¡¯s territorial power. A city¡¯s territorial power had caused Floating City to be forced back.


    Rossen did not dare to force his way downwards. He was afraid of the elemental storm that woulde after the elemental garbling. Floating City was not perfect. There were many gaps in its defense. Daring to have Floating City hover above Alchemy City was purely due to the sturdiness of the materials that were used in its structure.


    If a huge elemental storm urred, Floating City would be the first to fall.


    Saleen immediately felt the city defense. The entire city was wrapped in an immense power. It felt just like the first time he had seen the sea.


    His lightning territory could not be suppressed by the city territory, but it was visibly thinner and electric currents no longer flowed wildly. Saleen was not surprised. The formation of his lightning territory had been quite rushed, too many of its areas were crude and could not bepletely controlled. The city territory had caused the lightning territory to be dispersed and be exceptionally thin. However, it allowed Saleen to be able to perceive the mysteriousness of the lightning territory.


    ¡°Saleen, let¡¯s go.¡± Sika felt uneasy. She could feel that the power was unrivalled.


    ¡°No, you and Nailisi should stay together. Take this opportunity to sacrifice the soul beast. Inbosa and I will search for the warehouses. Alchemy City¡¯s array is facing an issue. It has summoned an extremely powerful being that cannot be controlled. The territorial power is not targeted at us, otherwise Grand Duke Iron Blood would have escaped long ago.¡±


    ¡°You must be careful.¡± Sika only spoke one sentence and then stayed behind with Nailisi. She looked around, found a seven floor magical tower, brandished her staff and barged into it. No one would be bothered by her presence. Alchemy City¡¯s mages were all thinking of ways to handle the archangel who had gone out of control.


    Sika rushed into the magical tower. Therge soul beast roared. The people in the magical tower were shaking with confusion. Originally, the level 7 magical tower was not like that. When Nailisi rushed in, she first threw in the triangr bone piece, which emitted a strong wailing sound, as if tens of thousands of people were weeping.


    The mages in the tower immediately became dispirited and could no longer manipte the magical tower to attack. The angry roar of the soul beast caused the people in the entire magical tower to feel cursed.


    Sika originally wanted to knock these people out, but Nailisi had stabbed them all with her spear. All of the ces she had passed, the people had been stabbed to death.


    Sika felt helpless. Nailisi¡¯s actions were too ruthless, and she would not leave behind any survivors. But it was also good; she could cultivate her own priest skills and avoid having others discover any of her secrets.


    The soul beast outside the magical towers shrank and rushed into the magical tower. Sika summoned her three great beast spirits and proceeded with the sacrifice in the magical tower. Nailisi smoothed out the scroll that Saleen had tossed over to her. An ancient giant dragon¡¯s soul was sealed within this scroll.


    A golden giant dragon. She could also transform into one, but because she had not absorbed a giant dragon¡¯s soul, her golden giant dragon was weak. It was sufficient for bullying the demons, but if she encountered a real giant dragon, it would not work. By swallowing the ancient golden giant dragon¡¯s soul, she could finally perfect Luoluokaluo¡¯s skills.


    Nailisi was a little more rxed. Recently, Master¡¯s enemies had be stronger and stronger, making it so that even if one wanted to skive, they couldn¡¯t!


    Nailisi retrieved the 12 Notes of Purgatory and opened the spatial door, allowing the Shackles of the Fallen to spread out. It was shaped like a cage, enclosing Sika. Iit would be difficult for anybody to be able to injure Sika. Nailisi could snatch Sika back into the Purgatory of the Fallen at any time and take her away.


    Saleen moved rxedly. Although the power of the Lightning Constetion had been weakened, but Saleen could still move like Jalin. The giant¡¯s bone crystals in his possession were far too great in number to count.


    Inbosa stuck close to the ground. The gigantic metal gears revolved and destroyed constructions along the way. Saleen found that Inbosa¡¯s unwillingness to fly high also had reasons. Of the power that had erupted from this city, the parts close to the ground were the weakest.


    Saleen calcted his own power. He could use the n badge, but that was ast resort. He still had four balls of lightning and seven lightning icicles. The 24 magic spells on the Starline robe had not been utilized. He still had arge number of scrolls in his possession, as well as four star figures left behind by Gaine. That was it. It should be able to handle the situation that would take ce.


    Saleen used territorial power to peek at the archangel¡¯s image. It was a perfect body that possessed mighty powers. If he faced her, probably only a skill like the Crystal Finger would be able to catch her off guard. The archangel would be able to dodge all the other pieces of equipment.


    It was best not to aggravate the being. Anyway, the angel was not of the Holy See, so it could be left for the Holy See¡¯s people to worry about.


    Hey, star figure!


    Saleen suddenly realized that under these circumstances, his star figure¡¯s power was not weakened, but strengthened! So the city¡¯s power originated from astrologers.


    Nobody had said when Alchemy City had been established. It was said that it was originally a ce where a mage¡¯s gathering had been located, and itter formed a city.


    Since it was an astrologer¡¯s power, why was there no Power of the Constetions?


    It must have gone through a mage¡¯s modifications. After all, the Power of the Constetion was slightly more distant aspared to power from the earth. Mages did not have an astrologer¡¯s means and the power of the earth element was still the most reliable.


    After thinking through the crux of the matter, Saleen was no longer worried. He could break through this city¡¯s power. He only needed to summon the four star figures so that they could take him to forcefully break through. Gaine¡¯s star figures possessed this ne¡¯s strongest constetion rules within them.


    Saleen¡¯s aura suddenly stabilized. Grand Duke Iron Blood felt it strange and turned back to nce at him. The rainbow giant dragon was running on the ground and did not dare to fly, how could Saleen suddenly rx?


    Saleen smiled at Grand Duke Iron Blood. Inbosa arrived above an underground warehouse and spread out the Dissolution Spell scroll. Inbosa¡¯s mental power was quickly consumed, which scared him. He had clearly spied on Saleen continuously entering two underground warehouses. Alchemy City¡¯s underground warehouses were also divided into two stories.


    Saleen had used at least four Dissolution Spell scrolls. If it was based on this level of consumption, he could release four scrolls at most before his mental power waspletely consumed. Why could Saleen use level 11 magic spell scrolls this easily?


    Inbosa drank a bottle of medicine to fully replenish his mental power.


    The strong Dissolution Spell caused a huge hole to be corroded into the ground. Inbosa¡¯s alchemy showed its strength. Saleen had first used magic spells to st the ceiling of the warehouse, then used the Dissolution Spell scroll, whereas Inbosa directly used it on the ground. The Dissolution Spell was controlled and was released downwards, directly dissolving the mezzanine of the warehouse.


    Inbosa saw that the Dissolution Spell was ineffective on the mezzanine, and his brows furrowed. He readily retrieved a bottle and poured out the liquid inside it.


    It was metallic poison that had been refined dozens of times. The bottle of poison was worth even more than a level 11 scroll. The metallic poison swiftly caused the surface of the mezzanine to be mottled.


    Inbosa reached out. Saleen smiled as he handed over three Dissolution Spell scrolls. If they wanted to reach below the mezzanine, they would still need toplete three more rounds of dissolution before they could enter.


    Saleen would not release his balls of lightning. He could still release four of the balls, and each would be Saleen¡¯s trump card. Inbosa wanted to destroy this mezzanine, so he would let him think of a way.


    The metallic poison corroded arge part of the magic patterns on the mezzanine. Inbosa immediately released the second Dissolution Spell scroll. Below the mezzanine, anotherrge hole appeared. Inbosa = released a Fossilization spell, petrifying the hole, and then he drilled his way in.


    With his scorpion-like body, entering and leaving this cave was even easier.

 Chapter 1297: Each Takes What is Needed (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1297: Each Takes What is Needed (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s rainbow giant dragon was not willing to enter the cave, so Grand Duke Iron Blood could only stand guard outside.


    Inbosa controlled the 12 Iron Blood warriors and followed to enter the warehouse. Saleen looked around. The people close to him were not around. He summoned a star figure to follow him. Only then did he leap into the cave.


    The first floor was entirely filled with piles of space boxes. Inbosa saw that Saleen had followed him. ¡°Each person will take half.¡±


    ¡°Alright, each person will take half.¡± Saleen summoned hundreds of lightning puppets.


    Inbosa saw the lightning puppets and felt envious. Iron Blood warriors jumped into the cave. The Iron Blood warriors helped Inbosa move the space boxes that had been ced far away, and Inbosa used his spatial equipment to collect them. The benefits of the space boxes were immense. The space boxes without apressed space could be ced in a piece of spatial equipment.


    The space boxes had all been piled together. The Iron Blood warriors and lightning puppets did not interfere with one another. With a line in the middle as the divider, they gathered the space boxes for Saleen and Inbosa.


    Inbosa spread open the third Dissolution Spell scroll, dissolving the ground halfway, and poured in a bottle of metallic poison. Saleen saw all of it and engraved the method into his memory.


    Of course, it was not just the pouring of a poisonous liquid. Inbosa still had to control it to corrode the magic array on the mezzanine.


    No matter how tough the magic array was, it was still just a lifeless object. The metallic poison did not have any energy waves, and it was extremely easy for it to prate theyer of energy of the protective magic array. As for the magic patterns refined onto the base, they were sturdy but could not bear the toxins that had been extracted.


    The metallic poison was originally meant for etching out magic arrays. Mages had to be very careful. If they lost the slightest bit of control, they would have corroded too much of the valuable materials, causing the entire magic array to be ruined.


    Inbosa had not thought of that beforehand; the n had been devised at thest minute. That was what Saleen admired. When he encountered a magic array for which strong attacks were ineffective, he would use even stronger methods. Inbosa used indirect methods to resolve the issue from the root.


    The magic array had mostly been formed by metallic poison corrosion. After encountering an even purer metallic poison, it resisted for an extremely short period of time before being destroyed.


    The magic arrays even had a self-restoring function, but Inbosa took advantage of the split-second when the magic array was corroded to use the Dissolution Spell topletely destroy the magic array. The method was extremely intricate and could not be conceived by an average mage at thest minute.


    Inbosa had just taken it as Saleen testing him. He assumed that Saleen could not bear to extract the metallic poison, so he had only given him the Dissolution Spell scroll. He did not know that Saleen had relied purely on brute force to destroy the magic array.


    Inbosa did not at all feel that Saleen¡¯s ball of lightning could prate this type of magic array, let alone destroy it. The ball of lightning did not look anything ¡®lightning¡¯. It seemed to be a type of high-energy magic ball.


    Inbosa allowed two Iron Blood warriors to go down first, and followed behind, following the cave path to enter the warehouse one floor below.


    They had just entered the warehouse and a puppet rushed in front of Inbosa. The puppet had six legs and three arms. It brandished three iron whips, intending to whip Inbosa into pieces.


    The two Iron Blood warriors that Inbosa had dispatched toe along with him had already copsed and were not getting up. Inbosa did not panic and effortlessly moved to one side. He also had six legs and a long metal tail.


    Compared to the puppet, he was more like a monster.


    Saleen caught up. The puppet was unable to distinguish who its foes were. As long as it was a moving target, it would attack. Inbosa had hidden and immediately entered a state of still quiet, so Saleen became the target of attack.


    The three iron whips formed a triangle and swung towards Saleen. Saleen hade down first, but his descent had been very quick and he easily avoided the three whips¡¯ pincer attack. The star figures also jumped down. In the star figures¡¯ hands was the equipment that Saleen specialized in refining ¨C the magic epee.


    The sword was two and a half meters long and weighed 180 kilograms. Its surface was covered with magic patterns. One side of the sword was a serrated de, and the other side was curved.


    A level 9 magic nucleus was mounted within the epee¡¯s magic array and could emit level 9 magic power.


    However, Saleen had only added a level 9 Sharpening spell to the epee. The star figures did not need elemental magic spells and could release long range attacks all the same.


    ¡°Inbosa!¡± Saleen saw that his star figures had forced back the puppet with a stroke of the sword, yet Inbosa still had not acted. He was angry. It was paramount that they make the most of their time to share in the spoils.


    Inbosa pointed. Only then did Saleen use his Elemental Eye to look at the surroundings. Within the pitch-ck warehouse, about 1,000 puppets were neatly lined up. The puppets all had four eyes, and the magic array between the eyes rotated lightly, releasing waves of energy.


    ¡°Damn it, it¡¯s a puppet army!¡± Saleen could not help but swear.


    The ancient humans had once created a puppet army. There was a type of puppet army which did not require a human to direct it. Its power was immense, and it demanded almost nothing of its environment. However, it often went out of control. Typically, humans used this type of puppet army to eliminate enemies that were sealed in an area.


    More than 1,000 puppets were just like one body. They needed to be destroyed with a true level 9 magic spell.


    What troubled Saleen was that he had seen the magic array between the puppets¡¯ four eyes. It was the mark from the legends.


    Mages all believed in the conservation of energy. Even a magic array was at equilibrium, it was really just that its consumption was slow, and there were abilities for the automatic replenishment of energy. Such abilities would also slowly vanish with the passage of time and the ageing of materials. Even if you used a divine persona as material, there would stille a day when the divine persona would be destroyed.


    However, the ancient humans had once manufactured a type of magic array that could allow energy to circte repeatedly. It relied on elemental power absorbed from the air to support the revolutions of the magic array as much as possible and could support a huge amount of consumption.


    It was the famous magic perpetual-motion engine found within the Paradoxes of magic.


    Of course, the magic perpetual-motion engine did not exist, but it was a type of magic array that could endlessly absorb magic to refill the magic nuclei or crystals in the magic array.


    In the ancient times, it had taken hundreds of years for the secret to be discovered by humans. However, because the magic array was not a method to initiate control, the puppets created were unable to distinguish between friend and foe.


    Later on, humans researched and found the simplest method for control. They made a magic switch, using it to cut off the perception of this type of puppet. The puppets¡¯ four eyes worked independently, and were the only part with which the puppets could perceive.


    ¡°Each person will take half!¡± Saleen saw that Inbosa was not moving, so he retrieved arge, directly trapping a puppet in it, and used a sealing scroll to contain it.


    Inbosa saw that Saleen was not afraid of the puppets. He was unable to distinguish between truths and falsehoods with his intuition. He could only use his own means and begin his own battle.


    Saleen¡¯sbat style was simple. He summoned two types of elemental creatures, the elemental stone statue soldiers and the blue ice maiden, to protect himself. Then, he used arge to capture them one by one.


    The puppet troops contained magic perpetual-motion engines within them. Too few of such mechanisms had been preserved as its materials were hard to find. The core of the magic perpetual-motion engine had been refined with the body of a special godly race, which originated from the metal ne.


    Inbosa¡¯s method of capturing the puppets was more violent. He retrieved a gigantic metal gear and stood on it. The metal gear rotated and dashed about wildly, causing all of the puppets to be knocked off their feet.


    Inbosa did not want the puppet army, but he felt expectant about the magic perpetual-motion engines in the puppets. After the release of the earliest batch of magic perpetual-motion engines, the imitation engines were much worse. The metal divine kingdom had been destroyed and not much of it was left behind. There was no longer the same godly race for humans to capture.


    For the sake of the magic perpetual-motion engine, it was worth wasting a little time.


    Saleen had keen eyes. He saw that amidst the puppet army, there were 100 whose armor was slightly different. The difference could only be identified using his Elemental Eye. it was a difference of material quality. The materials used for the magic patterns did not have any simrity.


    He immediately summoned all of his elemental creatures to block off the 100 puppets to one side and used therge to capture them. The puppets had no soul, so it was easier to seal them away. After trapping them in therge, Saleen used a Frozen spell to make the puppets unable to move for a split-second to easily seal them away.


    Although Inbosa¡¯s alchemy was strong, in the intense battle, he had not identified the differences among the puppet army. After Saleen had secretly captured 100 powerful puppets, he no longer took things seriously.


    The elemental creatures¡¯ numbers were sufficient. The scale of the puppet army was too small, and Saleen continuously held the absolute initiative of the battle. The outermost parts of the puppet army had probably already been taken apart, otherwise they would not have been weak. Alchemy City had preserved the puppet¡¯s core for the sake of future research.


    The outer armor and weapons were the truly fatal pieces of equipment of the puppets. If it had been Saleen, he would have separated the outer part and the core of the puppets. The puppets were even difficult for the ancient humans to control. Of course it was the best course of action to take away the puppets¡¯ weapons.


    They wasted about an hour downstairs. Most of the time had been spent on sealing the puppets. Between the puppets and the mages, no directbat had taken ce at all. Inbosa¡¯s metal gears flew about, and the puppets could not approach him at all.


    ¡°Inbosa, let¡¯s go,¡± Saleen said impatiently. He had already taken what he wanted and was unwilling to waste time. It had been an hour, and they did not know what had taken ce outside. Had Alchemy City taken control of the archangel? If it had been controlled, they could make it in time if they escaped now.

 Chapter 1298: Seeing the Angel of Fear Again (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1298: Seeing the Angel of Fear Again (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°Saleen, we agreed on this earlier. There is still one more warehouse!¡± Inbosa red furiously.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about it again after we go back up.¡± Saleen did not refute him. In the current situation, who knew what the battle was like. His perception had beenpressed within the warehouse. It was just the situation on the surface. The Bug Angel army was most likely facing difficulty in receiving aid from Floating City. Within an hour, he estimated that most of them had been lost.


    If they did not go, would they have to wait until all of them were lost before giving up?


    The Bug Angel Warriors all had an extremely high value. Theirbat ability was much greater than that of the Holy See¡¯s Blood Knights.


    Inbosa huffed and allowed Saleen to step up first. The two left the underground warehouse and were able to see the ground¡¯s surface. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s people had gathered in an orderly fashion by his side.


    ¡°Inbosa, we can¡¯t search for it anymore. We have already lost a third of our army!¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood urged Inbosa.


    ¡°Duke, let me go and search for it. I will bring my own people!¡± Inbosa persisted.


    ¡°Alright, I will go with you as agreed on before. We will go for half an hour. If the army¡¯s losses exceed half, then we will have to stop.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood said.


    Inbosa nodded in gratitude and nced at Saleen. Saleen said, ¡°I¡¯ll give you half an hour.¡±


    After arriving at the surface, his territory had expanded once more and was impacted by the city territory¡¯s attacks. Saleen¡¯s understanding towards the territory had be even deeper. He was able to contact Nailisi. On Nailisi¡¯s side, Sika was about to leave.


    ¡°Let her go up to Floating City and bring away all of our Bug Angel Warriors.¡± Saleen gave this order to Nailisi and felt slightly more rxed.


    Inbosa took the lead. He stepped on his metal flyers and sped along the streets. Grand Duke Iron Blood followed closely behind him. Saleen followed behind using Jalin¡¯s movement skills.


    The smell of blood in the city was thick, causing Saleen to feel extremely ufortable. The blood in the air came from the Bug Angel Warriors, as well as Alchemy City¡¯s mages. Of more than 20,000 Bug Angels, more than 5,000 had died. Even more of Alchemy City¡¯s mages had died. After all, not just anybody was able to own a magical tower. The mages lived in tall buildings that were clustered together. After the Bug Angels drilled through them, the entire building had been adversely affected.


    Only the mages who could fly were able to escape. However, there had been many Bug Angels wildly releasing wind des in the sky.


    The magical towers¡¯ counterattack had been swift, fierce, and powerful, but the Bug Angels¡¯ defense abilities were too strong and their flight was too fast, so it was difficult to aim at them. After the Elemental Hand¡¯s nine grand mages had summoned the archangel, the situation had be even worse.


    The archangel had brought out hundreds of metal angels and started a massacre inside the city.


    The archangel had wanted to leave, but under the orders of the Elemental Hand¡¯s elders, she had been intercepted and attacked by mages.


    The archangel was about level 13, but she could not fly high within the city territory. She did not give up on the metal angels subordinates and did not want to leave alone.


    There had been one person who was an exception. Nailisi held on to Sika and flew up from the ground. Sika¡¯s soul beasts had all been put away and she had to rely on Nailisi to fly, which made her feel extremely strange.


    Nailisi had regained her imp form and her tail was wrapped around Sika¡¯s body. The two stuck together tightly. Nailisi¡¯s Lightning Protection skill had been released, so they were encased by a blue electric current.


    Sika felt that her entire body had gone limp and numb. Even if she was a nature priest, her resistance against such electric currents was not very strong.


    It was thanks to the power of this electric current that Nailisi had broken through the restraints of the city territory and directly went up to a high altitude, flying towards Floating City. The nine great elders were all focused on the battle to surround and attack the archangel, and unexpectedly, none of them discovered that someone was flying.


    Everyone trusted in the city territory too much. They thought that there would never be a person who could break through to the outside from within the city territory.


    The archangel felt that her power was being forcefully suppressed within the territory and felt extremely ufortable. A metallic glow started to sh upon her pure white skin. It was the first time such an incident had urred ever since she had attained the true power of life.


    ¡°Damn it. This is the Myers Continent?¡± The archangel looked all around, but felt that things were not right.


    How could the mages on the Myers Continent have be so pitiful! The mages who had besieged the metal angels mostly released level 7 magic spells. There were some level 9 spells, and level 10 magic spells that were rare.


    Wasn¡¯t it said that the mages of Myers Continent all used level 10 magic spells as a sign of attack?


    If this ce was not the Myers Continent, how could the rules of this ne have such an obvious level of suppression upon her?


    The archangel forcefully took fight, observing the surroundings. She saw the broken walls and ruins and mages fighting with the Bug Angels as well as Alchemy City¡¯s army.


    Really weak...


    Hm? Were those Bug Angels?


    The archangel had intelligence and had inherited many memories originating from the gods. She was able to recognize the Bug Angel.


    It looked like the damned humans were battling the gods. Who cared whether or not this was the ne of the Myers Continent, she would first help the bugs out. Then...she could consider whether to kill the bugs or transform them into metal gods.


    The archangel made up her mind to first treat Alchemy City¡¯s mages as her enemy. Alchemy City was unlucky. The metal angels¡¯ numbers were not big, but thebat ability of each one was equivalent to a strong level 10 person.


    No matter how much the powers of the hundreds of metal angels were suppressed, it would still not decrease down to level 9. The city territory borrowed the aid of the rules of the ne.


    The cuts from the metal angels¡¯ epees were sufficiently threatening towards the safety of the magical towers. The nine grand elders had no choice but to suck it up and withstand it. They began to organize aprehensive counterattack.


    Alchemy City had always been on the offensive, but today they had to defend. It was a disgrace.


    The Elemental Hand¡¯s operations finally smoothened. Although the number of deaths became greater and greater, the nine grand elders hadmunicated thoroughly with all of the core mages and began to make arrangements for the battle.


    In the city, 360 magical towers shed. With the nine great magical towers as the core, they faced outyer byyer, forming a gigantic magic array. The destroyed magic amplifier slowly began to regenerate. After half an hour, the magic amplifier would be able to be activated once more.


    Once the magic amplifier was activated, all of the mages and magical towers acknowledged by the Elemental Hand would have double the attack capabilities, and their battle-sustaining capabilities would be increased more than 10 times. It was the truly terrifying part of the magic amplifier.


    Attack capabilities being doubled meant that the enemy¡¯s defensive power would be decreased by one level.


    The city territory originally had a rule that would reduce the defenses of enemies. In the core area of Alchemy City, the ovepping effects ofbat meant that the defensive power of enemies would be reduced to a quarter of their original level.


    In that half an hour, the Elemental Hand began to constantly use summoning skills. Creatures from all kinds of ns were summoned and fought with the metal angels. The archangel held her long spear and did not attack. She was only directing the metal angels. The intelligence of the metal angels was not considerably high. It was only with her directions that they were able to truly suppress those weak humans.


    By summoning creatures, the city¡¯s various kinds of defensive instruments began to demonstrate their might.


    Under the guidance of the Elemental Hand, the alchemy crossbows were all fitted with barrels which had been infected with metallic poison. There were explosive arrows. There were even many magic arrows which had been purchased from Metatrin City through a middleman. Even Saleen did not know that he had sold items that had been purchased by Alchemy City.


    The magic arrays had been sold by Saleen for a price that was cheaper by more than half of Alchemy City¡¯s. Alchemy City¡¯s manufacturing costs were not low. Purchasing them was cheaper than making them themselves.


    The products of Metatrin City¡¯s alchemic factory showed great quality. The explosive arrows were a rare type of alchemy crossbow barrel and were difficult to store. Furthermore, if the sharpness was insufficient, it would be difficult for it to inflict a fatal injury upon its target.


    If the barrel exploded outside of heavy armor, it would be inferior to a rupturing arrow that could pierce through heavy armor.


    The gigantic alchemy crossbow shot down from a height. It was only after it was embedded into the metal angel¡¯s body that it would cause a severe explosion. This explosion would cause an elemental counterbnce, or even elemental turbulence, which would be fatal towards an elemental creature like the metal angel. Of course, it was notmon. Its value was equivalent to a level 9 magic spell scroll.


    Level 9 magic spell scrolls could only be used by a mage who was at least level 8. If it was the alchemy crossbow, a soldier and a magic apprentice would be able to operate it. That was why the alchemy crossbow was so expensive. There were too few level 8 mages. As for magic apprentices, Alchemy City could easily gather hundreds of thousands of them.


    Arge hole appeared in the metal angels who had been hit. It was difficult to heal the hole as it continuously eroded the metal angel¡¯s body.


    Once the archangel saw, it immediately aimed the long spear at the crossbowman on that floor.


    The crossbowman panicked, fired three metallic explosive crossbow barrels in session, and threw aside the alchemy crossbow and escaped with the magic apprentice.


    Boom!


    A red current hit the tall building. Half of the building, that had been built with magicite, was immediately destroyed by the energy current. The crossbowman had escaped quickly enough. He jumped along the side of the building with a long piece of rope tied around his body.


    The archangel saw that the alchemy crossbow had been destroyed. There was no point in looking for the crossbowman. Instead, she directed the metal angels to attack the magical tower in front of them.


    Saleen had gone along with Inbosa and arrived at the southwest part of the city. This time, Inbosa had a very easy time. He retrieved a gigantic metal puppet from his spatial equipment. The puppet was not an offensive model. After its four huge metallic legs expanded, a magic drill appeared at the bottom of the puppet.


    Although the magic drill was valuable, it was much cheaper than the Dissolution Spell scroll.


    There wereplicated magic patterns on the drill. The puppet began to drill into the ground. Grand Duke Iron Blood and the Iron Blood Warriors cleared the surrounding magical towers for Inbosa. All of the warehouse¡¯s surroundings were protected by magical towers. Fortunately, the magic amplifier had not regained its function, so the Iron Blood Warriors¡¯ defensive powers still existed.


    Saleen propped up his Water Shield helped Grand Duke Iron Blood while he was at it. Inbosa retrieved dozens of metal machinery, installing them onto his puppet and arranging it to form ast minute small metal fortress.

 Chapter 1299: Seeing the Angel of Fear Again (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1299: Seeing the Angel of Fear Again (Part 2)</h4>


    Summoning a puppet was the mostmon method forbat, but Inbosa¡¯s puppet was different. Numerous parts had been added onto an average-sized puppet, turning a construction puppet into abative puppet. Although it could not move, the transformation was interesting and practical.


    After Inbosa finished arranging his puppet, the magic drill had pierced through the ground, revealing a magic array. The magic drill struck the magic array hundreds of times. It was only after the magic substances within the drill had been consumedpletely that it stopped.


    A small hole appeared in the magic array. However, it was immediately filled by the magic array¡¯s regenerating ability.


    Inbosa shook his head. There was no other way, they could only use the metallic poison again.


    Extracting the poison was not easy. Purifying it further was more arduous. It was only because Inbosa was preparing to refine a gigantic piece of equipment that he had prepared so much.


    He poured another bottle of metallic poison into the cave, corroding holes into the magic array within the mezzanine. Inbosa once again spread open a scroll, dissolving the top of the mezzanine and prating it.


    Inbosa did it gracefully, as if he had practiced. Saleen called upon the star figures and followed downwards. Like before, Grand Duke Iron Blood rode on the rainbow dragon and stood guard outside.


    He wanted to be allocated a portion of the benefits from attacking the city. Inbosa went down to retrieve the goods, but he would still not be able to obtain all of them. Inbosa¡¯s agreement to intercept external attacks, and his wish to divide up half of the benefits from Saleen was not unreasonable.


    Unless they encountered goods that could move, such as the puppet army, Saleen only needed to go down to clear out some of the goods. The battles outside would be handled by Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s people.


    As he ran down the cave, Inbosa dissolved oneyer of the mezzanine¡¯s roof. Inbosa already had no mood to look at the materials. There was nothing aside from some high level materials.


    Saleen did not pass them up. He let out the lightning puppets and plundered wantonly.


    Inbosa treated it as if he had not seen anything. When Saleen had finished, he had prated the bottom floor of the warehouse. For the second time, Saleen gave him four Dissolution Spell scrolls, but he had saved one.


    Inbosa was able to craft a level 11 scroll, but he had never learnt the Dissolution spell. The skill had many uses in alchemy. He had used up seven Dissolution Spell scrolls and learned something. After returning and learning the mantra, he had to be familiar with the frequency of elemental vibrations.


    He would leave that scroll for research. Inbosa did not want to buy it from Saleen. Saleen was meticulous. This time he had saved one. He estimated that it had been within Saleen¡¯s calctions.


    However, Saleen did not pay any notice to Inbosa¡¯s ns. It was only a level 11 scroll. Saleen¡¯s most abundant resources were scrolls.


    The warehouse below was less than half the size of the other warehouses. It was only a few hundred meters long. Once Saleen arrived, he saw that Inbosa was using his spatial equipment to collect the items that had been ced on the ground.


    Saleen chuckled. ¡°Inbosa, do you want to hog everything for yourself?¡±


    ¡°Hog it all, my ass. This is a sealed warehouse and it cannot be exposed to air. Move, quick!¡± Inbosapletely lost his poise and was frenziedly collecting all the items on the floor that looked like metal fragments.


    Only then did Saleen notice that the gases within this warehouse could not be breathed in by humans. If a human inhaled it, they would die in about ten seconds. The gas did not have a corrosive effect, so it was the best method for mages to protect goods that were susceptible to rot.


    Saleen immediately retrieved dimension stones and summoned all four star figures, allowing the star figures to help him to collect the fragments on the ground. Saleen was finally able to identify the fragments. They were the eggshell of a certain type of creature. However, it had a hard texture and was hundreds of times tougher than iron. It seemed that the creature was very afraid of being exposed to the air. Once it was exposed, it would disintegrate into other materials and its value would be reduced.


    The air pressure in the warehouse was slightly high. It was flowing outside through the big hole that Inbosa had dissolved. Puppets were unable to use spatial equipment, so Saleen¡¯s helpers only consisted of four star figures. Even so, his collection of the eggshells was much faster than Inbosa¡¯s.


    Alchemy City had all kinds of materials. Items that had been stored in warehouses with two floors using special means had to be things that even Alchemy City felt were precious. Saleen did not try to recall the Illustrated Handbook of Magic Beasts. He knew that the things in the handbook would definitely not be so meticulously preserved by Alchemy City.


    He knew that from seeing the high level magic nuclei. Alchemy City had piled them without any care.


    The number of eggshells that had umted was great. Inbosa¡¯s subordinates were at the forefront, but Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was able to clearly distinguish which of the eggshells contained more power. The star figures collected the eggshells that were the thickest and of the highest level and ced them in the dimension stones.


    To Inbosa, that was not important. The warehouse did not have the item that he wanted.


    The warehouse suddenly tremored. Saleen did not call out to Inbosa. With a sh of his silhouette, he arrived at the first floor of the warehouse. He used the Starline Ring to contain all of the materials collected by the lightning puppets and then rushed up to the surface.


    On the surface, Grand Duke Iron Blood was exchanging blows with a level 10 True Might. If it was just a level 10 True Might, Grand Duke Iron Blood would be able to borrow the power of the giant dragon to force them back with one strike of his spear, and it would not have caused such arge tremor. The True Might was riding something that looked like a huge gori.


    ¡°Is it done or not!¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood saw that Saleen had appeared.


    ¡°Seems like it¡¯s not.¡± Saleen furrowed his brows. Inbosa¡¯s expression let him know that this attack on Alchemy City had not allowed Inbosa to gain possession of the most important thing.


    ¡°We can¡¯t search for it anymore. We won¡¯t make it in time,¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood said. His army¡¯s losses were close to 9,000. He was not clear on the number of losses of Saleen¡¯s army. He estimated that it was at least a few thousand.


    His estimate was not bad, but Saleen had lost about 1,000 Bug Angel Warriors, all from the attack of the giant statue. After the giant statues had appeared, Saleen¡¯s Bug Angel Warriors had rushed at them, discovered that they were not their match, and under Saleen¡¯s direction they had turned back, leaving a few hundred behind to settle matters.


    The giant statues seemed to be Alchemy City¡¯s strong offensive power. The two statues did not even require the directions of humans. They would automatically attack Alchemy City¡¯s foes. Perhaps even the Metal Titan would not be their match.


    It seemed that Alchemy City was not as full of holes as it appeared to be. Saleen wanted to leave, but Inbosa, who had appeared behind him, gave another suggestion.


    ¡°Duke, Your Majesty, in the third warehouse, there will definitely be the items that I wish to find. I have already said I have opposed Alchemy City for the sake of this item. It was originally discovered by me in the ruins, but the Elemental Hand forcefully snatched it away. They have not analyzed its abilities yet.¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood nced at Saleen. Saleen understood. ¡°But we already agreed on only half an hour. If we go and look for this warehouse, there will definitely not be enough...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s god¡¯s body fragments!¡± Inbosa could not resist revealing his secret.


    ¡°God¡¯s body fragments?¡± Saleen used magguage to repeat it once. Magguage did not have a variety of descriptive words, so the volume of its vocabry was frighteninglyrge. Only mages were willing to learn it, and they still needed to use magic skills in order topletely memorize it. Not many gaps existed magguage.


    ¡°Indeed, god¡¯s body fragments.¡± Inbosa used magguage to repeat Saleen¡¯s words.


    ¡°Duke, what do you say?¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s brows furrowed. If it had been something else, he would be interested. A god¡¯s body fragment was more suited for a mage. Once the item was obtained, he would have to rely on Inbosa. If it had been a ready-made godly item, he would have been interested to consider it further.


    ¡°The three of us will split it. Just a fifth will be enough for me!¡± Inbosa knew that he needed to rely on the Duke and Saleen. If they went to the warehouse, Alchemy City¡¯s magic amplifier would resume its operation. The number of deaths would be very high.


    ¡°First settle the matters before us, then we¡¯ll talk about it.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood pointed at the True Might who had been caught amongst the Bug Angels. Saleen had identified the True Might¡¯s mount. It was not a living creature at all, but a puppet.


    The puppet was not the mechanical product of an alchemist, but refined by a summoner using living creatures.


    ¡°Inbosa, that looks like a behemoth.¡± Saleen reminded Inbosa with good intentions.


    ¡°Behemoths do not have such a small build and are all extinct.¡± As Inbosa spoke, the metal gears beneath his feet revolved and rushed at the True Might.


    A mage wanting to engage in closebat was an extremely strange situation. Saleen originally thought that only he was like that. As he saw Inbosa¡¯s strong and brave appearance, he finally understood that he was not out of the ordinary.


    Inbosa was the one who was really out of the ordinary. His metal tail swung around. It was even more terrifying than the sky scorpions from legends.


    Behemoths were a type of giantnd beast who were weaker than giants but about the same as a giant dragon. The behemoth ne had been embroiled in the war of the nes. Although the magic beasts possessed intelligence, they did not have any writing system. In the eyes of humans, they were not intelligent lifeforms.


    Dragons, giants, and even demons all had writing systems. Behemoths were a tragic race. Most of their knowledge relied on blood inheritance. The time that mothers had to teach their cubs was extremely short.


    Thus, in the history of humans, behemoths were a hunting target because their fur was tougher than any magic armor. The behemoths were able to absorb the power of the earth and had rtively savage personalities.


    None of the strongest behemoths had grasped the rules of the ne and found it difficult to jump between nes. It was difficult for them to inflict any harm at all upon humans.


    However, since the behemoths¡¯ fur was worth money, that was their original sin.

 Chapter 1300: Seeing the Angel of Fear Again (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1300: Seeing the Angel of Fear Again (Part 3)</h4>


    Saleen was moved. The god¡¯s body fragments were very valuable for mages.


    Because Inbosa rushed to deal with the True Might, Saleen¡¯s Bug Angel Warriors retreated to the fringes of the city, ready to break through at any time. Even if they continued to dy, he would still have a way to escape from the power of the city territory.


    The simplest way would be using the n badge to destroy the upper part of the territory enveloping the city. Saleen only needed one second. His Comet sh could move tens of thousands of meters.


    Although the burden on his body would be great, Floating City was right above him. After returning to Floating City, Saleen would not be afraid of Alchemy City, unless Alchemy City could fly.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood a few dozen meters, close to Saleen. The rainbow dragon no longer rejected Saleen that much. After all, Saleen was strong. The rainbow dragon had signed a contract with a human. It was easier for the giant dragon to ept humanspared to ordinary giant dragons.


    Humans liked to use the bodies of giant dragons for alchemy, but giant dragons liked to eat humans as a snack. There was not any right or wrong about it. The dragon race did not hold a grudge.


    ¡°Your Majesty, the god¡¯s body fragments...¡±


    ¡°You will automatically possess a divine kingdom space. It is a good material for refining spatial equipment. Furthermore, it is extremely sturdy and can be used to craft armor, weapons...¡±


    ¡°I know all of this. I am asking, Your Majesty, if can you help me to refine a piece of equipment for me using the god¡¯s body fragments?¡±


    ¡°Will you provide the blueprints or will I have to design it?¡±


    ¡°I have blueprints.¡±


    ¡°Half price,¡± Saleen smiled as he said.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was stunned, and then understood. Saleen¡¯s original price was probably to earn the full amount of money. The meaning of half price was to only collect thebor cost. Saleen¡¯s reason was because the Duke had taken the initiative to mention the issue and did not want to allow Inbosa to refine this piece of equipment. In his heart, the Duke harbored some reservations against Inbosa.


    Being on guard was good. Inbosa had split his soul. It was inevitable that he would descend into madness. Although he appeared to be a good helper, he would eventually cause problems.


    Inbosa was unable to hear the conversation. Saleen hadpressed his territory to only envelope himself and Grand Duke Iron Blood. He directly used electric current to grind a small-scale alchemic machinery that was as small as a speck of dust. The alchemic machinery did not possess any killing power. It could only be used to transmit sounds, allowing Inbosa to secretly eavesdrop.


    Before, Saleen would have had no way to find such harmless equipment. Now that his control over his territory was more detailed, Inbosa¡¯s petty measures were useless.


    ¡°Then it¡¯s agreed, we will stay for another half an hour. We will no longer nitpick over the losses of our armies.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood had made his decision. There would definitely be the remains of an ancient giant dragon on his Dragon Ind, which could be used to make dragon armor. However, if the god¡¯s body fragments were added, his armor would be as sturdy as a fortress.


    The dragon race¡¯s scales did not have as strong of a spatial property as the god¡¯s race¡¯s body. A powerful god¡¯s body itself was a divine kingdom that was able to contain hundreds of millions of creatures.


    Saleen made some calctions. He could craft Darkness magic patterns. They possessed spatial properties. It was a pity that it required many materials.


    Inbosa¡¯s actions were rming. His magic was different from Saleen¡¯s. It was explosive and fast. A giant me creature had been summoned and descended from the sky, pouncing onto the body of the True Might. The True Might was immediately trapped. The puppet under it was skilled in hand-to-handbat but was unable to eliminate the magic attack.


    If it was physical force against physical force, the True Might would be able to match the Dragon Knight. Of course, he held suspicions that the Duke was colluding with a third party. Grand Duke Iron Blood wanted to leave, up until Inbosa had revealed the matter of the god¡¯s body fragments.


    ¡°Saleen...¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood wanted to say something, but he saw Saleen¡¯s expression tense.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Please, Duke, if you have any soul-protecting equipment, use it as quickly as you can!¡±


    ¡°Huh...¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood draped on his armor without any hesitation. It was Saleen¡¯s first time seeing such overbearing and arrogant armor.


    The exaggerated pair of long horns on the head was refined with real dragon horns. The front of the helmet had a piece of polished dragonshard that served as a mask. Saleen could only sigh in appreciation at the method of polishing the dragonshard, the skill was definitely not from the most recent millennium. The history of this helmet was probably over 2,000 years old.


    Long thorns jutted out from the back of the armor, and cracks of dragon scales could be seen between the arms and waist. The inneryer was soft armor refined using the skin of a dragon¡¯s back. Saleen estimated if a level 9 magic spell was thrown at it, there would not be much of a reaction.


    The battle greaves and gauntlets all had entire pieces of dragon scales. The belt was a crimson red dragon vein.


    He dared to be fully clothed in materials taken from a giant dragon¡¯s body, but had not been eaten by giant dragons. Grand Duke Iron Blood was the first such person.


    The back of this armor had eight small eight-sided war gs. On each war g, a dragon race¡¯s magic array had been drawn on.


    Saleen had always felt that he was enough of a show off. After seeing Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s armor, he immediately felt ashamed of his inferiority.


    Saleen used his Water Shield again. Lightning magic patterns shed along the Water Shield to defend against the enemies that were about to arrive.


    On a distant street, strange ck colored creatures appeared. The creatures were six to seven meters long. They ran quickly, colliding into the Bug Angel Warriors that were before them. Saleen recognized them: the pests that he had seen at the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The one driving out the pests to fight was an Angel of Fear.


    The Bug Angel Warriors were originally much stronger than the pests, but once the Angel of Fear arrived, the Bug Angel Warriors immediately scattered in defeat. Dragon Blood Warriors were not fearless. Each harbored their own weakness. The Angel of Fear had not even demonstrated any powerful skills. Just by releasing fear ripples, it caused the nearby Bug Angel Armor to be defeated.


    Saleen felt helpless. Even his Bug Angel Warriors were unable to match the Angel of Fear.


    Saleen¡¯s Bug Angel Warriors were all imps. In the hearts of the imps, the Angel of Fear would probably turn into the supreme demons that pursued and captured them. Once it approached, their courage was scared away by their fear.


    The Angel of Fear was less than 10 meters tall, and there was a face at its stomach that caused people to feel disgusted.


    Saleen was not afraid of the Angel of Fear¡¯s soul attack skills, but it was a level 12 creature. Its physical attacks were troubling.


    Four star figures lined up in front of Saleen. The rainbow dragon was somewhat contemptuous.


    The face in the Angel of Fear¡¯s stomach released a soul fragmenting skill. The scales on the entire body of Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s rainbow giant dragon stood up. It actually felt terror.


    Saleen did not intend to put himself forward. The Angel of Fear¡¯s attacks had been blocked by his lightning magic patterns. Anything that wanted to attack Saleen¡¯s soul now would have to surpass level 14 and release a level 14 skill. Level 13 creatures who wanted to use higher level skills would be helpless against Saleen.


    The Ring of Cosmos did not only increase mental power. Saleen had discovered that it was able to protect the soul. The protection was notprehensive, because Saleen had not grasped the true uses of exchange. Even so, because the rules were powerful, the Ring of Cosmos protected Saleen against soul attacks.


    Within the area of half a kilometer, all creatures suffered mental breakdowns under the attack of the Angel of Fear. Only three people were safe and sound ¨C Grand Duke Iron Blood, Saleen, and Imbosa.


    Inbosa had even be a hundred times more alert because of this attack.


    ¡°Angel of Fear! Alchemy City had it hidden away, hahahaha!¡± Inbosa roared withughter. He swept away the True Might, and pounced onto the Angel of Fear.


    ¡°Inbosa!¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood was astounded. He cried out, afraid that Inbosa would be killed by the Angel of Fear. Although he had Dragon Blood Warriors around, developing the Dragon Ind still required a powerful alchemist. For the moment, he did not dare to rely on Saleen. Saleen had his own kingdom and Followers. They might not think the same way as Saleen.


    If Saleen¡¯s subordinates wanted to conquer the continent, Saleen might not refuse to amodate their wishes.


    ¡°Has Inbosa gone made?¡± Saleen asked Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    ¡°Not yet.¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood did not want to fight the Angel of Fear. He put away his rainbow dragon and resummoned the purple-gold giant dragon. The soul of the purple gold giant dragon was stronger than that of the rainbow dragon and would not be affected by the Angel of Fear.


    ¡°Such a disgusting thing.¡± After the purple gold giant dragon hade out, it appraised the Angel of Fear.


    ¡°It¡¯s good material.¡± Saleen recalled the Angel of Fear¡¯s unique soul and his mind began moving. However, after seeing Inbosa¡¯s appearance, he estimated that he did not have much hope of snatching it.


    The purple gold giant dragon red fiercely at Saleen. Saleen pretended he had not seen anything. The giant dragon was dissatisfied with the greed of humans. It was normal, especially when talking about materials. Every part of the giant dragon¡¯s body was a top level material. Even the giant dragons used the scales they had shed to create magic equipment.


    Saleen summoned tens of thousands of lightning puppets to help Grand Duke Iron Blood snatch back the Bug Angel Warriors who had been seized by the Angel of Fear¡¯s Fear skill. These Bug Angels were the Grand Duke¡¯s most elite troops. Saleen helping him to save a few was doing him a favor.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood tossed him a look of gratitude. Ultimately, the Dragon Blood Warriors were much more valuable than the Iron Blood Warriors. Iron Blood Warriors were all ancient humans. Even if they did not die, their lifespan was not that long and they could only be treated as consumables when used. However, the Dragon Blood Warriors had aplete soul. If they did not die in battle, after advancement, they could live as long as ancient humans.


    Ancient humans, even ordinary low-level professionals, had a lifespan of thousands of years. Above level 7, they could live for close to 10,000 years. It was precisely because they had such a long lifespan that humans were able to cultivate to an extremely fearsome extent.


    Saleen retrieved the War Drum of Fear, allowing the lightning puppets to capture the pests and throw them into the War Drum of Fear.


    He did not dare to hit it. After all, after the Angel of Fear within the War Drum of Fear had been split, so it was not as powerful as the Angel of Fear opposite them. Saleen was afraid that once he hit the War Drum of Fear, the Angel of Fear would counteract and destroy it.

 Chapter 1301: Chaos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1301: Chaos (Part 1)</h4>


    The levels of the pests were not too high and the lightning puppets were capable of taking care of them. Pests were practically immune to physical attacks, so the mages of Alchemy City had unleashed the angel of fear and pests to take on the Bug Angel Warriors.


    Magic attacks from the Bug Angel Warriors were could weaken the pests, but the pests would simply be reduced to dust when physically attacked, which would roll on the ground for a bit before reconstituting.


    Reconstituted pests were not any weaker in terms ofbat capacity. All Bug Angel Warriors within the area controlled by the angel of fear were knocked out. Outside, the Bug Angel Warriors were having a hard time as well.


    The pests were simply indestructible to the Bug Angel Warriors.


    Saleen sighed. Alchemy City really does have a few tricks. If it had not been for the fact that his lightning puppets were capable of fighting the pests, all of the Bug Angel Warriors would have sumbed sooner orter, even without the angel of fear.


    Such cases of professions restricting one another only happened to warriors at one extreme end of the spectrum. Conventional magic warriors were equipped with skills capable of taking pests.


    That was not the case with the Bug Angel Warriors. All of their skills were meant to take on conventional living beings. They were able to do next to nothing.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning puppets, on the other hand, while emanating appallingly weak electricity from their bodies, were quite effective against the pests, which almost had their souls exposed. The puppets only needed to cling to the pests with their twisty arms to capture them, rendering escape impossible.


    The trapped pests were thrown to Saleen, who absorbed them into his War Drum of Fear.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood looked at Saleen¡¯s drum. ¡°How much for this thing?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not selling.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good for fighting wars. Furthermore, Imposa captured one himself. You could ask him to make one for you.¡±


    The Grand Duke frowned. He did not need to ask Saleen if it was possible.


    ¡°It can be done. We¡¯ll just not go to the warehouse and I won¡¯t give him the Dissolution Scroll. Without the scroll, he¡¯ll only be able to reach the first floor of the warehouse. There is no way he is going to get into second floor.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a good thing to drive a wedge between us, you know.¡± The Grand Duke looked displeased.


    Saleen shrugged. ¡°You can¡¯t just let him have his way all the time. I¡¯m the one who will craft the armor you need.¡±


    The Grand Duke nodded slowly. Imposa was caught in a ditch and actually fighting the angel of fear up close and personal. His long tail whipped about while his six legs enabled him to zip about on the ground. The angel of fear was actually on guard against Imposa¡¯s tail.


    Saleen knew the terrifying power of the tail. ¡°How about we go there and help him out?¡± Saleen suggested.


    ¡°Sure thing!¡± The Grand Duke had the same thought. With both of them getting there to help him, there was nothing Imposa would be able to do.


    Saleen had experience facing off against angels of fear. He took out a magic staff and slowly moved forward, casting the skill stored within the staff: a Dark Blue Chant.


    Control afforded by the water type skill was second only to the dark type Endless Night, but casting Endless Night would make Imposa misunderstand that Saleen was attacking him. Saleen had no control over that spell, but he had learned about Dark Blue Chant.


    The Dark Blue Chant¡¯s aura sneaked around Imposa and shrouded the angel of fear. There was no way a level 11 skill would be able to kill the level 12 angel of fear, unless the angel of fear suffered grievous injuries and significant reduction in defense.


    However, the angel of fear¡¯s movements slowed considerably. Saleen cast Thundering Shock as soon as he was done casting Dark Blue Chant.


    Conventionally-speaking, it was impossible for low level professionals to intimidate high level ones, even more so in the case of angel of fear¡ªa creature adept at soul attacks.


    However, even though Saleen was not familiar with the rules of Thundering Sound skills, they possessed power of rules. The rules of Thundering Sound far exceeded the angel of fear¡¯s level. Regardless of how weak Saleen was inparison, the intimidation skill would work.


    The angel of fear was actually intimidated by a level 11 mage!


    Imposa¡¯s mind was all nk when the Grand Duke charged from behind, his spear shining with golden glimmer. It was not sword aura, but Dragon Knight sh¡ªa skill unique to Dragon Knights.


    The dragon spear stabbed into the mouth of that angel of fear¡¯s abdominal face, and not even the Grand Duke was able to believe how well it worked. The probing attack actually hit that high level being and severely injured it.


    Imposa stung the angel of fear indifferently with his tail. That sting injected all of the elemental poisons stored inside the metal tail into the angel of fear¡¯s body, which almost petrified it.


    The Grand Duke and Imposa attacked without giving a care. The skills seemed to be like instincts. Only the purple gold dragon seemed to be awake. It swiped its tail at its target. The protruding spikes tore at the angel of fear like a saw, bisecting it at the waist.


    The angel if fear had no blood, but the dragon¡¯s attacknded a shocking blow to it. However, the angel of fear quickly grabbed the lower half of its body and reconnected it.


    The dragon shot a stream of dragon¡¯s breath. The face of the angel of fear, whose body had just been reconnected, melted, revealing a dark crevice.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. Where is the soul?


    Imposa felt that it was normal. ording to records on the angels of fear, they only had one soul. The angel of fear that Saleen saw in the Imperial City of the Abyss was extremely mutated. Saleen had only been able to survive due to luck. His survival had nothing to do with his powers.


    His intimidation skills would not be able to stun the angel of fear before him for almost one whole second otherwise.


    Level 12 angel of fear was not all that fearsome; what was fearsome was mutated ones.


    Saleen was no longer in any mood to fight over it after seeing that that angel of fear only had one soul. Angels of fear with a linked soul had souls tens of times stronger.


    The two souls did not onlyplement each other, but they threatened each other as well, so the one that Saleen captured before had really powerful souls. The angel of fear before him had only one soul, so Saleen lost interest in it.


    There was simply no need to get into bad terms with Imposa over that thing.


    However, Saleen did not show any of the emotions on his face. He cast a level 11 spell right after¡ªCrimson Judgment.


    It was a fire magic. The Dark Blue Chant was mainly control magic, but the Crimson Judgment made the angel¡¯s body burn.


    The angel of fear howled in rage, but the mes were triggered by the fire element in its body. If the angel of fear had not been put under control, it would have been able to halt the skill . After Saleen finished casting Crimson Judgment, he followed up with Thundering Explosion.


    The angel of fear¡¯s soul power became difficult to invoke. Crimson Judgment was in full swing.


    It was a beginning spell of level 11. Saleen had no control over its process, so he added Thundering Explosion just to ensure the skill was not being evaded.


    ¡°You all will die!¡± That angel of fear shouted in Ancient Myers Language. Saleen was stunned for a bit before he burst outughing. The angel of fear was actually created by Alchemy City.


    He was able to tell because despite speaking Ancient Myers Language, it had a thick Qin ent.


    ¡°After you!¡± Imposa took out a sealing scroll at that moment. He opened it and sealed the burning angel of fear into the scroll.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes narrowed. A dragon pattern scroll. Precious indeed.


    Scrolls made using dragon hide had inherent dragon patterns. When such scrolls were made into sealing equipment, it would be able to seal any target incapable of resisting, ignoring level differences.


    The disregard of level difference was determined by the level of the dragon whose hide was used to make the scroll.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Imposa thanked Saleen. He saw Saleen using attack skills instead of sealing ones, so he knew that Saleen intended to yield that prey to him. His request of going to the warehouse exceeded what both Saleen and the Grand Duke would be able to sustain.


    For every minute they stayed in the city, more Bug Angel Warriors would be doomed.


    If they had not been fighting in Alchemy City, the Bug Angel Warriors would have been able to fare better even when fighting higher intensity battles.


    Imposa summoned the Iron Blood Warriors far away without pause. The 12 were specially nurtured by Imposa, their only weakness being their weak souls. As such, Imposa used skills to protect the 12 Iron Blood Warriors and did not let them fight.


    Saleen calcted as he responded to Imposa¡¯s words. It had never been heard anywhere that angel of fear could be created intentionally. If Alchemy City was capable of creating an angel of fear, then it would mean that they had found a ce simr to the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Wealth was found in abundance in ancient huge cities. If Alchemy City gained ess to cities like that and there were nothing like the Cemetery of Heroes within, then the ce he knew barely scratched the surface of what Alchemy City truly was.


    True wealth would definitely not be stored there.


    Imposa exined to Saleen, ¡°Your Highness, I need the angel of fear to treat my illness. My soul...well, you know. It is dangerous for level ten mages to do that. The Grand Duke is kind to me, and I couldn¡¯t let anything happen to me while I work for him.¡±


    Saleen was surprised. Imposa, who looked crazed and unbridled, actually had a softer side.


    ¡°I had to do that, or I wouldn¡¯t be able to...¡± Imposa said something puzzling, before taking his huge metal cog south. Only people like him who had intricate control of mechanical equipment would be able to man alchemical equipment of such massive sizes and keep it flying close to the ground.


    Imposa had strong constitution, more so than even grand swordmasters. Everywhere that the metal cog went, buildings toppled.


    Saleen looked at Imposa¡¯s monstrous silhouette and sighed. Imposa knew what was about to happen to Myers Maind. He probably knew more and found the cmity even more uneptable than Fycro. The alchemical madman was still a mage.


    Another round of attack wasunched from the Floating City: rocks were thrown down. The irritating attacks made mages from Alchemy City flustered.


    When rocks fell, not even magic towers were able to resist doing nothing. The mages needed to intercept the attacks using magic, but if they did so, the mages dealing with the Bug Angel Warriors would be reduced.

 Chapter 1302: Chaos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1302: Chaos (Part 2)</h4>


    The fighting within Alchemy City was chaotic. The Floating City was unable to get close, so it resorted to attacking with rocks. The city¡¯s territory was incapable of slowing down the rocks. Alchemy city had the most difficulty with pure physical attacks.


    There were skills summoning meteorite, but skills like that were imbued with intense elemental vibrations. The city¡¯s territory would be able to lock down on the spells and destroy them.


    The rocks were different. They were almost incapable of invoking any elemental resonance for being pure physical attacks.


    The rocks raining on the city worked better than magic spells. Furthermore, dark clouds appeared above the Floating City. The clouds were low and shrouded the Floating City. Rocks rained from the clouds, making it seem like the heavens were throwing a tantrum.


    The archangel that was about punch through at the east side of the city took the metal angels around instead, heading for the north, toppling over 40 magic towers there.


    The archangel¡¯s attacks were far more ferocious than the Bug Angel Warriors¡¯. She usuallyshed out with her spear, halting a magic tower¡¯s workings, before having the metal angels cut up a crevice on the tower, enabling them to kill the master within.


    The archangel¡¯s ughter did not stop the mages from retaliating against the Bug Angel Warriors at all. Alchemy City¡¯s mages had finally linked most of the towers together, forming formidable counterattacks. If it had not been rocks raining from above, half of the Bug Angel Warriors would have suffered casualties.


    After Imposa sealed the angel of fear, about 10,000 pests lost control. Saleen had no time to capture them one by one. The pests attacked everything they saw, including warriors and mages from ALchemy City.


    Imposa¡¯s entourage consisted of over 1,000 Iron Blood Warriors and 200 elite Bug Angel Warriors. Imposa¡¯s charge was faster than the ones guarding his nks, and only Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood being able to keep up with him.


    Saleen was able to rte to Imposa¡¯s feelings. The magic amplifier¡¯s restoration was getting close.


    If they were only able to reach their destination when the magic amplifier resumed working again, it would be extremely difficult for him to open the underground warehouse even if he had a Dissolution Scroll.


    By then, the magic arrays that wereid between theyers of the underground warehouses would be linked with the arrays throughout the city, bursting with formidable defense.


    Imposa would have to pay a huge price before being able to leave, even though he might not find the fragments of the gods¡¯ bodies.


    Imposa crashed through a pir with a boom. The debris was repelled by his Water Shield. The purple-gold dragon chanted a string of dragonnguage, which was rarely seen. It was taking on the debris using only its scales after all.


    Saleen did not know that there was a magic clock in Imposa¡¯s mind and there were magic numbers on it, which counted down. It showed the time the magic amplifier would activate.


    The original objective had not been the underground warehouse, but seeing Saleen quickly dissolving the ground, which was several hundreds of meters thick, he changed his mind, intending to take fragments of the gods¡¯ bodies.


    He was not Saleen and did not need to consider his subordinates¡¯ welfare, so he did not need a lot. One-fifth of its stock would suffice, and both Saleen and the Grand Duke were wee to take the rest.


    Saleen needed the fragments as well. While there were gods within the cemetery of the giant, only fragments of bodies of truly high gods would be able to serve as materials for making powerful equipment.


    Saleen was not able to take on any of the powerful fossilized gods, so taking on thousands was definitely out of the question.


    Ready-made bones of gods were the most difficult to acquire, as having them around attracted mages¡¯ attention, who would make equipment. If the other gods found the bones, the results would be simr.


    Imposa reached the coordinates and the metal cog shot up, shooting up hundreds of meters, before ramming into the ground. He left the metal cog with all of his six legs nted to the ground.


    The metal cog was spinning at speeds that even dragons would hesitate over. When the cog hit the ground, it cut a hole over a dozen meters deep.


    Imposa held the scroll and jumped into the hole, putting away the metal cog as he opened the scroll. Saleen followed Imposa¡¯s Iron Blood Warriors to take out the surrounding towers instead.


    There were three ten-floored magic towers around the warehouse. The magic towers attacked as soon as Imposa hit the ground. Three level 11 spells formed a triangle midair, which was quickly broken by Saleen using Icicle.


    Saleen¡¯s Icicle spell manifested 1,200 level 7 icicles. Using level seven spells to nullify three level 11 spells was probably never attempted by anyone in history.


    However, Saleen was confident. It was a result he had gotten from his calctions. If he had not been concerned about his enemies having magic towers, he would have prepared 300. When spells were cast from magic towers, their power would be at least doubled, so Saleen prepared four times as many icicles to break the three linked spells.


    Every icicle was covered in lightning magic patterns. The spells were meant for stabilizing magic. Saleen manned the Icicle spell alone and was incapable of conjuring electricity. The Icicle spell, which was imbued with lightning patterns worked exceptionally.


    The icicles pierced the three linked magic spells, breaking the elemental bnce and causing the three linked spells to explode midair. The icicles mostly hit elemental points, preventing the three linked spells from bringing too much power even when they went out of control.


    Saleen¡¯s control and calctions impressed the Grand Duke. It was no wonder that Saleen had been able to achieve what he had. He put over ten times more effort than conventional mages.


    Saleen¡¯s retaliation caused the three mage trainers in the magic towers to doubt their senses. The enemy is a level ten mage, no doubt, but he is one against three, and we are casting attacks from the magic tower.


    Even Saleen hesitated. He had yet to bring the balls of lightning out and had instead relegated the tough mission to Grand Duke Iron Blood. The Grand Duke was capable of at least summoning two level 12 dragons.


    Saleen was in no mood to y the hero. He pointed at the crack on the ground. The Grand Duke nodded and Saleen leapt inside.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was not actually as powerful as Saleen imagined him to be. There was a time limit to his dragon-summoning abilities. His skills as a Dragon Knight and his level 12 dragon would allow him to not get trapped and have no need for retreat, even though he might not be able to have his way throughout the city.


    Saleen leapt into the hole where Imposa was already dealing with the warehouse below. Saleen scanned the area with his Elemental Eye and found the warehouse was filled with magic metals.


    There was a myriad of magic metal, most crafted by humans artificially. However, there were actually natural-urring magic metals.


    While there was nothing like rhenium gold or wrought gold, the metal was more precious than gold. Saleen did not mind and unleashed lightning puppets to loot the ce.


    He was a king and not a mage like Imposa. Saleen grabbed all of the materials that he found even though they were hardly of any use to him. He had a million soldiers and 1,000 nobles to feed. A king had to be responsible for their people most of the time.


    ¡°Sh**!¡± Imposa yelled, and Saleen felt it too. A formidable force seemed to have appeared in the warehouse. That force did note from living beings, but from the power of the entire city, bearing down on them from above and connected with the magic arrays throughout the city.


    It felt as if a huge magic array was gradually starting up. It felt like the power that was about to be manifested would be strong enough to tear everything apart.


    Saleen shed and appeared right before Imposa. He looked at Imposa¡¯s dejected expression and an urge welled up in him. We must take the fragments of the gods¡¯ bodies in this warehouse.


    Imposa retreated and the two scrolls in his hand were taken away by Saleen. He was very shocked.


    If Saleen wanted to kill him moments ago, he would have been able to run, but he would have been grievously injured. Since when did this guy get this powerful?


    Saleen did not feel excited at all. He knew the difference in power between him and Imposa. After Saleen gained Jalin¡¯s movement skills, Imposa¡¯s edge against him had been considerably diminished.


    Furthermore, he had added the lightning icicles, ball lightning, and Thundering Sound skills to his arsenal. Saleen had all the edge he needed to take on Imposa.


    Saleen opened the Dissolution Scrolls while Imposa was still looking stunned. Dissolution was not overpowered by the city¡¯s territory while he was within his territory. Saleen shrunk his territory to just enough to cover the warehouse, enabling them to fight the enormous pressure from Alchemy City.


    Superiority of territories depended on the level of rules. Saleen¡¯s lightning territory was not something that anything could simply overpower.


    Saleen cast a ball of lightning while Imposa looked on with surprise. The ball lightning seeped into the magic array, dissolving part of it.


    The functions of Alchemy City¡¯s magic amplifier was restored, but it was unable to prevent Saleen from breaking the magic array in that area. The magic array within theyers of the warehouse recovered rapidly.


    Saleen threw a bottle of metallic poisons right away. While it was not as potent as Imposa¡¯s, it was effective against the magic array that was beginning to show weaknesses.


    Saleen threw another Dissolution Scroll without waiting for the magic arrays below to react. After that scroll was used, the pressure from above the warehouse was no longer able to stop Saleen.


    Imposa¡¯s eyes turned cold. Saleen turned around. ¡°Remember that we have a deal. You¡¯ll only take one-fifth.¡±


    Imposa was dumbfounded for a bit, quickly realizing that Saleen had no intentions of turning back on his word.


    ording to his assessment, the deal between him and Saleen should have been voided earlier. He was unable to open up the warehouse before the functions of therge scale magic amplifier was restored.


    However, Saleen was not to be med. If Imposa had not intended to keep the scroll for himself and used only the puppets to break into the first floor of the warehouse, the timeg would not have happened.


    ¡°I shall remember today. Thank you.¡± Imposa¡¯s eyes turned calm. His emotional fluctuations earlier almost triggered the crack in his soul.


    ¡°I hope you will.¡± Saleen did not put Imposa¡¯s word to mind and replied right away.


    Imposaughed and his six legs moved quickly and tunneled into the hole.

 Chapter 1303: Fear Me (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1303: Fear Me (Part 1)</h4>


    It was not until Saleen said all that that Imposa developed a liking for Saleen. He disliked Saleen quite a lot before that, and that stemmed from disagreeable personalities between both of them.


    Saleencked firmness, but he was unnervingly meticulous. The way Imposa saw it, Saleen was like a venomous snake waiting to strike, and few people liked venomous snakes.


    Imposa did not mind that in the past. The contract between him and Saleen was temporary. As soon as he was no longer in service to the Grand Duke, he would not have to keep such promises any longer.


    However, Imposa began to change his mind. Saleen was someone destined for great achievements in the uing cmity that was about to hit Myers Maind, and he saw him as a friend worth making.


    He believed that Saleen would stand by the side of Myers Maind and would not rely on forces of any other nes.


    Abomination ne, so what? The mindless brutes actually dare to call themselves intelligent beings?


    When they reached the second floor, Imposa was dumbfounded. All of his passion before was gone. There was no fragments of bodies of gods around.


    The warehouse was unusually cold and huge blocks of ice were everywhere. The blocks of ice were conjured using elemental magic.


    Apes were seen sealed within the blocks of ice. The apes all had red, ming wings and looked rare. What does Imposa want with these monkeys with wings?


    Saleen was however, ted when he saw the red monkeys. He learned about the monkeys by chance. While they were gods in terms of ethnicity, they were not considered gods. To mages however, they were precious treasures.


    The monkeys could be mistaken for flying apes. While the flying apes were powerful, but they possessed no form of writing. Like the behemoths, they were not considered intelligent life by humans.


    The fiery red monkeys were god species from the Divine Kingdom of the Sun.


    The Sun God was seen in many nes, but the firewing monkeys were only seen in divine kingdoms of level 17 and above. The firewing monkeys had been very powerful when they were alive.


    Their capacity to control fire element was on par with fire type element spirits. They were born as oracles of gods, and they liked the sun.


    His teacher¡¯s Ring of Water and Firecked such sealed beings the most. The fire type element spirit that they captured before had been weak. If I gave all of these firewing monkeys to him, his magic amplifier should be able tost him until level 18 eh?


    When the lightning puppets were unleashed, Imposa said dejectedly, ¡°Saleen...¡±


    ¡°You can take one-fifth of these. Hurry up. These are very useful.¡± Saleen had no intentions of deceiving Imposa. He was able to tell that Imposa had been so anxious to attack Alchemy City not only because he needed to take revenge, but also because he needed to enhance his powers.


    That desperation stemmed from the cmity that was about to hit Myers Maind.


    ¡°These aren¡¯t things that I should be getting my hands on, Saleen. One needs to pay the price equivalent to what one desires.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have you pay for them, Imposa!¡± Saleen used Thunder Shock on him. Imposa shuddered but quickly regained hisposure. He began to stuff the sealing ice into his own space equipment.


    Both of them upped their pace. Within the space of several hundred square meters, there were over 200 firewing monkeys. Saleen was incredibly quick. By the time Imposa taken one-fifth of them, Saleen was done taking all the others.


    It was not due only to Saleen having helpers that he was able to achieve such speeds, but also because his mental powers were greater than Imposa¡¯s.


    Imposa did not bother with any of that. What he cared about was what the things were and why Saleen was so interested in them.


    Saleen passed through the two floors of the warehouse and came to the surface. He expanded his territory and found their men stuck where they were. The guardians at Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s side had long been summoned back, struggling to resist Alchemy City¡¯s attacks.


    If it had not been for the 200 most powerful Bug Angel Warriors, that spot would have long been overrun. If the exit had been blocked, both Saleen and Imposa would have needed to pay a hefty price to leave.


    The Grand Duke held the line at the exit. The three magic towers were not destroyed and were able to contact the core magic tower of the city. The strength of all of their magic was enhanced exponentially.


    Even the purple-gold dragon had no way of retaliating. It roared and roared, but it was not able to do anything against the city¡¯s territory. The city had not been able to do anything to overpower the dragon when their magic amplifier was not working. However, it was only able to keep the Grand Duke from being killed in one shot.


    Saleen¡¯s senses allowed him to see more. The Bug Angel army had already been carved up by the city¡¯s territory. Every single section had only several hundred warriors, which were being attacked by towers. The Bug Angel Warriors were unable to even contact the Grand Duke.


    Over 10,000 of Saleen¡¯s managed to break out and flee the city, but 6,000 were still trapped within, and carved into over a dozen sections, struggling to resist the magic towers¡¯ attacks.


    The archangel brought the metal angels and struggled as well. The function of the magic amplifier expanded the city¡¯s territory and raised its level. The Floating City continued to climb in altitude, reaching over 20,000 meters.


    Saleen wondered if he should give up on the Bug Angel Warriors. Over 12,000 of his soldiers made it outside the city, and that loss seemed tolerable.


    The dragon roared and cast Dragonhowl. It was dragon magic. The Grand Duke roared as well, bringing up his dragon spear and headed straight for the level ten magic tower right before him.


    Saleen was out. They could kill their way out of their barricade!


    ¡°Where are your warriors?¡± The Grand Duke asked Saleen before he forced his way out. Saleen had never dealt with people like the Grand Duke. When one had someone like the Grand Duke as a friend, he was truly worth keeping.


    So this is friendship among nobles then?


    Saleen recalled an idiom of themon folk¡ªunderneath the pretentious mask and ostentatious soul lies some virtue worth dying for.


    Everyone has a side to them that is worth loving.


    It was quite rare for Saleen to feel touched by an outsider. He swung his magic staff and buffed the Grand Duke with status magic¡ªIce Crystal Armor. It was not a pure physical defense spell like Crystal Fortitude, butpound magic capable of healing its wearer.


    Saleen had stored the spell in his magic staff as a means to deepen his friendship with the Grand Duke.


    He was in no mood for calctions at present. The Grand Duke did not forget about Saleen¡¯s army when he was retreating. He was, at the very least, truly an ally worth making. While they might not remain friends forever, the Grand Duke was definitely worthy of respect.


    d in Ice Crystal Armor, the Grand Duke shrugged off a level ten magic attack and golden light burst from his dragon spear, cutting off the connection between that tower before him with the other two. His level had yet to allow him to break the foundations of magic arrays, as he was unable to see them.


    However, his mask was made out of dragon crystals. The dragon he rode bestowed him with unique sight abilities. Whatever weaknesses the dragon saw, he was able to see.


    Saleen was able to just get out himself, flying straight into the air and to the Floating City. However, since the Grand Duke was so much of a friend that he thought of rescuing Saleen¡¯s army first when breaking out of the barricade, Saleen gave in. Saleen waspelled to reward the other man with what he gave.


    Saleen cast a ball of lightning again. It was incapable of attacking any quick-moving targets, but Saleen was able to calcte the movement of any target 100 times faster than he used to be able to when the target was in his territory. Furthermore, magic towers were not moving targets, so it was easy for Saleen to hit his target.


    The ck ball of lightning seeped into the magic tower. The tower¡¯s defenses werepletely ignored. The ball lightning seemed harmless as it floated and rolled around the tower.


    Saleen switched to his magic staff and cast a level 11 Stone Statue army.


    Six 100-meter stone statues rushed at the magic tower. Every one of them held elemental warhammers. It was a staff that Saleen prepared specifically for that purpose. The magic staff was created using bone crystals of the giant.


    The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers actually showed hints of intelligence. They were magical constructs and not considered living beings. They were little more than temporary items and owed their intelligence to the bone crystals of the giant.


    The warhammers pounded on the level ten magic tower, and a corner of it shattered. The defense barrier of the magic tower was crushed by six Stone Statue Soldiers.


    The reasoning was very simple. When the magic tower was caught inside Saleen¡¯s territory, enhancements from the magic amplifier and the city territory were unable to act. The mages within the tower did not evade the ball lightning due to curiosity and attempted to block it using magic shields. Tragedy ensued shortly after.


    They were not the first mages to die due to curiosity, but they were probably the first to do so on a battlefield in the past millennium. The mage died an unceremonious death. The tower¡¯s defense barrier was unmanned after he died, making it difficult for the tower to resist six level 11 magic weapons.


    The other two level ten magic towers¡¯ reinforcements were quickly broken by the Grand Duke¡¯s spear. They synchronized very intricately in their attacks.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, let¡¯s go!¡± Saleen used Thundering Explosion, sending his voice to the surrounding magic towers participating in the attack.


    The Grand Duke hurried the dragon and shot towards the west side of the city. Saleen pointed his finger there. He decided to take the Grand Duke¡¯s favor. The two giant statues in the west were no longer there, as they had gone to the other end of the city.


    The Ancient was still pressing with its attacks over there. Enormous puppets continued to attack with magic cannons with an explicit goal of emptying the energy stored within the weapons.


    Imposa broke out his metal cog and looked at Saleen. ¡°Get on!¡±


    Saleen smiled and leapt onto the weird flying device and took out his War Drum of Fear.


    ¡°Imposa, hold it steady, and hear this thing clearly,¡± Saleen held the bone hammer high, beating the face on the drum.

 Chapter 1304: Fear Me (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1304: Fear Me (Part 2)</h4>


    Imposa felt his pores open and was unable to stop cold air from seeping into him. Saleen¡¯s bone hammer beat on the War Drum of Fear, but he was only able to feel that much because it was not targeted at him. He did not have a clear idea what the effects of the drum would be like.


    ¡°Kill!¡± Saleen¡¯s voice resonated throughout his territory. Every single lightning puppet¡¯s actions became several times faster. They crackled with electricity, but their actualbat capacity was not as strong as their appearances suggested. However, since they were within Saleen¡¯s territory while the drum was heard, all mages and warriors in Alchemy City were all frightened to the bone.


    What they most feared appeared in their minds. The ones of lower levels sumbed to hallucinations right away, and some even attacked the ones around them.


    They crashed through the barricade and with Imposa¡¯s metal cog still spinning, and it felt like nothing was standing in their way.


    Doom, doom, doom...


    Imposa¡¯s heart beat alongside the rhythm of the War Drum of Fear without him realizing it. He did not resist it and intentionally followed Saleen¡¯s rhythm, learning the sound wave attack as he went.


    Saleen had a breeze controlling the drum. After he advanced to level ten, he began able to control some of the War Drum of Fear¡¯s skills. Grand Duke Iron Blood followed right behind, surrounded by 200 of his most elite Bug Angel Warriors.


    The warriors began to sing old war songs along Saleen¡¯s beat. Their might looked magnificent.


    It was unfortunate that the bug angels¡¯ appearances were nothing like humans. Therge bug-like warriors looked hrious from Saleen¡¯s perspective.


    While the bug angels did look hrious, theirbat capacity was considerably enhanced. Attacks from the surrounding towers became scarce and were no longer anything worthy of consideration.


    Saleen¡¯s party had Imposa and his 12 Iron Blood Warriors in the lead. Under Saleen¡¯s leadership, all of them flew straight for the west side of the city.


    The Floating City was over 20,000 meters in the air and Alchemy City¡¯s attacks were no longer able to affect it. The Floating City, on the other hand, kept throwing huge rocks.


    The rocks cost next to nothing, the only cost being the transportation from the bottom of the city, where they were stored. The rocks were picked from everywhere without regard of type, so long as they were hard enough.


    The Elemental Hand ran into further trouble. The team at the southeast side of the city had broken the city¡¯s defenses. The archangel in the north took the metal angels around, destroying nearly 100 magic towers.


    The Elemental Hand was forced to take new measures. At the northeast side of the city, in a huge ring-shaped group of buildings, a magic array formed out of six level 10 magic towers was invoked. A faint green aura emerged from the summoning magic array.


    However, with Saleen¡¯s War Drum of Fear ying, the magic towers of the southwest were unable to form decent defense and were broken though by Imposa. His skills were incredibly ferocious and the huge metal cog shot smaller cogs at frightening speed, invoking sonic booms as they cut through the air.


    Anyone below the levels of grand swordmasters perished as soon as they touched the cogs. The weapon was akin to a magic shooter of sorts. The metal cogs were far more powerful than bolts shot from alchemy crossbows.


    The purple-gold dragon shot dragon¡¯s breath at key moments, dissolving any iing dangers.


    They did not kill many powerful enemies as they traveled. The party met up with the bug angel army at the edge of the city. They picked up teams and toons along the way until an army of over 30,000 units followed behind Imposa.


    However, the sound of over 30000 bug angel wings was still unable to suppress the sound from the War Drum of Fear.


    Without the archangel holding the enemy, Saleen and the rest would not be able to escape smoothly. The city¡¯s territory grew increasingly strong, but the power originated from the center of the city, spreading outwards.


    The speed of the power¡¯s increase only urred only after the magic amplifier was restored.


    Saleen contacted Rossen, and the Floating City cast a huge swath of magic mes from above. The teams that were harassing the enemy at the docks retreated immediately, letting the puppets taking care of things. Magic cannons continued to fire, and warriors continued to retreat back to the Ancient.


    The one that left the earliest after the signal to retreat was given was the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship.


    The Elemental Hand was totally pissed off when they saw the people invading Alchemy City retreat, but the archangel continued to wreak havoc with the metal angels. If they sent men to pursue Saleen¡¯s party, all magic towers within the city except the level ten ones would be destroyed.


    While both Saleen and the Grand Duke felt pained for the tens of thousands of their men left behind in the city, they dared not turn around to rescue them. They brought the thousands at the edge of the city and met up with the army outside, about 50,000 of them leaving.


    The bug angel army of 220,000 strong was reduced to meager numbers. Grand Duke Iron Blood suffered quite a loss.


    Saleen¡¯s bug angel army consisted of only 20,000 units, losing about 3000 at the veryst minute, with the final numbers about 16,000. The result of the battle looked fairly good.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood and the others dared not hold themselves back when they were at the edge of the city. Imposa took out a magic metal shell of a diameter of over ten meters and stuffed it in the walls, letting a puppet detonate it.


    One magic metal shell cost the same as making hundreds of scrolls. However, it was extremely difficult for hundreds of scrolls to be used at once, unless they were used inside a magic andmanded by a single person.


    The 50,000 people fought all the way from inside the city and destroy a section of the city wall, opening the path for the Bug Angel Warriors that were injured and incapable of flight.


    Many of the suits of bug angel armor had their wings cut, burned, or blown up by magic, making repairs almost impossible.


    ¡°Nailisi, get us out of here.¡± Saleen called and Nailisi leapt from the Floating City.


    The chaos of the city remained. A magic army gathered at the north side of the city, but they were not out for Saleen and his party, but to take on the archangel. The miscalctions of the elders of the Elemental Hand allowed the archangel to break the battle¡¯s rhythm.


    As soon as the War Drum of Fear stopped ying, the Bug Angel Warriors and the Iron Blood Warriors looked as if they had been robbed of all their strength, almost falling limply onto the ground. Their mental powers were exhausted.


    It was fortunate that both Saleen and Imposa were still around. Both of them continued to throw magic scrolls and cast status magic in arge area. The Floating City crashed down from above. Nailisi opened the 12 Notes of First Purgatory and had the Bug Angel Warriors get inside.


    Retreat would take time. Even if all of the tens of thousands had been capable of flight, it would still take them about half an hour.


    The Elemental Hand was unable to sit well with the turn of events. They mobilized mages from the west of the city, intending to hunt Saleen¡¯s party. Saleen was unable to contain hisughter. A group of mages pursuing tens of thousands of bug angels? Are you sure they aren¡¯t walking to their graves?


    Three thousand Bug Angel Warriors stood before the group of mages under the Grand Duke¡¯s orders. Their transparent wings rattled and buzzed, making it difficult for anyone within earshot to concentrate.


    A group of 1,000 mages chased them to the hole in the wall pn the west side. The level ten mage trainer who was taking the lead gulped when they saw the 3000 bug angels before them.


    They actually fought each other. The Grand Duke smirked coldly. ¡°Looks like we can¡¯t count on Alchemy City to take out the cmity about to hit Myers Maind. The mages, they¡¯re all...¡±


    ¡°Fallen,¡± Imposa said. He looked at the injured Bug Angel Warriors entering Nailisi¡¯s collection of purgatories. ¡°Grand Duke, let¡¯s just get up to the Floating City and get out of here.¡±


    The Grand Duke looked at Saleen, who nodded. They were unable to figure out much on the Floating City. Despite being a master alchemist, Imposa was unable to calcte one-ten-thousandth of the rules of Floating City.


    The assault was disappointing to Saleen and caused him doubt. His disappointment came from not being able to use everything he prepared. He had the intention of going all out, but Alchemy City miscalcted and things turned out very badly for the city instead.


    If he knew that that was how Alchemy City would have turned out to be, he would have taken the ce all on his own!


    But Saleen was able to deduce that if Alchemy City had been able to craft an angel of fear, that meant that Alchemy City knew of an ancient ruins as well. That ancient ruins would at least have elemental creatures.


    He was a king and the Imperial City of the Abyss was too dangerous, but that was not the case with Alchemy City.


    If Alchemy City had been able to find ruins that had few dangers lurking within, they might have moved all of their important figures there.


    It was a pity that his spy in Alchemy City was able to find nothing. His deduction came from the appearance of the angel of fear alone.


    Bug Angel Warriors who were unhurt flew up, and the Alchemy City¡¯s territory was unable to keep Saleen from bringing the Bug Angel Warriors under his protection. Saleen¡¯s territory finally fully expanded outside the city.


    The Floating City descended, reaching about 10,000 meters from the ground. The Bug Angels all entered the darkness cast by the Floating City¡¯s huge form.


    The group of mages watched the bug angel army retreat and was unable to muster the courage to pursue them. They were unable to stop the people in the towers of the city. With them leaving the city, things could hardly turn out to be in the city¡¯s favor.


    Over 1,000 mages watched the warriors retreat. It was quite an insult to Alchemy City.


    However, the fighting within the city was even more fierce and no one paid attention to them. The Elemental Hand immediately amplified the city territory¡¯s power when they saw the Floating City to keep the city in the sky from dropping onto them.


    The Floating City stopped midair and the mist looked increasingly thick, seemingly about to rain.


    The Grand Duke said to Saleen all of a sudden, ¡°Saleen, how about we scare them a little bit?¡± He pointed at the mages.


    ¡°Sounds fun.¡± Saleen took one look amused look at Imposa.


    Imposa nodded, and the Grand Duke took the dragon down, charging at the mages with over 200 Bug Angel Warriors following closely behind. Saleen invoked Quickcloud, and Imposa got his metal cog running. All three of them charged at the mages without a care.


    The purple-gold dragon on the crotch of Grand Duke Iron Blood roared at the mage group. The mages shuddered and retreated. The Grand Dukeughed out loud and lowered his altitude to several hundred meters with his dragon spear in hand, before diving at breakneck speeds.

 Chapter 1305: Calm Before the Storm (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1305: Calm Before the Storm (Part 1)</h4>


    The purple-gold dragon was very frustrated because its powers were suppressed at level 12, there the city territory was diminishing its powers further, and it had to worry about Grand Duke Iron Blood dying at any given moment.


    It resulted in a powerful, mighty being having to run for its life like a rat, and there were still pursuersing at them.


    It had had enough!


    It shot a stream of dragon¡¯s breath as soon as it dove. Dragon¡¯s breath at such levels meant that it could shoot as much as it liked. That was the benefit of having one¡¯s level suppressed to far lower levels¡ªconservation was easy.


    When humans spit, there was a possibility that their mouths and throats would feel dry. When dragons blew, the stream never came out in short supply.


    The purple-gold dragon¡¯s dragon breath felt like extremely tiny Wind des that packed a lot of heat. Even mages capable of withstanding extreme heat were not able to resist getting cut by particles finer than dust.


    There was no way Imposa would simply let the Grand Duke have all the fun. He knew that the Grand Duke wanted to kill people because he was enraged at losing so many Bug Angel Warriors. If it had not been for Imposa¡¯s insistence, they would have been able to leave with the smallest cost incurred.


    About 50,000 Bug Angel Warriors left Alchemy City; 16,000 were Saleen¡¯s men. That meant that among the 200,000 Bug Angel Warriors that the Grand Duke brought with him, only 30,000 to 40,000 of them survived.


    All of them had been elite soldiers, so the fact that he had lost over 100,000 would definitely not sit well.


    The Grand Duke had picked a time when Alchemy City was at its weakest. It was a conclusion that they hade to after analyzing intel that spies within Alchemy City had gathered for years. That much effort was made before the Grand Duke made up his mind to attack.


    The Grand Duke had invested in over 200,000 suits of armor, each set cost as much as building a small team of elite cavalry units in any of the empires.


    There was a corresponding investment in the form of magic nuclei and scrolls, as well as magic cannons that were thoroughly broken after that battle,rge puppets, and so on.


    The Grand Duke had suffered sizeable losses at the docks. Over 1,000 Iron Blood Warriors had to die fighting just to attract the city¡¯s attention and allow the rest of them to get to shore. Alchemy suffered losses in the form of magic towers, while the Grand Duke¡¯s losses were in the form of level nine warriors.


    The Grand Duke was only capable of overwhelming victory during the naval battles, but it cost him a considerable amount of magic nuclei and magic metal shells.


    Such huge investments came with considerably fewer returns due to Imposa¡¯sst minute need. The most losses that the Grand Duke suffered were Iron Blood Warriors. They were the base of his family¡¯s power after all.


    Imposa felt guilty. Finding the fragments of the gods¡¯ bodies would have allowed him to make up for the losses, but he was only able to get a bunch of frozen monkeys.


    Imposa was unsure if they were of any worth. If the monkeys turned out to be worthless, then he would have let the Grand Duke down.


    He had imed without doubt that he knew what was in the warehouse. Nothing should have gone wrong. When the fragments were transported back, Imposa had been watching and knew that the supplies had been stored in three separate ces.


    All who entered the warehouse were not allowed to carry any space equipment. No one was allowed to take any of the materials for their own use. Imposa would not have gotten so hyped otherwise.


    The warehouses were meant for long term storage, and he had not left Alchemy City for long. He had also ced spies in the city. The tasks of the agents included watching the three warehouses.


    The small cogs seemed to shoot out of Imposa¡¯s metal cog endlessly, tens shot at any given moment. The mages retaliated as they put up their shields.


    They were unable to hold their defense up. The small metal cogs were as lethal as level nine magic spells. As the mages left the enhancements of the towers behind, their defense was more than halved. A mage needed to at least be level eight to defend against level nine spells.


    All three of them charged, with hundreds of warriors behind them. Things became very dire for the mages all of a sudden. The level ten mage who took the lead was thoroughly shaken, wondering why their mages were so vulnerable.


    It was less the fault of the mages and more because Saleen¡¯s territory had be formless. There were no crackling electricity, and his territory was invisible.


    Saleen used Quickcloud and his speed was on par with Imposa. He used Thundering Explosion in the mist and stunned all mages below level seven.


    ¡°Mages of Alchemy City. You have ambushed my fleet at sea and now, I shall take my revenge!¡± Saleen used Thundering Shock as soon as he was done with Thundering Explosion. The skills shared manymonalities, and since Saleen was not fighting one-on-one, he did not need the specific, targeted traits of his skills to work.


    The defeat of the mages was proof that the Elemental Hand had been too careless. While it was true that Saleen and the others had retreated like rats, it did not mean that they could be easily taken out by a group of 1000 mages.


    The Grand Duke was pissed and turned around, causing the group of mages to meet their doom.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood headed straight for the lead level ten mage. The mage was not one of the ones whose level was enhanced using secret arts; they were a true mage trainer.


    The Grand Duke brought his dragon spear up and energy waves glimmered below the mage trainer¡¯s foot. The mage flickered behind the group, decisive enough to tell that they were not a match for the Dragon Knight.


    Regardless of the magic spells used, they would all get shot down by that dragon. They could not defend against a dragon spear.


    They were quick on their feet, but Saleen was quicker. Ayer of Ice Crystal Armor appeared on Saleen body. The friction between his body and the air around was so great when he moved that the armor actually burned.


    Saleen appeared right before that mage and pointed a finger at the mage¡¯s head.


    The mage¡¯s head exploded, but no flesh and blood sprayed. The mage¡¯s head was turned to dust under Crystal Finger¡¯s attack.


    That one shot cost Saleen half of his magic chords, and lethality had been the gist of it. If the level ten mage had seen his attack before, they would not have been so easily targeted.


    Saleen had too little training with Crystal Finger, as one use drained half of his magic chords. There were simply too many skills that Saleen needed to train, making him unable to use Crystal Finger forbat training.


    However, it was sufficient to take on any mage who had never seen the Crystal Finger before. The level ten mage had enough time to cast a Dark Barrier when they saw Saleen¡¯s finger, but the spell was quickly shot through by Crystal Finger. The mage did not even have any chance for regret before their head was blown up.


    Saleen put the mage¡¯s body away in his Starline Ring as soon as he killed him. There were many valuables on a level ten mage¡¯s person. In Alchemy City, public items were only allowed to be stored in warehouses, and individuals had to carry all personal items on them. No one else found the idea of letting others help with keeping their items reassuring.


    That mage hadbored for hundreds of years only for Saleen to rob them blind. No one ever expected a spell capable of piercing a shield cast by a mage of simr level and killing them in one shot. Raphael had yet to create the skill when he was in his prime.


    Imposa knew that Saleen possessed such a skill. He felt shivers down his spine. If Imposa did not possess the skill to split his soul, that finger would no doubt doom him if he happened to be the target.


    When it came to speed, Saleen¡¯s speed was almost beyond the human body¡¯s tolerance. His skill of his might have only been second to Rainbow.


    Things did not end after Saleen used half of his magic chords to kill a level ten mage. He unraveled a level ten scroll and cast Dark Sky, sucking mages around him into it, preventing them from moving. He followed up with Icicle.


    The mages had already been robbed of half of their attributes in the Dark Sky and were unable to see Saleen attacking. Many mages had their heads blown up at the same time, dropping to the ground shortly after.


    Saleen was a formidable level ten mage trainer. After the group lost their level ten mage, level nine ones posed little threat to him. He began attacking without restraint. Even when he only had half of his magic chords left, hisbat capacity was hardly different from other level ten mage trainers. He had twice as many magic chords as conventional mages to begin with.


    Nailisi dared not let her guard down even after seeing Saleen kill his way through the group of mages. She put away the 12 Notes of First Purgatory and did not care if the Bug Angel Warriors would be able to withstand the huge pressure. She took her devil form and took out Grey Memory, jumping into the fray.


    When dealing with low level mages, all four of them were unbelievably lethal. The level ten mages serving the Grand Duke did not even fight, and his true might subordinates simply watched from the sides.


    The group of mages continued to crumble. The walls were about four miles away and they were unable to provide backup. The mages serving the Grand Duke were all on guard against any fearsome beings instead.


    They all saw the statues of giants. If it had not been for them being slower creatures, the mages would have forced the Grand Duke to leave. No mage would fight something they had no way of winning against.


    The Grand Duke no longer had any interests killing the group that was getting increasingly scattered. He had no intention of offending all mages in the world; he only wanted to teach the mages a lesson.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Seeing the Grand Duke put away his spear and switch to his bow to chase away the mages who insisted on fighting, Saleen proposed that they leave.


    That archangel that was fighting hard in the city saw the Floating City in the sky and seemed to recall something.


    A Sky City? How can mages on Myers Maind be so weak if something like that exists? If it had not been for the magic towers and the magic amplifier, the archangel would have been confident enough to raze the city tens of times over.


    The huge magic array split north of Alchemy City. A terrifying purple aura formed in the midst of the green, looking like congealed blood or gas spewing from organs.


    The elders of the Elemental Hand paid close attention to the summoning array. The nine elders were frustrated seeing that array split.


    ¡°We failed again?¡±


    ¡°We failed again. It seems that the stability between nes is no longer reliable. We won¡¯t be able to use such powerful summoning spells in the future.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. We have no idea what we would summon.¡±


    ¡°It seems like the time for us all to leave Alchemy City. It is no longer defensible!¡±

 Chapter 1306: Calm Before the Storm (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1306: Calm Before the Storm (Part 2)</h4>


    The summoning array split up and stood up straight against the ground. An irregr ck tear appeared and energy gushed from it. The green got increasingly thin and the purple increasingly thick.


    Low pitched roars were heard from the tear. The elders of the Elemental Hand began giving orders to the mages who were close to them, having them clear the area. All core members of the Elemental Hand prepared to leave.


    While the wealth of Alchemy City was vast, with the exception of the underground warehouses, most was concentrated in the hands of the nine elders.


    They were not ready to give up the city, but the mages of the Elemental Hand were incapable of taking on the monster that was answering the summons.


    The nine elders began to transfer the items in the warehouses and left their magic towers. Mages around the summoning array were shifting rapidly as well. The mages of the Elemental Hand closed in on another core area on the south side of the city, and no longer backing up the mages at the east side, who were still fighting the archangel.


    Hundreds of hands shot out from the tear. All of the hands had long fingernails and thick hair.


    Purple smog emerged from the tear shortly after, which smelled humid and putrid. The hands were shrouded by the smog. Hundreds of shrieks were heard. The hands corroded until only bones were left.


    The roar became increasingly clear and agitated. A 20-meter-tall creature walked out from the tear, d in purple aura. Every step it took made the ground crack and blister.


    Alchemy City¡¯s ground was made of rocks as strong as steel. While the rockscked malleability, they were very corrosion-resistant.


    However, under the purple aura, the rocky ground that had not needed recement for 1,000 years was stripped, as if it had been subjected to harsh weathering.


    A spirit?


    The creature had a bony face and its eyes were reced with soul mes. All nearby mages were surprised.


    The spirit ne, like Myers Maind, had power levels that severely plummeted, but the spirit that emerged from the summoning array looked at least level 12.


    There were quite a number of mages capable of summoning spirits. The death mages knew that even in the spirit ne, the kings were level ten at most. However, that monster that emerged was already level 12, and it looked like a lone wolf.


    That meant that a spirit ne further away had been opened, once known as the secondary spirit ne.


    However, the creature that emerged from the secondary spirit ne was actually stronger than normal.


    Something is off. This should have been a teleportation portal for summoning huge beasts from the Orc Continent. Why did a spirit emerging instead? Everyone was puzzled.


    The spirit was shrouded in purple aura and held a fork. The five-pronged fork had a head speared on it. The spirit is breathing hard. It is breathing; you can see the purple aura being sucked into its nostrils.


    ¡°It¡¯s a half-dead!¡± Someone yelled. The surrounding towers cast high level spells at once, caging the half-dead within.


    Half-deads were powerful. While they were horrible as far as summoned creatures went, the souls of half-deads could be used to make good items. Half-deads were pricey even back in ancient times.


    ¡°That...idiot...¡± The half-dead was still choosing its words when the spells hit it. However, the magic spells hardly did anything as they shot into the purple smog.


    Spirit territory!


    The mages lost all their passion when they realized. There were many creatures capable of possessing territories. A creature that possessed territorial powers meant that they possessed intelligence.


    Any half-dead that possessed intelligence was difficult to capture. Their souls were capable of escaping back into the spirit ne. When spirits were crushed, they returned to the spirit ne. However, returning of their own will and being forced back there were different concepts.


    Powerful mages could destroy the soul mes of spirits, wiping them out from existence. For this particr half-dead however, it would be extremely difficult to get its soul mes, especially since it possessed intellect. It would set up death magic array in the ne it came from, enabling it to escape back at any given moment.


    The nine elders of the Elemental Hand were tempted. Conventional mages were not able to capture half-deads. They should consider themselves lucky if the half-dead did not eat them, let alone capturing them.


    However, due to it being within the vicinity of the city¡¯s territory, the half-dead¡¯s power diminished, which meant that the elders were capable of taking it on.


    Crack...


    The tear in space behind that half-dead became even bigger. A skull that was over a dozen meters tall emerged and ate the half-dead.


    ¡°A skeletal dragon!¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s get it!¡±


    ¡°Run...¡±


    The mages of Alchemy City were all over the ce. If the death mages who intended to take the skeletal dragon on were able to tame it, they would be like Grand Duke Iron Blood¡ªacquiring a massive power boost and the ability to ignore level difference.


    The ones who told everyone to run were elemental mages. Magic defenses of skeletal dragons were too high, and they had no intentions of dying.


    ¡°Out of my way!¡± The skeletal dragon¡¯s ws tore at its side. If the space tear had formed naturally, it would not have been able to withstand its pressure. However, the tear was a manifestation of the summoning array.


    It ignored the elemental storm in the tear and did not suffer any damage.


    The half-dead¡¯s bones shattered to pieces. The soul mes in its eyes were quickly absorbed by the skeletal dragon.


    The skeletal dragon spit some of the broken bony residue at the magic tower right before it, killing over half of the mages inside. The essence of the bones were absorbed by the skeletal dragon and made part of its power as well.


    ¡°Sh**, why is a skeletal dragoning out!?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here...¡±


    While the mages of the Elemental Hand had many ways of dealing with it, killing the skeletal dragon would be moot if they were lost too many mages, as it would rob them of the hope to restart in the future.


    Most of the elites of Alchemy City had been transferred elsewhere, and the maind was about to fall into chaos. The Elemental Hand had no intention of being caught at the forefront. Many would perish in the uing chaos.


    The people of the Elemental Hand began to discuss retreat. The skeletal dragon forced itself out of the tear and lowered its head, crashing into a magic tower. The Floating City in the sky remained where it was. Rain clouds were gathering and cold rain fell from the sky on the mid-autumn day.


    The Floating City was half of the reason why the rain came to be.


    Saleen was researching on how to convert clouds to rain. Clouds were inadequate for generating lightning, but when rain formed, lightning would definitely appear.


    The enchanters on the Floating City cast many magic spells to test per Saleen¡¯s requests and finally created a thunderstorm.


    Countless half-dead emerged out of the tear from behind the skeletal dragon. The tear could not be maintained for long, but half-dead and spirits were different.


    Half-deads yearned for flesh and manifestation of souls. The smell of Myers Maind was enticing, and the half-deads were instinctually tempted. They forced themselves through the space barrier and into Alchemy City without a care.


    Many half-deads lower than level seven lost their way in the space tear and were caught in the space turbulence, lost for good. However, half-deads of level seven and above possessed intelligence, and their instincts had been awakened.


    The half-deads simply followed the path of energy forged by the skeletal dragon, entering Alchemy City without a scratch.


    Heavy rain poured from above and the soul mes in the eyes of the half-deads danced in the rain. They spread out throughout the city.


    Saleen and his party had returned to the Floating City. The reactions of the crowd watching the scene from the magic array differed.


    Saleen sighed. Alchemy City was doomed. The thousand year-old city had once been the dream of countless mages and was about to be crushed by creatures from another ne.


    That spirit ne was definitely not the one that the Winged Skull came from.


    No one had any idea what the level of the skeletal dragon was, but it could not be any lower than 13. The rules of Myers Maind began to loosen. Alchemy City¡¯s territory was no longer able to suppress the skeletal dragon¡¯s power.


    It was great news to mages. Once rules on the maind changed, advancing would no longer be difficult. Tomon folks, however, it was definitely a disaster.


    Half-deads hunted any living beings to absorb their powers of the soul to strengthen themselves. The rate of hunting would not be high, unlike ck magicians. The gods that ck magicians believed in might not be able to kill the skeletal dragon.


    Imposa sighed. His regret was that he was unable to continue searching the warehouse. With the emergence of the skeletal dragon, the people of the Elemental Hand would rack their brains for ways to retreat, without any spare thoughts to bother about Saleen¡¯s party.


    The Grand Duke looked at the scene and shook his head. He said to Saleen, ¡°Your Highness, I urgently need...¡±


    ¡°Equipment, no? Give me a list. I¡¯ll try to hasten the crafting processes as best as I can.¡±


    Imposa was unable to hold back any longer. ¡°Grand Duke, I¡¯m willing to help you, but I don¡¯t know what to do with the things I took from His Highness.¡± He took out a firewing monkey sealed in water element.


    ¡°It¡¯s one of the god creatures, which can be used to craft tools for amplifying fire element magic powers. If the souls of these god creatures are intact, they can be made into weapon spirits as well,¡± Saleen exined to Grand Duke Iron Blood. Both he and Imposa did not get what they went into the warehouse for.


    They were unsure if the Grand Duke would be okay with the firewing monkeys.


    Imposa heard Saleen¡¯s words and knew immediately that their worth far exceeded his expectations, but they were not quite as valuable as the fragments.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. I¡¯ll take one-fifth of these if that is okay with you?¡± The Grand Duke asked both Saleen and Imposa.

 Chapter 1307: Wandering Angel (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1307: Wandering Angel (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Fine with me.¡± Saleen agreed as it was impossible for him not to give anything to the Grand Duke. He lost a good number of men due to having to wait for both Saleen and Imposa. Even if Grand Duke Iron Blood hardly did anything in theter stages, he still had to get something.


    Imposa never flinched in the battle. Saleen would never shortchange him on the one-fifth promised. Saleen got most of everything¡ªthree-fifths.


    The firewing monkeys were high level god creatures and Saleen kept 172 out of the 288 firewing monkeys for himself. He left the rest to both the Grand Duke and Imposa.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s dragon had returned to the summoning space and he put away his Dragon Knight armor as well. He looked at Saleen. ¡°Are you interested in the skeletal dragon?¡±


    Saleen shook his head and answered, ¡°Not at all. It has to be either level 13 or 14.¡±


    ¡°You have no way of killing it?¡±


    ¡°Maybe I do, but if we kill it, Alchemy City would get to stay in one piece.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re not worried that the skeletal dragon is going to bust out of Alchemy City and kill everywhere on Myers Maind?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not worried at all. It will stay in Alchemy City and go nowhere.¡±


    ¡°What makes you say so?¡± Grand Duke Iron Blood was curious.


    Imposa exined, ¡°Skeletal dragons are not true dragons. They have no need to breed, so staying here would be the mostfortable option. If it kills everywhere, it would attract attention. It¡¯s clever and will at least stay around for several years and build a city of the dead before considering expanding outside.¡±


    Saleen added, ¡°the powers across the maind are not stable. Right now, I¡¯d say the area around Alchemy City is the most suitable habitat for the skeletal dragon. Go somewhere else and the fluctuations of energies would be too great for it to feelfortable.¡±


    The Grand Duke nodded. Well, so long as the skeletal dragon stays put inside Alchemy City. While Alchemy City was in a remote area, it was still a coastal city leading to Cloudflow to the south. To the north, there was the Qin Empire and hardly any passes or barriers onnd.


    Passes or barriers were not useful anyway. The skeletal dragon¡¯s flight was fast enough that no mages below level ten would be able to outrun it.


    None of the three felt that Alchemy City would be able to kill the skeletal dragon. Their best solution was to simply abandon the city and run. The skeletal dragon was just starting to get used to Myers Maind and did not like the idea of chasing after the mages. If they ran, most of what remained of the city could still be kept intact.


    ¡°We¡¯ll stay put here for the time being. I assume that you don¡¯t have any other matters to attend to, no?¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood nodded without showing much emotion. Imposa thought for a bit. ¡°Grand Duke, I¡¯d like to return to the Pce At Sae.¡±


    ¡°What if something happens here?¡±


    ¡°You could use the teleportation portal to summon me and I¡¯ll be here at once.¡± Imposa was in a hurry to repair his soul. He was rather reluctant to do so on Saleen¡¯s Floating City.


    He was bereft of any capacity for self-preservation while he was at it. Never show the bottom of your purse. Imposa was not naive enough to truly believe that Saleen had became his friend.


    Furthermore, his soul had reached the stage that absolutely needed repair. If he dyed healing it any further, it would only be a matter of time before he lost control. His soul would truly split in two and would need to share a single body. His temperament would change considerably and he would have little to no control of himself.


    He had gotten the angel of fear at the right time, as it could be used to patch up his soul.


    Imposa took his 12 Iron Blood Warriors and left, leaving the rest of his men for the Grand Duke. The Floating City stayed high in the air, getting ready to take advantage of the situation. While the skeletal dragon was powerful, it would not dare fly in a thunderstorm.


    The power of lightning in the rain clouds could easily fry its soul after all.


    Furthermore, Saleen had his family badge in his hand, so he was still confident enough to take on the skeletal dragon. He had no interest in getting rid of the countless half-deads that the skeletal dragon brought with it though.


    Half-deads were not able to cause much trouble quickly and the mages of Alchemy City had gotten greedy enough to hunt some of them. Saleen was in no hurry. What he needed to do was reorganize his own military equipment.


    While Bug Angel Armor was top of the line and possessed great lethality, it was impossible for Saleen to just focus on his army of demons. He needed to craft equipment for his elite armies as well. The only armor suitable for human use was the Tainted Blood Armor.


    Saleen initially had no way of crafting Tainted Blood Armor, due tock of materials and insufficient level. He acquired manufacturing methods of the Tainted Blood Armor and countless materials from both the astrology tower and the temple of the goddess, which enabled him to begin building his army.


    Saleen had no intention of replicating the Tainted Blood Armor. While humans mages had been far more powerful than their present day counterparts, the crafting of their armor was in no way leaning to the intricate side. While the armor had been powerful items, they had still been somewhat crude.


    The two points were in no way contradictory. Human warriors used to have superb constitution. An elite soldier needed to be at least level eight to qualify. Requirements for armor were very low. A set of armor could weigh over 100 pounds and not be considered heavy armor.


    There were less than 5,000 soldiers serving Saleen who reached that criteria, but his human army was over 500,000 strong.


    Only one in 100 was suited to wear the Tainted Blood Armor.


    If all he had wanted was the defensive capacity of the Tainted Blood Armor, he would be better off making other magic armor. They would work more or less the same, and both supplies and manpower of the alchemy factories could be preserved.


    Saleen needed to rework the armors¡¯ design, incorporating all his magic knowledge. The weapons at present were different from ancient times. The troops were meant for conquering nes, and the enemies they needed to fight were not of high levels. Powerful ones among their ranks would deal with any powerful enemies encountered. What Saleen needed to do at the moment was to give the soldiers a decisive edge on the battlefield.


    Saleen destroyed any miniature alchemical machinery as soon as Imposa left, before saying to the Grand Duke, ¡°Grand Duke, Alchemy City is about to be doomed. What do you have in mind?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by ¡®what do you have in mind?''¡±


    ¡°Fycro invited me to take on the abominations ne. Have youe to a decision?¡±


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m in. Abominations love ughtering, which makes them different from the spirits. If the abominations really get to Myers Maind, both of our countries will be in big trouble.¡±


    ¡°But I can¡¯t trust Fycro.¡±


    ¡°I know that, but Saleen, my family has been around for thousands of years and there are tens of millions who depend on my family to live. I can¡¯t just sit by and do nothing.¡±


    ¡°Well then, Grand Duke, right now I need time. I¡¯m going to dedicate myself to enhancing my powers from September to December and can not craft armor for you personally. You¡¯ll need to look for my teacher for help with that.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, I need to head back to Dragon Ind, so you...¡±


    ¡°My Floating City will either stay here or go to Laiyin Duchy.¡±


    ¡°These are the schematics of the armor I need. Could you rece the monkeys, Saleen?¡± The Grand Duke asked with concern. He was not a mage, but he knew that many materials during the manufacturing process were irreceable.


    Saleen took the schematics and countless runes spun in his eyes. He was able toprehend the meaning of the armor schematics right away. ¡°I could, but there won¡¯t be much materials left for you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine. Get the armor for me and I¡¯m confident that we¡¯ll be able to survive ande home alive from that war against the abominations.¡± The Grand Duke said solemnly. He did not bother mentioning the matter of letting Imposa get away.


    ¡°Sure then!¡± Saleen smiled. ¡°If things really go south, I¡¯ll just go up to the Floating City. The abominations wouldn¡¯t dare attack.¡±


    ¡°Is it alright if I let my troops recuperate here?¡± The Grand Duke asked, testing Saleen out.


    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Saleenughed for a bit, then continued, ¡°very well, Grand Duke. Whatever else you need, just say it.¡±


    ¡°The Bug Angel Armor is indeed powerful, but they cost too much to operate. Are there any recements you can offer?¡±


    ¡°Will do. Leave your Dragon Blood Warriors and let me observe them for a month. I¡¯ll have the mages check them and I¡¯ll make you a set of armor suitable for their use.¡±


    ¡°What about payment?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do it for free. I need to nurture my own Dragon Blood Warriors in the future after all. I¡¯ll just take it as doing it for myself,¡± Saleen answered generously.


    The Grand Duke hesitated for a bit. ¡°These four mages of mine here don¡¯t belong to the family; they¡¯re my followers. I can¡¯t bring them back with me to Dragon Ind on this trip. I hope you can look after them for me.¡±


    The Grand Duke meant the four level ten mage trainers. All four of them wore masks and mage armor. Their age and appearance could not be told.


    None of the four level ten mage trainers reacted when the Grand Duke asked Saleen to take care of his four followers. They simply looked at Saleen without saying a word. No displeasure could be seen in their eyes.


    ¡°Do you need me to show them the ropes or would you need them to follow me around and work for me?¡± Saleen asked straightforwardly.


    ¡°Both. I can¡¯t bring them back to the Dragon Ind, so I need your help. You may havemand over them for the time being. If you¡¯re willing, you¡¯re wee to teach them a thing or two in regards to magic.¡±


    ¡°Alright, guess I¡¯ll do it.¡± Saleen looked at the eyes of the four mage trainers.


    The four mage trainers lowered their heads and bowed to Saleen. ¡°Thank you, your highness, for having us.¡±


    Well...


    Saleen was at a loss for words seeing the four mages, who were the same level as him, lower their heads to him. If their equipment was not taken into ount, thebat capacity of the four mages were lower than his.


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s puzzled look, the Grand Duke feltpelled to exin, ¡°I¡¯m the only one who is allowed to enter and exit Dragon Ind as I please. Anyone else is permitted to enter but not exit. Once they chose to leave after entering, they lose the right to return.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Grand Duke. You have my word that I will not let them do anything dangerous, but if I am in any danger...¡±


    ¡°They¡¯d fight by your side.¡±


    ¡°d to hear you say it.¡±


    Saleen and the Grand Duke discussed matters for after they parted ways. The archangel had already brought the metal angels out of Alchemy City. The archangel grew hesitant as soon as the skeletal dragon showed up. There was a sign of fear in the face of the skeletal dragon.


    The skeletal dragon might not have bothered eating people, but a creature like the archangel would be made short work of.


    The city territory¡¯s suppression on the archangel dropped considerably after flying outside the city, and the archangel had the mood to look up at the city in the sky. The Floating City was hidden among thick clouds, where lightning shed and thunder roared, its magnificent form showing asionally.


    The archangel turned around to look at the 300 metal angels behind and felt exasperated. All other angels had lost their intelligence with the exception of the archangel. Their god died, but not the archangel, and her powers were enhanced.


    What the hell is all this about? The archangel had intended to talk with the ones up in the Sky City, but it did not dare to fly amidst the fearsome storm.

 Chapter 1308: Wandering Angel (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1308: Wandering Angel (Part 2)</h4>


    The archangel was troubled. She was a creation of the gods and a type of god creature. Sbe should have never had a soul. When their god died, she and the rest of the metal angels were supposed to die alongside their god.


    However, the god of Metal Divine Kingdom perished and the angels were still intact. The problem, however, was that while she acquired powers and evolved into a living being with a soul, all the other metal angels lost their intelligence.


    The archangel was ted when she found herself on Myers Maind after being summoned. She quickly found that the humans on the maind were far weaker than the ones imprinted in her inherited memories.


    She wanted to look for a powerful being and make sense of what was happening to her. What the gods were unable to address, humans would be capable of addressing.


    Saleen saw in the magic array¡¯s projections that the archangel seemed to be looking for something above. He sent his voice into the natural thunder downwards.


    ¡°Angel, you shalle look for me up here. I shall keep you from being attacked by lightning.¡±


    The archangel shuddered, as its majesty seemed even more unpredictable than the god that she had once served. That person was not all that powerful, but they were capable ofprehending powerful rules. Is that a human or a god?


    ¡°If you¡¯re noting up here, I¡¯ll be off.¡± Saleen fused his own Thundering Sound with nature¡¯s and realize quite a lot. It was the result of him observing lightning for prolonged periods and learning as he went.


    That realization changed the rhythm of his heartbeat and his blood, bing extremely slow. When his heart beat, it seemed as thunder was produced in his body, and when his blood flowed, it seemed like lightning in nature, sending energy to every part of his body. Every breath of his seemed to be winds of nature.


    Saleen¡¯s voice coalesced into thin lines in the storm, sent straight to the archangel¡¯s ears, which startled her.


    ¡°I¡¯ming up!¡± The archangel had totally forgotten about the metal angels behind her. She spread her wings and shot into the sky, immersing herself in the clouds.


    The crackling electricity burst within the clouds, but Saleen¡¯s voice acted as a guide, preventing her from being struck by lightning along the way. She flew all the way to the Floating City, and a teleportation portal appeared at the bottom of the huge construct.


    The archangel did not require any magical help. She passed right through the portal and came above the Floating City.


    Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower rose from the core area of the Floating City. Ten floors were seen and the rest remained buried underground.


    ¡°Come in.¡±Saleen¡¯s voice was regal and imposing, but he was anxious. The archangel was level 13. He would be able to do something against her if she came into the tower, but if she remained outside, he would only be able to kill her by directing lightning towards her.


    However, that was not Saleen¡¯s intention. The archangel¡¯s eyes looked very lost, so Saleen did what he did.


    ¡°Will do.¡± The archangel did not cast any skills and walked into the magic tower obediently, going up the stairs and into Saleen¡¯s room.


    Nailisi was standing by Saleen¡¯s side. The archangel felt her memories were rather confusing as she looked at her, pointing at Nailisi rudely, at a loss for words.


    Nailisi smiled at her. ¡°I¡¯m not Myers.¡±


    It was only then that the archangel calmed down. She was not Myers and had only taken Myers¡¯ form using Ultimate Shapeshifting. Who had the gall to do that? The Goddess of Myers was an absolutely powerful being even among the gods.


    ¡°What is your name?¡± Saleen looked at the archangel and was hardly perturbed. He had just resonated with the lightning and thunder of nature all of a sudden, and his mind calmed. He would not be agitated even if he saw that general again.


    The archangel frowned. She was able to feel Saleen¡¯s power, which was far lower than hers, but his calm was not a facade. It was that human that sent out the terrifying voice that hit straight into her soul.


    ¡°My name is Rafel.¡± The archangel did not refuse Saleen¡¯s question. Her name was not a secret.


    ¡°Well, Rafel, I¡¯m Saleen, Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    Rafel nodded and gazed at Saleen with her golden eyes. She did not know what to say, but her intuition told her that the human before her was not someone she could fathom.


    ¡°Rafel, you¡¯re, for the time being, more powerful than I am, but you¡¯ll need me,¡± Saleen said confidently.


    Rafel looked ponderous and nodded slightly again.


    ¡°How about you be my follower? I¡¯m not a god and I don¡¯t need your soul. However, you¡¯ll need to pay with loyalty.¡±


    ¡°And why is that?¡±


    ¡°Without my protection, it¡¯ll only be a matter of time before someone chomps down on you. An angel without a god, wandering on this piece ofnd; amb who lost its master.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was calm and slow, but it possessed the power to mesmerize others.


    ¡°This is Myers Maind, no?¡± Rafel finally asked.


    ¡°This is Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°Humans here are really puny and weak, totally different from the legends.¡± A tinge of sarcasm was seen in Rafel¡¯s eyes. Is this human trying to subjugate me?


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, Rafel. There are still many powerful beings hidden on this maind. The powerful beings need you... like they need food.¡± Saleen recalled the heroic spirits in the Cemetery of Heroes.


    If he killed Rafel and handed her over to the heroes, he would get quite a number of powerful equipment in exchange.


    ¡°You¡¯re weaker than I am, so how...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m indeed weaker than you are, but I have the ability to kill you!¡± Saleen said as he took out his family badge, waving it before Rafel¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°The Lightning Badge! You¡¯re the God of Thunder?¡±


    ¡°No. I have nothing to do with the gods. Rafel, do you understand why I dared to invite you up here?¡± Saleen¡¯s smile remained, but his words were chilling.


    ¡°You? Why did you deceive me?¡± A tear was seen in Rafel¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen discovered how pure that angel¡¯s soul was. His mesmerizing Thundering Sound was unable to entice her at all.


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t deceive you. I invited you up here because I needed you, just like how you need me.¡± Saleen put the badge away. He was able to tell that the archangel¡¯s physical structure had be very close to that of a human.


    When her armor was retracted, she would have a lot of weaknesses that he would be able to exploit. One shot with the Crystal Finger was all it would take.


    A level 13 being would be able to end him without a doubt in conventional circumstances. They were very close to each other. He was a mage, and she was an angel. However, he had the Figure of Fate and any attack would first work on the Figure of Fate first.


    Only when the Figure of Fate waspletely shattered would he suffer direct damage. When the Figure of Fate was taking hits, he would have ample time to cast his skills.


    ¡°God says...¡±


    Nichs tensed up immediately, thinking that Rafel was about to cast divine spells.


    ¡°God says that humans are maggots!¡± Rafel¡¯s brow raised.


    Saleen smiled. ¡°That is how humans describe the gods. We¡¯re simr.¡±


    ¡°I will not work for you. The ones that I need to protect are the angels, nothing else,¡± Rafel answered.


    ¡°No, you will work for me, because it won¡¯t take long for you to realize that your powers, which you take so much pride in, are no longer supreme on this ne. Your angels will be food for a lot of races, including humans.¡±


    ¡°I will not trust you. At the very least for the time being, I¡¯m still the stronger one!¡± Determination was seen on Rafel¡¯s face.


    ¡°Why would you need to trust me?¡± Saleen asked curiously before continuing, ¡°I¡¯m a mage. Trust don¡¯t exist between us. Having contracts alone will suffice.¡± Saleen took out a contract scroll that he had prepared and threw it at her. The scroll hovered before Rafel, coursing with starlight.


    ¡°An astrologer?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m an astrologer as well.¡±


    Rafel did not take the contract scroll and turned to look at the magic projections on the magic array instead. The projections in the array showed the hundreds of metal angels.


    The metal angels stood quietly in the rain, awaiting Rafel¡¯s return. Their bodies glittered with a metallic sheen, hard and cold. The pouring rain hit the metal angels and bounced, shining brilliantly in the weak glitter.


    ¡°See that, Rafel? Your angels will just remain there without you around, until they rust and fall apart.¡± Saleen began to entice Rafel.


    He was able to tell that if the ones at Alchemy City had not taken Rafel on using magic arrays, she might not have resisted. The angel had no idea what true freedom was.


    ¡°Is that so?¡± Rafel did not look at Saleen. She was looking at the people around him instead.


    Sika, Nailisi, Nichs, J, Sul, Eleanor, Daniel...


    Everyone looked at her with expectant eyes. The souls were firm and had few impurities. They felt less dirty and stifling.


    Rafel caressed the contract before her with slender fingers. The scroll looked beautiful. Starlight coursed through it and mystical script shone with a silver sheen. The scroll¡¯s material was ck as night.


    ¡°You are sincere, Saleen.¡± Rafel praised him and Saleen seemed rather flustered.


    ¡°So you actually killed a dragon to ensure the effectiveness of this contract then?¡± Rafel sensed the words written on the scroll being imbued with formidable power.


    The magical powers were imbued within the blood of the dragon. The dragon¡¯s blood seemed to be fresh. Saleen had asked for it from the Grand Duke before they parted ways. He needed only a small quantity for writing the scroll.


    ¡°The dragon is alive,¡± Saleen answered.


    Rafel¡¯s fingernail bent inwards and pricked a hole on her finger. Pure energy flowed from the hole, which she used to write her name on that contract.


    Rafel shuddered for a bit after writing her name, feeling something added to the depths of her soul, making her feel somewhat ufortable. However, she recalled the hundreds of metal angels waiting for her in the rain and felt satisfied.

 Chapter 1309: Apotheosis (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1309: Apotheosis (Part 1)</h4>


    Raphael wrote her name on the scroll and a binding power appeared deep within her soul. The contract scroll crumbled as soon as Rafel was done writing down her name, reduced to bits of starlight and scattered in the air.


    That was the first time Saleen used constetion contracts. As long as the stars stayed intact, the contract would be forever binding. When Saleen wrote that contract, not only did he use the blood of the dragon as a catalyst, but he also imbued the contract with constetion power, drawing hundreds of star charts.


    Unless the constetion regions of those charts had all been destroyed, there was no way to destroy the contract.


    ¡°Sir, would you mind letting the angelse up?¡± A lot of information flowed into Rafel¡¯s mind as soon as she signed the contract, all of which was hidden in the contract by Saleen. Rafel would not have been able to know this information if she were to refuse to sign the contract.


    Saleen introduced Myers Maind to her. There were many level ten beings appearing on the maind, and if the metal angels were to take on those beings one-on-one, there was no way they woulde out on top.


    Powerful professionals among humans possess powerful equipment, while metal angels relied solely on their instincts to battle.


    The god of the Metal Divine Kingdom had perished, making it difficult for those angels to use divine arts, as they were now utterly incapable of borrowing powers from their god.


    Only skills like sacrifice remained intact, but using them would cause the metal angels to thoroughly crumble instead of being resurrected in the divine kingdom.


    What Saleen needed to do was to convert the metal angels¡¯ faiths.


    But then again, Saleen had no intentions of letting the metal angels take up faith in the Goddess of Nature, as doing so would hasten the goddess¡¯ resurrection. When the Goddess had been resurrected, her powers would exceed her own expectations.


    The metal angels were of the gods, and created to serve the gods after all.


    Saleen¡¯s current n was to create a god in the Floating City. Of course, he had no idea if such a n would work. Well...ck magicians had tried to do so at least.


    The god that Saleen intended to create was a God of Magic Net. Saleen had read many renowned works regarding rtions between the gods and humans recently, all of which were left behind by ancient mages. The wealth of the astrology tower was more than just alchemical materials and energy.


    Large quantities of notes written by astrologers, mages, and warriors of ancient times were left behind in the astrology tower. These had all once been national resources. When the nation itself no longer existed, all of them became Gaine¡¯s private collections.


    Ancient humans attempted to create gods as well and they seeded. However, the created gods eventually betrayed the humans as well. Gods were gods, not tools of humans. If one were to intend to make a tool out of a god, they would have to kill said god first.


    Even Myers¡¯ ascension to godhood felt somewhat experimental. Deep inside Myers¡¯ mind, she was very curious to know if a human¡¯s thoughts would stay the same when they became a god.


    No one knew what happened after that. The humans powers went into decline and the connection between nes severed. There were only a few nes that remainedmunicable around Myers Maind and mages had a hard time traversing these nes. They were only able to use magic arrays to do summoning.


    When the Goddess of Myers perished, humans who studied the gods basically vanished altogether. Three dynasties crumbled one after another and it was not until present day that humans were able to see hope again.


    However, before that hope came to be, they had to deal with the sudden reconnection of nes. There were terrifying things in some of those severed nes. If the humans of Myers Maind were to fail to make it pass that ordeal, the civilizations of the maind would see an absolute final end.


    ¡°It is done.¡± Saleen said. Saleen casted a Lightning Constetion and hundreds of thousands of lightning puppets flew out to the ground. Those lightning puppets formed a passage under Saleen¡¯s territory, and blocked the lightning bolts in the storm.


    The metal angels had been waiting for Rafel throughout the time. She called to them from above. While the metal angels feared lightning, they nheless flew up to the Floating City through the passage.


    ¡°All of you,e and meet Master Saleen!¡± Rafel said in thenguage of the gods.


    Saleen smiled. Those metal angels then bowed to Saleen in an orderly fashion under Rafel¡¯s instructions. It was a custom performed by the god creatures to gods. The metal angels understood that their leader had submitted to the human.


    While it felt surreal none of the metal angels, beings whocked intelligence, objected.


    Saleen counted and found that there were over 400 of them. Those god creatures all had formidablebat capacity. At the very least, they were powerful enough for now. However, having lost the blessings of their god, these god creatures would no longer be able to be resurrected if they died. Without their divine kingdom, those angels could only wander about. Once they were coincidentally summoned, their fates as ves were sealed.


    The time was September and Saleen found that he was still able to make it. He delivered the schematics that Grand Duke Iron Blood gave him back to Metatrin City, and asked his teacher to help the Grand Duke craft Dragon Knight Armors.


    He delivered his own designs back to the city while he was at it. Nailisi went to the field to transport the supplies that Saleen prepared back to the city as well. Saleen remained behind in the Floating City, beginning to work on his apotheosis ns.


    Since Myers had left leads regarding apotheosis behind, as long as believers exist a god could be created out of nothing. The power of the faith of believers not only worked on existing gods, but it also allowed the creation of a god from literally nothing.


    Saleen began to organize the enchanters, imagining various details of the God of Magic Net he was about to create, and created an image of the god using magic.


    Rafel was participating throughout the process, as Rafel knew far more about gods than Saleenl.


    Rafel showed extreme interests in Saleen¡¯s n. As a god creature, Saleen¡¯s idea of apotheosis should have infuriated her. Yet, for some unknown reasons, she was not against the idea at all, she even contributed ideas to the n. Rafel provided many useful opinions and suggestions regarding the details and attributes of the God of Magic Net.


    The god that she used to serve had been a mid-level god at level 16, so the ideas that Rafel provided would at least allow Saleen to create a god of the same level.


    Saleen had a better understanding of the rules of the magic. The God of Magic Net was shaped in Rafel¡¯s image butcked wings. That was because converting the metal angels, who took faith in Rafel, to believers of another god would prove difficult. The simrity in appearance was only meant to lower said difficulty, not make Rafel a god herself.


    Gods materialized out of the void and with the sparking of their divine fire a world would be born as well.


    Saleen read the descriptions in the notes and found that among the materials in his possession, only the broken jade fragments he had gotten from the three kings would be able to carry a god¡¯s power.


    He was already in possession of the jade fragments, but he had no way of assembling the three pieces of jade together again. The resilience of the jade¡¯s material far exceeded what he could imagine, so much so that Saleen went as far as to attempt destroying the broken jade pieces. Water me Alchemy, metallic poisons, and even lightning icicles were all used, and none yielded any results.


    If the three broken pieces were to be reunited again, it would be extremely powerful.


    Such matters were not to be rushed. Saleen assessed his options and finally decided to use one of the pieces to finish the job. The creation of the God of Magic Net was not to make the god perfect anyway, but just to allow the metal angels be resurrected indefinitely.


    As long as the God of Magic Net existed, the metal angels would be able to gain eternal life in Saleen¡¯s Floating City.


    Saleen¡¯s talents prevented him from bing the strongest mage in existence, yet his thoughts and ideas astonished countless genius mages nheless. Nichs and the others listened to Saleen¡¯s descriptions and, for the first time in their lives, found that their master might have been an insane mage.


    Saleen usually looked calm and collected, but when he set his mind to get something done, he turned turned dangerous and manic. Gods, if created ones, were not things that would be easily controlled.


    If controlling them had been so easy, ancient humans would not have resorted to destroying one divine kingdom after another, just to get one step closer to render the gods extinct.


    But then again, that did not mean that gods were absolute beings that were unable to be controlled, as it was entirely possible to do between the gods themselves.


    Some powerful gods did not ughter lower level gods, but subjugated them and made those gods their servants. By doing so, those gods gained more helpers and it made taking on other kingdoms of gods easier.


    The gods were capable of subjugating one another, so from a theoretical standpoint, it would be entirely possible for humans to subjugate gods.


    What Saleen wanted to do was something that the ancient humans have never done before.


    Over 400 metal angels signed contracts with Saleen and constetion contracts were used to bind the god creatures¡¯ faith. It was something that had never been attempted before, and not even Saleen knew if it could even be done in the first ce. 24,000 imps and demonic spirits signed contracts with Saleen as well. There were over 20,000 believers avable before their object of worship¡ªthe God of Magic Net¡ªwas even born. Furthermore, all of those believers possessed immense mental powers.


    Gods have had no souls and that proved troubling for Saleen. So how do I go about binding a god after it is created?


    The best way would be to infuse the divine persona into the broken jade at the very moment of the god¡¯s birth. Saleen would be the highest being within the jade¡¯s functions.


    The n was not limited only to the Floating City. Saleen nned to spread the faith throughout all ces where he ced magics. So long as one took faith in the God of Magic Net, the god would then bestow them powers of magic, enabling them to avoid the painstaking training processes.


    Of course, such notions had no enticing qualities to speak of to true mages. The power gained by all believers within the magic came from the gods. The more resolute one¡¯s faith was, the greater the power of provided by the magic, but it would not do anything to deepen one¡¯s understanding of magical knowledge.


    Everything that such a believer would know was forced into their minds. That was the difference between enchanters and mages. Mages were capable of enhancing their own powers limitlessly, yet enchanters arepletely reliant on the blessing of their god.


    Mages were capable of creation, yet enchanters were bound to the old ways without any way forward.


    However, none of that mattered to many. It was a very, very enticing offer for people with average, limited talents to be enchanters. Most people never had much choice throughout their lives to begin with, and they would be indifferent to bing ves of gods.


    Selling their souls eh? Give them a good price and they would dly hand their souls over on a silver tter.

 Chapter 1310: Apotheosis (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1310: Apotheosis (Part 2)</h4>


    Gods usually attract believers two ways¡ªintimidation or enticement.


    Intimidation was practiced by the side of the Lord of Glory. Any who did not believe in the Lord shall be cast to hell. As with enticement, that was even more simple: believe in me and I shall grant you eternal life.


    That line was not a lie.


    From a logical perspective, so long as the Lord of Glory lived, the believers would never die. If the Lord of Glory were to perish, then the believers would have lost their object of worship. With their faith lost, so would their eternal life be lost.


    It was not a lie, but it was indeed a trap.


    The Lord of Glory needed only to keep himself alive and he had no need to care about his believers¡¯ wellbeing. There was little point for him to have concerns for others when he was no longer around after all.


    Believers were akin to granaries to the gods. When people were alive, they would definitely been concerned about the food they ate. No dead people would fuss about food. Even with the entire spirit ne invading Myers Maind, not a single grain would be lost from any granary because of the spirits.


    The time to fulfill his end of the deal with Fycro was less than four months away, and it was impossible for Saleen to create any god in four months. His main concern was still on the Floating City itself.


    The skeletal dragon below behaved just as he expected. With the mages of Alchemy City gone and the city taken over by the half-dead, the humongous creation simply stayed put in the city to train. The Alchemy City lost little from their emergence.


    While the skeletal dragon was an intelligent being, it had no need for human equipment. With the exception of making city center into itsir using bones, hardly anything was changed elsewhere in the city.


    After the people of Alchemy City left, the skeletal dragon didn¡¯t even have an interest to take down the buildings.


    The skeletal dragon saw the Floating City above as well. The skeletal dragon did not bother flying up to attack the city above after the thunderstorm was gone, it had no certainty of being able to destroy it. So long as the Floating City remained non-hostile, the skeletal dragon tolerated its presence.


    Saleen took the Floating City 30,000 meters above ground as well, monitoring things from above.


    They were both at peace with each other at the moment, yet it was only a matter of time before they shed. Saleen knew that better than anyone else. He did not know of the bone dragon¡¯s level. Typically the levels of beings on Myers Maind should have been capped at level 12.


    Level 13 beings could have stayed intact after their powers were suppressed, with the example being Rafel the archangel.


    The Floating City needed re-crafting. Saleen added too much bone crystal of the giant, affecting the Floating City¡¯s flight ability. He intended to add three new mechanical cores this time, to properly enable to the Floating City to fly. The city was meant to traverse nes, without corresponding power sources it would be difficult for the Floating City to regain its former powers.


    Three broken mechanical cores were installed onto the Floating City. Saleen added Genesis Stock Solution, Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and huge amounts of bone crystal of the giant.


    Everything was focused at the center of the Floating City this time.


    The three mechanical cores were restored by the Genesis Stock Solution and Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water. As far as materials go, bone crystals of the giant were on par with elementite. It was just that the level of those crystals were not as high as the elementite¡¯s.


    But then again, the structural strength of the bone crystals of the giant was above that of elementite, and was far more ductile. The earth element powers imbued within the crystals were also stronger than those in elementite. While the powers of the crystals were singr, they were also higher in purity.


    Of course, Saleen was not only doing surface work. He had first modified the core of the Floating City. A tower built using bone crystals of the giant was erected at the za. The huge alchemy tform acquired from underground was first repaired within the tower. Countless mechanical puppets shed with electricity with the Lightning Constetion at work, and reinstalling that tform was rather easy as well.


    There were nine alchemy factories set up in nine respective floors of the tower. Four mechanical cores of the Sky City were located at the bottom of the factories. The modifications did not alert anyone and there were no strange phenomenon taking ce.


    Rafel and her angels were granted Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, allowing them to strengthen andpress their bodies before anything else.


    Saying that an angel¡¯s height being higher is better was not true. After losing their god, those metal angels¡¯ bodies suffered structural degradation, so much so that they risked being disintegrated altogether.


    After Saleen distributed the Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, the height of the metal angels were gradually shrunken to about three meters. Rafel¡¯s height was shrunken to almost that of Nailisi¡¯s.


    Nailisi found that vexing. Rafel was a simr size to her, and that made the angel¡¯s perfect appearance stand out.


    Angels were weapons of war, and a weapon¡¯s usefulness could be determined from their looks alone. Rafel¡¯s bodily structure was eerily perfect. If it had not been for the pair of wings, she would be able to pass as a stunningly beautiful human.


    Rafel¡¯s wings made her look rather demonic, and her golden eyes seemed to enchant people¡¯s souls.


    Saleen rted to Nailisi¡¯s feelings, but there was no way he could give up on a helper like Rafel. His certainty in being able to take on the skeletal dragon was boosted considerably with Rafel around.


    The metal angels were put to sleep inside the Magical Element Tower. Saleen had no intentions of allowing the metal angels to go to battle before they could be resurrected. Unless his hands were forced, he would not consider the possibility of making the metal angels cannon fodder.


    Mages wanted very much to research angels as well after all. Mages had once created powerful puppets, but puppets were incapable of possessing souls. Angels, on the other hand, were.


    The Floating City gradually changed looks. When the nine-floored alchemy factories were built with the group of pces at the center, the factories acted as the core with four great pirs below¡ªthe four mechanical cores of Sky City.


    The Floating City came to look rather different from the Sky City. With four mechanical cores sharing the load of the city¡¯s operation, the pressure of the Floating City became considerably lightened, though it could even be said that doing so caused the City to waste too much energy.


    But then again, Saleen had ced the magic and residual energies could be used to keep the magic of the Floating City running instead of activating the magic only when they needed to do battle.


    At the center beneath the four mechanical cores was Saleen¡¯s Magical Element Tower, buried underground. The tower had thoroughly merged with the Floating City into a single being.


    What surprised Saleen was when the adjustments on the Floating City¡¯s structure was finished, something like a sword spirit appeared at the center of the tower.


    Saleen¡¯s Floating City used up about nine giants¡¯ worth of bone crystals. Only by splurging like that was the Floating City to be made stable again. That mysterious thing appeared at the core, which was translucent and looked like a soul but did not look as ethereal.


    Saleen sensed thick earth elemental powers emanating from it, yet it was not an earth elemental creature.


    Judging from its appearance, it looked like a young giant.


    The Floating City has given birth to a weapon spirit? Saleen mused, frowned for a bit. If he was unable to subjugate the weapon spirit, the Floating City would fly off on its own. It was no joking matter.


    When Saleen was hesitating, that weapon spirit suddenly opened its eyes. Those were the only things than looked real from the void-like being.


    Saleen cast Lightning Constetion at once.


    The Big Guy pounced, and there were thousands of other smaller puppets by its side attacking. The entire thirteenth floor of the Magical Element Tower was filled with the lightning puppets.


    ¡°Hmph!¡±


    That pair of eyes red at Saleen, who shot lightning icicles right away.


    The brimming eyes then closed immediately. Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle phased right through the void and crashed onto the wall of the tower, dropping to the floor. It was the very first time Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles were utterly ineffective since the day he invented them.


    When the lightning icicles dropped to the ground, that pair of eyes opened again, pouncing onto the Big Guy¡¯s body. The electrical charges around the puppets seemed to have no effect on the weapon spirit at all.


    Saleen became certain that the thing with an appearance of the giant was a weapon spirit. In ancient times, the Sky Cities were not equipment and were incapable of developing weapon spirits.


    The Floating City had limited area, and all attributes of the ce suggested that it was a massively oversized equipment.


    Saleen poured too much Genesis Stock Solution, Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and bone crystals of the giant into crafting his work.


    When all four mechanical cores of Sky City became operational, the entire Floating City became, without a doubt, a piece of equipment.


    What made it stand out was that the piece of equipment was over 900 meters thick and 36 square miles, and Saleen still had problems wrapping his head around that concept.


    The Floating City¡¯s power was massive. Saleen put huge amounts of magic nuclei into all magic power furnaces and even put in various kinds of crystals, including shards of dragon crystal.


    When all four mechanical cores worked as they should have, the fuel cost of the Floating City was reduced. Energy coursed through the Floating City¡¯s vicinity. Even when they were not in battle, the energies cycled in a perfect bnce.


    The weapon spirit was born and became extremely powerful. Saleen¡¯s lightning puppets should have caused massive damage to it, but it was rooted to the Floating City itself.


    Unless Saleen became capable of destroying the Floating City, there would be no way for him to kill that thing.


    The Floating City was too sturdy. Even if Saleen shot it with his Lightning Badge, it would not be destroyed. The bone crystals of nine giants enabled the Floating City to be a massively oversized shield.


    Not even the grandmaster would be able to shake the foundations of the Floating City, let alone Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s mind felt cold. He had Nailisi stand guard outside to keep his actions a secret. He was afraid that Sika would be harmed, so he did not bring her along, so he was the only one tackling the problem on the thirteenth floor of the magic tower.


    The astrologers said that 13 was a bad number, and it did seem to be .


    Saleen was unable to retreat. The weapon spirit was so powerful that it was actually consumed his lightning puppets. What made Saleen¡¯s heart ache was that even the weapon spirit of the Lightning Constetion had been consumed.


    That weapon spirit had developed a soul, but it died because of an error he made. The operations of the entire Puppet Constetion slowed due to the death of the Big Guy.


    Saleen wracked his brains to figure out a solution. He was literally trapped in the thirteenth floor of the magic tower. The entire tower had been sealed and since it was situated underground, no one outside would be able to get in, and he was unable to get out.


    If he were to be incapable of subjugating the weapon spirit, everyone onboard would be doomed. The weapon spirit would be able to control the entire Floating City, making the entire magic its weapon.


    Most materials of the Floating City were imbued with bone crystals of the giant. The energy packed in it was over 100 times greater than the ones within magic nuclei.


    Once the weapon spirit decided to go all out, it could cast all kinds of magic spells using the magic, and no one would be able to resist it.


    Saleen had his back against the wall. His magic amplifier manifested behind him, and a ck ring hovered behind him.

 Chapter 1311: Which level of the Abyss? (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1311: Which level of the Abyss? (Part 1)</h4>


    The lightning puppets remained on the monster. The 500,000 lightning puppets in Saleen¡¯s Lightning Constetion were most adept at taking on soul-type beings. However, the equipment totally failed. The level difference was just too great.


    The weapon spirit within the Floating Spirit was capable of controlling limitless energy. The bit of lightning on the puppets failed to do any damage worth noting on the weapon spirit.


    Saleen summoned his magic amplifier and threw all eight balls of lightning. The eight balls of lightning circled around the weapon spirit and did not attack.


    The weapon spirit smirked coldy before closing its eyes, barging out of the eight balls of lightning and continuing to devour the lightning puppets.


    The lightning puppets were tangible. As the weapon spirit devoured them, it gradually grew bones and a huge mechanical form appeared before Saleen.


    A thought shed in Saleen¡¯s mind. While the weapon spirit was extremely powerful and probably was born intelligent, it had little experience of the world. It wanted a body, so that it could leave the Floating City and venture outside. It wanted freedom.


    A chance!


    Saleen summoned three lightning puppets behind him in secret, barricading his immediate surroundings with Quickcloud. Lightning shed, preventing anything from peering inside the mist.


    Saleen infused the three broken jade pieces into the lightning puppets¡¯ bodies and threw all three onto the weapon spirit.


    ¡°You fool!¡± That weapon spirit somehow learned how to speak the Myers Language. It saw Saleen pounce onto it, and while it was unable to see his physical form, it was able to tell Saleen¡¯s precise location.


    The pair of eyes blinked and appeared right behind Saleen and swallowed the three lightning puppets, before turning around to face Saleen.


    Saleen unleashed a thick bolt of lightning from his family badge. He was really going all out. If the badge hit its target and caused an explosion, the energy that would invoke the weapon spirit to bring its energy to bear would enable the altercation to blow up a small city.


    Pff...


    A bolt of lightning several meters thick hit the weapon spirit, which looked astonished. It had devoured tens of thousands of lightning puppets, so it did not expect the iing bolt to be that terrifying.


    While it was capable of harming its body, the damage would be akin to a mosquito but: itchy and nothing else.


    But the attack actually ended up...


    The bolt of lightning unleashed from Saleen¡¯s family badge hit the pair of eyes squarely. The weapon spirit¡¯s form crumbled. The three pieces of broken jade flew out of the weapon spirit¡¯s broken body under Saleen¡¯s control, sucking the weapon spirit up in a frenzy.


    ¡°Impossible!¡± The weapon spirit struggled, wanting to pounce onto Saleen.


    However, the attraction of the broken jade pieces was of the highest rules. When they began sucking, not even the gods were able to escape them.


    The weapon spirit never thought a piece of equipment like that existed in the world. It was divided into three parts, suffering intense pain as its soul was torn apart.


    Worse still, the pain would never go away. When the broken jade pieces sucked it in, it was very difficult for it to die, unless Saleen wanted it dead.


    This can¡¯t be happening!


    When Saleen saw the weapon spirit tear into three parts and subjected to his control, he was still thinking about the weapon spirit in his Lightning Constetion.


    Without a weapon spirit, it would almost be impossible for him to use the Lightning Constetion to absorb the Lightning Moon in the cemetery of the giant. If he nurtured a new one, he was at a loss of what would fit well in a piece of equipment like the Lightning Constetion.


    The other puppets left within the Lightning Constetion were iparable to the original lightning puppet, in terms of material or level. Saleen would not use them as cannon fodders otherwise.


    ¡°Enjoy!¡± Saleen put the jade pieces away and opened the thirteenth floor of the tower. The lightning attack was nullified by the weapon spirit¡¯s body and did not end up causing any catastrophe. It was a good thing, as it meant at least that the magic tower was unharmed.


    However, Saleen realized that his family badge was no longer invincible.


    It was the first ce where a living being taking a direct hit from his family badge and lived. If it had not been for the jade pieces were specifically tailored to sucking soul-like beings, the weapon spirit would still be able to kill him even after it was injured.


    Unless he was able to continue to cast lightning bolts and hit it repeatedly, the enemy would not end uppletely disintegrated.


    Relying on powers of equipment is not the correct path after all! That thought was going on in Saleen¡¯s mind when the Ring of Cosmos on his finger shifted, stopping all energy fluctuations around him. It happened for less than a frame, so Saleen did not realize it happening. He felt dejected. He acquired a splintered weapon spirit, but he could only torture it instead of subjugate it.


    He also lost the weapon spirit of his Lightning Constetion, which would considerably weaken his equipment. It would be a lot more troublesome to take down the Lightning Moon.


    Huge quantities of fluid was stored in an isted space in the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen would probably go insane if he saw the fluid, because it behaved like isted, unmoving lightning.


    Within that space, liquid existed in a stable state, but even so, the energy emanating from the liquid attempted to reduce everything attempting to enter the space into nothing.


    Aqua Fulgur. It was from another crystal wall system altogether, and there was no way Saleen would learn of it. It would be difficult to master it using magic.


    One ball of lightning after another was being nurtured within the Aqua Fulgur. The differently colored balls of lightning floated within the Aqua Fulgur. They existed for less than a frame in time, before dissolving into Aqua Fulgur again.


    As the Ring of Cosmos got increasingly familiar at mimicking the rules of the crystal wall system, the balls of lightning were able to stay for increasingly long periods of time. Some balls even managed to keep their form after appearing.


    Millions of ball lightning floated in that vast space and the number was still climbing.


    Saleen walked outside the thirteenth floor of the tower, and concern was written all over Nailisi¡¯s face.


    ¡°What happened, master?¡±


    ¡°ident happened. I lost a weapon spirit,¡± Saleen answered concisely.


    ¡°You...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. How are things outside, Nailisi?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m still summoning demons and have managed to fill all of the nodes of the magic. The Floating City can carry over 100 thousand enchanters. From here on out, we possess the same strength as Alchemy City, Master.¡±


    ¡°So what? If we run into the skeletal dragon, we¡¯ll need to run.¡± Saleen found it difficult to let go. He had his family badge, which could almost be the most powerful weapon in the world, but he was unable to keep the Big Guy alive.


    The weapon spirit of the Lightning Constetion did not even manage to leave any final words.


    It died a meaningless death. A totally meaningless one! If the skeletal dragon came looking for trouble with me, I guess that would be meaningless as well, eh? Saleen did not get to stay dejected for long.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°We have bad news. A space tear appeared in Metatrin City and abyssal creatures are gushing out from the tear.¡±


    ¡°Location!¡± Saleen tensed up.


    ¡°Between Metatrin City and the Broken de Pass.¡±


    Saleen breathed a sigh of relief. Metatrin City, like Alchemy City, had weaknesses in internal defense. But if the enemy came from outside, it would be extremely difficult to take them on.


    ¡°What did my teacher say?¡±


    ¡°He was hoping that you¡¯d head back there once.¡± Sika showed her thoughts of wanting to go back as well. Abyssal creatures were difficult to deal with. The abyssal ne was huge, and there were countless powerful beings.


    ¡°Seems like we have to go then.¡± Saleen looked at Alchemy City and felt reluctant. If it had not been for the skeletal dragon, he would have been able to look into the few warehouses that did not have their contents transferred.


    His wealth was already vast enough, but he kept feeling that they were short on supplies for the uing sh with the other nes.


    Lex felt the same. Trade was already in a chaotic state and was no longer what it used to be. Even in Metatrin City, gold would not be able to get much good stuff; they would literally have to barter.


    There were two things that Saleen wanted most, food and medicine. Alchemists needed huge quantities ofmon herbs and minerals for crafting medicines. None of them was expensive, but collecting them was not a breeze.


    There was usually little use for such supplies, and the prices were unable to go up. Themon supplies were usually bought together with other supplies.


    However, Saleen needed huge quantities of them at the moment. Eleanor was around, which enabled him to create a lot of medicines, many of which could save lives on the battlefield. He was pretty much the only supplier on Myers Maind who had forms of elvish medicine.


    Metatrin City was in trouble and Jason asked Saleen to return. He reluctantly took the Floating City towards Metatrin City.


    The skeletal dragon was relieved to find Saleen gone. It really hated being watched by the Floating Heaven, but it had no intention to continue fighting, as it needed to stabilize its powers and familiarize itself with the local rules. The skeletal dragon became much morefortable with that detestable thing gone.


    It howled, and the half-dead throughout Alchemy City howled together with the skeletal dragon, as if they had been the ones to repel the Floating City.


    It was mid-winter in October. The north was covered in snow, but the area between Metatrin City and Broken de Pass was extremely hot. A stable portal had appeared and mes kept shooting out from within. The abyssal creatures that appeared had invoked the underground fires as well.


    The location of Metatrin City had been chosen so that it was impossible for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to happen, but the abyssal creatures bore through the earth for tens of miles.


    The portal was wrapped in ake ofva. The underside of theke was connected to ley lines, and underground fires kept shooting upwards, preventing theke from freezing over.


    The only way to solidify theke was to cut off its connection with the ley line, but only level 13 professionals would be able to barely attempt it. Even level 13 professionals would probably hesitate to go to the ley lines.


    Saleen returned to Metatrin City and was called to the temple by his teacher. There were over a dozen level ten mage trainers gathered in the temple. Some of them submitted to Saleen, and there were also Lex¡¯s men, as well as some from Sreeger Ind.


    There were hundreds of level nine sorcerers in the city, but the ones in the temple had all gone through solid and gradual training, instead of relying on shortcuts.


    The powerful mages were gathered in the temple, looking into ways to take on the abyssal creatures.

 Chapter 1312: Which level of the Abyss? (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1312: Which level of the Abyss? (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen returned, and his followers were all there. The Sreeger Ind mages felt very relieved as well. Everyone knew how powerful Saleen¡¯s followers were. When Saleen was not around and Jason was the only one holding the fort, everyone felt the strain.


    They needed a huge amount of manpower tounch an attack to protect Metatrin City after all.


    Jason smiled and had Saleen sit beside him. He took notice of Rafel, who had a pair of wings, following Saleen and did not ask.


    ¡°The reason I had youe home is to borrow Nailisi¡¯s power. The abyssal creatures can¡¯t threaten the city, but the people of the city dare not go outside. There is nothing we can do about it right now. Our current level of powers do not allow us to attack the abyss.¡±


    Saleen stopped feeling tense as soon as Jason opened his mouth. Jason actually had ns for attacking the abyss.


    Saleen had been considered insane for wanting to create a god, but his teacher was not that far behind him in terms of madness. His teacher actually wanted to attack the abyss despite their current conditions.


    ¡°Teacher, what level was the abyss that opened the portal?¡±


    There was a reason why Saleen asked in that way. It was said that there were 18 levels to the abyss. The deeper the level, the stronger the abyssal creatures. Furthermore, every single level was considered a ne. While it was easy to traverse the levels, the cost of doing so was hefty.


    Simrly, the abyssal creatures would suffer suppression if they ventured into abyss of other levels, and recovery was difficult.


    There was a mage who immediately activated the magic array on the table, showing a sample of abyssal creature that they had captured. Saleen looked at the sample and frowned. He was unable to tell anything from it.


    Saleen had browsed all kinds of galleries, and his private collection was immensely varied, especially Gaine¡¯s ce. Saleen saw many images of creatures from ancient times. He was very clear what kind of creatures every single level of the 18 levels of the abyss held.


    However, the creatures before his eyes only seemed to resemble the ones found in the abyss. Their listed attributes were hardly different from the abyssal creatures they resembled, but Saleen did not find any that matched the ones he knewpletely.


    Wait, they aren¡¯t from the abyss?


    ¡°Teacher, I don¡¯t know any of these creatures!¡±


    Jason only felt it was peculiar when he heard Saleen had no idea what they were. He held such knowledge with little regard, and his knowledge of abyssal creatures were hardlyprehensive, so he had Saleene home to take charge and find specific ways to attack them, instead of simply defending against them.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright, Saleen. There are many professionals in Metatrin City now, and there are many mercenaries as well. I have given the mission, and I¡¯m buying the abyssal creatures as alchemical materials. Over a thousand of them are killed every day. The fissure is not big and not many creatures are emerging from it. They can¡¯t pose a threat to Metatrin City for the time being.¡±


    Jason¡¯s rxed tone calmed Saleen, and he smiled in response. With Jason buying abyssal creatures, the mercenaries and adventurers were capable of earning quite a bit from hunting the creatures.


    Regardless of how high the price they bought the creatures for, when they were made into equipment and then sold back to the adventures, they were actually the ones earning more.


    While the abyssal creatures were ferocious, their bodies were very good alchemical materials. The reason why Saleen rushed back was to capture some for himself to research.


    Furthermore, there was also a very enticing quality about the abyssal creatures to mages. Whenpared to other creatures, they were rtively easy to tame.


    Saleen was not versed in summoning, but his mental powers allowed him to sign many contracts. He could do so and not affect his own powers. Every mage had a limited number of equipment and bonded creatures that they could carry.


    For instance, a mage could wear three ring-type pieces of equipment on their left hand, and when that number was exceeded, they would not be able to bring out the best of the equipment they carried. On their right hand, they could only wear two ring-type pieces of equipment.


    Saleen¡¯s Starline Bangle was very pricey because despite being a single bangle, it had 12 equipment slots, enabling Saleen to use far more equipment powers than other mages.


    In ancient times, the abyssal creatures were a term referring to ferocity and danger, as well as great wealth.


    The power of the abyssal ne was suppressed, but there were huge number of professionals at Metatrin City and their powers saw considerable enhancement. Some groups of mercenaries had less than 100 members, but there were several sorcerers in their midst. The rise of power throughout Myers Maind benefited mages the most.


    Saleen asked for loyalty before anything else when he took mages in. Despite very good terms offered, there were some who were reluctant to give up their freedom and would rather be adventurers.


    They were found in any time and age. It was fortunate that surviving in Metatrin City was easy. As mages, there were countless nobles and private armed forces willing to hire them.


    ¡°This may not be the abyss that we know of. Great changes are taking ce in Myers Maind, and I think the same thing is happening to other nes as well,¡± Saleen said as he took out his memory crystal, embedding it into the magic array, showing the half-deads in Alchemy City to all present.


    The mages sounded envious when they saw the half-deads. Some even almost drooled.


    But the skeletal dragon quickly showed up. Saleen paused at its image and borated about his own findings and any relevant details about the skeletal dragon¡¯s powers, making the mages shudder.


    Saleen continued to y the images recorded in the memory crystal. The skeletal dragon lowered its head and toppled a magic tower, pouring cold water on their earlier fervor. Even if it showed up at Metatrin City, it would probably be near-impossible to subjugate.


    The lousiest of magic towers was still unusually sturdy. If Sika gave her best shot, she could probably make a crack on a magic tower.


    The skeletal dragon was able to bring down an entire tower simply by ramming it with its head. No mages had been able to escape. Such a fearsome force would be defendable by city walls of the likes of Metatrin City. No magic tower below level nine could even think about taking the skeletal dragon on.


    ¡°Cmity of nes.¡± Jason¡¯s voice was low.


    The mages were silent. There had been legends about doomsday on Sreeger Ind, but no mage bought the tale. Mages believed only in their own power and would not consider prophecies of any kind.


    However, what they saw were undeniable facts. Saleen began to borate on the troubles that came after powers across Myers Maind were raised.


    He used the skeletal dragon as an example. It had already broken through the limit permitted by rules of the ne. That was not to say that Myers Maind¡¯s rules were no longer useful, but that rules had began to change.


    Everyone who was present there was at least a level nine sorcerer, and despite being level nine sorcerers, they had hope of advancing to level ten.


    ¡°What do you n on doing, Your Highness?¡± a mage trainer asked.


    ¡°Not much. Expand and grow your own powers. If a cmity happens on the maind, we¡¯ll send the subjects away. We shall stay behind to face the unknown danger. It is an opportunity. Anyone who stays behind and lives will see their powers grow considerably together with the ne. The ones who run will get nothing. Everyone here is a mage, and I take it that everyone understands that if you gets something, then you must pay the equivalent price.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Lord Saleen. If you get something, then you must pay the equivalent price!¡± several mages from Sreeger Ind agreed. The support came from the bottom of their hearts, and they no longer addressed Saleen as ¡®Your Highness¡¯, but ¡®Lord¡¯. That meant that the mages had acknowledged Saleen to be their leader.


    Jason was the leader of the Sreeger Ind mages. Saleen was Jason¡¯s student, but when Jason relinquished his right, Saleen could not automatically assume control of everything in Sreeger Ind. The wealth of the interdimensional space belonged also to the Sreeger Ind mages.


    Saleen was finally acknowledged by the mages, and he felt ratherplicated about it. He did not say anything fancy and had simply stressed a truth acknowledged by all mages.


    ¡°Well then, Teacher, I have something that would require the help of everyone here. We shall seal the abyssal portal once we get that done. Mass migration canmence with the subjects of the Kingdom of Metatrin, because in theing months, Myers Maind will see mass invasions.¡± Saleen converted some things he knew into images, then projected them using magic.


    ¡°The abomination ne!¡± Jason never spread what Saleen knew to anyone, so when Saleen spoke of invasions from the abomination pane, all of the mages tensed up.


    Abominations were not demons and were difficult to subjugate. Furthermore, they were of little use, and they were very destructive, hundreds to a thousand times more so than demons. Like humans, demons possessedplex capacity for emotions. Even when they came to Myers Maind, they would not wreak havoc just for the sake of wrecking havoc.


    The abominations from hell, on the other hand, were little more than machines of destruction.


    ¡°What do you need done? The mages are busy crafting armor,¡± Jason looked at his student. Saleen had matured considerably, and there were no flightiness in his expressions, unlike when he was young where he often wore a look suggesting impending crisis. Saleen was very calm. Nothing could stand in his way to advancement.


    ¡°Teacher, I ran into something troublesome and I couldn¡¯t address it at the moment.¡± Saleen invoked the images in the memory crystal, showing himself fighting the monstrous weapon spirit.


    Only him and his teacher were able to make out what happened in the battle, everyone else was blinded by the shes of lightning, seeing only shes in the mist and Saleen eventually emerging from it.


    An inherent weapon spirit!


    Jason was deeply astonished. The weapon spirit carried a part of the giants¡¯ will, which enabled it to be so powerful. Things would have gone well if Saleen had been able to subjugate it. However, the weapon spirit was split into three parts at present, every single part suffering intense pain.


    If he released that weapon spirit, Saleen would consider himself lucky if it was still in a good enough mood to not just eat him right away. Helping him fight would be totally out of the question.


    ¡°Teacher, it devoured the weapon spirit of my Lightning Constetion. I wonder if I would be able to rece the one lost with one part of it.¡± Saleen made an inquiry that sounded rather dumb.


    Jason wanted to say no, but quickly realized that if he simply said no, he would have failed as a mage. What had never been attempted before did not mean that no one else would be able to do it.


    Furthermore, the lineage that he had acquired had touched the areas of another crystal wall system altogether, so something could probably be done about it.

 Chapter 1313: Repairing the Lightning Constellation (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1313: Repairing the Lightning Constetion (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m about to impart a secret art to you. If you were to master it...¡±


    Saleen looked at his teacher. Jason had never been so serious and solemn when he was about to teach him something.


    Jason continued, ¡°If you were to master it, you shall do your best to keep this deep within your heart and not impart it to anyone else.¡±


    Saleen was dumbfounded for a bit and did not ask questions. There were many secret arts to the world of mages, as well as many rules. Teachers were not allowed to pass them on to their students.


    All mages within the temple excused themselves. No outsider was allowed to stand around and watch while the imparting of secret arts was being carried out.


    There had been many methods of training practiced during the time when humans threw their weight around in all manner of nes. That was also the beginning of the secret arts. Even after the secret arts were modified and refined by humans, only a handful of humans were capable of practicing them. They either needed some special talents or bloodline.


    Lex¡¯s secret arts required the bloodline of the Grukos, specifically the line of Emperor Chanake, in order them work in an apparent fashion. Emperor Chanake only dared to invade the Tanggsi Empire because he had seeded in mastering their family¡¯s secret arts. The power of secret arts were usually massive.


    Jason dismissed all of the mages. None of the people around Saleen were allowed to stay either. Sika took the followers outside. Rafel the archangel intended to stay, but she was also hauled away by Sika.


    Rafel never expected Sika to possess such monstrous strength. When Sika pulled her arm, it felt like her arm was about toe off.


    That was Saleen¡¯s wife. Rafel was not angered. Instead, she was curious. She knew of Sika¡¯s priest profession. People in such a profession had few among them who possessed formidablebat capacity. Even in regards to brute strength alone, there were few contenders found in the divine kingdoms. If there were to be anyone who able to actually overpower Sika through brute strength, it would have had been someone above level 14. They would still need to borrow divine powers to do so.


    Jason unleashed his magic amplifier and sealed the room off. Water and fire elements coursed about the walls of the room, forming a visible barrier.


    Saleen had not seen this before and kept watching with his Element Eye. He quickly found that the elemental barrier his teacher unleashed had elemental structures tens of times finer than what he usually saw. This implied that his teacher¡¯s power in magic was tens of times greater than conventional elemental magic and capable of greater changes.


    ¡°Saleen, the secret arts I¡¯m about to impart arepletely dependent onpatibility with your talents,¡± Jason said. ¡°If you¡¯re unable toprehend it, there will be nothing I can do to help you. Watch closely.¡±


    He began to chantplex verses. The tempo of the chants was stiff yet sounded exotic. Saleen was unable toprehend any single rune, yet extremelyplex, ever-changing perceptions began to form in his mind.


    He was finally able to see what the elemental barrier cast by the Rings of Water and Fire truly was. Those elements formedplex magical runes. There were at least billions ofbinations between them.


    ¡°Saleen, this secret art isn¡¯t something I¡¯m proficient in,¡± Jason said. ¡°If you were to be able to master it, it shall provide you with unique methods for controlling souls.¡±


    Saleen was astonished. There were billions of runebinations, yet Jason imed that he was not proficient with it. Just howplex would such a skill be to master?


    Jason¡¯s eyes sparkled. That skill came from another crystal wall system. While that other crystal wall system had humans, their cultural development bore no simrities to theirs.


    At present, one would not be able to find any detailed information regarding that crystal wall system, let alone learn arts from it. Jason forced himself into research using magic to acquire those skills. He was eventually able to trante about 40,000 of the scripts used and deduce every single syble.


    Despite the effort, those scripts still looked and sounded alien to him. Every single expression seemed contradictory. Only byprehending another civilization altogether would he have been able to master such a skill at a deep level.


    The very reason Jason had been able to learn Water me Alchemy and zing me Soul-refining was because his thought patterns resonated with the things that those two skills expressed, which made learning a literal breeze. He came to learn hundreds of skills from a single piece of memory gem, yet only one-fifth proved rtivelypatible with him. As for the rest, he was barely able to deduce over a dozen of them.


    Jason spent a great deal of time in his youth trying to acquire those skills. It resulted in him bing a level five mage when he was in his 30s. However, as those skills matured, his rate of advancement soared. It was so quick that the other mages were astonished at his rate of growth.


    The Ring of Cosmos on Saleen¡¯s finger spun in a frenzy. Every spin sent countless information into his soul. That information was tranting the scripts that Jason illustrated. Some content came from the ring itself.


    Saleen suddenly felt that there were huge spaces within the Ring of Cosmos. There were 64 of them, and every single space had extremely deep attributes. They were as vast as oceans.


    He was a mage, so he probed it using his senses. He surprisingly ended up spending all of his mental powers, including the boosted parts the Ring of Cosmos bestowed him. Not a single drop remained.


    Jason was shocked to see Saleen ck out in front of him. Saleen¡¯s Ring of Cosmos continued to spin, unleashing gentle powers to replenish his mental powers.


    Saleen gradually came to shortly after, but the massive content sent to his head gave him a headache. The vast information all illustrated a world. There was hardly any information regarding skills in it. Still, every single detail surprised, startled, and astonished him.


    The information within the ring illustrated all worlds, from structures to rules and gods to humans. Furthermore, the information within the ring illustrated the direction of human evolution. They were to be evesting beings higher than gods.


    Gods would eventually perish. At the end of humans¡¯ training, they would be able to share the lifespan of the cosmos.


    Saleen began to slowly digest the information as he came to. At first, he thought it was ridiculous. As he came toprehend more information, his expression turned glum.


    The information within the ring seemed to have been correct. Magic was not the penultimate of knowledge. At the very least, in the parts concerning lightning, it was exined in the informational exchange with unnerving rity.


    One of the spaces was even meant specifically to store boundless Aqua Fulgur, flowing within the space. The lightning skill that Saleen had barely able to learn, ball lightning, was being mimicked within the Aqua Fulgur.


    The lightning runes in his eyes shifted and continued to split up, increasing in volume. One extra weird rune was added inside. Those extra runes were none other than one of the eight runes on his ring. It was clear cut with some broken lines.


    Within those three lines, however, was limitless knowledge. Saleen felt that if he were to master that one rune, it would allow him to reach the highest point of level 18 and perhaps even surpass level 18. Furthermore, there were eight runes like that on the Ring of Cosmos.


    Then again, that knowledge were nothing like magic. In the eyes of mages, some of the descriptions of the contents were absurd. The Ring of Cosmos had its name rooted in earth and heaven. The heaven was round while the earth was square.


    Although it seemed absurd, high level mages long knew that the sky was a part of the universe and the earth was but one huge star. Astrologers even knew that in some distant stars, there might have been other living beings. The astrologers even deduced that it was what ¡°nes¡± truly meant. The universe had more than one dimension, and the multiple nes were actually hidden in multiple different dimensions in the universe.


    The heaven is round and the earth is t? What kind of nonsense is this?


    When the myriad of information was cross-referenced, Saleen hardly saw anything that could be deemed stupid. The information borated on the fundamental nature of the world. He was at a loss for words and simply looked dazed.


    ¡°Saleen, what happened?¡± Jason asked after seeing his student ck out, quicklye to, and then look dazed.


    To a mage, that could have been lethal. While mages might be wooden and deadpan, no mage was simply dull.


    Saleen came to his senses and smiled bitterly. ¡°Teacher, this thing...¡± He took his Ring of Cosmos off and handed it to Jason.


    His teacher took one look and said, ¡°It¡¯s quite a sturdy piece. I¡¯d say that even my alchemical arts wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything to it.¡±


    Saleen sighed and thought, Is this what the astrologers meant by luck?


    After he had restored the Ring of Cosmos to its original form, he came to realize that the ring harbored secrets. His teacher had seen more than he had, but Jason was unable to tell much about the ring.


    Saleen took the ring from Jason and put it on his finger again. ¡°This ring is also something from another crystal wall system. I¡¯ve understood the skills that you¡¯ve imparted to me, but I won¡¯t be able to use any of those skills for the time being. Given my mental powers, I¡¯d say that I¡¯d need three months to train with them.¡±


    ¡°Three months! That¡¯s fast!¡± Jason took out a piece of emerald and handed it Saleen, saying, ¡°This is the secret skills that I¡¯ve acquired. Let¡¯s see if you¡¯ve got what it takes to see what is inside.¡±


    Saleen took the piece of emerald and held it in his hand, probing it with his mental powers. However, he was unable to see anything.


    Jason had a bitter smile when he saw Saleen¡¯s puzzled expression. It seemed that the conditions for learning that thing would have to be harsher. He was able to learn it but not his student. However, Saleen¡¯s ring was higher than his piece of emerald. Saleen was able to tell the difference, but he was unable to see anything in the emerald.


    A mage was actually held back by such a thing as luck. Jason was unable to help.


    He sighed and said, ¡°I¡¯ll tell you the restter.¡±


    ¡°No need to hurry with all that, Teacher,¡± Saleen said. ¡°My level is still low. If I were to learn something thatplex, I¡¯d probably need to break through level 12. So you...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d take care of the matters with the Grand Duke,¡± Jason said as he regained hisposure ¡°His armors are easy. The abyssal creatures are invading, but I didn¡¯t call you back because of those monsters. I¡¯m able to take them on myself. Anything below level 12 would not have posed a problem to your teacher.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s mind was put to ease.


    ¡°Keep patiently training,¡± Jason said. ¡°I¡¯ve met the key moments of my training, but it seems that researching magic alone has had little benefit for me. I need to do something else. Take charge of the city. I¡¯ll go gather an army to take on the abyssal creatures.¡±


    It was rare for Jason to do all that personally, which put Saleen in even greater ease. His teacher¡¯s Rings of Water and Fire would have enabled him to take on level 12 professionals.


    ¡°Why did you call me back then, Teacher?¡± he asked.


    ¡°There are a few at your side about to advance,¡± Jason said. ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous doing things out there. I¡¯m calling you back to prevent Fycro¡¯s men from acting against your people. Clipping the wings, they call it.¡±

 Chapter 1314: Repairing the Lightning Constellation (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1314: Repairing the Lightning Constetion (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen was startled and recalled how he dealt with the Holy See¡ªclipping their wings. How would Fycro have been so rxed with me instead?


    While they were cooperating, Fycro imed with awe-inspiring righteousness that he wanted to protect Myers Maind. However, the true reason was fear that all of his believers would end up dead. It would make it very difficult for him to ascend to godhood.


    Several of his people were growing up, and they posed a huge threat to Fycro. As such, Fycro might have actually allow clipping his wings.


    Fycro¡¯s powers were such that he would have been able to kill any target below level 10 with a single move. Saleen also had confidence in his skills. Level nine professionals seemed full of exploitable weaknesses in his eyes.


    His teacher¡¯s words made sense. Saleen quickly returned to the Floating City and began to digest the new knowledge he had acquired. Most importantly, he needed to master ways of using the Ring of Cosmos. There was a space in the ring filled with limitless Aqua Fulgur, as well as countless ball lightning floated within. Saleen had no way of essing the Aqua Fulgur¡¯s powers, but the ball lightning nurtured within would be worthwhile to put to use.


    Saleen felt that hisbat capacity would, in time, surpass that of his teacher. As a mage, one might not have the capacity forbat as a lifelong goal. However, powerless mages were incapable of surviving for long.


    In early December, he somewhat managed to master a newnguage and the meaning of the eight runes. It had taken Saleen less than three months. While all of that was important, what was even more important was that he had finally managed to master and was practicing the skill Jason showed him.


    The three broken jade pieces hovered around Saleen. For more than two months, the torn weapon spirit suffered unspeakable pain and damage within the jade pieces. However, he sent bone crystals from the giant time and again to replenish the weapon spirit.


    The weapon spirit did not want to live, but it was unable to die. Saleen turned a deaf ear to its calls and focused on learning skills every day. One day, he took out the broken jade pieces again. While the weapon spirit within had already been torn into three parts, it was still able to shout.


    ¡°Spare me, mage! I¡¯m willing to submit to you!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to lie to me. That¡¯s not a good thing to do,¡± Saleen said as he took out three pieces of pan turtle shell pieces he had just crafted and sent into the jade pieces. ¡°Be a good boy and eat it up, then I¡¯ll spare you. Otherwise, I¡¯ll keep feeding you a big one once a month like this, and you won¡¯t even be able to die.¡±


    Saleen hated the weapon spirit monster, which had devoured his Lightning Constetion¡¯s weapon spirit, so he was being very brutal.


    ¡°Impossible!¡± That weapon spirit saw Saleen throwing in some unknown things that were apparently meant to control it and flipped on Saleen. It no longer begged for mercy. Instead, it loudly cursed him.


    ¡°I have some important things to do,¡± Saleen said. ¡°If you¡¯re unwilling to listen to me, the next time I let you talk will be three years from now. Think carefully. You¡¯ve only been suffering for less than three months. How would you make it through to three years eh? Even if I were to end up dead, I¡¯d have my student send in a piece of bone crystal to you every month. It¡¯s not so easy to die on me.¡±


    The weapon spirit was speechless. After a while, it finally asked in pain, ¡°Why are you doing this to me?¡±


    ¡°Because I like doing it,¡± Saleen inly replied.


    ¡°Things will not end well for you!¡± The weapon spirit cursed again but quickly found that the power of its curse was utterly incapable of prating what was trapping it.


    ¡°You are the one for whom things will not end well,¡± Saleen said. ¡°It looks like I need to do this myself. While doing so will lower your level and powers, I¡¯ve got the time to wait.¡±


    He began to chant the string ofplex verses. After the chants were made, the three pieces of turtle shells glittered with ck light within the broken jade.


    The split weapon spirit was shrouded by the light emanating from the turtle shell. It was no longer in pain and felt veryfortable.


    ¡°No!¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Saleen said.


    Heughed as hepletely severed the weapon spirit up ording to the skill imparted to him by his teacher. Those runes acted like a saw while the weapon spirit was like a block of wood.


    The three jade pieces were originally incapable of severing the connection between the weapon spirit¡¯s pieces. The rune¡¯s light seeped into the weapon spirit. The connection linking the pieces gradually disappeared.


    Under the nurturing ck light, the tortured and mangled weapon spirit began to absorb magic pharmaceuticals that Saleen thrown inside. The medicines were meant to repair the weapon spirit. They were something only found at Saleen¡¯s ce. It consisted of Genesis Stock Solution, Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, and some solutions from the giant¡¯s bone crystal.


    The weapon spirit was split into three parts, and its consciousness was wiped clean by the ck light emanated from the turtle shell in the broken jade pieces. The turtle shells automatically seeped into the newly grown weapon spirit and slowly disintegrated.


    Thousands of runes glittered on the disintegrating turtle shell, gradually merging with the weapon spirit into one being. The Sky City¡¯s weapon spirit split into three separate beings, growing within the three different pieces of broken jade.


    Saleen then took one piece and began crafting. There were 360 million lightning runes in his eyes. The 360 million lightning runes flew into the broken jade and left imprints on the weapon spirit that had lost its self-awareness before flying back into Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    After being nurtured by Saleen¡¯s medicines, a pair of ck eyes began to appear in that weapon spirit¡¯s head. Its originally closed eyes opened and began to blink.


    ¡°Alright, get going then!¡± Saleen cast his Lightning Constetion and sent the broken jade into it before melding the jade into his equipment with Water me Alchemy.


    Originally, it had been difficult for Water me Alchemy to do anything against the broken jade. However, the broken jade did not seem to show any signs of resistance now. It seemed that its shape even changed due to being crafted by the Water me.


    Saleen opened up Lightning Constetion again and cast eight ball lightning. They zipped about in the space of Lightning Constetion. The remaining lightning puppets were broken one by one, reduced to singr mechanicalponents. Everyponent coursed with electricity.


    The weapon spirit ballooned within that piece of broken jade, turning into a giant over 300-feet tall. It stood in the middle of the Lightning Constetion surrounded by the stars.


    One lightning puppet after another broke down and reassembled. Saleen¡¯s ball lightning stayed intact, hovering and zipping about like eight smaller stars.


    Saleen was ted to find that his crafting was a sess, especially since it was his first try. Ball lightning was known by various names among the secret skills. The one Saleen crafted was only meant for tempering equipment. Once it was created, it would never dissipate, but one would not be able to use it as a weapon since its speed was even more disappointing whenpared to the original.


    Everything melded with the Lightning Constetion into one single being. As long as the Lightning Constetion stayed intact, all eight of the different shapes and hues of ck and white ball lightning would stay intact.


    Furthermore, those things had other uses. If the weapon spirit were to run out of control when Saleen was still working with equipment, he would have just to put the balls of lightning into the equipment to kill the unruly weapon spirit. He was frightened by that giant weapon spirit and hoped something like that would never happen. Such incidents would incur a great loss on his part.


    When the eight balls of lightning crushed the lightning puppets, they themselves were beingpleted, bing the first secret skill equipment that Saleen came to craft personally¡ªArmoring Lightning Bead. His excitement was indescribable. Not only did the Lightning Constetion begin to regain its powers, but he also began to truly see the world was truly like through the Armoring Lighting Bead.


    That Armoring Lightning Bead itself was not in a true stable state. It was actually destroyed as soon as it was created. All of its energies needed to break down before the Armoring Lightning Bead was manifested again in the void.


    The birth and death happened in one one-hundred-thousandth of a frame. It was something that Saleen came to realize as the soul merged with the Armoring Lightning Bead into a single being. Every birth and death of the bead allowed him to sense the true nature of the world and the cycle of everything else. His path of training would never run into a dead end from then on out because a great path with no end had just unfolded right before his eyes.


    Coming to understand the root of the world itself did not mean that he had reached the end of the world. The people of the other crystal wall system would have been able to bestow others with life as long as the cosmos itself existed. If the universe were to be destroyed, even the highest being in existence would be destroyed.


    No one managed to personally experience existing until the next grand age came. If Saleen wanted eternal life, he would have to walk on that path alone. Regarding all those ideas, those that one couldprehend would beprehended while those that could not beprehended would remain iprehensible even if Saleen were to write them down.


    The lightning territorypletely fused with the Lightning Constetion. Eight Armoring Lightning Beads circled and hovered around him. While he was capable of using them for offense, he could still use them for defense.


    Saleen¡¯s territory became extremely stable. The water element territory around him felt like a piece of clothing clinging tight to his body. The lightning territory existed right outside the water element territory.


    A star hovered at the center of the lightning territory, and the weapon spirit was right below that star. It held a huge war hammer in its hand and was d in armor. It crackled with electricity.


    The weapon spirit was using the war hammer to pound on all the pieces of the lightning puppets, making lightning warriors out of them. The weapon spirit¡¯s hammer was imbued with the thousands of runes on the turtle shell that Saleen had put into the weapon spirit.


    The war hammer beat on the pieces, and the lightning puppets became warriors that belonged to the Lightning Constetions¡¯ weapon spirit. As long as the weapon spirit stayed intact, the warriors could be indefinitely resurrected within Saleen¡¯s territory.


    The area of the lightning territory¡¯s radius was expanded to 80 miles. That size of a territory would have only been achievable by a professional level 12 about to reach level 13.


    Saleen looked at the other two pieces of broken jade and put one away. He melded the other piece within the Floating City. Without a weapon spirit, the Floating City ran somewhat slower. As such, he worked on his own territory first instead of the Floating City.


    He could have relied on his own power to evolve the Floating City, but his Water me Alchemy was no longer able to do much at present. He had only returned to Metatrin City¡¯s temple from the Floating City after feeling that his territory had no problems to deal with.


    Saleen flew down and found the za of the council office flooded by a huge crowd. Hundreds of groups of adventurers were there with the dead bodies of the abyssal creatures, waiting for the officials of the city council to exchange the dead bodies for money or something else they needed.

 Chapter 1315: The Expedition (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1315: The Expedition (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen called for his followers to return to the temple. He contacted Lex and received good news.


    Lex had advanced to level 10. Lex¡¯s advancement had been more difficult than his had been because he had used the Six Element Space to forcefully raise her level all those years ago. She had also reached a consensus with her n in the Golden ins. The mages of Golden ins supported her and wanted her to ascend to the throne as empress.


    Saleen did not care if Lex became an empress or not, but the news meant that he had no need to be concerned about Prince Safilos one way or another. Prince Safilos would have advanced to be a level 10 true might. As such, he would have be someone difficult to deal with. ording to Lex, Safilos was versed in some of the secret skills of the Grukos.


    The attitude the Golden ins had taken allowed Saleen to be spared a lot of effort in other matters. He had already allied with Grand Duke Iron Blood. With that, the entire eastern side of the maind could focus their energy on taking out Holy Rock City.


    While it was unknown where the mages of Alchemy City had moved, it was still possible for them to return. Saleen had little concern about those mages. The speed at advancement for both him and his teacher would easily leave those mages in the dust.


    Two of the strongest mages were found in one nation. The implications of the fact were obvious in an age where the powerful ones were the ones standing on top of everything. Furthermore, there were considerable numbers of high level mages in Metatrin City. Saleen didn¡¯t need to fear Alchemy City even in terms of sheer numbers.


    Fycro returned and took all of the armor requested. Saleen was at the Floating City, so Fycro did not insist on meeting Saleen. He simply left a message for the mage, which was a set of coordinates and a date: Meet at Hignd City the final day of December.


    Hignd City was a mid-sized city in Laiyin Duchy. It was where the abomination ne would have invaded Myers Maind. Saleen took out his map and checked the coordinates. He found the portal to be at the core region of Hignd City.


    Saleen counted his people. He only needed Gusion to return to Lex¡¯s side to serve as the leader of her personal guards. Mages who had signed contracts with him were among the other followers. Most of them were at level nine but a considerable few had advanced to level 10.


    Sul had finally advanced to be a level 10 true might. He became even more humble after that. It was not until his advancement that he truly understood the power difference between him and J.


    Daniel became a level nine sorcerer. Despite being the follower at the lowest level, he was a death mage. That level allowed him to be very formidable inbat.


    Nichs, Nailisi, and Eleanor were all level 10 professionals. Isabe was still at level nine, but both her magic and martial arts skills were at the pinnacle of level nine. Being at such heights with both arts allowed her to be on par with level 10 professionals in terms ofbat capacity.


    Saleen had no idea that it was the result of Jason formting specific enhancement training for his followers while he was focused on his own training.


    Aini at Lonestar City also advanced to level 10. Among Saleen¡¯s four duchess, Guya, who was versed in magic, became a level nine sorcerer. He did not bother much with the rest, but they recruited a considerable number of powerful ones.


    While Saleen was recruiting, anyone who intended toe to him had their concerns. There were simply too many powerful professionals at his side, so much so that not even a level nine sorcerer would receive much attention.


    As such, they deemed it a better choice to serve the duchess serving Saleen instead. If they were able to be appointed to important positions, their future statuses would not be bad. To be the tail of a dragon or the head of a garuda, either was admirable but most would have chosen thetter.


    By the time his level nine archer advanced to level 10, Saleen had already recruited several level 10 mages. He now had an ample number of powerful professionals at his side. At the very least, it meant protecting his city wouldn¡¯t be a problem.


    The four level 10 mages who followed Saleen back from Devil¡¯s Horn were happy. They no longer needed to scheme against each other. As pce mages, whatever they needed to further their training was amply provided by Saleen, as well as status.


    Saleen even gave them starline paper to create scrolls in order to practice level 11 magic. That was incredibly important to level 10 mages. Crafting scrolls using starline paper had a minimal chance of failing.


    Every sessful crafting deepened theirprehension of the magic spells they worked on. Since crafting scrolls was a slow process, it enabled them to acquire more magical knowledge. In a mage¡¯s perspective, crafting scrolls was one of the best ways to learn magic.


    Conventionally speaking, crafting scrolls, especially the ones higher than their own level, had a miniscule sess rate. Furthermore, the higher the level of scroll materials needed, the more expensive they became. No mage would be willing to burn their money off like that, even if they happened to be rich. As such,pleted scrolls were expensive. The higher the level of a scroll, the more ridiculous the price.


    What put Saleen at ease was not that most of his followers would be able to achieve frightening growth. It was that his teacher, Jason, was able to reach level 11 without trouble. The difference between level 11 and level 10 was quite a leap for mages.


    As Jason advanced, Saleen becamepletely at ease with things going on in Metatrin City. The only regret he had was that his student, Truman, was still a level nine mage. Because of that, Saleen had no intentions of bringing Truman to Laiyin Duchy. That battle would have been an all-out fight with the monsters from an alien ne.


    Truman was his student and not a follower. Furthermore, that student was incredibly talented and had a high capacity for learning. Truman was already able to master Saleen¡¯s elemental conversion in a proficient manner. He had even expanded it further to develop new magic skills through systemizing the conversion of the six major elements.


    The ne portal west of the city did not continue to expand. Saleen had been right. The portal did not lead to the true abyssal ne. Rather, it was some ne resembling it, which was like some interdimensional space that had yet to finish growing.


    While the creatures from that interdimensional space looked formidable, their levels were below level 10. As such, he was able to see huge numbers of professionals showing up at the city council office every day to sell dead abyssal creatures. It was a good chance for Metatrin City professionals to advance their own powers, as well as one to get them rich.


    Anyone willing to take gold coins could exchange one dead body of an abyssal creature for up to 1,000 gold coins. High level ones were even able to fetch up to 10,000 gold coins, and that was excluding their magic nuclei. Many kept the magic nuclei of those abyssal creatures for themselves since the price of magic nucleus had never been all that high in Metatrin City.


    The alchemy factories at the Floating City were in full swing. The ce was manned by the enchanters, creatingbat equipment specifically for Saleen. He did not want to see any part of the equipment¡¯s schematics leaked.


    Saleen was already able to craft Tainted Blood Armor, which had been mass-produced equipment in ancient times due to the simple material requirements. Unfortunately, what had once been cheap materials had be expensive.


    It was fortunate for Saleen to have imed possession of the astrology tower and the materials left behind by the goddess. It allowed him to replicate the production of Tainted Blood Armor.


    The Tainted Blood Armors Saleen made were nothing like they once were. Tainted Blood Armors of ancient times did not enable their wearers to fly. The elite warriors reliedpletely on their own abilities to take flight.


    One had to at least be a level nine warrior in order to wear Tainted Blood Armor, which was equivalent to present-day golden grand swordmasters. The flight abilities of golden grand swordmasters were anything but weak. They could fly better than mages.


    That was not the case with Saleen¡¯s warriors. The number of golden grand swordmasters currently at his side was only a handful. In Myers Maind, mages had systematic methods of learning, as well as experiences left behind by many of their predecessors.


    That was not how things were with warrior skills. Anyone who wanted to make it to be a golden grand swordmaster had to face numerous limitations. The greatest of which was one¡¯s own talents.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, the problem with talent was not the problem of humanity as a whole but that of skills being practiced. For instance, it had been difficult for him to be a mage. Due to the myriad of miraculous encounters and vast magical wealth acquired, he was able to be one of the most powerful mages of his generation.


    His path was not one that could not be replicated. Anyone with his bodily conditions would have been able to achieve more or less what he achieved eventually, so long as they had ess to magic chord pharmaceuticals and been provided resources by someone like him. The problem with warriors was that they did not have many choices. As such, equipment became important to them.


    The Tainted Blood Armor turned crimson colors after Saleen modified it. He mainly added dragon bones infused with the giant¡¯s bone crystals. The materials from those two creatures fused well, but the prices of both materials were extremely high. If it had not been for his trade with the Grand Duke, he would not have been able to gain ess to so many bone materials from dragons.


    Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories produced Tainted Blood Armors of four different levels¡ªlevel eight to level 11. He had yet to unlock the secrets of making level 12 ones.


    The level ten and level 11 ones were reserved for his followers. He also bestowed them to some of his troops who had managed to advance that far. The ones he distributed to his armies were level eight and nine. One had only needed to be close to bing a grand swordmaster to wear a level eight Tainted Blood Armor. That meant Saleen was able to amplify thebat capacity of a level-six warrior to that of a silver grand swordmaster.


    All armors were inscribed with dark space magic patterns, which bestowed an incredibly high magic defense. Flight was made possible with two pairs of transparent wings. They were also equipped with masks, which were made from magic beast bones. Compound eye design of insects were used for crafting the visor, giving the warriors omnidirectional sight.


    If one were to master such an ability, it would have been best for them not to leave the area under the magic¡¯s control. The mental powers of the warriors allowed them to use low level skills like Magic Sight within the vicinity of a magic easily, enabling them to get used to suchplex sight abilities right away.


    Aside from the Tainted Blood Armors, Saleen also equipped his star figures with Devil Flying Armors. The imps remained wearing Bug Angel Armors. As for the ancient warriors, he ceased using them as cannon fodder and took precautions to conserve them by leaving them behind at Metatrin City.


    Twelve demon armies were sent to the Floating City to serve as defenses for the city. The number of enchanters increased from 3,600 added to 120,000.


    Very few supreme demons were summoned at Demon City, but nurtured imps and demonic spirits were extremely abundant. Those two demon bloodlines possessed inherently great mental powers. They needed less than a month of training to be enchanters.


    Saleen had the enchanters learn magical chants in the time remaining. Their capacity for learning magical chants, however, paled inparison to human mages.


    He prepared for about two weeks before he brought his followers, Sika, 100,000 enchanters, 120,000 Bug Angel Warriors, and 10,000 star figures onto the Floating City. They soon headed toward Kroraina. He had to pick up the Grand Duke at the border of Kroraina. Along with Laiyin Duchy, they would take on the abominations about to invade Myers Maind.

 Chapter 1316: The Expedition (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1316: The Expedition (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen had little concern about the expedition because he had a level 13 being at his side, Rafel the archangel, who was very interested in the expedition. Unless Saleen was again trapped in a sealed off ce all on his own, he would not be in any danger if he were to run into difficult enemies.


    The Floating City did not travel quickly. It was used to train the troops while they were flying, allowing them to learn aerialbat.


    With not much to do, Rafel sought out Saleen.


    ¡°My lord, you¡¯re one of the more powerful mages on this ne, and the ne¡¯s power is gradually rising,¡± Rafel said ¡°If you were to keep your hands away from all these matters and dedicate yourself to your training, you would quickly advance, just like how your teacher did. You be able to maintain your edge in terms of levels. Why take the risk to fight the creatures of alien nes?¡±


    ¡°Why would you protect the metal angels, Rafel?¡± Saleen asked.


    Rafel was a bit puzzled and said, ¡°I know that you possess an interdimensional space, and she couldpletely transfer all of the ones you want to protect there. There is no need for you to go all out like this.¡±


    ¡°If the god you serve still lived, would you have left your divine kingdom?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°So, do mages believe in something as well?¡± Rafel replied.


    ¡°Of course, Myers Maind is my home, and I don¡¯t want to see my home reduced to ashes and ruins,¡± Saleen said. ¡°When the timees for me to die, I¡¯d feel like I had nowhere to go to.¡±


    ¡°That elf does not seem to want to go home,¡± Rafel said and pointed to Eleanor.


    Eleanor felt irked. Before responding, Nailisi said, ¡°Humans, elves, and demons all originated from a single bloodline. You wouldn¡¯t be capable ofprehending the sentimental attachment everyone here has for their home. You¡¯ve just acquired a bit of emotions. This is something you¡¯d find near-impossible toprehend for the time being.¡±


    ¡°Of course I understand. You¡¯re all afraid.¡± Rafel¡¯s words were getting increasingly pointed, but that had not been her intentions. ¡°Those without faith are always weak.¡±


    Daniel was the one getting irked now and asked, ¡°Faith? Is faith just about giving up every single being of yours to a god? I believe in death, but not the God of the Underworld. You wouldn¡¯t be able toprehend that ever.¡±


    Rafel was not angered. A human death mage who only mingled with spirits was not worth getting angry over.


    Saleen frowned. None of his men was being friendly to Rafel, which was rather weird for him. It had only been Nailisi who did not like Rafel. Now, not even J probably liked her.


    ¡°My lord, the invasion from the abomination ne will not be too troublesome this time,¡± Rafel said.


    Saleen thought, You¡¯re a level 13 angel. Of course it wouldn¡¯t be troublesome for you!


    He soon realized why things with the archangel had been so. So that¡¯s how it is. My people don¡¯t like Rafel because of her level. A weapon of war created by a god and of a level higher than their own. Everyone is fearing for themselves.


    Besides, it was entirely possible for Rafel to break the contract. Saleen smirked. There was no way the constetion contract could be broken. It was a contract scroll that used up a considerable amount of his constetion power to draft, and the ink used for drafting it was the blood extracted from dragons.


    The difference in level would have loosened the contract¡¯s bindings, but his mental powers were not inferior to Rafel¡¯s. The level difference was practically non-existent. At the very least, that was how things were regarding the contract.


    Saleen thought, Should I just let Rafel take on Fycro then? Killing Fycro would mean getting rid of a difficult enemy at the borders. However, Fycro is a powerful card to take on the Holy See nheless. Could Fycro even be killed in the first ce?


    He began to grow doubtful. Joey was unable to get rid of Fycro when that powerful mage still had possession of the Seal of Divine Power. Both parties suffered grievous injuries from the sh.


    Fycro might have advanced further. If he had indeed advanced and possessed powerful godly items, a level 11 Fycro would be able to take on powerful ones at level 12. He might even been able to secure a quick victory.


    While Rafel was a level 13 being, the power throughout Myers Maind had yet topletely advance. She was still suppressed by the powers of the ne. Fycro, on the other hand, was a native of Myers Maind. His powers had reached the permitted limit of the ne.


    There might have even been some secret arts that allowed him to break through such limits, allowing a human to control equipment that had the power to exceed the limit of the ne. For instance, sealing off a certain area would enable the area to function as a parallel ne of Myers Maind for a short period of time. Under such circumstances, casting powers of sealed equipment would have allowed Fycro to reach level 13.


    Saleen quickly dismissed thoughts about killing Fycro. Besides, Fycro had a huge number of ascetics serving him. Getting on the bad side of ascetics would cause a lot of trouble. It was best to leave Fycro alone before the Holy See crumbled. At the very least, the conflict between Fycro and the Holy See was still in irreconcble one.


    ¡°Rafel, do you intend to fight this time?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course, my lord,¡± Rafel said. ¡°While I do not see you as my master, I¡¯d be willing to assist you, should you require me to fight. If your powers exceed level 16 one day, I might actually see you as my god.¡±


    Nailisi pouted and thought, If master had not intended to take you in, did you really think you¡¯d have been able to escape? I have once been four to five levels higher than master, but he subjugated me all the same. You could neverprehend how conniving master actually is.


    ¡°My allies would be on guard against me if they were to discover how high your level is,¡± Saleen said. ¡°If that happens, I¡¯d have to change a good deal of my ns.¡±


    ¡°Are you asking me to suppress my powers?¡± Rafel asked. ¡°That¡¯d be easy.¡±


    She drew a holy prose rune on her forehead. The rune seeped into her skin. The terrifying aura around her dissipated without a trace. The people in the tower became a lot more rxed. It was a simple seal that allowed Rafel to keep her status at the pinnacle of level ten, but she would be able to unravel the seal when there was a need for it.


    ¡°Your wings will alert my allies as well,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°That is also simple to deal with,¡± Rafel said as her wings turned into pure energy and retreated back into her body.


    Saleen found Rafel¡¯s attitude exasperating. ¡°Your weapon...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m adept at using any weapon capable of killing any type of living being,¡± Rafel said. ¡°I shall make do with anything you give me, my lord.¡±


    The powerful angel seemed to have no temper at all and would have gone with anything Saleen said or did. Furthermore, the way Rafel spoke had few emotions that could have been captured. When she was talking about killing living things, she did not imbue the words with any excitement or sadness, but the gods created them specifically for doing such things.


    ¡°Well, just stick close and protect me,¡± Saleen said. ¡°I¡¯ll lend this gear to you for the time being. If you find them unsuitable, make sure to give them back to me.¡±


    He took out something he had stored for a very long time. It was a set of Devil Possession Armor, which was crafted with the best materials he had been able to gather. The Devil Possession Armor did not possess flight abilities, but Rafel did not need something like that. If Saleen did not use any special skills, there was no way he could keep up with Rafel in flight.


    The weapon lent to Rafel was a huge de. It was part of some loot Saleen had acquired and possessed powerful strength attributes. When it was restored, it became extremely sharp.


    ¡°Rule weapons...¡± Rafel took the de and said, ¡°This weapon will suit me well. But, my lord, didn¡¯t you ask me to protect you? This is an offensive weapon.¡±


    ¡°There is nothing you need to worry about when ites to energy attacks,¡± Saleen said. ¡°I can take care of those. I¡¯d need to kill any assassin or warrior who managed to close in on me, allowing me an easier time to cast spells.¡±


    Rafel nodded. That was not a problem. She was quite proficient at taking on warriors. As for the thing about Saleen being able to defend against all types of energy attacks, she had no concerns about that. As long as Saleen stayed alive, she had divine arts capable of saving him. Her god might have died, but the divine powers left within her were still intact.


    ¡°If she is there to protect our lord, what should I do?¡± J looked rather restless.


    He eyed and gauged Rafel from top to bottom, seemingly able to tell something about the angel¡¯s constitution, which was different from humans.


    ¡°The Floating City shallnd to fight,¡± Saleen said. ¡°The abominations will attack the city. What should you do? Fight, of course.¡±


    He wanted very much to kick J¡¯s butt. Things always had a way of turning weird and stupid with him around.


    ¡°Fight, eh...¡± J sighed but did not say anything much. He wanted to know if there were beauties among the abominations.


    ¡°J, there are beauties among the abominations,¡± Rafel suddenly said. ¡°From the perspective of humans, they are very alluring.¡±


    J was stunned and pointed at Rafel. ¡°Are you peering into my mind?¡±


    Rafel pursed her lips, smiled, and said, ¡°That would be rather rude. I¡¯ve observed you for some time and have deduced what is going through your mind ording to your personality. It isn¡¯t mind-reading. It is simply calctions.¡±


    J¡¯s face turned red as he said, ¡°Well, so long as you¡¯re not doing any mind-reading.¡±


    Rafel turned a blind eye to J¡¯s flirting attempts. She said to Saleen, ¡°My lord, this Devil Possession Armor has little damage on angels, so I¡¯d be able to wear it. However, I¡¯d need something simr to this.¡±


    She pointed at Saleen¡¯s Starline Bangle. After seeing Saleen frowning, she said, ¡°I¡¯d do with something like the Thunder Dragon ster as well. My targeting mental powers rarely allow anything to escape my sight.¡±


    Saleen was even more puzzled. His Floating City was modified, and there were huge amounts of magic cannons andrge scale Hogina¡¯s Guns installed at the edges. He would hardly need to do any ranged attacks himself. The 100,000 enchanters would be able to man all those weapons.


    ¡°My lord, you wanted me to hide my identity as an angel,¡± Rafel said. ¡°As such, I will not be able to use Purification. I¡¯d like to modify something in one such equipment, which would enable me to fix Purification onto it and make it look something simr to the magic spell Disintegration.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re capable of modifying equipment?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course, but I have nothing with me, and you are not giving me any alchemical materials,¡± Rafel said. ¡°Otherwise, I¡¯d be able to enhance all of the equipment of your troops by at least one level.¡±


    She looked at Saleen innocently, yet he was able to see mocking expressions in her golden eyes. He thought, This angel sure as hell doesn¡¯t look like a weapon of war at all.

 Chapter 1317: Taking on the Abominations (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1317: Taking on the Abominations (Part 1)</h4>


    Rafel intended to incite Saleen in order to learn more about the human, but no ripples of emotions were seen in his blue eyes. He simply smiled and ceased talking to her.


    ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll get Rafel¡¯s weapon in three days,¡± Saleen said. ¡°The destination is about a week away, so make a list of everything you need within said time. While we have the Floating City as our backing in this battle, there are also plenty of abominations capable of flight. We have no time to rest. Every required supply is to be produced three times the numbers reported.¡±


    Saleen was not addressing his followers when he was saying all of that. Every single follower of his was incredibly wealthy. He was addressing some of the level 10 mage trainers he had brought with him. They were being assigned to different corners of the Floating City as measures of defense.


    There were magic towers on the Floating City. Those level 10 mages were in charge ofpensating for defensive measures required during the magic¡¯s downtimes. During normal times, the mage trainers were in charge ofmanding regional defenses. Saleen would assign their subordinatester.


    The mages calcted the cost of the uing battle ording to Saleen¡¯s requirements and reported the numbers to him. He read them and felt that the cost of war was too great. It also seemed pointless.


    Saleen¡¯s Floating City reached the border of Kroraina in the middle of December. They met up with Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s army, which consisted of 200,000 men. It was apparent that the Grand Duke had no intentions of wasting his main force there. Only 50,000 of the 200,000 were Dragon Blood Warriors. While the rest were still elites, they consisted of the Grand Duke¡¯s forces back in Cloudflow Empire instead of those from Dragon Ind.


    Imposa also returned. Saleen felt Imposa¡¯s soul had quieted down considerablypared to when hest saw him. Itcked the anxiousness that unnerved him. It seemed that the problem with Imposa¡¯s soul had been momentarily suppressed and even showed signs of recovery.


    Saleen calcted for a bit using astrology. He found that there would be no major problems with Imposa for at least the next three to five years.


    The Floating City was huge, so there were no problems carrying the troops. Furthermore, the number of demons living within Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of devils climbed considerably, making it look like a small interdimensional space.


    The demon ne¡¯s rules were replicated in that purgatory. Rules absent in the demon ne were found in the purgatory.


    The huge piece ofnd carrying the Grand Duke¡¯s army and mages arrived in Hignd City at the end of December. The citizens there had all been migrated. Only a few believers remained behind.


    Things with Hignd City changed. That position at the acquired set of coordinates was surrounded by a dozenyers of fortresses. Huge amount of weapons were installed on them. Saleen was surprised to see many mages on them. The mages were hired on the spot. All of them were citizens of Laiyin Duchy or Sikeqinyans.


    Fycro¡¯s holy masters did not panic at Saleen¡¯s arrival. The Floating City gradually descended, stopping at the height of 1,640 feet. Fycro flew up to the Floating City to meet Saleen personally. Twelve weird-looking knights appeared behind him.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, all 12 of those knights were at level nine, yet they possessed level 10bat capacity. That was the result of the armor they wore. He was able to produce Tainted Blood Armor, so he was hardly interested in armor capable of raising levels.


    It was not that Fycro intended to hide anything from him. Bug Angel Armors were all-purpose armors. However, those armors Fycro had given his subordinates were made specifically for believers. All those believers were loyal to Fycro, so there were probably secrets regarding mental powers and the soul about them.


    Even if Fycro were to give Saleen the armor, he would not let his men wear them. It could have possibly rendered anyone who wore the armor a Fycro believer. Mages were incredibly sensitive to divine arts, so they were heavily guarded against it.


    ¡°Some abominations began to show up, but most of them were already killed. I¡¯ve managed to capture some,¡± Fycro said as he took out an abomination from his own space and dropped it before everyone.


    The abomination howled as soon as it was dropped, intending to hurt someone around it. White divine power imprisonment had been cast around it, so the abomination only ended up being burned by the divine power. Its howl turned to shrieks. Saleen cast Mute Enchantment without a care, silencing the abomination¡¯s noise.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was not around. He had no intention of meeting Fycro. Only Saleen and his followers were around. Fycro became rather nonchnt with the way he talked.


    ¡°I take it that this thing here would only be around level five, correct?¡± Saleen eyed the abomination doubtfully.


    It wore no equipment and had thin scales. It had a single straight horn on its head, and its face looked like that ofmon beasts found on Myers Maind. Its limbs, however, resembled that of humans.


    ¡°It¡¯s a sheep of the abomination ne,¡± Fycro said. ¡°The abominations release their cattle for grazing when they invade a ce, allowing the cattle to eat to their hearts¡¯ content. When the army of the abominations arrive, the cattle bes their food.¡±


    Saleen found sheep with level five powers interesting. He believed that Fycro was not making the invasion bigger than it could have been.


    The word ¡°sheep¡± was an allegory, making clear of their status as livestock in abomination ne. Demonic spirits were of simr status among demonkind. The only difference was that they were lower levels.


    ¡°Fycro, I see that the portal not being fully opened yet,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Are there many abominations around like this one now?¡±


    ¡°About a million of them showed up,¡± Fycro replied. ¡°My army suffered few casualties. We¡¯ve been holding on usingrge-scale equipment. I hired many mages. Oh right, Saleen, care to sell me some magic nuclei?¡±


    ¡°No problem,¡± Saleen said. ¡°What level would they need to be?¡±


    ¡°Higher than four but lower than seven,¡± Fycro replied.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll sell them to you at cost,¡± Saleen said, not lingering on the issue.


    He saw many magic towers among the fortresses. They were packed very closely to one another. That was the first battle front.


    While the mages were essentially mercenaries, Saleen did not want them ending up dead before they were able to do what they needed. The mages would have a higher rate of survival if there was ample magic nuclei around.


    ¡°Thank you very much, Saleen,¡± Fycro said with a smile.


    Saleen thought, I should thank you as well. My armies need training. Without such training, they won¡¯t be able to take on greater disasters anyway.


    He had brought many men with him this time, including 120,000 demons, 120,000 bug angels, and 120,000 enchanters.


    The trade between Fycro and Saleen was not performed with gold coins but divine crystals. Saleen had many divine crystals with him, but there was never a notion of too much with such things. To mages, divine crystals were incredibly pure things and could serve the functions of magic nuclei, as well as replenishment of mental powers.


    Both parties finished trading. Fycro took out a map and began to discuss theyout of defenses with Saleen. The Floating City could serve as support from above. The abominations spread out in all directions when they emerged from the portal. The group of fortresses were not tightly built. The spaces between them would allow considerable numbers to escape.


    Still, it was not wrong toy them out that way. It would enable the fortresses to serve a better use. If they were to simply surround the exit without any ce for the abominations to run, the abominations would attack the fortresses until they crumbled. Leaving spaces for escape allowed the abominations to fight among themselves for a ce at the narrow paths.


    Any living being had a certain extent ofziness. The abominations were not an exception. The rtively easy way of escaping proved more attractive and lethal.


    ¡°I¡¯d defend the south and the east,¡± Saleen said to Fycro as he pointed at the two regions on the map. ¡°I don¡¯t wish to see any abominations showing up in Kroraina and Qin.¡±


    ¡°Very well, I¡¯ll let my men retreat in these two directions,¡± Fycro said. ¡°I hope you¡¯ll be able to hold out this time, Saleen.¡±


    Saleen smiled and replied, ¡°So, are we the only two who are doing this? I take it that it¡¯s not a day or two since you¡¯ve dispersed the people of Hignd City. Has nobody volunteered to help in the meantime?¡±


    ¡°Grand Duke Bronze sent word that he was willing to mobilize 100,000 for the war effort, and the emperor of Tanggsi Empire was willing to mobilize 200,000,¡± Fycro said.


    ¡°Did you refuse them?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°No. Their armies are still on their way,¡± Fycro replied.


    ¡°What about Sikeqinya?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Emperor Danny was unable to get anyone to respond to his call,¡± Fycro said. ¡°I was unable to pay a good price, so none of the nobles bothered.¡±


    Saleen sighed. If the abominations were to invade Myers Maind, Sikeqinya would be caught close to ground zero. Even at a time like this, the Sikeqinyan nobles still bothered to be petty over mary gains. There was simply no hope for the country.


    ¡°Alright, Fycro, these are the war gs that I¡¯ve crafted,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Give it to the armies to avoid any friendly fire. If you¡¯re unable to hold out, I¡¯ll send men to back you up. If my side is unable to hold...¡±


    Fycro took Saleen¡¯s space equipment and put the gs inside, saying, ¡°The men I¡¯ve gathered have no intentions of running. We will loosen up the limit of defense 100 miles.¡±


    ¡°Radius of diameter?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Diameter,¡± Fycro solemnly answered.


    That meant the portal served as the origin point, and the area within a 50-mile radius was the battlefield. If the fighting exceeded the area, they would fail to contain the fighting. It would make controlling the spread of abominations throughout Myers Maind difficult.


    After seeing Fycro take his 12 knights away, Nichs said, ¡°Those 12 are Divine Pce Knights, personal guards only reserved for gods. Fycro had indeed betrayed God.¡±


    An important figure like Fycro betrayed his god and said god had no idea about it? Saleen seemed to realize something. Fycro probably had some special equipment with him that allowed him to avoid being detected by their god.


    Gods did not concern themselves with the trillions ofmon believers. There were leaders among the preachers in every ne, and the gods took their time to check on those people time and again. Fycro¡¯s status in the Holy See was extremely high, and there were unusually huge numbers of believers willing to follow him. Their god would not have just left someone so important alone.


    ¡°We¡¯ll leave that aside and focus on defense for now,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Winged Skull, no need to summon spirits this time. We¡¯ll reserve your spirit army forst.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, take control of Floating City with Sika and Rossen,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    ¡°Nichs,e with me with J,¡± Saleen directed. ¡°We¡¯ll take the star figures and set up a defense here. All of the rest, go about your business ording to n.¡±


    Saleenid out his battle ns and left some unavoidable ones for Grand Duke Iron Blood, which was something that had previously agreed upon.

 Chapter 1318: Taking on the Abominations (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1318: Taking on the Abominations (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°What about me, Saleen?¡± Eleanor felt weird that she was not included in Saleen¡¯s arrangements.


    ¡°You and Qin shall await my orders,¡± Saleen said. ¡°I point, you shoot. There¡¯s no need to expose what you¡¯re capable of for now.¡±


    After giving hisst order, he took J and Nichs away from the Floating City. The four level 10 mage trainers, whom he had brought from Devil¡¯s Horn, were by his side.


    Saleen brought 10,000 Bug Angel Warriors and 10,000 star figures, as well as 10,000 demons to a fortress east of Hignd City. The 30,000-strong army was incapable of being stationed in the small fortresses, but he did not worry about that. He cast Lightning Constetion and summoned elemental creatures from his elemental badge before beginning to build arger fortress.


    The materials were picked on the spot. Prior to arriving, Saleen had already figured it that Fycro would not haveid out too many lines of defense. He still needed to depend on himself. Fycro was not someone like Saleen, who possessed a piece of equipment like the Lightning Constetion. The hundreds of thousands of lightning warriors within were all very strong and capable of building standard magic constructions any time.


    Construction spanning over a mile in lengthmenced. The depth of the construction had a width spanning over 600 feet. The front of the construction was a 32-foot-thick stone wall. Metal towers were built behind the wall. It was nked by four 10-floored magic towers. A wedge-shaped fortress was built at the rear.


    Nothing about the line of defense looked extraordinary. If it had not been for the two basement floors below, which enabled him to keep his troops around, such ayout would have been amonly seen defensive structure in Qin. However, such a conventionalyout usually had six-floored magic towers at the sides instead of 10-floored ones.


    Saleen had his reasons forying the ce out like that. The Holy See troops would have been unnerved seeing 10-floored magic towers around. While they were dealing with abominations at the moment, it was still a severely sphemous act.


    Fycro would not have objected to it, so Saleen was able to cut down on the number of floors of the towers. When the battle was over, the news of Fycro allying with a sphemer would be known everywhere. Fycro would be at the point of no return by then.


    Saleen was not stupid enough to let Fycro do as he pleased. He had his own ideas and principles. Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s identity was no secret, but he still refrained from sticking his nose at who Fycro recruited for help. Both parties defended two directions respectively. It would suffice so long as the abominations were contained within Hignd City.


    Hignd City, per its namesake, was built at a high ce. The area produced herbs and a rarely seen type of wood, which could be used to craft magic staffs. It was all low-level materials, so there had been few powerful professionals around. Fycro took over the city as soon as he showed up. He dispersed the people and made the ce a suitable battlefield.


    While the gods were pretentious and fake, they would have had such surface actions done properly by believers. Fycro was to be a god, so he did his best to protectmon people.


    There were hardly any residents left within 500 miles from the Hignd City. All who remained were retired soldiers or professionals still capable of fighting. The 500-mile battlefield¡¯s focus was on the 100th mile at the center.


    Saleen began to distribute armies of Stone Statue Soldiers, which he crafted on his own, to the mages as soon as he was doneying the line of defense. The army was not as powerful as the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers in battle, but suchpound summoning magic spells would not put a huge strain on the mages¡¯ mental powers.


    On the second day after the line of defense wasid out, the ones at the front¡ªFycro¡¯s forces¡ªhad almost finished retreating. Saleen began to take over matters concerning defense of the Floating City. There were an army of bug angels of 60,000-strong assigned east of Hignd City. A 50,000-strong demon army was waiting to fight.


    The center of Hignd City was the location of the huge portal. Abominations were continuously emerging. The abominations were first dealt with by the surrounding fortresses. When the ones remaining managed to find their way out of the barricade, more than 60 percent of the ones emerging still ended up dead. That was when the army of bug angels strike.


    The Floating City¡¯s altitude was too low. The abominations were unable to fly as soon as they emerged, so they were only able to strike onnd. The pressure on the group of fortresses were halved. The new year came, and the portal expanded to a radius of about 1,640 feet. More and more powerful abominations emerged. The soldiers and mages in the fortresses continued to keep fighting with high spirits.


    The magic nuclei that Fycro bought from Saleen had proven their worth. Fycro traded for the magic nuclei using divine crystals. By trading for low-quality magic nuclei using high quality supplies, he had been able to acquirerge numbers of magic nuclei. Doing so enabled the mages to keep fighting for longer periods of time.


    The quality of magic nuclei used hardly made a difference to mages, unless they were used on magic arrays. The main usage of divine crystals was to replenish mental powers or used them on magic arrays or equipment. Common mages were incapable of using them to restore magic chords.


    On the third of the new year, there were already level nine abominations showing up at the 1,640-foot-wide portal. The mages at the fortresses no longer attacked without a care. They simply hunkered down at the fortresses to prevent the abominations from moving out too quickly.


    The creatures that emerged from the abomination ne were incredibly ferocious, but they were not quite as big as demons. Most of them were only around 6 feet tall. Only abominations above level six began to wear clothing and armor, as well as wielded weapons.


    Most abominations were capable of flight. Their ferocious, monstrous faces seemed to have stains of blood umted over thousands of years on them. The stench spreading out was so pungent that not even the mages¡¯ Cleaning spell had been of any use.


    As soon as abominations took flight, the Floating City above quickly shot them down. Magic spells rained down on the front of the portal like they cost nothing. Most abominations were wiped out before they were even able to see what Myers Maind was actually like.


    Still, thousands of abominations managed to escape the fortresses and enter the city. That was due to a problem with Hignd City¡¯s terrain. Although it was huge, there were few ces actually considered habitable. The tall hills and boulders became garrisons.


    Bug Angel Warriors were capable of flight, and the demons surrounded their enemies on the ground. The fighting was more intense than Saleen had imagined.


    He stayed at the rear and did not venture outside to do battle. He was busy calcting thebat capacity of the abominations and casualties of his own army. Due to being d in high-level armor, casualties were kept incredibly low in his army, rating at less than 100 per day. It was incrediblymon for his units to sustain injuries. The nails of the abominations were sharper than many magic des. The Bug Angel Armor was unable to sustain many blows before breaking.


    In such situations, wealth became the key. The magic nuclei left on the Bug Angel Armor enabled the armor to be repaired. Saleen had to rotate the Bug Angel Warriors and demons every day, recing 10,000 units about every eight hours. The armor of the 10,000 who were recalled suffered damage in various areas. The number of magic nuclei consumed exceeded what had incurred in any battle that Saleen had fought.


    While the abominations were never able to actually break the lines of defensesid out everywhere, Saleen knew that it was just the beginning. When level 10 abominations began to show, his lines of defenses were truly tested.


    ¡°My liege, I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll see the end just killing them like that,¡± J said.


    He had paid close attention to Saleen¡¯s magic array. There was a myriad of projections shown in the magic arrays. All of them depicted the battles between Saleen¡¯s warriors and the abominations.


    ¡°Any thoughts?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°The abominations¡¯ bodies would have made good alchemical materials,¡± J said. ¡°Don¡¯t we already have a mercenary system in ce? If we were to use magic nuclei to buy the bodies of the abominations, we¡¯d have the pressure lifted off our shoulders considerably.¡±


    ¡°That matter with the abyssal creatures isn¡¯t over yet,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°Just recruit at Qin then. We have nothing to lose anyway,¡± J said, reminding Saleen that other than Pompeii City, there had been nowhere else south of Qin caught in wars.


    There were many mages to the south. Professionals were abundant. Most professionals were not able to find anyone who would hire them, so their days were rather hard. If there were to be high-paying battles, it would attract many professionals who had plenty of time to kill. Saleen could probably easily hire over 100,000 of them.


    Saleen pondered J¡¯s words for a bit. Even though he had not been bringing many of his troops to the battle, all of them were elites. Those who diedcked training. They were there to train in the first ce, so any who could remain alive would have a great future ahead of them.


    ¡°Forget it. I don¡¯t want to share the loot with others,¡± he finally said.


    The imps and demons were creatures from demon ne. Only through fighting alongside him would he have been made a central figure in their minds, making them take him seriously as their lord and master.


    When powerful ones from the abomination ne showed up, Saleen would not have let the bug angels and demons take them on. He would lead a group of professionals to take those figures on to personally find out just how powerful those figures were. With the Floating City around, he could advance and retreat any time.


    ¡°Nichs, how are things at Fycro¡¯s side?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°No noteworthy dangers around,¡± Nichs said. ¡°As for the abominations... It¡¯s just numbers for the time being. The group of fortresses that Fycro built were mainly meant to hold back the rate of emergence and numbers. It works well. The armies at the outer fringes are more than enough to kill any abominations able to make it out. The Floating City ensured that no abominations took flight.¡±


    ¡°It seems like Fycro has done his calctions well,¡± Saleen said. ¡°If it hadn¡¯t been for the Floating City, fighting would have looked very different here. What about Grand Duke Iron Blood?¡±


    Thatst sentence was meant for J.


    ¡°No signs of danger,¡± J said. ¡°My liege, the invasion from the abomination kind of looks...¡±


    He did not really know how to word it.


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Too weak. It shouldn¡¯t have alerted Fycro so much to begin with. Then again, J, the portal was sealed by Fycro using divine arts. It would have turned out to be a huge energy maelstrom with a diameter over a mile otherwise. The rate at which the abominations emerged could have only been seen clearly by high-level mages.¡±


    The ground right outside the portal had already been stained by blood while Saleen was still analyzing how things were.


    The abominations spoke in an extremely high tempo. Themunications between them sounded like high-pitched screeches, which was deafening. With the Floating City looming over the battlefield, the entire ce was dark, eerie, and filled with dead bodies, which were dposing at a very high rate. Venomous bugs emerged from the dead bodies and flew about.


    ¡°Myers Maind! Why isn¡¯t the portal opened yet?¡±


    A cold voice was heard roaring from the other side of the portal. A huge palm shot out and grabbed at a tower in front. The tower was made of pure steel, yet it was snapped right there and then by that hand.

 Chapter 1319: Being Set Up (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1319: Being Set Up (Part 1)</h4>


    At Fycro¡¯s main camp north of Hignd City, Fycro was listening to reports from several holy masters.


    ¡°My lord, there are at least 100,000 mages on the Floating City. We can¡¯t take them out.¡±


    ¡°Enchanters,¡± Fycro corrected.


    ¡°Saleen only mobilized half of his forces. His followers and 30,000 of his elite troops have not participated in the fighting.¡±


    ¡°Not even once?¡± Fycro asked.


    ¡°Saleen modified the Bug Angel Armor, and the weaknesses did not show at all,¡± the holy masters exined in a dejected manner.


    ¡°That¡¯s normal. If he would have fallen for something like that, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to establish a kingdom of his own,¡± Fycro said. ¡°It¡¯s not your fault. Abominations of true might level will show in two more days. We only need to sit back and watch then.¡±


    None of the holy masters knew what he was up to, but all of thempletely trusted their Lord Oracle.


    ¡°Keep a close eye to the south, the ce where Grand Duke Iron Blood is.¡± Fycro eyed his most trusted holy masters one by one. All of the holy masters looked rather tense. He continued, ¡°Saleen captured one giant warship from the Grand Duke. What is that? Equipment from the First Dynasty. If the Grand Duke hadn¡¯t minded and actually became allies with Saleen despite that, that person would be our greatest obstacle.¡±


    ¡°My lord, but Saleen...¡±


    ¡°He has no ambition, and his achievements would have been limited.¡± Fycropleted the sentence as his silhouette slowly dissipated before everyone¡¯s eyes.


    No one knew how he disappeared, and no one knew where he ended up in. As soon as he left, the white-robed holy masters discussed how to take Saleen¡¯s Floating City. They ran all simtions of various possible scenarios after the abominations stormed the Floating City. They left the camp after finding nothing wrong with the simtions, returning to their posts.


    The ces where the holy masters were posted looked no different from the ones that the conventional mages lived in. However, all of them had huge divine rune charm arraysid underground, waiting to be activated at Fycro¡¯smand.


    The huge hand snapped a metal tower before the portal. The warriors on the tower calmly dropped to the ground and escaped. The huge hand was impossible to defeat. The contract signed between the warriors and Fycro did not have them go all out. It was written clearly on the contract that once any residential structure was destroyed, they no longer needed to take risks and fight.


    ¡°Stupid humans. Their powers have actually dropped this far! They no longer have guts!¡± The huge hand swept around. Turbulences caused by the wind element spread all over the ce, catching the escaped warriors and reducing them to dust.


    ¡°Sh*t!¡± Rossen, who was monitoring things on the Floating City was frightened.


    The power bursting from the hand was calcted precisely by the enchanters. It was a level 12 abomination. Being at level 12 meant that its powers was able to burst to the limit on Myers Maind. The portal had only been officially opened a few days, yet there was already a level 12 abomination showing up. It was only time before the portal broke altogether.


    The individual that stuck that hand outbored to climb outside of the portal. The portal might have been 1,640-feet wide, but the limit imposed depended on the creature¡¯s level instead of the size of the portal itself. A level nine creature as huge as a mountain would have had no problem at all emerging from the portal. This abomination¡¯s level was too high, which meant that the portal ced a huge restriction on it.


    The boastful abomination grunted in pain. The powers of Myers Maind had not been loosened for long. The creature was simply too anxious. A level 12 creature should have waited for another half a month before emerging.


    ¡°Just you wait! I¡¯ll be back!¡± The huge hand was not seen again.


    Pairs of abomination soldiers charged from the portal. Saleen¡¯s followers on the Floating City began to get excited. Abomination troops emerged instead of bestial ones that had no sense of order. This meant the true battle was about to begin.


    True abomination soldiers were d in heavy iron armor, which looked crudely made. Every single te had twisted abomination script inscribed onto them. Those abominations formed 50-unit toons. Each abomination was about 6-feet tall and held a battle axe. High-pitched howls shot from their helmets, conjuring mystical magic powers.


    They were not trying to attack the enemy with that. They were boasting thebat capacity of their kind.


    ¡°Attack! Hahaha!¡± Nailisi got really excited. Those were the targets she intended to hunt.


    ¡°Nailisi, hold your horses,¡± Sika ordered.


    Nailisi pouted and said nothing else. Even with Rafel the archangel absent, Sika was able to overpower her.


    Sika looked at Nailisi¡¯s expression and felt rather reluctant to hurt the imp¡¯s feelings. She asked, ¡°What are you getting so anxious for? That big hand that showed up should have been your target.¡±


    Nailisi was actually thinking that Rafel should have been her target. That stupid angel actually went down there with Master. What fun is it being left behind all alone to take care of the Floating City?


    In her perspective, such heated battles were what would have put her at ease. That would have been like having returned to the demon ne and living like a demon.


    Nailisi summoned arge number of demons, but they never got a chance to fight. They looked rather bored. The powerful demons had even gottenzy of hunting anything inside the purgatory of the devils. Instead, the imps and demonic spirits were having a great time. She thought, Is that how the demon ne works?


    The emergence of the abomination army changed how the battles at the group of fortresses surrounding the portal fought. The soldiers holed up in the fortresses were reluctant toe out and fight. Attacks were mainly performed using magic and alchemy crossbows.


    Fycro bought huge amounts of alchemy crossbows from Saleen, and there was unusually expensive equipment. The extra cost had only loosened the level requirements of the weapons instead of increasing the crossbows¡¯ properties.


    Many professionals charged outside the fortresses before the army emerged, taking out abominations that were singled out. The alchemy crossbows were fired slowly. They were only there to help their own people take out the powerful abominations. Despite the crossbows being used as the main mode of offense, they were no longer able to stop the abominations¡¯ advance.


    Casualties among the abominations climbed considerably. While the toons of soldiers all had decent gear, they were unable to resist bolts fired from the alchemy crossbows. While the range of the alchemy crossbows provided by Saleen was not increased, one out every three bolts fired had magic explosion bolts.


    The Floating City in the sky was only 1,600 feet from the ground. At such a height, the city was literally pinning onto the heads of the abominations. There was the sound of war drums ying behind the abomination soldiers, urging the troops to die for the cause. There were soldiers taking flight, heading for the city above.


    The Floating City began to retaliate in an orderly fashion under Rossen¡¯smand. There were 20,000 enchanters participating in the battle, making it absolutely certain that no soldiers got up to the Floating City. However, there was an increasingly high number of soldiers making breakthroughs on the ground as they headed east.


    Rossen felt something was off. He sent word to Saleen, telling him that the newly appeared type of abominations no longer spread out everywhere. They had instead made for his line of defense in an orderly manner.


    ¡°Get 10,000 enchanters to home in on them. Block their advance,¡± Saleen said in a rxed manner.


    He led 120,000 enchanters himself. They were split into six groups. 20,000 enchanters fought every day, and they were rotated throughout the week. Doing so ensured that the enchanters were able to get ample rest and would not be exhausted from battle.


    Saleen was only using half of the enchanters assigned to the task to block their way. This ensured there would not be any ill effects on the operations of the Floating City.


    Tens of thousands of abominations made it outside the fortresses and entered the area controlled by Saleen¡¯s troops. The armor worn by the abomination troops was incredibly thick. If they were not being shot at by the alchemy crossbows, not even the halberds of the demons would have been able to easily split them.


    Hundreds of demons surrounded the 50-unit abomination toons. The leader of the demons was a level nine supreme demon. He roared as he pummeled his halberd into the abominations¡¯ armor. The surrounding demons followed their superiors in an orderly manner and attacked from the nks in rotation.


    The toon of 50 abominations was hardly able retaliate when they were being surrounded and attacked. They were quickly killed off. The supreme demon was rather taken aback. He had hacked more than four times before he was able to kill an abomination, and he was a level nine supreme demon.


    Another toon of abominations came up. That supreme demon was unable to help but cursed and shot a magic arrow as soon as he saw them. The magic arrow flew up into the sky and exploded, shining brilliantly in the dark.


    More powerful attacks quickly came in the form of over 100 magic spells raining onto the toon. It quickly killed them off without a fuss. At the rear of the line of defense, Saleen came to the top of the 32-foot-thick wall at the front. He was holding onto the War Drum of Fear.


    He swung the bone hammer and began to hit the war drum. Tens of thousands of pests flew out. Under his control, they pounced onto the abominations.


    Saleen was able to tell that the abominations below level nine attacked using physical means. Physical attacks had little to no effect on the pests. The very reason why he chose to use the War Drum of Fear instead of deploying his elites was because Rossen told him that when the abominations emerged, they headed in his direction without a care for the other three.


    Something was indeed off. He had been set up by Fycro.


    Saleen could have actually retreated. If he were to do so, he would have left a tarnished impression on the people of the maind for running away from battle.


    That was how ridiculous the world was. Some people wouldn¡¯t evene to the frontlines to help out with the war, yet they were quick to nder those who did. The morals of those people were ever-changing. When things were going their way, people like that would act like saints. When their interests were threatened, they quickly turned into madmen. They were capable of cursing the entire world for what they would have had to go through, and they were willing to chicken out instead of facing trouble head on.


    ¡°Your highness, the central fort is broken!¡± Rossen¡¯s voice suddenly rang out.


    Saleen saw abominations wearing silver armor appear at the portal. They were all over 6 feet in height, and their weapons resembled battle axes. Those abominations were at level nine, but they were still soldiers. They got into formations and stormed the fortresses. They began to tear at the fortresses Fycro built.


    The blood on the ground was unable to be cleared out. The soldiers stepped on the blood while howling in excitement as they toppled the buildings one after another, even though the blood was actually from their own kind.

 Chapter 1320: Being Set Up (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1320: Being Set Up (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen had ess to magic monitoring the central group of fortresses where he was. He saw the abominations d in silver storming the ce and destroying the fortresses in a frenzy.


    ¡°The real battle has begun!¡± Saleen gave the order immediately. He told his troops at the front to split up, shooting the abominations from afar instead of standing in their way.


    The Floating City above began to bombard the ground below using level nine magic spells.


    It looks like Fycro is trying to take me out! Saleen was able to tell what Fycro was thinking as he saw the abominations heading east. You want to take my Floating City? What a joke.


    There was already a weapon spirit on the Floating City. He named that weapon spirit Dante as a way ofmemorating the dead Big Guy. That weapon spirit was totally under his control, so it was impossible for anyone to take the Floating City from him. If he were to end up dead, he would have gifted the ce to Sika, and the city would still have a master to serve.


    Huge rocks were dropped from the Floating City. It was not a move to attack the abominations but to create rows of stone walls within Hignd City. The walls were an irregr pattern, making them look like natural forests of stone. They made roads twist, preventing any path from being able to head straight outside.


    It was only then that Saleen began tomand his troops from the walls to get ready to fight.


    The number of abominations wasrge. He saw no fear of death from their behavior. ording to conventional logic, the higher the level of intelligent life, the greater their fear of death. Gods, for instance, spent their entire lives thinking about how to extend their lifespan.


    The armor crafted by the abominations was at least considered high-level equipment. A species capable of creating high-level equipment yet had no writing systems necessitated them toprehend the symbols using their own perceptions. The symbols on their armor were able to work in ways simr to magic patterns or magic arrays.


    Those abominations were even more primitive and block-headed than the Caucasians. Beings like that were unafraid of death, which made them difficult to deal with.


    The abominations at the forefront charged all the way to the wall. Saleen only had Nichs and J with him. However, his mind was incredibly calm instead of being in a state of crisis like he once would have been. He no longer needed protection from others.


    There were four magic towers at his side that were not yet attacking. The ones that were attacking the abominations at the wall were the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, which were summoned by Saleen earlier. They attacked using magic cannons.


    The magic cannons Saleen had with him were rtively powerful. Their rate of fire was 12 shots per minute, which meant that they were almost able to fire once every five seconds. Such a frequency of attack enabled the cannons to be fired for three minutes consecutively without breaking.


    The abominations did not bother to circle around the over one-mile wide wall from the sides. They attacked the wall head on. The spot that Saleen took was coincidentally at the center of the abominations¡¯ attacks. Level nine magic spells from the enchanters rained from the sky, clearing out the abominations.


    The magic cannons at the wall were rotated between three formations. There were hardly any abominations capable of getting too close to the wall. They werepletely wiped out by the spells and beams before they even got within 900 feet from the wall.


    It would have actually been difficult to kill level nine abominations, but Saleen¡¯s rate of attack was simply too terrifying. There were 10,000 enchanters specifically assigned to the task in the air. The magic cannons were also capable of clearing out over a dozen abominations with a single shot. The 32-foot-thick wall was actually only 24 feet tall. The way it was constructed made it look less like a city wall and more like a wide tform.


    Saleen never made any moves. He searched carefully with his Elemental Eye for the officers of the army of abominations and directed the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers to attack them specifically. The officers were more or less of level 10 prowess. Due to the twofold attacks from the sky and ground, not even those level 10 abominations could get close to Saleen¡¯s wall.


    The holy masters paid close attention to the fighting as they spied on Saleen. They were thoroughly impressed and shaken. They never expected Saleen¡¯s Floating City to be so powerful that not even level nine warriors could destroy it. None of them knew that when the Floating City cast a level nine magic spell, it consumed energy equal to that of a level nine magic nucleus.


    Saleen mostly used level four magic nuclei to power his magic power furnaces. The highest ones used were level six. As such, the energy levels reaching that of level nine magic nuclei had to be stacked using sheer numbers. Tens of thousands of magic nuclei were constantly thrown into the magic power furnaces to sustain the Floating City¡¯s magic. One level nine magic nucleus could have only provided the magic with 12 level nine magic attacks.


    With over 10,000 enchanters casting level nine spells, the consumption was difficult to calcte, even though they were being cast regrly. Saleen was actually feeling heartache for using his resources like that. Killing abominations in such ways would, at times, vaporize targets altogether, making recouping the cost impossible.


    If they were to use low level magic and restraint was practiced in skills used to kill the abominations, dead bodies would still be left behind. The value of their bodies plus the armor they wore would have at least equaled one-twelfth of the value of one level nine magic nucleus.


    To Saleen, fighting wars meant having to spend a lot of money. He had no need to painstakingly nurture mages.


    Due to the magic on the Floating City capable ofpletely bringing powerfulbat prowess to bear on the enemies, Saleen had only needed several months to nurture a batch of imps or demonic spirits to man the. If the enchanters were humans, he would have only needed about a year to get them into shape.


    There were many shorings to using humans, especially since humans had short lifespan. Fighting as enchanters for extended periods would leave them dead before hitting 60 years old. That would have halved the lifespan of an enchanter. Furthermore, the mental powers of humans were inherently inferior to demons. They also quickly became exhausted, which made humans poor candidates for fighting prolonged battles.


    Recovering mental powers repeatedly in high-intensity battles would have meant consuming materials like divine crystals. That would have been quite an expense in itself. As such, Saleen¡¯s magic was manned using beings of demonic bloodlines exclusively.


    The natural lifespan of many imps and demonic spirits was not short. They were hardly able to live for long in demon ne due to constantly being eaten by demons and supreme demons. Some were not even able to make it to adulthood before they ended up killed. Serving Saleen allowed them to live out the entire natural lifespan. If they were to not run into any danger, those imps and demonic spirits could live for 500 to 600 years.


    The very reason he had divided the 120,000 enchanters into six shifts and rotated them in battle was because he was unable to keep up with the expenses of having the magic fully opened all the time.


    ¡°My liege, look!¡± J pointed at the spot where an abomination was killed.


    Clouds of ck smoke billowed from the ground, which did not dissipate. Saleen scanned the ck smoke with his Elemental Eye and found minute crystalline particles spreading the ck smoke, clouding the entire ground.


    He did a quick analysis with his Elemental Eye and found the ck crystalline particles were not toxic. The ck smoke was actually coalesced, tangible forms of energy. The abomination did not possess magic nucleus but had something resembling magic nucleus. Rather, it had something better.


    Saleen was getting excited. It was something only seen happening with level nine abominations. They were able to be conserved without fear of level nine magic attacks. That meant that the cost for attacking them could be recouped.


    He did not hesitate and cast his Lightning Constetion. He summoned the lightning warriors to collect the minute ck crystalline particles.


    There were pests among the lightning warriors, and those pests were able to do little to level nine abominations. Letting the pests eat up the ck granules was an effective way of collecting them. Most importantly, those pests did not absorb the particles as they ate them, which meant they could be transported back to Saleen¡¯s War Drum of Fear.


    The drum still worked against level nine abominations, but he had no intention of wasting his strength. Saleen beat the drum once every half 30 seconds just so to slow the abominations¡¯ advance.


    He needed to conserve hisst resort due to Fycro intending to take the Floating City. He was not worried about any unforeseen circumstances since he had Rafel, who was at level 13, by his side. Rafel might not have been able to kill Fycro, but there was no way she would have been inferior to Fycro in terms of powers. It was also impossible for her to fail to protect him.


    Rafel almost had nothing to do staying by Saleen¡¯s side. No abominations had been able to get far enough to scale the wall. Even if those abominations were able to get up to the tall wall in a single leap, due to attacks from the Floating City, there would have always been a vast distance between the abominations and the wall.


    The ck crystalline particles were taken back. Saleen held them in his hand. He took a look at them and handed them to Rafel, asking, ¡°What is this thing?¡±


    ¡°Pure dark energy, but it is assembled in ways that you have yet toprehend,¡± Rafel replied. ¡°These things are rather dangerous because they induce madness, which mean they can¡¯t be used to restore magic chords of mages.¡±


    ¡°How about embedding them in magic arrays?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°It would be better for you to chuck them in the magic power furnaces and see for yourself,¡± Rafel said. ¡°The ck particles are unable to generate much power. Most of the energy was wasted during the conversion process.¡±


    ¡°Magic power furnace, eh...¡± Saleen thought for a bit and let Nichs take charge while he retreated behind.


    The old holy master had very high mental powers. There was also a powerful being sealed within his Scepter of the Fallen, making it possible for him to oversee a one-mile-wide battlefield and not miss much of any detail.


    Even J thought it was rather ridiculous seeing Saleen taking out a miniaturized magic power furnace and doing magic experiments in the middle of a fight. While they still had the upper hand during such an intense battle, it did not feel right to have him give upmand altogether.


    Saleen had different ideas. The true battle had yet toe. It was better for him to familiarize himself with some of the abominations¡¯ properties before really powerful ones showed up.


    If those crystalline particles proved to be of little use, it would have meant continuously shaving off his own reserves in battles. Even if there were practically limitless magic nuclei waiting to be collected at the Oceanic Ice Block, he had limited time to hunt the beasts harboring the magic nuclei.


    Furthermore, the way the Floating City cast its attacks made the consumption of magic nuclei like burning firewood. The rat at which the hunts were made, it was inadequate to keep up with Floating City¡¯s consumptions.


    The miniaturized magic power furnace was something that he and Jason had recentlye developed. With a bit of theory concerning magic perpetual-motion engine added to the development, its magic nucleus consumption was half that of conventional magic power furnaces. At present, such devices were still unstable.


    Magic perpetual-motion engines were never something matured to begin with. The miniaturized magic power furnace itself was embedded in the body of a puppet. Saleen put a ck dark energy crystalline particle into it. The miniaturized magic power furnace began to work dissolving the ck particle, which was only asrge as the tip of a finger, into liquid form.


    That easy?


    Saleen felt the conversion to be rather odd. The puppet began to operate. The crystal on its head began to light up with a weak red light, awaiting Saleen¡¯s orders.

 Chapter 1321: Abomination Puppet (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1321: Abomination Puppet (Part 1)</h4>


    The puppet Saleen took out was an experimental product. It was produced within the alchemy factories in Alchemy City. It had a height of 9 feet and a humanoid form. The only thing not humanoid about it was the addition of two mechanical arms capable of rotating 360 degrees, which were stored within the cavities attached to its body and not usually used. When the need arose, they could be used to man weapons or do construction work.


    Metal wings were installed behind the puppet¡¯s back. They were etched with wind magic array, enabling it to fly at high speeds for a short distance. The puppet was fitted within many miniaturized weapons, such as mechanical crossbows, des, and javelins.


    The puppet was not meant for mass production since Saleen still possessed the ancient warriors and star figures. The puppet was designed for construction. Combat equipment was only added along the way.


    The red crystals in the eyes of the puppet before him shimmered for a bit. ck mist gradually coalesced and turned the red eyes purple. Low-pitched explosions were heard from the miniaturized magic power furnace in the puppet¡¯s body. The explosions were not intense. It was only a state that manifested when the magic power furnace was overtaxed.


    Saleen wrapped the puppet with his territory. He found that within the puppet¡¯s core, the six-faceted crystal that controlled the magic array within had cracked a bit. ck mist seeped out of the magic power furnace, staining the entire puppet deep purple. The red materials lost their original look and came to look rather corroded.


    The puppet suddenly took one step forward. After hearing no orders from Saleen, it knelt. Crisp metal sounds were heard. ¡°What do you need me do, Master?¡±


    Saleen was not the only one startled. All the mages and warriors around them looked at the puppet, feeling bbergasted. It was a high-level puppet, yet it did not possess intellect. Intelligent puppets existed only in ancient times.


    Saleen looked at that purple puppet and probed it with his mental powers without saying anything. The magic power furnace within the puppet¡¯s internal spaces hadpletely changed. All six vents were shut, and the bronze surface became a faded ck. The shut vents looked like closed eyes, yet the magic power furnace continued to supply power for the puppet. At the same time, it was consuming all ambient elemental powers around it, just like how human breathing. The elements were sucked into its body and infused into the magic power furnace.


    Many abomination runes appeared on the surface of the furnace, but they were all purple. Their twisted shapes looked incredibly mystical to even the mages. Those runes provided the puppet with power for unknown reasons.


    Saleen extended his hand and summoned a star figure before saying to the puppet, ¡°Spar with this thing for a bit.¡±


    He did not even realize that the puppet was speaking in Ancient Myers Language.


    That puppet leapt after taking its orders. Holding a de in its hand, it began to hack away at the star figure, who thrust its spear in response, easily deflecting the puppet¡¯s attack. The spear, which was turned around to attack after deflecting an iing blow, did not hit the purple puppet. The attack was in turn deflected by the mechanical arm at the sides of the purple puppet.


    Both beings shed noisily. Their movements and power inspired awe. Saleen did not go on to do anything else. He simply analyzed closely why that puppet came to possess intelligence.


    Is it abominated? Saleen knew very little about the abomination ne, and little about them were found on the mages¡¯ notes.


    Calctions zipped about in his mind. Magic perpetual-motion engine, puppet army, abomination... If those three things were to bebined and rendered under hismand, he would have earned himself yet another kind of powerful soldier. Furthermore, those troops would be mainly made out of metal and fitted with a miniaturized magic power furnace, as well as a crystal core of the abomination.


    Mages were usually cautious when venturing into uncharted areas. It was impossible for Saleen to craft huge batches of abominated puppets right away. He had no idea why the magic power furnace had turned into some living thing. He knew little about the powers of the abominations. It would have been meaningless if said power were to run out of control.


    The battle was fought quickly. The purple puppet was hit by the star figure¡¯s spear a minuteter. Its entire body was pierced. The control core of the puppet was wrecked by the spear. The puppet stopped moving with a crack. The purple miniaturized magic power furnace continued to breathe ambient energy instead of stopping to function altogether after the control core was destroyed.


    Saleen discovered that the abominated puppet¡¯s true control core lied within the miniaturized magic power furnace. Something mystical had happened to the magic power furnace, changing the crystal core of the abomination and evolving it into intelligent life. More precisely, it was a way to resurrect abominations.


    The resurrected abomination lost its original will. It took the puppet Saleen controlled to be its own body, taking him to be its master.


    Saleen was somewhat put at ease. The abominations were bloodthirsty and ferocious monsters because they were controlled by some powerful forces. He immediately began to beat the War Drum of Fear, unleashing all pests within to snatch up any of the ck crystals the size of a section of a finger.


    Fifty abominations were organized into a toon. Two hundred toons made an army. The number of abominations emerging had surpassed 100,000. Saleen¡¯s Floating City was being strained. He brought almost all of his magic nuclei stock on the expedition, intending to fight Fycro if the need arose.


    However, the abominations were of such huge numbers that level nine abomination armies appeared. It was something he never expected to happen. If it were to only be low-level abominations, his Floating City would not have had any trouble fighting them for one or two years. Level nine abominations, on the other hand, were things that could only be quickly killed by level nine magic spells.


    That was something already tested. The level of the abominations was in proportion to their magic resistance abilities. Level eight magic would have been of limited use against level nine abominations, and they would only cause lethal damage when hitting vital areas.


    The level nine abominations were organized like a true army. All of them wore something resembling magic armor. Although the armor was incapable of defending against level-eight magic spells, it possessed abilities of dynamic armor. When the power of magic spells exceeded the armor¡¯s ability to absorb damage, scale-like structures were expelled from the armor that would explode to resist magic attacks. By doing so, level-eight power spells became incapable of wrecking their armor.


    While level eight and level nine magic spells were only one level apart, level nine ones came to possess some territorial powers. They were no longer spells that dynamic armor could defend against.


    Saleen retreated and put the purple puppet away. He came to a conclusion. While the power of the puppet had reached level nine, it had inferior equipmentpared to the star figure. Being a new life form meant that it had yet to get used to the puppet¡¯s body, which prevented it from bringing its original level of power.


    Star figures, on the other hand, werebat weapons of astrologers. They were near that of golden grand swordmasters in terms ofbat prowess. Despite also being level nine, golden grand swordmasters represented the pinnacle of level nine.


    Saleen brought out another miniaturized magic power furnace, but he did not embed the furnace into a puppet. He cast Water me and added some magic materials, re-forging the furnace. The external parts of the furnace were covered by Water me. Countless runes seeped into it, forming arge Eternal Control Shard.


    Eternal Control Shards were products Saleen reverse-engineered from studying the three pieces of broken jade. After continuous modifications and development, he was able to control any living being lower than his own level. The three pieces of broken jade, on the other hand, ignored levels altogether.


    Saleen not only added eternal control rules that he developed onto the furnace, he also included a secret art from another crystal wall system. Squared runes were added to the furnace. It gradually shrunk, bing equipment that was less than a foot tall.


    The six vents on the magic power furnace were still there. Saleen chucked in six pieces of dark crystal core before sealing the furnace with his Lightning Territory. Tiny lightning bolts shot into the magic power furnace, which contorted right in front of him and began to explode. The magnitude of the explosions were tens of times of that before. The six dark crystal cores of the abominations were melted into liquid form within the furnace.


    The liquid began to modify the furnace. However, the modifications proved too difficult. ck mist seeped outside the furnace, which was forced back into the construct by the Lightning Territory. Hundreds of lightning arcs were sent inside the furnace every second, modifying the energy structures within.


    The miniaturized magic power furnace intended to jump from the ground, but it was quickly suppressed by the Lightning Territory. Instead, it slowly wiggled. Most of its semi-metal shell was corroded, preventing anyone from telling apart its metallic structure.


    ¡°Master!¡± A clear voice was heard shouting within the furnace.


    Saleen was ted. The newly created thing already had a clear mental connection with him. It was not a soul but something resembling ghosts. The being was forever sealed within the furnace and would never be able toe out.


    The miniaturized magic power furnace became like a prison, which even Saleen found difficult to pry open. Once opened, the abomination¡¯s resurrected form would have lost protection, making the weakest part of it dissipate. Even if it were to survive, it would lose its intelligence.


    Only beings of such form were able to bring out the true level nine power of abominations. One could create a self-aware magic power furnace by killing six level nine abominations. Once the furnace came to possess awareness and was able to function as the core of a puppet, it would be something else altogether.


    Saleen finally was able to create self-aware puppets with highbat capacity, like ancient humans. Despite being a resurrected product of the abominations, these puppets would not be able to betray him. Then again, magic power furnaces were no longer pure power cores. They could not fit into conventional machines.


    ¡°My liege, level 10 abominations appeared!¡± J said as Saleen was steeped in his magic experiments.


    ¡°Level 10?¡± Saleen looked up and turned his eyes toward the monitoring magic array.


    He saw over 100 enchanters focusing their attacks on an abomination about 32 feet tall on the Floating City in the sky. The abomination had a single horn on its head and wore golden armor. The front of the armor had a face, which looked rather familiar to Saleen.

 Chapter 1322: Abomination Puppet (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1322: Abomination Puppet (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen thought the face looked familiar. Despite being a mage, he was still unable to recall where he had seen that face before.


    It was Nichs who pointed at the projections and asked, ¡°Isn¡¯t that the angel of fear?¡±


    Saleen suddenly realized that the face was not that of the angel of fear itself, but the face of the abdomen of the angel. He initially thought the birth of the angel of fear was natural. After seeing that face, he realized that the angel of fear came from a different ne.


    It was difficult to have simr faces grow on different ces. Every single face at the abdomen of the angel of fear looked the same, but they possessed minute differences. To other creatures, human faces all looked the same. It was the same case with humans. They found it difficult to tell the differences on that of the angel of fear.


    The being in the projections was a separate species. The angel of fear probably had a lot to do with that being.


    Invasions on Myers Maind never ceased. The angel of fear simply found itself incapable of leaving the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Astrology was incapable of calcting too much in a short period of time, and Saleen gave up calcting altogether. Since the abomination crystal core came to be so useful, there was no he Saleen would just sit by and do nothing. He was the only one with the means to wipe out the original will of the resurrected abomination. The Lightning Territory cast tiny electrical arcs, modifying liquefied abomination crystal cores. Lightning was capable of giving life. At the same time, it was capable of wiping away will.


    That was something Saleen learned in the secret arts. He had little trouble applying those arts in his magical practices.


    The level 10 abomination was suppressed so hard by the attacks from the sky that it had problems even raising its head. More than 100 imps cast 10 level 10 spells at it. Ten huge Fire Dragons instantly descended from the sky, killing the level 10 abomination on the spot.


    It was akin to 10 level 10 mage trainers ganging up on a level 10 true might. The oue was apparent. The 100 or so imps exhausted all of their mental powers and had to be carried away to rest. However, the number of enchanters on Saleen¡¯s Floating City was simply too massive. Having 100 or so imps out ofmission did not affect the fighting.


    Saleen poured everything he had into constructing the magic on the Floating City. It came to possess even level 11 magic spells. However, the highest level of spell an enchanter could cast was level nine. Casting level 10 magic spells required 12 enchanters working together. Casting level 11 ones would require 12 times of that number of enchanters. Furthermore, casting level 11 magic spells would have caused the enchanters to suffer severe damage. As such, the imps chose wolf pack tactics, casting only level 10 spells to attack that abomination.


    Fycro¡¯s subordinates were shaken by the attack. Ten level 10 spells were more than enough to kill any single individual among them, yet Saleen¡¯s Floating City was able to cast such attacks with impunity.


    They thought, Just how do we take something like that? Do we really have to wait for level 13 ones to show up and wreck Saleen¡¯s defenses first? What if Saleen was to just bail from there? While doing so would damage his reputation and cause internal troubles, it would mean that Lord Fycro¡¯s n failed.


    The holy masters were feeling troubled, but Saleen was overjoyed. He was not out to create an army of abominations. With the Floating City in his possession, tactics relying on sheer numbers became meaningless. He also had his demon armies and an inexhaustible number of troops.


    Despite the demon army being formidable, they cost a lot to keep around. Creating a puppet with the heart of an abomination cost 10 times the materials required to create star figures, but their powers were simr to that of level-nine star figures.


    Saleen¡¯s vista had been widened. He knew that hundreds, even 1,000 puppets, would not be as powerful as a true might. At key moments, only beings at a high level would be able to determine the oue. If a level-nine abomination puppet could be created using six abomination crystal cores, wouldn¡¯t adding the numbers of abomination crystal cores enhance the quality of the puppet?


    Armies from the abomination ne continued to gush out. The number of level 10 abominations grew increasingly high. If those abominations were to be the ones rushing out everywhere without aim, Saleen would not have been so tense. Those abominations were heading straight for the ce he defended. The Floating City was struggling to contain the invasion.


    Casting level 10 spells would have worn out the enchanters. It would require weeks for them to recuperate without leaving any unwanted aftereffects. Furthermore, level-ten magic spells cost over a dozen times more than level nine ones t. If the situation were to continue, Saleen would not be able to keep up with the consumption of magic nuclei for long.


    Given how Saleen purchased dragon crystals from Grand Duke Iron Blood, even if every single magic nucleus onboard had been spent, the Floating City would not lose offensive capacity. He still had massive amounts of the giant¡¯s bone crystals to spare.


    Magic power furnaces did not care about what one threw inside them. As long as they were materials capable of generating energy, the furnaces would generate appropriate elemental energies from them.


    Saleen had many elemental creatures at hand. One elemental creature could easily equal hundreds to thousands of level-nine magic nuclei, in terms of energy generated. His current methods enabled him to confidently craft puppets of level 10 and higher. With an archangel by his side, he had no worries about the things he crafted running out of control.


    He began to craft puppets at the walls. He first had Nailisi send him a batch of miniaturized magic power furnaces since he did not bring that many with him. Next, he began to do fusion alchemy. Thirty-six dark crystals were thrown into the miniaturized magic furnace, causing intense explosions. Cracks instantly appeared on the furnace. The cracks then quickly patched up by the ck mist within and restored.


    The number of abomination runes on the furnace grew increasingly high. Saleen continued to use electrical arcs to stimte the eerie lifeform within.


    The process was repeated over and over. Saleen had thrown more than 3,000 dark crystals into the magic power furnace. The furnace eventually blew up. The shards from the explosion were wrapped up by Saleen¡¯s Water Shield.


    The ck mists inside were liquefied. He added his mixed magical pharmaceuticals, which contained diluted Genesis Stock Solution and Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water. The magic power furnace began to fuse again, but this time into something entirely different. There was a face on the newly formed furnace. It looked like the face on the angel of fear¡¯s abdomen, yet its expression and bearing werepletely different. The one on the abdomen looked ferocious, cruel and evil, while the one on the magic power furnace was divine, determined and regal. The two expressions made the one at the furnace seem as if it had nothing at all to do with the angel of fear.


    The magic power furnace originally was a hexagonal shape. Vents at each side allowed the absorption of all manners of crystallized energy materials. The new magic power furnace resembled that of a beehive. Every facet sported an eye-like image.


    Saleen was not satisfied. That thing had level 10 power at most, which did not sit well with him. He continued to chuck in more dark crystals and added level-10 abomination¡¯s matter. He continued to catalyze the process using electricity, throwing in eight Armoring Lightning Beads from the Lightning Territory into the magic power furnace.


    When the beads were infused within the furnace, the face on the furnace contorted. All traces of regality and holiness disappeared. It looked to be in incredible pain as it cursed at Saleen.


    Saleen smiled, realizing that that thing was dangerous. If he were to lower his guard, it might eventually wring free of his control. It was an intelligent life after all, so relying on Eternal Control Shards proved inadequate.


    That face continued to be in agony while stimted by Saleen¡¯s electricity. The powers of Eternal Control Shards on the magic power furnace prevented it from quickly leaving.


    The eight Armoring Lightning Beads spun within the magic power furnace. Regardless of how intricate the furnace might have been, it was difficult for it to absorb the power of the beads any further.


    ¡°Curse you...¡±


    The contorted face had only been able to say those words when the eight Armoring Lightning Beads flew out of the internal space of the furnace, stirring up its specter and destroying it altogether. When its specter was coalesced again, it was already at the brink of death. It was unable to even look pained.


    Saleen said to the face, ¡°I curse you that you fall into darkness and the abyss and suffer eternal pain. All that you curse me with shall reflect on your own being!¡±


    Constetion powers seeped into the magic power furnace, circling around the specter of the face.


    ¡°You thought only you knew how to curse, eh?¡± Saleen smirked as he looked at the specter.


    He realized that the specter had undeniable connection to the powerful being in the portal. It actually intended to sneak into the maind using such methods no one on the maind knew.


    The powerful being at the other end of the portal was unable to bear the pain from the lightning barrages. It cut off its connection with the soul in the furnace. That soul gradually fused back into the furnace.


    Saleen took out a puppet and threw it into the Water me. He used ancient puppets for instation of the magic power furnace. Such puppets were notmon even in ancient times. The one he had at hand were quite exquisite.


    After it was fused with the mystical magic power furnace, its body shrunk to about 6 feet. Purple light shone all over it.


    Saleen modified the puppet¡¯s appearance with ill intentions. He added a pair of metal wings behind it while putting a pair of horns of the abominations on its head.


    ¡°Master!¡± The puppet knelt and bowed to Saleen.


    Such gestures of courtesy wasmonly seen in all manner of religions, where all four limbs were pressed to the ground, signifying submission.


    Saleen felt satisfied with the puppet he had created. That puppet had rich magic knowledge, including human body alchemy, soul alchemy, creation of life, magic perpetual-motion engine, and other ridiculous magic theories. Still, his sess was owed to that powerful being from another ne.


    That powerful abomination was unable to enter Myers Maind. It had intended to create a clone to infiltrate the ne, but that soul was agonizingly tortured by Saleen. He left the thing no choice but to abandon that piece of soul.


    With that piece of soul, Saleen was finally able to make that puppet into a powerful weapon of war. ¡°From here on out, you shall be called Violet Angel.¡±


    After giving the puppet some random name, it nodded and stood up. It stood behind Saleen and looked as if it was guarding him.

 Chapter 1323: Finger Bone of the Heretic God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1323: Finger Bone of the Heretic God (Part 1)</h4>


    Rafel looked at the Violet Angel. In a rather displeased manner, she asked ¡°Why make it look like an angel?¡±


    ¡°Do you have a suggestion?¡± Saleen asked in return.


    Rafel was speechless. If Nailisi were present, she would have struggled to hold back herughter.


    ¡°Alright. Fycro is indeed a huge pain in the ass,¡± Saleen said. ¡°He has set us up in our line of defense. The abominations wouldn¡¯t have all charged in this direction.¡±


    Rafel nodded and said, ¡°There is one thing buried in this location.¡± She pointed tens of feet behind her.


    Saleen¡¯s expression was rather colorful as he stared for a while. He finally asked, ¡°If you knew, why didn¡¯t you tell me sooner?¡±


    ¡°I thought you were practicingbat techniques and wouldn¡¯t have minded such a trap,¡± Rafel replied.


    Saleen was speechless. There were indeed mages who chose to put items right behind them to attract the attention of magic beasts or beings of greater power. They would themselves in dangerous just to hone theirbat skills. Enemies would have rushed from all sides in a frenzy.


    ¡°Alright. It¡¯s over there, right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°There indeed.¡± Rafel looked rather innocent as she answered Saleen¡¯s question.


    ¡°Violet Angel, hold this and help me repel the enemy,¡± Saleen said as he handed the bone hammer to the Violet Angel.


    The Violet Angel unquestioningly stood before the War Drum of Fear, staring down at the face of the drum. It found it looked rather familiar.


    The sound of the drum rang out. The power emanating from the drum was tens of times stronger than when Saleen was beating it. The abominations were thrown into a state of confusion and panic. They no longer charged at his line of defense. They instead began to scatter.


    The pressure on the Floating City was considerably relieved. Armies from the other corners began to truly throw themselves into battle. The abominations newly emerged from the portal no longer headed toward Saleen¡¯s direction after hearing the sound of the drum. The abominations feared the War Drum of Fear from the bottom of their hearts. They did not want to get anywhere close to the Violet Angel.


    With the pressure relieved, Saleen took the chance to get to the ce Rafel had mentioned. The archangel followed behind him. She saw Saleen take out some construction puppets,manding them to dig the ground.


    The ground was incredibly hard since it had been forged by his magic. Despite having dispelled the magic used to construct the ce, the ground was still hard as steel. The construction puppets were made specifically for constructing Metatrin City. The tools they were installed with were specifically designed to tackle hard materials like white rock.


    Over a dozen magic drill bits broke through the ground. Large grinding wheels spun at high speeds, tearing the ground apart. Huge rocks were moved away after a hole was dug. More of the puppets participated in the excavation. Once the hole was around 320-feet deep, construction puppet was repelled by a beam of white light that disintegrated midair.


    Rafel pointed at the mechanicalponents in the air. The parts, which were flying quicker than bolts fired from alchemy crossbows, stopped altogether before dropping straight down to the ground.


    Saleen was unfettered. It was entirely normal for level 13 angels to possess such abilities. He shrunk his territory and put all of his effort into dealing with the white light in the hole. It was the holy light of the Lord of Glory.


    He was initially not able to take it in. After he developed territorial powers, the electricity within his territory became able to dispel holy light. The hole began to dim. He summoned star figures to leap into the hole before bringing Rafel into it himself.


    There was a small divine rune charm array in the hole. The way Saleen saw it, the array was second only to his Lightning Territory.


    Tens of millions of holy prose stacked together and formed an array that was less than 6 feet in diameter. The light from the array shimmered. Even if Saleen were to bring all of his territory¡¯s power to bear on it, the array would still be difficult to break.


    ¡°Fycro, you¡¯ve really prepared quite a gift for me here!¡± Saleen smirked.


    Being pinned below the array was likely why the abominations kept charging his turf. It was something able to attract the army of abominations despite being tightly sealed. Saleen would not have believed it if Fycro imed he had never been to the abomination ne. The thing pinned below had considerable attraction to the abominations.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen!¡± Rafel suddenly called out in a solemn manner.


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°If we were to dig out what is down there, I¡¯m afraid not even the War Drum of Fear would not be able to stop the abominations,¡± Rafel said as her golden eyes stared below the divine rune charm array. It was as if she had seen through the seal.


    ¡°What is it down there?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°The abominations worshipped a god, and that thing was the foulest creature there was,¡± Rafel tensely said. ¡°The thing down there is a section of a finger bone. If that thing were to be excavated, even troops of lower levels would have been tempted and turned into abominations.¡±


    She had signed a contract with Saleen. If he were to be an abomination, she would have had no way of cancelling it.


    ¡°What¡¯s that god¡¯s level?¡± Saleen did not seem to get what Rafel was saying.


    Rafel shut her eyes for a bit and said, ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but ording to experience, he should be over level 16.¡±


    Saleen finally calmed down, but he had no way of dealing with gods of level 16 and higher. While that was only a section of finger bone, he would not be able to protect those around him from it.


    ¡°How much do you know about this god¡¯s attributes?¡± he asked.


    Rafel shook her head. While the memories she had acquired were vast, the god of the abominations had perished when humans warred against the gods. Not even the gods remembered much about that particr god.


    Saleen thought for a bit and said, ¡°If that was something Fycro had been able to seal, I would be able to take it on as well. It¡¯s only a bone. I¡¯m not buying for one second that it can break through the limits of Myers Maind.


    He was actually consoling himself when he said that, but his hands were still firm when he went about doing work.


    Saleen took out the Lightning Cage and put it right on top of the divine rune charm array. The light from the array retreated when it touched the shimmering electricity from the Lightning Cage. He sent the Armoring Lightning Beads into the array afterward, dissolving the seal bit by bit.


    Undoing the seal using lightning was a brute force measure, but Saleen had no other ways of dealing with Fycro¡¯s divine arts. Fycro¡¯s skill was moreplex and refined than his. Hisbat capacity might have been on par with Fycro, but that was due to him having a greater arsenal and knowing more rules.


    Fycro had been a level 10 professional a long time ago. If Saleen intended to catch up to him in certain areas, he would need more training.


    The Thunder Dragon ster appeared on Saleen¡¯s left arm. The magic amplifier flew behind him. He felt as if his magic powers had been amplified by tens of times over while the formless energy from the ck ring shrouded his body.


    The feeling was not an illusion. The power of a magic amplifier had always been incredibly powerful. Otherwise, Saleen would not have taken on the seal that Fycro left behind.


    Saleen¡¯s Lightning Territory shrunk. It covered the line of defense in Saleen¡¯s control. The Lightning Constetion still shimmered and cast lightning below. The electricity was less than capable killing enemies, but it still had effects in wearing out elemental powers. The power of his enemies was considerably weakened in Saleen¡¯s Lightning Territory, while his powers were considerably enhanced.


    When all of that was done, over half of the power of the seal left by Fycro had been worn out. Saleen sped up the process by having eight Armoring Lightning Beads spin in a frenzy. The divine rune charm array was wiped clean in the Lightning Constetion.


    Evil aura shot to the sky. Saleen¡¯s territory was incapable of sealing it up altogether. It kept rising upwards until it reached the Floating City. A powerful energy barrier was cast on the Floating City. Countless lightning magic patterns shimmered The thin energy shield was actually a supersized Water Shield.


    The evil aura was blocked by over 10,000 enchanters activating the Water Shield, preventing it from seeping into the Floating City. However, the cost for casting such arge Water Shield was very hefty.


    The reaction happened because Saleen contacted Rossen and had them instantly conjure it. He was not afraid of the evil aura himself. If that aura were to taint and corrode over 100,000 enchanters stationed above, the Floating City would suffer a great loss.


    While Saleen deemed training the enchanters easy, selecting them was very troublesome. Not every imp or demonic spirit had what it took to take on the profession of enchanter. Saleen was practically selecting one among about 100. If it had not been for Nailisi¡¯s devil form being too charismatic, he would not have been able to find enchanters of such massive numbers. Even so, Saleen still had to loosen the requirements of the enchanters¡¯ selection, letting some enchanters that barely made it evolve inside Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of the devils.


    The Floating City had to take to greater heights. It quickly rose over 3,200 feet above. Its speed was gaining.


    Fycro¡¯s holy masters at the west side of the city were shocked. It was already bad enough for Saleen to have found the finger bone of the Heretic God that Fycro left behind. Worse still, the Floating City did not fall into the trap. Instead, it ran. There would not be another chance for them to take the massive construct.


    There was over a two months¡¯ difference between what Fycro had nned. There was no way Saleen would have been able to find the seal that pin down the finger bone of the Heretic God.


    The seal would have weakened naturally about two monthster, which would have caused the bone to explode, tainting and twisting everything around it into abominations, including those on the Floating City.


    The abomination¡¯s dead bodies were extremely enticing to mages. Fycro originally thought that there was no way Saleen would leave. He would stay behind to kill abominations to his heart¡¯s content. The longer things dragged on, the lesser the chance Saleen would have bailed.


    Fycro would have been the only one to purify the Floating City once it became tainted. By then, it would have belonged to their Lord Oracle. The n itself had no apparent ws, and it was formted specifically to take on Saleen.


    He had researched Saleen thoroughly and was able to confirm that he was not one who would run from the battlefield. He was also someone with the means to stall the abominations for over two months. However, Fycro never expected a level 13 archangel, Rafel, to be at Saleen¡¯s side.


    Rafel was able to see through the seal he ced with just one look. Fycro¡¯s seal limited the power of the finger bone.


    When the seal was undone two monthster, then would the power of the bone have been at its peak. Its internal structure would have copsed then, releasing the evil power at its strongest.


    One line from Rafel was all it took topletely undo the ns Fycro had beenying out for a year.

 Chapter 1324: Finger Bone of the Heretic God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1324: Finger Bone of the Heretic God (Part 2)</h4>


    The more wless a n appeared to be, the more difficult it was to fix when something unforeseen happened. Fycro did something important, and the holy masters lost their very core¡ªhe left.


    If Saleen were to leave Metatrin City, Jason would have been in charge. Even if he were not around, there was still Sika tomand battles. Even without both Jason and Sika around, Daniel would have still been able to maintain the day-to-day affairs of the city. The nobles were also able to keep the city running simply by doing their jobs.


    Fycro, on the other hand, was the very core of the Oracle Corps. Without him around, no one knew what to do when someone threw a wrench into his ns.


    That finger bone was less 3 feet long. Its grey-whitish colors made it look a little different from usual rotten bones. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye was still able to see theyers of energy on the bone. He found there were sections of space within.


    While level 10 mages were barely able to pull off such space partitioning in such a small area, piling up 10,000 spaces within that bit of area like the finger bone was something totally out of a level 10 mage¡¯s league.


    Saleen was unable to do it either. The dark space he developed was on par with the finger bone in terms of power. He was only able toy something like that on the most resilient of materials. If the materials used turned out to be average, doing so would have destroyed the material.


    The spaces in the finger bone were more advanced. They all hovered outside of the bone itself. There was literally nothing on the bone.


    Saleen noticed the part where the bone broke. It was a result of being broken by a sharp weapon. He was able to see the emptiness of the bone. The leaking liquid emanated evil aura that was very potent.


    He was alerted and cast over 20yers of Water Shield topletely wrap himself. Level 11 Endless Night from his magic robe was also cast.


    The finger bone exploded without making a sound. The ck liquid sprayed outside, spreading over a mile. The ck liquid shot through the Lightning Cage. Most of its aura was stopped by electricity, but the area within the 1-mile radius was tainted with evil aura.


    Saleen was at the rear when the explosion was about to happen. However, he stood right before J right before the bone exploded.


    He knew that J would not have been able to dodge the force of the explosion. Thepressed ck liquid sprayed all over the ce. The bone seemed to have carried tens of thousands of pounds of ck liquid within.


    All 24yers of the Water Shield were destroyed one after another. Not even the lightning magic patterns on them had been able to prevent the ck liquid from prating. The Endless Night disappeared altogether. Defense from dark element was unable to contain the explosion.


    Saleen continued casting instant-cast spells. Water Shield bought him time and allowed him to open a scroll. The scroll conjured a water element crystalline wall right before him, which was 18-feet thick. It was still unable to stop the shockwave from the explosion. The water element crystalline shattered. The Figure of Fate within Saleen¡¯s body instantly wilted.


    He looked incredibly troubled as he ingested huge amounts of pharmaceuticals, recovering over half of his mental powers and magic chords. The Figure of Fate suffered lethal damage. Even his Starline Robe was damaged.


    ¡°Dispel!¡± Rafel switched her spear without anyone noticing.


    Her spear was thrust behind Saleen, dispelling all of the ck mist before him. He backed away in a hurry and cast Water Shield.


    The residual shockwave from the explosion subsided. The Water Shield blocked the ck weapon outside, protecting J at the same time.


    J was incredibly angered and ashamed of himself. Despite being a follower, Saleen took the hit in his stead. Had Saleen not had the Figure of Fate in him, he would have been dead.


    ¡°My liege!¡± J drew his sword, Face.


    It was a weapon presented to him by Saleen. It had resilient, ferocious attributes. His face waspletely reddened from the blood rushing to his head.


    Saleen waved and said, ¡°Contact Grand Duke Iron Blood. We¡¯re retreating.¡±


    He unleashed the lightning warriors to pick up the pieces of the bones on the ground. The pieces themselves caused no harm to the lightning warriors.


    The Lightning Cage was still intact despite the explosion. The ck liquid that stained the construct was quickly scrubbed off by electricity, disappearing without a trace.


    Saleen put his equipment away and felt incredibly worn. He had continuously cast high level spells just to defend against the explosion. His magic chords and mental powers were totally exhausted. If it had not been for his magic amplifier, he would not have been able to protect J.


    It was not J¡¯s fault. The fault lied with him for being overconfident and thinking he could take on Fycro¡¯s trap.


    ¡°My liege. I¡¯ll kill Fycro!¡± J held on his sword firmly, refusing to do as told.


    ¡°J!¡± Saleen used Thundering Shock, which hit J squarely and shook him to his senses.


    While he was not killed in the explosion, he was still affected by the evil aura. He was extremely enraged, so much so that he almost pierced Saleen with his sword.


    If it had not been for the fact that he had been following Saleen long enough that his body learned to protect him on reflex, he would have caused serious injuries to Saleen if he were to actually thrust his sword.


    J leapt and disappeared hundreds of feet away. He knew Saleen was making the right choice. Despite suffering one such attack, it was totally out of Fycro¡¯s expectations. There was still time for them to retreat.


    Saleen took Rafel and flew high into the sky. He put his lightning warriors away. All the others¡ªthe star figures, bug angels, and elite demons¡ªperished in the explosion. A huge chasm appeared at ground zero of the explosion, which had a depth exceeding 1,500 feet.


    When the explosion happened, the Floating City was already 90,000 feet in the air andpletely free from what happened below. There were huge numbers of holy masters taking to the air while Saleen took flight, trying to intercept him.


    He was incredibly angered and said to Rafel, ¡°Kill them all!¡±


    Rafel nodded. She found Saleen¡¯s mood unfathomable, but she would have carried out his orders all the same. From her perspective, only mages mattered the most. Casualties of his troops were inconsequential.


    Level 10 mages within the four magic towers at the edge of his ce struggled to put up magical shields They soon took to the air with Saleen, heading toward the Floating City. They were no longer able to fight in such an environment. That evil aura was too much for them to handle.


    The aura was still spreading outside. Hignd City was considered doomed.


    Rafel shed and charged into the fray of the holy masters. They were unable to prepare their divine spells and quickly cut off. Countless fine metal threads appeared around Rafel, which vibrated violently and cut up the space around them.


    About 100 high level holy masters fell to one skill from Rafel. Their dead bodies were cut up into thousands of pieces and dropped to the ground. She followed Saleen to the Floating City when she was done.


    Metal Storm was Rafel¡¯s unique skill. There were few angels possessing simr powers. The god she once served had been rather peculiar. The god had been incredibly formidable be it in close quarters or rangedbat. After her god perished, she advanced and automatically gained a series of skills. She tested them out that day and found the results ideal.


    J got to Grand Duke Iron Blood as quickly as possible and said, ¡°My liege told me to tell you to immediately retreat.¡±


    He looked at the Holy See armies in the other two directions when he was done. Suppressing the rage in him, he shot into the air and flew toward the Floating City.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood ryed his orders without hesitation. His army had only begun to engage the abominations when a violent explosion happened in the east. ck aura spread outside and killed everything it touched.


    It was fortunate that the Grand Duke purchased Bug Angel Armors, enabling all of his troops to fly. The ck mist spread extremely fast yet was very slow to move upward.


    The spread of the abominations were no longer controble once the Grand Duke¡¯s army retreated. The abominations were unusually frightened by the ck mist. Most of them fled westward. They did not even bother to tangle with the remaining armies on the ground.


    There were still quite a number of mages and warriors at the group of fortresses at the center. They were not caught in the earlier explosion. When they saw the Grand Duke¡¯s 200,000-strong army retreat, they knew right there and then they had lost the ce.


    Any professional capable of flight headed straight for the Floating City. Warriors incapable of flight fled west, mingling with the fleeing abominations.


    The scene looked very harrowing. Both sides were still at each other¡¯s throats just a while ago, yet none of them bothered to attack each other. They simply ran together in a single direction.


    There were 24rge-scale magic power furnaces on the Floating City. The furnaces were fully activated and preparing the Floating City to escape as quickly as possible. The ck mist spread upward. Some of the Grand Duke¡¯s troops were unable to make it out. The Bug Angel Warriors were corroded by the ck mist midair. They dissolved with their armor and were reduced to ck mist.


    Not very many Saleen¡¯s troops were getting out either. Over half of the warriors he brought perished. He had never suffered such massive casualties since he had built his own nation.


    The Bug Angel Warriors, demons, and star figures were all formidable warriors. If those warriors were to gang up on a level nine professional, they would have easily reduced the professional into minced meat within a minute.


    Saleen returned to the Floating City and entered the Magical Element Tower. He took overmand of the enchanters from Rossen.


    Six magic arrays lit up beneath the Floating City. Magic light shot from the core of the magic arrays. The ce where the beam hit was precisely where the Holy Seeid out their defenses. There were sixmand camps there.


    ¡°Attack!¡± Saleen brought the Floating City down and forced it down onto Hignd City.


    The ck mist had spread over a mile high. Saleen¡¯s Floating Cityunched lethal attacks about 3,200 feet away from the ck mist.


    Magic cannons, level nine magic, magic metal shells, rocks, andrge-scale Hogina¡¯s Guns were all used. All the weapons Saleen had prepared for taking on the powerful abominations were unleashed on Fycro¡¯s Oracle Corps.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood and Imposa came to see Saleen in shambles. The ck mist had dissolved at least one-third of their armies. Saleen was not the only one who suffered great losses in the battle. Furthermore, the Grand Duke was not like Saleen, who had killed massive numbers of level nine and level 10 abominations at the start, acquiring hundreds of thousands of dark crystal cores.


    None of the abominations attacked the Grand Duke¡¯s army in the beginning. As such, the Grand Duke had only suffered losses and gained nothing.

 Chapter 1325: Purification (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1325: Purification (Part 1)</h4>


    A weak voice said, ¡°Master...¡±


    Saleen looked and saw the Violet Angel. He had no idea when it had sneaked into his Lightning Constetion. It still held onto the War Drum of Fear.


    The Violet Angel looked at Saleen in fright. One of its hand was holding the bone hammer.


    That thing was very good at running, but that was hardly surprising. It was a puppet controlled by Saleen. If he felt danger, it would also feel lit. It had quickly run before the explosion took ce.


    Saleen was unable to bring himself to berate the puppet. Furthermore, it had brought back the War Drum of Fear. Although the drum was powerful, if it was caught in the st, it would have likely been destroyed.


    He was not in a mood to console the puppet. Hemanded the Floating City to attack in all directions.


    The Oracle Corps suffered heavy losses. The targets Saleen attacked were all where level 10 holy masters. He had over 1,000 enchanters using level 10 magic attacks on the holy masters.


    After several waves of attacks, the six level 10 holy masters were wiped out, and 6,000 enchanters were in aa.


    Hignd City was in shambles. With more than 1,000 magic spells thrown below, even the ground itself was razed. With powerful volleys of fire magic being cast below, half of Hignd City was burning.


    There was no soldier capable of surviving the burning elemental fires. Only high level holy masters were left. They were struggling to hold on


    Saleen possessed the Elemental Eye, which enabled him to locate holy masters who survived the fire. He had enchanters bombard any left above level eight. Not even he would have been able to withstand getting bombarded like that.


    The lines of defense at the north and west werepletely obliterated by the Floating City. Over 20,000 enchanters lostbat capacity. Not even a single mid-level magic nuclei was left on the Floating City.


    Seeing that Grand Duke Iron Blood had retreated, Saleen took out the mid-level magic nuclei he had and threw it into the magic power furnaces. He brought the Floating City up to an altitude of 60,000 feet and headed east.


    After that, Saleen began to check on his own internal parts. The Figure of Fate waspletely shriveled. He became somewhat fearful. He hadn¡¯t thought he could be killed back then, so he had stood before J.


    The Figure of Fate had limits of how much damage it could take. When the damage caused exceeded the capacity of absorption, he would have been damaged.


    He wondered what kind of god that finger bone belonged to since it exploded with such a force.


    ¡°Master...¡± The Violet Angel called out again.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Finger bone of the Heretic God,¡± the Violet Angel said.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Abominations, the Heretic God, ancient wars...¡± The Violet Angel began to think after blurting several terms. It had no memories of anything until it saw that finger bone of the Heretic God. The item managed to shake something out of its mind.


    Saleen was reminded that the Violet Angel¡¯s existence was rted to the angel of fear. That face at the abdomen of the angel of fear was seen on the armor of the abominations. It seemed that was the appearance of the Heretic God.


    His astrology managed to do its calctions without any trouble. That face had indeed belonged to the Heretic God, but there were no records of the Heretic God. Saleen had no way to continue doing his calctions. His level of astrology was too low.


    At level 10, it was almost impossible to acquire information of some powerful being like that. Saleen had no intentions of continuing to train in astrology even though he was unable to calcte anything further. Still, the Heretic God was unable to make it to their ne. One finger bone was already terrifying.


    If the Heretic God had made it to Myers Maind, Saleen would have been killed right away. His intuition told him that since the Heretic God was unable to get to their ne, he was more or less done there. The Oracle Corps was totally unprepared. With six level 10 holy masters gone, Fycro had to have suffered quite a heartache.


    The intense attack ended up exhausting all mid-level magic nuclei supplies on the Floating City. It caused over 20,000 enchanters to fall intoas and killed more than 100,000 Hole See warriors.


    The over a million-strong army of the Oracle Corps was almost obliterated by Saleen. None actually dared to pursue him after his Floating City fled. The surviving holy masters were busy fleeing themselves. With Fycro absent, there was no one capable of stopping the taint of the Heretic God.


    The Floating City did not return to Metatrin City. Instead, it headed straight for Nature City. Metatrin City was an impregnable fortress. Even if Fycro was extremely pissed, he would have dared to fight Jason.


    The reason Saleen chose to return to Nature City was because he was afraid that Fycro would destroy that city. It was worth noting that Nature City was the key to Saleen¡¯s efforts in resurrecting the Goddess of Myers.


    Although Nature City¡¯s construction had beenprehensive, there were too few powerful ones around. Myers the Water Fox¡¯s level dropped due to having to save Nailisi. She was only a level 10 and unable to take on Fycro.


    As for Daliang City, it had reached an agreement with Golden ins that Arb was to support Lex to ascend the throne and be empress. If Fycro were to look for trouble with Lex, Arb would deal with him. Lex was also a level 10 mage and had God¡¯s Ring. As such, Fycro would not have been able to kill her.


    Fycro appeared in Hignd City several hours after Saleen¡¯s Floating City took off. His expression was grim. Hignd City was shrouded by ck mist. It continued to spread outside, yet it never got further than 15 miles in diameter.


    There was almost nothing left of his army. Only a little more than 100 holy masters remained. They led about 100,000 Bug Angel Warriors to await his return.


    ¡°What happened here?¡± Fycro patiently asked.


    The holy masters were relieved by his demeanor. While Fycro was overbearing, he was not someone who vented his anger on others. None of them had been responsible for the incident.


    A level nine holy master described the situation to Fycro.


    ¡°It seems that this Saleen has far better luck than I do,¡± Fycro said with a smirk. ¡°I was wrong for trying to take his Floating City. We¡¯ll head back and summon the souls of those who died in battle. We¡¯ll see if they can be preserved in the Divine Abyss.¡±


    The holy masters were exasperated and returned to the Chaotic Swamp with Fycro. The Battle of Hignd City was over. No abominations had been able to escape alive, yet Hignd City was corroded by evil aura. Any living beings near Hignd City would gradually turn into abominations.


    Fycro was unclear what would happen from then on out. Having failed to acquire the Floating City, he did not waste his powers to purify Hignd City. It was fortunate that there was still the Pivotal Council. Their holy masters would take care of things.


    It was exhausting to clean up the aura of the Heretic God, so much so that it would have affected thebat prowess of the one doing so. If one were to endure the process, it was a good way to enhance one¡¯s level at divine arts.


    If there was no enemy around, Fycro would have stayed behind in Hignd City, figuring ways topletely clean the ce up. At the very least, he would have been able to raise his power by another level.


    Fycro did not seek revenge from Saleen. He failed in setting him up, and a huge portion of his troops were obliterated. It was hardly about who was right and who was wrong since it was impossible for mages and believers to be friends in the first ce.


    However, Fycro did not know that Saleen had evaded the bone¡¯s explosion and even bagged the bone¡¯s fragments for further research. He thought Saleen had actually evaded the cmity by chance and did not know of the finger bone of the Heretic God.


    Saleen invited Grand Duke Iron Blood to stay behind when he returned to Nature City. The Grand Duke refused. He had lost over half of his forces and needed to recuperate back at his ce. Saleen did not ask any further. As soon as the Grand Duke left, he called the pope, the leader of the knights, and the oracles of Nature Faith.


    Baudire, Don, and Myers the Water Fox came to the Floating City. Saleen showed them magic projections. Baudire told him that he did not know what the finger bone of the Heretic God was. Myers the Water Fox did not know either. Only Don seemed steeped in thought.


    After seeing Saleen looking at him with inquisitive eyes, Don said, ¡°My lord, the Heretic God is the enemy of all gods. That¡¯s all I know. I¡¯m unable to understand why Fycro possessed the finger bone of the Heretic God.¡±


    ¡°Enemy of all gods?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I saw that being written by a prisoner on the walls when I was jailed back then,¡± Don said.


    Nailisi snickered. Don had no choice but to borate and say, ¡°That prisoner had been pope for three days. No one outside knew of that.¡±


    ¡°That means it isn¡¯t nonsense then. Don, write down everything you¡¯ve seen.¡± Saleen realized the information was important.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Don asked for a pen and paper and began to write down the contents of what he recalled.


    Saleen sealed the magic tower and dismissed his level nine subordinates. He took out a piece of the bone¡¯s fragments, which he had sealed within a piece of crystal. He etchedyers of lightning magic patterns on the exterior of the crystal. Electricity glittered on it.


    The grey-whitish bone fragment continued to emit an evil aura despite having been blocked off by lightning magic patterns, intending to taint the ones within the tower. Saleen cast his Lightning Territory and suppressed the bone¡¯s aura using territorial powers.


    The energy of the bone fragment was exhausted in the explosion. It had no way of destroying Saleen¡¯s territory with the power it had left. Finally, its aura was contained within the crystal.


    Saleen breathed a sigh of relief. Over 100,000 lightning warriors were destroyed while collecting the fragments, requiring them to slowly recuperate. The fragment was able to taint anyone who touched it and would have gradually abominated those lightning warriors.


    If it had not been for the fact that the Lightning Constetion had a powerful weapon spirit taking charge, those lightning warriors would have either died or turned into abominations.


    The Water Fox and the others felt a chill run down their spines. It was lucky for them that Saleen was to contain that thing.


    ¡°Are any of you three capable of using Purification of the Goddess of Nature?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°We do!¡± All three of them nodded.


    Saleen was pleased and said, ¡°From here on out, leave the matters of propagating the faith to others. All three of you are to take turns purifying this piece of bone.¡±


    ¡°As you wish.¡± Baudire was the first among them to agree to it.


    Doing so had great benefits to him. Every time he used Purification on the bone fragment, he would acquire more power. That was the power of rules. Purifying evil for their god would earn him rewards.


    Purification was a simple divine spell. Baudire could acquire powers over 100 times faster by purifying the bone than training on divine arts the usual way. Furthermore, he had no intentions of training in the divine arts of the Goddess of Nature since he no longer had intentions of bing believers of any god.

 Chapter 1326: Purification (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1326: Purification (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s Floating City stayed behind in Nature City. The believers of the Nature Faith were used to it. Lord Saleen was the key to the goddess¡¯s resurrection and probably a friend of the goddess.


    With the state of affairs on the maind being a mess, the believers knew that although their city was strong, it was not all that difficult to take down. The Floating City was helping out with defending the headquarters of the faith at such times, preventing others from invading them.


    The believers of Nature Faith heard from the abomination ne that Saleen had brought back some evil items for the believers to purify. Those items were in tainted Bug Angel Armors.


    Saleen did not waste anything while he was collecting the fragments of the finger bone of the heretic god. The lightning warriors brought everything they with them. The Bug Angel Warriors wearing armor were long dead. Their bodies were brought back for purification, enabling their souls to disperse. They would have probably be resurrected as abominations otherwise.


    The adherents of Nature Faith began to throw themselves into the long process of purification. None of them were idling by. Every single one of them had either bodies or armor in front of them waiting to be cleaned. Tomon people, these processes would be deemed boring and dull. To believers, they were beautiful endeavors.


    They were able to provide formidable power of faith to the statue of the goddess during the purification process. Saleen was even able to sense that the power of faith with the central temples began to liquefy, gradually modifying the statue.


    It was not that Saleen had never seen anything like that before. He had personally taken down a statue in the Purgatory Desert. The statue in the city was more powerful than the one that Saleen had taken apart before.


    He thought, I wonder when the goddess will be able to resurrect?


    Saleen was right beside the statue, using the power of faith to heal his own Figure of Fate, which had suffered severe damage. However, the divine powers of the Goddess of Nature were still capable of healing it.


    He did not see any reason to refuse using them. There were over a million believers throughout the city, and the power of faith generated every day was massive. Those were powers generated when purifying the aura of the Heretic God.


    Through the statue, the power of faith was quickly converted to the divine power of the goddess. Saleen absorbed over half of those divine powers and cleaned them using Armoring Lightning Beads before siphoning them into his body, patching up the Figure of Fate bit by bit.


    The speed of recovery far exceeded his expectations. The figure, which had shriveled to the size of little more than an inch, had returned to its normal size. All the damage was fixed within one month.


    Within that month, the finger bone of the Heretic God that Saleen passed to Baudire and the others waspletely purified. However, Saleen had thousands of pieces like that. If they were to be all purified, it would have taken over 100 years, judging by the powers Baudire and the others currently had.


    Surprisingly, the purified armor was still usable. There were even some weird attributes attached to them. Saleen collected the banged up armor and refurbished over 300 sets out of them. Those were not all that important. The most important thing at hand was that purified finger bone fragment of the Heretic God.


    The bone fragment turned pale white after being purified. Saleen handed it to Sika, who reached out to it use her Nature Priest powers


    Before throwing it back to Saleen, Sika said, ¡°I have no use for it. I still feel repulsed by it despite it having been purified.¡±


    Saleen looked for Nailisi and asked if she would have been able to expand the 12 Notes of First Purgatory with it.


    Nailisi took a look at the purified bone fragment and said, ¡°Sh*t. I¡¯d still have some use for it if it was not purified. Now that it¡¯s purified, it¡¯s just a piece of junk.¡±


    Saleen recalled something and asked, ¡°What about your purgatory of purification?¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t do. It can¡¯t fit something so evil in it.¡± Nailisi regretfully shook her head.


    ¡°Forget about it,¡± Saleen said. ¡°We¡¯ll head back to Hignd Cityter and see if you can siphon the evil ck mist into the purgatory of purification.¡±


    His idea was sound. The power of purgatory of purification was not high enough. If it was to continue to clean up those evil aura, it would have been able to grow more powerful.


    Saleen went and asked many others. No one knew what could be done with the piece of purified bone fragment. He recalled someone else and contacted Lex, asking if she was able to lend Bain to him.


    Lex was curious. She was busy with construction, which meant that she had no time to spare. As such, she told Saleen to just go look for Bain himself. Bain was in Metatrin City. Saleen called Bain over after acquiring Lex¡¯s permission.


    Bain had recovered considerably under Nichs¡¯ help. That old assassin quietly waited, not knowing what the mage in front of him wanted.


    Saleen looked at the wrinkles of Bain¡¯s face and felt pity for him. He said, ¡°Come, I¡¯ll teach you some skills.¡±


    He took Bain into the Nature Temple and sat at the side of the statue. Saleen began to cast his secret art, sending divine power of the Goddess of Nature into Bain¡¯s body.


    Bain was shocked. ¡°Your highness, are you telling me to be a believer of the goddess?¡±


    ¡°No, Bain, I¡¯m just healing your body,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Nichs¡¯s powers are limited. I¡¯ll restore you to full health. You¡¯re still at level nine, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, your highness,¡± Bain said in a rather saddened manner.


    ¡°You¡¯ll be a level 10 assassin soon enough,¡± Saleen said as he looked at Bain and recalled Nichs¡¯s words.


    Bain had suffered extremely grievous injuries during his younger days and never properly headed. As such, Nichs patched him up. When Bain got to level ten, his injuries rpsed. It forced him back to level nine. Nichs deemed Bain was done for.


    Saleen recalled how he felt when he first met Bain. The assassin was a strong man. Despite being old, he was charismatic. Lex was able to survive due to having been protected by the old assassin, making it through one ordeal after another.


    Lex was already a level 10 mage trainer, and Bain was still suffering the aftereffects of his injuries. Fallen divine arts were unable to do anything about it.


    Saleen recalled that the Goddess of Nature imed to have mastered the secrets of all life, which meant that her nature divine powers would be able to restore Bain. As soon as his injuries werepletely healed, he would be able to make it to level 10. There was no doubt about it.


    The believers of Nature City did not know that the power of faith they devoted to the goddess was being stolen by Saleen. With the goddess not around, there was nobody giving them divine orders.


    The pope, the leader of the knights, and the oracle were all Saleen¡¯s men. Even if they knew what he was up to, they would not have stopped him. The Nature Faith was akin to Saleen¡¯s own organization.


    With the knowledge learned from healing the Figure of Fate, Saleen stayed another month. It was early March before healing Bain was healed enough to have his silver hair turn ck again.


    Bain saw himself in the mirror and found his reflection unbelievable. ¡°Your highness!¡±


    ¡°Bain, I remember the time when I first went to Holy Rock City with Lex and you taught me things about mental powers,¡± Saleen sincerely said. ¡°While it was quite a challenge back then, I still have you to thank for being where I am today.¡±


    Bain sighed. Saleen¡¯s rtionship with Lex was not what it was back then. He had felt pity for the little mage. He thought Saleen would not be able to live long, so he gave the mage some pointers. He never expected to have been able to be reborn due to that.


    It seemed that the mage had been right. What one gave was equal to what one earned in return.


    ¡°But your highness, we¡¯re stealing from a god!¡± Bain¡¯s face might have turned youthful, but he retained the bearing of an old man.


    That feeling was an amicable one to Saleen. While he was close to his teacher, Jason was more like some sort of backing for Saleen. With Bain, it was simply more like that of a senior.


    ¡°Bain, Lex knew about all that,¡± Saleen said with a sheepish smile. ¡°I intend to resurrect the goddess, but I have no intentions of letting her take control of the faith. Before she is resurrected, all of that would belong to me anyway.¡±


    Bain now realized what was actually going on. ¡°Are you summoning me just to heal me, your highness?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Bain, take a look at this thing,¡± Saleen said and took out the Heretic God¡¯s finger bone fragment, which had been purified. Saleen would not have dared touch it if it wasn¡¯t, not even when he was wearing the gloves the grandmaster gave him.


    ¡°A terrifying piece indeed!¡± Bain took the bone fragment. He was first startled but soon looked pleased.


    ¡°It looks like you¡¯d be able to make good use of it!¡± Saleen knew he had guessed right, judging from Bain¡¯s expression.


    ¡°I¡¯d indeed be able to put it to good use,¡± Bain confidently said. ¡°If I were to make a dagger out of this, there is no one below level 10 that I wouldn¡¯t be able to kill.¡±


    ¡°How so?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°The secret arts of the assassin require special weapons to pull,¡± Bain said as he held onto the fragment. ¡°This piece of material has all the aura I need. Furthermore, this thing has been purified using divine arts and has very weird properties. Wait, it can even restore mental powers?¡±


    ¡°I still have some 12-dimensional metal with me,¡± Saleen said. ¡°You can have it. I¡¯ll forge an exceptional dagger for you. Right, Lex told you to help me out as well, didn¡¯t she?¡±


    Bain sighed and replied, ¡°Your Highness, that is between you and the viscount.¡±


    ¡°Very well then,¡± Saleen said. ¡°It seems like not even 12-dimensional metals are able to buy you over. In that case...¡±


    Bain coughed heavily, interrupting Saleen¡¯s words, and said, ¡°I have a daughter, and I¡¯ve always taken the viscount to be like a daughter to me. In the eyes of the nobles, such thoughts would have been very rude. You¡¯re a mage, Saleen, don¡¯t you think this is normal? I¡¯ve put too much on the viscount.¡±


    Saleen nodded and replied, ¡°I understand. The more you invest, the more impossible it is to pull yourself out. That is how sentiment works, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Bain was stunned but quickly understood that Saleen was trying to make him understand. He was not trying to make use of Bain as an assassin. What Bain expressed to the viscount was more than just loyalty, and Saleen was not trying to use him either.


    Saleen¡¯s efforts in buying him over would have been way too great. Besides, he had stolen divine powers for him and gave him 12-dimensional metals.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen, what do you need from me?¡± Bain resorted to calling Saleen by name.

 Chapter 1327: Struggle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1327: Struggle (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen looked at Bain. Even if the old assassin were to wear makeup, no one would be able to recognize him.


    ¡°Well, obviously I¡¯ll need you to kill someone, and this someone might be very important to Fycro,¡± Saleen said. ¡°I¡¯m not all too sure of that though.¡±


    ¡°Who would that be?¡± Bain asked.


    ¡°His name is Sharjah, the previous pope¡¯s chief of affairs of the Pivotal Council,¡± Saleen said. ¡°He was brought to the Oracle Corps by Fycro. He has been in hiding since. It was intel from the ones in Nature Faith. No one would have guessed that someone who was once the pope¡¯s chief of affairs had been bought over by Fycro. My people also heard that there was a holy item in this Sharjah¡¯s hand, the Ring of Many Gods.¡±


    ¡°Are you after that piece of equipment?¡± Bain asked.


    ¡°No. Kill Sharjah and destroy the ring.¡± Saleen rubbed his brow and said, ¡°Fycro set me up this time, and he definitely wasn¡¯t doing it out on a whim. This might have been nned for a long time. I must ruin his ns if I am to remain one step ahead of him.¡±


    That was a theory of the astrologers, which Saleen did not exin to Bain, but Bain would not have been interested anyway.


    ¡°Acknowledged,¡± Bain said. ¡°I shall kill Sharjah and destroy the Ring of Many Gods.¡±


    ¡°The Ring of Many Gods was something that rivaled the three holy items of the pope,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Depart only when I have finished crafting the dagger for you.¡±


    Bain rose, bowed, and left. Saleen began to work on the Evil Dagger.


    The finger bone of the Heretic God was not the most resilient of materials, but it contained all manner of properties within it. Saleen found them to be of the mostplex and ferocious he had ever seen. Even though the fragment had been purified, he remained wary of it.


    It was the end of March, and Saleen was only able to finish crafting Bain¡¯s weapon. There were countless believers advancing in Nature City. Having three months doing purification work, all the dead bodies and armor Saleen had brought with him were purified.


    The believers gained huge rewards from the deed. Saleen was able to acquire greater amounts of divine powers of the Goddess of Nature, which he used to purify the Heretic God¡¯s finger bone fragments.


    Even so, he was still short on the amount of bone fragments required. At that time, there was news from Holy Rock City that the Emperor of Qin, Lex¡¯s brother, was severely ill. Saleen needed to see Lex.


    Lex only told Saleen that she needed to check on her brother, regardless of the possible danger in Holy Rock City.


    Saleen did not think much of it. The pce mages in Holy Rock City backed Lex. Furthermore, therge-scale magic amplifier was still manned by the pce mages. Safilos only heldmand of the city¡¯s armies.


    It was impossible to take down Lex with armies. Lex, who possessed a God¡¯s Ring, could only be brought down using powers of magic amplifiers. Furthermore, there was no way Saleen would have let her go alone.


    J, Sul, Nichs, and the other four level 10 mage trainers were assigned to Lex. They were the more reliable powers by Saleen¡¯s side and had sufficient strength.


    The group headed to Daliang City through the Floating City¡¯s teleportation portal. They were to head to Holy Rock City from Daliang City.


    Gusion¡¯s Dragonyer Army was also heading there with them. Lex¡¯s most trusted swordsmen stayed behind. There were four mage trainers from the Golden ins and Jalin, a young mage, from her side following her.


    As Saleen predicted, Jalin had advanced to level 10. She was being sent by her teacher to aid Lex in securing the throne.


    If the Emperor of Qin were to die, Lex might not be able to sit on the throne as nned. By then, she would need to wrestle it from Prince Safilos. Everyone was able to see that much.


    It was the first time in over a thousand years to see merchants withdrawing from Holy Rock City. Since the emperor was still alive, Prince Safilos would not be able to keep Lex from entering the city. Lex might have fought him right away as soon as she entered the city.


    The merchants did not like the prospects of that happening. They did not know if Holy Rock City would be able to continue with its days of peace this time.


    Crafting the dagger was immensely troublesome since the material requirements were too demanding. The fragment did not seem to fuse with any other materials and had rejected quite a number when tried. Materials able to fuse with it were not up to the standards required for crafting weapons.


    Bain spent considerable divine powers of the Goddess of Nature to regain his health. As long as he did not end up getting killed, living for the next several hundred years would be a piece of cake. Advancement was almost guaranteed.


    Saleen needed to weigh his options to create a weapon that wouldst Bain for a long time. Assassins were different from other professions in that a good weapon couldst them until their deaths. To them, their attachment to their weapons outweighed that of any other equipment.


    Saleen had to wait for quite some time to gather more than 30 pieces of the Heretic God¡¯s finger bones fragments before he was able to start crafting the odd weapon for Bain. The fragments were thrown into the Water me and left to simmer. He cast his territory and had the Armoring Lightning Beads repeatedly work on the fragments. Under the very low temperatures of Water me, the bone fragments gradually changed shape.


    He threw a piece of dragon horn into it, which was from a fallen dragon. None of the other dragon horns had been able to fuse with the dagger to be. Generally speaking, dragon horns were often used to make the sharpest part of the des. This time, the piece of dragon horn was used to make the dagger¡¯s hilt.


    Thirty-six fragments merged and shaped into the form of a dagger. Dark silver 12-dimensional metal filled the cracks. It was as if they were embedded into the de. It was like the dagger had been constructed of bone and mended with metal after it was broken. The dagger looked like a piece of artwork instead of a weapon. The 12-dimensional metal was thin as hair, making it look as if the dagger would fall apart at any given moment.


    The key to the dagger was the dragon horn. Dragon horns of fallen dragons were extremely difficult to acquire. No one knew dragons had faiths too. The dragon gods were rather peculiar beings among the gods, simr to the strongest priests to be found among humans.


    They might have embraced the faith of the dragons, yet no divine persona was coalesced. When dragons betrayed their gods, they would show signs of falling.


    Fallen dragons were very rare. A fallen dragon might not be powerful, but their rarity surpassed even the dragon gods among dragons. Dragon horns of fallen dragon gods were the only pure parts of their bodies. The horns would not fall apart. Salvation required understanding and forgiveness from the dragon gods. The horns served as the key.


    None of that held any meaning to Saleen. The most important thing to him was to fuse the Heretic God¡¯s bone fragment with the dragon horn. The dragon horn was able to resist being corroded by the bone fragments. It was even able to iste the fragments¡¯ effects from the wielder.


    One piece of dragon horn was made into four parts including the hilt of the dagger, scabbard, mask for the assassin, and bracers. All of it was meant to protect Bain¡¯s soul from being tainted by the bone fragments.


    Even with all that done, Saleen did not feel safe enough. Bain¡¯s assassin¡¯s skills needed all those things. If he were to be injured, he might not be able to contain his emotions. As such, he wrapped thunder dragon hide at the hilt.


    The piece of hide was crafted specifically for Bain. It was narrow and several feet long. It was thinner than paper and wrapped on the dagger ording to assassin¡¯s methods. The hide had innate lightning magic patterns. Saleen re-crafted them in a way that would have shocked him with weak electrical charge if he were to lose emotional control.


    When electrical charges were not strong enough to cripple or kill, they were good for saving people. For example, tourmaline was capable of generating electricity, which was useful for stimting people at the brink of death and making their heart beat again.


    The lightning magic patterns on the hide had somewhat greater strength, making it capable of dispelling evil powers to a certain extent.


    Bain looked at the dagger as he held it in his hand. He found its hilt to be of good fit with his hand. He performed many assassination moves with it and still felt no difort from the hilt.


    Bain, at the level of his training, was able to kill people with just a twig. If he were to deal with truly powerful targets, weapons would still be a necessity. The tool needed to be something very lethal to both the enemy and the assassin wielding it.


    It was not surprising for the dagger to be a good fit. Saleen was a mage. It only one look at Bain¡¯s hand for him to calcte all the needed details down to the bone. He was even able to calcte what kind of actions those hands would make. However, he was not familiar with Bain¡¯s skills.


    Bain made some peculiar moves, yet the dagger still stuck to his hand. He was thoroughly impressed and said, ¡°Good stuff indeed, your Highness. Would you mind naming the weapon?¡±


    There were no anomalies with the weapon. It was best suited for assassins. Other than looking rather pretty, it had little to no weaknesses.


    ¡°It shall be called Broken World.¡± Saleen knew of the dagger¡¯s attributes. One hit was all it would take to tear the soul of its target to pieces.


    ¡°What would I need to be cautious of?¡± Bain inquired before leaving.


    Saleen took out a star figure and said, ¡°I¡¯m not done. This is a Figure of Fate, which can block a magic attack up to level 10 once in your stead. I¡¯m only armed with level 10 astrology, so I¡¯m unable to craft a powerful Figure of Fate for you. Still, take this. It will allow you to mask your identity. You could disguise yourself as a believer of Fycro and stain the figure with some power of faith. You won¡¯t have to pay anything for a good disguise. Even Fycro will not easily be aware.¡±


    Bain was ted.


    ¡°I¡¯ve done such ample preparations for you, specifically to keep you from being distracted,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Lex went to Holy Rock City. If anything happens, I will bring the Floating City there personally to assist her. Just stay hidden at Fycro¡¯s side. Even if I end up dead, don¡¯te back unless the job is finished. This matter is very important to Lex too.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Bain let Saleen push the figure into his body using astrology before disappearing.


    Saleen saw flickers of peculiar energies as Bain vanished from the Magical Element Tower. He assembled his followers after sending Bain off. He needed to head to Hignd City and see what was going on there. He was not taking the Floating City with him that time. He brought a patchwork teleportation portal with him, allowing him to retreat in a heartbeat.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull came with him. Sika remained to man the Floating City.


    The three of them flew at extremely high speeds. Hignd City was thousands of miles away from Nature City, yet it only took a day for them to cover the distance. Saleen saw the evil aura shooting high into the skies from several hundreds of miles away.


    The ck mist was everywhere in Hignd City. It exceeded 16 miles and was expanding at a slow rate. However, that was not to say it was a good thing. If there were to be no one else to stop it, the evil ck mist would grow in size and eventually taken over Myers Maind.

 Chapter 1328: Struggle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1328: Struggle (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen and the others approached the city high up in the sky. There were few professionals willing to fly at altitudes above 3,280 feet. Any mistakes could have ended up with them falling to their deaths.


    Saleen¡¯s party flew at an altitude of 6,500 feet.


    With Saleen around, along with the Elemental Eye being able to be shared between all three of them through Sensory Sharing, the Winged Skull and Nailisi were able to see minute objects on the ground below.


    ¡°Master, there.¡± Nailisi no longer bothered pointing.


    With senses being shared between the three of them, it meant that each of them had six eyes. It enabled them to take care of different angles respectively, eliminating any blind spots. It was something Saleen recently developed. While it was a simple matter, he somehow overlooked it in the past.


    There was a 10,000-strong army garrisoning at the north side of Hignd City. Saleen was able to see everything clearly from high up. It was none other than Fycro¡¯s bug angel army. Arge number of holy masters were assigned to the army. They were absorbing the ck mist with a device near ces abundant with the substance, which were then sent back to their camp.


    Saleen was curious and observed closely what they were doing with the ck mist. He chuckled after finding out. The ck mist was meant for purification after being carted back to the camp.


    White powder-like substances were left behind after the ck mist was purified. The holy masters carefully collected the white powder and handed it to holy masters of high levels, which were then put into space equipment. Seeing how those people handled the substance, one could tell that the white powder was precious.


    Due to the ck mist having reached over 32,000 feet high, there was a vortex appearing at the center, sucking the mist back within. As such, the ck mist did not keep expanding. The density of the ck mist was hardly affected despite having some at the external fringes sucked away.


    Saleen was unable to tell what was in the ck mist with his Elemental Eye. He looked at the two at his side and said, ¡°Fycro is collecting the white powder. Let¡¯s get down there and make sure he doesn¡¯t get much out of it.¡±


    ¡°Get down there?¡± The Winged Skull felt rather dumbfounded.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Saleen said as he took out three pieces of clothing, which he had both the Winged Skull and Nailisi wear.


    They were robes crafted using thunder dragon hide. Thunder dragons were immune to mist. The robes were crafted using thunder dragon hide enabled them to be isted from the mist¡¯s corrosion for prolonged periods.


    After putting on the robes, Saleen took out his dragon boat, which was made using thunder dragons. Saleen modified it for quite a bit in the alchemy factories, allowing it limited flight. The three of them went into the boat and dived straight into Hignd City¡¯s ck mist.


    Saleen¡¯s sight was limited to several hundred feet after entering the ck mist. The dragon boat was slow in flight, equal to that of the mostmon birds. Saleen had no need for speed.


    He manned the dragon boat and steered it away from the vortex at the center,nding somewhereparatively t, before letting Nailisi purify those mists. The dragon boat kept the mist outside. Saleen left one opening opened, which was connected to Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of purification. It was made to absorb the evil ck mist outside.


    Things were chaotic inside the purgatory of purification. Nailisi tried purifying all manners of tainted items back in Nature City. Everything in purgatory of purification ended up being tainted by the evil aura before being purified.


    Nailisi was not concerned. It did not result in her purgatory of purification losing its functions. On the contrary, the ce became more capable at purifying things. For example, the mist before them at the moment. The amount of ck mist gushing inside was tens of thousands of cubic meters. The mist liquefied into dirty water as it entered the purgatory of purification, which quickly cleared up. White residue was left on the ground after the mist was purified.


    The white residue was like sand. There was no evil aura found in it.


    Nailisi took a handful and handed it to Saleen. He held the white stuff in his hand and felt them for a bit. He found them peculiar since they had no attributes at all.


    It was worth noting that even a pile of excrement had attributes. It was a special thing about the material world, yet the white residue was devoid of any attributes. The white granules were incredibly hard. Saleen pinched them, which hurt his fingers. One pinch with his fingers was equal to an attack from silver grand swordmasters, yet the white granule lookedpletely unscathed.


    Nailisi¡¯s purgatory of purification was 1,200 miles square. The space within was equal to a mid-sized nation. While the ck mist¡¯s evil aura was powerful, in terms of size, it was not able to match the power of the rules within. Furthermore, the rules of the purgatory of purification would need to bepleted further, with every bit of ck mist purified.


    Those holy masters used special equipment to absorb the ck mist bit by bit, being careful of not getting too close. Nailisi, on the other hand, threw the door wide open and let the ck mist gush inside. Within 30 minutes, the ground was covered in ayer of fine, white sand.


    Saleen was figuring out how he could purify some of the mist. He cast Lightning Territory and shrunk it to just a feet away from his body. He slowly sucked the mist in to purify it using lightning. Doing so yielded unexpected results. ck mist purified using lightning yielded translucent golden granules instead of white ones. Complex lightning magic patterns were seen on the golden granules, which resembled his family badge.


    He was ted. Saleen wanted to craft more lightning equipment, but he struggled to find the right materials. The translucent substances, while fine, could have been refined using Water me and made intorger sizes containing lightning attributes. The ck mist was very precious to him by then.


    Since the ck mist existed in practically inexhaustible amounts, Saleen did not need to stop Nailisi. The attribute-less granules would have been of great use.


    He cast Lightning Constetion. As the equipment came to be inhabited by a weapon spirit, its speed at casting lightning was frightening. Saleen brought out the Lightning Cage, sending it straight into the ck mist.


    Lightning magic patterns sparkled on the Water Shield. Saleen stepped outside the dragon boat and expanded the area of the Lightning Territory. Countless streaks of lightning zapped about. ck mist touched by the electrical charges was purified on the spot.


    The Lightning Cage was slow at absorbing ck mist, but it came with a benefit of not needing Saleen spend any of his powers on it. He took control of the eight Armoring Lightning Beads and let them zip about in the ck mist.


    Golden granules purified by the beads were the most solid and wererger in size. The lightning magic patterns on them were also clearer.


    With Saleen casting lightning skills, the amount of ck mist around quickly became rather inadequate. The Winged Skull was out to purify the mist too. Blood soul towers spun in their eyes. Two powerful souls saw the evil mist outside from within the blood soul towers and screamed in surprise, casting green light. The green light shot out of the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes in beams about 320 feet long. ck mist dissipated as soon as the beams touched them.


    Mist that was cleaned by the Winged Skull yielded ck, transparent granules. The granules held profound death magic patterns, but they were something with which not even the Winged Skull was familiar. They were simply doing it out to share Saleen¡¯s burden. The power from their eyes shot without retrain, purifying the ce at high speeds.


    The lightning warriors charged. Many warriors were tainted and abominated when they went about picking up the bone fragments. They were healed by Saleen using divine powers when he returned to Nature City, regaining their original form.


    The lightning warriors became considerably resistant to the mist. Compared to the taint from the fragments, the mist¡¯s effects were insignificantly weak. The lightning warriors were able to resist the ck mist with only the electricity coursing about their bodies, gradually purifying them.


    While such purification process was rather slow, there were over 500,000 lightning warriors. Their massive numbers sped up the purification process. They picked up the golden granules as they went about purifying the ck mist.


    Saleen did not know what Fycro was up to by picking up the white granules. Since it was something that Fycro deemed necessary, Saleen needed to disrupt it. Fycro had taken Sharjah and wanted to get his hands on the Ring of Many Gods, so Saleen sent Bain to assassinate Sharjah and destroy the ring. With all those operations disrupted, Fycro¡¯s ns would be affected.


    Even if he had no idea what Fycro was actually up to, he was still able to cause Fycro¡¯s ns to fail. Such was the thought patterns of astrologers. While Saleen did not like being an astrologer, it did not stop him from using powers of the astrologers.


    Fycro¡¯s holy masters were oblivious on the other side. They were still slowly absorbing the mist and sending it back to camp for purification. The holy masters did not have lightning equipment, so it was difficult for them to keep themselves safe if they were to be steeped in the mist. As such, they were only able to work at the external fringes, preventing them from seeing what Saleen¡¯s party was doing.


    That operation ended up with Saleen staying over three days in the ck mist, which was shrunk to an area a little more than a mile wide. The vortex at the center was revealed, including the portal at its core. There were no longer any abominations that dared to charge from the other side.


    Saleen stopped absorbing. He had acquired massive amounts of crystallized granules. The white ones were the most plentiful, followed by golden ones and ck ones.


    The holy masters at the north found that the area of the ck mist had reduced. They were not concerned at first but soon found the phenomenon to be abnormal and alerted Fycro.


    The size of the White City in the Chaotic Swamp did not expand. The abyss before the city became deeper. There were various creatures moving about in the abyss. Among them were the Bug Angel Warriors. Those abominated bug angels were resurrected in the abyss. Their evil aura waspletely purified, yet they were unable to leave the Divine Abyss. They were forced to survive and deal with the harsh conditions within.


    The Bug Angel Warriors spent their days praying to Fycro, when they were not busy fighting, in hopes of being able to leave the pesky abyss. The prayers of those Bug Angel Warriors within the abyss sped Fycro¡¯s acquisition of power of faith by tens of times. After all, Saleen had killed many Bug Angel Warriors.


    Fycro was training in the city and approaching key moments. He frowned when the holy masters told him about the matter. It was out of his area of control. He waspelled to put aside the training of an ability that he was about toplete and headed straight to Hignd City to solve the problem.

 Chapter 1329: Utopia (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1329: Utopia (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen stopped absorbing the ck mist after seeing that the eye of the ck vortex was about to show. He had no intentions of dealing with the vortex in Fycro¡¯s stead.


    He was almost set up by Fycro by helping the holy masters deal with the abomination problem. If it had not been for Rafel the archangel, Saleen might have ended up falling into Fycro¡¯s trap.


    Saleen did not bring Rafel along this time. Fycro apparently had his eyes on the Floating City, so Saleen waspelled to leave his most powerful subordinate to guard the ce. While it was true that the Floating City itself was near-invincible, Saleen had to be careful.


    There were many peculiar skills in their ne, enabling people to control the minds of others.


    ¡°Master, are we going to leave or not?¡± Nailisi looked at the remaining bits of mist and huge ck vortex, feeling rather reluctant.


    Her purgatory of purification¡¯s rules were almostpleted after performing such arge-scale purification. Anything troublesome could have been thrown into the purgatory and be reduced to mindless beings through purification.


    While it sounded pretty, if a person were to be purified until they lost their self-awareness, things would turn ugly. Purification was a skill originally created by the gods. When humans learned to use it, things turned rather terrifying.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± Saleen said. ¡°We¡¯ll leave Fycro be. His ns here are already ruined. We¡¯ll head back to Nature City and take the Floating City to Principality of Bitterwater.¡±


    ¡°Are you worried about Lex, Master?¡± Nailisi asked.


    ¡°Yes, I am,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Lex could have been slower and just arrived to Holy Rock City. With her brother being severely ill, she couldn¡¯t have been dyed for long.¡±


    Saleen cast Quickcloud and brought both Nailisi and the Winged Skull with him. He threw hundreds of scrapped puppets into the ck vortex before he left. The puppets were devoured by the mist before they even made it into the ck vortex, bing abominations and shrieking in the mist.


    The path between Hignd City and Bitterwater was extremely arduous. Only the sections at the border of Kroraina were somewhat easier.


    Saleen was no longer the little mage he had once been. The amount of magic chords he possessed enabled him to fly across the entire maind back and forth several times. It was no longer a problem for level 10 professionals to fly across the maind. Even warriors who were not all that adept at flight had enough power to fly tens of thousands of miles when they reached level 10. While they were slow at flight, they no longer needed to walk with their own feet.


    The speed of Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud could reach 500 miles per hour, enabling him to reach the Principality of Bitterwater within a day. The three of them descended from the sky and walked outside the city.


    Saleen had mixed feelingsing to that prefecture again. He hadn¡¯t been there for years ago because he was afraid of being captured by adventurers and hauled off to Yaoyang City. Now, he had destroyed Yaoyang City, and there was hardly anyone left in Earl Sufonso¡¯s family. He did not even have anyone to exact vengeance.


    The man who came to Lex all those years ago had never expected to be able to make it that far. His greatest dream back then was to be a sorcerer. It was a rank that could have been achieved at level seven, yet it was the greatest height he could have imagined.


    The city gates were opened. Bitterwater Prefecture was situated in remote areas. If armies were to invade the ce, they would need to take detours. Their presence would be known. There were soldiers who collected money at the opened gates.


    That was the capital of the Principality of Bitterwater. While trade was not exactly flourishing, shops selling magic items were everywhere.


    Lex was not as much of a splurge as Saleen when it came to keeping mages around. Furthermore, bing one of the mages in the Principality of Bitterwater was very difficult. There were plenty of low-level mages found there, working in Lex¡¯s alchemy factories in order to earn magic nuclei and train in magic.


    The reason why the ce was able to attract many low-level mages was because there were open magic courses taught there. There was also a library that enabled them to ess a wide collection of magical books.


    Lex collected fees, but her fees were about one-sixth of those collected by Alchemy City. That proved enticing to low-level mages. They were allowed ess to the same amount of information and knowledge by paying one-sixth of the gold prices.


    The soldier guarding the gates was the one Saleen had met when he hade there all those years ago. It was anyone¡¯s guess if that was just a coincidence. Perhaps Lex specifically arranged for it to be so.


    ¡°How much would I need to pay to get through?¡± Saleen smiled and asked the soldier.


    ¡°One silver coin, and we don¡¯t take the ones from the Tanggsi Empire,¡± the soldier roughly answered. He quickly recognized that it was Saleen asking. ¡°Oh, your Highness! Prince!¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Saleen was puzzled.


    ¡°The viscount is bing empress soon, so you are to be prince in theing days,¡± the soldier said. ¡°I do not dare to take any money from you.¡±


    ¡°I still can¡¯t break the rules, can I?¡± Saleen asked and took out three silver coins and threw them into the box at the gate.


    The city did not collect a toll from locals. Foreigners were only allowed entrance after they paid. Saleen thought that Lex was using this method to gather wealth when he first arrived. He came to learn that the box at the gate was actually equipment.


    When a person threw a silver coin into the box, it had a bit of its master¡¯s aura on it. Any person who entered Bitterwater Prefecture was magically recorded. If something were to happen, they would have had leads for an investigation.


    Insignificant means proved to be of great use. If Lex hadn¡¯t told Saleen, he would not have learned of the box¡¯s function. It was not that there was no crime happening in Bitterwater Prefecture. It was that there had not been any criminal who made it outside. Every single one of them was taken down by mages of the viscount¡¯s office.


    The soldier was behaving rather fearfully, yet Saleen wasughing and rewarded him with a gold coin. His wealth meant that he could have easily coughed up hundreds, even thousands, of gold coins right where he stood. However, he was only doing it because he was in a good mood. He hoped the soldier was in a good mood as well.


    One needed to pay a price equivalent to that of one¡¯s desire. Saleen¡¯s mood was lightened, and the soldier earned one gold coin.


    Saleen did not change direction. He came first to Bitterwater Prefecture to help the ce set up defenses. The Floating City¡¯s speed at flight was slower than his, and the city was still on its way.


    He went straight to the viscount¡¯s office after entering the gates. The office was rather lively. There were many mages studying there. Lex¡¯s teacher was there to. That mage had advanced to level 10 and was the most powerful mage in Bitterwater Prefecture.


    Things at the prefecture could, of course, notpare to that of Metatrin City. Other than that level 10 mage, most of the mages found in Bitterwater Prefecture were grand mages ormon mages below level seven. There were several level nine mages who followed Lex early on. They all went to train elsewhere, only returning to help Daliang City in its battle.


    Despite the crisis in Daliang City being solved, the mages had no intentions of leaving. They all headed back to Bitterwater Prefecture, helping Lex to defend that piece ofnd.


    Lex was a sincere person, which allowed her to keep huge number of mages around her. It was a pity that those mages remained slow at advancement. All the powerful mages went to Daliang City, resulting in the defense of Bitterwater Prefecture looking rather empty. If it had not been for its special location and taking the ce would have yielded little value, it would have long been caught in the fires of war and taken down by others.


    The mage guarding the door saw Saleen return and was overjoyed. ¡°Master Saleen, you are back!¡± The shout was heard throughout the office.


    The silent viscount¡¯s office was thrown into an uproar in a heartbeat. There was not much reason for it. Saleen was a level 10 mage trainer and had to meet the mages of the office when he arrived. ording to the rules of Bitterwater Prefecture, he even needed to provide them with some guidance. Guidance from powerful mages trumped those in magic notes. When a mage lectured before everyone, the lesson was either more specific or systematic.


    Without Lex around, Saleen was considered the master of the ce. The mages were akin to Saleen¡¯s own people, so he did not have been stingy and could speak more than when Lex was around.


    Saleen knew about that. He originally nned to stay around for a few days. The prefecture was near Holy Rock City, enabling his Floating City to be moved to the border. That allowed him to back up Lex any time, which was his original intention.


    With Lex¡¯ close mages not around, Saleen had to pay a visit to Lex¡¯s teacher, Mage Trainer Heinreiz, out of courtesy. Heinreiz refused to divulge his name before getting to level nine. That was her teacher¡¯s request. By the time he advanced to level 10, his name ceased to be of importance.


    Heinreiz remained a little renown and usually spent his days teaching difficult parts of magic to the mages of Bitterwater Prefecture. He trained in the magic tower when he was not teaching.


    Saleen visited Heinreiz in the 10-floor magic tower. He had prepared a gift for Lex¡¯s teacher.


    ¡°Master, it was all thanks to you all those years ago that I was able to get this far,¡± Saleen said.


    Heinreiz found it hard to refuse the gift Saleen brought. It was one crater of magic nuclei. While Saleen¡¯s actions looked to be of poor taste, magic nuclei was indispensable to mages. That was especially so when level 10 ones were concerned. Saleen was the only one capable of bringing that many at once.


    ¡°I shall take it, but I need to be clear about one thing, you owe where you are today to your teacher,¡± Heinreiz said, deeming it unfair to im something that was not his.


    Saleen smiled and did not insist. Heinreiz was correct. If it had not been for Jason, he would not be where he was. Without Jason, he would have taken a lot of detours in his path to learning magic. Heinreiz was only teaching him because that happened to be convenient.


    ¡°Master.¡± Saleen remained respectful. He was Lex¡¯s teacher after all, and Saleen was unable to bring himself to treat her teacher as his peer.


    ¡°So what brings you here to Bitterwater Prefecture?¡± Heinriez asked.


    ¡°Among the cities that both me and Lex own, Bitterwater Prefecture is one mostcking in defense,¡± Saleen replied. ¡°If it hadn¡¯t been for its central location and never seeing the fires of war, the ce would have probably been taken by others a long time ago.¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡± Heinreiz looked at Saleen with an amused look.


    Saleen only realized that he behaved in a rather rude manner due to being in a hurry.


    Seeing Saleen being rather awkward, Heinreiz added, ¡°You¡¯re right though. However, even if the city is defended, what good would it bring? The key to the fights across the maind still lies in Kroraina.¡±


    ¡°There are ces that I¡¯d rather not see destroyed,¡± Saleen said. ¡°This was the ce that Lex spent her formative years, and it was also the ce where she began to put her ideals to test first. I want to...¡±


    He wanted to say that he wanted to preserve the ce for eternity, but he quickly recalled the Imperial City of the Abyss. The walls of that city were thicker than the height of walls of any city that he knew of. Powerful beings filled the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The general leading the army was a level 18 warrior. There was also a level 18 astrologer and a powerful mage. The soldiers guarding the city were all about 300-foot-tall elemental creatures. If a magnificent city like that had seen its doom, would he have been able to keep Bitterwater Prefecture as it was forever?

 Chapter 1330: Utopia (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1330: Utopia (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°There is no civilization thatsts forever, Saleen... Master,¡± Heinreiz said.


    Saleen was only able to hang his head low and ept the lesson. That was a notable saying among mages, and one that he should not have forgotten.


    He lifted his head momentster and said, ¡°There is no civilization that willst forever, but we mages keep striving for eternity, nheless. There wouldn¡¯t be the likes of Holy Rock City and Alchemy City otherwise. Master, well... Regardless, I¡¯m rich now, so just take it as me wanting to help fulfill Lex¡¯s ideals.¡±


    ¡°Ideals?¡± Heinreiz asked.


    ¡°Yeah, aren¡¯t there bards singing about utopias?¡± Saleen asked. ¡°I want to help make the Bitterwater Prefecture into a utopia.¡±


    Heinreizughed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t find it funny,¡± Saleen said in a serious tone.


    ¡°It is funny, but it¡¯d be interesting to do them precisely because such things are funny,¡± Heinreiz said. ¡°Alright, Lex isn¡¯t around, and she told me to watch over the city. I only ask of you of one thing: don¡¯t wreck the city walls at the north. That is Lex¡¯s favorite ce.¡±


    Saleen slightly blushed in embarrassment. He knew that he had always been heavy-handed when it came to modifying cities, like some upstart who had just gotten rich overnight.


    The front walls of Bitterwater Prefecture was one of the most beautiful architectures that Saleen had ever seen. The buildings within the city were also stunningly beautiful. The city did not look like one that mages would have lived in at all. It looked like some kind of center of art.


    Saleen nodded in agreement. Building a city was not something that could be done within days. The lightning puppets¡¯bat capacity was enhanced by over 100 times when they were remade into lightning warriors. However, that came at a cost of losing their construction abilities. The original puppets were capable of being used forrge-scalebor.


    All the parts on those puppets had been able to be used for construction. The lightning warriors, on the other hand, were made specifically for killing and nothing else.


    Saleen organized a massive lecture event right before Heinreiz¡¯s tower. It was not a speech event of the nobles but one of mages imparting knowledge. All the mages who joined the Bitterwater Prefecture¡¯s viscount¡¯s office had the right to participate in the lecture.


    His lecture went on for one day. Most of it involved answering questions from the mages. The lecture became something the people of the prefecture remembered for ages toe because there were over 100 mages who advanced right there and then. Those mages had gathered enough magic chords. All theycked was a chance of gaining higher understanding of magical powers.


    Saleen gave them that opportunity andid out advancement magic arrays on the fly, supplying them with huge amounts of magic nuclei. That made the mages extremely grateful.


    Most mages found it difficult to umte enough magic nuclei for advancement. While mages were generally rich, with the maind being at war everywhere, the prices of magic nucleus skyrocketed. Even the wealthy mages were unable to get through the situation without struggles.


    Saleen made his speech for real after imparting magic knowledge. The topic of the speech was none other than ¡°Utopia.¡± He did not get very long-winded. Instead, he gave the mages an interesting lesson using matters happening around them.


    Alchemy City was no longer the heaven that mages sought. Metatrin City was being put to the test by a constant state of war. Mages did not exist to fight wars, yet they were nowpelled to research day and night ways to kill people just to survive. The notion of a mage unable to fight was worthless was wrong.


    Saleen illustrated his vision of a utopia. In one such nation, a mage¡¯s mission was to make the lives of everyone morefortable. Mages would no longer need to fight for a living. They were to return to their very nature as mages, learning about the truth of the world.


    During his speech, he said, ¡°That was the first saying I learned when I first formed my magic chords, and I knew right there and then that it was the truth. Our world requires exploration. The mission of a mage is not to fight wars!¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words evoked massive responses among the mages. Most mages did not get into magic-learning to fight wars. They chose to walk the path of a mage because they had personally witnessed the mystical side of magic.


    However, a mage¡¯s journey was an unusually arduous one. One needed immense persistence to continue walking on that path. Persistence alone was not enough. One needed to form magic chords before one could truly be called a mage. Magic chords were not something achievable by everyone.


    The nation illustrated by Saleen was one in which most people could learn magical knowledge. Even if they were unable to be mages, they could experience the beauty of magic. He did not deny the significance of mages in fighting wars.


    He came to a conclusion through his analysis that it was war that fueled magic¡¯s progress. For example, the Cleaning spell. It was originally just a spell for wiping off dirt and was low level. In war scenarios, it could be used to help the injured, maintainrge-scale equipment, and so on.


    The Cleaning spell developed due to being specific needs for it. Thus, a level zero magic became a spell that could be advanced to level one. Before anyone realized it, a level one Cleaning spell became something that could clean huge rooms within moments, creating magic arrays that enabled those rooms to be kept clean forever.


    Mages could make life better, as long as one had money. The Bitterwater Prefecture was one such example. The city had a beautiful environment. Before the mages came, the ce was unable to even sustain peasants whobored in the fields.


    Magic turned a ce like Bitterwater Prefecture into something like a paradise. Mages created transparent rooms, enabling vegetables to be nted in huge rooms without any regard for seasons.


    The cycle of sunlight and darkness was mimicked in the rooms, allowing them to produce harvest over a dozen times throughout the year.


    That was only the side of things. All other facets of life with magic had seeped into life in Bitterwater Prefecture. There was simply no corner that magic was unable to reach, no status quo that magic was unable to change.


    The mages of Bitterwater Prefecture had two roles: living andbat, thetter of which was a smaller role. Mages did not take upbat because they liked fighting. Most were simply thrust into the role without a choice.


    Saleen was not there simply to prattle. The reason for him to be at Bitterwater Prefecture was to make the ce like a hedgehog one could not simply touch. He had to do so in a way that would not significantly change the appearance of the city. It was very difficult for someone else but easy for him.


    His method of doing so was to build a magic. Magics had no effect on true mages. If there were to be any effects worth mentioning, it was that it made it easier for mages to umte elemental powers while being inside the magic¡¯s vicinity.


    It was equal to taking a bit of power from the magic. It differed from the magic tower since the magic was unable to refuse power being taken.


    Saleen was not doing it to please anyone in particr. Other than to fulfill Lex¡¯s ideals, he had other reasons for doing so. Things across the maind were getting increasingly shaky. All manners of portals leading to other nes were being opened, and peculiar creatures were invading the maind. Humans needed a safe ce.


    That psychological need was incredibly massive. If Saleen were to only build a ce meant to be for pure defense, it would have attracted countless people seeking refuge. It was not to say that those people were useless It was just that they were tired of all of the fighting.


    If those people were to be left to their own devices, many would have been forced by fate to go into battlefields. Some might have ended up as Saleen¡¯s enemies. The way Saleen did it was akin to having a safe haven in the middle of the maind, allowing humanity as a whole to recuperate.


    There would have been many exceptionally talented people emerging from that ce, and Saleen would have no need for them to do battle. He needed only their minds to build a powerful magic civilization.


    In Saleen¡¯s perspective, he did not need those mages to research killing weapons. Crafting essential items for everyday living would have sufficed. He was naturally able to find valuable things from the thought patterns that fueled the creations those items.


    He would have gained ample enchanters for deduction work and develop new magic spells, as well as new weapons. Those enchanters would not have been capable of creation themselves, yet they would be given the chance to learn by analogy. In a certain sense, the utopia could provide Saleen with immensebat capacity.


    The construction project was massive, yet Saleen hardly affected everyday life in Bitterwater Prefecture. He had Nailisi summon demons and the Winged Skull summon spirits. All of the construction began underground.


    Saleen was targeted for assassination in Daliang City, which left asting impression on him. As such, the underground side of the prefecture was reid withyers of defensive magic arrays. He learned how Alchemy City did it.


    All underground magic arrays were being constructed between theyers of thick, heavy rock materials. Those magic arrays were connected to the city¡¯s magic. The construction of the magic was different from how he did it in the past. Saleen gathered the center of the magic together and built them into a tower. The tower¡¯s materials were gained from the treasures left behind by the goddess.


    A section of thundercloud wood was over 320 feet long. Thundercloud wood was a high-level material from the giant ne, which was capable of reaching heights up to 3,200 feet. If they were not cut down, those trees could even shoot out of the clouds. They were also immune to lightning.


    Tall thundercloud wood was naturally thick. Saleen simply took to burying part of the section underground and melded it with the magic using Water me. The part that was sticking out of the ground was being fashioned into a tower bit by bit.


    The tower was madepletely out of wood materials but was as strong as steel. The tower was over 390 feet tall and had 18 floors. That ce served as the center of the Bitterwater Prefecture¡¯s magic.


    The first spell Saleen loaded into the magic was his own Icicle spell. While the spell was incapable of casting electrical charge, it was unusually sharp due to having lightning magic patterns. That also made the spell immune to temperatures from fire type magic.


    The spell Saleen loaded into the magic was apound magic. A powerful enchanter could have conjured 1,200 icicles for attack at the same time.


    There were no decorations made to the tower. Saleen left that to those who would inherit the ce. Externally, that tower looked to be little more than a ce for recreation among the group of pces, yet the thundercloud wood Saleen had processed enabled it to withstand high level magic attacks. He did so without having to put up any magic shields.


    The expenditure on materials for constructing that tower alone would have bankrupted most mages in their world. Saleen also made a self-deprecating joke about him being an upstart. No one else would have been so extravagant with their construction just so to conceal the violent nature of the tower. He could have simply used metals to build it, which would have been just as sturdy and cheaper.


    Then again, doing socked artistic ir to it.

 Chapter 1331: Becoming a God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1331: Bing a God (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen had made his own ns for the arrangement of the Bitter Water Prefecture. If the continent fell into chaos, there needed to be a dwelling for humanity to rest and recuperate safely. His interdimensional space was undoubtedly a good choice, but it also happened to be his base. Once others entered it, significant problems would arise.


    He was now selecting the candidates and establishing some prerequisites. First, the candidate needed to have a wless record. A person¡¯s past, and even the previous three generations, would have to be scrutinized.


    Second, Saleen didn¡¯t want professionals. He only wanted normal civilians.


    Third, once professionals were able to enter the interdimensional space, apart from lie- detection spells, Saleen also had to use the Nature divine spells and astrology to conduct an additional battery of tests on each prospective candidate. These tests would ensure there were no loopholes.


    After all, astrology had already vanished for too long. Saleen wasn¡¯t nning on allowing any other astrologers to exist on the continent either.


    The lie-detection spell could not be easily tricked unless the person¡¯s strength exceeded Saleen¡¯s by a wide margin. If that were the case, Saleen would not have to set up any defenses because he would not be that person¡¯s match at all.


    Bitter Water Prefecture originally had magics. Lex had initiated the construction of the basic facilities for them, but they had not been activated.


    Saleen¡¯s magic had expanded the original a hundredfold. The entire Bitter Water Prefecture had been covered by the magic. The distance at which the enchanters could do battle was up to 25 kilometers outside the city.


    In other words, Saleen had constructed a magic in Bitter Water Prefecture that was second only to that of Floating City.


    The construction was very quick. On this day, Saleen was directing the enchanters to add thestyer of protection to the castle walls, when Floating City suddenly began shaking.


    Saleen was stunned. He immediately discovered that Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit, which was located in the core of Floating City in the Magical Element Tower, had ignited its divine fire. Panic-stricken, Saleen hurriedly flew up to Floating City. He brought Rafel with him and headed directly to the Magical Element Tower.


    Following his arrival, Saleen saw at once that the Weapon¡¯s Spirit was still operating Floating City very honestly. It was just that when it ignited its divine fire, it had not controlled its own body.


    Saleen¡¯s mental power probed it slightly and discovered that the Weapon¡¯s Spirit¡¯s divine fire had been ignited within the broken jade. Whew. He was relieved: Had the divine fire been ignited outside, he would have lost control of this Weapon¡¯s Spirit.


    After its divine fire had been ignited within the broken jade, the Weapon¡¯s Spirit strength spiked to level-13.


    Saleen felt very proud of himself: His Weapon¡¯s Spirit was a pseudo god.


    The difficulty of this pseudo god¡¯s advancement was not low. This was because all who believed in the God of Magic Nets were enchanters. Only a few hundred thousand of them were in Saleen¡¯s grasp. Their powerful mental strength, however, still did notpare to the hundreds of millions of disciples in the Holy See.


    Upon seeing that the Weapon¡¯s Spirit had be a god, Rafel was dubious. She too possessed level-13 strength. Although suppressed, it should have been capable of igniting a divine fire. Could it be that she wascking something?


    She opened her mouth to question Saleen. He didn¡¯t know anything about this.


    Bing a pseudo god was not as simple as attaining level-13. The Imperial City of the Abyss had had so many heroic spirits that had surpassed level-13, yet none of them had ignited a divine fire.


    But Rafel had been born an angel and what she studied was divine spells. Bing a god was probably the only way for her to advance.


    Initially, she wasn¡¯t bothered by this, but after seeing that even the Weapon¡¯s Spirit had be a god, Rafel sank into deep, bitter thoughts.


    If she could be a god, she would not need to entrust Saleen with the care of those metal angels. Things were okay now. The God of Demons had appeared, and the faith of the metal angels had begun to be absorbed by the magics. Henceforth, it would have no rtion with her.


    Seeing that Rafel was somewhat dejected, Saleen said, ¡°Are you very worried I¡¯ll use these metal angels?¡±


    Rafel nodded. Saleen said, ¡°Wait till they be devout disciples of the God of Magic Nets. I¡¯ll allow them to possess a space to be revived in Floating City. When that timees, as long as the God of Magic Nets doesn¡¯t die, the metal angels won¡¯t either.¡±


    Rafel gave a bitter smile. If that was the case, the metal angels would still be Saleen¡¯s hired thugs.


    The angels were weapons of battle by birth. Only a minority existed for the sake of extolling the praises of their god. Being able to praise gods was not necessarily an honor. Any angels doing this would obviously not have a sense of self. They only knew how to pray every day. Once their god wanted to descend upon a ne that was difficult to reach, these angels would be the first ones chosen to be brought along.


    Rafel hadn¡¯t felt this way initially, but ever since she followed Saleen and saw his methods of creating gods, she felt an unspeakable hatred toward anyone praising the gods.


    Neve-rending prayers, never-ending doctrines, gods...


    What gods!


    A hint of pain was palpable in Rafel¡¯s golden eyes.


    ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll get out of this ce and go to Holy Rock City.¡± After Saleen said this, he called all the enchanters to stop any work they were doing and to stop adding magic to bolster the strength of Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s castle walls.


    Holy Rock City was no longer a threat. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit was now a god, and the defenses of the entire Floating City no longer upied Saleen¡¯s thoughts. Further, he might be the first mage who was controlling a god.


    Previous mages had captured gods, but only for the sake of refining equipment. They had not done what Saleen had.


    Emting Saleen would truly express the power of the gods to the limit.


    The Winged Skull and Nailisi felt what Saleen was thinking at the same time and was also aware of the changes in Floating City. They were bbergasted. They originally thought that the advancement of the Weapon¡¯s Spirit would just allow Floating City to advance along with it.


    Floating City was a humongous chunk of magic equipment. That the Weapon¡¯s Spirit of the magic equipment was a god or even a pseudo god was inconceivable.


    Saleen sat securely at the center of the magical tower, anxious to go to Holy Rock City. It was Holy Rock City that had not returned any news all this time. This was strange. Even if Lex and Prince Safilos had fallen out, they still should have kept giving him information.


    Initially, Saleen was prepared toplete the entirety of Bitter Water Prefecture¡¯s constriction before going to Holy Rock City. After all, he had few guarantees. Now that Floating City¡¯s power had suddenly increased to an extent to which even Saleen could not understand, he already had the guarantee of being able to deal with Prince Safilos.


    Thus, whether Bitter Water Prefecture could defend itself was no longer the issue. He would take down Holy Rock City first; no one would pay close attention to this rural city, even if it was Safilos¡¯snd.


    Floating City shook above Bitter Water Prefecture in session. The giant¡¯s bone crystal shed with a golden glow. Then, a mist shot out from Floating City, forming a huge, dark cloud with a 50-kilometer diameter.


    This was Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud Spell. Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit had directly released it, causing the entire city to be enveloped in mist. It suddenly picked up speed in the sky and flew toward the east.


    What Floating City adopted was Saleen¡¯s style of flight. Its speed reached a terrifying 150 kilometers.


    Even Saleen thought this was ridiculous. This was because the Weapon¡¯s Spirit was making use of the divine fire¡¯s power, not the burning of magic nuclei, in order to propel Floating City.


    In other words, if Saleen wanted to move Floating City in the future, he wouldn¡¯t need to burn magic nuclei at all.


    All the magic power furnaces would only be used to maintain the operations of the magics. Even they no longer had the same level of consumption as before. The entire Floating City was now within the grasp of the Weapon¡¯s Spirit: The enchanters would battle, and the Weapon¡¯s Spirit would stay on the sidelines and observe, as well as provide them with supplies.


    The limit of all the enchanters¡¯bat had risen to level-13.


    The problem is that Saleen had no level-12 demons that could be used. None of the enchanters could release level-13 magic spells. There was no need to mention the magic. There were no level-13 magic spells he could afford to store in it either.


    The limitations of the magicsy in this. If there were no magic spells in the magic, they would forever be unable to be released.


    The current Floating City¡¯s method of defense was the Quickcloud Spell. There were alsoyers of ripples within the cloud; these were all Saleen¡¯s Water Shields. He had no way to increase the Water Shield to level-13. This was a magic spell variant he had created. Unless he advanced to level-12, nobody would know of the future trajectory of this magic spell.


    Hence, theseyers of ripples and the protective shield formed from condensed water elements were all merely grade-11.


    The Weapon¡¯s Spirit had grasped the power that Saleen had provided, allowing the entire Floating City to be enveloped in a bubble. If there had not been any clouds to block it, the people on the ground would still not be able to clearly see the appearance of Floating City. The gigantic bubble reflected sunlight and would form into a magnificent scene.


    The strong people in Floating City had all sensed this change. The power provided to them by the Weapon¡¯s Spirit seemed to be endless, so they thought. That¡¯s how it was at their level.


    Saleen felt a different type of feeling. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit was using its magic, but there were still some ws. For example, its power was much too strong.


    This allowed it to understand where the gaps in its own magicy. The things it previously had no means of detecting were now being verified one by one by Saleen with his own eyes under the demonstration of the Weapon¡¯s Spirit¡¯s magic.


    ¡°Master, I really want to find a target to test out the might of Floating City,¡± Nailisi said excitedly.


    ¡°There will be more opportunities in due time. Nailisi, what are you doing here?¡± Saleen saw that she had squeezed into the control room of the Magical Elemental Tower and said to her, ¡°Go summon the demons. I need to take control of operations of all of Floating City.¡±


    Nailise smiled bitterly and said, ¡°Master, Floating City¡¯s magic has a total of threeyers and it has been filled. It requires 3,600,000 enchanters. I cannot raise them all...¡±


    ¡°Idiot, the Weapon¡¯s Spirit has be a god. Although it¡¯s only a pseudo god, the imps can already gain power through prayer. They will not need so much of their normal food and drink at all!¡± Saleen knocked Nailisi¡¯s head once and hurried her to get to work.


    Originally, Saleen wouldn¡¯t have been able to raise too many demons. For these enchanters, countless magic bugs had to be stored to act as their rations, and all of this had to be within Floating City¡¯s spatial warehouse. Now, this wasn¡¯t necessary. After these enchanters became a god¡¯s disciples, the consumption level of their bodies would be reduced. They would be able to replenish their power while praying.


    Essentially, the enchanters were being turned into angels.


    Although they didn¡¯t need much food and drink, the consumption level of the enchanters was not as low as what Saleen had spoken of. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit was merely a pseudo god. Furthermore, it needed to stay concealed in the Magical Element Tower and could not leave at all.


    The enchanters had to be in Floating City to gain what the god bestowed upon them.


    What would the Weapon¡¯s Spirit use to grant blessings to its disciples? Wasn¡¯t it still Saleen¡¯s magic nuclei? It was just that the energy that was portioned out from the magic power furnace would be absorbed by the enchanters in Floating City to rece their food and drink.


    In the long run, these enchanters would be half-energy creatures, an existence simr to angels.

 Chapter 1332: Becoming a God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1332: Bing a God (Part 2)</h4>


    Nailisi was not willing to let this happen since she didn¡¯t want the imps and demonic spirits she had painstakingly summoned to be the Weapon¡¯s Spirit¡¯s subordinates. They were originally all demons who were loyal to her.


    That being said, there was no way she could oppose Saleen¡¯s request. This matter would be extremely helpful in increasing hisbat prowess.


    Saleen needed to take the lead with Holy Rock City and assume power in Alchemy City. It was important for people to know that there was still a powerful bone dragon stationed in Alchemy City. Once the bone dragon limatized itself to the rules of the Myers Continent, or if the rank restriction there was rxed, it might be able to leave after releasing its power, expanding its nest, and even releasing death-spirit descendants.


    What a terrifying thought. Wherever the bone dragon passed, living creatures would be turned into death spirits. What a disastrous scene.


    This was different from living creatures bing demonized. Demonized living creatures could still be saved through purification spells. For those turned into death spirits, the process was irreversible.


    At the present time, it was impossible for Saleen to consider Nailisi¡¯s emotions. Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit had be a god and was moving ahead with its ns. Holy Rock City needed toe under his control. He had previously feared that he wouldn¡¯t be able to triumph over Safilos. Now, that wasn¡¯t an issue. With the Violet Angel, Rafel, and the addition of the Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit, Saleen was surrounded by powerful beings. Hundreds of metal angels were also at the ready.


    Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit was floating at the highest floor of the Magical Element Tower. The space here had already expanded to a three-kilometer diameter. All 24 floors of the magical tower were flooded with elemental power.


    Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit might be the first god in history to operate a magical tower. The enchanters who were using the magic spells in the magics were akin to offering prayers to him. In that case, he would gain the power of faith and strengthen himself.


    Not even Saleen knew that his creation had already modified some rules atop the Myers Continent.


    Even if it was the level-18 mages at the beginning, none of them had been able to modify the rules of the ne. This pioneering innovation of Saleen¡¯s, which was considered worthy of inclusion in the history books of mages, would never fade away.


    The image of the Weapon¡¯s Spirit had also been changed. His body expanded continuously, with three heads and six arms. What flowed through his body was the purest elemental energy current that formed a magic robe.


    Each palm of his six hands held an item: potent elemental badges.


    These badges were held in the Weapon¡¯s Spirit¡¯s palms. They were different from Truman¡¯s elemental envoys. The badges of the six great elements did not store any elemental creatures inside. Rather, they were elemental angels. Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit was crafting angels to act as its private army.


    This was a god¡¯s instinct. Saleen didn¡¯t have to order the Weapon¡¯s Spirit, and the Weapon¡¯s Spirit would take care of these matters itself.


    Because it had six arms, the elemental magic robe looked bizarre. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit was supported by its two legs. Each head looked in one direction and kept watch over all positions in the entire Floating City. It was even continuously modifying the structure of Floating City¡¯s magic to allow the bottom part of Floating City, where the enchanters lived, to be retracted into the center. The entirety of Floating City¡¯s bottom part formed a construction resembling a castle fortress. These sharply pointed construction was also facing down.


    The ones who would ultimately live inside these constructions were the elemental angels.


    They were what the god could truly depend on. Thebat power of the enchanters was still not sufficient in the god¡¯s eyes.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s voice suddenly surfaced in Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Master, I too wish to be a god!¡±


    ¡°Not permitted.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Where will you find disciples?¡±


    ¡°There are the lightning warriors!¡±


    ¡°Those are mine.¡±


    ¡°Master, I too am your ve, bing a god...¡±


    ¡°Idiot, what¡¯s so great about bing a god? Look at me. I¡¯m just a lowly mage and I still take control of a god!¡±


    ¡°Master, I know that on the entire Myers Continent there is only one mage of your caliber.¡± The Violet Angel repeatedly harassed him with the expression of a child. The puppet was trying to curry favor with Saleen and get some benefits.


    ¡°You really want to be a god?¡± Saleen¡¯s heart was moved. Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit became a god but it didn¡¯t have much consciousness of its own. The Violet Angel did have some intelligence. After bing a god, it would have immense potential. The Violet Angel would also be within his control. It was just as Saleen he said: Even the puppet became a god, it would still be his ve.


    Toward the Violet Angel, Saleencked the same feelings he had for the Winged Skull or Nailisi. He felt the Violet Angel was an odious being.


    ¡°Yes, Master.¡±


    ¡°Alright then. Once you havepletely consumed the two oracles from the Holy See, I¡¯ll help you think of a way.¡±


    ¡°They are level-12 oracles that have emerged from the divine kingdom. If I consume them, I will be pursued and killed by the Lord of Glory.¡±


    Saleen smiled coldly and said, ¡°To be a god, don¡¯t you have to fork over some coins?


    ¡°But why did he...¡±


    The Violet Angel pointed at the highest floor of the Magical Element Tower. He saw that Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit seemed not to have paid any price.


    ¡°He¡¯ll never be unable to leave Floating City or the peak of the magical tower. That¡¯s the price of losing his freedom forever. You can still move about everywhere. Even if this Weapon¡¯s Spirit is destroyed, he can only die here.¡±


    The Violet Angel sucked in a mouthful of cold air. That¡¯s not what he wanted.


    ¡°You¡¯re in essence a demon, the strongest of the demons. If you be a god, your body wille to kill you without caring about anything else,¡± Saleen reminded the Violet Angel. This time, the Violet Angel was really scared.


    As to the Heretic God, his intelligence originated from a wisp of the Heretic God¡¯s soul. Thus, he was unable to change his feelings about or fear the Heretic God.


    ¡°Alright Master, I will still honestly...¡±


    ¡°Hmph.¡± Saleen didn¡¯t expose the Violet Angel¡¯s true face. It definitely wanted to gain freedom. It thought that after bing a god, it would be able to escape from Saleen¡¯s control.


    How could this be so easy? He had refined the Violet Angel. Although it was only experimental, the Violet Angel¡¯sbat abilities were all level-10. How could Saleen let this strange creature slip away? Further, he still wanted to search the Heretic God through the Violet Angel.


    The day woulde when the Heretic God would descend. This thing had not died and had even created many Angels of Fear. On the Myers Continent¡¯s ne, Saleen had seen three of them.


    The Heretic God wanted to invade this ce; Saleen could already confirm this.


    Fycro had probably also been subjected to the Heretic God¡¯s temptation. Otherwise, how could the purest Oracle in the Holy See even think about betraying the god?


    Unknowingly, Saleen¡¯s astrology had attained the status of being at the pinnacle of level-10. He was not too clear about this change. He had merely been using astrology frequently to do calctions and in the course of doing so had be better and better at it.


    The Violet Angel was not really serious about betraying Saleen. A living creature like it would have an endless desire to be a god. Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit had be one, and that had been a tremendous shock. Saleen had also considered giving it a piece of broken jade. By doing so, he would eternally be able to control the Violet Angel.


    Saleen, however, felt that the Violet Angel¡¯s potential for growth was too low and that he was unwilling to part from it.


    There were three pieces of broken jade. One piece had been given to the Lightning Constetion¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit, and one piece had been given to Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit. Within the third piece was still a third of the Giant Weapon¡¯s Spirit that had not gained consciousness. If he allowed the Violet Angel to consume it, Saleen believed that the Violet Angel could also be a level-13 pseudogod.


    This was Saleencking confidence in the secret technique he had studied. If he had known how terrifying and vile such methods of controlling others were in higher-grade Crystal Wall Systems, he would not have been so worried about this either.


    Unless he died, the Violet Angel would be his ve his entire life.


    Regarding the investigations into bing a god not beingplete, the Winged Skull also could not help but ask Saleen, ¡°Master, in the beginning...Gaine asked me if I wanted to be a god. I chose to reject him. What are the gods? To cause you to hate them so much.¡±


    ¡°Gods...I¡¯m not sure. Mages have also been researching this matter, but they have note to a firm conclusion. The treatment of many gods toward their disciples cannot be considered bad and they don¡¯t demand much. The existence of the gods, however, will cause the ne to be deste.¡±


    ¡°Then what about Floating City?¡±


    ¡°I suppose...the space within the broken jade is equivalent to that of a ne, at least in theory. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit has be a god and ignited his divine fire within it. It¡¯s impossible for it to prate the broken jade to affect Floating City. This level-13 Weapon¡¯s Spirit can only provide Floating City with the help of one at level-12. That¡¯s about it.¡±


    ¡°But Master, what if Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit advances, won¡¯t it...¡±


    ¡°You mean, will it betray me or not?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°There is a possibility, but even if it betrays me, I have the means to punish it. The rules of lightning should be the supreme rules of this ne. It¡¯s harder for gods to advance. At the very least, it¡¯s much slower than it is for humans. Once Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit advances, I estimate that I will already be a level-14 or level-15. Of course, that¡¯s if I live long enough.¡±


    ¡°I understand...¡± The Winged Skull¡¯s eyes shed. Within his two eyes, the blood-soul tower was still revolving. It purified the evil ck-colored weapon, causing tens of thousands of powerful souls to appear inside the blood-soul tower in its eyes. These were the spirits of demons it had absorbed.


    These demons now worshiped it within the blood-soul tower. If the Winged Skull was willing, it could also walk the path of bing a god. After listening to Saleen¡¯s intentions, Saleen still did not harbor any sanguine feelings toward the gods. The Winged Skull finally gave up and decided it would never choose this path.


    Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit maneuvered that gigantic city to fly east. Along the way, Saleen looked down and saw a phenomenon. The area controlled by the Principality of Bitterwater was all very normal, but once they had left its borders and arrived at the Qin Empire, ity in ruins.


    Most of the viges on the ground were devoid of people. The castles controlled by the minor aristocrats were also empty, and no stationed troops could be seen. Abandoned, derelict fields were everywhere the eye could see.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Saleen saw this scene and suddenly recalled that after Lex had headed to Holy Rock City, he hadn¡¯t received any news from her. Neither had he received anything about Holy Rock City where had some spies working for him. These people had been deeply concealed and would not eavesdrop on information that was concealed too secretly. However, he should have received reports of such an obvious change long ago!


    There was still a distance of less than 500 kilometers between Floating City and Holy Rock City, but Saleen couldn¡¯t take it anymore. He thought for a moment, called Eleanor and said, ¡°Take your flying troops and prepare to move out at any time. Let Qin be your assistant.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, J and Sul, Nichs, all of them are strong professionals. Don¡¯t worry about Lex,¡± Eleanor consoled Saleen.


    Saleen heaved a sigh but did not process Eleanor¡¯s words. His own power was bing stronger and stronger, but there would always be foes who made his life difficult. At the very least, there was no way for him to pursue the mages who had withdrawn from Alchemy City. There was also the bone dragon, as well as the powerful Heretic God in the abomination ne. Who knew what unprecedented event had urred in Holy Rock City that would cause no information to be transmitted at all? This didn¡¯t sound good.

 Chapter 1333: Doom of Holy Rock City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1333: Doom of Holy Rock City (Part 1)</h4>


    Eleanor had no way of consoling Saleen, so she went to gather the army. She did not control any armies, but as her status changed and came to possess the family badge of Metatrin, she no longer needed appointment tomand arge army.


    The flying army was none other than the bug angel army. Eleanor went to gather the bug angels and brought Qin the archer with her. They went below the Floating City and prepared to strike.


    Holy Rock City was incredibly sturdy. If the Floating City were to simply drop onto it, it would have ended up with both cities being severely damaged. As such, Saleen would not have done such a thing if there was no need for it. Mobilizing the bug angel army and working in conjunction with the magic above would have more than sufficed.


    The power of the Floating City was far stronger than it had been when attacking Alchemy City. A small number of enchanters were added to replenish the losses suffered from thest several battles.


    Other than the bug angel army, Saleen had Nailisi gathered her demon army, preparing to drop onto Holy Rock City and fight on the ground. What his astrology had not been able to calcte were troubles more difficult to deal with.


    It was fortunate that the ne rules on Myers Maind had not been too loose. Only one or two level 13 beings appeared at times. Even then, they were quickly suppressed to level 12.


    It was like how Fycro and Joey had both been level 10 professionals, yet both had been reluctant to haphazardly use any powerful skills. Doing so would have meant fighting against the rules of the ne.


    It was not until the rules of the ne loosened that people like Joey and Fycro were able to be like fish in water. Not even one out of 10 level 10 ones who advanced possessedbat capacity to fight the likes of Joey and Fycro.


    Jason was considered an exception. Every single advancement he achieved had been at a speed that Saleen was unable toprehend.


    The demon army of Nailisi was always maintained at 100,000 strong. Those demons formed the army that Nailisi painstakingly built. As long as the rule of power of demon ne loosened, the demons¡¯ rate of advancement would be extremely fast.


    For the time being, Nailisi had several hundred supreme demons under hermand. Ten of them, which served asmanders in the army, had reached level 10.


    Holy See¡¯s power might have seen a considerable spike after the rules loosened, but it was the same with Saleen¡¯s side. Due to calcting all of that, Saleen had been reluctant to put considerably more effort in nurturing the ancient warriors. He instead made the ancient warriors into a transitory force.


    The ancient warriors were unable to be replicated, and there were only tens of thousands of them. If Saleen had relied on the ancient warriors as his main force to conquer the world, he might have ended up dying of regret.


    After all, the most reliable thing in the world was still his own hands. It was an idiom among warriors, and it worked more or less the same for mages. Saleen had more faith in magic than he had in soldiers.


    The Floating City waspletely concealed within the clouds. There was lightning and thunder in the Floating City¡¯s cloud, but it was not as powerful as in nature. The power imbued within the lightning was very weak and could notst more than a single frame.


    Despite the lightning¡¯s weak power, any who attempted to probe the cloud using mental powers would be blocked off by the lightning. Thunder mimicked by the weapon spirit also posed a great threat to professionals below level 13.


    It was still fine probing the cloud using mental powers. In the case of beings like ghosts, they could use their soul powers to do so. They would end up being shaken to death by the weapon spirit¡¯s thunder.


    While the Floating City was enormous, no one was able to find out its true whereabouts from then on out. Nobody could simply check on any cloud they just happened to find above their heads. Lighting in nature was also very damaging to mental powers.


    The Floating City came above Holy Rock City in three hours. Dark clouds gathered, hiding The Floating City. Saleen began checking what was going on below.


    No one else would have dared to stay in the storm. Things were different with the Floating City. When lightning hit, it was absorbed and devoured by the magic power furnaces and converted into formidable power.


    The giant¡¯s bone crystals were the most concentrated form of earth element. Due to its vastness and thickness, the earth was capable of storing lightning. Many bolts of lightning in nature seeped into the earth.


    While the Floating City were only 36 miles in diameter, the amount of earth element within was more concentrated than that of a nation spanning over a thousand miles. However, the Floating City enchanters dared not probe things below. In such a thunderstorm, only Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning working in conjunction with his Element Eye was able to keep him from any harm while making observations.


    Saleen peered downward and saw many fractures on the city¡¯s body. Therge-scale magic equipment at the walls was scattered everywhere. There were no soldiers to pick them up.


    Sh*t!


    Saleen took one look at the city¡¯s edge and knew that Holy Rock City was doomed. The elemental storm raging at the royal pce at the city center was getting quelled, yet half of the pce was destroyed. There were dead bodies everywhere. Saleen even found an army of about 10,000-strong still holding on at the center of the pce.


    The army was d in royal swordsman garb. There were magical chariots in the army, and the mages riding them cast level 10 magic.


    The royal swordsmen¡¯s camp was surrounded by an army of hundreds of thousands. That other army was not only d in iron armor, but there were also images of huge faces on their armor.


    Abominated soldiers!


    Saleen felt something was off. He searched around but was unable to find Lex. J, Sul, and Nichs had not left any word behind.


    Has Lex left? Who are the royal swordsmen protecting?


    Saleen¡¯s judgment told him that as long as the emperor was still alive, Lex would not give up on his brother. She wanted him to live, even if it was just for a single day more.


    The army of royal swordsmen were able to take on powerful abominated soldiers, even when outnumbered. Saleen hesitated for a bit before giving an order.


    ¡°Isabe, take 20,000 bug angels with you and save the thousands of royal swordsmen down there,¡± he said. ¡°Eleanor, stay put for the moment and protect Isabe.¡±


    Saleen did not send Eleanor to the ground. Isabe might have only been level nine, but she was trained in both magic and martial arts. Not even golden grand swordmasters would be able to ambush her.


    Isabe acknowledged her orders and charged through the clouds with 20,000 bug angels. The Bug Angel Armor was specifically crafted for his own troops, giving them immunity to lightning damage. Lightning did not ur in such a concentrated manner in nature. As long as the armor worn was not made out of steel, they would not attract lightning attacks.


    Isabe rode on the Wings of an Elf and descended right on top of the pce with the bug angels.


    ¡°We are reinforcements from the Kingdom of Metatrin!¡± Isabe shouted using voice transmission magic.


    The thousands of royal swordsmen struggled to hold on. When they saw tens of thousands of bugsing their way in the rain, they thought the bugs had been reinforcements of the enemy. The royal swordsmen¡¯s morale rose after hearing the leading female warrior shout.


    Voom...


    More than 10,000 bug angels charged into the midst of the army of abominations. The abominated soldiers were unable to react in time. They were cut up by the Wind des generated by the bug angels¡¯ wings.


    The attack quickly swept aside thousands of abominated soldiers. The other 10,000 Bug Angel Warriors headed toward the royal swordsmen. The warriors were frightened and instinctively evaded. The Bug Angel Warriors, on the other hand, stopped right before them.


    Isabe shouted, ¡°We¡¯ll get you people up there. Leave the fighting to us!¡±


    The Bug Angel Warriors spread out their six legs and grabbed the soldiers from the royal swordsmen¡¯s camp, flying up when they were done.


    The abominated soldiers cut up by the Wind des were able to climb up again since their wounds quickly mended. Most of the troops were bisected or their heads were sent flying. They were unable to gain a whole form.


    Only the troops who hadplete bodies were able to grab weapons and retaliate. The Bug Angel Warriors unleashed Wind des again, slicing the barricade off.


    The thousands of royal swordsmen watched in fright as they were taken to the air. The thunder was shocking within the clouds. All of them were at least level five professionals and elite soldiers of Holy Rock City. There were even over 1,000 grand swordmasters-to-be among them, yet all of them looked ashen in the thunderstorm.


    It was not due to those soldiers having no guts. There was simply no one who was about to pass through a thunderstorm and not get frightened. Even beings as powerful as Saleen would have found it hard topose themselves flying in an environment like that, let alone the soldiers. At the very least, Saleen would have beenpletely safe flying in such environments. The bug angels, on the other hand, had to depend on luck.


    Their armor only ensured that they would not attract lightning. If they were to actually be coincidentally caught in the way of a lightning bolt, they would be instantly fried since there was no way their defensive parameters could resist the devastating power of natural lightning. If thunder were to happen right beside them, the shock would have reduced them to dust.


    Things had gotten tricky when escorting the mages. The mages who had been riding on the magic chariots refused to be escorted in flight by the Bug Angel Warriors. Isabe was forced to leave four Wings of an Elf behind and have the level 10 mages fly with them.


    Wings of an Elf was crafted using thundercloud wood. As long as they were not struck head on by lightning, the mages would be able to make it past the clouds.


    One young mage still refused to get on. That mage was a level nine sorcerer and shouted at Isabe, ¡°His Highness is still underground! Save him!¡±


    Isabe eyed the sorcerer coldly. That sorcerer returned the stare without the slightest hint of fear.


    ¡°Follow me up there and talk to my liege. I¡¯m not familiar with the underground, and I don¡¯t have what it takes to save him,¡± Isabe said as she waved at the sorcerer.


    The young sorcerer hesitated for a bit before stepping onto Isabe¡¯s Wings of an Elf. Both were capable of flight. If they were to leave the equipment, they would not have been able to pass through the clouds.


    The Bug Angel Warriors saved most of the royal swordsmen in mere moments, leaving four magic chariots and hundreds of dead bodies behind, as they made for the Floating City.


    Eleanor hovered in the rain. Her Wings of an Elf was the only true incarnation. Only elves were able to man it. Lightning shed around her, but she was not scared. She had guidance from Saleen regarding lightning rules, so she knew how to evade lightning in the rain.


    She held onto Seven Nights. The rain was unable totch onto her, forming a spherical dry area. Her elvish sight allowed her to see the ground clearly despite such a height.


    There were arge number of crawling monsters on the ground, scurrying about the city. There were monsters charging into buildings at the side of the road, where either sounds of battle or shrieks were heard.


    Eleanor fumed as she saw all of it, but she was unable to save anyone. There were simply too many monsters. The power of some of the monsters was probably on par with that of level nine humans. If she wanted to hunt them down, she would need to use powerful attacks. The stronger an attack, the fewer times it could have been used.

 Chapter 1334: Doom of Holy Rock City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1334: Doom of Holy Rock City (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen saw all of that while he was on the Floating City, but he was unable to spare any effort to save themon folk. His astrology reminded him that what was happening down there was but a game for the abominations.


    It had been quite a while that the ground of Holy Rock City had been taken. The abominations were taking their time killing people, baiting soldiers who were out to rescue them. The thousands of royal swordsmen had emerged from underground to rescue the people on top.


    However, it was a trap. The abominations trapped the royal swordsmen and took their time to slowly to torture their prey. If it had not been Saleen showing up, the warriors out to rescue the people above would have ended up all killed by the abominations.


    The level nine sorcerer was taken up to the Floating City by Isabe. The sorcerer met Saleen and spoke in a rather haughty tone, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, please act faster. The abominations are attacking the underground.


    Saleen was not angered. He said, ¡°The map of the underground city. Hand it over.¡±


    The sorcerer was dumbfounded and replied, ¡°That is the secret of Holy Rock City. I can¡¯t give it to you.¡±


    The people around Saleenughed at the same time. The young sorcerer was slightly irked. As he scanned the room, he quickly found that he was actually the least capable in the room in terms of powers.


    ¡°Your Highness, you and his majesty signed a secret treaty,¡± the young sorcerer said. ¡°Are you not trying to help at all?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here for Lex. You bbered a lot and never told me anything about Lex. If something were to happen to Lex, I¡¯d say to hell with whatever sh*tty treaty I signed. I¡¯d see to it that Holy Rock City getspletely obliterated.¡± Saleen used Thundering Shock as he said those words.


    The young sorcerer was sweating, and his hands and feet turned cold. It was something invoked by Saleen¡¯s powers not because the sorcerer was weak.


    The sorcerer was affected by the shocking skill and had no choice but to bear with it and say, ¡°I apologize, your Highness. I only have less than 1 percent of the entire map of the underground city with me. Her Highness Lex definitely has more. She is now at the depths of the underground city and won¡¯t be engaging the enemy for the time being. I¡¯m unable to tell her specific location.¡±


    ¡°Out with the map you have then,¡± Saleen ordered.


    ¡°Indeed.¡± The sorcerer was rather dazed as he magically drew the map on the magic paper that Saleen handed to him.


    It was only after he was done that he realized he had leaked the secret of the underground city. Then again, the sorcerer was not an idiot. He quickly realized that Lex had withheld information regarding the underground city from Saleen because she had no intentions of bing empress.


    Everyone knew that Lex intended to take the throne. Saleen would be a prince of sorts. It was not wrong to tell him about the underground city. As long as Saleen kept quiet about it, no punishment woulde to him.


    He thought, Even if Saleen were to say it, is Lex really going to punish me for it?


    The sorcerer stood there thinking. All of his previous haughtiness was nowhere to be seen. He stood there looking rather awkward.


    Saleen warmly said, ¡°I take it that no harm came to you. If you¡¯re indeed unharmed,e with me to the underground city.¡±


    ¡°Are you going down there yourself, your Highness?¡± The sorcerer grew anxious.


    Saleen was going to be the future empress¡¯s husband. If he were to end up dead, there would be no way for the sorcerer to settle the matter with Lex.


    ¡°Rx, I can handle things. Let¡¯s go,¡± Saleen confidently said.


    He handed the Floating City to the water puppet and Sika. Saleen left Sika out that time since the underground city was dangerous and most of her movement skills relied on her beasts. If the underground turned out to be a tight ce, it would be difficult for her huge beasts to maneuver.


    Saleen brought Nailisi, the Winged Skull, Rafel, and four level 10 mage trainers, as well as 400 metal angels and 3,000 Bug Angel Warriors. They flew down from the Floating City to Holy Rock City.


    Eleanor was still high up in the air.


    As Saleen passed by, he said, ¡°Eleanor, regardless of what happens down there, unless level 10 professionals show up, stay out of the fight and let the Bug Angel Warriors take care of things.¡±


    Eleanor nodded as Saleen headed straight for the ground.


    Holy Rock City had only been around for a little more than 1,000 years, yet the construction of the entire city took several hundred years. The outer walls showed signs of self-repair after they were taken down. The location Saleen was heading toward was at a huge royalpound right behind the royal pce.


    There was a man-madeke at the royalpound and a small ind on theke with surface areas spanning only several hundred square meters. There had been a magic tower on the ind, which had been toppled.


    ¡°There is an entrance to the underground city right below the magic tower,¡± the sorcerer said as he pointed at the broken tower.


    Saleen nodded and had the Bug Angel Warriors guard the ce after theynded. He unleashed several star figures on the spot, instructing them to rebuild the magic tower.


    Huge elemental creatures were summoned by Saleen. He told them to hold the broken half of the tower steady. Level 10 Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were twice as tall as the tower they were fixing.


    Suddenly, hundreds of monsters emerged from theke.


    ¡°Abomination crawlers!¡± the young sorcerer yelled.


    ¡°Abomination crawlers?¡± Saleen looked at the monsters and cast apound magic spell.


    Thousands of icicles fell from the sky, instantly tearing more than 300 abomination crawlers to shreds. The wounds of the hit abomination crawlers froze over, yet they seemed to show signs of burning. Their powerful self-healing abilities were not enough to allow them to stand up. They all were quickly submerged into theke.


    The remaining abomination crawlers showed no fear as they charged at the ind. The Bug Angel Warriors took them on and both sides quickly tore at each other.


    The sorcerer felt the battle looked rather obnoxious. His throat felt dry. It was not that he had never fought any battles. He went to the Tanggsi Empire when he was at level seven, hunting down several holy masters in secret. He had even participated in the Battle of Daliang City when he was at level nine.


    The battle right in front of him looked more bloody than any he had participated in before. Both sides were incredibly resilient creatures. Imps and demons had formidable healing powers, and the Bug Angel Armors were capable of self-healing.


    Like the abomination crawlers, the Bug Angel Warriors were very hard to kill. The abomination crawlers had sharp ws, which had a sharpness level surpassing most magical arms. It was a pity that their ws lost all of that as soon as they died.


    The magic tower was quickly straightened up and patched. The repair took less than 20 seconds when Saleen used his Water me Alchemy. He moved on to restore the magic arrays of the magic tower.


    The young sorcerer looked on in awe. That was no longer the ability of a level 10 mage. While level 10 mages were capable of building a magic towerpletely on their own, there was no way they could have finished constructing it so quickly. He came to regret being so rude to Saleen earlier. The habit of a royal mage was hard to kick at times.


    Saleen brought his men into the tower after fixing it. He told the bug angels to guard the tower outside and left two level 10 mages in charge. The two level 10 mages worked well with the Bug Angel Warriors after the tower was restored. They managed to somehow keep the abomination crawlers from getting onto the ind.


    There were no magic arrays at the underside of the tower. Instead, it had a straight passage. They walked down the steps and passed by several broken magic doors beforeing to the first floor of the underground city.


    They were more than 984 feet below the surface. The depth of the man-madeke was around a few dozens of feet. They had only reached the first level of the underground city. When they passed ayer of rocks, Saleen was able to see underground rivers flowing by.


    He had no concerns of being ambushed with Rafel at his side. He cast Fluorescence in the dark, shining light for hundreds of feet. They were at a hall. There were a few bodies. Saleen discovered that none of the bodies were in a single piece. All of them showed signs of being bitten and chewed on.


    Those damned abominations are eating people!


    Demons ate humans, but they did it just like how humans ate. It was not due to preference but sheer hunger. There were few things that demons did not eat. If it was necessary to stay alive, demons would even eat their own kind. Those abominations, on the other hand, had been eating people solely due to their savagery.


    Saleen turned his eyes away from the harrowing scene and returned to being a pure mage with no emotions. He began to analyze the battle that had been fought.


    ¡°There,¡± he pointed and said.


    All signs were revealed by his Elemental Eye. There had been intense battles fought. The abominations barged in from the passage outside and met resistance in the hall. The fighting likely continued for over an hour before the human soldiers retreated.


    ¡°Your Highness, wrong direction,¡± the sorcerer said.


    ¡°Juste with me.¡± Saleen cast a blob of starlight from his finger. He came before a small hole under the starlight¡¯s guidance.


    The hole was on the ground. The edges were stained with the unique aura of the abominations. The bloodstains were apparent. The stench was unmistakable.


    Rafel leapt inside without waiting for Saleen¡¯s orders. She dived head first. The purplence was no longer seen on her hand. While Saleen had crafted weapons and equipment for her, she still preferred her own weapon.


    ¡°Bones, take the rear!¡± Nailisi shouted as she dove inside with Rafel.


    She was concerned for Saleen. Rather, she was concerned about Rafel. Who knows if that angel will betray master. Only I and the Winged Skull are the loyal ones here.


    Saleen called for the sorcerer, who exasperatedly followed behind him and leapt into the hole. Ayer of red glitter appeared on his body. It was Fire Washing, a low-level fire elemental spell.


    The sorcererbined the spell with Fire Ring of Resistance capable of sensing friend or foe. Once the user was attacked, the Fire Washing was converted into defensive fire magic.


    Fire Washing was a detoxification skill on its own and had some dispelling abilities. The sorcerer¡¯s techniques were considered rather mature. Saleen saw all that and knew that the young mage would not hold him back. It was a fact that he found ratherforting. If all royal mages were of such caliber, it would take considerable time before the underground city became overrun.


    The Winged Skull took the metal angels into the hole after the sorcerer. The hole was dug by the abominations. It was so wide that even the bug angels were able to get in.


    However, there was too much secretion from the abominations on the walls. If humans were to touch the secretion, no professional below level seven would be able to withstand it. They even posed a danger to those above level seven.


    It was fortunate that none at Saleen¡¯s side were afraid of such contaminating substances. It was impossible to abominate the metal angels. There was a god in the Floating City, and the metal angels have all converted to the faith of the God of Magic Net.

 Chapter 1335: Safilos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1335: Safilos (Part 1)</h4>


    Angels were capable of resurrection, but the ones who lost their gods would have found it difficult to resurrect as there was nowhere for them to be resurrected to if their divine kingdom crumbled.


    The Winged Skull summoned his six jade skeletons nonchntly. When the jade skeletons touched the stains left by the abominations on the walls, their crystal-like bones were quickly dirtied and became rotten. Green light shot from the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes and cleaned up the jade skeletons. The jade skeletons had very high spirit levels, so it would have taken much more time than that for them to be fully abominated. The Winged Skull¡¯s cleaning was meant only for their exterior bodies. After the six jade skeletons were quickly cleaned, the Winged Skull sent them back to their spirit space.


    The cleaned skeletons had now be resistant to staining by the evil aura. The experiment had been a sess. The Winged Skull followed the party into the rear of the vast space, scanning the ce with the Eye of the Dea. The hole was several hundred yards deep. Rafel was the first tond inside the hole. Her red spear stabbed one of the soldiers who was the source of the abomination. The soldier¡¯s garb described him as once a member of Holy Rock City¡¯s regr army, instead of a member of the royal swordsmen.


    Nailisi and Saleen quickly descended to the second level. Saleen pointed at the floating starlight around and said to Rafel, ¡°Follow the starlight.¡±


    Rafel did not question him. She simply nodded in acknowledgment. She took the lead and thrust her spear around, killing all the abominations who pounced from the dark. There did not seem to be anything peculiar about her spear, but any abomination that was attacked, regardless of the part of the body stabbed, would end up dead right there and then.


    Saleen thought for a bit and then conjured a blob of Restorative Water in his hand. The amount that he was able to create in one go was a bucketful. He did not wait for the magic of the Restorative Water in his hand to settle, before turning the water into an Ice de. It was a spell that he rarely used. Ice des were more powerful than Wind des, but they were slower. He threw the three-yard-long, full-moon-shaped Ice de. The de was so huge that it ended up annihting any abominations that it met, flying for several hundred yards before disappearing into the dark. The abominations that were hit by the Ice de did not have any liquids flowing out of their wounds, as they were frozen. There wereyers of dust underneath the wounds, because, when the dead body hit the ground and theyer of ice shattered, the dust billowed out. However, no evil aura could be felt from it.


    One Ice de was more than enough for purification to kick in. While the cleaning was not thorough, it gave the abominations no chance of resurrection. It pleased Saleen that a level-one Restorative Water had been able to do so much damage to the abominations. However, such conversion abilities could have only been mastered by a sorcerer. It would have proven difficult formon mages to do the same thing. Connecting two different types of magic required repeated practice, unless the one performing the connection was a level-ten mage, who hade to master maniption of the elements so well that it had almost be instinctual. Saleen had been able to learn things from this experience, enabling him to create powerful alchemical equipment that would prove very lethal to abominations. It would suffice to coat alchemical arrows with magic liquid to deal devastating damage to high-level abominations. Things with healing properties would also have acted like poison to the abominations.


    A starline paper appeared in his hand at that thought. He drew an alchemy schematic on it using magic and only stopped after drawing about 100 copies.


    ¡°Rafel.¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Select 100 metal angels and send these schematics back. Have the Floating City experiment with every single one of them and choose the cheapest solution avable. After that, craft the weapons for dealing with the abominations.¡±


    Rafel obeyed immediately and called the metal angels to her side, selecting 100 of them, and then she sent them off to the Floating City with the schematics. After that was all taken care of, Saleen continued to have Rafel lead the way as they moved to the outer reaches of the underground city.


    These underground sections of Metatrin City had only very small living spaces, as the area was extremely limited at the very center of the city. All underground facilities surrounding the temple and the outer reaches of the city were warehouses or drainage systems. No ces for prolonged residential purposes were avable in such areas.


    The underground sections of Holy Rock City looked like a huge cave, with tall buildings all around and a dome that was nearly 100 yards high embedded with glittering gems, which made the ce look extravagant. The underground sections had originally been sealed. When the city was built all those years ago, Holy Rock City was threatened by the Holy See. Because of this, the underground sections had been made enormous, enough to amodate about 1 million troops and enable long-term concealment.


    The starlight seemed to be hovering about aimlessly, looking very eye-catching in the dark. Rafel was rather intrigued. Saleen¡¯s skills were trulyplex, unlike the oracles, whose skills were set in stone. Advancing in levels allowed for discovery of new skills, yet they were incapable of creating new skills themselves.


    The starlight continued to hover in the dark. Rafel stabbed any abomination that showed up before her without missing a single one. Nailisi saw that andshed out with her spear as well. However, her thrust resulted in all six eyes of Grey Memory opening at the same time, which in turn resulted in a powerful suction force. One of the abominations before her was stabbed and all the evil energies in it was sucked dry, leaving behind a dried husk. Nailisi was ted. The six eyes of Grey Memory had never been able to be enhanced. Every single use cost her energy. As such, despite the spear¡¯s power, Nailisi never liked using the special skills imbued with it. At present, the six eyes of Grey Memory was able to absorb the energies of the abominations, and, furthermore, the weapon was lethal to them. Nailisi was almost able to hear the six eyes squeal in joy.


    ¡°Rafel, let Nailisi take the lead,¡± Saleen said.


    Rafel pouted. That was a very human-like action, and even she did not realize that she was doing it. As an oracle, it was possible that it was her first time doing something like that.


    Nailisi happily walked up in front of Rafel and began to thrust at the abominations emerging from the dark with the Grey Memory. The number of abominations were low. The path chosen by the hovering starlight never had much danger in it. To Saleen and the others, the abomination troops were simply too weak.


    They continued moving forward for more than three miles, passing through tens of passages and several huge spaces, before hearing fighting noises ahead of them. Things were no longer dark, and there was light from fires shining before them. The temperature rose abruptly. Saleen cast Water me without a care. The Water me¡¯s temperature was frighteningly low. If it happened to touch a human¡¯s body, it would have immediately frozen it and reduced that part to dust. The surrounding temperatures normalized immediately after the Water me was cast. The proficiency with which Saleen was keeping the temperature steady made him one of the best to be found on Myers Maind.


    There was a space of about 600 cubic yards ahead of them. There were abominations dropping from above ceaselessly, attacking a tform. There were more than 1,000 human soldiers on that tform and hundreds of mages holding the line there. There was a pir reaching the dome built on the tform, yet the abominations dropping from above were still unable tond on the tform. There wereyers of magic light on the tform. The abominations jumped on them and slid down instead.


    Saleen was able to see it clearly. It was not that the abominations were unable to prate the barrier of light, but that there was a powerful magic array set within the light, causing the abominations to hallucinate and change course. That formidable mental power magic, when used in tandem with illusions, created the firstyer of protection. There were some powerful abominations prating into the barrier of light at times, and they were quickly met with high-level magic attacks.


    Saleen was perceptive enough to see that at a narrow part of that tform, there was a figure swinging his sword and cutting down an abomination who was over a dozen yards tall. That figure was none other than Safilos. Safilos held a curved, long sword. He stood at about six feet tall, yet his sword was over nine feet long. The sword coursed with purple light, which looked as gentle as a water element yet was filled with power. Four level-ten mage trainers were at Safilos¡¯s side, fighting in sync with him.


    A huge door was behind Safilos, which led to the third level below ground. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye allowed him to see the stains on the ground. Safilos had probably killed a good number of abominations on his way to retreat there.


    Safilos saw Saleen from afar as well. He was stunned for a bit before shouting, ¡°Saleen, get over here!¡±


    Saleen smiled. Safilos¡¯s powers were indeed terrifying. That level-nine abomination was utterly incapable of defending against his sword attacks. If Saleen were to kill level-nine abominations, it would have definitely been an easy job as well, but that had only been possible after finding out the right way to do it. He needed to use Ice des using magic liquid. Level-nine abominations would have had utterly no way of restoring the damage sustained as soon as they were hit by Saleen¡¯s Ice de.


    The abominations heard Safilos and several hundred abominations rushed at Saleen. Nailisi and Rafel rushed to the forefront and took on the abominations, leaving only a narrow passage behind. Nailisi and Rafel then stabbed the abominations dead without a care.


    A huge rumble continued to be heard. Those were the sounds of the abominations shing with the metal angels head on. The metal angels looked battered and bruised in no time. However, like the abominations, the metal angels¡¯ bodies quickly recovered when they were hit by the weapons. The weapon spirit at the Floating City provided the metal angels with power. Despite a level-13 god only being a pseudo-god, he was nheless able to make the hundreds of metal angels into indestructible monsters.


    Rafel sighed and did not charge forth to help the metal angels. A power of faith emanated from the metal angels¡¯ bodies. That was the sign of them praying to the god at the Floating City, in order to acquire greaterbat capacity. They were level- ten creatures themselves and were one level higher than the abominations. Those metal angels were only injured, and they were unable to be killed. Rafel had no problem letting Saleen take charge of the metal angels, so long as he was able to keep them alive. They were converted to the faith of another god after all.


    Rafel¡¯s heart ached a bit at that thought. Since when did I get so indifferent about faith? Despite the fact that the god she embraced was dead, she should have still had some bit of sadness in her.


    ¡°Prince Safilos, no need to hurry. I¡¯m here to help after all,¡± Saleen said and conjured a huge water bubble in his hand. That was the Water Shield that had not been modified much. However, there were threeyers to it, with one being imbued with lightning patterns, oneyer infused with Restorative Water, and yet anotheryer infused with magic liquid. The water bubble shot into the air and plugged the hole at the second level dome.

 Chapter 1336: Safilos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1336: Safilos (Part 2)</h4>


    The hole was plugged by the Water Shield, yet there were still abominations crashing down on it. The Water Shield was capable of repelling both physical and energy attacks, but, if one were to simply reach into the spell slowly, one could actually pass through it. However, the abominations would have had to pay a huge price for doing so.


    The threeyered Water Shield was actually hardly higher than a oneyered Water Shield in terms of defense. The additionalyers required careful calctions to avoid adversely affecting each other. Saleen cast the spell after doing some rough calctions. The key to using such a spell correctly relied on lightning patterns, restorative water, and magic liquid to damage abominations.


    All of the abominations that managed to make it through that ball of water emerged smoking and rotting all over. Some abominations even had half of the horns on their heads melted, with ck smoke puffing out of the stubs. They were originally supposed to dive straight below, but, halfway through, they were already in a shambles, falling here and there without any order.


    One Water Shield proved more than enough to plug the main passage from which the abominations were attacking. The four level-ten mage trainers at Safilos¡¯s side looked in awe at Saleen. While they were incapable of that very skill that Saleen had just pulled off, all four of them had just cast a huge Water Shield after much discussion among themselves. Their spell was in the usual shield shape instead of shaped like a water bubble. That Water Shield was a product of all four of them joining hands. Saleen was very impressed, thinking that all four of them had probably been learning magic together all their lives. The way the four of them worked made it look as if they were one creature with four brains. Safilos¡¯s mages are indeed impressive in their own right.


    However, all four of the mages miscalcted nheless. They were anticipating the breakage of Saleen¡¯s Water Shield soon, which was why they did what they did. Normal Water Shields were something that could only have been quickly cast in water and were utterly incapable of being cast instantly in air. All four powerful mages were calcting the time of Saleen¡¯s Water Shield falling apart, which they would then patch with the one they had cast.


    However, Saleen¡¯s Water Shield remained intact and was plugging the hole securely still, making the hole very difficult for the abominations to pass through, when their spell waspleted. What made it even more awkward for the four mages was that Saleen brought his people charging at the tform, killing abominations along the way as they made it below the tform. Their Water Shield ended up breaking, yet Saleen¡¯s bubble still remained plugged at the passage, blocking the abominations¡¯ way. Saleen¡¯s spell stayed intact for more than three minutes. That would have been nothing worth mentioning, if it had not been for the fact that there were already hundreds of abominations forcing themselves through the Water Shield, and the spell had to spend a certain amount of energy to deal with the passing abominations.


    There were some rules that couldn¡¯t be circumvented, and that meant that Saleen¡¯s Water Shield surpassed the spell that the four of them conjured in terms of amount of energy stored within.


    Saleen brought his people up to the tform and the four mage trainers caught sight of the ck ring behind Saleen, which spooked them severely.


    ¡°A magic amplifier!¡±


    ¡°Yes, a magic amplifier indeed,¡± Saleen replied with a smile. It was only then that he came to realize how important that magic amplifier had been to him. The duration and strength of his Water Shield were 24 times what it should have been. Such enhancement to supportive or defensive magic robbed Saleen of his ability to calcte the actual margin by which hisbat capacity had been enhanced.


    ¡°Prince Safilos,¡± Saleen smiled and greeted Safilos. The powerful one from the Grukos was eyeing him as well.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen.¡±


    ¡°What happened here? How did Holy Rock City get run over?¡±


    Sigh. Safilos sighed and said, ¡°Spies. They broke the magic amplifier and created a space fissure, opening a portal connecting to the abomination ne right here.¡±


    ¡°Spies?¡± Saleen felt something was off. There would never have been any spies among the mages of the Grukos, as there was simply no reason for any of them to be one. Royal mages received far better treatment than the ones in Metatrin City, and they were probably treated just as well as Saleen¡¯s own followers.


    Safilos looked rather troubled, but he continued nheless, ¡°Shapeshifting. Some from Alchemy City disguised themselves as royal mages.¡±


    Alchemy City! Saleen had some regrets upon hearing that name. He should have gone after those people instead of letting them off. The skeletal dragon might have just let him off after all. ¡°Where is Lex?¡± Saleen brought up a name that Safilos was most reluctant to hear.


    However, given that Holy Rock City was about to be doomed, Safilos put aside the matter of prophecies and told Saleen right away, ¡°She is behind that door in back of me. His majesty is there as well.¡±


    ¡°Should I help you defend the ce, or should I go to check on them first?¡± Saleen asked in a rather discreet manner.


    ¡°No need to hurry. We can hold the line here for the time being. How many have you brought with you?¡±


    Saleen pointed at the hole in the dome. Lightning Constetion was cast, plugging the hole, and lightning warriors pounced from within, duking it out with the thousands of abominations below. ¡°I have tens of thousands. Should be enough to keep this ce defended,¡± Saleen said as he looked at Safilos.


    ¡°Very well, Saleen, your current powers are adequate to make you a king, one capable of taking on any enemies to boot. I don¡¯t need to fight for the throne, but if Lex intends to take it, his majesty cannot be killed. Check the level below and protect his majesty.¡± Cold light seemed to have emanated from Safilos¡¯s eyes, as if he were trying to cut Saleen apart.


    Lex¡¯s little brother, his majesty Ojarvis, was already in a critical condition. However, that condition could mean that he was ready to pass at any given moment or maybest for several days more or even several months more. If the emperor ended up being killed by the abominations, then it would have been rather troublesome for a viscount to seed to the throne. Safilos was not duping Saleen; that was how the rules of Qin were.


    Saleen could have of course simply ignored the rules. However, if he were to do so, someone could have used that in the future to doubt the legitimacy of both Saleen and Lex. The people of Golden ins would not have taken something like that well. If they intended to take Qin in a secure manner, they had to follow the rules. Or else, even Arb would have turnedpletely against them.


    Saleen never expected Safilos to say those words. It actually put him at ease, as Saleen only needed to protect the emperor until he died a natural death, then Safilos would not haveid any further obstacles for Lex. Saleen took a deep breath and called for the Winged Skull. ¡°Keep this ce defended with the prince. If things are about to give, you have permission to rescind the Lightning Constetion. After Saleen was finished giving orders to the Winged Skull, he took a bunch of scrolls from his ring and four shards of divine crystal, distributing them to the mages serving Safilos. ¡°A greeting gift, if you would.¡±


    All four of those mages were thoroughly impressed by Saleen¡¯s skills. They did not feel Saleen¡¯s actions to be rude. The attack from the abominations seemed endless, and there was no telling how long they would have been required to hold the line. As such, all four mages thanked him and took his gift. By taking Saleen¡¯s gift, the mages werepelled to at least try to avoid confronting him head on, if they were to have a conflict of interest in the future, unless Saleen intended to kill Safilos.


    The Winged Skull pushed his visor up and smiled at Safilos. His bony features made the smile look rather eerie. ¡°Prince Safilos, tell your troops to retreat. I shall arrange for spirits to help with the defense.¡±


    An intelligent spirit! Safilos came to be envious of Saleen at this moment. It was a powerful skeleton and having one such being serving them had been a dream of countless mages. Even truly mighty beings would have been envious of one such intelligent spirit.


    Safilos let Saleen enter the door behind him. Saleen took hundreds of metal angels with him, and Rafel took one look at Safilos. The prince felt shivers running over him with just one look from her golden eyes. Rafel disappeared behind the door and the Winged Skull called, ¡°Prince Safilos, I think it is best to tell your men to pull back a little. If they were to keep holding the line, casualties will result sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Safilos felt rather dazed. Rafel had left a powerful impression on his mind when she made a move, rendering him restless.


    There was a tform behind that door and wide steps were at the front of the tform. The steps were apparently made forrge-scale puppets, and there were smaller steps at the side, which were made for human use. Hundreds of mages were busy below the steps, putting togetherrge-scale puppets. Saleen saw the puppets still being assembled, but it was almost finished. Complex crystalline structures were embedded on the puppets¡¯ heads. While it was nothing as high-level aspound eyes, the structure had a very low fuel cost. Saleen found its cylindrical head looking rather ugly, but the ck gem that was embedded between the crystals and the magic array etched into it nheless shocked Saleen quite a bit.


    The mages of Holy Rock City had developed Death Ray magic arrays! Death Ray was also an instant death spell. Its sess depended entirely on luck. Mages found it difficult to transfer the spell to a magic array, making it necessary for humans to cast the spell. However, at present, thatrge-scale puppet actually became capable of firing a Death Ray. Even if the rate of sess were only 1 percent, it would have nheless proved terrifying. Just like how it was with Saleen¡¯s Floating City, where the level-nine magic spells cast by enchanters would have never been as powerful as those cast by mages, but Saleen would not have been able to defend against thousands, even tens of thousands, of enchanters attacking together.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen!¡± A mage walked up to him. That mage was a familiar face. Saleen had met him once in the royal ce, but Saleen did not know his name. ¡°The name¡¯s Dumont.¡± That level-ten mage greeted Saleen amicably. Saleen did not realize that he had been seeing level-ten professionals more often than he had been seeing level-nine ones in the past. However, he was at the moment at thest line of defense of Holy Rock City. Saleen would not have found anything out of ce even if he were to have seen level-11 mages here.


    ¡°Greetings, Master Dumont,¡± Saleen nodded. Dumont looked at Nailisi and Rafel at Saleen¡¯s side, and he was impressed as well. Saleen frowned and took a look at Rafel, who smiled at Saleen, wondering why Saleen was not happy that she was being nice to others. She failed to remember that as a level-13 perfect being, her charm was off the charts. Safilos had been almost swept off his feet with just one look from her.


    Safilos came to his senses on the other side of the door. He was still thoroughly shocked. That golden-eyed woman had managed to tug at his heartstrings using some eerie skills. This is bad! Safilos swung his purple long de at that thought. His long hair billowed as he moved. A deathly aura emanated from his greyish-silver hair. That was the pure power of death. It was only when he waspletely wrapped in said power of death that his grey eyes were restored to their usual state of calm.

 Chapter 1337: Rafel’s Naivety (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1337: Rafel¡¯s Naivety (Part 1)</h4>


    The Winged Skull looked at Safilos in shock. The power exuding from this human was even more peculiar than that of the spirits. While the power of death emanated from the spirits, as indeed per its namesake, their power nheless had a tinge of resurrection in it. Spirits were another form of being of the soul,tching onto bony remains, and caught between life and death.


    Safilos¡¯s power, on the contrary, was purely that of death.


    Safilosunched himself high in the air. Saleen¡¯s Water Shield was still intact, but there were already powerful abominations forcing their way through it. One abomination had two horns that were about half a yard in length and were covered by silver armor. A fiendish face wiggled on that armor, resisting corrosion from the Water Shield.


    Pfft!...


    Safilos¡¯s purple de stabbed into the abdominal area of that abomination. It had thrown a punch at Safilos, who responded by pulling out his de. The abomination¡¯s life force was drained away as the de was being pulled from it. That was not the end of it. Safilos charged inside the Water Shield, his purple de bing wrapped in ayer of sword aura that prevented the deathly aura from the de from shing with the energies of the Water Shield.


    Safilos went up to one level above where he had been in the underground city after forcing his way through the Water Shield. Everyone below was watching with mouths agape. The Water Shield insted the sound from the other side. It was not until nearly 15 minutester that Safilos emerged from the other side of the bubble, looking calm andposed. His de had been returned to its scabbard, which was hanging on his back. However, the four mage trainers who served Safilos knew that Safilos had almost gone out of control earlier. The secret art he trained in cost him in a most dire way.


    .....


    On the other side of the door, Dumont borated on the fighting at the underground city for Saleen. Despite the underground city having been overrun, the abominations were still unable to traverse the different regions as they pleased. Every time the abominations entered a region, they were confronted with a stiff resistance and had to pay a hefty toll. Nheless, their spies had already given them very clear ns of theyout of the ce. The abominations had nevertheless chosen to attack using sheer brute force&mdash;excavating tunnels at the floor of the city. The ground where the underground city of Holy Rock City was constructed had a hardness surpassing that of Alchemy City. It was literally suicide for the abominations to think they were going to be able to bore holes in this ground. One abomination after another had their heads cut off, their blood seeping into the ground and corroding it bit by bit.


    Although there were indeed severalyers of magical defensesid out in the underground city, there was no means of defending against such attacks. Thest line of defense was that magic door that Saleen hade in through. They were then at the very core of the underground city. The ce was only about a mile in radius, and getting inside required getting through the magic door. Anyone could have attacked from any direction or angle, and things would have remained as such.


    Safilos stood guard outside while the royal mages assembled therge-scalebat puppet inside. This puppet differed from any other puppetry that hade before. Therge-scale puppet was something summoned from the puppet ne, which was then modified to give it formidablebat prowess. When the assembly waspleted, the mages would then be able to enter the puppet¡¯s body, effectively making it a moving magic tower. The puppet was powered using magic nuclei. The royal mages of Holy Rock City had moved huge amounts of magic nuclei from the warehouse there, enabling the puppet limitless capacity for casting magic. As soon as the assembly of the puppet waspleted, Holy Rock City would no longer need to be afraid of the abomination attacks.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you people put this thing together sooner?¡± Nailisi was unable to help but ask.


    Dumont dared not underestimate the woman before him. He was perceptive enough to see that Nailisi was of a caliber on a par with his own.


    ¡°The puppet is too dangerous. The equipment for controlling it has always been in his majesty¡¯s hand, but his majesty...¡±


    Saleen understood. Such a powerful puppet was definitely something beyond level ten. However, Ojarvis was of themon folk, and he was near death as they spoke. There was no way he could have controlled the puppet. The mages have assembled the puppet, and Lex would probably be the one to activate it. Lex had ample mental powers for such a task, but there was no telling if she would have been able to control the thing.


    It was no wonder that the puppet had a magic array for casting instant death magic. That was not a product of the mages¡¯ research, but an innate skill of its being. The puppet lived by eating magic nuclei, making it resemble mechanical souls, which meant that it was not a good thing to keep around.


    Saleen thought for a bit and took out a level-13 magic nucleus and handed it to Dumont. ¡°Take this and feed it to the puppet. It shouldst for quite some time.¡±


    Dumont took the magic nucleus without hesitation and handed it to a mage behind him. That magic nucleus had a narrow space within it, housing a turtle shell that Saleen had crafted, which in turn carried a powerful secret skill for controlling souls. Saleen had originally prepared that for dealing with dragons. He had already nned on purchasing a set of coordinates leading to the dragon ne for hunting dragons himself at ater date. Only dragon crystals would have been of help for his magic perpetual-motion engine. The army of puppets acquired at Alchemy City enabled Saleen¡¯s research to progress rather well. Saleen crafted quite a lot of things like that. Dragons loved eating magic nuclei, but they had no interest in low-level ones. That magic nucleus, which was above level 12, would prove irresistible for dragons.


    Saleen would have liked to control that peculiar puppet if possible. If he could unlock the secrets of the instant death magic patterns and magic array schematics of the puppet, he would be able to create powerful traps. Even if he were to not use something like that for traps, he could have nheless added much magic to the magic. The magic had originally been a tool for casting elemental magic. If he was able to create a magic array out of it and incorporate the magic array into the magic, the enchanters would have then only needed to activate the magic array to cast the Death Ray. That spell was not a very high level one and could have been used at level seven. There was no way a target could have resisted being bombarded by up to 10,000 beams, regardless of how lucky the target was. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s Floating City could eventually house 3 million and 600,000 enchanters. Saleen did not think for one second that there could have been anyone who would have been able to escape bombardment from 3 million and 600,000 beams of the Death Ray. There were some powerful beings that proved nearly impossible to take on using elemental magic. That instant death magic spell was something that resembled divine arts and witchcraft&mdash;a skill developed by mages through learning the arts of other professionals.


    Afterying a trap, Saleen followed Dumont and left the za that was used to assemble the puppet. The core of the undergroundy right behind the za, which was a huge cube-like building. The building had 18 floors. A window was found every six yards.


    ¡°The magic cube. Something built over 1,000 years ago.¡±


    A magic cube! Saleen looked at the building and realized that he had thought too highly of himself. The construction of this magic cube would not have been any easier than the Floating City. Only in an environment where the elements were in bnce, enabling multiple magic arrays to beid out all around, could there have been a slight chance for such a peculiar building to be built. The mages could have appeared in any of the windows within the magic cube to attack anything outside, yet no one outside would have been able to attack the mages inside the cube. Saleen saw the tightly packed windows on that huge building and thought it would have been difficult to locate the mages in such a setup. It would have been something possible only due to sheer luck. To the mages, being in the cube alone almost meant that they were undefeatable.


    The only weakness to the magic cube was that as soon as it was in operation, there was almost no stopping it. The theory of the magic cube was never trulypleted. It was a concept proposed by a genius mage many years ago and worked on by countless mages who came after. The craft had run through countless trial-and-error runs for more than 10,000 years, and it was something that never truly got past the development stage.


    While Saleen¡¯s Floating City was indeed powerful, the Sky Cities in ancient times had been over 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 times more powerful.


    ¡°Lex is here?¡± Saleen asked Dumont.


    ¡°Indeed, both her highness and his majesty are here. The royal mages are protecting them.¡±


    ¡°Protecting them? Is Lex injured?!¡± Saleen got tense.


    ¡°No, your highness. There is no way her highness could have been injured. She is the most powerful level-ten mage after all,¡± Dumont replied in a rather irked manner.


    Saleen smirked. The most powerful level-ten mage, eh? Then you¡¯ve never seen Joey. Even my teacher would have been more powerful than Lex.


    But then again, Lex had the God¡¯s Ring and his teacher was already a level-11 mage. Comparing him to Lex would have been like bullying her. But, nheless, having one royal mage who held Lex in such a high regard worked in Saleen¡¯s favor. Lex had been able to rally a huge number of royal mages to her side using some unknown means. One very huge factor in getting the mages to be willing to support Lex to be empress was probably how she had treated the mages.


    Emperor Chanake treated his mages well, and all of them enjoyed great benefits. However, Emperor Chanake was not a mage, and neither was Safilos. As such, the royal mages¡¯ support leaned toward Lex instead. The founding emperor of the Qin Empire had been a powerful mage himself. Only by having a mage at the helm of Qin Empire could the empire be restored to its former glory.


    Despite the fact that Holy Rock City had been taken, the royal mages were absolutely confident in the magic cube. Even if the Lord of Glory himself were toe at them personally, he would not have been able to take on the magic cube, much less attacks from the abomination ne.


    ¡°Get me inside.¡± Saleen hesitated for a bit but decided to take the risk and head inside. There was no way the magic cube could have been set up to deal with him, and it was impossible that Safilos would have risked destroying the entire Holy Rock City just to capture him.


    The surface of Holy Rock City had been turned into a living hell. Even if Safilos were to take all of that, there was no way he could have reversed losses at such a scale. Safilos was not a ck magician. He was a true might, and if he wanted to be emperor, then he would have needed to protect every singlemon folk resident of Holy Rock City.


    ¡°I shall wait for you outside, your highness.¡± Rafel did not enter the magic cube with Saleen, choosing to stay outside instead.


    Saleen frowned at Rafel yet again.


    ¡°It is too dangerous inside, and I wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything to protect you, your highness. If you were to not emerge within three days, I¡¯d just kill everyone outside to avenge you,¡± Rafel said to Saleen in a serious tone.


    Saleen understood Rafel¡¯s motives then, but her words made Dumont look incredibly awkward.


    ¡°Rafel, I¡¯m going inside to check on my wife. She is the heiress of the empire and all of those mages are her supporters. Without their help, she could never be the empress.¡± Dumont¡¯s expression looked considerably better when Saleen was done saying that.


    ¡°It has nothing to do with me, your highness. I¡¯m here only to protect you. If I couldn¡¯t do that, then there is nothing else I¡¯d be able to do on Myers Maind. I know that shifting me is not a virtue, but if you were to die, then who is going to look after my angels?¡±

 Chapter 1338: Rafel’s Naivety (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1338: Rafel¡¯s Naivety (Part 2)</h4>


    Dumont was displeased by Rafel¡¯s words. However, Rafel looked too naive to hold any hostile intentions even though her words made Dumont feel rather peculiar. Saleen to look after angels? A mage taking care of weapons of war of the gods? However, when he checked out the metal angels behind Rafel, they were indeed unnervingly powerful. He had thought those to be Saleen¡¯s puppets, but, by the look of things at the moment, those winged creatures were indeed angels after all.


    ¡°All right, have it your way.¡± Saleen looked exasperated as he let Rafel stand guard outside with the 200 metal angels. Rafel shed a victorious smile and shook her fist in Dumont¡¯s direction.


    Nailisi red at Rafel in a hostile manner. That should have been my job. But then again, there was no way Nailisi would have parted with Saleen, who was about to enter the magic cube. Saleen¡¯s exasperated look was just a facade as well. If the mages of Holy Rock City were indeed up to no good, they would need to beware of Rafel, a level-13 archangel.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, Nailisi,¡± Saleen called her and took her inside the magic cube along with Dumont. The ce looked like many othermon buildings, and Saleen was unable to sense any elemental fluctuations inside the magic cube, only regrly designed halls, corridors, and rooms. The ce looked like the city buildings of the most downtrodden&mdash;dull, featureless, and devoid of decorations of any kind. However, Saleen was able nheless to peer into the secrets of the cube with his Elemental Eye, which secrets included special rooms. They were actually closer than they seemed at first. Optical illusions were hard to detect using magic. They were hard to see when searching using mental powers, unless one were to close one¡¯s eyes and shut oneself off from using sight altogether. Humans would have still been able to see things after closing their eyes, and that was something being developed by mages.


    ¡°The ce looks weird, master.¡± Nailisi remained holding onto one weapon in her hand, while the Sword of Rules hung at her hips.


    ¡°How so?¡±


    ¡°Rules, different kinds of rules...¡±


    Saleen only then came to discover that every single room he passed as he walked the corridor represented a region. The rules within the regions differed from one to another. The differences were minute, and Saleen had not been able to catch on due to his iplete understanding of the peculiarities of rules. Nailisi, on the other hand, was able to catch on due to the effects of the Sword of Rules. The Sword of Rules borated the features of every region to Nailisi with every door they passed.


    Dumont suppressed his awe and surprise. While the cube held massively vast numbers of secrets, no mage had been able to immediately discover any of them as soon as they entered before.


    Saleen took the chance to take note of the minute differences between the rules. There were countless rules in the world, and they were of different levels. The lightning rules that Saleen hade to master belonged to very high-level ones. Rules of energy bnce were on more or less the same level. However, there were some rules that only existed when specific conditions were met. Those rules were called secondary rules.


    Most rules found within the magic cube were secondary ones that could only have existed in specific environments. However, thebination of these rules yielded interesting changes, making the cube as if it was another world on its own. If one was able to master the rules within, one would have be the highest being within the cube. Such a being would have been able to bring their highestbat capacity to bear, by making themselves the master of the rules. That was the most formidable part of the magic cube. The mages found in every room possessed not only elemental powers, but rule powers as well. Those rules were easy to master, yet, when they left the rooms, they were no longer able to make those rules their own. Things at the cube worked like the magic, yet it was more powerful than the magic.


    Saleen got very interested in the ce. If it had been possible, he would have wanted to create a magic cube in the Floating City as well. It was very difficult to enhance the magic¡¯s powers. Saleen, at present, only enabled his enchanters to cast level-ten, sometimes level-11 magic spells. However, regardless of how enhanced the magic became, it would not have enabled them to cast level-13 magic, and that was because the mental powers of enchanters could not be raised any further. Enchanters¡¯ mental powers could have continued to umte, grow, and advance like mages, if they had been subjected to specialized training. However, the speed of doing so would not have given them any edge at all.


    That was to say that the magic was at its most powerful at the moment. The magic cube, on the other hand, could have enabled the mages to master rules as soon as they walked inside. Even the lowest of rule powers would have enabled the mages¡¯bat prowess to be raised to their theoretical pinnacle. For instance, Saleen had higher mental powers than Rafel. Thebat capacity that he was able to bring to bear within the magic cube would have been no different than that of Rafel.


    Amazingly, if both the magic cube and the magic werebined, a monstrosity that had never been seen in human history could have been born. I need to get my hands on this!


    Nailisi immediately caught on to what Saleen was thinking. She asked Dumont in a curious manner, ¡°Master, when was the magic cube built?¡±


    ¡°It was built alongside Holy Rock City, an elementally stable ce. Building the magic cube took hundreds of years. There have even been some royal mages who have thought that if it had not been for the need to build the magic cube, the Qin Empire would have long conquered the entire Myers Maind.¡±


    Dumont never bothered holding anything back. Saleen would be royalty of the empire soon enough, and the magic cube, in a sense, would belong to Saleen as well.


    It took over half an hour to walk past the rooms before they arrived at the center of the cube. Here, there was a tower-like building, or, precisely, a thick pir. Rooms carved in the pir had stone bridges linking the passages to outer areas. Speaking in terms of the structure of the building, it seemed as if they would have been able to reach where they were from any of the entrances. However, Saleen knew that if it had not been for Dumont leading the way, he would have simply been jumping at random between areas of the cube, just like when mages were tested with magic beasts, where they ran in abyrinth until they ended up dead.


    Dumont pointed at the stone bridge ahead and said, ¡°Your highness, Viscount Lex¡¯s room is right after the bridge.¡±


    ¡°Why is there no one standing guard around her room?¡± Nailisi asked, feeling something was off.


    ¡°Saleen is here then. Come in. And, oh, no one could make it across the bridge without my permission.¡± Lex¡¯s voice could be heard from inside the room.


    ¡°Your highness, I can only go this far,¡± Dumont addressed Saleen as he made his move to depart.


    Saleen nodded and walked on the bridge. The bridge was ice-cold. If it had not been for the fact that Saleen was adept in Water me Alchemy and had unnervingly high resistance to low temperatures, he would have turned into a block of ice as soon as he walked on the bridge. Nailisi looked worried and was about to attack when Saleen stopped her. ¡°Lex was afraid of someone disguised as you and me, so she was testing us out. Just get past the bridge, and we¡¯ll see a familiar reaction from her.¡± It was only then that Nailisi lowered her spear and followed Saleen, walking across the bridge.


    The bridge looked to be tens of yards long. The sides cast up a heavy mist as soon as Saleen walked on it, enabling him to only see the path ahead. There was ayer of elementiteid out on the bridge. While they were only of level 12, they were in substantial numbers. The only magic power imbued within the elementite was one that prevented any eleration magic from being used. Because of this, Saleen had to resort to good, old-fashioned walking with his own legs. If he was in a hurry, he would have needed to run. The walk was more than ten miles long. Saleen¡¯s steps were evenly paced. He did not need to calcte to find out how long he had walked. Saleen was able to traverse the bridge fairly quickly despite not being able to use any eleration magic, and that was because Nailisi was getting impatient and summoned nightmares, that she had hidden in her 12 Notes of First Purgatory. She and Saleen both rode one respectively and blitzed on the bridge.


    After they crossed the bridge, the area before them looked like a veranda in a noble¡¯s garden. The tform was wide and there were magical nts nted everywhere. Saleen looked through a window and found Lex sitting beside a bed, watching over a young man. The young man looked pale, but his eyes were bloodshot. His face resembled that of Lex. Hecked strength, yet he smiled at Lex nheless and looked happy.


    ¡°Lex, Saleen¡¯s here, I can finally die,¡± Ojarvis said softly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t say that. Don¡¯t you realize you¡¯re my only family left here?¡± Lex said to her brother in a chastising tone.


    ¡°There are still uncle and our cousins.¡± Ojarvis panted as he finished the sentence. A servant from the pce quickly passed a cup and had Ojarvis drink some magic liquid from it. The young emperor of the Qin Empire was no longer able to eat anything. His life was only sustained using magic liquid produced using level-seven magic.


    ¡°Well, uncle doesn¡¯t see me as family.¡± Lex did not want her brother to be sad and thus didn¡¯t tell him the truth. The conflict between her and her uncle involved more than the problems of the session to the throne. Lex wanted mages to be de facto leaders, yet Safilos believed only in the sword in his hand.


    The army should be the core of a nation. Such was Safilos¡¯s thoughts. Despite agreeing to letting Lex take the throne and be empress, it did not mean that he would not turn against her rule at ater date. If Lex insisted on doing something, he had the right to chastise Lex all the same.


    Arb was not the only force in Golden ins. The Grukos had been in seats of power for thousands of years, and there were countless powerful ones emerging in every generation. Those people would have naturally formed their own cliques, holding the reins of the empire¡¯s lifeblood. The people of Golden ins would have not willingly served just anyone.


    Saleen brought Nailisi and circled around the window, entering the room through a door at the side. They flipped open the curtain and found the room to be incredibly hot, yet there was still a fire magic arrayid out on the floor, generating high amounts of heat continuously.


    Ojarvis smiled at Saleen and said, ¡°I¡¯m very sorry, but my body can no longer withstand any cold. If it hadn¡¯t been for the magic array, my blood would have automatically frozen right here, right now.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve been poisoned!¡± Saleen was surprised. While Ojarvis was physically frail, he was still nheless an emperor of an empire. The number of mages protecting him would have outnumbered Saleen¡¯s followers. It would have been extremely difficult to poison Ojarvis, and the price for getting caught doing it would have been dire.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m poisoned. And it was Lex who did it,¡± Ojarvis blinked as he said to Saleen.


    Saleen shook his head, and Lex smiled at him, exining in a rather tired manner, ¡°Someone used Ultimate Shapeshifting and disguised themselves as me, infiltrating the royal pce and meeting Ojarvis.¡± Saleen quickly did calctions in his mind as soon as he heard the news.

 Chapter 1339: Ojarvis

    <h4>Chapter 1339: Ojarvis</h4>


    There were six mages concealed in corners of the room. The female officer who was Ojarvis¡¯s servant was a silver grand swordmaster as well. Everyone looked at Saleen as he said, ¡°Nailisi is capable of Ultimate Shapeshifting, but she wouldn¡¯t have done such a thing.¡±


    ¡°And why should we believe you?¡± An old, withered mage was heard saying from behind Ojarvis. Saleen eyed the mage with his blue eyes. This old mage looks like he is about to die, and... Man, he is a level-11 mage! However, he would never have been able to advance anymore. His life seemed to be like amp that had run out of oil. The wick was the only thing left, and the mes looked as if they were about to be extinguished. Even if he were to advance to level 12, it would not have extended his life by even half a day. A mage¡¯s life was extended as they advanced, but there were conditions to it. The mage in question needed to at least be brimming with life force. Someone like Saleen, who had managed to be a sorcerer at a young age, would have been able to live more than 1,000 years.


    ¡°Because I said so,¡± Saleen answered.


    Ojarvis coughed and covered his mouth and nose. Saleen smelled blood.


    ¡°I trust Saleen. Say no more. The reason why I called Saleen here was to have him deduce, using astrology, as to how the enemy managed to infiltrate the royal pce.¡±


    Saleen took a look at his wife¡¯s brother. The emperor, who was about to pass, did not seem to harbor any negative emotions from the look in his eyes. It was hard to see any emotions found within. He seemed to be in an unusually calm state.


    ¡°Astrology has its limits, especially in a ce like this.¡± Saleen did not agree to Ojarvis¡¯s request, as using astrology to deduce something of such importance would have made his astrology jump to level 11 right away, if he were to seed. The terrifying thing about astrology was that once a person started getting into it, it would have been as if they had been absorbed into it. If he were to advance right there and then, he would have beenpelled to research the art further using the vast amount of materials he had at hand.


    However, he had no time for this now. Both he and Sika were giving their lives for their children right up until this moment. That terrifying priest¡¯s skill was not something that would have ended when it was used. That was something that not even Sika knew. Her life would not have seen limited extensions otherwise. Both he and Sika had to make it to level 11, or they would have aged a few hundred years. He would have ended up looking like that old mage, seeing his life gradually draining away. If he were to pass that point, advancing would not have been able to extend Saleen¡¯s life anymore.


    ¡°Saleen, help Ojarvis out.¡± Lex was pleading. Someone had managed to disguise themselves as her and infiltrate the royal pce. It was a harrowing experience, as it meant that even beloved ones at their side could turn out to be the enemy at any given moment.


    ¡°Viscount, there are ways to see through Ultimate Shapeshifting. You haven¡¯t been seeing his majesty much. If you were as close to him as me and master are, no one would have been able to deceive me using Ultimate Shapeshifting,¡± Nailisi exined to Lex.


    ¡°Who permitted you to speak?¡± Another middle-aged mage berated her.


    Saleen knew that things had just taken a dive for the worse. He wanted to stop it but it was toote. Cold beams shot out of Nailisi¡¯s green eyes, and the beams looked tangible. Her Grey Memoryshed out right there and then. The mage never expected Nailisi to attack in such an environment, and it was toote for him to attack. The old mage behind Ojarvis cast light magic all of a sudden. Over a dozen beams fell onto Nailisi, locking her in ce. The sh from the Grey Memory rebounded repeatedly within the beams, dissipating only after quite a while. The chest of that middle-aged mage had a gash on it nheless.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, aren¡¯t you taking this too far?¡± The old mage said to Saleen.


    ¡°Hardly. I¡¯m here with Nailisi to help his majesty. Since when did he get to tell my people what to do?¡± Saleen then pointed at the middle-aged mage and said, ¡°Furthermore, this guy is a spy.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡± Rage was seen in that old mage¡¯s murky eyes as he said, ¡°That is my son.¡±


    ¡°So are you saying that your son couldn¡¯t have been a spy? What logic is this?¡± Nailisi questioned him. The beams surrounding her hadpletely dissipated. The power of Grey Memory was something that not even level-11 mages could have easily dispelled using simple spells. The old mage was speechless. His words were logically incorrect. Even angels had betrayed their gods before, and there was no guarantee that his son would not have done the same. However, he had absolute trust in his son. It was logically incorrect, but not sentimentally so. However, mages did not go about doing things driven by sentiments. Nailisi¡¯s retort was something that he had no answer for.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, please present your evidence for saying that. Or else...¡±


    ¡°Or else what? The poison in his majesty¡¯s body would have only enabled him to live six days at most, no matter how hard the rest of you work. That is the time of one week, and the time it would take for the sun and moon of Myers Maind toplete a cycle. All six elements would have finished aplete cycle of vibration. There is simply no way to cure the poison. Worse still, his majesty is under great pain now, and he might make wrong decisions due to the pain, and that would have been enough to doom the Qin Empire.¡±


    ¡°The poison is really something indeed.¡± The old mage said to Saleen, ¡°But since you¡¯ve used my son of being a spy, you need to give me a reason one way or another. Or else, I¡¯ll exchange my life for yours.¡±


    Saleen lifted a finger and swung it left and right at the old mage, saying, ¡°Your life is worth nothing. No need for threats, I¡¯ll be giving you the answer soon. I take it that all in this room have been subjected to level-11 lie detection, no?¡±


    ¡°Indeed!¡± The old mage said proudly. While he had indeed been staunch in defending his son, he had nheless screened his son using level-12 lie detection before letting him enter the magic cube, for fear of something going wrong. That was to show his loyalty to the Grukos royalty. He had a bit of Grukos blood in his veins. None of the royal mages were truly outsiders. When an enemy appeared, they werepelled to fight the enemy together.


    ¡°There is a Deep Hypnosis skill in level-13 divine arts, which is crafted specifically against lie detection magic. It is a dark divine art and not a skill of the Lord of Glory. Your son has been ced under control by the Heretic God using Deep Hypnosis, which would have made him do certain things and onlysh out at his majesty all of a sudden, under themand of the Heretic God¡¯s oracle. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn¡¯t even know of it himself.¡±


    ¡°I want proof!¡± That middle-aged mage was fuming. He bought none of what Saleen said. From his perspective, Saleen was there to usurp the throne and might have even fooled Lex. This good-for-nothing from Sikeqinya, how did he manage to dupe the viscount!?


    ¡°You¡¯re a level-10 mage. Putting you under control would have proven difficult. There would need to be an evil medium put into your body. I¡¯ve only heard things about the Heretic God¡¯s skills and I don¡¯t know much. I need to test it out to see if what I knew was correct, and I had indeed tested it earlier.¡± Saleen pointed at the middle-aged mage¡¯s feet. Everyone took notice of a golden granule at the mage¡¯s feet.


    ¡°I cast my territory as soon as I entered the room. Did you all think that I was putting on a show of force?¡± The old mage nodded. Saleen was indeed a powerful mage, so powerful that even he found Saleen to not be someone that he would have had an easy time dealing with. Saleen cast his lightning territory as soon as he entered the room. The territory was refined to such an extent that it emanated no form nor sound. Pressure from the lightning¡¯s might was felt, yet no form of lightning was seen.


    ¡°I used Lightning Purification on you and you didn¡¯t know of it. That skill would have only worked on everything originating from the Heretic God, exhibiting a suppression effect on it. Take a look,¡± Saleen said as he took out a crystal ss, which contained a whiff of ck mist. Saleen quite literally zapped the bottle, purifying the mist in the bottle as it exited the bottle using Lightning Purification. Everyone saw the mist produce a golden granule, which dropped back into the bottle.


    ¡°This is something I acquired at Hignd City, which could be purified using all manner of divine arts. A mage¡¯s skill would have worked as well.¡±


    That middle-aged mage¡¯s face was ashen as he said, ¡°So I was the one who poisoned his majesty then?¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily you, but you could have been rendered under the Heretic God¡¯s oracle¡¯s control at any given moment while you were in this magic cube. With the abomination neunching an invasion here, there would have definitely been quite a number of oracles making their way into Myers Maind. I haven¡¯t been able to put a lockdown on the abominations at Hignd City...¡± Saleen sighed. Even if he were to plug the portal at Hignd City, it would not have done any good. There was already a portal leading to the abomination ne right there at Holy Rock City after all.


    All the mages used lie-detection magic on Saleen, and he willingly was tested. Everyone disappointedly found that Saleen was not lying.


    ¡°Deep Hypnosis could be suppressed. It is just a level-13 divine spell after all.¡±


    The middle-aged mage looked dejected, and it seemed as if he was not hearing anything that Saleen said. He turned to Ojarvis and asked, ¡°Your majesty, what should I do?¡±


    ¡°What should I do?¡± Nailisi asked with a puzzled look. She saw only anxiety in the mage¡¯s eyes instead of fear. She initially thought that the mage would have either fought for his life or killed himself, after he was ratted out by Saleen. However, he actually turned to ask the emperor what he should do instead.


    The old mage then gave Saleen a detailed exnation. The magic cube was not in aplete state during its fabrication process, necessitating mages of the six major elements to man the ce at the core. All six mages in the room were adept at an elemental form of magic each and had been very proficient and knowledgeable in their respective arts. It had been something that the royal mages of the Qin Empire had been preparing in secret. The son of the old mage was adept at earth magic and was one of the key people at controlling the hub.


    However, now he heard from Saleen that he had been subjected to hypnosis by an oracle of the Heretic God, and could have done things proven harmful to the emperor at any given moment. The middle-aged mage was afraid that no one would be able to take his ce at manning the magic cube. If the magic cube was tock one such person manning it, its powers would have been drastically reduced and be little more than a very powerful magic tower. Many magic towers had been destroyed in the abominations¡¯ invasion. No magic tower, regardless of how powerful it might have been, would have proven adequate to stop the abominations¡¯ invasion.


    ¡°Master, I have a solution which would free you from the Heretic God¡¯s oracle¡¯s control, but it would only be a temporary one and have requirements for the environment it is used in,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°What requirements?¡± The middle-aged mage asked anxiously. The magic cube was then mostly ready. The humongous puppet would have been able to buy them several days¡¯ worth of time. When that puppet ended up destroyed, the magic cube would have been almost fully operational. It would be difficult to find someone to rece him at such a short notice.


    ¡°There are actually two options you could choose from. The first one is the Lightning Cage that I brought with me. No one outside would be able to affect you while you¡¯re in it. However, your actions would be affected, as you would only be able to stay in a single ce and you wouldn¡¯t be able to leave the cage.¡±


    ¡°What about the second option then!?¡± The middle-aged mage¡¯s actions can¡¯t be restricted, as it would have made it very difficult for him to man the magic cube otherwise.


    ¡°The second option would be to put you under my control. I have a secret art that could bestow your soul with powerful protection, at least when beings below level 13 are concerned. No one would be able to affect you without me giving the permission to do so. If I¡¯m present, not even the Lord of Glory would have been able to control your soul, even if he were to intervene personally.¡±


    ¡°But, my soul would be put under your control, no?¡± The middle-aged mage asked with a dejected expression.


    ¡°Not quite actually. Your soul would be controlled by my skill, but I wouldn¡¯t be able to simply force you to do my bidding. The most I could do...well, is to torture your soul forever,¡± Saleen answered frankly.


    The middle-aged mage was hardly surprised. Saleen¡¯s ability of protecting the souls of others would have needed to cast ayer of something resembling a protective shell. If this were to be added to his soul, it would have meant that his soul was imprisoned.


    ¡°Your majesty, what are your thoughts?¡± The mage asked Ojarvis. They all had initially thought Ojarvis to be a child. However, when the abominations struck and they retreated below ground, the mages had managed to avoid considerable losses because Ojarvis was the one inmand. Ojarvis¡¯s temperament might have been aplete antithesis to Emperor Chanake¡¯s, yet he possessed the intuition and ability befitting a suprememander nheless.


    Ojarvis smiled and said, ¡°If he could save me, I¡¯d have rather yielded control of everything I have to Saleen. Too bad though...¡±


    What he meant was that Saleen was someone trustworthy.


    The middle-aged mage sank into deep thought. Everyone was looking at him. The magic cube could have still worked without him, yet the risk would have been tens times higher.


    ¡°How about this? Just use the cage then. Even if the enemy were to be able to get to you using the Lightning Cage, you won¡¯t be able to leave still,¡± Saleen said to the mage.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry...¡± The middle-aged man then asked dejectedly, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, how would I be affected, if I were to be subjected under your control?¡±


    ¡°If I were to have no use of you, you¡¯d have everything to gain and nothing to lose.¡±


    ¡°Well but I¡¯d need to man the magic cube. You probably don¡¯t know this, Saleen, but the abomination invasion this time is but a start. There is already another ne portal appearing in Kroraina, from the subcontinent ne this time. The subcontinent ne is tightly connected with other nes. Any ne that is frequently connected to the subcontinent ne would have been able to use it as a springboard to attack Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°What do you all think?¡± Despite the manner in which Saleen asked, he was looking at the old mage.


    The old mage ground his teeth. The middle-aged mage was his only son, and he had put a lot of time and effort in nurturing him since young. The old mage had only a few years¡¯ worth of life left at most. If he were to die, then no one would have been there to protect his son. Worse still, he would be forced to witness the soul of his son being put under control by some other people before he passed. A mage, whose soul had been put under control, would have been like having lost everything for good. A soul that was no longer free was worse than death.


    The old mage looked at his son, who appeared rather dejected. The old mage then said all of a sudden, ¡°If you don¡¯t want to do it, then don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°No, father, even if I¡¯m against the idea, I have to do this.¡±


    ¡°Well then!¡± Saleen said loudly all of a sudden, ¡°I shall sign a contract with you. I shall absolutely not use the skill to force you into doing anything in the future.¡±


    ¡°For real!?¡± The old mage asked anxiously.


    Saleen then took out a dragonhide magic scroll and said, ¡°I believe this should prove my sincerity.¡±


    All six of the royal mages were speechless seeing Saleen taking out a nk scroll crafted using dragonhide. Some of them were even thinking about exchanging it for their own scrolls. Saleen was seen to have been very wasteful, but nheless, the magic binding powers of a dragonhide scroll would have been tens of times greater than that ofmon scrolls. It was a testament that Saleen was indeed sincere, that he had no intentions of forcing the mage into the deal.


    The middle-aged mage said to Saleen gratefully, ¡°In that case, we shall construct a contract. As long as I live, I shall never do anything that could jeopardize the interests of you and your nation. I¡¯ll stand by your side as long as you¡¯re involved in any way, even remotely.¡±


    Saleen nodded. That was the result that he had been after. Furthermore, despite appearing very powerful, there were actually magic back doors to dragonhide scrolls. If that mage were to prove to be a liability to him in the future, Saleen would have had ways to deal with him. Saleen then took out a piece of Eternal Control Shard that he had crafted. He pped the shard into the middle-aged mage¡¯s forehead while being witnessed by everyone else. He then began to write on the scroll.


    The mages had gotten envious yet again when he was writing the scroll, as Saleen was using a bottle of true dragon blood for writing the contract.


    Well then, if Saleen is already this rich, then he would definitely not be going after anything with us.


    Those mages actually had the wrong idea in that case. If one were to spend 100 gold coins to buy something that was worth only one gold coin, that was not to say that they would not have been moved by 10,000 gold coins.While Saleen¡¯s dragon blood was indeed precious, he had exchanged it with Grand Duke Iron Blood using his magic power furnaces. The trade benefited both parties, as the worth of their wares were difficult to measure using money.


    Saleen was after the magic cube itself. He knew that even if he were to be a prince of the Qin Empire, he still would not have been able to take everything away from the empire. The magic cube was the core of the Qin Empire. Even if the ce were to be manned only by six level-ten mages, it would have nheless been able to withstand countless waves of attacks from the grand army of abominations.


    The Heaven Knights back all those years ago had been really, really unlucky. They were not even able to scale the walls of Holy Rock City, before they all ended up dead right outside the city. If they had known that the Qin Empire actually possessed something like the magic cube, the Heaven Knights might have lost the courage to even attack the city in the first ce.


    The back of the dragonhide scroll was filled with polished dragon scales. The middle-aged mage wrote his name on the scroll&mdash;Isenberg&mdash;and the dragon scales at the back of the scroll turned to ash. The contract waspleted. Even if there were to be a conflict of interest between Saleen and the Qin Empire in the future, he would not have been able to lift a finger against Saleen.


    All of that seemed to have been done for his freedom, and yet it did not seem so. Isenberg felt rather dazed at that moment, being puzzled whether this actually had been the right choice or the wrong choice.


    ¡°For better or worse, you have chosen your path, so you might as well just keep walking it. I wouldn¡¯t do anything against you, Isenberg, so at least you won¡¯t have to worry about anyone else controlling your soul from here on out.¡±


    Lex sighed deep down as she watched Saleen work. The little mage all those years ago, that Saleen, was already a king. While Saleen¡¯s methods looked rather immaturepared to that of her father, he was nheless capable of shouldering his responsibilities as king. Well, now I wonder if I¡¯d ever see that mage, who had been protecting his dignity with pride and getting close with caution, again in the future. That little mage had been very cautious, protecting whatever little principles he had left back then, as he kept searching and growing, in order to survive. But that mage is no longer around somehow, and here stands Saleen Metatrin as he is now.


    Saleen turned around and looked at Lex. His blue eyes looked incredibly pure, as if all that was left in them were elements and nothing else. Lex smiled at Saleen. She knew Saleen too well. He had probably been making a great many decisions before he came, and every single one of them had been ones that did not allow him to turn back. It was just like how things were when they signed the contract with the Goddess of Myers. He knew the road before him would have been one filled with hardships and obstacles, yet he chose to walk it nheless. It seemed rather absurd to ept one¡¯s fate and then try one¡¯s very best to resist it, but that was how Saleen was. She saw no choice but to keep walking that path with Saleen, for her choice was also one that had no turning back as well.


    Lex then said, ¡°You¡¯re dismissed. I need to speak to Saleen.¡±


    Ojarvis nodded and all six mages and the servant officer left the room. Saleen came to the emperor¡¯s bedside and stood on the floor, watching the emperor of the Qin Empire.


    Ojarvis looked at Saleen with bloodshot eyes that seemed to be about to bleed at any given moment.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re not telling me that you actually have ways to cure me, but you¡¯d need my soul in exchange, right?¡± Ojarvis smiled.


    ¡°Your majesty, there are levels to elemental poisons. The one that is in you right now is one that assaults the soul. Even if I were to have the means to save you, I still wouldn¡¯t want to put you through all that pain. I know of one person who has had his soul trapped in a figure and suffered for hundreds of thousands of years.¡±


    ¡°The truth often hurts. Don¡¯t you think so, my sister?¡± Ojarvis quipped as he saw Lex wanting to stop Saleen.


    ¡°Indeed. I know that as well,¡± Lex ground her teeth as she answered.


    ¡°Very well then. My sister, your husband, Prince Saleen, is after my magic cube. Do you think we should give him the magic cube?¡± Ojarvis¡¯s words were startling.


    Lex looked at Saleen in fright. She had already felt something like that, but having Ojarvis blurt that out in the open meant that her little brother¡¯s intuition was working. Saleen is actually after something of my family? The magic cube belongs to Holy Rock City. Even if I were to be empress, I still wouldn¡¯t have the right to give it to someone else.


    Saleen never thought his thoughts would have beenid bare in the open like that by Ojarvis. However, he was hardly awkward, smiling and continuing instead, ¡°Your majesty, I was thinking of relocating the magic cube to the Floating City. The cube would have only been of the greatest use in doing so. You¡¯re not a mage, but Lex is. She should be able to understand.¡±


    ¡°My sister would understand, but I¡¯m just afraid that she would refuse to!¡± Ojarvis¡¯s words seemed to have a profound sense to them.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if she refuses to. I¡¯d be able to ask how this thing is built at least, wouldn¡¯t I? I could just make another one myself then,¡± Saleen answered nonchntly. He saw sadness in Lex¡¯s eyes, which was not something that happened often.


    Ojarvis smiled and said, ¡°My sister, don¡¯t think for a second that you¡¯re no longer a member of the Metatrin once you be an empress. You shall be the first queen of the Kingdom of Metatrin in Saleen¡¯s genealogy, and he, too, will be a great figure like the King of Glory. You must believe this much. I am not an astrologer, but I can nheless see the trajectory of fate. I¡¯ve...paid my price.¡±

 Chapter 1340: Gift (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1340: Gift (Part 1)</h4>


    Ojarvis¡¯s words startled Saleen quite a bit. However, he somehow caught what Ojarvis meant between the lines&mdash;he intended to gift the magic cube to him, instead of losing it by Lex¡¯s hand. If he were to end up dead, then Lex, who was Saleen¡¯s wife, would have been spared considerable me for not taking back the magic cube for the Qin Empire.


    ¡°Ojarvis, the magic cube belongs to the Grukos. You have no right to give it away.¡± Lex was not dumb. She was able to tell Ojarvis¡¯s thoughts as well.


    ¡°How long can a n stay intact? Those dumb*sses in the Golden ins thought that the n would have been able to live on for eternity due to the power they amassed. They have long lost the mind and heart for forging ahead.¡± A tinge of sarcasm was seen in Ojarvis¡¯s eyes. The fact that a man who was about to die spoke of the Grukos in the Golden ins in such tone was sarcastic enough, regardless of the expression shown on his face.


    ¡°Regardless, Saleen cannot have the magic cube. If you were to give it to him, then I shall take it back.¡± It was rather surprising that Lex objected right away.


    Saleen simply smiled and Ojarvis continued, ¡°My sister, don¡¯t forget that I could strip you of your right of session to the throne. I could do a lot in six days. Wait, no, it is already the fifth day now.¡± Ojarvis¡¯s sickly face looked tremendously determined.


    Ojarvis¡¯s words surprised Lex a great deal. She had never known her little brother to be so determined.


    Saleen then said, ¡°What is there to worry about, Lex? Are you afraid of Arb? Or are you afraid of the nobles no longer backing you after hearing about this?¡±


    ¡°None of that. I¡¯m afraid of doing something that would tarnish your reputation,¡± Lex answered.


    ¡°I¡¯m about to write history. If I were to seed, no one would remember this by the time I die. Furthermore, the magic cube is iplete. Miss this chance and it would be ages before this grand concept could eventually be a legend of the mages.¡±


    ¡°The royal mages will object to this, Saleen. Without their support, we wouldn¡¯t be able to take control of the empire.¡± Lex then continued after seeing Saleen still smiling, ¡°Saleen, you can¡¯t bring the entire magic cube into the Floating City.¡±


    ¡°And why not?¡±


    Lex sighed and said, ¡°The underground city wouldn¡¯t be able to hold off the invasion from the abomination ne for long. When all parts of the magic cube are almost prepped and ready for action, all magic arrays would be activated once it is fully operational. There would be a weapon spirit born in the magic cube and it would be one who would only acknowledge someone of the Grukos royal bloodline. Bringing the magic cube onto the Floating City will only get you into more trouble. I¡¯m really afraid of the royal mages¡¯ objections, Saleen. If you¡¯re able to subjugate that weapon spirit, the mages¡¯ protest would be useless after all.¡±


    Saleen thenughed and said, ¡°Well, it¡¯s precisely due to having to subjugate a weapon spirit that things could turn easy for me. I wouldn¡¯t be able to take such a big cube away otherwise.¡±


    Lex then continued exasperatingly, ¡°Don¡¯t you know what the powers of the magic cube are like? How are you going to take this weapon spirit?¡±


    ¡°Lex, I haven¡¯t told you but the Floating City already has a weapon spirit, and one who has sparked divine fire.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what!?¡± Lex was wondering if her ears were ying tricks on her.


    ¡°I¡¯m saying that the weapon spirit of the Floating City is a pseudo-god, and a level-13 one at that.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you...¡± Lex bit down on the words before she finished. There was no way Saleen would have lied about something like that. No other mages would have believed that a god could have been used as a weapon spirit, but Lex believed it. If Saleen was not capable of such feats in the first ce, he would not have been so confident about taking the weapon spirit of the magic cube otherwise. It was worth noting if something did go south when he moved the entire magic cube to the Floating City, then Saleen would have lost his most powerful equipment.


    ¡°See that, Lex? Saleen is indeed trustworthy,¡± Ojarvis exhaled a long breath. Lex helped him up and put a pillow under him to cushion him. ¡°Saleen, the matter with the magic cube is easy. I¡¯m only worried about one thing.¡±


    ¡°Please speak, your majesty.¡± Saleen was very fond of Ojarvis, and it was not because the emperor agreed to help Saleen take the magic cube, but because he was Lex¡¯s brother.


    ¡°My sister here intended to build a nation of mages, but she failed. As such, help her out and see to it that her nation seeds. This would be a very long task.¡±


    Saleen was silent but Ojarvis knew that Saleen would help Lex one way or another regardless. Why is he bringing this up then?


    ¡°A quarter of the world¡¯s mages are at Alchemy City, with another quarter at Golden ins and yet another quarter at the Kingdom of Metatrin. Most of the remaining quarter is at Qin, spread among the nobles, Holy Rock City, and Lex¡¯s principality. Building a nation of mages would earn the ire of Alchemy City first and foremost, while the Golden ins wouldn¡¯t just sit by and do nothing as well. You would have to end up going against half of the mages throughout the entire maind. Are you sure you are up for this?¡±


    Reputation... Saleen recalled Lex bringing that up and found that the term actually had deeper implications. While the mages could have kept quiet about him taking the magic cube, if he were to resurrect the Goddess of Myers, the mages would have attacked him using that fact. There was a logical rtion to it all. The mages would have only been roused to attack him for resurrecting the Goddess of Myers because he had taken the magic cube. However, resurrecting the goddess was something that he had to do one way or another. If he were to have absolute power over the others, then reputation would not have mattered. The problem, however, was that he only had a quarter of the maind¡¯s mages serving him, and that was only having the power of the mages at the highest hierarchy of powers taken into ount. The low-level ones were not even worth considering in that case.


    He intended to build a magic nation. If his reputation were to be ruined and no mages bothereding to his side, and, worse still, Alchemy City attacked him by spreading the fact that he intended to resurrect a god, then his magic nation would have been little more than a pipe dream. The most terrifying thing in the world was the hearts of men. The best oue that could have resulted from him taking the magic cube was Alchemy City getting in his way, while the worst oue would have been the royal mages of Holy Rock City rallying against him.


    ¡°Your majesty, I¡¯ve set the Principality of Bitterwater up for the task. If the mages of Holy Rock City don¡¯t sit well with this, then I shall do it at the principality,¡± Saleen told Ojarvis his thoughts.


    Ojarvis nodded and said, ¡°I have given all my wealth to Lex. However, you¡¯re not allowed to use it unless one day you¡¯re cornered and at wit¡¯s end. While I agree to fulfill your wishes, I¡¯m nheless a Grukos. The wealth shall be used to rebuild the Qin Empire.¡±


    ¡°Rebuild?¡±¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Lex could control the empire but she cannot forever be the empress. Even if she were to make it out of the most difficult centuries in the future, she would have to relinquish the throne one day to a new emperor, and the new emperor would not be able to handle all of that.¡±


    ¡°How did youe to learn all of that, your majesty?¡± Saleen was puzzled at Ojarvis¡¯s words. Astrology could have been used to deduce an empire¡¯s rise and fall, but the prophecies could not have had such pin-point uracy.


    ¡°I¡¯ve watched a lot of periods of time using my n¡¯s secret arts.¡± Ojarvis then continued with a smile, ¡°It is not to say that it would alle to be without fail, but things would happen nheless. In all those projections I¡¯ve seen, there were many versions of you, and only one version of you made it out of it all alive.¡±


    Ojarvis then borated further after seeing Saleen having a doubtful expression, ¡°My intuition is more urate than the secret art. I think that the you that made it out alive would be the true version of you. There are countless possibilities in the future, and most of your future would probably end up with you dead. There is only one in a 10,000th chance that you¡¯d end up achieving great endeavors, as a magic emperor.¡±


    ¡°What kind of great endeavors are you talking about!?¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you consider making the entire Myers Maind a pure magic continent great enough?¡±


    Saleen recalled his Floating City all of a sudden. If the Floating City were to expand indefinitely, or that the weapon spirit of the Floating City were to advance to level 18, then he would have been able to provide magic powers to all enchanters throughout the entire maind. By then, even those whocked talents would have been able to manipte magic. The entire Myers Maind would have been covered by the magic. Those thoughts alone proved rousing enough.


    ¡°You make the call then, Saleen.¡± Lex stopped objecting. If the weapon spirit of the Floating City had became a god, then there would have been some certainty of it being able to devour the weapon spirit of the magic cube.


    Saleen then looked at Ojarvis and said, ¡°Your majesty, could you do magic?¡±


    ¡°Would level zero count?¡± Ojarvis asked in a joking manner.


    ¡°It counts.¡± Saleen said as he took out his family badge and put it in Ojarvis¡¯s hand, ¡°Cast any spell onto this. Hold it tight.¡±


    Ojarvis looked at Saleen¡¯s family badge and the mysterious magic patterns on it felt familiar to him. There were lots of ancient artifacts in the royal warehouses of his after all. Ojarvis cast Disperse from his hands. It was some magic spell that could have been cast even by a magic apprentice, and one that would have only worked on creatures with little mental powers. Even though the spell¡¯s level was an appallingly low one, Ojarvis¡¯ mental powers werepletely drained once he cast the spell.


    Saleen¡¯s family had to absorb everything from Ojarvis in a frenzy, including the elemental poison in his body. While the elemental poison was potent, it was not something developed for the purpose of killing people in the first ce. It was a form of pure mental energy. The effects it would have had on powerful mages ingesting would have surpassed that from ingesting divine crystals.


    Gulp...


    Ojarvis let out a peculiar sound and Lex was extremely tense. Saleen waved his hand, telling Lex to not worry. His family badge would not have taken people¡¯s lives. Ojarvis was subjected to immense pain after he was poisoned, and that pain was on par with the ones Saleen suffered when training his mental powers.


    ¡°It isfortable indeed...¡±


    Saleen then cast Spring Rain. Ojarvis opened his eyes and wiped the blood at the corners of his mouth. His mental powers had basically been drained, and there was nothing else the family badge would have able to absorb from him. It stopped working altogether after absorbing some elemental poisons that could have been expelled from the body. Ojarvis was not subjected to as much pain and as Saleen expected, Ojarvis even felt a tinge of pleasure.


    A mage once said that when a person was in intolerable pain, then they would have proceeded to ept the pain and made it a source of joy. There were masochistic tendencies in the realm of mental powers. Ojarvis enjoyed the pain that Saleen¡¯s family badge brought. It was harrowing and yet not dull. It was better than having to endure having the elemental poison corroding his soul at all times. Every minute felt longer than a day to Ojarvis at present.

 Chapter 1341: Gift (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1341: Gift (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen took his family badge back and peered inside. There was no trace of elemental poisons in the endless barrages of lightning within. The potent poisons ended up being broken down by the lightning. It was a pity that Ojarvis¡¯s soul would not have been able to withstand the power of lightning, as he would not have needed to die otherwise. However, Saleen was still able to find the problem with the elemental poison&mdash;it was unable to steer the direction of Ojarvis¡¯s life. Ojarvis had some peculiar secret arts that allowed his soul to suffer pain and being continuously corroded by the elemental poison, yet continue to live.


    Conventional calctions said that Ojarvis would have only had six days of life left. From the way Saleen saw it, Ojarvis would have been able to live at least a month. He was very impressed by Ojarvis¡¯s resilient will to survive. Would I be able to persist through it all if I were to be in his shoes?


    ¡°Hold on for a bit, your majesty,¡± Saleen said as he took out starline cloth and began to craft a Figure of Fate right before Ojarvis. He had insufficient skills as an astrologer and the Figure of Fate he crafted would not have been able to save Ojarvis¡¯s life. However, it could have spared him the inhuman pain for that veryst month of his life. All of Ojarvis¡¯s pain shall be borne by the Figure of Fate.


    Ojarvis saw Saleen cast starlight and took out a Star-Gathering Needle. He smiled as Saleen began to craft the figure and said, ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ve heard that one needs to pay the price equivalent to what one intends to get. If I hadn¡¯t nned on giving the magic cube to you, would you have crafted this thing for me?¡±


    Saleen focused all of his attentionpletely and did not distract himself by answering the emperor¡¯s question. However, he was still stunned again by Ojarvis¡¯s prophetic powers. It was due to Ojarvis knowing that what he was trying to do, and the emperor saw some visions from the future. Mystical power of rules operated in his bloodshot eyes. Saleen was unable to tell what those were. They resembled some of the secret arts that he learned, yet there were not something of the same rules that he learned.


    ¡°Saleen, the ability is gained by offering one¡¯s life. Even if I¡¯m not poisoned by the elemental poison, I wouldn¡¯t be able to live for long anyway. Don¡¯t go about learning this secret art. I don¡¯t want my sister to be a widow.¡±


    Lex looked rather sad. Ojarvis had learned those forbidden secret arts on his own, and there was nothing she could have done to stop him. If it had not been for Ojarvis learning such arts, the others might not havee for his life. Those secret arts were terrifying. While the price of using such abilities was death, Ojarvis¡¯s eyes allowed him to see truths that no prophecy spells would have been capable of, before he eventually died.


    While there were countless possibilities to Saleen¡¯s future, that was only because his fate and that of Goddess of Myers were entwined, making them inseparable for the time being. There were thousands of possibilities of said goddess¡¯s fate as well.


    Regardless, if she was not resurrected within the next millennium, Saleen would have died all the same. Crafting the Figure of Fates had its cost, especially to the likes of Saleen, who only had 200 to 300 years left to live. Using such a skill would have taken about ten years of life off of them. Worse still, that was only because his level of astrology was still too low. If he were to use high-level skills, it would have beenpletely normal for him to lose even 1,000 years of life. Gaine had only been able to craft a powerful Figure of Fate for Saleen because his life was near limitless.


    Saleen did not want to owe Ojarvis too much. He would have had his ways of merging the magic cube to his city once he had gotten his hands on it. He would have been able to spend more time training instead of warring, once he came to possess the magic cube¡¯s powers. The Floating City would have awed countless forces found throughout the maind. There were few who would have been able to defeat him once he was in the air with the city. If it had not been for the contract with the goddess demanding him to get to the ground, he could have spent his days in leisure on Myers Maind, as no one would have been able to threaten him. Unless the Floating City was thousands of miles wide, essentially making it a Sky City in size, and it became entirely possible to amass believers on it, there was no way he could have been able to resurrect the goddess in the Floating City, which only measured 36 square miles.


    That was why Saleen did not mind paying ten years of life at all. He would have done so even for his followers. He had to do something for His Majesty Ojarvis, Lex¡¯s brother, and also the one who gave the magic cube to him, before his conscience would have been able to rest well. The Figure of Fate was infused within Ojarvis¡¯s body, and he sat up right away. Heughed and blood spurted from his nose and his mouth, yet he felt no pain at all.


    Lex then red at Saleen before stopping the bleeding using magic. She then asked her brother, ¡°How are you feeling?¡±¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the work of the Figure of Fate of the astrologers. Saleen is of insufficient level, and so he can¡¯t save my life, but he at least spare me of the pain before I eventually die.¡± Saleen did not need to exin anything, as Ojarvis knew what Saleen was doing. ¡°Speaking of which, Saleen. We¡¯re family, so why are you addressing me as your majesty? You could just call me by my name,¡± Ojarvis said to Saleen.


    Saleen was speechless. While his fondness for Ojarvis was due to Lex, he had always taken Ojarvis as the emperor of the Qin Empire and Lex¡¯s predecessor, nothing more.


    ¡°If you want the magic cube, it wouldn¡¯t do by just being Lex¡¯s husband. You still need to be my friend, at least.¡± Those words from Ojarvis were not pointed at all yet Saleen continued to be speechless. If that person before Saleen had not been sickly since young, he could have been a great, capable emperor in the history of the Qin Empire. Ojarvis¡¯s wit was the most low-profile of all smart people that Saleen knew, yet at the same time, the most charismatic. Even if Lex had not been the connection linking both of them, Saleen would not have had any ill thoughts about Ojarvis all the same. Ojarvis was using his frailty well. One would not have had much thoughts about someone who was about to die after all.


    ¡°Ojarvis...¡±


    ¡°Lex calls me Oddie,¡±Ojarvis smiled and said.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just stick with Ojarvis. I would be able to appear as a deadpan mage only by using such formal names.¡± Saleen finally stopped feeling awkward and began to joke with Ojarvis.


    ¡°See, Lex? I told you that Saleen is fun.¡± Ojarvis¡¯s tone turned and he said, ¡°All right, I don¡¯t have much time. Let¡¯s get back to family reunion after we¡¯re done with the case of the magic cube.¡±


    Lex stood there and was unable to continue. Ojarvis was about to die and he had no problems doing a countdown to his death, yet Lex was unable to do the same. Despite being a mage and knowing that death was a must, she was still his older sister. She was unable to ept that fact sentimentally.


    ¡°The magic cube¡¯s interior isrger than it seems from its exterior. From the outside, the cube has 2,592 windows, but in actuality, the cube has 36,000 spaces within,¡± Ojarvis illustrated.


    ¡°Ojarvis, how about we tell the mage toe in?¡± Saleen cut Ojarvis off and asked a question.


    ¡°No need for that. You¡¯ve gotten Isenberg in your pocket and his father would support you. The remaining four of them see the old man as their leader as well. The only concern you¡¯d have in this case would be the old man¡¯s recement. You¡¯d need a powerful light elemental mage to take that old man¡¯s ce.¡±


    ¡°Would a level-12 Angel of Brightness suffice?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    ¡°In that case, I have level-2 Angel of Brightness, Midnight Fang, Blue Ice Maiden, Vermillion Knight, Tempest Dragonmight, and Elemental Stone Statue Soldier,¡± Saleen listed in one go. That was thest thing he acquired from the Imperial City of the Abyss. The only weakness to those elemental creatures was that they did not have souls.


    ¡°Looks like the magic cube is something made specifically for you then. I take it that you have more low-level elemental creatures, no?¡±


    Saleen nodded. He had stored many in his elemental badges and the leaders of the first batches that he took with him had gotten to level 11. However, Saleen would have never wanted to have those elemental creatures do battle again. The greatest use of those creatures to him was to provide him with elemental powers, enabling him to cast magic spells in any environment. Anti-magic territories were utterly useless against Saleen, as the elemental badges could have provided him with energy continuously, until all of those elemental creatures exhausted their lives.


    ¡°Well then, Saleen, if you were to fill all the rooms with elemental creatures, then you would have been able to barely get the magic cube operational. However, since most of the elemental creatures had no souls, the best way to enable the magic cube to work at its best would be to use mages. I¡¯m not a professional myself, but as the de facto master of the magic cube, there is one thing that I¡¯d need to remind you of. If you¡¯re using elemental creatures without souls to run the magic cube, the weapon spirit would be able to devour those creatures, and you¡¯d have a hard time subjugating it.¡±


    ¡°No problem with that. I¡¯d just wait for the weapon spirit of the Floating City to eat up the one in the magic cube, before I put the elemental creatures to work.¡±


    Ojarvis stopped reminding Saleen of anything, seeing how the mage understood the key points of the magic cube¡¯s operation. He then continued, ¡°Most of the magic cube¡¯s construction materials were acquired from other nes. The ancestors of the Grukos fought wars in many nes as well, but they were not all that renowned. The wealth they have umted was nheless very real. I¡¯d be able to give some of them to you, Saleen.¡±


    Saleen asked, ¡°And the price?¡±


    ¡°Get my sister to conceive a son. Don¡¯t let the throne fall into the hands of those people from Golden ins.¡±


    Lex blushed, but she did not interrupt Ojarvis.


    Ojarvis then smiled and said, ¡°Uncle wished for me to take control of the empire not because I made a good puppet, but because my bloodline is pure. It is quite a pity that even now when I¡¯m near death, I still haven¡¯t managed to get myself a queen. That was rather disappointing for him. It is fortunate that gender did not matter in the bloodline of the Grukos. Her son would be able to inherit the most powerful secret arts of the n all the same.¡±


    Aren¡¯t your secret arts powerful enough already? You could see visions of the future, man. Even ancient gods would have found that difficult to pull off. Such were Saleen¡¯s thoughts.


    ¡°Saleen, this is important. Promise me this before I give you something. If Lex were to not have an heir, then the Qin Empire would be doomed. I won¡¯t be able to protect her once I¡¯m dead. You¡¯re about to die yourself, and they¡¯d make her marry someone else, until she gives birth to an emperor they¡¯re happy with.¡± Ojarvis borated in a calm tone, but Saleen¡¯s brows almost stood up nheless.

 Chapter 1342: Pain (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1342: Pain (Part 1)</h4>


    Lex said, ¡°Saleen, it is true. If I were to be empress, this is a duty that I must shoulder.¡±


    Ojarvis then smiled and said, ¡°Well, Saleen, better work on it and don¡¯t get separated from Lex all that often.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sounds about right.¡± Saleen answered without putting any thought into it. If chatting with Ojarvis was to be considered as a battle, then Ojarvis would have been considered having level-11 skills, as he kept rendering Saleen almost speechless.


    ¡°The key to the magic cube lies with its manufacturing schematics. The magic cube that I have is entirely different from the one shown in the schematics, as many changes have been made. I¡¯m unable to calcte much of anything but I¡¯ve drawn quite a lot of schematics. Those are things that I¡¯ve done with my life, Saleen...¡±


    Saleen understood that Ojarvis had to bear the pain from with his body while he observed the future, in order to tell of the magic cube¡¯s secrets. That was something that he had long nned, so as to let the magic cube¡¯s powers be brought out to its greatest extent in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    ¡°I will not disappoint you,¡± Saleen said with a solemn tone. He was wondering what was Ojarvis¡¯s eventual goal for doing all of that, and if the emperor was only doing all of that for Lex¡¯s sake.


    ¡°I¡¯m doing all of that because I don¡¯t want to die, Saleen. I saw a vision of a god being resurrected, and that was done because of you. If you are able to even resurrect a god, maybe someday you¡¯d resurrect me as well. I¡¯ve been living in pain for my whole life, and that doesn¡¯t quite sit well with me.¡±


    Saleen sweated cold sweat. So Ojarvis can actually read my thoughts then? Boy, spending time around someone like that sure is one hell of a pain.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need you to sign a contract with me, Saleen. I¡¯m only handing everything to you. I know you¡¯d help me, right?¡± Ojarvis asked with a smile.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯d do that indeed,¡± Saleen answered in a deadpan manner.


    The greater the amount of help he had gotten from Ojarvis, the greater the possibility things would have turned out like this. Ojarvis had actually entrusted the magic cube to Saleen because he wanted to live. As a person who knew that he did not have long to live since the time he came to know what was going on around him, such a life was indeed incredibly cruel. As such, Ojarvis was determined to cling to life more than anyone else. ¡°I¡¯d hand my life bead to Lex. You¡¯d find my mark of life on it. Even if I were to die, I¡¯d remain behind and there¡¯d always be a sliver of my soul within. That was something that father prepared for me, and I shall hand it to Lex. When youe to possess the ability to do it one day, resurrect me. I¡¯d really want to know what a beautiful life would have been like...¡±


    ¡°I will, if I¡¯m able to live that long myself,¡± Saleen answered.


    Ojarvis pressed something at his side. A magic box opened at the side of the bed, with thick stacks of schematics in it. ¡°Here are the schematics of the magic cube. Many mages have them, but these are the original. There are notes from tens of master mages on them.¡±


    Saleen waved and the thick stacks flew and opened before him. Saleen took a look and knew that there was no way he would have been able to memorize the whole using magic. He resorted to using starline cloth and began copying the schematics manually. Saleen did not like using skills of astrologers much, but that was an exception. There were hundreds of magic papers that consisted of the entirety of the schematics and every single one of them was packed with data. Some of the data was even written inside magic arrays. Three-dimensional magic arrays could have stored practically limitless amount of information. If Saleen were to rely solely on his own memory, he would not have been able to quickly memorize everything, even if his mental powers were even more powerful than they already were. Saleen took out a Star-Gathering Needle and four star figures. The four star figures were final gifts from Gaine. If Saleen were to truly be willing to practice astrology and reach level 18, he would have been able to truly control the four star figures and make them powerfulbat weapons. At present, those figures would have only advanced alongside Saleen¡¯s level at astrology. If he wanted to make the star figures more powerful, there was no other way to do it but to dedicate himself to astrology. That was the final joke from Gaine. If Saleen gave in to the enticement, then Gaine would have ended up raising a powerful astrologer. If Saleen truly decided not to advance his studies in astrology further, then he would have only been able to keep the four treasures around and not be able to use them. It was fortunate that Gaine had no intentions of forcing Saleen into doing anything. The four star figures were of at least level-ten powers at present, and they were also capable of storing limitless constetion power.


    Saleen jabbed his Star-Gathering Needle into the four star figures, pouring constetion power into them and activating them. Saleen took out starline cloths and distributed them to the figures, then gave his orders, ¡°Copy all of these magic schematics. Leave no details behind.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± the four star figures answered.


    Nailisi pouted. The four star figures were of no threat ,and Saleen would not have developed any emotions for them. Starlight shone on the star figures¡¯ eyes. They took the starline cloths and began to copy the magic schematics one by one onto the starline cloths. The copying skills of astrologers made the mages envious. However, constetion power was very hard toe by and not every astrologer was willing to use them like that. One star chart after another recorded what were on the stacks of magic schematics, copying all of the information regarding the magic cube perfectly. Saleen was using said skills himself and drew all of the schematics of the magic cube at the underground city.


    He fused Water me Alchemy into his astrology, turning the schematics into something like magic equipment. By doing so, the magic schematics could have been stored indefinitely and would have never faded. Furthermore, without constetion power fused with Water me to activate them, no other people would have been able to learn of the schematics¡¯ secret.


    Ojarvis¡¯s eyes shone with curiosity as he watched Saleen at work. It was the first time he had shown an expression like that. Due to the pain that seeped deep into his soul before, he was only able to show a calm expression.


    After Saleen finished copying the schematics, he put the original schematics back into the magic box, and Ojarvis shut it. He then asked, ¡°So that was astrology that you were using earlier?¡±


    ¡°Not entirely.¡±


    ¡°Constetion power sure is beautiful. If I were to resurrect, I won¡¯t be a mage, and instead I would try my best to be an astrologer. Being able to see fate feels like fun,¡± Ojarvis said sincerely. To him, trading whatever life he had left at the end of his life in order to gain the power to see the future became the only joy in his life.


    ¡°All right then, if I were to be able to resurrect you, I¡¯d impart the skills of astrology to you,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°If that is the case, then add a constetion brand at the depth of my soul. I know that you¡¯re a level-ten astrologer and you are definitely capable of doing that,¡± Ojarvis smiled and said.


    Saleen lifted his finger and starlight ebbed at his fingertip, emanating mesmerizing light. That bit of starlight was the strongest power that he was able to gather on his own. He relied on that finger to use the Crystal Finger as well. Saleen felt it to be rather funny. That one finger of his had killed quite a number of powerful ones, had then ended up being one used to save people. A ring of white Water me appeared on the finger to temper the starlight. That was a thought that somehow just came to Saleen. The starlight became denser and showed moreyers of colors after being tempered by the Water me. Every single color represented a constetion rule. Saleen was unable to master those rules, but they were nheless enough to make a constetion brand. Saleen pointed his finger at Ojarvis¡¯s forehead. A shallow wound was shown on Ojarvis¡¯s head and blood was seen. Saleen was frightened, but quickly realized that it was Ojarvis¡¯s skin being too weak to even be touched by Saleen.


    Just how did someone like this manage to live this long? Saleen coalesced magic liquid in an instant on his hand and he cast magic pharmaceuticals as well, mixing them together and applying them on Ojarvis¡¯ wound, stopping the bleeding.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard that powerful souls could have been created in weak bodies. I hope that I¡¯d have a strong body in my next life, and that my soul would be just as strong,¡± Ojarvis quipped and then thanked Saleen. The remaining elemental poison in Ojarvis¡¯ body was unable to prevent the constetion power from seeping into his soul. That was the power of rules eclipsing that of the elemental poison. A huge star chart was formed deep within Ojarvis¡¯s soul. That was something that Saleen had seen at the top of the astrology tower once. No one would have known about that star chart as well. Saleen was the only one who had seen that starry sky after Gaine left that ne. That constetion mark was absolutely secretive. Even if there were to be other astrologers showing up on Myers Maind, none of them would have been able to tell what Ojarvis would have looked like in his next life from that branding.


    Lex extended her senses for a bit and through the God¡¯s Ring, she was able to see the sliver of soul in Ojarvis¡¯s life bead. That sliver of soul had a peculiar image on it, which was a star chart. Lex was not an astrologer and so she was only able to see a blurred image. Not even the God¡¯s Ring allowed her to see what the star chart looked like originally.


    ¡°All right, tell the mages toe in.¡± Ojarvis coughed and covered his mouth with his hand. Some bit of blood was seen on his hand. ¡°Man, this is so annoying. Without the pain present, I almost thought I had recovered.¡± Ojarvis slowly rested his head on the pillow and resumed his reclining posture. His body was unable to handle even the slightest of sudden and intense movements at all. That was something that the oracle of the Heretic God would have never expected. If Ojarvis had not been poisoned, his life would have probably been even shorter instead. The terrifying thing about elemental poison was that it would have killed the poisoned one in six days. Within the six days, unless the poisoned person was decapitated or had their heart torn out, they would not have been able to die at all, as they had to suffer the pain from the elemental poison throughout. People would have usually done crazy things when they were in pain. The oracle of the Heretic God would have been right to think so, if the one being poisoned had been some other person. However, the likes of Ojarvis did not care about pain or negative status at all, which was exactly like Saleen. The pain was something they had to go through every day, and that was how they lived their lives.


    At the very extreme end of pain lies joy. That was an idiom of the mages, and believers of gods would have never been able to understand the line. To believers, the greatest joy was to enter divine kingdoms and be blessed with eternal life by their gods after all.

 Chapter 1343: Pain (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1343: Pain (Part 2)</h4>


    The six pce mages were summoned into the room. Ojarvis shut his eyes and rested for a while. The mages were all tense as they waited for Ojarvis to speak. They knew that the conversation Ojarvis had had with Saleen in private would have been of great importance and, furthermore, possibly shocking. When one had gotten to level ten with one¡¯s magic practices, one would have developed a strong sense of presentiment. That was something instinctual.


    Ojarvis did not open his eyes. He kept his eyes closed as he said to the six pce mages, ¡°No other forces have been able to enter Holy Rock City since the day the Qin Empire was founded. Thus, I am guilty of letting the city be infiltrated under my reign.¡±


    None of the mages spoke. They did not heed such words. They were loyal to the royalty, and they were actually of royal blood themselves. They werepelled to live and die alongside the Grukos royalty. Without support from the royal family, they would not have been able to earn their very prestigious status, as their bloodline would have only ended up in them getting repelled and oppressed by those from Alchemy City.


    ¡°I have decided to yield the throne to my sister, Lex De Grukos. I know that all of you have taken my sister to be the empress even before I made this decision. This is not important to me. Since the day I came to make sense of the world, I knew that I wouldn¡¯t be able to live a long life. It has been you all who helped me live as long as I did, using all manner of magic pharmaceuticals.¡±


    Again, none of the mages said anything in response. When Ojarvis was born, everyone thought that the empire had its next heir and would continue to prosper. However, Ojarvis¡¯s body had been extremely frail. The wealthiest royalty on the maind, which was also the one with the greatest number of mages, was unable to do anything to change Ojarvis¡¯s fate. The sickly Ojarvis seemed to have symbolized the empire¡¯s decline, but none of them thought that way back then.


    Lex was still around after all. Even if Ojarvis were to end up dead, the empire would have still had an heir. Furthermore, Emperor Chanake had been the strongest Grukos to have emerged for the past 300 years. Everyone thought that Emperor Chanake could have lived 1,000 years. However, Emperor Chanake died in his prime and at his very best. If he had not been trapped by the Holy See, Emperor Chanake would not have died even if there were ten powerful ones of his level surrounding and attacking him. But even thete emperor¡¯s power would not allow him to take on attacks from hundreds of, even up to 1,000, powerful professionals.


    None of the mages cared about the fact that Lex was not liked by the prince. The problem, however, was Master Merlin¡¯s prophecy. It put the mages on edge as it had everything to do with the state of the empire¡¯s strength. Things actually seemed to have turned for the better as they ran out of options, with letting Lex take the throne being the only remaining option.


    If Safilos were to be emperor instead, then the most powerful secret arts of the Qin Empire would be forever lost. Furthermore, that secret art¡¯s existence yed an important role in having Golden ins recognizing the legitimacy of the royal family. The emperor of Qin founded the empire all those years ago and moved all of the Grukos¡¯s powerful ones to Golden ins, precisely because he was afraid of infighting breaking out within the n. The Grukos of Golden ins were not allowed to participate in the fight for the throne, unless the bloodline of the royal family was no longer pure. The ones at Golden ins had curses running in their bloodlines. If the royal bloodline were to be broken because of them, then Golden ins would have ended up destroyed as well. The founding emperor of Qin used extreme methods to ensure the position of the royal family. However, at present, the Grukos royal bloodline had be increasingly thin even without interference from people of Golden ins, with Lex being thest one left.


    The sons of Safilos had all been tested long ago, and none of them would have been able to learn the highest of secret arts of the royal family. Those arts were in Lex¡¯s hands, and they enabled her to form her seventh magic chord. Lex was a rightful heir to the throne and Ojarvis, on the other hand, had his legitimacy questioned for not having been able to do anything. It was not that he had no wife, but that his body was so frail that any slightly intense movements would have hurt him, and thus prevented him from producing heirs.


    ¡°However, everyone, I have also made a decision that you all won¡¯t be able to understand. I have decided to give the magic cube to Saleen, and you all shall aid him in unifying the maind,¡± Ojarvis said in a serious manner and the six mage trainers looked at each other.


    The old mage only said after a while, ¡°Your majesty, I¡¯m afraid that wouldn¡¯t be the right thing to do.¡±


    ¡°What would be so wrong about it? Saleen is Lex¡¯s husband and a powerful mage, fully capable of leading you all to glory. You all should know that Lex¡¯s goal is to build a kingdom of mages, instead of having the nobles control the empire, like how things are at present. The world in the future should be such as well. I don¡¯t need to go into details as you all know that the nobles¡¯ influence is wearing out. It would be difficult, even impossible, formon folk to be nobles, as mages would probably be the ones fit to be so.¡±


    ¡°Golden ins.¡± Isenberg blurted out two words. He had pledged his support to Saleen, yet he waspelled to voice the problem all the same.


    ¡°There is no need to worry about Golden ins. Saleen has the Floating City, which would ensure that the magic cube would not fall into the hands of others.¡±


    The old mage then said, ¡°Your majesty, the mages of the pce would support you, but royal mages that are not of the pce...¡±


    The old mage¡¯s tone was a wavering one. While he had been taking a hard stance at Saleen in the beginning, that was all but a show for the emperor. With how things were going at the moment, with the emperor havinge to terms with Saleen, there was simply no need for him to object to anything. There was no doubt that he knew of the Floating City, just like every other mage in the room. All of them dreamed of being able to move to the Floating City and train there. It was impossible for Saleen to take the magic cube and dismiss all of them after all. If Lex were to take the throne, all of them would have still remained as royal mages and their statuses would not have changed. Furthermore, they gained the chance to train on the Floating City. During battle, things would have been considerably safer up therepared to the underground city after all. Saleen had powerful alchemy factories and that eerie magic. The royal mages were very clear about all of that. Siding with Saleen would have yielded far more benefits than siding with Safilos.


    It was impossible for Safilos to provide greater benefits to all of them. As for Lex, it was just as the emperor right before them put it&mdash;she intended to build a nation of mages. If Lex¡¯s ideals were to be realized, then all of them would have enjoyed very high status and would have had ess to limitless resources. It would have been like Alchemy City, and both Lex and Saleen would have taken good care of them, just like Ojarvis¡¯s mother would have.


    Ojarvis felt pained when he thought of that. It was not he who had caused his mother¡¯s death. The position of emperor was the one who took someone who would have loved him the most from him instead. Visions of his mother suffering great pain in order to give birth to him shed before his eyes. Master Merlin left a prophecy, which cast Lex out of the imperial capital. That was not destiny; someone was manipting things from behind. The power of the Grukos royalty had been too deep-seated and powerful. It was almost impossible to just overthrow them right away. Even at that very moment, where the portal of the abomination ne became connected to Holy Rock City, the royal family was still intact. Furthermore, most royal mages were already on standby in the magic cube, ready to retaliate in a scale that no one would have expected.


    ¡°Oh right. I¡¯m still emperor now. So that means I could still give you people one more order, right?¡± Ojarvis said all of a sudden.


    ¡°Indeed, your majesty,¡± the old mage answered.


    ¡°Be Lex¡¯s follower then. I¡¯m not a professional myself and so I couldn¡¯t do something like that. But Lex is a level-ten mage and possesses the God¡¯s Ring. I assume that qualifies her for such a position, no?¡±


    Isenberg looked at Saleen, who nodded. It was only then that he and the other mages agreed to it. Matters like that required contracts to be signed. Without Saleen¡¯s permission, there was not even a single bit of freedom left in his soul, which meant that he would not have been able to sign any contract at all. The problem was, however, even if he were to sign a contract, but if Saleen were to disagree, then his contract would have been voided all the same. That was something that Isenberg did not know. The rules on the broken jade were higher than that of the follower¡¯s contract.


    ¡°Well, seems like there are enemies showing up at our doors. Take a look, everyone.¡± Ojarvis¡¯ pain was borne by the Figure of Fate, so he was of better mental state at the moment, making the power of his secret art abilities greater. A vision of the future shed before his eyes. He saw the invaders fighting therge-scale puppet.


    ¡°Your majesty, please...¡± the old mage gestured.


    ¡°No need for that. I¡¯m not in pain now.¡± Ojarvis blinked, telling the old mage that he was at ease.


    The mages retreated, leaving Saleen, Lex, and Nailisi in the room together with Ojarvis. Even that servant officer left the room. A magic array appeared before Ojarvis¡¯s bed. The magic array itself was an image, but one that was able to ry magic projections from outside. At thest entrance to the underground city and within the magic door that Safilos was guarding, the assembly of therge-scale puppet was almost finished. Safilos was retreating behind the magic door in shambles with his people. Blinding light shot from the sides of the magic door as it shut altogether.


    Saleen paid close attention to the fighting. He was already able to tell that Safilos¡¯s powers were probably at the pinnacle of level-ten true might when he brushed past him. Furthermore, his long de amplified hisbat prowess by several times. With Safilos looking to be in shambles, that meant that his enemy would have been the leader of the Elemental Hand.


    ¡°I am the empress. If those people are not taking my orders, then I¡¯d simply drive them away. Affairs of the Grukos shall not be dictated by outsiders.¡± Lex was very clear on her stance on backing Saleen when there were outsiders around. Even if Saleen had been in the wrong, she would have remained by Saleen¡¯s side nheless. That was what Saleen liked about Lex, as she would not have let sentiments get to her head. She would not have allowed other people to be the ones to chastise her man.


    Ojarvis approved of Lex¡¯s words in silence. He did not like being an emperor and especially so after he saw his own past. The secrets known to no one found in the visions he saw robbed him of any fondness he had for the throne. If it had not been for his position, he would not have been sickly at a young age. What he was going through was not illness, but a curse. While he was unable to see who had been the ones who cursed him, but he was nheless able to tell that it all had to do with the throne. Someone hadid out all of that before his birth, in order to rob the Grukos royalty of heirs.


    Who was the one who put the curse onto me indeed?


    Safilos was indeed looking to be in shambles. If it had not been for the Winged Skull protecting him, he would have suffered grave injuries. The enemy¡¯s skill was not actually all that powerful, yet it was something never seen on Myers Maind before. He lost hundreds of swordsmen from onepse of judgment. The ones who escorted him to the door were none other than the spirits of the Winged Skull. Four mages were still outside. The magic door was already shut, and there was no telling if those mages were still alive.

 Chapter 1344: Deathly Deception (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1344: Deathly Deception (Part 1)</h4>


    The Winged Skull was unfazed as Rafel was by their side. An angel and a spirit fighting side by side was something extraordinarily rare. The Winged Skull brought six jade skeletons with them, and there was a spirit magic array set up right behind them.


    An aura of death continuously coalesced within the spirit magic array, conjuring huge spirit runes and filling the entire space before the magic door. There were tens of thousands of abominations below that tform. Within that tight space, the number of abominations was at its highest, but it was not all that far off either.


    Warriors dropped like flies on the tform. A huge number of monsters appeared among the enemy and cast Death Shock. Hundreds of thousands of deathly specters stormed the tform. They were not afraid of physical attacks at all and as such, resulted in very high casualties among Safilos¡¯ warriors.


    Four level-ten mage trainers were then right behind the spirit magic array, recovering their mental powers.


    They cast magic skills at the same time, protecting Safilos and the others as they retreated back to the magic door. However, those four mage trainers were thoroughly exhausted from doing so.


    ¡°Rafel, you doing fine?¡± the Winged Skull asked the angel at their side.


    Rafel¡¯s golden pupils practically became slits then, shooting purple-golden light from within. She had all the metal angels charge and return to Floating City, as her intuition told her that Saleen would not have continued to hold the line at the underground city.


    ¡°Can¡¯t do this any longer. More powerful enemies are going to show up from the abomination ne soon,¡± Rafel answered.


    Saleen¡¯s Water Shield that had been plugging the big hole above them had long disappeared, and the cave¡¯s surroundings were filled with crimson fluid. That came from some human warriors who scrapped against the rocky walls when they were captured and taken above.


    ¡°How about we bail if we can¡¯t hold on anymore then?¡± the Winged Skull asked Rafel.


    ¡°What kind of attitude is that!?¡±


    ¡°Rafel, I¡¯m a skeleton, not a warrior. I don¡¯t need honor or glory. Dying here isn¡¯t going to do us any good. If Master wants to leave, he won¡¯t need to go through that door at all,¡± the Winged Skull answered with an exasperated expression, which when shown on his ashen skull face, looked rather eerie.


    ¡°You have a point...¡± Rafel hesitated. If Saleen were indeed able to leave the underground city on his own, then there really was no need for them to hold the line in that ce. ¡°You¡¯re just a skeleton, but I¡¯m an angel. So what now?¡± Rafel asked the Winged Skull in return.


    ¡°There is a summoning array in the upper level, and there are powerful abominations showing up there. We¡¯ll just get up and break that teleportation portal then,¡± the Winged Skull suggested.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go!¡± a mage trainer shouted.


    The Winged Skull turned around and looked at that mage trainer with pitch-ck eyes, asking, ¡°And why not?¡±


    That mage trainer was at a loss for words. They did not manage to get into the magic door, and their mental powers had all been spent. If the Winged Skull were to leave, then all four of them will soon be ganged up by the abomination and killed.


    However, none of that had anything to do with that skeleton. As for Rafel, none of them even dared to expect that powerful warrior to fight for their sake.


    The Winged Skull chuckled and spread their bony wings, and Rafel spread hers as well. That mage trainer had an idea all of a sudden and asked, ¡°Master skeleton! Could I hire you then?¡±


    Rafel shook her head while the Winged Skull nodded. Rafel then nodded, but the Winged Skull shook their head instead.


    The mage trainer was puzzled, and the Winged Skull exined, ¡°You could hire us, but we¡¯d need to discuss price differently. What she wants and what I want are rather different.¡±


    The mage trainer was overjoyed and said, ¡°It¡¯s alright. We could afford it.¡±


    The other three mages showed the same expression. They saw the Winged Skullmand the spirits in battle and knew how powerful they were. The wave of attacks from the specters earlier did not manage to harm both the Winged Skull and the female warrior after all.


    ¡°Not quite. My master is His Highness Saleen, and you have no idea how rich Metatrin City is.¡± The Winged Skull then poured cold water over the mages¡¯ ideas. However, the four mages were hardly dejected. They simply hurried the Winged Skull to name their price instead.


    The Winged Skull had only been indulging their requests out of a whim. They did not mind the four level-ten mage trainers at all. If it had not been for fear of retribution from Safilos, the Winged Skull might have even wanted to turn them into spirits on the spot.


    However, since the four of them came to be so eager, the Winged Skull saw no reason to be prudent.


    Death wizards were powerful beings on the spirit ne. However, due to most death wizards having shattered memories, they were unable to bear their full might. Furthermore, due to their fractured mental states, their actions were rather random and ridiculous, and they often ended up being killed by spirit kings to prevent them from destroying the empires of the kings.


    However, humans who were willing to be made into spirit wizards were different, as their intelligence was kept intact.


    ¡°Saving you people is easy. See that magic array over there? That is a death teleportation portal, and you all will be transported to the spirit ne,¡± the Winged Skull said as they pointed at the magic array manned by six jade skeletons.


    The mage trainers then looked troubled. The Winged Skull then continued, ¡°Are you afraid that you won¡¯t be able to return then? Well, no worries about that. I¡¯m a king level skeleton myself, and I have no problems giving you people some bit of protection.¡±


    The Winged Skull took out four ck crystals, saying, ¡°Hold onto these. I can summon you all back at any time.¡±


    The four mages took the ck crystals without saying anything. The Winged Skull then took out four scrolls and said, ¡°As for the fee of employment, we¡¯ll need to make this clear. I¡¯ll be able to let you leave the underground city and send you to the surface. If you want to go any further, don¡¯t count on me for escort.¡±


    The four mages were exasperated. The levels of the underground city were shut off, and if they wanted to leave, they would only be able to do so using teleportation portals. However, none of them had the means to build one, so they had to get transported through the spirit ne instead.


    Seeing the four mages walking into the magic array, the six jade skeletons wore very human expressions on their faces&mdash;smugness.


    The four human mages did not get transported away when they walked into the magic array. The ck crystal on them melted all of a sudden and entered their bodies. Death aura emanating from the magic array seeped into their bodies in a heartbeat.


    Ahhh!


    Urrgghh...


    The four human mages made peculiar noises. If none of them knew that they were duped even at the moment, then something would have been very wrong with them.


    ¡°What are you doing!?¡±


    The most powerful mage among the four shouted. The remaining three were only able to moan and do nothing else.


    ¡°What are you doing!?¡± Rafel pointed at the Winged Skull and asked in a frustrated manner.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve just vited your contract. Retribution wille!¡± Despite being level 13 being, Rafel did not dare to vite contracts. She got increasingly irked as she looked at the Winged Skull.


    What is wrong with this guy? Don¡¯t tell me that this thing is only half-intelligent? Wait, aren¡¯t the skulls of skeletons half-open? Did their brains get dried up in the process?


    ¡°Deathly Deception! This is a skill that will keep me from suffering any punishments. Wait, are you telling me that no one knows of this magic spell?¡± the Winged Skull asked, feeling surprised.


    Deathly Deception!


    That was indeed a magic spell that death mages were capable of casting, which enabled them to evade contract rules. Rafel knew that much as well, but a spirit casting one such spell was unheard of. Furthermore, Deathly Deception was a spell that was difficult to upgrade.


    How did this thing manage to dupe four mage trainers at once?


    ¡°All four of them had spent all of their mental powers, which of course prevented them from using lie-detection,¡± the Winged Skull smiled amicably and said to Rafel. ¡°I¡¯m going to have four death wizards soon. Level-ten death wizards are more powerful than elemental mages. We won¡¯t need to destroy the magic arrays ourselves, as having them do it would suffice.¡±


    Rafel was speechless. While she did not get how they had been able to use Deathly Deception in a way that enabled them to dupe even level-ten mages, but the Winged Skull was right.


    The four death wizards-to-be were indeed more suited tobat than elemental mages, especially when dealing with the likes of the abominations. The bodily attributes of the death wizards also meant that they would have been immune to physical attacks from the abominations.


    The six jade skeletons crackled inughter as well. The remaining warriors around them were frightened when they saw the Winged Skull duping the four mages into the magic array and turned them into spirits. They were about to charge at the Winged Skull and kill them.


    Ooohhh...


    A mage trainer emerged from the magic array all of a sudden. Low-pitched whimpering was heard from him.


    Death Howl!


    The warriors who were of lower levels dropped to the floor, and the abominations rushing up to the tform were of no exception as well.


    Haa, crack...


    Another mage emerged from the magic array and took a look at the Winged Skull, hesitating somewhat, but was quickly smacked at the back of his head by the other one.


    ¡°Master!¡± that mage helplessly called out.


    ¡°Hmm, not bad. The magic array was actually meant for the abominations, and now you guys are in for a treat. The rest, juste on out. Being subjected to my control would be a far better fate than bing abominations.¡± The Winged Skull waved, and the remaining two emerged as well.


    The four level-ten elemental mages were thoroughly transformed into death wizards. The magic array was very quick with its conversion speed, but transforming four level-ten mage trainers was nheless very draining.


    Most of the deathly aura on the tform had dissipated. The spirit runes floating in the air were also absorbed when the four death wizards transformed.


    The amount of deathly aura would have actually been able to transform tens of thousands of abominations into spirits.


    The Winged Skull, however, had concerns about the sess of the transformation, and so siphoned all of the deathly aura into the four death wizards instead. When a death wizard¡¯s transformation wasplete, theirbat capacity would be on par with that of level-ten spirits.


    All four of them had been level-ten mage trainers to begin with. As the most trusted ones of Safilos, they were incredibly rich as well. At the moment, all of their riches then belonged to the Winged Skull. As such, despite having technically failed in the setup, the Winged Skull actually lost nothing.


    Rafel hardly felt much about the Winged Skull sessfully duping four mage trainers. While level-ten mages were not beings that she would have been able to effortlessly kill, it would not have taken a lot of effort either, unless they were someone like Saleen, who came to possess a myriad of powerful equipment.


    The warriors on the tform were ganged up by both the abominations and the Winged Skull¡¯s spirits. Only a handful of them remained.


    One warrior who was at a loss of what to do with the spear in their hand, turned the spear around and stabbed it into their chest. Blood sttered as the warrior yelled, ¡°I curse you!¡±


    Pfftt...


    Their head was quickly squished by an abomination¡¯s ws before their curse waspleted. Sacrificial Curse was the only curse skill that warriors had ess to, and there were few willing to learn it, as cursing someone with it came with the price of their lives.


    The Winged Skullughed. That abomination was indeed interesting. If the Winged Skull were to actually be cursed, things would have turned rather troublesome. As for the warrior¡¯s loyalty and bravery, none of that affected the Winged Skull¡¯s mood at all.


    Safilos had always been at odds with their master. As such, all those who were loyal to Safilos were seen to be their enemies!

 Chapter 1345: Deathly Deception (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1345: Deathly Deception (Part 2)</h4>


    The Winged Skull¡¯s calctions were simple. Anyone who stood in Saleen¡¯s way was to be dealt with one way or another. Any warriors who saw them subjugating those mages were basically dead. There were a handful who were being ganged up on by abominations, and they were hardly able to save themselves.


    The Winged Skull had no intentions of helping those warriors out. By letting all them die out, no one would have been left to talk unnecessarily to Safilos.


    When Safilos was gone, all four of those mages had fallen to the ground, and he probably did not know that those four mages were actually still alive. After being transformed into death wizards, their appearances would have gradually changed.


    He would not have been able to recognize them even if they were his own sons.


    While the Winged Skull seemed to be brutish with their way of going about things, they were actually rather meticulous. There were more abominations emerging after that, and all dead bodies had been tainted, rising from the floor.


    It was only then that the Winged Skull called and put the jade skeletons and the four death wizards into the spirit space, before flying up to the cave above with Rafel.


    It would not have been difficult for Rafel to dispose of those abominations as well. However, there were simply too many of them, and there would have been no end to it. Rafel possessed too few area-of-effect attacks, and she was reluctant to waste them. But then again, killing those things one by one seemed boring as well.


    Meanwhile, the Winged Skull was reluctant to waste the spirits there as well. The magic door behind them was shut tight. If the abominations intended to attack it, it would have taken them considerable effort to do so.


    While the four death wizards were indeed powerful, the Winged Skull recalled all of the sudden that those four had not been transformed for long, and their appearances were hardly any different from when they were still alive.


    Even if the Winged Skull were to use Deathly Disguise on them, it would not have been able to fool everyone, especially Safilos. If he were to see the four death wizards, he would have definitely been able to tell.


    As such, the Winged Skull needed to wait until the death wizards hadpletely changed their appearances and body shapes. The death wizards were not in a state of hibernation within the spirit space, and they were able to learn skills. That was something important to the Winged Skull.


    Learning skills within spirit space was a very slow process, and the reason was simple&mdash;the Winged Skull was learning as well, but they were unable to put a lot mental powers into doing so.


    Mages who came to possess spirit spaces were powerful mostly because of that. Summoning spirits anytime, anywhere was nothing much inparison. Such mages would not need to put in much effort to gain massive amounts of skills. That, coupled with their long lives, would make advancement easy.


    With the exception of not being able to use others to developprehension of the rules, the mystical part about death mages actually far surpassed that of their elemental cousins.


    In some nes, death mages were unusually revered, and they were not called death mages. They were addressed as life mages in those ces instead.


    The Winged Skull held the Reaper Scythe and shot up to the cave. Green light strafed from their eyes, purifying all low-level abominations before them. Rafel was still holding her spear, yet she never encountered any enemies along the way.


    The passage was only several hundred meters in length, after all.


    There was a huge za after emerging from the hole, which was at the side of the za. The Winged Skull took one look at the center of the za and found a vortex coalesced by ck mist, spewing abominations outwards.


    The abominations who were spewed were in shambles as well. The vortex¡¯s power and speed were too high, and only abominations above level nine would have been able tond steadily.


    The high-level abominations rushed the low-level ones to get in line as soon as they emerged. There were already powerful abominations looking their way when the Winged Skull emerged from the hole.


    However, none of those abominations moved against. They simply stayed where they were and organized their underlings.


    The Winged Skull quickly found something was off with the abominations¡¯ behavior, which meant that it was only a matter of time before more powerful ones emerged. Those abominations who did not bother with the Winged Skull were already at level ten.


    If abominations of higher levels were to emerge and the magic door was broken too early, it would have been anyone¡¯s guess if Saleen¡¯s ns would have been ruined.


    ¡°Rafel, we¡¯ll take on those abominations.¡± The Winged Skull changed their mind and charged at the center of the za.


    This skeleton sure is a lot of trouble, Rafel mumbled. She was rather reluctant to fight those abominations. Despite being a level 13 archangel, having to use divine arts after her god had perished meant that she had to rely on divine power reserves in her own equipment.


    She would not have been able to receive aid from gods, and that was why she was willing to follow Saleen.


    If she were to be the only one left to protect the metal angels, her divine powers would run out sooner orter, and she would have been reduced to little more than a warrior.


    However, Rafel loathed the idea of having to believe in some other gods again.


    But then again, the Winged Skull was very important, and Rafel could not have simply watched that pile of bones truly be reduced to a mere pile of bones. She hesitated for a bit before taking out and changing into the equipment that Saleen had prepared for her.


    She changed into the Devil Possession Armor, holding a de shield on her left hand and switched to another spear in her right. That spear was crafted using the spike of a level 14 silverline golden spearfish, which was inferior in qualitypared to Grey Memory in Nailisi¡¯s possession.


    However, a weapon crafted from level 14 silverline golden spearfish was already powerful enough. It would not have taken more than one stab to deal with a level ten abomination. If the ones to be attacked were to stand in a straight line, it would have even been possible to skewer three to four of them in one go.


    It was not easy for Saleen to craft that spear as well. While he had a good number of materials derived from silverline golden spearfish, only that spear had sixpletely intact eyes.


    Rafel¡¯s strong body was what made using the equipment possible. She did not need to spend much of her divine powers, and Saleen generously embedded dragon crystals on the spear.


    Ever since he came to ally with Grand Duke Iron Blood, the powerful ones at Saleen¡¯s side had the magic nuclei of their equipment switched to dragon crystals.


    Dragon crystals were rare and precious, and yet Saleen had no qualms of using them in such ways. Items were dead things, and any losses could have been replenished. However, living people were gone for good once they were dead. Saleen was very good with calctions, but he hardly ever talked about price with those close to him.


    So long as he was able to enhance theirbat capacity, he had always been willing to use the best things on his people.


    By the time Rafel changed into her new equipment, the Winged Skull had already charged into the midst of the abominations. Their Reaper Scythe was extended beyond seven meters, and with one horizontal sweep, de des danced. Almost a hundred abominations were reduced to pieces.


    That move of his made those few level ten abominations tense up right away. Six of them ganged up on the Winged Skull.


    The Winged Skull took to the air, and the de of the scythe was brought down on them in a frenzy, targeting level nine abominations specifically. Those below level nine quickly ended up dead simply by touching the de.


    Furthermore, abominations had souls as well, and the killed abominations had their souls sucked into the Reaper Scythe.


    The de of the Reaper Scythe grew increasingly huge, and the attacks unleashed grew in range as well.


    Rafel arrived andshed out with her spear. The sh of her spear pierced into the ck vortex, making it explode. Hundreds of abomination dead bodies were ejected from within. Blood sttered downwards as if it was raining.


    The ck vortex coalesced again in less than half a second after being destroyed by the sh of the spear. Rafel frowned. While that attack was not as powerful as when she was using Bloody Rose, that spear that Saleen made for her had very good anti-abomination properties.


    That attack practically did nothing as killing some abominations was rather pointless. That ck vortex grew even thicker when it was restored, spewing a greater number of abominations from within.


    Rafel was exasperated. If her god had still lived, she would have only needed to use Prayer to borrow powerful divine powers, eradicating the evil vortex once and for all on the spot.


    However, she was unable to do so at the moment, as using one such skill would cost her life.


    Rafel began to act like the Winged Skull&mdash;killing abominations surrounding the vortex&mdash;after she failed to destroy the ck vortex. When she was incapable of using divine spells, her skills with her spear enabled her to be like a tiger in a flock of sheep.


    However, the abominations emerging from the vortex seemed to be of no end. Regardless of how many she killed, the number did not seem to decrease at all.


    The god that Rafel once served did not like taking territories of others. However, that metal god had extremely special powers and had constantly been the target of other gods. As such, their divine kingdom had been in a constant state of war. Rafel had once been little more than a captain among the angels.


    She had already fought hundreds of divine armies back when she was at level 12.


    Her close-quarterbat abilities alone surpassed the abominations by several orders of magnitude.


    The six eyes on her spear were also capable of absorbing the power of the abominations. After the abominations ended up dead, they would not have been able to power the ck vortex further, which made Rafel have quite an easy time withbat.


    The Winged Skull, on the other hand, was having quite a hard time instead. While the Reaper Scythe had anti-abomination properties as well, the problem however, was that they were not as high as Rafel. The strength of their constitution might not have been all that different, theycked Rafel¡¯s vast closebat experience.


    Rafel had probably personally killed hundreds of thousands of angels, and there had been many gods who died by her hands. The fighting between gods was one fought between divine kingdoms. She was created as abat angel and a perfect weapon of the Metal God.


    Her level might not have been high, but she was capable of advancing further. Herbat skills and divine spells were also top of the line.


    If the Metal God had not perished, Rafel might have actually evolved from an angel to a god herself, making her a servant god instead.


    That was not the case with the Winged Skull, as theirbat skills came from a death wizard that they had devoured. For some unknown reasons, that death wizard had kept too much of the memories of their previous life, which caused the Winged Skull to mutate and developed incredibly high intelligence.


    The experience also enabled the Winged Skull to be proficient in the battles between mages.


    However, the Winged Skull¡¯s skills at close-quarterbat were average at best. The skeleton wascking in instincts and level, preventing them from being able to make short work of the abominations. They were relying on the power of equipment alone to make it that far.


    The reason why they remained unscathed so far was due to their golden heart and the green purifying beam that shot out from their eyes.


    Spirits who were capable of purification skills would have driven any human who saw it insane. However, within the eyes of the Winged Skull were two Blood Soul Towers, which in turn housed the souls of the oracle of the Goddess of Nature.


    The Winged Skull was getting increasingly agitated and began to cast death magic. Their soul me allowed them to connect to the spirit ne. Their powerful soul me had taken solid form and made the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes resemble that of humans, forming ck eyeballs within the mes.


    Death Healing, Death Roar, Invasion of Darkness, Death Ray...


    The Winged Skull fired all manner of skills of spirits without care. An empty area formed around the Winged Skull. All of the dead bodies of the abominations within said area were purified along the way.


    The Winged Skull noticed that the level ten abominations were surrounding them from afar andmanding their troops, while they refrained from getting into the range of the Reaper Scythe¡¯s attack. The Winged Skull then made a crass gesture at the abominations.


    None of the abominations knew what the Winged Skull meant exactly, yet they nheless knew that the gesture was an insulting one. Two of those abominations were unable to sit around any longer and barged through their low-level goons, making their way to the Winged Skull

 Chapter 1346: Hammer (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1346: Hammer (Part 1)</h4>


    Those two abominations wore golden armor and seemed to have grown scales all over their bodies. Their armorcked visors, revealing the abominations¡¯ greenish-ck skin and short tusks.


    Gosh, they look hideous!


    The Winged Skull evaluated the level-10 abominations and found that the higher the level, the more closely an abomination resembled a human. Those two were level-10 abominations, and they appeared to be almost human.


    Speaking of which, spirits weren¡¯t considered good-looking, but the Winged Skull¡¯s aesthetic was that of a human. While the Winged Skull was quick to judge others¡¯ appearances, it never once considered how it looked.


    The length of the Reaper Scythe grew yet again. Its skill was greatly augmented by the souls of the 1,000 abominations it had absorbed. A huge ck crescent moon formed on the de and spun in the air while heading straight for the abomination on the left.


    It split the creature in half down the middle, the two pieces falling to the ground. That abomination¡¯s powerful armor was pathetically weak before Reaper Moon. The wings behind the Winged Skull pped frantically afterunching the attack,ing before another abomination without missing a beat.


    That abomination smirked coldly as an enormous me appeared before it. The Winged Skull charged straight into the mes.


    Among the abominations¡¯ unique skills, mes of Hell was the one they were most versed in.


    It was therefore hardly surprising that itsrade had died: the Reaper Moon had be way too powerful after absorbing all those souls. Its skill continued to fly nearly 1,000 meters after killing that level-10 abomination. Not a single one in its path survived.


    That Reaper Moon wasn¡¯t part of the Winged Skull; it was a capability of the equipment. After that attack, the Winged Skull had to kill tens of level-10 abominations before it could be used again.


    After all, the souls of weak abominations were of no use whatsoever.


    The Winged Skull felt itself plunging swiftly into another space as it charged into the mes. A safe zone several meters wide formed naturally around the Reaper Scythe. The mes of Hell were unable to prate the weapon¡¯s range of attack.


    Countless fire elemental creatures appeared with the mes of Hell. The ones that were not far away eyed the Winged Skull: Of course they were itching to attack&mdash;but they did not dare!


    The Winged Skull chuckled: The God of the Underworld was a potent being in any versions of hell, but the will of the Reaper Scythe alone was enough to repel any hellish creature, unless it was just another God of the Underworld.


    The mes of Hell had originally been a dominant skill. If beings were plunged inside, they would not only have to fend off literal mes of hell that could never be extinguished but also have to battle the creatures in the fire.


    The difficulty was that the mes couldn¡¯t get near the Winged Skull at all. The creatures of the mes resorted to looking at the scene from afar.


    As the pupils in the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes turned, the blood-soul towers appeared. All the fire elemental creatures were frightened enough to run for their lives once the blood-soul towers were seen.


    That space was a created one. Those creatures could have been resurrected as they were killed, enabling them to keep tangling with the enemy. That space had boundaries; it wasn¡¯t so vast.


    A specter of the Winged Skull on the blood-soul towers was erged over 100 times, and a booming voice singing its praises echoed from the blood-soul towers:


    You are a great being. You are the unending light. Darkness is your disguise and you are our god, our will, our everything...


    The souls killed by the Winged Skull were first absorbed by the blood-soul towers when the Reaper Scythe wasn¡¯t around. Other than those two powerful souls, there were hundreds of thousands of othermon souls in the Winged Skull¡¯s blood-soul towers.


    After being wiped clean of their memories, they knew one thing only: the Winged Skull was their everything. They sang its praises around the clock, imbuing it with even more power.


    After the power from the blood-soul towers was unleashed, another Reaper Moon appeared on the Reaper Scythe.


    The Winged Skull turned its eyes at a single direction after the Reaper Moon was conjured before unleashing the skill without a care.


    The sea of mes was cut in half. The abomination that cast mes of Hell sensed that the mes were cut apart as soon as the Winged Skull entered it. A huge crescent moon flew out and bisected that abomination.


    Its soul was directly absorbed into the Reaper Scythe. There was no escape.


    The Winged Skull took one step forward after the mes were broken.


    Sighing, it thought to itself...if only I could master the skill, they could have controlled Reaper Moon¡¯s flight until it dissipated. The Reaper Moon cut down untold numbers of abominations as it continued its flight before ramming into the stone wall, stopping only after shooting over 100 meters into the wall.


    After seeing those two level-10 abominations die, the remaining abominations no longer barricaded the Winged Skull. Instead, they charged at the Winged Skull.


    Rafel was too powerful. Because the abominations were never ones to pick on someone their own size, they chose the Winged Skull, thinking the skeleton was an easy target. How wrong they were.


    Snickering again, the Winged Skull appeared with a huge meteor hammer in its other hand.


    It had a diameter of six meters. When used by giants, the weapon looked puny, but the Winged Skull was a little more than two meters tall. How ridiculous it looked to see someone that short dragging around such a huge ball connected to a long chain.


    But appearances were deceiving: as the Winged Skull began hurling the meteor hammer, the weapon¡¯s long chain acted like an extension of it arm.


    Even if the Winged Skull wasn¡¯t sopetent in closebat, few would have been able to stand in the way of something that big being flung around. Moreover, that was still a magic weapon, and there were six dragon crystals embedded within, forged into apound magic array.


    The function of that magic array was to imbue the weapon with bloodstones.


    A huge trench was carved between the weapon and the abominations. No being was able to stay in one piece if it got in the way of that huge head being swept. Be it the abominations or the devices found in the underground city, all were quickly destroyed by the huge meteor hammer.


    Rafel reveled in the sight of it all.


    That was the skill of the array, like her Metal Storm that could tear everything to shreds within its range of attack. The true meaning of wary with inflicting lethal damage in a wide area.


    If her god had still been around, Rafel would have been able to cast tens of such skills. She would have destroyed those abominations in minutes.


    Seeing the Winged Skull begin to eliminate the abominations out there, she stood guard at the edge of the ck vortex and hurled her spears like bolts of lightning, breaking the ck vortex again and again with her weapon.


    Every time the ck vortex was destroyed, it exploded, killing hundreds abominations in the process.


    Rafel could suppress the way the abominations were emerging in an instant; however, her golden eyes peered outside and saw throughyers of obstacles, finding over 100 vortexes like that in the underground city.


    Even though the abominations had only attacked the city¡¯s outskirts, they conjured arge numbers of portals. Things there were very different from then on in Hignd City, as that portal had been a naturally urring one.


    The portals found in the underground city were being opened by powerful beings in the abomination ne instead. The narrow pathways would not have continued to expand. But then again, given their enormous numbers, the forces in the underground city were stretched thin and incapable of retaliating.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s huge meteor hammer was blocked by a de wielded by a level-10 abomination. Before that abomination had time to start feeling smug, the weapon¡¯s head exploded.


    The force shot out from the magic patterns of the meteor hammer and inflicted damage greater than that of Wind des.


    Bloodstones was expelled in the most focused ways between the magic patterns that were etched for one sole purpose: eleration. The shockwaves from the explosion were swiftly turned into high-speed yet narrow air currents.


    It was a force that would have eclipsed the sword aura of golden grand sword masters. The abomination had a stunned expression on its face as it body was sliced to pieces.


    Shock was Rafel¡¯s reaction. She recalled Saleen crafting a weapon like that for her as well but took it as little more than a joke: such weapons were typically used by beings below level-9 who knew nothing but brute force.


    From the way things looked now, even if her meteor hammercked such force, it would have nheless had simr functions. Saleen never pulled any punches when crafting weapons for his people.


    It seemed paradoxical to her now, as she had always taken him to be a pacifist.


    A pacifistic mage had a knack for creating crazy equipment, for that¡¯s how humans seemed to operate. A smile appeared in Rafel¡¯s eyes at that the thought of that.


    While the two of them were powerless to stop everything that came their way, they still had fun fighting side by side.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s meteor hammer kept generating explosions. After the bloodstones within exploded and the force shot out from between the magic patterns, the burst of air currents cracked the hardest, most resilient armors within several meters.


    Not even magic armors could withstand the cutting power of the air currents.


    Rafel had seen enough. She switched the de shield out with a meteor hammer over ten meters long. She then swung it around in an experimental fashion.


    The oue did not disappoint: Numerous internal explosions took ce within her weapon as well, bursting forth from between the magic patterns. The burst of air currents cut the abominations into pieces.


    Things really had just gotten easier!


    What Rafel didn¡¯t know was that those weapons had been crafted by Saleen; the meteor hammer, however, was the Winged Skull¡¯s brainchild.


    That Winged Skull¡¯s thought patterns, which were simr to those of mages, were capable of Spirit Alchemy after all.


    With those two meteor hammers being swung, no abominations in the hall could say in one piece for long.


    In frustration, Rafel quickly discovered that her Devil Possession Armor could not offer protection against the sharp air currents. If she wasn¡¯t careful wielding the meteor hammer, she would have ended up injuring herself.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s armor, on the other hand, seemed able to defend against the air currents.


    Rafel took time out to examine the Winged Skull¡¯s armor. The outeryer of the armor was made of crystal and was packed tightly with magic patterns inside. Nothing significant was found, but when the air currents hit the armor, Rafel finally understand what happened.


    The crystalyer on the outside shattered here and there when it met the air currents. The shattering blocked the air currents¡¯ cutting power. It was not too difficult for something as hard as crystals to stop air-current attacks after they broke apart.


    The magic patterns on the inneryer then conjured new crystal tes to rece the broken ones.


    This type of armor also kept growing on its own. The Winged Skull could wield the meteor hammer with impunity since it had worn one such armor. The weapon could not distinguish friend from foe.


    If the weapon¡¯s head crashed into the Winged Skull, it would have fallen apart just the same.

 Chapter 1347: Hammer (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1347: Hammer (Part 2)</h4>


    The idea behind the crystal armor was ingenious, but the armor was mostly meant for fending off attacks from meteor armor. Such close-quarter cutting by air currents was sharper and deadlier than that of sword aura of golden grand sword masters.


    The thing is, the air currents were of short duration. If they missed their target and were intercepted by equipment like the crystal armor, follow-up attacks would have been needed.


    Armors usually weren¡¯t designed this way, because that crystal armor was not really effective againstmon types of physical attacks.


    A huge furry hand extended from the other side of the ck vortex while both the skeleton and the angel were whipping the abominations about with their bludgeoning weapons, catching Rafel¡¯s meteor hammer.


    Powerful explosions sted through that hammer, forcing intense air currents through cracks on the head, wringing itself free.


    The master of the huge hand seemed momentarily stunned, its bloodied hand extended again. But it was the entire arm showing up from the ck vortex.


    Rafel quickly retreated to evade capture. Unsessful in dodging the first catch, she was taken aback at the realization that the enemy¡¯s martial prowess was on par with hers.


    The wounds on the hand healed right away. While it failed to resist the meteor hammer¡¯s attack, it didn¡¯t get blown to bits either. Rafel reeled the meteor hammer back and stabbed using the spear on her right hand. The thrust, which dealt a huge puncture wound, caused the hand to pull back.


    The six evil eyes on Rafel¡¯s spear were even eerie than that huge hand, as it sucked the hand¡¯s evil power right there and then.


    That was, however, due to the insufficient levels of her spear: If it had been Nailisi¡¯s Gray Memory she was wielding, half the body of the hand¡¯s master would have been torn apart.


    Nailisi was unable to bring the best of Gray Memory¡¯s powers to bear because of her own insufficient level.


    But then again, it didn¡¯t really matter since no more abominations were emerging from that ck vortex for the time being. The Winged Skull kept swinging its weapon, every attack bringing enough explosive power to obliterate all abominations in close range.


    If it had been Saleen, he would have doubted such tactics. The power of magic was all about bnce. While bloodstones were deemed preciousmodities on Myers Maind, they weremonce in the spirit ne.


    The explosive power brought forth by such cheap things had already exceeded the value of the bloodstone itself.


    It was simr to having a level-9 magic nucleus emitting level-11 magic energies.


    Anything that could not be exined was meant to be researched. Saleen, however, hadn¡¯t looked into the meteor hammer since the Winged Skull rarely used it. Besides, he was unable to spare the time because he had all sorts of wars to fight, all sorts of experiments to conduct, all sorts of objects to design.


    The minds of mages had always been filled with creativity.


    The Winged Skull spread its wings as the meteor hammer was swinging, having its way with the massacre at the hall. Rafel stood at the side of the ck vortex to kill any abominations that emerged.


    The battlested over an hour.


    The ck vortex slowly shrank and finally dissipated. A huge array that was drawn using the symbols on the abominations were revealed on the ground. The Winged Skull put the weapon away and lowered its head, studying the array.


    ¡°Are you staying?¡± Rafel was curious. What is there to research about the array? It¡¯s just something simr to the teleportation portals of elemental mages, after all. If Saleen were to get to it, he would have been able to design something simr.


    ¡°Abominations do not have writing systems. Something thisplex couldn¡¯t have been developed by the abominations themselves.¡±


    ¡°The Heretic God. Those are the scripts of the Heretic God.¡±


    A memory surfaced in Rafel¡¯s mind. She then said to the Winged Skull, ¡°The Heretic God once invaded many divine kingdoms and possessed his own as well. He waster...killed. The one we¡¯re dealing with now is either a resurrected one or his sessor.¡±


    The Winged Skull took out a piece of crystal and recorded all runes on the array before destroying it with the Reaper Scythe. Then it went on to look for a passage going above.


    The Winged Skull knew there was a stable set of coordinates at the central Magical Element Tower on the Floating City. Saleen could haveid out a teleportation portal and returned there at any given moment.


    He didn¡¯t need to protect the underground city, as the abominations had yet to gain an advantage in the entire ce. The Qin soldiers had retreated. It was pointless for the abominations to take the outer regions of the underground city.


    The abominations were not spirits. They were even inferior to demons. That was because abominations got hungry quickly and had to eat nonstop. The reason they were capturing humans was to stockpile food.


    A human mid-level swordsman could sustain an abomination for two or three days. Demons, however, could go without eating for a month, unlike abominations, which needed to eat at least once a day to sustain theirbat capacity.


    Saleen was still talking with Ojarvis about how to repel the abominations in the magic cube. With the magic door relieved of the pressure from the abominations and shut tightly, the core of the underground city would be safe for now.


    The mages opened a magic array in the central room, filling the ce with three-dimensional, transparent images. From here Ojarvis could observe what was going on outside. The magic cube slowly became operational. Saleen felt the ce was simr to his Magical Element Tower.


    Corpses began piling up outside the magic door. Some ¡°dead bodies¡± were trying to piece themselves back together, a scene many there had grown ustomed to. The capacity to stomach such revolting images increased through constant exposure.


    Safilos was resting inside the magic door, watching the mages assemble therge-scale puppet. They were almost finished.


    Regardless of where the attack was nned, any abomination intending to attack the magic cube would eventually have to pass through that door.


    That was the mystical part about the magic cube. If the underground city was something that could be built by digging into the ground, any nation would have been able to construct one, and it would not have be thest barrier of Holy Rock City.


    Since there was no need for fighting, for the time being, Saleen asked about the magic clock.


    Holy Rock City¡¯s magic clock was a piece of equipment Saleen was very envious of. If it were installed on the Floating City and filled with his thundering sound, he would have been safe anywhere he went on Myers Maind.


    It was only during the conversation that Saleen came to know that there were actually 24 of those magic clocks. A single broken clock would have weakened the devices¡¯ defensive capacities tenfold.


    We cannot afford to lose even one! That was how Ojarvis put it.


    Saleen wanted to look at the remaining magic clocks. He knew there were only 18 taken during the fighting. The enemy had taken the remaining five.


    He was exasperated. Does someone actually bother hauling away something like that? How did the abominations know they had to take the magic clocks away?


    ¡°It¡¯s Alchemy City. I think Alchemy City has been eyeing those things for a very long time, ¡± Lex said.


    All remaining 18 magic clocks were stored in her God¡¯s Ring at the moment. There was no spacerge enough in the magic cube for Saleen to do any research. For this reason, Lex resorted to taking out the clocks one by one, chucking them into Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    When Saleen entered purgatory, the 18 magic clocks hovered around him slowly and gave him a chance to study them up close. The clocks were six meters tall and of a bronze color. There was an image of the Six-Winged Flying Snake on the pin, which was forged together with the magic clock.


    Red magic runes were crafted onto the body of the magic clock. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye told him that the runes were inyers. The device was less than a meter thick, yet there were over 10,000yers of runes on it.


    But there were no magic arrays. The magic clocks were so powerful because they worked using rule powers.


    Every single magic clock represented a part of elemental rules. Having all 24 of them around made it possible for the magic clocks to work. They were higher than the principles of his magic whereas the magic clocks were made specifically for mages.


    Within the vicinity of the clocks¡¯ sounds, a mage would have been able to fight the enemy from his magic tower.


    The sounds boosted a mage¡¯sbat capacity, preventing their casting processes from being interrupting.


    Furthermore, from Saleen¡¯s calctions, he could tell that the magic clocks harbored a huge amount of magic powers. If the users of the clocks truly knew what they were doing, the devices would have cast powerful magic without regard to the user¡¯s level.


    So this is something that can enable low-level mages to cast high-level magic then. Saleen was shocked at that discovery.


    This doesn¡¯t make sense! If that¡¯s the case, it would have sufficient to craft more of this equipment. There wouldn¡¯t need to be sorcerers around. A magic apprentice could have done all the work. Metatrin City¡¯s power could easily nurture over a million magic apprentices every year.


    That was not yet the key. The key was that something was hanging in the inner parts of the magic clock. That thing was of faded golden color and the size of a standardntern, emanating soft, gentle light. The hanging object contained energy amounts eclipsing that of the total of all dragon crystals Saleen possessed.


    There was some matter capable of replenishing its energy automatically, but Saleen couldn¡¯t tell what that was.


    The power of the magic clocks came from that matter. If he were to possess it, even though he would be unable to keep the magic perpetual-motion engine running indefinitely, it would have at least enabled it to run for hundreds of thousands of years.


    After Saleen left purgatory, Lex asked with a smile, ¡°How did it go, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t say anything.¡±


    ¡°All those things were actually replicas. The true magic clock was long ago transported into another ne. Those from Alchemy City wouldn¡¯t be able to destroy the clocks otherwise.¡±


    Saleen recalled matters about the higher crystal wall system. His own Ring of Cosmos came from another crystal wall system and was so resilient that not even his Water me Alchemy could do anything to it.


    But then again, if the materials of replicas were so powerful, did the ancestors of the Grukos acquire secret skills from another crystal wall system to replicate such things then?


    Skills alone weren¡¯t enough. Equipment like that required the right materials, and there were hardly any substitutes for any part of it. Maybe the warehouses of the Grukos still has some of this matter left.


    ¡°Saleen, you can look into it after I¡¯m dead.¡± Ojarvis¡¯ words interrupted Saleen¡¯s thoughts. ¡°See? The abominations are growing in numbers. Those few...¡±


    Ojarvis pointed at the abominations appearing in the magic projections. They wore armor festooned with peculiar designs. The armor was of silver-grayish colors and the horn on the helmet was that of the abomination¡¯s own, showing through a hole on the helmet.


    There was only a handful such abominations, with little more than a dozen found throughout the entire underground city.


    A number, however, was disyed on the helmet of that abomination seen within the room in the magic cube: 11!

 Chapter 1348: Angering the Heretic God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1348: Angering the Heretic God (Part 1)</h4>


    A level-11 abomination!


    The magic cube was capable of distinguishing between different levels of enemies, Saleen found that was amusing.


    ¡°Ojarvis, what do you mean?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯ll be level-12 abominations showing up sooner orter. If we sendmon troops out there, you might as well tell them to dig their own graves. I¡¯ll keep pulling back the line of defense and have all troops get inside the magic door. Help us out with that.¡±


    ¡°Wait, you¡¯re not telling me to go out there and fight those level-11 things, are you?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I know you have potent movement skills. Those level-11 abominations would never be able to catch up to you. Just get their attention so my troops can safely retreat. Sooner orter, they will be Lex¡¯s troops.¡±


    Saleen nced at Lex, who nodded. Nailisi snorted heavily but didn¡¯t object. That was because all 18 magic clocks were still in her 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Neither Lex nor Ojarvis said a word.


    ¡°Alright then, Nailisi,e with me.¡± Saleen nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Saleen, there¡¯s only one ce with a set of space coordinates in the entire magic cube, and that is my room,¡± Ojarvis said as he drew the coordinates in the air with his finger. Saleen memorized them.


    ¡°Bring those powerful abominations up to the surface while you head back to the Floating City and teleport back here.¡±


    Saleen did not expect the magic cube to have a teleportation portal. In theory, a space like that should have been sealed, disallowing any fixed-space coordinates to exist inside. If there were space coordinates inside, that location would have been the magic cube¡¯s weakness.


    Ojarvis was definitely not someone who was afraid of death. Those coordinates were left behind for Lex.


    If worse came to worst and the magic cube remained incapable of stopping the abominations, then Lex&mdash;the heiress to the empire&mdash;would have still been able to leave.


    Saleen knew that Ojarvis wanted to find out if the teleportation portal was a reliable one and if he was being used as a guinea pig. The goal of the experiment, though, was to ensure Lex¡¯s safety.


    Saleen understood Ojarvis¡¯ intentions and did not argue. After all, he had to give up something in order to take the magic cube. Ojarvis¡¯ resurrection was a matter to be considered in the far future.


    Saleen did not use the teleportation to get outside with Nailisi. He took the stone instead and came to where therge-scale puppet was being put together.


    The other side to the site was the magic door, which served as the core of any route getting in and out of there. The abominations would have had to attack the door sooner orter, as there was simply no other way of getting in there.


    The magic cube seemed like a parallel dimension; the space coordinates of that ce kept shifting.


    Passing those mages, Saleen found them focusing their attention on adding the finishing touches to the puppet. It looked entirely different from how it was when Saleen came in through that door. At the moment, it was filled with offensive weapons.


    Saleen was surprised. Then he saw the changes on the magic door, which quickly allowed him toprehend the reason for its design: The door was a one-way magic defense piece of equipment.


    Therge-scale puppet would have only needed to attack through the door. Once the magic door was in operation, the ones outside the door would have been unable to attack anything inside. They needed to pass through the magic door in order to attack therge-scale puppet.


    But passing through the door came with a hefty price.


    ¡°Prince Safilos.¡± Saleen came before Safilos and disyed a mage¡¯s gesture of courtesy.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen.¡± Safilos¡¯ gray eyes looked weary. He had lost sensory connection with his four trusted mages who were probably dead by now. While he never valued mages much in general, those four level-10 mages were his friends.


    ¡°If Lex was to be empress, what would you do?¡± Saleen asked the question before he went off. If Safilo¡¯s¡¯ answer was not one that he found satisfactory, he would stop helping Qin. That was because Safilos had control of all armies except the Royal Swordsman Camp.


    ¡°I shall head to my kingdom, be just a king and stop meddling in Qin¡¯s affairs. I think you¡¯d be able to help Lex keep this nation safe, right?¡± Safilos asked in return.


    ¡°I think I¡¯d be able to do that. I myself have no interest in bing emperor. But then again, Ojarvis said that it will happen someday. Prince Safilos, don¡¯t you think that would prove rather troublesome?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll deal with that when the timees. Right now, thest line of defense of Qin is right behind me. I need to fulfill my task before I think about those things.¡± Safilos shouldered his demonic long de that still emanated an aura of death.


    ¡°When the timees then...¡± Saleen nodded and turned toward the magic door. Those mages saw both Saleen and Nailisi crackled all over with lightning sparks as they walked outside. All of them were in awe.


    They had intended to trip him up because of his insolence at Safilos; nevertheless, Saleen walked outside without waiting for them to open the magic door.


    The energies on that door were utterly incapable of preventing Saleen from going in or out.


    The lightning¡¯s energy broke down the energy at the door, boring a hole in an instant, allowing Saleen to step outside while hardly breaking a sweat.


    Safilos simply pursed his lipszily at Saleen¡¯s protest. He had no energy to argue with Saleen about anything. As for the matter with Lex, he was not considering it as a personal perspective.


    The reason he disliked Lex was because of Master Merlin¡¯s prophecy, which turned out to be urate. After Lex became a viscount, the Qin Empire lost Kroraina, and the north became embroiled in the fires of war.


    At present, Phoenix Duchy in the north was annexed by the Kingdom of Metatrin. Lianyun City at Qin¡¯s southeast corner was invaded by Grand Duke Iron Blood and the empire was still incapable of taking it back.


    When something happened with Alchemy City, it first shed with Holy Rock City. Itter moved out of the city¡¯s mages entirely leaving behind an awful mess. The skeletal dragon took Alchemy City for its own, and Safilos was unable to do anything about that.


    He was unclear about the level of the skeletal dragon but knew that since the mages of the entire Alchemy City dared not move against it, his armies would not have been able to pose much of a threat to the colossal creature.


    The war puppets, on the other hand, moved to the central region and were on hot standby to take on the armies invading Holy Rock City. The city itself in a crisis, as the abomination ne opened a portal right inside the city, trampling the thousand-year-old ce.


    Although the city was not yet in ruins, its forces were unable to fend off the invasion and would have fallen eventually.


    Lex probably had nothing to do with Lex, but sentimentally, Safilos still held her responsible.


    Saleen walked outside the magic door. The abominations were nowhere to be found. Saleen saw the aura of death coalescing into tiny footprints hovering in the air. Those were traces left behind by the Winged Skull.


    Nailisi was also able to see those tiny footprints through Sensory Sharing. She pouted. So that old pile of bones knew how to y cute too eh. Damn...


    Saleen got up to the first level of the underground city by following those tracks.


    Abominations were everywhere in the first level. There were very few troops and mages of the Qin Empire to be found there, but all the resistance forces were holed up in magic tower-like structures, attacking the outside and rarely shing with the abominations up close.


    Saleen cast his Lightning Territory and let the lightning warriors clean up those low- level abominations. Abominations killed by lightning warriors basically stayed put. Further, the lightning purification skill Saleen was using was something he learned at Hignd City.


    The corpses of abomination were reduced to dust after being purified. asionally, golden granules were found among the dust and Saleen had the lightning warriors gather them.


    Saleen valued those golden granules the most, as there were natural lightning magic patterns found inherently within that enabled them to be used for creating equipment with lightning properties. There were too few materials on Myers Maind capable of being used for creating such equipment.


    If there were sufficient materials of such nature collected, Saleen would then craft an erged Thunder Dragon ster and install it below the Floating City. It would have enabled him to wreck any defense of any kind of city.


    Saleen slowed down after finding that he was able to acquire such weird materials by purifying the corpses of the abominations. He did not necessarily need to carry out Ojarvis¡¯ ns, as he only needed to attract the high-level abominations¡¯ attention and buy enough time for the magic door to get ready.


    How he went about this was entirely up to Saleen.


    ¡°Nailisi, grab the dead bodies!¡± Saleen charged at the ce with the greatest number of abominations found as soon as he finished. He was surrounded tightly by lightning warriors. They were mechanical structures but looked different from how they once were.


    Every singleponent in them was designed withbat in mind.


    Nailisi took her devil form and held Gray Memory, the square shield, and the Sword of Rules respectively. She reserved the other hand for holding the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    Saleen simplified the entirebat process. After killing abominations, Nailisi threw them into her collection of purgatories. He needed more equipment of greater power for wars in the future. The granules enabled him to create new Thunder Dragon sters.


    If he were to collect ample numbers of those materials, then the Floating City would have had sufficient offensive capacities. As it stood at the moment, Saleen was still not all that familiar with manning the Floating City.


    ¡°Master?¡± The Winged Skull appeared all of a sudden with Rafel right behind.


    ¡°Where have you been hiding?¡±


    ¡°Heh...¡± The Winged Skull then spoke to Saleen through the soul, ¡°Master, the ck vortexes could be purified as well. I can¡¯t do that since I don¡¯t have lightning powers though.¡±


    Saleen was ted to hear that. The ck vortex at Hignd City was too big and its power was way off the charts. His lightning proved insufficient to deal with it. He did not expect to find the smaller ones in the underground city capable of being purified at all.


    If I were to purify all of that, wouldn¡¯t I be able to get more lightning crystals then?


    ¡°Lord Saleen, this way please,¡± Rafel saw the joy in Saleen eyes and said exasperatedly. They came before a hall quickly after passing through several tunnels. The area of the hall was far smaller than the one where the magic door was, and a ck vortex was formed right in the middle.


    The ck vortex was less than ten meters in high and was only able to spew one or two abominations at a time. Saleen charged at it andpressed his territory. Lightning covered the entire ck vortex, and there were eight Armoring Lightning Beads spinning around it.


    The ck vortex exploded violently, which was contained by Saleen using his territorial powers. The explosion did not affect any other areas though. Under the attack from electricity and the Armoring Lightning Beads, the ck vortex spew golden granules, which were all somewhatrger than a section of a finger.

 Chapter 1349: Angering the Heretic God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1349: Angering the Heretic God (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°We¡¯re rich!¡± Nailisi cheered.


    ¡°This is dangerous, my lord. You¡¯ll risk angering the Heretic God,¡± Rafel said discouragingly.


    Nailisi then said to Rafel in an I-don¡¯t-care tone, ¡°So are you saying that the Heretic God would make friends with master if he doesn¡¯t do so? Or would the god just follow master around as he goes about fighting wars, bing hisckey?¡±


    Rafel knew Nailisi was spouting nonsense but was unable to retort. The Heretic God would have be a great enemy of Saleen sooner orter. The immediate problem was angering that god right there and then.


    Rafel was afraid that the Heretic God would use unconventional means and unleash powerful beings onto Myers Maind.


    The Winged Skull didn¡¯t utter a word while helping Nailisi clean up the abominations. The hall¡¯s area had been small, to begin with, and the Winged Skull did not even need to use the meteor hammer to take control of the situation.


    Saleen unleashed elemental beings to help collect the golden granules. Using wind magic, the Tempest Dragon collected the granules that were all about the size of a knuckle.


    That ck vortex had gotten increasingly small, shrinking half its size from over eight meters to four meters. With the four-meter-tall ck vortex purified, Saleen was able to collect about one-cubic meter worth of golden granules from it.


    Exasperated, Rafel used her spear to stab to death all the abominations near her, one by one.


    That ck vortex, which couldn¡¯t hold on much longer, intended to retreat to the rune array but was trapped by Saleen¡¯s Lightning Territory and in a frenzy.


    The quicker the vortex spun, the greater the number of golden granules produced from purification. Saleen wasforted that the Winged Skull had the smallest of the ck vortexes for him to work with, making purification a breeze.


    Up to 100 ck vortexes found in the underground city enabled him to collect hundreds of cubic meters¡¯ worth of golden granules.


    With such arge quantity, it would have been easy to craftrge-scale lightning equipment without worrying about drawing the ire of the Heretic God.


    Ojarvis and Lex watched Saleen¡¯s actions from the magic cube. One smiled while the other shook her head.


    ¡°See, my sister? I told you Saleen would help solve our problems,¡± Ojarvis shed a smug smile at her.


    ¡°Heh, so are you using him or using me now?¡±


    ¡°Neither. Lex, this magic cube is on par with the Floating City in terms of value. He needs to shoulder some responsibility given how I handed the cube to him just like that. Besides, look how happy he is. He definitely isn¡¯t thinking that I might be using him.¡±


    Lex groaned. Ojarvis had only told Saleen to bait those powerful abominations but not to purify the vortexes. Technically speaking, Ojarvis wasn¡¯t using Saleen.


    That being said, Ojarvis was capable of seeing visions of time, which meant that he would have expected Saleen to do this.


    What he was doing was simply giving Saleen a chance to get close to those ck vortexes. What is fate? What is the future? Ojarvis knows that better than I do. If he were to just have Saleen hold the line at the magic cube, those visions he saw wouldn¡¯te true.


    Lex had nothing to say about it, though. Ojarvis handed her his life bead. His future was in her hands. If Saleen suddenly dropped dead, he could never have been resurrected.


    Ojarvis rarely told others what he had seen. Lex was only hoping that his little brother didn¡¯t take any risks and try to change fate or anything like that.


    After purifying a small vortex, Saleen felt that the exercise proved useful in helping him master his Lightning Territory. He came to have a good idea of where that seemingly random electricity in the Lightning Territory went.


    If he were to keep doing such purification exercises, he would have eventually gained control over the power of the Lightning Territory, enabling him to use the electricity in battle.


    It was especially valid in the case of the eight Armoring Lightning Beads. While they moved slowly, they contained great amounts of power. The entire Lightning Constetion was providing power for the eight beads.


    ¡°Next one!¡± Saleen hurried his people.


    Only Rafel was capable of knowing the precise location of every ck vortex. That was her ability. Both the Winged Skull and Nailisi were of insufficient levels, preventing them from seeing through theyers of obstacles and get a clear picture of the underground city.


    ¡°My lord, please consider carefully!¡± Rafel hoped Saleen would stop doing all of that. The Heretic God¡¯s power was far too powerful. If the god had randomly shown up on their ne one fine day, he would have hated Saleen the most.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to consider? The Heretic God...I¡¯m thinking of crafting something out of him. It was no wonder ancient mages loved waging wars with the gods. They were indeed a treasure trove...¡±


    Rafel then said in a concerned tone, ¡°My lord, aren¡¯t you a little lost? Power isn¡¯t everything!¡±


    ¡°No, this has nothing to do with power. You don¡¯t understand, Rafel. I¡¯m capable of seeing the future, and I see the path I should take. If the Heretic God likes getting angry at me so much, then let him. If he were to advent right in this ne, I¡¯d be out of luck. If he can¡¯t advent, hehe...¡±


    Saleen paused. If he were able to craft a huge Thunder Dragon ster, he would not even need to worry about those heroes at the cemetery. He initially thought about not going back anymore, but he saw new hope for doing so.


    The Imperial City of the Abyss was different from Myers Maind in terms of ne rules. The weapon spirit of his Floating City could have advanced in the Imperial City of the Abyss and taken control of therge Thunder Dragon ster.


    He could have returned only after bing familiar with his new weapon and had nothing to fear.


    ¡°Alright, I hope you won¡¯t regret this,¡± Rafel said as her golden pupils turned into a vertical slit again. She pivoted and brought the party to a passage at the left.


    They arrived at yet another za after passing through several small living areas. A 12-meter-tall ck vortex was at the center of the za. The Winged Skull found it hard to estimate the size and distribution of those vortexes, yet Rafel seemed to know that information like the back of her hand.


    The abilities possessed by a level-13bat angel was not something Saleen and the others could havepared to.


    As he did with the previous one, Saleen simply showed up right beside the ck vortex and covered the entire construct with his Lightning Territory. Then he sent in the Armoring Lightning Beads in. The ck vortex responded by spewing golden granules.


    Suddenly, an abomination¡¯s dead body charged at Saleen. It was alreadypletely dead, and its soul was gone as well. Its limbs were all rotten; its head was the only thing still intact.


    Taken by surprise, Saleen dealt with the situation calmly by contracting the Lightning Territory inward, forming a lightning field and repelling the dead body.


    Nailisi stuck out her tongue and then threw the dead body into her collection of purgatories.


    Arge number of level-10 abominations was in that za&mdash;more than 30, to be precise. The Winged Skull went about swinging tits meteor hammer again, preventing them from getting near Saleen. Rafel and Nailisi thrust at the abominations with their spears, deftly moving between the meteor hammer¡¯s swing.


    Saleen¡¯s body was covered in a thinyer of Water Shield that kept him from taking in the stench of blood. Since Rafel was a metal angel, she was indifferent toward odors. The Winged Skull, being a spirit, relished the smell of death.


    To Nailisi, there far grosser things in the demon ne than what they had witnessed there. She was even more indifferent than the others.


    Blood sttered all over the ce as the abominations charged without any concern for their lives. In seconds all were reduced to blood and guts, flesh and gore.


    Still nothing!


    Saleen carefully inspected how things were inside the vortex while purifying it. The Heretic God hadn¡¯t yetunched any attacks; it was almost as if he had not noticed his existence.


    How cool was that! If the god made a move sooner than he should have, Saleen might not have had a chance to continue purifying the vortexes.


    They should have been filled with the power of the Heretic God. The matter found within was unique to the Heretic God. If all of the vortexes were to disappear, he would have had to resort to trying his luck at Hignd City.


    If he had known that the vortexes wereposed primarily of a good bunch of golden granules earlier, he wouldn¡¯t have left Hignd City back then. Even if he ended up shing with Fycro, he wouldn¡¯t have given up.


    I intended to create yet another Thunder Dragon ster, so what did Fycro want to do with the white ones he collected? The white granules had no special properties but were nheless very precious alchemical materials. Saleen did not think for one second that Fycro was collecting them purely for his enjoyment. No way.


    Saleen swiftly cleaned up the hall and collected about four cubic meters of golden granules from that vortex. He gleefully stashed his loot and let Rafel lead the way to the next one.


    She had decided to give up trying to persuade Saleen altogether. She saw that to him, the abominations were practically walking bags of money. She came to have a rough grasp of Saleen¡¯s equipment. That Thunder Dragon ster could have posed a threat to her life.


    Saleen¡¯s capabilities meant that even if she were to fight up close, she might not have been able to really take him on.


    That mage had all sorts of mysterious gear with rare attributes.


    Saleen continued sweeping all the halls found on the first level of the underground city with his three subordinates. The ck vortexes seemed to be things that could have only been created in vast spaces. But for some unknown reasons, the Heretic God¡¯s believers did not carve the rune arrays on the ground.


    After purifying over 60 ck vortexes, Saleen finally managed to capture the the attention of the level-11 abominations, a consequence of Rafel deliberately evading the high-level abominations. She could have easily killed the level-11 ones, but Rafel determined that they were the ones the Heretic God paid close attention to.


    If any of the level-11 abominations had been killed, the Heretic God would have taken stronger measures against them.


    Tens of thousands of abominations assembled outside the magic door and began to attack. The number of ck vortexes atrge hovered at nearly 100, in contrast to the a staggering six million abominations found in the underground city.


    The underground city, however, was just as big as Holy Rock City itself and had two levels. ordingly, the six million abominations did not actually manage to fill all spaces within the underground city. Saleen was at the first level and was cleaning up things near the north. The abominations came from the south, congregating at the magic door.


    Two level-11 abominations headed straight for Saleen with troops d in golden armor. The reduction of the number of ck vortexes finally attracted the powerful abominations¡¯ attention. If they were unable to summon an ample number of troops, their own power and food would be limited.


    In times of shortage, high-level abominations sometimes ate low-level ones.


    ¡°Damned human! Damned mage!¡± The first of the abomination leaders who reached the hall found Saleen purifying a ck vortex. That leader lost his cool and began shing gray light beneath his feet, which began rushing angrily toward Saleen.


    Rafel was standing right next to him.

 Chapter 1350: Evil Oracle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1350: Evil Oracle (Part 1)</h4>


    Rafel extended her hand and took hold of that level-11 abomination. The grayish-white colors seen on her hand were some mystical metal that had yet to be named by humans.


    Thanks to the metal¡¯s power, Rafel was almost immune to the tiny thorns on the abominations¡¯ heads. She took hold of the horn and hoisted the beast into the air, bringing it down hard to her feet. Then she stomped on its formidable body and practically snapped it in two.


    Chills ran up and down Nailisi¡¯s body: Rafel¡¯sbat methods resembled Sika¡¯s somewhat, and both were even simr in appearance, with pretty faces and voluptuous bodies.


    The problem was that theirbat methods didn¡¯t match their looks at all. Whereas Sika was practically invincible with her staff in her hand, Rafel looked more or less the same. The way she fought was extremely violent, but also extremely effective.


    Nailisi wouldn¡¯t have been afraid of level-11 abominations either, but that¡¯s because she had reliable equipment. The Sword of Rules and the Gray Memory were both anti-abomination weapons, especially Gray Memory.


    One thrust was all it would have taken to turn a level-11 abomination into an empty husk.


    Nailisi knew that if she did not have the Gray Memory with her, she would not have been able to get rid of a level 11-abomination so easily, even if she were to take her golden dragon form.


    The reason she was able to use Gray Memory without difficulty was also attributed to Saleen¡¯s formidable mental powers. The rules of the Soul Bond expanded those powers to frightening levels.


    Soul Bond offered benefits to the demon and was not just a means to bind her.


    The level-11 abomination possessed skills surpassing those of level-10 mages; the strength of its constitution surpassed that of a level-10, as well. Yet with one stomp, Rafel was able to kill such aposite being despite all its traits geared forbat.


    When the other level-11 abomination saw what happened, it stopped dead in its tracks and waited for the army of 800 abominations right behind it. The general of the level-11 abomination assembled its troops into a triangr formation and then it led the charge into Rafel.


    The power of over 800 abominations behind the level-11 was daunting. The abomination¡¯s armor shone with glittering light. Without that protective armor, its body would not have been able to withstand such formidable power.


    Rafel turned her eyes at the abomination army charging in her direction. That level-11 abomination taking the lead had its powers enhanced by one whole level through the use of that formation. Thebat prowess of the abominations behind it was strong as well, and they charged together with their leader.


    Rafel extended her hand again only this time she took Nailisi¡¯s Gray Memory instead. Nailisi was shocked! Despite her refined intuition, she was unable to do anything against Rafel¡¯s techniques, which had been forged in countless battles.


    Rafel held onto the Gray Memory and charged at the abomination army.


    Dead bodies were strewn all over the za: the abomination army was like a mechanical being, grinding the bodies beneath its feet into dust. Rafel¡¯s steps, on the other hand, looked as if she was dancing as she moved forward.


    She then thrust her spear. All six eyes on Gray Memory opened at the same time. Rafel leaped over 100 meters with herst step, plunging the spear into the level-11 abomination¡¯s chest.


    The other 800 abominations were charging with that level-11 abomination. When Rafel¡¯s spear prated the abomination¡¯s heart, the beams shot by the six eyes on Gray Memory were more terrifying than the aura of the abominations.


    A satisfied moan was heard from the Gray Memory: All 800 or so abominations were reduced to husks afterward, sucked dry by the Gray Memory.


    Rafel then pulled out the Gray Memory without care and threw it back to Nailisi. While her own spear would have been capable of killing that level-11 abomination as well, it would not have been able to kill over 800 charging troops.


    Arge number of the 800 abomination troops were level-9s, and a handful were level-10s, too.


    Rafel felt that killing them one by one was simply too much work.


    Nailisi was in awe. If she were to kill all 800 or so abominations right before her, the quickest way she would have done so was to lure all of them into the purgatory of the fallen and let her double finish them off.


    Her double¡¯sbat prowess was probably on par with Rafel¡¯s. At the very least, the Shackles of the Fallen¡¯s quality would have been more powerful than the Gray Memory.


    Rafel pivoted and said to Saleen from afar, ¡°Do whatever you want. With those two level-11 abominations dead, the Heretic God will definitely have been alerted. Come with me.¡±


    Then she headed towards the cavern at the south.


    With each step of her walk, she covered tens of meters. She might have looked graceful and leisurely as she moved, but she was actually faster than most flying mages.


    Saleen quickly followed behind Rafel and passed through three halls. Rafel didn¡¯t stop until she reached the fourth one.


    Rafel then pointed at the ck vortex in the middle of the hall and said, ¡°My lord, this is thergest of the portals in the entire underground city. Get this purified so that at least we¡¯ll be able to guarantee that the Heretic God will not send monsters that are too powerful.¡±


    Saleen didn¡¯t reply. He wasn¡¯t afraid of the Heretic God sending in powerful beings: The strongest being on the entire Myers Maind stood no chance against his family badge¡¯s attack.


    But what would happen if that monster brought gear? Without equipment, skills alone wouldn¡¯t have been enough to stop a lightning attack.


    That fourth hall was a za on the south side of an underground city meant for gathering troops. The ce was taken by the abominations¨Cand there were almost 100,000 of them. Those abominations were tightly packed, passing through one underground passage after another as they headed north. Their target was the magic door at the second level.


    When Saleen¡¯s party entered the hall, none of the abominations had been able to react before Saleen unleashed his Lightning Territory. Eight Armoring Lightning Beads flew around him. Both the Winged Skull and Rafel brandished their meteor hammers.


    Nailisi held tight onto her Gray Memory and followed closely behind, getting ready to deal with any level-11 abominations showing up. In addition, three level-11 abominations were found in the hall.


    The ck vortex at the center of the hall had a diameter of over a dozen meters and measured over 30 meters high. While that ck vortex was not the tallest, Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye nheless found that the elemental spaces around the vortex had been thrown into chaos.


    This was the one portal that would have enabled high-level abominations to pass through. Saleen found no abominations below level-7 within that hall. Level-9s were everywhere; level-10s were also seen in great numbers.


    Continuous explosions were heard. The three level-11 abominations charged at the same time after low-level abominations had cleared the way for them.


    Rafel then said, ¡°The three of us will take one each.¡±


    Both the Winged Skull and Nailisi nodded. Both came topletely approve of Rafel¡¯sbat prowess before they knew it.


    Rafel held onto her spear while Nailisi gripped tightly on Gray Memory. The Winged Skull put the meteor hammer away and brandished the Reaper Scythe to y the surrounding abominations.


    That weapon even continued to absorb the souls of the abominations.


    The steps of the three powerful abominations were deafening as they charged at Saleen. That was a stunning skill which, when coupled with the evil aura emanated by the abominations, would have made lower-level beings balk.


    However, both Nailisi and the Winged Skull had been sharing sensory perceptions with Saleen, and Saleen¡¯s mental powers far surpassed those of three abominations.


    Stunning Nailisi and the Winged Skull would have required the stunner to possess skills surpassing Saleen¡¯s thundering sound skills.


    ¡°Boring indeed,¡± Saleen said inly and cast Thundering Explosion in secret. Those three abominations halted briefly before elerating quickly,ing right before Saleen.


    All three abominations had weapons: One held a rectangr wooden que, one held a curved de with a reverse edge, and the remaining one held a small w hammer.


    The rectangr que was bashed onto the Winged Skull, making it feel as if it had been thrust into endless darkness so intense that even its eyes were unable to see anything.


    This was impossible because the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes coalesced from soul mes. Those eyes would not have lost their ability to see even after being blinded by intense light, let alone darkness.


    That wooden que robbed the Winged Skull of its sight right there and then, yet it dared not trust its ears even though it heard Saleen screaming.


    Saleen would absolutely not have screamed. The Winged Skull experienced what it was like for Saleen to use his family badge. That pain was so intense that even a spirit like the Winged Skull whimpered.


    Saleen, however, was hardly fazed.


    Saleen never screamed even once when facing off against the angel of fear. On the contrary, he was the kind of person who would have suffered in silence, a behavior that had been drilled into him from youth.


    The reversed edge de was swung at Nailisi, turning into gentle light and shrouding Nailisi within. Edges of the de wereing at her in all directions.


    Nailisi blocked behind her with the square shield, and all six eyes on Gray Memory were opened, locking onto its target in an instant. She didn¡¯t care which sh of the de she was dealing with; she simply stabbed anything that came near her.


    The small w hammer was swung at Rafel, and no peculiar statuses were cast onto her. Her opponent¡¯s level was simply too low. Because of this, she could see through all the tricks used against her.


    The w hammer itself was a powerful weapon, and Rafel snatched it away from the abomination. She then caught the abomination¡¯s horn with her other hand.


    She seemed to enjoy fighting this way very much. As expected, she took the abomination by the horn, threw it to the ground and stomped on it.


    Pfft...


    ck smoke billowed and the abomination Rafel had stomped on disappeared in a sh, turning into a w hammer. The w hammer that Rafel had thrown to Saleen turned into the abomination instead.


    That abomination was feeling very smug. Its enemy had been a powerful god being, yet she was fooled just the same. It was not the abomination¡¯s unique ability but the w hammer¡¯s&mdash;a weapon beyond level-14.


    The enemy it closed in on was a mere level-10 mage. ¡°The Heretic God would see what I¡¯m doing this time, eh? Lucky that I¡¯ve been here a while. Those level-12 ones are still feelingzy after all. I wouldn¡¯t have the chance to prove myself if they¡¯re here already.¡±


    That abomination was still feeling smug as those thoughts ran through its head. But that mage didn¡¯t look scared at all. It simply pointed one finger at the abomination.


    Is this some kind of joke? Is he trying to poke me in the eye? He coulde at my eye with a knife, and he still wouldn¡¯t be able to break through my eyelids! That mage must have gone stupid.


    The abomination was thinking of those things when a beam of white light suddenly burst from the mage¡¯s finger. That beam was hardly blinding at all, yet nothing was able to stand in its way as it prated the abomination¡¯s head.

 Chapter 1351: Evil Oracle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1351: Evil Oracle (Part 2)</h4>


    Rafel¡¯s miscalctions ended up with her being duped by the abomination and the monster thrown to Saleen¡¯s side. Although that frightened her immensely, she quickly saw the abomination¡¯s head being blown up by a finger pointed at it.


    The Lightning Territory quickly wrapped around the abomination¡¯s body, purifying it in an instant and leaving behind a golden granule about the size of a fist.


    Rafel regained herposure. She had been duped by the powerful innate skill of the equipment. Such a thing could only happen once with abat angel, and she definitely would not make the same mistake next time.


    She picked up the w hammer and handed it to Saleen, saying, ¡°This is at least level-14 equipment.¡±


    Nailisi had been cut by the abomination¡¯s de. Her Gray Memory, however, ended up hitting the enemy before she was cut. The abomination was quickly sucked dry by the six eyes on the weapon. The de, on the other hand, ended up shattering Nailisi¡¯s armor but left her unharmed.


    The effect of her attack would not have been so intense had the abomination not been pierced by the Gray Memory. The six eyes on the spear seemed to like the powers of the Heretic God very much, seeing how they were absorbed in a frenzy as soon as an abomination was hit.


    Nailisi transformed into her imp form as soon as her armor was shattered, enabling her to evade the de¡¯s attack. She then took the abomination¡¯s de and threw it into the purgatory of purification.


    The Winged Skull handled things in an even cleaner manner. The Reaper Moon shot from the Reaper Scythe urately bisected that level-11 abomination, its soul absorbed into the weapon. The monster could not have been deader than that.


    The abominations, in fact, had powerful deception techniques, but both Nailisi and the Winged Skull shared a link at the soul with Saleen. They knew Saleen¡¯s state very well; it was impossible for any tricks aimed at shaking their minds to work at all.


    All three level-11 abominations were quickly dealt with, leaving all abominations in the hall dumbfounded.


    As Saleen¡¯s Lightning Territory covered the huge vortex, he summoned the weapon spirit from the Lightning Constetion. The weapon spirit had consumed Dante the Big Guy yet was controlled again by Saleen. Its powers were over 100 times stronger than the previous weapon spirit.


    Saleen kept calling the new weapon spirit Dante and issued him an order, ¡°Dante, clean up the vortex for me.¡±


    Dante couldn¡¯t do anything else, beingpletely under Saleen¡¯s control. It had no alternative but to ept its fate. Weapon spirits were different from other living beings.


    They didn¡¯t resist the master of the equipment they were housed in. It was only when they saw a chance to escape to freedom that they would revolt. At present, Dante was unable to free itself from Saleen¡¯s control, so it had no choice but to ept its fate.


    Dante took control of the Lightning Constetion and eight Armoring Lightning Beads, unleashing lightning powers at the vortex in a frenzy. Countless huge golden granules shot out of the vortex in a frenzy. The speed at purifying the vortex was considerably greater than Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get to work. There are too many abominations here in the hall!¡±


    Saleen said this as he took out his family badge and aimed it at the abomination army. There was a reason why he did this: His family badge was capable of absorbing energy in any form. He would have only needed to absorb another vortex after he used up the energy inside the badge.


    Over 100 vortexes were in the underground city, so Saleen wasn¡¯t afraid of not being able to get to another vortex.


    A thick lightning bolt shot from the badge. A passageway over 1000 meters long and a dozen meters wide was right in front of Saleen. All abominations in it were obliterated by the lightning bolt, leaving behind an area filled with golden granules.


    Saleen sighed. It¡¯s too bad his family badge couldn¡¯t be used continuously: at this rate, he could have killed all the abominations in the underground city many times over.


    Watching Saleen¡¯s attack rendered Rafel speechless. She was incapable of resisting the power of equipment that ferocious unless she used her own holy item&mdash;the Inferno Spear. But if that spear were struck by the lightning bolt, it would be put out ofmission. Only the gods would be able to repair it.


    The Winged Skull took out the huge meteor hammer again and charged into the abomination army, leaving it totally in shambles. Only level-11 abominations possessed true intelligence; the lower-level ones had to takemands from the higher-level ones in order to fight in formations.


    With their leader dead and with level-10 abominations being totally inadequate formanding the forces, none of the hundreds of abominations around Saleen¡¯s party could put up much of a fight.


    If someone at the Winged Skull¡¯s level wielded a weapon like the meteor hammer, numbers were utterly meaningless before them. Furthermore, the abominations that Saleen had shot dead were basically the elites in the hall.


    Ojarvis, who had been watching from the magic cube, chuckled. He wanted tough but was afraid that doing so would rupture his internal organs; instead, he had to hold himself back.


    ¡°My sister, your man is one hell of a fighter indeed. Look...¡±


    Lex knew that this guy had his own ideas when she saw him refusing to return to the Floating City right away, but she clueless about what those ideas were. ording to evaluations of the magic cube, Rafel¡¯sbat capacity was rated at level-12 red, meaning her powers were equal to level-13.


    The rules on Myers Maind were loose, and a level-12 was the safest. Using level-13 powers would have ended up with the user being punished by the ne rules at times.


    That woman was really good at suppressing her powers. It was so intricately done that even the ne rules wouldn¡¯t have noticed the presence of a level-13 being.


    ¡°Ojarvis, what if things go south?¡± Despite seeing one powerful abomination after another get killed, she was in no mood to celebrate. The magic cube was not ready yet, and if the abominations attacked prematurely, therge-scale puppet might not be able to hold them off. Lex also worried that the Heretic God would get angry and send in more powerful monsters.


    ¡°Lex, if everything had gone as nned, I wouldn¡¯t have ended up getting stuck here. See there, even uncle can¡¯t leave now, and he¡¯s clearly pissed about being stuck behind the door. The million-strong army is gathering outside, but they still can¡¯t get it.¡±


    Lex took a closer look and thought her brother was right. Safilos¡¯s expression suggested that he was fuming. He stood alone where he was, his long de brimming with a purple aura.


    The army hemanded was outside the city. Most of the ones in the city had ended up dying, and only a handful was able to get into the underground city. Safilos was now all alone.


    The people of the Presbyterian Council had all been moved out. None of the nobles¡¯ guardians were mobilized to do battle there.


    Those damned nobles! Do they really think the end of Holy Rock City is near?


    Even though he wasn¡¯t a mage, Prince Safilos possessed a lot of skills, many of which were geared forbat. Being surrounded by warriors provided him with great power that allowed hisbat prowess to skyrocket.


    Furthermore, the greater the casualties on the battlefield, the greater the power of his siphoning de. Others would get tired after fighting for prolonged periods; with Safilos, it was just the opposite: he became more ferocious.


    But now his armies weren¡¯t with him, and the royal swordsmen were not under hismand, much less the mages: All four had died in the fighting outside the door, but he didn¡¯t yet know that this was actually the Winged Skull¡¯s doing.


    Lex didn¡¯t say much. That brother of hers had a strong mind of his own. It was impossible for her to sway him, so she just let him be. If something were to happen to Saleen, she would only have to venture outside to save him. If she wore the God¡¯s Ring, a fast escape would be no problem at all.


    Those thoughts were running through Lex¡¯s mind when the ck vortex suddenly expanded. All of a sudden an abomination resembling a human youth emerged from the center of the vortex. Clutching a curved dagger, it charged at Saleen.


    rms were heard in the magic cube as soon as that abomination, an assassin, emerged. It was identified as a level-13 red in the magic cube¡¯s projections.


    This assassin appeared right behind Saleen in an instant and raised the dagger above his back. That weapon, gray and filled with holy prose, seemed to be coarse, like an unpolished bone de.


    Seeing this Rafel quickly thrust her spear at the abomination¡¯s back. Without turning its head around, the abomination raised its right leg and kicked Rafel¡¯s spear high in the air, making a whoosh right above its head.


    Rafel¡¯s retaliated with an energy attack thrust, but that abomination was able to throw the entire spear upward, shocking Rafel. She discovered that even if she were to undo her seal, she would not have been able to take on that abomination!


    Is Saleen going to die?


    The magic amplifier shimmered into existence behind Saleen before Rafel¡¯s thoughts turned. The assassin¡¯s dagger had pierced the ck ring that formed the magic amplifier.


    Eight-ball lightning bolts spun at great speed with the ck ring. The assassin started shouting while pulling its hands back. But it was toote. One of its arms was melted by a sh of eight-ball lightning. The dagger was purified into something that looked golden and transparent.


    The Thunder Dragon ster materialized on Saleen¡¯s left arm. Seven lightning icicles fired. Despite its grievous injuries, the abomination¡¯s reflexes were still intact. Slithering like a snake, it contorted its body into six different angles, intending to evade the lightning icicles.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles, however, were unable to target the assassin in the first ce. He was too anxious. Locking onto a level-13 abomination proved extremely difficult.


    But then again, Saleen didn¡¯t need targeting at all. Four-ball lightning bolts appeared between the icicles shot and prated that abomination¡¯s body.


    Though its body was already disintegrating, the abomination kept struggling. The power of ball lightning was something it would not have been able to resist. The abomination shrieked as its body broke down into golden granules.


    Saleen looked troubled. He¡¯d nearly been done in. If he hadn¡¯t acquired new secret arts allowing him to control his magic amplifier, not even his Figure of Fate would have been able to save him from that the dagger.


    That dagger was clearly and entirely made out of the Heretic God¡¯s bone. It had taken eight of Saleen¡¯s most powerful lightning balls to purify the weapon. Its powers spiked over 20 times while it was stuck in the magic amplifier.


    Saleen kept his calm despite almost getting stabbed by the assassin. Moving quickly, he came to Rafel¡¯s side within a split second and summoned four-star figures.


    Despite all four still being in a sealed state, they were nheless very, very resistant to damage. If another level-13 were to appear, Saleen would at least be able to avoid another close call.


    Rafel waved and took the dagger the abomination had dropped and put it in Saleen¡¯s hand. The dagger, a golden color throughout, was already free of any evil aura. Lightning magic patterns appeared within its translucent de.


    Good stuff indeed. Saleen wasforted somewhat to find that among the secret arts he acquired, there were actually weapon-crafting skills that mages could have used. However, one of those skills had a ridiculously high requirement in terms of materials for it to work. So would this translucent golden dagger prove adequate?

 Chapter 1352: Evil Oracle (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1352: Evil Oracle (Part 3)</h4>


    ¡°Hehehe...¡± An eerie voice was heard from the vortex, and Saleen cast Thundering Phantasm without hesitation. There were then 12 illusions surrounding that vortex and Saleen cast yet another skill.


    It was none other than the first half of Comet sh, where Saleen¡¯s entire body was immediately encased in a thickyer of ice.


    Thatyer of ice was the most powerful defensive skill Saleen could cast at the moment, even far more powerful than Water Shield. It was theyer of armor he wore when using Comet sh.


    But if thetter half was not used, Saleen would be rendered immobile. He was relying solely on his massive mental power reserves to keep thetter half of the spell from being activated, postponing thepletion of the spell. His mental powers were draining with each passing second.


    Saleen wasn¡¯t afraid of losing his mental powers. In his current state, even if he were hit by a level-13 divine spell, his Figure of Fate would have been able to resist it. If the enemy were to assault him, he could escape at any given moment.


    The speed of the Comet sh was second only to Rainbow after all.


    Saleen promised himself he would master the skill for tempering one¡¯s body in the list of secret arts. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have dared to learn powerful movement skills like Rainbow while his human body remained as it was.


    Rainbow allowed its user to move in the matter of frames in time. The great thing is that these movements were controble. This spell would have been far more effective than teleportation magic, which didn¡¯t allow for much control. That was how it would have stayed until level-16.


    A movement skill that didn¡¯t allow for precise control could have easily jeopardized safety and even gotten someone killed.


    The Comet sh¡¯s ability could have been enhanced even more. Rainbow was unable to be cast in vacuum, because it was actually abination of water, wind and light magic. Comet sh, on the other hand, was abination of water and earth magic.


    Being an astrologer, Saleen could have easily used constetion power as a substitute for the power of Earth element. Moreover, he had a body of water element and was able to coalesce water element at breakneck speed. While he intended to learn Rainbow, he still had no intention of giving up on Comet sh.


    A youth was seen in the ck vortex. Saleen, while wearing his ice armor, caught sight of two short horns on that youth that were smaller than a thumb. The power contained within the horns, however, made him feel as if the divine baby he killed a long time ago had been resurrected.


    Worse still, power was contained within a pair of horns. The youth¡¯s gray eyes contained bright spots like the stars. Every single spot seemed like magic nuclei of powerful magic beasts containing massive power.


    The youth took a look at the illusions and smirked somewhat, mumbling, ¡°Looks like I¡¯ve wasted my time learning thenguage of this ce. Man, I thought I could get some kind of good exchange with the beings here instead...¡±


    Sigh!


    The youth sighed and unfastened a sword from its hip. Then it vibrated the sword in its hand for a bit and began stabbing, quickly wiping out all of Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasms.


    They did not bother to find out which illusions were real; even if they had been real, the youth would have killed them with a single thrust.


    If they were to use mental powers to search the phantasms, the thundering sound within would have seeped into their soul. Even if their level was far higher than Saleen¡¯s, they would have been injured. The weakness of the Thundering Phantasm was that it didn¡¯t allow the illusions to attack enemies proactively.


    After destroying those 12 illusions, the youth looked up and said to Saleen, ¡°You pissed off Lord Heretic God and he sent me here to take your life.¡±


    ¡°Who are you!?¡± Nailisi returned to Saleen¡¯s side. She asked that question merely to buy time.


    Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster needed only one hour to bepletely recharged. Even though the equipment was unable to lock onto the youth, it would still have posed a threat.


    Rafel snatched the Gray Memory from Nailisi without saying a word. Brandishing her Inferno Spear, she spread her wings while holding those two spears and slowly took to the air, aiming her weapons at the youth walking out of the vortex.


    Even level-11 abominations could have gotten out by being forcefully shot out of the vortex, yet that youth simply took its time walking out. Rafel could already tell how powerful that youth was, and she could not match its strength.


    Rafel was puzzled about why she was so worked up. Am I doing this for my people? But those metal angels have already found their ce. Am I doing it for Saleen? But he¡¯s just my employer.


    But then again, seeing Nailisi and the Winged Skull standing before Saleen even when they knew they could have died from the ensuing fight made Rafel feel as if something was awakening within her.


    She had shown such loyalty to her god once, but that was different: It had only been the natural reaction of her body and she could do nothing against those instincts.


    So this is what my life chooses to do then? She had fought at the side of her god because she had no choice. That day, Nailisi and the Winged Skull could have just run away.


    Their powers were such that they wouldn¡¯t have suffered retribution from their contracts even if they had run off. However, facing off against that youth would surely have resulted in their deaths.


    ¡°Me? I¡¯m an Evil Oracle serving Lord Heretic God. Are you interested in learning my name?¡± The youth sounded rather gleeful.


    ¡°Not interested,¡± Nailisi rudely interrupted the youth.


    ¡°Oh? And why not? Aren¡¯t you trying to buy time? You could ask me my name, where I came from, who else is in the family, if there was any way I could spare your life and such. All those topics would have bought you a lot of time,¡± the youth chuckled.


    ¡°You¡¯re look too ugly for me to continue asking.¡± The youth looked hurt by Nailisi¡¯s words .


    ¡°Oh demon. I¡¯ve been trying very hard here. There¡¯s nothing I could do if you¡¯re not happy with it.¡±


    ¡°Nailisi. That thing is buying time too!¡± Rafel reminded Nailisi of this while she was still in the air. However, she knew this reminder wouldn¡¯t have done any good. She still had no idea what to do with that youth: It looked as if it was right there in front of her, but its true body remained in the abomination ne.


    If she were to attack the abomination, it would have only interrupted that Evil Oracle¡¯s teleportation skill. But even if that Evil Oracle¡¯s skill was interrupted, it would not have stopped them from trying again.


    Going at that youth now would have only revealed her own skills prematurely.


    That Evil Oracle was like Rafel&mdash;a being created to fight for a god. For angels, having to use the same skill twice would have diminished its effect. Only overwhelming attacks using superior rules would have overwhelmed angels.


    That Evil Oracle was of a level higher than Rafel. None of the rules she knew would have been able to overpower that oracle.


    ¡°We¡¯re all just buying time here then. That¡¯s totally fine for me. But you people are just...ants! Am I using the right word?¡± The Evil Oracleughed heartily.


    Saleen thought his decision to cover himself in ice and let his mental powers go to waste had been incredibly stupid. His preparations would have been worth it if that Evil Oracle were to attack him. Instead, the oracle simply chose to stand and chat, which made Saleen¡¯s preparations totally pointless.


    All of a sudden Saleen charged at the Evil Oracle. It disappeared from the vortex and Saleen forced himself to stop. The ice armor encasing him had mostly melted and blue mes were burning on his body.


    Even though the Comet sh was traveling at its highest speed, Saleen couldn¡¯t touch that Evil Oracle¡¯s shadow.


    That Evil Oracle emerged from the other side of the vortex and said, ¡°I forgot to tell you, mage. I¡¯m in spectral form and I¡¯m best versed in speed in this form. But, of course, the ability of my other form would be attack.¡±


    ¡°Rafel, get down here.¡± Saleen retreated to Nailisi¡¯s side. Rafel heeded Saleen¡¯s call and went down to Nailisi¡¯s side without knowing why she did so. Nailisi then took out the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    The purgatory of the fallen opened and the four of them stood at the gate while 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen shot out from the portal, protecting all four of them.


    There was no way for them to get inside the collection of purgatories, as that Evil Oracle would have simply taken the equipment back to the abomination ne. Things would have taken a turn for the worse if that were to happen.


    It was also impossible to have Nailisi run with the equipment, because she was much slower than the Evil Oracle.


    The only thing they could do was wait until Lex to came to their rescue. Nailisi knew that she would not have been able to fight with the oracle toe-to-toe, but with her double and Rafel around, as well as using the Shackles of the Fallen, they would no doubt be able to at least resist that Evil Oracle¡¯s attacks.


    It¡¯s too bad that the Evil Oracle was so clever; otherwise, it would have been sufficient to lure it into the purgatory of purification. The power of the purgatory of purification would have turned one such powerful oracle into a statue without special properties.


    This was the first time Nailisi had met her match: With all her past enemies, regardless of how powerful they had been, she always had ways of dealing with them even if the chance of sess was one in ten thousand.


    She heard Saleen¡¯s voice deep within her soul as those thoughts crossed her mind.


    ¡°When that thing¡¯s true body gets here, we¡¯ll suck it dry with the badge.¡±


    Nailisi didn¡¯t even dare to nod. That was the only way they could get out of this mess. If Lex didn¡¯t show up, none of them would be able to leave.


    That hall underground was shaking. None of the other abominations around them dared to get close.


    The Evil Oracle wore a friendly smile, yet there was only one expression worn by over 100 thousand abominations literally flooding the hall&mdash;fear.


    ¡°For some reason, I want to know your name,¡± Saleen spoke. He knew that the ones from the magic cube were watching. Lex would not have just sat there and done nothing. The God¡¯s Ring would have at least been able to keep her safe, after all.


    If he hadn¡¯t been so careless using the family badge earlier, he wouldn¡¯t have run out of options now.


    The Heretic God, however, had vited the rules of the ne by sending an oracle that powerful. It would not have been able to stay for long and yet, from the looks of things, that Evil Oracle did not seem to be in any hurry. Nor did it look as if it was bluffing.


    The Evil Oracle looked at Saleen with a dazed expression and only responded after quite a while, ¡°That is something for sealing the power of gods. Where did you get that thing?¡±


    Saleen did not answer, staring at the Evil Oracle with puzzled eyes instead.


    The Evil Oracle smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯m only asking. If you don¡¯t want to answer, I guess I¡¯ll just take it by force.¡±


    They then stepped forward and grabbed onto a chain of the Shackles of the Fallen. The equipment whelped immediately and the Evil Oracle flung the chain away with a startled yell .


    The Evil Oracle felt as if they had been thrown into a purgatory created by the gods at the very split second they grabbed onto the chain. But of course, that feeling was limited only to that hand.

 Chapter 1353: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1353: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 1)</h4>


    The oracle flung its hand about and said with a frustrated tone, ¡°This thing was actually created by a god. Is this god out of its damn mind!? Why would it create something that would harm other gods!?¡±


    Saleen pursed his lips. He could tell that among the 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen, the one that had been grabbed by the Evil Oracle looked lifeless. The Evil Oracle had actually gained something from that attack.


    Saleen was truly at his wit¡¯s end. With all four of his figures in sealed states, they were no match for the Evil Oracle. Saleen had already used up most of his lightning abilities. His Eye of Lightning, like the Crystal Finger, had an incredibly short range, but its lethality paled inparison to the Crystal Finger. After all, The Eye of Lightning was meant for control.


    He could have taken a shot with his Crystal Finger. The problem was that he wasn¡¯t sure if he could kill the oracle with that skill: that oracle was just a specter; its true body was still in the abomination ne.


    It was impossible for such a powerful being to fool the rules of the ne. If it burst into Myers Maind by force, it would cost them and take some time.


    That Evil Oracle had sent its specter there merely to keep Saleen upied.


    Damn, I¡¯ve really underestimated the Heretic God!


    Saleen could only have hoped Lex would arrive soon. All of them would have been able to enter the 12 Notes of First Purgatory while the equipment was brought away by Lex.


    Her God¡¯s Ring was capable of withstanding Divine Punishment from the Oracle of Glory, which had been cast using the power of the Lord of Glory himself.


    If only we could get up to the Floating City, he thought. The weapon spirit there was already a god, and the hundreds of metal angels could have been resurrected after perishing in battle. It was entirely possible for the 100,000 enchanters there to scramble elemental space.


    The magic of the Floating City could also prevent, and create, elemental storms.


    When the space was thrown into chaos, the Evil Oracle would have been unable to catch up to him.


    Saleen was doing calctions in his mind when that Evil Oracle simply sat down nearby and began chanting. It was apparent it knew it was incapable of dealing with the beings wrapped in the Shackles of the Fallen.


    The Evil Oracle needed to bring its true body there before the Shackles of the Fallen¡¯s defense could be taken down.


    The Evil Oracle didn¡¯t expect the gods to have created something so unique.


    The Shackles of the Fallen were made specifically for dealing with divine beings. Whether gods, believers, oracles, angels, god beings or anything rted to the gods, they would have been attacked ording to the rules contained within the chains.


    Moreover, those chains were of very high levels. If the power of the one wielding it was strong enough, the Evil Oracle might have ended up being dragged into purgatory and purified by those chains right away when they grabbed a being for testing.


    Had the Shackles of the Fallen not been created by the Goddess of Myers, it would not have had been so powerful: As a level-18 god, the Goddess of Myers knew the rules of the gods very well.


    The equipment she created, when wielded by someone with sufficient power, could have even sealed herself.


    This is why the Evil Oracle was feeling so frustrated. It sat on the ground chanting while the Lightning Constetion, which had been forced to stay high up, continued casting lightning powers below.


    The Evil Oracle wanted to fly up there and take that annoying thing down; however, the stout, eerie-looking weapon spirit within the Lightning Constetion was spurting electricity.


    That thing wouldn¡¯t have been able to attack the Evil Oracle, but if the Evil Oracle attacked that weapon spirit, it would have ended up being tangled by the electricity.


    Like Saleen, the Lightning Constetion¡¯s weapon spirit was protected by electricity but was incapable of attacking the Evil Oracle.


    The Evil Oracle was moving too fast. Unless its true body showed up, a professional of even greater power would have been required to attack it.


    Evil chants resounded throughout the hall. Over 100,000 abominations knelt on the ground and chanted as well. That allowed the Evil Oracle¡¯s true body to show up even faster.


    A thought formed in the weapon spirit of the Lightning Constetion¡¯s mind. It took the Lightning Constetion and charged at the abominations kneeling on the ground. The eight Armoring Lightning Beads were moving very slowly.


    But given how the abominations simply knelt and didn¡¯t dare to budge even an inch, they couldn¡¯t do anything when the beads punched through their bodies and purified them.


    The Evil Oracle saw all of that and looked even more frustrated. The chanting affected the abominations, and the weapon spirit took advantage of them. Although the weapon spirit was indeed powerful, it did not seem to be all that intelligent.


    The weapon spirit¡¯s mind somehow opened up, probably because of the stress of battle, and as a human, it began to think about tactics.


    That weapon spirit quickly attacked the abominations in the hall without Saleen giving orders. It was naturally capable of controlling all eight beads. That thing was part of the territory after all.


    Saleen¡¯s territory was also a weird one. It fused with Lightning Constetion, which enabled the weapon spirit to be a part of the territory.


    The Evil Oracle didn¡¯t care about the well-being of those abominations; however, when they died, the advent speed of the oracle¡¯s true body slowed considerably.


    Myers Maind was a main ne, and despite the weakening of the maind¡¯s powers, its rules remained the most frightening of all. If they were to simply force themselves there, they would have needed to pay the price by having one whole level stripped away.


    The effects of the lowering level would have been permanent, and they would not have been able to stay back in the ne for long. If they didn¡¯t finish their task, their Lord Heretic God would not have restored their powers. By then, they would have been nothing specialpared to many other oracles.


    If the Evil Oracle had known the mage was this difficult, it would never have volunteered to take him on.


    That damned lightning power. Lord Heretic God had perished once because of this, spending eons in slumber in a parallel space. No one knew how many divine kingdoms had been wrecked to bring back the lord.


    No wonder Lord Heretic God had gotten so pissed. So this ne has another one who¡¯s mastered the power of lightning. If this guy were allowed to grow, he would definitely pose a great threat to the lord.


    Humans grew too quickly, and the gods recovered too slowly. If they couldn¡¯t get rid of the mage right before them, it would be a problem for the Heretic God to survive, let alone rebuild his divine kingdom.


    The Evil Oracle was unable to stop, however, because its true body was waiting to get into action in the abomination ne. If it were to stop and redo the whole thing, the process would have taken even longer.


    If the Heretic God were to find it too much of a hassle, he would have just killed the Evil Oracle¡¯s true body instead of hearing it out.


    The weapon spirit of the Lightning Constetion was quickly hunting for the abominations while absorbing purified golden granules. Even though Saleen liked the golden granules a lot, he dared not emerge to take anything for himself.


    Saleen was being trapped, but the weapon spirit was helping him nheless. Letting his equipment get something out of the whole deal was excusable, under the circumstances.


    That thought of his was actually something Nailisi rubbed off on him.


    As a bonded creature, Nailisi came to hoard great amounts of wealth for herself, and the Winged Skull wasn¡¯t too far behind. Nevertheless, the Winged Skull was the one manning his fleet, so Saleen permitted him to do so.


    At the very least, Saleen had no need to worry about the fleet¡¯s upkeep because it was all taken care of by the Winged Skull.


    Those golden granules were absorbed into the weapon spirit of the Lightning Constetion¡¯s body, swapping out the matter that its body originally consisted of. The weapon spirit was incapable of forging equipment but was capable of tempering its body.


    That was an innate ability of the giants. A weapon spirit¡¯s birth was due to the bone crystals of the giant after all, so it was only natural that it inherited some of that giant¡¯s abilities.


    Those golden granules of lightning began to tweak the weapon spirit¡¯s original structure after they entered its body. Its body consisted mainly of the body of the Big Guy it consumed originally, limiting the power of lightning it was capable of storing.


    When the golden granule¡¯s being fused within its body, the lightning powers it was able to store became tens of thousands of times greater.


    Saleen never knew such changes were possible. If he had known about them, he would have fed those golden granules to Dante.


    There were too many abominations in the hall, but Dante was being unnervingly speedy with its hunt. It soon stopped fusing the golden granules into its body and began sharing the loot with the entire Lightning Constetion.


    Dante¡¯s level of intelligence allowed it to know conservation after all, and it refrained from simply sharing the granules with all the lightning warriors. It knew that the golden granules had their use, due to having made its master collect them in a frenzy.


    As such, it selected eight lightning warriors of the highest level and began to swap parts of their bodies with the golden granules.


    Even if Dante didn¡¯t do all that, the lightning bolts that were shooting about randomly above began to get thicker. As more and more golden granules were infused within Dante¡¯s body, the lightning it shot to the ground became thicker as well.


    Some bolts were even strong enough to kill some low-level abominations.


    Although it still needed hundreds of bolts just to kill one abomination, the Lightning Constetion was still different from other equipment. It created lightning on the spot and immediately shot it instead of firing what was already created and stored.


    The lightning bolts that were created on the fly didn¡¯t consume much energy. The key to their power was the weapon spirit. With Dante in charge of their creation, hardly any energy was wasted.


    Those lightning warriors no longer crackled with electricity, as all electrical powers were siphoned to Dante.


    There were 500,000 lightning warriors in the Lightning Constetion after all.


    The electrical powers Dante controlled began to take the shape of trees, branching out the energy collected within the Lightning Constetion, which was then gathered and dispersed in the air. The power of those electrical bolts increased when they struck something.


    At such speeds, no one would have been able to evade the shots from instantaneous conversions of energy. Furthermore, living beings were always paralyzed when hit by electricity; not even powerful beings could withstand these shots.


    The Evil Oracle hadn¡¯t yet noticed the changes on Dante. If it had, it would have given up on killing Saleen and reported back to the abomination ne instead.


    That was because the weapon spirit was meant to follow the footsteps of its double&mdash;the weapon spirit of the Floating City&mdash;and be the second one to be lit with divine fire.


    If that weapon spirit had be a god and advanced to a higher level, it would have be a demigod with a fragmented divine persona. Even a demigod could have mastered lightning rules, and this demigod was entirely capable of killing low-level gods.


    In addition, that god would have been born on Myers Maind, enabling it to bring the highest power allowed by the ne. While itcked the great potential of humans, it would have nheless proven lethal to the Heretic God¡¯s ns.


    Once a god with lightning powers appeared, the divine kingdoms surrounding it would have been rendered restless.

 Chapter 1354: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1354: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 2)</h4>


    Dante continued ughtering the abominations. While all of them knelt on the ground shaking, Dante gave them a quick death. Saleen was actually pleased seeing Dante work: It was buying Saleen¡¯s party¡¯s time instead of the Evil Oracle.


    Sometimes an unexpected event is all it takes to change the course of fate.


    All of a sudden Dante started attacking the abominations proactively. Saleen never expected that to happen. The oue was in his favor, as the Evil Oracle was only able to see Dante ughtering their people while they were unable to do anything.


    If they could stop and redo the whole thing again, it would have taken even longer.


    The Evil Oracle cast a blob of gray mist from its fingertip in the form of an abomination and sent it charging at Dante. The Lightning Constetion¡¯s weapon spirit chose to evade this abomination rather than take it on.


    Its current level of intellect enabled it to know that the Evil Oracle was simply trying to prevent the weapon spirit from killing more abominations instead of conjuring one to take out the weapon spirit.


    The abomination conjured by the Evil Oracle had one-tenth of the Evil Oracle¡¯s powers. That was akin to the Evil Oracle snapping one of its fingers, but it would have still been better than going after Dante on its own.


    Dante knew it looked horrendous at the moment. Its appearance kept changing as the golden granules were absorbed.


    None of the mechanical parts could be seen anymore as the golden fluids coursed through its body. Now it could use any skills of the puppets or the powers of Lightning Constetion. Some of its abilities were also inherited from the giant.


    Dante¡¯s body gradually shrank and started to look like the Evil Oracle instead, which in turn resembled a human youth with a pair of tiny horns on its head. Dante¡¯s horns, however, were molded after high-level thunder dragon¡¯s horns and filled with lightning magic patterns inyers inside out.


    Even when the Lightning Constetion¡¯s power was not being used, electricity shed between Dante¡¯s horns: This looked rather harrowing against Dante¡¯s golden facial features.


    At the end of Dante¡¯s transformations, its armor resembled the robe worn by the Evil Oracle but was of golden colors. It still wasn¡¯t satisfied with its appearance though because its eyes were also transparent and golden.


    Dante pondered this as it went about killing more abominations. Twoplex thunder beads appeared in their eyes eventually. ck and white colors were clearly separated, making them resemble the eyes of the Qin people.


    It was only after the transformation of its eyes waspleted that Dante began to modify its robe. Billowing in the air, the robe appeared to be weightless but was imbued with the power of lightning.


    The golden robe was transformed into ck and white; there seemed to be embroidery of Cloudflow on it arranged in beautiful patterns. If those patterns were observed with the Elemental Eye, one could see that they were actuallyplex three-dimensional magic patterns.


    Dante was pleased and changed its skin to white and its brows to ck. Its long hair was of crisscrossing ck and whites stripes, however.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning was of only two colors: ck and white. Despite the powers Dante came to control, it was still unable to transform all the golden granules¡¯ colors into some other colors.


    In fact, such modifications were limited to its external appearance only. Lightning powers coursed through the external parts of its body, making it look like a person.


    After its appearance was transformed, Dante turned around and brandished a weapon&mdash;a Thunder Dragon ster molded after Saleen¡¯s equipment.


    This being waspletely under Saleen¡¯s control; unlike Nailisi, it was a weapon spirit. The new Thunder Dragon ster on its arm was actually part of its body.


    The Thunder Dragon ster was elongated, and the tip and the front were transformed into a true spear tip that was then twisted into the shape of a drill. On each side of the de were seven tiny holes.


    The spear was golden. Dante no longer bothered to change color before thrusting the spear at the abomination pursuing it. The abomination dared not take the attack head-on but instead retreated in a hurry.


    Six electrical bolts fired from the spear hit the abomination squarely in the face.


    It began to shake all over. When Dante went to fire another shot, that abomination had already been reduced to a puff of gray smoke.


    The dispersed smoke wiggled about in the air and headed straight for Dante¡¯s butt.


    Dante swept its spear around and conjured a ring of electricity to repel the smoke, which then groaned in pain. But instead of lingering, Dante pivoted and continued killing more abominations.


    Aided by the lightning spear, Dante¡¯s killing speed intensified.


    The Evil Oracle gave up after seeing that its clone was unable to take on that peculiar weapon spirit. It refocused its attention on its chants and didn¡¯t bother with Dante any longer.


    Saleen felt something was off. Why isn¡¯t Lexing for us?


    It¡¯s not that she didn¡¯t want toe for them. The problem was that there were more and more abominations blocking the magic door: Over 200,000 were outside, and it was nearly impossible for her to kill that many abominations in order to get outside. After all, a level-10 mage couldn¡¯t cast that many powerful spells.


    Although the God¡¯s Ring was useful, it only worked for a limited period of time. If Lex were to take on a powerful attack from one enemy, the ring would have enabled her tost only ten minutes.


    That was not to say that the God¡¯s Ring power would havested longer simply because it had to repel low-level attacks instead.


    All kinds of energy attacks were being fired outside the magic door as the abominations attacked.


    There were also arrows, chariots, flying creatures and more.


    None of those creatures was afraid of death. The ws of their feet dug deep holes as they ran on the ground, which was then filled with an evil aura. The entire magic door was being hammered by such an aura and was struggling to hold on.


    It was actually such energies, unleashed when the abominations and evil creatures die, that would have brought the magic door down. That door didn¡¯t have noteworthy offensive powers, but its defensive abilities were formidable.


    Unfortunately, there were too many abominations around. Furthermore, many sacrificed their lives to coalesce a thick aura of death and evil power right before the door.


    The magic door couldn¡¯t keep up with such intense consumption for very long. The facilities in the underground city were iplete, and the abominations appeared too suddenly. Holy Rock City had been lowering its guard for far too long.


    No one would have expected any human armies to be capable of prating the city¡¯s walls or to get so deep inside.


    Holy Rock City had been able to repel over 100 sieges because of the magic clock¡¯s power. Built during wartime, the city had been tested under harsh conditions.


    Those gathered on the tform before the magic door were all high-level abominations who had built a bridge out of the bones of their dead. This is what allowed the abominations below to pass through the bridge and charge into the magic door.


    The high-level abominations waited at the sides for the magic door¡¯s power to bepletely drained. Then they charged inside at once.


    On the other side of the magic door, every charging abomination ended up dead. The ones that didn¡¯t make it inside and were repelled by the magic door¡¯s power would not have been able to survive very long either.


    Safilos held on to his de and red at the attacking abominations with cold eyes. He thought that his enemies would have been the Holy See.


    The reason he dedicated considerable effort to learn the ways of the sword was that he hoped to one day step onto Tanggsi Empire¡¯s soil and avenge his brother.


    His brother had been too powerful.


    Unless he could surpass Emperor Chanake, revenge would be little more than a pipe dream.


    Despite Safilos¡¯s being the suprememander of the Qin Empire¡¯s armies, the nation¡¯s capital had been prated. All he could do was hide behind a magic door and wait for the mages to take care of the problem.


    There were six military branches in the empire; except for the Royal Swordsmen and the Pce Guards, Safilos heldmand over all branches. His army was more than a million strong in total; the troops he was able tomand were definitely over three million strong.


    It was especially challenging given the despairing state of affairs in the north. The imperial army¡¯s supplies had been increased instead, and the military units in the empire had surpassed five million.


    Even with military units of such huge numbers, the imperial capital remained breached. Safilos was consumed with shame over his failures. The hand that held onto the de had veins popping out; his sword aura was brimming.


    No one paid any attention to his wrath though: His personal guards and soldiers had all perished outside the magic door. Even the four most powerful mages in the empire couldn¡¯t stay alive long enough to get through the door.


    The magic door¡¯s powers belonged to the emperor, who was his nephew&mdash;the young man who even had problems moving about.


    Meanwhile, the mages were calmly assembling therge-scale puppet. Every single part had to be activated before the puppet could bepleted. It was incredibly expensive to maintain such aplicated device.


    Had the underground city not been under attack, the mages would never have considered assembling that puppet to fight the Holy See.


    Safilos couldn¡¯t fathom the mages¡¯posure. They would have patiently finished the magical tasks before them even when on the brink of annihtion.


    Lex couldn¡¯t charge outside, because that would have wrecked the magic door and allowed the abominations to gush inside in a heartbeat. If they seeded in getting through, that would have been the end of everything.


    Suddenly J charged into the room. The sword he held in his hand was Face. Lex cast a ring of fire and enveloped J inside, preventing his strong sword aura from hurting her brother.


    ¡°J!¡± Lex shouted angrily.


    ¡°Viscount, they sent me to ask you when we¡¯d be heading outside to pick up our superior!¡±


    ¡°When the puppet is finished.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t wait that long. Nichs said he¡¯s in danger now!¡± J retorted adamantly.


    ¡°He¡¯s not in any danger. I¡¯m sure of it,¡± Lex said with a steady tone. There was no way Saleen would have ended up dead because he was in control of the situation. That Evil Oracle probably wouldn¡¯t have even been able to send its true body over, even after therge-scale puppet was assembled.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but I can¡¯t believe that. If you¡¯re not heading out, viscount, we¡¯d better go ourselves!¡±


    Lex was dumbfounded. J continued, ¡°Please rescind the ring of fire. If I break this by force, I¡¯ll end up hurting his majesty.¡±


    Lex was annoyed. It was unusual for Saleen to gain such loyal subordinates. She couldn¡¯t bring herself to berate J, so she said instead, ¡°We¡¯ll wait another half hour. I¡¯ll go out to save Saleen myself while you guys stay here and hold down the fort.¡±


    J sheathed Face and didn¡¯t seem to have any intention of leaving. She stared intently at the magic projections in the room instead and said, ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll wait here. If he were to end up dead...¡±


    He was being very clear with his intentions. If Saleen were to die, there was no way Ojarvis would have stayed alive for long.


    As a level-10 true might, it was all too easy for him to kill the likes of Ojarvis, because Ojarvis¡¯s physique was simply too frail. The emperor couldn¡¯t handle having a strong peasant bring a hoe down on him, let alone resist attacks from a true level-10.

 Chapter 1355: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1355: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 3)</h4>


    Lex saw no point in getting angry. J might have lookedidback and carefree when he wasn¡¯t working, but when the situation called for it, he was as adamant as anyone could be. The sword he wore that day was Face instead of Tears. That alone seemed to be telling Lex of his resolve.


    J still remembered why Saleen presented him with Face: Jcked a steely side to his personality, which caused the inadequacies seen in his swordy.


    The sword was named Face, and J was always able to recall Saleen¡¯s expression when he was presented with the sword. That was a gentle expectation from his liege, Saleen.


    Despite being younger, he was always there to lead the way for others. Saleen did not initially possess such an ability, but he had it right now.


    Ojarvis smiled at J, whose expression did not change at all, seemingly oblivious to the goodwill that Ojarvis was showing him.


    Ojarvis was totally indifferent. He then told J, ¡°Even if you didn¡¯t kill me, I wouldn¡¯t live more than a month anyway.¡±


    J then spoke again, saying to Ojarvis, ¡°Everyone dies, and it indeed makes no difference if one dies sooner orter. But even if you were to die even a day earlier, it would have still saddened the viscount. She is a level-10 mage trainer, and no one knows how long she could actually live.¡±


    J didn¡¯t filter his words; he just spoke his mind. If Lex were to not save Saleen and something happened to him, J would have made a point of making Lex unhappy in the days toe.


    He did not have the ability to just kill Lex, because she possessed the God¡¯s Ring. Killing her would have been far too difficult.


    ¡°You¡¯re from Cloudflow?¡± Ojarvis then looked at J curiously. Finding someone like that among the Cloudflow people was odd.


    ¡°Heh, so what if I¡¯m Cloudflow? I thought Qin valued their bonds. If Sika were here and knew Saleen was in danger, she would throw everything aside and take us to help our liege out without considering anything else,¡± J jabbed sarcastically.


    Lex was done holding back. She walked out of Ojarvis¡¯s room without saying another word.


    Although Ojarvis had ced all his hopes of resurrection on Saleen, her brother¡¯s life bead was nheless with her instead, making her unable to trust her brother¡¯s wordspletely.


    Furthermore, J¡¯s words provoked her a lot. Even though she was married to Saleen, he still spent more time with Sika.


    While there were indeed other reasons for this, the truth is that had she not been so preupied with political affairs and devoted all her time to managing Daliang City¡¯s expansion to her territory, Sika would not have had the chance to do so in the first ce.


    If she had put everything aside, Saleen definitely would not have ignored her. Great. Now even J thinks that Sika¡¯s more like Saleen¡¯s wife.


    Ojarvis then called before she walked outside, ¡°Lex, hold on. Look.¡±


    The images shown in the magic projection shocked J a lot.


    Dante, flying in midair, burst with golden light all of a sudden. Taking a closer look, you could see that it was mes shooting out of its body instead. The mes were golden, and there were tightly packed thunder beads coalescing within the mes.


    Dante came to acquire information left behind from countless gods all of a sudden. The golden mes shooting out from its eyes even returned the two thunder beads to their original golden color.


    Divine fire lit up in Dante during the ughter. Furthermore, the rules it wielded were the rules of lightning and earth elements.


    One belonged to Saleen while the other belonged to the inheritance from the giants.


    Those rules were not actually all that powerful yet. Dante also did not have a divine persona, so it was, at most, a pseudo god. However, that formidable power frightened the Evil Oracle considerably.


    Sh*t!


    How could this have happened!? With the weapon spirit bing a god, that mage would have died as a result!


    The Evil Oracle didn¡¯t even have time to look at Saleen before Dante fired thousands of thunder beads within its divine fire at them.


    It was practically bombarding the Evil Oracle. Those thunder beads were still small, with a diameter of a gold coin. But the thousands of thunder beadspletely blocked any escape routes of the Evil Oracle. The Evil Oracle transformed into a puff of smoke intending to evade the beads.


    Lightning attacks, however, were not physical attacks. Those thunder beads danced about in the smoke, causing the Evil Oracle to spit blood and revert to its original form.


    The Evil Oracle was dumbfounded to find that most of its body had turned into a golden transparent crystalline state; only its heart, which was protected by rules, was left intact. The being was incapable of moving or saying anything, preventing chanting to continue.


    While this was only the death of a clone, the experience struck fear into their hearts.


    The Thunder God! The Thunder God!


    They practically screamed that the Thunder God had appeared on Myers Maind. That god possessed the one ability that was most lethal against the abomination species. What Lord Heretic God nned to do was probably not going to happen after all.


    Intense fear, however, was seen on Dante¡¯s face. While seeding with its attacks, Dante felt as if the power of the entire maind had weighed on it instead, almost killing it right there and then. It purged all powers from its body and was barely able to keep its soul and form together.


    Even so, the power of rules that manifested out of nowhere struck fear into Dante¡¯s mind.


    If it had not been for the protection from the broken jade, its soul might not have been able to hang on.


    Saleen was right indeed. It was difficult for it to die with that broken jade intact.


    Rafel saw an opening and feltpelled to prevent the Evil Oracle from escaping. She pounced from the air, causing gray metallic gashes to appear on her supple hand. The gray hand pierced right through the Evil Oracle¡¯s chest, tearing out the gray-whitish hair.


    Rafel did not hesitate. She opened her mouth and devoured the heart right away.


    She would not have dared to do something like that initially, as the Evil Oracle¡¯s power would have assimted her and turned her into an abomination. That Evil Oracle had been taken apart by lightning and its will waspletely shattered. There was never a better chance for her to eat her enemy.


    It waspletely normal for angels to devour warrior creatures of the same kind.


    It¡¯s too bad the powerful heart was the only thing left, as the body was already crystallized. If the metal angels had able to absorb the rest of the Evil Oracle¡¯s body, all of them could have advanced right there and then.


    E...


    Seeing how Rafel ate her enemy up, all good impressions and fondness he had for her werepletely gone. That being, who strived to be a person instead of a god creature, did not manage to refrain temptations from her instincts at such a key moment after all.


    After eating the heart, all damages that Rafel suffered in Alchemy City werepletely healed. Her body evolved, and if she were to be a creature without intellect and simply let herself go loose, a divine fire might have lit up inside and turned her into a pseudo god.


    Rafelbored to maintain her seal, afraid she would have ended up being punished by the rules of the ne, like Dante. Her experiences were far richer than Dante¡¯s, which meant she would have absolutely not made such grievous mistakes.


    If Dante were to seal its powers at the very second its divine fires were ignited, it would not have been so severely injured that it couldn¡¯t continue to hammer the Evil Oracle.


    Dante¡¯s body flew back into the Lightning Constetion in a jiffy.


    ¡°Master, I need to rest!¡± Dante¡¯s voice was heard, and Saleen quickly put away his Lightning Constetion. Nailisi put her 12 Notes of First Purgatory away as well.


    ¡°Rafel, are you alright?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s keep purifying the vortexes. I...I¡¯m about to advance!¡± Saleen felt that after both of his weapon spirits became gods, his mental powers grew exponentially as well and his magic chords expanded uncontrobly.


    It would not have taken long before he advanced further to be a level-11 mage trainer. By then, wiping out the Holy See would not have been such a demanding task anymore.


    Having acquired three level-13 subordinates, and with him about to be a level-11 lightning mage, Saleen became confident that the Holy See would have run out of tricks to deal with him. That was, unless...


    Unless the Lord of Glory ced powerful beings on that ne, just like the Heretic God.


    Rafel didn¡¯t object that time. The Evil Oracle that the Heretic God was able to send wouldn¡¯t have been able to stay long in thene. Every time something like that was done, it would have needed to spend a lot of energy to facilitate the teleportation.


    The Heretic God would not have been able to send such powerful beings, at least for several days toe.


    Saleen could have done anything he wanted with the abominations during the next several days, and there was nothing the Heretic God could have done about it.


    Cleaning up the entire underground city would not have taken that many days; two would have more or less suffice. If those abominations stayed behind, Rafel was confident she could kill every single one of the millions of abominations in a day.


    Of course, that included high-level abominations that the 100 or so ck vortexes could have continued to send.


    The fighting before the magic door remained intense. None of the abominations knew that their ns hadpletely fallen apart.


    Saleen took his people and continued to clean up the ck vortexes in the upper level of the underground city. He put the Evil Oracle¡¯s body away as well.


    Every single golden granule had natural magic patterns on it, enabling it to cast lightning powers. Saleen did not care for the strength of lightning attacks those granules were capable of.


    What he cared about was that those materials could smooth unleashed lightning powers. Storage wasn¡¯t a problem either. With the golden granules, he could have his own lightning equipment.


    Meeting the Evil Oracle put Saleen on high alert yet again. It was possible for stronger beings to appear in their ne, as long as they were willing to pay the price.


    The likes of the Heretic God didn¡¯t care about sacrifice. Furthermore, having high-level god beings seal away their powers did not necessarily mean sealing away theirbat capacity as well. Rafel, for instance, could have taken on any level-12 abominations.


    Because of herprehensive understanding of battles, nomon level-12 professionals could have matched her blow for blow.


    She was not using the power of territories since all her moves smelled of rule powers.


    If Saleen had not been casting Lightning Territory, Rafel would have been able to ignore all his territory attacks.


    Saleen spent one entire day ughtering. The upper level of the underground city was cleaned up by his lightning warriors, and no evil aura was left behind. Saleen acquired huge amounts of the much sought-after golden granules. The amount was so massive that it would havested him for quite a while.


    Among the golden granules, the one with the highest quality was nheless that dagger, which was probably forged from fragments of the Heretic God¡¯s bones. After it was purified, it became so resilient that not even Saleen¡¯s Water me would have been able to do anything about it.


    Saleen was not in a hurry. He would have acquired use of a level-11 Water me after advancement. If that proved inadequate, he could have still gone looking for his teacher for help. ording to Saleen¡¯s calctions, by the time he was able to make it to level-11, his teacher would have soon been able to reach level -12.


    Jason¡¯s advancement made many, many mages envious.


    Other than the golden dagger, there was also the body of the Evil Oracle. After it was purified, it became a golden transparent statue. Saleen scanned the quality of the statue¡¯s material with his Elemental Eye and found it to be little different from that of level-16 elementite.


    No matter how powerful an elementite became, it was incapable of storing lightning powers. Tourmaline was the only mineral that could store electricity, but then again, it suffered many weaknesses: It was too rare,cked hardness and broke easily.

 Chapter 1356: Level 11 (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1356: Level 11 (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen went about cleaning up the outer fringes. The magic door was no longer able to sustain any more attacks, because the abominations had drained it of all of its energies, making it little more than amon, huge door.


    The most powerful abominations charging through the door were greeted by therge-scale puppet on the other side, waiting to attack.


    Death Ray was fired almost continuously. That abomination was an evil attribute and had terrible luck. The sess rate of the spell was up 20 percent.


    Therge-scale puppet relied on more than just the Death Ray for attacks. It also used many other elemental magic spells.


    The lethality of those magic spells wasparable to that of the Death Ray. The difference was that the Death Ray was capable of frequent use. It could also kill powerful abominations very urately and deal almost one kill among the powerful abominations in five attacks.


    Those abominations confidently charging into the magic door didn¡¯t bother to retreat despite being hit with powerful attacks.


    A mountain of corpses piled up within the magic door.


    Safilos begrudgingly acknowledged the frightening power of magic. If thoserge-scale puppets hadn¡¯t been so hard to maintain, he would have equipped his army with them and sent them to the frontlines.


    Therge-scale puppet fought continuously for over four hours. The mountain of corpses grew so high it plugged the magic door, preventing more abominations behind from charging inside, forcing them to begin devouring the corpses of their own kind.


    Some corpses were edible, like those killed by elemental magic. Those that were killed by Death Ray, however, were stripped entirely of the energies in their bodies and tainted with curses.


    If the abominations had eaten them, their powers would have been reduced even if they survived eating them in the first ce. Advancing into higher levels was entirely out of the question for them.


    When theponents of therge-scale magic puppet began showing signs of damage, the mages began sending in warriors to defend against any iing threats while the abominations were unable to get in. The mages then repaired therge-scale puppet at the rear.


    Safilos led his troops and formed a line of defense consisting of over 1000 people at the front.


    With him at the helm and aided by sorcerers, that line of defense served him for quite a while.


    Saleen continued his clean-up efforts at the upper level and never bothered going back to the lower level. He never gave a second thought to whether the magic cube could be taken down by the abominations.


    Now that the oracle of the Heretic God was dead, there was no one left to take charge of the abominations. Those brutal creatures knew nothing other than killing, and they were utterly incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Thus, the underground city was entirely safe.


    If the Evil Oracle were allowed tomand the abominations and the magic cube was still not ready, there would have been no way for them to hold the fort at the underground city.


    With the Evil Oracle dead, Saleen had nothing to worry about.


    A gray-whitish deathly aura filled the faraway abomination ne. There were few signs of life in the rivers,kes and woods in that ne. All living beings were gathered in a massive city at the center of a huge continent.


    The city was more vast than the Imperial City of the abyss, measuring over 10,000 kilometers from end to end. Moreover, there were actually walls surrounding the entire city.


    Every single inch of the walls had barriersid out. A gray-whitish deathly aura hovered outside, utterly incapable of seeping into the city. Abominations d in silver armor were patrolling on the walls. Some evil beings lived in the city,cking the nerve to leave.


    In addition, countless fortresses were built within the city. All types of peculiar creatures were seen attacking each outside the fortresses.


    That continent was in chaos, and little order was found within the abominations¡¯ city. Atrocities were being carried out far from the soldiers¡¯ eyes.


    Neither the songs of birds nor the scent of flowers was found within the city, only the stench of blood.


    A huge bone pce was situated in the center of the city. That pce was different from the ones in the spirit ne. The size of that pce made it look as if it was a small country, measuring up to 1000 kilometers from end to end.


    A tower constructed of bones at the center of the pce was so massive it eclipsed all other buildings on Myers Maind.


    The bone tower¡¯s material was the same as the walls at the outer fringes of the pce¡ªthey still had flesh attached to them. Those bones were not actually derived from dead abominations. Their souls were still intact and their hearts were still beating. Their eyeballs in their eye sockets twisted about in blood, and they continued to wail.


    The tower was surrounded by a gray-whitish deathly aura. There was a wide tform at the very top of the tower. Hundreds of Evil Oracles knelt around the tform, praying at the house in the middle of the tform.


    A young Evil Oracle was seen shivering while kneeling at the front door of that huge house.


    ¡°My lord, my clone did not leave any word behind. It was killed in an instant!¡±


    An old, raspy voice was heard from that house. It didn¡¯t sound like something emitted by a living being. It seemed more like the sounds mountains and oceans would have made if they had developed a will of their own. The words spoken had no hint of an evil aura about them.


    ¡°Myers Maind...had a power cap of level-12 and no more. I wasted so much energy sending you there. You were allowed to retain pinnacle level-13 powers, reaching even that of level-14. And now you¡¯re telling me that you were killed in an instant? Are you trying to develop your own believers in that ne!?¡±


    Those words had severe usatory tones in them. That being was doubting the loyalty of the young oracle.


    Oracles were already gods in themselves: heir divine fire was already ignited and they had developed divine personas. A fixed number of divine personas was capable of developing in every crystal wall system; however, a cataclysmic great war had been raging in that system.


    Once upon a time, humans crushed countless divine kingdoms. An astronomical number of gods had perished.


    That¡¯s why it had been easier for new gods to emerge after the great war.


    If the new gods were able to find divine personas of those who had perished, they could have achieved higher levels as gods right there and then. Gods and humans differed in that gods were capable of raising their levels before taking their time to fulfill the requiredprehension of rules befitting those levels.


    If that young oracle had been able to gather believers on Myers Maind, it could have immediately sparked a divine fire. No doubt some divine personas also remained in Myers Maind.


    If that oracle were able to find a divine persona, it could have be a true god instead of a false one.


    The doubt posed by the Heretic God meant he was probably getting ready to kill that oracle.


    Sensing this, the oracle panicked and kowtowed continuously, saying, ¡°My lord, I was only able to feel a hint of something. When my clone was using ne-summoning skills, it was suddenly killed, and I seemed to recall seeing lightning...¡±


    ¡°Lightning?¡±


    The Heretic God¡¯s voice bellowed outside the tower and was heard throughout the entire pce. All creatures on the abomination ne outside the pce began to panic as well. They put what they were doing aside; even those that were fighting ceased doing so. All of them looked at the bone pce with terrified expressions on their faces.


    ¡°You¡¯re telling me that someone from such a weak ne killed your clone using lightning skills? Hahaha...¡±


    The Heretic God beganughing in extreme anger. Suddenly a gust of wind blowing from the house pierced the young oracle¡¯s body tossed it in the air and reduced it to dust before it could hit the ground.


    The Heretic God¡¯s anger seemed to have subsided after killing that oracle. His voice was calmer, too.


    ¡°Who among you would be willing to make another trip to Myers Maind to kill the clone of this traitor for me?¡±


    The oracles answered in unison, ¡°O¡¯ great god. I shall be willing to embark on the journey to kill the traitor.¡±


    Even though they didn¡¯t really want to go, those oracles didn¡¯t dare fall behind in making the pledge, for that would surely have pissed off their god¡ªand no god would have tolerated an oracle¡¯s betrayal.


    ¡°Come forth, Menes,¡± the Heretic God called a name right there and then.


    That oracle named Menes looked overjoyed. It stood up and walked to the door. A silver w hammer flew from within.


    ¡°That is a godly item I acquired from killing the God of Abominations. I now bestow it to you, but there is no need for you to return it.¡±


    Menesid prostrate on the ground, kissing the w hammer it clutched in its hand while singing praises to the Heretic God, who didn¡¯t seem to be displeased at all. Despitecking any novelty in such praises, the power of faith brought forth by such actions was considerable.


    Menes was a level-14 oracle. If it hadn¡¯t been for the Heretic God suppressing it, Menes would have long ago sparked the divine fire.


    The praises went on for over six hours, and Menes had no intention of stopping. This wasmonly seen in divine kingdoms. Gods lived long lives; some were able to live indefinitely if their believers were around. Such praises were of little actual help to the Heretic God, but it was pleasing nheless. No gods would have been able to refuse to have level-14 beings singing their praises.


    The power of faith brought forth by one level-14 creature would have been greater than having hundreds of thousands ofmon beings praying at the same time.


    ¡°Alright, Menes; don¡¯t let me down.¡± The Heretic God finally spoke to put an end to that cheesy scene. Menes breathed a sigh of relief yet dared not stand up just yet.


    ¡°Make your journey indiscretion. If you meet any enemies you are incapable of besting, then you shall return. Seal your powers at level-12 before you depart.¡±


    The Heretic God actually came to believe the young oracle¡¯s words somewhat, but if he were to truly ept those words at face value, he would have plunged all his believers into mass panic.


    There was little value to bing more powerful, as he was unable to advent on Myers Maind after all, so much so that he couldn¡¯t even send a clone of himself. All he could do was send a batch of angels of fear for the past 10,000 years or so. The information gathered was of little help.


    The ne rules on Myers Maind were too strict. All those angels of fear ended up being trapped there.


    Some of the more clever ones among the oracles would have been able to guess that much, but hardly anyone dared to take the lead. Anyone who had even so much as attempted to beg for mercy on behalf of that young oracle, let alone speak the truth, might have ended up getting killed too.


    A god¡¯s wrath was not so easily pacified.


    Although Menes was one of the dumber oracles, it had aparatively higher level of powers. That¡¯s why the Heretic God had chosen it. If the Heretic God had picked the cleverest of the lot instead, it might have actually betrayed him after setting foot on Myers Maind for fear of having to face the power of lightning.


    On Myers Maind at that very moment, the abominations filling the underground city had all been cleaned up. The magic cube ended up not being used at all. Sika felt restless at the Floating City, resulting in her leading the bug angels to charge at the underground city.


    She ended up speeding up the killing of the abominations when she met up with Saleen.


    Saleen was totally unscathed, but Lex felt very bad about herself for watching all that.


    J¡¯s words pushed her buttons, and Sika actually proved his points with her actions. Sika would have followed him anywhere for his sake, regardless of time and ce, and regardless of how dangerous it would have been.


    What Sika wanted was not the future but the present.


    It was something Lex was incapable of doing, especially when she was about to be empress. The entire Qin Empire was about to be hers, and she simply was unable to act like Sika.

 Chapter 1357: Level 11 (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1357: Level 11 (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen was able to tell what was going on in Lex¡¯s mind when he met her, but he was unable tofort her nheless. Many of what Lex needed to do, was what he must do after all.


    He could not have afforded to simply ignore the contract between them and the Goddess of Myers, as everyone would be have been doomed if he were to do so.


    Without any words to say to each other, Saleen went back to proceeding as nned, staying behind with the Floating City and helping Holy Rock City restore order. There was also the magic cube, which he needed to get his hands on.


    He needed the weapon spirit of the Floating City to get that part done. The God of Magic Net was able to merge the entire magic cube into the its space. Despite having yet developed its own divine kingdom, that weapon spirit was still capable of doing at least that much.


    There had been ample space opened in the Floating City, making it possible to fit even tens of the likes of that magic cube into it.


    The best way to take the huge device was to wait for the magic cube to develop its own weapon spirit, which would then be devoured by the one at the Floating City. Saleen did not bother with the detailed handling of such matters.


    There were others to do it for him. He was no longer that lowly mage he had once been, and there was no need for him to attend to every single matter himself.


    Saleen returned to the Magical Element Tower within the Floating City. He had Rafel with him as he prepared to advance further at the 17th floor of the magic tower. Before he were to do that, he needed to craft a set of equipment for his own use.


    The magic robe that he was currently wearing was something crafted by Gaine. Despite being powerful, it was a pity that it was crafted using methods of the astrologers and had too much of astrologer¡¯s power on it.


    Gaine was doing so to tempt Saleen. If Saleen were to give up on magic and turned his attention to learning astrology, then the magic robe could have been used as a piece of equipment of an astrologer as well.


    Furthermore, the seals on that four level 18 star figures would have been undone right away, reaching the pinnacle permissible power in Myers Maind.


    That was to say that when Myers Maind¡¯s powers were to be raised above level 13, those four star figures could have then advanced to the pinnacle of level 15. If Saleen refused to give up on magic, then he would have needed to upgrade them one level after another.


    The seals on the star figures would have only gradually dissolved as his magic chords grew.


    If it had been a long time ago, Saleen might have actually agreed to Gaine¡¯s wishes and went to further his training in astrology. However, after being encouraged by his teacher, Saleen¡¯s personality had grown more resilient. He knew that he loved magic the most instead of astrology.


    Astrology is capable of telling fates and fortunes, so what?


    Gaine was already considered a powerful astrologer, and yet he was unable to break free from the chains of fate. His soul was trapped within a figure and had to endured the eons.


    It was not something good to experience. All human sensations were cut off by something resembling curses. Gaine gained extremely long life, yet he lost the joy of being a human.


    He did not know hunger, he had no sense of taste, he was unable to tell coldness and warmth, and he also was unable to feel sadness or joy. Gaine was only able to survive as long as he did due to the memories of the past, savoring them repeatedly.


    Such punishments might have been cast upon him due to having seen too many secrets of fate, and too many things of what would have been.


    Saleen was unable to even tell if Gaine would have been able to break through the crystal wall system, with that level 19 Star Gathering Needle in his possession. If fate continued to refuse to leave him be, then he would have been merged as part of the crystal wall, continuing the life he had lived before.


    He would have remained stuck as a part of the crystal wall system, without any way of leaving or dying.


    Saleen determined to continue walking on the path of magic. No amount of temptations would have been enough to sway him from that choice.


    ¡°Rafel, I¡¯m getting ready to advance. Protect me.¡±


    Rafel nodded and looked at Saleen enviously. The rate at which humans advanced was not something achievable by the gods in a long shot. Gods might have been born at level 13, yet they could have lived for millions of years and not getting to level 14.


    Humans on the other hand...well, how long is Saleen again? His true age is probably less than 200 years old, no?


    Saleen was about to advance to level 11 within just over 100 years, and he was born lower than level zero. Humans eh...


    Saleen did not know what was going on in Rafel¡¯s mind. The Magical Element Tower was merged within the Floating City and was even safer than before. No one else would have been able to interfere with his advancement at such a ce.


    Saleen sat at the center of the magic tower. Piles of golden granules surrounded him.


    Magic robes, magic books, magic staffs, rings, bangles, shoes, belts, all of those were items that could have been replicated. Saleen had the Elemental Eye and he had long been able to read the secrets of his own equipment like the back of his own hand.


    Some of the items were tooplex for him to replicate, but that did not bother him, as he wanted to craft a set of lightning equipment that could have advanced alongside him.


    He intended to use the third weapon spirit for that purpose.


    When that original weapon spirit of the Floating Spirit was split into three, Saleen kept the third piece untouched, reserving it specifically for that very day. He intended to keep it that way until he was ready to break into level 12, but from the looks of things at that moment, he did not see any need to wait any further.


    Saleen, who was being circled by his Water me, hovered in it. That stuff was not considered something burning and it had a frighteningly low temperature. Rafel then backed away, startled, for fear of being harmed by the Water me.


    Of course, the Water me was unable to actually kill her, yet she saw no sense in simply just standing around and let the Water me dissolve her body.


    Saleen swept that body of the Evil Oracle up using the Water me and began refining it. The golden granules were dissolved by the Water me and turned into liquid instead of reduced to dust. The lightning magic patterns remained intact within the golden liquid, and Saleen knew that he hit jackpot.


    The rules of lightning magic patterns were indeed something that his Water me was incapable of damaging.


    Unless, the material that the lightning magic patternstched onto was too weak and brittle. Those golden granules were a far cry from that, being very resilient materials.


    The Starline Robe flew up. Saleen was almost stripped bare, leaving only for items on his person.


    Said items were the Ring of Cosmos, his magic amplifier, the Crystal Ring and the Thunder Dragon ster. He was unable to just keep his family badge on his person, so he handed it to Rafel for safekeeping instead.


    Rafel held onto Saleen¡¯s family badge and did not know what to think of it. The power infused within the badge was too great. If Saleen was unable to unleash those power within, even a clone of the Heretic God could have been reduced to dust, let alone the clone of an oracle.


    Rafel heard many stories about powerful humans, but she had never heard of any powerful ones have gods serving them, even if said god was a pseudogod.


    It was not that powerful humans were entirely uninterested in the gods, but they simply deemed that subjugating gods were too much trouble, and making things out of them yielded greater value.


    Saleen, on the other hand, brought the power of gods to bear. Both of his weapon spirits had evolved into pseudogods. Furthermore, the way Saleen controlled them did not seem to be ones that would have gotten him into further trouble. Despite his low level, none of the two pseudogods had any intentions of rebelling against him.


    Saleen focused and began to craft his equipment. The liquefied golden granules were being formed into threads, which then began to be sewn into clothing under Saleen¡¯s control. That knitting method differed from divine crafting and did not resemble conventional alchemy as well.


    It was something borne out of the secret arts imparted to him by his teacher, enabling him to control it using mental powers, keeping the lightning magic patterns within the golden granules intact, as he construct three-dimensional magic patterns out of those lightning magic patterns.


    The thickness of a magic robe was limited, yet Saleen needed to make 36yers nheless.


    The entire robe differed considerably from conventional magic robes in terms of style. The belt was no longer made of hard materials, and was instead woven to resemble silk belts of Cloudflow origin.


    In order to facilitate ease in flight andbat, the back of the belt was often covered within the magic robe, yet Saleen¡¯s magic robe was entirely wrapped around by the belt.


    There was no hood in the new magic robe, as he crafted a separate hat instead, just like how Cloudflow people would have down it. The reasons for doing so was simple¡ªthe style looked more elegant, and it made it easier to form three-dimensional magic arrays.


    Saleen crafted 64 runes on the magic robe, which were acquired from the Ring of Cosmos. He was unable to master the power of said ring, as that artifact¡¯s level was just too high. However, he only needed to master some of the rules to enable use of all 64 runes, which in turn, enabled him to craft 64 spaces for storing magic.


    Those were true space instead of something like magic staffs.


    The magic robe was capable of storing 64 magic spells, and all 64 of them were at critical points, enabling to be cast at the fastest speeds possible.


    The only shoring to it whenpared with the original Starline Robe was that he needed to store magic spells into those 64 spaces personally, as no one else could have done it in his stead.


    However, Saleen¡¯s powers differed from the past, in that he was able to create ball lightning. It was suffice for him to store all 64 spaces with just ball lightning and nothing else, and their powers would have eclipsed any other spells that other mages could have stored for him.


    Holy Rock City¡¯s reconstruction would have taken at least half a year to aplish. The internal parts of the city were severely damaged and the walls needed time for self-healing as well. As such, Saleen was in no hurry.


    He slowly worked at making his own magic robe, shoes, hat, belt and even underwear. Saleen still had mental powers to spend after finishing all of that in one go. As such, he went on to craft a pair of gloves as well.


    With the exception of the gloves, the entire set of magic clothing was considered oneplete set. However, Saleencked Dante¡¯s power to mold colors with the power of lightning on his magic robe. Thepleted magic robe was very soft, yet it was in a golden, translucent state.


    Saleen would have looked naked still when wearing it.


    He then put on the golden magic robe that he had personally crafted and asked Rafel, ¡°How long has it been?¡±


    ¡°108 days.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s been that long!¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Lex sent men here before. She hoped that you would stay for a bit longer here. Morale was stable with the Floating City around. There was also the thing with the magic cube¡¯s weapon spirit. It was about to be born. Do you want to go down and take a look?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. I¡¯m not finished with my equipment yet,¡± Saleen refused.


    Rafel felt indifferent about his decision and continued to look at Saleen work on his alchemy. Saleen learned of his shorings when he finished crafting the magic robe. It was fortunate that it was possible to re-craft the golden granules after they were used to make something. So this is the god-like materials mentioned in the secret arts then?


    He had wanted to craft a mask, but then came to realize that his methods were not formidable enough to do so, and chose to craft a magic book instead.


    That time, he intended to replicate a demonic magic book.


    That demonic magic book was very formidable, capable of storing six magic spells without regard for levels or elemental types. The book was practically capable of storing any magic spell.


    What Saleen wanted to do then was to replicate something simr, while writing his lightning magic inside as well, in order to serve as a legacy.

 Chapter 1358: Lightning Armament (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1358: Lightning Armament (Part 1)</h4>


    Mages valued their lineages just as humans valued procreation. There were those who, despite being dirt poor, had been able to persevere and raised their offspring. They sacrificed nearly everything for them.


    That was the instinct of living beings. The instinct of mages was to disseminate their skills and knowledge. Most mages liked having their names recorded in history, and then there was a handful who disliked leaving their names behind.


    You would be hard-pressed to find any mages who liked the idea of having their skills lost in theing generations.


    Saleen was even more so. While his skills were less impressivepared to those of ancient times, there were parts of his skills that the ancient mages paled inparison to. For one thing, ancient mages did not have to be as detailed and meticulous with their art.


    Furthermore, Saleen had already begun to develop his lightning skills when he was below level-9. Although weak, those skills would have still proven useful as a way to get to know lightning. The ancient magescked this skill entirely.


    Saleen crafted magic books and concentrated his mental powers, writing on the golden liquid of the granules. The more he wrote, the more developed his mental powers became, and he continued writing for days. But on this particr day, Saleen felt as if his mental powers were contracting violently and returning to his body.


    He was afraid this might be the end of his magic book. Since changes with mental powers could be a matter of life and death, he felt he had no time to spare by looking at the magic book. Instead, he focused his mental powers and observed his insides.


    Saleen felt the sensation of the mental powers returning to a single dot in his mind that then exploded and fused within an eerie ce within his body.


    That ce seemed to be a parallel dimension. Every single movement he made affected the energy of that space. Things felt vague, and Saleen sensed it was that space affecting him in return.


    His entire life seemed to be filled with changes; in actuality, he felt as if he was being manipted by that space.


    Even his thoughts seemed to have been little more than projections from that space.


    Saleen was startled. He wondered if he was real and if the Myers Maind was just an illusion.


    He wondered if his mental powers were about to crumble as fear welled up inside him. His mental powers were on the verge of dispersing into the vast, endless void, never to have coalesced again.


    Be strong, Saleen...


    A voice was heard from the depths of his mind at that moment. The voice was a very, very familiar one, and suddenly Saleen felt reassured. That was...


    Father¡¯s voice!


    Saleen was already at an age where he began to remember things from when his father died. But he was unable to recall when his father had said something like that to him when he was still alive.


    Those reassuring words made Saleen feel as if he was being thrown back from that parallel space of his own, merging back into his own body.


    !!!


    His mental powers burst again. Saleen opened his eyes and 360 million lightning characters flew out. Rafel was hurled back over 100 meters.


    A human has three souls.


    Saleen recalled such a description in the secret arts. He believed it at that time. A lot of what he had from his teacher seemed utterly ridiculous now, but Saleen truly believed that line at the time.


    None of the three souls truly resided in one¡¯s body. Only by regaining all three of them would humans be able to surpass the gods.


    Saleen was immediately aware of his soul¡¯s return. There seemed to be two other parallel spaces outside his body that were vague and unreachable. Those were not actually spaces but his souls outside.


    Myers Maind was real. What he experienced was simr to looking in a mirror and thinking his reflection was his true self while he, on the outside, was the projection instead.


    There was little need to talk more about how perilous that would have been. If it hadn¡¯t been for his father¡¯s voice, Saleen¡¯s mental powers might have crumbled altogether by then. Even if he had survived, he would have sustained a severe injury that was unlikely to heal.


    As a mage, the crumbling of Saleen¡¯s mental powers would have nearly marked the end for him. He would have retained magic chords of level-10 mages but would no longer be able to cast any magic spells. That¡¯s the best he could have hoped for in such a predicament.


    A transparent golden magic book hovered quietly before Saleen¡¯s eyes. Lightning magic patterns shimmered indistinctly on the book cover. The magic book was still sessfully crafted.


    ¡°Lord Saleen...¡± Rafel knew that Saleen had been in a perilous state earlier and wanted to say something when he simply waved dismissively saying, ¡°We¡¯ll continue.¡±


    Rafel shut her mouth and backed away, leaving Saleen alone with his thoughts.


    Saleen opened the magic book without realizing it; he had been poring over whatever he had learned andprehended during more than 100 years of training. Perceptions of conventional mages wouldn¡¯t have been able to look into the contents of the book he wrote with magic patterns.


    A reader had to be someone who had learned these lightning skills, someone whose mental powers were capable of manipting lightning before being able to safely absorb the knowledge in that magic book.


    That book seemed to be devoid of words altogether, yet Saleen knew he had actually written all of his 360 million lightning characters. As long as readers of future generations were beings whose mental powers were immune to lightning powers, they would be able to start learning.


    There were 36 pages in the book and every single page consisted of transparent paper of a faint golden color that enabled the user to store one magic spell. There was no special requirement for the spell store.


    Be it elemental, spiritual or even death magic, a spell could have been stored within the book as long as it was of a magical nature. Saleen felt that even divine spells could have been stored.


    That magic book allowed the storage of magic spells up to level-16. If the book was required to go further than that, Saleen would have needed to advance above level-16 and re-craft the magic book.


    It seemed that the magic book he crafted still paled inparison to the Demonic Magic Book that ancient humans crafted. He had given that book to Eleanor. That book could store magic spells up to level-18 and there was no requirement for a particr type either.


    I shall call it the Lightning Magic Book then.


    Saleen was ecstatic: A level-10 mage who could craft something capable of storing level-16 magic? Something like that had only been possible in another crystal wall system. He wanted to check out the secret arts if only he could find the time.


    His teacher¡¯s powers grew exponentially after learning Water me Alchemy and zing me Soul-refining Technique after all.


    Those were secret arts from another crystal wall system that gelled well with magic, which seemed able to elerate the rate of magic learning while boosting the powers of magic learned.


    But, of course, there was a requirement of having alchemical materials of sufficient quality on hand. If it had not been for the materials yielded from the Evil Oracle¡¯s body, it would have been impossible for Saleen to craft such powerful equipment. That¡¯s exactly how it was with his old Divine Tree Magic Tower.


    Had it not been for the dead trunks of the divine trees, it would have been impossible for Saleen to craft something like that in the first ce.


    Saleen nned to replicate the Starline Bangle next. He had no ns for replicating the Starline Ring at the moment because there was more than enough space to be had in the Ring of Cosmos.


    He would have only needed to open any one space of the 64 spaces within that ring, and Saleen would have no longer had any need for other space equipment.


    The Starline Bangle, on the other hand, provided slots for equipment. A slot equipped by a mage allowed the unleashing of the original powers, skipping the processes of taking equipment out and equipping them. This was extremely crucial in battle, especially after Saleen advanced to level-10.


    His enemies would have basically been people capable of instant-cast abilities, and tempo in battle would have been counted in frames. The time it would have taken to switch gears would have allowed his enemies to kill him several times over.


    Thunder dragons,e forth!


    Saleen summoned all 24 thunder dragons from his magic amplifier. They hadpletely awakened and flew outside right away, heeding Saleen¡¯s call. He pointed at the liquid golden granules floating around, and all 24 thunder dragons pounced on them immediately and consumed them in a frenzy.


    Scales began to develop on the smooth hide of the thunder dragons. The scales were transparent, faint golden colors and there were natural lightning magic patterns on them. Saleen¡¯s Water me continued to refine the golden granules and let the 24 thunder dragons consume them.


    The dragons rolled around in Water me and their bodies were tempered growing wings.


    The thunder dragons originally resembled snakes, but they then grew wide, golden, physical wings behind their backs and four sets of sharp ws under their torsos. The longhorns on their heads shimmered with lightning.


    All 24 thunder dragons¡¯ bodies had long been tempered by the Six Element¡¯s Heavy Water to critical points. They seemed to advance at the same time after consuming the golden liquid; they all reached the pinnacle of level-12.


    All exuded a powerful aura. Rafel saw this and came to realize why Saleen dared to challenge the Heretic God. If the Heretic God was unable to send over beings beyond level-13, they might have ended up digging their own graves.


    The thunder dragons intended to grow their powers further but were forcefully stopped by Saleen. The rules of Myers Maind forbade living beings of level-13 from being present. If the thunder dragons were to advance to level-13, they would have been punished in ordance with the rules.


    Dante was one such example. The God of Magic Net at the Floating City was far smarter inparison, sealing its power as soon as its divine fire was ignited.


    Saleen¡¯s Water me continued wrapping around the 24 thunder dragons and gradually shrank. The thunder dragons had long been made into weapon spirits, which allowed them to adjust their sizes at will. While they were being refined further by Saleen¡¯s Water me, they coiled around each other and formed a faint golden bangle on Saleen¡¯s hand.


    Saleen ripped the weapon spirits from the magic amplifier and made the Thunder Dragon Bangle. He had his own reasons for doing so. The magic amplifier had been created from materials left behind by the Goddess of Myers, so Saleen was still wary of it.


    The 24 thunder dragons, on the other hand, were beings that he personally raised. He had developed an attachment for them after having them around for so many years.


    He feared the day that the goddess would have been resurrected and taken his magic amplifier away right there and then, resulting in the loss of his beloved dragons.


    The magic amplifier was no longer capable of conjuring ball lightning following the loss of the thunder dragons as its weapon spirit. The Thunder Dragon Bangle took the magic amplifier¡¯s ce in performing that function. Saleen was then capable of conjuring ball lightning any time without having to use the magic amplifier.


    What¡¯s more, there were 24 equipment slots on the Thunder Dragon Bangle crafted from 24 thunder dragons.


    ording to the usual calctions, those 24 thunder dragons would have allowed Saleen to craft 24 equipment out of them. Every single equipment crafted would have had at least three equipment slots.


    The reason Saleen had crafted something like that instead was specifically to allow him to cast lightning attacks at any time.


    Twenty-four equipment slots were more than enough for him.


    Saleen sensed that the souls of the 24 thunder dragons were rather worn on the Thunder Dragon Bangle he was wearing. Fortunately, even if the thunder dragons were to go into hibernation, he would still have been able to use the power of the bangle right away.


    Not bad indeed. While the number of ball lightnings conjured was still eight despite all of the dragons having advanced to level-12, the ball lightnings¡¯ powers were considerably amplified and their speed grew 100 times over. They were no longer balls that waggle about when unleashed.

 Chapter 1359: Lightning Armament (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1359: Lightning Armament (Part 2)</h4>


    There was nothing Saleen could have done about Raphael¡¯s Crystal Ring. He went to work on the Thunder Dragon ster. The weapon was of far better quality than the Thunder Dragon Bangle. After all, the bangle was created using fully intact bones of the most powerful thunder dragons.


    The difference was that the bonescked flesh and blood. Toplete the weapon, Saleen merged the golden liquid into the Thunder Dragon ster.


    His mental powers expanded again after he had merged his soul with his body. The extent of the expansion was beyond hisprehension. At the very least, he was now able to see everything within a 100-kilometer radius without having to use the Elemental Eye.


    That was not due to his mental powers but to the power of his soul.


    It was said that mages were only able to ess the powers of their soul when they reached level-13. Saleen had already gained such powerful abilities before he had even gotten to level- 11. His speed at learning magic would have no longer been a slog that it used to be.


    He would have only needed to master the rules of the magic to be learned, looking them over just once to get a roughcasting. Practicing this magic hundreds of times would have resulted in near mastery.


    The power of the soul was thousands of times more condensed than mental powers. Saleen found it over a thousand times easier to work on the Thunder Dragon ster. Because he no longer had to worry about errors, his speed at re-crafting the Thunder Dragon ster was considerably quicker than it used to be.


    After absorbing ample amounts of golden liquid, the weapon gained some size and weight but was still just slightly longer than his forearm. He embedded the weapon with the divine persona of the water elemental god.


    That was the most precious item in his possession. Without it, the weapon would have been substantially slower at conjuring lightning icicles: its ability to fire continuously would have been limited.


    The weapon¡¯s appearance hardly changed even after absorbing the liquid. While it looked somewhatrger, the internal changes were enormous and now were like those of true thunder dragons.


    The ce where the magic nucleus was embedded was relocated inside the weapon¡ªthe stomach of thunder dragons.


    To put it more urately, that was no longer embedding. Saleen only needed to throw a magic nucleus into the mouth of the Thunder Dragon ster and it would have swallowed it on its own. As for the divine persona of the water elemental god, it was wrapped in golden granules, bing the heart of the weapon.


    The Thunder Dragon ster became a miniaturized version of a real, living thunder dragon. Such crafting techniques were, however, found only in the secret arts. Saleen probed with his power of the soul after finishing the modifications.


    The number of lightning icicles capable of being fired by the weapon increased to 12 at a time while recharging time was halved.


    The weapon thus allowed him to fire 12 lightning icicles within half an hour. The Thunder Dragon ster became Saleen¡¯s main assault weapon from then on: no other equipment was able to recharge as quickly.


    Saleen was very, very pleased with himself. He never had high expectations of the changes to the Thunder Dragon ster, to begin with, as he had not added much to its design in the first ce. Most of it was done by replicating Hogina¡¯s Gun.


    The genius girl at alchemy was unable to craft something exceeding limitations, despite her designs being exceedingly wondrous.


    Saleen then moved to the main target of the crafting session at that time¡ªthe magic amplifier.


    He used too many secret arts from another crystal wall system for crafting it. He poured a huge quantity of the golden liquid into it and then threw in the dagger made from the purified bones of the Heretic God.


    The ck ne transformed into a ring, hovering behind Saleen. The ck ring had 24 sections to it that used to house the thunder dragons. With them no longer inside, he added the golden liquid and had the sections coalesce into something resembling lightning beads.


    The golden beads, however, were not something that could have been replenished on their own when used. Saleen had no intention of using them in battle. He was too low a level and unable to bring the original powers of the beads to bear.


    As such, he was only storing the golden granules using such a method that let them be continuously tempered with lightning, thereby upgrading their quality.


    The golden dagger remained resistant to the workings of the Water me. Ayer of thin golden colors were coated onto the ck ring. The dagger zipped in and out of the faint golden ring, intending to escape.


    Saleen began chanting Thundering Explosions at the dagger. Despite not having a weapon spirit, the weapon nheless seemed to possess a will of its own. It began to tremble as Saleen continuously attacked it using a thundering sound within the ring.


    But the rules of the ne simply didn¡¯t allow something like that to be a weapon spirit. Even if the bone of the Heretic God had been purified, it was still being rejected by Myers Maind. If that thing were to be made into a weapon spirit, the Heretic God would have had to do it personally.


    The faint will on it was gradually scraped away by Saleen¡¯s thundering sound. It quieted down only after being bombarded by tens of thousands of thundering chants, hovering in the middle of the ring without making a sound. Saleen pointed his finger and sent forth a bloody mist that fused with the golden dagger.


    Lightning magic patterns filled the internal parts of the golden dagger, developing 64 ancient, in characters.


    Saleen felt as if his soul had developed a link with the magic amplifier and the metal dagger. That was one of his secret arts used for crafting. He had no idea why such an oue was yielded, but he nheless deemed it a satisfying one. He tried to take control of the golden dagger and make it fly.


    That golden dagger developed limbs, and Saleen could make it move any way he wished simply by directing it with nothing more than a single thought.


    The golden dagger circled around Saleen¡¯s body as it flew, while the ring hovered behind him. Its flight became increasingly quick and gradually turned into a beam of golden light, zipping in and out of the Water me.


    Saleen was finally able to craft the golden dagger using Water me. Its colors began to dim until they became transparent. The lightning magic patterns within were no longer around.


    ¡°Rafel!¡± Saleen gestured for Rafel to make a move. She knew what he wanted of her and brandished a de that he had crafted from heavy crystals. Its outeryer was made of gori metal, which was known for its hardness.


    The magic de was swung at Saleen. The wind whipped up by the de cut like Wind des.


    The wind produced a vacuum in front of Saleen before the de had even reached him.


    The cutting wind from the de disappeared without a trace. A golden dagger came right before Rafel and shed before appearing on the other side of the tower. Such speed of movement would have been possible to withstand by the constitution of a level-13 angel like her.


    Still, she was startled.


    The magic de in her hand had nothing but the hilt left, an oue resulting from being hit over 1000 times by that golden dagger and reduced to dust.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally done!¡± Saleen felt pleased with the weapon he had just crafted. There was no need to say much about the range of its attack because it exceeded even that of the Thunder Dragon ster.


    More important, the dagger¡¯s unparalleled sharpness would have only be evident when attacking.


    It was a dagger capable of turning invisible. It was as if Saleen had crafted something using secret arts in the realm of assassins so that he could sneak up on his enemies.


    It was a given, however, that such an enemy could not be too powerful: If its power of the soul exceeded Saleen¡¯s, the dagger¡¯s invisibility effect would have been broken.


    On the other hand, the dagger¡¯s range of attack was frighteningly long. Anywhere that Saleen¡¯s territory could have reached, that dagger would have had no problem traveling to.


    Even afterpression, the radius of Saleen¡¯s territory could have still reached over 60 kilometers, a distance the dagger could easily fly.


    Mages also had simr control abilities, but the weapons they were able to control were usually thin and very fragile. That golden dagger¡¯s weight surpassed that of any weapon Saleen had ever seen.


    In addition, it was unusually sharp. It would have been able to pierce a mage¡¯s shield right away even if it was merely tossed.


    The most important thing was that Saleen was then using the power of the soul to control the dagger, which was of a higher grade than mental powers and cost even less. It was also easier to replenish.


    Saleen¡¯s expression was calm as he said to Rafel, ¡°Continue!¡±


    Rafel switched to a huge shield over four meters high originally meant to be used by supreme demons. The one Saleen gave her was the best he had at that time. Rafel¡¯s body grew in size and charged at Saleen with the shield.


    With nine pointy spikes, the shield was intended to be used in formations. If such huge shields were meant to be used by demons in a formation and pushed forward, no unit types could have punched through them, be they infantry or cavalry.


    The sword in Rafel¡¯s hand was about six meters long and definitely not meant for humans. Rafel had been attacked by the golden dagger once.


    She focused her mental powers and was more or less capable of telling where the invisible dagger would appear. Saleen¡¯s dagger flew about in the air and attacked repeatedly. All those blows were repelled by Rafel and her huge shield.


    It was not that the shield was so durable but rather that Rafel was repelling it with unusual finesse. The dagger never actually shed with the shield head-on.


    A warrior¡¯s experience was usually measured by the number of battles fought; that number was typically in the hundreds. Rafel had fought over 10,000 battles throughout her lifetime. In every single battle, she would have needed to repel over 100 enemies at a time.


    Millions would have died: Rafel¡¯sbat skills were honed to perfection through repeated life-and-death battles. Combat weapons required tempering in the battlefield, and Rafel was as tempered and polished as a living weapon could be.


    The golden dagger eventually punched through the shield with the sound of a foot stepping in mud. Rafel¡¯s sword was also right on top of Saleen¡¯s head, and it was met with the magic amplifier getting in the way.


    Rafel halted her de. She was afraid of damaging Saleen¡¯s equipment and, at the same time, didn¡¯t want her skin to get scratched.


    That thing was really creepy. Rafel disappeared yet again. When she returned, that golden dagger had already punched through her shield and came right in front of her face.


    Saleen¡¯s dagger-manipting techniques had be increasingly refined. He already knew how to make the dagger go where it wanted it to appear.


    Rafel dropped her weapons with a ng and said, ¡°That¡¯s it, my lord.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°If I were to defeat you, I¡¯d have needed toe at you with intentions of killing you.¡±


    Rafel¡¯s words were direct. Unless she was giving her all and attacked Saleen like a target she must kill using all of her powers in the fight, the duel with that golden dagger would have only ended up in a draw despite her best efforts.


    Saleen chuckled and took the family badge that Rafel returned to him, saying, ¡°You¡¯d be able to stop the dagger if you used godly items. But then again, even though it¡¯s easy for me to repair the dagger, the same couldn¡¯t be said with your godly item. I don¡¯t actually mind shing head-on though.¡±


    Rafel didn¡¯t answer. She had many ways to kill Saleen, but none would have allowed her toe out unscathed. She had seen personally what Saleen¡¯s equipment and skills were capable of, especially that finger attack which seemed to be intended specifically for dealing with gods.

 Chapter 1360: Refining (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1360: Refining (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Rafel, how much time has passed?¡± Saleen asked. Rafel was puzzled. He had his own magic clock and yet he asked her instead.


    ¡°Counting from the moment we entered the tower, 206 days,¡± Rafel answered.


    Saleen was startled and said, ¡°What about them?¡±


    When Saleen said ¡°them,¡± he was obviously referring to his followers, together with Sika and Lex.


    ¡°Sika is in charge of the Floating City. She¡¯smanding Nailisi and Bing as no one else could. Lex is already emperor, and Ojarvis is dead. Lex sent people to request that you participate in the funeral, but I stopped them.¡±


    Ojarvis is dead?


    Saleen couldn¡¯t believe it. That young dude who¡¯d been chatting jovially around him seemed to have seen through fate. Saleen thought people like that would live forever, or at least longer than the gods.


    But then again, that was all in his imagination: not even gods were immortal. Saleen wondered if the young emperor was really asking to be resurrected after his passing, or was he asking to be remembered that way?


    ¡°Since when did my magic chords grow to such an extent?¡± Saleen was baffled to find that he had advanced, but unceremoniously. Nothing special at all happened during the process.


    It was no wonder Rafel had exerted herself when she was fighting him earlier. He had be adept at using more power of rules. Coupled with his formidable arsenal, and being that there was no Rafel who would have killed him, Saleen ended up backing her into a corner.


    ¡°Your followers have all returned to the Floating City and seem to be on bad terms with Lex,¡± Rafel added.


    ¡°Let it be. Lex has her own way of dealing with it.¡± Saleen then walked out of the magic tower with Rafel. People were waiting for him outside the door of the 17th floor.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ve advanced!¡± Eleanor said joyfully.


    ¡°I did too, Eleanor,¡± Saleen shed a beaming smile, looking very happy.


    Eleanor had the hardest time advancing and he finally knew why¡ªshe was using a human¡¯s body. Humans had their souls outside their bodies and their levels were too low, resting in some mystical parallel space that could never be calcted using conventional concepts of distance.


    It was possible to cover the distance between nes by flying, but unless someone was able to fly at the speed of light, that distance could never be covered in a lifetime.


    That involved magic theories of higher levels and was mentioned in the secret arts of another crystal wall system. Saleen was puzzled about the way in which the concept was illustrated.


    That was the difference in how two very different civilizations approached certain concepts; it had nothing to do with Saleen¡¯s level of intelligence. It had more to do with what he came to know and ept since childhood bore little to no resemnce to how they were illustrated in another crystal wall system.


    ¡°Really? I can¡¯t tell.¡± Eleanor studied Saleen with those green eyes of hers but still couldn¡¯t find any signs of advancement in him. Saleen had definitely advanced, but he seemed exactly the same.


    ¡°Right, I was about to look for you, Eleanor.¡± Saleen took out his own Starline Armament and put in into Eleanor¡¯s hands.


    ¡°This...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve crafted the Lightning Armament and no longer have use of the Starline Armament. Even though I¡¯m surrounded by mages...I¡¯m notfortable with any of them using it. You can have it.¡±


    Eleanor acknowledged him and turned around.


    Saleen was puzzled. He had never considered the Starline Armament to be a very personal set of clothing of his. Was it embarrassing to expect Eleanor to wear it?


    But then again, he was a mage and didn¡¯t concern himself much with such matters. To mages, any article of clothing would have looked and felt as good as new with a single Cleaning spell.


    The truth is that Eleanor wouldn¡¯t have normally given much thought to this. She wouldn¡¯t have minded if a piece of clothing had been taken from some dead person. On the other hand, she had been with Saleen long enough to have fallen for him, so what he did made her feel awkward.


    Saleen was only taking it as Eleanor having gotten quite a piece of treasure and had to go change into it as soon as possible. It was a sentiment he once had as well.


    Rafel was unable to read much into any of that. She was created as abat weapon. Her emotions were pretty much limited to the urge of wanting to keep taking care of the metal angels. They had been with her for hundreds of thousands of years and she simply couldn¡¯t leave them to their own devices.


    After gifting the Starline Armament to Eleanor, Saleen went to the top floor of the magic tower where he found Sika was on the 24th floor. Her frown indicated that she was in a predicament.


    When Saleen approached her, Sika didn¡¯t even lift her head. She simply shut the door of the tower after he entered. Rafel was fast enough to sneak inside, and Sika didn¡¯t mind.


    ¡°Saleen, I think we¡¯ve run into a problem merging the magic cube in here.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Sika then looked up and said, ¡°The magic cube has been taken in by the God of Magic Net. The merging process has been going on for a month, and there¡¯s been little progress.¡±


    Saleen said, ¡°Well, this is quite simple...¡±


    He didn¡¯t finish his sentence; something was off. He nned to bring the Floating City into the Imperial City of the Abyss. The God of Magic Net could have brought its full powers to bear without fear of invoking punishment from the rules of the ne.


    There was no way something as huge as the Floating City could have fit into space equipment.


    If he were to simply man the Floating City and fly all the way to the Imperial City of the Abyss, the ce would have definitelye under fire by someone else.


    Saleen had a rough idea about the magic arrays in the Imperial City of the Abyss, which would have unleashed attacks that were one or two levels higher than the intruder. He had dealt with attacks around level-10 back when he first entered at level-9.


    If he were to fly the Floating City the entire way, it would have suffered attacks of about level-14 from the magic arrays.


    That was a way to conserve energy. If those magic arrays were manned, the energy expenditure would have been even better.


    ¡°Well, since the cube is already up here, we¡¯ll see if it could be eventually be merged. How are things on Lex¡¯s side?¡±


    Seeing that Saleen was not in a hurry, she said, ¡°What do you think? The good news is that the repairs of Holy Rock City are going well. Except for the magic clock, all facilities and buildings have been restored.¡±


    ¡°Bad news then?¡±


    ¡°The Holy See has gathered an army yet again, marching east in Kroraina.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re going after Nature City, I assume?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. The Holy See army is moving really slowly this time. It¡¯ll take them about two or three months to reach Nature City.¡±


    ¡°What about Safilos?¡±


    ¡°He went south, back to his own estate and refused to return to Holy Rock City altogether.¡±


    South? Saleen did a quick calction in his head. The mages from Alchemy City were probably still doing something in the south. The rtionship between Alchemy City and Safilo was patchy at best. They had worked with each other before, but Alchemy City was still Safilos¡¯s enemy.


    If he was willing to let Lex take the throne, that meant that even if he felt dejected, he would have still refused to let Qin crumble.


    Safilos was probably in danger of going south, but the Holy See army was marching slowly that time¡ªa testament of their stability and resolve. The Holy See gave up on pulverizing Qin in one go and chose to start with Nature City instead.


    It would have been easier to fool the believers if they were to take Nature City. So long as they got their hands on coin and grain, they could have fooled as many believers as they wanted.


    The Holy See imed to have over 100 million believers. Saleen thought that number was grossly exaggerated. But they definitely had at least 20 to 30 million: Believers were the greatest power the Holy See had at its disposal.


    The Holy See would have been able to raze Kroraina slowly by mobilizing these forces and moving in on Qin again.


    Since Holy Rock City of Qin had just been restored, it couldn¡¯t spare any hands to take care of things in the north. Thends that Grand Duke Iron Blood slowly took were impossible to retake at the moment.


    Saleen still had an alliance with Grand Duke Iron Blood, but now that Lex had easily be the situation was moreplicated.


    None of the problems that came to Saleen¡¯s mind could be solved right away. He needed time.


    ¡°Wait a sec, Sika. I¡¯ll go check on Lex.¡±


    Sika was silent. Saleen wasn¡¯t going to see Lex to get intimate with her. Rather, he was probably going to discuss something that would upset her; Sika knew about the deal between Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    If Lex were to attack the grand duke, there was still no way Saleen would have turned his back on the alliance.


    Yet, what would the Qin nobles think if he chose not to attack?


    Seeing that Rafel was standing around doing nothing, Saleen ordered, ¡°Rafel, take 100 angels with you ande with me.¡±


    ¡°Acknowledged.¡± Rafel scurried out of the tower and came to the ground of the Floating City. They were not on top of Holy Rock City at the moment but stationed tens of miles away.


    The Floating City had arger area than Holy Rock City. If it were to simply hover right above Holy Rock City, it would have blocked out the sun and caused the city below to be shrouded in never-ending night.


    Sika would not have done such a thing even if Lex was already an empress. That would have simply been too childish of her.


    Saleen was gone barely an hour. Sika noticed he was not looking well and knew something must have happened between him and Lex.


    ¡°Saleen, how about if I talk to her?¡±


    ¡°No need. What she said was reasonable but...well,e with me to the Imperial City of the Abyss for a while. Only by merging the magic cube would I be able to obtain absolute power, and I¡¯d then be able to defeat the Holy See army.¡±


    ¡°Head there first and contact me at any time. I¡¯ll go back to Metatrin City and look after the kids.¡± Sika did not agree to go with him immediately. Saleen nodded and felt incredibly sad.


    He had been running around so much he didn¡¯t have time to see his children. He had also argued with Lex earlier. While the argument only touched on the matter at hand, it was the first time the two of them had conflicted so intensely.


    It was hard to stand in each other¡¯s shoes especially when both were under tremendous pressure. What¡¯s more, Saleen and Lex had their own thorny issues to deal with in addition to their shared trouble in the form of the goddess¡¯s contract.


    Because of this, neither of them had any time to sit around and chill, which made talking to each even other problematic.


    Was all that closeness back in the interdimensional space thest time we shared such tender moments?


    Sika returned to Metatrin City through the teleportation portal in the magic tower. Saleen had Rossen take control of the Floating City and moved quickly northward. After the weapon spirit of the Floating City became a god, the flight speed reached a frightening 500 kilometers an hour.


    The Floating City could fly more than 13,000 kilometers in one day. While the Imperial City of the Abyss was very far away, it nheless took Saleen less than a week to arrive.


    The final leg of the journey meant having to travel underwater. It was impossible to maintain such speeds when submerged because of the Floating City¡¯s sheer size.


    Saleen was hardly tense returning to the Imperial City of the Abyss this time. Instead of entering through the underwater tunnel, he took a detour to the northern side of the city instead, which had a vast underwater in.


    The reason he dared not take such a route in the past was due to the presence of magic beasts over there, something he was ill-equipped to deal with.

 Chapter 1361: Refining (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1361: Refining (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°Rafel, how much time has passed?¡± Saleen asked. Rafel was puzzled. He had his own magic clock and yet he asked her instead.


    ¡°Counting from the moment we entered the tower, 206 days,¡± Rafel answered.


    Saleen was startled and said, ¡°What about them?¡±


    When Saleen said ¡°them,¡± he was obviously referring to his followers, together with Sika and Lex.


    ¡°Sika is in charge of the Floating City. She¡¯smanding Nailisi and Bing as no one else could. Lex is already emperor, and Ojarvis is dead. Lex sent people to request that you participate in the funeral, but I stopped them.¡±


    Ojarvis is dead?


    Saleen couldn¡¯t believe it. That young dude who¡¯d been chatting jovially around him seemed to have seen through fate. Saleen thought people like that would live forever, or at least longer than the gods.


    But then again, that was all in his imagination: not even gods were immortal. Saleen wondered if the young emperor was really asking to be resurrected after his passing, or was he asking to be remembered that way?


    ¡°Since when did my magic chords grow to such an extent?¡± Saleen was baffled to find that he had advanced, but unceremoniously. Nothing special at all happened during the process.


    It was no wonder Rafel had exerted herself when she was fighting him earlier. He had be adept at using more power of rules. Coupled with his formidable arsenal, and being that there was no Rafel who would have killed him, Saleen ended up backing her into a corner.


    ¡°Your followers have all returned to the Floating City and seem to be on bad terms with Lex,¡± Rafel added.


    ¡°Let it be. Lex has her own way of dealing with it.¡± Saleen then walked out of the magic tower with Rafel. People were waiting for him outside the door of the 17th floor.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ve advanced!¡± Eleanor said joyfully.


    ¡°I did too, Eleanor,¡± Saleen shed a beaming smile, looking very happy.


    Eleanor had the hardest time advancing and he finally knew why¡ªshe was using a human¡¯s body. Humans had their souls outside their bodies and their levels were too low, resting in some mystical parallel space that could never be calcted using conventional concepts of distance.


    It was possible to cover the distance between nes by flying, but unless someone was able to fly at the speed of light, that distance could never be covered in a lifetime.


    That involved magic theories of higher levels and was mentioned in the secret arts of another crystal wall system. Saleen was puzzled about the way in which the concept was illustrated.


    That was the difference in how two very different civilizations approached certain concepts; it had nothing to do with Saleen¡¯s level of intelligence. It had more to do with what he came to know and ept since childhood bore little to no resemnce to how they were illustrated in another crystal wall system.


    ¡°Really? I can¡¯t tell.¡± Eleanor studied Saleen with those green eyes of hers but still couldn¡¯t find any signs of advancement in him. Saleen had definitely advanced, but he seemed exactly the same.


    ¡°Right, I was about to look for you, Eleanor.¡± Saleen took out his own Starline Armament and put in into Eleanor¡¯s hands.


    ¡°This...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve crafted the Lightning Armament and no longer have use of the Starline Armament. Even though I¡¯m surrounded by mages...I¡¯m notfortable with any of them using it. You can have it.¡±


    Eleanor acknowledged him and turned around.


    Saleen was puzzled. He had never considered the Starline Armament to be a very personal set of clothing of his. Was it embarrassing to expect Eleanor to wear it?


    But then again, he was a mage and didn¡¯t concern himself much with such matters. To mages, any article of clothing would have looked and felt as good as new with a single Cleaning spell.


    The truth is that Eleanor wouldn¡¯t have normally given much thought to this. She wouldn¡¯t have minded if a piece of clothing had been taken from some dead person. On the other hand, she had been with Saleen long enough to have fallen for him, so what he did made her feel awkward.


    Saleen was only taking it as Eleanor having gotten quite a piece of treasure and had to go change into it as soon as possible. It was a sentiment he once had as well.


    Rafel was unable to read much into any of that. She was created as abat weapon. Her emotions were pretty much limited to the urge of wanting to keep taking care of the metal angels. They had been with her for hundreds of thousands of years and she simply couldn¡¯t leave them to their own devices.


    After gifting the Starline Armament to Eleanor, Saleen went to the top floor of the magic tower where he found Sika was on the 24th floor. Her frown indicated that she was in a predicament.


    When Saleen approached her, Sika didn¡¯t even lift her head. She simply shut the door of the tower after he entered. Rafel was fast enough to sneak inside, and Sika didn¡¯t mind.


    ¡°Saleen, I think we¡¯ve run into a problem merging the magic cube in here.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Sika then looked up and said, ¡°The magic cube has been taken in by the God of Magic Net. The merging process has been going on for a month, and there¡¯s been little progress.¡±


    Saleen said, ¡°Well, this is quite simple...¡±


    He didn¡¯t finish his sentence; something was off. He nned to bring the Floating City into the Imperial City of the Abyss. The God of Magic Net could have brought its full powers to bear without fear of invoking punishment from the rules of the ne.


    There was no way something as huge as the Floating City could have fitted into space equipment.


    If he were to simply man the Floating City and fly all the way to the Imperial City of the Abyss, the ce would have definitelye under fire by someone else.


    Saleen had a rough idea about the magic arrays in the Imperial City of the Abyss, which would have unleashed attacks that were one or two levels higher than the intruder. He had dealt with attacks around level-10 back when he first entered at level-9.


    If he were to fly the Floating City the entire way, it would have suffered attacks of about level-14 from the magic arrays.


    That was a way to conserve energy. If those magic arrays were manned, the energy expenditure would have been even better.


    ¡°Well, since the cube is already up here, we¡¯ll see for a while longer if it could be eventually be merged. How are things on Lex¡¯s side?¡±


    Seeing that Saleen was not in a hurry, she said, ¡°What do you think? The good news is that the repairs of Holy Rock City are going well. Except for the magic clock, all facilities and buildings have been restored.¡±


    ¡°Bad news then?¡±


    ¡°The Holy See has gathered an army yet again, marching east in Kroraina.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re going after Nature City, I assume?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. The Holy See army is moving really slowly this time. It¡¯ll take them about two or three months to reach Nature City.¡±


    ¡°What about Safilos?¡±


    ¡°He went south, back to his own estate and refused to return to Holy Rock City altogether.¡±


    South? Saleen did a quick calction in his head. The mages from Alchemy City were probably still doing something in the south. The rtionship between Alchemy City and Safilos was patchy at best. They had worked with each other before, but Alchemy City was still Safilos¡¯s enemy.


    If he was willing to let Lex take the throne, that meant that even if he felt dejected, he would have still refused to let Qin crumble.


    Safilos was probably in danger of going south, but the Holy See army was marching slowly that time¡ªa testament of their stability and resolve. The Holy See gave up on pulverizing Qin in one go and chose to start with Nature City instead.


    It would have been much easier for them to fool the believers if they were to take Nature City. So long as they got their hands on coin and grain, they could have fooled as many believers as they wanted.


    The Holy See imed to have over 100 million believers. Saleen thought that number was grossly exaggerated. But they definitely had at least 20 to 30 million: Believers were the greatest power the Holy See had at its disposal.


    The Holy See would have been able to raze Kroraina slowly by mobilizing these forces and moving in on Qin again.


    Since the Holy Rock City of Qin had just been restored, it couldn¡¯t spare any hands to take care of things in the north. Thends that Grand Duke Iron Blood slowly took were impossible to retake at the moment.


    Saleen still had an alliance with Grand Duke Iron Blood, but now that Lex had easily be the situation was moreplicated.


    None of the problems that came to Saleen¡¯s mind could be solved right away. He needed time.


    ¡°Wait a sec, Sika. I¡¯ll go check on Lex.¡±


    Sika was silent. Saleen wasn¡¯t going to see Lex to get intimate with her. Rather, he was probably going to discuss something upsetting; Sika knew about the deal between Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    If Lex were to attack the grand duke, there was still no way Saleen would have turned his back on the alliance.


    Yet, what would the Qin nobles think if he chose not to attack?


    Seeing that Rafel was standing around doing nothing, Saleen ordered, ¡°Rafel, take 100 angels with you ande with me.¡±


    ¡°Acknowledged.¡± Rafel scurried out of the tower and came to the ground of the Floating City. They were not on top of Holy Rock City at the moment but stationed tens of miles away.


    The Floating City had arger area than Holy Rock City. If it were to simply hover right above Holy Rock City, it would have blocked out the sun and caused the city below to be shrouded in never-ending night.


    Sika would not have done such a thing even if Lex was already an empress. That would have simply been too childish of her.


    Saleen was gone barely an hour. Sika noticed he was not looking well and knew something must have happened between him and Lex.


    ¡°Saleen, how about if I talk to her?¡±


    ¡°No need. What she said was reasonable but...well,e with me to the Imperial City of the Abyss for a while. Only by merging the magic cube would I be able to obtain absolute power, and I¡¯d then be able to defeat the Holy See army.¡±


    ¡°Head there first and contact me at any time. I¡¯ll go back to Metatrin City and look after the kids.¡± Sika did not agree to go with him immediately. Saleen nodded and felt incredibly sad.


    He had been running around so much he didn¡¯t have time to see his children. He had also argued with Lex earlier. While the argument only touched on the matter at hand, it was the first time the two of them had conflicted so intensely.


    It was hard to stand in each other¡¯s shoes especially when both were under tremendous pressure. What¡¯s more, Saleen and Lex had their own thorny problems to deal with in addition to their shared trouble in the form of the goddess¡¯s contract.


    Because of this, neither of them had any time to sit around and chill, which made talking to each even other problematic.


    Was all that closeness back in the interdimensional space thest time we shared such tender moments?


    Sika returned to Metatrin City through the teleportation portal in the magic tower. Saleen had Rossen take control of the Floating City and moved quickly northward. After the weapon spirit of the Floating City became a god, the flight speed reached a frightening 500 kilometers an hour.


    The Floating City could fly more than 13,000 kilometers in one day. While the Imperial City of the Abyss was very far away, it nheless took Saleen less than a week to arrive.


    The final leg of the journey meant having to to go underwater. It was impossible to maintain such speeds when submerged because of the Floating City¡¯s sheer size.


    Saleen was hardly tense returning to the Imperial City of the Abyss this time. Instead of entering through the underwater tunnel, he took a detour to the northern side of the city instead, which had a vast underwater in.


    The reason he dared not take such a route in the past was due to the presence of magic beasts over there, something he was ill-equipped to deal with.

 Chapter 1362: Sacrifice to the Sword (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1362: Sacrifice to the Sword (Part 1)</h4>


    A tall weapon spirit emerged from the ten-meter-long sword. Saleen unleashed it, seeing how it had been willing to submit to him. The weapon spirit bowed before Saleen and he gave his orders, ¡°You shall control the magic amplifier and the swords.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Golden armor began to coalesce on the weapon spirit¡¯s body. It took hold of the sword and leaped, entering the ring that was the magic amplifier, and became a specter.


    The magic amplifier hovered behind Saleen and he no longer needed to transform it into a ne.


    With all three weapon spirits taken care of, Saleen began feeling uneasy about those control methods acquired from another crystal wall system. He could easily manipte powerful weapon spirits despite being only level-11 while all three weapon spirits were already level-13 beings.


    Lacking sufficient energy, the weapon spirit within the magic amplifier had not ignited its divine fire. The other two had done so, however, since they had consumed a huge amount of energy.


    If Saleen were to feed a corresponding amount of energy to the weapon spirit of the amplifier, it would have been no problem getting it to ignite a divine fire.


    No one else would have believed that a level-11 mage would be able to control three level-13 weapon spirits; even Saleen felt the whole thing was unreal.


    But then he had no time to linger on the sentiment. Saleen still had to supervise the enchanters working in the alchemy factories in the crafting of the Tainted Blood Armors after he finished his weapon spirit.


    There were too many enchanters working in the alchemy factories, more than enough to have them all work at the same time.


    They were churning out all types of weapons non-stop¡ªmagic armors, magic weapons, construction puppets, wedge-shaped underwater vessels, various alchemy crossbows, magic cannons, Wings of Elves,rge-scale metal flyers, newbat puppets, magic chariots...


    The alchemy factories at the Floating City were producing Saleen¡¯stest designs. There was no need to worry about secrets being leaked: Those who earned the right to get up to the Floating City and enter alchemy factories were people Saleen trusted implicitly.


    Some might have worried about having enough troops. Not Saleen. He still had over 80,000 ancient warriors at his disposal. By the time all those warriors were done for, the training of the demon army would have been almostpleted.


    Furthermore, an unlimited number of demons could have been summoned; regardless of how long the warssted, it wouldn¡¯t have been able a problem for him.


    What Saleencked at the moment was equipment. While alchemy factories at Metatrin City were also producing goods, most of those weapons were meant to be sold. What Saleen was able to arm personally was limited to the temple guards.


    Despite this, Saleen had a nagging feeling that something wascking in that equipment. He was capable of grasping the secret arts this teacher imparted to him after advancing to level-11, which meant that he also had new ideas when it came to crafting equipment.


    In general, all the original equipment had to be scrapped and redesigned. Since Saleen had an enormous number of enchanters avable, it would have been easy to design what he needed. A single idea of his could have easily been made into hundreds of schematics from which he would select a handful.


    Mass production could have begun once he experimented with crafting those designs personally and making detailed modifications.


    Saleen supervised the enchanters to mass-produce weapons. Something was off. But what? Sika said she would contact him, but he had not heard from her since she returned to Metatrin City.


    There shouldn¡¯t have been any danger to Metatrin City. His teacher definitely would have contacted him if there had.


    ¡°Master, help me out.¡± The weapon spirit of the Floating City¡ªthe God of Magic Net¡ªasked for help all of a sudden. Saleen had only realized that the God of Magic Net had sent the magic cube into the space that it carved out, yet it was unable to merge with the cube despite its best efforts.


    The materials that the magic cube was constructed from were not of higher levels than those of the Floating City; however, the rules of the magic cube were not something the God of Magic Net was able to master.


    Any being at level-13 would have been able to develop basics in mastering rules, but the level of rules of that magic cube far exceeded that of what the God of Magic Net was able toprehend.


    Saleen saw through all of that and said, ¡°No time for slow crafting. Take this instead.¡±


    He took out a bottle of fluid mixed from Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and Genesis Stock Solution from his magic amplifier and handed it to the God of Magic Net.


    The being was ted. It never expected Saleen to be nice enough to give it something like that.


    The Floating City was like the god¡¯s body. Saleen controlled it, but if he were to end up dead and someone else took over, that person had to be of Saleen¡¯s lineage and familiar with the methods of controlling the broken jade fragment.


    It would have gained freedom otherwise.


    Such methods of control were far more rxed than soul bonds. That was because of the way it understood it, Saleen¡¯s lifespan would have definitely been shorter than its own. It did not mind being Saleen¡¯s ve for the time being. After Saleen died, no one else would have been able to subjugate it.


    The God of Magic Net chugged down a bottle of fluid that was potent enough to kill half the maind¡¯s living creatures. The weapon spirit of the magic cube that it had been unable to dissolve disintegrated immediately. The secrets of the magic cube were only gradually absorbed by then.


    The value of that bottle of fluid would have been on par with the Floating City itself. The God of Magic Net began to focus and refine the magic cube. It breathed a thin mist from its mouth that contained Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water and Genesis Stock Solution.


    The mist diffused widely and eventually encased the magic cube.


    The magic cube seemed to have been melted down and disappeared altogether within the world that the God of Magic Net had opened up.


    It had only been gone for several seconds before reappearing. The God of Magic Net¡¯s world contracted all of a sudden and frantically put whatever Saleen had stored within into other spaces within the Floating City. The magic cube, on the other hand, expanded instead.


    Though the Floating City was quiet, everyone was able to hear a loud bang in their minds.


    The re-materialized magic cube shattered in an instant. Its materials were indeed resilient, but the durability of the Floating City was never calcted using levels in the first ce. It would have otherwise had holes all over it for banging into birds and whatnot.


    Fortunately, it was Saleen¡¯s Genesis Stock Solution that allowed the magic cube to once again materialize and expand outward. The process repeated itself several times, and everyone heard at least nine loud bangs in their minds before the magic cube finally merged with the Floating City.


    The space that the God of Magic Net opened appeared in the rooms of the magic cube and was cut into sections. There was a total of 10,000 rooms in the magic cube by then.


    Every single room was hundreds of square kilometers. The rooms¡¯ attributes were simr to the original magic cube. It constantly shifted its set of coordinates, making it possible for only Saleen and the God of Magic Net to enter and exit at will.


    No one would have been able to lock onto the location of the magic cube without their permission.


    The true use of the magic cube, after being merged into the magic, was to enable the enchanters to finally be free from the risk of attacking enemies from buildings at the lower side of the Floating City. They only needed to be inside the magic cube to attack whatever was outside.


    From that point on, defense of the Floating City became very simple.


    Generally speaking, a magic building had a difficult time bncing offense and defense. If upants attacked, they would have had to expose their weaknesses. If they were to defend, their offensive capacities would have been drastically lowered.


    With the magic cube and the Floating City merged into a single entity, all enchanters could live in the magic cube indefinitely.


    They could rest within the magic cube after their mental powers were exhausted, without having to worry about being attacked by enemies. With the addition of the magic cube, it became very easy to mobilize the magic.


    The weapon spirit of the Floating City¡ªthe God of Magic Net¡ªno longer needed to be present to man everything. It could have emerged to fight personally simply by letting the magic cube run automatically.


    In addition, when the God of the Magic Net advanced further, it would have been possible for it to create a true divine kingdom within the spaces of the magic cube. By then, the number of rooms would have grown by tenfold, even over 100 times.


    Those rooms were capable of serving as thergest warehouses Saleen had at his disposal just as they were now.


    Mages at Saleen¡¯s level came to have little need for things like space equipment because they could have easily created them anywhere at any time. But such equipment ced high requirements on their users. When it came to war, the most troublesome thing was logistics.


    Saleen¡¯s demon army required massive upkeep as well, requiring great numbers of magic bugs to feed them. Doing so, in turn, also meant having to find ces to keep all those bugs. It was unthinkable to always have Nailisi by his side in every single battle.


    The Floating City would have served as the most powerful weapon of war, capable of supplying anything an army would have needed regardless of where it went.


    Saleen came to develop a deep understanding of the magic cube after it merged with the Floating City. Of course, this was possible after he became capable of such feats.


    The magic cube itself was an offensive object, but the cost would have been staggering and defense would have be a problem.


    The Holy Rock City addressed this by burying it deep underground and concentrating its defense at the front of the magic cube. It was then made to draw power from the earth to serve as the main source of power for its operations.


    The Floating City was a huge mass of energy on its own. The bone crystals of the giant, which consisted of a huge part in the Floating City¡¯s construction, could have been used as consumables at any given moment. Furthermore, the magic furnaces on the Floating City were capable of dissolving anything thrown into it.


    Thebination of the weapon spirit of the Floating City igniting a divine fire and having arge number of believers meant that the power of faith would have supplied the magic cube with massive amounts of energy.


    ¡°Rafel...¡±


    Rafel interrupted Saleen before he could finish his sentence. ¡°My lord, 58 days have passed, which means that we were two days away from having spent two months here. We should head back to Nature City. The Holy See¡¯s army should be at Qin¡¯s borders by now.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, great,¡± Saleen answered without care... and let the God of Magic Net man the Floating City and take it outside as quickly as possible.


    The Floating City slowly rose underwater and headed north. With the magic cube merged inside, it became extremely easy to man the Floating City. Plus, the distribution of energy became reasonable and the fuel cost was also considerably reduced.


    That huge tentacle did not attack on the way back. It only twitched and kicked up a lot of dirt underwater after Saleen¡¯s Floating City zipped past, seemingly having forgotten the score over a month ago, and went back to sleep shortly after. Saleen ended up not using any of the measures he prepared.


    He originally thought of killing that huge magic beast before leaving just to open a path there in the future.


    But the beast refused to attack again and Saleen didn¡¯t want to look for trouble in the fissure. That magic beast would have been at its most powerful within the fissure, after all, so Saleen simply abandoned the idea.


    The God of Magic Net immediately suppressed its powers to the pinnacle of level-12 after they left the abyss, not daring to dy even a single second.

 Chapter 1363: Sacrifice to the Sword (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1363: Sacrifice to the Sword (Part 2)</h4>


    The magic shield outside the Floating City gradually changed shape. Although the speed was hardly increased, it nheless reduced fuel consumption of the Floating City when moving underwater.


    Countless magic beasts were harassing the Floating City on its return journey. But then again, beasts that dared to harass a monster like the Floating City were not very intelligent so killing them was a breeze.


    The Floating City needed to take a detour around the abyss if it were to take to the air, making it necessary to head south for thousands of kilometers before being free of the ice on the surface.


    The ice sheets covering the Oceanic Ice Block were several kilometers thick. If the Floating City intended to simply barge through the ice and fly, it would have been difficult.


    Despite having assimted the magic cube, the position of the Magical Element Tower as themand center was unchanged. There was only one ce in the magic cube that could have been used formanding forces, and Ojarvis used to live there.


    Despite the magic cube¡¯s having been destroyed several times and the rooms being different from what they used to be, Saleen didn¡¯t want to assumemand from that ce.


    Moreover, Gaine had worked on the Magical Element Tower before, making it difficult for outsiders to intrude.


    Saleen was unable to help but he made some calctions using constetion power while inside the Magical Element Tower. He realized he had not been aware of what was happening at Metatrin City. This was bad. This didn¡¯t sit well with Saleen.


    ¡°Rafel, we¡¯ll be heading home soon. Nailisi, Bing, take care of things here and head straight to Nature City. Be careful about running into Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s fleet along the way.¡±


    Nailisi wanted to return to Metatrin City with Saleen, but his eyes told her to do otherwise. Rafel was the most powerful among the bunch. Despite being the least loyal of his other followers, she was the least likely to revolt.


    That was because Rafel hardly had any desires. Her only wish was to protect the metal angels. Rafel wouldn¡¯t have been moved by temptations or anything else. Nor would she have considered offers of making her a god.


    She witnessed two of Saleen¡¯s weapon spirits igniting divine fire personally, and she had probably gotten numb about bing a god.


    As for the Floating City, Saleen would have only felt safe with the two of them manning the ce. His most treasured possessions and a good part of his wealth were all on that gigantic equipment. While the God of Magic Net was powerful, its weakness as a god was also very apparent.


    It was especially so given that it was still a pseudo god, meaning it was stillcking in the mastery of rules. That would have been a big disadvantage if it had run into even slightly powerful opponents.


    The fights between humans were entirely determined by levels after all.


    The God of Magic Net was still a weapon spirit instead of a true giant.


    If it had been a true giant, it would have been able to p Saleen to death with just one hand. Neither technique nor skills would have been necessary. Even if Saleen had ess to the lightning badge¡¯s powers, all he would have been able to do was injure a giant, not kill it.


    Thebat capacity of powerful giants was almost the highest among existing races. Evolution was just as difficult for the gods as for them, unlike humans, who were capable of rapidly advancing and evolving.


    Saleen had Rafel take ten metal angels with her after stopping Nailisi, following him into the teleportation portal. The magic tower¡¯s teleportation portal had grown powerful as well. The one that Saleen drew had some of what he was able toprehend from the secret arts added to it.


    While it did not enable them to instantly traverse tens of thousands of kilometers, the portal made it easier to take some supplies and over a dozen people as opposed to the past where fuel consumption was proportionate to distances traveled.


    Differences in fuel consumption with past teleportation portals between teleporting ten kilometers and teleporting 100 kilometers away were not ten times, but 100 times.


    The fuel consumption of the current teleportation portal was considerably lower than it used to be. Consumption of ten kilometers would have been that of ten kilometers, while that of 100 kilometers would have been that of 100 kilometers without extra energy being wasted out of nowhere.


    Saleen was able to return to Metatrin City in a blink of an eye with the angels.


    The ones guarding the portal were level-10 mages from Sreeger Ind. That teleportation portal was more than what it seemed. After Saleen and Jason modified it, its magic patterns were intricate enough to have level-10 mage trainers gather around to research it.


    Magic was not something that would have been passed on lightly without good reason: The mages had no need to thank Saleen if they were able to figure out things from their own research. The unusual thing about it was having a chance to study something up close.


    Additionally, teleportation portals held great importance. If someone were to gain control of the portal, powerful mages manning it would have been able to damage it during activation. This would have resulted in Saleen¡¯s body being transferred permanently to some weird spaces.


    That opening would have onlysted for several frames, but it was more than enough for powerful mages.


    That mage saw Saleen returning all of a sudden and frantically said, ¡°My lord...¡±


    That mage was so astonished he couldn¡¯t even finish his sentence. He was considered one whom Saleen was more familiar with and he noticed the changes in Saleen. His equipment was totally different and the power in his eyes became obviously concealed.


    Saleen was consciously concealing his powers when he was at level-10. His teacher had taught him to do that.


    A mage¡¯s mental powers were like a swordsman¡¯s weapon in that they needed to be properly conserved, or sheathed so to speak, when not in use. It was hard for Saleen to control his powers back then.


    Those of a simr level of power would have been able to tell at a nce that he was a powerful level-10.


    Things were now different. Saleen¡¯s eyes were extremely gentle just like Jason¡¯s, his teacher.


    On the other hand, Jason was already capable of doing things like this when he was just level-5. That was what Saleen found most impressive.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°Lord Jason and Lady Sika went to...the interdimensional space. They¡¯re not back yet.¡± That mage stuttered when uttering those words. Saleen knew right away that something wrong.


    ¡°Are you saying there has been no news at all?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°Why wasn¡¯t anyone sent to look for them?¡±


    ¡°The Inter-dimension teleportation portal cannot be activated for the time being and no one dared do anything rash for fear of breaking that portalpletely,¡± the mage answered.


    Saleen calmed down right away. The mages were right to wait. If that inter-dimension teleportation portal was broken, it would have required more than just space coordinates to rebuild it.


    That teleportation needed the power of the God¡¯s Ring to initiate it back then.


    That power came not from Sreeger Ind mages but from Lex. If Lex was unwilling to help, the connection between Metatrin City and that interdimensional space would have been severed once that teleportation portal was broken.


    ¡°Who¡¯s in charge of Metatrin City now?¡±


    ¡°The mages. As for administration duties, we have called Grand Duke Renee back.¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment before saying to Rafel, ¡°Wait here. I¡¯ll go get someone.¡± Saleen pivoted and headed back to the Floating City through the teleportation portal.


    He brought back Daniel and the Winged Skull and left the others to Nailisi.


    Daniel was well-versed in administration. Nothing would have turned into a mess for the time being with him taking care of Metatrin City.


    A death mage¡¯s ability to monitor things far exceeded that of elemental mages unless they were like Saleen, who possessed a huge number of lightning warriors and star figures.


    Saleen had Daniel look for Renee first. He specifically told him not to be too pushy. As for things in the temple, he left that to the Winged Skull.


    Saleen could rest easy with those two around.


    He then asked that mage, ¡°Did anything happen to Metatrin City?¡±


    ¡°An emissary from Holy Rock City came and was waiting for you in the pce.¡±


    ¡°The pce?¡± Saleen frowned. He was already married and the pce should not have been a ce that just anyone could stay in. The mages paid no attention to such matters, however, and it wasn¡¯t right to berate them for that.


    But then again, the same could not be said about that emissary from Holy Rock City. That just went too far.


    ¡°Tell the emissary toe to see me. If he refuses, kill him,¡± Saleen ordered.


    ¡°Yes, my lord,¡± That Sreeger Ind mage did not ask about the reasons. It would have sufficed for him to just kill anyone Saleen asked him to. He did not need to know the reasons.


    The emissary might have wanted to see Saleen very badly, so when the mage went to look for him, he came immediately to the temple.


    Saleen looked at the emissary, a golden grand sword master. He was not that old, maybe a little over 30. He seemed well-equipped but looked too haughty. The arrogance on his face was unmistakable.


    The emissary simply folded his hands when he saw Saleen without bothering to even lower his head as he said, ¡°Congrattions, prince.¡±


    Saleen didn¡¯t respond to his greeting and immediately asked, ¡°Why are you staying in my pce?¡±


    Puzzled, the emissary responded angrily, ¡°I¡¯m an emissary from the Qin Empire. You might be a prince and this might be your country, but that doesn¡¯t give you the right to be rude!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m being rude?¡± Saleen chuckled and the hovering ring behind him appeared all of a sudden. A specter shot out from the ring and brought a sword down onto the golden grand sword master¡¯s head.


    His crown was unable to block that weapon spirit¡¯s sword.


    The attack split the emissary¡¯s head in half while keeping most of his neck intact. His blood and brains were all absorbed by the sword. After the weapon spirit finished killing its target, it flew back into the ck ring that slowly disappeared as it was concealed again.


    Saleen had no time to waste with people like that. Even at this juncture, that person actually thought Saleen¡¯s status and title were given by someone else. That guy must have had a death wish for daring to talk like that in front of a level-11 mage like Saleen.


    Even though Saleen had his own nation that he needed to be concerned about, that did not mean he would allow someone like that to have his own way.


    It seemed that the powers of Myers Maind were severely loosened at that point: it wouldn¡¯t be long before he advanced again. That was because it had been much harder for silver grand sword masters to advance than mages.


    Yet, a nobody emissary like him had been able to be a golden grand sword master.


    That mage was dumbfounded to see Saleen kill that emissary. It wasn¡¯t because Saleen had killed someone. That emissary had been arrogant and even he would have considered killing him.


    Saleen did not ask for that level-10 mage to run any more errands for him. He instead summoned a supreme demon and said, ¡°Go to my pce and ughter every single one of the emissaries from Holy Rock City except one. Let the lone survivor bring the bodies of the others back home with him. Give him arge carriage, cut up the bodies and put them into a space box. Don¡¯t waste too much of my equipment.¡±


    Saleen felt easier having that supreme demon get the job done.


    That might not have been Lex¡¯s idea, but if Lex wanted to say anything, she could have easilye through the teleportation portal herself. Sending emissaries meant that there had been some problems with Golden ins.


    Lex probably didn¡¯t want to have a falling out with Golden ins, so she had Saleen do it.


    Saleen did not concern himself too much with Arb. Falling out was hardly difficult for him. Backing Lex to ascend the throne did not mean she could have made Lex a puppet of Golden ins.


    The emissary was unlucky. Saleen¡¯s secret arts demanded that a finished weapon have some kind of sacrifice to initiate them.


    It was said to be a tradition called ¡°sacrificing to the sword.¡±


    After advancing to level-11, Saleen felt that his thoughts had never been clearer. Lex had done nothing, yet he could already tell how things were going at Holy Rock City.


    She still needed her own power to keep the throne. Borrowing powers from outside wasn¡¯t such a bad idea after all.

 Chapter 1364: Not Giving In (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1364: Not Giving In (Part 1)</h4>


    There was nothing wrong with bing emperor. The position was filled with benefits, as it allowed one to take control of resources of the entire empire, making the most fundamental problem of furthering one¡¯s magic training to the top non-existent.


    No powerful mages were dirt poor.


    The founding emperor of the First Dynasty had been the most powerful mage of his time. He used the spoils of war gained from the dynasty¡¯s conquest as he wished. It was a piece of cake for that emperor to craft equipment and learn anything.


    However, there were simply too many who had their eye on the position of emperor. Lex had faced all sorts of obstacles just to be a viscount. She would have definitely been hampered by the House of Commons in her ascension to the throne in an attempt to share her power.


    Despite being a prince, Saleen had no intention of suffering restrictions of any kind. If that emissary dared to be so insolent, the terms brought would have definitely been something Saleen couldn¡¯t stomach.


    Good. I¡¯ll kill anyone who tries to pull something like that on me again, and I¡¯ll see how Golden ins deals with this.


    But then again, it definitely had something to do with him taking the magic cube away. Ojarvis had been the one gifting the magic cube to him. As such, those in Golden ins would not have found fault with Lex.


    Saleen used to be cautious in his dealings and reluctant to take risks. Those at Golden ins thought he was a pushover and probably sent someone like that emissary to make him balk.


    Saleen refused to back down. From his teacher Jason, he learned to forge his own path. Without courage, his path would have been riddled with insurmountable problems.


    In light of this, backing down even for a single step would have been deemed uneptable. The magic cube was a gift to him by Ojarvis. If they wanted it back, they should have asked Ojarvis for it.


    Now that Ojarvis was dead, Saleen didn¡¯t mind sending those who refused to talk to Ojarvis to see thete emperor instead. Of course, if he were to gain powers to resurrect Ojarvis in the future, there was no way he would have resurrected those people along the way.


    Saleen¡¯s mood brightened at the thought of this.


    Since Sika took the children with her, Saleen couldn¡¯t simply wait around like the Sreeger Ind mages. He needed to think of ways to get to the interdimensional space. He still had no idea how to do that, but fortunately, he had over 100 thousand enchanters at his disposal. What those enchanterscked in creativity they amply made up for with calctive abilities, which were on par with those of mages.


    Saleen needed to formte a space portal even if it was only enough to amodate him alone.


    It was uneptable for him to just sit around and wait in Metatrin City. With his children still in the interdimensional space, Saleen waspelled to visit them and see what was happening there for himself.


    To Rafel, that was unfathomable. It was easy for humans to produce children, unlike the gods, who needed to suffer drops in their levels if they wanted to bear children. Worse, such feats would have taken a very long time.


    Even though Saleen was already a level-11 mage, having children would have been thousands of times easier than if the gods were to do it. Then again, Saleen cared for his children thousands of times more than the gods would have.


    One big difference is that the gods would never take such risks for their children. Passing through an unfamiliar portal would have been far more difficult than giving birth.


    ¡°Saleen, was it worth taking such risks to have your children?¡±


    Saleen took one look at Rafel and answered, ¡°Of course. I gave up over 1000 years of life for those two.¡±


    ¡°So then...it¡¯s how it is between me and the metal angels then?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s different. I¡¯m willing to do anything for my two children.¡±


    ¡°But you haven¡¯t been at their side for long. Don¡¯t humans usually stay by their children¡¯s side as they grow?¡±


    Rafel¡¯s words hit where it hurt. Saleen recalled his own childhood before the two children appeared in his life. He had sworn secretly that he would never let his children spend their childhood in loneliness and that he would have made as much as time as possible to be there for them.


    ¡°I failed at that in the past and it¡¯s a mistake I do not intend to repeat.¡±


    Saleen returned to the Floating City looking glum. Nailisi was initially happy to see Saleen return, but she heard that Sika had taken the children to the interdimensional space. There had been no news from them since. Now she was anxious, too.


    Saleen tried to contact Lex and didn¡¯t bring up the matter with Sika. Saleen simply wanted Lex toe to Metatrin City.


    Lex also mentioned that the teleportation portal between Metatrin City and Holy Rock City wasn¡¯t finished yet.


    Saleen sensed something was amiss. The powers of Golden ins made it impossible to spend more than an hour to get a teleportation portal for traversing in the same ne up. There was no need to gather materials for construction.


    Lex, however, didn¡¯t drop any hints suggesting trouble in her conversation with Saleen. That¡¯s what made him so uneasy. This meant that while Lex was still in a ditch; it wasn¡¯t something she couldn¡¯t manage and things were not yet in a dire state.


    Saleen had no choice but to consider the matter with his children for the time being.


    If Lex couldn¡¯t leave Holy Rock City, she wouldn¡¯t have been able to use the God¡¯s Ring¡ªand it was impossible for her to hand the ring over to anyone else.


    Saleen suddenly remembered that Lex had had a falling out with his followers before he left. She probably knew something like that would happen. If his followers were to stay by Lex¡¯s side, their sh would have been intense and things would have spiraled totally out of control.


    Being emperor is one hell of a pain in the neck indeed. Just how much energy is needed to remain on the throne, eh? If a mage had so much energy to put into it, he would have advanced several levels instead.


    Saleen sighed. It was Lex¡¯s decision to live this type of life. His argument with her was real. He was all for dealing with things swiftly, and that meant allying with Grand Duke Iron Blood and kicking out all forces and influences from Golden ins and Holy Rock City.


    Lex adamantly refused, saying she would have never allowed Cloudflow people to have even half an inch of Qinnds.


    When Lex was done with the troubles at Golden ins, she would have probably gotten around to dealing with Grand Duke Iron Blood right away.


    From Saleen¡¯s perspective, it would have been better to simply let the grand duke be an emperor if Lex were able to do that. She would have only needed to pour her mind into managing the Principality of Bitterwater. By the time that ce became a nation of the mages, no dynasty would have been able to stop it.


    Saleen¡¯s way of doing it was simple. He would have used any advantages he had to design a magic that could be activated at will in his nation. Castles would have served as imprable conduits linking the magic throughout his nation, and those castles would have served as giant magic towers. In this way, it would have been possible to fill the entire Principality of Bitterwater with enchanters.


    Mages would have served as the backbone of the magic while the enchanters fought on the frontlines. Saleen couldn¡¯t think of any ways to defeat such a nation. Grand Duke Iron Blood would have been able to squat around for 100 years at most. When the magic was amplyid out, it would have chased him off Qinnds.


    But then again, he was able to rte to why Lex refused to yield even an inch of Qinnds to him. He just thought that her way of thinking did not match her past principles.


    At the moment, Lex was at the pce of Holy Rock City. There were only a bit more than a dozen pce mages at her side. Saleen would have definitely known about her current predicament. Golden ins sent arge number of men over to help rebuild Holy Rock City. It was not a good thing. Nobles from both the House of Lord and the House of Commons were actually bought over by the mage just to take her down.


    To put things precisely, those people were trying to make herpromise, asking her to be an Emperor of the Grukos instead of the wife of Metatrin.


    They made it clear that she needed to take the magic cube back. Before Lex had heard of such requests personally, the emissaries had already made their move.


    Both sides had yet to fall outpletely. At the very least, Arb had to appear in person and demand the space coordinates to Metatrin City. With them in hand, the mages could have simply barged in from the portal and assaulted Metatrin City.


    Even if Arb alone made it through, it would have caused serious problems for Metatrin City.


    It was fortunate that she still had the backing of the pce mages: they would have had no way of returning to the magic cube; things had always been patchy between the pce mages and the Golden ins.


    It was something the founding emperor of the Qin Empire hadid down all those years ago. The conflict thatsted over 1000 years would not have been taken care of by benefits right before them. Without the backing of the pce mages, Lex would have totally lost control of Holy Rock City. At the very least, with the rebuilding of the royal swordsmen camp, there was no way Golden ins would have been able to interfere with how defense organizations of the pce were run. Those details were taken care of by the pce mages after all.


    Saleen knew he was in hot water. ording to his way of thinking, he would not have simply severed connections with Holy Rock City. He would havee directly to Holy Rock City with the Floating City, forcing Golden in¡¯s forces to yield with an embodiment of terror looming above.


    Saleen was definitely in trouble for having not done so.


    Lex knew it would have taken Sika¡¯s being in trouble to prevent Saleen from taking action, being that she was the mother of his two children. It was even more likely that something happened to Saleen¡¯s children. To have hime looking for me like this, is he having problems with the interdimensional space?


    Lexcked Saleen¡¯s calctive abilities. Even if she had them, as an elemental mage she would not have been up to the task. Not even Saleen¡¯s astrology had been able to do anything. The secret arts of the Grukos had never been strong when it came to calctions. The only arts that allowed people to foresee the future was the one that Ojarvis learned. Learning such arts, however, came at the cost of reducing one¡¯s lifespan to three to five months at best. Not even gods would have been able to prevent such an oue.


    There was no way Lex would have learned such secret arts. She wanted to put everything aside and just go to Saleen.


    I would probably be a lot happier now if I lived like Sika, no? She deemed the argument between her and Saleen pointless. Saleen may have been right after all, but there was definitely no way she would have sold her territory out, even if that was a temporarypromise.


    The Grukos had never met anyone like that before. Even Safilos, who had given up on everything pertaining to the throne, chose to return to his nation and prepare to fend off possible attacks from Alchemy City.


    That was why her father, despite being one of the most powerful three emperors in the history of Qin, was thought to be an average emperor, ording to reviews in history books. That was because Emperor Chanake had gone to take risks for his daughter¡¯s sake, putting his duties as emperor aside.


    Lex hardly cared how his father was appraised in the history books, but Master Merlin¡¯s prophecy of her being the one to destroy the Qin Empire was something she definitely did not want to happen. The battle between mages and astrologers began anew on the day Lex was born.


    What Lex wanted to triumph over was not Merlin but fate.


    If a mage were to swayed by fate and it dictates, there would have been little reason to learn magic.


    A huge magical sequence was formed on the Floating City. It was a joint effort of all enchanters there, forming a huge sequence that had constantly changing numbers as new data was added. There was no error to the enchanters¡¯ calctions: everything was under the God of Magic Net¡¯s control.


    If there were any errors, something must have been wrong with the data fed into the calctions.


    Those enchanters were trying to calcte a new portal for Saleen, but there were appallingly few data to be had. The coordinates between the nes and some data that Saleen acquired from having teleported several times were all they had to work with.

 Chapter 1365: Not Giving In (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1365: Not Giving In (Part 2)</h4>


    What Saleen intended to do was crazy and seemed dangerous. Rafel was powerless to persuade him otherwise, so she just let him do his thing.


    The Floating City continued flying toward Nature City. News from all sides came flooding to him: The Holy See army had reached Qin¡¯s borders.


    Since Lex had just ascended the throne, morale was high. There were also many northern nobles who relied on Saleen¡¯s Nature Faith. The mages were ready, and the holy masters from Nature Faith were on hot stand by.


    Healing powers of holy masters of the Nature Faith surpassed even those of the Holy See. Border fighting was about the begin. Saleen gave an immediate order for the army to back away as much as possible.


    He did this because the Holy See came with the objective of destroying his nation.


    Saleen had a hunch that the Holy See was better prepared than all their previous expeditions.


    Those who were about to attack the borders were mere vanguards. If they couldn¡¯t break through, more holy masters would have been sent as reinforcements until they pulverized the most elite enemy troops stationed there.


    Believing that such sacrifices were irrational, Saleen moved the elite troops back to where Nature City could cover them instead of having them fight the Holy See forces head-on.


    After issuing the order to retreat, Saleen prepared to send supplies to the frontlines, which consisted mostly of one-time-use consumables, such as poor-quality alchemy bolts and low-level magic scrolls.


    Both would have inflicted substantial damage on the Holy See forces nheless and kept expenditures low. In truth, if there were no powerful professionals on the other side, those one-time-use consumables would have yed a pivotal role in shaping a battle¡¯s oue.


    After putting part of his demon army down from the Floating City halfway to Nature City, Saleen headed toward the borders to support the retreating armies. The Floating City stopped about 800 kilometers from the border.


    About 80,000 Qin forces were already retreating. The army consisted mostly of veterans. With the north in shamble and many nobles disbanded, Saleen took those forces in and assigned them to Nature Temple¡¯s knight¡¯s corp.


    They were treated as auxiliary forces instead of actual knights.


    Saleen took about 300,000 such forces at the north. Because the nobles they originally served had either died in battle or deserted, Saleen got to pick those professional soldiers up cheap.


    They were capable of doing little but fight, however. They made poor farmers, poor merchants, and even poorer mercenaries: Their only use was to serve on the frontlines and kill his enemies.


    In addition, none of those Qin people would have surrendered. If the armies they served in crumbled and there was no one else to take them in, those soldiers would have simply gone off to be robbers and bandits in enemy territory, doing their utmost to inflict maximum damage.


    Also tagging along were also holy masters of Nature Faith; this is what made it easy for Saleen to contact them. He summoned them up to the Floating City and asked how things were going down there, finding the fighting to be lukewarm.


    The Qin border was originally drawn ording to terrain. A few ces were open to attack and all the fortresses, which were very strong, were built after the Tanggsiansst attacked.


    There were fewer than 30,000 vanguards in the Holy See¡¯s forces and more than 100,000 Blood Knights. If they entered the ins of Qin, they would done a lot of damage.


    For the time being, though, there were no such concerns. Those Blood Knights wouldn¡¯t have been capable of fending off attacks from the Floating City in the ins.


    What a relief! Saleen had the holy masters return to the army. The Holy See¡¯s main forces were still gathering at God Grace Duchy. It would have taken them more than half a month to pass through Kroraina.


    That wouldn¡¯t have been a problem for the army he had taken in. Not even the scattered soldiers would have been in much of a threat.


    The Holy See forces were being extremely cautious with their advance. Saleen¡¯s forces would have been safe as long as they retreated. Saleen pondered the situation and found that the west side of Qin, which he had taken, would have definitely shed with the Holy See.


    Now that Lex was probably on bad terms with Golden ins, he didn¡¯t know whether to advance or retreat.


    Had he stopped there, the vanguards would have only advanced into Qin territory after the main forces of the Holy See had arrived. It would have been a very long wait and if he were to actually do this, he might as well have dered that he was taking over the responsibility of fighting that battle.


    On the other hand, if he retreated, the Golden ins would have been required to deploy their forces.


    Whatever. I¡¯ll keep Nature City safe before addressing the problem with the kids. We¡¯ll think of how to deal with Golden inster. Saleen stopped the Floating City from advancing further at that thought,manding the army below to move closer to Nature City.


    Saleen decided not to fight the Holy See for the time being until he found his children.


    That¡¯s not to say he waspletely unprepared, however. There were still several wide passes leading to the northern ins. Although it would have been impossible to choke the enemy¡¯s advances there, he was couldy traps.


    Saleen left 30,000 bug angel units at three ces. All those Bug Angel Warriors were imps who had fallen asleep within their Bug Angel Armors and were buried in the mountains. Demons barely emitted any signs of life while sleeping.


    That, coupled with the fact that Saleen had added golden granules, which were acquired from purifying the ck vortexes and were attribute-less materials, the aura emitted from the armors were blocked outright.


    If there was no one to awaken the 30000 Bug Angel Warriors, they would have stayed in hibernation for the year. They were used as decoys during an ambush. Those were the most elite troops Saleen had been able to deploy.


    The 30,000 sets of Bug Angel Armors were also histest products, as well as thest batch.


    He decided to devote crafting resources to designing the Tainted Blood Armor from then on out, made specifically for human warriors and demons.


    Saleen felt there was still more to be done after getting all those settled, sending men to pack up the changed equipment of his own forces and have them sent to the Qin forces fighting at the borders.


    It was not that the old equipment was bad but that Saleen had crafted new models and needed to begin streamlining his armies¡¯ gear. All messed up weapons used in the past had to be recalled in order to strengthen his armies¡¯bat capacity.


    The forces fighting at Qin borders would have been considerably heightened with the equipment delivered, letting them cause more damage to Holy See forces¡ªsomething that worked in Saleen¡¯s favor. The equipment Saleen gave up was actually of great value.


    Saleencked no such supplies, however. Dismantling the old equipment to recover materials would have been very time-consuming, so he was very generous with that equipment instead.


    He didn¡¯t anticipate his name bing more renowned because of one such act. All those soldiers knew that their highness Lex¡¯s husband had given themrge quantities of high-level equipment for free.


    He even allowed the soldiers to write their name on the equipment when the war ended so they could pass it down as heirlooms to their respective families.


    Although magic equipment wasmonce in Qin, what Saleen produced was too expensive for the soldiers. If they bought something with their earnings, it would have been impossible for them to assemble a full set of armor consisting of seven standard pieces.


    In order to bring up casualty count in the Holy See forces, he had even deliveredrge numbers of level-one scrolls.


    All of them had been left behind by magic apprentices when they advanced to be true mages. Saleen had too many level-three to level-four scrolls with him. Those level-ones piled up from disuse in battle. Saleen delivered over 50,000 scrolls in one go.


    All were scrolls that even magic apprentices could use; as such, this made them avable for more than just the mages in the Qin forces.


    Level magic spells did more damage than bolts and arrows at close ranges. Saleen had been able to punch a deep hole in a hard stone wall with just a level-one Icicle. When forces were pitted against each other on the battlefield, being hit by level-one magic spells was devastating.


    If someone not wearing magic armor were hit, death would have been almost certain. Even if some did wear magic armors, conventional ones avable formon troops were hardly enveloping ones. If they were hit in their weak spots, they would have died just the same.


    On the battlefield, even light injuries could be fatal. That¡¯s why the addition of level-one scrolls was very much weed.


    Saleen was oblivious to the fact that what he did had won him the hearts of the people. The enchanters were already done with the calctions of the portal when Saleen was finished with all of that. They were testing the portal out.


    The testing processes wereplex and akin to mimicking a space portal. Saleen had to verify every singlepleted piece of data with it while trying to figure out if he would have been broken down to elemental particles after entering that portal.


    If the result was positive, they would have needed to reconfigure the data and even calcte a new portal altogether.


    That was the tensest part of the processes. All enchanters stopped everything they were doing just to help Saleen with the calctions. He participated too but used astrology instead.


    The result of astrological calctions was still vague. Saleen was unable to peer into fate.


    Even so, he was still determined to head to the interdimensional space, as the oue was identical to the calctions he had done for his two kids.


    If that oue meant death, Saleen would have gone anyway.


    Data in tens of millions coursed through the simted images. One of Saleen¡¯s specters passed through the portal, causing its image to shudder slightly when the specter left and disappeared.


    ¡°How about it?¡± A supreme demon was in charge of managing the calctions. There was only a handful of them among the enchanters. Achieving the pinnacle of their mental powers had made them immune from any ill effects of casting even level-ten magic spells.


    Saleen looked at the dissipated image and said, ¡°I¡¯d be able to pass, but the portal would be on the brink of copse once I made it through.¡±


    That supreme demon, who had pitted all his wealth and life onto Saleen, asked cautiously, ¡°Would you be in any danger, your highness?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t end up dead. But I wouldn¡¯t make it back for a while.¡±


    The supreme demon was speechless. Saleen pped Nailisi, who was waiting for results beside him and said, ¡°I¡¯d head to the interdimensional space and take Rafel with me. Only two could pass at a given moment and the metal angels would have to be on their guard, too. You...you¡¯d soon know if I made it through. If I end up dead, you¡¯ll have everything in the Floating City. Take your demons with you and you¡¯ll stand a chance of returning to the demon ne and bing the devil you always wanted to be. If I¡¯m not dead...¡±


    Nailisi was already in tears before Saleen finish talking. Her tears sshed to the ground.


    Saleenughed and wiped her tears away, continuing, ¡°As I was saying...if I don¡¯t end up dead but can¡¯te back right away, don¡¯t go to Holy Rock City on your own. Send one of your trusted demons and look for Lex. Ask her if she¡¯s willing to put everything aside to save me and Sika.¡±

 Chapter 1366: Battle of Interdimensional Space (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1366: Battle of Interdimensional Space (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°I¡¯m not doing this!¡± Nailisi objected loudly.


    ¡°Nailisi, it¡¯s time for you to grow up.¡± Saleen paid her no mind as she went to the corner and began to weep softly. He summoned the God of Magic Net and let it swear that if he was unable to return and not dead yet, to follow Nailisi¡¯smand.


    If Saleen died, the God of Magic Net would follow Nailisi for 10,000 years.


    Ten-thousand years was long enough for Nailisi to be the strongest devil ever; she already had the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. If she couldn¡¯t realize her full potential by then, there¡¯s nothing more Saleen could for her.


    He went about his business carefully as if he were putting his affairs in order before he took hisst breath. Then he took Rafel to craft a magic array.


    When they reached the 17th floor of the Magical Element Tower, Rafel asked Saleen ¡°When I¡¯m by your side when you¡¯re on a dangerous mission, are you ever concerned about my welfare?


    ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re the strongest of the bunch,¡± Saleen answered.


    Rafel shrugged. It was something she had learned from someone else.


    ¡°It¡¯s not my fault I¡¯m so powerful. Is it your fault you people are so weak?¡± Rafel asked.


    Saleen nodded and answered, ¡°It is indeed. A weak being is fully aware it could be eaten up at any moment, and it has to be prepared for that. Aren¡¯t the gods like that all the time?¡±


    Rafel thought his answer was reasonable. Divine kingdoms of weak gods were built in deste or dangerous ces so that the powerful gods would be less likely to stir up trouble.


    A high-level god would have destroyed surrounding divine kingdoms in order to replenish its believers. Humans might enjoy friendship with each other; among the gods, there were only alliances.


    For example, several level-15 gods might band together to fight a level-16 god just to avoid being devoured. If one of the lower gods advanced to level-16, it would have allied with other level-16 gods and then returned to wipe out the level-15s, dividing the spoilster.


    ¡°Well, Saleen. If I end up dying, would you continue looking after those metal angels?¡±


    ¡°I would. I¡¯m a mage. Since you¡¯ve paid the price, I will return the favor amply.¡±


    ¡°How do you define ¡®ample¡¯ in this case?¡±


    ¡°Ample is....what I deem fair,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°That¡¯ll do. You¡¯re far morepassionate than the gods.¡± Saleen found it ironic that Rafel chose the word passionate¡± and thought to himself, does she have any idea how many beings I¡¯ve killed?


    Saleen beganying out his magic array. Opening a space portal waspletely different from activating a teleportation portal. With thetter, there was no fear of matter disintegrating which meant they could always return to their previous form.


    Space portals, on the other hand, would have caused any disintegrated body part to be lost forever.


    That¡¯s why Saleen didn¡¯t allow the enchanters to work on such magic arrays. They definitely wouldn¡¯t be as meticulous as he was. With Saleen¡¯s current mental powers having evolved to the power of the soul, he was now above level-13 where such powers were concerned.


    Saleen found that the power of his soul had been amplified 64 times to what it would have been under the workings of the Ring of Cosmos. It felt different because the enhanced powers also significantly boosted his speed of thought.


    He could now control many star figures or ancient warriors at a time; however, he was unable to assess the limit in regard to quantity.


    The magic array was drawn on a golden tform constructed from attribute-less granules serving as the most stable base for a magic array.


    Even though Saleen was only a level-10 at the moment and still unfamiliar with the power of the soul, he was capable of drawing a perfect magic array.


    The sess of a mage¡¯s experiment had a lot to do with the materials used. Some of the skills passed down from those who came before would have been lost forever; at the same time, there were definitely parts that could not be replicated by those who came after.


    Mages were forced to look for substitutes of many living beings or minerals exhausted throughout the ages. The problem was that the substitutes didn¡¯t allow mages to experience what it would have been like for their predecessors. No one could do anything about that.


    When magic was passed down, it needed more than just lineages; continuous creativity was also vital.


    But Saleen had no time to create new things now. Luckily he had ample materials to draw a magic array to open a space portal.


    Magic materials dissolved by Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water mixed with dragon blood were used to draw the required magic array on therge golden tform by Saleen. How Rafel envied him!


    She was savvy enough to understand that gods had collected a lot of materials and that some were things that not even her god would have been able to get its hands on.


    It was especially so in the case of Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water: Only level-18 gods could acquire something like that. Not all level-18 gods had those abilities.


    Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water had been a raremodity even when there were many level-18 gods around, yet Saleen simply used it to dilute his materials so they would mix well with dragon blood, which was then used to draw one magic portal for two beings.


    If Saleen were of an adequate level, he would have only needed one-tenth of those materials to draw a simple magic array. In addition, he would have been able to traverse nes with it all the same. If he reached level-16, he would have only needed space coordinates to open a portal using his very own power.


    Level-11 was too weak to pull off such a feat.


    Saleen didn¡¯t need to go that far but hoped to create a magic array that could be used repeatedly, thereby allowing the space portal to be restored. The secret arts¡¯ understanding of such portals was deeper than that demonstrated by mages.


    Space portals didn¡¯t exist independently. Through the use of special powers, they would have only stayed open for a set period.


    Once upon a time, the space portal calcted by the enchanters existed between Myers Maind and the interdimensional. What Saleen did was simply to restore it using a magic array. As long it stayed intact, the portal could have been used repeatedly until the magic array was destroyed.


    But the mages had never verified any of that before. Saleen was also afraid there might have been too many differences between the rules of two different crystal wall system: Essentially, he was getting ready to embark on a journey from which he might never return.


    Saleen spent nearly four hours drawing that magic array. He had been manipting Water me throughout the whole process by using his power of the soul, refining the fluid he was using to draw the magic array.


    The magic array was nearly perfect. Saleen activated the magic power furnace¡¯s power and brought the magic array to life without hesitation after drawing the magic array.


    Whooooo...


    A howl that sounded as if wasing from an angry wind god reverberated through the magic tower. A two-meter-tall ck portal appeared in a twisting manner in front of Saleen and Rafel.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye could only see three meters in front of it in that ck portal. He was only able to make up some rules of space controlling the portal, shaping it into a tunnel. A dark element seemed to be at work, but at the same time the power of light emanated from it.


    Only two of the six elements were found within the portal.


    Saleen didn¡¯t let Rafel take the lead. He shot a beam of constetion power from his finger so that the power of the stars could guide them.


    After seeing Saleen, Rafel walked right into the portal without hesitation.


    Both he and Rafel were drawn in by intense energies. Instead of just going with the flow, Saleen kept his eyes on that beam of starlight.


    That starlight, which was being twisted by the colossal power of space within, did not dissipate. It was originally stored by Saleen to be used on a level-19 Star Gathering Needle.


    Saleen glittered with golden light throughout his being, and Rafel was almost sticking to him, relying on the golden light for protection while allowing her to conserve power. The golden light originated from the power of earth element.


    Saleen had substantial quantities of bone crystals of the giant on him. He used them as magic nuclei by activating them inside the Thunder Dragon Bangle to form a pure elemental shield.


    Rafel¡¯s control of the elements was not on par with Saleen¡¯s. Her body was that of a body to begin and possessed great power. She believed in the Metal God and the godly items in her possession were the sharpest in the world.


    Even though oracles seldom used magic, that didn¡¯t mean she was incapable of drawing power with magic.


    The golden glimmer also shrouded Rafel. Before they knew it, the two of them came to the end of the portal. Saleen conjured a thick armor of ice on his body and disappeared after reaching the end of the portal. Rafel pped the wings on her back and charged outside. The portal began crumbling after she left.


    Saleen had to take the risk and charge out of the portal because the bit of starlight had broken up and he was able to foresee what was about to happen.


    His ability paled next to Ojarvis¡¯s, but Saleen was still a mage who had seen a good number of battles. Something was wrong if Sika and the others hadn¡¯t been able to return. Essentially, his speed of action exceeded his speed of thought and his body reacted right there and then.


    There were tens of thousands of enemies right outside the portal. The first one Saleen saw was the one closest to him who just happened to be the most powerful.


    That holy master appeared to be even more powerful than Fycro. Saleen was totally unfazed as he pointed his finger.


    Pfftt...


    That holy master¡¯s head split open and Saleen froze. Coincidentally, Rafel had charged right immediately before this happened. She spun around the red spear she was holding with finesse: It¡¯s tip glistened with crimson light from cutting up an ascetic that had charged toward her.


    Saleen remained cool and calm. Using the Crystal Finger had cost him half his magic chords¡ªand there were still tens of thousands of ascetics, knights and holy masters.


    That was the interdimensional space, and it was being invaded by the Holy See without warning.


    Looks as if I totally underestimated the Holy See!


    Saleen summoned the Lightning Constetion and lightning warriors of farrger numbers than the enemy charging outside. The magic amplifier was hidden right behind him. The golden weapon spirit charged and protected Saleen with the sword in its hand.


    ¡°Rafel, kill as many of them as you can,¡± Saleen said as he began moving.


    Saleen¡¯s territory waspletely opened with the Lightning Constetion at work, shrouding tens of thousands of enemies inside. He did more than just overpower them. While Dante slept, Saleen took control of the Lightning Constetion himself.


    His power of the soul was already in full bloom. From the Lightning Constetion above, thick bolts of lightning rained down in a frenzy on the enemies within the territory.


    Although the power of the bolts was insufficient for killing the enemy, the bolts totally paralyzed the enemy. Lightning warriors dropped out of the constetion in droves.


    Those that were paralyzed before the bolts had no way of fighting back and were quickly cut down.


    The souls of those killed by the lightning warriors would have either dissipated or broken up.

 Chapter 1367: Battle of Interdimensional Space (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1367: Battle of Interdimensional Space (Part 2)</h4>


    Rafel looked around and sized up the situation: Precious few lightning warriors were capable of reaching a metal angel¡¯s level ofbat capacity. Most were level-7 warriors, more or less.


    But because those warriors had their own god, they could be resurrected even if they died in battle. Unless the soldiers were thoroughly killed, they could keep fighting indefinitely.


    Saleen went all out with the massacre. It was the first time he had done that purely for the sake of ughter. There was no other objective.


    His wife and kids were all in that interdimensional space and could never return to Myers Maind. This was apparently the work of someone from the Holy See messing up space, rendering the original teleportation portal useless. If his family used it anyway, the risk would have been too great.


    Fortunately, the interdimensional space wasn¡¯t fully developed. Many rules were iplete and the Holy See couldn¡¯t calcte everything. It could have used its immense resources to mess everything up otherwise.


    If that were the case, Saleen wouldn¡¯t have been even able to open a portal there.


    You want to harm my kids? Fine, you can all go to hell!


    Saleen was the type of person who would go all out only if his life was on the line. This time he was fighting for his children...and his killing instinct was pure and unyielding.


    ¡°Alright, but my powers...¡± Saleen nodded before Rafel finished her sentence. A peculiar stone flew outside Saleen¡¯s hand. It was a transparent piece of chlorite.


    Chlorites were capable of storing divine power and few were left on Myers Maind. Ore veins were only found in the deep sea. No one else could have mined in such deep waters, but Saleen had ways of going about it.


    That piece of chlorite was so pure it was considered the highest grade of gemstone. Tremendous divine power was stored within, making Rafel feel as if her god had been resurrected and was bestowing her with unlimited power.


    ¡°You¡¯ve got more?¡± Rafel mumbled instinctively. While she was loath to believe in gods anymore, her yearning for divine power was something she could not wean herself from.


    ¡°Here you go.¡± Saleen flung three more pieces her way.


    Rafel noticed that those pieces of chlorite had all been cut prior. At that reduced size, they fit snugly in her godly item¡ªthe Inferno Spear.


    There were four equipment slots on the Inferno Spear and they were all meant for embedding gemstones. Rafel was abat angel, and her god would have bestowed her with divine power every time she did battle. The Inferno Spear was something she acquiredter.


    The stores of divine power left within her were insufficient to fuel the weapon.


    It was a good deal for her to follow Saleen. At the very least, she no longer needed to be concerned about divine-power expenditure.


    All four pieces of chlorite were embedded in the Inferno Spear. Seeing how Saleen was protected by his weapon spirit, she didn¡¯t have to worry about his safety. She then leaped into the air and killed her way through the Holy See forces.


    These forces were originally intended to gather there and depart elsewhere, but Saleen¡¯s portal appeared right behind their army.


    The most powerful holy master in the army went to the portal as soon as it was opened. Whoosh. It was immediately killed by Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger. But then again, that holy master was not the army¡¯smander. Themander ordered the army to turn around and gang up on Saleen instead.


    The Lightning Constetion was activated before the warriors could surround Saleen. A huge number of them appeared...afraid of death...lightning gushed through their being. Any holy heart below level-9 was unable to kill them.


    This rendered the holy masters within the army useless. As Rafel charged, the enemy formation crumbled in seconds. It consisted of fewer than 40,000 units: more than half were knights d in white armor, and a small fraction were ascetics.


    Ascetics were professionals trained in both martial and divine arts. Their only desire was to temper their minds. They were capable of learning all sorts of cruel skills, the brutality of which was directed to themselves instead of the enemy.


    Many martial art skills imparted by their god and divine arts were ill-suited to humans. The ascetics didn¡¯t care, however. They wanted to learn them even if it meant breaking their bodies, viewing such acts as tests of faith.


    If the demon warriors Saleen had sent in were to fight those ascetics, they would have suffered severe casualties. The ascetics possessed the flexibility and the intelligence of humans but cared little about damaging their bodies. In battle, they were more formidable than zealots.


    The ascetics wielded mostly thick, heavy weapons. Even if their weapons were not enhanced with divine power, they would have still inflicted extensive damage.


    Since the lightning warriors were fundamentally puppets, they were able to keep fighting despite losing parts here and there. They were the antithesis of ascetics: Even if their heads were split open by mammoth axes, they were still adept at moving nimbly and retaliating with their weapons.


    Their sensory abilities came from the Lightning Constetion, which flew increasingly high and covered a radius spanning tens of kilometers, exposing all the enemy¡¯s actions.


    Saleen decided to use the skill that had the lowest cost on his magic chords¡ªIcicle.


    Thousands of icicles were conjured midair and dropped violently. The power of the magic was simr to level-10 magic spells. When the icicles hit, corpses littered the area.


    Lightning magic patterns on the icicles imbued the frozen pieces with anti-magic properties. The equipment was destroyed by icicles.


    A specter appeared before Saleen. The weapon spirit from the magic amplifier swung its gigantic sword and cut the specter down. The unpredictable, ever-shifting form of the specter crumbled before the golden sword without leaving a whiff of aura behind.


    Themander of that army was thoroughly shocked; a shudder ran down its spine.


    Saleen took out the War Drum of Fear without saying a word and summoned the Violet Angel, which could be used as a summoned creature. Saleen brought the Violet Angel around all the time, tasking it to beat the drum that would then have been useful for breaking up enemy formations.


    The Violet Angel took the bone hammer and began beating the drum. The ascetics were hardly affected, as the sources of fear within the minds were almost all cut out. But the knights crumbled almost immediately when that drum was yed.


    Dark Night is killed?


    Themander couldn¡¯t believe its eyes. That golden giant had killed the Dark Night with one swift swing of the sword. What kind of skill was this? The very reason Fycro put Dark Night next to him in the army was to defend against a powerful enemy.


    Fycro said that Dark Night was skilled in killing any being lower than level-12. At present, the one thing that filled him with fear was the thought of being killed by a sword. Is that golden giant a level-13 being then?


    Pfftt!


    A hole appeared on thatmander¡¯s chest, yet no blood was spilled. With a golden dagger, the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier had executed a perfect ambush, ying that level-10 True Might in an instant.


    While the golden dagger no longer had evil power lingering inside, it sucked the flesh and blood of that level-10 True Might dry. Its skin stubbornly clung to the bony remains like corpses drying in a desert for thousands of years.


    The golden dagger didn¡¯t return to the huge sword. It remained flying in the air, shing all over with a specter, warning others it was about to attack.


    Not even the level-10 True Might had managed to evade the dagger¡¯s attack. It was impossible for those knights and ascetics, who were considered elites since they were around level-7, to avoid getting killed by the dagger.


    The sound of the War Drum of Fear had controlled over half the enemy forces. Those knights slumped to the ground and let the lightning warriors decapitate them without resisting. They were entirely robbed of the ability to fight back.


    The ascetics were unable to bring most of their powers to bear, as most of those powers had been used to resist the sound from the drum instead.


    To cast divine spells, holy masters needed to focus. When the War Drum of Fear was beaten, none of the holy masters below level-10 could resist it. They were only able to struggle to protect themselves using Divine Protection.


    However, Divine Protection proved incapable of stopping Rafel¡¯s attacks. She had an innate hatred of holy masters, both past and present. To her, all holy masters of evil gods must die.


    The red threads on the Inferno Spear expanded and conjured a metal territory. Divine Protections cast by those holy masters broke one after another in the metal territory. The power of rules could not be stopped.


    The divine spell reputed to be the strongest was a joke in Rafel¡¯s presence.


    ¡°Rafel, capture some of them alive.¡±


    Saleen said this after seeing the lightning warriors surround the battlefield.


    No enemy would have been able to escape. His golden dagger was now able to kill anyone within a heartbeat of his territory. Saleen felt how frightening these attacks would have been, as the golden dagger had an almost negligible mental power cost.


    It cost Saleen next to nothing to kill low-level enemies with that dagger.


    One portion of the soul¡¯s power equaled hundreds of equivalent parts of mental powers. That was the fundamental difference between the two types of powers.


    Rafel hoisted a holy master without care; it metalized right away. She then tossed the metalized being to Saleen, who de-metalized it before hitting the ground.


    Saleen was much impressed with Rafel¡¯s fine control of her powers.


    The metalizing skill used on the enemy resembled Fossilization somewhat but was far more potent. If it hadn¡¯t been for Rafel keeping such tight control, that holy master would have died. Fossilization, on the other hand, could be healed.


    ¡°Tell me, why are you people here?¡± Saleen used Thundering Shock with his sentence.


    At level-7, the holy master was totally incapable of resisting Saleen¡¯s skill. All it could do was answer, ¡°The Oracle Corps¡¯ forces had all moved here in this interdimensional space. Lord Fycro intends to take over this ce to build his divine kingdom!¡±


    ¡°So it¡¯s Fycro eh...¡± Saleen said in a ponderous manner. Blood spilled from the orifices of the holy master¡¯s head. His brain, unable to withstand the power of the Thundering Sound, exploded.


    Saleen was dumbfounded. Only then did he realize that after rising to level-11, his Thundering skills had all advanced automatically. With that advancement came heightened powers, better control of rules, and fluidity of use.


    His Thundering skills also made it possible for him to kill people without having to use them in a lethal manner.


    Saleen realized he still had to master Thundering skills at his current level. The holy master would have been put under his control until the skill wore out, returning them to their senses, instead of having them end up dead.


    He still had some anger festering inside that influenced his control of power and resulted in the death of that holy master.


    Saleen wouldn¡¯t have been angry about Fycro wanting to seize his interdimensional space. It was perfectly normal for him to try to do that. That fact that Fycro endangered Sika and his children became the source of Saleen¡¯s fury.


    Now that it¡¯se to this, this guy who ims to be the one closest to god under the stars is not going to leave this ce under my watch. I¡¯m going to kill him this time, one way or another.

 Chapter 1368: Evolution of the Magic Tower (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1368: Evolution of the Magic Tower (Part 1)</h4>


    It was not that no one wanted to run, but that Saleen¡¯s lightning warriors already had the external fringes surrounded. Lightning attacks continued to rain down from the Lightning Constetion above, which were difficult to evade due to their speed. Any target below level six would have passed out right away after being hit.


    As for those above level six, it would have depended on how well their equipment had been. Those who were well-equipped were able to withstand it somewhat, while those who werecking in terms of equipment would have been stunned.


    If one were to end up stunned and paralyzed in the battlefield, the only oue that would have resulted from it was death.


    Killing Fycro would have proven difficult. Fycro had godly items that Saleen knew nothing about. No one what Fycro¡¯s equipment would have been capable of.


    He needed to ensure that his secret stayed under wraps for the time being at the very least, despite not knowing what his enemy¡¯s equipment were capable of. Saleen knew well that Fycro had yet to know that he had advanced, and he definitely did not know what Rafel was capable of.


    Furthermore, the weapon spirit of his magic amplifier was equipped with an invisible dagger that no one would have been able to track. If none of those were leaked to Fycro, his chances of being able to kill that powerful holy master would have been increased exponentially.


    Anyone who were to escape from the battlefield would have enabled Fycro to deduce how powerful Saleen had became.


    As such, Saleen deemed it necessary to kill every single one of the Holy See¡¯s soldiers, not letting even one of them escape the battlefield.


    Rafel kept her eyes on those high level holy masters, leaving the low level warriors and ascetics to the lightning warriors. Saleen silent recovered his magic chords and thought that Rafel¡¯s Crystal was the still the best skill he had, for being able to kill the target immediately when hit.


    The most powerful holy master in the army was killed with a single finger and Saleen suffered little but having half of his magic chords drained, which could be replenished within about an hour.


    The Crystal Finger skill seemed to be something reserved for higher levels. Despite being a potent skill for ambushing powerful enemies, he was unable to use it frequently.


    Saleen was able to vaguely sense the mystical thing about the Crystal Finger. It was more than a skill that was able to break anything. He would have only probably been able to learn of the other properties of the Crystal Finger after advancing to level 13.


    Raphael was definitely more than a level ten mage trainer.


    Saleen only felt fortunately that despite having his family badge and the Thunder Dragon ster with him, he had never forgotten about training the Crystal Finger skill. That skill itself was considered something like secret arts. It had formidable power and yet a good number of restrictions.


    However, when one were to reach high levels with it, it would have been one of those irreceable pinnacle spells.


    Despite being an intricate weapon, Saleen knew that one day, he had let go of that piece of equipment and cast lightning icicles on his own. By then, attacks using lightning magic would have reached a crude form.


    He was able to aplish something with his Crystal Finger due to having ample experience with it. Once he was able to make a breakthrough, the spell would have came to possess great power.


    By then, there was no need to worry about magic chord restrictions, and the skill that was created by Raphael was able to be used at its fullest.


    Saleen recalled the moment when he first saw Raphael¡¯s dead body. The person who had been suppressed by the power of the Seal of Divine Power for over a thousand years, still had more power within the bony remains than Saleen as a living being.


    It was quite a pity that a genius like him had to suppress his powers to survive on Myers Maind.


    By the time Raphael found the interdimensional space, it was probably toote for him. He would have been able to continue to advance in the interdimensional space, which did not have rule restrictions, instead of dying.


    The workings of fate led Raphael to possess formidable intellect and powers, yet he ended up dead while cooped up in his own magic tower all the same, without being able to make another step further. Raphael was indeed born in the wrong time.


    If Raphael had been born about a millenniumter and made it in time to see the powers of Myers Maind loosening up, he would have been able to zip about between two nes and continue to grow his powers, advancing before any mages on Myers Maind.


    Saleen put all those thoughts aside and began to assess his current location. They were at nds below a hill and the temperature behind him was apparently higher, suggesting that ce to be a volcano in the interdimensional space.


    He took to the air and looked to the other side of the hill. There was already a jungle about 100 kilometers away.


    His Elemental Eye was unable to see any further but he was able to tell that it was the jungle that he and Lex passed through all those years ago. However, there was no longer any signs of the edge of the jungle being burned by some great fires.


    Information constantly sent from the interdimensional space told him that the jungle was growing at a frightening rate. It was already about 1000 square kilometers by then.


    Sika and Jason both traveled to the interdimensional space through the teleportation portal, so they would have definitely been at Raphael¡¯s magic tower.


    Raphael¡¯s magic tower has had itsbat functions restored by the Sreeger Ind mages. Jason was a level 11 mage trainer. Even if Fycro were to bring a huge army before the tower, he would not have been able to take the ce down right away.


    Furthermore, there was also Sika being around. Sika was a level ten nature priest and possessed brute strength surpassing that of dragons. With Sika around, no one would have been able to withstand Sika¡¯s attack in enclosed areas, even if they were to be able to get inside the tower.


    Saleen weighed the pros and cons and gave up the idea of flying to the magic tower right away.


    The fighting on the battlefield neared its end. Saleen stayed airborne and picked on any remaining enemies on the battlefield using magic. It was due to sheer bad luck that the Holy See forces ended up being annihted.


    Saleen appeared right behind the army and their most powerful holy master was ambushed by Saleen with the Crystal Finger, dying on the spot.


    Themander had somepses of judgment in theirmand, and Saleen came to have his way ughtering them.


    It was worth noting that Saleen¡¯s lightning warriors would have required about half an hour to have all of them surrounded. Many could have escaped in that period of time.


    Saleen had the lightning warriors brought the corpses away carefully and clean up the battlefield. Saleen then cast Purification from the Lightning Constetion and destroyed every bit of remaining information around the ce, before putting the Lightning Constetion away and taking Rafel to the jungle.


    There was a massive army of Fycro, numbering at millions, around the jungle, attempting to break through the ce and enter the magic tower¡¯s vicinity.


    Raphael¡¯s magic tower was built on a mountain and the areas surrounding the mountain was where Saleen were to relocate his people.


    The Holy See army suffered heavy casualties in the jungle, as there were huge number of magic beasts within and those beasts shared little inmon with those found on Myers Maind. Those magic beasts were ferocious and they did not attack each other due to having little sense of territory, attacking only humans who entered the jungle.


    Those magic beasts were also capable ofplex skills. Holy masters did not have habits prevalent among mages. If they were to dissect those beasts, they would have found that the magic patterns or magic arrays found in their skulls were not natural ones.


    Those magic beasts were creations of Raphael and would have devolved if they were to be let loose on Myers Maind, making them capable of surviving only in that still-growing interdimensional space. Those magic beasts also served as protectors of the magic tower.


    Saleen was attacked by those magic beasts when he first entered the jungle, and things had been dire back then.


    Lex had been a level five grand mage back then and even she almost ended up dead in that jungle. The army¡¯s equipment would not have been any better than what Lex carried back then, and theirbat capacities would have probably paled inparison to Saleen, who had countless scrolls with him.


    Furthermore, all of those magic beasts shared onemon trait¡ªexceptionally high resistance to divine arts. Divine spells would have only worked when the level difference was very high and obvious.


    Other than that, killing those magic beasts required use of magic and weapons of soldiers.


    There were but only a handful of mages within the ranks of the Holy See. Furthermore, in order to keep things under wraps, Fycro did not bring even a single mage with him. Fycro would not have trusted any mage, as he only trusted those holy masters serving him.


    The jungle had an extremely wide area and not even the army consisting of millions would have been able topletely surround the ce.


    But then again, given that the jungle was surrounded by ins, it became easy for Fycro¡¯s army to maintain contact with each other. There was no fear of anything slipping past them with their scouts covering the areas upied by the armies.


    None of those was actually much of an obstacle to Saleen.


    He cast clouds around him and the area shrouded exceeded ten kilometers radius. No one would have been aware of a human flying in the clouds when he was flying high above.


    The army that Saleen attacked was outside their barricade and there was a hill standing between those two armies. There were armies like that all over the ce and losing one would have only alerted Fycro, telling him that there was someoneing, but he would not have known how said army was annihted.


    By the time Fycro found out what happened, Saleen had been long inside the magic tower.


    Saleen continued to cast lightning bolts when he was in flight, going so far to even mimic natural thunder. The interdimensional space was growing and the sun in the sky was far hotter than when Saleen first came. The sun had already grown to look like a huge fireball by then.


    It rained frequently around the jungle, so having a huge cloud flying by would have hardly alerted anyone.


    Saleen flew past the jungle without problems and even went to check on the enemy around while he was at it. Armies consisting of over 100 thousand were found outside and they were marching into the jungle.


    The way it was done was crude, using puppets put together by divine smiths and having ves that Fycro brought along to chop down trees. He intended to build a road in that thousand-kilometer wide jungle.


    That could not have been helped. The Holy See¡¯s armies might have been powerful, but knights required t terrain to bring their fullest to bear on the enemy. Skills of the Holy See knights were restricted within the jungle, making them inferior to infantry in terms ofbat capacity.


    Fycro came ready. After the trees were cut down, there were immediately transported to the main camp of the army, where divine smiths crafted all manner of gadgetry and equipment with them. Common fauna which could not have been used to craft equipment were used to build barracks.


    Fycro attacked the jungle cautiously. That was how mighty ones do things.


    Saleen was, however, at ease. The nts in that jungle grew at frightening rates. A massive, continuous storm was all it would have needed to have the chopped down areas to have trees growing all over them again.


    It was simply impossible for Fycro to take his time attacking the jungle. The magic tower was capable of controlling the growth of those nts. If his teacher was willing to do it, he could have dropped magic nuclei into magic arrays and wasted all of Fycro¡¯s efforts quickly.


    When Raphael was building his magic tower and nting the jungle all those years ago, he knew something like that would have happened.


    Saleen flew past the jungle from above. He looked at the inner parts of the jungle when he reached the other end, finding metal towers built every single kilometer. That was a method ofying down magic. Constructing metal towers so close to each other was a way to conserve energy.


    Some small metal towers acted as nodes of the magic, providing magic energy to low level enchanters without spending too many magic nuclei.


    The magic did not detect Saleen¡¯s presence, as he was the one who designed it and he oversaw the creation of its parts.

 Chapter 1369: Evolution of the Magic Tower (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1369: Evolution of the Magic Tower (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen managed to pass through the magic undetected when a voice prating the clouds reached his ears.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re here.¡±


    It was Jason¡¯s voice.


    Saleen looked down and saw that magic tower on the mountain. Then something unexpected happened: Those ten floors transformed into twelve.


    The reason Saleen was able to notice this was that there had been no changes to the top of the magic tower. That is to say, the tower was raised from below.


    Saleen then turned his eyes down along the length of the tower and saw the two floors at the bottommost part, which were grown out from the mountain.


    They had an organic form and looked very natural, like nts.


    Since Saleen¡¯s thought processes were about 1000 times stronger now, he instantly realized that the entire mountain was actually one whole piece of equipment with the magic tower hidden inside.


    ¡°I¡¯m here, teacher,¡± Saleen replied and sped up, lowering the clouds and putting away the Lightning Constetion as he approached the tall mountain.


    There were steps surrounding the mountain, which were no longer things that could have stopped Saleen. The magic array at the doorstep of Raphael¡¯s tower was gone. The magic tower¡¯s main door was wide open as low-level mages sauntered in and out without a trace of tension on their faces.


    Saleen dropped from the sky and took Rafel to the front of the tower. No one was guarding it, and the low-level mage walking out did not recognize Saleen but seemed startled nheless.


    ¡°Saleen, get up here!¡± Jason¡¯s voice was heard at an opportune moment; otherwise, that low-level mage would have immediately sounded the rm.


    That mage had only recalled, after hearing Jason¡¯s voice, that the young mage who wore a peculiar robe was none other than the King of Metatrin City, master of the interdimensional space.


    Saleen saw that low-level mage take out two scrolls, one for the attack and one to sound the magic rm, when the mage spotted him. He was very satisfied with the mage¡¯s reaction.


    While things looked loose and nonchnt, in truth, every mage there knew that the enemy could show up anytime.


    Saleen took out a magic notebook and tossed it to that mage before walking into the tower. The mage took the notebook and saw that it was filled with information on water magic¡ªthe field they were most versed in.


    Overjoyed, he ran back to the tower, locked himself in the room and began reading.


    Saleen didn¡¯t know his action would have nurtured a powerful mage in the future. He simply noticed that the mage¡¯s magic chords looked peculiar. While they were not unique like his, they were unbnced.


    The development of water magic chords seemed to be a little too much, and he found that his experiences would have helped that mage take fewer detours in his studies.


    Saleen marched up to the 12th floor where he found Sika ying with his children. Jason was at the center of the tower, researching a magic array.


    The 12th floor, which measured 300 square meters, confirmed Saleen¡¯s spection that Raphael had already set up an ample number of tricks when he built the tower all those years ago.


    ¡°So you¡¯ve advanced then, Saleen.¡± Jason looked pleased.


    Saleen stared at his teacher and said with a deadpan face, ¡°You¡¯ve advanced too, teacher.¡±


    As anticipated, Jason advanced to level-12 before Saleen did. To Saleen, his teacher was like a mountain peak that he would never be able to reach.


    Regardless of how envy-inducing Saleen¡¯s adventures were, his speed at advancement still paled to that of his teacher, who simply trained as he was supposed to.


    ¡°Well,e over here and take a look at this magic array,¡± Jason waved to him, just like old times in Ceylon City.


    Saleen glimpsed at Sika, who waved at him, smiling exasperatedly. She came to the interdimensional space to acquire some of the ce¡¯s power from the ground, never expecting to get trapped there.


    She couldn¡¯t even send one word back to Myers Maind. She was very apologetic about that. Saleen must have put his life on the line toe to the interdimensional space.


    Saleen walked to the edge of the magic array, took a chair and sat down, observing the magic array before him patiently.


    That magic array was a three-dimensional one. Saleen saw the tight arrangements of the elemental points. Many were broken, causing energy to leak outside.


    Raphael wouldn¡¯t have been so bad drawing a magic array, no?


    Elemental points were unavoidable ws in magic arrays. Countless mages attempted to draw magic arrays without them and all had failed without exception.


    Magic arrays with the fewest elemental points had six, and concealing them right behind where magic nuclei were to be embedded was the best measure elemental mages were capable of pulling to address the issue.


    There was a time when hexagram arrays were popr, primarily because it was easy for them to conceal the ws of elemental points.


    Raphael was by no means a perfect mage, so there was no way he would have avoided making mistakes. However, that bundle of mistakes before Saleen at that moment was utterly ridiculous. Saleen only discovered the subtleties behind the so-called mistakes after observing them closely with his Elemental Eye.


    Those elemental points themselves were all minute magic arrays. Their only function was to link magic powers, executing elemental resonances.


    That was to say that theplex magic array was but a part of a huge magic array. All magic arrays contacted each other using the elemental points, making the points themselves more than just weaknesses.


    Raphael, you¡¯re one hell of a genius. It was not that no one had thought of such ideas before, as Saleen himself had made simr experiments. But the only sessful example he knew was the one right in front of him.


    ¡°Alright, Saleen, I think you understand what you¡¯ve seen.¡±


    ¡°Not all of it,¡± Saleen answered truthfully. He could only tell that the magic array was some all-newpound magic array that would have only worked when many magic arrays were in synch with each other. Having so many elemental points meant it would have copsed anytime.


    ¡°Saleen, Raphael had built a magic tform. The entire mountain itself is a magic array. It was buried in the mountain. When I came here and manned the magic array, one floor was grown out of the magic tower. When I advanced, another floor emerged.¡±


    ¡°Are you working on the magic tower, teacher?¡±


    ¡°No, this is a piece of equipment that I need to be at level-13, at least, before I can even hope to work on it. It¡¯s an inherent ability of the magic tower. Did you know that this mountain is some kind of unknown mass of energy capable of providing the magic tower with limitless power? Those who try to attack the jungle are going on a wild goose chase. I¡¯m only able to master one-ten-thousandth of the magic tower¡¯s power, and I already am able to sleep easy.¡±


    ¡°One-ten-thousandth?¡± Saleen saw Jason point in the air and bring up a magic image showing the edge of the jungle and the armies trying to attack it.


    ¡°Probably less than even that. The magic tower is borrowing not only the power of the mountain, as it would run out someday, but the power of the entire interdimensional space. Raphael found the core of the entire interdimensional space using calctions, which were right here. He thenid down the mountain and built the magic tower on top of it. When the interdimensional space had grownpletely, you would have been able to put the entire interdimensional space under the tower¡¯s protection simply by manning the tower itself.¡±


    Saleen was truly startled by then. Protecting the entire interdimensional space meant that the tower could attack anywhere within the interdimensional space.


    Saleen thought of his Floating City. With an assimted magic cube and an offensive range of over 100 kilometers, it was already an extremely powerful piece of equipment. Yet Raphael¡¯s tower, which he was sitting on, had the capacity to control the entire interdimensional space.


    ¡°Teacher, help me find Fycro. I have to kill him. His powers will grow too quickly unless I stop him.¡±


    Smiling, Jason said, ¡°Saleen, if you were to simply put all your efforts into your training, Fycro wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up with you. At the very least, your equipment...¡±


    ¡°No, teacher. The real reason I need to do this is that he¡¯s threatening my kids. I have to kill him. All his believers need to die in this interdimensional space. It would be good for the ce to have more broken souls. I¡¯m told that would hasten the interdimensional space¡¯s growth rate.¡±


    Saleen wanted power more than anything else at the moment. If he were to possess the Lightning Moon and incorporate it into his Lightning Constetion, his Floating City would surpass Raphael¡¯s magic tower. By then, it would be possible for him to defeat anyone.


    Jason no longer held Saleen back. From Jason¡¯s perspective, Fycro¡¯s existence was keeping Saleen on his toes. He would have grown faster with an enemy like that around. As for the threat of Fycro, Jason considered that a concern.


    Jason¡¯s pride was bone-deep. He absolutely would have never feared the growth of his enemies. He would have only done what he should be doing ording to n. If an enemy grew stronger, he needed to get stronger too.


    Jason, however, saw no reason to stop Saleen, as his student was developing an intense killing instinct for his children¡¯s sake. If someone threatened Saleen to the point where he ended up dying, Jason would have personally cut that person to pieces.


    To him, Saleen was like his own child, and the hope for his lineage to live on.


    ¡°Alright, but Fycro is not on the interdimensional space himself or at least I haven¡¯t found him yet. Saleen, taking on Fycro won¡¯t be easy. If you want to kill him, you need to get better prepared. Your Crystal Finger might not do the job.¡± Jason agreed to Saleen¡¯s request, and he saw fit to point out the problems.


    The only skills Saleen confirmed to be able to kill with a single hit were his family badge and the Crystal Finger. The family badge needed targeting, making it easy for the enemy to be alerted.


    Someone like Fycro would have carried formidable equipment, and the family badge might not have been able to get a lock on. The Crystal Finger was the only true lethal move.


    When gods or believers of gods were hit by a skill that Raphael created, their souls would have been snuffed out too. That was the best skill for assassinating Fycro.


    There was still one problem, however. What godly item was Fycro wielding? And by extension, would the Crystal Finger be effective against that item?


    ¡°I have some other ideas, teacher,¡± Saleen said and made the concealed magic amplifier behind him visible. Jason¡¯s eyes lit up when he saw it.


    He noticed that the way Saleen had concealed his magic amplifier was different from his. Saleen still had to grasp the main point of the secret arts. If he seeded in doing this, he would be able to conceal the magic amplifier in his own body instead.

 Chapter 1370: Oath of Godhood (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1370: Oath of Godhood (Part 1)</h4>


    Jason¡¯s sharp eyes detected the changes to Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier right away. A ten-meter-tall weapon spirit emerged from the center and stood right behind Saleen. It then asked Jason for a shield puppet.


    This type of weapon was used in battle formations to provide a defensive backup to soldiers.


    Generally speaking, a toon consisted of 50 troops. If a shield puppet was ced on each end respectively, the toon would have been able to block charges from heavy cavalry.


    Shield puppets, which were expensive, served only one function. Because they were so sturdy, it was nearly impossible for them to be damaged in battle formations.


    Mages sacrificed a puppet¡¯s offensive capacities to create mobile defense equipment.


    The puppet carried a pitch-ck shield on its hands. Layers of magic patterns and magic arrays were a testament to the metalized shield¡¯s formidable defensive capabilities.


    Its surface was crystallized, eachyer the thickness of the top section of a finger. Created purely for experimentation, that shield was a waste to bring to battlefields.


    The shield puppet was ced before Saleen. Suddenly, a hole was seen on that thick, heavy shield. The golden dagger was shown, and the mechanical core of that shield puppet behind the shield was shredded.


    Jason was much impressed with that dagger. He was way better at alchemy than Saleen was, but when it came to crafting weapons, Saleen was the one with better ideas and better materials.


    The dagger¡¯s ability to be invisible had nothing to do with magic arrays, though. Had it not been crafted from extremely rare materials, it would have been impossible for it to be invisible.


    More important, that dagger was unnervingly sharp, even sharper than Nailisi¡¯s Gray Memory.


    The shield of the puppet was a product of one of Jason¡¯s experiments. It had not been crafted using methods for equipping armies. Jason stacked hundreds of defensive magic spells on top of each other instead, enabling the shield to automatically react to a defensive attack.


    The magic nuclei embedded in the shield were above level-10 as well, and there were 36 of them. Even if bombarded by level-10 magic spells, the shield would be left unscathed.


    The shield even had Dark Space, a magic array Saleen learned earlier. The magic array was fused with Jason¡¯s special skills and formed a new type of magic defense array.


    Jason would have found it reliable. Despite being pierced by the dagger, the weapon still had enough power left to tear the puppet¡¯s mechanical core apart. Jason deemed it sufficiently strong to kill Fycro.


    Refusing to give up just yet, Jason took out a metal cylinder, which was really a broken godly item. The rules within had all been scrubbed clean, exposing a hard surface.


    All of a sudden, the golden dagger appeared. ng! It cut the cylinder down.


    Jason was thoroughly frightened by then: A level-15 fragment of a godly item was easily cut down by Saleen¡¯s dagger? Even if that godly item turned out to be aplete one, Saleen¡¯s dagger would have probably destroyed it that very moment.


    The Lord of Glory might have possessed godly items of higher levels, but the same could not be said for Fycro.


    Jason was reluctant to use higher-level materials for Saleen¡¯s tests. The cut cylinder had already had its quality reduced by then. Some considered it a harder metal even without a whiff of its former status as a godly item.


    Apart from its sharpness, the dagger¡¯s attribute was a very evil one. It would have been lethal to enemies.


    ¡°Okay, you now have 60 percent certainty of being able to kill Fycro. I¡¯d keep having my people look for him. Once he¡¯s found, we¡¯ll take him on together and kill him once and for all.¡± Jason gave Saleen a definite answer and then went back to researching the magic array.


    Saleen had little interest in that magic array. The reason is, he had decided to walk another path, and that was to train lightning magic.


    Eventually, his Floating City would have to be fused with Lightning Constetion. In doing so it would have be one huge, unstoppable traveling weapon.


    Saleen walked up to Sika by then. He spoke before she could apologize. ¡°Sika, I¡¯m so sorry I¡¯m not with you. I know I¡¯ve caused you a lot of grief.¡±


    Daddy! His two children ran to him without a hint of unfamiliarity despite his constant absence.


    Saleen took the two of them in his arms. Sika said, ¡°I was here at the interdimensional space to find a soul of the earth. The ground would definitely give birth to a soul as it grows. A nature priest would then acquire great power aftermunicating with it. Only by doing so, would I be able to advance as soon...¡±


    Saleen intended to say that he was very satisfied with Sika¡¯s current state until he remembered that she might have wanted to advance to gain a longer lifespan. Both he and Sika had given a good portion of their lives for the sake of their children.


    ¡°Any luck finding it then?¡± Saleen changed his tone and asked in a concerned way.


    ¡°Yeah, I found it, but unfortunately the soul of the earth hadn¡¯t awakened yet and looked weak.¡±


    ¡°Well, no need to hurry. If the millions of believers of gods died here and their soul fragments were absorbed by thend, there¡¯d be a good chance that the soul of the earth would awaken.¡±


    Sika frowned and was silent. She didn¡¯t enjoy killing, but if the ones to die were the believers of the Lord of Glory, she was okay with that. The Lord of Glory had done a lot of damage to Myers Maind.


    During the war between the four nations over a thousand years ago, an incalcble number of humans had lost their lives. Around 100 million were ounted for.


    From the stories she heard from the vige elders, the Holy See had always been told to be an evil entity. That¡¯s how Sika learned to resent the Holy See from a very young age. If she hadn¡¯t been at her wit¡¯s end back then, she would never have bought holy water from them.


    While Saleen was busy figuring out how to annihte the Oracle Corps, Fycro floated by silently in a huge sphere of light at the edge of the volcano on the interdimensional space.


    ck smoke billowed from the ground below the ball of light. The volcano of the interdimensional space was still erupting. Despite having ceased momentarily, its temperature remained frighteningly high.


    Twelve ck-robed holy masters hovered around the ball of light and hung their heads low as if waiting to be summoned by Fycro.


    The ball of light that housed Fycro had a diameter of about 40 meters and kept expanding and contracting. The power infused within was already greater than that of level-12 oracles. The bodies of two level-12 oracles were dissolving right below it.


    Fycro killed them, but the Pivotal Council still knew nothing of this. They were advancing into Qin under the pope¡¯smand. The oracles¡¯ bodies dissolved and transformed into white light which Fycro then absorbed.


    He was, however, unable to absorb too much energy in one go. Any light he absorbed through his mouth would have immediately entered his body. The light he was unable to absorb would have shot out through his nostrils and melded with the ball of light.


    That huge ball of light was like a living being, expanding and contracting in synch with Fycro¡¯s heartbeat.


    The 12 ck-robed holy masters finally lifted their heads. They looked pleased seeing the bodies of the two oracles dissolve.


    Their lord was about to make a breakthrough and be a level-13 god!


    But that was just the beginning: Lord Fycro¡¯s acquisition of the interdimensional space would have been tantamount to possessing a divine kingdom. In that interdimensional space, all would have be his believers.


    Lord Fycro¡¯s powers would have grown exponentially, reaching level-15, and he would have fought against the Lord of Glory.


    It was hard to advance beyond level -15. For the other gods, the quickest way to advance was by killing another god and devouring its divine persona.


    When Fycro became a god, all those ck-robed oracles would have acquired great power. Further, as a god, Fycro would have been totally different from the Lord of Glory. He would have been generous and wise, not hogging all benefits for himself.


    His ck-robed oracles would have stood a chance of bing vassal gods.


    Although such gods had limited freedom, they were nheless rtively safe. They would have all grown within Fycro¡¯s divine kingdom. Those believers would have sung his praises.


    The 12 ck-robed holy masters became so excited they started breathing faster.


    ¡°My believers, I shall create an eternal kingdom when I ascend to godhood. It would be a kingdom of light, devoid of darkness, illnesses, catastrophes, and death. When I ascend to godhood, you shall all gain eternal life together with me. When I ascend to godhood, the light shall not be that of the sun¨CI shall be your only glory...¡±


    Fycro¡¯s thundering voice was heard everywhere, and the ball of light around his body shuddered, spreading the sound waves. Every single unit in the invading Holy See forces around the jungle heard Fycro¡¯s oath when he became a god.


    ¡°When I ascend to godhood, the light of magic shall cease to be. Your god shall lead your way forward...¡±


    One such line appeared all of a sudden in Fycro¡¯s oath of godhood. Saleen could sense it from Raphael¡¯s magic tower. He gazed at the magic tower where the sun rose, his heart racing.


    Something is happening to Fycro.


    Saleen was reluctant to trust his feelings. He also felt this way when his weapon spirit was about to be a god. The aura of level-13 was intensely thick.


    Saleen knew that feeling. No one in Myers Maind was better acquainted with it than he was or more adept at sensing energy changes in space when a divine fire was about to spark.


    The initially bnced elements seemed drawn eastward in an instant¡ªas if he were to take the direction where the sun rose to be east.


    The huge ball of light rose and absorbed all powers below it. Saleen saw the blinding light of divine fire even though it was thousands of kilometers away.


    All adherents of the Holy See became unsettled. Not even the ascetics could sit still.


    Their leader, a human, was about to ascend to godhood!


    As long as one was willing to put in the effort, anyone could be a god. It was a promise that Fycro had given them. They only bought his words because of past circumstances. But the reality wasid bare before their eyes: everyone went into a frenzy.


    A human could be a god? The frenzied vigor of believers stemmed from the fact that in the doctrines of the Lord of Glory, humans were beings created by god.


    They would have beenughed at and scoffed if they revealed those thoughts to mages. What good would it do bing a god? Mages could freely traverse the nes as they wished even if they hadn¡¯t be gods. But that was in the past...

 Chapter 1371: Oath of Godhood (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1371: Oath of Godhood (Part 2)</h4>


    When Fycro finished reciting his oath of godhood, white mes burned within his body and reduced it to ashes. He was quickly resurrected from the divine fire.


    The huge ball of light was sucked into his body at the moment of resurrection, fusing into a single being with the godly item within.


    Fycroughed out loud.


    ¡°Congrattions, my lord!¡± The 12 ck-robed holy masters said in unison.


    The experience did not make Fycro arrogant. He cast 12 balls of light the size of a fist and sent them into the bodies of the 12 holy masters, saying, ¡°This is my power. From here on, you shall use it to fight and propagate the faith. Any ne I travel to shall be blessed with my power.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, my lord!¡± The 12 ck-robed holy masters were ted. Fycro fulfilled his end of the bargain instead of reneging on the deal when he ascended to godhood. The oath of godhood Fycro recited earlier made no mention of the trade.


    Fycro stepped into the air and leaped into the volcano, emerging outside after some time. He was clutching a weapon that looked like a gold-reddish mirror with a sharp edge.


    It was a two-way mirror. ncing down at the object, Fycro saw clouds hovering overhead.


    Saleen!


    Despite not seeing Saleen¡¯s face in the mirror, he could see lightning shing in the clouds¡ªSaleen¡¯s unique specialty.


    Saleen probably learned what Fycro was doing shortly after arriving at that interdimensional space. Good, I¡¯ll get rid of this pesky mage and then I¡¯ll attack Metatrin City.


    He waspelled to do anything in his power to prevent Saleen from returning there.


    Defenses of Metatrin City were too powerful and, furthermore, the city was protected by the rules of the ne. If he were to return, he would have needed to seal his power at level-12. The risk would have been too high, as Saleen¡¯s teacher had probably advanced to a level-12 mage trainer.


    Such a trainer would have been able to bring massive power to bear within Metatrin City. Even if he were to get his hands on the godly item of the sun and the moon, it would have still been hard to take down that grand, majestic city.


    Additionally, he had no intention of destroying it; he only wanted to take the city.


    Saleen would have still thought he was oblivious to the fact that the city was the best way to connect with that interdimensional space. Even though Fycro had opened up a portal himself, that was done with power that came from sacrificing the million-strong army of the Pivotal Council of the Holy See.


    That act alone had enraged the Lord of Glory, who would have sent powerful beings to Myers Maind soon enough. Things would have looked really alive on Myers Maind by then.


    As such, Fycro needed Metatrin City. It was unthinkable for him to have to kill over a million people every time he intended to bring his believers there.


    ¡°Come with me to the jungle.¡±


    After Fycro spoke those words, divine light lit up beneath his feet, conjuring a road in midair. One step allowed him to travel over 100 kilometers, a distance surpassing any skills Saleen would have been able to use.


    That ability, in turn, would have thoroughly exhausted teleportation portals¡ªthe Road of Glory.


    On the other hand, the divine spell¡¯s shoring was its ill-suitedness forbat. Each step would have spanned the same distance. In battle, smaller ranges of movement were needed.


    The most practical movement technique for use inbat was Rainbow; however, the constitution of contemporary mages paled inparison to those of ancient times. Rainbow was also a lost art.


    The volcano was about 8,000 kilometers from where Saleen was located. Fycro was capable of covering 100 kilometers with a single step, which meant the would have reached the tower in 80 steps.


    Fycro stopped after making 69 steps. A clone emerged from his body. It was holding a long silver curved de the profile of which resembled a crescent moon. The ws seen on the moon were also seen vaguely on the de as well.


    Flying high in the air, Fycro had the clone bring the 12 ck-robed holy masters down.


    He then said to them, ¡°Open a path in the jungle and attract the mages¡¯ attention.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord.¡±


    Fycro finished giving his orders and continued flying forward instead of using the Road of Glory. Getting near the magic tower would have been difficult if he were to simply barge in the mages¡¯ range of attack. Fycro needed to find the right distance in order to drop right on top of the tower.


    Fycro sensed something in flight. The mirror in his hand turned around, and he became covered in ayer gold-reddish bubbles that gradually turned transparent and until he was nowhere to be seen.


    Saleen and his teacher watched the magic projection on the 12th floor of the magic tower in a nervous manner. Fycro¡¯s image shed and then he vanished.


    ¡°Teacher, Fycro might have ignited the divine fire.¡±


    ¡°Might have?¡± Jason looked at his student with chastising eyes. As a mage, he felt one needed to understand the in truth to determine a phenomenon as honestly as possible instead of trying to exin something with ambiguous words.


    ¡°The weapon spirit on the Floating City also ignited divine fire as well, and the same thing happened with the weapon spirit in the Lightning Constetion. Someone ignited the divine fire in that direction, and I don¡¯t know if it was Fycro.¡± Saleen exined to his teacher.


    ¡°If he had ignited the divine fire, he would have be a level-13 being. I think I¡¯d able to kill something like that, but...¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t leave the magic tower though, right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course not, or I won¡¯t be able to stay safe. Unlike you, Saleen, I¡¯ve rafted only a few pieces of equipment and amcking in defense. If the enemy really is a level 13-being, I¡¯ll have to rely on the magic tower for protection.¡±


    If other mages had spoken Jason¡¯s words, they would have appeared arrogant. This was about a level-12 mage wanting to kill a level-13 pseudo god and hoping to remain unscathed. But Jason was merely telling the truth.


    His training had deviated from the usual path of magic training. After all, his main skills consisted of refined secret arts from another crystal system.


    Those skills were Water me Alchemy and zing me Soul-refining. He also had two of the most powerful magic amplifiers at his disposal; they had the capability of enhancing his powers exponentially.


    Even hismon skills would have be true, solid level-12 magic spells without a trace of impurities. Anyone possessing those powers could kill a pseudo god.


    All of thatbined with the design of Raphael¡¯s magic tower, which was intended to take on gods, meant that Jason wasn¡¯t bluffing.


    Saleen knew this very well. If Fycro wasn¡¯t equipped with godly items and was a mere level-13 pseudo god, Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger alone would have been enough to kill Fycro. The Crystal Finger was a skill designed specifically by Raphael to take on gods.


    Even if the skill didn¡¯t end up killing a god, it would have still inflicted severe damage.


    There was no concealing the fundamental nature of gods before the Crystal Finger, making it necessary for them to take on the raging attack of the Crystal Finger head-on.


    ¡°Mages, activate the magic and shut the magic tower off!¡±


    Jason¡¯s voice was heard. Magic beasts in the jungle intended to take flight and look for Fycro suddenly stopped moving, diving back into the jungle.


    Fycro concealed his form and discovered the magic beasts¡¯ movements. He had some doubts: So they found me already? He was still about 1000 kilometers away from his destination. How did the mages see me from so far away?


    Fycro knew magic towers extremely well and had in-depth knowledge of the range of control that magic towers of different levels sported. He had already been extremely careful by casting his invisibility skill. Even so, he could tell from the magic beasts¡¯ movement that the enemy might have discovered him.


    With his clone below, there was no problem getting through the jungle. Whatever, I¡¯ll just barge in and kill that pesky Saleen.


    Fycrocked Jason¡¯s pride. He thought Saleen posed a potent threat to his bing a true god in the future and that he needed to get rid of him.


    Saleen had already messed up his ns of purifying the abominations, robbing his army of the materials he should have acquired to craft equipment. He would have been in possession of the most powerful divine-crafted weapon on all of Myers Maind.


    If his entire army were equipped with those weapons, they would have had their way with all of Myers Maind. Saleen had thoroughly messed up his ns, forcing him toe to the interdimensional space and get rid of his foundations once and for all.


    Raphael¡¯s magic tower was shut tight. After the tower was raised to level-12, the first floor came to possess six doors, all with powerful seals. It was just that Jason had undone them before.


    With the doors shut and their seals in ce again, if anyone barged in, the risk posed would be higher than when Saleen made it into the tower all those years ago. Back then, the seals were only meant to keep trespassers out. The ones on the doors now were meant to kill trespassers.


    The magic tower had something like a master, and that someone was Jason.


    He shut the magic tower off and ordered the mages to activate the magic, which was the only offensive structure around the magic tower. Armies would have had to be deployed if the magic was absent in order to fight Fycro, and Jason didn¡¯t think for a second that those armies posed any threat to Fycro.


    Many instant-death spells were prepped in the magic, waiting to be unleashed on Fycro. The newly ascended god would definitely not have gone against it head-on and would have been less inclined to try to destroy the magic. He wanted to get to the tower and have a showdown as soon as possible.


    Not even gods would have wanted to stand around taking the brunt of something like instant-death spells.


    Although it was nearly impossible for low-level professionals to kill high-level gods, there was still a chance of those spells actually working. That chance, even if it was but one percent of sess, is not one gods would have wanted to take.


    Fycro would not have wanted to take on over 10,000 instant-death magic spells being cast at the same time.


    Saleen learned the trick of storing instant-death magic spells in the magic while he was inside the magic cube back then. He sent the information back to Metatrin City right away so that Jason could find ways of refining them.


    Jason organized the mages and went on to shoot Death Ray repeatedly in the magic¡¯s vicinity.


    Instant-death magic spells were different from elemental magic in that once elemental magic was uploaded in the magic, the spell could be used repeatedly unless the magic was broken. The expenditures came from magic nuclei.


    Instant-death spells, however, like Death Ray could be used once; reusing them at another time required the spell to be uploaded again into the magic.


    Though troublesome, such spells posed an immense threat. That was because instant-death magic spells caused damage by chance. If the spell and the target were of the same level, sess would have depended entirely on luck.


    Level differences would have only lowered the spell¡¯s sess rate instead of nullifying the spell¡¯s effects altogether.


    Fycro flipped the mirror in his hand and looked at the reverse side. He saw how he was being shot by countless Death Ray, while he went on to destroy many metal towers. They were melted by his divine light while the demons wailed painfully while taking theirst breath.

 Chapter 1372: Ambush (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1372: Ambush (Part 1)</h4>


    Fycro was able to see himself being shot by the Death Rays, but he was unable to see the oue. He hesitated and gave up the idea of attacking the metal towers at the edge of the jungle.


    The godly item that he had acquired was the Mirror of Fate. If that godly item was unable to calcte the results, then it was to say that there was a possibility that he would have ended up being killed by that mage¡¯s spells.


    Fycro had already ignited his divine fire and his lifespan was expanded to hundreds of thousands of years, which made him reluctant to take such risks. Once he became able to gain a divine persona, his lifespan would have been expanded to over a million, or even over ten million years.


    That potential of acquiring extremely long life made Fycro reluctant to take risks.


    The Road of Glory materialized beneath his feet again, leading straight to Raphael¡¯s magic tower.


    The magic of the interdimensional space was not manned by a God of Magic Net. If Fycro were to simply rush to his target like that, no one else would have been able to lock onto him. The enchanters held their fire, as Jason had already given the order¡ªif they were unable to lock onto their target, then they were to stand down.


    Death Rays were very valuable spells. Every single Death Ray was the fruit of a sorcerer¡¯sbor. Once a shot was used, reloading into the magic would have been needed to be carried out by sorcerers.


    Fycro came before Raphael¡¯s magic tower and stopped. His calctions were not urate enough to allow him to go above the mountain. He stopped at the edge of the peak instead.


    Fycro was unable to help but praised. That magic tower was a miracle in itself indeed.


    ¡°A little modifications and it would make a fine temple!¡± Fycro was unable to resist checking out the mountain around the magic tower. The size of it meant that it could have indeed be used for building a temple. By the time he became able to create angels, he would have definitely put them to work at that.


    ¡°Fycro, don¡¯t you think that you have already turned your back on our deal?¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was heard from within the magic tower. Fycro saw Saleen emerge from the magic tower shortly after, looking at him from afar.


    Fycro raised the Mirror of Fate and targeted Saleen right away. However, Saleen¡¯s silhouette unexpectedly crumbled. Thunder was heard from the Mirror of Fate.


    Saleen¡¯sugh was heard throughout the mountain. ¡°Fycro, are you really in such a hurry to kill me?¡±


    ¡°Sure. I¡¯d rest easy with you dead,¡± Fycro answered. When he saw Saleen appearing outside the magic tower again, he no longer tried to attack the mage using the Mirror of Fate.


    Targeting was required before attacking, but if that illusion was targeted, it would have damaged the Mirror of Fate instead. Despite being a sturdy piece, but there was inadequate will of his own inside the mirror. If the will were all ended up destroyed, then he would have needed a while before he could use the mirror again.


    Saleen¡¯s skills did cause Fycro a lot of headache.


    It was actually easy to destroy Thundering Phantasms¡ªa single swing with a de would have sufficed. That skill would have been able to do little against low level professionals relying on close quartersbat.


    Only those who used mental powers or power of the soul for targeting would have suffered the Thundering Phantasm¡¯s retaliation.


    The mountain was over 1000 meters in diameter. Both men were several hundred meters away from each other. Even if Fycro wanted to kill Saleen, hecked close quartersbat measures.


    The external fringes of the magic tower was a Pande¡¯s Maze, which had been what blocked Fycro¡¯s Road of Glory, preventing it from passing.


    He never expected to be stopped by the small jungle at the edge of that magic tower.


    ¡°Saleen, if you don¡¯t want to see the maze destroyed, pull away the defenses and let us have a showdown.¡± Fycro looked at Saleen from afar. He had already ignited divine fire. A distance of less than 1000 meters was akin to being right in front of his eyes.


    ¡°If you want to destroy the maze, by my guess.¡± Saleen gestured, asking Fycro to make a move. The Pande¡¯s Maze was actually something very difficult to break.


    Any maze would have had weaknesses. Pande¡¯s Maze¡¯s weakness was one that everyone knew about. So long as one were to follow certain rules, there would have been no need for answers, as one could have easily walk out of it.


    However, the process would have been extremely time-consuming. it could have taken anywhere from three to five months, to up to a decade.


    There was no way Fycro would have had that much time to waste. He frowned and said, ¡°Why did you attack my Oracle Corps, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Are you referring to the time when you duped me to Hignd City, where you intended to steal my Floating City?¡± Saleen rebutted without hurry. None of them were able to lie with their answers, and lies were pretty meaningless at their current levels.


    Fycro did not bother with petty matters like that and answered, ¡°The contract is voided then. A pity indeed. I really wanted to work with you.¡±


    ¡°Fycro, I thought that there would have been someone genuinely honest in the Holy See. It was rather unexpected to see that you were even more despicable than most.¡± Saleen¡¯s expression was all smiles, but his words were as pointed as he could ahve made them.


    ¡°If the art of insult was to be a skill, your level would have frightened me, Saleen.¡± Fycro jabbed in return.


    ¡°If a skill of such level would have proven useless against you, then your level of despicability would have been the antithesis of your status indeed. Or should I say,plementarily to your status instead.¡± Saleen did not mind to keep delving into how despicable Fycro was.


    The mages in the tower were still prepping powerful magic spells and inspecting the magic arrays after all.


    Fycro showed up too quickly and the mages in the tower had been unable to get much preparations done.


    Jason did not actually miscalcte anything. That thousand-kilometer wide jungle would have made it impossible for even level 13 professionals to pass in an instant. Fycro¡¯s Road of Glory was simply too extraordinary. If it had not been for Pande¡¯s Maze, Fycro would have showed up right outside the magic tower¡¯s door instead.


    ¡°Saleen, sigh...¡± Fycro sighed and he had no intentions of continuing. Saleen had been a mage that he came to like better than most and he was hoping to turn Saleen into one of his believers. However, things proved hopeless at that juncture. Saleen was like the ancient mages, who hated the gods with a passion.


    But why did he establish the Nature Faith then? That was something that Fycro found puzzling.


    Fycro had never ventured inside the temple of the goddess. If he had discovered one before, he would have understood the reasons behind right away.


    Fycro took out another piece of equipment, having no intentions of continuing to use the Mirror of Fate. He knew well enough that despite the mirror sporting a myriad of ways of attacking, but mages had an edge when they were inside a magic tower.


    If he were to use the Mirror of Fate to tear the maze apart, it would have made it easy for the mages to calcte the rules embedded within the Mirror of Fate.


    Even if they were to be able to calcte even a tiny fraction of the rules, it would still have robbed him of his edge in future battles. Furthermore, the Mirror of Fate had limited number of attacks. He was, at the moment, a pseudogod instead of a true god after all.


    If he were to possess divine persona, even broken ones, he would have been able to convert all of those power of faith provided by his believers into his own power, instead of having to digest them for a bit before being able to use those power.


    Fycro took out a divine-crafted puppet. The puppet¡¯s appearance resembled that of the Lord of Glory¡¯s angels. The puppet headed straight for Pande¡¯s Maze after it was released, unleashing powerful attacks at the maze with the sword of glory in its hand.


    Tens of huge trees fell with a loud boom. Fycro stepped forward and tailed behind the puppet, while he himself did nothing else.


    ¡°Heh, you think it¡¯d be that easy eh.¡± Saleen pointed in the air and the toppled huge trees were erected again, blocking Fycro¡¯s way behind. The trees looked as if they have never been attacked.


    Saleen used Thundering Shock and Fycro suffered little more than a mild headache, instead of being seriously affected. He knew that the puppet was not attacking actual trees, as those were simply part of a magic array.


    All of those constructs were illusions. There were limited number of trees in the Pande¡¯s Maze. All the others were simply constructs created using projection magic.


    Seeing how he was unable to confuse Fycro, Saleen then summoned the Violet Angel and took out the War Drum of Fear, telling the puppet to start beating the drum.


    Tens of thousands of pests gushed from the drum into the maze, charging straight at Fycro. Those pests were only beings around level six or seven, making it imposible for them to kill Fycro. The former holy master even put up a divine shield, which the pests stood no chance of breaking.


    Fycro thenughed. ¡°Saleen, if you are using something like this, I wouldn¡¯t have had any idea of how to proceed!¡±


    Fycro said as divine light lit up in his eyes. He zipped past the puppet and his body lit up with divine light. Any pest that had gotten near to him was purified on the spot, reduced to dirt and dropping all over the ground.


    Fycro was able to track how the pests entered the maze with his eyes. He was quick with his feet and passed through the maze soon enough.


    A golden sword was lying in wait for Fycro right outside the maze.


    The sword was swung horizontally at Fycro¡¯s neck. The divine shield was broken right away. Fycro was thoroughly shocked, as none of that was seen in the Mirror of Fate. Saleen has a level 13 being serving him? Impossible!


    Saleen had never expected Fycro to really show up before the magic tower alone. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, what Fycro did was very stupid. If Fycro were to take his time to n things out and open a path in the jungle, Saleen would have been able to do little against him.


    If Saleen were to destroy that passage in the jungle, he would have had to show up personally, but doing so would have robbed him of the backup from the magic tower. There was no way for him to set up an ambush in the wild as well.


    Saleen had precisely let the pests into the maze just so that he was able to set up a trap. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was not the only being lying in wait; Rafel was there as well.


    Saleen saw Rafel thrusting out with her red spear from the other side, which grazed Fycro¡¯s body. He unleashed Thundering Phantasm, all of whom lifted the left arm at the same time, with the Thunder Dragon ster showing briefly and shot lightning icicles.


    There were 12 lightning icicles seen being shot¡ª11 from the illusions and one from Saleen himself. The lightning icicles were but feints, but if Fycro were to not avoid them, he would have nheless ended up being killed all the same.


    The Inferno Spear grazed Fycro¡¯s hips. His level 13 divine shield was unable to stop that godly item¡¯s attack. If it had not been for a piece of armor appearing behind him all of a sudden, Fycro would have ended up severely injured.


    However, Blood was seen pouring from his hips, so much so that one was able to see the bone under the wound.


    With two level 13 beings ambushing him with powerful weapons, Fycro was quickly caught in a ditch. A huge bubble expanded on his body, repelling both Rafel and the weapon spirit. Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle punched into the bubble and were quickly dissolved.


    The temperature of the bubble was even greater than that of underground fires. The lightning icicles did not have fire-resistant properties due to being focused on being as sharp as possible.


    That was because under most circumstances, even if the lightning icicles were to be dumped inside volcanoes, it would have still taken them quite a while to be melted. Furthermore, lightning icicles had very brief period of offense after all.


    Saleen would have never expected that there were actually defensive skills that worked byying out a super-high temperatureyer on one¡¯s body.

 Chapter 1373: Ambush (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1373: Ambush (Part 2)</h4>


    That Dissolving Light, Fycro¡¯s level-13 skill, was the only skill developed after he had ignited the divine fire. its activation required no conscious control; it was a passive skill that was unleashed whenever Fycro faced mortal danger.


    The temperature of Dissolving Light was totally under Fycro¡¯s control. If he seeded in developing a divine persona, he would have the capability of making thatyer of defense hotter than the sun.


    By then the level difference was not something that could be reversed: Those of an inadequate level would not have been able to get near Fycro.


    Then again, Fycro hadn¡¯t developed his divine persona yet, and there was no power from divine kingdoms to waste. As a result, the bubble quickly withdrew to his body after bursting for a brief moment.


    His hip injuries healed instantly. His clothing was restored: there were no signs of wear and tear.


    The godly armor within his body proved insufficient to stop an attack from the Inferno Spear, making Fycro put his guard up. After witnessing Rafel¡¯s failed assassination attempt, Saleen knew the situation had be dire.


    The space outside the magic tower suddenly turned ck.


    Fycro felt as if Saleen and the others had vanished. Endless night fell upon them; starlight was everywhere. If people glimpsed at it briefly, their souls would have been lost in the stars for eternity.


    The Level-13 Endless Night had been cast from the magic tower after being amplified by the Rings of Water and Fire, trapping Fycro.


    Jason decided to make his move, which coincidentally happened when Fycro was about to retreat from his most powerful attack. Fycrocked the ability to escape the area-of-effect of the Endless Night at that moment. Jason, on the other hand, had good control of hisbat tempo. Saleen took the opening to cast Lightning Constetion.


    He also unleashed his Lightning Territory, shrouding the ins beyond the magic tower. The Pande¡¯s Maze spun. Even if Fycro broke through the Endless Night right there and then, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to locate the exit he had passed through earlier.


    Faint light emanated on Fycro¡¯s body. He didn¡¯t even attempt to break the spell. The level-13 Endless Night had been boosted by the magic amplifier and the magic tower, making it capable of trapping a target of the same level.


    If Fycro had retaliated, however, he would have had to unleash his most powerful attack. Even after breaking through the Endless Night, there were still some level-13 beings lying in wait outside.


    Fycro¡¯sbat capacity was daunting. He immediately transitioned into defense mode when the Endless Night manifested earlier.


    Sika looked at Fycro from the inside of the magic tower and said scathingly, ¡°If he would just stay still and let me whack him, I¡¯d be able to break through that turtle shell of his.¡±


    Such was the effect of the difference in levels. It was impossible for Sika to match Fycro¡¯s speed. She had enough power to beat him to a pulp; the problem was that she was hampered by the inability to use that power.


    Had Sika been able to lock onto Fycro and attack with her metal totem pole, Fycro would have sumbed, despite being a pseudo god.


    Sika wasn¡¯t the only one who was frustrated: Saleen couldn¡¯t keep up with Fycro either. Yet he could see everything Fycro was doing. He just couldn¡¯t move as quickly. Saleen¡¯s power of the soul was hardly any weaker than Fycro¡¯s divine soul after all.


    ¡°Saleen, Fycro¡¯s godly item is a mirror. Your lightning icicles and even that family badge of yours still wouldn¡¯t be able to destroy that thing.¡± Jason¡¯s powers were only marginally weaker than Fycro¡¯s, so he had no need to worry when he was inside the magic tower.


    If only he could step outside and have a showdown with Fycro! Turning around and leaving the area would have been pointless.


    That¡¯s why he decided to cast Endless Night. His goal was to end the fight as fast as possible. If Fycro broke the Endless Night, Jason would have still had the means of dealing with him. But Fycro unexpectedly hunkered down and messed up Jason¡¯s n of attack.


    He knew right away that killing that pseudo god would have been nearly impossible.


    Saleen¡¯s level was of no help. The weapon spirit of his magic amplifier had just advanced to level-13. Despite having sufficiently powerful equipment, hisbat prowess was far inferior to Fycro¡¯s.


    Then, too, Rafel could have fought toe-to-toe with Fycro, but the power expenditure would have been hard to replenish. And what about the millions of believers Fycro had brought to that interdimensional space? He had no intention of killing all the mages on that ne. Those believers were there mainly to provide supremacy to Fycro.


    Even if those believers died in battle, Fycro would be able to collect their souls and send them inside the Mirror of Fate to continue providing the power of faith for him.


    If Saleen couldn¡¯t get rid of Fycro quickly, attrition warfare would result, no doubt with a bleak oue.


    Fycro hovered midair in silence. The starlight in the Endless Night was confusing. No one would have been able to tell the direction.


    Fycro looked down on the mirror in his hand. He was checking the reverse side.


    The starlight still looked confusing, but what Fycro was seeing was not the Endless Night: they were sneaking up on him.


    The ability of astrologers...


    Fycro shuddered. That starlight could do no harm. On the other hand, the constetion power mixed within the starlight would have caused him a lot of trouble if it had entered his body¡ªdespite being a pseudo god!


    If Saleen had cast constetion power, though, he would have left tracks behind. He would not have needed to spend much of his power getting out of the Endless Night by then.


    So, using the godly item came with hefty cost after all. Since Fycro wasn¡¯t a mage, he needed to provide power for his godly item from his own stores.


    A road manifested beneath his feet. That time, it looked narrow and uneven instead of wide and smooth like the Road of Glory. Fycro remained quick on his feet. He traced the tracks of those pursuing starlight and flew ahead.


    Ding...


    A needle flew at him, banging the Mirror of Fate. The needle rattled for a second before letting out a shrill noise. Then it turned around and flew away. Fycro pulled the mirror, which was flying in front of him, with fright. Taking it in his hand, he saw the mirror was so tangled with starlight he could barely make out any images.


    The constetion power Saleen had cast from the Star Gathering Needle muddled the mirror¡¯s ability to see fate.


    The godly item in Fycro¡¯s possession was still powerful though. The constetion power Saleen had cast was gradually absorbed by the Mirror of Fate.


    But then again, constetion power, which possessed the ability to affect fate, would have robbed part of the godly item¡¯s functions before they were absorbed.


    Saleen intended to break the mirror, but the needle he had used with not a level-19, so it was impossible for him to destroy Fycro¡¯s godly item. Through that trial alone, Saleen knew that his teacher was right: If he used his family badge, Fycro might reflect his lightning attack back at him.


    That action would have temporarily damaged Fycro¡¯s godly item; not even magic towers could withstand a reflected lightning attack.


    Jason¡¯s judgment was still stronger than Saleen¡¯s. Saleen inspected the Star Gathering Needle in his hand and noticed its damaged tip. That was a level-18 Star Gathering Needle. That Mirror of Fate did indeed possess the ability to reflect attacks.


    By virtue of the strength of its material alone, the level-18 Star Gathering Needle would not have been damaged; it would have remained intact.


    The ability to reflect an attack was a terrifying thought. Saleen wondered what would happen if he cast the Crystal Finger onto the mirror instead of Fycro and concluded it would have ended up killing him. He thanked his teacher for reminding him of this important detail.


    There was another problem then: If I can¡¯t attack Fycro, will I ever be able to kill him?


    Jason got an answer when Saleen was still pondering this question. Hundreds of mages began to cast magic attacks aimed at Fycro trapped inside Endless Night.


    The size of the mirror in Fycro¡¯s hand expanded tenfold, thereby blocking his whole body. Those magic attacks, regardless of type, were all reflected back to where they came from.


    Fycro wasn¡¯t tracking where the magic attacks had originated at that time. He knew that the starlight Saleen had cast earlier was also a trap.


    Without the protection of that powerful godly item, that thin needle might have injected constetion power into Fycro¡¯s body...and that definitely would have been problematic for his divine fire to dispel in time.


    The truth was, all Saleen¡¯s equipment and skills would have posed a threat to him. Fycro developed a colossal headache just thinking about it.


    But he still refused to leave. While the Endless Night was definitely powerful, it was impossible to trap him. Until he could pinpoint Saleen¡¯s location, Fycro was determined to stay put.


    Even if he used the mirror to break through the Endless Night, the magic tower would have recorded everything, enabling his enemies to peer into the secrets of his godly item.


    If Saleen wanted to tap into this information, the mage would have to pay the price one way or another.


    Fycro decided he didn¡¯t have to kill Saleen right away. Saleen¡¯s teacher, the mage called Jason, was actually capable of casting level-13 magic attacks. Worse still, that level-13 magic attack was powerful enough to morph into a level-14 magic attack.


    The difference between each level after level-13 wasparable to that between one whole rank before level-9, which was essentially a difference of three levels.


    After hundreds of magic attacks were reflected, hundreds more came. All those spells were extremelyplex and did not seem to repeat. Jason was using this type of attack to learn which forms of magic were most effective in deflecting Fycro¡¯s attacks.


    After several rounds of attacks, Jason was able to make that determination, more or less. Dark elemental magic was the toughest one to reflect among all types of elemental magic. Magic spells that were not categorized by elemental types were even harder to resist.


    ¡°Violet Angel!¡±


    The Violet Angel heeded Saleen¡¯s order and began beating the War Drum of Fear. The sound went straight into Fycro¡¯s ear and mind. The Mirror of Fate couldn¡¯t reflect that.


    It was impossible to reflect such skills, and even if someone seeded in doing so, Saleen wouldn¡¯t have been harmed. Because the War Drum of Fear was selective in its attacks, it was not possible for Saleen to use area-of-effect attacks that were indiscriminate in a battlefield setting.


    That would have ended up killing all his soldiers.


    Fycro continued casting over a dozen divine skills that only served to weaken the drum¡¯s attacks instead ofpletely shutting out the attacks.


    Fycro could wait no longer. Saleen¡¯s skill and edge in numbers were too much for him. Fycro had resisted over 1000 attacks in less than 20 seconds. Even though they were essentially harmless, he just couldn¡¯t ignore them.


    The Endless Night was still eating away at his body, forcing him to take out a scroll.


    That scroll had no holy prose on it and was sealed using a rune charm array. Fycro undid the seal and unraveled it. Intense light spread out with him at the center, nullifying the Endless Night around him.


    The very reason Fycro wasted his most powerful level-13 scroll was that he didn¡¯t want to use the Mirror of Fate. That mirror would have been the key to killing Saleen; wasting the scroll was an act of desperation.

 Chapter 1374: Fycro’s Weakness (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1374: Fycro¡¯s Weakness (Part 1)</h4>


    At Fycro¡¯s level, certain powerful skills could be seen at a nce. As long as a skill was below grade-13, its numerous ws could be identified. If such a skill was experienced once, it was easier to detect more ws.


    Strictly speaking, Endless Night was not considered a single skill. It could even be considered a magic array. To see through the magic array, you had to be outside of it. This was impossible to do from deep inside.


    This was the case for mages, too. Divine Protection was a divine rune charm array withparable power. Hence, if mages wanted to break through it, they would have to exert tremendous effort. If Saleen, however, spotted a single spell, Fycro worried it would lose its effect.


    This is because Saleen had cultivated astrology. Even if this was a waste of energy and affected the speed of advancement in magic, astrology had a calctive function. Using astrology, Saleen could figure out the weaknesses of any skills he¡¯d detected andplement them with the Figaro Magic Form.


    The powerful Wrath of Glory caused the grade-13 Endless Night to be torn apart. Fycro took a step forward, and in front of him was Rafel¡¯s spear.


    On the red spear were fine red threads that had condensed. This was a metalcerating skill. The extent of its ferocity could be counted among grade-13 divine spells. The mirror in front of Fycro was once again erected. Rafel¡¯s spear didn¡¯t strike out in the end. Saleen had already warned her about the mirror¡¯s ability to reflect attacks.


    Although it hadn¡¯t been tested on divine spells before, this object would probably be able to reflect divine spells most thoroughly.


    Mages were the enemies of the gods, but the foes the gods mostmonly encountered were, in fact, other gods. If mages wanted to look for divine kingdoms, they would need to expend some effort. On the other hand, once the gods made mutual eye contact with each other, there was practically no room for them to hide their divine kingdoms.


    The wars among gods were even bloodier. Thus, most of them ced the refinement of godly items using other gods as the first in a sequence of goals they aimed to achieve.


    Rafel¡¯sbat skills were finely controlled. For example, the Inferno Spear¡¯s tip was repeatedly unable to touch the Mirror of Fate. Even the distance that the attacks from the spear¡¯s tip could cover coincidentally stopped right before the Mirror of Fate.


    Rafel tossed the spear into her own spatial equipment and retrieved the one Saleen had refined for her. This spear was refined with the bays of the Silverline Golden Spearfish. The six evil-looking eyes on its upper part opened, and the surface of the Mirror of Fate immediately rippled with waves.


    Fycro sensed something wasn¡¯t right. What kind of weapon was this? It was so terrifying that even the Weapon¡¯s Spirit in his godly item could not refrain from expressing its anger.


    With a loud bang, the Mirror of Fate became cleaved by a ymore. Fycro felt that his Weapon¡¯s Spirit was in severe pain following this. It had been the Weapon¡¯s Spirit in that magic amplifier of Saleen¡¯s who waved about its ymore and attacked suddenly.


    The ymore itself was a piece of equipment with no properties. Even when it was being waved about, its power was not that of an ordinary physical attack. Rather, it was the Weapon¡¯s Spirit that had harnessed the weight of the equipment itself to attack by knocking.


    The Mirror of Fate was unskilled in reflecting physical attacks in the first ce. This weapon with no properties even rarer. After being struck with a cleave of the sword, Fycro withdrew the mirror. Rafel followed up by chasing after it like a shadow. It was somewhat difficult for her Inferno Spear to deal with the Mirror of Fate. It seemed as if this spear, which possessed six eyes, was the Mirror of Fate¡¯s natural enemy.


    Fycro withdrew the mirror. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit inside was so furious that it roared. It did not listen to Fycro¡¯smand at all, rushing forward headfirst.


    The spear¡¯s Glowing Spear was fired at the mirror and was reflected. However, when the Glowing Spear was reflected back, it was then absorbed by the six eyes on the tip of the spear. The six eyes were all opened as wide as possible, and the tip of the gray spear turned pitch ck. It pierced the Mirror of Fate.


    The Mirror of Fate¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit had not anticipated this change of the spear. It had protected the surface of the mirror but had not blocked the tip. The spear¡¯s tip entered the space within the mirror, and the six eyes on it shot out a gray glow. Searching all four corners, it quickly located the position of the Weapon¡¯s Spirit.


    From the spear¡¯s tip, a gray aura flew out and pounced on the Weapon¡¯s Spirit.


    The Weapon¡¯s Spirit was also a grade-13 creature that had been suppressed by Fycro. Within the mirror, however, it was able to use its strongestbat ability. The gray shadow rushed forth. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit revealed its true form. It was a divine giant dragon.


    Based onmon knowledge of divine giant dragons, they would not be below grade-14. This divine giant dragon was only grade-13, however. It was smaller as if it had not fully developed and matured.


    This was because the dragon race was unwilling to believe in any gods. Fycro had forcefully captured it and resolutely knocked it down by one rank. Fycro also had no choice. If this Mirror of Fate did not have a powerful Weapon¡¯s Spirit, it would not be able to exhibit one percent of its functions. Creatures with the divine property were also too hard to find.


    Using this divine giant dragon as a Weapon¡¯s Spirit after advancement in the future would be useless. Fycro would not even have to either kill it or to use another Weapon¡¯s Spirit to consume it. This was a rather difficult matter. Fycro could only take things one step at a time.


    The divine giant dragon¡¯s memory had been wiped, and it had been raised from scratch. Yet, it was hard for it to advance and regain grade-14 power. What¡¯s more, it had an instinctive hostility towards evil creatures. The six eyes on the bay of the Silverline Golden Spearfish were even viler than anything it knew. Thus, Fycro was unable to control the divine giant dragon, and the Mirror of Fate had been pierced.


    The materials of the Mirror of Fate could not block the bay of the Silverline Golden Spearfish. At this time, Fycro¡¯s heart ached to death. A lightning-bolt-shaped crack had appeared on the Mirror of Fate. It was because the Mirror of Fate¡¯s materials were sufficiently hard, yet there were some breakages. After it had encountered something that had even harder materials than it, and even bigger crack appeared on it.


    If the Weapon¡¯s Spirit did not die, the godly item could bepletely restored. If the Weapon¡¯s Spirit died, restoring the godly item would be extremely difficult.


    Rafel took her spear and swept it horizontally towards Fycro. A Path of Glory lit up beneath Fycro¡¯s feet. With one step, he moved a distance of 50 kilometers and disappeared without a trace in an instant.


    The magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit held its sword as it stood. It did not participate in the encirclement at all. Rafel nced at the big guy and did not say anything. This Weapon¡¯s Spirit was controlled by Saleen. It seemed that he had long been aware that Fycro harbored the intention to leave.


    If the Weapon¡¯s Spirit attacked using that gold-colored dagger, even if it was unable to kill Fycro, it would definitely be able to wound him.


    Saleen did not wish to reveal this concealed trick of his, hence the Weapon¡¯s Spirit had turned back and jumped back into Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier, no longering back out.


    Rafel also returned into the magical tower. This time Fycro had gone into Pande¡¯s maze, but with Fycro¡¯s strength, even if Saleen wanted to attack again, Fycro would definitely be able to leave the maze.


    It was not as if the longest path within the maze had no end. With Fycro¡¯s skills and incredibly fast movements, even if he barged in, it was not as if he was truly trapped within. At most, Fycro would use the most foolish means to leave. Saleen could not keep on chasing after him in the maze to have a decisive battle with Fycro.


    Rafel returned to the magical tower. On one side, Jason was using a piece of equipment to calcte something. Rafel opened her mouth to ask Saleen, ¡°My lord, why didn¡¯t you first injure that guy?¡±


    ¡°If I injured him, not to mention revealing the secret of the dagger, he would¡¯ve taken my troops to vent his anger. Otherwise, it would¡¯ve been hard for him to be bnced.¡±


    Rafel nodded, indicating that she understood. She was able to ept Saleen¡¯s exnation.


    ¡°Let me take a look at your weapon.¡± Saleen stretched out his hand. Rafel passed her weapon to him, feeling this to be somewhat strange.


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye gazed at the spear. He was only able to see that the six eyes on the spear werepletely shut. The evil aura had be very faint.


    ¡°Rafel, count this spear as destroyed!¡± Saleen sighed.


    The Silverline Golden Spearfish¡¯s bay¡¯s strongest skill was that the six eyes were able to lock onto a target, rendering it unable to resist. Now that the evil power within the six eyes had disappeared without a trace, its targeting power had been lost all at once.


    Yet Rafelughed and said, ¡°My lord, it will be even better without it. Originally, this object was notpatible with my property. If my lord has time, could you help me refine it again to add on some more properties to this spear?¡±


    Rafel now understood Saleen¡¯s temper. As one of the people with the strongestbat ability among Saleen¡¯s subordinates, she was getting Saleen to refine weapons for her.


    ¡°It is not urgent for the time being. I don¡¯t have the materials on hand. The materials of this spear are not bad, but it cannot be refined repeatedly. It would be unfortunate if we got high-grade equipment for you right now.¡±


    Once Rafel heard Saleen¡¯s words, she instead rejoiced. She knew neither alchemy nor divine crafting. She was born for battle. Apart frombat skills, she had not studied anything else. Aside from her Inferno Spear, she only had a few simple pieces of equipment. A poor archangel was a rarity.


    Considering that the gods she had served were all done for, it was fortunate she had not been killed by other gods.


    Saleen rejected Rafel. This was because he wanted to calcte Fycro¡¯s strength with his teacher. The duration of their battle was brief and the useful information they had gained was scanty but sufficient.


    This was 2,881 instances of magical attacks, including magic spells based on the six great elements, mental-based magic spells, curse-based magic spells, life-based magic spells, and death-based magic spells. Even a Caucasus priest had joined in the attacks. Thest was a fallen-divine-spell attack.


    Aside from these, his own Thunder Dragon ster, his Weapon¡¯s Spirit¡¯s golden ymore, Rafel¡¯s spear strikes, and even Endless Night¡¯s corrosive effects and controlling effects¡ªall could be used to calcte Fycro¡¯s strength.


    It¡¯s too bad they were cut off from all information from the Myers Continent. If they were able to contact Floating City, the 100 or so thousand enchanters would be able to calcte everything there was to calcte about Fycro within an hour.


    Mages battled using their brains. This was something Saleen had only recently understood. By analyzing an enemy so thoroughly, the difficulty of going against it would decrease tenfold.


    Although Saleen¡¯s power of the soul wasn¡¯t as strong as the ancient mages, he had the strength of numbers. If Floating Citypleted its final construction and the number of the enchanters exceeded a million, he could easily face them.


    In Rafel¡¯s magical tower, apart from the mages who had participated in the battle, were also many low-grade mages. They watched the entire battle. The wonders that had urred one after another in an instant dazzled these mages and filled them with longing for their future.


    Not all mages liked to battle. Among those in the magical tower at least one-third, especially young mages, were eager to use magic spells to attack and defeat their foes. Although it was easier for mages who invented objects to be remembered by the people, those whose hot-bloodedness hadn¡¯t yet cooled down would still mor for something.


    It was neither reputation nor benefits, but glory: to oppose the gods. No, it was to conquer the gods!

 Chapter 1375: Fycro’s Weakness (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1375: Fycro¡¯s Weakness (Part 2)</h4>


    There were too many poor notes within Rafel¡¯s magical tower. Among the things recorded within the magic notes were many misunderstandings of the skills from the battle between the ancient humans and the gods. Based on the tone of the writings, the mages¡¯ pride was evident from beginning to end.


    Low-grade mages might not be able to understand most of the terminology, but they would definitely grasp the meaning contained within these battles. Humanity had once been neck to neck with the gods, and there was even a time when it stood above them.


    The matter of Myers Continent¡¯s ne¡¯s advancement could beprehended entirely by the mages here. Jason had not concealed it from everyone. This also gave the low-grade mages hope. They no longer held attaining grade-9 as their goal but instead set their sights on a loftier position.


    Thus, even if the cultivating environment of the interdimensional ne was not on par with the Myers Continent¡¯s, the mages¡¯ speed of advancement was faster here. When people had hope, they were different from those who had no hope.


    Arge volume of data had been collected, especially on Fycro¡¯s movements when expanding scrolls. The raw data had surfaced within Saleen¡¯s calctions.


    Fycro had used about half a second¡¯s time to retrieve the scroll. This was not the norm for his level. Even Saleen had faster ways of retrieving his equipment. Furthermore, the duration in which Fycro used this scroll was 18 frames.


    Even if this was already very fast, Saleen still detected a few problems.


    The reason scrolls were valuable was precisely because of their speed and ease of use. This was somewhat slower than an Instant skill. For professionals who didn¡¯t have time to temper their skills, a scroll was often the fastest method to bolster theirbat power.


    Fycro¡¯s speed of using a scroll was that of a beginner.


    ¡°Saleen, Fycro¡¯s skills didn¡¯t keep up with the advancement of his rank.¡± At this time, Jason spoke to Saleen. His sentence underscored the crux of the problem.


    Fycro had just advanced. He still hadn¡¯t internalized many grade-13 skills. Fycro might have even directly advanced from grade-11 to grade-13, which would have kept his shorings hidden.


    Hence, after Fycro became a god, the so-called hidden dangers would also disappear. The only remaining problem would be the failure of hisbat skills to catch up with his rank.


    ¡°Teacher, even if this is the problem, we still can¡¯t kill him. Fycro¡¯s godly item is too weird,¡± Saleen said with some disappointment. Fycro¡¯s Mirror of Fate seemed to be an entity capable of offense and defense. It could more or less reflect all energy attacks. As for physical attacks, although Rafel¡¯s spear had destroyed the surface of the Mirror of Fate, Saleen had a hunch that Fycro would quickly repair it.


    Moreover, when Fycro left, he did not look as if he was facing a crisis at all. That meant he had a way to directly leave Pande¡¯s Maze and would not have to rely on foolish types of methods to leave.


    Just what kind of skills did Fycro have?


    Jason was suddenly ovee with emotion. He used a finger to point at the magic image in front of him. The magic image adjusted its angle and continuously increased the distance of the surveince by more than 500 kilometers.


    Therey the boundary of the forest. An iron-d army was advancing. Protected in the midst of this army was a group of Holy Masters dressed in ck. At the front of the army was Fycro, riding a magic beast.


    Only it wasn¡¯t Fycro!


    Saleen¡¯s looked worried: It was Fycro¡¯s clone.


    The Cloning technique: This was a skill that could only be grasped by a grade-15 god. Fycro had surely grasped it by now, indicating that he definitely had a special godly item.


    ¡°It¡¯s not the Cloning technique...¡± Jason¡¯s voice was steady, with no discernible fluctuations in his emotions. Then he added, ¡°It¡¯s the Incarnating skill. Fycro split himself in two. Each one¡¯s power was pretty much the same, thus the slow speed at which he just used the scroll. That¡¯s because his mental power was insufficient. Controlling a grade-13 scroll will beborious. He would rather slow down the speed of release. Plus, he wanted to let the scroll expand safely.¡±


    The weapon held in the hand of Fycro¡¯s Incarnation was like a curved moon that danced in the air. Wherever it passed, no magic beasts or magical nts could resist. Fycro¡¯s Incarnation used the most brutal methods of cutting a pathway through the forest. The ck-clothed Holy Masters protected by the Holy See¡¯s army released divine spells, killing the trees that had been destroyed. They would no longer be revived.


    By forging a path in this manner, Fycro¡¯s army would be able to pass through the forest in no time.


    Fycro had already entered the Pande¡¯s maze. He had used a foolish way, not the fastest method. In his Incarnation¡¯s hands was also a godly item¡ªthe Moon of Massacre.


    The Mirror of Fate and the Moon of Massacre were a pair of godly items. The reason Fycro was able to cultivate the Incarnating skill was that if there was no Grand-ranked existence surpassing him in that sealed between him and his Incarnation, he could rely on the godly items to move about.


    In other words, if he wanted to escape now, he could use the power of the godly items to return to his Incarnation¡¯s side.


    It was just that he prepared this ability for use when dealing with the Lord of Glory. He was currently only grade-13. If there came a day when the restrictions on the Myers Continent were suddenly lost and the Lord of Glory descended, he might not necessarily be able to attain grade-15.


    Although the Lord of Glory was just a grade-15 god, he was probably the strongest among this level. The number of godly items he had collected was also extremely high. This god¡¯s abilities had been honed by battling other gods of the same grade. He had even exterminated a grade-16 god. In the war of the ancients, the Lord of Glory had not been affected; instead, he had expanded his divine kingdom.


    Once the strongest humans and gods above grade-17 had vanished, the Lord of Glory became a prevailing force: No gods dared to be stationed close to his divine kingdom.


    He consumed anyone close to him, enemies and allies alike.


    Except for me, there can be no other gods! This was not just something the Lord of Glory used to deceive his disciples, it was also a goal he used to inspire himself. He wanted to eradicate all gods and be the first to attain grade-19 on this Crystal Wall system.


    When that time came, all gods would pledge allegiance to him. He would only need to seal away grade-19 power, then he would be unmatched in this Crystal Wall system. Afterward, he could go about preparing to break open, even more, Crystal Wall pathways, lifting up the system of this Crystal Wall system. With no need to enter an even higher grade Crystal Wall system, he could sit back enjoy the fruits of others¡¯bor.


    How could Fycro be so careless in facing such a god?


    With these two godly items, as long as he did not let his Incarnation and his actual body stay at the same ce often, he could escape anytime. Fycro was not an egoist; he didn¡¯t feel capable of shaking up the Lord of Glory¡¯smanding presence.


    Fycro was a realist: He was so realistic that he had calcted everything clearly. When he discovered that Saleen¡¯s strength was beyond his expectations, he immediately withdrew from the battle.


    Among Saleen¡¯s subordinates, there was someone whose strength was at the same level as him.


    Grade-13: This rank was not permitted to appear on the Myers Continent. In the current Myers Continent, the strongest rank allowed was grade-12. Any professionals above that grade had to seal their strength. Only then could they continue living on the Myers Continent.


    For outsiders like Rafel, if the sealing technique was poor, it was easy for them to be punished ording to the rules of the ne.


    Those who were native to the ne were subjected to slightly fewer restrictions. For example, if they broke out once in a while, their punishment was minor. Fycro was precisely in this situation. He was born and bred on the Myers Continent, so he could easily seal his own power. On the Myers Continent, he was a grade-12 professional who was at a peak state.


    The interdimensional space began to grow. The rules in this ce were separate from those of the Myers Continent. Hence, in this interdimensional space, Fycro¡¯s strength could be unrestricted. His decision to advance and be a god was reasonable.


    No matter how good his rtionship was with Saleen, he would want to dissolve the alliance. Both sides had already fallen out with one another. When advancing to be a god and igniting the divine fire, the alliance contract could be incinerated at the same time.


    That is, unless it was a contract branded in the depths of the soul; otherwise, the burning of such divine fire was sufficient to wipe out all low-grade rules. The item Fycro and Saleen had signed was not just some high-grade contract. From the very beginning, Fycro harbored the intention of going back on his word.


    Fycro was unaware that Saleen¡¯s magical tower had been spying on him from more than 500 kilometers away: Every magic beast and every magical nt in this forest served as the magical tower¡¯s eyes. It was not that the magical tower was so mighty that it could directly observe from more than 500 kilometers away!


    Fycro¡¯s method was to let mages possess some abilities of a high-grade mage when they were at a low grade. After advancing to a high grade, they could save on a lot of time spent for limatization.


    Fycro flew down from the sky, readily firing a Spear of Holy Light. He killed a magic beast that pounced up from high in the air and merged with his Incarnation.


    The Mirror of Fate needed repairing; hence, Fycro now used the Moon of Massacre and began to absorb power.


    The Mirror of Fate now absorbed the power of faith of those who prayed. But what the Moon of Massacre absorbed was the power of life from the bodies of targets that had been killed or soul fragments.


    The forest was beingpressed inward as it was being cut down at a speed of 300 meters an hour. Fycro¡¯s ck-clothed Holy Masters applied their skills. Some seemed to be death mages. Under the illumination of the gray glow, it was difficult for any magical creatures to be revived.


    Ever more troops marched in this direction. This time, Fycro concentrated all his power. The Oracle Corps¡¯ concealed tricks had been mobilized by him without hesitation.


    The grade-10 Holy Masters exceeded the Pivotal Council.


    Among the Ascetics were powerful warriors who exceeded grade-9.


    Fycro originally thought such superior power would make it possible to advance to grade-13 and to possess more than four godly items. Wouldn¡¯t it be easy to annihte the mages in interdimensional space?


    It was precisely this stretch of forest that had blocked his path, however. His army was unable to attack. To be precise, he wanted to follow the scale of death he epted in his heart even though it wasn¡¯t possible to enter the forest.


    If he was to attack forcefully while relying on these troops, he would probably lose more than one-third of his forces.


    Because of this, Fycro had no choice but to act personally, relying on his godly items to press ahead.


    After Fycro had taken over, the army¡¯s speed of progression slowed greatly. Fycro¡¯s Moon of Massacre also had an attacking rhythm. They had to wait for the Holy Masters to drive away all lifeforms on the pathway; otherwise, the nts that had been cut down by the godly item would grow back out.


    The magical nts created by Rafel also targeted gods. As a mage, it seemed as if he had a deep hatred of and grudge against the gods.

 Chapter 1376: Extremely Strong Mage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1376: Extremely Strong Mage (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen studied Fycro¡¯s actions within the magic images. The more he looked, the gloomier he felt. Fycro did not take much time to repair his mirror either. This seemed to require little energy.


    ¡°Rafel...¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Give your spear to me. I have to think of a way.¡± Saleen had no choice; he could only target Fycro¡¯s equipment by refining a weapon for Rafel.


    Rafel was the only person with the strength to put up a strong resistance against Fycro. Rafel¡¯s weakness was obvious, however. Without a god behind her to provide support, when facing professionals at the same grade Rafel would basically have to rely on hand-to-handbat in battle. Any other rules or godly items would not be able to withstand consumption.


    Hence, Saleen had to create a piece of equipment for which consumption was no issue for Rafel. At the very least, it could not consume Rafel¡¯s godly power.


    Saleen had not deliberately prepared too much chlorite. He had this item in his possession, but it was impossible to have too much of it. He had only taken note of some chlorite mineral veins in the ocean.


    When he returned this time, he would have to dig out a batch no matter what. Otherwise, Rafel¡¯sbat power would really be insufficient.


    Saleen mentally pondered this as he received the spear. He set about the preparations to refine equipment for Rafel.


    Jason had also stopped doing his calctions. He wanted to refine the equipment with Saleen because he had already perceived Saleen¡¯s thoughts.


    Saleen wanted to personally go forth and attack Fycro at thest moment when Fycro finished opening up a pathway in the forest.


    He could only progress by about 300 meters every hour. The time required to go through the 500-kilometer forest would be rtively long. This was enough for Saleen to refine a powerful weapon. Since Fycro was not in a hurry, Saleen was also not in a hurry.


    In any case, if he did not die, Fycro would not leave this interdimensional space. Saleen knew that Fycro now viewed him as a thorn in his side. As long as he honestly stayed put in interdimensional space, Fycro naturally would not leave either. After all, Fycro had brought along a few million people. Bringing them here was easy; returning would be difficult.


    If Fycro were to leave, these few million people would be picked away by Saleen bit by bit. Not even one would remain.


    Currently, Fycro did not try to attack the magic. There were two reason for this: First, he was worried he would be subjected to the attack of the Death Ray. Second, he didn¡¯t want to anger Saleen into acting against his army. If he knew that he had already wiped out his army, perhaps he would also retaliate against Saleen.


    The bay of the Silverline Golden Spearfish was extremely sharp. Saleen did not even need to add in any metal and was able to satisfy Rafel¡¯s usage requirements. What was important was those six eyes that were shut. Saleen wanted to try to inject energy that could pose a threat to Fycro.


    It was the first time Saleen was analyzing the six eyes on the bay. Under his detailed analysis, he discovered that it was a naturallyplex magic array. Speaking ofplexity, this magic array was really not asplex as the eye itself. The structure of the eye was difficult for any mage to replicate.


    But the six natural magic arrays all imitated the abilities of the eye. Also, they possessed targeting skills. Behind the eyes was a space that was just the right size to store energy. Saleen knew all of this. What he wanted to analyze was how to allow this energy to be triggered.


    He had seen with his own eyes the instant at which the glowing spear had been absorbed. The eye¡¯s structure could amodate various kinds of energy. In other words, if these magic arrays were to expand, they would be able to withstand most of the energy attacks of this word, including magic spells and divine spells.


    Saleen chose his materials prudently. Poisons would be somewhat useless against a god like Fycro. Even the metallic poison or the elemental poison could be dissolved by Fycro before he was poisoned. He was a light-based god, so physical attacks would also have a somewhat limited killing effect against him, unless it was from Nailisi¡¯s Gray Memory.


    As for energy, Saleen had a lot of it. In Nature City, he had collected the Goddess¡¯s godly power, the power of the Spirits of the dead, the abominations¡¯ evil power, and the mages¡¯ elemental power.


    ¡°Rafel, how¡¯s your control over the elements?¡±


    ¡°Not much, my lord. I am an angel. What I am most proficient in using is godly power.¡±


    Saleen heaved a sigh, beginning to retrieve the Goddess¡¯s godly power from his space in order to inject it into the six eyes on the spear. Unexpectedly, the space behind the six eyes was obviously not big, yet after Saleen injected all the Goddess¡¯s godly power he had into it; it felt as if it had not been filled to the brim.


    After being injected with the Goddess¡¯s godly power, the spear turned green. Its upper part was full of the Holy Prose of the Goddess of Nature. Such a change was already somewhat strange. It was as if this bay was not a part of the Silverline Golden Spearfish, but rather a separate creature that was a parasite living on the Silverline Golden Spearfish.


    The six eyes could now be opened once more, but the evil energy was gone. Instead, it was brimming with life as it shined. It was as if the spear was the vine of a nt.


    Only then did Saleen discover that the refining method of Gray Memory had some problems. The materials of this bay were much better than he had imagined. If they had been refined with the correct technique, Nailisi¡¯sbat power would be increased by leaps and bounds.


    The six eyes had appeared evil. This was because of the unknown object concealed inside it. Now that object had entered Fycro¡¯s godly item, and the Goddess of Nature¡¯s godly power had been injected into the eye. Immediately, the spear appeared to take on some of the Goddess of Nature¡¯s properties.


    If this item had been given to mages in order to create a magic staff, the six great elements could aptly be tossed into the eyes. At that time, it would be as if...as if the mage possessed six clones of himself.


    What about Nailisi? Nailisi would also have powerful skills. If the power of lightning could be stored inside the eyes, it would bepatible with Nailisi¡¯s Lightning Protection. Otherwise, it could allow Nailisi¡¯s human form to be a mage. Nailisi would then be a lightning-based mage.


    This was indeed an immensely strong weapon. It could contain any type of energy and change its property anytime.


    Saleen already could not bear to continue refining any further. He nced at his teacher. Jason smiled and said, ¡°Just do whatever you want. We still have some of these eyes in our possession; it¡¯s just that they¡¯re defective and iplete.¡±


    Saleen immediately saw the light. He had even higher grade Silverline Golden Spearfish bays in his possession. It was just that they were all iplete. It was only because he had previously made the wrong judgment towards these materials that he felt they were useless.


    With these eyes, it was enough for him to refine even stronger equipment, and he would not need to use Rafel¡¯s spear to conduct some tests.


    However, an evil power was stored within these eyes. The degree of evilness surpassed the Heretic God¡¯s abominations.


    Saleen made a decision on the spot and retrieved a piece of equipment. It was the Mysticube that Gaine had given to him. The items stored within the Mysticube consisted entirely of sterite. Saleen transferred the sterite into his Ring of Cosmos. Then he retrieved arge number of bay fragments and selected 27 of the highest grade fragments. At this point, he didn¡¯t know how to best proceed.


    Jason said, ¡°Pass them to me.¡±


    Saleen nodded. From Jason¡¯s body, Rings of Water and Fire flew out, tossing the fragments inside one by one. The eyes on these fragments had originally been shut. After they had fallen within the Rings of Water and Fire, all the eyes immediately opened. Their evil aura caused Saleen to feel as if the Heretic God had descended upon this interdimensional space.


    But Jason did not give these eyes any chances. He directly used two types of Alchemy techniques that were unparalleled in strength to force out the evil energy within the eyes. What flew out from them was a type of gray aura that condensed.


    Jason retrieved a square box. He quickly put away the ball of gray aura in it, then he added a seal onto the box.


    After putting away the box, Jason tossed the 27 fragments that were already empty to Saleen and said, ¡°They can be used now.¡±


    Saleen nodded and extended his Water me Alchemy technique. He began to refine the Mysticube and the 27 fragments at the same time.


    The space within the Mysticube was not small. When it wasbined with the eyes, each space immediately expanded. Saleen had unknowingly used a secret technique. The Mysticube¡¯s 27 faces turned into 27 eyes and grouped together. It was extremely bizarre.


    Saleen became even more intelligent with his good fortune. He retrieved the magic amplifier at the same time and tossed it into the Water mes.


    ¡°Saleen...¡±


    After Jason had opened his mouth, he extended his zing me Soul-refining Technique to help Saleen refine the magic amplifier. The difficulty was too great and not something that Saleen could grasp.


    The Weapon¡¯s Spirit within the magic amplifier flew out in a panic with its ymore in its hand, feeling somewhat perplexed. Just now, he had felt that his life was being threatened. The zing mes extended by Jason were evidently able to melt him into nothingness.


    This caused him to shudder with fright. Saleenforted, ¡°No need to be afraid. You have my protection. Your soul will not be exterminated.¡±


    Only then did the Weapon¡¯s Spirit recall that the essence of his soul could bepletely retracted into the broken jade.


    Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier was a sphere formed by joining 24 ck crystals. Now that the equipment that the Mysticube had changed was alsobined into the magic amplifier, of the 27 eyes, 24 of them had been merged into the ck crystals. The other three floated in the center of the sphere.


    Jason sighed. Saleen had refined a true godly item quickly. This item was much more powerful than Seven Nights.


    Let¡¯s go all out!


    A booming sound was suddenly emitted from within Jason¡¯s body. Saleen felt as if thunderbolts were crashing and exploding inside his teacher¡¯s body.


    Saleen looked on, stunned, as Jason¡¯s magic chords grew until they were outside his body. Only two colors represented the water and fire element. Was Jason actually not a mage for which the six great elements were in equilibrium?


    Also, he had as many as eight magic chords.


    Wait, Jason had advanced? Advanced to grade-13?


    ¡°Saleen, since I have advanced, my power cannot be sealed and I cannot return to the Myers Continent. Hence, killing Fycro for you here is thest thing I can do for you. If you have any questions in the future, you can onlye here to look for me.¡± Jason said helplessly.


    He still knew of some ces on the Myers Continent that had not been searched; their importance was not lower than that of the Imperial City of the Abyss. But for his student¡¯s sake, he could only bring forward his advancement.


    Saleen was stunned. Jason could actually have advanced to grade-13 any time. What notion was this?


    His own speed of advancement was swift because he had gained numerous treasures and possessed sources of knowledge that were unimaginable to others. He had the grade-18 Gaine who was willing to open a path for him. If it was ancient times and he had such an opportunity, it would not even be strange for him to be directly promoted to grade-15. But what about Jason? He didn¡¯t have anything at all and only relied on his own cultivation, yet he had already attained such a level?


    Saleen was extremely clear that in his teacher¡¯s possession, apart from a piece of spatial equipment that was exceptionally strong, there were only the Rings of Water and Fire.

 Chapter 1377: Extremely Strong Mage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1377: Extremely Strong Mage (Part 2)</h4>


    Was the might of a secret technique really this powerful?


    When Saleen first heard that Jason, his teacher, had advanced to grade-13, his heart shook more intensely than the first time he stepped inside a temple.


    Jason was the hero of Saleen¡¯s heart. This respectful rtionship, established when Saleen was young, had deepened with each passing year. Undoubtedly, Jason had his own background, but his inheritance was not considered particrly strong.


    Saleen did not know who Jason¡¯s teacher was. He only knew that when he was close to death, he was just a grade-9 mage. He also knew that during the recent millennium, he had not produced any strong mages.


    During Jason¡¯s generation, this changed.


    Jason had studied a secret skill, or technique, on his own without any guidance from others. He was only able to do a little bit of research based on notes. Saleen too had also studied a secret skill and knew firsthand how demanding this undertaking was. The world and the skills described in the secret technique were esoteric, unlike any cultures Saleen knew.


    For thousands of years, the Grukos family had conducted research to systematically gain control of, and own, all kinds of secret techniques. Jason had researched alone for a few decades, but his achievements were impressive. To say that he was the strongest mage in the world was no exaggeration.


    As soon as Jason advanced to grade-13, the sound became louder and louder. When the elemental storm formed inside the magical tower, Jason confined it to a safe area. Then his eight magic chords popped out, slowly absorbing the energy within the elemental storm.


    Saleen saw that Jason was using the power of the elemental storm to infuse his magic chords. This was unheard of. In magical notes, Saleen had seen many descriptions of what it was like to advance to grade-13, but there was nothing like what Jason was experiencing.


    Amid the Rings of Water and Fire, a boom crashed incessantly, like Thundering Sound. With his own eyes, Saleen witnessed the rapid growth of the Weapon¡¯s Spirits within the two sets of magic amplifiers. Except for what was used to infuse his magic chords, Jason sent the rest of the power to the magic amplifiers for the two Weapon¡¯s Spirits to consume.


    Naturally, they grewrger. One was a fire-type elemental spirit; the other, a water-type elemental spirit. What an aplishment! Even in ancient times, few mages possessed such a mighty Weapon¡¯s Spirit.


    The two Weapon¡¯s Spirits experienced the might of Jason¡¯s magic amplifier, which was more than four times that of Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier. A grade-9 mage who had a magic amplifier from the beginning would be able to oppose a few magical towers. Once Jason had this item, directly attacking a magical tower would be no big deal.


    As the power of the Rings of Water and Fire increased, the magic amplifier in the zing me Soul-refining Technique and the Water me Alchemy technique began to transform.


    A strange sphere formed out of 24 eyes. When these eyes were shut, the sphere disappeared into the thin air. When the eyes were open, the sphere re-appeared a sh.


    In the center of the sphere were three eyes arranged in a triangle. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit had already gone into one of the eyes, while Dante went into another. The third eye was empty. Saleen had already decided to let Floating City¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit enter it.


    The capabilities of these three Weapon¡¯s Spirits were simr; Jason¡¯s magic amplifier was also grade-13. From now on, Floating City, the Lightning Constetion and Jason¡¯s magic amplifier would bebined into one entity, the crown jewel of the mage¡¯s equipment.


    Three powerful Weapon¡¯s Spirits were integrated in this equipment. They possessed elemental magic spells together with the rules of lightning magic spells. Also, within the 24 eyes, 24 more Weapon¡¯s Spirits could be contained, and the power could be absorbed together.


    From the type of sterite, it could be deduced that the 27 spacesprised all the supreme rules of this Crystal Wall system.


    For the sake of modeling this piece of equipment, Jason had no choice but to advance to grade-13 in order to execute it with all his power. But even if Saleen had the Genesis Stock Solution, 12-dimensional metal and Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water, he would still have been able toplete alchemy of high difficulty.


    The 27 eyes blinked at Saleen¡¯s back. Strangely, once the eyes opened, the magic amplifier appeared in a fish. When the eyes closed, it disappeared without a trace.


    Saleen¡¯s equipment was not yet fused with Floating City, though. This was because he did not have the power to do this. After attaining grade-13, he would be able to do it with difficulty. For now, however, the magic amplifier had already transformedpletely. The magic spells Saleen used could now be applied without having to use the magic amplifier directly, and they would naturally be strengthened.


    The 24 eyes corresponded to the six great elements differently. Furthermore, this was for the four types of states of the six great elements. The three eyes in the center were the strongest. Two of them already had Weapon¡¯s Spirits. One continued to control the magic amplifier, while the other was Dante, who was in the Lightning Constetion.


    The two Weapon¡¯s Spirits were united. Eight balls of lightning appeared individually at the two eyes in the center of the magic amplifier. Of the 16 balls of lightning, eight were ck and eight were white. Floating around in each eye, they resembled bizarre-looking pupils.


    Yet Saleen knew that this time the might of the balls of lightning had increased dozens of times. They would more or less possess a tenth of the power of the balls of lightning that existed in nature. Such power was beyondpare.


    Though Saleen couldn¡¯t advance the way Jason did, he had powerful equipment and even the Power of the Soul; only a grade-13 professional had these things. Jason must have already obtained the Power of the Soul. Both parties were equally adept at operating the equipment.


    Unfortunately, Jason did not really like having so much equipment. Saleen thought this was unfortunate. Jason only possessed the Rings of Water and Fire. Compared to what Saleen had, this seemed shabby.


    Jason¡¯s study of magic, however, had developed to a more profound level. Likewise, his speed of advancement also surpassed Saleen¡¯s. This might be the advantage of focusing on magic. If Jason had equipment as powerful as his, Saleen felt his teacher could fight with Fycro directly.


    As if reading Saleen¡¯s thoughts, and without missing a beat, Jason smiled slightly and said, ¡°Saleen, the current me can kill Fycro. His umtion might not be as firm and deep as mine. If we¡¯re talking about equipment, my Rings of Water and Fire aren¡¯t inferior to his godly items. It¡¯s just that...¡±


    ¡°Just that what?¡± Once Saleen heard Jason guarantee that he would be able to defeat Fycro, he rejoiced! Jason would not talk in circles or exaggerate his strength.


    ¡°What Fycro has cultivated is Divine Spell Incarnation. If one of them is killed, the other one will help revive the incarnation unless we kill the two of them. It¡¯ll be a real nuisance if we don¡¯t.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take Rafel to deal with one. You take care of the other one.¡± Saleen immediately made up his mind.


    ¡°Alright, we both have magic amplifiers. We don¡¯t need to rely on magical towers. Now, Fycro¡¯s army has already broken through arge part of the forest...¡±


    ¡°What!¡±


    From the side of the room, Rafel said, ¡°My lord, Fycro¡¯s side has increased its speed. To refine equipment, both of you have taken a total of six days and four hours.¡±


    Rafel rushed to give an answer because she knew that Saleen wanted to ask her about the time. Unknowingly, a rapport developed between them. Saleen knew that such rapport was not really helpful in battle, but it was because of this rapport that Rafel and he became familiar with one another and had few misunderstandings.


    The interactions between people required a reason, and also required fate. Between Saleen and Rafel, it was originally a trade, but after Saleen¡¯s exchanges over these small matters, they had be harmonious.


    Rafel felt that Saleen had some childish ways. To his credit, he was easy to get along with and not at all high and mighty as some gods were. She had no patience for that! She was mostfortable with a temperament like Saleen¡¯s. She already considered herself a part of Metatrin.


    The world was vast, but there was really nowhere else she could go.


    Although she had a strong grade-13 body, without the gods Rafel had found it hard to adapt to the state of having a continuous consumption of energy. Yet she found it exceptionally difficult to replenish it. Saleen was even able to provide her with godly power, although it was not suitable for her.


    Rafel shook the spear in her hands. Saleen still had not continued to refine this piece of equipment, but what she had was sufficient. Within the spear was stored arge amount of godly power. This was enough for her to usevishly for a while.


    Saleen¡¯s Nature City still had crowds of disciples. He had tantly stolen godly power and no one stopped him. After all, the Nature Faith¡¯s Pope, oracles and temple knights had been established by Saleen¡¯s hand. These people were almost like his followers. No, not followers exactly....just weirdos who had pledged allegiance to him.


    ¡°Saleen, of Fycro¡¯s two godly items, you deal with that crescent moon-shaped weapon. I will deal with Fycro¡¯s mirror. That crescent moon-shaped weapon is super powerful. For the past few days, the mages have been analyzing it constantly. No equipment below grade-12 will be able to withstand it at all; it¡¯ll be cut into two.¡±


    Saleen nodded, indicating he understood. In other words, his Water Shield would not be able to block the attacks of this godly item. Even if he had the Figure of Fate, he would probably be wounded. When facing Fycro, getting wounded was equivalent to death.


    Even if he had a skill like the Crystal Finger, Fycro would definitely dare to trade a life for a life with him. Fycro had the clone and wouldn¡¯t be afraid of his fatal attacks.


    The important thing was that his n badge was ineffective against that mirror, but was able to deal with that crescent moon-shaped weapon.


    What Saleen feared was the mirror¡¯s reflection. The mages had already analyzed the crescent moon-shaped weapon. Its power was focused on attacking; its sharpness was without equal. Maybe Saleen¡¯s gold-colored dagger was up to the task. On the other hand, his operation of weaponry was not as seasoned as Fycro¡¯s. Therefore it wasn¡¯t practical to have a head-on sh with him.


    The best method for targeting Fycro¡¯s clone was his strong Power of the Soul followed by the n badge to st him to death


    ¡°Fycro and his clone won¡¯t be in the same ce. Saleen, take Rafel and go. Don¡¯t do anything till you hear from me. If I don¡¯t act, don¡¯t you act either. We have to attack at the same time, then we¡¯ll be able to hit our target.¡± Jason did everything in his power to keep Saleen focused and on task. He worried Saleen would be rash and ruin the n.


    It was likely that Fycro¡¯s two bodies could swiftly travel back and forth between each other. Once one encountered an enemy, the other would have toe to his aid, creating a situation of two against one.


    ¡°Understood.¡± Saleen was getting excited. The surface of his body gave off a mist, wrapping Rafel within it. Together, they flew out of the magical tower.


    ¡°My lord, are you so certain?¡± Rafel sounded doubtful. Why did he have to put himself in danger?


    ¡°No, but we have to kill him. I¡¯m totallymitted to that.¡± Saleen replied. A mage with his origins could not be afraid of setbacks. Advancing bravely would purify his mental state and make his advancement easier. If he hesitated or withdrew in fear, the path of magic would be exceedingly difficult.

 Chapter 1378: Persuade to Stay (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1378: Persuade to Stay (Part 1)</h4>


    It turned out that Saleen¡¯s slow advancement was rted to his personality. After being enlightened by Jason, he went to the Imperial City of the Abyss once to temper his resolve. That did the trick. Since then, Saleen¡¯s advancement saw some improvement. Although it stillgged behind some genius mages, the change was astonishing for someone of his innate talent.


    This time, Saleenbined all the equipment he took pride in; he no longer wanted to have so many possessions. He did this for the sake of focusing on his progression, something he had learned from his teacher.


    Saleen brought Rafel with him. Their bodies were wrapped in mist as they flew towards the forest. By this time, the magical tower was already under Jason¡¯s control. Pande¡¯s Maze could not obstruct Saleen, so he flew directly above the maze.


    Finally, he arrived above the forest. When his Elemental Eye focused on the Holy See¡¯s army, he descended. This forest was so different from other forests Saleen usually went to. There were a lot of rivers running through it. This meant there would be frequent downpours here. This was just bad weather that would frequently ur when the ne was expanding.


    Windstorms, downpours, earthquakes, volcanoes...


    These disturbances would destroy life; at the same time, they were the originators of life. Without them, a great variety of living creatures would vanish. As Saleen descended, he secretly felt joyful. Above the forest were the initial stages of water vapor forming into clouds. He estimated it would take a few days for them to break up.


    The forest was teeming with powerful magic beasts. They had no notion of territoriality and only resorted to hunting when they were starving. These magic beasts were controlled by the magical tower. In the mind of each magic beast was a magic array and magic patterns. Created for battle, the beasts¡¯ innate skills were formidable. Rafel¡¯s various skills were alsoplex, causing Saleen to sigh as he looked on.


    He could perform Alchemy. This was also only possible thanks to the secret technique Jason taught him. If he¡¯d gone by the book, Saleen estimated he would still be inferior to an ordinary alchemist.


    When the magic beasts spotted Saleen, they cleared the way for him, one after another. This saved Saleen a lot of time.


    ¡°Master...¡± The magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit cried out.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I can...let you go into stealth,¡± The Weapon¡¯s Spirit said hesitantly.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°Master, what I mean is, I can cover your tracks, just like that dagger. Fycro definitely cannot see through it.¡±


    Saleen was again delighted and said, ¡°Let¡¯s do it.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    The Weapon¡¯s Spirit went to work. Saleen felt that a subtle vibrating frequency transmitted from the magic amplifier was surrounded him. Immediately, the objects in his vision became blurred, then clear again. The difference is that there were no colors, just ck and white.


    In this ck-and-white image, the target he was looking at came into sharper focus. It could be seen clearly at different levels.


    ¡°Rafel.¡±


    ¡°My lord, I cannot see you. If you don¡¯t speak, even my perception cannot detect you.¡± Rafel swiftly replied. Now, when Saleen opened his mouth, she already knew what he wanted to say.


    ¡°Even a grade-13 angel cannot detect me. Even if the gods have slightly more power, if they¡¯re unprepared for any reason, they won¡¯t be able to detect my presence. Hmm, but we can¡¯t drop our guard. It would be right for such power to have limitations.¡±


    ¡°Master, this power cannot be used infinitely. If light is present, the power can be maintained for a short period of time. In darkness, it can hide from night vision and be maintained for more than an entire day.¡±


    ¡°Give me more details.¡±


    The Weapon¡¯s Spirit, which was not familiar with Saleen, gave some vague figures. Saleen was dissatisfied.


    ¡°Light is divided into 12 intensities. With each added intensity, the effective time of such skills will be reduced by an hour. Under grade-12 intense light, such concealment will be ineffective,¡± The Weapon¡¯s Spirit said as he canceled the stealth skill.


    ¡°How often can I use this?¡±


    ¡°This consumes your mental power, master. I suggest that you only use it for a short while just before you are assassinated.¡±


    Only then did Saleen realize that the speed of loss of his Power of the Soul had increased slightly. If it had been his original mental power, he would have discovered this long ago. However, the Power of the Soul was peerless in strength, and the speed of its consumption was slow. He was still not too familiar with such power and had not discovered it now.


    ¡°Understood. Rafel, we¡¯ll move ahead and wait for five kilometers from Fycro.¡± Rafel nodded. This time, Saleen wanted to prepare for an ambush. Using the steal skill for the assassination was only ast resort. Although they were still 50 kilometers apart, Saleen had already retrieved his n badge.


    Shoot first and see. It would be best if he could shoot Fycro¡¯s clone to death. If not, this attack would cause Fycro to be preupied and lose sight of other things. He would be less likely to cause trouble for Jason.


    In Saleen¡¯s opinion, it would be even harder for Fycro to defeat the Fycro who possessed the mirror godly item.


    With Jason¡¯s personality, he would definitely not leave a powerful enemy to his student. Were it not for the fact that Fycro¡¯s skill was unique, Jason would never allow Saleen to act. He would deal with it alone.


    Because they were both at grade-13, the Fycro who possessed the godly item really could not be considered a powerful enemy of Jason¡¯s. He was just troublesome to deal with.


    Saleen thought, since when did he have the same degree of confidence as Jason?


    Without the envelopment of the stealth skill, the world regained its colorful appearance. Saleen could still continue to sneak around. His Quickcloud Spell could not only be used for flight, but it could also condense around his body in a mist. This was a dense water element.


    Rafel was also concealed within the mist. Saleen relied on water element to conceal his body, while Rafel¡¯s was a battle instinct. Her steps were soundless. If Saleen wanted to achieve this, he would need to have both his legs leave the ground and rely on elemental power to slowly move forward. Once he moved quickly, strong people would discover that a mage was concealed within the mist.


    There was still a distance of 50 kilometers; the pair¡¯s conversation would not reveal their position. Saleen said to Rafel, ¡°If you keep on refusing to believe in the gods, will your rank fall?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ll slowly turn into a fallen angel. Or I could be a grade-13 human. It will just be impossible for me to advance.¡±


    ¡°You should give it a try...¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t learn magic. It¡¯s impossible for magic chords to form in my body.¡±


    Once Saleen heard this, he knew that the martial arts of humans would also be impossible for Rafel to learn. Since it was impossible for her to cultivate magic chords, it would simrly be impossible for her to cultivate a sword aura. Even if Rafel¡¯s outer appearance was the same as humans, it was useless. It was the same with Nailisi. Without incarnating as a human, she could not learn the skills of humans.


    ¡°I have a secret technique. It¡¯s just that my understanding of it is not too deep. If you are willing to learn, I can teach you.¡±


    ¡°My lord, a human¡¯s secret technique...isn¡¯t that something that can¡¯t be imparted easily?¡± Rafel asked doubtfully.


    ¡°Mm, you can be my follower. Also, the secret technique I¡¯ll impart cannot be cultivated by me. You will need to feel your way through it yourself.¡±


    ¡°What is this secret technique?¡± Rafel asked curiously.


    ¡°I know that angels don¡¯t have a soul. After cultivating this secret technique, you can form a soul. In other words, you can at least be a death mage.¡±


    ¡°Oh, a death mage...¡± Rafel chuckled. This wasn¡¯t much. In the beginning, the Metal God had once annihted a divine kingdom of undead. The undead could also be a god. It was just that it wasparatively more challenging for them.


    If she became a death mage, she would have to deal with that group of bone racks. Rafel was not even sure what kind of life-form she counted as. Maybe she was a woman. At the very least, she felt somewhat ufortable facing the undead.


    ¡°You can also be a Fallen Holy Master. First, go and believe in the Myers Goddess. Then, abandon the faith and it will beplete,¡± Saleen tempted.


    ¡°My lord, why do you want me to be able to continue advancing? Could it be that you still don¡¯t have enough helpers by your side?¡± Rafel¡¯s question was extremely direct. It was also the angels¡¯ style of contemting problems. The gods created angels non-stop for the sake of war. Why did Saleen need so many followers?


    ¡°Because...only a few people can continue advancing. I don¡¯t like feeling lonely when there¡¯s no one to talk to by my side.¡± Saleen had not randomlye up with a reason, but this was not what he really felt.


    In his future, there would probably be many days where he would have to go to battle with the gods. Rafel was an angel and was much more familiar with the gods¡¯ weaknesses than he was. With Rafel as his helper, he would be able to avoid the deaths of numerous warriors.


    But saying things like this was probably far too tactless.


    ¡°Even if what you say is true, I am already weary. After helping you kill Fycro, I want to leave.¡± Rafel¡¯s gaze shed. Since Saleen was walking in front of her, he didn¡¯t see it.


    ¡°Leave? Is there anyone by my side who¡¯s caused you to feel ufortable?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s just that I need more rity about what I want to do. I want to explore this world by myself.¡±


    Saleen didn¡¯t know what to say. Should he say that he was afraid Rafel would face danger? At least within the next few years, Rafel wouldn¡¯t have that many people who would be her match on the Myers Continent.


    ¡°Of course, if you want me to stay, I won¡¯t leave,¡± Rafel added.


    Saleen could not help asking, ¡°Why now? The metal angels already have a ce to call home. Even if you leave, I¡¯ll still treat them well.¡±


    ¡°If you just want me to stay and it¡¯s not for the sake of anything else, I will give you my word. This will be meaningful.¡± Saleen did not understand what Rafel was saying. He was not Rafel. He did not understand how angels felt after losing their god.


    ¡°Of course, I want you to stay...¡± After Saleen finished speaking, he felt somewhat regretful. He felt his tone was not sincere enough. He coughed and said, ¡°It¡¯s not like that. I hope you can help me do battle. You¡¯ll be one of myrades, just like J and the others. I¡¯m willing to witness your continued growth and possession of a soul. There are no other reasons. It¡¯s because I¡¯m a mage. I like seeing a world that¡¯s overflowing with life, and I like to see people who are full of hope.¡±


    ¡°Mm, my lord, I¡¯ll leave this matter and put it aside. When the timees when I want to leave, you can think of how to persuade me further. Perhaps you will no longer need a grade-13 angel like me.¡±


    Saleen instantly became solemn and said, ¡°Very well. I hope you¡¯ll not be like Nailisi.¡±


    ¡°Like Nailisi?¡± Rafel asked curiously.


    ¡°Mm, when I met her, it was only because I tricked her into signing a Soul Bond contract. But in the beginning, if I hadn¡¯t frightened her, she could have eaten me. Otherwise, the rtionship between the two of us would be reversed and

 Chapter 1379: Persuade to Stay (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1379: Persuade to Stay (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°You mean really would have be Nailisi¡¯s ve?¡± To Rafel, this was inconceivable.


    ¡°Yes. At that time I was only level-1. Even if Nailisi was down to herst breath, she could have still eaten me up. If she had exerted some effort, she could have defeated me,¡± Saleen said slowly as he recalled his first encounter with Nailisi.


    ¡°When did this happen?¡±


    ¡°Around 10 years ago,¡± Saleen replied. His answer was imprecise because of the century he spent in the temple and his stint in the Astrology Tower, where the passage of time was different from the Myers Continent. He could no longer calcte exactly when this happened.


    ¡°How enviable. In a decade¡¯s time, you¡¯ve attained power that poses a threat to me. Is this humanity?¡± Rafel sighed. She had already lived a few million years. If the gods hadn¡¯t died, she would have continued to live on. As for the present, even if she could no longer advance, she could probably still live a few million years.


    She didn¡¯t understand the meaning of life. She knew nothing about struggle, pain, frustration.


    The pair kept moving ahead. Saleen suddenly sensed a magnificent force within the power. It originated from the magical tower, which was connected to everything in the forest. No wonder Fycro¡¯s attack had been so challenging. The forest was part of the magical tower.


    When Rafel first arrived in this interdimensional space, she wracked her brain to design this magical tower. It was considered a miracle. For many years after its death, the forest grew, the magic beasts multiplied, the magical tower continued to fulfill its purpose.


    Such calction abilities embarrassed Saleen. Even though he gathered all the enchanters right now, he would not be able to arrive at this point.


    Rafel also felt this peculiarity. The spear in her hands channeled a strange vibration, causing her heartbeat to follow the pulsing of the spear. She was thinking about rejecting it when strange objects resembling twigs began growing on the spear, gently twining around her hands.


    A wonderful feeling permeated through Rafel¡¯s body. It was like when the gods had just created her and she had not yet needed to battle. At the time, the angels all lived in a huge metal ball, like humans in their mother¡¯s abdomen.


    From the six eyes on the spear, godly power rushed to her insides. This was different from the Metal God¡¯s godly power. Nature godly power was peaceful and inoffensiveness. It was godly power that was entering Rafel¡¯s body. Not only did it not cast out the parts within her body where some of the Metal God¡¯s godly power remained, it even restored body parts that had been injured in battle.


    Rafel had experienced far too many battles: She lost count of how many she had fought in.


    The Metal God was unique: It could evolve without consuming other gods. But the other gods woulde to attack the Metal God¡¯s divine kingdom. The position of the Metal God¡¯s divine kingdom had been favorable, thus the Metal God would also let the angels clear out the dangerous divine kingdoms nearby at fixed intervals. Once there was a god who had evolved, angels like Rafel would rush over as quickly as possible.


    Eliminating countless kingdoms¡ªThat had been Rafel¡¯s life.


    The Metal God was not skilled in healing. It was difficult healing the metal angels. Their tough bodies appeared to be perfect, but in reality, they were filled with scars from long ago.


    The godly power of the Goddess of Nature was healing Rafel¡¯s old injuries. She felt that her body was about to regain the status of a battle angel but strongly suppressed it. It was precisely in this state that she permitted the Goddess of Nature¡¯s godly power to flow within her body and even modify her body structure.


    The six sets of power became greater and greater, putting Rafel¡¯s body into order one time. Because she had not regained the appearance of a battle angel, her body was strongly set into its previous state.


    ¡°Finally, I can stop changing back and forth.¡± Rafel smiled slightly, feeling the power in her body.


    Though the power surge was not great, the godly power had not been wasted at all. It was stored in her heart. Her body also became moreplete. Every inch of its structure was under her control. She could now mobilize the entirety of her power to engage in battle.


    Born a battle angel, Rafel was sensitive to the structure of her body, because she knew that the Metal God would not give her any more power. Rafel directly changed her image into its previous appearance. Even the bones in her body changed ordingly. They had originally been silver-gray but were now permeated with green-tinged Holy Prose. These were the words of the Goddess of Nature.


    Angels had no marrow in the hollow of their bones: they had crystallized godly power. Bones that had originally been empty were now brimming with greenish crystals.


    ¡°How do you feel?¡± Saleen discovered the transformation of Rafel.


    ¡°From now on, I can also tap on the Goddess of Nature¡¯s godly power, but...¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯re still an angel. Since you belong to a different godly race, you¡¯ll be the first to be discovered by the Goddess of Nature. Isn¡¯t that right?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Mm.¡± Rafel felt a bit dejected. Humans could steal the gods¡¯ power and it was hard for them to be detected, but she couldn¡¯t do that. Once she stole a god¡¯s power, she immediately incited a god¡¯s wrath.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter. The Goddess of Nature won¡¯te looking for trouble with you. If she tries pulling a stunt like that, I¡¯ll whack her,¡± Saleen jeered while smiling.


    ¡°Really?¡± Rafel looked full of disbelief.


    ¡°Have you ever seen a mage lie?¡±


    ¡°Alright, but, I don¡¯t understand...¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to understand? With this power, you¡¯ll slowly be more enriched and able to many more things,¡± Saleen continued to tempt her.


    ¡°That¡¯s true. Alright, I won¡¯t leave for the time being. Let¡¯s talk about that after we get rid of Fycro.¡± Rafel felt reinvigorated. Originally, when the gods had died, her heart had died with them. Now, another path was opening: to continuously steal godly power to obtain evolution.


    For that to happen, however, she needed to stay with Saleen. Humans had many means with which to steal godly power, and the danger was also low. Most of the time, the gods would leave such matters unresolved. If she really was to steal godly power rashly, Saleen had said it nicely. Would he really kill a god for her sake?


    Sigh, Saleen. He wanted her to stay behind and do battle for him. What was the difference between this and the gods? The gods had controlled her basically for their sake. Apart from battle, what else did she know?


    Unknowingly, the sound of Rafel¡¯s footsteps had be one with the sounds of the forest. This forest was not dead. It teemed with life. The winds blew. The creeks flowed. The magic beasts howled. These soundsbined with the sound of Rafel¡¯s footsteps, bing indiscernible from one another.


    In the beginning, she relied on these sounds to cover the slight sounds released from her movements. Now, she did not have to do anything. In Saleen¡¯s midst, it was as if she had disappeared.


    It had often been said that the assassins who were the Goddess of Nature¡¯s subordinates were the strongest. This was true. The Goddess of Nature¡¯s assassins possessed the power to meld with nature. This was even more formidable than Saleen¡¯s lone stealth skill.


    Even Saleen hadn¡¯t known there would be such a change. When he had injected godly power into Rafel¡¯s spear, his only hope was that Rafel would be able to use her strongestbat abilities to make it slightly safer for them to ambush Fycro.


    When they were five kilometers from him, Saleen stopped.


    ¡°Rafel, Fycro will focus on a distance of about two and a half kilometers ahead. After this distance is passed, the earth will hide all information from me and the effectiveness will be limited if you try to search for it. Let¡¯s wait here. If there are any movements from Jason¡¯s side, then we will make a move.¡±


    ¡°Five kilometers...¡±


    ¡°If hees closer, say three kilometers, we¡¯ll fall back ording to Fycro¡¯s speed. If Jason doesn¡¯t make a move, we will.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord.¡± Before a battle, Rafel used an extremely respectful tone to address Saleen. Even if she felt he was weak, she also had to respect the battle. Furthermore, Saleen was really weak: he was a mage worthy of respect.


    Saleen¡¯s territorial power had not expanded. Once it did, Fycro would sense this. He was also making use of the forest¡¯s power to figure out Fycro¡¯s position. The n badge was in his hands. No matter what time Fycro encountered Jason, he would be able to release the power of lightning at the fastest time possible.


    Saleen was unsure whether Fycro could be killed. At least they would be able to destroy one of Fycro¡¯s godly items.


    That crescent moon-shaped weapon was too scary. If that weapon attacked him, what should he do? Saleen had calcted for a long time but still had note to a conclusion. The best method was to use his n badge to block it. The materials of the n badge were the sturdiest of all the equipment Saleen had on hand. It would be difficult for any weapon to leave behind even a hint of a scar on its surface.


    Fycro was destroying the forest at his leisure. Being part of the magical tower, the forest had already beenprehended by Fycro. That was why he was not anxious. What good would that do? No good, unless he could guarantee destruction of the magical tower alone; otherwise, he could only bring the army with him while violently attacking its magic.


    There would not be too many fatal magic spells within the magic. It was possible to destroy the seals by using human lives to push it.


    Once the army reached the mountain peak, he could deploy powerful divine spells to kill everyone above them. The power of sacrifice had to be done when the enemy was less than 500 kilometers away. If this attack could not be made within the magic, the magic¡¯s existence would ruin the results of the sacrifice.


    The distance between both parties was approaching three kilometers. Since Saleen had not received any news from Jason, he and Rafel retreated two kilometers and waited again.


    One side advanced; one side retreated. Nearly two hourster, Saleen finally felt the news being transmitted by Jason¡ªAttack!


    Now Saleen and Fycro were only three kilometers apart.


    At the same time, Fycro felt that his original body was suffering an attack and was about to summon him.


    His Moon of Massacre was about to fly out. Only when that device was back in his hands would he be able to rush to his original body, wherever it was.


    You finally couldn¡¯t stand it anymore? The corners of Fycro¡¯s lips lifted upward. The attack inflicted on his original body was from someone of grade-13 strength. But that didn¡¯t matter. As long as he too went over, with two against one, he could efficiently y that mage.


    Zap! Suddenly he was hit head-on by a 10-meter-wide electric current that turned everything in its path to ash.


    Fycro¡¯s heart started palpitating nervously. What was this?

 Chapter 1380: To Slaughter A God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1380: To ughter A God (Part 2)</h4>


    Save me!


    The disciples who did not have a strong enough faith in their hearts heard this cry at the same time. It had been released by their god. Then they saw their god trapped in a humongous cage with electric currents shing. Their god was crying out in pain.


    This was real!


    The War Drum of Fear ced this unbearable image in the hearts of those disciples. The army immediately descended into chaos and rushed at the strong people in front. After losing the support from the back, their ranks immediately dropped by one level. The Holy See¡¯s army had always banded together in a battle to solidify its power.


    Most of the strong people were knights at the rank of Silver Grand Sword aster. With the support of the troops behind them, they could attain thebat ability of a Golden Grand Swordmaster.


    The Golden Grand Swordmasters could break throughrge ranks and be a strong True Might.


    In an instant, the War Drum of Fear shattered all of this into dust. The people who had rushed to the front exposed their true colors and subsequently were subjected to the effects of the War Drum of Fear.


    The most-feared object began to surface in their hearts, one after another.


    Rafel saw that the troops that had rushed forth were suddenly in disarray. How could she let go of this opportunity? She had indeed cut to the chase. From her spatial equipment, she retrieved an object that Saleen used to joke with her about.


    It was a gigantic magic cannon with a diameter of six meters and a length of 128 meters. Only a person with level-13 strength like her would have the mental power to use it without worrying about a mental breakdown.


    This magic cannon was the only equipment that relied on the magic power furnace for power. Rafel set the magic cannon down and directly triggered the magic array on its upper part.


    A high-energy beam shot out. The range of this gigantic magic cannon was 30 kilometers.


    Amid the sound of the War Drum of Fear, very few Holy Masters were able to react. The shot created a pathway 30 kilometers long. Even the armors of the knights that had not been directly hit melted away.


    The pathway opened by Fycro became the pathway to hell.


    Rafel used her summoning skill, and tiny metal angels flew out from her space. She used her hand to slowly stroke these miniature metal angels and said, ¡°Keep your eye on this cannon. When the enemies charge, you can release it again. Did you get that?¡±


    The miniature metal angels descended onto the magic array on the magic cannon and nodded, indicating that they understood.


    Only then did Rafel spread her wings and take flight, rushing towards the end of the pathway.


    She needed to route them from the back and kill as many of Fycro¡¯s disciples as she could. Most of Fycro¡¯s power still came from these disciples. As a battle angel, she understood that she had to be the greatest help to Saleen.


    Saleen heard Jason call. He used a secret technique that allowed his soul to hear simple rhythmic sounds, which were the secret code of mage. He told Saleen a specific coordinate point.


    With this method, no one would be able to eavesdrop.


    Saleen ced his n badge within his Thunder Dragon Bangle, prepared to retrieve and use it anytime. Although the n badge had finished releasing its attacks, it was not entirely useless. After all, it still had its energy-absorbing function. If Fycro used any skills to doggedly defend himself, the n badge would be able to fulfill its greatest purpose.


    Saleen had used Jalin¡¯s movement skill. Before, he had not advanced and was still not too familiar with the signature traits of this skill. It had still been fine for him to use it to travel quickly, but it had been somewhat strenuous to use it in battle. Now, with each step he took, earth¡¯s power would be there to support him; the speed of his movements had already surpassed Jalin¡¯s.


    Saleen¡¯s Ring of Cosmis was rotating slowly. Two identical runes ovepped one another, allowing Saleen to feel the earth¡¯s power with more rity.


    Earth had life. It was like a beating heart. Earth wasplex and absolutely was not as simple as the elemental mages had said it was.


    On earth were rocks, metals, and all types of nts. It was also teeming with life. There were also underground fires, maic forces, the light that had existed before, and the evesting darkness.


    Earth also had flowing rivers andkes. Somekes were almost as big as the Caspian Sea. Some materials had absorbed the power of light element and turned into a solid or liquid state. These materials could still be converted to fire-elemental power and release the power of light element. But fundamentally, they had the power of earth and water elements.


    All this was wondrous. Saleen¡¯s footsteps became faster and faster as he moved forward ording to the rhythm of the earth and easily avoided all obstacles.


    Fycro encountered Jason at the borders of the forest. He had used the simplest wind-travel spell to arrive before Fycro and shed with him in an extremely tough duel.


    Jason¡¯s Rings of Water and Fire were released from his body and arranged themselves into a mighty territory.


    The divine giant dragon within Fycro¡¯s Mirror of Fate had initially gained the advantage. It had kept tight control over the ball of gray-colored evil aura and was in the process of refining it. At this time, a fire dragon rushed into the Mirror of Fate and collided into the body of the divine giant dragon.


    The fire dragon¡¯s limbs persistently held onto the divine giant dragon as it began to bite and tear. The divine giant dragon roared in pain and wanted to use the power of the Mirror of Fate. At this time, however, the evil aura immediately broke through his seal and entered his body.


    With a booming sound, the divine giant dragon¡¯s body exploded, causing the ming giant dragon to fly out from the impact.


    The divine giant dragon immediately reassembled, but there was no longer a divine aura on its body. Rather, it appeared extremely evil.


    ¡°What an interesting creature!¡± The divine giant dragon used its tail to whip the ming giant dragon. The wrestling of both sides resulted in an intense energy wave within the Mirror of Fate. The cracks on the surface of the Mirror of Fate that had just been restored were reopened.


    ¡°Fycro, you¡¯re a genius, but you are destined to fall,¡± Jason said coldly towards his powerful opponent.


    Fycro was in low spirits, but in an instant, he roared withughter and said, ¡°Jason, I¡¯m also level-13. Your mage¡¯s mantra is ineffective towards me!¡±


    ¡°Is that so? You rely too much on the power of equipment, while I have focused on advancing myself. Apart from the magic amplifier, I don¡¯t rely on anything else. My determination to serve magic surpasses all disciples who serve their gods.¡±


    ¡°No need to burst my confidence. When I decided to be a god, I had already made preparations for my falling. Jason, you¡¯re a mage worthy of respect. Let¡¯s have a decisive battle here.¡±


    ¡°Decisive battle?¡± Jasonughed and said, ¡°Your Incarnation has already been held in check by my student and definitely cannote to your aid. Are you really so confident you¡¯ll be able to defeat a mage of the same level who has a magic amplifier? I know that you have brought millions of disciples, but what about me? My magic amplifier can increase my power by more than 40 times. You will not be my match.¡±


    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, say no more!¡± Fycro¡¯s voice turned shrill. The Mirror of Fate in his hands suddenly split itself into three. One piece still had starlight wound around it. The evil aura inside appeared in a sh. Evidently, it could no longer be used. However, the other two Mirrors of Fate were blindingly bright.


    Fycro coldly said, ¡°Fate includes the past, present, and future. You only destroyed my Mirror of the Future, whereas my main weapon is the Mirror of the Present.¡±


    ¡°Without a Weapon¡¯s Spirit, they¡¯re all garbage!¡± As Jason spoke, the Rings of Water and Firebined. From within the rings, a big and tall giant walked out and snatched at Fycro¡¯s direction.


    ¡°A life without a past is a tree without roots...¡± Fycro recited a prayer. Holy light shot out from within the Mirror of the Past and enveloped the body of the Weapon¡¯s Spirit. Suddenly, the Weapon¡¯s Spirit became blurry, as if it would dissipate any moment.


    ¡°Only the present is eternal!¡± Once Fycro spoke his second sentence, holy light shot out from the Mirror of the Present and surrounded Jason. Jason suddenly felt he could not move, and could not even open his mouth to speak.


    The Weapon¡¯s Spirit had been shone upon by the holy light. Its body suddenly cracked in two. One side was blurry and appeared as if it would copse at any moment. The other was in a translucent state. It held the Elemental de in its hands and chopped at Fycro¡¯s third mirror.


    With a shattering sound, the Mirror of the Future waspletely broke into pieces.


    Then the holy light of the other two mirrors immediately dimmed. Jason wriggled his body and broke free of the envelopment of the holy light. The other Weapon¡¯s Spirit also spewed mes all over its body and burned the holy light till nothing was left.


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    Fycro yelled in panic. Although he was only level-13, his holy light had a level-15 rule. It was a power he had stolen from the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°What a tragedy. You thought the rules of light were of a higher level than the rules of fire element?¡± Jason did not forget to ridicule Fycro. Fycro did not know why this mage¡¯s chiding was always so hard to bear. The power of the mage¡¯s mantra was always affecting his judgment.


    ¡°Unless you are a fire god!¡± Fycro released a low howl from his throat. He didn¡¯t believe his holy light would be destroyed by fire element.


    ¡°Bing a god was never my goal. Fycro, I want to be an existence that surpasses the gods. Your death today is just a beginning,¡± As Jason spoke, two elemental snakes flew out from the Rings of Water and Fire and wrapped around Fycro.


    ¡°When I be a god, I¡¯ll destroy all magic spells. From birth, humans will have godly power. They will not need tobor or conquer, and will not need to serve magic.¡± Fycro mumbled, and his two mirrors once again shot out holy light. This time, however, Jason easily dodged them. The fire element Weapon¡¯s Spirit was not so fortunate and was once again caged in holy light.


    The Rings of Water and Fire trembled slightly, and the two Weapon¡¯s Spirits returned into the Rings of Water and Fire. They were not under the control of the holy light.


    ¡°Within my territory, it¡¯s impossible for you to defeat me.¡± The elemental snake had already wrapped itself around Fycro¡¯s body, the surface of which was full of Holy Prose, but the two elemental snakes did not feel it at all. They forcefully constricted and strangled inward.


    ¡°When I be a god, only light will be eternal. Elemental! Destruction!¡± Fycro shouted loudly. The two elemental snakes wrapped around his body were immediately eliminated.


    Jason¡¯s expression turned solemn. Fycro¡¯s will was steadfast, surpassing his expectations.


    Mage¡¯s mantra was a strong magic spell. It was like Prophecy magic, but without its harming power of Prophecy magic. Such a magic spell could not be learned by every mage. Even in the ancient era, many level-18 mages did not know this magic spell.


    Because Jason had cultivated a secret technique, his Power of the Soul was strong. After he had used the mage¡¯s mantra by chance, he repeatedly cultivated it. Finally, he studied this unknown magic spell until he became proficient in it.


    It could not affect Fycro, however. There was already a divine boundary in Fycro¡¯s heart, which was the model for a divine kingdom. The strength of this pseudo god¡¯s spirit caused Jason to feel resigned.

 Chapter 1381: Complete Elimination (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1381: Complete Elimination (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Jason, you can¡¯t do anything to me. I¡¯ll let you fill in the defects of my divine kingdom!¡± As Fycro spoke, a huge palm grew out from his back. Clean and unblemished, it grabbed Jason.


    Jason merely smiled stoically. Fycro¡¯s words had no effect on him. His mage¡¯s mantra could not deal with Fycro. Likewise, Fycro¡¯s words could not affect him.


    When therge, clean and unblemished hand reached out, it had even brought a sense of dignity that could not be described. However, when therge hand had reached out an inch, it was worn down for a minute by Jason¡¯s territory. When it was close to Jason, it had already been dulled and ckened.


    Fycro had not thought there would be such a resolution. Jason¡¯s territory was horrifying. It was only at this time that Fycro realized that his body was as cold as ice, yet a ball of fire had been ignited in his heart. His mind began to feel dizzy and he could not concentrate.


    As a god, this meant it would be difficult for him to use divine spells, except for the strongest Dissolving Light in his body.


    Jason leisurely released minute magic spells one after another. From Fireball spells to Wings of me spells, from Icicle Magic to Snowkill skills, none of the magic spells exceeded level-9. But their killing power was not below a level-9 magic spell.


    Under the effects of the magic amplifier, even if Jason used level-1 magic spells, it would also be able to injure Fycro.


    The thought of such a battle terrified Fycro. He had suddenly lostmunication with his incarnation.


    Fycro nced at Jason and said, ¡°Both of you, master and disciple, are really strong. I lost this time, and that¡¯s fine. But I will return.¡± As Fycro said this, the bubbles in his body were released once more, melting all the magic spells near him.


    ¡°You¡¯re only thinking about escaping now¡± Jason¡¯s expression was focused. His two hands were joined. Apart from the thumbs, there was a type of elemental power that condensed on each of his eight fingertips. In the blink of an eye, territorial powerpressed inward. Even the Dissolving Light on Fycro¡¯s body had beenpressed back in.


    ¡°Jason,e with me to hell.¡± As Fycro spoke, he took the initiative to ce the Dissolving Light back into his body. Jason chuckled and used his Hand of Mages to fish out the Mirror of Fate. His person had already vanished before Fycro.


    Fycro¡¯s body became transparent. Immediately, an intense radiance once again shot out from Fycro¡¯s body. This time, the radiance of the Light of Glory was no longer stable but unusually violent.


    Jason¡¯s body had already shrunk into a speck and gone into the Rings of Water and Fire. This was the skill of his secret technique. As of now, apart from spatial equipment, the Rings of Water and Fire were the only equipment Jason used.


    Within the Rings of Water and Fire, was a very big space. It had even been refined to thest stage and could open up interdimensional spaces.


    Jason was hidden inside. He had already concealed the Mirror of Fate. Fycro used all his energy. The violent Dissolving Light caused everything reached by the glow of the light to disappear.


    This included the earth beneath his feet and the forest in front of his eyes.


    With Fycro as the center, all the ces that the Dissolving Light shone upon within an area of five kilometers vanished. Arge pit about 1,000 kilometers deep also appeared on the ground.


    Saleen hurried over from a distance. Having observed this scene, his heart shook violently. Where was Jason?


    The light¡¯s intensity surpassed the category that level-13 professionals used. This was Fycro¡¯s asset for bing a god. Dissolving Light was the power of his Country of Divinity.


    Even if Fycro had gone all out until his divine kingdom could not be established, he still wanted to kill Jason. Otherwise, he would die here.


    Jason¡¯s Rings of Water and Fire were attacked by this power and flew for more about five kilometers before stopping. Jason came out from the Rings of Water and Fire in a sorry state. He had not refined the magic amplifier to a sufficientlyplete level. For such a fatal attack, he still had to rely on the Weapon¡¯s Spirit in his equipment to help him to block it. It was only because of that that he had not been killed outright.


    Indeed, the wrath of a god could not be taken lightly!


    Saleen pounced toward the Dissolving Light. Electric currents shed along the surface of his body. In his anxiety, he had used Lightning Protection, a skill that was originally Nailisi¡¯s. Saleen had not learned it early on. Later, it was because there were really too few lightning skills that he had learned it in order to analyze it.


    Fortunately, he had Lightning Protection, so when the dissipating Dissolving Light had shone upon Saleen¡¯s body, it had not caused any harm.


    For a distance of 50 kilometers, the trees in front had mostly withered. An ice armor once again solidified on the surface of Saleen¡¯s body. His speed immediately increased by 10 times as well.


    Comet sh!


    Saleen knocked aside everything in his path. Therge tree that towered toward the sky had also been knocked into powder by him. Once he had arrived at the location where the events had urred, everything had disappeared.


    ¡°Jason!¡± Saleen yelled with a tone of fright.


    ¡°Jason, where are you!¡± Saleen could not hear Jason¡¯s reply and he felt as if something had flowed away from his heart. At this time, he was extremely regretful that he had allowed his teacher to choose his target.


    Fycro¡¯s original body had the strongest skills. If he exerted all his efforts, it was possible for both people to perish together. His Figure of Fate could at the very least block this skill.


    As he stared at therge pit that was 500 meters deep on the ground, Saleen was about to tear up.


    ¡°Foolish child, I¡¯m here.¡± Jason flew over. As he saw Saleen¡¯s appearance, he was amused, but what he felt, even more, was relief.


    Saleen¡¯s face was very hot. He secretly used a magic skill to evaporate the tears that flowed from his eyes. He turned toward Jason andughed, saying, ¡°Jason, is that Fycro dead?¡±


    ¡°How can it be that easy? He is a pseudo god. It¡¯s too bad you came a step toote; otherwise, your lightning skills could have stopped the Dissolving Light he released. I couldn¡¯t block it and could only retreat.¡±


    ¡°You weren¡¯t hurt, weren¡¯t you?¡± Saleen did not use the Elemental Eye to check either, as that was not too polite.


    ¡°Nonsense, of course, I was hurt. I have only just advanced to level-13 and my grasp over my power isn¡¯t stable enough. Fycro¡¯s attack was suicidal. Heh, he won¡¯t be in good condition. I don¡¯t think he¡¯ll awaken until the next century at least.¡±


    ¡°Unable to awaken?¡±


    ¡°Fycro had sneakily established a prototype divine kingdom. It was my mistake, I had not discovered it. Although his person has vanished, the Dissolving Light has brought his soul back to his divine kingdom. I cannot capture him. Unless I advance to level-15, I will not be able to find his base.¡±


    Saleen thought for a moment. Fycro could not possibly have established his base on the Myers Continent as it would be discovered by the Lord of Glory. However, the abyss in the Chaotic Swamp was likely to be problematic. After returning, he would thoroughly clean out the Chaotic Swamp, making it so that Fycro would not be able to return even if he tried!


    ¡°Saleen, this time, I suffered significant losses. I think my two Weapon¡¯s Spirits are done for,¡± Jason said with some regret.


    ¡°No matter. We can go to the Imperial City of the Abyss to capture them. I have calcted that now, there will at least be some substitutes there,¡± Saleen said eagerly.


    ¡°Ahhh, that won¡¯t be necessary. I want one of Fycro¡¯s godly items. Are you willing to give it to me?¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡±


    Saleen retrieved the Moon of Massacre and handed it to Jason. He received it with his hands and tossed it into the Rings of Water and Fire.


    ¡°Wait till I refine these two pieces of godly items into my magic amplifier. Even without a Weapon¡¯s Spirit, I can still...heh!¡± Jason suddenly stopped talking. He had lost hisposure. Fycro¡¯s godly item was too suited for his equipment. He could even feel that his equipment had released a joyful cry.


    The Moon of Massacre entered the Ring of zing mes, and the Mirror of Fate entered the Ring of Water mes. The Weapon¡¯s Spirits in the Rings of Water and Fire were on theirst legs and couldn¡¯t help Jason refine these two godly items.


    ¡°Alright Saleen, I¡¯ll return to the magical tower. You take people to kill all of Fycro¡¯s disciples.¡± When Jason said this, there was not a hint of viciousness. Saleen did not think that this was inappropriate, either. At this level, people only needed to speak their minds when doing things. The morals of the world would no longer affect their emotions.


    The millions of disciples were the key to Fycro¡¯s revival. If these people were left behind, Fycro might be able toe out from the divine kingdom prototype in a decade or less. At that time, Saleen¡¯s level might not be raised. If Fycro were to destroy things secretly, Saleen¡¯s country would also be finished.


    After a century, even if Fycro was revived, Saleen would not be concerned. He did not believe he wouldn¡¯t be able to catch up to Fycro¡¯s rank after 100 years.


    He could see the course of fate only vaguely. This was enough.


    If he saw it too clearly, he feared he would not be able to pay the price.


    When Jason finished talking, he directly flew back to Raphael¡¯s magical tower. He had talked andughed naturally with Saleen, but in actual fact his injuries were not light. If the Rings of Water and Fire had beenpletely refined, it would not be afraid of the Dissolving Light. However, the Weapon¡¯s Spirits in the Rings of Water and Fire did not have a sufficiently bnced power, causing gaps to appear in its defenses.


    Even so, it was enough for Jason to be proud of himself. When the Dissolving Light was released, even the Lord of Glory would be heavily wounded. That he, a level-13 mage, had not died was quite astonishing!


    Saleen stabilized his state of mind and returned to look for Rafel.


    At this time, the disciples that Fycro had left behind were all terrified that the end hade. Fycro had died. The disciples all felt it. How could this be? How could a god die? My Lord Fycro was the strongest!


    The ck-robed holy masters calmly said to the people beside them, ¡°My lord is just temporarily in a deep sleep. Those hateful mages have seriously injured my lord. We can¡¯t just leave like this. Even if we die, we must bring those mages into the depths of hell!¡±


    Actually, their entrancement was not necessary. When the ascetics heard Fycro had died, they all went berserk. They advanced into the depths of the forest with all their might. Rafel saw this scene and hid. There were countless powerful magic beasts within the forest. These disciples of Fycro¡¯s were engaging in suicide attacks.


    Let them kill themselves; why should I overexert herself?


    Saleen had also seen this. He summoned Rafel from a high altitude. Rafel heard Saleen¡¯s voice and also took flight. The Violet Angel saw that Saleen had summoned Rafel. Only then did he dare to take the War Drum of Fear and fly up, no longer entangling himself with the crazed disciples.


    From the high altitude, Saleen used his finger to point at the disciples on the ground and said to Rafel, ¡°If this is what humans live for, then living is no better than death.¡±


    ¡°I am not a human, I am an angel,¡± Rafel replied.


    ¡°Being a human is still a bit better. Give it a try.¡±


    Rafel¡¯s brows furrowed. She also wanted to be a human and have a human soul. But a battle angel was a weapon manufactured by the gods. How would they be allowed to possess a sense of self so easily?


    Only the angels who were bootlickers and praised the gods daily would have a soul, but it would still be iplete.


    Rafel thought up to this point and heaved a long sigh. She turned and flew toward Raphael¡¯s magical tower. Behind her, Saleen onlyughed. Although Rafel spoke her mind, she already started having some ideas in her heart. Otherwise, she would have gone down to kill to her heart¡¯s content.

 Chapter 1382: Complete Elimination (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1382: Complete Elimination (Part 2)</h4>


    Of course, Saleen did not really want Rafel to leave him. If he were to take on the Holy See now, he would have to deal with the Golden ins as well as guard against Grand Duke Iron Blood. Although he had many forces under hismand, they were spread out.


    If anything happened to these ces, they would all suffer tremendous losses.


    Nothing would happen to Metatrin City, a ce not even Fycro wanted to attack. But what about Guderian City? What about Nature City? There were also Lonestar City, Ceylon City, New Demon City, and Daliang City. All belonged to Saleen and were too important to give up.


    There was also Lex¡¯s Bitter Water Prefecture. Currently, Bitter Water Prefecture was attracting mages and had already reached a certain scale. Even if Lex wasn¡¯t an emperor there, the losses would be staggering.


    At least he had already obtained the magic cube. With Lex¡¯s temperament, the pce storeroom had probably been cleaned out. Anything that could be used would have been taken into the God¡¯s ring.


    There were people Saleen wanted to defend in an area. Rafel admittedly was not one of them. Nailisi, however, had the ability, and the Winged Skull could also be trusted. He needed helpers at his side; Rafel was the best choice.


    Seeing that Rafel had returned to the magical tower, Saleen could not be bothered to conduct a massacre in the forest. He said to the Violet Angel, ¡°I know you have the ability. Kill all those level-10 beings. It doesn¡¯t matter how badly you¡¯re injured, I will treat you.¡±


    Saleen finished speaking and turned, flying toward the magical tower.


    The Violent Angel was hopelessly depressed. Everyone had gone, leaving him and the lowest-level puppets to battle alone. Fortunately, he still had the War Drum of Fear in his hands. Hm? Master¡¯s Lightning Constetion was still floating high in the air. In the Puppet Constetion, Dante¡¯s eyes were closed as he rested his spirit.


    After he had impetuously ignited his divine fire on the Myers Continent, he did not seal his power. As a result, he was gravely injured and still had not recovered.


    In the Lightning Constetion, however, were 500,000 lightning warriors who could not be killed. Under Dante¡¯s power, these Lightning Warriors could be revived repeatedly.


    Fycro had just be a god. If he had been allowed to create his angels, Saleen could not dream of having as easy a time as he had now.


    Gods created angels to be used in battle and they could fight endlessly. It was said that a paramount god could create more than a million angels, while a high-level god could create tens of billions. Even if it was the low-level Lord of Glory, Fycro would have hundreds of millions of angels at his disposal.


    Every battle angel was like Rafel, soulless. Battle angels were born for battle and died for battle.


    If a hundred million level-10 angels came forth to kill, Saleen would have no choice but to surrender. No matter how strong his Power of the Soul was, he would not be able to withstand the destruction of the angels. The reason Saleen intended to kill Fycro was that he was his closest enemy. If a newly minted pseudo god was not eliminated, once he established his divine kingdom and angel army, he would defend them to hisst breath. Under those harsh conditions, a defensive attack would be suicidal.


    Furthermore, the inhabitants of this interdimensional ne were all Saleen¡¯s closest and most trusted family members, as well as his oldest batch of soldiers.


    These people already paid their price. Saleen had promised he would allow them to rest and recuperate here. Their children could get even better care. If any were suited to cultivating magic, there would be teachers to guide them. Those who were suited to learning swordcraft would have some swordmasters to give them pointers right from the start.


    This interdimensional space was already tantamount to Saleen¡¯s base. How could he let Fycro establish his divine kingdom there?


    A divine kingdom with a prototype still required an interdimensional ne in order to expand. The ce Fycro had chosen was coincidentally the same one Saleen forbade others to touch.


    It was impossible for an army of millions to assemble there. At the outer reaches, countless troops set out into the forest. The area where Fycro had cleared arge pathway had the fewest troops.


    Before Saleen¡¯s arrival, Rafel had already killed countless people. Even though this was her job, she just wasn¡¯t interested in killing anymore.


    If Saleen had notid down the order, she would not have bothered to battle with these people.


    Even if she hated those disciples, she would hate them in her heart.


    In Raphael¡¯s magical tower, the teleportation portal to the Myers Continent gradually regained its usual state. Fycro had used the power of the godly item to interfere with the spatial coordinates. If they had tried to teleport then, the people would have been sent to a ce that was impossible to determine beforehand.


    Perhaps it would be a safe zone. There was arger possibility that it would be in the endless starry sky.


    Fycro¡¯s thoughts were wicked. If the arrangements within Metatrin City were in order and then the teleportation portal faced a problem, there would already be mages to calcte this. If it had been a really impetuous person, once they entered the teleportation portal, it was equivalent to cing one foot in hell.


    The teleportation portal had been restored, but it could not be used immediately. It would take about six days¡¯ time for it to be considered safe. The mages did not dare to let Saleen endanger himself and directly sealed the teleportation portal. It would open up at fixed intervals each day and teleport some goods to test if the spatial coordinate points were stable or not.


    Even so, the teleportation could no longer be used. Once Saleen returned, he would have to reconstruct another one.


    The teleportation itself was profoundly mysterious. Fycro could block its teleportation because he knew the coordinate point. If Fycro had left behind any measures in it, once he was revived, the teleportation portal could be defective at any moment.


    If he chased after Saleen inside it, he would be done for.


    Saleen was feeling depressed. He let Sika take care of the children and turned to leave the magical tower once more. The Violet Angel was still massacring the people outside. He hit the War Drum of Fear. Most of the Holy See¡¯s troops could not block it. Because their god had died, the high-level Holy Masters felt panic, indignation, sorrow, and more vivid emotions in their hearts. Once these were mobilized by the War Drum of Fear, there was no way they could still use any divine spells to assist theirrades.


    ¡°Violet Angel, stop.¡± Saleen put away his Lightning Constetion and did not allow the lightning warriors to kill those more disciples.


    The Violet Angel did not know what Saleen meant, but he could only steady his hand. His position among Saleen¡¯s subordinates was only equivalent to that of the Mechanical Soul. Although Saleen ced importance on him, he would not allow him to gain a high position.


    The Violet Angel wanted to curry favor with Saleen, hence he did his utmost when handling matters. Saleen did not allow him to continue killing people, so he immediately stopped.


    Saleen was deep in thought at the high altitude. The disciples below him were still rushing into the forest. These people firmly believed that by relying on everyone¡¯s strength, they could kill their way into the magical tower and upy this interdimensional space, thus avenging their god.


    How could this be possible? If this could really be done, Fycro would not have fallen in the first ce.


    In the beginning, humans had gone to ughter the gods and eliminate divine kingdoms. Did they really wanted to do such a thing? Saleen looked at the appearance of the disciples; chills ran down his spine.


    How could people be like this? For the sake of their god, they did not treasure their lives.


    They...did not deserve to be saved!


    Saleen thought up to this point and began to recite the Goddess of Nature¡¯s codex, the ancient script. Saleen had even participated in itsption. He used the Thundering Sound skill to recite it. The rumbling resounded in the hearts of all the disciples within 50 kilometers.


    Saleen did not care about the oue. He just recited the codex line by line in the sky. Most of the disciples had calmed down and were listening attentively to Saleen¡¯s voice. The Goddess of Nature¡¯s codex was peaceful and logical.


    After the madness in the hearts of these disciples had been soothed, people began to contemte. Of course, this was the purpose of the Thundering Sound skill. If Saleen was to persuade them face to face, he might not necessarily be able to cause any of the disciples to change their decision.


    Saleen didn¡¯t care how many of these disciples had turned back either. Actually, even if theye back, they would still change their faith and believe in the Myers Goddess. Saleen had once thought that there was nothing magic spells could not do. Now, from the look of things, even a god¡¯s disciples would be hard to convert. There were still matters in this world that could not be resolved by applying power.


    From the high altitude, Saleen¡¯s voice was transmitted via the magic amplifier. Its range becamerger andrger. There were at least 100,000 people listening to him recite the codex.


    Originally, Saleen did not believe in any Nature Faith at all. It was just that suddenly, a familiar power was being transmitted from the bodies of the disciples below him. This was the Power of Faith.


    Using the Thundering Sound skill, Saleen had actually caused some of Fycro¡¯s disciples to be disciples of the Nature Faith.


    He had only recited for about one hour. This Thundering Sound captured people¡¯s minds and made them less likely to feel conceited.


    Saleen thought, if he had wanted to be a god, mm, if he wanted to be a lightning god, he certainly wouldn¡¯t be worried aboutcking disciples. This Thundering Sound skill also caused one¡¯s mind to be unguarded. It was very easy to gain the faith of ordinary people.


    This was not a trap,it was coercion.


    The Power of Faith was sent to the sky in a continuous stream and was transmitted by Saleen to Dante, who was within the magic amplifier. Although Dante was a lightning god, his skills could purify the Power of Faith of other gods to be used by himself.


    The Power of Faith entered the Lightning Constetion. After Dante had used thick electric currents to filter it, it was transformed into power he could absorb. Dante¡¯s wounds were swiftly recovering.


    Saleen had originally wanted to rescue these disciples. If they continued to believe in Fycro, he would have to kill them. If they converted to the Goddess of Nature, he was amenable to keeping them around.


    Saleen had suddenly conceived the idea of showingpassion because he had seen Sika teasing his two children. The Lord of Glory advocated abstinence. Even so, among so many disciples, there would still be children, right?


    If they could be spared, it was better not to kill them.


    Saleen¡¯s mental power was sufficient for him to keep on reciting like this. His Thundering Sound skill was also not meant forbat. The power it released was too weak. It had to rely on the magic amplifier to affect low-level disciples. As for the high-level ones, after witnessing this scene, their hearts also became agitated.


    Once Fycro died, the faith of these people also could not be considered to be too steady. The madness they had shown just now was because they knew that the mages here would not spare their lives.


    The battle between gods and mages had always been unusually cruel and callous.


    These people had long heard from Fycro that at that time, humanity had destroyed divine kingdoms and could mercilessly massacre tens of billions of creatures.


    Saleen had recited the codex and unknowingly. The sun rose, the sun set. Sika saw Saleen¡¯s actions from the magic images and her face broke into a huge smile.


    As a Nature Priest, she didn¡¯t support wanton killing: Too many massacres would eventually cause this ne to deteriorate. A ne that was thick with resentment would eventually meet with destruction.


    This involved the knowledge of a Nature Priest. When a Nature Priest cultivated to the end, it could clearly grasp the rules of nes.


    If a ne was angered, everything would be destroyed.


    Saleen had repeatedly recited for six days and six nights. Within this time, resting for only three hours each day. Just like that, millions of disciples threw down their weapons and walked toward the depths of the forest at his summons. These disciples who had converted faiths were no longer attacked by the magic beasts. The Holy Masters who persisted in battle were then in by the Weapon¡¯s Spirit in Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier one by one.


    Without Fycro¡¯s rank, there was no way for people below level-10 to block such sneak attacks

 Chapter 1383: Consuming a God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1383: Consuming a God (Part 1)</h4>


    At this time, Jason had already recovered from his injuries. He saw that Saleen was using the Thundering Sound skill to convert the disciples and was even more satisfied with his student.


    Those who only knew how to massacre others were not good mages. When mages progressed to the very end, they would surpass the gods. By relying on violent methods, it would be impossible to oppose those sly and wily gods. Even the Lord of Glory promised to give his disciples a splendid heavenly paradise.


    Saleen had finally grown up, and he had now matured into a man.


    Jason felt pleased and gratified. The elementary refining stages of his Rings of Water and Fire had also been sessful. Now, the remaining troublesome part was topletely kill off the Weapon¡¯s Spirits in the two rings. This required Saleen¡¯s help. Jason did not have any more Six Elements¡¯ Heavy Water with him as well. He had used it all up in order to refine the Rings of Water and Fire.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Sika saw that Saleen had returned unnoticed and felt joy in her heart. Saleen had been gone for a total of six days and had ¡°reformed¡± a total of 1,667,040 people. The remaining people had mostly died in the forest. A few who were stronger than grade-10 had been killed by the magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit.


    ¡°Teacher.¡± Saleen first bowed to Teacher.


    Jason smiled and said, ¡°How does it feel?¡±


    ¡°Much better. Killing people is what it is, but the feeling of not killing is also very good. I will no longer lose myself in it,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Mm. Then I will first ask you, what is to be done with these disciples?¡±


    Saleen paused. He immediately realized that these disciples could not be left to develop in this interdimensional space. But to bring them all away?


    Thankfully, in Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of Purgatory, there was already a space that could contain humans. If he were to rely on a teleportation portal to transport them, he would not be able to bring everyone away even if he exhausted all his resources and bankrupted himself.


    Mm, Teacher had suddenly asked this...


    Saleen¡¯s heart suddenly went cold. How had Fycro brought so many people here?


    It should be known that he had only reformed a third of the disciples. There had still been more disciples who had died in the forest. With such a great number, as well as therge amount of equipment and supplies on each person, how had Fycro brought them all here?


    ¡°Indeed, Fycro¡¯s divine kingdom could only be a prototype. He is a pseudogod and cannot start up a divine kingdom. Hence, this interdimensional space is somewhat dangerous. We need topletely seal off that spatial pathway.¡± As Jason said this mildly, Saleen broke out in cold sweat. Teacher was indeed more detail-oriented than him. This was such a big loophole, yet because he had been too excited, he had actually overlooked it.


    Seeing that Saleen was somewhat dejected, Jason said, ¡°It does not matter. Your speed of advancement was too quick and your body is still not that ustomed to it. That is why you slipped up in your calctions. Once you have crossed the great hurdle of attaining grade-13, such matters will no longer ur unless an even more powerful person is secretly using a skill to affect your thoughts.¡±


    Saleen nodded and said, ¡°Teacher, then I cannot stay here. There are things I must do.¡±


    ¡°Mm. My rank has surpassed grade-13 and it is too powerful. I can no longer seal my own strength. I cannot return to the Myers Continent. Here are three magic maps. They are all ancient ruins. My secret technique originated from such ruins. Go and take a look, and you will benefit.¡±


    As Jason spoke, he retrieved three magic maps and handed them to Saleen. Two of the pieces were replicas, while thest piece was the original map.


    Saleen did not think too much and kept them in the Ring of Cosmos.


    ¡°Saleen, your Violet Angel that controls the War Drum of Fear is extremely useful in battles between armies that are below grade-12, but he is somewhat weak.¡± Jason did not allow Saleen to leave immediately.


    ¡°Teacher, that...¡±


    Because of the matter with Fycro in which Saleen¡¯s calctions had had mistakes, he was now somewhat absent-minded.


    ¡°Take out your Lightning Cage.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Saleen retrieved his Lightning Cage. He discovered that Fycro¡¯s Incarnation was actually not dead and was actually nning to escape from the cage. But he was already...


    ¡°Saleen, I will ignite my divine fire again and will definitely exterminate your country! I will kill anyone rted to you! I will wipe out all information about you from all nes!¡± Fycro¡¯s Incarnation said through gritted teeth.


    ¡°It is useless. In the Lightning Cage, your curses are ineffective,¡± Saleen said to Fycro¡¯s Incarnation with a cold expression.


    ¡°Hahahaha! Then what can you do to me? My original body has already escaped. If my original body is not dead, then you cannot kill me!¡± Fycro¡¯s Incarnationughed madly till he gasped for breath.


    ¡°Who said anything about killing you?¡± Jason smiled and said, ¡°We merely wanted to consume you. Violet Angel!¡±


    ¡°I am here.¡±


    The Violet Angel knew that Saleen was extremely respectful towards Jason. Jason¡¯s orders were Saleen¡¯s orders. In this aspect, he was much smarter than the Mechanical Soul. Once he hadpletely surrendered to Saleen, he no longer held any other intentions.


    ¡°If you consume this thing, you will evolve. Isn¡¯t that right?¡± Jason asked in a patient and kind manner.


    ¡°Yes, Lord Jason. If I consume this pseudogod¡¯s Incarnation, I will evolved. It could be to grade-11, or it could also be to grade-12. My original rank was all fake. Without Master Saleen to feed me power, I am just a pile of waste!¡± The Violet Angel had unknowingly adopted a musical tone, as if he was a disciple singing praises to a god.


    ¡°Will you betray my student?¡± Jason asked bluntly.


    The Violet Angel contemted and decided to speak the truth.


    ¡°Lord Jason, if I was to suddenly advance to that extent, it is possible that I would betray Master. Either don¡¯t let me eat that thing, or add a contract or an even stronger Eternal Control shard to me before letting me eat it!¡± The Violet Angel said fawningly.


    Jason nced at Saleen and said, ¡°You decide.¡±


    ¡°Rafel, can you digest his divine fire?¡± Saleen pointed at Fycro¡¯s Incarnation in the Lightning Cage and asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a thread of divine fire and I can control it, but...¡±


    ¡°You are worried that once you gain divine fire, you will be a pseudogod?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Indeed. With the power of divine fire, I will return back to the path of bing a god,¡± Rafel replied.


    ¡°I will purify this divine fire. Although it is only a thread, but it will be extremely beneficial to you. Rafel.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I will do my best to control it.¡± Rafel was also full of anticipation.


    Fycro¡¯s Incarnation had a cold and dark expression. He looked at Saleen, who was outside the cage, and did not know what he was thinking.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Fycro, humans and gods are different. Before eating something, we must cook it. If you want to escape, it is impossible. If I do not cook you thoroughly, I would not let me subordinates touch even a hair on your body.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s wordspletely dashed Fycro¡¯s hopes.


    Saleen possessed lightning skills. Fycro knew that Saleen was not idly threatening him. The power of lightning was detested by all gods. Because even if they were gods, if they were shocked by electric currents for a long time, they would also go crazy.


    Saleen¡¯s Lighting Cage continuously released electric currents to shock him. Fycro¡¯s Incarnation could feel that the god¡¯s characteristics in his body were gradually disappearing. The energy was still there, but it could not longer be mobilized. In other words, that thread of divine fire would incinerate his entire body in the end. Saleen was now looking for someone to eat him because he did not want to waste anything.


    He was just taking advantage of the time when he could still preserve the body to make use of some waste.


    The most precious thing was that thread of divine fire. Even if it was pitifully little, but it contained the power of rules. This had the rules of light and the understandings that Fycro had gained when he had be a god, especially the rules of the Dissolving Light.


    Yet he could only look on with his eyes wide open. Currently, he could not utilize the power of divine fire, otherwise he would rather burn himself into ashes than to allow Saleen to gain a god¡¯s body so easily.


    A pseudogod was also a god. This body was too valuable.


    Saleen had originally nned to refine a puppet. It was only after Jason¡¯s reminders that he recalled that his Violet Angel was very special and could consume enerygy. Furthermore, because of material reasons, even if the Violet Angel consumed Fycro at his peak, his stomach would still not be harmed.


    ¡°Saleen, let me go. I will tell you the secret to bing a god.¡± Fycro suddenly becamepliant.


    ¡°Fycro, if not for the fact that you wanted to seize this interdimensional space and trapped my wife and children here, I might still have pretended to agree with your conditions and let you be happy for a moment. To tell you the truth, amidst my subordinates, there are already two fellows who have ignited divine fire. I do not need your bullshit conditions at all. I only hope that you will die cleanly and will no longere back to life. Gods are such troublesome fellows, all of them are not willing to die.¡±


    When this part was mentioned in the conversation, Fycro was finally in despair. There were actually two gods amidst Saleen¡¯s subordinates? It was definitely not Rafel. Although Rafel¡¯s strength was very close to his, but she had not ignited divine fire.


    If he only had known that Saleen would attain his current achievements. He should have strangled him to death at the beginning!


    ¡°Fycro, do you regret not killing me in the beginning?¡± Saleen asked while smiling slightly.


    ¡°Mm.¡±


    ¡°If we went back in time, you still would not kill me. Fycro, this is fate.¡± Saleen¡¯s Thundering Sound could now deeply affect Fycro. Fycro was dejected.


    ¡°Even if I don¡¯t really like this power, but I have no choice but to admit that an astrologer has more ways to deal with a god than a mage.¡± As Saleen said this, he retrieved four Star Gathering Needles.


    Gaine had left four Star Figures to him. Each Star Figure responded to one Star Gathering Needle. Within the Star Gathering Needles, there was the Power of Constetions. Saleen tossed the Star Gathering Needles into the Lightning Cage, shooting them at the joints of Fycro¡¯s four limbs.


    The Power of Constetions fixed Fycro firmly in ce. Saleen pped his waist once, and a waterball flew out from a small gourd. The waterball floated to the light of the electricity and turned into a water current in an instant, flowing into the Lightning Cage. The water current carried lighting magic patterns within it, binding around Fycro¡¯s neck with a few turns.


    Only then did Saleen rx. He released the Lightning Constetion once again and told Dante, ¡°You, use lightning to shock this fellow properly. I hope that he will faintpletely.¡±


    Dante¡¯s severe wound had already be much better. Furthermore, dealing with this fellow whose limbs were unable to move really did not require much technique. Electric currents swiftly struck down for the Lightning Constetion and entered the Lightning Cage. Fycro, who had been shocked, was trembling all over his body. Such tremors were the body¡¯s involuntary shaking movements and already had nothing to do with Fycro¡¯s will.


    ¡°Fycro, thank you for this experience. Next time, when I deal with gods, I will no longer be frenzied and careless.¡± Saleen did not forget to add another stab to Fycro¡¯s heart.


    ¡°Light...¡± Fycro coughed up this phrase from his throat with much difficulty, then fainted.


    Only then did Saleen opened the Lightning Cage and say to Rafel, ¡°There is only one thread of divine fire. The Seed of Divine Fire will definitely not be here. You can absorb it without any worries.¡±

 Chapter 1384: Consuming a God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1384: Consuming a God (Part 2)</h4>


    Rafel smiled. If there had been a Seed of Divine Fire, Saleen would not have allowed her to absorb it either. This was because that would be equivalent to Fycro reviving within her body.


    Without a Seed of Divine Fire, Rafel could suppress the divine fire as their levels were simr. It was just that Fycro hadprehended a few more rules than she had. The difference between angels and godsy in the fact that gods were the dominant party, whereas angels had no sense of self. Since the beginning in which the angels had been created, this had already been set in stone.


    Rafel had witnessed her god¡¯s death with her own eyes and harbored a special hatred towards the gods. If not for the other gods, the Metal God would not have fallen. Even if the Metal God had not advanced, his lifespan would still have exceeded that of this Crystal Wall system.


    Even such a god had been killed.


    Of course, if Saleen grew to a certain level, perhaps he would also target a divine kingdom to kill off, thus doing something simr. But Saleen was a human. Humans were the enemy of the gods, so this was normal. The massacres between the gods were the most perilous, and the most frequent.


    ording to the secrws of humans, killing their own kind was always punishable by death. Yet between the gods, killing their own kind was simply praiseworthy.


    Rafel retrieved her Inferno Spear. This spear had not been created for her by the Metal God. Instead, it had been given to a goddess. It was only for the sake of this goddess that the Metal God had fallen. Everything had merely been a trap.


    The Inferno Spear had fallen into her hands, but her god was no longer present.


    What if Saleen had been right? The gods were all fellows who did not know love. But why, even before he fell, had her own father god been unwilling to kill that goddess with his own hands?


    Could gods also feel hurt?


    Rafel thought up to this point, and pierced Fycro¡¯s heart with a stab of her spear.


    Fine red-colored threads went into Fycro¡¯s body from the surface of the Inferno Spear, prating into Fycro¡¯s body and riddling it with holes. One heart had long stopped beating. Fycro¡¯s body struggled futilely as he felt the unbearable pain...


    From the sidelines, Saleen still did not forget to make Fycro feel miserable. He said to Fycro, ¡°If you had not plotted to harm my children, I would still have given you a little respect and allowed you to die with dignity. Now, I can only take you apart slowly, like livestock.¡±


    Fycro soundlessly shut his eyes. Extracting his divine fire was not at all difficult, and there was not much difference between the levels of both parties. Rafel¡¯s Inferno Spear was violently pulled out from Fycro¡¯s heart. A thread of divine fire was already wrapped around the spear¡¯s tip.


    The fresh blood of a god was gold-colored. It gushed out. The Violet Angel greedily pounced and opened his mouth to receive the god¡¯s blood.


    Even if it belonged to a psuedogod, it was still sufficient for him to enjoy it.


    ¡°Violet Angel, remember to leave some for Dante. It is fine as long as it is enough for him to treat his wounds,¡± Saleen reminded him from the side.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s body had already broken down into hundreds of mechanical parts and rushed onto Fycro¡¯s body. Some of these had already turned into a long and sharp needle that was inserted into the cracks of the bones and absorbed the crystallized godly power within it.


    Some others turned into circle-shaped gears within the cracks and pierced Fycro¡¯s muscles. There were also some others that had directly turned into the form of small-sized magic beasts that opened their mouths to rip and tear at the more fragile parts.


    These miniature mechanical magical beasts all took a bite. Often, it was only after all the teeth in their mouths had been chipped that they were able to bite off a piece of flesh.


    ¡°Violet Angel, eat more bones. They are beneficial for you.¡± Saleen saw this situation and knew that it was because the Violet Angel¡¯s rank was not sufficient, rather than because the materials did not make the cut. Under the Power of Rules, some low grade materials were often also able to cause high grade materials to be deformed.


    Dante heard his master showing concern towards him and only sighed.


    Saleen did not ask. He guessed that Dante was still hoping to gain freedom. But he could not be given freedom!


    The Violet Angel¡¯s body broke apart into a few containers that were filled with the god¡¯s blood that gushed out from Fycro and flew out of the Lightning Cage. Saleen handed the god¡¯s blood to Dante. Dante directly gulped it down into his stomach, then he returned into the Lightning Constetion to continue nursing his wounds.


    Saleen tossed the containers back at the Violet Angel, then he suddenly shut the Lightning Cage.


    The Violet Angel jumped in fright, and heard Saleen say, ¡°I have tens of thousands of subordinates who are directly managed by me. After killing a god, you have enjoyed most of the benefits alone. There must always be a price to pay.¡±


    ¡°Master!: The Violet Angel was somewhat anxious, and heard Saleen say:


    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid. My wish is to refine this Lightning Cage into your body. In any case, you are an entity evolved from mechanics. Adding a cage is also not something difficult.¡±


    The Violet Angel was somewhat stunned. Originally, he was still slowly savoring things and was secretly absorbing Fycro¡¯s rules. He had not expected that Saleen would actually want to refine the Lightning Cage into his body.


    This would be extremely painful, so painful that he would regret being able to perceive senses.


    ¡°Thus, you should eat quickly. If you eat more, it will be slightly better in a moment,¡± Saleen urged.


    Only then did the Violet Angel understand that Saleen¡¯s objective in refining the Lightning Cage into him at this time was to allow his and Fycro¡¯s flesh to bepletelybined together. With this, he would directly possess power close to that of grade-13, as well as the potential to develop. If he relied on himself to absorb it, he would waste too much energy.


    The Violet Angel himself was a puppet. This was equivalent to Saleen refining the Violet Angel once more, and the effects would be much better than if the Violet Angel were to absorb it himself. Of course, the motive of this was to allow the Violet Angel to evolve.


    ¡°Master, you must be more gentle...¡± The Violet Angel could not cry. It could only say this resentfully, and then begin to consume Fycro¡¯s body with all his might.


    ¡°Nonsense!¡± The Violet Angel¡¯s tone caused Saleen to feel gloomy. He released his Water mes to wrap around the Lightning Cage.


    Refining the Violet Angel took up about three more days of Saleen¡¯s time. This was because Fycro¡¯s god body was too difficult to refine. Even if he was a pseudogod, he was still beginning to possess the characteristic of a god, which was to have an imperishable body.


    In reality, if Saleen had not allowed the Violet Angel to consume Fycro, and this body did not have divine fire within, a grade-13 pseudogod¡¯s body could be preserved for 120,000 years. After 120,000 years, with every 10,000 years that passed, the pseudogod¡¯s body would then start to dpose a little. Forplete dposition, it would take an undetermined amount of time and erosion.


    Jason had once told Saleen that alchemy was the equivalent of smelting hundreds of thousands of years¡¯ time into a second. It was an ability, as well as an art. Furthermore, it was the perfect embodiment of rules.


    A creature had to go through a million years in order to evolve and form some new characteristics. A piece of rock also need thousands of years to be weathered and decayed.


    Alchemy was merely the speeding up of these processes. It was up to the alchemist to guide these objects in their development.


    Most alchemists did not understand this point. Their alchemy was like constructing a house. The equipment they refined had too many traces to count and had too many imperfections.


    For good alchemists, it was like nting a flower. They tossed in the seed, watered and fertilized it. All of this needed to bepleted within a very short period of time.


    What Saleen was doing now was to condense 120,000 years¡¯ time into an instant. A god¡¯s body would also dissipate into pure energy. Saleen¡¯s alchemy was meant to bring this process forward.


    If it was the normal breaking down of energy, it would inevitably have some losses. However, Saleen¡¯s type of alchemy was guided based on the rules of materials. The Violet Angelfortably absorbed Fycro¡¯s energy, and at the same time he was in pain from the invasion of the Lightning Cage in his body.


    The electric current was wrecking havoc as per before, and Saleen had no intention of stopping it.


    If people wanted to attain something, they must pay an equivalent price. The Violet Angel wanted to attainplete evolution and surpass the Mechanical Soul, so he must bear the pain.


    Puppets could be destroyed too easily, even if it was a puppet refined entirely out of high grade materials like the Violet Angel. When one attained a grade at Saleen¡¯s level, their foes would never be too weak. Each enemy would probably have the means to destroy the puppet¡¯s core. Saleen was not refining the puppet¡¯s core and the Lightning Cage together. Even if it was a god, it was impossible for them to destroy the Lightning Cage.


    Not just that, but with the Lightning Cage in his body, in the future when the Violet Angel consumed anything, it would be much safer. His stomach would be equivalent to a small-scale Lightning Cage. As long as one was swallowed by the Violet Angel, they would basically be unable to escape.


    The Violet Angel was in pain yet felt joy. By consuming a pseudogod¡¯s body, he could fight less for a few thousand years.


    He would not be bothered by the additional pain that Saleen had inflicted on him. If Master found out that he was bothered by it, he would be punished for some time. That would not be wise.


    Only what he had consumed in his stomach was the truth.


    The Violet Angel lowered his head and ate furiously. Like this, time flowed by. After another three days had passed, Saleen put away his Water mes. The benefit of cultivating the Power of the Soul was that the time in which the Water mes could be released had lengthened.


    ¡°Teacher, I must return.¡± Saleen put away and Water mes and the Violet Angel at the same time. Now, not a trace of a puppet could be seen on the Violet Angel¡¯s entire body. It was adorned with flesh, as if he was a strong human man.


    Saleen could only sigh at the fact that he did not have an artistic cell in his body. The puppets he refine could not be said to be magnificent or good-looking. There was only a feeling of strength and sturdiness.


    Jason nodded and did not say anything. He could now be at ease with regards to his student. If he really could not cope, he could still return here to seek protection from him. There would sooner ortere a day when Saleen would be a great mage, just like those people who had left their names behind in the history books and had attained eternity in the hearts of mages.


    There were no indestructible creatures. Mages too sought longevity and could even live for up to 10,000,000 years. However, mages would not pursue eternal life. That was a misunderstanding. One¡¯s life could only be lengthened constantly, and they had to pay a huge price for it.


    ¡°Sika, let us go.¡± Saleen reached out his hand and carried his son while Sika carried their daughter. He called Rafel and walked towards the teleportation portal.


    The god had already been consumed, and there were no other matters in particr that he needed to do here. He would first send his children back before discussing things again. In this interdimensional space, only Teacher was powerful. Most of the mages who were his subordinates were still on the Myers Continent. Saleen needed to bring his children to a safe ce to stay.


    Fycro¡¯s matter caused Saleen to have no choice but to be careful. With a first time, there was a possibility that it would ur a second time.


    Rafel followed behind Saleen in a strange mood. In her eyes, Saleen was also considered to be powerful. One who was able to exterminate a pseudogod was no longer considered to be ordinary.


    However, this person carried his child with one hand and pulled along his wife with another. No matter how she looked at it, he had nothing to do with the two words ¡®powerful person¡¯.


    Her father god had always been alone and such warmth had never urred in his divine kingdom. Until that goddess had appeared. Could this be the reason of the humans¡¯ strength? Even if they were exceptionally powerful, they still possessed a soft and gentle spirit.


    Yet, why had father god¡¯s wish to possess these things led to his fall?

 Chapter 1385: Angel of Misery (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1385: Angel of Misery (Part 1)</h4>


    Teleportation used up arge number of magic nuclei. The time was short. Once Saleen returned to the temple, he made arrangements for Sika and the children to settle down. Then he brought back the Winged Skull and the two of them returned to interdimensional space.


    Metatrin City was being managed by Sika, and Saleen was totallyfortable with this. He also summoned Daniel back to assist Sika. This death mage was not so enthusiastic about this assignment and regretted having to waste time on it. But if his abilities had beencking in any way, Saleen would not have given him the job.


    He was born a minor lord and had received a good education. This was the asset with which he had established his position with Saleen.


    If he wanted to get something out of this rtionship, he would have to pay the price. Daniel regretted that he had spent so much time thinking of ways to organize his forces. Many aristocrats in the city hoped he was still alive. Once he found out that Saleen had advanced to level-11, Daniel understood he had been mistaken about something.


    The aristocrats no longer ruled this world; the mages did.


    Saleen made the appropriate arrangements for Metatrin City and had not even seen the female Duke Renee before returning to the interdimensional space. Because he brought along the Winged Skull, Saleen did not need to use his death troops. The Winged Skull¡¯s superiorbat abilities offered more than enough protection.


    Its body should have evolved long ago. But Saleen had purposefully not evolved this weapon. In fact, he had always restricted him.


    Nailisi was on her way back after being summoned. Saleen had been dyed in the interdimensional space for less than a month, and the Holy See¡¯s troops had not arrived yet in Nature City. Fycro had only umted enough energy to advance after killing two of the Lord of Glory¡¯s oracles. This time, the Holy See¡¯s attack was not aided by the two oracles and Saleen wasted no time worrying about them.


    Saleen allowed the Winged Skull toplete its advancement quickly in the interdimensional space. At level-11, it would no longer face too many dangers. For Saleen¡¯s future matters, those whose grades were too low could not be used and he would have to handle them personally.


    While the Winged Skull was advancing, Nailisi arrived at the interdimensional space, hoping to advance here. Saleen arranged for her to take away the disciples and return them to Nature City. Only Nailisi had the ability to handle the 1,600,000 disciples.


    In the blink of an eye, another month passed during which the Winged Skull and Nailisipleted their advancement. Rafel had also absorbed the power of the divine fire,pletely eradicating her body of all its wounds.


    Saleen brought Rafel and the Winged Skull, along with the Violet Angel, and the four of them moved to the border of the interdimensional space.


    There was a volcano there, which was also where Fycro had entered. Saleen had already dispatched arge number of deadly creatures to check out the ce, but none were able to return.


    The interdimensional space was evolving. Though the volcano was still erupting, it no longer posed the same danger as earlier on.


    When it first erupted, it swept away most of the interdimensional space.


    Now, Saleen¡¯s preparatory time was very long, one month. He had been questioning the disciples who had betrayed Fycro about their origins at this time.


    Saleen knew, in general, how these people had arrived. At the border of the volcano was a ce that was connected to the Myers Continent. It was an extremely stable spatial pathway that also happened to be quite wide.


    The pathway had been created by Fycro¡¯s divine spell and was not a natural object. At the other end of the spatial pathwayy the Abyss of Light, located within the Chaotic Swamp.


    In the beginning, Saleen had even walked over to this abyss but had not detected any connection between the nes. Even though Fycro had ced this object in in sight, it attracted little attention.


    Saleen did not realize that Fycro was creating air for the sake of opposing the Holy See. He had not thought that the purpose of this abyss was to span across different nes.


    Battles between the gods were often ignited by the betrayals of a traitor. If he could tempt the subordinate of an opposing god to turn traitor and get a safe coordinate point within its divine kingdom, the Lord of Glory would create an Abyss of Light to invade the divine kingdom. After a near-eternal pathway opened, the Lord of Glory¡¯s angel troops would begin their massacre incessantly and unsparingly.


    Saleen had moved too many people into the interdimensional space. For someone like Fycro, it would not be hard to infiltrate this ce once he detected the presence of others. Because he was afraid of being discovered by the mages, Fycro had opened a spatial pathway at the border of the volcano. Not much attention would be ced on such a location, hence the mages had only discovered his entrance after millions of his troops had entered. By this time, Fycro could already use godly power to temporarily disrupt the coordinates of the interdimensional space. Hence, his back-up troops would not be able to arrive there.


    Saleen brought three subordinates to the border of the volcano. The earth was pitch ck and twisted up and down, like a solidified ocean.


    This volcano had once been where the fire element created chaos in the interdimensional space. Saleen looked ahead and took off. Arriving at the crater of the volcano, he looked down and saw an intense aura inside.


    Although fire-elemental spirits had been born, they had all been consumed by Fycro: For him, bing a god came with a cost. Without an immense amount of energy for wanton use, Fycro could not possibly have advanced so swiftly.


    Saleen leaped into the volcano crater and expanded his Water Shield over his body. The temperature was exceptionally high. Saleen did not see any chaotic vibrations with his Elemental Eye. This volcano would not erupt for at least a few months.


    The gases below made breathing difficult. Saleen looked around him. Near the point of the eruption were crystals left behind by a fire-elemental spirit. They were of a higher grade than the ones left behind by the great fire snake.


    Saleen released his lightning warriors to gather them.


    They could not be wasted. To operate, all his equipment relied on huge amounts of energy. The Floating City was certainly powerful but when used in battle, the number of magic nuclei and crystals it burned up really caused one¡¯s heart to ache.


    Fortunately, the ancients¡¯ magic power furnace could contain anything. Even if it was a lower grade magic nucleus, it could still be refined into pure energy.


    Saleen returned to the ground¡¯s surface and began looking around the border of the volcano. Fycro had not concealed any clues; very quickly Saleen arrived at a fault in the rocks. When looking across this at ground level, there was nothing in front at all; however, when looking down from a high altitude, steps at the crack in the earth that led deep underground were visible.


    The width of these steps reached about 500 meters and could amodate a thousand people moving forward. The steps were pitch ck. The smoke below was thick, yet the temperature was not as high as in the volcano crater.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Saleen pointed at the huge steps.


    ¡°Master.¡± Rafel took a step forward and allowed Saleen to walk behind her.


    Saleen smiled. It seemed that Rafel had finally put aside her matters of the heart for the time being and no longer talked about leaving. With Rafel taking the lead, the Violet Angel and Winged Skull were also rxed. They stood on each side of Saleen and followed the huge steps to walk underground.


    Saleen had added a Water Shield to each person to support them. Rafel simply smiled at such magic spells.


    To her, a level-10 Water Shield was fragile. This was already a very high evaluation. A level-10 skill, in the eyes of a person with level-13 strength, would typically only be able to receive a poor evaluation.


    The Winged Skull released two balls of jade-green mes to shine above everybody¡¯s head. Once they were released, the nearby soot was forced aside by the Power of the Dead. Their line of sight became much clearer.


    The steps were wide but not very steep. It was possible to ride a horse and gallop down them. t.


    Rafel picked up speed and sprinted toward the bottom of the steps. Saleen and the others naturally kept up with her. Gradually, only the jade-green mes released by the Winged Skull were illuminating their path. All outside sources of light had vanished.


    Saleen retrieved a piece of seabed jade, a precious stone of a slightly lower grade than chlorite. This meant it contained godly power.


    Stored within this seabed jade was the Lord of Glory¡¯s godly power. Saleen had conquered millions of armies and had acquired many of such stores of godly power.


    Godly power of light was released. The steps immediately shed a few times and released a gentle radiance.


    The godly power was absorbed by the steps. Then, Saleen saw a path that was 50 kilometers long.


    The end of the path was still thick with smoke.


    Rafel¡¯s began running faster. The Violet Angel and Winged Skull had no choice but to spread their wings and fly in order to keep up. Saleen used the earth¡¯s power to follow behind them at afortable pace. He still had some excess power.


    They sprinted for about 100 kilometers. Suddenly a spear appeared in Rafel¡¯s hands and was flung into the smoke.


    A low, muffled cry of pain sounded. Saleen retrieved his n badge and was prepared to deal with the unknown enemy.


    Rafel retrieved her spear. A monster that was not even one meter tall was skewered onto the spear. With its feathered wings, it looked like an angel; however, the little monster¡¯s wings were tattered and multicolored instead of one pure color.


    The little creature even brandished a sharp fork in its hands. Rafel¡¯s shook her spear and tossed it in front of Saleen.


    Howl!


    Arge monster about ten meters tall came rushing out from the smoke. Saleen saw it with his eyes and felt it was like a mountain troll that had shrunk in water. There were rtively more types of magic beasts in the Chaotic Swamp. The monsters that suddenly appeared in the smoke all looked malnourished.


    The lighting warriors flew out from Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier and charged at the monsters that kept increasing in number. Rafel did not slow down: She killed everything in her path as she moved and advanced about five kilometers. A blinding light suddenly appeared, and the steps beneath their feet could no longer be seen.


    Within the light, there was a great number of angels...


    Not angels, but demi-angels. Fycro had notpleted the production of thesebat weapons. He used the creatures within the Chaotic Swamp to create them but had not used godly power to create them from scratch.


    Demi-angels were a miserable lot. They had a lower position than angels and served as cannon fodder.


    On seeing Saleen and his party, these demi-angels that had lost their god rushed up one by one. Saleen sighed and emitted his Lightning Constetion, releasing all the lightning warriors to meet these demi-angels head-on.


    Rafel and the others stopped and watched the demi-angels perish like moths attracted to a me as they entered the Lightning Territory. Zap! The lightning warriors killed everyst one.


    Thebat ability of the demi-angels was simply too weak. Without a god, their level was not even as good as it had been in their previous lives.


    After some of the level-8 and level-9 magic beasts in the Chaotic Swamp had been manufactured into demi-angels, their power had decreased continuously. They were probably only at level-5 or level-6 strength. They needed to gain Fycro¡¯s godly power, after which would they be able to explosively release power surpassing that of level-9.


    Currently, these demi-angels didn¡¯t have anything and were all in a tragic state. Before Saleen and his party arrived, the demi-angels had already begun killing each other off.


    After Saleen released his Power of the Soul outside, he looked around. He discovered in this abyss enveloped in light that the number of demi-angels numbered 30,000.


    Weren¡¯t there only so many magic beasts that could be used in the Chaotic Swamp? Fycro had probably brought all the decent magic beasts to manufacture his demi-angels. The Chaotic Swamp would probably no longer be as dangerous as it once was.

 Chapter 1386: Angel of Misery (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1386: Angel of Misery (Part 2)</h4>


    Within the Lightning Territory, dozens of lightning warriors gathered and took the initiative to assemble into evenrger lightning warriors. All were puppet incarnations. The astonishing thing is that this transformation took ce without Saleen¡¯smand.


    This was instinctual. After Dante became a god, these lightning warriors would eventually turn into angels.


    They were both angels; however, the demi-angels created by Fycro suffered a tragic fate. Without a god, they were orphans.


    Our god has already died, and we¡¯re just withering in the light...


    From the depths of the light, a singing voice was transmitted. It was from some demi-angels created from human souls. These people were Fycro¡¯s devout disciples. To help him gain experience in creating angels, Fycro used them for experimentation. The result: demi-angels.


    Demi-angels had no glory. Without their god, they had no way to live forever.


    Their lifespan was only a bit longer than before being manufactured into demi-angels. When Fycro was still present, he could revive them in the light after their lifespan hade to an end. Each time they were revived, their lifespan shortened. Finally, their angel¡¯s core would shatter¡ªand that would be the end of them.


    The interminable singing voice filled the air. Hearing it, the demi-angels each spread their tattered wings and increased their charging speed. If they were not killed and had to continue to bitterly wait in this holy light, it would be pure agony.


    ¡°Abyss of Light, this is a god¡¯s divine kingdom. It¡¯s just that it has been fragmented.¡± Rafel identified the essence of the Abyss of Light. Because these demi-angels were in a fragmented divine kingdom, without Fycro there was no way for them to leave.


    They had to continuously endure all types of pain, but they could not die.


    Without food, they would starve. As they became crazy from starvation, they would cannibalize their own kind and receive the punishment of the holy light. If they did not manage to eat, they would have to bear relentless starvation.


    These demi-angels had lived long enough, but Saleen and his party were in a hurry. Their power was so weak that Saleen could not even be bothered to y them. Thus, the demi-angels directly attacked Saleen, and surrounding him and leaving him stranded.


    This they did not for the sake of killing the enemy but for obtaining their release.


    Could the demi-angelsmit suicide? No, they could not. Fycro¡¯s teachings shared the same origins as the Lord of Glory and did not permit suicide. If they did so anyway, the punishment received by a soul would be even more miserable. They had to continue suffering within the Abyss of Light.


    They could not die, yet they did not want to live. This was the life of the demi-angels.


    Without a doubt, Saleen was Fycro¡¯s enemy. The demi-angels could smell the scent of an enemy. This was their instinct. If they died at the enemy¡¯s hands, at the very least their souls could obtain release.


    Numerous demi-angels were killed by the lightning warriors. Saleen did not make any more moves. There was no need for him to waste any scrolls or magic nuclei for the sake of these pitiful beings.


    The lightning warriors surrounded Saleen, and the demi-angels surrounded the lightning warriors. When one wave fell, the next wave followed fearlessly.


    They did not wish to attain victory at all. So what if they won? Their god had already fallen. They no longer held any hopes within their short lives.


    Saleen harboredplex emotions as he gazed at the fall of the demi-angels.


    There was practically no remaining godly power in their bodies. Even if there was a little, this was at odds with that absorbed by the powerful demi-angels within the holy light. This was not enough to fill their bellies at all.


    Angels rarely starved, but demi-angels were inferior goods created by the gods. Everything¨C happiness and anger, joy and sorrow, life and death¡ªwould all have effects on the bodies of demi-angels.


    For a faith they were coerced to follow, this was worth nothing. But what about those who voluntarily had faith?


    ¡°Rafel, do you miss the Metal God?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Very much so. He is a good god.¡±


    ¡°Gods are also separated into good and bad?¡± Saleen was tickled pink by Rafel¡¯s answer. Such words were hrious to a mage.


    ¡°Of course.¡± Rafel was not angry, and said, ¡°Some gods only live for destruction. Some gods are self-sufficient and will not seize others¡¯ possessions at all.¡±


    ¡°Then what did the Metal God live by?¡±


    ¡°Civilization.¡±


    ¡°Civilization?¡±


    ¡°All civilized worlds will develop different types of tools. Those made from the very beginning might not use metals, but using metals for these is a kind of necessity. A fully constructed puppet is merely a representative object. The Metal God¡¯s faith, apart from supplying angels, also includes all powers that are affected by or use metals.¡±


    Saleen muttered to himself for a moment and understood. If a farmer used a sickle and hoe, he would have a sense of reliance on these tools. He might even treat these tools as a part of his family. The Metal God relied on such powers to live. In other words, he did not need to develop any disciples at all in order to maintain his godly power, and he was unlikely to fall.


    How could there be a ne that had no agriculture? Even in the giant dragon¡¯s ne, the dragon race also used metal to create huge mechanical puppets to cultivate thend and livestock in their ce. Such high-grade metal equipment and such a superior race would also unknowingly give power to the Metal God.


    In some nes, certain civilizations were prosperous. They would even go to other continents to mine for metal. When the Myers Continent was at its peak power, the boots of humans had stepped all over the entire Crystal Wall system.


    Apart from plunder, humans would also give the creatures of the subcontinental ne some skills, including all kinds of knowledge. This included alchemy. Furthermore, in the human world, the consumption of metals was exceptionally high. Within a puppet used for farming alone, there would be thousands of parts.


    Of course, the biggest consumer of metals was war. In the midst of war, countless mineral veins were excavated, refined and crafted into weapons. These weapons were objects that soldiers relied on for survival. The emotions and hopes poured into them were even greater.


    ¡°In that case, he is indeed a good god. Rafel, what do you think. Is the Lord of Glory a good god?¡±


    ¡°No. When a god only permits one faith, it is not a good god.¡±


    ¡°Who told you this?¡±


    ¡°Father god.¡±


    ¡°Father god? Did he treat all of you as his children?¡±


    ¡°No, it was different. A god will not make sacrifices for angels, but humans would that for their children. But we¡¯re angels. We would not demand our gods to do so.¡±


    ¡°Rafel, if the dayes when I go to war with a divine kingdom, will you help me or leave?¡±


    Rafel smiled and said, ¡°This had nothing to do with faith, identity, race and so on. I hate attacking divine kingdoms, that¡¯s all.¡±


    ¡°Then I understand. If such a dayes, I won¡¯t bring you along.¡±


    ¡°That is not necessarily the case. Perhaps your enemy will not just be the Lord of Glory. There are some gods that you will run into sooner orter.¡±


    After Saleen had advanced, his mind was active and he understood Rafel¡¯s words. The Metal God had definitely died at the hands of other gods. If he happened to attack the Metal God¡¯s enemies, Rafel would be willing to fight.


    Saleen¡¯s rank was bing higher and higher. He would eventually surpass Rafel. Rafel¡¯s true purpose was her iparably rich battle experience.


    Saleen needed to train his troops. He also wanted to train an army that was just like the angels. Most of these troops would have to die in battle in a foreignnd. Saleen hoped he would be able to bring more of them back to the Myers Continent alive.


    If he wanted them to live on, they would have to possessbat skills. Rafel¡¯sbat skills were best suited to training these troops.


    For the army that Saleen yearned for in his heart, the elite troops needed to be level-9 professionals.


    Level-9 professionals would be able to grasp some powerful skills, and it was even possible for them to injure pseudo gods. When a Golden Grand Swordmaster put all his effort into an attack, it would only do if the pseudo god had to rely on his equipment in order to defend against it. If they really relied on their god¡¯s body to block it, they would still be damaged.


    Saleen did not need any troops. His n was to allow the magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit to be a god. This would give him three gods in his magic amplifier. When they werebined with Floating City in the end, they would be a godly item.


    A true godly item could contain a godly item that was like a country.


    Such a godly item could contain a great number of angels. Saleen did not require any troops, but if he wanted to oppose the Lord of Glory in the future, he would definitely need to eliminate the Lord of Glory¡¯s angel army. It would not do to rely on himself alone. He would also need a simr army.


    While Saleen was killing off the demi-angels one by one, an oracle died suddenly in a concealed divine kingdom.


    There would also be death in a divine kingdom. Perhaps this oracle had already lived for tens of millions of years. Such aging was inevitable. The Lord of Glory was not within this divine kingdom. This was one of the divine kingdoms that the Lord of Glory had seized. It was impossible for him to defend all of the divine kingdoms. And although he had not advanced to level-16, it was impossible for him to merge the divine kingdoms.


    This divine kingdom had thus be a kingdom without a god.


    The aged oracle¡¯s death had not been noticed by any surrounding gods. Within the divine kingdom, the gods, oracles, angels, as well as some civilian disciples all did not need to do any farming. Each day, they only had to praise the gods in order to avoid starvation or not be gued by disease.


    The difference was that oracles sometimes still had to go out to spread the god¡¯s teachings, and the angels had to participate in battles, whereas the civilian disciples only needed to live on. Praising the gods who really not a particrlyborious job, it was just deadly dull.


    The death of this oracle followed typicalmon sense. The body would turn into pure light before being absorbed by the divine kingdom.


    When the oracle died, nobody in his surroundings witnessed it. Only a powerful angel could sense the aura of death. In a divine kingdom, nobody would investigate such a matter at all. Each person would be living blissfully as much as possible and would not bother about the life and death of others.


    The oracle had copsed below a tree. An hourter, he suddenly turned over and sat up. He took a look at his body and was extremely pleased.


    ¡°Fortunately, I left a backdoor for myself in the beginning. Otherwise, if I wanted to revive myself, there is no way of knowing how long it would take. It¡¯s too bad my divine fire has been extinguished. If I want to reignite it, I will still need some time. The Lord of Glory also happens to be absent, and I can leisurely steal godly power. Heh, Saleen, I will return!¡±


    The oracle raised his head and the flesh on his face twisted, turning into Fycro¡¯s appearance. On his forehead, an eye happened to be shut and it disappeared without a trace.


    When this oracle had left the divine kingdom to carry out the Lord of Glory¡¯s assignment, he had been touched by Fycro and a soul thread had been left in his body. This soul thread was like a vampire, absorbing the oracle¡¯s power and causing the oracle to swiftly age. The resident soul, however, provided power to the oracle. The oracle had not felt the aging of his body either. Like this, his life had secretly been seized away by Fycro.


    Only a pure god¡¯s body would allow Fycro to do something like this.

 Chapter 1387: Divine Kingdom Fragments (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1387: Divine Kingdom Fragments (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen and his party massacred tens of thousands of demi-angels in the Abyss of Light. Saleen could not be bothered to use Thundering Sound to purify these pitiful creatures. Even after purification, they would still not be the disciples of any god.


    On the contrary, the demi-angels¡¯ nightmare would continue. It would continue even after death.


    Saleen regretted not bringing Nailisi along. Her Purgatory of Purification could have made these demi-angels disappear. Without the presence of a god, the divine kingdom Fycro had promised them could not exist. In other words, after these demi-angels died in battle, they would continue to exist in this Abyss of Light, whether their souls wereplete or not.


    It was a futile effort. These demi-angels were hoping to end it all in Saleen¡¯s hands.


    The Abyss of Light had been created from fragments of a divine kingdom, which were bigger than the Myers Continent. The size of these fragments was at least 500 kilometers. Fycro had concealed his army in the Abyss of Light¨Cand then he quietly sneaked into the interdimensional space.


    Saleen didn¡¯t need to get his bearings. He flew upward for more than 4 hours and atst saw a cramped and narrow crevasse.


    This crevasse was an abyssal entrance atop the Abyss of Light.


    ¡°Master, a lot of ces in this Abyss of Light haven¡¯t been searched. It¡¯s bigger than you think,¡± Rafel said suddenly.


    ¡°No need to hurry. I¡¯ll think about it after I destroy Rafel¡¯s castle.¡± As Saleen spoke, he flew to the skies from the Abyss of Light and released his Lightning Constetion, enveloping white castle behind the abyss.


    ¡°Rafel, this ce is the key to Fycro¡¯s resurrection. None shall be spared!¡± Saleen warned, and he urged the Violet Angel to retrieve the War Drum of Fear.


    The remaining strong people left in the white castle inside the Chaotic Swamp used to be very scarce. When the Violet Angel struck the War Drum of Fear, most of them lost theirbat power. The sound of the war drum reverberated within the white castle. Some disciples went insane and began to attack their own side.


    The War Drum of Fear was truly a product of Saleen¡¯s genius. It was not only a beneficial item in times of group battles, but it was even more effective when attacking a stronghold. After all, the quality of soldiers on the battlefield was higher. From within the city, there would be all kinds of people.


    Once it set in, panic and disorder would spread uncontrobly.


    The Winged Skull summoned about 1,000 skeleton knights from the spirit space. These were powerful warriors he had newly cultivated. With the experience of creating the jade skeleton, the Winged Skull created these skeleton knights. Each had a fixed level of intelligence, but theirbat power was even greater than the death knights¡¯.


    Also, the Winged Skull did not hesitate to divide up the blood in the Golden Heart and give some to each of the thousand or so skeleton knights. This allowed the bodies of these skeleton knights to radiate a golden hue.


    Golden skeletons were the strongest skeletons under the Skeleton King. Each one was equipped with a Nightmare by the Winged Skull.


    A Nightmare was a powerful death creature. Even if its level was low, it still had a huge capacity for butchery. The Winged Skull seemed to have exhausted all of its resources to create these 1,000 or so cavalry soldiers. The level of these Nightmares had already advanced to level-9. The golden skeletons might not have such a high level, but as their number of battles increased, they would be able to consume soul power.


    In the midst of the 1,000 or so golden skeleton knights, there were a few jade skeletons whose intelligence was fully engaged. These were the properties that the Winged Skull had saved up bit by bit. As a deadly creature, this was not so easy to do. If not for its excessively powerful Soul me, it would not have the ability to create so many intelligent skeletons.


    The skeletons were more valuable than the Nightmares, which could ultimately be summoned. Plus, their advancement was easy. It would have been problematic if these skeletons wished to advance.


    Rafel rushed into the castle and did not see them. If she did, she would have sighed in admiration. The capabilities of the Winged Skull were already simr to that of the measures used by the gods. If it was willing to be a god, there would be no problem to be a death god or a darkness god.


    The 1,000 or so cavalry soldiers could travel bynd and sea. It didn¡¯t matter how treacherous the environment was. Their speed could also reach that of a level-9 professional in peak condition. They were the army of Saleen¡¯s dreams. Unfortunately, there were only a few of them.


    It was sufficient to deal with the white castle. The Winged Skull released the 1,000 or so cavalry soldiers at the outer periphery of the white castle, preventing the people inside from escaping.


    Although he was aware that Fycro still had many disciples on this ne who could not be wiped out, Saleen still didn¡¯t want to spare all the people in the white castle. The people here were different from the warriors who had attacked the interdimensional space. The forces in the white castle were used by Fycro to transmit the faith to himself.


    Every person was capable of creating more disciples. Theirbat power might not be strong, but the power they could provide to Fycro was greater than a million knights.


    If these people were allowed to leave, they might even secretly develop a religion greater than the Nature Faith.


    Saleen was determined to get rid of everyst one. Those who were by chance able to fly would be killed by Rafel and the Winged Skull. The ones who were outside the castle walls and wanted to break through the siege would be killed by the golden skeletons.


    The speed of the golden skeletons was not exactly slow, and they were even riding the Nightmares. The professionals below level-9 could not outrun them at all.


    The Winged Skull again released a ton of death spirits. At this time, some guys were more savage within the group. For example, there were those like the Boneless Dragon specialized in causing the human body to decay and absorbing the soul power of the corpses.


    The white castle became a hellhole. Saleen no longer felt much remorse. Having seen the hundreds of thousands of demi-angels in the abyss, he had already made his decision.


    Fycro might not be as oppressive as the Lord of Glory, but he was far more indifferent toward life.


    When creating the demi-angels, the souls of some magic beasts had been too weak and required many magic beasts to be meld. Mages also analyzed souls, but they would never do such a thing. A lone soul who eventually was able to attain peace but had an amalgamated soul was the equivalent of being judged to receive the worst ending.


    Even abominations were not as tragic. The demi-angels¡¯ existence was precisely one of the excuses that humans had used to attack the gods¡¯ kingdoms in the beginning.


    Of course, Saleen did not know that Fycro had already been revived. He just could not reignite his divine fire.


    Attacking the white castle had taken around six hours. Rafel felt extremely satisfied with this battle. She also detested the god who created the demi-angels.


    The fates of demi-angels were all miserable. When Rafel was an angel, she had no feelings. After the Metal God¡¯s death, she deeply understood what it meant to be without a god¡¯s protection.


    When these demi-angels were created, the god had had no ns to take care of them.


    It was already winter and bitterly cold in the Chaotic Swamp. Even the ground had frozen over. But in the white castle, all the ice on the ground had melted and could not be frozen. Bloody water flowed. At this time, the Violet Angelmanded the pests to rush down and devour the souls of the disciples.


    Pests loved souls. They were after all things that had been formed from soul fragments. The more souls they consumed, the higher the level of the pests. Saleen had originally been unwilling to use this power but now that he was dealing with Fycro¡¯s disciples, he hated the fact that there were too few pests.


    ¡°My lord, if the white castle is cleared out, how do you n to deal with it?¡± Rafel asked curiously. She was now curious about more and more things. She always wanted to try to understand the thinking of humans.


    Humans had once been so powerful they surpassed her god, but they had also been swiftly defeated. They appeared to be an interesting race.


    ¡°Rafel, can you collect these divine kingdom fragments?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I can, but my lord needs to reach level-13 for it to work.¡±


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s unpleasant expression, Rafel hurriedly added, ¡°Your subordinate gathering is the same as you gathering it. I suppose that my lord is worried that this spatial pathway will affect the safety of this interdimensional space, isn¡¯t that right?¡±


    ¡°Of course. No more mistakes can happen in this interdimensional space. If Fycro is revived, it will definitely be easier for him to abscond with these divine kingdom fragments. I want to take them away directly. If they cannot be refined, I might as well destroy them.¡±


    Rafel said, ¡°My lord, I know you definitely do not wish to be a god, but if these divine kingdom fragments are destroyed, it is really such a waste...¡±


    ¡°You want me to give them to you?¡± Saleem smiled slightly.


    ¡°That¡¯s not the situation. I know that my lord has lofty ambitions, but I really do not wish to be an angel or advance to a god. The divine kingdom fragments will only bring harm and no benefits to me. This item can be used by my lord¡¯s subordinate Weapon¡¯s Spirit. The magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit cannot ignite divine fire because he iscking in power. If he can absorb these divine kingdom fragments, creatures can be carried into my lord¡¯s magic amplifier. It can also contain infinite magic nuclei and have huge magic arrays installed...¡±


    ¡°Okay, I get it. But do you think there are any other areas within these divine kingdom fragments that have not been searched?¡±


    ¡°My lord, Fycro was only a pseudo god. When he advanced, it was probably after he had entered this interdimensional space. If someone advances in divine kingdom fragments, the divine fire must be consumed by the divine kingdom fragments. That¡¯s the equivalent of letting off the god who has already fallen lightly.¡±


    Rafel did not go into detail, but Saleen knew what she meant. These divine kingdom fragments were themselves a part of a god¡¯s body. If Fycro chose to ignite his divine fire here, he would undoubtedly not receive the punishment of the Myers Continent¡¯s ne¡¯s rules but would be taken advantage of by the fallen god. If the divine kingdom fragments absorbed divine fire, this could also allow the fallen god to be revived.


    ¡°Fycro was anxious to attack this interdimensional space, thus he only used the divine kingdom fragments to create the abyss and corroded out a nal pathway. There are still traces of a divine kingdom within these divine kingdom fragments that can be searched.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s heart sank on hearing Rafel¡¯s words. In a god¡¯s kingdom, there would not only be items that were manufactured by the god themselves but also those they had plundered. Also, in the war between humans and gods, there would also be items left behind by humans within many divine kingdom fragments. These were all the equipment of powerful ancients. If he were to get his hands on one of them...


    Saleen suddenly calmed down. His n badge, Thunder Dragon ster, as well as this set of magic robes and magic amplifier, all of these already would not lose in exquisiteness to the ancient humans¡¯ equipment.


    The ancient humans¡¯ equipment won out in materials because the humans at that time were too strong and would not really rely on these items. As the power of humans decreased, the equipment they created became more and more meticulous, and more and more vicious.


    Thus, the equipment of the Second Dynasty was more powerful than that of the First Dynasty. And the Third Dynasty¡¯s equipment was also more delicate than that of the Second Dynasty. Whereas in the Fourth Dynasty, because the power of humans had fallen too drastically, equipment had be exceedinglyplex.

 Chapter 1388: Divine Kingdom Fragments (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1388: Divine Kingdom Fragments (Part 2)</h4>


    Seeing that Saleen had calmed down and was no longer so excited about the things in the divine kingdom fragments, Rafel could not resist saying, ¡°The divine kingdoms created by the gods all have their own unique rules. These rules still exist within the fragments. It will also be good toprehend some of them.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense!¡± Saleen chuckled. Rafel had suddenly became excited about these divine kingdom fragments, so he would still go and search them for a moment. Something that was able to make a battle angel excited would definitely be of help to him.


    The task of clearing out the white castle had been handed over to the Winged Skull and Violet Angel. He then brought Rafel with him to reenter the Abyss of Light.


    The existence of the demi-angels was no longer present within the abyss. Saleen had not brought the Violet Angel along because he did not want to allow the Violet Angel to collect the soul fragments here.


    This ce was a divine kingdom fragment. The space in all four directions was extremely vast. Saleen¡¯s Power of the Soul controlled his perceptions. As it spread out, it could not sense the exit of the fragment at all.


    Saleen¡¯s Lightning Constetion was also released, allowing the radius of the lightning warriors¡¯ activity to reach above 50 kilometers.


    The two people swept through the abyss. As they walked, they had indeed discovered the oddities of this ce.


    The space within the divine kingdom fragment was not at all stable, as if it would copse at any time. Even if this was a mistaken perception, this still caused one to shudder in terror. If the space copsed, unless Saleen¡¯s grade reached above grade-16, otherwise it would be hard for them to escape alive.


    ¡°My lord, the borders of the divine kingdom are not stable enough. This is because the divine kingdom was destroyed. Actually, it is not that dangerous, we...¡±


    ¡°We will walk along the border.¡± Saleen said resolutely. He detected that at the borders of the divine kingdom, there had once been an intense battle. Even Saleen himself was unable to imagine the intensity of this battle. Tens of millons of years had probaly passed. yet there was still space turbulence caused by the violent attacks at this divine kingdom¡¯s border.


    The strength of this space turbulence was not great, but it was extremely regr. Rafel said to Saleen in astonishment, ¡°This divine kingdom is the one that was demolished by weapons after the death of the gods!¡±


    ¡°Weapons?¡±


    ¡°They should belong to the strongest and most supreme of the warriors...¡±


    ¡°Then the history of this divine kingdom fragment should be very long.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, if we use a mage¡¯s elemental calction method, I estimate that it can be calcted up to 14 million years ago. It was still a very young divine kingdom,¡± Rafel said.


    ¡°Young?¡±


    ¡°The Myers Continent was not always the primary ne. The history of this Crystal Wall system should be about 20 to 25 billion years old. A divine kingdom that is tens of millions of years old is considered to be very young.¡±


    ¡°Tens of millios of years. That is not the history that we know about.¡±


    ¡°Mm, but the rules here will not be that much different from the rules that we know of.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s take a look and see what there is.¡± Saleen increased his speed and moved forward along the border of the divine kingdom. There was light only at the center of the divine kingdom fragment, at the position where the spatial pathway had been opened. Saleen and Rafel walked further and further. The border of the divine kingdom only had a mountain range that was about 1,000 meters tall.


    The left side of the mountain range actually had forests growing there. Yet, the other side was full of barren rocks.


    All of the trees in these forests were of a higher grade than all of the magical nts that Saleen had seen before. Saleen almost could not help but move forward to fell some of these trees. However, intuition caused him to not act. There was still some residual energy in this divine kingdom fragment. There would definitely be some things in it that caused people¡¯s hearts to be moved.


    Although these nts possessed the properties of a god, but to Saleen, they could still be used to refine a mage¡¯s equipment. The Divine Tree Magical Tower had also been refined sessfully by him in the beginning. Now that he possessed strong lightning skills, it would be even easier for Saleen to refine such goods that possessed the properties of a god. As long as he first used lightning to wipe out the properties of a god, he could refine these nts into the battle equipment that Saleen needed the most.


    As they moved forward along the borders of the forest and walked for over 500 kilometers, Saleen saw a temple.


    ¡°Rafel, it is fortunate that I listened to you!¡± Saleen was about to move forward, but Rafel was already blocking his front and she rushed towards the temple. In the temple, there was a huge statue that was over 60 meters tall. A strange weapon was being held in its hands. It looked like a halberd, and there was also a long de at its front.¡±


    When Rafel saw this statue, a joyful expression surfaced onto her face. This was an ancient idol. The gods had long been finished and the remaining idols protected the temples. To Rafel, they were purely supplements. If they could find an idol that possessed a core, Rafel could even create an angel incarnation and provide herself with energy for the long-term.


    In other words, in the future she could be like Saleen, stealing godly power everywhere. Such theft would not incur the attention of others. The Power of Faith that was required by the ancient gods wasparatively more disordered and was not pure enough. However, it came from numerous nes, and could even surpass the Power of Faith that was stolen from the Crystal Wall system.


    Because the number of thefts were few, hence it was very difficult to attract the notice of any gods.


    To the gods, they would only take note if a fixed amount of the Power of Faith was stolen.


    Rafel used her spear to dodge the idol¡¯s huge weapon. She turned to Saleen and said, ¡°My lord, could you help me to take a look and see if that idol has any god¡¯s core in it?¡±


    Saleen smiled slighty. This Rafel had finally expressed some desires.


    He used his Elemental Eye to take a nce. There was really a core at the position of the idol¡¯s heart. Saleen utilized a magic illusion to show Rafel the form of the idol¡¯s core.


    Rafel saw the rough form of the core and felt that she was really too fortunate. This god¡¯s core could be considered to be whole. She could even refine it into her body. Of course, she required Saleen¡¯s help, otherwise the consequences would be very dire.


    The idol¡¯s weapon swept across, and the long de in front grazed across Rafel¡¯s body. Rafel was about to counterattack when arge descended from the sky, capturing the idol within it.


    Saleen used therge to capture the idol and no longer made a move. Instead, he was all smiles as he watched to see how Rafel would handle it.


    Rafel was indeed simple. She directly threw the idol into the space that belonged to her, thenposedly walked towards the temple steps.


    The temple steps wererge and tall. Saleen made a few calctions and judged that these steps were meant to be used by creatures who were over 50 meters tall. In other words, the idol itself was about the same size as the gods of this divine kingdom.


    When he battled against creatures withrge physiques, he would instead hold the advantage, especially in the area of physical attacks, unless the other party used a weapon like arge club. If they used a sword or spear to fight against a small and short creature like himself, they would basically have to bend over in order to fight him.


    Rafel jumped onto the tall step, her expression resolute. It had been so long since she felt carefree upon entering others¡¯ divine kingdom. The fighting spirit within Rafel¡¯s body was ignited, and she wanted to attack so much that it was uncontroble.


    This was an angel¡¯s instinct, especially when they met other gods.


    A second idol rushed down, and Saleen¡¯srge was once again cast out. These idols did not have much power remaining and were still thrown by Rafel into her own space.


    Only two idols had appeared. Rafel was already satisfied. With these two idols, even if the refining of one failed, the second would still seed. Angels would very rarely make the same mistake twice.


    The ancient temple was several hundreds of meters tall. It did not adopt a colonnade structure, but instead there were many statues supporting the temple¡¯s domes. These domes had a hemispherical structure and did not have any traversing beams. Saleen followed Rafel and walked into the temple. He saw that a huge star chart was drawn on the upper part of the domes.


    So it turned out that gods also studied star-based knowledge!


    Saleen saw that after Rafel had walked into the temple and arrived at the center of the temple, the ground beneath her feet was crossed with thousands of streaked lines. These were drawings of Holy Prose, and not a style of array.


    The Holy Prose described the story of the ancient gods. Rafel softly recited them. Saleen listened from the side, but he could not understand what Rafel was saying.


    Rafel recited line after line and the temple began to tremble. Saleen saw that Rafel was not at all rmed and was still chanting sentence after sentence. Saleen simply went to Rafel¡¯s side and used his Water Shield to protect himself first before doing anything else.


    Rafel smiled. The temple shook more and more violently and the idols could no longer help but to act. Of these idols, two had already been captured by Rafel. The temple had fallen into disrepair after such a long time and the remaining godly power was still being used to resist the energy storm at the borders of the divine kingdom. Hence, the idols had not dared to act rashly. Losing two was already the limit. If one more was lost, even the dome would copse.


    Rafel was now reciting words of prayer. The copse of the temple had already be reality, so these idols immediately gave up on supporting the dome, which had be a meaningless matter.


    22 enormous idols brandished the weapons in their hands in thought, pounding them at the two minuscule sphemers on the ground.


    Rafel¡¯s spear was set upright. The sharp tip of the spear shot out green-colored energy, forming a circr shield that covered both her and Saleen. The surface of this shield was decorated with nt and flower patterns, looking extremely gentle. In reality, when 22 heavy weapons pounded at its surface, the energy shield became dented.


    However, after the power of the weapons in the hands of the 22 idols entered the energy shield, it was transmitted back and they shed with one another. 22 enormous weapons flew in the air and slipped out of their hands.


    The idols released angry roars. At this time, Saleen threw out anotherrge, trapping an idol. Rafel¡¯s feet moved as she dragged the idol back and kept it in her space.


    Saleen had discerned that the godly power of these idols could only be used for hand-to-handbat and could not be used to release divine spells. Only then did he rx. He had never encountered ancient holy spells and could not guard against them.


    The idols had lost their weapons and directly used theirrge feet to trample on them. Rafel continued to support the green-colored energy shield. This was the godly power of the Goddess of Nature, which specialized the most in defense. Therge feet bounced off the shield. Saleen kept the and spread it out again at an opportune moment.


    Such a capture was extremely rxed. Saleen was still leisurely and asked Rafel, ¡°Are there still any constructions below this temple?¡±


    ¡°There should not be any more, but if we continue to move forward for more than 50 kilometers, there should still be two more temples. This is merely a gate. There should be teleportation portals here from the ancient times. But they are slightly destroyed and I don¡¯t dare to bring you across them.¡±


    There were many principles of teleportation portals. Even if Rafel was able to restore the ancient teleportation portals for a moment, she still would not dare to bring Saleen across them. These were teleportation portals that were meant for the gods to use. If humans went on them, there would perhaps be some unknown dangers involved.


    Saleen was a person that she could trust on the Myers Continent. Amidst Saleen¡¯s subordinates, there were already two pseudogods and he would not harbor any ill intentions towards her. If it had been anyone else, Rafel would not have cared if they lived or died.

 Chapter 1389: Three-Eyed God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1389: Three-Eyed God (Part 1)</h4>


    Rafel continued reciting Holy Prose. The domes in the main hall had alreadye crashing down, but she paid no attention to them. After pounding at the protective shield formed from the Goddess¡¯s godly power, they shattered into piles of dust particles that filled the air.


    The domes in the main hall had already degraded. The idols dragged them out, relying on a little bit of godly power to support them. Otherwise, the temple would have copsed long ago.


    With his sharp eyes, Saleen¡¯s noticed that tens of thousands of minute specks of light had flown out from the shattered domes. He had already summoned Dante, who was brandishing arge mace at the idols.


    He swung the mace in midair, smashing the idols to smithereens, one after another. Seeing this attack made Rafel heartsick.


    Each idol still had some value and was worth using. If she had wanted to destroy them, she would have done so long ago. But Saleen must have a good reason for doing this now, right?


    After Saleen released Dante, he allowed the magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit to fly out once again to capture the specks of light. The Weapon¡¯s Spirit was superfast. In the blink of an eye, Dante circled the interior of the temple once, capturing the specks of light that had not escaped in his hands. There were 36,000 in his grasp.


    When he had obtained the specks of light, the Weapon¡¯s Spirit flew back. Saleen put away these specks of light within the Ring of Cosmos. Rafel wanted to ask what that was, but could not bring herself to do it.


    Saleen saw how Rafel looked and knew what she was thinking. He said, ¡°These are Constetion Souls. I use them to refine equipment. If these things weren¡¯t here, at my level I¡¯d only be able to gather them from space when I¡¯m level-16. I don¡¯t know how long I¡¯ll have to wait for that to happen.¡±


    What Saleen told her was not entirely true. He had a Weapon¡¯s Spirit in his Lightning Constetion, but the lightning warriors did not have souls. He needed to use sterite to refine 36,000 lighting warriors from scratch. With the Souls of Constetions, the 36,000 lightning soldiers would be able to rise up to any existence like that of the gods from now on. By gaining one more soul thread than angels, their growth capacity would be extremely high.


    Saleen wanted to go to the Cemetery of the Giants in the future to retrieve the Lightning Moon. After it and Lightning Constetion were joined, Weapon¡¯s Spirit¡¯s might be unparalleled. Saleen could not allow the Weapon¡¯s Spirit to revolt. He didn¡¯t know what was the highest grade of existence that could be controlled by Shann¡¯s broken jade either. Dante was a god of lightning. It would be disastrous if he could not be controlled.


    What Saleen wanted to do was allow the bodies of each of the 36,000 lightning warriors to contain an Eternal Control shard. He would use the best materials to refine them. If Dante did not follow his orders in the future, the 36,000 lightning warriors would all turn against him and deprive him of the Power of Faith.


    This was only a preventive measure. Even if the broken jade was ultimately ineffective, it would also have to happen when Dante¡¯s rank could greatly suppress Saleen: Then he would be able to free himself from Saleen¡¯s control.


    It was extremely difficult for gods to advance. Saleen estimated he would eventually be able to surpass Dante¡¯s rank. He was merely doing this for the sake of prudence first and foremost. Further, Saleen needed the Power of Faith that belonged to the lightning god. He wanted to put away some of it to supply his creation of unique weapons. With 36,000 lightning warriors providing a strong Power of Faith, Saleen would intercept it and put it aside daily to keep it out of Dante¡¯s hands.


    This ancient god seemed to be excessively powerful. It had actually gathered the Souls of Constetions as decorations for their temple.


    Rafel saw that Saleen really needed these items and helplessly gave up on capturing the idols. She already possessed of the idols¡¯ god¡¯s cores. This was sufficient for her use.


    Saleen did not take apart the temple entirely down to its foundations as he had before. Dante did a thorough job smashing the idols; even their god¡¯s cores had been shattered. In ancient times, they had been warriors who were unparalleled in strength. But now, they were merely decaying statues.


    Saleen retrieved Dante. Both he and Rafel rushed straight to the next temple.


    They traveled forward more than 400 kilometers. It was only when even Saleen was feeling disappointed that the second temple appeared in their sights. Saleen flew high into the skies. He saw that there were no problems in the next 50 kilometers. The distance between the two temples was more than 450 kilometers.


    Rafel sheepishly said, ¡°My lord, perhaps the ¡®li¡¯ measurement used by the gods is different from the ones humans use. You must consider that they are bigger...¡±


    Saleen was speechless. Earlier Rafel had said that the next temple was about 50 to 100 kilometers away. So far they had flown 500 kilometers. Yet Rafel was suggesting that this was because humans were too small and others¡¯ conception of ¡®one li¡¯ measurement was longer.


    The skies above the temple below were cloaked in mist. Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye saw through the essence of the mist. It was merely smoke that had been formed by the grouping of some minute particles that had been mixed with water vapor.


    Normally, such environmental conditions would only ur when there was a volcanic eruption. Also, there would not be any water vapor. Humans would be unable to breathe in such mist. If it was absorbed into the lungs after some dy, one could die of suffocation in a few minutes.


    Moreover, the smoke also contained the god property. Even if it was extremely weak, it could not be dispelled using a level-0 Cleaning spell.


    Cleaning spells would advance to level-3 at most. No mages would continue to raise their level either. Fortunately, Saleen¡¯s Water Shield could be used in ce of a Cleaning Spell. At least his own breathing would not be a problem.


    Rafel did not need to breathe. She rushed into the smoke and even absorbed the godly power within the smoke along the way.


    She would treasure even the tiniest bit of godly power. Even if she could create an angel¡¯s shade in the future, she could no longer use godly power limitless as she had when the gods had bestowed godly power upon her. With the four god¡¯s cores, Rafel could create angel¡¯s shades to provide angels with godly power. When the gods were not present, an angel¡¯s shades could provide angels with about 10% of the power that the gods bestowed upon them.


    If Rafel were to create three shades, she would be able to attain about a third of the level she could attain while praying.


    In that case, Rafel would at least not have to worry about her rank dropping. Neither would she have to worry about thepse of her life in the future.


    Despite the extra distance they traveled, Saleen felt their journey had not been in vain. If they had directly destroyed the divine kingdom fragment, there would be no hope of finding the Constetion Souls. It was rtively easy to create Constetion Souls, but the materials were like 12-dimensional metal. Its numbers were limited on each ne. Saleen did not have the capability to collect these tens of thousands of Constetion Souls otherwise.


    Saleen and Rafel entered the temple below and saw that it was empty. They lifted their heads toward the domes. It waspletely clean and clear above the domes. There were no constetion pictures.


    The idols in all four corners of the ce did not move. Saleen looked around and knew that the god¡¯s cores had already been destroyed.


    Rafel said, ¡°My lord, there¡¯s no way to progress from here. Thest temple actually has nothing inside.¡±


    ¡°Thest?¡±


    ¡°This divine kingdom is broken. Of the ces we are able to find, this is thest temple.¡±


    Saleen knew that the gods had their own ways of calcting temples. As a battle angel, Rafel had lost count of the divine kingdoms she had barged into during divine kingdom wars. She was very familiar with stuff like this.


    ¡°Is there anything else we can retrieve from this divine kingdom?¡± Saleen directly asked without pretense.


    Rafel thought for a moment and said, ¡°For mages, there might only be some rare materials. The trees on the mountain are all good for refining weapons. There shouldn¡¯t be any magic beasts in this divine kingdom. There are also no mystical beasts. The low-ranked bugs here can more or less be used to refine magic medicines.¡±


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s disappointed look, Rafel added, ¡°Of course, the sudden destruction of this divine kingdom left behind remnants of godly power. Maybe there are some bone fragments of the ancient gods here. Even if there aren¡¯t any, it might be possible to get nails, hair or something else. For a mage, these can be used to refine equipment with outstanding properties.¡±


    Only then did Saleen smile and say, ¡°You did see through this temple, I suppose?¡±


    ¡°See through what?¡±


    ¡°This temple hadn¡¯t decayed. It¡¯s different from the other one. And this isn¡¯t because of the materials but the items buried underground. I thought they were stores of treasures. Maybe they¡¯re the god bones you just mentioned.¡±


    Rafel looked at the ground. No matter how high her rank was, however, it was not as effective as Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°Violet Angel,e out and get to work!¡± Saleen yelled and the Violet Angel was summoned. It dejectedly turned into an excavating machine and began to dig.


    The ground was extremely tough. If it had been when Saleen was still a low-level mage, he would have rushed up and collected these stones. Now, Saleen¡¯s views had broadened, and Rafel was also present. He would not do such an embarrassing thing.


    Yet the Violet Angel knew what Saleen was thinking. It broke apart the entire surface of the ground of the temple. Be it stone materials or anything else, it kept them all in its puppet space. No matter what, these items were still worth millions of gold coins. It would be disgraceful to let them go to waste.


    After digging hundreds of meters deep, the excavating machine that the Violet Angel had turned into made a cking sound and around 10 flew apart.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ve found it!¡± The Violet Angel shouted as it flew up. Yet, it was afraid of meeting danger.


    Saleen did not explicitly mention it. Rafel was the first to rush down. In the center of the broad holey a skull that was about six meters in diameter. If it belonged to a giant, it was too small.


    What Saleen noticed was a hole in between the eyebrow area of the skull. In the hole was still an eye that had not dposed.


    A god¡¯s eye!


    A god of the three-eyed race!


    This time, Saleen was really shocked. The three-eyed race was a powerful race that was simr to humans. But he had never heard of a person of the three-eyed race who had be a god, or did he?


    In ancient times, the three-eyed race had once attacked the gods as well. Like human mages, the three-eyed race detested the gods.


    Swish...


    Saleen kept the skull in the Ring of Cosmos at once. He said to Rafel, ¡°This item is way too important. I need to bring it back to the interdimensional space and analyze it with Jason. Even if you need it, you have to wait.¡±


    Rafel shrugged her shoulders. Three-eyed race? She had also heard of them before. Still, she had no desire to see this thing. The three-eyed race¡¯s strengthy in it soul; while she served the Metal God and was strong in flesh and body.


    During the earliest times, each structure in her entire body had been more precious and sturdy than wrought gold.


    Saleen put away the three-eyed god¡¯s skill and felt like leaving the divine kingdom fragment right away. But he considered that there were still many items that could be taken in this divine kingdom. He turned back and wanted to think of a way to refine the God of Magic Nets. Otherwise, he might as well retrieve his magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit and turn it into its divine fire.


    It was probably even better if he went to collect the trees first. Saleen recalled that Eleanor wanted him to help her gather seeds. The nt seeds in this divine kingdom would definitely be extremely rare.


    Saleen released the lightning warriors, as well as the Violet Angel. He allowed them to collect all the nt seeds they could see and then to return and reassemble them in the interdimensional space.

 Chapter 1390: Three-Eyed God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1390: Three-Eyed God (Part 2)</h4>


    The matter of felling the forest was entrusted to the Violet Angel. The Violet Angel itself was a puppet. It could transform itself into numerous engineer puppets and was the best worker.


    The Violet Angel went to carry out its orders, secretly feeling bitter. Although he could be transformed into all kinds of machinery, but there was a limit to the number that he could turn into. The forest area at the border of this divine kingdom fragment was already not small. Who knew how much time would be spent to finish felling the entire thing.


    However, the Violet Angel immediately roused its spirits and said to himself, ¡°This means Master trusts me. Didn¡¯t you see how he let me lead the lightning warriors to handle these matters? It looks like I know have a position amidst the people by Master¡¯s side, and it has also been raised. Violet Angel, you must work hard!¡±


    Saleen did not know that after the Violet Angel mumbled and grumbled to himself, he also gave himself a round of encouragement. If he had seen this scene, he would definitely have been extremely surprised. This man-made object would also act in such a humanized manner. To mages, he might hold more research meaning and value than the water puppet.


    The water puppet could not be replicated. After all, something like the Shenhe was be more and more scarce.


    Saleen brought the three-eyed god¡¯s skull with him and returned to the interdimensional space. Then, he chased away his magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit in order for him to think of ways to collect the divine kingdom. If he could not collect the whole thing, he was to break it into fragments and consume it.


    The divine kingdom itself possessed its own independent space. The original space within the magic amplifier was not big. If it waspletely merged within, Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier would be able to allow Floating City to enter it as well. At that time, Saleen would really be able toe and go as he pleased. He could bring along Floating City everywhere he went and could dispatch more than a million troops at any time.


    Also, once Floating City could be brought about with him easily, Saleen would no longer have to station too many troops at any city.


    A teleportation portal would be able to resolve all of his problems.


    After returning to the interdimensional space, Saleen only allowed the Winged Skull to remain. Even Rafel was chased out of the magical tower. When he retrieved the three-eyed god¡¯s skull and ced it on the alchemy table, the taciturn Winged Skull then opened its mouth to say, ¡°Master, this three-eyed god...became a god after death.¡±


    ¡°Became a god after death?¡±


    ¡°Mm, after one¡¯s life hase to an end, they can only be a god after turning into a death creature. But as a death creature, they cannot maintain it for too long. This three-eyed god could not bear to give up their memories of their previous life,¡± The Winged Skull replied.


    Saleen¡¯s heart was moved. Could it be that the Winged Skull also had memories of his previous life? From his tone, it seemed as if death creatures cared about this very much.


    But this was not the time to question him further. Saleen did not want to forcefully ask about such matters as well. The Winged Skull and Nailisi were different. His loyalty had been established upon the respect that Saleen showed towards him. Such loyalty was loyalty towards the contract, and not a request to be on equal footing with Saleen.


    After signing a soul contract, a typical mage would not search or forcefully request contractual creatures to reveal their secrets.


    Jason saw therge-sized skull and was also extremely awed.


    ¡°Saleen, this item is really great, you can utilize it by fusing it into the Figure of Fate.¡±


    ¡°Figure of Fate?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, its best if an astrologer¡¯s items are not left in the body. Don¡¯t just think that it can save your life. It can also cause you to develop a sense of reliance towards it,¡± Jason warned his student. If Saleen did not have the Figure of Fate, perhaps his speed of advancement would be even faster, wouldn¡¯t it?


    Saleen¡¯s fortune was bing better and better, yet he had been implicated by the Figure of Fate.


    Of course, without the Figure of Fate, Saleen would have died a few times. Such matters had their disadvantages, as well as advantages. It depended on what Saleen chose.


    Yet, now there was another opportunity. With the three-eyed god¡¯s skull, the Figure of Fate¡¯s properties could be transferred to a piece of equipment that was purely for a mage, instead of an astrologer¡¯s equipment.


    Saleen understood his Teacher¡¯s meaning. Although he felt a little sorry towards Gaine, but he also had no choice.


    There would eventuallye a day when he would have topletely bid farewell to astrology.


    On the other hand, the secret techniques that Teacher had taught him were extremelypatible with magic. Alternatively, they could be said to be another systematic type of magic.


    Within the secret technique, there were descriptions of such fusions of equipment. Saleen himself had tried this many times. Such fusions, typically, were easier the lower the grade of the equipment in question.


    If it was for equipment below grade-9, Saleen would practically not make any mistakes. For equipment above grade-9, the materials needed to be of sufficiently good quality in order to prevent the refining from failing.


    For such methods of equipment fusion, if it failed, the equipment would bepletely destroyed. Even iming back the value of the materials could not be done.


    ¡°I will do it now. But before that, Bing, absorb as much as you can,¡± Saleen said to the Winged Skull.


    The Winged Skull nodded, with a gleeful expression showing on his face. If he absorbed the power of death on this skull, it would not cause Saleen to suffer any losses, yet the benefits for him would also be immense. With this power, his 1,000 or so golden skeleons could all advance. And it would not take more than 10 years.


    The Winged Skull spewed out death mes from his mouth, enveloping the three-eyed god¡¯s skull in it. In ancient times, the three-eyed god had also been an existence in the same league as the King of gods. Yet, they had now fallen to the extent that their skull was being refined by others.


    Saleen increasingly understood that there were not evesting kingdoms, nor were there evesting existences.


    Even after bing a god, one would eventually have to fall. Gaine had wanted to enter an even higher grade Crystal Wall system. This was for the sake of achieving eternity, right? In any case, within this Crystal Wall system, everything would eventually perish one day.


    The death mes slowly extracted the death godly power within the skull. On the sidelines, Jason was exining the power of the three-eyed god to Saleen.


    The three-eyed race was the race with the strongest innate mental power. If the numerical value of mental power when humans were born was 10, the mental power of the three-eyed race¡¯s infants would be 1,000.


    For such a level of mental power, even without magic nuclei, they would be able to aimlessly cultivate magic up to about grade-7 or 8. They would not need magic nuclei for many magic spells, such as death magic.


    The three-eyed race were a powerful race. The might of their mental power enabled their civilization to walk on a different path from that of humans. The most special point was that the three-eyed god possessed armor that was controlled by mental power. Even if a child wore it, they would be able to do battle with a grade-9 human sorcerer.


    But this did not signify that the three-eyed race¡¯s body was fragile. In fact, the three-eyed race had some of the giants¡¯ power flowing within their veins. When this power awakened, it would allow kings to appear amidst the three-eyed race. They were all about 60 meters tall, and their power was approximately equivalent to that of a giant dragon. The skull that Saleen had obtained was precisely one which had been left behind by a king of the three-eyed race.


    The strongest part of the three-eyed race was still the eye on their forehead. This eye possessed natural power. Also, the poption of the three-eyed race had beenrge in number. There had also been many types of this natural power, and not a single type of natural power was useless. After they fully matured, most of the three-eyed race would have at least three or more types of natural power.


    For the skull that Saleen had obtained, the eye at the forehead had not degraded yet. After the Winged Skull had extracted the death godly power, it had regained its original appearance. It was resplendent with the seven colors of the rainbow inside it, and there were even countless stars within.


    Jason told Saleen, that was the star chart of the ne in which the three-eyed race resided. It was the three-eyed race¡¯s homnd.


    ¡°Saleen, we are fortunate.¡± Jason said to his student, ¡°Fycro does not know that the divine kingdom fragment you have obtained belongs to a three-eyed god. If he had obtained this skull, after absorbing it, he could have directly advanced to be a true god, which would be a grade-15 lesser god. If that had been the case, he would have possessed a divine persona, and we would not have been able to defeat him.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s body broke out in cold sweat. The Abyss of Light that Fycro had created was just 1,000 kilometers away from this temple. If Fycro had done a search, he would definitely have been able to find the temple amidst the smoke.


    With Fycro¡¯s level of sensitivity towards godly power...


    It turned out that the smoke had been given off by the separation of godly power. Fycro would have needed to enter the smoke, only after which he would have been able to find the three-eyed god¡¯s skull. From the outside, he would have felt that the godly power within the smoke was weak and not up to par with other ces in the divine kingdom fragment.


    So, what the gods need to be extra prepared against was actually other gods!


    His Elemental Eye had taken advantage of the situation. Also, if not for Rafel, he would not have found the temple either. Saleen recollected the moment and discovered that this was indeed the case. The position of the temple was far too inconspicuous. Only angels who had entered arge number of divine kingdoms, like Rafel, would be able to deduce its location.


    For angels like Rafel, their numbers during the ancient times would also not have been great.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s absorption speed was exceptionally quick. After he had advanced to grade-11, it need not be said that the power of the death mes had be stronger. But the power that his body was able to bear had also increased exponentially. The Golden Heart constantly modified his body, allowing the strength of the Winged Skull¡¯s body to not be much different from that of the ancient magic beasts.


    It should be known that for the sake of resisting the powerful gods and humans, the ancient magic beasts¡¯ bodies could all bear the fierce bombardment of magic spells. Furthermore, the magic beasts also possessed an innate resistance towards divine spells.


    Once the Winged Skull hadpleted the absorption of the death godly power within the skull, Saleen then released his Water mes. He followed Teacher¡¯s pointers and also retrieved the Figure of Fate, beginning to refine both of them.


    The Power of the Constetions within the Figure of Fate was extracted out by Saleen. There was nothing that needed to be said about the materials of the figure itself. The things that Gaine had given to Saleen had been the best.


    In the center of the three-eyed god¡¯s skull, the rainbow-colored eye opened and shot out a rainbow colored light. Even Saleen¡¯s Water mes could not stop it, but he would not stop such things from urring either. The rainbow-colored light melted into the Figure of Fate, wanting to assimte the figure.


    But how could the grade-18 Figure of Fate be assimted by it. No matter how powerful the three-eyed race was, the skull was only left with itsst instinct and could not possibly create such chaos.


    The starline patterns within the Figure of Fate were worn down by the rainbow-colored light bit by bit. The rainbow-colored light itself was also being reduced. Although Saleen¡¯s heart ached for the three-eyed race¡¯s power, but this was worth it. Even if the power was kept behind, it was impossible for him to merge it into his body.


    The three-eyed race were also not of such good character. If he were to carelessly absorb this rainbow energy, perhaps the three-eyed race would have made use of his body toe back to life.


    Anything rted to the gods must be handled with care.


    When the starline patterns of the Figure of Fate were being worn down, the eye of the three-eyed god could no longer release anymore rainbow-colored light. The pupil of that eye had also vanished.


    Saleen had some regrets towards fusing together the Figure of Fate and the skull in one ce, and he reinserted the lightning runes. Of the 360,000,000 lightning runes, Saleen refined all of them into the skull, not even missing one of them. Only then was he at ease.


    The skull reced the Figure of Fate¡¯s head, causing the figure to appear extremelyical.


    Saleen ced the Figure of Fate that had been refined again into his body. He felt about for a bit, then extremely dejectedly said to Teacher, ¡°Only one of the three-eyed race¡¯s skills is remaining. And the number of times it can be used is not much .¡±


    ¡°What skill is it?¡±


    ¡°Fusion, this three-eyed race¡¯s fusion skill has been preserved. But I can only fuse three things at most...¡±

 Chapter 1391: Immorality (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1391: Immorality (Part 1)</h4>


    Jasonughed and said, ¡°Oh my student, are you still not content? Do you have any equipment on you that you can no longer use at this level? If you fuse it, it will be as if you...¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± Saleen pped his forehead with his hand. Only now did he understand where the strengths of the three-eyed racey.


    If it had been the imperial family who possessed this ability, as long as their bodies could withstand it, they could use high-level skills when their rank was low.


    If such powers of absorption were ced on the bodies of the dragon race, they would also be unmatched in strength. A human¡¯s body, however, could not withstand it.


    Fortunately, the Figure of Fate was level-18 material. Saleen made up his mind on the spot, retrieving a piece of equipment that was tricky to master¡ªthe Si of Silence.


    This was the item that had been exchanged with Joey. Its level was even higher than the Lance of Order.


    Saleen directly tossed the Si of Silence into the eye at the area between the Figure of Fate¡¯s eyebrows. Unexpectedly, after the Si of Silence went in Saleen felt that time stood still.


    The innate power of the three-eyed race that originally could absorb three pieces of equipment waspletely digested by the Si of Silence when it absorbed the Si of Silence. To be precise, it was that Saleen had used up all of the three-eyed race¡¯s power in order to digest the Si of Silence.


    What a loss...


    Saleen wanted to cry, but the tears did note. There should be more than three types of powers in the Si of Silence. Under normal circumstances, a godly item would always have a singr power that would be monumental. If it was a divine item with many types of power, its level would be a little lower. For example, the Sword of Rules had 24 types of low-level rules when it was unsealed.


    This weapon appeared to be huge, but after it had been promoted to a certain level, looking back, he would feel that it was of little value.


    It was originally thought that the Si of Silence would be massive. After Saleen saw that all the power left by the three-eyed race had been used up, he immediately regretted it.


    Time had stopped. In the eye that was propped up on the Figure of Fate¡¯s forehead, the Si of Silence turned its pupil into the shape of a square.


    Even stranger was that after Saleen had used his secret technique to put away the figure, he felt that this time the Figure of Fate had fused with his body. It was just a figure and did not have a soul yet. Saleen did not dare to casually try to divide a thread of soul either. Although he currently already possessed this ability, he still felt that this should only be considered after he had truly advanced to level-13.


    Such a skill was extremely dangerous. Before Saleen could firmly grasp it, he did not dare to try it out.


    Yet, what the Winged Skull saw with his eyes was a different scenario. He felt that his body was unable to move even an inch. If he had eyelids, he would also have discovered that he was unable to close his eyes.


    Everything had been petrified under Saleen¡¯s gaze.


    Between Saleen¡¯s eyebrows, the shade of an eye appeared. Everything in all the ces in his line of sight had stopped.


    It was just one second, but it felt like an eternity.


    Jason had the sensation that his heart had stopped beating. The power that Saleen had gained was too great!


    Time had stopped for only about half a second.


    To mages, half a second was already very long. In 30 frames, a mage of Saleen¡¯s caliber could consecutively release 15 magic spells. If he only used this time to release one spell, he could release a level-12 magic spell.


    Although Saleen felt that time had stopped, in reality he could still move.


    Once half a second had passed, Jasonughed heartily and said to Saleen, ¡°How is it? Does this thing¡¯s power have any limitations?¡±


    Saleen checked himself for a moment and said, ¡°It consumes mental power...¡±


    ¡°Any limitations?¡±


    ¡°With the entirety of my mental power, it can be used two times. Then, it will be as if it had died. It won¡¯t be able to do anything.¡±


    ¡°That means that when your mental power is full, you can use it once. Saleen, this power of yours has finally allowed me to be to rx. You should not leave now. After you have trained this power in this interdimensional space, then you can leave,¡± Jason said in high spirits.


    The power to control time could be grasped somewhat after reaching about level-16. However, Saleen was using the power of equipment. The level of his equipment would be the level of the rules. Perhaps the Si of Silence was level-17, or it was more likely that it was level-18.


    In addition, it definitely was not as simple as controlling time. The effects of the Si of Order surpassed all of Saleen¡¯s other equipment, including his n badge.


    For the present at least, Saleen¡¯s Si of Order was simply the best tool for killing.


    He, a level-11 mage, had the Crystal Finger, the Thunder Dragon ster, and the balls of lightning. All were fatal attacks. For the enemy to pause just half a second, it would have to be at Jason¡¯s level.


    Jason was level-13. The time in which the Winged Skull had been controlled was even longer.


    When he next encountered Fycro, Saleen would no longer have anything to worry about.


    In his heart, Saleen knew that one of the Si of Silence¡¯s abilities would cause half his mental power to be consumed. He would probably have to wait until he advanced again before finding out which other two abilities hadn¡¯t yet been developed.


    Even so, he was satisfied. This time, when the Figure of Fate fused with the three-eyed god¡¯s skull, the starline patterns in its body had all been wiped clean. In the future, he no longer needed to fear encountering astrologers. From now on, the Figure of Fate would consume the power of lightning.


    One ball of lightning would be sufficient for the Figure of Fate to use for half a year.


    Some 360,000,000 lightning runes huddled together in the figure¡¯s body to form a majesticrge array. Saleen felt that his control over Dante had be even more stringent. All of Dante¡¯s actions within the Lightning Constetion could be felt in his heart.


    ¡°Dante,e out.¡± If there were any mages who saw Saleen summoning such a powerful creature, they would consumed with jealousy. Other mages had signed contracts. They needed to recite lengthy mantras to summon higher-level creatures.


    In practice, Saleen was really enving them.


    Shann¡¯s broken jade could make Dante eat out of his hand and not dare to resist him.


    ¡°Master.¡± Dante appeared and respectfully bowed to Saleen.


    ¡°Go into the divine kingdom fragment and help the Violet Angel for a little while.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Dante did not ask too many questions. He didn¡¯t know how he could help the Violet Angel, either. He would go first before pondering this further.


    After he saw Dante fly away, Saleen picked up his perception again. Saleen was unable to observe the distant scenery through Dante after he had flown more than 500 kilometers. But he still could detect what Dante was doing.


    Originally, Saleen could only control the creatures in his territory. Now, this distance had already exceeded the distance of his territory ten times.


    After Dante had flown out of the forest and arrived at the borders of the volcano, Saleen could still faintly sense his location. Saleen discovered that this was due to the effects of the Power of the Soul.


    How much had his Power of the Soul increased after he had acquired the power of the three-eyed race? Without such a mighty Power of the Soul, he would not be able to control the power of the Si of Silence one bit.


    Saleen estimated that his Power of the Soul was already approaching that of a level-15 lesser god.


    This was even under the effects of the Ring of Cosmos that amplified his Power of the Soul by 64 times. Otherwise, he was unsure when he would be able to use the Si of Silence.


    The energy that had originally been stored in the Si of Silence, however, was consumed after Saleen tested it out once. He had no choice but to create eight balls of lightning and send them into the eyes of the Figure of Fate.


    The Figure of Fate¡¯s eye was in the three-eyed race¡¯s middle eye. It was able to store energy. After the balls of lightning entered it, they did not dissipate and maintained a spherical shape. It would only be consumed when it was being used. It¡¯s too bad the lightning could not be released from within the eye. If that were possible, this equipment would really be too terrifying.


    Saleen calcted that the space for storing energy in the Figure of Fate¡¯s eye was enormous. There would be no problems no matter how many balls of lightning he sent into it. In the future, when he was idle, he could send as many balls of lightning as possibly.


    In any case, when this item was used, apart from consuming the Power of the Soul, it would also consume energy at the same time.


    For Saleen, who could steal godly power, it was rtively easy to replenish his Power of the Soul. He always had godly items at any given time. However, for the replenishment of energy, he could only condense eight balls of lightning a day. When he advanced in the future, he would probably still be unable to condense too many of them. Thus, to prepare for a rainy day, Saleen would transfer as much energy as he could into the Figure of Fate each day.


    Now that the Figure of Fate had lost its starline patterns when he blocked attacks for him, it would consume the energy within its eye.


    With gains, there would be losses. Obtaining the Power of the Constetion was easier to handle.


    Saleen had no regrets. The new Figure of Fate had raised hisbat ability an unknown number of times. The ability to stop time was just for show. What was truly important was that when time was stopped, he could see through the opponent¡¯s weakness.


    As long as a person was nced at by him when in a frozen state because of the stopping of time, he would be able to understand which position would be fatal for the opponent.


    For other people, even if they knew the fatal position of the enemy, they might not be able to do much. The fatal position was the ce where one¡¯s defenses were the most rigid. For Saleen, however, he had the concealed dagger that could pierce through most energy defenses. As for physical defenses, unless it was a godly item, it would not be able to resist the prative ability of the golden dagger at all.


    Saleen knew there was nothing else worth researching at this point. If he wanted to acquire new abilities, he would have to evolve his Power of the Soul once more and increase its rank. Anyone who was at level-11 could dominate on the Myers Continent. Against the gods, that person would still be too weak.


    Without powerful equipment, Saleen would not be able to inflict any harm on Fycro at all.


    He had four level-13 subordinates who were currently the true decisive powers.


    Originally, with these four level-13 subordinates, Saleen should have gone to exterminate the Holy See. Unfortunately, the strengths of these subordinates could only be sealed at level-12 on the Myers Continent. Once they surpassed this, they would have to receive the punishment of the ne¡¯s Rules.


    If they were level-12, Saleen estimated they would die even when facing the head warden.


    The head warden was a person that even Fycro didn¡¯t want to aggravate. Saleen was extremely curious about this person. At the same time, he was also extremely guarded. He had shed with the Holy See many times but had never seen the head warden. It seemed that the head warden did not care whether the Holy See lived or died. As long as they did not kill their way to the ck Dungeon Ind, they could not be bothered to take notice of you.


    ¡°Saleen, when you return to the Myers Continent, you can expand the Nature Faith. I know that Lex won¡¯t support the faith outright, but you can try to control the House of Commons. Maybe you should talk with Safilos.¡±


    ¡°Safilos?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, Safilos. He definitely won¡¯t want the empire to fall into the hands of the Golden ins. Once you¡¯ve grasped control over the House of Commons, you can secretly borrow its reputation to develop the Nature Faith.¡± Jason pointed out a path of Saleen to follow.


    ¡°But...¡±


    ¡°Mages are the masters of this world. We¡¯ll have to wait until the Myers Continent advances again before this can happen. When the timees, maybe the Lord of Glory¡¯s clone will descend. When would you have the time?¡±

 Chapter 1392: Immorality (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1392: Immorality (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen nodded while listening to Jason¡¯s opinion.


    Jason was highly organized. There was nothing wrong with what he had said. When the Myers Continent advanced again and its power rose to level-15, the Lord of Glory, a god from a different ne, would definitely descend through his clone.


    The rank of this clone would probably be level-14.


    Perhaps the Lord of Glory would not dare toe but would send a clone. This was not a punishable offense ording to the Rules of the ne.


    The Lord of Glory was the strongest grade-15 god. He was probably ready to advance to level-16. A level-16 god was truly frightening. Saleen needed to advance quickly. Matters involving these hidden schemes should be left to the Nature Faith to handle.


    As the Nature Faith expanded, Saleen would have true power that was capable of interfering with the empire in his hands. As a prince, he had annexed Phoenix and was not too suitable for it from the beginning. If he once again used his troops to battle on Qinnds, the Golden ins would probably have sufficient reason to force Lex to abdicate her position.


    Jason was still the ruthless one: He had actually thought of using Safilos.


    Safilos should now be strong enough to be at the top among those at level-10. He could indeed go and tempt him a little and allow him to return to the summit of power, how about that?


    Saleen swiftly dreamt up a few ns in his mind and immediately said to Jason, ¡°Then I will return and make some preparations before going to see Safilos.¡±


    ¡°Mm, you can bring him some equipment as a gift. Safilos¡¯s weapon is already sufficient for him to use it for his entire lifetime. He needs armor.¡±


    ¡°I understand, Jason.¡± Saleen thought that if it was a set of armor he had refined himself, he could still leave a hidden weakness in it. If Safilos used it, it would mean he had been had.


    All mages would do this. Thus, the person who hired the mage to refine equipment normally would not oppose the mage.


    Saleen had never thought the day woulde when he wouldpromise with Safilos, and both parties could even im they each needed that.


    After Saleen returned to Metatrin City, he waited till October before acting. The Violet Angel had already finished collecting all the nt seeds in the divine kingdom fragment and had also cut down all passable wood materials and brought them back. The lightning warriors had even captured a significant number of bugs.


    Saleen handed the seeds to Eleanor. She was delighted! Saleen thought for a moment and allowed the Winged Skull to stay in Metatrin to continue absorbing the three-eyed god¡¯s godly power.


    Saleen wanted to meet with Safilos, but the divine kingdom fragment had not yet beenpletely refined. In the end, Saleen allowed his magic amplifier¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirit to consume the divine kingdom fragment. If he brought Floating City and went into Safilos¡¯s empire, he might be posturing too much.


    He could not always let Safilos think that he was coercing him, right? Saleen had no choice but to bring Sika, as well as Rafel. After they had arrived at Daliang City by teleportation portal, they teleported once more from Daliang City to New Demon City.


    Under Cuisi¡¯s management, New Demon City had be extremely prosperous. The things here led directly to the ruins of Pompeii; the west side was the territory of the Southwest aristocracy. But New Demon City relied only on magics for its defense, and few dominant beings were stationed here. Thus, Saleen did not directly arrive there by teleportation to avoid having others use their teleportation portals to enter Metatrin City after the city was attacked and upied.


    Shortly after his arrival, Saleen saw that the construction of the magics wasplete. Of the demons being cultivated here, the number of imps was not small. What made Saleen feelfortable was that within a year¡¯s time maximum, Cuisi¡¯s rank had already risen to level-10.


    He had been promoted to level-10, and hisbat ability had increased to a level that was somewhat stronger than humans. Further, Cuisi had followed Saleen from a rtively earlier time, and the degree of loyalty of this demon had already been cultivated. There was basically no chance of his betrayal to ur.


    Saleen had even arranged for Cuisi and Rafel to have a duel. The true purpose was to allow Rafel to judge Cuisi¡¯sbat ability and to give him some pointers along the way.


    Rafel knew that Cuisi was a masculine demon. After he had been transformed to have a woman¡¯s appearance by Nailisi, she found this extremely funny. She saw that Saleen ced a great deal of importance on this demon, so she would not attempt the impossible. She gave Cuisi some pointers for his spear skills.


    Cuisi¡¯s power was the strongest among the demons, but it did not amount to muchpared to a battle angel. Cuisi had sought Rafel¡¯s guidance so he could continue to use his skills until level-13.


    This was considered a fortune. The guidance of a battle angel like Rafel was extremely targeted. If it had been someone else, he would not have gained many benefits.


    Saleen met with the Southwest aristocrats in New Demon City once again. They had already cultivated many mages at Lex¡¯s suggestion. Although they would not go to war for these aristocrats, they would help defend the city and produce equipment. It would be much cheaper to pay these mages instead of those hired at thest minute.


    The Southwest aristocrats had a reputation for being extremely liberal. Many aristocrats were even starting to look for children in their n to cultivate as mages.


    For the mages of these ns, their expenses were hefty. However, in the end, they could protect the ns¡¯ interests.


    Because Lex had already proimed that for all aristocrats if they did not have mages in their n, they would not be able to obtain the benefits that they should rightfully have.


    Far from rejecting the aristocrats¡¯ requests, Saleen chatted candidly with them and promised to provide opportunities to study magic in Bitter Water Prefecture. He also agreed to dispatch mages to search for children who were suited to cultivating magic within the ns of the aristocrats.


    With this, the entire Southwest Qin would be able to transverse about stably.


    The aristocrats would provide Lex with even more manpower and mary support, while Lex would cultivate arge number of mages for the aristocrats. It was a win-win situation.


    To the aristocrats, the deal was definitely worthwhile. They also knew that the situation on the continent was about to change. Without mages, their ns would eventually be reced.


    After Saleen had appeased the Southwest aristocrats, he and Sika brought Rafel and set out from New Demon City toward Prince Safilos¡¯s territory.


    Safilos¡¯s territory was in the southernmost part of Qin, on a small in near the sea. This was not a particrly good ce. For one thing, it didn¡¯t have a big port. Those who wanted to go out to sea had to contend with attacks of the Cloudflow people.


    Of course, the Cloudflow people did not dare toe ashore. Even so, this ce was worthless. If the sea routes were sealed off, the territory would not have any benefits in trade. In the beginning, Safilos had chosen this location himself. It had not been Emperor Chanake¡¯s mistreatment of his brother.


    After Saleen arrived at Safiloss¡¯ territory, he did not fly directly to the imperial city. Rather, hended at the border, summoned his puppets and retrieved his magic chariot. This was to properly set up his guard of honor. Then, he formally entered from the border.


    Saleen was also a prince now. After handing over his official documents, he waited for Safilos¡¯s reply and then retreated to a small city at the border. Safilos¡¯s territory was modest. The narrowest part was less than 100 kilometers. This prince had also never thought about expanding his territory much.


    Safilos¡¯s territory was narrow: only 1,500 kilometers wide. Most of the area was mountainous with no agricultural value. Its port was also small, and the returns from fishing were unimpressive.


    Safilos¡¯s imperial city was established at the seaside. His intentions were crystal clear: He treated the Cloudflow people as his enemies.


    Having heard that Saleen wanted toe over, Safilos summoned his trusted subordinates to his imperial residence. A few of his sons were still holding office at the imperial capital. The trusted subordinates at his side were all generals who had followed him for many years.


    There were also two mages, Safilos¡¯sst two level-10 mages. The four who had died previously had been killed by the Winged Skull. Safilos did not know this; otherwise, he would have fought Saleen to his death.


    The imperial residence was humble and simple in style. In the official hall, about 10 people were seated at a round table. Prince Safilos¡¯s expression was unpleasant. His rtionship with Saleen had never been great. Saleen had even gone to the Golden ins and forced him out of Holy Rock City because of this.


    The two mages were old. Because their advancement had beente, they had reached level-10, but their appearance had already aged and could not be salvaged. One of the mages said to Safilos, ¡°Your Majesty, this Saleen¡¯s arrival is not a bad thing.¡±


    ¡°Why isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Saleen is now also a prince of an empire His position isparable to Your Majesty¡¯s and might even be a little higher. For Your Majesty, it was as if you had voluntarily saved the country after you had failed your duties and given up on the house. I think that Saleen¡¯s arrival is due to this matter.¡±


    Safilos was used to seeing the ups and downs of life and immediately understood the elderly mage¡¯s meaning.


    ¡°This is him not being able to bear the Golden ins anymore. I long knew that this day woulde. Why did he have to aggravate that guy.¡±


    ¡°At that time your majesty was also too forceful and Saleen had no other choice. Now he regrets it. This is also our chance.¡±


    ¡°You have all followed me for a very long time and know that I am not a person who greatly values power and influence,¡± Safilos said this, yet his tone was uneven.


    ¡°Your Majesty, Saleen was born a mage. He is different from Your Majesty. He hase forth this time and will not coerce us. On the contrary, Saleen will even give us benefits.¡±


    Regarding this point, Safilos had second thoughts and also understood. Although Saleen was a king, a prince, he was now a level-10 mage. Safilos still did not know that Saleen had advanced again. However, a level-10 mage would no longer ce too much emphasis on the powers of this secr world. Saleen should be cing more time on his cultivation.


    If this was the case, Saleen was hoping that he woulde out and, using his power, they would be able to fight evenly with Holy Rock City.


    ¡°What are your intentions?¡± Safilos looked at his most trusted subordinates. Too many of his loyal subordinates had died in the battle against Holy Rock City. Now, those with the qualifications to participate in the meeting in the imperial residence were left with 18 people.


    ¡°The empire is having difficulty and we should not hide in this ce. That is avoidance,¡± The youngest general amid Safilos¡¯s subordinates said.


    ¡°Indeed, Your Majesty. Although I am a mage, I also hope to do my utmost for the empire,¡± The other elderly mage said to the prince. He was already well along in years and it was difficult for him to advance. Hence, he was willing to spend even more energy on these matters.


    Safilos gazed at the people surrounding him. Many people had followed him since his youth, and three generations of their n had dealt with the matters of his imperial residence. He could not pour cold water on their feelings. These people had been educated since the young were loyal to him and the empire. If he really refused to see Saleen out of a fit of pique, then what would these people think?


    Sigh, forget it. His children were still at the imperial capital. These young people would be outmatched by that guy at the Golden ins. If they had the capability to match them, he would even allow them to inherit the royal throne.


    He had no choice but to admit that Lex was even more powerful and capable than his son. Allowing her to be emperor meant that the copse of the empire would at least not happen so quickly.


    ¡°Alright, send a reply. Allow Saleen toe over. I will see what on earth he wants to say to me,¡± Once Safilos opened his mouth and said this, the people around him all revealed expressions of relief.


    People who did business with Saleen would rarely make a loss. Saleen was the type of person to allow everyone to seize benefits. Regarding this point, Saleen had always been the best at nning to achieve this.


    Seeing the expressions of these people, Saleen sighed. His reputation had already been established. No matter what he did now, this point would not be changed.

 Chapter 1393: Meeting of the Princes (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1393: Meeting of the Princes (Part 1)</h4>


    Safilos responded politely. Even though he and Saleen were both princes, Saleen¡¯s wife was an empress and his attitude could be imperious too at times. It was a difference acknowledged by all nobles.


    Not wanting to appear rude, Safilos didn¡¯t bar Saleen from flying into his kingdom. Saleen, however, chose to wait at the border, and that gave him ample face.


    He decided to take his magic carriage, which traveled over 30 kilometers an hour even on the rocky, narrow terrain.


    At that speed, he would arrive in a day¡¯s time.


    Saleen was thinking that Safilos¡¯s territory was really small. But he was also oblivious to the fact that to Safilos, the size was irrelevant if he wasn¡¯t an emperor. He was fond of saying, if I am unable to find a worthy sessor after I pass, even my sons will have to be handed over to my brother¡¯s line.


    Having arger territory would have been counterproductive to his ambitions.


    Safilos was dissatisfied with his sons; he found themcking in qualities required by supreme leaders. It¡¯s a good thing they were not very ambitious.


    On the other hand, it would have been most unfortunate for one to have great ambitions without the talents to back them up or tock power but to keep yearning to rise to ever-greater heights.


    Saleen arrived in the Imperial City a dayter, easing any fears that he hade with hostile intentions.


    He was asking to be seen as an ordinary mage. Even Safilos found that amusing! If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen, the price for keeping Holy Rock City would have been steep, so steep that any building projects would have been little more than a pipe dream.


    There was no need for Safilos to have enmity toward Saleen, for Saleen was still a mage, after all.


    Safilos arranged for Saleen to go to the study when they were ready to meet instead of holding court in a living room or conference room.


    Safilos only took two level-10 mage trainers with him for the meeting.


    They did not exchange pleasantries at first. After taking his seat, Saleen took out a map from his ring and ced it on Safilos¡¯s table. The table had a magic array in ce and Saleen activated the map, showing the Qin territory.


    ¡°Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you can address me by name,¡± Safilos said tly.


    ¡°Never mind. You¡¯re still Lex¡¯s uncle. It¡¯s better if I address you as Your Highness.¡± Saleen refused Safilos¡¯s offer and continued, ¡°Your Highness, take a look. There are now severalrge hostile forces in the empire eyeing this area. You are a prince of the empire, Your Highness. What do you suggest we do?¡±


    The southwestern nobles, Alchemy City, Grand Duke Iron Blood and the Nature Faith, were all marked in the magic map. Saleen had, of course, not included the matter with Phoenix, who had already gained control of Guderian City.


    ¡°The Holy See has amassed a great army, and it was said they¡¯re nning an ambush at the borders. The army at the rear didn¡¯t follow and there are still about three million units within Kroraina territory. Saleen...¡±


    Safilos looked at Saleen with inquiring eyes.


    ¡°To tell you the truth, I was the one who established the Nature Faith, so I have no problem controlling the Nature Faith, Your Highness. They would serve as vanguards against the Holy See. If you¡¯re willing, you could join as well.¡±


    ¡°I have no interest in believing in gods!¡± Safilos refused adamantly.


    ¡°You misunderstood. In the Nature Faith, the higher one¡¯s position, the less likely people are to be true believers. If there is faith to be had, I could tell you that the pope of the faith sees me as an object of worship.¡±


    Safilos was startled. Why was Saleen bringing up top-secret matters?


    ¡°Your Highness, I¡¯m simply hoping you¡¯d have a say in this. Work with me and you¡¯ll have control over the Nature Faith¡¯s temple legions. Of course, it¡¯ll only be partial control. If you¡¯re not interested, I¡¯ll look for someone else to control the House of Commons. It might be tricky, but it can be done.


    Safilos realized right away that if Saleen were to gain the House of Common¡¯s support, his effort to propagate the faith in Qin borders would not run into any opposition. The House of Lords would be fractured, with part of it being controlled by the Golden ins.


    The power of the House of Commons was stillparatively intact.


    If he emerged, the nobles of the House of Commons would have heeded his wishes.


    ¡°Are you trying to turn the empire upside down, Saleen?¡± Safilos thought his question sounded stupid, but he also truly found Saleen¡¯s thoughts unfathomable.


    Mages should have hated the gods with a passion, yet here was Saleen, trying to build a religion. How crazy was that?


    If he was not trying to be a god by controlling a religion, Saleen was probably after something else. What could he possibly want more than the empire?


    ¡°Your Highness, Lex is my wife. If I¡¯m willing to wait, the empire might someday fall in my son¡¯s hands. I¡¯m only doing this because I¡¯m not strong enough to take on the Holy See.


    Saleen¡¯s words verified what the mages had already told Safilos.


    ¡°How can I trust you?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I didn¡¯te here to ask for anything. I just need you to guarantee that the Nature Faith will have free rein in propagating the faith in the empire. In exchange, I¡¯ll provide you with any material needs. As for rebuilding your reputation, that would be up to you, Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Any material needs?¡±


    ¡°Of course! I¡¯d still need you topensate me though. You¡¯d have to figure out the food part yourself. Transportation costs are simply too high. It¡¯d be better if you took care of that yourself.¡± Saleen¡¯s answer was in and simple.


    ¡°How much would you be taking?¡±


    ¡°Whatever you can offer. If you can¡¯t name your price, we¡¯ll have to keep tabs on things for now,¡± Saleen smiled and answered.


    Safilos went silent and Saleen said all of a sudden, ¡°Right, Your Highness. I almost forgot; I brought you something.¡±


    Saleen said as he took out a crate and two wooden boxes.


    ¡°These two pieces of equipment are for the mages,¡± Saleen said as he pointed to the two mages standing behind Safilos. That was not something he had prepared beforehand, but something he originally intended to give to any level-9 mage about to advance.


    Any level-9 mages serving Saleen would have acquired new equipment as soon as they advanced to level-10. That equipment included magic nuclei that wouldst year, as well as six level-10 scrolls and so on.


    Saleen had always been generous with his mages. Many were ill-suited tobat but were excellent research candidates.


    One order from Saleen was all it would take to have the mages produce all kinds of data results, with the analysis done in the shortest time possible. They were doing this by crafting equipment that would have otherwise been time-consuming.


    Keeping mages around was far more expensive than keeping soldiers around, but the former was worth it.


    The two mages looked at the gifts from Saleen, then at Safilos, who nodded. Saleen opened the wooden boxes before them.


    Space boxes!


    A set of dark golden armor was inside the wooden box.


    Safilos gasped visibly and removed the set of armor: It provided all-around protection. The mask had hard crystals to serve as a visor; the mouthpiece had sliding covers at the sides. If the magic arrays failed, the covers could be opened for ease of breathing.


    The style of the armor was crafted ording to the specifications of standard Qin general armor. The only thing different was the four tiny gs on the back.


    They were capable of being thrown and were infused with wind-magic arrays. Someone at Safilos¡¯s level could even hurl the gs at targets over 1,000 meters away.


    All four gs that Saleen gave to Safilos were apparently of better quality. Complex three-dimensional magic patterns covered the ck gs.


    There were also essories to the armors. Saleen readied two sets of spares to rece parts that would have broken easily.


    Other than those essories, there was also a high-level magic nucleus to be embedded, a sword, a dagger, a saddle, a short bow, a quiver, magic arrows and undergarments crafted by mages at the side of the magic armor. A magic thread over 30 meters long was avable for strapping the scabbard.


    There were many other trinkets, and Safilos was satisfied with every single piece.


    ¡°What¡¯s this about?¡± Safilos asked, pointing at Saleen¡¯s gifts.


    ¡°Gift? You¡¯re my elder and, well, I have to show some respecting here all alone,¡± Saleen smiled and said.


    Safilos burst outughing and looked at Saleen, saying, ¡°Alright, alright. Since you put it that way, I¡¯ll just ask away. I agree to help you, but now I¡¯ve run into some difficulties advancing and need something. If you¡¯re can provide them to me...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do what I can.¡±


    ¡°I need to get my hands on them.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that if I don¡¯t get you these things, you won¡¯t help?¡± Saleen knew they were getting somewhere. If Safilos agreed to step out of the way of faith propagation, there would be hardly anyone able to stop it.


    Nothing was more important. Once the Nature Faith became more developed, he would be able to dispatch more people into the religion. No one would have been able to say no with the war going on at Qin.


    The ones from the Golden ins would have been out of their wits against him.


    ¡°Hold your horses. Quick question: Do you have an alliance with Grand Duke Iron Blood?¡± Safilos looked at Saleen coldly.


    Saleen answered in an I-don¡¯t-care manner, ¡°Yes. I wouldn¡¯t attack him. If you amassed enough power to attack the grand duke, I wouldn¡¯t help you in any way, but...¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t be stabbing me in the back then...?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I have my own standards in telling who are the ones closest to me after all.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. Here¡¯s a list of what I want from you,¡± Safilos said as he took out a piece of magic paper, which had over 1,000 words listed on it.


    Saleen took one look and smiled, saying, ¡°Your Highness, mental pharmaceuticals are dangerous stuff.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t do without them. I¡¯m in a hurry to advance.¡±


    Saleen continued checking out the materials listed and said, ¡°You want weapons? Well, Metatrin City has the best alchemists avable, and there¡¯s one serving Grand Dukee Iron Blood too. How about you just draw me some schematics, and I¡¯ll see they get finished, okay?¡±


    ¡°No need. This is a secret art weapon. Regardless of how well you¡¯ve made it, I¡¯ll have to re-craft it myself anyway.¡±


    Saleen shook his head in regret and said, ¡°If you want to heighten mental powers, I could just give you divine crystals. When used with potions, those things work better than dragon blood. Your Highness, there¡¯s no point having your guard up. My teacher is at level-13 now.¡±


    Safilos was first dumbfounded when he heard the news and quickly went silent. Saleen¡¯s powers had already surpassed his. Regardless of how powerful his secret arts were, there¡¯s no way he could go against a level-13 mage.


    He initially thought he¡¯d be able to change a lot of things after getting to level-11.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I can see you need a lot of things from the list. How about you amend it. There are things I can¡¯t get my hands on, and some things I can do better. If our coboration works out, we¡¯ll have to be honest with each other, wouldn¡¯t you agree?¡±

 Chapter 1394: Meeting of the Princes (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1394: Meeting of the Princes (Part 2)</h4>


    Safilos responded politely. Even though he and Saleen were both princes, Saleen¡¯s wife was an empress and his attitude was imperious at times. It was a difference acknowledged by all nobles.


    Not wanting to be rude, Safilos didn¡¯t bar Saleen from flying into his kingdom. Saleen, however, chose to wait at the border, and that had given him ample face.


    He decided to take his magic carriage, which traveled over 30 kilometers an hour even on the rocky, narrow terrain.


    At that speed, he would arrive in a day¡¯s time.


    Saleen was thinking that Safilos¡¯s territory was really small. But he was also oblivious to the fact that to Safilos, size was irrelevant if he wasn¡¯t an emperor. He was fond of saying, if I am unable to find a worthy sessor after I pass, even my sons will have to be handed over to my brother¡¯s line.


    Having arger territory would have been counterproductive for Safilos.


    Safilos was dissatisfied with his sons; he found themcking in qualities required by supreme leaders. It¡¯s a good thing they were not very ambitious.


    On the other hand, it would have been most unfortunate for one to have great ambitions without the talents to back them up or tock power but to keep yearning to rise to ever-greater heights.


    Saleen arrived in the Imperial City a dayter, easing any fears that he hade with hostile intentions.


    He was asking to be seen as an ordinary mage. Even Safilos found that amusing! If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen, the price for keeping Holy Rock City would have been steep, so steep that any building projects would have been little more than a pipe dream.


    There was no need for Safilos to have enmity toward Saleen, for Saleen was still a mage, after all.


    Safilos arranged for Saleen to go to the study when they were ready to meet instead of holding court in a living room or conference room.


    Safilos only took two level-10 mage trainers with him for the meeting.


    They did not exchange pleasantries at first. After taking his seat, Saleen took out a map from his ring and ced it on Safilos¡¯s table. The table had a magic array in ce and Saleen activated the map, showing the Qin territory.


    ¡°Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Saleen, you can address me by name,¡± Safilos said tly.


    ¡°Never mind. You¡¯re still Lex¡¯s uncle. It¡¯s better if I address you as Your Highness.¡± Saleen refused Safilos¡¯s offer and continued, ¡°Your Highness, take a look. There are now severalrge hostile forces in the empire eyeing this area. You are a prince of the empire, Your Highness. What do you suggest we do?¡±


    The southwestern nobles, Alchemy City, Grand Duke Iron Blood and the Nature Faith, were all marked in the magic map. Saleen had, of course, not included the matter with Phoenix, who had already gained control of Guderian City.


    ¡°The Holy See has amassed a great army, and it was said they¡¯re nning an ambush at the borders. The army at the rear didn¡¯t follow and there are still about three million units within Kroraina territory. Saleen...¡±


    Safilos looked at Saleen with inquiring eyes.


    ¡°To tell you the truth, I was the one who established the Nature Faith, so I have no problem controlling the Nature Faith, Your Highness. They would serve as vanguards against the Holy See. If you¡¯re willing, you could join as well.¡±


    ¡°I have no interest in believing in gods!¡± Safilos refused adamantly.


    ¡°You misunderstood. In the Nature Faith, the higher one¡¯s position, the least likely people are to be true believers. If there is faith to be had, I could tell you that the pope of the faith sees me as an object of worship.¡±


    Safilos was startled. Why was Saleen bringing up top-secret matters?


    ¡°Your Highness, I¡¯m simply hoping you¡¯d have a choice in this. Work with me and you¡¯ll have control over the Nature Faith¡¯s temple legions. Of course, it¡¯ll only be partial control. If you¡¯re not interested, I¡¯ll look for someone else to control the House of Commons. It might be tricky, but it can be done.


    Safilos realized right away that if Saleen were to gain the House of Common¡¯s support, his effort to propagate the faith in Qin borders would not run into any opposition. The House of Lords would be fractured, with part of it being controlled by the Golden ins.


    The power of the House of Commons was stillparatively intact.


    If he emerged, the nobles of the House of Commons would have heeded his wishes.


    ¡°Are you trying to turn the empire upside down, Saleen?¡± Safilos thought his question sounded stupid, but he also truly found Saleen¡¯s thoughts unfathomable.


    Mages should have hated the gods with a passion, yet here was Saleen, trying to build a religion. How crazy was that?


    If he was not trying to be a god by controlling a religion, Saleen was probably after something else. What could he possibly want more than the empire?


    ¡°Your Highness, Lex is my wife. If I¡¯m willing to wait, the empire might someday fall in my son¡¯s hands. I¡¯m only doing this because I¡¯m not strong enough to take on the Holy See.


    Saleen¡¯s words verified what the mages had already told Safilos.


    ¡°How can I trust you?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I didn¡¯te here to ask for anything. I just need you to guarantee that the Nature Faith will have free rein in propagating the faith in the empire. In exchange, I¡¯ll provide you with any material needs. As for rebuilding your reputation, that would be up to you, Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Any material needs?¡±


    ¡°Of course! I¡¯d still need you topensate me though. You¡¯d have to figure out the food part yourself. Transportation costs are simply too high. It¡¯d be better if you took care of that yourself.¡± Saleen¡¯s answer was in and simple.


    ¡°How much would you be taking?¡±


    ¡°Whatever you can offer. If you can¡¯t name your price, we¡¯ll have to keep tabs on things for now,¡± Saleen smiled and answered.


    Safilos went silent and Saleen said all of a sudden, ¡°Right, Your Highness. I almost forgotten; I brought you something.¡±


    Saleen said as he took out a crate and two wooden boxes.


    ¡°These two pieces of equipment are for the mages,¡± Saleen said as he pointed to the two mages standing behind Safilos. That was not something he had prepared beforehand, but something he originally intended to give to any level-9 mage about to advance.


    Any level-9 mages serving Saleen would have acquired new equipment as soon as they advanced to level-10. That equipment included magic nuclei that wouldst year, as well as six level-10 scrolls and so on.


    Saleen had always been generous with his mages. Many were ill-suited tobat but were excellent research candidates.


    One order from Saleen was all it would take to have the mages produce all kinds of data results, with analysis done in the shortest time possible. They were doing this by crafting equipment that would have otherwise been time-consuming.


    Keeping mages around was far more expensive than keeping soldiers around, but the former were worth it.


    The two mages looked at the gifts from Saleen, then at Safilos, who nodded. Saleen opened the wooden boxes before them.


    Space boxes!


    A set of dark golden armor was inside the wooden box.


    Safilos gasped visibly and removed the set of armor: It provided all-around protection. The mask had hard crystals to serve as a visor; the mouthpiece had sliding covers at the sides. If the magic arrays failed, the covers could be opened for ease of breathing.


    The style of the armor was crafted ording to the specifications of standard Qin general armor. The only thing different were the four tiny gs on the back.


    They were capable of being thrown and were infused with wind-magic arrays. Someone at Safilos¡¯s level could even hurl the gs at targets over 1,000 meters away.


    All four gs that Saleen gave to Safilos were apparently of better quality. Complex three-dimensional magic patterns covered the ck gs.


    There were also essories to the armors. Saleen readied two sets of spares to rece parts that would have broken easily.


    Other than those essories, there was also a high-level magic nucleus to be embedded, a sword, a dagger, a saddle, a short bow, a quiver, magic arrows and undergarments crafted by mages at the side of the magic armor. A magic thread over 30 meters long was avable for strapping the scabbard.


    There were many other trinkets, and Safilos was satisfied with every single piece.


    ¡°What¡¯s this about?¡± Safilos asked, pointing at Saleen¡¯s gifts.


    ¡°Gift? You¡¯re my elder and, well, I have to show some respecting here all alone,¡± Saleen smiled and said.


    Safilos burst outughing and looked at Saleen, saying, ¡°Alright, alright. Since you put it that way, I¡¯ll just ask away. I agree to help you, but now I¡¯ve run into some difficulties advancing and need something. If you¡¯re can provide them to me...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do what I can.¡±


    ¡°I need to get my hands on them.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that if I don¡¯t get you these things, you won¡¯t help?¡± Saleen knew they were getting somewhere. If Safilos agreed to step out of the way of faith propagation, there would be hardly anyone able to stop it.


    Nothing was more important. Once the Nature Faith became more developed, he would be able to dispatch more people into the religion. No one would have been able to say no with the war going on at Qin.


    The ones from the Golden ins would have been out of their wits against him.


    ¡°Hold your horses. Quick question: Do you have an alliance with Grand Duke Iron Blood?¡± Safilos looked at Saleen coldly.


    Saleen answered in an I-don¡¯t-care manner, ¡°Yes. I wouldn¡¯t attack him. If you amassed enough power to attack the grand duke, I wouldn¡¯t help you in any way, but...¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t be stabbing me in the back then...?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I have my own standards in telling who are the ones closest to me after all.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Saleen. Here¡¯s a list of what I want from you,¡± Safilos said as he took out a piece of magic paper, which had over 1,000 words listed on it.


    Saleen took one look and smiled, saying, ¡°Your Highness, mental pharmaceuticals are dangerous stuff.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t do without them. I¡¯m in a hurry to advance.¡±


    Saleen continued checking out the materials listed and said, ¡°You want weapons? Well, Metatrin City has the best alchemists avable, and there¡¯s one serving Grand Dukee Iron Blood too. How about you just draw me some schematics, and I¡¯ll see they get finished, okay?¡±


    ¡°No need. This is a secret art weapon. Regardless of how well you¡¯ve made it, I¡¯ll have to re-craft it myself anyway.¡±


    Saleen shook his head in regret and said, ¡°If you want to heighten mental powers, I could just give you divine crystals. When used with potions, those things work better than dragon blood. Your Highness, there¡¯s no point having your guard up. My teacher is at level-13 now.¡±


    Safilos was first dumbfounded when he heard the news and quickly went silent. Saleen¡¯s powers had already surpassed his. Regardless of how powerful his secret arts were, there¡¯s no way he could go against a level-13 mage.


    He initially thought he¡¯d be able to change a lot of things after getting to level-11.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I can see you need a lot of things from the list. How about you amend it. There are things I can¡¯t get my hands on, and some things I can do better. If our coboration works out, we¡¯ll have to be honest with each other, wouldn¡¯t you agree?¡±

 Chapter 1395: The Elemental Hand’s Brutality (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1395: The Elemental Hand¡¯s Brutality (Part 1)</h4>


    Safilos felt insulted, but his army was all in Holy Rock City. There were only over 3000 elite troops in his territory. Over 1000 of them were cavalry and the remaining 2000 being infantry. That was a rather poor number of troops for a prince tomand.


    There were 16 generals who followed him. All 16 of them possessed formidablebat prowess and they were all versed inrge scale battles, excelling inmanding the troops. All of them possessed the ability to effectivelymand legions consisting of tens of thousands of troops.


    There were even two of them who were on par with Safilos in regards to abilities as tacticians, but only paled inparison at personalbat prowess.


    There were so many capable people following him and yet, he remained incapable of fending off against the Cloudflow fleet. His port was practically useless as he dared not evenmand his navy to venture out to sea.


    Saleen requested for two naval fleets to be stationed at his city in order to help him train his naval forces. That thought alone caused Safilos¡¯ blood to boil. His face reddened with frustration.


    ¡°Your highness Safilos, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve met my troops. If you have need for it, I shall provide you with armors as well, and they were armors possessed by Grand Duke Iron Blood as well.


    Saleen said as he waved his hand, summoning a Bug Angel unit flying through the sky. That unitnded andid prostrate on the ground. Thepound eyes on the helmet observed Safilos. The wings at its back rattled slightly. Tiny Wind des were generated between the wings and then disappeared.


    It was a skill that Saleen had it put on disy. The Bug Angel unit¡¯s legs were capable of stabbing into the stone floor, causing cracking noises that frustrated those within earshot.


    ¡°The armor is worn by an imp at about level six. With ample magic nuclei embedded after wearing the armor, the imp¡¯sbat prowess eclipses that of a level eight warrior¡¯s, but lower than that of a level nine golden grand swordmaster.¡± Saleen began to do introductions.


    That Bug Angel Armor would have served well when Saleen was still incapable of replicating the Tainted Blood Armors, but at present, Saleen¡¯s liking for them had worn out. But still, there wererge number of molds left in Metatrin City nheless, and destroying them would have incurred huge losses.


    As such, Saleen introduced the armor to his allies whenever the opportunity presented itself.


    That set of armor was not all that expensive to craft en masse. If one were to measure their worth by their effects, they would have still been a bargain even if Saleen were to sell them at a price higher than what they were at the moment.


    ¡°How much for a set?¡± Safilos¡¯ interest was piqued. If a soldier were to gain that much enhancement in terms ofbat capacity when wearing such an armor, it would have worth burning magic nuclei with. Since Saleen bothered showcasing them, it was without doubt something he was able to afford.


    ¡°I usually conduct my businesses by bartering. But this time, I¡¯d sell the armors to you at 5000 gold coins per set. Magic nuclei not included.¡±


    Safilos¡¯ heart sank. 5000 gold coins per set meant that it would have cost five million gold coins to armed 1000 people. Since Safilos had never taken bribes, he only had tens of millions of gold coins to spare. While five million gold coins were not much, but he still his naval fleet to consider, as well as the cost in magic nuclei upkeep.


    In regards to his naval fleet, there had hardly been warships lower than 100 thousand gold coins each.


    A fleet needed more than 12 ships at the very least. Saleen would have probably sold them at a price of millions of gold coins. There were still the matter of fuel cost, maintenance, and the training of his naval personnel to consider. The total cost measured over several years would have enabled him to buy another set of warships.


    Despite having nevermanded the navy, it did not mean that Safilos did not know what market rates concerning the navy were like.


    Saleen looked at Safilos¡¯ troubled expression and persuaded him, ¡°Your highness, I¡¯m selling you the armors at cost, not earning even a single silver coin from you. I might even have to lose money selling them at such prices. The army of my own nation wascking in numbers. I have lots of equipment lying around and yet I have no troops to use them. If I were to sell the armors outside, I presume that there would still be buyers even if I were to sell them at 50000 gold coins per set. Furthermore, despite costing magic nuclei to use, the armor is capable of self-repair...¡±


    ¡°Self-repair!¡±


    ¡°If the damage was not to grievous, the magic nuclei cost using the self-repair feature would have been half of that of getting mages to fix them.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take 1000 sets.¡±


    Saleen smiled. He had finally gotten Safilos on a leash. If Saleen were to be a supplier of military equipment to Safilos, then there would have also been services that he would have been able to offer Safilos in the future, securing the connection with him.


    The Bug Angel Armors and warships would have been little more than scrap metal, if Saleen¡¯s mages were not around to tend to them.


    Saleen felt rather awkward that Safilos asked for 1000 sets right off the bat. While the armors were indeed worth 5000 gold coins per set, but he nheless was not there to rob Safilos, so he waspelled to throw in further benefits for the prince.


    Safilos was held in very high regard by the Qin nobles after all. Despite having lost the Battle of Holy Rock City, his status remained almost on par with that of Lex nheless. The reason why Safilos returned to his nation was because he was unable to get over his failures.


    If he were to actually stay in Holy Rock City, the people of Golden ins might not have been able to throw their weight around the ce with Lex.


    Safilos was still able to identify friends from foes nheless. He would have never acted against Lex when the time called for him to do otherwise. At present, protecting the imperial bloodline was of utmost importance.


    ¡°Sigh...¡± Saleen sighed. It was the first time that he actually went on to sell his goods at a loss, and furthermore, the client was none other than Safilos. Fate was something fickle. Several years ago, Saleen would have done all he could to get rid of Safilos, and yet, at that moment, he wanted to secure Safilos¡¯ help instead.


    It would have taken quite a while before mages became capable of ruling the world. For the time being, control over Myers Maind rested with the nobles. That was what Saleen found exasperating. If he were to simply begin controlling the world right there and then, he would have earned the nobles¡¯ ire.


    If he were to simply push his way through using sheer brute force, there was no telling that if he would have been able to root all of his enemies out throughout the Qin Empire.


    Saleen took out a piece of divine crystal and said to Safilos, ¡°I did not get this divine crystal from the Goddess of Nature. It is something materialized by believers of other gods. This thing here would be able to rece most of the materials in the potion forms you have given me. If you¡¯re willing, I shall make them for you personally. If you think you couldn¡¯t trust me, then have that mage with a beard at your side to do it for you. His proficiency at alchemy is suitable for crafting pharmaceuticals.¡±


    ¡°Why are you helping me, Saleen?¡± Safilos knew how precious divine crystals were. It was something that believers had no way of obtaining. Safilos had no idea how Saleen came to get his hands on those things.


    However, if the elder prince were to find out that Saleen had been stealing divine power and washing away the impurities within, so much so that not even the gods would have noticed, Safilos would not have been as astonished as he was at the moment.


    ¡°Your highness, while I have indeed taken Phoenix and had allied with Grand Duke Iron Blood, I didn¡¯t do so because I want to see Qin fall. I¡¯m a mage. Back then, when I was at wit¡¯s end, I first thought ofing to Qin. I knew that the powers of the Holy See had no way of prating the empire. I didn¡¯t have such sentiments even for Sikeqinya,¡± Saleen borated truthfully.


    ¡°Alright, I owe you one, Saleen. So long as he keep protecting the Qin Empire, then I shall never see you as the enemy again.¡±


    Saleen smiled, if it had not been for Safilos¡¯ enmity towards Lex, he would have never actually wanted to get on the bad side of the prince. Saleen was not all that verse with military matters. The very reason why he had been able to keep winning, was that he had capable people serving him and superior equipment at his disposal.


    The same amount of powers would have worked better in Safilos¡¯ hands, and casualties would have been minimized. If it were to be possible, Saleen would have hoped for Safilos to be a general of his.


    Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier had ample space within. The spaces within the 27 eyes were expanded, allowing Saleen to transport massive amount of cargo even without the weapon spirit around.


    However, Saleen did not leave Safilos with anything right away. Saleen returned to Metatrin City in a roundabout manner after signing a simple contract with Safilos.


    The weapon spirit within the magic amplifier finally consumed all of the divine kingdom fragments and ignited divine fire. From then on out, getting to Rapahel¡¯s interdimensional space would have needed to begin with the teleportation portal in Metatrin City.


    All three of his weapon spirits had ignited divine fires. Saleen unleashed his magic amplifier and had the God of Magic Net store the Floating City inside the magic amplifier.


    It was a very difficult process, as it would have required every living being from the Floating City to be transferred outside, beforerge scale crafting could be performed.


    Pseudogods had massive powers. The God of Magic Net was nheless still capable of shrinking the Floating City limitlessly, despite having its powers sealed. It would have only needed an instant to do so. The three eyes within the core of the magic amplifier already had massive storage powers in them.


    Weapons spirits did not need to pay any price for transforming equipment. The feat would have only been so difficult due to having its levels sealed.


    After Saleen was done storing up the Floating City, the ring formed by the eyes of the magic amplifier hovered behind him. A portal was opened at his back, and the Floating City could be seen within.


    That time, he brought the three powerful weapon spirits and Rafel with him. Being surrounded by so many powerful beings meant that Saleen no longer needed to be wary. He flew straight from New Demon City to the beach at full speed.


    Saleen saw the city at the border in shambles when he had gotten near Safilos¡¯ territory. Half of the entire city was destroyed. Saleen was shocked, not knowing if it was the grand duke or Alchemy City that did all that.


    Regardless of who did it, it would have proven fatal to Safilos, who was at the moment, unguarded.


    Saleen was a level ten true might and hisbat capacity had even reached that of a level 11 one. Furthermore, he was also armed with his family¡¯s secret arts, making it difficult for mages to kill him.


    What Saleen came to be concerned about was the possibility of his ns being all for nothing if Safilos¡¯ nation came to be ughtered.


    I need the people here, and I sure as hell need to build a temple here!


    Saleen took his people and dived from above. He saw soldiers clearing up dead bodies at the rubble and ruins. Over half of those who perished were civilians.


    ¡°I¡¯m Prince Saleen of the Qin Empire. What happened here!?¡± Saleen used Thundering Shock. The panicking soldiers calmed down. That skill was able to do more than just strike fear; it was also capable of calming its targets.


    Furthermore, the skill had the power to intimidate. Those soldiers saw the badge that Saleen took out and naturally believed what he said.


    All of them were elite troops and most of them had fought a brutal battle. None of them had taken their armors off and one after another of them saluted Saleen. A captain came forth and answered Saleen¡¯s question.


    ¡°Your highness, there are unknown mages attacking the city. More mages had gone to the imperial city. Please leave and request for help from the imperial capital!¡±


    There was only Rafel at Saleen¡¯s side, as he did not even bring either the Winged Skull and Sika with him. Two mages capable of flight would have hardly been of any use. The soldiers dared not tell him straight to the face, as that would have been akin to looking down on mages.


    ¡°The mages who attacked the imperial city. Did you see this mark on them!?¡± Saleen created a magic image, which bore the magic mark of the Elemental Hand.


    ¡°Indeed, your highness! They were the ones who did all this!¡± The soldiers confirmed with burning rage.


    In actual fact, the mages were all casting spells from above to bombard the ce. The very reason why the soldiers were able to survive was because the mages have all gone to the imperial city and there were no one else to clean up the battlefield.


    Many Qin cities had underground works built and the small city where Saleen was at the moment was no exception.

 Chapter 1396: The Elemental Hand’s Brutality (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1396: The Elemental Hand¡¯s Brutality (Part 2)</h4>


    Among the surviving troops, the captain knew of Prince Saleen. He even knew that Saleen was a powerful mage, like the current empress of the empire.


    What the feared was Saleen going off to save Safilos and ending up dead, which was why he asked Saleen to provide reinforcements to Holy Rock City.


    The mages who attacked them were too powerful, and he deemed Saleen too ill-prepared to take them on single-handedly.


    ¡°You people did good. I¡¯d take you all in on behalf of Safilos. Come with me. No need to worry about cleaning up the battlefield, since no one will be left alive down there, ¡± Saleen said as he opened a portal to take the warriors to the Floating City.


    The transport was a piece of cake, as no one dared to resist.


    Saleen then summoned the Violet Angel along with about 300 Bug Angel Warriors, over 100 demons, and some ancient warriors and star figures.


    His ragtag forces numbered about 1,200 units. He was hoping to see which ones would be the most lethal to the mages.


    Alchemy City¡¯s mages wanted to engage with Safilos and no one was more aware of that than Saleen. That was why he took a carriage to Safilos¡¯s city¡ªto attract the mage¡¯s attention.


    If he was seen getting along with Safilos, those mages would have been pissed as hell.


    Naturally, Saleen was using Safilos to irritate the mages of Alchemy City, but he never thought they would decimate the entire city. Safilos hadn¡¯t dered war on the Elemental Hand, so why did those mages overstep their boundaries by doing what they did?


    You sh*ts go about killing civilians just because I showed up, huh?


    If he let the Elemental Hand get away with this, no one would get near him in the future.


    An intense killing instinct welled up in Saleen as he cranked up the speed to over 500 kilometers an hour. Thirty minutester, he was in Safilos¡¯s city.


    The city walls were already demolished. Hundreds of mages in the sky cast magic below.


    They were working at a leisurely pace, apparently not taking Safilos for a fool.


    Safilos was a level-10 true might, and there were six level-10 mages in the sky. Among the rest of the sorcerers were over a dozen level-9s. Most of the remaining sorcerers were at level-7.


    Saleen might have been at level-11 at the moment, but he was still guarding against level-7 magic spells.


    The city walls were crushed by level-7 mages.


    The Elemental Hand suffered significant losses while shing with the skeletal dragon. How did they manage to assemble hundreds of sorcerers in their broken conditions? That being said, Saleen had seen his fair share of grand battles and had more than 100,000 enchanters in the Floating City.


    That kind of power no longer concerned Saleen. He was more afraid of high-level gods.


    ¡°Rafel, do you have a lot of experience fighting mages?¡± Saleen asked Rafel, who was near him.


    ¡°No. My god never picked fights with humans. That would been a cmity,¡± Rafel answered; this surprised Saleen. From his perspective, Rafel¡¯sbat capacity was above her current level.


    The angels of the Metal God were daunting, so the Metal God was probably equally strong. A level-18 god was the most prevailing being in existence.


    So, even gods like that came to fear humans then?


    Rafel seemed to know what was going on in Saleen¡¯s mind. She said in a low voice, ¡°My lord, humans have astronomical numbers. It wasn¡¯t just the ones on Myers Maind. The number of humans back then had grown so much they started giving the gods real headaches.


    That¡¯s when Saleen realized the only advantage humans had when fighting gods was superior numbers. With the races subjugated by humans and their allies considered, humans could have dominated the entire crystal wall system.


    Back in the day, humans acted as if they owned the crystal wall system. They destroyed countless sovereigns, all divine kingdoms.


    Saleen suddenly realized that the powerful gods had been outnumbered by humans. What¡¯s more, humans, in a crazed state, had plundered nes and inflicted more damage than the crystal wall system could withstand.


    ¡°Well then, go out and get yourself some experience.¡± Saleen cast Lightning Constetion and his territorial powers were released, shrouding all mages in the area within.


    Rafel attacked in silence. One-hundred metal angels appeared from behind. They were all summoned from the Floating City.


    The Lightning Constetion in the sky unleashed lightning bolts. Despite being at level-11, they were not fatal to humans. None of the mages of the Elemental Hand knew that. They scattered and scurried like frightened rats, trying to take cover as the lightning bolts flew from above.


    Rafel had an easy time dealing with a bunch of people who¡¯d lost their will to fight. Yes, the enemy were mages. Yes, they were acting like timid sheep.


    In addition, the level difference between the two parties meant that Rafel only needed to focus her attention on the six level-10 mages.


    Saleen observed closely and found that none of the six were the elders of the Elemental Hand; they were newly advanced young people. Amazing.


    Godd*mn! The Elemental Hand had be even more treacherous!


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic!¡± The six core level-10 mage trainers shouted using magic that shocked mental powers. While their magic was several orders of magnitude behind Thundering Shock, it was still effective.


    The mages realized that the lightning attacks only temporarily paralyzed their targets. Bing paralyzed in battle would have been lethal; the thin bolts didn¡¯t seem very urate.


    It was easy to evade the lightning bolts by concentrating on where they shed.


    The mages retaliated right away. High-level magic spells were cast everywhere, turning into six different waves of attacks. All spells of the six major elements took turns being cast. Rafel disappeared and charged to where the six sorcerers were.


    Her crimson spear struck the oldest mage. His equipment shimmered with magic light as he stared in disbelief at the spear protruding from his chest.


    Saleen chuckled. Rafel was at the pinnacle of level-12 when she undid the seal on her powers. The Inferno Spear was a weapon the Metal God had crafted for a beloved goddess. As long as the divine powers were maintained, the spear¡¯s sharpness would put Nailisi¡¯s Gray Memory to shame.


    As Rafel yanked the spear out, a metal shield appeared on her arm, blocking a beam of gray light aimed right at her.


    Wham! The shield the disintegrated into hundreds of pieces. Saleen was startled. It was Disintegration.


    The sess rate of that spell was lower than the Death Ray. If it met its target, it caused irreparable damage. Rafel was frightened to death at the thought of this. The mage trainer was only a level-10 but could sessfully cast an instant-death spell on her.


    Had she not been an angel with superior equipment, her body would have disintegrated in the blink of an eye..


    Bestowed by her god, that shield had gone to waste. Rafel pivoted andunched another spear at that mage. Suddenly it became infused with green patterns, and the six eyes opened at the tip and locked onto the mage who used Disintegration.


    How foolish that mage felt to be locked down by a weapon that had flown out of its owner¡¯s hand! How could this have happened?


    This was no time for questions. The six eyes on the spear consumed arge amount of divine power to lock onto the mage trainer. It shed the huge metal shield the mage trainer had conjured and prated its lower abdomen.


    Then the six eyes blinked as divine powers seeped. Green branches took root in the mage trainer¡¯s body, sucking its life force dry.


    Finally, a shriveled corpse copsed to the earth. Then the other four mage trainers cast their most powerful spells at Rafel.


    No way she would have taken them head-on. Level-10 mages could cast level-11 spells, and getting hit by level-11 spells was dangerous. Her equipment had been crafted by Saleen, but Rafel did not feel secure enough.


    The reason was, Saleen only been at level-10 when he made that equipment.


    Rafel was faster than the mage. Spreading her wings, she flew to greater altitudes before turning around. Four level-10 magic spells missed their targets: Saleen immediately sensed that something was off.


    None of the mage trainers had abilities to cast level-11 magic.


    The Elemental Hand was not so fearsome and its newly appointed mages were not yet experienced inbat.


    Unsurprisingly, Saleen wondered if he¡¯d been too cautious. He had been trying to lure snakes out of theirir but ended up with earthworms instead.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Safilos shot up from below. His eyes were bloodshot as he roared, ¡°Kill those assh*les for me! They¡¯ve destroyed all my cities!¡±


    ¡°As you wish. Saleen saw Safilos swing that demonic de of his to help Rafel out. Saleen himself followed the metal angels to kill the mages hidden by Lightning Constetion.


    Safilos took on two level-10 mage trainers. Rafel¡¯s task became easier as Saleen pursued the flying targets.


    A sheet of ice with a diameter of over 100 meters appeared in the sky, conjured by tightly packed Icicles.


    Saleen took only a second to finish thebo consisting of tens of Icicles. The spells rained all over the ce within a 100-meter diameter, killing over half the remaining mages below level-8.


    The metal angels charged at the mages Saleen was attacking. Their metal swords glistened with magic light. The power of the six major elements coiled around their swords, nullifying the magic shields that the mages brought up altogether.


    After the metal angels came to embrace the faith of the God of Magic Net, their metal swords became imbued with anti-magic powers.


    A huge flying device hovered high in the sky. It had a diameter of over 300 meters. Nine mages were standing on it, surrounded by 500 super puppets.


    ¡°Saleen has appeared. What now?¡± The youngest of the nine asked. They were true level-10 mages and had powerful equipment unlike those fakes down there.


    ¡°The intel was correct. That woman¡¯s an angel.¡±


    ¡°No need to sh head-on. Record the whole thing and make the announcement when we get back saying this mage has betrayed humans and is allied with the gods.¡± The older mage had nefarious thoughts,ing up with ways to deal with Saleen in seconds.


    ¡°Are you people talking about me?¡± Twelve Saleen look-alikes appeared in the huge metal flying device; 11 were illusions. The one fighting down there was an illusion, too.


    The mages were shocked. They all knew of Saleen¡¯s notoriety since Alchemy City was no longer deemed to be of any value to him. If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen, something as treacherous as the skeletal dragon would not have been summoned in the first ce.

 Chapter 1398: The Elemental Hand’s Brutality (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1398: The Elemental Hand¡¯s Brutality (Part 3)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s 11 illusions surrounded the mages¡¯ metal flying device; the spaces in-between were packed with warriors.


    Zzzzzzz. Pang! The puppets crackled with lightning that made the mages¡¯ hair stand on end.


    The disk-shaped metal device they were flying in was bedecked with wind-magic arrays etched on the surface. The mages kept working even when shrouded by Saleen¡¯s territory.


    Meanwhile, the illusions focused their attention on their targets. A mage on the disk was trying to figure out which illusion was the real Saleen. As he extended his mental powers to probe them, blood sttered from their mouths and noses as the mages slumped to the floor.


    ¡°You people deserve worse than death,¡± an illusion muttered. While they could do little more than attack, speaking was no problem at all for the illusions.


    ¡°This is your fault! You¡¯re the one who went looking for Safilos and alerted us!¡±


    A young mage trainer in their midst yelled at Saleen.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go making excuses for all the bad things you did. You¡¯re worse than animals,¡± Saleen snapped as he cast eight-ball lightning: the balls were a lot faster now that he had advanced. To protect themselves, the mages immediately erected their magic shields.


    It was futile: The ball lightning prated the shields and reduced the remaining mages to ashes.


    The 500 puppets didn¡¯t dare attack Saleen. The God of Lightning in the Lightning Constetion was also a puppet god. Dante had captured those puppets and thrown them into the Lightning Constetion to boost theirbat strength.


    Saleen pushed the huge metal disk into his magic amplifier. His power of soul was potent enough to activate the device with a diameter of hundreds of meters and transfer it to his space equipment.


    This would have been unthinkable in the past. Now, it was a no-brainer.


    Saleen killed eight mages in one go, including the one who had tried to bait his illusion. Nine level-10 mages assassinated in a minute¡ªnot bad! Such small victories gave Saleen little satisfaction.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand were starting to get really crazy.


    Forcefully enhanced powers filled those newly advanced mages with brutal rage. Back in the day, the old mages would have talked about the need for bnce, a ridiculous idea to the new mages who only worshipped pure power at the moment.


    What a terrifying thought as Saleen nced down at the hundreds of sorcerers.


    Alchemy City had acquired some ruins and massive wealth during its conquests, giving the city the means to literally mass-produce sorcerers.


    Saleen¡¯s magic had regional limitations. Once the enchanters left the area, they were reduced to nothing. Alchemy City was different. It had created a surplus of mages who ended up as coteral damage on the battlefield.


    Rafel and Safilos had finished fighting. Alchemy City did not expect Saleen to show up so quickly, much cause so much destruction and devastation.


    Despite Safilos¡¯sposed demeanor, Saleen perceived the brewing rage in his gray eyes.


    ¡°Your Highness, I¡¯m truly sorry for causing you so much trouble.¡± Saleen bowed slightly in the air. Safilos¡¯s territory was moderate, but he still had over a dozen cities. The smallest had fewer than 2,000 people; the poption of thergest was under 100,000.


    All those cities were destroyed by mages and casualties were heavy.


    ¡°Safilos, do you hate me?¡± Saleen asked, breaking the silence.


    Safilos turned and flew off to his residence and said, ¡°I only hate Alchemy City.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the Elemental Hand.¡± Saleen went up to him.


    By then, his ce was in shambles. The two level-10 mage trainers were incapable of fending off the mages¡¯ attacks. It¡¯s too bad they resorted to a makeshift magic tower to protect where Safilos had been.


    Because the two old mages had no intention of staying there very long, they didn¡¯t bother to build magic towers. If they did, they would have been able to keep Safilos¡¯s ce intact.


    By then those mages knew that Saleen was already a level-11 mage from the way he approached them. As such, they behaved respectfully toward him not because of Saleen¡¯s power but because of his magical knowledge.


    ¡°Thank you for your gear, master. We wouldn¡¯t have been able to hold out this long without it.¡±


    Saleen presented them with gifts of level-10 magic nuclei and six level-10 magic scrolls in the sets of equipment. This proved to be decisive equipment. One of Alchemy City¡¯s level-10 mage trainers had actually been killed by those things.


    Upon presenting his gifts, Saleen knew they woulde in handy someday.


    Seeing them thank him personally, Saleen said, ¡°You both did well to protect your liege. It¡¯s good that his highness was left unscathed because many depend on him. Later, I¡¯ll replenish the magic nuclei and scrolls you lost. The two of you might still make it to level-11.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words put a sparkle in the old mages¡¯ eyes, but the sparkle quickly dimmed.


    The good thing is that they would be able to extend their lifespan after getting to level-11. The bad thing is that they would have to depend on Saleen to advance to that level, and this meant doing a disservice to their liege.


    Naturally, Saleen knew what was going on in the mages¡¯ minds: Both had been following Safilos for decades. Safilos¡¯s father had assigned those two to his son at birth.


    Even though they called Safilos their liege, they considered him family.


    When Safilos was young and his bloodline had yet to awaken, there was still hope for him to be emperor. Those two mages were thest candidates chosen for protecting Safilos.


    Chanake¡¯s bloodline awakened before Safilos¡¯s; the former¡¯s was pure to the point where he could inherit the most powerful of secret arts of their family. By contrast, Safilos was made a prince right there and then was prevented from bing emperor.


    Safilos only began to take control of the army when Chanake came to the throne. The two old mages stayed at his side the whole time. Most mages who served in Safilos¡¯s army had been recruited by the two of them.


    The two old mages only retreated behind the scene after the number of powerful mages close to Safilos expanded and he began to focus on their own training. That was the reason for their training dy.


    Safilos respected both of them very much; out of loyalty, the two mages couldn¡¯t bring themselves to betray him.


    ¡°I have a lot of followers and can rte to how you might be feeling. I¡¯m only offering assistance out of respect to you two,¡± Saleen said while taking out magic nuclei and scrolls and handing them to the mages in Safilos¡¯s presence.


    ¡°Take them. We¡¯ll need Saleen¡¯s help rebuilding our kingdom.¡± Safilos didn¡¯t ask the mages to refuse. They had given a lot for his sake. If they were to advance further, the least Safilos could do was not stand in the way of their training.


    With the most powerful of mages killed by Saleen, Rafel would take care of the rest. Plus, the Violet Angel was a powerful being on its own.


    Saleen was confident in his ability to crush Alchemy City¡¯s power. The key was that he didn¡¯t want his name attached to the effort.


    Alchemy City, at present, probably no longer cared about its reputation because it had never acquired sufficient power to be a major yer.


    Saleen did not want to sh head-on with Alchemy City; instead, he wanted to borrow Safilos¡¯s name in doing so. However, Safilos¡¯s forces were all stationed at Holy Rock City. There were also pathetically few mages around.


    Saleen wanted to talk about deploying troops with Safilos next.


    If he had not been Lex¡¯s husband, that would have been a sensitive topic of conversation. But since Saleen was currently a prince of the empire, no one would have said anything regardless of what he was doing with Safilos.


    Saleen realized from what he saw in the trajectory of fate that reputation still mattered a lot, especially when he was trying to expand the Nature Faith. He needed to first ensure that people were okay with this.


    If everyone had doubts and kept their guard up, the expansion of Nature Faith wouldn¡¯t happen.


    Saleen had no time to wait. The millennium-long promise would have been up before he realized it.


    Regardless of how kind the Goddess of Nature was, he would have been punished if he vited the contract. There had probably been a good number of people who had entered the temples and acquired power left behind by the goddess.


    There was no doubt one needed to pay for the power acquired.


    Saleen did not want to see himself advancing to the veryst stages and losing his life because of a puny contract like that.


    The sooner the goddess was resurrected the better. Saleen was most afraid of the goddess leaving some measures behind that allowed her to grow too powerful when she was resurrected. If that happened, he¡¯d lose control of the Nature Faith.


    Safilos¡¯s hatred of Alchemy City had reached a critical point. He didn¡¯t really resent Saleen, as the location of his kingdom was probably not that far from where the mages of Alchemy City were hiding. It was only a matter of time before he became Alchemy City¡¯s target.


    Those mages needed to find shelter since they couldn¡¯t return to their city. Safilos¡¯s kingdom was at the border of the maind and the environment was semi-enclosed, making the region a perfect spot for the mages to live.


    Safilos then asked, ¡°Saleen, you said you¡¯d provide me with a fleet and mages too. I want them now. When can you get them to me?¡±


    ¡°Right away,¡± Saleen smiled and answered.


    ¡°Right away?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I came with the Floating City. There are tens of thousands of construction puppets on it, so the cities can be repaired in no time. They can also start digging out deep-water ports. I¡¯m going to provide you with 10,000 enchanters to make sure this never happens again unless it¡¯s goding down personally,¡± Saleen replied.


    Safilos somehow managed to keep pent-up rage under control and said, ¡°Very well. I¡¯m going to hit Alchemy City personally. I want to chop off the heads of those mages one by one.¡±


    ¡°Rest assured. I¡¯ll join you. Those mages...¡± Saleen didn¡¯t finish his sentence. It was toote for words. A great number of Safilos¡¯s subjects died and he couldn¡¯t replenish his resources in such a short period of time.


    Saleen did make good on his word right away, though, leaving the ce with Safilos and taking to the air before unleashing the Floating City.


    The entire city was covered as soon as the Floating City appeared. The area turned dark as night. Saleen had the enchanters unleash magic powers to shine light onto the city. Tens of thousands of construction puppets were sent below to help Safilos with the building project.


    Other than those construction puppets, there were demons helping to deepen the ports. The details were seen to by the enchanters. They sucked the dirt at the bottom up using vortexes and used Dissolution to deal with the coral and rocks.


    After excavation, they turned to Fossilization to stabilize the undersea terrain. The area under excavation was vast. Saleen lost a good number of magic nuclei getting the project going. The enchanters used the stores of the Floating City for casting magic

 Chapter 1399: Violet Angel, Bait (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1399: Violet Angel, Bait (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the air, Saleenmanded personally and exined to Safilos how the magic worked.


    It was not that Safilos knew nothing about magic. He had learned the skill once upon a time to understand more about the power of elements. He was unable to develop magic chords from his training, however. He was only able to pick up level-0 magic. None of that got in the way of his training in swordsmanship though.


    This basic knowledge provided a good foundation for what he learned from Saleen. He was all set.


    ¡°Your Highness, wouldn¡¯t there be any side-effects to using the magic?¡± Safilos inquired in a rather formal tone.


    ¡°There are. Enchanters who use magics damage their bodies in exchange for heightened mental powers. But the enchanters I employ are all demons. Their bodies already have intimidating self-repair prowess that keeps them from suffering too much while they¡¯re alive. If they can¡¯t work for me as enchanters, they have to live their lives in a kill-or-be-killed manner in the demon ne. Who knows how long the can live like that.¡±


    From what Saleen had already told him, Safilos knew that if humans became enchanters, the consequences would be direr. Human bodies were not as formidable demons in terms of self-repair.


    If humans became enchanters, they would also age rapidly. Unlike true mages, it was impossible for them to have strong bodies.


    Saleen¡¯s constitution was stronger than a silver grand swordmaster. If he learned martial art techniques, his prowess in shing head-on would equal a silver grand swordmaster¡¯s, except for the use of sword aura.


    It would have sufficed if he had a weapon in his hand that was resilient enough.


    After the magic waspleted, Safilos knew he would need to hand over the defense to Saleen. He was unable to just mobilize his powers from the imperial capital to his own kingdom. Moreover, he was unwilling to leave Holy Rock City.


    No doubt Saleen had ways of getting Safilos to return to the imperial capital. Annihting the mages of Alchemy City would be an excellent way of aplishing that.


    As for the crimes of the mages of Alchemy City or whatever, none of that mattered anymore.


    Alchemy City¡¯s current level of powers threatened the safety of the empire, but the mages were unwilling to provide the empire with any help anymore. That would have been a great crime.


    Saleen got what he came for¡ªgetting Safilos to agree to work with him. Taking on Alchemy City was just an excuse. That¡¯s not what Saleen was there for. He only had one goal in mind, and that was to have Safilos secretly support him, thereby allowing him to propagate the Nature Faith.


    The Goddess of Myers was hardly discriminated against on Myers Maind. In all records found regarding the goddess, she had always yed the role of protector of the maind.


    Saleen knew enough to tell that some measures had been left behind by Goddess of Myers herself. There would definitely have been a great many who reaped benefits from her, whereas some, like him, were working to resurrect the goddess.


    Those who received less would have probably needed only to spread the good name of the Goddess of Myers.


    Saleen did not really annihte the mages sent by the Elemental Hand, as some of them were not in the city at the time. Some were loitering about tens of kilometers away, cleaning up escaped troops.


    Those mages were quick on their feet. Saleen did not bother pursuing them.


    One newly advanced level-7 sorcerer was flying eastward as quickly possible with no worries about being followed. Rafel pursued that mage personally.


    She gripped her spear as her body seemed to meld entirely with her surroundings, making it impossible for that sorcerer to detect her.


    After flying for over 1,000 kilometers, a ten-meter-tall puppet burst through the mountains all of a sudden and headed straight for the sorcerer. ted, the sorcerer took out a scroll. They were about to go up to the puppet when Rafel sensed that something was wrong.


    A ck beam shot from the puppet¡¯s chest and prated the sorcerer¡¯s body.


    The young sorcerer was killed by the puppet in a single shot. The puppet exploded secondster and was reduced to a cloud of broken parts. Rafel charged at the puppet and realized that she would not have been able to recover anything useful from it. Its core, magic nucleus, and magic arrays had all dissolved.


    Rafel intended to trace that mage¡¯s tracks to find out where the Elemental Hand was hidden, but the Elemental Hand killed one of its own to remain concealed. It was all done without warning.


    The scroll that the mage took out was nowhere to be found. Rafel thought second before deeming it best to keep flying east. That mage never adjusted his flight path. In other words, there would definitely be people of the Elemental Hand if Rafel continued flying straight ahead.


    The Violet Angel had caught up to her by then. It had cleaned up even more mages behind it. It came all the way of pursuing the angel specifically because it did not want to be near Saleen. There was no telling what kind of mission its master would have given it.


    The Violet Angels hated doing missions of any kind. Given its preference, it would do nothing.It would have enough for it to eat up all kinds of creatures, enabling its body to continue evolving.


    It never crossed its mind to follow Rafel because of the risks. The mages from Alchemy City were going against Saleen. If they found the Violet Angel, they would have thought of ways to capture it and turn it into a puppet serving the Elemental Hand.


    ¡°Lady Rafel. May I know what happened?¡± The Violet Angel approached her in a pandering manner.


    ¡°Get lost,¡± Rafel quipped dismissively.


    ¡°Right away.¡±


    The Violet Angel transformed into metal and rolled down the mountain as soon as it detected Rafel¡¯s foul mood. Being a puppet, it was easy to turn into nearly anything, except a person.


    ¡°Get back here!¡± After realizing what the Violet Angel was doing, Rafel saw that she needed some help. She had sealed her own powers and could only use her level-12 skills.


    Divine powers in her two spears were limited. It was important for her to aware of not using up all the powers she had when overwhelmed by numbers, as that would have prevented her from escaping.


    COMMENT


    The Violet Angel rolled up the hill again after hearing Rafel summons it. It was hard to climb and Rafel had to suppress her chuckle.


    ¡°Violet Angel, what can you transform into?¡±


    ¡°I could easily transform into anything within 100 meters.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s see if you can transform into a dragon.¡±


    The Violet Angel sported a troubled expression. The booming and nking of its body were deafening as it increased in size. Scales, wings, and ws appeared on its body. The horns were the most challenging, as they needed to disy dragon patterns.


    It took about half an hour for the Violet Angel to transform perfectly. Except for a pair of eyes devoid of a dragon¡¯s might, everything else looked like a real dragon.


    Rafel leaped on the dragon the Violet Angel had just transformed to and said, ¡°Hand me the War Drum of Fear.¡±


    The Violet Angel took out the drum unwillingly, thinking it might be better to just return to its master.


    ¡°If you¡¯re unwilling toe with me, get lost.¡± Rafel had no reason to be polite with the Violet Angel. She knew how that thing came to be. Strictly speaking, it even bore a resemnce to her.


    ¡°I¡¯m willing!¡± An urge, simr to human desire, welled up in the Violet Angel¡¯s mind as Rafel stepped on it. Feels great being stepped on! The Violet Angel took out the bone hammer. Rafel shrank it and hung it at her waist.


    ¡°Fly there.¡±


    ¡°Yes, mydy.¡±


    The Violet Angel¡¯s power wasn¡¯t much weaker than Rafel¡¯s; however, it kept feelingpelled to obey Rafel.


    Never mind, master¡¯s power was weak but I still listened to him.


    ording to the mages¡¯ theory, I might have been tortured so much that I¡¯m beginning to enjoy the sensation of pain!


    The Violet Angel mumbled to itself while carrying out Rafel¡¯s orders and continued to fly eastward. The Violet Angel kept feeling Rafel¡¯s feet stepping on its back as it flew; oh, how good it felt!


    Rafel was too focused on locating the hiding ce of the Elemental Hand to pay any attention to what the thing beneath her feet was thinking. If she found out that the puppet was actually enjoying her feet, she would have taken the Violet Angel apart so it could never be put back together again.


    Rafel was not flying very quickly. The Violet Angel beneath its feetcked her flight abilities. Even after bing a dragon, it only achieved a speed of around 300 kilometers an hour.


    Although that was considered fast for mages, the fastest bird in flight in the world was capable of flying at just about the same speed.


    When mages first learned how to fly, they were only a bit faster than ordinary warhorses.


    A shadow of a gigantic being zipped past in the air. Rafel intentionally had the Violet Angel transform into a dragon to attract the enemy¡¯s attention. If it had been something normal andmon, the Elemental Hand would not have been alerted.


    If their location was hidden somewhere deep underground, Rafel would have taken considerable time locating them.


    As expected, there were some on the ground that locked onto the Violet Angel with mental powers after flying over 1,000 kilometers.


    The Violet Angel then unleashed a dragon¡¯s roar; however, it was unable to cast the dragon¡¯s breath and the mimicked dragon¡¯s might was pathetically weak. The attention of the ones on the ground turned to the dragon. So that thing¡¯s an adolescent then?


    To mages, the pull of an adolescent dragon was huge. If Saleen had not secured the help of Dragon Ind, he would have thought of capturing such a dragon if it happened to fly past the top of Metatrin City.


    Rafel smiled and said, ¡°Good work. Continue.¡±


    The Violet Angel continued roaring as best as it could. The mages on the ground couldn¡¯t contain themselves any longer. The Violet Angel didn¡¯t stop, in ordance with Rafel¡¯s instructions. It kept flying east, pretending it had simply just flown past.


    Rafel¡¯s eyes could see the ground. Her feet left the back of the Violet Angel. She did not beat the drum. She had initially thought they would have been surrounded, but only three mages took flight and pursued from behind.


    Light shimmered behind the Violet Angel¡¯s rear, concealing Rafel¡¯s body.


    Rafel steadied herself. Her temperament was cool and collected from having experienced so manyrge-scale battles. She was at her most rxed upon seeing the enemies approach, a signal that a bloody sh would soon follow.


    Tobat angels, the meaning of life was to do battle.


    Out of the three pursuing mages, two were level-8 sorcerers and one was only level-7. They struggled to keep up with the Violet Angel¡¯s flight speed, losing the dragon after chasing it for less than two minutes.


    A level-8 sorcerer immediately unrolled a scroll. ck aura emanated from it and a huge explosion sounded shortly thereafter.


    It was a warning spell that also concealed the caster¡¯s identity.


    Seeing the Violet Angel¡¯s flight speed, the three mages thought that their eyes had deceived them earlier: They thought it was a high-level dragon. They never suspected other beings could disguise themselves as dragons.


    Rafel was ted seeing the ck mist explode andnd back onto the Violet Angel¡¯s back again, telling the Violet Angel to charge into that mist.


    ¡°This is poisonous, right?¡± Rafel twirled about with her spear. The green aura emanating from her spear quickly removed the toxins in the ck mist.

 Chapter 1400: Violet Angel, Bait (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1400: Violet Angel, Bait (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Rafel thrust about with her spear, killing three sorcerers cleanly. The level difference was just too great. Compared to Saleen¡¯s speed, all those sorcerers were moving so slow that they might have as well been crawling.


    Rafel would have been able to punch a hole in Saleen while he was moving at full speed. Those sorcerers were no brainers inparison.


    But then again, if she were to actually thrust at Saleen, she would have had to deal with his very, very potent Crystal Finger. Saleen still had the Figure of Fate after all. Even if she were to lodge her spear into him, he still would have had time to blow her brains apart.


    Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger was a skill devised specifically to deal with the gods. No divine arts would have been able to patch up a wound dealt using the Crystal Finger, and the wound would not have healed as well. A injury caused by the Crystal Finger would have stayed permanent.


    The three sorcerers expected to encounter a god-killer. Their heads were cracked apart by the spear and their souls shattered right there and then. The divine power on the spear was not something sorcerers at such levels would have been able to deal with.


    After she dealt with the three sorcerers, Rafel took away their space equipment along the way. Even if they were to be empty, the space equipment themselves would have been worth over 10000 gold coins. Better ones would have been worth over 100 thousand gold coins instead.


    That was because the crafting of space equipment was an especially troublesome process. Anyone who was able to craft space equipment without fuss would have been above level 15. Level ten mages needed to slowly craft magic arrays when they were crafting space equipment, and there were also errors to consider as well.


    Rafel learned to do all that from Saleen. Despite being unimaginably rich, Saleen still nheless paid attention to small expenditure. Unless he was held back by time constraints, he would have went out of his way to even take 300 to 500 gold coins.


    The upkeep of maintaining troops and mages was hefty after all.


    The Violet Angel took the corpses of all three mages away. If they were to be permitted to drop to the ground, it would have alerted the enemy. The ck mist was still floating in the air, covering a great area, isting the ce from any probing measures. Even powerful mages on the ground would have had a hard time seeing through the ck mist.


    A scroll thatbined wind and dark magic was very rare. It was something that only ces like Alchemy City and Metatrin City would have produced. There were simply too many mages in those two ces. Peculiar scrolls of all kinds would have been made along the way when the mages were doing experiments.


    The Violet Angel emerged from the ck mist and sounded painful. ying dead was not all that difficult for the puppet, but ying injured was even easier.


    The Violet Angel wobbled about and dropped to the ground, crashing onto a hill with a loud boom.


    Rafel emerged from the ck mist and turned into a ball of light, striking down beside a huge tree like a bolt of lightning.


    Tens of magic rms red in the mountains. Rafel chuckled. So the mages are indeed unable to hold back seeing a dragon around eh? There was not even a need for them to fight their way into the mages¡¯ir. They only needed to take a stroll around the entrance and leave, and that would have driven the mages crazy.


    With the location of theirir exposed, Alchemy City would have needed to speed up. It would not have taken long for whatever they were nning to be seen by everyone.


    Rafel was forcing their hand. The mages of Alchemy City would have known that they were rushing into things, but there was little that they were able to do nheless. Things would have turned even dire when Saleen showed up on their door otherwise.


    Rafel was more than just a brute who knew nothing but fighting. She had oncemanded over a million angels after all, making her tactical prowess on par with that of any general.


    Rafel narrowed her eyes and peered at the mages rushing up the hill. Saleen was right after all. Any living being with desires are easy to deal with.


    Tens of mages rushed up to the hill. The Violet Angel pretended as if it was injured. It pped its wings about, swatting three away and causing their bones to break.


    He was then held in ce using Fossilization. More warriors showed up on the hill, tying the Violet Angel up using magic chains.


    The Violet Angel felt very pleased that it was being tied up, thinking that it felt ratherfortable being in chains. There was no need for it to do battle anymore, as it would have only needed to wait for Rafel to rescue it.


    Those magic chains were not much in the eyes of the Violet Angel. It would have shrugged free of their bonds just by returning to its original humanoid form. Those chains were not godly items like the Shackles of the Fallen. They were but level ten equipment crafted by mages.


    The mages cast tens of Hover on the Violet Angel, and the puppet lightened its own body in secret to avoid causing trouble. The magesmanded the warriors to tether to the lightened Violet as they flew.


    The Violet Angel roared about like it was moaning instead, which caused Rafel to feel disgusted. What the hell is wrong with the puppet?


    In actual fact, the Violet Angel was actually roaring out in high andfort, which the mages mistook for it taking damage so heavy that it was unable to use dragon¡¯s might. Two of the mages cast Chunlin spell on it and another fed magic liquid into its mouth.


    The Violet Angel only stopped moaning by then, as its cover would have been blown if it were to go overboard.


    ¡°A metal dragon. A rare find indeed!¡± One of the mages said excitedly.


    ¡°No wonder it has such a low count of mental powers and its dragon¡¯s might so weak.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I kind of wonder...¡±


    The mages looked at each. While it was true that they had taken the dragon, they were wondering what would have been by the time anything remaining trickled down from the top. Alchemy City was different from what it used to be. All manner of powers werepletely taken control by the Elemental Hand.


    No money was needed to be paid when distribution of materials was concerned, but everyone got less than what they used to be getting.


    The only way to acquire more benefit was to join the Elemental Hand, submitting themselves to the higher-ups.


    The Violet Angel was being dragged about in flight. The effects of tens of Hover spells and the power that it used, enabled the mages to have an easy time hauling their find. They simply thought that the dragon had no anti-magic properties on it.


    Furthermore, Hover was not some kind of attack magic. Such boost magic spells were usually less resisted by the dragons.


    Rafel followed them to fly over the mountains and none of her enemies detected her. With her green spear in hand, Rafel melded with nature. The mages kept using Detection and yet they were unable to detect anything out of the ordinary.


    A straight, tall mountains was seen before them, which had an eerie green color. If one were to look down from above, they would have only found that the colors of the mountain to be somewhat paler. It was something that wasmonly seen in nature and it would not have drawn any attention.


    Rafel lowered her altitude in flight and got near the mountain. She twisted her body about, letting the rays from concealed magic arrays to slide past her bodies¡¯ distortion, preventing any magic rm from being sounded.


    Rafel sealed her powers until they were at level one in that instant.


    It was an ability unique tobat angels and no other races would have been able to learn it. One could have damaged one¡¯s body by sealing one¡¯s own powers.


    Generally-speaking, sealing one level away was of no consequence, but sealing over two levels away would have been akin to sustaining injuries in battle, and Rafel was suppressing her powers by 12 levels.


    It was some measures that the mages would have found baffling. With the gods long gone, no one would have suspected that a level 13 angel was on their tails.


    The tall mountain was hollowed out and the mages stationed within detected anomalies in the magic arrays, but deemed it to simply be caused by amon beast passing by. There were many beasts at the mountain and all of them would have at least been of level one magic beasts in terms of powers.


    Rafel was concealing herself well, as the mage let her off after taking only one look.


    The mages took the Violet Angel and continued flying forward, ramming straight at the moment. Mirages were seen wobbling about before both mages and dragon disappeared. The warriors took a detour around the peak and continued to fly in the valley.


    Rafel thought for a bit and quickly realized that the warriors were not allowed to enter.


    Rafel shed about and dived into the mountain alongside the mages. The huge illusion was not a barrier, as no one would have created such a huge barrier to begin with, due to the massive magic nuclei consumption that would have been incurred.


    Alchemy City did not have ess to magic power furnace technology. The higher the quality of the barrier, the greater the magic nuclei consumption. But if that barrier were to be a low quality one, it would not have been of any use in terms of defense.


    Many defensive facilities became limited due to factors involving magic nuclei, if they were to be done without use of magic power furnaces.


    They were not in ancient times, where powerful magic beasts were easily found everywhere, and killing them would have easily yielded required magic nuclei.


    Rafel saw arge gate after flying into the mountain. It was actually a portal, which measured to over 60 meters in width. Its true width would have probably been over 200 meters. Any living being other than giants would have been able to pass through such huge portals.


    Rafel hesitated, as those mages were about to drag the Violet Angel into the portal.


    If she were to follow them into the portal, her cover would have no doubt been blown. But if she were to stay outside, the Violet Angel would have been made a prisoner. Could that thing kill its way out?


    The Violet Angel knew what it was getting into at the moment, it turned around to take one look at Rafel when it was being dragged into the portal. Its eyes were incredibly sad and resentful ones, as if it was expecting Rafel to save it.


    Rafel actually felt some urge to just kill her way through the mages and take the Violet Angel away. But after seeing the disgusting eyes of the Violet Angel, she stopped hesitating, turning around and leaving the mountain altogether.


    I can¡¯t stand those eyes. Is that thing even a puppet?


    Better to just head back and tell Saleen instead. Those mages would have needed to look into that thing after capturing it after all. They wouldn¡¯t have thought of taking the Violet Angel apart within three to five days.


    Some mages might have even tried to forge a contract with the Violet Angel. So long as the contract was not a soul bond, it would not have affected the Violet Angel¡¯s original contract. Doing so would have enabled it to fool everyone around it for the time being.


    The Violet Angel was thoroughly frightened after seeing Rafel leave. However, it was brought by the mages to another ce after passing through the portal, and they were entirely cut off from the ce they came from.


    Rafel was careful not to trigger any magic arrays after she left. She only hastened after leaving the mountain¡¯s vicinity, heading straight for Safilos¡¯ territory.


    The project at the seaside was already in full swing when Rafel returned to Safilos¡¯ territory.


    Huge metallic machines were installed in seawater and small puppets wereid out below, which were linked to the port directly.


    Saleen had gotten very used to controlling those machines. He borated to Safilos as he worked. Those metal rails could have been used to install carriages that had magic power sources installed, allowing goods to be transported to the city.


    Safilos asked a really funny question.


    ¡°Saleen, if that thing is really that economical in terms of fuel consumption, why haven¡¯t the empire built a rail that was over 10000 kilometers long? If they were to use magic coaches for everywhere, transportation of army, food, weapons would have gotten a lot faster, making it far cheaper than keeping horses.¡±


    ¡°Your highness, there are many magic beasts in the world that like to chew on metal. If the rail were to beid out at such lengths, the numbers on annual maintenance would have looked like monsters,¡± Saleen exined exasperatedly.


    ¡°How about setting up magic around the rails then? If there were to be enchanters guarding the rails, it would have been easy to repel those special beasts then.¡±


    Safilos¡¯eback made Saleen think.


    If things were to truly beid out like Safilos put it, the entire world would have seen fundamental change in many ways. Common people would have been able to gain ess to magic powers and the speed of transportation of goods would have been raised over 100 times faster.


    There were many ces that were forbidden to such projects pulled off due to geographical reasons, but there were definitely other ces that would have allowedrge cities to be built. Humans were ones a powerful race, but even then, they did not truly explored and exploited every inch of the maind¡¯snd.


    Safilos¡¯ words might have sounded ridiculous, but if one were to really think on it, one would have quickly found his ideas to be great ones.

 Chapter 1401: Taking the Town (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1401: Taking the Town (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°My lord, something happened to the Violet Angel.¡± Saleen¡¯s trail of thought was interrupted. It was Rafel who just flew back and she was pping her wings lightly, awaiting Saleen¡¯s reaction quietly before him.


    ¡°So you have made that thing a bait then?¡± Saleen asked without a care.


    Rafel said with an astonished expression, ¡°Indeed. I have had it turn into a dragon to lure the mages of the Elemental Hand to capture it. I then followed them and found a huge portal.¡±


    Rafel said and threw up a projection, letting Saleen have a look at a copy of what she saw.


    ¡°Baldur¡¯ Gate?¡± Safilos, who was by Saleen¡¯s side throughout the whole time, called out at that moment.


    ¡°What¡¯s a Baldur¡¯s Gate?¡± Despite being a mage, Saleen had never heard of the term.


    ¡°Baldur was a powerful mage during the Second Dynasty, who practiced swordsmanship as well. Of course, his legend was not recorded in the notes of the mages. He was too obnoxious for the mages to bother remembering him, but all who trained in swordsmanship would have learned of his stories somehow,¡± Safilos exined.


    ¡°Ruins of the Second Dynasty huh...¡± Saleen was relieved somewhat. The Second Dynasty was also known as the Unholy Dynasty, and the age¡¯s powers were slightly lower than that of the first.


    So long as the ruins is not one that belongs to the goddess. Saleen was afraid of the Elemental Hand getting their hands on the luck he came to possess.


    ¡°Saleen, the Second Dynasty is not one to be underestimated,¡± Safilos reminded Saleen, seeing how he was rather dazed at the moment.


    ¡°I know, your highness. I understand that. Do you have any powerful people around you at the moment?¡±


    Safilos frowned. Is Saleen really asking me for something right now? I¡¯ve just lost a number of people.


    Saleen was able to tell from Safilos¡¯ expression that the prince was getting the wrong idea about things. ¡°Your highness, I¡¯m a mage. If you want to get something, you¡¯d need to pay the equivalent price for it. My forces might be scattered, but there are 100 thousand enchanters on board the Floating City, making it enough for them to do battle. I¡¯m hoping that you could deploy troops as well, so that when ites to loot distribution, I¡¯d be able give you something and still answer to my status of being a mage.¡±


    Saleen exined Safilos in the most straightforward manner that he was able to think of. He was not going to do everything for free in attacking Alchemy City¡¯sir. That was different from helping Safilos build his cities. Saleen was able to build temples and ports while he was working on the cities.


    There were also the navy to be stationed around, which made it possible for him to reap all manner of benefits.


    In Saleen¡¯s n, when the Cloudflow Empire eventually made it all the way to where they were with their invasion, Safilos¡¯ territory would have served as a giant entrepot. The benefits to be gained would have been a long term one.


    Other than regr armies,mon merchant ships wanting to go on long voyages would have needed to resupply along the way. The location of Safilos¡¯ territory was just right for serving a hub separating Cloudflow and Alchemy City.


    As for the seas, that was Saleen¡¯s territory. One day, he was to take control of the entire eastern seas in his hands.


    However, attacking Alchemy City¡¯sir would have had casualties, and said casualties would have been huge. If Safilos were to refuse deploying men, Saleen would definitely not give him any more loot or benefits.


    It was also a good way to shave off some of Safilos¡¯ powers.


    Since Safilos hated Alchemy City to the bone, he would have definitely not cared about any losses incurred. His own men would have dly thrown their lives away to avenge their brethren. Even without Saleen around, Safilos would have thought of ways to take his revenge all the same.


    It was just that the timing proved to be convenient, given that Saleen was there. The border of the empire had yet to be breached just yet, so there was no need for reinforcements.


    Safilos was a smart man. He quickly agreed to Saleen¡¯s opinion after thinking about it for a bit.


    ¡°I¡¯d need some time to mobilize my forces.¡±


    ¡°Where are they? I¡¯d build a teleportation portal right away and have the Floating City bring them over. It¡¯d take a day at most to gather them all.¡± Saleen seemed to be more in a hurry than Safilos was.


    The Violet Angel being taken would not have been a matter to be concerned about. Even if the mages were to discover that it was not actually a dragon, they would not have been anxious to take it apart. To mages, things in one piece did have research value after all.


    The more peculiar the Violet Angel was, the safer it would have been. Saleen was concerned that the Violet Angel would have ran amok and went about killing people while it ran. It would not have been able to escape if that were to be the case.


    Even at its strongest, the Violet Angel was but a level 12 puppet nheless. There would have been someone among the Elemental Hand of Alchemy City who had reached level 13.


    Baldur¡¯s Gate was actually a portal linked to a different ne.


    Powerful mages had built that thing back then to conceal troops and hide food. When they went about attacking enemy nations, opening the Baldur¡¯s Gate would have caused their armies to overwhelm their enemies like a flood.


    During the conquest of nes, such things were called space warehouses.


    If Saleen were to own a Baldur¡¯s Gate, he would have definitely been able to get it connected with the interdimensional space. As such, he had to get that thing in his hands.


    That thing would have cost to run than the teleportation portal, but it would have been ridiculous for Saleen to just keep relying on teleportation portals to travel between the interdimensional space and Myers Maind.


    Setting up one such portal would have ensured that even if Saleen were to not be around, his armies could have been mobilized between the two nes nheless.


    While the importance of powerful professionals would have been increasingly apparent, that was not to say that armies had outlived their usefulness.


    Saleen had Tainted Blood Armors, which would have allowed his troops to reach level ninebat capacity. Elite troops were but level nine people when ancient humans went about conquering the nes.


    Safilos gave Saleen the coordinates of a city. Saleen chuckled. It was apparent that Safilos¡¯ mages had long thought of it, knowing that they would have needed Saleen¡¯s help to mobilize armies. If the army were to march the old fashioned way, by the time they got there, Safilos¡¯ kingdom was no more.


    Everyone acknowledged the Floating City¡¯s power. Any allies of his would have wanted to go into battle using that equipment of his.


    Saleen was unable to use the teleportation portal of the Floating City. He let the enchanters on the Floating City construct a teleportation portal right away and took Rafel to the location Safilos told him to get to.


    That was a city of his n. Safilos ruled over the House of Commons and had a sizeable army there. The true elites were unable to get to Holy Rock City before it was breached. That was how it was with Safilos at the moment as well.


    If his imperial city were to run without Saleen¡¯s help, the several hundred sorcerers would have razed the entire ce.


    Razing a city did not require hundreds of sorcerers, as ten would have sufficed. The thing was that Safilos was a powerful warrior, so even the mages of Alchemy City needed to go the extra mile to deal with him.


    In truth however, Safilos was trapped with his residence by the sorcerers. They were only able to shoot some arrows to attack the invaders, while Safilos was being protected by a magic tower.


    While there was no doubt that Safilos was powerful, but there were many level ten mages in the enemy¡¯s ranks. There was no way he would have been able to get out if he were to be surrounded.


    There were simply too many sorcerers in the enemy¡¯s midst. If they were to attack him all at once, there was no way he would have been able to shake off their targeting.


    The Floating City had already proven that when high level spells were to be used in certain numbers, not even level ten professionals would have been able to withstand them.


    Despite being less 10000 kilometers away, the distance between two ces had nheless exceeded over 8000 kilometers. The Qin Empire was simply toorge. Saleen would have needed to fly over a dozen hours to cover such distances.


    As such, Saleen chose a border city that had a teleportation portal, which was less than 1000 kilometers away from Safilos¡¯ territory. At such ces that were directly connected to Cloudflow territory, teleportation portals were used for delivering intel.


    Saleen came to that city and built a magic array out of the teleportation portal that was capable of transporting one person. He then left Rafel to guard the ce while he took the Floating City to the military town that Safilos provided him with.


    Saleen brought Safilos¡¯ letter, documents, official seal, badge and magic images that were impossible to fake with him.


    Of course, he himself was a guarantee in a manner of speaking. Things went well and he arrived at a military town that was only about 800 kilometers away from Holy Rock City, about three hourster.


    He saw true powerful troops of Qin there.


    The military town was huge and the army stationed there was only over 200 thousand-strong. The irond cavalry that Saleen saw on the outside was actually a ragtag band of warriors who were joining in the training. The true elite troops were stationed on a small ins.


    Saleen brought the items proving Safilos¡¯ authenticity and waited for over an hour, before meeting the general of the nameless military town.


    The general read the letter written by Safilos and a magic image recorded by Saleen, saying, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, it¡¯s inappropriate for us to deploy just because his highness¡¯ kingdom was attacked. I¡¯d request that you return instead.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s face turned gloomy and looked at the general that was being clustered around by his troops, saying, ¡°Are you disobeying an order from Safilos then?¡±


    ¡°I dare not. However, the procedures are iplete and there is nothing I can do. He is no longer the suprememander of the army. The House of Commons saw to that, and I assumed that you have yet to know this, your highness,¡± that general replied coldly.


    ¡°What the hell is ¡®procedures are iplete¡¯!?¡±


    ¡°If the prince were to return to Holy Rock City and speak with her majesty the empress, I think that he would be able to regain his position as the suprememander. Without the authorization from the empress, I would never spare even one soldier from my army.¡±


    ¡°Your army?¡±


    That general only realized that he tongue slid by then. Saleen then cast a magic projection at that moment, which showed the words that the general had just said. Saleen had recorded everything using magic.


    ¡°The army belongs to the nation, not you. The prince¡¯s territory is under attack and you are to be mobilized to do battle, if you refuse...¡±


    That general was slight irked and said, ¡°And I refuse. What are you going to do about it?¡±


    Saleen realized all of a sudden that he too, was a prince of the empire and Lex¡¯s husband.


    There was no way the general would not have been aware of that. If he dared to be so rude despite having knowledge of Saleen¡¯s rtionship with the empress, then it would not have been due to the general being at the pinnacle of level ten true might.


    The Golden ins had taken control of this military town then?


    There were four military towns like that, and all of them were not recorded on the map. Those towns were also the most professional troops that the empire kept around. All military personnel were trained from a young age, and it was even guaranteed that none of them suffered permanent damages before the age of 16.


    The soldiers¡¯ diet were all taken care of by mages, providing them with forms to ensure that the soldiers were strong enough, and yet would not have crippled their fundamental constitution in any way.


    Saleen calmed down and asked, ¡°What is your name?¡±


    That general answered inly, ¡°Mofeesto. You don¡¯t need to know my surname.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Mofeesto, I shall tell Lex that you have died in the line of duty,¡± Saleen said and cast his territorial powers. The entire room was shrouded by electrical discharges.


    Saleen then shot lightning icicles at him. Mofeesto looked at Saleen feeling baffled. He was unable to believe that a prince of the empire dared to kill him. What made it more uneptable was that, when Saleen unleashed his territory, his entire soul shook and was unable to resist.


    That was Saleen¡¯s newly developed skill¡ªSoul Shock.


    Unlike Thundering Shock, that skill would have only worked on people who were of lower level than he was, but the effects were very, very apparent.


    Arge wound froze over at Mofeesto¡¯s chest. He did not die right away. Saleen then unleashed a fire dragon and killed all of the soldiers within the room, but spared everything else that was not his target, so much so that even the armors of those soldiers remained unscathed.

 Chapter 1402: Taking the Town (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1402: Taking the Town (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    If Mofeesto had been a mage, he wouldn¡¯t have bitten the dust so easily. The reason is, Saleen¡¯s Soul Shock skill emitted signals that only higher-level mages would have detected and exploited. In fact, the skill was made specifically to target warriors below level-10 whose souls wereparatively weaker.


    Saleen summoned the Winged Skull all the way from Metatrin City.


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°Extract his soul,¡± Saleen snapped pointing at Mofeesto. ¡°I need details on this military town and the procedures for mobilizing the forces here.¡±


    The Winged Skull sauntered up to the dead man and ripped his head off. Then it sucked the blood and guts from the top of his severed head. Imagine: Mofeesto, a true might at the pinnacle of level-10, had his soul sucked into the blood-soul tower of the Winged Skull¡¯s eye.


    Mofeesto sumbed to the Winged Skull as soon as his soul was sucked out, giving Saleen all the information he needed.


    Saleen then summoned Rossen. The water puppet emerged and changed his looks into Mofeesto ording to the magic projections Saleen had recorded earlier. It¡¯s too bad Saleen couldn¡¯t do anything about the soldiers he had just burned. After all, he had only one water puppet.


    He had already nned his next steps right before he killed Mofeesto. There was no way he would have weaseled out of killing a general of the empire otherwise. Even if Lex had protected him, both would have eventually been chased out of the Qin Empire.


    I can¡¯t just storm the ce with my troops. If that was possible, Lex wouldn¡¯t have had to put up with all that sh*t in Holy Rock City.


    Saleen knew the key points of the operation very well, which was why he did what he did in such a clean way. He not only killed Mofeesto but also summoned the Winged Skull to take the general¡¯s soul away. No one would be able to find out what actually transpired.


    The corpse he left behind was to be added to the list of atrocities Alchemy City was to be med for.


    Saleen pondered his options. There were still three other towns. If he took all of them, the number of troops taken would be more than a million.


    He had only originally nned to take one town so that his men would suffer fewer casualties when storming Alchemy City¡¯sir. While the lightning warriors were formidable, it was impossible for Saleen to just keep controlling them. If he encountered any danger, it would have been impossible tomand the scene.


    From the looks of things, it was hard to tell how many others had been taken over by the forces of Golden ins. Saleen felt he had no choice but to test them out one by one. If Lex needed troops to be deployed, things would have be tricky.


    It was entirely possible, however, to coverup Mofeesto¡¯s murder as the work of a solo assassin. But Saleen would have no way of weaseling out of killing everyone else near the general.


    Saleen was forced to summon Nailisi next.


    Ultimate Shapeshifting was something that could onlyst a set period, unlike the water puppet¡¯s transformations. He was brilliant at mimicking a person¡¯s appearance and personality based on the data obtained from the person¡¯s soul.


    Saleen¡¯s encounters in the other three towns were all the same as the first town. He made a point of killing the general of the other military towns before bringing the troops of two towns and returning to Safilos¡¯s territory.


    An army consisting of over 400,000 troops was stationed on Saleen¡¯s Floating City but the area did not seem to be congested. Mobilizing those forces took an entire day, and that was only possible because Saleen hadrge numbers of enchanters who used magic to transport the troops onto the city.


    It was not feasible to repair Safilos¡¯s city in just a day. Saleen left the army from the military towns on the Floating City when he returned. All units needed to swap their gear for storming a city of mages.


    Doing that required more time: even the most elite of armies would not be able to swap all equipment out in such a short period of time.


    Had it not been for Saleen¡¯s prediction that there would be one such day and getting a ton of magic armors ready, the gear-swapping part would have taken months, and that would have been considered fast.


    The troop leaders from the two towns were more than just their respective generals. Before Saleen left, he had duped the leading figures of the armies into themander¡¯s tent before finishing them off. With a level-13 around, he didn¡¯t encounter much resistance.


    The entire group ofmanding figures was reced by the demons.


    Fortunately, those demons were from the temple guards to begin with and as such were all exceedingly well-trained, so they had no problem leading the elite troops of Qin.


    It was especially easy because those demons were all familiar with how Saleen¡¯s magic armors worked. As a result, the quick training sessions enabled them to proceed smoothly.


    All that took three more days to finish. That was about the time the Violet Angel was about to kick the bucket. Coincidentally, it was also the time when Saleen took the Floating City to the set of coordinates given by Rafel to storm their of Alchemy City¡¯s mages.


    Rafel led Saleen and the others before that tall mountain, where Saleen¡¯s Floating City was looming in the distance. A metal road extended from the Floating City and jabbed into the mountain.


    It shook violently as Saleen cast Lightning Explosion from the Floating City. All sound-transmission magic arrays in the mountain were disabled by Saleen¡¯s thundering sound.


    The army of bug angels gushed into the ce in a frenzy. Saleen had about 100,000 of them that he brought for the siege.


    The demon army mixed with the Qin elite troops was then deployed after the bug angels charged. All types of warriors stormed their and took over the interior of the mountain. Mages went in after the warriors and provided coordinates for the enchanters in the Floating City right away.


    Countless magic spells burst and slithered through the troops, attacking the other side of that Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    It was heavily guarded by a group of sorcerers, who couldn¡¯t figure out who the enemy was before they were reduced to elemental dust by the magic bombardment from the enchanters.


    With the mages guiding the attacks of the enchanters in the Floating City, the spells hit the enemy swiftly and urately.


    In the blink of an eye, the external fringes of the Baldur¡¯s Gate were lost to the enemy.


    Rafel was the first to charge into the gate. Saleen and Safilos followed right behind the Bug Angel Warriors. Safilos changed into the armor Saleen had made for him and held his purple-reddish longsword, who was brimming with killing intent.


    However, all he saw was the ground littered with corpses after charging inside. Rafel was just too powerful. She found that the rules of Myers Maind that constricted her powers were no longer in ce after rushing through the gate. In response, she undid her seal and pumped her powers up all the way to level-13.


    A level-13bat angel taking on the mages guarding the gate was a blood bath.


    Safilos was crestfallen. He had never experienced a battle like that before. Saleen just smiled and said, ¡°Your Highness, this is normal. When Myers Maind¡¯s powers rose by one whole rank, our troops couldn¡¯t be used for such purposes anymore.¡±


    ¡°Of course, they¡¯ll still be used to conquer nes. The gods probably would descend on us and we wouldn¡¯t get a chance to be enemies anymore. At the very least, things would stay this way for at least another 1,000 years, ¡± Saleen added.


    Safilos followed the army onward in silence. The Baldur¡¯s Gate isted the Floating City¡¯s power, but the portal was could not be shut. The Floating City¡¯s power ced a tight lockdown on the elements around. The gate became the best passage for armies to pass through.


    As the vanguard, Rafel killed her way through her enemies. It was an independent space instead of an interdimensional space and the area was also smaller than an interdimensional space. There were also mountains and rivers, but no stars.


    Although the spaces the Baldur¡¯s Gate were connected to were small, each one had environments suitable for humans. The gates and spaces became forceful arsenals of the Second Dynasty, enabling the regime to deploy troops anywhere, anytime.


    The mages of Alchemy City had were not able topletely mobilize that equipment, or they would have brought all the mages to storm Metatrin City.


    Saleen naturally understood that if the maind was to advance even further, it would have been possible to use all of the Baldur¡¯s Gate¡¯s powers. At the moment, he waspelled to take the Baldur¡¯s Gate away from Alchemy City before they hadpletely mastered using the equipment.


    When the powers throughout Myers Maind slumped to the bottom, Alchemy City had been unable to use the gate despite possessing them.


    With the powers across Myers Maind now capable of amodating beings between level-10 and level-12, Alchemy City moved everything important thereafter they were able to open the gate. The Elemental Hand came to assume full control of the gate.


    It did not bother to fight Saleen all out when he went to attack the city back then, because they were moving their equipment and the things in the warehouses were not the most important.


    The very reason the mages had given up on Alchemy City itself and entered the Baldur¡¯s Gate was that the gate was a mobile device and could appear anywhere.


    If someone from the Elemental Hand had been able to enter Metatrin City and activate the Baldur¡¯s Gate from inside Metatrin City, he could have circumvented the defense using Dante¡¯s Sequence and killed his way into the temple.


    To do that, however, the powers across Myers Maind would have had to advance yet again, and mages at level-13 and above would have been required to appear among the mages in Alchemy City.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gate was more effective than Saleen¡¯s Floating City, which cost a fortune to use. Even with the use of magic furnaces, Saleen wouldn¡¯t have had the Floating City fly for prolonged periods. Baldur¡¯s Gate was equivalent to a magic amplifier.


    The problem though is that the person had to be level-13 and above to use that magic amplifier.


    Saleen was finished waiting. If he had waited one minute more, the Elemental Hand would have been fully developed by then, and it would have been a case of crying over spilled milk for Saleen.


    The space on the other side of Baldur¡¯s Gate was around 5,000 meters tall. Huge crystalline bodies were embedded above that looked like twinkling stars. Ah! So there were others who mimicked the sun and the moon.


    Those crystalline bodies moved in the sky and without settling on any fixed positions, yet they were able to add to the Baldur¡¯s Gate¡¯s strength by a considerable margin.


    Those things were definitely of higher levels than magic power furnaces¡ªthey were products of joint efforts between astrologers and mages. None of them was made again after the Second Dynasty, and no one had been able to replicate them since.


    Saleen saw the castle of the mages that consisted of countless magic towers.


    Far from feeling fearful, he was overjoyed.


    ¡°Your Highness, let¡¯s go together,¡± Saleen said as he called Rafel to his side to protect him. Then he headed for the castle.


    The mages¡¯ castle had not been built by the people of Alchemy City but out of the ruins from the Second Dynasty. It was hardly surprising that the Elemental Hand had been so willing to give up Alchemy City without bothering to fight the skeletal dragon.


    With that mages¡¯ castle in their possession, Alchemy City became virtually worthless byparison.


    Safilos was initially rather worried, but the prince knew that Saleen was someone who valued his life a lot. If Saleen dared to charge ahead, it meant he knew what he was doing.


    There was no doubt that Saleen knew what he was doing! It was impossible for the Elemental Hand to have level-13 mages in their midst now. They hadn¡¯t been able to spend enough time around here, so it was impossible for them to advance further using the mages¡¯ castle.


    Saleen¡¯s teacher Jason was the odd man out. Even if there were a few lucky ones out there, the number of people able to make it to level-13 as ofte would not have exceeded two.


    Saleen had done his calctions and felt he would retreat unscathed. With all his equipment in top fighting condition, there was nothing he needed to be afraid of.


    Saleen followed Rafel and charged into the castle consisting of magic towers while being protected by 100 metal angels.


    The light of elements was dim in the dark Baldur¡¯s Gate. Magic explosions of eerie colors were seen everywhere in the sky. Saleen did not bring the Floating City into the Baldur¡¯s Gate. He cast Lightning Constetion and expanded the lightning territory to a radius over 120 kilometers.

 Chapter 1403: Bloody (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1403: Bloody (Part 1)</h4>


    Bolstered by the magic amplifier, Saleen¡¯s territorial powers concealed all the warriors within. Electrical discharges shed about in the sky.


    Powerful light of magic emanated on that mages¡¯ castle. A huge magic array was activated and the Bug Angel Warriors at the forefront all rammed into that screen of light.


    The ones wearing armor were all demons. The potency of the crash was forcefully absorbed by the demons inside. That, coupled with the excellent buffering abilities of the armors, thwarted the mages¡¯ strategies and ns.


    To be more precise, the Bug Angel Warriors were all tossed to the ground,nding on their backs. Saleen, however, didn¡¯t sense any of them perishing in battle. The defensive capacities of those armors were superb; they were buttressed by several fearless warriors who barged their way into that screen of light.


    The Wind des generated on the wings cut energy defenses. Even suchrge-scale defensive measures could have been easily prated, provided the wearer had ample control skills. As for ordinary troops¡ªforget it! They didn¡¯t have these abilities, to begin with.


    There were, however, level-9 supreme demons inside the Bug Angel Warriors.


    Saleen was in no hurry. He had the warriors from the Floating City take their time assembling in front of the castle. Large mechanical puppets were pushed to the front, forming a defensive formation while Saleen nonchntly activated the Lightning Constetion in the sky, discharging electricity downward.


    Countless bolts of thin lightningshed out on the screen of light, causing the mages of the Elemental Hand to fret.


    The screen of light came at a great cost in fuel. There were no magic-power furnaces, thus necessitated the use of high-level magic nuclei to activate the screen. The number of high-level magic nuclei acquired within the Baldur¡¯s Gate was limited.


    While the power of the lightning bolts was nothing special, those bolts were best used for disintegrating energy shielding just like that. Zap! Crack!


    And then there was the screen of light. It got increasingly thin as the boltsshed out on it. New magic nuclei needed to be replenished to stabilize the line of defense.


    Saleen had an idea: After seeing the soldiers assemble, he took out his family badge and released a bolt of powerful lightning at the screen of light.


    Boom! That screen exploded into thousands of bits of light.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand were totally flustered by then. That huge bolt of lightning not only crushed the screen of light but destroyed several force fields along with it.


    D*mn it! What kind of skill was that?


    The mages of the Elemental Hand looked at the defenses in horror. With a broad smile, Saleen said to Rafel in the air, ¡°Protect me. We¡¯ll get to the screen of light.¡±


    What? Rafel was puzzled. That screen of light was erected at the edge of the ce in a heartbeat.


    Saleen sped up and Rafel pped her wings and went after him, positioning herself at the front. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier turned invisible as it followed. Though the metal angels were slow, they were not far off. The distance between where Saleen was and the screen of light was only around 1,000 meters.


    The metal angels caught up to Saleen when he zoomed before the screen of light and shielded him with their bodies.


    Saleen cast ayer of Water Shield on every metal angel. Over 100 level-7 Water Shields were capable of defending against magic spells below level-nine for several times.


    He then stered his family badge on the screen of light after casting the spells and finished up by casting level-0 magic.


    The energy of the screen of light was quickly absorbed into Saleen¡¯s family badge. The mages of the Elemental Hand were about to go crazy. Within the great hall in their castle, the magic nuclei on the magic array with a diameter of over 100 meters were all drained in a sh.


    The speed of the drain was quicker than burning them for warmth.


    The mages had never experienced anything like that before. Defensive energies being sucked away? Unheard of.


    Saleen was ted! This family badge had not been able to absorb enough energy. Despite being stocked up for half a year, it could be used for attacking only once. However, the electrical attack was not necessarily a be-all-end-all. Saleen had experienced being blocked by godly items several times.


    He did some experiments himself. Under certain unique circumstances, the effect of his family badge was less than that of his Thunder Dragon ster.


    Literally no powerful beings were equipped with powerful equipment. Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster fired seven lightning icicles every hour. That rate of fire proved useful in battles. Put to good use, the lightning icicles would prove to be a constant threat to his enemies.


    On the other hand, if the family badge stayed as it was, it would be like deadweight that was too precious to discard.


    The lightning and Sea of Cloud in the badge boiled in an instant as Saleen absorbed the energy on the screen of light. The screen was faltering and there were hundreds of thousands of warriors awaiting his orders from behind. They would charge inside as soon as the screen crumbled.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand were having a hard time. In truth, even if there were thousands of magic towers inside the castle and over 100,000 mages to man them, they still would not fear the soldiers charging inside.


    The development of the castle, however, was still iplete. If those soldiers were able to break through the screen of light and therge-scale puppets began to tear the buildings apart, the losses would have been staggering.


    The mages already saw elemental creatures appearing far behind the soldiers, which looked to be Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. They were over 100 meters tall, and all of them carried enormous magic cannons poised to attack at a moment¡¯s notice.


    Attacks of magic cannons were indiscriminate and were incapable of locking onto targets. They also proved to be the ideal tools for taking on the mages¡¯ castle.


    If they had sufficient power to enable the mages¡¯ castle to run full force, repelling attacks would have still been possible. Unfortunately, their magic amplifier had been broken during the Battle of Alchemy City and restoration was faulty.


    When the dragon they captured attempted to escape, it broke the magic amplifier yet again. It was a real challenge keeping the mages¡¯ castle¡¯s functions working at the bare minimum.


    The joy Saleen felt was indescribable. He saw through the facade of the badge and found the internal parts feverishly absorbing the screen of light¡¯s energy.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand kept dumping all sorts of magic nuclei acquired from the Baldur¡¯s Gate into the magic array, which ended up being absorbed by Saleen.


    Saleen might have had a ton of magic nuclei in his hands, but he would have never been willing to waste them like that.


    Using the enemy¡¯s power to open up space in the badge while attacking the Elemental Hand turned out to be the best course of action.


    Other than the Sea of Cloud, changes were also seen in other parts of the badge. Under the Sea of Cloud was a vast ocean and with magic beasts inside. It was the first time Saleen came to fear and revere his equipment, which actually housed a world within.


    Furthermore, the level of that world was probably still being in development. Even a model would like that had alreadye to harbor powerful beings.


    Those magic beasts began killing each other in the sea; the survivors were reduced to energy and returned to the badge.


    Saleen finally came to understand that he was not actually stocking up power to enable the badge to shoot lightning bolts. The energy he had used in the badge turned out to be a key opening it instead.


    Every opening required half a year¡¯s worth of energy being stocked.


    Were it not for this stockpiled energy or the avability of having ample energy absorbed within, he would have only been able to look at all that energy within the badge and not be able to use any of it.


    Aftering to realize how it worked, his intentions on continuing to absorb energy diminished. The badge was of simr tomon equipment, apart from the fact that it was of a ridiculously high level.


    He would have been able to use some of its capabilities often if he were to just work on the badge using the secret arts.


    If it hadn¡¯t absorbed the power of the screen of light from countless magic nuclei, there was no telling how long it would have taken him to realize on his own. His personality dictated that he would have never have wasted that much energy just to peer into the depths of the badge.


    He had originally thought that his Elemental Eye enabled him to see through the badge. It was only then that Saleen realized that what he had seen was just a corner of the badge. It might have even housed continents inside. Given enough time, the continents might have harbored life.


    The benefit was humongous. If he worked on such level of equipment using secret arts, it would have taken him a year at most to finish it. He would have been able to use lightning powers from it frequently after a year!


    Saleen might have been overjoyed, but his hands did not stop. The army behind him was all set and ready to go. There were magic beast cavalry, spirit cavalry, elemental soldiers, ancient warriors, and Bug Angel Warriors waiting to charge the castle.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand had finally had enough. One magic order after another was issued from the center of the castle, letting the magic towers everywhere to prepare for assaults.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gatecked the synchronization of the Floating City. Once the screen of light was broken, it became very troublesome to use.


    Safilos stayed at Saleen¡¯s side all the while and observed how he worked. He noticed how Saleen seven changed the way he worked and frowned.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Your Highness, I¡¯m only here for the Baldur¡¯s Gate. I¡¯m not interested in anything else. As long as the goal is achieved, I don¡¯t care how I get there.¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯re still themander of an army.¡±


    ¡°Themander is a post that I¡¯ll give up sooner orter. Your Highness, I¡¯m a mage after all.¡± The screen of light crumbled again as Saleen continued tough. The crumbling this time was totally silent. It was as if the screen simply disappeared in a sh.


    There was only some energy left working in the air, emitting odd, beautiful colors.


    The beauty was deceptive: Beneath ity a bloody battlefield.


    The Bug Angel Warriors were the first to charge, with 40 warriors in one toon to take on the magic towers. The Bug Angel Warriors no longer fought alone this time.


    Other than the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers bombarding the ce from outside, all the other elemental creatures followed the angels and warriors to attack the castle.


    The mages¡¯ castle stretched over an area tens of square kilometers¡ªit was practically arge city in itself.


    The Bug Angel Warriors rattled their wings to emit sonic attacks, harassing the mages in the magic towers, distracting them. The elemental creatures hoisted huge weapons and banged on the towers.


    Regardless of how sturdy a magic tower was, it would have weak areas regardless. Those magic towers initially had a myriad of ways to be used for defense. The Baldur¡¯s Gate, however, could not be developed in time and all functions were still in the test phase.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand could only use the magic towers as they used to, even opening up windows in towers that were fully enclosed.


    Thepound around the magic towers were ces where troops and students of the mages lived. Inside were all sorts of magic buildings. Instead of picking targets when they charged, the soldiers attacked anything they saw.


    The generals before said that it was a territory of evil mages and all targets were very dangerous.


    Those were not lies. Several Qin soldiers charged afterward. One toon encountered several children and intended to take a detour before discovering that ¡°children¡± were true-to-life humanoid puppets.


    Mages of Alchemy City did not get married and there was no way they would have been able to bear children.


    The puppets released three level-7 magic spells and one level-8 spell, killing all of the soldiers in that toon. Even in their armor, they had an astonished look on their faces.

 Chapter 1404: Bloody (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1404: Bloody (Part 2)</h4>


    Armies inrge numbers were useless against mages, as they might have simply thrown forbidden curses at them in their towers. One forbidden curse could have easily wiped out about 1000 elite troops in just one thought. Mages could have easily killed over 10000 conventional troops.


    toons of 20 or 40 units who were all wearing magic armor, on the other hand, became the ideal groups for taking on mages.


    The brutal battle ended up mages of the Elemental Hand suffering heavy casualties. Blood sttered everywhere. The casualties at the side of the Qin troops were hardly small. However, there were hardly any blood spilled when they died, with some being burned to a crisp while others were frozen into ice blocks.


    Even those who were shredded by Wind des had their wounds shaved and cleaned by the elemental powers within, resulting in no blood spilling off of the wounds.


    If the defensive capacity of the Mages¡¯ Castle were to be able to used even at ten percent, things would not have ended up as they were on that day. Despite being only at level ten, Saleen¡¯s proficiency at astrology would have still enabled him to determine how dangerous things would have gotten within a year.


    ording to his calctions, if he were to let the Elemental Hand be for over a year, things would have gotten very difficult for him. As such, he had to bring Safilos and find their, annihting the mages of Alchemy City once and for all.


    The Mages¡¯ Castle was one without walls, making it necessary for the magic screens to be fully opened. Saleen¡¯s lightning bolts notwithstanding, even huge bolts of lightning in nature would have been grounded and madepletely harmless.


    Without means to keep the screen up, the Mages¡¯ Castle lost even that one percent of defensive capacity it had.


    The Elemental Hand had been very careless, thinking that with the Holy See¡¯s armies being onto Nature City, Saleen would have had no time to deal with them.


    With the wars out on the other side being ones that would have carried on for over a year or so, all powerful mages of the Elemental Hand were cooped up in the undergroundboratories doing research, and none of them came out to fight.


    Saleen led a team and headed straight for the nearest high level magic tower.


    Saleen brought enough men with him on the expedition. With the exception of Eleanor and Sika, who needed to look after his children at Metatrin City, as well as Daniel, all his other followers and trusted mages were brought with him.


    Even Truman was right behind him, watching Saleen fight without saying a word.


    Combat was important in Truman¡¯s perspective, as his teacher was an enemy of many. If he were to perform poorly atbat, he would have easily ended up killed. That was something that he was unable to do anything about. He needed to pay the equivalent price of getting the best magical resources there were after all.


    Saleen, on the other hand, was very confident in his student. Truman had the Elemental Envoy with him and there were six other elemental creatures right behind him after all. One of those creatures had his miniaturized magic cannon embedded on its chest.


    The offensive capacity of that miniaturized magic cannon was not all that far behind therge scale magic cannon that Saleen replicated, yet the smaller version was capable of rapid fire without suffering any structural damage.


    Rafel charged at the forefront. She blew up holes in one tower after another using her green spear, before casting seeds of the goddess, making the air within the tower difficult to breathe with. When the mages chanted, they would have sucked in those divine seeds and make nts grow from inside out.


    None of the mages in the magic towers that Rafel poked holes in dared to chant their verses.


    It was very difficult to castrge scale forbidden curses without being able to chant the verses. With that, the effects of the magic towers were diminished. The troops became safer withoutrge scale forbidden curses being thrown about, and they went about killing any from Alchemy City within thepound they could find.


    With Saleen being in charge, none of the small fries had gotten so much as the chance to turn the tables.


    With the magic screen shattered, the nine core mages of the Elemental Hand were alerted. However, they were at the key moments of crafting the Baldur¡¯s Gate, so they had no intentions to leave just yet.


    The ones who attended to them were basically level ten mages. All nine of them were level 11 mage trainers at the moment, and they had not expected the Baldur¡¯s Gate to bepletely overwhelmed. They simply thought that something was wrong with the screen.


    ¡°My-my lord!¡±


    A warrior barged in and all nine of them cast cold nces at the warrior who was getting in their way of performing alchemy. The warrior kneeled right away.


    ¡°Why did you let someone like him in here?¡±


    The attending level ten mage was very embarrassed, but they said after taking a look at the warrior¡¯s badge, ¡°A messenger.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, talk about building armies and whatnot...¡±


    One of the level 11 mage trainer said impatiently.


    ¡°Speak. What is happening?¡± A young mage asked right away. If the warrior were to keep their mouths shut still, they would have ended up dead soon.


    ¡°Saleen! Saleen is here!¡± That warrior shouted. It was as if they had been silenced for too long. Their shout was unusually high-pitched and irritating.


    The nine mages were extremely irked by that warrior, but they were able to hear from the warrior¡¯s tone that many in Alchemy City feared Saleen. Saleen¡¯s Floating City loomed over Alchemy City in thest attack, and huge rocks were rained down from above, which proved to be more devastating than magic spells being cast.


    That was because the rocks were hardly worth anything, yet they possessed damage potential on par with high level magic.


    Regardless of how sturdy a set of magic armor would have been, it would not have been able to withstand being crushed by rocks of over 100 thousand pounds. The warriors wearing the armors would have died all the same.


    Furthermore, the speed at which the rocks fall was something that was unavoidable unless one possessed a certain measure of calctive abilities.


    The Floating City struck fear into the people of Alchemy City due to its unconventional ways of attack and extremely potent damage potential. Common folks would have had to die by the millions to attack Alchemy City, but Saleen was able to rub dirt on Alchemy City with just a single Floating City.


    That was one of the reasons why Alchemy City had to move. If they were to seriously think about it, there was no way the mages of Alchemy City would have been able to fly up there to attack the Floating City.


    If they were to simply hold the line on the ground, the people of Alchemy City would have never been able to see the light of day ever again, simply by having the Floating City loom over Alchemy City, even if Saleen were to have no ns of attacking Alchemy City below.


    To put it more bluntly, Saleen only needed to station the Floating City on top of Alchemy City and rain down rocks on the city below whenever he fancy, and the people at the city below would have considered leaving due to not all of them being able to evade the rocks.


    That was the very reason why the mages of Alchemy City all moved inside the Baldur¡¯s Gate. Saleen¡¯s Floating City was simply too obnoxious. Not only did it have formidable defense, it was also capable of flight and attacks could have been in very affordable ways.


    But then again, those from the Alchemy City were simply able to keep all those thoughts to themselves. Showing such thoughts on their faces would have earned the ire of those powerful mages. One level 11 mage trainer cast a whiff of mist, which enveloped that warrior.


    The metal armor on that warrior crumbled instant, and the warrior themselves were reduced to frozen dust.


    That was Mist of Extreme Cold, a magic spell that was at the brink of being lost, and one that Saleen was incapable of using. The spell did not look overpowering, and yet it was able to deal great damage. It was said that when upgraded until the very pinnacle, it would have been able to cover entire continents.


    Even if there were to be living beings capable of surviving the spell, they would not have been able to live long on the affected continent.


    That godly skill was an ability above level 16.


    There was no actual need to drop the temperature of the ce to such levels, as changing three to five points in temperature would have been enough to make many living beings suffer, so much so that they would have been driven to extinction.


    The nine mages looked at each other after killing that irksome warrior.


    The mage who took the lead wore a purple robe. His powers were near level 12. The one with the highest level of powers were made the leader of the inner circle of the Elemental Hand. All remaining eight of them wore only red robes.


    ¡°Get prepared and seal this ce up for the time being. We¡¯lle back and work on the Baldur¡¯s Gateter.¡±


    ¡°Great Elder, couldn¡¯t we just wait a little longer?¡± The youngest mage in their midst asked.


    ¡°No. If we were to lose the mages in the Mages¡¯ Castle up there, we¡¯d end up being sealed down here by Saleen,¡± the Great Elder said with a glum face, feeling very irritated deep down.


    If he were to have just one more year to work with, he would have been able to crush Metatrin City.


    ¡°Great Elder, would Saleen be capable of such a feat?¡±


    ¡°Heh, if we are able to advance to level 11, so could Saleen. We¡¯re not the only ones who benefited from the rules of the ne. When he was at Alchemy City back then, he was but a low level mage and none of us batted an eye on him. We only took him as ackey of Lex back then. And what now? He has already be someone who could steer the way things work on Myers Maind.¡±


    All of them felt dejected. Mages do not believe in fate, yet fate favors certain mages nheless.


    It was a famous saying. There were powerful mages emerging in every era. While some of those mages were not even geniuses to begin with, they were nheless able to get to the pinnacle of magic study and look down on all others.


    For example, the founding emperor of the First Dynasty, the demon mage of the Second Dynasty, the leader of the magic army of the Third Dynasty, and the destroyers of the Fourth Dynasty.


    It was especially so in the case of the destroyers of the Fourth Dynasty. That was a term referring to a group of mages.


    There were still massive numbers of astrologers present in the Fourth Dynasty. They predicted that the power of the maind would have continued to weaken. All professionals on Myers Maind would have only gotten increasingly weak.


    The mages realized that as well, and the destroyers were a group of mages that killed their way out of Myers Maind. Those mages wreck havoc in other nes.


    The destroyers were a group of kings who brought their subjects with them and destroyed many civilizations along the way, including kingdoms of the gods. While that was hardly worth mentioningpared to the feats of the First Dynasty, but that was already at the end of their era.


    Some even imed that the destroyers were thest bit of glory of humanity.


    Due to the destroyers¡¯ actions, there were many subcontinent nes that had humans living alongside other beings. Where Sul came from was actually connected to the destroyers.


    At present, with the power of Myers Maind continue to rise, Saleen became one of those favored sons of the heavens in history, one who had amon upbringing, who had been able to grow at a frightening rate and possess extremely formidable equipment.


    The mages felt heavy deep down, as the growth of every being of such nature was done by stepping on countless powerful beings, and that was how they reached the very top.


    If Saleen were to be that one mage who was favored by fate, then what of us? Are you just people bringing Saleen to glory then?


    ¡°No dynasty shallst forever. Even gods would perish. Saleen might have had incredible luck, but there was no telling that he was one such people. There were many excellent mages who died at moments of their greatest glory, and Saleen would not have been any different. I propose that we use the godly item of the Baldur¡¯s Gate, and we shall get rid of this guy together. What do you all think?¡± The Great Elder suggested.


    ¡°Which one?¡±


    None of the mages objected, and they were only concerned about technical problems.


    ¡°The Book of Gaia. We¡¯re now underground, and earth type godly items would work the best.¡±


    ¡°Alright, count me in!¡±


    ¡°I too...¡±


    The mages all nodded. The Great Elder was a very steady man. The Book of Gaia did indeed appear to be the best choice out of the other five. The Deathly Night, which was supposed to be the most powerful, was not even mentioned by the Great Elder.


    There were all godly items that were usable only by powerful beings of level 13 and above. The nine of them could have made use of them through certain special methods. There were six godly items within the Baldur¡¯s Gate, and each corresponded to a type of elemental magic.

 Chapter 1405: Book of Gaia (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1405: Book of Gaia (Part 1)</h4>


    None of those godly items was below level-16, for level-13 was the beginning of godly miracles. The mages would have been barely able to use any of those items when backed by equipment, provided they werepatible.


    If they reached level-16, they would be able to use all six at once.


    The six godly items were the Book of Gaia, the Well of Stars, the Dimensional Staff, the Scorching Candle, the Deathly Night and the Tears of Light.


    The Deathly Night was the core of the six godly items, which corresponded to the power of dark element. It was also the most powerful. It was also important, however, to take the enemy¡¯s environment into ount.


    If fighting in the sky, the Deathly Night would have been the most suitable choice, but since mages were deep underground where earth element was the most abundant, they would have been able to bring out more of the power of the Book of Gaia.


    Saleen¡¯s attacks were unusually potent. He was capable ofying waste even without the help of the Floating City. Under the effects of his magic amplifier, Saleen, a level-11 mage, would have been near-invincible all the same.


    The cost of magic chords was negligible since he had undergone long-term training when he was at very low levels. This is what enabled him to break magic using magic.


    What¡¯s more, Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye could see through an enemy¡¯s weakness, and attacking a level-9 mage did not necessarily require the use of level-9 magic.


    Saleen finally came to understand why someone would need topensate for the difference of one whole rank by using the equipment. It was absolutely impossible to rely solely on one¡¯s powers to cover the difference.


    A level-9 mage died right before Saleen. That mage had put up a Fire Ring of Resistance but was quickly reduced to dust by a Fireball that Saleen cast.


    Saleen¡¯s Fireball, a transmuted magic spell, was only a level-4 skill. At the very least, there would not have been anything wrong judging from the cost of magic chords.


    A level-4 transmuted magic spell that cost two level-4 magic chords to cast ended up killing a level-9 sorcerer.


    Such a level of consumption was the very lowest to a mage. Of course, there was also the power of Saleen¡¯s lightning territory to take into ount.


    The lightning territory was different from the territories of other mages. For one thing, the pressure from territories of conventional mages who reached level-11 would have been extremely powerful. Level-9 mages would not have been able to lift a finger if they were caught in it.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning territorycked that powerful pressure altogether, but the area that the lightning territory epassed was ridiculous. It could expand to cover a 60-kilometer radius even without being bolstered by the magic amplifier.


    With the magic amplifier put to work, the lightning territory stretched over 100 kilometers.


    Thergest battlefield could not have been bigger. Saleen managed to diminish the effects and lower the defense of all magic towers in the mages¡¯ castle using his power. Byparison, his lightning territory would be considered ridiculously powerful instead of weaker than usual.


    Then again, if Saleen were to shrink the area of the lightning territory to little more than 100 meters, the effects would be quite different. Anyone entering the area would have been attacked by tight bolts of lightning.


    Those minute electrical discharges could be converted into lethal weapons. Getting being bitten by an ant was hardly a concern. But getting bitten by hundreds of thousands of ants at the same time would kill the likes of the behemoth.


    There was even abined spell called the Magic Ant. If over 10,000 mages were casting Magic Ant simultaneously, they would be able to easily kill a mage who was about level-10. And to think that the Magic Ant spell was but a level-1 spell.


    However, that was only a theoretical magic spell: Even if Saleen, who currently possessed magics, found such spells problematic to pull off.


    Saleen killed his way through the Mages¡¯ Castle with his army without breaking a sweat, splitting the castle in the middle. The power he had brought with him was some of the most formidable to be found on the maind. Alchemy City was formidable too, but the mages in Alchemy City were too scattered.


    In addition, Saleen¡¯s chain ofmand was provided by Safilos. His own army was equipped with magic equipment that enabled him to ry orders into the ears of every single unit.


    Such efficiency was godlikepared to how the mages in the Baldur¡¯s Gate operated.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gate would have been able to achieve such an effect as well, but the Elemental Hand did not develop immediately because of the conservation of energy. It would have required at least three months before all mages could gain ess to such abilities.


    The Elemental Hand was in too much of a hurry to make the Baldur¡¯s Gate portable, and it had forgotten entirely that it would have been attacked and needed to fend off enemies.


    Such pride had been fostered in Alchemy City during a longer period of time. The loss the cityst suffered had not been bad enough. It retreated actively, thinking it still had the advantage.


    This was something that hardly happened to one mage: the effect was spread to the entire group. Those mages still had not realized what was happening to them.


    Having the power to influence how things work on the maind for too long, they had forgotten that mages were humans too and that there were also powerful ones outside Alchemy City.


    Saleen¡¯s attack came at an untimely moment¡ªright before thebat capacity of the Baldur¡¯s Gate was developed to its fullest. If Saleen had shown up several monthster, he would have lost at least four to five times the number of men in the battle.


    Saleen attacked the center of the Mages¡¯ Castle and saw a huge, ck building in front. He was in awe. It resembled the Holy Rock City but was fashioned out of ck metal.


    There were no signs of connections being made; that was something not even the Melting spell employed by an alchemist would have been capable of.


    It looked like a tower chiseled out of an entire block of metal. The only reason why something like that was done was to lower resistance to magic in a formidable piece of metal, enabling the internal magic patterns to be unchanged during energy transmission.


    Saleen came to like that design right away, but it was simply too hard to acquire such arge block of metal to work with. That was probably not some metal forged by humans but a residue of stars mined from somewhere beyond the skies.


    The alchemical measures used were so formidable that not even Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories on the Floating City would have been capable of executing them. This would have been impossible until he and his teacher had advanced beyond level-16, bing able to expand their Water me and envelope their entire tower.


    When he came before the tower, Saleen was in no hurry to enter. Instead, he had his warriors attack the nks and charge into the depths of the Mages¡¯ Castle.


    The armies of the Qin Empire approached. Safilos stood at Saleen¡¯s side, looking at the tall metal tower and said, ¡°This is a star core. It would have taken even ancient mages over a hundred years to work on it before they were able to build one such tower out of it.¡±


    ¡°How did you know that?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a general and I¡¯ve always been interested in researching anything that has to do with warfare. Back in the day, the demon mages of the Second Dynasty liked making huge tools of war, roaming the nes riding them.¡±


    At that point, Saleen wondered how humans came to enjoy fighting wars so much, just like the gods.


    ¡°Saleen, how do you suppose we attack the tower?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll need to do some experiments first.¡± Saleen cast a level-7 Icicle, the highest level he upgraded the spell to. With lightning magic patterns etched onto it, the sharpness of that icicle was hardly different from a Dimensional de.


    The skill, however, was not as varied as Dimensional de in terms of changes. Inparison, a level-7 seven Icicle cost less than one percent of the cost in magic chords needed to cast a Dimensional de.


    The icicle lodged into the metal tower¡¯s wall with a crack. Saleen was surprised that it could not pierce or puncture everything. Nheless, it was extremely hard.


    In most cases, the icicle would have simply bounced off if it couldn¡¯t shoot through something; it would have retained its sharpness, though. Someone could have even installed the icicle on a stick and used it as a spear for as long as the spellsted.


    That icicle made a dent in the wall of that metal tower before breakingpletely!


    That hole then ejected the shard of the icicle and gradually healed.


    Saleen cast Thundering Phantasm and the illusion walked around the metal tower to ry any information to Saleen. The metal tower was tall and straight and there were only windows found at heights above 30 meters.


    There were no doors!


    Thirty meters was a height that the likes of Saleen would have been able to climb with great effort. Magic was entirely unnecessary. But with the fa?ade of the tower so sturdy, breaking it through sheer brute force seemed hopeless.


    Saleen deemed it to be a good thing though since he would have taken the Baldur¡¯s Gate sooner orter, and it was only a matter of time before the tower became his.


    Safilos frowned instead. He waved and an officer behind him came. Safilos then whispered to the officer and had the Qin troops circle the tower and attack what was behind.


    Saleen had absolutely no intention of stopping Safilos. It was vitally important to clean up the other ces. He would not have had Safilos assemble the troops otherwise.


    The poption of Alchemy City numbered about a million; everyone was capable of putting up a fight. If Saleen fought all of them, no one would have known how long it would have taken for him to win the battle.


    With the forces of Qin present, Saleen would have only needed to focus on the leaders of the Elemental Hand.


    Brown magic patterns appeared on the wall of the metal tower when he was still thinking about how to break the metal tower. The pattern formed quickly. Despite Saleen¡¯s incredible reflexes, he was only able to cast a level-10 Water Shield on all the people around him.


    Saleen had advanced to level-11, making a level-10 Water Shield an instant cast spell.


    He then buffed Safilos with Frozen after casting the Water Shield. The Frozen spell was that dyed activation and would not have beenpleted immediately.


    Safilos didn¡¯t move. He neither evaded that offensive magic from Saleen nor try to break it.


    The Water Shield was frozen over, and dark yellow light of earth element formed a ring and spread out from the metal tower. The expansion continued over 1,000 meters.


    There were still 30,000 Qin troops in that vicinity.


    A harrowing scene took ceter. Everything was fossilized as the ring of light from the earth element swept out. The effect was instantaneous, with only a handful of targets able to escape.


    Those people happened to be his followers, the very ones he had buffed with a shield beforehand: the two level-10 mage trainers at Safilos¡¯s side, some golden grand swordmasters, and true mages who possessed powerful equipment in the army.


    The 30,000-strong army was almostpletely wiped out.


    The offensive magic on Safilos came into effect, prating the Water Shield; however, given that Frozen was a low-level spell, it was unable to harm Safilos and had diminished the effect of Fossilization over a dozen times.


    The magic that Saleen cast that time was extremely intricate, like something cast by level-12 mage trainers at peak level.


    Magic spells affected each other. Saleen determined that it must have been an earth- elemental magic attack and went on to attack Safilos using water element. The magic spells that worked at the same time attacked each other. That had nothing to do with the level of magic spells used.


    If Saleen had used those two spells to attack his enemies, the effects would have been diminished instead of stacked.

 Chapter 1406: Book of Gaia (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1406: Book of Gaia (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The skill that Saleen was using was something researched by mages, yet few would have been willing to use it in battle, as the research itself would have turned out to be nothing after all. However, Saleen had already researched just about all that was to be researched in that regard.


    Those stemmed the ideas he had when his level was still low. Saleen, at that time, never thought that he would have been able to achieve what he had achieved on that day.


    However, he refused to just resign himself to the masses, so he and Lex attacked each other using magic and looked for breakthroughs, finding a path in their magic studies to be stronger.


    Saleen then shrunk his territory all of a sudden. Despite having his territory expanded all the time before, he still failed to protect the soldiers of Qin. Safilos, in his hurry to exact revenge, had most of the troops attack the magic towers on the outside.


    That move prevented greater casualties from being resulted. That one spell would have wiped out 90 percent of the Qin forces otherwise.


    The fossilized Qin troops stood where they were and became sculptures, including the magic armors that they were wearing.


    Those magic armors were crafted in Saleen¡¯s alchemy factories and they were as solid and functional as they could have been made. In ancient times, those armors were distributed to troops above level six.


    30000 troops died in an instant and the tens of generals did not survive as well. Most of those who made it out alive were people near Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s face turned. The magic spell was not something targeted at the soldiers; it was targeted at him. If it had not been for the lightning magic patterns on his Water Shield, he would have been fossilized as well.


    That was a forbidden cure, a multiple target spell above level ten.


    How is it possible for a magic spell to be this powerful? Even if it was something cast by mages of Alchemy City joining hands, it shouldn¡¯t have been able to kill over 30000 people!


    It was worth noting that the number of troops that Saleen brought from two towns numbered at about 400 thousand or so. Any general would have felt sick from losing about one-tenth in just a single moment.


    Saleen was not Safilos. What went through his mind was not heartache, but the urge to first protect himself.


    The lightning territory was reeled back and maintained at a radius of about 100 meters, covering all of Saleen¡¯s followers in it. The dark brown magic patterns on the wall of the metal tower glimmered again.


    A ring of light of earth element appeared again. This time, tens of thousands of earth elemental creatures burst from the ring of light, which continued to expand outwards.


    The third ring of light appeared next.


    Saleen¡¯s pupils contracted. The frequency of the three spells were getting increasingly high, which meant that the Elemental Hand had resorted to using godly items. No power of mages would have been able to withstand the cost of such use of magic spells.


    Said mage¡¯s body would have crumbled from the strain of casting spells like that.


    The second wave of magic attack expanded to an even greater area, with a radius of over 2000 meters. All buildings nearby were destroyed by those earth elemental creatures.


    The third ring of light emanated an aura that felt like it was about to destroy the world.


    Earth¡¯s Wrath!


    That is a level 13 forbidden curse!


    The difference between forbidden curses andmon magic spells lied with the former¡¯s hefty cost, while the power of using them in multi-target or single-target versions hardly differed.


    The most important point was that forbidden curses were capable of covering a wide area, making evasion impossible and one had to resist them head on.


    The elemental creatures were immediately disintegrated after charging into the lightning territory and disappeared. They were constructs created by magic instead of true summoned creatures after all.


    Saleen did not fear the third round of attack as well. Despite being only a level 11 mage, his lightning territory was nheless the best defensive measure to be had around. When shrunk by over 100 times, not even forbidden curses would have been able to get near Saleen.


    That was even more so given that Saleen had retaliatory measures.


    Truman took out a badge, which looked like the badge of the Stone Statue Soldiers. Hundred of Stone Statue Soldiers emerged. Those Stone Statue Soldiers were different from the usual variant, in that they were covered with golden patterns.


    The impact from the earth elemental forbidden curses caused the bodies of the Stone Statue Soldiers around them to crack, yet the golden patterns actually absorbed the thick earth elemental powers emanating from the forbidden curses, repairing the bodies of the Stone Statue Soldiers at the same time.


    Earth¡¯s Wrath destroyed all buildings around the metal tower. The previously surviving military officers and soldiers were not spared this time. Over 10000 dead were added to the list of casualties.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Safilos was furious at the moment. He recalled Saleen splitting up his troops. Did you just get the Qin troops here to die?


    ¡°Your highness, these are forbidden curses cast using godly items. I couldn¡¯t have predicted them,¡± Saleen answered calmly.


    Over 40000 people died and they were all elite troops. Even if he were to be surrounded by that many soldiers, he would have been upied trying to fight his way through and it was impossible for him to annihte them all. There were huge number of grand swordmasters among the officers of the army.


    Not even mages below nine would have been able to made it out if they were to be surrounded by those soldiers.


    Saleen would have definitely pained to the point of breaking down in tears, if those were actually his own troops.


    However, there were bound to be dead people in wars and enemies were living beings as well. All was fair in war. Those were all professional soldiers and they would have been fortunate if there were to be no wars around. But then, if wars were to be fought, then it was simply their fate if they happened to die in the battlefield.


    The only difference was that some would have took others with them right before they die.


    Even the ancient warriors would not have survived in every war they fought. Saleen had tens of thousands of ancient warriors with him, and every war would have at least resulted in several to several hundreds of them dying.


    If that were to happen to even level nine ones, it was not surprisingly that the soldiers, who were only of level four in average, to die in battle.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning territory was destroyed by Earth¡¯s Wrath, but was quickly recovered to its usual state. Territories were not skills; they were instincts. The power of territories surpassed many magic spells, yet they cost less than magic to use.


    Territories are the highest ability that could have been mastered by mages at those levels. No, other than mages, there may also be other professionals above level ten whoe to master territories.


    It was just that mages had an easier time mastering territories. That was the advantage of being mages. Furthermore, mages could have mastered many territories and it would not have affected their progress in advancement.


    Saleen cast Quickcloud in his territory, shrouding everyone within the thick mist of water element. Saleen looked around him. J and Sul were both not around due to having been out tomand armies. Nailisi and the Winged Skull awaited their orders quietly.


    Nichs was outside the Baldur¡¯s Gate, casting lesser prophecy spells to prevent anyone from sneaking onto the Floating City.


    Truman stood calmly with the Elemental Envoy behind him.


    Isabe looked rather tense, but her expression said that she was determined, as she held onto her long sword.


    Rafel and the metal angels all sustained injuries. However, there were no casualties resulted under Rafel¡¯s care.


    Things were doing quite fine. Safilos had only two level ten mage trainers with him and they were shaken to the core. They both feared the power of the forbidden curses. Even if the curses were to be only level ten ones, they could have easily killed level ten mages like them all the same.


    The dark brown magic patterns appeared on the wall of the metal tower. Saleen was tired of waiting. He took out his family badge and fired a lightning bolt at it.


    The electrical stream did not expand due to being too close to its target. A bolt of three meter-thick stream of electricity sted onto the metal tower. The magic patterns sparkled for a bit, before being melted off by the powerful bolt.


    The indescribably high temperatures melted a huge hole on the tower, yet it was not a hole that said that the tower had been punched through, and Saleen was very irked about it.


    The hole with a three meter diameter hadpletely broke the rhythm of the forbidden curses¡¯ attacks. While the Book of Gaia was indeed a godly item, it mattered a lot who was the one using it. That thing had originally been reserved for powerful ones above level 16 to kill people of simr levels.


    Level 16 beings would have been able to p Saleen down like a mosquito, even if they were to not use godly items.


    ¡°Return,¡± Saleen opened his magic amplifier. The metal angels dared not retreat at that moment, they would have died even faster if they were to leave Saleen¡¯s protection.


    All of the metal angels leapt into the magic amplifier and Saleen had only pointed at the huge hole on the metal tower after that.


    The true enemies had yet to show and they were already able to force him to use the energy within the badge. If it had not been for Saleen having learned how the badge should have been used, he would have became very frustrated about it.


    Rafel turned into a beam of golden light and flew into the hole. Saleen took the people around him and went inside after her. Safilos gritted his teeth and followed right behind Saleen.


    He noticed that the level ten metal angels were all injured and knew that he stood no chance, in resisting the power of the forbidden curses on his own.


    Even if he were to survive, his weapon would have been destroyed.


    Only mages stood a chance in taking on forbidden curses. A warrior like him would have met his end soon, unless he was able to get near the mages casting the forbidden curses. However, given that the enemy was casting the forbidden curses from inside that tower, he did not so much even have a chance of attacking them.


    Saleen went inside and Safilos had no choice but to follow.


    The two mages stayed close to Safilos to protect him. It was only when the forbidden curses appeared, that they truly experienced the difference between them and Saleen firsthand. Saleen was able to protect Safilos using only a mid-level spell, but then again, he relied on the power of his territory nheless.


    Rafel charged inside the tower. The tower looked to have the same length and width from the outside¡ªboth measuring about 24 meters. However, the inside space was extremely huge instead. Rafel¡¯s spear punched through three mages right away after bursting inside.


    The mages who showed up intended toy out defenses and they were moving faster than the warriors. All of them were killed on the spot when Rafel showed up.


    Golden glitter was seen in Rafel¡¯s eyes. She gestured after seeing the mages showing up, before recalling that all of her metal angels had sustained injuries and was recalled by Saleen.


    ¡°My lord, follow me.¡±


    Saleen was able to see signs of magesing and he knew that they were at least a part of the defense setup within the metal tower.


    We¡¯d take care of this part first. The metal tower was very tall, yet Rafel took everyone downwards instead.


    The levels of the mages at the space of the first floor were not high. Rafel encountered tens of mages along the way, and none of them were able to avoid the lethal thrusts from her spear.


    Rafel seemed to have found what it felt like all those years ago¡ªinvading kingdoms of others and crushing all opposing forces.


    The fighting between the gods were left to the gods themselves. She was only in charge of fighting beings of the same level as her. Combat angels were unnerving powerful beings in fights between beings of the same levels.


    Saleen sensed crisis looming ahead all of a sudden when they were getting good at breaking into enemy territory. His feet left the ground and hovered. The space within the metal tower was not a ne, but folding space created by mages, which remained to be buildings appearing inyers.


    The space within was less than 100 meters tall. Saleen took the people around him and flew midair. Dirt-yellow teeth emerged from the ground all of a sudden and chomped at the party above.

 Chapter 1407: Book of Gaia (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1407: Book of Gaia (Part 3)</h4>


    The floor inside the metal tower was not made of stone nor of metal but was still incredibly resilient. Grand swordmasters and sorcerers alike could have fought battles on it at full force, and it would not have copsed. A huge mouth all of a sudden appeared and began chomping away. Luckily, Saleen was alerted in time and did not get bitten.


    Seeing dirt-yellow earth elements sprayed everywhere from inside that mouth left Saleen seething in anger.


    It was yet another form of Fossilization. Saleen dared not expand his lightning territory too much, restricting it to an area within a 100-meter radius to protect everyone around him.


    Had he been able to open up his lightning territory, he would have searched every detail of that floor in no time.


    Rafel said to Saleen, ¡°No worries, my lord. I¡¯ll fix it.¡±


    She immediately pulled out the War Drum of Fear. It was something she had acquired from the Violet Angel, and there was no way she would have misced it. Once unleashed, the pests inside the drum spread everywhere, searching for signs of the enemy.


    Saleen was at a wide corridor that resembled the underground city. Huge gaping mouths also appeared on the walls at their nks once the pests spread out, their teeth bared menacingly while chomping down on the pests.


    Cracking noises were heard nonstop. Crack, snap, pop. Those pests, which had a dust-like structure, were fossilized as soon as the jaws bore down on them. They crumbled right away.


    Attacks of earth-elemental magic came with high physical damage. If it was difficult defending against earth-elemental magic, imagine how hard it was defending against attacks of warriors.


    While earth-elemental magic attacks at low levels were notable for being slow, such attacks above level-10 would not have been slow at all even whenpared with wind-elemental magic.


    Even with the likes of pests, which were eerie and odd beings, to begin with, being ¡°bitten¡± to death by them was a horrifying thought. Saleen had no intention of risking his neck by getting near them. His Quickcloud was still at work, enveloping his followers and Safilos, yet he activated earth-elemental magic and shot yellow light from his feet that were sprinting toward the end of the corridor.


    Although mouths kept emerging from the wall, none had been able to hurt Saleen. The speed at which Saleen ran was so high not even the fastest magic beasts could keep up with him. The power he used all came from earth elements. Saleen¡¯s power of the soul allowed him to use the other five major elements.


    It was an ability above level-13 that would have been possible to pull off with powerful power of the soul.


    Saleen¡¯s movements surprised Rafel. Gods also possessed these abilities, but the speed at which the Metal God moved was far higher than Saleen¡¯s, and its workings were more profound.


    Divine arts of the gods seemed to share certain connections with magic.


    The gods mastered rules and bestowed their believers with the power of divine arts, which...which seemed to work like the magic. While Rafel no longer had any ns of believing in any other god, the discovery turned her knowledge of the world upside down.


    Saleen¡¯s movement skill grew to be considerably different from Jalin¡¯s. If he continued to continue to upgrade it, it would have been as if Saleen had created new skills.


    Saleen sensed the vibration frequencies of the earth element trying to locate the source of the attacks.


    It was impossible for godly items to hide whileunching attacks. If Saleen had hidden his magic amplifier behind him, he would not have been able to attack anyone with it. It worked the same as having the weapon spirit concealed. Even that golden dagger would have had to show itself once it began attacking.


    Saleen kept running midair. He borrowed powers from the attacks unleashed by the Book of Gaia. The golden shes beneath his feet glimmered as his speed reached over 600 kilometers an hour. The internal space of that metal tower was unlike that of the temple of the goddess, and it paled inparison to the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    The space, narrow and tight, made Saleen feel as if he was zipping through the cracks between the teeth appearing on the walls. The mouths on the walls and the floor continued to bite, and every bite almost grazed Saleen, causing elemental quakes. None of them was able to hit Saleen, however.


    Everyone watched, their hearts pounding, as they moved alongside Saleen. If it hadn¡¯t been for his lightning protection, no one would have withstood the attacks from the Book of Gaia. That godly item seemed to have assimted the entire metal tower. Each corner of the metal tower continued behaving like the book itself or one that could be used by all ranks.


    The nine major mages of the Elemental Hand didn¡¯t need to do anything but sit still at the core and invoke the Book of Gaia. It was due to the workings of the Book of Gaia that the metal tower was able to self-repair.


    The hole sted by Saleen¡¯s family badge began to close gradually. The wound on the tower continued to crackle with electrical sparks.


    It was a testament to the Book of Gaia¡¯s power, as it was even able to heal the damage caused by lightning.


    It was said that at the end of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ training, she acquired her divine persona from the power of the earth itself. None of the Goddess of Myers¡¯ healing arts was derived from the water element. All healing was done using the power of earth element.


    Saleen moved as he traced the elemental vibrations, like someone following the ripples to search for the stone dropped into the water. Saleen had gotten increasingly adept at using elements at will, and supreme confidence Jason¡¯s was beginning to rub off on him as well.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull were the two who were most sensitive to such changes. Both bonded creatures were happy to see their master mature. It was only a matter of time before they, too, achieved great things for following Saleen for so long.


    Saleen wasn¡¯t a god, so he would not have asked them to give up their souls. If he were to continue doing what he did and survived, their respective achievements would have eventually eclipsed Saleen¡¯s.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s Ice God Scythe automatically absorbed the power of earth element. The God of Underworld had achieved high mastery of the rules of earth element. Gods did not use magic, but the fundamentals of their powers were nheless the same. Some could also have molded the power of elements into divine arts.


    Saleen was unable to do anything about Nailisi¡¯s Gray Memory in time. The weapon could consume any type of power. The invasion of earth-elemental powers was also absorbed by the Gray Memory.


    None of the three of them would have been fossilized.


    Saleen was moving at such great speeds yet was still able to take care of Safilos. His Quickcloud dragged everyone in it with him, just like having all of them run alongside Saleen.


    There was a huge gate at the forefront. A metal statue looked at Saleen, who was getting close, with cold eyes at the end of the corridor.


    Saleen fired a lightning icicle right away without hesitation. He followed the attack by firing a ball of lightning.


    That icicle did not manage to fly for 10 meters before being stopped in its flight by earth- elemental powers. Saleen smirked as the ball lightning wobbled about in flight and entered the metal statue.


    Ooorrgg...


    The weapon spirit inside the metal statue seemed to be severely injured and lost control before being able to retaliate against Saleen.


    Saleen stopped all of a sudden and summoned an Elemental Stone Statue Soldier. Most of his elemental creatures were having a good time in his magic amplifier, with the greatest use of them being to provide Saleen with elemental powers.


    Saleen had rarely summoned them as ofte. That Elemental Stone Statue Soldier held its magic warhammer and looked at Saleen.


    Saleen then pointed at a statue. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldier charged and lifted its weapon, pummeling the metal statue into scrap metal.


    Elemental shockwaves burst around the metal statue. That was the Sigh of the Earth, and it was something at level-12.


    That Elemental Stone Statue Soldier might have been an elemental creature, but it was frozen solid by the Sigh of the Earth right there and then. A rockyyer of several meters thick covered its entire body.


    It was fortunate that the attack happened outside Saleen¡¯s territory. If he had charged and done it himself, he would have been caught in the attack. While he might have survived unscathed, it would have nheless taken a lot of time to repair the Figure of Fate.


    The Sigh of the Earth had a very long range of attack and was hardly hampered by environmental factors. Saleen had been attacked by that spell before and knew how terrifying it was.


    Saleen recalled the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier, and he summoned another. The second Elemental Stone Statue Soldier went up and moved the scrapped metal statue away.


    The gate was at the side of the statue. The reason Saleen had to deal with the statue first was that he needed to get to the gate, and the statue would have attacked him. Retaliation would have invoked the Sigh of the Earth. It was a preset spell that enabled its power to be enhanced to its strongest.


    Instant-cast magic of mages would definitely not have been at the strongest state of that spell. Being faster than the enemy in battle, however, often was the key to determining life and death. That was why mages dedicated themselves to train in instant-cast magic.


    Regardless of how potent someone¡¯s magic was, it would have been useful if the person couldn¡¯t keep up with the opponent.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t you think you¡¯ve gone too far bying all the way here?¡± A brimming voice was heard from within the gate.


    ¡°Hah...are you Alchemy City mages actually telling me that you finally know what ¡°going too far¡± means now? What happens to Prince Safilos¡¯s subjects? Did they deserve to be ughtered by you people then?¡± Saleen answered as he attempted to expand his territory.


    After that, the ever-present earth element would havee at him.


    He had no problem with that, but his followers might not have been able to take it.


    ¡°What does killing Safilos¡¯s people have anything to do with you?¡±


    Saleen knew right away that the mages were stalling for time. He looked at Safilos, who was next to him and said, ¡°Those people don¡¯t seem to know you. How about we get inside?¡±


    Safilos shouted, ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±


    He didn¡¯t seem to care at all. If that was a ce Saleen dared to venture, he would do the same.


    Saleenughed without bothering to exin. He then summoned a water elemental creature¡ªthe Blue Ice Maiden. There were 13 of them, and all were hidden in the Quickcloud, protecting everyone within.


    Pure-earth elemental attacks were restrictive against water-elemental creatures. Saleen¡¯s choice to use water-elemental creatures to defend instead was to waste more of the enemy¡¯s power of the godly item.


    Restrictive attacks came at a price¡ªit was impossible to stop attacking and to attack first.


    That meant that so long as the water elemental creatures survived, the powers of the Book of Gaia would continue attacking the water-elemental creatures, relieving Saleen¡¯s pressure.


    That gate was really tall. The Blue Ice Maidens were about nine meters high, making it easy for them to pass. Saleen saw a wall after passing through the gate.


    It was a wall made purely of crystal. While it was not a whole piece, but it looked marvelous nheless.


    Dozens of mages from behind that transparent wall saw Saleen walking in, and all of themughed at the same time.


    I¡¯m about to catch you, and here you are, walking right into our trap...¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡± Saleen shouted. That level-11 mage¡¯s words were cut off mid-sentence by Saleen right there and then. He waved to summon the Winged Skull, which came charging clutching a humongous meteor hammer.


    Boom!


    The meteor hammer banged on the crystal wall. The center of the weapon exploded, and countless air currents sted from the tight cracks, forming cutting forces.


    ¡°You¡¯re really stupid!¡± The nine mages cackle at how Saleen ordered a skeleton to attack the crystal wall.

 Chapter 1408: Cunning Weapon Spirit (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1408: Cunning Weapon Spirit (Part 1)</h4>


    The corner of the Winged Skull¡¯s raised as they smirked at the mages on the other side of the crystal wall.


    The mages no longerughed. That meteor hammer was indeed powerful. A crack was seen on the wall. It was only healing gradually with the Book of Gaia at work.


    The nine mages were thinking that the Winged Skull would have only been capable of dishing out such attacks once, as it would have expended quite a lot of power. However, when the Winged Skull lifted their weapon and brought it down on the wall again, the crack on the wall extended for several centimeters more.


    Impossible. That¡¯s impossible! There is no way that thing could keep on attacking like that!


    The mages repeated that to themselves in silence, so much so that they have forgotten to cast magic to attack the Winged Skull.


    Boom!


    The Winged Skull picked up their paces and the crack on the wall expanded yet again.


    Saleen did not bother with the Winged Skull. Regardless of how hard that crystal wall would have been, it was not a godly item. The wall was but a window for observation. If the Winged Skull were to be unable to break even that, they should have their equipment swapped out and there was no need to use that weapon ever again.


    The very reason the Winged Skull kept that meteor hammer was so to deal with situations like that.


    What Saleen paid attention to was what lied beyond the crystal wall. The nine mages were the leaders beyond that wall. There were also mages who were standing at the side who wore red magic robes. Those were level ten mages.


    Saleen paid no attention to levels. His powers enabled him to deal with anything below level 12 after all.


    If those mages were to have someone at level 13 among them, they would have thought about taking on that skeletal dragon at Alchemy City. With a godly item in hand, a level 13 professional would have been able to try to subjugate that skeletal dragon.


    If the skeletal dragon were to be made a bonded creature of theirs, then Alchemy City would have reigned supreme in the maind for the time being.


    The nine mages sat around a magic array, which was the mostvish that Saleen had everid eyes upon.


    The core of the magic array was a perfect crystalline body. Magic patterns were crafted into the crystalline body itself, which was free of impurities and filled with power of the six major elements. Those power ebbed in the magic pattern, making the crystalline body looked like living being.


    Saleen took one look and had almost sumbed to it. The mages of the Elemental Hand were unable to see clearly due to insufficient level. However, Saleen was able to see that at the core of that crystalline body, lied a living being, which was looking outside in silence.


    That magic array is alive?


    What kind of damned mage would create something like that? Who knows if someone would be a god after using that thing for too long.


    However, Saleen quickly realized that that thing might have been something simr to Dante and the others. It would have been peculiar instead if the Baldur¡¯s Gate were to not have a weapon spirit.


    The mage who crafted such a huge space would not have bothered to spend their time managing every detail of that space all day long.


    The mages of Alchemy City had not realized that. The attack outside would not have been carried out so smoothly otherwise.


    That weapon spirit clearly was capable of thought, and yet it refused to help the mages of Alchemy City. Saleen found that to be rather amusing. He had been worried if the mages of Alchemy City would have gained control of the Baldur¡¯s Gate all of a sudden.


    If that turned out to be the case, almost all of the soldiers that he brought there would have died within.


    Without the help of a weapon spirit, the Baldur¡¯s Gate would have been little more than a collection of scattered parts, which would not have posed much of a threat to people of Saleen¡¯s level.


    That weapon spirit looked at everything taking ce outside in a lethargic manner and sensed Saleen¡¯s eyes all of a sudden. It startled the weapon spirit at first, but it quickly turned overjoyed.


    Its master once said that there would have been a day that a mage would keep their eyes on it, and that would have been the time it gain freedom.


    Saleen was looking at it withplicated eyes.


    The former master of the Baldur¡¯s Gate left the equipment behind and the weapon spirit was waiting for the one to im it.


    Is this fate? The thing that Alchemy City poured their heart and soul into acquiring, turned out to be something they could only use the most basic of powers of. That core of the Baldur¡¯s Gate, the weapon spirit didn¡¯t bother with any probing from the Elemental Hand.


    That weapon spirit was not a prisoner. It was simply waiting, waiting for the one who could truly master the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    One without powerful power of the soul would not have been able to see that weapon spirit.


    Saleen thought that the Elemental Hand would have wasted all of their efforts eventually. He came to wonder if he would have acquired the Baldur¡¯s Gate only to pass it on to someone else.


    His luck had been getting better and better all these while, yet it had been quite a while hest searched for a temple. Most of the temples were still scattered throughout Myers Maind.


    If someone were to find them and inherit the mission to resurrect the goddess, they would have divided his luck. If my luck were to prove inferior to others...


    No, I¡¯m a mage. Don¡¯t go about bbering about luck.


    Luck favors the brave ones. Mages shall not be people who constantly look fore and aft, worrying about gains and losses needlessly.


    Saleen cleared all that distractions in his mind in an instant. Acquiring the Baldur¡¯s Gate proved more important than searching for temples. The Baldur¡¯s Gate would have been the best equipment there was for transporting troops. His own Floating City proved to be tooplex and troublesome.


    It would have sufficed flying around in Myers Maind, but if he were to travel between the maind and the interdimensional space, he would have needed a piece of equipment like the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    The 12 Notes of First Purgatory was essentially a weapon. Warriors would have sustained damages when they enter. Even if those damages were to be patched up, it would have affected their future training nheless.


    As such, Saleen never used that collection of purgatories to transport human troops. He only used it to transport demons.


    Boom!


    Crystal dust flew everywhere. Fundamental changes finally took ce on the cracks on the crystal wall after it was being banged on over 100 times. The restorative powers of the Book of Gaia was no longer able to keep up with the Winged Skull¡¯s speed at breaking the wall.


    A hole asrge as a bowl appeared at the center of the crystal wall. Saleen said while facing the hole, ¡°Leave, while you could still make it.¡±


    The nine mages of the Elemental Hand were rather irked by then. Is Saleen taking us to be little more than trash? Even if he were to have many followers, we still have tens of mage trainers here.


    Saleen threw eight Armoring Lightning Beads inside. The mages put up their shields. The beads did not seem to be of any threat and they had properties simr to Water me. Their offensive capacity was not all that obvious, and yet they were unusuallysting.


    The Armoring Lightning Beads in his territory were capable of coborating with skills of the Water me. Saleen sent Water me into the room at the same time. Snowkill and Tornado manifested at the same time and were mixed together.


    The level ten mages had no choice but to put up multyered shields while activating defensive attributes of their equipment. Uncountable number of snowkes danced in the tornado, making them more terrifying than carborundum in magic machinery.


    Cutting, low temperature and blinding shes were thrown all over the room.


    The Book of Gaia was having a hard time resisting after the Water me entered the room. Or rather, the weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate began to absorb the power of the godly item all of a sudden, making the powers of the godly item no longer targeted at Saleen.


    The mages of the Elemental Hand were perceptive enough to realize that. Saleen smiled as he watched. That weapon spirit was still looking at him, and it did not bother to do anything.


    Seems like I won¡¯t be able to earn that weapon spirit¡¯s approval until I take out all those mages then.


    Saleen was actually wrong. The mages of Alchemy City did not know of that high level weapon spirit¡¯s existence, and so they attempted to craft the Baldur¡¯s Gate, but they were unable to seed thus far. However, that crafting process sealed the magic array that the weapon spirit used for going in and out.


    That weapon spirit had been spending over 10000 years in the Baldur¡¯s Gate and became rather weak. With the mages using the magic array to invoke the Book of Gaia, it only dared to take the Book of Gaia¡¯s power while the mages of the Elemental Hand¡¯s attention was drawn to Saleen.


    It was only sipping and nibbling at the start, but when the Elemental Hand mages realized something was off, the yellow light on the Book of Gain had dimmed.


    The nine mages let out high-pitched shrieks, which sounded like metal grinding on ss. That sound magic was very effective against the likes of weapon spirits.


    ¡°Shut up. You people are too much.¡± Saleen cast Thundering Explosions, wrecking all of the attacks from the nine mages.


    That Armoring Lightning Beads were still hovering about in the room, as they kept finding ways to attack the mages. The beads actually had formidable power, yet Saleen only used them for scrubbing off impurities on equipment or consciousness left behind by others.


    They behaved more or less like Water me when used for attacks.


    With the Water me participating in the attack as well, the Winged Skull stopped altogether, letting the hole on the crystal wall slowly patch up on its own. With a considerable portion of the power of the Book of Gaia being absorbed, it would have taken about an hour for the hole to getpletely restored.


    The Winged Skull could have continued to attack. It was not a big deal for them to just smash the wall itself to pieces.


    However, there was no need for it. Saleen was able to calcte how things would have worked. The mages would have needed to use teleportation portals to leave the sealed room, as it had no doors. Even the teleportation portal was built after they came.


    The first mage that got in did so using special powers of equipment, who then toiled in that room alone for months, before building a teleportation portal that was linked to the outside.


    Ancient humans would not have needed doors to get inside.


    If the mages of Alchemy City were to get out, they would have needed a stable elemental environment. Saleen never thought about killing those mages quickly when he sent the Water me and the Armoring Lightning Beads into the room. The power of those mages were hardly any weaker than his after all.


    However, that weapon spirit would have been able to take control of the Baldur¡¯s Gate as soon as it regained its strength. Saleen was able to tell that the weapon spirit would not have helped the mages of the Elemental Hand.


    As for whether the weapon spirit would have attacked him, Saleen did not mind at all. If that weapon spirit did intend to do so, it would have had to take on the Elemental Hand mages first. Saleen had many ways to subjugate that weapon spirit.


    Killing the Elemental Hand mages would have proven trickier. That weapon spirit would have been like meat on a chopping board, to someone armed with lightning skills.


    Saleen only needed to watch from outside. It was an oue that he never expected to see himself.


    Saleen borated what he saw with Safilos while being under his territory. Safilos¡¯ towering spirit disappeared without a trace after that.


    He was in there to fight with all his might. If they were to be unable to get rid of Alchemy City, it would have turned into something akin to a cancer in the future, hurting Qin Empire severely.


    Safilos, who had been ready to fight to the death, was told by Saleen that he needed to do nothing but wait and see. It would have caused anyone to be dejected.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯re kidding, right?¡±


    ¡°If I¡¯m indeed kidding, I¡¯d have told you so three days in advance.¡± Saleen was truly kidding with that line. Safilos sheathed his de and looked glum.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get angry, prince. If we were to take the ce without doing anything, you would suffer fewer casualties and I¡¯d give you more loot. Of course, I¡¯m having some regrets now, if only I knew it was something like this...¡± Saleen said as a shadow appeared behind him.


    A level 11 assassin!


    Safilos kicked the assassin¡¯s back. His leg curved at an eerie angle, which looked like someone had just broken his leg with a stick.


    Saleen smirked. Safilos has finally taken his role as an ally seriously eh.


    There was no way Saleen would not have noticed that assassin being inside his territory. There was no fooling Saleen¡¯s perceptions, even if Agares himself were to show up.

 Chapter 1409: Cunning Weapon Spirit (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1409: Cunning Weapon Spirit (Part 2)</h4>


    That assassin was someone arranged by the mages in advance and they were the most powerful assassin in Alchemy City. Their equipment was at the highest level of equipment capable of being used by a level 11 assassin.


    The assassin did not bother with Safilos, a level ten warrior. Even if both of them were to fight face to face, the assassin was confident that they would have been able to kill Safilos all the same. The mage was the more difficult target, as mages usually carried unpredictable equipment on their person.


    That assassin attacked with all their might. The dagger in their hand had a tiny serrated edge which was pitch ck, sucking in all light in the room, preventing any light from being reflected.


    That was dark poison, a favorite of assassins.


    To assassins, darkness was the beginning of all their skills. The way assassins fight was explosive. The strongest attack of an assassin far exceeded limitations in level, yet they were unable topare to warriors in capacity for drawn outbat.


    That kick from Safilos exceeded what that assassin knew about skills of warriors. Safilos was at an awkward position. Attacking the assassin would have required him to get through Saleen.


    However, Safilos was able to ignore positioning altogether and kick the assassin¡¯s back. Yellow light shed on their back. Safilos¡¯ toes felt stung and his ankles twisted for a bit at lightning speed, before reeling back to where the leg was.


    That assassin was pinned by the power from Safilos¡¯ first attack where they were, preventing them from evading the second kick.


    The second kick came as a stomp. Safilos held his de in his hand and chopped the head of that assassin off right away.


    ck smoke billowed with a puff. Saleen then threw a Cleaning spell without a care. The assassin in the ck smoke had an intact head. There was only a piece of ck garment left on the ground.


    Safilos did notunch a second sh or thrust. He looked at the assassin with condescending eyes and said, ¡°You call yourself a martial artist and you pull such dirty tricks eh...¡±


    That assassin clenched on their neck. A purple gash of blood was on their neck, slowly seeping blood outside.


    Their skill did not enable them to evade Safilos¡¯ attack.


    They thought their equipment would have stopped Safilos¡¯ kick and that their skill would have enabled them to evade Safilos¡¯ de.


    Safilos did not continue. He found that Saleen did not even bother evading, which meant that he had apparently long discovered that assassin. It was due precisely to the assassin lurking in the dark that the mages on the other side of the wall, did not emerge to do something immediately.


    In the eyes of those mages, Saleen was as good as dead.


    None of the mages of the Elemental Hand had acquired power of the soul, which prevented them from knowing that when one came to possess such powers, there would have been no secrets capable of being hidden in one¡¯s territory.


    Only powerful beings capable of existing in parallel space and at level 16 and above, would have been capable of avoiding detection in a territory.


    That was to say even if the Lord of Glory were to show up personally, it would have still have been impossible for him to lurk within Saleen¡¯s territory.


    ¡°You have a lot of trust in me.¡± Safilos felt as if he was being yed. Saleen knew that there was an assassin and yet he said nothing, making him sound rather funny.


    ¡°I have to get you to do something to show that you¡¯re trustworthy. Amon mage would have died by that fellow¡¯s hand. Your reflexes and attacks are not something that assassin would have been able topare to. If that fellow were toe for you, I would have long ended them.¡±


    ¡°Some confidence indeed. What if I were to just keep my hands to myself?¡±


    ¡°If you were to just keep your hands to yourself, that assassin would have had a hard time locking onto me.¡±


    ¡°Prophecy? No! Astrology?¡±


    ¡°More or less. I would need to determine if you¡¯re going to make a move, before determining if that fellow would have targeted me. I let that fellow lock onto me on purpose. Well, this is all but a show, to let everyone see that we both are allies.¡±


    ¡°Everyone?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. We need to put such opportunities to good use. I have copied the scene ofbat earlier, and I would exin your attack to the mages, doing some promotional work along the way. Sikeqinyan methods, you might not like them.¡±


    Safilos did not continue the conversation. He found himself not cing enough importance on Saleen. The mage was no longer that puny mage he used to be. Saleen was then a king of a nation and had possessed something as powerful as the Floating City, capable of driving any city out of livelihood.


    Saleen had once been the kind to go with the flow, and he had now learned to take the initiative at all times.


    ¡°You could actually be who you have been again. You at the moment, look rather dejected. if it hadn¡¯t been for your ce being attacked, I¡¯m afraid you wouldn¡¯t have came with me while bringing so many Qin warriors with you, no?¡± Saleen took the chance to chat with Safilos, seeing how the room was then a mess and there was no need for him to attack.


    ¡°Haha!¡± Safilosughed for a bit. A lot of thoughts came across his mind but he did not reply to Saleen. But nheless, he felt somewhat grateful.


    Saleen saw through Safilos¡¯ problem deep down. It would have been extremely difficult for him to advance his art further if he were to keep behaving like that.


    People all over Myers Maind were advancing. If he were to be unable to get to level 12, he would not be able to help the empire. Lex, sitting on the throne, would have had a hard time if she were to rely on Saleen alone.


    His brother was dead and there was nothing he could have done about it. With things being as they were at present, the best course of action he could have taken, was none other than to support Lex.


    Saleen was reminding that it was pointless to be caught up in the past.


    The Elemental Hand mages joined hands on the other side of the crystal wall, having to defend against the Water me while having to retrieve the Book of Gaia. There was only one page of the Book of Gaia ced on the magic array.


    If the weapon spirit were to absorb the power of the Book of Gaia while the mages were working together to control, anomalies would have been detected. While they would not have known about the cause, the Elemental Hand would have nheless stop using the book.


    However, at present, the entire book seemed to have been embedded onto the magic array, making retrieval impossible.


    The mages even used daggers to try to pry the Book of Gaia away, and yet the book remained stuck firmly to the magic array. Physical strength of a level 11 mage would have at least been on par with that of silver grand swordmasters, yet there was not even the book did not even budge for even an inch despite being pried.


    That drove the mages into panicking.


    Someone among the mages finally realized and shouted, ¡°Get out. There is a weapon spirit in this thing, and it has a will of its own!¡±


    All the mages flustered and only the likes of Saleen, who had little idea of how dangerous a weapon spirit would have been in an enclosed space, would have crafted weapon spirits in such an environment.


    The mages checked and had confirmed that there were no weapon spirit around, before gradually crafting away at the Baldur¡¯s Gate crude methods. No one would have expected the weapon spirit had simply been hiding itself all these while, and refusing to meet them.


    What was happening then was a clear testament of the weapon spirit¡¯s attitude, confirming it to be an enemy!


    The nine major mages of the Elemental Hand were not so proud that they turned into idiots, thinking that a weapon spirit had to submit to them. The weapon spirit had made its stance clear by concealing itself all the time.


    Worse still, there were powerful enemies attacking them from outside at such a time, resulting in the odds being heavily stacked against them. The most powerful mages in the Elemental Hand were all in that room and yet, they were unable to leave using the teleportation portal.


    Saleen was getting in their way right outside the room. While it was possible for them to simply force their out, but leaving in such a manner would have damaged them. Saleen has long had his eyes on them. He would not have bothered to resort to fighting fair and square if he knew that they were all injured.


    None of the mages of the Elemental Hand would have thought that they would have been set up by a weapon spirit, and worse still, at such key timing. Who the hell was the one who said that weapon spirits weremonly dumb? This thing here is unbelievably sly!


    The mages of the Elemental Hand unraveled one scroll after another¡ªEndless Night, Grey Space, City of Smoke and so on. All of those unleashed spells were meant for blocking line of sight and area of control. Those mages were like Saleen, in that until the veryst moment, they would have only used scrolls that would have consumed mental powers, making a point to absolutely not waste magic chords.


    Once magic chords were used, the fighting would have been taken to very intense stages.


    The skills conjured by Saleen¡¯s Water me were quickly extinguished and even the Water me was put under control by those level 11 skills, shrinking into an extremely small area. However, the eight Armoring Lightning Beads continued to wreck havoc within the spells¡¯ area of control.


    The power unleashed by those precious scrolls was disintegrated by the electrical charge in the beads, countering the spells one after another.


    If those had been individual skills, the beads would not have been able to break them so easily right away. Unfortunately, the Elemental Hand mages had great synchronization with each other and cast many spells at the same time.


    The elemental bnce was broken by the beads, resulting in the elements of those spells interfering with each other.


    The loss of elemental bnce with the huge room caused unimaginable damage. The mages cast one defensive skill after another. However, they dared not use any scrolls haphazardly under such an environment, for fear to causing magical turbulence that was more violent and intense.


    They resorted to using their own magic chords to ensure stability of magic casting.


    Saleen found the spells seen being cast right there to quite an eye-opener. The Elemental Hand mages¡¯ variety of magic skills was incredibly diverse, with every single one having unique properties.


    The mages that Saleen met before were less than trash whenpared to the nine. If it had not been for them being contained inside the room, it would have been impossible for Saleen to destroy them all while emerging unscathed.


    Every mage who was able to make it that far would have proven themselves to be either geniuses, or possessing great luck.


    Saleen was not the only one who had luck on his side. If one were to advance to the highest level there was, talent alone would not have sufficed.


    What caught Saleen¡¯s attention the most was still that peculiar magic array, which looked a crystal tform. It had a piece of old parchment on it and magic script was written on it.


    So this is the elemental godly item spoken in legends then? Saleen knew nothing of the Book of Gaia at that moment, but his Elemental Eye was nheless able to tell of that thing¡¯s level. The Elemental Hand mages had yet to use even one percent of the power of that elemental godly item.


    Saleen felt himself being lucky. If he were to show upter, there would have been no chance for him to beat mages possessing so many godly items.


    There was no way Saleen would have assumed that the Elemental Hand had only one godly item in their possession. ording to his calctions, that was a godly item of earth element, which meant that there were other five around and all of them belonged to the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    Gosh, I¡¯m getting really lucky!


    Saleen never thought he would have failed. That sentiment was different from the unbridled pride of the Elemental Hand, for it was a product resulting from abination of his self-confidence and astrology.


    He was still favored by luck. That weapon spirit no longer saw him, as it was upied with sucking up the power of that earth elemental godly item in a frenzy.


    It was impossible for the godly item itself to be consumed. The reason why the weapon spirit hid itself within the magic array, was due to fear of being absorbed by that earth elemental godly item instead.


    It was the weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate, but that did not mean that it was guaranteed to be spared by the Book of Gaia. The weapon spirits of all six godly items had been taken away by its master, and all of them were in need of recement weapon spirits.

 Chapter 1410: Pursuit (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1410: Pursuit (Part 1)</h4>


    The weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate was a very cunning being. It intended to dupe even Saleen, but when it saw the countless lightning runes hovering in that blue eyes of Saleen, it gave up on that thought altogether.


    Saleen opened his mouth and said a few words to that weapon spirit.


    That weapon spirit knew that Saleen was speaking thenguage of magic, judging from how his lips moved. All weapon spirits were capable of speaking thenguage of magic, or mages would not have been able tomand them otherwise.


    What Saleen mouthed was: ¡®submit to me, and I shall give you your freedom.¡¯


    The weapon spirit recalled what its master said right there and then,ing to realization that that mage before it was the key to its freedom. It was just that it needed to be service for several more years.


    That was not a problem for it, as when the power of its uing master had reached the level where they no longer needed the Baldur¡¯s Gate, they would have set it free.


    It happened with its former master all those years ago, but that master told it that it had one thing left to be done, before said master left. It would have been unable to leave Myers Maind until that matter was settled.


    Its former master did not make clear what that matter would have been, or its master would have taken it along when they left, just like how they left with the weapon spirits of that six godly items. The weapon spirit was bored from being imprisoned in the Baldur¡¯s Gate for so many years.


    It no longer had any thoughts of working against Saleen, after seeing what he said.


    Mages were known for making good on their words after all.


    Saleen took out a scroll after he finished saying those words. It was a scroll crafted using dragon hide and it had binding powers of rules of the dragon ne. The dragon ne was considered a main ne as well, with the power of its rules once reaching level 18.


    Furthermore, the dragon ne had never been at rock bottom like Myers Maind. At the very least, level 15 dragons were still around, and the dragon graveyard was also an independent space.


    Ancient ghost dragons were even capable delivering countless dragon messages, enabling dragons of further generations to acquireprehensive knowledge.


    The scroll crafted using dragon hide was something that was hard toe by even during ancient times, as both races were still allies and humans were forbidden from killing dragons, unless said dragons were the ones who believed in gods of foreign nes.


    Dragon hide were acquired by humans from trading with dragons. To dragons, their souls, bones, and horns were sacred relics. As for dragon hide, it was treated like snakeskin, as dragons shed their hide like snakes would have their skins. Shed hide could be traded to humans.


    As such, humans came to acquirerge amount of rted knowledge, and Saleen was able to craft dragon hide scrolls without having to painstakingly dig for information.


    That nk dragon hide scrolls had a color as ck as night. That was not from a ck-colored dragon, but a dark type dragon, which was even more rare. Dark element was everywhere and beings who turned their backs on that contract would not have been able to survive anywhere.


    Humans were able to live somewhere without light, yet there was no one anyone could have lived anywhere without darkness.


    It was aplete opposite to what the Lord of Glory preached, and that was the opinion of mages. Saleen had been to one of Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom, and there were shadows in that divine kingdom still. He came to be increasingly convinced by that mages¡¯ saying since then.


    Saleen ced great thought into every single word used and he did not even referred to contractual forms, writing that contract solely by relying on his own power of the soul.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gate was too important, and with that weapon spirit intact, Saleen would have only needed several months to pick up most of everything there was to learn about the gate.


    The Mages¡¯ Castle, which, at the moment, was manned by the Elemental Hand, had yet to bepletely developed.


    The people of Alchemy City had to repair the castle on their own, adding redundant facilities and buildings to it, or the castle would have been little more than a broken in the hands of the Elemental Hand, where loopholes were everywhere.


    The key point to it was that there were no mages who were of level 13 or higher in the ranks of the Elemental Hand, and there were no weapon spiritsmanding the Baldur¡¯s Gate found.


    If Saleen had not shown up, the Elemental Hand could have taken their time to slowly work on that huge equipment. They could have used tens of years to do so and it would have still been worth it. They did not even need that long for it to be functional.


    They would have only needed little more than a year, to raise the Baldur¡¯s Gate¡¯sbat capacity tens of times over what it was at the moment.


    One could have told that much simply by looking at the Floating City. A piece of equipment capable of housing massive number of personnel would have tipped the bnce of war. If it had not been for the fact that Saleen had too many ces requiring protection, he would have taken the Floating City everywhere for invasions.


    Intense rumbling was felt from the room and Saleen saw mages in the room falling over. One after another had their backs on the ground. It was Earthquake of uncannily high levels.


    The Earthquake spell looked simple, yet it was actually a control type magic of extraordinary power, capable of messing up the elements in space and bring about powers outside of the six major elements.


    At the same time, Earthquake was also capable of shaking souls of living beings, instead of simply throwing them off-bnce physically. When trained to mastery, one could have even used the spell to alter the structure of the ground, causing volcanic eruptions and bringing about tidal waves.


    That Earthquake was not something cast by the Elemental Hand mages, but by that weapon spirit. The Baldur¡¯s Gate¡¯s weapon spirit cast an Earthquake to throw all Elemental Hand mages off-bnce, before bringing the crystal-shaped magic array and shrinking to a dot, flying outside the crystal wall anding before Saleen.


    ¡°Contract!¡± That weapon spirit howled. That was its only chance. If it were to be taken in by Saleen, it would have then been able to take on the Elemental Hand mages. Saleen wrote the contract deliberately for that weapon spirit to see it. The contract had a time limit to it.


    That weapon spirit knew very well what would have happened to it if the mages of the Elemental Hand were to subjugate it. They would have wiped its memories clean, which meant that the weapon spirit as it was, would have ceased to exist.


    The new weapon spirit would have been in the same form, but that weapon spirit would have no longer been it.


    The weapon spirit did not realize that it had been awakened to the fundamental nature of life, giving it fear of death.


    Saleen threw the scroll onto the magic array hovering right before it, and the weapon spirit jumped on it, siphoning whatever energy it had left into it, signing the magic contract. The Earthquake cast to control all the mages in that room exhausted whatever energy it had taken from the Book of Gaia.


    It was only able to escape at the end using bits of earth¡¯s power left in it.


    Saleen hardly felt much of any changes after the contract was signed. It simply felt that he had a tighter connection to his surroundings. The Book of Gaia was brought along when it left. Saleen pried it away from the magic array and put it inside his Ring of Cosmos.


    That weapon spirit reminded Saleen right away, ¡°Master, that¡¯s the Book of Gaia, a godly item!¡±


    ¡°I know it¡¯s a godly item, but I can¡¯t use it as I am now.¡± Saleen felt at the same time, that despite having signed a contract with that weapon spirit, he remained incapable of controlling the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    The weapon spirit had been starved throughout the years and all energies within it had been expended. It had even suffered considerable drop in levels because of it. That weapon spirit had been of at least level 16, yet the Earthquake that Saleen saw earlier was only of level 13.


    That weapon spirit has had a hard time casting that level 13 Earthquake, and it had to rely on the ridiculously thick earth element around to cast it in one go, affecting all Elemental Hand mages.


    The Elemental Hand mages called out in fight seeing that weapon spirit escape.


    The mages pulled out all stops by then. They attacked immediately, seeing how they were about to lose the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    Other than the nine elders, the skins of all remaining level ten mage trainers crumbled and thick, deathly auras shot out of their eyes, charging straight for the crystal wall.


    Those mage trainers were nurtured by the nine, and all such times, all of them had to die so as to destroy that crystal wall.


    When those mage trainers extended their hands, all that was left were ashen bones.


    The mental powers of those mages were enhanced to frightening levels when their flesh dissolved. It was something that not even Saleen could have aspired to.


    Tens of bloodied, rotten hands pressed onto the crystal wall, and all of the mages at the brink of death unleashed intense mental attacks.


    That was Soul Resonance. While the skill was by no means redundant, it nheless cost massive damage to mages casting it. A mage who was unable to withstand the damage would have died from casting it. The resonance could have been used on any material.


    Saleen was able to see everything clearly from outside. 12 Thundering Phantasms were unleashed and lined before him. He cast thousands of bubbles at the same time, stacking at the front of the wall. All of the bubbles were actually low level Water Shields.


    Saleen did not need to care about how capable those Water Shields were at defending against elemental magic, as the lightning patterns on the Water Shields were what mattered¡ªthey were capable of resisting mental impacts, and worked quite well without regard for levels.


    Saleen naturally had no fear of soul attacks. His thundering sound rumbled in his mind, which prevented even gods from shocking him.


    However, it was toote to send the people around him into his magic amplifier.


    Saleen everything he got in that move and he held his family badge in his hand at that moment, hoping that it was able to absorb some of the power of the soul attack.


    The crystal wall was reduced to dust without making a sound. Saleen used a level zero magic immediately and the badge began to absorb powers of the soul in the air.


    The thousands of Water Shields broke. They were only level four magic and was furthermore, cast without splurging on magic chords, naturally making them incapable of resisting the burning soul powers from tens of level ten mage trainers.


    Saleen only needed for them to get in the way for a moment. His face was calm, buying microseconds and then unleashed blue light from his family badge all of a sudden.


    The burning souls of the tens of mages were absorbed by his family badge in a frenzy. Saleen was able to hear moans of satisfaction from the badge. It was illusive, and yet it was real at the same time.


    The badge was not a living being and it did not have a weapon spirit, yet that piece of object resonated with Saleen¡¯s soul.


    The burning souls were incredibly replenishing to Saleen¡¯s family badge. Saleen recalled those pests that he had with him. They became of little use to him as he was at the moment, inferior evenpared to the Bug Angel Warriors. However, all of those pests were constituted from soul fragments.


    He wondered if he would have been able to achieve the same results by burning the pests¡¯ cores.


    That thought shed in Saleen¡¯s mind for only a split second and he did not continue doing any calctions. The nine mages of the Elemental Hand had already unleashed devastating attacks by then.


    ¡°Master, kill the purple-robed one. He has five other godly items with him!¡± The weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate called, before leaping into the magic amplifier concealed in the void after that.


    It turned into half the size of a human and was extremely nimble. Saleen was surprised to see that it was able to see an invisible equipment of his.

 Chapter 1411: Pursuit (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1411: Pursuit (Part 2)</h4>


    That weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate wanted to absorb the magic nuclei stored within the magic amplifier as soon as it leapt inside. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was enraged right away.


    While everything stored within the magic amplifier belonged to Saleen, but the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was nheless the caretaker of the ce, and it treated all the things stored within like its own property.


    It was incredibly rude for that weapon spirit to just barge in uninvited, and it truly went overboard trying to take magic nuclei stored within. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was unable to sit well with that.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier went up and grabbed onto the weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    The weapon spirit was first shocked, and thenshed out angrily, ¡°Let go of me, you puny pseudogod!¡±


    ¡°Damn you!¡± The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier kicked the other weapon spirit right away, sending it flying into another space in the magic cube. That space was storing ores and there was no worry about breaking anything.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifiershed out without restraint, beating the weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate to a pulp.


    ¡°I¡¯m Juno, the great weapon spirit of level 16. If you dare to continue beating me, I¡¯ll...¡±


    Boom!


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier expanded its body right away, lifting it foot and having it looming all over the other weapon spirit, before stomping down on it and pressed hard for a bit, saying, ¡°I¡¯m a level 13 weapon spirit and master has yet to give me a name.¡±


    ¡°You...cough...don¡¯t even have a name...¡±


    That weapon spirit of the magic amplifier continued to stomp on the other weapon spirit called Juno, until the other party learned what kind of situation it had gotten itself into. The nameless weapon spirit would not have bothered to show any respect to Juno simply because it used to be powerful.


    Wait, this fellow already has divine fire. Huh? There are gods serving my new master?


    Juno had seen a lot during his time but it had never known of any god being enved by humans. The fact made it space out, so much so that it stopped cursing at the nameless weapon spirit, which in turn, enable it to suffer less beating.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier dared not beat Juno to death, as the other weapon spirit was a bonded creature of its master after all.


    Saleen was oblivious of the fighting in the magic amplifier. After being reminded by Juno, he turned his attention to the leader of the Elemental Hand¡ªthe mage wearing a purple robe.


    That mage was unable to help but shudder when he caught Saleen¡¯s attention. It had been something that had never happened after advancing to level seven.


    Three of the nine attacked Saleen as soon all nine of them emerged, with the remaining six choosing to leave.


    Rafel, the Winged Skull and Nailisi took on the attacks of those three mage trainers. Truman, Isabe and the others retaliated. The other two mage trainers at Safilos¡¯ side attacked those three mages as well.


    Yellow light shed beneath Saleen¡¯s feet and he caught up to the purple-robed mage in an instant.


    The purple-robed mage was unable to react in time. Saleen was a mage, and he would have been able to attack from over 1000 meters away without problems. Mages who charged to their enemies¡¯ side to attack was something unheard of to the purple-robed mage.


    Saleen¡¯s Eye of Lightning and Crystal Finger skills both had range of attack at about ten meters.


    The reason why Saleen used such a skill to get near the purple-robed mage was to be able to put his territory to good use. That level 11 mage would have definitely developed his own territory as well.


    The power of the lightning territory had been thinned somewhat, enabling it to truly give Saleen an instant edge whenpressed to within 100 meters.


    That purple-robed mage cast a Fire Ring of Resistance in reflex, which was the best measure to deal with warriors. It was quick to cast and would not have been nullified by many skills. It also had powerful retaliatory abilities.


    Saleen, however, was a mage. He cast Endless Night against the Fire Ring of Resistance from that purple-robed mage, restraining the purple-robed mage. Saleen then recalled the Armoring Lightning Beads and sent ball lightning, which was geared forbat, into the Fire Ring of Resistance.


    Saleen was only able to cast eight ball lightning within a day and his casting of that skill was still not fast enough. He did not need to use lightning skills against low level professionals, yet the speed of the skill was rather insufficient for taking on high level professionals.


    That was why Saleen first cast Endless Night for control. It was totally unexpected that the purple-robed mage was able to instant fly out from the Endless Night and distance himself over 100 meters away.


    Saleen cast his Water me again. Hundreds of thousands of snowkes danced around them and it was used in conjunction with Tornado, in an attempt to trap the purple-robed mage.


    The purple-robed mage was unable to tell direction right after escaping Endless Night. He distanced himself from Saleen on reflex, which was why he had been able to escape at uncanny speeds.


    He had the other five godly items with him and he would have been able to kill Saleen at any given moment, as long as he was able to advance.


    He would not have been in such a messed up state if they were in Alchemy City. The magic amplifier was not inside the Baldur¡¯s Gate and his power had been considerably diminished. He was still in the stage of getting used to fighting in his current state.


    That was especially so when he was in the Endless Night. A ck and a white ball lightning appeared and sent shivers down the spine of that purple-robed mage. That was a natural reaction from facing a life and death situation.


    The ball lightning were unable to travel quickly and they had flighty trajectory. However, there were hardly any equipment capable of resisting their power so long as they were able to connect to their target.


    The purple-robed initially tried to lure Saleen with the way it ran. If Saleen were toe at him, he would have wanted to kill the other mage and take the Floating City. However, when the two ball lightning of different colors got close, the purple-robed mage had to run in earnest.


    There was no way Saleen would have simply let him escape. That other mage still had five other godly items with him after all.


    Saleen had acquired the Book of Gaia. If he were to gainplete mastery of that godly item, its offensive and defensive capabilities would have rivaled that of the Thunder Dragon ster.


    The Thunder Dragon ster was able to attack only a single target, yet the Book of Gaia was able to attack over 10000 targets at the same time.


    Over 30000 of the elite troops of the Qin Empire died as soon as the Book of Gaia was used for the first time in ages.


    That was the true power of godly items, something capable of reducing people to dust with just a single breath.


    If Saleen were to gain mastery over the Book of Gaia and reach level 15 and above, any who would have entered the Baldur¡¯s Gate would have been forced to rely on their own powers to take on Saleen, as overwhelming him by sheer numbers alone was no longer possible.


    There were few godly items like the Book of Gaia, capable of attacking over a veryrge area. If he were to advance to level 15 and above, the Book of Gaia would have been able to make the entire Baldur¡¯s Gatee alive.


    All who would have entered the Baldur¡¯s Gate would have been caught within the Book of Gaia¡¯s range of attack, making evasion impossible.


    Saleen fired a lightning icicle right away. Both of them were level 11 mages, which made it difficult for Saleen to lock onto the purple-robed mage within an instant difficult, despite having ess to powers of the soul, especially when they were both moving at great speeds.


    The purple-robed mage smirked coldly. He had gotten familiar with that skill of Saleen, which was so formidable that it was near-invincible within level 13. But then again, what good would it do, if you were to face someone of your own level like me, and you can¡¯t lock onto me?


    Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle shot out and he then look around the purple-robed mage. A square, independent space appeared. That space was constructed using wind element and was of pale blue color. The wind element within that space raged and carved arge hole where the purple-robed mage was.


    That mage flew outside the hole that manifested, and Saleen saw his lightning icicle disappeared after the other mage was gone. When the lightning icicle appeared again, the purple-robed mage was already several hundreds of meters away.


    That burst of wind element allowed the purple-robed mage to move away in an instant.


    Glimmer?


    It was the first time Saleen saw such a movement ability made possible by using wind element. While his teacher was of even higher level and had began to pick up Rainbow, instead of learning a wind type ability like Glimmer.


    If Jason were to learn Rainbow, it would have still proven useful even after advancing to level 16.


    The very reason why Glimmer was not as renowned as Rainbow was due precisely because it was easy to learn.


    Rainbow had extremely high constitutional requirements of the user. If a mage were to ck in tempering their bodies while training in the art, even people who had lifespan over hundreds of thousands of years and beyond level 13, would have found it difficult to cast that spell.


    Forcing oneself to use Rainbow would have resulted in a harrowing scenario where one¡¯s body gets disintegrated by the elements of the spell.


    However, things were different with Glimmer. The wind type magic was easily made avable to any mage adept at using wind magic. The only problem was that the spell came with a high cost, yet was unable to move the user very far away.


    In general, Glimmer¡¯s sudden movement ability was restricted to about three to five meters away. The advantage of that spell was that it allowed the user to ignore some powerful attacks when it was being cast.


    But then again, when one emerged out of Glimmer three to five meters, one would have still been possibly caught with the opponent¡¯s range of attack. Such movement ability paled inparison to Jalin¡¯s earth type magic.


    That was a spell that required precise control and one would have required to put in a lot of effort after picking it up, before one was able to use it effectively in battle.


    That purple-robed mage was only able to get over a 100 meters away using Glimmer. He then flew out for another 300 meters or so using Glimmer for the second time, shaking off Saleen¡¯s lightning icicle attack at the same time.


    Such skills were considered powerful magic. It was not something judged by level, but by the control ability of the user and how well they know the spell.


    The purple-robed mage managed to escape the two lethal attacks that Saleenunched, by getting the timing correctly. It was some control ability that Saleen was hoping to achieve.


    That mage was said to be the leader of the Elemental Hand, who had firm control of Alchemy City. There was no way one could have easily killed someone like that.


    People like that had gotten to where they were through their own hard work. It would have been disappointing if Saleen were easily able to kill someone like that.


    As mages of the same level, Saleen was using the purple-robed mage to hone his own arts. If he were to simply use the power of the Si of Silence and the Crystal Finger at the same time, the purple-robed would not have been able to survive otherwise.


    However, no one around him knew of the abilities of the Si of Silence. Without assurance of being able to prevent word from leaking, Saleen had no intention of using the Si of Silence. That mystical ability of the item was a secret weapon he intended to use against gods in the future.


    He had to shut everyone up and prevent any word from leaking if he were to use that item.


    Yellow light continued to sh beneath Saleen¡¯s feet, sending him behind the purple-robed mage. Both mages were less than ten meters away from each other by then.


    Saleen would have only needed to cast Crystal Finger to end that mage, something that the other mage could have only survived if he were to have something like the Figure of Fate as well.


    Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger was capable of harming not just the body, but the soul as well.

 Chapter 1412: Level Advantage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1412: Level Advantage (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen did not use the Crystal Finger. Although he was definitely able to use the skill anytime, his level was simply too low and the magic chords consumed by the skill would have allowed him to use over a dozen other level-11 magic spells.


    He still had to deal with the other mages who had escaped after he was done with the purple-robed mage. There were nine level-11 mages in the Elemental Hand, and every single one of them had unnervingly amplebat experience. All would have caused him trouble in the future if they were allowed to escape.


    With Saleen having taken the Baldur¡¯s Gate and Alchemy City by the skeletal dragon, there was no way those mages would have simply let the matter slide.


    Saleen had to get the fight over with as quickly as possible.


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯ll give you the godly item. Spare me!¡± The purple-robed mage said all of a sudden, while a scroll that was slightly shorter than a human thumb was taken out. That mage was attempting to ambush Saleen.


    While scrolls had a lot of shorings, they had one very obvious advantage¡ªallowing sudden use of spells.


    Any magic spells would have required ambient elemental powers to first be manipted. The so-called instant-casting actually had preparation moves nheless. A mage needed to first use mental powers to use scrolls. Elemental waves happened after that.


    Any other mage would have been tempted by the words of the purple-robed mage. Not Saleen. The lightning icicle he fired the second time had the Thunder Dragon ster emitting cold mist.


    Lightning icicles traveled too fast to be evaded at such a distance. The purple-robed mage did not expect Saleen to remain unperturbed and unhesitant after hearing what he said, attacking immediately after that instead.


    While it was arduous for the projectile to get a lock-on on the purple-robed mage, evasion nheless proved impossible using Glimmer at such close range.


    All of a sudden, hundreds of purple scales burst around the purple-robed mage and formed a straight line. Those scales flew by themselves and were not controlled by the purple-robed mage.


    Crackling noises continued to be heard as the lightning icicle shed with the scales. That lightning icicle had a smaller radius than the surface area of the purple scales. The projectile barged right through the scales and filled them with holes.


    Wind element was gathered around the purple-robed mage again. The purple scales were unable to even buy him one second, but it was more than enough time for him to evoke Glimmer.


    Saleen was frustrated that the purple-robed mage had escaped yet again! While Glimmer was not as suitable for prepping attacks as his own earth-elemental magic, that skill was still a very powerful one when it came to escaping. So even a ce like Alchemy City likes mages who run then?


    He was oblivious to the fact that his attack was not something a level-11 mage could resist: It was run or be killed on the spot for that purple-robed mage.


    It was a w Saleen had since youth. Despite having fostered the bearing of one of the most powerful beings in the world, he still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that he had be one of the most powerful professionals the world had ever seen.


    If the powers of his equipment were taken into ount, there would have hardly been anyone in the entire Myers Maind capable of fighting Saleen on an equal footing. Only a handful of those people, including his teacher, would never be his enemy.


    The purple-robed mage moved his body outside using Glimmer at that time, leaving the metal tower.


    The remaining five mages had taken the time to escape while the four were fighting Saleen¡¯s party. The three who attacked Saleen were left behind.


    The weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate popped its head out and hushed Saleen, ¡°Master, go after him...¡±


    Juno had no sooner finished talking before being dragged back into the magic amplifier by the inherent weapon spirit. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier wanted Saleen to give it a name by then¡ªa thought invoked by Juno¡¯s words.


    What it didn¡¯t know was that if Saleen had given it a name, it would have be impossible for it to betray Saleen in the future.


    Someone could not simply ask to be named by someone. This was because the use of that name would have meant having the soul of the named one branded by the name giver whenever the name was used. Regardless of the brand¡¯s severity, it was something that would have umted over time.


    Juno had ill intentions right from the start. Taking beatings from the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier made it realize that it was not the other weapon spirit¡¯s match. As such, it baited the other weapon spirit to ask for a name instead.


    You piece of sh*t. When you finally got your own name, you could kiss your freedom goodbye for good!


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier emerged with its greatsword and asked, ¡°Master, should I pursue this?¡±


    Saleen nodded and the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier disappeared with a whoosh. Saleen knew it was difficult for him to chase after a mage capable of using Glimmer. Unless he was willing to use Crystal Finger, killing the purple-robed mage would have been too much work.


    He saw what the purple-robed mage was capable of whipping up for defense. A flurry of scales burst around that mage to resist attacks. Despite not being as tough as dragon scales, they were not low-level things. His lightning icicle didn¡¯t prate all the scales and they eventually dropped to the ground.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was at level-13. Even with a measure of its powers sealed, it was still able to easily target that purple-robed mage.


    Saleen turned his attention to the other five escaped mages instead. They couldn¡¯t move that quickly and Saleen was confident he could catch up to them.


    The purple-robed mage kept using Glimmer and came to the edge of the Baldur¡¯s Gate within seconds. Soldiers continued pouring inside that gate, making it clear that Saleen intended to take that ce for himself. He resorted to either chasing everyone within the Baldur¡¯s Gate or killing them.


    The purple-robed mage had no time to spare. He still had the other five godly items with him, so it was entirely possible to retake the Baldur¡¯s Gate at ater date.


    It urred to the purple-robed mage all of a sudden that the Baldur¡¯s Gate had a weapon spirit, which made the ce considerably more difficult for him to retake it. Sh*t. Why did that weapon spirit hide instead ofing out to talk?


    That purple-robed mage ran into an invisible wall while it was steeped in thought.


    That was not some kind of energy barrier but a construct conjured using divine spells.


    That damned Saleen actually has holy masters serving him!


    He was infuriated by then, as he had never been in such a deplorable state in his life. Running into the wall caused blood to spill from his nose and mouth, dealing with severe damage.


    Glimmer was meant for dodging obstacles, but that invisible obstacle was something that Glimmer had no way of evading, requiring the purple-robed mage to take control at his own will.


    Nichs was the one standing guard over the gate. That level-11 fallen holy master had be one of the most powerful professionals on the maind before he knew it. But then again, it had a lot to do with the equipment Saleen had supplied him, in addition to the fact that Saleen had helped him steal divine power.


    The very reason it was difficult for fallen holy masters to advance was that they refrained from stealing divine powers too quickly. Being discovered by the god they stole from would have ended up in quick executions.


    The power of Nichs¡¯s lesser prophecy spells was much enhanced after he advanced to level- 11. The spell he used was a true fallen divine spell¡ªWall of the Fallen.


    It was a spell that Nichs acquired after he begged Nailisi to let him study the Shackles of the Fallen. The resulting divine spell was very potent against the gods; furthermore, it waspletely invisible.


    The skill that Nichs cast had only upped its power automatically at the very split second the purple-robed mage rammed onto it. The impact was beyond Nichs¡¯ resistance threshold and he was badly injured.


    It was akin to two level-11 professionals physically shing against each other unprepared, with utterly no chance of evasion. The Wall of the Fallen had no form and Glimmer was conjured without warning.


    Both parties would have been able to avoid that by using their respective skills.


    In fact, Nichs cast Healing right away on himself after he was injured; his injuries mended almost instantly. Such injuries, which were without additional attributes, were the easiest to patch up. The purple-robed mage had to drink potions and cast a level-4 Chunlin spell on himself instead.


    Such healing would have taken some time before the injuries werepletely patched up.


    There were no way healing abilities of mages would have been on par with that of holy masters, unless that mage was at about level-15.


    The weapon spirit was able to catch up with the purple-robed mage after he was repelled. The weapon spirit closed in without making a sound and shed at the hips of the purple-robed man.


    He had never heard of people capable of making themselves invisible. The usual variety of invisibility or the concealment skills of assassins had a lot to do with the maniption of light element.


    That was not what worked with the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier. It stayed invisible without leaking anything, making it impossible for conventional sensory abilities to detect it.


    Saleen could track his weapon spirit because of the contract between him and the weapon spirit. He would have had to resort to using the power of the soul to search for it before finding anything enabling the weapon spirit to be traced.


    The purple scales on the mage burst again, but it did not do the mage any good. A golden great sword easily cleaved hundreds of those scales in half, lunging straight for the purple-robed mage afterward.


    The mage¡¯s purple robe burst with intense energy vibrations and the golden great sword was actually unable to prate it. The force, however, that was brought about by the strike shattered the bones at the mage¡¯s hips.


    ¡°A really good piece of clothing indeed!¡± The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier quipped and pulled back the golden de. It then grabbed onto the mage¡¯s hair and pricked with the finger on its other hand, disrobing the mage altogether and draped it onto its body.


    The weapon spirit¡¯s body did not actually need the protection of any kind, as the conjured armor, despite not being nigh-imprable, was nheless difficult to damage using magic.


    The weapon spirit had been around Saleen long enough to know its master¡¯s temperament. He waspelled to get his hands on such a fine piece of equipment.


    Blood spurted from the mage¡¯s mouth nonstop, making it impossible for him to talk anymore.


    He refused to believe what had happened. He had been serving a mage at Alchemy City since the age of six, working all the way from a lowly servant to a magic apprentice then to an official student. He had put an unimaginable amount of effort and thought throughout his journey.


    The Elemental Hand he set upter allowed him to control all of Alchemy City,ying down rules for all mages throughout the maind¡ªrules only a handful refused to follow.


    He was a mage favored by fate, an embodiment of pride in the world of mages. He deemed it impossible that he was at the end of his journey.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was not done yet. He knew that whatever the mage had, they were all stored in his space equipment and brought around with him. It squeezed the finger of that mage and crushed it, taking all his rings and whatever other equipment and swallowing them.


    It intended to give all that loot to Saleenter.


    Saleen was focused on chasing the five escaped mages, all of whom, upon seeing Rafel, knew that they would have stood no chance against Saleen. As such, they gritted their teeth and abandoned the ce, choosing to run instead. Only the three most foolish mages still thought of killing Saleen.


    All three of the mages were in by Rafel. That was the very reason Saleen had brought her with him in the first ce.


    Saleen deemed it imperative to make the most out of thebat angel, as he had little idea how long Rafel would be able to keep her edge at levels. If the escaped purple-robed mage were to escape, it would have been easy for him to get to level-12 if he were to just continue to train.


    If that mage were to be able to reach the pinnacle of level-12, even Rafel would have had trouble killing him.

 Chapter 1413: Level Advantage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1413: Level Advantage (Part 2)</h4>


    When those mages escaped, with the exception of the purple-robed mage, Saleen had recorded all of the energy vibrations of the remaining five mages. That enabled him to trace them as yellow light shed beneath his feet, pursuing them all the way outside the metal tower.


    The escaping mages were preupied with running away, resulting in them focusing on flying as far as they were able, killing no one in the process.


    There was only one exit to the Baldur¡¯s Gate after all, and they had yet to master the equipment. It would have been the end of them if they were to be trapped inside.


    They were in shambles and had been cornered before they were even able to actually fight Saleen. However, with even their leader gone, there was little they were able to do. They should have split the six godly items among themselves, and yet their leader had taken everything for himself.


    All of the escaping mages were still feeling wronged about that.


    Saleen was chasing them right behind and Rafel was tagging along. It was far easier for her to deal with those level 11 mages. However, she had to switch to her Inferno Spear nheless.


    All of those level 11 mages before were capable of using territories and only a godly item that she was familiar with, would have allowed her to take out those powerful enemies as quickly as possible.


    The very reason why mages were difficult to kill was because it was difficult to get near them. However, that room they were in before had been too small for the mages. Rafel had been able to easily get near and kill all three of them without trouble.


    If those mages were to all flee by spreading out into different directions or attack Rafel at the same time, at least one or two of them would have been able to escape, instead of being wiped out quickly.


    Seeing how valiant Rafel¡¯s performance turned out to be, Nailisi turned to the Winged Skull after Rafel left and asked, ¡°Hey bones, how about we just think of a way of getting rid of the angel eh?¡±


    ¡°Master doesn¡¯t allow it,¡± the Winged Skull answered coldly.


    ¡°But we¡¯d turn useless if this keeps on.¡±


    ¡°Idiot,¡± the Winged Skull berated her instead.


    ¡°Why the harsh tone?¡± It was rather rare for Nailisi to not re up, and went on to ask the Winged Skull such a funny question instead.


    ¡°You could advance. Even if master were to be able to supply Rafel with divine power indefinitely, she would have needed to stick around master to ensure that her level doesn¡¯t drop. You¡¯re a luoluokaluo. By the time you got all eight of your powers gathered, she would have been no match for you,¡± the Winged Skull answered her question patiently, which was an equally rare urrence.


    Nailisi pouted, being rather embarrassed to simply admit that she had such thoughts, because she thought training to get that far would have been a pain. She then simply asked in return, ¡°What about you then?¡±


    ¡°Me? I¡¯m confident that I¡¯d be able to get to level 13 within 100 years. There is no way Rafel could have gotten to level 14 by then.¡±


    ¡°Heh...¡± Nailisi did not continue the conversation and had simply red at the few who were looking at her. They were professionals who followed Saleen inside the gate, with Truman being among them.


    Truman grinned and did not pay much attention to that bonded creature of his teacher. He knew what Nailisi¡¯s temperament was like by then. The other professionals turned their heads around grinning, pretending as if they have heard none of what Nailisi said.


    ¡°Hmph. Everyone, clean up the insides of the metal tower. This is the control hub of the Baldur¡¯s Gate and no one else is to be left alive. Understand?¡± Nailisi put up airs and ordered. Everyone acknowledged and brought their group of warriors into the spaces within the metal tower.


    Without the power from the Book of Gaia getting in the way, the professionals and soldiers all brought impressive power to bear. All spaces within the metal power were cleared one after another.


    But then again, they did not find the Violet Angel. None of them where that thing had been taken to for research.


    That was rather normal as well. Despite having taken the form of a metal dragon, the Violet Angel was still nheless beneath the notice of the highest echelon of the Elemental Hand. That was, unless they found what it truly was.


    Saleen cast earth magic behind and caught up to the five escaping mages. The five mages noticed that Saleen wasing at them alone and were ted. They were about to turn around to attack, when they saw hundreds of elemental creatures burst out of Saleen¡¯s body.


    All of those creatures were of level ten, and there were also a great number of puppets and figures among the elemental creatures.


    All five mages were frightened to their core, wondering what kind of a monster they had ran into, who possessed so many powerfulbat weapons.


    Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures and all puppets surrounded the five mages. Saleen pointed at one of them and said, ¡°Surrender or I¡¯ll kill you.¡±


    ¡°I will not...¡±


    Pfftt!


    Saleen fired two shots of lightning icicles. The first shot was blocked by that mage using a square metal te. That lightning icicle melted inside the metal, as its internal parts were surprisingly capable of high temperatures. However, the second shot burst his head right away.


    The remaining four mages were frightened to their cores. If Saleen were to use such skills to attack them, they would have still been able to defend themselves effectively due to having been prepared. But how long could we keep this up?


    Saleen¡¯s finger pointed at yet another mage. He sent a ball lightning flying out of the Thunder Dragon ster without saying again. The Thunder Dragon ster was only able to shoot four ball lightning and in order to ensure lethality, he had to shoot two balls at least.


    Their speeds were far slower than that of the lightning icicles, and shooting one ball after another would have easily alerted the enemy.


    If they were to be enemies that Saleen would have been able to easily target, he would not have had to use such equipment in the first ce.


    The Thunder Dragon ster had two advantages. The first being its long range. There was no other equipment other than the Thunder Dragon ster, not even his family badge, would have been able to attack enemies tens of kilometers away.


    At the very least, there was no other equipment that would have enabled him to attack a target further away at the moment.


    The other advantage was that its high damage potential. Physical or energy defenses alike were like ineffective before the lightning icicles.


    Only equipment the likes of godly items would have allowed the lightning icicles to be blocked, due to their innate resilience, and it came with the risk of harming said equipment¡¯s innate attributes.


    That mage conjured a firewall as the ball lightning were shot, intending to deflect Saleen¡¯s attack. Fire type defenses were usually poor, yet if someone were to still use fire type defenses at such levels, they would have been people extremely proficient at fire elemental magic, capable of using such magic to the fullest.


    Said advantage was that such spells burst quickly and was powerful.


    All two of Saleen¡¯s ball lightning were not, however, hindered in the least. The high temperatures of the firewall were not even worth mentioning whenpared to the amount of energy in the balls. The fire elemental vibrations were unable to affect the ball lightning¡¯s advance as well.


    Saleen was overwhelming the other mage using rules, nullifying that mage¡¯s tricky barrier altogether. Before that mage was able to cast magic prepped for retaliation, his innards were charred by Saleen¡¯s ball lightning.


    Two of the five mages who faced Saleen ended up with one losing his brain and the other having his innards charred. That took only three attacks to aplish.


    The remaining three mages had their eyes almost popping out of their sockets in disbelief. They were all level 11 mages like Saleen, and they were unable to fathom why there was such a huge gap in terms ofbat prowess between them.


    Generally-speaking, even with the advantages provided by equipment added in, such battles would not have ended up like that!


    Saleen¡¯s elemental creatures and puppets did not even need to join the fray. They were simply there to block the mages¡¯ escape.


    Saleen lowered his arm and took out three scrolls, throwing to the remaining three mages and said, ¡°Submit to me and I shall spare you.¡±


    It was not a thought that he cooked up on the fly. He had thought it out before he came to the Baldur¡¯s Gate. If he were to be able to subjugate several of the Elemental Hand¡¯s leaders, it would have made controlling Alchemy City all the more easier.


    Not all mages from Alchemy City had to be his enemies and ended up killed. It would have been a waste of talent and a loss in the power of humanity as a whole.


    Most of the mages in Alchemy City were still young, and those young mages would have yed important roles in the expansion of Myers Maind, when they matured in time.


    Saleen knew that his eventual foe would not have been Alchemy City. It would not have even been Safilos or even Grand Duke Iron Blood; it would have been beings from foreign nes.


    The abominations sent by the Heretic God had almost ughtered the entire Myers Maind. Saleen would not have been able to stop the catastrophe, if he had not been able to keep the situation contained.


    If the catastrophe were to affect the entire maind, he would have only been able to protect some of his cities at best, making it even impossible to protect all of his subjects.


    The three level 11 mages looked at each other and said nothing.


    ¡°I assume you¡¯re afraid of the purple-robed one then? Rx, I¡¯ve sent a level 13 pseudogod to take him out. There is another one right outside the Baldur¡¯s Gate. There is no way he is getting out alive,¡± Saleen described the situation calmly, putting the three mages at ease.


    While it was within the rules of the Elemental Hand that all of them were to take turns to rule, yet that leader of theirs had been overpowering them all the time, making him the de facto head of the Elemental Hand.


    All six godly items were in his possession, and they definitely had something to say about that.


    However, things are different with Saleen. He has far greater wealth, he has a country to run, if we were to follow Saleen...


    The three mages were moved and Saleen lifted his arm again, saying, ¡°Don¡¯t bother talking terms with me. I could just kill everyone in Baldur¡¯s Gate if I want to. The only reason why I want you people to submit to me, is just so to have less from Alchemy City dead.¡±


    All three mages unraveled their scrolls quickly and wrote their names of the parchments.


    Saleen had gotten the scrolls ready after all. All three of them knew what was the best course of action to take, after being bossed around for so long. If they were to really irk Saleen, he would have actually killed everyone from Alchemy City indeed.


    Saleen was relieved to see the three mages sign their contracts. If they were to refuse, it would have taken him far more time to take Alchemy City¡¯s powers.


    Saleen cared little for his current reputation but he had the future to think about. He gradually came to develop an idea, something which was unable to be carried out all on his own and would have needed help from a lot of people. As such, he listened to Jason¡¯s suggestion and went on to ally with Safilos.


    Rafel came to his side and Saleen did not bother to recall those elemental creatures, as if he had forgotten all about them. He turned around and told Rafel, ¡°Ry my orders. All who surrender shall be spared. Any who resists, shall have their souls gobbled up by the Winged Skull.¡±


    Rafel nodded and left. Saleen then said to the three mages who signed the contracts, while still being surrounded by the elemental creatures, ¡°So this is the only nest of Alchemy City?¡±


    The three mages wore bitter grins. Saleen used the word ¡®nest¡¯, which spoke volumes of his disrespect for them. However, since they have submitted to Saleen, they saw no point to be petty about that.


    ¡°There were two other ruins controlled by Alchemy City that have yet to be developed. Those are ces that we¡¯d only dare enter after the Baldur¡¯s Gate ispletely controlled.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and said, ¡°No hurry then. How many mages that the Elemental Hand still have who are not here?¡±


    ¡°There are about 30000 of them. All of them are meant for retaking the city,¡± a mage answered truthfully.


    ¡°Right. You three shall continue to take control of the Elemental Hand. I¡¯m not interfering with governance, but I¡¯d be taking everything in the city¡¯s warehouses. Let me know if you need anything.¡± All three mages were frustrated but there was nothing they were able to do about it.


    ¡°Oh right. The three of you, heh...¡± Saleen did not continue the topic and changed the subject. He then asked them, ¡°You people know anything about ck Dungeon?¡±


    ¡°We do.¡±


    ¡°My next target would be the Holy See. The Pivotal Council is an easy target and the new pope doesn¡¯t concern himself with the Holy See at all. The strongest pope we know is now dead. The oracles from the divine kingdom are dead too. Fycro, the number oracle in the Oracle Corps, I killed him too. Get prepared and assault Holy See, in the name of Alchemy City.¡±


    Saleen then added, seeing how troubled those three looked, ¡°I would provide warriors for you people. Rest assured that I don¡¯t want to see too many mages dead too.¡± What he meant by that was that it was apparently alright for him to have some mages ended up dead.

 Chapter 1414: Coercion (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1414: Coercion (Part 1)</h4>


    The three elders of the Elemental Hand looked at it that way. If Saleen¡¯s target was the Holy See, then there was little about the deal that they found uneptable. It was due precisely to being overpowered by the Great Elder, that they were unable to send decent backups to the Qin Empire. If it had not been for the Great Elder, the few of them had long sent mages to attack holy masters of the Holy See.


    The Great Elder had been blinded by power, wanting to be someone like the founding emperor of the First Dynasty.


    Having great ambitions without the ability to match them, proved to be an apt description of the Great Elder. The powers of Alchemy City enabled them to reign supreme over a certain region, yet controlling the entire maind proved too difficult.


    ¡°I need some time to take the Baldur¡¯s Gate. You guys can¡¯t stay here, hmm...¡±


    ¡°We have ces to stay. These are the coordinates.¡± One of the elders was perceptive and keen enough to tell Saleen the coordinates right away. They still had 30000 mages outside of Alchemy City, which meant that they definitely had ces to hide still.


    Saleen was silent for a while and the three mages looked rather tense. Saleen smiled all of a sudden and said, ¡°Oh it¡¯s fine, I¡¯m just thinking about some other things. The main force of the Holy See now is the ck Dungeon Ind. This is one ce that cannot be taken down, even with all of Alchemy City¡¯s powers gathered.¡±


    Seeing how the three of them feeling somewhat slighted, Saleen added, ¡°The head warden is probably a level 13 professional and he never leaves the ck Dungeon. That probably means that there is an independent space there that isn¡¯t restricted by ne rules of Myers Maind. If he were to intend to leave, he would have to seal his power at level 13. It is possible that he is trying to break into level 14, so he wouldn¡¯t leave ck Dungeon Ind without very good reasons to do so. If we were to just storm the ce, do you think you¡¯d be able to take on someone who is near level 14?¡±


    The three mages were rendered speechless right away. Such deduction was a product inspired by his teacher.


    Jason was at level 13 as well. Due to his powers growing too much and he was unable to seal them, he had to remain in Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space. Saleen recalled the past fights he had with the Holy See. While the Tribunal had indeed sent their forces to take him on, but everyone they sent seemed to have had nothing to do with the head warden. There were definitely reasons why the head warden refused to leave ck Dungeon Ind.


    Aftering to such conclusions, Saleen knew that he still had a long away ahead of him.


    Not even his weapon spirits would have been able to take on people at the pinnacle of level 13.


    ¡°As such, the Holy See would still be around for quite a long time. At the very least, the Tribunal would still stand. Use this as your excuse to rebuild the Elemental Hand. Our target is the Holy See.¡± Saleen had only recalled his elemental creatures, puppets and figures after he finished.


    Saleen then turned around and left right away, leaving the three feeling puzzled.


    The Great Elder had done a lot of things that irked the mages when he was around. If he were to be truly dead, things would have gotten a lot easier to deal with from then on out.


    The three level 11 mages were not as difficult to deal with as Saleen imagined them to be. Having been overpowered by the Great Elder for so long, none of them showed much of any interests in resisting forceful people. If Saleen had been as gentle and amicable as he used to be, devoid of any forceful bearing about him, it would have been a lot harder for him to subjugate those three instead.


    Saleen had given them some measure of freedom, yet his bearing still remained more forceful than that of the Great Elder, and those mages thought that to be normal instead.


    However, none of them realized that Saleen was actually disappointed in such reactions from them.


    Saleen liked independent, capable mages with an attitude, and none of the three Elemental Hand mages fit the bill. From the looks of things, they seemed more like conventional bureaucrats who just adhered to protocol.


    Sesses of such mages were destined to be limited.


    Saleen was not wrong to think of it as such. While the Elemental Hand looked powerful, resources were all consumed by the core mages. If it had not been for the fact that they had been exploiting and taking advantage of themon mages, those people would not have gotten to where they were at that day.


    Metatrin City had a better, moreprehensive design when it came to distribution of magical resources. If mages wanted to acquire resources, they would have had to pay for them by working in the alchemy factories.


    Mages acquired resources, training and experience at the same time, preventing them from going broke.


    While mages in Metatrin City at the moment were enormously rich people, but at the very least, every single one of them had never seen the daily supplies of magic nuclei cut off, and without having to venture outside to acquire them. Any special machinery and items required could have been requested from the temple. It would have taken only about three days to get them resources that would have proved satisfactory.


    When consumables were concerned, mages were allowed to acquire them on credit. With the alchemy factories in operation every day, the mages were able to pay for them by working at the factories.


    However, that was not how Alchemy City worked, as any mages in Alchemy City intending to work for the Elemental Hand would have had to pay a certain amount of money or material supplies, while not getting any pay in return for their work.


    Everyone knew that alchemy burned through cash quickly and viciously, as well as the shortcut to enhance one¡¯s magical abilities.


    It was not that most mages did not want to learn alchemy, but that their finances did not allow them to. There were also few nobles capable of keeping mages around in the world. Ironically, most of that phenomenon was caused by the Elemental Hand monopolizing magical material supplies.


    In theory, the worth of magic nuclei was something that could not have been measured in gold coins. The prices of magical materials monopolized by Alchemy City were an act that wrecked the bnce in themselves. If the mages were to be allowed to practice free trade, even poor mages would have had chances to advance.


    Saleen deliberately slowed down and he waspletely relieved to see the three mages catching up. While the submissive attitude disyed by the three irked him somewhat, Saleen nheless did not demand them to change.


    Those three were still considered capable people, judging from the fact that they were still able to keep the Elemental Hand running. Not all geniuses and capable people were proud people. As a king, Saleen came to learn of that very much.


    Prideful people tended to finish fast. Those who were capable of surviving were those favored by fate. If they were to be able to reach the pinnacle of allowable powers, they would not have been easily subjugated by the likes of Saleen.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was one of such proud people, and Saleen was only able to forge a temporary alliance with him. Wanting someone like that to subjugate to him would have been impossible.


    Back then, when Saleen was trying to subjugate Ismail, the man had rather died than to submit. He had even cursed Saleen right before his death, which ended up with Saleen forever being marked by the God of Underworld. That meant that if Saleen were to enter the purgatory ne, he would have been hunted down by the gods immediately.


    The following battles were far easier. With the order to surrender issued by the Elemental Hand, most mages had gotten reluctant to keep fighting. Safilos was baffled seeing mages lining up to surrender. He was utterly rendered speechless by the scene.


    He never knew how Saleen managed to pull that off.


    It was actually very simple. The structure of the Elemental Hand had been an insane one right from the start. The ones at the top had control of all the resources while those below had little to gain.


    Things were different with Metatrin City. While Saleen had control of resources as well, but he would have distributed them ording to rules set out after assuming control. The ones below, in turn, would have given their all to protect Metatrin City. That was because if Metatrin was lost, they would have lost the chance of getting fair payment together with it, losing the opportunity to acquire all manner of magical lineages.


    Handicapped mages were not discriminated in Metatrin City as well, as Saleen had imed that he only had water elemental magic chords, yet that no longer presented a problem once he made it past level ten.


    If even the leader of Metatrin City himself had been of imperfect constitution, then the others would have naturally dared to set higher aspirations for themselves.


    Even though none of those mages would have been able to achieve what Saleen had achieved throughout their lives, but the hope of achieving greatness was nheless around, and opportunities to reach such greatness were provided.


    Saleen made good on his words as well. There were indeed mages like Saleen and had made great contributions to Metatrin City, and they were taken into the temple. Level ten mages were gathered to cast elemental skills to modify their bodies.


    Such grace was definitely not somethingmon and with precedents like that set out for all to see, more mages became willing to serve Metatrin City.


    The very reason why Saleen left Alchemy City as it was, was to fosterpetition. Competition led to faster advancements, and it was not realistic for all mages he knew to be gathered at Metatrin City.


    Furthermore, there were people out there who were out to do him no good. With Metatrin City remaining behind, such people would have been selected and singled out.


    That was how kings and emperors do things and it was something Saleen learned from Ojarvis. Saleen came to learn a lot of things when Ojarvis was at his deathbed.


    All surrendering mages were to relinquish their personal belongings and wealth. That was a demand from Saleen.


    However, Saleen had also added that all of that would have been kept in record and the mages were to bepensated ording to market rate. There were hundreds of thousands of mages from Alchemy City there. There were definitely people who did not like how Saleen was getting things done.


    Saleen then summoned the metal angels and had them see to the problem instead.


    The way metal angels see to their problems was through their swords. Level ten mages were not beings mages below level ten could have resisted.


    Hundreds of mages attempting to y tricks and cause trouble were killed and Saleen felt that to be a waste deep down. None of those people were bad people, yet they had to die nheless. Or else, hundreds of thousands of mages would have revolted and half of the army he brought would have had to die to suppress the revolt.


    Saleen overpowered the surrendering mages with an iron fist, taking space equipment of all of them. There were too many items among the mages¡¯ private equipment that were left around doing nothing. Some mages were of low levels did not know what kind of magic equipment they had acquired, yet they were reluctant to take them out, as Alchemy City would have taken those items away otherwise.


    Saleen wanted to take those items for himself as well, but he would have definitely paid.


    There were items with special properties, godly items left behind in the maind, as well as all manner rare materials. All of them were something Saleen was after. There was yet another reason for searching them. The quality of equipment possessed by the Alchemy City mages were of vastly differing quality. Most mages crafted equipment on their own while some others bought them at high prices. That would not have happened in Metatrin City. Mage equipment were things that would have been tailored to a mage¡¯s personal abilities. Regardless if the items were meant to be used in synchronization with others or on their own, they enabled the user mages to bring the greatest of their powers to bear.


    Having taken Alchemy City as his own exclusive domain, the hundreds of thousands of mages present were seen as his capital for attacking the Holy See. Mages in Metatrin City were meant for dealing with creatures of foreign nes, which meant that they cannot be sent to the frontlines.


    Under Saleen¡¯s coercion, the Alchemy City mages chose to submit.


    It was something easy to understand. Those who refused to submit to Alchemy City had all gone to Metatrin City. Since those mages before Saleen had been willing to submit to Alchemy City, none of them were in any mood to resist, since Saleen was still willing to trade after all.


    The body of the Great Elder was brought back and was projected for all to see using magic, with the image hanging high up in the air.

 Chapter 1415: Coercion (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1415: Coercion (Part 2)</h4>


    Safilos never expected the battle to have ended like that. He was ready to die in battle when he came, but Saleen actually managed to raid the headquarters and destroyed the Elemental Hand¡¯s core. Without a core to rally around, the mages below were all scattered and all of them surrendered.


    ¡°Saleen, mages like that are difficult to control instead!¡± Safilos quipped exasperatedly.


    ¡°You¡¯re right, and that¡¯s why I intend to reset the rules of the Elemental Hand.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re not going to disband the Elemental Hand then?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯d keep the Elemental Hand around to manage Alchemy City, while setting up the All-seeing Eye in Metatrin City. Mages of both sides have their own distinct ways to live.¡±


    ¡°The art of kings and emperors!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m unable toe up with better ways of going about things.¡±


    Safilos was in no mood to be concerned about Saleen¡¯s affairs. However, the empire had always held the mages in high regard. After Alchemy City attacked his territory, Safilos came to understand that if mages were not managed effectively, things would have gotten messed up quickly.


    The collection of all equipment would have taken some time to deal with. Saleen took his time to transport the mages. They were first sent to the Floating City and be watched over by the three elders of the Elemental Hand.


    The mages of Alchemy City were quickly envious of the magic as soon as they got to the Floating City. But, most mages came to feel that the magic was not the future of mages. Magics could encourage dependence, robbing the mages of their creativity.


    Only a handful of mages expressed the intention to stay behind in the Floating City, which was of course not allowed. However, Saleen stated that there was such a magic in Daliang City as well, enabling mages to easily cast all manner of skills.


    Magics were not exclusive to the enchanters. In truth, mages were capable of acquiring power from the magic as well, but the mages were not exempted from having to provide feedback to the God of Magic Net, in the form of mental powers and power of faith.


    The God of Magic Net acquired power every time the magic was used. Furthermore, the power was incredibly pure. That was because one had to be reverent to the magic sincerely, without any room for concealment, if one were to acquire magic from the magic.


    There might have been false believers among the believers of other gods, but not the God of Magic Net. Every use of magic within its vicinity was a trade.


    Saleen was relieved and happy to find that most mages from Alchemy City were unmoved. The magic¡¯s harm to mages far outweighed the benefits. If the magic were to truly be made widespread among the mages, magic, as a field of learning, would have stagnated. Despite the weak powers across Myers Maind at the moment, there were nheless creative magic seen, even if there were just those among level four or five ones.


    Saleen gradually cleared out the Baldur¡¯s Gate and let the Floating City take the prisoners to the otherir of Alchemy City, to take the remaining 30000 or so mages into their fold. There were over 100 thousand enchanters on the Floating City and they possessed absolute advantage at the moment. As such, Saleen did not see to it personally. He left behind in the Baldur¡¯s Gate with some of his trusted people, and began to work on the godly item.


    It was not difficult to work on godly items with spirits in them. The most important thing however, was that Saleen possessed one advantage that the nine elders of the Elemental Handcked¡ªhe possessed the power of the soul.


    Only one possessing the power of the soul would have been able to subjugate the weapon spirit named Juno. Otherwise, the weapon spirit would have been able to escape from being punished by the rules even if a contract with signed, taking the Baldur¡¯s Gate with it.


    If he were to not sign a contract with the weapon spirit, opting to kill it instead, things would have been safe for the moment, but it would have been near-impossible topletely revamp the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    It was not until mid January of the following year that Saleen had been able topletely finish working on the Baldur¡¯s Gate. The army of the Holy See had yet to make it past Kroraina borders at that moment.


    Prince Safilos returned to Holy Rock City instead of staying behind in his territory. He was feeling rather vexed about it nheless, as Saleen had almost took over his territory. There were two fleets setting up base there, and there was a Nature Temple built in the imperial city.


    The good thing was that Saleen had indeed made good on his word, building two fleets for him at half of what it would have cost. He had even sent men to help train Safilos¡¯ naval forces.


    Qin naval forces had always been mediocre. While Saleen¡¯s navy was still unable topare to that of Cloudflow, but it was at least on par with them in terms of equipment. What Saleen¡¯s navycked was butbat experience at sea.


    The equipment that Saleen had promised Safilos were all delivered. The armors and weapons that Saleen had deemed obsolete had all been given to Safilos like they cost nothing.


    Safilos did not keep a private army, but he was nheless able to tell how things were in the maind at the moment. He would not have been able to effectively ensure the stability of Qin, without building an army of his own. Qin forces had been spread out and difficult to gather at the moment. The affairs at Holy Rock City was simply a tug of war.


    The mages of the Golden ins never truly intended to gain control over the empire through Holy Rock City. What the Golden ins was after was to take control of elite troops of all four military towns behind the scenes.


    While the elites troops were forces that Safilos could have easily mobilized when he was a suprememander. Yet, when he stepped down, cohesion would have beencking if he were to assumemand again. Safilos finally made up his mind by then, that his current status would have allowed him to gather as many elite legions as he fancied.


    The only problem was where to get the finances to do so. Buying equipment, food, paying the units and developing training programs. All of that cost a lot and Safilos had never been some corrupt official. He was never able to get that much money on his own. As such, Saleen had been a lifesaver to him indeed.


    Saleen¡¯s financial prowess was actually inferior to that of the Qin Empire. His wealth came mostly from the hunt at the Oceanic Ice Block at the northern mines. Saleen had only been able to maintain the consumable materials of mages and warriors by seeing to the hunts and mining himself.


    He had to rely on the nobles and merchants that joined him to keep maintenance of the Kingdom of Metatrin. Those people were the ones keeping the country running. There was no way Saleen could have be a king in the demon ne. If he were to forge his path in Myers Maind, Saleen had to rely on those people.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gate was 66 meters tall and there were 730 parts used to construct it. There were four spaces within, and the one that Saleen took was the smallest of the four.


    Juno originally had control of all four spaces, but the weapon spirit had a hard time opening the other three due to having suffered a drop in levels. However, Saleen was not in a hurry. He wanted the Baldur¡¯s Gate mainly to mobilize his army for expeditions. While the Floating City was an excellent piece of equipment, but it was also a big fat target and warning sign, robbing him of any element of surprise.


    Saleen did not contact Safilos immediately after he was done working on the Baldur¡¯s Gate. Under Safilos¡¯ workings in secret, the Nature Faith had spread deep into southern Qin and began propagating the faith.


    The Holy See was being peculiar with how they fought, as they were unable to make any clear progress despite only fighting a ragtag band of Qin forces at the border. Things looked rather contradictory to how the assault began. Not even the traps that Saleen had prepared ended up used.


    Saleen cared little for the reasons behind all of that. He had subjugated the mages from Alchemy City and he had to nheless find them a ce to settle in. The Kingdom of Metatrin had no intentions of taking them in after all. Those mages and the ones in his own kingdom were two distinct types of people. Only a ce that had a strict hierarchy like Alchemy City was deemed suitable for those mages.


    The difference between people was just as distinct as that between man and beast.


    Alchemy City was still being at the best location within the southeastern regions of Qin. There were ins for producing food and natural harbors, as well as seaborne lines of defense and all manner of inds. Saleen still had a small number of people upying the Devil¡¯s Horn. Those people were tasked to keep a close eye on the skeletal dragon. The order he gave those people, once the dragon began to attack the inds, was to run.


    It was an extremely risky mission, as the skeletal dragon was capable of doing far more damage than Rafel, who had been sealed before, would have been capable of.


    Saleen¡¯s target was the skeletal dragon itself.


    After taking Alchemy City and rebuilding the Elemental Hand, the organization was made to be at odds with Saleen¡¯s All-seeing Eye on the surface, but those two organizations were in fact driving each other to progress. It was difficult for mages to y nice with each other, so Saleen took to setting the rules of the game himself instead.


    The weather at the south at January remained rather nasty. The forces that Saleen had gathered for offense numbered at only 30000, and the forces consisted of cavalries that Safilos built.


    There were hardly any humans within the other legions.


    The soldiers serving Saleen consisted mainly of demons. With the passage between nes loosening up at present, spirits were able to be summoned en masse, and the Winged Skull built another legion of spirits.


    Every soldier in that 30000-strong force that Safilos gathered was assigned with three enchanters. That was something hardly ever seen in the history of battles.


    It was the first time that the number of elemental maniption professionals surpassed that of warriors in the battlefield, and such ratios were made possible only by one like Saleen. The Floating City brought over 100 thousand enchanters to Alchemy City. Saleen¡¯s army brought along inside the Baldur¡¯s Gate, which he carried personally, heading for the skeletal dragon¡¯sir.


    Saleen did not send scouting parties and chose to have the Floating City stay airborne 30000 meters above instead, observing how things were from that height. Anyone who had gotten close to Alchemy City would have been detected by the skeletal dragon. Saleen knew the implications of level differences after he acquired the power of the soul.


    Even if he were to ambush his quarry using the Baldur¡¯s Gate, there would not have been any element of surprise in y still. Nothing could have been kept secret within the entire Alchemy City from the skeletal dragon after all.


    Saleen intended tounch a frontal assault instead that time.


    The Floating City had gathered enough power to take on the skeletal dragon. Other than the magic turrets at the bottom of the city, there were also huge amount of Thunder Dragon sters installed at the edge of the city.


    The power of those sters were marginally lower than that of Saleen¡¯s own equipment, yet as far as actual battles were concerned, they were consideredrge scale equipment nheless. Every lightning icicle fired was thicker that thergest wheel of any vehicle.


    Anti-spell, freezing, blocking and other additional effects were the forte of therge scale sters.


    Those Thunder Dragon sters were all crafted from attribute-less crystalline materials and every single ster, was handcrafted by Saleen personally. With those weapons installed, Saleen had no need to worry about the skeletal dragon taking flight and destroying the Floating City outright, for the time being.


    Hundreds of lightning icicles would have been shot as soon as the skeletal dragon takes flight. If the dragon were to dare take flight, the enchanters, number over 100 thousand, were still capable of calcting flight trajectories of the skeletal dragon after all.


    The greatest weakness to therge scale Thunder Dragon sters on the Floating City was their short range of attack.


    While Saleen¡¯s personally Thunder Dragon ster was capable of attacking targets tens of kilometers away, therge scale sters had the highest effective range of a meager 15 kilometers, which made them inferior to magic cannons in terms of range. If Saleen were to use those things, which came with a hefty cost to use, to attack the Alchemy City right off the bat, the Floating City would have needed to lower its altitude to below 15000 meters.


    Saleen had no certainty that would have worked, as he had little idea of what the skeletal dragon was truly capable of. He had to ensure the safety of his own Floating City before anything else.


    The Floating City shrouded the entire Alchemy City again. The sun in the sky was blocked off and the entire city below turned pitch ck. The half-dead loitering about in Alchemy City were unable to help but look up. A golden halo surrounded the Floating City around the edge over a dozen kilometers away as the sky darkened, which seemed to have been tainted with faint bloody colors.


    The skeletal dragon was still coiled at the core of Alchemy City. Large buildings over 100 meters tall were all toppled, and a nest housing the dragon consisting of bones was constructed. The skeletal dragon looked up and the viridian fires dancing in the dragon¡¯s eye sockets shed about.


    ¡°They¡¯re here...¡±

 Chapter 1416: Result of Clashing Head-on (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1416: Result of shing Head-on (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°They¡¯re here...¡± That was the only thing the skeletal dragon said when it looked at the sky.


    It seemed as if it had anticipated one such day. Humans and magic beasts were being snatched up from nearby within its boneir and used as construction materials. The lower half of the skeletal dragon already had scales and ws. The bones were no longer seen on the outside, a result of absorbing energy from living beings in an attempt to recover their bodies when they were alive.


    Though a powerful spirit, the skeletal dragon still had considerable weaknessespared to living dragons. If it had been able to regain its flesh and blood, returning to life effectively, itsbat capacity would have eclipsed that of normal dragons.


    This hadn¡¯t happened in hundreds of millions of years, though, simply because it wasn¡¯t permissible in the dragon ne.


    The skeletal dragon was currently a being of the highest power on Myers Maind. Without any restraints to keep its behavior in check, this spirit had be rather bold with its actions, posing challenges and opportunities to both the skeletal dragon and Myers Maind. With such a powerful body and soul, it would have triggered an early advancement for Myers Maind as a whole once it broke through its limits.


    Were that to happen, it would be the mostmanding presence on the entire Myers Maind. It would no longer have to seal itself inside Alchemy City, and it would have been able to roam thends freely. If the opportunity presented itself, it was thinking about establishing a kingdom of spirits there.


    Doing so, however, would have drawn the ire of the native powerful beings. But then again, the skeletal dragon feared nothing: It would have even offended the gods if that meant being able to advance to higher levels.


    No living beings would have wanted to live a mundane existence for the rest of their lives.


    Saleen brought Rafel and released the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier in secret as they graduallynded.


    All magic cannons on the Floating City were aimed at Saleen¡¯s surroundings. They would have fired as soon as the skeletal dragon attacked Saleen, thereby creating openings for him.


    Saleen dropped to a height of about 200 meters before stopping. That was the limit of the skeletal dragon¡¯s physical attack range. It couldunch attacks at about 200 meters, a result acquired from Saleen¡¯s own calctions. Nothing could be done about that. Even true mages would have only been able to attack targets slightly more than 100 meters away. Beyond that, they would have to resort to sword-aura attacks, since closing in on their targets right away would have been nearly impossible.


    The physical attack range of the skeletal dragon had exceeded that of level-12 true mages.


    Saleen noticed the flesh and blood that had grown in the lower half of the dragon¡¯s body. There were still half-dead humans in their. They were outraged at the dragon for having their flesh and blood and souls sucked away. But then again, since humans had a habit of tearing magic beasts apart, Saleen wouldn¡¯t have lost his cool because of that alone. There was nothing to be had between the two of them. He had originally intended to subjugate the skeletal dragon but from the look of things, it had developed a will of its own; having to submit to humans would have been nearly impossible.


    Free will was borne out of the power of the soul. If that happened before the power of the soul was manifested, it would have meant that the souls of those living beings were incredibly powerful.


    Saleen gave up in a heartbeat and no longer bothered with words. He fired a lightning icicle right at the skeletal dragon¡¯s eye socket. There was no way he could have gotten a lock-on at the dragon but since the dragon¡¯s head was so huge, to begin with, Saleen would have never missed it even if hadn¡¯t been an archer.


    Hundreds of wisps of viridian phosphorous fire shot from the dragon¡¯s eyes, blocking the lightning icicle¡¯s attack trajectory. It was a snap judgment of the skeletal dragon, a testament to its ability to stay alive, in a sense, for as long as it did. No doubt itsbat experience was thousands of times richer than Saleen¡¯s.


    It was worth noting that the skeletal dragon had been very weak when it was born and was in constant pain. The pride of the dragons gradually wore down. A yearning for the future and a reluctance to let go of the past were such that the skeletal dragon¡¯s soul fire was in a constant torturous state.


    Any skeletal dragon able to stay intact in the midst of all that pain must have had strong willpower and power of the soul, possibly even stronger than dragons. Skeletal dragons, however, were weaker since theycked flesh and blood, making casting dragon-tongue magic difficult. Worse still, they had lost the ability to use the dragon¡¯s breath, which robbed them of amon and frequently used skill.


    When Saleenunched a forceful attack out of the blue, the skeletal dragon could only spit out the equipment it had been crafted to resist, because of having an iplete body. Unlikemon mages whocked knowledge of umon magic, it fired dragon-scale fire it had gathered right away after seeing the eerie lightning magic patterns on Saleen¡¯s icicle.


    Dragon scales were not the hardest thing in the world, but they were capable of burning. The amount of energy packed inside was frightening. The lightning icicle shot downwards and tore through over 100 wisps of fires, giving the dragon a colossal headache.


    The dragon scales were mostly gathered from when it was still alive, with a handful gathered from the dragons hunting it down. The skeletal dragon dared not return to the dragon ne, hence the number of scales it was able to gather was small.


    Seeing how the use dragon-scale fires came with a hefty cost, the skeletal dragon spit out a longsword from its mouth. It was a dragon fang sword, not something crafted out of its own fang; it was fashioned from a fang from one of the dragons hunting it.


    Saleen¡¯s second lightning icicle rammed onto the sword, which had a tiny crack formed with a clink, which in turn was quickly repaired. The lightning icicle that was repelled spun around and still headed for the skeletal dragon.


    It was petrified. Anything capable of damaging dragon fangs was made of the hardest material in the world. The level of the icicle the mage fired was absurd. If it were to simply remain on the defensive, it would have probably lost the fight.


    Without hesitation, the skeletal dragon unleashed its territory right away.


    World of Spirits!


    Saleen released his lightning territory and contracted it, sending it inside the World of Spirits.


    The skeletal dragon¡¯s World of Spirits was not a huge one, because it had been used to amplify its power. The area within a four-kilometer radius was shrouded in its territory. A moon, which appeared in the sky all of a sudden, resembled the eerie moon in the spirit ne. It looked like a perfect circle yet itcked a living, fiery presence.


    Half the power of the moon came from the sun. The fires of the sun were easiest to absorb by elemental mages, even in the middle of the night. That was not how things were in the spirit ne. The power of the sun was extremely weak, and the moon had more power of rules instead, which made it all the more suitable for use of powers of the spirits.


    With the moon¡¯s emergence, Saleen felt as if his territory had been weakened. Despite having contracted it to a 100-meter radius, his territory was hardly of any use.


    The damned skeletal dragon had sealed its own power beyond level-13 and still packs this much punch with its territory?!


    That was pure, overwhelming power. While the moon¡¯s power of rules paled inparison to that of lightning, the problem was that the skeletal dragon itself had far higher power than Saleen.


    This is going to take forever!


    Saleen unleashed Fluorescence, which exploded in the air. The pumped-up warriors and mages charged outside the Baldur¡¯s Gate and headed straight for the other corners of Alchemy City.


    There were still untold numbers of half-dead beings lurking about in Alchemy City; all of them were the skeletal dragon¡¯sckeys. What Saleen was doing there effectively was clipping the skeletal dragon¡¯s wings.


    It refocused all its attention on Saleen. There was no need for it to be concerned with rescuing itsckeys. Only those capable of staying alive would have what it takes to serve it. It was a testament to the World of Spirit¡¯s brutality.


    ¡°You have a lot of help, mage. But you are weak,¡± the skeletal dragon looked at the sky and said.


    Rafel appeared at Saleen¡¯s side, holding a green spear in her hand. The divine power of the Inferno Spear was inadequate for taking on beings of levels like the skeletal dragon.


    Sika wanted to attack but was forbidden by Saleen. Her metal totem pole was definitely capable of hurting the skeletal dragon, but Sika would have put herself at risk doing so. Saleen was done putting Sika in any danger due solely to wanting to secure victories.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier hid behind Saleen and dared not attack on its own. It was unsure if the skeletal dragon was even aware of its existence. As far as guts were concerned, they paled inparison to its master.


    Saleen grinned slyly. The dragon spoke to him¡ªan act saying that the skeletal dragon was unsure of itself. He did not bother replying, opening the eyes of the Figure of Fate instead.


    The power of the Si of Silence was brought to the fore. The skeletal dragon felt as if everything had grinded to a halt, just like during its death...


    The glory when it was still alive!


    The skeletal dragon let out a terrifying roar and spit another piece of equipment from its mouth: a huge ax and a weapon of some unknown god, emanating might that would have made opponents shiver.


    The skeletal dragon died fighting the gods. It had absorbed some of the gods¡¯ power at the time of its death so that it could be converted to a spirit.


    It still possessed the memories from when it was alive, which stayed intact even after its conversion to its current form waspleted. It served as both its source of power and its source of pain.


    That ax was something left behind by a god it killed, which was also the most powerful equipment in the skeletal dragon¡¯s possession. Saleen possessed special weapons that put the skeletal dragon on guard.


    Using the Si of Silence, he could pinpoint the skeletal dragon¡¯s weakness in a second.


    The skeletal dragon¡¯s weakness did not lie within the soul fire in its eyes. Saleen was startled to discover yet another soul inside the skeletal dragon¡¯s body. That was something the skeletal dragon had conjured on its own. Ah, it wanted to resurrect itself!


    Rafel came before Saleen and thrust her spear. Hundreds of intense sonic booms were heard. That ax was knocked off by Rafel¡¯s spear and returned to the dragon¡¯s mouth.


    Rafel¡¯s face turned pale, and she almost lost feeling in one of her arms.


    Saleen took the chance and fired the five remaining lightning icicles into the skeletal dragon¡¯s eye sockets in one go. While it was not a location that would have proven lethal, he had no intention of exposing the fact that he knew of the dragon¡¯s weakness.


    The skeletal dragon was simply too powerful. His Si of Silence was unable to even slow the dragon down for more than six frames.


    The 200-meter distance was closed in at the greatest speed Saleen was able to muster. Still, it could not get within the required range of four frames. With the additional two frames required to cast magic, it made ying the skeletal dragon difficult even with the Crystal Finger.


    It was only then that Saleen realized that equipment was not all that reliable when facing off against super-powerful beings.


    His Si of Silence was practically ¡°against the rules¡± for being able to stop time and locate enemy weaknesses in an instant. That, coupled with his forceful methods of assault, would have enabled him to do almost anything. However, the dragon¡¯s ring of defense was right outside the range of his attacks.


    If he were to not use the Crystal Finger, the skeletal dragon would have had numerous ways of evading Saleen¡¯s attack from a distance. That soul within its body was not something Saleen could have targeted at a given moment.


    Many of Saleen¡¯s attacks would have hurt the skeletal dragon. But if he were to kill it outright, it would have been able to overwhelm and crush Saleen nheless even when beaten half to death.


    Not only did that huge ax fend off Rafel¡¯s attacks, it also blocked the remaining five lightning icicles. Saleen came to realize that the only things he had to kill the skeletal dragon with were ball lightning and his family badge.


    He never expected that, despite having avoided using that piece of equipment. In the end, he had to use it.

 Chapter 1417: Result of Clashing Head-on (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1417: Result of shing Head-on (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen was adamant: Seeing how the lightning icicles had failed to do their intended job, he brandished his family badge at once. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier took control of the golden dagger that suddenly appeared before the skeletal dragon¡¯s eye sockets.


    As the de was repelled with a ng, all the power within dissipated. The golden dagger¡¯s sharpness was insufficient to pierce the skeletal dragon¡¯s soul fire, as it had no way to ovee the powerful rules in its way.


    But the skeletal dragon¡¯s soul fire suffered considerably from the attack¡ªand this made it furious!


    Such was the rage of spirits, which was beyond the skeletal dragon¡¯s control.


    It struggled as it pped its bone wings and took to the sky, heading straight for the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier. The weapon spirit let out a panicky yelp and retreated to the magic amplifier without waiting for Saleen¡¯s orders.


    With it running away like that, Saleen lost anotheryer of protection.


    Rafel snorted coldly and tossed the spear to her left hand before chasing the skeletal dragon.


    Another silhouette, however, was emerging from the magic amplifier: the Violet Angel. When Saleen found it, it waspletely intact and showed no signs of having been used for research. The Violet Angel was well versed with the War Drum of Fear through years of use. Its level was such that it had no problem confusing several mages who were studying it.


    It was recovering inside the Baldur¡¯s Gate, where it was having a great time, and let an illusion take its ce. When Saleen came to attack the ce, it got so scared it hid where it was originally held.


    The Violet Angel was technically freed. Because it did not end up alerting the Elemental Hand¡¯s core members, it should have returned sooner to deliver the news. As such, when Saleen found it, it dismembered itself to invoke Saleen¡¯s sympathy.


    Its feeble attempts at dismemberment were faulty due to its reluctance to actually hurt itself. Saleen saw that immediately. He simply threw it back into the magic amplifier and ignored it altogether instead, not even bothering to heal or help it.


    The Violet Angel panicked, fearing Saleen would have never used afterward.


    Knowing no one in the magic amplifier and unable to find someone to speak on its behalf, the Violet Angel resorted to having its body restored to its usual state and waited for Saleen to summon it.


    Saleen didn¡¯t bother to do this. Even after he finished working on the Baldur¡¯s Gate during his time in there, the Violet Angel still couldn¡¯t see itself being summoned by Saleen.


    Saleen found the Violet Angel irksome yet amusing. Among the weird beings he¡¯d picked up, the Violet Angel stood out. It was a mass of contradictions! It had had a major attitude yet was ridiculous. It possessed formidable powers yet had no guts to speak of. Fortunately, it was a puppet with inherently limited curiosity, or it would have gone around looking for trouble.


    He had not forgotten about the Violet Angel at all. He deliberately ignored it o serve as a warning to the puppet, telling it to know its boundaries with its future dealings. If the Violet Angel had really been able to sneak them some intel regarding the Elemental Hand, the Qin army would not have suffered such immense losses.


    Saleen had only brought a 400,000-strong army to the Baldur¡¯s Gate. One-tenth of the troops died when attacking the Mages¡¯ Castle, with more than 60,000 people there ending up as corpses.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s level was high enough. Despite having been thrown into cold storage, it still had ess to the multiple spaces in the magic amplifier. That¡¯s why when it knew about Saleen¡¯s n of attack, the Violet Angel prepared itself amply, intending to get Saleen¡¯s attention.


    In actual fact, it was indifferent about Saleen paying any attention to it, but then again, Rafel showed no interest either.


    How could this be?


    The Violet Angel hid in the invisible magic amplifier hanging midair. From the outside, one could easily see all the spaces inside the magic amplifier. The Violet Angel was pissed seeing the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier retreating, berating the weapon spirit for running away from the battlefield.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was a bully who relished picking on the weak while fearing the strong. It took its sweet time beating up Juno because of thetter¡¯sck of powers. Seeing how the Violet Angel was being so forceful, it tried to weasel out of its predicament by saying, ¡°I¡¯m the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier. It would have been enough for me to simply boost the power of the magic amplifier. If you¡¯re so keen on fighting, go out and do it yourself!¡±


    The Violet Angel then said, ¡°You don¡¯t have to tell me twice!¡±


    It then flew outside the magic amplifier and headed straight for the skeletal dragon.


    It then smirked coldly behind, ¡°Some idiot has a death wish. That skeletal dragon is probably around level-15. You really think you cane back alive fighting that thing?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s so unbing of you as a weapon spirit,¡± Juno interjected from the side.


    ¡°Since when are you allowed to talk?¡± The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier then beat up Juno, who was unable to recover its power right away, seeing how it was being sarcastic. The weapon spirit threw a punch at Juno and sent the other weapon spirit writhing on the ground, also unable to recover for the time being.


    The Violet Angel regretted charging outside the magic amplifier. Its level of powers still allowed it to see that the skeletal dragon was more powerful than it was. But it quickly straightened itself up and dusted itself off. I¡¯m a puppet, so what¡¯s to be afraid of? The worse that could happen is getting beaten to a pulp.


    Fighting alongside Rafel felt exhrating and memorable.


    The Violet Angel spread its metal wings and headed for the skeletal dragon poetically.


    ¡°What the hell¡¯s up with this guy...¡± Saleen was exasperated. The Violet Angel went into hiding when it should have been doing something. Charging at the skeletal dragon just now was akin to digging its own grave.


    The skeletal dragon chomped down hard, revealing two rows of giant fangs that attacked the Violet Angel midair. If those illusory teeth managed to make contact with the Violet Angel, it would have taken a miracle to revive it. The eerie fangs were filled with an aura of death. Any ordinary soul would have dissipated in an instant merely by being grazed.


    The terrifying thing about the skeletal dragon was that all its attacks were capable of harming souls.


    The Violet Angel vibrated its wings and elerated, while Rafel called out in a startled manner before passing through the rows of fangs andnding on the skeletal dragon¡¯s long snout. A huge drill was conjured from the Violet Angel¡¯s abdomen.


    Whirrllllll...


    The drill was filled with crystallized metal that Saleen had given it. The high-speed spinning of the drill caused bone dust to fly from the dragon¡¯s nose.


    Did the skeletal dragon panic? Not at all. It swatted with its killing ws. The Violet Angel dropped below. The ws then mped themselves on the nose, which caused no damage to its body.


    The Violet Angel had some ideas up its sleeve; they were wasted on a clever being like the skeletal dragon who would never have fallen for them.


    Saleen thought it was too bad he couldn¡¯t use Glimmer or he would have been able to evade the dragon¡¯s attacks easily.


    The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers in the elemental badge then provided him with rich-earth elemental power as those thoughts crossed his mind. A yellow light shed on his feet as he began moving midair.


    It could be said that Saleen had already mastered all the level-11 skills. While this still paled inparison to what Arb was capable of, it was far cry from Jalin¡¯s. The sidestep caused the skeletal dragon to miss the mark. Saleen zipped past the dragon and released his lightning badge¡¯s powers.


    The skeletal dragon had been careless, or rather, had underestimated Saleen. Whereas other mages feared being closed in by their enemies, Saleen charged ahead with full force the whole time. Of all the battles he¡¯d fought, few were waged at distant locations.


    Even if the enemy intended to run, he would have cut them down.


    The Crystal Finger was the most adept at using had powers that were considerably diminished when used more than ten meters away. That enabled Saleen to develop a habit for fighting up close, a trait that set him apart from other mages.


    The closer he was to the enemy, the better he felt about the way things were going.


    The skeletal dragon would not have expected any mage to risk his neck like that. Not only did the mage zip past its body, but he also counterattacked.


    The electrical bolt fired from Saleen¡¯s family badge that time was only about half a meter thick. sting through the dragon¡¯s body, it was blocked by something before that piece of soul, before gushing like a torrent.


    Owwrrr!


    The skeletal dragon let out a savage cry that sounded nothing like a noble dragon. The bit of dragon soul it had painstaking built was destroyed in no time t. That was the point where things usually turned lethal. If this didn¡¯te to pass, it would have killed the dragon outright.


    With a body housing two souls, what Saleen did was cut off its path to advancement.


    The skeletal dragon might have only wanted to chase Saleen off before, but now, more than anything, it wanted to see Saleen dead.


    The skeletal dragon dived and banged hard on Saleen¡¯s body. Magical light kept shing on Saleen¡¯s body asyers of magic shields were crushed. Eventually, a humanoid silhouette fell outside of Saleen¡¯s body and quickly disappeared.


    That was the life force within the Figure of Fate, torn to shreds by the skeletal dragon.


    Seeing that Saleen was in trouble, Rafel drew the power of the goddess from her spear forthwith and thrust it without care, drawing a jury-rigged divine rune-charm array midair.


    Boundless golden light shed and coalesced into a huge metal midair, separating Saleen from the skeletal dragon.


    ¡°Damned divine arts and damned mage. You¡¯re in bed with the gods!¡± The skeletal dragon died fighting the gods. While it did eventually manage to kill the god it was fighting, its resentment and hatred of the gods had simply deepened.


    Rafel¡¯s divine arts had ended up enraging the skeletal dragon. It swiped itsrge tail sideways, not caring that the Violet Angel was diving from above with its arms turning into spears anding straight for the dragon¡¯s eyes.


    The huge metal Rafel had conjured with divine power was torn to pieces.


    Yellow light glowed beneath Saleen¡¯s feet. The skeletal dragon¡¯s spirit territory made it difficult for him to gather elements. His lightning territory shrank to the point where it was stered to its body, preventing it from being corroded by the deathly aura.


    If he was any other mage, he would have long been assimted into a spirit for fighting at such a close range with the skeletal dragon.


    If Saleen hadn¡¯t brought elemental badges with him, he would probably have only been able to cast water magic and be unable to use powers of other magic. The flight made possible from using water magic paled inparison to that of earth magic. That¡¯s how things were inbat.


    Saleen continued to step on yellow light as he zipped about midair at high speeds. He was grazed by the bone wings, and that almost killed him. He dared not let his guard down anymore. The skeletal dragon¡¯s attack speed was more than ten times faster than what he ever imagined.


    Worse, his family badge had without a doubt destroyed that dragon soul in the skeletal dragon¡¯s body. For some reason, the dragon did not manage to survive; it went totally berserk.


    Saleen didn¡¯t know that what he had seen using the Si of Silence was not wrong and not the key to the dragon¡¯s life, regardless of how important that dragon soul was to it.


    If Saleen showed upter, the skeletal dragon would have submitted its body to that dragon soul and taken the form of a living dragon. It was still a skeletal dragon at the moment. What Saleen had destroyed was its hope of further survival.


    Without that dragon soul, it was condemned to spend the rest of its existence as a skeletal dragon. Worse still, the mage that hurt it was in bed with the gods. He was done for!


    The dragon¡¯s eyes were blood red and shot fires of death. The ability of those fires in melting materials surpassed Saleen¡¯s Water me.


    Not only did that head-on sh result in the failure to y the dragon, but it also caused it to go berserk. It did not care about dying, so long as it was able to kill the mage that had so enraged it.

 Chapter 1418: Pride (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1418: Pride (Part 1)</h4>


    The pride of the dragons was etched in the body of that skeletal dragon. The memories of when it was alive were kept intact; they were its pain and its honor.


    Saleen¡¯s soul trembled. He couldn¡¯t do anything about this reaction¡ªit always happened when facing off against powerful beings.


    Saleen¡¯s feet glowed with yellow light again. That time, he sucked the energy of an Elemental Stone Statue Soldier dry, causing the elemental creature to fall into a slumber.


    Saleen moved to the head of that skeletal dragon and pressed eight Armoring Lightning Beads into its skull.


    A loud explosion went off. The skeletal dragon tried to use power of the spirits to remove the beads.


    While the beads¡¯ power was far from raging, the energy they contained exceeded the dragon¡¯s calction. It was he who had miscalcted this time. Saleen quickly retreated as Rafel unleashed green divine power from her spear that coalesced into crystals in the air, trapping the dragon inside.


    It was the Wall of Gods, which was something like the gods¡¯ version of a territory.


    The skeletal dragon iled. Using brute force, it tried using its body¡¯s power to break through the wall using. Cracks on its skull were quickly patched up.


    Rafel still had to be adept at using the goddess¡¯s power. If it had been divine power from the Metal God, she could have ensured that the cracks never healed. It wouldn¡¯t have been until the fight was over that the skeletal dragon would have had the chance to patch itself up.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s twin spears were jabbed into the skeletal dragon¡¯s eyes. Bone pieces flew out as the spears stuck.


    The Violet Angel gave up the spears without hesitation despite having used them as its arms.


    The front half of the spears instantly corroded, a result of spirit power. The Violet Angel would not have been able to resist the attack, regardless of the quality of materials its body was constructed of. The move of overpowering by rules almost cost the Violet Angel its life.


    Rafel looked glum as her body expanded to a height of over 20 meters. The Violet Angel shook its body around as well, growing a pair of arms to a height of around 30 meters.


    Those heights were the best size for fighting. Crystal clear light shot from Rafel¡¯s golden eyes.


    She switched to her own weapon¡ªthe Inferno Spear.


    Hundreds of weapons were conjured on the surface of the Violet Angel¡¯s body. All were experimental weapons developed by Saleen, which he put in its body to allow the puppet to use them at will. Experimental weapons might not have been stable, but there was no doubt about their exceptional power and attributes.


    The Violet Angel paid no attention to any of that. Instead. It was quite pleased that Saleen used it for experimentation. If it were to simply advance along conventional lines, it would have died before ever reaching level-14. Only by allowing Saleen to keep doing experiments with it did this weapon have a chance to change its fate.


    Hundreds of attacks hit the skeletal dragon; the huge beast shrugged it all off. It turned around and spat out arge ax hoping to cleave Saleen with it. It quickly discovered, however, that targeting Saleen was impossible unless it could undo its seal.


    If it were to do that, it would not havested very long.


    ¡°O¡¯ Dragon God of old, the insignificance of my being caused me to fall, yet I pray to you on this day, in hopes of returning to your embrace. Give me a ce in the world of dragons, allow my soul to resurrect and find peace, in the graves of the dragons.¡± The skeletal dragon actually began to pray.


    The Dragon God was not an actual god, for it possessed no divine persona and no divine kingdom. What it did possess was a graveyard of dragons. The souls of all dead dragons would have only found peace when they entered this final resting ce.


    ¡°Dream all you want, skeletal dragon. I shall curse you right here that you would never find the passage back to the kingdom of dragons,¡± Saleen shouted and unleashed four-ball lightning, directing them into the bone dragon¡¯s body to create chaos.


    He knew there was no way he would have been able to send them into the dragon¡¯s eye sockets even though they were of the size of a well.


    The ball lightning pierced the skeletal dragon¡¯s body and it howled in rage. It had no idea if Saleen¡¯s curse would have materialized, but it seemed as if its soul had been chained to Myers Maind.


    ¡°Puny mage! If I were to never return, then I shall take you with me in death!¡± White bone spikes shot out of the skeletal dragon¡¯s body. The Violet Angel that threw itself straight at the dragon was pierced. All sorts of parts fell from its body, turning it gray. Then it began to rot.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s body split up and it ran in shambles, leaving half of its body behind. That was a very serious injury.


    Over 100 magic cannons bombarded from above. Saleen climbed on and baited the skeletal dragon to follow him. The beast gave chase even though it was reluctant to let that enemy go. It vibrated its bone wings and took off. Even if Saleen headed straight to the abyss, it would have pursued him even if it meant falling again.


    Hundreds of beams of light struck the skeletal dragon and sent pieces of bones flying every which way. Those injuries quickly healed.


    The thundering sound continued crackling from inside the skeletal dragon¡¯s body. Both lightning beads and ball light raged, destroying the internal structure of the skeletal dragon. The speed at which the destruction was wrought finally exceeded the rate at which the dragon patched its body.


    ¡°My death shall be forgiven and I shall take your soul to the Dragon God for judgment!¡± The skeletal dragon bellowed in an ancient dragon tongue while chasing after Saleen. The huge ax shot from its mouth again. Saleen disappeared without a trace as it was cleaved by the ax, confirming that it was just an illusion.


    It was unknown when Saleen ced a bunch of illusions behind him that stacked with his real body. One illusion after another trailed after Saleen as the yellow light on his feet glowed. It was difficult to tell the real thing from the illusions.


    When the ax burst and broke 12 Thundering Phantasms, Saleen finally understood that the deathly power on it had been depleted.


    His robe turned golden and the runes on it unleashed an indescribable ring of fire.


    The temperature at the center of the ring was frighteningly low while the exterior made the dragon hesitant to get near.


    The sudden light made Saleen look as if he was a burning sun.


    Saleen protected himself using Water me Alchemy, so he unleashed water elemental transmuted magic, which caused fire element to be thoroughly consumed. The defensive move was also an offensive one: It blocked the ax¡¯s attack while retaliating.


    Saleen turned around at that moment and pointed his finger. The Crystal Finger was aimed squarely at one of the dragon¡¯s eyes. The white beam from the move obliterated the soul me in that dragon¡¯s left eye.


    The skeletal dragon was severely injured by that move, which was the equivalent to having half its soul crushed by Saleen, making recovery impossible.


    The dragon¡¯s form made it so that it had to rely on the power of the soul me to fight. Because of its ns of resurrection, half its body returned to its original living dragon state, filled with flesh and blood. It was a reversal skill of the half-dead that the dragon used to restore some parts of its body as well as abilities as a living dragon.


    Pfftt...


    Near the abdominal area near the tail, hundreds of scales shot out, intending to drown Saleen in a rain of dragon scales.


    Every single dragon scale contained rules that the skeletal dragon had developed when it was still alive. If it were still a true living dragon, that attack would have only caused it some light injuries. Given that it was a skeletal dragon shooting out scales it had painstakingly conjured, it meant that those power of rules would have left it for good.


    That was how determined the skeletal dragon was. Now Saleen was in a crisis.


    ¡°Master!¡± The Violet Angel panicked and its body disintegrated further, leaving only its head behind. Its upper body was transmuted into thousands of parts that were flying out to block the attack off for Saleen.


    Rafel¡¯s face was tense. As she iled her Inferno Spear around, a dark red space encircled Saleen in an instant. The matter inside the space felt like rusted metal. That skill was called the Metal Territory.


    There was little need to talk about the part materials on the Violet Angel, as they consisted of the best materials Saleen was able to gather. After the metal space was formed, all of those parts were sucked into the Metal Territory, turning into miniaturized metal angels flying at the dragon scales.


    Saleen felt as if he had been locked onto by strong power of the soul. As a result, he couldn¡¯t move. His elemental creatures gave their all to cast skills and to try to make him escape, but they were unable to break through the deathly moon of the skeletal dragon.


    Under the light of the moon, the Metal Territory continued to crumble.


    Hundreds of pieces of dragon scales cut the Metal Territory up into pieces in an instant. It was only then that Saleen regained his freedom and cast Water Shield. After the scales tore up the Metal Territory, they lost their sharpness and were unable to break through Saleen¡¯s defense when they banged onto the Water Shield.


    With half his magic chords consumed and power of the soul almost depleted, the divine crystal in his hand was quickly disintegrated to replenish his power of the soul. The dragon sustained harrowing injuries: The lower half of its body was bloodied while thundering noises continued to be heard in the upper half. The Armoring Lightning Beads and ball lightning tore up the skeletal dragon¡¯s internal structures and worsened its injuries.


    The dragon brought its ws down. It no longer minded dying, so long as it was able to take Saleen with it right there and then.


    Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier blocked the dragon¡¯s ws. It appeared with a crack and stopped the w¡¯s advance. The weapon spirit within the magic amplifier roared in protest.


    It had originally intended to avoid fighting since Saleen had used the magic amplifier to block the dragon¡¯s attack it had no way of evading.


    The sh ended requiring the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier to use all of its powers to protect the space within the magic amplifier. It felt as if it was about toe undone. The dragon¡¯s ws were not in as good shape either. Whatever flesh was left on them had pretty much sttered everywhere.


    Saleen was thrown off by the power of the w attack. Because the magic amplifier had blocked the attack, Saleen didn¡¯t suffer much damage. No so the skeletal dragon: it suffered half the damage it dealt from the recoil.


    The Skeletal dragon was unwilling to let Saleen escape. The injuries on his body became much more severe. It looked up and saw the Violet Angel, who had only its head left behind. The dragon vibrated its wings and shot up.


    Rafel knew things were going south and threw its Inferno Spear from behind, targeting the back of the dragon¡¯s head. The dragon swished its tail and caused the Inferno Spear to lose its target, piercing the tail bone of the dragon instead.


    The skeletal dragon held the intense pain in and swallowed the head of the Violet Angel.


    It was able to tell that the Violet Angel¡¯s level was not low and the energy within enabled it to patch up its wounds. As such, it let Saleen off for the moment and waspelled to eat up that peculiar puppet. As soon as it patched up some of its injuries, it was time to kill that mage.

 Chapter 1419: Pride (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1419: Pride (Part 2)</h4>


    The magic cannons high up in the sky fired at the same time for the second time. The Floating City even lowered its altitude, getting ready to really duke it out with the skeletal dragon.


    The God of Magic Net had no need to be concerned about the Floating City¡¯s safety. It needed to get within 15000 meters from the dragon to make use of the Thunder Dragon sters.


    The fear felt by the Violet Angel was intense. It was wondering if it would have simply been digested or be a spirit after being gobbled by the dragon.


    Rafel yelled as well. She yelled because she was concerned for one of her own. There were few moments wherebat angels fight solely on their own. Rafel was instinctively concerned for one she considered arade.


    The Violet Angel heard Rafel¡¯s cry when it was gobbled up by the dragon, causing it to sh a contented smile on its face.


    She yelled for me!


    Oh yeah...


    A huge lightning cage appeared from within the Violet Angel¡¯s head, making it stuck at the dragon¡¯s throat.


    The skeletal dragon¡¯s mouth was prevented from closing right there and then. Not only was its mouth unable to close, it also felt very awful. The electricity running throughout the cage was far more powerful than those in Saleen¡¯s territory. With one such thing stuck at its throat, something it was neither able to swallow nor spit, the skeletal dragon wiggled about in the air and almost fell to the ground.


    Yellow light shed again at Saleen¡¯s feet. He turned around midair and came right before the skeletal dragon again, sending another ball lightning in his hand into the other eye socket of the dragon.


    Boom!


    The ball lightning exploded, tearing the skeletal dragon¡¯s soul me to shreds. The dragon was no longer capable of flight by then and finally crashed to the ground.


    Saleen did not expect for the fight to end in such a way. The Violet Angel¡¯sbat capacity was the weakest among the three of them, yet the skeletal dragon¡¯s failure was totally attributed to it having swallowed the Violet Angel¡¯s head.


    ¡°Light them up!¡± Saleen only gave the order by then. His voice sounded like thunder and reverberated throughout the sky above Alchemy City.


    He then brought Rafel to the ground. The Floating City came all the way down and the enchanters began cleaning up the half-dead in the city below. Those half-dead were powerful beings nheless, and there were quite a number of them being of level ten and above.


    However,pared to the skeletal dragon, the Floating City had little to worry about, as there was no need to worry about those half-dead climbing up to the Floating City after all.


    Saleen came to the dragon¡¯s side and a huge axe was found on the ground. The weapon was a godly item.


    He did not bother with the godly item. The skeletal dragon was not yet dead. Yellow light glittered beneath his feet. He stood in midair and looked at the dragon beneath.


    ¡°Mage, please don¡¯t make me into a puppet.¡± The dragon¡¯s voice had turned rather muddled by then. The Violet Angel¡¯s head was still stuck in its throat, making it feel nauseous when it talked. It was actually all in its head. As a spirit, it was the power of its soul that enabled it to speak after all.


    ¡°Why?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Please have some respect for me. There is no harm for you to do that.¡±


    ¡°But you intended to kill me, and my temperament dictates that I tear you to pieces and work on you bit by bit. Of course, you have a point, but one needs to pay the equivalent of what one intends to get. You want my respect, then you¡¯d better offer me something in return.¡±


    The skeletal dragon breathed a long sigh.


    Saleen only lowered his altitude somewhat. He was afraid of the dragon retaliating right before it died, so he dared not stick to close to it.


    It wanted a dignified death, yet it had been giving it all to attack Saleen mere moments ago. There was no way Saleen would not have harbored any resentment. To dragons, it was imperative for them to keep their bodies in one piece when they die, and in this case, it all depended on what it was able to offer.


    Could I just tell the young mage that he is a good guy?


    The mage apparently is not a good guy. He would not have killed so many of Alchemy City¡¯s mages back then otherwise. The skeletal dragon remembered that well. When it came to set up shop there back then, it was at the time when the fighting there was at the most intense stage. That young mage had brought the huge Floating City and went on a killing spree.


    ¡°Mage, I have one thing to trade with you, which probably couldn¡¯tpare to my body though.¡±


    ¡°Speak.¡±


    ¡°I have a set of dragon graveyard coordinates, but that is the graveyard in ancient times and there is no ghost dragons keeping watch there. You might not find bone remains suitable for your use.¡±


    Saleen hesitated. A graveyard without ghost dragons keeping watch and it was one dating back to ancient times. Such a ce might have been deserted for hundreds of millions of years. Dragon bones in such a graveyard might have been picked clean by the gods of ancient humans.


    But then again, such a ce would not have been dangerous as well.


    Ghost dragons would have only been more powerful than skeletal dragons, not weaker.


    ¡°If you¡¯re willing to exchange, I would provide you with the coordinates. Please ce my dead body in that deserted graveyard.¡± The eye socket of the skeletal dragon had been broken from explosions. The soul me within was scattered and difficult to put together again.


    ¡°If I¡¯m unable to find anything in that graveyard, I would have your bones instead.¡± Saleen somehow barely agreed to the dragon¡¯s request.


    Even if there was only a tiny bit of deathly powers left in that graveyard, it would have been hugely important to the Winged Skull nheless. Powers of death were things that would have settled. If those powers turned out to be precipitates dating back tens of billions of years ago, even one tiny bit would have enabled the Winged Skull to advance and acquire spirit rules without problems.


    Even if all that was left was a bunch of eroded bones, the bone dust would have been useful for the Winged Skull to create intelligent spirits nheless.


    However, there was no way Saleen would have let that skeletal dragon off easily.


    Seeing how hesitant Saleen was with his answer, the skeletal dragon breathed a sigh of relief instead. Regardless of pesky mages were, there was one thing about them that everyone liked, and that was the fact that there were few mages who would have gone back on their word.


    Saleen did not collect thest of the skeletal dragon¡¯s soul me. The power of the ball lightning had scraped off any useful bits of the soul me. After Saleen acquired the coordinates, he dug out the Violet Angel¡¯s head and put away the dragon¡¯s dead body, before heading back to the Floating City right away.


    There was little to the imagination of what any battles in Alchemy City that followed.


    Regardless of how powerful the half-dead might have been, flying units were practically unheard of after all.


    The Floating City loomed high from above and was purely on the offensive, without needing to be concerned with defense at all. As soon as powerful half-dead were found, they were locked onto byrge scale Thunder Dragon sters, which were especially effective against spirit and holy types of creatures.


    About half a month was spent cleaning up the ce, as half-dead were very resilient creatures and their numbers were just too massive. It was not until the start of February that Saleen had finally cleaned up Alchemy City. He then spent another half a month to repair destroyed buildings and broken walls.


    Once the Elemental Hand was set up once again, Saleen would have never needed to see to any of that personally.


    His current goal was the dragon graveyard.


    The coordinates provided by that skeletal dragon was not all that far away ording to the calctions. Furthermore, the coordinates were in great rity. Saleen did his calctions using astrology and found nothing particrly dangerous about the space.


    Saleen had the Inter-dimension teleportation portal built when the construction at Alchemy City was almost finished, before bringing the Winged Skull and Rafel to the dragon graveyard.


    Daniel was going with them as well.


    Daniel never expected something like that would have happened. He was a death mage and if he were to be able to get to a dragon graveyard that was devoid of any danger, he would definitely be advancing to level 10 in one way or another. Even if he were to be horrendously untalented, no danger would havee to him with Saleen and the Winged Skull around.


    His dead soul me was something that was refined with the help from the Winged Skull in the first ce. He would not have been at even level nine otherwise.


    The light on the portalsted for only a brief moment. After making past spatial vibrations and endless darkness, Saleen found his feet on a dark, cold piece ofnd.


    It was a pitch ck continent without sun or moon hanging in the sky, just very weak stars. There were no clouds above and there was no wind blowing on the ground.


    The ce was almost vacuum and the air around made breathing difficult as well.


    Saleen had Daniel return to his magic amplifier. The Floating City was left behind on Myers Maind. The magic cube within the magic amplifier was more than enough for Saleen to bring a massive legion with him.


    At the time when Saleen was at the dragon graveyard, the Elemental Hand members were at a tower inside Alchemy City. A young fallen holy master faced the three mage trainers and said, ¡°My name is Van Gogh and I have once served the ck Dungeon.¡±


    ¡°You said that you have important business. What would that be?¡± The mage trainers hurried him impatiently. They were hardly interested in fallen holy masters after all.


    ¡°I¡¯m here on behalf of Saleen, to kill you people,¡± Van Gogh grinned and said.


    ¡°Hah...¡±


    ¡°If Saleen wanted us dead, he would have done it himself. Now die!¡± All three of them attacked at the same time. Dimensional de, Firestorm and a very simple Dark Blue Chant.


    Van Gogh smirked and his body disappeared all of a sudden. The mage trainers lost their targets and dispelled the spells they have just cast.


    All three of them were totally calm and collected facing Saleen, due to his overly terrifying equipment. He was nheless a level 11 mage as well, and his magical abilities were top ss in the world.


    ¡°In that case, there is little else to be said...¡± Van Gogh appeared again, as if he had emerged from a parallel dimension.


    ¡°Silence!¡¯ A mage trainer shouted. He had no intention of letting a fallen holy master cast lesser prophecy spells. Fallen divine arts like that were eerie after all.


    ¡°Stop wasting your time.¡± Van Gogh¡¯s body disappeared yet again and by the time he reappeared, Silence had worn off. He was actually capable of shaking off being targeted.


    ¡°Dear god whom I have once served, may thou allow me to steal thy power to judge the ones before me,¡± Van Gogh¡¯s prayers sounded rather insolent, yet the following phenomenon caused all three of them to be shocked.


    Space shifted within the tower and thend beneath their feet turned fiery hot.


    That was purgatory. A group of purgatory dwellers were repelling soldiers at a faraway mountain, making their way to a pce near a volcano.


    The fallen holy master had actually dragged all three of them to purgatory, using only his own power.


    Van Gogh smirked and said, ¡°Settle down and figure out how to get out of here on your own. I¡¯m heading back.¡±


    ¡°Wait...¡±


    The three mage trainers called and quickly shut up, recalling the indestructible contracts they signed with Saleen and felt dejected. They did not so much have a chance of surrendering.


    Van Gogh disappeared from the purgatory ne and reappeared in the tower. The sweat on his body had drenched his shirt.


    ¡°Goddamn it. Fallen divine arts cost a lot to cast indeed!¡±


    Van Gogh listened for sounds outside the door and found nothing. He then came to a seat and took out a piece of ck divine crystal, holding it as he sat and meditated.

 Chapter 1420: Personal Plane (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1420: Personal ne (Part 1)</h4>


    Something like that absolutely would not have happened in Metatrin City. Saleen did not get involved with the rebuilding of the Elemental Hand. Internal affairs with the Elemental Hand were still rather messy at the moment. As such, Van Gogh dared to stay inside the core room of the Elemental Hand to meditate to recover his mental powers.


    There was no way those three mages would have died despite being thrown to the purgatory ne. The powers of those three would have enabled them to easily hide from the creatures of the purgatory ne, so long as they stayed out of the way of the God of Underworld.


    Van Gogh¡¯s level was low enough that he needed to take a long break after using the power of the godly item.


    He rose with a bitter smirk from the chair after an hour.


    But then again, he had aplished what he set to do in order to ruin Saleen¡¯s ns. He opened the window and dropped to the ground alongside the window. The tower was over 100 meters tall and there were hardly anyone patrolling in the dark of the night. He go to the ground without problems and the robe he wore turned grey, with a magic marking added to it.


    That was a sign of level four mage. The number of such mages was the highest in Alchemy City, preventing him from alerting anyone. He put on the hood and walked slowly, leaving the tower at the core of Alchemy City.


    Some mages finally thought something was off after over an hour passed. Why isn¡¯t there anything happening with the three elders meeting with the fallen holy master?


    Someone steeled themselves and opened the door, finding no one inside and sounded the rm immediately.


    The Alchemy City was thrown into chaos right away as magic rms were heard everywhere. However, Van Gogh, who was disguised as a level four grand mage, lookedpletely natural with the surroundings around him. All of those who had seen his face would have been affected by fallen divine arts and unable to recall what he looked like.


    Saleen was not in that ne and the Alchemy City mages did not know how to handle all of that.


    Saleen did not expect Van Gogh to get him into trouble as soon as he left. There was no way Van Gogh would have pulled what he did without preparations. It was very dangerous for him to take on three level 11 mages after all. If he was not armed with special godly items, he would have had to take on three level 11 mages at once, and the possibility of him dying from the confrontation would have been very high.


    There were many dragon graveyards, with a great majority of them found within the dragon ne. However, like humans, dragons too have traveled all over the crystal wall system. The dragons were able to set up shop and flourished in some nes.


    It was especially so in subcontinent nes. It was difficult for the power of humans to reach pinnacle state there, and the effects on the dragons would have been even more profound in the case of the dragons.


    Dragons would have built graveyards in such nes, to serve as resting ce for their dead.


    That ne Saleen was in at the moment was already dead. The coordinates given by the skeletal dragon was not within the inner parts of the dragon graveyard, but on some ins and there was a river before them. If the coordinates were to be skewed just a tiny bit more, Saleen would have been teleported into the water instead.


    Saleen did not find any living beings as far as he was able to see. There were not fishes or shrimps or even weed within the river.


    The ce was filled with deathly aura, prompting the Winged Skull to perform an action mimicking taking deep breaths.


    Daniel cast dead soul me right away, absorbing the power of the ne in a frenzy.


    The ce was devoid of life and yet it did not turn into a spirit ne. That ce was truly somewhere forsaken by the gods.


    When a ne became devoid of life other than believers, it was only a matter of time that the ne headed for decay and death, and that was something that would have happened, if the gods in question kept things managed. If said gods were to absorb power of faith without control, then said ne would have ended up aged and eventually dead, within 10 million years at best.


    When a ne became dead, their gods would have then forsaken the ce. No life would have remained in such a ce, and not even the weakest of bugs would have appeared in such a ce.


    The ne that they were currently in had yet to be thoroughly forsaken, as Saleen found an ancient battlefield.


    It was a battlefield that had yet to be cleaned up. Countless bones littered the ce at the other side of the river. Metal armors have decayedpletely and the very reason the bones were able to remain, was because the ne was filled with deathly powers.


    If there were to be soul mes lying about, the ne would have been turned into a spirit ne.


    Saleen caressed his own Ring of Cosmos and thought that the skeletal dragon had indeed managed to keep its dead body in one piece.


    Saleen had no intentions of going back on his word, as the ce was just too perfect. Despite having been forsaken by the gods, it was not due to the ce ended up being totally worthless. Or rather, it was due to the abrupt end of the war, and the gods who had taken control of the ce were all dead, yet somehow there were no other godsing to take the ce over.


    The Winged Skullughed all of a sudden. Rafel looked at the walking skeleton and felt puzzled.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯d like to leave the jade skeletons here,¡± the Winged Skull requested.


    ¡°Oh?¡±


    ¡°I have 12 jade skeletons and they are of very high intelligence, as well as over 1000 golden skeletons. If we were to leave those spirits behind and then gather huge amount of soul mes to seed the ce, the jade skeletons would have be gods before long!¡±


    Saleen chuckled. It seemed that the Winged Skull was trying to pull what he did¡ªmaking their own underlings into gods and thus, enabling them tomand gods in battle.


    Of course, it was not something that could have been easily done. The Winged Skull was not proposing something like that for the sake of grandeur. That ne had no living beings, which meant that it was unimed. If the Winged Skull were to leave soul mes and a bunch of spirits behind, the ce would have been developed into a huge spirit ne.


    If the gods in that spirit ne were to all be the Winged Skull¡¯sckeys, the Winged Skull would have been able to easily summon any amount of spirits to fight for them in the future.


    The ne would have be that of the Winged Skull.


    ¡°If that is what you want to do, go ahead.¡± Saleen agreed to the Winged Skull¡¯s request. Building a force of spirits on that ne was a decent idea. It was difficult for spirits to be gods, yet spirit gods posed little threat. They needed very few believers and like dragon gods, it was very difficult for them to bring about destruction of a ne.


    However, it was extremely difficult for spirit gods to advance. The most powerful spirit god in recorded history was only of level 16.


    The spirit ne that the Winged Skull originally resided in had its god killed and became a subsidiary ne of the humans. All spirits became warriors for the humans.


    Rafel then asked, ¡°Where is the dragon graveyard? Are we still looking for it?¡±


    She found it increasingly difficult toprehend human actions. Saleen did not seem to care about the dragon graveyard all that much. However, when he was killing the skeletal dragon, it seemed that he had been very concerned about the graveyard instead.


    ¡°Just look around for a bit. We might actually find something.¡±


    Saleen cast his earth elemental movement skill and crossed the river with a single step. He walked past the battlefield and scanned the area with his Elemental Eye, feeling pleased with himself.


    While there was little that he would have found useful, the ne was a treasure trove for the Winged Skull instead.


    Daniel did not say anything. Saleen told him as he walked, ¡°Daniel, there is little feeling envious. You¡¯re a death mage, not a spirit. That is, unless you want to be a death wizard.¡±


    Daniel shuddered at the thought. Bing death wizard required one to undergo a memory wipe. That might have been prevented with the Winged Skull around, but bing a death wizard possessing memories would have been dreadful as well. That was because death wizards possessed no sense of taste, incapable of feeling pain nor joy.


    That was akin to torture, as there would have been no end to it.


    ¡°You have the coordinates to the ne. Discuss with Bing a little and he might allow you to summon jade skeletons,¡± Saleen proposed. Daniel looked at the Winged Skull, who shed a smile at him.


    The smile was an eerie one, but Daniel found it amicable nheless.


    ¡°If you want to summon jade skeletons...¡±


    ¡°Lord Bing, just tell me what you want and I¡¯d do anything,¡± Daniel answered anxiously.


    ¡°Anything?¡±


    ¡°Anything.¡±


    ¡°In that case, we shall talk in detail when we head home. You could summon spirits and nurture them here for a bit too.¡± The Winged Skull did not get into the conditions right away. They were not easily fooled. While it did not seem like much to summon the jade skeletons, but when the jade skeletons be gods, such summoning would have still been kept intact.


    The jade skeletons might not have bothered with Daniel after bing gods, but due to contractual reasons, they would have sent powerful underlings to help Daniel nheless.


    With that said, it would have been like Daniel had gods covering his back, enabling him to be a powerful death mage.


    That was different with how holy masters operate, as Daniel did not pay the price of faith, while gaining the power of gods all the same.


    The Winged Skull needed to think things through with matters like that. Saleen did not ask for him to agree right away and the Winged Skull did not refuse outright, leaving a door open for Daniel.


    As for benefits, or rather, the price the Winged Skull would have had Daniel pay, they intended to talk about it with Nailisi. Despite her temperament, Nailisi was nheless able to tell who was closer to her. She and the Winged Skull were both bonded creatures of Saleen. If the Winged Skull were to get the short end of the stick, she would have been in trouble as well.


    Thepetition between the two of them was something else altogether.


    The coordinates provided by the skeletal dragon were skewed and yet, it did not deliberate do so. That was because nes moved as well, but the speed at which they moved meant that the margin would have hardly been noticeable ever after 100 million years passed.


    The ne had been around for too long. Saleen had no idea how the skeletal dragon came to possess the coordinates, but he would be able to see the dragon graveyard soon enough.


    The graveyard was obvious, as it was the only building left intact and how it had been, throughout over 3000 kilometers Saleen had traveled.


    The gate of the graveyard was made out of ck bones, which were from skulls of fallen dragons, which would have stayed intact forever.


    However, there was something else on it that decayed¡ªthe inscriptions of the ck skull were so badly decayed that they were unreadable. The power of time still worked in that ne after all.


    Saleen slowed down and walked into the tall gate of the graveyard, at very slow speeds.


    He expended his power of the soul. The graveyard was so huge that even Saleen¡¯s senses did not enable him to see the end of the ce. He estimated the ce to be thousands of kilometers long.


    ¡°Master...¡± The Winged Skull asked and Saleen nodded. The Winged Skull then summoned their 12 jade skeletons and over 1000 golden skeleton cavalry.


    Every jade skeleton led over 100 golden skeletons and spread out, searching for dangers within the dragon graveyard. Their powers of the summoned skeletons rose exponentially. The soul mes in their eye sockets seemed to be about to take solid shapes.


    Dragons did not bury their dead. In usual circumstances, there would have been ghost dragons looking after the graveyard, yet there were no ghost dragons found in that ne. There were only tall,rge bone remains lying quietly at the side of the road, as if they were weird fauna growing out of the ground. Wisps of green mes shed in the bones.


    Only dragon bones would have still had phosphorous fires even after being around for over 100 million years. The innate magic patterns on the bones continued to absorb deathly powers, which circled around the bones and the surrounding air.

 Chapter 1421: Personal Plane (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1421: Personal ne (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen looked at the huge number dragon bones, finding it a pity that the quality of those bones were reduced to the point of, while capable of staying intact, were no longer of much use, by the ravages of time.


    Such materials would have only proved useful to death mages. While Daniel¡¯s hands were getting itchy, he dared not take any of them, for fear of offending the Winged Skull. The Winged Skull walked with Saleen and pointed at several piles of dragon bones, then saying to Daniel, ¡°When we leave this ce, you can have those.¡±


    Death mages loved rotten bones to bits. It was especially so in that ne, where the bones were hardly affected in ways, other than purely having absorbed huge amount of deathly powers. There were no death magic materials to be found on Myers Maind that would have been able topare with those bones found there.


    Daniel was perceptive enough to not touch anything in the graveyard. He knew very well that what the Winged Skull pointed were not really important ones and those dragons had not been too powerful when they were alive.


    The Winged Skull wanted to have their 12 jade skeletons be gods. Some of them would have seeded while others would have failed. Regardless, those jade skeletons would have needed to absorb boundless energy in order to be gods. Those bones made bad materials of crafting equipment, but the best there was for refining energies required by spirits.


    Forget it. This ne is already the Winged Skull¡¯s. I could count myself lucky if the pile of bones would just let me summon spirits from here.


    After Daniel made up his mind, he stopped looking around and took the time to have his dead soul me absorb the energies in that ne instead. That ne was a huge one. Even if Daniel were to be a level 13 pseudogod, it would still have been impossible for him to suck the ne dry of deathly energies.


    Rafel felt rather ufortable with the ce. The ne was filled with the aura of death, and in the midst of such aura, there seemed to be signs of gods perishing.


    Such signs felt triggering to angels, and such unpleasant triggers were vivid ones.


    Rafel choked down on her sadness and pointed to the right, saying, ¡°Go there. You¡¯ll find you¡¯re after.¡±


    She did not even bother to address Saleen with some sort of honorific or pronoun. The moment made Rafel feel as if she had been thrown back hundreds of thousands of years into the past, the time where the gods were still around.


    ¡°What is that?¡± Daniel pointed a thousand meter-tall bone when they were still kilometers away from the object. He knew what it actually was, but he asked with a doubtful tone regardless.


    He was not the only one finding it unbelievable, as Saleen shared the sentiment.


    That was the bone remains of a dragon god. When a dragon god perished, the bones of the dragon god¡ªdevoid of a divine persona to begin with¡ªwould have been like a huge space, which would have survived as long as the crystal wall system held¡ªforever.


    While the Floating City was powerful, it was limited to moving around on Myers Maind. The dragon god¡¯s bones however, were capable of traversing nes and perform space jumps.


    Such powerful materials, even if they were only from a level 15 dragon god, would have had qualities eclipsing that of remains of level 17 gods.


    Saleen remained silent for quite a while and did not continue to move forward. He then said to the Winged Skull, ¡°I¡¯ve done calctions with astrology regarding the dragon god remains. That thing perished trying to protect the ne.¡±


    ¡°Master, so you mean...¡±


    ¡°This ne would be yours from here on out. I¡¯d be taking the dragon god remains with me. Don¡¯t tear the graveyard apart. This ce would be off-limits to the spirits in the future, and only you would be allowed in here.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± The Winged Skull was able to tell from the shift in tone in the way Saleen spoke, that he had came to realize things.


    There were no dynasties capable ofsting forever. Regardless of how glorious the ne had once been, how great the dragon god had once been, everything would have been returned to the earth eventually. The dragon god remains would have been useful to Saleen for crafting a warship capable of traversing nes.


    Saleen could have searched over 1000 nes, and there would still been no guarantee that he would have found such a thing.


    The chance was not to be missed, as there might not have been another.


    Saleen walked up and gestured for the others to stay behind. He then summoned the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier, in order to have the weapon spirit put the remains away into the magic amplifier¡¯s space.


    There was no way Saleen would have been able to put something that big away on his own.


    The dragon god remains were farrger than the Ancient warship. The bone remains were pitch ck and there seemed to be deathly powers all over it. However, the internal space of the dragon god remains was extremely huge. Every single bone was like a space equipment in themselves.


    The dragon gods have once relied on such powers to bring dragon warriors with them to fight the gods andy siege to divine kingdoms.


    Saleen swore in secret deep down, ¡°Lord dragon god, there shall be a day where I would use your bone remains to craft a void warship. I shall only use it to attack divine kingdoms and would absolutely never use it to pige the dragon ne. Please forgive my sphemous actions to your remains, for I need power now more than anything else.¡±


    Saleen put the dragon god remains away and found jade colors on the ground where the remains rested. That was the result of the remains having been around for hundreds of millions of years.


    The power of the earth had gathered and kept the protective god of the ne up.


    Saleen then summoned the Violet Angel and had it construct a tower there. The jade-like ground shall be made into the core coordinates of the ne. Saleen took out the remains of the skeletal dragon, thought for a moment before putting it into a piece of dimension stone. He then wrapped the dimension stone in Water me, sending it thousands of meters deep into the ground.


    By doing so, it prevented the remains of the skeletal dragon from resurrecting by absorbing the powers of the ne through the dimension, regardless of how powerful it would have been.


    When someone among the jade skeletons became greater gods, only then would Saleen release the skeleton dragon¡¯s remains. The skeleton dragon had thought it out well. If Saleen were to just drop it around the parts, even a tiny wisp of soul me remaining would have enabled the skeletal dragon to resurrect, bing even more powerful.


    That skeletal dragon had probably been a level 15 being when it was still alive. If it were to resurrect, not even the Winged Skull as they were would have been able to keep it contained.


    Saleen took out some bone crystals of the giants when he saw the Violet Angel at work, building the tower. He then crafted a sturdy magic array with the crystals, sealing the area within several kilometers radius up. Anyone who tried to get near would have triggered the lightning magic array, sounding magic rms.


    The lightning magic array could only be destroyed using sheer brute force and unable to pass in secret.


    Saleen began to measure the coordinates in detail, but he did not build an inter-dimension teleportation portal. That ne shall be made the Winged Skull¡¯s personal ne.


    Judging from the thick deathly power permeating the ne, it would have taken less than 100 years to give birth to countless powerful spirits, bing a ce where the Winged Skull summon their troops.


    The golden skeletons crafted by the Winged Skull would have be something like kings, ruling over thend. Furthermore, the kings would not have fought each for territory or power, making that ce possibly the most serene piece ofnd there was.


    Spirits yed nice with each other after all.


    Juno emerged from the magic amplifier and sniffed with all its might, saying, ¡°Master, there are treasures around here!¡±


    ¡°Treasure?¡±


    ¡°About 1200 kilometers eastward.¡±


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier berated it, ¡°There is not even a sun around here. How could you even tell directions in this ce?¡±


    Juno would not have getting beaten up with Saleen around. It then smirked and replied, ¡°Directions are determined using maism of the earth. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the sun.¡±


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier felt that it had lost face, yet it dared not beat up another weapon spirit in front of Saleen, so it simply twisted logic and said, ¡°The sun is the most violent in the universe. Its fire elemental powers would be strong enough to change thend¡¯s maism!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s bullsh**. I have roamed the universe with my former master and I have seens that are more violent the sun.¡± Juno was experienced enough to be convinced by what the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was capable of saying.


    ¡°You dare speak of your former master!¡± The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was unable to win ording to logic, so it threw personal attacks at Juno instead.


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I? My former master was good and Master Saleen here is good as well. Well, I¡¯m not like you, who had once fought against master. By the way, you¡¯ve also escaped from fighting when we were fighting the skeletal dragon back there. You almost ended up getting the Violet Angel killed.¡± Juno was clever enough to know how to make friends.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was at a loss for words, and it was only then that he remembered that Saleen had yet to interrogate it for what itst did.


    It was not a good thing that Saleen did not bother saying anything. The temperament of its master said that he would have definitely remembered. But then again, the weapon spirit was not a match for the skeletal dragon, and it would have simply died fighting the beast head on.


    ¡°Master...¡±


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was only able to utter a single word, before feeling an intense headache and dropped to the ground. It was Saleen controlling the broken jade. He invoked lightning in the weapon spirit¡¯s divine fire, which contained the weapon spirit¡¯s soul.


    ¡°I¡¯ve almost forgotten that this thing almost got us all killed because it ran away from the fight, if you hadn¡¯t mentioned it,¡± Saleen looked at the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier wiggling on the ground with cold eyes.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was terrified. There were quite a number of level 13 beings at Saleen¡¯s side. If it were to ck off, it would have been easy for Saleen to disintegrate and feed it to something else after all.


    ¡°You made up your mind?¡± Saleen saw what he wanted to see from the eyes of the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier.


    That thing had thought itself indispensible. It was worth noting that Saleen built the magic amplifier personally. It would have worked even without a weapon spirit, and the presence of a weapon spirit simply made the device easier to use and manage, making it so that Saleen did not need to split his attention to control it during battle.


    ¡°I have indeed.¡± The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier stayed on the ground, not daring to get up.


    ¡°That shall be your first offense as well as yourst.¡± Saleen finished and did not bother with that thing who feared the strong yet bullied the weak. He turned around and summoned the Violet Angel.


    The Violet Angel shot out as quickly as possible. Saleen took out the axe-shaped godly item acquired from the skeletal dragon and threw it to the Violet Angel, saying, ¡°You did wellst time. Use this thing to repair your body.¡±


    The Violet Angel was ted. While the axe was damaged, but it was still made of materials fit for crafting godly items after all. If it were to gobble it up, it would not only have enabled it to repair all damaged parts, but would have also allowed it to master new skills.


    ¡°Thank you, master,¡± the Violet Angel quickly expanded his body to the height over 30 meters and took the axe, swallowing it.


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier was only able feel envious, or even jealous. If it had known that one such high quality item would have been given as a reward, there would have been no way it would have ran away back then.


    Rafel watched and shook her head. The Violet Angel¡¯s background made it so that it could have never be the strongest in any way. It had insufficient intelligence, which would have only made advancing increasingly difficult atter stages. A level 13 powerful being would have been able to absorb something like and sprung to level 14 right away.


    The Violet Angel would have only been able to repair its body using one such thing. She deemed Saleen was being wasteful with his investment.

 Chapter 1422: Fighting One’s Own Battles (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1422: Fighting One¡¯s Own Battles (Part 1)</h4>


    The Violet Angel gobbled up the skeletal dragon¡¯s giant ax and began the arduous process of disintegrating the weapon.


    Meanwhile, the Winged Skull¡¯s underlings roamed through the dragon graveyard. Both the jade skeletons and the golden skeletons were of superb quality. They would have only needed to absorb the thick, deathly aura around the dragon¡¯s remains to advance.


    Saleen did some calctions and concluded that there wasn¡¯t much trouble back on the maind, so he stayed several days there and processed the experiences gained from fighting the skeletal dragon.


    Everyone who served Saleen knew how hardworking he was. He was one of the few top-notch powerful professionals to be found on Myers Maind. He was also fortunate to have a respected and influential teacher to back him up. If things ever got really bad, he could always escape to the interdimensional space to hide. His equipment was as good as the godly items and despite the bitter strife, he ended up ying an insanely powerful skeletal dragon. He was at the top of his game.


    His achievements notwithstanding, Saleen still behaved as if someone was pursuing him from behind. He was always alert, refusing to ck off even for brief moments. He never let his guard down.


    The Winged Skull had already begun setting up everything during the several days that Saleen spent on the maind. They had not yet thoroughly explored the ne and understandably so: it would have taken years to grasp every fathomable detail about the ce.


    Saleen left the Violet Angel behind to help out the jade skeletons. Thebat capacity of the Violet Angel was far stronger than the jade skeleton¡¯s. He let Rafel take care of the War Drum of Fear.


    Daniel took six sets of dragon bones before he left¡ªall of which were things that the Winged Skull allowed to be taken away.


    Immediately after returning to Myers Maind, Saleen found out that something bad had happened in Alchemy City.


    The three mages he had selected were ambushed.


    The three level-11 mages disappeared from their rooms after meeting the fallen holy master.


    Even after personally searching and scouring the rooms for clues, Saleen found no useful leads. The only thing he knew was that the three mages had been sent to other realms where it was probably impossible for them to leave.


    All the other matters were still manageable. The Holy See army had been repelled by Kroraina after suffering heavy losses. The knights of the Nature Faith, led personally by Don, had pulverized four enemy legions. The Holy See army attacked in a forceful manner and ended up retreating.


    Saleen knew this had nothing to do with his army being valiant and powerful. The victory was solely due to the Holy See¡¯sck of leadership.


    The Pivotal Council had originally been put under the control of two powerful oracles, and yet, at the moment, there was only a pope who hadn¡¯t matured and taken the helm. With the pope¡¯s chief of affairs missing and the Ring of Many Gods nowhere to be found, the Oracle Corps was literally in shambles. The red-robed bishops began fighting among themselves and none of them was willing to send their forces to reinforce the army.


    Under such circumstances, even logistics had be a problem for the Holy See army. It was, therefore, no surprise that they were so quickly crushed.


    Alchemy City, at present, was starting to feel like the Holy See. Saleen was thinking that he had returned at the right time; otherwise, the city might soon fall into chaos. While it was entirely possible for him to take control things if started going south, the mages would have ended up bing coteral damage.


    Saleen unleashed the Floating City and let it hover above Alchemy City. He then got in touch with Lex and expressed his intention to attack the Holy City.


    That was the headquarters of the Holy See. In Saleen¡¯s opinion, the ck Dungeon was a far more terrifying ce.


    He didn¡¯t dare go to ck Dungeon Ind. Instead, he decided to take a chance and wipe out the headquarters while the bishops were busy fighting among themselves. He did not care one whit if his efforts crushed the Holy See.


    The adherents¡¯ faith would falter if he seeded in destroying the Holy City.


    The time for the Goddess of Nature to be resurrected was drawing nigh.


    Large numbers of Alchemy City mages were brought to the Floating City that time. Over 100,000 from Alchemy City participated in the expedition, but one mage had something to say about Saleen¡¯s decision. Destroying their of the holy masters from the air was a dreame-true for the mages.


    Even those mages were fed up with the Holy See. The frequent attacks on the Qin Empire had fueled their resentment toward the holy masters. Now things had reached a critical mass. Most mages were from Qin, and quite a few hailed from the north. If they had been of higher levels and capable of affecting the oue of battles, they might have killed the holy masters on the frontlines.


    Saleen did not put the Floating City back in his magic amplifier. Every time he took out or put away the Floating City he had to clear out somemon warriors while requiring the God of Magic Net to expend a considerable amount of power to make this happen.


    With the Baldur¡¯s Gate in his possession, Saleen no longer concerned himself with things like that anymore.


    The Floating City brought the mages around while the Baldur¡¯s Gate was made to carry warriors. Saleen manned the huge city personally and took off for the Tanggsi Empire.


    The alchemy factories on the Floating City remained in operation throughout the journey.


    All the mages were asked about their strengths and abilities as well as the equipment they were proficient in and in need of. Saleen went so far as to personalize equipment for every single one of 100,000 mages.


    Personalization notwithstanding, many pieces of equipment were still interchangeable. The process was first to finish crafting themon, interchangeable pieces before designing new schematics to amodate different needs


    The thing being crafted the most were scrolls.


    It took a month¡¯s flying for the Floating City to reach the Holy City. On the way, it needed to take a detour around the Qin border to recall the Bug Angel Warriors that Saleen hadid in ambush.


    Van Gogh showed up at Alchemy City again the moment Saleen left. He looked at the empty Alchemy City and let out a bitter smirk.


    He had practically kidnapped the leaders of the Elemental Hand just to see how Saleen would react. But Saleen didn¡¯t bother with him. He had taken arge number of the mages to attack the Holy See¡¯s headquarters instead: This was his primary goal.


    Van Gogh never expected such a reaction from him.


    Precious few mages were left in the city; hardly any of them were really powerful. Van Gogh¡¯s powers were such that it would have been easy to turn the ce upside down as it currently was.


    That would have been pointless: He had designed a series of traps that Saleen had been able to evade effortlessly.


    It seemed that the only thing left to do was to keep searching for temples that the goddess left behind, hampering Saleen¡¯s luck before he had a chance to make mistakes in hismand.


    He didn¡¯t intend on bing enemies with Saleen, but he somehow ended up finding out the secret of the goddess and in so doing acquired a godly item left behind by the goddess. The most vexing thing was being left in that temple, something specifically made to be used against fallen holy masters.


    Unable to resist temptation, Van Gogh agreed to sign a contract with the goddess.


    He needed to help bring about her resurrection, or his soul would have been made a sacrifice.


    The contract needed to be fulfilled within 600 years.


    Van Gogh spent several days loitering about Alchemy City, exasperated. The Alchemy City had little to exploit and he¡¯d already wasted a lot of time there. It would have been better if he were to just go out and look for the next temple.


    The Floating City flew west. Saleen stopped when they passed by Holy Rock City. He brought his people to the pce to pay a visit to Lex.


    They had not seen each other in a long time. Exasperation is the first thing he felt whenid eyes on her again.


    Lex had be an empress. While she continued to be as she was without any regard for those extra rules and formalities, behaving as gently as always, she was surrounded by more people who felt increasingly unfamiliar.


    Take Jalin, for example. Jalin, a high-status pce minister, was actually a leader of the pce mages.


    Ah-ha! The Golden ins finally got one of their own in the circle of pce mages. Saleen knew it was a trade. It had been difficult getting Safilos to return to Holy Rock City. He had once failed to defend the city and it soon plunged into crisis.


    The ones from Golden ins had been dedicated to preventing Safilos¡¯s return, yet Lex had insisted on getting her own way in the midst of opposition. She paid a price for this in secret.


    Safilos had long been a thorn in her side. Now she had to help him return to the center of power.


    The pce was lined with statues of past Qin emperors, and Lex was surrounded by mages. Saleen lowered his head to look at her face and said, ¡°Think you can still hold on?¡±


    Jalin couldn¡¯t believe her ears. She attempted to say something back, but Saleen put his hand across her mouth to stop her.


    ¡°I¡¯m giving you people face just by allowing you to stand around. So do me a favor please and shut up.¡± Rarely did Saleen speak so harshly.


    Jalin¡¯s face was concealed by her mask, making it impossible to tell what she was feeling at the moment. She then stepped aside without uttering a word.


    Saleen took a casual look at the surrounding mages, some of whom had been in the pce before all this happened. Their relief was palpable from their expressions. The rest stood there glumly, making it obvious they were from Golden ins.


    Saleen unleashed his lightning territory without care, isting the voices.


    He was testing the patience of the Golden in mages: None of them would have expected Saleen to do something like that. No telling what would happen next.


    Lex was willing to makepromises with them, but that didn¡¯t mean Saleen would be willing to do the same. That low-born mage wouldn¡¯t hesitate a second to kill someone if that served his purpose. Ironwall City had once been grand and massive, and he made good on his word to destroy the ce, a testament to this mage¡¯s short fuse.


    A fall-out at this stage wasn¡¯t something the Golden ins would want to see happen.


    Everyone instinctively turned to look at Jalin, Arb¡¯s student. Since her face was concealed by her mask, all they could see was the red peach flowers on the drooping mask that looked as if it was about to slip off.


    She did not give any specific instructions, so everyone was mum.


    Lex smiled after seeing Saleen unleashing his territory and shut the sounds from outside. His territory now shrank to a radius of little more than a dozen meters, making it seem solid.


    ¡°Saleen, don¡¯t try to scare them. They¡¯re all puppets,¡± Lex said lethargically. She wanted to rest her head on Saleen¡¯s shoulders but couldn¡¯t move a muscle; she seemed to be frozen. The fate of the Qin Empire rested on her. If she got tired of the whole business, there was no one fit to rule the empire.


    ¡°Could you still hold on, Lex?¡±


    Saleen was still asking the same question after unleashing his territory. That time, however, was done purely out of concern for her.


    ¡°Yeah. Golden ins is more powerful than Alchemy City and not somece you could just wreck. I¡¯ll take my time dealing with them. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll submit sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°How about just quit being the empress then?¡±


    ¡°Ha! Saleen, you think I like being empress? It was my father who left the ce behind and I couldn¡¯t just sit back and do nothing. The secret arts I¡¯ve learned could only be put to use if I became empress. Remember how it was with me back then? I couldn¡¯t keep up with your advancement and needed the Six Elements¡¯ Space to rise to a level-9 sorcerer. My path was really hard after that, and I had to use that precious gift my father left me. But after bing empress, my secret arts...¡±


    Saleen was surprised to find something like that taking ce. What does bing empress have to do with training? He was quickly reminded of how gods were capable of absorbing power of faith. The position of empress probably allowed her to absorb some power from her subjects to strengthen herself.


    In truth, Saleen already considered Safilos a cutting-edge genius. Compared to Emperor Chanake, Safilos felt inadequate.


    That probably was not due to their talents but to their positions.

 Chapter 1423: Fighting One’s Own Battles (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1423: Fighting One¡¯s Own Battles (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°Then keep being the empress. Are these people a threat to you?¡± Saleen saw through his territory and kept an eye on the people near Lex.


    ¡°Not at the moment. The Golden ins are figuring out ways to gobble up Cloudflow. Tough bone to chew on, I¡¯d say. They need my charisma to get the job done. If they were working on their own, the nobles wouldn¡¯t have paid any attention to them.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do what I have to when the timees. Right now, I¡¯m heading to the Tanggsi Empire.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so hard on yourself, Saleen. We still have over 900 years to go on the contract,¡± Lex looked dejected and seemed weary.


    ¡°No pain, no gain. Truth be told, I¡¯m attacking Holy City this time to lure the head warden out. If he keeps hiding on ck Dungeon Ind, people can say whatever they want, but I¡¯m not looking to make for trouble on his turf.¡±


    ¡°When Ojarvis was about to die...he said that in two years, at most, Myers Maind would see another burst of power. The entire ne would be advancing. Be careful, Saleen. If Myers Maind can¡¯t keep beings above level-12 from showing up, the head warden...¡±


    ¡°Rx. I¡¯ll run if I can¡¯t fight him,¡± Saleen saidughing.


    That had been his n back then; now he was only saying it now to console her.


    He was making significant progress with advancement and had acquired a steely determination, courtesy of Jason. If the head warden stayed cooped up in ck Dungeon and the level difference was too wide, Saleen wouldn¡¯t go out and dig his own grave. He wasn¡¯t a fool. On the other hand, if the head warden wanted to duke it out on the Floating City, Saleen had four level-13 beings at his side and over 100,000 enchanters at hismand. If put to the test, he might rise to the asion.


    Lex did not blow Saleen¡¯s cover right there and then. Having got this far, she knew that Saleen¡¯s option was to move ahead; there was no going back. Life was intriguing. When they were still weak back in the day, they had options. Once someone became powerful, choices were limited.


    ¡°How many around you would prove useful at the moment?¡± Saleen changed the subject and talked about something more substantial.


    ¡°Most of my forces are at Daliang City. You¡¯re actually the one running Bitterwater now and they¡¯re all low-level mages, so you¡¯d only be talking about potentials at the moment. As for the royal mages, there are little more than 100 of them around¡ªone-tenth of what¡¯s in Golden ins. That¡¯s why I have to be careful about how I do business. If I end up doing something others could use against me, it might cost me the throne.¡±


    ¡°How long would it take for your secret arts to advance?¡±


    ¡°By the time Myers Maind advances again, I¡¯d be able to jump to level-12 directly from level-10. Advancement¡¯s not the problem. The power I have stocked up is for getting to level-13. I couldn¡¯t afford to lose the throne until then.¡±


    Saleen pondered this and said, ¡°Safilos is now my ally. You could use and trust him. I¡¯ve given him 20,000 Bug Angel Warriors and they¡¯re all hidden at the southern town. A lot of the soldiers there were swapped out with my guys. If you need protection, mobilize the forces there. As for the western and north ones, they¡¯re practically useless.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d send them to the frontlines in that case,¡± Lex said coldly.


    ¡°Those people are your subjects, or how about...¡±


    ¡°Saleen, do you know what¡¯s the job of an emperor? To have others die for your sake,¡± Lex blurted out a fact. If she achieved her ideals, she needed to gainplete control of the empire. At present, only the southwestern nobles sided with her.


    ¡°Okay, if you like...¡± Saleen didn¡¯t finish the sentence. Lex didn¡¯t like her current way of living. She was forced by fate to get as far as she could.


    ¡°Saleen, you wouldn¡¯t have cared about any of that in the past, as long as you could survive?¡± Lex¡¯s eyes were devoid of gentleness. All that was left were a reminiscence of the past.


    Saleen¡¯s heart was aching as if something had been taken away from him. He felt empty. Is Lex ming me here? That I never came to help her out at Holy Rock City? That my eyes were only focused on the future and rising to ever-greater heights?


    There was no end to a mage¡¯s journey. He wondered if they would have eventually ended up as strangers, or if things would stay as they were now.


    No! We¡¯ve faced down life and death together. We could never be strangers. But what we have now feels worse than being strangers. How did things get this way?


    He advised her to leave the position of empress behind, but Lex had never once persuaded him to take up the dreaded position of a prince of the empire.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be sad, Saleen. We chose this path. I¡¯d never me you for anything,¡± Lex smiled inly and continued, ¡°If you want to help, there are some things you can do, actually.¡±


    ¡°What? How could I help?¡± Saleen couldn¡¯t think of anything he could do that would be of use to Lex. The Golden ins would have to pay the price of gaining more power, such as supplies. Golden ins had been providing several times more supplies than during the reign of Emperor Chanake.


    ¡°The attribute-less granules....the ones you mentioned before? I need some. Quality matters more than quantity in this case, as I¡¯ll also need a special armor made.


    ¡°Armor? I have alchemy factories. If that¡¯s not enough, we could go to a teacher for help!¡±


    ¡°Nah. I¡¯d need to craft this using secret arts. It¡¯s something made specifically for my own use. The only way you could help me out with this is to use your Water me to get the armor shaped. I¡¯ll get you the schematics. This needs to be done slowly. You could get it done with me within two years,¡± Lex borated in a very low volume. Jalin looked at Saleen and Lex talk from outside the lightning territory and was smoldering.


    Just how important does this Saleen think he is? If he wasn¡¯t Lex¡¯s husband, Golden ins would have gotten rid of him a long time ago.


    Saleen seemed to have intentionally made things difficult for the ones from the Golden ins. He spoke to Lex for over ten hours since he put up his territory, seemingly without any intention of ending the conversation soon.


    Other than mages, there were also warriors from Golden ins there. Mages were capable of going without eating, drinking or using the bathroom, but not the warriors. One of the golden grand swordmasters blurted out furiously, ¡°That Saleen prick...¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice was heard inside the territory before he could finish. ¡°I don¡¯t remember giving you permission to address me by name.¡±


    A lightning icicle was shot at the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s heart before Saleen finished his sentence. Jalin did not budge an inch. She wanted to see if Saleen would have dared to kill someone for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. She got her answer.


    If he did that, he was worthy of her notice after all.


    The lightning icicle was traveling too fast for the mages to retaliate. The only thing they could do was rely on defense. Over a dozen magical barriers were erected before that golden grand swordmaster, but the lightning icicle prated like an alchemy bolt shooting throughyers of paper, remaining targeted at the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s heart.


    He reacted with a sh of his sword, shing at the lightning icicle. Over a dozen powerful mages had to erect magic shields just so he might survive for that brief moment.


    The golden sword aura on his sword crumbled, and his sword disintegrated like sand as well.


    The golden grand swordmaster felt as if his hand had been shocked by electricity; his entire body became paralyzed. He only learned of Saleen¡¯s ferocity at that moment; the mage was absolutely out to kill him.


    Saleen only dispelled his territory and walked up to the golden grand swordmaster.


    The surrounding mages didn¡¯t know if they should make a move. If they acted, then whatever it was the Golden ins wanted might never fall into their hands in a steady manner anymore. If they kept their hands to themselves, Saleen would have only needed to fire yet another lightning icicle to kill that golden grand swordmaster.


    Are we going just going to sit back and watch Saleen kill one of our own?


    Saleen looked at that golden grand swordmaster, who couldn¡¯t have been more than 30 years old, an age considered young as far as grand swordmasters went. Generally speaking, grand swordmasters had no habit of maintaining their appearance and simply allowed themselves age. That golden grand swordmaster was no exception, making him quite a powerful warrior.


    If it was in the past, there was no way he would have dared to get so close and behave so condescendingly toward someone wielding golden sword aura.


    ¡°I¡¯m not in a good mood today, so I¡¯ll just let this slide. Do that again when I¡¯m truly in a good mood and no one will be able to save you. And all of you, I don¡¯t care what Arb said. Lex is my woman. Give her a hard time and I¡¯ll make sure Golden ins suffers. What I mean is, I¡¯ll take the Floating City and rain poisonous rocks every day on you people. And don¡¯t tempt me.¡±


    Saleen spoke his words, turned on his heel and left without batting an eye.


    Jalin was dumbfounded. Saleen meant business. When he said he wasn¡¯t in a good mood and therefore did not bother killing, that was because it was too much of a hassle to shift the me and take action. If Saleen had really been in a good mood, he would have wrecked anyone who messed with him.


    Interesting way of putting it: Kill when you¡¯re in a good mood?


    He didn¡¯t attack a second time after the first attempt failed to hit its target, giving the golden grand swordmaster a chance to live. It looked very dashing, and in truth, that golden grand swordmaster was shocked to the core, so much that it would be a problem if he tried to advance in the future.


    Over a dozen magic shields were thrown up to block that lightning icicle¡¯s power and they crumbled instantly. The resilient faith of a warrior within the golden grand swordmaster¡¯s mind had been thoroughly shaken.


    Despite the icicle¡¯s power being reduced over a dozen obstacles, his most powerful one hit right there and then didn¡¯t allow him to do more than keep himself alive.


    His weapon was destroyed and his body was paralyzed by the electrical shock.


    Saleen made his stance clear: he was in a foul mood. That was due to the stunt the Golden ins had pulled. He learned about what was happening on the maind after talking with Lex earlier.


    Even though he had taken control of northern Qin, he was didn¡¯t have total control over everything. The internal parts of the Cloudflow Empire were shifting and none of the nobles attacked the imperial city. The four major dukes began expanding. Thends the Holy See had taken at the Red River region had to be relinquished, recovered by the Cloudflow people and reconstructed into the Titan Duchy again.


    Saleen had been too steeped in magic-rted affairs to send anyone to Cloudflow. Lex had sent all the news to Metatrin City, yet they didn¡¯t grab the mages¡¯ attention.


    The mages did not even bother analyzing the situation to Grand Duke Renee, which meant that none of that information would have reached Saleen.


    Saleen knew about the splintering of Sikeqinya Empire, where many nobles went their own way. From Saleen¡¯s point of view, that was the craziness happening before the empire crumbled.


    The mages didn¡¯t think any of it mattered; that was fine with him. Saleen had no intention of turning the mages into politicians. By the same token, it was rather peculiar that Grand Duke Iron Blood did not specifically mention any of that to Saleen. Did the alliance between us get reduced to being in name only now?


    Saleen found what he was feeling at the moment to be funny. He¡¯s only an ally, what do you expect?


    After regaining hisposure, he stomped out of Lex¡¯s pce where he found his followers waiting outside. The Royal Swordsman Camp¡¯s warriors kept a close eye on J and the others nearby.


    ording to established conventions, followers of princes were not allowed to enter the royal pce without good reasons. But Saleen barged in anyway. No one could stop him; for that, he used Quickcloud.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. We¡¯re on our own now!¡± Saleen said something that sounded peculiar as mist burst from his body and he took to the air. The royal swordsmen watched helplessly as he threw his weight around. None of them dared to go up and berate him.

 Chapter 1424: Rampage (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1424: Rampage (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen was feeling glum. He realized that he had never bothered to reign supreme on the maind. He already had Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space in his possession¡ªa ce with no gods and nothing to hold him back. When he was done with the business with the Goddess of Myers, he would not bother returning to Myers Maind.


    He was a mage and had no intention of bing emperor. That was something no one could ever fathom. They always thought he would have taken the entire maind for himself. That had never been his goal. Fundamentally, he was still the same old Saleen, the Saleen who had wanted little more than food in his belly and magic to practice.


    He never bothered fighting for all those things and yet people were constantly spilling blood over things that he never wanted. He thought Grand Duke Iron Blood would have been someone with a personality, but from the looks of things, he was a boorish bore.


    Let¡¯s just resurrect the goddess and get this over with. Saleen elerated that thought while heading for the Floating City.


    Rafel was the closest to Saleen and she mumbled right behind him, ¡°My lord, your problems are easy to take care of.¡±


    ¡°Yeah? How so?¡±


    ¡°Get rid of Lex and you will not need to have to bother yourself with any of these things.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Saleenughed and said, ¡°I¡¯m a human. My problems are different from the gods.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Rafel¡¯s lips rose. She knew that what she proposed was not actually a solution, but Saleen¡¯s mood lightened right away after hearing what she said.


    What Rafel said was not actually amusing. It was indeed due to Lex that Saleen¡¯s mood took a turn for the worse. He hade to possess mighty powers, yet he had to leave Lex behind to deal with those from the Golden ins all on her own. What he did to vent his frustration earlier was an act to show his support to Lex, a way to tell those people to always remember that day in case they were thinking of going against her in the future.


    Rafel¡¯s words made Saleen realize right away that he wasn¡¯t a god and that it was normal to feel troubled sometimes. What would his teacher have done? If people have insufficient powers, they have to develop them. When theye to possess a decent amount of power, then they will settle the scores with their enemies. Simple! So why should he sigh and whine?


    Saleen rose to the Floating City once he had cleared his mind and changed his orders. He no longer bothered to head to Holy City but decided to head straight for Tanggsi Empire.


    Tanggsi Empire was never one to have formidable military strength, totally inferior whenpared to Qin. If the knights of the Holy See and the Tribunal were to add to the list, the Tanggsi Empire would have ten times the military strength of Qin. The quality gap in terms of equipment could have been easily made up with sheer numbers.


    Saleen had wanted to hit his core target right away without worrying about anything else. However, he came to realize that he had only wanted to make the Holy See ufortable, not destroy Holy City.


    Saleen was not all too sure of his powers after all. There would have definitely been extremely powerful godly items within Holy City, and those would have been items requiring many to activate and use, which meant that they were not portable.


    That was the city that the Lord of Glory had picked personally. Crushing it would have robbed all of his believers¡¯ dreams.


    However, doing so would have seemed too convenient. If he were to simply kill his way there, he would have prompted countless believers to defend their religion.


    The Floating City would not have had much of a problem dealing withmon cities. Those who dared to defend their religion would have been fanatics anyway, and there was little to regret killing them.


    Saleen¡¯s level had be increasingly high and he came to have less concern about such matters rted to life and death.


    The Floating City headed west all the way and when it arrived above Kroraina, Saleen went to deliberately check out the ce. The Kroraina Duchy was in shambles. The ce that had once been an incredibly bustling duchy founded on the maind, where trade with all ces flourished as most trade routes passed by the duchy. The ce once had a great number of inns and merchant guilds. Convoys and countless merchants roamed the streets.


    None of that was left: Only burnt viges and crops that no one reaped, growing among the weeds.


    No intact cities were to be found. The Holy See had once repaired the city walls, but they were destroyed once again when the Qin retaliated.


    When the Holy See retaliated after that, reconstruction again became necessary. After the skirmishes went on and on, the fighting sucked almost all the life out of the ce. The fires of war were more terrifying than magic, as what they destroyed was the root that people called home.


    The Floating City capable of reaching a top speed over 500 kilometers per hour in flight, but the fuel consumption would have been over ten times the usual fuel cost. Normal flight speed was maintained at over 200 kilometers per hour and if elerated slightly, the city would have reached the speed of 300 kilometers per hour. The fuel cost of the eleration would have been able to be maintained at hardly more than twice what it usually costs.


    Saleen resorted to taking the city flying at 200 kilometers per hour. The humongous construct that was the Floating City streaked through the skies and headed straight for its first target¡ªGlog of God Grace Duchy.


    The God Grace Duchy had a very smallnd area. Among the four duchies, it was the only one that would have only survived due to being maintained by the Tanggsi Empire. The wars that were fought on the maind had never reached the duchy itself. As such, when Saleen¡¯s Floating City came to Glog, the people did not even realize they were under attack.


    Saleen took the Floating City down and loomed over the ce, keeping it at little more than 1,000 meters above the ground. It hardly expended any energy at such a height, enabling it to attack at full force.


    The Floating City was a 36kilometer square;mon cities were hardly that huge, to begin with. Not even Holy Rock Citypared in size.


    Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City was less than a 10-kilometer square. As such, the 36 kilometer-square city blocked out the sun right away, as if the ce had been shrouded by night earlier than usual. There were no longer any metal towers to be found at the bottom of the Floating City. They had been reced with movable magic cannons.


    Saleen stayed with the Magical Element Tower at the core of the Floating City and did his calctions. Glog had 12 churches and the defense of every church was hardly worth mentioning. It was a mid-sized city with many troops garrisoned. However, since most of them were Holy See forces retreating from Kroraina, the city was in decent shape.


    Attack the 12 churches!


    Saleen gave the order.


    The magic cannons were attacking full force at a distance of little more than 1000 meters above the ground. Such attacks could have only been resisted somewhat by magic towers, which in turn depended on how many magic nuclei reserves that towers had. The offense had always been easier and cost less to pull off than defense. While the Holy See had imed its divine arts to be known best for its defensive capacities, that still depended on the situation.


    Magic towers were far more formidable than churches would have ever been. The holy masters had already made their preparations when they found the Floating City, activating the divine rune charm array within the churches.


    After the Floating City was done with its first volley of attacks, only one of the 12 churches within the city was left standing.


    That remaining church was helmed personally by the bishop of the city. There was one red-robed bishop stationed in the city that had a poption of over 100 thousand. However, there was no way the level-9 red-robed bishop would have been able to defend against the second volley of attacks.


    The enchanters within the Floating City had quickly calcted the defensive capacity of the divine rune charm array of that church. Ten magic cannons were added to the second volley.


    The roof of the church crumbled as expected, with the believers within crying and wailing as they ran outside.


    The red-robed bishop¡¯s face was ashen. He walked outside the church and yelled at the Floating City in the air, ¡°Mage, why!?¡±


    ¡°There is no why. I¡¯m just out to destroy the Holy See.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was heard in the air, which everyone in the city was able to clearly hear. They were at the God Grace Duchy, where most of its poption were adherents of the faith.


    A child, who was about six or seven years old, came to the red-robed bishop¡¯s side and yelled at the Floating City, ¡°Are you people abominations? You havee to destroy our faith then?¡±


    ¡°No. We¡¯re just humans trying to take back our dignity.¡±


    ¡°Dignity?¡±


    ¡°Yes, dignity. And dignity isn¡¯t something that can be bestowed,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°If I were to refuse to give up my faith, would you kill me?¡± That child asked in a childish tone.


    ¡°I only kill those who are able to fight,¡± Saleen answered.


    The child turned around the red-robed bishop and said, ¡°I¡¯d stay with you then, lord bishop. Then the abominations wouldn¡¯t attack you.¡±


    ¡°If I¡¯m an abomination, I¡¯d be very capable of lying.¡± Saleen¡¯s words made the child dumbfounded. She wanted to protect the revered bishop, but if she were to believe what the abomination said, she would have fallen. If she were to refuse to believe what was said, then the abomination would have acted against the bishop, regardless if she was around.


    ¡°So what now? Are you going to kill yourself, or let that kid die alongside you?¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was cold and sounded frightening as it was being projected using Thundering Shock. No one would have doubted what he said.


    ¡°If I were tomit suicide, my soul would never go to heaven. I know who you¡¯re, at the very least, for now, you won¡¯t kill the child.¡± The red-robed bishop then added in a light voice, ¡°But those around you would.¡±


    He sighed and let his body fall limply. He did not want to get the child involved. If the one who spoke was Saleen, he would have let the child go for what the bishop just did.


    Saleen was dumbfounded to see that the red-robed bishop kill himself. He then said to Rafel, ¡°Take that child up here. Don¡¯t let anyone hurt her.¡±


    He never expected that the red-robed bishop would have been willing to kill himself to protect the child. In the Holy See¡¯s codex, it was said that those whomitted suicide would have their souls condemned to hell.


    ¡°Are you not going to save his soul?¡± Rafel asked.


    ¡°If what the Lord of Glory said happened to be true, then I shall take a trip to his purgatory and pay a visit to those poor souls.¡±


    Rafel spread her wings and came to the destroyed church. The magic cannons in the air no longer attacked that ce but instead turned to the army gathering in the city.


    That was not a fair fight. While the magic cannons cost a lot to use, they would not have caused any deaths to their users. ording to conventional logic, killing a squadron of soldiers using one whole chunk of a mid-level magic nucleus would have been a terrible waste.


    Saleen did not care about the waste. Only sheer, overwhelming power would have been able to rattle those of shaky faith enough to betray their god.


    If he were to simply carry out the destruction, there would have been a huge number of believers abandoning their faith.


    There would have been more believers whose faith would have be stronger, that would have been their ticket to heaven.


    Saleen would not have bothered giving those block-headed believers any chance. Be it the Thunder Dragon ster or his lightning territory, both were capable of damaging souls. Broken souls were barred from entering heaven, and they would have been reduced to bing pests.


    After destroying the churches and killing some soldiers attempting to rally together, Saleen then took the Floating City away.


    The next target was only about 100 kilometers away, a distance he would have been able to cover within half an hour.


    It was a small town with a poption of less than 10,000 and there was only one church. The church, however, was a majestic building with a gilded spire.


    ¡°Seems like the faith here is strong.¡± Saleen sounded as if he was making a joke at the believers whileughing at himself at the same time. Over 20 magic cannons bombarded the ce, and the church fell in the light of magic.


    The small town was considered a historical one and there would not have been any powerful professionals found. Destroying the ce was easy.


    Saleen had not originally dared to do something like that, for fear of retaliation from the Holy See. He was no longer afraid of that. Metatrin City was rock solid and the families of his most trusted people have all been moved to the interdimensional space.


    The Holy See could have been more pissed about what he did, and still, they would not have been able to do anything about it.

 Chapter 1425: Rampage (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1425: Rampage (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen went on to destroy churches in over a dozen cities. It was different from how it was back then with Ironwall City, as he only targeted the churches and the adherents protecting them.


    The little girl who wanted to protect the red-robed bishop never said anything to dissuade Saleen ever since she came to the Floating City. She simply watched with her own eyes how Saleen went about destroying churches.


    He was the one who became unable to help and asked the little girl, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you try to dissuade me from attacking the churches?¡±


    The little girl had a devout look on her face as she said to Saleen, ¡°It is god who guides your hand to clean up the filth of the world. Those who don¡¯t believe in god, and those who are of impure faith, will go to hell.¡±


    ¡°Is your faith pure then?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I believe god wille to save me. How else would I survive?¡± Saleen was utterly baffled by the little girl¡¯s words.


    So this is the logic of the adherents then? So the only way I¡¯d able to answer the kid is to kill her then.


    But then he had promised the red-robed bishop that he wouldn¡¯t kill the little girl...


    ¡°How old are you?¡±


    ¡°Twelve.¡±


    Saleen was thinking that there was no need for him to kill a 12-year-old child just to drive home his point. Unless he was willing to chuck her into the purgatory of purification, however, the little girl would have definitely maintained her devotion to the Lord of Glory and provided the Lord of Glory the purest of power of faith.


    Despite not being able to use divine arts, that little girl was someone nearing the status of a saint.


    Saleen was not going to try to persuade anyone. He was there at Tanggsi to crush the nation¡¯swork of faith through sheer violence. He would not let one church be left standing.


    More important, those who kept defending the churches after seeing the Floating City would have been the most devout among the adherents of the faith. They were the ones Saleen had marked for destruction. A very devout believer was able to provide the power of faith over 100 times that of false ones.


    What¡¯s the most important thing to a religion? It is not its codex but its devout adherents.


    The Floating City gradually closed in on the Tanggsi Empire. There was arger city between the empire and the duchy, and the city belonged to the Holy See.


    Cologne City had a poption of about 100,000, yet there were over a million adherents who came on pilgrimages. That ce was second only to Holy City and considered a holynd in the minds of the adherents.


    Saleen did not move fast, so when he gradually closed in on Cologne City there were more adherents of the Holy See moving to Cologne City. They were getting ready to defend their religion.


    The headquarters of the Holy See was located at the Holy City¡¯s Grand Church of Nick. The pre-pubescent pope wore clean, holy robes and sat at the end of the round table, listening to the reports of the red-robed bishops.


    A white-robed young holy master was standing behind him. That was the newly appointed pope¡¯s chief of affairs. In truth, the position was a special one. He was usually considered a servant of the pope.


    Gagas was getting rather impatient. His hand was tucked in his sleeve, holding onto something.


    He did not have the three godly items possessed by Pope Theisio; however, he wore a crystal skull around his neck. The young man behind him had a cold, gloomy expression. There was an apparent mark of holy prose at the center of his brow.


    That was the mark ofplete submission to Gagas. That powerful young holy master was forced by the oracles to sign a contract with the pre-pubescent pope.


    That contract was an extremely unfair one, but when the oracles took power the Pivotal Council was in total chaos. Only orders from the oracles would have been carried out.


    He attained power bestowed by the oracles by surrendering his freedom.


    ¡°Lord Pope, what happened to the Oracle Corps?¡± A bishop from the Pivotal Council asked Gagas.


    Everyone knew that the oracles were gone; that was no longer a secret. At that time, however, when the people of the Oracle Corps came to Holy City, the young pope barred them from entering.


    The elders of the Pivotal Council had long been itching for action. They could have been subdued when the oracles were around, but with their disappearance, any one of them would have been qualified to be the next pope.


    Gagas was a pope designated by the oracles. He did not possess the three godly items. As such, this was not ording to the rules of the codex.


    Shouldn¡¯t we send the child to heaven and be blessed with the light of god? The elders from the Pivotal Council exchanged looks but none was willing to be the first to make the move, as they did not want to lose the chance to sit on the pope¡¯s chair.


    Historically speaking, there had indeed been popes who were removed from office by one of their own. It went without saying that blood was definitely spilled as well. All who killed the pope would have lost the right to be the next one.


    Gagas smirked and said, ¡°All of them are looking forward to my leaving this ce as soon as possible. Why bother asking me about not seeing the Oracle Corps then? If I were to reach an agreement with the Oracle Corps and forge a secret deal with them, would anyone of you get anything out of it?¡±


    Gagas mocked his elders with a tone unbefitting of his age. The bishops of the Pivotal Council were all wearing red robes, so the changes on their faces could not be seen.


    That might be a decree from god. Why would the Oracle Corps members wear white robes otherwise?


    Seeing that none of the red-robed bishops had answered, Gagas waved and said, ¡°Tell the people of the Oracle Corps that I¡¯m not seeing any of them until Fycro shows up.¡±


    ¡°Lord Pope, that sphemous mage is heading for Cologne City.¡± A red-robed bishop changed the subject, after seeing that the matter concerning the oracles was unable to make Gagas talk.


    If Gagas was willing to see those from the Oracle Corps, the Pivotal Council would have been willing to pay a great price just to get them to kill Gagas.


    Everything had its own designated procedures. If they were to just kill the pope without a good reason, no one would have benefited.


    The Oracle Corps was different in that oracles were capable of receiving god¡¯s orders directly. If the people of the Oracle Corps killed Gagas, they could have made up a decree from god that would have benefited everyone.


    The pope was unwilling to leave the Grand Church of Nick and no one was able to do anything to him.


    No one knew where the oracles picked the child named Gagas from. He was cold and incapable of being swayed.


    ¡°Cologne City. The city of saints.¡± Gagas smiled. That smile was one of sarcasm.


    ¡°Indeed, Lord Pope. You¡¯d need to give your orders,¡± another bishop suggested instead of keeping his thoughts to himself.


    Gagas turned around and said to his pope¡¯s chief of affairs, ¡°Is that so, Ugar?¡±


    The holy master named Ugar answered, ¡°Lord Pope, you are the shepherd of the Holy See. All holy masters shall work under your light. That mage hase this time with great force, targeting all churches of the Holy See. There is no way we could defend every single one of them, but he would definitely head to Cologne City. It is indeed your duty to give the order to have the adherents of the faith protect that city.¡±


    ¡°Alright then, I shall delegate the right to you for the time being. I¡¯m still too young after all. Ugar, you¡¯ll be in charge of how we go about this.¡±


    Gagas¡¯s words did not sound right given his position, but he was not wrong. He was still too young. If he were to give the order, it would have caused an unpredictable mess.


    Those from the Pivotal Council, however, were all disappointed, especially that bishop who asked earlier. He was hoping Gagas would have delegated the right further down the line, but Gagas simply put it in Ugar¡¯s hands.


    Ugar was not one of their own.


    After hearing what Gagas said, he was ted! Yet he quickly caught the resentful looks from the elders of the Pivotal Council.


    It seems as if this is some difficult seat to sit on indeed.


    Because he and Gagas were bound by the contract between them, he was unable to disobey Gagas¡¯s orders. He resented that the child was smarter than he looked. He was but a child of a peasant, someone of very low birth when he had first arrived at the Holy See. It was unknown what kind of divine spells the oracles had used to feedrge sum of information to Gagas, uplifting his intelligence to frightening levels.


    None of the old men in the room had been able to dupe him into doing anything.


    ¡°Cough...Well, you¡¯ve all heard what Lord Pope said, I take it?¡± Ugar did not bother with any of that. Those from the Pivotal Council were free to do whatever they liked. He was not like the young pope. He had the abilities of a level-10 holy master, and they wanted to harm him; those elders needed to figure out ways to go about it.


    ¡°We shall do it your way, Ugar,¡± the elders replied coldly.


    Gagas smirked. The oracles had been right. The believers of that god of theirs were a dirty bunch who were filled with their own desires. That room should have been the holiest of all ces in the empire, yet it appeared to be dirty as hell.


    It¡¯s been 500 years since the Holy See hadst seen a saint, eh?


    ¡°Well then, I shall get on with it.¡± Ugar said uncaringly and stepped forward, facing the elders of the round table and continued, ¡°Defense of Cologne City is considered somewhat better than average among the cities of the Holy See. Even Holy City wouldn¡¯t have been able to rely onmon folks to take on that mage. He has a city that flies after all.


    Reports from spies say that the sphemer called Saleen could take his city to altitudes of tens of thousands of meters and throw rocks from there. Think about it: Even if he were to do nothing but gather rocks and throw them down on Cologne City, what would the knights from the Pivotal Council be able to do to counter the attack?¡±


    ¡°What are you getting at?¡±


    ¡°I assume that the Pivotal Council still has a secret weapon hidden, no?¡±


    The elders red at Ugar with angry eyes. The secret weapon of the Pivotal Council meant that 10,000-strong Heaven Knights. They were truly a formidable bunch and the strongest fighting force on the Holy ins.


    If the Heaven Knights were to perish, it would have more or less spelled the end of the Pivotal Council.


    ¡°Units incapable of taking flight would have been of little use against that city in the sky. If any you think that I¡¯m not making sense, you¡¯re wee to retort,¡± Ugar said with a grin. He was indeed up to no good himself.


    Everyone actually knew that eventually, the only thing all of them would have been able to do was to hold the fort at Holy City. The other way to go about it was to umte holy masters capable of flight to intercept the Floating City.


    If they did not attack the city, the Floating City would have flown elsewhere and the Holy See would not have been able to do anything about it.


    ¡°If no one objects, then that settles it. Deploy the Heaven Knights and contact ck Dungeon Ind. Have the warden send wardens capable of flight our way. I know that there are at least a million such soldiers at the depths of the ck Dungeon. It would be nice if we could get 10,000 of them to show.¡±


    That was a conclusion Ugar came to. ck Dungeon Ind would not have had any thoughts about the position of pope. All soldiers borrowed would have been put under Pope Gagas¡¯ smand. Doing so would have meant that he was able to deploy the Heaven Knights andmand powerful flying wardens as well.


    As for Cologne City, it didn¡¯t matter to him if they were able to keep the city intact.

 Chapter 1426: Saint (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1426: Saint (Part 1)</h4>


    A cold look appeared in Gagas¡¯ golden eyes when Ugar mentioned the wardens. The look stemmed from pure hatred. If there had been a possibility for him to acquire powers of the oracles, he would have destroyed the Tribunal to make them pay for what they did.


    His hand was identally exposed holding half a carving¡ªa demon with twin horns.


    He recalled the demon giving him the carving when his vige was destroyed. He recalled the X-shaped holy prose in the sky that killed every living thing in his vige except him, because he was protected by the carving of the demon.


    He never thought that it would be something left behind by the demon that would save his life.


    The oracles came to him and gave him power. They reforged his body, making him worthy of bing the pope. However, the two oracles were not good people. If he had not sold them out, Fycro might not have been able to take them down so easily.


    Gagas rubbed on the carving of the demon in his hand as he zoned out.


    Ugar¡¯s ns had greatly irritated the bishops from the Pivotal Council. They left the Grand Church of Nick and returned to another church in Holy City, looking into ways to counter Ugar¡¯s ns.


    There had been over 100 red-robed bishops in the Pivotal Councils. The very powerful ones had all been drafted by Theisio and did not return. The current Pivotal Council was a changed ce. The ones originally in power had been reced by new holy masters.


    If the Holy See had not been so messy internally, the war at the Qin borders would not have ended the way it did. No one bothered with the logistics of the expeditionary force, and there were no reinforcements. They ended up being repelled back into Kroraina by forces that were hardly considered formidable, and retreated further and further away.


    ording to astrologers¡¯ theories, the Holy See was swaying in the midst of a raging storm, and a considerable amount of power of faith was being drawn away by the Nature Faith.


    The power of faith did not appear in every single person. People were constructs that relied on the nes they existed in. If there were more than two gods spreading their religion on a ne, both sides would definitely go to war due to the fact that there was a set amount of how much mystical power a ne could produce. It was not to say that the more powerful god would definitely acquire more power.


    The key was the number of believers. The god with greater number of believers would be able to acquire more benefits.


    The power of faith came from the nes, and humans were conduits. There was no way the gods could make that conversion on their own, which was why they needed to expand their number of believers.


    When the power of faith of a ne was sucked dry, that ne would fall into decline.


    The believers would not be able to reach heaven and would only struggle in pain in the ne that had be hell.


    A drained ne needed hundreds of millions of years, maybe even more, to recover. Even the shortest living ne had tens of billions of years of life. If the gods did not extract power in a frenzy, the ne would be able tost until their natural deaths.


    However, most gods would not bother with any of that. To the gods, the power of faith was life and power in itself, and the survival of the gods hinged on it.


    The gods did all they could to exhaust the power of faithtent on the nes. Unless they were peculiar, like the Metal God, everyone was essentially quenching their thirst by drinking poison.


    If every single ne in a crystal wall system became farms for the gods, it would be the end of said crystal wall system.


    That was what gods were like¡ªiming unceasingly and without restraint.


    The Pivotal Council bishops discussed the matter in their secret meeting room, which definitely would not have happened when Theisio was alive. Gagas had no connections. He was shoehorned into his role by the oracles.


    Everyone in the meeting room exchanged looks. ording to rankings, there were 24 bishops deemed fit to enter the room.


    The First Bishop spoke first. He was a veteran red-robed bishop and had many followers in the ranks of the Pivotal Council.


    ¡°Ugar intends to exhaust the Heaven Knights¡¯ powers, and I don¡¯t think that would be a bad thing.¡±


    ¡°Why would that be, my lord?¡± the Third Bishop, who had always served as the First Bishop¡¯s deputy, asked.


    ¡°There is no way Cologne City can be defended. However, we might be able to use the opportunity to have God advent. Get 3,000 believers ready. We need ones of purest of faith. Ask the Oracle Corps if we can¡¯t get enough.¡±


    ¡°My lord, are you going to do a Holy Sacrifice?¡±


    All bishops got excited.


    The Holy Sacrifice was a blood sacrificial ritual, a divine spell activated using the blood of those of purest faith, to incite their god through the deaths of saints, prompting their god to send a double to their ne.


    If the Lord of Glory advented, the child without the three godly items would definitely be ousted. The Pivotal Council would then be the core of the Holy See once more.


    It was not enough to kill the believers to invoke such arge scale divine spell; the enemy had to be the ones doing the killing. Saleen had done more than enough to draw their god¡¯s attention.


    If even one among the 3,000 believers were to fit the requirements of bing a saint, it would be enough to have the Lord of Glory advent.


    ¡°Yes, the Holy Sacrifice indeed. If the ritual is a sess, Holy City shall be ours once again.¡± A peculiar, intoxicated look formed in the First Bishop¡¯s eyes. ¡°Now go out and search for believers in your areas. The younger, the better, and they best be younger than 16 years old.¡±


    ¡°My lord!¡± The Second Bishop was about to voice his objection, but he quickly caught the res from his colleagues.


    It was simply too cruel.


    Not being even of 16 years old meant that they would all be children, and children were the purest. The method did not sit well with the Second Bishop, but there was little else that could be done. He too, wished to obtain power from their god, hoping to get the double of the Lord of Glory to advent.


    Saleen was simply too powerful, and the Holy See was in shambles. Unless ck Dungeon Ind agreed to back them up, the only city they would be able to protect was Holy City.


    There were divine spells left over by the Lord of Glory in the city, which made it difficult for even the flying city to get near.


    ¡°By the way, the Holy Sacrifice of the 3,000 believers will require many divine crystals. Gather them as well.¡± There was no way the First Bishop would foot the bill all on his own. Divine Crystals in the Holy See were akin to magic nuclei among mages.


    The crystals were used as currency. Secretly crafted divine crystals reced gold coins in trades between high level holy masters, but the only way to make them was to steal power of faith from their god.


    Everyone had been practicing it for over 1000 years, so they all assumed that their god would not mind.


    Divine crystals bestowed by their god were not enough to bestow believers with power. It worked the same way as mages working for nobles being paid in magic nuclei.


    Saleen¡¯s Floating City continued to head west. They were near Cologne City, but Saleen decided to shift the angle a little bit and head north instead.


    He wanted to scatter all surrounding holy masters of the city before he attacked Cologne City.


    Saleen had no intentions of leaving Cologne City intact. Saints had emerged from that city, and ces like that needed to be destroyed. It served as a symbol of the faith, for it had been visited by their god. It was not Holy City, but their god had left a divine spell behind, enabling anyone who met the requirements of a saint to use the divine spell, bing the most powerful holy master found on the ne.


    There was a reason why millions of believers made pilgrimages. If it was simply a historical ce, no one would bother. Everyone wanted to know if they were fit to be saints.


    But people who harbored such thoughts would never be favored by their god.


    The surroundings of Cologne City were filled with believers, as even viges had churches. Most ces were not even staffed by peasants. The people working on the farms were ves.


    Themon folk had all be believers and did nothing but pray every day. The churches fed them for doing that. The ves, without a doubt, belonged to the churches. The priests were bafflingly rich, due to toll gates everywhere. Tolls were collected in the name of their god.


    Does God need gold coins? No one was willing to ask such questions, as the ones who had asked had been sent to the Tribunal and dissected.


    One church after another was reduced to dust under Saleen¡¯s magic cannons. He brought 3,000 magic cannons with him and half of them had been destroyed. There was no way a destroyed magic cannon could be repaired, as Saleencked the skills and necessary materials to do so.


    Of course, attribute-less granules or bone crystals of the giant would allow him to create magic cannons that would never be damaged, but using those materials for such purposes was a terrible waste.


    Saleen kept the Floating City in midair after losing half of the cannons. He returned to Metatrin City and took another 3,000 from the city¡¯s warehouse.


    The cost in magic nuclei was exorbitant, so Saleen had begun throwing in low level elemental creatures to rece magic nuclei.


    Every single bombardment was a luxury to the mages.


    None of the 360rge Thunder Dragon sters were damaged. However, such weapons were meant for attacking Holy City, so he never used them to bombard cities.


    The Floating City had used ranged attacks as well. Saleen never descended to the ground the whole time he had been in the area.


    He spent about three days circling around Cologne City and cleaning up the 300 churches. The number alone was harrowing.


    A church had at least 100 believers in them, which meant that there had been 30,000 believers in the 300 churches. The believers were all tasked to receive people who ventured out on pilgrimages. That meant that there were at least 30,000 people who practiced that as a trade.


    ¡°This is a market of faith indeed.¡± Saleen concluded.


    The little girl said, ¡°Market? Only the likes of you who have no faith would see it all in such a crude manner. They are in service to god. If they were to be bereft of ie, how could more people embrace God?¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re the one with the wrong idea,¡± Saleen replied seriously. ¡°I have written a codex, built a huge temple, gathered tens of thousands of believers, and even established organizations like Temple Knights, the Pivotal Council and the Oracle Corps as well. Do I still sound like I know nothing about religion?¡±


    ¡°Faith never seeks returns. What you¡¯re doing has a price.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they indeed have a price. Those who give more are able to rise higher. That is my understanding of gods.¡±

 Chapter 1427: Saint (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1427: Saint (Part 2)</h4>


    The little girl did not bother saying anything more. It was not her intention to be at odds with Saleen. It was simply her habit of arguing against what she did not like. She was puzzled as to why Saleen kept her alive, wondering if Saleen was actually doing it just to keep his word.


    If he kept his word, then he was not an abomination.


    Perhaps it was a test from God. The little girl felt better at that thought. Her god would have never cast her away. She would have been killed by that abomination long ago otherwise.


    The Floating City continued to circle around Cologne City and hunt. The enchanters kept count meticulously and reported to Saleen every hour.


    Such hunts were not profitable from an economic perspective. Even if the Floating City had a pseudogod as its weapon spirit, it would have to spend some energy in flight. Spending that much only to kill targets of level four and lower was akin to burning money.


    Saleen stopped after a bit. The targets found in Cologne City were unsatisfactory.


    Huge number of Bug Angel Warriors and demons were sent to the ground to kill any believers defending their religion.


    The principle of the warriors was to hunt the people of insufficient levels. If any especially powerful holy masters showed up, the soldiers would simply let them pass instead of tangling with them.


    They would have died in Cologne City anyway, so there was no need to have soldiers die killing them.


    Most Bug Angel Warriors were level 7 or above, which was a result of the armor. A squadron of 40 Bug Angel Warriors had no problems taking out professionals below level 8, so anyone able to pass through the blockade and enter Cologne City were either lucky or above level 8.


    Saleen was crafting a spear for Rafel when he heard reports from the enchanters keeping watch on the Floating City saying, ¡°there is an armying from the west. Over 20,000-strong and well-equipped.¡±


    It was impossible for 20,000 people to resist the Floating City in the wilderness. The images were sent back, and Saleen was surprised to find thousands in the army that were hardly capable of fighting.


    The knights who escorted the people were all so well-equipped that they were on par with Saleen¡¯s elites. All of the knights rode level four warhorses, animals found only in the Holy See.


    There were hundreds of holy masters among the 10,000 elite knights, protecting the believers who had little fighting capacity. They were all heading towards Cologne City.


    Saleen wanted to take the Floating City to hit them, but Nichs said, ¡°My liege, the Holy See seems to be about to perform a Holy Sacrifice.¡±


    ¡°Holy Sacrifice?¡± Saleen looked at Nichs, asking for more boration. The Holy See had a myriad of sacrificial rituals, and an outsider like him was not able to tell much from the looks of the believers.


    ¡°A Holy Sacrifice requires over 3,000 people. It would definitely summon the god¡¯s double.¡± Nichs added, ¡°It is some kind of insurance pulled by the Holy See, hoping that there are saints among the ones about to be sacrificed.¡±


    ¡°Saints! Hahaha, you¡¯re telling me that there are still pure people left in the Holy See?¡± Saleenughed. Of everyone that he met in the past, not even Theisio could have been considered pure. The purest among them had been Fycro, who chose to be a god instead of continuing to serve the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°Look closely, my liege. Most of them are children.¡± Nichs pointed at the magic image copied by a flying scout.


    Saleen was startled. Children? If they were children, there might actually be some who were potentially saints.


    There were different levels of saints. Children would definitely not be high level saints, but one saint would suffice during the Holy Sacrifice.


    Am I really going to kill all the children?


    Seeing Saleen feeling troubled, Nichs added, ¡°My liege, there is no way the children will be able to survive such a ritual.¡±


    It had been quite a while since Saleen had gotten angry over anything. However, when he opened his mouth, he was unable to find words.


    To holy masters, giving up one¡¯s life was hardly considered cruel.


    The little girl who followed Saleen was surprised to see that many children, but she quickly smiled an incredibly pure smile and said to Saleen, ¡°if you really are an abomination, you should kill them. If you¡¯re not, then there is no way you would be able to act against so many children, correct?¡±


    Saleen did not say anything, but Rafel did. ¡°Are you hoping that Saleen is not an abomination? That would be a betrayal of your faith.¡±


    The little girl was at a loss for words. Rafel was an angel, which meant that she knew the gods better than she did.


    She currently looked like a typical angel, her wings spread as she stood behind Saleen, making Saleen look like a god.


    ¡°Let them pass, but kill all of the knights.¡± Saleen gave an order that everyone found puzzling. He added, ¡°we will now head to Cologne City and destroy everything there is to destroy!¡±


    Saleen was giving the order to massacre the entire city. He then ordered to Nailisi to purify all the dead bodies.


    His reason was simple. If the Holy See intended to summon a double of their god, then he would let them do it. The double was only at the pinnacle of level 12. Regardless of how many rules the double was able to master, it would not be able to win against his barrages of attacks.


    While the Violet Angel was not around, the three weapon spirits and Rafel all had their powers sealed at the pinnacle of level 12. He, Nailisi, and the Winged Skull were at the pinnacle of level 11.


    All of that, coupled with the powerful equipment of the Floating City¡ªthe 360rge scale Thunder Dragon sters¡ªwould make it very difficult for the god¡¯s double to get near him, even if he were to not have any certainty of killing the double.


    If the ne¡¯s power were raised by another rank, however, he would not dare to take such risks.


    If they were able to capture the double of the Lord of Glory alive, it would do Nichs and the Winged Skull a lot of good.


    ¡°The Holy See actually thinks that the crisis will be averted simply by summoning a god¡¯s double? Please, this is not my first time killing a god,¡± Saleen thought to himself.


    Saleen was in a very good mood after realizing all of that. He would not touch any of the young believers. None of them would survive the Holy Sacrifice anyway.


    The power of a god¡¯s double would usually be one or two levels lower than the god themself. For instance, the Lord of Glory¡¯s double could only be at most level 14, but since it was summoned on Myers Maind, the double¡¯s power would be suppressed at level 12.


    A double of a lesser god would stillmand formidable power of rules. Saleen did not dared to face it alone, but with so many powerful beings by his side, he decided to take the risk and see if he could really kill a god.


    Pseudogods were not considered true gods, as theycked divine personas and there was a huge gap between theirbat capacity and demigods¡¯.


    Saleen had Rafel take the Bug Angel Warriors and the demons down to the ground before he took the Floating City to the formidable knights and bombarded them from above.


    The Thunder Dragon sters and magic cannons took turns firing, making the battle a one-sided ughter.


    Saleen was rich enough to have huge amounts of elemental creatures at his disposal. Chucking them into magic power furnaces yielded hundreds to a thousand times more power than using magic nuclei. One low level elemental creature alone allowed all magic cannons on the Floating City to fire once.


    The power of the magic cannons were hardly formidable. They were full of shoringspared to level 9 magic. The Heaven Knights were capable of resisting the attacks using only the power of their armor.


    However, while it was possible for them to take a hit from one cannon, two would blow a Heaven Knight to bits.


    Saleen had installed 3,000 magic cannons on the Floating City, with 1500 on stand-by. By the time all of the magic cannons were broken, Metatrin City would have produced enough to rece them.


    Materials for crafting magic cannons were difficult to find, but Saleen did not need equipment thatsted a long time. He treated the cannons as little more than consumables. The metalized steel rock that he acquired from the temples became the key recement materials for crafting the magic cannons.


    The magic cannons were capable of firing rapidly, but were out ofmission after only being used for two to three hours.


    Even if he took his time with his attacks, the cannons would notst for long.


    Saleen was practically bringing the power of all the mages in Metatrin City to bear on the Heaven Knights. The knights had initially been upied with protecting the saints, so they were only able to hold the line on the ground. They discovered that the attacks were not aimed at the believers, only at the troops.


    The Heaven Knights invoked the divine rune charm arrays on their armors and took flight, intending to attack the Floating City.


    The Floating City elerated and flew away. The Heaven Knights were unable to pursue the city, as the Bug Angel Warriors quickly tangled with them.


    Saleen took the Floating City and headed straight for Cologne City. He wanted to reduce the city to ruins before the believers made it there. Even if the Lord of Glory was able to protect the city, Saleen wanted him to not even have a single subordinate tomand when he advent.


    As such, it was imperative to kill every single Heaven Knight there was, as every single knight¡¯s powers would have been forcefully enhanced to the peak by their god, when the Lord of Glory advent.


    They might be level 12 beings.


    There was no way Saleen would have been able to take on 10,000 level 12 Heaven Knights.


    The n to destroy the bodies made sure the Lord of Glory would not have anyone that he could use. His act of purifying the souls made sure that when the Lord of Glory advented, he would be amander of no one.


    He was most concerned that there was not even a single saint among the 3,000 believers.


    Saleen was looking forward to fighting a saint. The feeling eroded at his usually calm state of mind, making him feel excited.


    The Floating City arrived above Cologne City a little more than half an hourter. No one within Cologne City expected the Floating City to show up. Initially, a lot of people ran away, but many people were ready to die in battle. However, they quickly found that the city just hovered. Many decided that Saleen was terrified and did not dare to get closer.


    As such, some returned.


    Saleen hovered the Floating City at about 3,000 meters high and began to tear Cologne City apart. They were simple, usual tasks. At least, that was how the enchanters saw it.


    ¡°How many do you think will turn out to be saints?¡± Saleen asked the little girl, who was unable to answer.


    The way she saw at it, Saleen was being stupid. She wondered if Saleen would be able to stand his ground when her god advented.

 Chapter 1428: Eye of Souls (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1428: Eye of Souls (Part 1)</h4>


    Destruction was a job that was hardly stressful for any of the enchanters. Huge numbers of magic bugs or demonic spirits were often seen being killed in the demon ne.


    Magic bugs were also intelligent creatures, so killing them was scarcely different from killing people. That was a peculiar thing about the demon ne: Though it was vast and deste, the number of living beings found there eclipsed those in other nes.


    At any rate, deciding who would live and who would die was not something the demons lost any sleep over.


    It was a very simple job to have the Floating City destroy the city below. The only thing the giant weapon had to do was hover above a target and seize control of the city gates at the edge of the walls to prevent anyone from going in or out.


    That maneuver was followed by the casting of forbidden curses in the city center.


    Because of their high cost of operation, magic cannons were not a good choice forrge-scale destruction; casting forbidden curses was a lot easier, but there were pros and cons to using them.


    One big advantage was that only 100 enchanters were needed to easily cast a forbidden curse. Saleen had well over 100,000 enchanters stationed at the Floating City, which meant that it would have been easy for them to cast over 1,000 forbidden curses.


    The drawback of using them, however, was not rted to their level but to how they were cast.


    For instance, most forbidden curses could not precisely hit their target because the area they covered was sorge. It was, therefore, easier to throw a curse anywhere deemed suitable. That was especially so when dealing with unmovable cities where one forbidden curse could wipe out everyone within a radius of several meters. Higher-level forbidden curses, which required about 1,000 enchanters casting simultaneously, could obliterate everything within a one-kilometer radius or so.


    Fortunately, Saleen didn¡¯t have to remind the enchanters to restrain their power, as they were already casting within the limit, meaning none of them would have suffered any injuries.


    By this time, Cologne City had turned into a real hellhole: Only the divine miracle at the city center was left unscathed.


    There stood a stone house where a saint had once performed meditations. Legend had it that a devout believer over 1,000 years ago did not eat, drink, sleep or rest for 360 days and nights; all he did was pray nonstop until his god was moved by his piety.


    The god cast divine power and bestowed that believer with the title of saint.


    Saints were known to be pure of heart, feverish in their faith, just and fair-minded and free of mortal temptations.


    In the words of the mages, saints were people whose brains had gone haywire. If those saints had put the same effort and fervor into studying magic, they would have be the greatest mages ever seen, so long as they had magic chords coalescing in their bodies.


    That was the mages¡¯ opinion of persistent believers who had ced their faith in one god.


    The gods looked favorably on the pious. They not only bestowed their disciples with the title of a saint but also granted them awesome power, modifying their bodies and making them superior beings who ranked among the top ten in the history of the Holy See.


    Their god had even cast divine spells on the stone house: Anyone entering this sanctuary had the potential of bing a saint and receiving the blessings of divine arts. No one on Myers Maind was permitted to harm anyone who had set foot in the holy house.


    In other words, the stone house offered a shortcut to heaven.


    Millions of believers journeyed to Cologne City to see if they too could walk into the stone house and climb the stairway to heaven. Every few years, someone actually seeded in doing this, or so the story goes. That was why the city was such a bustling ce.


    If one were to calcte the odds, the chance of achieving such a goal was one in a thousand.


    Of course, there were still doubts about whether those people were real saints. Their god required propaganda. After all, who would have believed in any god incapable of performing miracles?


    That simple method was effective for attracting disciples. But how would any of them know if the stone house actually led to heaven or purgatory? It would have sufficed to have someone walk in and disappear. Their god doesn¡¯t lie, right?


    Untold numbers of people rushed to the city gates in an attempt to escape, but they were quickly repelled by sts from the magic cannons.


    Some even tried to take flight and attack the Floating City, but itsrge-scale Thunder Dragon sters swiftly and ably killed the attackers, one after another. With the enchanters taking control from above, flying into Cologne City required ten times more energy than what was typically used in flight, and the speed had to be reduced to less than half of what they were used to.


    Unsurprisingly, none of them attempted to charge into the stone house. Saleen smirked and said, ¡°Seems like none of those people are of resilient faith. All of them would have been able to escape otherwise.¡±


    He was initially concerned about the Nature Faith giving birth to yet another monster on the maind. But after thinking things over, he realized he had nothing to fear from the believers. Many dly abandoned their faith in life-and-death situations.


    To be sure, no one in Cologne City maintained their faith under such difficult situations.


    Saleen had evolved in his development far enough to have lost any interest in killing his enemies. He was well aware of what he needed to do in order to advance even further¡ªevolve his soul to break through level-12. Gods had researched souls as well, and Saleen was looking into the souls of those believers.


    His Elemental Eye finally changed. Despite having advanced numerous times, it seemed to have hardly changed at all. In the recent massacre, Saleen finally saw signs of souls.


    To put in a more precise manner, what Saleen was seeing were the projections of souls. Human souls did not reside in their own bodies. Only people above level-13 could make such projections tangible.


    Saleen acquired these powers when he advanced to level-11.


    The study of the soul was mystical. Possessing iplete true souls enabled someone to reach the height of a pseudo god. Those who possessed aplete soul would at least be at the same level as the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen¡¯s power of soul had long surpassed that of pseudo gods, thanks to the workings of the Ring of Cosmos. What that meant was, there was no way level-13 pseudo pods would be able to enthrall Saleen using the power of the soul.


    When gazing with his Elemental Eye, he saw that all those people wailing and running to safety had iplete soul projections. That was because they had prayed for so long that some of the original powers of their souls were stolen.


    Soul projections in such states actually meant that regardless of how they worked on training their souls, their true souls would never return to their bodies.


    Saleen was frightened by what he saw and on discovering how fragile souls were. If he lowered his guard and ended up believing in some gods, he would have been robbed the ability to fulfill his ideals.


    The advancement of those holy masters was, in truth, bestowed entirely by their gods. The power of their souls had never developed in the first ce.


    If a holy master were able to enhance the power of their souls, it would have only been a matter of time before having divine fires igniting in them. No one would have believed in the gods if that ever happened.


    Those fractured soul projections remained fairly stable in peoples¡¯ bodies. Saleen then saw the attack from the forbidden curses, which reduced them to dust. The few lucky ones ended up in pieces instead. Those who were fossilized were able to keep their dead bodies intact, with their soul projections struggling within.


    Saleen was thinking that despite being only projections, souls were nheless connected to bodies all the time.


    The problem was that the power of those projections was not strong enough to mobilize greater mental powers.


    Once the soul returned to the body, that person¡¯s mental powers would evolve to the power of the soul. By then, the use of magic chords would have been a piece of cake.


    There were some who attempted to pray, and their souls were infused with bits of power. Saleen saw clearly that those were powers that were stored within the stone house. After it was destroyed, those powers eventually dissipated.


    Further, he came to realize that the powers the believers obtained through their daily prayers were stockpiled simply by singing the god¡¯s praises.


    Saleen couldn¡¯t help but chuckle, finding the whole business simr to how loan sharks operated.


    The lending business of Sikeqinyans was very well known. There was a good joke about the business. A poor man wanted to do start a small business and borrowed money from a boss of a Sikeqinyan chamber ofmerce.


    He only wanted to borrow two gold coins and was required to clear the debt within a year. The boss told the poor man that the interest was two gold coins, but after the risks were factored in the poor man had to first pay the interest upfront.


    The poor man paid the interest of two gold coins, which was money his family had saved for a year.


    The merchant eventually got the two gold coins, while the poor man had to first pay two gold coins and was then required to pay the two gold coins borrowed by the end of the year.


    That was where the central problem of faith. One was required to pay using the power of the soul, and prayers had to be said every day in order to send the power of faith to their god. Said god would have then left a part of the power of faith on the believer¡¯s ne, which was allowed to be used by said believer. In truth, said god did next to nothing but ended up gaining everything.


    The so-called believers were like sheep¡ªreleased to graze on the fields and required to present their owners with milk and meat when they returned.


    Saleen sighed. His Elemental Eye had finally advanced, enabling him to peer into the fundamental nature of power: the power that came from souls. That was the evolved form of his Elemental Eye¡ªthe Eye of Souls.


    If the Eye of Souls continued evolving, it would be one of the most powerful mage skills avable, the All-seeing Eye, also known as the Eye of Thorough Understanding.


    The Eye of Souls was originally an ability above level-12, whereas the Eye of Thorough Understanding was an ability above level-15.


    Armed with the Eye of Souls, Saleen became even more certain about taking on the Lord of Glory¡¯s double with the power of his equipment. What the Eye of Souls was capable of seeing was more than just elements; it could also discern the nature of all powers. Saleen¡¯s current calctive abilities matched those of nearly 100 of mages at his level. The Eye of Souls possessed powerful targeting ability as well. From then, he would never miss with shots from his Thunder Dragon ster.


    Saleen deliberately observed the Winged Skull and realized that its soul mes had be true souls that made them weaker versions of himself.


    That discovery gave Saleen pause for thought.


    That definitely would not have been a recent urrence. The Winged Skull¡¯s powers ofte had not seen apparent enhancements, which meant that its power of the soul had long been stronger than his. The Winged Skull had the capacity to wipe away those magic patterns in the depths of their souls.


    Did this have something to do with spirits clinging to what they were familiar with? They were unwilling to undo their contract with me, and it was probably the same with Nailisi.


    Saleen observed them all. He found Nichs¡¯s soul to still be in projection state; however, his soul projection was nearlyplete. Saleen attributed that to repairs done by continuous use of lesser prophecy spells, as well as souls within the Blood Soul Tower praying for him, enabling the wounds of the soul projection to be healed.


    The souls of J and Sul were full and the others were more or less so, but not as strong as the ones of the two level-10 true mights.


    The weakest one was Isabe¡¯s. The woman was trained in both magic and sword arts. While herbat capacity was superb among peers of her level, a crack was seen on her soul projection.


    It did not seem to be a wound. Would someone like that eventually have her soul split in two?


    If that were the case, it would be twice as hard for her to advance.

 Chapter 1429: Eye of Souls (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1429: Eye of Souls (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s Elemental Eye advanced to be the Eye of Souls before he realized it, enabling him to see more and giving him a big boost in battle. Since that was a passive ability that evolved on its own, consumption would have been over 100 times less than what usual Eye of Souls would have entailed.


    Whenmon mages used the Eye of Souls, they did their best to shorten its usage to prevent them from exhausting the power of the soul.


    It was more difficult for power of the soul to recoverpared to mental powers. Having the former exhausted in battle was extremely dangerous.


    While Saleen was busy destroying Cologne City, Rafel was doing a great job killing the Heaven Knights. Since the Floating City had already destroyed the elite parts of the Heaven Knights and caused half to die or be injured, the Bug Angel Warriors and metal angels led by Rafel made short work of what was left with them.


    Those Heaven Knights were all formidable warriors but because they were inexperienced, they quickly scattered after being attacked.


    Their retaliation was ineffective, which enabled Rafel to destroy the 10,000-strong group of knights with little coteral damage. Roughly 1,000 demons and little more than 300 Bug Angel Warriors died fighting them.


    Rafel left the scene without harming the 3,000 believers, which they found puzzling. The red-robed bishops hiding in their midst had no choice but to lead the believers on an arduous journey. With all the steeds dead and the corpses carted away, it took them three or four days to travel 200 kilometers to reach their destination.


    Those people, who were basically children, were incapable of using divine spells. There were fewer than 100 holy masters in the lot, making it impossible to hurry the group along.


    Bug Angel Warriors kept a watchful eye from above. The holy masters knew about that as well. They figured if any of them used any divine spells, it would have drawn a second round of attacks.


    While none of them understood why the enemy left the 3,000 believers alive, the holy masters had no choice but to proceed as nned by sending the young believers to Cologne City in hope of summoning their god¡¯s double.


    The young believers witnessed firsthand the horror and brutality of battles, causing them to shake with intense fear. They had no idea why they had been gathered; the only thing they knew was that they needed to go to the holynd and pray.


    They wondered, why would a bunch of demons attack us? Is doomsday upon us already?


    Moving at a snail¡¯s pace, the group scaled a ridge on their third night out in the wild. Suddenly, the highest-level red-robed bishop spotted Cologne City in the distance.


    Ity in ruins. Only the walls were left standing. Everything inside was demolished.


    The Floating City flew to extremely high altitudes but all that could be seen from the ground was arge shadow in the sky. What in the world was that?


    ¡°Believers of the Lord of Glory, you have been gathered here to give up your lives in exchange for your god¡¯s advent. Please enter the city.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice bellowed from high above.


    Most of the young believers were at a loss of what to do. Frightened, a handful of them ran off.


    They had all heard about Holy Sacrifices. It was said that some would be decapitated and others dismembered.


    When the older children ran, the younger ones realized what was happening, but they did not dare to run. Instead, they sat on the ground and cried.


    Saleen descended slowly from the Floating City and looked at the children from an altitude little over 100 meters away.


    He then said to a red-robed bishop in the group, ¡°Are you in charge of performing the sacrificial rituals?¡±


    That bishop was very young. He had changed his garb but there was no escaping Saleen¡¯s Eye of Souls. Saleen asked imposingly as his territory spread out. The bishop was unable to utter a single word in response.


    The level difference was equivalent to someone who had just made it to level-8 but was now totally helpless against territorial powers from someone at level-11. The power differential was simply too great.


    The reason Saleen¡¯s territory hadn¡¯t been useful in the past was that he¡¯d been fighting dominant enemies. Now, facing a level-8 holy master, he felt as if he could make life-or-death decisions against his enemies with the blink of an eye or a flick of his wrist.


    Upon seeing that the holy master had been left speechless, he shouted, ¡°I¡¯m here to send you people into the city. I¡¯d like to see what the advent of your god is like. As a mage, that¡¯s something I find intriguing.¡±


    The red-robed bishop took in Saleen¡¯s words and steeled his mind before, retorting, ¡°When our god advents, it shall be your death. Are you sure you want to let us enter the city?¡±


    ¡°Save your breath. I¡¯m a mage and I always keep my word. Be my guest.¡± Saleen then hovered to Cologne City, moving at very slow speeds, making it seem as if he was really leading the way. He was disappointed to find through observation of his Eye of Souls that, excluding the ones who¡¯d run off, the young believers left behind were not considered pure enough to wear the title of saint.


    In contrast, the little girl he¡¯d let onto the Floating City seemed to have met the standards of a saint better.


    Saleen frowned. He wouldn¡¯t have minded if that little turned out to be a saint. After all, the only thing he wanted to do now was to see how powerful the Lord of Glory¡¯s double was. But how was it that astrology unable to calcte any of this? Was the little girl¡¯s appearance a coincidence or ordained by fate?


    It wouldn¡¯t have mattered if it turned out to be a coincidence. On the other hand, if someone had indeed meddled with the trajectories of fate in the dark, causing him to leave the little girl alone, things would no doubt take a turn for the worse.


    Saleen notified Nailisi secretly, ¡°Nailisi, move every important thing and person in Metatrin City to the Floating City. We might be running into trouble this time.¡±


    Despite this order, he had no intention of preventing believers from entering the city.


    Havinge so far with his training, it was extremely difficult to advance quickly. His talents wereckingpared to his teacher¡¯s. While his soul was somewhat more distinct, the growth of his magic chords was not much faster thanmon mages. That was due to his having ess to the power of the soul and hardly running into any obstacles in advancement before level-5.


    A person¡¯s talents were decided at birth. As a child, Saleen suffered a lot and was in poor physical condition, which only improved after he became a mage and met Joey, who helped him to craft a body of water element.


    The point was, his body of water element was unbnced, to begin with, and Joey¡¯s power did not allow Saleen to achieve much.


    If it hadn¡¯t been for his family badge absorbing power and impurities from his body, Saleen¡¯s qualities would have meant it was nearly impossible to even reach level-7.


    The holy masters, under pressure from Saleen, didn¡¯t chase the children who ran away. They simply brought whoever remained of the 3,000 over the hill and followed the mage who, feeling dazed, headed to the saint¡¯s stone house to summon their god.


    Everything about this expedition was very odd. The powerful people escorting the group had all been killed. When the survivors were still undecided if they should proceed, Saleen showed up and hurried them along.


    But what choice did they have? Angering the mage might have invoked dire consequences. They were in a terrible dilemma.


    Then the peopleid eyes on the dpidated state of Cologne City. None of them thought that the young mage was a nice guy who was easy to talk with.


    The 3,000 believers walked dejectedly under the Floating City¡¯s shadow.


    The holy masters didn¡¯t want to anger Saleen, so none of them used divine spells to light the way: They chose to walk slowly in the shadows. Saleen perceived that the children¡¯s life force was nearly exhausted. For the final leg of the trip, the holy masters invoked their life force to enable them to surpass that of healthy grown-ups.


    They were all about to die anyway, so why worry about restrictions or whatever?


    The city gates of Cologne Cityy in rubble. The believers trembled as they stepped through the gates. Oh, what they saw: damage of epic proportions. Ominous chills ran up and down their spine.


    Nothing remained, nothing! The wreckage was widespread, sickening and appalling. Except for the crumbling, hollowed-out buildings, there was little else to be found in this once beautiful, charming city.


    The streets, formerly been lively and bustling, were gone. The church spires had snapped. The tall spires crashed to the ground while mages ran around writing insulting words to the gods.


    But then again, that was what the holy masters saw. In truth, those were just tricks conjured by the enchanters.


    The demonic spirits, imps, and demons had no reverence for the gods at all. With no restrictions imposed by Saleen, they had free reign to do whatever they wanted. Many took pleasure in stering graffiti everywhere using low-level magic.


    Such sphemous words would have infuriated believers and incited them to go on a revengeful rampage.


    There were probably even enchanters who were wondered if the believers could read theirplex words. What if they couldn¡¯t? To make sure they did, they started drawing graphic images on the ground and broken walls. The Lord of Glory was depicted being stomped on by the demons and made into their ything.


    Misery was etched on the face of the level-8 red-robed bishop. None of those imageries were directed at him; they were directed at his god. He was wondering if god¡¯s fury would be so ignited that he would destroy the world if he were to advent and see what was happening now.


    What a paradise for sphemers.


    Saleen led the people to the saint¡¯s stone house. They hadn¡¯t eaten a morsel of food for the past three days but Saleen had no intention of treating them to a grain of rice. All of them had their life force potentials invoked, which meant they would be able to survive for over a dozen years if they could just stay alive. It wouldn¡¯t have mattered if they had eaten anything at that point.


    It was said that the purest of believers would fast for over three days before praying.


    The za near the entrance had been ttened again and ravaged by forbidden curses that spared the stone house. This made Saleen think of dismissing the idea altogether. The stone house was protected by the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine spell and was capable of holding just one person. The ce hadn¡¯t had any divine spells cast in 1,000 years.


    With a divine spell cast so long ago and still working well enough to resist forbidden curses, he wondered if the powers of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double would exceed his control.


    That thoughtsted little more than a second before Saleen dismissed it entirely.


    Regardless of how powerful the Lord of Glory might be, the best he would be able to advent with was a double at level-12. Level-12¨Cnot much of a problem. whatsoever.


    Saleen looked up and saw the Floating City lowering its altitude gradually. Nailisi¡¯s voice was heard in his mind.


    ¡°Master, we have begun the transfer. Should we bring the temple guards as well?¡±


    ¡°Send them to the interdimensional space,¡± Saleen said.


    The temple guards were a force he had built personally. Few humans were among them, and most of the units were demons. The temple guards, however, were the most loyal of Saleen¡¯s armies. He had ns to make them the seeds of his kingdom, which would be vital in procreating future generations.


    Excellent soldiers bred stronger children. Saleen had no ns of sending them to the battlefield. Those humans and demons would serve as ancestors of the army of the Kingdom of Metatrin in the future.


    ¡°Master, what should we do about the defense of Metatrin City?¡±


    ¡°Mobilize 12 demon legions there and leave them in charge,¡± Saleen said while ambling to the saint¡¯s stone house.

 Chapter 1430: Advent (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1430: Advent (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s Eye of Souls was unable to see what was so special about the stone house. The divine spell that the Lord of Glory cast allowed the stone house to be indestructible. He walked to the door and peered inside. There was a chair and a table in it, but no bed.


    It was as minimalistic as it could be. Other than the chair beingrger than usual, it was hardly any better than cottages of poor people. There was even a puddle on the floor, making the house look less than clean.


    This is what your godid out? Saleen found that unbelievable.


    ¡°When are you going to do the deed?¡± Saleen turned around and asked the red-robed bishop, who was feeling extremely frustrated. They had wanted to summon the double of the Lord of Glory for the expressed purpose of killing the age in front of them.


    However, from the looks of it, the mage did not seem to be fettered at all, so much so that he even asked about the deal feverishly. That mage would probably provide anything that he would need to get the ritual underway.


    Saleen said, ¡°I had killed quite a lot of your people by the time you guys showed up. You might have lost some supplies. Tell me if you need anything. I¡¯ll be happy to provide.


    ¡°Are you insane?¡± The red-robed bishop was unable to help but ask. He felt his head would blow from the frustration pent up in him if he kept it to himself.


    ¡°Not really. In truth, us mages, like you holy masters, want very much to witness what gods are like with our own eyes. What is different is that you would get to your knees and worship him when you see him, while I am going to kill him instead.¡±


    The red-robed bishop¡¯s expression was extremely gloomy. Saleen rescinded his territory, as it was too much for a level eight holy master to bear. The holy master looked like he would pass out at any moment.


    The holy master ordered his underlings in a terrified manner. ¡°Get to it, quick!¡±


    Materials forying out the divine rune charm array were all found in his space equipment. He was not actually qualified to make the trip, but all high level holy masters in the Pivotal Council were afraid of the dangers, so a newly appointed red-robed bishop was sent instead.


    If he was able to finish the Holy Sacrifice, he would be able to be ranked among the Pivotal Council after he returned.


    He realized why the elders said that. Returning alive was not possible. Saleen slowly rose into the air and wrapped himself in mist, concealing his true face.


    Rafel brought the metal angels and descended from the Floating City, joining Saleen in the mist.


    Rafel said to Saleen with a severe expression, ¡°My lord, are you sure you want to let them proceed with the Holy Sacrifice?¡±


    ¡± I am. I¡¯m going to challenge a god¡¯s double.¡±


    ¡°You might die.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t. My luck still holds. At the very least, there were no signs of my death shown in astrology.¡±


    ¡°Your astrological prowess is only at level ten, while the Lord of Glory is a level 15 god, making it possible for him to conceal all the signs. Prophecies are the forte of gods.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t just stand around and let him take his sweet time.¡± Saleen pointed at the stone house below. ¡°By the time he gets here, he will be fully prepared. I know a thing or two about the god, and he is very powerful. If he is able to bring angels with him when he advents, no one on this ne will be able to resist him.¡±


    ¡°My lord, I¡¯m afraid you are still not getting it. My current powers are sealed at level 12. I¡¯m fully confident of being able to kill any conventional level 12 beings, but if it is the double of the Lord of Glory, there is no way I would be able to fight him.¡±


    ¡°Are you afraid of death, Rafel?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a human, and I¡¯m not,¡± Saleen answered with a smile.


    Rafel was able to do nothing but sigh. She was already thinking about how she should take on a god¡¯s double. She had Nailisi prepare ample amounts of divine crystals for her back on the Floating City.


    There was also a huge amount of divine crystals from Nature City, and Rafel carried as many as possible with her. The uing battle would be tough. She had lost protection from her own god, so she had to rely on her own power to fight.


    It was an indescribable feeling.


    In the past, when she was fighting for the Metal God, regardless of how grave her injuries were or if she died, none of it had been able to strike any fear into her. She would always be revived and her powers restored in the Metal God¡¯s divine kingdom.


    It seemed as if Saleen was the only one who did not fear any of what was toe. Every single follower by Saleen¡¯s side was preparing for the worst.


    The holy masters beganying down the divine rune charm array under Saleen¡¯s scrutiny. Nichs descended from the Floating City, feeding him details by his side.


    Saleen looked at the holy masters work, intrigued. It seemed that, like mages, using divine spells borrowed elemental powers. It was only the way the powers were borrowed that was different.


    Mages used their own magic chords to manipte ambient elements, while holy masters gained the power of their god after praying, allowing them to manipte elemental powers using divine powers. Fundamentally, divine arts and magic had the same origin.


    The difference however, was that magic studies branched out to details regarding each of the elements, while divine spells were cast using a mix of elements instead. Even divine arts of light used by the Lord of Glory were not actually pure light element.


    The 3,000 believers waited in silence. Saleen took the time to do a head-count, finding that the total number of believers exceeded 3000, even after 100 or so ran away. Materials required for such a grand array were not considered expensive.


    That was something that holy masters were able to im superiority over the mages. Magic arraysid by mages often required very expensive materials, and the higher the level of the magic array, the more expensive the materials became.


    It was said that by the time a human exceeded level 15, a mage would only require their own magical powers toy magic arrays. That was how one-time-use magic arrays functioned.


    None of the holy masters actually wanted Saleen to stand around and watch, but he was far more powerful than they were. It was very peculiar for him to allow them toy the divine rune charm array out. Things would get very messy if they asked that Saleen leave them be.


    Nichs had neverid such arge Holy Sacrifice array. He was having a great time watching from above, totally forgetting how terrifying the enemy he faced would be if the double of a god advented.


    From that point alone, one could consider Nichs a qualified fallen holy master.


    Fallen holy masters, like mages, would put meals and sleep aside just so to look into divine spells. They even forgot about their own life and death at times.


    The preparations were done more quickly than Saleen expected. The huge divine rune charm array circled around the saint¡¯s stone house and was finished in little more than three hours. However, none dared to try and enter the stone house.


    Things had changed. If someone entered the stone house and failed before the Holy Sacrifice, it would affect the array¡¯s stability.


    The only way to do it was to let the god select one out of the 3,000 himself. In truth, it did not matter if he was unable to find any among the group. If all 3,000 were sacrificed, their god would be alerted all the same. Everyone who participated in the Holy Sacrifice were younger than 16. Even if they were not saints, they could be considered pure.


    The holy masters dared not ck, as none of them knew if the mage would just change his mind. Even though the mage had agreed to let the Holy Sacrifice be carried out, it was still best for them to hurry.


    The red-robed bishop in charge ordered the others to take their seats in the divine rune charm array, before beginning to lead the prayers.


    Saleen had no idea what they were saying, but Nichs did. It was anguage of the gods that belonged specifically to the Lord of Glory. It was hardly a difficult chant, as believers often heard it and were required to learn the tongue diligently. Everyone in the Lord of Glory¡¯s heaven was required to speak in godnguage. Anyone who failed that requirement would forfeit their right to enter heaven.


    Nichs exined that to Saleen, who chuckled. ¡°A good method indeed. Tell the people to learn the godnguage and they will forget where theye from. If there was only the Tanggsi Empire left on the maind, I¡¯m afraid its history would need to be rewritten. Humans would think that they were creations of their god instead.¡±


    ¡°That never crossed my mind, my liege. It really does seem to operate in such a manner.¡±


    Saleen thought that the god really did know what he was doing. Details like that seemed insignificant, but if a ne were robbed of its history, it would make the ne all that much easier to control. That was not the case with Myers Maind, as only the Tanggsi Empire¡ªthe poorest of the four empires¡ªwas controlled by the Holy See. The believers never got to know true history, thinking that whatever their god said was truth.


    There had been a good number of gods destroyed by humans in the past. If they learned such truths, it would be far more difficult to have anyone join the ranks of the Holy See.


    Saleen was irritated by the voices of 3,000 believers praying at the same time, but he was unable to dispel them using Thundering Sound. He was there to witness how powerful a god was. If he dispelled the voices, he would not be able to achieve what he was out to achieve.


    The little girl that Saleen had taken with him was alone in a room on the Floating City, with no one keeping an eye on her. It was a form of imprisonment, as Saleen did not want her toe out, at least not before the Lord of Glory advented.


    However, the little girl was sitting at the center of the room, and vague light was seen shimmering on her head. She was chanting prayers in god¡¯snguage as well.


    She looked to be about five or six, but she told Saleen she was 12. She did not lie, however. A pure believer was unable to lie, or their god would punish them for it. She was unable to lie even to her enemy.


    She began to pray at the church when she was three years old, picking up thenguage of god in just one year. She stopped growing after she reached the age of five, remaining looking like a little child.


    She was a very famous person in that small city of hers. The red-robed bishop who had protected her had been her teacher in theology. She was only able to officially address him as her teacher at the age of 16, so she did not actually lie to Saleen.


    The little girl prayed devotedly. Light glowed at where her heart was, spreading out to her entire body. Runes formed between her skin and muscles.


    None of the 3,000 on the ground were able to evoke such an effect. The most apparent among them were just had light shining above their heads. There was not a rune to be found.


    The saint¡¯s stone house remained quiet, no miracles sen.


    One whole day had passed, and Saleen was feeling rather tired. The followers were repeating their prayers for the third time. The prayers were frighteningly long¡ªover 100 times longer than the longest magical chants. He was baffled as to how was it possible for them to deal with all of that. Didn¡¯t any of them get tired of singing praises for such a long time?


    ¡°My liege, bad news!¡± Nichs pointed at the sky and saw the Floating City shake. A huge crack burst from the center of the city, intense light shooting down.


    Saleen evaded right away, not bothering to even try to block it.


    It was as if a huge magic cannon had hit the ground below. A huge 100-meter chasm formed around the saint¡¯s stone house. The believers and the holy masters were nowhere to be found.

 Chapter 1431: Advent (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1431: Advent (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen looked up with his Eye of Souls and saw the Floating City crash down. It was huge and despite being suspended only a little more than 3,000 meters up, falling would kill everyone due to sheer weight.


    The weapon spirit of the Floating City¡ªthe God of Magic Net¡ªdid its best to bring the Floating City up, but it was unable to prevent the huge city from falling.


    The crack on the Floating City was over 200 meters long. Saleen saw the little girl that he had spared in the huge crack. She was covered with white holy prose, which caused the crack.


    The terrifying power shook Saleen to the core. The Floating City was made of the strongest materials on their ne, especially the bone crystals of the giant. They were extremely hard toe by even during ancient times.


    The only problem was that he had not crafted the Floating City personally, and it was structurally iplete. There were enough cracks and crevices between the materials that could be easily broken by powerful forces.


    If it had been a Sky City, not even the advent of the Lord of Glory would be able to dent it.


    That Floating City was only a part of the Sky City. It was thanks to the Genesis Stock Solution, the mechanical core of the Sky City, and help from the God of Magic Net that it was being crafted as it was.


    The crack in the center of the Floating City made it difficult for many magic arrays to operate, which was why it came crashing down. However, the crack¡¯s size was an optical illusion. It was a result of some kind of power of rules twisting space about and allowing the huge beam of holy light to destroy the divine rune charm array on the ground.


    It was their god¡¯s wrath and punishment. The Lord of Glory heard the prayers of his believers. However, with the exception of the little girl¡¯s pure faith, all the other believers were filled with fear.


    He deemed the believers of the ne utterly disappointing.


    While the believers and the holy masters felt insecure, they did not expect that their god would rain punishments on them, sending all of their souls to hell.


    The souls sent to hell had to fight the fallen angels. They were either killed or enved by the fallen angels.


    But there was more than just one hell. The Lord of Glory¡¯s divine punishment was powerful, as it sent over 3,000 souls away. They would not be transferred somewhere near.


    ¡°Master, put the Floating City back into the magic amplifier. I can¡¯t hold it much longer!¡± The God of Magic Net yelled. Saleen felt a chill run through his spine. The Lord of Glory had broken the Floating City with one single shot, making it very difficult for him to pull many of his tactics.


    At the very least, all hisrge Thunder Dragon sters were useless. If they were uninstalled and used on their own, they were utterly incapable of dealing with powerful beings. The sters were able to aim only because of having 100,000 enchanters working with the magic on the Floating City.


    The targeting was done using mental powers. Without the magic, the Thunder Dragon sters were simply powerful catapults. Hitting targets would be down to luck.


    ¡°What happened with the little girl?¡± Saleen had the weapon spirit of his magic amplifier help the God of Magic Net put the Floating City away into the magic amplifier.


    The Floating City, which had been severely damaged, was gradually shrunken by the two level 13 pseudogods. The light disappeared, and the saint¡¯s stone house in the huge chasm gradually rose and flew into the air.


    Among those onboard the Floating City, only Nailisi and the Winged Skull had soul links with Saleen. They rushed outside as soon as they sensed danger. All the others were chucked inside the magic amplifier along with the city.


    Due to the Floating City being put away while it was falling slowly, both the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier and the God of Magic Net were thoroughly exhausted, especially the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier, as it was thest to have its divine fire ignited and the weakest of the three. It had sustained severe damage.


    However, there was no other way. If they let the little girl continue to be exposed, the Lord of Glory would not advent in the saint¡¯s stone house, but the room in the Floating City.


    If that happened, Saleen¡¯s Floating City would bepletely ruined.


    The Lord of Glory definitely would not advent on the Floating City though, as the saint¡¯s stone house was the miracle that he left behind. There would not be any danger with him performing the advent in the house. What he did in the Floating City was simply just putting on airs.


    Saleen had to yield to the bluff, as both of his powerful weapon spirits had lost the capacity to fight. With the Floating City put away, the magic became entirely useless, and the enchanters on board would not be able to help Saleen.


    The light on the stone house¡¯s facade became so intense that it was not possible to look at, and professionals above level ten were capable of looking at the sun directly with their naked eyes. The brightness of the light surpassed the sun. Only Saleen and Rafel were able to see what was going on in the stone house.


    A faint shadow continued to coalesce within the stone house, stark naked and around three meters tall. Its silver hair billowed in the void. The center of the stone house seemed to be of a different space from Myers Maind.


    Is that the Lord of Glory? Doesn¡¯t look like his statues.


    Saleen made a snap decision and took out his family badge, aiming it at the stone house and firing a powerful bolt of lightning.


    He originally wanted to capture the god¡¯s double alive, but seeing how it had torn a hole in his Floating City, he knew that the double was too powerful for him to handle. He was able to break his Floating City simply by manipting a saint and casting one divine spell. If hepletely advented, there was nothing Saleen would be able to do against him, even if he and all his followers ganged up on him.


    He had been too careless, thinking that a level 12 double would not be a big deal.


    Level 12 was just a description of the double¡¯s current level after his actual level was sealed and limited. The Lord of Glory was a level 15 god, meaning that the rules he mastered would be far more powerful than usual level 12 beings.


    The lightning bolt shot from his family badge was far more powerful than any it had fired in the past.


    The light from the lightning bolt was far more intense than the light from the god.


    The shadow in the house opened its eyes when that bolt of lightning was shot, seemingly frightened and angered at the same time. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double had been calcting enough to damage two of Saleen¡¯s most powerful servants with one simple trick.


    However, it never expected the mage to be equipped with a lightning badge.


    While the force from the bolt was not actually all that powerful, the rulesmanding it were the highest ones. He had yet topletely coalesce its body, and there was no way it would be able to block the attack. Sh**!


    The bolt of lightning shot into the stone house and not even the god¡¯s protection was able to stop the decisive attack.


    It was Saleen¡¯s final measure against a god, but it seemed that he was forced to use it earlier than expected.


    A painful moan was heard from within the stone house. Saleen had attacked at the right time. If the Lord of Glory had thoroughly advented, there was no way that attack would hit its target. The Lord of Glory would have a myriad of ways to undo Saleen¡¯s targeting.


    However, due to his double being too powerful at level 14, the excessively high level made it so that the advent on Myers Maind would be extremely slow.


    Saleen heard the moan and put his family badge away, before raising his Thunder Dragon ster. He emptied all seven lightning icicles and four ball lightning into the stone house.


    The stone house¡¯s defense had beenpletely destroyed and the huge stone within cracked and dropped to the ground. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was like a walnut with its shell cracked,pletely exposed to the air.


    ¡°Damn it!¡± The Lord of Glory¡¯s double roared, and his body became a lot clearer. However, Saleen was able to see that the shadow lost too much energy from turning the shadow into a tangible form.


    The energy dissipated wastefully. The Lord of Glory was forced to speed up its advent.


    Saleen took out the lightning magic book. Balls of lightning were stored within and he sent ball lightning into the stone house again.


    If the attacks were used against a tangible being, the Lord of Glory¡¯s double would probably die immediately. The advent process was still ongoing, and Saleen was only able to keep weakening the Lord of Glory¡¯s power.


    There was no way around it. If the Lord of Glory¡¯s double were allowed topletely advent, there was no way he would be able to lock onto the god. Powerful attacks were useless unless they were able to hit the enemy.


    Both sides were getting frustrated. Saleen was forced to use up all his lightning skills before their time. Saleen had to put eight balls of lightning into the lightning magic book to store them. While the Thunder Dragon ster would fully recharge in half an hour, his lightning magic book and his family badge were no longer useful.


    Saleen dumped all of his strongest attacks onto the Lord of Glory¡¯s double in less than 20 seconds. The people by his side began attacking as well.


    Nichs used divine spell scrolls. Grey holy light lit as he opened them one by one. One lesser prophecy spell after another hit the Lord of Glory. The lower the level of the prophecy, the easier it was for them toe true.


    A prophecy spell foretelling someone falling would have a sess rate of over 99 percent, while foretelling a person bing a god was utterly impossible¡ªone could cast prophecy spells from birth until death, and it still would note true.


    The prophecy spells that Nichs used were meant for weakening all kinds of offensive attributes of the god. They did not intend to nullify the god¡¯s attacks, but lower their damage potential. The prophecy spells would work even on the Lord of Glory.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s tactics were much simpler. He cast one spirit toxin after another into the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. Without the protection of the stone house, everyone around Saleen was free to attack the double.


    However, given that the double was still in shadow form, most physical attacks were ineffective. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double had yet to truly enter Myers Maind.


    There was no way to kill the Lord of Glory as he was.


    Unless a level 18 professional showed up with special methods to attack a parallel space.


    Even Nailisi¡¯s Shackle of the Fallen was put to use and the shadow of the double was unable to tie down. It was fortunate that the Shackle of the Fallen continued to absorb power from the Lord of Glory¡¯s double to strengthen itself.


    Rafel felt a hint of fear in her. However, she lifted her Inferno Spear and cast the divine spells that she was most versed in.

 Chapter 1432: Terrible Defeat (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1432: Terrible Defeat (Part 1)</h4>


    ck holy light shimmered on the Inferno Spear for the first time. That was Rafel using divine spells at full potency, bringing her Divine Might to bear from all those years ago.


    The spell originated from the Metal God, of whom Rafel was a favorite angel. It was the Metal God who had allowed her the privilege of learning Divine Might, a rarity among the gods. Rafel was also one of the very few angels capable of using divine spells after the god she served had perished.


    Fundamentally, if Rafel had wanted to she could have taken her master¡¯s mantle and be the next Metal God.


    But the journey would have been arduous, and there was probably no way she would have actually risen to that level. Bing a human might would have allowed her to advance a lot faster instead.


    Why did she refuse to leave? One reason was a concern for her metal angels. But there was also another reason: She couldn¡¯t figure out what she really wanted from Saleen. That idea was born out of a hunch that he could give her what she was looking for.


    Rafel had pulled out all stops by then. She¡¯d never heard of the Lord of Glory. From the aura emanating from his double, that god would have advanced to level-16 long ago and be a middle god if this had been ancient times. It was probably because of his inability to gather enough believers that he remained stuck at his current level, despite conquering one divine kingdom after another.


    Believers were the key to allowing the Lord of Glory to open the gates to advancement. Evolving his divine persona alone would not have allowed him to be a middle god.


    Rafel¡¯s judgment had been sound: The Lord of Glory was indeed only at level-15; however, judging from hisbat prowess alone, even level-16 gods would not be able to beat in him in battle.


    He had defeated many a god at his level and wrecked many divine kingdoms of middle gods. He had to seal his power at level-12 during the double advent, but that had little to do with his double¡¯sbat prowess.


    When a god advanced as far as the Lord of Glory had, the number of rules that had to be mastered was rare even among gods.


    While it was pointless to fight greater gods through sheer numbers of rules mastered, the battle before their eyes was one where knowing a huge number of rules would have given him an absolute edge.


    The ck shimmer on the Inferno Spear was that of Metal Cutting. However, at that time it was able to urately cast onto the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, which was three cubic meters.


    The ck color resulted from countless thin metal threads shining. Those threads tore space apart while attempting to kill the double.


    He was unable to move: That part of him in Myers Maind had to exist only at that set of coordinates. The saint¡¯s stone house that had been protecting him had totally disintegrated and crashed to the ground. Because he was stark naked, the double was unable to carry out a single piece of equipment.


    Power that cut space was capable of sending the Lord of Glory¡¯s double into spatial turbulence bit by bit. Rafel had served gods before and knew they were hard to kill. What she was doing was weakening the double¡¯s power.


    The eyes of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double peered through the space of Metal Cutting, ring at Rafel squarely.


    ¡°Evil angel, I¡¯ll kill you and wash away the insult I suffer today with your blood!¡±


    He couldn¡¯t tell that Rafel was an angel. Even though he was a god, he could still be harmed by an angel. That more than qualified as an insult. The wars of the gods were always fought by angels serving their respective gods. A god being damaged by an angel was unheard of.


    Rafel shuddered; Saleen couldn¡¯t help noticing. He then asked with a mumbling voice, ¡°Do you know how long it would take for that thing to fully advent?¡±


    ¡°Hours!¡± Rafel answered.


    Saleen then charged without hesitation and pointed at the shadow of the Lord of Glory. The attack from his finger blew off the double¡¯s head off, causing divine power to scatter. It was as if Saleen had hit a real body.


    The Crystal Finger was a skill invented by Raphael specifically to fight gods. The Lord of Glory¡¯s curse was broken. Rafel was relieved. She knew why Saleen did what he did. It was as if she had returned to the time when she was protected by the Metal God.


    ¡°Now that we¡¯ve shut him up, everyone attack¡ªand give it all you¡¯ve got! If we didn¡¯t stop him from getting here, then we¡¯ll need to leave before he gets here.¡± No one objected to Saleen¡¯s proposal.


    No one expected the Lord of Glory¡¯s double to be so powerful. Despite having been showered with all sorts of astonishing skills, the double still seeped into Myers Maind, trying to get a tangible body transferred there.


    Half an hour passed and Nichs had run out of scrolls. All scrolls capable of harming the shadow were used up. Nichs was sent back to the magic amplifier by Saleen.


    The Shackles of the Fallen could no longer process more divine power and yet Nailisi dared not consume any of those powers. She was afraid of bing a god herself after consuming such power from a god. It was not impossible for a luoluokaluo to be a god after all. If she were given a divine persona, her chances of bing one would have been even greater.


    Given how loathsome her master found gods, there¡¯s no way Nailisi would have gone that far.


    The rate at which Rafel¡¯s divine crystals were consumed baffled Saleen. He only came to know how costly it would have been to use high-level divine spells. The reason Rafel didn¡¯t use such skills was that she couldn¡¯t afford to. She would have never brought those skills to the fore when dealing with low-level enemies.


    The Inferno Spear was flipped and thrust, with every strike bringing the power of rules to bear. At the same time, she cast Metal Cutting over ten times. That head of the Lord of Glory slowly coalesced again. Rafel attacked that part of the double specifically since she was afraid of the Lord of Glory¡¯s curses.


    Saleen was still recovering his magic chords. Such battles were highlyplex games of calction to him.


    He had to pay careful attention with his Eye of Souls at all times to see how broken the Lord of Glory¡¯s double had be. While Nichs was deducing the amount of time it would take for the Lord of Glory to advent, Saleen didn¡¯t dare lower his guard.


    The power of the Lord of Glory exceeded his expectations. Even if everyone attacked in a frenzy, it wouldn¡¯t be enough to kill the double.


    The case before their eyes was very peculiar: The Lord of Glory obviously had some special properties, as he had to advent as a shadow and transfer his powers over bit by bit.


    After three hours of attacking, the Lord of Glory¡¯s demeanor switched from angry to calm. His head had been destroyed three times by Saleen¡¯s attacks, but they coalesced each time. That was not his weakness. His weakness was having to steer clear of Saleen¡¯s and the others¡¯ attacks after his head was destroyed.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning territory had also limited how much of those abilities were capable of being used. The only thing the Lord of Glory¡¯s double knew was that a spirit, a demon, an angel and a human mage were attacking him.


    He was wondering if the Myers Maind ne had regained its former glory.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double switched into high gear. He had to advent and see for himself what happened to Myers Maind. If things went against him, he would take his divine kingdom and get out of that ce, abandoning his believers.


    That was his only alternative. The humans on Myers Maind back then had been too powerful. Even if the gods had set up a trap and made Myers a god, it hardly changed anything. What was more vexing was that even after bing a god, Myers still chose to side with humans and attack the divine kingdoms.


    Myers Maind had once been the most frustrating, headache-inducing main ne the gods had to deal with. It was there all the time, yet no one ever attacked it. The Lord of Glory had only dared to sneak his double onto the maind after the Goddess of Myers perished, thereby establishing the Holy See.


    The Holy See manipted the powerful beings throughout the maind and had them kill each other, splintering the ce until, finally, they controlled an empire. Even so, the empire had not expanded its territory for 1,000 years. Believers had to stay within the empire¡¯s boundaries, as those priests were not allowed to propagate the faith in other empires.


    ¡°Everyone, look out!¡± Saleen cast his Quickcloud and shrouded everyone within.


    Tens of thousands of tiny white holy prose appeared on the Lord of Glory¡¯s double¡¯s chest after he was attacked for several hours. The holy prose spun maniacally and unleashed light of power¡¯s prative abilities.


    Saleen cast Water Shield that had a diameter of over ten meters, enough to cover everyone. The light punched through the Water Shield without harming any of those powerful professionals.


    The surface of the Water Shield was filled with lightning-magic patterns.


    ¡°Die, mage!¡± The Lord of Glory¡¯s double became tangible all of a sudden. Saleen did not see what had happened. Level-10 astrology had a sess rate of less than ten percent to calcte what a level-14 being was doing.


    White armor developed on the Lord of Glory¡¯s body while a scepter appeared on his left hand. He gripped a ball of light about the size of a fist in his right hand.


    The double brought two godly items just to kill Saleen. There was no way he would be able to take them back to the divine kingdom: he just had to leave them behind.


    Thousands of dazzling beams exploded from the ball of light in one direction¡ªat Saleen.


    Metal Cutting was immediately torn apart, and the Winged Skull¡¯s body began to foam, spilling outside the Water Shield¡¯s protection.


    Saleen could only weaken attacks like this; he couldn¡¯tpletely defend against them.


    ¡°Die already!¡±


    Nailisi manipted the Shackles of the Fallen and charged. The ball of light on the Lord of Glory¡¯s hand shed and disappeared right before her eyes.


    Look out!


    All 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen dropped; Saleen saw the scepter the Lord of Glory was holding prate Nailisi¡¯s heart. Before she had a chance to react, she was struck by an enemy from behind.


    ¡°Nailisi!¡± Saleen sensed from the depth of his soul that his connection with Nailisi had been severed.


    The Lord of Glory killed Nailisi?


    Saleen¡¯s mind went nk. He imed he would protect her. Did he fail her?


    The Shackles of the Fallen retreated into the 12 Notes of the First Purgatory and dropped to the ground inside. The Winged Skull hooked it with its scythe and took the collection of purgatories back.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double didn¡¯t bother with the skeleton. He shed again and went behind Saleen, Nailisi¡¯s blood still dripping from his scepter.

 Chapter 1433: Terrible Defeat (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1433: Terrible Defeat (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s calctive abilities were almost rendered ineffective. He was only able to barely and forcefully dodge the attack from the scepter held by the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, using only his instincts and the tingle from the depths of his soul.


    Rafel did not aid Saleen right away. She waited instead until the Lord of Glory¡¯s doubleunched his lethal strike beforeshing out with her Inferno Spear. Unfortunately, there was no light on the tip of the spear anymore. After eons of use, the godly item had be rusty. Rafel used up all of her divine power before she noticed the weapon¡¯s diminished appearance.


    The spear went through the heart of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double with a dredging sound, and he exploded right there and then, transforming into a huge ball of light that then coalesced again. Ashen faced and angry, the double hurled the ball of light in his hand at Rafel.


    Wham. Rafel felt as if her body had been petrified. As she pped her wings, they snapped right off her shoulders. Then the ball of light hit her squarely in the face.


    Rafel¡¯s head disappeared; her Inferno Spear dropped to the ground below.


    Only then did Saleen realize how terrifying that double was. He only had level-12 powers yet was able to kill off powerful beings around Saleen one by one using rules only.


    Saleen suppressed his deep grief. He saw Nichs¡¯s scepter being flung straight at the double¡¯s head, knowing that Nichs had run out of tricks to deal with him: No fallen divine spells would work against this enemy.


    The blownded with a loud bang, but the Lord of Glory hardly minded at all. Light seeped out as the back of his head split open and was then absorbed into the Scepter of the Fallen.


    That piece of equipment had been left behind by the three kings. Surprisingly, it was used in a physical manner against the Lord of Glory¡¯s double.


    ted at this small sess, Saleen fired seven icicles from his Thunder Dragon ster as Armoring Lightning Beads circled him. His territory shrank to the size of the area immediately surrounding his magic robe.


    The power of the territory was such that the Lord of Glory¡¯s double couldn¡¯t lock onto him; otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to evade that previous hit.


    The doubleughed maniacally. He was severely injured and the cause was a fallen holy master. What an insult! The ball of light in his hand coalesced again and he shed, evading Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles.


    Saleen was ill-equipped to lock onto the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. The grief and anger inside were unbearable. He wanted to save Nichs until he saw the Blood Soul Tower inside his scepter burst open violently. There was a bit of power of divine fire inside.


    As yellow light shed under Saleen¡¯s feet, he jumped several hundred meters to the side. It was a speed made possible after he consumed bone crystals of the giant. He had been reluctant to use them this way before, but the situation definitely warranted it now.


    Saleen had to run, or the Lord of Glory would have ughtered everyone without mercy. There was a huge number of troops within his magic amplifier; there were other followers and he still had his children to think about as well.


    Saleen¡¯s felt immense regret and his eyes filled with tears. How can I regret anything? I¡¯m a mage, for goodness¡¯ sake!


    Two pieces of equipment were taken away as the Winged Skull¡¯s body dropped to the ground, which felt as if it had melted and steeped into the soil. Saleen was consoled by the Winged Skull¡¯sst words spoken from the depths of its soul¡ª¡±Master if you end up dead, I swear I¡¯ll kill this god and destroy his divine kingdom!¡±


    Regardless, the Winged Skull knew it had to run and Saleen found thatforting. That was because the chance of even running away when fighting such a powerful god¡¯s double was infinitely slim to begin with.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double no longer paid any attention to Nichs after seeing Saleen run off. As he waved his scepter, formless power spread out. Nichs felt like an ant being squished by a hammer. The muscles all over his body were crushed to a pulp by that formless power.


    Meanwhile, the ball of light in the double¡¯s hand shed as he aimed straight at Saleen. With each sh of the ball, he advanced two to three hundred meters. Saleen, on the other hand, was only able to move 500 meters with each step he took.


    Nichs dropped to the ground and his scepter was let loose. The explosion from the Blood Soul Towersted only a few seconds before being snuffed out by the Lord of Glory¡¯s light. By then, the scepter was little more than a stick, and the bit of divine fire on it was inadequate to inflict any harm on the double.


    Nichs¡¯s face was unrecognizable by then. Blood was spilling out from everywhere. Even so, he gritted his teeth and shouted, ¡°Lord of Glory, I curse you. Your divine kingdom shall be destroyed. Your divine fire shall be taken to the purgatory, and you shall be a ve to the fallen angels!¡±


    This lesser prophecy spell of his had no rules to speak of. It was activated by burning his own life force, and he just blurted out whatever came to mind.


    Enraged, the Lord of Glory¡¯s double hurled an arrow of light. Suddenly, a magic pattern appeared on Nichs¡¯s Scepter of the Fallen. His body copsed to the side after the magic pattern appeared, with the scepter taking the hit instead of the arrow.


    The Lord of Glory didn¡¯t bother attacking after that. He just assumed that the puny fallen holy master had perished, too weak to defend himself.


    Killing the mage is what mattered most to the double at the moment.


    After all, that mage had insulted him by making him endure four hours of attacks. If he hadn¡¯t sustained those attacks, he would not have had to bring two important godly items with him. Moreover, he would have been able to kill every single one of those people after the advent. Then he would have rebuilt the Holy See and unified the entire ne.


    That was a great chance like no other, and yet that b*st*ard ruined everything.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was adamant about getting Saleen killed. The ball of light in his hand continued to flicker, and the frequency of activating divine spells was slightly higher than Saleen¡¯s with magic. Even though Saleen moved farther away, the Lord of Glory gradually caught up with him. The distance between the two of them was only about three kilometers.


    The gods hardly considered that a distance. There was, however, a paper-thinyer of lightning territory covering Saleen. It had beenpressed to the extreme. Every time the Lord of Glory¡¯s double wanted to target Saleen, he felt as if he had been shocked in the head, which prevented him from focusing.


    If that was the case, the double still wouldn¡¯t have had to chase Saleen all over the ce like that. Nichs¡¯s final lesser prophecy spell was without a doubt too weak to doom the Lord of Glory. The reason was that this was a curse from despair and was as crude as could be. But then again, such prophecy spells were where the essence of such divine arts lie.


    Nichs¡¯s hatred knew no bounds: that lesser prophecy spell was actually working.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double felt as if his main body had been attacked and was on the verge of death. Countlessbat angels rushed in and were destroying his divine kingdom.


    Even the fallen angels in hell came up to join in the destruction. Those familiar faces had once been his most trusted ones.


    The god¡¯s wrath made him lose all sense of reason. That double of the Lord of Glory was dazed and unfocused to the point where he could not calcte the trajectory of Saleen¡¯s movement.


    Saleen was not running away in a straight line. Yellow light gushed continuously from his feet and he kept twisting and turning in midair. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was slowly closing in on him.


    But then again, he knew the mage couldn¡¯t move any faster. So long as he kept moving, he would have been able to close in on him.


    If the Lord of Glory hadn¡¯t been so hell-bent on killing Saleen, he would have headed straight to the Holy See to learn more about the mage from the believers in that ne. Saleen had massive forces serving him and there was no way he could have brought them all with him.


    If he destroyed those forces one by one, Saleen would have been immensely pained, to put it mildly.


    While the double was pursuing Saleen like a lunatic, Saleen managed to regain hisposure and figure out what to do next.


    Other than the heroes at the Imperial City of the Abyss, no one else on Myers Maind in its current state was strong enough to take on the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. The reason he did not run in a straight line was due to concerns about the double¡¯s ability to keep up.


    Saleen kept taking out bone crystals of the giant. Those things contained power purer than magic nuclei and provided only powers of the earth. Earth element around him was of such a thickness that Saleen was able to reach the peak of his flight speed in the air¡ªover 800 kilometers an hour.


    Even so, the Lord of Glory¡¯s double continued closing in on him. The silver hair of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double billowed.


    Both pursuer and pursued ran for about two hours before the Lord of Glory lifted his scepter, intending to attack Saleen. The distance between them both was around 100 meters.


    Even if the Lord of Glory was powerless to lock onto Saleen at such a distance, arge-scale divine spell would have engulfed Saleen regardless.


    Saleen gritted his teeth and cast Comet sh. He was able to streak over three kilometers away within the blink of an eye. The Lord of Glory was so pissed he roared behind Saleen, who took the chance on summoning Dante.


    ¡°Dante, how fast can you fly?¡±


    ¡°Not as fast as you, master!¡± Dante was very scared, as the oneing from behind was a double of a true god. That god might not have bothered with the others, but if he caught up with Saleen, that god would have definitely devoured Dante, who was a pseudo god.


    ¡°I¡¯ll teach you the method right now. Learn it now!¡± Saleen used the power of the soul and sent the skill using the earth element into Dante¡¯s head.


    It was much faster for Dante to learn this skill than Saleen, so much so that as soon as it finished reading the information, it was already capable of casting the skill. The Lightning Constetion had the bone crystal of the giant as its core, which meant that earth element was also one that Dante was most skilled in using.


    Dante took Saleen in its arms and began running away under Saleen¡¯s instruction. His body was incredibly frail after casting Comet sh, requiring some time to recover. That was because his Comet sh had exceeded the limits of a skill, the speed at which it moved was hardly different from that of Rainbow.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was exasperated, adjusting his direction and continuing to pursue Dante. Dante, in turn, was unable to move as fast as Saleen initially. As such, the Lord of Glory caught up him within an hour. Saleen still hadn¡¯tpletely recovered just yet, but he was still able to use Comet sh again.


    The double saw very clearly that every time the mage used that skill, it drained all of his stamina.


    I have to catch up and kill him. That¡¯s the only way to get back at him for the insult I suffered!


    Dante and Saleen took turns moving and before they knew it, they were at the edge of the maind¡ªthe sky above the northern seas.

 Chapter 1434: Heroes (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1434: Heroes (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen turned around and looked at the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, who was still giving chase. The god had cold eyes and he did not seem to be an entity of light at all. Is he using the light element to chase after me?


    Saleen smirked coldly deep down. We¡¯d see how you deal with it when we got to the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Gods did not find it as convenient to use elements as mages did. However, being extremely powerful to begin with meant that they were able topensate. Mages were capable of manipting elements in a very harmonious manner, while gods had to resort to using their own powers to force elements into doing their bidding in battle.


    The Imperial City of the Abyss was a ce bereft of any light. Light element hardly existed there and when the Lord of Glory entered the ce, he probably would have no longer been able to borrow powers of ambient light element. Any damages he suffered would have no longer been able to be repaired by robbing powers of light element.


    Saleen turned around and used the power of the Si of Silence. He finally found the Lord of Glory¡¯s weakness, which surprisingly was that ball of light in his hand.


    If it had not been for the power of the Si of Silence, Saleen would have never been able to discover that weakness.


    There was a broken divine persona within that ball of light.


    It was a godly item that carried the life of that double. With the protection of the broken divine persona at work, Saleen had no idea how he would have been able to kill that double. In truth, the humanoid form of the double was coalesced from less than one percent of the power leaking from the divine persona. If he wanted to kill that Lord of Glory¡¯s double and yet was unable to destroy that broken divine persona, he would have had to kill that extremely resilient humanoid body hundreds of times over.


    Saleen had always been able to keep an edge over powerful beings thanks to his equipment. He was even able to solve just about everything using equipment. However, it was not up to that point that he realized that, his own personal prowess was still the most important.


    It was no wonder why his teacher never bothered crafting any other special equipment other than his magic amplifier. His teacher¡¯s level was truly at the pinnacle of level 13.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double felt ufortable all over after being taken just one look by Saleen. However, due to the working of Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spell, he was unable to pinpoint the reason, simply thinking that Saleen had been able to form some special aura using the hatred towards him. It was something that wasmonly seen when gods went about killing their enemies.


    Saleen was running away in a very unsightly manner, and the double of the Lord of Glory was having a very hard time chasing after the mage as well.


    Saleen dared not enter the ocean, as that would have slowed his movement speed. He was not clear how well could the Lord of Glory¡¯s double have been able to move underwater.


    Water was something capable of transmitting light element. If he were to dive into the water and the Lord of Glory¡¯s double was hardly slowed, then he would have just robbed himself of the chance to even escape to the Imperial City of the Abys.


    The Lord of Glory was afraid of Saleen getting into the water as well. His movement abilities would have been affected by water element as well. shes of the ball of light would have created a great margin of error underwater. While his speed would have hardly been affected, but it would have made locking onto Saleen¡¯s escape route a lot more difficult.


    One mistaken transmission of light element might have actually thrown him further away from his quarry instead.


    Saleen headed straight for the Oceanic Ice Block. Both of them were running at more or less the same speed. Saleen was capable of using Comet sh once every one or two hours and his magic chords had gradually recovered, enabling him to use the Crystal Finger again.


    However, he no longer dared to do that, as he was utterly incapable of targeting the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. Furthermore, it was difficult for the Crystal Finger to break that divine persona fragment as well. If he were to be unable to break the source of the double¡¯s power, then the double would have never died. It was utterly impossible for Saleen to use Crystal Finger for hundreds of times sessively.


    The Lord of Glory was not thinking deep as well. Any further north and they would have arrived at the extreme north of the ne. He would have been able to use a very little-known divine spell in the extreme north or extreme south of any ne. He would have been able to crank his speed to the highest, and the mage would no longer be able to escape, regardless of how fast the mage would have been.


    Saleen gave up trying to attack the Lord of Glory¡¯s double on his own after finding out about his weakness clearly. He had done experiments testing the resilience of a divine person, and there was no way he could have broken the divine persona as he was right there and then.


    The Oceanic Ice Block was right before his eyes within just hours. Saleen saw the ice sheets and knew that it was impossible for him to do much in the water. It was fortunate that Dante was a weapon spirit and was capable of moving faster in the water than he was. The use of skills would not be affected by his size.


    Dante carried Saleen and dived. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was only able to see clearly by then, that the being he thought to be have been a descendant of the giants, was surprisingly a pseudogod.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was ted. Killing the mage became a secondary priority. That mage had actually subjugated a pseudogod, which exined why he dared to challenged the might of a god.


    Pseudogods were not true gods and he deemed the mage to have been stupid.


    However, pseudogods were the best supplement there wer to gods. There were hardly any stranded pseudogods to be found anywhere, as any lifeform evolving to a pseudogod would have hidden themselves right away. They would have also followed some other powerful gods otherwise, as not taking either of those options might have ended up with them being eaten by gods.


    Dante dived into the water and the Lord of Glory¡¯s double had no choice but to follow. The ball of light flickered in the water and the distance between them had been reduced to half of what it had been. The double did not want to go out of control. If he were to end up going in the opposite direction instead, it would have been considerably slower than it was at the moment instead. His sensory prowess enabled him to sense something thousands of kilometers away, so he was not afraid that Saleen would have been able to escape.


    Dante realized that the god chasing after them slowed down as well, which made it feel somewhat relieved.


    Saleen had instead taken the chance to widen the distance between them, saying, ¡°Dante, go further forward. We¡¯d soon reach an independent space. Power of rules of Myers Maind had no control over there. Remember what I said and undo your seal immediately, moving forward at full speed.


    ¡°Undo my seal?¡± Dante was feeling rather sheepish.


    ¡°Yes, undo your seal. But when I summon you, you have to immediately return to the magic amplifier. There are a bunch of ghosts there who like consuming divine powers.¡±


    ¡°Ghosts...¡± Dante felt likeughing.


    Saleen then said, ¡°Indeed. The strongest one among them is a level 18 ghost.¡±


    Dante shut up right there and then, realizing why Saleen chose to run all the way there. A level 18 ghost? The growth of power with every advancement after level 13 would have been like that of three levels at lower levels.


    That meant that after level 13, every advancement would have brought power growth of that of one whole rank. That was a difference that was incapable of beingpensated in any way. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was at level 14. He was able to only use powers at level 12 and yet he had already almost annihted Saleen¡¯s men. None of those powerful beings around Saleen were able to take even a single hit.


    The number of powerful magic beasts beneath the ice sheet at the Oceanic Ice Block was an infuriating one. However, they parted and made way for the Lord of Glory¡¯s double without him having to do anything.


    That was an effect from Divine Might. Even if the magic beasts were not intelligent ones, they were nheless able to tell that the being before them had powers that they were unable to resist.


    As such, Saleen did not meet any resistance as well. Dante took him straight to the tunnels in the underwater rocks, arriving at the external fringes of the Imperial City of the Abyss. Due to reminders from Saleen, he undid the seal on his body before he continued moving forward, with his powers returning to level 13 at once.


    The power difference between level 13 and level 12 was just too great. Dante was a pseudogod and thus, without a divine persona. Its power suffered a severe drop after sealing it at level 12. However, when the seal was undone, its speed was increased by a dozen times over all of a sudden.


    If it had not been for the peculiar rtionship between it and Saleen, Saleen would have been affected by Dante¡¯s Divine Might as well.


    The Imperial City of the Abyss was not far away. Saleen took out the badge that Gaine gave him and pinned it on Dante, saying, ¡°When I tell you to run, you dive straight into the magic amplifier. Whatever happens, don¡¯te out.


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± Dante only realized by then that the secrets on his master was far more than what it had expected.


    Due to the workings of the badge, the elemental creatures behind the walls did not attack Dante when it went over the walls. None of the magic arrays in the city were activated. Saleen was entering as an astrologer. That identity allowed him free ess at the external fringes of the city without invoking any attacks.


    Saleen dared to use the badge by then. After Gaine left, there was no other astrologer found in the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double found that the mage¡¯s movement speed sped up all of a sudden and he was baffled, thinking that there was a space portal in front and the mage managed to escape. When he was sucked into the bottom of the ocean by the abyss¡¯ power shortly after, he discovered that the rules there no longer limited the rise of his power.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was ted. The ball of light in his hand burst in size and the power of his body was enhanced 100 times over, and the levels were still climbing afterwards.


    He no longer needed the power of the godly item after the seal was undone. One step enabled him to move almost 1000 meters underwater. His speed was increased several times over.


    Due to no longer having to use power from the godly item, his movement skill became something he was able to control. The power at level 14 ensured that he would not have been lost underwater.


    Nichs¡¯ lesser prophecy spell became totally useless by then. It was considered a miracle to have a level 11 fallen holy master confuse a god for that long. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double knew that he had been confused due to the effects of the lesser prophecy spell before. However, his mood had turned for the better and his powerspletely recovered. There would have been no one capable of taking him on in the entire Myers Maind.


    The Lord of Glory charged before the Imperial City of the Abyss in glee. The joy felt within was indescribable.


    He was surprised to find the ce to be something from the First Dynasty.


    He had without doubt, knew of the First Dynasty. The mages of the First Dynasty had destroyed too many divine kingdoms. The Lord of Glory had been running from them back in those days.


    Ruins huh? It wouldn¡¯t be surprising to find any godly items in there. That mage...


    Hardly surprising why he possesses so many weird powers then. So this is where he found all of that.


    Saleen had Dante take him straight to the Cemetery of Heroes. He was still having a bit of hope in him. While Nailisi did not leave any message behind and he was no longer able to sense her, but the contract deep within his soul had yet to disappear.


    With the contract still intact, it meant that there was still hope for Nailisi to be revived.


    However, Rafel was definitely dead and it did not seem that Nichs had any chance of survival. The Winged Skull was the least injured. If they were to not encounter any enemies, they would have definitely returned to Metatrin City and moved the rest of Saleen¡¯s forces to the interdimensional space.


    The Winged Skull came to possess a ne by then. Given enough time, they would have even been able to gain 12 gods as their bouncer. By then, it would have been possible to even crush the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdoms.

 Chapter 1435: Heroes (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1435: Heroes (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen was outside the Cemetery of Heroes and let Dante get into the magic amplifier right away. He stopped and looked around in the cemetery, finding it empty and there was no heroic spirits found anywhere.


    Sh**, are they all dead or have they left?


    Saleen swept the ce with his Eye of Souls and all gravestones stood around without making a sound.


    ¡°Grandmaster!¡± Saleen called using thundering sound skills. That ended up making the cemetery lively.


    Most of the heroes either climbed out or squeezed themselves out from the great number of gravestones about. There were also those who flew out in pieces and then assembled themselves back together.


    Everyone was apparently happy to see Saleen around


    ¡°Hey, look who¡¯s here?¡±


    ¡°Haha, that little mage back then has actually advanced to level 11. I take it you¡¯re now considered a powerful one somehow eh?¡±


    ¡°Right, back in our days, we would probably do more to foster him. Yep, he should be able to lead an army of less than 1000.¡±


    ¡°I heard that he is a king now.¡±


    ¡°Where is the grandmaster?¡± Saleen continued calling.


    ¡°You¡¯re looking for me?¡± The grandmaster appeared before Saleen all of a sudden.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve brought you something, and it¡¯sing right behind me now,¡± Saleen pointed behind him.


    The grandmaster immediately sensed the Lord of Glory¡¯s double of the Lord of Glory charging in their direction from behind Saleen. He was overjoyed and then yelled, ¡°Everyone, hide! It¡¯s a level 14 demigod, and a living one!¡±


    The heroes that had been surrounding Saleen all dispersed within seconds, hiding back into their gravestones as quickly as they were able to. The aura of all those heroes were quickly concealed by the gravestones as soon as they went back into them.


    The grandmaster then said to Saleen, ¡°Hit me with your most powerful attack!¡±


    If the others were to be told to do so, they might have hesitated, but not Saleen. He lifted his hand and unleashed eight ball lightning at the grandmaster.


    The grandmaster¡¯s expression changed drastically right away. It was fortunate that the ball lightning were incapable of moving quickly and was less powerful he expected. However, those attacks nheless reminded him of somewhere else and that made him jump.


    The grandmaster hooked with his finger and a box leapt from the dirt below.


    It was apparent that the box was a piece of equipment as well. While it was rather crude, but it was sturdy enough nheless. The eight ball lightning were shut inside the box by the grandmaster.


    Saleen found immediately that the box had amplified the ball lightning¡¯s powers by hundreds of times over. No, that¡¯s just an illusion. The grandmaster thenid down an illusion-type magic on the box, making others think that the box contained an immensely powerful godly item.


    ¡°Run over there!¡± The grandmaster then flung the box away. The box draw an arc in the water andnded on the grave without inscriptions, with only the corner of the box sticking out.


    Saleen understood that the heroes were incapable of leaving the cemetery and they were also afraid that the Lord of Glory would have hesitated to get inside. As such, the grandmaster went about setting up a trap, making the Lord of Glory think that Saleen was there to collect a powerful equipment, in order to take on the god.


    Saleen was able to understand the n within a split second and he was able to sense at the same time, that the Lord of Glory¡¯s double was heading that way as well.


    The Lord of Glory should have long arrived. His speed surpassed Saleen a lot more in that ce. However, due to not having an identifying badge with me, he was soon attacked by the magic arrays within the city walls, before he even got near the city walls.


    Most of those magic arrays were broken, with the remaining ones casting magic corresponding to the level of the enemy¡¯s power.


    The Lord of Glory was at level 14 and magic arrays of the highest levels at the edge of the wall were but level 12. Even so, when hundreds of level 12 magic spells were locked onto the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, it still frightened the demigod level double nheless.


    Some parts of this city is still intact!?


    That almost halted the Lord of Glory. His fear of ancient humans far eclipsed what Saleen imagined it to be. That trauma was so severe that it had even impeded the Lord of Glory¡¯s progress in advancement.


    However, the Lord of Glory was able to steel himself and enter shortly after. There were only broken magic arrays left in the city. If there had been true ancient humans alive, that main ne would not have fallen that much and his religion would have long been destroyed.


    The ball of light in the Lord of Glory¡¯s hand flickered and dazzling light burst from the dark ocean floor. There was no light element to be found there. He was only using the power stored within his godly item to destroy the city wall right there and then.


    Arge hole about a 100 meters wide was sted and huge number of elemental creatures charged at him. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers attempted to mend the wall using earth element and the Lord of Gloryughed, barging his way through the elemental creatures.


    He swung the scepter in his hand around, making it so like there was an invisible hammer crushing all weapons that were getting near him.


    The scepter¡¯s power could be wielded full force without level restrictions. If the Lord of Glory¡¯s double were to actually hit Nichs right there and then, the fallen holy master would have been reduced to mush, regardless of how well-equipped he was.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double then picked up some elemental creatures along the way, before turning his eyes at the Cemetery of Heroes.


    Saleen¡¯s steps were halted and the Lord of Glory¡¯s double was surprised. Not running anymore? He then sensed magic vibrations that the grandmaster had created.


    Damn it. He is actually hiding a powerful equipment here?


    The power of that equipment was so terrifying that it would not have been allowed to exist on Myers Maind. The equipment is a live! A godly item, something belonged to the gods.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double quickly calcted in his mind. He then sped up and headed straight for Saleen¡¯s current location.


    There were magic arrays or statues attacking the Lord of Glory¡¯s double continuously along the way, which he casually repelled with his scepter. His confidence grew as his power recovered.


    It was but a piece of equipment and there had not been any mage at Saleen¡¯s level had been able to wield equipment that powerful. It was worth noting that equipment with weapon spirits in them came with conditions. That mage was at level 11, which meant that he was mostly capable of mastering items with level 13 weapon spirits.


    Walls after walls in the Imperial City of the Abyss were toppled by the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. He had no intentions of taking detours and flying would have invoked attacks from magic arrays. As such, he resorted to simply barging his way through.


    It was merely less than 20 seconds when Saleen heard those noises and the Lord of Glory¡¯s double was already at the side of the Cemetery of Heroes.


    A barrier right before Saleen disappeared all of a sudden¡ªa trick yed by the grandmaster, for fear that the Lord of Glory would have hesitated to get into the cemetery.


    Soldiers were buried at the fringes of the Cemetery of Soldiers and the ones of the highest level were but level 12. It was not until one reached somewhere near the center that heroes surpassing level 14 were found. Saleen had been able to get inside back then due to protection from the Divine Tree Magic Tower, and did not know any of that.


    Yellow light beneath Saleen¡¯s feet flickered again when he saw the Lord of Glory show, heading straight for the trapid by the grandmaster.


    The Lord of Glory halted for a bit. What he saw was that Saleen had burst through a barrier and entered a huge cemetery. He was then thinking if he should get inside a cemetery of ancient humans.


    If the ancient humans were to learn that he had desecrated their cemetery, then it would have been the end of his divine kingdoms. Even if he were to run to the edge of their crystal wall system, he would still have been hunted down and killed.


    No. This is just a cemetery. If there are still ancient humans around, why would the cemetery look so dpidated?


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double saw what Saleen was after as well. There was a box at a grave, emanating powerful lightning energies.


    He could not have afforded to let the mage acquire that equipment. The Lord of Glory became anxious and forcefully suppressed his fear of ancient humans, before charging into the Cemetery of Heroes.


    He was able to arrive at Saleen¡¯s location and came right before the grave in just a split second. He extended his hand and dug the box out. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double then turned around and smirked at Saleen, saying, ¡°So mage, you¡¯re here for this then?¡±


    He was saying that in magic tongue. It was apparent that the Lord of Glory was quite educated.


    ¡°Not actually.¡± Saleen shook his head and detonated the box. The eight ball lightning were connected to the power of his soul.


    The Lord of Glory was startled. He found the power in the box was not as high as he imagined. The eight ball lightning exploded, taking half of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double¡¯s body, which then recovered with a flicker.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s face turned gloomy. He thought that he had gotten a godly item from the Thunder God, yet that turned out to be a trapid out by the mage. The trap was so intricate that even he was duped.


    ¡°Lord of Glory, have you taken Nailisi¡¯s soul away?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Nailisi, you mean that demon?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Why should I tell you?¡± The Lord of Glory saw the pain in Saleen¡¯s eyes and felt a lot better deep down. It appeared that the demon that he killed was rather important to the mage after all.


    Killing the mage himself might not have even caused him fear, but killing those close to him proved more excruciating than killing him instead. Humans, pathetic. But if it weren¡¯t for such weaknesses, how would the gods have been able to persist for as long as they did eh?


    ¡°Man, gods are indeed annoying. Saleen is asking you something. Why don¡¯t you just answer him?¡± The grandmaster sneaked up behind the Lord of Glory. A yellow magic array lit up beneath the lord of glory¡¯s feet. It was a piece of bone crystal of the giant that Saleen gave to the grandmaster, and he was able to casually cast a huge magic array with it.


    ¡°You¡¯re correct. The demigod is indeed a cocky one!¡± An archer climbed out of his gravestone as well.


    ¡°Demigods are not easy targets actually. But in a ce like this with no light and a light-type god still dare to venture inside. Tell me there isn¡¯t something wrong with this guy¡¯s brains eh?¡±


    ¡°I sure think something is wrong. Just look at how his face twitch!¡± A level 15 heroic spirit pointed at the Lord of Glory¡¯s face and said.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s face was twitching out of fear. He was quite practically paralyzed from fright. Even if it had not been for the grandmaster¡¯s magic array, he still would not have been able to lift his legs.


    ¡°Well, umm, demigod, answer Saleen¡¯s question eh,¡± A hero who had been a female assassin urged him. She was only currently at level 14, but she had been level 16 when she was alive. The form of a hero served no use to the assassin instead. The critical hit ability that she had been so proud of disappeared when she became a heroic spirit.


    The expressions on the Lord of Glory¡¯s face changed back and forth, not knowing if he should plead for mercy or attack.


    But then again, it seemed that he was unable to attack.


    The Lord of Glory tried to lift the ball of light in his hand and quickly found his body petrified. It was the same type of bone crystal of the giant Saleen had, and yet the grandmaster was able toy down a magic array capable of fossilizing even gods. Saleen, on the other hand, was only able to absorb energy within and run.

 Chapter 1436: Resurrection (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1436: Resurrection (Part 1)</h4>


    The great number of heroes surrounded the double of the Lord of Glory and Saleen heard gulping sounds from them. There was without doubt that the heroic spirits had no saliva, but they nheless retained the desire to eat. But then again, it was easy to tell that they were simply making those sounds to scare the Lord of Glory¡¯s double.


    ¡°Grandmaster, there¡¯re so many of us and there is only one him. How do you suppose we carve him out?¡± A warrior was unable to help but asked.


    ¡°We¡¯ll cut him up, of course,¡± a mage answered.


    ¡°No, no, no. This is a light-element god. Cut him up and he would just piece himself back together.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, not like we can chew him up or anything,¡± someone who had been a death mage when they were still alive had flickering me for eyes, and they stuck out their tongue at the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°His divine persona fragment is in the ball on his hand!¡± Saleen pointed at the Lord of Glory¡¯s double and said.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double turned limp. He had dared to chase all the way there in the first ce because that godly item¡¯s concealment effect was so extraordinary, that not even the most powerful mage hero had been able to tell anything from it. He was wondering how that puny human mage was able to find that out.


    ¡°Alright, alright, settle down, people. A god with a divine persona fragment would need the general to be around before we could split it,¡± the grandmaster did not want to get on the bad side of the general. However, the general was still in slumber at the moment and waking him up without a good reason would have pissed him off.


    ¡°Grandmaster, are you sure you¡¯re able to pay the price?¡± Saleen then asked the grandmaster.


    ¡°Price? What do you want? Any equipment below level 14, I can easily make just about anything for you. Level 16 ones wouldn¡¯t be much of a problem too...¡±


    ¡°This god¡¯s double injured several of my followers when I tricked him here. I want to know if they arepletely dead, and if so, I want them resurrected.¡±


    ¡°The price for resurrection isn¡¯t something you can pay with just a demigod, you know,¡± the grandmaster said with a sheepish smile.


    ¡°Well, you can say goodbye to getting even a demigod in the future then,¡± Saleen answered coldly.


    The grandmaster was dumbfounded and said, ¡°Who did he harm?¡±


    ¡°A bonded creature of mine. She¡¯s a luoluokaluo. There is also an angel who has lost her god. A metal one.¡±


    ¡°Luoluokaluo...is something very hard to kill. A level 14 demigod eh...¡± The grandmaster then shot a look at the Lord of Glory¡¯s double and said, ¡°Hand over the luoluokaluo¡¯s soul, or I shall eat you alive.¡±


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double flicked his hand and a in golden light emerged from the ball of light in his hand. The grandmaster then threw a crystal ball and took the golden light inside, handing over to Saleen and said, ¡°Your underling¡¯s soul is in the crystal ball and it¡¯s iplete. There should be another part in her body. If her body has yet to rot, that is...¡±


    Saleen took the crystal ball and recalled. Nailisi¡¯s heart had been pierced and her body dropped to the ground, which was then being snatched away by the Winged Skull. There was no way the Winged Skull would have let her dead body be damaged. He put the crystal ball away without saying anything and then added, ¡°This won¡¯t do.¡±


    The grandmaster then replied exasperatedly, ¡°But I can¡¯t leave this ce, you know. If you would bring me outside, it would be a simple thing saving a luoluokaluo.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d bring her here.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to do anything about the angel though.¡±


    ¡°That is up to you,¡± Saleen answered coldly. If the grandmaster were to simply leave Rafel be, then he would have decided never to show up there again.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d look into it. Take that angel¡¯s body here as well.¡± The general¡¯s voice was heard from afar, specifically from his grave.


    ¡°Release me, and I shall bring you people more gods.¡± The Lord of Glory¡¯s double finally said something. He observed the conversation between Saleen and the grandmaster and knew deep down, that Saleen had baited him there to conclude a trade.


    That was to say that Saleen was selling him.


    If that was the case, then he would have also been capable of negotiate with those ghosts. He had taken quite a number of gods and he had no problem exchanging their lives for his.


    Saleen smirked coldly and the grandmaster answered expectedly, ¡°Dude, I could trade with a human mage, but you¡¯re a god. We¡¯ve never traded with gods throughout our lives. That is especially when you¡¯re now food. Have you heard of anyone negotiating with their food?¡±


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s double hadpletely fallen to despair by then. The ball of light in his hand flickered for a bit and was then snuffed out.


    The grandmaster smirked and said, ¡°Even if your main body shows up here, you still won¡¯t be able to shake yourself loose from this magic array. Don¡¯t waste your effort. Just sit back and wait for death to im you. I¡¯ve said that I¡¯m not going to eat you alive, and you¡¯re lucky that I do that.¡±


    Saleen then looked at the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. That look finally instilled fear into the Lord of Glory.


    That look from Saleen was not actually one of hatred, yet the Lord of Glory knew right there and then, that the human had decided deep down, to annihte his divine kingdoms.


    That was indeed what was going on in Saleen¡¯s head. He had no idea if Nichs had ended up dead. The fallen holy master was still alive when he left, yet judging from how the lesser prophecy spell he cast had actually worked on the demigod, Nichs had probably paid the price with his life.


    Lesser prophecy spells were fallen divine spells that were incapable of being reversed. Saleen felt very said deep down. That old man could have actually remained alive and watched Saleen seed.


    Nichs was not a bad man. He was actually one of the handful of good men found in the Holy See, which was why he was marginalized and sent to do missions that were hardly useful, yet dangerous.


    Saleen recalled everything they did together when he was fighting alongside Nichs. He was still hoping deep down that the old man would have still been alive.


    Gods were not entirely useless. For instance, the Lord of Glory asked for his believers to be peaceful, just, brave and good. There was no doubt that the Lord of Glory himself was incapable of doing any of that, but it did not change the fact that those qualities he required of his believers were good. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, there was quite a bit of good qualities left on Nichs.


    The general came before the Lord of Glory¡¯s double and looked at Saleen¡¯s back far away. He then said to the grandmaster, ¡°Why the hell do you keep ying the kid for?¡±


    ¡°ying him?¡± The grandmaster was puzzled.


    The general was rather exasperated. The grandmaster¡¯s temperament was such that he had actually been really polite with Saleen. However, he just kept beating the bush and refusing what Saleen asked, which made Saleen really frustrated.


    As such, Saleen ended up not caring about propriety and simply left so much as even saying goodbye.


    What the grandmaster did would not have benefited the heroic spirits much.


    Saleen did not leave the Imperial City of the Abyss immediately. He went to the astrology tower first, as there were still some things that he had left behind. Those were materials specifically made for astrologers.


    Saleen recalled that there were things in there specifically made for storing dead bodies. Saleen stayed at the astrology tower for a bit and took what he was looking. He then stared outside the window and saw nothing but boundless darkness.


    Just how did Gaine manage to bear with all of this?


    Saleen stood in the astrology tower and thought how Gaine hoped that he would have be an astrologer. However, that wish would have nevere true. This is thest time I¡¯d show up in the astrology tower. I¡¯ve taken everything in the tower. If some astrologer in Myers Maind capable of inheriting your powers were to show up in Myers Maind, I¡¯d bring them here.


    Saleen prayed deep down and made his decision, to never use the power of astrologers ever again.


    His proficiency at astrology was only at level ten. His achievements would have still been limited even if he were to continue learning, and it ould have impeded his progress. Learning astrology was simply too time-consuming.


    His lifespan was limited and his enemies were so powerful. The only way forward for him was to dedicate himself to studying magic and advancing diligently, as well as enhancing hisbat prowess. The Lord of Glory was that powerful, and the fact made him realize a lot of things.


    He had found it peculiar why Lex had chosen to bear with what those in the Golden ins were doing. If he were to support and advise her with all he had at the moment, it would have been possible to actually rule the empire with an iron fist.


    Saleen came to realize after meeting the Lord of Glory, that Lex simply had too many people she needed to protect.


    It would have taken just one of Saleen¡¯s followers being dead to have him turn into a wreck. He then realized that was how things worked with Lex.


    Saleen only left the Imperial City of the Abyss after he had straightened his thoughts out. He quickly came to the external fringes of the Oceanic Ice Block and loked for the ind that he had taken. He then returned to Ceylon City, which was his home city. Saleen had no idea where the Winged Skull would have ran to with Nailisi¡¯s dead body, but the safest and nearest city he was able to find at that moment, was none other than Ceylon City.


    So long as the gods were not attacking the ce, the magic installed in that city would have been able to keep the Winged Skull safe.


    Saleen continued to call the Winged Skull using the contract between them. The Winged Skull had indeed returned to the area where the city was, and furthermore, The Winged Skull had returned to the house where Saleen used to live when he was young.


    When Saleen arrived at the stone house, the ce had beenpletely sealed in ck ice.


    The Winged Skull had once managed Ceylon City, so no one would have had anything to say about them. There was not even a single soldier found around the stone house.


    There were only several golden skeletons standing guard around the ce. Saleen called from outside of the house and a teleportation portal appeared on the ck ice. Saleen passed through the portal on the ice and went into the house. The Winged Skull was waiting in the living room.


    ¡°Master!¡±


    ¡°What happened to all of them?¡± Saleen asked anxiously.


    ¡°Nailisi is dead, Rafel is done for, Nichs...he should still be alive. If he were to die, I could transform him into a spirit.¡±


    ¡°Where is Nailisi¡¯s body?¡±


    ¡°Upstairs. I¡¯ve kept it safe using Death Freezing, master...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m taking her to the Imperial City of the Abyss so that the grandmaster could save her,¡± Saleen said and walked up the stairs. He used to have some recollections or thoughts in his mind when he came back to the house, thinking about some details that had to do with his childhood. At that moment however, all he was able to think of was the dead imp.


    If Nailsi were to be lost forever, Saleen felt that he would have lost something in his soul.


    Saleen had the Winged Skull enter his magic amplifier. He then protected Nailisi¡¯s dead body with a crystal coffin. There was no way he could have repaired the body if it was damaged.


    Rafel was not doing so well and Saleen had her rest in the magic cube. Thebat angel had totally fallen into aa. However, energy still worked within her body. Nichs was still conscious, but he was no longer able to control his body and there were signs of his soul being damaged.


    Saleen headed from Ceylon City¡¯s teleportation portal straight to the Oceanic Ice Block without saying anything. He was traveling at his greatest speed in that trip. It took less than half a day for him to return to the Oceanic Ice Block.


    He no longer cared if anyone dicovered the ce. If Nailisi were to lose her chance at resurrection due to him being too careful, Saleen would have regretted it for the rest of his life.


    The imp needed someone to protect her after all, despite the fact that she herself had always been the first to charge when there was danger. She never hesitated.

 Chapter 1437: Resurrection (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1437: Resurrection (Part 2)</h4>


    The demons were behaving cautiously on the ind, producing iron ore while supreme demons stood guard around the teleportation portal. They had never seen Saleen in such a foul mood before.


    He did not vent his anger and frustration at the demons, however: He was a mage and would never do something like unless there was a good reason.


    Furthermore, the grandmaster said that luoluokaluo was tough to kill, to begin with, and the contract within his soul had not disappeared. The chances of seeing Nailisi resurrected were high. That was good news.


    But there was little hope for Rafel. The truth is, thebat angel had no desire to continue living after her god had perished. What made her stay behind all these years were the metal angels in her care. There was no one else to look after them.


    That is until Saleen promised to watch over them in case something happened to her. Once that arrangement was in ce, there was little keeping Rafel tethered to the world. After the metal angels embraced the faith of the God of Magic Net, they could be resurrected in the divine kingdom of the God of Magic Net, as long as that god stayed alive. In other words, the metal angels were in good hands.


    Generally speaking, if difficulties arose with resurrection, the gods typically gave up on their angels. Rafel knew that Saleen would honor hismitment and do right by them. After all, those angels were still more powerful than level-10 humans.


    A level-10 human was capable of leading a squadron of elite soldiers even in ancient times.


    People like Saleen were good to their subordinates, which put Rafel¡¯s mind at ease and allowed her to go all out in the battle with the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. She was more worried about the God of Magic Net getting killed than her own death. The battles between the gods were brutal. Few prisoners were taken, and it wasmon practice for the winners to devour the losers.


    Only newly emerged gods would have thought of taking in servant gods.


    As a veteran god, the Lord of Glory had more than enough subordinates to spare. If the God of Magic Net fell into his hands, he would have suffered a brutal death, and the metal angels would have gone down with him.


    When Saleen passed through the Oceanic Ice Block on his way to the Imperial City of the Abyss, hoards of magic beasts ganged up on him. Saleen didn¡¯t bother with any of them. He simply spread his lightning territory wide open and pushed all those magic beasts outside.


    He had no time to hunt those ¡®moving-treasure troves,¡¯ as they were poprly called. Saleen just dived into the abyss and headed for the Cemetery of Heroes.


    What he saw upon his arrival was shocking.


    It was a long table with heroes seated on both sides. They were all holding exquisite cutlery while enjoying an aromatic meal. Mmmm.


    Saleen had no doubt about where that food came from¡ªthe double of the Lord of Glory.


    While those heroes were savoring each mouthful, Saleen scanned the food with his Eye of Souls and found that it was manifestations of energy purer than magic nuclei instead of the joints of meat as he imagined.


    The general was seated on one end of the long table; a piece of broken-divine persona graced his te.


    The general then called Saleen when he saw him and said, ¡°We heroes have long lost our sense of taste, Saleen. If we were to enjoy ourselves, we could only look for it in the gods. Since you¡¯re here, I¡¯d like to share something with you if I may. Let me tell you how to absorb the power of gods.¡±


    Saleen walked toward the general but didn¡¯t see the grandmaster at his side. He bowed and said, ¡°General, my bonded creature, a luoluokaluo, was killed by that demigod. Please do something to save her.¡±


    Humans had shared amicable rtionships with demons in ancient times. From the general¡¯s perspective, such a request from Saleen was quite normal. Humans back then did not fear demons.


    ¡°Saleen, you¡¯d need to strengthen your soul before I can find a way to save her. For now, do please join us at the table, mmm?¡±


    The general pointed to the chair at his side. The hero seated on his left gave up his seat voluntarily. A new chair was put in its ce.


    Saleen sat down as requested, and the general continued, ¡°We all served a king back in the magic dynasty when we were alive. The Imperial City of the Abyss had originally been a territory of that king. No need to tell you how the ce sank to the bottom of the ocean. We all knew it would happen sooner orter. All of us who died in that battle transformed into heroic spirits.¡±


    Saleen had no idea why the general was going on and on about this ancient history! He had no choice but to listen quietly and patiently until the general got to the point. Surely there was one!


    ¡°After we were transformed into heroic spirits, we were protected by our graves, which meant that we were almost prevented entirely from getting a true death. But then again, that simply means that we¡¯re suffering indefinite imprisonment. His majesty all those years ago built a huge cemetery to keep us from feeling as if we were suffering. Regardless of howrge the cemetery is, to us it¡¯s a cage. Further, this ce is already run down and no one everes here. What would be the meaning of our continuing to live then?¡±


    Saleen couldn¡¯t imagine what that felt like...nor was he interested in finding out. His mind kept wandering back to Nailisi¡¯s corpse lying in the crystal coffin. That meant her body would be preserved perfectly for the next three to five thousand years. Saleen was still feeling very anxious.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m telling this to you and hope you¡¯ll partake of this delightful meal with us. Consider it a reward for baiting the demigod here. No need to hurry. I know how your bonded creature died¡ªher heart was torn up. It would have been the end for other creatures, but this luoluokaluo of yours should have gained several powers, making resurrection quite easy. On the other hand, think about it. That would leave her with seven types of powers from now on. And her lifespan will be more than halved as well.¡±


    Saleen was stunned. He knew nothing about that?!


    ¡°Your power of soul is still too weak. The reason I invited you to dine with us is to strengthen it. Then I¡¯ll find the demon brand on the luoluokaluo within. By doing so, she will be almostpletely resurrected.


    Saleen sighed a long breath and said, ¡°Thaaank you.¡±


    ¡°Ach. ¡®Twas nothing. One condition though.¡±


    ¡°Please.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to use loopholes of rules. If youe here again, I shall personally ensure the safety of you and your men. The grandmaster shall never look for trouble with you ever again,¡± the general said glowering at the grandmaster.


    The grandmaster was silent. He knew deep down that Saleen was probably one favored by fate and that there was no way he could take Saleen to be a mage of no importance anymore.


    Some decisions Saleen had made could even change the course of the ne¡¯s history. Although he was more powerful, he had been forsaken by fate before and thus knew how terrifying the implications could be.


    A thought popped into Saleen¡¯s mind, and he read between the lines of what the general was telling him: The grandmaster had been thinking of looking for trouble with him and would have targeted those around him too. But wouldn¡¯t those concerns be too petty for someone like him?


    Saleen quickly realized that they had always been scheming against each other. The grandmaster couldn¡¯t squeeze anything more out of Saleen. Saleen, on the other hand, hadn¡¯t been all that respectful to the grandmaster. To people like the grandmaster, if something like that happened out there, he would snuff him out...no questions asked!


    Souls trapped in the Cemetery of Heroes would not be preserved indefinitely because of the time limit. In an effort to escape the current predicament, the grandmaster had to hold it all in.


    Despite none of that actually being Saleen¡¯s fault, it was definitely Saleen¡¯s fault from the grandmaster¡¯s perspective.


    He was far more powerful than Saleen, after all. In his eyes, Saleen was just a scrawny little nobody, a nonentity. But said scrawny little nobody had infuriated the grandmaster. So why didn¡¯t the grandmaster didn¡¯t kill him? Why didn¡¯t he take action against those around him?


    ¡°Alright, you have my word,¡± Saleen did not answer in a clear-cut manner but he was nheless quick.


    Initially, he had no intention of helping those heroes. When he baited the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, he heard the amusing conversations between the heroes and that triggered something in him. Those heroes were also ordinary humans when they were alive. They had the full spectrum of emotions and were hardly different from contemporary humans, except that they were noticeably stronger.


    If none of those people were to be his enemy, then there was no need for him to see that they all remained trapped here.


    Further, those people were all good role models when it came to aplishing goals. He would have standards to measure himself against when he advanced in the future and he would have known exactly where he actually stood.


    Clearly, it was only a matter of time before he surpassed the grandmaster.


    The way Saleen saw it, all those schemes between him and the grandmaster were a joke. If he failed to show up, the grandmaster might kill everyone around him just to vent his anger. While Saleen had no idea what kinds of skills would allow the grandmaster to do that, the general¡¯s words suggested it would not be hard to pull off.


    The general then borated on the secrets of the bodies of gods to Saleen. As a warrior, it was a miracle to get to level-18. The understanding of magic and elements the general had even made Saleen doubt if he was the magic apprentice there instead.


    ¡°The fundamental difference between gods and elemental creatures was enormous. Look.¡± The general then motioned at the cut of meat on the te and said, ¡°The package of energy is hardly different from the meat we used to eat in terms of appearance, and they had more or less the same function as real meat. When gods advanced to the final form, they wouldn¡¯t turn into a blob of energy. Energy creatures would have instead drowned in energy if they were to not be gods eventually. That is why the energy of gods is indeed the most delicious thing in the world.¡±


    Saleen felt repulsed seeing the grandmaster biting into the flesh of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, but he quickly got used to it. To Saleen, the Lord of Glory was not very different from those magic beasts he hunted.


    Saleen was still observing with his Eye of Souls. That piece of meat quickly liquefied when it was put into the general¡¯s mouth, transforming into a blob of energy, repairing the power of soul that the general had lost over the years.


    Following the general¡¯s example, Saleen put a piece of meat that was thinner than the edge of a de into his mouth, absorbing it with his soul.


    He found it was indeed a form of energy capable of replenishing his power of soul, which meant that the outer shell of a god¡¯s form was capable of providing sustenance for souls. It was no surprise that the Lord of Glory¡¯s double could freely cast power of light after he arrived at the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The gods were a world unto themselves.


    The most important part was the divine persona, which the general was about to chomp on. Yum. Saleen had a divine persona of an even higher level embedded in his Thunder Dragon ster, which he dared not reveal for fear that the heroic spirits would go berserk. He simply kept it hidden in his Thunder Dragon Bangle.


    Watching the general cut the secret of the general up bit by bit, all trauma that the Lord of Glory¡¯s double left in Saleen¡¯s mind disappeared. Gods were not actually some undeniable beings after all. They were simply more special than most.


    As to theirbat skills, untrained humans could reach the height of gods regardless of their level; however, trained humans could surpass the gods even if they were of a lower level.


    The general stated frankly that when he was at level-17 back in the day, he¡¯d already challenged a level-17 god. But he had to rely on the power of equipment. There was nothing unfair about that. Didn¡¯t the gods also use the equipment? Moreover, they were all armed with godly items.

 Chapter 1438: Resurrection (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1438: Resurrection (Part 3)</h4>


    What he was about to learn were things that would give him a decisive edge against others even though he had little use for those skills now. They merely provided him with a direction¡ªwhere he should be heading with his studies. The general was unlike the grandmaster. As a warrior, he was more frank and forting, making him more willing to share his knowledge with Saleen.


    The general¡¯s level suggested that he had a profound understanding of the world. If he had been willing to train in magic again, he would have reached simr heights in that discipline too.


    Saleen initially had things he wanted to ask the grandmaster, or, more precisely, information he wanted to acquire by trading. Seeing how easy it was to talk with the general, however, he simply posed his questions to the level-18 warrior. It was no big deal.


    What Saleen intended to ask was simple. The first matter had to do with movement skills using earth element; the second was about the use of the territory.


    Saleen had few problems dealing with other matters. Mainly, he felt he was progressing too slowly.


    The general was patiently willing to instruct Saleen, seeing how he had brought him a piece of a broken divine persona. While that did not sit well with the grandmaster, he couldn¡¯t object to the general¡¯s decision. Saleen had exceeded his expectation by bringing them a demigod after all.


    After chomping down on that demigod, none of them would have lost any soul powers for tens of thousands of years toe. That was especially so in the case of the general, asmon god-rted items were of little use to him. Besides, he spent most of his time hibernating.


    Without the general, the rate at which everyone¡¯s soul power was lost would increase. That was a vicious cycle and everyone was d Saleen did what he did.


    If Saleen brought them stronger gods in the future, they might actually be able to leave the Cemetery of Heroes.


    Rafel took herst breath. The general told Saleen to ce the angel on the table. He took out a piece of bone from the Lord of Glory¡¯s double and stuffed it into Rafel¡¯s body. The bone melted right away, causing her injuries to heal instantly.


    Saleen looked at the general¡¯s territory and found it overwhelming. A bone of a god was able to disintegrate right away, bing energy that Rafel was capable of absorbing.


    Ever since Saleen came to possess the Eye of Souls, he started learning how things worked just by looking at them. He managed to learn a great deal about controlling territories after seeing what was going on before him.


    The lightning territory was by no means weak. In terms of the level of rules, it was probably around level-18.


    Saleen was only able to overwhelm his opponents using the power of his territory, specifically bypressing it to an extremely small area. Given how far the distance in hisbat level had grown, Saleen felt as if he had be a warrior capable of using territories.


    As for control of earth-element power, the general only borated verbally instead of giving demonstrations to Saleen. He was a warrior, which meant that he relied also heavily on the power of the earth.


    Saleen knew little about that, so when he heard the general talking about the secrets of earth element, he felt insignificant.


    If there were such enormous differences between mages and warriors, then he had indeed been ignorant about the problem regarding levels.


    Levels were not just a standard measuring a professional¡¯s strength; they were also a standard for segregating rules.


    Saleen came to possess power of the soul, which was supposed to be something acquirable after level-13. That¡¯s not to say he was able to simply challenge beings above level-13.


    The ability to move using earth element was a skill of warriors. Saleen initially thought it had been something developed by Arb. But then again, Arb was a genius who was able to analyze down to thest detail of a warrior¡¯s skill at that level, transforming it into a mage¡¯s skill and into something suitable to mages. That was how daunting Arb was.


    As for Jalin, she was but a learner, so Saleen paid little attention to her.


    Then it was Nichs¡¯s turn. Given that he was still breathing, it became a matter of treatment instead of resurrection. The grandmaster took over from the general. A level-15 Healing enabled Nichs to sit up right away. He found it ironic to be sitting on a dining-room table.


    ¡°Thank you, my liege.¡± Nichs got off of the table and bowed to Saleen. He went to thank him instead of the grandmaster, who was the one who had saved him.


    Saleen had no reservations about the grandmaster and kept asking questions patiently. After he learned the skill he needed to continue evolving his power of the soul before he was capable of saving Nailisi, Saleen saw that he had no choice but to quiet down and take a metal house, walking inside with Rafel and Nichs.


    He had no fear of the general of doing something against him. If the general was up to no good, he could have done something right in front of Saleen and there was nothing he could do to stop him. Getting into a private space to train was just a habit of his.


    Saleen cast lightning territory with the metal house. Under the general¡¯s instructions, he barred others¡¯ probing attempts using lightning territory. There would have been no way for Saleen¡¯s territory to repel someone of the general¡¯s level. Given the territory¡¯s characteristics though, it would have been impossible for the general to spy on Saleen without his noticing.


    Saleen was training his power of soul right. He had no patience to wait since there were a lot of matters throughout Myers Maind to be taken care of. The Floating City still hadn¡¯t been repaired and two of his weapon spirits were severely injured. Saleen had too many things to take care of at the moment. If he couldn¡¯t crush the Holy See, he wouldn¡¯t be lucky enough to escape if the Holy See called on their god next time.


    He already had a way to make his power of the soul more robust¡ªthe divine persona on his Thunder Dragon ster.


    That divine persona was tens of thousands of times more precious than the broken one of the double of the Lord of Glory. Even if there were tens of thousands of such fragments, they still would not be able to piece one single divine persona of such a high level.


    There was no doubt that the Goddess of Myers had been brutal back in the day. The acquisition of one such divine persona meant the divine kingdom of that god had been annihted.


    Saleen¡¯s current power did not allow him to fully absorb that divine persona. He took the divine persona off his Thunder Dragon ster and held it in his hand before beginning to slowly absorb its power, per the general¡¯s instructions.


    The way Saleen went about it was different. He had to first infuse his lightning territory into the divine persona before extracting power within the divine persona as slowly as possible.


    Saleen felt the pulse from the depths of his soul. Such a pure power of water element triggered his soul in a parallel space easily. Two souls of even higher purity burst through the barrier in space and were absorbed into Saleen¡¯s body. All three pieces of his soul melded within the lightning territory without any signs of rejection.


    The enhancement of the power of the soul was much easier than before. That was because Saleen had begun to master territory and the naturally formed lightning rules in his territory were of the highest rules after all, which afforded extremely powerful protection to his soul.


    There was no need for his souls to generate greater power to return to his body. Saleen did not anticipate any of that. He nheless remembered what the general told him¡ªseeing his soul stabilized did not mean he could let his guard down. He needed to continue to stabilize his soul.


    Saleen then continued to extract more power from the water element god¡¯s divine element in order to strengthen his soul. This wasn¡¯t amon method; it was a method created by the general. Saleen did that because he had a body of water element that melded well with the divine persona of the water element god.


    Even so, the level difference between him and the general was still too great. Most of the power in the divine persona ended up being wasted.


    Fortunately, Saleen didn¡¯t need that much, to begin with. The divine persona hardly changed at all even after Saleen extracted power from it.


    The contracts he had signed at the depths of his soul became even clearer. Saleen saw the contract belonging to Nailisi and it basically the same. He was somewhat relieved and looked at the two kept being at his side all the while. Rafel then answered, ¡°Only a month has passed.¡±


    Nichs was frustrated, by contrast. He was not capable of not eating or drinking like Saleen, and there was little good food to be had in the metal house. For one whole month, he had been eating stale bread instead of fresh loaves.


    A month?


    Saleen felt as if it had taken less than an hour to feel the rise of his soul¡¯s power.


    There wouldn¡¯t be too much happening in the maind in just a month. The priority now was to save Nailisi!


    By the time Saleen walked out of the metal house, the heroic spirits had long returned to their respective graves. A lot went through Saleen¡¯s mind when he saw that deste cemetery. He had once thought he would never visit the ce again, much less expect he would show up there for Nailisi¡¯s sake. He had even promised the general toe again, bringing them more items rted to the gods.


    Saleen came before the general¡¯s grave and took out the crystal coffin. Nailisi¡¯s appearance was sad and pitiful. The space where her heart once beat had been thoroughly prated. Because of the Winged Skull¡¯s protection, Nailisi still looked like she did when she was killed.


    Sigh...


    Saleen let out a long sigh and said, ¡°General, pleasee out.¡±


    ¡°No need for that!¡± A huge hand extended from the ground and took Nailisi¡¯s crystal coffin into the grave.


    Saleen quickly took out the crystal ball and ended up being taken into the grave himself as well.


    The space inside the grave was not very big. In fact, it was far smallerpared to Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Saleen sensed right away that his power of the soul had be unnervingly stable within that space. If he used his sensory powers as they were outside, he¡¯d be able to extend them to an area farrger than his territory.


    The power of the soul kept vibrating, just like waves of an ocean. Such vibrations granted power but consumed the soul¡¯s power at the same time.


    Saleen realized all of a sudden at the very second he was thrust into the grave how he should be treating souls and what he should do to walk the path from then on out.


    An enormous stone coffin was seen a the center of the grave. The general sat at the side of the coffin and waved to Saleen.


    ¡°You happy now, Saleen?¡± The general asked.


    Saleen bowed solemnly and replied, ¡°I will always remember your teachings. As for the gods, I will definitely think of something. I will bring whatever is within my power to bring. For those that I¡¯m unable to, I will just lure them here instead.


    Saleen could onlyprehend how precious the grave was after he entered it. The reason the general permitted him entry was to learn of Saleen¡¯s soul vibrations in order to enter and extract Nailisi¡¯s soul brand and repair her damaged soul.


    The second reason for bringing Saleen here was so that the general could instruct Saleen using the power of the grave, regarding knowledge of the soul. The instruction would have used up some of the grave¡¯s power. Saleen was not in a soul state and entering the space of the grave came with a price after all.

 Chapter 1439: Training Hard for a Thousand Years (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1439: Training Hard for a Thousand Years (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen was very polite to the general due to his gratitude for him.


    The general ced Nailisi¡¯s crystal coffin right next to his own. He opened the coffin and set the crystal ball in Nailisi¡¯s mouth. The general shrouded Saleen with his own territory and felt something minute shaking in his body. It took only a split second for the general to read everything in the contract between him and Nailisi, which was housed in his soul.


    If the general wanted to, he could peer into all of Saleen¡¯s secrets, including his family badge and three weapon spirits.


    The general did not do any of that. He simply siphoned power into Nailisi¡¯s body, after getting to know Nailisi¡¯s soul brand better, to repair her soul and heart. The actions were done in tandem, as neither was particrly difficult to a level 18 professional.


    The main thing about the ordeal was how peculiar Nailisi¡¯s soul was. Only one-eighth of her soul was actually harmed by the double of the Lord of Glory. If Saleen were capable of repairing Nailisi¡¯s heart, there would not be any problem with Nailisi resurrecting.


    However, like the general told Saleen before, Nailisi would never be able to evolve into a luoluokaluo of a higher level if he did so.


    Saleen learned the repair methods used by the general, which used energy to reconstruct Nailisi¡¯s heart. The method came with a great cost, and the general had probably used a part of the power he had acquired from the broken divine persona to do it. While he was able to retain hisbat prowess as a heroic spirit, he had almost lost all of his abilities to heal.


    Not even the grandmaster was able to guarantee resurrecting Nailisi. It all depended on the power left by the god.


    After he was done repairing parts of her heart, the general took out the double of the Lord of Glory¡¯s heart, installing it into Nailisi¡¯s chest cavity. The heart was very small and white. It gradually turned red after connecting to her blood vessels, and then purple.


    Saleen was surprised. That¡¯s all?


    The general smiled. ¡°The most difficult thing about it is to have her soul merge with her body. While your power of soul makes you invincible to anyone below level 13, you still wouldn¡¯t be able to do all of that with your current level of powers.


    Saleen acknowledged hisck of powers silently. He understood it very well at the moment.


    ¡°The god cursed you right before he died. I think the Holy See will give the divine decree to have you eliminated by the time you return to Myers Maind. You won¡¯t be able to do much against it with your equipment alone, Saleen. You need to keep advancing, at the very least, until the permissible limit of this ne.¡±


    Saleen smiled bitterly. ¡°General, I¡¯m just as anxious in the matter of advancement, but...¡±


    The general interrupted Saleen. ¡°There is a Hall of Gods in the royal pce at the center of the imperial city. It was built using the remains of the 18 gods I killed. If you ced enough magic nuclei there, you would be able to adjust the passage of time to be different from outside. Go.¡±


    The general gave Saleen a silver badge with a dragon head emblem. The top corner of the badge had aplex magic array written using magguage.


    ¡°I have synchronized your soul vibrations with the badge. You can enter holding the badge and be spared from attacks from the royal pce.¡±


    ¡°What about her?¡± Saleen pointed to Nailisi.


    ¡°Her injuries will heal in a month. You can stay within the Hall of Gods for a month.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He took Nichs and Rafel to the royal pce of the city.


    The royal pce was towards the north. Rafel was a lot more active after she was saved. She looked at the statues along the way. ¡°My lord, we should take the statues back with us.¡±


    ¡°What for?¡±


    ¡°You can decorate the city with them. They can be made into powerful weapons with just a bit of modification.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve made up your mind, Rafel?¡± Nichs interjected from the side.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not thinking about leaving anymore?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving. There is little else for me to do if I leave. There are always idents with Lord Saleen around. It¡¯s far more fun to just stick around than to look for something to do out there.¡±


    Saleen smiled. Rafel was the strongest warrior serving him. As both of them had gone through life and death situations together, Saleen had an easier time trusting her. He had to be wary of thebat angel in the past, and he deemed such caution no longer necessary.


    The walls of the royal pce were still in one piece. The royal pce was akin to Saleen¡¯s Floating City, only somewhat smaller. The length of the walls were about 20 kilometers long.


    Despite having the general¡¯s badge, Saleen still dared not to scale the walls. The royal pce should be filled with all kinds of danger.


    He entered from the gates at the side. There were still huge magic arrays on the gates watching what was going on below. Saleen held the general¡¯s badge high. The magic array flickered for a bit before snuffing out the magic light around.


    It was Saleen¡¯s first time encountering a magic array capable of operating only when presence was detected. ck rocks lined both sides of the space within the gate. The rocks were carved to be tightly packed spikes. If they pressed together, no living beings would be able to run.


    Rafel was rather frightened. ¡°My lord, the rocks...¡±


    ¡°Were crafted from the core of meteorites. Rx, we¡¯re not here to stir up trouble.¡± Saleen was not saying that to console Rafel; he was doing so to console himself.


    Regardless of how fast he could move, he had no idea what he should do if he was crushed by the spikes in such a narrow ce.


    Saleen and his party were right about their spections. The rocks were indeed capable of being pressed together at very high speeds. Even a puppet made of pure metal would be crushed to pieces.


    No one knew how many powerful professionals were killed by simr devices when humans conquered nes in ancient times.


    The rough-looking rocks were made from cores of meteorites, and their weight alone was frightening. The only way to break them was through sheer brute force, which took time.


    After walking through the long tunnel, they went into the barbican of the royal pce. There were still soldiers standing guard along the walls, all wearing rock-like armor.


    Saleen held the badge high and walked further into the barbican¡¯s gates, finding a small za. zas behind the city gates were used for gathering troops. There were many towers and residential buildings past the za, that remained standing, which meant the magic arrays of the royal pce were still working and were very effective.


    Saleen took a detour around the straight path in the center of the royal pce ording to pointers given by the general,ing before a tall building.


    The building looked blocky and was surrounded by pirs. It bore a striking resemnce to Metatrin City¡¯s temple, but it was taller and the outer parts looked more ornate and colorful. The materials used to build it were not geared for resilience or sturdiness.


    Saleen saw the colors outside the Hall of Gods and a lot came to his mind. His Metatrin City looked too much like a fortress, and it seemed that the residents felt restrained and frustrated. He had not been aware of any of it, but it was clear the negativity did not facilitate growth of souls.


    The buildings in the Imperial City of the Abyss were different. The stone was colorful and the carvings on the walls were all done ording to the patterns and colors of the materials. It was art.


    Art had the ability to soothe souls. Saleen had never looked into it before. The beauty in Nature City had been done out of Sallen¡¯s intention to cate believers¡¯ emotions and concerns about the Goddess of Myers. All of his other cities basically looked like steel fortresses.


    Anything that shed was reduced to dust.


    ¡°My liege, how do we get inside?¡± Nichs was unable to see any door. Saleen scanned the building with his Eye of Souls and saw four entrances. All four of them were extremely intricately built. The magic arrays on them were difficult to notice regardless of angles used to observe them.


    The general said that the Hall of Gods was used by royal members as training grounds. He was a royal member, so he was allowed to get near. Saleen thought about it for a bit and decided to let Rafel and Nichs return to his magic amplifier, and walked to one of the entrances alone.


    There was a huge statue at the entrance which resembled a human military officer. Saleen inserted the general¡¯s badge into the slot found on the statue¡¯s chest and pressed. A colorful wall opened, revealing a small doorway.


    Saleen walked inside and found a huge hall.


    The door closed behind him without making a sound. Weak natural light emanated from the rocks in the walls themselves.


    The hall made it feel like time had stopped. Saleen walked to the center of the wall and found a magic array on the floor.


    There was a ce on the magic array where magic nucleus could be embedded. It was surrounded by a ring, and there were markings showing the time on the floor. Saleen thought for a bit, thinking about how long he would want to train there.


    Level 12 was probably not enough. If the Lord of Glory showed up again and ambushed him, there would be no chance for him to run anymore.


    He deemed it necessary to advance to level 13 before he had a chance to resist even a single strike from a double of the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen took the divine persona of the water element god off of his Thunder Dragon ster. Even if the powers of his Thunder Dragon ster were weaker, there was no way he could avoid by paying the price of a divine persona.


    He embedded the divine persona in the slot in the magic array on the ground. Intense light shot out from the divine persona, lighting up the entire hall.


    Saleen looked at the markings on the ring around the slot. They all lit up with changing colors, until finally stopping on a dark red color.


    It would be great to have a simr magic array in Metatrin City. However, he knew that it was impossible. The rules in the Hall of Gods were unleashed by the remains of 18 gods. There was he could take away even a single one of the gods¡¯ remains, as they had all been fused together.


    Crafting abilities of ancient humans might not have been as intricate and detailed as the contemporary humans, but they were able to tap into sources. There was no way Saleen would be able to destroy anything, given hisck of power.


    The passage of time became very different from the outside world. Saleen took out a magic clock and ced in front of him. He scanned with his power of the soul, finding that time there passed 10,000 times more quickly than the outside world.


    Power of a divine persona indeed! Even if Saleen embedded a high level magic nucleus, even level 16, he would never be able to achieve such an effect.

 Chapter 1440: Training Hard for a Thousand Years (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1440: Training Hard for a Thousand Years (Part 2)</h4>


    Using a divine persona like that was a terrible waste. If he surpassed level 16 in the future, he would be able to extract rules from the divine persona, enabling him to acquire power of the water element god without having to train.


    Extraction would enable him to save up to 10,000, even 100,000 years. At present however, he used the divine persona to adjust the flow of time. Even if the divine persona remained intact when he was done, the powers within would be drained and the rules would be damaged, making extraction very difficult.


    There was no way he would waste a divine persona. He summoned all his followers from the magic amplifier and had them all train.


    All the resources that he had brought with him were distributed among them and Saleen made it clear that they were able to afford to spend 1,000 years there doing nothing.


    Rafel looked at the divine persona Saleen had embedded in the magic array and shook her head. She knew that Saleen understood that it was a waste, but the situation meant that Saleen had no choice.


    Saleen even brought Sika with him, for fear that the Lord of Glory¡¯s double would attack Metatrin City.


    There were no magic arrays in the Hall of Gods to expand the space, but it was capable of housing thousands of people. Saleen called all of his followers but left enchanters behind. He summoned some of the stronger demons and mages. The rate of time in the magic amplifier was simr to the outside world, and Saleen had no way around it.


    He was only able to include as many as possible in theing years of training, as he was unable to afford to take care of everyone.


    Saleen was relieved that he had brought the more important mages of Metatrin City with him, as well as his student, Truman, who was a level ten mage. He was more talented than Saleen, and if he trained for 1000 years, his level could surpass Saleen¡¯s.


    The following events were simple. There were enough food stocked in his magic amplifier, and the magic cube was like a world in itself. While it was impossible to farm due to theck of a sun, fungi could be ted, fire and water element powers generated using magic.


    No one else could solve the problems that Saleen had run into. Almost all of Saleen¡¯s food storage had something to do with the Floating City. Most of the city¡¯s spaces were used for storing food. That had a lot to do with Saleen¡¯s personality, as to him, there was only a future when there was food.


    Saleen began his own training after he was done with arranging others¡¯ training.


    Due to instructions and help from the general, his power of the soul rivalled level 15 professionals. Saleen needed to work on his family badge. The power stored within his badge was enough for him to fight gods.


    Before that, however, he needed to first get to level 12 to stabilize his power of the soul.


    The general gave Saleen 30 days. He figured that Saleen¡¯s wealth would enable the mage to train for 100 years in the Hall of Gods within a month. He never expected Saleen to have a divine persona, enabling Saleen to train for over 1,000 years in there.


    100 years quickly passed and, as predicted by the general, Saleen had gotten to level 12. His magic chords were over 100 times purer than they had been, which was preparation for breaking into level 13. If he had not had a powerful soul, there would be no need for him to do so. While hecked talent in training his magic chords, he was almost the best among mages when it came to soul-rted aspects.


    If someone else had his skills, they would have only been able to learn death magic. They might have been able to reach great heights with it, but they would not have been able to learn elemental magic.


    Saleen¡¯s advancement did not affect the others around him. He did not rush to get to level 13 after getting to level 12. He found that what he knew about secret art alchemy had been skewed. All secret art alchemy had to do with souls.


    His teacher, Jason, had always possessed formidable power of the soul, but his teacher was unable to instruct Saleen. Training the power of the soul had to be done alone.


    Saleen ran through the secret arts that his teacher had imparted to him and found that his Water me Alchemy was still the most powerful. It had originally been geared for battle, and using it for alchemy was a waste.


    However, his understanding of rules was unable to reach the other crystal wall system, and he did not consider a mistake in his training.


    But since Saleen acquiredplete power of souls, he was able to re-train his Water me Alchemy.


    White Water me was so cold that it was capable of freezing souls. Old scripts ran within Saleen¡¯s mind. The words were profound and difficult toprehend, and Saleen was only able to sense the power of rules when the words flowed.


    His Ring of Cosmos slowly oscited in his finger. The vibration frequencies of the Water me slowed considerably under the effects of the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen¡¯s power of the soul was able to clearly observe all minute changes.


    It became easy for Saleen to control his Water me. Snowkill and Tornado no longer came alongside the Water me¡¯s release. A white ¡®me¡¯ hovered above his palm, its temperature wasparable to the room.


    Saleen extinguished the Water me and thought that the power of his water element magic would be even greater.


    Saleen had achieved considerable progress with the training of his power of the soul. He needed to reconsider matters rted to Water me Alchemy. He took out the Thunder Dragon ster. The injuries that all three weapon spirits caused were patched within the past 100 years, and even the Floating City had been gradually repaired.


    Saleen threw the Thunder Dragon ster into the magic amplifier, and it hovered between the three eyes. There were 24 eyes surrounding it. After losing the divine persona, the Thunder Dragon ster could no longer fire consecutively. After he was done working on it, he would leave the firing of the weaponpletely to the three weapon spirits.


    By doing so, the Thunder Dragon ster gained protection of six major elements and was not as weak as it used to be. The equipment¡¯s integrity would not bepromised even when lightning icicles were fired. Saleen did not finish working on the equipment immediately. He knew that in order for the weapon to work as it was supposed to, it was required to be able to fire lightning icicles at all times.


    Offensive capacity of the lightning icicles were hardly considered powerful when used against gods, as godly items would do well to resist them. If the gods were caught with their guard lowered, however, the weapon would be to deal severe damage against gods.


    Saleen recalled the method the general used to heal Nailisi. He extracted the power from the divine persona embedded in the Hall of Gods and imbued it with the Thunder Dragon ster.


    The Thunder Dragon ster expanded, shrunk, and expanded again. The process repeated itself tens of thousands of times.


    The body of the Thunder Dragon ster was gradually brought back to its original form as Saleen worked at it¡ªa 100-meter long thunder dragon.


    The thunder dragon was all bones, but Saleen was able to infuse energy and create flesh and blood ording to how the gods created their bodies. Saleen was very learned in the structure of a thunder dragon. However, Saleen was not actually trying to revive a thunder dragon; he was simply trying to provide the thunder dragon with a stronger body to be able to infuse his magic arrays.


    Saleen reworked the magic arrays in the thunder dragon¡¯s windpipe. Water me seeped deep into it and reinforced the windpipe in a way that made it nigh indestructible. Saleen no longer crafted along thoughtsid out by Hogina, and instead let the dead body of the thunder dragon provide electrical power. The thunder dragon¡¯s windpipe had originally been a weaker part of the creature, but after Saleen reworked it by emting the structures of the divine persona, its resilience surpassed a thunder dragon¡¯s horn.


    The Thunder Dragon ster turned into a huge thunder dragon after Saleen was done working on it. He put it into his magic amplifier¡¯s ring and let it roam, making it possible for him to fire lightning icicles from it.


    Saleen knew that such attacks were still inferior to the Crystal Finger in terms of power. However, as far as suppressive power went, the gods could not afford to ignore it. Saleen no longer had to worry about the weapon being damaged and broken. He was able to cast lightning icicles at any time, so long as the three weapon spirits were still around and his power of the soul still held.


    The Thunder Dragon ster, magic amplifier, Thunder Dragon Bangle, Lightning Armament and Ring of Cosmos consisted of all equipment in Saleen¡¯s possession. He no longer bothered looking into any misceneous pieces.


    The three weapon spirits werepletely fused in the magic amplifier. There were the Lightning Constetion and the Floating City in the magic amplifier.


    The Lightning Constetion was capable of holding objects. The Floating City could be taken out. The magic amplifier became able to carry living beings, due to the workings of the magic cube.


    Saleen took over 100 years to work on all of the equipment. He gained new breakthroughs in over 100 years. His water magic became imbued with powers of the Water me.


    Water magic came with a myriad of effects like hardening, dissolving, slowing, freezing, and many others. Saleen no longer relied solely on the hardening rules. The power of his lightning icicles was imbued with all traits of water magic.


    Saleen knew that his talents wereckingpared to others, so he spent all of his remaining time devoted to magic training, hoping to be able to make it to level 13. The barrier standing between level 12 and level 13 was difficult. Saleen attempted time and again to make it through and spent a great number of magic nuclei, but he still was unable to make his magic chords grow any further. Saleen had little idea how much time actually passed. His student, Truman, already made it to level 12.


    All professionals above level 10 had all gotten to level 12. Waves of demons were rotated. Common demons all got to level 9 and his supreme demons were almost all level 10.


    Saleen saw that half of the powers of the divine persona in the magic array had been drained. He had used too much of the divine persona¡¯s power to craft his equipment. He had 300 years left at most, and simply training did not seem to be the way to go.


    Saleen took out the magic notes left in Raphael¡¯s tower and began to read them. He spent the next 200 years researching them, oblivious to the fact that his son and daughter had made significant progress with their own training.


    Both children were adults and became sorcerers at 16. They became level 10 mage trainers before turning 100. Saleen was extremely envious at the rate which they trained at.


    There was nothing he was able to do about it, as his children were significantly more talented than him.


    About a thousand years passed before they knew it. Seeing the energy in the water element god¡¯s divine personapletely drained, Saleen smiled at Sika and his children. ¡°I¡¯m still unable to get to level 13.¡±


    Sika was hardly any different from how she was 1,000 years ago. She said to Saleen, ¡°No problem. Level 12 beings are the most powerful on Myers Maind.¡±


    ¡°Not quite.¡± Saleen took the divine persona out from the magic array, which shattered into six pieces with a crack. Saleen took out a precious level 16 magic nucleus and put it into the magic array. He was able to buy himself another month.

 Chapter 1441: Advancing One After Another (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1441: Advancing One After Another (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen knew there was no hope of advancing in just a month, so he began working on his family badge. He started to write magic inscriptions on the surface using power of the soul, which gradually resonated with the badge¡¯s material.


    It was a very silly way of going about this. Then again, the secret arts clearly stated that until one¡¯s power of the soul advanced to the level of being able to materialize and kill while away from one¡¯s body, one could not use the strongest method to work on anything. Simply stated, because his soul was stillcking in power, Saleen would have died had his soul left his body.


    All esoteric information finally started to unravel once Saleen undertook this project.


    The badge¡¯s original form was a book written with lines of lightning-magic chants, which required the power of the soul to be invoked.


    If Saleen¡¯s power was strong enough, the badge would revert to its original form: the Lightning Magic Book he had always dreamed of having. The crafting of that magic book, however, was totally beyond hisprehension. The space inside wasrge enough to hold the world.


    The book had been crafted using the remains of a god, specifically the Thunder God.


    What human would have been able to kill the Thunder God and craft his own equipment with the god¡¯s remains?


    The badge Saleen¡¯s father had given him was actually more powerful than any godly item he had ever seen!


    Saleen couldn¡¯t figure out much of anything at the moment, so he stopped thinking altogether, pleased that he¡¯d made some progress on the family badge. From then on, his ball lightning would be much enhanced but he hadn¡¯t the faintest idea how high the multiplier would be.


    The most important thing was his ability to grow lightning-magic chords. They allowed him to reach a bnce with the other six. Finally, he could imbue lightning powers in any icicles cast.


    It was the only lightning magic Saleen could cast without having to use power of the soul. By contrast, the lightning badge, or any other lightning magic recorded in the book, required power of the soul for casting.


    Replenishing power of the soul would be far more difficult than replenishing mental powers. Common magic nuclei or gemstones fell short in this regard. Only divine crystals or divine persona replenished power of the soul. A mage would have to rely on meditation only, otherwise.


    Saleen did not find that to be troublesome. His art of meditation was imparted by Jason, and Jason had long been able to use power of the soul. That art of meditation of his was also created specifically with the power of the soul in mind.


    That skill belonged to high-level mages. The art of meditation practiced by some was rendered useless beyond level-13.


    That underscored the importance of lineages. Without a good lineage, one would end up beingmon or average after achieving certain levels regardless of one¡¯s innate talents simply because of ack of corresponding skills.


    Saleen finished working on his family badge in about 12 days. He knew there was more work to be done before he could turn the badge back to its Lightning Magic Book form.


    It was fortunate that the badge was useful at the moment. Saleen put it back on his Thunder Dragon Bangle feeling satisfied. Before he knew it, his magic chords began growing at a frightening speed.


    Though he had spent over 1,000 years of training, he still failed to reach his desired level. But not all was lost: suddenly he was advancing as a result of all the good work he had done on the family badge.


    The effect of a mage getting to level-13 was an eye-catching spectacle. The entire Hall of Gods was filled with sparkles of lightning. Demons, who were somewhat weaker, all ran back to Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier.


    Seven magic chords grew inside Saleen¡¯s body while electrical charges danced among the magic chords in a variety of forms. There were tree-like forms, sword forms, ball forms, bubble forms, lightning, and even just some irregr-looking shapes.


    Saleen started chanting from the Book of Lightning, which was advancing chants used for stabilizing the magic chords.


    It was too unexpected. His magic chords grew when he least expected them to and when he was almost in a state of despair. The six divine persona fragments flew out from his Thunder Dragon Bangle and were slowly disintegrated and absorbed by Saleen¡¯s magic chords.


    Saleen was indeedcking in talent, but his encounters were mystical and incredible. Such divine-persona fragments still held rules of the water element god and did not disappear entirely. If Saleen¡¯s body of water element absorbed the divine persona in one piece, he would have either fragmented or been assimted and be a water element god.


    Either way, Saleen would have regretted both situations.


    After the divine-persona fragment was drained over 1,000 years, only power of rules left inside, like other forms of energy, were almost all drained. Whatever bit of energy left within was incapable of threatening an advancing mage in desperate need of energy.


    After six pieces of divine persona fragments were absorbed, Saleen¡¯s magic chords nearly over the Hall of Gods. The Winged Skull hurried and changed the magic nucleus at the magic array at the center of the hall. All energy absorbed while Saleen was still advancing came entirely from the huge building.


    The Hall of Gods was crafted using the remains of gods. Saleen¡¯s magic chords were incapable of dissolving them, but they were still able to absorb power infused within. The Winged Skull was afraid of anything untoward happening, so it swapped out drained magic nucleus with a fresh level-16 one as soon as it saw the currently used one had drained.


    Over half a month passed with him doing that before Saleen¡¯s magic chords stabilized. All seven magic chords returned to his body as he opened his eyes,ughing.


    He had been training the wrong way the whole time. That¡¯s why he was getting nowhere.


    Breaking the barrier between level-12 and level-13 required enormous amounts of energy as a backup. If he had absorbed the divine-persona fragments long ago, he would have advanced 100 to 200 years ago instead of being stuck where he was previously.


    In the absence of talent, it was a luxury to advance using conventional methods.


    Looking at the high-spirited people around him, Saleen said to Sika, ¡°So, what level are you at now?¡±


    Sika shrugged, ¡°I don¡¯t know. Nature Priest is actually the end of Caucasian profession. I have no idea how levels are divided after that. It¡¯s not like you could beat me anyway.¡±


    ¡°Very well. How about you guys?¡± Saleen looked at his children.


    Both his children had grown up there. They had their mother and the demons to keep thempany, as well as many mages tutoring them in the study of magic, so they didn¡¯t really know their father.


    ¡°Level-12, Father,¡± Flodi answered.


    ¡°Me too,¡± Austin added shyly.


    Saleen had some doubts. His children¡¯s talents were such that breaking through level-13 shouldn¡¯t be a problem. He concluded that the cause was ack of training.


    ¡°No worries. I¡¯m sure your mother has already told you two that we have a kingdom back in Myers Maind. But...¡±


    ¡°Father, we can help when we return.¡± Flodi was excited. She became a sorcerer at 16; this is why she looked so young for her age.


    ¡°The enemy is an even more powerful god, so much so that not even Rafel can beat him,¡± Saleen pointed at thebat angel and said.


    ¡°Your equipment will keep everyone safe, Father.¡± Austin was simr to how Saleen had been when he was young¡ªvery cautious.


    ¡°I can¡¯t run away from those things. You¡¯ve been inside the magic amplifier. I have to look after so many people. I¡¯m responsible for their future. If you¡¯re willing, Austin, I¡¯ll hand over the throne to you.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s son shook his head right away and said, ¡°I don¡¯t want to be king, Father. My magic studies are already up taking most of my time. I¡¯m afraid I won¡¯t handle so many people.¡±


    ¡°Flodi?¡±


    Flodi seemed to be eager to try her hand at it, but she quickly caught her mother ring at her. She shook her head and said, ¡°I¡¯m not going to be queen. I promised Mother I¡¯d look after the Caucasians. Don¡¯t worry! I won¡¯t be a priest either. I¡¯ll still be mage.¡±


    Flodi¡¯s expression was like the flowers on Jalin¡¯s mask. While she was vexed, she recalled her mother saying that if she became queen, her father wouldn¡¯t allow her to be empress. There¡¯s still an aunt named Lex around. Ha! I¡¯m not going to be anyone¡¯sckey she said smugly.


    She still hadmand of Caucasians even if she were to not be queen.


    Saleen had no idea what that daughter of his was up to. He took one look at Rafel, who then said, ¡°One month passed. I¡¯m unable to advance, but I¡¯ve absorbed powers of a lot of gods. I¡¯m now at the pinnacle of level-13 and I could use that godly item normally.¡±


    Rafel wouldn¡¯t rise to level-14 even in 1,000 years. That was the sad thing about gods and angels: It was difficult for them to advance.


    Humans, even the likes of Saleen, would naturally get to a level and then forcefully break through another. Though Rafel¡¯s talents were exceptional, she still couldn¡¯t be a level-14bat angel.


    ¡°Master, I¡¯m at level-12 now,¡± the Winged Skull, who was at the side, said. Saleen wasn¡¯t at all surprised. If he had advanced earlier, the Winged Skull would be a level-13 spirit. It was Saleen who had limited the Winged Skull¡¯s advancement progress. It was a bad deal for the Winged Skull.


    Despite the Winged Skull¡¯s nk expression, it felt smug deep down. Its Reaper Scythe had beenpletely reworked. Further advancement was entirely dependent on Saleen. As long as Saleen could still advance, the Winged Skull would go with the flow. If Saleen couldn¡¯t advance further, it would be stuck at hits current level, unless the soul bond between the two was severed.


    The Winged Skull was satisfied with this arrangement. Despite a slower speed of advancement, it could still get the basics nailed down. It had taken the Winged Skull almost 1,000 years to wipe off the brand of the God of the Underworld on the scythe and acquire the rules of power of the God of the Underworld. If it was desperate to advance, it wouldn¡¯t have been able to get any of that.


    ¡°Alright. All of you, get back in the magic amplifier, chop-chop.¡± Saleen took a look at his student, Truman, who was at the pinnacle of level-12 and ready to rise to level-13 anytime.


    Flodi dragged her brother reluctantly and returned to her father¡¯s magic amplifier. The Winged Skull, thest to enter, said to Saleen, ¡°Master, about the matter of us, advancing...¡±


    ¡°Nailisi would know. No need to keep it from her. She isn¡¯t as narrow-minded as you might have thought.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, acknowledged.¡± The Winged Skull stepped into the ring of the magic amplifier and disappeared. Saleen took a look at the Hall of Gods. It was a very good ce for training. It¡¯s too bad he was unable to pack it with him.

 Chapter 1442: Advancing One After Another (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1442: Advancing One After Another (Part 2)</h4>


    After spending a few secondsmenting the ¡°loss,¡± Saleen left the Hall of Gods. Since he was allowed toe back in the future, he had no intention of returning the general¡¯s badge.


    He went back to the Cemetery of Heroes and waited near the general¡¯s grave. Nailisi stood at his side, looking obedient. She wouldn¡¯t dare pull any funny business in the presence of a level-18 heroic spirit.


    She was smart enough to know who she could mess with and who was off-limits.


    Saleen had sealed his power at level-12. He needed to get used to things at the imperial city, or he would have a hard time on Myers Maind. The pain of having his power forcefully sealed could not be expressed in words. Imagine what it would be like to run 24 hours without stopping and without tiring but being forced to walk with a crutch at a speed faster than a snail but slower than a tortoise. Well, that¡¯s pretty much how Saleen felt.


    He bowed and saluted the general after seeing Nailisi standing by his side in one piece.


    The general then said, ¡°Saleen, give the badge back to me.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°No need for you to hold onto it. You were only able to enter this time because of the soul brand I left on it. If you try to enter again on your own, you¡¯ll end up getting killed by the magic arrays in the royal pce.¡±


    Saleen returned the general¡¯s badge to him exasperatedly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be sad. If you bring a demigod next time you¡¯re here, I¡¯ll allow you to stay in the Hall of Gods another month,¡± the general added while smiling.


    Saleen was thinking there was no way he would do that again unless he came upon another piece of divine persona. Last month¡¯s energy consumption was exorbitant. He used up half the wealth he brought just getting here.


    Furthermore, he had no intention of wasting more resources just to train for a dozen years or so.


    The general had no idea that Saleen had advanced to level-13, and he didn¡¯t offend him by probing the mage¡¯s level. He simply assumed Saleen had risen to level-12. It was hard for a level 12 mage to advance further, so the figured he kid would definitelye back to seek his help.


    The general was satisfied that he¡¯d mended fences between him and Saleen, the grandmaster¡¯s stubbornness notwithstanding.


    ¡°So this is goodbye then.¡± Saleen bowed to the general again, on behalf of Nailisi.


    Nailisi took a look at the general, who nodded and said, ¡°Go now. Remember to tell your master toe back and visit.¡±


    ¡°Will do.¡± Nailisi behaved herself. She then marched out of the cemetery with Saleen.


    The cemetery was eerily quiet now that all beings had digested the Lord of Glory¡¯s double earlier this month. No one would ever leave their grave without a reason.


    Saleen strode outside the cemetery and turned around to take onest look at the gates. Nailisi then said, ¡°Master, the general is irritated with you.¡±


    ¡°How so?¡±


    ¡°He said you brought a lot of people to the Hall of Gods. That would have really strained the ce.¡±


    ¡°Heh...¡± Saleen didn¡¯t answer. Nailisi¡¯s character seemed to have changed after she was patched up. Saleen hoped the general hadn¡¯t nted any tricks inside her.


    Saleen sped up and Nailisi followed, saying, ¡°Master, that general¡¯s not a good guy. Don¡¯t ever go back there!¡±


    Saleen shed a smile. That was the Nailisi he knew!


    ¡°Well, the general¡¯s not really a bad guy though. He only wants to leave the ce. In his eyes, I¡¯m not someone he could trade with on an equal footing. It¡¯s perfectly normal for him to use me. But don¡¯t worry, Nailisi. If I hadn¡¯t run out of tricks and needed someone to resurrect you, there was no way I would have returned.¡±


    Nailisi¡¯s eyes reddened and did not continue.


    She knew perfectly well that her master didn¡¯t want to go back there. He had done something against his will solely for her sake. That made her happy and sad at the same time.


    Saleen then said to Nailisi after scaling the city walls, ¡°Nailisi, the Winged Skull, and the others have advanced...¡±


    ¡°Me too,¡± she answered.


    ¡°Wait, what?¡±


    ¡°The general patched me up, and you would definitely advance in the Hall of Gods, so I...¡± Nailisi stopped talking all of a sudden.


    Saleen smiled and continued, ¡°You knew I would have advanced, so you no longer controlled your own powers, no?¡±


    Nailisi blushed. She was reluctant to relinquish the soul bond between her and Saleen, so she refrained from advancing. But since the general had already told her that her master would definitely get to level-12, so she took the liberty to advance to level-12 too.


    Seeing Nailisi¡¯s embarrassment, Saleen added, ¡°Well, the Winged Skull was concerned about you. Now that you¡¯ve advanced, let¡¯s just get everyone the hell out then.¡±


    Saleen released the Winged Skull, Rafel, Nichs and the others.


    Speaking of advancement, it was simple for Saleen¡¯s warriors to increase their level. Both Sul and J had be level-12 true mights. Isabe was still at level -11, like her mage.


    The Winged Skull then took out the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship. The equipment had been worked on in the Hall of Gods. Although its current speed did not match Saleen¡¯s, it could still travel over 300 kilometers an hour underwater.


    All conserved their stamina by entering the ship. As the magic power furnaces powered up, an egg-shaped bubble was conjured on the surface to reduce friction to the minimum while heading south.


    The Winged Skull zipped all the way out of the Oceanic Ice Block while hunting magic beasts that had been thrown into the spirit space. Saleen didn¡¯t put a stop to this since they were making good time. Anyway, he had spent too many high-level magic nuclei in the Hall of Gods and needed to replenish his stock.


    The Floating City had been reworked and consumed a lot of energy. Despite his wealth, Saleen¡¯s reserves were seriously strained by this expenditure.


    The level of magic beasts dropped sharply after they left the Oceanic Ice Block. The Winged Skull deemed it a hassle to continue hunting on its own, summoning the golden skeletons to take over.


    Saleen¡¯s army needed magic nuclei. While they were useless against gods, they were still effective in conquering the ne. What Saleen needed to do was crush the Holy See and unite the four empires.


    When the Lord of Glory materialized next time, he wanted to make sure the god was unable to find even another believer on their ne.


    The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship floated on the surface after emerging from the external fringes of the Oceanic Ice Block. Saleen released the Floating City and flew all the way back to Metatrin City. Almost all Sreeger Ind mages had advanced two to three levels while he was away. He headed straight for Nature City after leaving the mages behind at Metatrin City.


    Little had changed in Nature City during the Saleen¡¯s absence, except for the Holy See, which had been thrown into chaos. Rumors were circting about Saleen being killed in the battle, but such rumors had little influence in the Qin Empire and the Kingdom of Metatrin. Still, Saleen hadn¡¯t anticipated this.


    One piece of good news was truly shocking: The Holy See¡¯s new pope killed had tens of red-robed bishops and then disappeared without a trace. How could a child that age pull off a stunt like that?


    As such, the mess in the Holy See had nothing to do with Saleen.


    Saleen deemed it too much of a hassle to y any more tricks. He gave Don a direct order¡ªorganize an expeditionary force to take out the Holy See. He¡¯d done enough at Cologne City. He had no intention of using the Floating City¡¯s power.


    Saleen then took the Floating City to pay a visit to Grand Duke Iron Blood to ask the grand duke if he still intended on maintaining the alliance.


    Saleen saw a considerable change in his mindset after advancing to level-13; it was greater than ever! He no longer viewed someone like Grand Duke Iron Blood as an enemy but rather as someone to use to further his own agenda.


    Taking out the gods should have been his goal. A mage¡¯s goal could not be one of conquest and reigning supreme.


    During the dozen or so kilometer chase with the Lord of Glory¡¯s double, Saleen felt he was on the brink of death. No tricks would have worked against a god. Absolute power was the only way to go, the only way to turn things around.


    Luck was on Saleen¡¯s side. He had been able to resurrect Nailisi and heal Rafel and Nichs. The Lord of Glory had no idea that Saleen had so much messed-up equipment with him, so the god was befuddled when his double materialized. Being trampled by a weak being using equipment would have been enough to drive any god crazy. Saleen thanked his lucky stars he got the upper hand in that bloody battle!


    The Lord of Glory was an intolerant god who considered even the slightest insult unforgivable. That was why his double gave chase afterward. If the Lord of Glory had learned his lesson, next time he would try to assassinate Saleen.


    The gods¡¯ anger smoldered for several days and nights within the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdoms. Areas surrounding the Lord of Glory¡¯s temple had all been purified by holy light.


    He had let his most powerful double advent and brought a divine-persona fragment to a weak ne, yet he ended up being killed all the same.


    That mage by the name of Saleen possessed lightning equipment.


    By the time he thought of asking personally what was happening on Myers Maind, he found out that his most favorite oracle on the maind was dead. Thest pope lost the three godly items he had personally bestowed and died. The new pope was incapable of taking his divine order.


    How can I ever advent again?


    While the Lord of Glory was still being frustrated with what was going on, Saleen was facing off against the saint in secret room. That little girl glowered at Saleen with vengeful eyes. Saleen then said, ¡°Your god told you to not hate and to love your enemy.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not an enemy, you¡¯re a sphemer!¡± That little girl¡¯s voice was piercingly shrill. What had gotten into her?


    She answered frostily, ¡°I know you¡¯ve hurt God. You sphemer, I admit that I don¡¯t have ample power to bring you down, but you¡¯re gonna die.¡±


    ¡°You are a saint. You shouldn¡¯t be harboring negative emotions. You would disappoint your god.¡±


    ¡°I hope I be abat angel, then I shall split your head open with my Sword of Glory.¡±


    ¡°The chance of your doing that is slim. But then again, I wouldn¡¯t kill you. I have no idea of how to find the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom next time without you.¡± Saleen was chuckling but his eyes were ice-cold during this weird exchange.


    He regretted keeping the little girl around a long time ago just to challenge the god¡¯s might. It was lucky Nailisi didn¡¯t end up staying dead and that nothing happened to his children.


    Saleen vowed not to take such risks in the future even if he could go back in time. The little girl watched Saleen¡¯s back quietly. Her frail hand reached for the bread at the side of her bed. That was the first time she had eaten in days.


    She told herself she needed to survive. That was the only way she would be able to give her god information about the sphemer.

 Chapter 1443: Getting into Trouble (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1443: Getting into Trouble (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen knew what that little girl was thinking: She was his key to finding the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdoms.


    If it hadn¡¯t been for that, he would have long ago had Nailisi purify her. The energy in the purgatory of purification was the most lethal against believers. The little girl was capable of contacting a god, and Saleen saw no reason to strip her of her powers.


    She was in her cell, which had walls filled with lightning magic patterns. There was no way Saleen would let her contact her god anytime. The take-home from thest caper she pulled off was loud and clear. Until Saleen possessed ample powers, he would never want to get on the Lord of Glory¡¯s wrong side again.


    Saleen knew for sure that the little girl wouldn¡¯t kill herself. He began making preparations for attacking the Holy See. He wasn¡¯t heading out with the Floating City but had instead decided to attack with a massive army.


    Don was in charge of amassing and organizing that army. Sikeqinya waspletely thrown into chaos. The emperor was incapable of keeping the nobles in check. Saleen sent a 50,000-strong army to Laiyin Duchy but did not attack the ce; he simply blockaded the path leading from Laiyin Duchy to Kroraina.


    With that, he managed to seize control of Laiyin in the east and had Ceylon City in the west blockading the sea routes. He had first separated Sikeqinya and Tanggsi, isting the former to prevent any unforeseen circumstances.


    Saleen didn¡¯t participate in the early stages of the battle. In truth, he had already removed any obstacles standing between Kroraina to God Grace Duchy in thest attack. No other forces filled the vacuum that month.


    Saleen had no need to worry about getting the army ready. He took Rafel and the others and headed straight to Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s Pce At Sea.


    He¡¯d be adept at his current way of flight. Clouds wrapped around his body while yellow light shed beneath his feet, covering several hundred meters of distance with just one step. This speed was such that even if the Lord of Glory¡¯s double materialized again, he wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up unless Saleen was totally oblivious to the god¡¯s presence and was ambushed.


    Saleen only realized the importance of elemental maniption. His control abilities in the past had been seriouslycking. This meant it would only be convenient if he was holding onto a piece of bone crystal of the giant or had fallen at a given moment.


    At present, his body was zipping through the air using just a bit of earth-elemental powers leaking from his Lightning Constetion. That speed was only slower than his Comet sh.


    Even though Saleen had already advanced to level-13, he still didn¡¯t dare use Comet sh continuously.


    The sea was still windy and raging, but that was a smooth ride in Saleen¡¯s opinion. He flew while sticking close to the surface. Before long, he arrived at the grand duke¡¯s pce.


    It had been a while since hisst visit. Since then it had grown into a huge city. It seemed that the grand duke had indeed intended to continue maintaining control at sea. Saleen smirked and said, ¡°Lord duke, Saleen¡¯s here.¡±


    He was messing around, as he addressed the grand duke by this title and simply called himself by his first name. The line said through Thundering Sound enabled it to strike through the ind¡¯s magic defenses and boom at the center.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen, is there a need to be angry?¡± The grand duke¡¯s voice was heard and the only Dragon Knight left in the world rode a seven-colored dragon, flying straight at Saleen from the center of the ind.


    Saleen stepped in the air and the yellow light beneath his feet took a solid form. He looked at the grand duke without doing anything; he just stared dead ahead at the man before him.


    The grand duke stopped about 300 meters away from Saleen. That location was a testament of his respect for Saleen, a mage. He was a Dragon Knight. If he got a hundred or two meters closer, it would have been as if he was sticking his spear against Saleen¡¯s throat.


    ¡°Mages don¡¯t get angry. Grand duke, I¡¯m here to ask if our alliance is still in effect.¡±


    The grand duke was dumbfounded. He thought Saleen looked different. He had initially thought he would be able to steadily loom over Saleen after advancing. He did not expect to find Saleen¡¯s power grown to the extent where he was no longer able to measure him.


    An eye opened at Saleen¡¯s brow all of a sudden. The seven-colored dragon beneath the grand duke howled in fright and fell to the sea as soon as the eye was opened. The grand duke was dazed for a brief moment as time stopped.


    Saleen saw the grand duke¡¯s weakness within that split second. But did it matter? Saleen didn¡¯t think so. There was a soul bond between the grand duke and the dragon. So long as the dragon lived, any life force that the grand duke would have lost could be replenished through the dragon.


    That was what made Dragon Knights so hard to deal with. That seven-colored dragon was of a formidable level. It was angry after being startled by Saleen. It swooped high in the air and looked down on the mage. It only quieted down after the grand duke patted its head a little bit.


    ¡°Master, the mage is peering at your weakness.¡±


    ¡°I saw that. If I kill the duke, I¡¯ll need to kill you first,¡± Saleen said coldly.


    The seven-colored dragon said nothing more, feeling doubtful. The mage before it, who was called Saleen, had such a terrifying third eye. It reminded the dragon of the three-eyed people¡¯s bloodline. The three-eyed, however, wouldn¡¯t have had such rules imbued in its eyes!


    The grand dukeughed and said, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, what do you mean by that? Of course, our alliance is still in effect. You have disappeared for more than a month and I have been keeping a tight leash on my people instead of giving you any trouble.¡±


    The eye on Saleen¡¯s head was already closed. Lightning runes glittered in his blue eyes. The eerie scene made the grand duke¡¯s heart race.


    ¡°Duke, I¡¯m heading out to raze the Tanggsi Empire. Will you be joining me?¡±


    The grand duke frowned and recalled that Saleen had always been a calm, steady person. What¡¯s up with him now?


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m not going, the Cloudflow side...¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re not going, you¡¯d have nothing to gain.¡± Saleen interrupted the grand duke.


    The grand duke frowned tightly without getting angry. Then he said to Saleen, ¡°You can¡¯t just leap in the dark with national wars like that. Didn¡¯t youe back empty-handed after youst took the Floating City to attack the Tanggsi Empire?¡±


    ¡°The Lord of Glory dropped his double on me. A level-14 one. If he does that again, you won¡¯t be able to fight him even if you have your dragon regain its strength.¡±


    The grand duke was speechless. He looked at Saleen in a way that suggested he was hoping Saleen was trying to dupe him. A level-14 god was indeed invincible at the moment, but given how Saleen somehow managed to stay alive, it was a clear indication that Saleen had dealt with that trouble.


    ¡°The powers of Myers Maind are loosening up. That god will be able to drop another double very soon. Are you going to just keep waiting, duke?¡±


    The grand duke wanted to say something but the waves on the ocean shot up high in the sky without warning.


    ¡°Sh*t!¡± The grand duke didn¡¯t say anything to Saleen before summoning yet another dragon right away. It had a golden body and saw considerable changes. It had not been like that thest time Saleen had seen it.


    That dragon dived straight into the ocean at which point the grand duke said, ¡°Your highness, Imposa is trying to capture a huge creature here. That¡¯s why I set up the Pce At Sea. How about...¡±


    Saleen sensed from the core of his being that the power that emerged from the sea resembled themotion caused when the god materialized. That powerful creature was probably something even he might be able to take on.


    But the rules of Myers Maind...


    Things were worse than Saleen imagined. Myers Maind had advanced again before he knew it.


    Even if that was the case, the only thing he could do was pray that the Lord of Glory wouldn¡¯t show up for the time being.


    As he was at the moment, Saleen was able to withstand one or two hits from the Lord of Glory, but there was no way he could resist a level-15 god capable of bringing all his might to bear.


    It was when he observed the grand duke that he realized the ind behind looked off. When he used his Eye of Souls to take another look, he found that the ind was very much alive.


    That ind is a living thing then?


    No! That ind consists of a bunch of eggshells. Because the shell¡¯s surface is irregr, lots of rocks and sand have umted on it. Saleen had never bothered looking into what was beneath before, which was why he overlooked it.


    The grand duke had built a city atop eggshells of some powerful creatures! Imagined if they burst out of those shells...


    Saleen no longer knew how to describe those two. Imposa had no doubt been a lunatic, but he never expected the grand duke to be just as loco.


    ¡°Your highness!¡± The ind behind the grand duke¡¯s back shook, and his expression changed. There are about 10,000 magic arrays at work and still, they fail to suppress that thing?


    Saleen flew to the sky exasperatedly and slowly unleashed his Floating City. Thousands of powerful beings took flight on the ind. It was a result of receiving a magic rm, telling them that the thing beneath could no longer be contained.


    Saleen was unfazed. While the thing Imposa pulled off was no doubt ridiculous, it was well within expectations from some mages like him. The creature in the eggshells caused such amotion before it even hatched. If Imposa subjugated such a creature, it would almost make him the most powerful mage on the maind.


    Those professionals on the ind rose and flew straight to the Floating City. Everyone was really panicked at the moment. None anticipated how something that powerful could not be contained even with years of work and up to 10,000 magic arrays around it.


    Crack...


    The pce cracked opened from the center of the ind. Saleen saw a jet of mes blowing out. The mes were white, and the jet was almost up to 1,000 meters high. Every professional running away from the mes was eventually caught and reduced to ash.


    The grand duke was exasperated at the situation. Saleen then pointed at the sea at his side. Saleen moved a massive volume of seawater and transformed it into a water snake, slithering toward that crack.


    His elemental maniption ability had grown to the point of no longer needing chants to work. He could cast magic better using the power of the soul.


    The water snake had a head but no tail, which in truth was him sending seawater into that crack continuously.


    It was a fire-elemental creature within the eggshells.


    Explosions continued sting. Saleen¡¯s water snake was imbued with Water me and the construct was no longer in liquid form; it had taken a crystalline form that was more resilient than the hardest hard ice.


    Because those crystalline beings were finer than dust, it looked as if they were still moving around like liquid.


    The fire-elemental creature was really tough. The temperature of Saleen¡¯s water snake neared the absolute ice point, yet it was still unable to subjugate that fire-elemental creature. The frozen crystalline vaporized at once before exploding, forging a wider crack.

 Chapter 1444: Getting into Trouble (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1444: Getting into Trouble (Part 2)</h4>


    The in golden dragon went into the sea but shot out of the water¡¯s surface less than a minuteter, full of injuries.


    Its power had also been sealed at level-12, but being injured so quickly made the grand duke wonder, what kind of monster was being hatched here?!


    After summoning Nichs and the others, Saleen called the grand duke. They were getting ready to dive into the sea to get a closer look. The grand duke said instead, ¡°Your Highness Saleen, help me deal with this and I¡¯ll give you half of whatever is here!¡±


    Astonished, Saleen did a rough calction and said, ¡°Duke, I¡¯m getting the short end of the stick here.¡±


    ¡°I know. I¡¯ll make it up to you.¡± There was nothing the grand duke could offer now that wouldpensate Saleen adequately.


    Though he had initially wanted coordinates of the dragon ne, Saleen wisely suppressed that thought. After all, the grand duke had never actually tried to make up with him before. Both men had been trading on an equal footing until now, but things were different at the moment¡ªthe grand duke was asking for his assistance. He was desperate.


    ¡°Alright, you owe me one then. Sigh...¡± Saleen dropped the power beneath his feet before diving into the water.


    A body of water element was still surprisingly nimble in the sea. Saleen discovered another benefit: After his power of the soul had fully matured, moving in water was no longer within the range of magic; he was gradually getting used to the rules of water element.


    Saleen was hugely relieved to know that his speed wouldn¡¯t decrease in water. This meant that if a powerful being ever pursued him in the future, he could make a fast getaway by jumping into a body of water.


    Though he was swift, the ones around him weren¡¯t exactly slow. The grand duke was able to keep with them somehow since his seven-colored dragon was fully elemental and suffered few restrictions in the water.


    Oh, what they saw on the seabed! Piles of crumbling rocks and a gaping 10-meter-wide hole with a pitch-ck creature loitering outside.


    Saleen scanned it with his Eye of Souls. The thing howled and screeched with terrifying sound waves in the water.


    Fortunately, Saleen had long put up Water Shields, or he would have suffered bodily damage.


    Some skill indeed! Vibrations of its sound wave alone were more than enough to endanger a level-13 being. Saleen¡¯s restricted bodily resilience was not much different from a level-10 true might. Moreover, the growth of magic chords had modified his body. If he were to grip a sword, there was no guarantee he would lose it even if fighting a golden grand swordmaster head-on.


    That creepy creature seen outside the hole was about 16 meters long and resembled a centipede with all its legs. Instead of scales, it had lots of coarse, spiky hair. Its head was triangr with small fangs, which were probably due to having just been hatched.


    It was unable to retaliate against the scan from Saleen¡¯s Eye of Souls, so it paddled in his direction, still remembered who was observing it.


    Seeing the full appearance of that thing made Saleen supremely happy. That creature was just another magic beast which, despite its strength, had little intelligence to speak of at the moment. Not even human newborns were very clever after being born.


    Magic beasts devoid of intelligence were easy to deal with, regardless of their power potential.


    Saleen unleashed his territory and shrouded the monster¡¯s body. It erupted in anger from this unintentional move. The four eyes on its head glittered with silver light as its body extended more than over 30 meters. The hair on its body stood on end, and a round, ck bead shot out of its mouth at Saleen.


    A chill ran up and down Saleen¡¯s spine. That monster¡¯s power spike was more than double the power of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. That ball coalesced from a dark element, something this level-13 Water Shield wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand.


    The monster provoked a reaction from the rules of Myers Maind after casting that attack. Creepy sounds of cracking bones discharged from its body. Blood spewed from the orifices on its head faster than ice arrows cast by mages.


    That thing might not have much of a brain, but it was fearsome as hell! One attack exceeded the limits of rules of the ne. Its body suffered severe damage and its powers dropped to level-12.


    That ck ball had a two-meter diameter. If it had hit Saleen, nothing would have been left of his bones. A level-13 Frozen World was cast from Saleen¡¯s magic robe that blocked the ck ball for less than a second. Nailisi, who was at his side, opened up the purgatory of the fallen: 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen shot out, trapping the ck ball within.


    If the Lord of Glory had cast something simr, Nailisi wouldn¡¯t have been able to maintain control. Since that monster had little intelligence and zerobat experience, relying solely on brute strength, it could never break through the chains.


    That ck ball¡¯s energy was limitless. Nailisi dragged it into the purgatory of the fallen and was getting ready to digest it. If they had shed head-on, Saleen and his people would have perished. But if they had used equipment, they would have been bullies.


    That creature continued raging on despite its injuries. It twisted and iled about and kept pouncing on Saleen. When it opened itsrge mouth to swallow him, Saleen saw a vortex-like ck hole at its throat.


    Darkness Devouring!


    He wanted to subjugate that thing¡ªbut who knew how many eggs were still hatching? With no time to spare, he fired lightning icicles down the beast¡¯s throat, albeit with great reluctance.


    The grand duke was dazed. That monster was so powerful he could be defeated by one or two dragons, and that¡¯s when he went berserk. After that, the grand duke¡¯s speed wouldn¡¯t be able to save him from an attack.


    That monster continued trembling after being afflicted by the lightning icicles. The electrical shocks coiled around its hide, paralyzing it. That¡¯s when Rafel seized the moment: She went up to the beast and shattered its skull with a single blow.


    The blow created a hole about the size of a bucket¡¯s diameter. As its brains oozed out of the hole, Rafel kept attacking its legs, all ten of them. She zipped around as the monster struggled before sinking helplessly to the seabed.


    Saleen fired another seven-lightning icicle that punched through the monster¡¯s heart. Then he let Rafel retrieve its corpse.


    The ind continued to quake and shake. Monsters were bursting from the eggshells time and again, attacking anything nearby. Saleen fired the lightning icicles again, so long as high-level magic nuclei were embedded.


    Those monsters, which embodied peculiar properties, came in all varieties; there were spirits among them, too.


    Saleen had no idea what kind of creatures these beasts sprang from and wondered how they were able to procreate and mutate so fast.


    The thing about those monsters was they were dim-witted and unable to control their powers. What they could do was suppress their power at level-12, based on native instinct. Once provoked by Saleen, they would attack with all their might. Their full powers were somewhere between level-14 and level-16.


    Fortunately, their attacks were one-dimensional and Saleen had enough equipment to defend himself.


    The crack at the center of the ind grew increasinglyrge after killing over a dozen of these horrible creatures. More than two eggs were hatching...as the beings inside scurried out. Saleen found that so long as he kept his distance, they would not attack proactively even if they sensed someone¡¯s presence.


    How cute...


    But that thought was snuffed out as soon as it entered Saleen¡¯s mind. The ind that had a pce on top of it. Someone walked out. Who was that someone standing atop that huge metal disk? It was Imposa.


    Imposa¡¯s powers had risen to the pinnacle of level-11. Seeing Saleen, he rushed toward him followed by an aggressive, silver fish monster.


    That silver fish had a t body and a gigantic mouth. Imposa¡¯s metal tail stabbed the fish¡¯s back.


    Saleen knew that the tail was a decisive weapon of Imposa¡¯s. If Saleen were hit, his Figure of Fate would be destroyed; there was no telling how long repairs would take.


    Damn it, Imposa is baiting that monster my way!


    While it was obvious that Saleen wanted to grab more of the monsters¡¯ bodies, the oneing at him was apparently an intelligent one. And it wasn¡¯t headed for him! It dived for another monster that had just emerged from its shell, bisecting it with a single bite. Crunching noises from the bite caused intense sound tremors.


    Those monsters did not dare run away either. That¡¯s when Saleen realized that among the mass of huge eggs, the silver, aggressive fish he saw earlier was the only target Imposa was after. All the other eggs were just food for that fish.


    What a harrowing scene! Imposa¡¯s tail began to fall off bit by bit from the monster fish¡¯s back, suggesting that the attack hadn¡¯t done much damage. The fish¡¯s level, or species, was definitely more terrifying than those monsters.


    None of those monsters were intelligent, just that fish.


    What Imposa did was akin to getting Saleen killed. What an outrage! In retaliation, Saleen fired a lightning icicle straight at him. His calctive abilities were such that he wouldn¡¯t have killed Imposa but kept him from turning around.


    Now Imposa was the one who was scared. The metal disk beneath his feet disintegrated before he shot ck water jets behind. He didn¡¯t care one whit if that monster was immune to poison, as that was the only way he could elerate.


    The silver fish monster took one look at Imposa¡¯s back before turning around to charge at yet another newly hatched monster before crunching loudly again.


    Saleen told everyone around him to go up to the surface. Only he, Rafel, Nailisi and the Winged Skeleton stayed behind.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s Reaper Scythended hard on a monster¡¯s body. In a second, all that monster¡¯s essences were sucked dry. The silver fish that had been munching on the monster noticed that the taste was bing nd and erected scales all over it before bursting with light like those from ice crystals, hitting the Winged Skull.


    The armor on the Winged Skull shattered and its bones cracked: It had been hit by the magic attack and shattered.


    Nailisi then unleashed the Shackles of the Fallen, tying up the silver fish. Its skin unleashedyers of ice crystals, causing the chains to slide¡ªa rare sight in itself¡ªbefore the fish burst out of it and chomped on one of Imposa¡¯s legs.


    That leg of his was a mechanical prosthetic, so who cared it was bitten off?! Undaunted, Imposa waved and cast a magic spell. Faint purple mist dissolved in the water and was sucked into the silver fish¡¯s gills.


    Saleen was infuriated at what Imposa had done! And what exactly did he do? He cast a Berserk Potion!

 Chapter 1445: Making Friends (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1445: Making Friends (Part 1)</h4>


    Imposa apparently knew that the level of those monsters was too high. If they had gone on a rampage, they would have soon faced repercussions from Myers Maind.


    However, that silver fish was of a very high level¡ªand it was highly intelligent to boot. Even if the berserk potion actually worked, it probably wouldn¡¯t have been punished by the rules right away, which meant that anyone who got in the way of its lethal attack would have been out of luck.


    By charging at Saleen¡¯s face, Imposa was definitely up to no good.


    The grand duke was livid about this! That was no way to treat an ally. Imposa was working for the grand duke, and his nefarious actions could have put him at odds with Saleen.


    Consider the facts. Saleen had his teacher, who was a terrifying mage, for support. He also had Lex, empress of the Qin Empire. There were only two reasons why Lex hadn¡¯t yet attacked Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s territory. First, shecked the strength to do so at the moment, since she had to divert her attention to solving internal conflicts. Second, she knew that the grand duke had to give up those territories sooner orter.


    He would have been opening up farms instead of building fortresses otherwise.


    That meant the grand duke would be in a position to state his conditions in exchange for benefits, using the Qin territory he already held in his hand as a bargaining chip. Even if he decided to leave, he would still have been able to maintain a good rtionship with Qin. As to whether he would be able to use what he¡¯d set up on thosends as foundations to retaliate, that would have depended entirely on how things worked out in the future.


    The foregoing allowed him to get in or out without putting himself at risk.


    If Imposa¡¯s actions created major misunderstandings with Saleen or made him feel resentful toward the grand duke, all the grand duke¡¯s efforts thus far would have been for naught. It wouldn¡¯t have mattered if Saleen had died. None of those people around him were easy to take on. The grand duke was a Dragon Knight after all, and he wouldn¡¯t have been able to deal with them on an equal footing unless they were fighting at the dragon ne.


    A sword was held in the grand duke¡¯s hand at that thought.


    That was a longsword, and it exceeded what its name implied: its de was as long as a soldier¡¯s spear. It was a dark golden color throughout. Imposa¡¯s face turned grim when he saw that thing. He never expected the grand duke to sacrifice him for Saleen¡¯s sake.


    The longsword had its history, so there was no need to borate on that. Suffice to say, Imposa knew perfectly well why the grand duke had chosen to brandish that particr weapon instead of a dragon spear: he intended to kill him.


    All attachments and sentiments were cast aside once the longsword was brandished. It was toote in the game to reverse the course of action. Grand Duke Iron Blood hadn¡¯t gained his moniker for nothing! Even though Imposa had always worked well with him in the past, this wasn¡¯t the first time he¡¯d made his own decisions without first seeking the grand duke¡¯s approval.


    To be sure, what Imposa had pulled off that time was within the limits of the grand duke¡¯s tolerance, but there was no telling what could have gone wrong¡ªor if there would even be a next time.


    Imposa was to be killed with extreme prejudice!


    Not expecting Imposa¡¯s reaction, Saleen gritted his teeth and pulled out all the stops. He saw how the grand duke had made his stance clear: to continue working with him to the point of eliminating that maverick Imposa.


    Snap! Pop! His Thunder Dragon Bangle burst open. The Thunder Dragon ster inside his magic amplifier fired seven lightning icicles and four-ball lightning. ZZZ. ZZZ. ZZZ.


    The Thunder Dragon Bangle was formed with 24 thunder dragons coiled around one another. For the past thousand years, those dragons had only been able to advance to level-12, lower than Saleen¡¯s level. There was nothing he could have done about it, for advancements of magic beasts were usually slower than for humans. Though the thunder dragons were considered odd in that respect, they still paled inparison to humans.


    The 24 level-12 thunder dragons were, however, the highest beings found on that ne. After they reverted to their usual forms, they surrounded the big silver fish and sparkled with electrical charges. Then they fired lightning bolts from their mouths at the fish. Oh, how It writhed and twisted in pain! The electrical discharges were too weak to cause total paralysis. But the pain they inflicted was excruciating.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles kept firing at the scales of the silver fish. ZZZ. ZZZ. ZZZ.


    All seven lightning icicles broke. It was the first time Saleen saw natural scales of a living being stopping the lightning icicles¡¯ pration. Those scales would have been equal to godly items in terms of material quality.


    Nevertheless, the four-ball lightning had all seeped through the scales. The only reason they were able to withstand those lightning icicles was that they were mainly physical attacks. The ball lightning, on the other hand, was capable of phasing through anything. Defense depended solely on the one defending and the proficiency in warding off lightning attacks.


    But then again, there was virtually no one on the ne who had learned how to defend against lightning attacks. Even if there were people who learned to do this, they had no one else to test their knowledge on. In other words, they had no way of testing the effectiveness of those newly acquired skills.


    They might have gotten themselves into the clouds during thunderstorms, but failure would have resulted if they had been struck to death by lightning, their souls broken to nothing.


    When Saleen¡¯s four-ball lightning hit the big fish, 24 thunder dragons all charged at once. They were much bigger than the fish and d in lightning. The fish couldn¡¯t even get a bite on them.


    The fish was getting really frustrated. Its power, offense, and defense capabilities were the most formidable among magic beasts. But could it deal with the thunder dragons? Absolutely not!


    The thunder dragons tangled with the fish and lightning magic patterns on the thunder dragons kept changing, charging up to unleash a lethal attack.


    Meanwhile, on the other side, the fighting between Grand Duke Iron Blood and Imposa reached a critical point. Rafel disabled Imposa¡¯s metal flying device with one thrust of her spear. She waited on the side, spear in hand, poised to charge as soon as the grand duke was at a disadvantage.


    Imposa¡¯s mind slumped when he saw the wings on Rafel¡¯s back. He realized they weren¡¯t equipment. They pped about in water unaffected: Those were the wings of angels.


    He realized she was an angel who was even more powerful than he was. Why did I ever get on Saleen¡¯s bad side? Imposa wondered out loud. He originally thought his powers were superior to Saleen¡¯s and that there was no need for him feign politeness andpliance around him. How wrong he was. He never suspected that Saleen had advanced by leaps and bounds. To make matters worse, the king mage had a terrifying bodyguard.


    Imposa was only able to manipte the puppets and equipment he had with him to fight the grand duke. Any magic spells cast would have all been nullified by the seven-colored dragon. The dragon was a jinx to mages. Except for lightning magic, it was adept in the magic of all six major elements.


    Such proficiency more thanpensated for the seven-colored dragon¡¯s shorings in close quarters, physicalbat. There was little use to Imposa regretting all of that. The only thing he was able to do at the moment was to escape using his soul-splitting skill.


    The big silver fish, however, was intelligent enough to realize that if it dragged out the fight, it was only a matter of time before it would be killed by those people. It quickly absorbed the purple potion injected into its bloodstream earlier.


    The berserk potion worked and the fish¡¯s intelligence became clouded. The mystical power protecting it ceased working too. Its level burst to unknown levels in an instant.


    The fish knew this tactic would never work in the long run. It wasn¡¯t hoping to kill all its enemies, just enough so that it could escape.


    The more intelligent a creature was, the more it feared death.


    The fish¡¯s scales were all opened, cutting up energy currents around it to shreds. The thunder dragons retreated at once. They too were intelligent beings: Having been around Saleen for so long, they had adapted over the years and be even more clever than humans.


    Seeing how the big fish¡¯s power rose, those creatures knew they were no longer able to keep that enemy trapped. The thunder dragons surrounding it scattered while the ones prepping the attacks behind were all primed for action. They fired huge bolts of lightning at the same time, which made them look ferocious.


    The electrical discharge seen when Saleen was being attacked by a level-10 thunder dragon was already terrifying. Those from level-12 thunder dragons might have been of the same rules, but the magnitude of the energy unleashed would have been hundreds to a thousand times greater.


    By now, the scales on that big fish had almost peeled entirely, revealing the bloodied skin underneath. The beast boomed in the water with a whoosh before opening a vacuum tunnel at the bottom of the ocean and disappearing right in front of everyone¡¯s eyes.


    All lightning attacks hit the peeled scales instead. Those scales simply glittered and remained almost unscathed. The thunder dragons received Saleen¡¯s orders from the depths of their souls. All 24 of them charged and gobbled up the peeled fish scales.


    There was no way the thunder dragons would have digested the scales. Saleen needed them to craft armors for his followers. He needed to fight gods in the future. If they were armed with armors of levels lower than those of the scales, any one of his followers would have easily ended up dead while fighting a god.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood said to divide the loot equally; however, if it hadn¡¯t been for his thunder dragons surrounding that big fish, the grand duke¡¯s people would have never been able to capture that fish. Or, rather, they would have considered themselves lucky for even being able to escape.


    The ind continued to shake and crack. More monsters emerged, but none sported the terrifying level and intelligence of that big fish. Saleen never did figure out what that weird creature was. He only knew that it decided to absorb the berserk potion on its own, yet still had control over its actions. The escaping fish zipped past the grand duke and Imposa, who was caught in the path of the vacuum tunnel and blew up his body along the way.


    At the core of the explosion, Saleen saw a soul flying out of Imposa¡¯s body.


    He pondered the image for a bit and decided not to pursue it.


    Imposa might have been important, and killing him could have put an end to many potential troubles in the future. At present, though, the bottom of the ocean was crawling with high-level monsters: Each one killed was equivalent to acquiring high-level materials, enough to make tens of pieces of equipment. Despite having enough gear for his own use, Saleen still had a bunch of followers to look after.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was calm. He pointed at the surface as if to ask Saleen if he wanted to leave the battlefield.


    Saleen shook his head and cast a Water Shield on the grand duke. He then said, ¡°Imposa ran, but who cares. We¡¯d just kill monsters here. Let¡¯s split the loot in half as promised.¡±


    The grand duke let out a bitter smirk, thinking Saleen did know how to work his way around things. But then again, that had been the grand duke¡¯s decision, to begin with, bing friends with Saleen. While that might have been a gamble, it wasn¡¯t beyond the pale. Saleen was a mage after all, and a mage had no interest in fighting over the maind with him. That mage would have been even less interested in bing emperor.


    ¡°Saleen, my de has the power of rules left over by its creators years ago. It won¡¯t be hard finding Imposa.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, just leave him alone for now. Our main target now is the Holy See. Spit out any Qinnds you hold, and you can have whichever spot you want of the Tanggsi Empire,¡± Saleen said in a very straightforward manner.


    The grand duke replied, ¡°Very well. I¡¯ll need to discuss this with Lex. I know of her conflict with Golden ins. She might be able to get the capital she sought through this.¡±


    Saleen nodded approvingly. Yes, the grand duke was indeed clever. Given the oue, it was no longer a trade but an exchange of favors built on rtions. Such cooperation would have made him a friend of Lex as long as Lex still sat on the throne. He no longer had to worry about rtions with the Qin empire. When Lex was no longer empress, he could have whatever he pleased, and both Saleen and Lex couldn¡¯t have cared less.


    Mages were indeed mages. They knew exactly what they wanted.

 Chapter 1446: Making Friends (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1446: Making Friends (Part 2)</h4>


    In the minds of both Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood, Imposa had to be killed. This would be an eptable solution for amon mage, but unfortunately, he was a formidable alchemist capable of crafting huge, vastly damaging magic equipment. If someone like that had evil intentions, he could inflict significant damage to the empire.


    Hence, taking down the Holy See was of the highest priority at the moment¡ªand time was running out.


    The monsters emerging from beneath the ind supporting the Pce at Sea were of too high a level. Moreover, there were too many of them. Saleen sensed that the rules of Myers Maind were indeed loosening up.


    What was happening right there and then was a harbinger of things toe. Thest time such ominous signs appeared, Myers Maind advanced less than a year after the cmity. True level-10 powerful beings appeared without having to seal their powers.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was a level-11 true might, so he naturally knew that was the key to the problem. Getting the bodies of those monsters before him would have naturally enabled him to heighten his army¡¯sbat strength. Further, he was the only true Dragon Knight in his n. If he acquired the magic nuclei and whatever materials that came with defeating those high-level monsters, it would have been easy to bait several other dragons into signing contracts with them.


    Although the ability to sign contracts with dragons mostly had to do with bloodlines, those creatures would still hope to benefit from any deal that was struck. They also expected the procedure to be done properly. In many respects, this prospective union was like a marriage contract. There was no way the dragons would agree to the proposal if the ¡°dowry¡± was less than satisfactory.


    Saleen had his own ns. While the Tainted Blood Armors were great, they were only meant for level-9 or level-10 warriors. Better armors would be needed for warriors who had risen above level-11. The materials that could be extracted from those monsters right before him were best suited to true mights like J and Sul. When he was in the Hall of Gods, he fostered little more than 1,000 true mights of which nearly a hundred had reached level-11.


    The near 10 percent ratio was a rather high one.


    Saleen had no time to think about the devastation that would be wrought on the maind by provoking those monsters. The grand duke would have incurred sizeable financial losses. That being said, a single hair from those monsters would be worth more than a pot of gold coins. Hence, the grand duke would have made a nice return on his investment.


    Splitting the loot 50-50 wasn¡¯t such a bad deal for Saleen after all.


    The entire ind was still breaking up and crumbling. Preserving the buildings on top was impossible: One by one, they slid into the ocean. The powerful beings around Saleen did not dare to dive into the waters. The only way to kill them was by provoking them and letting their powers exceed the permissible levels of Myers Maind.


    Combat would have proven dangerous and risky. Saleen had Nailisi and the Winged Skull return, leaving only him and Rafel, whose speed was close to that of Saleen, to finish the job.


    The grand duke had his seven-colored dragon serve as backing. His dragon was fast enough to overpower the monsters, and he didn¡¯t have to worry about tangling with the monsters. All three of them chased after those newly hatched monsters, killing them one by one and putting them away in Rafel¡¯s space.


    Such battles were a drain on the power of the soul. Saleen felt as if his power had transformed after doing battle for several hours: The results were more effective than training at thest month in the Hall of Gods.


    It was also fortunate that those newly hatched monsters didn¡¯t have a chance to reach reasonable levels of power. Furthermore, they were affected by the rules of the ne and had their powers bound to the parents of that silver fish, preventing them from leaving the ocean floor for the time being. If they were to flee or attack the Floating City by bursting out of the surface, Saleen would have suffered severe losses.


    The entire ind gradually sank to the bottom of the ocean. None of the monsters made it out alive. Their purpose, right after they were hatched, was to serve as the silver fish¡¯s food after all.


    Saleen unleashed his lightning warriors and had them clean up the ocean floor afterward. He saw what the grand duke was capable of in battle. Dragon Knights were indeed formidable, and attacks from the dragon spear were hardly different than attacks from Rafel.


    If Saleen hadn¡¯t reached level-13, there would be little need for the alliance between him and the grand duke to continue.


    A true might capable of signing contracts with two dragons was considered a top-notch being in all of Myers Maind, especially given that of the two dragons he signed contracts with, one was adept at physical attacks while the other was adept at magical ones. It allowed the grand duke to easily switch his steed inbat depending on the opponents fought.


    While the grand duke was surrounded by many mighty ones, all of them had gone to the Floating City to hide when the fighting began, so none of them dared to venture down to clean up the battlefield. The grand duke stayed with Saleen and emerged from the ocean surface, looking at the lightning warriors ferrying the goods up to the Floating City in midair. The monsters¡¯ fresh corpses were all in Rafel¡¯s space. Saleen hadn¡¯t brought them up, and neither had the grand duke.


    The lightning warriors, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands, were all super-strong mechanical puppets. Under the workings of the Lightning Constetion, each could carry thousands of pounds of cargo in flight. There was little of value to pick up from the grand duke¡¯s ind because the structures there had all been for overpowering the eggs that were about to hatch, so as to profit from them.


    What happened that day was foreseen on the first day of the construction.


    Most of the materials were still salvageable after the buildings were destroyed.


    Eventually, the Winged Skull began summoning spirits and had them move the eggshells. There was little need to speak of the hardness of the shells themselves. All had naturally forming cracks on them, and external attacks could never break them.


    Other than the scales of the silver fish and the monsters¡¯ corpses, the most valuable pieces to be found there were those eggshells.


    Among the hundreds of eggs, little more than a dozen had hatched. The monsters inside had run into problems during incubation and died. The Winged Skull dumped those eggs without care into its own ne. It had no intention of sharing them with the grand duke.


    It was still possible for some of the eggs to hatch in the spirit ne. Those that did would be powerful spirits right away.


    The jade skeletons hadn¡¯t yet gained suitable steeds. The Winged Skull saw fit to look out for their subordinates and did not care one whit if the grand duke was suffering any losses from it.


    In truth, the grand duke hardly suffered any losses. He knew that Imposa was the one who ruined everything at that time. If Saleen hadn¡¯t shown up in time, the duke would have lost everything.


    The grand duke and Saleen flew back to shore after clean-up. They didn¡¯t choose to settle down at Lianyun City. The Floating City was too huge, so they simply found a remote area andnded there instead.


    The Floating City cost magic nuclei simply by remaining airborne. Saleen saw the need to conserve everything as best as he could. They were about to attack the Tanggsi Empire, and every minute could be costly.


    If he made it possible for more human warriors to survive, it was imperative to enhance the quality of equipment produced and invest in more magic equipment, puppets, figures, and whatnot.


    Saleen split the loot with the grand duke after theynded. The grand duke had hardly done anything. He had only killed about 30 monsters, but they had made a deal beforehand to split everything 50-50 and Saleen didn¡¯t want to go back on his word.


    After divvying up the corpses evenly, Saleen then asked, ¡°Duke, about the eggshells...¡±


    The grand duke then smiled bitterly and said, ¡°Shells are of course yours. They¡¯re not part of the loot.¡±


    Saleen nodded and continued, ¡°Very well then. But now that Imposa has run off and you don¡¯t have alchemists aspetent among your people, let me know if you need anything.¡±


    It was the first time Saleen had been so generous. The grand duke was baffled. He quickly smiled and said, ¡°Well then, I¡¯ll do the calctionster. I¡¯ll indeed have a hard time dealing with the materials.¡±


    The powers of the grand duke¡¯s family were such that it wouldn¡¯t have been a problem getting those materials processed. On the other hand, who knew how long it would take. Saleen¡¯s proposal of taking out the Tanggsi Empire would have reaped astronomical rewards.


    The grand duke had wanted to invade the ce where the Holy See was a long time ago. The Tanggsi Empire had favorable weather, ideal for farming. The reason so few crops grew there was that most of the fertilends had been taken by the Holy See. And who was farming thend? Not peasants but ves.


    Having ves work on the farms yielded less than half of what the peasants would have yielded. In addition, free folk refugees were growing increasinglyrge, so food had always been in short supply in the Tanggsi Empire, requiring them to purchase supplies from external sources.


    The Holy See sold food too, but at hugely inted prices.


    A vast empire had the Holy See sucking its lifeblood out of it and grown increasingly weak. The Tanggsi Empire still matched the other three empires when it was first founded, but the royal family was reduced to a shadow of their former selves about 1,000 yearster. Most of the noblestched onto the Holy See; no one bothered with the emperor.


    The grand duke¡¯s forces only extended to the coastal areas and did not manage to truly get into inds of Qin, with most of his forces focused on Lianyun City. The grand duke had initially taken the ce for the purpose of building the Pce at Sea on the ind. He never expected the magic beasts hatching from the inds to be so powerful. They were lucky to escape alive, let alone subjugate the monsters.


    If it hadn¡¯t been for Saleen¡¯s 24 thunder dragons, the grand duke would have run for his life.


    Saleen let the grand duke organize his forces, move all of them to the Floating City, and travel to the Tanggsi Empire on it.


    Both parties were thinking about consolidating their forces in one ce. Saleen¡¯s armies consisted mainly of demons and some Bug Angel Warriors intended as shock troops. Now that he was armed with the Floating City, virtually no one stood in his way, save for the likes of Holy Rock City.


    Saleen wanted to destroy everything the Lord of Glory built on the maind before it could advent again.


    A god without an army tomand and support from believers would have been considerably weakened. The grand duke could tell from Saleen¡¯s actions of allying with him that he had no intention of reigning supreme throughout the maind. He only wanted to continue training as a mage, which was why the grand duke was chosen.


    He had an army of about 300,000 strong stationed at Qin territories. Such a force far exceeded what a grand duke should have been able to keep. A duke like him should not have been able to have a force exceeding 50,000 strong.


    The grand duke transported 200,000 of his troops to the Floating City¡ªa testament to his bravery and willingness to go all out. He knew that if he had to rely solely on his powers, expanding his territories and reigning supreme over the maind would have easily cost him hundreds of years, a period considered very short.


    Don¡¯s Nature Temple Knights were hardly affected within Kroraina territory. Because of a natural barrier in the form of the Purgatory Desert, he didn¡¯t have to worry about harassment from Cloudflow when they marched to God Grace Duchy. There were little resistances to be had from within the duchy as well since they had been cleaned up by Saleen a month ago.


    Owing to internal conflicts and the new pope missing, the Holy See would never be able to take back God Grace Duchy.


    The Nature Faith¡¯s forces had moved all the way to the borders of the Tanggsi Empire under such circumstances. The headquarters were set up in Cologne City. While the walls here were intact, the internal structures had been razed, making it suitable for stationing troops. The people of Nature Faith set up temples within and created drainage systems allowing them to consolidate the army inside the city. Tworge camps were set up outside the city. The ce, which was to serve as the main base, marked the start of the invasion into the Tanggsi Empire.

 Chapter 1447: The War that Destroyed a Country (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1447: The War that Destroyed a Country (Part 1)</h4>


    Grand Duke Iron Blood did not want the Tanggsi Empire. At least, it was not what he wanted at the moment. His army was arranged on the border of the Titan Duchy, posing as Cloudflow people in order to take the opportunity to plunder it. After the Nature Faith¡¯s Knight Corps broke through from the front, his troops would be able to enter the Tanggsi Empire from the south.


    It was a safe method. Grand Duke Iron Blood did not need to fork out too much. Although he could not gain much for the time being and was only assisting Saleen in battle, in the long run, he wanted to overthrow the Cloudflow Imperial City. The position was far too important.


    During that time, Lex handed over her credentials to Floating City and reprimanded Grand Duke Iron Blood for seizing Qin territories without a care for the alliance treaty from 1,000 years ago.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood quickly repented and replied with a letter of apology. He staked his personal reputation and agreed to withdraw from the Qin territorialnd. Both sides were putting on a performance. The Golden ins were definitely aware of that. However, no one was able to say that Lex had not recaptured the territorialnds.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s troops that numbered less than 100,000 withdrew from the coast. They boarded ships and returned to Cloudflow. However, his main forces were stationed in the south of the Tanggsi Empire.


    Lex acted quickly and readily rewarded her own men.


    Prince Saleen¡¯s territory was awarded with Kroraina. As there were no sessors, the entirerge Duchy was vacant. There had been a few battles for it, and the aristocrats were now practically nonexistent.


    Lex¡¯smand had received many objections from both the Houses of Lords and Commons, but no one was able to stop it.


    Safilos¡¯ objection was merely for show, but the lords¡¯ objections demonstrated that the forces of the current Golden ins were already under the control of the Qin Empire¡¯s central government.


    When Emperor Chanake had been around, no one else had been able to manipte the House of Lords.


    Saleen could not be bothered to talk nonsense. If anyone was dissatisfied, they coulde and attack him. Although the Golden ins secretly controlled the troops of four towns, they were unable to do anything to Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s capital was in Metatrin. His main forces were on Floating City. They were all in ces that could not be captured.


    Even if they dispatched troops to Kroraina, what could they do? Could they fight Saleen¡¯s Floating City?


    Saleen was currently attacking the Holy See. If they threatened Saleen with force, they would lose poprity. Within the recent decade, the Holy See had repeatedly harassed Qin. The Qin people long held a deep hatred towards this organization.


    Hence, many people even wished to join the Nature Faith to oppose the Holy See.


    Most of them were victims of Kroraina¡¯s war. From a certain standpoint, Qin¡¯s governors were also responsible, but with the banner of Holy See acting as the scapegoat, the civilians had not thought of that.


    None of the aristocrats had surrendered to the Holy See, died in battle, or led the civilians to retreat.


    Because no one truly had the power to oppose Lex¡¯s appointment, it was immediately implemented. Saleen had not assembled too many aristocrats from Metatrin. The people of Metatrin Kingdom focused their goals on the interdimensional space.


    Filling in the space had been on the Southwest aristocracy who relied on Lex. It finally bore fruit.


    Although Kroraina was defenseless and easy to attack, the southwest was too rural and not good for earning a fortune. The southwest aristocrats all grouped together in response to the appointment. A few descendants of aristocrats who originallycked the qualifications to benefit had now gained a noble rank and had been dispatched to Kroraina. It was a dangerous mission, but the best opportunity to improve their circumstances.


    They knew that the future of the aristocrats would not be pleasant. Hence, they tied their fates to Emperor Lex. Lex gathered mages in Bitter Water Prefecture and had assigned them to the aristocrats.


    The aristocrats had spent a fortune on cultivating their personal armies and had brought them to Kroraina. The space in Kroraina was very quickly being filled. Of course, whether or not they couldpletely upy this ce depended on the oue of Saleen¡¯s battle.


    Saleen¡¯s battle was nothing special. He seemed to be having a very easy time in the borders of the Tanggsi Empire. The most troublesome part about attacking the city was waiting for the Nature Faith¡¯s army. After the Nature Faith¡¯s army arrived, Saleen would fly Floating City above the targeted city and bombard it.


    Even the lowest grade weapons were thrown down. There were magic fire shells, huge stones, ranged pharmaceuticals, and all kinds of low-grade scrolls.


    The battle was essentially just for clearing out Saleen¡¯s warehouse. The items would be useless in future battles. There was an alchemic factory on Saleen¡¯s Floating City that produced new magic equipment day and night.


    It was only after the targeted city¡¯srge equipment had been destroyed and the city walls had been breached that Saleen allowed the Nature Faith¡¯s knight corps to attack. The an attack was definitely easier. Furthermore, the Violet Angel had also been mobilized. He specialized in hitting the War Drum of Fear in the city¡¯s skies.


    Without the Holy See, and without sufficient Holy Masters, the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s cities were all destroyed one after another. The imperial court was terrified.


    Finally, Qin Empire reacted. An army of about 300,000 people was assembled. They set out for the sake of their emperor¡¯s reputation. The army was rtively weakpared to the four towns. They were the veterans who had gone to battle in Daliang City.


    The troops came from an average background, and theirbat ability was even less remarkable. The people Lex had dispatched had been sent to upy the territory.


    For the transportation of those people, Saleen used Baldur¡¯s Gate to transfer them to the Tanggsi Empire. Without making a single sound, they had already upied approximately more than 20 cities.


    The Tanggsi Empire¡¯s emperor dispatched people to send a letter to Saleen, requesting for Saleen to not attack. Saleen only responded once, demanding that the empire drive out the Holy See. He guaranteed that he would never step upon thends of the Tanggsi Empire ever again.


    If the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s emperor had had the courage, he would have acted long ago. Why would he wait for Saleen to mention it?


    The matter was left unresolved. The emperor knew that Saleen really had note to go against him. A mage would never be more interested in expanded theirnds than in cultivating their magic. Power and influence held very little meaning to a mage.


    Even if he was an emperor, when faced with a powerful mage, he could not put on airs.


    Under such circumstances, the Tanggsi Emperor¡¯s elite troops began to withdraw, and all of them gathered back at the imperial capital. In name, they were there to protect the imperial family, but in reality, they were avoiding battles. The advancement of Floating City was not at all swift and it was still over 1,000 kilometers away from the campsites of the elite troops. If they protected the emperor, they ought to first engage the enemy before thinking of anything else.


    Everyone was clear on the fact that the end goal of Saleen¡¯s army was the Holy City on the Glorious ins.


    The Glorious ins were vast and the kingdom¡¯s best granary. It had been upied by the Holy See and the imperial family could do nothing about it. Everyone already felt that the Holy See was going to lose the battle, so they were all unwilling to continue exerting their efforts.


    Because the Holy See had not chosen a Pope, they were unable to do anything about the emperor. Each parish focused its power at the Glorious ins, and there was no one to meet them in battle.


    Even Saleen had not expected the situation. Arge empire was in a critical situation, but there were no aristocrats willing to devote themselves to it, nor were there any saints willing to sacrifice their lives for it.


    The green-colored Temple Knights formed a storm in the Tanggsi Empire, and more and more people joined the Nature Faith. As disciples in the Tanggsi Empire, their fate might not necessarily be that good. Sometimes, it would be even more tragic.


    Not all priests were in peak condition like Nichs. Many priests within the Holy See were money-making tool. The Lord of Glory was originally not focused on merciless killing, but in the Tanggsi Empire, everyone had heard of the Tribunal¡¯s name and was so scared that they dared not speak of it.


    Everything was very unexpected. The spread of the Nature Faith in Qin had been extremely slow, but in the Tanggsi Empire, they seemed to be ustomed to believing in a religion. They did not mind what god it was.


    They were pseudodisciples, but Saleen did not mind. Anyone who was willing to be the underlings of zealots would be extremely troublesome in the future.


    The expansion of the Knight Corps was having a snowball effect. Saleen knew that if it continued, the day that the Myers Goddess resurrected would not be far off. The Nature Faith¡¯s disciples were bing greater and greater in number, while the Lord of Glory¡¯s disciples were bing shrinking in number.


    It was also rted to the religious teaching. The Goddess of Nature did not need sacrifices. The main duty of the priests of the temple was to help people treat their illnesses for free. When the Knight Corps were not in battle, they would help the viges to drive away dangerous magic beasts. The temple would even give out seeds at fixed periods and use their divine spells to help the farmers to increase their harvests.


    What the Goddess of Nature wanted was only the Power of Faith. She did notck anything else.


    The Nature Faith was very wealthy. Part of it was due to Saleen¡¯s financial aid. The other part of this was due to thievery. Of course, Myers did not support thievery. This initiative had been Don¡¯s idea. Baudire had also been extremely supportive of it.


    Saleen was very supportive of their antics. If the Nature Faith was too pure, it would be too difficult for him to make a move in the future.


    In reality, Saleen did not hold any post in the Nature Faith, but his position in the disciples¡¯ hearts was even higher than the Pope¡¯s. Everyone knew that the person who expanded the territorialnds for the goddess was this king.


    Floating City was too conspicuous. No one was able to wipe out the contributions that Saleen had made towards the Nature Faith.


    The only thing that displeased Saleen was that the battle between religions was even more callous than his massacre of cities. Even if he destroyed the enemy¡¯srge facilities and had the assistance of the War Drum of Fear, the Lord of Glory¡¯s disciples did not stop their resistance. The two sides were like oil and water. It was the conflict between the two gods.


    All the ces therge army passed were decimated.


    Saleen was unable to stop the massacre. He recalled the saints that he had imprisoned. How had religion changed them? Had it really made gentle and merciful or had it made vicious and merciless?


    Between disciples of the same religion, it was the former. But between disciples of different religions, it was thetter.


    At the beginning, the Nature Faith¡¯s vanguards only had one battalion. Later, within the borders of the Tanggsi Empire, more than 10rge battalions had appeared. Saleen¡¯s Floating City could not get over in time, so he could only head over himself.


    Within Baldur¡¯s gate, Saleen prepared one battalion of elite troops. They were strong people who had followed him to all the temples in order to advance. There were also Bug Angel Warriors and his own temple guards. The army was to be used in a decisive battle against the Holy See.


    Now that matters hade to that point, Saleen was already not nning to participate in arge battle. He was only nning to target the strongest among the enemy and gradually y them. There was a sizeable number of strong level 12 people among his subordinates. On this continent. he could no longer encounter a true match when pitted against his enemies.


    The only one he had to consider was the head warden on ck Dungeon Ind, who frightened numerous head inquisitors.

 Chapter 1448: The War that Destroyed a Country (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1448: The War that Destroyed a Country (Part 2)</h4>


    Tanggsi was engulfed in rampaging green. It elicited a huge reaction from both Qin and Cloudflow.


    The Qin people regretted that they had not joined, while the Cloudflow people were terrified. Although most of the Cloudflow forcesy in their marines, many of their cities on thend could not be given up. Originally, by relying on their advantageous location, they had been able to fend off the armies of the two neighboring countries. But now things were great. Saleen possessed Floating City. No matter how difficult the mountain range, to Saleen, it was as if it did not even exist.


    Lex was now faced with immense pressure. The House of Lords had proposed to have Saleen withdraw his troops from the northern part of Qin. Although he was a prince, he did not have the authority to station troops on Qin territory. The original Northern aristocrats needed to return to their own territory.


    Lex knew that power in the Golden ins was not just about the mage trainers in Arb¡¯s hands. There were also the weapons, warriors, and inconceivablyrge amounts of equipment that the Grukos family had slowly umted over several millennia.


    Because there had not been an appropriate reason to bring them out, the Golden ins had had no means of controlling the empire.


    In the early days of the empire, the Golden ins had been subjected to suppression of the contract and could not interfere with the governing of the empire. It was the same now, but if she did not agree with the proposal, the legality would be shaken up. In that case, the contract suppressing the Golden ins would lose its effect.


    She was at a crucial time for her cultivation. Now that the fate of the empire was gradually improving, her secret technique had a corresponding improvement and was almost as high as level 12. If she could rule the empire for a century, her secret technique would definitely be able to surpass her ancestors.


    Saleen listened to Lex pouring out her grievances via the magic array andughed. ¡°Lace, I will just move out and let them kick up a fuss.¡±


    Lex did not understand.


    Saleen said, ¡°Breaking down the Tanggsi Empire is enough for me. Returning to help Grand Duke Iron Blood to wipe out Cloudflow will bring even greater benefits.¡±


    ¡°upying the empire is rtively difficult. Perhaps you will not have time to cultivate for hundreds of years,¡± Lex brought up her worries.


    Saleen smiled. After sending over a stack of magic materials and journals to Lex, he started a new battle.


    Saleen¡¯s army withdrew into Phoenix from the northern part of Qin. Even Guderian City did not have a single soldier remaining. Just as the people from the Golden ins began to feel proud of themselves, a sound appeared on the battlefields of the Tanggsi Empire.


    The Nature Faith¡¯s disciples would only ept the leadership of the Metatrin Kingdom. Otherwise, it would be sphemy against their god.


    All of the people in the Qin Empire panicked. Even Safilos went to see the niece he had always hated.


    ¡°Lex, the situation that your prince has caused is too dangerous. The copse of the empire will not be far off.¡±


    ¡°Safilos,¡± Lex called her uncle. ¡°I have heard that Saleen has established a temple on your territory. Why did you not refuse?¡±


    ¡°I could not refuse.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. After so many years, the Holy See finally has an opponent. If we do not destroy them with one blow, the consequences will be endless. What about the Nature Faith? There are no immortal dynasties, nor are there any immortal gods. For this matter, let us give in to Saleen. The most important thing is that the people on the Golden ins...¡±


    Safilos had nothing to say. He was even more on guard against the people of the Golden ins.


    The war waged for half a year. Saleen¡¯s demon army was limitless and could replenish the gaps amidst the Temple Knights¡¯ ranks. The army within the Qin Empire¡¯s borders had also started pondering what they should do as the Golden ins stirred up trouble.


    At the end of the year, an extremely important matter took ce. A divine omen descended from the Goddess of Nature.


    The divine omen was simr to what the disciples said. The Nature Faith would only ept the leadership of the Metatrin Kingdom. Thends that the Nature Faith had attacked and upied would only permit the control of Metatrin¡¯s aristocrats.


    The Nature Faith did not control anynd until now and would select its dynasties. Hence the divine omen did not contain any abnormalities.


    But this was different from the unruly antics of the disciples. It was a divine omen, and all the disciples would obey it unconditionally.


    What did it imply? The Tanggsi Empire did not have muchnd left. Only the Glorious ins and the ces thaty a few hundred meters from the imperial capital were left. Saleen had not attacked the Tanggsi Empire¡¯s imperial capital and had not nned to dispatch any troops, but an imperial dynasty that only controlled several hundred meters ofnd was actually more or less as good as destroyed.


    Saleen destroyed the Tanggsi Empire. It had taken ce too quickly, and no one was able toprehend it.


    The divine omen had descended. The Tanggsi Empire belonged to Metatrin Kingdom. If anyone was unwilling to agree, they would be the enemy of the millions of disciples who belonged to the Nature Faith.


    Everyone knew how terrifying disciples were. The Nature Faith did not have any expansive properties, but the divine omen had descended from the goddess. The mages of the Golden ins could no longer sit still.


    Saleen could not sit still either. He never thought that the Goddess of Nature would actually be revived.


    Reviving was one thing, but a divine omen hade down from her, tying him to the Nature Faith. When the goddess was revived, he did not feel anything.


    Wasn¡¯t it terrible?


    He hurriedly investigated the contract in his soul. Indeed, the contract between him and the Goddess of Nature wasplete.


    The Goddess of Nature had been revived, but he could not search for the goddess¡¯ whereabouts, not to mention killing the goddess. Saleen was not certain what level the revived goddess was at and whether or not he could defeat her.


    He could only speed up his attack. He began to arrange his troops to encircle the Glorious ins.


    All of the Holy See¡¯s elites were waiting to engage in a decisive battle on the Glorious ins.


    The timely divine omen caused Saleen to have no other choice. He had not conquered the Holy See, so he could not break away from the Goddess of Nature.


    While Saleen¡¯s army advanced towards the Glorious ins, in Metatrin City, Saleen¡¯s son and daughter practiced their magic spells. The mythical beast that they were raising suddenly woke from its deep slumber.


    The mythical beast was originally the size of an ordinary house cat. It had grown thatrge after a thousand years. Austine thought that the mythical beast needed 10,000 years to mature. They never guessed that it would start to grow frenziedly.


    The pair gazed at the mythical beast nervously. When the mythical beast had been young, it had been mistreated for a long time. They did not know if it would be a shadow in its heart or if it would be very frightened upon seeing the pair.


    The mythical beast¡¯s scales grew continuously. They shed, but not substantially. In half a day, they grew to the size of a warhorse.


    ncing at the pair of no-good masters, the mythical beast growled low. It jumped up and flew out through the temple window, heading south.


    Flodi wanted to chase after it but was pulled back by her elder brother.


    ¡°Little sister, don¡¯t go. Don¡¯t you know about the goddess¡¯ revival?¡±


    Flodi stamped her foot. ¡°So what if she has been revived? Will Father fear the goddess?¡±


    ¡°The beast was left behind by the goddess. Father said that it came from the goddess¡¯ temple at the center of the Myers Continent. It is flying in that direction. We will just release a figure to chase after it.¡±


    Austin had a prudent personality that was extremely simr to a young Saleen.


    Flodi could not persuade her elder brother. She felt that it was somewhat strange, so she did not persist, but rather released a star figure that Saleen had left for them to pursue the beast.


    The mythical beast did not trigger any of Metatrin City¡¯s defensive attacks when it flew out of the city. No one knew what caused its actions.


    The mythical beast flew south, and the star figure followed right behind it. Saleen no longer used the astrologer¡¯s power much, but the star figure was much more capable than puppets at the same level, and it was easier to give it directions.


    His two children had never really encountered any outsiders. Saleen could not rx if he allowed other mages to serve them, so he had sent about 100 star figures each to act as their servants.


    After dispatching a star figure to pursue the mythical beast, Austin sent a letter to his father.


    Saleen saw his son¡¯s letter and immediately knew that things were not good. He had spoken about his ns in front of the mythical beast. If the mythical beast really returned to the Myers Goddess¡¯ side, wouldn¡¯t she find out about the inside details of his ns?


    But Austin did not do anything wrong. The mythical beast¡¯s escape was probably the goddess¡¯ setup. Chasing after it would not necessarily bring anything good.


    Saleen immediately contacted Daliang City, hoping that they could send people to intercept it. However, the mythical beast was alive and had its own will. Even if Saleen intercepted it himself, he might not necessarily be able to locate it.


    As expected, after an hour, Austin sent another letter to his father, informing him that the star figure had lost its trail.


    The level 10 star figure had been subjected to Saleen¡¯s modifications, and its flight could reach up to 200 kilometers. Saleen only had a few people by his side who were faster. Other people would not even be able to touch the corners of the figure in flight.


    Saleen had the intention to investigate it personally. His territorial power expanded, and an area up to 200 kilometers in width was within his range of surveince.


    But if he caught up to it, then what? Saleen did not know if he should kill it or capture it.


    The mythical beast flew towards the Purgatory Desert in the center of the continent. It probably went because of the goddess¡¯ summons. If Saleen killed it, it was evident what his attitude towards the goddess was.


    After thinking it over, Saleen decided to drop the matter. The goddess was no fool, and he could not deceive her. Originally, he had wanted to eliminate the Holy See, and then after having a decisive battle with the Lord Glory, the goddess would be revived. It was good for her to be revived now. He would have to rely on Myers for the decisive battle with the Lord of Glory. He could have some more time for cultivation.


    The most important thing was creating a divine persona to enter the Hall of Gods and exchange it for time.


    However, would there still be a divine persona in existence?


    Saleen directed his gaze towards Holy City. No, that wasn¡¯t it. The Holy City was the ce that the Lord of Glory had selected. With the Lord of Glory¡¯s personality, he definitely would not leave his divine persona behind.


    The one who was most likely to possess a divine persona was still the Myers Goddess.


    Initially, the Myers Goddess¡¯ rank had been high, and she had killed gods who were stronger than her before. Would he have to demand a divine persona from the Myers Goddess to possess the ability to kill the goddess?


    No matter how much of an idiot the goddess was, she would not do such a thing.

 Chapter 1449: Battering the City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1449: Battering the City (Part 1)</h4>


    Originally, Saleen had nned very well. He could strengthen his forces step by step. After the Lord of Glory arrived, he would no longer be able to find a single disciple to help him.


    When a god descended upon a ne without a disciple, their power would be suppressed by the rules of the ne. The suppression was exceptionally vicious. When a god possessed disciples on a ne and could absorb the Power of Faith from the ne over a long period of time, they had a pathway to the ne that they could use the gain power from all of the ins that contained their disciples.


    Saleen wanted the Myers Continent to be a hopeless ce for the Lord of Glory. He was not wrong.


    However, with the goddess¡¯ recent revival, he was at a loss.


    The development of faith would cause the goddess¡¯ power to grow too quickly. The goddess was not a new god, but a revived god. She only need to possess the power to advance and did not at all need to learn the types of rules all over again.


    Once the goddess obtained the Power of Faith from disciples, not even Jason¡¯s advancement could bepared to her.


    Saleen sighed and contacted Metatrin City tomunicate with his children.


    He told Austin to stop worrying about mythical beast. The goddess was not bloodthirsty and would not do much to him. Furthermore, his contract with the goddess had beenpleted and the goddess would grant him a reward.


    The problem now was whether Saleen would proceed as nned or if he would withdraw from the battle and allow the Myers Goddess to handle it personally.


    Perhaps he should make a trip to Purgatory Desert. How was the Myers Goddess faring in the temple atop the Mountain Without End?


    Saleen recalled that he had done away with the oracle left behind by the goddess. Their soul had been dealt with by the Winged Skull. That was not good. Saleen hurriedly allowed the Winged Skull to leave the battlefield and return to his Death Dimension. If he was not summoned, he was not to return at all.


    Saleen¡¯s loss of his assistant was not that big of a deal. Although the Winged Skull could now be independent, Saleen did not have that many powerful foes, only the Holy See. He did not need all of Metatrin City to turn up in full force. If the goddess found out that the oracle had died at his hands, it would be a disaster.


    Even if the goddess did not kill him, she definitely would not leave behind the Winged Skull and allow him to continue enving her oracle.


    Within the Purgatory of the Fallen, there was still the goddess¡¯ Shackles of the Fallen. Saleen hardened his heart and allowed Nailisi to return to the Death Dimension, the only ne that was safe. The goddess would probably even be able to locate the interdimensional space.


    After he finished, Saleenmanded the entire army. The target was Holy City.


    The troops on Floating City did not ount for much. The main thing was that they were all enchanters. Because some demons had the chance to cultivate in the Hall of Gods, the most advanced of the enchanters on Floating City were able to release was level 13 magic spells.


    Floating City¡¯s magics were the strongest out of all the magics that Saleen had constructed. Because the God of Magic Nets was on Floating City, he was able to coordinate andmand all of the attacks. If the God of Magic Nets were to fight by himself, he would not be able to express much of his power.


    Saleen¡¯s strongest troops, apart from the Bug Angel Warriors, were all ced at Baldur¡¯s Gate. As long as Saleen was able to sneak into Holy City, he could immediately establish Baldur¡¯s Gate and dispatch his army to fight in the city.


    Saleen did not feel that it would be exceptionally difficult to capture the city. He needed to guard against the attacks of the Tribunal. The Tribunal had not participated in the defensive battle. Furthermore, the Tribunal was right next to the seaside. Saleen¡¯s marine army had not broken out in battle against the Tribunal, and ck Dungeon Ind waspletely silent.


    The head warden did not seem to care about the Holy See¡¯s extinction at all. Instead, the head warden existed for the sake of breaking away from the Holy See, and he was extremely hopeful that it would happen.


    It was the first time Saleen had been to Holy City. He looked down from above and discovered that Holy City¡¯s buildings were extremely meticulous. The city was a gigantic divine rune charm array.


    Countless buildings grouped together to form the stroke of a pen. They were arranged into five pointed stars. Each church was the core of the divine rune charm array, creating an amplifying and supporting effect.


    Saleen tried using the magic cannon to st it a few times, but all of it was deflected by a white holy light.


    It seemed it was still rtively difficult to attack the city.


    Saleen was not anxious. The Holy See¡¯s inner sections were already falling apart. They could not even select a pope. Only in the current times when there was a strong external enemy would they unite their efforts towards dealing with him.


    Fortunately he had already learned that thanks to Nichs. The Pivotal Council did not have many true disciples. The worst consequence that the Holy See¡¯s internal strife of 1,000 years had given rise to was that true disciples could not enter the Pivotal.


    The gods always hoped for innocent disciplest. Only then would the Power of Faith be sufficiently pure. Thus, the teachings of any god would never allow their disciples to cause trouble. Even the gods who focused on killing and ughter changed to a neutral stance when it came to spreading their teaching across various nes. The inner strife amidst the upper echelons of the Holy See had not only resulted in the Holy See having decreased unity among their ranks, but had also made obtaining divine power more and more difficult. For 1,000 years, the Holy See had not developed outwards.


    At a high altitude, Saleen used the Thundering Explosion skill to yell, ¡°to the people below who are listening, the Goddess of Nature has already been revived and has passed down her divine omen. If you have waited until now to defect, you can still make it in time. The first to surrender from the Pivotal Council will be the next Pope of the Nature Faith!¡±


    His speech was coarse, but its inciting power was very strong. The people within the Holy See who longed to defect were now extremely great in number. It was just that no one was willing to take the first step. They were even more afraid of being wiped out by the religion.


    Now that Saleen had spoken of tempting conditions, even if they were not the first to surrender, they might be able to fish for some benefits, right?


    Supposedly, the Lord of Glory¡¯s clone had surrendered and had not done much to this mage. If they continued to resist, everyone would die.


    None of the people thought that Saleen would dare to fake a divine omen.


    Everybody was clear that the Nature Faith had been established by Saleen. How could such a person do something against the gods?


    Yet Saleen was indifferent to such matters. The mythical beast had returned to the goddess¡¯ side and would reveal secrets to her. If the goddess could not tolerate his forgery of a divine omen, then that was fine, but their falling out would be brought forward. If he really could not take it, he would escape into the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Saleen was most afraid of the contract between him and the goddess. After the goddess¡¯ revival, the contract had vanished, and the pressure in Saleen¡¯s heart was no longer as great. As for facing the gods, he had past experiences. Gods were merely more powerful creatures.


    The Myers Goddess definitely had her own aspirations and would not run wild on the continent. If Myers did not want to get rid of him, she would tolerate his methods. Furthermore, Myers had personally sent down a divine omen, saying that he could govern all of the territories that the Nature Faith had seized, which meant that the goddess was still standing on his side.


    Saleen¡¯s words had moved the hearts of many people in Holy City. After about six seconds¡¯ time, a white glow suddenly lit up in one church.


    Saleen was overjoyed. The 30 or sorge Thunder Dragon sters nearby all fired at the same time. Humongous lightning icicles broke through the defenses and destroyed all of the divine rune charm arrays close to the church.


    The white light meant that a Holy Master had released a part of the seal by himself, allowing the divine power stored within to dissipate.


    It was ast minute betrayal; that was undeniable. Hundreds of magic cannons simultaneously fired. Within the church, the turncoat Holy Master was scared out of his wits, but immediately discovered that the attacks were all targeted at the defensive facilities, not at him.


    The traitor¡¯s mind cleared in the face of impending fortune. He readily snatched up his best set of equipment and flew up into the sky.


    The church¡¯s dome was broken into pieces. The more staunch disciples had immediately discovered that the church¡¯s archbishop had betrayed them. Hundreds of bolts of holy light attacked at the same time, but they were destroyed by an even greater number of magic spells that descended from the sky.


    Under the control of the God of Magic Nets, the attack of tens of thousands of enchanters was like a single entity.


    Rafel brought the metal angels and rushed down from Floating City to meet the traitor. In her heart, she greatly despised that type of person, but Saleen¡¯s methods were not wrong. It would prevent his own troops from suffering losses.


    The defenses of the Holy City were extremely sound. Even if the Holy Master turned traitor, the gap would very quickly be filled in.


    However, it was an extremely dangerous example. With the first traitor, there would be a second.


    In Holy City¡¯s Grand Church of Nick, there was nomanding Pope. There were about a dozen red-robed bishops from the Pivotal Council. Of course, they had seen the situation unfold. However, they did not have any means to prevent it.


    Currently, there were still many Holy Masters at level 10 and above, but they did not have a leader. The Holy Masters fought independently, and no one knew what they thought.


    Before, everyone had seized wealth and benefits from one another. They had done so too gleefully. They had mostly relied on benefits to work together. Only now that enemies were at their front door did everyone miss Theisio.


    If Theisio were around, how would such a situation have urred?


    Holy City would not be destroyed as long as everyone worked together.


    Everyone thought, ¡°what if I also betray the Holy See?¡±


    Floating City attacked a fixed point with all its might to assist to Rafel. Rafel snatched the Holy Master and returned to Floating City.


    Rafel brought the Holy Master to Saleen and tossed him on the ground.


    Saleen nced at the Holy Master. He was a level 10 red-robed bishop in his thirties and would have very good prospects in the Holy See. It was very difficult for such a person to turn. ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Faro, Your Majesty. Meeting you is an honor.¡± Faro had been tossed to the ground by Rafel, but he did not appear as if he had been wronged at all. He joyfully grovelled in front of Saleen, and his expression did not hold a hint of ttery.


    A person who could seek favor openly and did not make one feel disgusted was practically a form of art.


    ¡°Faro, did you turn for the sake of the position of the Nature Faith¡¯s next Pope?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Naturally, Your Majesty.¡± Faro¡¯s reply, whening from another person¡¯s mouth, would be shameless, but his face held some holiness.


    A talent indeed!


    Saleen judged that only that kind of person was suitable to go disseminate a religion.


    It could not be given to the Myers Goddess so easily. Saleen changed his intentions. ¡°Faro, if I regreted it right now, what would you do?¡±

 Chapter 1450: Battering the City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1450: Battering the City (Part 2)</h4>


    Faro opened his eyes wide and stared at Saleen. Saleen was very serious.


    Faro thought for a moment. ¡°Your Majesty wishes for me to do something important, doesn¡¯t he. Faro is afraid that his abilities will fall short of what is required.¡±


    Saleen smiled. Faro was way too good at talking. ¡°I will have you take on no more than you can handle. Actually...let¡¯s not talk about this. Just follow me.¡±


    Saleen tossed a Scepter of the Fallen at Faro. There was a blood soul tower on the scepter. The scepter did not use the Three Kings¡¯ scepter. Ultimately, Saleen was aware of the item¡¯s value. Its materials were exceptional among those below level 16.


    Faro was overjoyed. Although he did not care about having any benefits, the item that Saleen had given to him was of good quality. It demonstrated that Saleen did not n on treating him lightly. He liked to climb his way up in the ranks. If his gamble had been wrong, there would not have been a chance to turn back.


    The subduing of Faro had purely been a coincidence. Saleen had not considered that such a talented person woulde. If he needed any Followers, he did not want any traitors. However, he wanted to search for a Pope for the Winged Skull. The jade skeletons, the Winged Skull¡¯s subordinates, had be gods and would have to spread their religion. There was not only one Death Dimension. Once new Death Dimensions were discovered, they could allow this fellow to carry out his work in secret.


    Of course, Saleen was afraid of Faro bing the next Pope of the Nature Faith and causing the Nature Faith to be stronger. No matter what, the Nature Faith could not be allowed to continue expanding. The Myers Goddess had already been revived. If it expanded any more, the goddess¡¯ strength would increase and no one would be able to keep it in check.


    With the first traitor, a second would be much easier. Close to 50 Holy Masters chose to turn. That did not mean that there were only 40 odd traitors. Rather, there were others that had no means of escaping Holy City¡¯s blockade.


    The Holy Masters were brought up by the metal angels one by one and arranged by Saleen¡¯s side. They gazed enviously at Faro. Faro did not speak and allowed them to continue staring at him in envy.


    The Holy Masters felt regretful that they had turned toote. If they had been a step earlier, perhaps they would have be the next Pope of the Nature Faith.


    Saleen did not say anything about Faro¡¯s actions either. If he was to choose a suitable person out of them to be the Pope, he would be doing Faro a favor. Also, only something that was difficult to obtain would be valued.


    Saleen did not expect the Holy Masters to be grateful. He only wanted them to remember the day¡¯s events and know that he had many tricks up his sleeve. It would be fine as long as they knew that they should fear him.


    Saleen did not wish to grasp too much political power. When you possessed absolute power, it was easy to do anything. If he did not have Floating City and did not have powerful magic equipment, Saleen could not have tempted so many high ranked Holy Masters over to his side with just a single exmation.


    To Saleen, Holy City had already been taken down. Without the aid of dozens of powerful Holy Masters, Saleen could search for cracks in the city¡¯srge array, and fling arge number of stones down at them.


    Therge stones were not just any ordinary rocks, but infused with the Goddess of Nature¡¯s divine power. The stones caused the entire city¡¯s defensive systems to runpletely amok. They had been infused with the Goddess of Nature¡¯s divine power, too. Even if the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine power appeared between the churches, it would not be beneficial.


    The city fell. Large numbers of puppets were sent into Holy City, followed by figures and demons.


    Saleen brought Baldur¡¯s Gate and personally flew down to Holy City. He opened the gates and allowed his troops toe out in full force.


    Saleen had not besieged the city, nor had he sealed off the city gates. There were some knights and Holy Masters who fought desperately to make ast stand, and some who risked their lives to escape.


    The ones who escaped were not intercepted, so more people chose to escape.


    Only the band of Holy Masters from the Pivotal Council did not escape. They were surrounded by Saleen¡¯s troops in the Nico Cathedral.


    Saleen was not anxious. He allowed the troops to slowly clear out the city. There wasn¡¯t much wealth in the city. The true assets were concentrated in another city on the Glorious ins. That nameless city was the headquarters of the Pivotal Council.


    However, its defenses were not like the Holy City. It was due to its geographical advantage that it had be the fortress in which the Pivotal Council managed its affairs. Saleen had Floating City and could mobilize arge number of troops to enter the city and fight. Thus, Floating City only intercepted one type of person: the ones heading towards the Pivotal Council¡¯s headquarters.


    The city was still present in Saleen¡¯s thoughts.


    Although most of the Pivotal Council¡¯s wealth had been divided up by the Cardinals, the Cardinals did not dare to move away some items. Saleen wanted to take them.


    The battlested for one day and one night. Because Saleen¡¯s attacks were not that intense and he had not sent many troops, itsted until the Nature Faith¡¯s army approached and before the knight corps within the city retreatedpletely.


    The knight corps retreated, and the Holy Masters had scattered. Arge number of Holy City¡¯s defensive mechanisms and the church with long histories were empty. Saleen was able to directly look at the holy light on the walls of the church.


    Each part of the city held traces of divinity. The Lord of Glory had once managed the ce and had selected powerful Popes, knight corps, and oracle corps. Later on, the Lord of Glory had left to fight with other nes, after which the people of the Holy See were never united again.


    There was no need for them to be united. In the hearts of the disciples, as long as the Lord of Glory was present, the Holy See would never fall.


    Since it would never fall, everyone was just in the massive organization to make a quick profit.


    Enter paradise? As long as they made some contributions, they would be able to enter it. Thus, they could not lose anything when they were still human.


    That philosophy had caused the entire Holy See to be hollow. Otherwise, with Theisio¡¯s capabilities, it was unlikely that it would have fallen to such an irredeemable situation.


    Saleen allowed the Nature Faith¡¯s troops to enter, and his army gradually withdrew into Baldur¡¯s Gate. The remaining Bug Angel Army stayed to maintain order. Attacking Holy City was not strange as there was no leader.


    The Pope had vanished, and they could not nominate a suitable candidate to rece him. When Saleen¡¯s Floating City arrived, everyone was still scheming against one another and felt that they could rely on the city¡¯s defenses to hide from it all.


    Gathering his troops, Saleen caught a glimpse of Don, who was leading them.


    Don no longer held any regrets. He personally brought soldiers to enter Holy City to kill and destroy churches. He destroyed what he hated with his own hands and gave up what he believed in.


    It was not what he had wanted, but since fate had turned out that way, he no longer resisted against it.


    Saleen had allowed him to be the leader of the Nature Faith¡¯s knight corps. He did not want to believe in any Goddess of Nature. He was extremely grateful towards Saleen. However, now that the goddess had sent down her divine omen, Baudire had explicitly told him that the goddess had been revived.


    That was somewhat troublesome. Don worriedly asked Saleen, ¡°Your Majesty, with regards to the matter of the goddess¡¯ resurrection, what are your thoughts?¡±


    ¡°You should continue to handle your affairs. There are still many ces that have not been conquered,¡± Saleen replied.


    Continue? Don smiled. It seemed that Saleen really did not have much respect for the goddess. One always had to ask the goddess first before proceeding. The goddess was the god of the ne. Once she appeared, she would personally take control of the situation.


    Saleen seemed to have understood Don¡¯s thoughts. ¡°I will personally visit Myers. All you need to do is to handle your own matters. The current you...is not Myer¡¯s match.¡±


    Don bowed and retreated. Saleen waited for all of the misceneous people to leave Floating City before he put Floating City away. He brought Rafel and advanced towards the center of the continent to Purgatory Desert.


    He could no longer wait for the conclusion. If the Myers Goddess held bad intentions towards him, now was the best time to approach her. The Myers Goddess¡¯ power would increase by leaps and bounds every day.


    His mistake in his calctions had allowed the Nature Faith to expand so quickly.


    Rafel felt it was somewhat strange. ¡°Why do you want to see Myers?¡±


    In Rafel¡¯s opinion, gods were capricious beings. It would be very dangerous.


    ¡°There are some matters that I must ask her personally. Rafel, what do you think? There are good ones among the gods, but I don¡¯t know if Myers is one. At the very least, she used to be a human mage.¡±


    ¡°With just one identity, what is there that can be considered trustworthy!¡± Rafel¡¯s tone was somewhat ominous.


    ¡°It is not trust; it is a gamble. If I wait any longer, all of my secret ns will be discovered. Although her ns had many gaps, as long as someone canplete her contract, she will be able to obtain all that she wishes to obtain. This is the intelligence not of a god, but of a human.¡±


    Saleen meant that gods were not humanity¡¯s equal.


    Rafel was speechless. She did not know how to persuade Saleen. Based on her way of thinking, the best n would be to gather all of the strong people he had to go and see the goddess. It would only be safe once the goddess was killed.


    But Saleen did not think that way. There were still a number of souls in the Cemetery of Heroes. Out of all them, the Grandmaster held a considerable amount of aversion towards him because the Grandmaster had wanted to plot against him for a few times, but never seeded.


    He had not done anything wrong. He had merely not wanted to be the Grandmaster¡¯s ything.


    Would he not resist? Would he willing be another person¡¯s pawn?


    No matter if it was a soul from the Cemetery of Heroes or Myers within the Purgatory Desert, Saleen had never wanted to provoke them. But since things hade to that point, there was no way to escape it. As the saying said, you could not escape fate; it would apany you for all your life.


    Saleen wanted to meet Myers because of her ambiguous attitude.


    She would not ept aristocrats from outside Metatrin for her religion.


    Were his own citizens so outstanding that even the goddess respected them? Of course, Saleen did not think this way. He was not crazy.


    Along the way, he pondered deeply. Saleen¡¯s Weapon¡¯s Spirits did not dare speak. They were afraid of even one powerful god. Furthermore, they were pseudogods, and their fear of other gods greatly surpassed humans.


    Only the Violet Angel was simple-minded. He took the initiative to request toe out and apany Saleen.


    Of course, he wanted to apany Rafel.


    After arriving at the borders of the Purgatory Desert, Saleen descended to the ground and walked into the desert. He slowed down slightly, and he recalled all of the other troublesome points that he still needed to settle with the goddess. He had thought through all of it before he had arrived and even sent Nailisi and the Winged Skull away.


    He had used up the divine persona, but as he thought things through, he felt that the goddess would not nitpick at him for that. It had been his reward. Otherwise, what would he use in order to revive Myers?


    There wouldn¡¯t...be any problems, right?

 Chapter 1451: Weak (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1451: Weak (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen easily found the entrance to the temple at the center of the Purgatory Dessert.


    A vibrant, colorful world could be seen beyond those tall pirs in the lone temple. Saleen remembered the ce to be very perilous.


    He was shocked after walking into the world of the central hall, as the seal inside his body unraveled automatically. The rules there, different from the ones on Myers Maind, allowed powers beyond level-13 to exist.


    With that said, the power of the Goddess of Myers had grown beyond level-12.


    Saleen looked at the expansive mountains and pondered if he should head there.


    A gentle female voice was heard above the mountains while Saleen was still steeped in thought about the pros and cons. ¡°You¡¯re already here, Saleen. Why not juste up here?¡±


    He knew that the voice could only belong to a god. The gentleness wasced with firmness, yet thebination did not feel out of ce. The voice was on the low-pitched side, but it still felt charismatic.


    The Violet Angel shuddered at the sound of the voice, however. It still turned to look at Rafel, but said to Saleen instead, ¡°Let¡¯s meet the god, master. It¡¯s better that we look sharp after all.¡±


    Saleen nodded, and the Violet Angel went all fours on the ground, taking its golden dragon form and letting both Saleen and Rafel step on it.


    The Violet Angel felt very ufortable about someone stepping on it. It then took to the air and flew to the mountains.


    The Goddess of Myers chuckled. Then nothing more was heard from her.


    Saleen¡¯s mind calmed. It¡¯s just a goddess. We¡¯ll deal with her when we see her. He had been the one to resurrect her, so there was no reason to fear her now. He knew that Myers would have definitely known about his murderous intentions back then.


    He didn¡¯t believe for a second that a goddess who had just been resurrected would have level-15 powers.


    If she was at level-14, it would still be possible for him to escape.


    Saleen rxedpletely after realizing that there was no immediate threat to his life. He was high in the air with the Violet Angel beneath his feet. He was already a level-13 grandmaster and was no longer a mage trainer. He was able to tell a thing or two about the rules of the new world. He hardly felt any resistance when they passed through that river, crossing it easily.


    It was only when they came to the mountainside that Saleen realized that the mountains had be taller. Despite the Violet Angel¡¯s best efforts to climb in altitude, they were still unable to reach the other side even after several hours had passed.


    Exasperated, Saleen said, ¡°I¡¯m Mage Saleen. I¡¯vee to seek an audience with you.¡±


    ¡°Come up then.¡±


    As the sky brightened, Saleen spotted a tall stone tablet with some written names on it. The contracts of the past were no longer there.


    The Violet Angelid prostrate before the tablet while Saleen listened to the Goddess of Myers. ¡°That is the divine grave. The angels who followed me ages ago rested there. I havee alive, but they...¡±


    She didn¡¯t continue but instead opened the temple gates.


    Saleen had the Violet Angel wait outside while he took Rafel and entered the temple of the goddess.


    Everything inside had changed. The first thing he saw was Myers. She was standing next to a table, looking at the projections on top of it.


    Myers looked just like she did in the murals. She was wearing a light dress, and her hair fell loosely behind her shoulders. She was barefoot. Apart from a red wooden bangle, her arms were bare.


    Rafel stood at the gates but didn¡¯t dare enter. She was still fearful of gods. If the Goddess of Myers became hostile, she would have risked her life and barged in anyway. From the look of things, though, it seemed that Myers only wanted to talk with Saleen. Rafel had no intention of waiting in an area where divine might was at its most powerful.


    Saleen took a couple of paces forward before stopping in front of the table.


    A magic projection was seen on it. Saleen didn¡¯t expect Myers to be able to use magic after her resurrection. Gods did not have magic chords, and the maniption of elements through the power of rules was considered a divine art.


    Is the Goddess of Myers still not a god at the moment? If she¡¯s not, how is she able to make a decree?


    She looked at Saleen¡¯s doubtful expression without bothering to exin anything. She only said, ¡°Thank you, Saleen.¡±


    He had no idea what to do next. He was able to see that there was a divine beast behind the goddess¡¯s back ring at him with angry eyes.


    Yeah. It seems that the beast has divulged everything about me to Myers.


    Since they had nothing more to say to each other, Saleen rested his eyes on the contents of the magic projection instead.


    He was startled by what he saw: The two-meter-square magic projection on the table was a three-dimensional map of Myers Maind. The map was extremelypressed. Everything, from the atmosphere way above thend to magma flowing deep underground, was seen from within. The width of the map was such that even the nations of the East Sea were visible from inside.


    The only reason Saleen was able to sense those details was that he was watching from above. His power of soul at the moment probably would not have allowed him to see them otherwise.


    Being that Saleen knew what the projection was, the goddess smiled slyly and said, ¡°What happened to your bonded creatures? Why aren¡¯t they here?¡±


    Saleen shrugged and said, ¡°This is between you and me.¡±


    The goddess was momentarily dumbfounded before nodding and saying, ¡°It is indeed between us, Saleen. You took many things from me and then you resurrected me. In truth, I suffered no loss. But then again, you destroyed many temples of mine just to gain the luck I left behind. Wouldn¡¯t that be...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m of the highest priority. Resurrecting youes in second ce,¡± Saleen answered,ying his thoughts bare.


    Because of the effects of his lightning territory, the divine might barely exist in him. As such, whatever Saleen intended to say would have never fallen under the goddess¡¯s influence.


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen what a god can do, and yet you still have an attitude. Sigh...¡± The goddess sighed but did not seem at all irked.


    ¡°You were a mage once.¡± Saleen did not say more. He knew the goddess understood what he meant by that remark.


    ¡°Indeed. I was once a mage, which is why I intend to spare you.¡± While the goddess remained smiling when she said that, Saleen felt a chill nheless.


    He knew that his ying of the two oracles was probably not something he could hide anymore. There was a reason Myers brought his bonded creatures up right away. It was easier, to be frank when talking to gods.


    ¡°What would you need me to do?¡± asked Saleen.


    ¡°Unify the maind.¡±


    ¡°And then?¡±


    ¡°And then you get lost,¡± the goddess cursed at him while still smiling.


    ¡°What would I be able to take with me?¡±


    ¡°Your wife and children.¡±


    ¡°What happens if the Lord of Glory advents?¡±


    ¡°Bring him to the Imperial City of the Abyss.¡±


    Saleen felt as if there were no secrets between the two of them. He then asked, ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t you do it yourself?¡±


    ¡°Because you¡¯re an assh*l* for destroying the piece of divine persona I left behind. I¡¯ll need to buy time before I can return to my full strength.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you leave that for me?¡± Saleen asked in doubt.


    The goddess continued with an exasperated expression and said, ¡°Who the hell would have expected a mage at your level to be able to break a divine persona?¡±


    Saleen nodded and asked, ¡°And if I refuse?¡±


    The goddess answered, ¡°Beats me. It¡¯s too much of a hassle to get rid of you. But then again, you have a family and a country to run. Do you really need to go against me?¡±


    Saleen was at a loss for words. It was true that while the goddess would not have bothered to do anything against him, there was no telling what she would have done if she were to really get angry. His country, his wives, his children, his followers and thousands of nobles would have had to suffer the consequences of his actions.


    Why is there a need for me to go against Myers?


    ¡°I need power,¡± Saleen said without beating around the bush.


    ¡°I¡¯m not giving you a divine persona,¡± Myers answered.


    ¡°Give me time. I¡¯ll train on my own!¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t bother to spend that much of my power. Altering the flow of time is something that could only be done by expending the divine persona. The power of time isn¡¯t as simple as you thought it to be. That would be like going against the rules of the crystal wall system.¡± The goddess refused adamantly. Saleen was starting to understand her negotiating limits.


    ¡°What¡¯s in it for me then?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°I¡¯d help the three of your weapon spirits advance to be demigods. When the rules of Myers Maind loosen up, you¡¯ll be able to unleash their powers and take on the Lord of Glory.¡± Myers was unwilling to help Saleen advance, but she was willing to give three broken pieces of divine persona to make the three powerful weapon spirits into demigods.


    By doing so, the three demigods would gain the power to resist the Lord of Glory. As long as Saleen was able to clean up the remnants of the Holy See, the Lord of Glory would have only been able to use the lowest of level-15 powers instead of the highest when he was ready to advent on Myers Maind.


    ¡°I won¡¯t be able to sign a contract then.¡±


    ¡°No problem,¡± the goddess answered swiftly, and she looked rather smug about it.


    Saleen was stunned but quickly realized that the goddess had no intention to continue signing contracts with him. As long as the contract had no stipted time limit, then there would be no need for him to fulfill the contract. In that case, the goddess wouldn¡¯t be able to use the contract against him. If she were to set a time limit, it would be as if she was forcing him to do her bidding. Consequently, the conditions offered would note cheap.


    In Myers¡¯s point of view, the act of not signing a contract with him was precisely what would have limited his actions.


    Saleen was unable to assess the goddess¡¯s current level, so to be on the safe side he decided not to make any moves against her.


    The goddess looked at Saleen¡¯s expression, and then said with a smile, ¡°If you don¡¯t like what you¡¯re getting now, you could try to test with your most powerful attack to see if you can actually take me on.¡±


    Saleen shook his head and said, ¡°I no longer want to kill you now. If I seeded, I might regret it.¡±


    ¡°How about I keep my hands to myself then?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s family badge had already hovered above his Thunder Dragon Bangle right after the goddess finished talking. A thick bolt of electrical discharge was fired at her.


    Saleen was unwilling to kill Myers. At least, that was what he thought at the moment. He had taken the Cemetery of Heroes into consideration and felt that if he were to shake off the heroes¡¯ pestering efforts, the goddess would have served as the key.


    Despite this, Saleen fired his strongest salvo at her without holding back.


    His family badge, after having been worked on, could fire electrical bolts over 100 times more powerful than before. He then roared using Thundering Explosion. He deemed it necessary to do so regardless of how he was able to interfere with the goddess¡¯s senses.


    He gave it his all right there and then. Sess depended entirely on luck.


    The goddess smirked at Saleen. A mirror appeared right in front of her. It was amon magic spell¡ªMirror.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning bolt was immediately reflected without problems. Saleen disappeared from where he stood. The looming threat to his life allowed him to evade the reflected attack.


    The wall behind Saleen had a hole with a diameter of over four meters. The edge of the hole had already crystallized.

 Chapter 1452: Weak (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1452: Weak (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen did not fire more than one lightning icicle. The Goddess of Myers was not someone that he would have been able to take on after all. The lightning icicle, controlled by Saleen, fired turned around and stuck inside the wall on the other side.


    He saw that there were also lightning magic patterns on the spell reflected by the water mirror.


    That lightning magic patterns were iplete, or rather, the goddess was unable to grasp the true nature within, but they were nheless enough to reflect his attacks. The mirror was at least able to stay intact when hit by his lightning attack andplete the counterattack.


    ¡°Too weak.¡± The goddess shook her head. Her hair billowed gently, while Saleen felt his heart sank to rock bottom.


    It was as he had expected¡ªthe goddess was unable to bring much of her powers to bear. She was probably unable to even get to level 13 at the moment. However, even at such a level, she had nheless stopped his strongest attack with one simple magic, and posed a lethal threat to his life.


    ¡°I¡¯m indeed too weak still. How should I fight the Lord of Glory like this then?¡±


    ¡°Heh. Oh Saleen, that thing called the Lord of Glory could have trained for hundreds of millions of years more, and he still wouldn¡¯t be able to reach my former height. Are you seriouslyparing me with him?¡±


    ¡°I dare not do so.¡±


    ¡°Hngh. Very well. I¡¯ll give you something,¡± the Goddess of Myers said and took out three scrolls from her red bangle. All three scrolls were green and were only as wide as the palm of his hand.


    ¡°These are scrolls that I made in the past for my followers. You could use them, since you possess the power of the soul. Three level 18 magic spells, more than enough for you to kill the Lord of Glory. From what I know about gods like him, he would keep sending out doubles at you. Just be careful and don¡¯t get yourself killed by those doubles, and you would get your chance to kill him outright and personal.¡±


    Saleen was feeling doubtful and the goddess continued, ¡°You see that stone tablet at the gates? The ones who had followed me ages ago had their souls inside. I intend to maintain that thing and as such, I won¡¯t be leaving any time soon.¡±


    Saleen took the scrolls that were hovering towards him. Ancient script was written on the scrolls and Saleen was unable to read them, but he nheless felt a resonance of power from his Ring of Cosmos.


    It seemed that those scrolls were also powers from another crystal wall system. They were indeed terrifying, for being things that would have allowed him to cast level 18 magic, despite his current level. He was finally able to make his way to the ck Dungeon with those things on his person.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about using those scrolls on anyone else. The power of the Lord of Glory is far greater than that of your own. You¡¯d probably need to cast three level 18 magic spells before having a chance to trap him. He would have been able to escape otherwise.¡± The goddess seemed to have read Saleen¡¯s mind. She had tested him and found that he was not as powerful, as she had expected him to be after all.


    The Lord of Glory was nheless still a level 15 god. If he were to advent personally, Saleen would have definitely ended up dead, if he were to be unable to get a lock-on on him with a level 18 magic spell.


    All three scrolls were meant for protection. If he were to use them on others, there would have been no way for Myers to grant Saleen higher powers for the time being.


    Mages needed to work methodically. Even the likes of Jason needed to advance one level at a time. It was utterly impossible for him to just jump straight to level 15.


    The goddess was genuinely exasperated from the bottom of her heart, when she said that Saleen was weak. He was utterly incapable of targeting her and with that, there was definitely no way for him to target the Lord of Glory as well. She was unable to leave the ce still, and she was unable to bring herself to forsake those who had followed her when she achieved godhood, just for the sake of one level 15 god.


    As she passed, those followers went into slumber in the divine grave as well.


    The goddess then said after Saleen took the scrolls, ¡°What are you standing there for? Are you thinking of keeping mepany here?¡±


    Saleen looked at the empty temple and said, ¡°Umm, this thing...¡±


    He pointed at the goddess¡¯ table. The goddess frowned and said, ¡°You really are out to bag everything, aren¡¯t you? Whatever. You can have it.¡±


    The goddess pointed at the table and sent it flying at Saleen. He dodged and let the table drop into his magic amplifier.


    ¡°Thanks.¡± Saleen smiled and slowly left the goddess¡¯ temple.


    The table was not a simple object, as it contained the map of the entire Myers Maind. Complex magic arrays were at the center of the table. The entire tabletop was a three-dimensional magical construct in itself, and one that no contemporary being would have been able to craft. Saleen was unable to look at the extremely dense and detailed magic projection on it without feeling dizzy, let alone actually crafting it.


    The goddess wanted Saleen to unify the entire maind, and in truth, she meant to spread the Nature Faith throughout the ne. If she were to be able to gain power continuously through such means, then she would have been able to quickly resurrect the followers inside the divine grave.


    As a goddess of nature wielding divine powers, it would have been far easier for her to resurrect her followers than the general would have been.


    There were reasons why Saleen wanted that table. The first and foremost was that it allowed him great ease to do battle. He would have been able to monitor each and every corner of the maind using that map. The other reason was that the table contained powerful rules.


    Despite that fact that the table was able to do little other than creating magic projections, the table probably contained level 18 rules nheless, making it the most powerful alchemical product to be found on the maind.


    While mages back in those years had only created such devices for convenience, these devices looked rather insane to people of the current day and age.


    Saleen saw no reason to let such powers go to waste. The table was something that enabled the Goddess of Myers to monitor everything on the maind after all. If Saleen were to just leave it behind, he would have always felt a pair of eyes right behind his shoulders.


    That was a very terrible thing to feel, so Saleen asked to take the table away.


    The goddess understood what Saleen was feeling, so she gave the table to him.


    However, it did not ur to her that, given how Saleen was able to dismantle a divine persona, it would have been entirely possible for him to dismantle the table.


    Saleen knew that the goddess had no intentions of killing him. She only wanted for him to leave the ne when she was done with her. Saleen was relieved, and he had no intentions of returning the table to the goddess. When he was done with it and leave Myers Maind, he would have dismantled the table. That table was more precious than divine personas. The rules contained within would have allowed Saleen to be a mage of the highest level.


    Saleen felt lucky to have decided toe to the temple, after he left the ce. Not only had he been able to acquire a ne map, he also acquired three level 18 magic scrolls. Only mages all those years ago would have been able to craft something so insane.


    However, all three scrolls were single target spells. If a level 18 magic spell were to be used for multiple target attacks, there was probably no way anything within over 10000 kilometers would have been able to survive.


    Even at level 18, mages would not have fought on the maind itself. They would have fought outside the atmosphere, where the vacuum areas of their ne would have been.


    Single target magic spells of level 18 would have been something only level 18 gods would have been able to resist. Even if the Lord of Glory were to have godly items on his person, he still would not have been able to deal with it.


    Saleen figured that there was no way he could have listened to the whims of the goddess. He needed to get to ck Dungeon and kill the head warden. He intended to only leave only one scrolls behind for dealing with the Lord of Glory, as taking on the god would have been easier than taking on the head warden after all.


    Saleen knew well how terrifying humans could be. People like the head warden were truly people being thorns at his side.


    Saleen did not leave the Purgatory Dessert right away. He took Rafel with him and left the mountain with the Violet Angel beneath his feet. He took the table out when he came before the gates and took a closer look.


    Checking things out from there probably would not have alerted the powerful ones on the maind.


    Saleen ced his attention at the ck Dungeon Ind. His power of the soul did not allow him to expand the images of the table at the moment, so he let his power of the soul seep into the magic projection and look what was in it.


    It was a costly act, but it was also a safe one.


    Saleen felt as if he had entered a real world. He felt as if he was in his soul form, looking down on the surroundings of ck Dungeon Ind from above. Every single grass and tree on the ind looked extremely intricate. The ones who made the ne map all those years ago were indeed terrifying people.


    Saleen however, had no idea that when one reaches level 18, one thought would have been all it would have taken to scan the entire ne. Equipment like that was made for people of slightly lower levels.


    True level 18 professionals had no need for such tricky devices anymore.


    Saleen tried to control his power of the soul and refrained from doing anything unnecessary. He simply watched with divine crystals held in his hand, enabling him to replenish his power of the soul at any given moment.


    He tailed a ck-robed holy master into apound, and his power of the soul told him that there were at least one level 12 being there. Saleen followed that holy master into thepound. The ce had a simpleyout, but there were many holy prose hidden within the soil beneath.


    Saleen was intrigued by the ce. Such measures probably meant that there was a powerful divine smith around.


    Soil was the most unstable medium and mages hated using them. Even the likes of Saleen, who possessed Water me, did not likeying out magic arrays in soil.


    The divine smith was able to hide the holy prose within the soil and had no fear of erosion from the wind and rain. It was impable control and calction that allowed for such abilities to be realized.


    If that person had not been a believer, Saleen would have liked to make friends with them very much, and talked in great length regarding their respective understanding of alchemy. In truth, not only did divine smiths look into mage equipment, mages would have researched divine smith equipment as well. Both parties had their own strengths, and it was not to say that mages would have definitely been more powerful at alchemy than divine smiths.


    Saleen saw an old man wearing a ck robe, who looked at the ce where Saleen entered, when the ck-robed holy master walk into thepound. The old man then waved and said, ¡°Get out of my sight. Leave me alone. If you have business with the Holy City, go to the head warden.¡±


    Saleen was surprised. The ne map that he acquired did not allow him to send his soul into the ck Dungeon Ind. It simply allowed his power of the soul to probe into what was essentially magic illusions. Yet, that divine smith is actually able to detect my presence?


    That ck-robed holy master was obviously very fearful of that old man. They quickly bowed and left. The old man did not let up right there and then. However, his finger was pointed at Saleen¡¯s direction when he scolded, ¡°Get lost. My ce does not wee outsiders.¡±


    That ck-robed mage left in a hurry. Saleen confirmed that the old man had indeed able to detect his presence. However, since the old man was unable to see Saleen¡¯s form, he was only able to keep scolding.


    Seems like all manner of peculiar people could be found in this world. Not even such a powerful equipment had been able to mask my presence after all.


    Saleen turned around and left, hearing the old man smirking coldly behind his back, saying, ¡°The Pivotal Council eh? A bunch of good-for-nothings. They are all better off dead and destroyed. The Lord of Glory better not show up here. The Goddess of Myers would have just made short work of him after all.¡±


    The old man actually said something so sphemous on ck Dungeon Ind.

 Chapter 1453: Target, Black Dungeon (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1453: Target, ck Dungeon (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen listened to what that old man said and knew that he was anything but a devout believer. However, that old man was actually formidable, as he was already at the pinnacle of level 12.


    The rules at ck Dungeon Ind seemed to have been somewhat looser than that of the entire maind, making advancementparatively easy.


    Saleen pulled his power of the soul out from thatpound and stopped his observation. He did not try to try to find the head warden, and had simply scanned the area of the entire ck Dungeon Ind for a bit, memorizing the terrain and all dangerous spots to be found there.


    Rafel looked at Saleen with a concerned look. His eyes were affixed at the spectral imagery and had been standing there like a log for half an hour.


    It was incredibly rare to see Saleen standing for half an hour without flinching at all. Rafel was worried if anything had happened to Saleen. She too, knew that the table was something very terrifying. At the very least, as a god creature, she would not have dared to try to use it herself.


    Saleen observed the ck Dungeon Ind. The goddess peered far away from the corridor on the mountain.


    That divine beast, which had grown all of a sudden,id silently by the goddess¡¯ side.


    A hint of lethargy was seen in the goddess¡¯ eyes. She asked without even turning her head around, ¡°Tell me, Wurin. Would that mage obey me?¡±


    The divine beast shook its head. It did not like to speak, as it hurt its throat.


    Myers sighed. She had already searched the divine beast¡¯s memories regarding Saleen the mage, finding him to be someone difficult to control. There was no way around it, as mages were never people who were easy to control to begin with.


    The only way to control mages was through equivalent exchange.


    For instance, Saleen had over 100 thousand mages serving him. However, other than the appeal of his own powers and forces, he still needed to be of actual benefit to the mages, before they became willing to do his bidding.


    If he were to give them nothing, the mages would have simply left. They would have rather trained on their own and not lift a finger to help him out.


    Myers wanted to kill Saleen very much, but he knew that if he were to do so, that her own religion would have soon crumbled. It was a bad deal.


    The goddess took out a wooden figure from her red bangle at that thought, having it hover in the air. She poked at the wooden figure¡¯s brow with her slender finger. The wooden figure¡¯s eyes spun and leapt from the air to the ground, turning to look like the goddess itself.


    ¡°Wurin, bring my figure double with you and make a trip to the imperial city. Check the cemetery of those heroes for a bit.¡± The goddess ordered. Saleen had been to the Imperial City of the Abyss and he brought the divine beast with him when he was there. However, the Imperial City of the Abyss shut many things out, preventing her from extracting any images from the divine beast¡¯s memory.


    She needed to have her own figure double check things out personally, before she was able to find out what the state of that cemetery had been.


    She was a god, and there was nothing else she could have done to mend the rtionship between her and her old friends. If they were to see them again, they would have met as enemies.


    I wonder if those people...


    The Goddess of Myers sighed yet again. She never thought that bing a god would have brought such catastrophic consequences to the maind itself. It was not wrong for those people to want her dead. However, she was already doing all she was able to, in order to fix things. Furthermore, she deemed that her life and death had to be decided by her own hands, instead of by the decisions of others.


    Even if she were at fault, she would have only epted being put to sleep yet again. She would have never considered being killed by others.


    Furthermore, the state that those former friends of hers were in, probably meant that they would have wanted to eat her. Heh. Heroes, what a joke!


    Wurin, the divine beast,id t on the ground and let the figure double of the goddess rode on its back, before flying away. The goddess became the only being left in the temple.


    It was only then that she took out a sphere and threw it into the air. The sphere was a hollowed out metal construct, shining when it hovered before the goddess, forming spectral imagery.


    It was a ne map of even higher level. The ces that it controlled far exceeded the table that Saleen took away.


    I knew that guy was greedy. The goddess smirked and looked rather gleeful like a little girl. She knew what Saleen was like from the divine beast. He would have definitely wanted things from her before leaving. As such, the goddess ced the table around and made a show of looking into it, prompting Saleen to ask for the table.


    However, it never urred to Myers that while the ne map that she was currently using was of higher level, that table was nheless a level 18 equipment and furthermore, one that allowed for lowered requirements when used. Saleen did not actually lose anything.


    After she was resurrected, she was only able to use the things she had in her bangle. All equipment found within were of level 18. There was not even a single piece that was of lower level.


    The goddess would have never bothered with such calctions. While level 18 equipment was still rare even in ancient times, but someone like her would have been able to take any that she fancied without problems. As such, the goddess thought that she was the one who had one-upped Saleen, that her calctions worked.


    If Saleen were to know what was going on in the goddess¡¯ head, he would have definitely died ofughter. He would have never felt regretful or vexed of not being able to get better equipment for himself. Such requests would have been best if he was able to get what he asked for, yet it did not matter at all if he was unable to get anything still.


    Saleen had to face the Lord of Glory one way or another. Even if the Goddess of Myers were to refuse helping him, there was still no way the Lord of Glory would have spared him.


    Rafel saw Saleen turning around and putting the table away. She then asked, ¡°My lord, are we going to head to the ck Dungeon?¡±


    ¡°We shall wait for a bit. I need to get some preparations done. Let¡¯s head back to Nature City.¡± Saleen had three level 18 scrolls with him, giving him a good bit of confidence in killing the head warden. However, he knew that if the head warden were to be of the same level with the Lord of Glory, then he would not have been able to target him. He would have had to use all three scrolls, if he were to have a shot at taking out someone of such high level.


    As such, he needed to bring ample numbers of holy masters with him before heading to the ck Dungeon Ind, as well as some equipment that he had acquired in the past.


    Those equipment were left behind to collect dust because no one had been able to use them. From the current looks of things, however, Rafel seemed to be the one capable of using them.


    Saleen left the Floating City behind and let the Violet Angel guard it when he returned to Nature City. He took Rafel, J, Sul and Nichs with him. She did not take Eleanor with him, as she was basically staying with Sika at all times, making her look like a true family member of the Metatrin.


    Saleen no longer needed Eleanor to work for him. Her proficiency at archery was high enough at present, making her capable of standing on her own. It would have done her little good if he were to take her with him out on adventures.


    The Nature City had to be firmly guarded. Saleen left trusted people to guard the ce while he brought the Baldur¡¯s Gate, which had huge number of enchanters living within, as well as Bug Angel Warriors and his demon army.


    Saleen did not depart immediately and had instead created magic maps for everyone. The magic map consisted of only one ce seen on the ne map¡ªthe ck Dungeon.


    Saleen used the power of the Book of Gaia within the Baldur¡¯s Gate, creating a space that looked exactly like the ck Dungeon Ind.


    Every single detail, down to every tree and every de of grass seen, was copied by Saleen.


    The greatest benefit of having advanced to level 13, was that he became able to use the six godly items found within the Baldur¡¯s Gate, inside Baldur¡¯s Gate. His power of the soul hadpletely matured, enabling Saleen to gain new powers to back him up.


    Saleen had everyone, including the troops that he was about to bring to the ck Dungeon Ind, to begin familiarizing themselves with the environment of the ind. He brought holy masters of the Nature Faith inside and let them get familiar with healing the demons.


    While the situation seemed rather awkward, it was fortunate that demons were in the Temple Knights Corps from the very beginning. All within the Nature Faith knew about that, and the believers had little fear of the demons.


    Saleen went on to modify equipment for Rafel. He dared not summon the Winged Skull and Nailisi for the time being. He was still unfamiliar with how the goddess worked. If she were to actually kill off Nailisi and the Winged Skull, there was nothing he could have done to stop her.


    Even if he were to dismantle the Nature Faith, he still would not have been able to just kill off the goddess.


    He was no match for the goddess in a single match as well.


    Saleen had once acquired equipment resembling puppets in the goddess¡¯ temple, but that thing was actually a set of armor. Saleen did not know how to use it back then, and he finally did at the moment. It was something meant for angels.


    The angel armor was something that only angels would have been able to use.


    It would have been rather awkward for Rafel to wear the angel armor of the Goddess of Nature, so he took to doing slight modifications using Water me Alchemy. It had once been something beyond him. As he came to possess the Eye of Souls, Saleen¡¯s Water me Alchemy became something else altogether, enabling him to modify intricate equipment without making them lose their original attributes.


    Saleen reworked Rafel¡¯s spear as well. It was rather unsuitable for her to continue using the divine powers of the goddess after all. Saleen took out six level 18 elementite with great reluctance and crafted elemental conversion arrays on it, enabling her to convert the divine powers in the spear into something suitable for her own use.


    The so-called divine powers were actually apounded version of elemental powers. Saleen¡¯s act was actually rather wasteful, as the only benefit that came from it was lengthening Rafel¡¯sbat duration, preventing the case of sucking her stamina dry with just a single move, like it had been in the past.


    The spear finally had a name as well¡ªSilverline.


    That was a name given to it by Rafel. Saleen felt toozy to name her gear for her. Both the Silverline and the Inferno were Rafel¡¯s main weapons. Saleen did not forget to install a Thunder Dragon ster on Rafel¡¯s angel armor.


    Saleen¡¯s own Thunder Dragon ster was very powerful, but all other counterparts had their fired lightning icicles severely weakened, in terms of lightning attributes in them, because of ack of ample Thunder Dragon bones. The one that Rafel carried with her was different. Saleen usedrge number of high level Thunder Dragon bones to craft the weapon, enabling it to break a good many types of energy shields.


    Unless it was to go against the likes of the Goddess of Myers, who mastered many rules, it would have been best otherwise to simply evade such attacks, or block the attacks using godly items.


    The Violet Angel did not like the fact that Saleen did not bring it with him. It looked for Saleen again and again, even pleading in tears in hopes of fighting by Saleen¡¯s side.


    Saleen agreed to it in exasperation. He needed to work on his family badge and had little time to spend dealing with that thing.


    The Violet Angel was overjoyed. As the Floating City was effectively controlled by the God of Magic Net, it served little more than a makeshiftmander at times. It thought that it was better to be at Saleen¡¯s side, as it would have meant that it was able to stay near Rafel.


    Saleen spared no time himself. The believers of the Nature Faith had began cleaning up the entire Tanggsi Empire.


    He did not give the order to attack the empire¡¯s capital and the emperor did not surrender as well, seemingly knowing what Saleen was thinking.


    All believers of the Nature Faith stopped hundreds of kilometers outside of the capital, letting the regime maintain thest bit of dignity it had.

 Chapter 1454: Target, Black Dungeon (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1454: Target, ck Dungeon (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen had no intention of leaving any bit of dignity to the Tanggsi royal family. The reason he didn¡¯t attack was to make sure the conquest of Nature Faithcked the final bit of legality to it.


    When the four empires signed the treaty all those years ago, it was stipted that they were to not attack each other. With the Tanggsi royalty staying intact, it served as proof of the empire¡¯s continued existence. If the other three empires showed up or picked up anything left in the empire, Saleen would have been allowed to destroy them.


    While such reasoning was of negligible use to powerful beings, it was truth to the tens of millions ofmon folk out there.


    Saleen had little idea of what it would have entailed maintaining such notions of so-called justice. But from the perspective of fate, it was reasonable to do so. Having thousands of worshipers would have allowed him to gain power. In contrast, having thousands of detractors would have been damaging one way or another.


    There had been tyrants in the history of the Tanggsi Empire, and every single one of them suffered a gruesome end. Furthermore, every single one of those tyrants died baffling deaths. Some went insane and did self-harm; others had gotten their souls split when they were training. There were even emperors who were set up by their sons.


    Saleen had no intention of being yed by fate. He maintained bnce at all times, which is what mages were supposed to do.


    It wasn¡¯t until spring that Saleen and Rafel both stepped onto the golden dragon form taken by the Violet Angel and headed to the ck Dungeon Ind. The ind had always been an independent ce within the empire¡¯s vicinity. Saleen did not mobilize his navy, as he did not want to see his fleet be sunk without a good reason. There were many difficult obstacles incapable of being crossed naturally around the ck Dungeon Ind, and changes urred often.


    Saleen had no intention of observing slowly. He came to possess the Baldur¡¯s Gate and it would have sufficed if he were able to fly past those obstacles.


    Meanwhile, the Violet Angel gained an irritating w at present¡ªit became chatty. Of course, it didn¡¯t dare bother Rafel, so it turned its attention on Saleen. Yak, yak, yak. Nothing else mattered to it, so long as it could hear Rafel¡¯s voice.


    The Violet Angel, however, did not know that Rafel was steeped in training and unable to pay any attention to what it was saying. The angel armor was something the gods had crafted for their angels. Saleen¡¯s modifications caused a slight drop in its attributes, but Rafel liked the end product very much.


    All the armor¡¯s many externally attached weapons were capable of ranged attacks and packed a devastating punch. Angels had always beenbat weapons; they used their armor when charging into battlefields.


    Not even gods would have been able to easily prate such armor.


    J¡¯s and Sul¡¯s getup was simple and straightforward. They both used weapons Saleen had crafted for them long ago. Their armor, however, waspletely changed. Level-12 true mights were of the highest levels and did not need armor. However, there were simply too many holy masters on ck Dungeon Ind, especially those from the Tribunal, who were better versed in prophecy spells than anything else.


    The prophecy spells of the Tribunal leaned toward curses. Regardless of the power of the sword aura of a true might, it would have been affected just the same.


    Even the likes of the Lord of Glory¡¯s double had been unlucky enough to be hit by a lesser prophecy spell, losing the best chance to get at Saleen, let alone true mights.


    Both sets of armor had been crafted by Saleen specifically for two of his followers. In preparation for the work, Saleen spent nearly half a month observing the two true mights with the Eye of Souls just to be able to craft a customized fit. He had detailed knowledge of his followers¡¯ bone structure, sword auras, habits and so on. Thanks to Saleen¡¯s superior design, neither follower felt weighed down by the armor. On the contrary, they felt as if they were wearing normal clothing, and their movements were unhindered in the slightest.


    Those were the perks of working with mages. A purchased set of magic armor would never have provided such ease of movement orfort. Some warriors were even forced to change certain habits just to conform to their armor¡¯s powerful attributes. The pros and cons were known only to those warriors themselves.


    Some warriors even had their rate of advancement dyed because of having to change certain habits. It had always been harder for warriors to advancepared to mages. The downside of magic armors was easily seen in such cases.


    Saleen observed both his followers using the Eye of Souls for over a dozen days continuously. It was not something conventional mages would have been capable of doing. His Eye of Soul skill had reached the pinnacle state of level-15. Additional changes would have resulted in the skill¡¯s advancement to the next stage.


    And what stage was that? The All-seeing Eye, an ability above level-16.


    The Violet Angel babbled away throughout the journey, boring Saleen to tears and setting his teeth on edge. They finally reached the shore at a leisurely pace. Everything across the sea was pitch ck, so stifling.


    Saleen and his people didn¡¯t bother concealing their presence. The people at the shore had long seen a golden dragon flying their way. Four were standing on the back of that dragon. One wore thick, huge armor and was over five meters tall while the other three were a mage and two swordsmen.


    Precious few people knew it was the Violet Angel who had taken a golden dragon¡¯s form. The wardens of the Tribunal were terrified seeing a golden dragon heading their way. Such high-level beings were practically immune to curses and prophecy spells, as well as to divine spells and physical attacks. That was why the dragon ne was the one ce the gods were most reluctant to visit.


    It would be frustrating and vexing if an enemy could nullify over half one¡¯s skills and reduce the remaining ones¡¯ powers by half. Everyone knew about such reasoning, so when they wardens saw the golden dragon approaching, they hid in the fortresses.


    There were few fortresses to protect a harbor, a passage linking the ck Dungeon and the Tribunal. There was also a sea route several hundred meters wide allowing safe ess for ships. It was an effect from divine-rune charm arrays set up by holy masters several generations ago.


    Saleen looked down on those fortresses and found all of them to be unnervingly sturdy. They appeared to have been around for over a thousand years. He was in no mood to deal with small fries. Instead, he told the Violet Angel to fly past the narrow pathway.


    The closest distance from where they were to the ck Dungeon Ind was nearly 20 kilometers away. Even J and the others had already been able to make out the silhouette of the ind, let alone Saleen, who possessed the Eye of Souls.


    Pitch ck¡ªthat¡¯s how the ind was. The ck Dungeon Ind was intensely ck. The color seemed to absorb light altogether, or something conjured using a dark element.


    Saleen¡¯s heart skipped a beat at that thought: An ind made of a dark element?


    That was just a figure of speech. To put it precisely, there was a dark element pathway there, or something was linking it to another ne, maybe even linking it to the legendary dark element space.


    But why wasn¡¯t that indicated on the ne map?


    Saleen had the Violet Angel dive into the water. He had no intention of dropping from the sky onto the ind. He nned to proceed ording to the traits of the ind itself. No, that wouldn¡¯t work.


    The sea route they took was the safest. Saleen came to an undersea area about 1,000 meters away from the ind, finding a nd and cing the Baldur¡¯s Gate. Yellow light burst forth, a result of the Book of Gaia¡¯s power.


    The front of the gate extended right to the shore, with a t, smooth pathwayid out.


    That had been Saleen¡¯s n. All his troops brought there were capable of flight and underwater battles. There was no safe haven on the ck Dungeon Ind. Any nds were ces where divine-spell attacks could be bombarded from all sides.


    Saleen dared not to be reckless anymore. Rafel told him before that the wars among gods were the bloodiest. No restrictions were ced on the divine arts used. With the help of the gods, the angels andmon god creatures practically flooded everywhere they went with all manner of divine arts, leaving no angle or corner of the battlefields left out.


    Six godly items were found in the Baldur¡¯s Gate: the Book of Gaia, the Well of Stars, the Dimensional Staff, the Scorching Candle, the Deathly Night, and the Tears of Light.


    Saleen could use all of them, thanks to help from Juno, the weapon spirit of the Baldur¡¯s Gate. Even some extra functions gave Saleen a variety of options inying out his tactics.


    At the very least, the vicinity within a kilometer radius from the Baldur¡¯s Gate was within the godly item¡¯s range of attack, preventing them from being attacked when they were on the run. The only downside was this: Baldur¡¯s Gate could be moved when in use and had to be put somewhere safe.


    The ce where Saleen put the gate was such that if anything went south, that ce would be the first one he would have run to. With the help of Juno and the six godly items, Saleen would have been able to resist attacks from the Lord of Glory¡¯s double using the Baldur¡¯s Gate alone.


    That was why Saleen had to use the scroll to execute the head warden. The rate of advancement of the Lord of Glory would have been far slower than that of the head warden. If the head warden were given ample time to train, he would have probably grown even more powerful than the Lord of Glory just little more than a hundred yearster.


    Human potential exceeded the gods¡¯ potential. This meant that Saleen had to take the human out of the picture before dealing with gods. He was not doing so intending to try to snuff out geniuses. The head warden was his arch-enemy. He needed to get rid of his enemies as soon as possible, starting with the strongest ones.


    The head warden was the strongest enemy Saleen had on that ne. Taking him out would allow Saleen to advance in peace, to learn the skills in the Book of Lightning, to work on the six godly items, and to upgrade the Thunder Dragon ster. By the time he reached level-15, he would be able to take control of the three weapon spirits, and that¡¯s when he nned on heading to the cemetery of the giant to take the Lightning Moon for himself.


    By the time he had gotten the Lightning Moon in his hands, Saleen believed that even the likes of the Goddess of Myers wouldn¡¯t be able to reflect his skills anymore.


    He had asting impression of the Lightning Moon¡¯s effects. All those gods more powerful than the Lord of Glory were imprisoned by the moon for over 10,000 years; not a one had been able to escape.


    Saleen gathered his forces afterying everything down, leading them to charge outside the gate andnd on the ck Dungeon Ind.


    The ind¡¯s strengthy not in its massive number of wardens but the astonishing number of holy masters. Every single prisoner there was also extremely difficult to deal with. Had the ce been amon prison, unlocking the cells would have been a decent tactic. On the ck Dungeon Ind, however, anyone who seeded in unlocking the cells would be brutally killed by those locked inside.


    It was the first time the demon armynded on the ck Dungeon Ind. The demons, which were all over five meters in height, wore Devil Possession Armors forged in the Floating City and held huge battleaxes. Their steps sounded like roars of thunder as they charged at the shores in neat formations.


    No enemy was found at the shores. Tens of ck-robed holy masters witnessed the scene from a nearby hill. They were shocked. How had such a powerful army seeded in getting so far their turf?


    Every soldier was of level-9bat prowess. While the soldiers were not as insanely powerful as golden grand swordmasters, the dreadful news was that they were just foot soldiers.

 Chapter 1455: Black Dungeon City (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1455: ck Dungeon City (Part 1)</h4>


    Of course, there was no way for every demon serving Saleen to be of level-9. Only the supreme demons and a handful of demons had reached this level. Level-10 demons were fewer in number. The amplification of theirbat prowess was due to the Devil Possession Armors.


    At first, the demons were in awe. Then they cackled, saying, ¡°The head warden was right. This ce is going to be invaded. Now we can use all those contraptionsid beforehand.¡±


    The leading holy master gave the order.


    ¡°Yes, sir!¡±


    The wardens acknowledged him and activated the divine-rune charm arrays at the beach.


    As gray light burst from the arrays, all 10,000 demons were struck by the beams. But...


    None of them fell.


    The holy masters were baffled by what they saw with their very eyes. How could that be? The Great Prophecy Spell Arrays were the only divine-rune charm arrays in the Holy See capable of using prophecy spells in a concentrated manner. They could only be used in a special environment like the ck Dungeon Ind with a 30 percent sess rate.


    Such high prophetic abilities! ording to conventional calctions, even if all 10,000 of those invaders were extremely lucky, at least 3,000 or so would have perished.


    Suddenly they were struck by silver beams. Roar! None of the demons was felled by the curses being hurled at them. The armor they were wearing had been crafted by Saleen. That was, of course, referring to the lightning-magic patterns on the armor.


    Saleen discovered that those patterns were probably the best method for defending against prophecy spells.


    If the level of the spell was the same as the target, the prophecy spells would have been nullified by the lightning-magic patterns. All demons wore level-9 magic armor. Be it the prophecy spells or the curses, they were only at about level-7 because of the multiple-target spells fired from arrays.


    While those spells were terrifying, it was still impossible for them to break the lightning-magic patterns¡¯ protection.


    Saleen had done detailed research into Tribunal tactics. For every bit of information he gathered, he had more than 100 thousand enchanters do calctions on them over and over. Saleen had long been prepared to deal with such attacks.


    It was usually challenging to ce arrays of any kind in the sand, which would have caused them to break easily. But Saleen caught sight of the divine-rune charm array embedded in the soil for prolonged periods in that divine smith¡¯spound.


    Although the soil was less shifty, its stability was even poorer than sand.


    Saleen had prepared mightily. He first let the high-level demons storm the beach wearing Devil Possession Armors, triggering attacks from the divine-rune charm arrays before sending in the star figures and ancient warriors.


    As for the ancient warriors, he saw them in a different light and was no longer concerned about their loss. Those people had died a long time ago and their souls were in fragments. Thebined powers of the ancient warriors would have far exceeded those of golden grand swordmasters.


    Those people were little more than level-9 beings, after all.


    Although Saleen had sympathy for them, he had to use whatever means were avable to him. He presented the ck Dungeon Ind as the final battlefield after discovering that he had no way of saving their souls.


    ck clouds hovered above the ind. Untold numbers of flying magic beasts were inside but all were illusions. Therge illusion originated from the core of the ck Dungeon Ind, an extinct volcano.


    The power emanating from that location was more potent than Saleen¡¯s family badge. What was even more terrifying was that the power was controlled by others. Despite being illusions, those beings in the sky were capable of solid attacks.


    If Saleen had brought the Floating City there, the ce would have been attacked.


    He had been observing the many changes to the ck Dungeon Ind, due to having possessed a ne map. That was why he brought the Baldur¡¯s Gate and attacked from the waters instead.


    Be it divine or magic spells, once the battle was taken to the ground, it would be a matter of personal strength, withbatants shing head-on with each other.


    The demon army marched forward and took the entire beach. Theyid down a line of defense and stopped advancing, waiting for the forces from the rear.


    Saleen was surprised that the wardens did not emerge to stop them, which meant that he would have had an easier time initiating the battle.


    Riding on the Violet Angel, he and Rafel disembarked at the forefront of the battlefield.


    ¡°Rafel, you¡¯re in charge of the fighting now,¡± Saleen said and took off. He hovered high in the sky and looked down on the battlefield. He was simply keeping a close eye on enemy movements. If the head warden showed up, he would have had to take him out personally; no one else was capable of doing that.


    ¡°Yes, my lord,¡± Rafel was behaving unusually respectfully toward Saleen. She was born with a mission to fight wars. She had great respect for the act ofbat.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s golden dragon form stood instead of lying prostrate, its head held high, proudly looking at the ridges in the distance. A group of holy masters was there too, but none dared toe near the dragon.


    The forces behind the demons arrived soon enough, consisting of Bug Angel Warriors and some low-level elemental creatures.


    After different troops mixed with the demon army and reorganized, Rafel summoned someone to her side¡ªGusion, who hardly spent any time with Saleen.


    Because of talent or advancing toote, he was only at level-11 of powers at present. But that was more than enough. As a military officer, level 11-beings were capable of leading 1,000 people even in ancient times.


    The ones serving Gusion were not from the Dragonyer Army but were an army of puppets assigned by Saleen.


    They were weaker than usual, mainly because they had no magic perpetual-motion engines installed in them. That also prevented them from going crazy and taking out allies.


    The puppet army was thest to get to shore and was put in front of the demon army. Gusionmanded them alone, wielding a Dragon ughtering War g over seven meters long.


    A huge war drum appeared before Rafel. It was the War Drum of Fear.


    She wielded the bone hammer and beat on the drum, signaling the start of the battle.


    One beat on the drum resulted in massive casualties among the thousands of wardensying in ambush in the woods. Most had gone crazy and attacked anyone around them they could find. Others cowered in fear, with those remaining running in fear. But were quickly in by the wardens who went crazy.


    Among the wardens were more than 100 ck-robed holy masters. Although all possessed powerful equipment, they were unable to use it before having the weakest parts of their minds attacked directly by the drum.


    ¡°Attack ording to n,¡± Rafel shouted to Gusion. He nodded in response. He rode a steed himself, an earth dragon incapable of flight. It was also of a breed that was closely rted to the true dragons,pliments of Saleen. Thebat prowess of that earth dragon wasparable to that of Gusion himself.


    Gusion waved the Dragon ughtering War g for a bit. The puppets behind him then marched with him.


    Saleen didn¡¯t waste the wealth he had obtained in Alchemy City. He used it all in his army. Rearming and reorganizing his troops were shortcuts for mages to advance. Only during wartime did they get opportunities to practice their craft.


    Crafting armors went without saying. The crafting of the puppet armies had been more than enough to enable the advancement of thousands of mages.


    The Violet Angel held its head high and walked proudly while being ridden by Rafel as they headed toward the center of the ck Dungeon Ind. The ce was vast, itsndmass spanning a radius of thousands of kilometers. If they had proceeded with their attacks just like that, they still wouldn¡¯t have made it to the central region even after a fortnight.


    Saleen saw the retreating enemy in the distant ridges. He smirked coldly. There were a few scouts out to see what his forces were capable of. He saw no need to let them leave alive.


    The magic amplifier behind his back emerged. The Thunder Dragon ster fired lightning icicles from the core at the holy masters over a dozen kilometers away.


    Seven icicles were fired once, and seven volleys were fired back. Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles were no longer what they once were. He fired them quickly and in great numbers. Saleen easily killed any target near him.


    Dozens of icicles appeared in an instant at the ridges and all hit their targets. Two holy masters repelled the first wave of attacks only to be killed by the second wave.


    Those people were simply sent to observe and to trigger the divine-rune charm arrays, so they would not have been elites of any kind.


    The ck Dungeon Ind was run ording to a strict hierarchy. None of those people even had the right to enter the core areas. They wereughing a few minutes ago; now they were dead. Those wardens who attempted to flee halted their steps.


    That was because they saw a lone holy master surviving the attack. It was not due to that holy master¡¯s power that their lives were spared but because they didn¡¯t take a single step throughout the onught.


    Saleen¡¯s voice was heard over a dozen kilometers away, saying, ¡°Stay where you are. If you take even half a step, I¡¯ll kill half of you. If I see two of you move, I¡¯ll kill all of you.¡±


    Saleen threatened them without continuing to attack. He was doing that because he realized that those holy masters were allcking in levels. The magic nuclei needed to be expended just by firing the lightning icicles, which were once of far greater value than the targets those icicles hit. Saleen resorted to threats instead because he had to conserve ammunition.


    None of the wardens dared to move after he finished saying what he said.


    Because of high casualties, none of the holy masters was able to ry what they had seen back to their superiors.


    Meanwhile, the puppet army advanced ind. The forces Saleen brought with him on that expedition hardly had any mages among their ranks. An all-magic force did not need aid from mages. Those Bug Angel Warriors were more than capable of shooting Wind des.


    There was also the fact that Saleen had brought many forbidden curse scrolls on that expedition.


    If magic spells were needed, he alone would have had the tactical edge the forces needed.


    Crafting forbidden curse scrolls was considerably difficult. Even Saleen was inadequate in crafting them, so he had to ask Jason to do it. His teacher did not disappoint: He crafted 28 forbidden curse scrolls during the half-year that Saleen waited.


    Making one scroll a week was like craftingmon level-14 scrolls. Saleen was also fortunate in having a lot of starline cloth at his disposal. Level-14 forbidden curse scrolls had exceeded what the starline paper was able to handle. Only starline cloth, which was used for crafting high-level figures, was capable of handling the forbidden curse¡¯s power.


    Other than the 28 forbidden curse scrolls, hundreds of scrolls above level-12 were crafted. While multiple-target spells were not as powerful as forbidden curses and were even considerably weaker than single-target magic spells, in a war scenario those spells were the ones that killed the most people.


    The Bug Angel Warriors finally took flight and spread out to the nks. The ck Dungeon Ind was of thousands of kilometers square and had a city in it. Saleen¡¯s target was thergest city on ck Dungeon Ind that also served as thergest prison¡ªthe ck Dungeon City.

 Chapter 1456: Black Dungeon City (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1456: ck Dungeon City (Part 2)</h4>


    The army advanced 100 kilometers. When it was about 300 kilometers away from the ck Dungeon City, an rm was sounded on the ind.


    Saleen¡¯s army moved slowly. The puppet army at the front was busy breaking traps while Saleen monitored from above. Any traps deemed too difficult to deal with were eliminated by a powerful magic scroll.


    Most of the divine-rune charm arrays on the ind were above level-10, with the highest ones reaching level-13. Disaster would have ensued if the army had walked through suchrge-scale divine-rune charm arrays.


    Saleen wondered why none of the powerful beings hade to face him. And why hadn¡¯t he run into any powerful wardens? Only small teams were left to guard their stations.


    The thingsid at the beach meant that the ind rulers had anticipated his arrival. Saleen didn¡¯t bother concealing anything and had flown all the way there. There were even wardens who had not been cleaned up after catching sight of the golden dragon.


    The Violet Angel was an imposing, dashing figure. The price it paid was that it attracted too much attention.


    Saleen knew an attack of this scale would stay under wraps for an hour at most. One hour wasn¡¯t enough time for his armies to do anything significant, at least not tactically.


    He realized that those in charge probably wanted him to fight them at the ck Dungeon City. It was built on nds, which were rare on the ind, and the terrain was ill-suited for defense. Plus, the city was designed to prevent prisoners from escaping instead of preventing others from getting inside.


    There were 12 prisons in the city. The buildings were designed ording to the terrain; each was sturdier than most magic towers in the world. The magic towers were never built to imprison that many powerful beings.


    The construction of the ck Dungeon was longer than the establishment of the Tanggsi Empire. Prisoners had been locked up from the time of the first head warden¡¯s appointment. The prison poption grew from one to 12 over the years. Some inmates had been incarcerated for more than 1,000 years.


    A few of those powerful beings had even reached level-13 a long time ago, but they still couldn¡¯t escape the ck Dungeon. Generations of head wardens extracted countless secrets from them and in so doing acquired a great many secret arts.


    The closer the ck Dungeon was to the central area, the less affected it became by the rules of Myers Maind. That was not the case with the city, however. Some who intended to escape would have immediately been penalized by the rules of the maind and suffered severe injuries, resulting in their being locked up again.


    The divine-rune charm arrays in the entire ck Dungeon City wereid down ording to the power of rules of Myers Maind.


    Saleen knew the key to it. He had no intention of letting those inmates out, but at present, the heads of the 12 prisons were talking to the inmates.


    ¡°The ck Dungeon Ind will cease to exist and all of you will regain your freedom.¡± The heads told this to the inmates, which caused quite amotion. Although those people had scores to settle with the Tribunal, they yearned for freedom more than anything.


    ¡°We don¡¯t need your repentance or submission. The only thing you need to do is survive armed solely with your abilities.¡± The heads then had the wardens leave the ck Dungeon City after giving the same speech to the inmates they were in charge of.


    One divine-rune charm array after another around the 12 huge prisons disappeared. If Saleen¡¯s army were to advance at conventional speeds, the gates of the prisons would be opened by the time his forces got to the city.


    He couldn¡¯t check on the ne map yet though because he had to be in top fighting form and on guard against ambushes.


    But then again, his Eye of Souls was capable of seeing over 100 kilometers away while he was flying. Suddenly, he spotted an empty ck Dungeon City; only a few divine puppets were left in those tall fortresses.


    The spare crystals on those puppets had even been uninstalled. This meant that their only use was to maintain the divine-rune charm arrays built into the ce, allowing them to disappear naturally without triggering any changes.


    Saleen¡¯s army would be able to make short work of those puppets without any cost.


    So the enemy has retreated? Are they just abandoning the prisons? Faint yellow light emanated from Saleen¡¯s leg. He stood in midair and looked far away, puzzled.


    The Violet Angel flew up to him in an eager-to-please manner. Rafel then asked, ¡°What happened, my lord?¡±


    Saleen thought for a second. His power of the soul was so strong at the moment that he was unafraid of Rafel looking into his secrets. Saleen shared his senses with her in an instant, letting her sense what he had seen.


    ¡°They¡¯ve retreated?¡± Dumbfounded, Rafel quickly added, ¡°My lord, those divine-rune charm arrays were rare soul-sealing arrays in divine arts. They¡¯re quickly disappearing. By the time they are no more, the prisons will be as good as open. Those locked inside will regain their freedom.¡±


    Saleen snickered. Even if he didn¡¯t calcte the time of the divine-rune charm arrays¡¯ disappearance, he would still be able to figure out what the enemy was up to.


    The enemy intended to use the prisoners to hold him back. Were it not for the Eye of Souls, he would have probably fallen into the trap. Those insane prisoners were not people his army would have been able to take on.


    What¡¯s more, he had no enmity against and no scores to settle with those prisoners. They too were enemies of the Holy See. If he simply took charge inside and began ughtering them, he would have been the one who was sick.


    ¡°Rafel, switch to the second route,¡± Saleen said. Rafel tapped her feet and the Violet Angel returned to the ground obediently. Rafel then called Gusion over and spoke to him.


    Gusion waved his g. The puppet army, consisting of tens of thousands of units, turned around and headed south of the ck Dungeon Ind.


    They took a detour around the ck Dungeon City before redirecting to the ck Dungeon Volcano.


    ck Dungeon Ind was surrounded by several smaller inds. Saleen spected that the volcano was where the head warden resided. It was the only ce that was rather blurred, the only ce where his current level of power of the soul was unable to see any details.


    Although the ck Dungeon Volcano was extinct, it was still dangerous to stay inside: All it would have taken is a single forbidden curse to reactivate it.


    But still, the head warden had taken up residence there. Saleen checked his Figure of Fate carefully again. So long as the figure was intact, not even the Lord of Glory would be able to make short work of him.


    All his equipment was in top shape. Saleen checked the three green scrolls as well as a ck one. The ck scroll was a trophy he had gained in battle, a scroll that could be used at any level.


    Saleen was at level-13, and that scroll was a level-15 dark magic.


    That scroll was also thest resort he would have relied upon to keep himself alive. He kept the four scrolls carefully tucked inside the Thunder Dragon Bangle. He took out the Lightning Magic Book and checked it. He only elerated while heading to the volcano after finding no problems with it.


    J and Sul were Saleen¡¯s close bodyguards at the moment. Without Nailisi and the Winged Skull around, they had a bigger role to y. J had gotten used to teaching sword techniques to powerful ones in the army, while Sul had gotten used to enhancing hisbat prowess through actualbat. Both of them were not ustomed to following Saleen around this way.


    It was fortunate that their equipment was tailored to them. The two of them were satisfied with what they carried. It was indeed the right decision to be Saleen¡¯s follower. Were it not for him, they would not have achieved what they had.


    Sul might have returned to the subcontinent ne and inherited his family business, living the next several hundred years in bliss, while J might have simply continued to wander and be in a constant dejected state.


    Rafel stayed behind tomand the army; however, she was unable to just leave Saleen be, so she sent over 100 metal angels to support him.


    Now Saleen then had two level-12 true mights and over 100 metal angels with him. The Goddess of Myers had promised to help his three weapon spirits to advance, but that promise remained unfulfilled. Saleen was frustrated about that.


    Truth to tell, the goddess did whatever she was able to help. She gave powers of rules and divine persona fragments to the three weapon spirits. There was nothing Saleen could do if the three were incapable of advancing further. If they became demigods, Saleen wouldn¡¯t have left them behind at the Floating City. Instead, he would have taken them on the expedition to clean up the ck Dungeon Ind.


    After taking a detour around ck Dungeon City, Saleen¡¯s army increased their speed twofold. All prisons were set free about two hourster. The time was just right, not a secondte.


    Meanwhile, the interior of ck Dungeon City became boisterous and rowdy. All inmates, who had been cooped up for so long they were about to go insane, broke free of their chains and shackles. But where was the enemy? They could not find a single one.


    Everyone they met was a fellow inmate. None had been good people, however. Those incarcerated in ck Dungeon Ind were the most violent and most dangerous. All the good people were dead. Only the bad ones would have been of use to the Holy See.


    With so many concentrated in one ce, things couldn¡¯t remain peaceful. Fights broke out everywhere; over 100 lives were lost. Those who died emitted a terrible stench, which ironically didn¡¯t smell like rotting corpses.


    ¡°Stop it!¡±


    Twelve people bellowed at the same time¡ªlike a huge thunder st reverberating throughout the prisons. Everyone stopped fighting. The 12 were the leaders among the inmates of the 12 prisons.


    All 12 of them looked clean and even had servants attending to them. Anyone who had been able to achieve a certain status as an inmate was amanding, fearsome presence. The 12 even knew each other from the beginning. They quickly gathered at the city center when they heard each other¡¯s voices.


    The 12 leaders met each other before long. All of them looked at each other and burst outughing at the same time.


    ¡°Seems like the prophecy was true after all. We ended up being freed.¡±


    ¡°Definitely! But it seemed as if this day came earlier than what was prophesized.¡±


    ¡°No matter. We¡¯re out of there and all the restrictions in our bodies are gone. Who would be able to lock us up again from here on out?¡±


    ¡°How about we look for trouble with the head warden, eh?¡±


    The others quickly scoffed the leader who proposed that idea. He felt sheepish and didn¡¯t bring that up again.


    ¡°Let¡¯s pack it in and get outta here. We¡¯ll bring whoever we¡¯re able to bring. Leave the others alone.¡±


    ¡°Are we gonna leave together or split up?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll go together, through the undersea route. Ha! By the time we get to shore, we still can¡¯t afford to split up though, else we¡¯d probably...¡±


    Those people quickly discussed their ns for leaving the ind without fighting anyone. None of them, however, knew that the route that they were about to take had been blocked off by the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    The only way for them to leave was either to secure specially made warships or to take Baldur¡¯s Gate for themselves.

 Chapter 1457: Eruption (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1457: Eruption (Part 1)</h4>


    The inmates from ck Dungeon City stormed the prisons. The first problem they faced was not how to escape but what to eat. The wardens had absconded with everything edible. Regardless of whether the inmates intended to leave or stay, they still had to eat.


    Food supplies on the ind had always been meager. Except for higher-ranking officials, most of the inhabitants had always experienced hunger.


    Some of the inmates knew that if the prison bosses didn¡¯t take them along, they would never be able to leave. Those people had long forsaken any thought of survival. They watched the 12 leaders bring their people east without continuing to fight. Soon they gathered among themselves to discuss the next steps.


    Heading west, Saleen¡¯s forces took a quick detour around the ck Dungeon City. He turned around to take a look at what was happening, smirking before speeding up again.


    If his forces had arrived at ck Dungeon Ind at such a moment, they would have shed with the inmates.


    While his n had been a good one, it¡¯s a pity he had the Eye of Souls and no mountains blocking his view. There was no way he would have fallen into that trap.


    The true battle would have only begun when they were within 100 kilometers of the volcano.


    Heavy forces, which were everywhere, were meant to hold the line per the terrain.


    Those wardens did not consider their own life and death, though their armor offered some protection against the War Drum of Fear¡¯s effects. Rafel¡¯s drum beats would only diminish theirbat prowess instead of tearing down enemy formations on the spot, as had happened in other cities.


    Charging in a narrow mountain pass, thebat puppets stormed the fortresses where the wardens were hiding.


    The power of thebat puppets was average at best. The tricky and frustrating thing about them was their insane defensive capacity and endurance. They closed in quickly, able to withstand the bolts and divine spells fired from the fortresses.


    The puppet attacks were also baffling. First, they went to their stations. The ones at the front were shooting iron balls to clear out the soldiers near the walls. The balls jumped around at the upper side of the fortresses; each was filled with pointy spikes. The balls¡¯ movement was caused by the earth-magic array imbued in them while the spikes were deployed once they came in contact with the enemy.


    Rafel ordered the troops around impatiently. The army at the rear changed formations slowly, spreading out to the nks and surrounding the volcano.


    If that volcano had suddenly erupted, Saleen would have suffered severe losses.


    Both Saleen and Rafel hadn¡¯t bothered much with such problems in the past. They expected the worst, so there was little they could do if the army had been defeated. The entire ck Dungeon Volcano was over 1,000 meters high. Its slope was gentle with untold numbers of divine-rune charm arraysid down.


    Saleen saw over 6,000 of them from the ne map in addition to the onesid down hurriedly each day. That, coupled with those that were unseen at the edge of the volcano, meant there might be over 10,000 arrays in the area.


    If left unguarded, Saleen would have stormed the volcano with his followers. Since there had been over 200 thousand enemy units in the mountains, he had to clip them before advancing.


    Those troops might not have been much, but be it magic or divine arts, they were deployed most effectively using mass tactics.


    While conquering the ce might have been difficult, the volcano was the hub of the ck Dungeon, so there would be simryouts and measures to contend with.


    Sheer numbers: That was the reason the Holy See was so terrifying. If there was a leader capable of gathering the believers, things would have turned ugly for their enemies. The fundamental reason for the city¡¯s destruction was the loss of leadership and the inability of the people to gather. Saleen made a move only after tearing over half of the Tanggsi Empire, due precisely to wanting to apply pressure to the ones at the Holy City.


    His way of thinking was extremely intricate but seemed natural and effortless.


    The war that had been waged for over a year caused severe psychological trauma to the people of the Holy See, making them believe the Floating City was invincible.


    But it was hard for Holy City to defend itself against attacks from the Floating City. If it had gained a million believers and gone all out, Saleen would have needed more time and more troops to aplish his mission.


    By then, he would have only been able to send powerful warriors and mages to attack through brute force, which would have included himself.


    The Holy City had many level-10 professionals among its ranks. If they were adept at using the divine-rune charm arrays and the ruins left behind by their god, they would have retaliated effectively.


    What Saleen had done throughout the war was simr to setting up a game of chess.


    In reality, he was only lifting his fist slowly during the process. By the time he was ready to bring his fist down, the enemy was so terrified it would have realized it had no choice but to run.


    Things were different with ck Dungeon Ind. There were many more powerful professionals as well as a head warden taking charge. Saleen knew nothing about his level, but seeing how the great head inquisitor didn¡¯t try to defy him, Saleen knew that the head warden must be one whole rank higher than the others.


    Saleen was thinking of forcing him to a showdown.


    His Bug Angel Army didn¡¯t take flight; instead, they mingled with the other troops and moved along the mountain pass. Faint noises were heard from the ck Dungeon Volcano. Be it Saleen¡¯s army or the ck Dungeon Ind¡¯s army, everyone halted.


    The ground was quaking beneath Saleen¡¯s feet and the volcano looked as if it was about to erupt.


    All the fortresses along the way lit up with holy light. Saleen¡¯s mes of motivation were ignited when he saw that. The volcano had someone inside, and that someone was none other than the head warden.


    ¡°Let ¡¯em retreat!¡±


    With his Eye of Souls, Saleen saw that the volcano was spewing more than just ash; it was also discharging raging energy that was anything but pure. All sorts of energies were mixed within and he could not tell how they operated.


    If something like that happened at the mouth of the volcano, even an extinct one could be brought to life again.


    Gusion, who was leading the puppet army, waved his g and proceeded elsewhere ording to n. Saleen didn¡¯t want to lose any of the puppets, as the price of one unit would have been enough for him to purchase several sets of magic armor.


    Among the remaining troops were the demon army units, who were all wearing Devil Possession Armors capable of flight. They left the offensive formation first. That armor, designed and crafted for conventional warfare, couldn¡¯t resist something naturally urring like volcano eruptions.


    The Bug Angel Warriors were the second to leave. Despite being formidable defensive equipment, they were high-maintenance, and Saleen wasn¡¯t much of a spendthrift, to begin with.


    Next came the army of figures. They chose to run along the mountain pass instead of taking flight, yet their speed elerated to the point where not even level-3 warhorses could keep up.


    Boom!


    The volcano erupted. Red-ck smoke shot to the sky while Saleen¡¯s armies moved in the other direction in an orderly manner.


    This wasn¡¯t the result of a divine spell; it was a signal that someone was about to emerge from the volcano.


    The ce where the head warden took up residence terrified Saleen. He had once been inside the crevasse in the ground. Temperatures invakes were terrifyingly high: Not even Saleen dared to stay in such ces for prolonged periods.


    Yet the head warden was living in that volcano. It was apparent that he had been training for extended periods where theva moved.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± The mouth of the volcano was like a huge speaker, amplifying his voice. Even the clouds above took a funnel-like shape before spinning in a frenzy.


    Saleen smirked and said to the people near him casually, ¡°So the head warden knows me, huh? Seems like I¡¯m famous.¡±


    There was no doubt about the extent of his fame. Virtually every professional on the maind had heard of Saleen Metatrin. His joke, however, lightened the mood around J and the others.


    Only Rafel said to Saleen solemnly, ¡°My lord, the rules of the ne have loosened...¡±


    ¡°Great. If they hadn¡¯t loosened up, I¡¯d be having a hard time fighting him!¡± Saleen felt the rules loosening too. For one thing, the seal in his body was crumbling. The seal would have automatically been undone as soon as the rules allowed them to be. There would have never been a stupid thing such as having one¡¯s power sealed by one¡¯s hands and yet be unable to restore them.


    ¡°Master!¡± The three weapon spirits appeared at the same time right behind Saleen. Everyone thought the God of Magic Net was still at Nature City. There had been several intense fights and even when someone had shown up right before Saleen, the God of Magic Net still did not show...


    ¡°Very well. Hold on. Whoever my lightning icicles hit, you all hit them too,¡± Saleen ordered.


    ¡°Yes, master,¡± the three weapon spirits answered in unison as if they were one being.


    Saleen¡¯s army retreated at great speed. Not even the wardens dared to stay behind. The volcano was about to erupt, a palpable sign that the head warden¡¯s powers were running amok. The ck Dungeon Volcano would have stayed dead for tens of thousands of years had it not been for the warden.


    Then a phenomenon urred around the ck Dungeon Volcano. Many of the opposing sides mixed up with one another as they ran for their lives. Other than Saleen¡¯s flying forces, all other troops escaped as quickly as they were able, or they would have soon been engulfed by the volcano.


    Saleen climbed to greater altitudes and thought about hurling a level-18 scroll into the mouth right away. But if he missed his target, it wasn¡¯t a sure thing that the level-18 would end up killing the head warden.


    He practically lived inside the volcano, which meant that the eruption would not harm him.


    Saleen wasn¡¯t hoping to damage the head warden through sheer dumb luck. Even he, at level-13, wouldn¡¯t have been easily harmed inside theva.


    The metal angels circled Saleen. The winds above were so fast that they didn¡¯t bother pping their wings. They simply hovered about quickly and let the winds blow.


    ¡°About time you showed up, Saleen. I heard you have lightning powers, and I¡¯m interested in seeing if they¡¯re more powerful than my mes of purgatory!¡± The voice emanated from the mouth of the volcano. A thick ground separated the two men.


    Saleen frowned. Damn it. That guy¡¯s not a believer. He probably has little respect for the gods. The only thing he devotedly worships is power.


    The head warden knew of Saleen¡¯s arrival. Coincidentally, his powers were on the rise and he was unable to contain it. The head warden exploited the rules of the maind by loosening them to unleash all his powers, letting the volcano be active again without any concern for his well-being.


    Saleen had shown up at a bad time. If he had arrived earlier, he wouldn¡¯t have been put on the defensive.


    He observed the speed at which his troops retreated, knowing that the flying units would be fine. Some of those incapable of flight would be trapped there, or even scorched to death by the high temperatures.


    Things weren¡¯t going well. He wondered if the Goddess of Myers had taken back the luck she had promised him.

 Chapter 1458: Eruption (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1458: Eruption (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen quickly dismissed the notion and put aside all thoughts about luck. Luck couldn¡¯t be relied upon. Effort was what mattered. He attributed his sesses in life to his effort.


    He weed the notion of having luck, taking advantage of it time and again. But he never med any of his misfortunes or setbacks on the absence of luck or bad luck.


    To be sure, both Saleen and the head warden had made some miscalctions. ording to the head warden¡¯s n, if he was unable to leave the volcano, he would turn it into the main battlefield. Saleen would attack while hemanded hundreds of thousands of subordinates from inside the volcano.


    Saleen had considered ntingrge Thunder Dragon sters around the volcano, barring any exits, and only brought the Baldur¡¯s Gate over when they had cleaned up any remaining divine-rune charm arrays. The six godly items in the gate were to be used to attack and defend.


    No one anticipated the head warden going berserk or the loosening of the ne rules of Myers Maind. A battle that was supposed to be fought between opposing forces was now reduced to a showdown between two high-level professionals.


    Worse still, now that both parties had thrown in their forces, it was nearly impossible to get them to quickly retreat.


    In reality, many of those troops had already fled to the mountains. The ck Dungeon Volcano was not the highest point. Things would beparatively safer on higher ground when the eruption urred, and anyone capable of blocking off the high-temperature volcanic ash would probably survive.


    Troops from both sides gathered around; inevitably, they were on guard against each other.


    Saleen realized that some demons were incapable of flight. While ancient warriors were capable of flight, some did not receive Saleen¡¯s orders and retreated on foot instead.


    That was a miscalction on Saleen¡¯s part. He never expected the intelligence of those awakened ancient warriors to be so severelypromised.


    The demons opened their mouths to discuss the situation with the wardens.


    ¡°If we stay down here when the volcano erupts, none of us will make it out alive. How about we just share the mountains?¡±


    The wardens looked at each other. They were elites of the ck Dungeon; the weakest was at level-6. Things were the same as the enemy. All were wearing high-level armor, and theirbat prowess was a bit higher than the wardens¡¯. The dumb-looking people wearing dark red armor seemed to be of even higher levels, eliminating the advantage of having level-10 professionals at the warden¡¯s side.


    The two parties quickly reached apromise. If they were to fight each other during the eruption, only a dozen or so would survive among the thousands who were about to share the mountain.


    They decided to wait until the fighting at the top was over. If Saleen died, most of his forces would retreat; the remaining ones would never be able to take on the wardens. If the head warden died, the wardens would surrender.


    The troops on both sides constructed stone walls at the center of the mountains to avoid unnecessary fighting. Then they took out their equipment and set up safe havens.


    It was worth noting that by the time the volcano erupted, the air was unbreathable. Not even the demons would be able to survive near an erupting volcano.


    Saleen and the head warden ignored thepromise between their troops. Saleen had no illusions of the demons remaining in service should he die. Now that Nailisi wasn¡¯t around, they had probably already run off to Metatrin City, wondering what to do next. If Metatrin City fell, the demons would return to the demon ne instead of surrendering. They would never attempt to avenge Saleen¡¯s death.


    The demons Saleen had brought on the suicide run were not the most loyal bunch. Powerful enough, yes, but that was about it. The most loyal ones either had stayed with Nailisi¡¯s or been sent to the interdimensional space.


    ¡°Head warden. I¡¯m here. And I have no intention of leaving. I¡¯m waiting for you, so there¡¯s no need to shout,¡± said Saleen looking down at the volcano from up high. Because he had been near the mouth of the volcano, he had to fly as high as possible to protect himself.


    As the ground shook, rocks began rolling down the mountain. Saleen noticed that the surrounding areas of the volcano were filled with dense woods, but no magic beasts were seen anywhere. The head warden¡¯sir was devoid of life.


    All at once, a deafening st came from below. Saleen saw a glimmer of crimson light at the mouth of the volcano. Then came a roaring, booming sound.


    A pir of mes tens of meters thick shot into the air, exceeding Saleen¡¯s expectations. If he had stayed above the mouth of the volcano, he would have been caught in the st.


    What happened next was even more mysterious to him.


    As the volcano erupted, a long crack formed on the ground. The earth shook violently. If the troops hadn¡¯t set up camp in the mountains and stabilized the ground using divine or magic spells, they would have been sent flying to the ground below.


    The earthquake grew increasingly intense, while the volcano spewed mes andva as the surface cracked open. The crack, more than three kilometers long, gushedva. Smoke billowed. Trees burned. What a sorry sight.


    Although the mountains had been cleaned up, the temperatures kept climbing. The wardens all wore glum expression in the shelters. Things would have fared better with holy masters around. Without them, their crude shelter wouldn¡¯t have kept them alive.


    Saleen then pointed at the clouds in the air. The thick, stuttering storm clouds spun as the rain began falling. The areas within tens of kilometers radius became shrouded in mist.


    The soldiers put up their visors. Saleen¡¯s troops were armed with magic equipment, enabling their visors to filter dust and smoke. The lowest-level wardens could only wet their towels and stuff them into the crevices of their armor for protection.


    The armor worn by the units resisted high temperatures. The only difference between themy with the details.


    Saleen saved quite a lot of people with that one move, but many more were falling into theva and burning to death. In response, Saleen cast an Ice Strike with a wide area of effect. Six huge blocks of ice that were tens of meters wide rammed onto each other and dropped into the mouth of the volcano.


    Saleen¡¯s calctions were impable. The volcanic eruptions had their rhythm. He was doing it at the interval where the eruptions stopped. Ice Strike was not some less-known magic spell. Those six blocks of ice didn¡¯t melt right away in theva, causing the mouth to be blocked.


    Boom!


    The ground shook, and more cracks split opened. Saleen looked at the swaths ofvakes and spotted a tiny house at the center. Its roof had already copsed, and only three walls were left standing. There sat a middle-aged man.


    He was wearing a ck robe and had impable features, looking like a wise bard.


    The image stayed only a second before the man¡¯s clothing was torn, revealing the skin underneath. His fair skin quickly turned red. Muscles began to bulge all over his body.


    That was the head warden. The changes to him did not stop there. His height continued to climb, reaching six meters tall in a matter of seconds. A pair of longhorns grew out of his head, and the muscles all over his body disappeared as mes engulfed him. Through the mes, however, Saleen saw them turn into a shiny, crimson sheen as ifposed of fire-elemental crystals.


    One of the head warden¡¯s arms became even longer, and ayer of scales grew on it. An eight-meter-long tail sprouted behind his back. His body was engulfed in mes by then.


    The mes were dark, with pitch-ck colors showing in the red. The mes danced, and all spaces that burned turned ethereal before being taken over by new mes.


    Rafel saw the creature high above and shouted to Saleen, ¡°My lord, that¡¯s a creature from the underworld ne!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the head warden,¡± Saleen replied in a low voice.


    The head warden looked at the spot where Saleen was before lowering his head to look at the changes on his body. He didn¡¯t appear to be shocked at all. He then uttered tly, ¡°I have fallen indeed.¡±


    He grasped at the air with his right hand after saying that. A weapon appeared in his hand¡ªa single-edged great sword that was merged with the scales on his army, fusing into a peculiar-looking weapon.


    The side of the de that was not holding an edge was serrated in blocks, each one a square. In every protruding tooth was a square-shaped space. Saleen saw purple mes burning in those interior spaces.


    One side of the de was meant for inflicting formidable physical damage; the other side, powerful elemental damage. That weapon was definitely of a godly item.


    To test his spections, Saleen fired a lightning icicle at the head warden¡¯s throat.


    It was not meant to kill him; it was just a test.


    The head warden brought the sword up, and the icicle shattered with a tang.


    Saleen¡¯s mind sank to the bottom. His lightning icicle had fundamentally advanced. The lightning icicle spouted by the powerful thunder dragon was harder than any metal. The reason the sword was able to easily break the icicle was that the power of rules was used.


    There was no way to circumvent them.


    J and Sul shuddered at the same time at Saleen¡¯s side. That was their expression of feeling strained by the might emanating from the powerful one before them.


    ¡°Level-14. It¡¯s okay.¡± Saleen¡¯s thundering voice was heard, and the two level-2 true mights could barely calm themselves. The power of the head warden was higher than Saleen expected. That creature used the rules perfectly. The test result told Saleen that if he were to not use level-18 scrolls, the head warden could not be killed by his family badge alone if he was still wielding the godly item in his hand.


    J and Sul were of no help. Only his three weapon spirits and Rafel, as well as the Violet Angel, would have been able to do decent damage. The uing battle was going to be tough.


    Despite Saleen¡¯s superior numbers, allbatants were at level-13; he nheless knew how much difference there was between level-13 and level-14.


    Further, from the look of things, the head warden seemed to be wielding more than just the power of rules; there were also rules of the fire element.


    The head warden¡¯s expression was hard to read. He was engulfed in mes, and any parts seen underneath appeared to be red-hot, burning metal.


    ¡°Saleen, are youing to get me? Or should I go to you?¡± The head warden seemed to be in a good mood. The undoing of his seal did not result in any penalties by the ne rules. Seems like a good time to leave this sted ind indeed!

 Chapter 1459: Test (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1459: Test (Part 1)</h4>


    The head warden looked at Saleen. He wasn¡¯t nning to kill the mage before leaving the ce. He was just thinking that Saleen, at level-13, would then be the most powerful mage on Myers Maind.


    Saleen took a look at the head warden, who had taken the form of a monster yet stood like a human. Clutching a sword, the monster was immersed in thought.


    He also appeared to be oblivious to his changed appearance and the power he wielded. The head warden seemed able tomand that magic beast, which was heading toward higher ground, crushing everything in his path.


    Saleen noticed that the fire element in theva did not match the mes on the head warden¡¯s body. Those mes were absorbed then converted instead of being used as they were. What a relief. This conversion method might have been a higher-level skill, but it wouldn¡¯t have allowed the head warden to attain higher speeds when acquiring elemental powers in battle.


    What Saleen feared most was the head warden being armed with something like his own¡ªthe Figure of Fate. If he failed to kill the head warden on the first try, it would be futile to waste a level-18 scroll on a second attempt.


    Both parties spent less than 30 seconds checking each other out. That was long enough for Saleen to understand that he wouldn¡¯t be able to properly lock onto the head warden.


    ¡°Come up here yourself. It¡¯s too hot down there,¡± Saleen said as he lifted his left arm. The Thunder Dragon Bangle split up, and 24 thunder dragons shot to the clouds, releasing countless bolts of lightning and triggering a downpour.


    The water element became frighteningly dense. Rafel, who was next to Saleen, lifted her Inferno Spear and aimed it at the head warden. She was fearless against a level 14-enemy. Though the power difference between them was wide, she still had a good chance of knocking him off.


    The head warden smirked coldly. Do you think you can weaken my fire-elemental powers with that water element? He found the basic move Saleen decided to use disappointing.


    His mes were not conjured withmon fire element but imbued with powerful rules. If they could be easily overpowered by the water element, there would be no need for him to train so hard or to twist his form into that of a monster. All at once, fireballs lit up under his feet. Stepping on them, he rose into the air to approach Saleen.


    Saleen cursed him under his breath. You sly old fox.


    The head warden was moving at a snail¡¯s pace, and Saleen was powerless to do anything against him. His power of the soul didn¡¯t target the head warden not only because the head warden had a higher power of the soul but also because he had godly items that deflected attacks.


    The best way for Saleen to target him was to move faster. That would allow him to predict his trajectories of movement and calcte where he would be before casting an attack.


    That was easy to do. The head warden, however, chose to walk up one step at a time instead, messing up Saleen¡¯s judgment.


    Boom!


    The rumble of thunder was heard in the sky once again, only this time it was not unleashed by the thunder dragon. Not even level-13 thunder dragons could cast lightning and thunder of such strength. Still, the rumble made the head warden falter.


    This faltering would have gone unnoticed by most people, but not Saleen. Armed with the Eye of Souls, he fired seven lightning icicles without hesitating.


    By then he was shrouded in a thin mist that grew so thick in a blink of an eye that no one could see him. In response, Saleen cast Quickcloud at full force, engulfing over 100 metal angels.


    The head warden twisted his body. The seven lightning icicles missed their target. At the same time, he lost track of Saleen.


    Saleen¡¯s Quickcloud, which had risen to level-13, was no longer just a movement skill anymore. He managed to control the water element to intricate levels, causing the mist around him to merge seamlessly with the clouds during the downpour.


    Saleen then cast 12-Thunder Phantasms shortly thereafter, a skill poor in killing but effective in ambushing.


    It was especially so given how it was used in the clouds. Locating Saleen in them might not have required mental powers or power of the soul but if someone could distinguish illusions from a real body, it would have been impossible without using those powers.


    Huffff!


    Shhh...


    The mes on the head warden¡¯s body suddenly expanded as if his body had expanded. A ten-meter stream of mes wasunched. All mists around the head warden were evaporated.


    He didn¡¯t even bother locating Saleen¡¯s, saying coldly instead, ¡°Saleen, if you keep running away from me, I¡¯ll just go after your soldiers. Is that what you want?¡±


    ¡°If you kill my troops, I¡¯ll kill your wardens,¡± Saleen answered, taking control of a Thunder Phantasm.


    ¡°Suit yourself. The lives of those wardens belong to me in the first ce,¡± the head warden answered without mercy. Saleen then recalled how the head warden caused the volcano to shake and did nothing to control his powers. Saleen knew that the head warden wasn¡¯t joking or bluffing.


    Saleen was still thinking when the head warden burst forth at a high speed, swinging his sword and cutting a Thunder Phantasm in half.


    The beast sprayed blood as a flesh-and-blood person would have. Then it plopped to the ground, yelping.


    The head wardenughed and said, ¡°Saleen, you think these illusions are of any use?¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and knew what the head warden meant. Many weapons were capable of attacking souls. The godly item the head warden attacked was one of them. The head warden¡¯s weapon didn¡¯t detect the presence of a soul when it cut down a Thunder Phantasm, so he knew it was a fake.


    ¡°Saleen. Where are your angels? Hand some of them over and let me have a go at them. That should be fun,¡± the head warden continued to provoke Saleen. Those metal angels were scared! They didn¡¯t fear death, yet the head warden issued something like stunning skills in magic.


    Despite being only of level-10, the weapons held by those metal angels still posed a threat to the head warden. What he was doing was akin to clipping the wings at Saleen¡¯s side.


    He had no intention of taking on 100bat angels on his own. After all, he didn¡¯t want to end up getting injured for no good reason.


    Saleen noticed that despite being able tomand far higher powers, the head warden still chose to be cautious in battle. Saleen also knew that if he were not able to use a level-18 scroll, there would be no chance for him to get rid of that head warden down. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double had been so pompous and fearless when he was chasing after Saleen back in the day, without yielding to tricks or defense.


    Enemies like the head warden were the toughest to deal with. Saleen took control of another Thunder Phantasm and unraveled a level-12 magic scroll¡ªGale Dragon.


    Thousands of Wind des turned into tiny scales and attached themselves to a dragon conjured out of wind element before charging at the head warden.


    The head warden swung his greatsword. That level-12 elemental creature was as fragile as a toy before the ming sword. It immediately crumbled, as thousands of scales of the wind dragon were crushed before the beast had a chance to attack.


    Seeing how adamant Saleen was, the head warden backed off his threat to kill Saleen¡¯s soldiers even though they were scattered and hadn¡¯t flown far away. As a level-14 being, he could have easily caught up with them. But did he want to chase small fry? That would have been mind-numbingly boring.


    Further, those soldiers had gone off in different directions. Chasing after them would have been too tedious. Saleen wouldn¡¯t have been hindered if hundreds of them had died, but there was no way the head warden could kill them all.


    The head warden was now covered in mes. The clouds and mist couldn¡¯t mingle where he was standing. The thunder dragons in the sky keptunching lightning bolts even though the attacks couldn¡¯t punch through the mes.


    The thunder dragons¡¯ weaknesses were obvious. They needed more time to prepare their attacks. Attacking at high speeds would have severely diminished the strength of their attacks otherwise. The ball lightning Saleen had mastered was not something the thunder dragons could aim at. Ganging up on the head warden seemed like a great idea at the time. But this was madness: A thunder dragon could easily be taken down with one swing of the head warden¡¯s sword.


    Whoooosh. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier appeared behind the head warden¡¯s back, swinging its de at him. The head warden threw his sword to block him while swinging his tail up, whacking the weapon spirit¡¯s magic amplifier.


    The amplifier was forced to bring its sword down, slicing the head warden¡¯s tail.


    He panicked for a bit after seeing that someone had managed to cut into his tail. So¨Cthe fiery red crystal didn¡¯t block the golden sword¡¯s attack.


    And that¡¯s not all. A deep gash was left on the godly item in his hand by a formless weapon flying at him.


    What if he hadn¡¯t had that godly item with him? The ambush would have done severe damage.


    That golden dagger revealed itself after attacking and was unable to turn invisible again. That was because the head warden had switched the greatsword to his left hand, while his right hand, which was covered in scales, grabbed onto that weapon crafted by Saleen.


    The dagger jumped for a bit before the head warden breathed purple mes onto it, covering the entire de. The connection between the golden dagger and Saleen was cut off right away.


    Saleen¡¯s expression was unchanged. The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier escaped. The injured tail quickly healed with no obvious signs of damage


    Sh*t. That thing is just like a fire-elemental creature!


    The weapon spirit of the magic amplifier had no idea that the head warden was getting frustrated. The attack that had been able to cut into his tail was worse than the head warden expected. Worse still, the rules imbued within the great sword caused great pain to the head warden¡¯s tail. If it had not been for the intense pain, the head warden would have been able to quickly lift its tail and destroy the weapon spirit on the spot.


    Be it the dagger or the golden great sword, the rules imbued within were something that not even Saleen could decipher. Saleen simply wiped the aura of the Heretic God clean, yet the act gave birth to new rules. Such weapons were usually imbued with supplementary rules, yet they caused the head warden, who had a body of fire, to feel intense pain that went into his bones.


    Was Saleen upset by this? Not in the least. Nor did he care that the head warden had taken his dagger. If he couldn¡¯t kill the head warden, it would be pointless to keep the dagger around. If he did kill the head warden, he could easily get the dagger back again.


    Saleen then aimed his family badge at the head warden and unleashed a thick bolt of lightning.


    The attack wasunched when the head warden was busy taking out the dagger. He had been greedy enough to give Saleen an opening to do this. But then again, that dagger was capable of cutting up godly items and the head warden just couldn¡¯t resist the temptation.

 Chapter 1460: Test (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1460: Test (Part 2)</h4>


    The head warden¡¯s act of putting away the dagger gave Saleen an opening to fire a lightning bolt from his family badge.


    An opportunity like this would present itself only once. That was not just because the head warden would be more careful from then on, but because his family badge was still only capable of casting its strongest attack a single time.


    Saleen worked on the badge, but he had only begun learning the knowledge stored inside and how to use the interior spaces.


    Those spaces would have wrecked anymon items stored inside. That was why Saleen could only put high-level materials there. The environments within, which all had to do with discharges of lightning and thunder, were ironically the best natural milieu for refining and upgrading materials.


    The lightning badge¡¯s body had been crafted from the remains of the Thunder God, which, in turn, had been crafted into the Book of Lightning. Because of his level, Saleen could only do so much since his power of the soul wasparable to that of a lesser god.


    Saleen had to seize any opportunity to kill the head warden. The problem was not his reluctance to use a level-8 scroll but his inability to lock onto that warden.


    The head warden was wrestling with a different problem: He still couldn¡¯t find Saleen. While he wasn¡¯t all that familiar with Saleen¡¯s skills, he knew enough about them, especially peculiar ones like the Thunder Phantasm. Had he not, he might have fallen for one of Saleen¡¯s little tricks.


    When a professional advanced to level-10 and beyond, most would have gotten used to targeting and observing enemies using mental powers. That, however, was a deadly w to their modus operandi.


    All at once a thick bolt of lightning covered the head warden¡¯s body. Even if he was a god of fire, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to survive something like that. As the outeryer of his body exploded, translucent red crystals expanded and formed ayer of armor.


    When the electrical discharge hit, the mes on the outeryer vanished as the red crystal armor crumbled bit by bit and dropped to the ground.


    But the head warden was unscathed: His defense capability was activated using godly armor and power skills, enabling him to narrowly escape death.


    Meanwhile, mes were bursting from his skin, forming a newyer of a transparent crystal fa?ade.


    Though the ming armor was destroyed, it was repaired immediately. Every restoration, however, caused its defense to drop considerably, necessitating a troublesome repair.


    The head warden never expected Saleen¡¯s attack to be so ferocious. From what he knew about the mage, Saleen had only been able to escape the great head inquisitor owing to the powers bestowed by godly items.


    His godly item, the ming armor, was of even higher level. Why was it so badly damaged? Though the armor¡¯s surface appeared to be restored, in reality, it had lost 80 percent of its defensive capacity.


    The Violet Angel roared, took Rafel and charged at the head warden. Metal-cutting territory burst from Rafel¡¯s Inferno Spear, causing the head warden great stress.


    The territory was super powerful. However, Rafel¡¯s level was lower than the head warden¡¯s, which meant killing him using territorial powers alone was impossible. But then again, Rafel was targeting the damaged godly armor.


    The timing of the strike was impable. The armor on the head warden¡¯s body shattered again but was instantly restored.


    The ming armor¡¯s defensive capacity was less than ten percent of what it had been at the start.


    m! Icy winds breathed by the Violet Angel shed as they covered the head warden¡¯s body. The Violet Angel seized the chance to whack the head warden hard with its tail.


    The head warden retaliated by raising its tail and lopping off the Violet Angel¡¯s tail with one blow.


    The Violet Angel roared, but not in pain. As a puppet, its soul was protected by the lightning cage and it felt no pain. It was simply covering for Rafel with its body.


    Rafel chanted prayers and the tip of the Inferno Spear opened up, revealing a rectangr crystal inside.


    Crimson aura covered the Violet Angel. The head warden then swung his greatsword sideways. Seeing that Rafel wasn¡¯t able to evade it, Saleen bellowed, making the head warden lose control of the golden dagger. The de flew from the head warden¡¯s hand and started slicing the mes enveloping it. Then it headed straight for the head warden¡¯s heart.


    Saleen hadn¡¯t even cast one magic spell, unsettling the head warden.


    A mage as powerful as Saleen could have cast level-13 magic spells in an instant. Doing so might have meant that he possessed level-14 scrolls. Saleen¡¯s wealth was such that it wouldn¡¯t have been difficult for him to get level-15 scrolls and even cast them. The head warden was baffled: Why was the mage being so conservative with his magic chords and power of the soul?


    He couldn¡¯t think of one reason. He put his greatsword away and swatted the golden dagger away. Then he swung its tail again to block Rafel¡¯s Inferno Spear.


    The Inferno Spear was a powerful godly item. Even if it couldn¡¯t be used at full power in Rafel¡¯s hand, the head warden¡¯s tail still would not have been able to break it. That much he knew. Purple-red mes burst out of his body as he charged at the spot where the cloudy mists were the thickest.


    Find Saleen, kill him, and end the fight.


    To say that the head warden was an experienced veteran was an understatement. He had fought in over 10,00 battles. The Holy See had once been in a shaky state. At the time he wasn¡¯t the head warden, just a candidate.


    The head warden, who had far morebat experience than Saleen, had only fallen into one of Saleen¡¯s many traps, which was him taking the time to seize the golden dagger.


    That, however, was a result of the head warden cockiness about his godly armor. Judging from records, the armor would have suffered a ten percent drop after resisting Saleen¡¯s strongest attack once.


    The result was unexpected: Less than ten percent of the armor¡¯s attributes remained. The head warden altered his thought patterns and stopped baiting Saleen. Instead, he took the initiative to locate him and attack.


    If Saleen acquired some new terrifying skills while he was busy defending himself, he would have suffered injuries by then.


    He deemed himself to have been in too much of a hurry. Saleen had be one of the strongest mages on the maind in little time; luck had been on his side. Someone like that would not die easily. He needed to be attacked head-on.


    The head warden nned his next steps. He didn¡¯t bother sweeping the ce using the power of the soul. He simply made a rough estimate of how many enemies were in the clouds and headed there straightaway without knowing if they were real or fake.


    The simpler the methods used, the harder it would be to dismantle them. Saleen saw the head warden charging hastily. In response, he then took control of the 11 Thunder Phantasms and kept evading the attacks. That was what the head warden was hoping would happen: Saleen¡¯s power of the soul was formidable enough to allow him to control the phantasms without leaving an opening.


    Although Saleen¡¯s level-13 magic held the head warden back for a while, there was no chance for him to use a level-18 scroll.


    By then Saleen was feeling lucky. It was hard killing the level-14 head warden despite having level-18 scrolls at his disposal. He wondered, what if I faced the Lord of Glory instead? Wouldn¡¯t things be even harder?


    The volcano below hadpletely erupted. The surrounding mountains were filled with soldiers taking shelter.


    Phew. Saleen¡¯s flying troops had escaped in time and run over 100 kilometers away. The head warden swung around, greatsword in hand, cutting up clouds wherever he went. But the dissipated clouds stayed dissipated.


    One Thunder Phantasms that couldn¡¯t escape in time ended up being cut in half. Saleen felt it unnecessary to dupe the head warden with death-like effects anymore. And what did it matter? Thunder Phantasms had no souls. The head warden would have known they were fakes the moment his sword connected with them.


    His teeth gritted, Saleen had the metal angels scatter and leave the battlefield. They were so shocked theirbat prowess dropped exponentially, and they ceased being much of a threat to the head warden.


    Those metal angels began to speed up after separating from the head warden about 1,000 meters away, heading straight for the other fortresses on ck Dungeon Ind. Metal angels could be resurrected. But Saleen didn¡¯t want his forces wasted at such a ce. Over 100 metal angels posed a serious threat to a fortress.


    What¡¯s more, the metal angels had nothing to do with the clouds.


    The head warden didn¡¯t bother chasing them. He cleverly ignored Saleen¡¯s second bait. If he had gone after those angels, they would have retaliated full force, which would have slowed the head warden down or stopped him in his tracks.


    That was how Rafel had pulled off her attack earlier. Were it not for the head warden¡¯s godly armor, he would have been targeted by Saleen¡¯s second attack.


    Both sides were ying it safe; neither side brought powerful attacks to bear against the other.


    Four-ball lightning stayed on Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster as he patiently waited for the chance to strike.


    The three weapon spirits near Saleen didn¡¯t dare make a move. The level-13 weapon spirits had not reached level-14, and it would have been too risky to charge at the head warden.


    The head warden had more than just that ming great sword with him.


    Saleen began to regret not taking the Floating City with him; therge-scale Thunder Dragon sters would have aided him tactically. He also broughtrge-scale Thunder Dragon sters but they had not been installed. The volcano¡¯s eruption caused the army to retreat and the assault did go as expected.


    What concerned Saleen was the loosening of the ne rules, a palpable sign of the rise of powers across the maind.


    Myers Maind would allow the Lord of Glory to enter in a few months. Saleen wondered, will I be able to advance another level by then? Not a problem if I can enter the Hall of Gods and have another piece of high-level divine persona.


    The head warden kept rushing around carelessly, killing ten Thunder Phantasms of Saleen¡¯s in no time and gaining speed. If it hadn¡¯t been for the special properties of Saleen¡¯s lightning territory, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to conceal himself.


    Even though the head warden charged and swung his sword several times, he still couldn¡¯t cut Saleen down. He had been missing Saleen¡¯s location by several meters every time: He knew Saleen¡¯s skill was capable of messing with his judgment.


    It was time for a new tactic. The head warden stopped moving and extended his greatsword. Its de grew over 30 meters long and purple mes leaped about on it. There were no more clouds within the 100-meter radius.


    Saleen knew the head warden was switching to a powerful skill with a reach that was no longer evadable using tricks alone. But then again, that¡¯s exactly what Saleen had been waiting for. Finally, the head warden was motionless! Atst, Saleen could use a scroll on him.


    But Saleen didn¡¯t attack right away. Rather, he had the God of Magic Net cast a divine spell instead.

 Chapter 1461: Fruitless (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1461: Fruitless (Part 1)</h4>


    The God of Magic Net was one of the few gods capable of casting both magic and divine spells. Even the Goddess of Myers would have only been able to cast magic spells with divine art attributes.


    The divine spells cast by the God of Magic Net, however, were imbued with pure magic attributes. The spells were only cast in the same form as divine spells.


    The head warden felt energy sequences of rules appearing in the clouds more than a dozen kilometers away, spreading out like a huge and enveloping him. A powerful magic spell was cast momentster.


    Elemental Deprivation.


    All elemental powers above the ck Dungeon Volcano were stripped bare and unable to be controlled by anyone but Saleen, master of the God of Magic Net. The head warden could not return to the volcano right away to extract elemental powers. Further, all other elemental powers had been cut up, making him incapable of casting mes using elemental conversion.


    The mes on the head warden turned purple. That was because he couldn¡¯t collect elemental powers to supplement the mes of the underworld.


    The situation was akin to a furnace being filled with coal. To keep the fire going, you still had to keep adding more coal to the furnace.


    Since the head warden didn¡¯t connect with the underworld ne right away, he had to use the elemental powers of the ne he was in to supplement the mes used. At present, he was trapped by the God of Magic Net, resulting in a dy in the casting of powerful skills. His hand flicked and the ming greatsword shrank to half its length.


    Saleen still dared not take out the scrolls. All three were in a dormant state; he had no idea how long he would be able to keep the head warden still with his Si of Silence. If the period was less than two frames, it would have been pointless to do so.


    As the Ring of Cosmos in Saleen¡¯s hand began to spin, arge quantity of Aqua Fulgur gushed forth, filling up his family badge. Luckily, it was immediately reactivated and ready to be used again.


    Saleen was overjoyed. But the head warden¡¯s sword was turned around and aimed directly at Saleen.


    He immediately unraveled a level-15 scroll. A 400-meter-tall ck image still in an iplete state stood in the air. That was due to Saleen¡¯s insufficient power, as unraveling scrolls would have still required a certain amount of power of the soul. He had to reserve such powers for casting level-18 scrolls, so he had only been able to unravel half of that level-15 one.


    Regardless, that action proved sufficient. The head warden¡¯s sword came down hard on the ck image and got firmly stuck, like a bug in a spider web.


    He pulled his hand away. The ming red greatsword was then taken away by the level-15 magic spell.


    The head warden breathed purple mes and conjured a huge curved sword in his hand. The de was over a dozen meters long. It then expanded more than two times as it was swung.


    Saleen¡¯s green scroll was fully unraveled by then. Unraveling a level-18 scroll drained half the power of the soul of Saleen. He was startled: He¡¯d been too concerned with speed and had forgotten about his level requirements.


    As such, he was only able to use one level-18 scroll by then.


    A rain of flowers was seen everywhere. How fragile and beautiful they looked in the thunderstorm.


    The head warden¡¯s expression changed drastically. He blew up the curved de in his hand without hesitation, and his body was blown into hundreds of pieces, scattering all over the ce. Saleen had taken great effort to create that opening, so he definitely would not have simply given up on it. He unraveled another green scroll. The third eye on his forehead opened and stared at the core of the head warden¡¯s body and nailed him in ce.


    That was a purple piece of fragment, the spot where the head warden¡¯s soul resided.


    The first scroll had robbed the head warden of his life force, forcing him to break his body apart and scatter his life force. He escaped only because of his formidablebat instincts. Despite having arge area of effect, that single-target attack scroll was still limited. The soul was jumping between the hundreds of pieces of his body at will.


    As long as there was one piece capable of escaping, the head warden would be able to stay alive.


    But his soul got trapped inside one of his bodily pieces at that moment. A green arrow beam then shot right through that piece.


    The Arrow of Nature, a level-18 pure damage-dealing magic spell, reduced the head warden¡¯s soul into the most fundamental of energies of the world.


    That arrow was inevitable.


    If Saleen were hit by that arrow, not even the Figure of Fate would have been able to keep him alive. Its damage potential was unspeakable. Even the lightning in the sky had dimmed because of the emergence of that arrow. The sound of thunder was not heard anymore.


    Saleen thought that was the end of it, but he had underestimated theplexity of that level-18 scroll. The entire area submitted to the attack had a green hole emerging in it. The hole then grew increasinglyrge, swallowing pieces of the head warden¡¯s body as well as all other matter.


    Even the lightning bolts fired by Saleen¡¯s thunder dragons were sucked into that green hole.


    ¡°Sh*t! Get out!¡± Yellow light glowed under Saleen¡¯s feet. The three weapon spirits, Rafel and the Violet Angel all retreated quickly. The golden dagger then swiped before Saleen, cutting a green thread off.


    Saleen went deathly pale. It wasn¡¯t that the Goddess of Myers was trying to set him up, but only that the level-18 scroll was just too powerful. Saleen had not been able to evade the bondage of the threads conjured by nature powers from having spent too much of his power of the soul, which ended up with him almost being sucked into the hole.


    That hole was neither a good ce nor a portal. Everything inside it would have been reduced to pure energy¡ªthe energy of nature, to be specific.


    Saleen then roared at the sky. The soldiers in flight, who were still running far away, heard their king¡¯s warning and elerated immediately.


    Meanwhile, the crevasse on the ground continued to extend, and the green hole in the air continued to expand. The catastrophe wasparable to the one back in Daliang City many years ago.


    Saleen had used three powerful scrolls before he was able to kill the head warden. And what did he get in return? Nothing.


    The catastrophe would have destroyed all wealth that Saleen had intended to take for himself.


    He rushed off. Fortunately, the hole was not trying to consciously attack anyone and was only a natural phenomenon borne out of the spell used.


    If Saleen had known that the level-18 scroll would be able to kill the head warden so easily, he would never have wasted all that effort to amass an army. The level-18 scroll was tens of thousands of times more powerful than what he had expected from his calctions.


    The head warden resorted to escaping using a suicidal method when the rain of flowers showed up, as he couldn¡¯t resist it even when armed with godly items. When the green arrow was shot, the head warden¡¯s soul still would not have been able to escape even if Saleen did not lock it down without his Si of Silence.


    By then, Saleen was full of regrets. If he had known things would turn out this way, he would have reserved the scrolls for killing the Lord of Glory.


    The power of the scrolls was immensely pure. Saleen couldn¡¯t even imagine how a god with the power of the soulparable to his would have been able to escape.


    Little did Saleen know that those had only resulted because the two level-18 magic spells were iplete. The scrolls were meant to be used by level-15 beings when they were made. They must be something that mages at level-15 could control and not get tangled by derivative powers from the scroll.


    If Saleen had not told the metal angels to go elsewhere beforehand, all of those 100 and more angels would have died from those two spells.


    Saleen ran with all his might, but he did not know he had to do that. The area of effect of that catastrophe was only little more than a 100-kilometers radius. Saleen¡¯s speed would have made it possible for him to run before he got caught in it. However, he was still afraid of any unforeseen circumstances, and things would have turned dire if the goddess hadid traps in the spells.


    Terrifying noises were heard from the ground behind him. That was the noise of the ground tearing apart, causing the rocks underneath to shake. The elements within the space had been thrown into chaos.


    The chaotic elemental powers continued to climb and shoot to the air. Then they were sucked in by that huge green hole.


    The soldiers on the mountains all knew that something big had happened from which there was no escape. Some cried out in despair. The ancient warriors finally heard Saleen¡¯s voice¡ªan order telling them to retreat.


    Those ancient warriors hauled two demons at their sides respectively and took flight. Their flight was not based on elemental powers, so they had no fear of the chaotic elemental turbulence.


    There were wardens capable of flight, somewhat. They stayed behind to get rewarded when the head warden won. None expected him to be destroyed by such a powerful spell to the extent that there was nothing left of him to recover. If those wardens stayed behind any longer, they would have died in the mountains.


    Everyone took flight on their own without bothering to attack each other. If they were to tangle with each other for even half a minute, they would have ended up dead on the spot.


    Most of the ones in the mountains had to stay behind since they were incapable of flight. Boilingva was flowing everywhere below. If they ran intova streams, their magic armor would not havested very long before they were cooked.


    That green hole kept expanding, stopping only when it reached the size of about a kilometer radius, which was by thenpletely joined within the volcano below. All energy ejected by the volcano was sucked by the green hole, which then began to copse from within.


    Saleen did not forget to turn around and take a look. He was so startled by what he saw that he thought he was going to die. He turned the Quickcloud into a block of ice and recalled the 24 thunder dragons at the same time. He would not be able to tell the specific location of the head warden without the 24 thunder dragons at work.


    Saleen connected all of them with ice. As a result, its diameter exceeded over 30 meters. It then turned into aet and was thrown to the edge of the ck Dungeon Ind.


    The flight speed at that time was indescribable. The distance he had to cover, which was almost 1,000 kilometers, took only two minutes. The speed he achieved was over seven kilometers per second, over 30 times faster than moving by using earth magic.


    The huge block of ice disintegrated before the flight ended. Thanks to Rafel¡¯s metal territory, everyone in it was not reduced to ashes. The sound caused by the intense friction had even drowned out the sound of the earthquake below.


    Saleen never had the chance to hone his Comet sh, yet the speed he had achieved broke all records when he was escaping that time. The speed could have only been enhanced further when his magic chords had evolved beyond level-15.


    If he were to raise his speed further, he spected that he would have been able to fly out of the atmosphere and roam the true void above.


    The green hole had absorbed enough energy and copsed to a dot before expanding again. There were no forces out to restrict the expansion anymore. All the energies the hole had absorbed earlier were all released all at once. A low rumble reverberated throughout the entire ck Dungeon Ind.


    The entire ind jumped for a bit before cracking up.

 Chapter 1462: Fruitless (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1462: Fruitless (Part 2)</h4>


    The ind ripped in half as two single-target, level-18 magic spells were cast during the volcanic eruption. The upheaval caused Saleen great trepidation. Though the catastrophe was mainly due to the ind¡¯s geographic location, he took nofort from this. He wondered, was I the one who unraveled those two scrolls?


    If the scrolls had gotten out of control, nothing would have been left of him after he died.


    Saleen¡¯s hand began trembling. He still had one level-18 scroll left in his personal space. If the Goddess of Myers were to cast some divine spells and unravel that scroll remotely, he would have been done for.


    His thoughts racing, Saleen noticed several figures taking flight from the mouth of the volcano. All were panicking, which was most unbefitting given their levels.


    They were all previous head wardens, the weakest among them being level-12. The stronger ones had even already reached level-16. The more powerful they were, the unluckier they got. After the battle, the rules of Myers Maind were capped at level-12 again. Those people had suffered grave damage before they even emerged.


    There were no sealing skills in existence potent enough to lock up their powers. Thanks to the mystical space at the volcano, everyone survived; however, those two level-18 scrolls had disrupted the independence of that space, destroying the very thing the ck Dungeon Ind had relied on.


    By the time they emerged, the green hole in the sky reappeared and came creeping down the mountain, sucking up everyone in its path attempting to flee.


    Everything had to be returned to the prime point. Isn¡¯t that what the Goddess of Nature said?


    Regardless of how powerful those previous head wardens were, not a one survived the catastrophe.


    The Goddess of Myers watched the mystical battle on her ne map from thefort of the Purgatory Desert. She smiled, thinking that Saleen had been disobedient as expected by using the scrolls to conquer the ind.


    But then again, those people on the ind had to be dealt with sooner orter. And there was no time like the present. Saleen still had one level-18 scroll with him. That meant the Lord of Glory¡¯s double would not be able to kill him. Even if the Lord of Glory were to advent personally, Saleen would be able to escape


    The goddess wondered, Why is this mage so cautious? She had never seen the skill Saleen used to escape on any mage she had encountered before, which meant that he probably created it on his own.


    Mages able to create their own spells would eventually advance to levels beyond 16.


    Although the crystal wall system they were in was capped at level-18, it was nearly impossible to rise to level-16 in the first ce. Further, the lifespan granted by being at level-16 was not very different from level-18. As long as someone making it to level-16 managed to stay alive, there would be more growth opportunities.


    The way the goddess judged a situation was based on how things were tens of thousands of years ago. If Myers Maind kept advancing, there would have been nothing wrong with that.


    Her confidence was rooted in her connections to the Source of the Myers Maind ne. There was no way she could have been resurrected by having tens of millions of believers worshipping her.


    The ones providing her with power, however, were more than mere believers.


    After watching the battle, the goddess turned her attention to resurrecting her followers. They had stuck by her without regret as she achieved godhood all those years ago and perished with her. She wouldn¡¯t have been so concerned with them to the point where she was willing to spend more time at the temple, instead of simply letting go.


    After a momentary pause, Saleen halted. He was in the area controlled by the Baldur¡¯s Gate. His flying forces came back one after another, entering the gate. Tens of thousands of prisoners onnd were heading toward the sea; over 100 of them had already reached the shore.


    ¡°Rafel, clean ¡¯em up,¡± Saleen barked. Those prisoners, who were not good people, would have threatened his rule if they made it to the maind.


    He found it distasteful to employ them. On the other hand, if they were employed by others, Saleen would have had to expend considerable effort to get rid of them. On second thought, maybe it was a good idea to get rid of them now while they were all in one ce.


    Rafel rode the Violet Angel and took J and Sul along to charge at those undesirables. The two level-12 true mights were still ming themselves for their failures. They couldn¡¯t do anything on that expedition with Saleen.


    Now that Saleen had issued the order, both drew their weapons and aimed them at the unsuspecting prisoners.


    A bloody battle ensued. as the Bug Angel Warriors in the sky came to their aid. The prisoner horde was above level-10 but couldn¡¯t survive being ganged up on like that.


    Being unarmed was their most ring weakness. Their equipment had long been confiscated by the inhabitants of the ck Dungeon: Their only weapons were their fists and their strength.


    Fighting the likes of Bug Angel Warriors, who were d in armor from head to toe, was tough despite being a level or two higher. Wind des were unleashed continuously from their backs. The prisoners resisted the attacks by putting up energy shields. But it didn¡¯t do any good: No skill was of much use against Wind des flying all over the ce, so the prisoners were all put on the defensive.


    In the meantime, those Bug Angel Warriors returned to the Baldur¡¯s Gate as soon as the energy on their armors was spent. Rafel and both of Saleen¡¯s followers then charged into the middle of the prisoners instead.


    They had no fear of low-level Wind des: The armor could easily fend off those attacks.


    The Violet Angel¡¯s tail had already been lopped off in the altercation with the head warden. Luckily, it was swiftly reattached; otherwise, the beast would have been useless in battle. But It was still sulking over the damage while a bunch of naked people began charging full force in its direction. Whoa! Wait a minute The Violet Angel snapped to attention and charged at them with all four limbs, its mouth and its damaged tail.


    Rafel¡¯s spear, Sul¡¯s longsword and J¡¯s twin swords snuffed out the life of any prisoner who had the misfortune of crossing their path.


    If the prisoners had been armed, they would have been evenly matched by the Violet Angel¡¯s gang. But they didn¡¯t even have a stick to wield: Small wonder they were being gruesomely ughtered left, right and center.


    Only a dozen ascetics put up a decent fight with their fists. As their fellow prisoners continued to drop like flies, those aesthetics saw how hopeless the situation was and got on their knees in surrender. They realized that the people they were fighting were the ones who had invaded ck Dungeon Ind and caused the earthquake.


    Those prisoners were pragmatic: Who was it who said, The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Saleen didn¡¯t bother befriending them. All would have had at least dozens of lives lost by their hands. Only the depraved were imprisoned in the ck Dungeon City. The truly innocent ones and those who had been set up were all safely tucked away in prisons of the Tribunal back on the maind.


    Rafel was behaving as if she had no concept of good and evil. J and S struck without mercy. Despite being stunned by the head warden long ago, that was them being setup in the first ce. In seconds, the two men and the three swords in their hands eliminated every single prisoner who surrendered.


    Watching the scene y out from high above, Saleen diverted his gaze to the center of the ind, where escapees were being sucked up by that green hole. Thank goodness he got away early. If he had been his old greedy self, he would have gone into the volcano to check for valuables. Greed, bad timing and the eruption of energies would have cost him his life.


    A huge dragon lifted its head from theva on the ground. The structure of its skull resembled the head warden. It seemed to consist of translucent crystals as well as burning purple mes on the outside.


    Sh*t!


    From the look of that thing, Saleen knew it was something borne in the fires. The head warden had probably been able to advance to level-14, thanks to that thing.


    While ck Dungeon Ind was a unique ce, it was nearly impossible to get to level-14. The head warden¡¯s extraordinary encounters would have probably been on par with Saleen¡¯s. ording to the rules of the ind, the head warden hadn¡¯t been in that position for many years and couldn¡¯t have been more than 50 years old.


    With the ind split in the middle,va oozed and a fire dragon suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It was much bigger than the two-headed fire snake Saleen had confronted many years ago.


    Saleen was still wondering if he should have attacked that snake. He still had level-14 scrolls with him; that would have been enough to kill the creature. Even though it was a level-14 dragon, it had no godly items or equipment on it. Aqua Fulgur gushed out of the Ring of Cosmos for no good reason a while ago, which his family badge absorbed and enabled the power of the badge to be used again.


    Would a chance like this appear again? If not, should he let it slip through his fingers now?


    The three weapon spirits were already urging Saleen while he stood there hesitating.


    ¡°Master, get rid of that thing. It¡¯s a creature borne out of a divine persona!¡± Those weapon spirits were stoked! In reality, though, it was impossible for Saleen to just feed them the divine persona, but so what? All they were interested in was the fire dragon¡¯s body.


    Eating that dragon would give them the energy they needed to advance. The three of them had acquired divine persona fragments from the Goddess of Myers and would have been able to advance as soon as they umted an ample amount of energy.


    ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s do it.¡±


    When Saleen lifted his family badge, it suddenly urred to him: How am I able to see that far now?


    The image in his sight disappeared at that thought. Saleen¡¯s eyes returned to their previous state of being able to see over 100 kilometers away. That, however, was due to the goddess no longer paying attention to him and the powers of the ne map being rescinded, causing the powers Saleen had acquired out of nowhere to disappear.


    The Goddess of Myers had also made a mistake. She thought that since Saleen¡¯s power of the soul had been so powerful, he would have had no problem seeing over 1,000 kilometers away.


    Saleen realized the key to his question immediately and was alerted deep down. He was baffled about how the goddess was able to keep an eye on him from so far away.


    He took the three weapon spirits back to the ind without saying a word. The explosion earlier had caused more than just the deaths of the previous head wardens hiding in the mouth of the volcano. Anyone else who had not escaped in time and was caught within 180 kilometers radius had died, their souls dissipated.


    Deep down, Saleen sensed that his luck was faltering. His forces would not have suffered over 2,000 casualties otherwise. More than 50,000 of his troops died on the ind, all elites. And they never even had a chance to fight a battle properly. Saleen was crestfallen. He felt utterly bereft.


    But then again, luck did not side with ck Dungeon Ind either. The ce was done for. The previous head wardens, who had escaped, would have been able to rebuild ck Dungeon if they remained alive. That was no longer the case. Without those top-notch beings in charge, ck Dungeon Ind could be razed again, even if the ce was rebuilt.


    To add insult to injury, with even Holy City out of the picture, there was no one around to rebuild the ind.


    Saleen then recalled thepound of the ind and wondered how that old geezer was doing. Judging by the distance seen on the map, hispound was far from the center of the ind, so he was probably safe.


    Many forces left on the ind itself. Saleen decided to take them all out before leaving.


    With the goddess no longer paying any attention to him, he could let his guard down. Saleen was perceptive enough to notice all those details. His decision was a prudent one.

 Chapter 1463: Returning to the Hall of Gods (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1463: Returning to the Hall of Gods (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen took his three weapon spirits and retaliated. Because of their previous attempts to advance their level, the spirits¡¯ powers were somewhat diminished. But that didn¡¯t matter: What Saleen needed was the control and assassination abilities of the three, which they still maintained.


    Dante was the first to fly to the top of the volcano. He cast Lightning Constetion, shrouding the fire dragon inside.


    The dragon¡¯s intelligence had already been wiped clean by the head warden; all that was left was its instincts. As such, it simply roamed around the magma after prating the underground without any intention of leaving or returning.


    Saleen arrived soon enough. Under observations of his Eye of Souls, he was able to see the fire dragon¡¯s core¡ªa divine persona in its brain; it was fuchsia. Not even the head warden seemed to have discovered this.


    That was because even if it had been observed by the Elemental Eye, it would have looked like a magic nucleus. Being pseudo gods, the three weapon spirits were highly sensitive to divine personas, enabling them to sense if something was different.


    If this had evere to the head warden¡¯s attention, he would have extracted the divine persona and kept it for himself.


    The divine persona was not actually the power core of the fire dragon but only a condition of its birth. Coincidentally, a god from the underworld had fallen there and its divine persona was left intact, gradually giving birth to one such creature.


    Given enough time, provided it was not discovered by others, the fire dragon could eventually be a god, say in a few billion years, or maybe tens of billions of years.


    The three weapon spirits looked at the dumb creature and were ted deep down. Even the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier, the most down to earth among the three, coveted that creature.


    The fire dragon¡¯s energies were so pure that if it had not been for the seal of the volcano bing undone by a level-18 magic spell, it might have actually be a god. But if the creature had appeared before the others, it surely would have ended up dead.


    ¡°Move!¡± Saleen deduced that everything under the volcano had been destroyed, dissolved by that green hole. There was nothing to be gained this time. Had it not been for the divine persona, tens of thousands of his people would have died in exchange for the head warden¡¯s death. That would have made Saleen very regretful.


    He shouted at them to move before unleashing yet another thick lightning bolt from his family badge.


    The fire dragon, no longer intelligent, breathed a long stream of mes in retaliation, intending to block Saleen¡¯s attacks. It had good instincts: despite Saleen being the first to attack, the dragon was the first to breathe fire.


    The power of lightning, however, was not something the dragon was capable of stopping. The bolt blew off the dragon¡¯s head right away, leaving only a pristine-looking divine persona hovering about.


    Saleen had never had such an easy time killing a magic beast. He thought it would be much tougher and even came prepared with several scrolls and was prepared for a prolonged fight, even sustaining injuries. He never expected to see the fire dragon¡¯s divine persona floating with just one lightning bolt.


    Among his three weapon spirits, the spirit of the magic amplifier was the most down to earth¡ªand the speediest. Ittched onto the divine persona right away, flying back to its master and handing him the prize.


    The God of Magic Net, by contrast, was the kind who bullied the weak yet feared the strong. That¡¯s why it kept its mouth shut. It simply crept up to the dragon and cut up its body with its elemental de.


    Unexpectedly, the fire dragon¡¯s head regenerated. And what was the first thing it did? It chomped down on the God of Magic Net angrily. In response, the God of Magic Net¡¯s elemental de swept and cut down the dragon¡¯s red fangs. Then it made a fast getaway after nearly being swallowed by that dragon.


    At this point, Saleen realized that the fire dragon¡¯s vital area was its heart: This is where its magic nucleus rested. The head had already been taken by the divine persona, preventing a magic nucleus from developing there.


    After being severely injured in one of Selene¡¯s previous attacks, the fire dragon went berserk. All three weapon spirits were capable of different attacks. Saleen was bored to tears during the fight and on the verge of dozing off. He thought the dragon was a formidable opponent. He didn¡¯t expect it to rely solely on instinct after being stripped of its intelligence.


    Those instincts had not been honed on the battlefield. Essentially, the head warden had disabled the fire dragon in order to gain power from it.


    It didn¡¯t take long for the enormous beast to be killed by the three weapon spirits. Its corpse was then scooped up and dumped into the Lightning Constetion for preservation. Under stimtion from electrical pulses within, its body would be kept fresh to prevent its elements from dissipating.


    Saleen, nevertheless, was still vexed. He sent hundreds of lightning warriors into the magma to see if the head warden had left anything behind. The search was disappointing, for everything below had been destroyed.


    The lightning warriors went all the way down until they reached the tunnel where the fire dragon went in and out before more than 100 of them were sucked inside. Saleen didn¡¯t want to see further losses, so he recalled all remaining lightning warriors.


    And what did Saleen gain after raising an army and using up two level-18 scrolls? One divine persona and one fire dragon. Of course, there was still plenty of wealth to be had on ck Dungeon Ind. Except for the head warden¡¯sir, Saleen was hardly interested in that.


    There was no doubt that the divine persona was the best reward to be had. Suppressing his disappointment, Saleen left with his weapon spirits. The ind continued to crumble and when Saleen reached the outskirts, the ruins of a temple emerged from the cracks on thend.


    Saleen knew that the ck Dungeon Ind had once acquired ancient ruins. The ruins he was looking at now were probably the same ones. It¡¯s too bad they had pretty much been picked clean. The gushingva rendered them unworthy of further exploration.


    Saleen came to possess a ne map that made searching for ruinsparatively easy. As such, hemanded the army at the edge of the ind to get into Baldur¡¯s Gate without looking back. This prevented them from encountering any nasty surprises the ind might still be able to pull off.


    If the entire ind suddenly sank, Saleen would never be able to save all his troops.


    He figured he didn¡¯t have to worry about the hidden powers of the Holy See any more since the head warden was done for. The Holy See¡¯s forces had vanished from the ne map.


    Saleen gained a lot from the battle that time. thanks Because he managed to win thanks to his level-18 scrolls, he considered the victory rather disappointing. He had been keeping a close eye on the head warden for a long time while collecting and analyzing intelligence only for him to be easily killed by level-18 scrolls.


    At the same time, Saleen came to understand what it meant to be truly powerful.


    Be it the grandmaster or the general, he would have easily made short work of them with the scrolls. He had initially thought the powers of the Lord of Glory were the pinnacle of powers he was able toe into contact with. He never expected to see those scrolls or to be incapable of figuring out how they worked.


    The earthquake on the ck Dungeon Ind caused massive tsunamis. Humongous waves were soon crashing on the shore of that piece ofnd on Myers Maind, crushing all buildings there and drowning more than half the people on the Tribunal.


    Saleen contacted the Floating City after he finished destroying ck Dungeon Ind, sending it over to deal with any remaining forces of the Tribunal.


    He no longer needed tounch the attack himself. What he needed was to advance. The first step was to head to the Hall of Gods and speed up the passage of time to enable him to rise to level-13. It was also time for his three weapon spirits to advance as well; otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t be able to do battle with an infuriated Lord of Glory.


    Just one level-18 scroll was in Saleen¡¯s possession. Only by getting to level-14 would he stand a chance of targeting the Lord of Glory and killing him. His most vexing worry was the Lord of Glory many doubles. Saleen decided to reserve the level-18 scroll for taking out the god¡¯s main body.


    He was no longer in the dark about gods. He realized that a god¡¯s double armed with a divine-persona fragment wielded enormous power. The Lord of Glory¡¯s double was at the pinnacle of level-14. Unless Saleen advanced, he¡¯d never be able to take on that god.


    After arranging the order of battle, Saleen took out divine tree seeds. He would never hand them to the goddesses, so he decided to give them to the general instead. Such a trade, however, wouldn¡¯t be enough for him to ess the Hall of Gods again just yet. Saleen prepared another segment of the Heretic God¡¯s bone and many divine crystals that he collected. He was getting ready to use them as his ticket into the Hall of Gods.


    He then flew to the Oceanic Ice Block. The treasury and warehouses of the Kingdom of Metatrin seemed empty. While the supply of magic nuclei was still ample, there were not many left in the warehouses.


    A huge force like Saleen¡¯s would have been the most demanding on low-level magic nuclei. He still had ample high-level magic nuclei with him, meaning that those of higher levels in his kingdom had little to worry about. What hecked were the ones between level-3 and level-6. Mages used such magic nuclei the most.


    Saleen remained ufortable about summoning Nailisi and the Winged Skull. The Goddess of Myers was putting him on edge, especially when he had no idea when the goddess would monitor his actions again.


    He intended to take Sika to the Hall of Gods, but not Lex. The secret art Lex practiced required powers of his billions of subjects. Dealing with such a huge nation would actually benefit Lex¡¯s advancement.


    The ones Saleen had taken to the Imperial City of the Abyss were still the ones who had been there before. Saleen first stayed with Rafel and hunted the magic beasts at the Oceanic Ice Block for one month, killing untold numbers and almost filling up one whole slot of his Ring of Cosmos.


    The power of his magic amplifier was on full disy: Any single spell he cast would be ten times more potent than normal. He was gradually getting used to the equipment. After all, it would have tost until he got to the pinnacle of his profession.


    If Saleen were to run into schools of red krill again, one area-of-effect magic spell would have easily killed tens of thousands of them.


    Arriving at the Imperial City of the Abyss again, he no longer dared to enter the royal pce himself anymore. He had Rafel hide in the magic amplifier before walking into the Cemetery of the Heroes.


    How deste the cemetery appeared. The level-14 demigod Saleen had brought before filled the heroic spirits up to keep their lives intact for a while.


    But none of the heroes came out to wee him. To the heroes, Saleen was the only visitor. He wasn¡¯t in a hurry to run away, so it was possible that he didn¡¯t bring anything with him.


    Saleen walked in front of the general¡¯s grave and said, ¡°General, I need to speak with you.¡±


    A passage did not appear on the grave as it had before. The general¡¯s voice was heard from within, ¡°What brings you here, Saleen?¡±


    Although he felt dejected, Saleen quickly answered, ¡°I¡¯m here to trade, and I have news.¡±

 Chapter 1464: Returning to the Hall of Gods (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1464: Returning to the Hall of Gods (Part 2)</h4>


    The general slowly emerged from his grave, shing a smile at Saleen.


    ¡°I need to get to the Hall of Gods,¡± Saleen stated his request first. If the general were to not agree, the news he was about to tell him would be of little use to the man.


    The general stared at Saleen for three seconds before taking out his badge and throwing it to Saleen.


    ¡°So, what¡¯s the news?¡±


    ¡°Myers has resurrected.¡±


    The general¡¯s narrowed eyes quickly widened. Thousands of graves in the cemetery were in an uproar by then. All sorts of heroic spirits climbed out of their graves and gathered around the general¡¯s grave.


    While those heroic spirits showed little fear of or respect for Myers, the news of the resurrection startled them. Even the general could barely maintain hisposure. That¡¯s why he stared at Saleen in a nervous manner¨Cas if Saleen was the resurrected goddess herself!


    ¡°Her resurrection took ce at the center of the Purgatory Dessert. I assume none of you can make it there, but I can show you the image of her and me.¡± Saleen knew that ne coordinates didn¡¯t work within the Imperial City of the Abyss. After all, the city seemed to have vanished from Myers Maind.


    Saleen said this as he projected the process of him attacking the goddess using magic. The way he recorded the images was different¡ªhe was using lightning skills. Not even the goddess had actually been aware of what Saleen was doing during this attack.


    Saleen attacked the goddess without hesitation just so he could set up the meeting on that day. The general had no idea how much time Saleen was able to spend in the Hall of Gods. Neither did he realize that Saleen had advanced to level-13.


    Saleen needed to advance to level-14. What¡¯s more, he had to make sure the three weapon spirits advanced as well. Only by doing so would he get the chance to head back to the cemetery of the giant to im the Lightning Moon.


    He wouldn¡¯t allow any unforeseen circumstances to ur this time. If he were able to im the Lightning Moon, he could use many skills in his Book of Lightning. By then, not even the Lord of Glory would be able to withstand a lightning strike from him.


    After reading the magic spells in the Book of Lightning, he knew that to be free of regrets in the future, he had to master the bookpletely. Every single skill in that book looked very tempting to Saleen.


    Further, the badge was something left behind by his father. He wondered if his family had secrets enabling him to train in the lightning magic running through his veins.


    He hardly kept anything to himself and had attempted to impart lightning skills to others. Except for Eleanor, not even his teacher and Truman had mastered those skills. Eleanor¡¯s mastery was not of a high enough level: it only enabled her arrows to boast better pration and be imbued with anti-magic properties.


    The grandmaster looked at the projections over and over. Saleen then let out a tiny cough.


    ¡°Get going.¡± The grandmaster had actually forgotten about the trade.


    Saleen took out the things he had prepared and ced them before the general. It was not really necessary for him to make the trade, but he felt uneasy having the seeds on his person. If the goddess ever found out about this, she would probably retrieve them at any moment.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± The grandmaster was still watching the magic projection.


    ¡°Level-18 scrolls. The kind I can use.


    ¡°I only have level-17 ones.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯ll do.¡± Saleen was thrilled. Level -17 or level-18 made little difference to him. Both would work well against the Lord of Glory. All he needed was something to overpower level-15 gods.


    The grandmaster didn¡¯t y any tricks on Saleen this time. He took out a yellow scroll. It looked huge, almost three times the size of normal books.


    Saleen nced at the magic rope on the scroll and saw that it looked proper. Secret magic inscriptions were written there, detailing the scroll¡¯s contents.


    Level-17 earth magic was contained within. He found that useful enough. Its effects wouldn¡¯t be diminished when dealing with the Lord of Glory, who was of light element.


    Saleen took the level-17 magic scroll while looking at the grandmaster. He had prepared three sets of items. The grandmaster was exasperated, taking out two other level-15 ones before Saleen was satisfied and left.


    It was rare for the grandmaster to not get pissed off. Then again, the news that Saleen had brought him was of great importance.


    Everyone knew what Myers was like back in the day. She had been one of the top mages. After bing a god, she was still capable of using magic. Further, she could ess the source of that main ne where they were after achieving godhood and was many times more powerful than other advent gods.


    So long as Myers Maind stayed intact, the powers of Myers would be inexhaustible.


    Despite being of a simr level, it was nearly impossible for the general to kill Myers. It was fortunate that Myers hadn¡¯t yet advanced to adequate heights. If those people ever left the Cemetery of Heroes, they would be able to kill that god, who had once been their friend.


    What if we just leave her alone? Shall we let this main ne crumble hundreds of millions of yearster then?


    Everyone was wondering if this was the best course of action, especially the grandmaster, who was very keen on the lifespan of the ne. He had been to many nes before but never bothered to find out if they still existed. But things were different with Myers Maind, for that ne was his home.


    The general sighed and said, ¡°When Saleen gets back, I¡¯m going to sign a contract with him. Get 24 among you people to help him out. Allow him to gather everything the goddess needs. We shall leave the cemetery in due time thereafter.¡±


    Silence. Everyone went silent knowing that following Saleen meant relinquishing the chance of getting resurrected, of being stuck as heroic spirits for good.


    But if Myers were to grow, it would only be a matter of time before the imperial city was discovered. If it came to that, Myers would be able to do whatever she wanted to everyone in the cemetery from outside.


    That had nothing to do with vengeance; it was just a matter of principle. Those heroic spirits had once protected Myers Maind, and the goddess was doing the same. But they did not share the same ideals. Myers had failed once and wanted to try again. The heroic spirits couldn¡¯t afford to let her fail this time.


    Their ne was their home. The heroes had been cooped up in the cemetery for far too long. Their passions had long cooled. At that moment, those cooled passions were being reignited, and there was simply no stopping them.


    That was what Saleen wanted to see: While he admired the goddess a lot, he wasn¡¯t about to allow her to doom the ne.


    The heroes in the cemetery were thinking about what to do to help Saleen out. Of course, the goal of helping him was simply to enable him to help them fulfill the requirements of leaving the Cemetery of Heroes, even if that endeavor required a huge number of divine personas of the gods.


    That was the first time Saleen was allowed to enter the Hall of Gods without a set time limit. After stepping inside, he summoned those of his own and set the divine persona on the magic array without hesitation.


    That was something that would have happened in Myers Maind. If he were in other nes, the difficulty of finding a divine persona would have made the odds of one in ten billion seem very probable. Huge numbers of gods had perished on Myers Maind in the past. Regardless of how peculiar the ces where the divine personas were hiding, it was only a matter of time before they would be discovered.


    What good luck Saleen was having! At the very least, while there might be several people who had a piece of divine persona on their person, probably none was able to drain two pieces sessively.


    Saleen knew what purpose the divine personas served. The highest value to them was the rules within that could be extracted. If he were at level-15 now, he wouldn¡¯t have hesitated to use a divine persona to enhance his powers. Being only at level-13 meant he still couldn¡¯t make the rules within a divine persona as his own.


    Saleen had no time to waste. After he was done setting up training grounds within the Hall of Gods, he began to work on his family badge. All three of his weapon spirits pulled out all the stops and took out the broken divine personas in preparation for advancing to level-14.


    Only by getting to level-14 would they be useful to Saleen. Level-13 was no longer the ultimate, invincible level on Myers Maind. Yes, Rafel was frustrated, but she managed to calm herself down once she saw Saleen patiently working on equipment.


    She put the Inferno Spear together with the weapon Saleen gave her, and she began to fuse the pieces.


    There were too many limitations to the Inferno Spear because it was not a weapon that the Metal God crafted her but for another goddess. Fortunately, the Metal God was powerful enough toprehend the rules mastered by the goddess though. Despite the spear¡¯s immense power, it was still ill-suited for her.


    Rafel was working on the weapon to make it truly hers. The act symbolized her conviction to put the gods behind her and start anew.


    Her indomitable spirit of always moving ahead of humans had gradually rubbed off on her. She came to believe that even without the gods she still had a vibrant life ahead of her.


    Saleen was well-prepared this time. He spent more than a dozen yearspleting his work on his family badge, making it impossible for it to be taken from him again. The badge¡¯s form was unchanged. But the contents of the Book of Lightning waspletely imprinted on Saleen¡¯s soul, down to everyst detail.


    There was one level-13 lightning skill, two level-14 ones, four level-15 ones, eight level-16 ones, 16 level -17 ones, and 32 level-18 ones.


    It would not have surprised Saleen if that was all there was to it. There were corresponding training methods for acquiring level-19 to level-24 lightning skills inscribed on thest pages on the Book of Lightning.


    Those lightning skills all cost power of the soul to use, as well as Power of the Source. Saleen had only seen this on the Goddess of Myers before. It was also found in some special skills, but too little of that was able to be mobilized.


    Saleen took out huge amounts of bone crystals of the giant and fed them to the thunder dragons. All 24 of them would now possess great power in adulthood. He did not, however, use them in front of the Goddess of Myers for fear that she would be jealous and destroy the dragons.


    All three weapon spirits had failed to get to level-14 even after 1,000 years had passed, and they were getting anxious. Saleen was unfazed. He continued to train in the skills inscribed in the Book of Lightning. The magic chords in his body began to vibrate at a frequency that would easily kill a true might by shaking down all internal organs to nothing.


    Saleen, on the other hand, enjoyed the vibrations very much: they were a palpable sign of him having acquired the power of lightning.


    It was no surprise that he was still unable to advance further despite having trained for another 1,000 years after rising to level-13. All six major elements of his had been thrown off-bnce. He was only able to make the magic chords grow after advancing by using lightning skills, once he had developed lightning magic chords.


    Without an understanding of lightning rules, advancement would be impossible; it would also be impossible for his magic chords to continue growing.

 Chapter 1465: Advancement (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1465: Advancement (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen spent over 1,000 years training to use lightning magic in a rather boring way before seeing signs of advancement. The powerful beings he surrounded himself with were shocked. They gathered around him and wanted to see how a mage like him could advance.


    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous. Leave me alone!¡± Saleen barked. The only people left around him were the three weapon spirits and the Violet Angel. They wanted to say something to him, but he chased them all away again and again.


    His followers knew he was not one to make a bigger deal out of things than they were. If he said something was dangerous, it was definitely something that could affect their lives.


    This was why a mage¡¯s advancement was generally not witnessed by others.


    If enemies observed the process, they would be able to assess a mage¡¯s true powers. If friends were watching from the sidelines, a failed advancement might cost them their lives.


    Mages had no way of controlling their bodily states when they advanced. Everything came down to luck. That¡¯s why mages above level-6 spent all their advancement processes in magic towers: The higher a mage¡¯s level, the greater the changes from advancement.


    For someone like Saleen who had only begun mastering the rules, there was no telling how great the magnitude of energies would be when released. If he were making breakthroughs at the highest levels, the energies would bemensurately high too.


    With that said, now that Saleen was at the precipice of advancement, the entire Hall of Gods would be filled by lightning powers at the pinnacle of level-13.


    Moreover, at the very instant Saleen advanced, those powers would jump to level-14.


    No one would want to be around something that dangerous. The only ones who stayed near Saleen at that moment were his 24 thunder dragons. He didn¡¯t dare keep Dante, the god of lightning, around. Had he done so, it would have ended up absorbing his lightning rules, rendering Saleen¡¯s advancement iplete.


    That was the downside of having gods as subordinates. There were some things Dante was incapable of controlling.


    The Hall of Gods darkened. Except for the faint light unleashed by the divine persona, only that bit of elemental energy was released naturally by the walls. That energy was stored inside the remains of the gods, which was seemingly limitless.


    Saleen¡¯s water and lightning magic chords all extended outside his body. Those chords were transparent and had magic patterns coursed about them. The phenomenon made Saleen look like a mollusk, while those magic chords looked like his tentacles.


    The image was obviously quite ugly, yet Saleen felt very tranquil at the moment. He was even thinking that if he built a massive magic in some ne, none of those enchanters would want to advance this way.


    Humans came in all shapes and sizes when they had reached the end of their evolution. Mages were still considered normal in that case. The minds of humans were probably even stronger than the gods¡¯. There was a reason for this. Despite the short lifespan of humanity, humans had probably seen more changes than what the gods would see after more than 100 million years.


    Uncontroble.


    Saleen recalled that magical term: The evolution of humans was uncontroble.


    No professionals could walk the exact same paths as their teachers. It was the same between Saleen and Jason as well as between Saleen and Truman.


    Truman had bnced six elements while Jason preferred fire and water more than anything else. He, on the other hand, acquired lightning magic chords, making him more simr to Nailisi¡¯s human form instead.


    The seven magic chords seemed to have turned into lightning as they danced in a frenzy in midair. As Saleen hovered, lightning exploded against a fiery st in the Hall of Gods, with no corners uncovered.


    Saleen was astonished to find that his advancement had triggered a multiple-target skill at level-15¡ªDance of the Lightning Snakes.


    He never expected that would be his special skill.


    He had wanted to acquire a single-target offensive skill like the Crystal Finger. When imbued with lightning properties, such attacks would enable him to kill something at a higher level.


    Dance of the Lightning Snakes was a multiple-target spell. Although useful for attacking targets below level-14, it would be effective against targets not armed with powerful equipment.


    Saleen stopped sulking shortly thereafter. The Dance of the Lightning Snakes had a very wide area of effect. If he were ever ganged up on by the thousands, that one skill alone would have allowed him to reduce those thousands to dust in the blink of an eye.


    It was fortunate that he had chased all his followers away earlier. Otherwise, Dante probably would have been the only one left alive in that ce.


    Saleen saw his magic chords sticking to the walls of the Hall of Gods. They began sucking powers from there, discharging electrical arcs. Ah, trouble was brewing. It was entirely possible that his lightning magic chords would destroy the ce.


    Luckily the lightning magic chords had absorbed ample power about half an hourter. The walls were hardly scratched when they returned to his body. A ce forged with the gods¡¯ remains was extremely resilient.


    Saleen¡¯s advancement process onlysted about half an hour, though it felt longer than 1,000 years to him. All 360 million lightning runes coursed about in his mind once. The speed of the process was such that even a mage like him, who hadmanded formidable power of the soul, felt as if he was about to break.


    The cause of this difort was the sounds from the appearance of the lightning runes. The vibration frequency consisted of rules of thunder and electrical discharges.


    That was to say, he had been forced to take in huge amounts of lightning rules within that half an hour.


    Were it not for his advancement, amon level-13 mage would have gained nothing from that experience, even if he had managed to somehow stay alive. In conventional circumstances, level-13 was the first time a mage was able to touch the secrets of the power of the soul. Saleen¡¯s power of the soul, on the other hand, had already reached its pinnacle state.


    That was why Saleen was able to endure the ordeal. The lightning rules were sealed deep inside his soul, at least for now.


    The 360 million runes consisted of the general principles of lightning rules. If he were to familiarize himself with every single rule, there was no telling how long it would take. He had already reaped the greatest reward of the experience¡ªadvancing to level-14 and possessing a level-15 multiple target skill.


    Saleen went out of his way to experiment with both, confirming them to be level-14 magic chords. But he was able to begin learning level-15 lightning magic.


    After his magic chords changed, he initially thought he would have had trouble casting water magic. To his surprise, he retained the use of water magic.


    That was not all. Saleen found that control of the other five elements was no longer as troublesome as it used to be. The advancement had finally gotten rid of the problem guing his body. The only shoring left was the mark of hatred left behind by Ismail, which still proved incapable of being scrubbed away.


    Scrubbing the mark off through sheer force would have harmed his soul, and Saleen saw no need to do self-harm simply because he wanted to run from a God of Underworld. It was really hard to repair a damaged soul.


    The 24 thunder dragons were unharmed when Saleen¡¯s Dance of the Lightning Snakes was in full effect; in fact, they were very excited. Their master¡¯s advancement resulted in some seals that were ced on them bursting open. True scales began to form on their bodies; their horns extended and split into prongs. This meant that the thunder dragons began to gain true skills instead of having to instinctively charge before using electrical attacks.


    By this point, Saleen was only able to tell that the walls in the Hall of Gods had been damaged. After that, they were doing self-repair. The divine persona, which should havested another four to five hundred, had its brightness reduced by half.


    Saleen had more than 200 years left in the hall. How exasperating! His advancement harmed the walls on the hall, and his divine persona was used instead to fix the damages. He learned by then that mages really should not be cheapskates.


    The three weapon spirits burst out of the magic amplifier and shouted in an agitated state.


    ¡°What are you guys doing?¡± Saleen was thunderstruck! He sensed that the powers of the three weapon spirits had risen exponentially. It was therefore not surprising that they hadn¡¯t been able to advance before¡ªSaleen was the one to be med.


    He only came to understand more about the jade fragments¡¯ abilities by then. There was no need to be concerned about his actual level when he was in control of those weapon spirits when they were at level-13. Demigods, however, at level-14 were no longer beings that could be controlled solely through the jade fragments. He needed to be at level-14 himself before control would be safe.


    He began wondering what kind of a lunatic genius had crafted the jade fragments to the extent that they could keep powerful beings on a tight leash.


    Even if I set a trap for Myers, would I still be able to control her?


    Saleen dismissed those thoughts right away. There was still a level-18 scroll in his Ring of Cosmos, a gift from the Goddess of Myers. If that scroll ever detonated, not even 100 Figures of Fate would keep him alive.


    In the two remaining months left, Saleen had his followers in the magic amplifier emerge outside for training. Two-hundred years were not all that long to such powerful beings after all.


    Saleen began to train in lightning magic below level-15. He tried many times with the Ring of Cosmos but was still unable to extract the Aqua Fulgur within at will. He knew he was of an insufficient level and wondered what level the water was at. Despite having advanced to level-14, he still couldn¡¯t use them as he pleased.


    It was fortunate that the Ring of Cosmos was extremely daunting in its capacity to enhance power of the soul. That was considered the most powerful equipment in Saleen¡¯s arsenal.


    Saleen did not fiddle with equipment after that but trained in silence. He enhanced his Water me skills and familiarized himself with spells between level-13 and level-15. Doing so cost him considerable time. Over 200 years passed and the divine persona on the magic array, which had once been a perfect piece, had finally broken up into six pieces.


    Saleen put the pieces of the broken divine persona away. He was considered quite a loser in that case, for he initially had powerful rules that he could have had ess to, but at present, those rules ended up in six broken fragments.


    Broken divine persona and a whole piece had totally different values to them: This was akin to the difference between a pile of dirt and a mountain filled with gold ore.


    ¡°Master, may I have a piece?¡± The Violet Angel went up and asked Saleen. It had learned many skills for the past 1,000 years or so. Too bad it still couldn¡¯t advance. Advancement was too difficult for one such being. If it had no extraordinary encounters, it would probably stay at level-13 until the day it died.


    Saleen threw a piece to the Violet Angel without saying a word. The Violet Angel¡¯s soul was locked within a lightning cage. It was impossible for it to escape his control. Further, that thing seemed to be enjoying its current status very much.


    Saleen considered the Violet Angel a lunatic but knew it would never betray him. Hmm, I wonder...


    Puzzled, Saleen took another piece and handed it to Rafel, saying, ¡°If you want to advance and be a demigod, eat this. If not, embed it onto a piece of gear.¡±


    Rafel saw no need to be polite. She took the piece and embedded it on her spear. The Inferno Spear had beenpletely reworked by then. Red colors crossed with greens, yet it did not look to be anything less than tasteful.

 Chapter 1466: Advancement (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1466: Advancement (Part 2)</h4>


    The very reason why Rafel worked on the Inferno Spear was so to put her past behind her. However, she was still unwilling to be Saleen¡¯s follower. She had no problem tagging along him, but she did not want to be bogged down by anything.


    Saleen did not mind at all, as it was only a matter of signing a contract after all. If it had been in the past, he could have taken her unwillingness to be stemming from her, thinking Saleen to be beneath her. However, things were different at present. Rafel¡¯s powers were no longer even on par with Saleen anymore.


    Other than ball lightning, which was a lightning spell that he created on his own, there was yet another level 13, two level 14, and four level 15 lightning magic added to his arsenal.


    No. Five level 15 ones. Dance of the Lightning Snakes was something that would not have cost Saleen any lightning magic chords to pull after all.


    Despite the immense power of lightning magic, Saleen did not ck on training elemental ones. The reason for doing so was simple¡ªlightning magic was about six times more costly, in terms of power of the soul, to use, whenpared to elemental ones.


    In most battles, there would have been no need for him to bring the massive damage potential of lightning magic to bear. The Thunder Dragon ster would have been sufficient to handle those situations. Furthermore, effects of elemental magic was not something he could have afforded to ignore, especially during special situations where elemental magic would have worked better as control skills, than lightning magic would have.


    At the veryst, low level spells like Frozen was not something he could have reced with lightning magic.


    Saleen spent about 40 days in the Hall of Gods that time, trading for 1200 years worth of time with a single piece of divine persona. The price was indeed rather steep, but if it had not been forrge scale equipment like the Hall of Gods, there was no way Saleen would have been able to change the rate of passage of time anywhere, even if he were to do so using 100 divine persona.


    1200 years were more than enough to get J and Sul to advance, even if they had been talentless idiots. However, the two of them had not simply blitzed through the processes. They trained methodically and properly grounded their foundations instead.


    Truman was pretty much the only genius among them. Saleen had only been able to advance a single level, despite having been through so many mystical encounters and having so many equipment benefiting his advancement. Truman went on to advance to level 14 without much problems.


    1200 years were not enough time for conventional mages to advance simply by training as time passed.


    Saleen was very surprised and pleased with Truman¡¯s advancement, as he was Saleen¡¯s student. All of Saleen¡¯s experiences and thoughts in magic were made into the most detailed of notes he was capable of making, and he let Truman memorized them all using magic.


    Truman¡¯s sess would have enabled those precious knowledge to be passed down the generations.


    Mages did not exist so as to take from others. Making clear of the rtionship between the elements and the world, and how to see through the very fundamental nature of the world, were the ultimate goals of mages.


    Saleen hoped that he could have been such a mage someday. However, he knew well that beyond their level 18 crystal wall systems, there were crystal wall systems that were of even higher levels. He may not have been able to eventually make clear of the world¡¯s true nature, so the possibility of the endeavor being aplished lied with mages of subsequent generations continuing to research.


    Having the truth of the world be revealed through the power of humankind, was indeed a very lofty goal.


    Saleen found it a pity that he was unable to bring his teacher there. Jason would have probably been able to advance to level 15 in more than 1000 years after all.


    Those thoughts ran in Saleen¡¯s mind and before he realized it, he had returned to the Cemetery of Heroes.


    He sealed his powers at level 13, in order to prevent the general from finding out his secret¡ªhe hid a piece of divine persona from the general. No good would havee to him if the general was to find that out.


    Saleen returned the badge while the general did not bother to probe Saleen¡¯s level. He said to Saleen instead, ¡°I have one more thing that I need to ask of you, Saleen.¡±


    Saleen felt that to be rather weird and said, ¡°General, you¡¯re the most powerful of powerful beings in this world. You could have at least traded if you needed anything. If you¡¯re asking for my help, I¡¯m afraid that I¡¯d fall short of your expectations.¡±


    Saleen was being polite, but he was also speaking the truth. If it had not been for the general needing his services, one thought from the general would have probably been all it would have taken, to break his soulpletely and thoroughly wipe him out of existence.


    ¡°Here¡¯s how it goes. You¡¯re a mage, and you know that nes with gods on them would degenerate very quickly, unless the ne be a divine kingdom. However, a divine kingdom is filledpletely with believers, and there would be no one capable of stopping their god. It would be quite a sad thing for humans.¡±


    ¡°I assume you¡¯re talking about Myers then?¡± Saleen went straight to the point.


    ¡°Indeed I am. I won¡¯t be asking you to take her down. You¡¯re still not powerful enough to do that. But...¡±


    ¡°You wish to obtain greater power of the gods?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. Myers could only be killed, if I were to do so personally.¡±


    Saleen shook his head and added, ¡°I don¡¯t have that kind of power. Myers has amassed over 20 million believers now, she...¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t the problem with believers. The problem is with her being able to ess the Source of the ne to gain power. She could easily be restored to her prime in terms ofbat prowess, in less than 20 years at most. Even someone at level 16 would have trouble dealing with her by then.¡±


    Saleen did not say anything. He was wondering if extracting power of the Source of the ne would have elerated a ne¡¯s decay.


    ¡°I did say that I won¡¯t need you to take on Myers. Youck the powers to do so. I¡¯d only hope that you bring some of the heroic spirits with you.¡±


    ¡°Sign a contract? But my power of the soul...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d help you enhance your power of the soul, enabling you to have ample powers to sign such a contract,¡± the general said with great reluctance.


    The heroic spirits were all very high level beings. If Saleen were to have such powerful beings by his side, there would have definitely been need for a contract. However, signing contracts have requirements on the power of the soul. A level 13 mage like Saleen would be considered very formidable, even if he were to be able sign a contract with just one hero. The task could have only been achieved at the pinnacle.


    Saleen put the Ring of Cosmos away without saying anything, dropping his power of the soul to rock bottom. His current level of power of the soul was entirely dependent on the ring to reach pinnacle state. With the general making such a promise, Saleen that the greatest benefit he gained from the trip was no longer getting to level 14.


    Training power of the soul was very time-consuming. Saleen had been training for 1200 years, and yet his power of the soul hardly grew.


    He was there all alone and everyone around him before had all been inside the magic amplifier, making Saleen feel at ease.


    When the grandmaster showed up, Saleen actually smiled at him. The benefits he gained on that trip far exceeded his expectations. He never expected to reap such returns, simply by delivering one news regarding Myers to the heroic spirits.


    Saleen had no idea on how to suppress his excitement, so he took to training magic instead. There was a square block of ice spinning around on his hand, gradually splitting into two, four, eight...


    Ice Split was a very unpopr spell. Saleen had only learned it because he was familiar with water element.


    Doing so allowed him to save a lot of time. If he were to pick up fire magic, while he would have no longer ran into much of any obstacles, honing them to bebat abilities would have taken too much time in training. If Saleen had that much time to spare to begin with, they would have never been any need for him to waste his magic nuclei in the Hall of Gods.


    Despite feeling reluctant, the grandmaster saw no choice but to take out a treasured piece in his grave. That thing was originally meant for his student. It was quite a pity that such a day would have nevere. The likes of Saleen was beneath the grandmaster, who saw Saleen to be unfit of bing his student, yet Saleen would have ended up enjoying one such good piece of gear nheless.


    With a glum expression, the grandmaster handed a jade-colored bottle to the general, before walking back to his grave without saying a word. The general was able to do nothing but chuckle about that. The grandmaster was not to be med¡ªhe was reminded of his student.


    The general did not hand over the bottle in his hand to Saleen immediately. He then said, ¡°The grandmaster has no need for such a thing himself. He¡¯s not feeling reluctant of handing it over. This thing is already useless to him practically, but it is nheless a memento.¡±


    ¡°I understand. It was for his student,¡± Saleen replied in an understanding manner. That thing was about to be his anyway, so there was no need for him to piss someone else off while he was taking it.


    ¡°There is no name for this thing here. It could enhance the power of the soul. The height of enhancement, however, is entirely depending on how sturdy your foundations are. Even a magic apprentice would have been able to gain powerful power of the soul right away, after taking in the entire bottle. So, just chuck everything in. I do not wish to see your power of the soul balking under the stress of signing 24 contracts.¡±


    ¡°I understand. Is it dangerous?¡±


    ¡°You have the lightning badge, so you would probably know low level lightning skills. There won¡¯t be any danger to be had,¡± the general answered.


    ¡°Well then, bring me into the grave.¡±


    The general hesitated for a bit. He did not mind that bit of loss, as they had been giving a great many after all. The greatest price paid was the sacrifice of 24rades of his.


    Saleen entered the grave again, but he was unable to see the general¡¯s coffin. The scene was all grey. It was obvious that the general did not bother wasting any more power. He simply gave Saleen a safe ce.


    Saleen drank half of what there was in the bottle, leaving the other half inside the Ring of Cosmos. A fire exploded deep down his soul, as if it was out to burn Saleen to a crisp.


    Saleen smiled and knew that it was all an illusion.


    However, illusions could have made his soul bear great pain nheless. He had simply been maintaining the fluctuations in his soul at the frequency of Thundering Explosions. While such low level lightning magked offensive capacities, yet it was best used against such illusions.


    Saleen saw his soul expand in his body under the workings of the potion ingested. The expansion felt like a firestorm. If it had not been for his lightning skill, he might have actually ended up dead.


    It seemed that the right way to use it was to have his teacher by his side as an aid.


    Any bit of favorable impression he had of the general was wiped clean, after he confirmed that thought. The general was hoping to damage Saleen¡¯s soul. By doing so, his soul would have always had an opening to be exploited, even if he were to be able to repair itter.


    Lightning runes all lit up within his soul. The power of the potion was suppressed by the lightning runes, preventing it from going berserk and letting it to gradually nourish his soul, enhancing its powers.


    Saleen then reconsidered the general¡¯s motives. Half a bottle would have been enough for him to enhance the power of his soul. Any left was used for mending any damages on the soul.


    The process hurt immensely, but it was still within Saleen¡¯s tolerance. The training he gained from his family badge made him practically numbed to pain. He was still able to observe the expansion of his soul, despite the situation he was in.


    Saleen¡¯s soul gradually expanded to the point where it could have only been achieved by wearing the Ring of Cosmos, and it was still growing. Saleen¡¯s soul and body gradually fused. The fusion was a rather mystical one, as it included even his magic chords. That was to say that his ability to use magic chords would have grown even more powerful, more so that when he had worn the Ring of Cosmos on his finger.


    If such levels of the power of his soul were to be used in conjunction with the Ring of Cosmos, it would have indeed enabled him to target a level 15 god.


    Saleen¡¯s mind was incredibly at ease. However, the Lord of Glory was no longer his target.

 Chapter 1467: Sacrificial Piece (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1467: Sacrificial Piece (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen discretely suppressed the potion¡¯s raging power as blood streamed out of his nostrils and mouth. That was not a disguise but the result of bodily injuries from an intense shock. He was also bleeding internally, which he had no intention of stopping. He wondered if the general would be fooled by these realistic-looking injuries.


    Seeing all that blood irritated the general. The growth of Saleen¡¯s power of the soul was much slower than he expected, and from this, he deduced that the man before him had no talent.


    Hmph. So the only reason he advanced so fast was because of luck bestowed by Myers! It was Saleen¡¯s massive wealth, not his stealth, that allowed him to amass an arsenal of powerful equipment. Man, why did I even bother with such a loser mage...


    Those thoughts kept swirling around in his head; Little did the general know that a divine beast was prowling around the cemetery chanting peculiar sybles from afar, casting a powerful divine spell.


    Riding atop that divine beast was a tiny figure taking in everything that was going on in the cemetery.


    What the general didn¡¯t know was that his judgment was affected. He then kicked Saleen out of his grave. Upon seeing him, the grandmaster, who was waiting outside, said, ¡°24 contracts; here you go.¡±


    Saleen took the contracts and saw that he needed to sign them with 24 heroic spirits.


    The contract itself, though, was fine. Saleen put on his Ring of Cosmos and began writing his signature on each one. He felt a powerful force stirring deep in his soul¡ªthe power of the 24 contracts signed.


    Saleenughed: After putting on the Ring of Cosmos, his power of the soul reached unfathomably high levels. Signing those 24 contracts was a breeze. He could have easily signed 240 of them¡ªand doing so would not have affected his advancement.


    Saleen¡¯s ultimate goal was to have those heroic spirits work for the general. If he wanted to advance further, he would have no more power of the soul to spare, if it had not been for the ring.


    This is because mages were only allowed to sign a limited number of soul contracts, and Saleen had some reservations about the whole business. He made a point of only signing a follower¡¯s contract and kept strict count as well. If the burden on the soul became too heavy, a mage would be unable to advance.


    Watching Saleen, the grandmaster quipped, ¡°Don¡¯t forget what those 24 contracts are for. Just do your job. If those heroes die in the fight, you¡¯ll die too.¡±


    ¡°Do what you gotta do,¡± Saleen said. ¡°Myers wille looking for you people anyway.¡± Then he turned on his heel and left.


    The grandmaster kept watching Saleen¡¯s back. He had a bad feeling in the pit of the stomach. He wasn¡¯t an astrologer and his powers were limited by the cemetery, so he had no means of calcting what Saleen was up to.


    The divine beast, on the other hand, immediately saw that Saleen was about to emerge from the cemetery and quickly ran off. It kept smacking itself on the side of its head.


    That was because Saleen nced at him from afar and saw that his eyes filled with murderous intent. If that little beast hadn¡¯t ratted him out, Saleen would have been put on the defensive before the Goddess of Myers. Gods had their principles too. Saleen had gained little from resurrecting Myers precisely because of that divine beast.


    On the other hand, Saleen was trying to scare the beast. He was not at all surprised to see that it had shown up the Imperial City of the Abyss. While the ce was little more than a blur on the ne map, Myers would have known what was in there.


    They were, after all, people from the First Dynasty. Since the general knew about Myers, she surely would have known about the general.


    After leaving the imperial city, Saleen let the powerful ones near him leave his magic amplifier and kill their way out of the Oceanic Ice Block. As the powers across Myers Maind rose, the magic beasts on the Oceanic Ice Block grew increasingly strong¡ªand increasingly terrifying. If Saleen hadn¡¯t been at such levels, it would have been impossible for him toe and go as he pleased.


    Things were simpler for him then. For one thing, Saleen could cast Dance of the Lightning Snakes, a magic spell that could be used in tandem with the 24 thunder dragons. The area within a one-kilometer radius was well within his range of attack.


    Some magic beasts in the sea looked much bigger from a distance. But low-level magic beasts like the red krill traveled in schools. When calcted in such an area, millions would have been considered a small number.


    The big ones were left for Rafel and the others; Saleen targeted the small ones. One attack is all it took to have the lightning warriors concentrate on selecting magic nuclei out of the dead beasts.


    J and the others wondered why Saleen was suddenly being greedier than usual. With his wealth, he didn¡¯t need to hunt for magic beasts. So why was he wasting time on this when there were so many pressing issues in Myers Maind waiting to get sorted out?


    Saleen remained cool and calm. He didn¡¯t bother taking on the Lord of Glory on the way home but headed for the cemetery of the giant instead. Lightning magic chords manifested after he advanced, giving him greater certainty in bagging that Lightning Moon.


    Now the secrets of the Lightning Moon were within his reach. One look at it gave him all the answers he needed to grab it.


    Those who created the Lightning Moon long ago probably never expected someone capable of being trained in lightning magic.


    This type of magic could only be exploited by people of special bloodlines, and Saleen was one such person. He wondered if the Metatrin n was too back in the day.


    More specifically, what Saleen was using was Dance of Electric Snakes, a branch of the Dance of the Lightning Snakes. It cost him power of the soul instead of magic chords to use it. His power of the soul at present would only allow him to cast 24 level-15 magic spells at once, thanks to the Ring of Cosmos amplifying his power to unheard-of limits. Any mage would have advanced even with one-tenth of the power he had at the moment. But Saleen relied on equipment: that¡¯s why he couldn¡¯t advance any farther.


    He was in a mystical state now. If his power of the soul advanced, he would have been able to tap into the Source¡¯s power and.master all kinds of rules, just like the gods.


    He wouldn¡¯t have wasted another piece of divine persona should he be able to find another. He would have instead worked on the power of rules within, transmuting them into his own.


    The three weapon spirits had already be demigods. Myers Maind¡¯s leveling was loosening and there were probably already level-13 professionals around, making it unnecessary for them to seal their powers. Those three demigods had also put their powers to great use by killing many more magic beasts than Saleen did.


    Saleen had also be familiar with his powers and didn¡¯t need help from anyone else.


    Saleen and his gang had practicallymitted genocide at the Oceanic Ice Block. Many beings had only risen to level-13 before dying without knowing what hit them. The unluckiest ones were the red krill. Those magic beasts had revealed their original ferocious nature after the maind advanced twice. As level-9 pack animals, they were at the mercy of Saleen¡¯s hunters.


    Saleen was apanied by more than a small team. His entourage consisted of about 2,000 people. More than were mages and none was lower than level-10. His greatest pride was a level-13 archer, and that archer was none other than Qin.


    The chances of an archer advancing to higher levels were slim to none. As a result of Qin¡¯s special skills, any target he Qin locked onto was doomed. At one point, his level was so low that Saleen never bothered to take him out. All he could do was to throw some equipment at the archer to help him train. He finally brought Qin to the Hall of Gods on his second trip there.


    The period of 1200 years allowed a level-10 archer to advance three consecutive levels, and the cost of magic equipment Saleen paid to make that happen would have almost allowed him to build a magic army consisting of 10,000 units.


    But Saleen deemed it worthwhile. A level-13 archer at the pinnacle of its level would be able to attack anything beyond the range of Saleen¡¯s sight, specifically over 120 kilometers away.


    That distance was not their limit. Tests in the water proved that Qin¡¯s arrow could hit targets about 400 kilometers away. That was already something that could have only been attributed to the power of rules.


    Saleen¡¯s only regret was that while he was busy killing his way out, no level- 14 magic beast was found.


    Even magic nuclei of high-level magic beasts were best used when they were fresh. Other than the problem of energy dissipating, magic nuclei in storage for too long also suffered structural integrity decay. What Saleen had acquired before had been magic nuclei stored for tens of thousands of years. The stored energy was less than half of what they used to store. The strength was also inadequate for creating weapons.


    The ability to create weapons out of magic nuclei was a specialty of the mages, but then again, such weapons were limited to assassins¡¯ daggers or archers¡¯ arrowheads.


    Qin¡¯s worst arrowheads were made of magic nucleus fragments.


    Having failed to secure any fresh level-14 magic nuclei, Saleen let the 24 heroic spirits out instead. When those 24 who signed contracts with Saleen appeared, everyone else around him paled inparison.


    All 24 of those heroic spirits were level-15 beings and exuded thick, deathly energy. Any magic beast lower than level-10 died as soon as it touched the heroes. Any below level-12 suffered shocks instead.


    Hundreds of skills Saleen had never even heard of were used. Not a single magic beast was left making a sound within tens of kilometers radius.


    Everyone around Saleen went silent; they were baffled by the extent of the powers used, powers that would have allowed them to overrun any other empire. Despite the rise of power across Myers Maind, only level-13 professionals were training hard here and there. None of 24 level-15 beings reached the peak of their powers when they were alive, despite being heroic spirits.


    Saleen remained unfettered. Several lightning-magic patterns shifted deep in his soul. None of the 24 level-15 heroic spirits could peek into his mind.


    The general had made some miscalctions. Regardless of how much time those heroic spirits spent with him, they couldn¡¯t turn against or control him. His power of the soul exceeded all of theirs put together. The difference between him and them was an understanding of the rules.


    Those heroic spirits were incapable of turning against him through sheer brute force alone.


    He deemed it necessary to eliminate them as soon as he was able to. The Lord of Glory would no longer be a match for him once he got his hands on the Lightning Moon.


    That reminded Saleen of the 24 heroic spirits; he had all his men return to the magic amplifier before shooting up to the sky all alone.


    Hard ice quickly coalesced around Saleen. It was formed in an extremely orderly manner that time making it look like scaly armor adhering to Saleen¡¯s magic robe.


    Saleen was traveling faster than the fearsome speed of 3,000 kilometers an hour. Yet the ice on the surface of his armor did not melt.


    Aided by the Comet sh, he finally gained precise control of the speed and kept it within his limits.


    Saleen¡¯s altitude continued to climb until he was over 100 kilometers away from the ground. He continued to elerate to the point where he felt that the powers of the earth could barely restrain him. If he were to elerate any further, he would have aimed for the distant stars.

 Chapter 1468: Sacrificial Piece (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1468: Sacrificial Piece (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen was right about his Comet sh. If he were to advance the skill any further, he would have truly been able to shoot for stars faraway. However, the speed would have been different from what he had expected, reaching heights that not even his body would have been able to tolerate.


    It did not take long for Saleen to get to Daliang City flying at such speeds.


    While the city had been safe once again, the magic remained installed and there were even more enchanters staying at the city. Only people trusted by Saleen and Lex were allowed into the ce. Anyone else getting near the city would have suffered attacks from the enchanters.


    Saleen was being very iron-fisted in the matter and there was nothing anyone else was able to do about it. Anyone who tried to enter the cemetery of the giant had to die.


    Saleen did not even forget to use death magic to extract memories before killing those attempting the intrusion. All details, including who ordered them to do so, were not spared.


    The heavy-handed approach was due to none other than the Lightning Moon. Despite the fact that the number of gods within the energy barrier was unbelievably massive, if any being below level 14 were to enter, they would have only survived either by having very formidable movement skills, or having equipment like Lex¡¯s God¡¯s Ring in their possession.


    Saleen summoned the God of Magic Net to his side. The magic at Daliang City opened up a pathway and let Saleen enter safely. Saleen then dived straight into the cave and headed straight for the cemetery of the giant below Daliang City.


    Saleen was no longer that puny mage who hardly knew anything from before when he revisited the cemetery of the giant again. His Eye of Souls allowed him to see the dangers lurking within the cemetery of the giant, as well as loopholes to be exploited.


    The energy barrier at the center of the cemetery was maintained by absorbing powers of the gods. Those gods were in a state that was neither dead nor alive. They were subjected to control by the Lightning Moon and had their energies extracted from them, thus enabling them to be imprisoned.


    Such methods were very intricate and smart. However, there were also those among the gods who were unafraid of death.


    Many gods hadmitted suicide only to have openings and loopholes manifest on that cage that trapped them. The Lightning Moon was costly to maintain in terms of use of energy. Supply would not have been a problem if it was allowed to be rotated and recharged. However, the Lightning Moon was the core of the entire cage, which meant that it was not allowed to rest.


    If the state of things were to be maintained for another 10000 years or so, some of the most powerful of the gods would have been able to break through the cage and escape.


    But then again, the giant might have ended up resurrecting before that and getting rid of the gods first.


    Things were different at present. The reason why Saleen wanted to take the Lightning Moon was obviously not because he wanted to save the massive number of gods. As such, those loopholes were still not something he would have been able to make use of.


    It had been a while since Saleen let Sika do battle, so he was no longer clear of Sika¡¯sbat prowess. Both of his children were mages and so long as he keeps this matter of the cemetery of the giant to himself, both of them would have trained in peace and would not have felt bored, even if they were to be cooped up for three to five more years.


    Saleen did not even bother bringing the weapon spirits out. He only took the 24 heroic spirits and Rafel with him. They then toured around the cemetery of the giant.


    All 24 heroic spirits were astonished by the ce. They wondered who that giant that had been a friend of the King of Glory had been.


    They were unable to recall anything, but there was no doubt about the authenticity of everything before their eyes.


    Saleen did all he was able to plunder everything outside of the energy barrier. That ce was a vast world with ample space. There was even an ocean at the edge, making it possible that the ce was an interdimensional space in itself.


    After he was done plundering everything he was able to get his hands on, Saleen became clear of most of the powers possessed by the 24 heroic spirits. He had lowered his guard considerably against them as well.


    He then took the 24 barging into the energy barrier without warning.


    Thousands of gods awakened within mere moments. The Lightning Moon in the air loosened its monitoring of those gods, letting them deal with the enemy.


    The powers of the 24 heroic spirits were already at critical point of the ce¡¯s tolerance. If any more of them were to show up, the powerful gods would have awakened as well. There was no way the King of Glory would have risked letting his friend¡¯s remains be desecrated.


    The 24 heroic spirits yelled angrily, knowing that they had been set up by Saleen. However, they had all signed contracts with him and it was only then, when they wanted to void the contract, that the total sum of their power of the soul paled inparison to that of Saleen.


    Are we going to just go on a suicide run? Those are gods, for goodness¡¯ sake!


    The heroic spirits brandished their weapons angrily and shed with the gods charging at them.


    Saleen then summoned Dante.


    Dante the Thunder God appeared. He took flight and headed straight for the Lightning Moon. Saleen cast the Lightning Constetion and followed suit.


    The materials used to built the Lightning Constetion was no doubt of high level. However, there were hardly any powerful rules found within. The Lightning Moon sensed organic matter approaching and cast hundreds of bolts of lightning immediately. A spherical shield appeared around Saleen¡ªa level 15 Water Shield.


    The Water Shield was the spell that Saleen had been most diligent in upgrading. That was a transmuted magic spell and was also a unique skill of his. The defensive properties of the Water Shield at it was then was entirelyparable to those of powerful magic equipment. While it was not on par with godly items, but it had a benefit that no godly item was able topare to¡ªit was able to be repaired at any given moment.


    The hundreds of bolts of lightning were mostly sent to attack Dante. That Thunder God was a demigod and wielding lightning powers as well. Despite the might of the iing attacks, they were only able to do as much as sending Dante flying for tens of kilometers.


    Dante charged at the moon high in the high without fear. Those lightning bolts were like tempering his body. If he were to be subjected to 30 to 50 thousand of such attacks, there would have been any problem in getting it to level 15. Its divine persona would have advanced as soon as the lightning rules werepleted.


    However, things were not that simple and beneficial. The Lightning Moon unleashed another thick bolt of lightning, tearing it to shreds.


    Dante wailed, but it was lucky as its divine persona managed to stay intact. It conjured another body in the air, but it no longer dared to behave so recklessly anymore.


    Saleen brandished his family badge after defending against that lightning attack. The badge absorbed the electrical discharge on his body in a frenzy. Bolts of lightning came down at him from the sky. Saleen¡¯s Water Shield went through one test after another in terms of tolerance from those attacks.


    His family badge finally changed the way it absorbed energy after the Book of Lightning was taken out. He was able to take it in his hand and absorb the powers in the sky. All those lightning strikes were doing by then were to replenish the family badge¡¯s power.


    The power of lightning absorbed by the badge could be said to be boundless. Saleen had no need to care about the badge¡¯s tolerance. That piece of remains of the Thunder God was a huge divine kingdom on its own. The Lightning Moon did not have such a huge space. The amount of energy stored in it was far below that of the family badge.


    As such, Saleen was not worried at all. He charge at the Lightning Moon and greed was finally seen in his Eye of Souls.


    What a perfect piece of equipment!


    The moon with a tinge of blue in it was actually of oval shape. The two protruding sides harbored countless ever-shifting lightning magic patterns and sparkled brilliantly. Electrical discharges from the moon pulsed with a rhythm that soothed Saleen¡¯s breathing. Little did he know that if it had not been for his lightning magic chords, such vibration frequencies would have been sufficient to even kill a level 15 professional.


    Saleen¡¯s Lightning Constetion sucked the Lightning Moon into it, and then it cracked.


    Saleen was startled, but then quickly stuck his family badge onto it. The Lightning Moon had ample power within, but most of it was used against the gods. Wait, there are tens of billions of god creatures here?


    He observed the space below him and found himself unable to properly count them. That was because many gods harbored vast spaces within their bodies, which in turn had massive number of god creatures residing in them.


    Tens of billions of gods were not actually all that many. The number of god creatures in just one divine kingdom would have definitely exceeded such numbers. However, the number of god creatures trapped there were all above level ten. They might have even exceeded level 12 when they were alive.


    It was hard to tell how much hatred the King of Glory had for those god creatures, and no one knew how many divine kingdoms he had destroyed, before he was able to amass so many of the god creatures to pay for their sins. Furthermore, despite having that many god creatures around, the extracted energies were still incapable of resurrecting the giant. If the giant were to be resurrected, Saleen believed that it would have definitely be a being that not even the rules of Myers Maind would have been able to do anything about.


    While the ne rules were indeed powerful, but when a creature¡¯s strength exceeded what the rules were capable of governing, Myers Maind would have simply crumbled on the spot.


    There would not even have been a need to wait until the day where Myers advance to level 18, and begin to tap into the Source of the maind.


    Other than the Lightning Moon, the other greatest reason for Saleen to invade the cemetery of the giant, was the head of that giant. If that giant were to truly be resurrected, it would have spelled doom for Myers Maind itself.


    Just what the hell the King of Glory was thinking, leaving such a big pile of mess behind.


    That was, unless the ne was connected to the giant ne. However, Saleen searched the ce and found that within the space of the cemetery, there was definitely no other portals leading elsewhere.


    You¡¯re telling me you¡¯re willing to sacrifice your own ne for a friend?


    Saleen found himself getting increasingly incapable of understanding how ancient humans do things. That was probably what had gotten the King of Glory killed in the first ce. Saleen came to learn many stories regarding the First Dynasty.


    However, there had been many lost pieces and parts in the historical records in the astrology tower. Saleen was unable to tell if what he knew had been correct. Regardless, ording to what he knew, there was no way the giant could have been allowed to resurrect.


    The ck material of the Lightning Constetion repeatedly cracked and repaired under the Lightning Moon¡¯s attacks. The family badge was stuck on top of it, continuously absorbing attacks of the moon. Dante charged at the time.


    Saleen then said, ¡°Get inside.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡±


    It sensed pain deep within its soul. Not even its divine persona fragment had been able to withstand the power of the broken jade. Dante was utterly surprised to find that Saleen had long nned to get rid of itself.


    Saleen then said inly, ¡°You killed the Big Guy, and that was a subordinate I¡¯ve promised to look after. So...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m definitely not...¡±


    ¡°Get inside,¡± Saleen said as he used the broken jade¡¯s power again, forcing Dante¡¯s body inside the Lightning Constetion.


    The other two weapon spirits had also been summoned by Saleen and forced inside the Lightning Moon.


    The three weapon spirits went crazy inside the Lightning Moon.


    ¡°You¡¯d pay for this, Saleen!¡±


    ¡°You three are the ones who are going to pay! You are all descendants of the giant and you pretend that you¡¯ve lost the memories of your past lives? Hahaha!¡± Saleenughed hysterically. Those three thought that the broken jade fragments were simply there to confine their souls. When Saleen had finished training up his lightning territory, the soul vibrations of all three of them would have been copied by the lightning magic patterns on broken jade fragments, which were sentpletely to Saleen.


    He had been waiting for that day toe for a long time. The Goddess of Myers had seen the possibility of those three betraying him, and that was why she allowed them to advance after all.

 Chapter 1469: Before the Breakup (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1469: Before the Breakup (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen destroyed all three weapon spirits without a second thought so he could use the Lightning Moon to recreate a weapon spirit without memories or enmity against him.


    The Lightning Moon was so powerful that not even he, as its master, would have been able to endure more than a few attacks.


    The Goddess of Myers never expected Saleen to be greedy enough to destroy those weapon spirits once they became demigods. If he had kept them around, they would have been traps the goddess put at his side.


    The more Saleen interacted with ancient humans, the more he understood their reasoning and principles. Even though he shared simr ideals with them, they would have had no qualms about using him as cannon fodder.


    It wouldn¡¯t have mattered how careful he was with everything around him. Myers made the three weapon spirits side with her, and the general put 24 contracts out on him. If he mishandled any of them, he could have gotten himself killed.


    Saleen wanted to take care of everything in the cemetery of the giant in one go: If Myers suddenly showed up, she wouldn¡¯t have been able to see what was going on inside. As for the 24 heroic spirits, Saleen used lightning patterns to protect them. If they died, the contracts on his soul would have remained intact.


    The most important thing was being able to wipe out the memories of those souls and then make them re-sign their contracts with him.


    Although this would have been an impossible feat for others, Saleen had high-level star figures with him, enabling the souls of those heroic spirits to stay intact.


    The 24 heroic spirits were a huge investment that the general put on him. It would have been a shame to let them go to waste.


    He willingly stepped into the two-fold traps, all because his power of the soul was high enough to overwhelm all 24 spirts and prevent them from rying information back home.


    By the time the heroic spirits realized what he was up to, he would have been deep enough into an independent space that was even safer than the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    Saleen was brutal enough to make such a decision. No other mage would have acted so decisively even if he were strong enough to destroy three demigod servants. That was what Saleen learned from his teacher: Demigods were good stuff; it didn¡¯t matter if they were insubordinate.


    Those three had faked three distinct personalities and never fought one another. That was very cunning on their part. They didn¡¯t even use the power of the soul tomunicate. When they needed to talk to each other, they resorted to the crudest of methods¡ªwriting in the void.


    Saleen wouldn¡¯t have known what they were up to had it not been for the soul vibrations triggered by the writing.


    Countless lightning-magic patterns shifted gently in the Lightning Moon. The three weapon spirits were ashen as they put up all their defenses, which were eroded by the lightning magic patterns. They had no choice but to get close to each other, defending one side each, hoping to brave the attacks.


    After all, they were still outside the moon and pinned down by the lightning attacks. If they were able to break free of their chains, they would have had a chance of escaping. They were still demigods. If they were willing to cast the fragments of divine personas aside, it would have been impossible to escape.


    The three jade fragments inside their heads saw mystical changes when they were thinking so. The three pieces pulled at each other within the vibration frequencies of the lightning around them.


    Saleen was startled when he heard a voice from the moon bellow, ¡°Not bad. Someone finally managed to master lightning magic!¡±


    As Saleen backed away quickly, over a dozenyers of Water Shield etched with lightning magic patterns were conjured.


    ¡°Too bad your level is too low or I would have given you pointers. No matter, this thing can only be used once. You can have it. When you have time, you... coulde to see me again!¡± The voice gave aplex set of coordinates. Saleen¡¯s calmed down. The set of coordinates seemed to be a crystal wall system.


    That meant the voice was noting from a person inside in the Lightning Moon. All that was in it was a bit of something in the power of the soul within it...but what was that something? Saleen couldn¡¯t tell. If it been just a voice, that thing would not have been able to evaluate Saleen¡¯s powers and say those words.


    That technique of controlling powers was far above that of the gods.


    Gods could create life, and humans could not? Says who? In truth, that voice had indeede from a living being.


    Nothing more was heard from that voice. It seemed to have vanished. The three weapon spirits in the Lightning Moon were terrified to discover that the three jade fragments were being forcefully pulled together. That¡¯s not all¡ªthey were being merged into a single being.


    The matter within the Lightning Moon seemed to be transparent energy. It was of arge enough space, and the beams of lightning-magic patterns seemed to be crystallized pirs when seen from within.


    The so-called pirs looked like magic pattern sculptures.


    The crystalline magic patterns were extremely thick, so think that not even the divine trees Saleen had seen couldpare. All of a sudden, lightning raged in that space. The three weapon spirits were shattered by the sudden attack. The jade fragments within merged. The bodily pieces of the three weapon spirits then coalesced and were subjected to the raging lightning attacks.


    The lightning attacks grew increasingly intense. A small metal sphere at the core of the Lightning Moon had simple magic patterns etched on it. There were also two images of eyes on it; they seemed to be two sides of a coin.


    The energy of the Lightning Moon was being expended considerably. The god creatures on the ground were about to regain vitality before being sucked in by the moon. Most dropped limply, with a handful rising and joining the ranks of those attacking the 24 heroic spirits.


    The Ring of Cosmos in Saleen¡¯s hand turned and burst with intense power, which Saleen found uncontroble. The twoyers on the ring turned and the symbols on them aligned. One of the spaces of thebinations opened, the space containing the Aqua Fulgur.


    The powerful suction of the ring sucked both the Lightning Moon and the Lightning Constetion into it along with Saleen¡¯s family badge.


    Saleen was scared out of his wits; however, there was nothing he could have done to retrieve those three objects.


    Yet anotherbination clicked, and the space opened. The god creatures fighting the heroic spirits, as well as those who had yet to awaken, were thrown into the air and sucked into that space.


    Then another space opened. The bone crystals of the giant left behind, plus the giant¡¯s head had all flown inside.


    Saleen was baffled: What was that ring?


    Within the space enveloped by the Lightning Moon, something appeared under the hills of the bone crystals of the giant that Saleen found surprising¡ªelementalkes.


    If it had not been for the ring¡¯s powerful suction and storage powers, those elementalkes would have never appeared.


    Saleen only came toprehend the King of Glory¡¯s designs by then. The size of the elementalkes suggested that they wereid artificially. Among the six major elements, only that of the earth was not found, as those hills were like earth elementalkes themselves.


    Saleen broke out in a cold sweat. If the Ring of Cosmos hadn¡¯t run amok to the extent that it even sucked out the elementalkes, the bnce of the space would have been broken once he had finished taking the Lightning Moon. The elementalkes would have exploded and the entire space would have been shredded and turned into massive space turbulence. Saleen would have died there, even if he were armed with the God¡¯s Ring.


    The cemetery of the giant no longer looked like something meant for resurrecting a friend but rather a trap meant for some enemy!


    Saleen recalled the Lightning Moon in the sky. He never heard of the King of Glory being able to use lightning skills. The Lightning Moon looked out of ce from the setup of the cemetery of the giant.


    He was baffled, while the 24 heroic spirits were all enraged. They were all brought into that space forcefully by Saleen and were quickly attacked by god creatures. While Saleen was attacked too; they knew what Saleen was trying to pull off.


    The targeted killing wasmon in ancient times.


    Saleen cast Dance of Electric Snakes without saying a word, startling the heroic spirits as they were enveloped inside. All weapons held by the spirits were either shattered or wiped clean of their attributes by the lightning attack.


    Saleen chuckled and said, ¡°The general is indeed generous, insisting that I sign the contracts. If it had not been for the contracts, I wouldn¡¯t have been a match for you people, would I?¡±


    If those heroic spirits were living beings, they would have been puking blood by then. They were bound by soul bonds. Even if Saleen seeded in killing them, they were still doomed.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you people a way out.¡± Saleen took out 24 figures. Those figures were only level-14, but that didn¡¯t matter. Saleen had other uses for figures above level-15. He didn¡¯t care how high the levels of the heroic spirits were.


    Since he had no intention of subjugating them, he offered minimum conditions instead. If the heroic spirits refused, Saleen would have had no problem killing them all.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± A leader among the 24 appeared then. He was also there per the general¡¯s arrangement. That person was also a skilled martial artist.


    ¡°What a shame.¡± Saleen pointed at the martial artist¡¯s head. He was affected by the contract and his speed slowed considerably. Regardless of how quick he was, he would not have been quicker than Comet sh.


    His head was blown, his brains sttering as if he were a living being.


    All the other 23 heroic spirits freaked out. None expected Saleen to be able to kill their leader outright, so much so that there was no chance to resurrect him. The martial artist¡¯s soul was destroyed by some unknown force, and the destruction was thorough.


    Saleen retrieved his star figures and said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry too. I have changed my mind. You are all no longer the warriors I need.¡± The Thunder Dragon ster emerged from the center of the magic amplifier as he spoke, shooting lightning icicles at them.


    All 23 heroic spirits died in vain. None understood what had made Saleen change his mind.


    They gave up their chance at resurrection because of the general. They couldn¡¯t even be heroic spirits¡ªand didn¡¯t understand why.


    The reasoning was simple: Saleen didn¡¯t need them anymore. What he needed was powerful subordinates, not people who would have turned on him at any given moment. He had long wanted to get rid of them, but he was concerned about alerting the general. That¡¯s the only reason he attempted to spare them.


    The gods that were sucked into the Ring of Cosmos all had their memories wiped clean after entering a space by some unknown force. All became like puppets, yet the ring did not break down their bodies. Saleen could have made puppets of even greater power using their bodies.


    Level-15 puppets were the best that Saleen was able to craft at the moment. But what happens if I advance further? The bodies of those gods could be made into level-18 puppets.


    So what the hell would I need the heroic spirits for? Saleen recalled what the general pulled on him. He was concerned there were some kind of tricks in their bodies enabling them to kill him in a suicide run, so he decided to take out the leader right away.


    With all the contracts gone from his soul, Saleen was invigorated. Those powerful beings might have gotten used to setting him up, making them think he was someone they could push around with impunity. How wrong they were.

 Chapter 1470: Before the Breakup (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1470: Before the Breakup (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s n of taking the Lightning Moon and throwing in the three weapon spirits toplete the process seemed like a good idea at the time. What he didn¡¯t expect was the Lightning Moon to be sucked into the Ring of Cosmos.


    Neither could he control the rate at which the elementalkes and god creatures were being pulled into the ring.


    His only recourse was to toss the ring in the air and let it keep doing its job while he sat down and calcted in silence.


    The ring¡¯s actions were guided by a higher crystal-wall system that was also beyond Saleen¡¯s control. But there was no doubt that the ring had epted Saleen as its master. This is because it had once siphoned energy to Saleen¡¯s family badge, enabling him to use it in quick session.


    Saleen didn¡¯t seem concerned. He felt safe: The Ring of Cosmos had detected events capable of putting its master in danger and responded by immediately tearing apart the setup in that ce.


    It was an eerie piece of equipment.


    Saleen smirked bitterly, an expression seen only when he ran into unsolvable problems. He knew he couldn¡¯t afford to cast off the ring away. Without it, he would have only been a powerful level-14 mage. The ring allowed hisbat capacity to rise to level-15.


    His most powerful attack would work when aided by the immense power of the soul, an effect so intense it even diminished the Crystal Finger¡¯s power.


    Ultimately, the ring was a piece of equipment Saleen could neither throw away nor control He had to make do with this exasperating fact.


    It¡¯s only controble attribute was the amplification of his power of the soul. Regardless of how wealthy Saleen could have been, there was no way he could simply throw that thing away. It had consumed his family badge, and Saleen had no way of retrieving it.


    He had just killed 24 level-14 heroic spirits, yet he was unable to muster the strength to deal with those broken souls.


    He cast Dance of Electric Snakes and cleaned up the ce before summoning Rafel.


    As soon as she arrived, she listened attentively as Saleen poured out his troubles. After all, Rafel had once served a powerful god and he was hoping she could offer some suggestions on how to deal with this powerful equipment.


    ¡°Congrattions, my lord.¡± Rafel decided to start the conversation on a positive note by acknowledging his efforts.


    Saleen looked puzzled. She then continued, ¡°My lord, there are only two ways something from another crystal-wall system could havee to us: It either traveled here on its own or was brought here by a powerful being.¡±


    Seeing the perplexed expression on Saleen¡¯s face, Rafel added, ¡°I assume the ring was broken when it came into your hands, is that right?¡±


    ¡°Very much so.¡±


    ¡°Well, then it came here on its own. Its weapon spirit was already dead.¡± Saleen showed signs of joy after hearing Rafel¡¯s words.


    His preupation with his family badge had begun to cloud his judgment. But what Rafel said made perfect sense. If this thing had been brought here by someone else, it would have caused me a lot of trouble. But it passed through the crystal-wall system without a weapon spirit. So, yeah. The ring was damaged when it got here, and I fixed it. That thing had no master before.


    Master-less and spirit-less¡ªthe ring couldn¡¯t be controlled because Saleen was unfamiliar with the rules governing its use.


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s mood brighten, Rafel reminded him, ¡°If you happen to run into someone familiar with the rules within, be careful: he might try to take the ring from you.¡±


    ¡°What should I do?¡±


    ¡°Rework the equipment thoroughly.¡± Rafel might as well have kept her mouth shut for all the good her suggestion did.


    If only he possessed the skills to revamp the Ring of Cosmos.


    ¡°My lord, have you melted down the weapon spirits yet?¡± Rafel detected something peculiar in his reaction.


    ¡°Yes, I have.¡± Saleen nodded dejectedly.


    ¡°Are you nning to take on Myers?¡±


    ¡°No. The general,¡± Saleen answered. Rafel was nonplussed.


    ¡°I already killed Myers¡¯ oracles. Although they weren¡¯t close to her, the normal reaction would have been to avenge their death. But Myers didn¡¯t do that. Instead, she sent her divine beast to the Imperial City of the Abyss to check on things...¡±


    ¡°Ah, now I understand.¡± Rafel nodded. She didn¡¯t know what to say next.


    Saleen was bing an enigma to her. Who could understand what was going through his mind unless he exined himself?


    If the goddess didn¡¯t bother avenging the death of her oracles, she probably wasn¡¯t angry. Moreover, her reservations were with the heroic spirits in the Imperial City of the Abyss. Regardless of how powerful Saleen would have be, the goddess had no reason to fear him.


    Resisting his attacks would have been so easy. All she needed to do was restore her powers. Lightning skills were lethal to other gods but not to the Goddess of Myers. Rafel remembered that the magic Myers had cast contained lightning-magic patterns.


    ¡°I¡¯m breaking up with the general. It wasn¡¯t a big deal that he wanted me to take on Myers. But if she was out to destroy the maind, she wouldn¡¯t have gone into hiding right away and she would have restored her powers as soon as possible. I¡¯d still be able to talk to her. But the general had me sign soul bonds with 24 heroic spirits. That was his way of limiting my progress. This is personal!¡±


    Saleen worded everything in his usual straightforward manner. His goal in life was no longer to fill his belly but to seek out the truth, and that he could do only after reaching the highest level. The general had set him up in a very clever way with an impable n. He had to be stopped.


    If it had not been for the Ring of Cosmos, he would have fallen into the trap the general hadid for him.


    By the time Saleen realized how much of a threat the 24 supposed bodyguards were, they would have developed ways to strong-arm him further to prevent him from nullifying the contracts.


    ¡°Breaking up seems like a sound n. I have a favor to ask of you, my lord.¡±


    ¡°The bodies of the gods?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    Saleen smiled wrylynd said, ¡°You¡¯re finally advancing, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, and I would be able to keep it in check,¡± Rafel gritted her teeth while answering.


    ¡°Well then...What kinds of god creatures would you need?¡± Saleen knew that Rafel wanted to advance so she could take part in the uing battles on Myers Maind. Those wars would no longer involve infighting between residents of the maind. The Lord of Glory might have sent a double, or maybe he would advent himself. The most probable thing to happen, however, was to build a bridge between his divine kingdom and Myers Maind.


    There would have been over 100 million angels in a divine kingdom. Greater gods might havemanded over one billion angels. That number even eclipsed the maind¡¯s entire poption.


    While Rafel and her metal angels were few, they were nheless excellent drill sergeants and coaches. Saleen would have depended entirely on them to train his people to fight the angels.


    But Rafel¡¯s level was still low. If she were to run into the Lord of Glory, she would have probably been able to withstand no more than two hits. Her proactive request was to advance to the same level as Saleen so that she could ablymand his armies.


    It had taken Saleen a long time to get Rafel to yield, making her willing to fight on his side. It was not joy he felt but a faint mncholy.


    ¡°Rafel, is this the work of fate?¡± asked Saleen while looking at the ring suspended midair, still sucking up the god creatures.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. I have nowhere else to go and you need muscle on your side. It¡¯s pure coincidence.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, coincidence.¡± Saleen nodded. He wondered how many years it had taken for such a coincidence to happen. Rafel had spent at least 2000 years with him in the Hall of Gods.


    Rafel had nowhere else to go and I needed more muscle? It was sad but true.


    The more Saleen thought about it, the more mncholic he became. The people around him would have all died sooner andter, and he wondered if it was his turn to have nowhere to go to. Even if he became a god, such a day was inevitable.


    Rafel sensed Saleen¡¯s changing mood. Pointing at the ground, she said, ¡°My lord, the soil here is probably worth a lot of money.¡±


    Saleen shed her a smile. With the bone crystals of the giant piling up at the ce before, Saleen never paid close attention to the ground below them. The ground was of true soil, but materials materialized from elements, and they were rare gel-like substances.


    Those materials could absorb massive amounts of force. If they were to be used to make armor lining, it would have strengthened the armors considerably, making them capable of taking on heavy weapon attacks without stunning the ones wearing them.


    But then again, that was not the most important attribute to them. Saleen¡¯s Floating City was simply too hard in a manner of speaking. If he were to add those materials to his massive equipment, there would have been no concern about it shattering into bits and pieces even if it crashed to the ground.


    Those materials could be used toy magic arrays. Calctions could have been to alter the material¡¯s internal structures, enabling incrediblyplex and malleable magical arrays to beid.


    The only reason for the exorbitant prices to such materials was the length of time it took to create the arrays. Worse, there could be no cutting corners during the crafting process.


    The ground of the cemetery of the giant was filled with the gel-like earth element, a result of the ground having been subjected to tens of thousands of years of continual sting by lightning powers.


    Saleen could have crafted such materials himself, but he was not willing to spend so much time and a ridiculous amount of manpower to work on something like that.


    Rafel¡¯s words brought him back to his senses.


    To hell with future and whatnot! Live for today and rejoice in the present! That¡¯s how it should be. Without the Ring of Cosmos, Saleen would have ended up dead. That cemetery was a trap and one that was extremely intricate.


    ¡°What now?¡± Rafel asked.


    ¡°What do you mean ¡®what now?¡¯ ¡±


    ¡°That thing you promised...¡± Rafel pointed at the god creatures that had yet been sucked into the ring.


    Saleen suddenly realized what she meant and said, ¡°I¡¯ll give you a level-16 god creature¡¯s body when we return. That should do enough, no?¡±


    Saleen went on to pick the cemetery clean. Myers had acquired all the intelligence she needed in that temple in the middle of the Purgatory Dessert.


    ¡°The general lives then?¡± Myers looked at the projections at the cemetery and frowned.


    The general was not amon warrior. He was both valiant and cunning. He had few adversaries back in the empire before. Furthermore, his godly item was ranked sixth in the entire empire, which was considerably more powerful than what she owned.


    With his temperament, she thought he would have covered for his subordinates and died before they did. She never expected him to be so lucky that even after providing power of life in the cemetery to his subordinates for so many years, he was still alive and kicking.


    A sharp glow was seen in the goddess¡¯s eyes. Her entire bearing changed: She looked as if she was the one true lord of Myers Maind, looking down on everything below.


    ¡°Now that you¡¯re still alive, I¡¯ll make sure Saleen kills you.¡± The sharpness in her eyes faded, and she reverted to her usual gentle, smiling expression.

 Chapter 1471: Cornering a God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1471: Cornering a God (Part 1)</h4>


    Myers sent the divine beast to the Imperial City of the Abyss specifically to find out if her most troublesome enemy was dead. The result proved rather disappointing. However, since the heroic spirits were unable to leave the cemetery, there was no need for her to rush into things as well.


    Leaving the cemetery required help from outside, and only Saleen knew of the location of the imperial city. There was no one else capable of helping them.


    From the looks of things, Saleen already knew what the general has done, and there was no way he would have stood with the general again. That worked just fine with her. She had no need for Saleen to serve her. He was a mage after all, and there was no way he could have done so.


    She was content to have someone like Saleen stay put and do nothing rash.


    Saleen did as she wanted him to. His family badge and other items were all sucked into the Ring of Cosmos. There was nothing else he could have done even if he were to clean up the entire cemetery of the giant. He had no way of fixing the problem for the time being.


    Saleen returned to Metatrin City patiently,manding the fighting forces of the Nature Faith from afar.


    The Nature Faith did not go on to crush Tanggsi City; it turned its attention to Sikeqinya instead. The Sikeqinyan troops were too scattered and the nobles too divided. They were quickly taken down one after another.


    While the Nature Faith army had yet to enter Sikeqinya, the empire was done for in all but name only.


    Saleen suffered considerable losses throughout the expedition and yet he did not care. He did not even bother sending the Baldur¡¯s Gate or even the Floating City for reinforcement. He simply let the Nature Faith forces fight on their own.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood began to reap his rewards. He took his forces all the way into Titan Duchy, taking both shores of the Red River.


    Saleen did little other than checking out the ne map for a bit, looking at Nature Faith¡¯s progress, before going to train with Sika.


    Things were quiet in Golden ins. The force that Saleen disyed began to make Golden ins have second thoughts, yet they did not loosen their grip on Qin. Lex still only had several forces at hand to spare. However, since Saleen began expanding his territory, her subjects had technically doubled, enabling significant progress with training with her family secret arts.


    That was something Lex was hoping to see as well. She would not have bothered much with makingpromises with the mages from Golden ins otherwise.


    Emperor Chanake was able to quickly be a powerful warrior owing specifically to his profession. He was an emperor, and his hundreds of millions of subjects both feared and revered him. Such power was not actually power of faith, yet it was nheless essential for training in the Grukos¡¯ family secret arts.


    Other than contacting Lex at times to check on Holy Rock City, he spent most of his remaining time working on the Ring of Cosmos.


    There was no way he could have retrieved his family badge without working on the ring. There was also the Lightning Moon, which had effectively merged with the Lightning Constetion. That equipment was immensely powerful. If he were to be unable to make it his own, Saleen would have still felt extremely pressured about taking on the Lord of Glory.


    The three weapon spirits havepletely merged within the Lightning Moon, which was inside the Ring of Cosmos. The weapon spirit took the form of a three-headed, six-armed being. However, the core of that weapon spirit was already enveloped by apleted jade green rock.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning magic patterns were still found on that piece of jade and they looked increasingly profound. It looked as if that it was not the lightning that was tempering the rock, but it was the rock borrowing the lightning¡¯s power to restore itself instead.


    If it had not been for the Ring of Cosmos¡¯ control, thatpleted, whole piece of jade might have given birth to a powerful weapon spirit, which would have consumed Saleen¡¯s weapon spirit instead.


    The Lightning Moon continued to temper the weapon spirit¡¯s body. That process, which would have proven destructive, looked like it was crafting a piece of equipment under the ring¡¯s control instead.


    sts from the lightning did not cease until the fused giant weapon spirit gave birth to a brand new will.


    There was a peculiar mark on each of the giant weapon spirit¡¯s heads. The markings were extremelyplex, so much so that one was unable to evenpletely make out using the power of the soul.


    The three heads represented the magic, lightning and amplification abilities respectively. All three abilities supported andplemented each other, forming a rather imperfect bnce.


    The rules were considered unrefined still, yet such a weapon spirit was the first to appear in eons.


    The six arms on the weapon spirit held a magic shield, an elemental spear, ball lightning, Water me, the attribute-less golden greatsword and a golden dagger.


    The Lightning was only absorbed gradually into the Lightning Constetion after the weapon spirit waspleted. They melded instead of trying to tear each other apart.


    When the weapon spirit came to be, Saleen¡¯s family badge gradually returned to its original appearance within the Aqua Fulgur within the ring. It was none other than the Book of Lightning.


    The Book of Lightning was ejected out of the ring¡¯s space voluntarily by the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen was totally unprepared for that to happen. He held the book in his hands and felt them feeling rather numb. His entire body was unable to budge for a moment.


    Saleen was overjoyed, as he finally became able to control the Ring of Cosmos with his power of the soul. The functions of the ring hardly changed. The only thing different was that the space within the ring becamepletely opened. There were multiple rules imbued within and Saleen began to sense each of them, mimicking their functions.


    That was more than enough for him. He was not expecting the ring to bring mighty offensive capacities. The Aqua Fulgur stored within one of the spaces alone proved adequate for him to quickly recharge the Book of Lightning¡¯s powers.


    The Lightning Moon hovered quietly above Saleen¡¯s head. He truly sensed the raging power within by then. Regardless, the fact that he had subjugated something capable of pinning down tens of billions of god creatures remained unchanged.


    Saleen willed and a level 16 god creature stored within a space, made specifically for storing the god creatures, was released. That god creature had long lost self awareness, and Saleen gave it to Rafel without a care.


    That god creature¡¯s body had many other god creatures not lower than level ten to 12, and yet Saleen did not even bother taking them out. There were hundreds of metal angels around still. When the God of Magic Net perished, those metal angels did not die with it.


    When Saleen¡¯s Lightning Moon¡¯s weapon spirit came to be, all of those hundreds of metal angels advanced. The sheen on their metal wings disappeared and soft feathers appeared instead.


    When Saleen¡¯s Lightning Moon appeared, he thought about it and observed for a bit, finding the Lightning Moon¡¯s weapon spirit¡ªthe three-headed, six-armed giant¡ªhad aplete a divine persona in each of its heads.


    That was quite a catch for Saleen.


    The Lightning Moon actually fused the three demigods into a lesser god.


    A level 15 god became a weapon spirit for the Lightning Moon and furthermore, it was an intelligent being that was only born moments ago, devoid of the memories of the giant¡¯s bloodline altogether. While that would have robbed the weapon spirit considerable amount of a giant¡¯s abilities, yet it was also one that definitely would not have thought of betraying Saleen due to being of higher level.


    With that weapon spirit¡¯s emergence, Saleen was finally able to save on the level 18 scroll, using that one scroll left solely for keeping himself alive.


    Saleen finally learned that if a level 18 being was to be hit by a level 18 scroll, it would have definitely done considerable damage. While it was impossible to kill a level 18 being through such means, neither the goddess nor the general were level 18 beings anymore.


    The general maintained level 18 abilities while the goddess maintained level 18 memories, their bodies were considerably more fragile. If they were to be hit by that level 18 scroll, there was no doubt that they would have ended up dead.


    But then again, Saleen was unable to use that scroll to attack the goddess, as it was something given to him by the goddess after all. If he were to use that thing against her, she would have only needed to detonate it while Saleen was still holding it.


    The Book of Lightning returned to its original form and was no longer a family badge. Saleen was feeling sorry about that happening, so he resorted to use bone crystals of the giant to recreate another badge with an identical appearance, making the badge a keepsake.


    Saleen was relieved that he was finally able to rework the Ring of Cosmos. He picked the cemetery of the giant clean. The only regret was that he was unable to take that stone tablet away as well. But then again, it was still nheless a good thing, given that there was an interdimensional space located right under Daliang City.


    The best thing that could have happened was for the 24 thunder dragons to advance. Saleen was at level 14 and it seemed that the thunder dragons were about to reach level 14 as well, enabling them to fly and transform midair, making them far more powerful than the dragons he acquired from the grand duke.


    He put those dragons at Nature City as a show of his power and wealth. The thunder dragons, on the other hand, were true weapons for killing.


    Saleen also reworked the Floating City and ced magic patterns on it, preventing it from falling from the sky after certain parts were damaged. Saleen was able to control the ce just fine, even without a weapon spirit onboard.


    The alchemy factories on the Floating City worked tirelessly to produce all equipment that Saleen required.


    It was easy to tell what Saleen needed¡ªone would have only needed to look at the changes on the advanced metal angels.


    All 894 metal angels remained on the Floating City. All of them were sent into the dead body of a god creature, fusing with it and reaching the pinnacle state of level 12.


    Saleen was unable to do anything to advance them further, even if the metal angels were capable of advancing simply by consuming other beings.


    Nearly 1000 metal angels all wore armors made from remains of god creatures. With tens of billions of god creatures at his disposal, Saleen¡¯s material reserve for such purposes was practically limitless.


    Both the demon and human armies swapped gears. The human armies were all equipped with Tainted Blood Armors while the demon armies were equipped with Devil Possession Armors. Imps and demons were equipped with Bug Angel Armors.


    More god creatures were made into either puppets or steeds for the soldiers.


    Saleen slowly gathered over a million troops on the Floating City, with 124000 enchanters remaining onboard still.


    Saleen began assigning mages to the Floating City. One magic tower after another was erected. He had even erected death magic towers surrounding the central elemental magic array. Those death magic towers were built using only dragon remains.


    Saleen built the massive and powerful grand army for only one specific purpose¡ªto take on the Lord of Glory¡¯s invasion. The believers of the Lord of Glory dwindled on the maind, as all of them were either killed or cornered by the Nature Faith adherents.


    If the Lord of Glory continued to refuse to show, he would have suffered tremendous losses, by the time all of his believers in that ne were wiped out.


    That was the effect Saleen was after. The mage was forcing the Lord of Glory¡¯s hand, making him show up whether he liked it or not.


    Saleen was most afraid of the Lord of Glory having advanced to level 16, as that would have meant that his double would have possessed powers at level 15. Things would have proven troublesome by then, and one that absolutely could not have been solved by solely relying on equipment alone.


    Saleen was not afraid of the Lord of Glory not showing up. There was still a saint of the Holy See onboard the Floating City after all. With that saint serving as his hostage, he could have baited the Lord of Glory any time he fancied.


    The initiative waspletely in Saleen¡¯s hands at the moment.

 Chapter 1472: Cornering a God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1472: Cornering a God (Part 2)</h4>


    Gods were like wolves in the way they stalked and hunted their prey: Peeping at a variety of nes, once they spotted an opportunity, they sent their doubles to establish their religion, propagating their faith.


    If they were on the same ne as such beings as dragon gods, which were extremely powerful and resistant, the gods simply waited patiently. Dragon gods had no divine personas. Though they had the title of ¡°god,¡± theycked the lifespan of one.


    When dragon gods died, gods from the outside moved in and pounced on any being capable of inheriting the position of god in that ne. They repeated this modus operandi to spread their faith even farther.


    This time, things were different. Saleen was wiping out the faith of a god on his ne, an act a god normally found intolerable. Worse, Saleen had all the time in the world, unlike the gods, who usually needed years to figure things out or craft certain types of equipment.


    Gods always had an ample amount of time.


    For example, when the Lord of Glory¡¯s Holy See in Myers Maind was being destroyed, he knew about it right away. Plotting his revenge, however, would take hundreds of years.


    It¡¯s not that the Lord of Glory was chicken. He was simply busy fighting other gods and attending to myriad details while battling divine kingdoms. He also had to resurrect angels and create new ones, as well as to advance his powers with powers of faith collected.


    Every detail was painstaking and tedious.


    By the time he was poised to attack Myers Maind, Saleen was ready and waiting.


    If Saleen were to advance beyond level-14, unless he had divine personas at his disposal and gained ess to the Hall of Gods, the Lord of Glory would have needed another three to five thousand years.


    In due time, Saleen began searching for ruins on Myers Maind. With the ne map at his disposal, doing so was a breeze.


    The first ruin that caught his attention was way up in the sky. The ruin resembled the Floating City tens of thousands of kilometers above Myers Maind.


    Had Saleen not mastered Comet sh, such heights would have been off-limits to him.


    Escaping Myers Maind also required tremendous speed. Rainbow would have worked well; the problem was that it operated differently from Comet sh. Rainbow¡¯s workings were such that there was no inertia when a spell was lifted. That¡¯s why it was also unsuitable in ambushes.


    That floating wreck in the void contained nothing worth plundering. What piqued Saleen¡¯s interest though was the presence of all those magic arrays.


    It was unusual for an earth-elemental magic array to lift something like that to such heights.


    If he could copy that wreck and use the materials on the Floating City, Saleen could reduce that voracious gas guzzler¡¯s reliance on magic nuclei. While the magic power furnaces onboard consumed low-level magic nuclei, the magic nuclei were still obscenely expensive. Now that was something worth fighting for.


    Saleen always looked back longingly on his days as a magic apprentice. He remembered how excited he used to get about several low-level magic nuclei. His tion was so intense he could hardly contain himself.


    Further, the use of earth element involved high-level rules.


    Saleen couldn¡¯t sit around anymore. He grabbed Rafel, and the two of them took to the skies. Rafel was capable of safely flying into the void since she had godly items at her disposal. Once she entered the void, however, she needed a guide to lead the way.


    Saleen didn¡¯t take anyone else with him since the ce was too dangerous. For one thing, it had no air. It also contained energy currents that could inflict massive damage on the body. Anyone below level-9 would have died instantly. For those below level-12, it was a matter of time before they too perished.


    Because she was an angel, Rafel was ustomed to fighting in the void. But then again, she was aided by her god. In this case, Saleen served as her god, emitting arge number of elemental powers to keep her body from corroding and allowing her to p her wings and follow him.


    After entering the void, Saleen¡¯s speed was reduced by more than half to amodate Rafel¡¯s slower speed. She, in turn, had to travel faster to catch up to him.


    The void, which was tens of thousands of kilometers from the ground, was so vast it took Saleen several hours longer to arrive while traveling at this lower speed. Although the two were flying at different speeds, Saleen could still see distant nebs.


    It¡¯s too bad he wasn¡¯t an astrologer. The power of an astrologer would have been several times stronger in a ce like this.


    Saleen resisted the urge to use astrology again. He knew if he started doing astrological calctions in this ce, the results would be impably urate.


    The stars shone and the nebs were enigmatic. Ahhhh! So nice.


    The void¡¯s ineffable beauty differed from the ordinary beauty on the ground. Wherever he looked, Saleen saw so many peculiar forms of energy.


    Each form had its own rules.


    Saleen wondered how many living beings could be made into gods or their equivalent.


    ¡°We really shoulde up here and open our eyes more often, Rafel,¡± said an awestruck Saleen.


    Rafel smirked. She was used to such scenery. Lost lives were the price for all that beauty. Among the battles fought by the gods, the ones waged in the void were by far the most brutal: even a slight graze could be lethal.


    Rafel had seen countless professionals spilling their guts because of a single, seemingly insignificant gash. She shuddered at those gruesome memories.


    Too many lives had been cut short by relying on the wind element; luckily, hardly any wind element was found in the void.


    Only mages like Saleen who knew how to use Comet sh and didn¡¯t need to breathe coulde and go as they pleased. Even gods needed to use wind element. But then again, their powerful equipment allowed them to fly in the void without needing to unleash the power of rules.


    That capability was restricted to gods above level-15. Level-14 demigods would have found it dangerous to fight in the void.


    Angels, on the other hand, didn¡¯t have to worry about any of that.


    Likewise the metal angels.


    Atst Saleen and Rafelnded on the ruin. He took out a nk magic scroll and began to copy every magic pattern he came upon. If he were to simply memorize them, some special magic patterns would probably disappear in his mind as soon as they were memorized.


    Memory magic was useful only for memorizing lower-level things. Many magic patterns caused the caster damage if he or she used memory magic to deal with them.


    Saleen arrived amply prepared for all possibilities. He copied every magic pattern and magic array he found while Rafel helped out from the sidelines. Both moved over 30 kilometers, closing in on the center of the ruins.


    The central region still had some left buildings standing. Rafel was baffled. When observed from afar, those structures looked as if they were made of stone. When observed up close, Rafel could see the metal-elemental powers on them, and that excited her tremendously.


    The Metal God had left these things behind after her divine kingdom was destroyed. Rafel thought that she would never see them again.


    Seeing Rafel¡¯s quizzical expression, Saleen asked, ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°My bad. I thought the ce was a ruin left behind by the Metal God. They look so much alike.¡± Rafel suddenly felt disappointed. Gods were incapable of casting magic unless they the same level as the Goddess of Myers, the most powerful mage before bing a god.


    Saleen thought for a bit and said, ¡°Let¡¯s head inside, Rafel.¡±


    He pointed at a broken tower sliced clean in the middle with the top part, that had long decayed, on its side. The bottom part, however, was still intact. Saleen¡¯s interest was piqued.


    Rafel nodded as the two of them sauntered into the tower, where they immediately came face to face with a unique stone wall.


    It was filled with lines of words that made no sense to Saleen. He knew they were somewhat rted to the secret arts his teacher imparted yet at the same time were altogether different.


    ¡°My lord, can we tear this ce apart?¡± Rafel asked.


    ¡°No problem. But why?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to work on it. But of course, I¡¯d need your help, my lord.¡±


    ¡°Very well. How can I help you?¡±


    ¡°Wait until I get to level-15. This ce won¡¯t be going anywhere for a while.¡± Rafel finished and felt embarrassed. She then added, ¡°You could ce arge-scale attack-magic array here and hide in the tower.¡±


    Nodding in agreement, Saleen focused on some books that caught his attention walking up the tower stairs.


    It¡¯s too bad he didn¡¯t understand one word. Luckily, he had enough manpower at his disposal. By the time he gathered two million enchanters and had them do calctions in Daliang City, the basic meaning of those words could be deciphered in three to five years.


    It went without saying that Saleen didn¡¯t need to understand everything written in the books. Words conveyed more than literal meanings; they also carried cultural associations.


    It was impossible to fathom the writings of civilization without understanding the history of civilization too.


    Mages could only deduce the basic meanings of words and were unable to calcte the cultural extensions imbued within. That was why they created the Magic Language, which forbade any texts with ambiguous interpretations. Every symbol represented only the rawest and the most basic meanings.


    Even though the Magic Language was the mostplex one in existence, it was the easiest one to pick up.


    Saleen collected every book that had the lightning warriors copy all the magic patterns before returning to the maind with Rafel. When they were about to leave, she pointed at the ground and said excitedly, ¡°My lord, look! There¡¯s something down here!¡±


    Hearing her, Saleen scanned the area with his power of the soul and discovered an oval object hidden underneath the hard metal floor.


    ¡°I¡¯m about to do some damage,¡± Saleen smirked while casting an Ice de. The crescent-shaped de, which had some vague lightning magic patterns on it, was extremely resilient. It cut the metal flooring open under Saleen¡¯s control. Rafel picked up a square piece of metal, which revealed the space hidden underneath.


    It was an egg, about the size of a fist. Saleen never expected to find something like that in such deste ruins. What an odd structure! He also noticed a few signs of life at the core beneath theyers of shells.


    ¡°Metallic life!¡± Desire shed in Rafel¡¯s eyes, but she quickly suppressed it.


    ¡°My lord, if we hatch this lifeform, it will serve as your steed.¡±


    ¡°A steed?¡±


    ¡°Yes! The Metal God had a steed like this; that¡¯s why I recognized it,¡± Rafel answered frankly.


    ¡°If you want this for your own...¡±


    ¡°No, my lord. It¡¯s yours,¡± she said adamantly. ¡°I¡¯m an angel and have no use for it.¡±

 Chapter 1473: Soul Armor (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1473: Soul Armor (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Well then, Rafel. What kind of creature is this, and how do I tame it?¡± The only thing Saleen about that lifeform is that it had a weak soul before it was hatched.


    ¡°Technically, the creature wouldn¡¯t serve as a steed but as equipment, called soul armor, for steeds. The Metal God had a hydra serving as his steed. When used in conjunction with soul armor, it provided additional strength to fortify him in battles against level-18 gods.¡±


    Rafel impressed Saleen with her exnations of a soul armor¡¯s qualities.


    That creature could only have been born in the void and would only develop a soul when exposed to countless streams of energy. What Saleen held in his hand then was not an egg but a shell covering a dimensional space.


    He had heard about the hydra, a level-18 creature of low intelligence that was unsuitable for use with equipment. That was why it never confronted level-18 beings. When d with the soul armor, however, it was reputed to fight ably against level-18 gods. This meant that its powers were boosted to match those of a god.


    After all, level-18 gods were beings that contained terrifying equipment in their hands.


    After pondering the situation, Saleen concluded that he did not need a steed. As a mage, he had the means to go wherever he wanted as long as he had powers of the elements at his disposal.


    ¡°The Thunder Dragon Bangle,¡± Rafel reminded Saleen.


    ¡°I have 24 of them!¡± Saleen reminded her in return.


    ¡°When a hydra runs amok, it splits into nine separate entities. A while back, the Metal God took advantage of that to kill a great number of gods at the same level,¡± Rafel answered.


    Saleen sensed a tinge of sorrow in her voice but not an ounce of longing for her god.


    Rafel hadn¡¯t forgotten about her god. Rather, she epted the reality and finality of his passing.


    Saleen wondered...if I die, will Nailisi forget me one day too?


    When Saleen fell silent, Rafel changed the subject. ¡°My lord, how about we just hatch it here? I think the ruins are done for.¡±


    ¡°The ruins are done for?¡±


    ¡°Definitely. You¡¯ll only know for sure after forcing that thing to hatch. Pick a skull of a god of the highest level, my lord, and let the egg consume it.¡±


    ¡°Very well.¡± Saleen did as instructed. He picked up a piece of the most precious skull to be had that came from a level-18 god. That god was thoroughly dead and its remains were iplete. The skull was the only thing remained; its inner power was not something he could have worked on. Saleen gingerly wrapped the skull in Water me and ced it next to the metal egg.


    The Metal God¡¯s frail soul had guts that were disproportionate to its current status. In one shot it sucked all the god¡¯s mighty energies into the egg. Suddenly the metal egg cracked open, it¡¯s parts looking like a cross between shark teeth and tightly packed razors.


    Crack! When the thing opened its mouth, every tooth crumbled.


    Rafel borated from the sidelines, ¡°Soul armors are beings that conjure new weapons ording to the material they consume.¡±


    The metal egg contracted as if it was confirming Rafel¡¯s words. New metal teeth formed when it cracked again. When those teeth chomped down on the food beside it, they made a shallow dent before breaking again.


    ¡°The power absorbed was inadequate, preventing it from conjuring harder weapons.¡± Rafel was patient. When the Metal God was forcing the soul armor to hatch, she just happened to be next to her god and observed those changes.


    Everything proceeded ording to y while the skull was wrapped in Water me. Saleen sensed the power of that creature, also known as the soul armor. His Water me could do nothing to those broken teeth.


    It was a matter of time before that level-18 god¡¯s soul was devoured, as the Metal God was absorbing the energies in the remains while attacking.


    ¡°Working on soul armors is easy. Those creatures are parasitic, so you won¡¯t have to do anything if one of them bumps into special creatures like the thunder dragons. The soul armor will make its choice on its own, and the thunder dragons will not separate from their host until it dies.¡±


    The 24 thunder dragons took to the air and circled the metal egg under Rafel¡¯s instruction.


    The metal egg rattled violently as if it sensed the thunder dragon¡¯s unique powers. Level-13 thunder dragons were too weak to take on a demigod; however, when there were 24 of them and their souls were interconnected, advancement was a real possibility. The lightning rules were irresistible to the soul armor.


    After being tempted by the 24 thunder dragons, the metal egg sped up its hatching process.


    Rafel foresaw that happening a while ago, so she left the tower early. Saleen came out of the tower too but was still concerned about the thunder dragons. He reminded himself of how weak the soul of that metal egg was and realized that regardless of how powerful the soul armor might be, its soul would never rise to terrifying levels.


    The reason is, it was a parasite: The creature ittched onto would have thought of ways to protect its soul too.


    Technically speaking, the rtionship was a symbiotic one.


    Saleen saw a mystical side to living beings on that soul armor. It might have been able to consume powerful creatures because of its powers, but if it encountered a creature proficient in attacks on the soul, its days would be numbered.


    Thunder dragons were not as powerful as soul armor, but they did possess lightning skills, the best thing for protecting the soul. Any skills rted to soul-control and soul-destruction would have had their powers more than halved before lightning skills. Breaking protection of lightning would have required ten to 100 times the usual cost of doing so.


    Shortly after Saleen left the tower, it began to shake. Then it crumbled to the ground. Saleen saw all 24 thunder dragons take to the air. Each dragon had an additionalyer of scales on its body, so different from the thunder dragons.


    The 24 thunder dragons flew toward Saleen and nodded before heading straight to the ground.


    The thunder dragons began to eat voraciously, right under Saleen¡¯s baffled eyes. The hovering ruin in the void was a metal structure. The thunder dragons¡¯ rate of consumption grew increasingly high, so much so that they eventually bit through the one kilometer-thick ce.


    Saleen saw anotheryer of armor form on the thunder dragons. The color slowly turned from transparent to grey and then dark grey. The more metal the thunder dragons ate, the darker the armor became.


    The ruin in the void looked unsightly from how the thunder dragons ate it, and they had only been eating for half a day.


    The thunder dragons¡¯ teeth turned ck. Saleen did not know how to test their sharpness. That soul armor had no doubt chewed and digested the skull of the level-18 god. The thunder dragons and the soul armor had already melded, so the dragons had inherited such powers.


    The soul armor would not have been able to advance otherwise.


    ¡°Well done!¡± Saleen saw the thunder dragons begin to get picky about what they ate. They didn¡¯t bother biting any inferior metallic things left in the ce. When called, the thunder dragons circled in the void before returning to the Thunder Dragon Bangle resting on Saleen¡¯s wrist.


    Rafel drew her sword and swung it at Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon Bangle.


    Being a mage, Saleen had good reflexes, yet Rafel was unable to evade that sudden attack.


    A dent appeared on the edge of Rafel¡¯s sword. That longsword, which was made from attribute-less granules, seemed as if it was about to break.


    Saleen knew what Rafel was up to when he was attacked. If unprepared, he couldn¡¯t activate his territorial abilities. The Thunder Dragon Bangle was taking the brunt of Rafel¡¯s attack all of its own.


    Looking down, Saleen noticed a slight gash on the bangle, the result of the bangle deliberately concaving when attacked, thereby dissipating the force of the attack. It quickly reverted to its original form.


    Rafel¡¯s sword was not something to be trifled with. After Saleen acquired that vast wealth of the cemetery of the giant, he armed Rafel to the teeth. The sword¡¯s sharpness eclipsed any weapons Saleen¡¯s subordinates wielded. Its hardness exceeded that of any other metal but rhenium gold.


    If such a resilient sword were dented in battle, the damage could onlye from the bangle¡¯s defensive attack.


    Saleen damaged the weapons of others by using Thundering Sound skills alone, but that could only be done when he was of a higher level and when the power difference was obvious. Rafel was only one level below him. Though that strike was an all-out attack, it still failed to damage the bangle.


    From then on, the ring weakness of his thunder dragons¡¯ low defense waspensated for.


    ¡°My lord, have the thunder dragons start consuming more strong materials, such as the remains of gods, metals of high strength, magical pharmaceuticals and so on. Those things will bolster the soul armor¡¯s capabilities.¡±


    Saleen swiftly took out some 12-dimensional metals and fed them to the thunder dragons, letting them have their time with it. He then added some wrought gold, Mythril, the remains of the god creatures, dragon crystals, divine persona fragments and so on. Speaking of hardness, even though divine persona fragments eclipsed that of the remains of gods by a considerable margin, the thunder dragons chewed them up like candy. That was very reassuring to Saleen.


    Likewise, Rafel was able to rx after Saleen took out some 12-dimensional metals. Soul armors were capable of revolt. After being fed such strong metals, they disyed their utmost loyalty to Saleen. No one would have seeded in tempting them to betray him or the thunder gods. Not even the skills of the gods would have been able to do this.


    Saleen took a look at the hideous ruins and said, ¡°Rafel, what do you want with them?¡±


    ¡°I want to advance butck some rare metals that coincidentally are found here,¡± Rafel answered.


    She could not advance simply by consuming the remains of gods alone. The barrier between level-13 and level-14 might not a big deal to humans. To her, however, it was an insurmountable obstacle.


    One requirement was to master higher-level metal rules on her own without guidance from her god.


    ¡°We¡¯ll think of something.¡± Saleen did not promise anything. He knew Rafel might be making excuses. The ruin in the void was almost destroyed, and it was possibly something left by the Metal God all those years ago. Though the Metal God was not a mage, that was not to say he couldn¡¯t have found mages to help set up a hall like that in the void.


    Rafel changed her mind after finding the soul armor. In other words, she came to value him more than the memories of her god.


    The thought filled Saleen with sadness.

 Chapter 1474: Soul Armor (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1474: Soul Armor (Part 2)</h4>


    The two of them flew back to Myers Maind inplete silence. Saleen gathered different types of metals and fed them to the thunder dragons. What a voracious appetite they had. The soul armor needed to absorb huge quantities of metals, including some precious ones. Luckily Saleen had walked away with a lot of ¡°food¡± from the temples he raided. As the soul armor matured, scales grew on the thunder dragons¡¯ bodies. The horns were wrapped as well, crackling with electricity.


    Studying the ne map, Saleen spotted a few independent spaces. Some of the deserted ones didn¡¯t seem worth exploring, but the other ruins looked promising and worth digging into.


    None of those ruins, however, was more valuable than the cemetery of the giant. Saleenmented his bad luck. When he and the Holy See were fighting for control of the area many years ago, the Holy See didn¡¯t go all out. He, on the other hand, had pulled out all stops and even put all his wealth at stake.


    If the Holy See were the one to get the cemetery of the giant, the remains of any god creatures found inside would have enabled them to grow much more powerful very quickly.


    The same applied to the Goddess of Myers. It¡¯s too bad none of those remains contained divine personas, a consequence of the King of Glory¡¯s machinations. If they had, Lightning Moon would not have been able to suppress them.


    Should I try to find out where those divine personas ended up? Realizing they had probably already been worked on, Saleen dismissed the idea. That made sense: The founding sovereign of the First Dynasty had the power to break down the divine personas of all gods.


    All he wanted was just a few pieces. Saleen regretted the time he spent in the Hall of Gods. If he had enough pieces of divine personas, he could have stayed there and trained until he reached level-16. After that, he would not have been able to advance by expending more time and effort.


    Saleen organized the ruins on Myers Maind into six categories ording to their value. To the lowest-ranking ruins, he sent armies headed by a level-12 mage. To higher-ranking ruins, he assigned to the likes of Sul and J. The most valuable ruins he saved for himself; he nned on visiting those ces himself.


    He ignored any spaces that were muddled on the ne map because they might be too dangerous.


    He visited anywhere the three empires could have explored, leaving the ones in the Cloudflow Empire untouched.


    The Cloudflow people were still a formidable presence at sea.


    But then again, Saleen did not care about any of that. His army had grownrge in his Baldur¡¯s Gate, which was different from the Floating City. For one thing, it had sufficient space to grow crops to feed this army and help them be self-sufficient.


    Saleen was well aware of his weakness¡ªtheck of defensive equipment.


    It took a formidable enemy with superior troops to fight against a god, yet Saleen was relying only on the Water Shield. That he had twice as many magic chords as mages of his level was irrelevant.


    His Lightning Magic Robe did have a decent defense, but only against magic attacks. Though it was effective against divine attacks, it was useless against physical weapons.


    Magic armors then? But I¡¯m not a warrior and even if the physical defense perimeters are higher, the armor will break.


    Saleen took note of Rafel not equipping the soul armor herself, though he did not understand the reason behind it. If she had asked him, Saleen would have dly given her the parasite.


    His magic amplifier indeed had a decent defense, but the greatest use that thing had served was to boost his magic attacks instead of serving as a shield against enemy weapons.


    Saleen needed defensive equipment. The Thunder Dragon Bangle could serve that purpose for now. If all 24 thunder dragons circled Saleen, not a single pebble from a meteor shower would fall on his head.


    But that still wasn¡¯t enough. In addition to his followers, he needed a powerful corps of personal guards.


    In the past, Saleen could have made do with heavy infantry specializing in the defense out of demons. Now that he had the metal angels, he decided to outfit his advanced metal angels in the armors he designed and have them follow him into battle.


    It went without saying that Rafel wouldmand the corps of personal guards. The Violet Angel was happy to be Saleen¡¯s steed.


    His puppet was capable of a myriad of transformations. While its golden dragon form was certainly fearsome in and of itself, at Saleen¡¯s request two Thunder Dragon sters were installed on its head. The Violet Angel was asked to add another head to its golden dragon form.


    J, Sul and all his other followers were no longer Saleen¡¯s main force for protection. He needed them to lead his armies instead. Saleen dispatched those followers to take leadership positions.


    Because he was surrounded by a cadre of capable, reliable people, Saleen was able to explore the ruins, train his troops and do alchemy in peace. If he were to search every ruin on his own, he would have had to clone himself, as the gods did.


    Meanwhile, the Nature Faith continued to increase its influence: It was a breeze to propagate the faith in Sikeqinya. Sikeqinyans were people who would dly ept the faith as long as they weren¡¯t asked to donate their wealth. The Holy See had a hard time propagating in Sikeqinya for just that reason.


    The Nature Faith, on the other hand, didn¡¯t require anything from its adherents other than faith itself.


    Things in Metatrin City looked entirely different at present. The temple in the city center, a four-kilometer square, had expanded and all the nts around it were mystical seeds acquired from divine kingdoms or brought back from other nes.


    The artificially bred nts had an incredibly strong life force and were found in that magic forest in the interdimensional space. They were given greater emphasis than the others. Under the workings of Eleanor¡¯s elfish magic, they were fully grown. Since the site of the city had been converted from a primitive jungle, manyrge, old trees found there blended well with those magical nts.


    A huge number of mages lived in the temple, together with Caucasians and some demons. Many powerful demons, heeding Nailisi¡¯s summons, were all subjugated and part of the weird race found in the Kingdom of Metatrin. Generally speaking, human kingdoms rejected foreign races but those demons had managed to assimte into the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Of course, Saleen only allowed demons of unique bloodlines; to join the city elites, they also had to possess special abilities.


    As such, the demons fell into several categories. Those with special abilities were akin to human nobles and bestowed with higher authority.


    The more prosperous eastern side of the city was a lively hub of merchant convoys trading goods. The Mining Code of the Qin Empire was ignored in the kingdom. Saleen kept looking for mineral veins in the northern wilderness and sent in mages to open the mines. Low-level magic nuclei were also found there; they sustained the city¡¯s prosperity during the war.


    A great many Cloudflow people showed up and came together with Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s fleets. They knew Saleen was probably going to unite the maind. The war would not cease after the two empires copsed.


    Anticipating shortages, everyone was stockpiling supplies. Metatrin City seemed to have no intention of controlling anything, selling anything there was to be sold.


    Trading, however, was usually done through bartering, not by exchanging gold coins.


    If gold coins were used, the prices were always higher.


    Saleen¡¯s nation no longer neededrge amounts of gold coins to run. Food production in Phoenix was adequate to meet the nation¡¯s requirements. Farms were opened in the interdimensional space, and the interiornds were all Saleen¡¯s property. There was no need to consider factors like weather conditions, as everything was taken care of by mages.


    What Saleen was looking were rare items, like wrought gold and the like.


    Ruins were found in Cloudflow territory. High-level equipment had unearthed material in Cloudflow for the past 10,000 years or so and wasparable to the Qin Empire. Saleen¡¯s trade continued to run in such a manner. His alchemy factories needed those materials to craft powerful weapons and equipment.


    Saleen kept waiting¨Cnot for a god to advent but for Lex to advance. This had been his concern ever since she became empress. She was practically stuck at level-13, unable to take a single step forward.


    If Lex could make it to level-14, the defensive properties of God¡¯s Ring would have made Saleen confident about battling the gods head-on. At present, he was still didn¡¯t have the heart to put her in any danger.


    As the number of powerful professionals in the empires grew increasinglyrge, the powers across Myers Maind loosened. The ne powers were then capped at level-15. Level-16 powers would have seen severe restrictions when used.


    After the Goddess of Myers was resurrected, the Lord of Glory wouldn¡¯t dare set foot into the ne alone.


    The amount ofnd Saleen hade to control was vast, stretching from Phoenix to Kroraina, then to the Tanggsi Empire and Sikeqinya. He did not, however, have many cities in his grip. Most of them only swore fealty to the Kingdom of Metatrin: They were still controlled by the nobles running those ces.


    Saleen was satisfied with such arrangements, so long as the nobles did not oppose the propagation of the Nature Faith. He couldn¡¯t afford to get on the goddess¡¯s bad side. He needed to use the Lord of Glory to test how capable his armies were.


    Saleen built ever-more magics, and the number of enchanters grew exponentially as well.


    While the giant weapon spirit was tasked mainly with the management of the Lightning Moon, it was still absorbing the power of faith from the magic. Anyone using the magics would have had to supply power to the giant weapon spirit.


    Many people who had been believers of the Holy See had be enchanters. That was the only way to escape persecution from the Nature Faith. Such measures, which were put in ce by Saleen, caused the number of enchanters to grow. Nearly a million former clergy members of the Holy See chose to submit to Saleen and be one of his enchanters instead of converting to the Nature Faith.


    Holy masters had never been people with low or weak mental powers. That is why they were able to fit into their new role so easily.


    In that way, Saleen saw a very obvious portal forming on the ne map, yet it was not a sign of the Lord of Glory¡¯s invasion but a subcontinent ne being connected to Myers Maind.


    That portal did not seem very stable, yet Saleen¡¯s calctions showed that it would expand more than 100 times over a month, prohibiting travel.


    The Heretic God did not show up. It was a subcontinent ne being connected instead. One reason Saleen was anxiously making preparations was the ever-powerful Heretic God: He was still on guard against it.


    Despite the prevalence of powerful beings and foreign races found in the subcontinent ne, Saleen was not at all concerned.


    Aini, on the other hand, had been idle for too long and wanted to take a look at that ne. Saleen lent the Floating City to him and made him a duke of the kingdom. Then he sent him to offset invasions.


    That was a necessary measure as the portal appeared on Kroraina territory. That part of thend was a forest. If enemies invaded from here, the joke would have been at his expense.

 Chapter 1475: Attack (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1475: Attack (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen had always been generous to that special friend of his. Among the four dukes, Aini was the only one who got special treatment. If there were any materials suitable for death mages, Aini would have surely had ess to them.


    The only reason Saleen didn¡¯t take him to the Imperial City of the Abyss was his concern about getting him into trouble unnecessarily.


    While Saleen monitored the ne map, Aini ably led the warriors and spirit army of Lonestar City onto the Floating City and headed for Kroraina. Upon arriving at his destination, another portal opened on the fringe of the Purgatory Dessert.


    Saleen sensed that the situation was more precarious than he anticipated. In addition to its great powers, Myers Maind had been a main ne because of its strategic location. Years ago it was a conduit linking over a hundred nes, all fixed portals to the maind and each portal guarded by a high-level professional.


    If all those nes were restored, some would have considered attacking the ne.


    Saleen also wanted to lead attacks but knew he was too ill-prepared.


    Moreover, he had no maps of those nes. If the gods used them as springboards to attack, Saleen would have received no notification and would have had to assign powerful professionals to guard the portals.


    That was a dangerous thing to do. He knew he had been careless in thinking he would know the Lord of Glory¡¯s whereabouts after getting the ne map.


    If the Lord of Glory had attacked a subcontinent ne before using that ne as a springboard to attack the maind, Saleen might have found himself gathering his forces while over a million angels flooded the maind.


    He could not allow something like that to happen. But those portals would definitely increase in number and he would not be able to seal them off one by one.


    Those were not portals created by the Heretic God; they were natural-urring ones. Destroying any one of them would be possible with the use of level-18 scrolls. Even if he seeded in doing that, it was still possible for those portals to be restored in the future.


    Out of options, he resorted to sending personnel to every portal to stand guard. He decided to clean up any dangerous nes preemptively while ordering his forces to keep watch ofmon ones, attacking only when a god appeared.


    By doing so, Saleen had effectively spread his forces rather thin.


    He was so frustrated. The Goddess of Myers might have foreseen that a long time ago. The best way for him to watch those portals was by mobilizing the Nature Faith, or better still by having the Nature Faith forces invade the nes and create a buffer zone.


    If he did that, the goddess¡¯s powers would expand exponentially.


    Okay, you win. Saleen was preupied not with the Lord of Glory but the Heretic God, who was possibly been at the highest. If he entered Myers Maind, it would create chaos everywhere and gain tremendous power.


    In addition, he would seize control of the entire subcontinent ne linked to Myers Maind. There would be no exceptions.


    Saleen went on to contact Baudire at Nature City at that thought.


    ¡°Baudire, a mission for you.¡±


    Baudire, who was on the other side of the magic array, seemed to be steeped in thought and did not answer Saleen.


    ¡°Are you thinking that I lost control of Nature Faith just because Myers is resurrected? I¡¯m warning you!¡± Saleen warned the pope.


    ¡°Right, your highness, I understand.¡± Baudire was terrified. Saleen¡¯s tone suggested he wasn¡¯t joking around. Despite that king¡¯s generosity with his subordinates, if someone betrayed him, Saleen would have gone straight for the traitor¡¯s soul.


    Baudire¡¯s silence was just as a test, but Saleen already understood the reason for it: Baudire believed that even if the goddess was on their side, Saleen would still move against him.


    A pope who refused to follow his orders was someone who would be eliminated without hesitation.


    Baudire was right. Saleen increased his authority and reputation to the pinnacle right from the establishment of the Nature Faith. If Baudire had any second thoughts, Saleen would have destroyed his soul right away even in front of the goddess if necessary.


    That was because Saleen knew that the goddess still needed him, whereas someone like Baudire, who was expendable, could be reced at a moment¡¯s notice.


    ¡°How could I be of service, your highness?¡±


    ¡°Pull back the army assigned for attacking Cloudflow. Switch to the legion mode and bring as few knights but as many holy masters as possible. I¡¯d send you the coordinates. Many subcontinent nes are waiting for you to conquer,¡± Saleen said with a cold tone.


    ¡°Your highness...¡± Despite having a figure¡¯s body, Baudire felt his soul shake as if his beating heart was about to give out.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen asked in return.


    ¡°I...I¡¯d like tomence the attacks in your name,¡± Baudire stammered.


    With a wry smile, Saleen answered, ¡°Very well. I¡¯d need to build an empire on a subcontinent ne. You can put propagation of the faith behind you for the time being, but keep a close eye out for me. I don¡¯t want to see other religions popping up.¡±


    ¡°Understood, your highness,¡± Baudire waited until Saleen severed the connection on the magic array before daring to shut it down.


    Myers the Water Fox, who was next to him, smirked and said, ¡°So, you still want to test things out?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, you set me up.¡± Baudire sounded annoyed. He didn¡¯t anticipate that Saleen would react this or way or to adopt such a brutal tone.


    This was thest straw: If he failed in his tasks, Saleen would make sure he didn¡¯t get another chance.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t make you do this, Baudire. If you¡¯re looking someone to me, me yourself.¡± The Water Foxughed arrogantly. She was in charge of the Oracle Corps, an organization that controlled true adherents of the faith.


    No false believers would ever make it to the Oracle Corps. The Water Fox knew what Saleen was thinking. If he became hostile to the goddess, he would have to send those true believers away. Any remaining would be executed.


    The Water Fox had her grievances. If she hadn¡¯t helped Saleen treat Nailisi, she might still be able to use all of her powers instead of suffering drops in levels. At the moment, she was stuck at level-12, preventing her from returning to her pinnacle state.


    She egged Baudire on. The man ran into trouble and sheughed at him instead.


    ¡°How about you go and ask the man himself if you dare?¡± Baudire had no idea what level Saleen was currently at but knew that Saleen was working with level-13 professionals. His teacher was at least at level 13, too. .


    Since the rise of power all across Myers Maind, Saleen¡¯s teacher was able to return and take charge of things anytime. If Baudire messed up, he could get himself killed.


    The Water Foxughed and said, ¡°I don¡¯t dare do so. How about...¡±


    The magic array lit up again. It was Saleen contacting Nature City.


    ¡°Water Fox, I know you¡¯re there. Bring your Oracle Corps over and head out somewhere with me,¡± Saleen said coldly as if he had just cast water magic.


    The Water Fox¡¯s expression turned ugly. Didn¡¯t Saleen have anything better to do than spy Nature City? Were there some moles among her holy masters.


    Little did she know that ever since Saleen came into possession of the ne map, he could see what was going on in an eerily high number of ces. He heard every single word in that conversation between her and Baudire.


    After getting to level-14, Saleen used the ne map with east. His power of the soul had expanded as well. .


    The Water Fox would probably not have been very loyal. Saleen heard the two of them cooking up a scheme for getting rid of her. It all depended on how clever she was in seeing what they were up to. If she just did as told and no longer incite Baudire, Saleen was willing to give her another chance.


    The Water Fox then replied, ¡°Your highness, the holy masters are not at Nature City.¡±


    ¡°Bring as many as you can.¡± Saleen shut the magic array off. The Water Fox took one look at Baudire and felt frightened to his core. Saleen seemed to know everything. Howe? Didn¡¯t he onlymand level-10 astrological powers?


    Just a handful of his supporters knew that Saleen possessed a ne map. There was no way the Water Fox would have known how Saleen realized what she was thinking.


    Saleen was only doing that on a whim. Since the Goddess of Nature had so many loyal believers, he felt it was better to send them away. While the goddess might not have paid much attention to those people, he had his future to consider.


    Saleen did not believe the goddess would kill herself, even if she were unable to make her way to Myers Maind safely. A more likely course of action would be to turn the maind into her divine kingdom.


    That would render the lifespan of the maind to be as long as hers. Myers Maind exist as long as she was alive. The only difference was that the maind would be popted solely with her believers.


    The Water Fox was exasperated. She knew that Saleen was still controlling her soul. Even without such bondage, his powers still eclipsed hers. Betraying Saleen was something she could only do in the distant future. From the look of things at the moment, Saleen could still control everything going on with the Nature Faith.


    It did not matter if the Goddess of Myers had resurrected. Advancement would be difficult for a resurrected god.


    The Water Fox was an elemental creature who knew how to join the winning team. She rectified her attitude as soon as Saleen bashed her, thinking if she had been in too much of a hurry. There was no need for her to choose between a god and a powerful professional. She only needed to shake off her current predicament. Saleen was still in control of her nheless, and that human mage was not a pushover.


    She deemed it wise to lie low until she had enough power to revolt. Saleencked hands for management duties at the moment. If he had someone to spare, he would have reced her long ago.


    Saleen did not specify the time, yet she summoned the Oracle Corps anyway. When all the holy masters in the Oracle Corps were summoned, the teleportation portal in Nature City lit up and Saleen appeared with Rafel in tow.


    The Water Fox cemented her judgment by then¡ªSaleen indeed knew everything going on in Nature City. What she didn¡¯t know was that Saleen had his giant weapon spirit monitor the ne map. It saw everything with the gathering process, so much so that it was even able to calcte when the gathering process would finish.


    Saleen¡¯s maneuver proved effective. The Water Fox prostrated herself in humility when she saw Saleen, a respectful gesture¡ªsomething reserved for asions like when an oracle meet their god.


    The people of the Oracle Corps found nothing out of ce. Saleen was like a god to them, one who shared a close rtionship with the Goddess of Myers. The goddess would not have issued such a decree back then were this not so.

 Chapter 1476: Attack (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1476: Attack (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen angrily looked at the Water Fox prostrating herself before him. That thing wasn¡¯t even human, so how could he forge a rtionship with her? She had also been at a very high level when they first met.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull, on the other hand, were people he met when he was at his worst.


    He deemed it a valuable life lesson and vowed to refrain from subjugating any creature he came across in the future. Some would never be loyal to him.


    The Water Fox gathered over 1,000 holy masters. Saleen was much impressed, feeling that the god¡¯s faith was propagating at a terrifying rate. The Oracle Corps did not let holy masters below level-3 join its ranks. Yet in one city, adherents grew to an astonishingly high number in several years, and not a single one was a convert.


    He did not dare to imagine what would happen if he let the Goddess of Myers keep doing what she was doing.


    Saleen was unfazed. He had those holy masters to enter the magic amplifier, which was beyond the reach of the goddess¡¯s powers. He could have killed them all with a single thought.


    He then selected thousands of warriors among the knights at Nature Temple before flying to a newly opened portal, where he sensed the presence of a god.


    His army would never be able to handle that, so he had the Nature Faith take care of it instead. Saleen was sure that the goddess knew that he was mobilizing the faith¡¯s powers. She would have also definitely sensed the assault he organized.


    Regardless of the kind of god lying behind that portal, there was no way Myers would leave it alone.


    It might be a nation with a strong religion, or it might be a divine kingdom.


    That portal was at the border of Tanggsi near Sikeqinya, an area that was a little more than 1,000 kilometers from Ceylon City. If Saleen led the attack, his hometown would probably get caught in the crossfire.


    The cities of Myers Maind were far from where the portals were located. Even after the portals gradually disappeared in the past 10,000 years or so, none of the citizens of Myers Maind built cities near them. The maind was simply too vast, and the poption too small byparison. Some of the subcontinent nes were only the size of an empire yet housed a poption of billions. The density of cities found in those ces did notpare to Myers Maind.


    Saleen arranged for 3,000 warriors to stand at the front when they came to the portal, with holy masters mixed in. Magic chariots, alongside the Bug Angel Warriors, were right behind the warriors.


    The number of Saleen¡¯s Bug Angel Warriors never exceeded 100,000, and he only brought 20,000 in that expedition. He assigned the others to the Floating City and had them fight alongside Aini.


    Saleen brought Rafel along, but the two were not part of the invading forces. They simply hovered midair, riding on the two-headed golden dragon, significantly boosting the morale of Nature Faith adherents.


    Saleen made a personal appearance to help ensure that everything went smoothly during the battle.


    He was oblivious to the extent of his stature in the minds of those believers. He was the one who had established the Nature Faith, and he was the one who deployed the troops when fighting the enemies, building the faith throughout the years. Further, Saleen used creation magic that looked like divine miracles at Nature City.


    The presence of the temple had umted over the past 10,000 years. None of what happened could be exined with magic, so they deemed that he must have been a good friend of their god.


    Those believers didn¡¯t dare imagine that the rtionship between him and the goddess was that of master and servant. What Saleen pulled off years ago was still flourishing, with the fruits of hisbor growing strong in the hearts and minds of the believers.


    Though the portal was on a in, the surrounding marshes made it ill-suited for farming. It was, however, a good hunting ground. Magic beasts were abundant, and mages were encouraged to get themselves some magic nuclei there.


    At present, all magic beasts suddenly scattered. That portal looked gray and emitted a bloody aura.


    Did someonee out from there? Saleen frowned. His ne map was too small, and he was too slow-moving whenever he had to check anything; otherwise, his power of the soul depleted too quickly.


    A holy master cast a golden-eyed fire crow to search the area. Saleen stationed tens of thousands of troops in an area within a dozen kilometer radius. He knew long ago that there was nothing to be found there.


    Even if someone came out of the portal, he would have gone elsewhere long ago, making tracking utterly pointless.


    One or two people emerging would not have done much to Myers Maind. Still, the mages checked patiently, collecting dirt samples nearby in the hope of finding something.


    The golden-eyed fire crow returned in about 20 minutes. It found nothing.


    Mages found signs ofbat and even some dried blood. Those with exceptional alchemical abilities collected samples to be analyzed back in the magic chariots.


    Saleen did not enter the portal blindly. Since the mages had collected enough information for further analysis, there was no need to take additional risks. Some nes were unsuitable for humans. as they might havecked air. Such ces were suitable for magic beasts. Some ces were filled with water, whereas others contained so muchva that even abyssal creatures didn¡¯t want to go near them.


    The mages who apanied Saleen were all above level-7, which meant that they were very quick with minor alchemical experiments.


    They provided the results to Saleen in around 20 minutes. The assault formations had only gotten in ce by then. The portal was narrow, so it was impossible to enter it in the usual way.


    Saleen only needed to make sure that there was no danger the army couldn¡¯t handle. He looked at the results, which clearly stated that the ne on the other side of the portal was a subcontinent ne simr to Myers Maind. The blood collected belonged to humans from another ne who were not very powerful, indicating they were level-7 or level-8 warriors.


    Since they didn¡¯t see any bodies of magic beasts, it was not possible to ascertain the abilities of those warriors.


    That was good enough. If the other side weren¡¯t such a hellish ce, Saleen would have only had to follow the knights, as usual, heading into the portal. He cast his lightning territory to guard against any ambushes.


    The portal was so short it took only about three minutes for the knights at the front to charge.


    The vanguards quickly met another army on the other side. They fired their crossbows upon seeing so many cavalry units rushing toward them, but Saleen¡¯s lightning territory blocked all the bolts.


    Saleen found the sceneughable: The opposing army consisted of little more than 1,000 diverse units.


    Fifty knights d in borate armor took the lead. Those knights were attended by squires. Behind them were foot soldiers in leather armor. The nks were filled with archers, who looked totally at of ce.


    A general, considered themander of the force, followed from the rear. His armor was the color of a bird in heat. Saleen thought his getup was garish and cheap despite the general¡¯s haughty expression. Was that really a chicken feather sticking out of his helmet?


    Two mages nked the general, just two and no more. Saleen scanned them using his Eye of Souls. One was level-4, and the other was level-6. There was even a sorcerer among them.


    Saleen did not think much of them, considering that the force before him was but small task force. He was, however, able to catch a glimpse of the golden-crown insignia on that general¡¯s colorful armor.


    Saleen had spent some time learning about heraldry due to having to forge identities. What was the reason for that insignia? That badge looked like a golden crown. Was the wearer an heir to the throne or the emperor, ording to conventions?


    An emperor? Really? Are you joking? Any duke in Qin would have been able to amass a more significant force. How absurd that there were only two mages for protection.


    A royal court, with only two mages? Really now.


    The attack with arrows and bolts was ineffective. No wonder the two mages looked so grim. Their level was too low. They began muttering to that supposed emperor, infuriating him. They then yelled and intended to let their knights charge.


    Temple knights of the Goddess of Nature had no squires. All told there were about 3,000 knights, all well-armed with subdued armor with holy prose of nature on them.


    Are you telling 50 knights to charge at 3,000 elite enemy knights? Saleen wondered if the emperor was insane or just an idiot.


    All 50 knights dealt blows as soon as they charged. Three thousand knights were only the size of a battalion and 2,000 others stayed behind. None of the holy masters did anything. The enemy was just too weak, and they thought it more prudent to conserve their energy.


    The 50 knights were all thrown from their horses and quickly killed in the altercation. The knights of Nature Faith were formidable soldiers. They almost just rolled over the opposing foot soldiers, archers, and squires, like a tidal wave smashing through a paper dam. That fancy emperor yelled furiously, but the soldiers went silent when they saw the demons behind the enemy.


    ¡°Asmodians have invaded. Everyone retreat immediately!¡±


    There was no need for those words: all thebatants left the battlefield as soon as they saw the demon army. The Nature Temple knights returned to their formations, awaiting further orders.


    The attack was a failure, and the asmodians had invaded?


    Saleen¡¯s demons did bear some resemnce to the asmodians of some subcontinent nes. But Saleen did not bring many demons with him. He only brought a hundred to familiarize them with the ne. If they liked it, Saleen was not opposed to letting them breed there.


    Demons preferred to eat magic bugs instead of humans. Humans, which tasted weird to them, were only eaten when there were shortages or when the demons were famished. Saleen did not worry about those demons ughtering their way in the subcontinent ne. The rtionship between demons and humans was based on strength. With Saleen in charge, the demons would build cities as humans did and establish their forces.


    But then again, it was a bad idea to let that emperor escape. Saleen kicked the scale on the Violet Angel¡¯s back, prompting it to fly over the battlefield with Saleen and Rafel in tow. It charged at that fancy-looking emperor and hoisted him up.


    Those two mages were petrified by Saleen and taken along as well.


    The emperor¡¯s army scattered while Saleen got himself three prisoners.


    He returned to his camp and undid the petrifaction on the two mages. Being petrified within an instant and then dispelled within a moment, made them realize that the power of the enemy far exceeded their expectations.


    ¡°Well then, what is this ce and who are you people?¡± Saleen asked his prisoners.

 Chapter 1477: Cleaning Up the Plane (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1477: Cleaning Up the ne (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°I am the 103rd monarch of the Pheasant Dynasty, the great Borges. Please release me, oh spokesperson of the Asmodians. I am willing to trade gold coins for my freedom.¡± The emperor did not neglect boasting, but he was already trembling. Two properties of the highest level had appeared on a single person¡¯s body at the same time. Saleen could not help butugh.


    ¡°Oh respected Majesty, I am the king of Metatrin Kingdom from the primary maind ne. I am not a spokesperson of the Asmodians.¡± Saleen saw that theughable fellow was an emperor, so he was no longer anxious. He did not have great power. If he arrived at Qin, he would be a Baron at most. However, he would definitely be aware of the important information regarding this secondary maind ne.


    The Emperor of the Pheasant Dynasty heard that Saleen was merely a king. He had originally wanted to put on airs, but his waist was still in great pain, so he was still able to have a clear grasp of the situation. His armor had been thoroughly shredded into pieces by the Violet Angel¡¯s ws. The Violet Angel had not intended to leave the Emperor with any semnce of dignity. The clothes on Borges¡¯ body were torn to rags, as if he was a beggar.


    ¡°Ahem, respected Majesty, oh great mage, I admit that it is my loss. My knights...¡± Borges saw that the corpses of his knights were being dragged over, and his face twitched. Of course, it was impossible for an Emperor to only have 50 knights. However, all of the knights in his imperial city were less than 300 in total.


    He was merely a second rate Emperor. After discovering this spatial pathway, he immediately began to harbor thoughts of conquest. If there was a weak country behind the spatial pathway, then he could expand his territory.


    Currently, his territory only consisted of about 50 kilometers, which was not much at all. If he wanted to be a truly great monarch, he had to have at least 1,000 knights and more than 250 kilometers ofnd.


    Originally, he had intended to trade gold coins for the return of his knights. However, his knights had all died in battle as a result of the military charge. His pride had not been able to stand the heavy blow, so he involuntarily twitched.


    It was just a battle, was there a need to kill people?


    On this ne, war between countries relied on them mutually scaring each other. It depended on whose troops had greater numbers and whose armor looked better. They would battle just for show. If they felt like they would not be a match for their opponent, they would admit defeat,pensate the other party with some gold coins, and everything would be settled.


    In any case, once their forces became greater, they could still have another bout of battle. Once they were victorious, they would be able to earn back even more gold coins than they had lost.


    Why were these humans who had brought along the Asmodians so ruthless?


    The two mages did not dare to interrupt. Their knowledge was even broader than Borges¡¯ and they knew how fearsome the primary maind ne was. The king was a mage who had surpassed level 10.


    What kind of concept was this? On this ne, a level 9 mage was the strongest person.


    On the chariot in the distance, the elemental vibrations became even more intense. They had heard that there was even a level 18 mage on the primary maind ne. Level 18! That surpassed the gods.


    Saleen smiled mildly. The Violet Angel lowered his head and looked at Borges. Borges waspletely honest. A double-headed dragon was not a creature that the Asmodians could mount. It seemed the human king had not been tempted by the Asmodians. Rather, he was the master of the Asmodians.


    In that case, could the situation at the northern front lines have changed for the better?


    The secondary maind ne was the same as many other nes and had the close kin of the demons ¨C the Asmodians.


    The battle between humans and Asmodians had never ever stopped. However, the number of Asmodians on this ne was too few and it was difficult for them to multiply. Thus, they had never caused any disasters.


    Borges¡¯ country was at the east of the continent, which was why he was so terrified at seeing the Asmodians. He thought that the spatial pathway had been created by the Asmodians. If the Asmodians had backup, the humans would not be their match.


    Saleen saw that the Violet Angel was scaring others. He stopped smiling and scolded him. Very cooperatively, the Violet Angel put away the two skulls and turned away in a daze. The enemy was too weak, and it was not up to him to make a move.


    Only then did Saleen ask about the details of the ne. Although Borges was weak, he was still a proper Emperor and was extremely familiar with the continent. Saleen had not thought of getting rid of this fellow. Rather, he instructed the mages to construct their campsite here and hold a banquet, inviting Borges to dine with him.


    The sky darkened. The Illumination magic that the mages had released enveloped the campsite and formed an illusion. No one would be able to see any of the proceedings from the periphery, even if they had alchemy binocrs.


    Borges was still in a state of shock. Saleen¡¯s hospitality towards him was not fake. Aside from the fact that the Emperor was too proud, there were no tricks involved. He answered as specifically as he could for all of Saleen¡¯s questions.


    The attitude he had adopted was extremely proper. He was a prisoner, and in his heart, he felt that enemies killed their prisoners.


    The secondary maind ne was not small. It was approximately the size of a kingdom on the Myers Continent. The northern part of the continent was freezing cold and had been upied by the Asmodians. The other half had been divided up between hundreds of countries.


    Some Emperors only had a city and a few hundred soldiers. Someone like Borges who could gather about 200 knights was considered to be powerful.


    At the northern front line, there was a gigantic mountain pass blocking the Asmodians. All other positions consisted of tall mountains that were difficult to cross.


    The continent¡¯s forces had been divided into a total of nine levels. The strongest person in history was merely level 12, but not because the ne was under the suppression of any rules. Rather, the bloodlines of the people on the continent were not pure enough. This was an inherent deficiency.


    Furthermore, it was particrly difficult to cultivate magic there. There were no decent inheritances. Thus, the proportion of knightspared to mages was terrifyingly great.


    The fact that Borges was able to have two mages by his side was the reason for this country¡¯s strength.


    His n controlled a crystal mineral vein nobody was aware of. It was not difficult for Borges to provide for two mages.


    The two mages stood to the side without speaking. Saleen readily asked them a question, ¡°the two of you, what kind of power do you hold on this continent?¡±


    The two mages felt ttered. ¡°On this continent, the number of sorcerers is less than 100. We are in the middle tier. There will be no issue as long as we do not encounter a sorcerer. Your Majesty, could...¡±


    ¡°You wish to follow me?¡± Saleen smiled.


    ¡°Yes, Your Majesty.¡± The two mages did not hesitate at all. Although Borges treated them fairly well, without a good magic inheritance, there was no possibility for them to advance.


    Their talent was not sufficient. They could only rely on skills to make up for it.


    ¡°Among my Followers, the lowest ranked are all at level 12.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words caused the two mages to lose practically all hope. Even the lowest ranked of this king¡¯s Followers were at level 12?


    ¡°However, in this ne and with such an environment, both of you were still able to be great mages. Mm, this is still not too bad. I will arrange for people to stay here and guide the both of you.¡±


    The two mages were stunned for a moment, then felt overjoyed. They were intelligent and understood Saleen¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°Mm. Borges, this continent does not need so many Emperors. After I clear out the Asmodians, how about you be the only Emperor.¡±


    ¡°But I do not have that many troops, nor do I have gold coins!¡± Borges pulled a long face. Saleen had given him a difficult mission. How could he fulfill it? Although he hoped to be the only Emperor, he did not have the capabilities to do so.


    ¡°Troops, money, mages, equipment, I will provide all of this to you. Oh right, isn¡¯t there a church on this continent of yours? One that is devoted to the God of the Underworld?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Majesty.¡±


    ¡°It can be destroyed. After the Heavenly Kingdom of Purgatory is destroyed, the Pope here shall be appointed by you.¡±


    Borges had an expression of gloom. Seeing his expression, Saleen smiled coldly. ¡°Are you unwilling to be a puppet?¡±


    ¡°Mm, I am not that willing.¡± This Emperor was very honest, which made Saleen think more highly of him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I am at all not interested in governing this ce. I am allowing you to be the Emperor because I am afraid of any unforeseen events here that cannot be controlled. You can govern without any worries. If there are any troubles, the people of the Nature Faith will contact me to help you take care of it.¡±


    Seeing that Borges still looked unwilling, Saleen suddenly released his Lightning Territory and covered the two people, isting them from the outside world.


    ¡°You do not like the Nature Faith?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Yes. I hate all of the religions.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, the Nature Faith here will be restricted by you. When the timees when they are not needed, I will take away all of the Holy Masters.¡± Saleen no longer beat around the bush. After hearing these words of Saleen¡¯s, Borges stood. However, he was immediately forced back to his seat by Saleen¡¯s Hand of Mages.


    ¡°Your Majesty, does this Nature Faith not have a god?¡±


    ¡°It does, but she will not live for too long,¡± Saleen replied.


    Borges stopped asking questions. He was not stupid. He knew that Saleen was willing to speak this way because he truly wanted to make him the manager of this ne. As for how the Nature Faith would develop in the future, he would have the right to call the shots.


    Saleen did not want the Nature Faith to develop too quickly on this ne, nor did he want there to be any true disciples. He would allow the Nature Faith¡¯s disciples and the God of the Underworld¡¯s disciples to fight with one another. He definitely would not send any troops for support.


    Borges epted the reality. He would go from being a prisoner to this ne¡¯s lone Emperor in the future.


    He was so excited that he could not sleep, so he invited Saleen into his imperial pce to look. Saleen did not reject him. He brought the Violet Angel and Rafel and returned to Borges¡¯ imperial city.


    Saleen readily asked if Borges had dispatched people to enter the spatial pathway before. Borges¡¯ reply enabled Saleen to understand why it felt as if this ne had a god.


    The one who had entered the spatial pathway was a disciple of the God of the Underworld. Furthermore, it had been a ck-cloaked Consul.


    The preaching of the God of the Underworld¡¯s faith was not permitted in Borges¡¯ country. Borges had received intelligence and had gone forth to pursue and kill the ck-cloaked Consul. As a result, he had discovered the spatial pathway.


    The Heavenly Kingdom of Purgatory was a religious kingdom. It upied 500 kilometers ofnd and had exceptionallyrge forces in the west.


    Saleen judged the situation on the ne and thought that it was better for him to wait for the results of Aini¡¯s battle and move Floating City. He would be able to destroy the resistance forces with one move. It was better than selecting a few unlucky fellows to act as a demonstration.


    He would get rid of the Asmodians, and then overthrow the God of the Underworld¡¯s faith. There would not be anybody who would dare to resist him.


    After Saleen had made up his mind, he immediatelymanded Rafel to assemble the troops and mages to prepare to attack the secondary maind ne with full force.

 Chapter 1478: Cleaning Up the Plane (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1478: Cleaning Up the ne (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen issued his orders, and Borges listened at the side, dazed.


    His orders were detailed, covering things like the size of armies, the amount of supplies, holy masters, mages, and all warriors to be deployed and so on.


    Borges knew what the numbers meant. The king had an army with over a million units.


    Saleen did not hide anything from Borges. The emperor controlled hundreds of square kilometers and was of quite high ranking¡ªa level seven grand swordmaster. For a ne with the most powerful of professionals at level nine, a level seven emperor was very powerful.


    Borges was not stupid, but he definitely loved to put on airs. However, Saleen knew that due to his current level, the emperor would put the bad habits aside for the moment.


    Rafel brought Saleen¡¯s badge and letter, traversing back and forth between the nes. Saleen left Borges in the imperial city while he continued to look into details regarding the ne.


    Saleen had the power to unite the entire ne under one banner, but doing so would be pointless. It was better to let Borges be an emperor. If the Goddess of Nature wanted to im the ne, Saleen would at least be able to stay out of trouble.


    Saleen hated the feeling of building a nation just to crush it personallyter.


    The ne had a religion dedicated to the God of Underworld. It was better to just leave the squabble to the gods.


    Rafel assembled an army within days. Saleen did not let Borges lead the army. He sent Rafel to the northern frontlines to attack areas ruled by the asmodians.


    The Water Fox was brought to the ne and headed west, crushing the nation that worshipped the God of Underworld. Saleen had softened the Water Fox, so it would not dare to do anything out of ce anymore.


    There were two armies. The one heading north had over 600,000 soldiers, while the one heading west was over 300,000. There was another army with 200,000 units heading west to clean up the nearby nations.


    The ne had never seen armies of such sizes before. Even when they fought the asmodians at the northern pass, they had only ever rotated armies of tens of thousands.


    There had never been armies with over 100,000 units.


    The armies practically trampled their targets, due to the leading armies having a battalion¡¯s worth of Bug Angel Warriors among them. The warriors sportedbat capacity between level seven to level nine wearing such armor, and in that ne, level nine was the top.


    Nobody was stupid enough to stand in the armies¡¯ ways. Instead, many emperors sent their troops to follow the incrediblyrge armies on their way to wipe out the asmodians.


    The emperors were hardly wealthy and were basically only sending out a dozen knights, their squires and food sent along as well. The food was meant for the great armies, as the price of protection.


    As such, Saleen¡¯s armies became rather reluctant to wipe the nations out.


    However, Saleen had long decided to clean up the ne and saw no reason to stop just because they offered food that was hardly worth much. Saleen¡¯s emissaries caught up with the great armies and sent letters to the dynasties.


    The entourages consisted ofpanies of 200 soldiers. The level ten mages were in charge, several silver grand swordmasters served as bodyguards, and a small number were escorts.


    Saleen had more than enough men to spare, and the emissaries were treated very nicely. No one attempted to make a move on them at all.


    One-fifth of an emissary entourage was above level seven, with a level ten professional in charge. None of the empires had ever seen such an entourage before.


    There was little they could do, as the army was more powerful than they were. The emperors were unable to do anything other than yield. Saleen did not imprison them; he made them greater nobles, instead of emperors.


    From the emperors¡¯ perspective, Saleen was being utterly ridiculous. But Saleen had sent a 600,000 person army pass through their gates, and no one dared to defy such force.


    Both sides of the ne had been having an easy time, but a powerful kingdom showed up out of nowhere, trying wipe out the asmodians. The bnce was disrupted and their days of peace were over. While there had been conflicts every now and then, their wars had never truly killed anyone.


    The asmodians scared themon people into submission. However, the asmodians were actually rather weak, and their numbers were rtively small. Even if the asmodian army was stronger than they were, they still would be able to make it past the northern pass.


    Saleen had disrupted that ne¡¯s bnce, but no one else was able to stop him. The only one who had anything to gain was Borges. He was lucky. Saleen killed 50 of his knights, and as a token ofpensation, Saleen let him rule the ne.


    Saleen stayed behind to see if the God of Underworld would show up. There were many purgatory nes and more than one or two Gods of Underworld. If the God of Underworld was powerful, he would send the Nature Faith¡¯s believers up as cannon fodders. If the god was weak...


    News came half a monthter, saying that the great army that had gone to take on the nation worshipping the God of Underworld had practically overrun the ce, razing the nationpletely. Any temples of antagonistic faiths were all destroyed, and their pope was killed. The Water Fox turned the nation into one worshipping the Goddess of Nature.


    Saleen sent an order to attack the divine kingdom of the God of Underworld next.


    He came personally to the new Nature Temple and brought his own elite troops, looking for signs of the God of Underworld.


    They found a huge hidden divine rune charm array under the altar of the God of Underworld. Saleen took out the god¡¯s codex and burned it, sending the strongest message he was able to.


    The God of Underworld was weak. Precisely speaking, it was a demigod. The provocation from a subcontinent ne had the God of Underworld fuming, and it opened the portal between the two nes.


    It did not expect a ne with only level nine professionals to dare to burn its codex.


    The God of the Underworld¡¯s mes of wrath turned into ck mes wrapping its body, bringing the God of Underworld through obstacles and onto the ne.


    That God of Underworld did not dare to propagate its faith on main nes due to being weak. All of its religions were spread in subcontinent nes or interdimensional spaces. If it ran into any other gods, it would flee.


    However, it no longer wanted to flee, infuriated that puny humans of impure bloodlines in interdimensional spaces were bold enough to oppose its rule.


    The God of Underworld led 100,000 god creatures and attacked the subcontinent ne.


    It had yet to reach level 15 and not a true god, so it was reluctant to createbat angels, as they would expend its powers. The god creatures were only there to expand his bloodline, as just a little gift would allow a god¡¯s bloodline to pass on.


    God creatures had many talents, but their growth was abhorrently slow. They were also unlikebat angels, which were capable of being modified and given more powers.


    The 100,000-soldier army of god creature warriors opened the portal between the two nes. Under the lead of the God of Underworld, they attacked the subcontinent ne.


    That resulting battle was easy. Saleen locked onto the God of Underworld and bombarded it with the magic spells contained with the Book of Lightning. Thick electrical bolts sent the God of Underworld to the ground. Its broken divine persona dropped, taken by Saleen¡¯s lightning warriors, and handed to Saleen.


    It was the Nature Faith¡¯s turn to work. Armies of Nature Faith charged into the God of Underworld¡¯s divine kingdom and began to kill everything in sight. The goddess was actually against such actions, but she had only given the decree since she was resurrected. The goddess did not tell how the Nature Faith should go about their business.


    Everything was done ording to Saleen¡¯s thoughts, and Saleen¡¯s target was that God of Underworld.


    A level 14 demigod was no longer a match for him. Despite being of equal level, he had superior equipment.


    Saleen supervised the deicidal war. He held onto the broken divine persona and attempted to absorb the rules. It was a pity that the power of rules of the demigod was tiny. It would not have been so easily killed otherwise.


    The demigod¡¯s rules were called mes of Purgatory. It was the beginning rule all Gods of Underworld mastered.


    While the might of the mes of Purgatory was not weak, at level 14, it was not capable of posing a threat to gods of simr level. It was unlike the Lord of Glory¡¯s Light of Judgment, which was capable of killing level 15 gods.


    The adherents of Nature Faith were fervently devoted to Saleen. Not only did he consolidate all of the nations in the ne they headed to, he also killed the God of Underworld before everyone.


    No one ever saw the Goddess of Nature, but the level 14 god fell before them.


    Killing a god gave Saleen near infinite weight and authority in the minds of the adherents. The adherents began to sh head on with the god creatures. Due to the death of the God of Underworld, the god creatures¡¯ powers were considerably weakened and the level difference disappeared. Saleen¡¯s troops gained the edge.


    Saleen watched, unfazed, and observed how god creatures fought, as well as details regarding the battle.


    Saleen was disappointed. The God of Underworld was too weak. It only had a handful of underlings above level ten. Such warriors were hardly considered threats to Saleen.


    He cast Thundering Shock and suppressed all of the god creatures. He chanted something, but that had nothing to do with Nature Faith. The adherents of the faith, however, did not realize what was going on and sped up their attack, ganging up on thest thousand god creatures.


    Saleen felt that the state of affairs was set and charged into the depths of the God of Underworld¡¯s divine kingdom to explore.


    It was no surprise why the level 14 demigod was so weak. It spent most of its powers on the creation of its divine kingdom. Saleen spread his power of the soul out and probed the divine kingdom, finding weak beings. The ce was quite different from a purgatory ne, which meant that it was probably the God of Underworld¡¯s own body.


    The divine kingdom was notrge, so its only advantage was its extreme speed at fleeing.


    Saleen sealed the portal. He chanted lightning runes instead of beginning a genocide. All of the divine kingdom¡¯s god creatures were afraid. The human mage hovering in the sky was surrounded by 24 magic beasts, and lightning shed and thunder rumbled, making it possible for him to cast deadly attacks at any given moment.


    One god creature after another emerged andid prostrate before Saleen. He held onto the broken divine persona of the God of Underworld and waited until a good number of god creatures to gather before he spoke, ¡°I¡¯m Saleen, a human mage. From this day forth, this divine kingdom belongs to me, and your faith shall be devoted to it,¡± Saleen said as he released the weapon spirit of the Lightning Moon.


    The three-headed, six-armed giant roared, every single roar a massive explosion, shaking the minds of the god creatures below.

 Chapter 1479: God Creature Assassin (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1479: God Creature Assassin (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen turned and looked at the giant weapon spirit. He recalled Dante, the first ever weapon spirit that he had subjugated. It was quite a pity that the giant ate it.


    ¡°You shall continue using the name Dante, the name...¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡± The giant weapon spirit had no memories. It did not even have any information inherited from the giant. It would follow Saleen¡¯s orders loyalty and without any question.


    The three jade pieces were already fused, located in its heart and protecting its fused soul.


    The weapon spirit would not attempt to betray Saleen even without the jade, yet Saleen did not reim thepleted jade. It had never been Saleen¡¯s and he had no intentions of keeping it on him. It would protect Dante¡¯s soul instead.


    Gods had no souls, but Dante was special. Its soul had been put under the protection of the broken pieces of the jade before it became a god, so its soul did not end up fusing with its godly body.


    The god creaturesy prostrate at its feet. Saleen was ted, but he quickly subdued the feeling because he was feeling abundant power of faith gathering in his body.


    If he epted it, he would slowly be turned into a god, and that was not good.


    As a human, he was able to advance more quickly due to having a soul. If he became a god, it would take untold number of years to even get to level 15.


    Saleen had no intention of doing something that stupid just to extend his lifespan. A god¡¯s lifespan was longer than a human¡¯s, but it depended on level. After level 16, a human¡¯s lifespan spanned tens of thousands of years. If a human reached level 18, their human¡¯s lifespan would be indefinite.


    ¡°Alright, Dante, write your codex here. I¡¯ll leave first,¡± Saleen said and returned to the subcontinent ne through the portal.


    Dante unleashed lightning warriors and began to draft its codex in the sky of the divine kingdom. They were its doctrines.


    The first doctrine was the most special among gods. Saleen Metatrin is the master of this god. The surname of Metatrin surpasses all.


    There had never been such a codex ever created in history. Humans had been powerful, but gods had been abundant as well. Level 18 gods were everywhere, and they were on par with humans. Gods would rather die than to submit to humans, and humans had no interest in subjugating gods. The greatest value of gods to humans was that they served well as alchemical materials.


    By the time Saleen returned to the subcontinent ne, Dante had melded the divine kingdom into its body and brought it back. It had no interest in preaching to the god creatures. It had peculiar attributes and had very low yearning for believers. It would earn limitless power and life simply by following Saleen around, so it had no interest in running the divine kingdom.


    In terms of personalities, gods were usually at the extremes. Dante was the same, with its extreme quality being its reliance on Saleen.


    The Goddess of Nature was unable to interfere with the divine kingdom Saleen had taken. Rafel won a decisive victory in a single battle, with the asmodians choosing to surrender. To them, the most terrifying thing they had faced were the demons brought by Rafel.


    Demons were the ancestors of the asmodians. The asmodians on the subcontinent ne had fallen into decline and did not dare to fight against the demons.


    Every creature had others capable of subduing them. If Rafel did it by herself, the best she would be able to achieve would be killing off all the asmodians. It would have taken more than just a single battle to settle everything.


    The problem with the subcontinent ne was easy to deal with. Saleen left the Nature Faith¡¯s knights and 100,000 soldiers behind. He brought the remaining of his men back to Myers Maind.


    They did not spend a lot of time fighting, but had a lot to gain. If humans moved to a subcontinent ne, it would quickly change the ne¡¯s powers. Furthermore, the rules of the ne did not restrict levels of professionals.


    The people Saleen sent would fight their best.


    However, the ne was young, and no level ten powerful ones had emerged, so it had little power. Magic beasts on the ne were low levels as well, and there were hardly any ancient ruins.


    The greatest reward was the divine kingdom of millions of god creatures, and the other benefit was the mineral deposits waiting to be unearthed in the subcontinent ne.


    Mages foundrger mineral veins in the subcontinent ne easier and began excavation. The problem with materials required for crafting military equipment Saleen needed was solved.


    Myers Maind had a long history. Any mineral veins with great value had already been stripped clean. The inds near the Oceanic Ice Block had been around, only because ancient humans found them too bothersome to mine.


    Aini¡¯s expedition yielded some results. It was a subcontinent ne, but the one that Aini went to conquer had no religion. The most powerful of professionals were only at level nine.


    Saleen only found how different it was between subcontinent nes and main nes.


    Humans had been restricted by the rules on their main ne. Subcontinent nes, on the other hand, had beings of degraded bloodlines all over the ce. Even though they were not restricted by ne rules, getting beyond level nine still proved difficult.


    Aini did not run into any trouble, but that was not to say that Myers Maind became entirely safe. More and more portals were opening, and invasions from foreign nes were already urring.


    The Golden ins no longer pressured Lex; they volunteered troops to aid in defense instead.


    Lex knew that the Golden ins had taken control of her troops, and even if she disagreed, there was little that she could do. The Golden ins would be able to force her hand through the House of Lords and House of Commons.


    There was a lot to gain by attacking foreign nes. There were many Golden ins mages who were inferior to Saleen, but only in terms of equipment. Saleen had equipment so powerful that they literally allowed him to throw his weight around in the ne.


    Thirty-six portals appeared on Myers Maind within several months. Saleen conquered six on his own, and all of them had religious beliefs. Saleen let others take the nes that had no religious beliefs.


    Aini served as the head of the local nobles.


    There was no doubt that Saleen¡¯s nobles were given early pickings. He refused to negotiate with Golden ins. Anyone capable of getting hold of a subcontinent ne had countless riches to gain.


    Even if there was hardly anynd worth cultivating in the subcontinent nes, there was arge amount of minerals waiting to be unearthed.


    There were seven nes with religious beliefs, and all of them were controlled by demigods. The demigods in the nes had begun to establish their own divine kingdoms. Saleen gained seven broken divine personas, but he had only gained one divine kingdom.


    It seemed that the power of Myers Maind was unable to connect nes of higher levels, and no gods would enter Myers Maind through the nes yet.


    That put Saleen at ease. If they were just demigods, Dante would be able to take care of them without any problem. A level 15 god who possessed lightning and elemental skills and amplification abilities would make short work of any level 14 god.


    The power difference was just like Saleen being chased by a demigod all those years ago. Saleen was a high level then¡ªlevel 13, but that one level difference almost ended up with him getting killed.


    Furthermore, Saleen possessed arge number of powerful equipment and godly items capable of threatening demigods.


    Saleen returned to Metatrin City andmanded his nobles to take the nes. The disadvantage of Golden ins began to show. Saleen had Nature Faith and arge number of demons at his disposal, making sure that he had ample soldiers to spare. The Golden ins¡¯ forces consisted of the tens of thousands of elites that they fostered and the four towns of Qin.


    While there were many capable people in Golden ins capable ofpeting with Saleen in grabbing nes, they were unable to assemble troops to do so.


    Furthermore, Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood worked secretly, and Saleen yielded all the portals within Cloudflow territory to the Grand Duke.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s powers had grown, but it never bothered Saleen. His mind was put to rebuilding Alchemy City. The three leaders of Alchemy City had gone missing and had yet to turn up, so Saleen had to go personally.


    The nine mages elected in the Elemental Hand had to divide their powers anew. Saleen came and brought all nine away with him. He picked his own group and filled them in the council-like Elemental Hand.


    The Alchemy City mages were unable to do anything. The nine wanted to protest but they were unable to. Saleen forcibly made them believers of Dante and stripped them of their magic chords.


    After he had dealt with themotion at Alchemy City, Saleen went to the interdimensional space and visited his teacher.


    Jason was in control of Raphael¡¯s magic tower, and the entire interdimensional ne was prosperous. The sun gradually perfected itself, and there was no need for mages to cast magic for light. The crops were growing fine and the weather was great.


    Saleen felt very pleased, and of course, Jason was already at the pinnacle of level 14.


    Saleen was exasperated. He had only been able to get to level 14, due to using the Hall of God¡¯s tremendous powers in altering the flow of time. His teacher, on the other hand, had been able to get to level 14 despite the fact that the interdimensional space¡¯s passage of time was slower than Myers Maind. Jason did not even seem to be stopping any time soon. He seemed like a legendary figure that should not be anywhere near Saleen.


    Saleen built a summoning magic array in the interdimensional space, summoning the Winged Skull over from the spirit ne. He did not dare to build a portal, as he was afraid that the goddess would be able to trace it. No one knew what the goddess thought, and Saleen had to ensure his followers¡¯ safety.


    Saleen handed over the fragment of divine persona of the God of Underworld when he saw the Winged Skull, letting the Winged Skull embed it into their Reaper Scythe. The power of rules within the Reaper Scythe was too fearsome, and the Winged Skull was unable to master them.


    Saleen asked about Nailisi as well. Nailisi finished evolving her spirit form in the Winged Skull¡¯s spirit ne. The imp missed Saleen a lot and often talked about wanting to return to the maind.


    ¡°Just tell her that I need to get rid of the goddess before I can get you two home without concern. This ce isn¡¯t safe. A teleportation portal isn¡¯t an obstacle to the goddess.¡±


    ¡°I understand, master. Be careful out there. Gods...are not reliable. All of them,¡± the Winged Skull reminded Saleen, as if he was a dear old friend of theirs, instead of their master.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll keep that in mind. Oh, right. The remains of god creatures. Bring them back to the spirit realm and get your golden skeletons to fuse with them.¡± Saleen took out what he had gotten in the cemetery of the giant. He thought for a bit and took out the giant¡¯s head as well. ¡°Give this to Nailisi. Try to get rid of it. I don¡¯t want anyone else eyeing me for it.¡±

 Chapter 1480: God Creature Assassin (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1480: God Creature Assassin (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen handed over the giant¡¯s skull to the Winged Skull and had them bring it to Nailisi. Saleen had his own thoughts as well. While the cemetery of the giant had been a huge, borate trap, it was unknown who it was meant for. However, that giant skull was real. If it actually turned out to be the King of Glory¡¯s friend, Saleen¡¯s sphemous actions would mean that he would die a horrible death.


    Letting Nailisi have it, be it to have her eat it or put into the 12 Notes of First Purgatory to be broken down, she would destroy it one way or another. Leaving it intact would be like having a sword hanging above his head.


    Saleen was known for petty advantages, but he dared not do so anymore. That contract with the Goddess of Myers embroiled him into the conflict between the goddess and the Imperial City of the Abyss, and he had only been doing it to acquire greater power all those years ago.


    In hindsight, it was really a sh**ty deal.


    If it had not been for the goddess and the heroic spirits in the Imperial City of the Abyss, he would not have gotten to his current level. But then again, he also would not have been so anxious to advance his level, fighting wars to expand his powers.


    He was incapable of mastering the trajectory of fate and was only going with the flow, preparing himself as amply as he could for what was toe.


    At present, Saleen had nine pieces of broken divine personas, and he had no doubt known of their value. Giving just one piece to the heroic spirits would keep them happy for a very long time.


    The broken divine personas would be sufficient to get him good deals from them, but that would piss off the goddess. Saleen had no idea on how to shake off the goddess¡¯ watch.


    As he expanded hisnds and conquered increasinglyrge numbers of nes, Lex¡¯s power grew increasingly strong. Saleen learned how powerful secret arts from higher crystal wall systems could be. As such, he had to dedicate himself more to the conquest of the nes.


    However, it was not feasible to let Lex manage the empire. The best way to solve that was to have a child, and let their child be emperor. Doing so would allow Lex to step down, but she could continue absorbing powers from the subjects of the empire without hindering progress on the secret art.


    ¡®Making a kid huh? I wonder if Lex is still up for it now.¡¯ Saleen thought.


    Saleen felt that since the goddess was resurrected, he and Lex had grown increasingly distant.


    Mages had little sex drive, and it was entirely normal for them to not be intimate for a hundred years or so. However, if one took the closeness of their rtionship into ount, things looked out of ce.


    He wondered if it was Lex felt dissatisfied with him, or if he no longer had any thoughts that had little to do with magic.


    Saleen was no longer able to suppress his urge to see Lex. He had been by Sika¡¯s side. It would be ridiculous to just head to Holy Rock City and tell Sika he was doing it just to have a baby with Lex.


    It was awkward and felt too sudden. He was at a loss of what to do.


    Saleen cast his gaze faraway, finding a young archer practicing their skills in the forest, killing low level insects with their arrows.


    An archer?


    Saleen thought of someone else. He asked for his people to fetch Eleanor.


    Eleanor had finally gotten over level 13, and there were signs that she still had room for progress. She had been teaching Qin archery and Saleen hardly summoned her. He did not take Eleanor as a bruiser. The elf had taken the Metatrin surname after all.


    ¡°What¡¯s up, Saleen?¡± Eleanor still kept her human body, as if she had no intentions of returning to her elvish form.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking of heading to Holy Rock City for a bit. Care to join me?¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡±


    ¡°That umm...¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°That potion that you elves craft. Do you still have any of it left?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re talking about the one to make women get pregnant?¡±


    Saleen blushed. ¡°Yeah, that one.¡±


    ¡°You want to have a baby with Lex?¡± Eleanor asked straightforwardly. To the elves, it was not something to be embarrassed about.


    ¡°Right.¡±


    ¡°Lex might not agree to it though.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Why? You¡¯ve been busy with your own stuff, and you left her alone at Holy Rock City. Regardless of how strong she is, she is still a girl. She has probably been resenting you for a very long time now.¡±


    ¡°How?¡± Saleen was baffled. The working rtionship between him and Lex was still going strong. There was hardly any need to be very clear with words when they worked together, and they were still able to work with each other seamlessly.


    ¡°How not? If my man was someone like that, I¡¯d shoot him and get myself a new guy,¡± Eleanor answered.


    The rtionship between Eleanor and Saleen had changed. They could be really direct and honest with each other. She was afraid that Saleen might not get it, and if he and Lex shed, things would turn bad for Saleen.


    Her surname was Metatrin, and she naturally had to give more thought when thinking about Saleen¡¯s affairs.


    ¡°Huh. But I¡¯m a mage, what can I do?¡± There was a bit of grumbling in Saleen¡¯s words. Saleen had not been very invested in the emotions. He and Sika were interdependent. The thing between him and Lex was probably sentiment from his youth.


    He admired Lex immensely back then, and that had been very real.


    However, after bing level 14, he was like a demigod in the context of gods. He had lived a long life, and the way he looked at problems differed frommon folks. It was impossible to rekindle that youthful sentiment.


    ¡°Well, you can¡¯t just show up at her door with my potion, and just tell her ¡®I want to have a baby with you¡¯, right?¡±


    Saleen¡¯s face turned even redder. Eleanor was right. He was unable to bring himself to do something like that.


    ¡°How about let Sika do it?¡±


    ¡°Are you telling me to piss Lex off? I¡¯m afraid they would start fighting each other if I did that!¡±


    ¡°Heh, you care about her feelings then. My, oh my!¡± Eleanorughed. ¡°It won¡¯t be as bad as you think it¡¯ll be. Just bring me, Rafel, and Sika along. Oh, and the kids.¡±


    Saleen nodded, puzzled. Eleanor then said, ¡°Lex has no heir and that is one of the reasons why Golden ins has been leaning on her. No need to talk to Lex about having a baby. Bring Sika and she¡¯ll be jealous, and she won¡¯t give you a hard time. Everything will be fine. Sika is not the kind of woman who would keep you away from anything and anyone. Stay at Holy Rock City for a bit and get on the bad side of the Golden ins, and you¡¯ll get your chance to cuddle with Lex.¡±


    Saleen was exasperated, but nodded. Doing so would be better than him bringing the potion and just asking Lex to sleep with him after all.


    He did not want to meddle in Golden ins¡¯ affairs because Arb was very powerful. The Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake was very potent and destructive. If she brought all of her might to bear, Saleen¡¯s chances of winning would only be 70 percent, if she were a simr level to him.


    Better to get near her and look into her weaknesses. It had been a while since hest saw Arb, and he had no idea how powerful the mage had be. There was no doubt that she was anything but strong. If Arb were actually weak, Lex would have Arb dealt with a long time ago.


    Saleen headed out to Holy Rock City. Lex looked at a dead body before her with a glum face right outside the gates of the royal pce at Holy Rock City.


    It was one of her personal guards and a golden grand swordmaster.


    She was surrounded by a legion of royal swordsmen, and the mages felt awkward. Lex had just returned from the House of Lords, and she was targeted for assassination right in front of the gates of the royal pce.


    Three assassins attempted to assassinate her in broad daylight. She lost four guards, and one of them was that personal guard who had been at her side the whole time.


    Lex¡¯s personal guard had blocked a fatal hit with their own body. Someone who was capable of forcing a golden grand swordmaster¡¯s hand to such an extent, making them block a hit from an assassin with their own life without attempting anything else, would be at least level 11.


    While golden grand swordmasters were only level nine professionals, if they were serious, not even level nine sorcerers would be able to take them on. To have an absolute edge, the assassin had to be at least at level 11.


    Worse still, it was not the first assassination attempt. Half a month ago, when Lex left the royal pce, she was targeted by an assassin as well. A mage died and the assassin was able to escape.


    Most of Lex¡¯s powerful professionals were at Daliang City and the Principality of Bitterwater. Defense of Holy Rock City was mostly taken care of by mages of Golden ins. They were unable to do anything about the two assassination attempts, which infuriated Lex.


    She was having doubts about things. Logic said that the attempts could not be the work of Golden ins. They were bound by contracts, forbidding them from acting against her directly, forcing them to only rely on political pressure to make her give up the throne. If they took such direct measures, the entire Golden ins would suffer bad luck.


    But who would want to kill her so badly then?


    When the entire Myers Maind was taken into consideration, the Cloudflow people were the most suspicious, but the Cloudflow emperor¡¯s hands were full, as the four dukes had considerable power. They would not be in a hurry to take care of her.


    When the assassin was powerful enough to shake off tracking from her God¡¯s Ring, she thought of Agares.


    She dismissed that possibility. If it was truly Agares, she would be in real danger. Saleen told her about Agares, and he borated the traits of that weapon in Agares¡¯ hand as well.


    Only by activating the power of God¡¯s Ring would she have been able to defend against Agares¡¯ attack.


    The two assassination attempts had not been bad enough to force the ring to work.


    The God¡¯s Ring stored power of faith from the empire¡¯s billions of subjects. As long as she stayed the empress, that power within would continue to grow. That was her key to advancement, and she did not want to use the powers inbat.


    ¡°Your majesty, Prince Saleen arrived at the teleportation portal.¡± A female officer of the court informed her cautiously.


    ¡°Send him here.¡± Lex stood where she was, waiting for Saleen toe.


    ¡°Yes, madam.¡± The officer excused herself, and Saleen brought his entourage to the gates of the royal pce within minutes.


    Seeing the ce filled with royal swordsmen and mages present to take care of the situation, Saleen realized what happened right away. The dead body on the ground was not moved, and Lex even used her territory to preserve all information pertaining to the assassination attempt.


    Saleen frowned. He smelled something that would repel him. God creatures...


    The high and mighty mages made way when they saw Saleen. Everyone heard that Saleen was in a bad moodtely. The few who fought over the portals with him all died horrible deaths.


    Saleen came before the dead body and bent over.


    ¡°Rodick. A personal guard who had been by your side since young. When I first saw him, he was but a high level swordmaster,¡± Saleen mentioned the guard¡¯s name, which softened Lex¡¯s expression considerably.


    She knew that Saleen still cared about her. He would not remember someone so minor otherwise.

 Chapter 1481: Getting Ugly (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1481: Getting Ugly (Part 1)</h4>


    Lex¡¯s personal guards were not actually meant for guarding her, as there were mages from Golden ins and soldiers from the Royal Swordsmen Camp at her side almost all the time. They were all more than capable of handling such unforeseen circumstances.


    The personal guards had been around Lex since she was young. They were put at her side to broaden their vistas and learn. They could be generals when assigned elsewhere.


    Rodick had served Lex when she was young. He had advanced to be a golden grand swordmaster and his journey had been arduous, but he died protecting his liege.


    Lex was infuriated and Saleen walked up to her, looking around for a bit before saying, ¡°Lex, this is the work of the god creatures.¡±


    ¡°The god creatures?¡± The mages of Golden ins perked up, listening to Saleen¡¯s words attentively.


    ¡°I¡¯ve destroyed seven demigods for the past half-year. The demigods did not have angels with them, as they had been reluctant to create angels, but they had god creatures. I was unable to wipe out all of the powerful creatures. It would be someone else who had escaped as well. There are too many portals around, and it¡¯s entirely possible that they were not thoroughly wiped out.¡±


    ¡°Why the god creatures?¡± Lex asked.


    Saleen lowered his head and pricked Rodick¡¯s finger, flicking a drop of blood. A mage by his side collected the drop of blood with a crystal bottle and mixed a pre-concocted potion in it.


    ¡°See that?¡± Saleen pointed at the clear liquid in the bottle. ¡°The power of the Source in his blood has been taken away. Only god creatures would do that. They wouldn¡¯t have wanted to let any bit remain, even if it was miniscule.¡±


    Lex sighed. The matter was tricky. Neither her nor Saleen had powerful summoners. Searching for escaped god creatures would be tiresome.


    ¡°Lex, I¡¯m staying around for a bit. We can talk about thister when we catch the guy responsible.¡±


    Lex was in a bad mood. She nodded and told the mages to preserve the body to be brought back to the Principality of Bitterwater for a burial.


    Saleen stayed in the royal pce. He kicked all of the mages from Golden ins out. The mages were irked but Saleen only said, ¡°I don¡¯t want someone keeping an eye on us, while I¡¯m with Lex.¡±


    The mages from Golden ins no doubt did more than just keep an eye on Lex, as they were tasked with her protection as well. However, none of them had been able to do anything when the two assassination attempts happened. What Saleen said was a sarcastic jab at them.


    They were unable to do anything about Saleen¡¯s sarcasm, as there was no one who served Saleen that they could reason with. There was no need to sh head on with him. Golden ins conquered six nes. If there were a conflict between the two parties, they would not be able to resist him, as their forces had been stretched thin.


    Saleen kicked out the mages from Golden ins for more than just him not liking them. His current level meant that he was able to do as he pleased, and he saw no reason to y nice with them.


    The main reason he went to Holy Rock City was to deal with the problem surrounding Golden ins. Lex¡¯s position as empress would not be stable as long as she failed to produce an heir.


    It would not have been a problem if the Golden ins were not in the picture. Lex¡¯s life was long, and she could stay as she was for another 30 to 50 thousand years still. However, that pressure from Golden ins would not do her any good.


    Saleen had to do something. That was the conclusion that he came to.


    Lex stayed cooped up in the magic tower behind the study in the royal pce of Holy Rock City. She did not bother constructing a bedchamber for herself. She was a mage, and no one would hold such a course of action against her.


    The magic tower had 13 floors constructed by mages sent by Saleen.


    Lex gazed far away from the 13th floor. Saleen stood behind her and felt that she looked lonely. That was no longer the stubborn, headstrong young woman he knew. Lex was the empress, and she had a huge load on her shoulders.


    Saleen was unable to understand before he was chased by the Lord of Glory¡¯s double. He only realized after staring death in the face several times that there were so many lives that depended on him. If he died, all of the people would be done for as well.


    That was the case with Lex. Her responsibility was hardly any lighter than Saleen¡¯s.


    ¡°Lex, have you recorded the appearance of the assassin?¡±


    Saleen was not in the right position to make his objectives clear, so he chatted with Lex instead. They were husband and wife, but Saleen felt that he had been keeping Lex at a distance.


    Lex took out a memory crystal and yed the scene of the assassination attempt for him.


    The first assassination attempt ured was when she was on her way back to the royal pce. When Lex¡¯s magic chariot passed a bridge, five people charged from under the bridge. One of them was blocked by the basete of the chariot and escaped back into the water. The remaining four came at her from the sides.


    Saleen noticed that none of the assassins cast any divine spells. They all used martial arts instead.


    If it had not been for his powerful Eye of Souls, he would not have been able to tell that they were god creatures. Many god creatures had uncanny resemnce to humans in appearance, and only enemy holy masters could tell that they were not humans.


    ¡°Standard weapons used,monly found throughout Qin. Too bad that there weren¡¯t any of them left behind.¡±


    ¡°Lex, I sent Rafel out to look into this. She is a metal angel and will be able to sniff the god creatures out.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re here to talk to me about this?¡± Lex did not turn around.


    ¡°Well, not really?¡± Saleen did not know what to say.


    ¡°Well then, what do you want?¡±


    Saleen was triggered. ¡°When will you stop being the empress and leave with me?¡±


    ¡°Leave?¡±


    ¡°Well, you and I are husband and wife. What is the point of staying here? Come with me to the interdimensional space. I¡¯ve conquered quite a lot ofnd, and they arerger than Myers Maind whenbined.¡±


    Lex smiled and turned around, ¡°If I¡¯m able to leave, Saleen, I will.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You crushed the Holy See and sent a bunch of prisoners here, remember?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I remember. What about them?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve interrogated them personally, and I found that my father¡¯s death was caused by a mole in Qin.¡±


    Saleen was baffled for a bit. Was Emperor Chanake that powerful? The Holy See had deployed most of their forces other than ck Dungeon Ind. Even the Oracle Corps was involved in the attempt.


    Worse still, it was only possible due to a mole being in the empire¡¯s midst. If there had not been a traitor, Emperor Chanake would have possibly survived.


    It had happened such a long time ago, and investigation would be extremely difficult.


    ¡°Saleen, if I am able to find out that my father¡¯s death has to do with Golden ins, what would you do?¡±


    ¡°I crushed the ck Dungeon Ind. It hardly matters if I add Golden ins to the list.¡±


    ¡°Good to hear. The one who tried to assassinate me probably had to do with the Lord of Glory. The reason why I¡¯m so angry is because all of this has to do with Golden ins again.¡±


    ¡°Is Arb involved?¡±


    ¡°No, not her. She has too much pride. There are many ambitious people in Golden ins. It has been so many years, and that was the first time someone turned their back on the treaty, and that someone was in bed with the god creatures.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and then said, ¡°Lex, are youcking any decisive evidence now?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°Do we still need any evidence? So long as you¡¯re sure that Golden ins is responsible, I¡¯ll crush them for you right away.¡±


    ¡°No, Saleen. I can¡¯t just let my father die without knowing what happened. I have to get to the bottom of this. Before I do that, I sent out everyone around that I found useful, and I need some men from you.¡±


    ¡°Who would you need?¡± Saleen felt curious. Lex had never asked Saleen to lend her his people before. Many of the mages that she personally fostered had advanced beyond level ten. The bloodline of humans in the main ne was the most pure. Once the ne rules loosened, the subcontinent nes would not be able topare to rate at advancement on the main ne.


    ¡°I¡¯d need Gusion. You have Eleanor so I¡¯d like to borrow Qin as well. As for mages, I need ones that you trust the most. Get me six level 12 ones from Sreeger Ind, better still if you could manage to get six who excel in one of the six major elements each, and I need them to be bnced. I have assassins, and if you see any suitable demons up for the task, I¡¯d need two battalions.


    ¡°That many?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. I need the demons. Holy Rock City¡¯s defence is cking. You might see soldiers everywhere, but if a portal showed up here, there might be a grand army on the other side.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He had overlooked that. If a portal appeared near Holy Rock City, Lex would not have enough hands to get a decent defense set up.


    While Holy Rock City had been restored, the magic clocks were still broken, which cut down on their defense considerably.


    He had incorporated the magic cube into his magic amplifier, which was the only way to make his magic amplifier indestructible. It was impossible for him to just return it to Holy Rock City. Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier was invisible as it hovered behind him, which was equal to a powerful shield covering his back. It was impossible for any assassin to ambush Saleen from behind.


    Suddenly, Saleen said, ¡°Lex, we never had a child...¡±


    Lex walked towards Saleen. She tapped Saleen¡¯s head with her white, slender fingers. ¡°Are you that anxious?¡±


    Saleen shook his head.


    ¡°We¡¯ll wait then.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a target of the god creatures. Having a child inside me would be a lot of trouble,¡± Lex said inly.


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that once we get rid of the assassin, we could...¡±


    ¡°Hell, if you have the time to tangle with me, it¡¯s best for you to just make more with Sika.¡± It was apparent that Lex was being jealous, and she knocked Saleen¡¯s head with her fingers again. She was considerably shorter than Saleen. She looked up and Saleen saw the sheen in her eyes.


    ¡°Why do we have to wait? Let me take you somewhere. 30 to 50 years would pass in the blink of an eye, and you could just let the kid take the throne.¡± Saleen pulled Lex in by her waist.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get naughty. There are people outside!¡± Lex wanted to push Saleen away.


    ¡°Rx, Nailisi is far away and the Winged Skull is not here. No one can look in.¡± Saleen cast the lightning territory. 12 Thundering Phantasms circled around them. They were translucent, just to avoid making Lex feel awkward.


    A level ten mage was watching projections on a surveince magic array in a clock tower outside of the royal pce, and 12 illusions popped out of nowhere. They instinctively probed them and thundering sound rattled their brain. They dropped to the ground with a rumble, their brains shooting out of their nostrils with their blood.


    Saleen¡¯s face appeared in the magic projection. ¡°Come to the royal pce and tell me who told you to do this. If you refuse...¡±

 Chapter 1482: Getting Ugly (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1482: Getting Ugly (Part 2)</h4>


    Lexughed. ¡°How did you know what I was thinking, Saleen?¡±


    Lex pretended that she had no idea that surveince had been set up in the magic tower, waiting for Saleen to find out, just so that he would ugly with them. Saleen cast a weak electric bolt, destroying that surveince magic array on the wall. He said, ¡°You need it, so I know it.¡±


    ¡°You finally know how to make a girl happy with words, Saleen. Great improvement. You picked that up from Sika?¡±


    ¡°Nope. A man, regardless of how crass or boring he is, has some talent somewhere,¡± Saleen recited a proverb.


    Lex narrowed her eyes. ¡°So what is your talent? O¡¯ great knowledgeable Mr. Mage?¡±


    ¡°Would getting a level 13 mage to make a baby with me be considered a talent?¡± Saleen took out an exquisite bottle, the potion concocted by Eleanor inside.


    ¡°That is something thieves would do, mage,¡± Lex¡¯sughter was lighthearted.


    ¡°I¡¯ll form a band of thieves if you like the idea of it. One that only robs the gods. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°That is a great idea, but you killed someone, Arb would be onto us soon enough.¡±


    ¡°Then we need to hurry. If she meddles in our business, we will get ugly with her.¡± Saleen lifted Lex and walked towards the tform where she meditated.


    ¡°You are bold, Saleen.¡± Lex did not struggle, as doing so would be pointless. It was hardly worth mentioning to mages.


    The surveince magic array was wiped clean by the electrical bolt, so no one would be able to spy on them inside the tower.


    There were two other people on top of the 13-floored magic tower¡ªQin and Eleanor. The two archers looked out on top of the highest tower in the Holy Rock City. Eleanor held a shortbow while Qin held a longbow.


    Eleanor did not break out her Seven Nights. She wore it on her back instead. She no longer had a need for such powerful equipment, unless the enemy was especially powerful.


    ¡°Is there really somewhere out to stir trouble, mydy?¡± Qin was doubtful of Eleanor¡¯s judgment. They were at the royal pce, which served as the central hub of the empire. Nobody objected to Lex bing the empress, so he was unable to figure who would stir up trouble.


    ¡°Well, Saleen probably killed someone.¡±


    ¡°Howe...¡± Qin intended to say howe I can¡¯t see anything then? But he thought about it for a bit. Saleen was a level 14 mage. If Saleen intended to kill someone without alerting anyone, there was no way he would see anything.


    ¡°Look, isn¡¯t that it?¡±


    Eleanor pointed at a mage flying at them from afar. The mage was several kilometers away from them, but her elvish eyes allowed her to see that mage clearly.


    ¡°So what do we do?¡±


    ¡°We shoot with everything we¡¯ve got, of course. This is the royal pce, and no flight in the royal pce is allowed.¡±


    Qin shrugged and thought it would be easy to just follow whatever Eleanor said. Her teachings had a lot to do with why he was able to advance as quickly as he did. Furthermore, his liege was Saleen, and he had no intention of caring about the internal conflicts of the Qin Empire. If he got into really, really big trouble, he could always count on Saleen to get him out.


    Saleen was indeed very thorough in that regard. So long as the ones following him had good reasons for doing what they did, he would not give up on any of them.


    Qin did not even bother with warnings as he drew his longbow. He locked onto the mage, who was followed by a group of swordsmen wearing flying armor.


    Golden ins was rich indeed!


    Qin expressed his admiration and shot his arrow, which had over 100 magic patterns carved on it. Wind element formed weak currents around the arrow as it flew. The only purpose the currents served was to reduce drag in flight.


    The arrow was so fast that the mage was unable to react in time and was shot through in the head.


    It was the Gale Arrow, which was a skill that Qin was most familiar with.


    It was faster than even Saleen¡¯s lightning icicles by quite a bit. The mage did not expect that Saleen would dare to kill people. They did not even bother to put up a magic shield. The swordsmen behind the mage were totally frightened. The mage was dead and it was their turn soon.


    Everything in Golden ins was as strict as the military. The swordsmen were bodyguards for the mage. If the mage was dead, but they returned unscathed, they would be executed.


    As such, the swordsmen drew their weapons without hesitation and charged at the magic tower.


    The Sreeger Ind mages recorded everything calmly on the 12th floor of the magic tower, especially how the swordsmen charged at the tower with drawn weapons.


    Eleanor lifted her shortbow, botrf, and held four arrows in her hand. Her string moved once, but four rounds were shot, meaning that 16 arrows were shot.


    Qin was very envious of the skill. He was able to shoot three arrows with a single draw. He wanted to learn Eleanor¡¯s tricks, but had yet to be able to seed.


    Qin was able to shoot his arrows quickly, and it seemed as if he shot 12 arrows at the same time. The 28 arrows pierced the breasttes of the swordsmen, drilling into their hearts and shooting blood everywhere. The mages in the magic tower pped in amazement.


    Truly cleaner than casting magic indeed!!


    The mages had nothing to say. In truth, both Eleanor and Qin were revered by the mages. The attack range and power sported by the two surpassed any mage of their respective levels. They had good equipment, high skill level, and impressive endurance.


    If they followed the two out into battle, the chances of surviving would be even higher.


    Archers attacked the ones they deemed most suitable to attack, making them able to reduce the enemy¡¯s power. Good archers made good generals, as they were able to make good onsite decisions.


    Qin killed the mage with a single shot, inspiring fear and anger in the swordsmen. It was natural for them to draw their weapons and charge at the two.


    It would give Saleen an excuse, saying that they intended to attack the royal pce, and Saleen would take further actions about that.


    Furthermore, not a single swordsman had been able to escape. It was two archers taking on 28 enemies, and the two did not even use any other tricks. Attacks with the Gale Arrows dealt with the problem within seconds.


    A low voice was heard in the sky further away.


    ¡°How dare you!?¡±


    Eleanor smirked. ¡°Qin, switch gear.¡±


    ¡°Acknowledged.¡±


    Qin broke out his magic quiver, which was crafted by Saleen and capable of storing a staggering amount of arrows and being separated into severalpartments.


    Eleanor switched her quiver and put the shortbow away, breaking out the Seven Nights.


    The one who came was a level 13 mage, who was responsible for guarding the royal pce¡¯s vicinity. The mage¡¯s powers were second only to Arb, making them the second strongest throughout both Golden ins and Holy Rock City.


    The level 13 mage was not that scary, but he sported very borate,vish equipment.


    Magic patterns made of glittering crystals adorned the mage¡¯s pure gold magic robe. The mage held a four-meter magic staff which had a true dragon crystal embedded on it. The way the dragon crystal was embedded made the magic array look like huge dragon horns.


    The dragon crystals were embedded on the horns. It was very rare to find such a mboyant mage.


    ¡°Dominic, fly any closer and you¡¯ll get it from me.¡± It was the first day Eleanor had stood guard on a magic tower, but she had browsed through the images of powerful mages found on Golden ins, enabling her to recognize the mage who came.


    ¡°How insolent!¡± Dominic saw over 20 people who came to interrogate Saleen die and was burning in rage. He unleashed a powerful magic spell stored with the magic staff.


    Fire Meteor!


    A huge, burning meteorite fell from the sky, heading straight for the top of the tower.


    Qin fired a beam of ck light, hitting the center of the meteorite. Eleanor¡¯s Elvish Space Arrow pierced through the rock and went right towards Dominic.


    Dominic was frightened. Such proficiency at archery was on par with magic attacks. His enemies were powerful archers. He quickly learned not to underestimate his opponents. His magic staff lit up and an elemental shield blocked the Elvish Space Arrow.


    Boom!


    Seven Nights rattled and Eleanor stood up, shooting her second arrow: The Elvish Royal Arrow.


    The arrow had infinite might within, and while its flight speed was not as eerie as the Space Arrow, it caused Dominic to freeze in ce. The mage¡¯s speed made him think that archers would not be that much of a threat to him. He did not have to be shot to make him feel as if his heart was already pierced.


    A second elemental shield was put up, and Dominic was suddenly alerted. Another magic shield appeared behind that elemental shield. The center of the magic shield had a crystal resembling a dragon scale.


    Crack!


    The arrow burst the dragon scale-like crystal, and Dominic only thought to evade at thest second. It was the first time he felt how close to death.


    The arrow prated his arm with a swoop, flying far away with shards of his broken bones.


    Qin¡¯s arrow arrived. The magic staff in Dominic¡¯s hand shuddered and a bronze-colored dragon shot out of the magic staff, coiling around him. Red light shimmered, and Qin¡¯s arrow was shattered.


    He did not carve lightning magic patterns on that arrow. Regardless of how well-made the arrow had been, it was unable to withstand being hit by a dragon¡¯s soul.


    ¡°Die!¡±


    Dominic swung his magic staff and the dragon shot towards the magic tower. mes of Death Phosphorous Fire burst. The elemental mage used a high level death mage skill, which was quite peculiar.


    Eleanor¡¯s third arrow hit Dominic¡¯s injured arm.


    Dominic would be able to either evade or block that arrow. However, his arm was already hurt and needed level 14 magic to repair. He would not bother with such attacks inbat.


    He had no idea that Eleanor¡¯s Elvish Time Arrow was specifically made to take lives. It would work on any target, regardless of the spot that was hit.


    A green divine crystal disappeared on Seven Nights, and Dominic¡¯s hair turned grey at the same time.


    ¡°Urggh! This can¡¯t be...¡±


    Dominic watched the hand that held the Dragon Soul Staff shrivel up, as if he had turned into a banshee.


    Qin shot several arrows in quick session, each imbued with water element and intense freezing properties. Saleen crafted them for him¡ªthe Arrow of Extreme Cold.


    The dragon soul was continuously weakened by the level 13 magic, and it dissipated before reaching Qin, returning to the magic staff.

 Chapter 1483: Broken Head (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1483: Broken Head (Part 1)</h4>


    Lex and Saleen looked at the battle outside from the 13th floor of the magic tower. Lex asked, ¡°are we really going to make a move right away, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. We¡¯ll see how Arb deals with this. You¡¯re being targeted and her people came to rough you up, so I retaliated. If the public hears about this, people all over Qin will hate her. If she¡¯s tired of it, she¡¯lle and fight me. If she is just going to bear it...¡±


    ¡°If she is just going to bear it, what are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°Well, Dominic¡¯s magic staff looks expensive, and I¡¯d like an expensive magic staff.¡± Saleen smirked.


    ¡°I want something like that too.¡± Lex felt a sense of want welling up inside her when she saw thevish, extravagant magic staff in Dominic¡¯s hand.


    While Saleen was trading with Dragon Ind, he had never seen a magic staff crafted from such perfect dragon horns, even more so when the dragon crystal was taken into consideration. Saleen had dragon crystals, but he never had one of such high levels ¨C so high that not even Grand Duke Iron Blood had something like it.


    Dominic had painted a big target on his back by carrying the staff.


    Saleen would do something if he was an enemy. Dominic came all the way to the pce, and Saleen saw an opening to take the staff.


    ¡°Stop...¡± Arb¡¯s voice was heard. Saleen saw a Six-winged Flying Snake zipping through the sky, and Arb was standing on that serpent¡¯s back.


    Saleen put on his magic robe and stepped outside the magic tower. He held a ck book, none other than the Lightning Magic Book. It became much easier to recharge the book, given how there was practically a limitless amount of Aqua Fulgur in his Ring of Cosmos.


    ¡°What now, Arb? You want to attack the royal pce, too?¡± Saleenughed.


    Arb halted at the edge of the pce¡¯s wall. She red coldly at Saleen. ¡°Dominic is my assistant. Release him.¡±


    Dominic was being held by a Bug Angel Warrior, whose wings were vibrating as they pped. The sound wave emitted caused the old and shriveled Dominic to pass out.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Saleen pointed and the Bug Angel Warrior released the captive. Dominic¡¯s body plunged from 200 meters in the air. If he had been awake, it would not be much of a problem. Even if his magic chords werepletely lost, he still would not get too injured from the fall.


    However, Dominic was unconscious. That Bug Angel Warrior knew what Saleen was up to, so it dropped him head-first. If he hit the ground like that, he would definitely snap his neck.


    Arb waved and unleashed a Six-winged Flying Snake, which chased after Dominic. The mage had been too arrogant and had lost to Eleanor psychologically right from the start, so being set up by the Elvish Time Arrow would have happened sooner orter. If he died, Arb would not know what to do to cate her men.


    She was against forcing Lex off of the throne the hard way. Lex did not actually want to sit on the throne in the first ce.


    However, herpse in judgment allowed Saleen to make the situation tense. Saleen had killed a level ten sorcerer using the magic array and killed the mage and all the escorting swordsmen who were there to interrogate them.


    Dominic was unable to sit with it and wanted to teach the two archers a lesson, and he almost ended up dead.


    Saleen¡¯s Thunder Dragon ster fired seven lightning icicles at the serpent. ¡°You are trying to save someone of yours right in front of me? If Dominic remains alive, how am I going to make things worse between me and the Golden ins?¡±


    Saleen had recorded Dominic¡¯s boastful speech when Eleanor got the man where she wanted him and sent recording to the royal pce with magic. Adherents of the Nature Faith would soone to fix the problem for him.


    Dominic was only attacked because he wanted to enter the royal pce without permission.


    People from all over the Qin Empire would think that the mage had been arrogant and insolent and had no respect for Lex. Saleen learned the importance of riling up the people and getting them on his side. If Arb actually started a war, Saleen would be on the righteous side.


    What is the use of being on the side of the righteous? Very useful indeed. Most people would choose to back you.


    Regardless of where the righteousness came from, taking initiative meant that he would be able to go all out in the uing conflict.


    Killing Dominic was easy. Saleen¡¯s target was Golden ins.


    Golden ins was not like the Holy See. They were very united, so it would be difficult to eradicate thempletely. The most difficult thing about it was that many had the surname Grukos.


    Lex¡¯s attitude meant that Saleen was given permission to act.


    She was unable to stand just sitting around doing nothing. Saleen had finally gained the power to unite the entire maind. If Golden ins did not learn their ce, Saleen would have to teach them a lesson.


    Arb was unable to take it. She came through the teleportation portal after hearing that Saleen had shown up at Holy Rock City. Golden ins was rich enough to afford one. However, she had to witness Saleen dropping her assistant¡ªDominic¡ªto his death.


    Another mark was held in her hand.


    ¡°Are you trying to make me raze the royal pce?¡±


    A stifled collision was heard right after Arb finished her sentence,ing from Dominic¡¯s head hitting the stone ground below.


    ¡°Raze the royal pce, Arb, and I¡¯ll go and kill everyone in Golden ins, then we can call it even. How about that?¡± Saleen answered in an unyielding manner.


    ¡°How dare you!¡±


    ¡°Why the hell not? Are you telling me that you¡¯d go all the way and mess up Metatrin City after that? Arb, Dominic cast a magic spell at the magic tower the empress was in. No one on the maind would say anything if I kill every single one of his rtives, let alone just him.¡±


    Arb calmed right away. Saleen came prepared, and he was ridiculing her. She thought he would not dare to actually do anything.


    Arb¡¯s face was red from rage. Saleen had finally be a threat to the Qin Empire. She took off a small badge on her chest and threw it behind her. Spatial vibrations were felt not far away, and Jalin came out of the fissure and took the badge.


    ¡°Jalin, go home now and give the badge to Xuvius. He shall be the next n leader.¡±


    ¡°Madam?¡± Jalin¡¯s expression was concealed under the mask, and it was unclear what she looked like. She sounded unsettled, seemingly desperate.


    ¡°Saleen, my further actions ofbat are that of my own and my own only.¡± Arb took out a magic book. ¡°I heard that you brought your wife and kids along. You¡¯re the one to me.¡±


    Saleenughed. ¡°Eleanor!¡±


    ¡°Right here,¡± Eleanor replied right away.


    ¡°Go out and look for my teacher. Tell him to bring the Floating City, 120,000 enchanters, 10,000 mages, and every single member of the demon army, then head to Golden ins. If I die, destroy Golden ins to avenge me. If I¡¯m still alive, kill half of the entire ce, just to vent my frustration.¡±


    Saleenughed without a care as he watched Eleanor leave.


    Arb waspletely pissed. She knew that Saleen¡¯s teacher was far more powerful than Saleen, but she never thought Saleen would be crazy enough to put everything on the line.


    Saleen continued, after seeing Arb¡¯s face twitch, ¡°You trying to threaten me, Arb? I wouldn¡¯t even care if it was a god who was throwing such threats around. You¡¯re just a n leader and you dare to threaten me with my blood? Do you really think that I don¡¯t dare to kill your people? If you know your ce, leave Holy Rock City right away with your mages. Stay around and everyone in your family is going to get it!¡±


    ¡°You!¡±


    ¡°Arb, do you still think that I¡¯m a puny mage and a pushover like I was back then? You have the mark, don¡¯t you? If you can use all of its powers, then by all means,e at me!¡± 24 thunder dragons shot out of Saleen¡¯s wrist. He wanted to test if he was able to win against an almost level 15 mage without the help of the Lightning Moon.


    If he won, he would be able to step all over Arb. If he lost, then the Lightning Moon would make sure that Arb never got to leave alive.


    He was not in the mood to care about the goddess watching over his shoulder. That Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake was powerful equipment. If Arb was able to master it, it would beparable to his Book of Lightning.


    ¡°You are going to regret this, Saleen,¡± Arb calmed and found that Jalin was still around.


    ¡°What are you doing, Jalin?¡±


    Jalin carefully put the badge on her chest. ¡°I couldn¡¯t hand the badge to Xuvius.¡±


    ¡°Are you insane? You¡¯re not a Grukos. No one in the n would heed your orders!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not insane, teacher. I¡¯m not a Grukos, but the rules say that Golden ins shouldn¡¯t have gotten involved with the squabbles of the court. Still, you are finding ways to get involved instead, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    Saleen was very interested in the conflict happening between the teacher and the student, and felt rather puzzled. From Saleen¡¯s perspective, Jalin should not betray Arb. Her teacher gave her everything she had, and Arb never wronged Jalin in any way.


    If Jalin betrayed her teacher, all mages would look down on her, and there would be people out to get rid of the treacherous student in Arb¡¯s stead.


    Arb was not as angry as he thought she would be. Saleen only saw that she became calm, frighteningly so.


    ¡°Jalin, who is making you do this?¡±


    ¡°No one. I¡¯m doing this at my own will.¡±


    ¡°Get out here at once!¡± Arb shouted. The space shook, and a young man wearing a ck robe emerged from that tight fissure of space. Saleen¡¯s eyes narrowed when he saw the man.


    He knew him. He went by the name Van Gogh.


    Van Gogh smirked sheepishly at Arb. ¡°What is there to be angry about, Lady Arb? There is no right or wrong in this.¡±


    ¡°You Holy See scum. What kind of divine art did you dupe Jalin with?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t use any. No one could dupe her. I¡¯m just saying that luck is on Saleen¡¯s side. Everyone going against him would get messed up one way or another, so I simply advised Jalin to help Saleen.¡±


    There was no way Arb would buy his ridiculous words. She shuddered, one hand holding a magic book and the other holding the Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, and red at Van Gogh, intending to find an opening on the young holy master.


    Van Gogh shuddered, which meant he was getting ready to escape into a parallel dimension to evade attacks.


    Saleen suddenly spoke up, ¡°so you¡¯re the one who exiled the three mages of Elemental Hand to other nes eh, Van Gogh?¡±


    Saleen had no reason to believe that Van Gogh was on his side. He was only saying it to remind Arb that Van Gogh had special abilities, capable of throwing others to other nes.


    Saleen did not want to see Arb exiled. The only fitting end to her was to die by his hand.

 Chapter 1484: Broken Head (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1484: Broken Head (Part 2)</h4>


    Van Gogh smiled. ¡°Indeed, Saleen. The people are not actually really wanting to be at your side. You¡¯re not going to misunderstand anything with me doing that, right?¡±


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m not.¡± Saleen shook his head. Van Gogh knew that Saleen was reminding Arb. However, he had gone to painstaking lengths to get to Jalin in the first ce, and he was not going to just give up then.


    The peach flower mask on Jalin¡¯s face was so red that it felt as it was going to start dripping blood.


    ¡°Madam...¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Arb snorted and tens of huge pythons shot from the magic book. The snakes seemed to have behaved like magic beasts of summoners, as they were of flesh and blood, but Saleen knew that it was but an illusion created by magic that reached sufficient levels.


    His Thundering Phantasm was able to do that as well, but the constructscked the frightening offensive capacities of the snakes.


    The pythons charged at Van Gogh and Arb seemed to have forgotten about Saleen altogether.


    Van Gogh¡¯s lips twitched, finding that Saleen had no intentions of joining hands with him and felt rather frustrated.


    Pride of the mages then? Like I¡¯m going to buy this. He knew that Saleen was hostile towards him, but he was unable to figure out why.


    There was no way he could know, that Saleen was able to see how he went on to rob all remaining temples of the Goddess of Nature, through that ne map that Saleen owned. It was obvious that there was a contract between Van Gogh and the Goddess of Nature as well, and the contract was a new one. The goddess would not let him run around like that otherwise, and she would have Saleen deal with him instead.


    The luck that the goddess had distributed did not get taken back; they were given to Van Gogh instead.


    It was entirely normal for the goddess to feel insecure about Saleen and she was right to do so. The one who was wrong was Van Gogh, who thought Saleen knew nothing and chose to approach him.


    It would be a good choice to kill Van Gogh first if possible. It was a pity that Van Gogh¡¯s skill looked rather troublesome, and it would be very difficult to kill him.


    Saleen tried to lock onto Van Gogh and found that it was not working, so he let Van Gogh fight Arb for a bit instead.


    ¡°Lady Arb, I¡¯ve just taken a student of yours. Is there a need to go that far? From what I¡¯ve heard, Lord Saleen was about to crush Golden ins.¡±


    Van Gogh¡¯s words pissed Arb a lot. She began to regret threatening Saleen.


    Saleen was the kind of person who would fight anyone who dared to act against his subordinates. Anyone who threatened his family, he would see to it that they were thoroughly dealt with.


    The Holy See tried to abduct Saleen¡¯s children a while ago, and Saleen eventually erased the Holy See¡¯s existence from the ne gradually.


    She too was a level 14 mage and she was unable to fathom why she said something like that in the first ce.


    Arb was oblivious to the fact that she was under Saleen¡¯s influence through his Thundering Sound skill, which made her anxious, restless and definitely leaning towards violence.


    Saleen, without doubt, was not afraid of Arb¡¯s threats. Ever since his magic amplifier gained the magic cube, the safest and most stable of spaces was established within. Sika and her children were all in that space and did not emerge.


    Sika was also one who had no further concerns. All Caucasian elites were inside her weapon¡ªthe metal totem pole. She had no need to protect anynds as she followed Saleen around. So long as she remained alive, she could go anywhere with that pole of hers.


    Saleen had also moved his two closest bonded creatures to the spirit ne. The most important thing of all, however, was that he had a level 15 weapon spirit, a true lesser god, at his disposal.


    If Saleen was not concerned about having it seen by the goddess, Saleen would unleash that thing against Arb.


    ¡°Saleen, do you have to really make a move against Golden ins?¡± Arb turned around and asked when the pythons shot at Van Gogh.


    Saleen smirked. ¡°Lady Arb, this is Lex¡¯s royal pce and just how many Golden ins mages are outside right now? Am I the one who wants to do anything against Golden ins, or is Golden ins the one that is trying to do something against me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a Grukos.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, my surname¡¯s Metatrin,¡± Saleen answered with a cold smirk.


    Arb looked at the magic tower. ¡°Master Merlin once said that Lex would destroy the empire, and it seemed that he was right after all.¡±


    Saleen raised his eyebrows. ¡°The way I see it, it¡¯s the empire trying to destroy Lex instead.¡±


    Lex watched everything that was happening outside from within the tower as she frowned hard. She was still unable to bring any cold, hard evidence saying that it was Golden ins that set her father up and causing his death. However, every single piece of testimony and evidence seemed to be pointing in that direction.


    To Saleen, that was more than enough for him to act against Golden ins.


    However, most of Golden ins had the surname Grukos.


    Saleen, on the other hand, was a Metatrin.


    Lex was not dumb. No matter what happened, she would remain by Saleen¡¯s side. If she could give birth to a child, she would not have wanted the child to seed the throne. The Qin Empire would not stay in existence for much longer.


    The astrologer was right, she would be the one to end the Qin Empire.


    The longer she stayed on the throne, the more exhausted she had gotten. The Goddess of Myers was resurrected and the maind was gradually put under control of Nature Faith. Alchemy City was crushed by Saleen and the remaining mages were but shadows of their former selves. They would be utterly incapable of stopping the faith¡¯s propagation in Qin.


    What is the point of letting the Qin Empire stay around then? Unless we kill the goddess, the empire is going to be a state that belong to the faith sooner orter.


    It¡¯s better to just let the empire die. Fighting the Nature Faith would result in deaths of countless subjects of Qin. Furthermore, such battles are totally pointless. The only way to solve this is to just kill the goddess.


    Saleen saw the Arb and Van Gogh essentially baring their teeth against each other, and he was thinking about how to get that fight going, when Arb asked all of a sudden, ¡°What if I tell Golden ins to pull out of Holy Rock City then?¡±


    ¡°How am I suppose to know if my wife and children will keep staying safe?¡± Saleen was practically bul**hitting by then. But then again, Arb did threaten him after all. It was a threat from a level 14 mage after all, and it was totally within reason for Saleen to get so tense about it.


    Arb drew a deep breath. ¡°You twoe at me then.¡±


    She no longer had any hesitations by that point. Saleen¡¯s insistence reminded her of herself when she was young. She had been too careful and concerned about consequences as she was at that moment.


    The interests of Golden ins hardly mattered. If she had not been doing all the things she had done for Golden ins, and had been dedicating herself to magic studies instead, she would gain more.


    What was said was already said and there was no rescinding it. She had to be responsible for her words. If she ran, Saleen would always have her on his hit list. It was either her killing Saleen, or her being killed by Saleen.


    As for that fallen holy master, she was not about to let him leave alive. Her only student had been enthralled by that fallen holy master, and things would not end well for her.


    Arb might have taken on Van Gogh first, due to her instincts as a mage.


    Tens of huge pythons opened their mouths wide, intending to gobble Van Gogh up. A ck book appeared on Van Gogh¡¯s hand, creating tens of space fissures before him.


    The pythons were cut up by the fissures and blood spilled everywhere.


    The spilled blood spread all over the sky in the form of a bloody mist. Van Gogh and Jalin both escaped to a space fissure and went inside. Their robes were corroded by the bloody mist.


    Saleen retreated to the magic tower right away. The huge pythons quickly recovered after being cut up. Arb did not attack him, but he was not about to go soft on Golden ins regardless.


    The ones who set up Emperor Chanake had definitely been from Golden ins. Even if that had nothing to do with Arb, Saleen still saw no reason to simply let up. Furthermore, there had been people trying to assassinate Lex and they had to do with the god creatures, but that was not to say that Golden ins was not involved.


    The Holy See was decimated by Saleen and only a tiny fraction of them was left. Saleen did not believe that it was due to ipetence in the part of Lex¡¯s subordinates, that some people had been able to orchestrate such high level assassinations and were able to escape from Holy Rock City.


    Boom!


    A loud rumble reverberated in the air. Van Gogh appeared right behind Arb. He held a golden staff and knocked on the back of Arb¡¯s head hard.


    Blood spurted from her head.


    Everyone was aghast. Saleen felt that it was peculiar as Arb did not evade. Even he had been able to see that space fissure appearing, and Arb¡¯s power of the soul would definitely have beenparable to his, when he took off the Ring of Cosmos. She should have been able to detect what was going on.


    What startled Arb, however, was how nimble Van Gogh was. He looked more like a powerful warrior instead of a holy master.


    She had indeed intended to evade and knew where Van Gogh appeared, but Van Gogh¡¯s hands were simply too quick, and she had only been able to put up half a magic shield to block the attack.


    Van Gogh was even more surprised. That staff had been so heavy that it would be able to crush rocks with extreme ease. He swung that staff with all his might, but Arb had only bled from it. He was wondering if that woman¡¯s head was made of metal.


    Such an ambush could only work once, and Van Gogh felt it to be a pity deep down. The staff in his hand disappeared and a ck book of the fallen took its ce, with which he cast a lesser prophecy spell.


    ¡°O¡¯ God, please allow me to steal your power once again, please allow me to do evil.¡± Van Gogh¡¯s prayers almost made Saleenugh, but the result was anything butughable.


    Arb¡¯s silhouette disappeared. A huge space fissure appeared right before Van Gogh.


    The fissure sucked both Arb and Van Gogh in. Neither was seen, and Jalin, who had not been around for long, was left staring dazedly.


    Saleen took the opportunity to step outside the magic tower. A thunder dragon shrunk and constricted Jalin, before dragging her into Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier.


    Saleen turned around, and Lex asked, ¡°why are you taking that woman back here?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I saw Van Gogh enthralled her so I...¡±


    ¡°You want to save her?¡± Lex looked rather glum.


    ¡°I¡¯m just trying to get on Van Gogh¡¯s bad side. That man robbed ten of the goddess¡¯ temples all by himself. Heh...¡±


    Lex knew about the goddess¡¯ luck. She was rather down on her luck as ofte, and it was probably due to it being given to someone else, but she did not expect that person to be Van Gogh.


    ¡°It¡¯s lucky that I recorded the battle earlier. Arb had her head busted, and I¡¯m going to send this to the mages from Golden ins. Yup, even if Van Goghes back, he will have to deal with Golden ins first.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to crush Golden ins?¡± Lex asked.


    Saleen remembered after being reminded. He smiled. ¡°Alright, get back here, Eleanor, or Lex is going to be angry.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m back!¡± Eleanor appeared at the window. Lex wanted to hit Saleen, but she felt rather embarrassed. She really believed that Saleen was going to massacre the entire Golden ins, so she was irked.

 Chapter 1485: Dragon Plane (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1485: Dragon ne (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen smiled. ¡°Yeah, good thing you didn¡¯t go to my teacher. Things at Golden ins are a mess. If we kill everyone now, it¡¯ll be a hell of a lot more difficult to find out who tried to assassinate Lex.¡±


    Lex knew, however, Saleen truly wanted to find out who killed Emperor Chanake.


    Her father died an unjust death. It would haunt Lex until she had avenged him. While she had been in considerably better mood when the Holy See was crushed, finding out that there was more to the matter and that it was possible that Golden ins was in bed with the Holy See, Lex was no longer able to just be happy about the Holy See¡¯s destruction.


    Saleen did not want to go to war with Golden ins immediately. The more nes he gained control over, the greater his power became, which would greatly elerate Lex¡¯s rate at advancement, so much so that she would possibly get to level 15 before he does.


    Lex had just gotten to level 13. ording to themon rate at which mages trained and advanced, the next advancement would take one or two hundred years to aplish. Saleen would need to train for over 1000 years to advance further, because of resources and his lightning rules being too difficult to master.


    Saleen acquired the extravagant staff after taking care of the body. He knew what good stuff looked like, and there were extremely good materials for crafting magic staves in his Ring of Cosmos at the moment. However, whenpared to that staff crafted out of a dragon horn, at the very least, the horn itself looked better than the rest he ahd.


    It seemed due time for him to make a trip to the dragon ne. Saleen knew that it would be a lot easier for Grand Duke Iron Blood to get to the dragon ne, given how far Myers Maind had advanced. Furthermore, the ne¡¯s existence was no longer a secret.


    Saleen did not need anything from the dragon ne, other than a magic shield crafted by the dragons.


    Humans were capable of using dragon scales to craft armor, but dragons themselves would never do such a sphemous thing to themselves. Dragonnguage magic was powerful, and a magic shield crafted using dragon scales was more powerful than his own Water Shield.


    His Water Shield was very useful for repelling curse-type skills.


    He was no longer able to rely on the thunder dragons for defense. While the thunder dragons were very impervious to damage due to the soul armor, they were still auxiliary offensive weapons. It would be a waste to use them for defense.


    However, he could not just have a good time with Lex and leave right afterwards.


    Saleen knew that he had not been good to Lex in the past, so he was unable to leave like that.


    ¡°Once I¡¯ve chased Golden ins out of the city, you won¡¯t have much to do here. How about you go on a trip to the dragon ne with me?¡±


    ¡°The dragon ne?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I have some remains of ancient dragons with me, and I think I¡¯ll be able to trade them for something useful.¡±


    ¡°Who else would be going?¡±


    ¡°You, Rafel, Eleanor, and Nichs.¡± Saleen did not bring up Sika. Sika needed to stay back in Holy Rock City, guarding the city against anyone who wished to do it harm. That had been nned before they came. Saleen knew that Sika was doing it for him, and he was grateful for it.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go then.¡± Lex smiled. She put the matters of the empire behind her and flew outside of the magic tower with Saleen.


    ¡°Sika, you¡¯re in charge of kicking out the Golden ins mages.¡± Saleen reminded before he left.


    Arb was being ambushed and any remaining mages no longer did not dare to be at odds with Sika directly. Saleen knew what he was doing. The Violet Angel took its golden dragon form and carried all the others as it followed behind Saleen.


    They were heading to Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s territory. The Grand Duke had taken control of the shores of the Red River, but he was still dissatisfied, but Saleen promised to help him take down Cloudflow, and that promise had yet to be fulfilled.


    The arrival of both Saleen and Lex made the Grand Duke very happy, but Saleen wanted to head to the dragon ne, which troubled the Grand Duke.


    ¡°Saleen, it¡¯s not that I don¡¯t want to help you, but...¡±


    Saleen whispered in the Grand Duke¡¯s ear, and the Grand Duke¡¯s face brightened up right away.


    ¡°Alright, we shall make a move at once!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not heading back to Dragon Ind first?¡± Saleen asked, intrigued. The Grand Duke simply shed a mysterious smile.


    The lifespans of Dragon Knights wereparable to mages because they shared their lifespan with the dragons. The two dragons that served the Grand Duke allowed him to live longer than Saleen. His ambitions had grownrger, and Dragon Ind began to restrict him. He had gained the ability to head to the dragon ne on his own a long time ago.


    But he would not do anything before gathering the necessary capital for trading.


    Dragons were greedy, but it was still possible to trade with them. As a Dragon Knight, the Grand Duke had his duties as well, and collecting things for the dragons was part of said duties. The remains of ancient dragons were of little value to humans, other than to serve as alchemical materials for death mages.


    However, if the bones were gifted to mighty ones among the dragons, they would be able to absorb some of the rules left in the bones.


    The rules were of little use to humans, as it was pointless for anyone without dragon blood to absorb them.


    Saleen agreed to give three to the Grand Duke: two for the Grand Duke¡¯s steeds and one for a Dragon God.


    Such benefits allowed the Grand Duke to provide the dragon ne¡¯s coordinates to Saleen. If he dyed the sale any further, the coordinates would be useless when the dragon ne became connected to Myers Maind by an apparent portal.


    Furthermore, the Grand Duke knew that Myers Maind was no longer just a single continent. It served as a hub linking many subcontinent nes. He was out to conquer the subcontinent nes: worlds with boundless mineral deposits and totally devoid of anypetitors.


    If Saleen were up to no good, he would have nothing to gain from it.


    The location where the teleportation portal would be was a subcontinent ne that the Grand Duke conquered. The most powerful professional on that ne was at level ten, who the Grand Duke had taken care of. There were no forces from Dragon Ind involved in that ne.


    The Grand Duke did not bring any mages with him. He brought two level 12 true mights who were his most formidable subordinates. Anyone stronger was on Dragon Ind, and the Grand Duke was too doubtful of any of them to bring along with him.


    In a manner of speaking, he was the spokesperson of his family, but he did not own Dragon Ind. The true leaders were the elders of his family.


    Entering dragon ne was not as perilous as he thought it would be. With the exception of Lex, everyone hid within the magic cube. When Saleen, Grand Duke Iron Blood and Lex went into the dragon ne, there were four dragons watching over the teleportation portal.


    The four dragons extended their huge ws, seeing the Grand Duke bring strangers to their ce.


    The Grand Duke carefully put a pile of gold in each w. It was gold ore. Gold coins in cirction were all refined by alchemists until they became alchemically worthless.


    Dragons did not want that kind of gold.


    The four dragons shed amicable expressions and asked the Grand Duke, ¡°what are you bringing strangers here for, little one? If you go out to catch wurms, we could help you out.¡±


    Saleen realized that the dragons were totally different from what he imagined them to be. Elegant, imposing, cold¡ªnone of that seemed to actually apply to them. Instead, he found them very straightforward and easy to talk to.


    But both he and Lex were of levelsparable to the four dragons. One of the four was level 15, while the other three were level 14.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m here to see the Dragon God.¡±


    That level 15 dragon frowned and turned to Saleen. ¡°Human mage, you need to be mentally prepared if you see the Dragon God. If your offerings are deemed subpar, there is a possibility of you being killed. It wouldn¡¯t do you any good to be this guy¡¯s friend.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for reminding me.¡± Saleen emted what the Grand Duke did and took out a pile of gold, giving it to the dragons.


    The gold was not much to Saleen. He, however, never expected that he could use it to bribe the dragons.


    That dragon seemed to have read Saleen¡¯s thoughts. ¡°Mage, I¡¯m just using these as bed sheets. What do you think we need them for?¡±


    Saleen was embarrassed. It was true that some dragons lovedying out their beds using hard materials, as their scales would befortable. Unrefined gold contained aura that could be continuously absorbed into a dragon¡¯s body. The dragons were actually capable of refining the gold to be purer than alchemists. The gold was less of a bribe and more of just a gift between friends.


    The four dragons were nice. Saleen followed behind the Grand Duke, heading in the direction the sun rose.


    Everything was huge in the dragon ne. Peaks of over 10,000 meters were everywhere. They hardly saw any powerful dragons along the way, but saw many wurms hidden in the mountains.


    The wurms were middle ss creatures on the dragon ne: capable of capturing and killing most magic beasts but served as food or ves for the dragons. Unintelligent ones served as food while intelligent ones served as ves.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood stuck close to the ground as he flew, and they flew over 300 kilometers. Saleen finally saw the Dragon City after scaling over a very tall ridge.


    The Dragon City was tall and magnificent, almost indescribable. It far surpassed any city he had seen.


    The city wall was carved in the image of a winding dragon. The carving itself was a ridge, and Dragon City was probably only somewhat smaller than the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The Grand Duke said, ¡°No teleportation portal will work inside Dragon City. Rules wereid down by the Dragon God.¡±


    Saleen was rather puzzled. The dragons lost as well, but it seemed to him that the plunge of the dragon ne¡¯s powers were not as great as told in legends.


    The Grand Duke¡¯s badge was still effective. He brought Saleen and Lex into the city through the gates that were several hundred meters tall. The guards were humans instead¡ªtwo human professionals, who were probably level 12 true mights, standing guard at the gates.


    The two humans were envious when they saw the Grand Duke¡¯s badge, before waving to let them pass.


    It seemed like the dragon ne wasn¡¯t as fearsome as told in the legends.


    The Grand Duke murmured to Saleen, ¡°we¡¯re going through the west side, which is the safest region and the closest to the city. There are still some powerful magic beasts in the ne who are not as nice as the dragons, but they are more or less as powerful as the dragons inbat. Why do you think the dragons built cities in the first ce?¡±

 Chapter 1486: Dragon Plane (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1486: Dragon ne (Part 2)</h4>


    What Grand Duke Iron Blood said made Saleen think. The dragons seemed to be the apex being in the ne, but they had natural enemies. Humans, on the other hand, never had natural enemies like that back at Myers Maind. It was as if humans were almost always the one standing at the very top of the maind¡¯s power, but theck of interspeciespetition was not a good thing.


    Humans werezy creatures. Saleen knew that very well, he still was unable to think of anything to solve Myers Maind¡¯s problem. It¡¯s not like I could just invite powerful races over and fight for living space with humans, right?


    Whatever, it¡¯s out of my hands. Isn¡¯t Myers Maind under a lot of pressure at hand already? Humans are always at odds with powerful beings, and furthermore, what kind of creature could possibly be more difficult to deal with than gods anyway?


    The Dragon God¡¯s pce was not far away. Saleen was actually rather surprised, finding that the pce was several hundred meters from the city gates.


    That was different from human cities. But the walls at the side they entered from were the tallest. The city walls were thergest sculpture in the entire Dragon City, which was different from the t, uniform walls of human cities. The wall was probably alsopletely immune from magic.


    ¡°Rorschach the Dragon Knight hereby requests an audience with Lord Dragon God.¡±


    ¡°Come in.¡± A deep rumbling voice was heard throughout the pce. The building was over two kilometers tall and was probably over 100 kilometers around.


    Saleen followed the Grand Duke inside nervously. He held Lex¡¯s hand lightly for reassurance.


    Lex¡¯s hand was steady, and Saleen touched the God¡¯s Ring.


    It was the safest to be partnered with Lex. Under the protection of the God¡¯s Ring, his family badge would be able to fire without any concern. The bit of worry left in Saleen¡¯s mind dissipated at the thought.


    The Dragon God was almost immune to elemental magic. At the very least, Saleen¡¯s elemental magic spells would have no effect on the Dragon God. He was a mage and posed next to no threat to the Dragon God. He wondered if the Dragon God wanted to do something against him.


    Music was heard before them. There were mages who used music as a standard of measure to determine if a lifeform possessed intellect. Saleen listened carefully. The music was brimming and rousing. The tune was mostly grand and proud, with butter notes extremely hard to find elsewhere.


    The rhythm was very clear. Saleen felt that his power of the soul was enhanced by hearing the music. The tune was working directly on his soul.


    The Dragon God definitely had to be above level 16. Furthermore, the pce was peculiar, as it seemed to be an independent space.


    Perhaps the Dragon God would be able to fight better there.


    The pirs in the corridor were about 100 meters tall, and there were no dragons receiving them. The Grand Duke led Saleen and Lex into the depths of the pce, since they were not allowed to fly.


    They walked for about ten kilometers before they saw a tall tform. A living being was on that wide stage.


    Hundreds of human soldiers stood, all wearing dragon scale armor from head to toe. They all carried dragon spears.


    They were Dragon Knights in charge of the Dragon God¡¯s protection. The leading knight nodded when they saw the Grand Duke and said in a low voice, ¡°Lord Dragon God is watching a y.¡±


    Saleen was able to see what the pce looked like after entering the gates. There was a tform in the center, crafted entirely from gold. A being with a dragon head and humanoid body was sitting on the tform.


    So that was the Dragon God?


    A y was being performed on a stage several hundred meters across from the tform. There were humans, magic beasts, and dragons participating in the y.


    At that moment, a dragon was roaring at a human who attempted to challenge it.


    ¡°Puny human and insignificant bug. You dare stand against the almighty ck dragon!¡±


    Lex was barely able to contain herughter. There was a simr scene in human ys as well, but things did not usually end well for the dragon.


    The Dragon God shot a nce at Lex, but did not mind.


    That human actor on the stage shouted, ¡°you shameless dragon. You dare to rob my vige and destroy my home!¡±


    Saleen saw that there were many dragons seated on the nks of the tform, watching the y with the Dragon God. The dragons heard the human¡¯s line and burst out inughter.


    A young dragon was even seen rolling on the floor and was hoisted back by its father¡ªa male red dragon¡ªand put back in its seat.


    The Dragon God waved in dismissal. While the rules of the dragons were usually strict, exceptions were made for ys. The line was copied from the nations of men, and every time the scene came, the dragons would all burst out inughter. Young dragons enjoyed it even more.


    Dragons assaulting a vige? Not even vegetarians would bother with that.


    There were no cattle in most viges, and even if there were, the animals did not taste as good as magic beasts. It was a joke to say that dragons would bother assaulting viges.


    As for snatching princesses, dragons did not mess with people with statuses like a princess. Even if the king were scum, he would have someone very difficult to deal with serving him. Dragons usually kept a low profile when not in the dragon ne.


    ¡°You shall face the wrath of Paraparaprakatru!¡± That ck dragon actor opened its mouth and unleashed dragon¡¯s breath. Saleen was startled, but quickly found that the robe worn by that human actor burst in wonderful colors. It was dragon magic.


    Dragons were not watching a blood sport when they watched a y.


    The y was still far from over. That human continued to list the dragon¡¯s crimes angrily, and the dragons burst outughing again.


    ¡°Come on up, Rorschach,¡± the Dragon God pointed at Saleen and the other two around him.


    The Grand Duke dared not linger. He walked up from the back of the tform and came before the Dragon God. Saleen walked up to the tform and saw that the Dragon God had humans by its side¡ªsix elemental mages.


    The six mages were all level 15, which surprised Saleen.


    When the six mages saw Saleen, one of them smiled faintly, showing no animosity. The other five closed their eyes and rested. None of them found dragon ys very interesting.


    Of course, dragons would not insult humans repeatedly in their ys. Everybody was out to have a good time.


    The scripts were stolen from human kingdoms, and the dragons had only done some simple modifications on them.


    ¡°It¡¯s been a while since powerful human mages have shown up here. Are these your friends, Rorschach?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Lord Dragon God,¡± the Grand Duke answered respectfully.


    ¡°Right. Are you here to get away from your family?¡± The Dragon God¡¯s words made him shudder.


    ¡°Haha, nothing much to it. Your family is greedy. You, on the other hand, still hold a lot of potential.¡±


    ¡°My lord, Saleen and I are here to offer you three items.¡±


    The Dragon God leaned on the back of its chair impatiently. ¡°If you¡¯re here to trade, just say that you¡¯re here to trade. Since when have I been giving you a bad deal, huh?¡±


    ¡°No, Lord Dragon God, the word ¡®trade¡¯ is inappropriate this time. In my perspective, this is offering tribute. And Lord Dragon God, the gifts you would offer would be of gratitude, instead of bestowal.¡± The Grand Duke borated carefully.


    ¡°Heh, Rorschach, if what you¡¯re about to offer is something I find less than satisfactory...¡±


    Saleen was able to hear the threat in the Dragon God¡¯s tone and thought that the dragon had been too quick to anger. Despite his thoughts, he did not leave his hands hanging. Saleen carefully unleashed a set of remains of ancient dragons from his Ring of Cosmos.


    The dragons in the pce were alerted, turning their attention to the tform. Even the ck dragon actor forgot its lines and turned toward the tform.


    The Dragon God straightened itself and looked at the remains of ancient dragons intently.


    It extended its hand at the remains and light of magic shed. Saleen put the remains away in his space equipment and took out another set. The Dragon God quickly put it away and the third set was presented.


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± The Dragon God did not look pleased.


    ¡°Indeed, if you¡¯re referring to remains of such levels. Everything else was broken and there was no need for them to be returned to a dragon graveyard.


    The Dragon God¡¯s eyes were as sharp as des when they scanned Saleen¡¯s face, which remained unperturbed.


    ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡± Saleen was able to feel the raging power in the Dragon God¡¯s body. Its power was far more terrifying than that in a Lord of Glory¡¯s double, as if a mountain wasing down on him.


    If it had not been for the lightning territory, Saleen would have been left limping from dragon might of such magnitude.


    ¡°Very well, Saleen. How do you find the y?¡± The Dragon God changed the subject suddenly.


    ¡°Looks dumb,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°Looks dumb?¡±


    ¡°They are meant for ignorant people in the human world. They would never be powerful. They can only sate themselves with fantasy.¡±


    ¡°Tell me. Are humans being foolish or are dragons being foolish instead?¡± The Dragon God eyed Saleen, waiting for his answer.


    ¡°Just foolish in different ways. Why does there need to be apetition in this sense?¡± Saleen smiled.


    The Dragon Godughed and asked jovially, ¡°Tell me then, what do you want?¡±


    ¡°Dragon scale magic shields.¡±


    The Dragon God¡¯s face turned glum right away. He stared at Saleen. ¡°Do you know how the dragon scale magic shields are made?¡±


    ¡°I do. Using dragon scales.¡±


    ¡°Do you know that such shields can not be made from scales of dead dragons? You have to tear the scales out of living dragons?¡±


    Saleen was dumbfounded. He had never heard that before. He only learned of the dragon scale magic shields from magic notes, which told only about how the shields were used for defense, abilities, and other data. Nothing about how they were made was mentioned. Saleen thought that the number of dragon scales shed every year would be immense in the dragon ne, and he thought getting some would not be all that troublesome.


    The Grand Duke was not only able to get a good amount of dragon scales, he was also able to sell them back at Myers Maind, so it was obvious that there was few restrictions on the items.


    However, scales required for making dragon scale magic shields needed to be pulled off of living dragons.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know,¡± Saleen answered truthfully.


    ¡°Now that you know, do you still intend to ask them from me?¡± the Dragon God asked angrily.


    ¡°I do!¡± Saleen¡¯s answer almost made the Grand Duke puke blood. The Grand Duke had no idea what dragon scale magic shields were, but if the Dragon God were enraged, Saleen might be able run, but not him.

 Chapter 1487: Agares’ Shadow (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1487: Agares¡¯ Shadow (Part 1)</h4>


    The Dragon God was baffled. Saleen¡¯s answer was indeed an unexpected one. His dragon might did not seem to be able to destroy that human mage¡¯s resolve.


    It seemed that the main ne was about to see a storm brewing.


    ¡°State your reasons.¡± The Dragon God did not continue to cast dragon might. The ce below the tform was all silent. The dragons wanted to know what made the human mage so daring.


    ¡°Humans and dragons fought alongside each other and shared a glorious past.¡± Saleen spoke slowly. His voice was imbued with Thundering Sound skills, which sounded very bewitching.


    ¡°Powerful humans disappeared after that and the main ne was closed. The strongest among us are but at level nine for thousands of years. I¡¯m not certain why the dragon ne was able to evade the curse-like fate. But it seems that our shared enemy¡ªthe gods¡ªwas not rendered extinct.¡±


    The Dragon God paused for half a second and Saleen continued to speak, seeing the expression of the Dragon God unchanged. ¡°The dragon scale magic shield was something I saw in the notes. When the mages all those years ago wrote about such powerful defensive equipment, they did not state how to create it. I¡¯m sure all of you know that human mages back then, had been capable of creating such shields. But you¡¯re saying that humans are creating such equipment without your consent? Humans back then did not even write anything about how to make them, which is I¡¯m here asking you, Dragon God. It turned out to be a joke after all.¡±


    ¡°But still, I hope to get my hands on such a piece of equipment nheless, because my enemy is a god, and one who is more powerful than me,¡± Saleen borated calmly.


    The Dragon God frowned. While it was known to be a Dragon God, but it did not possess a divine persona. When Myers Maind was cursed back then, the dragon ne was actually unable to escape being cursed as well. However, the one being cursed in the dragon ne was the Dragon God.


    The four existing Dragon Gods were unable to leave their pces. Once they left, the rules of the Dragon Gods would have dissipated and the dragon ne would have soon fallen into disarray.


    ¡°That god is only a level 15 god, but he has been conquering many divine kingdoms. I¡¯ve just snuffed out his Holy See on Myers Maind, and I¡¯ve also imprisoned the saint among his believers. That god woulde looking trouble with me sooner orter, and I¡¯d need to live if I were to fight the gods.¡±


    ¡°Your speech soundedme,¡± the Dragon God said all of the sudden.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood intended to say something, before the Dragon God waved and said, ¡°No matter. I shall help you in your war against the gods. I¡¯d only require you to write an oath. From here on out, you shall absolutely never use any dragon equipment against dragons. If you agree, I shall bestow you with two dragon scale magic shields.¡±


    ¡°Five,¡± Saleen added.


    Saleen quickly exined, seeing that the Dragon God was about to get angry, ¡°I have two wives and two children, and they are all targets of that god. Furthermore, their levels are worthy of receiving such a precious gift from you.¡±


    The Dragon God thenughed and said, ¡°Mage Saleen, then I¡¯d need another set of remains of that dragon, and one of equivalent level.¡±


    Saleen thought to himself that dragons were still a race that was easy to talk to. He felt himself fortunate to havee, and he saw the Dragon God and the dragons watching a performance. A race that knew to entertain themselves with ys and songs was definitely not a race that was hard to talk to.


    It was a fair trade. The Dragon God wanted another set of remains of ancient dragons, and it was obvious that it intended to give it to the other three Dragon Gods. If there were to only be three sets, then someone would have gotten left out.


    Saleen nned all of that before he came. He then said, ¡°Dragon God, I¡¯d be rather troubled at your request for another set of ancient dragon remains. That is because I did not actually find a true dragon graveyard. Most of the bones had already been eroded and I did not have another of equivalent level.¡±


    ¡°How about ten of one level lower then?¡± The Dragon God was getting anxious. It needed those things to restore its powers and lift the curse.


    However, Saleen did not use that against the Dragon God, which was a rare thing to happen. Dragons fought alongside humans in the past, and they did not turn against the humans when the humans failed.


    The Dragon God observed Saleen¡¯s reaction, which proved rather satisfactory. Dragons would have had a hard time using the five sets of dragon scale magic shields. In the hands of humans however, it would have been a lot easier.


    The height of humans was only about two meters tall and two pieces of dragon scales would have sufficed, for making a dragon scale magic shield. Furthermore, that was actually over-engineering things. A single piece of dragon scale could have been used to make several such shields, if one were to be cheap.


    As for the case of taking scales from living dragons, that was not a tricky problem as well. There were also dragons who vited thewsid by the Dragon Gods and were imprisoned. So long as they were willing to offer their scales, the Dragon God could have provided them with a shorter term. Many dragons would have been willing to trade.


    However, the principle of equivalent exchange stated that the Dragon God needed to discuss with the other Dragon Gods, before they were able to solve the problem.


    ¡°Well then, Rorschach, what do you want?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to sign a Dragon Knight contract with a third dragon,¡± the grand duke answered.


    ¡°You¡¯re being too greedy, Rorschach.¡± The Dragon God shook its head, but it did not refuse the grand duke¡¯s request. The grand duke had two dragons, one versed in physical attacks while the other at magic attacks. He would have definitely wanted the third one to be versed at curse attacks.


    That meant the third dragon would have been that of a special breed¡ªwitch dragons.


    With the help from those three dragons, the grand duke¡¯s bloodline would have been imbued with the traits of all three dragons, when he advanced to level 16. By then, the grand duke would have gained immunity from elemental magic attacks, curse attacks and physical attacks.


    Of course, that referred to those who were of lower level than he was. But then again, that alone would have been powerful enough. Even enemies of higher levels than he was would have suffered considerable drop in effectiveness when attacking him. Furthermore, all three dragons would have shared lifespan, enabling the grand duke to live for hundreds of thousands of years, even if he were to not advance.


    Saleen knew that it was not his speech that convinced the Dragon God; it was the remains of ancient dragons he had with him that sealed the deal. Only creatures of levels of Dragon Gods would have benefited from rules contained within those remains.


    If Saleen were to be able to absorb the rules within, he would not have bothered showing up at the dragon ne.


    Saleen was already a level 14 mage. One more level and he would have been able to absorb rule powers from all manner of powerful items, mimicking them or even possess them right away. However, even if he were to advance to level 16, he still would not have been able to possess the rule powers of dragons.


    Rules specifically umted only for dragons were contained within those bones, and only dragons of simr levels would have been able to absorb them.


    What Saleen offered was a set of level 17 dragon remains, and Dragon Gods were creatures that were at least at level 17.


    However, that Dragon God had been cursed. It was unknown how many curses of dying gods it had taken to prevent the Dragon Gods from leaving their pces. Hatred was the most formidable to be had in the world.


    Saleen was then arranged to stay behind in the Dragon God¡¯s pce. Dragon Gods were only be to traverse the four pces among them through magic arrays, and were unable to take even a single step outside of Dragon City.


    The Dragon God returned shortly, bringing five sets of dragon scale magic shields for Saleen.


    The Dragon God was feeling very good. The dragon remains that Saleen brought came from ancient times. While they were only of level 17, but their bloodlines had been very pure. There were many rules coalesced in the remains that the Dragon Gods had yet to master.


    As such, the five dragon scale magic shields were of considerably higher levels than they would have usually been.


    Dragons were capable of taking advantage of others, yet there was a limit to how far they would have gone to do so. Taking small advantages was but an act to mess around with races of lower levels, which they found fun. They were many races that had been duped by the dragons, with them thinking that they were able to bribe the dragons, as well as thinking the dragons to be greedy and stupid.


    The dragons themselves however, knew well that in order to gain what they wanted, they would have had to pay the equivalent price.


    Both Saleen and Lex took one of the five sets for themselves. Both of them tested the dragon scale magic shields for a bit, finding that so long as life-threatening attacks were detected, tiny dragon scales would have taken flight to stop it, regardless of the direction the attacks came from.


    The dragon scales that flew out to stop the attacks, would have then dissipated the force of the attacks onto every single scale on the shield.


    Saleen was able to confirmed that a piece of magic equipment he had seen in the past was rted to the dragon scale magic shield. He took one look andmitted it to memory. Such defenses were very essential to Saleen.


    I sure as hell don¡¯t think there¡¯d be any attacks capable of prating the Water Shield, barging through the dragon scale magic shield, and still able to kill the Figure of Fate.


    The grand duke acquired a witch dragon just as he asked, bing a Dragon Knight who possessed three dragons.


    Due to the witch dragon needing the Dragon God¡¯s help to advance, reaching corresponding levels before it could have been taken away, the grand duke had to stay several days more at Dragon City. He was feeling bored, so he talked to Saleen about taking Cloudflow.


    Lex, however, said to the grand duke, ¡°It¡¯d be best to leave Cloudflow behind, just like how Saleen left the imperial city of the Tanggsi Empire. You and I would have to fight otherwise.¡±


    The grand duke was puzzled and Lex continued, ¡°The entire state of Myers Maind is changing, which has a lot to do with the emperors of the respective empires. If you were to be emperor of Cloudflow, then our conflict would have nothing to do with personal grudges. Even if we were to be the best of friends, I¡¯d have to amass an army to attack you.¡±


    Saleen then added, ¡°She is right, duke. The very reason I¡¯m reluctant to put mynds under Lex¡¯s name is due specifically to not wanting to break thisst bit of bnce. The emperors of all four empires are still alive after all.¡±


    Grand Duke Iron Blood frowned and said, ¡°Your kingdom is near invincible on the maind, and even I wouldn¡¯t be able to fight your armies at present. Truth to be told, unless Lex decides to forsake the throne, it¡¯d be impossible for me to attack Qin. Isn¡¯t this the bnce you¡¯re talking about?¡±


    ¡°Tell me, duke. Do you think the Dragon God intends to conquer Myers Maind?¡±


    The grand duke was dumbfounded. He then pondered for quite a while before saying, ¡°I think the Dragon God would want to do. It wouldn¡¯t have needed to back a puny human and an insignificant worm like me back then!¡±


    Saleen was amused by the grand duke, who was evidently someone with a good attitude, knowing when to be self-depreciative, as well to weigh pros and cons. Regardless if Saleen were to end up being friends or enemies with such a person, he would not have grown bored at least. At the very least, the grand duke would not have stooped to the level of using Saleen¡¯s family against Saleen.


    Arb might have looked high and mighty, but she was actually despicable. Golden ins had been subdued by the contract for too long. Her mind had been twisted.


    ¡°We¡¯ll keep things as it is then, duke. The longer the better. If you think you¡¯re not getting a good deal out of this, how about a spirit dragon from me then?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s nice!¡± The grand duke did not see the need to hold back. But then he saw Saleen¡¯s expression and resorted to asking, ¡°What would you need then?¡±


    ¡°If the dragons were to invade Myers Maind, I¡¯d need you at my side.¡±


    The grand duke thenughed and said, ¡°Rx, I¡¯m still human after all.¡±

 Chapter 1488: Agares’ Shadow (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1488: Agares¡¯ Shadow (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen took Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s promise with a pinch of salt. It was a very difficult feat. Mages usually only believed in contracts.


    Lex took out a pile of gold and gave it to the four dragons standing guard over the teleportation portal when the three of them returned to Myers Maind. The dragons were very powerful beings at the dragon ne, and the dragons in the pce were even more powerful. It was a pity however, that they were of the Dragon God¡¯s bloodline, making them incapable of leaving the pce.


    The dragon ne was very stable and entering the dragon ne was only possible through several fixed teleportation portals. The dragons watching over the teleportation portals were carefully selected elites.


    The four dragons saw the amiability and goodwill in Lex¡¯s eyes and epted the gold. Despite being quite a hidden ne, quite a number of creatures still went through the teleportation portal. However, the four dragons did not simply take gifts from others.


    Saleen was only relieved after returning to Myers Maind. He asked the Grand Duke, ¡°where did you acquire the dragon materials you had before?¡±


    ¡°Hunts and trades. You can buy just about anything at Dragon City.¡±


    Saleen nodded. The ones on Dragon Ind did not rely on violence to get to the dragon ne; they relied on wealth. There were many rare things all over Myers Maind, which could be traded with the dragons.


    Furthermore, under usual circumstances, trading with dragons was done very fairly, so long as one took care to not infuriate the dragons.


    If only he could get there on my own...


    The Grand Duke seemed to catch what Saleen was thinking. ¡°Those coordinates do not change. You can get there on your own in the future if you so wish. Just be careful, that¡¯s all. There are many magic beasts outside of Dragon City, and not even the dragons dare to clean them up. It is simply too costly.¡±


    ¡°Rx, I¡¯ll bring you along if I go. Good things are meant to be shared,¡± Saleen replied. He valued the Grand Duke¡¯s power as a Dragon Knight. He was far more powerful than Sul and J in terms ofbat capacity.


    He already had three dragons, and Saleen had promised to get him a spirit dragon.


    There had never been a Dragon Knight who owned four dragons ever, even in ancient times. Saleen wondered if he had somehow fostered the most powerful warrior the world had ever seen.


    Saleen did not waste much time in the Grand Duke¡¯s territory, agreeing with the Grand Duke quickly. They agreed tobine their forces when the gods attacked, driving off the enemy together. As for Cloudflow, they held off attacking for the moment, letting Agares keep his throne.


    If the other three dukes attacked Misty City, Saleen and the Grand Duke would provide assistance.


    The Grand Duke did not keep on asking why Saleen did so, but he knew deep down that the luck Saleen mentioned was continuing to affect the entire maind, so much so that it was affecting even people like them.


    There was no way the Grand Duke would listen to every word that Saleen said. He was still getting ready to stabilize Titan Duchy, making the ce his own. Saleen knew that the Grand Duke still intended to reign supreme over the maind. He was fine with it so long as the Grand Duke did not rush. By the time he and Lex were able to back out without problems, the Grand Duke was weed to do whatever he liked.


    Saleen had no intention of keeping the Grand Duke under control. When he and Lex returned safely to Holy Rock City, there had been talk that was not in Lex¡¯s favor all over the city.


    Saleen did not do anything about that. He simply summoned the Floating City and had it hover above Holy Rock City. He had been the one behind the move to chase away mages from Golden ins, so he did not allow anyone to get in the way of his ns.


    Lex wanted to say something. One could not simply use violence to rule a nation. But Saleen stopped her and told her to follow his arrangements.


    Saleen had no intention of continuing to manage nations. He already had many nes under his rule, with the most elite of forces of his being concentrated in Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space. Other than some elite forces on Myers Maind, he stopped caring about the ce.


    Even if the Lord of Glory invaded the maind, he did not have to worry about his subjects being hurt.


    Saleen organized a massive migration while his armies were out conquering nes. He no longer needed to hide anything from anyone, and there was no need to hide anything about the Goddess of Myers either. As such, he moved all of the demons and humans who had followed him from the start to the interdimensional space. Other than Metatrin City, he had little left on the maind to care about anymore.


    The north was almostpletely conquered by the demons he summoned. He categorized the demons: those who liked to fight joined the army, while the weaker ones were told to farm.


    While demons did not farm, one demon was equivalent to four to five human peasants. Furthermore, demons had an easier time controlling puppets to farm. Their powerful mental powers meant that they were able to work longer.


    Saleen made the northern parts of the maind a farming base, continuing to produce elvish pills. They could be consumed like food, which effectively did away with logistical problems in war.


    Furthermore, there was no need to be concerned about the pills going bad in storage.


    The pills were meant to be consumed by ves back in the elf ne. Elves of higher status only ate fine food, which was cooked usingplicated methods. They would eat fresh food without much preparation if that was unavable. They saw the pills beneath them. No elf would make food out of them and only extremely starved elves would take some.


    Saleen paid no heed to any of that. The pills posed no harm to human bodies, and no one was able to stop death regardless of status. Anything was better than starving to death. To someone like Saleen, who had been starving since young, having a full belly was equivalent to being happy.


    Driving the mages of Golden ins off by force had resulted in bacsh. Hundreds of battles were fought.


    However, casualties were abhorrently low. Saleen had no intention of cleaning up Golden ins immediately. He still had nes to stabilize. With Nailisi¡¯s absence, training demons slowed and his forces began to be stretched thin. If more connected nes popped up, Saleen would have to mobilize his human armies and the power of Nature Faith to rule them.


    Saleen did not want to see that, so he did not have his forces kill off Golden ins. He waited for the Grand Duke to settle things in Titan Duchy, in order to use the Grand Duke¡¯s powers to destroy Golden ins instead.


    It would reflect badly on Lex if he did it himself. The people in Golden ins were considered his rtives.


    Saleen was rather pleased with himself. Without the pesky mages from Golden ins, he was able to look into repairing the Magic Clocks.


    Furthermore, he intended to repair the Magic Clocks in order to increase its numbers.


    Saleen broke down the materials of the Magic Clocks that had been destroyed with Water me. He added his own materials and re-forged 108 Magic Clocks of greater sizes. All of the Magic Clocks came with their own clock towers, which could be installed anywhere.


    Saleen repaired the Magic Clocks and added lightning magic patterns on them. There was only one reason why he did so¡ªto resist the effects of the War Drum of Fear.


    The Lord of Glory was no longer the most powerful enemy he had to face. The most powerful one was the Heretic God.


    Saleen recalled just how terrifying the Heretic God was. The angels of fear that appeared on Myers Maind were probably nted by the Heretic God secretly. The power of the angels of fear rendered armies of massive sizes utterly useless. He saw the need to counter such methods of attack to have enough strength to resist the Heretic God¡¯s invasion.


    While Saleen was busy with preparations, Arb, who was the leader of Golden ins, was caught in a pinch. She had once been very prideful and did not bother to heed the likes of Saleen. It was totally unexpected that Van Gogh was able to throw her into a ne she was unable to return from with just one single skill.


    Arb was infuriated and cast her skills, causing Van Gogh to lose his sense of direction in space. They were thrown to different ces. Luck did not side with her, as she was thrown to an abyssal ne that was extremely far away from Myers Maind.


    Arb had the Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake and was struggling to hold off the waves of attacks against her.


    Abyssal creatures were ferocious and did not fear death. No stun skills worked on them.


    There was a lord who was behind the attacks¡ªthe me Tyrant.


    The me Tyrant¡¯s power paled inparison to Arb, and the difference was more pronounced with the mark in her hands. However, the abyssal ne was very unstable. In the valley that Arb was hiding in, there were untold numbers of space fissures. The abyssal creatures traversed the fissures proficiently, while Arb did not dare to let the Six-winged Flying Snake be too far away from her.


    If the creature were caught in a space fissure, it would be severely injured.


    Damn you, fallen holy master!


    Arb struggled to resist the attacks on her while being concerned for her student. Van Gogh had a piece of equipment that allowed him to travel between Myers Maind and other nes. Her attacks would only daze Van Gogh for a while. With Jalin¡¯s help, it would not take him long to return to Myers Maind.


    Arb worried about her student because she knew Jalin¡¯s temperament. If Jalin shook off her bonds and learned what she did, there was no way she could live with herself.


    But she was utterly incapable of returning to Myers Maind. She had massive powers, but she was stuck in the cramped valley.


    ¡°Do you want to leave, human mage?¡± An abyssal creature walked up to her and spoke to Arb in human tongue.


    Arb was dumbfounded. Only powerful abyssal creatures were able to inherit linguistic abilities through gic memories alone. The abyssal creature was not even a level nine creature, and nothing could be left in its bloodline.


    Arb shuddered and the abyssal creature rescinded the mes on its body, revealing a pitch ck coat of fur. It rose from its prostate stance and looked down at Arb. It asked again, ¡°You don¡¯t want to go home?¡±


    ¡°I want to go home!¡±


    ¡°Sign this contract and let me be your summon creature. Bring me to your world.¡±


    Arb frowned at the weird request. The abyssal creature was not even at level nine. Under normal circumstances, she would not even consider signing a contract with such a creature, as it would only waste her power of the soul. She needed to sign contracts with creatures at least above level 12 before she deemed it worth her while.

 Chapter 1489: Agares’ Shadow (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1489: Agares¡¯ Shadow (Part 3)</h4>


    A level eight dark me ogre?


    Arb observed the creature carefully, wanting to be sure that her assessment was not faulty.


    ¡°I once belonged to a human, and they shared a simr presence to you, so you two are probably from the same ne. You¡¯re powerful, human mage, but you¡¯re unable to go home. Sign a contract with me, and you shall get a set of ne coordinates. With that, you¡¯d be able to return to your ne. It¡¯s only a technical problem.¡±


    The dark me ogre tempted Arb. Even though she knew that the creature was up to no good, if she signed such a contract with it, she would be able to take control of its life. One way or another, she would not be put into any danger.


    Just a contract slot wasted, that¡¯s all. She convinced herself and took out a nk scroll, beginning to write the contract. Low level creatures like that dark me ogre were usually beneath signing a soul bond with. Arb changed her mind, and her magic pen was seen writing something different, drafting a ve contract instead.


    The scroll was finished and it was sent flying to the dark me ogre, who looked and quickly pricked its tail. A drop of ming blood shot out and seeped into the scroll, which burned the scroll to cinders.


    ¡°Hehe.¡± The dark me ogre chuckled and shot into Arb¡¯s body.


    Arb was alerted. That dark me ogre¡¯s attitude suggested that it was her who had been set up. She wanted to drive the dark me ogre out of her body, before finding that the creature had disappeared without a trace.


    How could this be possible? Arb searched her soul. She was of equal level to Saleen, but her soul was not as powerful as his. Only one of the three parts of her soul returned to her body. The contractual brand with the dark me ogre on that soul was still there, but it was fused with another contract.


    Arb was totally frightened. Just what the hell is that thing? How could it vite the power of rules and alter the contract!?


    ¡°Your reputation precedes you, Lord Arb.¡± A man was heard behind her.


    Arb turned around furiously. Her skin was covered with goosebumps.


    She recognized the man who was behind her. He was none other than the emperor of the Cloudflow Empire, Agares.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to thank Saleen for giving me Snakerun. I sure as hell did not expect that it would trigger my special powers. I wouldn¡¯t have been a match against you otherwise.¡± Agares smirked and extended his hand, touching Arb¡¯s face like a child looking at a toy.


    Arb discovered that not only were her arms and legs were stiffened and bound, but she was unable to evenmand the Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake with her power of the soul anymore.


    How could Agares be this powerful?


    ¡°This is only a technical problem.¡± Agares smiled. ¡°I have Saleen to thank for everything that has happened so far. He is a pesky fellow and is much better off dead.¡±


    Arb became dazed by Agares¡¯ voice. That brand deep in her soul became even more powerful without her realizing it. If she had been fully awake and willing to get severely injured, she would have had a chance of shaking free of his control. However, her immense pride had beenpletely shattered, preventing her from being able to react in time.


    If it had been Saleen or Sika in the situation, they would choose to harm their enemy at their own expense right away, burning their own souls together Agares¡¯.


    The mages of Golden ins, as Saleen put it, were all just people with frail minds under their prideful facades.


    Agares waved the dagger in his hand. ¡°This is Snakerun, which was crafted using 12-dimensional metal. The amount of such metal avable on every ne would be enough for making only a single weapon. But it would be possible to make several weapons of such small sizes. Saleen kept quite a lot for himself.¡±


    ¡°How did you...¡± Arb struggled and managed to only mutter a few words, before losing control of her body again.


    Agares spoke carefully, ¡°there is no need to rush. I possess the ability to traverse spaces, and that abilityes from this weapon. But the spaces I can travel to are limited, so I chose somewhere more remote and hidden, which is right where we are standing. My eyes allow me to see through the barriers of space. Before you and that holy master showed up, I¡¯d already been waiting for quite some time.¡±


    Agares was not actually telling the truth. He had been keeping an eye on Saleen, hoping to get something from the mage. He was able to see Saleen¡¯s luck and knew that it was not time for him to get on Saleen¡¯s bad side, so Saleen¡¯s enemies became ideal candidates for him.


    When Van Gogh exiled Arb, Agares followed. He used the most powerful skill he had¡ªAssassin¡¯s Shadow.


    The skill was conjured into a dark me ogre, tempting Arb to sign a contract with it. Arb was too prideful to sign a soul bond, enabling him to exploit the opening.


    Everything proceeded per Agares¡¯ calctions. Even Arb¡¯s current hesitation was well within his predictions.


    If an assassin were unable to keep the situation under control and use whatever was avable to their advantage, then they would never amount to much in their lifetime.


    Arb listened to every word he said without realizing what she was doing. The fusion of the contractual brand in her soul was already unstoppable.


    ¡°You really shouldn¡¯t get on Saleen¡¯s bad side. Even I, a great assassin, was forced to put the ns to assassinate him aside. I could only stalk him like a snake.¡± Agares smirked and saw Arb¡¯s shadow gradually disappear. The snakes from the Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake returned one after another. Without the snakes in the way of the abyssal creatures, they quickly overran the valley.


    Agares shed his Snakerun in front of him, creating a huge fissure. The valley was cut in half. The abyssal creatures shrieked in pain as they were cut to pieces.


    ¡°I might be an assassin, but I like to pretend to be a swordsman at times.¡± Agares looked at the effects of his attack and felt pleased with himself. He drew a hexagram with his dagger and a huge ck hole appeared behind him.


    ¡°Come with me, Arb. I did say I¡¯d bring you hom.,¡± Agares leapt into the ck hole. Arb followed, still dazed.


    A swamp was found on the other side of the ck hole. A man and a woman had already been waiting for Agares. They were none other than Van Gogh and Jalin.


    ¡°How was it? You got what you came for?¡± Van Gogh asked anxiously. If Arb was not kept on a leash, then Jalin would be a problem sooner orter. Worse still, he was very reluctant to kill Jalin off.


    Agares smiled and Arb followed right behind him, emerging from that ck hole.


    Van Gogh was relieved. Agares¡¯ skill was indeed superb when used in conjunction with his own. He took control of Jalin while Agares took control of Arb.


    If they did so more often, both his and Agares¡¯ powers would grow exponentially.


    However, it was still thanks to Saleen, in a weird way. Bing an enemy of Saleen had a way of severely messing up one¡¯s luck. Van Gogh found that out the hard way.


    ¡°So, what are we going to do next?¡± Van Gogh asked. He knew that Agares was a lunatic. If he maintained a working rtionship with the assassin, he needed to show more respect.


    Van Gogh did not care for superficial things. He deemed that there would be a day, when he had grown powerful enough, that he would be to kill Agares off. The bestpanion was also potentially the greatest enemy.


    ¡°We¡¯ll need to get more enemies for Saleen. He has superb luck, and that won¡¯t work well for his enemies.¡± Agaresughed. While he was a lunatic, he did not dare to move against Saleen for the time being. Saleen¡¯s lightning skill prevented his skill at deception and shadows from finding an opening.


    Van Gogh did not think as highly of Saleen, but he dared not be Saleen¡¯s enemy on his own. He was unable to manipte Saleen. He had once intended to use the three mages of the Elemental Hand to keep Saleen in check. However, the three mages ended up nowhere to be found, and Saleen did not even bother asking about their whereabouts. He simply got someone else to rece them.


    Van Gogh had gotten exasperated. If it had not been for Agares, who proposed to work with him, Van Gogh would have been run over by Saleen. It was the Goddess of Myers¡¯ idea to have him gain luck from the temples. However, it was not known if the goddess truly intended to back him, or simply used him to train Saleen.


    Van Gogh kept his guard up against gods. There had never been a god who made a move without a good reason, and it was not their nature to simply give and not ask anything in return.


    ¡°Well, we¡¯ll need a specific target for starters.¡± Van Goghmunicated with Agares patiently.


    ¡°Target? Do I really need to spell it out? Van Gogh, is the man you hate and resent the most Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I don¡¯t resent Saleen for anything. He¡¯s just an enemy, that¡¯s all.¡±


    ¡°You said it yourself then. An enemy like Saleen can always be dealt withter. You may not even need to face him up close and personal forever. But there is one enemy who will always haunt you until you get rid of them. Well, no need to get rid of them actually. They would serve as one hell of a shadow for me.¡±


    ¡°Who would that be?¡±


    ¡°The great Lord of Glory, of course! That god you used to sing praises to.¡±


    ¡°The Lord of Glory!¡± Van Gogh gritted his teeth immediately. He only discovered after advancing that his soul was iplete, as he had given some parts to his god.


    Humans really were stupid, giving up their most precious thing just for that bit of temptation.


    But he did not be a holy master by his own will. Only by killing the Lord of Glory would he be able to reach the pinnacle of human profession. His iplete soul would mean that he would be unable to move past level 16 otherwise.


    ¡°Right. If I took control of the Lord of Glory, I¡¯d return the bits of your soul to you. If I can¡¯t control him, we¡¯ll just kill him and you¡¯d be able to mend your soul. This is all in your favor one way or another, don¡¯t you think?¡± Agares smiled.


    ¡°Indeed.¡± Van Gogh was rather irked, but it was all an act he put up in front of Agares. If he were fine with everything, then Agares¡¯ would be unhappy.


    Agaresughed even louder after seeing Van Gogh feeling angry.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be angry, Van Gogh. I know a way to connect the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom to Myers Maind. Doing so would cause countless angels to flood the ne. What do you think would happen then?¡±


    ¡°That would be beautiful...we could kill to our hearts¡¯ content!¡± Van Gogh answered.

 Chapter 1490: Advent of the Divine Kingdom (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1490: Advent of the Divine Kingdom (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Yep, can kill as many as we like. I love assassinating people, but ughtering humans is hardly fun for me. At my level right now, people worth taking my time to take out are few. But, killing gods though...¡±


    Agares licked his nose. His tongue was surprisingly long. It was as he put it¡ªlike a snake.


    Saleen was currently up on the Floating City, preparing to fight god creatures. The mages of Golden ins had been cleaned out, but the ce remained intact. Saleen did not kill the mages, and they would prove to be thorn at his side sooner orter. However, none of that mattered. Saleen needed to have the Goddess of Myers growpletely, baiting the other god to their ne.


    As for actual implementation of that n, that would be done through the power of a saint.


    Saleen had no idea that Agares and Van Gogh were also thinking of ways of baiting a god to their ne. Their n was to take as much as they were able while Saleen was busy fighting a god.


    Saleen would definitely not end up killed, and that was something both Van Gogh and Agares had no doubt about. So long as Saleen lived, the god would continue to invade the n by sending all manner of powerful god creatures and angels.


    The two, who were capable of manipting others¡¯ souls, could simply sit back and take whatever there was to take.


    The n was old, having been done since ancient times.


    The little girl who would never grow up was right before Saleen in that secret room in the Floating City.


    ¡°There is something that I need to be truthful about with you,¡± Saleen said to the saint inly.


    ¡°That you¡¯re trying to use me?¡± The little girl lifted her head and looked at Saleen. The face had been carved into her mind, and she would never forget it ever. The face of a sphemer, and a cruel abomination.


    ¡°Indeed. I hope to have a showdown between me and your god. While I would like to do it somewhere other than Myers Maind, it doesn¡¯t seem like I have much of a choice,¡± Saleen said to the little girl.


    ¡°You¡¯re not worthy of it.¡±


    ¡°I think the Lord of Glory isn¡¯t worthy of it either. I intend to be a gentleman in front of his believers, but that god is one of the most despicable and abhorrent. There has never been a god that has made me feel so damn sick. Duping everyone else with a body of light and all,¡± Saleen retorted inly.


    The little girl¡¯s eyes looked bloodshot.


    ¡°You¡¯re a saint, and you should act like one. The reason why I didn¡¯t bother torturing you was because the Lord of Glory loves stories like that. He would arrive as a savior. O¡¯ saint, you have no idea. I could really make you fall.¡± Saleen took out the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    He had gone specifically to the spirit ne just to borrow it from Nailisi.


    The Purgatory of Purification was capable of stripping everything from the saint. The Purgatory of the Fallen would make her a fallen one for a certain amount of time.


    The little girl was hardly fazed. ¡°All threatse from fear.¡±


    Saleen added, ¡°All giftse frompassion. The former is definitely true, thetter, definitely wrong.¡± Saleen used words from the codex to answer what the little girl said, but she remained unmoved. ¡°Some gifts are merely temptations. O¡¯ pathetic saint, you¡¯re the only one in the entire Myers Maind whose faith is pure. I¡¯m not saying that you¡¯re the smartest; I¡¯m saying that you¡¯re the dumbest.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯d be dumb not to help you.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need your help. I just feel bad for that person who covered for you,¡± Saleen recalled the holy master. While his faith might not have been pure, he truly was trying to protect those around him. The little girl had been his charge.


    Saleen was forced to go back on his word, as the saint might end up dead after what he was about to do.


    Twenty-four Shackles of the Fallen shot out, tying the girl up. The little girl looked like she was in pain, a pain mixed with fear from the depths of her mind.


    ¡°I¡¯m just going to take away your faith.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re taking away my life!¡± Suddenly, no life was detected in the little girl¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen¡¯s Shackles of the Fallen hoisted the little girl¡¯s dead body and shot up, slithering out of the secret room and into the sky. He never expected the saint to be so adamant. She chose death when she lost her faith.


    Not even the Shackles of the Fallen had been able to control it.


    Rafel took to the sky with Saleen unnoticeably. She nced at the saint¡¯s dead body. ¡°My lord, people lose faith, and you¡¯re not an exception.¡±


    Saleen was only slightly dejected. His movements remained swift as ever. A huge holy prose appeared on the dead body. The little girl¡¯s dead body was slowly broken down and reduced to nothing.


    The saint died so abruptly that Saleen was unable to do anything about it. He resorted to instigating the Lord of Glory prematurely instead.


    All remaining divine powers in her were activated by the divine rune charm array, and scattered throughout the void to send messages to all nes.


    Saleen was sending out a distress signal to the Lord of Glory in the ce of the god¡¯s believers. The only saint on Myers Maind had been killed.


    ¡°You really are impudent, human!¡±


    A voice traversed through space. If it had not been for the protection offered by the Thundering Sound, Saleen would have lost consciousness from the shock of the voice and fallen to his death.


    Rafel felt as if she had been smote by lightning. Her entire body felt limp, and Saleen wrapped her in a Water Shield. She regained her senses momentster, pping her wings instead of flying like a human.


    It was the power of a level 15 god, and an angel like her had no resistance. Unless the Metal God was resurrected, the Lord of Glory could easily crush her.


    I have to stop being an angel!


    Rafel had never been so adamant in a decision. She heard that the elves had a way to deal with such situations, allowing them to switch bodies with other creatures.


    While angels were definitely powerful inbat, theirbat prowess suffered a sharp drop when dealing with other gods without protection of a god. They would fall so much that they became less capable than amon human warrior.


    Her metal angels chose to believe in the God of Magic Net. When Dante emerged, their faith was converted to Dante. The metal angels were able to prevent themselves from losingbat prowess due to such pressure from the Lord of Glory. Rafel was the only one who was unable to help Saleen at all.


    A true body at level 15 waspletely different from a level 14 double. The level differences were huge.


    In the swamps of Cloudflow, Van Gogh and Agares were getting ready to bait a god when a violent tremor appeared in space. Van Gogh¡¯s eyes flicked with red light. He was thoroughly flustered when he said, ¡°Agares, the god is here!¡±


    ¡°Where?¡±


    ¡°On Myers Maind. Saleen¡¯s doing.¡±


    Agares had no idea why Van Gogh was able to know that, but he knew that Van Gogh would not bluff.


    ¡°We¡¯ll leave right away. We¡¯ll help Saleen as much as we¡¯re able to. If we can¡¯t do much, we¡¯ll at least try to cut off one of the god¡¯s legs.¡± Agares¡¯ eyes filled with bloodlust.


    ¡°No need to rush. Saleen has already done what we were about to do. This time, not only will the Lord of Glory advent personally, he will link his divine kingdom with Myers Maind as well. We¡¯ve got our work cut out for us.¡±


    Agares calmed. ¡°Head back to Misty City with me. I¡¯ll amass an army to invade the divine kingdom.¡±


    ¡°Your army won¡¯t even be enough to be cannon fodder for the angels.¡± Van Gogh quipped dismissively.


    ¡°Van Gogh, my family has been in charge of an empire for over 1000 years. You aren¡¯t being clear what we¡¯re actually able to do. I¡¯ll help you this time. If you do this on your own, you won¡¯t get anything out of it.¡±


    Van Gogh did not say anything else. He was puzzled as to why Agares would help him in the first ce. The emperor who was also an assassin did not seem to have even a slightest hint ofpassion, and he did not seem to want to be friends with anyone. His entire life seemed to be dedicated to ughter.


    ughtering powerful beings seemed to be the only thing Agares found fun.


    ¡°Do you think that I¡¯m trying to take something from you? Rx, the goddess ced quite a huge stake on you, and I¡¯m not about to jump you before the goddess is done with you. I¡¯d have to deal with a very terrifying god up close and personal.¡±


    Terrifying god? Van Gogh did not find the Goddess of Myers terrifying at all. Regardless, the Lord of Glory was infuriated, and he had connected his divine kingdom with Myers Maind. The goddess is definitely not going to sit this one out, right?


    He¡¯d join Agares¡¯ army taking on the divine kingdom. There was someone else probing what the god creatures are capable of for Van Gogh.


    He was unable to continue advancing if he only had Jalin. His equipment could not be finished until he acquired 12plete souls. He would grant eternal life to the humans who served as weapon spirits, and he would serve as the master of the souls.


    It seemed workable with gods, too. Saleen had used gods as weapon spirits.


    Van Gogh followed Agares without a word, emerging from the hideout. They rode abyssal magic beasts instead of flying as they headed for Misty City. Agares imed that his family was wealthy in many ways, and Van Gogh was interested to find out just what an emperor possessed.


    Saleen disintegrated a saint through sacrifice, offering it to a god.


    The Lord of Glory had been very flustered and angered in his faraway divine kingdom. His double had been destroyed and a saint died shortly after. The saint¡¯s soul had been so pure that he would have been able to create a level 14 angel out of her.


    The soul had been disintegrated, and nothing of value could be recovered.


    Holy light glimmered on the Lord of Glory from his divine kingdom, shining light on over 1.2 billion square kilometers. All god creaturesid prostrate on the ground in fright, waiting for their god¡¯s orders.


    The wrath of a god could result in the destruction of a nation.


    The Lord of Glory was out to destroy an enemy¡¯s kingdom. The war horn had been blown high in the sky. Countless angels gathered. Two out of the three eternal suns were snuffed out as they were brought to an enemy nation by the Lord of Glory.


    It had been many, many years, since the Lord of Glory¡¯s true body had participated in a war personally. The situation riled up all the god creatures who served him. They would never lose by following the Lord of Glory out into battle. It was the source of their powers.


    The Lord of Glory had once killed level 16 gods, and this time, it was their time to prove their worth.


    Bounty from their god after fighting every single war had always been very, very generous.


    Saleen looked up at the sky and said lightly, ¡°Myers, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re seeing this. A god is about to advent. Are you still going to keep your hands to yourself?¡±


    The goddess watched the scene in frustration. She deemed Saleen¡¯s actions to be too reckless.


    She had only been able to resurrect 12 angels, and there were over 100 followers waiting to be resurrected. If she left, she wondered what would happen to her followers.


    ¡°Damn you, mage. I shouldn¡¯t have let you hold onto so much power,¡± she thought. She never expected him to infuriate the Lord of Glory, the god who would be out to settle every single score there was. If his army of angels hit Myers Maind, she would suffer serious losses.

 Chapter 1491: Advent of the Divine Kingdom (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1491: Advent of the Divine Kingdom (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen did not care about any casualties amongst those that adhered to the Nature Faith. However, the Goddess of Myers could not afford to feel the same way. Her existence would have been pointless otherwise. After all, those believers where the ones who prayed and sang her praises to acquire happiness for themselves.


    To Myers, her exchange with the believers was fair. She only needed a bit of their souls to resurrect those who died in her own divine kingdom. She was not like the other gods. As a god born on Myers Maind itself, she was very generous.


    There were rtively few gods like her; those who hardly craved power.


    If it had not been for the need to resurrect her own followers, she would not have even bothered expanding the Nature Faith. The main reason for the expansion, however, was that, after her resurrection, she did not want to get the maind involved anymore.


    Her godly powers were originally caused by a magic experiment of hers. She had only wanted to acquire a divine persona using her own powers, before separating from said divine persona.


    However, such an experiment was not something that even a level 18 mage was able to control. Because of this, she unfortunately became a god. The experiment even ended up absorbing the power of the Source of Myers Maind.


    A level 18 god would have been devastating to Myers Maind.


    The powers of those across the entirety of Myers Maind dropped sharply within mere moments while her own powers rose exponentially.


    She took the opportunity to kill many level 18 gods, as well as iste the maind altogether, preventing it from being attacked by other nes for a time. Afterward, she chose to die of her own free will.


    She was struggling with deciding to protect her believers at the expense of casting away her followers.


    Those who had followed her back then had given up being humans after all, and that had been a huge sacrifice on their part.


    There were also those whom she killed personally because they refused to renounce the glory of humanity. That thought actually pained her somewhat.


    She was unable to keep herself from smirking. It seemed that the reduction of her powers had messed with her control in more ways than one. If it had been all those years ago, she would not have lost her ability to judge the situation, like she had currently, over something like that.


    ¡°You want to see what my trump card is like, then?¡± Myers called as she took out a figure, putting it on the divine beast¡¯s back. She also put a space ring on the figure, then threw arge number of magic scrolls into the ring.


    ¡°Just sit tight and wait for that puny god to advent. When Saleen¡¯s followers are unable to handle the situation, release all of those scrolls at once while staying back,¡± the goddess said as she patted the divine beast¡¯s head. The divine beast then reluctantly left the temple.


    That temple had been a great ce for the beast to live. It always had a full belly and there was no need for it to fight anyone. The best thing, of course, had been the fact that it no longer had to deal with Saleen¡¯s children. They were both as**oles!


    The divine beast shuddered when it recalled what those two had done to it.


    Is that what the mages called ¡®psychological trauma¡¯? The divine beast checked its soul again and again, not finding any signs of damage on it. However, it was unable to fathom why the mere recollection of those two would have caused it to shudder against its will.


    The divine beast left, exasperated. It was only then that the goddess painstakingly conjured a double of her own. She took her double to the tablet in the temple, then smacked the double onto the tablet, sealing her inside.


    She then tapped the tablet and said, ¡°If I die, you shall take my ce. It¡¯s quite a pain making doubles all the time, after all.¡±


    Her mood had apparently lightened after she spoke. She unleashed everything she had in her bangle before chucking it all into the tablet one by one.


    You want my powers? Thene trade your life for them!


    The goddess then let out a heartyugh and flew outside the temple. She arrived outside the Purgatory Desert in mere moments. A level 15 god was a piece of cake; it was that Heretic God that would prove troublesome, and she needed to deal with it herself. However, before going up against that god, she needed to talk to Saleen for a bit to get rid of the heroic spirits in the cemetery.


    They had been herrades, and at present, they had be her enemies.


    Saleen had put away the 12 Notes of First Purgatory and was about to return to the Floating City when he sensed spatial vibrations that made him shudder. The goddess suddenly appeared before him.


    Saleen fired seven lightning icicles on reflex. He had already realized that it was the goddess herself standing before him. However, he had not believed that she would have just left the temple, which had caused his instincts to kick in and led him to attack.


    ¡°Hah, you actually didn¡¯t bother using your strongest attack. Seems like you have no intentions of killing me for the time being then,¡± the goddess said. She chuckled as she held the seven lightning icicles in her hands. The electrical discharge from the icicles did not seem to affect her at all.


    ¡°Goddess of Myers, are you here to pick fights with me then? Yes, I killed two of your oracles,¡± Saleen said bluntly.


    ¡°I know, and that is why I¡¯m here to get even.¡± The goddess¡¯ antics were much like that of Nailisi. Saleen had wanted the mood to appear solemn and tense, yet he was unable to act that way himself.


    ¡°Well, how do you want to do it then?¡± he asked.


    Seeing how rxed Saleen was, the goddess continued. ¡°Head to the Imperial City of the Abyss and help memunicate with those dead heroes. I need to do something dangerous and I need everyone to be on board,¡± she said.


    ¡°Mind telling me what that would be?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°We leave immediately. You could write a letter to your teacher telling him to take charge of things and fight the Lord of Glory,¡± the goddess said.


    Seeing how forceful she acted despite wearing a smile, Saleen knew there was little else he could have done to sway the god who had once been a mage. However, he asked nheless, ¡°If I were to agree to the proposal, then you¡¯d spare all of my followers. Am I correct?¡±


    ¡°From here on out, you could have all of your followers return to the maind. I would do nothing against them,¡± she stated.


    ¡°Well then, follow me.¡± Saleen then took the goddess to the Floating City.


    The goddess nced toward where the Magical Element Tower was and asked, ¡°Why are you using something so dangerous, Saleen?¡±


    ¡°Dangerous?¡± he asked.


    ¡°You could have caused the birth of a new god with that thing; a level 18 one at that,¡± she said.


    ¡°We¡¯ll get to thatter. If we can¡¯t kill the Lord of Glory, there is no point in me thinking about anything that could happen in the future,¡± he said. Saleen admitted bluntly that he was not all that responsible of a person.


    The goddess did not care for Saleen¡¯s prattling. She simply waited outside the tower while Saleen went inside to attend to his business.


    The first thing he did after returning to the tower was summon Nailisi and the Winged Skull. He contacted his teacher after returning the 12 Notes of First Purgatory to Nailisi, hoping that Jason would be able toe to the Floating City and take care of things.


    After he was done with all of that, Saleen handed some of his prized magic nuclei, equipment, and godly items over to Nailisi, saying to her, ¡°Nailisi, the Goddess of Myers is outside the door right now. I¡¯m not a match for her, and even working together we still wouldn¡¯t be able to take her on. I¡¯m being forced to do something dangerous now and I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯ll be able toe back alive. Keep these. Make them your own or just throw them into the collection of purgatories to enhance it...¡±


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ll go out and cut her up right now!¡± Nailisi was being rather impulsive. She was able to see the goddess standing outside of the tower. Fires of intense jealousy burned inside her.


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible. It is not a certainty that I will die while doing this. The chances of me surviving might actually be quiterge. I¡¯m giving you all of these just in case.¡± Saleen thought for a bit, then called Nichs over. ¡°Nichs, follow Nailisi around. She might be petty, but she is not going to leave you to your own devices.¡±


    ¡°Master, how about we just head back to the spirit ne?¡± the Winged Skull said suddenly.


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°Bing, this is my chance. If I¡¯m able to survive this, I¡¯ll definitely be able to reach level 15. Things would be smooth-sailing from then on out. If I¡¯m unable to take this one step forward, this is where I¡¯ll be stuck for the rest of my life.¡±


    ¡°What about Sika, then?¡± Nailisi mentioned Sika instead of Lex, knowing that the Caucasian woman was the one that he was the most concerned about.


    ¡°We have kids, don¡¯t we? She¡¯d head to the Imperial City of the Abyss with me, and we would stare into the eyes of death together,¡± Saleen responded.


    ¡°Master!¡± Nailisi was getting extremely irritated. She was unable to ept that he was leaving her out of something like this.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been taking Myers¡¯ appearance for far too long. Did you really think that she wouldn¡¯t have been irked? Don¡¯t get into trouble. Like I said, my death is not a sure thing. It¡¯s just that this whole thing is something that even Myers would consider to be dangerous,¡± Saleen said.


    Nailisi turned around, feeling very anxious.


    Saleen then said, ¡°Wait for my return. Hopefully the Lord of Glory will be dead by then.¡±


    The Goddess of Myers waited quietly outside the tower. She was rather curious about Saleen. That mage was only able to get as far as he did because he had acquired her Ring of Gift. But, among those who had received her luck, Saleen¡¯s portion had been very small. He had been able to achieve so many great things due to the powers given to him by others.


    Lightning powers were the highest form of powers to be had, and those would not have been something that could be easily wielded by someone with his type of talents. However, she was able to clearly sense that Saleen¡¯s ability to control lightning was leaps and bounds ahead of what he had been capable of when they hadst fought each other.


    Just what kind of a person is protecting such a puny human and guiding him into this many mystical encounters?


    The act of Myers taking Saleen to the Imperial City of the Abyss was a gamble in itself. She was betting on Saleen¡¯s survival and that he, in turn, would give her good luck. That was something that Saleen remained oblivious of. In his mind, it was he who was instead hoping to acquire luck from the goddess.


    It took over half an hour before Saleen emerged from inside of the tower. ¡°How are we getting there?¡± he asked the goddess.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be taking you there. Just be patient,¡± the goddess said as she took Saleen by the belt. Both of them suddenly shot forward. Saleen was able to see with the Eye of Souls that he was being wrapped in ayer of elements, and that they were charging into a portal.


    So, this is the ability to jump through space? The goddess had deliberately lowered the speed of the process so that he could clearly see what was happening. If Saleen were smart enough, he would have been able to learn certain space functions. That was, if he was diligent enough to remember the entire process, and to research it further when he had the time.


    When Saleen and the goddess appeared outside the Imperial City of the Abyss, an extremely huge portal also appeared at the center of Cloudflow Empire. That gate was not the figurative gate often mentioned by mages, but a true, huge gate, which looked dazzling because of how extremelyvish it was.


    The steps before the gate were several kilometers wide, and they looked spotlessly white and shimmered like jade.


    Loud holy songs were heard from the other side of the gate, filling the air. Legions of angels were gathering about and bing ustomed to the rules of Myers Maind, getting ready to charge outside.


    The divine kingdom advent and the nobles of the Cloudflow Empire were all shocked. A massive army consisting over a million troops had amassed, preparing to hold the line at all cost. That was probably thest bit of decency left in the people of Cloudflow.


    They were utterly unwilling to be ves of a god, and would have rather faced their greatest fear of dying on the battlefield.

 Chapter 1492: Cleaning up the Imperial City of the Abyss (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1492: Cleaning up the Imperial City of the Abyss (Part 1)</h4>


    Amassing an army of over a million-strong in three days would have been very difficult, even in Qin. The Cloudflow people had never seen any great disasters, wereparatively wealthy, less well-equipped, and less disciplined, after all. Being able to organize such a retaliatory force had been a miracle.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gate was secretly being set up over 100 kilometers from the morevish gate as well. Jason was the one that was ced in charge.


    The Cloudflow scouts had, without a doubt, seen the Baldur¡¯s Gate, but they were quickly chased off by mages from Metatrin City after trying to approach it. Jason was not so prideful as to want to take on the problem all on his own. He sent letters to nobles of the Cloudflow Empire instead, telling them that he would provide support both in equipment and in troops.


    Saleen¡¯s ancient warriors, star figures, and puppet legions were all standing by within the Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    Jason also began to construct a fortress at the same time. It took the form of a castle that was over ten kilometers in diameter and waspletely interconnected and built-inyers. That castle served one specific purpose¡ªthe construction of a massive magic.


    The Floating City did note, hovering above Metatrin City instead. Jason was not impulsive enough to forgo Metatrin¡¯s defense. Attacks from the godly creatures were indiscriminate in terms of location. All angels were capable of flight, after all. If the Floating City were to make it there, the angels would have definitely hit Metatrin City as well.


    Jason¡¯s intentions behind setting up the Baldur¡¯s Gate there was simple¡ªhe wanted to have his troops charge into the divine kingdom.


    Others were afraid of rules within the divine kingdom of gods, but not Jason. The rules of his Rings of Water and Fire were such that not even the Goddess of Myers would have been able to override it, let alone the Lord of Glory.


    There was a city at the center between the Baldur¡¯s Gate and the divine kingdom¡¯s gate. That city was the territory of one of the four grand dukes of the Cloudflow Empire¡ªGrand Duke tinum.


    Grand Duke tinum had established himself as a merchant. His family and his businesses were both extensive. His equipment and troops wereparable to those of Misty City. Furthermore, Grand Duke tinum was deemed easier to get along with than the other three grand dukes. When the divine kingdom¡¯s gate showed up, armies from the nobles flocked to a ce called Lion City, setting up a defense parameter. The two sides of Lion City had treacherous terrain to begin with. The castle that was constructed would have wholly sealed the roads leading north.


    No one knew where the angels from the divine kingdom¡¯s gate would have attacked. But since the divine kingdom appeared, the angels would have attacked human cities one way or another, and Lion City was the closest city to be found. There were otherrge cities built by the Kingdom of Metatrin nearby as well.


    The Cloudflow people knew that if the army of angels in the divine kingdom were to refrain from relentlessly attacking them and go somewhere else, the people of Metatrin would have attacked the divine kingdom instead.


    While Cloudflow nobles were known to be decadent, it was apparent that the Cloudflow Empire was still nheless capable of taking a stand at critical times. At the very least, the nobles had stockpiled a massive amount of food and had been quick at recruiting an army. It was the fate of the maind on the line, after all.


    If a god were to conquer Myers Maind, the nobles would have lost everything.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood set up the second line of defense at Titan. He mobilized the forces of the Nature Faith, which had been expanding too quickly. High-level holy masters existed in massive numbers. What the grand duke was doing would have also cut down the faith¡¯s powers.


    Those holy masters were unable to back out of a war between religions. Their only option was to fight to the death.


    Saleen headed towards the Imperial City of the Abyss along with the Goddess of Myers. She was utterly oblivious to the fact that the maind was in chaos. The advent of the divine kingdom had even affected multiple other nes. Some nes had also sent their armies, getting ready to fight to the death with that god¡¯s armies.


    Only Dante could be found hiding inside the Lightning Moon, which was kept within Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier. Not even the goddess could detect its presence when it was hidden that way. The Lightning Moon blocked the probing abilities of the gods. Myers would have only been able to sense that there was a weapon spirit within that piece of equipment.


    Other than that, only enchanters and Bug Angel Warriors were found in the living spaces of the magic cube. Saleen had not brought even a single human mage with him.


    Saleen had no idea what the goddess was trying to do at the Imperial City of the Abyss. They arrived outside of the Imperial City, and the goddess peered inside, then saying to Saleen, ¡°You have a badge. Hand it over.¡±


    He was unable to do anything butply and hand over the badge that Gaine had given to him.


    The goddess took the badge in her hand and inspected it carefully. She then took out another simr badge from her bangle, put it on, and handed Saleen¡¯s badge back to him.


    ¡°Sigh, I have to rely on equipment to get through as I am now. I¡¯m not certain that I will be able to just barge through the ce,¡± the goddess said.


    Saleen put his badge back on and walked into the Imperial City with the goddess.


    The goddess nonchntly cast magic, capturing elemental creatures nearby and flinging them to Saleen. She was taking a detour around the city walls and was moving at dizzying speed. Saleen knew that the goddess treated these as gifts to him.


    The levels of the elemental creatures at the fringes of the Imperial City had grown increasingly higher. They seemed to have had something to do with the heroic spirits in the cemetery. Saleen took them all in without question. He had nothing to lose anyway. Most elemental creatures were not intelligent and were devoid of emotions, acting solely on instinct. Those elemental creatures born of the Imperial City came to have something like magic arrays on them, enabling them to be put under control and guard the city.


    Saleen divided those elemental creatures into two types¡ªintelligent ones, which he threw into the magic cube after sealing them, and unintelligent ones, which he threw into the Ring of Cosmos right away.


    The goddess¡¯s speed was frightening. She was stopping and capturing elemental creatures along the way, yet still, Saleen had a hard time catching up to her. She wasted quite a bit of time capturing the elemental creatures as she toured all around the outskirts of the Imperial City. Saleen had finally gotten a good idea of howrge the city truly was.


    The city was about the size of an entire duchy found in Phoenix, and it might have even been somewhat more extensive than that. They moved deeper inside and found some powerful magic arrays at work.


    Those magic arrays were capable of continuing to work in the absence of their operators. Many buildings still stood, along with some weapons resembling statues.


    The goddess took care of them one after another before throwing all of them to Saleen.


    It was especially easy for her to do away with the magic arrays, which were like toys to the goddess, as theycked the ability to do her any harm at all. Saleen did not feel as though anything was out of ce. The goddess had been a level 18 mage before bing a god. Rather, it would have been peculiar if the magic arrays had actually been able to do her harm.


    The way that she was tearing down the magic arrays was unique¡ªshe simply thrust her hand into the center of them and pulled. Their entire inner workings were torn out right away.


    She threw all of that to Saleen as well. A god at her level and furthermore, one who had once been a level 18 mage, had no interest whatsoever in those magic array diagrams.


    Saleen had initially thought that she had only been doing it as a way to give him gifts, but he realizedter that she was not doing it for him at all. The goddess was simply moving too quickly. Her method of literally going in circles was meant to tear down theyers of the Imperial City¡¯s defenses, stripping the ce of thest pieces of resistance it had.


    What Saleen had gotten was only small piles of materials and magic array diagrams. The goddess would have definitely have had more than that herself. If she were actually gathering those things for Saleen, there was no need for her to waste her time and energy doing so.


    Saleen did not ask. He and the goddess were both moving at frightening speeds. If they were to continue advancing at speeds like that, it would have taken them less than a month to actually search the entire Imperial City.


    The goddess was very pleased with Saleen¡¯s attitude. She gradually made it further and further into the deeper parts of the Imperial City, and she slowed down somewhat. When they reached an area over 100 kilometers away from the pce, she left the astrology tower and some vastpounds untouched. She circled around them for the moment as if she was looking for something.


    They finally came before a tall tower. The goddess stopped and turned around, saying to Saleen, ¡°Stand guard outside. Regardless of whates out, shoot it with your lightning icicles. Don¡¯t let even a single one of them escape.¡±


    ¡°Sure,¡± Saleen agreed. Any monster capable of escaping the goddess was definitely worthy of caution. Anything that got past her might decide to attack him on its way out, so it was better for him to make the first move anyway.


    The goddess entered the tower and left Saleen standing outside. Saleen summoned his lightning warriors and had the towerpletely surrounded. The offensive capabilities of the lightning warriors were no longer what they had once been. The electrical discharge from them would have proven adequate enough to paralyze even some of the higher-leveled professionals.


    Thunder dragons shot out of Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier behind him as well. The Thunder Dragon Bangle split up, and 24 thunder dragons circled in the water. It looked as though they were enjoying themselves in the water, which was where they had spent most of their time when they were young.


    Saleen was just about to finish getting ready when over 20 Angels of Fear flew out of over a dozen of the tower¡¯s windows. All of the Angels of Fear were level 13 beings. Despite being a level 14 mage, he still did not dare to get close to the Angels of Fear.


    He remembered well how fast the Angels of Fear were capable of moving. That was how they moved inbat, instead of their movement resembling Saleen¡¯s Comet sh, which was the speed they used for traveling.


    A yellow light shone beneath Saleen¡¯s feet as he prepared to begin fighting them at any moment. Devastating explosions could be hearding from within the tower. It was unknown what the goddess was fighting against, but it was apparent that her hands were full and that she had no time or energy to help Saleen.


    Saleen fired his lightning icicles in multiple directions while the lightning warriors charged.


    The Angels of Fear all howled, yet their attacks were utterly useless against the lightning warriors. They were far better at defense than they were at offense unless they had reached the point where Saleen was, which was level 14.


    Over 10000 lightning warriors sealed the tower off using tightly packed formations. Every single Angel of Fear was being dealt with by over 1000 lightning warriors each. The ones that were hit by seven of the lightning icicles became paralyzed immediately after the projectiles prated their bodies. Saleen specifically targeted the huge face at their bellies.


    These Angels of Fear were different from the one that Saleen killed the first time. While they were of higher levels, their souls were not linked.


    The lightning warriors pounced on them while wielding all manner of weapons. While they might have been of lower levels, the weapons they used were made from the remains of god creatures. The seven Angels of Fear were taken apart in an instant, making it impossible for them even to attempt to resurrect. The lightning power gathered by thousands of lightning warriors was equal to one lightning attack fired by Saleen.


    The Angels of Fear howled in rage, yet their sound attacks had no effect on Saleen. His lightning territory had been cast, rendering the Angels of Fear¡¯s abilities utterly useless.


    The battles from then on out were hardly interesting. Saleen overwhelmed them with the sheer numbers of lightning warriors that he had deployed. That, coupled with offensive powers from lightning icicles, gradually wore down over 20 angels of fear, taking them apart piece by piece. He then threw their remains into his Ring of Cosmos.


    The skins of Angels of Fear were rare things that were capable of being made into War Drums of Fear. Those weapons were devastating against enemy armies.


    When Saleen was done cleaning up the battlefield, he saw the goddess hoisting a youth who had been tied up like a sack, as she walked out of the tower. That youth looked ferocious, spitting out a ck thread as soon as they saw Saleen, sending it right toward his face.

 Chapter 1493: Cleaning up the Imperial City of the Abyss (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1493: Cleaning up the Imperial City of the Abyss (Part 2)</h4>


    The Book of Lightning suddenly opened up before Saleen, sucking in the ck thread that the youth had shot at him.


    The goddess watched the scene, smiling, before slugging the youth hard on their face with her fist.


    ¡°Do you feel like staying put now? You really need to know the enemy you¡¯re dealing with before thinking about ambushing a mage,¡± the goddess said.


    That youth had been hit so hard by the goddess that half of their face caved in. However, instead of dying, the damage was quickly healed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care who you are. Release me, puny god, or face the wrath of the Heretic God. That wouldn¡¯t be something you¡¯d want to deal with,¡± the youth said.


    The goddessughed out loud before throwing the youth on the ground. She then said to Saleen, ¡°I saw that you killed the Lord of Glory¡¯s saint in order to bait him. Tell me, if I were to take my time torturing this believer of the Heretic God, would that thing advent?¡±


    Saleen felt like he was being yed. Almost nothing he had done had been able to escape the goddess¡¯ eyes. By then, he thought himself to really be stupid. If the goddess had one ne map, there was a good chance that she had a second one. It was fortunate that some of the hidden ces that he had visited were not detectable by the ne map.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. The Heretic God isn¡¯t decent after all,¡± Saleen replied.


    ¡°Neither is the Lord of Glory. Saleen, your way of thinking really is too rigid.¡± It was unclear if the goddess was teaching him a lesson or ying with him. She had sounded very gentle when she had spoken.


    The Thundering Sound in Saleen¡¯s soul repelled all temptations. ¡°So, you¡¯re taking this thing here to take on the Heretic God?¡± he said inly.


    ¡°Indeed. I¡¯m afraid that I¡¯m no match for the Heretic God. Not even level 18 scrolls would have worked. I need to get to those in the cemetery, but I¡¯m too much of a temptation to those dead fellows. If they were to eat me, they would then be able to break away from the cemetery,¡± she said.


    ¡°What should we do then?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Lend me your Lightning Moon,¡± the goddess said.


    Saleen felt somewhat shocked. That Lightning Moon had even more practical value than his Book of Lightning. What was even more important was that there was a level 15 god inside the Lightning Moon. While the goddess might have looked like she was of level 15 as well, it would have been incredibly easy for her to kill his weapon spirit.


    The resurrected goddess¡¯ familiarity with rules was no different than that of a level 18 god. Furthermore, the more powerful a god was, the stronger the suppression they were able to ce on beings of lower levels.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get reluctant on me. If I were to head inside the Cemetery of Heroes, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to get out without the Lightning Moon,¡± she said.


    ¡°Alright, but that thing...¡± Saleen pointed at the youth that the goddess had just caught and said, ¡°I¡¯m taking that thing.¡±


    ¡°Just who the h*ll...¡± the youth began to retort, but Saleen stuffed their mouth with a piece of tourmaline, which contained a lightning magic array diagram that Saleen had crafted on the fly. That lightning magic array diagram emitted lightning at all times, zapping the youth so severely that they were unable to utter a single word.


    ¡°Not bad,¡± the goddess said, praising Saleen. Despite being a very crude piece, Saleen¡¯s ability to craft equipment on the fly like that had nheless proven his abilities. She then waited quietly.


    Saleen took out the Lightning Moon in an exasperated manner. The Lightning Moon was shaped like a sphere with a radius of over half a meter, and it contained raging energies within.


    The goddess threw the Lightning Moon above her, and it then gradually disappeared above her head. The goddess was able to use the Lightning Moon¡¯s invisibility function as soon as she had touched it. Saleen became very annoyed, as her disy showed him just how much of a difference there was between the two of them in that sense.


    What if Myers intends to just take my Lightning Moon for herself then?


    She rolled her eyes at Saleen as if knowing what he was thinking, before adding, ¡°My words are contracts on their own. I¡¯d be borrowing your Lightning Moon for a bit, and I¡¯d be returning to you right after Ie out of the cemetery.¡±


    ¡°What if you end up being killed by those heroes?¡± Saleen asked. His question spoiled the mood.


    ¡°Then they would definitelye for you next,¡± the goddess replied. She turned around and headed straight for the cemetery. She was still hoisting around the youth she had captured, seemingly without any intention of handing them over to Saleen.


    Saleen knew that the youth had something to do with the Heretic God. They must have been part of what the goddess was going to use to negotiate with the heroic spirits. Saleen wanted the youth for their soul, which he could then extract and give to his teacher.


    He was unsure how far his teacher¡¯s Rings of Fire and Water had evolved, but he knew that there was something crucialcking with them. He was unable to tell precisely what that thing was, just that it was absolutely not a weapon spirit. However, that youth seemed to have something like that in their soul, which could serve as a recement.


    Saleen hated the thought of not getting into one more level. If he were at level 15, he would have been able to use the power of the soul with impunity. Right now, Saleen dared not infuse his soul deep into that youth¡¯s soul, as that would have been very dangerous. So much so that he could have died doing so.


    That thought reminded him of those heroic spirits who had died by his hand. The general had given them to him in order to prevent him from advancing. Saleen grew so angry at the thought that he wished that he was able to kill every single one of those people right then.


    Suddenly, instead of continuing forward, the goddess turned around as she reached the halfway point to the cemetery.


    Saleen was unable to help but asked, ¡°Where are we going, Myers?¡±


    ¡°The royal pce,¡± she replied.


    Saleen gasped. He had been to the royal pce twice, and he had been inside the Hall of Gods on both of those trips. Without the general¡¯s badge, he would not have even been able even to make it through the gates.


    ¡°What the heroic spirits are relying on is but thest bit of luck in the royal pce, and I¡¯m about to take that away,¡± the goddess said.


    ¡°The royal pce, huh...?¡± Saleen shook his head. He had no intention of stopping her. People like the goddess and the general were not the type to be convinced by others. It would have been great if the goddess was able to tear down the royal pce¡¯s defenses. At the very least, he would not have needed to worry about getting intercepted if he were to go there again.


    ¡°I take it that you¡¯ve used the Hall of Gods, given the rate you advanced at?¡± the goddess asked while walking in the lead.


    ¡°Indeed, I have,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take the Hall of Gods out, and you work on it. Consider this my payment,¡± she said.


    ¡°Payment?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Indeed. Payment for borrowing your Lightning Moon.¡±


    Saleen thought that if the Lightning Moon were to end up broken, there was nothing he could have done about it. If he had ess to the Hall of Gods, however, he would have been able to fuse it with the magic cube if he were indeed able to take it. Doing so would have been saying that he had created a miniaturized kingdom of his own, enabling more people to train within. Furthermore, a magic cube fused with the Hall of Gods would have been able to house a staggering amount of people. That ce would have served as a ce where mages and powerful soldiers were fostered.


    If he were to have an ample number of divine personas, he would be able to unite the entire Crystal Wall system instead of just Myers Maind.


    The thought of the Hall of Gods proved to be quite exciting to Saleen.


    The goddess smirked. She knew well what Saleen needed. She was concerned that Saleen would have acted against her for borrowing the Lightning Moon. Her abilities at lightning maniption were average at best, far inferior to lightning mages back in her day.


    That Lightning Moon had been a very famous piece of equipment back then. It would have at least served well for scaring the general public.


    However, it was still better to first tear down the royal pce. If the general and his people were to turn hostile against her, her powers would prove inadequate to take them on.


    A legendary figure like the goddess changed her mind within a split second, and there was not a single thing Saleen could have done about it. He had been receiving a lot from the goddess, so he had to help her.


    The goddess knew well that while Saleen was far weaker than she was, if she were to find a helping hand, Saleen was the strongest person avable in the entire Myers Maind.


    Jason would have been somewhat more powerful, but then, he...


    The goddess had no intention of dying together with Jason. He would have more or less gained such powers after getting to level 15. That was the pesky thing about secret arts from high-level crystal wall systems ¨C they enabled one to die together with one¡¯s enemy, so long as one fancied.


    The royal pce was in sight. The goddess reached the gate, gesturing for Saleen to stand back.


    All of the heroic spirits emerged from their graves in the Cemetery of Heroes, surrounding the general.


    ¡°G*dd*mn it. Myers is here, and she is thinking about attacking the royal pce!¡± one spirit said.


    ¡°General, there are still 1800 magic soldiers in the royal pce...¡± another stated.


    ¡°Of course, I know that!¡± The general said. It was quite a rare sight to see the general in such an irritable state. Those 1800 magic soldiers served as his capital after getting out. The goddess was targeting those magic soldiers as well.


    Magic soldiers were something avable only to the First Dynasty back in the day. Unlike elemental creatures, magic soldiers were crafted from powerful god creatures, which were scrubbed clean of their divinity and converted to operate on elements.


    After the 1800 magic soldiers lost their divinity, they lost any bit of intelligence as well, reducing them to merely powerful weapons. It was due to such powers that mages had been able to hold their own against astrologers.


    ¡°General, how about we head out now?¡± a heroic spirit asked.


    The general¡¯s face felt somewhat twisted. He sensed Saleen¡¯s presence, but what irked him somewhat was that he was unable to detect the heroic spirits following Saleen. Had those heroic spirits been killed by the Goddess of Myers?


    Those heroic spirits were of formidable levels. Any who had been willing to follow Saleen had given up any hope of being resurrected and had made a great sacrifice. If those heroic spirits were to die in vain, then the general would have had a score to settle with Saleen.


    Saleen had no idea whatsoever that he had already pissed off the general. He was still thinking about how to get the goddess and the general to fight each other. From the looks of things, the goddess did not seem to have any intentions of fighting the general; she was about to cooperate with the general to get rid of the Heretic God instead.


    Wouldn¡¯t Myers¡¯ powers alone be enough to take on the Heretic God? She has level 18 scrolls after all. Saleen had used something like that once, and it had left quite an impression on him. That indisputable power, undeniable ferocity, and control capable of locking down everything was unforgettable to him.


    The great enemy of his was without a doubt obliterated right after he had cast that level 18 scroll. Saleen had not known that scrolls without level requirements like those would have operated at a considerably reduced power. The goddess would have had scrolls that she used herself, and the Heretic God should not have been able to withstand something like that.


    The goddess pointed her finger forward, and a crow conjured by lightning flew out from the Lightning Moon. The crow was over a meter in length, and it mmed right into the pce¡¯s gate.


    A light point imploded and then expanded.


    That unceremonious process seemed to have ended within an instant. Saleen looked at the gates at the royal pce and noticed a round hole in them. The hole had a diameter of over 12 meters. It was as if there had been nothing where the hole now was.


    This really is some powerful lightning magic indeed!


    The scene sent Saleen¡¯s blood boiling. That Lightning Moon had limitless lightning powers in it, and it had been a pity that he had not been able to have direct ess to them. He was only able to use bits through Dante the weapon spirit. If he were to grow into someone like the goddess, there would be no need for him to be afraid of the Lord of Glory¡¯s invasion.


    No number of angels would have been able to withstand attacks of such a scale.

 Chapter 1494: Magic Soldier (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1494: Magic Soldier (Part 1)</h4>


    The goddess turned around and smirked before saying to Saleen, ¡°Electric snake, thunder hawk, and lightning raven. They are conjurations of lightning skills at levels 15, 16, and 17, respectively. Do you know what level 18 would be?¡±


    Saleen shook his head, and the goddess answered, ¡°Thunder dragon.¡±


    Seeing that Saleen had been rendered speechless, the goddess continued, saying, ¡°When other people learn lightning magic, they take it upwards one level at a time. You¡¯re quite an exception, keeping so many thunder dragons and having even dissected one. I¡¯m sure you are now very clear about the inner structure of thunder dragons. When you¡¯ve amassed enough power to manipte lightning, you¡¯ll be able to conjure a true level 18 thunder dragon. By then, you¡¯d be able to grind that Heretic God to dust.¡±


    Saleen noticed that the goddess had said he would be able to grind the Heretic God to dust instead of saying that he would be able to kill it in one shot. It seemed that the Heretic God would not be so easy to deal with.


    Level 18 thunder dragons, huh? Saleen had been doing research in the clouds before and had found that when lightning reached a certain level of power, it exceeded what godly items were able to defend, making evasion using skills the only option to deal with lightning attacks.


    But then again, no one had any doubt about the frightening speed of lightning. Evading lightning attacks once or twice was feasible, but prolonged evasion would have been like dancing at the edge of a cliff.


    Saleen finally calmed down. Despite having borrowed his Lightning Moon, she still nheless had given him pointers on how to use it. That proved a lot more useful to Saleen than when she had been chucking a good number of items to him earlier.


    There was no material that would have truly been out of his reach, so long as he became powerful enough. But of course, he still had to take the Hall of Gods away. That was a piece of equipment like no other, after all. Its function of serving as a training ground was just one of the many features that the Hall of Gods had. So long as he kept advancing, it would have only been a matter of time before finding out the other functions the Hall of God offered.


    ¡°Wealth is always enticing. But you¡¯re a mage, Saleen. Fix that shoring of yours, and your future will always be bright.¡± The goddess broke down the gates of the pce, all while still giving pointers to Saleen.


    ¡°Wealth is what drives people to advance,¡± Saleen added. That was a well-known saying of the Sikeqinyans.


    The goddess shook her head and stepped into the pce. Hundreds of magic attacks rained down from above. The goddess shouted, and the attacks were immediately dispelled.


    The power of rules!


    That was the first time Saleen had seen someone using the power of rules in battle. The goddess was capable of nullifying elemental magic attacks altogether. That meant that if he were to fight the goddess, the only magic he would have been able to use against her was that of lightning.


    Saleen recalled Lex¡¯s skill, which was capable of nullifying the sword aura of warriors. That somewhat resembled the ability shown by the goddess just then.


    That was but a stray thought, yet an idea then struck his mind out of nowhere, which caused him to shudder.


    Wait, does that mean that such powers could be acquired without mastering rules?


    Saleen remembered that Lex was not even at level nine when she hade to master such powers. If there were to be someone wielding secret arts capable of copsing sword aura, then it was only a matter of fact that abilities used specifically against elements existed.


    Be it Elemental Lockdown or the anti-magic territory, none had been wielded with the extent of finesse disyed by the Goddess of Myers, and nowhere as straightforward as Lex¡¯s secret arts as well.


    Saleen had been searching within the many secret arts that his teacher had imparted upon him, and he still was unable to find something resembling such abilities in them. However, he was far from being frustrated. Instead, he went on to record what the goddess did in detail in the crudest of ways.


    High-level magic was incapable of being retained using memory magic, yet human memory would have still worked.


    Saleen forced himself to memorize the way the goddess had been disrupting the spells and made it a point to look into it at ater date. The ability did not expend magic chords, and if he were to be able to lower the level requirement, it would have truly be something surpassing anti-magic territory.


    Anti-magic territories were incapable of distinguishing friend from foe, rendering all elements within its vicinity out of use.


    What the goddess did, however, was fully able to tell spells fired by friendlies from those fired by foes. It would have been a lot more useful than anti-magic territory.


    Saleen followed right behind the goddess, observing how she tore down thousands of spells as she walked, before arriving at a magic array. The goddess pointed her finger, and a thunder hawk shot out of the Lightning Moon, charging inside the magic array. The magic array shook alongside the ground and was then reduced to dust.


    The results of the attack were superb, and yet Myers sighed instead, mumbling to herself, ¡°The passage of time is too quick here. Who knows just how many years have flown by in this ce? So many that the defenses have been reduced to such levels, being torn down by a level 16 thunder hawk and all.¡±


    Saleen took the opportunity to look into the way the goddess manipted the thunder hawk in detail.


    He had mastered the electric snake. The thunder hawk, lightning raven, and finally, the thunder dragon, were the most powerful beings capable of being conjured by lightning magic. As for the others, Saleen had no intention of learning them for the time being. Lightning powers were ferocious and difficult to control. It would have done him little good learning too much. While the thunder hawk disappeared shortly after, he was nheless able to grasp all of the internal structure of that conjured being.


    That was the perks of having formidable power of the soul. The Eye of Souls alone would not have been able to get the job done.


    The goddess tore that magic array apart, but she was able to extract its diagram. She took out a massive piece of crystal instead. The crystal looked structurally damaged.


    The goddess sighed and threw that huge broken piece of crystal to Saleen. She then continued forward. Saleen pointed to his left and said, ¡°Myers...¡±


    ¡°I know. The Hall of Gods is over there. I was able to craft something like that back when I was alive. It was nothing. I¡¯d be able to do it again so long as I¡¯ve killed enough high-level gods. I intend to take out the pce¡¯s defenses altogether, and there are still over 1800 magic soldiers to take care of. You really need to be on guard afterward, Saleen.¡±


    Be on guard? What was that supposed to mean?


    Saleen was still puzzled when the gates before him opened. Hundreds of soldiers charged down the stairs at the center of the gates.


    Saleen felt as though the men were made up of hundreds of generals. His own generals were not as well-equipped as those soldiers. Saleen¡¯s elite soldiers were all wearing Tainted Blood Armor now, and his generals were all wearing armors that would havested until level 13.


    Saleen was unable to see what level the armor worn by the soldiers were. He felt that only the one Sika wore would have been able topare.


    Sika¡¯s armor was only superior in terms of the materials that were used. As far as craftsmanship was concerned, the quality of hers was far below that of the soldiers.


    The soldiers¡¯ feet did not touch the ground at all. They tore a white line in the water as they charged at the goddess. The weapons they held looked old and unassuming. They carried halberds,nces, huge maces, and even serrated broadswords.


    Those weapons all came with very high strength requirements to wield. Those weapons, which were made of wrought gold, were something that professionals below level nine were unable even to lift.


    The goddess smirked and said, ¡°Saleen, these are mine.¡±


    She then cast one sealing magic spell after another, encasing the magic soldiers who rushed at her in something resembling cocoons. Saleen was dazzled by sealing methods that were capable of being witnessed by the naked eye.


    So that kid had been sealed by Myers, then.


    The magic soldiers¡¯ power came from elements, and the goddess¡¯ seals ced a lockdown on those elemental powers. The powerful magic soldiers were utterly helpless against her.


    She was actually rxed enough to be able to spare some time to talk. ¡°This might look easy,¡± she said, ¡°but that is only because I was the one who designed them.¡±


    Saleen had calmed down by then. The magic soldiers looked to be powerful beings at least around level 15 or 16, yet they were easily sealed by the goddess without her having to use the power of the Lightning Moon. Everything just looked too surreal.


    It was worth noting that the goddess herself was only able to wield powers at such levels herself. Her personalbat prowess did not even reach level 18.


    However, every mage had their tricks when crafting magical items, leaving backdoors in the equipment that they crafted. But then again, unless the user of that equipment was an enemy of the crafter, said mage would not have made use of those backdoors.


    Those magic soldiers had been designed by the goddess, and she alone knew how to exploit the weaknesses within them.


    Saleen was confident that he was able to subjugate puppets he created without breaking a sweat as well, regardless of their level.


    The general in the Cemetery of Heroes watched what was urring in the pce with a furious expression. He did not say a word. He, too, knew that it was her who had designed those magic soldiers and that she would have been able to take them on. Furthermore, he knew that it would have been a piece of cake for her.


    By possessing over 1800 magic soldiers, the power of the goddess would have almost rivaled his.


    She had once been a level 18 mage and was capable of manipting elements. She was also a god, as well...


    The general was only hoping that that one piece of equipment of hers had already been broken or lost altogether. He would not be able to kill the goddess otherwise. The grandmaster also stood at the general¡¯s side, firm and unshakable, for the first time. He then asked, ¡°Do you think that Myers would¡¯ve destroyed the great hall in the pce as well?¡±


    ¡°She would!¡± the general said.


    ¡°Then, we...¡±


    ¡°We still have a shot. Myers came to the Imperial City of the Abyss instead of heading straight for the pce. She is definitely up to something, and her goal may not be us,¡± the general exined.


    ¡°May not be us?¡± the grandmaster asked.


    ¡°Hmph, grandmaster, are you telling me that you don¡¯t know that the imperial city is being invaded by something else?¡±


    The grandmaster lowered his head. He knew that there were gods of foreign nes attempting to enter, but they did not seem to be all that powerful. If he were able to leave the cemetery, he would have been able to crush that thing with his hands easily. He was puzzled as to why the general would have taken notice.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t gotten to level 18, so you wouldn¡¯t understand just how difficult it is to deal with gods at those levels. It is especially so with ancient gods. We are quite a distance away from our king, and the gap is just as wide, between those gods and us,¡± the general said.


    ¡°That couldn¡¯t be possible,¡± the grandmaster retorted.


    ¡°Heh, why do you think Myers wanted to be a god, then? She was doing it to look into that secret. Her talents would have made her the most powerful mage in the First Dynasty otherwise, and it would have been possible for her to traverse the crystal wall system and be something even more powerful,¡± the general said.


    The grandmaster was speechless. He was haughty, but regardless of how insolent he had been, he never thought he would have been able to surpass her.


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s been many, many years. She perished once, and her powers would have been limited after her resurrection. She wouldn¡¯t have gone to gather the magic soldiers otherwise. She is afraid that we might just end up killing her. That Myers, who had no fear, would havee to see a day like this.¡± The general thenughed. The heroic spirits only felt somewhat relieved after that.


    The goddess took over an hour to seal all of the magic soldiers before chucking them into her bangle.


    Seeing how Saleen eyed the soldiers, she then said, ¡°I need 1200 of them and 300 more on standby. You could have 300 of them. Come with me. I¡¯ll work on all of them and theny down arge magic array. This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance for you to see me work on living magic arrays. So, don¡¯t get greedy on me.¡±

 Chapter 1495: Magic Soldier (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1495: Magic Soldier (Part 2)</h4>


    The goddess took Saleen on a detour around a vastpound, heading straight for the Hall of Gods.


    Saleen then asked cautiously, ¡°Are you the one who designed the Hall of Gods?¡±


    ¡°No. His majesty was the one who designed it,¡± she said. Despite the First Dynasty being gone for tens of thousands of years, the goddess addressed him as ¡®his majesty¡¯ nheless. He had been the one and only mage in the entire empire who was more powerful than her in every way.


    Saleen did not ask any further. He followed the goddess to the back of the Hall of Gods. She pushed opened a secret door and entered.


    Seeing Saleen¡¯s puzzled look, she then exined, ¡°His majesty left a backdoor as well, back then...¡±


    ¡°I get it.¡± Saleen made it clear that he understood. The goddess might have been very, very close with the emperor all those years ago.


    The goddess stepped up to the outside of the magic array as soon as she entered the hall. She then took out a level 18 magic nucleus. The size of that magic nucleus was almostparable to a table. Under the goddess¡¯ divine powers, shepressed the magic nucleus to standard size before embedding it into the magic array.


    ¡°I will be staying here for a month, so don¡¯t do anything to that fellow just yet. When I¡¯m done working on those magic soldiers, I¡¯ll need that thing as a bargaining chip to use with those at the cemetery,¡± she said.


    Saleen nodded in agreement and walked away to sit down and train.


    The goddess found his attitude satisfactory. Mages who trained diligently regardless of time and ce would be able to achieve a lot, even though they might becking in talent.


    Saleen worked on things methodically. He needed time to digest all of the lightning skills, as well as the maniption of territorial and rule powers, that the goddess had shown him. The goddess did not give him any pointers regarding any of those. Saleen had simply watched from the sidelines and memorized everything the goddess cast, relying solely on his own memory.


    The goddess began to take out some magic soldiers that she had sealed away and started working on them. Saleen¡¯s power of the soul was powerful enough to recall all the abilities that the goddess had cast while still observing how she worked on the magic soldiers.


    Magic soldiers were crafted using the bodies of god creatures, meaning that they had almost zero affinity for elements. They were then crafted into weapons capable of containing the six elements by humans using magic. Saleen knew little about the processes involved, but he had purified believers of the Heretic God before. Those believers had be attribute-less materials after being purified.


    Saleen watched from the side. The goddess stripped every single magic pattern from the magic soldiers¡¯ bodies beforeying down eight new magic patterns on every single one of them. The new magic patterns were that of the six major elements, as well as those of death magic and lightning magic.


    The lightning patterns that sheid down were apparently copied from those on the Lightning Moon. She had little use for them; they were made for Saleen instead.


    The goddess threw all 300 of them to Saleen when she was finished working on them. She became even more familiar and quick with her work the longer she did so. Those 300 were experimental units meant only for her to get familiar with how to work with them.


    The goddess only truly began working on the rest after Saleen put away his 300 magic soldiers.


    The goddess spun her red bangle lightly, and the entire Hall of Gods became filled with her territory. The appearances of the gods on the walls of the ce became blurred. The whole hall turned jade-green, and countless petals danced in the air, looking just like the miniaturized Water Shield that Saleen cast. The lines on the petals were all magic patterns without a single divine script found on them.


    The Goddess of Myers was actually able to manipte magic using the power of gods.


    Saleen became very excited. He had never heard of something like that before. If the Goddess of Myers was able to manipte magic right away without requiring power of faith, there would have been no need for Saleen to kill her.


    The entire Hall of Gods became connected to the ground of the Imperial City of the Abyss. The power of earth element was continuously extracted, making the ce extremely stable. However, under the goddess¡¯ maniption, that brilliant-looking territory continued to extract the power of the earth, then severing the connection between the hall and the ground.


    Saleen was unable to work with that kind of precision with such a level of rule powers. He was only able to manipte a bit of lightning rules, after all. The goddess did not intend to guide Saleen in anything. How much he would be able to pick up was entirely up to him.


    The goddess then threw the remaining 1500 magic soldiers into her territory. The mass crafting made every single one of them look life-like. The weapons in their hands came to have tens of thousands of magic arrays all over them.


    The goddess then selected 1200 magic soldiers and had them guarding her. A natural huge magic array was formed with her as the core. The goddess served like a magic nucleus embedded at the center of a magic array. She stood at the center, unleashing extremely powerful energies. The magic array had wholly severed the connection between the Hall of Gods with that of the ground, with her serving as the center.


    Saleen then saw bits of divine power being infused within, and the entire Hall of Gods levitated.


    ¡°What are you waiting for, Saleen?¡± The goddess shouted, and it was only then that Saleen came to. He unleashed all of his power of the soul and took the whole ce inside his magic amplifier.


    The Hall of Gods began to fuse with the magic cube. The goddess controlled her power and pulled her divine power out of Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier bit by bit.


    Divine power was pulled out, and Water mes entered. He knew that the goddess intended to tear down the foundations of the imperial city altogether.


    What could I do? If I let this slip past my fingers, I won¡¯t get another opportunity like this ever again.


    The general was stingy, requiring Saleen to seek his permission every time the mage wanted to enter the Hall of Gods. If the general had just given the badge to Saleen, he might not have ended up doing what he did on that day.


    ¡°The Hall of Gods had a great many functions, but they were of little use to level 18 beings. That ce served as a symbol of the royal pce. If you ever advance to level 18, Saleen, don¡¯t use this thing anymore,¡± the goddess reminded him.


    Saleen nodded. He had taken the Hall of Gods for himself, and there was no reason for him to feel unsatisfied. No one knew how long it would take him to advance to level 18. Even if he were able to speed up time in the Hall of Gods, all of the requirements for advancing further still needed to be fulfilled.


    He looked as if he had been advancing to level 14 at breakneck speed, despite actually having spent over 2200 years doing so. He spent every single second of that time doing what he should have done and did not waste any of it. That meant that he was actually well over 2200 years old.


    The passage of time in the Hall of Gods did more than just allow one¡¯s magic to advance; it also wore on one¡¯s lifespan. If he were to ck off while still inside the Hall of Gods, he would have simply died faster than most people.


    Saleen calmed considerably after putting the Hall of Gods away. Those 1800 magic soldiers were thest of the royal pce¡¯s defenses. If the Goddess of Myers had not been there, it would have been the Lord of Glorying instead, and he would have ended up being killed by those magic soldiers without any chance of escape.


    The goddess¡¯s mood lightened up considerably. She then said to Saleen, ¡°I was just doing a friend a favor out of goodwill. I never expected that I would have a use for the magic soldiers today.¡±


    Saleen was wondering if leaving a backdoor on the magic soldiers could have been considered an act of goodwill.


    The goddess seemed to have known what Saleen was thinking and continued, saying, ¡°Do you know just how strenuous it had been to design something that powerful? I had to even fork out some of the materials on my own. Back then... I never thought I would have wanted to tear this ce apart. I gave a lot to this ce.¡±


    Saleen had no words, so he stayed silent instead.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s check out the Cemetery of Heroes,¡± she said.


    Saleen then pointed at the pce behind and asked, ¡°You¡¯re not going there?¡±


    ¡°No. I¡¯ll show the old friends some decency. I¡¯m afraid that is where their bones wereid to rest. What is inside the Cemetery of Heroes are but...¡±


    She did not continue. The fates of the general and the rest of the heroes had been bad. It was not their will to end up as such.


    All 1200 magic soldiers disappeared from the water. That was their way of concealing themselves. Saleen was impressed with the goddess¡¯ powers. Dante, who was inside the Lightning Moon, was capable of turning invisible. He had no idea how the goddess managed to learn that trick.


    Furthermore, the goddess had be increasingly familiar with the way of lightning maniption. While it was impossible for her to reach the highest of levels, the Lightning Moon would have allowed her to beat down anyone below level 17.


    The lightning raven was a level 17 lightning creature, which was just one level below the thunder dragon.


    Saleen followed right behind the goddess and felt it to be quite a pity. What he had been able to learn within a single month was mediocre. Her level was too high, and the rules she mastered were not things he could have picked up easily.


    Saleen only realized by then that, even if the goddess were on the same level as him, she still would have been able to kill him in the blink of an eye.


    The Figure of Fate would not have been able to save him. Her control powers were such that the Lord of Glory was not even worth mentioning whenpared to her.


    After the Imperial City was ransacked by the goddess, there was hardly anything of value left behind. ording to Saleen¡¯s thoughts, there was no way the general would have forgiven what she did.


    However, when he saw the goddess walking into the Cemetery of Heroes, the heroic spirits went up to wee her. The generalughed heartily, and the grandmaster shed a friendly smile.


    Saleen came to realize that when someone became powerful enough, those heroic spirits would show their most amicable side to them no matter what.


    But then, what if all of this was all just a ruse?


    ¡°Saleen...¡±


    The goddess called, and he went up, throwing the youth that the goddess had sealed on the ground.


    ¡°Myers, what is this?¡± the general asked, pretended as if he knew nothing.


    ¡°Something like an oracle of the Heretic God. It¡¯s been many years since Ist saw you, general. You are as pretentious as always!¡± The goddess¡¯s words were as sharp as des, yet the general¡¯s face was as thick as steel. He did not mind at all, saying instead, ¡°None of us are able to leave the Cemetery of Heroes, Myers. We couldn¡¯t do much to stop the Heretic God even if we wanted to.¡±


    ¡°What if I tear your graves apart then?¡± the goddess asked in a pointed tone.


    ¡°Oh, that won¡¯t be good, Myers. You¡¯re a god, after all. If I knew I was going to die, I¡¯d definitely take the god nearest to me with me,¡± the general answered.


    ¡°You said it then!¡± The goddess thenshed out with a palm strike. The attack was a pure martial art move, and it sent Saleen outside the cemetery. Saleen was shocked to find out that the goddess was going to do it right there and then.


    He knew that his Lightning Moon was probably done for. D*mn it. That Lightning Moon might have only been a piece of equipment of enormous value to others, but to him, that thing held the key to his advancement.


    Saleen had no idea that the goddess had been polite to him because he was nothing in her eyes, and he was far below the goddess¡¯s notice. The likes of the general, however, were people that the goddess would have wasted no time negotiating with. She intended to subjugate those people the hard way.

 Chapter 1496: Thought Patterns of Powerful Beings (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1496: Thought Patterns of Powerful Beings (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen was unable to see anything that was happening within the Cemetery of Heroes very clearly. He only saw a good number of magic spells shooting out of the goddess¡¯ wrist, destroying the graves one after another.


    He heard the general¡¯s angry roar as well. That roar was a tremendous one, which almost caused the seawater around them to shake so badly that it seemed as though it was about to evaporate. Saleen was only able to put up his Water Shield, and he resisted it head-on while outside of the cemetery.


    The graves in the Cemetery of Heroes were broken up one after another, and yet the goddess had no intention of stopping. She had to make the general yield in order to make her ns work.


    ¡°Alright, what do you want? I¡¯ll work with you!¡± the general said.


    The goddess only stopped her attacks after he spoke. She pointed at the youth who was sealed beneath her feet and said, ¡°I¡¯m going to kill the Heretic God, but I can¡¯t do it on my own. I need your help.¡±


    ¡°Deal!¡± The general then gestured to the grandmaster, telling him to fix the graves destroyed by the goddess.


    ¡°Hold on for a second. A contract,¡± the goddess said as she threw a contract scroll that had been prepared beforehand in front of the general.


    The general knew what the goddess was like. She had already acquired help in the form of over 1000 magic soldiers, and she was almost capable of casting elemental powers at a near-limitless capacity. Furthermore, there was another powerful piece of equipment above her that she had yet to deploy. If the general were to fight her, the best he could have done was to kill both himself and the goddess in one shot. But if he were to do that, it would have been the end of the Cemetery of Heroes.


    If the goddess were to have had some other requests, however, the general would have chosen death and refused her instead.


    But, the goddess had said she wanted to kill another god, and so the general was unable to refuse.


    Saleen¡¯s jaw was gaping as he watched what was happening from outside. He thought the general would have resisted with his life, and the goddess would have deployed the Lightning Moon, killing every single heroic spirit within.


    It seemed as though the general did know how to weigh the pros and cons, as well as makepromises.


    Saleen had actually thought wrong. The general¡¯s hands were forced, and he had had to yield. He knew the Goddess of Myers too well. She was one who would have never turned back on her word and would have seen it through to the end. If the heroic spirits were to all end up dead, the Heretic God would have been the one with the most to gain instead.


    Despite being a goddess, she at least refrained from killing if at all possible, and there were still other ways to deal with her. If they were to be able to leave the Cemetery of Heroes, the power of the general would have recovered considerably.


    ¡°No need to fix them. I¡¯ve only brought 180 divine personas on this trip.¡± The goddess¡¯s voice was cold as she threw the divine personas out. The general took them in his hand, feeling hesitant.


    ¡°Heh, I¡¯m not going to absorb the rules within the divine personas this time. I¡¯m walking another path. General, all 180 of these divine personas are low-level ones, but they would allow you all to leave the cemetery for quite some time. I¡¯d need 100 men before I even have a shot at taking on the Heretic God,¡± the goddess said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have magic soldiers with you?¡± the general asked.


    ¡°They¡¯re reserved for dealing with you people,¡± the goddess said frankly. Both sides would likely remain enemies after they killed the Heretic God together.


    The goddess had everything well-nned. Those divine personas would have been able to allow about 100 heroic spirits to leave the cemetery for the time being.


    Those hundred would have needed to kill the Heretic God as quickly as possible in order to still have had time to deal with her. If they were to take on the goddess first, then the chances of being able to take down the Heretic God would have been considerably reduced.


    She actually had more of those divine personas with her. She killed a great number of low-level gods after all, and the number of divine personas she gathered were only treated as decorations instead of being used for crafting equipment.


    The goddess had done meticulous calctions before taking out the 180 divine personas of low-level gods.


    Over 60 divine personas were taken by just the general and the grandmaster alone. They signed the contract under her watchful eye, then slowly took their time with absorbing the divine personas. Broken graves were everywhere in the Cemetery of Heroes. The goddess did not let emotions get in her way when she acted. She knew very well that if she had not subjugated the magic soldiers and brought the Lightning Moon with her, the heroic spirits would have definitely ganged up on her, tearing her apart and eating her up.


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen enough out there. Come on in.¡± The goddess called Saleen, who was still standing outside of the cemetery.


    After walking into the ce again, Saleen had only just discovered that the fighting had been more intense than what he had imagined. The goddess had already lost over 100 magic soldiers, and all of them had been destroyed by the general and the grandmaster. From what he was able to see inside, at least one-third of the graves in the cemetery had been destroyed by the goddess.


    Those heroic spirits had beenpletely destroyed, and there was no hope of resurrection for them.


    The enmity between the general and the goddess ran deep and went back a long time. So, what about me, then? I was the one who brought her here, and I was the one who lent her the Lightning Moon. The general is probably itching to kill me too, no?


    Saleen felt somewhat frustrated. He had to stand with the goddess, whether he liked it or not. If the goddess were to die, he would not have been able to escape the general¡¯s wrath.


    The goddess did indeed have her way with things. She might have looked short-sighted, yet she was actually meticulous with her machinations.


    The benefits that he had received from her were hardly worth mentioning. It was being able to remain alive that he should have been grateful for.


    The goddess waved and had Saleen enter her territory. She then shrunk the area of the territory considerably. Saleen had to stand within three meters of her before he was able to feel the territory¡¯s protection.


    ¡°So, Saleen, you¡¯re finally in the mood to y nice with me?¡± The goddess shed a beautiful, brimming smile at Saleen, looking very happy.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t need to go that far,¡± Saleen answered, exasperated.


    ¡°Really? I¡¯m not certain that I¡¯d be able to get you to help me wholeheartedly, otherwise,¡± she replied.


    ¡°It would do if you just give me enough goodies. I¡¯m weak when ites to riches. What you¡¯re doing now is only causing me to resent you,¡± he said.


    ¡°And you think I care that you resent me? Saleen, I was still very humble when I was at your level, and everybody liked me.¡± The goddess¡¯s mood had gotten even better.


    ¡°Is that so, eh?¡± Saleen mumbled just to give her an answer. He was able to hear Dante¡¯s voice deep within his soul.


    ¡°Master, how about we ambush her and kill this witch once and for all?¡± Dante was getting extremely frustrated, hiding in the Lightning Moon. It felt as though the level of the goddess was not far off from its own, and it had three divine personas, making it equal to three level 15 gods.


    ¡°Hold your horses. You¡¯re no match for her at all!¡± Saleen immediately stopped Dante¡¯s scheming. Dante still did not understand the difference between it and the goddess. Even if Dante were to have impable control of lightning, it still would not have been enough to hurt the goddess, who had once been at the pinnacle of the ne¡¯s powers.


    ¡°Master!¡± Dante said.


    ¡°Shut up!¡± Saleen did not want to talk to Dante anymore. He suspected that the goddess actually knew that he wasmunicating with someone else through his soul.


    ¡°Rx, Saleen. I¡¯m quite interested in that god too. I never imagined you could actually control something like that,¡± the goddess¡¯ voice suddenly appeared in Saleen¡¯s soul.


    Dante immediately stopped speaking. It knew by then that Saleen was not wrong. That weapon spirit god was indeed no match for the goddess.


    Saleen could not find the right words to shoot back at the goddess.


    ¡°Saleen, you may not know what kind of beings the heroic spirits are. Actually, the lifespan of heroic spirits is somewhat simr to the gods. They lived on the power of faith. Why do you think they like stuff rted to gods so much, especially divine personas?¡± The goddess and Saleen spoke behind the heroic spirits¡¯ backs. Saleen¡¯s reaction deep in his soul was still unable to escape the goddess¡¯ probing.


    Saleen had no choice but to really think about the question. The general and his people had indeed been eerie. Souls would have usually dissipated when one died before they returned to mere matter.


    Even if they were to be converted into spirits, they would have actually lost a considerable amount of power of the soul. Dead spirits were incapable of remembering their past lives unless their level surpassed level 15, enabling them to recover their lost souls.


    The heroic spirits did resemble the gods somewhat, or it should have been said, that they resembled believers of gods.


    Believers of gods would have lived indefinitely in divine kingdoms, which was kind of simr to the heroic spirits when they were in their graves.


    Saleen took a fragment and took a look at it, sensing that it contained rules of space that contained power, as well as some other attribute-less ones having some rules in them. The heroic spirits did resemble the gods somewhat.


    ¡°But then again, these fragments alone wouldn¡¯t have been able to make you believe anything. Human faith is something very difficult to make out clearly. The graves of those heroic spirits are not good. If the general and the others were to resurrect, it would have made the Imperial City of the Abyss something like a divine kingdom, and that Heretic God would have been able to take it for itself,¡± the goddess said.


    Saleen shuddered at her words. He was unable to help but ask, ¡°Are you saying that the general knew all of that?¡±


    ¡°Heh, he just thought that he would get a lucky shot and kill the Heretic God when the time came. If the Heretic God was really able to make it into the Imperial City, there was no way he could have done anything to resist,¡± she answered.


    Saleen was at a loss for words. From his perspective, the general had at least been concerned with the rise and fall of Myers Maind, and he could have been considered a man of principle. Saleen did not think that the general would have made such a decision at all. If that ce were to be a divine kingdom, then the Heretic God would have had an easy way of getting in and doing so with all its powers.


    Attacking Myers Maind from the Imperial City of the Abyss would have been a piece of cake. If the general were unable to kill the Heretic God, the entire maind would have fallen.


    Saleen knew just how terrifying the Heretic God was. Just a speck of that god¡¯s aura would have made anyone its believer.


    The only choices avable were to either be killed by it or submit to it. The Heretic God did not bother with enticement. The way it went about business was through sheer violence. A god like that was more terrifying than the Lord of Glory. The Lord of Glory was still someone who hoped that he could dupe his believers, resorting only to bloody means when he was out of other options. The Lord of Glory would not have dealt divine punishment so long as his believers remained loyal and had not taken up the faith of another god.


    It seemed that the only thing humans were able to trust was contracts.


    Saleen feltplicated, yet the goddess said, ¡°Saleen, if you were at our height, you¡¯d think differently as well.¡±


    The goddess wanted more than just to chat with him. She called Saleen to her side and handed a bunch of water magic scrolls to him. No level 18 things were given to him at that time; the highest of all of them were only level 15. That was also the most formidable of powers that Saleen was able to cast.


    She was able to see his weaknesses, and she was able to make those weaknesses into strengths. The body of water element would have allowed him to raise attacks from water elemental scrolls somewhat. That had nothing to do with the power of the soul used when unraveling the scrolls.


    On top of giving him the scrolls, she had also taught him how to control the magic soldiers.


    The 300 magic soldiers that the goddess had made for him had all been imbued with lightning magic patterns. They were made specifically for him. Saleen could have used them in his own unique ways, making all manner of magic arrays by arranging those magic soldiers in formations.


    That was the first time the goddess had truly guided Saleen, and he was unusually attentive to those lessons.

 Chapter 1497: Thought Patterns of Powerful Beings (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1497: Thought Patterns of Powerful Beings (Part 2)</h4>


    The goddess had once been a level 18 mage. She was able to tell what Saleen needed with just one look and gave him lessons specifically tailored to him. She finally came to provide him with what truly mattered.


    No amount of equipment and wealth could havepared to the value of a mage¡¯s personal experience in training.


    Saleen would not have to worry about equipment and wealth when he reached level 18. If he were to be stuck as a mage at level 14, it would have been only a matter of time before he was surpassed by someone else. None of his equipment would have been able to ensure that Saleen was able to stand at the peak of power.


    The case with the general made Saleen realize that, when one stands at the very peak, they simply look up to even greater heights, and absolutely do not bother looking down at the pointless things below them.


    The goddess had effectively made it so that Saleen was unable to leave her side by imparting her magical knowledge to him when he ran into a dead end. If she had not wanted Saleen as an ally of hers, she would not have bothered doing so.


    To the goddess, Saleen had be someone useful to her, and there mighte a day where they would actually get along as equals, or at least as enemies worthy of each other¡¯s respect.


    One way or another, Saleen would finally get his dues after paying the price.


    Guidance from the goddess would have probably been the most valuable thing he could have found on that ne.


    ¡°First of all, hand me back the Lightning Moon.¡± Saleen saw that it would take quite a bit of time for the general and his people to be done with the divine personas. The magic cube was also fusing with the Hall of Gods inside his magic amplifier at an excruciatingly slow rate.


    He was still at level 14, so it would have worked better to let Dante take care of Water me control.


    The goddess had no doubt knew what Saleen wanted. She chucked the invisible Lightning Moon into Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier. Dante only sighed a breath of relief after it was inside. Under Saleen¡¯s orders, it began to speed up the fusion between the magic cube and the Hall of Gods.


    The magic cube was able to preserve the Hall of God¡¯s attributes and expand its space. Such a fusion worked to ensure the strength of the magic cube as well, instead of being like it was before¡ªstructurally weak and full of shorings.


    Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier had alreadye to possess considerable space within. He was currently a level 14 mage. By the time he reached level 15, he would have been able to establish his nation inside, just like how Raphael had done it.


    While the space within the magic amplifier was stable, it was incapable of growing nts and nurturing living beings. Space was not enough without celestial entities.


    Sika¡¯s metal totem pole was actually better inparison.


    However, with the addition of the Hall of Gods, all those things mentioned above would have been possible. The magic amplifier was already a space capable of sustaining life on its own, and Saleen had actually nned to fuse the Baldur¡¯s Gate instead.


    But then again, the level of the Baldur¡¯s Gate was simply too high. Such fusion would have taken tens of thousands of years toplete. The Hall of Gods, on the other hand, despite being made of remains of high-level gods, was inferior to the Baldur¡¯s Gate in terms of its own level.


    With the help of the goddess and knowing where the backdoor of the Hall of Gods was, Saleen would have only needed several years to fuse the Hall of Gods with the magic cubepletely.


    Saleen was multitasking at the moment, but with the help of Dante, everything still went smoothly. More than a month passed before they realized it. The general had yet to absorb the divine personaspletely, but the goddess was unable to wait any longer.


    ¡°General, if you¡¯re still going to take your sweet time...¡± she said.


    The goddess then pointed a very long nail at the brow of the youth she sealed, and said, ¡°I¡¯ll just use bait to draw the Heretic God over using the quickest way possible.¡±


    That youth¡¯s eyes glittered. It was unknown what was going on in their mind.


    Saleen smirked coldly deep down, finding it hrious that the fellow was still thinking that they were able to escape. The goddess could have rendered them unconscious very easily, but she left them conscious so as to give them hope, preventing them from dying.


    The goddess was not being arrogant. That youth could have been the smartest person in the world, and still, they would not have been able to shrug themselves free of the seal.


    Saleen was apparently able to sense that the more the youth tried to figure out ways to get out of their current predicament, the more excited the goddess became. It was like how cats were when they toyed with rats. If the rats were to give up and roll over, the cats would have lost their interest.


    That was probably some game powerful beings yed when they were bored. But Myers is already in so much trouble. Is she even able to feel bored now?


    The goddess did actually feel bored. Everything worked as nned, and no unforeseen circumstances urred. If the general was really that decisive in bringing down the sword, he would not have been the only general among the 12 who had been able to enter the Cemetery of Heroes, and he would not have remained stuck to his grave, even after that many years.


    Sacrificing some of the heroes would have allowed him to regain his strength and shake free of the curse. It would have been better if he was willing to sacrifice the grandmaster. If the goddess had been in his shoes, she would have done so a long time ago.


    ¡°Just give me a day.¡± The general eyed the remaining six pieces of divine personas, looking exasperated. There were hardly any rules worth taking within, yet there was no doubt that the amount of power was ample. That meant that every single piece had been worked on by the goddess. The heroic spirits would have only been able to use the power of the divine personas in order to shake free of their graves for a time.


    Why didn¡¯t Myers just tempt me using the divine personas instead? Is it to say that I¡¯m of no use to her then? So much so that I¡¯m inferior to that puny mage?


    ¡°Alright, one day it is then.¡± The goddess did not pressure the general any further. The Heretic God would have been able to grow its power greatly within just a single day. They were still in the Imperial City, and she had only destroyed magic arrays that she was unable to control. The hub at the pce was untouched. If push came to shove, she could just kill herself along with the Heretic God.


    It was only a matter of willingness on the general¡¯s part.


    ¡°Myers, is fame really that useless?¡± Saleen asked all of a sudden.


    ¡°Useless? No. With fame and reputation, you¡¯d get around to doing things a lot easier. For instance, if the general wasn¡¯t going toply, I¡¯d have just baited the Heretic God here. If you were to be the one doing it, would it have scared the general?¡± she asked.


    Saleen shook his head. If he were to threaten the general, the general would have simply turned a deaf ear to his words.


    ¡°Fame is like shackles, and it has cost people their freedom. But if you¡¯re able to make good use of fame, the shackles can be turned into your weapon,¡± she said.


    Saleen realized something all of a sudden. That was her way of telling him what the Shackles of the Fallen were truly for.


    Only when one was to always stay true to oneself and keep oneself from falling would they be able to control the Shackles of the Fallen truly.


    ¡°I¡¯veid down 24 temples for those toe after I perish. Only you had been destroying the temples thoroughly. If you were to leave them be, those temples would have simply shut themselves up and given birth to new treasures.¡± The goddess¡¯s expression showed that she clearly expected Saleen to feel regretful.


    Per the goddess¡¯ wishes, he went on to look regretful.


    ¡°No matter, you enabled me to save quite a lot. Those followers of mine wouldn¡¯t have had weapons to use when they resurrect otherwise,¡± the goddess continued.


    Saleen was only truly regretful then. If he knew that was the goddess¡¯ n, he would not have cared who would have taken the luck within. So long as he was able to keep the temples intact, he would have been able to excavate them over and over.


    However, thatsted but for a second, and Saleen came to his senses again.


    He was unable to help himself andughed. Suddenly, his mood had lightened up considerably.


    ¡°I sure am curious how the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom is doing...¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°It would have been an intense fight. I¡¯d be seeing a lot of death among my believers,¡± the goddess answered.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you worried?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Why should I be? So long as I live, their souls would stay intact,¡± she said.


    ¡°But they¡¯re still your ves,¡± Saleen said.


    ¡°They¡¯re actually those who wanted to be and never got the chance,¡± the goddess informed him.


    ¡°You talk as if people wanted such opportunities.¡±


    ¡°Hehe.¡± The goddess did not say anything more. She was thinking deep down just how excruciating it had been for the heroic spirits in the cemetery, being trapped for tens of thousands of years. Furthermore, due to the considerably hastened passage of time, it would have felt even more excruciating.


    She wondered if the general would have kneeled to her if she were just to let them know a bit of what was going on.


    Saleen had not spent all that long in the Imperial City of the Abyss. The passage of time at the Cemetery of Heroes was a lot faster than it was outside. The goddess had also onlypressed the time spent within the Hall of Gods into just a single day, and she had not let Saleen spend too much time within.


    At Cloudflow Empire, a million-strong army charged outside the gates of the divine kingdom. The divine kingdom army was not actually invincible. Like humans, they wore armor and rode steeds. The holy masters and angels were akin to the mages and powerful swordsmen of the humans.


    Themon foot soldiers rode tall, white camels unique to the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom, and they moved extremely fast.


    The fighting broke out at Lion City. The army amassed by Grand Duke tinum was over 300 thousand-strong. But then again, he was not the only one gathering an army. There were also ragtag bands of troops as well as militia gathered at their own volition. The number of those troops reached a staggering million and more.


    The reason they were out to fight was simple¡ªthey were doing it to keep living.


    Trade effectively ceased, and the peasants from nearbynds all flocked to the city. Food was gathered in a hasty manner. Everyone wanted to live, and it was all up to the nobles.


    However, the nobles saw no reason to simply feed them without asking them for anything in return. They wanted those people to go out and fight.


    When the first line of defense was being hammered on, there were some who attempted to surrender to the god creatures. However, the god creatures did not care in the least. They were out to carry out their god¡¯s orders faithfully, and that meant to destroy that nepletely.


    No one else came to have such bright ideas again after that.


    The Lord of Glory had a reason to be enraged. All of his believers in that ne were being killed. The Holy See that he established waspletely destroyed, and thest enemy had actually killed his saint.


    Souls of saints were not something that just appeared in every ne.


    From the Lord of Glory¡¯s standpoint, he no longer needed faith from that ne. All he needed to do was to mete out his punishment. The wrath of god shall burn Myers Maind, and that would have been the end of everything. None of those sphemers shall be left behind.


    He was simply meting out the final judgment, written in the codex that he had penned himself.


    The initial fear was quickly quelled by the first victory the humans scored. Grand Duke tinum sent out his personal guards and attacked the nks of the divine kingdom army, leading a small brigade. There were only 2000 humans fighting in that particr battle, yet they had been able to cut up nearly 10000 enemy units. Over 1500 people managed to return.


    That was to say that the probing done by that human brigade lost only about 400 soldiers while killing up to 9000 enemies.


    That was a very overwhelming difference in kill counts. Morale on the humans¡¯ line of defense was at an all-time high. That was because casualties would have usually been very high on the field. Most of the armies simply stayed at the line of defense. The ones who went out in the open were either the handful of elite troops or the massive scores of militia units.

 Chapter 1498: Bloody Nailisi (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1498: Bloody Nailisi (Part 1)</h4>


    The number of troops did not grow within Jason¡¯s line of defense. News from the frontlines had, of course, been delivered to Jason as well. They owed him that much for therge number of weapons he had supplied.


    Jason had supplied them with arge number of arrows and bolts.


    Those projectiles of the Kingdom of Metatrin were explicitly crafted to take on good creatures. There was all manner of poisons on them that would critically injure the enemy even if they did not manage to kill them outright. Furthermore, it was far more challenging to deal with such injuries than to simply resurrect a dead god creature.


    Saleen had also gained control of Alchemy City in secret, and mages from Alchemy City rushed to their side in droves. Being able to fight god creatures was an opportunity like no other for mages.


    Everything on the gods could have been used to make magical materials. Both the Cloudflow Empire and the Kingdom of Metatrin gave silent consent to the mages, allowing them to take remains of god creatures for their own. The Kingdom of Metatrin had no intention of sacrificing too many people in early battles. Since the mages from Alchemy City were so greedy, they were the ones sent out instead.


    Mages from Alchemy City were by no means weak after all, and theymanded a huge number of puppets. They had also broughtrge numbers of warriors with them as well.


    Jason did not like the odds. A divine kingdom had god creatures numbering in the tens of billions, with over half of them capable ofbat. That was a number that greatly exceeded that of warriors found in the entire Myers Maind.


    Regardless of how favorable the casualty ratio was to the humans, Myers Maind would not be able to hold until the very end.


    The only way to truly turn the tide was to charge into the divine kingdom and start tearing down the ce.


    That would have been dangerous but worth doing. Jason was already a level 15 mage, and there might have been level 15 gods found within that divine kingdom. Fighting someone at his level would have been one of the most brilliant moments of his life.


    However, he could not simply just charge inside. Jason was not the kind who would forsake everything and everyone on his side for his own gain.


    His students entrusted the entire nation to him, and he was not about to let Metatrin City fall. He saw fit to first wear down the divine kingdom¡¯s forces at the outer fringes before doing anything else. The vanguards of the divine kingdom were too weak, and they were totally disproportionate to the legends told about them.


    Jason, however, did not know that it was actually a result of the Lord of Glory¡¯s misjudgment of Myers Maind¡¯s powers.


    The levels at Myers Maind had been growing too quickly, so the Lord of Glory assumed that there would not have possibly been any level 15 beings appearing in the maind. The Lord of Glory thought that the professionals of the maind would have stayed around level 12, given the short span of time they were allowed to grow.


    He had believed that there would not have been more than ten professionals getting past level 13.


    As such, there were no very powerful beings among the ranks of the divine kingdom¡¯s army, so much so that even the angels were beings below level nine. That was not the case with the human armies.


    Soldiers wearing magic armor would have sported level fivebat prowess at the very least. Captains were definitely over level seven. Leaders above that rank, whomandedpanies over 200 men, were at least at level eight, and there were also ones who were at level nine.


    There would have been one golden grand swordmaster in a group of 1000 people or more.


    The rising of powers across Myers Maind had allowed too many talented people to advance quickly. Given how the likes of Saleen was able to get to level 14, warriors and mages who were far above him in regards of talents had an even easier time advancing.


    A team of Bug Angel Warriors flew past every hour in the sky to patrol the battlefield. There were angels among the enemy, and while they were not particrly powerful, their flight abilities made them difficult to deal with.


    Those Bug Angel Warriors were present specifically to intercept the angels. Alchemy factories of the Kingdom of Metatrin had to restart the production of Bug Angel Armors, whether they liked it or not. Saleen had initially intended to retire the armors, yet given the need for massive flying units, he had to begin making them again.


    The Kingdom of Metatrin was capable of summoning huge numbers of demons and imps. Even demonic spirits were able to wear the Bug Angel Armors and fly with them.


    Saleen¡¯sst hunting trip had brought massive amounts of magic nuclei, which were then supplied to the Bug Angel Warriors for sustained flight. That was hardly surprising, as Saleen had nned things out before.


    Wars were ugly and brutal. The million that the Lord of Glory had just deployed were but vanguards. He, too, knew that there were nearly a billion people that lived on Myers Maind. He had to field a good number of god creatures if he were to kill all of them.


    The ones who entered the maind at the very beginning were only believers. Unless they had contributed in a very significant way, they would have been able to earn titles and bloodlinesparable to that of god creatures. That war was but an activity for breakneck advancement for those believers.


    They could have been converted to god creatures by killing ample numbers of enemies. Those believers did not care if they had been humans or magic beasts before. They lived only to serve their god, who was everything to them.


    Jason had initially intended to prolong the fight for a bit in order to let Metatrin City, Floating City, and several other locations with massive alchemical production capacities craft ample equipment for resupply. However, Grand Duke tinum¡¯s ns ruined Jason¡¯s ns.


    Grand Duke tinum rode into battle personally with his army, charging straight into enemy territory. There were thousands of mages from Alchemy City working with Grand Duke tinum as well. The mages were the leading force in that fight. The Alchemy City mages burned through about 100 thousand scrolls in a battle thatsted little more than three hours.


    The million-strong enemy force was destroyed outright. Such was the power of magic.


    As for the staggering amount of 100 thousand scrolls, it was worth noting that before the war broke out, no one would have wanted to use the scrolls like that. Every single scroll cost over 200 gold coins, and burning through 100 thousand scrolls would have equated to tens of millions of gold coins being burned. Worse still, that was calcting it conservatively.


    That was not to say that the Alchemy City mages were stupid. The mages were at least able to tell just how massive the amount of god creatures there were running around out there, and they saw no need to be conservative with equipment. Their main priority was simply to keep human casualties as low as they were able to.


    However, that attack had beenunched too early. The divine kingdom had appeared too suddenly. While Grand Duke tinum had been able to organize a line of defense due to his reputation, the Cloudflow Empire, in general, had not been adequately prepared for war.


    The nobles had only begun to finish giving the orders to mobilize at that time.


    The mages were copying magic projections in a frenzy, distributing them to every city, vige, and any other type of human settlements. The god was angry, and he had no intention of taking prisoners.


    Myers Maind was undergoing an ordeal that would determine its continued life or its death.


    Grand Duke tinum¡¯s attack caused the god creatures who were tasked with deploying the vanguards to be very angry. They immediately deployed over a million troops at their enemy, charging into Myers Maind.


    Armies that were even more formidable began to emerge after the troops that were sent out the first time. After the second wave of a million-strong army came, a legion of angels appeared as well. The legion consisted only of angels of level nine and above, and there were 24000 of them.


    The Alchemy City mages had no choice but to retreat to Lion City and hunker down. The divine army surrounded the entirety of Lion City. Over 20000 angels attacked the city relentlessly from above.


    Rafel had to deploy. She brought the Violet Angel with her, taking the War Drum of Fear along and beating it above Lion City. All 20000 angels and more who were attacking the city were hit.


    Level nine angels were still formidable enough to avoid being startled to death outright, but the Bug Angel Warriors from the Kingdom of Metatrin soon followed.


    The battle was extremely bloody. In order to make up for losses of their own and not let the mages from Alchemy City win and collect all the spoils, Jason deployed a legion of demons who were all capable of flight.


    They had only one job, and it was simple¡ªeat the angels, leaving none of the bodies for the mages of Alchemy City.


    That served as a warning. The reckless actions of those mages caused the divine kingdom¡¯s forces to ramp up the tempo of the attack. It would have caused deaths to a great many civilians that were unprepared.


    The flying demons took hold of angels who were injured by the Bug Angel Warriors in the sky, tearing them apart on the spot and munching on them right away. Chewing and gulping noises were heard all over the sky above Lion City, causing the mages of Alchemy City to have chills running up and down their spines.


    They would not have cared about gaining anything in those moments. That warning from Jason was as obvious as it could have been. Overstep the line set by the Metatrin people again, and no one would have anything to gain. They would have had a lot to lose if that were to be the case.


    The demons munched on the angels without restraint. Although the demons were unable to enhance their powers by merely devouring the angels, they were nheless able to absorb the purest of energies in the angels, which were then converted to their own power.


    Man, it is so fun serving Lord Metatrin! Back on the demon ne, simply being able to eat magic bugs would have been a thing worth celebrating, and now, they were given the chance to eat angels.


    Only about 3000 out of the 20000 and more managed to escape. Most of the angels ended up being eaten by the demons.


    Bloodstained white feathers dropped all over the sky that day. The people in Lion City did not cheer at all. What they saw made them realize that there would not have been a winner to that war.


    Being able to stay alive would have sufficed, as any victories would have only been temporary.


    The attack of the angels caused massive casualties, with most of them being civilians. True military officers were able to fight level nine angels. The power used by the angels was holy light of the Lord of Glory, which was not as raging as golden sword aura and wasparatively easy to defend against.


    Most soldiers only sustained injuries after fighting the angels. At that moment, holy masters of the Nature Faith began to heal the soldiers.


    Spreading faith in the war would have beenparatively easy. Moreover, those were holy masters of the Nature Faith, who were very adept at healing. Many soldiers who thought they would have been disabled for life ended up only having to rest for half a month after being healed by the divine arts, returning to fighting shape at a rapid pace.


    Rafel came before Jason, who then said to her, ¡°Select 100 thousand men, and when the enemyunches mass attacks like that again, do it the old-fashioned way. Beat the War Drum of Fear to stun them, and then...¡±


    ¡°But Lord Jason, that would have only caused the Lord of Glory to start developing countermeasures.¡± Rafel was an angel and knew that regardless of how stupid a god could be, they could not just keep doing the same thing.


    ¡°Heh, well, we¡¯ll gamble regardless. Maybe the enemy will slow down their speed of attack. I¡¯d only need about ten days. Just ten days and everything will take a turn for the better,¡± Jason answered. Rafel did not buy it. However, Jason and Saleen had different styles ofmand. Jason only gave orders and would have never bothered to exin the intricacies within.


    Saleen was always worried that his orders would not be carried out thoroughly, and so he would have exined his strategy to those working with him.


    ¡°Lord Jason, let me in on it as well,¡± Nailisi said, eager to get out there.


    ¡°You would follow Rafel. You are not to do anything until you find someone worthy of your time. I will tell Saleen to kick you out otherwise,¡± Jason warned Nailisi.


    Nailisi lowered her head and agreed to what Jason had ordered. Saleen would have definitely listened to what Jason said. If she were to get on Jason¡¯s bad side, it would definitely be her getting the short end of the stick.


    Jason found Nailisi¡¯s expression to be rather funny. He then asked, ¡°Nailisi, what level are you at now?¡±


    ¡°Umm, 14 maybe...¡± she replied.


    ¡°Right. Anyone above level 11, you¡¯re free to take them on,¡± he said.


    ¡°Yes, Lord Jason!¡± Nailisi went with Rafel excitedly to select her troops. She was about to go all out. No one knew about her newfound abilities yet. So what if you¡¯re the Lord of Glory, eh? If I see you, I¡¯m going to break you first before everyone else!

 Chapter 1499: Bloody Nailisi (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1499: Bloody Nailisi (Part 2)</h4>


    Nailisi¡¯sbat prowess was higher than that of Rafel, but Rafel was familiar withmanding armies inrge scale battles, and Nailisi was more suited to act as a weapon. Rafel was the one in charge, and there was always Jason looming above, so Nailisi did not dare to defy either of their orders.


    The Winged Skull had nothing to say about the arrangement. Saleen let both the Winged Skull and Nailisi back onto Myers Maind, yet the Winged Skull still did not feel safe. They felt as if there was a sword hanging above their head, which could have fallen at any given moment.


    Rafel went to select her troops. Nailisi followed gleefully, but the Winged Skull stopped her. He then said to Nailisi, ¡°You don¡¯t have to be in a hurry when the battle starts. This is only round two. There are tens of billions of god creatures in the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom, you...¡±


    ¡°I know, I¡¯ll do my best this time. If too many people on Myers Maind end up dead, master wouldn¡¯t be happy,¡± Nailisi said.


    Wars always came with casualties, but mages were leaning towards taking the fight at higher levels to solve that problem. If every single battle were to see deaths in the hundreds of thousands all the time, a ne¡¯s power would have grown increasingly weak as time passed.


    Low-level warriors also served as the foundation of a ne. If all living beings in a ne were to end up dead, then the professionals would have lost their backing as well.


    That was something that had to do with a ne¡¯s power of the Source. Every single living being actually carried a part of a ne¡¯s Source power. As such, when gods amassed believers, they actually absorbed a bit of Source powers as well, which caused the downfall of a ne.


    While Nailisi had been a loose cannon with her way of doing things at times, she nheless knew what mattered to Saleen.


    If a ne¡¯s Source power were to all be taken away by a god, then it would have spelled doom for said ne, and no powerful being could have continued to exist on it either.


    If the mages were to ignore that, then all nes would have ended up being taken by the gods. By then, the only way out would be to be a god¡¯s believer, joining a divine kingdom, and spending one¡¯s days singing praises to a god.


    The Winged Skull saw Nailisi¡¯s eyes brimming and determined, so they did not say anything more to advise her. The Winged Skull then told Nailisi, ¡°Be careful, then. Don¡¯t get into fights with the Lord of Glory if you run into him. You¡¯re still no match for him.¡±


    Nailisi smirked and said, ¡°I¡¯m better at running than anything. Do you not know that I¡¯m an imp? Back in the demon ne, the first thing we learned after we were born was how to run.¡±


    The Winged Skull shook their head, exasperated. They knew well that Nailisi would not have run. If the Lord of Glory were to actually show up, she would have at least attempted to fight him once so as to discover what the Lord of Glory was actually capable of.


    Rafel quickly assembled an army consisting of 50000 flying units. The Winged Skull, Nailisi, and 200 metal angels were added to the force. Rafel took the Violet Angel, who took the form of a golden dragon and went to take the lead at the forefront.


    There were no fortresses outside the gates, onlyrge camps being set up one after another.


    When Rafel charged forward somewhere near arge camp, thousands of angels took flight and surrounded them. She was about to beat the War Drum of Fear when she was targeted by two angels who were over a dozen meters tall. Rafel swung her Inferno Spear about and fought those two. The War Drum of Fear was left on the back of the Violet Angel, which the Violet Angel then went on to beat.


    However, the effects that time wereckluster. Tens of thousands of holy masters chanted prayers in the camps of the divine army. White holy light shrouded the ce, and the power of the War Drum of Fear was unable to make it into the camps.


    But then again, the low-level warriors within the camps did not dare toe out and fight as well. The War Drum of Fear was not some very high-level equipment, and it was definitely not a godly item. However, it had a veryrge area-of-effect, and anything below level nine would have been affected.


    The angels up in the sky were actually also affected; it was just that they were still able to fight despite the influence.


    ¡°Bones, aren¡¯t we...¡± Nailisi began to speak.


    Nailisi pointed at the divine kingdom¡¯s gates. The Winged Skull shook their head and said, ¡°A million.¡±


    ¡°Alright then, a million each it is.¡± Nailisi was supposed to help Rafel out at that moment and take out the two archangels instead of going off on her own.


    The Winged Skull knew what Nailisi intended to do right from the start and that there was no stopping her. As such, they simply set a number, which meant that she needed to stop after killing a million creatures in the divine kingdom.


    While that number looked massive, there were hundreds of millions of angels gathering behind those gates. Onerge scale magic spell could have easily killed thousands.


    The Lord of Glory underestimated the power of Myers Maind, and the vanguards sent wereparatively weak.


    The only way the Winged Skull could think of to put a leash on Nailisi was to limit the number of her kills.


    Nailisi went on to double said number, and the Winged Skull was able to do nothing but go along with it. It was fortunate that they were not fighting alone. The Winged Skull summoned huge numbers of spirits while Nailisimanded a massive amount of demons from her Purgatory of the Devils.


    ¡°Heh... Haahh!¡±


    Nailisi shouted excitedly and took her devil form in the air, charging into the divine kingdom¡¯s gates. The Winged Skull brandished their Reaper Scythe and followed closely behind.


    Nailisi¡¯s devil form at present no longer had too many things that looked out of ce. It simply looked like a supreme demon who had been erged. There were two horns on her head, and she wore armor that looked as though it was as thick as castle walls.


    The weapon in her hand was no longer Grey Memory, but a huge longsword. The height of her devil form neared 30 meters at present. The length of her sword was slightly longer than her devil form, which measured in at about 45 meters. ording to the ssifications of such a weapon rtive to her size, she looked as if she was holding a horse-cutter sword.


    That greatsword in her hand was the first weapon she crafted on her sword, which was actually an erged version of the Sword of Rules. There were 24 rules on the Sword of Rules, which, when infused with 12-dimensional metal by Nailisi, expanded to the size it was currently. The amount of wrought gold added was massive.


    That golden, shimmering greatsword was divided into 24 areas, with every area representing a power of rules. Nailisi was finally able to use the power infused within that huge Sword of Rules, which was why she was so eager to kill her way into the divine kingdom. She wanted to teach the Lord of Glory a lesson.


    The Lord of Glory might have been more powerful than she was, but he definitely did not have a weapon that was as insane as hers.


    That weapon was a piece of equipment that could have only been overwhelmed by superiority in level. That meant that beings of levels below Nailisi would have had a hard time running away from her weapon unless the enemy had something even more powerful.


    That huge Sword of Rules was brandished, and Nailisi brought it down hard and fast on the angels that had begun charging at her as soon as she had entered the gates.


    The Winged Skull had gotten excited as well. Military camps practically enveloped the whole area right behind the gates, so much so that the gates actually looked too small and narrow inparison. If they were to all attempt to rush outside at the same time after gathering there, it would have taken an untold number of days.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s hands felt itchy after seeing so many enemies packed into one ce.


    They put the Reaper Scythe away, after discovering that the weapon was suppressed by the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom, making it difficult to be wielded properly.


    The Winged Skull switched to the meteor hammer. They then spread the bone wings behind them, and with a whoosh, sent themselves several hundred meters away.


    Nailisi brought her sword down, and a bloodied path was carved out before her.


    Hundreds of angels were quickly torn to shreds by Nailisi¡¯s sword aura, which was filled with chaotic power of rules. If the one before her happened to be the Lord of Glory, that sh would not have done anything, as there were too many openings in it. However, the enemies were but angels at around level nine, and there were actually god creatures below level seven.


    Those were an army of servants, which served as bruisers for the angels.


    The sh from Nailisi made short work of them.


    The Winged Skull swung their meteor hammer around and carved out the ground within a diameter of over 200 meters around them. Saleen had modified the chains on the meteor hammer, which had been a godly item on its own. Explosions continued to happen within the meteor hammer, and the intense currents were bursting from within carried metal shrapnel with them.


    The metal shrapnel was so intensely sharp that not even sword aura of golden grand swordmasters would have been able to withstand them.


    The Winged Skull felt as if they were still going too slowly. If they were to stay in the divine kingdom for too long, they would draw the attention of powerful beings within the divine kingdom. It was difficult to tell if the Lord of Glory would have shown up by then. Even a double would have been too much for the Winged Skull.


    Both of them were fighting in the divine kingdom of others after all, which meant that the Lord of Glory¡¯s power within would have at least been enhanced by half a rank, or even one whole rank more.


    The Winged Skull summoned 1000 golden skeletons. Those golden skeletons all wore attribute-less armors and were able to ignore suppression from divine arts on spirits altogether. They all brandished their weapons, shooting tens of thousands of bone arrows with longbows first, before switching to giantnces and charging in.


    It was worth noting that the divine kingdom¡¯s terrain was perfect for cavalry charges. All golden skeletons rode mutated nightmares, which sported speeds exceeding that of a sorcerer¡¯s flight ability.


    All 1000 golden skeletons charged, carving a wide path out of the enemies before them.


    The Winged Skull gave up trying to conserve anything and summoned a skeletal dragon, which charged at the camps of god creatures. The Winged Skull had not been mastering the crafting method of that skeletal dragon for long. They only had one that was pieced together, with abilitiesparable to level 12. That skeletal dragon was rather weak in defense, yet very formidable in offense.


    The Winged Skull was fighting arge-scale battle on their side, but Nailisi was reluctant to summon her demons. She held the greatsword in her hand and went about ughtering enemies in the camps of the god creatures.


    A ck shadow tore up the camps of the divine army. Blood flowed like rivers wherever Nailisi tread.


    The Sword of Rules was practically invincible when used against low-level warriors. Regardless of the armor they wore, the shield they used, or the divine defense art they cast, anything below level 12 appeared as harmless as paper before her weapon.


    Nailisi knew that she might have ended up attracting the Lord of Glory¡¯s attention. However, she was having too much fun to care about that, and she was unable to stop herself.


    She had never had that much fun since she had be Saleen¡¯s follower. That was her demonic blood raging. That was the inherent nature of a Luoluokaluo.


    She brought extremely formidable power to bear, and became a living terror to her enemies on the battlefield.


    The blood-soaked Luoluokaluo, the smirking Nailisi, killed her way all the way to the deeper reaches of the divine kingdom. Her armor was over two meters-thick, yet it felt light and nimble, not affecting her movements in any way.


    Countless attack divine spells and curses rained down onto her armor, with most of them rendered utterly useless. Any that would have worked simply scraped a thinyer off of the armor.


    A beam of white light flew in Nailisi¡¯s direction like a meteor deep within the divine kingdom. General ss angels from the divine army had finally made a move.

 Chapter 1500: Getting a Share (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1500: Getting a Share (Part 1)</h4>


    Nailisi saw just how fast the angel that had been off in the distance was charging at her. It was so fast that it seemed almost to be able to match her speed in her imp form. It must have been a powerful angel, indeed. Level 13, perhaps?


    The power of the angel would have probably been on par with hers in the divine kingdom.


    Nailisi took out dozens of scrolls after determining the nature of the enemy, throwing them into the air. The angels that had ganged up on her were unable to stop her in time. They were not able to do anything when onerge scale magic scroll after another was cast in the camps.


    Nailisi then unleashed the elemental creatures on her elemental badge in secret, letting the tall Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers carelessly trash the ce.


    Every single one of them had a substantial magic cannon installed on their chests.


    Due to replenishment from the Stone Statue Soldiers, those cannons were capable ofparatively quicker attacks. Their frequency of attack surpassed the cannons on the Floating City.


    The angelsing from afar roared in anger. They all wore white armor and were taller than 20 meters, armed with Swords of Glory and with two pairs of wings on their backs.


    ¡°Stop, demon!¡± one of the angels shouted from afar.


    ¡°Alright!¡± Nailisi yielded without a care, but then quickly conjured demon magic between her horns. A grey halo expanded, shrouding within it the angels that had surrounded her.


    Nailisi swiped them all with her Sword of Rules, resulting in hundreds of angels dropping out of the sky.


    ¡°Curse you!¡± the angel shouting at her was apparently incapable of foulnguage. But then again, foulnguage would not have worked on Nailisi at all.


    ¡°Come at me!¡± Nailisi¡¯s greatsword shone with golden light. Twenty-four shields hovered in the air at the same time, circling around her. The angel that had been charging toward her pointed with its Sword of Glory, shrouding Nailisi in holy light from above.


    ¡°Die!¡± the enraged angel shouted. Nailisi had already killed tens of thousands of angels. Despite them being only at the lowest of levels, it would have enraged their god nheless.


    ¡°Nonsense!¡± Nailisiughed. The divine punishment from above simply rattled her 24 shields, making them shake violently. It was utterly incapable of breaking Nailisi¡¯s defense.


    ¡°I knew you god creatures would only fight using that clown¡¯s tricks. O¡¯ pathetic angel, let me send you to h*ll!¡± Nailisi said as she charged. The shields around her spun and made her silhouette appear blurry.


    The Sword of Glory shook in the angel¡¯s hands, but that was out of anger over Nailisi¡¯s provocation rather than out of fear. Nailisi did not care about pointed verbal attacks, but angels cared very much about how others saw their god.


    Nailisi had said that their god was but a clown, and that made the angel extremely angry.


    The anger did not cause the angel to lose its fighting ability. It had instead evoked hidden abilities in its blood. That angel was a captain among the angels. Holy Prose spun for a bit in its eyes, and it split into three beings, surrounding Nailisi as she charged at it.


    All three of the beings were ofparable strength. What the angel had performed was the Summoning of Light, which was capable of bringing forth two of the summoner¡¯spatriots from any point in time and space.


    A level 13 angel¡¯s skill was something that could have only been used by angels created personally by a god, and using said skill came at the cost of halving one¡¯s life.


    Angels were not immortal. That level 13 captain knew that Nailisi was not someone it could have taken on using brute strength, so it used its hidden skill immediately, hoping to turn the tides of battle. At the very least, it was determined to stall that demon for some time, waiting for its god to deliver judgment himself.


    Nailisi¡¯sugh became even more maniacal. The angel captain¡¯s skill was indeed formidable. If Nailisi had really still been at level 13, the tables would have indeed turned.


    Twenty-four Shackles of the Fallen shot out from behind Nailisi, binding one of the angels at her side. Her Sword of Rules shed with the Sword of Glory held by the angel hundreds of times in an instant.


    An angel to Nailisi¡¯s left fired divine spells from the Angelic Scepter held in her hand, which were all repelled by the shields around Nailisi. The 24 Shields of Rules had twisted the space around her, nullifying the angel¡¯s attacks.


    Nailisi then kicked that angel. There was a piece of sharp, wedge-shaped metal attached to the front of herbat boots, which lodged into that angel¡¯s abdominal armor. Nailisi then stepped on it, breaking the three angels¡¯ circle around her.


    Nailisi burst out of the barricade, and one of the captains behind her was pulled into the Purgatory of the Fallen by the chains.


    The Shields of Rules around Nailisi returned to the sword. She then pointed at the two remaining angels and said, ¡°Come at me if you dare!¡±


    The gate of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory flickered and appeared. Nailisi turned around and went into the collection of purgatories. The two remaining angels charged at her without hesitation.


    Nailisiughed. Power emanated from the Origin Stone of Darkness within the Purgatory of Darkness and pinned down the two angels of the Lord of Glory. Their armor disintegrated, and the feathers on their backs dropped off one after another.


    The power from the stone overwhelmed the power of lightpletely.


    ¡°You despicable demon!¡± The bodies of both of the angels shrunk, reducing them to the size of normal humans. The armor on their bodies dissolved into translucent balls that barely allowed them to resist the corrosion from the power of darkness.


    ¡°O¡¯ high and mighty angels, I¡¯m done ying games with you. When you¡¯re finally finished being dissolved, I¡¯lle in and pick up whatever is left.¡± Nailisiughed and left the Purgatory of Darkness, charging deep into the army of angels again.


    The power of the Origin Stone of Darkness had expanded to an area of over 1200 kilometers in radius. The ce was capable of overwhelming even an army of angels, let alone just two captains.


    It was a pity that the Purgatory of Darkness was unable to devour armies right away. It would have saved Nailisi a lot of time and effort if it had been capable of such feats.


    Nailisi sighed as she swung her Sword of Rules again, charging in the direction of the Winged Skull. She noticed a huge group of god creatures wearing thick armor surrounding the Winged Skull. All of the creatures surrounding it had huge bodies, each one standing about 40 meters tall. They were ganging up on the Winged Skull using thick and heavy weapons. The meteor hammer wielded by the Winged Skull was only capable of attacking one target at a time. After every time the Winged Skull¡¯s attack connected, they had to stop for a bit, and things looked dangerous.


    The Winged Skull shouted to Nailisi, asking, ¡°How many now?¡±


    ¡°60000!¡± Nailisi answered. Every swing of her Sword of Rules struck everything in an area spanning several hundred meters from her. It only hit targets that were in a straight line in front of where she aimed. The attacks from the Sword of Rules fanned out. The closer to the nks the wave got, the weaker the attack became.


    The weakness was due to an insufficient weapon level. If the sword had been a godly item above level 16, there would not have been those limitations.


    Actually, Nailisi had already killed tens of thousands of god creatures when she had dropped the scrolls, but the Winged Skull decided it would be tedious to pick fights over the with semantics with her. They simply shouted, ¡°Just leave me be and get back to your own killings!¡±


    Nailisi nodded and turned around, charging at the camp that held the greatest number of god creatures.


    That camp happened to be the campsite of the vanguards. When angels fought wars, amassing armies numbering into the hundreds of millions wasmon. Furthermore, it was very easy for the god creatures tomunicate within the divine kingdom. As such, the number of armies would not have affectedmand.


    There had been a good number of humans charging inside the camp. Rafel was very worried when Nailisi and the Winged Skull charged the gates. She sent metal angels out along with the Bug Angel Warriors. She also contacted Lion City immediately.


    Lion City had been paying close attention to what was happening at the frontlines. As Rafel and the others flew above Lion City, the army within the city had already gathered. Some people charged inside the divine kingdom when they heard that the battle had escted, causing the forces within the city to grow anxious. Small squads were being deployed, charging toward where the gates of the divine kingdom were.


    Two members of one of the armies wearing leather armormunicated in low voices.


    ¡°So, this is your force, Agares?¡±


    The one who sounded slightly resentful was Van Gogh, the fallen holy master. He and Agares hade to show support under the name of a minor noble. The individuals Agares brought with him were thest of his army, consisting of 200 warriors wearing leather armor.


    ¡°You¡¯ll know soon enough,¡± Agares answered inly.


    ¡°If I do know what you¡¯re actually doing, I¡¯ll probably kill you first before I do anything else,¡± Van Gogh said as he vented his frustration.


    Agares just smirked and said, ¡°I¡¯ve been keeping these 200 people around for over 100 years in order to fight in a battle just such as today.¡±


    Van Gogh did not bother responding to Agares. The way he saw it, those 200 were hardly of powers worth mentioning. Every single one of them wore typical mercenary gear. They wore leather armor, carried longswords, and even the masks they wore were made of leather. Couldn¡¯t these people at least wear something made out of steel?


    Agares did not care about Van Gogh¡¯s frustration. He elerated, and a team of cavalry units strayed away from the army without anyone noticing.


    When Agares¡¯ 200-strong toon had gotten near the gates of the divine kingdom, he too was startled to the core by what was happening inside.


    The kill count brought by Rafel was simply terrifying. An army consisting of only tens of thousands of units had already stained the entire ce red with blood by killing over a million beings. Torn limbs and bleeding innards were scattered as far as the eye could see.


    The primary weapons wielded by the Bug Angel Warriors were capable of being extended to their legs, which were about eight meters long. Those weapons were simple but sharp serrated metal edges. One swipe was all it took to tear through the armor wore by the god creatures; that one swipe could even drag out their innards.


    What was even more frightening was how the ground was littered with feathers, which were all stained red by the blood.


    The blood of angels was red as well, instead of the golden colors spoken about in legends. Those bloodstained feathers floated on pools and streams of blood that had formed from the massive quantities that were spilled.


    ¡°There!¡± Van Gogh pointed at the gates. Bug Angel Warriors were still charging inside using those wide steps. Agares brought forward the 200 men of his and followed along behind the Bug Angel Warriors, sneaking into the gates.


    The gates of the divine kingdom were rather broad. The Bug Angel Warriors werecking in numbers, and there were armies of god creatures charging past them to get outside, which made it very easy for them to surround the Bug Angel Warriors. However, since the Bug Angel Warriors were all capable of flight, they were not too concerned with being surrounded.


    Agares¡¯ 200 cavalry units stuck close to the Bug Angel Warriors as they fought their way into the divine kingdom. A group of monsters with the bodies of lions and faces of humans appeared before them. They, too, were a type of god creature.


    The 200 knights charged like moths to the me, and they were quickly made into mincemeat by the god creature army.


    Van Gogh¡¯s jaw dropped at the sight, wondering if what he had just witnessed was the power of an empire.


    However, before he was able to curse, the 200 dead bodies wearing leather armor rose from the ground and continued to fight.


    ¡°The Legion of Shadows grow stronger as they fight,¡± Agares said as heughed.


    ¡°Legion of Shadows!¡± Van Gogh¡¯s expression became severe. He had not expected the 200 men serving Agares to be with the Legion of Shadows. The founding emperor of the Cloudflow Empire had been able to be nigh-invincible in the battlefield due to having control over a Legion of Shadows that consisted of merely 100 units. If it had not been for the emperor of Qin having the Mark of the Six-winged Flying Snake, it would have been a fierce battle with no clear victor.


    It was totally unexpected that Agares had actually seeded in creating the Legion of Shadows. That legion had not received its fearsome reputation for nothing.

 Chapter 1501: Getting a Share (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1501: Getting a Share (Part 2)</h4>


    Van Gogh no longer questioned why the army of 200 had worn only leather armor rather than using metal. They were simply shadows crafted by Agares after all.


    ¡°What about Arb?¡± Van Gogh asked anxiously.


    ¡°I made her into a shadow mage, of course. How could I bring her along with me otherwise?¡± Agares held Snakerun in his hand, using it to gut an angel who was close to death. The angel struck by Snakerun had the essence of its body quickly sucked dry by the weapon.


    Snakerun was a dagger Saleen had crafted for him. The weapon itself was extremely brutal, and only assassins would have been able to make use of it. If Sul or J had been the ones using such a weapon, it would have definitely affected the progress of their swordsmanship.


    Snakerun and Agares, however,plimented each other.


    Shadow warriors were capable of recovering within seconds of being killed by the god creatures. Van Gogh was nheless able to see the weaknesses of the shadow army. While the shadow warriors seemed to be quick to recover, it took them 30 frames to do so.


    If the shadow warriors were hit by powerful equipment, destroying them altogether would have been rtively easy.


    The shadow warriors continued to advance and strike down the god creatures. Agares was already a level 13 assassin, while the shadow warriors began to climb up from level five or six. The progress only slowed after they reached level nine.


    Every single god creature that was killed had their powers of the Source sucked dry by the shadow warriors.


    That was the terrifying thing about shadow warriors. They needed to expend powers of the Source in order to repair themselves, but such expenditure was only a fraction of what they absorbed. As such, the shadow warriors would have only gotten increasingly more powerful with every bit they absorbed. Any remaining power of the Source would have umted, which was then collected by their master.


    ¡°Are you scared of me now, Van Gogh?¡± Agaresughed maniacally as he asked. Van Gogh¡¯s hands did not stop. He opened the ck book and absorbed one god creature after another. No one knew what kind of space they were being thrown into after he absorbed them.


    In fact, he was not exiling the absorbed creatures, but rather he was sending them to his own personal space. He kept an untold number of puppets in those spaces, which would have then killed and absorbed the creatures he drew in.


    A crisp, clear voice could be heard high up in the air while Van Gogh and Agares were having the time of their lives killing god creatures.


    ¡°Hi! If you two want to get more,e up here and help me out!¡± the voice said.


    Agares looked up and saw a huge demon in the sky who was surrounded by arge number of angels. Flying bugs were abundant below the demon.


    ¡°Agares, I¡¯m talking to you!¡± Nailisi said, growing impatient. Van Gogh and Agares were there to pick on the god creatures, yet they restricted themselves to ughtering weaklings. While Nailisi was currently fine despite the fact that she was surrounded, if she were to expend her powers too quickly, she would have transformed involuntarily.


    She deemed her devil form to be the form most suited forbat. She still had problems getting used to her human mage, golden dragon, and spirit forms.


    Agares finally recalled who that voice belonged to¡ªit was that woman by Saleen¡¯s side who went by the name Nailisi.


    ¡°Coming right up,¡± Agares said as heplied. Agares had no intention of getting on the bad side of someone who yed an important role at Saleen¡¯s side before he had a better idea of what they were actually capable of.


    If the Legion of Shadows were able to be expanded beyond its 200 members, they could have been made into a massive army. Those 200 would have served as the core, with every shadow warrior being able to take control of ten shadow warriors one level below them.


    That was to say, at least in theory, if the shadow warriors were to advance to level 18, they would have been able to take control of ten level 17 shadow warriors. Those level 17 shadow warriors would have been able to, in turn, take control of a total of 100 level 16 warriors.


    The shadow warriors were currently at level nine, which meant that they were already controlling 2000 level eight warriors, and more level seven shadow warriors were still being made. The core 200 would remain undying unless Agares was dead.


    When those 20000 level seven warriors werepleted, they would have continued on to create 200 thousand level six shadow warriors. It was thanks to the 100 core shadow warriorsmanded by the founding emperor of the Cloudflow Empire that he was able to subjugate many powerful beings, continuing the rule after the Fourth Dynasty was gone.


    Creating shadow warriors required a bit of power of the Source. In actuality, he was still using the power of those god creatures. The god creatures that were killed and devoured were all made into materials for creating shadow warriors.


    It was due to Agares¡¯ possession of such an ability that Nailisi summoned him, telling him to take care of anything attacking from one direction. If the god were toe from that direction, Agares and his shadow warriors would have been able to resist that god¡¯s attack at least once.


    Agares knew that Nailisi was aware that he was picking up loot in secret. If he were to refuse to offer his services, she could have greatly inconvenienced him. She might have even fought him right away.


    Agares was capable of trading with Saleen, but he was not able to do so with any of Saleen¡¯s subordinates. That was frustrating to him, and Agares wondered where Saleen was when such a grand battle was being fought.


    Due to his concerns regarding Saleen, Agares brought his Legion of Shadows and did as Nailisi told him to¡ªblocking the direction facing the gates of the divine kingdom. The army of angels would have continued to charge wherever Nailisi was, and stopping her would have required the arrival of a god.


    Agares did not need to worry about targets. This was the first time his Legion of Shadows was at work, and it seemed as though they already showed signs of breaking into level ten. He had to bring the legion to level 11, or those units would soon perish.


    True Legion of Shadows could only be used for doing battle when they reached level 12. However, Agares had been unable to wait any longer. With god creatures serving as supplements, he could enhance the shadow warriors¡¯ powers right away without any concerns for side effects. If Saleen¡¯s army did not show up, he saw no reason to take further risks. His Legion of Shadows was still wed at the moment, and even Van Gogh was able to see that w.


    Agares took in bodies of the god creatures and made them into shadow warriors. Nailisi was keeping herself busy as well, and she was even doing it on an evenrger scale. She opened the gate to her collection of purgatories wide, throwing all of the angels that she killed into it.


    There were hundreds of weapons embedded into Nailisi¡¯s armor, all of them left behind from the angels¡¯ attacks on her. Many angels attacked her with all they had, sacrificing themselves in the process. That act resulted in their weapons being left stuck in Nailisi¡¯s armor.


    Saleen had crafted an insane set of armor just to keep her safe. Super strong materials forged into a level of thickness beyond theprehension of other professionals had made it so that it was almost impossible to destroy her armor.


    Van Gogh did not dare to do too much at that moment. He had a powerful godly item acquired from a temple of the Goddess of Myers, and he had created a great many spaces within it. It was a pity that those spaces were not life-sustaining. So, he created many divine puppets instead, and those puppets were best when made out of the bodies of god creatures.


    The army charging into the gates of the divine kingdom grew increasinglyrge. Many of those in the iing armies were like Agares, wanting to get something out of the war.


    Everyone knew that given how slow gods were in reacting to anything, there were little to no dangers to be had when charging inside a divine kingdom for the first time. Gods would not have been able to react to the first instance of such an invasion, but would have definitely gone out to kill intruders the next time it happened.


    Nailisi felt a cold smirking from deep within herself. Those charging in were just too greedy, wanting to take everything there was to take within sight. There was no way she was going to just let those people do as they wished. While gods were slow to react to matters like that, it still nheless depended on the situation. If she were to bait the Lord of Glory herself, said god would have at least sent a double in less than a minute.


    But then again, she had not finished feeding her 12 Notes of First Purgatory. When she was done, she would use all of those greedy people as stepping stones.


    Nailisi kept a close eye on Agares¡¯ Legion of Shadows as she fought. She charged after observing them for a moment, barging through barricades of angels, and took one of the shadow warriors in her hand, chucking it into her collection of purgatories.


    Agares was startled. He lifted his de and was about to attack Nailisi.


    Nailisi then shouted, ¡°I¡¯ve taken one for research!¡±


    Agares looked at the tall, imposing devil in front of him and swallowed his frustration. He had seen Nailisi throw one of his shadow warriors into a mysterious gate that remained opened behind her, and he was unable to tell just how many spaces there were lying beyond that gate.


    Nailisi was brutal and thick-skinned. ¡°Agares, were you trying to attack me just now?¡± she asked Agares after having taken advantage of him.


    ¡°Indeed. I thought you were going to attack me,¡± he responded. Nailisi was satisfied with Agares¡¯ answer and did not tangle with him any further. She swung around her Sword of Rules and said, ¡°Are we considered allies, Agares?¡±


    Agares thought for a bit then answered, saying, ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°Good to hear. When the god or his doubleeter, hold the line for me for several seconds,¡± she said.


    Agares frowned at first, but then smiled brightly. If Nailisi had not said it, he would not have expected that the god would be participating in that battle personally.


    It seemed that she intended to bait the god, and she was telling him in advance, attempting to show that she was indeed on the same side as him. As for asking him to hold the line, what she really meant was for him to sacrifice his Legion of Shadows.


    Despite how difficult it was to foster the Legion of Shadows, 100 of them would have sufficed. He had simply brought 200 of them to filter out the incapable ones.


    Commanding the Legion of Shadows required one to use one¡¯s power of the soul. While Agares¡¯s power of the soul was sufficiently strong, he was controlling more than just the Legion of Shadows. There were also shadow assassins and shadow mages amongst them as well.


    He might have be the most powerful emperor in history.


    Subjugating Arb took a huge toll on his power of the soul, and there was a limit to how many units of the Legion of Shadows he was able to create. That founding emperor of Cloudflow would have otherwise been able to create a lot more high-level shadow warriors and unite the entire maind.


    Arb was a very powerful mage, so powerful that Agares almost found his own power of the soul inadequate. As such, he simply let Arb be a shadow and put her to sleep. Even so, 200 shadow warriors were already a little too many for Agares to actually retain control of.


    Agares was no longer able tomand the shadow assassins, and he alone knew how tough that was.


    As such, he obediently divided his shadow warriors into two groups, with one being assigned far away while the other group stayed close to him. Those that he took with him were the ones who performed better in the prior battles, as well as the ones to advance the quickest.


    Nailisi smirked coldly. She had heard of the shadow warriors before, and the one that she had just chucked into her collection of purgatories was one of the best. There was no way that shadow warrior would ever be able to emerge outside again.


    Her collection of purgatories were already capable of automatically dissolving any skills wielded by the trapped professionals and calcting the rules. Nailisi was not actually bullying Agares for nothing. That man had once attempted to assassinate her master. While she was not allowed to make a move against him, she was nheless able to analyze the rules contained within his skills.


    If those rules proved to be high and powerful enough, a Purgatory of Shadows could have possibly been created.

 Chapter 1502: Baiting and Killing the Heretic God (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1502: Baiting and Killing the Heretic God (Part 1)</h4>


    If Nailisi were to be able to create a Purgatory of Shadows in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory, the rules that she would have eventually extracted would have been more powerful than what was mastered by Agares.


    Nailisi did not bring the subject up anymore after throwing that shadow warrior into the collection of purgatories, instead turning her attention to fight the god creatures in earnest.


    The god creatures were not weak; they were actually hard to kill. That was because the Lord of Glory would have required several days to arrive. Amassing an army in the millions was but a test assault.


    That provided an excellent chance for Nailisi. Her collection of purgatories required god creatures to fill it. Every single inch of the spaces required fortification, and some powers needed to be worked on. The god creatures possessed the power of the Source as well. While their levels were not high, they had the advantage of having higher purity and a greater abundance of such powers.


    Things would not have actually turned that dire. It was all thanks to information fed back to him by his double a while ago. The Lord of Glory knew his double had chased the mage over 10000 kilometers and was eventually lost in a space that did not belong to Myers Maind.


    There was no way the powerful beings found within that ce would have been able to emerge.


    However, the Lord of Glory was overly cautious and decided tounch the assault methodically. He had first sent a scouting party to test things out, among them being people specifically tasked with investigating matters regarding the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The Lord of Glory did not expect Myers Maind to have reacted so quickly.


    He had no way of knowing that, in order to take on his divine kingdom, Saleen had long prepped his army in the Baldur¡¯s Gate, and that they were ready to be deployed in any battlefield.


    If it had been entirely up to the nations found on the maind, amassing such arge army and of levels so high would have been utterly impossible.


    The massacre within the divine kingdom went on for quite a while. To the gods, losing armies in the millions was hardly even worth mentioning. Resurrecting them within the divine kingdom was far easier to do than it would have been if they had been elsewhere.


    Gods usually would have waited until the fighting was over to resurrect their armies. However, things were different this time. Whether it was by Nailisi, Van Gogh, or Agares, the bodies of god creatures that were killed were being absorbed, preventing those god creatures from being resurrected.


    Even the Winged Skull had taken to stuffing the dead bodies of the god creatures into the spirit space. God creatures of the Lord of Glory were capable of suppressing spirits to a certain extent. However, if those dead bodies were to be converted into spirits, they would have been even more powerful instead.


    At that moment, the general and the others in the Imperial City of the Abyss were gradually gaining solid ground, allowing them to shake off the shackles of the graves. While their graves had indeed allowed them to survive, they had also robbed the heroic spirits of their freedom.


    ¡°What now, Myers? Are we doing this now?¡± the general asked.


    ¡°It would be better to do it outside. If we were to fight here, we¡¯d end up wrecking the entire cemetery,¡± the goddess answered inly before turning around, leaving the Cemetery of Heroes. It was as if she had not just personally destroyed arge number of graves back there.


    The general did not bother getting petty with her. He then followed the goddess and Saleen out of the cemetery.


    Saleen hauled the sealed youth in his arms, following directly beside the goddess, who made her way straight to the royal pce. The general¡¯s expression turned glum¡ªthe goddess was about to take the entire pce apart.


    But then again, the royal pce would have been the best battlefield there was. Regardless of the level of the god who advents, they would have lost some power at the royal pce. Only a peculiar god like the goddess was able to continue using her original level of powers.


    Saleen knew that his weapon spirit worked the same way as well. Inheriting the abilities of the God of Magic Net meant that Dante was capable of using elemental magic in any environment. Saleen thought that perhaps such a peculiar breed of gods would have been made a target by the other gods.


    If they were to look into and unlock the secrets to Dante¡¯s rules, all of them would have probably been able to shake free of the weaknesses of being gods, and they would have no longer needed to be over-reliant on the powers of their believers.


    One-hundred heroic spirits crossed the imperial city and came to the royal pce. The general was rather angry upon seeing the broken gates, but he quickly calmed himself and remained silent.


    Even if the goddess were to not destroy the pce herself, it would have only been a matter of time before the ce was turned into rubble.


    It was simply impossible to return everything to how it once was. Most of theirrades back then had made their way to crystal wall systems of higher levels, and none of them would have ever returned. That pce was but a ce for mourning, and there was hardly anything special about it.


    The general finallyughed at that thought.


    The goddess then said, ¡°Congrattions. I see that you¡¯ve finally made peace with things.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, I have. Let¡¯s just kill the Heretic God and get on with it.¡± A weapon then materialized behind the general. It was a il.


    The il was a weapon that he had been using from the time he began learning martial arts right until he reached level 18. The very first form of that weapon was one of verymon equipment. The general then worked on the weapon meticulously every time he advanced, and he had finally made it into a godly item.


    The grandmaster saw that the general had decided to first kill the Heretic God before taking on the goddess, so he conjured a flowing magic robe upon his body.


    That magic robe was all white and had been given to him by his teacher back when he first learned magic. He had worked on it and modified it since, and it had stayed with him until he reached level 17.


    He was one step away from bing a level 18 mage, but his physical death had caused his level to drop to 16. He would have only recovered his powers at level 17 by using his magic robe¡¯s powers.


    The heroic spirits all switched to the equipment that they were the mostfortable with, as they were getting ready to fight.


    There was a tform north of the royal pce that was initially meant for the king¡¯s amusement. Materials reinforced by magic allowed the tform to stay sturdy even in the present day. That tform was t. The sealed youth finally said something.


    ¡°Everyone, if you intend to bait the Heretic God, it¡¯d be best if I were allowed to cooperate with you,¡± they said.


    The goddess shot a nce at the youth, saying, ¡°I don¡¯t need what is best in any way. I only need the Heretic God to show up.¡±


    ¡°I know the Heretic God¡¯s weaknesses,¡± the youth continued.


    ¡°So do I,¡± the goddess retorted.


    The youth had been very confident of themselves earlier. They thought that given how the goddess had captured them just to bait the Heretic God, they would have been able to move the goddess and get themselves free.


    It seemed, however, that the goddess was not joking at all. That youth then simply said, ¡°What if I were to tell you weaknesses of the Heretic God without asking for anything in return, and then work with you to bait the Heretic God? How about that?¡±


    ¡°Heh.¡± The goddess snickered and began toy a new magic array on the ground.


    ¡°That is the goddess not willing to dupe you. Even if the goddess were to set you free, I¡¯d kill you all the same,¡± Saleen said to the youth.


    ¡°What the h*ll are you!?¡± the youth yelled.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m a person and you ¨C you are just a tool to be used,¡± Saleen said as he pressed an Eternal Control Shard into the youth¡¯s head.


    The shard had been made by Saleen using broken divine personas, which was the most resilient type of material that he was able to use.


    Saleen had only just realized how powerful those pieces of broken jade that he had acquired back then were. When seen using his soul sensory, he was able to make out the rules of the Eternal Control Shard very clearly, and that had not even been one percent as strong as that of the broken jade.


    The youth was dumbfounded by what Saleen had done, but they quickly found that their soul was being ced under his control.


    ¡°Hahaha. You dumb mage. What¡¯s the use of putting my soul under control, eh? Don¡¯t you know that my soul is iplete, and Lord Heretic will just resurrect me?¡± The youth saw how the goddess and those around her were impervious to any machinations and no longer bothered with deception. They dropped the act altogether and began to ridicule everyone instead.


    The goddess snickered and said to Saleen, ¡°Do whatever you want to do with that thing. Just leave me the soul. I have use for it.¡±


    Saleen nodded and took out a chair. He sat beside the youth. The general looked on from afar with interest, wondering what Saleen would have done with the believer of the Heretic God.


    Saleen looked into the youth¡¯s eyes, finding them very determined. It urred to him that breaking the youth¡¯s mind would have taken quite some time.


    ¡°Myers, how much time do we have?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°An hour. I will activate the magic an hour from now and summon the Heretic God,¡± the goddess replied.


    Summon, eh...?


    Saleen did not know if he should have been impressed by what she said, or if he simply found her insane for doing so. If the Heretic God were to be summoned, there was no way they would be able to send it back. Gods of such levels, when sessfully summoned, only stopped when they were done wrecking the entire ne.


    ¡°Are you thinking that not being able to die is a good thing? I know someone who lived for hundreds of thousands of years, but that someone was in constant pain. If he were to have continued on like that, he might have ended up killing himself. Well then, let me ask you. What are the Heretic God¡¯s weaknesses?¡± Saleen lowered his head while he spoke to the youth. The chair he sat on made it seem as though he was looking down on the youth, who simply smirked coldly and said nothing.


    A blue electrical bolt appeared in Saleen¡¯s hand. He then touched the forehead of the youth gently. Their body jerked violently as if they were a fish out of water.


    However, the youthughed and red at Saleen ferociously, saying, ¡°Is that all you¡¯ve got?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I was never able to find suitable targets for practicing these skills, so I don¡¯t know what use they actually serve. Good thing I met you since nothing is able to kill you. Do you know that the thing I just ced inside your brain is something that will protect your soul? If you end up dead, I¡¯d be suffering a huge loss,¡± Saleen said.


    Saleen¡¯s finger weaved around the youth¡¯s forehead and continued to probe.


    It was only then that the youth¡¯s expression changed drastically. They realized that the goddess had no need for their secrets, and so the mage was allowed to do what he pleased.


    ¡°By the way, the lie detection used by mages is not as urate as what I just ced into your brain. I¡¯ll know when you¡¯re lying to me. Now, let me ask again. What are the weaknesses of the Heretic God?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that you don¡¯t want to know?¡± The youth huffed and puffed. Their expression looked twisted. They did not fearmon pain, but the electrical discharge in their brain felt like it was burning their very soul.


    ¡°You¡¯re right; I don¡¯t want to know. But I also know that you have no intention of telling me the answer. So, I was just asking for fun,¡± Saleen said as he turned the electrical bolt in his hand into a tiny snake. The snake wriggled around on the youth¡¯s face before heading for their nostril.


    The youth was utterly terrified. That was the first time they had heard someone speak the way Saleen just had. Because he had been trying to find out if the youth had any intention of cooperating, Saleen went on to ask things that the youth would definitely not have wanted to answer.


    That meant that Saleen was hoping that they would have refused to answer anything.


    That tiny snake conjured from electricity was only about as long as a pinky, and it was about as thick as the floaters used for finishing. The electric snake was unusually nimble. It also had scales and eyes, and the patterns on its body were both mysterious and beautiful. That was the first time Saleen had created a perfect living being using only his own powers.


    The electric snake was a level 15 lightning type magic beast.

 Chapter 1503: Baiting and Killing the Heretic God (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1503: Baiting and Killing the Heretic God (Part 2)</h4>


    Electric snakes, thunder hawks, lightning ravens, and thunder dragons. Out of those magic beasts, only thunder dragons truly existed. That was to say that in the crystal wall system Saleen was in, thunder dragons were the only lightning type living beings.


    Every other lightning type creature was conjured by mages using magic.


    Saleen had created an electric snake the size of a finger, which wriggled its way to the youth¡¯s nostril. When the electric snake moved, the youth felt as if their insides were about to rupture from fear.


    ¡°No need to worry, you won¡¯t die from it. I can control it, after all,¡± Saleen said,forting the youth with a low voice. It was only then that the youth began to stop looking down on Saleen.


    The youth had initially thought that Saleen was only ackey. From the looks of things at the moment, no one would have been able to stop what Saleen was doing. No one even seemed concerned that the youth would end up dead or having something unfortunate happen to them.


    ¡°I¡¯ll tell you. The Heretic God¡¯s wea...¡± The electric snake wiggled inside before the youth could finish speaking, leaving only the snake¡¯s tail dangling out of their nostril.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, it¡¯s time for punishment now. When the punishment is over, you¡¯ll have the right to talk again.¡± Saleen took control of the electric snake as it wiggled inside the youth¡¯s nose. The snake continued to wriggle, and finally, itpletely disappeared inside the youth¡¯s body with a pop.


    The youth opened their mouth, wanting to shout, but quickly found that Saleen had control of them. They were unable to make any noises because Saleen wouldn¡¯t allow them to speak.


    Saleen didn¡¯t do so just because he wanted to torture the youth. He was actually doing research, looking into the youth¡¯s body structure and what parts would have been lethal when attacked. Or at least, which parts could cause the bodies of his enemies to be paralyzed.


    The electric snake wriggled its way from the youth¡¯s head to their toes. The youth was even incapable of sweating, as water was being forcibly evaporated and then reabsorbed. The seal on the outside didn¡¯t even allow the youth to vent their pain. That one electric snake was the manifestation of torture in itself.


    The electric snake eventually dissipated without climbing out of the youth¡¯s body.


    ¡°You shall die a horrible death, mage!¡± the youth said as viciously as they were able to.


    Saleen smirked and continued, saying, ¡°I¡¯ll let you in on another secret for free. I¡¯m not afraid of curses. You saw it yourself. I was using lightning skills. Not even curses from the Heretic God would have worked on me. Alright then, let us continue. So, what is your name?¡±


    ¡°Figo,¡± the youth answered. They were no longer in the mood to y games.


    Saleen conjured yet another electric snake in his hand, which shot through the air andnded on Figo¡¯s mouth.


    ¡°This is the punishment for cursing me. Of course, yet another part of my training.¡± Saleen controlled the electric snake and made it wiggle into Figo¡¯s mouth. The grandmaster and the others looked on, feeling a disgusted, tingling sensation deep down. It was as if the snake had climbed into their bodies as well.


    Saleen turned out to be more trouble than they had imagined him to be.


    Figo cursed Saleen repeatedly on the inside, but they no longer dared to voice any curses. The pain caused by the electric snake moving throughout Figo¡¯s body was very difficult to put into words. It was as if someone was stimting the nerves all along their body over and over with a sharp razor.


    Saleen had gained even better control of the electric snake by the time it disappeared.


    He smiled and spoke to Figo, saying, ¡°Alright, let me ask you again. What are you doing here on Myers Maind?¡±


    ¡°Lord Heretic God told me to look into the case of the oracle¡¯s disappearance!¡± Figo replied.


    ¡°Wrong answer.¡± Two more electric snakes appeared in Saleen¡¯s hand. One snake went left while the other went right; both of them wriggling into Figo¡¯s ears. Figo continued to convulse, not out of fear, but because the electrical currents caused them to lose control of their body.


    Both snakes stayed inside for quite a long time, and by the time the punishment ended, Figo thought that they were dead.


    ¡°Alright, Figo. Another question. Why do you keep lying?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°If I were to tell the truth, the Heretic God would kill me before you could!¡± Figo answered.


    Four tiny electric snakes appeared on Saleen¡¯s hand that time. He didn¡¯t have any hopes that those snakes would be thick and strong. He was simply learning how to control them. The hardest thing to learn about lightning magic was control. Power was actually not that important. He had the Lightning Moon at his disposal. If he were to cast electric snakes using the Lightning Moon, those snakes would have appeared in lengths well over 100 meters.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling the truth!¡± Figo no longer had an attitude after seeing that Saleen had conjured four of the snakes. Figo became rather pathetic and tried to reason with Saleen instead.


    Saleen smirked and asked, ¡°You¡¯re telling the truth?¡±


    ¡°Absolutely!¡± Figo said.


    ¡°But you just told me that if you told the truth, the Heretic God would kill you. Well, you¡¯re not dead, so I take it that you¡¯re lying.¡± The four snakes shot forward and wriggled their ways into Figo¡¯s body again.


    The general and the others around him werepletely baffled. The way Saleen asked his questions made it so that no answer would have been correct.


    Saleen indeed had no interest in getting truthful answers. All he cared about was getting to test his lightning magic out on Figo.


    The profession of a mage was indeed an evil one. Once a mage became set in their path, nothing would have changed their will.


    The grandmaster, on the other hand, came to have a better opinion of Saleen. Such was the way of the mage, unfettered by the opinions of others around them. Figo had shown a hard, unyielding attitude when they were being hauled around by the goddess, yet it took only several torture attempts to soften Figo considerably.


    Saleen, however, knew that Figo wasn¡¯t actually softened to the point of yielding altogether. He still had some work to do.


    The goddess patiently worked on the magic array, which she did by solidifying the elements and working them directly into the ground, making the array very resilient. Therge magic array was made up of many small magic arrays, with every single one of the small arrays requiring a heroic spirit to stand on and operate them.


    The heroic spirits were being ordered around by the goddess as they took their spots. Only the general and the grandmaster didn¡¯t get assigned a location.


    It went without saying that both Saleen and Figo weren¡¯t required to participate.


    When Myers was doneying down the magic array, Figo appeared terrified stiff from all of Saleen¡¯s torture. While Figo¡¯s mind was resilient, Saleen¡¯s skill was one specialized in breaking the nervous system of its targets, causing hallucinations of all sorts to take ce.


    It was already considered a miracle that Figo had remained sane.


    ¡°What did you get out of that fellow, Saleen?¡± she asked after she was doneying down the magic array.


    ¡°Figo was an oracle of the Heretic God when they came here to Myers Maind but didn¡¯t carry out any of the Heretic God¡¯s orders, searching for a lost weapon of the Heretic God on this ne instead. This fool was attempting to rece the Heretic God!¡± Saleen said.


    Even the general wasughing by then. Only Figo still remained silent. Figo didn¡¯t have a chance to say much during the interrogation process, so they were baffled at how Saleen hade to know their secret.


    Saleen didn¡¯t say anything, and no one bothered asking any further. He had only found Figo¡¯s secret due to the power of the Eternal Control Shard.


    Once a person¡¯s soul was trapped by an Eternal Control Shard, it was only a matter of time before said person¡¯s secrets were all revealed. Saleen hadn¡¯t once stopped torturing Figo throughout the hour, giving them no chance to defend any of their secrets.


    Even if they had actually attempted to defend their secrets, their level was the same as Saleen¡¯s. Figo¡¯s power was sealed, and their body had been repeatedly shocked by the electric snakes until it had copsed altogether. It was only a matter of time before Figo¡¯s soul sumbed to the shard¡¯s power.


    From the perspective of the goddess and the others, Figo was an utter fool for harboring such thoughts, so Saleen¡¯s opinion of Figo was rather apt.


    Recing the Heretic God meant that the oracle needed to be at least at the level of the Heretic God before they even had a shot at it. Acquiring the strongest weapon that belonged to the Heretic God would have only resulted in the god taking back its weapon and returning to the peak of its powers.


    ¡°Alright. Come here, Figo.¡± The goddess waved at Figo. She used a prophecy spell¡ªthe proper type, not the knockoff version. The goddess was of insufficient level, but Figo nheless walked towards the goddess without hesitation, and then to a wooden cage at the center of the magic array.


    The wooden cage was a very dark red color, making it look as if it had been soaked in blood.


    Figo stepped into the cage and shut the door. The goddess then sealed the door altogether.


    Saleen looked at the cage and felt impressed. The blood-red cage was far sturdier than his own lightning cage. He was unable to think of anything that would have been able to break out from it.


    ¡°O¡¯ Heretic God, in the name of Myers, I hereby offer my sacrifice and summon thee.¡±


    The goddess chanted the words in an absent-minded fashion. Gashes appeared all over Figo¡¯s body, and blood spurted everywhere, staining the magic array beneath the cage.


    The blood of a level 14 oracle was supposedly more than enough to summon the Heretic God.


    Saleen watched carefully and learned from what he saw. He saw Figo¡¯s body being torn apart and then mended automatically. Figo¡¯s blood carried a ck aura with it, which was a power that belonged to the Heretic God.


    Only blood sprayed out while the ck aura simply returned to Figo¡¯s body.


    Saleen¡¯s repeated torture had caused the ck aura in Figo¡¯s body to be severely diminished. Regardless of how quick the healing process was, it was unable to stop the pain.


    Holy prose appeared one after another on Figo¡¯s body, both the goddess¡¯s and the Heretic God¡¯s. Both sets of holy prose fought for dominance on Figo¡¯s body. Figo suddenly opened their mouth, and their voice changed.


    ¡°Are you challenging me, Myers? You, a god who has just resurrected?¡± the voice of the Heretic God called from Figo¡¯s body.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a challenge; it¡¯s a warning. Send any oracle over again, and I shall illustrate that ugly mug of yours in detail in the codex of the Nature Faith,¡± the goddess replied.


    ¡°You said it, Myers. You really think I wouldn¡¯t dare to show, then?¡± The Heretic God¡¯s voice was calm, but it was actually very much enraged.


    It was deemed unforgivable for a god to insult another god in their codex.


    ¡°You dare? You¡¯re but a false god who doesn¡¯t even dare to put your name forward. You¡¯re a disgrace among gods.¡± The goddess provoked the Heretic God with the harshest of words.


    ¡°In that case, I shall...¡±


    The injuries on Figo¡¯s body suddenly healed as the Heretic God was in the middle of speaking through Figo¡¯s mouth. The entire blood-red cage was shrouded by a ck mist.


    The goddess then shouted, ¡°Now!¡±


    The magic array was activated immediately. Saleen backed away and saw that the blood-red cage flew into the air. Countless beams of magic were fired from the magic array, forming into a new magic array in the air, trapping the cage at the center.


    ¡°What are you waiting for, general?¡± the goddess shouted coldly. However, she was unwilling to attack using the Lightning Moon.


    ¡°Grandmaster!¡± The general refused to act. He wanted the grandmaster to test the Heretic God¡¯s level first.


    He was a heroic spirit, and the Heretic God was also a being that had perished before and been resurrected. The general wouldn¡¯t fight any battles that he wasn¡¯t certain he would win.

 Chapter 1504: Ascertaining Weaknesses (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1504: Ascertaining Weaknesses (Part 1)</h4>


    The ck aura surrounding the blood-red cage was dispelled by the light of the magic, and Saleen saw a repulsive man appear inside the cage. However, all connections he had with the Eternal Control Shard were cut off altogether.


    It was not the shard that was the problem, but that the difference between Saleen and the Heretic God was just too great.


    The shard seemed to have disappeared altogether. The Heretic God possessed Figo¡¯s body and was locked in the blood-red cage. Nearly 100 heroic spirits were taking control of the magic array, turning the cage into an indestructible prison. The Heretic God was no longer able to return to its ne. There was no way it could have escaped.


    There was only one way out for the Heretic God, and that was to break the cage and kill everyone standing in its way.


    The cage did not present much of a problem to it, but then again, there were three very powerful beings eyeing what was inside the cage.


    Those three were none other than the Goddess of Myers, the general and the grandmaster.


    All of the others were not even close to powerful enough to take on beings like the Heretic God. Their only use in the situation was to maintain the integrity of the blood-red cage.


    Saleen examined the Heretic God carefully. He had purified many of the Heretic God¡¯s underlings, and he knew just how powerful it could have been. The Heretic God looked rather ugly. It had the frame resembling that of a frail, weak monkey, with a very huge belly. Furthermore, the Heretic God had a tail, and that tail had hair all over it. The fur on its face was even thicker, yet its head was patchy.


    It was no surprise that it had gotten incredibly angry when the goddess said that she would have illustrated its appearance in detail and spread it everywhere.


    The best way to infuriate someone was to hit them where it hurt, and that worked the same with gods as well.


    The Heretic God had rushed there and therefore had brought nothing with it. It had never guessed that its believer would be locked up in a cage, and worse still, that the cage was something that it was unable to easily break out of.


    The grandmaster acted first, casting Fireball at the cage.


    Saleen knew, even back when he was at level one, that despite being powerful, Fireball was not actually a good choice most of the time. Such magic spells cost too much to cast and were difficult to control as well.


    However, the grandmaster¡¯s powers were such that the cost would not have been much of a problem for him.


    The Fireball was only the size of a bowl. It was crimson and looked unassuming.


    The Heretic God stopped howling altogether instead concentrated on the attack that was flying slowly toward the cage.


    The Fireball did not change in any way. The Heretic God opened its mouth after the spell entered the cage and blew out a whiff of ck aura, shrouding the Fireball. It did not want the Fireball to explode. The poisons contained within the Fireball were so potent that not even a god like it, who was versed in the art of poisons, would have wanted to deal with them.


    That ck aura isted the spell. The Fireball cracked on its own after being shrouded by it, shooting Ice Moon from within. The crescent-shaped Ice Moon was extremely sharp, and it cut up the ck aura as if it was something solid.


    What had just happened had something to do with the power of rules, and Saleen took the time tomit what he saw to memory.


    What the grandmaster had demonstrated with the power of rules of water was something that Saleen was capable of learning. The Ice Moon spun around and cut the ck aura to pieces before freezing it. The Fireball looked entirely unharmed, and its temperature spiked again.


    That Heretic God bared its fangs at the Fireball and swallowed it up. It actually intended to use the energy of that Fireball to work on its oracle¡¯s body.


    Despite its ferocious and eerie appearance at the moment, it had not actually managed to conquer Figo¡¯s bodypletely. The method of advent through taking bodies of others had a lot of shorings. The Heretic God had been too confident and acted too urgently when showing up to kill the goddess.


    A god who had just been resurrected would have served as a very good supplement to the Heretic God, after all.


    ¡°General...¡± the goddess said in a solemn tone. She turned around and looked at the general, saying, ¡°Drag this out as much as you like. The divine personas I gave you will onlyst you a day outside. You really think it¡¯s so easy to shake free of your graves? You wouldn¡¯t have been trapped for such a long time if it was. If we can¡¯t kill the Heretic God within the day, I will leave, and the Heretic God wille and destroy your graves before it does anything else.


    The general was exasperated. With the way the goddess had phrased it, if he were to simply continue to keep his hands to himself, he would have been the one at fault if things were to go south.


    The general swung his il about, and the metal balls on the weapon shed together, bursting with frightening power. The number of sparks dancing between the balls grew, and each of those sparks seemed to burn continuously without end.


    The head of the il slowly took on a fiery red color.


    The general leaped up and charged toward the outside of the cage before bringing the il down hard.


    The cage remained unscathed, and the sparks from the il shot inside of it. The Heretic God began to wail. The sparks seemed as if they were going to stay in existence indefinitely, and every single one of them dug into its skin.


    The Heretic God had an extremely frightening amount of power of the Source, but the general was also a level 18 professional. The rules he wielded were level 18 ones, and not only had they caused the Heretic God serious damage, but they also made sure that the resulting pain was something unforgettable.


    That grandmaster did not dare to make any moves after that. He was able to see that the goddess was maintaining the integrity of the blood-red cage. She would have made a move otherwise. She was busy trapping the Heretic God within the cage and keeping it from returning to its divine kingdom. Doing so required a very huge amount of power.


    It was very, very difficult to keep the Heretic God caged. The only one who did not attack was Saleen.


    Saleen was growing frustrated. Without the Lightning Moon, his attacks would have been but a joke to the Heretic God. He knew this because, if the general¡¯s mes had been thrown at him instead, he would have burned away until there was nothing left of him. The Heretic God, however, simply remained howling in pain, and it did not seem to be dying any time soon.


    The grandmaster¡¯s attack also allowed Saleen to see what grandmaster-ranked mages were like. Every single-target attack magic spell cast was imbued with an offensive capacityparable to forbidden curses.


    Those magic spells hit the Heretic God and caused huge openings on its body.


    It was worth noting that those openings were not wounds. While the Heretic God was simply possessing its underling¡¯s body, it was still nheless something like a nation of its own. None of the attacks worked. No pebble thrown into the sea could have done any harm to the sea itself, after all.


    The grandmaster was actually using magic to tear openings on the nation formed in the Heretic God¡¯s body, taking parts of the matter away and destroying them.


    The Heretic God actually retaliated. All four of its limbs continued to attack the blood-red cage. The ck mist that it blew from its mouth had already spread outside the cage.


    Saleen suddenly sensed the Lightning Moon returning to its ce above him.


    The goddess¡¯s voice could be heard from the depths of his soul, saying, ¡°Destroy the ck aura with electric snakes. The heroic spirits won¡¯t be able to hold on for long otherwise. The cage is about to break!¡±


    Saleen acknowledged her and began to secretly cast Dance of Electric Snakes using the Lightning Moon.


    Only a little more than a dozen snakes appeared, but things were then different from how they had been in the past. Every single electric snake was strictly controlled by Saleen, and they would not dissipate as easily. That was the result of all the practice he had done on Figo.


    Practicing spells without a target was practically pointless to mages.


    Every single electric snake dug into wisps of the ck mist and destroyed them using electrical discharges that came from their bodies.


    The ck mist that had sought its way through the cage was purified by the electric snakes, while the Heretic God looked on with baffled eyes, leaving a bunch of attribute-less granules on the ground.


    The Heretic God turned around to look at Saleen, who returned a fierce re. Three-hundred and sixty million lightning rune danced in his eyes, dealing a great impact on the Heretic God¡¯s Source.


    ¡°Yield, Heretic God.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was in, devoid of any imbued skills, yet it contained the power of lightning rules nheless.


    ¡°You ignorant kid. I shall send everyone that has anything to do with you to h*ll and torture them for millions of years...¡± the Heretic God said.


    ¡°You good-for-nothing idiot. You really think you¡¯re so d*mn powerful just because people go about calling you Heretic God? Look at yourself. You¡¯re in a cage now. What¡¯s the difference between you and a monkey?¡± Saleen asked.


    The Heretic God was so provoked by what Saleen said that it let out a shrill howl. That howl contained powers different from before. Dozens of heroic spirits were so stunned that they fell to the ground and cked out.


    However, such attacks had their cost. The grandmaster took the opportunity to throw light magic into the Heretic God¡¯s body, which the Heretic God hated the most. The general¡¯s mes dug into the Heretic God¡¯s brain as well, burning the Heretic God so intensely that its orifices began to smoke.


    The Heretic God was totally vexed. Its power had been such that even if it were to take on all three of them in a fair fight, it still would have held its own. However, the way it advented was problematic, and it ended up being trapped in a blood-red cage by the goddess, preventing it from bringing even ten percent of its usual powers to bear. But then again, its defensive capacity remained entirely intact.


    Having such formidable defense was utterly useless in that case, though. Despite both the grandmaster and the general bringing out their greatest attacks, both of them held their strongest equipment, which was in stark contrast to the Heretic God showing uppletely naked.


    Saleen actually had more up his sleeves as well. While he was incapable of using the power of the Si of Silence, he had nheless mastered some rules of the three-eyed people. As Saleen had advanced, the third eye on his forehead grew to have more than one type of power.


    Saleen opened the third eye on his forehead, and a beam of white light shot forth. The beam was actually the power of light that Saleen had been storing for over 1000 years. It was difficult for Saleen to umte such powers of light, as he was of a body of water element. The power of the light element resulting from elemental conversion was not pure, preventing it from being stored in the third eye.


    As such, the power of light had been something umted by other mages, which they had cast on Saleen, and he, in turn, absorbed them.


    Saleen had withstood countless attacks for over 1000 years, so much so that he had trained his third eye to develop a skill for absorbing the elemental powers of enemies. That beam of white light hit the inside of the cage, lighting the entire cage up and dispelling all of the ck mist within. The Heretic God¡¯s body could be seen,pletely lit up.


    The Heretic God panicked. It was still unustomed to being fully exposed before others. Saleen took the opportunity to use the Si of Silence.


    The Heretic God was not even aware of anything happening, as time had stopped for only a split second.


    Saleen saw the Heretic God¡¯s weakness¡ªits tail. The entire tail was fake. There was a very neat cut at the base of the tail, which was a result of being cut by others using weapons.


    The damage from that weapon was so great that even when the Heretic God switched bodies and reformed its body anew, it was still unable to repair the tail. The one who cut its tail off hadpletely severed the power of the Source on that part of its body.


    That ugly tail was but an illusion. That cut was the Heretic God¡¯s true weakness, and it was difficult to defend.

 Chapter 1505: Ascertaining Weaknesses (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1505: Ascertaining Weaknesses (Part 2)</h4>


    ¡°Myers, the Heretic God¡¯s weakness is on the base of its tail!¡± Saleen immediately told the goddess about the weakness he had found.


    ¡°Right, acknowledged.¡± The goddess, however, did not inform the general or the grandmaster of the weakness. She was waiting for the chance. The power of the Source of the Heretic God was too strong. Even when trapped within her blood-red cage, the prison was still unable topletely sever the god¡¯s connection with its believers.


    The Heretic God was expending its believers¡¯ life force and power of the Source. Even if the attacks were to be continued for an entire day, the Heretic God would have probably still been left alive.


    Saleen thought for a moment and amplified the electric snake¡¯s attacks, shrouding the entire cage in electricity, trying his best to sever the connection between the Heretic God and its believers.


    The connection between that god and its believers was more mysterious than any magic. Any way that the mages had tried to iste or block such connections showed only very limited sess.


    Saleen¡¯s Eye of the Soul continued to monitor and determine the Heretic God¡¯s movements. He gradually was able to catch up with the speed at which beings at such levels moved. If he were to keep doing so for about half a month, Saleen believed that his Crystal Finger would have been able to pierce the Heretic God¡¯s weakness urately, and that would have ended up halfway killing the Heretic God.


    Both the grandmaster and the general were also trying to look for weaknesses on the Heretic God but said god simply moved too fast. None of them had skills that allowed them to stop time, which meant that they would not have been able to see through to the Heretic God¡¯s weaknesses.


    The general was getting frustrated. The enemy in the cage was but a sitting duck that he continued to hit, and yet the result was still dismal. If the Heretic God were to escape, the Cemetery of Heroes would have truly been done for.


    They began to wildly conjure rule powers of the other five major elements, bombarding that Heretic God in a frenzy. The Heretic God finally showed signs of balking.


    The attack it had thrown at Saleen earlier did not end up doing anything to the mage. Dozens of heroic spirits ended up being rendered unconscious instead.


    That was what caused the Heretic God severe damage, and it still was unable to escape that blood-red cage.


    The Heretic God was getting unusually irritable. The cage was causing it some sort of psychological trauma. It would have killed every single being known by anyone that dared to call it a monkey, and that penalty would have been considered light. If it were in a really bad mood, it would have destroyed an entire ne instead. Anyone who dared to use cages to ridicule its past would have stoked the anger of the Heretic God so much that it would have burned every ce it treaded until not even air was left.


    However, at present, its frustration only resulted in the aggravation of its injuries. A human warrior and mage both attacked it at the same time, and the resulting damage stacked.


    There was a need to find a window. The Heretic God¡¯s instincts told it to calm down. It would have only been a matter of time before it ended up dead if it were to stay inside that cage. The human mage was nothing, but the other two ghost-like beings were capable of powerful attacks. The power of rules they contained was formidable enough to damage its Source.


    There was also the Goddess of Myers, who was maintaining the cage. She had yet to attack, but the name of the goddess nheless struck fear into the minds of gods. The number of gods that she had personally killed was well over 1000. She had killed more gods than even the King of Glory had.


    The Heretic God had an ugly appearance instead of the usual elegant, dashing formmonly seen among gods. It had always worn either armor or some form of regalia in front of its believers in order to mask its original form. Despite being stark naked at the moment, the drop inbat prowess was only momentary.


    The Heretic God had never actually had any need for equipment. Any equipment he would use was taken from others on the fly. If there was none to be found amongst its enemies, it would have made equipment on the fly using its believers instead.


    The believers of the Heretic God were capable of being reduced to attribute-less matter, making them natural material storehouses for the Heretic God.


    If there were not any believers around, then it would have resorted to using parts of its own body.


    The Heretic God bared its fangs, and two tusks grew speedily out of the sides of its mouth. When they reached about a meter-long each, the Heretic God tore them out and held them in its hand, making them into a set of daggers.


    Everyone other than Saleen was shocked when the daggers appeared. They then disappeared after appearing for less than a second. The Heretic God swung its arms around, and deafening hammering noises were heard reverberating from the blood-red cage.


    Two breaks appeared on the cage, apanied by a cracking sound. That damage was immediately mended, but there was one among the heroic spirits who was still awake.


    That was the heroic spirit using their own life to mend the cage, and that irritated both the general and the grandmaster considerably.


    It was especially so in the case of the grandmaster. He had failed to see that the goddess¡¯ magic array wasid in such a way that the heroic spirits were unable to evade attacks like that, and that they needed to give up their life in order to keep the blood-red cage intact.


    They were utterly duped by the goddess. The heroic spirits¡ªover 90 of them¡ªthat they brought out of the cemetery were all powerful professionals above level 15. Even if they were actually able to kill the Heretic God, it was simply no longer possible for the ones from the Cemetery of Heroes to overpower the goddess.


    The general and everyone else had known for a long time how cunning the goddess was, but they were still duped into fighting the Heretic God despite that awareness.


    Saleen learned a lot from all that had happened. It was due to the contract between him and the goddess that he had to resurrect her, and as such, was chained to the goddess¡¯ machinations. While he had gotten wealthy from it, it was an experience he would not have wanted to involve himself in ever again.


    Such had been Saleen¡¯s resolve, and that was what had driven him to begin destroying the temples.


    Yet, the oue was still him following the goddess around like a dog,ing all the way to the Imperial City of the Abyss just to put her ns into motion.


    The goddess was someone who often strong-armed others to do her bidding, but everyone who worked with her usually got a lot out of it. That had been Saleen¡¯s thoughts in the past. However, looking at how things ended up for the heroic spirits, he began to harbor doubts.


    He wondered if the goddess would eventually get rid of him as well. If he were to master the Lightning Moonpletely, he would have posed a serious threat to the gods.


    No. It would take me an untold amount of time to catch up to her.


    But then again, the goddess had helped him to work on the Hall of Gods. So long as he had a power supply that proved massive enough, he would have been able to alter the flow of time, and that would have enabled him to develop powers great enough to threaten the goddess within a short period of time.


    Despite the messed-up state of mind he was currently in, his hands continued to work well. He fired off hundreds of electric snakes and took control of them in the immediate vicinity of the cage. After the beam of white light was shot into the Heretic God¡¯s body, it was no longer able to create huge patches of ck mist.


    All five of them intended to cast their most potent attacks at the same time.


    The general and the grandmaster did not want to see any more of their own being sacrificed, while the goddess was worried that the Heretic God would soon really be able to burst out of the cage. Things would have been fine if it intended to fight her to the death if it did break out. She was most afraid of it wanting to escape instead.


    The Heretic God had entered the ne in a problematic way, yet the method it had used actually gave it an advantage in escaping. It would have been able to simply cast the body away and return to its divine kingdom. It would have regained its powers by just resting for one or two hundred years.


    Options would have opened up for the Heretic God once the blood-red cage was broken. The goddess would have never allowed the Heretic God to do much, however. She was determined to kill the Heretic God, even if it meant having to destroy the Lightning Moon.


    The Lightning Moon was wrestled out of Saleen¡¯s control and returned to its ce above the goddess¡¯s head. Countless holy prose appeared on her hand, all of which were replicated projections.


    Saleen was initially feeling irked about having the Lightning Moon taken away from him, but he quickly focused himself at that moment for fear of missing out on anything. He had even contacted Dante to inquire about the holy prose.


    Both Dante and Saleen memorized them. Those were not scripts created by the Goddess of Nature; they were holy prose of a Thunder God.


    The goddess did not know the meaning of those holy prose, as they were something stolen, enabling her to cast her most powerful lightning attack just once.


    Both the general and the grandmaster were oblivious to what the goddess was doing. She had achieved impable mastery of the invisibility ability of the Lightning Moon.


    Both the general and the grandmaster were giving their all to prepare their next attacks as well.


    They had been using instant attacks up until then. Their next attacks were something they needed to prepare for quite some time. The Heretic God continued flinging its arms around. The others were unable to see the Lightning Moon, but not the Heretic God. Such invisibility ability was fundamentally an extension of its powers. Weapons crafted from its bones were capable of stayingpletely invisible, after all.


    The Lightning Moon hovered above the goddess¡¯s head. The runes in the goddess¡¯s hand struck fear into the Heretic God¡¯s mind.


    It never expected the goddess to actually be able tomand such terrifying objects or to be able to cast skills that should have belonged only to the Thunder God.


    The Heretic God was a ferocious being itself and had killed a great many gods, losing only to a god once. Its eyes had been damaged by the Thunder God, robbing it of its sight for 120 thousand years.


    The Heretic God was terrified. It did not want to relive those 120 thousand years of being unable to see anything again.


    It became determined to run away, so much so that it was willing to give up evering to such a major ne again. Regardless of how brutal and furious the goddess had been, it was still utterly impossible for her to locate its divine kingdom.


    No one would have expected that such a terrifying creature as the Heretic God would have wanted to run when facing the Goddess of Myers.


    Fewer would have expected that it was an oue that resulted from Saleen¡¯s continuous use of Thundering Sound skills. Thundering Sound skills were not skills that shocked targets to submission right away. They were something that would continuously corrode the souls of enemies, causing them to fall under the skills¡¯ influence without knowing it. That was the most terrifying thing about the Thundering Sound skills.


    Only when the mental defenses of enemies crumbled would the Thundering Shock be able to deal the killing blow. Furthermore, there was no way one could have been immune to Thundering Sound skills unless the enemy in question was versed in such abilities as well. Level differences would have only diminished the power of Thundering Sound, but it would not have been able to nullify it altogether.


    The Heretic God, subjected to pressure from the goddess and the others, was oblivious to what a mage like Saleen was capable of, resulting in it lowering its guard against him, which in turn enabled Saleen¡¯s skill to work in secret.


    nging noises continued to be heard as the Heretic God attacked the blood-red cage in a frenzy. One heroic spirit after another dropped to the ground, giving up their lives to maintain the cage¡¯s integrity.


    The general¡¯s eyes were bloodshot, and the projection of a weapon was gradually seen on his left arm. It was a shield of a rusty red color and had 12 pointy spikes on the front.


    That was the weapon that the general was most proficient in. It would have stayed intact so long as his soul remained. Every time such a piece of equipment was used, it meant that the general no longer could afford to run. He had to kill the enemy, as the loss of that equipment would have caused him considerable damage.


    A magic book materialized in the grandmaster¡¯s hand. As heroic spirits, only equipment that was the closest to them would not have been lost.


    That magic book had 18 magic spells, with six of them being level 18 ones. They were all interconnected, enabling them to all be cast in one go.


    Those spells were originally meant for taking on the goddess, but at present, he had to use them against the Heretic God. However, the grandmaster would not have regretted it, as the direction in which the Heretic God was attempting to escape was right in front of him.


    The Heretic God did not dare to face the Lightning Moon, so the grandmaster misunderstood the Heretic God¡¯s actions as the god intending to devour him and the general before taking on the goddess.


    The weakness of the heroic spirits was that they were food that tasted great to the gods. The Heretic God¡¯s injuries would have all healed once it had eaten up the heroic spirits before it.

 Chapter 1506: Monkey (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1506: Monkey (Part 1)</h4>


    As the Heretic God flung his arms about, his formless dagger cut numerous cracks on the cage. Both the general and the grandmaster had finished conjuring their weapons and were waiting for the Heretic God to break through its cage and attack.


    Saleen had steeled his mind. He had one chance to attack the Heretic God once it was out. He couldn¡¯t use the Crystal Finger because it was simply too dangerous. He would have to use his family badge.


    The attack he nned to pull off with his family badge had to be aimed at the Heretic God¡¯s tail to cause the most damage.


    The third eye on Saleen¡¯s brow continued to blink to find out how the Heretic God moved about, as even level 18 beings would have traceable rules.


    The more he looked, the more shocked he felt. The Heretic God never repeated the moves with those daggers even once. The way it cast its powers was never the same. That kind of technique was absolutely not something that could have been learned but something honed from having fought countless battles.


    When swordsmen practiced, they had to begin by repeating the same moves over and over, but with the Heretic God it was entirely different.


    Saleen, however, realized something else. Even when the Heretic God absolutely never repeated any of its moves, he was able to see the rules nheless, or else the abilities of the three-eyed people far exceeded his imagination. The movements of the Heretic God began to be influenced by the ability of the three-eyed people. Although there were no repeated moves being executed, rules were nheless bing traceable.


    Saleen was a level 14 mage. If he was able to affect a level 18 god, that would be attributable only to the power of the three-eyed people, which was something that exceeded level limitations. Although the Heretic God had indeed been injured, it nheless retained the ability to manipte rules.


    The light shes seen in the red cage were the result of the power of light element that Saleen sent into the Heretic God¡¯s body, which was then forced out. Thick ck mist shot all over the ce, and the cage split with a crack in the middle. The general cast a charging skill of the warriors, making it to the Heretic God¡¯s side within an instant.


    The shield in his hand banged hard onto the body of the Heretic God, immobilizing it as the 12 pointy spikes on the shield stabbed it.


    The 12 spikes represented the 12 highest rules that the general had developed in his training.


    The general brought the il on his right hand down hard onto the Heretic God¡¯s head, smashing it open.


    The Heretic God shrugged and yet another head emerged from his neck. The new head was huge, and the Heretic God¡¯s entire body expanded with it.


    Having been severely injured by the general, the five-foot-tall Heretic God grew uncontrobly, reaching a height of more than 30 feet. Its new head looked like that of a gori but with protruding tusks and a curly head.


    Saleen was baffled. ¡°This thing has actually turned into a monkey?¡± he thought.


    He had no idea of the Heretic God¡¯s origins. It had originally been a rare, peculiar magic beast that was of mixed blood. It was by pure coincidence that it had be a god. It had once saved a hunter who had brought bad luck for worshipping the magic beast all those years ago and the Heretic God today as a god. The Heretic God had acquired the power of faith as a result, which set it on a path from which it was unable to return.


    There was no way the gods would have allowed a magic beast to be one of them. The Heretic God had experienced things that were hundreds of thousands of times more horrifying than what a mage like Saleen had experienced. The Heretic God had be a god who went out to ughter gods atter stages, making it totally different from that simple-minded, naive magic beast all those years ago.


    It would have encountered believers, however, who resembled that hunter back then, and it would have bestowed such people with powers and eternal life.


    For the past several billion years, it was only that bit of warmth and that face of a devout that could have calmed the Heretic God.


    It wondered just how long it had been since it hadst used its own godly body. The Heretic God had little wrath to speak of. It had long gotten used to being attacked by humans andughed at by the gods after enduring it for so many years.


    ¡°What a beautiful monkey,¡± the goddess uttered in a spiteful tone.


    The general backed away as a force burst through the Heretic God¡¯s body, preventing it from attacking again. Six level 18 spells were cast from the grandmaster¡¯s magic book, but he himself disappeared from the ce he had stood, which had been less than three feet away from the Heretic God.


    Saleen saw the power of rules permeating the Heretic God¡¯s surroundings, which were those of the void.


    All attacks werepletely nullified, and nothing was around anymore. Only those two long daggers could be used for attacks. One dagger was thrown at the general¡¯s heart while the other at the grandmaster¡¯s head, and both hit their respective targets.


    The bodies of both beings burst and disappeared without a trace and returned to their respective graves.


    The Heretic God turned its naked body and eyed the Goddess of Myers with lust.


    ¡°Monkey, huh? Hehe, you¡¯re right.¡± The Heretic God¡¯s body grew yet again, reaching 60 feet. Its 30-foot-long golden hairs billowed in the wind, appearing smooth and silky. Saleen, however, sensed that every hair on the Heretic God was like an incredibly sharp dagger capable of cutting through refined steel.


    The horns on the Heretic God¡¯s head shrunk and looked unassuming. The beams of light that shot from its eyes as they opened and closed were like those of high-level martial artists.


    Saleen took notice of the tail behind the Heretic God. The weakness was still there, and a purple gash could be seen between the golden hairs.


    Both the general and the grandmaster returned to their graves, making Saleen realize that if those heroic spirits were to be killed entirely they would have to bepletely removed from their graves, as though they were signing a contract with him to allow them to leave their graves.


    Their graves were prisons, yet they were also the heroic spirits¡¯ best means of keeping themselves alive.


    Saleen had been able to kill all 24 of those heroic spirits, because they had lost the protection of their graves. He began to feel a degree of fear. If he were to begin plotting to kill the heroic spirits and rob them of their energies, it would only be a matter of time before he ended up being killed by the general.


    That one strike from the general was something that only the likes of the Heretic God could withstand. If he was the one getting hit, his brains would be crushed, and there was no way he could stay alive. Under the rules of the general, not even his Figure of Fate would have been able to save him.


    After he had gotten a clear idea of just how fearsome level 18 professionals were, Saleen backed away again.


    He no longer bothered concealing the Lightning Magic Book in his hand. He red at the Heretic God, waiting for it to attack.


    That red bangle on the goddess¡¯s wrist split apart like the Thunder Dragon Bangle. A rain of flowers appeared above the tform, and every single petal quickly wilted.


    The Heretic Godughed as it pointed at the goddess, saying, ¡°You think those kinds of rules could kill me? I am the highest god, I can live forever, and I don¡¯t have any weaknesses!¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡± The goddess remained unfettered. The holy prose in her hand was finished beingid. Tens of thousands of lightning ravens shot outside of the Lightning Moon over his head.


    Saleen¡¯s heart twitched. He could sense from the emergence of those birds that more than half the energies stored in the Lightning Moon were extracted, as if the Lightning Moon was no longer to keep itself in one piece.


    The goddess chuckled and let Saleen summon the construct back to him. She even said to him through their connections at their souls, ¡°Saleen, the Lightning Moon is almost done for. But then again, it was something handed over by the emperor himself, and I leave it up to you to deal with it. If you are able to restore it, then it shall be yours from here on out.¡±


    A bitter smile appeared on Saleen¡¯s face. He knew that the emperor of the First Dynasty would have left troublesome parts in that equipment. Saleen had initially thought that because the emperor was not well versed with lightning magic that he had simply left the Lightning Moonying around. Saleen also thought that the King of Glory wouldn¡¯t have been able to change the internal structure of such powerful lightning equipment, so there could not have been traps in them.


    ording to what the goddess was saying, though, she was being quite clear that the Lightning Moon would have gotten him into huge trouble sooner orter.


    Be it a god at a ss like Myers or just regr mages, none would have lied about things like that.


    Saleen put the Lightning Moon away in the Ring of Cosmos but against his own will. The Aqua Fulgur stored within the ring ceaselessly surged into the Lightning Moon. The internal structure of the Lightning Moon was indeed beginning to degrade, and that was something that could not be changed even with the surge of Aqua Fulgur.


    The unique rules with the Ring of Cosmos, however, began to rework the internal structure of the Lightning Moon instead.


    That reworking was different from the original internal structure of the Lightning Moon. The only simrity was the material used, and the attempt crafted new rule powers for the Lightning Moon.


    A dark point of origin within the core of the Lightning Moon suddenly imploded, and the Aqua Fulgur within the Ring of Cosmos surged into it in a frenzy, turning the ck point into a violet color. The Lightning Moon used that point of origin as its center. Countless lightning magic patterns extended outside of it, gradually forming a translucent structure.


    After absorbing huge amounts of Aqua Fulgur, the violet point of origin finally turned blue.


    The blue point of origin now spread out to form a neb. Lightning of massive energy unceasingly sparked within the neb. Almost one-tenth of the Aqua Fulgur found within the Ring of Cosmos had been absorbed into that blue neb.


    That was a result of the devoured Lightning Constetion emerging, which changed the structure of the Lightning Moon throughout.


    The equipment truly became Saleen¡¯s, and there were no longer any dangers lying within.


    Saleen was unbelievably quick to repair the Lightning Moon. The Goddess of Myers attacked when the Lightning Moon was being put away, and the equipment was alreadypletely repaired while she was still at it.


    He felt impressed at Lex¡¯s sense. She had been the one who had told him to trade the Mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake for the Ring of Cosmos, and he had absolutely earned a great deal from that trade.


    He wondered, though, ¡°What is the actual level of the Ring of Cosmos, given how it was actually capable of repairing something as high level as the Lightning Moon?¡±


    The goddess¡¯s Withering Dance was extremely masterful. Saleen felt nothing despite being caught within the skill¡¯s range of attack, and that had been the result of the goddess¡¯s impable control with the skill.


    Tens of thousands of bolts of lightning ravens pounced on the Heretic God while the Withering Dance was still in full effect.


    Because the Heretic God was not killed by the Withering Dance, it was also incapable of escaping its range of attack, so much so that it was not even able to move quickly. The power contained within the Lightning Moon could have been used in a cyclic manner. The way the goddess had unleashed its power made it so that the attack seemed unceasing.


    The golden hairs all over the Heretic God were now charred within mere moments.


    Saleen felt a sense of dread. If the lightning ravens could enter the Heretic God¡¯s body, then it would have been killed by the goddess regardless of how powerful it was. The damage seen at the moment was only on the surface, and the conjured ravens disappeared as soon as they touched the Heretic God¡¯s skin.


    Tens of thousands of attacks were carried out in fewer than 10 seconds, and the Heretic God only ended up severely injured in that span of time.


    ¡°Is Myers running out of tricks already?¡± Saleen wondered.

 Chapter 1507: Monkey (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1507: Monkey (Part 2)</h4>


    The attacks of the lightning ravens were weaker than Saleen¡¯s Book of Lightning, but their tens of thousands of attacks stacked levels of damage that proved formidable, nheless.


    Seeing how the goddess seemed to be smirking, Saleen realized all of a sudden that she was telling him that it was impossible for him to kill the Heretic God with the Book of Lightning.


    ¡°Why the hell is that?¡± he wondered.


    ¡°You are indeed the strongest monkey I¡¯ve ever encountered. It¡¯s a pity that I don¡¯t have level 18 lightning powers, or else...¡±


    What the goddess said finally prompted the Heretic God to run amok. A lightning bolt seemed to have struck Saleen¡¯s mind, making him realize that unless he reached level 18, there was no way he could kill the Heretic God. He wouldn¡¯t even be able to severely damage it until then.


    The only thing that could threaten the Heretic God was the Crystal Finger.


    Saleen was utterly confused. ording to the legends told of Raphael, he should have been a mage whose level was between 10 and 12, but what Saleen intended to pull off wouldn¡¯t even be something that a level 15 could do.


    At the very least, Saleen felt that despite having massive human resources at his disposal¡ªspecifically, having tens of thousands of mages to aid him¡ªhe would be able to open an interdimensional space on his own, allowing said space to gradually seed in bing a full-fledged ne 1,000 yearster.


    Saleen was also unable to understand how things like the metal totem pole and the Crystal Finger worked.


    ¡°Can a skill created by a low-level mage threaten a level 18 god?¡± he thought.


    Attacks from the lightning ravens gave the Heretic God an extremely hard time. Its speed was reduced to the absolute lowest in the Withering Dance, forcing it to resort to resisting the onught by relying solely on the toughness of its body.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± the goddess shouted. The holy prose in her hand was converted into the holy prose of the nature gods. One hundred twenty thorny vines shot out of the ground and prated the Heretic God¡¯s body.


    Saleen could clearly see 1,200 magic soldiers suddenly emerging and then surrounding the Heretic God. Those vines were actually only projections. The goddess bound the Heretic God just to give him one shot at attacking.


    Saleen wasted no time. His body was instantly covered in Ice te Armor, Comet sh was cast, and he charged to the rear of the Heretic God. He then simply pointed his finger.


    The Crystal Finger squarely hit the wound on the Heretic God¡¯s tail, and raging power blew up the rear of that part, reducing it to flying bits of flesh.


    The Heretic God howled and leapt more than 300 feet high. The ethereal thorny vines took solid forms and tore open more than 100 transparent holes all over its body.


    Golden blood spilled in a frenzy from all those holes.


    Saleen¡¯s Ring of Cosmos spun and sucked more than half of the golden blood away. The goddess let the magic soldiers clear up all the remaining spilled blood, as well.


    All of that happened in an instant, and the Heretic God was so severely damaged that the wounds created by the lightning ravens could no longer heal. They remained torn and wiggled about.


    It was a pain that struck the depths of its heart.


    The magic soldiers were casting attacks again. Three hundred magic spells directly hit the Heretic God, and four magic soldiers cast one magic spell¡ªthe Dissolution Arrow of Light.


    The goddess wiggled about and turned into a huge phoenix, burning up instantly and shrouding the Heretic God.


    The two daggers of the Heretic God shot out from the mes, and Saleen grabbed them and put them away in the magic amplifier.


    With his Crystal Finger, he unleashed all of his offensive power, whichpletely drained his magic chords and half-drained his power of the soul. He was no longer able to fight, yet he did not want to leave. He opened up the Book of Lightning and fired a thick bolt of lightning from it.


    Without the help of the goddess, there was no way he would survive if he were to run into the Heretic God again.


    Saleen was hating it deep down, but there was nothing he could do about it. That was how the goddess operated¡ªgiving someone goodies and having them work for her, whether they liked it or not.


    Suddenly, a huge hole appeared on the fiery body of the goddess, which allowed Saleen¡¯s thick lightning bolt to pass through it and hit the Heretic God. More than half of the precious golden hairs on the Heretic God¡¯s body burned away. Wounds were visible everywhere on its skin, and Saleen¡¯s lightning bolt prated its body.


    Two ming hands dived inside its body and tore through the wounds, aggravating them and taking a piece of bone from it. The hands tossed the bone away, and Saleen caught it.


    ¡°Dante!¡± the goddess shouted.


    Dante charged while still shuddering. It had been hiding in the magic amplifier but could no longer resist the goddess¡¯s summons, as that would have been very bad for its master, if the Heretic God were to stay alive.


    The Heretic God had never suffered injuries so grave. Even the Thunder God so many years ago had only been able to blind it.


    Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger, on the other hand, blew more than half of its rear-end away.


    More terrifying was that the mage¡¯s skill had also sucked its power from the Source, and repairing that part of its body became immensely difficult.


    It could not be repaired unless it could acquire more power from the Source to do so; however, such magnitude of power from the Source would require more than a billion years to umte.


    A puny mage had been able to wreck what it had painstaking built for so long.


    The Heretic God felt so much pain that it was as if its heart was bleeding. It swore to keep Saleen alive, just so that it could throw him in a purgatory it created and then torture him for all eternity.


    Dante¡¯s speed of attack was working. It, too, had unleashed tens of thousands of electric snakes into the Heretic God¡¯s body, which severely injured it and left it with no way of resisting so many attacks.


    Raging electrical discharges continued to ravage its body, and a thunderous rumble reverberated within the Heretic God¡¯s body. A huge head¡ªtorn apart from the neck by the goddess¡ªwas then seen flying in the air.


    The head prated into a huge ck hole after it was sent flying before disappearing without a trace.


    The goddess twisted up the remains of the Heretic God and put it away in her red bangle.


    The bodies of the 1,200 magic soldiers began to crack loudly before disintegrating one after another with electrical discharges.


    Saleen was both shocked and angry. The goddess had no intention of killing the Heretic God. She only wanted the Heretic God¡¯s body. With a godly body like that, she would have no problem recovering her powers at level 18, but he, on the other hand, was nowpletely on the bad side of the Heretic God.


    If he were to leave the goddess¡¯s side, she would have definitely no longer bothered with his protection.


    She was extremely weak at the moment, but Dante would not dare to act against her. Saleen had expended all of his magic chords with that one shot with the Crystal Finger. The only level 18 scroll he had left with him was something that the goddess had given to him. If he were to use it against her, she could simply detonate it.


    The goddess looked at the ground full of the remains of the magic soldiers and sighed. She said, ¡°You can have them.¡±


    Her body then disappeared without a trace.


    Saleen was baffled for a bit before calling Dante.


    ¡°What is the matter, master?¡±


    ¡°Tell me, how long do you think a god needs to recover from losing its head?¡±


    ¡°In the case of the Heretic God, probably hundreds of millions of years?¡±


    ¡°Well, best be wary of its double then. Let¡¯s head back, Dante.¡±


    ¡°Head back?¡±


    ¡°Head back to the Cemetery of Heroes. The general requires some items from the gods to recover his power, and this would be a big gift from me to him.¡±


    Dante was puzzled by what that meant. If it had been Nailisi, she would have probably understood what Saleen was thinking.


    Saleen did not leave right away. He put away the pieces of the magic soldiers and looked out for a bit on the tform. He only let Dante go back into the magic amplifier after confirming that there was nothing left to take.


    Most of Saleen¡¯s magic chords had regenerated after resting for a while, which cost him a piece of dragon crystal.


    He headed alone to the Cemetery of Heroes and stood outside. Saleen thought for a bit and decided it would be best for him to take out all the godly items rted to the goddess, including the divine crystals.


    ¡°General, I was forced to do what I did by Myers, too, and I was unable to resist. Here is everything you need for your people.¡±


    Saleen left the items inside the cemetery. A croaked voice was heard from within the cemetery, saying, ¡°Rx, Saleen. We won¡¯t do anything against you until Myers is dead!¡±


    ¡°Good to hear.¡± Saleen was satisfied and left.


    Saleen was not in a hurry, and he remained in the abyss just outside of the imperial city to put all his broken divine personas into the Hall of Gods before taking Dante to train inside.


    What he had intended to do was restore the Lightning Moon¡¯s powers. Although the goddess had without doubt duped him, the benefits she had given him were solid and undeniable, nheless.


    He became capable of mastering the power of lightning, acquired a higher level ofbat tactics, and learned one valuable lesson¡ªnever try to take advantage of powerful beings. What one could acquire would have to be equal to what one gave. That was a warning from the goddess.


    Saleen needed to digest everything the goddess had imparted him with. She had not held back anything when she had taught him, but she had not provided him with any additional assistance, either. How much he was able to remember had been all up to him.


    Saleen¡¯s memory was excellent, but what the goddess had taught him had been simply too much. The information contained within a single movement was more than enough to keep him reminiscing for a whole day. It was fortunate that Dante was around because it had three heads. Everything Saleen saw was transmitted to Dante, and that weapon spirit remembered. That was equal to Saleen remembering all of it himself.


    The internal parts of the jade that kept Dante in control were packed full of all manner of scripts, all of them containing information cast by the goddess. The knowledge was imparted using different scripts to serve as mediums, and the borations were extremely detailed.


    The goddess had no idea that Saleen had a piece of jade like that. If she knew, she probably would not have bothered giving Saleen so many pointers. ording to her calctions, Saleen would have only been able to select and digest what was deemed most useful and advantageous to him, as well as the information that was easiest to memorize.


    She had beenpletely oblivious to how greedy Saleen was for magical knowledge, and she had not expected that his equipment had abilities that could surpassmon sense, enabling him tomit everything he had been taught to memory and also analyze it.


    Saleen spent three months within the Hall of Gods relying only on those broken fragments of divine personas. He categorized andpartmentalized everything the goddess had taught him within those three months, learning quickly while working on the daggers left behind by the Heretic God to make his own weapons.


    Those two daggers were created out of the tusks of the Heretic God, so there was little need to doubt their sharpness. They were far better than the golden dagger in Dante¡¯s possession.


    Both daggers were of equal length and had a natural curve. Golden threads crafted from the Heretic God¡¯s hairs on his own coiled around the handle. Four simple runes wereid onto the daggers by Saleen, and they were runes seen on the Ring of Cosmos.


    Invisibility, sharpness, speed, and power were the attributes imbued within those two daggers.


    Most importantly of all, Saleen was already capable of controlling those two weapons at will just like an assassin, dealing lethal damage to anyone who got near him.

 Chapter 1508: No One to Rely On (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1508: No One to Rely On (Part 1)</h4>


    The two daggers hovered silently before Saleen. He could see them even though Dante couldn¡¯t even trace them.


    Saleen looked at the magic clock, specting that the battle with the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom should have begun. He had no time to waste anymore.


    He went quickly to the teleportation array outside the Oceanic Ice Block and returned to Metatrin City first, where he saw the Floating City hovering above. The entire city below was bustling, and all the shops were open for business.


    Saleen didn¡¯t stay around for long. After walking to the teleportation portal, he went to Daliang City. He then departed from there and headed to his teacher¡¯s line of defense, which proved imprable. That defense line had battled the divine kingdom more than 10 times, and all the battles had been fought at the scale of millions.


    The human armies were no longer as unruly and boisterous as they had once been. The divine armies had grown increasingly strong, and Rafel had only been intercepting the angels. The fighting on the ground was handed mostly to the nobles from Cloudflow.


    Material supply was the very reason why Lion City had been able to hold out for as long as it had.


    The city that had been of little renown prior had be the most famous city found on Myers Maind. Many professionals hade either alone or in small groups, wanting to contribute to the defense of the maind.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull were the most excited to see Saleen showing up.


    He went to first inquire about his teacher¡¯s opinion on the war. Jason then said to Saleen, ¡°The power of the Lord of Glory should be at the pinnacle of level 15, making it so that even if there were to be several level 15 professionals taking him on, they still might not be able to fight him. You and I, however, would absolutely be able to kill him if we were to team up. But then again, the Lord of Glory was worried about that too, so he first sent arge number of angels to weaken the forces of Myers Maind. If you have any ways of killing the angels en masse, that would have forced the Lord of Glory to show up personally.¡±


    Saleen thought for a bit and asked, ¡°Sir, could we drag the war out for as long as possible?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking of advancement then?¡± Jason asked.


    ¡°Indeed. So long as I have a single divine persona, I¡¯d be able to alter the flow of time, getting to level 15 within months.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Then I shall train with you and get to level 16 myself,¡± Jason answered calmly.


    The threshold between levels 15 and 16 was an even greater one. Even in ancient times, there had been a great many who had remained stuck there. The heroic spirits whom Saleen had killed had been willing to sacrifice themselves because they had known that they would have never been able to get pass that threshold.


    Saleen was shocked to hear that his teacher had the confidence of getting to level 16. If Saleen were to reevaluate Jason¡¯s talents in magic based on what Jason had just said, his teacher would have surpassed any mage that he had ever known.


    Jason was someone who was capable of deepprehension of many areas of knowledge just by reading magic notes about them once and then immediately apply them in myriad ways. During such implementations, Jason had never failed more than three times with his experiments, or even live battles, in his attempt to master the gist of the kind of magic he was picking up. It had only taken him days to develop high proficiency with them.


    Mages like him were rare even in ancient times.


    Saleen then said to his teacher at that thought, ¡°If you intend to get to level 16, I¡¯d suggest that you best get amply prepared. I¡¯m going to collect all high-level magic nuclei that I can find.¡±


    ¡°No need for that, Saleen. I too have a piece of high-level divine persona. I was thinking of absorbing the power of rules within after getting to level 16, but I don¡¯t think I need to anymore.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I¡¯m not taking your divine persona!¡±


    ¡°Saleen, I¡¯m hoping to create rules that are uniquely mine, and I¡¯m determined to never enhance my powers like that,¡± Jason answered confidently.


    Saleen didn¡¯t insist anymore. Jason wanted to create, or more specifically,prehend rules that belonged only to him. That was not considered rare during ancient times.


    Saleen did not assign more troops to the second line of defense after he was done talking with his teacher. He called Rafel, Nailisi, and the others toe over, and they began to discuss the tactics for the uing battles.


    Thest time Nailisi had fought, she had drawn the attention of a double of the Lord of Glory and had almost ended up dead in the divine kingdom, but she was no longer what she once was. While it had been dangerous, she had not been injured, and that double was already consumed by the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    Nailisi, however, provided a detail to Saleen¡ªNot all doubles of the Lord of Glory were made equal, and that was probably done by consuming others. The Lord of Glory would have probably assimted other god creatures and extract their energies to create a double.


    Such doubles would have performed weaker in battles, making them less capable than the first one that had been sent to the maind a while ago.


    That was not good news. If the Lord of Glory had conquered ample numbers of divine kingdoms, then he would have been able to create such doubles in a practically limitless manner. That was a method developed to circumvent his inability to consume more gods, due to having yet to be able to advance to the next level.


    Nailisi had be far more cautious after that encounter. If the Lord of Glory were to create a double the conventional way, such a double would have been at the pinnacle of level 15 in the divine kingdom. The Lord of Glory himself would have probably possessed the power of a level 16 being.


    The Lord of Glory was probably thinking of baiting powerful professionals from the maind into his divine kingdom, giving him an edge as his forces were fighting at home.


    That was not some kind of delusion. He had armies massive enough to do so, and if he were to simply drag the war out, Myers Maind would have probably ended up copsing from attrition. Even Saleen had had the thought of charging inside the divine kingdom and ending all those problems in one go.


    If it had not been for him having acquired the Hall of Gods, Saleen would have not wanted to drag the war out.


    Saleen had mastered the electric snake when he had been at level 14, which meant that if he were to get to level 15, he would possibly be able to master the thunder hawk, and that would boost his odds, as well as his confidence.


    Furthermore, he had learned how to create lightning ravens when fighting alongside the goddess, and they had been capable of harming even the likes of the Heretic God.


    Saleen did not want the fighting to end quickly, but the Cloudflow people did not share this thought. The gates of the divine kingdom were right above Cloudflow soil, after all. If the fighting were to be prolonged, the Cloudflow people would have been the ones at the greatest disadvantage.


    Fighting wars was not just about money and people but also about morale.


    The longer the fighting was prolonged, the more likely morale among the Cloudflow fighters would suffer.


    Jason refused to see any of the emissaries sent by Lion City. When Saleen returned, Jason handed everything in that department to him, and an emissary from the city was finally received.


    ¡°Your highness, please, for the sake of humanity, send troops to attack the divine kingdom.¡± The emissary who hade this timeid prostrate on the ground, performed the most respectful of gestures, and kowtowed to Saleen. He was a silver grand swordmaster himself and had never before been so humble.


    The will in Saleen¡¯s eyes, however, was something that was born out of the power of the soul. Saleen had already be capable of taking on a silver grand swordmaster without even lifting a finger. That silver grand swordmaster was utterly terrified before Saleen, as Saleen¡¯s power far exceeded his imagination.


    ¡°Stand up and talk.¡± Saleen¡¯s voice was in as he said it. The pressure on the emissary disappeared altogether, and he rose without realizing it.


    Saleen had someone get a chair for the emissary before telling him in a calm,posed manner, ¡°The Lord of Glory is a level 15 god, and he is capable of bringing level 16 powers to bear in the divine kingdom, while I am only a puny level 14 mage.¡±


    The emissary¡¯s mind sank to the bottom right there and then. Even a golden grand swordmaster was already considered very powerful in the ranks of their armies, yet Saleen, as a level 14 mage, said that he was puny instead. He was wondering if someone with his level of powers would have been better off dead.


    ¡°But I¡¯m looking for ways to take the god on. Stay here for the time being. I shall send an army to aid Grand Duke tinum for the moment. Oh, right. I¡¯ve brought 50,000 sets of flying armors with me. That should be enough for taking on angels below level 9.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s massive generosity made the emissary speechless.


    Those Bug Angel Armors were no doubt expensive, but Saleen was already getting ready to discontinue them. Those of sufficient levels in his human army were all wearing Tainted Blood Armors by then, and his demon armies were all armed with the Devil Possession Armors.


    Both sets of armor were capable of flight, and they had better defense, making them more suitable for soldiers of those two races.


    The Bug Angel Armors were decent, but they were weapons of insectoids, making it difficult for even demons to wear them. Unless the ones wearing them had trained for quite some time, they were highly likely to hurt themselves using such armor.


    The emissary was exasperated, but because Saleen was willing to send reinforcements and provide powerful equipment, it was more than enough for him to report to his superiors.


    Furthermore, Saleen the Greedy had not asked for anything in return that time.


    Saleen the Greedy was a nickname many had given Saleen behind his back, and it was as straightforward as a nickname could be, but the ones using the nickname needed to keep themselves in check, as none wanted to get on Saleen¡¯s bad side.


    Saleen was known to take advantage of anything and anyone. The emissary was counting his blessings for being able to receive such aid unconditionally.


    Saleen summoned his trusted ones after sending the emissary away, as well as mages holding important positions. Saleen intended to take all of them into the Hall of Gods to train alongside himself.


    For the moment, he handed matters of the second line of defense to Rafel, who, along with the Violet Angel, was not capable of advancing simply by taking enough time to train. Rafel needed to kill gods and acquire the powers of gods to do so, whereas the Violet Angel was a puppet who needed to consume things to advance.


    Saleen had never felt that the Lord of Glory was difficult to deal with thus far. The difficult one was the Goddess of Myers.


    The goddess used Saleen, as well as his Crystal Finger and Lightning Moon; however, the goddess was also generous with rewards, giving him no reason to be angry with her.


    Saleen was even required to let the Nature Faith continue to grow and not get on the goddess¡¯s bad side or she might have just left him to his devices and had him fight the Heretic God on his own.


    It was extremely difficult for the Heretic God to regenerate its body, but that difficulty did not extend to creating doubles.


    Saleen was unable to think of any way to deal with a double of a level 18 god. He, too, did not want to always pin his hopes on the goddess, so he had to strive to enhance his powers instead.


    That feeling made him feel like how he had felt many years ago when he was still a level 1 mage.


    A minor earl like Sufonso cornered him, forcing him to work hard to regain his honor and glory.


    He was unable to do anything about the fact that the enemies he fought became increasingly powerful, but then again, without powerful foes, there was no way Saleen would have advanced so quickly, and he would have never been blessed with so many mystical encounters.


    Taking in the Lightning Moon had been risky in and of itself, and killing the heroic spirits was even more so.


    ¡°Fate, huh?¡± he thought. ¡°Most probably. If Myers ends up dead, then the heroic spirits woulde looking for trouble with me. That¡¯s the price of taking in the Lightning Moon.

 Chapter 1509: No One to Rely On (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1509: No One to Rely On (Part 2)</h4>


    There were few things in the world that Saleen was able to rely on, and he knew that very well, unless he was willing to give up what he was and what he had. Nailisi and the Winged Skull had taken Saleen to be their backup, paying the price by giving up their freedom.


    His teacher was hardly considered his backup. Despite Jason being very good to Saleen, Jason had done everything he could have done for him, so much so that Jason was willing to do things that were unbefitting of his position as Saleen¡¯s teacher.


    There was no way, however, that Saleen could have always taken Jason to be his backup. Jason was capable of advancing at a frightening rate. It was only a matter of time before Jason left Myers Maind for good. No one knew which crystal wall systems Jason would end up in. Suffice to say that there was no way Saleen could have continued to be by his side by then.


    It was only a matter of time before Saleen would stand at the pinnacle and find no one around him.


    Saleen knew all this very well, so he never actually felt lonely. His children were still around, as well as Sika and Lex.


    Although it was imperative to enhance his powers as quickly as possible, Saleen did not want to simply cast his own city away. He sent people to keep a close eye on things at the line of defense and then went on to set up defenses at Metatrin City. He told the enchanters in the Floating City to arm themselves with equipment capable of enhancing their mental powers so as to take on enemies at a moment¡¯s notice. After he had done all that, he then went into the Hall of Gods with Jason.


    Saleen performed rounds of selections before setting the list for those whom he would have taken with him into the Hall of Gods.


    Most of those permitted entry into the Hall of Gods with Saleen were trusted mages from Sreeger Ind. There were also some who had joined Metatrin Cityter and fought many battles.


    Those taken to the Hall of Gods were mages. With the lone exception of Qin, who was an archer, there were only a handful of warriors taken inside. Saleen wanted mainly to enhance the powers of the mages, and the reason for doing so was simple. When fighting in the battlefield against gods, mages were the ones who posed thergest threat.


    Warriors would have needed to be equipped with extensive auxiliary gear to achieve the kind of damage the mages could.


    Saleen spected that if he were to destroy the divine kingdom of the Lord of Glory without the god himself showing up in the battlefield, the fighting could have been drawn out for 300 to 500 years and the ce would have remained intact.


    The lifespan of the warriors was not long enough. Even if they could have made it out of the battlefields alive every time, they would have died of old age anyway.


    Mages, on the other hand, would have had ample life force after getting past level 9, enabling them to live up to 800 years and, in some cases, more than 1,000. It was of extreme importance to foster mages, whereas Saleen could have always gotten warriors in the ranks of demons.


    Nailisi had already sought Saleen¡¯s permission about this. When she reached level 15, she would have been permitted to open a demon gate near the divine kingdom.


    She would have opened up a portal linking Myers Maind and the demon ne as a devil.


    Demons were the race that gods found most difficult to convert, and they shared a closer rtionship with humans. Many demons of peculiar bloodlines were even capable of siphoning powers from humans without damaging the Source of said humans.


    Saleen valued these parasite-like abilities of theirs. Peculiar demons summoned by Nailisi were all gathered at her Purgatory of the Devil and trained there.


    There were also human warriors who worked with those demons.


    Saleen took out six pieces of broken divine personas and handed them to Nailisi, telling her to embed them in the magic array. When the divine personas werepletely exhausted, she was tasked to swap them out for new ones.


    The seventh divine persona was aplete piece instead of a fragment, and Jason had contributed it.


    Jason had a level 17 high-level divine persona, and Saleen had no idea how long that one divine persona would havested in the Hall of Gods.


    After the Hall of Gods was fused with the magic cube, however, the core part of the ce was only able to house fewer than 1,000 people, but then again there were many spaces outside of the core area, and those spaces were able to house an almost infinite number of people.


    Both warriors and demons would have trained in those external spaces. Their rate of time was not as insane as that in the core of the hall, and to Saleen that was more than enough. The closer a space was to the core of the hall, the faster the rate of the passage of time.


    The farthest ce away from the core of the hall would have slowed the passage of time. All levels of warriors were to train in the magic cube. The higher one¡¯s level was, the greater one¡¯s advantage became.


    Saleen himself was preparing and entirely focused on getting to level 15.


    He had not been able to advance all that quickly before. Despite all of his encounters, his rate of advancement still paled whenpared to some of the mages he brought with him. If it had not been for the opportunity to enter a ce like the Hall of Gods, he would have been far behind the strongest professionals to be found on Myers Maind.


    Yet Saleen was never discouraged, because hard work would be tranted into actual powers nheless, so long as one were to keep at it. The most advantageous thing that Saleen had over the others was his persistence. His power of the soul had also grown strong enough to allow him to train and work on the Lightning Moon at the same time.


    Blue neb was found at the internal core of the Lightning Moon, which contained raging lightning powers. Said powers were capable of being gradually unleashed through the external structures of the Lightning Moon. That meant that at his current level, he became capable of drawing power from the Lightning Moon for casting lightning magic.


    Doing so considerably reduced the cost of magic chords, and that was of utmost importance to Saleen.


    The greatest advantage the gods had was that they would never run out of power. As long as they lived, power would be avable to them in a limitless capacity. That was not the case with mages. If a mage were to run out of magic chords, he would have to use mental powers to run their equipment, such as scrolls, magic staffs, and skills stored in magic books.


    The value of the Lightning Moon was only shown after Saleen reworked it. If it had not been for the goddess breaking everything inside the Lightning Moon, there was no way Saleen could have really worked on that equipment until he had achieved level 18.


    If he were to actually get to level 18, however, the Lightning Moon would have no longer been as important.


    A blurry figure was being born in the blue neb, and it was not a weapon spirit but a sliver of soul that Saleen sent within.


    Soul-forging was a skill that did not belong to the crystal wall system they were in. This was the first time Saleen used that skill. If the Lightning Moon were to be destroyed, his soul would be damaged, so he had never done this before.


    Saleen only dared to work on the Lightning Moon after it was reworked.


    The ethereal form slowly began to resemble Saleen and then hovered in the neb. Raging lightning bolts prated the soul repeatedly, no signs of damage appeared.


    Saleen breathed a sigh of relief. None of the idents that he had anticipated happened. The clone of his soul, on the other, disyed formidable powers right from the moment of its birth.


    That was the power to manipte lightning, as well as the power of soul identical to that of Saleen.


    After the Ring of Cosmos amplified Saleen¡¯s power of the soul by 64 times, Saleen felt the rush of his power of the soul expanding exponentially again.


    By then, he would have been able to sense everything happening within tens of miles, even if he were to close his eyes. His power of the soul had advanced yet again.


    His power of sight was not doubled but quadrupled.


    Saleen could then see 250 miles away by relying on his naked eyes alone.


    Such distance would have befitted that of a level 15 mage.


    Only gods possessed such a skill, and Saleen was impressed. He then summoned Dante to work on the Heretic God¡¯s tusks. Such processes were tedious, and Saleen did not want to do it himself. Furthermore, Soul-forging was ill-suited for working on things crafted by the bodies of gods.


    Soul-forging came with its own risks. It was only due to the Lightning Moon having been repaired by the Ring of Cosmos after it had been damaged that no problems urred when Soul-forging was used on it.


    Knowing this, Saleen handed the tusks of the Heretic God to Dante right away.


    He did not want to see himself adding more gear to his arsenal. It sufficed for a mage to master a single type of magic. Everything else was simply supplementary.


    Saleen made up his mind. Other than water magic, he would dedicate himself to training lightning magic.


    With the Lightning Moon in his possession, he no longer had to worry about magic chord expenditure. What he needed to be concerned with was only the power of the soul. With the Ring of Cosmos in his possession, the strength of his power of the soul and recovery rate far eclipsed any other mage of his level.


    Saleen¡¯s current power of the soul was already at the pinnacle of level 15 professionals. It would no longer change regardless of how much it could potentially grow.


    He needed to get past level 15 before being able to touch rules of the soul. Common mages would have to get to level 16 before they were able to do so.


    The Lightning Moon became Saleen¡¯s most powerful offensive equipment. It was a pity that the magic amplifier was incapable of amplifying the Lightning Moon¡¯s offensive capacity by 24 times. The magic amplifier was mainly used for enhancing elemental magic. It was only able to boost death and lightning magic by about four times.


    It was the magic amplifier that allowed Saleen to maintain formidable offensive powers the entire time. Saleen knew from the start that his teacher had been right to tell him to craft such an item.


    Jason¡¯s magic amplifier was better than that of Saleen. Furthermore, the secret arts that Jason mastered were most suitable for his own training.


    Saleen mastered the Water me Alchemy, but it was extremely difficult for him to use it inbat. Jason¡¯s Water me, however, was capable of freezing even the soul.


    Saleen had even thrown the Thunder Dragon Bangle into the Ring of Cosmos¡¯s Aqua Fulgur. It was a pity that the bangle had only absorbed the Aqua Fulgur and didn¡¯t result in any of the changes that Saleen had hoped to see.


    All six divine personas were expended to give them more than 100 years of time. The soul clone within Saleen¡¯s Lightning Moon had finally grown to its potential, bing a true clone of flesh and blood; however, the clone had few autonomous powers. Saleen felt as if he had be two people in two separate bodies, and both needed him to be in control.


    Saleen was not ustomed to the feeling. It was fortunate that after the level 17 divine persona was embedded in the magic array that he had all the time he needed to get used to it.


    Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasm skill had finally advanced, as well.


    If he did not adjust to it, a magic spell as powerful as the Thundering Phantasm would have been upgraded for nothing, losing its original purpose.


    Each of the 12 illusions created by the Thundering Sound was capable of being controlled by Saleen, and they all possessed abat capacity equal to him. But then again, such a description would not have been urate. In actual fact, it was Saleen who was able to bring his ownbat capacity into any one of the illusions, making that one illusion to possess abilities equal to his own.


    Only by possessing such traits would the Thundering Phantasm be truly powerful, fitting the characteristics required of lightning magic.


    Lightning Phantasm could not have been probed using power of the soul. All 12 illusions would possibly be of formidablebat prowess, while Saleen was still able to control his own powers at will, siphoning such a state of being to any of the illusions.


    Saleen was even wondering if all 12 illusions would have been as powerful as he was if he were to upgrade the skill further.

 Chapter 1510: Advancing in a Frenzy (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1510: Advancing in a Frenzy (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen¡¯s thoughts were not impossible. If gods were capable of creating doubles, then humans would be able to do the same. So long as one mastered the method of acquiring power of the Source, creating clones would not be a problem, regardless of the number of clones to be created.


    The level 17 divine persona was put at the center of the magic array, and the core of the hall became eerie looking. The core materials of the hall did not get dissolved by the magic cube. Because of where Saleen was located, he did not see much of a change in the surrounding environments.


    The divine persona was embedded, and the carvings on the walls of the hall seemed toe alive. They seemed to move increasingly quickly, bing more frantic as time went on. Saleen and Jason stopped training, beginning to observe the changes on the walls instead.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull stopped training as well. In fact, everyone whose level surpassed level 14 noticed the changes. However, everyone saw things changing with the walls.


    Archers would have seen god creature archers doing battle and fighting all sorts of enemies. Warriors would have seenbat techniques used by god creatures who wielded cold weapons. What surprised Saleen the most was that he saw how gods manipted magic.


    Of course, they were all illusory and were definitely left behind by the ones who crafted the Hall of Gods.


    So long as one¡¯s power of the soul reached a certain level and there was ample energy fed to the magic array, that function would be activated.


    Saleen sensed that the projections had been etched into his mind and were no longer able to be erased. Saleen was taking in all manner ofbat techniques wielded by high level mages. He would be able to digest them given enough time.


    However, the one who had most to gain was not Saleen, but Nailisi.


    Nailisi¡¯s body continued to change. The skills seen on the walls of the Hall of Gods differed with each of the forms that the luoluokaluo had taken. The Hall of Gods was crafted by level 18 mighty ones. All skills below level 18 would be well-borated by those carvings.


    The Winged Skull saw attacks of spirit type gods. While there was hardly any death magic seen being used, there were more spirit rules and techniques with physical attacks.


    They werebat tactics that the Winged Skull leaned towards. The Hall of Gods was like a huge treasure trove, with boundless information waiting to be unearthed. The Winged Skull held their Reaper Scythe and was unable to help but to mimic what they saw on the carvings.


    It would initially be difficult for level 14 beings to pick up those things. However, the Winged Skull had a weird golden heart. The power contained within their body was still unable to bepletely unleashed, despite having worked on their body several hundred times. Picking up the skills instead allowed the peculiar energies to be utilized instead.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s golden heart fed them energy again. Every time the Winged Skull mimicked how the spirit gods moved, the golden heart would unleash powerful energies to modify their body.


    The Winged Skull thought they would no longer be able to do anything more to evolve their body, yet new changes were seen as they moved.


    The Winged Skull¡¯s bones began to develop flesh and blood, which were of resilience eclipsing even those of high level dragons.


    What Sika saw was an extremely peculiar scene. It was a chaotic neb, the birth of a crystal wall system. Untold numbers of rules were seen in the neb spreading out, expanding the entire crystal wall system, which in turn, gave birth to countless nes.


    Sika was able to clearly see that there were a total of 12 rules. All 12 rules then gave birth to 144 rules of lower levels.


    The priests were of a profession borne out of those 12 rules.


    Sika had reached the end of her journey as a nature priest. The knowledge that she learned since birth was neverplete. It was due to talent that she was able to advance to her current status. It was also thanks to the metal totem pole that she was still able to somehow catch up to Saleen.


    Rules came from the beginning of creation, a power that formed a crystal wall system, which continued to be passed down through the bloodlines of gods, which were then, in turn, extracted by mages. All professionals saw knowledge they needed to pick up from the walls.


    Dante saw the process of a god¡¯s advance. It consisted of ughter, enticement, patience, pride and many different things jumbled up together. Desire served at its very core, and the fires that lit it up were none other than divine fires.


    One would require massive desires to be a god.


    Dante had little idea where its desire lied, yet it became a god nheless. It was a god created by Saleen, but the contents on the carvings made it steep into deep thought.


    If betraying Saleen would have allowed it to be the highest god that it would have be, then it would have betrayed Saleen without a second thought. However, its core Source was in Saleen¡¯s hands. It was unable to even threaten his safety, so killing him would definitely be out of the question. Saleen probably even knew what Dante was thinking at the moment.


    Bing a god was to walk a path of no return. Once a person followed that path, there would have been no stopping it. Even someone as powerful as the Goddess of Myers was unable to change the fate of the gods.


    Saleen was able to divide his attention and said to Dante, ¡°if you want to leave, I won¡¯t punish you.¡±


    Dante was dumbfounded as Saleen continued, ¡°so long as you do not be my enemy, I will not do anything to your Source. It¡¯s your choice now whether to stay or leave.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s voice was very calm. Dante stood, but then it heard Nailisi berating it in a low voice, calling it an idiot.


    Dante sat back down again. All three heads showed different expressions.


    ¡°Master, I could not leave. My journey to godhood requires your assistance to fulfill. Unless you die before I do, I won¡¯t leave.¡± Dante¡¯s voice was adamant. There was no need for it to swear or anything, as Saleen could decide whether it lives or dies at any given moment.


    Nailisi pouted. Dante would have possibly survived following Saleen. But if it were to turn its back on Saleen, it would probably end up being eaten by beings like the Goddess of Nature.


    The goddess still had an attachment to humanity and would not destroy nes at a whim. But gods, on the other hand, would be seen as food by the goddess instead.


    Dante would definitely be able to figure something like that out on its own. Even if itcked wit, it nheless knew what choices it should make, due to having followed Saleen for a long time.


    Saleen continued, ¡°I have no intentions of limiting your progress. Do you understand that, Dante?¡±


    ¡°I understand, master. If I do not be an enemy of Myers Maind and simply wander the nes, you have given me permission to be free to go wherever I wish.¡±


    Saleen nodded. If Dante knew at least that much, it would not leave, because if it were to simply leave like that, advancing would hardly be possible. If it were to stay by Saleen¡¯s side, its master might attack far away divine kingdoms in the future. If Saleen were to do so, then it would still have hope of being able to advance. It would have had little problem staying alive after reaching level 16. If it were to go further and reach level 17, it would practically achieve eternal life.


    A level 18 god would have been able to survive until the crystal wall system they were in copses if there were no one else killing them.


    The most extraordinary of level 18 gods would have been able to venture out to crystal wall systems of even higher levels, searching for opportunities to continue advancing, just like humans did.


    Only Dante would have proven to be troublesome among the ones at Saleen¡¯s side. However, since Dante expressed its allegiance to Saleen, he allowed it to continue working on his equipment and cultivate magic chords.


    Saleen¡¯s teacher, Jason, spent most of his days sitting around and seemed to be doing nothing. Other than taking care of biological needs once a month¡ªeating and going to the loo¡ªJason had practically been an ascetic, sitting around and spacing out while looking at the walls of the Hall of Gods.


    The Rings of Water and Fire hovered behind Jason. The two magic amplifiers had already fused into a single entity after Jason advanced to level 15. Both Water me and zing me melded perfectly together, taking on a grey color and looking almost transparent.


    The level 17 divine persona continued to work as a power source. There was no telling of day and night within the Hall of Gods. Huge numbers of humans and demons continued to train in the magic cube outside of the hall.


    Some supreme demons who were nearest to the hall were the earliest to advance, bing level 13 devils. However, those devils had not mastered any rules and their powers were far weakerpared to ancient devils.


    Human warriors advanced as quickly as they always had. Saleen no longer had any need for soldiers like the ancient warriors. Most of his warriors had gotten to level nine, but only a fraction of them were bing golden grand swordmasters.


    Training sword aura required special talents as well. Bing a golden sword grandmaster would give a warrior the ability to threaten level ten mage trainers.


    The rules that Saleenid out were very simple¡ªso long as one was able to advance, one would be allowed to continue training within 200 meters radius from the Hall of Gods. Rate of passage of time would be higher every 200 meters closer to the hall.


    The ones who were closest to the Hall of Gods consisted mostly of demons at the start. However, as time passed, there were more and more human warriors, and mages started to appear as well. Assassins, archers, and some fallen holy masters joined the ranks of those advancing in a frenzy as well.


    The closer those people got to the Hall of Gods, the higher their rate at advancement. Saleen was doing so as a way of letting nature take its course.


    Those who were more talented would be granted ess to more opportunities. Training in the Hall of Gods allowed one to have an easier time mastering skills and rules of their own professions.


    2,300 years had passed within the Hall of Gods, while the 26 slots closest to the Hall of Gods saw only 1,150 years passing. The further away the slots were from the hall, the slower the rate of passage of time. A month had only passed in the slot away furthest away from the hall.


    Saleen rose. He only broke through level 15 after he had spent 1,800 years in the hall. His teacher had long made it through to level 16 and had even reached pinnacle state.


    His teacher¡¯s advancement had finally slowed, yet Saleen found that his rate at advancement remained pathetically slow as always.


    That was due to there being next to no mages who were below level 14 in the Hall of Gods. Despite being at the pinnacle of level 15, his student, Truman, had also gotten to the pinnacle of level 15. Most of his most trusted mages reached level 15 as well.


    None of the mages had equipment boosting their power of the soul like the Ring of Cosmos, which meant that difficulty for advancement would have been tens of times more than what he had been through. Furthermore, they had been passing through several levels to catch up to him.


    It was fortunate that Saleen had a lot to gain in the department of soul powers. Saleen became confident that if the Lord of Glory were to show up before him, he would have been able to end the war, using only the followers and his most trusted mages by his side, so much so that there would be nothing left of the Lord of Glory when they were done.


    But then again, something like that could only happen if the Lord of Glory were to be surrounded by all those people.

 Chapter 1511: Advancing in a Frenzy (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1511: Advancing in a Frenzy (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen was not the slowest one to advance. The slowest one had been Dante, as it was still stuck at level 15 even after spending over 2,000 years in the Hall of Gods. Even Rafel had gotten to the pinnacle of level 14, and the angel seemed to have achieved an epiphany of sorts, mastering ways of enhancing her powers without relying on the power of faith.


    Eleanor was at level 14 and Qin was already a level 15 archer. Nichs became a level 14 fallen holy master, while both J and Sul had advanced to level 15, bing forcemasters.


    The supreme demons who served as training assistants to the two had also been fortunate enough to be devils, with their levels reaching level 14.


    Saleen eventually discovered that among the ones in the Hall of Gods, his rate at advancement had only been quicker than a handful of other people. Everyone else had been blitzing through advancement progress.


    Saleen finally realized that even without activating the time-eleration magic array in the Hall of Gods, the ce would have be very suitable for training. One would hardly run into any obstacles training in such an environment, regardless of the kind of skills of any profession being trained.


    ¡°Rafel.¡±


    ¡°My lord, a month has passed and Lion City should be at its limit now.¡± Rafel was used to Saleen asking her about the time, and she was able to answer quickly.


    ¡°Impossible,¡± Nailisi quipped, expressing her opinion.


    ¡°How so?¡±


    ¡°Because we still have an insane assassin called Agares on our side. It will still be impossible for the god creatures to break through the line of defense at Lion City, unless the Lord of Glory decides to advent himself.¡±


    ¡°A month has passed and the Lord of Glory still refuses to show?¡± Rafel looked at Saleen with a rather doubtful look. She was distrustful of Nailisi¡¯s judgment.


    ¡°The Lord of Glory huh...well, that god looks down on his opponents. The double that Nailisi cut down before was not even one that was split from himself, but one created from other gods. He has a lot of fighters doing his dirty work. You people have been too excited from what you did before, and the Lord of Glory has gotten rather afraid.¡±


    ¡°The Lord of Glory is afraid?¡± Rafel found that to be rather unbelievable. The way she saw it, gods were fearless beings.


    ¡°The Lord of Glory is a god who is very afraid of death. The amount of doubles he had was terrifying. We need to be prepared for only one thing that he might do¡ªsend waves of armies and doubles to harass the line of defense. He has a staggering amount of doubles, even though all of us only have one life each,¡± Saleen borated to his people solemnly.


    Jason turned around to look at his student and found that Saleen had indeed matured. That would allow him to one day leave without any lingering concerns. His magical heritage would not have been broken, as even Truman had gotten to level 15. It was possible that Saleen¡¯s student may have gotten to level 16 earlier than Saleen himself.


    ¡°Alright, enough chit chat. We¡¯ve spent a month here to enhance our powers. The price for that was a level 17 divine persona. If everything proceeds without problems, we probably won¡¯t have another chance to train like this, so make the most of it.¡±


    Everyone replied only with silence. The price of bringing about such a training session was a piece of level 17 divine persona, something that only the few at the core knew. When everyone learned the price that Saleen paid to let them train like that, no one else harbored any hopes of going to that ce to train again.


    If the only thing that the Hall of Gods was able to do was to hasten the rate of passage of time, then the ce would have been nearly worthless. However, its ability to boost one¡¯s rate of training and advancement was priceless.


    ¡°Everyone take your positions. I will attack the divine kingdom a monthter.¡± Saleen only let everyone out of his magic amplifier after giving the order.


    It was Jason¡¯s idea to make Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier capable of sustaining life, and Saleen decidedter that it was a wonderful idea. If it had not been for the environment in his magic amplifier, it would have been difficult arranging for a ce outside toy down the Hall of Gods.


    The one who was waiting for Saleen after he returned to the line of defense was an emissary from Lion City. The emissary was there to seek aid as expected, as his previous aid had only been like a drop in a bucket.


    If they did not take the bodies of dead god creatures away to be worked on further, the creatures would have been able to resurrect in the divine kingdom. One would have been able to fathom why the Lord of Glory would have simply sent his people to their deaths like that. It was because his soldiers were practically endless.


    On the other hand, there would be nothing left for the ones from Myers Maind after they were dead.


    In truth, the Lord of Glory did not need to be smart. Stupidity alone would allow him to copse the entire maind. Myers Maind had a poption of less than a billion, and the ones capable of fighting numbered less than 300 million. The other hundreds of millions were practically negligible in terms ofbat capacity, as even the god creature vanguards were more capable than they would have been.


    There was no way an untrained peasant could fight even the worst of mercenaries after all.


    The Lord of Glory seemed to have shared the same thoughts, so he sent waves after waves of ipetent vanguards to attack the maind. God creatures who truly had their power of the Source robbed were only those who fought with Nailisi before, and there had only been little more than two million of them.


    The frontlines had expanded to a width of 300 kilometers by the time tens of millions died inbat. That swath ofnd was reduced entirely to nds after being repeatedly bombarded by magic and divine arts. There was not even a single hill was found in the frontlines.


    The fortresses at the line of defense had been repeatedly repaired. Lion City seemed to be about to fall, and the Cloudflow people were rather scared.


    It seemed to be about time tounch an all-out assault. If things were dragged out any longer, the Cloudflow Empire would be the first to fall. Many warriors would be lost and if the city were to rely on its own forces, the cost would be too high.


    Saleen read the intel sent by several emissaries, which more or less matched what his scouts found. He knew that Grand Duke tinum was still being calm and as such, he summoned Rafel, and they headed out to Lion City together.


    Lion City was already in shambles. There was a small magic and under its protection, the Cloudflow people were somehow able to repair the walls and the fortresses. Most of the god creatures were units incapable of flight. The angels hit them repeatedly and yielded few results, so they did not press on with assault on Lion City. The ipetent, cannon fodder god creatures were sent to overwhelm them in sheer numbers instead.


    There was no way Saleen would have only brought Rafel with him. She was only there as a show of status. There were at least 10000 ancient warriors right behind him.


    Ancient warriors were level nine soldiers whose life force had been drained almostpletely. Even if they were to survive the battlefield, Saleen could do nothing to save them.


    Someone reported to Grand Duke tinum after seeing 10,000 warriors flying through the air.


    Saleen flew straight to the Grand Duke¡¯s residence from the air, wasting no time to wait for the Grand Duke to receive him. Hended right outside the war room.


    The Grand Duke felt rather awkward. Lion City was his city, but Saleen was able toe and go as he pleased without anything getting in his way. But it was Saleen who had built the magic, and over half of the defense forces were provided by Saleen. The Grand Duke eventually calmed after recalling those facts.


    ¡°Your Highness Saleen!¡± The Grand Duke received him enthusiastically, with none of the usual haughtiness and troublesome rites of the Cloudflow people.


    ¡°Well met, Grand Duke. Let¡¯s talk inside.¡± Saleen extended his hand, gesturing for them to go inside. The Grand Duke was rather frustrated as Saleen had been too natural. He acted as if the pce was his own, instead of the Grand Duke¡¯s residence.


    The 10,000 ancient warriorsnded outside of the residence, guarding the ce. The external fringes, as expected, did not have a za capable of housing 10,000 ancient warriors, and as such, they packed the whole area.


    Saleen walked into the war room and took his seat at the side of the guests, while the Grand Duke returned to his master seat. Saleen did not go to the hall of the war room, but chose a small meeting room to the side. That meant that he had no need for others in Lion City to be part of what he was about to do. He was simply there to talk to the Grand Duke.


    ¡°As you can see, duke, the advent of the divine kingdom changed everything on Myers Maind. Cloudflow Empire would soon cease to be, and the history of the four empires shalle to an endpletely. I shall move out to destroy the royal family of the Tanggsi Empire and the Sikeqinya Empire within the month. As for the royal family of the Cloudflow Empire, the god creatures would get rid of them even if I were to do nothing.¡±


    ¡°What about the Qin Empire then?¡± The Grand Duke asked along the way, before finding that he had asked a rather dumb question.


    ¡°The Qin Empire won¡¯t be staying around for long either. I¡¯m about to establish the Fifth Dynasty, and then, I¡¯ll select a suitable candidate to be the emperor.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words baffled the Grand Duke.


    What Saleen said was totally unexpected. His strength had been such that, if he were out to unite the maind, it would have been entirely possible. If it had not been for the divine kingdom¡¯s advent, Saleen would have definitely been able to unite the entire Myers Maind within 100 years. Everyone knew just how useful the Floating City was after all.


    Regardless of how robust a city¡¯s defense might have been, none would have been of any use to take on the Floating City.


    Saleen said that the Qin Empire would not have been around for long, and the meaning of that was obvious. It was to say that the Grukos would be rendered little more than pages in history books soon.


    Lex was Saleen¡¯s wife and everyone knew just how close those were. Their marriage was not a political alliance. When Lex married Saleen, she was but a viscount and Saleen was a king of a small nation. But, the interests of both parties had long been tied together, and there was hardly any trade to be had between the two.


    What was even more shocking was that Saleen had intended to establish the Fifth Dynasty.


    Furthermore, he also said that he would select a suitable candidate to be the emperor of the Fifth Dynasty. That was to say that despite his powers, he had no intentions of participating in the fight to rule the Fifth Dynasty, and Lex would not be part of the fight either.


    ¡°Duke, I know that there are four of you in Cloudflow, and all of you are very formidable. I¡¯m sure your n has more than what you could spare at the moment. Work on it and invest more, it¡¯ll be worth your while. The benefits that will be granted to your n when the Fifth Dynasty gets established will depend entirely on the war with the divine kingdom.¡±


    ¡°Master Saleen, is this your will?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, and my mind is set. I won¡¯t be changing anything,¡± Saleen answered in aposed manner.


    ¡°Well then, Master Saleen, who do you think would be the suitable candidate to sit on the throne of the Fifth Dynasty?¡±


    ¡°Lex.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words almost choked the Grand duke. But Saleen quickly continued, ¡°if she were to be the empress, her reign wouldst only 100 years at most. I¡¯d have her give up the throne after that, and my children would not be an emperor of this dynasty. Theing 100 years shall be the key period for determining who shall be the next emperor.¡±


    Seeing that the Grand Duke looked dazed, Saleen smiled and continued, ¡°I take it that you have over 800 years of life, right?¡±


    The Grand Duke realized that Lex would not have changed anything within the century she was in power. Saleen¡¯s idea was still to have her pull herself out of thepetition. With that, the Grand Duke was probably the first to know of such a news, and that would be a huge advantage to him. Although Saleen was closer to Grand Duke Iron Blood, he believed that Saleen was not friends with Grand Duke Iron Blood.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood¡¯s family background was too formidable. It was a n that was rted to the dragon ne after all.

 Chapter 1512: The Fifth Dynasty (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1512: The Fifth Dynasty (Part 1)</h4>


    Grand Duke tinum immediately said to Saleen very respectfully, ¡°I know what to do, Master Saleen.¡±


    He would address Saleen as ¡®master¡¯ from then on out, knowing full well that Saleen had renounced his status as a king, carrying himself only as a powerful mage.


    ¡°Good. I have quite an amicable rtionship with Grand Duke Iron Blood. You best not get on his bad side. I¡¯ll be informing himter.¡± What Saleen just said made Grand Duke tinum very happy. He was most afraid that Grand Duke Iron Blood would go around bullying people like him.


    Saleen put the Grand Duke, who had quite a background, at ease, before telling the Grand Duke of his ns. Saleen was about to send an army huge enough to plug the gate of the divine kingdom off for the time being.


    He would announce the establishment of the Fifth Dynasty within a month, gathering soldiers from all ces to participate in the crowning battle.


    Of course, the Nature Faith would participate in the event as well. All who perished in the war would be blessed by the Goddess of Nature, which meant that those who perished had a chance of keeping their souls intact, and even being reincarnated. That was a teaching by the Goddess of Nature that everyone knew well.


    Saleenid that down and had no fear that the goddess would refuse the proposal, for that would be one of the ways to enhance the powers of the goddess.


    Saleen easily let the Grand Duke contact the other ns and began to amass the true power Cloudflow was able to bring forth. If Saleen had gone easy on those huge ns, they would not have moved. They had to see something that they could gain. Any forces who refused to aid in the assault of the divine kingdom, he would have memorized using magic, making sure that those ns would have had no ce in the Fifth Dynasty.


    What Saleen needed to do from then on out would be very simple. He returned to Holy Rock City, bringing a team of his most powerful mages and discussing with Lex right away, before calling the Qin nobles to gather and throw a grand feast in the royal pce.


    Emissaries sent by Saleen extended invitations to every single noble. It was a feast that they were not allowed to refuse.


    Noble ns who were absent from the feast would be kicked out of the circle of nobles for good.


    Saleen had no intentions of keeping the circle of nobles around. In his n, the Fifth Dynasty was to be a dynasty of mages. Any n without mages in their midst would eventually be taken out of the picture by the course of history itself.


    Even Saleen was excited. What he had nned was the process of creating history. He had never thought that he would be the one to shape the history of a ne.


    Saleen never calcted just how many nobles there were in Holy Rock City, assuming that there would be thousands of them. Of course, there were few more than 100 capable of assuming noble titles. All the others were simply honorary nobles.


    Regardless of how tightly the Qin Empire controlled the nobles, the empire still would not be able to solve some problems. There were simply too many titles a dynasty had to hand out as time went on. The honorary nobles were still nobles, and Saleen had no intention of giving them up. They were still influential people with amanding presence and deep pockets, after all.


    Anyone capable of reaching such statuses would have at least some abilities. In order to establish a dynasty, there would definitely be a need for powerful professionals, but it was also imperative to have people in lower social statuses with organizational skills. Saleen saw fit to give those nobles a chance.


    The feast was held at a garden in the royal pce, but not in the garden itself. It was held on a hovering huge tform right above the garden. Saleen was able to craft many hovering materials from the experience of working on the Floating City. The materials were useful for making flying machines, but Saleen kept the materials around instead of doing so. The hovering tform only required a single magic furnace to take flight and hover several hundred meters above ground.


    Saleen did not let the tform take such a high altitude. He simply left it hanging 30 meters off the ground, before setting up 12dders, which were all wide enough for the nobles to get up without their shoulders rubbing against each other.


    Lex and Saleen sat side by side, and there was a tall golden seat below Lex. The seat that Saleen sat on was a mage¡¯s chair.


    Saleen arrived half an hour before everyone else, and he found that only half of the reserved seats were taken. The other half had yet to show. He deemed that those cunning fools were still on the fence at the moment. He had thrown the feast to make a very important announcement. Many nobles had the feeling that something significant would be at y, and they all headed to the House of Lords or House of Commons.


    Of all the members of both houses, only one-fourth expressed their intentions of backing Lex. It was totally different from when Lex ascended the throne the first time. She had the entire House of Lords in her grasp then.


    But Saleen was not angry. At the very least, Prince Safilos had showed up.


    That prince had advanced to level 12, making him qualified to be a powerful professional. He no longer resented Safilos like he once did, taking the other man to just be one of Lex¡¯s uncles.


    Safilos was arranged to be seated at Lex¡¯ left, in the first seat.


    He turned around to look at Saleen, very puzzled. Saleen gathered the nobles very solemnly, but he did not make his reasons for doing so clear.


    Safilos being a prince was of little importance. The nobles in the Qin Empire had their own powers, which were not something he could have robbed them off.


    ¡°Time¡¯s up. Let¡¯s begin,¡± Saleen said. He waved, and the mages of Metatrin City went to activate the magic power furnace. There were magic power furnaces on standby on the hovering tform. Having all five activated would allow the tform to fly at great speeds.


    Shouts and shrieks were heard all over the tform as it rose to a height of over 1,000 meters. Anyone who was incapable of flight was so frightened that their legs would have given out if they looked down over the edge.


    ¡°Alright, let the feast begin.¡± Saleen paid no heed to the nobles¡¯ reactions. A portal at his side opened. It led to the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. Demon waiters emerged from within and began putting down food and drinks on the tables.


    The nobles found that the hovering tform was sealed off by a formless energy barrier. There was no gale or mist to be seen. Everything looked crystal clear. If they had looked down, they would have seen a shrunken Holy Rock City right below them.


    There were many transparent ces beneath their feet, allowing those present to enjoy the view below them.


    Saleen had even had good wine prepared, all of which had a low alcohol content, which fit the taste of Qin people, so much so that the thickness was just right. There was little to beined about the food. Demons were a bloodthirsty race, but they were gourmet chefs. If the demons were to be forced to eat humans and had plenty of time to do so, they would add a lot of spices and condiments to their ¡®dish¡¯ before eating them.


    Many of the demons by Saleen¡¯s side were chefs. Mages had little need for good food, but that was not to say that soldiers could eat crappy food all the time. One of the most economical ways of maintaining morale within an army was to have chefs among them. There were many instances that good soups on cold nights worked better than giving them gold.


    The nobles were exasperated, for it was no longer possible for them to leave. No one would have been willing to leap from a height of 1000 meters, after all.


    Saleen¡¯s attitude was very clear by then. Those who were there had given him a positive impression. Those who did not show up or nned toete would no longer have the chance to get onto the tform.


    Theyout on the tform was not very different from feasts usually held in the pces. The only difference was that there were more tables. Those who sat at Saleen¡¯s table were all old, hereditary nobles. Saleen raised his ss first, toasting Safilos together with Lex.


    Saleen and Safilos made small talk. What he said might have only been small talk to the ones attending the feast, but to him, those were matters of utmost importance.


    Saleen was discussing how to best keep the Nature Faith in control with Safilos, who no longer had the power he once had in the empire. That, coincidentally, made him the best man to manage affairs with the faith.


    Saleen did so on purpose. Safilos¡¯ territory had already been turned into a harbor. Two fleets were already stationed there, cing aplete lockdown on nearby sea routes. If the Cloudflow people wanted to get to the eastern shores of Qin, they would have to take detours that were thousands of kilometers long.


    Safilos had long been irked by the Nature Faith. However, he had had to makepromises with Saleen due to making huge changes to Golden ins and keeping things at Holy Rock City under control. He thought Saleen would have wanted to continue to expand the faith, which had actually shaken the foundations of the empire.


    At present, however, Saleen took the initiative to talk about keeping the faith in control, which made Safilos feel rather excited.


    However, what Saleen said had pissed Safilos off considerably.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen. I¡¯ve gathered everyone at this feast to make a very important announcement. The Qin Empire shall be no more in a month.¡±


    Countless mages cast Silence at the nobles, keeping the ce from turning chaotic. Saleen looked at Safilos with a beaming smile and said, ¡°of course, among the four empires, Qin will be thest to go.¡±


    ¡°Saleen!¡± Safilos did not get hit by Silence. However, all that he said was Saleen¡¯s name, gnashing his teeth while he did so. He did not say anything else and instead red at Saleen. If Saleen were to have any intentions of annexing the empire, he would be willing to even die in front of Lex, just to show her how devious her husband had been.


    ¡°Rx, uncle.¡± Lex was hardly fettered. Saleen had not borated what would happen after, but he did tell her that he no longer had any intentions for her to keep living her days of being a lonely empress.


    ¡°Lex, shall be the establishing emperor of the Fifth Dynasty. There shall be massive changes to the structure of the dynasty, and those changes shallst for 100 years. Any ns without mages in their midst after 100 years shall no longer be considered noble ns.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words were cold, but the nobles¡¯ hearts were even colder. They were fortunate to even have low level mages in their ns. Despite Qin being made into an empire of mages, many wondered how many lords among their ns would be willing to pick up something as boring as magic.


    It was fortunate that what Saleen followed up with did not let them down.


    ¡°Holy Rock City shall be the capital of the Fifth Dynasty, and I shall set up a magic academy there, teaching magic to all. Those of you who came today, I shall send mages to your ns to pick children suitable for learning magic. Of course, it will be your duty to pay for the cost of building this magic academy. Now, you all can take your turn at speed in ordance to your ranks.¡±


    Everyone was still silent, as they were still digesting what Saleen had just said.


    Holy Rock City would still be the capital, and the ones present had the opportunity to send children in their ns to learn magic, which would enable them to maintain their statuses as nobles. That also meant that Saleen still valued them after all.


    ¡°I disagree.¡± An elder of the House of Commons stood right before Saleen.


    ¡°State your reasons.¡±


    ¡°I am a noble of the Qin Empire. I will absolutely never ept the rule of this Fifth Dynasty or whatever it is.¡± That elder of the Fifth Dynasty looked at Saleen arrogantly.


    ¡°Throw him off.¡± Saleen did not even get to finish the three words before two demons walked up to the elder and hoisted the elder of the House of Commons off, dropping him through an opening beneath them from the height of 1000 meters.

 Chapter 1513: The Fifth Dynasty (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1513: The Fifth Dynasty (Part 2)</h4>


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°I can¡¯t ept such a reasoning and I can¡¯t change that, so...¡±


    Another elder rose and asked before the nobles settled from the fright of what just happened, ¡°Your Highness, may I know if the Grukos will be continuing their rule?¡±


    ¡°I cannot guarantee any of that. At the very least, I won¡¯t be allowing anyone from Golden ins to participate in the founding of the Fifth Dynasty. Lex will be the one to select the next emperor during her hundred-year reign.¡±


    That elder sat. He still had questions, but Saleen was no longer looking at him.


    Yet another elder wanted to ask something, but he was afraid of being thrown off of the tform like the first elder who spoke. Saleen was being very clear with his actions¡ªhe would not allow anyone to get in his way. If there was anyone who intended to do so, Saleen would be very d to get rid of them on the spot.


    Saleen was hardly displeased or irked by anything. He had no affinity for any of those nobles. If it had not been for the need for them to keep themoners calm, which would save him considerable time in his efforts to consolidate all powers found throughout the maind, he would not have even bothered doing what he was doing.


    In the perspective of mages, there were times where one would need to resort to tact to achieve one¡¯s goals, while other times, the best way to solve problems was sheer brute force instead.


    ¡°Alright, now that no one has any questions to ask, allow me borate on the matter,¡± Saleen continued without a care. His voice reached the ears of every single noble through the use of magic speakers.


    Not all of the nobles were against Saleen. No dynasty wouldst forever, and there were always some who wanted to join Saleen¡¯s side and to help with his efforts of bringing an end to the Qin Empire. Furthermore, Saleen allowed Lex to continue to reign for the next century, which meant that the Qin nobles would secure higher priorities and thus, gain more benefit.


    Lex was hardly surprised. She had been harboring such thoughts for a long time. However, bringing such ideals to reality would have caused massive numbers of deaths and cost an astronomical amount of resources.


    If the Fifth Dynasty were to be established, then her position as empress would indeed almost allow her to advance her mastery of the secret arts to the pinnacle during her hundred-year reign.


    To Lex, the importance of her position as empress was only to further her training with the secret arts. She had been through a lot and had long given up on her status as a member of the Grukos, identifying herself as just a mage. Dealing with the people from Golden ins took a massive toll on her, and she found such contests for power to be utterly pointless.


    What Saleen did hadpletely robbed Golden ins of any reason to intervene.


    With the Qin Empire gone, then the surname of Grukos would no longer be equated to ¡®royalty¡¯.


    Safilos did not say anything and gradually calmed. Saleen¡¯s ways angered him, but he knew that once Lex was either dead or had given up the throne, the empire would no longer be able to reim its past glories.


    It was no surprise why Master Merlin said that Lex was the one who would end the empire. That prophecy held true to the letter, without a slightest hint of exaggeration. Even if she were not the empress, Saleen would have ended the Qin Empire all the same and made her the empress of the Fifth Dynasty.


    The first time he met Saleen at his elder brother¡¯s ce, the mage was hardly worthy of notice. The same mage had grown powerful enough to decide the fate of Myers Maind.


    Saleen continued, ¡°with the capital of the Fifth Dynasty located at Holy Rock City, I will, without a doubt, rebuild the city and make it a ce that will never fall to another attack ever again, not even one from the gods. Now,dies and gentlemen, I now offer you the opportunity to be nobles of the Fifth Dynasty. But, you all must understand that the Fifth Dynasty is, for the time being, under my control. Only those who contribute will be worthy of glory.¡±


    Many nobles felt the clinch. They knew that they would have to put everything their ns had at stake in order to fight alongside Saleen. However, they wondered if Saleen would hunt them down personally if they were to give up such an opportunity.


    Saleen observed the expressions on some of the nobles¡¯ faces and smirked coldly. ¡°Don¡¯t ask for too much. I¡¯m only giving you such an opportunity because of Lex. One needs to pay a price equivalent to what one wants. Do you think that fostering a mage is easy? I¡¯m setting up a magic academy so that your descendants can learn, and they will be tutored by esteemed masters of the magical arts. This is something that you won¡¯t be able to buy.¡±


    Safilos asked in a low voice, ¡°I¡¯d like to ask, Saleen, how will you take on the Nature Faith eventually?¡±


    ¡°I shall take the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom and make my weapon spirit into a God of Magic. The Nature Faith will cease to exist in the maind, and all believers shall migrate.¡±


    ¡°Is that your final objective?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Saleen smirked. He actually had his own ideals¡ªto bring Myers Maind breaking through the limit of level 18. However, he had no idea of how he would achieve such a feat. The goddess had not been able to do so, nor did the insanely powerful emperors of the past.


    However, even if he were to fail doing so, he was nhelesspelled to see gods being eradicated from the ne.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know? You¡¯re taking apart an empire still, so...¡±


    ¡°But, Safilos, the empire wouldn¡¯t be around after the next century anyway. If I did not intervene, Myers would grow into something uncontroble. Although she...¡±


    Saleen did not continue. He knew that the goddess had no intentions of destroying the maind. However, she was a god, and there was no way for her to halt her growth. She was capable of tapping into the power of the Source of the ne, and that was what made her so powerful. Although, it would have only been a matter of time before she sucked the Source dry.


    Mages used such methods as ast resort to fight insurmountable odds, but gods would absorb such powerspletely instead.


    If a ne were to lose so much power of the Source, souls would have dwindled, which meant that lives would have gradually been lost, and the ne was no longer able to maintain its current state.


    The only eventual oue was the copse of the ne.


    If the goddess were a kind-hearted one, she may have considered making Myers Maind her divine kingdom. Everyone would have be her believers, and such an oue would have been postponed for the time being.


    As a mage, however, Saleen knew that it was impossible for such a state to continue indefinitely. When a crystal wall system was filled with nothing but divine kingdoms and the gods ran out of nes to absorb, then it would have been time for the final war between the gods.


    It would have resulted in the doomsday of the gods, and only one god would have emerged at the end of that final war, bing a level 19 god and destroying the crystal wall systempletely.


    Safilos¡¯ expression was a glum one. He was determined to aid his brother ever since he learned what was happening around him, in order to make Qin into the strongest empire in the ne by spreading the spirit of Qin throughout the entire ne. He would have eventually united the in under a single rule.


    Yet, at the moment, the empire was about to be brought to an end, and he was unable to do anything to stop it.


    Saleen had no intention of taking over. Saleen was a mage, and all he was trying to achieve was freeing the ne from the clutches of the gods, making the ne capable of existing longer. It was due to such concerns that ancient humans waged wars against divine kingdoms and went out to kill a great many powerful gods.


    It was due to such wars that the crystal wall system managed to avoid utter ruin, achieving prosperity instead.


    The emergence of many subcontinent nes proved that point. All of the nes evolved from barren nes or interdimensional spaces, after all. When the power of the Source absorbed by the gods was unleashed anew in their crystal wall system, the power was absorbed by the nes, giving birth to a great many living beings.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m done borating my thoughts in general. The rest will be handed to our empress, Lex.¡± Saleen¡¯s chair backed away for a bit, before Lex rose and spoke.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, I have pondered long and hard regarding the existence of the Qin Empire, beforeing to such a decision today. It is with great regret that I will not allow anyone to object. It is imperative that the Fifth Dynasty be established. Myers Maind will face more enemies from here on out. The only power capable of truly overwhelming our enemies, is the Kingdom of Metatrin of Saleen. If that kingdom were to be lost one day, that would spell the beginning of the end for Myers Maind.¡±


    Lex spoke calmly, and it was only then that everyone realized that things were indeed as stated.


    Golden ins and the greater ns all had a lot of power and resources that had yet to be brought to the fore, but all of that would be pointless when taking on divine armies, which existed in tens of billions.


    Just how many mages would Golden ins be able to gather anyway? Probably less than half of what was found in Metatrin City, no? And levels would have been all over the ce, which would make armies hard to organize.


    The greater ns all had two things in abundance¡ªgold coins and human resources.


    Yet none of them would have been able topare to what divine kingdoms were capable of mustering.


    Saleen was capable of summoning demons and had backup in massive, powerful material resources. He also had a massive number of mages at his disposal, as well as being capable of setting up magics, giving birth to a profession known as ¡®enchanter¡¯.


    If the maind were to be entirely shrouded by magics, the ne would be transformed into a ne of magic. Anyone would be able to gain magical powers by simply believing in the God of Magic Net. Myers Maind would grow extremely powerful.


    It was totally normal for the nobles to have such thoughts, as they knew nothing about Saleen¡¯s final n, after all.


    Saleen intended to have Dante take over the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom. Myers Maind was to annex all subcontinent nes found, and the annexation was to be carried out through fusion of nes.


    Doing so would expand thendmass of Myers Maind by tens, even hundreds, of times. By then, Myers Maind would be an unmistakable main ne, and the amount of living beings the ne was capable of housing would far surpass divine kingdoms.


    Only by then would Myers Maind stand a chance at breaking the limit of level 18, which meant breaking through the limit of their crystal wall system.


    Such endeavors sounded so insane that Saleen was unable to even bring himself to word it.


    Doing so would make Myers Maind the most brilliant ce in the entire crystal wall system, and that would attract the attention of many powerful gods.


    Saleen did not think that it would be all bad for such a scenario to happen. At the very least, there would be enough beings to feed the Goddess of Myers.


    If the goddess were to perish in battle, then none of it would have anything to do with him.


    After Lex was done putting the nobles at ease, Saleen went on to summon demons and began to distribute new n badges to the nobles, as well as sealed letters and documents of reward, personally written by the empress.


    None of the nobles had their positions elevated. In fact, some even had their positions reduced. However, none of the nobles had anything to say about it, as the ones who chose to not show at the hovering tform had lost everything.


    The nobles would be reduced tomoners in a month,pletely stripped of their privileges and perks.


    Their initial frustration was turned into an act ofughing at the misfortune of others. Such was the nature of people¡ªso long as there were those who were more downtrodden, people would have had little trouble epting their current status.


    Saleen left the event early and returned to Holy Rock City, just so to quell the riots taking ce there. Many nobles deployed their troops, intending to seize the royal pce, as well as both houses. Saleen weed the course of action gleefully, as he initially had to wait a month before cleaning off those people, whom he deemed to be worthless.


    It was better to eliminate those who were unable to adapt to changes to the course of history early, after all.

 Chapter 1514: Divine Ordeals (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1514: Divine Ordeals (Part 1)</h4>


    That day was known as the ¡®Bloodless Night¡¯ in history.


    The ughter that had taken ce prevented bloodshed spreading out throughout the entire Holy Rock City. Saleen restrained the rebels using magic, before dumping them into Nailisi¡¯s 12 Notes of First Purgatory.


    There was no need to spill the blood of nobles to bring about the founding of the Fifth Dynasty.


    That had been Saleen¡¯s motto, but those nobles disappeared forever.


    No blood had been spilled, nheless. Such were Nailisi¡¯s thoughts. The nobles had been purified by the Purgatory of Purification. Not only was there no blood spilled, there was not even a whiff of smokeing out from any of them.


    The storm did not seem to stop once it began, and the southwestern nobles were the first to join Saleen¡¯s forces. In truth, the southwestern nobles were the ones with the most to gain. The nobles had long sent their members to learn magic in Metatrin City. The titles bestowed to them by Lex were one rank higher than those of Holy Rock City.


    As such, none of the southwestern nobles¡¯ interests were actually affected. In fact, from a certain perspective, they gained a lot instead.


    Saleen borated the way forward to them the very first time he got in touch with them. As a result, the nobles no longer insisted on amassingnd and gaining wealth. They had instead taken to fostering powerful warriors and mages in their ns, which were initially people they would have simply hired or bought using gold coins.


    There were too many nobles who had sizable fighting forces, and they had long forgotten that back in the days of the First Dynasty, people without powerful personal capabilities would not have be nobles in the first ce. Saleen established such rules anew and was sure many would have responded to it poorly. However, there were definitely a handful who would benefit a lot from such an opportunity, enabling them to rise from the bottom and be new powerful noble ns.


    Everything was definitely turned upside down for everyone on Myers Maind in the month that came afterwards.


    The Floating City was mobilized and destroyed the capitals of three empires, including Misty City. Agares¡¯ absence surprised Saleen somewhat. Saleen had led the expedition personally, and if Agares had appeared, he would not have minded taking out that powerful assassin once and for all.


    Someone like Agares would have posed a serious threat to Saleen¡¯s nobles, after all. It was possible that none of Saleen¡¯s followers would have to be afraid of Agares anymore, but then again, there were still themoners to think about. Nobles who only had level nine troops as bodyguards would not have stood any chance against the likes of Agares.


    After being troubled for days, Saleen gave up any thought of locating Agares. Agares might have been dangerous and was extreme in many senses of the word, but he truly did not care about the throne.


    If he were given the chance to kill the goddess, he would not hesitate to take up the chance, even if one were to trade that chance with him by offering him the entire ne.


    Common assassins did what they did to make a living, but Agares did so only for the thrill of it.


    Such professionals were very difficult to deal with, but ironically, they were also very easy to deal with at the same time. At the very least, Saleen¡¯s concerns were considerably lessened. If Agares did not show even when his capital was leveled, then it became clear that his interests did not lie in establishing dynasties.


    Agares had his own goals and he absolutely would not falter.


    Saleen already knew what Agares was after¡ªthe Goddess of Myers.


    The only thing worthy of Agares¡¯ attention was the goddess and the goddess only. It went without saying that Agares needed to advance continuously before he would be able to achieve his final objective. The Lord of Glory would have served as his stepping stone.


    Saleen knew what the Snakerun, the weapon he crafted for Agares, was like. That weapon naturally contained power of rules, which was something that Saleen had no way of bestowing.


    The rules made 12-dimensional metal so formidable. None of the material¡¯s attributes were the top of the line, but the material was irreceable and very rarely found. Every single ne had only a set amount of it. When mined, the material would never be found in nature ever again.


    The 12-dimensional metal contained ne rules.


    Saleen only realized that when he advanced to level 14, but he did not regret doing what he did. He had a lot to gain from the experience, after all. By the time he got to level 16, Myers Maind would have be his main battlefield. By then, he would be able to tap into the power of the Source to dobat, just how the goddess did.


    It would have been the same for Agares as well, but hecked a piece of equipment like the Hall of Gods, which meant that his rate of advancement would never surpass Saleen¡¯s.


    The nobles of the Cloudflow Empire were not able to react in time, as the gates of the divine kingdom were on theirnd. As such, Saleen¡¯s assault felt rather despicable.


    However, the news that cameter rendered the nobles speechless.


    The Floating City made the same announcement in every city it passed¡ªthe founding of the Fifth Empire, with the imperial city being Holy Rock City.


    That meant that Saleen wanted to take the opportunity of all the chaos around to unite the entire maind under one rule.


    There was nothing glorious about it, as the only empire capable of resisting such measures¡ªthe Cloudflow Empire¡ªwas busy dealing with the attacks from the god creatures. If the god creatures had been able to gain the upper hand due to what Saleen did, he would have be public enemy number one throughout the entire Myers Maind.


    Saleen did not care about what the Cloudflow people thought about him. All enchanters and nobles who served him were busy seeing to a single matter¡ªestablishing the structure of the Fifth Dynasty.


    Structures of professions, schools, nobility, magic,w...


    There were a great many details requiring careful calctions. Saleen intended to build a dynasty that wouldst over 10,000 years, beginning from Holy Rock City. It was entirely possible, as the previous four dynasties had all reigned over 10,000 years each.


    What was truly shocking was that Saleen intended to establish 100 kingdoms as well. Those who contributed in the war against the gods and yed decisive roles in such conflicts would be crowned king, and their kingdoms would be the subcontinent nes.


    Such rules were applied to those from subcontinent nes as well.


    The rebuilding of Holy Rock City was more than just the repair of one city. The repairs that had been carried out previously had been less thanprehensive, and Saleen had no intention of rebuilding the city to look like what it had been previously.


    He intended to mimic the ways of the Imperial City of the Abyss¡ªmaking the city into a kingdom.


    That meant that the original Holy Rock City would serve as the center, with the area within a 500-kilometer radius all included within the area designated for urban development. The area would be covered by a huge magic. It would be transformed into a magical kingdom, given ample numbers of enchanters at work.


    Saleen did not mind prolonging the conflict with the Lord of Glory. He needed time to carry out his construction, after all.


    He returned to the Imperial City of the Abyss for a bit, collecting any remaining elemental creatures and construction materials. Thest time he had been there with the goddess, she had captured most of the elemental creatures and had given them all to Saleen. She had also destroyed magic arrays that created the elemental creatures. Unless those magic arrays were restored, no newborn elemental creatures would be found in the city anymore.


    What Saleen meant to do on that trip was to clean the ce up thoroughly, using the lightning warriors and tens of thousands of ancient warriors at his disposal. Saleen then moved the entire Imperial City of the Abyss, which was devoid of defense, into his Ring of Cosmos.


    The only two sites left of the city were the ruins of a pce and the Cemetery of Heroes.


    The heroic spirits in the cemetery were unable to do anything as they watched Saleen strip the entire city away.


    The general realized just how fearsome Saleen was. He had underestimated the mage for too long. Saleen turned to the heroic spirits, or just the general and no ones, in the cemetery, from the outside. ¡°I¡¯m the one who killed the 24 heroic spirits you put at my side. I won¡¯t be able to advance without killing them. The goddess already has the possibility of regaining her powers. The next time she is here, she will get rid of you all. I¡¯m taking the city away, so you guys do not squander it.¡±


    If the general had been a living being instead of a heroic spirit, he might have actually puked blood at that. Saleen hadst been there as a friendly soul, and the general was baffled as to why the mage had taken such a hard stance the next time he came.


    The general waspletely oblivious to the fact that the reason why Saleen dared to speak like that was because the mage had already mastered some lightning rules. Saleen had be so powerful that he could have destroyed the Cemetery of Heroes bit by bit if he so fancied.


    The process would have taken tens of thousands of years, but then again, without outside help, the heroic spirits would not have been able to shake away the bonds of their graves even if they had tens of thousands of years to spare.


    Saleen had been there to incite them, specifically to see if they had developed special means of allowing them to free themselves. If they had indeed been able to do so, then he would have run to the goddess. If they had been still unable to do so, then he would have simply let the goddesse and get rid of them.


    I bet the heroic spirits are really, really going to hate the Fifth Dynasty¡¯s guts, eh?


    It was never Saleen¡¯s intention to be enemies with people like that. It was just that things had gotten to the point where there was simply no room for reconciliation anymore. The general had been out to prevent Saleen from ever advancing again, and being set up like that was something no mage was able to tolerate.


    Of course, Saleen would have had no choice but to bear it if he were weak. But at present, Saleen was about to establish the Fifth Dynasty, and if the Fifth Dynasty was incapable of dealing with the Cemetery of Heroes, it would have been a regime that could have been destroyed at any given moment.


    Saleen had been saying so brutal as a way of pressuring himself as well.


    But that hardly mattered to him. His fate had been tied to the goddess back when he was still at very low levels, so that turn of events was just inevitable.


    Compared to the heroic spirits, Saleen tended to be more friendly towards the goddess. Despite the fact that the goddess would never take Saleen¡¯s wishes into consideration, whenever she was out to do anything and forced him to do her bidding, she still embodied the principles of her former status¡ªbnce.


    If she were to get Saleen to work, she would make sure to give him ample rewards.


    Things were different in Metatrin Citypared to Holy Rock City, as few of his people remained in the former. He had been hard at work crafting a magic array in the Hall of Gods, and he was still unable to get the magic array up even when the time was up. But something came out of the work he put in nheless, and he needed a divine kingdom to serve as a buffer, which would allow him to establish a connection between Myers Maind and Raphael¡¯s interdimensional space. There would no longer be any need for him to use teleportation portals for such travels in the future.


    In truth, teleportation portals were not actually all that safe, as they could have been hijacked.


    If he were to use the divine kingdom as a buffer, however, and let Dante be the ultimate being in the divine kingdom, no one would be able to deploy an army en masse into the interdimensional space. The interdimensional space was hugely important to Saleen. Most of his subjects had already migrated there, and those who were left behind were not suited to be brought there.


    Metatrin City would be turned into a magical city, ording to Saleen¡¯s n. He would establish thergest magic academy there and monopolize the magical market throughout the entire maind. There was no way Saleen could just forsake his oldir. The ce held too many sentiments for him after all.


    Over two months had passed by the time he was done with preparation work. Lex ascended the throne at Holy Rock City as empress again. The Fifth Dynasty had been established, and the only thing left to do was to fight a unification war throughout the maind.


    Saleen did not forget the fact that there were still many nations in the East Sea that he had never been to before, which had all be essible at that point. Saleen decided to meet the goddess, before making his way to the nations of the East Sea.

 Chapter 1515: Divine Ordeals (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1515: Divine Ordeals (Part 2)</h4>


    Due to not having established any teleportation portals at the nations of the East Sea just yet, Saleen nned to take a demon army made up of a million soldiers with him on the trip. He would send them home after conquering those nations.


    The battles near the gates of the divine kingdom were still of utmost importance, after all. He was unable to just put his trust in anyone else, and it was not certain that the goddess would have helped him out.


    Saleen had changed a lot. The most noticeable difference was his attempts at not pinning his hopes on anyone else for whatever he intended to do if he was able to help it.


    While Saleen believed that his teacher would have definitely been able to emerge victorious in the battle with the Lord of Glory, he saw fit to keep himself in the loop instead of letting his teacher handle everything. It was not right to make Jason do everything.


    Saleen brought Rafel and no one else. Both of them came to the temple at the center of Purgatory Dessert.


    The Mountain without End seemed to have gotten even higher, and the myriad of magic beasts within the temple¡¯s space seemed to have gotten a lot more powerful as well. The goddess was managing her divine kingdom, and it was difficult for her to do so without using the power of the Source of Myers Maind.


    A god who was familiar with level 18 rules would have been able to expand their divine kingdom hundreds of times over.


    It was due precisely to Saleen having felt that the temple¡¯s space was beginning to take the form of a divine kingdom that he did not rush his efforts to take on the goddess. If she had be capable of making the ce her divine kingdom, then she would no longer have to absorb any power of the Source of the maind.


    So long as she was able to keep her divine kingdom stable, the creatures born within the divine kingdom would grant her eternal life.


    But then again, Saleen had no idea where the creatures came from. She had killed a massive amount of god creatures back then, and it was due to her collection of such creatures that she was able to create the space.


    The goddess¡¯bat capacity within that space was several times better than when she was outside. That was why she had been capable of stopping Saleen¡¯s lightning attack easily, but had to resort to borrowing Saleen¡¯s Lightning Moon when doing battle outside.


    ¡°Why are we seeing Myers, my lord?¡± Rafel was unable to fathom why Saleen kept doing so. From her perspective, the goddess was Saleen¡¯s enemy, not his ally.


    ¡°The goddess stays true to the principle of fairness,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°Well said, Saleen. Come over.¡± Saleen stopped at the shore of a river, and a dazzling, multi-colored bridge appeared before him. Saleen stepped onto it without hesitation.


    Rafel followed exasperatedly.


    The rainbow bridge quickly receded, carrying Saleen and Rafel back to the temple in the Mountain without End. Saleen felt as if time stopped. The speed at which the bridge moved exceeded his Comet sh.


    What exasperated Saleen further was that the skill that he had wanted to learn for a long time¡ªRainbow¡ªtook him less than a second to pick up while in the temple.


    Rainbow was a difficult spell to learn due to the massive stress it put on one¡¯s body. No mage below level 13 was able to survive a sessful cast of the spell without special equipment. Their bodies would disintegrate, and there was no way to reconstruct them.


    As such, despite the spell being one that he could have picked up a long time ago, he never had the courage to actually do it.


    At the moment, however, the goddess forced the skill onto Saleen, but that was not a good thing for him. A goddess like her would ask him to work after giving him a reward of some kind.


    Saleen believed that the goddess was capable of taking back the skill at any moment if he refused the goddess¡¯ request.


    But the goddess¡¯ version of Rainbow was totally different from what Saleen knew. His intuition told him that it was capable of being fused with his Comet sh. If the two skills werebined, then his speed at atmospheric flight would be enhanced several times over.


    That meant that if Saleen were to cast Comet sh, he would probably end up tens of kilometers away in an instant, and he would crush himself if he were to run into anything.


    It went without saying that anyone unlucky enough to be standing in his way would suffer the same fate as well.


    Better save such a skill for after getting over level 16 then.


    The goddess gifted him with a skill that allowed him to achieve evolution as soon as he showed up, and it was a gift he found difficult to refuse. Well then, Myers sure as hell was going to ask for something in return, no?


    A huge, hovering ball of light in the center of the temple disyed a projection of the entire ne.


    Saleen took one look at the ball of light and knew that the table that he hadst taken was a defective product. The ball of light was constantly being updated with thetest happenings throughout the maind¡ªa feat which was unachievable with the table that he had taken away. It would take years for the table to switch to a new map.


    ¡°O¡¯ Revered Goddess of Myers, may I ask how could I be of service?¡± Saleen asked preemptively, to prevent himself from being put on the defensive.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not actually going to ask anything of you. I see what you are doing, Saleen. Great idea founding the Fifth Dynasty, but the divine kingdom¡¯s assault is getting worse. Are you trying to get me to do something by putting the entire Myers Maind at stake?¡± The goddess sounded rather irked, but Saleen rxed instead.


    ¡°No. I¡¯m fully capable of stopping the divine kingdom¡¯s advances.¡±


    ¡°You are fully capable of doing so? Don¡¯t you know what the Lord of Glory is?¡±


    ¡°Something you could easily kill at a whim,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°That is me, not you!¡±


    ¡°Goddess, even if the Lord of Glory ns to advent personally, I¡¯m still confident of being able to take him out.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re confident? The Lord of Glory has 126 doubles!¡±


    The Goddess of Myers was apparently rather irked. While she was indeed fully capable of killing the Lord of Glory, thest time she left the temple, it affected the progress of resurrecting her people. If she were to leave again, all of them would have had to stay asleep for good.


    She was unable to be at two ces at a time, forbidding her from taking out the Lord of Glory, and Saleen was going about founding the Fifth Dynasty. The forces throughout Myers Maind would be spread too thin as a result.


    ¡°I have 120 legions of demons at my disposal, and every single one of them consists of 64,000 units. All of them are ready to fight to the death at any given moment, and every single one of them hasbat prowessparable to a level nine angel.¡±


    ¡°The Lord of Glory¡¯s true army of angels is an army of level ten angels, led by a level 13 captain!¡±


    ¡°I have the Lightning Moon, which is capable of unleashing hours of lightning attacks.¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯re about to leave.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you give me Rainbow so that I could return as soon as possible?¡±


    The goddess took a good look at the young mage¡¯s face. In truth, Saleen was anything but young. If his age were to be calcted chronologically, he was actually over 4,000 years old. He had used over 4,000 years to get to level 15, and that was an indication of extremely terrible talent, when judged by ancient standards.


    ¡°If the Lord of Glory takes the ne, I¡¯ll kill you before anything else.¡±


    The goddess threw a green fruit to Saleen and said, ¡°feed this to your angel and get out of my face.¡±


    That was the first time her mood had truly been sullied. It was only a matter of time before Saleen became her enemy, but he was the only one she had for protecting Myers Maind.


    If she had killed Saleen right there and then, Jason would have done everything in his power to destroy Myers Maind.


    The goddess knew the likes of Jason very well. He was the kind of man who would easily disregard the lives of innocents in his pursuit of revenge.


    There was no way Jason could defeat her, but he had the power to make sure that nothing would ever grow on Myers Maind ever again. A level 16 mage was someone who had exceeded what it meant to be a human; such a mage had be something resembling gods.


    Furthermore, Jason was not a heroic spirit. There was no way she could deal with him like how he had dealt with the grandmaster.


    Saleen took the fruit and asked, ¡°what is this thing?¡±


    ¡°Something that will strip a being of divinity altogether, but retain their levels andbat capacity.¡±


    ¡°Thanks a lot. I¡¯ll return to the maind before the Lord of Glory enters.¡± Saleenughed as he turned around and left.


    He found the goddess to be utterly terrifying, as she surprisingly knew what he was after.


    Rafel was indeed very formidable inbat, but she had only been able to get to level 14 even after training for over 2,000 years, and that had only happened because she had level 14 powers to begin with.


    Saleen was actually there to see if there was any chance he could fix Rafel¡¯s problem. Her skill atbat was simply spectacr. If she were to be able to advance further, she would be the one being of greatest help to Saleen.


    Both J and Sul had their new roles as managers, bing a part of the Metatrin family. Rafel was, on the other hand, would be able tomandrge scale battles as a suprememander.


    If one such suprememander¡¯s level was unable to be advanced further, it would drastically affect his future ns.


    In the eyes of others, a level 14 angel would be more than powerful enough, but Saleen did not think so. It was only a matter of time before Myers Maind returned to the glorious times of its ancient past. However, his enemies would be just as troublesome as those faced during ancient times.


    ¡°Heh, you think you could just leave like that? You¡¯ll need to face at least one ordeal before you¡¯re allowed to leave this time.¡±


    The goddess cast a ball of green light, shrouding both Saleen and Rafel in it.


    Saleen was unfazed. He and Rafel were both transported to an independent space in an instant. The terrain was made up of swamps and wends. A thick mist covered the ce, and many dangerous beings lurked within the mist.


    ¡°My lord!¡± Rafel was frightened.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. About time I see what I¡¯m made of.¡± Saleen threw the green fruit to Rafel and said, ¡°Eat this.¡±


    The goddess¡¯ voice was heard. ¡°There are 24 powerful magic beasts in this space, Saleen. You will be allowed to leave if you are able to kill them all. If not, you¡¯ll be forever lost in this space.¡±


    ¡°Any limitations I should know of?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°There is none. However, a month within the space equals a day outside. If you spend too much time there...¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Saleen cut the goddess off. If he spent too much time in that space, then he would no longer be able to participate in whatever events that would have happened back in the maind.


    If he were to be unable to pass the goddess¡¯ ordeal, then the goddess would deem him incapable of taking on the Lord of Glory.


    If he were unable to get this done in time, he would lose everything. Saleen decided he had underestimated just how temperamental a god could be. The goddess was angry, and she was in no mood to reason with Saleen.


    There was no way he could have used such a space to train. If he were to really spend months there, the probability of the Lord of Glorying to the maind personally would be very high. He needed to defeat the 24 magic beasts and return to the maind.


    The goddess seemed to be waiting for Rafel to eat that fruit, and so she did not do anything to attack them yet. Rafel took one look at Saleen, who nodded, before she pressed that green fruit to her belly.


    Saleen was startled, but quickly realized that the fruit was but a construct of energy. It was Rafel¡¯s instinct as an angel to absorb such energies with the quickest way possible.

 Chapter 1516: Mage! (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1516: Mage! (Part 1)</h4>


    Rafel absorbed the fruit given to her by the goddess and felt all of her divinity dissipate. It had been the Source of her power, but the dissipated divinity was quickly reced by another form of power¡ªthe power of nature, also known as the power of life on some nes.


    The Goddess of Myers had no interest in helping Rafel advance. She had only used a bit of her power to kill off Rafel¡¯s divinity, making her into a living being that was part of nature.


    It was a form of experimentation. As an angel who was stripped of her divinity but retained her power and levels, she was probably the first of her kind in history.


    Rafel lowered her head in silence for a bit, before lifting her head again. ¡°My lord, my wings...¡±


    ¡°Disappeared?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Rafel spread her wings and found every single feather was green. She pped her wings for a bit and felt the power of nature permeate her wings and course through her body at a frightening rate.


    ¡°That is the power of a human priest. Of course, believers of the Goddess of Myers are capable of something simr,¡± Saleen said to Rafel.


    ¡°I do not need such believers.¡± The goddess¡¯s voice was quickly cut off. She seemed to no longer be able to observe what was happening in that space.


    ¡°My lord, I can no longer use my former skills, but I do retain my close quarterbat abilities.¡±


    ¡°Good enough.¡± Saleen hardly minded. After Rafel ceased being an angel, her rate of advancement would skyrocket. He had never needed her ranged attack abilities anyway. Rafel would be even more useful to Saleen devoid of divinity.


    At the very least, pressure the gods could exert on Rafel would be considerably reduced. Rafel would initially suffer a sharp drop in powers when meeting the Lord of Glory. At present, she was no longer an angel, which would make her like a human¡ª capable of facing off against the gods and bringing all of theirbat prowess to bear.


    Rafel was no longer an angel who lost her god. Her greatest shoring was resolved.


    ¡°My lord, it seems that our ordeal is about to begin.¡±


    Rafel brandished her spear and stood in front of Saleen. It was a very natural move on her part. Saleen was a mage. When small battles were carried out, warriors always stood in front of the mages to keep them from harm.


    Saleen chuckled and said to Rafel, ¡°Rafel if I had a sword right now, mybat prowess would still beparable to a level ten true might.¡±


    ¡°It is a habit of mine to protect you,¡± Rafel answered. She was calm, but many thoughts ran through her head. If it had not been for her deciding to follow Saleen, she and her angels probably would have met their end a long time ago. Myers Maind was rather weak when she first arrived, but there were some very difficult beings to deal with.


    Saleen was the only one who had never thought of dismantling her angels. To any powerful being, she and the metal angels were little more than the best alchemical materials there were.


    Thousands of tiny bugs shot out of a puddle not far away from them. Every single bug had a bluish metallic sheen. They were unnoticeable in the green puddle.


    Saleen cast an area-of-effect spell right after the bugs shot out¡ªFrost.


    Frost had a low offensive capacity. Even if the spell was upgraded to a levelparable to a territory, it still would have a hard time killing enemies. However, when the spell reached territory-like levels, it gained a very powerful attribute¡ªSlow.


    Within the territory of Frost, the attribute Slow took top priority. Even if the spell was countered with fire-type forbidden curses, the Slow status was difficult to repel.


    There were many simr skills within the family of water magic spells, but they were of greater lethality. Saleen, who had only been able to learn water magic in his early days, just honed a spell that was deemed a waste of time by many elemental mages, to utter mastery, due specifically to his handicap.


    The Slow effect of Frost showed immediately. It was not until both Saleen and Rafel were covered by ayer of Water Shield, that the tiny Wind des in the thousands hit them.


    The Water Shield and Frost were cast at the same time. Saleen instantly cast two magic spells. It was an ability that he had only acquired after getting to level 15.


    If it had not been for Frost, the Wind des would have hit them both first.


    While they could have easily averted death due to defensive equipment they carried, they would have been severely injured if the attacksnded. Saleen had never seen Wind des capable of traveling at such speeds. The Wind des were not of high levels, but ifid bare while being hit by thousands of Wind des, one would end up being cut to pieces.


    Saleen broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that the Goddess of Myers was going a little too far with her ordeal.


    It was only then that Saleen was able to take a good look at the bugs, which rendered him speechless. The bugs were almost identical to the Bug Angel Armors that he created. The ability of casting Wind des in flight was simr as well.


    If he had not been careful enough to cast Frost first, he probably would have had to use his Figure of Fate.


    Saleen had long realized that the Figure of Fate could not be used indefinitely. If it was hit by attacks that were too powerful, it would take a considerable amount of time to repair it. Furthermore, restoring it to its original state would be very difficult as well. All of that was because his proficiency at astrology was only at level ten. He was not advanced enough to be able to quickly repair the Figure of Fate with all the materials he needed.


    ¡°Damn you, Gaine. So this is how you bait me to keep learning astrology?¡± Saleen thought to himself.


    Saleen shook his head, casting any thoughts of continuing to train in astrology away.


    Saleen found the notion of giving up magic just because one¡¯s life was in threat ridiculous. No mage had been known to make such choices during ancient times, even though astrologers were of considerably high status as well back then.


    The thousands of bugs did not cease attacking. The effect of Frost did not hold on for that long. It was still an instant-cast spell instead of a true territorial power. Saleen had only cast that spell due to speed. Being able to even hold the Wind des at bay was already considered a miracle.


    The thousands of bugs continued to venture outside of Frost¡¯s area-of-effect, but Saleen would not simply sit by and do nothing. His second spell was already prepped, and it was still elemental magic.


    He did not use the Lightning Moon just to stretch out his fighting duration. The goddess said that there were 24 powerful magic beasts found within that space.


    He would have to fight 24 times, and the bugs were simply the appetizer. The true battle had yet to begin, and he deemed it best to conserve his lightning magic chords for the time being.


    Saleen¡¯s expenditure of magic chords when casting elemental magic was almost negligible. He was advanced enough that it hardly strained him. It was only when casting lightning magic that the expenditure of magic chords fit his level.


    Ice Storm!


    The spell was apound magic spell derived from both wind and water type magic. The spell felt eerie when Saleen cast it. Countless hard shards of ice shattered into pieces with extremely sharp edges, which then danced in the gale without any order to speak of.


    The bugs were hit by the ice and easily cut up. Juice from their bodies spilled everywhere, sttering the ground with little dots. Saleen wrinkled his nose.


    However, the bugs did not die and continued to cast Wind des instead. The Wind des became erratic in the Ice Storm, hitting all over the ce.


    Saleen took control of the situation and cast his final attack.


    Scorching mes burst before the Ice Storm¡¯s duration waspletely over, enveloping all the bugs within. Rafel had to back away for a bit to prevent her eyebrows from being singed.


    ¡°Looks like you never lost touch, my lord!¡± Rafel was impressed. She meant his proficiency at using elemental magic when she said ¡®lost touch¡¯. Saleen¡¯s offensive capacity skyrocketed when he gained ess to lightning magic, as well as having equipment as powerful as the Thunder Dragon ster at his disposal. He hardly used elemental magic spells to deal with his enemies anymore.


    However, Saleen had never stopped training in elemental magic. He had instead taken time to look into magic notes left behind by his predecessors.


    If he had used Dance of Electric Snakes, he would have dealt with the bugs in one go. However, doing so would have cost him 100 times more magic chords than what he used. Rafel had been worried that Saleen would let power go to his head and mess up his judgment. From the looks of things at the moment, however, it seemed that she never had to worry.


    ¡°Rx, you¡¯ll be having quite a hard time in future battles.¡± Blue currents burst from Rafel¡¯s body before Saleen was able to finish. She took flight and charged at the mes.


    A huge bug was charging at Saleen from the mes. There were three pairs of wings on the bug¡¯s back. When all three pairs of wings pped, three pairs of terrifying magic spells were cast.


    Dimensional de.


    The lethality of wind attack spells had always been scoffed at, and they were lower than even water type magic in terms of offensive capacity. However, Dimensional de made it clear that wind magic was still very capable of doing great damage.


    At the very least, if Saleen had only had oneyer of Water Shield on, it would have been very difficult for him to block the attacks from the Wind des. The des did seem to resemble true space magic.


    Saleen braced himself for the impact, but before he could cast any spell to reinforce his Water Shield, Rafel cast Metal Cutting from her spear and put it right before her. Her fly-and-halt movement was textbook urate for warriors. All six Dimensional des collided with the Metal Cutting spell.


    The spell was destroyed by the Dimensional des, but they continued flying at Saleen without even veering off-course.


    Rafel climbed several meters in the air, dodging attacks from the Dimensional des, before doing a somersault midair andnding right onto the huge bug¡¯s back. Rafel did not care if Saleen was able to evade the iing attacks. She thrust her spear downward, but she aimed for the bug¡¯s tail¡ªat the slit on the organ used for intercourse.


    The huge bug crashed to the ground immediately. Rafel dislodged her spear and a short sword appeared on her left hand, which she plunged into the bug¡¯s carapace.


    The short sword was a renowned weapon. It served as a beacon for divine spells. When she was still an angel with a god, she had worked seamlessly with her god in battle. That weapon, when lodged on the enemy, allowed her god to easily target said enemy and kill it if she could not. It was a lock-on function that was incapable of being negated, even with godly item-level equipment.


    Rafel informed Saleen of the attribute of the weapon, and he created magic-marking weapons in response.


    Saleen might have been average in terms of creativity, but it was still easy for him to add some imagination to his imitations. After Rafel¡¯s magic-marking short sword was lodged into the back of the bug, she charged forward. There were still enemies behind the huge bug.


    There was a smaller bug, too. It was a little more than a meter long and was right behind that huge bug. The smaller bug had 12 pairs of wings, and they were conjuring 24 Dimensional des.


    Rafel took a deep breath and cast 24 pests in an instant, lunging at the smaller bug.


    All 24 of them were, no doubt, summoned from the War Drum of Fear. The bugs were of insignificant levels, but they were more than enough to trigger the Dimensional des.


    A magic staff appeared in Saleen¡¯s hand. He knew the uing battles would be difficult, and the staff allowed him to conserve his magic chords further. Saleen had never needed to do anything like that in the past. If this was the first magic beast, what would theter ones be like?

 Chapter 1517: Mage! (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1517: Mage! (Part 2)</h4>


    Twenty-four Dimensional des cut up the pests. The Dimensional des attacked their targets incessantly until they were dead, which identified them as vastly different levels frommon Dimensional des. It was precisely due to such traits that the unique properties of pests held the Dimensional des back for repeated cutting until the des ran out of energy and dissipated.


    The pests no doubt died right after they were hit, but their bodies continued to reconfigure themselves.


    Saleen fired a lightning icicle and hit the bug that was magically marked, killing it immediately. That was the easy one, though. The smaller bug behind the huge one was more difficult to deal with.


    That smaller bug started at a little more than a meter in length and expanded suddenly, getting ready to charge at Saleen. Rafelshed out with her Inferno Spear, but the weapon was surprisingly unable to get through when it crashed into the bug¡¯s carapace.


    Rafel put quite a bit of strength behind the thrust, causing the bug to fall but remain unscathed. It also prevented the bug from charging at Saleen.


    The parties crossed each other and Saleen fired his second lightning icicle at the bug¡¯s eyes.


    Saleen had stopped relying on his lightning icicles to take out enemies. He had instead been using all kinds of elemental magic spells to keep things in control, reserving that very prative weapon only for the killing blow. It was too draining otherwise.


    ¡°Rafel, get it over with quick.¡± The lightning icicle had already killed that powerful magic beast when Saleen said that.


    Regardless of how high the level of a magic beast was, if it was devoid of intelligence, then it would be a piece of cake for Saleen. The bug thought it would be able to repel the lightning icicle simply by shutting its eyes, never expecting the electrical power on the icicle to paralyze it before the icicle itself shot right through its brain.


    Rafel nodded and dumped the bit of metallic poison into the pool.


    No morerge magic beasts emerged from the pool, but if smaller ones¡ªlike the thousands of tiny bugs that emerged earlier¡ªemerging again, it would keep Saleen¡¯s hands full.


    There was no telling just how many of the tiny bugs flipped when the metallic poison was dumped into the water, causing them to float on the water.


    Saleen unleashed two lightning warriors and had them drag the two magic beasts¡¯ dead bodies over, before putting them into his Ring of Cosmos. The two magic beasts were of very high levels, and they died in vain.


    The very reason why Saleen did not call for the lightning warriors to help him out, was because of the level difference. Lightning warriors were puppets and advancing further would require materials to be swapped and the puppets to be reworked.


    Saleen¡¯s lightning puppets were of materials of ample strength, but he did not put too much work into crafting them. As such, most of the lightning warriors were level ten, with a handful of them being level 11. Only those that Dante used often reached level 12.


    Level 12 lightning warriors were fully capable of taking on level ten magic beasts even without Saleen¡¯smand. That was because lightning warriors were capable of overwhelming elemental skills, and their bodies far exceeded the strengths expected of level ten puppets.


    All the magic beasts were carefully selected by the goddess, so they were probably somewhere between level 15 to level 16, which made them very capable of posing a threat to Saleen but unable to kill him off right away.


    The goddess put extreme pressure on Saleen, but she did not intend to get him killed. As such, so long as Saleen was willing to bring all he had to the table to deal with the magic beasts, it would not be much of a problem for him to leave the space alive.


    The problem, however, was that Saleen had no intention of bringing all he had when dealing with a few magic beasts. He intended to take every single dead magic beasts in that space. Magic beasts of such high levels were only found around the Oceanic Ice Block on the Myers Maind. If not, they would only be found in areas that were even more dangerous.


    The metallic poison spread throughout the pool, but Saleen was not done yet. He unraveled a Deep Blue Territory. All water within a 1,000-meters radius froze over, preventing any bugs from flying out of the pond.


    The bugs were capable of casting Wind des, but the spell was weak against cold. While Saleen¡¯s skill might not have killed them, he had put them back into hibernation, and it would take them three to five months to awaken.


    The bug space had a radius of over a dozen kilometers, and Saleen was able to sense it all. Now that he had taken flight, he was able to see a cave at the edge of the space and a passage leading to the next space.


    Damn it. The goddess has designed the ce like that to have him burrow holes.


    Saleen thought for a bit before telling Rafel, ¡°Get behind me.¡±


    Rafel fell into step behind him without knowing what he was up to.


    ¡°Put your weapon away and grab onto my belt.¡±


    Rafel put away her Inferno Spear and grabbed hold of Saleen¡¯s belt. It was only then that she realized that she was hugging Saleen.


    Rafel was baffled. ¡°Are you looking for warmth, mage?¡±


    ¡°Nope, you need to stay guarded against the cold!¡± Saleen smirked before the ice on his body enveloped both him and Rafel, encasing thempletely and protecting them from the magic beasts they were passing. He then shot into the cave like a meteor.


    The length of the cave was only several kilometers long, but Rafel felt as if her blood had been frozen over. If she had not been frozen together with Saleen, there was no telling where she would have ended up.


    Saleen was flying too quickly. He zipped past over a dozen kilometers in the swamp area, preventing any remaining magic beast from even trying to attack them.


    With the strongest magic beast dead, there was simply no need for Saleen to linger in that space any longer.


    He burst through the cave using Comet sh, and there was indeed a trapid inside: a powerful cold python. The creature had long since disappeared from Myers Maind. The goddess had put it there just to add to the difficulty of the ordeal.


    The cold python was instead practically shredded by Saleen¡¯s Comet sh. Its bones were broken in tens of ces. If Saleen wanted to truly kill it, he would only need to cast a spell above level seven.


    Saleen did not see the creature to be worth the effort. The cold python was only a rare creature. It was level 12 and when put in dark and wet environments, it would be able to fight with level 13 prowess. He did not need the cold python when he had so many other priceless materials.


    Saleen stopped after passing through the cave and had Rafel stand before him. He sat down to rest and restore his powers.


    Comet sh had a greater drain. Even after advancing to level 15, Saleen was still reluctant to overuse the spell, especially in his current situation, where he had 23 more magic beasts to deal with.


    However, if he crawled in that hole, it would waste a lot of time, and he would have to tangle with magic beasts.


    At the same time, he had also intended to see if the goddess was watching him by going through the cave in such a manner. Comet sh was simply too fast. If the goddess were watching him, he would have sensed something from the goddess when moving at such high speeds.


    The goddess would have to adjust her way of sensing before being able to locate Saleen. He was already at level 15. If he got even one level higher, the goddess would no longer be able to keep an eye on him without him knowing it.


    The difference between levels 16 and 18 was not one whole rank, and the way sensing was done was simr.


    At present, Saleen had to resort to such means to test the goddess out. He needed to know if she was watching him or not.


    The oue had proven rather surprising to Saleen¡ªthe goddess was not watching him at all. The space was indeed independent, which meant that if he failed to get out on his own, the goddess would note in to save him.


    Perfect. That meant he could do whatever he liked there.


    Saleen was correct to think so, as the goddess never had any intention of keeping an eye on him. If Saleen were not able to make it out of the ordeal, then the goddess would deem him unworthy of any further attention, and he would be better off dead. The goddess would only find him worth her time if he were able to make it through the ordeal. There was no way the goddess would deal with the Lord of Glory personally, after all. From her perspective, that pathetic god was of far lower importance than those people of hers.


    Saleen would do the same if he were in her shoes. For instance, if J were caught in any trouble, Saleen would put all the troubles he ran into on Myers Maind aside just to figure out ways to save his followers.


    Followers, atter stages, spent most of their time solving problems for their liege, but that was not to say that they just threw their lives away. The goddess¡¯s followers had unquestionable loyalty. They lived and died with the goddess and never regretted anything about it. If those followers were resurrected, they would be able to take care of managerial duties in her steed, which allowed her to focus on restoring her powers, as well as looking into ways of allowing her to continue living without doing any harm to the Source of any nes.


    While Saleen was being tested at the temple, the fighting at the gates of the divine kingdom had gotten unusually intense.


    Grand Duke tinum knew when to join the winning team, and he had longe to a consensus with his n, opting to join the Fifth Dynasty. That was because his estate was caught in an unlucky location. If he did not side with Saleen, hisnd would soon end up being destroyed by the divine kingdom.


    With Grand Duke tinum serving as a spokesperson of sorts, Saleen was met with little resistance in Cloudflow, especially among the four dukes, with only one refusing to submit. Both Grand Duke Iron Blood and Duke Dragonce chose to side with the Fifth Dynasty.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood was more than happy to do so. Unlike the other dukes, who had their ns being held hostage, Grand Duke Iron Blood only brought his trusted ones, and hemanded forces to join the Fifth Dynasty as well.


    Saleen¡¯s reward to him was as hefty as it could get¡ªhe gave the Grand Duke two subcontinent nes to rule over.


    One of them had long been promised by Saleen, while the other one was to make up for the losses the Grand Duke suffered in terms of position. He was unable to betray the Fifth Dynasty after swearing fealty, after all.


    He gained two nes just by making the snap decision to submit. He was able to give a ne to his son, who would be an emperor in that ne and expand the forces of their n. In doing so, Grand Duke Iron Blood became the trailzer of his n.


    The Dragon Ind was indeed powerful, so much so that his power eclipsed the other three dukes, but he had no interest in bing a manifestation of profit.


    The Grand Duke had subjugated three nes himself, but he did not have an absolute edge in the three nes. He required Saleen¡¯s help before he was able to subjugate the nes as soon as possible and reap the rewards from within.


    Saleen paid the price of five nes to buy over the Grand Duke. The return he gained was that the Fifth Dynasty was no longer met with any resistance in over half of Cloudflow¡¯snds.


    Regardless of howrge subcontinent nes were, they were unable topare with main nes in size. The Grand Duke knew that very well, but there was nothing he was able to do about the fact that he was incapable of wrestling the ces from Saleen.


    But then again, what became the decisive factor bringing about the Grand Duke¡¯s submission was that Saleen had told the Grand Duke that Lex would only be the empress for 100 years. She would choose one with the greatest support from the war to take the throne after her.


    He and Saleen shared amicable rtions, and he had Saleen¡¯s backup. He would definitely gain more than others from the war with the god creatures. It was very possible for him to be an emperor of the Fifth Dynasty right away, which was exactly what he wanted.

 Chapter 1518: Beginning of Collapse (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1518: Beginning of Copse (Part 1)</h4>


    The temple of the Lord of Glory was at the top of a snow-white sacred mountain deep within his divine kingdom. That temple was built at the peak, with countless altars around it.


    Hundreds of believers prayed there every day in the divine kingdom, with their power of faith being coalesced into divine crystals, appearing on the altars. Those altars were used by the Lord of Glory for amassing powers.


    The Lord of Glory had no intention of using his power of the Source for creating angels.


    The power of the Source was the foundation of the divine kingdom, yet believers were people that could be recruited from a myriad of nes and brought to the divine kingdom. When the powers of the Source on those believers had beenpletely drained, that was when they would meet their end.


    The more powerful the power of the Source of a believer, the longer they would be able to live. None of that had anything to do with the Lord of Glory himself.


    The Lord of Glory had gotten rather irritable as ofte. He had just destroyed a faraway divine kingdom and killed a level 15 god. The Lord of Glory had destroyed many level 15 gods and his power had grown to the critical point. Things would be dire for him if his powers were to grow more while he was still unable to master rules of level 16 gods, regardless of what he did.


    Withoutprehension of those rules, absorbing too many gods of his level would only result in the copse of his divine kingdom.


    That copse would cause his personal death as well, and the Lord of Glory dared not take such a risk.


    If he were to be able to make it to level 16, he would assault Myers Maind, instead of being as cautious as he was at the moment.


    Myers was indeed resurrected, but she was too, at about level 15.


    But then again, Myers Maind was her turf. If he were to show up there, his powers would be suppressed. But if she came here, things would go the other way around instead.


    It was too easy for him to kill a god of a simr level. Wars fought between gods were never a one-on-one affair. Divine wars were always one god putting everything they had at stake and having their armies crush the divine kingdom of their enemy.


    ¡°Lord Father, the number of divine crystals have not seemed to add up for the past several divine days.¡± An angel with a pair of red wings walked into the temple and half-knelt before the Lord of Glory.


    ¡°I know. The vanguards suffered quite a loss, so the reaping of divine crystals dwindled somewhat.¡± The Lord of Glory straightened himself and responded to his favorite angel.


    ¡°No, Father. The number is lower than what it should have been. Although the ratio seemed to have something to do with the losses suffered in the war, it was more than one percent nheless.¡±


    ¡°Hold on.¡± The Lord of Glory was only somewhat alerted. The Lord of Glory had tens of billions of believers. One percent of such divine crystals would equal to powers generated when hundreds of millions of believers prayed. That was a feast for a god.


    ¡°Lord Father, I suspect that someone is stealing the power of faith.¡±


    The Lord of Glory leaned on his throne and held his scepter forward. A beam of divine light shot out, shining on the red-winged angel. The angel was immediately enveloped by white holy prose.


    Tens of thousands of lines of holy prose entered the angel¡¯s body. The Lord of Glory said, ¡°go, my child. I bestow you with the authority of waging a war, to capture that sphemer who is stealing the power of faith.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lord Father.¡± The holy prose within that red-winged angel appeared again. A golden Sword of Glory appeared in its hand, which was a sword bestowed to it by its god. It was considered the most powerful weapon to be found in the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom.


    The angel was the Lord of Glory¡¯s favorite, who was a seraph known as Abyrus.


    They were the only seraph created by the Lord of Glory because a seraph was far more powerful than abat angel and cost far more power of the Source to create. Furthermore, a seraph could only be created using a god¡¯s own power of the Source.


    The Lord of Glory had actually been stocking too much power of the Source and was still unable to advance, which was why he created Abyrus in the first ce.


    However, Abyrus¡¯ creation greatly satisfied the Lord of Glory, because Abyrus was the best angel he had at his disposal. Be itprehension in terms of his decree or execution of his orders, everything was done perfectly.


    The most important thing about Abyrus was that its presence alone lightened the Lord of Glory¡¯s mood a great deal.


    Mood swings were difficult to suppress for gods because of their divine personas, and such the fact that attributes were immutable. The Lord of Glory did not want to be as short-fused and suspicious as he was known to be, so he let Abyrus stay by his side often.


    The Lord of Glory was unable to fathom why he came to rely on Abyrus so much. He was a god, so he was unable toprehend some emotions which were more human in nature.


    Abyrus was his first child.


    While he indeed called Abyrus his child, as a god, he never truly understood what ¡®children¡¯ meant.


    Abyrus was ted. It was the Lord of Glory¡¯s most powerful angel, yet it was constantly tasked with cleaning up during battles. The Lord of Glory never let it take any risks. It was constantly ridiculed due to its status as the seraph. All angels were jealous of it, and very much madly so.


    Abyrus had no intention of catching the culprit whatsoever, but the authority bestowed by its Lord Father meant that it was allowed to attack Myers Maind. So long as it was able to drive that damned culprit into Myers Maind, it would be able tomand legions of angels to ughter all over the maind.


    After walking down the Divine Mountain of Light, Abyrus came to the city of angels below and began to amass its own army.


    Angels who had long been at odds with it stayed out of its sight. The ones that it was able to recruit were all low-level angels, but Abyrus did not mind at all. With the Sword of Glory in its hand, it did not have any need for help from trash.


    One hundred thousand angels were gathered and divided into five legions. They headed towards a hidden space at the divine kingdom, with Abyrus in the lead. It knew where the culprit had been. It was the work of an insolent, treacherous fool, who was an oracle having delusions of bing a god, so much so that it had infiltrated the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom.


    The level 13 pseudogod had been able to hide pretty easily by using some unknown equipment. It was a pity that the oracle had been too greedy, as seen by his attempt to steal the Lord of Glory¡¯s power of faith.


    Fycro waited calmly in the foreign space. A white fox passed through the space barrier and came to his side, settling down next to him.


    The fox was a familiar conjured by his power of the Source. It was very difficult for a level 13 pseudogod to advance without pure power of faith. His infiltration of the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom was an ident. However, Fycro soon discovered that the Lord of Glory hardly paid attention to the number of divine crystals collected.


    All of his believers, high-level oracles and angels, had been stealing divine crystals.


    The Lord of Glory had too many level 15 divine personas on his person, and no amount of divine crystals would bring about his advancement unless he gained level 16 rules and then absorbed the power of faith.


    Fycro had been careful initially, as it was a divine kingdom after all. There were more beings who were more powerful than him than just the Lord of Glory and his doubles. There were also some angels whosebat capacity rivaled his.


    He was frustrated by the fact that Saleen had taken the divine persona fragments and how his divine fires were extinguished. The angels would develop fear before a god. So long as the Lord of Glory kept his hands to himself, there would be no way Fycro would lose to any angels.


    Fycro¡¯s power of the Source was extremely simr to that of the Lord of Glory. The fox that he conjured was a sacred beastmonly found in the divine kingdom. That sacred beast was of little threat, with the only use being to provide the Lord of Glory with faith of even greater purity.


    No one would attack such a creature, and Fycro had gotten bold after stealing once or twice.


    If it had not been for Abyrus, he would not have been discovered even if he kept stealing. Everyone was doing the same thing anyway. Even if the gods were to look into such matters, they only did so once every several hundred years or so. Only a few angels would die if anything were discovered.


    The Lord of Glory was totally oblivious to the angels¡¯ greed. His divine kingdom had not been advancing for far too long and too much power was stockpiled. The desires of the angels were unable to be suppressed, and they would only be quelled when the divine kingdom advanced.


    The Lord of Glory was steeped in thought as well. However, there were simply too few level 16 gods around for it to absorb. If he were to work on it on his own, he would need billions of years before being able to advance.


    A white weapon was seen on Fycro¡¯s hand at the moment. That was his Mirror of Fate, yet it was incapable of reflecting any light. That face on the upside of the disc-shaped weapon had a line seen on it all of a sudden.


    Fycro was frightened. He then headed out in the opposite direction of the space, before seeing arge group of angels heading his way.


    The angel who took the lead had red feathers and held a golden greatsword.


    Damn it. It was Abyrus!


    It was not like Fycro knew nothing about the divine kingdom. It was due to assassinating angels and absorbing their memories that Fycro was able to stay hidden in the divine kingdom for as long as he did.


    Abyrus was a level 14 seraph. Even if Fycro¡¯s weapon had not been taken away by Saleen, he still would not have been able to stand against the angel.


    Furthermore, the most terrifying thing about that seraph was that, even without the backing of the Lord of Glory, it still would not fear divine might. Fycro made a snap decision, turned himself into a white eagle, and took to the skies. He headed straight for the frontlines, which was the exit that led to the assault of Myers Maind.


    ording to memories of the angels he absorbed, Fycro knew that Abyrus was the Lord of Glory¡¯s favorite angel and that the god had never sent to any dangerous missions.


    ording to past experiences, there was no way Abyrus would be sent to the frontlines.


    Abyrus watched Fycro, who had taken the form of an eagle, from afar and felt glee in its heart. However, it did not give chase immediately. The traitor was being too slow. If Abyrus were to pursue him immediately, there was no way he would make it into Myers Maind. Abyrus would have caught him before that. It ruined the fun of the chase.


    Abyrus led hundreds of angels into Fycro¡¯sir instead and pretended to search the ce for a bit, before determining where Fycro headed to using divine arts.


    The situation with Fycro¡¯s escape was all caught by Abyrus¡¯ eyes, meaning that the angel¡¯s divine spell would never fail.


    The angels were in an uproar after they saw the traitor, who had transformed into an eagle, heading straight for the frontlines.


    Abyrus¡¯s mood became gloomy and shouted, ¡°what is all this ruckus? Lord Father said it is a must to capture the being alive. Come with me.¡±


    It did not care if the angels under its charge objected. It sped up and headed straight for the frontlines.


    The angels did not dare to report to the Lord of Glory. The angels all knew what Abyrus was like, and they would have a lot to gain simply by ying along with Abyrus¡¯ charade. However, if they were to report every single detail of what happened to the Lord of Glory, the angels who did so would not have been able to live beyond one divine day.

 Chapter 1519: Beginning of Collapse (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1519: Beginning of Copse (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Abyrus tailed Fycro and entered Myers Maind.


    Interconnected encampments were everywhere at the frontlines. Encampments in the divine kingdom were built differently from how humans did it. Every single encampment had tall sentry towers with archers in them, which doubled as altars as well.


    Fycro zipped through the encampment. The ce was filled with a massive amount of divine army units. He was frustrated, wondering how he caught the attention of the seraph.


    Stealing power of faith was considered a severe crime in nes where the believers originated. Yet in divine kingdoms, it was something that gods easily overlooked.


    All power of faith would eventually be returned to the gods unless the one stealing it was not a believer.


    If it had not been for the fact that he was no longer able to keep himself in the divine kingdom he was staying hidden in, there was no way he would even have thought of infiltrating the divine kingdom the Lord of Glory was based in. Abyrus ditched the legions of angels behind him, and that frightened them considerably.


    The angels all barged through the encampments in a hurry, no longer caring about rules or anything.


    The scene, however, alerted mages who had been on the lookout for enemy movements, who then reported what they saw immediately.


    The Baldur¡¯s Gate, which was on standby not far away, revealed itself. Nailisi and the Winged Skull led the demons charging outside, and several legions of Bug Angel Warriors followed right behind the demons. The Bug Angel Armors were crafted specifically for human soldiers. Saleen had no use for them and gifted them to the Cloudflow people instead.


    Nailisi had been waiting for such an opportunity for a long time. The encampment right outside the gates of the divine kingdom was built in such a way that it was impregnable. Nailisi might have been able to ughter a huge number of enemies due to her level advantage, but doing so would have caused considerable casualties among her subordinates. She no longer dared to go deep behind enemy lines after losing thousands of demons and had taken to setting up Baldur¡¯s Gate outside Lion City, waiting for an opportunity to strike.


    Nailisi was only doing that because Saleen told her to do so. She was not known for her patience, after all.


    The enemy lines looked rather chaotic, and Nailisi took the opportunity to deploy her troops. No other armies would be able to stay on standby throughout the day, except the demons and the Bug Angel Warriors.


    Demons did not take off their armor when they slept, while the Bug Angel Warriors simply slept in their armor, as doing so would hasten their recovery of mental powers instead.


    Thousands of enchanters cast spiritual magic after detecting movements of their enemies to get everyone on their side into fighting shape. All that was left to do was to get everyone into formation.


    Fycro watched as he escaped, wondering why the destructive device that he left within the divine kingdom did not get activated.


    He was entirely oblivious to the fact that right after Abyrus barged into the space that he was hiding in, the angel cast a powerful Ice Seal, which was a spell between divine arts and magic and only avable to someone who had begun to master the power of rules.


    Abyrus intended to keep the ce intact so that when the Lord of Glory inquired about it, it would save it a lot of trouble in trying to exin what had happened. Fycro¡¯s trap required the environment to be very, very stable if he wanted to activate it because he needed the trap to stay hidden. As such, he was no longer able to depend on chaos breaking out in the divine kingdom to enable him to escape.


    Abyrus stayed right behind him, getting ready to kill him after he was far enough away from the divine kingdom that it would not risk setting off the trap, before delivering final judgment on enemy cities.


    The seraph had the Sword of Glory, enabling it to cast the most powerful divine spell attack once without consuming its own powers. That was Judgment, a skill reserved only for gods.


    The white eagle form that Fycro took zipped past the encampments beforending, and Abyrusnded not far behind him. Fycro was feeling very frustrated, thinking that he would not have been so cornered if he had a godly item with him.


    Fycro made a hard decision to run in Lion City¡¯s direction. There were human armies in the city capable of withstanding attacks from legions of angels numbering over a million, so there were many powerful professionals.


    While Fycro has had his divine fire ignited before, his thought patterns were still very much human.


    He never thought of the possibility of running into Saleen.


    With Saleen absent, Fycro ran into Nailisi instead.


    Despite having changed his appearance, Nailisi was still nheless able to recognize him from one look.


    Fycro? Nailisi snickered. She was stepping on the Violet Angel at the moment. Saleen had not brought the Violet Angel on the trip to the goddess¡¯ temple, and the Violet Angel was put into Nailisi¡¯s charge for the moment.


    Nailisi told the Violet Angel tond and said to the Winged Skull, ¡°there is a familiar face down there.¡±


    The Winged Skull nodded and added, ¡°It¡¯s Fycro.¡±


    ¡°Are we going to kill him?¡±


    ¡°Do you have to ask?¡±


    ¡°But there¡¯s a weird-looking angel right behind Fycro, and the thing is hot in pursuit.¡±


    ¡°I know that. I can see further than you can after all.¡± The Winged Skull was the closest to Nailisi, yet they were also the one that exasperated her the most. The way the Winged Skull spoke constantly rendered Nailisi speechless.


    ¡°Well, I say no kill then.¡± Nailisi pouted.


    ¡°Sure.¡± The Winged Skull remained deadpan. She knew that the wretched pile of bones was capable of expressions.


    ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll kill him.¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± The Winged Skull faced south and answered, as he looked at Fycro, who was getting increasingly close.


    ¡°Make up your mind already.¡±


    ¡°I did. We¡¯ll talk after killing him,¡± the Winged Skull lifted their Reaper Scythe. The pair of eyes on the weapon opened and locked onto Fycro.


    Fycro felt a chill before seeing a huge skeleton charging at him. The Winged Skull¡¯s bone wings were spread, and they looked dazzling. He was unable to see the weapon that the Winged Skull held, but he felt pain on his neck.


    Fycro backed away as soon as he could, and the de of the scythe swiped close to his neck.


    Huh?


    Abyrus was baffled to see Fycro being intercepted by someone else, but the angel was quickly overjoyed to see an armying from afar, and the army seemed to have over a hundred thousand soldiers.


    Time to get the killing game going!


    Wait, a golden dragon? Abyrus noticed the golden dragon form that the Violet Angel took and was somewhat fearful but quickly realized that real golden dragons did not look like that. If that were a true golden dragon, the dragon might exuding from it would ce huge stress on the angel, but the golden dragon before it was just a fake.


    Damn you, chatan. I almost got duped.


    Abyrus lifted the Sword of Glory in its hand with a cold smirk and headed straight for the Violet Angel, giving up the pursuit of Fycro altogether.


    The Violet Angelnded on the ground hard and caused it to shake, but Abyrus was not fazed at all. Abyrus simply flickered and evaded whatever few skills that the Violet Angel was able to throw at it.


    Abyrus¡¯ fiery red wings pped, and a red glow surrounded its body. The Sword of Glory burst right through the breath that the Violet Angel threw at it.


    The golden Sword of Glory suddenly transformed into an ethereal sword that was many meters long, and Abyrus brought it down on the Violet Angel, aiming to its soul.


    If the strike connected, the only part of the Violet Angel that would be left intact would be its soul. Its soul was inside a lightning cage, after all. Abyrus¡¯ strike would only be able to harm it if the sword broke through the lightning cage in one go and still had enough left to keep going.


    Abyrus did not pay any attention to Nailisi. From its perspective, the woman was just too weak to be worthy of his time.


    But that was due to an innate ability of the Luoluokaluo¡ªdeception.


    If it had not been for such ability to deceive others, the bloodline of the Luoluokaluo would have been rendered extinct a long time ago. Such imps, like humans, were extremely weak when they were first born. Only after they hadpletely matured would they be formidable beings.


    Nailisi saw that Abyrus unleashed its attack andshed out with her Grey Memory. The Violet Angel simply closed its eyes and did not evade it. If it evaded, Nailisi¡¯s thrust would veer off-course.


    The Violet Angel would rather take the brunt of the strike from the sword and get a weaker recement body than to get on Nailisi¡¯s bad side.


    Pfftt...


    A hole the size of a bowl was seen in the red wings. The Grey Memory was thrown by Nailisi like a javelin before she transformed into her devil form and brandished a huge sword. The de came just in time to stop the strike from Abyrus.


    The illusion broke with a crack and Abyrus shrieked. Half of its wings wilted and the feathers on it fell off. The Grey Memory continued to suck divine powers from it frenziedly.


    Abyrus swiped the sword in its hand and chopped off the wing on its right side. It was in so much pain that it was shuddering all over. The pain came from the depths of its heart.


    Abyrus had been a perfect angel, but it was forced to cut off one of its wings, which made it defective from there on out. The fear from its heart stemmed from doubts it had of itself.


    Nailisi was disappointed. While the angel had indeed been powerful, it was only so in terms of power. The angel¡¯s mind was just too weak. She, however, did not let the opportunity slip. Twenty-four Shackles of the Fallen shot out of the portal opening right behind her, chaining Abyrus up as soon as they entered the ne.


    COMMENT


    Abyrus was dumbfounded and swung the Sword of Glory in its hand, intending to cut off the chains binding it. However, the Sword of Glory simply flew out of its hand with a ng,nding at its feet.


    Abyrus had too much faith in the Lord of Glory. If it cast the skills contained within the de, it would probably be able to hurt Nailisi, but breaking the Shackles of the Fallen using the Sword of Glory alone was a feat that not even the Lord of Glory would be capable of.


    Nailisi lowered her head and picked up the Grey Memory, which still had some feathers from Abyrus stuck to it.


    ¡°I like stupid angels and...gods!¡± Nailisi swung the Sword of Rules out horizontally, cutting up an illusion with a whiff. It was Fycro¡¯s skill for escape, and Nailisi broke it.


    ¡°Nailisi, it seems like we both have grown considerably, no?¡± The Winged Skull was startled. It flicked the Reaper Scythe in its hand and felt Fycro shaking with fear.


    ¡°A level 13 pseudogod. Too bad we¡¯re at level 15!¡±


    ¡°True. Sheer advantage of higher levels. That is something not even gods can do anything about,¡± the Winged Skull said, and the two ck chains shot out of the eyes on the scythe, binding Fycro and pulling back at great speed. Fycro shrieked as he was consumed by the weapon.


    The Winged Skull frowned, as it felt that Fycro still had surviving doubles out there. But it hardly mattered. Resurrecting through such doubles would take hundreds of millions of years.


    Nailisi was very pleased. She waved and had the army continue pressing forward to take on the angels that had just emerged from the divine kingdom. She looked at the somewhat twisted face of Abyrus, before she narrowed her eyes and asked, ¡°What¡¯s your name, pale face?¡±


    ¡°Abyrus!¡± The seraph answered in fright. It was only that it realized that there was a powerful force on the chains binding it enticing it to fall.


    No, not enticing, forcing!

 Chapter 1520: Believe in the Demons and be Blessed with Eternal Life (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1520: Believe in the Demons and be Blessed with Eternal Life (Part 1)</h4>


    There was no way a level 14 angel would be able to resist the power of the Purgatory of the Fallen. Nailisi was at level 15, after all.


    Abyrus was so weak-willed that the angel was immediately frightened to submission.


    Nailisiughed and dumped one side of its wings into the Purgatory of Darkness, before taking them out again. She had enhanced the wing with formidable power of darkness using the Origin Stone of Darkness.


    Nailisi attached the wing to Abyrus with a smirk on her face. The Winged Skull picked up the Sword of Glory from afar and said, ¡°Nailisi, quit ying around.¡±


    The Violet Angel huffed and puffed, signaling its agreement with the Winged Skull.


    ¡°Did you forget about the saint?¡± Nailisi asked.


    The Winged Skull was reminded that Saleen had once used the saint to bait the Lord of Glory, and the divine kingdom advented in their ne. With that angel...


    Nailisi continued. ¡°This is a seraph, a very perfect construct. I¡¯d like to see just how mad the Lord of Glory would get if it fell. I bet he woulde straight for us himself, no?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi, Master is absent.¡±


    ¡°I know that. We will put it on hold until hees home.¡± Nailisi hit Abyrus¡¯ head with her huge hand, before having the 24 chains drag Abyrus into the Purgatory of the Fallen to be further modified.


    The Winged Skull was exasperated at Nailisi¡¯s expression. She was obviously taking a sarcastic jab at the Winged Skull. The method they had used to catch Fycro was picked up from her after all.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± The Winged Skull spread their bone wings and headed straight for the angels. They were not in the mood to argue with Nailisi. The Winged Skull saw doing so to be pointless right now, even though it was able to bring them closer at times.


    Nailisi felt it was no fun that the Winged Skull left. She then shouted roughly, ¡°Violet Angel!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here! I¡¯m here!¡± The Violet Angel came before Nailisi quickly, not behaving like a dragon at all. Of course, the Violet Angel did not feel humiliated or anything, as it was just a puppet.


    Sigh... The Violet Angel looked at how submissive the puppet behaved and lost all interest. She then said, ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    She was stillpletely oblivious as to how important the seraph that she had just captured actually was. If Nailisi had known of Abyrus¡¯ true value, she would have probably dragged it before the gates of the divine kingdom and cut it up into pieces.


    After Abyrus was chucked into the Purgatory of the Fallen, its connection with its god was cut offpletely. It came on its own, so no one knew that it was Nailisi who had captured the seraph. The legions of angels were still in hot pursuit far behind but were quickly met with the legion of demons.


    Both angels and demons were races of formidable physical prowess. However, one was created by the gods, while the other was naturally born. Abyrus¡¯ angels were not actually that formidable, as no high-level angel had been willing toe with it. All of the high-level angels hated Abyrus¡¯ guts.


    Even so, the angels were strong enough that the Winged Skull had to join in the fight. They summoned the golden skeletons and had them join the demons, bing the pirs of absolute power in their midst.


    The Winged Skull asked Nailisi, who had caught up with them as they fought, ¡°Nailisi, did you inform the teacher?¡±


    ¡°Inform him of what?¡±


    The Winged Skull was baffled. ¡°You didn¡¯t inform Sir Jason before you left?¡± they asked.


    Nailisi intended to curse but quickly realized that it was Saleen¡¯s teacher they were talking about, so she simply swallowed all her curses and answered. ¡°I forgot.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d be better off forgetting to eat!¡± The Winged Skull was incredibly frustrated. Nailisi was the one in charge of battles, so it should have been her that was in contact with Jason, but all of it slipped her mindpletely.


    ¡°Now that you mention it, angels really are delicious!¡± Nailisi grabbed hold of an angel that charged at her, squashing it into a flickering ball of light and chucking it into her mouth.


    While angels had flesh, blood, and bones and did not look all that different from humans, they werebat weapons created by gods and inherently constructs of energy. Nailisi was very much invigorated after gulping down an angel, so she pushed the Violet Angel to join in the fray.


    The Winged Skull had no intention of running into anything unexpected and causing the entire legion to be destroyed, even though the legion that was beingmanded was not made of demons from the absolute top of the league. The Winged Skull contacted Jason using a scroll, sending projections of the ongoing battle back to him.


    The flickering images would inform Jason enough of what was actually going on.


    Nailisi was gleefully ughtering the angels. While none of them were true powerful ones, that was only from Abyrus¡¯ perspective. The angels they were fighting at the moment were far more powerful than the god creatures stationed at the encampments right outside the gates of the divine kingdom.


    The angels were at least two levels higher than the ones Nailisi had met when she first barged into the divine kingdom. She took out a huge and spread it, catching a great many of them and dumping them into her collection of purgatories.


    The angels were reduced to pure energy after they were chucked into the Purgatory of Purification, which excited Nailisi a great deal. Some leftover power of faith was turned into divine crystals as well. She had never expected the armor the angels wore to be constructs of energy, as well. The angels of slightly higher levels had brought about considerable casualties to the demons.


    Nailisi, however, behaved as if she saw none of that. She took her golden dragon form. Her golden dragon had true dragon might, and she was at the pinnacle of level 15 at present.


    After Nailisi showed up as a level 15 golden dragon, the angels were all so pressured by the dragon might, that even with the Lord of Glory serving as their backing, they were unable to sustain flight and dropped to the ground one after another.


    The Violet Angel, which was obviously a fake golden dragon, was reduced to a menial servant, picking up all the angels that had been shocked by the dragon might Nailisi exuded. Nailisi was over 100 meters long in her golden dragon form. One puff of dragon breath from her engulfed every single angel within a 500-meter radius.


    There was no longer any need for her to conserve her stamina, as she had consumed the soul of an ancient golden dragon. Her golden dragon form was no longer the iplete, half-baked thing that it used to be.


    The Winged Skull was exasperated and let the golden skeleton guard her, just to prevent them from being ambushed by the god creatures. Nailisi¡¯s endeavors brought about a 500-meter wide gap in the legion of angels, so they did not have to worry about being in danger.


    Tens of thousands of soldiers were on standby in Lion City at all times. While Nailisi¡¯s legion fought the angels, all the units in the city had finished gathering. By the time the god creatures deployed their forces, three waves had already been sent from Lion City, amounting to a total of over 100,000 men, who all charged simultaneously at the gates of the divine kingdom.


    The powers of the human armies were growing at frightening speeds at the moment. Even just a few years ago, gathering an army of over 100 thousand soldiers would have taken days.


    More of the god creatures gathered outside the divine kingdom, waiting menacingly in the background. The suprememander of the god creatures intended to kill over a million of the human soldiers, in order to open a gap in Lion City. As such, themander raised the stakes and deployed over half of their forces, sending them all into Myers Maind.


    Abyrus, who was dumped into the Purgatory of the Fallen, pleaded to the void, which had Nailisi¡¯s face.


    Nailisi¡¯s double, who was sitting on the tform, did not bother with it despite the fact that Abyrus had been pleading for quite a while. Evil powers continued to surge into its pure body.


    Abyrus was in a state ofplete despair and prayed to the Lord of Glory, hoping to reach its Lord Father and be saved. If it were to be able to leave that damned ce, it would no longer harbor any thoughts of fighting on the frontlines and winning honors for the Lord of Glory.


    Wars are indeed dirty affairs!


    Nailisi¡¯s double heard Abyrus¡¯ prayers and opened her eyes suddenly, chuckling.


    Abyrus heard the woman say, ¡°It¡¯s useless, angel. This is the Purgatory of the Fallen. Any believer who gets inside will fall. Unless your god has reached level 18, your prayers will fall on deaf ears.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Abyrus watched the lithe body on the altar, still harboring delusions. It thought that if it were to be able to entice that entity, there would be a chance for it to escape.


    ¡°I¡¯m Nailisi, the demon dumped you in here. I¡¯m her, and she is me,¡± the double answered.


    Abyrus might have been soft, but it was not a fool. It was able toprehend that the demon had a double right away. Despite the fact that doubles of gods and the original god were considerably different entities, they shared one trait¡ªthey would never betray their main bodies.


    Abyrus¡¯ red eyes felt dry, and the tears that had been flowing from them dried up. It realized just how powerful its enemies truly were. It was no surprise why the Lord of Glory continued to refuse to lead the charge personally. The powers of that demon and the spirit were near that of its Lord Father after all.


    If yet another entity ofparable powers ganged up on the Lord of Glory...


    It was the first time Abyrus had doubted the Lord of Glory¡¯s powers since the day it had been born.


    It was the beginning of its fall.


    Nailisi¡¯s double was perceptive enough to notice it. She smirked and created a mirror, putting it before Abyrus.


    Abyrus looked at its visage in the mirror and was totally frightened.


    The seraph¡¯s handsome face was no longer around. Its naked body was divided into two colors, radiating from the center of its body.


    It had pure, white skin and a vibrant red wing on one side, while the other side was covered with dark scales. The red wing was gone and was reced with a dark grey one.


    What frightened the seraph further was that the dark grey wing was filled with evil words cursing at its god.


    It was the wing of a fallen angel. Those who betrayed its Lord Father did not all end up dead. Abyrus thought it was due to its Lord Father¡¯spassion that they managed to live, but after looking at the other half of its body, a different thought was harbored in its mind.


    It seemed that its Lord Father was unable to do anything about the fallen angels at all.


    ¡°Any thoughts of returning to the divine kingdom now?¡± the double of Nailisi asked gently.


    24 Shackles of the Fallen behind Abyrus kept it chained. There was no joy seen in the seraph¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°I¡¯m never going to betray my Lord Father!¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say you need to betray him. This is just a little experiment. You can return to the side of your god and not do anything for us.¡±


    Abyrus¡¯ grey wing shuddered. Deep down, it hesitated. If it were to return, it would be tantamount to treason. There was no way it could let the Lord of Glory see it while it looked like that.


    ¡°Just an experiment?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Now that you¡¯re captured and tied up, you¡¯re no threat to me. This is your only chance, angel. There are 12 purgatories in here, and I¡¯m the easiest one to talk to.¡± Nailisi¡¯s double¡¯s smile turned even more gentle and beaming.

 Chapter 1521: Believe in the Demons and be Blessed with Eternal Life (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1521: Believe in the Demons and be Blessed with Eternal Life (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    12 purgatories...


    Abyrus fell into the trapid by Nailisi¡¯s double. Its judgment was obviously clouded, seeing as it had walked right into the trap without noticing it at all. The curses on the dark grey wing on its right gradually subsided as they were absorbed by the wing.


    The Wing of the Fallen developed, and the other red wing¡¯s color gradually washed off, bing white.


    ¡°Congrattions on learning the meaning of light. Behind the light, there will always be darkness.¡± The voice of Nailisi¡¯s double was unable to be stopped, prating its body and working directly on its Source.


    Abyrus was unusually ted. It discovered, all of a sudden, that everything that the Lord of Glory once said had all been lies.


    The light was not the only thing that was eternal in the world. Darkness was part of the light.


    If it were to have divine fires ignited in it, it would surpass the Lord of Glory and be a more powerful god.


    ¡°Believe in me, and I shall lead you to great achievements in the future.¡± Nailisi¡¯s double continued to entice the angel.


    ¡°But...¡±


    ¡°I did say that I¡¯ll let you back to the Lord of Glory¡¯s side,¡± Nailisi¡¯s double continued, casting Ultimate Shapeshifting onto the seraph.


    Nailisi was level 15, and so was the Lord of Glory. The guise of Ultimate Shapeshifting would never be seen through by someone of the same level as the caster. With the sess of the spell, all sphemous light on Abyrus¡¯ body disappeared. The dark grey and pure white wings returned to their original fiery colors.


    Abyrus looked at its wings, feeling very surprised and then said, ¡°the god wouldn¡¯t be able to sense that I¡¯ve fallen, no, that I¡¯ve evolved!¡±


    ¡°No. You shall be an eternal being, existing between life and death, a perfect, wless god,¡± Nailisi¡¯s double continued and cast yet another Ultimate Shapeshifting on it. That gentle holy light appeared above Abyrus, forming into a perfect halo.


    ¡°Why are you doing this to me?¡± Abyrus asked, feeling rather confused. It sensed that there was holy power raging within its body, seemingly enabling it to advance to level 15 at any given moment and be the most powerful angel in the divine kingdom.


    ¡°That is because I am a demon. Believe in me, and you shall be granted eternal life,¡± Nailisi¡¯s double answered with extreme pride.


    Abyrus hung its head low, just like it did with the Lord of Glory, and it began to sing praises to its heart¡¯s content to Nailisi¡¯s double. The double never expected things woulde to that and felt goosebumps all over her. She was unable to fathom just how the gods were capable of tolerating such tant ttery.


    Nailisi sensed what was going on in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory. What her double had done was not very different from what she would have done. The double was her and not her at the same time since they stemmed from the same soul after all.


    Nailisi returned to her devil form and called the Winged Skull over from afar. The Winged Skull swiped the Reaper Scythe through the air and felled tens of angels. They carved their way through the angels and asked, ¡°What¡¯s the matter now?¡±


    Nailisi said using the demonnguage, ¡°I¡¯ve taken care of that red angel!¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± the Winged Skull asked in spirit tongue.


    ¡°Gosh, you¡¯re so dumb!¡± Nailisi berated.


    The Winged Skull remained dumbfounded as they eyed Nailisi. The demon went up to the spirit and murmured, ¡°Ultimate Shapeshifting. A fallen angel.¡±


    The soul mes in those pitch-ck pupils of the Winged Skull¡¯s eyes seemed to dance for a bit. They thought that Nailisi had finally done something correctly. If the fallen angel had been returned to the divine kingdom, it would have probably been a matter of time before he was ambushed.


    The Winged Skull asked, ¡°What do you propose then?¡±


    ¡°Hand me Fycro and let the angel take him back.¡±


    The Winged Skull was baffled, before casting spirit mist to shut out the angels¡¯ line of sight. They pulled Fycro out of the weapon promptly.


    Fycro lookedpletely disheveled. The weapon¡¯s chains sucked the power of his body away. All the power of the Source and power of faith that he had been umting were no more. The eye of the weapon seemed to be connected to the reaper ne. It felt like there was a god capable of controlling life preventing him from restoring his powers.


    After the man was cast out, Nailisi took hold of Fycro¡¯s waist and chucked him into her collection of purgatories. She chose to dump him into the Purgatory of Purification at that time.


    All the curses that Fycro was bound by were wiped clean in the Purgatory of Purification. The bit of damage from the eye of the weapon could be healed by the Purgatory of Purification in a matter of seconds. If he spent too much time there, however, Fycro could eventually have his bodypletely purified, which meant it would be broken down until there was nothing left of him.


    Fycro was yanked out again, and he looked like he was about to kick the bucket. Nailisi threw him into the Purgatory of the Fallen. Abyrus took one look at Fycro and was ted.


    If the one it was tasked to take had remained atrge, then there would have been no way for it to dupe the Lord of Glory.


    When a god found that their underlings had failed a task given, they would calcte the reasons using divine spells. Nailisi had taken care of all the matters regarding concealment, and Abyrus felt very confident.


    It would be able to break through level 15 when it returned, due to all the favoritism the Lord of Glory showered it with. It would have greater confidence at taking out the Lord of Glory by then.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull talked for a couple of seconds before splitting up quickly. Not even their underlings knew what happened between the two.


    Nailisi had an idea. She pulled a supreme demon aside and disguised it to look like a devil. She then disguised herself as an angel and charged into enemy lines.


    The fighting on the ground was more intense than the one in the air, looking utterly chaotic. The demons were still able to keep their formations more or less intact, while there were simply too many in the divine army below, so their formationspletely wrecked. Nailisi had an easy time sneaking into enemy lines and finding a spot with no one around, leaving Abyrus behind.


    Before the seraph left, it looked at Nailisi with an anxious look.


    ¡°Go now. No one will be able to see through your disguise. There is no need to worry.¡±


    ¡°When should I make a move?¡±


    ¡°When you feel that you¡¯ve gained the ability to be a supreme god.¡± Nailisi¡¯s answer was ambiguous. Abyrus was in glee. It was worried that Nailisi would set a time frame for it. There was no certainty that it would have been able to aplish what it set out to do if that had been the case.


    Abyrus was very clear on what the Lord of Glory was capable of. There was no way its current level of powers would have been able to take on the lesser god.


    Abyrus took Fycro and snuck back into the divine kingdom. The seraph waspletely oblivious to the fact that Nailisi had set up a secret art unique to the Luoluokaluo within its Source. That secret art did not grant herplete control of Abyrus, but it would enable her to return the seraph to its original form, at will.


    There was no way Nailisi would just let Abyrus be a fallen god. She was no longer the mischievous imp that only thought of currying favor from Saleen. She knew very well what would work in Saleen¡¯s favor.


    ¡°Believe in me and you shall be granted eternal life.¡± Those were the words of the Lord of Glory. A demon would have only used those words to dupe others.


    Nailisiughed maniacally after Abyrus disappeared from sight. She used Ultimate Shapeshifting to turn into the seraph¡¯s fallen form, before charging into the midst of the angels.


    The weapon in its hand was the Sword of Rules that had taken the form of the Sword of Glory. There was no way Abyrus could have been able to weasel out of that setup.


    Nailisi was able to immediately create a fallen angel to put at the Lord of Glory¡¯s side if she were to see the need. Abyrus would have never sat by and done nothing. The seraph would have resisted one way or another.


    Nailisi wondered if a level 14 fallen angel would have been able to harm the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen did not know of anything going on at the frontlines. He had been fighting for three consecutive days and nights in that space of the goddess. There was no way he could have taken out every single enemy quickly, after all.


    COMMENT


    Rafel had been gulping down divine crystals continuously. While she was no longer an angel, her ability to regain strength by consuming divine crystals was retained, and it was one of the few useful skills she retained at her disposal.


    She killed over a dozen powerful magic beasts in a row and was thoroughly exhausted. Consumption of divine crystals was no longer enough to calm her down. Saleen had already burned through most of his magic chords.


    However, up until recently, Saleen had yet to use any scroll-like weapons. 24 powerful magic beasts. That was what the goddess had said. But from Saleen¡¯s perspective, the underlings serving the magic beasts were getting increasingly ferocious and were always showing up inrge numbers.


    Saleen had zipped around the space 12 times and had cast untold numbers of area-of-effect magic spells.


    It was fortunate that he had the Eye of Souls, which did not consume any magic chords, allowing him to detect levels of enemies at any given moment, which in turn enabled him to take care of enemies using the most energy-efficient methods.


    The fighting was getting more and more intense, so much so that Saleen was unable to even find time to meditate.


    He was at wit¡¯s end and was forced to rely on the power of equipment. Saleen realized what the goddess had meant. The Lord of Glory had 126 doubles. If all of those doubles wereparable to the magic beasts, he would have been done for if all of them had ganged up on him.


    But he was not alone. There were still Nailisi, the Winged Skull, and the others. There were also his teacher, Sika, and Lex. Lex was the only one whose powers remainedparatively weak. She was only at level 13.


    If Lex were allowed to sit on the throne of the Fifth Dynasty for several more years, she would definitely surpass him.


    The w with secret arts relying on the use of powers resembling power of faith, however, was that it would not be of much use in the Hall of Gods. One couldn¡¯t absorb powers from outside when within the hall. If the connection between her and her subjects were to be severed, she would not have been able to advance further.


    That was why Saleen did not let Lex train in the Hall of Gods. In the future, Lex¡¯s progress at advancement would be far quicker than his. She would be the most powerful mage on the maind in 100 years.


    The ce before him was a world covered in ice. Saleen was unable to see any signs of life in the space.


    It was probably the work of ck Ice Barrier. The magic beasts in that space had yet to awaken, and beasts in a frozen world would probably be easier to deal with. Saleen was versed in water magic. He took the chance to sit down and rest, beginning to meditate. Rafel stood behind him in high alert.


    ¡°Rafel, take a break,¡± Saleen said and threw his Thunder Dragon Bangle out, which unleashed the 24 thunder dragons. The thunder dragons circled around them. Rafel was finally able to unwind seeing that the thunder dragons were there for protection. She sat down back to back with Saleen, the Inferno Spear still in her hand.


    It had been a while since shest fought such battles. Rafel felt as if she had returned to the past, where she spent her days fighting alongside her god. However, back then, it was her god who provided her with powers. At the moment, she was just fighting at Saleen¡¯s side.

 Chapter 1522: Frost (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1522: Frost (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen¡¯s meditation allowed him to stop at any given moment, and it was something imparted to him by Jason. With the protection of the thunder dragons, Saleen had no fear of being ambushed. All 24 thunder dragons had soul armor on. Regardless of the magnitude of the attack they could be met with, they would at least be able to hold out for a minute or two. Not even the Goddess of Myers would have been able to kill all 24 of them in one go.


    But then again, if all those magic beasts were of levelsparable to the goddess, Saleen would have just given up. It would have been impossible.


    A frail magic beast began to gradually awaken in thend covered in ice while Saleen was still meditating. It was covered in hard ice. When it was awakened, ayer of ice around it melted, making it look like it was wrapped in a water bubble.


    If it had not been for Saleen showing up, that beast probably would have probably been frozen deep in thend by the goddess for good. In truth, however, not even the goddess had ever had any intention of capturing that thing. It seemed that she had no interest in the materials it would have given her.


    The magic beasts shook its huge body about and ayer of skin fell off of its body, revealing what was beneath.


    The transformation process was extremely slow, but it was speeding up. Saleen sensed peculiarities in the space but did not stop meditating just yet. He simply unleashed thousands of lightning warriors to deal with it.


    The lightning warriors¡¯ movements were not affected by what was happening in the icy world at all.


    However, most of the lightning warriors were at level nine or ten. They were little more than cannon fodder when they ran into level 14 or 15 magic beasts.


    The magic beast shook and cracking noises were heard from its bones. The Thunder Dragon ster in the magic amplifier behind Saleen was being prepped. The huge thunder dragon within it seemed to havee alive and looked rather restless.


    Saleen had to stop meditating but stopped Rafel, who was about to get up.


    ¡°The goddess might have made a mistake. That thing below might be over level 16,¡± Saleen said as he pointed at the white ground. There was a huge crack had appeared at some point while they were resting.


    The crack was over 15 kilometers long. Saleen unleashed an electric snake. The tiny snake burrowed into the crack, and Saleen sensed the snake being destroyed about half a minuteter.


    That thing below made short work of a level 15 electric snake.


    The goddess had indeed made a mistake. Some beings were capable of advancing during specific states. Despite not having eaten or drank for a long time, they would still be capable of killing Saleen.


    ¡°Rafel, how much power do you have left?¡±


    ¡°Half,¡± Rafel answered concisely.


    ¡°Well then, you stay down for the moment. There is only one enemy here.¡±


    ¡°Stay down?¡± Rafel put her hands on the ground and grabbed hold of her Inferno Spear. She looked at Saleen with a vexed expression, not understanding why he would not let her fight.


    Saleen looked at Rafel¡¯s face and finally exined to her what he had been thinking.


    ¡°This is a powerful being, and the battle between us will probably end up tearing the space apart, sending me into another space. I can¡¯t win without getting injured. Before I can recover from my injury, I¡¯ll need you for protection, so...¡±


    Saleen sent Rafel into his magic amplifier, keeping her from joining the battle. Her powers at level 14 were still too weak. If she were to be able to make it to level 15 suddenly like Nailisi, she would have stood a chance.


    Saleen had no intention of wasting his magic chords. Recovery of his magic chords had reached 80 percent, and they would havee in handy in the uing battle. The Book of Lightning hovered before him. Electrical discharge from the piece of equipment became strong enough to kill a level 15 being at present. If the being were devoid of defense, it would be wiped out altogether.


    Still kible at level 16.


    But what about level 17 then?


    Saleen sighed. Regardless of the quality of a piece of equipment, there would be a limit. Level 17 was the level when gods achieved greater god status, making them capable of mastering foundations of rules. It would be almost impossible to kill them by relying on equipment alone.


    It would not be doable unless he hadpletely mastered the Book of Lightning and got to level 17 himself as well.


    Saleen¡¯s limit was at level 15. If he were to reach level 16, he would have to achieveplete mastery of a type of rules, any type. Saleen was only able to master rules of water element and lightning, and the lightning ones being over 100 times moreplicated than that of water element.


    If he were to master water elemental rules, he would at least need to familiarize himself with 12 level 16 water elemental magic spells. That meant that not only would he need to be able to cast water elemental magic beyond his level, he would also need to be able to work on any of the 12 in any way he fancied, modifying their magical attributes and making them into chants.


    All in all, Saleen needed to achieve thorough mastery with twelve level 16 water elemental magic spells, and that would take a considerable amount of time. Furthermore, that was just preparation. He needed to have a certain level of mastery of the other five types of elemental magic, and all of them needed to be level 16 if he were to get to level 16.


    The difficulty was tens of times more than what it had been for advancing below level 15, and Saleen did not have that much time to spare.


    The ground let out a stifled rumble and the width of the crack beneath Saleen¡¯s feet widened by 10 meters. Anyone else would have easily lost their bnce if they encountered something like that.


    In Saleen¡¯s case, magic patterns in his eyes shifted before he leaped into the crack.


    It would have been a lot more difficult to deal with the thing if it emerged, so he went to confront it first.


    The mist before Saleen turned into Wind Dragons, which then burned and shone a light into the snow-white crack. Saleen cast the level seven magic over and over. Such spells had a negligible drain to him.


    The Fire Dragons transmuted from the Wind Dragons charged at the terrifying being deep within the crack. Saleen knew that a being nurtured in such an environment would definitely be a water elemental, and as such, they would have less defense against fire damages.


    The Fire Dragons were just a way for him to probe it, which enabled him to determine the being¡¯s true rank. If it were a level 17 being, it would be best to just kill it with the Book of Lightning. All he hoped for at the moment was that the magic beast below was not an intelligent being.


    Tens of Fire Dragons disappeared without a trace, as if they had never existed in the first ce.


    What level was this Deep Blue Territory? Saleen was had a body of water element, and while he would not freeze over, he nheless felt his bones getting stiff. The Fire Dragons had charged to a certain area and just vanished altogether.


    A human? Why aren¡¯t you that damned god instead!?


    Saleen heard a roar. The roar packed dragon might.


    Deep down, Saleen began to feel bad and a little anxious, but there was still hope. The enemy was a dragon, and probably a frost dragon told in legends. Frost dragons were dragons that had innate water elemental abilities.


    That innate ability was rather different from the talents defined by humans.


    Even the golden dragons, which were dragons skilled in close quartersbat, were actually capable of learning magic. They just would not achieve the height of skill achievable by rainbow dragons. Learning magic would be a huge loss for them, and it would reduce the strength of their bodies.


    Having innate abilities in the dragons¡¯ perspective meant that the bloodline of a dragon would allow them to reach extreme heights of knowledge and ability in areas they were innately capable of.


    ¡°Mr. Frost Dragon, don¡¯t you think it¡¯s actually better to see me than Myers instead?¡± Saleen stopped moving and did not dare to venture further into the crack. He was already able to see a dragon creature at the bottom of the crack. It was over 100 meters long.


    If that thing were a frost dragon, then it was in very bad shape. It had no horns on its head¡ªa sign of degradation. Furthermore, the scales seemed to be like those of a newborn, and its wings were nearly transparent,cking the usual beefy strength of the dragons. The frost dragon seemed to have been starved for millions of years.


    ¡°Myers!¡±


    The loud dragon roar caused Saleen to feel rather dizzy. That was not the power of dragon might, but dimensional quakes invoked by the dragon¡¯s roar. Saleen had no choice but to negate it using Thundering Sound. If the frost dragon were to just keep roaring, it would have only been a matter of time before he ended up with severe internal injuries.


    Saleen felt he was unlucky. If he was correct, that frost dragon was a level 17 dragon. In ancient times, not even the highest gods around would have wanted to face such a dragon. That was because a level 17 frost dragon was theoretically capable of casting the most powerful water magic at level 18, which made them incredibly difficult to defeat.


    The sturdy bodies of dragons allowed them to cast magic spells beyond their current levels without having to worry about recoil at all.


    Recoil only mattered to frail lifeforms like humans. Saleen¡¯s constitutional strength was extremely formidable, rivaling true mights, but only in terms of raw strength and defense. Some organs in his body remained weak.


    Things were different for dragons. All the internal organs of dragons were frighteningly resilient. Any piece of scale they shed could be used to make the strongest shield avable. A w they dropped could be used to forge the sharpest of swords.


    ¡°Mr. Dragon, please stop shouting. Didn¡¯t you see this puny human who also happens to be an insignificant bug before you?¡± Saleen spoke in a performing tone. It was the tone used in that stage show by that dragon performing for the Dragon God.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    The frost dragon only realized that the human before it was not dealt with yet. But then again...


    ¡°What did you just say?¡±


    ¡°I said I¡¯m going to kill you and rid the people of a disaster!¡± Saleen continued to mimic the y from the Dragon God¡¯s pce.


    The frost dragon wanted tough, but quickly recalled that it had been caged for tens of thousands of years. As such, it simply swallowed theughter and said to Saleen coldly, ¡°so, you¡¯ve been to the pce of the Dragon Gods then?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, I have met a Dragon God,¡± Saleen answered.


    The frost dragon was able to confirm that Saleen had met a Dragon God. There were four Dragon Gods, but outsiders thought there was only one. Only those who had been in close contact with the Dragon Gods would have known of such secrets of the dragons.


    ¡°How did you end up in this cage?¡±


    ¡°Cage?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. This is a cage of nature created by Myers. You could continue to live and breed here, but you¡¯d never be able to make it out.¡±


    ¡°No. You could actually leave.¡± Saleen cut the frost dragon off valiantly. He continued, ¡°I was dumped here by Myers. She told me that if I killed 24 powerful magic beasts, I would be able to leave.¡±


    The frost dragon heard what Saleen said and felt rather dazed. It thought it had been caged in a cage of nature. It never urred to it that the ce it ended up in was not a cage of nature at all. Every single cage of nature had beings simr to one¡¯s species. The power of the mage before it meant that he would have died running into just any dragon he could have found there.


    The mage also showed signs of repeated battles, and it was obvious that the mage won all of them.

 Chapter 1523: Frost (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1523: Frost (Part 2)</h4>


    The intelligence of frost dragons was not inferior to humans until the human advanced to a certain level. A newborn dragon was more intelligent than an average human.


    The frost dragon realized right away what it had done wrong. It was never caged in a cage of nature. The goddess never even bothered with it. It was but a level 15 dragon when it was first captured, and it was in that icy world, it had gradually advanced to level 17.


    If the goddess had really wanted to imprison it, she never would have put it in an environment where it could advance.


    She only thought of him as little more than an experiment!


    The frost dragon got even angrier at that thought. The goddess never deemed the dragon to be of any importance. She simply chucked it there and left it to its devices. It had been making an imaginary enemy out of her throughout the years, imagining the day where it would advance to level 18. By then, it would have been able to break out of that space and kill that wretched god.


    However, when it realized that it was just an experiment¡ªthe goddess caged in it an ordinary space just to see how a frost dragon would evolve¡ªthe frost dragon¡¯s reason for being angry turned out to be rather ridiculous.


    The frost dragon was never of any importance to the goddess whom it thought was its enemy.


    To Saleen, that would have been a good thing. An enemy¡¯s carelessness would give him a chance to turn the tables. To a dragon, however, that was stark naked contempt, and it was intolerable.


    However, the goddess was at level 18 and had been a mage before she became a god. The frost dragon knew that very well¡ªrevenge would have never been possible until it had gotten to level 18.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name, mage?¡± The frost dragon stopped roaring in anger. It calmed and rested its jaw on the ground instead. It chatted with Saleen through the crack.


    Saleen let out a sigh of relief and said, ¡°Saleen Metatrin.¡±


    That name, which had shaken Myers Maind as ofte, only had the frost dragon responding with a ¡®right¡¯.


    ¡°I¡¯m one of the frost dragons...name¡¯s Guffen. I was captured tens of thousands of years ago by that damned Myers when I just happened to be roaming about the maind. I was about to get to level 16 back then.¡± It sighed.


    The frost paused quite a lot when it talked, but Saleen did not dare to cut it off. It was not that he was incapable of taking on that powerful dragon; it was just that it would take a hefty toll on him to do so. Saleen had learned how to makepromises a long time ago, but thepromise he was about to make was not to simply back away but to seek cooperation.


    Saleen waited patiently for the frost dragon to finish its words, but that dragon simply went into deep thought.


    Quite a bit of time passed before the frost dragon continued, ¡°Mage Saleen, is that lightning magic that you¡¯re learning?¡±


    ¡°I guess you could say so, but I¡¯m better at water elemental magic,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°That exins the sense of familiarity I felt around you. You seem to have a body of water element.¡± Guffen¡¯s voice did not sound old. It sounded rather juvenile for a dragon. It had been captured when it was still in its youth and had yet to truly mature even at present. If it had been left behind in the dragon ne, it might have actually be a Dragon God.


    ¡°Indeed. In my early days, water magic was the only branch that I was able to pick up.¡±


    ¡°Right. What do you think about dragons, Mage Saleen?¡± Guffen¡¯s question was straight to the point.


    Saleen answered without giving it much thought, ¡°Just like dragons think of humans¡ªthere is fear, but also pride for one¡¯s own race.¡±


    Guffen was very pleased with Saleen¡¯s answer. It lifted its head somewhat and said to Saleen, ¡°well then, Saleen, would you mind signing a contract with me, and be a dragon mage?¡±


    ¡°Wait, what?¡±


    Saleen did not understand what the frost dragon was saying. The frost dragon was not speaking the dragon tongue, and it was not the Myers Language either. In order to facilitate ease ofmunication, the frost dragon spoke the Magic Language instead. Magic Language was known for its extreme precision, and the description of anything new required creation of new words, and one would be implored to define it.


    From that point alone, the Magic Language was quite inferior to the othernguage from another crystal wall system that Saleen happened to pick up. While thenguage was rather ambiguous and was not conducive to learning, once a learner got to higher levels, the rich content of meanings within the symbols and words used would be considerably less difficult for a professional.


    The frost dragon thought for a bit and switched to Dragon Language instead, ¡°A dragon mage, something like dragon knights. Of course, in the history of the dragon ne, there have been fewer than 10 dragon mages. If no dragon mages emerged after I was imprisoned, that would have only been four.¡±


    ¡°Can dragon mages share magic with their dragons?¡±


    ¡°You are correct. Sign a contract with me, and you shall possess the greatest of water elemental powers, and advancement will be a lot easier. The catch to it...well, you need to have ample power of the soul or you¡¯ll end up under my control. Would you like to take the risk, Saleen?¡±


    The frost dragon had no intention of duping Saleen. It exined the key points to him patiently, taking care to describe everything fully.


    Even if the dragon were to actually end up controlling Saleen, things would have not been all that much different¡ªit would still have to suffer damage that Saleen sustained, and use its formidable life force to make up for Saleen¡¯s losses. The only difference would have been who the more powerful one was.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    The frost dragon heard Saleen¡¯s question and almost thought it had made the wrong decision, wondering if that human before it was really that dumb. There was no harm or disadvantage in signing such a contract with it. Many powerful humans yearned to sign contracts with dragons, due precisely to their formidable life force, which provided a good measure of protection for the frail bodies of humans if nothing else.


    Guffen¡¯s hands were forced. It was not looking to sign a contract with the mage because it liked his character, but that it was looking to leave that ce, and it had to do so in a way that would have escaped the goddess¡¯ notice.


    By signing such a contract, enabling it to be that mage¡¯s steed, it would be able to hide within that mage¡¯s space and escape the goddess¡¯s notice.


    The goddess told Saleen that he had to kill all 24 magic beasts in the space before he would be allowed to leave, and she was absolutely not going to change her mind. So long as the 24 remained alive, the space would stay sealed forever.


    Guffen wanted to leave, and it had to pay the price to do so.


    ¡°I understand.¡± Saleen was dazed for a bit but quickly came to his senses. He asked the frost dragon, ¡°are you sure you want to sign a contract with me? I¡¯m able to get you out of here.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± The frost dragon was getting rather impatient. If that human mage was actually that dumb, it would be better off dead soon, just so avoid getting into further trouble itself.


    ¡°Alright, Guffen. I happen to have nk scrolls with me, and I¡¯ll let you write the contract,¡± Saleen said and he took out a very high-level nk scroll. That scroll was crafted using the best starline cloth he was able to find. What Saleen liked most among the items crafted by astrologers were starline paper and starline cloth. They had been used to craft astrological materials and worked very well for making scrolls. Their stability was so good that even dragon scale scrolls paled inparison. The tradeoff was that theycked special attributes.


    The frost dragon was unfamiliar with astrology, so it did not have any knowledge of the cloth¡¯s stability. Therefore, it had hardly any reaction when it saw that starline cloth. It wiggled its huge body and took the form of a human, before taking out a magic pen and beginning to write on that contract scroll.


    There was something innate with the attributes of the scroll itself, and there could have been magic traps if he had used a pre-written contract. Saleen knew that very well, so he let Guffen write the contract to gain its trust.


    Saleen had already mastered quite a few runes at present, especially those of lightning. There were 360 million of them all stacked in a three-dimensional manner, which was then hidden within the magic contract. No being below level 15 would notice it.


    Those above level 16 would only detect the runes¡¯ presence, but there was no certain level of superiority or precise analysis capable of being done.


    The frost dragon had no idea that Saleen¡¯s magic cube was capable of evading the goddess¡¯s search. So long as it was willing to stay hidden inside, it would be confirmed to be dead.


    In truth, there was no need for it to sign a dragon mage contract with Saleen.


    Saleen would have liked to bring more conditions to the table before he became willing to rescue that unlucky dragon, but Saleen had no intention of getting on Guffen¡¯s bad side, and simply let the dragon write the scroll instead.


    The signing ritual was over 100 times simpler than Saleen imagined it to be. Saleen looked at the form of a young man that Guffen took, and felt that there was something else in his soul all of a sudden. It was a different rune from the contracts that he signed with Nailisi and the others. He was able to acquire power from the dragon at any given moment.


    The power of magic and the power of life.


    More importantly, it seemed that he had mastered the Dragon Language in an instant. There was also a good amount of magical knowledge stuffed into his soul all of a sudden. Much of the knowledge was Dragon Language magic. There were also some spells illustrated using Magic Language.


    Most of the knowledge was water elemental spells. It was not that the frost dragon was incapable of magic spells of other types. But other than water elemental, the second most numerous was earth element. There was no fire elemental magic to be found, and there were less than 10 wind elemental spells. Both light and dark types had two spells.


    Even so, it was still more than enough to serve as a testament to that dragon¡¯s power. From the perspective of powers it was able to bring to the table alone, Guffen the frost dragon was actually very near that of the goddess.


    Yet the fool of a dragon insisted on signing a contract with Saleen, and furthermore, a dragon mage contract.


    ¡°You cane out, Rafel,¡± Saleen called. The former angel emerged out of his magic amplifier. Saleen waved outside the crack and the 24 thunder dragons that had been keeping watch outside took flight, returning to their bangle form and coiling around Saleen¡¯s wrist.


    The frost dragon¡¯s eyes sparkled, taking note of the mage¡¯s formidable power, impressed at how he gained that much powerful equipment despite being only at level 15. It deemed the mage to have decent luck, and luck was considerably important to mages, so much so that even the dragons acknowledged that.


    Rafel was only at level 14 and had little attraction to dragons. Guffen simply nodded to Rafel before saying to Saleen, ¡°with the contract signed, I can follow you into battle, but I do not wish to take my dragon form.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine. But before you leave, you¡¯ll need to hide within my contract space, correct?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, mage.¡± The contract that the frost dragon signed was apparently not that between a master and a servant, as dragons would not have signed such a contract. However, Guffen¡¯s tone towards Saleen was a lot more polite and respectful. Even if Saleen were only a level one being, it still would not have the person it signed a contract with feel humiliated.


    ¡°No need for that, at the moment. I still have 11 magic beasts to take out, and I have 26 days to do it.¡±


    ¡°No need for that, mage. I shall take care of them for you. But before we leave, I have a small request. Would you mind hearing me out?¡± Guffen asked Saleen.

 Chapter 1524: Chaotic Void (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1524: Chaotic Void (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen was curious about the frost dragon¡¯s request. ¡°Speak.¡±


    ¡°Can I keep my items?¡±


    Saleen scanned the ce and found many shed hides and scales. There were also four dragon horns that were several meters long. All of them were frozen in an independent space. They looked to be something that fell off the frost dragon on their own.


    Saleen chuckled, thinking that there were stingy dragons after all. Saleen had no desire to take any of those materials despite their immense value. He had 24 thunder dragons after all, and there was little need to talk about the strength of the soul armor they were all equipped with. The strength of the soul armor was so good that not even the scales of the frost dragon were able topare.


    Saleen quickly realized the fact that a level 17 frost dragon had to seek his permission for something like that. It confused him briefly, but he realized that it was probably due to some of the dragon¡¯s powers being robbed by the goddess. Space rules!


    The space they were in probably was not very sturdy. The goddess was using the space to imprison beings at about level 15, which meant that none of them was capable of potentially breaking the space.


    Saleen was level 15 and was being kept there by the goddess. If he had reached level 16, then it might have been possible for him to leave the space without requiring the goddess¡¯s permission.


    The dragon, whose spatial powers were apparently restricted, would probably need Saleen¡¯s help to bring all its things away. However, Guffen was not a truly generous type. It was reluctant to give Saleen any benefits, and it was rather embarrassed for behaving to selfishly, so it requested to see if Saleen would have agreed to it.


    It reminded Saleen of some dragons that he met before. While the dragons were indeed powerful, they had emotions simr to humans. Some so-called intelligent magic beasts paled inparison to the dragons.


    ¡°The capacity for thought does not necessarily mean that one is wise. Wisdom is different from intelligence.¡± Those were words that Saleen had once read on a magic note, which he deemed to be a ssic. The dragons were capable of wisdom because they had emotions.


    ¡°No problem, Guffen.¡± Saleen gathered the materials without giving it much thought, putting them away in his Ring of Cosmos. The frost dragon was about to remind Saleen of its concerns regarding energy fluctuations of the things. But when Saleen was done putting them away, not even Guffen was able to sense their presence anymore. That surprised the dragon.


    The ring was such a formidable piece of space equipment that the spatial attributes contained within made the frost dragon feel rather envious. The dragon was rather baffled as well, unable to fathom why someone like Saleen, who was capable of crafting such space equipment, was unable to leave the space created by the goddess.


    The dragon did not know that the Ring of Cosmos hade from another crystal wall system altogether, and rules of that crystal wall system were different from that in Myers Maind. Not even a level 18 god would have been able to probe what was going on inside.


    Saleen flew out of the crack first after he was done packing Guffen¡¯s items away. With the frost dragon still alive, the next space would not appear. Saleen thought for a bit and told the frost dragon to go inside his magic cube.


    Guffen would have entered hibernation after entering a contract space, only capable ofmunicating with Saleen when summoned. In the magic cube however, Saleen would be able tomunicate with Guffen mentally at all times.


    The frost dragon went inside Saleen¡¯s space equipment unquestioningly, and another entrance opened up at the edge of that icy space. The ice mountain that cracked open, forming a gate to the area. That area, where the next magic beast was imprisoned. was on the other side of the canyon-like passage.


    However, Saleen waspletely at ease. He was already able to calcte that even without the help of a being like a frost dragon, he would have been able to make it through on his own, somehow. But he no longer had any need to prove anything, and it would be easier to just rely on Guffen¡¯s powers.


    Saleen sped up at that thought, charging through the icy canyon.


    ¡°Alright, Guffen. It¡¯s your show from here on out,¡± Saleen said nonchntly. Guffen did not feel like anything was out of ce. It was even more eager to leave that space than Saleen was, even though it had no idea what it would do after leaving.


    However, Guffen was oblivious to the fact that Saleen already had nned on how to exploit everything there was to be exploited. It would have the dragon enhance its powers as soon as possible, reaching that befitting its level. He would then craft a set of equipment for the dragon, including armor and weapons, in order to give it a fighting chance when not using magic spells. A dragon¡¯s defense would drop considerably in human form, after all.


    He would not need to waste much time at the East Sea anymore, as Guffen alone would be an ample threat to the Lord of Glory.


    However, he still did not deem it wise to give up conquering the East Sea. Saleen¡¯s instincts told him that things in the East Sea had changed considerably, and there would be many powerful professionals emerging. If there were to be some very powerful being emerging in those nations, that someone might have even ended up uniting the inds.


    The nations only had a poption in the millions,. Not a single nation¡¯s poption reached 10 million. Saleen would be able to make short work of such nations. However, if there were to be professionals of strengthsparable to his, he would need the frost dragon to bring about the shock factor.


    He deemed it best to bring Grand Duke Iron Blood along after being reminded of the grand duke¡¯s dragons, and he already had ideas of how to proceed.


    Guffen went back to Saleen¡¯s side after leaving that space meant for holding it. It was as Saleen expected¡ªthe goddess did not actually watch what was going on and had only somehow permitted the clearing of the stage.


    Saleen had the frost dragon freeze all the enemies one after the other, before chucking them into his Ring of Cosmos. Things moved along a lot faster by doing so. On the other hand, despite being caged for so many years and still unable to bring about powers befitting a level 17 being, the frost dragon nheless had the superiority given by its level, as well as possessing formidable power of rules.


    Saleen became able to easily cast level 16 water magic by tapping into the frost dragon¡¯s powers.


    That was what put him at ease the most. With the frost dragon by his side, getting to level 16 would no longer be seemingly unachievable, and picking up level 16 magic would beparatively easy. If he were to have a piece of decent divine persona, he would be able to get to level 16 in another month or so.


    Using the might of the frost dragon, Saleen made it past one space after another before feeling a little exhausted. Thest space was one where he was unable to have the frost dragon do the work for him. He had Guffen return to the magic cube, and then looked at the frozen 23rd magic beast, before sitting down before that beast and meditating.


    The magic beast was frozen but not dead. If Saleen did not put it inside his space equipment, the next space would not open.


    Rafel remained standing firm at Saleen¡¯s side. She had had little chance to do anything throughout the journey. Magic attacks from the frost dragon were terrifying. All magic beasts within the space would end up frozen in a huge chunk of ice within just three spells. They were all then put inside Saleen¡¯s ring.


    In actuality, Saleen had been casting two lightning spells to limit the area the magic beasts could move about, and the frost dragon never needed to attack more than once.


    The frost dragon had practically taken out one level 15 magic beast with just a single spell every time, and ten such spells were cast. The power of the frost dragon astounded Saleen a great deal. Despite their enemies having only been magic beasts without any equipment on them, the power of the frost dragon was so great that there was no need to use a second attack to deal with any professional below level 14.


    Saleen spent half a day in meditation. While he had long restored all of his magic chords, he remained steeped in mediation, just toprehend all the magical knowledge he had been picking up during that time.


    He burned through all divine crystals he had like they cost nothing. His power of the soul was quickly refilled.


    Saleen only opened his eyes after finding that his body had returned to a wless state. He let Guffen out and then put the frozen magic beast into his Ring of Cosmos.


    Saleen looked at the passage that appeared before him and said to the frost dragon, ¡°Guffen, I know that you were only forced to sign a contract with me because you wanted to leave this ce. But this will be thest battle, and I want you to just observe. Act only when you find that things are going out of control. I want you to understand that you¡¯ve made a choice that you will not regret.¡±


    The frost dragon shook its head and mumbled, ¡°Kids.¡±


    Guffen was rather doubtful of what Saleen said. He was only level 15 and the exit of the space would definitely be guarded by a level 16 magic beast. Even if the mage¡¯s power was formidable enough to beat the beast, he would end up very battered.


    But then again, someone who put up a tough exterior would be better than those who were shameless. If the other dragons knew that it had signed a contract with a weakling of a human, it would have been made aughing stock.


    ¡°Alright, if you think that things are getting out of hand, call me as soon as possible,¡± the frost dragon said and went back into the magic cube. It actually did so to avoid watching Saleen making a fool out of himself.


    Saleen never thought that his action of putting up a tough front would have earned Guffen¡¯s approval.


    The space before him shattered with a crack and Saleen quickly put up a Water Shield. That was thest space, and the stage was a starry void outside of the atmosphere. The Water Shield expanded outwards uncontrobly after it was put up, and it was pressure from the wind element inside the bubble that caused the Water Shield to almost break apart.


    Energy imbnce!


    Saleen knew that the wind element within the Water Shield had never been that terrifying, as he would have been reduced to minced meat otherwise. The phenomenon was caused by an energy imbnce. There was hardly any turbulence around, so the imbnce could have only originated from power of rules.


    What kind of a ce is this?


    ¡°Saleen, this is the chaotic void, a very ancient ruin. Are you sure you don¡¯t need my help?¡± The frost dragonmunicated with Saleen from the depths of his soul.


    The dragon was able to stand inside the magic cube and see what was going on outside the magic amplifier. Guffen was rather surprised by the ordeal taking ce in the final space. The chaotic void almost resembled another crystal wall system. The power of the goddess was indeed extremely terrifying, for she had been able to open a passage leading to a ce like that.


    Guffen thought it would be wise to hold off thoughts of settling scores with the goddess until it reached the pinnacle of level 18.


    ¡°Chaotic void huh?¡± Saleen¡¯s expression became cold. He had never experienced it before, but he read plenty of magic notes, enabling him to know what the chaotic void was actually like.


    The barrier between crystal walls was not only a barrier of crystal. Any ce near a crystal wall would have a void stretching billions of kilometers. Everything in the area would be in utter chaos, and the power of rules would no longer be able to be contained.


    Even a god would have lost that power they held in immense pride if they were to reach such a ce.


    Saleen¡¯s magical bnce was lost, and that was due to him being at the edge of the chaotic void. If he were to get deeper into the void, there would have been no way for him to cast magic at all. But then again, there was still one good thing that coulde out of that¡ªfailure to cast a spell would not trigger any overly terrifying reactions.


    Elemental turbulence was all within rules. In the chaotic void however, everything within rules was no longer deemed reliable.

 Chapter 1525: Chaotic Void (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1525: Chaotic Void (Part 2)</h4>


    The frost dragon knew little of the chaotic void, and it spoke to Saleen in a rather nervous tone, ¡°Steady yourself and never ever get near the edge of the crystal wall!¡±


    Saleen, of course, knew that the closer he got to the edge of the crystal wall, the less probable he would be able to cast any spell.


    While he had powers of level 15, he had no way of resisting the highest rules of the crystal wall system. Unless he possessed a mastery of rules powerful enough for him to stay unaffected by external interference, thus truly making a solid space of his own, there was no way he could stay totally unscathed if he went near the edge of that crystal wall.


    Saleen¡¯s hand was forced since the ce was simply lurking with too many dangers. He had to release the thunder dragons again and let them circle him, creating a lightning space as they did. Saleen cast his lightning territory as well. Rules of lightning were still considered stable in such an environment. At the very least, Saleen was able to breathe.


    Having air to breathe was a luxury, at least in a ce like the chaotic void. The frost dragon only wound down a little after Saleen did so. While Rafel was no longer an angel, she retained the ability to move about nimbly in a vacuum, and that made Saleen very envious.


    However, Saleen did not dare to let Rafel simply zip around. There were powers capable of affecting one¡¯s constitution and even alter one¡¯s talents in the chaotic void. In most cases, the changes would have been negative. Saleen had been going to great lengths to get Rafel to advance, and he did not want to bring a warrior below level 10 with him.


    Saleen stood still for a bit in the chaotic void to determine where the edge of the crystal wall system was. That was a pretty easy task, as Saleen¡¯s Eye of Souls was capable of seeing over 200 kilometers away in the chaotic void.


    He was capable of observing elements to fine details within such a distance. The closer it was to the edge of the crystal wall system, the more difficult it became for the elements to be in an orderly alignment. After he was done determining his location, he backed away several hundreds of kilometers, before feeling the stress lifting off of his shoulders considerably.


    He constantly tried to put up the Water Shield while he backed away, stopping only when the spell became able to stay stable. He then took out a divingbat vessel that he made a long time ago.


    Saleen had once used it in the Red River. The vessel was crafted using thunder dragon hide and was capable of diving underwater. Saleen brought Rafel inside the vessel, and then they became capable of resisting the rules of the chaotic void without him having to maintain the power of his territory.


    ¡°Seems like we can¡¯t go back anymore,¡± Saleen summoned the frost dragon and asked for its opinion.


    The frost dragon shook its head. ¡°I haven¡¯t been to many ces, and I was only at level 15 when I was caught by Myers. To tell you the truth, I can¡¯t cast space powers right now, so I¡¯d be of little use to you.¡±


    Saleen was unable toe up with any truly good ideas listening to what the frost dragon just said. They couldn¡¯t return to where they came from. Their arrival was like riding on a one-way teleportation portal. There was no way to return at all.


    If he were to leave the chaotic void, he would need to find a stable ce to build a teleportation portal. If he were to just rely on flying, there was no telling how long he would have to stay in flight.


    While he was capable of using the Water Shield, it was not enough for the space rules of teleportation portals to work.


    If it had not been for the chaotic void being so huge, he would not have been so troubled. If he had to rely on his flight abilities to truly leave such a region, it might take him tens, or even hundreds, of years, depending on where he truly was.


    Saleen had never read anything with a specific illustration of the chaotic void. While he was capable of flying at speeds exceeding 3000 kilometers per hour, that was only sustainable when he had the resources to continuously do so. Rainbow was far less convenient in a vacuum than it would have been on the maind. He would have to rely on Comet sh to stay constantly in flight.


    While the speed of 3000 kilometers per hour sounded fast, in a practically boundless void, the trip would easily span billions of kilometers. Saleen knew that he would need to fly like a trueet before he would be able to leave the void.


    ¡°Damn it, why did the 24th space of the Goddess of Myers have to be a ce like this?¡±


    ¡°This is not the 24th space. It is the result of that space being broken by the magic beast it held, opening a passage leading here, before being destroyed. The Goddess of Myers wouldn¡¯t know.¡± The frost dragon did not want to see Saleen losing his mind, so it voiced its observations and let Saleen decide how to proceed.


    ¡°So I have to wait for Myers to rescue me then?¡±


    ¡°She won¡¯t be able to. You¡¯re on your own.¡±


    ¡°On my own!¡± Saleen did not know of the words to describe what he was feeling at the moment. He had a massive amount of food stored within his space, and he was capable of creating a space unaffected by vacuum. Furthermore, his lifespan reached tens of thousands of years. As such, flying back would not have been all that much of a problem for him alone, but he wondered what would have happened to Myers Maind if he were to do that.


    ¡°My lord, the magic cube...¡±


    ¡°An independent space, somewhere that not even Myers would have been able to probe. We can¡¯t build a teleportation portal there,¡± Saleen answered dejectedly. Rafel had run out of ideas as well. Her current powers were below that of Saleen, and if Saleen was unable to solve the problem, it would be the same for her.


    The frost dragon was at wit¡¯s end as well. Saleen sighed. ¡°It¡¯s best for you both to start training. I¡¯ll think of something.¡±


    Saleen put the frost dragon and Rafel back into his magic amplifier and hopped inside as well, leaving the puppets to man the vessel.


    That was the unique thing with Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier. Other people¡¯s equipment, even if they were level 18, would not have allowed those people to hop into it themselves while still maintaining control of said equipment¡¯s attributes.


    Saleen went straight inside the Hall of Gods, dumping out everything he deemed was capable of powering the ce¡ªfour divine persona fragments, a huge amount of bone crystals of the giant, high-level magic nuclei, a level 18 scroll...


    Saleen ced all of those things in one ce and summoned Dante. He then had the god servant in charge of staying at the magic array¡¯s side to maintain it, keeping the Hall of Gods from ever running out of power, before he began to train.


    Dante had three heads and six arms. It stayed at the side as requested by its master, and began to embed sources of power to the Hall of God¡¯s magic array.


    A divine persona fragment was the first to go. One broken piece would keep the Hall of Gods running for at least a week.


    A week with the Hall of Gods up and running would give several months to tens of years, even up to 100, in its internal space.


    Saleen went on with researching his Comet sh from top to bottom. His Comet sh had not been upgraded since hest advanced, because he was unable to find the key to the breakthrough for the time being. As such, upgrading the Comet sh would have been a waste of time.


    This time, however, Saleen was forced to face the problem again. His movement skills had all been picked from all manner of sources. There was the earth movement magic stolen from Jalin, Quickcloud, Comet sh, and Rainbow, which he had recently picked up.


    Saleen felt somehow that there would be movement methods that were even more powerful to be found in lightning magic. He saw how balls of lightning flew, and there were times where they were able to phase through barriers inexplicably. They were even capable of phasing through magic shielding. While they looked slow in flight, when they burst, not even his Eye of Souls was able to track the balls.


    If a ball of lightning went berserk, it would absolutely be one of the most powerful magic spells there were.


    The working theories of all magic flowed within Saleen¡¯s mind. Despite being of a body of water element, he was learned in all six major elemental magic. He began to learn everything there was to learn with the movement skills offered by the six elemental magic anew.


    Magical chants gradually became to form within Saleen¡¯s eyes, which were projected to the space before him, coalescing into a new magic rune. That magic rune needed only a single syble to activate, but it required the use of one¡¯s power of the soul to work.


    Someone with insufficient power of the soul, or someone whocked understanding of the rune within their power of the soul, would not have been able to use that spell.


    That new magic rune was something that had never been seen before, as it was created by Saleen. The newly created magic rune contained a new power of rules. He was unable to keep the power of rules running all the time, which meant that he had yet to truly master them. They were simply derived from that magic spell.


    It was an all-new Comet sh skill that Saleen had just discovered in his research. The activation speed was still not fast enough at the moment, as it required chanting a single magical syble. He was unable to instant-cast that skill just yet.


    But then again, it would suffice as it was only a spell meant for traveling, which meant that it would not be used in battle much. The spell contained seven movement magic spells, which corresponded to the powers of the six major elements and lightning.


    If theponents of the spell were used separately, he would be able to instant-cast every single one of them, and he found that to be enough.


    ¡°Rafel!¡± Saleen called. He really had no idea how much time was spent on training at that time.


    Rafel replied immediately, ¡°62 years and a month passed within the hall.¡±


    ¡°What about outside?¡±


    ¡°Seven days in the void,¡± Rafel answered promptly.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Saleen shouted to Dante, as he saw the weapon spirit was about to chuck a level 17 magic nucleus into the Hall of God¡¯s magic array.


    He no longer needed to train, and there would have been no way to extract that magic nucleus, once it was embedded. Once the magic array was activated, there was no stopping it. All functions would have only ceased when the power source fed was depleted.


    A level 17 magic nucleus was considered quite a precious piece to the Hall of Gods, and Saleen needed to restore his magic chords. Saleen saw the magic nucleus disappearing into the magic array and was unable to stop it. It made his heart ache considerably.


    The frost dragon charged inside after hearing Saleen shout. With the magic array up and running, the ce only permitted entry and not exit, making it practically a cage. It was possible for one to get out, but at the very moment one burst through the spatial barrier of the Hall of Gods, one would have possibly ended up having all their life force absorbed all of a sudden, bing a sacrifice to the hall.


    The rules of altering passage of time were utterly terrifying, capable of robbing someone of all their life force within an instant.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine!¡± Saleen stopped Guffen, seeing that the frost dragon was about to do something.


    The frost dragon red at Dante with a resentful look and said, ¡°Saleen, gods are not to be trusted.¡±


    Its level allowed it to tell that Dante was a god instead of any other beings with just one look.


    ¡°Dragon, Saleen is my master.¡± Dante knelt submissively at Saleen¡¯s side, behaving devotedly and obediently.


    Guffen was stunned. Dante was a level 15 god but was several times more powerful than themon level 15 gods. It was astonished to find such a god kneeling before a mage like a ve, and its divine persona stayed intact. The scene was a miracle like no other to the dragon.

 Chapter 1526: Lair (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1526: Lair (Part 1)</h4>


    ¡°Get up, Dante. It¡¯s not your fault.¡± Saleen knew at that moment that Dante had been using some sort of divine spell that prevented its movements in embedding magic nucleus from being interrupted. If it had not been that the magic nucleus had been depleted at such a moment, Saleen would have only needed to remind Dante beforehand.


    Saleen did not deem the loss of a level 17 magic nucleus a good enough reason to berate and punish Dante. The weapon spirit was not at fault. Despite being a god, Dante was not actually all that intelligent. If it was Rafel who was in charge of controlling the process, she would have definitely seen that Saleen was about to stop training, and as such, not waste any magic nucleus in the magic array.


    Dante was embarrassed enough to turn invisible right there and then. The weapon spirit¡¯s concealment skill was getting increasingly proficient. If it had not been for the frost dragon knowing for sure that Dante was within that space, it would not have been able to discover Dante while the weapon spirit was invisible.


    Saleen was being concerned, however, he had only arranged for some lightning puppets to man the vessel. Seven days passed and if the frost dragon was no longer standing guard outside, any mishap would have probably been lethal.


    However, Saleen was finally calm after taking a look at the remaining magic nuclei. Dante knew that Saleen needed high level magic nuclei, so it began with lower level ones. At present, all magic nuclei left were level 17 and 18 ones. There were also some dragon crystals left.


    All lower level magic nuclei that Saleen had prepared beforehand had been thoroughly exhausted. However, only a god like Dante would have been able to be of such precise calctions, and able to stand guard beside the magic array for decades and not make a single mistake.


    Magic arrays were capable of retaining some residual energy when a magic nucleus was depleted. However, the residual energy would definitely not enable it to stay online for more than half a second, especially when magic arrays of such high levels were concerned. Dante had been on guard duty for decades. The low level magic nucleus would have only allowed the magic array to work for about an hour, or even just minutes, yet Dante never made a single mistake.


    If there were to be mistakes made, more magic nuclei would have been wasted and Saleen¡¯s training would have been affected.


    A level 17 magic nucleus would have enabled Saleen to train within the Hall of Gods for at least one whole day. The only thing that he was unsure of was how fast the eleration of the passage of time would have been.


    Magic nuclei were not divine personas, after all. While they were capable of storing ample power, they were unable to contain rules and were quickly depleted, so much so that they were not evenparable with broken divine personas.


    Saleen had no choice but to stay in the Hall of Gods for a while longer. The magic nucleus gave him another three months in the hall. Saleen was rather surprised that a level 17 magic nucleus was actually able to elerate time to such an extent.


    Three months was nothing to magic training. At present, Saleen would have needed years just to truly master a skill that he was looking into. High level skills were all veryplex. Saleen needed to research everything thoroughly before he was able to truly master the essence of such spells, allowing them to be cast in various tempos.


    That was also a process of understanding elementalbinations. Developing deeper understandings of such processes would actually make understanding matter clearer.


    As such, Saleen did not train. He used those months to craft several pieces of equipment instead.


    He had no need for more equipment, but Guffen the frost dragon had nothing. After taking human form, Guffen only had a robe that it conjured.


    Saleen crafted two short spears for it, which were crafted using the dragon horns of the frost dragon. If the frost dragon were to do it itself, the end result would not have been inferior, but the weapons would not have been as sharp.


    Saleen infused lightning rules into the short spears he crafted, making the pair of short spears that the frost dragon wielded sharper than those wielded by Rafel.


    The anti-magic attributes imbued it made Guffen love them to bits. The weapons were capable of doing harm to it, and it was very satisfied with that. The frost dragon did not need weapons to deal magic damage after all, as dragons hardly depended on equipment for casting spells.


    To meet Guffen¡¯s standards, the weapons only needed to be sharp enough.


    After gaining Guffen¡¯s trust with the pair of spears, Saleen used Guffen¡¯s dragon scales, together with the dragon bones that he purchased, to craft a wedge-shaped flying device. That flying device was capable of carrying over a dozen people, and its construction referenced the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship. However, given how that flying device was used for flying in the void, the materials used for its construction were many times higher than those used for constructing the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship.


    The flying device was named the Star Shuttle, and it could be manned either by Saleen or Guffen. No one else would have been able to use it. Other than that flying device, Saleen had also gifted Guffen a space bangle. The bangle, however, was only of average quality. He also threw in a set of dragon armor for Guffen, which, again, were made using matured dragon scales shed by Guffen, back when it advanced.


    They sat inside the Star Shuttle, the exterior of which was wrapped in thick hard ice, making it look like it was covered in natural scales. The Star Shuttle was less than 20 meters long and was unusually durable. The hard ice on the exterior had magic patterns that were added when the ice manifested. That allowed the Star Shuttle to repel all kinds of harmful energies in the void.


    The Star Shuttle was created using theories Saleen learned when developing Comet sh. The core part was made to resemble veins of dragons.


    While Comet sh was fundamentally apound magic spell consisting of both earth and water magic, Guffen was able to pick it up quickly. What itcked magically was simply Saleen¡¯s lightning abilities, so it had little problem manning the Star Shuttle.


    Saleen, of course, did not forget to install two magic power furnaces into the Star Shuttle. They had no idea how long that flight would take, after all.


    Saleen only activated the Star Shuttle after everything was ready, leaving their location slowly. It was fortunate that no true dangers had appeared during the eight days they spent there.


    Guffen asked Saleen while the Star Shuttle was in flight, ¡°Where did you get so many dragon materials?¡±


    ¡°I bought them on the dragon ne,¡± Saleen answered.


    ¡°The dragon ne needs to sell things like these now?¡± Guffen sounded rather anxious and restless.


    ¡°That¡¯s nothing. The nearby nes surrounding the maind ne have seen considerable drops in power for the past ten thousands of years. The dragon ne is actually one of the few that are considered powerful. The Dragon Gods are still alive, but they are unable to leave their pces.¡±


    ¡°Good to hear.¡± Guffen was relieved that Saleen did not get all those materials by killing dragons. If he were to be such a person, Guffen would have been at a loss of what to do. Getting Saleen to nullify the contract would have been unthinkable. Penalties dealt by the power of contract aside, as a noble bloodline of the dragons, viting contracts would have been embarrassing.


    The Star Shuttle first flew in a normal manner, using the boundless earth elemental power between the stars. It flew like it was jumping about, skidding forward all the time, every jump covering tens of kilometers.


    As the speed reached the highest it was able to achieve, which was at about 10,000 kilometers per second, Guffen took over the piloting. The ice on the exterior of the Star Shuttle became even thicker under the work of magic. The center was wrapped in hard ice that was tens of meters thick. With ice around the craft, the Star Shuttle would not have burned even if it ended up crashing into the atmosphere of any celestial entity.


    The power of the frost dragon was brought to its pinnacle as the unfamiliar magic was invoked. Guffen had an easy time manipting magic, bringing the speed of the Star Shuttle to unbelievable levels.


    Earth magic naturally formed at the front of the Star Shuttle, which was known to be gravity-stripping, also known as a repulsive field. The magic effect caused anything within about 100 kilometers from the craft to be repelled, preventing them from crashing into anything in the void.


    It would have been lethal to crash into even a pebble at such speeds, after all.


    The flight was an easy one as they had no set destination; it would suffice to simply get as far away as they were able to from the edge of the crystal wall system. As such, the drain in power of souls was almost negligible. The Star Shuttle¡¯s auxiliary magic array also enabled Guffen to reduce the drain of his dragon power to the lowest.


    Guffen was even able to chat with Saleen.


    ¡°Mage, the Goddess of Myers...¡±


    ¡°Perished once, and I was the one who resurrected her. However, it is difficult to pin-point where her powers are now. She remembers everything, including all rules that she used to have mastered. However, she seems to be around level 15 at present. Don¡¯t go looking for trouble with her until you¡¯ve reached level 18.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Guffen saw no need to put up a farce before Saleen. The mage knew the dragons well enough to tell how they behaved.


    They kept flying for over 20 days, and Saleen grew anxious as a month almost passed. Just as he was thinking if they would have been able to fly faster if he were to take over the controls again, the Star Shuttle was pulled by some massive force, heading straight for a star.


    Guffen took a look at Saleen, who shook his head, telling the dragon to not resist it.


    He was able to tell that the star had life on it. That ce should have been at the edge of the chaotic void, and it seemed that they were about to make it out. Laying down a magic array in such a location would have been considerably less dangerous.


    Saleen had intentions to just keep flying. The so-called edge they were at was probably tens of millions of kilometers away after all.


    The frost dragon rescinded Comet sh. The skill had very little drain when used in the void, but when entering an atmosphere, the drag would be massive and there was no need to continue using the spell.


    A star usually only had an atmosphere about 100 kilometers thick. Even the thickest of them all would not have exceeded 1000 kilometers, and not even a main ne would have had an atmosphere that was overly thick.


    Theyer of ice on the exterior of the Star Shuttle was reduced by more than half of its previous thickness after they stopped using Comet sh.


    The intense gravity caused the Star Shuttle to dive straight into the star¡¯s atmosphere and mes were ignited. That was a defense mechanism on the Star Shuttle, which was only released after it burst into an atmosphere, wrapping the ice with ayer of low temperature fire. The mes were imbued with wind magic, reducing the drag to the minimum.


    The Star Shuttle was a piece of flying equipment, enabling the people within to see outside clearly. Guffen had originally intended to adjust the flight path, enabling the Star Shuttle tond steadily. Saleen, on the other hand, simply pointed to a ck dot on the ground that was almost invisible to the naked eye and said, ¡°Crash onto it!¡±


    ¡°Crash?¡± Guffen looked at the human mage and thought him to be crazy.


    While the Star Shuttle was no doubt sturdy and was slowed somewhat, if they were to simply crash into something like that, they would suffer one way or another. Is Saleen not afraid of getting injured?


    ¡°Yes, crash!¡± Saleen was both nervous and excited. That dot was amplified by his Eye of Souls, and he saw a monster with the head of a monkey. That monster¡¯s body looked like a spider yet it had the head of a monkey. Saleen recognized that face¡ªit was the face of the Heretic God.

 Chapter 1527: Lair (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1527: Lair (Part 2)</h4>


    The Goddess of Myers had captured the Heretic God and robbed it of its body, with only its head escaping. Saleen never thought he would see the Heretic God at the edge of a chaotic void. Furthermore, the Heretic God¡¯s powers would have definitely been plunged to rock bottom. It would have never simply attached its head to just any monster it was able to find.


    The Heretic God only noticed the thing falling from the sky when the Star Shuttle was less than 10 kilometers away from it.


    The Star Shuttle was flying at such frightening speeds that even when the method of flying was changed, the crash would have caused it severe injuries. It had already lost its body, with only its head remaining. As such, it was unable to use many of its powerful movement skills.


    The Heretic God had no idea that the Star Shuttle was a piece of equipment, as anyone who dared to crash into anything at such speeds would have been reduced to dust.


    It moved its limbs slowly¡ªall eight of them at present. It was resting on a spider type magic beast at the moment. The magic beast was also at the highest in the ne¡ªlevel 15.


    In the past, the Heretic God would not have even taken notice of something like that. Any of its oracles below level 15 were treated as little more than consumables and cannon fodder. Only those above 16 were deemed worthy of serving it up close.


    The Heretic God should have escaped back to its own divine kingdom, but it knew just how unreliable the underlings were. If it had returned with just a head intact, the resultingmotion would have been massive.


    By then, even powerful believers would have probably begun to harbor thoughts of disobedience, wanting to devour their god.


    The Heretic God knew all too well about its believers. Someone without such ambition and brutality would not even have be its believer in the first ce. That was the requirements it ced onto them. So long as it remained mighty, those believers would obey it unquestioningly. But if it became weak, one of those people would have risen to take its ce eventually.


    The Heretic God dared not return to its divine kingdom. The very reason why its power was capable of growing at such frightening rates was due to the unique rules there. At present, the rules would ironically be something that would kill it instead.


    The Heretic God had once been one of the highest gods at level 18. It had even been possible for it to break through the crystal wall system and enter spaces of higher levels. It waster continuously harmed by humans and the other gods, causing its level to drop. After a painstaking recovery, it was injured by a trap set by the Goddess of Myers, leaving it with only a head intact.


    That was a result of it being decisive and brutal enough to itself at the nick of time. If it had been any other god, their momentary hesitance would have caused them to lose their heads.


    The Heretic God had once been to the edge of the crystal wall system when it was at the pinnacle of its powers, but it dared not venture deep into the region. It simply spread seeds of life on a star, causing magic beasts to appear on it. It had also left many materials enabling it to restore its powers, and the ce was considered itsir.


    Its head cut through space as it escaped. Whatever power that was left in its divine persona allowed it to make one jump, and not even the Goddess of Myers was able to catch up to it. The goddess did not have a level 18 divine persona after all.


    That region was the most harmful to the gods. The goddess absolutely would not have ventured into such a ce if there was no need for it. Even if she found out that the Heretic God was hiding in such a ce, the goddess would have thought something else instead.


    That had been the Heretic God¡¯s n all along. As such, it found the most powerful magic beast there was on the star and merged its head with it. It had only been doing one thing the whole time it was there, and it finally found a way to have its head merge well with the body. It was only then that it went on to look for the treasures that it put there all those years ago.


    However, a meteor dropped from the sky at that moment.


    The Heretic God evaded quickly. It felt that it was truly down on its luck. A meteor would have burned up almost entirely in the atmosphere. Less than one in a hundred would even get close to hitting the ground. A meteor capable of harming a being like him in such a ce would be one in a million indeed.


    However, the meteor was about to drop right onto its head. If it were unable to get far enough away, it would end up getting injured even if only the edge of the meteor touched it.


    The Heretic God was severely injured and there was no way it could have evaded a lock-on set by a level 17 frost dragon. The Star Shuttle simply adjusted its flight path slightly and it crashed hard into the Heretic God¡¯s head.


    Saleen took both the dragon and Rafel to hide within his magic amplifier the very instant the crash happened.


    The spaces of the magic amplifier, which was formed by the 24 pieces of the goddess¡¯ ne, turned into eyes and hovered in the air. The crash did not end up harming the magic amplifier at all.


    The space within the magic amplifier was not shaken at all. The sturdy Star Shuttle on the other hand, was unable to take the intense impact from the crash. The dragon scales on the exterior shot away, and the internal structure made of dragon bone cracked.


    While the two magic power furnaces did not explode, the connections between their internal magic arrays were all cut off, reducing them little more than scrap metal. They would requireplete overhauls if they were to be of use ever again.


    Saleen emerged from his magic amplifier, a process which took him less than half a second. The Star Shuttle was lodged deep¡ªway over 30 meters deep¡ªinto the ground.


    Saleen returned back inside and came out with both the frost dragon and Rafel. The crystallized ground cracked. The Star Shuttle that Saleen had painstakingly crafted for half a month finally cracked open. A hideous, ferocious head emerged, pouncing at Saleen.


    The crash destroyed the newfound body of the Heretic God right away, and its head was severely injured as well. Dirty liquid dripped from its eyes, emitting a stench that overturned the stomachs of anyone smelling it.


    ¡°Kill that thing!¡± Saleen said to the frost dragon.


    The frost dragon held both of its spears and thrust at the Heretic God¡¯s ear. The sharp dragon spear stabbed into the Heretic God¡¯s ear, resulting in three gashes.


    The Heretic God roared in anger and sorrow, yet it was unable to harm the three beings before it. It had a powerful divine persona, but it was unable to bring its strongest powers to bear in a region like that, as the power of rules had been drastically weakened.


    That area was considered a restricted area to the gods.


    The means with which itid to counter the goddess¡¯ machinations had be something that prevented it from doing anything instead.


    Guffen was strong enough. When the Heretic God, which only had a head remaining, turned around, it thrust the other spear into the Heretic God¡¯s other ear. The Heretic God howled from the intense pain, shaking the ground nearby. The dirt trembled and the power of earth element was messed up, creating a small elemental whirlpool.


    The elemental whirlpoolsted less than a second before dissipating. That was a miracle given that the ce was at the edge of the chaotic void.


    The frost dragon, however, paid no heed to miracles. Saleen told it to kill that disgusting head, and it would see to it thoroughly. It unleashed dragon breath at the head of the Heretic God, freezing it. Guffen brought his strongest power to bear, and the head of the Heretic God was already breaking up in terms of elemental structure.


    The Heretic God knew that it was facing the greatest crisis it had ever faced. The only thing it was able to fall back onto was the fact that he had a level 18 divine persona, which meant that it was able to use some level 18 rules.


    However, the ce they were in¡ªthe edge of the chaotic void¡ªmeant that sess would depend on luck.


    If Saleen was in its shoes, he would have thought differently. The Heretic God was already left with just a head by then, meaning that its luck had apparently hit rock bottom. Betting on luck under such a situation was tantamount to suicide.


    ¡°You¡¯ve forced my hand!¡± The Heretic God¡¯s skull began to shatter while it was in a frozen state, but it was still able to use its power of the Source. What it did was utterly stupid from Saleen¡¯s perspective, as he deemed it was just wasting its power of the Source to vent its frustration on him.


    ¡°Your soul shall suffer eternal fall in my divine kingdom, your skulls shall be my wine ss, your flesh shall be the main dish for my feast...¡±


    The Heretic God¡¯s voice sounded like thunder, but Saleen retorted instead, ¡°Enough. Curses this long are utterly stupid!¡±


    Saleen used Thundering Sound, cutting the Heretic God¡¯s curse off. However, the Heretic God was just as formidable. Despite being cut off, it was still able to surprisingly continue the curse, linking the next lines with those said previously.


    There was no way Saleen would let a level 18 god finish its curse. While he had no fear of such curses himself, he was unable to say the same for both Rafel and Guffen. Saleen imitated the Heretic God¡¯s tone and chanted the curse as well, using his Thundering Sound.


    ¡°Your soul shall suffer eternal fall in your own divine kingdom, your skull shall be my toy, your flesh shall make mynds fertile...¡±


    Due to the rhythm of both chants being exactly the same, the Heretic God was no longer able to continue chanting its curse. Even if it did, every line would have been chopped off. Doing so would have meant that the curse would not have been sessful, even if it were to chant until its skullpletely disintegrated.


    The Heretic God howled in frustration. It truly behaved like a real monkey that time.


    The frost dragon saw that the frozen enemy was still behaving in a wicked manner and thought that it was rather embarrassing. It then saw how Saleen managed to stop a level 18 god from cursing, which was new. It seemed that it had signed a contract with someone worth its while. It had been the most powerful of water type dragons, but there were definitely beings more powerful than it was back on the dragon ne.


    Saleen the mage apparently possessed lightning powers, and he looked astonishing. It seemed that he was definitely someone rather powerful back in the main ne, which meant that Guffen had nothing to lose signing a contract with him.


    That thought lightened Guffen¡¯s mood considerably. It brought about Dragon Language magic to bear. The frozen head burst in an instant, reduced to frozen dust.


    Saleen was baffled. While his Water me would have been able to do the same, it would not have achieved such an effect so quickly and so furiously.


    ¡°Mage, hurry up and take its divine persona!¡± Guffen unleashed another dragon breath, preventing the shattered skull from bringing about new changes. A pitch ck divine persona flew out. Lightning coiled around Saleen¡¯s hand as he reached out and forcefully grabbed onto the divine persona. He sensed that the Heretic God still lived, hiding its source in the divine persona, making it hard to find and kill.


    Saleen threw the divine persona in the Ring of Cosmos, which was filled with Aqua Fulgur, just to let the boundless liquid suppress the divine persona. While a divine persona was indeed mighty, there was no way it could easily handle being exposed to raging lightning power at such magnitude. The Heretic God waspletely suppressed by Saleen. It would have only been able to resurrect if Saleen were to show mercy.


    The fight was brief yet exhrating. If they had not sacrificed the Star Shuttle and robbed the Heretic God of its ability to move around, there still would have been no telling which side would havee out on top. Rafel was unable to even interfere with such battles.


    Guffen felt a heartache as it looked at its short spears. Both spears managed to harm the Heretic God, yet both were corroded by the Heretic God¡¯s powers. The tips of the spears were practically mush.


    Saleen chuckled and unleashed Water me and Electric Snakes, purifying Guffen¡¯s spears and saying, ¡°The Heretic God definitely had a reason for picking such a ce as a base. How about we search and see if there are any secrets hiding. Meanwhile, we can clear a ce up toy down a teleportation portal, then we could all return to the main ne.¡±

 Chapter 1528: Lightning (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1528: Lightning (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was already dyed for a month. Furthermore, he had no idea if the passage of time would be different at the edge of the crystal wall system. If the passage of time there was too slow, he would be dyed for an even longer period of time.


    As such, he no longer cared about losses of any kind, and went on to deploy over 500,000 of his lightning warriors out to look for locations of stable elements.


    The ce where the Star Shuttle crashed was air of a magic beast. After Saleen probed the ce with his Eye of Souls, he quickly left the ce.


    The rivers andkes around were all a weird green color. The location was very odd, and the characteristics of many creatures were very different from the main ne. The elements were unable to align as they usually did, resulting in the weird natural scenery and creatures around him.


    Saleen extended his soul power and quickly found that even one¡¯s soul power was limited. He had only been able to search a considerable greater area after trying to spread his soul power like he did when manipting Water me.


    His probing range, which usually had a radius of several hundreds kilometers, was restricted to little over than 80, which he deemed eptable.


    Using their of the spider magic beast as a base of operations, Saleen and the others searched everywhere around it, and they had actually found an independent space. While said space was not all that huge, it contained quite a number of magic nuclei, dragon crystals, and even broken divine personas.


    It went without saying that the highest number of items found there was divine crystals. Gods were capable of consuming those orally. Eating divine crystals when the gods were low in power of faith was like how humans ate food when they were low on energy.


    While the loot was indeed quite huge, Saleen hardly felt anything about it. His greatest achievement there was subjugating the Heretic God and getting himself a level 18 divine persona. That piece alone was worth over 100 times more than everything found there.


    Level 15 divine personas were still considered rtivelymonce, as their crystal wall system still had many level 15 gods around. However, level 16 ones became a lot rarer. That was why he had been so grateful when Jason gave him a piece of level 17 divine persona for training purposes.


    The value of a level 18 divine persona was practically limitless.


    But then again, he would only be able to do so after killing the Heretic God, which was, at the moment, being pinned inside the mass of Aqua Fulgur. It would take the god hundreds of thousands of years to tame the ce naturally. The resilience of a level 18 god¡¯s divine persona eclipsed that of any material that was known to Saleen.


    Furthermore, the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source had yet to truly disappear. While the goddess had taken a great deal of it, there was still a small portion left in the head, which the Heretic God absorbed into its divine persona in order to prepare for its resurrection.


    Saleen had taken the Heretic God¡¯s collection and let the lightning warriors spread out and search for the most stable space on that star. Saleen helped Guffen rework the Star Shuttle while hemanded the search. He loved that piece of flying equipment, and it had only split apart even after diving from heights of several hundreds of kilometers, instead of being irreparably broken. If he were to use it on Myers Maind, it would have been a lot safer.


    The lightning warriors took half a day working outside, and barely managed to find a ce where the elements were rtively orderly.


    Saleen inspected the ce personally, finding it to be around a mountain of copper. A location that was rich in metals like that would not have usually been safe forying down a teleportation portal, however, things were opposite there.


    Saleen thought for a bit and patched up anycking parts of the mountain of copper he found. The state of the elements had indeed be a lot more stable.


    The teleportation portal that Saleen crafted was a permanent teleportation portal, which meant that unless damaged by external forces, the portal would be able to keep working for over 10000 years. If maintenance were to be carried out regrly, it could stay working for an even longer period of time.


    The means with which he carried out the maintenance, however, was to leave behind several lightning warriors who had developed a degree of self awareness.


    Being able toy out a teleportation portal meant that returning to Myers Maind would not be a problem. As for the teleportation portal¡¯s fuel consumption, Saleen did not even care about that anymore. The teleportation portal was finished half a dayter. Saleen took the frost dragon and Rafel back to Metatrin City.


    The first thing he did as soon as he returned was to contact Lex to inquire about things going on at the frontlines.


    Lex was at Holy Rock City, but she was concerned with affairs happening at the frontlines. The divine kingdom had already deployed fighting forces totaling at several hundreds of millions. The fighting at the frontlines was near copse. Jason brought any surviving men found and retreated to his line of defense. Lion City was already lost.


    However, there were few casualties with Saleen¡¯s men. The human army had to pull back and let the legion of angels invade Cloudflow. The people of Myers Maind had finally realized just how powerful the divine kingdom was. More and more people signed up to join Lex¡¯s army.


    Saleen still needed a very long time before he would be truly able to unite the maind. Without pressure from the divine kingdom, it would have taken him decades more to do so. Resistance to his rule would have been more than just the private armies of the nobles; it would have also been due to the passive-aggressive attitude from the people.


    With the god creatures putting the pressure onto them, when the Lord of Glory was out to destroy Myers Maind without any intentions of taking prisoners, everyone would know what the options left for them were.


    Cloudflow had been in such a predicament because the ones submitting to the Fifth Dynasty were not of high enough numbers, and that was why Jason eventually decided to retreat.


    Losses at the frontlines were not great, but casualties in the surrounding Cloudflow people were high.


    Lex reminded Saleen that Nailisi had an urgent matter that she needed to discuss with him. He headed for the teleportation portal again after hearing the news and came to Daliang City. Saleen did noty any teleportation portal down near Lion City, as the ce was hardly considered safe. Travel between teleportation portals required rtively stable ces.


    He rode on the Star Shuttle to travel from Daliang City to the frontlines. That Star Shuttle streaked past in the sky, burning like a meteor and producing an intense sonic boom as it flew.


    The Star Shuttle was more than a tool for traveling. It was also useful for ramming into things and people, as even the Heretic God had suffered considerably from the crash of the Star Shuttle. While the body was just that of a level 15 magic beast, it was still able to tell just how terrifying the craft was.


    Saleen liked the way of flying as well, as it enabled him to sit back and rx in the craft. He could also cast magic spells or use the Star Shuttle for attacks. Unless taken to extreme speeds, there was hardly any need for added defense with that piece of equipment.


    Saleen told the frost dragon about the invasion from the divine kingdom. Guffen frowned and said, ¡°Mage, the Lord of Glory is but a level 15 god and while his fighting prowess might be near level 16 in the divine kingdom, maybe even at level 17, but with you, me, and your teacher all attacking him in the divine kingdom, the chances of us killing it would still be very high.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re asking why I would let a gode here and kill the people of this ne?¡± Saleen was able to see between the lines of the frost dragon¡¯s words. The dragons hated the gods the most. Gods might have looked for humans to be their believers, but there would absolutely never be any dragon willing to take faith in a god.


    ¡°Indeed.¡± Guffen did not shirk the question. While the dragon was unable to just go against Saleen, it needed to voice its thoughts nheless.


    ¡°There were about 100 million of the Lord of Glory¡¯s believers on this ne, and some of them still harbor thoughts about that god.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± Guffen was not human, and it would never be able to rte to what the humans have been through. The tragedies of war had nothing to do with the dragon. As such, Guffen found Saleen¡¯s exnation very satisfying. Clearing out a god¡¯s faith in a ne was a very difficult task. From the dragon¡¯s point of view, what Saleen did was actually considered merciful.


    ¡°Let¡¯s have a look inside the divine kingdom.¡± Saleen pointed at the gates of the divine kingdom. Guffenughed and flew the Star Shuttle straight at the gates. There were angels lining up at the gates, waiting to emerge from it. The Star Shuttle was wrapped in a thick mass of fire dragon constructs with a width of several hundreds of meters. While there were few angels that ended up dead at the collision, a great many had their feathers lit up.


    The feathers of angels were constructs of energy. Temperatures from having them lit up would be enough to melt steel.


    The angels had no idea what actually hit them. They only saw something circled by countless fire dragons crashing into them. Untold numbers of angels were reduced to mush in the collision, and those that were even just grazed suffered torn muscles and broken bones.


    The frost dragon found that to be fun, and went on crashing into the army of angels all over the ce. The damage done by doing so was far higher than that of magic spells. The Star Shuttle was crafted using hundreds of thousands of kilograms of materials after all. Even without magic spells reinforcing it, no angel would have been able to take on a head-on collision from it.


    Saleen remained vignt and told Guffen to not venture too deep. ughtering the angels near the exit of the divine kingdom would have been enough. There were millions of angels gathered there and all of them were above level nine. None of them were able to do anything to resist Saleen¡¯s attacks.


    Guffen rammed them for a bit and felt it had had enough with them, before heeding Saleen¡¯s words and taking the Star Shuttle around, returning from where they came from.


    The Star Shuttle descended on the fallen Lion City, destroying hundreds of fortifications while sticking near to the ground. Lion City had been reduced to frontline territory of the angels, and the ce lost its defenses altogether from what Saleen just pulled.


    Saleen knew that Guffen had been locked up by the goddess for too long and resented the goddess, resulting in it taking it all out on the Lord of Glory. He deemed that to be a good thing, as it saved him the need to convince the dragon when he needed to sh with the Lord of Glory head-on. The dragon would have brought everything it had into that fight.


    The ones on Jason¡¯s line of defense discovered themotion that Saleen just pulled. The line of defense had a human army of over a million soldiers as well as millions of demons garrisoned. While it was not to say that the ce was impregnable, but until the Lord of Glory were to lead the charge personally, there would be absolutely no way the ce would fall.


    It was Nailisi¡¯s idea to retreat in the first ce.


    Jason did not initially want to do so, but once he knew that Nailisi put someone at the side of the Lord of Glory, he yielded and let Nailisi have it her way.


    Nailisi was ted to find Saleen home. After he greeted Jason and introduced the frost dragon, Nailisi went inside his magic cube anxiously.


    There was no need to worry about being overheard by anyone else in such a ce.


    Nailisi demonstrated what she pulled by exining who Abyrus was to them, and Saleen was very pleased. He said to the frost dragon, ¡°Seems like we should be able to get rid of the Lord of Glory for good soon enough.¡±


    ¡°Timing is of utmost importance,¡± Guffen replied calmly.


    Hearing Nailisi¡¯s boration of Abyrus¡¯ power, Guffen was already able to tell that the Lord of Glory had be the most powerful of level 15 gods, so much so that some level 16 gods would have a hard time taking him on.


    ¡°We don¡¯t need timing. Just let Nailisi disguise us as angels, and we infiltrate the divine kingdom. By then, Abyrus...¡± Saleen whispered his ns to the frost dragon, and the frost dragon nodded in agreement.


    It never expected that Saleen had a level 18 magic scroll at his disposal. Things would have been a lot easier if he had said so earlier.

 Chapter 1529: Lightning (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1529: Lightning (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen definitely would not have acted right away. He needed to wait for the situation to stabilize. Furthermore, he had a suppressed Heretic God to deal with. He intended to use that god to train his lightning skills further. If he were to only be able to rely on equipment to cast lightning skills, taking out the Lord of Glory would have been more difficult.


    It was also quite a pain that the Lord of Glory had left so many doubles behind, and leaving any one of them alive would invite trouble.


    Killing the Lord of Glory was just the start. Saleen intended to wipe out all god creatures in the divine kingdom. That was not something that could be done in just a day or two. Such a genocide would probably require decades to see through.


    The god creatures and the humans were on opposing sides, and Saleen had no choice. He chose to stay behind at the frontlines, getting ready to take on the Lord of Glory at any given moment. Guffen the frost dragon was required to take the Star Shuttle patrolling near the divine kingdom¡¯s gates every day. With the frost dragon taking over guard duty, any high level angels that appeared asionally were made short work of.


    Guffen did notunch any aggressive attacks and simply harassed them constantly, giving Saleen time to do what he needed to do.


    Saleen¡¯s original n was to first head to the East Sea. However, since he had acquired a level 18 divine persona and there was also the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source to work on, he became reluctant to leave his teacher¡¯s side.


    In that world, the only person that was more powerful than Saleen that Saleen was able to trust was Jason.


    He lent his magic amplifier to Jason while Saleen took his time to work on the Heretic God¡¯s divine persona in the Hall of Gods. Initially, he would not have been able to do so, but he discovered yet another trick to the Ring of Cosmos.


    The divine persona of the Heretic God was submerged in Aqua Fulgur, which enabled Saleen to conjure balls of lightning in the Aqua Fulgur, using his soul power, to continuously bombard the divine persona, extracting the power of rules from it.


    The balls of lightning would gain a bit of the Heretic God¡¯s power of rules with every bombardment. While the process was slow, it was like reeling silk off of cocoons. The divine persona would eventually be emptied as the process went on.


    On the other hand, the Heretic God was unable to do anything about it, and had to simply let Saleen do what he wanted with it.


    Saleen had only conjured balls out of the Aqua Fulgur to bombard the divine persona with at the start. Inter stages, he picked up an increasingly big number ofplicated techniques, enabling him to attach Aqua Fulgur to lightning runes before stacking them together, formingplex balls of lightning.


    Complexity with the balls of lightning had gotten increasingly terrifying, so much so that at the very end, Saleen was able to craft thunder dragons using the lightning runes on the balls. The thunder dragons coiled around each other, and the energy released from them caused the level 18 divine persona¡¯s stability to falter.


    Saleen followed up with attacks that were more intense on the divine persona, which in itself were wless. Cracking up a level 18 divine persona was a task that even level 18 mages needed a lot of time to aplish.


    Saleen started up the magic array in the Hall of Gods, trying to cut down as much of the time needed as possible. Due to Nailisi having killed arge number of god creatures and refined massive amounts of divine crystals out of them, Saleen saw fit to just use the divine crystals to keep the magic array running, and that saved him a lot of high level magic nuclei.


    Saleen¡¯s stores of magic nuclei began to run rather short, so it was fortunate that the mages from Alchemy City showed up at the frontlines one after another, joining the fight. Saleen¡¯s mages retreated, as the pressure at the moment was light.


    Rafel and the Winged Skull were sent to the Oceanic Ice Block in order to hunt for more magic nuclei.


    Saleen stayed within the Hall of Gods to perfect his lightning magic.


    The Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source was all stocked within the divine persona, which was not a good thing to do. However, if it were to leave the divine persona, all of its power of the Source would end up being absorbed by the lightning around it.


    ¡°How about we work together, mage?¡± The Heretic God took the risk and released a bit of power of the Source, trying tomunicate with Saleen.


    Saleen sted that bit of power of the Source with a ball of lightning unhesitatingly, absorbing it into the ball lightning.


    ¡°Most of your powers were taken by Myers. What makes you think you can negotiate with me?¡± Saleen extracted the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source and began analyzing it.


    The Heretic God was frustrated by the attack, but since Saleen actually talked, it saw no choice but to release another bit tomunicate with Saleen. The mage¡¯s attitude was obvious enough, and having a fair exchange would have been utterly impossible.


    ¡°Release me, and I shall tell you how to deal with a level 18 god.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you a level 18 god yourself? Speaking of which, I¡¯m going to reduce you to nothing soon enough.¡± Saleen did not absorb that bit of power of the Source of the Heretic God and took to chatting with it instead.


    The Heretic God thought that it was worth a shot and replied immediately, ¡°I had my powers sucked by Myers when I was critically injured, and I¡¯d return to the pinnacle of level 18 in time. If you want to take her on, you¡¯ll need my help.¡±


    ¡°Your help?¡± Saleen pondered for a bit and continued, ¡°Your divine rules don¡¯t allow you toprehend concepts like friends. Everything that is not you, you arepelled to destroy.¡±


    ¡°That is just how things are eventually. I still need followers, and I still need a goal.¡± The Heretic God dared not y any tricks and told Saleen solid truths, in order to avoid rousing any suspicions.


    ¡°Hehe...¡± Saleen chuckled and released another ball of lightning, sting the power of the Sourcepletely.


    ¡°What are you doing, mage!?¡± The Heretic God asked furiously.


    ¡°Are you trying to negotiate with me? If so, I¡¯ll make you pay for every line you say. Be direct, or you shall suffer considerable losses.¡± Saleen finished and released yet another ball of lightning, destroying the third whiff of power of the Source and absorbing it.


    The Heretic God was exasperated. What he did right there and then was to simply use its desire to escape for his own benefit.


    Furthermore, it was entirely possible that Saleen was lying, and that he had no intention of letting it go at all. If the Heretic God were to continue talking to the mage, it would only lose more of its power of the Source.


    However, a mage like Saleen could not haveprehended just how massive its power of the Source was. If the Heretic God were to simply use its power of the Source for chatting, it would have been able to keep chatting for hundreds of years and still not see any noticeable drops.


    A level 18 god, even when robbed of most of their power of the Source, would still have remaining stores that were beyond theprehension of a level 15 mage.


    The Heretic God continued to release bits of its power of the Source at that thought in order to continue tomunicate with Saleen.


    ¡°Mage, I take it that you don¡¯t want to see any gods appearing on Myers Maind, yes?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to see that either. My rulespel me to drive all living things to extinction, including spirits. I shall see to it that there is nothing left anywhere other than my own divine kingdom.¡±


    ¡°You sound normal for a god.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    ¡°Mage, if you keep my divine persona intact and do not continue to attack it, I shall tell you the weakness of level 18 gods.¡±


    ¡°I know that. It¡¯s the secret of the chaotic void.¡±


    The Heretic God was surprised, but it continued, ¡°The chaotic void still has star charts. I was able to get there because I acquired a star chart. Kill me, and you¡¯ll never get something like that again.¡±


    ¡°No problem. I¡¯m an astrologer. If pushes to shove, I¡¯ll just advance my proficiency at astrology. I still have a level 18 Star Gathering Needle with me. Do you have any interests in trying it out?¡± Saleen said nonchntly.


    Saleen controlled the Aqua Fulgur using his soul power, and crafted a vast starry sky around the Heretic God¡¯s divine persona.


    The Heretic God was dumbfounded by what Saleen just pulled, and immediately regretted having divulged something that was so important. It had been only able to escape in the chaotic void back then because its pursuers were humans or gods, and none had been willing to get near that ce.


    It valued its star chart more than its own life, so it had long melded it with its power of the Source, making it unable to separate the chart from its being. If Saleen had asked for such a chart, it would have only needed to give Saleen a fake one, and no one would have been able to tell. The Heretic God was even capable of crafting magic blueprints that looked exactly the same as the one it had acquired back then.


    However, seeing how Saleen crafting that starry sky around it, the Heretic God was able to immediately see the intricacies within, even though they were just constructs crafted using the power of Aqua Fulgur. That starry sky had very orderly rules. The distance between the stars and the trajectories of their movements were so precise that no one who did not know how such things worked would have been able to craft it.


    The rules of the stars were just as intricate and profound as that of magic. Saleen imed that he was an astrologer, but the Heretic God had not believed that initially. However, what it was seeing at the moment convinced it otherwise. If Saleen were an astrologer, he would have been able to extract the Heretic God¡¯s memories once he waspletely done. Even if the star chart acquired was blurry, there was still a possibility of finding the treasure in the depths of the stars.


    That was where the source of the chaotic voidy. If he were to acquire such powers, Saleen would have been able to even kill a level 18 god.


    The Heretic God dared not venture into such a ce itself, but that was not to say that the astrologer would be the same. If Saleen were to acquire means above that of a level 15 astrologer, he would almost be able to get to the core of the chaotic void and acquire that location¡¯s secrets.


    ¡°Heretic God, it¡¯s about time I stop. The only reason I bothered talking to you was to absorb your power of the Source. Just give me some, and I¡¯ll be able to calcte countless possibilities with it. You may be a level 18 god, but your rules are rather one-dimensional.¡± Saleen chuckled.


    The Heretic God realized that it had fallen into Saleen¡¯s trap. Saleen was only a level 15 mage, and from the Heretic God¡¯s perspective, he would have never been able to deduce its weakness. However, Saleen had over a million enchanters working for him. Not even the frost dragon would have been able to beat a million enchanters doing calctions at the same time.


    Furthermore, the enchanters had no need to worry about magic chord drain when doing such calctions. Under the huge magic, the enchanters would only need to use their mental powers.


    ¡°You know that curses are pointless against me. I need time, Heretic God. If you¡¯re willing to give me your divine persona, I¡¯ll consider letting you keep a bit of your power of the Source, thus giving you a chance at resurrection.¡±


    ¡°Why should I believe you?¡±


    ¡°I need time, and I¡¯m unwilling to keep going back and forth like this with you. You only have this one chance. If I fail on Myers Maind, I will retreat, and the only thing I¡¯d have left to do is topletely drain you. By then, your only value to me would be to serve as a piece of material for my equipment.¡±


    ¡°Let me think about it, mage.¡±


    ¡°Fine, go on and think.¡± Saleen did not continue tomunicate with the Heretic God, cranking up the strengths of his attacks at the divine persona instead. Electric snakes, thunder hawks, lightning ravens, and thunder dragons were used to conjure hundreds of thousands balls of lightning, which all sted at thest line of defense of the Heretic God. What Saleen meant to do was obvious¡ªif he were to seed in breaking the divine persona, then there would be no need for further negotiations at all.


    He had no intentions of giving the Heretic God too much time to think. The longer he let that god think, the greater the possibility of changes happening.

 Chapter 1530: A Mage’s Deception (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1530: A Mage¡¯s Deception (Part 1)</h4>


    Saleen had no certainty of being able to acquire the secrets to the chaotic void. He pressured the Heretic God and had no intentions of sparing it. He was already able to learn something regarding the Heretic God¡¯s rules by analyzing the bits of its power of the Source, and he found that to be something utterly terrifying.


    Common people would not even have had a chance to die when facing off against that Heretic God. It was out to make the entire crystal wall system into his own divine kingdom, before being able to advance to crystal wall systems of higher levels.


    The Lord of Glory had been a far morepassionate god inparison.


    The Heretic God was backed to a corner, so it said to Saleen, ¡°you have to guarantee that you will never destroy all of my power of the Source. Only then will I give you the star chart.¡±


    ¡°Rx. The words of a mage are akin to an oath. If you¡¯re willing, we can sign a contract.¡±


    ¡°A contract? Good,¡± the Heretic God agreed, and he stuffed a contract scroll into the Aqua Fulgur.


    Saleen never stopped attacking the Heretic God¡¯s divine persona whilemunicating with it. Cracks showed on that divine persona and quickly disappeared, looking like a world was being repeatedly created and then destroyed.


    The power of lightning was brought to the extreme in that battle on the divine persona.


    The Heretic God was forced by powers of such magnitude to yield and sign the contract. It hated every bit of it. It was unable to say anything about being set up by the Goddess of Myers, as they were both level 18 gods and had both lost their pinnacle powers, giving them the same status. However, the level 15 mage leaned on it again and again. It resented the treatment so badly that it swore that it would have all the friends and family of the mage be pirs in the Heretic God¡¯s temple just to let the Heretic God have a good look at them every day.


    That would be a ce more terrible than the Wall of Pain. The pirs holding up that evil were found at the deepest depths of hell after all.


    The Heretic God signed the very unfair contract, which disappeared in the boundless Aqua Fulgur. The contents of the contract said that the Heretic God would give up the divine persona in return for Saleen leaving half of its remaining power of the Source behind.


    Losing the divine persona would mean losing its power of rules, but that would be better than having its divine persona broken and its power of the Source all robbed away. The Heretic God dared not go on a match of patience with Saleen. The god felt that Saleen was in a ce where many dead bodies of powerful gods were found.


    The Heretic God handed the divine persona over. Half of its power of the Source gushed from it, wrapped up by Saleen¡¯s Aqua Fulgur.


    It was stated clearly in the contract, and Saleen had a responsibility to keep that other half of the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source protected. Saleen had no care for the power of the Source he extracted. He took the divine persona out and embedded it inside the Hall of God¡¯s magic array.


    Saleen was the only one left in the Hall of Gods that, and he only had two gods forpany.


    The Heretic God and Dante.


    The level 18 divine persona was embedded into the magic array, and the Hall of Gods finally revealed its original form. The divine remains on the walls came alive, as if countless ancient scrolls of pictures were being unraveled, ying epics right before Saleen¡¯s eyes.


    Furthermore, everything looked insanely real. Time flew and Saleen saw a great many nations rise and fall and many heroes wither with age. He witnessed what happened to all the level 18 powerful ones, as well as the level 18 gods...


    He split the remaining power of the Source of the Heretic God into two parts, one of which belonged to Saleen. After Saleen purified the part that belonged to him using the power of lightning, he let Dante take its time to absorb it.


    The Heretic God was terrified. The contract that it signed with Saleen had an effective period of 10,000 years. However, it had no idea that 10,000 years in the Hall of Gods only equaled a month outside.


    A level 18 divine persona was able to let the Hall of Gods run at its full potential, so much so that Saleen¡¯s Ring of Cosmos turned alongside the ce, releasing a myriad of rules, ying out the ne¡¯s rise and fall thus far.


    Saleen never expected all of the changes to happen, but he nheless continued doing things methodically and let Dante absorb the power of the Source.


    There were few rules left in the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source after he cleaned them using lightning. They were reduced to pure energy, and one thing that Dantecked most for advancing was energy.


    The Heretic God watched the changes unfold and knew right away what was in Saleen¡¯s mind.


    ¡°You lied to me, mage!¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t. It¡¯s stated in the contract. I¡¯ll protect you for 100 years and within those 100 years, I would never let Dante touch you. But if you were to attack me, the contract would be voided,¡± Saleen smirked as he answered.


    Duping a god was indeed fun, and the deception was sessful, only because the Heretic God had given up its divine persona. With the divine persona, the magic array in the Hall of Gods was activated, and the Heretic God eventually ended up destroyed by its own hands.


    If the two parties had shed head on, the Heretic God might not have been a match for the frost dragon. If they dragged things out, he would have needed tens of thousands of years before being able to finish off the Heretic God, and that would have only been possible if he were to be able to advance quickly enough. If he were to remain at level 15, he would have needed to slog along until his death, and still he would not have been able to do anything against that level 18 divine persona.


    The army was switched often within the line of defense. Tens of thousands of mages joined the line of defense and participated in the construction of the magic. The entire line of defense had a magic of a greater coverage installed. So long as there were ample enchanters on the job, the army that emerged from the gates of the divine kingdom would have suffered considerable losses.


    The edge of the magic was near the gates of the divine kingdom. Hundreds of thousands of enchanters cast magic spells at the same time. Their range of attacks was already extended into the divine kingdom itself.


    Within the temple of the Goddess of Nature in the Purgatory Dessert, the divine beast patiently guarded over the goddess.


    The goddess¡¯ body had be a forbidden tree. The tree was filled with fruits, and all of them looked jade green. As time blitzed past, the green fruits quickly matured. One by one, they cracked and dropped onto the temple¡¯s altar.


    All of the fruits shriveled before even hitting the ground, all energies in them sucked out.


    Among the thousands of fruits, only one managed to drop onto the altar in one piece.


    The divine beast went up carefully and spit out a divine persona, putting it before the fruit. The fruit cracked and a figure the size of a thumb emerged.


    That figure was none other than the goddess herself. She had to re-sculpt her body before being able to purge all of the effects of the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Sourcepletely.


    After taking the Heretic God¡¯s body and gaining most of its power of the Source, the goddess had what it would take to be the most powerful being in the world. The power of Myers Maind had beenpletely restored, and no one would be able to pose a threat to her any longer.


    The goddess smiled as her body gradually grew taller, returning to her original size within mere moments. She stretched for a bit. Her naked body was blown by the wind, and a pleased expression was seen on her face.


    The forbidden tree wilted, but she did not care about it. She picked up the divine persona and gulped it down.


    That was not how a piece of divine persona worked, but after returning to her powers at level 18, how it was done no longer mattered. The important thing was that she had regained mastery of the highest rules of the crystal wall system.


    ¡°I wonder how our puny mage is doing?¡± There is nothing she had to be worried about at present. She took out her ne map and opened it. Despite the fact that her power of the Source was capable of enveloping the entire Myers Maind, enabling her to check out any given ce at any given time, doing so would cause quite a drain in her powers of the Source.


    She had yet to n to leave that crystal wall system, so if she were to keep using such powers, Myers Maind would quickly fall into decline, returning to how it had once been.


    ¡°Hmm?¡± She looked for Saleen, but she was unable to find him on the ne map. She had also lost track of the level 18 scroll.


    So that guy was probably afraid of her.


    The goddess chuckled and said to the divine beast, ¡°alright, I¡¯m going to resurrect our brothers and sisters. Stay here and be on the lookout for the mage called Saleen. Tell me as soon as he emerges.¡±


    The divine beast yelped reluctantly, but the goddess paid no heed to it, heading right outside the temple.


    The tablet contained her followers, angels, oracles and powerful apostles of the Nature Faith. After consuming over half of the Heretic God¡¯s powers and the divine persona that she had hidden before, she became confident of being able to resurrect all of the people.


    Brilliant light lit up on the Mountain without End. All the powerful magic beasts in the area looked at the top of the Mountain without End in fright. That power was supreme and every single intelligent being was unable to help but step forward, heading towards the mountain to worship the god within.


    The magic beasts in the Purgatory Dessert sensed something as well. However, given how the temple¡¯s aura was sealed, the magic beasts were only able to discover the emergence of the great power instinctively, and it had shaken their souls.


    The idental burst of power, the one time where the goddess simply did as she pleased, rattled all the powerful beings throughout the dessert.


    The divine beast stayed inside the temple and watched. After spending over a month waiting in boredom, it roared suddenly.


    It looked at Saleen, finding that damned mage seemed to have advanced yet again. It was unable to fathom how it had been possible. The divine beast had seen him as a piece of trash, given how his talents were nowhere near extraordinary, so much so that even calling him ¡®average¡¯ would have been an overstatement.


    Saleen had indeed advanced, but the advancement was rather iplete. He had been training in the Hall of Gods for over 10,000 years, and still he had not been able to fulfill his wish. He had barely gotten to level 17, yet unlike the past, he was unable to gain the most powerfulbat prowess of the level.


    The only thing that evolved was his magic chords. He still knew little about rules.


    That was very peculiar. It was usually impossible to get to level 16 without masteringplete rules, but Saleen had actually skipped level 16 and had gotten to level 17 instead.


    The contract he signed with the Heretic God had long expired. Saleen went on to purify the other half of the Heretic God¡¯s power of the Source and absorbed it himself, which was what resulted in his advancement. If a god were to do so, they would have been able topletely absorb such powers of the Source, and would have definitely be a level 18 god, albeit only bing the weakest of level 18 gods by doing so.


    It was fortunate that Dante had gotten to level 17 as well, meaning that they would have enough to kill the Lord of Glory.


    Saleen was surprised to find, when he emerged, that his teacher had gotten to the pinnacle state of level 16. While he was already at level 17, he still felt rather helpless before his teacher.


    The most surprised of them all was Guffen the frost dragon. It was shocked to find that Saleen had been able to jump two levels after only training in istion for a month. It of course had no idea that once a level 18 divine persona was embedded into the Hall of Gods, all kinds of possibilities could have happened.


    The greatest use that served was to aid the one who was training inside.


    Entering the Hall of Gods meant that one would gain multiple powerful lineages, so long as you were able to pay ample price, which was the divine persona.

 Chapter 1531: A Mage’s Deception (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1531: A Mage¡¯s Deception (Part 2)</h4>


    The Heretic God would not ever have dreamed that a level 15 mage would have had such an eerie piece of equipment at his disposal. Even back in the First Dynasty, such equipment would have only been avable to the likes of kings.


    Kings of the First Dynasty had all definitely been level 18 professionals, and they would have had over ten level 18 professionals serving them. Despite being the pinnacle of level 18, there were also differentiations between the professionals.


    A king would have definitely been at the pinnacle of level 18, and they served to support and protect the emperor of the empire, making Myers Maind an impregnable continental nation. The nation eventually declined and fell with the passing of the level 18 professionals.


    ¡°You have finally surpassed me, Saleen,¡± Jason looked at his student and felt very gratified and relieved.


    Saleen was exasperated instead. ¡°Sir, it was just an ident this time, and I had no time to take the others with me.¡±


    His advancement was indeed an ident, but he did not know that if he had taken everyone with him into the Hall of Gods, the most mysterious of its functions may not have been fully disyed, and there was no way he could have seen that many rules lying about.


    What hecked at the moment was only mastery, as he had gotten to the point of being extremely familiar with all the rules on that ne. Level 18 professionals had been like insurmountable mountains to Saleen once upon a time, and now, he had finally gotten the power to stand against them.


    He would never end up being taken down by the goddess with just a single hit. At the very least, he would have enough left to run away.


    Rules were indeed mystical things, as even though one might have been very familiar with every single detail pertaining to a rule, it was not certain that one could have even used a single bit of said rule¡¯s power. Saleen knew that hisck of mastery was due to hisck of stability in his current level, preventing him from truly mastering the Source.


    However, the greatest benefit of getting to level 17 was that he was already capable of controlling the magic array in the Hall of Gods.


    When he embedded power source in the magic array of the Hall of Gods in the past, he had no control of anything, be it the rate of passage of time and the disys on the walls, it was all dependent on what kind of power source one would have embedded it with. At present, Saleen had be capable ofmunicating with that magic array, enabling him to manipte the changes through his power of the soul. He would be able to use the Hall of Gods as a tool for teaching.


    Being able to manipte time, space, and even fate was a mystical feeling.


    Spending time inside the Hall of Gods seemed like a long tempering process.


    Jason went on to take a good look at Saleen and said slowly, ¡°An ident indeed, but never mind. Advancement to level 18 isn¡¯t what you have imagined it to be. Stay at this level for some time. Don¡¯t think of getting to level 18 within the next 100 thousand years.¡±


    Saleen had no idea how his teacher came to know that many secrets regarding training, but he knew that Jason would not have uttered such words without purpose. Those words were definitely meant for him alone, and it would be all that Jason had confirmed.


    Furthermore, what his teacher said matched what he felt very much.


    Saleen felt that his advancement to level 17 had something missing, and whatever that was, it was crucial to his future. If he were tock it when he tried to advance, he might have ended up walking the path of the goddess.


    Saleen never wanted to be a god. If bing a god had been his wish, he would have had many opportunities to do so. Absorbing the power of the Heretic God would have allowed him to ignite divine fires within. Furthermore, there was some left over of the Heretic God¡¯s divine persona, and the piece had only been reduced by two levels, making it a level 16 divine persona.


    Saleen would have only needed to ignite divine fires and swallow the divine persona to be a level 16 god. Furthermore, he would have be the highest of level 16 gods, with a lifespan spanning over tens of billions of years.


    At the moment, despite being at level 17, he remained a human, and his lifespan was hundreds of thousands of years.


    Hundreds of thousands might have seemed to be a very long time, but one training session might have easily cost him thousands of years. If he were to not be able to acquire perfect power of rules, Saleen¡¯s lifespan might not be able to get to a million years.


    Jason wanted Saleen to stay at his current level for 100 thousand years due to fear of him walking down the wrong path. The way Saleen achieved histest advancement was simply too out-of-the-ordinary. Consuming a part of a level 18 god¡¯s power was something that not even ancient humans had done. The heroic spirits in the Imperial City, however, would have liked doing that a lot.


    The heroic spirits had a great w to them, and Saleen knew that well.


    ¡°Sir, I¡¯ve already gotten enough power to destroy the divine kingdom. The Lord of Glory will be reduced to history. Please look after the maind for me, as I¡¯ll be going out to war,¡± Saleen said as he bowed to Jason.


    Jason nodded and added, ¡°may your expedition be swift. You¡¯ll still have a lot of troubles to deal with back on this ne after all.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, sir,¡± Saleen said and called the frost dragon. He then brought the Winged Skull and Nailisi to the gates of the divine kingdom.


    Saleen had never felt so at ease in his life before, even though he would be taking on an enemy with absolute power.


    He ordered the mages to take Baldur¡¯s Gate apart and bring it before the divine kingdom¡¯s gates. He then ordered the demon army to clean up the ce right outside the gates, before setting Baldur¡¯s Gate up right in front of the gates of the divine kingdom.


    Baldur¡¯s Gate held an attack force that Saleen prepared for the expedition. There were six godly items in it that he became able to use. Saleen was able to ensure that not a single god creature would ever make it into Myers Maind by tapping into the powers of Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    After he sealed the gates of the divine kingdom off, Saleen had Guffen, Rafel, the Winged Skull ride the Star Shuttle and charge inside the divine kingdom.


    Saleen went on to target and massacre the legions of angels. Being at level 17 meant that he no longer had any reservations. Regardless of how powerful the Lord of Glory would be, there was no way he could have exceeded level 17, even if he were inside his own divine kingdom.


    If the Lord of Glory were to surpass that level, his own divine kingdom would have copsed due to not being able to withstand his power.


    As Saleen advanced, both Nailisi and the Winged Skull were no longer restricted by their soul bonds, and both of them had advanced to level 16. However, they were unable to get any further. In their case, their difficulty of getting further would be way greater than what Saleen had experienced.


    However, Saleen had no need for Nailisi and the Winged Skull to grow too powerful. Their lifespan would be longer than his after all. By the time Nailisi got all eight abilities, she would have advanced to level 18. As for the Winged Skull, they had already possessed a ne¡¯s worth of power. All 12 jade skeletons that served the Winged Skull would have eventually be gods of spirits.


    The Winged Skull had ways of extracting power from the gods, so there was no need for them to worry about advancing at all, as it was only a matter of time.


    The Star Shuttle zipped about the divine kingdom just like a god of death. The Lord of Glory had be aware of the thing from the Divine Mountain of Light. He knew that a very powerful enemy had entered his divine kingdom.


    The Lord of Glory sighed and wondered if the Goddess of Myers had decided to lead the charge personally.


    But, that was impossible. Even if she were to find her divine persona in the past, there is still no way she could have restored her power that quickly. With two of his weaker doubles already dead, the Lord of Glory had to take the threat seriously.


    While he had a huge number of doubles, there were only five that he had personally split using his own power of Source. All the others were crafted out of gods that he killed.


    The Lord of Glory summoned Abyrus to the hall and said, ¡°Gather the oracles and form a divine rune charm array. Hide the mountain for the time being. I need to head out for a bit.¡±


    ¡°Acknowledged, Lord Father,¡± Abyrus answered respectfully with its head hung low, so that the Lord of Glory was unable to see that it was a pair of grey eyes behind its red pupils.


    The Lord of Glory was about the leave! Abyrus was overjoyed. The Lord of Glory hardly left the mountain for anything other than to invade other divine kingdoms. The divine mountain was the hub of the divine kingdom, with all power of faith being first gathered there, before the Lord of Glory consumed it. Of course, the Lord of Glory could have absorbed the powers at his own will, but there were simply too many believers in the divine kingdom. The Lord of Glory was unable to advance, so he simply stockpiled all that power of faith.


    All that power would be his as soon as the Lord of Glory left, making it easy for it to advance to level 15 or even 16. There was none of the restrictions suffered by the gods on it. It thought that the demon was dumb enough to think that she was able to control it, but it would have never lit up divine fires at such a juncture just yet.


    Igniting divine fires after level 16 would have been the way to go, as that would have allowed it to avoid the greatest threshold the gods have to face while advancing.


    The gap between level 15 and 16 was the hardest obstacle that the gods had to face.


    Even in ancient times, the number of gods above level 15 was not many. Even in present day, gods below level 15 were still the ones that were found everywhere.


    ¡°Abyrus, look after the mountain. When I¡¯ve advanced to level 16, you shall be the archangel captain and stand above all of the angels,¡± the Lord of Glory said nonchntly.


    An almost sarcastic look shed in Abyrus¡¯ eyes at that.


    What¡¯s the use of bing an archangel captain anyway? That¡¯s still not a god. The Lord of Glory is stingy enough to never even bestow the title of a lieutenant god on anyone, and a lieutenant was still a servant god.


    A servant god was a god who followed the orders of their master godpletely, but they had a certain degree of freedom. When a god perished, their servant god would still survive.


    However, things were different with angels. Without the Lord of Glory, the power of the angels would fall into decline, eventually withering and dying.


    If the Lord of Glory had been generous enough to make Abyrus a servant god, it wondered if it would have still chosen to fall.


    The Lord of Glory did not look at that favorite angel of his again before turning around and leaving. A beam of holy light shot from the mountain. 64 slightly faint beams of holy light shot all around the mountain afterwards.


    He brought 64 doubles with him. The Lord of Glory was going to crush the invader personally.


    The invader was simply too powerful, and his angels were unable to do anything about it.


    Saleen had Nailisi search for the divine mountain. He was unclear of the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom, but he read a great many magic notes illustrating a great many divine kingdoms. It was stated that the Lord of Glory was a god who liked living in high ces, ording to his attributes. There were no hovering buildings in the divine kingdom, which meant that the Lord of Glory would behave like many other gods sharing the same attributes¡ªconstructing the tallest divine mountain and letting his light shine all over the divine kingdom.


    ¡°This is strange. I can¡¯t find Abyrus !¡± Nailisi used a secret art unique to the Luoluokaluo, and discovered that she had lost track of Abyrus.


    ¡°Forget about Abyrus then. Just fly in that direction.¡±


    Saleen pointed at the center of the divine kingdom. The Lord of Glory could have been even more peculiar than he already was, and he still would not have chosen to set up a residence in some dank corner. Flying to the center would definitely be the right thing to do.

 Chapter 1532: Gods are Useless (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1532: Gods are Useless (Part 1)</h4>


    The Star Shuttle¡¯s speed had noticeably dropped when it crossed into the divine kingdom, and that was a result of the craft being suppressed by the power of rules of the ce. The nearer they were to the divine mountain, the more apparent the suppression became.


    Saleen did not mind. He unleashed his lightning territory and negated the suppression from the divine kingdom¡¯s rules, making things no different than it would be elsewhere. Saleen¡¯s current lightning territory had electric snakes, thunder hawks, lightning ravens, and thunder dragons flying all around it.


    All of the lightning creatures had balls of lightning of different sizes inside of them, and every single ball was imbued with different lightning rules.


    Saleen had not been able to master level 17 lightning rules. The lightning ravens inherently came with the power of such rules, but they were out of Saleen¡¯s control. Even so, the attacks of the lightning ravens still would be far stronger than that of the thunder hawks.


    The Star Shuttle was enveloped by thick mist, and its exterior was burning with raging fires. Lightning creatures danced in the center, making it so that no one would be able to make out what was going on inside.


    However, the mes were a stark contrast with the divine kingdom, and all angels were able to tell that they were the enemy. However, that would suffice for Saleen. He slowed the craft down and countless angels mored at the lightning territory like moths to a me.


    Nailisi thought of some nasty tricks and unleashed the power of the Purgatory of the Fallen, causing all the powerful angels who managed to escape being killed by the lightning attacks to be tainted before they were thrown out of Saleen¡¯s lightning territory.


    All of the tainted angels had their snow-white wings tainted with dark grey colors. Their pitch ck eyes were turned purple as well, burning with hell fire.


    The fallen angels were unable to even tell how they had fallen. They only knew that they had fallen, and as such, were no longer part of the divine kingdom. The fallen angelsunched attacks right away aftering to such conclusions, attacking their formerrades without mercy.


    Nailisiughed out loud, and Saleen shuddered at the sight.


    He realized just how fragile their so-called faith had been. Once they lost their faith, they became sworn enemies to those they fought alongside with, without an inch of room for negotiation. He deemed such faith to be worthless. The goddess¡¯ faith, in contrast, was a lot more lenient and forgiving. Anyone who decided to renounce their faith only needed to leave, and none would end up being targeted for elimination.


    All the disadvantages of renouncing faith would have emerged slowly in the days toe, but it still would not have cost them their lives right away.


    Gods... Saleen sighed.


    The frost dragon had a lot going on in its mind. The human mage indeed had a lot of tricks to deal with gods. If he had been born in ancient times, he would have had a lot to contribute.


    Kings would have fought to recruit someone like Saleen back in the time of the First Dynasty, so much so that he might have ended up earning the emperor¡¯s approval and be allowed to wage wars in all divine kingdoms with the armies.


    Nailisi did more than just y with the angels. The fallen powers that she unleashed were extremely polluting. Any angel who was attacked by the fallen angels would have over a 50 percent chance of falling as well. As such, more of the legion of angels was gradually turned grey, with the Star Shuttle being at the very center.


    Their white feathers became bloodstained as they fell from the sky. Wherever Saleen ended up, he seemed to make the ce in a doomsday for the angels.


    Saleen said in a subdued voice, ¡°Lord of Glory, I have once said that I would destroy your divine kingdom. I wonder if you regret deciding to take me on back indeed.¡±


    ¡°Master, I don¡¯t think he has had any regrets doing so.¡± The Winged Skull¡¯s senses had a greater range than Saleen, and that was the perk of being a spirit. Saleen followed where the Winged Skull was pointing and looked toward the right. The Star Shuttle closed in on the location within a few breaths, enabling him to see many powerful god creatures far away, flying at terrifying speeds.


    The god creatures had yet to notice him, and it seemed that they were heading towards the entrance of the divine kingdom.


    Saleen frowned, realizing the one at the center should have been the Lord of Glory. There were 64 god creatures. No, they were doubles!


    It would be very difficult to take them on if all 64 of them were to be doubles. But if Saleen did not stop them right there and then, the Lord of Glory would have overlooked that Saleen was there, and he would have charged inside Baldur¡¯s Gate. It would have been difficult for Jason to take all of that all on his own. J and the others had not gotten to the point of being able to fight gods.


    The frost dragon also caught sight of the doubles of the god. It said hesitantly, ¡°Mage, you and I both are at level 17, but this is the enemy¡¯s divine kingdom, our levels are being suppressed...¡±


    Saleen said with a smile, ¡°Guffen, if you dare to take them on, so would I.¡±


    That triggered Guffen, who then said, ¡°hmph, you¡¯re questioning my guts. That¡¯s just a level 15 god, a bug among gods, I¡¯d say.¡±


    ¡°You got that right, and killing bugs is really a piece of cake,¡± Saleen¡¯s smile became rather sheepish.


    Guffen¡¯s face reddened. ¡°Mage, you shouldn¡¯t be teasing a dragon.¡±


    Both sides had gotten closer to each other as the banter went on, but they were not in the same line. The Lord of Glory used divine arts of glory to move, and such movements dropped his senses drastically. Even if he were in his own divine kingdom, he dared not change course without good reason.


    ¡°Are we going to ram them?¡± Saleen looked at the mass of doubles that had gotten closer.


    ¡°We ram them!¡± Guffen was hardly fettered. The frost dragon had got used to Saleen beingvish. Saleen never seemed to care about the cost so long as he was able to take the enemy out. For instance, ramming the Heretic God with the Star Shuttle caused the entire craft to be taken out ofmission, and the overhaul cost him a good number of materials.


    ¡°Ram that ba**ard of a god!¡± Saleen seemed to be taking it all out on the Lord of Glory. He took personal control of the craft and told everyone to brace for impact, getting ready to be sent into his magic amplifier.


    The Lord of Glory blitzed by in a beam of light, guarded by 64 doubles. He was not using flying skills, but movement skills resembling Rainbow instead.


    Power of faith was practically inexhaustible in the divine kingdom, so he could have kept moving in such a state without having to worry about drops in power.


    All 64 of the doubles were forces that the Lord of Glory never deployed. They were also the strongest among all the doubles, so much so they were almost equal to him in terms of power.


    Even if the doubles were only level 15 in the divine kingdom, thebat prowess that they were able to bring exceeded level 16. Rules of the Lord of Glory were stronger in the divine kingdom, and also very resistant to being repelled by other rules.


    Saleen¡¯s Star Shuttle rammed into them without any warning. The Lord of Glory¡¯s doubles were unable to evade them. However, four of them transformed into hard metallic forms and braced for impact.


    Four pieces of metal with a diameter over a dozen meters shed with the Star Shuttle like three-dimensional shields. They were the equipment of the four doubles.


    All four huge metal bs were filled with holy prose, which glittered with white holy light, enabling the hardness of the metal to exceed divine crystals.


    However, when the Star Shuttle neared, the power of the lightning territory burst, negating the divine power of the four doubles. All four of the huge metal bs were reduced to scrap metal when the craft hit them. The doubles within spit golden blood and dropped to the ground.


    ¡°Huh?¡± The Lord of Glory saw that the four were surprisingly unable to stop the fire dragon-like monster. He immediately held his scepter and pointed at the Star Shuttle.


    Holy light was fired, and Saleen felt his lightning territory being cleaved. A beam of intense holy light destroyed all the lightning creatures outside of the craft.


    The Star Shuttle¡¯s speed dropped drastically right away. The destroyed lightning creatures were restored shortly within the lightning territory.


    Saleen knew that it was not due to the Lord of Glory¡¯s rules being able to negate his lightning territory. It was just the result of his lightning territory being scattered. The Lord of Glory¡¯s attack worked like a sword, focused on a single line.


    Saleen released the frost dragon and his two other bonded creatures.


    ¡°Guffen, looks like battle in human form no longer suits you. I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    Guffen snickered bitterly after seeing 60 doubles surrounding them. It put the Star Shuttle away and returned to its original form in the air.


    A 200 meter-long frost dragon emerged, which almost froze the Lord of Glory¡¯s holy light.


    ¡°Arrghh!¡± A double shouted. His powers were not quite up to par. With the divine might of the Lord of Glory being negated, dragon might from a level 17 frost dragon almost drowned the god¡¯s mind in utter fear.


    ¡°Prepare to take the dragon¡¯s wrathful fires, bug!¡± Guffen did not forget to tease its opponent. It had actually been doing so to lighten the mood. It had to deal with 60 doubles after all. As for the Lord of Glory, Guffen decided to let Saleen deal with him.


    Guffen spected that Saleen¡¯s other two helpers would not be able to spare any effort helping it out.


    The Lord of Glory was startled at the sudden emergence of a frost dragon. His mood quickly calmed. There were only four enemies. While there were two who were level 17, making them difficult to deal with, it seemed to him that the levels of tse two were far from stable, meaning that they were only able to use level 16 powers in such a ce.


    The Lord of Glory, on the other hand, was able to use level 16 powers as well, and he had 60 helpers with him...


    The Lord of Glory had fought countless divine kingdoms and was a seasoned veteran. He was able to tell right away that he had the advantage of numbers.


    Hemanded without making a sound. The four grievously injured doubles on the ground healed themselves right where they were, summoning the legion of angels nearby to surround their enemies.


    The Lord of Glory was irked enough to swear to definitely keep the mage behind. A mage capable of bringing such a high level dragon into a divine kingdom was simply too terrifying. If he were unable to kill the mage and let him return to Myers Maind, then there would never be a chance for him to destroy that ne anymore.


    Seeing how the frost dragon and the god doubles were gauging each other using magic and divine arts respectively, Saleen was in no hurry to fight the Lord of Glory. He eyed the Lord of Glory from afar. ¡°You should know my name, Saleen Metatrin. I killed your saint in this ne, and I¡¯ve destroyed your Holy See in this ne.¡±


    ¡°No matter, you will soon be my most loyal believer, but you will be able to keep your mind intact doing so. You shall learn of the price of angering a god soon, mage.¡±


    ¡°This is boring.¡± Saleen looked at that arrogant god and continued, ¡°you will never ever understand why humans hated you gods so much. I know that you still have many doubles around, and I¡¯ll kill every single one of them. I¡¯ll make your divine kingdom into my personal garden.¡±


    Saleen unleashed Dante from his magic amplifier. Dante bowed to Saleen and paid no attention to the battlefield. It became d in lightning as it flew straight for the divine mountain.

 Chapter 1533: Gods are Useless (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1533: Gods are Useless (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The Lord of Glory intended to stop Dante, but was quickly suppressed by Saleen with a single lightning icicle.


    The Lord of Glory was no longer anxious. He snickered at Saleen and said, ¡°What can a level 15 god do in my divine kingdom?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, that¡¯s why he¡¯s out here to find out.¡± Saleen answered patiently. There was an 80 percent chance of Abyrus hiding somewhere in the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine mountain. So long as Abyrus was in here, the mountain would never be safe.


    Saleen would only need to keep the Lord of Glory¡¯s main body where it was. Dante¡¯s power looked like that of a level 15 god because it was suppressed by the rules of the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom. In actuality, Dante¡¯s power was equal to abination of three level 16 gods. Furthermore, the three were not on guard against each other, enabling them to work in sync with each other.


    Such a god would have definitely be more powerful than three separate level 16 gods in terms ofbat prowess.


    Furthermore, one of Dante¡¯s divine personas was lightning, and it had control of more rules than Saleen. The rules of the divine persona were not something that the Lord of Glory would have been able to suppress.


    The second divine persona it possessed allowed it to manipte elemental powers, granting it the ability to cast magic like mages. The third divine persona enabled it to turn invisible and conceal its traces, and no gods of simr levels would be able to detect it.


    The Lord of Glory lifted his scepter slowly and pointed at Saleen from a distance, seeing how Saleen was targeting him.


    The Thunder Dragon Bangle in Saleen¡¯s hand shot out. The 24 thunder dragons turned into a set of armor in an instant, covering his entire being. The Lord of Glory was dumbfounded, but intensely blinding light lit up from his staff shortly after.


    The beam of light was intense and majestic, which impressed Saleen quite a bit. Saleen cast his own territory.


    The Lightning World.


    It was a level 17 territorial power. ording to conventions, the spell was no longer considered a territory at level 17, but Saleen¡¯sck of understanding of the rules did not allow it to advance to the level of ¡®world¡¯ in terms of power.


    The power of World was equal to a god creating their own divine kingdoms. Generally speaking, any level 15 god would have been able to create their own divine kingdom, but it needed careful, patient management before the kingdom could gain fighting strength. A god like the Lord of Glory, who was capable of having such a huge divine kingdom and that many believers at level 15, had eclipsed manyparatively more powerful gods at level 16.


    The Scepter of Light had served the Lord of Glory for countless eons, from the day he touched the power of light until that very day, making him a powerful god who was capable of destroying level 16 divine kingdoms with level 15 powers.


    The power of light and lightning shed and tangled. Saleen finally able to realize how powerful the Lord of Glory was. Back when he was being chased by the Lord of Glory¡¯s double due to hiscking level, he was already able to sense how terrifying he was. At present, however, the Lord of Glory was facing him, a level 17 mage.


    The two had a difference of two levels, and even though they were inside the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom, that difference was not something that could have beenpletely done away. The Lord of Glory was at a disadvantage in terms of level and his rules wereparative, yet he still managed to tear a huge hole in Saleen¡¯s Lightning World. The power of light conjured all manner of creatures of light as well as a huge number of angels, who all charged at Saleen.


    They were not specters, but were constructs of interlinked powers. If one of them was to be able to get near Saleen, the power of all the other creatures of light would be transferred into that one single creature in an instant.


    The skill made Saleen¡¯s eyes sparkle. Gods indeed had unique ways of fighting. That was actually how his lightning warriors fought, but if one wanted to get to the bottom of how it worked, the calctions would take days. The fight that was toe was not something Saleen was capable of mastering in an instant.


    He had initially thought godscked creativity, a point which was quickly proven wrong.


    Saleen had a massive number of creatures of lightning in his Lightning World territory, which tangled with the creatures of light. The creatures of lightning had an absolute advantage due to the level difference, but the creatures of light¡¯s resurrection ability caused quite a headache to Saleen.


    Furthermore, there was no way the Lord of Glory would just simply stand where he was. The god took out his second godly item, which was a thick Codex of Light.


    Book type equipment alerted Saleen the most, as the type of equipment was capable of containing a huge number of skills and were of high enough levels. Furthermore, some of them were even capable of casting skills that not even the user was familiar with.


    If the Lord of Glory¡¯s codex were to contain such skills, they might have been skills above level 16. Level 16 divine arts could easily be amplified to level 17 in the divine kingdom.


    Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier would only allow his magic spells to be maintained at level 17. There was no way he could get any higher than that.


    The advantage of a divine kingdom was demonstrated right there and then by the Lord of Glory. The angels were still incapable of making use of their home advantage.


    The Lord of Glory flipped the Codex of Light open. ¡°I say, let there be light.¡±


    The entire Lightning World territory was destroyed by that one line from the Lord of Glory. If it had not been for protection afforded by the thunder dragons, Saleen would have ended up severely injured. Saleen never thought that god¡¯s attacks would be so ferocious, so much so that he felt that he had been thrust into darkness.


    All light seemed to have been robbed by the Lord of Glory, who seemingly was the supreme ruler and creator of light.


    Saleen unleashed a fire elemental creature¡ªa Vermillion Knight.


    The Vermillion Knight was turned pitch ck in the Lord of Glory¡¯s World of Light, preventing it from unleashing any heat. The pitch ck Vermillion Knight seemed to have been frozen, not moving a single muscle.


    It was fortunate that the frost dragon and the other two bonded creatures of Saleen were very far away. The Lord of Glory had restricted the range of the World of Light to an extremely small area, just to kill Saleen.


    Saleen immediately unleashed the Lightning Moon. A huge full moon rose in the sky, and Saleen was able to gain light that belonged to him. Countless lightning creatures were conjured again from the Lightning Moon again, who all charged at the Lord of Glory.


    They were fighting a war of attrition. If the Lord of Glory¡¯s World of Light wanted to kill all the lightning creatures, the drain would have been considerable.


    The Lord of Glory snickered. Was the mage out of his mind? It is his divine kingdom, and he could have all the energy he wanted.


    While the cost of killing a lightning creature would be more than what was deemed worthwhile, the Lord of Glory nevercked the power of faith. If his power of faith enabled him to acquire rules of a greater level, he could have advanced to level 17 right away.


    The stockpile of power of faith throughout the entire divine kingdom was beyond measure.


    An attribute-less cube hovered quietly within Saleen¡¯s Lightning Moon. A magic scroll was sealed within that cube¡ªthe scroll that the Goddess of Myers had given to Saleen.


    Saleen worked on that scroll back in the Hall of Gods, making it unable to be easily detected by anyone in the outside world.


    Sealing the scroll using a cube made of attribute-less granules was a result gained through careful calctions. The power of the Goddess of Myers would probably be able to prate all types of magic seals, unless his understanding of magic became more profound than hers.


    That was simply impossible, as she had once been a level 18 mage. Even if Saleen were to be able to advance to level 18, he still would not be able to eclipse the goddess in the field of magic.


    As such, Saleen gave up on the idea of using the scroll. At the very least, so long as the goddess was still in control of the scroll, he deemed it off-limits. If the goddess were displeased with him and detonated the scroll, he, a half-baked level 17 mage, would not have been able to withstand the consequences.


    Attribute-less granules were gained by purifying the Heretic God¡¯s powers. They had a peculiar trait to them, enabling them to iste things. With the scroll sealed within, all attempts of activating it would be blocked. The goddess would need to cast magic right before him to make the scroll work, as controlling it remotely would be utterly impossible.


    The granules had perfect structures and glittered all over. However, under the work of the Lord of Glory¡¯s powers, the beautiful crystalline structures had taken a pitch ck color. Yet, the Lord of Glory smelled great temptation from the granules¡ªthe power of the Heretic God. Despite being purified, there were still traces of its power of rules left.


    Saleencked the experience of extracting it properly, and that had driven the Lord of Glory crazy.


    A piece of unassuming cloud at Saleen¡¯s feet pounced at him, gobbling the attribute-less cube up.


    It was unclear what had been hidden inside the cloud. Saleen only saw a huge mouth with no teeth, and it had made no sound when it absorbed the attribute-less cube with the level 18 scroll. The mouth then escaped quickly, so much so that Saleen¡¯s lightning ravens were unable to hit it.


    ¡°What a mystical piece indeed!¡± The Lord of Glory extracted the attribute-less cube from the cloud and clenched.


    An intense explosion happened immediately. Raging energy imploded at the core of the explosion, which then expanded. A huge skyscraping tree emerged without warning.


    The tree¡¯s height was about 2,000 meters. The third scroll of the goddess was actually a sealing scroll, which contained a divine tree. All powers of the Lord of Glory were suppressed to rock bottom when the tree emerged. Saleen sensed the elements bing active again. The Lightning Moon in the sky had also expanded. The power of lightning had beenpletely restored.


    The Tree of Element!


    Saleen was surprised to find a Tree of Element sealed within the goddess¡¯ scroll. Under the influence of the tree, a mage¡¯s powers would be boosted by one whole level, while the power of gods would be suppressed.


    Saleen knew that there was absolutely no way he could lose in that fight.


    The power unleashed by the Tree of Element was so terrifying that the tens of the Lord of Glory¡¯s doubles stiffened up, but the frost dragon was like a fish in the water instead. The dragon proceeded to freeze all of the doubles up, which were then thrown into Nailisi¡¯s Purgatory of Purification.


    The Lord of Glory was thoroughly frightened. His main body was there, and if he were captured, the doubles would revolt. Not all doubles had been able to be suppressed and be robbed of their own will, after all. If he died, he would not be able to use the doubles for resurrection. He was just a level 15 god, which meant that it was impossible for him to have powers of the likes of the king of gods.


    Furthermore, that was where the w of the god of light was. The Lord of Glory did not even dare to have servant gods.


    Saleen smirked, thinking that gods were still not a match for mages. Thest scroll had been the killing move of the Goddess of Myers, which would have worked on all gods. The Tree of Element was the key to her ability to manipte magic. She was able to nurture such a nt, but all the other gods would have only thought of destroying the Tree of Element if they saw one.


    That was also the goddess¡¯ way of warning Saleen¡ªthe power of magic was useless against her.

 Chapter 1534: Centennial Chaos (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1534: Centennial Chaos (Part 1)</h4>


    The question was not if it was the gods being useless or magic being useless. The one with the higher mastery of rules would emerge as the victory. The Lord of Glory was being suppressed by the Tree of Element, preventing him from moving any muscle in his body.


    Yellow light shed beneath Saleen¡¯s feet, allowing him to move right in front of the Lord of Glory with just a single step. He smiled and asked, ¡°were you thinking that I would have needed a long time to kill you?¡±


    The third eye on his forehead opened all of a sudden without bothering to wait for the Lord of Glory¡¯s answer, allowing him to see the weakness of the god¡¯s body and where the god¡¯s divine persona was hidden.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s body was as vast as a region of stars. It was a projection of a huge divine kingdom. In truth, the Lord of Glory was indeed able to put the divine kingdom away into his body. However, given the sheer size of his divine kingdom at present, putting it away would be rather difficult.


    Saleen¡¯s Si of Silence spun in the eye for a bit. The advantage of superior level allowed him to pin-point the location of the god¡¯s divine persona, as well as the god¡¯s weakness. The divine persona was running in a frenzy all over the Lord of Glory¡¯s body. After it was shrouded by the Si of Silence¡¯s power, it was immediately fixed in a certain location. Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger punched through the Lord of Glory¡¯s body and stabbed onto the divine persona.


    A level 15 divine persona was over 100 times more resilient than steel, but it crumbled in an instant before Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger.


    Every single pore of the god¡¯s body burst with intense light. With his divine persona broken, his body was unable to contain so much power, causing his level to drop quickly.


    The god at the pinnacle of level 15 was reduced to level 14 with just one shot by Saleen.


    Saleen did not pull his hand out just yet and twisted hard at the site instead. His hand was covered in thunder dragon armor, which was formed into a sharp knife that tore open the god¡¯s body. Saleen then summoned the Lightning Moon and stuffed it into the god¡¯s body.


    Regardless of how resilient the Lord of Glory¡¯s body was, there was no way he could withstand being ravaged by the Lightning Moon. Furthermore, with his divine persona broken and power suffering a significant drop, the space within his body had shrunk tens of thousands of times. The Lord of Glory finally sensed that he was doomed for sure.


    The Lightning Moon hovered in the god¡¯s body. Countless lightning ravens shot out. At such a level, it was easy for him to control the lightning ravens. If it had been the thunder dragons, he would have only been able to control the 24 that he reared personally.


    Thunder dragons summoned using the Lightning Moon would have resembled elemental creatures. Saleen had no control of them and would have only been able to let them fight on their own. Their might would have been more or less simr to that of the lightning ravens, but the drain would have been tens of times more severe.


    Under Saleen¡¯s control, the lightning ravens pounced on the broken divine persona fragments that had entirely lost functioning rules.


    Saleen¡¯s Crystal Finger shattered the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine persona, splitting it into 180 pieces. Every single piece maintained their perfect structure, which meant that if the divine persona fragments evolved, the energy and rules contained would have allowed a level 14 demigod to be a true god.


    One could only imagine just how many gods he had killed, just to create such an insane piece of divine persona.


    ¡°Spare me, mage, I¡¯m willing to be your ve!¡± The Lord of Glory made the decision right there and then. He was able to feel that the fragments were being gathered by the lightning ravens, which were then brought back to the Lightning Moon.


    If he lost all the fragments, he would truly be doomed.


    Saleen had never seen a god who was so forting before. The Lord of Glory did not bother negotiating and proposed to be Saleen¡¯s ve right away. However, that decisiveness did not even manage to cause Saleen to hesitate for even a second.


    More thunder hawks, electric snakes, and lightning ravens were unleashed from the Lightning Moon, destroying the godly body of the Lord of Glory. That god¡¯s body was severely fragile to Saleen. However, the space within was simply too vast, and breaking down everything within would take some time.


    There was no way he could leave such a decisive god alive. If the Lord of Glory were able to recover, the first thing he would probably do would be to mobilize all of his powers to destroy Myers Maind.


    Saleen was determined to kill the Lord of Glory, and not give the god any chance at all to possibly survive.


    The Lord of Glory looked at Saleen. His face took on a cold expression. ¡°My doom shall be the beginning of darkness. If you kill a god that represents the power of light, then Myers Maind will fall into eternal darkness.¡±


    ¡°In the mages¡¯ perspective, dark element symbolizes eternity,¡± Saleen replied, letting the Lord of Glory understand that there was no way he could convince the mage before him.


    ¡°Then please keep my divine kingdom intact. Do not kill the believers. My divine persona has beenpletely broken and I will not be able to resurrect them.¡±


    ¡°Of course. I see no point in killing them if they do not resist me. I do have a god servant after all. You saw it yourself. It was heading for your temple. It will take over everything you own and be the lord of this divine kingdom.¡± Saleen went on to destroy the Lord of Glory¡¯s hopes with every line he uttered.


    Guffen¡¯s roar alerted the angels within hundreds of kilometers radius. The angels charged at the divine tree that was over 2,000 meters tall, intending to cut down the divine tree and save their god.


    However, being so close to the Tree of Element meant that the frost dragon¡¯s magic and mental powers were practically inexhaustible. It hardly needed to fight the low level angels, as one dragon¡¯s breath was able to kill scores of them.


    As a high level dragon, its greatest concern was running out of magic power, as spells carried a terrifying drain with them, so much so that not even gods would have been able to afford such a drain. The dragons were a powerful race, but their drain was unimaginable as well.


    As such, the Tree of Element became the best gift one could have given to a dragon.


    ¡°Mage, my death is now inevitable. A long night shall loom over Myers Maind. You might be able to break the night someday, but that will be the day where I resurrect.¡±


    The Lord of Glory hung his head low all of a sudden. He was dead.


    Saleen felt a strange power leaving the Lord of Glory¡¯s body. There was no way he could have even grasped it, let alone stop it. That power was hardly considered mighty, yet it was brimming with life.


    He did not mind at all. It was a good thing that the Lord of Glory was finally dead. It was quite a pity, however, that the Goddess of Myers¡¯ power had actually been able to extend all the way into the divine kingdom and take control of the scroll.


    The divine kingdom would be the gift Saleen gave to Dante, his servant god.


    Just when Saleen intended to use the Tree of Element¡¯s power to absorb more of the Lord of Glory¡¯s residual power, the tree began to crack. The tall, majestic Tree of Element was actually beginning to copse.


    Saleen was exasperated. He knew that the Goddess of Myers would not have been so generous. The Tree of Element was actually a spectral projection. Due to the power being provided being so massive, so much so that it was able to suppress the power of such a huge divine kingdom, that Saleen had mistaken it to be a real tree.


    He quickly summoned the Lightning Moon and let it hover right above his head. As for the Lord of Glory¡¯s body, he still had use for it, so he threw it into his Ring of Cosmos.


    Guffen roared and returned to his dragon form. Even without the Tree of Element, its dragon form would easily allow it to run over the angels.


    Most of the angels¡¯ levels were at level 10, with some at level 12. The powerful level 13 ones were near the divine mountain, and level 14 angels like Abyrus were few and far between in the divine kingdom.


    Nailisi and the Winged Skull had nothing to do. It was not that the angels did not attack the two of them, but that Guffen¡¯s form was simply too huge. With the Tree of Light¡¯s projection stillrgely intact, no angel had been able to even get near.


    Nailisi was not in the mood of fighting for angels with Guffen. All the doubles that Guffen killed had been yielded to her. All of the doubles were thrown inside the Purgatory of the Fallen. If angels were made out of them, then there would have been 60 fallen angels.


    Nailisi knew that Dante was Saleen¡¯s ve, so she had made ns for the divine kingdom.


    Dante was a weird god who had three divine personas and was capable of acting as a suprememander, mobilizing fallen angels to be the army of the divine kingdom. She found it amusing.


    As for Abyrus, she assumed that the angel would end up dead.


    However, contrary to her assumption, not only did Abyrus manage to survive, it had actually been able to get its hands on something that it had dreamed of in the divine mountain.


    It was a piece of divine persona from thest god that the Lord of Glory killed, who possessed level 16 powers. The Lord of Glory had intended to use the piece of divine persona to learn level 16 rules in order to advance without a glitch.


    The divine persona had instead been discovered by Abyrus, who swallowed it. Its body went out of control and returned to its fallen angel form.


    Abyrus had been able to act so boldly because it knew what it meant to have the Lord of Glory leave the ce with so many powerful doubles¡ªthe powerful master of that demon was here, and people who dared toe into the divine kingdom like that would at least have powers above level 16. Someone who had been able to make the Lord of Glory take them so seriously would probably be at level 17.


    Abyrus had been right. While the levels of both Saleen and Guffen were unstable, they were nheless true level 17 beings. With the two of them working together, it was equal to a being with normal level 17 powers. The Lord of Glory would definitely take such a threat seriously.


    The only thing that the Lord of Glory should not have done was touching that attribute-less cube.


    It was a terrible oue resulting from cognitive inertia. The power of another god was not able to stay hidden within a divine kingdom. While that had been correct, that attribute-less cube was able to even block the goddess from controlling that scroll within, so it would have definitely been able to fool the Lord of Glory¡¯s senses.


    He tore the cube apart, intending to acquire the power within. The Goddess of Myers took that chance immediately and triggered the scroll, creating a projection of the Tree of Element, binding the Lord of Glory still.


    Greed was an original sin, and that was the third t in the codex the Lord of Glory wrote for the believers on Myers Maind.


    Abyrus¡¯ power grew in a frenzy after bursting through the shackles of Ultimate Shapeshifting. It brandished the Sword of Glory without hesitation and cut down all the angels around it.


    The puzzled angels were unable to resist and had to run. Abyrus did not give chase,ing to the rear of the divine mountain instead, where Fycro was being held.


    Abyrus then freed Fycro from the pir of light that Fycro was chained on. It then said, ¡°that demon intends to use us. Do you want to resist?¡±


    ¡°Of course I do.¡± Burning passion was seen in Fycro¡¯s eyes. If Abyrus were familiar with Fycro¡¯s personality, it would have been able to tell that Fycro was faking it. He would not have shown such intense emotions, even at the brink of death.


    ¡°Well then, follow me, and I shall grant you eternal glory.¡± Abyrus cast Healing on Fycro. Grey light was absorbed into Fycro¡¯s body, allowing him to finally recover some of his powers, enabling him to keep up with Abyrus.

 Chapter 1535: Centennial Chaos (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1535: Centennial Chaos (Part 2)</h4>


    Abyrus went to the temple with Fycro in tow. The temple was at the highest peak at the divine mountain, and it was surrounded by clouds. They were unable to block the holy light from shining on the entire divine kingdom. The clouds were glimmering as a result.


    Abyrus had been brutal and killed every single angel that crossed its path. Its powers were unaffected by the divine persona it consumed, and had actually seen a considerable rise instead.


    The former seraph did not know that Nailisi had taken the brunt of the consumption of the divine persona in its stead, and Abyrus simply thought that it was unusually talented, enabling it to negate all the obstacles. However, there was no way one could have negated rules.


    Saleen had to train for 10,000 years after acquiring the Heretic God¡¯s power of the source, gradually absorbing it before getting to level 17. Furthermore, that advancement wascking in many ways.


    Abyrus reached the pinnacle of level 15 without any glitch, and it seemed that it was still able to advance further. All of that had gone to its head, preventing it from seeing the true nature of things.


    What had actually happened was that after consuming that divine persona, Nailisi took the brunt considerably in its stead. There was no way it could have wiped away what she had nted in the depths of its Source, unless it was willing to pay a considerable price by shattering the piece of divine persona, which would have caused its powers to drop significantly and be reduced to level 13. It was already a level 14 before consuming that piece of divine persona.


    Abyrus headed inside the temple and went straight to the ce where the Lord of Glory rested. Gods needed to rest as well, and that rest was not to be interrupted. Abyrus stabbed the Sword of Glory into a divine rune charm array on the wall, cracking it and revealing a huge room behind.


    The room was crafted using saint stones and thus was wlessly white. Every single saint stone was capable of fusing with other saint stones. If it had not been for the divine rune charm array, the room would have beenpletely sealed.


    ¡°Fycro, this is yours,¡± Abyrus said and took out a golden mirror from a cab crafted using divine remains in the center of the room.


    Fycro took the mirror and felt its power seeping into his body.


    Was Abyrus insane? An unprotected godly item like this would be able to provide him with a huge boost of power, and he would have been able to restore his powers to level 14 at any given moment and even continue to advance.


    Abyrus was oblivious to Fycro¡¯s changes. It reached out for a scepter in the cab excitedly and held it in its hand.


    The Lord of Glory had six scepters, and they would be broken when casting his greatest divine spell. Throughout the years warring with the other gods, there had been three scepters that ended uppletely lost or beyond repair.


    The Lord of Glory had left another scepter for resurrection in another divine kingdom. That scepter was a Divine Authority Scepter. With it, Abyrus would have been able tomand all angels on the mountain.


    ¡°Come with me, Fycro. We need to kill someone.¡± Abyrus took the scepter and left.


    Fycro had gotten even more sure of the angel¡¯s idiocy. The wings behind its back flickered, and that was the sign of its powers were extremely unstable, showing that there were cracks internally. If Fycro were in its shoes, he would have looked for a ce where no one would have been able to find him and stabilized his body before doing anything else.


    Yet, Abyrus still wanted to go out to kill someone, and that was tantamount to suicide.


    But if the thing is so eager to die, he didn¡¯t see any point in stopping it.


    Fycro was not benevolent. He had no intention of going against Saleen, as he knew that he would need to be way more powerful than the Lord of Glory if he did so. He lost a considerable portion of his powers, and taking the chance to kill Abyrus and rob the angel of its powers seemed more sensible.


    Abyrus was all gung ho after acquiring that Divine Authority Scepter. Having consumed a divine persona prior, its journey to be a god was right before its eyes, and it wondered what the demon would have thought of it.


    You want to control me? Hmph, it would have been possible in the past, but now that I know of my true value, I will never bow to anyone ever again.


    From a certain perspective, Abyrus, who was created by the Lord of Glory, was a ck sheep among the god creatures. It had an unmatched talent forbat, but it had a lot to learn when it came to dealing with others. If it had not been the Lord of Glory¡¯s sick adoration for the angel, it would have long been killed off by its peers.


    When a person like that gained power, disasters would have ensued.


    However, that disaster was not something to be wreaked upon others, but upon themselves.


    Fycro was far more sensible than Abyrus, and he definitely knew what course to choose. If he were able to run, he definitely would not have stayed back to deal with all that nonsense, but he also knew that Saleen would not just let the people from the divine kingdom run away.


    The divine mountain was shrouded in camouges of many kinds. Under usual circumstances, even if there were armies of other god creatures invading the ce, they would not have been able to locate the divine mountain.


    However, things were different with Dante, as it had acquired a scent given to it by Nailisi. Dante managed to find the mountain simply by tracing that scent, which could have only originated from Abyrus.


    Dante was not technically alone. The three-headed and six-armed being had a bunch of lightning warriors following right behind it, shing with Abyrus and Fycro, who had emerged from the divine mountain, head on.


    Abyrus used the Divine Authority Scepter andmanded some of the angels, who swarmed from behind it. It never thought for a second that the demon would have been a match for it.


    The ve god and the fallen angel shed head on. Abyrus took a curious look at Dante and lifted its scepter. A thin beam of holy light hit Dante¡¯s chest.


    Abyrus was ted, but that beam of holy light was repelled for unknown reasons right afterwards. Its hand was numbed for a bit, and the scepter almost flew out of its hand. Holy light gushed from Abyrus¡¯ body, and the scepter actually flew out of its hand. However, the scepter remained hovering before it, and Abyrus took it with its left hand.


    Dante thought the counterattack was quite a pity. The reflective attack of lightning was not could not be cast instantly. It had been a trigger spell that it had to prepare for over four hours before it could have been used.


    Nailisi knew what Abyrus was like well enough and informed Dante of it, and the servant god had designed a trap specifically for Abyrus.


    It was a pity that Abyrus was powerful enough to keep its weapon, instead of losing it in one go.


    At that moment, Fycro took the opportunity to p the golden mirror in his hand on the back of Abyrus¡¯ head. He was using sheer brute force to do so, and the power within the mirror gushed out and seeped into Abyrus¡¯ mind.


    If Abyrus had been given a bit of time, that would have hardly caused any damage, as the massive power of the p would have almost been enough to allow Abyrus to advance yet again. The godly item was also something the Lord of Glory had prepared for his own future advancement, and massive amounts of power of faith was stockpiled in it a long time ago.


    Fycro knew the power of faith very well. His divine arts all came from the time training on Myers Maind and his proficiency with them had been impable. He knew that only gods of the likes of the Lord of Glory would have been able to take such raging powers.


    Regardless of how formidable Abyrus¡¯ body was, the angel had not been ready for that.


    That surge of raging power was no longer as warm as the holy light, as it felt like intense explosions instead. Abyrus wiggled about for a bit and Dante took the opportunity to sh an invisible short sword on Abyrus¡¯ fingers hard.


    That short sword was crafted using the Heretic God¡¯s bone and was incredibly sharp. Abyrus¡¯ fingers were cut off without making a sound.


    ¡°Fycro!¡± Abyrus was able to recover eventually. The power at the back of its head was absorbed, but with its fingers cut, the Divine Authority Scepter. Tens of angels lunged at it, but it ended up being taken by a high level lightning warrior nheless.


    Divine authority of the scepter had no meaning to the likes of lightning warriors.


    The core of puppet creatures were hardly affected by such means of overpowering others. Furthermore, lightning warriors were d in electrical discharge all over their bodies. The power of the scepter was actually being suppressed by an insignificant puppet.


    That lightning puppet then lunged at Dante, but was quickly absorbed into its body, making the scepter disappear as well.


    Fycro had long retreated from the barricade of the angels. He charged to the side of the lightning warriors and then pointed at Abyrus, saying, ¡°a fallen angel would have too much difficulty absorbing the power of light. So, you are actually targeting my body, am I correct?¡±


    Abyrus felt anxious and frustrated. It never harbored such thoughts, as it simply thought that Fycro would have definitely been at odds with the demon and also an enemy of the Lord of Glory, so he would have definitely helped the angel. However, there was simply no way the angel could haveprehended thoughts of a human. At the very least, Fycro still had a soul at the moment, and he still remembered that he was a human.


    From Abyrus¡¯ perspective, bing its servant god would have been an honor, and said servant god would have gained eternal life. That should have been the highest bestowal and honor to Fycro.


    From Fycro¡¯s perspective however, that would have been an insult.


    Dante had the lightning warriors cover Fycro¡¯s escape. All three huge heads of Dante smirked ferociously as itshed out at Abyrus with the weapons in its hands in a flurry.


    Abyrus brandished the Sword of Glory at that moment, struggling to resist Dante¡¯s attacks.


    If Dante were only amon god, it would not have been a match to Abyrus. However, Dante was surrounded by Dance of the Electric Snakes, and Abyrus had never seen such a frequent and eerie attack before. The angels behind intended to aid Abyrus, but they were all shut outside as they were unable to withstand the electric snakes¡¯ power.


    It was the Thunder God Territory, a skill possessed by Dante, at work. While it was not as proficient in lightning skills as Saleen, it was far better at controlling such territories than Saleen had ever been.


    Dante had only unleashed the electric snakes. Angels below level 14 had too little resistance against the electric snakes. All of the many angels were shut outside, leaving Abyrus alone to deal with Dante¡¯s flurry of attacks.


    Worse still, the flurry came from six arms, effectively surrounding the angel.


    Abyrus was in great pain. Its advantage in terms of speed, power, andbat techniques were all null before Dante. That servant god had a stronger body, and the number of arms were able to make up for its inferior speed. As for technique...


    Dante had little need for technique. It had enough power to spare, even if it was fighting in the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom. Abyrus was not prepared to fight someone like Dante.


    Dante had absolute advantage, and it only said after being sure that there was no way Abyrus could escape, ¡°Abyrus, I take it? Why are you still holding on? You do know that the demon has cast a shadow on your Source. Even if you became a god, you would lose all power of light and be turned to darkness.¡±


    Abyrus¡¯ voice croaked as it swung the Sword of Glory about, saying, wWho are you? Why did you invade my kingdom?¡±


    ¡°Your kingdom?¡± Dante snickered sarcastically and continued, ¡°this is my kingdom. I shall have all god creatures transfer their faith to me. Abyrus, I¡¯m willing to have you be my servant god. If you refuse, then I see no other option but to have you purified.¡±


    Abyrus¡¯ hand faltered. It almost wanted to surrender. However, it still felt vexed. If the Lord of Glory emerged victorious, it wondered what would have happened to it.

 Chapter 1536: Last Angel (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1536: Last Angel (Part 1)</h4>


    Fycro was at a loss for words. A level 17 godly item was indeed not something his body would have been able to take. But then again, it was not necessarily a requirement to fuse the powers with his Source if he were to absorb it. The way the Winged Skull put it made it clear that they were not giving Fycro a chance to rebel.


    If that godly item were to fuse with his Source, that would have been the highest level he would have been able to achieve in his life¡ªlevel 17.


    That meant that there was no way Fycro could ever reach the pinnacle, with the highest being only at 17.


    Saleen was at level 17 currently. So long as he managed to stabilize his level, he would be able to suppress Fycro securely using the power of lightning.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m up.¡± Fycro clenched that godly item hard. He was thinking deep down that it still would have been better than getting eaten by that demon. Furthermore, there was no telling that he would not be able to advance further if he were to fuse that godly item with his power of the Source. So long as he was able to umte enough power, it still would be possible for him to break through the godly item¡¯s bonds.


    ¡°You do know where you should stand.¡± The Winged Skull appraised him with one simple line. They pointed at Nailisi, telling him to follow her.


    Nailisi waved at Fycro and said, ¡°Abyrus is still considering. If it weren¡¯t for that angel, I think you wouldn¡¯t be standing here today. If the angel refuses, think of a way to deal with it first. If it was willing to surrender, the angel will be yours tomand from here on out.¡±


    Fycro let a bitter smirk stretch across his face. That demon really was with the Winged Skull, as they were both just as brutal with their way with things. He and Abyrus had to surrender eventually, and they even had to be at odds with each other to do so.


    Abyrus moaned and lowered its prideful head.


    ¡°Alright, now that you both are willing to surrender, I won¡¯t be doing anything untoward to you. Serve Dante well, and you¡¯ll get your chance at being something bigger.¡± Nailisi persuaded them perfunctorily, before beginning to summon her army of demons from the Purgatory of Demons.


    The army was divided into battalions consisting of 1,000 units. One battalion after another appeared on the divine mountain. Nailisicked underlings like the jade skeletons of the Winged Skull. Her most loyal servant was only Cuisi, but Cuisi was in charge of things in New Demon City, and there was no way the demon would follow her troops into battle anymore.


    Each battalion of Nailisi¡¯s demons was led by supreme demons, and they all were put under devilmanders that Nailisi had subjugated.


    There were huge numbers of supreme demons and devils in the Purgatory of Demons. As Nailisi¡¯s level climbed, all of the devils were being subjugated one after another. If it had not been for the fighting at Saleen¡¯s side being so intense, Nailisi would have returned long ago to reign supreme in the demon ne.


    The demons were all prepared and ready at the divine mountain. Nailisi and the Winged Skull began distributing weapons and equipment. Most of the equipment wasplete, with the only thingcking being powerful weapons for themanders in the battalions meant for taking on angels.


    Saleen returned outside the divine kingdom¡¯s gates. Baldur¡¯s Gate had put the divine kingdom in lockdown. He entered Baldur¡¯s Gate and began to amass armies to invade the divine kingdom.


    There wererge legions of angels near the gates, but Saleen had no need for soldiers. Without the threat from the Lord of Glory, he alone went to ughter the angels with 500,000 lightning warriors by his side.


    He became capable of casting magic spells above level 13 in massive areas. They possessed characteristics of forbidden curses, butcked their power.


    Saleen cast level 13 magic spells against the army of angels, and that worked far better than going at them head on. There were powerful angels intending to take to the sky and fight Saleen personally, but they were quickly repelled by his lightning territory. Countless electric snakes shot out under the workings of the Lightning Moon, killing the angels one by one.


    In the eyes of the angels, Saleen was like an abomination from hell.


    However, the humans and demons in Saleen¡¯s camps cheered, very confident of securing victory. In their eyes, Saleen¡¯s Thundering Phantasm constructs, which were over ten meters tall, looked far more majestic than gods. That was their banner of victory, as well as the hope of the armies.


    A level 17 mage made an announcement to all the troops in the armies. All of the people knew that the power of their master had reached the pinnacle of the world, and none of them had any fear anymore.


    Baldur¡¯s Gate locked the exit of the divine kingdom down. The angels and god creatures had nowhere to run.


    Saleen sealed the gates shut, intending to render the divine kingdom extinct. At the temple of the Goddess of Nature in the center of Purgatory Dessert, the goddess frowned as she looked at the sealed gates of the divine kingdom on the ne map.


    There were 12 men and women who dressed differently behind her.


    ¡°Mydy, that thing has locked the divine kingdom down. He¡¯s trying to take it for his own!¡±


    A stout man who had a huge behind and was baring a chest full of ck hair said to the goddess in a very displeased manner.


    All 12 of them had gotten rid of their bloodline of god creatures and were restored to their human bodies. That was the reason why the goddess had to go through so much trouble to resurrect those people.


    The goddess chuckled and said, ¡°It¡¯s not that he wants to take the divine kingdom for his own. He was the one who invaded and won that ce over after all. I¡¯m the one who intends to take it for my own instead.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, he wouldn¡¯t be where he is without you, mydy,¡± another female mage added coldly.


    ¡°That¡¯s not how it works. Our intention has always been taking over a divine kingdom. Tell me though, what do you think about our chances?¡±


    ¡°100 percent, of course!¡± A red-haired young man added. He wielded a long whip, which was wiggling on the ground on its own.


    ¡°We know little of the secrets of Baldur¡¯s Gate,¡± the goddess responded concernedly.


    ¡°Anyone who dares to side with that mage, we¡¯ll kill everyst one of them,¡± A pale, tall man then answered.


    ¡°Kill everyst one of them? There are a good number in my Nature Faith who are his supporters. Don¡¯t underestimate this puny mage. He has pinnaclebat capacity at level 16 after all, and that would make him someone even back in our time.¡±


    The goddess was able to assess urately. While Saleen had indeed blitzed through the levels, hisbat capacity looked to be at the pinnacle of level 16, and many level 16 professionals would not be his match.


    ¡°How is that possible?¡± A professional who looked like a child looked at the goddess with a shocked expression. The people all held unparalleled reverence to the goddess, and they found it unbelievable that there were believers of the goddess who had more faith in the mage.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you think it¡¯s a good thing? Believing in a mage is more meaningful than believing in a god,¡± the goddess smiled and added.


    The followers were all rendered speechless. The eldest mage among them asked, ¡°what should we do now then, mydy?¡±


    ¡°When my Nature Legion resurrects, I¡¯ll negotiate with him. We¡¯ll need a ce of our own, after all, and I don¡¯t want to stay on Myers Maind any longer,¡± the goddess answered.


    They were all silent. It was obvious that the goddess saw Saleen to be an adversary worthy of respect.


    Few knew about the Nature Legion, the Goddess of Myers¡¯ personal army, even in those years. The Nature Legion was more powerful than the angel armies of any god. The units of the lowest levels in the Nature Legion were at level 13, which made them equal to pseudogods.


    ¡°Alright, get yourselves prepared, everyone. My Nature Legion will be able to all resurrect in about 100 years or so. More nes will appear by then that can directly connect with the maind. Sigh, seems like getting resurrected is boring, with us still having to fight wars with no end.¡± The goddess sighed and waved her hand. The 12 powerful followers excused themselves from the temple, leaving the goddess and her divine beast behind.


    The war on Myers Maind continued even though the gates of the divine kingdom were sealed. Saleen¡¯s followers led grand armies and took over all the passages leading to other nes, and they proceeded to conquer all those nes.


    That was the advantage of being the main ne. The rise of powers in subcontinent nes was extremely slow. They would not even advance without being connected to the main ne.


    As such, when the nes became connected, the pinnacle professionals would basically be level nine, which was the lowest requirement for a ne.


    The advantage afforded by Saleen¡¯s wealth was finally seen. His personal armies were all armed with the best equipment, even those ahead of their time. With the several alchemy factories of his toiling day and night, even the armies not under his personalmand had been able to gain absolute edge in battle. The nobles who refused to submit were slowly ground down and assimted, effectively rendering the ns extinct.


    The nobles who sided with Saleen the earliest were the ones to gain the most.


    100 years was hardly considered short. Myers Maind was constantly at war. To manymon folks, the 100 years were insufferably long, and that period of time was the darkest and most painful of times in their history.


    The Nature Faith struggled to maintain itself, as the goddess never gave another decree ever again, resulting in the faith being splintered into two factions¡ªone electing to only believe in the goddess, while the other believed in Saleen.


    Saleen was never seen again, but his children and wives were fighting wars everywhere, gaining renown wherever they went.


    Some minor gods also appeared, and the Nature Faith would, of course, pounce on them, annihting the minor religions. If gates of divine kingdoms opened, the Kingdom of Metatrin would be the first to respond by deploying troops to the gates.


    The Fifth Dynasty gradually stabilized, but the wars did not stop. It was as if the Lord of Glory¡¯s curse had been realized. Many would have definitely thought the century to be the darkest era of Myers Maind.


    Saleen was helpless to change any of it. He had been spending his time on the Floating City during the century.


    The Floating City flew everywhere in the divine kingdom, attacking any resistance forces found. Saleen¡¯s level was stabilized at level 17 due to his constant training. With the use of divine personas in the Hall of Gods, he also gained corresponding time.


    The Lord of Glory left too many divine personas behind, with every single double harboring a level 15 divine persona in them. The divine persona of his own was even more shocking, as it was an amalgamation of over 100 level 15 divine personas.


    The Lightning Moon hovered quietly above the Floating City. All of the enchanters managed to advance with Dante¡¯s help. Having fought 100 years, Dante had ended up razing almost all of the resistance forces in the divine kingdom, gaining believers in billions along the way.


    Among those believers, there were those who chose the faith of power, and then they were those who chose the faith of magic. There were some that chose to believe in lightning.


    Regardless of the type of faith they took up, all provided massive amounts of power of faith to Dante. The weapon spirit god managed to advance to level 16 in 100 years, a speed which was considered phenomenal, as even the Lord of Glory failed to advance even after working on it for billions of years.


    Saleen looked below him, feeling rather lonely. It was thest hidden city of angels below the Floating City. It was thest bastion of faith in the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom.


    He had no need to do anything, as he simply needed to wait and see if anything unexpected was happening.


    The one to lead the charge was Abyrus, who had once been an angel, and at present, a servant god.

 Chapter 1537: Last Angel (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1537: Last Angel (Part 2)</h4>


    Abyrus¡¯ Sword of Glory had taken a weird blue color. It was filled with holy prose, but they were scripts created by Dante.


    Every god crafted their own holy prose ording to their own power of rules, giving birth to unique scripts. The words were capable of being understood among the gods, but none would have been able to use them.


    Thousands of angels gathered in the huge city of angels and conjured a huge divine rune charm array.


    Abyrus looked below it coldly and shouted, ¡°Submit or die. You have three minutes.¡±


    The angels knew of Abyrus¡¯ notoriety. The seraph who had betrayed their god was the most cruel, and also the most hardworking, in the wars fought in the divine kingdom.


    They thought that it was probably how traitors concealed the fear in their hearts.


    ¡°You traitor!¡± The angels below yelled angrily from below, and Abyrusughed.


    ¡°So this is your choice, weaklings.¡± Abyrus held the Sword of Glory high in its hand and brought it down hard on them.


    Saleen was in no mood to watch any longer. The angels would definitely end up dead. While there were still tens of millions of them, they were thest resistance force standing in that divine kingdom.


    ¡°Dante, you stay behind. Nailisi, Bing, head back with me,¡± Saleen said and left the Floating City behind, flying towards the gates of the divine kingdom with his two bonded creatures, using Comet sh.


    There were no more god creatures to be found near the gates of the divine kingdom. Many demons and humans migrated there. Thends of the former divine kingdom of the Lord of Glory were fertile and the ce was devoid of any natural disasters. It had nice weather and was suitable for sustaining most creatures.


    There was hardly anyone left in Baldur¡¯s Gate. The ones who remained behind were all enchanters. Saleen had an ample number of enchanters, who, under Dante¡¯s control, allowed their powers to be amplified to varying degrees, making them more than capable of protecting Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    The demons gave birth to many descendants throughout the hundred years of war. The demons¡¯ reproduction rates were such that even Saleen found it to be exasperating. If it had not been for all that ughter carried out in the demon ne, the demons would have probably copsed their own ne with overpoption.


    It was fortunate that the divine kingdom was huge enough, with the totalnd mass eclipsing the demon ne. Saleen had also killed astonishing amounts of angels, god creatures and magic beasts. There were simply too manynds left unattended in the divine kingdom.


    The demons built their own nations as they entered, with which they warred against each other. However, the demons were of only one faith, and that was Dante. That weapon spirit god had earned itself a title¡ªGod of Demons.


    The only way the demons could keep their numbers in check was through warring against each other. There was no other way.


    As Dante¡¯s master, Saleen had unparalleled authority over the demons. He already made preparations mentally. If he were to lose the fight with the Goddess of Myers, he would let Dante retreat to the demon ne.


    If Dante were allowed to grow its forces in the demon ne, it would have only been a matter of time before he was able to take its revenge.


    Demons, as a race, were utterly terrifying. They had a formidablebat capacity, and possessed ridiculous abilities at procreation. So long as a ce was capable of sustaining life, demons would have been able to live there.


    Saleen did not gather the enchanters, and went on to check the six godly items in silence instead.


    All six godly items were able to be used to their fullest in Saleen¡¯s hands. That was also the reason why the goddess did note to look for trouble with Saleen immediately.


    The Book of Gaia, the Well of Stars, the Dimensional Staff, the Scorching Candle, the Deathly Night, and the Tears of Light. Any of the six godly items would have been able to amplify the power of a mage by ten times over.


    Saleen had always been reluctant to merge Baldur¡¯s Gate with his magic amplifier, just so that the six godly items could keep the gates of the divine kingdom in check. With the fighting in the divine kingdom truly over, there was no longer need to keep the gates defended.


    If the goddess was going to show, then he would just need to be ready for it.


    Saleen began to work on Baldur¡¯s Gate, which had a stack of space more formidable than that of his magic amplifier. However, it was inferior to the magic amplifier in terms of materials. Demon mages of the Second Dynasty possessed powerful magical abilities, but they did not necessarily possess formidable luck like Saleen, which prevented them from acquiring all kinds of mystical materials and eventually making equipment never seen before.


    While Baldur¡¯s Gate was a fantastical weapon, itcked major luck to back it.


    Baldur¡¯s Gate had 36 stacked spaces, which, when merged into the magic amplifier, would allow him to bring countless warriors with him, even if he were to not be a god. That end result would make his magic amplifier simr to a divine kingdom.


    The six godly items were shot out of the Baldur¡¯s Gate¡¯s spaces. Saleen took them in his hand one after another, infusing them with his own power of soul, wiping out their original control methods through the use of lightning rules.


    Juno the weapon spirit was in tears, as it lost all the backing that it had been relying on for so long.


    Saleen persuaded the weapon spirit, saying, ¡°Juno, at least your home will be sturdier from here on out, and it will never be broken by anyone ever again.¡±


    Juno nodded. Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier was simply too brutal. The materials used were so good that even an ancient weapon spirit like it felt envious. Furthermore, the magic amplifier no longer had a weapon spirit. With Baldur¡¯s Gate merged, Juno no longer had to worry about being bullied by anyone else.


    However, it decided its master, Saleen, was just being too overbearing, as he just went on to merge Baldur¡¯s Gate with something else right away.


    That thing is mine, mine!


    Juno yelled deep down, but it wore a smile nheless, looking incredibly happy.


    ¡°Alright, Juno, if you are still displeased...¡± Saleen knew what Juno was thinking. Once Baldur¡¯s Gate was merged with his magic amplifier, Juno would be submitted to total control by Saleen, despite still being the weapon spirit. Unless Saleen ended up dead, there was no way it could be its own person ever again.


    Such weapon spirits behaved like natural living beings after reaching a certain level, and they were unwilling to be bound.


    ¡°No way, master. I love it,¡± Juno replied, putting up an even happier face.


    ¡°Alright then, help me out,¡± Saleen said and put Baldur¡¯s Gate away. The equipment looked about the size of the magic amplifier after it was thoroughly worked on. All 27 eyes on the magic amplifier opened at the same time, firing beams of lightning that shone all over Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    Juno acknowledged and went to suppress all resisting power from Baldur¡¯s Gate.


    The shrunken Baldur¡¯s Gate gradually merged with the magic amplifier on the inside after it was tempered with lightning. Saleen knew that the goddess would definitely be on guard against him at the moment, but that was just being on guard against him and little else. He was still connected to the outside world throughout the century, and he learned that the goddess¡¯ power had already reached the entire maind.


    Saleen knew about the schism within the Nature Faith, but he did not tell Baudire to do anything to control it. It would not have done him any good if the schism were to escte to full scale infighting. He was fighting wars in the divine kingdom, which meant that he would not be able to spare any time and energy to take on the believers in the faith who sided with the goddess.


    If the goddess feared his powers in the mundane world, she would definitely have cleaned up the faith first, and Baudire¡¯s powers would not have been able to take on the goddess.


    So Myers was probably only concerned about Baldur¡¯s Gate then?


    He recalled having gone further to master the Book of Lightning and smirked deep down. Even if he were still unable to fight the goddess, he would not end up having his skills reflected back like it had been in the past, which almost ended up killing him.


    With all six godly items having lost their methods of control, Saleen was able to work on them without problems. The first that Saleen worked on was the Well of Stars, which was a water elemental godly item.


    Countless stars spread out and shot to the skies. Boundless power of water element was being absorbed in the stars. It seemed as if a well was being opened in the stars. Countless water elemental magic patterns formed naturally on the wall of the well. Saleen would see negligible drain while casting water element in that area.


    That was where the Well of Stars¡¯ truly terrifying thing was. All the other godly items would have had to drain magic chords before they could have been used, while the Well of Stars negated such a rule, and created an environment simr to a magic instead.


    Saleen realized that ancient people had already gotten very proficient in crafting magics. However, while such means were very helpful in makingbat easier, it would easily cause mages to be dependent on them, preventing them from making further progress.


    Saleen took a deep breath and cast the only level 18 magic spell he knew¡ªTorrent.


    The Torrent spell had an ancient feel to it, as if it contained countless histories. Untold numbers of dynasties rose and fell within the torrent. High waves charged far away. The hill that had always been a backing to Baldur¡¯s Gate was destroyed altogether. All the elements that formed the peak were washed away by the spell, and all of them were converted into water element. The spell was only half way done, when Saleen shouted, ¡°Dispel!¡±


    The spell, which was half a peak tall, disappeared in an instant. He forcefully cancelled the level 18 magic spell, which would have only been possible when he was doing so in the Well of Stars. Regardless of how powerful his power of the soul would have been, there was no doubt he could have paid the price of interrupting a spell like that.


    A level 18 spell would have easily been able to destroy nations. He had destroyed a hill just so to take the power within the hill, converting all matter into a torrent of elements. The power of that spell was undeniable, but Saleen knew that it would have been utterly impossible to take on the goddess using Torrent.


    The goddess was far better at manipting the power of elements than he was. If he wanted to pose a threat to the goddess, he would need to use all six of the godly items and add lightning magic into the mix before he would stand a chance of defeating that level 18 being.


    While it might not have been possible at the moment, he deemed that it was only a matter of time before he became able to do so.


    Mages were not allowed to be afraid of adversities. That was what his teacher taught him. Saleen never backed down from difficulties ever since he came to understand that teaching.


    The Well of Stars gradually spread out and then absorbed into Saleen¡¯s body. That was Jason¡¯s unique way of working on godly items and subjugating them, and it was something that Saleen had only managed to pick up after getting to level 17. That spoke volumes of Jason¡¯s talents, which were far higher than that of Saleen.


    He went on to work on the Book of Gaia next. That was the first godly item belonging to Baldur¡¯s Gate that he came into contact with, and he had long mastered the secrets within. The Book of Gaia flew before Saleen and was turned into a thick yellow aura, before he swallowed it in one gulp. Absorbing the book had actually been easier than working on the Well of Stars, as he needed to first cast powerful magic with it, thus enabling him to negate the magical recoil of the Well of Stars, before giving him the window to fuse it with his body.


    When the Book of Gaia entered Saleen¡¯s body, countless magic patterns of earth element and runes filled the depths of Saleen¡¯s soul and danced within. Saleen shocked them by using Thundering Sound to quiet down the runes and magic patterns, which then sank into his soul without making a sound, bing as quiet as the earth itself.

 Chapter 1538: Last Collaboration (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1538: Last Coboration (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The third godly item¡ªthe Scorching Candle.


    That godly item had an appearance per its namesake. It looked like a dark golden chamberstick with a candle on it. However, the candle was of extremely high temperatures. Even if there was the godly item itself giving a measure of energy control, it was still a scorching hot piece to pick up.


    The Scorching Candle had two parts. The candle-like construct was actually a materialization of fire element energy, which could be separated to conjure any fire elemental magic.


    It was a piece of godly item that was even more powerful than the Well of Stars. However, Saleen was not versed in fire magic. He was very proficient in water magic. As such, that piece became the third piece he worked on.


    That dark golden chamberstick was fused into the center of his magic amplifier, which was behind him. It tangled with the Thunder Dragon ster and was gradually separated to prevent the piece from being assimted.


    Saleen had no intention of testing out the power of that fire elemental godly item. Unlike the Well of Stars, which had protective abilities, if he cast level 18 fire elemental magic spells with the godly item and lost control, he would have wiped out all the camps around him.


    While level 18 fire elemental magic was far from being able to bring the sky down and scorch the earth, it was still very capable of burning areas hundreds of kilometers in radius.


    Once he seeded in working on that fire elemental godly item, Saleen immediately felt that his magic chords were far more stabilized. He was unable to do anything about his body of water element, as the higher one¡¯s level was, the more difficult it would be to achieve elemental bnce. That was also the greatest difference between him and the goddess, magically speaking. He had to be very careful with maniption of magic, but the goddess¡¯ power of rules allowed her to ignore such risks, enabling her to cast magic to her fancy.


    If Saleen did not make all six of the godly items his, fighting the goddess magically would be little more than a pipe dream.


    After the Scorching Candle was worked on, the fourth godly item, the Dimensional Staff seemed to have sensed danger looming ahead. Despite having lost its weapon spirit, it still took flight, charging at Saleen as a wind dragon.


    The godly item was unable to fool Saleen¡¯s Eye of Souls. He even opened his third eye and saw countless spatial fissures forming all over the wind dragon¡¯s body. If the wind dragon hit him, he would have ended up being cut into pieces, even if he was a god.


    The spatial fissures were not worth mentioning. So long as one had defensive measures, one would be able to tough it out. However, countless Dimensional des stirred in the fissures. That would make it something capable of killing gods. Gods had mostly acquired mastery of space rules, so they would have only ended severely injured after being torn apart by the spatial fissures, and they would still be able to recover.


    If the Dimensional des were to cut up a body, the spaces harboring them would have been extinguished immediately, causing the cut up body to be lost forever. There was even a possibility of all of the spaces being destroyed. If that were to happen, even a person like Saleen, who had a Figure of Fate, would have ended up dead.


    However, the Dimensional Staff, which had lost its weapon spirit, had very apparent shorings. He fired several lightning icicles at it, which easily shot down the godly item. The item was then grabbed by a huge hand conjured using magic, and many suppression lightning runes were written on it.


    The Dimensional Staff was the most autonomous piece of godly item that Saleen had ever seen. The material was special as well, preventing Saleen from absorbing it into his body and forcing him to take hold of it. It was fortunate that he had given away most of his magic staves, and hecked such powerful equipment at the moment.


    The staff continued to rattle in Saleen¡¯s hand, refusing to submit. Saleen had no choice but to extend his power of the soul into it and shout, ¡°when I reach the pinnacle of level 18, I will take you to another crystal wall system and give you a shot at bing a living being!¡±


    It was only then that the staff stopped struggling and rested quietly in Saleen¡¯s hand, allowing Saleen¡¯s power of the soul to write magic scripts in it.


    After he was done subjugating the Dimensional Staff, he worked on the Deathly Night, which had been silent all the while. The Deathly Night was a carpet-like equipment. Saleen wiggled it in his hand and sensed faint sighs from the godly item. The Deathly Night then became a magic robe, which he put on.


    Dark element had always been the most powerful of elemental powers. However, humans were not dark elemental creatures and their bodies repelled dark elemental powers. As such, the dark element was the least studied and least used element out of the six major elements.


    The Deathly Night was sentient as well, but it was unable to sense how Saleen was able to be of help. However, it had no choice, as there was no way it could bring all of its powers to bear, regardless of the ones using it.


    Saleen thought for a bit and said, ¡°You will be my only magic robe from here on out.¡±


    It was only then that the Deathly Night stoppedmenting. The 10,000 naturally forming magic patterns looked a lot more pleasing to the eye. Saleen realized that his defensive powers were truly guaranteed from then on out, and he would have never been thrown into any risks due to breakage of magic shields. It was a reassuring thought.


    The Deathly Night was capable of conjuring boundless distance. Anyone out to attack him would need to first get through the Deathly Night before the attacks could get to him.


    Thest godly item was the Tears of Light. Saleen had made it thest piece because it was the piece that he was most certain of being able to take. He stuffed 24 pieces of broken divine personas into the piece of crystal that was about the size of a fist.


    The Tears of Light cheered and a huge energy whirlpool emerged from within, absorbing every bit of the Lord of Glory¡¯s broken divine persona¡¯s powers into it.


    The Lord of Glory¡¯s divine persona fragments hadplete rules in every single piece, which was equal to the peak state of a level 15 god each. If he had not run into Saleen, he would have been near invincible even when fighting level 16 gods.


    Saleen then wrote his magic runes on the Tears of Light as well, subjugating it. The greatest use the Tears of Light would serve was to restore the power of mages, be it magic chords or power of the soul.


    With the Tears of Light in his possession, Saleen gained practically limitless power forbat from there on out. If a mage were no longer limited by their magic chords and power of the soul, theirbat prowess would be endless. At Saleen¡¯s level, a battle could go on for months, and it would not bother him. The constitutional strength of his body had be a lot different from true mights.


    That was where mages surpassed the enchanters. Even if an enchanter were capable of casting level 18 magic spells, their bodies would have copsed under the stress. Theoretically speaking, if an enchanter cast level 18 magic, it would be tantamount to suicide.


    After he was done taking in all six of the godly items, Saleen spent several days more to get familiar with the power of the six godly items. He had once followed his teacher¡¯s teaching and no longer relied on the power of equipment to dobat. However, he could no longer afford to do so at present. It was the goddess he had to fight, after all. The six godly items aside, even if he were topletely master the Si of Silence and the Lightning Moon, he still would not have had any surety of being able to kill the goddess.


    Juno¡¯s current psychological condition was stable. Saleen moved it inside the magic amplifier. It did not feel much initially, but when it began to merge with the magic amplifier, Juno fell in love with the ce immediately.


    Life was brimming within the magic amplifier, which made it practically a nation in itself.


    ¡°Master.¡± Juno willingly addressed Saleen with such a title. From then on out, unless Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier were to end up destroyed, there would no longer be any risk of it dying. Furthermore, the sturdiness of the magic amplifier was so strong that even a very knowledgeable being like Juno was rendered speechless.


    A demon mage of the Second Dynasty working on the equipment could have easily created over 100 godly items out of Saleen¡¯s magic amplifier. Saleen, on the other hand, merged all kinds of materials into making a single piece of equipment, just so that it could have unparalleled sturdiness.


    Such a wasteful way of doing things was extremely rare even in ancient times.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Saleen was feeling very pleased. Juno was still aparatively normal weapon spirit, so much so that it had the most normal of personalities even whenpared with many of his followers.


    ¡°Master, why do you not have creatures live within the magic amplifier? While the space in here is small, you could have easily established a nation in here.¡±


    ¡°Ick the power of rules, which is preventing me from being able to maintain integrities of souls within. The divine kingdom had natural rules capable of preventing souls from being destroyed. If living beings were to migrate into the magic amplifier...¡±


    Saleen recalled Sika¡¯s metal totem pole and became increasingly sure just how terrifying Raphael had been as a mage. He was only severely injured by the Holy See due to his reduced powers, just like the goddess had been when she was just resurrected. The power of rules in the metal totem pole was already capable of ensuring that souls of beings remained whole within.


    Having souls remain whole did not equal allowing a living creature to maintain their self-awareness, rather it was ensuring that the power of the soul would remain unassimted by the world after the being¡¯s death, enabling it to remain as a power of souls. Only then could life continue to flourish and new beings could be born, making it a truly living world.


    That was the rules of genesis. Only with such power of souls could the power of the Source be made whole, instead of having a ce turn into a dead world.


    He was formidable enough in terms of hisbat prowess. It was quite a pity that his powers hardly allowed him to protect or nurture things.


    ¡°You may consider taking a perfect divine persona and absorbing it, thus acquiring the power of rules within, master.¡±


    Saleen smiled and said, ¡°You¡¯re talking about Myers, right?¡±


    Juno replied in a rather embarrassed manner, ¡°Well, that thing wille for you sooner orter, after all.¡±


    ¡°I want to, but I¡¯m afraid I¡¯d just be more of the same if I were to do so. It¡¯s still less risky to do it ording to what my teacher taught me. I¡¯ll take my time to train and travel to more nes to see more of what is out there. It¡¯ll only be a matter of time before I develop the necessary rules.¡±


    Juno sighed. The weapon spirit knew that it was incapable of swaying Saleen¡¯s thoughts. If Saleen were to gain abilities to maintain the Source of a world, then it would make Juno the king, a supreme being, within the magic amplifier.


    ¡°No worries, Juno. The magic amplifier serves as a fundamental part of my being. You will be the most powerful weapon spirit in all of the nes in time.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, master.¡± Juno was very happy. It then added, ¡°give me a day and I¡¯ll see how many ancient magic spells I¡¯ll be able to recall, master.¡±


    ¡°You know ancient magic too?¡± Saleen asked.


    ¡°Of course, my powers allow me to manipte the six godly items. I wouldn¡¯t be able to do so without understanding how elemental magic works,¡± Juno said, feeling rather pleased with itself.


    ¡°Very well then, I need to gather my people up anyway. You have one day. Get to it.¡±


    Saleen took Juno and returned to the line of defense behind Lion City. They had taken over Lion City at present. With the war in the divine kingdom stretching over 100 years, the ce had be a huge market as well.


    In the beginning, the divine kingdom took the offensive, but as Saleen took charge, the angels werepletely overwhelmed soon enough. Human professionals woulde in often to kill angels to earn rewards.


    That ce was known to be a city of angels, but it was nothing but hell for the angels themselves.

 Chapter 1539: Last Collaboration (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1539: Last Coboration (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    In the city of angels, the core building was a huge metal tower, which served as prison. It had over 100 floors, and only mages were capable of building such a terrifying metal structure.


    Every floor was over 24 meters tall. The vicinity of the metal tower was hardly any different from that of a castle.


    The monstrous structure was overseen by mages. Unless the Goddess of Myers were to attack the ce personally, nothing on the ne would be able to take it down.


    Saleen went into the metal tower. None of his followers were present at the moment. J and the others had gone to oversee things in other nes. Saleen believed that the goddess would not opt to take those nes; she woulde for him directly instead.


    That was because while he was not as powerful as the goddess, he had ways of destroying her religion, and he could target her followers to vent his anger as well. People of such fearsome powers would not do pointless things.


    The enchanters within the metal tower revered Saleen as if he was their god. The magic¡¯s design made it so that it might not have been a good thing for humans, but to the imps and demonic spirits, the magic became their quickest way of enhancing their powers. The creatures of demonic blood were utterly incapable of fighting the likes of supreme demons in the demon ne. They were always on the run, and they were prey from birth.


    The magic drained one¡¯s life and one¡¯s future, but they were not creatures that cared about living to begin with. They simply sought power and wanted to live as they fancied.


    Abyrus returned as well. While it was unwilling to be Saleen¡¯s follower, it was still tied to Saleen¡¯s chariot. It heard about Saleen¡¯s conflict with the Goddess of Myers from Dante. The goddess was definitely after the Lord of Glory¡¯s divine kingdom. As for why he had yet to act, Dante had no idea.


    Even if Abyrus were mentally impaired, it would know a lot of a god¡¯s needs. Even a servant god like Abyrus was reluctant to let go of all the benefits provided by the divine kingdom, and the ce that had once belonged to the Lord of Glory was one that made powerful level 16 gods envious.


    If Abyrus were in her shoes, it would have dered war on Saleen without hesitation.


    Saleen then said to Abyrus, ¡°The war in the divine war is nearing an end. You¡¯re now of no use to me.¡±


    Abyrus had initially wanted to negotiate terms with Saleen, intending to shake off Dante. However, it knelt on the ground immediately after hearing Saleen say that, expressing its eternal loyalty to Saleen, and that it would follow Dante¡¯s orders as well.


    There was no way Saleen trusted such a fickle being. Abyrus had better talents than Rafel, but that servant god who had once been an angel was quite difficult to control.


    It was not to say that Abyrus had great ambitions, but that it had no idea what it actually wanted.


    Anything that would earn the envy of others would bepelling enough for Abyrus.


    Saleen was able to do nothing about it, so he only had to add anotheryer of insurance to it. He handed an Eternal Control Shard crafted using divine personas to Abyrus, telling the grey-winged god to add another shackle to itself.


    Saleen summoned Nailisi and the Winged Skull after he was done with Abyrus. The two bonded creatures had almost reached the pinnacle of their own powers. Both of them were at the pinnacle of level 16, but they took different paths in evolution. Nailisi needed to continue collecting other abilities, while the Winged Skull was able to be the strongest spirit in history, simply by relying on the formidable power provided by the spirit ne.


    The inherent disadvantage of spiritsy with their Soul mes.


    The most powerful of spirits was at level 17. The Winged Skull¡¯s Soul mes had taken solid form, making it no more inferior than aplete human¡¯s soul. As such, the Winged Skull was capable of getting to level 18.


    Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City was transformed into a city ofmerce and little else. The Kingdom of Metatrin monopolized the magic nuclei trade from the Oceanic Ice Block. While there were limits to how many magic beasts could be found onnd, there were no such limits at sea.


    The Elemental Hand of Alchemy City was finally rebuilt under Saleen¡¯s support.


    The two organizations of mages were at odds with each other, but it was the same man pulling the strings behind.


    Low level mages were oblivious to that fact. Having such organizations gave them an alternative, letting them decide the way of life they preferred, which in turn, decided where they would take up residence.


    Be it Metatrin City or Alchemy City, none would take in any mages who were of average caliber or talents.


    Such mages had two choices left for them¡ªventure to the Principality of Bitterwater and be a life mage or be an enchanter in Daliang City.


    Generally speaking, most mages faced difficulties advancing due to shorings with their magic chords, which was inherent. They could only continue to walk the path of a mage like Saleen if they had practically endless resources to waste.


    The goddess had not been doing anything for the past 100 years. Saleen believed that she was getting ready to leave the main ne.


    He wondered if that would be worth giving up the divine kingdom in return.


    But he quickly dismissed the thought. The goddess¡¯ departure did not mean that Myers Maind would be safe. If she were to take the temple in the Purgatory Dessert away, Myers Maind¡¯s power of the Source would end up almost entirely depleted.


    If the goddess were to forsake that temple, her own life would end up being shortened tens of millions of times, making it so that the level 18 god might not have been able to outlive Saleen.


    The best news to him at the moment was that Lex¡¯s Fifth Dynasty had finally stabilized. The hundred years of wars were not only fought within the divine kingdom. The fires of war never ceased on Myers Maind either.


    However, Lex did not deploy troops en masse against forces that refused to yield. She did it by gathering powerful professionals to deal with the problems instead.


    As the Fifth Dynasty stabilized, Lex achieved sessive breakthroughs with her secret art, making her a level 17 professional. Saleen would definitely have a better chance of taking on the Goddess of Myers with Lex¡¯s help.


    Even though it was widely known that level differences at such heights were especially apparent, Saleen never had any worries. That was because he, Lex, and his teacher had all relied on the power of secret arts.


    The Fifth Dynasty currently ruled over the entire maind. The power that Lex was capable of absorbing had reached the pinnacle, making it pointless for her to continue sitting on the throne. If she were to get to level 18, she would have needed to developprehension of rules of higher levels before such breakthroughs could have been made.


    Saleen¡¯s initial n was to have Lex sit on the throne until she reached level 18, but his time at the edge of the crystal wall system made him realize that, in order to advance further, he would have had to do something with the chaotic void.


    If he, Lex, Sika, Nailisi, and the others were to all head to the chaotic void, it was certain that they would have the chance to advance to level 18. However, the time required to do so would have been so long that by the time they returned, the goddess would have most probably regained rule of the maind again. The Fifth Dynasty, by then, would have copsed, just like the dynasties before it.


    Just as he was wondering if he should pay a visit to Sika at Metatrin City or visit Lex in Holy Rock City, news came from Lex in Holy Rock City. The goddess¡¯ emissary had reached Holy Rock City, and was requesting to see Saleen.


    The goddess no doubt knew where Saleen actually was, but she had no intentions of dering war on him right away, so she opted for a more gentle approach instead.


    Myers Maind was her home as well, and furthermore, the maind was, at present, named after her. Unless her options werepletely exhausted, she absolutely would not want to destroy the maind.


    If she were to go to war with Saleen right away without any care for consequences, Saleen could have destroyed Myers Maind without a second thought.


    Both Saleen and the goddess had difficult choices to make. The goddess¡¯ current level of power would have naturally allowed her to leave the maind with her followers and the Nature Legion to head for other nes.


    There was more than one main ne in their crystal wall system. However, there was no way she would leave without her temple, and that was the condition that she was about to negotiate with Saleen.


    Saleen thought about it for a bit and chose not to summon his followers, who were spread throughout the many subcontinent nes. He took Abyrus and the army that he fought the divine kingdom with, and headed towards Holy Rock City.


    Holy Rock City was currently busy seeing to matters pertaining to Lex¡¯s abdication. Saleen was rather surprised to find the sessor to be one who seemed to go against convention¡ªSafilos.


    Safilos was Lex¡¯s uncle, and having one¡¯s uncle seed the throne was something that had never been seen in any dynasty before.


    There were few who objected to it, as there were few suitable candidates to begin with. Lex hardly had interfered with political affairs personally in the past century. Safilos had been doing most of the political ground work. While he never bothered to surround himself with his own people, his status in the hearts of the subjects had long been second only to Lex.


    Getting a sessor who was more suited to the throne than Safilos was a matter that not even those who objected were able to provide a solution to.


    The Golden ins kept to themselves, seemingly waiting for the opportunity to strike.


    No mages from Golden ins stepped out to stop the turn of events, even in such tumultuous times.


    Under such circumstances, Saleen¡¯s return bore significant meaning to the Fifth Dynasty. That was because Saleen¡¯s words could sway Lex, as well as swaying most others.


    There were many kingdoms under the rule of the Fifth Dynasty, but the only kingdom there was in all of Myers Maind was the Kingdom of Metatrin. All other kingdoms under the Fifth Dynasty¡¯s rule were in subcontinent nes.


    It was stated clearly in thews of the Fifth Dynasty that the Kingdom of Metatrin would never wage war with the Fifth Dynasty ever.


    It was due precisely to such powers that everyone looked forward to Saleen¡¯s return. He did not travel through teleportation portals nor did he use any spatial equipment. He flew all the way with his army instead.


    Holy Rock remained grand and majestic, but Saleen no longer found it to be impregnable. He had advanced to level 17 and felt that he was no longer human. While a city of such scale was still majestic, it was no longer something that could stand against ravages from level 16 beings.


    The goddess¡¯ emissary had been waiting in the royal pce. The emissary was not in a hurry. The goddess¡¯ Nature Legion had beenpletely restored. It would not have mattered if Saleen were to be at level 18 by then. He would need to fight the goddess personally in the end.


    The goddess never had any concerns with sheer numbers. The Nature Legion was practically inexhaustible. So long as the goddess remained, all dead warriors would be resurrected by the next sunrise.


    Saleen met up with Lex first and spent the night in the royal pce, before summoning the goddess¡¯ emissary.


    The meeting ce was arranged to be held in the only magic tower in the royal pce, which was also Lex¡¯ residence.


    Saleen looked at the emissary and said right away, ¡°I take it that this will be thest time I coborate with the goddess then?¡±

 Chapter 1540: Splintering of the Faith (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1540: Splintering of the Faith (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The goddess¡¯s emissary was a woman who wore a floral dress. The woman behaved in a haughty manner and was very cold towards Saleen. She only nodded at what Saleen said.


    Saleen paid no heed to the woman¡¯s attitude and simply said, ¡°I¡¯m about to quell things in the seas, and she is to help me. She needs me to deal with the heroic spirits, and I¡¯ll need help her out. As for the matter of the divine kingdom, we¡¯ll settle our differences through our own powers instead of going to war. I presume that is her intention?¡±


    The woman was rather startled at what Saleen just said, and her thoughts about him immediately improved. She then said, ¡°That is her intention indeed. The goddess knows what dangers lie in the seas. With her aiding you, you¡¯ll be able to have your fleets controlled over a 30,000 kilometer radius. The ones in the Cemetery of Heroes are difficult to kill, so she¡¯ll need your lightning powers to aid her. As for the divine kingdom, it belongs to no one at this point. While you were the one who conquered it, you wouldn¡¯t have been able to kill the Lord of Glory so easily without the goddess¡¯ help. As such, the goddess shall have a showdown with you, and you¡¯re to decide how this is going to go down.¡±


    ¡°Very well. We¡¯ll meet in three months in Lianyun City. I need to conquer the nations in the East Sea first.¡±


    ¡°Fine. I shall wait for you in Holy Rock City.¡± The emissary of the goddess had no intention of going back to Purgatory Dessert just yet. Saleen knew very well that the goddess had watched every move he just pulled.


    He vaguely sensed that the goddess had gainedplete control over the entire Myers Maind, and it was getting increasingly difficult for him to manipte powers in nature.


    The emissary never looked at Lex even once throughout the exchange. She found the gates of the magic tower locked when she was about to leave.


    ¡°What is the meaning of this, Lex?¡± The emissary turned around and asked coldly.


    ¡°Nothing much. I¡¯m still the empress of the Fifth Dynasty, as I have yet to abdicate. I don¡¯t care whose emissary you are, but you¡¯re not leaving without first kow-towing to me,¡± Lex smiled and answered.


    ¡°What if I refuse?¡±


    ¡°Then I shall issue an order branding the Nature Faith as a perverted cult, and the Fifth Dynasty shall see to its destruction.¡± Lex¡¯s answer was overbearing and haughty.


    ¡°You dare!¡±


    ¡°Why would I not? If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that my man is someone capable of taking Myers on, the maind would fall to her sooner orter, and that would mean the maind is done for. If my man is not capable of killing the goddess, do you think I¡¯d care about a worm like you? And by the way, I hate rude people. Don¡¯t think for a second you can throw your weight around the ce just because you¡¯re the goddess¡¯s emissary. Keep in mind that I own this ce.¡±


    Lex behaved in a very forceful manner against the emissary.


    Saleen smirked and did not do anything to stop her. He had no need to get himself worked up about the emissary, but Lex wanted to test the goddess¡¯ limits, and that was necessary.


    ¡°Saleen!¡± That emissary did not want to make a move immediately and simply red at him. She was able toprehend that the empress had her temper, but Saleen was known to be a mage who valued bnce, and she deemed that he would not let his wife kick up a fuss like that.


    ¡°Please address me as ¡®Your Highness¡¯.¡± Saleen remained unfazed. He knew that the goddess might have very well been watching him through the ne map. However, it did not matter. The goddess¡¯ power was unable to prate the magic tower.


    The emissary¡¯s expression changed drastically. The way that Saleen put it meant that he waspletely on Lex¡¯s side.


    The emissary intended to contact the goddess, but quickly found the magic tower sealed the entire space off, and she spected that the goddess would have only been able to see the spectral illusion outside the magic tower, instead of letting her powers seep directly into the tower. She waspletely at wit¡¯s end.


    If she were to turn on Saleen immediately, he would be able to kill her right away, if nothing else.


    She was rendered stiff where she stood, dripping cold sweat all over all of a sudden. She suddenly found that she had made one grave mistake. The goddess had wanted her to be polite to both Saleen and Lex, but she never had caught what the goddess meant.


    From her perspective, she was being polite enough, but she had forgotten who she was dealing with. He was a man that even the goddess was reluctant to sh head on with after all. Saleen was a level 17 mage¡ªone level higher than she was. She was unable to figure out anything about Lex, but seeing how the tower had 18 floors, that meant that the empress was confident in getting to level 18.


    Beings of such formidable powers would have reigned supreme over a region even in ancient times. The goddess, even when she was in her prime, would not have behaved in such a haughty manner and looked down on others. She had to gain support from all sides after all.


    However, if she were to kneel right there and then, it would have been tantamount to dragging the goddess face through mud.


    Fifth Dynasty, huh? So what? She did not believe for a second that Saleen and the others with him would simply forsake such a grand undertaking. Furthermore, she still had the backing of the goddess, and would have definitely been able to be resurrected in the temple. Saleen could have been even more powerful, and it still would have been pointless.


    Seeing how the emissary¡¯s expression shifted constantly, Saleen sighed deep down and said, ¡°if you¡¯re so eager to die, I¡¯m happy to oblige. Seems to me you¡¯re a god creature now. For a person who has yet to even return to her status as a human, I¡¯m surprised to find that you¡¯d be willing to have the goddess avenge your death.¡±


    ¡°The goddess would not sit this one out.¡±


    Saleen cut her off before she finished, ¡°You could shut up right. From here on out, you would cease to exist. You¡¯re probably thinking of being resurrected, but bear in mind, if even the likes of you could be resurrected, how would I even begin to fight the goddess in the first ce?¡±


    Saleen cast Comet sh, Si of Silence, and Crystal Finger, all at the same time.


    He came before the emissary and used the Crystal Finger on the emissary¡¯s left eye, which was where the weakness of the emissaryy. Saleen did not even need to use his third eye to find that out.


    The difference was so tant that even he himself was surprised.


    He had his weaknesses, too. He wondered absently if the goddess would be able to see them.


    Blood stained the emissary¡¯s floral dress at once. Saleen had broken her Source with one finger. He sent a lightning raven into her body right after he cast Crystal Finger, destroying her foundations of life. The formidable electrical discharge wore off her Source¡¯s image altogether, making it near impossible for her to be resurrected.


    The emissary was unable to understand why Saleen dared to kill her, wondering if he was not concerned of invoking the goddess¡¯ wrath.


    Saleen smirked and dropped the emissary¡¯s body to the ground, before opening the gates of the magic tower and calling to someone outside, telling them to take care of the body and send it back to the Nature Faith.


    The goddess frowned from where she was in the Nature Temple. While she was unable to see how Saleen managed to kill the emissary, she saw blurred images of the process of the conflict.


    The one she sent was one of her oracles instead of a follower. That oracle was prideful, and she had sent her out to test Saleen. She knew well that the oracle would behave rudely to Saleen. If Saleen were to bear with it, then it was clear that there was still wiggle room in the conflict between both of them, as that would have meant that Saleen still had reservations about the goddess, thus giving her a good number of measures to take him on.


    However, Saleen killed the oracle right away and had even wiped her Source clean, making it so that she was unable to even resurrect that oracle.


    Things became difficult. She took a look at the 12 of her followers and asked, ¡°Saleen killed an oracle. What do you all make of that?¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t risk having someone like that running around. Best get rid of him. He will only be a greater threat if left alone.¡±


    ¡°What I meant was how would you have him killed?¡±


    All 12 followers were dumbfounded. The goddess had been restored to level 18 powers. Despite not having reached pinnacle state, she had retained her superiority against a level 17 professional. Furthermore, the goddess was capable of manipting elements and the enemy was coincidentally a mage. The way the followers saw it, there was no way the goddess would lose when taking on Saleen.


    The goddess then slowly cast the illusions again¡ªthe one depicting Saleen killing the emissary. Only she had been able to barely see what happened before, after all.


    All 12 of them were rendered speechless at how cleanly he had dealt with the oracle. Mages of such formidable caliber were extremely rare even in ancient times.


    Only three of the followers were capable of killing a level 16 oracle with a single move. However, wiping out the power of the Source of the oracle, preventing her from being resurrected right after she was killed, was something immensely difficult.


    Seeing how everyone was silent, the goddess then said, ¡°lightning is capable of creating life, yet at the same time, it is also capable of obliterating one¡¯s Source. Saleen is most versed in lightning magic. Stoke his fires of anger and he could render all of our believers more dead than dead. That is his backing, and that is why I can only take him on one-on-one.¡±


    ¡°Rest assured, he is a very careful mage. So long as I tread carefully, he will let me keep the faith around. None of you need to be scared. Even if my powers are not at the peak, level 18 rules are not things that a young mage like him could fathom.¡±


    The goddess knew that a mage like Saleen was someone that only she would be able to take on. None of her followers would have been able to do much against his lightning magic, and there was nothing she could do about it. Their powers suffered quite a drastic drop after all.


    Everyone remained speechless. They all knew what the goddess meant. None of them were able to help her, and they would have ironically gotten in her way instead. If it had not been for the fact that the goddess had resurrected them, her powers would have been restored to the pinnacle of level 18, and she would not have needed to concern herself with the feelings of anyone.


    If it had not been for her concerns of them being assassinated by Saleen, the goddess could have simply threatened him and demanded him to hand over the divine kingdom.


    The world was one where ¡°might makes right¡± applied. Reasoning was reserved for situations where onecked powers. It was ridiculous to assume a wolf would reason with sheep before eating the sheep. Regardless of how reasonable one would be, it would cause the other party to resist if one were to invade the other party¡¯s interests.


    ¡°But we can¡¯t just let this slide. I think it is time for Nature Faith to have another pope,¡± the goddess said and summoned another oracle from outside the temple. ¡°Go to Nature City and have Baudire hand over the position of pope. You are to take his ce.¡±


    The goddess took out another Ring of Gifts and a Scepter of Nature, handing them to the oracle. The oracle was overjoyed. Despite the fact thta being at the goddess¡¯ side would have meant that the oracle was of higher status, it would have prevented the oracle from gaining much experience of any kind. Despite the position of pope being a tough one, it would earn the oracle massive rtions, as well as a ce by their god¡¯s side in the future.


    Lex was rather baffled at how Saleen dealt with the oracle. She had only intended to imprison the oracle, but Saleen killed her outright instead. She wondered when her man became such a person.


    ¡°Lex, tell me, how will Myers react to this?¡±


    Lex was startled for a brief moment but quickly regained herposure. While her calctive abilities might have paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s, judgment of matters of such levels only needed a lot of experience. She pondered for a bit and said, ¡°I was angry because of the trespasses of the oracle, which was within reason and Myers wouldn¡¯t have been able to say anything about it, unless we were small fries. She would have retaliated in a manner that was within reason, which would have also meant that she did not care about your powers.


    Saleen nodded and added, ¡°that will do something to the Nature Faith then. I¡¯ve held the reins of the Nature Faith for far too long, and she probably wanted to do something of that sort quite a while ago.¡±

 Chapter 1541: Splintering of the Faith (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1541: Splintering of the Faith (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    ¡°That is the root to the goddess¡¯ resurrection or her source of power. However, most of the people in the religion actually worship you instead, and that is hard to take in for a god. I¡¯m surprised that Myers actually waited this long.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not. Myers is all about fairness. Furthermore, having me conquering the divine kingdom made things a lot easier than her doing it herself. She will only need to defeat me, and that divine kingdom will be hers. Simple calctions.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re thinking of taking on the goddess head on?¡± Lex was very worried. She knew that Saleen¡¯s powers were greater than hers, as he was considered to be at the pinnacle of level 17. However, the gap between level 17 and 18 was difficult to fill.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take you and Sika to a ce, and I¡¯ll take Sir Jason along this time. We¡¯ll be considerably more prepared after the trip.¡±


    ¡°What kind of ce?¡±


    ¡°The edge of the crystal wall system.¡±


    ¡°How long will it take?¡± Lex knew right away that, even if she were to not be able to advance to level 18 just yet, she would have a lot to gain at the edge of the crystal wall system. At the very least, the gap between them and a level 18 being would be filled considerably, and they would no longer look helpless.


    ¡°I won¡¯t take all that long, but I can¡¯t say the same for you people. I¡¯ll only be taking you guys there for the purpose of dealing with Myers when we¡¯re home. Train well while you¡¯re there, and I¡¯ll think of a way to contact you all.¡±


    ¡°Will it be dangerous?¡±


    ¡°Of course it will be. But this time, I¡¯ll have Dante tag along. Abyrus and Juno will being as well. I have six godly items myself, and if I am still scared to see Myers despite all of that, I¡¯d be better off giving up the divine kingdom. Myers needs my lightning powers topletely kill off the heroic spirits. Things wouldn¡¯t be so messy otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Why does she need to do that?¡± Lex was unable to help but ask. It was indeed tougher and more dangerous to kill the heroic spirits as a condition. If the goddess did not actually need to do so, it could possibly be a trap for Saleen.


    ¡°The heroic spirits drain power of the Source. The Cemetery of Heroes and hell, the Imperial City of the Abyss by extension, live off of Myers Maind¡¯s Source. Do you think Myers would be able to sit well with that for prolonged periods?¡±


    Lex sighed and signaled for Saleen to leave. She knew that he would go to Metatrin City next. Her dreams of living amon man¡¯s family life would be hopeless, so long as the matter of the maind remained unresolved.


    Even thinking of spending more time with Saleen in her tower was a luxury.


    Saleen left the magic tower, but his army stayed behind in the pce. They had been testing out the new flying armor over long distance flight. The answers were right before their eyes and the mages began to analyze the data, making modifications to the original schematics of the armor. Saleen did not stay behind and instead traveled to Metatrin City through a teleportation portal.


    Saleen called Sika up as soon as he returned to Metatrin City. The two of them walked around the city walls, with Saleen stopping every now and then to fix any damages on the walls using the six godly items.


    The goddess definitely would not act against Saleen¡¯s city, but that was not to say that her followers would do the same. It was possible that they would attack without her. Metatrin City had be a city ofmerce, and getting damaged would incur considerable losses to him.


    They walked the walls without escorts. Saleen was currently one of the most powerful mages on the maind. Talking to Sika became considerably easier with only the lightning puppets forpany.


    ¡°How are the Caucasians doing, Sika?¡±


    ¡°How else could they be doing? They eat, sh**, sleep, and do whatever else, just like they always do.¡± Sika continued training. She still looked like the Caucasian warrior from back then, making her look rather awkward as a priestess.


    ¡°If you were to give up bing a priestess, would there be anyone to take your ce?¡±


    ¡°There are probably three capable of doing so. All of them are at level 15 now.¡±


    ¡°Come with me to the edge of the crystal wall for a bit. You need to train there for about 100 years or so. It would take thousands of years if you were to get to level 18.¡±


    ¡°Getting to level 18? We need to go that far to kill Myers?¡±


    ¡°Nope. I¡¯m just trying to drive her away. If we¡¯re really out to kill her, it would probably doom the entire maind,¡± Saleen answered. His concerns were simr to that of the goddess, which seemed rather weird. He used that to threaten her, but if he were to kill the goddess, she would used the same threat as well.


    Sika frowned and asked, ¡°so we can¡¯t kill her?¡±


    ¡°Unless...she has no backups whatsoever. Just her and that godly item in her hand are already enough to keep my hands full.¡±


    ¡°Even with your teacher joining the fight?¡±


    ¡°Even with him, you, Lex, Dante, the Winged Skull, and Nailisi joining the fight, and all of us attacking at the same time, we¡¯ll still be unable to kill her.¡±


    ¡°What should we do then?¡±


    ¡°Have her admit defeat and leave Myers Maind. The maind will be renamed Metatrin Maind.¡±


    ¡°Are you nning to trade using the divine kingdom?¡±


    ¡°Impossible. If Myers loses, she¡¯s wee to go to wherever else she wants to, but I am absolutely not giving up the divine kingdom and the maind,¡± Saleen replied adamantly. He was not willing topromise on that.


    ¡°But what if we lose?¡±


    ¡°We head to the interdimensional space and sever the connection to the maindpletely. We¡¯ll then open up a connection to the demon ne and wage wars there.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re still going to fight?¡±


    ¡°The maind is still my home. Unless a dayes when there are no more gods around this ce, or else...¡± Saleen did not continue. He cast his gaze far away from the city wall made of white stone. The clouds rolled in, and it seemed as if it was about to rain. He decided it would be great if such a beautiful maind that was so full of life was able to continue existing.


    Saleen had a rather weird feeling at that thought, wondering if that had been the goddess¡¯ intention all those years ago that led her to bing a god. She had the power to turn Myers Maind into a divine kingdom after she became a god. If the ce had be a divine kingdom, everything would have lived so long as she survived.


    But then again, if that had been the goddess¡¯ thoughts, the maind should have never seen another god again.


    Of course, heroic spirits would not have been allowed to exist either. If the graves of the heroic spirits posed no harm to the maind, the ancient humans would have definitely thought of ways to keep souls intact. As such, the Imperial City of the Abyss would have probably harmed the maind. The goddess had been there personally, and she never bothered to conceal her intentions to tear the ce apart.


    ¡°Juno, take the six godly items and fix the entire city wall. Just do it like I did.¡± Saleen sighed and threw all six of them to Juno.


    Saleen returned to the temple and began to contact all of his followers and bonded creatures scattered throughout the nes. He summoned every single professional beyond level 16 and told them to gather in Metatrin City.


    Such summons had not been carried out for about 100 years.


    The first to return was Truman. He was already a supreme mage in one of the subcontinent nes and had countless students. Over a dozen of them were his personal students, and most of them had advanced past level ten.


    The Nature Temple of the goddess sent a mage to inform the goddess after receiving the dead body, arranging for a meeting timeter.


    The goddess was to help Saleen quell the seas, and the limit of the aid was set at a period of 20 years. The two parties were to meet up outside the Oceanic Ice Block in 20 years to deal with the problem of the Cemetery of Heroes once and for all and finally put it to rest.


    When all of the heroic spirits of the cemetery were dead, then it would be the time for a showdown between the goddess and Saleen.


    The showdown would be held in the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    The agreement meant Saleen had 20 years to prepare for it, and they would have the showdown right after they had cleaned up the cemetery. That would serve as a test to the followers from both sides. The ughter of the heroic spirits would be carried out with the goddess responsible for holding them down, while Saleen wiped the Sources of the spirits clean.


    The followers of the two parties would be doing most of the fighting.


    Saleen had no way of refusing the goddess¡¯ proposal. However, that meant that if his followers were to advance, they would need to rely on the power of the Hall of Gods.


    That was hardly a concern, and Saleen had no intention of bringing his teacher into that. Both Lex and Sika had no fear of the goddess¡¯ followers, even if they did not train at the edge of the crystal wall system. That was because the goddess¡¯s followers did not have level 18 powers. If they did, the goddess would not have been able to resurrect them so quickly.


    The professionals returned to Metatrin City one after another. Saleen had already finished installing a teleportation portal leading to the chaotic void in the center of the temple.


    No sound was heard from therge teleportation portal. Saleen nodded, and the mages of the temple activated the teleportation portal. As the light of magic lit up, the greatest group of powerful people on Myers Maind disappeared into the magic array, together.


    The mages of Metatrin City saw the people being teleported to an unknown coordinate and they were rather anxious. If they were lost in the turbulence of space and time, everything in the maind would be thrust into chaos all over again.


    Saleen and his people were hardly in danger. After theynded on the in the chaotic void, Saleen began to make arrangements regarding training. The frost dragon¡¯s Star Shuttle became one of the best pieces of equipment for venturing near the edge of the crystal wall system. However, the piece of equipment had few spatial attributes to speak of, enabling it to carry few more than a dozen people in a single trip.


    Saleen set up camp and released everyone he brought within the magic amplifier. Puppets and 500,000 lightning warriors were added to the fray, beginning to construct a city. He made the decision to conquer the nearby region of stars, making it thest battlefield.


    If there were a day where his hands were forced to the point of not being even able to return to the interdimensional space, then he would have a showdown with the gods there.


    When he was done with all that, Saleen adjusted the magic clock and took his teacher onto the Star Shuttle, heading straight for the edge of the crystal wall system.


    The ce seemed to be hundreds of millions of kilometers away from the edge of the crystal wall system, and it may have been even further away. The Star Shuttle alone would not have been able to cover such a distance. But even if the craft were to be able to fly that far, the closer one got to the edge, the more dangerous things were. That was, unless his own power of rules matured to the point of being able to survive at the edge of the crystal wall system.


    Jason remained silent on the Star Shuttle, going into training mode right away. Sika and Lex did the same. Nailisi and the Winged Skull had an easier time. Regarding the power of rules, one of them possessed memories of many ancient souls, while the other carried the lineages of the bloodline of Luoluokaluo, which made development of rules far less difficult.


    The most serious of them all was Eleanor. She had no intention of returning after she was done training there. Saleen handed the guardianship of the family of Metatrin to her. If Saleen were to die in battle, she would be the one responsible for bringing Saleen¡¯s children there and training them until they reached level 18.

 Chapter 1542: Splintering of the Faith (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1542: Splintering of the Faith (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    A good number of believers from the faith disappeared without a trace on Myers Maind. Under the leadership of Baudire, all of them left Myers Maind. The core members among them had even followed Saleen to the edge of the chaotic void. Some of the younger children were scattered throughout the many subcontinent nes.


    The children were raised worshipping Saleen the great mage from young, before embracing the faith of the Goddess of Myers. After they were all spirited away from Myers Maind, they began to embrace the faith of magic in earnest.


    What Saleen did t had never been attempted by mages before him. Ancient mages were powerful and had no need for such methods. The children would believe in magic in earnest after they grew up, and they would have an easy time learning magic. The people whocked talent would make excellent enchanters.


    The Nature Faith had finally splintered, and Saleen tore down Nature City, moving it away, leaving an empty Nature Temple behind. Pope Baudire was nowhere to be found and the Water Fox was gone as well. Don was the only one leftmanding the knights corps.


    When a follower of the goddess came to Nature City, they saw a dead town. There was not even a city wall left, and all traces of the faith disappeared altogether.


    The follower found Don and demanded an answer, while Don simply said that he knew nothing. Baudire controlled the faith, and Don was just amander of the knights corps. Questioning the pope was not part of the authority bestowed to him.


    While the Temple Knights had a sworn duty of protecting the faith, the knights corps did not consist only of believers. That follower felt very exasperated. It was stated in the new codex, that while Don was not a high ranking officer, he was nheless someone the follower had no businessmanding.


    Don answered only to Saleen, and everyone knew that.


    Saleen had helped Don wipe the Holy See out from the ne, taking his revenge for him. Don had had no intentions of continuing to live to begin with, and threats were pointless for him. Furthermore, Don had not the slightest affinity for the Nature Faith to speak of. Telling him to believe in the goddess would have been near impossible.


    Demons had taken most of the officer positions in the knights corps, and one would need Nailisi¡¯s permission to control the demons.


    It was fortunate that Don did not bother arguing, and had let the follower head to the temple to host the ritual of selecting the next pope. The goddess¡¯s emissary was caught off guard. He had expected a lot of troubles ahead, yet the only trouble he faced at the moment was that he was there all alone. There was no one to help him out with the ritual.


    Having run out of options, the emissary asked for help from the goddess.


    The goddess saw everything from her temple and felt amused yet vexed. Saleen had indeed chosen to avoid a head-on confrontation, but his methods were even more exasperating than expected. What he did had ended up causing a substantial loss of believers to the faith.


    The lesser half of the remaining believers had a poption over 100 million, but they were basically all believers converted from the faith of the Lord of Glory. The conversion process was something Saleen pulled, making it so that none of the people would be able to be of pure faith forever.


    Cutting the ground from under one¡¯s foot¡ªa very ancient way of doing things, but the most effective way.


    Saleen did not bother doing anything fancy at all, and opted to just move all the ones loyal to him away, leaving a shell of a religion behind for the goddess.


    Nature City had no teleportation portal, and the nearest city that had one was Guderian City. However, it was apparent that Guderian City would not let the goddess¡¯ followers use the portal. The follower was forced to resort to flying back to Purgatory Dessert.


    What Saleen did bought him considerable time, but the goddess did little but smirk at the turn of events.


    The shell that Saleen left behind would let her bring true believers away with her, even if she lost in the eventual fight. She considered that to be a trade, as Saleen had no intentions of going to the extreme while there was no certainty of emerging on top.


    If he crushed the religion altogether, then the goddess would have little to lose. It was as if the situation where the entire world were filled with no one else but believers of the Lord of Glory came true, and Saleen would not have bothered about safety of the ne, casting forbidden curses above level 16 without the slightest hesitation, turning everywhere he tread into hell. It would have cost him less than 100 years to clean up all remaining resistance forces throughout the maind.


    The splintering of Nature Faith had no effect on the Fifth Dynasty at all. Lex followed Saleen to the edge of the crystal wall system to train, leaving Safilos in charge of the dynasty. Everything went as normal, but there were a few hups¡ªGrand Duke Iron Blood dered independence.


    The Iron Blood Kingdom was established, but it was on three subcontinent nes instead of Myers Maind.


    Grand Duke Iron Blood invited dragons from the dragon ne to settle on his nes. Holy Rock City did not respond to it at all and did not send any troops to quell what was considered a rebellion. Saleen had actually given his silent consent to it. The Grand Duke had chosen to makepromises due to the opportunity of being able to sit on the throne of the Fifth Dynasty. With the sessor of the Fifth Dynasty being Safilos, any hopes of changing that would have been lost, and the Grand Duke found it better to just establish his own kingdom instead.


    That hup was quickly let go. The agreed time between the goddess and Saleen was not short, so she opted to rebuild the knights¡¯ corps, sending them overseas and conqueringnds that Saleen had never reached before.


    The goddess spent decades conquering the seas in the east, south and west, leaving only the northern seas untouched. There were hardly anyone in the north, and the Oceanic Ice Block was the territory of magic beasts.


    That had once been the ce where the Imperial City of the Abyss had been hidden, and only the Cemetery of Heroes remained behind.


    Over 20 years passed and Saleen finally returned to Metatrin City one day, summoning the emissary left behind by the goddess.


    ¡°Tell the goddess that I¡¯m ready to head out to the Imperial City of the Abyss.¡±


    While he was still at the pinnacle of level 17 after his time in the chaotic void and had not advanced, his condition was different. The goddess was unable to see Saleen¡¯s face at all. The focus of the emissary was scattered, affecting visual perception. She could only go and see Saleen herself.


    ¡°Yes, Lord Saleen.¡± The emissary bowed to Saleen respectfully and left Metatrin City. He did not use the teleportation portal and instead opted to return to Purgatory by flight instead.


    The goddess descended from the sky with her followers just as the emissary emerged out of the city.


    The emissary felt that something was off and became ashamed. The goddess said inly, ¡°it¡¯s alright. You¡¯re not Saleen¡¯s match, as your level differences are just too huge. This is not your fault. Just return to the temple.¡±


    ¡°Acknowledged.¡± The emissary returned hurriedly. The goddess gazed at Saleen¡¯s Metatrin City and smirked.


    Saleen resembled the emperor of the First Dynasty somewhat, making hisir nigh-impregnable. Unless the one to attack the city was a level 18 being, there was really no way the city could be torn apart right away.


    Saleen sensed the goddess¡¯ arrival while he was still in the temple. He unlocked the city gates and let the goddess¡¯ entourage enter. The goddess was no longer like she had been before. At the moment, Saleen thought she looked like the young woman depicted on the mural when he first saw it¡ªnaive, pure and seemingly harmless.


    The goddess walked barefooted, and she wore a flowing dress. Her attire was simple and the only essory she wore was a red wooden bangle. She walked slowly into the city. The wind within the city gates seemed to follow her footsteps, and her followers even seemed to have a hard time catching up.


    The footsteps were a natural fusion, which was more powerful than Saleen¡¯s earth magic movement skills.


    While it seemed as if the goddess had taken a step of a length equal to the previous one, Saleen knew that her next step could have been anywhere.


    ¡°See that now? Seems like I¡¯m still quite a distance away from the goddess then.¡± Saleen thought, a little resigned.


    He had to continuously learn new things, while the goddess had only needed to restore her former powers.


    Saleen took several steps and walked right outside the temple¡¯s vicinity, mimicking the goddess¡¯ movements unconsciously. However, he was still using the power of earth magic to do so. He was incapable of walking like the goddess.


    But such a way of movement reduced the burden on his body considerably. If he were able to adapt it into his Comet sh spell, he would be able to fight drawn-out battles using Comet sh.


    They both met on the road and Saleen lifted his head, looking at the goddess, who was not far away. He greeted, ¡°Lady Myers.¡±


    ¡°Good day, Saleen.¡± It was the first time the goddess had truly greeted him.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine indeed. Very fine.¡±


    ¡°What do you n on doing against the Cemetery of Heroes?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve got everyone I need, and things are going to go without a glitch,¡± Saleen assured the goddess.


    ¡°So we leave now?¡±


    ¡°Very well!¡± Saleen waved. Rafel and Abyrus appeared right behind him. Be it coincidence or deliberate arrangement, both of them had been former angels. Saleen¡¯s followers continued to train in the magic amplifier. Baldur¡¯s Gate had fused with the magic cube in the core of the magic amplifier. So long as the magic power was embedded with ample power supply, they would be able to alter the flow of time and provide more training opportunities.


    The goddess smiled and came to Saleen¡¯s side. The two of them then took flight, heading north.


    There were no wasted words between them. The two sides had already decided on how to deal with the people from the Cemetery of Heroes¡ªthe goddess helped him to conquer thends across the seas, while Saleen helped her to wipe out the heroic spirits for good.


    The two of them just kept traveling north. They flew at extreme speeds and at heights above the atmosphere. Temperatures dropped below freezing in the thin air. However, neither of them felt any difort and actually chatted amicably.


    Saleen inquired about some problems about magic, and she borated a lot of things to him about what happened after the copse of the First Dynasty. Saleen knew little, but he was able to calcte more contents from certain materials told to him, using divine and magic calctions.


    ¡°Saleen, do you think that I¡¯m overbearing and unreasonable?¡± The goddess asked all of a sudden, catching Saleen off guard.


    Saleen answered in a baffled manner, ¡°nonsense. You¡¯re the most reasonable powerful one that I¡¯ve evere across.¡±


    ¡°Well, that means the world turned to sh** when I perished back then.¡±


    ¡°To the weak, there is no era where it will be easy to survive.¡±


    ¡°What I think Lex is doing is giving all weak ones a chance to live with dignity.¡± The goddess was talking about Lex¡¯s ns of a magical empire. Under Lex¡¯s leadership, the Fifth Dynasty had prospered. Mages whocked financial resources never had to live in a dpidated manner or had to curry favor from nobles anymore.


    ¡°There are no dynasties thatst forever. Lex has her ideals, and I simply back her up,¡± Saleen acknowledged.


    ¡°Tell me, Saleen, what are your ideals then?¡± The goddess asked seriously.

 Chapter 1543: The Goddess’ Weaknesses (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1543: The Goddess¡¯ Weaknesses (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The goddess talked about ideals with Saleen, without bothering to bring up the matter that Saleen had taken the majority of the faith¡¯s believers away. Those who were oblivious to what happened between them would have thought the two of them were friends, having a heart-to-heart.


    ¡°Good question. I initially thought about going to higher crystal wall systems to search for a future for the mage. Right now, however, I¡¯vee up with something else.¡±


    ¡°Which is?¡± The goddess was unable to help but ask further. It was a dream of many powerful ones to get into crystal wall systems of higher levels after all.


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking if it¡¯d be possible to just make our crystal wall system advance instead.¡±


    What Saleen said caught the goddess off guard. She met many legendary figures, and all of their ideals had been nothing short of earth-shattering. However, whenpared to what Saleen just said, what they said was insignificant.


    Saleen intended to advance the entire crystal wall system. By doing so, it would make venturing into other crystal wall systems like going on a trip, without the slightest hint of solemnity to it.


    The wall between level 18 and 19 was something that even the king of gods had been unable to break through.


    Many of the powerful ones in the First Dynasty back in the day had simply left the crystal wall system, but Saleen wanted to make the crystal wall system evolve instead. She wondered what it would cost to bring such an ideal into reality.


    Saleen smiled and added, ¡°Of course, they are just thoughts. If I am able to get to crystal wall systems of higher levels to learn, without having to advance to level 19, I think it would be possible to realize my ideals though.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°A level 18 crystal wall system would see its end one day. I don¡¯t know if crystal wall systems of higher levels would suffer eventual destruction, but at least they would be able to stay around longer. There are no dynasties thatst forever, but that is not to say that it is futile for humans to work hard and fight for it. My teacher told me that, if one were to see a possibility in something, then by all means work to realize it. Even if one eventually failed, it would count for something.¡±


    ¡°Jason is indeed unique. If he had been around in ancient times, he might have actually surpassed the King of Glory,¡± the goddess said, praising Jason.


    Saleen nodded in agreement. There was no doubt that Jason¡¯s current achievement had actually been a result of hard work throughout the years in a low level ne.


    The speed at which they flew at currently was hardly considered. At the very least, for beings at level 17 and above, such speed would have been a walk in the park. They had deliberately slowed down so the ones behind would be able to catch up more easily.


    Both Saleen and the goddess actually possessed space equipment capable of housing living beings. However, they had their people fly all the way instead just to familiarize themselves with each other¡¯s powers. The synchronization woulde in handy when fighting the heroic spirits.


    All of the goddess¡¯ 12 followers were above level 15. They had their divinity erased after they were resurrected, bing human again, but retaining all their skills during their time as god creatures.


    Saleen¡¯s two former angels were simr. One had lost all god creature traits of angels, while the other had be a servant god. Abyrus had great fear of the goddess, which was a feeling inherently prevalent among the gods. In Abyrus¡¯ perspective, a level 18 god would be able to wipe it out in a moment¡¯s notice after all.


    Both former angels still retained their wings, however. Rafel felt the trip was rather tedious after a while, and summoned the Violet Angel in its golden dragon form, stepping on its back. The Violet Angel would be the only way who needed to fly then.


    Flight of the Violet Angel was different from the dragons, as it was dependent on the magic arrays carved into its body and cost magic nuclei in its magic power furnace to function. As such, the Violet Angel actually had an easy time flying. The goddess took a very keen interest in the puppet, but she was unable to just hop onto the Violet Angel and look into it.


    Both sides tried to be friendly with each other to the best of their abilities, and they gradually warmed up to each other.


    Rafel was reluctant to talk, but Abyrus ran its mouth. The servant god learned everyone¡¯s professions and identities, as well as levels, after only a short period of time.


    While Abyrus was not actually sensible, it was by no means stupid. It did not give a feeling of it probing into the ones it talked to, while it talked to them. The ones whom it talked to simply thought the winged bird-humanoid creature felt rather mentally impaired.


    None of them was all that much on guard against Abyrus because it embodied the ws of god creatures very well¡ªarrogant, self-righteous and boastful.


    Saleen never thought Abyrus had actually grown so much. It was difficult for both sides to get along, as Saleen actually killed some of the goddess¡¯ people.


    ¡°Saleen, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s really that possible to have the entire crystal wall system evolve,¡± the goddess continued to delve into the topic with Saleen, without bothering how her people mingled.


    ¡°How so?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve met people who were above level 18. The system of crystal wall systems in its entirety is farrger than you would have thought it to be. Our crystal wall system is fundamentally still a small crystal wall system. Level 18 is already a fixed point. Crystal wall systems resembling ours are practically uncountable, and the individuals of levels lower than ours are of even greater numbers. There is almost no way you could get to the edge of the crystal wall system without using teleportation portals. Flight alone would nearly be impossible.


    Saleen nodded as a sign ofprehension. He had been to the edge of the crystal wall system, and yet, he was unable to truly reach the terminus of the crystal wall system through flight.


    ¡°It is like having a bunch of bubbles stuck close to each other, and the space containing them is fixed. Every single bubble is a crystal wall system. If the power within a crystal wall system were to exceed its limit, it would cause the crystal wall system next to it to copse, even if the expanding system were to survive without bursting. With that said, if you had our crystal wall system evolve, you would at least need to destroy the power of another crystal wall system. Do you have that kind of power?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Saleen was hardly discouraged after hearing the goddess¡¯ exnation. He grew even more determined instead.


    ¡°Huh? You¡¯re still confident, eh?¡± The goddess truly became interested in Saleen after seeing his reaction. Anyone would have felt dejected over what she said, including herself. She had actually acquired such knowledge from a level 19 supreme god after she became a god all those years ago. The supreme god told her that if a high level crystal wall system were to swallow up a low level crystal wall system, the beings of the low level crystal wall system would have faced thorough mass extinction.


    ¡°Of course. The more difficult something is, the more fun it is to do it. If evolving a crystal wall system were to be easier than mages advancing, we would have lost this world altogether.¡±


    ¡°Hehe.¡± The goddess chuckled at that. Saleen had no certainty but he was confident, and that was something she was unable to bring down. A man who should have been puny and insignificant had most probably been able to get that far due to that hidden trait in the depths of his soul.


    The goddess knew very well that the soul was the fundamental reason someone would eventually amount to anything.


    The slow flight allowed Saleen to pick up a lot of flight skills from the goddess, while she learned some lightning skills from him. Of course, the lightning skills were only meant for aiding flight. Powers of lightning that the goddess was able to manipte were below level 14. While lightning powers of such levels would have been formidable formon folks, they remained utterly useless for killing the high level heroic spirits.


    That was why the goddess had never bothered to do anything in earlier stages, and had waited for Saleen¡¯s level to catch up before proposing such a trade with him.


    It was not that she was not capable of pulling something like it on her own, but the cost would have been overly hefty if she did it personally.


    If she were to kill the heroic spirits thoroughly on her own, she would have needed to tap into the power of the Source of Myers Maind. If she were to continuously drain such powers for prolonged periods, at her current level, she would have caused Myers Maind¡¯s powers to drop below level 16 before long.


    The goddess had experienced having the maind¡¯s level drop below level ten once and she suffered immensely for it. It was not something she would have wanted to go through again.


    With the average level of the participants being above level 16, it would not take them that long to reach the Oceanic Ice Block, even if they had flown even slower than they did. However, Saleen came to the ice cap directly, instead of having everyone take the undersea tunnels. He then summoned all of his lightning warriors.


    He summonedrge mechanical puppets next. Both the lightning and mechanical puppets began to clear out an area and build a city. The ice cap, which was several kilometers-thick, was being punched through bit by bit by Saleen.


    The reason why Saleen wanted to build a city on the ice cap was because of the power avable there. The power of the Imperial City of the Abyss was rted to the ley lines over there. While Saleen was incapable of building an underwater city, as it simply cost too much, it was a lot easier to build one on the ice cap. The city he built was not meant formon folks; it was to build a magic academy of the highest level.


    There would be many mages found throughout the maind in the future, and that ce would serve as a sacred ground.


    Saleen chose that location because the pce of the Imperial City of the Abyss was directly under the ice cap. While the city below was wrecked by the goddess, there were still a lot of things that remained usable. Furthermore, Saleen¡¯s powers were such that restoring the pce would be a breeze.


    They were in the central region of the Oceanic Ice Block and there were many magic beasts around, which was a point of huge significance to mages.


    Saleen set the ce up without considering what the goddess would think about it. In his perspective, the goddess needed to leave sooner orter, or be killed. He had no intention of bringing his people and leaving the maind.


    Saleen had found the goddess¡¯ weakness, one that not even the goddess was aware of. The Si of Silence had beenpletely melded with him in his third eye. He became capable of stopping time without even having to open his third eye.


    That time, the time stop took less than a millisecond for him to peer into the goddess¡¯ weakness in detail¡ªthe red bangle of her hand.


    The Withering Dance¡ªa godly item of the Goddess of Nature.


    Godly items that represented a god¡¯s own powers were always the strongest and the toughest. For instance, Saleen had no way of destroying the Lord of Glory¡¯s scepter.


    As such, despite having the chance to observe the goddess in the past, Saleen never found any problems. It was as if the goddess was a perfect being that was incapable of being defeated.


    However, when Saleen checked the Withering Dance out, it shocked him to the core.


    The goddess had actually ced her power of the Source into the Withering Dance.


    Saleen was able to realize that it was a measure for dealing with him. His Crystal Finger was a skill that could deal with that. If it hit the power of the Source of a god, it would definitely be able to kill the god, and the Goddess of Myers was not an exception. As such, the goddess ced all of her powers in the godly item, which was tens of millions of times sturdier than her own body. It was simply too difficult to break a godly item.


    However, doing so created an opening for Saleen¡ªtaking the bangle away would mean robbing the goddess of the source of her powers.

 Chapter 1544: The Goddess’ Weaknesses (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1544: The Goddess¡¯ Weaknesses (Part 2)</h4>


    The bangle was on Myers¡¯ hand. Robbing her of it and subjugating it would be very, very difficult, but still definitely easier than killing Myers outright.


    Saleenmitted what he saw to memory. Myers was extremely on guard against him. If it had been someone else instead of him, she probably would not have been so prepared.


    Lightning spells were only capable of grinding off powers of the Source, while the Crystal Finger was capable of destroying the powers outright, reducing them to pure energy, which was equal to killing a god thoroughly.


    Furthermore, the Crystal Finger was extremely overbearing. Any god below level 16, even if they were to not get hit directly by the Crystal Finger, would not have been able to withstand being grazed by the spell. A level 18 goddess like Myers, on the other hand, would end up dead if she were to be hit where the power of her Sourcey.


    Saleen was equipped with a magic amplifier, so he knew that many pieces of equipment were almost capable of acting like a clone or a double on their own. While the Withering Dance could have been considered as a weakness, it was not one that could be easily exploited without meticulous calctions.


    The sheet of ice over the Oceanic Ice Block was several kilometers thick. Furthermore, the ice was of hardness surpassing steel and was very heavy as well. At a ce like the Oceanic Ice Block, it would be the best construction material avable.


    Myers saw Saleen constructing a city and waspelled to help, quickly opening a passage on the ice sheet leading to the Imperial City of the Abyss underneath.


    A huge amount of manpower was left behind on the ice sheet to continue constructing the city, while Saleen dove into the water with the goddess. The location of the sheet of ice was coincidentally right above the imperial city, and a huge amount of magic beasts had taken over the ce. With no magic arrays and elemental creatures guarding the ce anymore, the magic beasts had no reason to be fearful, and they proceeded to move into the city, making it their home.


    Elemental powers were rich within the Imperial City of the Abyss, which was of little use to humans other than boosting their powers duringbat. To the magic beasts however, such a ce was a paradise for evolution. Almost all powerful magic beasts throughout the Oceanic Ice Block used the city to be their home.


    The magic beasts did not attack when both the goddess and Saleen appeared, scattering in fright instead. The ruins, which had previously been quiet and cold, became chaotic and rowdy within mere moments.


    Both the goddess and Saleen emanated intense pressure, one from divine might and the other from elemental suppression. It was especially so in Saleen¡¯s case after he came to haveplete control of the six godly items, so much so that he had little problems using dark element. The Deathly Night Robe emanated power that was so intense that not even magic beasts of his level dared to get close.


    Seeing how the magic beasts knew their ce, neither of them bothered to go after any of them. Saleen considered the magic beasts his private properties anyway. He saw fit to let them grow for the moment. When the magic academy above was built, all the magic beasts would serve as ideal opponents to further their training.


    As Myers Maind advanced, the breeds of magic beasts grew increasingly diverse. Summoners, a profession which had once disappeared from the maind, would possibly emerge once again. Only magic beasts of formidable power and special properties would be of value to those people after all.


    Saleen refrained from killing the beasts, which scattered all over the ce. Both of them brought their people and arrived right outside the cemetery.


    The cemetery was even in a more disheveled state since thest time they left it. There were hardly any signs of order or repair. The general and the others seemed to have gone into hibernation.


    ¡°What now?¡± Saleen took a look at the goddess. The heroes had been old acquaintances of hers, and he saw fit to let the goddess call the shots at the moment.


    ¡°We proceed as nned.¡± The goddess was unusually cold. She waved and had her 12 followers get ready while she opened a portal right behind her. The warriors got into a triangr formation and emerged out of the portal.


    All of them wore light leather armor, which was all a dark green color and filled with holy prose of nature all over them.


    ¡°How do you find my Nature Legion, Saleen?¡± The goddess asked with a smile.


    Saleen nodded and summoned his lightning warriors and surrounded the cemetery from the other side. The cemetery had initially been a forbidden area. The heroic spirits within were free to move around so long as they stayed within the cemetery. However, with the walls of the cemetery destroyed at the moment, the protection provided to the heroic spirits shrunk. None of them dared to leave their graves.


    The goddess looked at Saleen¡¯s lightning warriors and felt impressed. While Saleen¡¯s luck partially originated from him, he had nheless acquired over half of said luck elsewhere by himself.


    The power was the lightning warriors had grown increasingly powerful, so much so that the power emanated was even greater than that of demons. Their bodily structures were capable of being optimized without limit, enabling them to bring about the greatestbat prowess to bear.


    Furthermore, the power of the lightning warriors, boosted by the lightning patterns all over them, was three to four times greater and more damaging than it would have usually been. The lightning warriors were practically invincible if they fought beings of their own levels. The power of lightning did not only allow them to defend against mental attacks, it also had anti-magic properties, which made it even more lethal when used against gods.


    It was indeed a huge mistake letting Saleen grow, but given how they were already where they were at present, there was little use regretting anything. If she were able to defeat the mage, she would possibly gain lightning powers. By then, she could probably even venture into a different crystal wall system, which meant that she no longer had to fear for Myers Maind¡¯s safety.


    The voice of the general was heard from the cemetery, ¡°Myers, Saleen, so you people really want to go that far then!¡±


    Saleenughed and replied, ¡°General, yes, that is our intention, and we intend toe out on top.¡±


    The goddess chuckled and said to the grave of the general from afar, ¡°we¡¯ll clear you up today and spare Myers Maind any further troubles.¡±


    ¡°Myers, you are the biggest threat to the maind! If it hadn¡¯t been for you, the main ne wouldn¡¯t have fallen so far throughout the years!¡±


    ¡°Oh general, you¡¯ve served the king for so long, but do you know why you were never the greatest of the generals? That is because you¡¯re too much of a hypocrite,cking sincerity and bravery. It is indeed I who caused the ne to have fallen in the first ce, but even without me around, you heroic spirits would have caused the ne to fall all the same. If it hadn¡¯t been for me causing the entire ne¡¯s level to drop, you people would¡¯ve probably been resurrected by now instead of hiding out here. If that were to happen, you people would have opened up your own independent space and continued to slowly steal the power of the Source of the main ne.¡±


    The general simply snorted when the goddess called him out, not even trying to speak for himself.


    Saleen continued, ¡°don¡¯t me me for helping Myers, General. I have clear reasons for doing it. I have been able toe this far thanks to helping Myers advance. You, on the other hand, gave me 24 heroic spirits to limit my level. Whenpared to the goddess, you are the lowliest of scum. The goddess at least gave me a chance to fight fair and square. But what about you?¡±


    Seeing how the general stayed silent, Saleen dealt a crippling blow. ¡°You don¡¯t even have the guts to fly into blind rage from shame, you piece of sh**!¡±


    The goddess chuckled. She saw such a tone of speech to be beneath her, but it nheless felt satisfying to hear Saleen say it. The general could have been a coward, but there was no way he could have stomached Saleen¡¯s provocations. He roared as he burst out of his grave.


    ¡°Heroic spirits, charge!¡± The words of the general were seen as orders. Over 10,000 heroic spirits burst from their graves. Many of the heroic spirits were even socking in levels that there were tens of them stuffed into a single grave.


    However, that was not to say that the heroic spirits were actually of low levels. They only were low levels because things did not go as nned, and they were unable to gain a huge amount of power from the Source of Myers Maind. They suffered drastic level drops and onlymanders like the General were barely capable of maintaining their own original levels.


    The heroic spirits bursting out from the graves got into simple formations, taking up weapons of their profession¡ªbows and crossbows¡ªas they remained backed by their graves. Tens of thousands of glittering bolts and arrows were let loose, heading straight for Saleen and the goddess.


    Under usual circumstances, having so many projectiles in flight would have caused them to sh in midair, and only a handful would have remained a real threat to their targets. However, the skills of the heroic spirits were different from living people. The projectiles were not solid matter. They clustered in midair, forming several huge bolts, as if they were tens of powerful magic runes, shrouding both Saleen and the goddess.


    Saleen would have taken things more seriously if they were magical arrows fired by archers. However, Saleen simply unleashed hundreds of electric snakes, which danced in a frenzy around him. The light from every single bolt was ground off by the electric snakes and dropped to the ground.


    As for the goddess, the bolts were unable to even prate into her world of rules.


    ¡°Arrows of Heroes, eh?¡± The goddess smirked coldly. If she did not have to cover for the followers at her side, she would have gone all out to ughter the heroic spirits. However, the Arrow of Heroes was a skill capable of only being used once. The skill failed to do any damage to both her and Saleen, and there was no second casting of the skill. The crossbows on the heroic spirits¡¯ hands crumbled one after another. They drew their own weapons and charged.


    ¡°Heh...¡± Saleen initially had no intention of fighting personally, but seeing how over 10,000 powerful heroes were charging at them, he would not have been able to pay the goddess¡¯ debt for her help if he continued to sit on his hands. With the four seas quelled, the entire ne was practically his at the moment, so he had to do things ording to n.


    Saleen threw a ck ball of light, which rose to midair and exploded under the invisible Lightning Moon. Power emanated from the Lightning Moon formed a thin, glittering film, scattering the exploding ck ball of light all over the cemetery.


    The lower part of the general¡¯s body was ethereal when he appeared that time. He had been keeping his hands to himself, but seeing how Saleen acted, he knew he had to do something.


    ¡°Grandmaster!¡± The general shouted. The Grandmaster appeared behind him. Half of his face was blurred, and the eye on the remaining half was burning in rage, ring at Saleen.


    Saleen smirked, thinking how mages with any decency would not have burned in rage like that.


    Evil aura permeated the ce after the ck ball of light exploded, staining hundreds of the heroic spirits, turning them into the likeness of the Heretic God as they writhed in intense pain.


    The Grandmaster cast a purifying light, but he was already toote. Nearly 1,000 more sumbed shortly after. The heroic spirits were in intense pain as they pounced on theirrades, biting them as they went.


    ¡°This is a gift from me, Grandmaster, as a token of appreciation for you ying tricks on my equipment.¡± Saleen did not forget to take jabs at the grandmaster. The evil aura was a product refined directly from the Heretic God¡¯s divine persona.


    The remaining half of the Grandmaster¡¯s face looked on eerily as he opened a magic book in his hand. Twelve magic spells were cast at Saleen at the same time. All 12 spells were of the six major elements, and all of them were of contradicting attributes. When the 12 spells werebined, their power exceeded level 18, despite all of them being level 17 spells.


    Saleen had prepared to counter such means a long time ago. A rainbow shone in the cemetery and the grandmaster lost his target all of a sudden. When Saleen reappeared, he was already outside the cemetery.


    ¡°Fall back!¡± The general knew that they were not Saleen¡¯s match by then. Their powers suffered significant drops, at the moment, Saleen was at the pinnacle of level 17. Worse still, he was armed with movement skills capable of rendering all their attacks null and forcing them to miss their targets.

 Chapter 1545: The Goddess’ Weaknesses (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1545: The Goddess¡¯ Weaknesses (Part 3)</h4>


    ¡°Stay behind!¡± The followers on the goddess¡¯s side split up, and she stayed together with Saleen, charging at the general and the grandmaster.


    The general and the grandmaster retreated. However, they were both getting into a single grave.


    They knew that if they were to split up, they would have definitely ended up dead. The space within a grave was very stable, as it would not have enabled the heroic spirits to survive otherwise. However, a stable space did not mean it packed powerful defense. Both the Grandmaster or the General would have died horrible deaths if they were to take on attacks from either Saleen or the goddess. They were utterly incapable of gaining any advantage from the powers of the space within their graves.


    Saleen followed closely behind the goddess. He saw the Withering Dance on her hand emanating power of rules. In that instant, the weakness of the Withering Dance appeared right before Saleen.


    However, he knew that it was little more than a trick that the goddess yed. If he were to truly exploit such a weakness, he would have died a horrible death. Even though the goddess was oblivious to the fact that Saleen was observing, she knew that Saleen would not have given up the chance to look deeper into it.


    The only problem, however, was that if the Withering Dance had no weaknesses, then she would not have needed to deliberately reveal an opening at all. Furthermore, the opening was one that not even the likes of the grandmaster would have been able to tell. Only beings with the power of the soul at Saleen¡¯s level would have probably made anything out of it.


    A trap made specifically for him? Or just ying weak deliberately?


    The space within the general¡¯s grave shrunk further. After suffering serious damage in their previous battle, both the general and the grandmaster shrunk the space within their graves, as they were no longer able to maintain the spaces at their original sizes.


    There were two skeletons in the center of the space. Both the general and the grandmaster pounced on the skeletons, and the piles of bones came alive immediately.


    The general¡¯s skeleton was covered by ayer of armor, while the grandmaster was clothed a magic robe, making him look like a death mage.


    Saleen and the goddess¡¯s subordinates did not get into the grave. The advantage of level superiority was ringly apparent within the grave, and they would not have been of any help. They were tasked to take on the remaining heroic spirits, not letting a single one of them survive.


    It was very difficult to destroy every single grave, as every single one of them had a fixed space, which would take a huge amount of power topletely destroy. If it had not been for both Saleen and the goddess taking a huge number of subordinates with them, it would have been an impossible task. There was no way they could have circumvented the process. Destruction of every single grave required an equivalent amount or an even greater amount of power.


    Both the general and the grandmaster were forced to return to their skeletons, giving up all ns of resurrection and bing half-dead beings instead. One could have only imagined just how angry the two of them were. Both of them suffered considerable losses by bing half-deads.


    Saleen and the goddess smiled at each other. They had finally able to get rid of the threat that was the Cemetery of Heroes once and for all. If they had been willing to be half-deads a long time ago, the goddess would not have gone far as to wanting to kill every single one of them.


    Half-deads did not stay alive by sucking up power of the Source of the maind, which meant that they would be of no harm to the maind. Their existence would absorb powers from all kinds of spirit nes, strengthening Myers Maind instead.


    However, given how the goddess and Saleen had cornered them so badly that they had to take such a form, there was no way the general and the grandmaster would have agreed to a truce.


    If one of those two were allowed to leave, they would have gone on to massacre everything on the maind, destroying everything that both Saleen and the goddess held dear.


    ¡°Take your pick, Saleen,¡± The goddess said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take the grandmaster then. I¡¯ve always wanted to open up that as**ole¡¯s brain and see what¡¯s inside.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, no offense but, everyone with decent brains from the First Dynasty has practically left this crystal wall system. As for those who were left behind, well, you know how they are,¡± the goddess continued with a condescending tone.


    ¡°Heh, aren¡¯t you one of the ones who were left behind?¡± A long, thin sword appeared on the general¡¯s hand, ring at the goddess coldly. The soul mes in his eye sockets were solid, just like that of a living being¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°I elected to stay behind. I love this ce after all.¡± The goddess saw no reason to get riled up. She and Saleen had the absolute advantage, after all. The enemy could trash-talk all they wanted, and it would not do a single thing to change the oue.


    The grandmaster and the general reluctantly split up. Whilebining their attacks would have boosted theirbat prowess, their enemies were not against each other, so they would have still been at a disadvantage. Their enemies could alsobine their powers. Both of them were able to see how Saleen worked with the goddess. The explosion of that ck ball of light was controlled by the goddess. The shards from the ball would not have hit every single heroic spirit otherwise.


    Saleen slowly walked to a distance just 50 meters away from the grandmaster and said, ¡°Grandmaster, did you ever foresee this day woulde when you were doing what you did against me all those years ago?¡±


    ¡°I did.¡± The grandmaster was not in a hurry to attack. He needed time to fuse his power with his skeleton after all. Since Saleen was willing to chat, he saw no reason to not do so. The longer the fighting was dragged out, the higher hisbat capacity would be.


    ¡°One has to pay the equivalent price of what they desire. I paid my price back then. It¡¯s time you pay yours now.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, but you¡¯ll need to pay a new price for killing me. Your powers might be greater than mine, Saleen. But I, too, am a level 17 mage. Do you think you could really make short work of me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d have no problem with that at all, but I like to drag things out a little bit. I¡¯ve never had a chance to fight a mage at your level after all.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s words infuriated the grandmaster a great deal. The way Saleen put it, he was treating the grandmaster like a magic beast, fit only as something to test his magic out.


    ¡°I say that precisely because you¡¯re a mage. Mages hardly ever surrender. They fight to the bitter end, instead.¡± Saleen took his time to chat, wearing down the grandmaster¡¯s mind bit by bit.


    The grandmaster was silent. Saleen had gone too far, and he had no way of continuing the conversation. Furthermore, he saw 13 Saleens appearing before him before he realized what it meant.


    Thundering Phantasm was a skill created by Saleen. At level 17, every single phantasm packed frighteningbat capacity. The terrifying thing about Thundering Phantasm was that one was unable to lock onto them using power of the soul, as doing so would trigger the thundering sound to resonate, dealing huge damage to one¡¯s power of the soul.


    Anyone fighting Saleen would have a hard time when he cast Thundering Phantasm. In usual circumstances, a formidablebatant would have had more than one way of locking onto one¡¯s target. However, only Soul Targeting had a negligible drain. All other methods either had specific limits or were hindered by a huge drain.


    For instance, Saleen could have used his third eye to lock onto enemies, but he hardly used the ability anymore, as the drain on the power of the soul was considerable, and it would have brought about a disadvantage in a prolonged fight.


    ¡°Grandmaster, are you really not concerned with us taking our time talking? If the general is killed by Myers, we¡¯ll be ganging up on you, after all.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m in no hurry. If the general were so easy to kill, he wouldn¡¯t have been able tomand troops in hundreds of thousands. I¡¯m all up for a war of attrition. Let me tell you this, Saleen. Now that I¡¯ve merged with my dead body and became a half-dead, my powers will rise all the way to the peak I was at when I was alive. Dragging things out won¡¯t do you any good.¡±


    That was the first sensible thing Saleen had heard from the grandmaster since the beginning of the fight, and he wondered if he should have believed it.


    What if the grandmaster was tricking him into attacking earlier than he should?


    Saleen shook his head and attacked. He had six godly items under hismand, and he did not want the goddess to get a glimpse of how he used them. Individuals at the goddess¡¯ level would have learned all about a piece of equipment they were able to use just once, after all.


    But then again, he never had any intention of killing the goddess using the six godly items. It would suffice to keep her suppressed. He definitely needed the power of lightning to eventually defeat the goddess. There was no other way to make up for the difference in level otherwise.


    The grandmaster felt his bones getting increasingly nimble. While he was devoid of any magic chords, intense power spun within his eyes¡ªthe power of soul me. Furthermore, many half-deads were capable of using skills they had when they were alive, which was what made them so terrifying in the first ce.


    The shoring to half-deads was that they would disappear for good after death.


    However, things were somewhat different when dealing with half-deads like the Grandmaster. His bones were stored in the grave of heroes, which meant that the attributes had changed a long time ago. The hollow parts of the bones were filled with elemental power, enabling him to have an easy time manipting elements.


    When the seals of the elements werepletely undone, the grandmaster would have returned to the peak of his power when he was alive¡ªthat of a true level 17 mage.


    While Saleen was also a level 17 mage, he probably would not have been a match for the grandmaster if his equipment were to be taken out of the equation. The grandmaster was a seasoned veteran like no other, while Saleen had usually only needed to fight enemies weaker than he was.


    Saleen was done waiting. The battle between the general and the goddess had not ended as quickly as he anticipated. Any damage that the general would have sustained in such a space would have been suppressed for the moment. Bing a half-dead also meant that his powers became greatly enhanced. The fighting on the other side was unusually intense. The general had carved up multiple gashes in the space using his de.


    Saleen only knew just how powerful ancient warriors had been. No magic defenses would have been able to withstand one sh of that de. One needed to rely on magic equipment, as magic shields of any kind would have ended up broken when hit by the weapon of one such warrior, sending the defending person into a parallel dimension.


    But of course, the goddess had no fear of being sent into parallel dimensions, as she could easily return. She could have survived in spatial turbulences, armed with nothing but her bare hands.


    Since Saleen learned of the goddess¡¯s weakness, he thought it was only fair that she got a glimpse of his godly items¡¯ powers.


    Saleen cast the Well of Stars without hesitation. Beams of dazzling light lit up in space, forming passages that led straight to the end of space. The surrounding space glittered with starlight, but the power that emanated was that of water element instead of earth element.


    The grandmaster was shocked. His surroundings werepletely torn apart before he was able to recover. The battle between the goddess and the general could no longer be seen. The only thing before his eyes was a mage whose appearance was obscured. Saleen activated the function of the Deathly Night Robe, making his entire being look like a shadow, which could not be made out easily. His 12 Thunder Phantasms saw the same changes.


    Thick clouds gathered above, and the Lightning Moon began to unleash power lightning bolts from the clouds.


    Saleen watched the grandmaster and sighed. He eventually resorted to using the power of his equipment instead of fighting the grandmaster to death. But then again, he could not have done anything else. He still had to have a showdown with the goddess after taking care of the heroic spirits, after all.

 Chapter 1546: World-weary (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1546: World-weary (Part 1)</h4>


    Thundercloud, a skill that Saleen developed on his own. However, it was only usable in the Well of Stars. The Well of Stars gathered massive stores of water element, conjuring a massive storm cloud.


    The electrical discharge in the cloud was no longer something Saleen could have easily controlled. His power of rules wascking, and it had always been his weakness. However, the grandmaster was unable to easily escape from the Well of Stars all the same, and he would have only ended up being slowly ground to death by the power of lightning.


    uracy did not matter in this case, as Saleen had all the time in the world.


    Using the power of the godly item in an underwater city such as the Imperial City of the Abyss, there was no way he could have run out of water element. Furthermore, the electrical discharge from the workings of the water element was practically limitless.


    The grandmaster screamed in despair, after witnessing the amount of power emanating from the godly item.


    As Saleen put it himself, a mage like the Grandmaster would have never given up resisting. He would have dealt a lethal blow to the enemy even if he would have ended up dead.


    ¡°Let¡¯s die together, Saleen.¡± A huge burst of energy was seen from the grandmaster¡¯s magic book again. A ck hole appeared with the grandmaster at its core.


    Saleen was stunned for a bit beforeughing. Tens of ball lightning were sent inside the ck hole as it appeared, causing the ck hole to copse in less than a second.


    This couldn¡¯t be!


    The grandmaster¡¯s eyeballs felt like they were about to shatter. Saleen clearlyckedprehension of power of rules, and that was something the grandmaster had no problem telling. But, being able to instantly dispel his space-devouring skill was something that not even level 18 beings would have been able to pull.


    Casting one such skill in such a sealed environment made the grandmaster¡¯s intentions of dying together with Saleen very apparent. Saleen was having the time of his life, so he definitely would not have agreed to just roll over.


    Saleen stood at the center of the Well of Stars and watched the grandmaster struggle in vain. The grandmaster had all the skills he needed, yet he ended up trapped by a huge number of lightning creatures. Those creatures, which were conjured directly from the Thundercloud, were over a dozen times more powerful than those summoned by the Lightning Moon.


    That massive size of the Thundercloud had raging power, wearing down the grandmaster¡¯s magic shieldingyer byyer. The grandmaster was a level 17 mage, capable of conjuring near-limitless number of such shielding. However, the power of one man was eventually limited nheless, while Saleen¡¯s lightning powers raged on without limit in the cloud.


    As for things at the goddess¡¯ side, thebat remained intense. She fought up close and personal like a warrior. Every single divine spell she cast was almost done very near her body. The general was frightening fast, at least still a tad bit faster than the goddess.


    However, the goddess had a better sense of tempo, causing the general¡¯s attacks to miss all the time. The goddess retaliated even more viciously. If it had not been for the general wearing a set of godly armor, he would have ended up killed by the goddess a while ago.


    There was no way a level 18 warrior could have taken on a mage or god of aparable level without godly armor. Any of the goddess¡¯ instant-cast divine spells would have had a hard time breaking through such armor as well.


    The general had amplebat experience. He had gotten near the goddess since the very beginning of the fight, never letting her distance herself more than 20 meters away from him.


    The goddess wanted to end the fight quickly as well, but she had to do so without sustaining too much damage. She still had to fight Saleen after she was done taking care of the heroic spirits after all, and that following battle would have been more important. Her path from then on out would have depended on the oue of that battle after all.


    She knew right away after seeing the Well of Stars that Saleen cast, that the battle between them would have definitely been a long one. That godly item that Saleen was something that came after the fall of the First Dynasty, and there were definitely more than one of those around.


    While the Baldur¡¯s Gate was infamous, it was something that appeared when the Second Dynasty was near the end of its days. While the fall of the Goddess of Myers was actuallyter than that, but she had been busy setting up things for what came, after all, preventing her from paying too much attention to the maind.


    Furthermore, the Baldur¡¯s Gate did not be famous due to the six godly items it harbored, but due to the concept of its construction being too eerie. Theyered, stacked spaces, expandability, and rules like that of a world within were what made the Baldur¡¯s Gate so renowned in the first ce. The six godly items were not actually considered the most powerful items to have appeared in the Second Dynasty.


    A thunderous rumble from Saleen¡¯s Well of Stars permeated the entire cemetery, and the general, who was still busy fighting the goddess, became restless. The thunderous rumbled permeated the spatial barrier, as the grave was unable to block it. That was to say that Saleen¡¯s power had not been suppressed by the power of the grave¡¯s space.


    As such, the grandmaster was probably done for by that point. If the grandmaster were to end up dead, there would have been no way he could have taken on both Saleen and the goddess.


    His attacks became even more rushed and relentless at that thought. The de in his hand crackled and extended to lengths well over three meters, making it a massive de. Complex shrieks were heard from the massive de, which would have made the hearts of people shudder.


    The goddess smirked, however. A level 18 god could have never been stunned by such noise after all.


    But then, the noise became that of a sigh as the de was brought down.


    That sigh was from the emperor of the First Dynasty¡ªheard when the goddess ascended to godhood.


    Her mind was shaken nheless.


    That man, whom she used to look up to, severed contact with herpletely after she became a goddess. She wondered why he did not understand why she was doing such a thing in the first ce. The secret of the gods was something she could have onlypletely learned, after bing a goddess herself.


    The emperor wanted to conquer all realms and she went on to do the most dangerous thing there was to be done, yet the oue yielded only disappointment.


    Her hand stopped and the cold de cut open the skin on her face. She did not feel any pain from it, as even her mind began to feel numb.


    A level 18 god had weaknesses in their mind nheless. She was born a human instead of a god after all.


    The bone on the general¡¯s face looked rather twisted. Casting that one attack cost him most of the life remaining in him. The soul mes in his eyes materialized again, and cracking noises were heard from within the godly armor as if the power from every inch of bone was being unleashed.


    The general intended to cut her down with one swing of his de, destroying her power of the Source once and for all.


    On the contrary, Saleen was the one with the advantage on his side. The grandmaster had been struggling to hold out, but his expression changed drastically seeing that strike from the general. He knew that if he were not to get rid of Saleen soon enough, the general would not have had enough to help him, even if he were to win.


    Lightning icicles were fired from Saleen¡¯s back as the grandmaster was wondering what to do. The magic shields were capable of stopping the lightning creatures for a while, but the prative powers of the lightning icicles were not something the shielding could have withstood.


    Seven lightning icicles lined up in a straight line as they punched through the grandmaster¡¯s shields, crashing onto his magic robe and metal nging was heard. The grandmaster¡¯s body was sent flying from the collision. Defense properties of the grandmaster¡¯s magic robe baffled Saleen, but the robe still was not enough to deflect the lightning icicles¡¯ impact.


    Soul mes danced in the grandmaster¡¯s eyes. His entire arm began to disintegrate and he cast six magic spells as he was sent flying.


    Saleen was immediately alerted. That intuition saved his life dozens of times throughout the millennia, including mishaps happening during training. Combat was not the only time life-threatening idents could have happened. There was at least one percent of the total poption of mages who died from training after all.


    The six spells stopped abruptly before Saleen. Tens of thousands of magic runes scattered all about as if they were shattered ss.


    Saleen¡¯s smirk was no more. All ten fingers of his danced as he performed magic hand seals, working in tandem with Thundering Sound and bringing out 24 thunder dragons to circle his body. The magic amplifier behind him grew abruptly in size, and then, there was a huge shock.


    A huge formless axe cleaved onto his magic amplifier. The six powerful spells had only been a distraction. The formless axe did not crumble as it hit the magic amplifier. Saleen felt his entire body rumbling. If it had not been for the armor formation of the thunder dragons, his Figure of Fate would have probably ended up being sent flying out of his body, and the next hit would have taken his life.


    He opened up his magic amplifier all of a sudden, unleashing powerful suction from within and absorbed that formless huge ax.


    The grandmaster despaired and stood with his remaining hand limping at his side. He had already unleashed his most powerful attack, and there was no greater attack he could have cast after that.


    Saleen felt his teeth loosening and blood from his lips. It was fortunate that the damage was a concussive one, which hardly did anything to hamper hisbat capacity.


    12 Thundering Phantasms attacked at the same time. 12 long lines of ice shredded the grandmaster¡¯s body. While the body was quickly reconstituted, it had nearly lost all mobility.


    Lightning crackled where the lines cut. The grandmaster would have disintegrated if he were to simply move an inch.


    Saleen had been aiming to unleash a big one all along. All 12 Thundering Phantasms had not been doing anything just to wait for a chance like that, and it was an opening that Saleen had to create. It would have been nearly impossible for his illusory constructs would have hit a mage of his level after all.


    ¡°How did you know of the Battleaxe of Fate?¡± The grandmaster asked with a frustrated tone.


    ¡°I¡¯ve told you before, I¡¯m an astrologer,¡± Saleen answered.


    The grandmaster smirked as bone fragments of his face crumbled and fell to the ground.


    Saleen dared not let his guard down. That ax continued to bang all over the ce within his magic amplifier, wrecking a good number of things and killing a good number of warriors. Nailisi and the others were already getting busy in attempting to subdue that thing inside his magic amplifier.


    ¡°I¡¯d tell you of the way to wield the Battleaxe of Fate...¡± The grandmaster panted as he said.


    ¡°Conditions?¡±


    ¡°Tear me uppletely, send every single piece of the grave to the most distant stars far away. I know you¡¯ve definitely been there before.¡±


    The grandmaster¡¯s answer surprised Saleen quite a bit, but he nodded in agreement nheless.


    The grandmaster then threw a magic scroll to Saleen, and that single movement caused his remaining arm to break, dropping to the ground and shattering.


    Saleen took the scroll, which was written in ancient scripts, dating earlier than the Myers Language.


    The method of wielding the Battleaxe of Fate was detailed on it. Saleen took a look and knew that there was nothing wrong, burning the scroll right away.


    The grandmaster sighed. ¡°Heh, I could finally be done with living for good. This is nice...¡±


    The grandmaster tumbled backward before he finished. His entire being shattered to dust, just like that remaining arm of his.


    Saleen was unable to understand the grandmaster¡¯sst words. He wondered why people became world-weary, as he thought one should have continued striving, so long as there was still hope, no matter how small.

 Chapter 1547: World-weary (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1547: World-weary (Part 2)</h4>


    The Star of Wells had only isted the powers, allowing the general to get a clear look at the battle inside.


    When the grandmaster died, the general felt as if all of his powers had been drained. He stopped attacking and looked at the goddess before smirking.


    ¡°What is that snicker for?¡± The goddess did not retaliate immediately. She had been able to brave through the flurry of attacks the general threw at her, and the general no longer had what it would have taken tounch attacks like that again. The oue turned out better than she expected.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you think that being alive is painful?¡± The general asked. The armor on his body still looked shiny and new, while the de in his hand remained looking terrifyingly sharp. However, the general himself looked as if he became a withered old man and felt very tired.


    ¡°Not at all. Be it life or death, it¡¯s all very normal to me,¡± the goddess answered seriously.


    ¡°Yeah, I forgot that you¡¯re the Goddess of Life.¡± The general stuck his de onto the ground and began taking off his armor.


    Saleen put the Well of Stars away. He had yet to use any of the other godly items. He walked to the ce where the grandmaster disappeared and cast a wind tunnel, sucking up the grandmaster¡¯s bone powder.


    The grandmaster had another request¡ªtear down his grave and send it all to the edge of the crystal wall system.


    No powers could have been revived in such a ce, and that was the grandmaster¡¯s resolve.


    The general continued taking off his armor while he said, ¡°I¡¯ve lived long enough. When Saleen killed the grandmaster, I came to realize something all of a sudden, that I was a piece in a game of chess. If those people wanted toe back, they would have needed our help. The Cemetery of Heroes is a joke in itself. I was but a scapegoat back then, and I still am.¡±


    ¡°Scapegoat? How are you a scapegoat?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re afraid that those people are going to return, so that¡¯s why you¡¯re trying to kill me.¡±


    ¡°Hahahahaha!¡± The goddess burst outughing. ¡°Oh General, this is where we¡¯re different. I¡¯m not the kind who is always looking for excuses, yet you keep thinking people owe you.¡±


    Seeing that the General was staying silent, the goddess continued, ¡°All those years ago, after I knew that I had been using the power of the Source of the maind, causing the ce to be on the brink of falling apart, I chose to die instead of leaving the ne.¡±


    The general had no way of retorting, given how the goddess put it. He simply said, ¡°Now that the Grandmaster is dead, the heroic spirits out there are definitely no longer a match for your Nature Legion. I¡¯ve nothing else to say, but help me out in one thing.¡±


    ¡°You want to pass down your art?¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    ¡°Well, I couldn¡¯t promise you anything in that regard. Did you see Saleen kill the grandmaster? I¡¯m going to fight him after I¡¯m done with you. If I were to lose...¡±


    ¡°You couldn¡¯t possibly lose.¡±


    ¡°Are you certain? Saleen mastered the power of lightning, and he had possession of the Lightning Moon.¡±


    The general did not know what to say to that. One such mage was indeed terrifying, so much so that even a god at the pinnacle of level 18 would not have necessarily been able to win against.


    ¡°I¡¯ll talk to Saleen about it for a bit.¡± The goddess added and came before Saleen.


    ¡°So what now? The general has lost the will to live as well?¡± Saleen asked immediately. He was actually able to hear the conversation. His Thundering Sound skills were actually capable of more than just doing damage. It was the same for any magic spell. The true use of magic was to allow humans to adapt to their environment better, after all.


    ¡°Indeed. What we did out there destroyed the heroic spirits¡¯ will. We won¡¯t even need to do anything. Just keeping them from escaping will be enough.¡±


    ¡°What does the general want then?¡±


    ¡°He wants to pass down his art.¡±


    Saleen pondered for a bit. ¡°I have a warrior who has reached level 14 with me. I could do the introductions.¡±


    The goddess chuckled. ¡°There is no need to fight me over this. All my followers have their own lineage, and they definitely wouldn¡¯t be taking the lineages of others.¡±


    Saleen¡¯s constitution, being at such a level, was stronger than that of most warriors, and so he had naturally gotten thick-skinned as well. He was hardly embarrassed when the goddess put it that way. He simply smiled and continued, ¡°What about our showdown then?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll let the general have his way for once. It¡¯s best to show some respect to someone at such a level after all.¡±


    Saleen nodded. He had been quite an as**ole before because he wanted to provoke the enemy. That had been done for the sake of winning. Now that he had won, he was free to drop the act.


    Furthermore, inheriting the general¡¯s lineage ofbat would do a lot to help his people. Anyone who inherited the general¡¯s lineage would definitely have a shot at bing a level 18 warrior.


    The general sat on the ground, leaning on the huge de that he stabbed into the ground, spacing out.


    Saleen brought someone before long. He brought one of the four magic beast swordsmen that he had subjugated in his early days, who went by the name of Singiles. He was brought on that trip because he was the strongest among the four and was no longer in charge of Demon City, He had taken the position of the suprememander, leading one of the armies of the Kingdom of Metatrin.


    Singiles was overjoyed to hear what Saleen proposed. He stood before the general and bowed respectfully.


    The general took a look at Singiles and sighed. ¡°Well, your talent is somewhatcking, I can tell that much. If you are to ck off, there is no way for you to reach my level.¡±


    ¡°I understand, sir...¡±


    Singiles¡¯s talents were actually considered to be on the better side among the warriors of the Kingdom of Metatrin. However, the general wasparing him with warriors of ancient times. At that time, extraordinary people were abundant, and it was fairlymon to find level 18 warriors around.


    The general did not mind. The one whom Saleen brought was probably the best among warriors whocked a lineage. Saleen would not have picked anyone for the task, given how he had the might of his forces to consider.


    ¡°Myers, keep watch here. I¡¯ll go and have a look outside,¡± Saleen said and left the general¡¯s grave.


    The goddess had no choice in the matter. She was the one fighting the general, so she naturally had to be the one to keep watch.


    Saleen left the grave for the sole purpose of observing how the goddess¡¯s followers fought.


    The fighting in the cemetery was not over. Saleen and the goddess were quick at disposing of their enemies, as both the general and the grandmaster were severely injured. Both Saleen and the goddess were pulling punches, but they managed to finish dealing with their enemies first.


    Saleen was rather disappointed after walking out of the cemetery. None of the followers of the goddess were doing anything anymore, handingbat entirely to the Nature Legion. Saleen¡¯s emergence startled the goddess¡¯ followers, but then quickly saw that Saleen did not attack them, and that meant that the goddess was fine.


    Saleen came before the Grandmaster¡¯s grave, hesitating for a bit before walking into it.


    The Grandmaster¡¯s grave was not as barren as that of the General. There was actually a magic tower in it. The tower was not something out of the ordinary¡ªa standard 17-floored tower.


    Saleen walked into the tower and found the ce to be really huge, which meant that the Grandmaster was far more knowledgeable about space magic than he was. The floors of the tower held everything that the grandmaster collected, and most were not actually precious things. They were simply kept around for sentimental reasons.


    Saleen was unable to help but feel sorrowful, wondering what had the Grandmaster¡¯s life been like.


    What the grandmaster clung to was nearly meaningless to him. All the equipment and items of mediocre value were things that he held dear to.


    At present, however, the Grandmaster hoped for everything to be destroyed, as if he had nevere to that world.


    Saleen deemed him to be out of his mind.


    If it was true that everyone had self-destructive tendencies in their hearts, then the Heretic God would eventually be resurrected. That was just like how gods of ck magic worked. Those kinds of gods were capable of being born in the void, so long as someone was providing such powers.


    The grandmaster left behind several magic notes, unique materials, and equipment. There were also magic nuclei, dragon crystals, and Saleen even saw the remains of a giant inside. The remains were sealed within a crystal, seated as if it was pondering something.


    Saleen walked all the way up to the top, seeing how the mage went from being an apprentice to being one of the most powerful. The Grandmaster¡¯s powers were not just given to him. Every enemy had their past, as well as what they loved and hated.


    It was a living person that Saleen had ended up destroying.


    Saleen felt very stunned about all of that, due solely to the fact that he too, was a mage.


    Saleen chuckled and said to the void of the magic tower, ¡°Grandmaster, let the past be the past. I can put all those tricks you were trying to y behind me. I¡¯ll take your grave to the chaotic void. If there is to be a day where I sense your will of wanting to be resurrected, I¡¯ll bring the entire tower back here.¡±


    The ce was dead silent, and Saleen sighed.


    The Grandmaster did notpletely die, but he had long died inside. Saleen realized all of it suddenly. It was difficult to die when one had reached such levels. If Saleen¡¯s soul were to be able to continue existing after leaving the body, he wondered what would happen to him if his physical body were to cease to function.


    Saleen had once thought he would end up in purgatory or some nes that had to do with souls. After Saleen¡¯s soulspletely returned to his body, he knew that that was not the case at all.


    He did not touch anything in the magic tower. If he had been like how he was in the past, he would have cleaned the entire ce up.


    He walked out of the tower and beganying down forbidden arrays around it. They were not meant for guarding against the Grandmaster; they were to keep outsiders from treading inside.


    The life of a level 17 mage was legendary. Saleen nned to look into it further if he found the time to do so in the future.


    ¡°I could at least have that much, couldn¡¯t I?¡± he thought to himself.


    The inside of the grave was very clean. He toured around the ce and did not find anything out of the ordinary, before walking out of the grave and putting the entire grave into his magic amplifier.


    ¡°Sir, the grave should be destroyed,¡± one of the goddess¡¯s followers came up to Saleen and said.


    Saleen shot a cold look at them. The warrior had their hand on their sword, being ready to fight.


    ¡°If you were Myers, you wouldn¡¯t have said so. She might be a god, but she at least knows respect. Are you questioning me in her stead? Or are you telling me what to do?¡±


    Saleen used Thundering Sound skills when he said that. The warrior was covered in sweat by then, finding themselves unable to even draw their sword.


    ¡°Rx, I¡¯m not going to kill you. This is between me and her.¡± Saleen walked to another grave when he finished. A ball of lightning was conjured in his hand, which he sted at the grave, blowing it to bits. The attack was incredibly eerie. The grave simply copsed to the ground after it shattered, instead of being sprayed everywhere.


    All 12 of the followers had initially thought of testing Saleen¡¯s prowess, but they were all stunned by him instead. The brunt of that attack had beenpletely borne by the target, without the slightest bit wasted. If Saleen were indeed out to kill them, it would not have taken him long.


    Graves after graves were toppled and one heroic spirit after another died aplete death. That ce of memory was slowly destroyed by Saleen and the goddess. Saleen gazed far away and no longer found all the huge, towering buildings of the Imperial City of the Abyss.


    No empire couldst forever, and no one could live forever either.

 Chapter 1549: Divine Region (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 1549: Divine Region (Part 3)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Eleven of the goddess¡¯s followers broke through at the edge of the Purgatory Desert. They were veterans, and they knew the enemy¡¯s power was not something they were capable of measuring.


    That assassin had killed the most powerful mage in their midst, who was also the only one with the most powerful healing and support skills. Agares¡¯ Snakerun dagger robbed them of any hope.


    If they were to continue fighting, Agares would have been able to take them out one after another.


    None of them was capable of seeing through Agares¡¯ stealth skills, and they had no idea how to defend against his attacks either. If they had been able to discover the enemy prior, then Agares¡¯bat prowess would have beenparable to theirs. But quite a few powerful professionals were keeping a close eye on them, preventing them from focusing on tracking that assassin.


    Saleen hired Agares and the assassin caused the situation to lighten up. Every profession had its strengths. Agares was definitely incapable of standing against the forces of the goddess. However, in the current situation where the goddess¡¯s Nature Legion was tangling with Saleen¡¯s forces, the assassin was like a fish in the water.


    ¡°You want to run now? Toote.¡± Lex chuckled and flickered, arriving right before one of the followers of the goddess. Mages did not need to attack enemies at such a close distance. She was only doing so to cast an extremely small territory.


    The territory shrouded the tall warrior, preventing the other followers from providing aid.


    The warrior discovered in terror that the enemy¡¯s world powers were far more powerful than amon level 17 mage¡¯s. The only drawback to it being of a very small area. It was due precisely to such a small area that the power of the world ended up being enhanced by several levels.


    The follower was armed with a chain, which was about ten meters long. The weapon fell limply, like a dead snake, when the power of the world activated by Lex was at work. The warrior never expected something like that to happen. The weapon they wielded was considered a godly item, and its weapon spirit was mostly restored. It had only been yet to reach the pinnacle state.


    The goddess spent a lot of effort resurrecting and restoring them. She would have long been able to tame everything in the ne otherwise, and Saleen would not have ever gotten the chance to advance to where he was.


    The chain whimpered on the ground for a bit. The warrior intended to activate his power as forcemaster but quickly found his powers being held back. Lex shed a smirk at the warrior.


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother struggling. The power of the Grukos is an antithesis to the likes of you, after all.¡± Lex tangled a fire dragon and a water snake together, sending the amalgamation of creatures into the warrior¡¯s body.


    Grukos...


    The warrior did not understand what the name meant. When the emperor of Qin established his empire all those years ago, the warrior was still hibernating in the tablet. There was no way they would have known that there would have been a type of secret art that worked specifically against warriors.


    If they had been given time to look into it, they would have developed ways to do something about it. However, given that that was the first time they encountered such a skill, the level 16 forcemaster had no way to resist the powers and ended up being killed by Lex with a single hit.


    Yet another one of the followers bit the dust. The followers of the goddess turned around and formed a circle, facing outward. The Nature Legion¡¯s rate at restoration had gotten increasingly slow, and the followers did not have any backup. The only way out was to give their all to fight.


    ¡°Who should be the one that gets out?¡± The remaining ten discussed among themselves. There was no way for all of them to escape. They only hoped to be able to send one of them to tell the goddess what had happened there.


    Every single one that acted against them was to be branded with a Mark of Hatred to enable the goddess to take revenge for them.


    The circle was no longer perfect, given that there were two of them missing. But their enemy was not of level 18, and the ten had beenying out the formation just to find an opportunity to send one of them away.


    Lex shattered the body of the warrior. When the power of the Source of the warrior was destroyed, a spatial fissure appeared in the middle of the remaining followers. Van Gogh appeared inside the circle of the ten followers, before disappearing again.


    He was of an inadequate level, as he was only a level 15 fallen holy master. However, he was still formidable enough that the followers dared not take him lightly.


    Sika charged during the momentarypse of their attention, leaping high into the air and bringing down the metal totem pole in her hand hard. A mage cast a huge fire dragon, which was destroyed by Sika¡¯s metal totem pole in midair.


    The weight of the metal totem pole was brought to bear as Sika let it fall to the ground.


    At that moment, the entire world within the metal totem pole was falling.


    Sika¡¯s people sealed their ears away using skills, before wrapping themselves in threeyers of magic shielding.


    The heavy impact caused the ground to tremble. All of the goddess¡¯ followers, including the Nature Legion, was sent flying from the ground. A triangr piece of bone shot to the air, emitting shrilled noises.


    The heads of a mage and a warrior were split open. Their souls absorbed into that piece of bone.


    The souls absorbed into the bone were already broken and the powers of their Sources were destroyed. The one attack took two lives. While the followers were the weakest in the bunch, Sika made a very clear statement¡ªI¡¯m stronger than Lex.


    She had not bothered herself with such things before, but seeing how Lex was about to give up being empress, the other woman would probably stay by Saleen¡¯s side for good.


    With her children all grown up, Sika¡¯s focus was shifted back to such matters. Saleen¡¯s days would have still remained spectacr, and he definitely would not confine himself to a ne. The magnitude of one¡¯s powers would be a crucial factor having Saleen decide who would head where with him in the future.


    Sika¡¯s attack was simply too ferocious, but the skill felt more solid than a secret art. It was just throwing down the totem pole, after all.


    A hole that was tens of meters deep was seen in the ground. While the sand on the surfaceyer was loose and soft, there were huge chunks of solid rocks hiding underneath theyer of sand.


    The metal totem pole had been so heavy that the rocks beneath could not resist. The pole was not something that even giants would be able to lift, normally. If she had not been using her power as a priest to cancel the weight, she definitely would not have been able to either. Sika¡¯s current power could easily take on even a level 18 forcemaster. She could have easily used the totem pole to pull the simplest of attacks and deal the most severe damage.


    The metal totem pole had never been a weapon when Raphael had it in her possession. Sika was the one who modified the pole into a weapon.


    The followers¡¯ defenses, which they deemed impregnable, were torn down by Sika with a single move, and she had even been able to kill two of the followers along the way. All that pride and arrogance in the followers¡¯ minds dissipated right away.


    It was no longer their era. Back in their time, everyone¡¯s technique had been rough.


    Due to drops in power throughout the entire ne, however, the technique became far more advanced for the professionals throughout Myers Maind. After powers throughout the maind were restored, those techniques had apparently be even more important.


    Lex¡¯s unique secret arts, Sika¡¯s metal totem pole, Agares¡¯ assassination techniques, and Van Gogh space-manipting abilities, which had all been mystical back in ancient times, were rarely seen anywhere.


    The disaster was far from over. J and Sul both held two swords of differing lengths, and charged at one of the mages, striking with four swords at the same time. The mage wore a cold expression as they cast two ck balls, which were ck Waves in dark elemental magic.


    ck Wave was a rarely seen dark elemental magic spell. While it was no doubt powerful, targeting it was very difficult. Both J and Sul were too near to the mage, which caused the level 17 spell to hit both of them squarely in the chest as the spell was cast.


    Four swords pierced through the mage¡¯s body while the two ck Waves dissipated without making a sound. Only their armor was shattered, metallic dust falling to the ground. Both of them broke out in cold sweat. If that had been other types of level 17 magic spells, they would have been able to resist once using only their sword aura. However, that ck Wave was incredibly corrosive, making it impossible for them topletely negate using sword aura, not even when it was cast by a grand swordmaster.


    If they had actually been hit, their powers would have suffered massive drops. Even if they had been able to survive, it would have made it very difficult for them to return to their pinnacle states, unless a Goddess of Nature like Myers forged new bodies for them.


    The remaining seven felt sorrowful. They had no idea why the odds were being stacked against them all of a sudden. The two sides were more or less equal in terms of power, and the followers were able to master greater power of rulespared to Saleen¡¯s people. However, their enemies¡¯ equipment was all insanely powerful, which evened out the inequality of the power of rules.


    Suddenly, they realized that what happened was not a random encounter. They had been preparing meticulously for a very long time. Every single attack had been very well nned.


    They had fallen into a trapid by the enemy, rather than them intercepting the enemy.


    Things were still going on in a rather leisurely pace in the temple¡¯s space. The goddess realized suddenly that someone with Saleen¡¯s temperament would have been the kind of person who kept the news about their showdown tightly sealed, so much so that he did not even bother to think about it. That caused her to not be able to sense anything. The method of concealment was so tight that she would not have been able to sense anything amiss. However, when he finally acted, none of her followers would have been able to survive.


    That was indeed how Saleen pulled it all. He knew very well of the goddess¡¯ powers. If he were to just think of killing the goddess, she would have been able to sense it.


    The power of a level 18 god was so great that they were able to sense hostility without the enemy even showing any hint of it.


    As such, Saleen hypnotized himself into thinking that he had no intention of killing the goddess, and he had only wanted to drive her away. None of Saleen¡¯s people knew of his true intentions, but they hardly ever received clear orders from him. With him not bothering to bring his wife and children into the battle, his followers knew that he was out to kill the goddess.


    If Saleen and the goddess were only out to determine the winner, both Sika and Lex would have been indispensable help. But if it were to be a fight to the death, they would have be liabilities instead. Saleen was a man who was incapable of ignoring his family¡¯s safety, and that would have caused him to be suppressed in the battle.


    All of that, coupled with very targeted training that left no trace, all of them would have realized what their lord was up to by then.


    Furthermore, Agares had been the first to attack, killing one of the followers right away. Given how there was no way that man would have voluntarily helped them, he could have only been there because Saleen hired him. As for when the employment took ce, it would have happened before the goddess was resurrected and would have been done in a ce so secretive that not even the goddess would have been able to detect anything.


    ¡°Goddess, are you not going to cast your divine territory in full strength?¡± Saleen behaved nonchntly. He had already unleashed a huge number of lightning creatures, which filled his world. The grave of heroes continued to wear down the power of the Source in that space. Even if the goddess kept dragging things out, it would not help to boost her attacks by any significant margin.

 Chapter 1550: Clashing Head On (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1550: shing Head On (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The goddess looked at Saleen. Her form was no longer even a humanoid tree creature. She was simply a huge piece of wood with eyes. She then said slowly, ¡°I was the one who made you who you are today, and I don¡¯t want to see you destroyed.¡±


    Saleen smiled and added, ¡°But I¡¯ve wanted you dead before I even resurrected you.¡±


    ¡°Which is why we are different.¡± The goddess¡¯s tone was neutral, devoid of joy or sorrow. However, she had been sad about the passing of her followers.


    ¡°We¡¯re not all that different. It¡¯s just that you¡¯ve gotten old.¡± Saleen still wore a faint smile by then.


    ¡°Such words easily get on women¡¯s nerves.¡± Thin vines grew behind her back and danced in the air.


    ¡°But you¡¯re not a woman. You¡¯re a goddess,¡± Saleen taunted.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that the same though? The way one is born determines how they live out the rest of their lives, after all.¡± A whip appeared in the goddess¡¯ hand, whichshed out once and destroyed all the lightning creatures 100 meters before her.


    The goddess was still powerful. If Saleen¡¯s lightning magic had been dealt against any other god, he would have finished the fight a long time ago, but he was only able to fight a war of attrition with the goddess. The goddess¡¯s attack destroyed about ten percent of the lightning creatures, preventing them from being restored.


    Saleen learned how formidable the divine territory was. He waved and summoned even more lightning creatures from the Lightning Moon.


    As the green vines grew, the goddess gradually returned to her human form but still stood at about ten meters tall. The vines coiled around her body, forming a colorful set of armor.


    The goddess looked at Saleen and said, ¡°I have to admit that your armor since it is formed by the thunder dragons, is indeed powerful, which is why I¡¯ve only attacked you once. If I¡¯m unable to kill you, then there is little else for me to do about you.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for telling me that.¡± A huge ball of lightning appeared in Saleen¡¯s hand, which he had extracted from the Ring of Cosmos. The amount of energy contained within the ball was enough to make the goddess feel suffocated.


    The goddess did not need to breathe. The suffocating feeling was just an impression left behind by her days spent as a human.


    ¡°If I am unable to kill you, I need to at least destroy your world,¡± Saleen said as he threw the ball of lightning into the air, which drew an arc in the sky andnded in a river far away.


    The water in the river was severed immediately, and about a cubic kilometer¡¯s worth of water immediately vaporized, leaving space behind.


    The goddess knew that Saleen was telling the truth. He might not have been able to kill her, but he could destroy the space of the temple. She was unable to keep up with Saleen¡¯s movement skills. The Comet sh was simply too fast, several times faster than her Rainbow.


    It was only then that the goddess realized that Saleen¡¯s fixation on movement skills far eclipsed his fixation on attacks. He, a level 17 mage, was capable of flying faster than a level 18 god.


    Furthermore, given how the ball of lightning was able to pierce her world, it meant that a lockdown would have limited effectiveness against him. Saleen would need to use Lightning Protection to escape the area surrounded by nts.


    The divine beast specter before her continued to grow and expand. Balls of lightning reached her and were strung up by the water current into a string of balls. None of them were destroyed; they were sent into the specter instead.


    The divine beast specter flickered for a bit before continuing to expand. The goddess was done waiting and mounted the specter. She charged at Saleen with the whip in her hand.


    If the goddess had been fighting against amon enemy, one hit with the whip filled with divine might would have been enough. She would not have needed to do anything else. Creating an illusion using divine powers would have been enough to crush said enemies.


    Nailisi leaped from the ground, a boom echoing, andshed out with the Sword of Rules in her hand. The rumble was caused by her feet hitting the ground as sheunched herself up into the air.


    Dante unleashed over 100 more thunder dragons from the Lightning Moon as well, which pounced on the goddess from above.


    The space within the divine territory had been torn to pieces. If it had not been for both Saleen and the goddess having godly items enabling them to keep space steady, both of them would have ended up being thrown into the spatial turbulence.


    The Whip of Divine Might was one of the fewpletely intact godly items that she had in her possession. That item had been at her side as she waged wars against the gods in ancient times. Back then, it had yet to be a piece of equipment that belonged to a god. It had instead been a rare mental type of equipment among mages, capable of casting powerful pressure of the soul.


    The thunder dragons did not even manage to get near the goddess before their bodily integrity failed, much to Dante¡¯s dismay. The power of both worlds tangled. The thunder dragons were unable to make it past all the world power attacks from the other side. They all dissipated while they were still quite a distance away from the goddess.


    The goddess paid no heed to the attacks. Her whip was even more flexible than Saleen¡¯s snakes. Tiny wormholes were even seen near the energy vortexes near the tip of the whip.


    Saleen pretended as if he saw nothing. He cast the Well of Stars, and his body was covered in water element, forming thick mists around him.


    The divine beast serving the goddess roared angrily, which was powerful enough to cause a ripple in the Well of Stars. The goddess took that momentary opening and burrowed inside.


    An elemental beast?


    Saleen was only surprised when he saw what the divine beast pulled and that the goddess was riding on an elemental beast. All that he deduced about that other divine beast had been useless thus far.


    He was fully capable of deception, and it seemed that it was the same with the goddess.


    However, that did not matter to him. A fire dragon emerged and coiled around Saleen¡¯s body. The fire dragon shot huge fireballs at the goddess¡¯s steed.


    The fireballs were all wrapped in magic patterns and were more than just low-level spells. If Saleen had not had the Scorching Candle on his person, the fireballs of very high temperatures would have scalded him just by grazing him.


    The goddess¡¯s expression became severe as she faced the chains of fireballs. The whip in her hand changed targets and trembled rapidly, destroying all of the fireballs. The goddess flicked her hand with every fireball she destroyed. She was able to tell from the power from the fireballs that Saleen had be truly capable of killing her.


    The two parties were back on the same starting line again. It had be increasingly clear that they were equal in terms of power. The oue of the battle was difficult to predict.


    If it had not been for resurrecting her followers, the goddess¡¯s powers would have been several times higher but she would have had no way of telling just how frightening the growth rate of the mage in front of her was.


    She initially thought that there were no longer any divine personas left in the ne, but Saleen had nheless been able to acquire high-level divine personas, using them within the Hall of Gods to reach where he was.


    That one misstep became a series of missteps. She wondered when she lost control of the mage¡¯s fate, as everything had gone differently from what she predicted.


    Furthermore, Saleen had many people at his disposal. Even without the Nature Faith, he still would have been fully capable of controlling Myers Maind.


    ¡°No. If I lose here, there won¡¯t be a Myers Maind anymore. It would only take several generations for everyone to forget the name ¡®Myers,¡¯¡± the goddess thought to herself.


    The Withering Dance in her hand shattered at that thought, dancing around her like a rain of flowers.


    When the divine territory was shrunk to the smallest of areas, the powers became incredibly condensed. Any stray thunder dragon that managed to get near was repelled by her divine territory.


    Saleen felt the third eye in the center of his brow begin to twitch violently as if it was trying to break free. It was his only weakness, but it was also his greatest strength.


    His third eye broke free of his control and opened. Saleen was able to see a red suning at him as if his body had melted and was no longer in his control.


    Hmph!


    Thundering Sound rumbled in Saleen¡¯s mind. The divine might dissipated, but the sun remained.


    The goddess had taken the form of a scorching sun and had charged at Saleen in a determined, furious manner.


    A smile appeared in Saleen¡¯s mind¡¯s eye. It was the smile of his teacher.


    In the past, Saleen would have chosen to evade the attack. On that day, however, Saleen chose to take hold of a huge icicle and charge at the goddess. He was about to sh with the goddess head-on.


    There was no possibility of trickery. Everything powermanded by both parties wasid bare for all to see, and techniques were meaningless. The side without ample power would be crushed, and that was all there was to it.


    A mage and a god who had been a mage used the most brutal form of close-quarterbat to determine who would survive.


    The goddess¡¯s whipshed hard at Saleen¡¯s shoulder. The pauldron conjured by a thunder dragon disappeared right away, being sent back to his magic amplifier. Saleen¡¯s icicle hit the goddess¡¯s face.


    A huge hole appeared.


    The icicle was filled with rules of lightning and was raging, so much so that the goddess¡¯s divine wooden form was unable to take it. However, given that the goddess¡¯s power of the Source had never been in her mind, she was not in any life-threatening danger, even if her brain was smashed.


    One hit from the icicle was traded with one hit from the whip. Both sides lost considerably.


    Saleen lost a thunder dragon. While the thunder dragon remained alive, it would not be able to participate in any battles for the next 100 years. It was fortunate that he had 24 of them, and every single one of them was capable of taking the form of any part of the set of armor.


    Saleen¡¯s Soul Armor was quickly repaired and he cast eight balls of lightning again, which crashed hard into the divine beast that the goddess was riding.


    The elemental beast had no sense of pain and did not fear death. Saleen had no idea just how such a low-level being could have evolved to such heights. As such, he used four times the previous level of power to attack it. Common pairs of balls of lightning probably would not have been enough to kill the divine beast, after all.


    After eight balls of lightning were sent into the divine beast¡¯s body, the ferocious beast shattered into dust without making a sound.


    That exceeded the goddess¡¯s expectations. If she wanted to summon the shattered beast again, it would take twice the amount of time she took to summon itst time.


    While the divine beast was powerful, it depended on the enemy it was up against. The fire dragon behind Saleen spit a string of fireballs yet again. The fireballs passed through the magic amplifier, enhancing their powers by over 20 times.


    It was due precisely to his magic amplifier that Saleen dared to take on a level 18 god as a level 17 mage. If it had not been for the magic amplifier, Saleen¡¯s magic spells would have been such a meager threat that the goddess could have just ignored them. If that had been the case, he would have had far fewer tactical options avable.


    The goddess was shocked by his power. The man she faced at the moment was different from the one she had known in the past. It was only then she realized that Saleen had never truly used his true level of power when he was under her scrutiny during all the wars he had fought in the past.


    Her whip was able to clear up all the fireballs that were fired the second time. However, her hand ended up rather numb. It had been a lot of time since she had felt any kind of pain.


    When elemental resonance urred, even if she forcefully attacked using godly items, the resonance traveled back through the recoil no matter what she did.

 Chapter 1551: Clashing Head On (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1551: shing Head On (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen had been nning for quite a long time. He knew that everything he did and said would have been scrutinized by the goddess. As such, he had only used his usual level of powers in battles, instead of amplifying them using his magic amplifiers.


    It was not until he faced the goddess that Saleen put his true powers to use, finally showing off just how powerful he could be when he used his magic amplifier.


    He had been hiding his powers the whole time just to make the goddess misjudge his power level.


    The fire dragon conjured by the Scorching Candle continued to throw fireballs, which he had infused with ball lightning and lightning icicles.


    All six godly items had fixed spells in them. The goddess was plunged into the sea of magic. While she was extremely adept at manipting elemental powers, the six godly items did not rely on ambient elemental powers for spell-casting. Elemental creatures stored by Saleen powered the spells instead.


    While the goddess had no problem affecting ambient elements, she had to at least understand what the six godly items were and how they were made before she would be capable of affecting the elements in them.


    The six godly items had been created after she perished, and it was after her death that magic had developed a lot. The goddess attempted to deduce the functionalities of the six godly items by relying on her experience, but the six that Saleen was using differed from the equipment of the other mages. He was only relying on the elemental creatures stored within the items for power, causing no fluctuations outside.


    The goddess retreated several hundred meters before stopping. She gave up thinking about how to kill Saleen. Her whip had used up about ten percent of her power, but it had only been able to get rid of one of the pieces of armor on Saleen. There were 24 pieces in the set, and there was no way she could use the same attacks to take out every piece.


    However, giving up was not an option for the goddess. Her followers had all been set up by Saleen after all. If she gave up killing him, she would no longer be the Goddess of Myers.


    The divine territory contracted yet again. All the tall, imposing nts around sprayed green gasses and sealed the entire space off. The huge petals conjured by the Withering Dance fused with her body, which then shrunk gradually back to the size of a normal human.


    Saleen was able to see that all of the goddess¡¯ power of the Source returned to her body, and none was left concealed within the Withering Dance.


    The externalyer of thunder dragon armor on Saleen¡¯s body became instantly covered with half a meter of icy mist.


    The goddess¡¯s pupils contracted. However, Saleen was already behind her. He lifted his arm and pointed his finger.


    The Withering Dance reappeared on the goddess¡¯ wrist. All of her power of the Source was concealed within the Withering Dance. Saleen¡¯s finger was pointed on the wooden bangle, and crisp cracking noises were heard.


    The goddess then saw Saleen¡¯s smug expression. She was startled but proceeded with her n nheless. Hundreds of vines shot from her body, enveloping the mage.


    A scroll unraveled in Saleen¡¯s hand, which held a level 17 chained magic spell.


    The spell was Elemental Copse, which was a suicide magic spell. The mage who created the spell was from the Fourth Dynasty. The goddess trapped Saleen, so he cast Elemental Copse, causing the goddess to feel as if her body was disintegrating.


    However, she knew that Saleen was not someone who sought death.


    She turned around and saw another Saleen pierce her body with a lightning icicle.


    Crack...


    The goddess¡¯s body disintegrated bit by bit, bing green energy that filled the ce.


    ¡°Seems like we¡¯ve underestimated each other,¡± Saleen said. He saw the goddess appear on another huge nt faraway. Her face emerged from the bark of that nt. It looked very in.


    ¡°But then again, I¡¯m already used to your deception.¡± The goddess never thought that it would be easy to kill Saleen. He would have had a hard time killing her while in her world after all.


    However, Saleen was incredibly at ease. While that finger attack that he had pulled had not been the Crystal Finger, he was nheless able to calcte that the goddess was not that much quicker than he expected when she transferred her body elsewhere.


    He would have been unable to kill the goddess using the Crystal Finger right away. However, since the goddess¡¯s power of the Source could not have stayed hidden from his observation, there was still hope in killing her.


    So far, both Saleen and the goddess had only been able to wear down each other¡¯s powers somewhat and had not been truly able to harm their true bodies.


    She was capable of resurrecting indefinitely while she was still on her divine territory, so long as her power of the Source stayed intact.


    Saleen knew that he was facing an enemy far more powerful than any that he had fought before, so it would be extremely difficult to find an opening and finish things up the way he had done in the past.


    The Winged Skull swung their Reaper Scythe about and emerged from the magic amplifier, staying close to the ground while they cut up the massive roots of the nts conjured by the goddess.


    Their Reaper Scythe dented with a cracking noise. The Winged Skull blew a ck breath onto the Reaper Scythe, mending the dented part. A long, narrow eye opened on the huge de, dispelling the divine territory. The power transferred from the purgatory ne caused the root of the nt to begin withering.


    Nailisi returned to her imp form as she opened her mouth, chomping down and chewing away at the vines of the nts in the divine territory. They were all divine trees, but there was no telling what kind of divine trees they were.


    Nailisi did not mind at all, as it would enable her to gain a new type of mighty power, which was taking a nt form resembling the tree creature.


    Dante was rather concerned about the Lightning Moon. There was no fear of its powers running out. While the power of the Lightning Moon was indeed limited, it was impossible to drain it all in just a single battle. The drain in usual battles was far lower than the Lightning Moon¡¯s recovery rate after all.


    The power of lightning was different from other element powers, as while it had a little drain, it was difficult to convert its energy.


    Dante continued to attack the divine territory. Although it was unable to see any weaknesses, it refused to just back down. Dante knew well that the battle had to eventually be settled by Saleen¡¯s hands after all.


    ¡°You¡¯ve decayed,¡± Saleen uttered, looking down upon her. His magic amplifier was then scattered. All 27 eyes targeted the goddess.


    The goddess¡¯s body was petrified, or rather, decayed.


    All signs of life within her disappeared as if that one line had hit the depths of her mind.


    It was like asking her what her goal had been, and if she had been truly herself all those years ago.


    However, things were different. The world had changed by the time she was resurrected. Nothing that she had been familiar with survived, and her power had been suppressed to the limit. None of her original ns worked, and the one who resurrected her had no respect for her whatsoever.


    Saleen¡¯s bare animosity towards her baffled her. It had nothing to do with the Lord of Glory, as Saleen seemed to hate the gods more than the ancient humans ever did.


    However, she never had any intention of destroying the world, nor did she want to live forever.


    Like Saleen, she only wanted her home to prosper, and she became a master of multiple nes.


    She wondered if she lost her way.


    After she was resurrected, the death of her followers bothered her, and she forgot that the deaths of people back in ancient times had never been something she should have clung to. She hated those heroic spirits, but her followers were just like them.


    The Book of Gaia opened, and the nts on the ground began to die en masse as if they had dried up and then withered and copsed.


    Saleen¡¯s eyes were merciless. The goddess before him was no longer the one he had seen on the mural or the one that the heroic spirits remembered. The goddess before him had aged, and her soul was no longer what it had once been.


    Resurrection? From Saleen¡¯s perspective, all of that was ridiculous.


    ¡°If I die, then make sure that I diepletely!¡± Saleen thought deep in his mind, bringing all six godly items to their full power and enveloping the goddess within.


    The goddess¡¯s face was ashen and did not have a single bit of life left in it.


    ¡°Perhaps you¡¯re right, but even old people have the right to continue living. Let our battle be more simple, Saleen!¡± The goddess let everything go after she said that. A thin magic staff appeared in her hand.


    The thin staff was crimson, and there was a divine persona embedded on the top.


    It was a piece of equipment that had resulted from the time she had spent in silence for over 10,000 years, a godly item that both mages and gods were capable of wielding.


    The Lightning Moon raged all of a sudden. Saleen sensed that Dante was afraid. Dante sensed devastating powering from the weapon that the goddess was holding. However, if she used the godly item, she probably would not end in a good state herself.


    She had no intention of fighting to the death. She only wanted to behave like how she once had¡ªthe girl in her maiden stage, one who lived her life to the fullest and fought whenever she felt like fighting, without any other concerns getting in her way.


    The divine territory did not crumble, but all the nts that supported the divine territory were all gradually encroached on by the six godly items. With the addition of attacks from the Winged Skull and Nailisi, those divine trees had no way of continuing to provide power to her.


    Saleen had lost one Thunder Phantasm. He was still capable of creating new illusory constructs, but he gave up probing. It was past the time for it. He was about to bring about true attacks.


    He walked towards the goddess. The yellow light shining from beneath his feet was as solid as the earth. While his speed was nothing extraordinary, the goddess had no way of evading him.


    The two parties were less than ten meters away from each other when Saleen pointed his finger.


    Pfftt...


    The goddess¡¯s body failed to withstand Saleen¡¯s attack, and she was not able to move the damage elsewhere. A bloody hole appeared in her forehead. Blood spurted out from the wound. Immediately after, a green arrow fired by the goddess hit Saleen¡¯s heart.


    The goddess was stunned. She discovered that her power of the Source had been destroyed by Saleen in one hit.


    She was unable to understand how that was possible. She had stored her power of the Source in the Withering Dance. Saleen¡¯s skills were formidable, but they should not have been able to wreck a level 18 godly item.


    Saleen was just as stunned. His Figure of Fate did not react at all, and the goddess¡¯ arrow punched right through the heart of his true body.


    The surprisested for less than a second before the pain in his heart hit him. His Figure of Fate dropped to the ground, evidently separated from his body.


    The wound in his heart disappeared, but the feeling of being pierced remained. Saleen did not dare to move even a single muscle, fearing that he might pass out from the pain.


    The arrow from the goddess dyed the flow of time, preventing the Figure of Fate from taking the hit for Saleen right away.


    Such an eerie skill meant that she had developed lethal skills against astrologers.


    However, the goddess was the more surprised of the two. She was no longer able to move. As her power of the Source copsed and returned into a chaotic state, coalescing into the primordial energy form, the divine persona on her magic staff shattered into dust.

 Chapter 1552: The Signet of Silence (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1552: The Si of Silence (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The goddess was unable to move. The third eye on Saleen¡¯s forehead was wide open. A huge si hovered above him, and the entire space was put under the si¡¯s control.


    The goddess had just lost her divine persona and was unable to do anything to break free of the space¡¯s bonds. Furthermore, time had stopped flowing.


    It wasparatively easy to increase or reverse the flow of time. However, stopping time was the most difficult thing to pull off.


    Most simr skills slowed the flow of time to the minimum, but the Si of Silence hadpletely stopped the flow of time.


    The rules of the Si were ones that the goddess was unable toprehend, so she was unable to break free from them. It put her in a verypromising position because if Saleen tried to do anything to her, she would not be able to defend herself or her kingdom.


    The only one unaffected was Dante, but even so, it would not have been able to use the electrical powers of the Lightning Moon even if it had wanted to. Any lightning attacks would have dissipated when they got near the goddess and Saleen.


    Saleen became the only being capable of free movement after he gained control of the Si of Silence. The wound in his heart had just healed, but the pain was still present, preventing him from using any skills.


    Both of them were gravely injured and had practically lost. The goddess¡¯s divine persona was shattered and her power of the Source had dissipated, while there was a wound in Saleen¡¯s heart that ensured if he were to recover his powers to the level of a normal human, he would require a healing spell of at least level 16. He was in no condition to cast such a spell on himself at the moment. No outsiders could make it into their space, and even if he wanted to get Nailisi to do it, she was overpowered by the Si of Silence, preventing her from moving.


    Dante was the only one left capable of activity, but it was only able to stay hidden in the Lightning Moon.


    Saleen dared not dispel the si¡¯s power. He did not have the power to do so, and even if he did, dispelling the si¡¯s power would have caused the goddess to retaliate.


    He realized the true meaning of the Si of Silence. Time was split into countless parts by the power of the si, which enabled him to move between the parts as he would have in a normal state. For the enemy, however, the si simply stopped time altogether.


    In the area enveloped by the si, even if Saleen spent 10,000 years inside it, it would only be the shortest of moments to any external observers.


    That meant that if he did nothing and just waited for an outsider to barge in...


    No, that wouldn¡¯t work. No one else could enter the area under the si¡¯s control. They would have ended up like fossils if they entered, unable to move a muscle or cast skills.


    Saleen was the only one capable of doing anything, but his injury required external assistance.


    He felt rather frustrated at the fact that he still ended up being ill-prepared. If he had used the si¡¯s powers at the very beginning, the goddess might not have been affected given that she had not been damaged at all, but he would have been free of the effects of the si¡¯s power, which would have given him absolute initiative in the fight.


    He still thought that he was below the goddess in terms of power, which was why he behaved so cautiously.


    If it had not been for all the probing attempts from the beginning, there would have been no way for him to catch the goddess¡¯s true form. Everything had its cause and effect. Without prior preparation, Saleen would not have had much certainty taking on the goddess.


    The goddess was in a far tighter spot than Saleen. The Si of Silence was a godly item that went against everything she knew. The godly item had pinned her downpletely once it was used.


    All hopes of her recovering her divine persona and power of the Source were lost. That one attack from Saleen did not kill the goddess, but it robbed her of all hope.


    Everything seemed to have ground to a halt in the area controlled by the si, but the goddess knew that it was only her powers that were stopped. Her divine persona, on the other hand, was lost forever.


    Saleen gradually calmed. He was unable to move, as was the goddess. However, as soon as the power of the si was exhausted, Nailisi, the Winged Skull, and Dante would be able to deal a lethal blow.


    All that was left to do was to be patient, so Saleen began meditating instead, settling in to wait for the si¡¯s power to dissipate.


    Meditation was also a way of healing, but it was so slow that mages ignored such effects. However, the recovery rate of the human body in a meditative state was over a dozen times quicker than normal.


    Of course, the extent of Saleen¡¯s injuries would take months topletely heal without furtherplications, which meant that it would take him days even in meditation before hisbat prowess was restored.


    The si hovered above him, and one thing on his person moved¡ªthe Ring of Cosmos. The ring had inner and outeryers. The inneryer shifted without showing any signs of movement, and because Saleen was in meditation, he was unaware of it.


    After the ring turned half a circle, a rich life force was unleashed from another space, gushing into Saleen¡¯s body and heading straight for the wound in his heart.


    The life force was thick but gentle. It began topletely mend the wound in his heart from the inside, before beginning to modify his body as a whole.


    It strengthened Saleen¡¯s body, which was already considered exceptionally sturdy among mages. He only had one shot at casting a skill like the Crystal Finger, and the life force was making it safer and more possible for him to use the skill.


    That was why Saleen¡¯s body was stronger than other mages. Every time he trained using the Crystal Finger, it was equal to an attempt at strengthening his body.


    However, such training was rather brutal. Despite being a level 17 mage, there was still lingering damage to his body.


    A level 17 mage had a very long life, at least in the range of 30 to 50 thousand years, sometimes even to hundreds of thousands of years if the mage were truly long-lived. The ones with special constitutions easily lived millions of years. All of that referred to amon mage. If a mage trained in some secret art capable of prolonging one¡¯s lifespan, a mage of level 17 or above would have a lifespanparable to gods.


    However, Saleen¡¯s body had injuries everywhere, as he was unable to forsake the potent, devastating damage potential offered by the Crystal Finger.


    The life force gushing from the Ring of Cosmos repaired all damages in his body, making him several times stronger than he used to be.


    For other mages, it would have been pointless to make their body indestructible, as no mage could have fought a warrior of the same level on equal footing. Magic was the only thing the mages found reliable.


    However, Saleen was different. His Crystal Finger skill put too much strain on his body. Even if he had the Crystal Ring and advanced level by level, the growth in the Crystal Finger¡¯s power devastated his body every time he used it.


    Raphael seemed to have a seething hatred towards the gods for creating the skill.


    As such, for Saleen, having a strong body was more important than anything else. Only with a perfect body would he be able to cast Crystal Finger with impunity.


    At that moment, Saleen emerged out of his meditative state. Something unexpected happened after he was joyfully surprised¡ªthe ring shifted again. Aqua Fulgur gushed out of the space he knew so well, melting his entire palm.


    However, Saleen had no fear. In truth, there was little to fear. The power contained within the ring could have killed him at any moment, leaving nothing behind. If anything untoward had happened to him, it would have happened a long time ago. It was utterly ridiculous for the ring to repair his injuries, only to destroy him in the very next moment.


    From the mages¡¯ perspective, there were patterns, and thus order, to be found in everything.


    The Aqua Fulgur quickly worked on Saleen¡¯s hand, so much so that it even worked on the Crystal Ring. While the process was speedy, Saleen still sensed that some unknown power from the ring had copied the power of rules of his Crystal Ring and had begun reconstructing his palm with said power of rules in it.


    Saleen extended his hand and looked at the unmoving goddess, who wore no expression. Her appearance was the same as the moment the si had been fully activated.


    He had long gained the ability to use such powers of the si, and the goddess regretted the fact that she had not taken into consideration any preparations that he did without her knowledge. She was the one who gave Saleen his luck, and she wondered if that was her destiny all along.


    The goddess was still capable of thought. She felt as if she returned to the time when she perished, being thrust into the boundless darkness. She never stopped thinking and had spent her time reminiscing the same thing over and over, hoping that she would gain the ability to sleep again.


    At that moment, the goddess wanted to sleep more than anything else, just so that she could shift her eyes away from what he was doing.


    There would be nothing left for her now that Saleen gained the upper hand.


    The bones on Saleen¡¯s left hand grew, which contained the raging power of lightning. Attribute-less granule-like material was ced at the spot where the bones of his hand were connected with his original arm. The rules contained within the Crystal Ring were perfectly copied into his bones and muscles. The hand had every elemental structure lined up in an orderly fashion as if it was an expanded Crystal Ring. The hand was even capable of casting the thunder beads from the Ring of Cosmos.


    Saleen cast the beads one after another, starting from one or two hundred to tens of thousands. All of the beads circled Saleen as if they were filled with a rhythm like stars in the sky.


    ¡°Be obliterated, Myers,¡± Saleen said. Hundreds of balls of lightning were conjured in each of the beads. He did not bother to probe and just sent all of the balls of lightning into the goddess¡¯s body at once.


    Her body was equal to a divine kingdom, which was very vast.


    However, the divine kingdom had not been repaired after she had suffered grievous injuries. Most of the space within her body was broken, and only a few locations were still capable of harboring life.


    The beads entered the goddess¡¯s body and unleashed all of their power at once, forming huge ck holes of energy, which then exploded.


    The terrifying powers tore the divine kingdom into pieces. The energy contained within the hundreds of balls of lightning was beyond what her body was able to contain, and it tore her apart without making a sound.


    However, under the workings of the si, the external appearance of her body remained the same.


    Saleen walked up to her and took her bangle off gently.


    The Withering Dance waspletely free of the goddess¡¯s control as he took it away. In the next moment, Saleen squeezed his fingers together, reducing the wooden Withering Dance to dust with a crack.


    Saleen hadpletely destroyed the root of the god.


    If she were able to resurrect after she was killed by Saleen, she would have to start over as a level 13 pseudogod, and she would lose all the memories and powers she had had before.


    It would be hard to tell if that being would be considered the Goddess of Myers if that urred. The newly resurrected Goddess of Nature would have to reach the peak of level 18 before it would be possible for her to inherit bits of the memories she had at the moment.

 Chapter 1553: The Signet of Silence (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1553: The Si of Silence (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The goddess was unable to resist. She knew what he wanted to do¡ªtake her prisoner.


    Saleen had no certainty of being able to kill all of Nature Faith¡¯s believers because there would be people among the believers who truly liked the goddess and would continue to pray to her. Even if there was even just one believer left behind, there would be a possibility of her resurrecting.


    That was the peskiest thing about gods. Saleen was not the Heretic God. There was no way he could simply kill everyone on Myers Maind to prevent such an oue.


    The best way to do it was to have the goddess resurrect again with her memories wiped and then brought to him.


    She recalled Saleen¡¯s mighty wish and suddenly realized why Saleen was still reluctant to kill her¡ªshe was too knowledgeable. When she was resurrected and advanced by Saleen¡¯s side, that knowledge would gradually be made his.


    Saleen¡¯s ambition was different from any of the other powerful beings. He truly was a pure mage and had an insatiable desire for knowledge and fate.


    Saleen had Jason to thank for that. He had once been lost, and it was his teacher who had put him on the correct path again.


    Saleen was hardly tense. He slowly sent the hundreds of balls of lightning into the goddess¡¯s body, which was alreadypletely wrecked. The burst of power from the hundreds of ball lightning became thest straw that broke the camel¡¯s back.


    The goddess¡¯s body crumbled to nothingness with a bang, finally finishing the goal that Saleen had set out toplete so long ago.


    It was only then Saleen put the Si of Silence away, smiling and saying, ¡°Seems like it¡¯s time to summon Baudire.¡±


    The Winged Skull and Nailisi regained freedom of movement again. Both of them then looked at their master with a baffled expression. They had been unable to do anything against the power that had been put on them.


    ¡°No need to think too much about it. That was my power.¡± Saleen knew what they were worried about. If he had tapped into powers of other people or gods, it would leave unerasableplications in his body.


    The Si of Silence returned to Saleen¡¯s brow. The godly item had no weapon spirit and only contained the lightning runes that Saleen had added to it. His level was so high that not even level 18 gods would have been able to do anything within it.


    Saleen was very wary of any methods or tricks that the gods could pull, and he wouldn¡¯t put something that dangerous in his own body.


    The Ring of Cosmos was the only exception, as he still was unable to truly understand how to use it.


    Nailisi sighed a breath of relief. The nts around them were still growing and countless magic beasts pounced into the space of the temple, intending to kill Saleen. However, without the goddess around, none of the magic beasts were able to do much of anything.


    Dante took over the remaining battle. Saleen¡¯s graves of heroes were still absorbing the power of the Source of the space, as all of it had been what supported the goddess.


    If he did not absorb every bit of that power or destroy the space of the temple, Saleen would have wondered if the goddess would have other means of resurrecting herself.


    The battle at the Purgatory Desert was over, and all 12 followers died in battle. The power of both Lex and Sika eclipsed the power of the followers, but no one knew about it, not even the goddess.


    The Nature Legion had originally consisted of warriors capable of resurrecting indefinitely, but the death of the goddess caused tens of thousands of soldiers in the legion to crumble right away. They were reduced into pure green energy, which was infused into the Purgatory Desert.


    Countless nts grew out of the Purgatory Desert, and a hugeke appeared in the center.


    The oasis continued to expand, gradually bing fertile soil spanning over 1000 kilometers in all directions. The soldiers of the Nature Legion all had serious expressions on their faces before they disintegrated. They knew their goddess had perished, but none of them sported fearful or disappointed expressions. They simply waited for their fates to hit them while they stood where they were.


    The scene was fairly shocking. Both Lex and Sika held their armies back, instead of continuing to attack.


    The conversion of the legion happened quickly. Lex sighed a breath of relief when no one else stood before her.


    A shocking explosion was heard in the desert while they were heading towards the temple. They were able to see the sh of light from over 1,000 kilometers away, as well as the smoke and dust that were kicked up into the sky.


    ¡°Saleen!¡±


    ¡°My liege!¡±


    Everyone panicked, as that was where the temple was. The earth trembled and a pir of mes shot into the sky from the center of the desert, emanating intense heat and light, preventing anyone from looking at it straight on.


    The tremble of the ground seemed like something that would never stop. Sika and Lex were unable to help but take flight, heading straight for the center of the desert.


    The goddess¡¯s temple had disappeared without a trace, and a huge crater had taken its ce. The ground was still trembling and ck sand gushed out from around the crater. The temperature around was frighteningly high.


    Both Sika and Lex looked on from far away, an indescribable feeling deep in their hearts.


    Saleen was dead? Impossible. How could someone like him die?


    ¡°Where¡¯s the Winged Skull?¡±


    ¡°Nailisi!¡±


    Both of the women shouted, but quickly realized that the two beings had gone into the temple with Saleen.


    ¡°Rossen, how is Saleen?¡±


    The water puppet wore a grim expression and answered, ¡°He severed all methods of controlling me, I...¡±


    While he had indeed wanted freedom, at the moment, freedom did not seem to be all that important anymore. If they had lost Saleen, everyone would have lost their anchor.


    They turned to look at the Violet Angel.


    The Violet Angel shook its head, unable to sense any of Saleen¡¯s aura.


    Both Lex and Sika felt dejected, but they did not believe Saleen had died. Sika turned around and said to Agares, ¡°Leave. Go to other nes and don¡¯t ever let me see your face again.¡±


    Lex turned around and said to Van Gogh, ¡°You stay behind. You¡¯re not going anywhere without my orders.¡±


    Sika and Lex broke up Van Gogh and Agares. The threat posed by them using their skills together was too great. Even if something untoward had happened to Saleen, they still had the children to consider, and they could not simply let Saleen¡¯s bloodline be severed.


    Agares chuckled and nodded, not bothering to argue with Sika.


    Sika was a priest, and priests were natural enemies of assassins, especially ones who were proficient at close-quarterbat and possessed self-destructive skills like Sika.


    In the past, Agares did not care what Sika thought. But from the looks of things at the moment, if Saleen were dead and Sika lost all will to live, she would have been able to destroy himpletely. He deemed it wise to leave and be as far as possible from the violent woman. He had no way of withstanding Sika¡¯s wrath, even if he had done nothing wrong.


    Van Gogh bore it as well. If it had not been for Agares helping him out, there would have been no way for him to take on that many powerful beings.


    The reason Lex had demanded that he stay behind was because of Agares. Van Gogh somewhat feared Agares, as a sudden attack from the assassin was capable of destroying his target right away.


    ¡°It was fun working with you. If you can find Saleen, well, and when you have fun jobs like this in the future, do get in touch. I think Saleen will be out conquering the divine kingdoms, and he will have many strange targets to deal with.¡±


    Agares thenughed and left. A long shadow trailed behind him, which, if one were to truly count, would have seemed as if over 20 shadows were being dragged along by one person.


    They all watched Agares leave and felt heavy deep down. If Saleen was around, none of them would have to fear him.


    They looked at the empty crater, and Lex and Sika eyed each other. Sika nodded and Lex said, ¡°Let¡¯s head back to Metatrin. Sika will be in charge of everything. I¡¯ll head back to Holy Rock City and will sit on the throne for a while. Whatever happens, let¡¯s keep in touch with the teleportation portals.


    Everyone nodded, as they were unable to afford to just keep standing where they were. No one knew what happened to Saleen, as everyone who would have been able to sense if Saleen had truly died had been taken away by him.


    The team was split into two. The demon army followed Sika back to Metatrin, while Lex took some of Saleen¡¯s mages with her, getting ready to deal with some potential troublemakers. The Fifth Dynasty was in Safilos¡¯ hands, and the order was not quite restored. The Golden ins were nning something, and Lex was very eager to step down from the throne, bringing her people to wipe out the Golden ins once and for all.


    The seething hatred had gotten even more intense after Saleen disappeared. Lex looked at Gusion, who had been by her side, and said, ¡°Howe you¡¯re here?¡±


    Gusion was a military officer of Metatrin and a follower of Saleen.


    ¡°Lady Sika has all the help she needs, and Sir Jason is around as well.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    Gusion was silent. It was all thanks to Saleen that he had gotten where he was on that day and had eventually be a forcemaster. Even if Saleen ended up dead, he would hold on to his belief and follow the Metatrin family.


    Sika did not need his help, while Lex would have had a lot of trouble to deal with.


    The huge crater on the ground in the center of the desert stopped expanding after Sika and the others left. The ck sands stopped flowing as well. The disappearance of the entire temple brought away more than just things on the surface. There were also energies stored deep underground, which was the key that kept the temple in operation for 10,000 years.


    Everything seemed to have ended. However, at the very center of the crater, a ring sat quietly in the ck sand. The twoyered ring shifted without making a sound. There was no longer any energy leaking between the inner and outeryers of the ring.


    All 64 huge spaces within the ring hadpletely grown, bing an interconnected world. Saleen, Nailisi, and the others stood on top of a huge mountain that was up to 10,000 kilometers tall, a height that was difficult to imagine.


    ¡°Master, if you knew this would have happened, why fight over the divine kingdom with Myers then?¡±


    Saleen wore a bitter smile. There was no way he knew of that that could have happened. The world in the ring was so vast that even just one space could have housed a mountain that was tens of timesrger than the totalndmass of Myers Maind.


    Furthermore, the world was real. Every river andke in it teemed with life.


    Saleen observed the ce using his Eye of the Soul, finding that the power of rules in the world was extremely powerful. The death of a living being would cause their soul to head straight for a mysterious space, which was beyond his ability to see. That space would then spill the purified power of the soul back into the world, which would give birth to powerful living beings in the world once again.


    It was a perfect cycle, far more formidable than the rules found on Myers Maind.


    Furthermore, the pinnacle of power in the world did not seem to be at level 18. Saleen was unable to feel the invisible ceiling and wondered if he was in a new crystal wall system.


    But that could not be true. If it was truly a new crystal wall system, there would have been chaotic powers at the edge. However, when Saleen entered, he felt the same as when he entered Baldur¡¯s Gate.

 Chapter 1554: Trapped (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 1554: Trapped (Part 1)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Saleen was not in a hurry to research the space he was in within the Ring of Cosmos. He was more anxious to get out. While it was easy to get into, it would be difficult to get out.


    Teleportation portals were useless, and he had never had full control of the ring. He wondered if he would need someone to open the space from outside. If that happened, he wondered if the stranger would take the Ring of Cosmos for themselves.


    Saleen was troubled by it all, but Dante turned to Saleen and said peacefully, ¡°Master, there is no need to feel frustrated. It is only a matter of time before we will be able to leave this space.¡±


    ¡°How so?¡± Saleen questioned. He did not see the way they would be able to leave, but Dante made it sound like there was a very simple solution.


    ¡°The rules of the space are slowly changing. It¡¯s just that we¡¯re unable to grasp the instant that the changes are happening,¡± Dante replied, drawing on his knowledge of simr situations.


    Saleen was reminded that Dante was a level 17 god, and gods were more sensitive to changes in space than humans. Only after undergoing special training would a human have an easier time manipting spacepared to a god. However, sensing spatial fluctuations was ingrained within the instincts of gods over level 16.


    ¡°Dante, how will we be able to leave?¡±


    All three faces of the god servant wore a bitter smile and said, ¡°Master, it¡¯s easy. Just create a magic teleportation portal and by the time you reach level 18, you will gain the power to break through the space. Even if you could leave right now, it would be dangerous. It is possible that we all would be sent into some messed up space, and worse still, one where it would be impossible toy down coordinates.¡±


    ¡°Level 18...¡±


    Even Nailisi, who was usually indifferent about such things, shook her head.


    Saleen took over 10,000 years to get to level 17 and the difficulty of getting to level 18 would probably take him hundreds of thousands of years to ovee, given his currentck of innate talents.


    Saleen realized the same thing after thinking for a bit. He pped down on Nailisi¡¯s shoulders exasperatingly and said, ¡°It¡¯s a good thing that the Hall of Gods is still around. Let¡¯s see if there are any power magic beasts around that we can hunt and use to power the magic array. It seems like we have no other choice but to advance.¡±


    The Winged Skull nodded exasperatedly as well. They knew that if Saleen had just relied on his prowess to further his training, they probably would have been waiting to get out until thest few days of their lives.


    There were several powerful magic beasts found on the world, and all of them quickly targeted one that looked peculiar. The magic beast looked like a bison but was d in scales. The horns on its head had no magic patterns but contained a vast amount of power.


    Nailisi used Ultimate Shapeshifting to take the form of a huge rock, concealing herself in the grass. When that beast walked past, she opened her Purgatory of the Fallen all of a sudden, unleashing the Shackles of the Fallen from within and ensnaring that beast securely.


    That magic beast roared and wriggled about. Everyone was surprised to see the chains loosening. There was some unknown power of rules that prevented the Shackles of the Fallen from ensnaring even just a magic beast.


    They were able to see that that magic beast was only of about level 16 in terms of power level, and nowhere near level 17. However, the chains, which were unleashed at full force, had not been able to keep it down for even a second.


    A huge fell from the sky. The that Dante cast wrapped the magic beast up, but that magic beast simply roared again and burrowed into the ground, disappearing from their line of sight.


    Everyone was baffled, not knowing what happened.


    They were baffled for about half a second before Saleen took out the Book of Gaia. The mighty earth elemental powers worked, forcing the magic beast out of the ground. It then charged angrily at Saleen.


    Two beams of white light burst from its horns, which seemed to be as sharp as des.


    ¡°Sh**!¡± Nailisi swung her Sword of Rules, blocking the attack.


    A crisp sound was heard and the beams disappeared. Two dents appeared on her de. Saleen felt chills run down his spine and used his Thunder Dragon ster without a second thought. He was immediately d in the thunder dragon armor.


    The Figure of Fate was no longer reliable. When he was targeted by the two beams of white light, he knew right away that magic shields would have been useless against the attack. While the Sword of Rules was indeed a low-level godly item, the materials with which it was constructed were by no means weak, so much so that not even Saleen would have been able to damage it instantly. He spected that the two beams of light were probably more powerful than his Thunder Dragon ster.


    Weren¡¯t the magic beasts in this world a little too insanely powerful?


    Professionals on Myers Maind never had many problems killing magic beasts beyond their levels, as humans were equipped with skills while magic beasts were armed only with their instincts unless the human was dumb enough to enter into contests of strength or magic maniption duration. Humans could rely on equipment and all kinds of techniques to hunt all various types of magic beasts at their level. They could even work in tandem to hunt down magic beasts of levels higher than their own.


    In that world, however, Saleen and the others teamed up to take on a magical beast of a level lower than theirs, but they failed again and again. Worse still, the retaliation from the magic beast had almost killed Saleen.


    The lightning icicles were thousands of times more formidable than the ones he had developed in his early days, which had struck fear in the minds of even gods with their unnervingly high speeds. That magic beast was no exception, as it was not fast enough to evade the icicles, and the icicles punched onto its head.


    nging sounds were heard, and Saleen was utterly baffled. The lightning icicles were deflected by the bones in the magic beast¡¯s head. Only its skin was punctured, which was bleeding golden blood.


    The magic beast was even more enraged and kicked up a mist from beneath its feet, shooting to the air.


    It was running away?


    That was what Saleen thought before seeing the magic beast turn around in the sky and spit a huge stream of fire at all of them.


    The temperature of the mes was such that Saleen gave up resisting. He shouted for everyone to run, and everyone, including Dante, escaped from where they were as quickly as possible.


    A huge crater appeared on the ground. It was tens of meters in diameter, and its edge waspletely crystallized.


    The ground was made of rock. The mes had been able to vaporize the rock and turn the edge, which was untouched by the mes, into crystals. Saleen¡¯s thunder dragon armor would not have been able to withstand such fearsome temperatures.


    Saleen had no choice but to open his third eye. The Si of Silence shot out and time stopped, rendering Saleen the only one still capable of movement within kilometers radius.


    But the magic beast was not pinned down. It was simply slowed down by hundreds of times, charging slowly at Saleen.


    Saleen knew that any skill he used might have ended up being useless. As such, he pointed at the magic beast¡¯s eyeball and burst it. The power of the Crystal Finger burst within the magic beast¡¯s brain. Blood sprayed out of the orifices of the beast before it slumped to the ground.


    He put the si away, relieved. However, it was not until he finally got close to the beast that he found that it was not even near level 16. It was only around level 14.


    The fact that a level 14 magic beast was still able to move somewhat in the Si of Silence¡¯s area of effect was utterly terrifying. If it had been a level 18 magic beast, it would have probably been unfettered by the si¡¯s power, and none of them would have had any way of taking it on.


    However, it did not seem like not hunting magic beasts was an option. He had nned meticulously when dealing with the goddess, spending every single piece of the divine persona he had for training. While there were still several high-level magic nuclei left in his possession, they would not be enough to make the Hall of Godsst until he reached level 18. If he were to give up hunting in that space, there would be no way to return to Myers Maind.


    He wondered if his loved ones back on the maind thought that he had died.


    He wondered what would have happened to Sika and Lex if he were to truly die.


    He never expected to still be unable to enjoy life and research magic in peace after killing the goddess. It seemed that that was his fate.


    He sat down, exasperated, and had Nailisi dissect the magic beast just to see if they were able to find some kind of weird magic nuclei.


    The dead body was quickly dissected, but Nailisi was gritting her teeth as she did it. The beast¡¯s hide was more resilient than she expected, and its bones were harder than any metal she knew. If it had not been for her talent in taking things apart, which enabled her to dissect her prey ording to their anatomy, dissecting the beast by relying solely on her fangs and ws would have easily taken three days and two nights.


    Furthermore, Nailisi was worried that her fangs would have been dulled.


    She flipped the skull of the beast open and rummaged through the insides, finding a solid thing in an irregr shape instead of a magic nucleus.


    There were some mystical runes on it. Saleen thought that it seemed familiar and had Nailisi throw it to him.


    It was only when he held the thing in his hand that Saleen realized that the runes on it resembled those of his secret art. Calcting them using Figaro¡¯s magic form did not yield any useful information other than the system it originated from.


    The system was incredibly huge, farrger than the system of magic that Saleen knew. More importantly, the system was open-source, which seemed to have limitless expandability.


    This was a level 24 world then?


    If that were the case, he did not need to cross the crystal wall system anymore. So long as he continued to research the world he was in, he would acquire secrets to heightening a ne¡¯s powers.


    But then again...


    Saleen extended his power of the soul into the thing, just to see if there was anything that he had overlooked. He found himself barging into another space. mes were everywhere in that space, and the temperature was so high that he felt as if his body was about to melt.


    The eerie magic beast stood in the mes.


    Saleen was startled, but his power of the soul was strong enough to enable him to retreat right away.


    It was just an illusion, but if he had not been capable of using Thundering Phantasm, he would have probably ended up tangling with the beast in that space. He wondered if the beast survived mentally, despite being physically dead.


    Just what the hell was that thing?


    ¡°I wonder if eating it would heighten my powers.¡± Dante looked on greedily. While it had beenpletely tamed by Saleen and had be Saleen¡¯s servant, it still had its own desires.


    Saleen said instead, ¡°If we run into another one, I¡¯ll let you have it. This is reserved for research.¡±


    Dante nodded. It knew how its master behaved. Saleen was someone who went about his matters cautiously. If that magic beast were just some peculiar mutation, then that peculiar solid piece would be worth mountains in terms of research value.


    It deemed that its master would have lost his sanity if he had simply let it eat it.


    ¡°We¡¯ll put research off for the moment and see if there is anything out there that we could hunt,¡± Saleen said and stored the mysterious piece inside his magic amplifier.


    Due to the mistakes that just happened, all of them decided to deviate from their original tactics and let Dante take the lead instead. It remained concealed in the Lightning Moon, flying around and searching for targets on the ground.

 Chapter 1555: Trapped (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 1555: Trapped (Part 2)</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    The mountains and rivers stretched over 10,000 kilometers and the number of magic beasts was huge. Saleen and his people became more clever and picked a magic beast that was only about level ten to fight, thinking that such a weak beast would not be much of a problem.


    The magic beast they targeted looked like a crocodile. It was floating in the water, stalking its prey.


    Dante cast the huge from the sky, ensnaring the magic beast right away. Saleen saw that the surface of the magic beast¡¯s body gushed with a massive flow of energy, mixing with water element. The body of the magic beast seemed to melt into the water, allowing the beast to escape the.


    The huge had always been incredibly sturdy. However, after having been used in multiple battles, all the lightning patterns that Saleen put on it had been wiped clean.


    The nameless had only one rule¡ªresilience.


    Saleen tried multiple ways to figure out what made the so resilient, breaking a good amount of equipment while he was at it. However, he failed to break the down. He was reluctant to cook the with his Water me, fearing the potential loss of destroying thepletely.


    The crocodile-like magic beast was only level ten, yet it had shrugged free of the without any problem. That meant that the magic beasts in that space possessed some form of special ability. If they had relied solely on physical strength, not even level 16 magic beasts would have been able to tear the apart.


    Saleen remembered the lesson he had learned while fighting thest one, prepping his lightning icicles beforehand and firing them right away, freezing the entire section of the river.


    The crocodile-like beast intended to retaliate after getting free of the but was frozen in an instant. It intended to shake free of the ice, but lightning crackled within the hard ice, rendering it limp all over.


    Saleen and the others sighed breaths of relief. That was how things were supposed to go with level ten magic beasts.


    When the hard ice was cut up and put on shore, the beast was still alive, ring at Saleen and the rest of his people while frozen in the ice. Saleen took a good look at the peculiar creature with the ice between them.


    Cracking noises were heard from its three-meter-long tail, making its bones feel like they were about to break and hurting the magic beast intensely. Saleen gave up using sealing skills, as he was unfamiliar with the rules of the space and there were many things out there that baffled him.


    Some basic rules would have stayed constant in most nes, such as the rules concerning power.


    All of them circled and observed the magic beast, not finding anything out of the ordinary. It was indeed a level ten beast. Its power of the Source remained meager, but it was still capable of bursting with a huge amount of power. Furthermore, it seemed that the magic beast was also very long-lived.


    It was a pity that there were no humans in the world, or they could have tried tomunicate with each other.


    ¡°Bing, do something.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    The Winged Skull lifted their Reaper Scythe and brought it down on the beast. Both the hard ice and that beast were cut into two. It seemed like not every magic beast had such resilient bodily structures, and that put Saleen at ease.


    The Winged Skull then dissected half of the magic beast¡¯s body and tried to take a piece of the magic nucleus from it. However, it was still an irregrly shaped solid thing found in the magic beast¡¯s head. It looked like half of a peanut¡¯s shell.


    The energy within the piece was nowhere near massive but was very condensed. Furthermore, the piece also had arge number of runes on it. The natural runes were very orderly, emanating seven-colored lights.


    ¡°Seems like none of the magic beasts in this world have a magic nucleus. I wonder how this thing wouldpare to a magic nucleus.¡± Saleen took the second piece, but he dared not probe it with his power of the soul again.


    ¡°Master, this doesn¡¯t look like a valuable piece. Would you mind letting me taste it for a bit?¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡± Nailisi cut Dante off and summoned a demon, snatching away the solid piece taken from the brain of the magic beast and throwing it to the demon and saying, ¡°Eat it up.¡±


    That demon ate the dangerous thing obediently. All the dangers that Saleen expected to show did not appear. That demon moanedfortably instead, and its power grew quickly.


    It was a level nine demon. While it was loyal, it was of low status, so Nailisi used it as a guinea pig instead. It was amon thing to do on the demon ne, and not even the demons of lower ranks thought that anything was strange about it. That was because if the experiment was a sess, the guinea pig demon would rise in rank, bing a supreme demon.


    While the rate of change in the level nine demon was not all that fast after eating the peculiar piece, it became a supreme demon half a dayter. Saleen and the others took the opportunity to kill over 30 magic beasts.


    The supreme demon¡¯s level stabilized at level 12.


    Nailisi smirked as she pped at the supreme demon¡¯s shoulders, saying, ¡°You¡¯ll answer to me from here on out. Give me a second. I¡¯ll give you a new name.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, mydy.¡± The supreme demon was overjoyed. Level 12 supreme demons served asmanders in her demon army, although that particr supreme demon had not risen to the rank of general yet.


    ¡°Don¡¯t thank me just yet. Eat this.¡± Nailisi took another piece and shoved it to the supreme demon.


    The supreme demon ate it without hesitation, beginning to use its powers to digest it.


    The second experiment was a sess as well. While the supreme demon did not grow to be a devil after eating that piece, it got to level 13. Level 13 supreme demons were the ones whomanded a whole legion in Nailisi¡¯s demon army.


    Leaders of the demon army needed to be strong, not for killing enemies, but keeping their underlings in line.


    If a leader were weak, the demons would not obey their leader, and serious problems in the army would quickly arise. The supreme demon advanced again and felt overjoyed. It knelt at Nailisi¡¯s feet.


    Nailisi recalled all her dead underlings and then looked at that loyal demon, but she did not dare to give it a third piece.


    It would cause problems sooner orter. The demon had advanced twice, a fact that spoke volumes of its luck.


    She sent that demon back into the Purgatory of the Devil. Nailisi summoned another demon and continued to use the pieces for the experiment. Dante yearned to have one of the pieces for itself, but Saleen had forbidden it from eating them, and Dante was unable to do anything about it.


    Dante cursed from high up in the air where nobody could hear it, not at Saleen but Nailisi. However, despite it being powerful, it dared not do anything against Nailisi. She had Lightning Protection all over her, and Dante was trained to the highest point possible. That made its lightning attacks almost useless against her, but it was unable to do anything against her using other methods ofbat.


    ¡°Damn you, imp. I swear, one day, I¡¯m going to eat you up alive!¡± Dante swore to himself.


    Despite all the cruel thoughts, it had no intention of betraying Saleen. All its resentment stemmed from its attempts topete with her for Saleen¡¯s favor. However, it would never put such thoughts into action. It knew that Nailisi had some type of ability that enabled her to gain the powers of the ones she ate.


    If Nailisi set her sights on Dante, Saleen might have been willing to hand it over to the demon. As such, it was very guarded against her.


    The experiments continued and over 100 magic beasts were continuously killed. Sixty demons had already advanced to be supreme demons, and one of them had even advanced to be a devil.


    Saleen felt he had done enough, bing quite skilled at hunting the low-level magic beasts, meaning that it was time to take on the ones that were of higher levels. It was only then that he let everyone take a break.


    They went to take on a level 16 magic beast next.


    Dante was still casting the from above, while the three on the ground ganged up on the beast. The second level 16 beast looked like a monkey, and the monkey-like magic beast was unexpectedly powerful. The was unable to contain it. The monkey-like magic beast then attacked furiously after escaping the.


    Hundreds of elemental attacks were unleashed, striking everyone so hard that they lost sense of direction. They ran for over 1,000 kilometers before the monkey decided to give up the pursuit.


    Saleen and all of his people wore bitter smiles after that monkey left. It was the first time they had encountered something that ferocious after getting to their current levels. It was not that Saleen would not have been able to kill that magic beast, it was just that it would have been costly to do so and it was not worth it. Getting injured in such a ce would have required a lot of time for recuperation, and that would have dyed their escape.


    However, Saleen was somewhat able to figure out the order of things in the space¡ªthere was no order.


    The magic beasts of the space sportedbat prowess unbefitting of their levels. There were some magic beasts below level 13 that had proven to be a pain in the butt, but there were also level 16 ones that had proven to be easy targets.


    It was a good thing that numbers were not a problem for Saleen. He simply sent the lightning warriors out to carry out the hunts instead. If the lightning warriors encountered a beast that ended up being more than they were able to handle, the lightning warriors were sacrificed. Dante was able to resurrect them anyway. Saleen and his people would only take on the ones that they seemed to have a shot at actually defeating.


    Saleen gathered a huge amount of magic beast materials within days, so he began to quiet down and study the pieces found in the brains of the beasts.


    The pieces were hard, but unlike magic nuclei, they were unable to be cut or polished. Huge amounts of power were lost once they were damaged.


    Saleen took to working on them with his Water me instead. The runes within the pieces were gradually dissolved and the energy within lost. Very little of the energy within was capable of being extracted by the Water me, so much so that the amount harvested paled inparison to Saleen¡¯s magic nuclei.


    He did not dare to eat the pieces, but Nailisi was willing to do so. She took her human form and constantly gobbled up the weird pieces.


    Nailisi¡¯s human form had always seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, making her a half-baked mage. The consumption of the weird magic nuclei allowed her level to advance rapidly. Saleen was not concerned for her, as her luoluokaluo blood allowed her to absorb even powers beyond level 18.


    The worst oue that could have resulted from her ingesting weird things was her falling into hibernation, and that was still better than all of them not being able to do anything.


    If her human form were able to reach level 18, she would be able to protect everyone when they left. Saleen was keeping himself busy by continuing to analyze the uses of the pieces gained from the beasts¡¯ brains.


    While Saleen was busy finding ways to escape the Ring of Cosmos, a battle erupted in Holy Rock City.


    Hundreds of mages led an army to take down the four gates and began to hunt for nobles within the city. The mages all came from Golden ins. They would not have been much of a problem on their own, but many nobles from the city agreed with them. The nobles deployed their armies to take out the guards around the city, before having the royal pce surrounded.


    Prince Safilos took his men to the royal pce as soon as the fighting erupted. His residence would not be able to resist enemy attacks. The royal pce was the safest ce to be in the entire Holy Rock City.


    Lex sat across her uncle at the magic tower of the royal pce. Both of them chatted nonchntly.


    ¡°Uncle, there are people in the city who are against us. Isn¡¯t it time to take them out?¡±


    Safilos nodded. Purple-reddish glow was seen in his eyes. His full head of silver long hair billowed without wind, a phenomenon conjured by his insuppressible sword aura.

 Chapter 1556 (END) - Final Chapter

    <h4>Chapter 1556 (END) - Final Chapter</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    Safilos¡¯ secret art had matured. He looked at the magic projection in front of Lex in the tower. Everything in the city was in the projection, including the underground part.


    Both sides had been prepared for the revolt for a long time, and it seemed that they wanted it to happen.


    The Golden ins refused to let go, which they deemed to be foolish. The world was no longer what it used to be, but those people still wanted to conquer the world.


    They wondered how many mages would side with the Golden ins, but even if the number was huge, they would not have done so due to their levels. Only those who had little chance for the future would have sided with Golden ins.


    High-level mages were treated very well in Metatrin, so much so that they would have found other ces intolerable. Low-level mages had all been taken by Lex, which robbed the Golden ins of a way to expand their forces and develop in the long run. While the forces of the Golden ins had been considerably expanded in the past 100 years or so, they had only been able to buy a good number of mercenaries.


    ¡°We are all Grukos, and I don¡¯t want to do this, but it seems things are more severe than what you expected it to be,¡± Safilos said grumpily.


    ¡°Heh, since when did you be so soft, Uncle? I¡¯ll leave within two to three years. Regardless if Saleen is alive or dead, I have no intention of remaining an empress. I¡¯ve had enough.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t gone soft, Lex. People die in wars, and if Saleen is not around, I can¡¯t mobilize the demon army. I would need to rely on my forces to fight the war.¡±


    ¡°So now you realize how useful Saleen is?¡± Lex jabbed sarcastically at her uncle, but without all the past enmity that would have been in her voice a few years ago.


    ¡°I have thought that he was useful for a long time. It¡¯s just that it never urred to me that a puny mage like him all those years ago would have grown to be who he is now.¡±


    ¡°If you had known in advance, would you have gotten rid of him early?¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, what do you take me for? Even if I were inferior to Saleen, I would¡¯ve never done such a thing.¡±


    A team of magic infantry charged at the gates of the pce when the two of them talked. Most of the magic equipment they had had been purchased from Saleen. It was then modified and given to their army. Doing so was somewhat cheaper than Golden ins manufacturing their own.


    ¡°Get on with it, prince, and be quick with it. I knew how many who betrayed us anyway.¡± Lex was in no mood to see what was going on any further. While the revolt was indeed a serious one, it was also an easy one to quell.


    The Dragonyer Army was still within the pce. With a level 16 forcemaster like Gusion in charge and some mages that hade with him to Holy Rock City at his side, such a revolt would be easy to handle.


    Even if the enemy had something else up their sleeves, there was still Safilos¡¯ de to deal with.


    Safilos¡¯ secret art was rather terrifying. If her father had still been alive, he might have been able to take Safilos on. Lex herself would not be a match for her uncle with the God¡¯s Ring.


    However, practicing such a secret art came with the cost of being unable to extend one¡¯s lifespan, but Safilos hardly cared. To him, a shorter life would be eptable, so long as said life was a glorious one.


    Ten thousand Rebels stormed the royal pce. There was no light in the night, but since all rebels were equipped with magic equipment, they did not need illumination.


    A huge thing fell from above at that moment. The Floating City appeared.


    Everyone thought the Floating City had left alongside Saleen, and none of them expected that he had never taken the massive thing with him to his battles.


    Safilos looked like a purple sun when he appeared in the night. His de was brought down straight from above, shrouding an area over 1,000 kilometers.


    It was a single-target attack, but it messed up the enemy¡¯s formations.


    ¡°You have one minute to put down your weapons and await punishment outside my residence. Anyone who stays will be cut down!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to what he says!¡± A general shouted. Safilos cast his purple eyes at that man and brought his de down again. Safilos had impable control with that move, as the general remained unscathed while hundreds of soldiers by his side were reduced to dust from that one attack.


    ¡°Yap away if you will. I¡¯ll keep my de away from you. But if anyone who heed your orders, I¡¯ll make sure to kill everyst one of them,¡± Safilos then said cruelly.


    That line hit the weakness of the human psyche. That general would not have to suffer any consequences regardless of how he shouted, but any who dared follow his orders would have to suffer instead. Even people with rebellious thoughts were not willing to serve as cannon fodder and that threw the rebels into chaos.


    ¡°You!¡± That general was incredibly frustrated and red at Safilos, who was in the air.


    ¡°Fool.¡± Safilos waved and thousands of magic cannons were deployed right under the Floating City, which all aimed at the ground. If all of the cannons fired at the same time, they would have probably ended up destroying the entire royal pce.


    The rebels did not think their lives were a joke. The mages from Golden ins were frightened to the core. They wondered if Saleen had returned, seeing that the Floating City was back.


    Saleen¡¯s silhouette was seen on the Floating City, just to verify the mages¡¯ thoughts, which then flew to Safilos¡¯ side and nodded.


    All of the revolting mages lost the guts to resist immediately. They all knew Saleen was someone who fought a level 18 god, and he managed toe out on top.


    Hundreds of mages chose to run without a second thought. Thousands of magic cannons from the Floating City fired, shooting down over 100 mages right away.


    ¡°Cast your equipment aside and walk. Wait for your turn outside the prince¡¯s residence.¡± Safilos¡¯ voice became even colder and more brutal.


    He hated the mages from Golden ins more than anything else. Soldiers, on the other hand, simply followed orders from above, given that it was their duty.


    The rebels had initially nned to rebel a little more to get better treatment as prisoners, but none of them had expected hundreds of magic cannons from the Floating City to fire at the same time, reducing the rebels at the outer fringes to dust.


    The ¡®Saleen¡¯ then added nonchntly, ¡°No need to panic. The cannons had simply gotten to critical points, and it would have been a waste of magic nuclei if they did not fire.¡±


    The line from ¡®Saleen¡¯ ended the ridiculous revolt in its tracks. The rebels dropped their weapons and even their armor, one after another. All attempts to resist absolute power were futile after all.


    Everyone heard of how brutal Saleen¡¯s methods had been. He had ughtered an entire city before he had even be a prince. His words about conserving magic nuclei were seen to be little more than an excuse, and they wondered if the brutal sadist of a person enjoyed killing people.


    Safilos wore a bitter smirk. The one by his side was not Saleen, but Rossen the water puppet. However, he underestimated just how notorious Saleen¡¯s name was, so much so that one line from the mage was enough to scare the rebels into crumblingpletely.


    Inparison, Safilos¡¯ attacks had been nothing.


    It was fortunate what happened enabled the ones in power to truly convict those from the Golden ins of their crimes, which served as a solid reason for attacking the Golden ins. If they were to simply capture several of the people from the Golden ins who were in charge, the effects would have been limited. Many nobles suffered for the Golden ins¡¯ loss, and they would have hated the Golden ins. At the moment, the ones in power had truly be the party that was just, and the Golden ins would have ended up utterly crushed.


    Both Safilos and Lex trained in the secret arts, and they knew how important their nation¡¯s luck was. If the nation were in turmoil, they would have difficulties moving on further. Both would have to sit on the throne even if the secret arts failed. Lex had only chosen to step down because she had gotten to level 17, and she did not need the power of the nation to back her to get to level 18.


    Safilos, on the other hand, was not yet at level 17, and he would need to stay on the throne for three to five hundred years before he could choose to step down.


    As such, Safilos needed to keep the nation stable in the centuries he reigned supreme before he could hand power over smoothly.


    Sika, who was in Metatrin City, received word from Lex.


    The rebels were crushed, and they were ready to attack the Golden ins.


    As such, during the days that Saleen had remained absent, Myers Maind was renamed Metatrin Maind, and the newly named continent saw its firstrge scale war.


    The Kingdom of Metatrin did not mobilize the demon army, as both Saleen and Nailisi were absent, and Sika did not want to take charge. It would have set a bad precedent, setting the expectations that the demon army would be mobilized for anything, big or small, and further troubles would have ensued. There were too many soldiers in the demon ne, and if they all flooded the maind, it would have caused a huge strain on the main ne.


    Fourteen years passed on the maind, and the war with the Golden ins finally ended. The war dragged on longer than expected, so much so that Sika had even fielded the Caucasians in the war, whose army was overseen by Saleen¡¯s children.


    The strain was too much for the Golden ins, regardless of how many tricks they had hidden in their sleeves. During the final battle, the Floating City came crashing down on Golden ins, crushing soldiers and mages in tens of thousands. The move came with the consequence of rendering the Floating City grounded for the time being. The eventual oue was that the veryst powerful army left of the Golden ins was wiped outpletely.


    Saleen¡¯s whereabouts remained unknown. Lex took the chance of the grand victory to hand the throne over to Safilos, and she moved to Metatrin City.


    She and Sika both went to Purgatory Desert many times, but they still were unable to find their husband.


    Time flew and the interdimensional space had finally grown to be a subcontinent ne teeming with life. Celestial bodies became clear in the sky as well, and yet, there was no sign of Saleen anywhere anyone thought of searching.


    On that day, in the central magic towers of a huge city of ice on the Oceanic Ice Block, Lex was found meditating in a huge tower. There was a huge statue being erected right outside the tower. It was none other than a statue of Saleen.


    That city had be the most powerful magic academy in the entire Fifth Dynasty. The headmaster was naturally none other than Saleen Metatrin, but no student had ever seen the headmaster anywhere.


    The de facto headmaster was Jason Statham. He had grieved considerably over Saleen¡¯s disappearance, but it was fortunate that Saleen¡¯s children had grown well. His son and daughter were both level 16 mages by then, and so far, there a level 18 professional had not yet emerged from the maind. Jason, who was at level 17, became the pinnacle on that ne.


    The long night came to the Oceanic Ice Block. Sunlight was seen for little more than three hours a day in that season. The sky dazzled with brilliant lights. A mage, who was d in darkness with four people in tow, stood right outside the main gates of the magic academy. The figure looked up as he stood right outside the gates.


    Among the four, there was a little girl who was little more than a meter tall who walked barefooted on the ice.


    ¡°So this is the academy of ice, sir?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Myers.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t bluff, sir. You said that you were the one who created the academy, but it hadn¡¯t been around for long, shorter than the time we knew each other even.¡± That little girl called Myers yapped away, but the interest in her eyes was unmistakable.


    ¡°I¡¯m not bluffing. Just keep walking to the center of the city, and you¡¯ll find a statue of me standing right there,¡± the young mage answered with a smile.


    ¡°For real?¡±


    ¡°So you don¡¯t believe me then. Well, how about a bet?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± Myers waved her tiny hands about and said, ¡°And I am going to win this time!¡±


    A beautiful young woman muttered from Myers¡¯ side, ¡°Man, you¡¯re dumb.¡±


    ¡°What are you calling dumb!¡± Myers red, making a face suggesting that she looked angry.


    That young woman then answered, ¡°Not you of course. You¡¯re far smarter than eggs after all. At the very least, you hatched.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Nailisi, knock it off. Let¡¯s just go home,¡± the young mage smiled and said, walking through the gates of the magic academy. His home was where his wives and his children were waiting for him.


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